Of Elections and Lessons

Well, let me say, its been such a long time since i've written a blog. Truth is, I almost forgot that I has one, until one very sharp soul politely reminded me that its time i write one (actually it was more like "#%$&@*#(@*& your blog!!!!" but we'll let that pass).


This time I would like to share my thoughts on something that has taken my time in the last few days. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, for those who know me, it is THE ELECTIONS.
Democracy (from Greek δημοκρατία (demokratia), δημος (demos) the common people + κρατειν (kratein) to rule + the suffix ία, literally "the common people rule") is a form of government where the population of a society controls the government. The earliest forms of democracy were used by (surprise! surprise!) republics in ancient India, which were established sometime before the 6th century BC, and prior to the birth of Buddha. These republics were known as Maha Janapadas, and among these states, Vaishali, in what is now Bihar, India, was the world's first republic. Later during the time of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, the Greeks wrote about the Sabarcae and Sambastai states in what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan, whose "form of government was democratic and not regal" according to Greek scholars at the time.


The term "democracy" in the original word in Ancient Greek - was coined in ancient Athens in the 5th century BC. Athenian democracy is generally seen as one of the earliest examples of a system corresponding to some of the modern notions of democratic rule. Only a sixth or a quarter of the whole adult male population of Athens could vote; but this was a bar of nationality, like the present German franchise, not of economic status: however poor they were, all Athenian citizens were free to vote and speak in the Assembly. Ancient Athenian citizens made decisions directly, rather than voting for representatives. This form of democracy that was present in Athens is known as direct democracy.


My tryst with democracy started last week and ended only a couple of days ago. It started when I decided to stand for the post of secretary in a particular field. It was a one-off decision based on the fact that I really felt, I had the credentials for the job and in addition, felt this was a golden chance for me to take up responsibility in a post and do justice. I also felt, this was a good chance for me to change things in general in the hostel and to leave a mark, a legacy which any future secretary would then uphold.


For about one week, I campaigned the best I could, talked to everyone. Put forth certain points which i felt should be changed and in general was trying my best to be seen everywhere and with everyone. I talked to seniors, some more willing to listen, some who had already decided and were simply asking me stuff which I had to answer. I spoke to juniors, tried to inspire them with my master plan, and put forth my views on how and why they should involve themselves. To the best of my ability, I worked hard sometimes slept at two, sometimes working for four hours straight. Eating less, sleeping lesser, the usual sob story.


Sadly, when it came to counting day, I was to realise that I am not the winning candidate. Infact, I was polled in as the person with the least number of votes. This left me kind of disillusioned. I was sure, that I was the right guy for the job, I have strong organising skills, efficiency has always been my motto, and the sheer variety and magnitude of my credentials and achievements required for this post itself would have been enough. But apparently, two thirds of the hostel didn't think so. And i lost. Despite this, I don't feel sad, only relief that its over and happiness over one major fact.


The post that i contested for has had one of the most cleanest campaigns ever. None of the candidates in the fray ever said something bad about the other. There was overall goodwill and the feeling that whoever wins, its still a team game and all contributions are welcome/necessary.


I have come to the following conclusion about elections in general:

1) The reason people vote for you is not because you are efficient, really good at your job, or someone who has a really good feel for a position. They vote for you because they know you. You could be the most brilliant guy on earth, but if people don't know you, they don't trust you. If they don't trust you, they feel that you might not meet their expectations, if they feel so, they won't vote.

2) Never underestimate the importance of regionalism, especially in a country like India. It has anything and everything to do with and election. Somehow, there is a sort of security which one gets from a candidate from his/her own region. That automatically translates into a vote. I'm not being idealistic but i feel, it could be different. If you don't speak the common man's language, there is no security for him to like you.

3) Always make sure that you make your target person feel good. Don't talk about big things, the overall picture. Whoever it is, make it personal. Make it affect them. You could have a million plans, but if you don't affect the target, your plans are useless.

4) People always are like a flock of sheep. They will go for who their friends, colleagues, family etc go for. Barring a few exceptions, it will always be there. This again is due to familiarity.

5) It isn't enough to do work for people. It is necessary to work and MAKE SURE everyone knows about it. If required, one should make a big deal out of it. So EVERYONE knows. This is what will impress people. Its not about holding the golden egg, its about making people THINK you have the golden egg.

