Research versus Money

This is a topic that recently got me worked up a lot. I met a principal of a school catering to children up to 3rd grade in a train journey. She casually asked me what I was doing and I told her proudly that I was doing research. For which she replied "ohh thats very common". Her data was that one in every hundred people was doing research. I was trying to explain to her that that was not true. Another point she made was that people do research so that they could earn lots of money. I was really hurt by this because I am doing research inspite of the need for money and being paid like 18k per month where my relatives and friends in other fields are earning 1-2L per month. I was wondering if she confused research with engineering. I'll never know because she didn't let me speak and my respect for elders made me shut up and not try correcting her after a bit.

I don't want to be judgemental and I will accept the statistics even if I am wrong. So lets do some calculations shall we. Firstly the population of India as of March 2015 (ref1) is 1.28 billion. The total number of research institutes in India is around 400 (ref2). So let us say each institute has around 100 students on an average which gives us 1 research student per 32,000 people. Thats two order of magnitude different from the quote the principal gave me. Moreover I analyzed the students from my own institute which comprise of students from physics, mathematics, computer science and computational biology. Most of the students are from middle class families with earning parents. So all they have to do is support themselves. A few support their family (including parents and wife and children) from the stipend they get which is as I said 18k per month. I remember a researcher from physics who had a family of five (wife + 3 kids). One can imagine the amount of money raising three kids would require. Schooling nowadays has become so so expensive. Many of the computer science students left high paid jobs in companies like Intel and have come to join research. The point they made was that one doesn't get the freedom to work on what they want at such companies. So the answers that I got from students doing research as to why they were doing research were freedom and no fixed working hour schedule. None gave me an answer "Money". This is the scenario with many theoretical institutes, similar to mine, I guess because the pay scale is the same. Moreover if we look at the jobs that most of my seniors have taken after doing research is to be a Faculty at some Research Institute and continue doing research (a few left research for reasons I don't know). So even the future of these types of research is nothing. It definitely won't make anyone rich monetarily. (Rich in knowledge ohh definitely for sure.)

As I said earlier I want to give the principal the benefit of doubt. So the only research that I can think of which leads to high paid jobs are topics like chemistry (pharmaceutical companies pay a lot for their research staff) or current biological research which leads to cure for epidemics and such.

My thoughts: 1) Not all fields of research are the same and 2) listen to the arguments before you pass judgement on anything.

Acts of Kindness

Today I saw two acts of kindness which affected me in a way that I had to blog about it.

The first one happened in a Pharmacy. An old lady had arrived there before me and was ordering some medicines. One of the medicines an ointment, Bengay, was not available at the shop and the shopkeeper told her to get it from some shops which sold medicines from abroad. The ointment was apparently one that the old lady's daughter gave it to her during her visit from US to India. She was trying to ask him to get it for her and failed miserably and finally asked the shopkeeper to cater to me first. Later she would probably pester him further, my assumption. I asked him the medicines I needed and he packed and billed them. While I was paying two shop helpers arrived and one of them lets call him X knew the old lady. (Obviously X is going to be important else I wouldn't have bothered naming him duh ...). So X asked the old lady about her health and stuff and they had a nice conversation. Finally she asked X if he could get hold of the medicine for her. She said "vangikudu kanna" which is such a sweet way of asking. I felt as though my grandma had asked me for something. X immediately agreed and noted down the name of the medicine. I don't know what happened after that as I left the shop but X did a good deed today and if he delivered the medicines to the old lady as he promised he would have a nice life.

After this as I walked back, I saw an old couple carrying giant cylindrical cases. Seriously the length of the cases were more than the height of the couple. The cases were probably folded yoga mats. I noticed them because on the t-shirt of the old man there was a quote saying "Ancient Wisdom Scientific Practice". Cool quote yes... They were walking on the downtrodden road full of pits and heaps of mud. It is difficult to walk let alone walk with giant cases. Suddenly their daughter came in a scooter from nowhere and picked up the cases from them and drove their burden away/home. They now walked freely on the stupid road. So nice of the daughter to stop and help them. I know its such a simple thing but nowadays who does even these simple things.

