Walk a talk wid chetan

How did you come about writing this book?
I have loved writing since my first four line joke came out in the school magazine, when I was in Class V. I was so excited in seeing my name in print, I would show the magazine to random people in DTC buses.

Writing a book was always a dream, but I was worried my life will never have something so spectacular that I will have a story to tell. But IIT hostel life was quite something, and touched me (and anyone else who has been there) like nothing else in life. Maybe it was just the age, but it was very special. Hence, I got my subject.

The final reason was trying to change the stereotype of an IITian - full of numbers, geeky and nerdy. We are fun people too, and if you read this book you will see why and what we are upto in those years.

How long did it take? 
It depends on where you start. The idea has been floating in my head for over eight years now. But much of the process took place over a three year period.

Three years? What was the process like?
You have to remember that I have a day job. Mostly it meant waking up an hour early in the morning and writing - every day, day after day; and sometimes, I wrote at night as well. First draft, second draft and so on until the ninth draft. Some people then said it doesn't work. Back to the drawing board, a complete re-write, first draft, second draft and so on upto sixth draft. Then it worked!

And all these steps are slow, without hope of success in sight, and yes not funny at all. I must thank all those people who helped read various versions and took me through to the end.

Was it worth it?
Good question. I think marginally, yes! Just kidding. Actually, if I can contribute to a richer legacy of the institute - to provide something on IIT that tells you that there is a heart along with the brain, then it is worth it. And if my readers find it funny, then it is super duper worth it.

You mention the IIT hostel days were special. In what way?
Life at IIT transforms your personality completely, leaving permanent changes - as if you have had genetic mutations. Yet, I say this in a good way. You have never been around such smart people and such workload. And all the while, your pent-up hormones are just about getting started.

It is a very special age. In this system, all you have is your friends - you find respite in the same people you compete with. And soon, you bond like you never will with anyone else in life. Yes, I would go to the extent of saying that you bond better with your IIT friends than to your spouse (big statement, know I am going to regret this one).

The other aspect of IIT being special, is that later in life, when you have creature comforts that you always dreamt of, you may not be so happy after all. Ask any IITian or for that matter anyone who has been in college - despite the broken rubber chappals and roadside meals, those days are some of the happiest times of their lives. Why is it? This book is an attempt to explore that as well.

It is said your book explores the dark side of IIT as well. Is that true?
Well, yes and no. I think it not only explores the dark side, but also the bright side. Therefore for every student facing pressure, another one succeeds. If someone finds the situation stressful, another one finds it funny. Thus, I'd like to think it is a more balanced approach. But yes, it is not just a praise-filled work about IIT. It is more real - and real life doesn't work that way.

Are there any books that inspired Five Point Someone -and why?
I learn whatever I can about writing from other great books. Some of the books that really stayed with me are: 
1. Catcher in the Rye (JD Salinger) - It is the classic teenage voice book. The feelings of the protagonist and his anger get under your skin and stay with you.

2. Moth Smoke (Mohsin Hamid) - This book, by a writer of Pakistani origin is wonderfully written, and one of the few that talks about modern, present-day issues for the new generation in Pakistan. It is strikingly relevant to India too.

3. The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy) - This book is very well known for the richness of its characters and emotions. However, as an engineer, I also see Ms. Roy's architecture background contributing structure to the story. She has done a wonderful job at weaving the story together, which is told non-sequentially. Very hard to do this well, and she has done it.

4. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) - Very funny. The humor is top class and the fact that the name became a accepted English phrase tells you what impact it has had.

5. English August (Upmanyu Chatterjee) - The IAS officer's story is again extremely funny and very Indian.

Give us three "Good to Know" facts about you. Be creative, any fun details that would enliven your page.
Well, first fact is that when I was really young I wanted to be a chef. I gave up because I saw some really overweight chefs and I was worried I would have a heart attack by 35. I still really like cooking (and eating) . Owing to yoga influences, I am turning mostly vegetarian but still creating healthy, tasty dishes.

Second, I really do like Govinda and some other Tapori movies. Now, I do enjoy movies and books with deep meaning (see the Spanish film Talk to Her, too good!), but how can you be a Delhi boy and not like Govinda?

