In the papers!

Hi! Well guess what, yours truly is in the papers again along with 3 of his best pals! And whats more, its all for good reasons!! Check it out here. And if you wanna see a scanned copy, thats available too here. Finally some hard work pays off. I should really thank Pallavee (Dhaundhiyal) of Education Times (Times of India - Delhi) for having interviewed me and preseting a clear cut story about what we guys have been upto. I love the photo that shows up in the story, of course we provided it to her, it was taken around the last days we guys spent at IIIT together from Suchit's camera. Notice the laborer in the background - I think he worked in our mess. Also notice the channa-jor garam waala in the extreme right - well that is India for you - some of the brightest and smartest technocrats and some of the really poor and under-privileged within the same picture frame. It is out duty to bridge this gap, and well even thought we may not be doing anything about that directly (at least right now), even a sensitivity to the issue itself would go a long way.

On a personal front I have not been keeping well, hopefully (inshallah) with the grace of almighty lord and with the help of my friends and family (fuelish people, A/A and mom dad) I should be back into the action soon.

Mira Kamdar at Stanford (Planet India)

Hi. I am sort of breaking a personal pledge i took sometime back of not writing anything for a few days - a personal reason that I am not willing to share just yet, but anyways, I thought I heard a few ideas which were really new and brilliant and deserved peoples' attention.

Mira Kamdar was at Stanford today. She is the author of the book Planet India. I loved the way she spoke and well frankly, I had no idea of who she was until yesternight when I found out about her talk. She gave the talk in the same room in which ambassador Ronen Sen had given his talk while he was in campus, in the grand Encina Hall of Stanford. So lets cut to the chase and talk about what she actually had to say:

So what she says is that India is this great big test case for all that has to come in the world. She says that with so many diverse groups and as such the inherent nature of the culturally, socially, economically diverse society, India looks like a good tests case. In the sense that given the set of constraints which India and its people live in, the entrepreneurs there come up with so many creative solutions to problems facing everyone in the world, the most out of the box solutions are seen in the Indian landscape. And why is that important? That is important because most of the world is like what India is, not like what Palo Alto is. That is to say, India is a good picture of what the world is and what problems it faces, unlike EU or North America.

Another point that she made was that a lot was hinged on the success of India. A lot was hinged on whether India succeeds in feeding all of its over 1 billion people, succeeds in generating employment for its people. And why is that? The reason is this. Remember the talk about the race between India and China. Well according to Mira (and I concur) there is NO race. China is already a century ahead of us and doing very well and so there is no race - china wins hands down. So there are these nations in Africa which are saying - Hey so whats this whole noise about democracy, why don't we just do what China is doing! India has to succeed in that it has to show the world that the success can be theirs WITH democracy in place.

Well that was all I could soak in, rest of the time I was busy eating the moderately good Indian (desi) food that on offer there. I feel I should attend more of such talks!

On other news: I am doing an independent study on the organized retail sector in India with Rahil Kacheria (Stanford' 08) and Prof. Tom Kosnik. In case you or someone you know are in the retail sector in India, please feel free to get in touch at thathoo@stanford.edu

Trying to get in, even after getting in!

Actually the title of the blog pretty much sums up what i started to feel in the last legs of the winter quarter here at Stanford. Even after you get into Stanford, it is not smooth sailing. I mean of course its hard, the course workload and the research work are heavy and take their toll, and of course if you are used to Indian food, you get terrified even thinking of the bland food out here, etc etc. But here is the thing, i am not talking about that - so what the hell are you talking about Mr. Thathoo?? I am taking about trying to take courses at Stanford. Every now and then there come along courses which are offered by the very people who invented that field of study, and of course you want in on that, dont you - you greedy grad student!! So you see this email from Terry Winograd himself advertising this course he is offering next quarter along with - are you ready for this - Hasso Plattner and Zia Yusuf. If you dont already know, Hasso founded SAP AG., and Zia is ex-HBS exec. VP of SAP. And of course the "admission" to this course is application based and Mr. Thathoo gets tossed out just liked he did at Rudy's the other day by the bouncers.

Then another email is received - this time talking about an inter-disciplinary course with 2 trips to Switzerland and lots of fun in building a real neat thing - yet again - "No Vacancy". Its sort of amazing the amount of rejection a person has to put up with in life. Especially if you are interviewing for tech companies, and that too on the phone, you know what I am talking about!

Of course then there was this course which Zakir Hussain is taking ( wah Taj waale!), and do i get in?? Of 'course' not - all the seats have already been filled by ABCDs and people who otherwise just want to brag about taking a course with zakir hussain (btw, i fall in that category!)

That is why I went to the Gurdwara in San Jose today, to pray to the almighty as he alone saves, and also to eat delicious food at the langar!

The One where the quarter ends

So the best time in the quarter is when it ends! And you are basking in the California sun in the spring/summer/winter break! Yeah, welcome to CA baby, its sun-shiny all year round. Weather news apart, its interesting to see how the classes that i took this quarter designed their last class of the quarter in a real fun way! So the three courses I took were (in short), Databases(CS245), Global Entrepreneurial Marketing (MSANDE 271) and Intro to Biomedical Systems Design (BMI211/CS271).

CS245: So Hector has this real kewl idea of having a joke-break in the middle of his classes - just to wake people from going into deep slumber. The class is usually in the afternoon so people cant sometimes help going to sleep. The thing is that one guy has to volunteer to tell a joke, of course its not necessary that one do it, and in that case Hector comes prepared with his own list of poor jokes, but usually some or the other wise guy cracks a very smelly and geeky joke. Anyways, at the end of the quarter, the guy with the best joke gets the Stanford InfoLab Tshirt (pretty much a collectors item as larry and sergey were both part of the InfoLab here - though it was called the DB group then). And yea, yours truly won a Tshirt this quarter. But yet again, I was second best, Hector had 2 prizes, 1st and 2nd. Ushah won the first prize, so I am happy that both prizes stayed in Allahabad! So I am the official comedian of the class, and judging by my grade in that course, I probably was just that - a comedian!

