I have been planning to write this piece for a long time now but it needed some thought and I haven’t had either time or conducive company in the whole summer break and merely no time in the month of August. Both seem to be in ample supply now and so, here goes.
This concerns that famous question- ‘Is there a god’. This also concerns the nature of our moral precepts and our own attitude towards morality in general. And if you are still reading on then I will assume that you have time and patience enough and will allow me to build my case. All arguments are, of course, welcome in the comments section of the blog.
Sometime ago I was reading ‘Sophie’s World’ by Jostein Gaarder. The book gives a basic introduction to all the famous and some not so famous schools of philosophy. I, being an almost complete Objectivist, was trying to measure how each of these schools matched against my beliefs. It was then that I got this idea of conducting a survey. So I shot off messages to a lot of my friends, asking a rather simple question-‘Why is it bad to lie?’. The responses were, to say the least, interesting.
First I had to assure each of them that I had not gone crazy and seriously wanted an answer. All the answers I received can be grouped into 3 broad groups:-
1. We must not lie to our friends, it doesn’t matter what we say to strangers.
2. Any lie is permissible, as long as the aims are ‘selfless’.
3. One lie causes us to lie more and more to cover it up. So we shouldn’t lie.
These answers are all very curious because none of them recognizes truthfulness, honesty etc. as a moral absolute, an end in themselves. They all imply that we must not lie because people can find out, and leave enough loopholes to wriggle around the guilt of lying easily enough. I want to examine all these answers individually.
To all those who gave the first answer, I asked- why? Most replied- “Because your friend might be hurt if he/she found out”. Again I asked- “What if it could somehow be ensured that he would never find out”. Most amusingly none answered this query. Note that the answer is not an answer. It never answers why lying is bad. It merely tries to divide the world into two groups of people- those you can lie to and those you can’t. How this division comes about is not explained. If you had a fight with one of your current friends, then it would magically become okay to lie to him/her.
It sounds like some weird kind of loyalty but it isn’t. It’s a façade built to convince yourself that you are a moral person while you are not. It is this answer which is coming back to us whenever a shopkeeper lies to us and cheats us, whenever an acquaintance doesn’t keep a promise (he thinks you are not ‘friend enough’ and who are you to argue with that). This ‘Moral Nepotism’ will be defended by its proponents as pragmatic behavior (“I am no saint-everyone does it! Why take a burden of guilt for people you do not even know?”), but I beg to differ.
The second reply is the vilest contortion of morality garbed as a moral statement. Why should the aims be selfless? Who decides this selflessness? It allows us to lie and then to hide it behind some or the other veneer of selflessness. I could go on and on but I will stop because just thinking about this makes me want to throw up, and then slap the person who gave this answer. Unfortunately, the person is one of my closest and oldest friends.
The third POV, which I call ‘Lazy Morality’ can be held to be the closest to my own beliefs. Whenever we lie, we are deviating from fact, from reality and the more we lie the further we must lie to cover the previous lies. Thus we deviate further and further from reality. But here we come up against a blank wall. Further from reality…so what? Why is deviation from reality bad? And that, of course, is the original question. So we don’t really have an answer. But in my opinion, we are tantalizingly close, whether or not my friends who gave this answer realized it.
Which brings me, at last, to my own opinion on this subject. Why should we not lie? It certainly is expedient, and in our daily lives, often necessary.
In my opinion, honesty is an Objective requirement of human survival. In as much as man is a social being, and must live in a society in order to survive in the kind of living conditions that we are living in today. This kind of life would not be possible if every man was a free operator and functioned according to his whim or fancy.
Lying is bad because our every action aimed at survival in today’s society is depended on an unspoken understanding that certain other individuals will do certain other tasks and deliver on certain promises. Job agreements, business contracts etc. are all forms of these promises. Were lying as acceptable as honesty, then it would be quite acceptable to not pay an employee after a month of work, to renege on a deadline for a projects, an infinite such instances where either a man’s word or his signature on a piece of paper count for millions of rupees or years of trust. If all this were acceptable then the only way to survive would be to do everything by your own hands and all semblance of society would vanish like a fart in the wind.
Now I hope the patient reader can see why the third answer was so close to my reasons for honesty. The further from reality, the further from survival, and if that is not reason enough to stop lying, nothing is.
Monday, July 23, 2007
D.E.Shaw nailed!
I love this blog .I think it is lucky for me-cruel but lucky. It makes me look stupid but gets me what I want. Whatever I moan about not having in this blog, I usually get it soon after making the entry and have to come back and make an entry about eating my words. It happened with ‘Internship and Internet’ entry, and now it happened with ‘The Future’. I was just moaning about not having a high paying job, and considering possible courses of action for the future, when BAM! A huge job just jumped down my throat.
On Sept.5 ’06, I was recruited by DE Shaw and Co. for a ridiculous sum of around 9 lpa, thereby becoming one of the most highly paid guys I my class at roughly the end of our main placement season.
The run-up didn’t look very promising. Almost everyone was looking forward to this company very eagerly (for the salary alone, I think. Nobody had much idea the profile-not that it would have mattered anyway. For 9 lpa, I’d have cleaned toilets!) and I do not count myself anywhere even close to the college’s smarter people. IBM-ISL junta was still going to be allowed to sit and when that gang includes the likes of Bharat Garg, Shruti Tewari and Sandeep Singh and with the company self confessedly out to take only the ‘extraordinary geniuses’(I’ve been called that, but each time the speaker has been excessively drunk), I wouldn’t have bet on myself. The only reason I had a semblance of hope was because I had been told that the company laid a lot of stress on a strong CV, and on that count I am confident to beat most guys of our college. And because for some weird reason, I’d been consistently clearing writtens which had a strong Aptitude component (CAT quant style questions), when some of the worthier CAT aspirants of my class had failed (e.g. The Inductis Test. Rishabh Gupta flunked it and I got through.).