Third, I love making friends. So please do send a note on the guestbook. Who knows, as Rick says at the end of the movie Casablanca - "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

 

chetan bagat:)

Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for the opportunity to speak at the leadership summit – the first of its kind for me.

I am no leader. At best, I am a dreamer with  perseverance to make dreams come true. As I have made my own dreams come true already, I am tempted to think we can make my country’s dreams come true. And that is why I am here.

Before we become one with the world we have to become one with ourselves. If we get our own house in order we don’t have to make an effort to be one with the world. The world will want to be one with us. Everyone wants to be friends with happy, rich, thriving neighbors. Nobody wants a family festered with disputes.

A lot is wrong in my country. There are too many differences. The question is not who we blame for this. The question is how do we fix it? Because to do anything great, you have to become one first. Two generations ago, our forefathers came together to win us Independence. It isn’t like we didn’t have disputes then. Religion, caste, community have existed for centuries. But Gandhi brought them all together for a greater cause – to get the country free. 
Today, we have another greater cause. To get India its rightful place in the world. To see India the way the younger generation wants to see it. To make India a prosperous, developed country, where not only the spirit of patriotism, but also the standard of living is high. Where anyone with the talent, drive and hard work alone has the ability to make it. Where people don’t ask where you come from, but where you are going. We all know that India, as we have all dreamt of that India.
There is a lot required to be done for this, and it doesn’t just start and end  by blaming politicians. For in a democracy, we elect the politicians. If our thinking changes, our voting will change and the politicians will change. And since I have made a nation that didn’t read, read, do I believe people’s thinking can be changed.

To me there are 3 main areas where I think we need to change our thinking – leaders included. And I’m not just saying we need to do it because it is morally right/ ethically correct/ or because it sounds nice at a conference. We need to do it as it make sense from an incentives point of view. These three areas are changing the politics of differences to the politics of similarity, looking down on elitism and the role of English.

The first mindset change required is to change the politics of differences to the politics of similarity. I’ve been studying young people in India, not just in big cities but across India for the last five years.
They are the bulk of the population – the bulk of our voter bank. Yet, what they are looking for is not what politicians are pitching. It is not too different from the old school Bollywood where they think item numbers, big budgets and tested formulas work while the biggest hits of the year could be Rock On and Jaane Tu. Yes, times have changed.
Here is what the politicians are pitching – old fashioned patriotism, defending traditions, being the torchbearer of communities, caste and religion. Here is what the youth wants – better colleges, better jobs, better role models. Compared to the talent pool, the number of good college seats are very limited. Same for good jobs. These wants are the biggest similarity that we all share. We all want the same things – progress. I see a huge disconnect in the political strategies of existing politicians vs. what could work for the new voters. 
I think broad based infrastructure and economic development will satisfy the young generation’s needs. It isn’t an easy goal to attain – but it is the great cause that can unite us. Today a dynamic politician who takes this cause can achieve a far greater success than any regional politician. And the slot is waiting to be taken.  
Another aspect required to convert the politics of differences to the politics of similarities is a  strong moderate voice. When someone tries to divide us, people from the same community as the divider have to stand up against him. If person A is saying Non-Marathis should be attacked, then some Marathis need to stand up and say person A is talking nonsense. If a Muslim commits terrorist attack, other Muslims should stand up and condemn it, as Hindus are going to condemn it anyway. This moderate voice is sorely missing but is critical in keeping the country together. And the youth want to keep it together, as we want to be remembered as the generation who took India forward, not the one that cut India into two dozen pieces.
I hate telling people what to do, but the media does have a role in this. I agree that media is a business and TRPs matter above anything else. However, there are ethics in every business. Doctors make money off sick people, but it doesn’t mean they keep people sick and not heal them. If you find a moderate voice, highlight it as soon as a divisive voice appears. And don’t take sides, argue or debate it. Don’t validate the ridiculous. Focus on the greater cause.