GEM: The last class just blew me over, if you have got access to SCPD, you better watch this class - coz it was by far the most i have laughed in a class here at Stanford. All the teams (about 8 of them) had to come prepared with a 2 minute thing (could be anything from a song, a skit, a youtube video...) to present as a lessons' learnt exercise in class. And by God the teams did a jolly good job of it. Here are a few excerpts:

By Rachel Dyke and her team:

Wallace: Sons of GEM, I am Donna Novitsky.

Young soldier: Can’t be - Donna Novinsky is 7 feet tall.

Wallace: Yes, I've heard. Raises money by the billions, and if VCs were here she'd win them over with only a 2 slide DDART and an economic analysis from her arse. I am Donna Novitsky. And I see a whole army of entrepreneurs here ready to TALC any product. You have come to cross the chasm, and chasm crossers you are. What would you do with the marketing toolkit? Will you market?

Veteran soldier: Market? With only the toolkit? No, we will join the Fortune 500.

Wallace: Aye, market and you may fall into the Chasm. Give up and take your offer. And collecting your pension many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our competitors that they may spend their millions, but they'll never take our market share!!!

Wallace and Soldiers: GEM Forever! (Scotland forever!)

REAL VERSION:

Wallace: Sons of Scotland, I am William Wallace.

Young soldier: William Wallace is 7 feet tall.

Wallace: Yes, I've heard. Kills men by the hundreds, and if he were here he'd consume the English with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse. I am William Wallace. And I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny. You have come to fight as free men, and free men you are. What would you do without freedom? Will you fight?

Veteran soldier: Fight? Against that? No, we will run; and we will live.

Wallace: Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you'll live -- at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!!!

Wallace and Soldiers: Alba gu bra! (Scotland forever!)

(Probably wont make much sense unless you have taken the course).

Grant and our team did this youtube video(final version differed from this one):


Of course the last presentation the teaching team made was such an inspiration and I totally recommend this class.

BMI211: Amar has always been great and brought good people to speak in his class, but this last lecture he got a former alum of the class to come and speak on CPOE systems from San Francisco, who has his own startup and he gave a really inspiring talk. Left a lasting impression.

So all in all, my take away from the last quarter:

• Jokes win TShirts
• A successful business is a Tango - it takes 2 - product and product marketing
  
• Speak few words but speak convincingly like you totally believe in it

Back to School - this time Stanford.

Hey! Finally the finals are over. And phew what a relief! That they were disastrous - is another story. Screw it, this post is mostly a sort of an answer to more than a couple of queries I have been getting over the past couple of weeks since the people who are gonna be at Gates and Packard started sending out admit emails!

Some of the questions are about the fact that people get admissions, not only from stanford, but from other top cs/ee programs around the US as well, and in some cases they also get a tuition waiver and stipend etc, so it sort of makes it difficult for them to decide where they should go. My suggestion - "Forget about every other college/univ if you have an admit for MS in CS at Stanford or for that matter in any other dept". As with nearly every other engineering department in Stanford, the Computer Science Department is arguably the best CS department on the planet and it is right in the middle of silicon valley - in fact stanford and berkeley together fuel the entire silicon valley and are responsible for much of the innovation around here. So if you are involved in high tech/engineering, there is no better place to be at than Stanford. And if you are someone with a slightly entrepreneurial bent of mind, then you better get your ass here, this place has entrepreneurship in its air! (Disclaimer: There are specific areas with CS/EE which are perhaps better at other CS/EE Depts in the US, but overall, nothing beats Stanford)

Another question is that of Research Assistantship at Stanford and also Teaching Assistantship at Stanford. Well if you can code, and also demonstrate that you can code well, then there is a lot of opportunity for an RA in the numerous research groups all over campus. The CS department itself has many positions open and so does the EE department, but if you are also in the mood of phd, then its slightly more easier. But even without that, EE is like the biggest deparment on campus (or so i have heard) and hence has lots of positions. But people get a lot of programming related jobs at SLAC, Medical School, Medical Informatics, Radiology, Genetics Research, Mechanical related research groups, vagayra, vagayra, vagayra...and of course other engineering deparments, etc. You need to convince people that you can do the job and have some past expertise/experience in that field, and you are in! You cannot expect to get an RA if your chief motive is to learn!! Although, what you can get is a chance to do an independent study under a professor here for units that may count toward your degree, in case you want to learn something and again it needs some convincing.

I dont want to be biased here, so for other departments, especially like Mechanical, there also exist a lot of research assistantship opportunities. And people in the MS&E program also manage somehow to convert an independent study into a 25 or 50 % RA over the course of a few quarters. And so is the case with other departments also, but not everyone is assured an RA.


The TAs are actually called CAs here - course assistants. So the thing is that you need to take a course to actually TA for it! But that could change if you are a PhD candidate and not a Masters candidate. Oh, and btw, to CA for a course, you also need to have scored an A- or above to be able to become the CA for it ;)

Another thing on RAs is that the only thing that determines that you get an RA in the first quarter is - are you ready for this - luck! Believe it or not, the only thing that will get you an RA right in the first quarter is basically keeping your eyes and ears open. And of course persistence. Here are a few reponses i got when i was looking for an RA. People who are nice try to help out but then its not that simple. But most of the guys(CS and EE) have an RA by the second quarter and the rest by the third quarter. It may also happen that you get an RA for a few quarters and then have to look for another the rest of the quarters. I forgot to mention above that, just like the more than one tax slabs that we have in India, there are more than one kind of RAs - 2 to be exact - a 50% RA (which covers 100% tuition and pays really good stipend! - 20hrs per week) and the 25% RA(which covers 50% tuition and pays 0.5 times really good stipend - 10 hrs per week). God only know why they call them 50% and 25%, am sure some guy missed a multiplication or a decimal point somewhere!

Campus jobs - so till the time one doesnt get an RA, they can work at other places on campus - these are jobs which pay by the hour (in the range from 13-25 $ per hour) and are good for pocket money - and there is not dearth of such jobs on campus. These jobs range from everything from administrative (think clerk) to jobs in the lib, to programming jobs on short term, etc. In fact there are lists that people should join in case they are not already on it regardless of their dept - ee-jobs@lists.stanford.edu,
recruiting@lists.stanford.edu,
wics_jobs@lists.stanford.edu (dunno if this works)
soccerforfun (this one is if you like soccer - not for a job)

You need to send an email to majordomo@lists.Stanford.EDU with the body - 'subscribe recruting' if you wanna subscribe to recruiting list, without the single quotes.

