Martin Burn Ltd. to Research In Motion - a century of engineers

Those who know me well enough are also quite aware of the fact that I am immensely proud of my ancestral house! By ancestral house I mean a stoic structure in the heart of Calcutta that has continued to shelter five generations of our family for the past 85 years.

The house as it is today

I had read a while back that it does not matter how expensive a house is. What matters is how many people it has sheltered. In that scale our house, lovingly called 125 (because of the house number) would pass with flying colors! Now, 125 was built by my great grand dad, the late Sarat Chandra Ghosh whom we refer to as Appa-Dadu way back in 1926. Appa-dadu was born in around 1880 in Jessore of the then undivided Bengal. After his father, Ramendranath passed away at an early age, his mother Kshiradasundari sent him off to Krishnagar to his maternal uncle's house. It was customary in those days for boys to be brought up with the maternal uncle as a caregiver in the absence of a father. So, Appa-dadu finished his schooling and joined Bihar School of Engineering. He graduated as a civil engineer. I remember hearing this story from my great uncle, that one day Appa-Dadu was overseeing some construction work at Patna Rail Station. He was in his early twenties that time and was very enthusiastic about his work. Climbing the scaffolds, he was busily instructing some laborers when he noticed two men watching him from below. One was a British and the other, an Indian but dressed in western clothes. When he climbed down, the Indian guy beckoned him and asked about who he was and if he wanted to work for their company. Appa-dadu had no idea who those men were, so he asked them what their company was. Those men were Sir Thomas Aquin Martin and Sir Rajen Mookherjee, founders of Martin Burn Ltd. Martin Burn Ltd was one of the most famous construction companies in the British empire at that time! (It is equivalent to Bill Gates asking a fresh graduate if he wants to work for Microsoft Corp.)

Appa dadu with his 2 grand sons

So Appa-Dadu came to Calcutta and started working. In the mean time he got married to Sudhanshubala Deb from a village near Diamond Harbour (southern part of Bengal). They lived in a rented house in Bhawanipur and had seven children. The eldest two kids were daughters so they were married off quite early and then they moved to the "new" house in 1927. Our house is a 3 storeyed building with solid 25" walls and a super strong foundation. The rooms all have plenty (more than enough) doors and windows for cross ventillation and sunlight streams in almost in all the dozen rooms! Appa-dadu is one of those very lucky people who had a long life, a happy family, a grand house and a satisfied life! When he retired it was found that in his entire service life he had only taken 43 days off. He even went to work on the days of his daughters' weddings. Half the day off was fine on those days!

Dadun with his grand son

Keeping up with the engineering tradition, my grand dad Sailendra Nath became a mechanical engineer. His fascination was cars. Talking about our house, I can't miss out our WBD 2946 - the black Austin 40 that my grand dad (Dadun) owned. Even in his late 70s, I have seen Dadun standing on the 2nd floor balcony and saying, pointing to a car on the street below and clearly stating what's wrong with that car's engine. He lived and breathed cars. Driving that Austin 40 was a passion for him as well as for his 3 sons to whom it was not just a car, but a faithful member of our family.

3G

Generation 3, consisting of my dad and his two younger brothers didn't have to build houses for themselves but they are taking very good care of what they have been blessed with. We are popping out engineers in every generation though, my uncles are both mechanical engineers. All three of them are car crazy. They started with specs of Buicks and Austins and Morrises and are continuing to keep them updated with the latest models of Hondas and Nissans. There's no stopping them for sure. Almost every time I talk to them they ask me how my driving is coming along, which cars I have shortlisted and give me tips on how to park parallely within 6 inches of the curb!

My sister and I are the last of the Ghosh-s because we don't have any brothers and our kids would technically not have the last name of Ghosh. However, we are both engineers. My sister is one of those strong willed people who did not get on the IT bandwagon. Rejecting her job at Infosys, she went on to become what she did her bachelors on - to be a good architect! I'm carrying on in the mobile technology/wireless world now finding my way in the kingdom of smartphones. When I just started my first semester in engineering in 2003 and was working on a graphics assignment, my uncle was helping me with that. The set squares were my sisters, the wooden T my grand dad's and the book on engineering graphics had Appa-dadu's name written on the fly leaf with the date 1903! We are maintaining this tradition for a century!

