Friendship

Some of us are very luck in terms of friends we have got. Throughout our life and at different stages, we make friends and sometimes these friendships lasts forever and sometimes they don’t. I have good friends like, and because of these good people around me and with their help I am whatever I am today.

When I make a friendship with any person, I try to keep it that way forever. I have changed a couple of schools and been to two different universities in two different countries. Still, today I am in touch with my friends from my first school and still I am keeping in touch with all of them with whom I have friendship. Although each one of us is a little bit or more selfish, I consider myself very lucky in all friendships and I have gained more than what I have given whether that in terms of knowledge or help. I try to put every effort from my side to keep friendship alive, doesn’t matter where the person is living, how often he or she contacts me, how often actually I meet them in person or whether they were helpful to me or not when I needed their help. Friendship for me is to give something to people who I care about and seeking nothing in return. If any of these friends can help when I need any assistance, then I appreciate their input but if they can’t help me I don’t take it personally.

Each and every friend of mine knows me in different capacity. Although I have made few new friends since I have been here somehow I have managed to keep my old friendships intact and throughout last few years they have become even stronger. My colleagues here are telling me that these have happened because I am still bachelor and haven’t seen true face of each friend. People do change when they get married, get settled in their lives and when they have kids; people become more self concentrated and it will be hard from both the sides to keep friendships active. Well, I would like to think that when I will get married and when I will have kids as well, I would still try to keep in contact with all my friends and no matter what circumstances I will be, I will try to help them when they will need my help.

Memories

We often hold on to things that remind us our past, things which are belongs to our good and bad memories. Photos, gifts, mails, etc are such things that can bring us back to that joyful time at which we were happy and enjoyed our time with those who cared about us. But why we keep things that remind us our unpleasant past, why we don’t through those few belongings that does not only makes us sad but also makes us harder to come out of bad feelings again.

Life is a sum of good and bad memories. Each occasion is generally associated with some personal possessions. These personal items remind us how happy we were at the moment and some moments are priceless. Recent advancements in technologies makes our life easy to store those memories in terms of photos, emails, videos, etc which we can look back to those items anytime and refresh our memories.

But is it worth it to keep those belongings that although may reminds us the best time of our life but also makes us sad? Why do we keep those things? Do we keep those things to remind us what has happened and what could have happened? Or, do we just keep because that’s the only thing we have which connects us to our past? Or, may be, we keep those things thinking that this time, time will not be cruel and what didn’t happen will happen in the future.

Cameroon Visit (Final part)

It has been more than a week since I have been here. Due to long daylight hours, it feels that I have been here for ages. It is amazing that how we adopt new routine, new culture, new food and the new way of life so quickly. Apart from food choice, I didn’t have any major problem here. Because my colleagues are with me here, I have overcome of language problem with they are helping in French/English translation.

Work pattern is very similar here to the one I have seen in India, normally its 6-days a week for employed person. I met few professional people and worked with them in project work, and found that they work very long hours daily and everyday they finish their work between 8-9pm. It is because work progress is relatively slow when you compare it to the work done in the UK and hence it takes long time to finish any technical project. As our project was within government agency, it was even worst for us because they tend to work in different (African) pattern and that is very unlikely than European pattern.

As one of my colleagues was a local born, I had few chances to meet native Cameroonians and see their way of life. One thing I noticed here was that these people have adopted a few elements of French traditions into their lives. You will see African culture and its mentality in people’s mind, but few things they are still doing as French do. Unfortunately, because of this mixture of traditions, I see that society as a whole is confused for the future prospects and direction. There are many projects in progress for infrastructure developments which taking place all around Douala city; people are driving new Mercedes Benz and Lexus everywhere; internet and mobile phones are common among the people who can afford these, etc but still, you feel that there are so many things need to done here. It looks like that government has adopted few things from developed countries without understanding local etiquette and need of people, and hence, I think that’s why there is a tension in the atmosphere between different communities of people because of this western adaptation. There is no point of authorities to help mobile companies to provide iPhone to minority of rich people community while majority of people don’t have access to daily water and electricity supply.

