Let there be potatoes!

When I was in grad school, we had a random conversation on why there is no dandruff in the beard. The reason is obvious - we do no think with our chin or face! I keep thinking of those days and wonder if I can find such group of people ever in my life, especially in the US. There are lot of things that could stutter a conversation, like, language, culture, fluency, etc. Lucky for me, I found the group that theoretically has the capabilities to replicate my grad school environment. 

We've had some of the best conversations during our lunch time, and I take it upon as a responsibility to impart this amazing knowledge and wisdom to the entire world in the hope that it will make the world a better place to die! Sorry, live! 

We start with a proposition and then retrospectively claim that it was a brilliant proposition.

Proposition: Let the golf ball be a potato.

Location: Not Idaho. It's our patio.

ANALYSIS

Putter - Potato roller

Let it roll to glory, let it roll to a birdie or an eagle! Let it roll to the dark pit of death!

Wedge - Potato wedge

The naming is obvious, isn't it? Potato..Wedge?!! Common! Don't tell me you cant chip a potato with a Jaws!

Driver - Potato slicer

Slice is the most common issue with beginning golfers. And we present to you the name Potato Slicer - there is nothing we could do to fix your slice. At least now you can blame it on the name!

Hybrids - Potato smasher

For an off-tee hit you need to gently brush the grass while hitting the potato. The instant the smasher makes contact with the potato, ground and grass creates this awesome view of SMASH! You'll get it when you see it.

Simulator/ECPC - Potato farm 

This is pretty straightforward. If not, then you need logic lessons!

Triple track - Potato Eye

You definitely do not need triple tracks on a potato. You need to have a good eye to make a lot putts, and the great mind know that the potato has a lot of them. Wicked! Isn't it.

Past Tense Usage: Simulator/ECPC - Mashed potatoes (ya, this needs work!)

We still haven't finalized on masher, cutter, fries, and hashbrowns.

Stay tuned for more eye-opening discussions from the Innovation Team!

The merits of being a loser!

Where does merit stand in this every increasing competitive world? Sounds like a stupid question right? 

Merit stands first! - this is what every accomplished individual would say. I am curious to know what a loser would say? 

I define a loser as - a person who could have been an accomplished individual given an opportunity! Note the usage of "could have been", which reflects the probabilistic nature of the definition. Given an opportunity, the individual may still may not be able to accomplish themselves. But not giving an opportunity (an unbiased one, of course) gives them the chance to whine and complain. And, yes I am whining and complaining!

"Never give up on your dream!", "Be passionate about achieving the goals" were some of the quotes we were exposed to during our childhood. Even today a lot of motivational speakers lay emphasis on this aspect. However, the practical mind would disagree, and give up after a certain number of attempts. Of course, the number varies, could be anywhere between zero and five. I personally haven't met anyone who went past five. 

I believe that there is an optimal number of attempts before giving up. Going beyond the optimal number would only affect our mental health or health of our family relationship. That is, if you have a family, your passion has direct relation to the sacrifices of your partner. For example: you are passionate about playing a sport and spend most of the evenings practicing, and your partner is left alone to take care of the home and the kids after their office. This puts a lot of mental and physical stress on your partner and would eventually affect the health of your family relationship.

I always wanted to be a teacher like my mother. I did what anyone would do: Bachelors, PhD, and postdocs. I tried getting a faculty position from 2014. Every year I applied to over 75 universities (Applied Mathematics, Civil Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) - that is over 100 applications every year. I finally gave up in 2018 after nearly 400 applications.

Now, I am happy where I am - a concept engineer at a sports company designing high performance equipment! I still do a lot of reading, research, presentations and writing. And along with all these, I get to spend lots and lots of time with my family. My weekends are filled with enjoying time with my 3 year old - taking him to beach, train station, zoo, park, walk, ride, and sometimes to the golf course. I doubt, if I could have done all these had I been a Professor.

Few more findings - reading and writing at home is only to improve my skills and has nothing to do with publishing a new finding. With this new mindset, I was be able to come up with lots of new ideas. As someone said - "The mind is like a parachute, it works only when it is open". So true, when you have no interest in pushing your agenda, you will see more beauty and ideas in a research article. This is missing in half of the academic researchers, where finding faults and pushing one's own methodology/ideas is looked upon as greatness!

I know not many people read this blog, but for the rare random reader - It is not wrong to give up after a certain number of sincere attempts! 

Give up your passion for your mental health, give up your passion for your family, and most importantly be passionate about that which gives you happiness! - in my case: research, reading, and family! and the compromise? TEACHING!

- always the one and only

Sundar

 

  

  

Stand Up, Golf and Cricket!

