This post is dedicated to my country on its 60th year as a Republic. Having lived in US these past few years I quite often heard about 80s music and culture that everyone raves about. I never could relate as I was quite young in the 80s, never liked glawdy, glowy costumes or cheesy western pop songs. Though on the other side if you are Indian and if you were in your teens in the 90s, you know we are talking about a fabulous period. “Pehla Nasha” this dreamy and romantic song probably had more impact on young teen minds than any book or speech would ever have. It invoked passions and was liberating in the societal context. I guess it came out in 1992 or 93 but I remember it being very popular in my school when I was in 9th standard(1994) Every one of us boys probably dreamed of singing this to our crushes, which most of us including myself never went through with. Well! Anyway the funniest incident I remember regarding the song was the time we decided to form a choir to sing this in our school festival in 10th standard. Our strict vice principal wouldn’t allow us as he said it had sexual references. The fact that it only refers to a “kiss’ probably highlighted his naivety and medieval thinking. We promised to edit and sang it full anyway and got away with it. I guess our minor innocent teen rebellions in India were much more enjoyable and less harmful than ‘drugs and guns’ in the west. Going back a couple of years to the dawn of the 90s I remember one of my favourite was the “Chinese radio” by “London boys”. Though, I was equally hooked on Bryan Adams, GNR and Bon Jovi. Western influences weren’t as widespread in India at the time though they were quite popular in pockets. I guess we always appreciated what we found good irrespective of origins, signs on the increasing openness of the 90s. I was in J&K at the time and quite remember these two brothers who were friends of us two brothers rocking out to “Bed of roses” though I confess I didn’t know the lyrics at all. The four of us when to adventure camp in Khajiar, Himachal Pradesh. We were woken up to a song at 5 am everyday which I forget (I’m sure my elder bro remembers. Will check) but they also played “Informer” by snow. We all loved it and if not everyone, at least I thought it was in some weird language only to grow up and find later that it was in English sung by an American. Moving on from Music, who can forget endless strips on ‘Chacha Chaudhury’ & ‘Twinkle’ comics we read, mostly in school sneaked in between the text books. If that wasn’t enough our favourite indoor class was definitely book cricket. What a wonderful invention! Breaks in the school days and bus trips were spent playing “trumps” with cards of wrestlers or cars. “Undertaker” and “Hulk Hogan” I remember were the ones to have. Evening cricket or football was common everyday with us running into each other homes for Mom’s or aunt’s tea and biscuits. Of course those we gulped down endless glasses of Rasna too. Summer vacations were everyone’s favourite time of the year. Almost every year we made the long train journey back to our home town to visit our grandparents. While I enjoyed every bit of the vacation but my favourite part was the long 2 day 2 night train journey across India. In the 90s we still used trains aplenty. You could really see and experience a lot of India through these journeys and time did not seem to matter as much then. Everyone is trying to get somewhere fast these days! Back then I wished we the train ride would last forever! I could go on and on about the small little things that epitomised our life in 90s and why they were so amazing. However, in the interest of brevity, I would recommend you look up the facebook group “You Know You Grew Up in India in the 90s when" to recount all those happy times. Instead I’ll talk about the new vibrancy in “bollywood” in the late 90s reflecting the mood of the nation. I was about to complete school and move to college and around the same time two blockbuster movies captured the imagination of everyone in the nation. DDLJ and Rangeela! Who does not remember the music and how the songs got played endlessly for at least a year or two! Rangeela was my favourite of the two. Remember Urmila running on the beach in “tanha tanha” or the crazy creative dances in “Kya kare kya na kare”? So there you have it. I am sure I haven’t covered everything, far from it, but at least its a glimpse into growing up in the 90s in India. Too many things changed in India in the 90s. The country transformed. Though this post just offers some snippets into my memories, many other changes had huge bearing on our life. It was as exciting a time as present day India still is. If you experienced it you’ll know what I am talking about. If not, it’s very hard to explain what you missed.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The 90s in India - ‘Pehla nasha’ se ‘Rangeela re’
Posted by Anand at 12:00 AM 3 comments
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
2009: A Good Year
Accomplished in 2009
- Graduated from top Business School
- Got a job at the company I really wanted to work for
- Backpacked across Europe covering 10 countries, 15 cities
- Traveled more cities in the US
- Spent good time with family
- Read about 20 books both fiction and non-fiction including Politics, Philosophy, Society, Pschology and sciences
- Watched over 50 movies and documentaries
- Completed 3 big oil on canvas paintings
- Moved to Australia
- Started working and still have a job :)
- Watched the NYE Sydney harbor bridge celebration (always wanted to do this one)
- Abseiled for the first time
- Snorkeled for the first time
Didn't accomplish
- Not enough diversity in activities
- Didnt learn a new skill
- Wasn't able to learn spanish
- Didn't spend enough time on sports. (in hind sight not as true. Did play lot of volleyball, some basketball and Tennis. Could have done more though)
Priorities for 2010
Travel
- Trip to New Zealand – 10 days
- Travel back home for holidays
- Great barrier reef
- Perth on a weekend
- Planning south American backpack for 2011
- One or two more random short trips
Activities
- Get better at Salsa. Learn Tango or swing!
