A Message to the Society - Speak out against Evil

Every person became who they are today because of the environment they grew up and lived in till this moment. They are products of circumstances they didn't get to choose. Nobody does bad things for no reason. This understanding inspires empathy and kindness towards people. It also shows us that we have a great need to get rid of the ideas that reduce the peace, happiness and freedom in this world. "Bad people" are actually people who do bad things due to our collective failure to oppose bad ideas that are part and parcel of our society. 
This is not to say people shouldn't be punished for anything. Deterrent and corrective punishments should be there depending on the actions. However, the bulk of our effort should go to transforming ideas and environment instead of being angry at people. Our fear and silence towards social norms and dogma will not help. This is why I encourage everyone to think independently and challenge every single of the negative ideas in our social system. If one person speaks out, nothing much will happen. It should be a collective effort. Speak out and help transform the world, and very importantly inspire others to do the same. This helps to produce the chain reaction that brings out a significant and permanent change in the world for the good.

My Journey to Atheism

Like the vast majority of people, I was brought up with the idea that God exists and can answer prayers. From my earliest days of childhood that I can remember, it was mere common sense that God exists. It was just another truth like day and night that had no reason to be doubted. A child's mind believes what he or she is taught as the truth. When you've been taught this way repeatedly before your intellects are even developed, you simply accept it as a part of everyday normality. Coming into teenage, I carried this belief with me. Around 13 years of age, I began to consider this idea that God may not be true at all. But it was just an idea which I myself kept rejecting as unlikely. This surety in God started developing some cracks as a result of independent, objective thinking. By 15-16 years of age, I became more open to the idea that God might not exist. However, the powerful concept of God is not something that leaves you so easily after it got hold of your brain.

The next phase was disassociating the concept of religion from God. I was not raised in a strongly religious manner. Despite this I never felt a need to separate this idea of religion from God. For me God was still someone who likes being worshiped in temples. Slowly I began to transform my concept of God. As years passed by, I got comfortable with this idea that God has nothing to do with religion. This was an important transformation in my life which came about as a result of questioning things that we generally accept unquestioned. Coming out of the dogma of religion is an important step one has to make to think objectively about God. Religion is someone else's idea about God and clinging on to it makes objective thinking difficult. By 21-22 years of age, I completely disassociated myself from belief in Hinduism - a transformation that started after the end of my high school and was complete towards my final days of engineering. My religious concept of a God who answered prayers in temples changed to a concept of God who created universe and has some sort of power over everything. From believing around 75% in God's existence at the end of high school, my belief shrunk to 50-50. The final year of my engineering (21 to 22 years of age) also helped transformed this from an actual belief to some sort of a "delusional" belief. Delusional belief means belief in something despite contradictory evidence - I knew at this point that there was pretty much no evidence to suggest that there is God - while still thinking there is a 50-50 chance for God being true.

Our minds have been systematically trained since childhood to think that the burden of proof is on the atheist to disprove God - and not on the theist to prove God. Just think about it - we don't apply this kind of logic on almost anything other than God. By this logic, we can't prove that ghosts don't exist. We can't prove that fairies don't exist. If we fully appreciate the fact that we are being biased towards the God concept, we will begin to think differently. The burden is on the believers to prove God's existence. This complete realization has taken me to where I am today. After my engineering, I spent a lot of time with philosophy, seeking truth and goodness. Today at 23 years of age, I believe that there is around 5% chance that God exists - and I pay this small favour to God mainly because I don't believe in being too sure of something so complicated. In that sense, I'm an agnostic and not a perfect atheist. Despite my 95% disbelief in God, I'm sure he is perfectly fine with me being honest about it.

The Hypocrisy in Our Society

As a society, we are total hypocrites. We celebrate love in songs and movies while fearing it in real life. When it happens in the movies, it is sweet and amazing. When it happens in life, it is something that brings shame to family. We really need to stop clinging on to "tradition" and "culture" and grow up without limits. As individuals we need to stop being fake - advocating one thing and practicing another.