The situation is very worst here than in rural India as gap between poor and rich is very wide here. Recent progress and prosperity in India has happened because of rise of middle-class families and their demands. Practically, no middle-class exists here in Cameroon, not even in the cities; someone is either poor or rich. Apart from two major cities, everything else is undeveloped and even basic facilities do not exists for people living outside Douala and Yaoundé. This is not because that lands are not fertile or they do not have enough natural resources, it is because minority of people handles the way country is going and they have interests in their own money and not much in country’s growth. I hope that those who are well educated and those who can understand their country better than any foreigners, will try to overcome basic problems in order to guide Cameroon to the better prosperity.

Respect

Most often we forget the inherited characteristic with which we born and that is respect to other human fellow. Before we are anything, we are human. That means that no matter what other person is, we are connected to him or her with one bond and that is human bond. But as we grow our knowledge, get rich and get more power either in professional life or in society, we generally forget the basic value of human race.

The line between ego and power is very thin. It is necessary for us to develop our skills, earn money to sustain daily life and get necessary artificial luxuries. It is also necessary to go to the top of hierarchical social or professional systems. But when we do so or try to do so, we always tend to forget basic value of our lives. And that value is respect; respect to other human being. No matter how much richer or poorer one is, no matter how sophisticated or primitive one is, no matter either someone is the owner of a company or an employee or no matter how old or young one is; we should always see other person as one of us. As each of us is unique, there always will be differences in opinion, difference in culture or tradition, difference in attitude, etc but no matter who we are, we always connected to each other with invisible bond with which we come to the earth.

Society and religions always try to teach us this value to everyone. But, we often forget this basic value as we grow from a child to an adult person. And that’s why it has been said that children are pure form of god as for god each us is same, children are above all the differences we have created in our societies. Children see another person as just another person, not as rich or poor, not as clever or dull. Only few of us are able to preserve this true characteristic throughout our life. If we can understand that because of these differences in each of us we are able to exist and live the life we like to live, we will be able to see that each of us is important in the society. We can earn more respect of others if we can respect others and if we can value their work and life.

Cameroon visit (Part 1)

This is my first trip to Cameroon and to African continent. Let me give you brief information about Cameroon. It is former French and British colony and its independent came in 1960-61. It is one of the prosperous countries in Western Africa and Yaoundé and Douala are major cities. My visit is in Douala with some chance of visiting Yaoundé in the second week of my stay. I am staying in Akwa area, near the seashore of Atlantic Ocean.

Main difficulty I had so far is a language. Being a former French part, main language is French and only 30% of city populous speaks English. My hotel is located just near seashore. As Douala being a major port in Cameroon, it wasn’t surprising to sea large ships and containers from my room’s window. Weather so far is mild and I guess its typical equatorial weather with good amount of humidity in the atmosphere. Traditional French food is available and as long as you don’t mess up with waiters, there are good chances of getting delicious food within an hour once you place an order. Vegetarian dishes are also available although choices are very few for that.

One thing you will notice in Douala is number of 4x4 cars around. I think there are more SUVs in Douala than in London city. There are two reasons for this, first is that roads in the city and outskirts are not in good conditions and second reason is that people who got money they would like to show their richness by driving big cars.

Night is always darkest before the dawn

At some point in our life, we come to a situation when we face several difficult situations at the same time and we don’t know whether we will be able to get out of these successfully or not. At that point life seems like a long dark tunnel and we standing alone at the intersection where we see doors surrounded by darkness and we don’t know which door is the one which can lead us to the light.

Time is cruel. God is cruel, too. Time and god tests us to see our abilities and self believes at various junctures. We are nothing but the result of our past. The wrong decision taken in the past rebounds one day and number of those wrong decisions brings us to chaotic circumstances in the present. As a human tendency, we always believe that no matter what the current situation is, we will come out of this. We always hope for the best, and as night is always darkest before the dawn, we think that our future will be bright again some day.

