When Google team visited FluxGen Lab!

A couple of months’ back I got an e-mail with the subject as "Google/FluxGen company visit" from a person named Spriha, who introduced herself as an Associate Product Manager (APM) at Google, working on Search Ads. She went on to write that "The APMs at Google, along with Android/Pixel VP Brian Rakowski and other senior Product Managers, are doing a global trip[1] to learn more about start-ups, local industries and trends in cities around the world. We're visiting Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Bangalore and Paris this year". However, what I loved the most in her e-mail was this, "As part of the Bangalore leg of the trip, we’d love to visit interesting companies in the city and learn more about the tech scenes in India. After researching for the best places to visit during the trip, FluxGen specifically shone out to us -- we would all be very excited to learn about your mission, work processes and products. Would you be open for a meeting with us?" I actually had to read that part of the mail twice.

I shared the screen shot of this e-mail with my colleagues and a few well-wishers of FluxGen over WhatsApp immediately, and I could not have expected a better response. Without exception, everyone were super thrilled to hear.  One of my friends responded, "When Google searches for you, you know you have arrived". Dr. Gopal, the chairperson of FluxGen [2], advised me to prepare well for this meet and focus on displaying our products (and in his typical tone, told us at least properly clean/organise the lab once before the visit). Chandru, senior director of FluxGen, who was concerned with the fact that we had never put significant efforts in raising funds, instructed me to see this as the best opportunity to learn from the west in that aspect. Venkatesh Kumaran, an advisor to FluxGen, told me to find out how we could use Google tools for FluxGen's Energy and Water manager and if we could do a pilot project for their facility. Like-wise, I got a lot of interesting advice on leveraging this visit of google product managers.

During my phone conversation with Spriha, I could figure that this visit of Google product managers was mostly going to be about mutual learning. She expressed great interest in knowing about the work we do and the impact it has on this world. She was excited to know that we were using Internet of Things concept to build products for rural electrification and water management. She was very keen on seeing our products in the field. She also mentioned the profiles of the visiting product managers, and told how FluxGen could benefit from their expertise in product development. During my phone conversations with her, I could sense that it was a great opportunity for my team to learn more about the various cloud-based tools from google - which was something we had less exposure as compared to hardware tools.

We, at FluxGen, did not want to miss this opportunity to impress Google. We made a plan to display our existing products and prototypes of our product ideas in the form of demos at our lab in BTM layout, as taking Spriha and team to the sites we had installed our systems at was not feasible because of time constraints. We had dedicated most part of June for building the demo models. In fact, I wanted to devise this visit of Google APMs to our facility as an aide to complete incomplete works. I must say the team responded to the plan with great enthusiasm and confidence. However, during the same time we got an opportunity of doing a commercial pilot for IoT based energy management of cell towers for a major mobile operator in India. With business interest as priority, I had to put experienced engineers to the project and less experienced engineers and interns to prepare the demos. Last five days before the visit, everyone worked day in day out to make the demo models work according to the plan.    

The Google team visited FluxGen lab on the 27th of June at 2PM. The entire FluxGen team was out on the streets to welcome the team to our lab, which is on the first floor of my house. Since they just had lunch, we found it apt to give them water bottles as they arrived at our tiny facility. I am not sure if they had visited a garage start-up in their tour, but I am sure they could figure that FluxGen is one such start-up, operating in a residential area called BTM layout, which majorly consisted of IT professionals. We started the interaction with Zach Maier, Product Manager at Google introducing himself, and about the purpose of their visit to a start-up like FluxGen. I had a quick discussion with him and Spriha about the plan, which was followed by my team introducing themselves to the thirty-member Google team. In fact, in that 100sq meter area, we had 70 people, all pepped up for the exciting afternoon.          