Criticism of Islam - Some Thoughts

Criticism of an ideology should not be confused with criticism against people who belong to a community. The best example today is Islam. When you criticize Islam, the Quran or Prophet Muhammad, many people are quick to misinterpret or misrepresent that as hate speech against Muslims. Let me make it very clear that I'm not attacking Muslims in any way when I attack Islam for some of its evils. A frequently encountered argument is: "The real Islam is not what ISIS/Al Qaeda practice. Why do you generalize Islam based on the actions of a few extremists? Their Islam is not our Islam." A few important points to observe here:

1. When I criticize Islam, I'm not criticizing "their Islam" or "your Islam". I'm criticizing the Islamic example that is held in the Quran and the Hadiths. I'm pointing out certain clear evils in the Islamic doctrine (If you think there are no evils, we can talk about it).
2. I know that many Muslims I've met in life are clearly among the most peaceful and nicest people I've ever met. It is true that many people who identify themselves with a religion follow only the good parts of the religion they subscribe to and ignore the evil side. And this is how it should be.
3. However as long as Islam considers the Quran holy and Muhammad as the role model, there will be certain people who follow anything and everything held in Islam. Ultimately, every follower is inspired by the Islamic doctrine and gives their own interpretation to it.
4. Islam is probably the strongest religion today in the sense that its followers are the ones who regard religion in highest esteem overall. This is probably why Muslims (not everyone, but overall) get offended more than others on criticism of religion.
5. The problem with Islam goes well beyond ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Below the extremists who take up arms, comes extremist supporters who don't actually take up arms. Below extremist supporters, comes religious fundamentalists who don't support armed struggle yet support dangerous ideas such as legally executing people for leaving Islam (citing examples of how Muhammad did that in the Hadiths/certain moral examples from Quran). And this is not an insignificant number by any means - look at the support for the Sharia in Saudi, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. Dangerous ideas such as armed violence don't suddenly crop out of nowhere. They have their roots in Islamic fundamentalism.
6. The common tendency among religious moderates is to pretend that the evil verses/teachings in Islam don't even exist. This solves NOTHING, because Islamic fundamentalists know otherwise - only that they agree with these teachings considering God as a better moral judge.
7. Hence, pointing out moral errors don't work with many of these fundamentalists. What can actually help to deal with these people is to show the scientific/factual errors that clearly exist in Quran/Hadiths so it cannot be the word of God.
8. Another common folly is to assume that holy books don't play a significant role in influencing people's minds compared to social or economic factors (a common argument to disassociate Islam from ISIS). This argument fails because Islam is often considered larger-than-life, especially when it comes to people of middle east. If you are a weakly religious person or an atheist/agnostic in India, it is easy to be ignorant or oblivious of how highly certain sections of people consider religion.
9. Nobody really gets sentimental when harsh statements like "Israel is actually helping ISIS" or "USA doesn't actually want ISIS destroyed" are made, but even on moderate criticism of religion people seem to get offended. Religion should be given the same level of criticism as anything else. Why should Religion be immune to criticism?
10. The first step to solving any problem is to recognize that the problem exists. The less we recognize the existence of a problem, the farther we are away from solving the problem.

Independence Day Message

Our country has long got freedom from the British. But we haven't freed ourselves from the clutches of our own society. We let ourselves be ruled by what others want us to. The day we set ourselves free from the thoughts "what does that person think about my actions?" we will obtain our individual freedom. Happy Independence Day.

Religion and My Philosophy

For years I've seen religious fanatics trying hard to prove their religion superior to others. From people trying to prove that their religious text books are infallible to errors, trying to argue that every verse is scientific, using half-baked evidences as their proofs - to people who defend cruel and discriminatory cultural practices such as labeling a section of people as lower caste and treating them like inferiors, defending massive animal slaughter to "satisfy god" and such. I haven't spoken out enough against it, even when all of it has infuriated me to the core. To accept something found in your culture or religious books blindly, to accept any established norms without questioning, is stupid and insane. Let me tell you that each religion and culture contains both good and bad aspects in varying degrees. All we should be doing is to defend the good and denounce the bad. This good and bad has to come from your own independent thoughts and questioning, rather than from established rules or norms.

God may or may not exist, but he didn't create any religion. Man did. And if God really exists, he would be feeling sorry for all of you who fight over religion. Who or what created us, has gifted us with a treasure called intellect- the power to think independently and unbiased. The power to differentiate the right from the wrong. Years of being brainwashed, and being taught the wrong things is what made us what we are today. So, when you defend the verses in any religious books or cultural practices, remember that they were written and created by man and handed down generations, often unquestioned. Do not ever persecute any human being because he or she doesn't conform to any of the established religious, social or cultural rules. No human being has the need to follow any religion, mind you. Live your life to love others and to defend the right. Let love be your religion. Reject anything that hinders this true love from reaching others' hearts. Follow your own philosophy,
respecting your heart and then your brain.

