WFH

When I started this blog, I had no intention of writing anything of a technical nature. However, today I will kind of write about technical workplaces and work culture a bit. I think by now everyone has formed his/her own opinion about Marissa Mayer's policy of banning working from home. As a woman, my first thought was the same as almost everyone else as I exclaimed "what?!" but then I have thought about both sides of the debate.

It is very easy to brand someone as "trying to show off how tough she is" or say "she might be fine with a two-week maternity leave but she can expect others to do that" with a shrug. Yes, it does look like she is pushing the company backwards in time, but wait...don't jump into conclusions.

I know there are many people who telecommute, working out of their home offices. Some people say that is great, for some professions it might be really good or for some people it might be the only solution for some time. I have a friend who is a technical writer, for her job it was totally ok to work from home office, but she didn't like it that much. I mean yes, you don't need to sit in traffic and can work from 8 - 4 very easily, you can walk the dog and finish your grocery shopping on a Tuesday afternoon, but still, telecommuting is not for everyone, neither is it for every job.

There is still no alternative of being physically present in an office and working with a bunch of people whom you can see and talk to (not virtually). I worked with remote teams for almost a year and that was really bad for our productivity. First of all, there was a time zone difference ranging from three to ten hours and then there were cultural issues, language issues and what not! When we finally created a local team you should have seen the relief on our faces. It's not just work relationship, but team events, lunches together, jokes, funny things, all contribute towards a team. Moreover, the better you know a person, the more effective you will be when communicating with him/her. That can't be achieved over the internet!

Telecommuting, however, is totally different from working from home (WFH). WFH is not really a practice, but a temporary solution. It is not just for family and spouses and kids, I think single people might need it more than people with families. When the cable guy gives you a vague window of "I'll come some time between 10 and 2" or there is a sudden snow and roads or blocked, there are no better alternatives than WFH. There are those days too when you are not really down with high fever but not well either to drive to work and sit there for 8-10 hours. You can finish some pending things from home too. I love the option of WFH. That should not be banned. However, that doesn't mean WFH is a synonym for taking a day off. You should still be available on IM, respond to emails and WORK. Checking work emails doesn't count for "working" from home.

Some people say that you have kids doesn't mean you get to leave work early. It sounds rude, but well, in a way it is right. When we were working with the remote teams, we had to attend meetings at 6 in the morning. People with school going kids had a real hard time but they still had to make it just like everyone else. Darting off from a meeting at four o'clock by saying "I have to pick up my kid from daycare" is not good for productivity either. Women have a tougher job. Even today, not everyone can delegate household chores to their husbands and taking care of the baby is still, primarily the mom's duty. There are so many women who don't have the luxury to work from home, I mean most professions don't, but they are still managing. So I am not saying that WFH is the only solution, but I do think that wherever possible, we should definitely keep that option open and not put a ban to it.

A cosmic voyage

Rabindranath wanted to see his country elevated to a situation where knowledge will be free. With "Google-it" becoming a common action and Wikipedia at our fingertips (quite literally so) and an access to the Internet taken for granted through smartphones and tablets all over the world, Rabindranath's dream might be fulfilled.

Those who try to sound intellectual by saying that the Internet is a bad thing don't have any idea what they are saying. It is through the Internet and only through it that we are achieving true globalization. Globalization isn't about wearing the same branded clothes all over the world or drinking Starbucks coffee, it is about living in a global village where "distance" isn't an impediment to attaining something you had always wanted to.

Thanks to the Internet for letting me have my dream come true!

It was probably in 1995-96 when I had a dream (I mean an actual dream that I had while sleeping) where I saw I was working on a computer which had a telescope attached to it. I could see the stars while doing some calculations. That dream came true this month when I enrolled in Coursera. From time immemorial, I wanted to be an astrophysicist but different reasons (not all bad) stopped me from pursuing a career in physics. I was beginning to forget that too amidst the craziness of a demanding job, learning new technical things (might not be physics, but interesting nonetheless) and definitely a busy life in general. Sometimes when the Seattle sky is clear and the Big Dipper shows up or when I read Carl Sagan's work I think about physics. That is when Coursera came up.

Arnab found the site and registered for some technical courses. Then he told me to register too. My intention was to find some computer science stuff, but then I saw this "Introduction to Astronomy" course and promptly enrolled there.

In the outer space

What have I learned so far? Well, it is an eight week course and I am just at week 3, but I learned about finding the positions of stars, mathematical formula to calculate those positions, brushed up my knowledge on  gravity and Newtonian physics, got fascinated once again by light (and the electromagnetic spectrum) and have got into the depths of Solar System. For the second time in my life someone is actually teaching me quantum mechanics and I get to see familiar pictures of M-42, Pleiades and images coming from spectrometers. It just makes me take a deep breath and smile. The deep breath is to open my mind to learn new things and the smile comes when I realize there are SO MANY things that I am yet to learn!!!

