Karthik Kastury

"The world is changed by examples, not by opinions."

Mon, 21 May 2012 17:11:13 +0530

“The world is changed by examples, not by opinions.”

- Paulo Coelho (via kari-shma)

kari-shma: by: Christopher Wilson

Mon, 21 May 2012 17:10:46 +0530

kari-shma:

by: Christopher Wilson

"May you do the things you want to and always remember what it felt like when you were doing them."

Sat, 19 May 2012 19:41:34 +0530

“May you do the things you want to and always remember what it felt like when you were doing them.”

- I Wrote This For You: The House We Keep Moments In (via kari-shma)

Marriage : To Augment or Compliment?

Sat, 19 May 2012 19:35:00 +0530

It’s the marriage season again! A good number of people from my batch are slowly starting to get married (just the girls for now!). Four years of college, and two years of corporate life, I’ve seen a good number of relations fail, and a good number of them that are still going strong. I myself have been thru more than one failed relations over the past few years. The reason I’m writing this post, to state my stance on this very issue that’s delicate for many.

Whether or not a relation will survive, I think is best explained by the answer to the question that the title of this blog post raises. Confused? Let me try and explain with a simple analogy. When you stay over at many hotels breakfast is provided as a complimentary service. Does that make you happy? It doesn’t make much of a difference to me, but keeps my wallet happy. But many a time I’ve been pleasantly surprised when the restaurant provides out of the way to give me an awesome experience, sort of like giving me the dessert for free after a meal.

The reason I make this analogy is quite simple, are you something of a complimentary element in your partners life, or someone who augments his/her life? If you augment your partners life, there is a good chance the two of you will make it, if not the chances are much lesser. There is a small difference in the two words, and if you understand that, you are on your way.

The one other aspect that I’ve seen in most college romances is, that things simply stop working once you are no longer in the same place together. In other words Long Distance = Failure for many! I’ve seen the strongest of relationships go down this way. Why does this happen? In my dictionary there are two simple reasons, Lack of Trust and Male Chauvinism. I think Lack of Trust is easily explained, but Male Chauvinism I’m sure will be quite a surprise to those of you reading this post.

The male gender in most of the failed relations I’ve seen stops trusting the other person in the relation. If the girl hangs out with a new bunch of guys, the guy almost invariably stops trusting the girl. This happens surprisingly often than you’d realize. Over the years, this is one behavioral trait in men that hasn’t changed. We’ve always seen the female gender a level below, and that needs to change.

In this day and age, Love Marriages are slowly getting quite common, but arranged marriages is still common. One thing that I’ve repeatedly heard is men who are earning quite well enough, ask their partner to give up on their jobs, and take care of the house and the family. This surprises me frankly! I’m sure in most cases your partner is just as well educated, and has a good job. In your argument, you are making her give up everything she’s done in the past 20+ years. In India this problem still remains. And 60+ years of independence and rapid strides in Education hasn’t changed that.

The Male Chauvinism is probably a bigger problem in Marriages today in India, than any other reason in failed marriages. Men you need to realize that that the Women in your life isn’t a compliment, but she’s there to augment your life, and you need to reciprocate.

It’s high time our society evolved to consider everyone as equals. If you are reading this, and when you tie the knot, remember to ask yourself this question. Are you augmenting your partners life, or complimenting it?

Here’s to hoping that you are not the free breakfast, but the awesome dessert to top up your partners life everyday :)

God bless! Debates/Comments most welcome ;)

P.S This post is inspired completely by what I’ve seen and experienced over the past few months, you don’t need to put in the efforts to read between the lines :P

Earth Week?

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:05:56 +0530

So apparently this week is Earth Week. No I did not read about it on HackerNews which I frequent, nor on the 100’s of blogs that I read every week. Instead I heard about it at Work, in the Official Communication that’s been going around. What gives? It is almost as if Earth Week is just for Companies and Corporates to run a few green initiatives to spread awareness!

Now there is a chance that I’d have missed reading on this in the mainstream Technology Media I follow, but still I’ve heard absolutely no one talk about this. I find that quite depressing.