The second mindset we need to change is that of elitism. From my early childhood days, to college, to professional and business life, and now in the publishing and entertainment circles, I have noticed a peculiar Indian habit of elitism. Maybe it is hard to achieve anything in India. But the moment any person becomes even moderately successful, educated, rich, famous, talented or even develops a fine taste, they consider themselves different from the rest. They begin to move in circles where the common people and their tastes are looked down upon. This means a large chunk of our most qualified,  experienced, connected and influential people prefer to live air-conditioned lives in their bubble of like minded people. Naive people  who elect stupid politicians – that is the bottomline for all Indian problems, and they want nothing to do with it. But tell me, if the thinking of the common people has to be changed, who is going to change it? What is the point of discussing solutions to Indian problems if there is no buy-in from the common man? Just because it feels good to be around like-minded, intelligent people? What is the use of this intelligence? 
If you switch on the TV, seventy percent of the time you will see Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. The reason is the media is centered in these cities. However, ninety percent of India is not this. Unless we represent these people properly, how will these people ever come with us? 
Again, I am not making these points as a moral appeal. I think understanding India and being inclusive makes massive business sense. And trust me, it doesn’t take any coolness or trendiness away from you if you do it right. Look at me, I am the mass-iest English author ever invented in India. My books sell on railway stations and next to atta in Big Bazaar. I have an Indian publisher who operates from the bylanes of Darya Ganj. And yet, on orkut the most common words associated with my name are coolness and awesomeness – tags given by my wonderful readers. I think it is cooler to know how people think in the streets of Indore and Raipur than who’s walking the ramp in South Mumbai. You may have planned your next vacation abroad, but have you visited a small town lately? Have you shown your kids what the real India is like? Don’t you think they will need to know that as they grow up and enter the workforce. Yes, I want people to look down on elitism and develop a culture of inclusiveness. If you are educated, educate others. If you have good taste, improve others taste rather than calling theirs bad.

The last aspect where we need to change our thinking is our attitude to  English.We have to embrace English like never before. Not England, but English. This point may sound contradictory to my previous one, but I am not talking about confining English to the classes, but really taking it to the grassroot level. English and Hindi can co-exist. Hindi is the mother and English is the wife. It is possible to love them both. In small towns, districts and even villages – we need to spread English. India already has a headstart as so many Indians speak English and we don’t have to get expat teachers like China does. But we must not confuse patriotism with the skills one needs to compete in the real world. If you are making an effort to start a school where none existed, why not give the people what will help them most. I can teach a villager geometry and physics in Hindi, but frankly when he goes to look for a job he is going to find that education useless. English will get him a job. Yes, I know some may say what will happen to Hindi and our traditional cultures. I want to ask these people to pull their kids out of English medium  schools and then talk. If you go to small towns, English teaching classes are the biggest draw. There is massive demand for something that will improve people’s lives. I have no special soft spot for this language, but the fact is it works in the world of today. And if more English helps spread prosperity evenly across the country, trust me we will preserve our culture a lot better than a nation that can barely feed its people.

We are all passionate about making India better, so we can discuss this forever. But today I wanted to leave you with just three thoughts – politics of similarities, less elitism and more English that we need to build consensus on. If you agree with me, please do whatever you can in your capacity to make the consensus happen. It could be just a discussion with all your friends, or spreading these thoughts in a broader manner, if you have the means and power to do so. For the fact that we are sitting in this wonderful venue means our country has been kind to us. Let’s see what we can give back to our nation.

White tiger ReViEW Part 2:

Balram is not just a driver. It turns out he's expected to cook, clean, and do whatever else his new master needs him to do. When his master moves to New Delhi, Balram moves with him and drives him around the capital as he greases the palms of all the various political fixers and parliamentarians that need greasing in order to ensure the family business survives. One hundred thousand rupees here, two hundred thousand there, and Balram sits in the front seat seeing nothing, but witnessing it all.

At one point Balram asks the premier why he thinks servants are so loyal to their masters. Why don't they demand a cut or threaten them with the police, or at the very least stand up to the masters who they outnumber by at least a thousand to one? Balram calls it the Rooster Coop syndrome. In the markets in New Delhi, hens and roosters are stuffed into wire cages where they spend their days pecking and shitting on each other fighting just to breathe. According to Balram, it's the same for the poor of India. They are so busy fighting among each other for the chance to breathe that they will never be able to escape their cages.