- Learn surfing
- Learn Spanish – Join classes?
- Improve fitness
- Some more outdoor activities and sports
- Learn some non-Indian cooking
- 3 more Oil paintings during the year
- Exploring writing and documentary film-making
- Read min 20 books, atleast 10 fiction/10 non-fiction
Posted by Anand at 7:39 PM 4 comments
Monday, December 21, 2009
Timeline for MBA applicants
- Research schoolsread blogs
- Get insight into different programs/best fit
- Introspect - Why MBA, What after, is this the best choice, which regions?
- Contact bloggers/current students to get thoughts clear, get better insight
- Read MBA application books
- GMAT/TOEFL prep
- GMAT done
- TOEFL done
- Recommenders lined up
- transripts secured
- School list complete
- Spreadsheet with requirements by school
- Initial answers written down - Why MBA - What do you plan to do immediately after - Why schools - Short and long term goals - Strength and weaknesses - resume - Prep on 1- minute narrative
- Sign up for MBA roadshows, school admission events
- Visits - Round 1 and 2 schools
- Networking with current students and alumni/Admission events
- Round 1 (Essays, recommendations, Application forms)
- Networking with current students and alumni
- Round 2(Essays, recommendations, Application forms)
- Round 1 - Interviews
Jan-Feb - Round 2 interviews
Posted by Anand at 8:43 PM 0 comments
Friday, November 27, 2009
Life of a consultant
Posted by Anand at 10:27 PM 5 comments
Labels: Consulting, work
Saturday, October 24, 2009
“Matter” Don’t really matter?
This post is continuation of the previous post on scientific discoveries and insight on the nature of matter that we have gained over past couple of hundred years.
http://anandologue.blogspot.com/2009/10/on-matter-knowledges-great-progress-to.html
Whenever I discuss these topics with others, most ask me why it really matters. Does knowing what “matter” is, of any significance to the common man? Is an understanding of these phenomena necessary?
Despite having extensive experimental evidence for the classical theories, quantum mechanics and relativity, they are neither widely known and understood nor accepted. This baffles me and I can only speculate on the reasons why. Many people find scientific concepts complex and difficult to understand. Surprisingly this is also true in most developed countries. The difficulty stems from the lack of proper grounding and good teaching methods in early years, which cultivates a lack of interest later in life.
The other reason could be that many are more concerned with day to day life to ponder about these questions. Living in the society of today is all about earning a livelihood or pursuit of happiness which is increasingly becoming the pursuit of money, luxury and comfort. While there is nothing wrong with this it also happens to be a never-ending pursuit. We have lot of more technology, amenities and comfort than compared to a few centuries back but do we really lead happier and fulfilled life? Important thing to note that marginal utility of any desire decreases as it becomes increasingly available.
The third reason could be metal comfort. Sometimes there are ready answers provided to us that we grow up with. It’s much easier accepting them and living within these bounds rather than question the artificial bounds itself. Also, what we learn early in life seems familiar and forms our intuition and as a result what we already know seems intuitively right, regardless of merit or correctness of the belief. That’s why new information doesn’t seem to matter that much.
So, why does it really matter? Well! How do you go about life if you don’t know what you are really living for? I find this important and significant but I am in the minority. Would you play a game without knowing the rules? What if you start playing a game that you don’t know why you are playing and you have to figure out the rules as you go? Someone else who has played the game explains a loose set of rules they figured out when they played. You find they apply in some situations but not in others. Would you continue playing believing the handed down set as true or make an attempt to find and improve your understanding? For YOU to play the GAME, isn’t it important to know the RULES or would you rather play the same way irrespective of the rules?