We had divided the two-hour meeting into four equal parts: introduction, FluxGen story in the form of a presentation, Product demo and interaction. I started the presentation by showing a screen shot of my resignation letter to my then manager in GE Aviation System [3] in July 2010 and jokingly said, "Not to motivate". I had mentioned the following in my resignation letter, "I have taken a decision to pursue entrepreneurship dreams, which requires me to leave my present occupation. I would like to channelize my passion in developing eco-friendly engineering solutions for our countrymen in a small way." I thought there was no better way than this to convey the vision with which FluxGen was started. I went on to tell how the journey started, by me relocating to a village or rather a small town called Ujire, to learn about rural electrification using solar Photovoltaics at Selco Solar [4] and then moving back to Bangalore to start FluxGen in 2011. I must thank Kaustubh (intern from KTH Sweden and former colleague) for preparing an excellent presentation [5], which displayed the projects FluxGen executed from 2011 to now in chronological order, while clearly showing how the products of FluxGen evolved, by executing projects and with customer interaction. By the end of my presentation, I invited Kit Dashwood, an intern from Queen's University, Canada, to give the pitch on the water contamination monitoring [6] - a product we are currently developing at FluxGen. Kit created a very compelling case for water quality monitoring system by mentioning how we had to give each one of them a bottled drinking water when they had arrived at FluxGen Lab.      

The presentation had set a neat platform for us to demonstrate our products, as the customer profiles and persona were discussed during the presentation. We had made a jig with water pipes and electrical loads that resemble a micro-grid. We mounted our product, Energy and Water Manager [7], on it to demonstrate the product functionality. Adjacent to this jig was a semi-circular arch kind of structure, having a moving flood light (emulating the Sun) which was designed to showcase solar energy generation profile. My colleague Jagatheeswaran displayed the Solar Health Monitoring System for the Solar Plant at FluxGen lab. We explained how the solar plant installed at FluxGen is also a research and development platform[8] for us to enhance the product functionalities. My colleague Disha displayed the Branch Circuit Monitoring system installed at FluxGen lab and its application in energy conservation. Abhiroop, an intern from NITK Surathkal, demonstrated a project pertaining to home energy/water management that he was working on. Kit and Rishab presented the final demo regarding the water contamination monitoring application. The prototype was developed in two weeks, after Kit did extensive research on the product requirements to come up with the product specifications. We were quite thrilled to see the expressions of the Google team members when the web application showed the water to be undrinkable, when Rishab added a drop of contaminated water to drinking water. It was quite enthralling to see the Google team taking pictures of our demos with great enthusiasm - our night outs to make the demo models work was certainly worth it!

The last half an hour actually extended to nearly forty-five minutes, as there was so much to discuss and learn from each other. I opened up the discussion by requesting the guests to present any Google products that we could benefit from. Immediately after that, one of the APMs keenly stepped forward to share interesting information about various Google tools on IoT, cloud and machine learning (such as Container Engine, Tenserflow, AppEngine, etc.) that could provide great value additions to our products. Spriha volunteered to share her insight on the IoT operating system by Google called “AndroidThings”, which can work seamlessly on many single board computers available in the market. This way we learnt many interesting tools that Google had developed, of which we were barely aware. Among many things, one thing they were very keen on knowing from FluxGen was about the way we gather product requirements for the rural market of India, for which our explanation was that FluxGen prefers to recruit passionate engineers mainly from rural backgrounds, to understand the rural users’ needs’ straight from the horse's mouth.

We had personal interaction with the Google product manager and associate product managers in the end, which lasted for about fifteen minutes. During this interaction, we realised that the guests were very happy about their visit to FluxGen. Some of them expressed great interest in helping us grow, and a few of them at personal capacity as well, as they thought our work was very important [9]. We were thrilled and amazed to hear such kind words from them. We exchanged cards to keep in touch.

Thanks again for going through this post. I would like to end this post with a short thank you note to Google:

Dear Google,

Your product managers’ and associate product managers’ visit to FluxGen was one of the high points after its inception. This visit of yours has boosted our morale and energy levels. While you are one of the biggest and most respected corporations in the world, you were keen on learning from a small organisation like ours - that has certainly made us feel important. Thank you so much! We wish to collaborate with you in making this world a better place.

