Palaver with Kapil Dev

That was a routine sunday afternoon...I woke up late...at around 12.30 to find myself alone at house...I was feeling low for no reason. I called up India to chat with some friends, but my mood was still not in place...I got a phone call from my flatmates asking me to join them. They were in central london seeing some Museums...I told them that I would join..but from inside I was not feeling like...After taking a long soothing bath I went down in the living room. Just to kill my time, I swiched ON the TV...it was French Open Men's Final Live!!! I had almost forgotten about it...I watched Nadal winning 3rd consecative time...He really tamed Federer on that day..After getting some enthusiasm after watching the match, I decided to move out to central London to roam around alone..I got down at my favourate place 'Piccadilly Circus' and sat on the bench near the fountain..On the hot and humid day, the sprinckles of cold water from the fountain were felt like a devine thing. I managed to catch my flatemates in the late evening and then we went for a dinner. It was an Italian restaurant, and we orderd a combo 3 course dinner. As we were getting along with the main course, Aditya almost shouted.."Come on...He is Kapil Dev" he could not believe his senses..and neither could I when I really saw Kapil Dev walking in the same restaurant...

For a die heart cricket fan like me, this moment was no less than being on cloud 9..We had some doubts whehter to go ahead and talk to him or wait for him to settle down etc...Finally the whole bunch (4 of us) got up and went to him...He responsed with a welcome gesture..We shook hand with him..He enquired about us..We had a chat for 3-4 minutes..At last, we asked for a photograph..and he said " Itni kya jaldi hai...u finish ur food and then we will have a nice photograph" It was so kind of him...We returned back to our table and finished our remaining course..but the mind was still not at its place...we were lost in the era of the great player...He won the World cup for India in 1983 in the same city of London...
After finishing our dinner, we went to him and asked him if we shud wait till he finishes his dinner...but he promptly replied that he wud continue his dinner after our photo session..We asked a waitress to click some of our group snaps...
We left the restaurant with the photograph and more importantly, the memory of this great incident stored permanently in our mind. I was no longer feeling low...This is how some events change you mood..

Action and its Purpose

There must be a purpose behind any action. Its the law of causality. Every action has some cause behind it...or in other words, it has some purpose..For many of our actions, this very purpose is not aligned with our ultimate goal. This is when we lose our effectiveness.
Take your day to day work...If the plan is crystal clear , one tends to be more efficient in his work..This is because he/she always performs any action whose purpose is aligned with the ultimate goal.
Think of the time when you do not work efficently..you will realise that at all those times, the ultimate goal is unclear..and hence you face a question- why am I doing this?
In longer projects, when the final deliverable is to be submitted in 4-5 years, the planning part is most crucial...In a plan, only actions which are contributing to the larger goal shoud be included.
Many times, even after planning well, the implementation becomes difficult. To implement the plan continuosly for this long , one needs to be intellegent and mature enough to be able to see the bigger picture.
This problem is faced by many students doing PhD..First 1-1.5 years of PhD are meant for learning the 'state-of-art' in your research area (popularly called 'Lit. Review')..and no one is expected to come up with some extra-ordinary results during this time...If you invest this time well, the remaining years of your PhD will be smooth walk for you..But with every passing second in this intial period, student becomes more impatient as there is no tangible output.
The thing needs to be well understood here that you are building the foundation for ur PhD in early stages...and as the foundation is below the ground, it is not visible...but it is most important for the stable structure that you are going to bulid afterwords.
With some impatient students it happens that they start with a narrow vision in their area and finally land up in a null solution...This is the most difficult situation to handle, when there is no way to go..

My First Blog

After thinking for a long time, i decided to write a blog...I somehow do not like to publicize my views..so i used to write them in my personal diary..But with every new year, and a new diary my writings used to get vanished in the time ..So finally i decided to have an online blog.