There are some other stuff I learned too from the professor apart from astronomy. One is, how patiently he explains things to students he hasn't and would never see in his life. Secondly, teaching an online course, that too for free amazes me. Spending so much time and energy talking in front of a video camera to enrich the minds of people scattered all over the world. These students would never bring any fame to the professor, nor would they come to thank him, but he is still teaching them. I am so grateful to the teacher and his assistant for keeping knowledge free. The final thing that I have learned is - if you really, truly want to learn something, no one in the world can stop you! That's why they say in Buddhism when the time is right, the master shall arrive.

PS: I was walking Bebe in our neighborhood park a couple weeks back on a clear evening. I looked up and saw the sky full of stars and Orion chasing towards Taurus the bull as always with his two faithful dogs following him. I said to Bebe, "now I have you just like Orion has his dogs!" I am friends with Orion once again, he is my favorite!

Abid Hasan Safrani

I already wrote an article on Netaji last July, so people know by now that I am a Netaji-enthusiast. I have heard about him, his policies, strategies, political ideas from when I was a baby so it is but natural that I will have some interest in him. His disappearance and our Government's attempt to make us forget all about him is a different story though. Talking about Netaji, other than what I heard at home or read in his autobiography, there is another man who showed me the colossal character that Netaji was, from a totally different perspective. That man is Abid Hasan Safrani.

If you haven't yet, please spend some time reading "The men from Imphal". It is 18 pages in total so shouldn't really take a whole lot of time to read. Read it, ponder over it, and I am sure you will understand what our country could have been if only we had a leader, just ONE leader worth the name.

The book, if I may call those 18 pages one, starts with The Retreat, the torture our army had to bear after hoisting the Tricolor at Moirang in sickness and hunger with allied forces bombing them from above. Even then, our army men, the first army of our nation, those men had in them a grim resolution to fight and win, to see India liberated. Abid says that is was not just hurrah-patriotism, nor were they fanatics hallucinating about a victory, they knew they had lost the war but they were still resolute on fighting the final battle. Why did they do so? Why didn't they just surrender and run away? Only because they had a leader to look up to.

Netaji, the word that means revered leader was the man who was their Supreme Commander. A man who had sacrificed a plush life, his political status, his home and family all for the country and he led his army by example. He was the one who taught the men and women of INA to be first an Indian and then a Punjabi, Bengali, Assamese or Tamil. Who taught Hindu, Muslim and Sikh men to eat sitting in one row next to one another sharing food from the same kitchen. It was Netaji who had girls don the uniform of a soldier, with rifle in hand fighting at fronts as Rani Lakshmi Bai. He told them that Indian girls have always chosen death over dishonorment. But why would they choose death by jumping into the pyre? Why not choose death as a valiant soldier?

And he was the leader who gave us a National slogan - Jai Hind!

I have always known that the best way to know someone's character is to see how he behaves in adversity. Abid Hasan showed me that side of Netaji. The one who even when defeated did not surrender, who showed the world how Indians can organize themselves into an army and fight. Netaji wasn't defeated in 1945, Netaji's values are getting defeated everyday now. In a country where corruption reigns supreme, the sacrifices of our heroes are being mocked at, the strength of character shown by Netaji, the values he tried to imbibe in us are lost, they are dead.

Abid Hasan was one of those people whom I say have a bubbling fountain of unending happiness somewhere inside. They bubble with enthusiasm and nothing can make them feel sad for long. There's just no way stopping them. I had the feeling when I read the book and saw his character being portrayed very well by Rajit Kapoor in the movie "The Forgotten Hero". I don't know much about Abid Hasan. Wikipedia couldn't tell me either, but all I know is those few years he spent with Netaji, and the nice little document that he has kept for the future generations is a great piece of evidence of what we could have had for our country that we would no longer get.

Refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abid_Hasan

On inspiration

Of the human qualities I like, inspiration is definitely in the top three. It makes us realize what we are capable of and makes us do something worthwhile. Woe to that person who looks at everything through a pessimist's jaundiced eyes so that everything looks dull and negative. Blessed is one who has the enthusiasm to do good things and lead others to do those as well, even when the conditions are not really that favorable.

