About God

I am an agnostic theist - that is, I do not believe in the typical religions, but I believe in God.

I do not feel comfortable with the way the religions I know describe God.  Very often, God is shown to have human weaknesses like anger, ego, pain.  Or he (or she) is made accessible only through specific channels or people.  Or he expects certain formalities and rituals and respect and pleasing.  I believe in a perfect God, who only loves and forgives and inspires people to do better.  I believe that God can be accessed directly, in our own way.  I believe that we do not need any formal way to address God, or do anything to please him.  It is sufficient if we follow our conscience and do good. Frankly, I don't even feel any need to go to heaven to be happy.  I find happiness everytime I try to do something good, or try to make someone happy, regardless of whether or not I succeed at it.

Till very recently, I don't even think I was a true agnostic theist.  Cuz I just wasn't sure about the existence of God.  There were times I believed, and times when I doubted.  I used to pray, to be on the safer side.  But of late, for some reasons, I've really started believing.  And I feel a lot better, a lot more secure, ever since.  I realize that God is quite generous and forgiving to me, giving me success even when I don't deserve it, giving me more chances even though I keep messing up.  He has given me lots of capabilities, lots of well wishers, all the good luck in world, and I only need to do my part.  And He inspires me to do even that.

I feel that the biggest connection between God and me is my conscience.  Only God and I know what I'm thinking, where I'm really guilty (even if the world doesn't know or care about it), where I've done something good (even if it may not be appreciated).  After some thoughts, some inspirations, I've decided that I will no longer doubt the existence of God, and I will follow my conscience, and be a better person.  I have decided to strengthen my character.  I have resolved to keep making sure that I always be kind, and always carry good intentions for people around me.  And I have decided to work hard to maintain absolute integrity.  I think these will be the right ingredients for happiness.

Studying in the US

Quite some people have sought my suggestions or opinions about studying abroad.  While I am certainly not the most qualified to opine, I think I have learnt a bit from my experiences with various applications including my own, and I've learnt a lot from overhearing Papa advising people.  I've blended all these to form my own beliefs, which I share with people when asked.

It gets kinda boring when I have to give the same advice over and over again, so I thought of putting up my basic points right here:

(1) Preparation for tests like SAT, GRE, GMAT

I believe that these are some of the most well-developed tests around.  They have evolved over ages, and have been accepted by premier institutions.  Therefore, I find it pretty foolish when people try to "crack" these tests.

These tests require no preparation, yet they require years of preparation.  Funny statement, but quite true.  I meant that these tests have been designed to identify our knowledge or ability to learn, and not our ability to remember.  Even if someone wakes us up in the middle of the night and asks us to give the test, we'd get a score similar to one we'd get when we're "prepared".  They mostly ask for just decent English, common sense and logic.

Most people can handle the math and logic parts, but get stumped in English.  They try mugging up meanings, synonyms, antonyms; they try to practice lots of comprehension questions; yet they find it tough to get results.

I recommend that people planning to study abroad must plan well ahead.  If that's you, you should consider some of my suggestions, so that you can enjoy the process of strengthening your language:

• You should read lots of English books - written by American or English authors - like Dan Brown, Tom Clancy, Jeffrey Archer, Stephen King.  You should subscribe to English magazines, but be picky here - I'm not impressed with Times of India or Outlook - but you may consider Reader's Digest or India Today.  This will build your vocabulary.
• You should watch American sitcoms or movies.  That will familiarize you with lots of phrases that Americans use all the time, and we don't.  Some have obvious meanings, while some are outright crazy, but knowing these help a lot.
• You should write a lot.  You should request your English teacher (if it's Ramola teacher, you can't get luckier) to correct your language.  Maybe even I can be of help.  This will refine your sentence formation skills and grammar.
• And be sure to speak English a lot.  But do that only with people who know English better than you do.  I know from my own experience how speaking in English with people who speak crappy English can hurt one's own fluency.

In general, I strongly recommend that you pick a book, a good book (a publication of Kaplan or Princeton Review or Arco), and read it from the first page.  Avoid going to classes - they will only hurt your chances to excel, while ensuring you get mediocre results.  The authors of these books are far more accomplished than the typical guy running the classes.  So read the preface, introduction, everything, and follow the book in the way the author instructs you to.