The written comprised of three sections:
1. Aptitude section (20 questions in 30 minutes)
2. Tech Section (30 questions in 25 minutes)
3. Programming section (1 algorithm in 15 minutes).
I wasn’t happy with my performance in the aptitude part, so for the first time in the placement season- I craned my neck and copied 2 questions off Sandy’s answer sheet and then 2 more off my neighbour’s , fervently hoping them to be correct. The Tech section too had me stumped until I decided to attempt questions in the reverse order, which turned out to be a good decision and I was able to do 36 questions out of 50 in the objective part of the paper.
The Algorithm part was easy and I think everybody was able to do that program. Then it was off to the canteen for lunch and waiting for the result.
When I received the sms telling me that I had an Interview call, I can say that I was surprised. Jasleen , Bhuvnesh and Khurana also had been selected.
I was the first person to be interviewed (This seems to be a lucky charm- for Flex too I was the first person in the Interviews.). A panel of 2 awaited me in the Green Room. They began by asking me to introduce myself which I did. After that the grilling began:
Interviewer-1:Tell me about this Online Counseling Software of yours.
Me: *Ramble On*
Interviewer-2:This Workflow Automation Project that you have done, how many levels does it have and what is the backend?
Me:* Ramble On*
I-2: Do you know DB?
Me: Sir 3 points on a scale of 5 for me.
I-1: So tell me what is Normalization?
Me: *I hadn’t studied DB at all so start telling him what I remember from doing my projects*
I-2: No. Take an example and then explain.
Me: I took a bad example without realizing it and soon they had my normalization procedure tied I knots and looking more useless than Maru’s running shoes.
I-2: Ok. What are your fav subjects?
Me: Sir C, DS, OS...
I-1: What is a b+ tree?
Me: Told him.
I-1: Why do we use it?
Me: Sir so that if we want elements sequentially we can get them straightaway without having tom traverse the tree.
I-1: Why would we want to do that?
Me: *Scratch my head and look stupid*
I-2: Where does memory for a linked list come from?
Me: Heap.
I-2: Why?
Me: *I dunno why man-ask Ritchie!!!* Sir ‘coz heap has these automatic garbage collection mechanisms so that we can’t over-allocate memory at runtime.
I-2: And stack doesn’t have these mechanisms?
Me: no sir*Or does It???*
I-2: Local variables are on the stack right?
Me:*I you say so*Yes Sir.
I-2: Then if I have to access an element at the bottom of the stack, then areall the elements above it popped and pushed everytime?
Me: no sir.
I-2: Then why is called a stack?
Me:$#%^@%^@%
I-2: Tell me about storage classes?
Me: Sir I haven’t a clue about what you are talking.
I-2: WHAAAAT? You’ve never heard about extern, static…
Me: Ohh yessir yessir.Then I told him whatever I knew.
I-2: If I have a static global variable in one file, ca I use it as extern in another file?
Me: Yes. (It turns out you can’t)
I-2: Are you sure?
Me: yessir.
I-1: Ok. Do initialized and un-initialized variables lie in the same segment in C?
Me: yes sir (No they don’t)
I-1: Where do you see yourself 5 years down the line?
Me: don’t know sir.
I-1: Whaat?
Me: Sir right now all I want is a good techie job. 5 years later who knows if I might get interested in management, or interested in some specific and end up doing MS in that field, or remain interested in earning piles of money and stay in the Industry.
I-1: Ok what about 1-2 years down the line?
Me: I see myself in a technical job where I have a responsible position and I have a bigger picture view of the aims and objectives of my team’s and my own efforts.
I-1: What kind of work at DE Shaw would interest you?
Me: sir work on the vast distributed system you mentioned in your PPT or work which allowed me to play with information.
I-1: Elaborate please.
Me: For example you have people in all corners of the world who want stock market data from all over the world in real time. So I’d be interested in designing systems which collect this info process the gathered info into a form which is more intuitively useful for every specific request and to render the processed info compatible to platforms ranging from desktops to mobile phones.
I-1: Ohkay…Write me program to reverses a string.
Me: I do it using two pointers.
I-1: *pokes enough holes hole in the program so that it sinks to the bottom without a fight* Ok thank you, we will get back to you by about 9 in the evening.
Me:*Bhago!!!!*Thank you sir.
After I came out and discussed the questions, I realized I had screwed up every question that could possibly have been screwed. With not much hope remaining, I went to DC with Adi to have a fruit beer at Bercos and a couple of burgers at McDonald’s.Back at the flat, I started watching ‘Swades’ for the second time (A really good film, dunno why I had ignored it till now). Around 9:30 I got a call from Budhrani telling me that I had been selected. I don’t remember my heart beating so loudly without physical effort ever before. I ran over to the Audi but the post-selection photo session and all the congratulatory speeches etc. were already and I caught The Shaw team coming down the stairs. I met them and they were all smiles and congratulations. I told I-1 and I-2 that I thought they had killed me in the interview and that I had left for a movie. I-1 told he had done the exact same thing after his own Shaw interview!
There were hugs and high fives and demands and promises of treats all around. I called up my home and as expected, everyone was totally ecstatic (I later learnt that my mother didn’t sleep that night!)Then I had a call from my teacher (it being teacher’s day) and she too was extremely happy at the coincidence. The flatties were all intending to go to my home and demand a huge sum of money from my parents for a party.
Now I can’t walk 100 meters without someone asking for a treat!!! Relatives I didn’t know I had have been calling to say proud I’ve made them. The best part is that now I can shove my half hearted CAT preps up IMS’ ass. No need for solving FLTs, Quant section tests….AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!! Relief. But I can’t help but feel this strange kind of vacuum within me, a lack of purpose. There is nothing to do now but wait for the mid-sems to come and devastate me, coz no-one has any clue of the syllabus, and half the teachers have already decided to fail most of us. And I do not feel like preparing anyway. Most of the junta has taken up the CAT challenge in all earnestness again. That too is gone for me.