Each of us is alone and each of us dies alone someday. Hence, we have to be prepared for any situation that comes in our life. Everyone has to pass this phase some point in lifetime. The only positive thing someone can have at that time is support from the closed ones. At that point we know who true friend is and who is really at our side. It is warmth and comfort of these people brings us out of our miseries. I really believe that there will be at least one door in the dark tunnel that can lead back to light. The path may be darker than we though but we will be able to cross it if we have support from our loved ones and if we have someone with us who really cares about us. I wish that no one come across the dark junction where he/she finds alone and no one there to support. I also wish I do not leave anyone alone in the dark when he/she asks for my help and I will be able to support the person.

We always have a choice

We always have a choice to do right thing. Everyday we come across many different situations for which we will have to make decisions in order to solve personal or work related problems. There always be a right path to follow to solve those problems, and that path may be a long and stringent, but at the end, we always finish our task with complete satisfaction. With all these situations, we also see shorter and less painful unethical path involving deception and dishonesty. And, it is up to us to follow right path or the wrong one.

Some of us have principles towards each and every aspects of life. Strong dedication to those values makes us different person from others who don’t have any moralities. It is what we do define us. There always be people around us those will try to pursue us to choose wrong path and we will need to beware of these pessimistic minded people.

Those people who have ideologies in life, they should always try to stick to those ideologies. With pure commitment to values of life, we can be what we want to be. It is always strong-minded person who gets tough tests from God. God and nature will not test weak-minded persons, as they are not capable of any test. If you believe in any religion, stick to it. No matter what anybody convinces you otherwise, you do what you believe is right for you and right for the people close to you. If you are vegetarian, try to stick to it. If anyone asks you to eat meat, you can always deny that.

It is an honest person who always gets tested by dishonest people and these dishonest people want to see whether this honest person will stray from the honesty or not. Dishonest people do not have any rules and hence they can play dirty games. But, if you are a person, who believes in certain values and follow principles in life, please stick to your beliefs, because once you dishonour your values, you will never be able to go back to the stage where you were before. And the image you created for yourself will vanish forever from your mind and from other people’s mind, too. If you follow right path, then no matter what happens on that path, do not deviate. Try to walk on it and you will prove it yourself (and to others, as well) at the end that you have made a right choice by walking on that path.

Extraterrestrial life

According to Darwinian theory, life on earth has evolved from the same common ancestors through the process Darwin called natural selection. We haven’t found sufficient proof regarding ‘same ancestors’ from whom we have all evolved. Some says that life has started here on earth as a result of chemical process on primordial elements while other suggests that life on earth has originally came from other planet from other solar system. We are still not sure whether there is any form of life available on other planet in the Universe.

Frank Drake, a famous astrophysicist who founded SETI programme, devised now famous and controversial Drake equation in 1960. Using this equation, one can find our chances to find any extraterrestrial life or to check whether there such life exists or not in the universe. Within scientific community, considerable disagreement on the values of most of the parameters for the equation exists, and hence, we have no clear value for our chances to communicate with civilised communities within our galaxy.

It is fascinating to think that what if the life on our planet is the only unique creation of the universe and no other form of life exists anywhere in the universe. If this is true than we are special, each and every other species on this planet are special because it took nature millions of years to form life as we see it now. It will be our responsibility to preserve life on earth because we as a human are the most intelligent species and hence we are more responsible to take care of our planet.

Thinking about other possibility, what if there is an intelligent life exists somewhere, may be in our galaxy or in other galaxy? Can we be able to communicate with them in our lifetime? By looking at recent technological advancements in radio telescope and astronomy in general, I don’t think that right now we have that much capability to probe in the distant galaxies or to understand signals from aliens if we are able to capture any.

To probe further:

http://frombob.to/drake.html

http://www.seti.org

Looking from space

My colleague and me were talking about my next trip to India. Suddenly, he told me that instead of spending money in small trips to India and other countries, why not I should do saving and plan a big trip for the future. The above-mentioned big trip is really big. It’s not like a world tour or going on top of Himalayas. What if I can save enough money in next 2-3 decades and have sufficient fund to go outside of our atmosphere for 10 minutes and see earth from space?

