Life is always interesting

The last four days I have been getting sicker by the day and still managing work till it got to a breaking point on Friday morning. Simply could not get out of bed. Busy work days and no Yoga for four days did not help either.

Called in sick and slept through most of Friday. At bedtime, told wife and kids that come what may, yours truly is going to wake up at 5AM and do yoga. The alarm was set and off we went to bed.

Was still spitting out phlegm and as I walk to the bathroom, hear a car screech at high speed followed by a loud bang, a bright flash that lit up the entire house. Immediately power was out and all our emergency night lamps went on.

I ran out thinking someone may have crashed into our house itself and if there were going to be falling electric poles, the family had to run. It was also occuring to me that the folks in the vehicle might need help. 

Ran out and saw a car had missed our garage but crashed into the electric pole. I yelled out to the guy in the car and he managed to open the door and stumble outside. Kept yelling to him to move away from the car, but he was not listening. There was transformer oil leaking from the top and his car was fuming from the airbags. 

Meanwhile I keep trying to call 911 from my home phone and nothing happens. Then it strikes me that no power, no internet and it is a Vonage VOIP phone! Run back to the bedroom to grab my cell and wife says "dont go out.. sounded like a gun shot".. Told her a guy has crashed his car and ran out again and this time reached 911. They promptly send a few cops, fire trucks, PG&E and there was lot of action. 

Turned out the guy was not sober and there were live wires that almost reached the ground! Good thing the cop told me to stay back and took the guy back. After watching the person go through a sobriety test and being taken away in handcuffs, then came the tow trucks, the spill cleanup crew, and more cops. Finally went to bed at 3AM knowing power was not going to be restored anytime soon. 

Went to one of the guys and asked him "can I take my car out of the driveway in a few hours?" and he gives me the look! 

They had put some absorbent stuff all outside our driveway to get all the stuff that leaked from the blown transformer. 

So yoga in the morning was out. Yoga in the afternoon was also out. Finally got out of the house for an evening class and came back feeling good. We still did not have power and the wife wisely adviced me to shower at BYSJ before coming home. 

After 18 plus hours of non stop work, the guys got power back to us 20 mintues ago! 

Thanked the guys for their service. These guys are our true heroes!

Life is always interesting in the Narayanan household...

Technology challenges..

It has been an interesting two days. 

The last few days, there has been a problem at work where a duct spews out bursts of cold air directly above my head. My office has been trying to figure out the root cause and come up with fixes for it by blocking the vent with cardboard, building paper dampers to direct it away from my head etc.. In the meantime, I got a nice cold, thanks to that and the highly changing bay area weather. 

As most of you know, my solution to all ailments is to try doing Yoga in the hot room first before going to the doctor or resorting to any pills. So after scheduling a bunch of late night calls post 11PM, I decided to go do Yoga at 8:30 in the night. It was mildly drizzing when I went into the class and things were, lets say "pleasant".

When the class ended and we came out, there was cold winds and water coming down in intervals in sheets! I am guessing these were more than the 20 mph gusts. This was way stronger. At several points on the way home thought the Leaf was going to fly off the road. There was also a lot of palm leaves falling off the trees and flying around. 

In all of this I did not realize that there was no power in the neighborhood. I drive to the garage and the thing is not opening. I called my wife and she goes "there is no power in the house and the entire area". 

So there I am in my yoga shorts, all sweaty, with cold rain and winds trying to manually open the garage door and park my car inside.. and a gust of wind litterally sends a wave of water into the garage! 

Finally I parked the car and closed the garage door. By now any residual body heat from the yoga class is gone and I am shivering. Then I tell my dear wife "I will go take a quick shower and eat what you have made. good thing we have the flashlights". 

A few minutes later, I realize that the flashlights are the least of the problems. Turns out that the water heater we have installed as part of the new construction which is tankless, energy efficient, reduces our gas bills etc. etc. doesn't work when there is no electricity! It didn't matter anyway. It was not going to be worse than the rain. So that was the shortest coldest shower I have taken after a hot yoga class. 