So what else is there for a man to do? Sit around, watch highly rated movies (Akiro Kurosawa’s ‘Seven Samurai’ sucks, by the way!) and write too long blog entries like this one here.
And btw, since I mentioned at the beginning of this entry that I got whatever I moaned about not having at this blog, let’s try that one more time:
BOOHOOHOO! I don’t have a girlfriend!
On Sept.5 ’06, I was recruited by DE Shaw and Co. for a ridiculous sum of around 9 lpa, thereby becoming one of the most highly paid guys I my class at roughly the end of our main placement season.
The run-up didn’t look very promising. Almost everyone was looking forward to this company very eagerly (for the salary alone, I think. Nobody had much idea the profile-not that it would have mattered anyway. For 9 lpa, I’d have cleaned toilets!) and I do not count myself anywhere even close to the college’s smarter people. IBM-ISL junta was still going to be allowed to sit and when that gang includes the likes of Bharat Garg, Shruti Tewari and Sandeep Singh and with the company self confessedly out to take only the ‘extraordinary geniuses’(I’ve been called that, but each time the speaker has been excessively drunk), I wouldn’t have bet on myself. The only reason I had a semblance of hope was because I had been told that the company laid a lot of stress on a strong CV, and on that count I am confident to beat most guys of our college. And because for some weird reason, I’d been consistently clearing writtens which had a strong Aptitude component (CAT quant style questions), when some of the worthier CAT aspirants of my class had failed (e.g. The Inductis Test. Rishabh Gupta flunked it and I got through.).
The written comprised of three sections:
1. Aptitude section (20 questions in 30 minutes)
2. Tech Section (30 questions in 25 minutes)
3. Programming section (1 algorithm in 15 minutes).
I wasn’t happy with my performance in the aptitude part, so for the first time in the placement season- I craned my neck and copied 2 questions off Sandy’s answer sheet and then 2 more off my neighbour’s , fervently hoping them to be correct. The Tech section too had me stumped until I decided to attempt questions in the reverse order, which turned out to be a good decision and I was able to do 36 questions out of 50 in the objective part of the paper.
The Algorithm part was easy and I think everybody was able to do that program. Then it was off to the canteen for lunch and waiting for the result.
When I received the sms telling me that I had an Interview call, I can say that I was surprised. Jasleen , Bhuvnesh and Khurana also had been selected.
I was the first person to be interviewed (This seems to be a lucky charm- for Flex too I was the first person in the Interviews.). A panel of 2 awaited me in the Green Room. They began by asking me to introduce myself which I did. After that the grilling began:
Interviewer-1:Tell me about this Online Counseling Software of yours.
Me: *Ramble On*
Interviewer-2:This Workflow Automation Project that you have done, how many levels does it have and what is the backend?
Me:* Ramble On*
I-2: Do you know DB?
Me: Sir 3 points on a scale of 5 for me.
I-1: So tell me what is Normalization?
Me: *I hadn’t studied DB at all so start telling him what I remember from doing my projects*
I-2: No. Take an example and then explain.
Me: I took a bad example without realizing it and soon they had my normalization procedure tied I knots and looking more useless than Maru’s running shoes.
I-2: Ok. What are your fav subjects?
Me: Sir C, DS, OS...
I-1: What is a b+ tree?
Me: Told him.
I-1: Why do we use it?
Me: Sir so that if we want elements sequentially we can get them straightaway without having tom traverse the tree.
I-1: Why would we want to do that?
Me: *Scratch my head and look stupid*
I-2: Where does memory for a linked list come from?
Me: Heap.
I-2: Why?
Me: *I dunno why man-ask Ritchie!!!* Sir ‘coz heap has these automatic garbage collection mechanisms so that we can’t over-allocate memory at runtime.
I-2: And stack doesn’t have these mechanisms?
Me: no sir*Or does It???*
I-2: Local variables are on the stack right?
Me:*I you say so*Yes Sir.
I-2: Then if I have to access an element at the bottom of the stack, then areall the elements above it popped and pushed everytime?
Me: no sir.
I-2: Then why is called a stack?
Me:$#%^@%^@%
I-2: Tell me about storage classes?
Me: Sir I haven’t a clue about what you are talking.
I-2: WHAAAAT? You’ve never heard about extern, static…
Me: Ohh yessir yessir.Then I told him whatever I knew.
I-2: If I have a static global variable in one file, ca I use it as extern in another file?
Me: Yes. (It turns out you can’t)
I-2: Are you sure?
Me: yessir.
I-1: Ok. Do initialized and un-initialized variables lie in the same segment in C?
Me: yes sir (No they don’t)
I-1: Where do you see yourself 5 years down the line?
Me: don’t know sir.
I-1: Whaat?
Me: Sir right now all I want is a good techie job. 5 years later who knows if I might get interested in management, or interested in some specific and end up doing MS in that field, or remain interested in earning piles of money and stay in the Industry.
I-1: Ok what about 1-2 years down the line?
Me: I see myself in a technical job where I have a responsible position and I have a bigger picture view of the aims and objectives of my team’s and my own efforts.
I-1: What kind of work at DE Shaw would interest you?
Me: sir work on the vast distributed system you mentioned in your PPT or work which allowed me to play with information.
I-1: Elaborate please.
Me: For example you have people in all corners of the world who want stock market data from all over the world in real time. So I’d be interested in designing systems which collect this info process the gathered info into a form which is more intuitively useful for every specific request and to render the processed info compatible to platforms ranging from desktops to mobile phones.
I-1: Ohkay…Write me program to reverses a string.
Me: I do it using two pointers.