It has been said that we should go and see different places in order to widen our knowledge and turn imagination of other lands in reality. We often see documentaries about mountains, sea life, polar landscapes, earth from space, etc and often the sceneries in those films are mesmerizing. If those sceneries can have last long effect on us then what will happen if we are able to see those things on the spot? I think that that will be an experience which we cannot forget for a whole life.

Going further on this imagination, what if I have enough money in the future to afford space visit and see our lovely planet from sky? I think it will be something amazing and those who have done this are amongst the luckiest people on earth. Just imaging it makes me wonder about the earth, the beauty of our oceans, marvellous landscapes we have on continents, etc. I think if someone will be able to do this, it will change his/her perception about life, about earth and about the nature.

Scientists are saying that if current technology progress will be continued for next couple of decades, it will be possible for general public to visit moon. I would like to think that this is true and I will be able to travel to the moon before I die. But when I imagine myself standing on the surface of moon and looking back to the earth, I think my first thought will be that how small as a human we are. Although we have built skyscrapers, we have built pyramids, we are the builders of gigantic dams on rivers, etc still we are a tiny compared to the universe and we are nothing but a dot against nature’s other creations.

Growth is life

‘Growth is life’ is a tagline of India’s largest company, RIL. For a company that has achieved tremendous growth in a little time in various diverse businesses, it’s very hard to find better tag line than that. But, I see this sentence more suitable to me, as an individual person. If at any point in life if we think that we are satisfied with something, e.g. money or career, it means that we have stopped progressing. But, we always should ask for more. It’s not about greediness; it’s about development.

For me, growth in every positive prospects of life is important. I want to learn new technologies, learn new skills, and learn new techniques etc that can help me perform my job more accurately and quickly. To keep up with technical skills development, I also need to develop my mental and physical strength. Growth in those areas is helpful to become better person. I am always eager to learn about religion, philosophy, logic, science, etc because only growth in all aspects of life will make me diverse from other individuals. Some people do not want to learn new skills, while some are satisfied with their career path and some even do not want to cultivate themselves to become better person.

We may not be able to do develop in all above-mentioned things at the same time but if we decide to learn these things and put a little bit effort, we will be able to achieve significant success.

Data security and privacy

Internet has made our lives easy. Most of our professional and personal work depends upon network and computers. But how can we be sure that various service providers have provided enough security to our data? Our personal details are store into Banks, councils, credit card providers, utility companies, etc systems and previous data thefts incidents in many of these industry suggest that our data is not secure with them. Even governments in various countries have failed to protect public information going in malicious users’ hands.

Most of new electronics devices come with embedded software; even our Digital TV viewer or refrigerators are now coming with various software inside to make our life easy. These devices store lots of our personal details. Now, how can we be sure that information stored inside these devices are secure and even companies those who have made these appliances can not access it without our permission? People buy their mobile phones from Internet and local phone shops. How can they be sure that those phone are not cracked with malicious software? It only takes a few minutes to load malicious code inside any mobile phone and cracker can use all or any particular information without user noticing anything suspicious.

It is now possible to track a person using his mobile phone. This can be done either by network location algorithm or using GPS, which now comes with new phones anyway. With the help of new software services like Google Latitude and Loopt, people can see where their friends are at any particular time. This may be a nice feature for parents to keep track of their children, this may be a nightmare for others and raises a serious questions about privacy.

Quantum computing is on the horizon, which can crack most of security algorithms almost instantly, and lack of trust for most of current cryptography algorithms that are being used in internet, it is worrying to know that our personal information is not safe and our privacy is not guaranteed anymore. Recent demonstration of basic flow in Internet itself shows that even researchers and scientists don’t trust technology for any sensitive data transfer and unless we will not able to solve these basic issues, current situation may go worst.

To probe further:

http://www.loopt.com/

http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct08/6818/

Love

Love is one of the most complex feelings a person can ever experience. Although it is one most the most common expressions, it is very hard to define and more importantly, most difficult chemical (and emotional) behaviour in heart to understand. I am going to express my views on love that can be present between a couple, man and woman. Although being naïve in this subject, I strongly believe that it is love that completes us, and marriage and life with loved one accomplishes the purpose of our existence.