The threat of violence against their families if they misbehave is a factor as well. Balram recounts how a servant of one of the landlords in his home village did something wrong, and the landlord had his entire family killed in retaliation. Balram says it would take a unique individual, a White Tiger even, to be depraved enough to risk the lives of his entire family to steal the seven hundred thousand rupees his employer is carrying in a red leather bag to bribe a politician.

In The White Tiger we watch Balram suffer humiliation after humiliation and is expected to take it. His employer's wife gets drunk one night and forces Balram to let her drive and she kills a child. They make him sign a confession saying he was driving just in case the police decide to press charges. It's taken as matter of course that, as their servant, he would only be too glad to go to jail for them. After all, you can't really expect them to go to jail, now can you?

Balram's letter to the premier of China is like the confession of a Catholic penitent to his priest, save for one detail. He's not seeking absolution for any crimes he has committed; he's just using himself as an example to let the premier know the facts of life in modern day India. Bribery and corruption are what grease the wheels of the great economic miracle of India, wheels that are still being turned by slave labour. Underneath the statues of Gandhi and behind the pictures of the beautiful temples is corruption so ingrained that it's taken for granted as being the way things are and always will be.

The picture Aravind Adiga paints of India in The White Tiger is of a nearly feudal society disguised as a democracy. If even a tenth of what Balram describes as normal operating business is actual, and there is no reason to believe otherwise, then India's economic miracle is as much a lie as China's. The country might have gained its independence from the British at the end of the 1940's, but the majority of people in India are still trapped in servitude.

In the end, what makes the events in the book so believable is the character of Balram. He is the perfect servant. He worries whether his master is eating enough, takes pride in him when he behaves honourably, and is disappointed with him when he is weak. For all his protestations about the system, he is still as much a part of it as anybody else, and it takes an enormous amount of strength and luck for him to live up to his name of white tiger.

When he does, he shows he's learned his lessons well and knows how to grease the wheels with the best of them. He's not some reformer advocating change, although he dreams of opening a school where children get a real education so they too can be white tigers. There's no room for mercy in the jungle that is Balram's India, and the more tigers he has on his side the better

WhITe TIgEr REviEw part 1:

t's probably safe to say you can't go a week these days without reading at least one article talking about the economies of China or India. It seems there is someone in some business section of some newspaper always willing to write another breathless installment in the rise of the East as economic powers. The majority of the writers seem torn between their amazement that countries like India and China can actually have an economy, citing them as examples of how great the Free Market is.

What most of these articles fail to mention is the cost being paid for these great economic miracles. In China the majority of the labour being supplied to fuel the motor of the economy is as close to slave labour as you can get and still be paid for your work. People work long hours for little pay in conditions that would close plants in North America in a second. These are merely technicalities; nothing for us to worry about. It's not like we live there.

India has become the call centre to the world it seems. Whenever you phone a company for technical support these days, no matter what country you're calling from, you're likely to end up talking to someone in Mumbai or Bangalore. Call centres and a burgeoning IT class doesn't hide the inequities that still exist in Indian society or that huge numbers of people still live in poverty so abject that we wouldn't even begin to comprehend its depth.

The only place you're liable to read about the reality of life in India today is on the pages of one of the many books making their way out of India to the shelves of book stores in North America. Joining those ranks is the white tiger, written by first time novelist Aravind Adiga, and just recently released in North America. In his book, Adiga not only peels back the gloss of the economic miracle to expose the rot beneath, he instructs us in the means by which a small minority of the population are able to subjugate the majority.

A white tiger is the rarest creature in the jungle, only coming along once in every generation. When Balram Halwai was still able to attend the excuse for a school in his village, he was singled out by a school inspector as being the white tiger of his contemporaries for being able to read and write when nobody else could. The inspector promised that Balram would be given a scholarship to attend a proper school so he could fulfill his potential. Unfortunately, fate had other plans. His family were forced to pull him out of school to help pay off their debt to their landlord.

We learn Balram's life story courtesy of letters he has taken upon himself to write to the premier of China. He wrote these letters to educate the premier so that he wouldn't be fooled by any of the false pictures the politicians he meets might paint about life in India when he comes for his official state visit. Balram decides the best way for the premier to understand what life in India is like is by telling him the story of his, Balram's, life.