Monthy expenses?? Well good question, really depends on the person as such. But here is a brief financial analysis:

Housing+Medical Insurance = $600 - $900 per month (depends on where you live and what medical insurance you have - i suggest Cardinal Care as it is comprehensive but expensive, Housing - if you go for a 1room/double occupany - its going to be 200$ cheaper than a 2room/double occupancy, per month)
Food - (going by an average of $15 per day on 3 meals (roughly $5 per meal) you can do that math which amounts to - $450 per month (this can be significantly reduced if you cook yourself - around $200 if you cook yourself)
Groceries - keep aside $150 here per month
Phone calls - with a $10 Reliance Call Card here you can talk for more than 2 hours to your girlfriend in India - so there is hope for those entering a long distance relationship!
Travel - if you are a good boy and study is all that you do - you wont be doing a lot of traveling to San Francisco or even Palo Alto, within stanford the idiotic Marguerite Shuttle is phokat ka $0!
Initial (First Time) Expenses - Microwave($30-50), bike ($50-$300), Laptop ($700-$1300), rest of the things depending on person($anyones guess!)

These figures would really depend on your kind of lifestyle, so keep that in mind. Also, the biggest expense is always gonna be the tuition - $7620 for 10 or less units per quarter, and if you want to have time to breathe, there is no point in taking more units than that in a quarter. But if you wanna be a smarty pants - its over $11k per quarter for over 10 units in engineering.

Books - well unless you really know what you wanna study here its difficult to decide on which books to bring, i did in fact bring books from india to this place, but i ended up not taking those courses and so it was really not worth it. You can also try to get books from people who took that course last year, so you really dont need to bring all books, some can a be brought along. Many books are not that costly on amazon - especially the ones which are 'used and new'. BUT - If you are planning on giving quals, then you might as well bring the whole basta(bag) - as much will fit in your boria-bistar.

Internship paisa - In an internship here you can easily make anywhere from $4k to $8k, average being $5K (this is my guess), per month. So for a 3 month period, you can probably make some good amount of money, if you dont squander all of that on alcohol, clubing, and gambling ;)

More fundas:

• Stanford opens so many doors, its sorta a ticket to... well...many thing which wouldnt be possible elsewhere, so if you have an admit here, dont give it up that easily.

• Plus the weather! If you have traveled in the DTC buses from Dhaula Kuan to Iffco Chowk in the middle of summer or a packed BMC bus from Majestic to Vijaynagar in April, you know what heat is like. Welcome to Hotel California, where the sun always shines but never too brightly to scorch you. This part of the world has some of the best weather all round the year.
• Great companies are near by - so internships and jobs are much easier to come by as compared to going to a college which is not in the middle of so much industrial activity - but dont think its going to be a cake walk, competition is so high that sometimes getting even a single offer could be really really tough.
• Indian stores are nearby, in fact I am munching on Haldiram's Khatta Meetha Mix as i write this - damn its getting over fast!
• Great pedigree and peers!
• Great opportunity to polish those social/extra-curricular skills in terms of classes on dances, singing, playing instruments, playing any game that exists (count cricket out), though with 3 courses and an RA (which is 1.5 courses worth of load) you probably would be lucky to get proper sleep, let alone take that Salsa class with sweet chics in it.
  

There are probably many more questions that you might want to get answered, I would try my best to answer them on email/blog. Though i may be a bit sluggish in replying, depending how hard i am getting whipped here!

Hope this helped :-)

I only wish if I...

You know that feeling right...that you wish you had done something in the past which you missed out on because you never paid too much attention to it, or you were too shy, or just didnt have time or may be the stars conspired against you. I am feeling that right now. I know its the finals and I should be studying and deep inside my books and Hector's slides, but somehow I am a bit sad that I missed out on what I did. And that thing is - gaming on the LAN at my Alma mater, the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, for short IIITA. I only wish I had gamed and gamed till I dropped. I only wish I had cursed/shouted myself hoarse in that Advanced Programming Lab in CC1. I only wish I knew the moves to ducking and blowing the brains out of my opponent out there on the LAN. I wish I knew that when someone said 'Fire in the hole', there was no fire in no hole.

But I can only wish, for I never did play. And now I regret. Anyways, at least I play Foosball now, big scale down from gaming on the LAN, but oh well...I guess i took the road less traveled.

More about life as a grad student

Hi Guys, thought that instead of acting as a reporter for events on campus, I was act as a reporter for happenings in my life. So been a really hectic journey this quarter. Its almost over with finals looming over my head. This last part of the quarter is really one big roller coaster. Anyways, kinda funny what happened to me last weekend. And dont take this as a revenge post or me trying to get back at someone - but this guy that I know here - he ditched me 3 times in 2 days - I got up at 9:30 on a Saturday to rendezvous with him (we had to go somewhere) and he was fast asleep till 12. Then, we had to order something from the market, and he never even called me to ask me what I wanted, so I was left without milk and bread - no breakfast for next 3 days :( . Then after promising to show up for a thing we needed to go together - he didnt even have the courtesy to call and cancel - no, his mantra - "Just dont show up and people will understand!" Well for people reading this blog, just a simple word of trying to be punctual, trying to be on time, goes a long way, i mean you dont have to hold the door open for me while we both are exiting Starbucks, but at least dont slam it on my face. I felt like such a fool, you know how that saying goes, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice and shame on me!

Anyways, and this week an exact opposite thing happens. Imagine this - you scrap someone (random) with a query on orkut and they actually reply back with details in an email! On further questions, they call you for exact and detailed information. My God I was impressed. Thanks R**m! I mean these little acts of doing a little bit more than what people expect really really do you a lot of good. I mean it might not get you a PhD in Computer Science, but it will make the world a better place. I dont know if I am sounding philosophical, but hey - I really believe this.

In other news, I now blog for the Unofficial Stanford Blog . I posted a blog on Holi last week. Probably wont post for a while, finals are really killing me. And also, my research work has been hectic for sometime. I am building this online tool which will help microarray researchers and clinical researchers. And the whole apache permissions and PHP had given me a tough time, but thank God with some help and lot of hair-pulling I have been able to get somewhere. Even under all this work, I took some time off to watch this movie - Road to Guantanamo. You can catch the trailer here:

Its a real powerful movie, showcasing some really sad events which took place post 9/11.