Regards,
FluxGen Engineering Technologies [10]

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[1]About Google APM's global trip: http://www.newsweek.com/google-goes-globe-trotting-96341

[2]Blog post about my association with Dr. Gopal and Chandru, directors of FluxGen: http://isiganesh.blogspot.in/2012/12/my-ill-tempered-uncles.html

[3]Work Experience at GE: http://isiganesh.blogspot.in/2010/08/great-experience.html

[4]Leaving GE to start a career in sustainable tech: http://isiganesh.blogspot.in/2010/11/new-job.html

[5]FluxGen Story Presentation: https://goo.gl/XrzEqk

[6]Executive summary of water quality monitoring: https://goo.gl/EcUQoF

[7]Energy and Water Manager flyer: https://goo.gl/iB61HY

[8]FluxGen's scientific contribution: https://medium.com/@isiganesh/fluxgens-scientific-contribution-9704b52f68b1

[9]Zach Maier's Facebook post after visiting FluxGen Lab:  https://www.facebook.com/zach.maier/posts/10104043071135001

[10] FluxGen story in yourstory: https://yourstory.com/2016/11/fluxgen-iot-ganesh-shankar/

Independence day rides

I have not been much of a religious person, however, over last four years I seem to have become a bit religious, to be more precise, ritualistic about one thing. Ganapathy (my junior from IISc, also refered as Gana) and I have agreed to follow a rule that we would do a cycle ride (or do a trek in case cycling is not possible) on the three national holidays (in India) for the rest of our lives. I'm glad we have been able to keep up with this ritual for past four years, especially in doing the Independence day rides. In this post, I'd like to share some experiences of the Independence day rides that we have done so far.

In the year 2013, Gana and I did Bangalore to Mangalore via Kukke Subramanya (400kms, three days), which shall be remembered for the great hospitality from my aunts Seethalakshmi and Uma on Varamalakshmi festival in my native, Hassan. The third day of the ride shall also be remembered for completing 100kms in just four hours from Kukke to Mangalore as we spent time leisurely at the Kukke Subramanya temple, which also happens to be Gana's family deity. The ride culminated with us having an ice cream at the famous Ice cream parlour called Pabba's (in Mangalore).

In the year 2014, Gana, Tejas, Kaustubh, Sanath and I did the ride from Mangalore to Goa on the NH66, which is a coastal highway till Panjim. That ride also involved temple visits, such as Udupi Sri Krishna temple and Murdeshwara. We also had amazing temple food, which was served to all the pilgrims. The high point of the trip was the stay at Maravanthe beach near Kundhapura - the exquisite view of the beach from our room and photo shoot before leaving the beach will be remembered for a long time. As a matter of fact, I liked it so much that I wanted to spend time with my wife at the same beach and hence I took her to the same place the very next week!

In the year 2015, Gana and I wanted to continue our romance with the coast. We planned to do Goa to Mumbai on the coastal route, which mostly comprised of state highways. We covered little more than 500kms in four days after which we had to abandon the ride as my cycle got damaged near HariHareshwar (as I fell into a pit, thankfully without hurting much). This cycle ride was the toughest and by far the most scenic route of all my rides till date. While the Konkan route kept us guessing the ups and downs ahead, we thoroughly enjoyed the Maharashtrian cuisine such as misalpav, bhaji, vada pav, pav bhaji, pohe and sheera at various local food joints on the coast. One more thing we'll remember is the ferry rides at Jai ghad, Dabhol, Anjerle, Kleshi and Harihareshwar, which was quite amusing.

This year (2016) we were dreaming to do a ride from Manali to Leh, but unfortunately we couldn't execute it for various reasons, however, since we are bound by the rule to do a cycle ride, Gana came up with an alternate plan, that was to do a two day ride from Shimoga to Mangalore via Agumbe (220 kms), which lies in the rain belt of western ghats. Tejas and Gokul also joined the ride this time. This ride was quite amusing in terms of the food we had at Dhodamane in Agumbe and the wonderful descent from Agumbe to Karkala via Someshwara Temple while it rained heavily. We also visited a place very near to Shimoga called Mathur where people converse in Sanskrit. The view of Thunga river was amazing from various points of our journey, especially at Hariharapura, where we stayed for a night.