If you ask me what is my philosophy of life, it is to follow the most important principles in their order of priority.

First and foremost comes LOVE (KINDNESS: Speaking and behaving kindly to people; CARE: Checking up on people from time to time; EMPATHY: Thinking from other people's point of view and understanding their feelings).

Next, and of nearly equal importance comes INTELLECT (SKEPTICISM: The questioning attitude, not taking anything for granted; OBJECTIVITY: Being unbiased).

Then comes GENUINITY: Being yourself and not being bothered what others think of your actions. Don't live your life the way society wants you to. Take your chances so that you won't ever have to look back at your life and regret over missed opportunities.

And then, PERSISTENCE: Not giving up on your goals in spite of difficulties. Far too often, I see people get dissuaded from trying to achieve what they want due to difficulties and negativity from other people. I have my own dreams. No matter how difficult it looks, I always keep trying!

Why I emphasize qualities like kindness, care, empathy, skepticism, objectivity, genuinity and persistence is: for example ask this question to an average person what are the top seven qualities one must possess. Of course you might get a reply somewhat similar to mine at least partly. But what the average guy FOLLOWS, is different from what he SPEAKS. If you ask me what the average person follows, it is something like this: confidence, humour, style, playfulness, calmness, helpfulness, honesty. Don't get me wrong, these are good qualities, but know your priority. This is where my philosophy differs.

Hypocritically Secular

India boasts of being a secular country. From a religious point of view, it is indeed secular. We accept and accommodate so many religions and cultures in our country. Straight to the point, let me bring your attention to another fact. Women in various sections and parts of India don't have the freedom to marry a person of their own choice. They are intimidated and scared away from the thought of love marriage, and sometimes love marriage is virtually considered as a sin. The proponents of this line of thought will have justifications ranging from "statistics of failed love marriages" to "respecting parents wishes". Firstly, the bulk of failed love marriages are caused when parents, relatives and some people who claim to be "the society" don't cooperate and even harass the married couple unlike what they would have done had it been a purely arranged marriage. Secondly, the decision is not regarding the life of the parents. The decision is on with whom, their daughter is going to spend the rest of her life with. Why is it better that she spends her life with a person formerly unknown to her, rather than a person she knows and who already loves her knowing who she is? Parents can guide her and help her differentiate true love from fake. That is how you become a great parent. Not by forcing her or intimidating her from choosing her love. We have girls who are scared to even speak out for themselves because by the time they reach the relevant age, they are already completely brainwashed since they are taught the wrong things from an early age.

Now let me come back to the keyword, secular. What is the underlining principle behind being secular? Tolerance. It is to tolerate ideas and views that one doesn't have to agree with. It is to agree to disagree with each other. It is to coexist, respecting the fact that you don't need to fear, hate or harm something that doesn't go along with your thoughts. This nonsense tradition of considering love as a sin is so widespread, that it is impossible to turn a blind eye or keep quiet. Senseless, wrong concepts are blindly followed and upheld like a tradition, while voices that question are suppressed. It is high time our society needs to come to its senses and question every tradition we have. The same way we tolerate different religions, we need to tolerate different outlooks on love. Boasting of being secular and not having tolerance in the matter of love is sheer hypocrisy.

Rays of Hope

We held on to silence,
When we should have communicated.
We assumed things about people,
When we couldn't even hear them.
We started to dislike them,
And we didn't even convey it.
We stored it in our hearts,
And overtime it turned to hate.
We travelled far the wrong way,
And we didn't even know it.

Now we realize things,
And it's still not too late.
The wounds may still remain,
But time shall heal them.
Let's forget the wrongs,
As we retire for the night.
Let's erase the melancholy,
And dream big and sweet.
For the sun shall rise again,
With new rays of hope.

Some quick thoughts

If you are a good person and have a good mind, you don't need to hate those who hate you. Instead, pity them and understand that the hate is because they don't realize your worth. They are travelling in the wrong path without realizing it. Forgive them, and pray that they will get back on the right track soon. Good morning. 

Our Society in Retrospect

Our society needs a lot of rethinking. We are full of prejudice and complicate life unnecessarily. We manage to find selfish motives and negativity even in true love. Good things are twisted and turned, displayed as bad. Love is returned with hate, and hate is returned with love. And besides, we are expected to fit in, not to stand out. Remember we had our days of innocence, just like a newborn baby, devoid of all the artificiality. Our state is no different from how innocence is lost during a person's transformation from a kid to an adult. As a society we have been injected with all the wrong values and ethics just like a person who has been taught the wrong things. Only that its over a period of centuries as opposed to years of a person's life. When a person commits wrongs, we don't accept it in the name of tradition and heritage. Then why should we, when it's the society that commits the wrongs?