To add to all this very few of the discoveries of the past century are taught in schools these days. And when we grow up we continue to live our lives based on things we already know and have accepted. Very few seek out new knowledge and still fewer accept it, especially if it challenges the very core of what we have believed. “Surely, I can’t have been mistaken all this while!” “In any case I have done okay living the way that I lived so why should I change what I believe here on?” “It doesn’t really matter” Hence the greatest discoveries of the past couple of centuries are kept but for a few to enjoy and pass on. Others just go on to say “There is so much we don’t know perhaps will never find out” Never for once bothering to look!
Posted by Anand at 4:41 AM 0 comments
Labels: education, philosophy, Science
Thursday, October 22, 2009
On “Matter”, Knowledge’s great progress to thousands of years back
“Divisibility” The Greeks started with it! They thought all matter was composed of smaller particles down to single unique and indivisible particle called “atom”. They were right that all matter was made up of atoms but wrong in the sense that it was the smallest unique, identical particle that constituted all matter. However, one interesting notion that came out of this idea was the fact that whatever we see around us is all essential made of the same thing.
Almost couple of thousands years later there came J. J Thompson, his experiments and pumpkin model of the atom. We found electrons and later we found Protons and Neutrons. “Oh! There are smaller particles!” This gave birth to particle Physics. Further down the road we realized that protons & neutrons are made up of Quarks and Electrons of Leptons. These were now considered the elementary particles that made up all the matter. So why did we stop there? Surely if atoms could be made of smaller particles and protons & electrons of smaller particles then ever our elementary particles could be made up of smaller particles too? And that’s what happened! More we searched smaller particles we found but this would not go on endlessly.
On a parallel track, Quantum mechanics took up where classical mechanics left off. Experiments and theories such Max Planks’ Quanta, Einstein’s Photo-electric Effect, De Broglie Wave-particle duality, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle formed the basis of Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. While quantum mechanics gave us unparallel insight into the small world, Einstein relativity theories finally answered the puzzles of the big world and heavenly bodies.
By 1920 we were begun to understand not only how matter is composed, how it interacts, how forces are created and how macroscopic properties arise. However, we had one major problem. Relativity and quantum mechanics did not agree. It was difficult to account for gravitational forces at subatomic level and quantum effects for large bodies. Both theories within their spheres, however, had plenty of experimental evidence to prove them irrefutably correct and accurate. This was one of physics biggest problem which is still unresolved to this day. Nevertheless, from 60s till now String theory of Universe has come long way in addressing these problems. Essentially what the string theory proposes is that the entire Universe is made up of one thing – tiny strings and all the matter and forces in this Universe are made up of different configuration of these strings. Those you have read books on Quantum mechanics, Relativity or the string theory would understand that in the last 3 paragraphs I have been trying to outline what essentially requires detailed discussion and substantiation. In fact the book “Elegant Universe” does a good job of walking through these theories in fairly simplistic terms.
So now I can finally come to the point that I am trying to make, which would not be possible without this background. The point is that we are beginning to realize or believe that Universe is entirely integrated body which at its very granular level is made up of the same thing. All different forms of energy, forces and matter are created of different configuration of the same unique material. Well some may say why did this take us so long to realize? Ancient Vedanta Philosophy said the exact same thing around 800 – 1000 BC, almost 3000 years back. They also highlighted principles of truth and reality that are now quite consistent with our understanding of quantum mechanics as well as modern philosophies regarding human perception of truth and reality, in particular Kant’s. Question is, have we rediscovered the same knowledge that existed thousands or years prior and interpreted in a different way. How did we fail to build up on something that already existed and make a full circle?
Posted by Anand at 3:25 AM 1 comments
Labels: philosophy, Science
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Documentaries
There was a time when documentaries were factual and boring. With the advent of Discovery, National Geographic and others they have become more and more interesting and entertaining. On the other hand their neutrality, factual correctness and objectivity have suffered. Lots of them now have a pre-conceived agenda rather than exploring both sides of an issue. Nevertheless, I find myself seeing more documentaries than ever. I have listed down a few I have watched and hope others might find them interesting as well. Generally, I like independent productions but some of my favorite ones have been produced by BBC Horizon series. I have attempted to rate them as well as put indicator on objectivity. I know many are turned off by Documentaries that are totally nonobjective.
Posted by Anand at 8:22 AM 0 comments
Labels: Documentaries, Movies