I-1: *pokes enough holes hole in the program so that it sinks to the bottom without a fight* Ok thank you, we will get back to you by about 9 in the evening.
Me:*Bhago!!!!*Thank you sir.
After I came out and discussed the questions, I realized I had screwed up every question that could possibly have been screwed. With not much hope remaining, I went to DC with Adi to have a fruit beer at Bercos and a couple of burgers at McDonald’s.Back at the flat, I started watching ‘Swades’ for the second time (A really good film, dunno why I had ignored it till now). Around 9:30 I got a call from Budhrani telling me that I had been selected. I don’t remember my heart beating so loudly without physical effort ever before. I ran over to the Audi but the post-selection photo session and all the congratulatory speeches etc. were already and I caught The Shaw team coming down the stairs. I met them and they were all smiles and congratulations. I told I-1 and I-2 that I thought they had killed me in the interview and that I had left for a movie. I-1 told he had done the exact same thing after his own Shaw interview!
There were hugs and high fives and demands and promises of treats all around. I called up my home and as expected, everyone was totally ecstatic (I later learnt that my mother didn’t sleep that night!)Then I had a call from my teacher (it being teacher’s day) and she too was extremely happy at the coincidence. The flatties were all intending to go to my home and demand a huge sum of money from my parents for a party.
Now I can’t walk 100 meters without someone asking for a treat!!! Relatives I didn’t know I had have been calling to say proud I’ve made them. The best part is that now I can shove my half hearted CAT preps up IMS’ ass. No need for solving FLTs, Quant section tests….AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!! Relief. But I can’t help but feel this strange kind of vacuum within me, a lack of purpose. There is nothing to do now but wait for the mid-sems to come and devastate me, coz no-one has any clue of the syllabus, and half the teachers have already decided to fail most of us. And I do not feel like preparing anyway. Most of the junta has taken up the CAT challenge in all earnestness again. That too is gone for me.
So what else is there for a man to do? Sit around, watch highly rated movies (Akiro Kurosawa’s ‘Seven Samurai’ sucks, by the way!) and write too long blog entries like this one here.
And btw, since I mentioned at the beginning of this entry that I got whatever I moaned about not having at this blog, let’s try that one more time:
BOOHOOHOO! I don’t have a girlfriend!
The Future
With the placement season almost out of the way(and before you start asking for a treat, no,I havent got a bumper paycheck ), its time to ponder about the future.
Pondering is something al NSITians seem to be brilliant at!I saw it when some C grade companies refused to allow MPA to sit for their tests. You'd think that the kind of haalat the MPA guys were in w.r.t. jobs, there would be a bout of intense slogging from them for the remaining jobs-but no.What followd was a bout of Pondering.MPA pondering as to what to do now, how to 'make their voice heard' *ROTFL*, 'Who th f*** adviced me to do MPA' and 'ab hamaara kya hoga'; All the other branches pondering what MPA should do now, how MPA should make its voice heard(again *ROTFL*), 'who the hell advice them to do MPA', and 'ab inka kya hoga'!!!!!Really NSIT needs no reason to indulge in pondering and nonstp BCD.
But comng bak to the point,these are my options:
1.Landing DE Shaw(humph...fat chance-considering that IBM-ISL is still B-cat and tiddi is still elegible(for those who don't know-tiddi is bharat garg.he is also the guy cursed to clear all writtens and gloriously fail in almost every interview.Also, he is in IBM-ISL).With the rest of my class high IQ waali junta making noises about giving the written at all costs,his option is pretty much outta the window.But still...writing options like this makes it appear that i have a lot of options.
2.Crack CAT.*HAHAHAHAHAHA* Wit scores so low you cant see them from ground level, this seems a tall order, esp. with guys cracking 70 in mocks in which I yield 36 .If I am not among the top 7-8 CAT aspirants in my class, then it is very difficult to beat guys from all over the country.AndDI section ne to solve hone ki rakhi hi nahin hai! Besides I find I have no motivation for it. Every day I find myself more amenable to coding than to solvingquant questions. Tech is exciting,challenging and a damn sight moer interesting than interpreting huge masses of no.s.Beside not every highly paid person in this world is an MBA.
However, there is always this feeling of havibg made a commitment to at least the written part of the MBA admission procedure, and if it can be managed with a reasonable amount of hard work,I intend to do it.This way, I dont feel all disapointed that I auseless,cant compete with any no. of people,AND it prevents my parents from killing me(anybody can fail in the interviews right???)
3.Join Flex.This seems to be the most likely. A pity they aren't paying nearly enough.But I suppose that will come with time.
So, fingers crossed...lets see what happens.DE Shaw on the campus on Sept 5.
), its time to ponder about the future.Pondering is something al NSITians seem to be brilliant at!I saw it when some C grade companies refused to allow MPA to sit for their tests. You'd think that the kind of haalat the MPA guys were in w.r.t. jobs, there would be a bout of intense slogging from them for the remaining jobs-but no.What followd was a bout of Pondering.MPA pondering as to what to do now, how to 'make their voice heard' *ROTFL*, 'Who th f*** adviced me to do MPA' and 'ab hamaara kya hoga'; All the other branches pondering what MPA should do now, how MPA should make its voice heard(again *ROTFL*), 'who the hell advice them to do MPA', and 'ab inka kya hoga'!!!!!Really NSIT needs no reason to indulge in pondering and nonstp BCD.
But comng bak to the point,these are my options:
1.Landing DE Shaw(humph...fat chance-considering that IBM-ISL is still B-cat and tiddi is still elegible(for those who don't know-tiddi is bharat garg.he is also the guy cursed to clear all writtens and gloriously fail in almost every interview.Also, he is in IBM-ISL).With the rest of my class high IQ waali junta making noises about giving the written at all costs,his option is pretty much outta the window.But still...writing options like this makes it appear that i have a lot of options.