While all these rides have stress tested our body and mind at different levels, it has also been an interesting learning in terms of getting a glimpse into the lives of our people in different regions. It has only made us realise how fortunate we are in terms of city comforts and also how unfortunate we are in terms of living a complicated life filled with anomalous greed. The adversities such as cycle tyre puncture and various other malfunctionings of the cycle have made us better engineers than what we were and also realise that how vulnerable we are in spite of all the preparations that we can put in. Well, there is many things to write, perhaps about each and every ride that we have done, but for now I'll conclude it by thanking our close friend from IISc, Dr. Arulalan ( Assistant Professor at NITK Surathkal), who has been a super awesome host at Mangalore for more than four rides (if we include the republic day rides too). We have done many rides for the pure love for ice cream at Pabba's located near Mangalore bus stand and hoping Arul would treat us there! ;)

The anniversary ride!

As the title of this post may indicate, I got married about a year back. After getting married, my wife and I went to Malaysia and Singapore for our honey moon. I must say unlike my natural instincts of doing things in an unplanned way, for this trip alone, I had planned it very well in advance. I didn't want the trip to get messed up at any cost. Since it was the first time I was travelling with my wife, I wanted to build a reputation of a fine husband who could manage things really well. Thankfully nothing went wrong during the trip. We had a great time.

A few months back going for a trip on our first wedding anniversary came up during our routine walk that we do after having dinner. I started thinking of some fancy place like we did for the honeymoon, however my wife, Ranjitha wished to do the planning this time. To my surprise she expressed keen interest in doing a cycle ride with me as part of the trip. As she had never done a cycle ride more than a kilometre, I thought a short ride of about 10 to 15kms in the woods or country side would be a cool thing to do during an outing. I suggested on renting cycles at some hill station like ooty or Coorg to do an hour long morning rides during the vacation. There was certainly some positive feeling when it comes to cycling.

As days passed by the idea of cycling together grew over us. Ranjitha insisted on doing some practice rides together, instead of post dinner walks, especially during the weekends as traffic near our locality is comparatively less. We did cycle on streets in which we used to walk regularly and also on streets we had never been to. We managed to cycle about 8-10kms per day during some weekends. I was pretty impressed by her enthusiasm to cycle - I felt really nice that she was keen on experiencing something that I'm passionate about.

About a month back during some discussion, Ranjitha came up with this idea of doing a cycle ride from Mysore to Hassan. Considering the fact she is from Mysore and my home town is Hassan, she felt doing a ride of this sort is meaningful and memories of the first anniversary will remain in us for a long long time. She also wanted to visit my folks, who reside in Hassan, after the trip. Though I listened to her grand idea patently I was sceptical about its feasibility. The shortest distance between Mysore and Hassan is nearly 115kms and Ranjitha had hardly done one third the distance if we sum up all the practice rides we had done until then. Well, I didn't wish to dishearten her at that moment by showcasing my doubts about her cycling skills and hence, somehow managed to pull out an optimistic smile on my face during the discussion. I did however tell her that we should plan to complete the ride in two days.

At first I thought Ranjitha was just infatuated with the idea of cycling between our respective home towns, but I was wrong. She really wanted to do the ride. Being what she is, it was not possible for me to convince her other wise and being a cyclist myself I didn't want to miss any opportunity to cycle even if it was a matter of  short distance. As our anniversary approached, I was thrilled to see a very positive optimism in her about doing the ride, which in a way challenged my sceptical thoughts about her completing the planned route.

We left with our cycles to Mysore by a Multi-axle Volvo bus, which has a fairly large luggage carrying space that was able to easily accommodate our cycles. Neither Ranjitha nor I told my parents about our exact plan as it would have made them worried about Ranjitha's well being in doing such an expedition. We just informed them that we were doing sight seeing in and around Hassan, and do a very small bit of cycling for the sake of fun. With all the apprehension and with fair bit of preparations( that also included some amount of shopping at Decathlon store at Mysore) we were all set to start the expedition at 4:30am on our first wedding anniversary, that is precisely 9th June. Even before we started our journey of 125kms, Ranjitha's cycle's front tyre's tube had got punctured. I fixed the puncture and we began our quest at 5:15am, that's when I actually wished Ranjitha a happy anniversary!