Love is not a single emotion; it’s a mixture of different feelings in our heart and brain. It is so complex that when person is in love, even he/she won’t immediately feel that. I believe in mature love, meaning love happened after certain age. This age depends upon person to person. Most of us see crush or infatuation as love in early age, especially in teenage. I am sure that love is very mature phenomenon and hence I don’t think that at teenage any of us have that much maturity to develop such a strong feeling for any person. Nevertheless, there are chances of this early crush to be developing as a love.

Thanks to Bollywood/Hollywood and experience from my friends, I have come to know the truth about a woman, and it’s that a woman is a very complex equation. Each girl has different set of parameters for life, life-partner, marriage and of course, for love. Those who have understood to find those parameters and solve them have finally solved the biggest mystery of life. As a boy, I think male person has very straight forward requirements from their life partner and unless a person is introvert, a girl can easily read boy’s feelings and make her decision whether that’s a right person or not for her.

It is a time on which we all depend for love to come to us or us to find love of our life. In order to understand a person, we will need to give time for relationship to grow and see whether that person wants the same things from life as we do. Although everyone is free to make their own decision for love and marriage, we still live in the world where either from male or female side there are always some constrains and sometime complex situations also happens where love tests both persons strength. As it has been said, a path of true love is never smooth, lovers must be ready for tough tests if it required. And, I strongly believe that if two persons have true love for each other, at the end, it is always love that wins. And, also, the beauty of love is that, it always grows even after marriage to the loved one and only death of both persons ends the journey of love.

If you are one of the lucky people who has already found your true love, first congratulations and second don’t lose that person. And, if you haven’t found your true love, yet, it is not because that person doesn’t exist but it is because that person or you might not be ready for an adventure. If we can wait few days for our exam results, a month for our salary to be credited in bank, few months for our next vacation, I think we should wait a little longer for our love to find us.

If people are right, then marriages are decided in the heaven and it’s up to us to find that partner. Hence, keep looking for that person and make sure that you will be able to read signs. And if destiny brings that person into your life, make sure that you tell your feelings. Destiny will not help a person who is not courageous enough to make the first move. If love has come to other people’s life, then I guess you are not an exception and you will find your true love one day. So, whether you are single or with partner, make sure that you make most out of this Valentines Day.

Diet

My colleagues at work and most of my friends here in Southampton, follow non-vegetarian diet. Because of me being vegetarian, topics of vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism often comes in our discussions. I know that none of us are going to change their diet based upon these discussions we still enjoy discussing it. My main point about food choice is that irrespective of source of the food, we eat whatever we eat based upon taste rather than from where it is originated.

Typically, our diet pattern comes from our family and at least we stick to it until we grow-up. Its very rare for a child to be a vegetarian in non-vegetarian family, and vice-versa, unless child has some sort of disease in which he/she is not allowed to eat certain things. Those who grew up as a vegetarian, only becomes non-vegetarian if they like taste of meat or under extreme circumstances, if person moves to another region or country where it’s difficult to find vegetarian options and/or high cost of vegetarian food. But, according to my experience, most of those people who became non-vegetarian were due to meat’s taste and they couldn’t resist it. There is nothing wrong with it and a person has own choice to eat whatever they like as long as they don’t eat human! However, most of non-vegetarian people justify their view saying that they eat meat because it fulfils all body requirements that might be very hard to find from vegetables, fruits and non-meat products. That’s totally wrong. People eat food because of its taste and there are always meat alternate foods available to get necessary ingredients that are necessary for human body.

Personally, I like to be vegetarian because I don’t see any reason why I should eat meat? When I can get all the vitamins, protein, fat, carbohydrates, fibre, etc from vegetables, fruits and dairy products, I don’t see why I should eat meat. Main argument at this point I receive from non-vegetarian people that cows and calves suffers a huge pain in the whole process of milk productions in dairies. I agree with that and I insist that we all should do our best to make sure that dairy owners take care of cows and calves and other animals, too, even if it means that we have to pay higher prices for dairy products.

