Different Strokes..

Rubberducking

2010-07-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

How many times have you experienced this : you are splitting you hair (assuming you you have enough ) over some problem for hours and not able to make any headway . Then you call your friend 2 cubicles away and ask for help. You start explaining the problem to the friend and just halfway through it when you say : "Oh! It seems I got it!". Did your friend help you? I do not mean to offend your carbon based human friend, but in this case , even a rubber-duck would be able to help you as well because it was YOU who found out the problem while explaining it to your friend. This phenomenon is called "rubber ducking". So it basically means that when stuck with some seemingly difficult problem, talk to a rubber-duck, a plastic duck or for that matter any other duck. Even your dog, cat, cow, fish, goat, crow, pigeon or maybe your best friend will do, it does not matter. Explain the problem in detail and you will be surprised how many times you get to the root of it.

While rubber-ducking, it's the talking that matters. Explaining your problem out loud is often enough to shake things loose in your brain, expose bad assumptions, and cause you to see things in a new way. Speaking out loud accesses those parts of your brain which are not accessible while just "thinking". The act of explaining something gives you a new perspective on the topic. This is the reason why teaching is considered the best way to learn, as it forces us to explain our understanding of the subject and lets us see the things from a multitude of our students' perspectives.

So teach what you learn, spread the knowledge and be sure that you will be the one who would benefit the most .And next time you are stuck with the misbehaving code or some other such silly problems of life, talk to the rubber duck, and if that sounds too embarrassing to do in your cubicle, then by all means call your friend and explain. And yes, do not forget to thank him to be your rubber-duck (or your teddy-bear if you prefer that).

Tata's new $2500 people's car.. Nano

2008-01-12T13:10:00.001-08:00

I read the NY Times article about the Tata nano car. It is a good read, however the part about Elephants is wrong. We hardly get to see any Elephants in India nowadays. All references to India contain either Elephant or snakes, however it is so sad that they are not easy to find nowadays :( . I would have preferred them to the malls that are opening up every other day here .

But its true that the road discipline is non-existent. I imagine that after the nano, the roads will be used only as car-park in Mumbai .. and there will be only pedestrians.. all walking on top of the nanos 'parked' on the roads .

The car is good but the roads here are really bad. People here do not participate much in adventure sports, I used to think that it is because of some other reasons, but now I understand that an average Indian gets enough dose of adventure in his daily commute to office. After that, he is mostly content with watching the Americans jumping off the mountains or planes in search of adventure on TV :) and wondering why would somebody want to do that after a day out in the traffic???

Still, people have to travel in very unsafe transport. Seeing a family of a man , woman and an infant and maybe another child , all riding a scooter in such traffic is nostalgic ( as I used to be in the role of that infant once ) as well as worrying . A small affordable car can be of great use. However it will be a disaster for Indian roads . The cities here can be hundreds of years old sometimes and were never designed for any kind of cars..

That's why I am looking for the next Tata innovation .. a people's airplane . I know it seems so incredible, but a 1 lakh ( $ 2000 car at that time's exchange rate) seemed as incredible at the time when Ratan Tata expressed his dreams.

Back to India ... part II

2007-07-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

First few days back in India. With memories of Japan tending to settle down and getting ready to go behind the layers of the latest of the monotony of life back home. I have to dust off and oil all the systems that make up my little solitary home at Mumbai.

The television offers a lot of nonsense : the intelligent people in media have long realized that nonsense is far more interesting than the reality.Movies are getting better, but I have no appetite to watch one in a theater. So I listen to some Dire Straits songs : frozen in time and as fresh as it was a few days back.My phone at home has died and mobile is lost. With everyone chatting away on a mobile in Mumbai, I find it a great luxury to talk to anyone anytime using that little brick called a mobile phone. Going back to mobile-less prehistoric age is not easy I guess.

After struggling with Japanese, its a great relief to find everyone talking in my language.. Hindi .. and officially in English. Its not a struggle anymore to communicate a word or two . The trouble is that I will have to (again) listen to people who communicate more than necessary. This is one thing I was spared of in Japan.

Back to India

2007-07-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

The TV interview in Japan was telecasted as expected, and I got a footage of it recorded with the help of Lee - my Chinese friend in Japan. But inevitably, I am back to India, and am finding a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes with my blogs. Its time to reflect I guess.