These two episodes really made me feel that all is not lost with humanity. People somewhere are kind. Amidst the politics, the jealously, the anger, the pointless hate there are people who are kind and helpful and good in the heart. I quote one of the youtubers I follow @joshuadtv : "Be nice to people"

Preknowledge - would you consider it bad?

Not so Chirpy today! A dull day actually! Don't feel like working so much. So I'm blogging? Yeah coz that would make life better! (being sarcastic guys). Anyway all that sarcasm isn't going to stop me from blogging. So an incident happened today. Duh that's y you are blogging. No brainer that is. You don't have a description that says you blog when an incident happens!

Okay Okay. Stop having conversations with yourself and move on gurl!

So here's what happened. One of my friends who has gone outstation needed an important piece of document which he forgot in his flat. Thankfully he had given his keys to me before leaving. He asked my other friend Neal, lets call him Neal to courier the document to him. No I don't actually have a friend named Neal but I think it would be awesome if I did. Look at me talking about all the stupid background story instead of just getting to the point. Now wait is this because of my inherent problem or do I just want to make my blog bigger as probably the story is so short. I will let you decide.

I must clarify my friend didn't ask me (which would be a simpler situation to handle) to get the document as its a guys apartment and you know how messy they are! Hopefully my friends are not reading this blog! Okay so Neal comes to me to pick up the keys. I initially give him the wrong keys and immediately realize my mistake.The flat key was huge and I instantly noticed the size of the key I gave Neal and then gave him the right key. So Neal comes back four hours later and tells me that I gave him the wrong key. I say to Neal, no Neal I distinctly remember the key and hence have given you the right key. Wow, I'm using the word Neal way too many times. No I do not have a crush on this friend or on anyone named Neal! Though would I have a crush on Neal if I knew a Neal.Probably I don't know. I should meet a Neal sometime. Mental note put "Meet a Neal" on your vision board.

So my theory is Neal didn't try to open the lock carefully. Neal remembered the key switching situation and thinks that I gave him the wrong key and has not diligently tried to open the door. So his mind just told him to stop trying and he came back! Well this is my theory! Now he has to go back and try again. So do you think my theory is correct? Did the key switching thing prejudice his attempts? If such a thing happened then its bad. You might miss on some great things if you are prejudiced! As they say never judge a book by its cover! 

Girls dont be cheap!

Something happened today and I thought I most definitely have to blog this! You need to know this to understand the story better! There is a girl in our institute who has too much attitude (Not that she is the only one with the attitude problem.) She is a super super junior of mine don't even ask how much junior. Let me give you a glimpse of her rudeness. One day I was walking back from lunch and she slammed the door at me. She knew I was going to pass through the door and yet she did that to my face. So I just try to ignore her presence around me from then on. 

My story begins today in the morning when I was sort of bored from looking at my code constantly.

So I was looking outside my window onto the new office complex. I was actually looking into empty space thinking about you know life universe and everything! An hour or so later I recollected an incident that happened when I was looking into space. My brain did a really weird thing and recorded an incident without my knowledge. 

This girl I just talked about and another junior were walking in the corridor of the new office bldg. I'm guessing that the guy had an office there. He asked the girl to wait outside and went into an office (presumably his own) and closed the door after him. I have faced such a situation before with my friends and most of the times the reason would be some of my friends office-mate would be sleeping in the office and everyone would be uncomfortable if a girl entered into the office at such a time. You know how it is with guys and waking up time. So I usually just stand outside the office and play with my mobile. In the back of my mind which was recording this incident without my knowledge I was thinking this girl would do the same. But no! She was playing with the handle of the door. She was swinging for sometime and then after making sure that there was no one around to notice her she slowly opened the door and peeped in. How cheap can you be girl! The guy has asked you not to come in. He has closed the door. Why are you so curious? Don't you have any shame! What if you were in your night dress and some guy peeped into your room? Would you like that? 