Making people laugh is a difficult task, and I think, being a comedian is the most difficult job in the world of entertainment. Well, when I say comedian it refers to artists in movies or tv shows.

There are a lot of people in this world with an amazing sense of humor. But only a handful of these choose stand up comedy and become great at it. Of course, it is a personal choice. I believe that being a stand up comedian is a million times more challenging than being a comedian.

A quick recap of the nomenclature: Comedian - funny people who act in movies and tv shows; Stand up comedian - well, stand up comedian. 

I'll tell you why.

Being a comedian is like being a good cricketer, who paces his innings well and makes a 100 or so while entertaining the crowd with boundaries and sixers here and there. This person will come, do his job and leave. But being a stand up comedian is like a cricketer saying "I'll hit the first ball for a six and hit 3 sixers every over!". This is not impossible, but as you would imagine an extremely difficult task. That's what stand up comedians do right? Come to my show and I shall make you laugh!

I'll give you another example why stand up comedy is difficult.

Being a comedian is like playing Golf. There is a ball on the ground, you have a club in your hand, swing and hit the ball - as simple as that. You are the only person in the picture and there is no interference what so ever. Being a stand up comedian is like playing Cricket or Baseball. Your success not only depends on you, but the opposite players as well (which in most cases are the audience). If you have an unresponsive audience, you have to be spontaneous in turning the tables around and get back the support of the audience, which again is a very difficult task. 

So in summary,

Acquiring any technical skill: practice makes a man perfect

Acquiring stand up skills: well...you know the answer! singam a singam he's dor a singam!

-the great one

The time of the bat has begun!

How and where should I start?? not a question for you bhek fellows...me thinking and talking to myself! there are two startings...number wan, 100% rejects for faculty applications! surprising!..13 papers (out of which 1 single author paper), one year outreach in the Yo Baltimore! still couldn't cross the first screening! any guesses as to why??? yesssss!! you are right! my PhD is just from IISc Bangalore and not from US or UK! cha I dont want to whine about this, but I just did naansense.

Anywhoo, I will focus on the second mega giga peta penta matter that nullifies the above frustration, disappointment, sadness, sorrow, dukkham and mokkai feeling.

I yaaam a daddddyyyyyyyyy!
yesss!! my kutti payyan is here!
eureeekhaaaa...myrekhaaaa...everyonesrekhaaaaa!!

the beautiful smile he gives makes us forget the entire sorrows we have for just a second...and makes us realize that he just pooped and his diaper needs to be changed!
diaper changing is the most difficult job in the US. You guyz know the reason???!! carpetttsss!

Kids have this attitude: "my home is my toilet!" and fortunately in India most of the homes have concrete floors ( I mean the material concrete, and not the 'concrete' in 'concrete management plan'), so no tensions in cleaning the susu and pupu. Just water the floor and put some komiyam in it for fragrance! For the ignorant mokkais...the komiyam is for satire. Which idiot thinks that it is a good idea to spray cow's urine for cleaning human's urine?!?!?!? ewwwwww!

US la it is totally a different 'ball' game!

You have to be skilled to avert the spraying of poop and pee onto yourself, floor, and other diapers kept aside. Babies are embedded with one of the efficient machine learning algos. They observe our strategies keenly and come up with different strategies to spray on us and around! amazing isn't it! I think big or small for that matter tech giants should invest in these and understand how babies are able to do this. The patent for this mokka idea lies with me (Sundar the great)!

its more than a week now since the baby arrived, and now it is much more difficult to decipher his smile...is it
I just pooped, please change (or drop the please)
I will poop in sometime, so change at your own risk.
I am messing with you
I am happy because I look better than you
A surprise awaits as soon as you open the diaper!

Well...I am just a dumb postdoc! so I will not guess anything and will just deal with the consequences! I am playing a game with myself..how many times can I dodge the baby's matter before it is inevitable! So far the count is 4, lets c!

This probably is one of my longer blogs...so this is the right time to take break and get lost, or continue if you want to fall asleep!

It all started on the 24th early morning at around 4:00 am. Kayal woke me up saying she is having contractions. Immediately I took my phone and started to time it....probably the only thing my makku brain could understand during the child birth classes. It was a 511...juntaaa 511 na contractions are 5 minutes apart, each lasting 1 min and continues for 1 hr. At 5:00 am I started to organize the hospital bag and my snacks (you never know how long the labor might take, another thing I remembered from the classes....don't forget soru). I came out of our room to take Kayal's slippers and looked at my confused father-in-law and said "today is the day!". As usual he got even more confused now. By the time he could react I went back to our room. Kayal morachified at me and asked me to go and tell her dad that it is 511 and when we reach 411 we will go to the hospital and that she is doing fine with the pain now. As usual I was awesome in conveying that message!