Japan is a great country, with its people so disciplined and understated. 'Order' is the theme in that beautiful country. I land in Mumbai and the theme changes from 'order' to 'chaos' . But the chaos here is more familiar than the order in Japan. I wonder why do I like this chaos ? I hear a consistent chirpy voice of a newly married girl reading aloud all the boards in the airport to her mildly embarrassed but still doting husband- that is something I could find only here. Japanese women never talk like this , they are too silent and compliant. And i find American women too harsh on my ears. India is at the middle. As Budddha says, "Take the middle path", I guess its the middle path which makes India so unique. It falls right in the middle of wild west and mild east.

India has too many voices, too many peoples. Somebody grown up on India's diversified diet would find other places insipid. That's why you would find an Indian travelling to a foreign land almost always with a supply of a few days of Indian food.

There is simply too much to experience in India. "India is an assault on the senses" says a popular guide to India ."Sweet assault", I mutter as I load my baggage in a rag-tag taxi taking me back home.

My First TV Interview for Japan TV

2007-07-01T06:59:00.000-07:00

"I have been here for a 13 years and nobody noticed, you are here for last 3 weeks and you are going to be on Japan's national TV already?? I can't believe it !" That was the reaction when I told my American client in Japan that I was interviewed while coming to work by NHK (Japan's public broadcaster). The life is obviously unfair.

So I started for office early morning as usual from my Nishi-Kasai apartment . I dropped some garbage in 3 different trash cans as the Japanese do and pressed the iPod's 'play'. A few steps later I found a girl, a cameraman and a sound assistant with a microphone almost lurking behind some invisible hideout, crouching for a prey . They were silently waiting for something or somebody. I looked on curiously and then turned and started waiting for walk sign to cross the road. "Hello" I heard from behind, and found that the crouching tigers have found the hidden dragon, i.e. me!.

The girl started "We are making a program on the Indian proficiency in Mathematics... can we ask some questions?" . "So I am being interviewed", I thought, I felt exited with the prospect and at the same wondered what they would ask . I tried to summon all my forgotten Maths knowledge thinking that I might finally spoil India's name today . Will they ask me about the differential calculus or some Fourier transform ?? I wondered.

My thought train was halted by a microphone which was thrust towards me and a cameraman who seemed be already in the process of filming the events. But the girl reporter was the most merciful who showed me a cardboard with a problem and said "I will show you some problems, could you please answer them?", I was relieved when I looked at the cardboard, it was something like 4 *6.I answered it . Then another card with a similar easy problem, I answered it correctly too. Then she showed me 25 *25, it took no time to answer that it is 625 ( square of 25). Two more such questions were answered with increasing difficulty. I received each further question with some trepidation which I had almost forgotten since the school days. Then she showed me her most difficult question : 19*23. A few seconds later I could reply that it was 437. She seemed satisfied and then asked me to show how I arrived at the answer so quickly. The cameraman focused once on me and then on the card where I started revealing the secret of how I arrived at the answer. The calculation is : 23*19= (23*20)-23 = 437.

Then she asked me to hold the cardboard and look at the camera for 5 seconds, I stood with a smiling face . I was thinking all the things that could have gone wrong but didn't. I was smiling because I had just finished my life's first interview in Japan. The myth of Indian mathematical proficiency was alive for another day, and it was done by just showing that I could do some primary school multiplication.. very generous of the reporter.

This interview is hopefully going to be broadcasted tomorrow in one of the two channels of Japan's national TV. I am already a micro-nano celebrity :) .. in Japan.

Perils of little knowledge

2007-06-20T09:31:00.001-07:00

More about little knowledge. I am learning a lot about the perils of using little knowledge and the little risks it comes with .Whenever I read a few new Japanese words , I feel like trying it out in the open. Till now , I have inflicted my Japanese on a taxi driver, a shopkeeper and some other less fortunate individuals here in Japan.

The results have been less than spectacular. The taxi driver looked like he pitied my lack of intelligence , the shopkeeper replied about the price by talking in Japanese numbers and after looking at the blank expression, used his calculator to actually show the price in digital form . The other less fortunate individuals had similar reactions . To understand their situation, the 'Lord of the Rings' movie dialogues are instructive:

Pained with his situation, Frodo says to Gandalf ,

"I wish the ring had never come to me...I wish none of this had happened."

on this, Gandalf says :
"So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

So these individuals tried their best to deal with the situation given to them. In other words, they had to use all their resourcefulness to answer my questions.