The first stretch of the ride from Mysore to KRS was about 30kms that we managed to complete in the planned duration of one and half hours. We were able see the sunrise when we were about to reach KRS. We had great pleasure in witnessing beautiful sceneries around us through out the ride, only on a few occasions we managed to click. We continued the ride further to reach a village called Chinkurli. We had idli and vada as our breakfast in that place. Unfortunately after KRS we took a route that increased our over all journey by 10kms, but on the positive side we had an opportunity to see my mother's home town and also a town where my father did his education along with his siblings.

After Chinkurli we reached K R pâté by around 11:00. We found a neat place to take the much required rest. We had completed a little more than half the total distance, that too at a very impressive pace. It was incidentally a place my grand father had once worked for some time and my father studied in a polytechnic institute. My dad's younger brother, that is my revered uncle Gopal, had called me to wish us for the first anniversary during the time we were taking rest at KR Pate. He remembered his good old days there when I told him we had cycled to that place. Ranjitha and I attended a few calls there before we continued our journey. As expected every one we spoke to were completely amazed about our ride and most of them pretty much vindicated me for taking up such a risk. Though, I must say, there was a sense of appreciation in all the calls we attended.

After completing KR pâté the sun was no more kind to us. Even the clouds that covered the sky in the morning  wasn't protecting us from sun rays by noon. We were fairly exhausted by the time we had reached KR pâté, future planned destinations seemed less achievable considering our plight. Over and beyond, Ranjitha was feeling drowsy too, which further retarded the progress. We stopped below a tree to take some more rest. Ranjitha slept for some time as if it was no strange place to her. She slept on my lap for some time and then she seemed completely alright. After taking rest she told me that It was indeed a "powerful" power nap that she seldom had in the past. We cycled at a fairly low pace though consistently till we reached Chennarayapattana, also called as CR Patna. Reaching CR Patna was nearly completing 100kms of the ride from Ranjitha's home at Mysore. That was some real good feeling!

Reaching CR Patna would have not been possible if we had not found an old man selling jack fruit on the high way. It is said that jack fruit is one fruit to be had when you are hungry and our state was exactly that. We also found just plucked tender coconuts about 10kms before CR  Patna. The tender coconuts had the same taste as that of the tender coconuts that we harvest at my home in Bangalore. As a matter of fact the coconut tree planted at my home was from a farm from CR Patna, which happens to be my mother's home town. The tender coconut water would have surely compensated for the lost salts and minerals from our body. I've never missed having tender coconut water in my cycle rides in the past.

At CR Patna we had an amazing south Indian food at a Jain mess called Padmavathi mess. Some local guy there suggested that mess as the best choice for lunch. The people at the mess turned out to be very sweet. They enquired about our ride and offered some place to take a rest, that too in a private room. We immediately accepted the kind offer and took the best advantage of our time at Padmavathi to sleep for about 45minutes in that room. Before we left the mess, we thanked the people there and also invited them to our place in Bangalore if they happen to visit the city.

The last stretch was CR Patna to Hassan, which was nearly 40kms. It was about 4PM when we left Padmavathi mess. Since the major battles were fought with great fortitude we had little apprehension in conquering the final destination, which was my home town. We had hit the National high way, that all the way extends to Mangalore. The road was neat and broad, but constituted more ups compared to downs. The weather was just fantastic, as the clouds had pretty much covered the sky. In this stretch we managed to cycle next to each other. We felt good about ourselves on the task we were about to complete and also about the experience we had shared during the ride. During the ride we met some complete strangers enquiring about our ride and wising us success. Some blessed us whole heartedly while some were puzzled about the idea behind it and while some were jerks trying to intimidate. No matter what, unfortunately, we grabbed the attention of one and all, who were on the road, which is something you don't really wish on your wedding anniversary!