In other news, Suchit finally made it UC Santa Cruz for his PhD in Computer Science. Alok Parlikar is also coming this way, probably going to CMU (might change to Wisc-Mad). Folks from IIITA are waiting to hear about their admits from Stanford and so am I. All the best guys.

Thomas Friedman and the First Law of Petro-Politics

So the last week was the Entrepreneurial Week as promoted by the US Congress and also celebrated with fanfare here on campus. But also, we had the prestigious Stanford Environment Conference - Energy Crossroads, 2007. And though the entrepreneurial week kickoff had some really good speakers (I wanna blog about that later), the one guy who blew me off my feet just by his oratory skills and the way he drove his point home was the NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman. I mean the guy is a genius. Fit to be the President of the US, the guy is so sharp and has such a keen intellect. I mean his 1.5 hour long lecture was at no point a boring thing - he kept his audience spell bound at all times. For example he would say - 'please switch off all your cell phones, pages, pace makers, etc'. And the close to 2000 people in the Memorial Auditorium would burst into laughter. But he put forth some fascinating ideas which were like thus (the draft is kinda rough as I am mostly reproducing my notes which i took while listening to his lecture):

1. Projecting America in a green way could be a way to re-unite the nation in a new way.

2. Jobs, Temperature and Terrorism are the big questions facing America at the dawn of the 21st century - but cannot be addressed by an America divided in red, blue and green states.

3. After ww2 Eisenhower used the threat of communism to build the highway system - to move weapons - lead to atrophy of railway system - US became addicted to cars - i(Friedman) am not here to propose radically altering our car culture - but we do need to fuel our future in a clean way - the next president has to unite us on clean energy.

4. We (the US) is funding both sides of the war - buying oil from Saudi Arabia and thus funding the 15 out of the 19 people responsible for 9/11 (who were from Saudi). Suggested reading - "The Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright.

5. The First Law of Petro-Politics: The price of oil and the freedom operate conversely - as the price goes up pace freedom goes down, if oil is at $30 per barrel people in states like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Angola, Nigeria will demand and get more freedom, but when it is close to $70, less freedom in the countries.

6. The US army was a critical instrument for civil rights in this country - if the army goes green - it could be a hugely important institution for making green the new red, white and blue.

7. If China keeps growing at 8% a year, it will have the same per capita as us in 2021, will have a per day consumption of oil equal to 99 million barrels, while the world today produces only 84 million barrels.

8. You cannot tell China and India that we have gone dirty, you go green. In fact China and India already warned us.

9. This year(2006), what shocked me, daffodils in my drive way in Washington DC in January, first time in living memory, Moscow had a Christmas without snow, UK had the highest temperature since it started recording its weather in 1600s.

10.The good news is that people are alive to the problem - we have to avoid going past the doubling of the CO2 level in atmosphere as compared to the eve of the industrial revolution. Here is our challenge - if we do nothing - we will go past doubling in year 2056 - to avoid going past that doubling - and help India china and Brazil - for us to do that will require the biggest industrial project in the history of mankind.

11. 26 trillion watts of energy are required by then, we generate 13 trillion - if we wanna continue to grow from 13 to 26 in a clean green way - we will basically have to generate the rest of the 13 tri from green means - if we do it from nuclear power - we need to build 13000 nuclear reactors - that is like little over 1 a day for the next 30 years.

12. the only thing that can drive tech innovation at that scale is Wall street - challenge is to get green power down to the china price - if we dont have clearn green power scalable to prices in china, India and Brazil - we would be worse off - the real math problem is how do we get these clean green techs down to the China or India price

13. We want to own the technology - but we want to do it at their price - to scale at the china price - unfortunately we dont have an energy policy in this country but energy politics.

14. How nuts is it to invest in ethanol - God bless California - because of the regulations of this state - per capita use of electricity has been flat for the last 30 years - what CA is doing should be should be federal regulation.

15. Who can name the latest energy innovation in this country - dont bother - nuclear power - 1955 - Germany is buying all the silicon - they dont even have Sun out here in Germany - I was in Texas - we have the Saudi Arabia of wind between here in texas and North Dakota - but he had to go to 10 diff regulatory utility companies.

16. Toshiba makes the nuclear plants in Japan - they hv a 40 yr plan - do u know a company in the US with a 1 yr plan.

17. Where is the million person march for green energy - did i miss that - most social reform movements in history - start as protest movements - build a coalition and show that to the government - so i am where i began - the good news - green is the new red white and blue - but are we fooling ourselves?

Holi at Stanford - Desi Ishtyle

Holi, the very popular annual Hindu Spring festival was celebrated at Manzanita Park this last Saturday with lots of colors, water and some mud as well! Holi marks the onset of spring in India. So why is Holi celebrated?? Well there are various stories in ancient Hindu texts but the three most important reasons can be found here.


But on campus the Hindu Students Council had really done a good job of guaranteeing a good party sans alcohol! People smeared each other with colored powders (gulal) and threw water on each other. Of course as the party progressed, puddles formed on the ground, much to the enjoyment of everyone. In fact the moment I entered the park, a gang of 5 caught hold of me and dragged me into the mud and smeared it all over me! That was my initiation into the Holi celebrations. People then started sliding in the mud which by then had become so slippery - it was difficult to even walk without slipping. The desi music was loud and the DJ was good, people danced to popular Holi numbers like "O Rang Barse" and various others. It was nice to see people from various countries and faiths participate with equal zest. But one thing that was missing was Bhaang (Cannabis sativa)! This is a herb which causes people to laugh a lot! Believe me, drink a litre of it and you wont stop laughing till the evening. In India, Bhaag is mixed with milk and served as something called 'thandai'. Last year on Holi (I was in India then), i just couldnt stop consuming it and I was out for 2 days, in fact I went beyond laughing, I was so high - I couldnt come down for the next two days. And unlike, alcohol, the high of bhaang is sticky, no coffee, no cold shower will ever help you!