So I get this feeling that I should write something on this. One reason being that there’s a blog entry competition running at work; the other being the fact that I haven’t updated this blog for a while now! So I get up this morning and start looking for some inspiration.

And I find the picture above which is now the Wallpaper of my Computer. It’s one of the most gorgeous pictures I’ve seen in the recent past, and it for some reason reminds of Manipal End Point. Ofcourse the trees have all been chopped now, open land replaced with District Collectors Office and Football Grounds. It reminds of living a life which was calm and peaceful, where you could to get to anywhere in the city in 15mins or less, heck even catch a movie at Big Cinemas (Adlabs for the Mangalore Junkies) 65KM away from Manipal by getting on a insanely super fast bus and getting there in a little more than an hour!

(view from Manipal Endpoint)

And then there is Chennai(Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad are no better). There’s an insane amount of traffic, every place is overcrowded, and noise is everywhere, as is the polluted air you breathe. Indian Cities today are fast losing touch with reality, and by this I mean that the people living there hardly care about the nature and the surroundings they live in.

To me initiatives like Go Green have always been a pipe dream. Go Green involves planting of trees, reduce energy consumption and bunch of other things that I don’t understand very well. What really matters is that these initiatives are being driven by some good people, but the impact so far has been minimal. What is the use of all this when trees are being chopped everyday? When complete species disappear overnight? When people in some parts of the world do not have access to safe drinking water?

The problem is much bigger than it seems! In my eyes, the earth as it is today is losing its balance. Centuries back everything seemed to exist in harmony. Today that simply is no longer is the case. There’s an excess of a lot of things, and a deficit of an equal lot of things. The delicate harmony that used to exist on this blue green planet, no longer exists.

Planting trees, using energy efficient devices will ofcourse improve things, but only by a little. What really needs to change is our lifestyle. What really needs to change is that we indulge less. What really needs to change is the way we see other fellow human beings. And most importantly what really needs to change is the way we see the nature around us.

The earth to some is this giant dustbin, and to many others it’s the shelter. It’s just that in today’s world the balance is fast shifting away from the latter.

Let’s stop observing an Earth Week, it serves no purpose apart from the fact that everyone is up in their arms this week, and come weekend, it’s the same thing as it was the last week.

If the world does perish in 2012, it’s not the Mayan’s who need to be blamed. It is us humans for messing around with the delicate balance that this world lives in.

So fellow human beings, start caring and start living.

Back to the Wilderness

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:31:06 +0530

Every once in a while you need a trip back to where your life first took off. For me in many ways Manipal/Mangalore/Nitte have been that place. First there was the three years at Little Rock, and the four years at Nitte. The seven years at Manipal, have been the single biggest change agent, to make me what I am today.

It’s been almost two years since I’ve graduated, but the connection with #Nitte remains. I was invited (yet again!) to be the host for this years Dumb Charades. I gladly took it up, and also took up on me to address the current final years on what working has been like, and share some of the things I’ve picked up over the past year and a half.

The run up to the trip back to Nitte, was horribly busy, and I didn’t really have much time to think through what I was gonna be doing once I got to #Nitte. Dumb Charades was easy (advantage of doing it for the 6th time!), but the presentation to the final years was always going to be tough. I decided to settle on the language and tone that I first used in the #ExtraMile presentation. I decided to work on the presentation once I was on the train to Bangalore. But my last minute plans had to fail yet again, although in a good way this time.

In what was possibly the ultimate Coincidence, met Varsha M.K on the train, and we were seated opposite to each other. So we started chatting, about a bunch of things, and later a co-passenger Suhas joined us as well. The three of us talked about everything under the sun all the way until Bangalore. The timely food onboard Shatabdi sure did help as well. Reached Bangalore, and I still hadn’t done much of the #Next40 Presentation. Met Karthik at the station, before walking of to the Bus Stand. The Bus Journey to Mangalore unfortunately wasn’t as comfortable as the one to Bangalore.