Reaching Hassan nearly tested our patience as it turned dark and the roads didn't have street lights, and its also a normal mental syndrome during long distance cycling that we feel the destination is close but still we don't reach the final point as calculated. We also got misguided by a sign board that made us cycle on a wrong path, which further infuriated us. By the time we reached Hassan it was about 7:30PM. We had pretty much celebrated the success of completing the ride when we came across a government  agricultural college located on the out skirts of Hassan, as the college entrance  had Hassan written on the name plate. The final destination was my maternal aunt Seetha Lakshmi's house located about a kilometre before the Hassan city bus stand.

Reaching my aunt and uncle's house was a relief more than anything else. Ranjitha was pretty much exhausted. Meeting my lovely aunt and uncle gave us a very comfortable feeling. They were extremely happy to see us and also to know that we had cycled all the way from Mysore to visit them on our very first wedding anniversary. We also mentioned about our plan to visit other relatives in Hassan the next day. All the pain we had accumulated during the ride was refreshingly compensated by the great hospitality of my aunt and uncle. We called my parents and Ranjitha's parents after reaching, and told the true story of what we really did. Needless to say that they were shocked to hear that Ranjitha had managed to cycle nearly 140kms in a single day that too on an up terrain. My mother, as always, yelled at me for doing the tough ride, where as she was very impressed by Ranjitha's courage. She did expresses her appreciation to Ranjitha, though with some reservations. She insisted Ranjitha to never do such a ride again as it involved a great magnitude of risk, in her opinion. However I felt that she was secretly proud of us for completing the ride.

The following day we met my folks in Hassan, which include my father's maternal aunt Lakshmi Narasu, who is 93 years old. The old lady was super happy to see us come to visit her. We also met one more uncle Ashwath Narayana, who spends most of his time in spirituality and literary activities. Ranjitha and I managed to meet some more of my relatives before we took a bus to Bangalore. The time spent at Hassan was fantastic. We will remember this visit to Hassan more than any other for obvious reasons.

Now that I'm about to conclude this long post, I'm thinking of what to write about my wonderful partner who in order to make me happy on a special day did such an expedition with me for the fact that I love long distance cycling. Well, I really don't have words to express what kind of joy I have experienced in doing this entire trip with her and how lucky I'm to have a wife who so vividly gets my concept of happiness; If there is something impossible to articulate for me now - this is it!   

Entering a new world...

The movie Gravity was released on October 11th 2013 (in India). Who ever saw the movie were just ga ga about it and told me its a must-watch movie, and some recommended me to watch it in IMAX alone. A friend of mine, who had seen it once was ready to watch it again, and in fact he did book tickets for us. I was all set to watch the movie, but life, the way it is, had different plans for me. A day before the release of the movie Gravity I had reluctantly agreed to see a girl my parents and close relatives had found through their personal contacts in their "noble" pursuit of ending my bachelorhood (read: golden years!). Well, meeting this girl and her family was meant to jeopardize my plans of watching the movie Gravity. I must say I did try my best to pre-pone the meeting by two hours so that I could watch the movie after going through the imposition, but for once my father told me "Please co-operate with us today, we will perhaps never bother you again" for which my answer was "Fine! Alright, today! As you say, remember today alone!"  

However hard I had tried to get away with marriage in the past, that day,17th October 2013 - to be precise, turned out in favor of my parents's grand aspiration of taking away my single-hood. I did decide to marry that girl because of whom I couldn't see the movie Gravity with my friends. You can consider reading the post "ಮೊದಲ ಪುಟ..." (the first page..) (1) to know how it all happened - all that you need is local language skills. 

Being a first timer as per "in-relationship" goes, the courtship was pretty stretched - eight months! On an average I can say that I was just alright during the courtship, at the start in being "ME - my life - my rules" towards becoming "to-be husband material" and (thankfully) survived all the glitches in the journey to eventually get married to the same girl on the scheduled date and time. The least I can say is that it was adventurous, just like jumping into a deep sea for the first time with out a life jacket. Needless to say my then fiancee, and now wife had just enough patience to tolerate my super cool idiosyncrasies! 