What you have so less of, you value it that much more

We live in a wicked, cruel world. People change their colours the same way they change their clothes. Someone who cares a lot for you today, may barely give you any attention tomorrow. This is why people who accept you and appreciate you- not because of the circumstance you both are in, but for the kind of person you are- are so important in your life. Those who stop caring for you without a good reason don't realize your true value. Perhaps the only time they will realize your worth is when they NEED you. "What you have so less of, you value it that much more." So maybe they will realize their folly when they don't have a substitute for you. The question here is, do YOU need them?

The Social Irony

Welcome one and all,
To the esteemed society. 
When it's about us it's a reason,
But when it's about you it's an excuse. 
When we give it's a gift, 
But when you give it's a bribe.
If you won, it was a bold decision,
But if you lost, it was a needless risk.
It's stupid to love a person,
Whom you've known just a few days.
It's perfectly fine,
To marry a stranger ofcourse.
The right thing to do,
Is what everyone does right now.
Honesty is the best policy,
But if you confess you're guilty.

True Education - A Reminder

Happy Vijayadashami/Dussehra to all. This is a day which is celebrated to start off formal education and I want to share my thoughts on true education. Unfortunately, the education system we have is painfully flawed from the core. We are encouraged to study books like a robot and reproduce them during exams. True education has two main components- developing moral values and helping the person choose his/her career path. I'll go into the details on both these essential aspects.

Firstly, about moral values.

Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education, said Martin Luther King. Study as much mathematics/language/science as one wants, that won't make him/her a good person. People who behave rudely in general, look to exploit others in whatever ways they can, hurt people who love them - are good examples of products of a bad educational system that we have. These people exist in very significant numbers out there in the society. Love, kindness and true moral values are forgotten by our educational system, which is a very sad yet true fact. Kindly teach kids these true values as a priority over technical skills.

Secondly, about career paths.

People are lead to believe from a young age that the only viable career options they have are engineering and medicine. When people choose their main stream after 10th standard they have often no clue what they really want to become in their lives, nor are aware of the possibility of viable paths other than engineering and medicine. A great deal of ideas should be instilled into the minds of kids from as young an age as possible. Identify the aptitude and interest kids have and then help them choose their best career option based on their talents. This is the only way you can help people become what they truly want.

Respect for Women

"If you truly love your mother, you cannot disrespect women. If you disrespect women, you don't appreciate motherhood well enough." I will elaborate a bit on this now:

When you make obscene comments about a woman or her body, you forget some things. You forget how you even came into existence in this world. You forget that as a baby you grew up, being fed by a woman. Your mother. Perhaps you don't literally forget it, but you totally forget to appreciate these facts. Every woman is a mother, now or in the future. She is divine and so is her body. It is each of ours duty to respect and safeguard her instead of looking for ways to exploit or abuse her, directly or indirectly, verbally or physically. I have walked among and am part of an age and gender group which perhaps needs this reminder the most. I've been witness to a lot of such verbal disrespect. Most may not behave that way directly to a woman, but a man's true colours are shown best by how he conducts himself behind others' backs. It speaks volumes about how he would act if no trouble would befall him in doing so. In other words, a potential abuser is dormant inside such a man. Don't be one among them.

Always respect women as a token of gratitude for motherhood.

How You Make Me Feel

When I open my eyes,

I see everything around me.

When I close my eyes,

I see nothing but you.

You have that smile,

Which lights up the nights,

Like fireflies in the dark.

You have those eyes,

Which make it hard,

To take one’s eyes off.

You are that person,

Who comes once in a lifetime.

You are that feeling,

Which can’t be put into words.

I close my eyes tightly,

For this lovely moment,

So I can feel nothing,

Beyond how you make me feel.

Principles to Follow in Life

1. Think independently and don't follow the crowd.

2. Love without reason, but never hate without.
3. Find happiness in making others happy.

4. Stop being concerned about how others perceive your actions.
5. Stop being angry as far as possible.
6. Don't take someone's words literally when they are angry.
7. If you are not sure why someone said something, don't take it negatively.
8. Smile often and return smiles.

9. Never speak only bad things about anyone or anything.

10. Always keep improving yourself in every aspect of life.
11. Always aim for the best.

12. Follow your heart, not tradition or common sense.
13. Be humble, it goes a long way into increasing your acceptance.
14. Lose your ego, it kills relationships.
15. Don't hesitate to do what you feel is right.

