Tied oneself in Knots

Even on the best days, yours truly is at best dressed: Note that I am not using the word "well" here because even the most charitable folks will never use that word: even if they are lying. You may be the most proficient lier (lawyer??) but even then, calling yours truly well dressed is simply not possible: it is akin to violating the laws of Thermodynamics.. simply not on! So why am I like this? Several reasons but chief among them being:

1. The reality that what ever I do, I will remain unattractive - at 5 feet nothing, a pot belly and a body with nothing home to write about.
2. Being intrinsically lazy: I have been a big fan of the word efficiency since my childhood, the thought that efficient things do less to achieve more is extremely attractive. In fact, I am a big fan of perpetual motion since that involves achieving something without doing anything! In perpetual motion, science is completely aligned with my basic philosophy of doing nothing!

Having set my position vis a vis dressing up, let me tell you how dressing up has hounded me for the first 14 years of my life: Well not quite the first 14, to be precise it was from age 4 until age 14, my school days. I used to go to a school with a British heritage and the staff there had a rather stiff upper lip outlook to life - well the stiff upper lip was usually well supplanted with corporal punishments of all sorts, but that is another story. So in my school, we were since kindergarten, expected to be well dressed, disciplined blah blah  and had to wear a tie and a coat each and every day! We were taught how to make the "double knot": and a well made double knot always resembled a samosa! So each morning of my school life, I used to make the double knot - of course incentivized by the thoughts of the Samosa! The result of this daily exercise is that I can now make the double knot even in my sleep!

The interesting bit about this story comes now: The other day at work, I was visiting the rest room where I saw a guy (a European no less!) having tied himself in knots (pun fully intended!) ... and yours truly could not resist lending a helping hand. And here I was, like an expert, making the double knot as this European bloke had to attend a meeting with some officious blokes and needed to look officious himself! So I tied the knot for him, he was left thinking how a badly dressed guy like me could make a reasonably good knot, and I left him with the thoughts of the Samosa!

The most important day of life....

So what is the most important day of life? A thought that occurred to me as I await the arrival of our child about 5000 miles away from where my wife is....is becoming the parent the most important day of my life? Emotionally thinking, I might be tempted to say yes - although my wife would certainly disagree and classify it plainly as the most painful day of her life!! If I am not emotionally speaking, then I really do not know... The day I was born was also an important day after all, as all other potential candidates days for being the most important days of my life certainly depended on this day to happen. On the other hand, given the kind of ass I have been in life, my parents may not think of that day as being terribly important - may be they think it was just terrible :). The day I scraped through my graduation was also quite important day at that point in time .... certainly the most important one since I managed to "pass" an exam which I had excelled in failing.....Was the day I married the most important? My wife will generally disagree, except of course when I forget the anniversary  - I have certainly learned it the hard way - hell hath no fury like a wife catching you missing the anniversary.......I am still trying to figure out the most important day as I welcome our young one to this world.....

And another one...

Colonel Fazackerley

Colonel Fazackerley Butterworth -Toast
Bought an old castle complete with a ghost,
But someone or other forgot to declare
To Colonel Fazack that the spectre was there.

On the very first evening, while waiting to dine,
The Colonel was taking a fine sherry wine,
When the ghost, with a furious flash and a flare,
Shot out of the chimney and shivered, 'Beware!'

Colonel Fazackerley put down his glass
And said, 'My dear fellow, that's really first class!
I just can't conceive how you do it at all.
I imagine you're going to a Fancy Dress Ball ?'

At this the dread ghost gave a withering cry.
Said the Colonel (his monocle firm in his eye),
'Now just how you do it I wish I could think.
Do sit down and tell me and please have a drink.'

The ghost in his phospherous cloak gave a roar
And floated about between ceiling and floor.
He walked through a wall and returned through a pane
And backed up the chimney and came down again.

Said the Colonel, 'With laughter I'm feeling quite weak!'
(As trickles of merriment ran down his cheek).
'My house - warming party I hope you won't spurn.
You must say you'll come and you'll give us a turn!'

At this, the poor spectre-quite out of his wits-
Proceeded to shake himself almost to bits.
He rattled his chains and he clattered his bones
And he filled the whole castle with mumbles and moans.

But Colonel Fazackerley, just as before,
Was simply delighted and called out, 'Encore!'
At which the ghost vanished, his efforts in vain,
And never was seen at the castle again.

'Oh dear, what a pity!' said Colonel Fazack.
'I don't know his name, so I can't call him back.'
And then with a smile that was hard to define,
Colonel Fazackerley went in to dine.

By: Charles Causley

Simon Snoot's Whiskers

Just found the poem I used to absolutely love in the school days thanks to another blogger...posting it in full...

T'was a long time ago,
Come next Friday,
That Simon Sebastian Snoot,
Set out one fine day,
to enlist in, The Hundred and Thirtieth Foot.