Back to the Holi on campus - so after people were done with the Holi on Manzanita Park, it was time to wash themselves - and Stanford with its many fountains provided the perfect second round. A few good men (and women) who remained after the official party, then walked over to the Red Hoop fountain! Everyone jumped in and tried to create a whirlpool inside it. Next on the cards was the Claw Fountain - again - whirlpool. After this we all walked down to the Tanner Fountain in front of the Hoover Tower. On the way, we met a bunch of tourists looking at us semi-clad, almost cavemen like people strutting down white plaza. To one of the bewildered souls I said - "Welcome to Stanford!".

So, colors, water, mud, fountain hopping were what Holi 2007 was all about at Stanford. If you think you missed one helluva party, there is another Holi going to take place on the 25th here on campus. That is going to be a bigger party!

You are not going to believe this!

So its an ordinary February morning in Northern California. I decided that I had had enough of junk food it was time for some Kashmiri food. So I was heading to my maasi's place in San Jose. After only 4.5 hours of sleep I got up to get ready and catch the 10:02 South Bound to San Jose. I reached the California Avenue CalTrain station about 15 minutes before the train time and there was no one on the station except this guy i saw as i was turning the corner into the ticket vending machine area. And as I got near, i realized my dream had suddenly turned into reality - I was marooned on the platform with none other than my main man - the great Donald Knuth

The first thing that struck me was that this guy was tall - man he was really tall! And he was wearing this black overcoat looking more like a CIA agent than a computer scientist! He asked me the time. I was like Oh My God - the Great Don himself is asking me for the time - it was 10 minutes to 10. "There are still 30 minutes for the train", assuming that even i was heading North toward San Francisco where he was going. "Oh my train is gonna be here in 10 minutes, I am going to San Jose". "Oh..!", he said. Anyways, he had a small folder with him and sat down
on a bench at the platform. The sun was bright without a cloud in sky - the typical sunny California weather. Now, I didn't feel like bothering him as he had opened a set of papers and was going about his business of being a computer scientist - even on the bench - but I still had to talk him. I couldn't give up this once in a lifetime opportunity.

So I walked up to the bench, and started - "So Don, can I ask you something? Why did you give up email so early on?". I know it was dumb questions given he has the answer on his website but still i needed a pick-up line! "Oh i have it on my web page, and the thing is that I couldn't even get started with work before 1pm as I was so busy answering people's email - and so i decided to give it up. Plus I had used 15-19 nears of email and that i thought was enough for a life time. Plus sometimes people would send me problems who's solutions they would expect and if i couldn't come up with one they liked, I would have to hear lots of unpleasant words". Me said - "So how much money did you end up giving as part of your books claim of giving money to people who pointed out errors in your book?" - Another dumb question I think - "Oh I think i have given out around 25K dollars as rewards! But people are nice and then don't en cash the checks, I just filed my income tax returns but i saw that none of the people had en cashed the checks - I saw to them - take a xerox of the check and keep that and en cash the original". Another question - "So how did you get started on La TeX? I mean we have a rumor going on in India at least in my school that you had a graduate student who had problems and in order to solve those problems you guys ended up creating LaTeX". "Well", he said, "that is not true about TeX( i felt like a fool calling it LaTeX!), the thing was that i wrote books and the publishers at that time printed them out in such a manner that made me cry! So decided to do something about it - and then I had a graduate student who was very smart - but you know the thing is that PhD is kinda weird a degree - in the sense that its not like BS or MS that you dont have exam to pass to get the degree - so therefore, a good student is not necessarily a good PhD student, and a good PhD student is not necessarily a good BS/MS student. Like my father, a wonderful man God Bless him, could never be a good PhD, but he was an excellent student. So I told this student of mine to try a couple of problems as warm up problems and see where it goes. And so he worked on it a bit. Plus I in a class that I was taking at that time - we were working on how some tools we used could help music researchers in their work - the thing with music is that their notes, when written on paper, cannot be half on one life and half on the other - and someone pointed out in class, we can use a similar structure for text formatting as well!".

In the middle of the conversation, Don asked me where i was from and what my background was. He wrote my name on his paper in his folder!!! That was exciting! He told me he had heard about the trouble in Kashmir. He knew a bit of Bengali - he said. I asked him where he was going in SFO, he said there was an invitation from some Stanford Society and then there was an Opera Premier that he really wanted to go to! And he showed me his tickets for that too. Then I told him what Jeff Ullman had mentioned to us in his Data Mining class - "In Computer Science, these days, you don't need to solve an NP hard problem to make money, all you need to do is make a video uploading site, what us your take on that? - Too bad my train just pulled into the Cal Ave station - and I had to leave - but without a smile - Don said - "He is a pragmatist! Goodbye" in the same breath!

Never in my life have I wished the train to be late as last Saturday. And thank God it was late that day by 7-8 minutes.

Mighty Indians

So lots of things happened in the last few days but before some important announcements, I thought I would address another issue first. Two things happened which sort of increased the priority of this post prior to some other posts just waiting to be published. One took place in the Global Entrepreneurial Marketing (GEM) class that I am taking and the other took place while reading Gaurav's (my ex-boss!) blog which had an article from Forbes bullshitting India.

Tom Kosnik, who by the way i just admire - part of the faculty team for GEM, posed a question in class - "Name a few companies you would want to work for?" - Of course everyone named companies like:

• McKinsey
• Google
• Apple
• Microsoft
• a few startups
• IDEO
• Sequoia Capital
• Benchmark
• IBM Research
• Kleiner Perkins
• Meebo

And then I heard two names - Infosys Consulting and Biocon. Ok - it was me who said Infosys consulting - but man the moment I heard Biocon from someone who was not an Indian and probably never lived in India - i couldnt believe my ears. I mean this is a really really sought after class and that too in Stanford - a class of 86 people - some of them - the smartest people on the planet - and they want to work in Biocon! Man this is just fantastic. Anyways, thought I would tell all you guys out there that we are really building companies which people want to work in - not just people living in India - but people across the globe - has mighty India arrived?