Then came the dinner part. Wife says "I made stuff for you, but it is all cold. Maybe you can reheat it on the stove because you cannot microwave?"

By now I am conditioned to try everything manual have a low expectation for any gadget. So I know the pilot lamp won't work (it didn't) and use a matchstick to try and light this stove. Turns out that only the back burner turns on without a pilot. These guys have some interlock on the other stoves! 

Finally managed to reheat some stuff and eat with the flashlight and look at my phone... it has <20% charge! 

Went to the battery pack that was given as a company souvenier which is always in my travel bag and that had no charge! 

We both drive a Nissan Leaf. That means if you don't have power all night, we have to fight for the car with the most charge left.. It is a new interesting dynamic in our house.

It was a hard lesson on how dependent we are and how much we take for granted! I managed to muddle through the day and keep my thoughts going. Deifnitely feel better now, thanks to another yoga class, no manual door openings, a nice hot shower, hot tea.. and more importantly a house that is back to 68F instead of 56F!

This afternoon I was thinking about the folks in war zones. People in first world countries have no clue what those folks are going through. We are making it all worse for them by our every day thoughts and actions and what we support knowingly or unknowingly. We also take a lot for granted. The biggest rights we seem to cherish are our rights to stupidity and our right to be irresponsible when it comes to the rest of the world and the planet. At least that is my feeling right now.

A bad vent, a storm for a few hours and an all night power cut are able to make a dent in my life. That is just sad.

Time to spend more time with nature and improve my immunity to cold weather. Also time to do something about all this guilt for everything that is happening in the world! 

Radical

I keep hearing the term "radicalized" and "radicalization" in casual conversations with people these days. Can only imagine what it must be like listening to news. So what is all this about being a "radical"? 

As a kid my definition of radical was a group of atoms that was free to attach to another group of atoms. 

The other definition is "affecting the fundamental nature of something, far reaching or thorough" and apparently that is what is being talked about, "Far reaching".

For lack of a better analogy, let us say there are multiple folks who want to go from various parts of the bay area to the golden gate bridge. If I had to go there I would take highway 101. Sure bet in my opinion and have been driving on it for many years. Know when to change to which lane, where to expect traffic, know I will get there.  If you ask anyone else in our house, chances are they will also say "take 101. best way"

There may be others who will bet on 280 for their own reasons. They will also get to the golden gate. Might be faster or slower, but they will get there and to them it is a safe bet.

There might even be a guy who says "I have a jet pack. I can get there much faster by going up to 2000 feet and going down". He may be right, he may be wrong. The jet pack might work for him, who knows?! Hopefully he does reach as well.

If a new family visits us here and they have never travelled to SFO, we might recommend them through 101 while a different family might suggest 280. Or they might just say "let me use Google maps to decide which route to take based on traffic info. that is crowdsourced"

Where am I going with all this?

Religion mostly provides some kind of route to a destination which most of us are worried about or cannot necessarily deal with until we die. Salvation! 

We will all swear by our religions as a sure bet to reach the other side based on our own lifes experiences, experiences of others we take for granted that are passed on through generations. Most of the time it is information that we cannot rely on as it is embellished over time and it seems to be a very rare event when someone seems to have died and come back to tell us what is on the other side. There is no dearth of smart people on the planet who can explain things by making us look here, there, inward, outward, etc. etc.

At the end of the day, there is no problem with people picking a comforable route to reach their destination. 

The problem is when one says emphatically that "my route is the only route. all other routes are false". It would be great if everyone got to go on a rotation program with different religions, much like a new college grad goes through different departments in a company before joining a particular group. It would be like we all get to try 101 and 280 or that jet pack if we can get our hands on it and see which route we prefer. Unfortunately, that is not realistic. 