1 hr passed..511 started to become 611 and then 511. We called the doctor, she asked us to come to her office at 9:15 am. We one range went to the doctor....on the way the contractions were 511, so all izz well, all izz well! Reached the doctor, and we were (at least I was) expecting 2 or 3 cm dilation, so that we can be admitted to the hospital and deliver the baby. The doctor checked and said "you are barely dilated. But don't be discouraged, go back to your home and tell me when you reach 411". Well, we came back, and even on the way it was 511. What happened over the next couple of hours: sit, sit on the ball, stand, lie down, upward dog, downward dog, doggie dog position, walk, walk and talk....we literally tried all the positions that help induce labor. The contraction timings kept varying from 411 to 811. At 10:00 pm we called the doctor and said we were having contractions from morning. The doctor asked us to go to the hospital so that we might feel comfortable. Took the packed bag and snacks and went to the hospital at around 11:30 pm. Before leaving the house I said to my FIL - "I'll be back to pick you guys, or both of us will come back home".

The nurse checked and said that its only 1 cm dilation and they would admit only when the expectant mom has dilated at least 3 cm. "you'll take another 10-20 hrs honey" the nurse said. However, they called the doctor and asked "what do you want Kayal to do". The doctor in turn asked "what does Kayal want?". The answer, any guesses??? "Sleeppp! I want to sleep!!". The doctor prescribed a mild sedative and said it might help her sleep for 2-4 hrs, and asked us to come back to the hospital in case it doesn't work. Took the tablet, had some late night dinner (dosaiiiii) and slept. I had a mokkai cold for the past 2 days...so I also took a cold tablet and slept. Kayal had problems sleeping and was struggling with pain from 3:00 am. I woke up at around 3:45 and tried to console her (as if that helps). The timing was around 411-511. I kept telling Kayal to breathe and she just told me to call the doctor! I called the doctor at 4:19 and said "my wife is in unbearable pain, we want to go to the hospital!!". The doctor said "okay, go". Called the labor and delivery and said we were coming. Kayal slowly walked up to car and put on her seat belt. Again me to the FIL - "I'll admit Kayal and come back to pick up you". I slowly drove to the hospital, parked the car in the 10 min loading and unloading area, pulled the wheel chair, loaded Kayal onto the chair and took her to the labor and delivery ward. While I was signing some documents, Kayal was taken to the delivery room. Kayal went into the room and said "I need to use the restroom now!" The nurses were like "ok, go ahead". The nurse Sherlock Holmes range ku thought something and checked Kayal, and said "Honey you need to push the baby out. There is nothing to do in the restroom. Lets go to the bed". Kayal slowly walked to the bed and after she lied down, I could see the fuzzy hair of our kid!! I told Kayal "Our Napa is here! I can see his head. He has lot of hair!" The doctor came and introduced himself to me "Hi, I am Scissero", at least that is what I think his name was (because he carried a lot of scissors with him when he came in). Everyone were moving here and there....I was like - akka endha oorathula naan poi nikkanum nu sollunga. For the tamil challenged people I asked which corner I should go and stand. The nurse akka told...dho andha oorathula poi muttiko. I went to that oram and muttified with a table. The same nurse akka told Kayal "Honey, I can see your baby's head. It is too late for epidural or any pain medication, but we will help you get through the pain". Dr. Scissero got ready to deliver the baby. First contraction push: the head slighly bulged out and went in. Second push the same. The third push and the baby was out! The baby turned just like professional waiter turn the wine bottle after pouring in the clockwise direction. "Do you want to cut the cord?" asked the doctor. "Ofcourse" I said. Cutted the cord and heard the baby cry! whattey sweet sound -  the first and last time any parent smiles when the baby cries! I feel sorry for the support staff in the room :(. We came in at 5:00 am and the staff were getting the IV setup and doing all the arrangements. They were half way through and the baby came out at 5:15 am. Vandha vegathula they packed and left :D.

Whattey wonderful magical moment!

Time for some mokka advice:

1. Men should take half of the responsibility during pregnancy, labor, childbirth, and taking care of the child after birth, I say!

2. IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE DAD TO TAKE CARE OF THE MOM AND THE BABY.

3. Grandparents are just additional support! Dads should follow the sleep/feeding cycle of the baby and mom for at least the first week, so that they understand what a women goes through after child birth. Just leaving the mom and baby with their grandparents is not right! Dads should step up! Do the laundry, vacuum the house, cook tasty meal (at least meal if not tasty), change the diaper, burp the baby, clean the poopy clothes, etc etc!