2.Crack CAT.*HAHAHAHAHAHA* Wit scores so low you cant see them from ground level, this seems a tall order, esp. with guys cracking 70 in mocks in which I yield 36
.If I am not among the top 7-8 CAT aspirants in my class, then it is very difficult to beat guys from all over the country.AndDI section ne to solve hone ki rakhi hi nahin hai! Besides I find I have no motivation for it. Every day I find myself more amenable to coding than to solvingquant questions. Tech is exciting,challenging and a damn sight moer interesting than interpreting huge masses of no.s.Beside not every highly paid person in this world is an MBA.However, there is always this feeling of havibg made a commitment to at least the written part of the MBA admission procedure, and if it can be managed with a reasonable amount of hard work,I intend to do it.This way, I dont feel all disapointed that I auseless,cant compete with any no. of people,AND it prevents my parents from killing me(anybody can fail in the interviews right???)
3.Join Flex.This seems to be the most likely. A pity they aren't paying nearly enough.But I suppose that will come with time.
So, fingers crossed...lets see what happens.DE Shaw on the campus on Sept 5.
Flextronics!
On the 4th of August,I have ,for the first time in my life, become empployed and am now an official Flextronics guy.YAhoooo!!!(or rather FLEXTRONICS!!!, yahoo is coming to the campus tomorrow).
The process of joining the hallowed ranks of India's ubiquitous IT force came about as a 3 step thing:
Step-1: A written test.
Step-2: Tech Interview.
Step-3: HR Interview.
The written test was seni retarded(Even those who could not clear it agreed to that).With 7 sections comprising of English, Quant, Attention to detail(the stupidest of them all), C, section on Data Structures OS and Algo, A section on retention, E-mail writing(yes,amazing what companies can test you on!),It was a mad scramble to the finish line.
I had fine tuning several strategies for cheating in the paper but all of the plaaning came to naught.The evil invigilators removed evryone around me beyond whispering range and I ws left to fend for myself in the big game of employment seeeking.
Yours truly wrapped up the English paper in less than 4 min, got slightly harassed by the quant paper, and generally tumbled through the rest of the section. There was barely a time to pause as the papers of the previous sectoin were taken away as soon as the next section was given.The only real pause I took was while deciding on how to masquerade as a cable operator writing an email to an irate customer.
This whole examination procedure was followed by several hours of waiting(I didn't really think about the result, some of my friends were on the brink of breakdown).The result was finally declared around midnight and 2/3rd of my flat ended up qualifying for thhe interview but the other 1/3rd was heartbroken.
Interviews began at 9:00 a.m. the next morning.I was among the first batch of 5 interviewees.The panel consisted of A mousy looking female and a guy who seemed to be amused at nothing at all.
Amused guy:Hi kislay,please tell us about yourself?
Me: *I ain't expecting this in the tech interviews idiots* Eh..I'm a student of NSIT-IT..eh...I am a hardworking guy and generally like to get on with problems and solve them...eh...But I tend to get a little unrealistic at times and put too much pressure on myself...eh....I've done a lot of web dev work and am fascinated by technology in all its forms.
Mousy woman:Ok thats a good intro(REALLYYYY!!!!)Wjat are your main subjects?
Me: MA'am DS OS and Algo.
What followed was a 10-15 min long series of questions that I answered and bluffed my way through.Then I found myself waiting for(eternally it seemed) for my HR interview.Got quite irritating, especially with Aditya muttering feverishly about how much we could have been studying for the Microsoft test.The only respiite came from Mr. Anil Dhawan,Product Manager,Microsoft.An excellent speaker, he provided a most interesting take on all iissues from his own life to piracy and software industry.
Finally my name was called for the HR interview.I was escorted to the interview table bya reasonably pretty HR female and I was beginning to think-"huh not bad at all!"
Female in red tee: So kislay-where did you do your internship?
Me: m'am I did it at iMediablitz Solutions,an internet marketing company.
F.I.R.D: Do you think working in teams is better or working alone?
Me: Ma'am I think working in small teams is the best as they have the most cohesion and are, inn my opinion the most productive.
F.I.R.D.: Have you ever worked in a team?
Me: Yes,as a part of the NSITLOUNGE web team(followed by a tirade about lounge)
F.I.R.D.: Ok you have mentioned here that like reading philosophy and economics.What did you read most recently?
Me: ma'am I just finished Sophie's world and have started ' The age of reason'.
F.I.R.D.: Why Flex?
Me: I want to work in a company which is doing new and exciting work.I believe Flex is doing that .So..(this is just the gist of it.I rambled on for 5 min)
FIRD: any problems with working outside delhi?
Me: none.
FIRD: Ok kislay.Thanks for your time.
I knew I would get the job then.And that is exactly what happened about6 hours later when the final results were announced.
You'd think it'd have meant a great deal---you now--a first job.But it didn't.Both I and Mangla took one look at the results mailed to us, confirmed our names ,and went right on studying for microsoft and a fatter paycheck.
Human beings are greedy creatures.
The process of joining the hallowed ranks of India's ubiquitous IT force came about as a 3 step thing:
Step-1: A written test.
Step-2: Tech Interview.
Step-3: HR Interview.
The written test was seni retarded(Even those who could not clear it agreed to that).With 7 sections comprising of English, Quant, Attention to detail(the stupidest of them all), C, section on Data Structures OS and Algo, A section on retention, E-mail writing(yes,amazing what companies can test you on!),It was a mad scramble to the finish line.
I had fine tuning several strategies for cheating in the paper but all of the plaaning came to naught.The evil invigilators removed evryone around me beyond whispering range and I ws left to fend for myself in the big game of employment seeeking.