The first lesson Balram has for us is the reality of rural life in India. In his small village everybody is beholden to one of four landlords. If you want to grow anything you have to pay money to one person. If you want to graze animals you have to pay money to another. If you want to use the roads to make money as a rickshaw driver, you pay 10% of everything you earn to a third. Finally, the fourth one owns the waters. If you want to fish or use the water to transport goods, you pay him.

It's after Balram's family is forced to borrow money from one of the landlords to pay for a cousin's dowry that he has to leave school and start working in teahouses. Balram is destined for greater things, though, and his grandmother comes up with 600 rupees so he may learn to drive and get a job driving for a wealthy man. Through blind luck he happens to show up at his landlord's compound on the day the youngest son has returned from America and needs his own driver. This begins his long climb out of the darkness of poverty.

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Everything about ibibo

Ibibo analysis - Boom goes ibibo" Woooww " i need to say this again " woooow " BOOOOM GOES IBIBO... Ibibo has now become more interesting with loads of new and undiscovered facility which i will unwrap in this article...The traffic of ibibo has definitly increased due to the advertising and also they have integrated an face bookapplication to this website for more great features [ Ibibo is the only site in India to have an facebook app integrated to the social networking site ]...[ Ibibo was officially launched in the month of January... They used to pay only 100 members and the first winner got 15 lakh rs.. but then they decreased the prize money as they increased 100 winner to 200 and then to 1000 and now everyone can earn throughIbibo ...]
Ibibo is now driving hell lot of traffic as they have started to advertise on the tvchannels and by joining with other companies.See the traffic of ibibo now :Speed: Average (58% of sites are faster), Avg Load Time: 2.9 Seconds Their was a sudden increase in the month of october [ very much ] and from then ibibotraffic is going in an consistent way.
Traffic receieved by ibibo from some countries are :India - 48.3%Egypt - 3.4%Peru - 2.5%Philippines - 2.1%United Arab Emirates - 1.7%I can't seem to understand why Egypt loves ibibo ,coz their are lots of mummies in India.. :-) Anyway Ibibo ranks at 84 in India , according to the alexa ranking...

What people visit at Ibibo :cafe.ibibo.com - 31%myaccount.ibibo.com - 23%albums.ibibo.com - 8%sawaal.ibibo.com - 8%blogs.ibibo.com - 8%ibibo.com - 7%opinions.ibibo.com - 3%onefamily.ibibo.com - 3%polls.ibibo.com - 2%pixrat.ibibo.com - 2%Ibibo local isn't receiving much traffic but Onefamily is [ Both were started recently ]Traffic did increase but page per view user decreased as their are hell lotof new users who just created an account and didn't seem to have time to visit ibibo again...
New creation of ibibo :1. Check this out - onefamily Building bonds - A new creation of ibibo , kinda matrimoniallooking social networking site which loads very faster and looks truly amazing..SImply perfect!Join it now if you have ibibo id,just log in here to access one family... 2. Ibibo search - An new great ibibo search to Get news from specific people based on name, gender, age, and location.This is really good but the search option is limited... It would be good if you included these : " search people with photos or online""With categories" or something like that,the more option you give the more we try...
Some ideas and ways to improve the improved ibibo :1. It would be good if you have smilies in the cafe section.2. Contest of omshanti om winner of primiere ticket not yet announced [ this makes me laugh ]3. Ibibo has all the new technology so why not have some music section where we can add songs and install the player on our profile or any websites,just like myspace and esnips.This way you will get loads and loadsof traffic...!4. Please please keep some contest or any great stuff as you are about to reach 1 year..plz plz plz5. Do add services like create your own group or something like a community [ I know their is nothing for Ibibo people ]
some worthy articles about ibibo :Chak de girls on ibibo
What i earned from Ibibo :From past 1 year ibibo has given happyness to my family and especially to my mother..My life has been changed due to the money i earned [ Hard earned ]... i get some extra bit of respectin the family as i study and also earn money from the net.. I did earn money from otherwebsites but ibibo got me the most of it...13,3807501000100010001000=========18,130 rs=========i even received a nokia N70 cell phone worth 15,500Totally i got 33,660 rs and i have earned 7500 /- in the 7th month which i will be getting it as soon as submit the PAN card...Overall it is 41,160 rs.. wow almost 4 thousand per month... WITH LESS EFFORT TOO!!!I would love to know how much money you made out of this wonderful Ibibo ?
Future news of Ibibo :
Ibibo will be launching some great prizes and cool contests in the month of January as soon as possible...So keep watching for them in IBIBO.COM - Bolta hai India ...