PS: In the room which used to be Appa-dadu's bedroom, the latest addition to our family is crawling and trying to walk on unsteady legs... let's see what's in store for her :-)

Wireless 101

The Tech World is going crazy. Apart from medical science I don't know of any field that is advancing at such a supersonic speed. Just about two decades back we had a POT (Plain Old Telephone) which could do nothing more than make and receive calls. It had that dial which took almost 30 seconds to make a call (compare it to: if it takes more than 3 secs to load a webpage now we swear the browser, call it quits and change to another browser), that too might end in a wrong number or a hillarious cross connection! That POT, often in shiny black would have only one ringtone which was NOT customizable, no skins, no fancy headset or holster and it happily served 12 people of a family. No one had any issues with that!

In the last few years we have seen a sea change. With the advent of the internet era, people seem to have gone crazy. PC itself was a revolution but that too seems backdated now. Next were the laptops but the first gen laptops are huge and heavy compared to the ones we have now, say MacBook Air. Having a wire attached to stuff would limit your movement, get rid of that, make it wireless. Even better, have many wireless devices and make a seamless transition from one to another. Put all your stuff up in the cloud and get only that one which you need at the moment. You're not going to lose any data even if you format your hard drive! Devices are getting shipped everyday. You don't even have to go twenty years back for it. In the first few years of 2K when I was in undergrad I was one of the last people in my college to get a mobile phone. It was a Nokia 8100 with a small b/w display. Now, last year I had an iPhone 4 only to find that it has become backdated by now. I don't know where to stop.

Now in the wireless era when one person has multiple smartphones (I have separate ones for personal and business use and a tablet to meet both) - that do everything, check email, surf the web, take pictures, stream video, play games, read books, spend time on facebook, navigate, have millions of apps (some interesting, some utterly useless) and do make calls when you need it it's time we take a quick look at the person whom IEEE has named "The Father of Radio science".

This is definitely not going to be his biography, but it is about Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose as I see him. My first aquaintance with Acharya Bose was with the simple lesson that plants have lives. Sometime in my early childhood I was told not to tear leaves off plants because of this reason. Later, I read "Bhagirathi'r utso sandhane" which also had nothing to do with Radio Science, but I admired the writing and felt awe at the way he has described the Himalayas, the mountains I have always adored. I do not see him just as a scientist, I see him as a philosopher, a patriot and a wise man, like our ancient sages who has the power of knowledge. The way he always demonstrated his experiments and encouraged students to try and see practically what science has to give show how advanced he was for his times. When he became a victim of racism and was not given proper pay or a laboratory to work at, Acharya Bose fought against this by rejecting his pay check for three years! I admire this man for refusing to patent his inventions. Like other scientists like Roentgen and Pierre Curie, Acharya Bose also believed that "knowledge is free". He invented "Wireless telecommunication" but did not want to patent it. Later Marconi received Nobel Prize for the same invention. What value does a Nobel Prize have for someone who was at least 60 years ahead of his time?

So the next time you feel proud to own an iPad2, spare a though for this humble man who is at the base of modern wireless technology. To him, I repeat my favorite poet Satyandra Nath Dutta's poem "মনীষী মঙ্গল" :
"জ্ঞানের মনি প্রদীপ হাতে
ফিরিছ কে গো দুর্গমে
হেরিছ এক প্রাণের লীলা
জন্তু জড়ো জঙ্গম এ
অন্ধকারে নিত্য নব পন্থা কারো আবিষ্কার
সত্য পথ যাত্রী ওগো
তোমায় করি নমস্কার"

Fall

I wonder why fall is my favorite season... apparently there's nothing beautiful in the gloomy days that become dark quite early. The flowers in my yard are all withering away, the grass is soppy all the time due to this endless Washington drizzle... it's kinda depressing, isn't it?

Well no! Not just that. Last year when I was raking fall leaves in my yard I realized how many shades of yellows, oranges (my favorite color) and reds you can see in the dead fall leaves. Aren't these all warm shades? Fall, in spite of its gloominess has a warmth to it. That's what is amazing. When I think of this season, the first thing I see in my mind is our living room, candles lit on the coffee table and on the mantlepiece - smelling of sweet cinnamon pumpkin. A warm yellow glow around the house, made snug with the plush blankies!

This is the time to come home, be with the family. When it's cold and dark outside, get together to carve some pumpkins, decorate the house with fall branches and foliage, or just get a mug of hot coffee and curl up with your favorite book. Happy Halloween and Thanksgiving!