Well this is what a baby in life does to the mokkai master....it makes him feel more responsible and educate the ignorant people!

Something is missing...what abba??? yesss! the punch line!

A delivery with no IV, no hassle, no delay, not even a single needle into the skin! That's my wonder woman Kayalvizhi, and her protector Imai!
  
Signing off
The great one!

On being homeless!

We were in the car, and driving like aa aa aaaaa aaaa....Nooooo not like aeae aeae aeaeaeeee aeeeee, you bhek fellows! Like this (0.28-0.34)...aa aa aaaaa aaaa! ya thats right!
That night we thought we were going to be kidnapped, and our kidney sold for couple of rupees. Ya I know, mine is not one among the rich nutrition-ed kidney type! The hotel was one of the creepiest, and empty! even the reception mama was absent..."come to room 119" was the notice at the reception. Actually, we drove right into the reception...like the McD drive in :D
It was not a reception actually....something like a dhondi in the wall. We went in search of the room. There, near an empty pool, there were 3 mamas. I could smell Baltimore in them :D ya just weeed it baby! We then went to the reception..and he opened a door for us..the room was 1mx1m and 0.5 m was covered with recyclable (I think so...) boxes. We set foot inside and to our left was a big window of a 1.5mx1.5m room. The mama was on the other side of the window...now you Indians...you guyz know how to buy ticket from the railway counter la...idhu () the same two-room concept..except that our standing room was very less..I know none of you understood anything....mission accomplished!
We got the key and the mama accompanied us to the room, on the way he said that we were the last and the only customer for that night...yayyyy!! awesomeee! Mama made sure that the K is clean and the AC was working..all izz well! we slepted and woked up the next day. Let's not get into much details till we had our breakfast and hit the road back! we were actually going to camp in the wilderness and share our tent and food with a samskaari elugubanti! It's been so long since I used that name..elugubanti...bear sounds cute..no matter which language you use...lets c...bear, panda bear, polar bear, oso, Bjorn, Xiong, hmmmm.... andd......karadiiiiii.....ewwww! it reminds me of the karadi k pona sound...anyways cut the frog! lets move on!
Dei naatha naaye...naalu maasathuku orudhadava is ok....
Dei bhekandi......maasathuku oru dhadava podhum...
Rei poramboka...rendu vaaraniki okka saari chaalu...
the hell with you! I am not going to cooperate this time!
For the confused and feelings challenged people...the above four lines were the mind voice of our Honda Civic!
And...yes...you guyz might have guessed by now...our car stopped! What happened next will be summarized next...(or will be explained in full..for missing details call me...i will give you a live feelings demonstration....not for the weak organ-ed people, aplease-aaaa)

Kayal did a jagadameee (or for the illad folks yudhaameeee) with her purse....she had all the kuppa cards except the AAA membership....kruthagnathalu to her name, the customer care had hard time finding her in the system...somehow found.....towed the car to Baltimore...ahem...Bakersfield...mechanic mama over the phone (at around 1:30PM) asked us keep the car outside his garage and throw the keys inside, and said he will have a look at it early on Monday (btw all this happened on Saturday, and mama's garage closes at around 1 or 2PM)...we reached at 2:45 PM and mama was closing the shutter...garaged the car in a one range "safe" area at 3:00 PM....had to room potu yosichify what to do next...so we had to find a room to put the room. Pakathula there was a McD...yayyy, we dragged our suitcase and few jolna pais and entered the McD. There was a 100% intersection both in our appearance and what we ordered at that place with the homeless people around-our getup was like the deepika padukone song...some pichakari nu song irukku la..and we ordered a coke! :D

Booked stay in the extended stay america with no idea of how long the stay would be.....went to a mall...the forever21 was bigger than all the forever21s in San Diego put together...one creepy dude followed us in the mall...we intelligently escaped by using the following idea-about turn, walk thish side, walk that shide, stare at cute doggie bums, etc, etc. Watched the spider movie in the mall. Middle of the movie, seruppuda.....naatham...one akka put her naaring leg onto the chair beside me! whattey loveliness, and akka was wearing cooling glasses in the thater....well, nice movie though. liked wonderwoman better. Namma friendly neighborhood spiderman dhane, adhan got more ratings, otherwise gadot akka was awesomee!

Monday came....we were one range waiting for the mechanic mama to tell what the issue was..so that we can make plans for the week...11 ku check out...Mama did not call till 10:30....what to do??? if Mama doesn't call us...should we check out and go out in search of something we don't know what we are searching for...place to stay? mall to roam??...no idea! We however, had the following case study study the previous night....