About Gaurav's blog and the Forbes article, well, the thing that someone took time out to bullshit us, well that in itself sorta says something! I think the comment on Gaurav's blog rebutting the arguments was really cool. I somehow agree with the view that complacency is really not requrired, we need ever more Ratan Tatas, Narayan Murthys, Kiran Majumdar Shaws et al - and need to do something about the living standards, the infrastructure, but we are getting there - and the point about solving all those problems first and then going forward with rest of the things is at best an idiotic thought. The article sort of smack of a veritable rebuke if anything, the author had facts to back it - but i did not see any reason to use language which would come off as offensive to people like me and you(perhaps). Khair, take home message I think is that it (the article) was a good reality check - and we need to keep reminding ourselves not to slow down - as the sang in Lagaan - "chale chalo chale chalo!"

ABCDs and Racism

So me and my friend Gaurav were discussing the other day - why ABCD girls will not allow Indian men near them. I mean its as if they have this preconceived notion that we will smell like curry or something. And this is a fact - ABCD girl come off as the most racist of anyone, i meant i guess they are the only racist gang on campus - no one else will behave the way they do. And take my word for it - I am yet to find an ABCD who does not conform to this fact. Anyways, to hell with them and their preconceived notions and idiotic stereotypes about us - call us FOBs if you may - but bottom line - I am not impressed.

Then on the other hand I think - I may well be that frustrated grad student on campus!! Trust me I am not - but something is surely amiss here.

Which brings me to another related topic - why are the American born kids of Indian parents called ACBD - i think i know coz i was something close to that - born in India but grew up outside for a significant portion of the time. The reason is that when they are out of their homes the culture around their American friends is really different from what they are taught in their homes by their parents - parents born and brought up in India. So, its really not their fault. And probably unfair to call them ABCD, its really not their fault.

BTW - for the uninitiated - ABCD = American Born Confused Desi

Ambassador Ronen Sen

Yup, met the man himself today. He is on the west coast for some business, and he paid a visit to the farm. He met President Hennessy prior to his talk at the Encina Hall. I had an interview( about which I am going to blog next) so I could not attend his talk. But since I had to meet the topmost diplomat of the Great Republic of India - the Indian Ambassador to United States - I literally rode my bike like a horse and reached just in time for the last 2 questions - he was done with his talk - was just taking audience questions. I loved the way he answered a question on Hindu extremism in India:

Q: So Ambassador, are you people in India worried about Hindu extremism?

A: Yes! Yes - period! So the I was taking to someone yesterday and i told them what makes us Indian - its not a piece of territory - its not our flag, its not even out national anthem - its our tolerance and respect for diversity, diversity in religion, races, cultures, languages, even culinary diversity! We are not just tolerant, but are respectful of someone else's cultures and beliefs. India was a civilization first, then a nation, then a state.......and he continued......

Anyways, so I went up to him and he was really very approachable - even though he was surrounded by the top ranking government people. So I said to him - sir i am rahul thathoo and i belong to Kashmir. Now a while back there was a talk on campus about how India and its alliance with Israel was a terrible thing. Sir, what do people think that Muslims of the valley are the only sufferers, what doesn't India make it a point to highlight the pain and suffering of the Kashmiri Hindus. I mean we are refugees in our own country - and what is the government doing for us. People think that there are only Kashmiri Muslims who are the sufferers, I mean who will think of us. Just because we are fewer than them doesn't mean that we would be thrown to the dustbin.

His answer was more of a soothing reply - I know what you are taking about and I feel your pain, believe me I have visited those parts of Kashmir. And I know the exodus was so fast and you guys were really made to leave faster than what happened to people in the Balkans. But we are doing ....... someone else interrupted him then.....leaving much to be said (and done!).


We ended on a good note, he shook hands with me and my roommate who was also there, and gave his business card to both of us and left in his luxury (small) limo.


Hopefully he will remember the Kashmiri Pandit plight and will let the international community know about us and our plight.

Catch the movie on the weekend Mr. Grad Student!

Hey!
Well i realized an important thing that happened this last weekend. I decided against logic that I would go watch this movie - "Little Miss Sunshine" at the Memorial Auditorium on campus. And a couple of good things happened - but before that - why was going to the movie against logic? Well big story short - so much work, so little time - and why waste time on movie - catch some sleep instead! But I went anyway - and guess what happened - I met this nice person who works for Oracle...why is that important? Well coz i might be interning at Oracle and I might need to build a network there to get around - and also it helps to know people in the industry - and various other reasons - knowing people in the right place can be a real help. The other thing was that the movie was a good opportunity to provide myself a good distraction from the monotony that usually sets in when the quarter starts.

Another thing that I learnt all thanks to Leor was - how to start to build that network. So at the end of the movie i did not know how to politely ask her for her email so that I would know how to get in touch with her after tonight - so she very generously offered her business card to me and I was like - shit why didnt i ask her for that. So lesson - to build that network - ask politely for that business card - not "what is ur email address?".

Anyways, man that monotony has set in and am dead tired - its only Tuesday...:-)

Letter to Editor

Would you believe it, they published my letter to the editor in the Hindustan Times - that too Delhi Edition! On Sunday, 21st Jan, i read this wonderful arctile written by Neelesh Misra and Soma Wadha that India is really Shining. How the people in the villages now shop at shopping malls. And how the mobile phone has become a status symbol now even in the villages! And I couldnt help replying to both of them. And then they published it in the edit page. I was like...oh my God! Anyways, here is the part of the article by Neelesh:

http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=21_01_2007_013_002&typ=1&pub=47

And here is my detailed email:

Hi Neelesh.

Rahul Thathoo here, I am a Masters student in Computer Science at Stanford University. And even though I am the stereotypical Indian techie out here in the Silicon Valley, when, in our friends circles, we talk about the new India, the India in 2050, we see that India riding a wave of rural going global, the rural class breaking clear of the shackles of their "dehati" lifestyle - owing mostly to the agricultural economy doing better. IT and other knowledge based industries of course would help enable all that, but in the end it is the people in India's villages which have to see the benefits and that will come with them being able to have disposal income to do what the urban class has since long done, and for that - better retail channels, better infrastructure are extremely important.

Your article really makes one's heart fill up with joy and delight. I want my India to shine, I want my India to be that where the head is held high and the mind is without fear. And out leaders and business are also doing a good job of that - Azim Premji on campus did a marvelous job of letting people know that India has arrived - people mostly are caught up in the "China is happening" scene...he delivered an excellent lecture on how he went from selling vegetable oil to becoming one of the biggest IT companies of the world. And ditto with P. Chidambaram - when he was on campus.