A gynoid speaks - women in science (and technology)

We all know what "Android" is - Google's OS for smartphones and tablets. But what does android mean? Something that looks like a human? Well, yes and no! Yes because that's how the word is used nowadays and no because it is wrong. Android means something that looks like a man, "Humanoid" being the right term for a thing resembling humans in general. There's "Gynoid" but no one has heard that much!

Science and technology has always been ruled by men. How many women scientists do you know of? Marie Curie, and? Umm, well...no I don't know. Well, if you don't know, then YOU are the one to be blamed because many girls grew up to be "women in science and technology". We don't know about them because of the gender bias. As simple as that.

This article is about those women who are less known but not less intelligent and about why there are fewer girls in science.

Wikipedia says of something called a "leaky pipe problem". That means the ratio between girls interested in science/maths in early years to the women who finally take up sci-tech as a career is too large. Why is it so? I think that women, even now have to face the stupid myth that "maths is not for girls" or "a PhD in astrophysics would not help get a husband". Also, studying science or engineering does not always mean that the person loves the subject enough to pursue it as a career. I know many girls who came to study engineering without any idea of why they are studying it. They didn't have any passion for the subject whatsoever. Finally, there are those women who, after spending years studying engineering decide to become home makers or leave careers in technology to become stay at home moms. Guys never become house-husbands or stay at home dads sacrificing their careers for the family.

As far as women in science are concerened, yes, there are fewer women than men, but for a gender who were not allowed inside science institutes, leave alone attending lectures, how do we expect that they would have equal share in success? When Mme. Curie was in Poland, she was not allowed to pursue a career in science, so she had to come to France. She was not nominated for the Nobel Prize at first only because she was a woman and so, not worth nominating. It was only after Pierre Curie insisted that he would not take the prize unless his wife is nominated as well, that Marie got her fair chance. At seminars, they were referred as Professor Curie and Madame Curie even when Marie was a professor too herself!

What about the other distinguished ladies in science? Do you know of Ada Byron? She was the first computer programmer and worked with Charles Babbage? Know of Barbara Jane Liskov either? She is the recipient of the prestigious Turing award (equivalent to a Nobel prize in computer science) in 2008. In between them, there are many others, whom we don't know about, whom we just expect to spend their lives in connection with Kinder, Küche, Kirche (the 3 K’s, is a German slogan translated as “children, kitchen, church”) but who have pursued truth for the advancement of humankind.

Take a look at this link for more details on women in sci-tech. For the leading women who are heads of states, CEOs, secretary of homeland security or leaders in tech companies like Google or Facebook, take a peek at Forbes power-women.

On a personal note, soon after I had my traditional wedding in India, many people asked my husband if he's going to take me along to the US. That means they already assumed that as a wife I was in a "dependent mode". I had to butt in and clearly mention that I am not tagging along with him and have my own independent life to lead in the US or wherever in the world I wish to. That I don't feel like changing my lastname after marriage is still a shock to many!

Girls, pull up your stockings. We have covered a long distance in a very short span of a few decades and we have a good chance of showing our mettle. Keep it up!

[Acknowledgements to many people in my life, especially my Dad, who made me solve maths problems like nothing, my Mom who's a PhD in International Relations and is a University professor and my female role model, my sis first prize winner at IIT in her Masters program in Architecture and my hubby in whom I can see the result of being brought up by a smart and wise Mom.]

Detective stories

I think I was in sixth grade when I first read an unabridged Sherlock Holmes' story. I had to look up the words in the dictionary, yes, but that was the beginning of my rendezvous with detectives. Then came the stories of Felu-da which is a part of every Bengali person's growing up, Byomkesh whom I think as my next door neighbor and a little later Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. I love them all but I wouldn't take a moment to think who's the best, for me it's no one but Holmes!!

After I started working as a Software Test Engineer and have to depend on developers' mistakes for my bread and cheese, I have grown a knack for details and suspect everything that my common sense detects as out of the ordinary. I follow Byomkesh's idea of "jekhane dekhibe chhai, uraiya dekho tai paileo paite paro amulya ratan". Wherever I see a strange thing in developer's code I poke there. Who knows if it may be a defect! Also, same as detectives, software testers have to suspect all users. We can't say "Oh we expected the user to put in his password here" when hackers get's past a security point. We should have suspected that behavior beforehand and thought of stopping that. So I have thought of detective stories from a different perspective.