I can be very easily inspired. A song, a good deed can show me the ways I can try to do good things or even, try to do my best in whatever fields possible. It is not always something great, it could be learning something new, challenging myself to do something which I always thought was difficult, solving some problem... anything. One person who has never failed to "wake me up" is Swami Vivekanada. If anyone can't be motivated by him, that person might as well be dead!

"Stand up, be bold, be strong" - how many of us realize this? We go about our daily grind with what a friend of mine calls "tunnel vision". We look at just what is important for us in that very moment and leave out the rest as "that's not my responsibility". All that because we are afraid to take up that responsibility. We do that at home, very much at work and even more in the society. We are scared! If only we could live up to the expectations of a human being!

We are scared to tell the truth, so we keep shut during company meetings. We don't care about our work (as long as our job is secure) so we don't bother to make that project a 100% success. We don't care for the society so we don't contribute for toy-drives (better still laugh at those who do). Do we even care for our families and our marriages? Do we really work on them? I doubt. All because we lack courage, we don't have faith in our own selves. Is that good? Is that what you'll expect your kids to learn from you? Think....think of the moral character you have.

Rabindranath is one of my all time favorite philosophers. He has said - mukto koro bhoy - get rid of fear. Bengalis know this song by heart, but I wonder how many really understand? In the same song, the poet says, "fight against evil and provide refuge for the weak" and "never doubt your own strength". He also says, when humanity calls, sacrifice yourself. Open yourself to challenges...get rid of fear and conquer yourself. Oh, if only we could try that!

I see people living in their shells like snails and like frogs in wells, thinking how happy they are without even knowing the bright sky up above where they can spread their wings and fly... raise their heads with confidence that the joy of knowledge gives.

It starts from little things. It starts from taking baby steps towards things that are challenging. Confidence would only come when you conquer hurdles. Take up that Zumba class which you always thought you could never do. Try to learn how to play an instrument, learn a new language, make friends with people who are different than you are, get involved, stand up for what you believe is wrong, speak up... try to venture beyond that "comfort zone". Also, believe that you can make a difference. Droplets of water make an ocean... a single act can lead to a revolution. But have patience. It takes time for things to work. When I organized a toy drive last Christmas for the Seattle Children's Hospital, our boxes lay empty for a week. I was feeling disheartened when Arnab reminded me of the Bhagvat Geeta saying - "Do your own work and don't think of the consequences". I followed that and stayed patient... later, we had 4 big box loads of toys and $275 in cash to donate!!

It's all humans that have ever done anything good, anything worthwhile. So if one human can do that, why can't another?

Dead or alive?

Every year on January 23rd, the debate on whether Netaji is dead or alive gains new momentum. All those people who conveniently keep Netaji out of their lives all through the year suddenly become Netaji-followers on his birth anniversary and the debate continues with renewed vigor. Some politicians are trying their best to sweep all information about Netaji under the rug claiming that plane crash to be true, while some people still argue that Netaji is alive at 116. While I do believe that we have the right to know what happened to Netaji, I definitely don't believe that he is alive now. I sincerely hope that he is not.

Why do I think so?

Netaji had a dream about freeing India from foreign rule. He said that he is willing to make a pact with the devil if need be to have his motherland free. India is free now...for more than 65 years and where do we stand? I am not talking just about the poverty. We have lots of billionaires. It is the corruption in every field, in every aspect that I wouldn't say makes me sad, but it kind of bewilders me. I mean how low can one get?

Yes, I know, I shouldn't just blame the government, because the government is made up of us. I wonder why we love to break laws from cutting in a queue to driving on the wrong way, in rigging elections to getting admitted to a college through the back door? Why is that we never learn to do things right in the first place? Why don't we have any ideals? Or laugh at people who do? Why have we been taught that winning the rat-race is the ultimate goal in life? Why has no one ever taught us how to become a bold yet compassionate person?

The political scene is at a worse situation than the social scene. Everyday I think about not reading Indian news, but then I end up reading them anyway. What do I find? Struggles everywhere. Infiltrators from outside, claims of splitting up states to smaller areas based on the ethnicity of the inhabitants from the inside. That is just way too much! There's no talk about education, technology, healthcare, no positive news, only hatred... hatred everywhere!


It's in the society. In the society that is so inhuman to mercilessly kill the girl child, or create a situation so bad for girls that the parents have no other option than to sell their children, make them beg or even make them a victim of child labor, a society where domestic violence is a common thing, one where staying alive day after day is the biggest miracle, I don't want Netaji to be alive. I don't ever want Netaji to come see us like this.

Why just Netaji? All those people who sacrificed themselves during our freedom struggle, what have we to answer them? We should be happy that the dead doesn't really turn up from their ashes/graves in real life. If they did, we would have been asked by them why have we done this to our country.