6) A politician is a politician is a politician. You can never trust guys who play politics. They will say yes I will vote for you and say yes I will vote for you to your rival as well. Ultimately they will vote for the guy who they like/will help them more/is less of a threat to their supremacy. Their aim is not vote, but to put a guy in a post. Atleast that is how I see them. I really don't want to anything with such people even if they help me win. I'd rather lose than go and grovel at
their feet, kiss certain regions of their bodies or make them feel like they are champions (which they are so not).

7) Nothing talks better than money. However temporary monetary benefits are, if people see money coming their way when a candidate is elected, they go for him, without the slightest thought of whether they will actually get their cash.

8) One must be willing to do anything and everything to get elected. To be fair, it requires a lot of hardwork, to be able to talk to different sections of people in different ways. It is a non-stop affair, running around talking. Infact, so much that you must neglect every other sane aspect of your life for the electoral period and focus only on this. If you are not capable of doing this, you shouldn't stand.

9) You must be perceived as popular, that in itself is half the job done.

10) Timing is everything. You have to meet the maximum people in their best moods in minimum time.

11) Anyone who you've never talked to before, but still smiles at you and behaves nicely with you won't vote for you.

12) Temporary sops always score over long term benefits.

13) Last but not the least, to win, it is essential to make as many promises catering to as many sections of society as possible. Whether or not one can implement them is not critical. The fact is people will see only THAT promise that affects them and leave the rest as don't-care conditions. On the whole, it is necessary, to adopt the bombastic, go ahead and impress people saying one can do everything and making sure you please people so much, you get elected.

Yes, this is what i've learnt, some of these lessons might be good, some might need change. The bottomline is this, I am very happy that i've participated in these elections. It has taught me a lot, about the person I should be. In addition, it has told me, that a loss is a loss and that I should really worry about such things as long as I'm doing good work. If I am satisfied with that, then I don't need any popular verdict to tell me who i really am.

Thanks for your patience.
>>Berhael

Disclaimer: All these points are merely observations posted by the Blog artist. They are not aimed at any particular person/group of people, nor are their intentions to hurt the feelings of anyone. Sportive spirit will be appreciated.

Of Phones and Money

Well, i must admit, its been a long time. But as they say, never late than never right? Well, my biggest hope is that people who were reading my blog, still have enough faith in me to keep checking. If they do, then i'm thankful. I'm pretty rusty having not written for such a long time. But hey, you can't have it all!

This time, i thought i would write about something that has cropped up in my life quite recently - the telephone. This inocuous devil has quite simply wreaked havoc in my life over the past one month. Why? Well, we'll see, i might just explain. But otherwise, here's my blog.

The word telephone or phone comes from the Greek words tele, meaning far away and phone, meaning voice.

In the 1870s, two inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically. Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other, Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone first. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell entered into a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell won.

The telegraph and telephone are both wire-based electrical systems, and Alexander Graham Bell's success with the telephone came as a direct result of his attempts to improve the telegraph.

When Bell began experimenting with electrical signals, the telegraph had been an established means of communication for some 30 years. Although a highly successful system, the telegraph, with its dot-and-dash Morse code, was basically limited to receiving and sending one message at a time. Bell's extensive knowledge of the nature of sound and his understanding of music enabled him to conjecture the possibility of transmitting multiple messages over the same wire at the same time. Although the idea of a multiple telegraph had been in existence for some time, Bell offered his own musical or harmonic approach as a possible practical solution. His "harmonic telegraph" was based on the principle that several notes could be sent simultaneously along the same wire if the notes or signals differed in pitch.

By October 1874, Bell's research had progressed to the extent that he could inform his future father-in-law, Boston attorney Gardiner Greene Hubbard, about the possibility of a multiple telegraph. Hubbard, who resented the absolute control then exerted by the Western Union Telegraph Company, instantly saw the potential for breaking such a monopoly and gave Bell the financial backing he needed. Bell proceeded with his work on the multiple telegraph, but he did not tell Hubbard that he and Thomas Watson, a young electrician whose services he had enlisted, were also exploring an idea that had occurred to him that summer - that of developing a device that would transmit speech electrically.