There are various types of detective stories. With all due respects to Ms. Christie, even though I enjoy her books a lot (I read Nemesis this weekend) and do think that it needs a lot of "thiking outside the box" to create a detective like Miss Marple, her stories always have a lot of suspects each with motives and opportunities and one of them is the killer. Also, her stories sometime lack information. For example, in "Cat among pigeons" we didn't have enough information about the killer, Ann Shapland. In "Murder in the clouds" I simply don't see how anyone can put on a dentist's robe to pose as a flight attendant, nor can I imagine how in "Sparkling cyanide" she says that if you are sitting at a round table you only know your seat relative to the other people. No way lady, that's not how it works! The Christie novels I like are "Death comes as as the end", "Sleeping murder", "The mirror cracked from side to side" (this is the story on which Rituparno Ghosh made his movie "Shubho mahurat"), "13 at dinner" and a few more...but I do feel that picking from a pool of suspects is quite easy.

About Felu-da, I don't want to really compare him to others. The main reason would be the fact that Felu-da's stories are written for the young. They are interwoven with our growing up days, with summer vacations, with getting the thin hard bound books on birthdays and looking at the illustartions on the covers. Actually, I even used Ray's pictures from Felu-da to practice sketching. My art teacher said they were really great human figure sketches which would make my foundation strong. "Gorosthaney sabdhan" is my favorite. Not just that the plot is awesome, but also because I'm a a fan of Calcutta and of family histories, both. I don't want to watch the movie though. Arnab tried to persuade me to watch it but to not avail. I have a very strong imaginative power and it ticks me off to see a 50-yr old Felu-da. If you scrutinize stories that well, you'll see Felu-da stories don't have a host of suspects. They have very mature plots.

Now to Byomkesh. Saradindu is one of my most most most favorite writers. I need an entire article dedicated to him to say how fond I am of his stories, but for Byomkesh, he's one of the finest detectives. It's just that I can see an inspiration from Holmes somewhere behind his stories that makes him a close second to Holmes. Here comes the difficult to solve plots. Take for example "Seemontoheera". You know who the culprit is, you have permission to search his whole household but you have no clue to where the diamond is! Or consider "Pather kanta", what a fine story!! Byomkesh doesn't have a lot of people to pick and choose from, he has to hit the bull's eye. "Sajarur kanta", "Chiriyakhana" and to some extent "Bahni patanga" are I guess the ones where there are a lot of suspicious people. I don't know which one of Byomkesh stories is my most favorite. "Pather kanta" I super like. "Durgorahasya" might be next. "Chorabali" is awesome. I can't leave out "Agnibaan"...Naah, I should leave this here, no way can I pick out one as the best.

The most difficult stories are where all evidences point towards some one who is not the criminal though. Example, "Arthamanartham" where apparently it couldn't be anyone but Sukumar who killed his uncle or "The beryl coronet" where Arthur was seen with the coronet in his hands. Those ones ARE difficult. It needs a lot of knowledge and confidence on the writer's part to think of and solve something like these.

Why is Homes my favorite though? Firstly because he's the pioneer of modern detectives and also because Conan Doyle has a way of providing every single piece of information to the reader. Be in the form of diagrams or floor plans or whatever he thinks he can elaborate with. (Example, "The dancing men") If you have Holmes' brains you can try to solve them yourself! My most favorite Holmes' story is "The Hound of the Baskervilles". The mystery, the people, the family legend and the surroundings create a strange mysterious atmosphere in the countryside. To top it is the family portrait! Oh, if there was only one detective story in the world and that was "The Hound of the Baskervilles", I think it would have been enough for all!!

