BANGALORED...

I am in a lab in IISc. The bitter truths about life alone are hitting home. Have to take care of so many things you usually take for granted.I only have a temporary I card and no login ID. So cannot surf on my own account.
The campus is beautiful ...the staff is fairly good natured. They were still smiling at us even 12 hrs into their registration duties. There seems to be a lot of space and resources are almost overflowing.
Might not post for a while as I get used to the way things work around here.

Goodbye Blue Sky

I leave Mumbai today...it is tough to leave the city you have grown so accustomed to. I am sure I will miss the local trains and the crowded BEST buses.

A year ago I walked through waist-high water ...today it is generally sunny with cloudy spells.
This is what I feel ...and with the background of the July 11th bombings it fits too.

Goodbye Blue Sky (Waters) 2:48
"Look mummy, there's an aeroplane up in the sky"

Did you see the frightened ones?
Did you hear the falling bombs?
Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter when the promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath a clear blue sky?

Did you see the frightened ones?
Did you hear the falling bombs?
The flames are all gone, but the pain lingers on.
Goodbye, blue sky
Goodbye, blue sky.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
"The 11:15 from Newcastle is now approaching"
"The 11:18 arrival...."
(Cud have been the 6.28 to Virar).

About a girl...

I am not really into reading other peoples’ blogs…never unless they ask me to or have put it up to be seen easily.
One blog that I came across, that falls in the second category is
http://generallyerratic.blogspot.com/

It is the blog of an 18 year old girl living in Mumbai.
I came across it on her orkut page and I shall refrain from divulging other details.
One of the first blogs of hers that I read was one on Silence and it touched me.
This was a young girl who knew what she wanted ( atleast academically) and knew how hard she would have to work for it.She was ready to make the sacrifices it needed.
Something I rarely see in people of our generation.

She has a nice collection of articles on her blog and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in reading intelligent writing that still ‘smells like teen spirit’

And another link I got from her blog…reproduced here for the benefit of those who will not care to try the above link:
http://www.dailyafflictions.com/affliction1.html
Something called the Church of Skeptical Mysticism…but really interesting thoughts.
I hope the blogosphere (or whatever it is called!) abounds with such intelligent, mature young people.

Proud to be an Indian??

Recently received an email titled “Proud to be an Indian”…it is not that I am not a proud Indian. The reasons given for us to be proud Indians were just not convincing enough. Just that these reasons are exactly the wrong ones to put forward...I am proud to be an Indian,just that these are not the reasons why.

Here are some of them
FACTS TO MAKE EVERY Indian PROUD (could be fairly dated as well)

Q. Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard (HP) ?
A. Rajiv Gupta

Q. Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of the today's computers run on it)?
A. Vinod Dahm

Q. Who is the third richest man on the world?
A. According to the latest report on Fortune Magazine, it is Azim Premji, who is the CEO of Wipro Industries. The Sultan of Brunei is at 6 ^th position now. (For a couple of weeks I guess when Wipro stock went thru the roof)

Q. Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail is world's No.1 web based email program)?
A. Sabeer Bhatia

Q. Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, Unix to name a few)?
A. Arun Netravalli

Q. Who is the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all initial problems?
A. Sanjay Tejwrika

Q. Who are the Chief Executives of CitiBank, Mckensey & Stanchart?
A. Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.

Q. We Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives.
There are 3.22 millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population). YET,
38% of doctors in USA are Indians.
12% scientists in USA are Indians.
36% of NASA scientists are Indians.
34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.
28% of IBM employees are Indians.
17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.
13% of XEROX employees are Indians.

Apart from the 3^rd question answer I see no reason for India to be proud…these are its sons who have gone abroad (mostly US of A) and achieved what they have.

And Azim Premji has made a fortune by providing cheap, qualified labour to the Americans( nothing wrong in that I think).
Anywhere you read they claim the following Nobel Prize as India’s but I dispute them:

Plz correct me if I have got my facts wrong.

S Chandrashekhar : Nobel for Physics 1983.

He served on the University of Chicago faculty from 1937 until his death in 1995 at the age of 84. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1953.

Hargobind Khurana: Nobel for Medicine 1968

In 1945, he began studies at the University of Liverpool. After earning a Ph. D. in 1948, he continued his postdoctoral studies in Zürich (1948-49). Subsequently, he spent two years at Cambridge and his interests in proteins and nucleic acids took root that time. In 1952 he went to the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and in 1960 moved to the University of Wisconsin. He became the Alfred Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he continues to work.

Amartya Sen: Nobel for Economics 1998

Worked all his life in England.

All those numbers about doctors in the US and NASA scientists…why should they make an Indian proud? These people have left their country to work in a foreign one.
I intend to do something similar too.

The question arises : why do these extraordinarily talented men and women leave India and work abroad?

I would like to believe it is not just the lure of the lucre.

The work conditions abroad are unfair but probably better that India even then. There is better chance of recognition…there is less red tapism. Nobody assumes a right to anything by birth.

Talent and/or hard work have a better chance of paying off in the US than India.

When these men and women choose to return to India or not go at all…that is when we should be proud to be Indian for these reasons.

A PROUD INDIAN nonetheless.