16. Have determination, and belief in whatever you do.

And finally...
17. Whenever you violate these principles, remember them.

Morality and the Indian Culture

The Indian culture instills tremendous pride within ourselves due its vast diversity and tolerance of languages, races and religion. At the same time, there are some aspects which put us to shame. One glaring aspect is how the society deals with intercaste marriages, and the so called "moral policing" that happens all around. Indian society has long nurtured a warped and twisted approach to morality that dates back to several centuries ago. A man and a woman spending time together has always been viewed with suspicion and often dealt with wrath and repulse by sections of society. Love marriages are discouraged and dealt with as if it is a vice. Inter-caste marriages have been bestowed with scant tolerance. To add to it all, any approach people try to make in the right direction is lambasted and labelled as westernization.

Morality is an interesting topic to touch on due to the fact that people who gloat about it the MOST don't have a remotely decent idea of what it is, nor possess any true moral ethics. Our 'moral police' thinks that - stopping men and women from spending time together, restricting the type of clothes women should wear, beating up people who celebrate valentines day, breaking the windows of hotels which conduct parties - and such amazing acts show morality and protect our culture. If these people with their boiling bloods gave the same effort into protecting true morality by spreading human values like love, kindness and empathy we would have been light years ahead of where we are today in cultural advancement. As for those who consider any kind of such progress as westernization, we are in the right path when we incorporate the good things from any culture, while preserving and upholding our own great values to the fullest extent and eradicating our backward ideas.

Despite the religious tolerance and diversity that India boasts, the same tolerance unfortunately, hasn't applied to inter-caste marriages. Those who marry a person from another religion have to almost invariably go through tough times (upto to an entire lifetime) due to the hate and wrath they have to face from religious zealots and sections of people with primitive thoughts. So alarmingly often, one of the couple is forced to change their religion to the same as that of the other. It hurts me to the core that people can still be so backward and outdated that you can't have two people marry from different religions peacefully and lead happy lives- more often than not. Each religion is a different view of the same thing- god. You and me may have our disagreements with the view points of certain religions, but we shall NEVER show intolerance to any religion(or even to agnosticism or atheism) for that matter. The next thing is the caste system within religion. In the 21st century, may I ask why do we still need this system of dividing people already divided over more than enough issues? I sincerely hope the caste system, which has been the basis of classifying people based on "superiority" disappears FOREVER not just from records but also from peoples' minds. I hope I won't have to write down my caste against any kind of record ever again.

Notwithstanding religion, love marriages are often difficult ordeals for the concerned couples due to the negative attitude shown by society including their own parents and relatives, even in the modern times. Arranged marriage is directly or indirectly taught as the right approach and love marriage as the wrong approach. I'm not talking against arranged marriages here. I'm talking against the negativity and discouragement shown to love marriages. An adult person has the complete freedom to choose the type of life he or she wants. Complete freedom cannot exist in the backdrop of persistent discouragement, persuasion and intimidation. Parents can advice their children and guide them- which is good and necessary, but not strap the adult child's freedom to live his/her own life. People, ESPECIALLY girls are apprehensive to tell their parents about their love because of the negative image of love that is constructed on them from childhood. Those who muster the courage to tell are often opposed. Love is the very base of a couple's relationship, and seeking love is viewed negatively. People are asked to stop their love interest and proceed with an arranged marriage to a person whom they barely know. Logic please: you are going to make the most important and critical decision of your life and persuaded to spend your life with a person who you haven't ever met before or even known. Love marriage is a person's liberty and right. The society should never form any kind of obstacles to this. Not only that, it is our DUTY, all of us to help people marry the person of their interest. I request you all to understand that to have something change for the better we should also play our parts, given the opportunity the very least. A request I have to all parents is to help children differentiate true love from lust, instead of viewing love negatively.

The War Against Evil

World can be broadly divided into two: LOVE and EVIL. Ever since the world was born, love has been at a never ending war with evil. One's victory is the other's defeat. It is everyone's duty to help love win this war. What world needs to prosper, is people living with love for each other and trying to make each other happy. People need to have the qualities of kindness, care, concern and sympathy. To make a good society we need to root out all the evils, as much as possible. Some thoughts that may come to anyone's minds: "A perfect world is boring. Life is not fair, lets deal with it." The reality is that a perfect world or society is an IDEAL situation that will never happen, so we will never get bored. The closer we get to achieving it, the better it is for humanity. Why can't the world become more fair instead of resigning and accepting defeat with the idea that we can't achieve everything? Yes, it is true we can't achieve EVERYTHING, but we can achieve SOMETHING. To defeat evil, the first thing we need is a perfect understanding of what all are the true evils which basically sum up all the problems in this world.