On a different note, last Friday we were involved in a hit-and-run accident when a guy rammed into our car from behind and then fled while we were calling 911. I had to remember his 7 digit (and letter) license plate number and guess what came to my mind? Felu-da's suggestion! Break the number up into two parts and it's easier to remember two blocks of 3 or 4 digits (or letters) than the whole thing together. Well, that hit-and-run guy is in jail now so you know the advantages of reading detective stories :-)

My son

I was turning in my sleep in the wee hours of dawn when I felt there was something heavy sitting on my right leg. I stuck my other leg out from under the blanket and it touched a soft, furry, warm thing. with the window in the background, I could make out an ovalish thing there. It was Mota, sleeping (and snoring) soundly. I got up and stroked his warm furry back, when he turned inside out showing his white belly and asking for belly rubs! That's how my day starts most of the time :-)

Mota's day starts early. He wakes up at dawn because that's their hunting time. Being a ball of fur he doesn't hunt but he still follows his habit. He'd roam around for a while and then from around 6 would start bugging us. Meowing at us, clawing the bed sheets, trampling all over us and chewing paper and plastic from the waste bin are his ways of getting us off the bed. He knows for certain that after 5-10 minutes of this behavior, one of us would invariably get up and say "C'mon Mota, let's give you something to eat."

The third drawer opens and out comes a can of delicious salmon or tuna or ocean whitefish. If it's salmon day he just can't control himself! When the food reaches his plate he rubs his head on our legs in appreciation. There he chomps away dreaming of the little fishies with eyes half closed. After breakfast, he meticulously uses his litter box and cleans himself thoroughly. When we come to breakfast, he usually potters about there or sits in front of the patio door watching the plants and green grass waving in the breeze. Sometimes he'll catch a glimpse of a birdie and get excited, but he realy doesn't get out and hunt.

If we are at home, he'll stick close to us. Chew papers and magazines, climb up on the back of the couch or just roll over for belly rubs. He goes crazy over stringy and feathery toys. Just tickle him with the feathery "blue bird" and he jumps into action. Crouching behind the sofa or even a pair of shoes, he'll keep watch and then spring at it like a mini-tiger. Arnab says, when God wanted to create tigers, He smoke-tested by making cats! Cats are just a scale reduced version of tigers :-) Another thing is the treat ball. Just put in some treats in the ball and Mota would patiently go on rolling it until all the treats have come out. He would push the ball with his head and control with the two front paws. It's amazing how he solves problems of the ball getting stuck, checking twice under cabinets for treats that might have rolled off...Domestic Shorthairs are intelligent!!

They can sleep soundly for 16 hours so on weekdays it really doesn't bother him much when we are away. He cuddles up on our bed or on his blanket and sleeps. The moment the garage door goes up in the evening, he runs downstairs. (I have seen this when I am at home and Arnab comes back from somewhere.) So, everytime we open the door, he's already there to greet us by rubbing his head. I love these moments!!

In the evenings, Mota and Arnab have their "guy time" when they watch WWE, wrestle with each other or Mota would carry on with "killing" the feathery bird. Sometimes he gets into the mood and play acts. There are "enemies" around whom he chases. Most of the time the "enemy" is a noisy plastic bag or a crumpled sheet of paper!!

It doesn't take much to amuse him but there are things he HATES. He hates me rubbing his fur with wipes because he thinks I am taking away his smell. The dental rinse is another such "bad thing". We have stopped clipping his nails at home because he started giving us a "bankrupt person" look and intentionally used our hall carpet as his litter-box. When we were cleaning up his bad deed, he was lying close by and craning his neck to see if we were doing it ok. So we get the vet's assistants to trim his claws, I don't care is he's mad at them! He takes care to sharpen his tiny clipped nails and scratches our ottomans and sofa regularly. Another scratching thing is out kitchen rug. We got him scratch posts but he couldn't care less for that!

I can't talk about Mota by not saying anything about Kedo. Kedo (actual name Peanut Butter) is our neighbor's cat. He is the biggest, fluffiest, bravest and friendliest cat I have ever seen and has a bottomless pit for a stomach. Here they are sitting face to face.

Kedo is not afraid of water or of fire (as he was sniffing our burning candles), nor is he bothered about rain (he comes with dripping wet fur sometimes) and last winter when there was not a soul out in the snow, we saw his paw marks right outside our patio door. Mota and Kedo have a love-hate relationship. I haven't yet figured out what exactly they think of each other. Kedo is a left-pawed cat and he has hit Mota quite a few times. His parents left him in the house for a week when they went on a vacation. Coming back, they saw the carpet scratched and shredded and all the blinds torn. Who can hold him back? He is independence personified (or rather cat-sonified) and I think is a worthy son of the "land of the free and home of the brave".