Alexander Graham Bell's notebook entry of 10 March 1876 describes his successful experiment with the telephone. Speaking through the instrument to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, in the next room, Bell utters these famous first words, "Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you."

And the rest as they say is history.

My own experience with telephones(which is pretty extensive mind you!) ranges from the slightly mundane to the overly exciting. Some of my best moments in life have come through the telephone. Some of these include
1) finding out that my cousin was a baby boy and that i could now enjoy countless hours of teasing and ragging without ever worrying about how sensitive the little thing was.
2) telling my parents that i had qualified or won in this event or that and listening to the pride in their voices when they say, "Good son! but i'm not proud of you!"
3) talking to special people who mean a lot to me and sharing their lives, happiness, disappointments, successes and dreams in a way only the telephone can make possible.
4) many many more

There was a time when i used to think that telephones were a girl's best friend. Infact, i would acutally avoid talking on the phone for the simple reason that i would have to open my mouth and exercise the only muscle in my body connected at one end. Most of my conversations would last but a few minutes, with only major issues covered and settled, nothing more. In the last month however, events have occured which have made me realise what a beautiful invention it is. I have discovered that in times of distress, or happiness, nothing beats the telephone is sharing one's thoughts. This is because of the simple fact that one's voice is heard and a voice alteast for most of us, is a mirror for our emotions. Now, for whatever reasons, i seem to be hooked on the phone.

Relax guys, it's all not heaven. This is not a happy story or it wouldn't be my blog. There is still the minor issue that most telephone calls have to be paid for. Only it turned out to be not so minor for me. One evening, when i happily return from my bath, after a hard hour's work at the gym. I get a call. It's my friend. Consider the conversation below:
ME: Hey!
Friend: "5413!"
ME: Huh?
Friend: "5413!"
ME: Is that your telephone bill?
Friend: You bet it is you idiot!
ME: I mean, why, how, when, who?
Friend: YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!
ME: Seriously? That's my contribution to the telephone department's reserves?
Friend: Listen you idiot, it's not the time for jokes. You know how serious this is?
ME: (After a momentary silence as if preparing for mourning) Yeah, i know. So what shall i do?
Friend: SHUT UP,sit there. You don't need to bother.
ME: i'm really sorry...
Friend: Shut up! BYE!
Friend puts phone down....
I'm sure this situation has been encountered in many a life. It's not isolated. A lot of us have in effect taken the phone for granted. As with every technology, once we find that it meets our purpose, we embrace it. After all, the telephone does help us to keep in contact with all those dear to us.

Having said all this, i would like to say that in the last one month, i have realised the power of voice. I have realised that there is nothing more wonderful than to get a call from someone you know and listen to their voice on the other side, their mannerisms, their jokes, their poking fun at you, their laughter, their tears, however bad the phone bill might turn out to be in the end (i'm sure my friend will be cringing, shouting, "EASY FOR YOU TO SAY!!! YOU DID'T PAY THE BILL!"). I'm sure, everyone should agree with this. That is beyond any money, though cash does play a serious limiting factor. Having said all this, it is necessary that like everything else, the phone is used in moderation. After all, too much of a tonic becomes a poison.

Please note, this is not an open invitation to all to share their telephone bills with me. i just thought i might bring out a teeny weeny bit of what i was doing all these months without writing a blog. i think i'll stop here.
Regards!

>>Berhael

Of Robots and Holidays

Finally, I am posting an entry. It's been a long time. A very frustrating time. I have had my exams, my studies, my gym (we'll ignore that), and a summer project. So been busy. Still couldn't keep away from writing this. The reason i couldn't write for so long has been my summer project, one i have taken up with some close friends of mine.

The project was (and still is) on robotics.

Virtually every encyclopedia or textbook etymology of the word "robot" mentions the play R.U.R. Although the immediate worldwide success of the play immediately popularized the word (supplanting the earlier "automaton"), it was actually not Karel Capek but his brother Josef, also a respected Czech writer, who coined the word.

The Czech word robota means "drudgery" or "servitude"; a robotnik is a peasant or serf.
The word "robotics" was first used (in print) in Isaac Asimov's story Runaround (1942). In it, he referred to the 'three rules of robotics' that later became the Three Laws of Robotics in the short fiction collection I, Robot.