Reached Mangalore at about 6 in the morning, missed the bus to Karkala, waited for half hour near Pabbas in the chilly wind. Finally got the ‘Padubidri-Nitte-Karkala’ bus, and I was at #Nitte at 7.30 in the morning! The journey from Mangalore to Nitte was filled with a whole lot of nostalgic memories. Checked in the guest house, got ready, and rushed to the College. Dumb Charades was set to start at 10, but I was there at about 9 to catch up with my volunteers, and get a feel of the crowd.

The Dumb Charades this time witnessed six completely new teams to the format. I wish I’d tweaked some of the things in between the rounds, to make it more interesting, but then I didn’t do that! DC was good, but below what I’d set myself up for. But then considering these teams for first timers, they actually did better than the first time I did DC, way back in 2nd Year.

After Dumb Charades was over, left back to Mangalore with Pramod. Met Mario and Sandesh at CCD Balmatta, then went off to Mario’s place to stay the night. The night was spent discussing Controversial Status Updates, Life after Nitte and so much more. Next morning, I worked my way thru half of the #Next40 slides. It was a lazy sunday at its best. Watched TV for sometime, and lazed around much of the afternoon. In the evening met Rajat(first time after college got over! So long! I know.), Krithika and Prabhav at CCD again. I was suppose to leave Mangalore back to Nitte, but by the time I left it was well past 8. Just in time for the last bus.

The Journey back to Nitte, was spent talking to Thangamma over the phone. It was nice talking to her after so long. I sometimes wish I was good at keeping in touch with people. I definitely need to work on that going forward. By the time I was in the Guest House, it was almost 10. I was way too tired to sit up and finish the #Next40 presentation. And so I crashed. Slept like a log, and woke up the next morning at about 8. Quickly packed all my stuff, got ready and rushed thru the last few slides of #Next40. Deep inside, I knew what I wanted to talk, but I never ended up structuring the slides well. Hearing the recording now, I missed out on a few cues, and never reiterated my points later. Never mind though.

There I was back again on a Monday morning, in College. Talked to Devidas sir and Vinay Sir. Met Shalini Mam, Principal in the Corridors. Talked to a few juniors, and the clock was already at 11. Talked to Narendra before the presentation, and was nice to see Divya make it to College just in time for the presentation as well. And so began what I’d wanted to do for almost six months. “The Next 40 Years of your life” had a packed Sambhram. I talked for a bit, and then we did Q&A. The whole idea of splitting the whole talk into two definitely worked. There were some really good questions that came my way. And some funny things were said in the process too. If you have the time I’d definitely encourage you to have a look at the slides, and listen to the recordings.

Wrapped up at 1.00, rushed to the Placement Cell Guest House, ate a super fast lunch. Chatted a bit with Shalini Mam before finally leaving Nitte at 1.30. Made it to the airport at about 2.45 for a flight which was supposed to leave at 3.30. After some confusion, and being the last person to checkin, I’m finally breathing at 3.15, just in time to board the flight. An hour and a half later I’m back in Chennai.

Phew! I pretty much typed this without much of a thought. So there I was. Sitting in the bus, on the way back home, gave me a little back of time to piece my thoughts together. Put everything that happened over the weekend together.

That pretty much completes what I’d to say. Until the next time to go back to the wilderness that is Nitte.

Everyone I didn’t meet this time at #Nitte, or in Manipal/Mangalore. I’ll see you in April :)

"Don’t fear failure so much you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of life contains three..."

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:31:46 +0530

“Don’t fear failure so much you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.”

- Louis E. Boone (via bittersweetoctober)

"We make choices everyday, some of them good, some of them bad. And - if we are strong enough - we..."

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:30:03 +0530

“We make choices everyday, some of them good, some of them bad. And - if we are strong enough - we live with the consequences.”

- David Gemmell (via kari-shma)

"Adventure without risk is Disneyland."

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:46:29 +0530

“Adventure without risk is Disneyland.”

- Douglas Coupland (via itbeginsatmidnight)

The Changing Face of Education

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:38:00 +0530

It’s been almost two years since I’ve been out of college (experiences), and more than two years since I’ve actually sat in classes listening to lectures. What gives? No I wasn’t the spoilt college kid, who roamed around corridors, sat in the cafeteria watching people pass by! If anything my college life was a brilliant experience of learning something new everyday, and that has become a habit that continues to this date.

