Article: Loyalty

Scientists at the Rocket launching station in Thumba, were in the habit of working for nearly 12 to 18 hours a day. There were about Seventy such scientists working on a project. All the scientists were really frustrated due to the pressure of work and the demands of their boss but everyone was loyal to him and did not think of quitting the job.

One day, one scientist came to his boss and told him - Sir, I have promised to my children that I will take them to the exhibition going on in our township. So I want to leave the office at 5 30 pm.

His boss replied - O K, , You are permitted to leave the office early today.

The Scientist started working. He continued his work after lunch. As usual he got involved to such an extent that he looked at his watch when he felt he was close to completion.The time was 8.30 p.m

Suddenly he remembered of the promise he had given to his children. He looked for his boss,,He was not there. Having told him in the morning itself, he closed everything and left for home.

Deep within himself, he was feeling guilty for having disappointed his children.

He reached home. Children were not there.His wife alone was sitting in the hall and reading magazines. The situation was explosive, any talk would boomerang on him.

His wife asked him - Would you like to have coffee or shall I straight away serve dinner if you are hungry. The man replied - If you would like to have coffee, i too will have but what about Children?

Wife replied- You don't know - Your manager came at 5 15 p.m and has taken the children to the exhibition.

What had really happened was

The boss who granted him permission was observing him working seriously at 5.00 p.m. He thought to himself, this person will not leave the work, but if he has promised his children they should enjoy the visit to exhibition. So he took the lead in taking them to exhibition The boss does not have to do it everytime. But once it is done, loyalty is established.

That is why all the scientists at Thumba continued to work under their boss eventhough the stress was tremendous.

By the way , can you hazard a guess as to who the boss was?

He was A P J Abdul Kalam.

Photo: Tanjore temple

The panoramic view of the Tanjore Temple

Speech: You've got to find what you love

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

My Writeup: A Chinese Colleague

Everything has a begining, so is this recent experience in working along with a Chinese colleague. I moved to San Francisco in early April 2005 to work with a leading CRM ASP. Its here that I found that I was reporting to a Chinese American. Though our initial meetings went well and we set out to make the best out of the engagement I was asked not to copy the status to his Manager. Thinking it was a hierarchial protocol in the firm, I followed it to the word.

Over the next 2 weeks I became aware of the fact that his Manager who had been responsible for hiring me was not much aware of the efforts made by my team. Some of the suggested process improvements and training recommendations were ignored as well. Moreover, I was taken aback when every recommendation submitted was displayed as a work done by him with few modifications. I realized that it was important to make a mark and ensure that the Manager gets an awareness that the engagement is successful at the same time keeping the rapport with my Chinese colleague.

2 opportunities came my way. He had to leave for a major business initiative in China which got me reporting to his Manager. Moreover the second was the presence of an Indian collegue who did not hesitate to take my ideas through to the VP. In the next two weeks, I had made a difference transforming ideas into reality. The enagagement extended to twice the time specified and we came out of it well.

In the end of it all, it was quite a learning experinece. Througout this period I had maintained a steady output at the same time initiating areas that would improve the quality of work from their own employees.

And as far as my Chinese colleague, he had no regrets and wished me to come back and work for them.

My Writeup: Ancient Indian History Revealed

In recent years, various discoveries and excavations in India revealed new facts about the ancient Indian History and the origin of the Aryan race. In the past few weeks, I have been reading the details on the discoveries of Archeological Survey of India in addition to media reports on the discoveries and facts upon ancient Indian civilization.

Aryan Invasion Theory

During the British rule in India, the Aryan Invasion Theory came to existence. The Invasion theory explained that an European tribe invaded India about 1500 BC. The Aryans were said to be the founders of the Vedas and the Hindu civilization.

But new discoveries of a sophisticated urban civilizations made in Harappa and Mohen-jo-daro (currently in West Punjab and Sind), which were older than 1500 BC. Following this discovery, the orientalist scholars came up with the theory that these people were Dravidians (i.e., dark, as opposed to the the fair skinned blue eyed Aryans) and their civilization was destroyed by invading Aryans and they were moved to Southern India with a reduced status.

These theories were accepted by the Indians. However, recent archaeological developments and intellectual freedom there has been intense discussions on this issue and AIT has become more and more untenable.


Anti-AIT Theory



Anti-AIT Theory Arguments

Lets take a look at the arguments that Historians put in favour of AIT and try to disprove them.

Point 1:
The similarities between Sanskrit, Latin and Greek prove that there was once a proto Indo-European language, from which all three are descended. The oldest form of Lithunian language found dates only upto 1500 A.D, but it is similar to reconstructed IE. A language does not keep such archaic phonology and morphology intact if it has interacted with other cultures. Therefore its speakers must have kept so close to their hooriginalmeland that too much change was avoided. Therefore, IE must have its source in a region near it.

Counter Point:
A common source does not prove the direction of migration; it can very well be that the Aryan tribes travelled from India to Europe. No common root word has been found which date back beyond 700 B.C. So it is possible that whatever identical words we find is due to trade contacts from the Mohen-jo-daro period. As regards Lithunia, it is well known that primitive groups who shun contact with outsiders and are unprogressive will keep their archaic ways and language much longer. There is nothing to stop a tribe from travelling to Lithunia and settling down there. Also, if this argument is valid, then one must point out that Vedic Sanskrit has a large number of vocables which are not present in such numbers in any other Indo-European language and its consonants are purer. This suggests that ancient Sanskrit is the original source, or at any rate the oldest source.


Point 2:
The language of Vedas and that of Avesta in ancient Persia is nearly identical: "Almost any Sanskrit word may be changed at once into its Avestan equivalents merely by applying certain phonetic laws". Most tellingly, in Vedas the gods or devas are addressed as asuras, but later asura became the name for demons; but in Zorastranism, asura is the name for gods throughout while devas are portrayed negatively. Thus it is obvious that the Persian religion is the older version while Vedic tribes split away from it.

Counter Point:
This does not prove that the composers of Vedas had passed through, or came from Iran. It might be that the Persians were the ones who broke away due to a quarrel. They could have used only one term for their gods to distinguish them from the other gods worshipped by their original tribe. The fact that in Vedas Asuras first meant lord/god but later came to mean demons can be an indication that after strife with Avesta group the nomenclature acquired a different meaning through association with the enemy. This theory is supported on the grounds that in 500 B.C, Xerxes forcibly suppressed the worship of Devas in his kingdom.


Point 3:
The river Indus is called 'sindhu' meaning sea. India has oceans for her borders, yet a mere river is called sea, proving that the writers had never seen the sea. Surely then most of the Vedas were composed outside India.

Counter Point:
Wrong. The proper term for sea in Vedas is 'samudra'. This term is used frequently throughout various portions of the Rig-Veda and Varuna (one of the oldest Vedic gods who is mentioned in a 1400 B.C Hittite inscription) is categorically stated to be lord of oceans.


These are just a few points of the entire argument. You can read them in the following link

http://www.comparative-religion.com/hinduism/origins/#anti-ait-arguments