1. Superiority complex: 

The feeling that you are superior to certain other people, and hence are entitled to harass or bully them, and to attain joy at their expense. We see different forms of this in all walks of life. Take for example the school or college environment. How many of you have never been subject to some form of deliberate harassment or mental/physical abuse during your school/college days? If you weren't, then you have been very lucky and you belong to a minority. Even then you must have been witness to such events at some point of time. This kind of harassment can have a permanent negative impact on victims, and can destroy them mentally/physically, critically affecting their careers. Despite all the anti-ragging laws in educational institutions we know ragging exists almost everywhere in varying degrees. The root problem lies not with the strength or implementation of the laws, but rather in peoples' mindsets. The thought that ragging is 'okay' since it "helps individuals develop self-confidence and gives them the ability to deal with tough situations" is as outdated as the most backward sins prevelant in the society such as the 'Sati'. This existence of this very thought is the main reason why people don't feel the need to take proper action against this malpractice, and a section of students go ahead with it, without regrets. The case in educational institutions is just one of the many similar examples that can be seen in fields upto politics and sports.

2. Lack of empathy: 

This leads to people being selfish, without any care or concern towards how other people feel. Living only for themselves, makes people keep looking for ways to satisfy themselves, regardless of how it affects others. Such a person ends up exploiting others for his/her benefits. A prime example of this problem can be seen together with the feeling of lust. Lust is not an evil as such, and resides in EVERY person in different amounts. However, lust together with a lack of empathy constructs a big danger and this is the reason why rape happens all over in this society. Does rape happen mainly because men want to show their superiority to women (I hear this argument all around these days)? No, it happens because an evil together with an inherent characteristic of every person, subdues the self-respect and dignity of the individual (offender). If a person is empathetic, he will not attain pleasure at another person's sorrow. Again, the case can be extended to many other topics as well.

3. Lack of intellect: 

Intellect refers to looking into logic and reason before making a decision. The absence of intellect leads to conformism. An example is the typical Indian classroom. Teacher asks a question to students and those who say yes are asked to raise their hands. Before deciding whether to raise hands, students look at the each other and think: "Oh, not many are raising their hands, so lets not raise hand myself." Conformists don't feel the need to stand for the right, and look instead at what is the general trend or public opinion. Then he/she agrees to this opinion that has the better support of the public instead of thinking on his own and forming an opinion without prejudice. This tendency is alarmingly widespread and you might have already been annoyed several times by this in your life either if you have been the subject of opinion, or if you simply had tried to question the wrong things happening around. Absence of intellect makes people resistant to change and refuse to question or speak up against the unjust norms. For instance, sections of people keep blindly defending outdated views and beliefs that consider women as inferior to men. Another one is the 'moral policing' when men and women are seen together in a place or travelling together. Such things will keep society in the dark ages for decades to come unless every right-thinking person tries to man up and stand for the right instead of siding with the trend.

There are no perfect people in the society and all have some kind of evil existing within themselves. Just that some have lesser amount of evils and others have more. When we get a good grasp of what the evils are and try to root them out, we can improve. The realization of what is good and what is evil has to be fed into individuals as early as possible during life. A person is the product of what all he/she hears and learns right from childhood. A society is in turn the product of all its people. True education is one that PRIMARILY imparts these essential moral values in preference to maths, science and technology. We live in a world that needs to change for the better at every given opportunity. This world means you, and me. Only if we work together can love triumph over evil.

Passive Smoking is a Killer

We live in a society with a more than fair share of people who smoke cigarettes. Ask the average person who smokes, "don't you know that smoking is harmful?" he will reply that he knows it all but can't get rid of it since it is addictive. Well that doesn't mean people who previously smoked have never quit, does it? It is always a question of priorities, a question of whether your realisation of the harms done to people including others, outweighs the feeling of addiction. Next time, try a different question to the person, "do you know that when you smoke, you harm your friend who sits near you much more than how much you harm yourself?". This time he maynot be so sure as last time. Which is why I shall dwell on an aspect of smoking usually not placed enough emphasis on. Passive smoking.

