The Kindness of others

At times it is very easy to be ignorant of the all those selfless people who keep our society ticking. I think the biggest hidden heroes our society has, are people who work in life sciences and specifically those who are immunologists, virologists and microbiologists and the kind. I have a particularly dear friend who is a microbiologist. Her name is Deepti and everyday she makes her way to her medical college lab and transforms from a pretty young lady to the scientist in a bio-hazard suit(Yeah!! that's her a few days ago. I think she kind of looks like Storm Shadow). She works on testing live swine flu patients. Most of us would run away at the mere mention of swine flu. But she puts on her bio-hazard suit and gets into the lab to work with live samples of the swine flu virus for the whole day, everyday. There are obviously risks and there are instances when technicians have contracted diseases they were working on testing. People have contracted swine flu in this manner and have died. To put all that fear aside and work with the H1N1 virus, so that others may live, is truly courageous. I wonder what motivates her to take such a risk. Surely it is not worth the measly stipend she is offered. It's not personal either, as she helps in the treatment of people who she will never meet, and who will never even know her work. It takes a particular bend of mind - a truly humanitarian mind to drive oneself to be able to do something like this.

I write this because I feel that somebody should know her contribution. That society should look for heroes, beyond the surface of our social fabric and appreciate the contributions of Deepti and her colleagues who, from behind those masks deliver us from disease and death. It is time we started to acknowledge the Kindness of others.

Happy Birthday IIIT

After reading Maroo's post I too have decided to join the bandwagon of writing a b'day post for IIIT. In 2004, foundation day was celebrated properly. Sadly there isn't much hulla this year. I would usually write what we should do and look forward to and some more pranav-ish blah, but I'm deciding against it :) Somebody recently asked by somebody to give me the highlight of each year I spent at IIIT. I think it's a wonderful thing to do.

The best thing from my UG1 days would definitely be all the hell raisin that was done in GHEB. GHEB was a unique hostel. Imagine a completely isolated building with only ug1 guys :) The awesome part was the birthdays. Birthdays starting on one floor would eventually spread to all three floors and end with pepsi/mirinda and cake all over the place. It was the purest chaos I have experienced. Highlight: Birthdays in GHEB

For me second year was about football. I became part of the college team and our batch officially went football crazy. The year ended with an amazing come from behind win against UG2k3 where we came back from 2 goals down to win 3-2. Highlight : Inter-batch football finals

Third year did not start well at all, but we eventually started to get over it. The first half of the year spent frequenting Ohri's for midnight biriyani and also included a certain record 19 slices at the pizza hut iftar meal :O Then came felicity and lots of work. Highlight : Making an amazing new Felicity

My fourth year was not a usual one. I spent more than half of the year in Bangalore doing an intern. I loved the excitement that placements generated but only because i didn't have to sit for them :P . Every day we used to have a bunch of people coming back with big smiles on their faces knowing they now had jobs. I also got a job this year. I became a Sysadmin. It's a job that perhaps entails only abuse from other people but I found it to be an awesome challenge. Highlight : Seeing all my friends getting placed and kicking them in the aftermath :D

My fifth year was all hard work. I got my first publications. And the best thing for me this year has been the why I've been able to run every morning and play. I've managed to lost quite a bit of weight actually (I know it's a drop in the ocean....) Highlight : Writing papers with 3 people from 3 different areas and being the glue that keeps it all together.

This might be over-nostalgic, but it's a neat exercise. I tag SKP, ORB, mythalez, Sultan of Samarkand, @nks, Daka, Turbo, Raina, Bordeaux, Aniket, Maroo, Himank, Zenwalker and Bitgeek to all write similar posts. Some of you could really do with a post :P

Heart Break

Of all the players Rafa has signed, Xabi Alonso is perhaps the classiest. There hasn't been a deep lying midfielder that good since perhaps ...... wait !! There hasn't been anybody like Alonso in the EPL! I think the closest person to Alonso in terms of impact is Seedorf at Milan. It'll be sad to see him go. I think Liverpool's chances will leave with Alonso. He was the difference between winning and losing so many times last season.

Despite good reviews I had a paper rejected. I did however have another one accepted but fuck the PC for halving my joy. A big Thank you to K.Kothapalli, Suhail, SKP and PJN for all the kewl work that went into the paper that got accepted. Who ever thought you could mix parallel computing, cryptography and GPU's!! The paper that got pawned was perhaps a victim of some rather shoddy writing on my part. Lesson: never write a paper that is double column, 9pt font and 12 pages long in one day even if you are Shakespeare.

This week I Shall be leaving my home of 17 years at Lab Quarters in Hyderabad. For the ignorant it's a DRDO colony and is an extremely beautiful one at that. We will be shifting to a place nearby. I will miss the lawns and Grounds and Badminton courts and the squash courts and all the pretty girls. No matter where life takes me, it'll always be *the* place I'll call home. I grew up there, met my best friend there, and did a lot of other firsts there too. Alvida.

Today also starts my last semester at IIIT. I think I'll spend this semester doing what I can, to help IIIT. This is a unique place in India, and after a few months when I am gone, I will dearly miss the slow, BC filled tension-less life that IIIT offers. Unlike many others I will not hate this place because of some differences with the people who run the place or their lame ass antics. I will remember IIIT for the friends it gave me and the things it taught me.

PS: Rafa Benitez you snobbish little panzie !! Look what happened when you didn't sign Arshavin, look what happened when you didn't sign Owen. Please Please Please sign Huntelaar. Dont make me sad.