(2) Selection of universities to apply to

I feel that one should typically apply to about seven universities:

• Two ambitious targets (like from the top-five)
• Three likely targets (ranked between six and 15)
• Two sure-shot targets (ranked between 16 and 25)

There is simply no point in applying to a university that doesn't make it in the top 25 for your degree area.  I say this because studying in an XYZ university reduces the chances of getting to study with good professors, good peers, and of getting a good job after graduation.  In case of undergrad applicants, going to an XYZ place may also imply getting exposed to the not-so-nice characteristics of misguided youth.

But studying in the top few is a real experience, which will define who you will be for the rest of your life.  You will get to study with peers having high IQ and different passions and strengths.  You will learn from professors who are deeply in love with the subjects they teach.  On the whole, you'll enjoy so much that you'll not feel like graduating!

You should consider the following factors while choosing a university:

• Ranking of the college you're planning to join (e.g. engineering, architecture, pharmacy)
• Ranking of the university
• Size of the university - bigger the better - you get more choices for majors, minors, specializations, electives
• Type of town the university is in - metropolis, university town, rural - prefer universities in university towns or rural or suburban locations rather than in big cities - e.g. Cornell (Ithaca), UT (Austin), U of I (Urbana-Champaign), Stanford (Palo Alto), etc. - I think such atmosphere is more conducive to learning
• Proximity to industries - well, I used to believe in this, but seeing the fact that even though UIUC is so far from most CompE industries, recruiters flock there, I am not very sure if proximity matters much
• Proximity to relatives or family friends - you need some place to feel at home at, someone mature who can guide you when you're in trouble.  But don't count on staying with them - not even if they're in the same town - it'll be impractical to commute.

If you're planning to study engineering, these are good universities to consider:

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Cambridge (Boston area)
• Stanford University - Palo Alto (San Francisco area)
• University of California at Berkeley - Berkeley (San Francisco area)
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - about 200 miles south of Chicago
• University of Michigan at Ann-Arbor - close to Detroit
• University of Texas at Austin - my university, the best! - in Austin, 200 miles from Houston
• Carnegie Mellon University - Pittsburgh
• Cornell University - Ithaca, few hundred miles north of New York City
• Georgia Institute of Technology - Atlanta
• Purdue University - West Lafayette, Indiana
  
• Penn State University - College Park in Pennsylvania
• University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia
• North Carolina State University - Raleigh
• Virgina Polytechnic University - Blacksburg
• University of California at Los Angeles - Los Angeles
• University of California at San Diego - San Diego
• Rutgers University - New Brunswick, near Philadelphia

I guess that's enough of information for now.  I'll update this blog if I think of more inputs to share.

Bye for now!

Choosing to be happy

I have complained enough about life.  I guess I'm not unlike others when I do so, and many might find my complaints well justified.  I feel disappointed when I lose a customer.  I feel frustrated when my development team takes forever to complete a critical task.  I worry about managing cashflow.  I get mighty pissed when my laptop or phone stops working.  I get frustrated when I see general deterioration in the society around - commercialization of education & healthcare, loss of civic sense, what not!

Yet lately I feel I'm being quite stupid when I complain or feel disappointed.  I feel I am the last person on earth who has the right to complain.  Cuz I have everything I need to be happy.

I have a wonderful family, which loves me infinitely.  All my loved ones have been gifted with the best of health and abilities. I myself have been given a fit mind and body; I can't even imagine the plight of people who cannot take that for granted.  I have been given sufficient wealth, education, social respect, and guidance to use as a platform for my career, for my company.  At Peach, I have a team full of really smart people, who work like crazy for me.  I've even been given some decent successes, so that I can feel proud and confident of my own self.  All I need to do now is make efforts.  And I should do that with confidence, because time and again, I've been shown that making efforts is sufficient for success.

I have thus resolved to be happy.  Every time I feel sad or disappointed, I will think of my countless gifts, including my own abilities.  And I will put in sincere efforts to use all my energy in creative ways, brightening the world around me.  I have the power to bring smiles on the faces of my loved ones, of the people who work with me, of even strangers.  I have the ability to apply my professional knowledge to make products that can touch countless lives positively.  I have all it takes to set good examples, through myself and my creations, and even that may suffice to begin a meaningful change.  Why waste a minute being sad, when life's so good?  :)

Raising the minimum wage

I have taken an interesting decision at Peach recently.  I have decided to establish my own level of minimum wage, set at more than twice the prevailing rate.

