Reaching There

Am I growing? If I am, what is the parameter of my growth? Is it the right parameter to measure my growth? These are the questions that bugs me often these days. I try to ignore these questions. But they keep stirring in my mind as small storms which don't cause much disruption but gives a feeling of restlessness. I had a meeting  with HR department a couple of days back. The objective was to listen to employees' concerns on various matters. In a room full of twenty employees the majority of questions were about finances, promotions and hikes. All relevant questions but it left me a bit dumbfounded. Is this all to it, are we living the life with a sole aim of planning the finances? Is this the only way we measure ourselves, with the money we take home at the end of each month? So as long as my paycheck increases every year I am growing? I hope it is not the parameter of my personal success. I hope I can find and experience something beyond the bills in my hand. So what is a b...

I recently watched two interesting talks on www.TED.com . It has an eclectic collection of talks by speakers all around the globe. The two speakers that got me thinking were Stephen Wolfram and George Whitesides . The former, a American chemist, talked about "Towards the Science of Simplicity. While the later, a mathematician, physicist & the developer of Mathematics, spoke on "Computing A Theory of Everything". The talks were interesting from two aspects. One, both the speakers are trying to bare down a phenomenon or a system to its' basics Dr. Whitesides is moving towards simplifying things as he quoted Antoine de Saint-Exupery as " A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. " He is working on creating a "lab" which is cheap and would be useful in quick diagnosis. While Dr. Wolfram is using mathematical computation to develop a computation engine for inf...

The biggest challenge anyone can have is to adopt a different perspective than their own. It calls us to use every ounce of trust, respect and care we can garner from our conscience or heart. A perspective not our own leaves a feeling of vulnerability and insecurity; emotions we always try to run away from. Yet these are the emotions which can lead to higher rewards and realizations if we develop the patience to sustain them for longer periods of  time. What is a different perspective? It is the point of view you haven't explored yet. It is the deviation from the fixed, the desire to find out what's beyond the horizon or simply the desire to experience the unknown. Whatever we do with our lives there is always other things that could have been done too! But it is not always about taking the bold step into the unknown. It is just about accepting the presence of unknown. This itself leads to an enlightenment that it's not always about me. It's about somethings which may...

In industrial engineering it is a very common to observe a system to learn about it and suggest ways to improve it.  As an industrial engineer I have spent numerous hours collecting data on machining assembly lines and operator moments on a shop floor. The collection and analysis of data is the heart of any process improvement process. It helps to study the current behavior of a system (a system could be an assembly line, flow of shoppers in a departmental store or your internet searching habits). After all the data has been collected analysts/engineer try and make sense of it. This leads to a baseline formation on which you can base your improvement process. After a certain prescribed time you measure the change due to the improvement and evaluate the progress. It is a long and painstakingly slow process. A major such study is called Time & Motion Study. It is very similar to our lives. Our lifetime is a series of time and motion. A time is our natural progression from being...

The life is a series of lessons we begin to learn from the day our consciousness rises above our own self-existence. It was a giant leap in astronomy when Nicolaus Copernicus came up with a mathematical model which proved that Sun, not Earth, is the center of the universe. Similarly when we realize the significance of nouns (person, place, animal, thing or abstract idea) which are around us, we develop a better understanding of our surroundings. We realize the value or the reason why things are as they are, around us. As the ego melts away we become more receptive to all the positive energy coming in from various sources. Even the minutest form of positive energy can give us a big boost in understanding ourselves. There have been various examples in history of a seemingly weak ideas (energy) resulting in some of the most powerful movements. Mahatma Gandhi was the outcome of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi thrown off a train at Pietermaritzberg in South Africa. Perhaps a legend, but Sir Issa...

My second attempt at writing a poem. I know it's not perfect but hopefully I am able to put across my thoughts. My story if I may, is about ups and downs. But if you ask me, I say, it has been the same. I came and lived, till it was time to die. I loved a few things, but all was just a lie. I need just one, but I tried for many. I looked everywhere, but didn't find any. A war is on, with my mind. I have to tell it, leave all else behind. So if you ask me again, I'll say I give up to Thee. I just hope and have faith, You'll look after me. Pushkar Bajpai

The physicist J. J. Thompson discovered electrons, the smallest known elementary particle until the advent of quantum physics, in 1897. He used a cathode ray tube to "detect" the presence of electrons but no microscope exists which can see the subatomic particles like proton, electron or neutron. All these subatomic particles make up an atom. The atom is million times smaller the thickest human hair. Quantum physics has further discovered subatomic particles such as quark, lepton and gauge bosons. Scientists are using a Large Hadron Collider at a cost of $9 billion, with a diameter of twenty seven kilometers; it is a particle accelerator which uses electric fields to propel subatomic particles at very high speeds so as to collide such beams of particles with an intend to study smaller particles formed as a result of the collision. But no scientist would ever see any subatomic particle with his or her naked eye. The scientists consider universe to be very large and of infini...