Yours truly wrapped up the English paper in less than 4 min, got slightly harassed by the quant paper, and generally tumbled through the rest of the section. There was barely a time to pause as the papers of the previous sectoin were taken away as soon as the next section was given.The only real pause I took was while deciding on how to masquerade as a cable operator writing an email to an irate customer.
This whole examination procedure was followed by several hours of waiting(I didn't really think about the result, some of my friends were on the brink of breakdown).The result was finally declared around midnight and 2/3rd of my flat ended up qualifying for thhe interview but the other 1/3rd was heartbroken.
Interviews began at 9:00 a.m. the next morning.I was among the first batch of 5 interviewees.The panel consisted of A mousy looking female and a guy who seemed to be amused at nothing at all.
Amused guy:Hi kislay,please tell us about yourself?
Me: *I ain't expecting this in the tech interviews idiots* Eh..I'm a student of NSIT-IT..eh...I am a hardworking guy and generally like to get on with problems and solve them...eh...But I tend to get a little unrealistic at times and put too much pressure on myself...eh....I've done a lot of web dev work and am fascinated by technology in all its forms.
Mousy woman:Ok thats a good intro(REALLYYYY!!!!)Wjat are your main subjects?
Me: MA'am DS OS and Algo.
What followed was a 10-15 min long series of questions that I answered and bluffed my way through.Then I found myself waiting for(eternally it seemed) for my HR interview.Got quite irritating, especially with Aditya muttering feverishly about how much we could have been studying for the Microsoft test.The only respiite came from Mr. Anil Dhawan,Product Manager,Microsoft.An excellent speaker, he provided a most interesting take on all iissues from his own life to piracy and software industry.
Finally my name was called for the HR interview.I was escorted to the interview table bya reasonably pretty HR female and I was beginning to think-"huh not bad at all!"
Female in red tee: So kislay-where did you do your internship?
Me: m'am I did it at iMediablitz Solutions,an internet marketing company.
F.I.R.D: Do you think working in teams is better or working alone?
Me: Ma'am I think working in small teams is the best as they have the most cohesion and are, inn my opinion the most productive.
F.I.R.D.: Have you ever worked in a team?
Me: Yes,as a part of the NSITLOUNGE web team(followed by a tirade about lounge)
F.I.R.D.: Ok you have mentioned here that like reading philosophy and economics.What did you read most recently?
Me: ma'am I just finished Sophie's world and have started ' The age of reason'.
F.I.R.D.: Why Flex?
Me: I want to work in a company which is doing new and exciting work.I believe Flex is doing that .So..(this is just the gist of it.I rambled on for 5 min)
FIRD: any problems with working outside delhi?
Me: none.
FIRD: Ok kislay.Thanks for your time.
I knew I would get the job then.And that is exactly what happened about6 hours later when the final results were announced.
You'd think it'd have meant a great deal---you now--a first job.But it didn't.Both I and Mangla took one look at the results mailed to us, confirmed our names ,and went right on studying for microsoft and a fatter paycheck.
Human beings are greedy creatures.
Life in the placement season
As I sit here in my flat,trying to ignore the beautiful weather outside and trying to get weary and bored mind to focus on the endless trivialities of what pointers can empowers us mere humans to do, I can't but ponder over the two much puzzled over conundrums:
1) Pointers are a contraption allowing us to program very fast computers to do impossible tasks even faster
However, that is immaterial to me if all this haste to perform some task doesnt give me the time to wander outside in the pleasant breeze.Agar free time hi na mile to kaam jaldi karne se kya faayda?But no.I must sit here and go through 6 books (all as heavy as I am ),and to top it all,dream up ways to do things faster than the ways given in the books.Maybe the matrix wasn't so imaginary,maybe it wasn't just a good movie.This mad search for algorithms is my own matrix--and I am hopelessly trapped of my own volition.
2) Just why on earth is the weather so nice just when I have to study my ass off and cant go running over to Priya and watch Pirates of the Carribean:Dead Man's Chest when every other human being alive has seen it.It never fails.You plan an outing and the sun starts blazing like it will never set.
THese musing aren't totaly arbitrary.They are the most well exhibited symptoms of is known as placement fever.Every year the phenomenon repeats itself in most engg. colleges all across India.It is almost amusing.People you never heard with anything but gaalis on their tongue suddenly start talking in english, people who never used the computer except for playing games and watching porn can be seen discussing time complexities of algorithms, for once CAT is a bad word all over the campus, people who aren't half qualified to become engineer's peons are suddenly discusssing the jobs they will and will not accept!!!
Speculation is rife about companies,offers and packages, Bhatia sir is the most sought after man on the campus( he is that always vaise to),rawat struts about like a peacock in his harem, squeaking commands to anyone who'll listen-and people do listen!!
Rumours and misinformation are common currency.The funniest episodes are when people start discussing how to tackle interviews.The greetings between friends suddenly changes from 'hi' to 'decribe yourself in one word' or 'tell me about yourself'.More than half the advice thrown about is garbage,and the other half is worse.One of my seniors told me that some of his friends called him up and asked:"Yaar,koi weakness bataa de" lol.
And always, behind the curtains, is the incesstant ghisai. The toppers have already gone through their books so many times that the books are about half their original weight(it isnt called ghisai for nothing you see!)And where there is ghisai, there is, of course, the pleasant weather, which brings us back to my original conundrum.
Let no one doubt the cyclicity of life.
I like this
This is taken from the orkut profile of Mr. Aakanksh Vashishth,who was 3 years my senior in school and has been a profound influece in my life-one of the first men to introduce me to the art of asking questions.
न पुण्यं न पापं न सौख्यं न दुःखं न मन्त्रो न तीर्थो न वेदा न यग्य ।
अहं भोजनं नैव बोज्यं न भोक्ता चिदानन्दरूपः शिवोऽहम् शिवोऽहम् ॥
Sin or merit can never touch me, Joy and sorrow can't contaminate me;
I know no mantra, I have no sacred pilgrimage to make,
I know no scripture, nor have I anything to gain through rituals;
I am neither the experiencer (subject), nor the experienced (object), nor the experiencing;
I am Shiva the all pervading happiness, Yes, I am indeed, I am definitely Shiva.