I have done so for a variety of reasons:

First, I have done so to protect my company.  I feel that India is experiencing an unreasonable degree of inflation.  And this inflation does not affect us all equally.  We can see several of us, at least a huge portion of the people who can manage to read this blog, earning decent five-figure salaries.  For such people, inflation works both ways, as their salaries also rise, and therefore they do not get really affected.  In fact, they are able to afford even more, even though they may grumble about inflation.  But for the rest, the vast majority constituting poor people to whom we rarely even give a thought, this inflation has cut into their lifestyles.  They can no longer afford even milk.  They cannot even dream of owning their home some day.  They can no longer manage their expensive social traditions and even basic needs for survival from their income.  Therefore, like many people I've seen around me, they are forced to sell their assets.  Next, they borrow.

This is not going to sustain.  Some day these guys are going to stand up, and vent out their frustration on us, like they've done in Mid-Eastern countries, as we grow more and more insensitive to their troubles.  I do not want to see this happening.  At least, I do not want to be part of its cause.  Therefore, I must set a salary level at which they can manage to live respectable lives.

Second, I have taken this step to build a loyal and satisfied team.  If I pay 20K to a developer, he will find an option of 30K elsewhere.  But if I pay 8K instead of 5K to my driver, I am assured that he is not going anywhere, cuz by far nobody will pay this.  I am buying his loyalty.  And believe me, I've found these people - administrative staff, driver, peons, etc. - to be far less replaceable than my developers.  One may find a typical ASP.NET programmer anywhere, but it's tough to find and train a driver with our specific preferences, familiarize him with our frequent destinations, and build a trust so that we can send him with our guests.  Yet we manage to exploit him cuz he does not know his importance to us well enough.  Or maybe market forces setting rates exploit him.

Next, I have raised the level of wages to raise the level of intelligent output at my company.  I do not have a cash-rich company with vast operations.  Instead, quite to the contrary, I cannot afford the luxuries of such initiatives.  However, I firmly believe that the intelligence of most people is not widely varying.  It is their training, and luck that forced them into a particular profession, that determines who gets how much.  I always have the option to train people, and I cannot penalize them for bad luck!  Therefore, I have decided that the salary band in my company will range from 10K to 50K.  People seeking more than 50K can earn it through performance incentives and profit-sharing - I will not give security (without performance) to such highly-paid people.  But the lower limit is more relevant to this topic.  The employee and I have to work out ways to ensure that he delivers worth this amount.  I have to train him, and he has to work as hard as it takes.  I have to identify the gaps, and add to his roles.  This is a management challenge, which I cannot shy away from by insulting people's intelligence.  I have observed that several people, who had given up on ever needing to use their brains at work, have reactivated their IQ, and are making wonderful contributions to Peach.

Even Peter Drucker (aka Guruji) has been a strong proponent of narrowing the gap between the wage of the janitor and that of the CEO, to ensure stability in the company. I think it is simply common sense, and an all-win option.


I will share more as I experience the fruits of this initiative.  I am confident that this should work out well, but I'll update you even if I find gaps in my approach.  Feel free to share your thoughts on the applicability of this system, or whether you find this worth implementing at your workplace.

The First Daily Victory

I borrow this thought from Stephen Covey.  It's helped me (and some people I know) a lot, and probably will help you too.

I'm sure each of us faces several challenges every day.  We have tasks to finish, projects to pursue, products to sell, homes to manage, exams to give.  We win some, we lose some.  Our victories motivate us, our losses at times demoralize us (cuz we're humans).  And that makes it especially important that our first challenge results in a victory, every day.

That first victory, in my opinion, is an early start to the day.  By that, I imply waking up early, maybe doing some physical exercises, planning your day, and then starting off.  Waking up early gives us success over our laziness.  It makes us feel good, feel that we are in control.  And that gives us confidence that we can likewise win over the other challenges of the day.  Next, physical exercise and/or yoga prepares our body to stay strong as we enter our battles.   And finally, planning - simulating our work items, prioritizing and scheduling - prepares our mind for the day.

I have personally found this very rewarding.  I get a wonderful kick-start to the day.  I now wake up at about 5 AM, and by about 7 AM, I feel that the rest of the day is only a formality, for which I am fully prepared, and which I can complete much faster.

Try it out!