Case 1: Car will be returned on Thursday
Options:
aaaa) ante amalaapuram.....cha matter ku vaada! ok..take bus and come back to San Deigo. Saturday...me like a dubuk fellow will come in a train to Bakersfield and take the car and come back to San Diego before night!
baaa) there is no baaa for this case!
Case 2: Car will be returned on Monday evening itself
aaaa) yayyyyy....jump in the air..turn around...beep beeep! roamify in the mall...come back to the garage and take the car and back...aa aa aaaaa aaaa!
baaa) again no baaa for this case!
Case 3: Car will be returned on Tuesday.
aaaa) take rental, suthify the seqoooyaaa, stay night in some place...or camp somewhere with the karadi and suthify the mall on tuesday, watch baby driver and then aa aa aaaaa aaaa!
baaa) roam in the mall, kottify good food, stay in a hotel, take the car next day and then aa aa aaaaa aaaa!

We finally called the mama at 10:45 and guess what?!!
Unne koduma padithinadhu poodhum...naal ozhunga vela panren!
Ninnu torchure chesindhi chaalu...neenu manchiga panichesthale!
again..mind voice of our car!
the mechanic mama said that our car is awesome and there is nothing wrong with the car!

We uber-ed to the auto mechanic and took our car. Mama said...road la engavadhu car puttuukichuna..just wait for 30 min and then start and go! Whattey strategy! Mama didn't want to charge us, as he could not find any problem in the car. But, we paid him the quoted amount based on some naansense old proverb (which is so old that someone might have put that in bogi manta by now!) and aa aa aaaaa aaaa -ed back to San Diego!

Thish time...max speed limit 65mph na aa() that speed we maintained!

hashtag...gethu trip!
-the one and only

Us the A-the land of minority americans

It’s been a while since I put together my naansense views in this space. The reason probably is partly due to the transformation of Mr. Sundar to Dr. Sundar. I like to self-hype you c! :D 

Well this is my first blog from the US. Junta....no confusion. The previous blog was supposed to come after this. Anyways, cut the frog.

I hated to come here and work, but my country wants me to come here and then I'll be given a red-carpet welcome back home. I remember directors of some of the elite institutes making blunt statements: "We will not be entertaining faculty position application from an applicant who has a PhD from an Indian university". Well this is the situation and people blame people for going abroad.
Anyways bite the bun! Lets get back to more important things, like mokka talk! :P

Some things I noticed after coming here
1. Even dogs wait for the signal to turn red so that they can cross the road. Probably if people do J-walking they'll be fined and if a dog does that, may be it'll be given a free ticket to meet its beloved person.
2. Clothes and drainage covers are "made in India".
3. You cannot dry clothes outside your home because it will destroy the "azhagu" of the building! Naansense! No wonder the laundry guyz make more money than me!
4. C2H5OH is literally the solution to anything! math, physics, life, problems...you name it :D
5. Serials are actual serials and not advertisements!
6. No creativity in commercials…. cha I liked India far better though I hated their timing...right in the middle of an awesome movie. Say rakthakanneer or mayabazaar or valpuli, merging of vaalu and puli :P
7. Less Americans :(

There is some limit even for the mokka master. Its the time to coffee!
-the jumper

Dare the Dream

There is something that keeps bothering me once in while - when I wake up in the nights, when I endlessly stare at my monitor, or when I take a lonely walk - wondering if what I wanted to do is an impractical realization of a distant reality! 

The world doesn't care about the nearly one hundred attempts that ended up like stuff in Davy Jones Locker. I stopped caring about such things; but never did I stop trying! Taking time off the already tiresome research schedule to learn something so basic that a tenth grade student would say "its a piece of cake!" However, the interest kept me going.

I would be lying to myself if I said this couldn’t be one of my rare accomplishments. The truth, however, is the other way around - I got lucky this time! 

I remember the quote one of my friends wrote on his ghot pad: “when hard work is your weapon, victory becomes your slave”. Well, I suppose that is true. That is what places Batman among the Supermans, Dravid among the Tendulkars, humans among gods! 

For three years, my mind maintained a good balance between my interests in the two fields. And I am proud of it! Sometimes it is advantageous to be ambitious, take risks, and shoot for the stars. And, sometimes it is better to plan a strategy, take it slow, and play safe. I chose the later, which I believe is the right choice, given the circumstances. 

I do not know when, but for sure, I know now that, I am closer than ever, to pursuing that, which is, no more an impractical realization of a distant reality - from a passionate structural engineering to an enthusiastic computational biologist. 

Life is all about appreciating the small things that bring a smile on your face!

Sundar