न मे द्वेषरागौ न मे लोभमोहौ मदो नैव मे नैव मात्सर्यभावः ।
न धर्मो न चार्थो न कामो न मोक्षः चिदानन्दरूपः शिवोऽहम् शिवोऽहम् ॥
I've no likes or dislikes, Nor I've covetousness or greed,
Nor I've arrogance nor any competition with anyone;
I don't even need the four 'Purposes of Life' (Dharm, Arth, Kaam, Moksh);
I am Shiva the all pervading happiness, Yes, I am indeed, I am definitely Shiva.
न मे मृत्युशंका न मे जातिभेदः पिता नैव माता नैव न जन्मः ।
न बन्धुर्न मित्रं गुरुर्नैव शिष्यः चिदानन्दरूपः शिवोऽहम् शिवोऽहम् ॥
I've no death, no caste or creed distiction;
I've neither father nor mother; infact I am never even born!
I've no kith or kin, I've no teacher, nor am I a disciple;
I am Shiva the all pervading happiness, Yes, I am indeed, I am definitely Shiva.
Dunno whether I agree fully or not,but sounds good.
Aakanksh is,btw, into Computer Graphicss.Find some of his work here.
न पुण्यं न पापं न सौख्यं न दुःखं न मन्त्रो न तीर्थो न वेदा न यग्य ।
अहं भोजनं नैव बोज्यं न भोक्ता चिदानन्दरूपः शिवोऽहम् शिवोऽहम् ॥
Sin or merit can never touch me, Joy and sorrow can't contaminate me;
I know no mantra, I have no sacred pilgrimage to make,
I know no scripture, nor have I anything to gain through rituals;
I am neither the experiencer (subject), nor the experienced (object), nor the experiencing;
I am Shiva the all pervading happiness, Yes, I am indeed, I am definitely Shiva.
न मे द्वेषरागौ न मे लोभमोहौ मदो नैव मे नैव मात्सर्यभावः ।
न धर्मो न चार्थो न कामो न मोक्षः चिदानन्दरूपः शिवोऽहम् शिवोऽहम् ॥
I've no likes or dislikes, Nor I've covetousness or greed,
Nor I've arrogance nor any competition with anyone;
I don't even need the four 'Purposes of Life' (Dharm, Arth, Kaam, Moksh);
I am Shiva the all pervading happiness, Yes, I am indeed, I am definitely Shiva.
न मे मृत्युशंका न मे जातिभेदः पिता नैव माता नैव न जन्मः ।
न बन्धुर्न मित्रं गुरुर्नैव शिष्यः चिदानन्दरूपः शिवोऽहम् शिवोऽहम् ॥
I've no death, no caste or creed distiction;
I've neither father nor mother; infact I am never even born!
I've no kith or kin, I've no teacher, nor am I a disciple;
I am Shiva the all pervading happiness, Yes, I am indeed, I am definitely Shiva.
Dunno whether I agree fully or not,but sounds good.
Aakanksh is,btw, into Computer Graphicss.Find some of his work here.
Technologically Aware or Technically Competent
I've been pondering this issue for well about an year or two now.Not actively of course,but every once in a while someone says something that gets me on the topic again.What is better-To be technologically aware or to be Technically competent.
The dichotomy of course does not work all the time and in quite a few people we see the coming together of both these things.But more often,we find that a person who is more competent technically(e.g great in academics...) is technologically unaware or worse still, indifferent.I know plenty of good C programmers who know next to nothing about what is going on in the world of technology,what the new avenues are and so on.On the other hand,my circle of acquaintances also abounds with those cant tell their structs from their classes but know the computer inside out and are generally very well informed about technical stuff.Don't need to look very far,the BH abounds with them.
And I just cant stop wondering which is better:To know how to code at the expense of awareness(In which case you don't know what to do with your expertise) or to be aware(in which there isn't much you can with that info).
Another thing I find interesting is that those who are aware come across as more cocky and confident as against the competent ones,who seem to be much more cautious about what they know and are forever willing to acknowledge the awrae one as their better.
The thing is-Coding skils can be acquired later on when you are actually into the worksphere whereas awareness cant.But at this stage of our careers,it seems obvious to me that competence is more relevant.
The dilemma remains...
The dichotomy of course does not work all the time and in quite a few people we see the coming together of both these things.But more often,we find that a person who is more competent technically(e.g great in academics...) is technologically unaware or worse still, indifferent.I know plenty of good C programmers who know next to nothing about what is going on in the world of technology,what the new avenues are and so on.On the other hand,my circle of acquaintances also abounds with those cant tell their structs from their classes but know the computer inside out and are generally very well informed about technical stuff.Don't need to look very far,the BH abounds with them.
And I just cant stop wondering which is better:To know how to code at the expense of awareness(In which case you don't know what to do with your expertise) or to be aware(in which there isn't much you can with that info).
Another thing I find interesting is that those who are aware come across as more cocky and confident as against the competent ones,who seem to be much more cautious about what they know and are forever willing to acknowledge the awrae one as their better.
The thing is-Coding skils can be acquired later on when you are actually into the worksphere whereas awareness cant.But at this stage of our careers,it seems obvious to me that competence is more relevant.
The dilemma remains...
Upto my eyeball...and sinking fast
Well,its eating my words time. I have this opinion of myself as person as not very lucky and a person channel to god is scrambled with static.
Had barely written the last entry in the blog when was given a solid project-developing an extension for firefox that would pack quite a lot of punch.I reckoned it'd be exciting to get to learn some new stuff..but this shit is just a little too much for me.