It is just that as a part of the ~~early adopter~~ culture, I skipped a few of the traditional ways of doing things back in college.

Education has for a very long time, been always about teacher/student relationship. In 2010 when I was in my final year, many places across India the way the knowledge was imparted to Students remained fairly the same as it was in the 1980’s. Yes! The invention of computers has impacted the world of technology. So much, that in 30 years the face of technology has changed to the extent that today no longer resembles what it was in the early 80’s.

But how much of this rapidly changing technology has transformed the way Teachers teach Students? Not much I’d say. Or rather not much, not yet! And the reason is simply because till date there were no tools by which students could experience complete interactivity while learning. All of that is about to change in the next 10 years. When we look back in 2020, our kids are gonna come back to us and say “You went to a school, sat in a class to learn things?”. Classroom teaching as we know may no longer exist by the time we get there.

Apple with the iPad, and iBooks is fulfilling that vision. But it is going to take more than Apple, to change the face of education as it exists today. People today fail to realize that Technology has the potential to change the face of education. Today in India internet is slowly starting to be an ubiquitous commodity. India in the past has always been a generation behind our western friends. I think this time we have a major opportunity to jump ahead, and unleash in a new era of education.

Projects like the Aakash tablet is not the answer. It really is the baby steps for us to get there. Indian Government should not be looking at low cost solutions, but should rather be looking at highly functional solutions. The way the markets work, falling price is just a question of when, and not if.

Growing up as a kid, my parents always aspired to have me study at the IITs. I never fulfilled that dream for them. And there are scores of Indians who every year fail to realize this dream. But should high quality education be restricted to the elite few of the IITs and MITs of the World? I don’t think so. Education should never be the comfort of a elite few.

The world has a limited number of inspiring and brilliant teachers. For Humanity to progress, every aspiring student should be able to connect to these teachers. I think Technology will bridge that gap in the coming years. Today Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseware are sowing the seeds for what will be a brighter future for tomorrow’s generation.

The Day is not very far off, when quality education and information is not very far off from the reach of every individual on this planet. Technology will fast blur the lines, between who can and who can’t access knowledge.

If you are in your twenties today, your kids will grow up to an entirely new system of education. As parents you need to step up to the new rules of the game!

P.S : Thanks to Divya for inspiring me to write something!

"Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the..."

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:09:36 +0530

“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.”

- Eddie Cantor (via kari-shma)

"Happiness is essentially a state of going somewhere, wholeheartedly, one-directionally, without..."

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:44:47 +0530

“Happiness is essentially a state of going somewhere, wholeheartedly, one-directionally, without regret or reservation.”

- William H. Sheldon (via kari-shma)

"Change is never easy. You fight to hold on. You fight to let go."

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:44:36 +0530

“Change is never easy. You fight to hold on. You fight to let go.”

- Daniel Stern, The Wonder Years (via kari-shma)

"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:21:33 +0530

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (via myquotelibrary)

kari-shma: Good Night, Travel Well. (by Pedro Silvares)

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 06:18:20 +0530

kari-shma:

Good Night, Travel Well. (by Pedro Silvares)

"In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where two people can..."

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 06:18:06 +0530

“In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where two people can finish each other’s sentences. Forget drama and torrid sex and the clash of opposites. Give me banter any day of the week.”

- Douglas Coupland (via kari-shma)

"Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more..."

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 06:15:21 +0530

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”

- Ray Bradbury (via kari-shma)

An Year Gone by at Chennai

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:29:00 +0530

The Beginning of Last November, saw me pack my bags, and head out to the land of anna’s and kutti’s. Chennai. It was hard bidding goodbye to Manipal, and it remains the one place I always want to go back to. Who knew that fate would bring me back to the place, where I grew from a kid to an young adult. Life has its own many ways of saying things you’d never hear otherwise. The 3rd of November last year, me, Kenneth, Raison and Rathan, set out for what was our first day at TCS. What we didn’t know, fast forward a year, we wouldn’t be sharing the same roof, nor be working at TCS.