What we could do is to acknowledge that different people will have their own comfort zones and let people go through their own routes. While this seems to be simple enough to say "live and let live", it may not be the real problem. It is all about money. That is a bigger problem that is beyond salvation of any kind. However, live and let live is a good place to start.

When I hear someone say "all muslims are terrorists", that person has been radicalized to believe something that is not true. It is as radical as folks who are chanting "death to America". 

There was a recent conversation with a friend who asked me "Most of the Indians I know in the bay area are so far right that they will put the tea party guys look like Bernie Sanders, yet you are preaching live and let live?" 

In all honesty I told him "the average american kid today is not getting an education on the world. they won't know the difference between India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Iran or Syria or for that matter a difference between different religions. My kids might know their world history and geography but that is not enough. It is like being a safe driver on a freeway where a drunk guy is coming in the wrong direction. End result is not going to be good for either driver. There are folks teaching their kids to hate, based on the fact that other kids are of a different skin color or wear a scarf or turban of some kind. My kids could wear a dupatta on their head and could be the target of a hate crime. I want to make sure that I support a live and let live policy and counter this hate"

I also acknowledged that islamophobia is very high among Hindu households that we interact with here in the bay area. Even on the recent India trip, we had many conversations with folks who belive that the Muslim population in India is increasing dispropotionately, not because more people are believing in Islam or converting to the religion, but because the Muslim folks are on a drive to increase their population where they are a local minority, irrespective of the quality of life they can give their kids.

A relative told me "while other communities are stopping with one or two kids, Muslim families are having four or five plus kids, the families tend to be poor and the kids are not educated and this in turn, feeds a dependence on their religious links to sponsor them and in return they are willing to do anything for their sponsors who are invariably people from the middle east with an agenda to create supporters in India". 

I am not sure if that is what is going on, as this sounds like how things were in Indian villages post Independence irrespective of religion. More kids meant more income and it could simply be that the poor folks are living in the past and economic and religious demographics are being mixed up.

What was clear to me after those conversations, was that the problems are not all about whose route is better. It is about the thought that there is strength in numbers, money and power! 

We are all pawns in an elaborate game played by folks who control the money. Most of what we hear is one side of a story that manages to reach us and the stories with money behind them invariably reach us better.

It is going to take the parents of today a herculean effort to make sure that their bigotry is not passed on to the kids. Our kids don't need to learn to hate. They could learn to love and accept diversity and differences. We need to educate our kids better. Not just our kids. All kids! Yes, I sound like an ad for "no child left behind!" that too for an education on social sciences in a world where math and science are being ignored to accomodate spreading more bigotry.

When I hear what is happening in our kids schools based on the stories they tell me, my stomach churns. In spite of what we teach them at home, they are becoming who they are based on the sum total of their experiences in and outside the house. They are smart and inquisitive and will absorb everything like a sponge. Sometimes I just cry because there are no decent answers to their questions. 

Think it was Deming who said "In god we trust. Everyone else bring data".

The way the world is going, we might have to ask God to bring data as well.

As for "radicalization", for anything to reach far, there are two forces behind it. A push and a pull. The pull for radicalization is there in every shape and form with every over zealous preacher saying "only route xyz can save you!". In spite of that pull existing, not everyone takes a radical view.

It also needs a push. Either the push is a mental defect of some kind in some individuals, or a society that creates a situation where people around the person push that person closer to what is pulling. The youth of today don't need that push. The more we teach our kids to hate, or fear people and things that are different from them, the more the push.

Actually like the Chinese folks I interact with in Asia. They work hard, play hard and religion doesn't seem to be a big part of the day to day life and they are doing fine. They think they are all going to a nice place after thus life and don't seem too worried. The Chinese folks in Cupertino though, seem to be very much like the desi folks when it comes to religious prejudices. The melting pot that is the US of A does seem to do strange things to folks when they melt in.