It so happens that quite a lot of the functionality that I am required to implement in this toolbar of mine has not been implemented by ANYONE in the world(or so it would seem when google threw up no relevant results).I approached the official development forums of both Firefox/Mozilla and the Developer's group dor the overlib library in Javascript but neither has any clue on what to do about my little problem.
So now I am stuck with a toolbar,A full fledged XML parser in javascript, an AJAX module and an RSS ticker with no clue of how to put toigether the damn things
The deadline is on Friday...I've been working fever pitch but to no avail.The ignominy of failure seems inevitable
I have this opinion of myself as person as not very lucky and a person channel to god is scrambled with static.Had barely written the last entry in the blog when was given a solid project-developing an extension for firefox that would pack quite a lot of punch.I reckoned it'd be exciting to get to learn some new stuff..but this shit is just a little too much for me.
It so happens that quite a lot of the functionality that I am required to implement in this toolbar of mine has not been implemented by ANYONE in the world(or so it would seem when google threw up no relevant results).I approached the official development forums of both Firefox/Mozilla and the Developer's group dor the overlib library in Javascript but neither has any clue on what to do about my little problem.
So now I am stuck with a toolbar,A full fledged XML parser in javascript, an AJAX module and an RSS ticker with no clue of how to put toigether the damn things
The deadline is on Friday...I've been working fever pitch but to no avail.The ignominy of failure seems inevitable
On Intership and Internet
Vacations have started and I find myself sitting in a royal throne(devoid of backrest) in the offices of iMediaBlitz Solutions in Gurgaon.This honour is given to me in the capacity as an intern in the 40 head strong IITian initiated startup. As I recall the numerous days and nights spend worrying about how to land an internship which would give me a chance to actually learn something over these 2 months,I can almost laugh,and not pleasantly.
Its been 7 days here and I have learnt how to surf the net to keep yourself busy while actually accomplishing anything.Given the task of finding a script that would allow my employers to put up a classifieds site, I spent the first 2 days assiduously scouring the lanes and bylanes of the internet for such a tool. At the end of those two days, however my task was done and I reportted my recommendations to the owners.
Since then they seem to have forgotten that I exist.As I sit here in my cubicle listening to everyone else go about the business of S/W development,I cant help but feel a bitter taste in my mouth.There's people in the world who are going around doing the process of thinking, learning,growing and here I am stuck in this land where I am the intern who knows the most about Web Development and I am the one who has had no real work to for the last week.
Absolutely Disgusting.
And commuting to this place takes bloody ages,as a consequence of which any sort of studying has been put on an indefinite hold.
On the bright side, having the internet all to myself has good effect.I have some ideas which I have been considering for some time but couldn't pursue for one reason or the other.Now I have unlimited access to the biggest repository of information on the earth and today onwards I hope to put it to good use.
Its a pity they wouldn't let me download movies here
Its been 7 days here and I have learnt how to surf the net to keep yourself busy while actually accomplishing anything.Given the task of finding a script that would allow my employers to put up a classifieds site, I spent the first 2 days assiduously scouring the lanes and bylanes of the internet for such a tool. At the end of those two days, however my task was done and I reportted my recommendations to the owners.
Since then they seem to have forgotten that I exist.As I sit here in my cubicle listening to everyone else go about the business of S/W development,I cant help but feel a bitter taste in my mouth.There's people in the world who are going around doing the process of thinking, learning,growing and here I am stuck in this land where I am the intern who knows the most about Web Development and I am the one who has had no real work to for the last week.
Absolutely Disgusting.
And commuting to this place takes bloody ages,as a consequence of which any sort of studying has been put on an indefinite hold.
On the bright side, having the internet all to myself has good effect.I have some ideas which I have been considering for some time but couldn't pursue for one reason or the other.Now I have unlimited access to the biggest repository of information on the earth and today onwards I hope to put it to good use.
Its a pity they wouldn't let me download movies here
Kamaal ka Week
The lord our father in his heavenly seat must have decided that it had now been enough time since I saw the break of dawn,that time which is not of the day nor is it of the night,when the first rays of warm sunlight suffuses the night's chill. So strongly perhaps that it was time he himself did something about it.
Ergo the whole damn week has been one of negligible sleep and sunrise darshan-not something I am overly fond of!
The sms started it all.The harbinger of the news that google was on the campus looking for worthy young men and women to train.Considering myself to be fulfilling all criteria of 'worthiness',I decided to go and see what the whole brouhaha was all about.The catch-the show was 8 a.m. in the morn.So I forced myself to wake up at 4:30 in the morning (I live at the other end of the civilized world you see.).My thrice cursed informer failed to inform me that Google was to take only 3 from all over India,knowing which I'd have paid more attention to my slumbers.Hona kya tha-Kat gaya!No rest,no sleep And no goddamn internship either.
And after that-CV making running,around for internship info-WHAT THIS??!!!
Terribly tired,man.And thoroughly confused as to why evrything that happens at NSIT has to be so chaotic and haphazard.
Ergo the whole damn week has been one of negligible sleep and sunrise darshan-not something I am overly fond of!
The sms started it all.The harbinger of the news that google was on the campus looking for worthy young men and women to train.Considering myself to be fulfilling all criteria of 'worthiness',I decided to go and see what the whole brouhaha was all about.The catch-the show was 8 a.m. in the morn.So I forced myself to wake up at 4:30 in the morning
(I live at the other end of the civilized world you see.).My thrice cursed informer failed to inform me that Google was to take only 3 from all over India,knowing which I'd have paid more attention to my slumbers.Hona kya tha-Kat gaya!No rest,no sleep And no goddamn internship either.And after that-CV making running,around for internship info-WHAT THIS??!!!
Terribly tired,man.And thoroughly confused as to why evrything that happens at NSIT has to be so chaotic and haphazard.
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