Firstly and naturally, they would speak in fluent Japanese because I asked the question in Japanese. Then, when they find out that that I had already used all the Japanese I knew, they try to use some very broken English . After this point some gave up with the cross sign using their fingers , meaning they are at their wits end , and left. Some others used sign language to make me understand their point .

I have very few days left here , nevertheless, I intend to keep up the good show.

Japanese and Bihari

2007-06-20T08:25:00.001-07:00

Little knowledge is dangerous and the little knowledge I am gaining of Japanese might be no exception to this. I am trying to learn Japanese a little. I read a Japanese learning book everyday though I might never be able to use Japanese much. Its a disappointing thought but I am trying to keep the (non) usefulness of learning away from the joy of learning it.

So, armed with my little knowledge of Japanese,I have been drawing premature parallels with other languages I know : namely Hindi and English. The Japanese learning book I have is in English and I do my thinking in Hindi. So its two levels of translations I have to do to understand something. But then after a day or two I discovered that Japanese is more like Hindi than English:grammar wise. The subject, object and the verbs are arranged in Japanese and Hindi in the same way. But even more interesting is some literal parallels with Bihari, (a Hindi dialect) Example:

Bihari's often add 'wa' after a noun . e.g. if you want to say "That building is here "

Woh building-wa idhar hai.
( Woh= that , idhar=here , hai = is )

Incidentally, Japanese do the same :

Ano Biru -wa sono des.

( Ano = that ,biru= building, sono= here , des= is )

So,in this case, a straight,simple literal translation from Bihari will give you a correct Japanese translation :)

Another example, Bihari's add a 'ka' at the end of a sentence to make a question from a sentence. Example, if you want to say, " Is that building here?"

Woh building-wa yahan hai ka?
(woh= that, yahan = here ,hai= is )

A Japanese would say :

Ano biru-wa doko des ka ?
( Ano= that, biru=building, doko= here, des= is)

With such miniature discovery and enlightenment, I was already feeling like a Japanese expert. But before long, my pride took a beating. The reason is that today I said "Ohayo gozaimus" ( good morning) to a girl in the bank instead of "Arigato gozaimus"( thank you). Thankfully the she understood what I wanted to say because I have learned to bow at every excuse, or the lack of it ( I am a natural at it). She said something in Japanese with an expression which gave away friendly understanding and enjoyment of my situation and also some appreciation of the large effort I was putting on my brain to find the right words on the spur of the moment.

Kimono and me

2007-06-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

I went to Asakusa, a Tokyo district which has retained its traditional charm to date, I bought a lot of Japanese items, like good Japanese traditional folding fans, chopsticks , Japanese dolls etc. But one thing that captivated my imagination was a blue silky Japanese Kimono. I loved it so much that despite it being costly, it took me no more than a second to decide buying it. I bought one very good one for my mother. I did some gentle bargaining ( i am not good at that or not inters ted mostly).But it got me the Kimonos at around 10% less. Next we went to Asakusa temple . One interesting speciality is set of boxes in the temple wall where you can get your future. Mine came to be a good fortune. All good predictions should be believed, and I believed this one even more because the very next day and 2 days after , Japanese vending machines returned me more yens than they should.
Back to Kimono, so after buying it , we went to the Imperial palace. The palace is not majestic as I expected, or it might be because no one can actually see it except on 2-3 special occasions in a year. But the environs are kept well preserved. We got to see only the surrounding since the emperor and the family still live there unlike India's maharajas who have long left their palaces in favour of some foreign destinations. Inside the imperial palace gardens, I could not restrain myself and put on the Kimono and started posing.My friends clicked away the photos.But I noticed that there was a Japaese couple, a policeman and some Europeans there, who looked very interested and before i could know, they clicked some photos of me in that Kimono.

I asked my Japanese colleague next day whether people wear such Kimonos, he said drinking his green tea that its quite unusual. Now I understand why those Japanese people found it necessary to take my photos. After all, you don't find a foreigner wearing a beautiful silky Kimono posing inside the Imperial palace everyday.

Tokyo local train

2007-06-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

If you want to know what the phrase "bursting at the seams" means, look at a Mumbai local train. It looks like people are bursting out of every seam available.I used to think that Japan will be different, with its dwindling population.But how wrong could I be?