Everytime one of my friends goes to India for vacation and comes back, he/she are really mesmerized by the fact that things move so fast in India and the difference is so noticeable - changes(all for the better) are really happening and now so many people want to move back to India, at least as compared to previously. I arrived here just 4 months back, ...blah blah (classified stuff)...all working to make products for the India market - why?? Because now every month the internet penetration is increasing so rapidly - we want to be the first on the block. Such a huge market to just go out there and conquer!

Anyways, these were my views, kindled by your article! Once again, good job Neelesh/Soma - would like to read more from you!

Cheers!
Rahul

And they published a smaller version here:

http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=24_01_2007_010_016&typ=1&pub=47

Thanks Vir Sanghvi :-)

Welcome to Stanford!

So when a friend of mine wrote a blog on the kind of replies he had received to the emails he sent out applying for Research Assistantship in Stanford, I decided I would follow suit. In fact I decided to go a step further, write a couple of descriptions of the one on one interviews I had with some of the professors at Stanford, before I got my RAship. Here it is:

Thanks for your interest. I am curently on sabbatical in Singapore (until the end of 2007) and right now I am in Nepal on a climbing expedition. I will behappy to meetyou when I return to Stanford if you are still interested.

Thanks for your e-mail; I have already hired an RA for this year, so I don't have any other positions, unfortunately. Sorry. - "He gave me an RA in less than 2 months from this email"


Thank you for sending the information. Unfortunately, my computer is unable to open rar files, but I did look at your resume.

You certainly have had some experience in computational biology, but it wasn't clear whether you've had experience in machine learning or statistical methods. In any case, I have a fairly strict policy not to take students into my group until they have successfully completed at least one directly relevant course here at Stanford. Ideally, this would be my cs228 course (probabilistic graphical models - winter), but I may also accept cs229 (machine learning - fall), or my new cs279 course (biological networks - fall). I know you are not currently enrolled in cs279. Are you taking cs229 by any chance? If not, then I can only suggest that you take cs228 in winter, and then come and talk to me partway through the quarter about possible research opportunities in my group.

The TA-ship in Hindi is an unpaid position. You get school credit for taking Directed Reading in the SLP. It essentially involves doing HW correction, and the Hindi is quite basic. Usually, the terms don't work out for Masters students since they don't get paid, or get units. If you are still interested, you can email me and we can meet. Also, if you know anyone who might be interested in getting upto 12 units for the year towards their degree, you can get them to contact me - of course, they must know how to read and write Hindi.

--------------------------------

One on one interaction with this guy in Dept of Communication:

Me: Sir I am from the MS program in the CS dept...
Prof: So???? (Face like freakin Hitler) This is the Communication Dept - i can see that u idiot - I have eyes!
Me: I know that sir, I was here to talk to you about research opportunities in the Facial Recognition of electorial college...
Prof: I have no money for CS Graduate students...(i thought he was about to take out a gun from under the table and shoot at me...)
Me: Thank you sir, and ran away from the building as if my ass was on fire...(This was, btw, my second day at Stanford - quite a welcome huh!)


With this guy in the Computational Mathematics Dept:

Me: Is Prof Darve (read like Kumble) in?
Office Manager: You mean Prof Darve(read like carve)?
Me: Yes
OM: Yes he is in...
I go in...
Me: No he is not there
OM: He must have gone to the toilet...
Me: (To myself): possibly a good omen!
Darve: we were supposed to meet at 3, you are 10 min early...
Me: I have a class at 3:15 sir
Darve: Anyways, come in - we have a project to build a car simulation, using OpenGL and Matlab to solve 2nd order differential equations - I want the students should in this course be able to make a car simulation game which they can race against each other at the end of the quarter - can you build it - I will pay u $13 an hour for it
Me: (To myself): I bet the slaves from Africa got paid better for their work - wtf - differential quations in matlab - with openGL porting - this will take about 6 months at the least - with 3 courses at hand...
Me: (To Darve): Of course sir, this can be done, so i will keep in touch with you, thank you!

BDay!

Hey! And today in India they are celebrating my birthday! Nice of those guys. And I am missing them. Here still one more day to go. But somehow I feel as if a part of me is missing. I get the feeling that I probably dont like it much here. Although I am getting the best that the US has to offer, I mean life in Northern CA and then life at Stanford and stuff...but seriously...something is missing. I think I miss family back home. But then I used to miss them when I was in Allahabad as well. But this is not that kind of missing, something else! Cant figure it out. This place is good, but its not home period.

How to Get into Stanford For Dummies - Part 2

So this post coming a long time after I had written the first post about the same topic but for students in 1st and 2nd year of college. Most because I was sucked into the academic system here in the duration of the quarter. But now I thought before the second quarter began, I should finish this up.

Now for me, while I was in college, the third year was easily the most demanding(read toughest) year of college. I had a not so easy 5th semester and a very tough 6th semester followed by an even tougher summer at IISc. And in the middle of the 5th and 6th semester, I had to prepare for the GRE which i ended up giving later than I would have thought - in March - but at least it was earlier than most people. That is one issue one must decide and commit to early on, when and where to give the GRE. The centres are booked tight in Aug/Sept/Nov, so one should ideally do away with the GRE while in the third year, which adds to the commotion for being a junior(junior in the US is a student in the 3rd year of engg). One mus also, at the start of the 3rd year try to look for a good internship. Mostly people I knew went abroad for an internship, I too tried my luck out there but I didnt get a favorable call. But instead I went to the best Database Systems Lab at IISc. Anyways, in the 3rd year grades usually show a down trend, dont be too preturbed by that, it is usually common to all but try to work an extra bit to keep them above a certain respectable level. You might have to give up on a bit of socializing. But whatever you do, dont lose your sense of humor!!