As we close down on 2015, it is my sincere hope that we all spread a message of peace and do our best to educate everyone around us on going after facts, instead of made up stuff on FB and Whatsapp! Teach your kids to be nice to all their classmates. We are working on it at home.

Lessons learned and learning..

The sun was setting and the skies turned red. The green leaves looked greener.. the red ones looked a flaming red and the gold leaves, well they looked amazing!

Took a shot of the 50+ foot Crystal Amber tree in the backyard and was extremely happy with the results.

Then the thought of placing a kid in the foreground and how it would be great entered my head. My ever willing model aka Jr. said she would step out and pose for one photo and one photo only.

We took one photo and she went "Daddy, I cannot see anything anymore!". For a second I got really worried. Luckily, her temporary blindness faded and she is fine and can see everything.

Just out of curiosity, took a shot without Jr. in the frame with the flash. This thing is very very powerful! The apple tree is a good 40 feet away and it got lit up with the flash. Poor Jr. , no wonder she had a temporary blinding effect.

Should have bounced the flash off my back! There is a lot more to learn on what not to do as well as what to do with this new equipment!

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Knowledge is power ?

Has been a busy week, with more work, a conference in San Francisco and the usual happenings at home. I have been attending this conference almost every year for the last 13 years! This conference is usually a week long event. I get to attend it for two or three days every year. Ever since I started working, even those two days are marred by frequent phone calls and beeps on my pager. In spite of the interruptions, I feel so alive at this conference. I get to listen to the latest and greatest breakthroughs in my field of research, meet people who have similar interests, and get to overload my brain with all the information.

The hour long drive to and from San Francisco also helps clear my head and give me time to process the information. Yesterday I met an old friend and the conversation steered towards education. On the way back from the conference, my thought process was wandering around

education
why I did not become a professor
India
Brahmins
Importance to Knowledge
Aaavani Avittam
BHU
Mandal commission
reservations
affirmative action
research
white LED's
Nakamura
% success in Research projects
funding
policy
role of policy in education

and after going through a full circle I just realized I was just tired and the little hamster insdie my head needed some sleep!

But a couple of thoughts were stuck there for some time.

What Aavani Avittam ceremony is supposed to do for me and fails, this conference does! All Brahmin boys, renew their commitment to the learning process once every year at this ceremony. I do that ceremony mechanically because I am not well versed in Sanskrit or study Vedas and Upanishads for a living. I do love learning though! This week has been an extended Aavani Avittam for me! I get to meet the high priests of materials engineering, chat and debate with fellow researchers and realize the value of what I do for a living!

A second train of thought was that somehow in the back of my mind, I do always feel that the caste systems successful survival and stubborness to be eradicated in India has to do with how it makes people believe that they are special. More specifically Brahmins are proud of their commitment to learning or their belief of "knowledge is power". I am not discriminatory by nature and I am definitely not elitist or snobish because I am a brahmin. However, I have made statements in the past of how proud I am to believe that "knowledge is power" and that is somehow a very Brahmin thing to believe! I also realized that every caste tries to one up the others by making their speciality a secret. If brahmins believed that Knowledge is power, the right thing to do would have been to spread knowledge and empower everyone. Yet we know only a handful of people like Sankara, Ramanuja went along those lines. The vast majority decided to keep education to themselves and their clan and made the rest of the population dependent on them to even read and write! I could say similar things about all other castes except the poorest and lowest castes who by default got the shaft from everyone else.

I also keep thinking about how researchers are confronting politicians in faith vs science debates today, similar to the power struggle dynamics between Brahmins and the Kshatriyas.

It would have been great if everyone knew how to read and write, everyone was well versed in martial arts or had self defense skills, everyone knew how to trade and do business and of course everyone knew how to wash their own clothes, clean their own toilets or cut their own hair!! or at the least have a mutual respect for every other profession and professional!!

The hamster is on overdrive and needs to rest! Enough rambling....

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