So I stood at the Kameido station on my second day in Japan, waiting for the next subway train. The subway in Tokyo is a whole city beneath the earth. With a web of lines which can take you almost anywhere in Tokyo.The train came and it did not seem so full. People went out and I got in with my friend. We went in and faced the door , some people came in the first wave. Then there was second. I thought that the train is full. Then came the third wave. The waves kept coming. It was like tsunami: the waves are not fierce, but they do not stop, they gently but persistently keep coming until you are overwhelmed.People made their way gently, but just when you think that the compartment is full, another few would come in. There was slow and gentle nudge that you start getting from all sides until you have no space to move even your hand.At the near end of it, everyone was getting crushed, I saw a guy in front of me wincing in pain-my laptop was apparently hitting his feet and almost crushing it. But he just bore the pain and did not complain. My right hand was stuck at 60 degrees in the air, it was sandwiched in the process of trying to find a holding. For next 10 minutes it was like that.

I used to think that the automatic doors would deter people from packing too much,but it seemed to help people in doing just the same.Sometimes peoples' bags, hair or limbs come in the way. In such cases, the driver and guard who stand in front of gates interfere.They gently push the people in and let the doors close. Its like you push in last of the clothes sticking out of your suitcase and close it.

Once I saw a girl literally sticking to the door with both her palms on it.She was standing there in that posture silently. I thought this posture quite strange, until my friend later told me that her hair got stuck between the closing doors.

So these stuffed suitcase take people to their offices everyday in the busy subway lines. People do not mind being stuffed and they do not resist other peoples' coming in even though the Bogey is full.

This is contrast to Mumbai's trains where people come in not like Japanese tsunami, but like a storm. Japanese people come as tsunami, and in Mumbai - people 'storm in'.

Japanese way of speaking

2007-06-06T07:28:00.001-07:00

One little note, Japanese people can't voice some sounds.. the most glaring example is "L" sound. So hearing even known English words from Japanese people is like hearing a new word. English is "Igris", Language is "rangUage", toilet is "toyre". Then there is no independent consonants in Japanese, all consonants have a vowel attached, that means that "Amolak" will be called "A-mo-ra-ka" , "Piyush" becomes "Pi-Yu-Shu".

Listening to Japanese also has some interesting twists. "Hai" means "Yes" and also used as "OK" ,for acknowledging that you are listening to the other person. But the way it is said is the most unusual. It is said with a great puff of air coming from deep down the lung, and with a lot of enthusiasm ( that's how a foreigner would perceive it). Then many of the words seem like they have been cut before the word has ended. When I hear these frequent and peculiar pronunciation of words , it seems like a mouse was passing a hole and before it completely passes through, the shutter of the whole closed , thus cutting its tail :)

Japanese politeness

2007-05-27T07:53:00.001-07:00

Japanese people don't know English.Most Japanese only know Japanese.That makes things a bit complicated because I only know English and Hindi.I think that finding people who can speak Hindi in Japan is very difficult, so I try English everywhere , but it appears that the odds are not very good even in favour of English( Japanese call it 'Igris' because they can not say 'L' sound).
Anyways, so let me get back to writing about politeness and helpfulness of Japanese. As soon as I reached Tokyo airport( Narita airport as it is called),I found myself in a world where everyone bows and shows respect without any big reason. People are helpful and try to help you to their best.

I have experienced the most polite and helpful customer care in Japan.The girl at the counter of the convenience store I go to speaks in fluent Japanese when I reach her, she knows that I don't understand any, but she keeps speaking and says everything that she would say to a Japanese.Then she points at the digital display for the amount I should pay. I pay the amount by holding the Japanese Yen notes with both hands which she receives with both hands and a slight bow. After she returns the change, she takes a step back and bows with both her hands on her lap saying "arigato gozaimasu" (thanks) and much more ( which I don't understand). I think she does not show that gesture to everyone but maybe because I didn't understand her Japanese, she wanted to translate everything she already said by a gesture. I try to bow a little , and say "Thank you" and make a quick exit before she speaks more Japanese and I feel more embarrassed because I can't understand any of it.

We went out for some sight seeing, and lost our way as usual. So we ask one Japanese about directions, he gets panicky( because he knows no Igris) and points at a very smartly dressed traffic policeman. As we start towards him, he senses the impending trouble of having to cope with English .But we nevertheless reach him and ask, he listens to us very intently, thinks about it (but apparently understands nothing)and exclaims "haaaaaaaaaaa..." , and half closes his eyes with a lot of force and vigorously shakes his head sidewise.With a slight bow, he makes a cross sign with his fingers ( which we guess means that he does not know). He shows so much regret for not being able to help us that it seems like he is cursing his existence and feeling that his life is not worth living because he could not help us.