Know his name

Friends, I'm sure many of us are frequent visitors at specific restaurants, hotels, or offices.  We get accustomed to seeing some faces, especially the ones who serve us.  They often become a part of our routine, our life, but all we acknowledge that with is a small, at most.  We know that they are doing their jobs, at times doing so as we pay them to do so.  And in case one of us actually bothers to think of the situation, we justify that there is nothing missing in our demeanour.  But I have experienced that doing slightly more than this makes an enormous difference.

I have learnt from my uncle Yogeshkaka and Papa the art of connecting with people who we don't really need to connect with.  I have seen them referring to waiters, receptionists, clerks with respect and dignity.  Beyond that, I have seen them acknowledge their individual identity, and address them personally.  They know the names of the people who serve them, take interest in their background, care to remember this supposedly unimportant information, and interact with them as if they are known friends, because that is what they are.  And this small pain is rewarded highly - they get treated with care and affection that even QE2 would not receive.

I guess there are some who feel that interacting with poor people or service-givers or even suppliers in general is beneath our "status".  I do not believe that.  Rather, the respect we accord them determines our nobility.  And there is, of course, the additional pleasure of having brought a few smiles to people who need them the most!

So I urge you to give this a thought, and try acknowledging and enjoying your supposedly-insignificant relationships with people who serve you.  You won't regret it!

A Re-Start: Writing about Murder, Cold-blooded Execution

Hmmm... I've finally decided to make another effort at blogging.  Let me start by sharing my thoughts about one of my biggest irritants: Indian English, which is killing the language I love (English, duh).

I am appalled by the state of English in our country.  Back in school days, I believed that the whole world save my Gujju medium schoolmates could speak decent English.  But as I opened my ears to hear the real world, especially after college, I felt shocked.  I can now see a systematic, wide-scale murder of my language.

We seem to have decided to simply ignore grammar.  People who wish to refer to me with respect have pluralized me - "Parth are not coming to the movie."  (Of course, here I refer to the fresh recruits who neither know me nor my real age behind the moustache.)  We clearly do not know about the existence of the "perfect" tenses - we just keep language "simple" (pun intended, you dummies!).  We Capitalize Any Letter that we find to be Important.

But of course, this does not keep people from claiming fluency in this language.  I've seen countless resumes claiming English skills while not having a single error-free sentence.  In fact, I am yet to see a single resume without a spelling mistake!

Speaking of spelling mistakes - I fill horified by dhe eaz weeth wich we mek them.  There's this new guy who joined us in marketing yesterday - for some unexplainable reason, it occurred to me that I should write down some basic linguistic expectations from him, as he'll be communicating with our customers.  Despite my ultra-clear instructions, I found five spelling mistakes in a three-sentence report he sent me today.  And when I brought it up, he stared at me in a way that told me how foolish I was to treat those as mistakes!

We have lost the sense of perfection, especially in language.  We have already doped our native languages with hundreds of English words that we cannot live without.  If we cannot expect perfection in spellings, how on earth can we expect perfection in sentence formations, and further fine-tuning in even choosing the right means among several grammatically correct options?!

Unfortunately, there is not even any hope.  While we ourselves do not even realize our mistakes, we no longer even have people around us, or teachers, to correct us.  We dole out degrees like MA (English) without ensuring even the fluency of pre-school levels.  And those among us (I claim myself to be one) who could claim decent fluency are also giving up, as we are forced to re-phrase our sentences to make sense to our listeners, and filter all but the simplest vocabulary, while being bombarded with poor English from all corners.  As a result, our English is often a mere disorderly translation of sentences formed first in our native Indian language - hence full of passive voice, "respectful words", etc.

I put most of this blame on two categories of people - "urbanites" and "marketers".  Urbanites, especially the so-called "professionals", have decided that their language of speech must be English.  They try to express the world within their tiny vocabulary.  And their most amusing aspect is their confidence - it often makes me literally speechless!  The second class is the marketers, who, again, have decided that anything other than English is beneath their dignity.  And therefore, these Englishmen torture their customers with not only their products, but even their language.

Any way, I guess I have rambled enough for today.  I'm struggling to retain my remaining fluency.  If one of you readers feels likewise, let me know, maybe we can figure a solution, or at least mourn together for the death of our dear language!  (Or, you may simply help me by correct the mistakes in this blog...)