In the best case you should try to get a reco from your summer internship after the 3rd year. So you would have to work on that. In my case, I had an absolute disaster of a summer. Didnt do too well. So of course I didnt even ask for the reco as I knew that would play out against me in my application. That is one important point to keep in mind while approaching profs for recos. Get recos from profs who you know would give you a good reco. Moving on, into the 4th year, try to get a job first thing at the start of the placement season. Get this mental block over with, this would keep you and your folks at home in peace that at least there is a back up. Also, start looking at the universities that have are in the top 50 as far as your specialization is concerned. Pick a couple in the top 10, a couple in the middle and a few as a backup. You also need to start working on you statement of purpose. Ideally you should start with this process by August. Slowly and steadily, work toward finalizing your univesities, start working on your SOP, start writing your reco letters in case you are on good terms with your faculty and they ask you to, else in case your reco giver is far away, then you may want to get their reco beforehand(only for a paper application). For a non-paper application, it doesnt matter that much.

For Stanford, there are a couple of essays that they ask you to fill out, and the character limit is really low. So you really have to leave out the bullshit and stick to the core issues that make you a cut above the rest. Prepare one essay on how your undergrad embedded in you an urge to seek higher education in your field, and the prepare another essay on how you would add to the diversity of the class which you would attend at Stanford. All recos at Stanford are online, so you need to remind your reco givers to fill out those recos in time, especially if they are busy or are not in your undergrad college.

Once you are done with all that by Dec 1, just wait for the great email which should reach you in March, depending on your department. Some stats for this years CS Masters class, the CS dept is not really one of the biggest, but its not small either. This year they took in 130 MS students and around 45 PhD students. There are around 10 Masters students from India and 2 PhD students from India. Out of the 10, 1 is from IIT that too with 1 year work ex, and out of the PhDs, one is from IIT, with a Masters from Georgia Tech and the other is a Masters from IISc - incidently she worked with the same prof I interned with and with his reco she is not a Stanford CS Fellow! Man i should have got his reco!

All the best to you guys! In case of any questions or if there is anything you think I can do for you, let me know.

Teacher

So there was this funny saying back when I was in school and even in college, "Take as many pangas as you want - but never, never ever mess with a teacher!". People knew that their teachers could take their career apart if they wanted. But somehow more than that, people also respected the good teachers, the teachers who knew what they were talking about. Teachers who encouraged questions in class - who made learning an enjoyable experience not some gut-wrenching judging game - those teachers were really respected. I personally owe everything I am, everything I know to all the teachers who taught me from my first school in Jagdishpur(DPS) to my current school - Stanford. Each and everyone of us has teachers to thank. But somehow we often forget them - we never attempt to get back in touch or pay a visit to them or may be even send a postcard - no we dont even do that. But I read about this touching story and I was really left feeling a pang of guilt - Gosh I wish I had done something for my teachers too. http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/nov/10ab.htmIt talks about how a dying former teacher of IIM Calcutta was helped by his students to try to import a drug from the US which could save him. Though he did not survive, the gesture really touched me. We should all go back from where we come. I feel that often, in the daily rush of life, we forget who we are and where we come from. And often many of us dont know where we are going. Taking time off for going back to the good old days really comes off as time well spent - you dont want your whole life to be just your life - you want your life to have made a difference in other people's lives - something like the lives of teachers! I miss my teachers :(

Live blogging - BASES Entrepreneurship KickOff at Stanford - 30th Oct, 2006

So a couple of weeks back, the student entrepreneurship club of Stanford(BASES) hosted a panel discussion on the current trends in entrepreneurship here in the valley. The discussion was moderated by Guy Kawasaki and the panel had as it members: Anand of Aerospace Corporation, Seth Godin of Meebo, Ann - big time VC here, Steve - big time VC here Erik And a couple of more people So here is what I could jot down (in a very news-reporter sorta way), I hope you enjoy it and benefit from it. I can also give you the link to the podcast of this - but u need to write comments for this blog first!GUY KAWASAKI A Stanford alum - law school and gsb reject Erik - active in spinning companies out of stan Ann - ... venture partners Steve - Meteor Network Seth on current state of high entrepreneurship people say its easy to get money this day and age...but this is not totally true - and with meeboe - just go do it forget abt business plan competitions dont spend months planning to execute - a lot of stuff is getting started right now meebo launched with a sum total with $6000Guy says: so what wrong with business competitions if u made a plan for meebo there would be a sum total of 50000 people in the world who wold use it if people are super passionate abt it and u think ut would work - as long as it doesnt take millions of dollars its seth's 8th attempt at a startup erik on the same its quite healthy here in the valley understand what ur competitors would be thinking or a project that u would be associated on campsas an entrepreneur - what risks u are takings fantastic time to be in ur seat be thoughtful abt building ur markets Ann - first round of capital - angel/venture is the most difficult round to raise we look for a lot of commitment its rare to see a business plan on 1 page paper the bar is high for that first round Anand hired a sales advisor - look in to the mobile enterprise not the tech behind it - but the fact that what does it do for the user how badly ur customers what ur product comes down to environment when customers are starting to trust the startups again get ur hands dirty with some basic sales, basic marketing techniques, Steve one thing that is different today is that there is a new thought - creating a new focuswe look at a few values - facilitating connection between users - connect to people's passions Seth on Web 2.0 ->next generation of websites - more of connect people less on the site owner and more on the people coming to it Tim O'rielly - Web 2.0� it was 2001 - business was low - worked very well for tim - my business model is open source - u have to be able to describe ur unique competitive model we cant invest in rear view mirrors rather than forward lookin Steve it doesn't mean a lot what ur marketing model whats the market looking like444i - Armando Fox - good course at Stanford Ann - brand advertisers are gonna come - google will need to run a lot of experiments to see how they can get more yahoo doesnt have the advertising dent that Google has� Between MySpace or YouTube - its myspace - which is a no brainer coz the demographics cross section which myspace caters to is huge some luck or some blinding insight - but when u r in the internet - when u r trying to predict the users - doing research is very diff than putting up a consumer internet incremental improvement on what u are already doing - watch videos after download - in youtube - watch in the browser without scrolling the bar - u have to know what is happening on this site from the main page target audience - potential advertisers How many power point slides would u see when u are looking at entrepreneurs doing their pitch - 0 slides 15 slides - if u go higher 20-25 slides u r it eligance and simplicity where u have 30 secs where u have 3 min gonna have to pitch to potential employers that u r gonna hire u r gonna pitch to ...Ann - less than 20 slides Steve - ~ 20