Next we go to Tokyo towers, as soon as we enter the building, we see some very smartly dressed girls in blue suit , they greet everyone with a slight bow, show us the way and also walk a step or two if needed. They do it with everyone. We enter the lift and the lift man( dressed again in a suit) lets everyone go in, then with very gentle gestures tries to make his way inside an almost full lift. Then he bows slightly, gets in, gently gestures people to get away from the door by stretching his arms to make a barrier, stands with his face towards the door and presses the lift button.hmmmmffff... that is about all the politeness i see in a week in the US or a month in India.

Octopus in Tokyo

2007-05-26T04:38:00.000-07:00

So I , my three colleagues , our Japanese colleague and the client (a Japanese speaking American) sat down for lunch in a Japanese pizza shop. Since we didn't know anything about the pizzas served there, I let our client order. He ordered one sea food pizza, ( I came to know that when I saw shells on top of the pizza). "This will be the first time that my food has sea-shells on it" I told everyone.

So we started eating and having conversation about food in India, US and Japan etc. "This pizza has a lot of different sea food pieces" told the American . I took the next piece of the seafood and asked our Japanese colleague "What food Japanese people normally eat?". "Rice and a lot of seafood" he answered. My next question :"Do Japanese people eat Octopus? " he said yes. I asked so how does it taste? He said "The last piece that you ate and complained that it was difficult to chew, was Octopus". "OH!" i said. He then showed me another piece in my pizza which was octopus. "OK", i said and just for curiosity's sake I asked, "And what is this white piece ?" ... "That is squid" informed my Japanese colleague as a matter of fact.

So today I ate an octopus, shell ,squid and shrimp in a single pizza. For a Japanese its all in a day's food, but for an Indian, its like eating all the animals of the world in one meal.

Octopus and Squid:

Asking for directions in Tokyo

2007-05-24T07:19:00.000-07:00

Almlost nobody knows English here.. and of course Hindi . These are the 2 languages I know, so its a lot of sign language and still no understanding kind of movie that playes everyday( its been only a few days yet).

Still, people seem to be very helpful and often embarrassed when they can not understand what we are tyring to ask. We travel by the city subway or JR ( Japan Rail) for commutation. I learned from my japanese colleague how to buy the tickets from the machine. There is no manual ticket window. Here are some of the incidents of languge problem kind:

1. I put 3 coins in the ticket machine, The ticket machine keeps one and returns the other two. I try again, again it returns 2 and keeps one, third time also the same thing. The machine beeps and shows some message in (can you guess?) -Japanese, so I have no way to know what is happening wrong. I try a coin of larger denomination and it works. Later in the day I found out that the coin I was using was not Japanese yen, it was Singapore dollar coin that stayed in my wallet from Singapore airport. The machine must be telling me , but how could I read ?

2. We have a map which shows the station in English and Japanese. But we are trying to find out the ticket amount, which is only available in a big board in japanese language. There are a lot of stations all over the board, all in japanese. So I try to take a "mental" snapshot of what was written there in my hand map and try to match it with the pictures in the board, 15 minutes of struggle but I and my friend do not see anything which matches the station name that we have in the map in our hand.. finally one helpful Japanese who was standing near us and knew english tells us what we were looking for.

Suitless in Tokyo

2007-05-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

I was watching "Sleepless in Seattle" during the flight from Singapore to Tokyo. Interesting film, but many times more interesting was the experience of suit-less ness in a normal working day in the Tokyo business district.

"Everyone needs to wear suit and tie everyday, only Fridays are casuals , that means you can leave tie and suit and can wear a short sleeve shirt to work on a Friday " informed the client we are working for as an introduction to the office dress code. So that is the casual Friday in Japan, you can still not wear a jeans and a t-shirt on a Friday for work.

Next day I and my roommate woke up in the morning knowing that it was Friday, so we got ready and put on the "casuals", that is , I put on half sleeve ( but otherwise quite formal) shirt, trouser, formal shoes : still looking quite formal. But I did not wear any suit or tie. On the way to the station we kept observing people to see how they dress on a Friday , most were dressed in suit only. "Bad" we agreed, these people should try to be a bit more relaxed sometimes.

In the office, we did not see anybody without a suit, so we were feeling a little out of place. Finally when we entered our work place, our colleagues greeted us with some astonishment."In casuals on a Thursday? "

The rest of the day was a story of feeling like I was not wearing enough clothes. Its like coming to office in shorts and vests in India.

I am now planning to compensate by going in full suit on the next day, which happens to be a real Friday.