The first few months at Anna Nagar, were a blur. Times at Anna Nagar S2, Birthdays, Walking in the rain and flooded roads, eating out every night, roaming around on 2nd Avenue almost every other day, friday night eatouts with an extended Nitte gang, making some new awesome friends during the ILP Days. Looking back I still can’t believe we stayed at a place, that was so tiny as Anna Nagar was. It was fun, great fun at that. And I miss it more so, because post college those were the only moments like college. And that’s the kicker.

Coming to Chennai One, post our times at Anna Nagar/Ambattur, was hard. It was finally time to start working, time to be billable(industry lingo!). After a little bit of deliberation I decided to move in with these guys to Kottivakkam(PJP, F14 hereafter) and not in with my family which is also in Chennai, albeit pretty far off from the Offices. The reason was simple. I knew that it was a simple thing to do, because nobody knows where our careers are going to take us. F14 was comfortable, spacious. It was the perfect place to be, post an horrible day at Office. Which helped ofcourse, because times at Chennai One had many of those. Moving to F14 also meant, that everyone had to go to different offices, leave at different times. That was pretty sad. We hardly got to spend more time together. At S2, we quite literally lived under the same roof, at F14 it wasn’t the same anymore. And to add to that was the fact that I’d go home almost every weekend. I absolutely enjoyed the weekends, relaxing and taking time off, because the Office was exhausting, and killing. And you can’t complain when you have mom cooked dinners and lunches, and a decent internet connection right?

After what felt like an eternity on Bench, I finally got a project, but it ended up being the one thing that I knew was definitely not what I wanted to do. If I remember correctly, almost immediately after my project, I started to look out for greener pastures. Office went from boring, to politicized and unprofessional later. Work wasn’t interesting, but it was hectic, and the tight schedules had me hanging on.

Fast forward to August 2011, I resigned from TCS. It was finally time to bid goodbye. It was an important decision, and a lot of people, specially family were skeptical on that call. I am now working at PayPal India, which happens to be the best place that you’d want to work at. Atleast in Chennai if I may add. :D At around the same time Raison also started looking around for Greener land, and landed at Sourcebits Bangalore in September. That simply meant that S2, and then F14 was no longer the same as before. A few weeks later in October Rathan also got transferred to Bangalore. I bid goodbye to TCS on the last day of September, and that was that, a chapter written in the history books. I decided to move back home, and travel to Office daily.

Raison spent most of October travelling back and forth, Chennai, Mangalore, Bangalore. I was sick for a better part of the month. And here we are; October was technically the last month at F14. It’s hard to believe that an year has gone by. A lot has changed, life is kinda moving at pace, where it no longer is predictable. The 3rd of November, this year(a couple of days back), looking back at the times was a day well spent doing nothing. To sum it up, I am glad I moved to F14, with the guys, and also glad that the TCS Story is over. I get to play a part in shaping the future of Money at PayPal. Everything is a part of the ever changing world.

About 60 of us from #Nitte came to Chennai last year. 14 of us became really good friends, and now you have folks getting married, getting engaged, prepping for higher ed, frustrated with life at TCS, moving to greener pastures. And of course split between Chennai and Bangalore. It’s just a 5 hour drive away, but we never get to live the same life again. So much changes in one year, doesn’t it?

To the times well spent… An year is gone by… At Chennai.

Footnotes:

The most amount of fun was obviously because of #ShitRaisonSays and did.
S2, is the tiny apartment in Anna Nagar, where we living through the training at ILP.
F14 is the more spacious apartment that we lived at, in Kottivakkam.
Chennai, also made me a bunch of new friends. But there’s a charm to itself, when you have friends from college.

Now I need to catch up with a lot of people, what’s been happening in their lives. It’s been an year and half since we left #Nitte.

kari-shma: cliché, i know. (by Kristine May.)

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:19:07 +0530

kari-shma:

cliché, i know. (by Kristine May.)

"Avoiding problems you need to face is avoiding the life you need to live."

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:18:55 +0530

“Avoiding problems you need to face is avoiding the life you need to live.”

- Paulo Coelho (via kari-shma)