This analysis took me around 4 hours... I hope you people enjoyed it !

The next generation of computers will be timeless

Asynchronous, or clock-free systems, promise extra speed, safety, security and miniaturisation. The new designs work well in the laboratory and are only awaiting the development of software tools so that they can be produced commercially, says Professor Alex Yakovlev and fellow researchers in the Department of Computing Science at Newcastle University, England. This week (April 8-12) the Newcastle team will present two papers at the International Symposium on Advanced Research into Asynchronous Circuits and Systems, in Manchester, England (see web link). One paper explains the pioneering techniques the team has developed for synthesizing asynchronous systems, the other relates to measuring metastability — a problem which may sound the death knell of conventional computers. Because computers of the 1950s were relatively simple, they could function without clocks. Since the advent of faster and more complex systems in the 1960s, all hardware design has been based on the principle of the clock — a microelectronic crystal which emits rapid pulses of electricity to synchronise the flow of data. In modern PCs, this is at the heart of the Pentium Processor. But computer systems are now so complex that clocks are imposing limitations on performance. The electrical pulses, travelling at the speed of light, are not fast enough to keep accurate time as they visit tens of millions of transistors on a single chip. The result is that errors begin to occur in data. The phenomenon is known as metastability, a fundamental and insoluble problem which is causing increasing difficulty for designers who have to balance the demand for speed and complexity of systems with the need for reliability. ‘In binary terms, incoming data has a metastable state in which it is neither true nor false,’ said Professor Yakovlev. ‘A resulting system failure would be inconvenient to a PC user and could result in a disaster in an industry where reliability is critical, such as aviation.’ Asynchronous systems rely on a protocol of data transmission and acknowledgement which is not regulated by time. This can happen locally within a computer or globally between computers. Before data is exchanged, there must first be a ‘handshake’, or agreement on the mutually acceptable protocol. Computer clocks generate heat as well as high frequencies, since they consume large amounts of power. To abolish them would allow portable devices to run on less power, enabling further miniaturisation. Hackers would also be troubled by asynchronous systems, since the irregular pattern of data transmission allows the information to be encrypted far more effectively than at present. Professor Yakovlev believes that the clock-based system is nearing the end of its useful life, with designers facing increasing difficulties as systems become more complex. ‘One of the problems is that all graduates entering the industry are immediately taught to design systems with clocks. It will be difficult to persuade them to change their ways,’ he admits. ‘We have shown that asynchronous systems work but we need to develop simple tools for commercial design and testing purposes. In my opinion, this is the last piece of the jigsaw.’ One of the barriers is that designing asynchronous systems requires the use of a new computer language, called Petri Net. At Newcastle, scientists are developing a design system which overcomes this problem by automatically translating Petri Net into orthodox computer language as asynchronous circuit designs are mapped out. Such innovations are making asynchronous technology a more attractive commercial proposition and there are signs that the world is now at the dawn of the transitional period. Scientists talk of an intermediate system developing, nicknamed GALS — Globally Asynchronous, Locally Synchronous. It is no secret that electronics company Philips has produced an experimental pager built from asynchronous circuits and is developing other devices based on the same principle (see web links). It is also rumoured that a leading manufacturer is designing the next generation of computer processor with at least some asynchronous elements. Just over a year ago, the New York Times reviewed the concept of asynchronous design in a business article and claimed that ‘most of the mainstream computer world is not convinced that a wholesale change of the way industry designs and manufacturers chips is practical’ (see web link). However, researchers have opened up new horizons over the past year and many experts believe that widespread introduction of this new technology is now only a matter of time.