Now a handsome young soldier was Simon,
the pride of the ladies for miles.
With a pair of the duckiest whiskers
and one of those dentifrice smiles.

Now Simon was proud of his whiskers,
he would comb them while going to bed
and secretly rub them with onions,
to cause them to flourish and spread.
and the longer they grew and more glossy, a sort of a gingery shade,
the sergeants got jealous, a low lot of fellows,
and Simon was checked on parade.

"Say, whats all that stuff?
That seaweed which grows on your face?
It may be allright in the Navy,
but here it is quite out of place!
We have'nt got room for a soldier
who doesnt look tidy and neat,
so get back to barracks, my hearty,
and shave off those feathers, tout de suite!"

"My pardon", said Simon, saluting,
"but really I'm bound to refuse,
these whiskers of mine are expensive,
they cost me a lot in shampoos!"

They're the pride and delight of the army,
these wonderful fringes of mine,
and sooner than lose them, dear sergeant,
I think I'd prefer to resign!

So the sergeant he sent for the captain,
who stormed at the subborn recruit,
"Why, that's not a beard, it's an ambush,
come out of the undergrowth, Snoot!"

Now Simon was hard and resented,
the insult that was cast on his face,
"Your remarks, Sir, are uncalled for,
unkindly and quite out of place!"

So the captain he sent for the Colonel,
who stuttered and stammered and swore,
the colonel used language infernal,
and stomped to and fro on the floor.

"Come out of the bushes!" he bellowed,
with adjectives common and coarse,
"You Hairy Gorilla, arrest him!
and shave off that fungus by force!"

Now Simon went down on his marrows,
and cried with a pitiful moan,
"Oh, put me in clink for a fortnight,
but leave my whiskers alone!
For think how they'd help a poor soldier,
in keeping his chest nice and warm,
and when we're told to take cover,
they help me weather the storm!"

"The enemy may think I'm a gross bush,
or maybe a bundle of hay,
oh, take my Victoria Cross, Sir!
but leave my Whiskers I pray!"

But the Colonel was harder than iron,
and cried with a terrible shout,
"You'll have them shaved off,
or by God I'll have you and your whiskers drummed out!

So the next morning Simon paraded,
and out of the army was packed,
with no where to go and no money,
but still with his whiskers intact.

"I'll go the the workhouse, where board and lodging are free,
but stay, here's a travelling circus,
a bearded lady I'll be!

So he went to the circus proprietor,
and told him his tale with a sob,
and curious fate, too strange to relate,
the circus man gave him a job!

In a second hand shirt and a jumper,
and a couple of pink petticoats,
Simon crept into his tent which he shared with,
a pair of performing goats.

And when the moonlight shown down on his whiskers,
for which he made such a fight,
the goats thought they were a new kind of hay /
and chewed them all off at night!

Musings of an Apprentice Architect

I had the privilege of conducting a Software Apprenticeship program for close to 30 weeks or so, one hour per week. It was extremely fruitful personally though I am not too sure about the poor sorts who had to put up with me for one hour, every Friday morning.

The thing is, I also had my sadistic streak going and asked everyone to be present at 8.30 AM on otherwise beautiful Friday mornings. So, here was I, forcing folks to unreasonable things like coming to work at the official timings (which BTW, is 8.00 AM to 5.00 PM) - I am sure to burn in hell for such despicable acts.

So every Friday, the poor sorts had to learn things like Objected Oriented Programming, Clean Code, Design Patterns, Test Driven Development and so forth and I thought I was doing a fantastic job until the end when my boss showed Dan North's video on "Sharpening the tool". In this video, Dan North talks about the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition amongst other things, when I actually understood what he was talking about, I realized that I am still a Novice programmer as per the Dreyfus model :)

At least now I know that I really don't know what I don't know :) As they say, ignorance is bliss!

World's most popular Jugaad

An a-ha moment - a moment of serendipity for me: The world's most popular jugaad must have come from Microsoft: that of rebooting the machine when things don't work ... any thoughts?

India Made Software

I keep reading the term "Swiss Made Software" and according to its website, "swiss made software" is the new label of the Swiss software industry. International software companies like Google, IBM or Microsoft have discovered the Swiss values - quality, reliability and precision - in software development and have established important research and development centers in Switzerland" So what would a similar label for India's "famed" IT industry offer?

Here are my two cents:

1. The brand and its website will be called madeinindiasoftware.org
2. It will be based on truly Indian values of

• Adjustment,
• Indian stretchable time and
• The ubiquitous jugaad.

Based on the above values, I speculate the following scenarios:

1. All error messages from the applications would be standardized to "Kindly adjust, we are like that only"
2. For calculation intensive work, you might have a screen showing the friendly message "Calculations are happening, please ask your children to check in between as your grandchildren will probably see the results"
3. All software will come with message: In case of a crash, contact your neighbor for his version of software.

I am sure there will be more such interesting things - will write as I see them :)