At around 10:30, Mota would come upstairs. Meow for a while and then jump up on our bed. Sometimes if he's a little late (maybe he was having a converstaion with Kedo downstairs) and we have turned off the lights, we'll see a pair of glowing orange eyes as he makes his way around and tries to find a place to settle down. Mostly that would be on my pillow close to my head. Sometimes he'd squeeze in between Arnab and me or would lie down near our feet. He feels safe near us and we feel incomplete without him in our lives. He's our furry son- Mota Mao!!

PS: We celebrated his 4th birthday in January, here's a pic!

Xenophobia

It has been 4 years since I moved to US as a Fresh Off Board grad student and by now I am kind-of settled in my adoptive country. In these 4 years I have come across many Indians (students like me, second generation kids, people coming to work here, etc) and I have seen some patterns in their behaviors. There are many Indians who are my friends and whom I really like but I have been recently quite upset about some comments from my fellow countrymen (and women) so I thought of writing this. Here are the behavior patterns:

1. The "haters": Yes, they hate. They hate Americans, Chinese (Asians), Afro-Americans and basically anyone who is "foreign" to them. They hate non-Indian foods, non-Indian cultures and are very articulate about their hatred. They think every other person is dumb, have loose morals and maybe they are doing a favor by coming to this country. They are proud of the fact that they don't have any non-Indian friends and give a weird look to those who do have. When I opted to live at our University dorm with a Philippina girl, I was asked why I was not staying with 4 other Indian girls. To me, broadening my horizon and making friends from outside my known world was more important than having Indian food for every meal and go ga ga over the same Bollywood movies. These "haters" think you need to cling on to your culture lest you forget that. And in order to make sure your own culture is great, you'll have to belittle others.

2. The "recliners" : They are clanish too, but they don't hate or complain. They have small groups of friends and wouldn't mix with new people, nor would they let others into their "group". They're sort of laid back. Would prefer to play indoor games and drink for the whole long weekend instead of camping/hiking or any other kind of activity. They'd want to do a lot of things but would end up lazying for the whole day.

3. The "ultra-moderns": To them living in the US is a dream come true. They think of general American life as those shown in Hollywood movies. They misuse their freedom once they step off the flight. They think you have to drink (in large amounts) to be social and "living in" is the ultimate fashionable thing to do. I have heard of people proudly saying that they are going to some "erotic festivals". Ironically, a majority of them come from very conservative families. When their parents do find out how they are leading their lives, they are almost forced to arranged marriages. They marry nice, soft spoken girls from India who have no idea of their husband's past lives. Some do find out later and then a whole lot of troubles come up.

4. The "Down the memory lane": They are really nice people. I don't have anything against them. The only thing is they cling on to their memories. They are very homesick and every time you talk to them they'll bring up old memories in conversations. They do come from loving close knit families but are unable to form nice, strong friendships in this part of the world. So they are lonely. I feel sorry for them :-(

5. The "Learn nothing, forget nothing": They are mainly from the older generation who are totally confused. They try to hold on to the values they grew up with, and most of them were in there 40s at the time of the "internet revolution" and globalization. They'd not forget what they learnt back and are definitely not able to keep abreast with new things. They say "my daughter can't speak in Bengali" quite proudly but then get ad at the very same daughter for having a non-Indian boyfriend. Though, this is nothing to do with age as I've seen many people my age having the same mentality and I know many "old" people who are actually very modern (and happy).

To them all, here's my message. If you are really proud of your own culture/tradition, you don't have to be clanish to preserve it. You need to tell others about your culture and what's the best way to do that? Mixing with people. Once you start having friends from other cultures, you'll be sharing (and learning) new things. Back in my university days, on Diwali party all my non-Indian friends dressed up in Indian clothes - sarees, salwar suits, lehengas. Even the guys wore sherwanis! Just imagine how fun we girls had when we were all dressing up!!! We had "international potluck dinners" at our dorm (where we didn't invite guys cause they'd eat everything up). My aunt, who is a Kathak dancer and truly an artist has taught school kids here to dance to old Bengali songs. I was so amazed when I saw kids of all cultures dancing (and some even singing) to those songs that we all learnt while growing up. If you read the works of Rammohan, Rabindranath, Vivekanada, Vidyasagar or Netaji you'll see how much they appreciated foreigners. How much they mixed with them, found out the best from the other parts of the world. They were stalwarts of our culture, they were those very people who have created the "culture" we are all so proud of. Rabindranath had said "in the human world giving is sharing." You need to give in order to share. This is how you expand your horizon and include everyone in it. This is how you live in a global village.