After sometime another green shirt guy comes out of the office and just hangs around in the corridor. This girls friend then comes out and the green shirt guy pulls the girls friend guy away and from her and whispers something to him. It looks like a heated conversation. I'm guessing he saw her peep in and he did not like that. Then the girls and her friend walk away! The green shirt guy walks back into the office. 

This whole episode was stored in my brain! What an episode I must say! After this episode I have a strong dislike for her and girls like her. Have some dignity gurlz. Don't be cheap that's all I have to say!

Movie sins - Maatraan

Good Morning everyone! Hmmm I seem more chirpy than usual. Well I am sure something is going to happen to make my day bad but till then we follow Inertia.

Yesterday night I saw a Surya (very famous Tamil actor) movie in Hindi. You know nowadays most Hindi movie channels telecast these dubbed movies. Apparently they don't have enough money to buy original Hindi content! So if you wanna see some latest regional movies high chances the Hindi movie channels will telecast them much earlier than the regional channels.

So the movie called Maatraan is a story about the lives of conjoined twins. They are born to a very loving family where the genetics scientist father kills ANYONE who finds out the secret of his past present and future. And that my friends is the short version of the story. I have a few points I'd like to make about the movie.

For starters it is surprising to see that the world accepted them as they were. Wow the world is really changing fast! Really!!!

A journalist swallows a highly controversial pen drive and people are trying to retrieve the pen drive from her stomach! Just a thought wont the pen drive chip get damaged and I'm guessing it cant be used ever again! Also if the information was so important why did she swallow it?

After this scene I came to know the importance of being in the right place at the right time (BIRPART). I'm guessing the movie wouldn't exist if this were not so.

BIRPART 1) Kajal Aggarwal gets a phone call which she picks up near some people who are discussing about retrieving the pen drive from the body. So she somehow convinces the guy to give her the pen drive instead of the croonies (not shown but that's what I assumed happened) and she had that much money in bulk  on her (as though she went to the bank in the evening and got that much money or she is so rich that she carries bundles in her bag all day!) to bribe him. The croonies are late! What the heck the croonies don't even wait nearby so that someone else doesn't swoop in and take their product away! Please don't tell me the world is like that because of course the world definitely is not like that!

Now spoiler alert one of the twins dies and his heart is transplanted to the other twin!

Somehow all the people reconcile the brothers death really fast!

BIRPART 2) Now somedays later Kajal Aggarwal comes to their house and notices an ipad which is open. And whats running on it when she clicks it? The video where the twins discuss about their love for Kajal Aggarwal.

People from the food control department come to raid the company owned by Suryas father. They looked through all the papers and just made a mess of them but missed one IMPORTANT DOCUMENT which would give all the information away. Now they left the stuff as it is.

Surya who picks up after them get the most important pen drive and gets a watch which immediately reminded him of the scene where a robber stole the watch from his brother which he ACTUALLY didn't  notice at all else he would have helped his brother to push the robber away!

BIRPART 3) For some reason they arrive at the conclusion that Surya needs to go to Russia. Kajal Aggarwal very conveniently has an Indian friend in the Russian embassy.

Kajal's friend, the Indian ambassador fellow in the Russian embassy has access to all of Russia's secrets which are so incriminating to them that they actually staged a murder wait not one not two but murder of a bunch of 36 that's right 36 athletes just to save face!

BIRPART 4) Now in Russia Surya is bring followed by his fathers crooks and two conjoined twins walk at the right place and right time in front of Surya making him notice the car of crooks following them.

People in car take pictures of Surya openly even when he was right in front of them.

Somehow Surya and Kajal get caught by the embassy and the Head is so gullible that Surya easily takes the gun from him and threatens him. Come on please be Realistic. After this episode they still keep Surya and Kajal around so that they can cause more damage to the country.