Environmental protection

In recent few years, the subject of environment protection has been discussed more than any other topic and it is the one of the most written topics in magazines and newspapers. Nowadays, each company, either small or big, is now taking environmental issues seriously and trying their best to reduce any material wastage and trying to recycle things as much as possible. As a public, each one of us is trying our own bits to protect our environment and that will ultimately secure future for next generations. But big environment agencies are failing to show true commitments to the issue. Recently, UN has suspended world’s biggest auditors of clean energy project after finding ‘non-conformities’ during their inspection at its headquarter, in Norway. This raises a serious question about how much can we trust these big auditors and agencies that are doing wrong business and hence wasting taxpayers’ money.

Since the discovery of CFC’s (Chloro Fluoro Carbons), compound that was a main source of refrigerants between 1960s-1980s, affect on earth’s atmosphere, especially on ozone layer, public became aware of their role as a polluter. When in late 1990s scientists found that due to carbon imbalance in atmosphere, earth’s temperature is raising and causing greenhouse affect, we understood how an excess CO2 is dangerous to the environment. Since then, numerous projects have been started to tackle greenhouse affect and public is also supporting governments effort to reduce carbon emissions.

But current winter in Western Europe, which is one of the worst winters in decades, and very hot summer in Australia shows that we are very far away from any temperature stability in the world. Although developing nations are emitting more carbon in air than they should, carbon emission reduction from people is huge in proportionate and there are big industry leaders which are also cutting their emissions. But it is governmental and international environment protection agencies’ wrongdoing not solving this issue. These big agencies are abusing their power and making under table arrangements for carbon trading. Carbon trading is a huge business now and in terms of total revenue it comes after stock market and oil trading. Hence, the principle of carbon reduction has been gone and all these environmental protection agencies are making money out of carbon trading.

If earth’s current temperature will increase for another decade or so, we will see some more hazardous weather conditions and unless and until UN and governments in each country doesn’t do their part to cut emission of carbon dioxide, I do not see any chance of greenhouse effect going within next two decades. We will need to start using more renewable energy sources in everyday life like solar energy, hydrogen power, tidal forces, wind energy etc to put less burden on power generation from oil and gas and we also need to make sure that environmental agencies are performing their jobs properly.

To probe further:

http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/0901/carbon-swindle-0901.cfm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_emission_trading

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/dec/12/thegreatcarbontradingscam

Prayer

Those of us, who believe in god, pray to god to bring success and happiness in life. As it has been said, god always fulfils the wishes if prayer has come from pure heart. But those who are atheists don’t pray et al and they think that there is no god or external force and sees prayer as a form of begging. But to do prayer, one doesn’t have to believe in particular god and can be done in good faith for him or for sake of others and one doesn’t have to ask for anything to god if person doesn’t want.

When we were kids, our parents used to accomplish our requirements and they used to give us gifts in exchange of our good behaviour. In the same way, for an adult person prayer can become significant part of life and he/she can treat almighty as his/her parents. We always come in the situation where we don’t have self believe to handle it and we often seek help from others. Now, at this point, if we are lucky, our friends or relatives will help us to solve it. But, if you believe in god, this can be main source of positive energy at this stage when you need it most and if you have faith in god, he will give you strength to overcome all the problems by following right path.

In order to do prayer from heart, one has to believe the existence of god and keep faith in him. It’s not possible to ask for results and then to believe in god. Atheists take this point very seriously and argue that they will only believe in god if there is some evidence of its miracle. Well, that’s not possible and that’s never going to happen. It’s not that god doesn’t show miracles or god doesn’t complete person’s wishes, but atheists will always have argument against it and there is no need for god to come to earth to prove them wrong. Every human being believes either in god or the non-existence of god. If everyone believes in something, then why not believe in god than being atheists.

One can also remember god even if he/she is not in trouble. I see prayer as a way to connect to the source of positive energy. Whenever each of us prays, we generate positive energy and it flows from us to main source and that energy can be used when we need in the future. At the bad time, when we have more negative energy inside us, by doing prayer, we get positive energy back from the source. The god is a source of this energy and he governs input-output of it. Those of us who do not believe that the god exists, they will be able to perform prayer because it doesn’t have be done for particular god. One can pray by considering sun or nature as a form of positive source for human life.