To put simply, there are two methods in which you can inhale cigarette smoke - active smoking where the smoker inhales 'mainstream smoke', and passive smoking where the people who are near the smoker inhale 'sidestream smoke'. Mainstream smoke, as you can guess is the smoke directly inhaled from the cigarette. This passes through a filter designed to absorb a decent portion of the nicotine, tar and carcinogens that would otherwise be inhaled completely. Sidestream smoke which doesn't pass through this filter, which comes out through the backside of the cigarette is what the smoker's friend inhales.

Let's go to statistics here. More than 80% of the total smoke produced by cigarette is sidestream smoke. See this together with what I mentioned earlier, that the same quantity of sidestream smoke is more harmful than that much mainstream smoke. Meaning, when you sit with a friend for chat, or when a husband sits along with a wife smoking a cigarette the one who is harmed more is the friend and the wife. Wake up, knowing all these facts would you atleast not genuinely try to give up smoking? Smoking is scientific murder!

The happiest day of my life - When I got selected for a job

Written on 31/01/2014

December 20, 2013, Friday.

After cracking the preliminary test of TCS placement process strongly, I was upbeat and wanted to be able to give my best for the interviews. My friends encouraged me and I began watching videos of interviews- several examples of good and bad interviews. This helped me learn quite a few “dos and don’ts” about interviews. I was among the six students from Production Engineering (NIT Calicut) to clear the preliminary test.

12:00 am: I have been watching interview videos, reading tips and excerpts from interviews for a few hours already- and it continued till around 2.45 am before I finally was satisfied and decided to sleep.

2:45 am: While at bed I kept thinking about so many things in life, the importance of love and I was imagining myself in happy moments I wanted to be in. I could not sleep properly, but it didn’t bother me much because I felt I could still be focused for the day when it mattered.

7:30 am: I don’t think I had an ounce of proper sleep throughout the night and I really mean it! But I wanted to check more information about TCS in the internet as well as do a final inspection/arrangement of the documents for the interview apart from other things, so I got up from bed at this time even though the process was scheduled to start only at 9.30 am sharp.

8:30 am: I left for the mess (in the same hostel), to have breakfast. There were a few fellow students who were also selected to be interviewed having the breakfast along with me. In 10 minutes I finished my breakfast and went back to my room fast, then went to bathroom.

9:15 am: I was ready with the formal clothes and shoes on, and left my room for the computer centre, which was the venue for the interview. I reached there 5 minutes before 9:30, along with a few mates. We waited, time running past 9:30 and 9:45 and it was nearly 10:00 am when the process finally started. I was waiting for my turn, and in the meantime I spilled water on my shirt while drinking which worried me a bit because it wasn’t drying up as fast as I wanted. Then, after sometime I browsed internet in my mobile to look up a few things about Indian fighter aircraft (aerodynamics was the main highlighted interest in my resume).

11.30 am: I was called for my first interview. Technical and non-technical questions were asked. It was going okay till the interviewer asked me some electrical-based stuff which was part of my main project. My knowledge about electricals/electronics is pretty bad and despite this being from my major project, I could barely answer anything in this department although I answered the mechanical part okay. Then I had to tell to him about my lack of technical interest in the IT department which prompted questions from the interviewer since IT is a big part of TCS. I told him that my interest was in the “Engineering and Industrial Sector” of the TCS but he didn’t seem too positive. I was asked what I knew about TCS and I answered it moderately well. The interview was unsatisfactory overall, and lasted some 10 minutes- that was the typical duration of an interview.

11:50 am: I didn’t expect to be called so fast for a second interview. The questions started off about some of the modern cars in the market, as the interviewer read my resume. I couldn’t answer the first 2 questions at all, so the feeling of being knocked out of the process crept into me for a moment. However the interviewer was cool about it, and then started asking me about the aerodynamics part. The first question on this was about the spoilers used in cars, and I answered it perfectly. So, he started asking some advanced questions on the same topic. I was able to clearly explain all. This gave me some confidence. After the technical questions were over, he gave me a puzzle to solve, since “solving puzzles” was listed as one of my interests. The best part about the puzzle was that I first heard about it today, a few minutes before my first interview began. However, I had only heard the answer in half, and after telling the first half, I requested some time to think about the puzzle, which he readily allowed. Thankfully, I managed to work it out in a minute and then completed the answer. Then, he asked me about my hobbies, and then asked a rather trivial question about the shortly-over 2013 chess world championship final. I answered it clearly and confidently, and when the process was over I think the interviewer was somewhat impressed. What a comeback, after an average first interview, and a slow start to this one!