The Head knows that the Kajal is translating all that he says and inspite of that he discusses secrets with his countries' top scientist in front of them. Please don't be stupid!

Then there is the typical Villans fight where they are more powerful than Russian government. And of course Surya saves the day!

Ohhh I forgot one important plot point! The Russian scientist comments that researchers in India have less equipment to detect various poisons. So PAY RESEARCHERS MORE MONEY RIGHT NOW #hikefellowship

The Walk

After the gazillion health problems that I have recently developed and after a lot of pestering from my MOM, I started walking. Every evening I go for a walk near my institute. The first two days I just took a walk on our road. Then I became a little bold and decided I would go for a long walk.

For people who are familiar with my institute and the surroundings, I walked from my institute upto hospital crossed the overhead bridge and walked back and crossed the foot over bridge near station and back. This was last Sunday 10th Jan 2015. I had a lot of fun walking. I was thinking about the problem that I am working on and made a huge progress in understanding what was happening in the code. The road was deserted as it was a Sunday but peaceful and it went well.

So I decided the next day which was a Monday to walk the same route again. I thought on a weekday there should be no problem. The lanes would not be deserted but that's okay I will not concentrate on them and I would still have my personal space. Gosh the moment I thought this thing some advanced  being responsible for our creation must have laughed mischievously and said "That's What She Thinks".

So I start walking happy and concentrating more on the code. I reached the corner of the foot over bridge and noticed a father and son wearing dhoti and asking an auto wala something. I assumed it was directions to a place or something. I crossed them and moved ahead. It seemed as though they were not happy with what they heard from the auto wala. Then they started walking in the direction I was going. Then I noticed a few construction people going back home also in the same direction as I was going. There is a bus stop near the station and the construction people went to the bus stop. There were not many people on the road as I would have expected. Then after I crossed the lane near the bus stop, there was this rag picker who was walking by scrapping his slippers on the floor. I could distinctly hear this sound. He tried crossing me a few times. Looked at me to get my attention and so on and so forth. He was on alert when he saw some policemen on the road but after we crossed the policemen he was again crossing my path and looking at me and stuff. I was annoyed and irritated to hell by now. I noticed he was following me. There was no one else nearby. And somehow I didn't get the thought of going back then and there. So I went into the hospital just so that the rag picker would go away and then I could continue my path peacefully. The rag picker didn't enter the hospital and I thought great! I just took a small circle into it and came out and continued my walk. That's when I noticed the rag picker a little distance away hovering around as though waiting for me. He didn't see me though or that's what I assumed. So I told myself chuck it lets just go back from here today. A shorter walk but so what. One day I walk less that doesn't matter.

So I started retracing my steps. I noticed that outside the hospital sitting on the bench were the father and son in dhoti. I thought "ohh the boy must have been tired walking and his father must have asked him to take a seat there". There are no other seats on the road I was walking. Little did I know someone above was just unhappy with me and wanted to take revenge. The dhoti father and son started following me. I was like what the heck people don't you have any shame. The son is with you. Don't you people have any inclination that the younger generation follows you and so you should set  good morals. You are probably spoiling your sons life. All this going on in my head! I was thinking what kind of a sick pervert this guy is. I started walking fast and by now I was just interested in reaching my institute as soon as possible. Ohh by the way these people also made distinct sounds which would let me know they were there behind me without me looking back. The son would keep mumbling something. I thought it was a chant or something. They followed me on till station bridge and then there were quite a lot of people on my road and I didn't hear the constant chant and I almost ran into my institute after which I looked back to see if they were there anywhere nearby and they weren't and that ended my walk that day. Instead of feeling happy, that day I was irritated. I didn't get time to think. There was no peace! I cursed all the men in the world and was worried about how children in this world were going to survive.

Ohh and then I changed the direction of The Walk from the next day onwards!