A robot may include a feedback-driven connection between sense and action, not under direct human control, although it may have a human override function. The action may take the form of electro-magnetic motors that move an arm, open and close grips, or propel the robot. The step by step control and feedback is provided by a computer program run on either an external or embedded computer or a microcontroller.

Robots are being used today to do the tasks that are too dirty, dangerous, difficult, repetitive or dull for humans. This usually takes the form of industrial robots used in manufacturing lines. Other applications include toxic waste cleanup, space exploration, mining, search and rescue, and mine finding. Manufacturing remains the primary market where robots are utilized. In particular, articulated robots, similar in motion capability to the human arm, are the most widely used. Applications include welding, painting and machine loading.

We (as in my friends and I) have had our own share of robots. It all started when yours truly decided to get his rear end out of his chair and do something useful during the summer holidays. This was 3 weeks before they actually started. Over here, the summer holidays are a whole 3 months long! So there is a lot of scope to develop and fine tune one's skills in a particular area. Inspired by Isaac Asimov's books (yes, i am a fan) and another cool book that my dear aunt bought for me(Robotics experiments for the evil genius)...I decided to do something in robotics. Ofcourse, a guy in checked pyjamas, a fat book and a t-shirt which says YAWN, is pretty easy to notice around here. And so, within a week, i found that five of my friends were interested in joining me We decided to form a group. We met a professor, who was kind enough to lend lab facilities and his expertise to us. Needless to say, he has been our friend, philosopher and guide till this date.

And so, it was all fixed. We were to start. Our first project was a robotic car (read fancy toy car with motors). It was supposed to move in the direction which had more light on it. It was a monday. So at 8 am all of us group in the lab and START. Within 30 seconds...we hit our first problem! Our various tasks included designing and creating a proper gear assembly to run motors using parts which can at best be described as part of a run-down tape-recorder. We had to figure out how to bread-board complex circuits. How to fix a portable power supply. How to mount the entire thing onto a mobile device. How to send pulses to the motor to basically...kick it into action (the lazy thing always slowed down!). many more. Each thing took us nearly ten days to solve(that was all six of us). We got laughed at by the workshop guys to have the sheer audacity to try some designs and use some parts. Friends asked us...hey..when will that thing move? do you want me to push it from the back? And in between...we were seriously wondering...are we doing things right?

But slowly, we got each part working. And within the first month, we were playing with it, teasing it, teaching it yoga and...ok...this is PG-rated. Nothing gave us more happiness than to see that little thing scurrying across the lab and bumping across all furniture, losing its nuts and bolts along the way. The point was not the robot, but that we developed a methodology to solve an engineering problem. We learnt to argue out different ways to solve an issue, to learn things totally not connected with each other and to connect them, to fiddle with resistors, to not panic when something went wrong and generally to just enjoy ourselves. We have moved on to bigger, better things and are currently doing some homework for our next project, but the confidence is there.

All i can say is that 45 days down the line (sheesh...it's been that long!) we are still going strong. We maybe going very slowly...but still going strong. Who knows...maybe a couple of years down the line, people will see us and have conversations like:
A: Hey look at those dudes!
B: Man, remember how they made that robot which looked like our German prof?
A: Scary thing bud!
B: I know...and the robot wasn't too good-looking either...

As an ultimate aim, I would love to make robots to benefit society. Not those big claw like things you see in a Hyundai factory..but socially viable robots. Robots which might help the visually impaired see, those unable to walk - walk, which give a new lease of life to others. Robots that maybe can explore and remove land mines, which can locate and rescue those trapped under a building. The possibilities are endless. What only remains is for us to think it up.

Robotics will probably continue its spread in offices and homes, replacing "dumb" appliances with smart robotic equivalents. Domestic robots capable of performing many household tasks, described in science fiction stories and coveted by the public in the 1960s, are likely to be eventually perfected. There is likely to be some degree of convergence between humans and robots. Some humans are already cyborgs with some body parts and even parts of the nervous system replaced by artificial analogues, such as Pacemakers. In many cases the same technology might be used both in robotics and in medicine. There in lies the future.