1:15 pm: I was waiting all this time to see if I would be called for another interview, witnessing many of my fellow students (including those who weren’t called for any interviews before my second interview finished) get called upto their third interviews. At this time, we were asked to go and have lunch and come back at 2 pm. I went back slowly to my hostel room and relaxed a bit, but didn’t have lunch because I just didn’t feel like having food. There was no hunger, nor any feeling of sleepiness.

1:55 pm: I reached back and waited, now being more relaxed, without tension.

4:15 pm: Hours of waiting yielded no result. I was somewhat impatient and wondering what was wrong. Some others were also left waiting, but not as long as I had to. I enquired to the placement representative from production engineering about the matter. He tried to check it in his own way. After a couple of minutes he informed us that he wasn’t sure what was going on, but said that we weren’t declared out yet, and asked to wait.

5:00 pm: The placement representative told us that there was no sign of any further interviews for me and a couple others waiting. He said to us that we three were most likely out, while the remaining three from our branch are almost confirmed as placed. I was feeling a little concerned and let down, but pinned my hopes on being called again.

5:30 pm: I was called and my third interview was on! The interviewer read over my resume and the few questions he asked were almost entirely based on that. However, he didn’t ask any non-basic technical questions. Most of the time was spent on a puzzle question which he asked me to take my own time and solve, giving me a paper with ample space on both sides, and a pen. Seeing that I wasn’t getting a breakthrough, he gave me a hint to solve a simpler version first and then proceed to the actual complexity of the puzzle. In addition he simplified the puzzle question a bit. I didn’t particularly like the question, but I sat down and in 2-3 minutes gave him an imperfect but decent solution. He noted that my method was correct and approved the answer. While observing that it could be made better, he acknowledged my ability and effort. Then I was asked if I wanted to know anything about the company, and I asked a couple of questions and the interview was over.

5:45 pm: Shortly, it was announced by the placement representatives that all those who had atleast three interviews could go back. We went back, and I bought a 1 litre bottle of a cool drink, got back to the room, started removing my formals and relaxed.

6:30 pm: Here came the twist, the production representative phoned me, informing that I had another interview to attend! Putting my formals back on, I rushed back to the computer centre not wanting to take the risk of being late. In a few minutes I arrived there, excited. I was asked to go in for the fourth interview. The interviewer apologized for calling me late, and asked me how my previous interviews were. I was quite frank about it. The first question was about my main interest, aerodynamics. It was a fundamental and simple question but in my excitement, I couldn’t remember or answer it properly. He then asked me another fundamental question, to answer by writing- the four forces of equilibrium acting on an aircraft. I answered it quickly, and he slowly came back to the original question that I hadn’t answered properly in first go. This time, I was asked to write down the equation based on the answer, and I answered it in paper correctly, followed by an explanation on the written answer on being prompted. This was satisfactory, and he approved it. Then I was asked about my preferences of location of work, and asked about my willingness to travel abroad which I answered positively. Then like last interviewer, he asked me what I wanted to know about TCS, and I asked him a few questions. In then end, I smiled and shook hands with him, then walked out confidently. This time the representative assured me that I can go back to hostel, and that he will inform the results.

7:30 pm: I was back in hostel, and in another room talking with some fellow production students about each others’ interview experiences and so on, when the results came out: All six Production Engineering students who attended the interviews have been placed!! For a few moments after the initial joy on hearing the results, I couldn’t bring myself to terms with what’s happening around. I didn’t know what feelings I had and wasn’t sure why I wasn’t overjoyed. After going to the representative’s room to confirm the news, I phoned my parents and slowly started getting a grip of the reality that I have been selected for a job. Then I phoned a few friends who didn’t get the news yet, to inform them and got back to my room. I got a few calls from friends and relatives on hearing the news, to congratulate me- as I sat on the chair, in my hostel room drinking the rest of the cool drink, and sharing the news on facebook. This placement had in the end, come faster than I expected. Infact, after one semester went by without success, I wasn’t sure if I would ever get placed, especially as the final semester was only beginning. And even more so, for someone who only five days ago had almost completely lost his voice, being on antibiotics for throat infection, the last one of which I took this night. The fact that with almost no sleep the previous day and no lunch, I could endure the whole day without feeling sleepy till I went to bed at late night was a testament to the commitment I showed that day.

1:00 am: I went to bed, and after more than an hour of mind occupied with thoughts, fell asleep wondering if everything will be the same when I wake up again.