Getting married is not as bad as I thought several years back. To start with I did watch the movie Gravity with my wife a few months after getting married in a multiplex theater. She does appreciate how hard it was for me to have missed the movie back then just to meet a strange girl in such circumstance. I must also admit marriage brings out the best in you, especially if you are a husband. Here are a few examples. Your memory may become crystal clear during the process. For instance my wife never misses a chance to quiz about her sarees. I've always found greatest of pleasures in answering correctly for the questions "which saree she wore when and for what occasion" and I must also say its by far greater misery in failing to recollect. The other thing that comes to my mind immediately is clothes compacting. Before getting married I had no clue about how to fold clothes and reason behind keep them in order, that too inside some cupboards (for those of you who have seen my past life in hostel this may seem obvious but for rest of you very ridiculous (2) ). But now I think I'm trained to compact all my clothes, bed sheets, etc in no time while keeping them one above the other in a neat order to save my space and time. I do it even efficiently when my wife is pissed off with me for some unknown reason(s).  

There are several more things I can probably write, but for now let me not, all that I would say is that the boy in me has taken a trip to adulthood, though little slowly and with a bit of apprehension.

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(1) Meeting my wife for the first time:

http://isiganesh.blogspot.in/2013/11/blog-post.html

(2) A video of my hostel room:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TvGWI_IN8c

the teaching job!

I come from a family of teachers; I don’t mean it in the abstract sense. Like for instance my father, my sister, my grandfather (mom's father), many of my uncles and aunts are teachers or were teachers at some point of time. I guess love for teaching came naturally to me. My first experiments in teaching happened when I was a teenager. I ran an informal drawing and painting academy during summer and winter vacations to school going students when I was in high school. That experience of starting the painting classes at home helped me gain great confidence in becoming an entrepreneur and a teacher later in my life.

I did take up teaching when I was an engineering college student as well. I started a laboratory with my dad's help to train engineering students to conduct experiments in electronics(1). Succeeding in that effort prompted me to start an engineering start-up by name "Imagineering" just after completing my engineering education along with some of my friends. Fortunately or unfortunately it didn't take off well, but that did help me gain greater perspective on taking up entrepreneurship over the years. Coming back to the subject, I did take up short term teaching jobs during my masters as and when possible. Once I taught a computer programming language that helped me to pay off the money that I borrowed from my friends to do a three-week long trekking expedition at Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh (in July'08).

My long cherished dream was to teach at the University level, precisely to teach electronics to the engineering students. Nearly three years back (January '11) I was almost there to live it but it never worked out the way I thought it could have. Let me tell you why. After staying away from Bangalore for a few years, I came back to my place to pursue on another unfulfilled ambition of starting a business. I thought of taking up a part time teaching job in some engineering college as I thought I was good at it and in a way it could help me pay my bills until I established myself as a serious entrepreneur. For that purpose I prepared a neat resume and went around colleges in Bangalore looking out for a teaching position. Unfortunately none of the colleges were ready to offer me a part-time teaching position, but instead a few colleges offered me a full time position with a lucrative pay package. Since my primary interest was in setting-up my business I didn't take up any offer, however one of the reputed engineering college did offer me a part-time teaching position and almost confirmed it. I was very excited to start off but they kept me waiting for nearly two months in giving me the offer letter and later the principal of the college told me that I was too late for the semester. I was disappointed by the approach of that man for having such low professionalism while he was serving at such a high position. I should also say that I was little desperate, which made me feel even worse. Since things didn't work out in engineering colleges, I ended up taking an assignment of teaching computer science to apprentice fellows in a public sector company. In fact I had to explain nuance in programming languages and computer systems to the students in the local language, Kannada, as most folks there didn't understand English well. The irony is that I had always fared badly in computer science related subjects in my undergrad - anyway such is life! I was able to do that part time job, which I did enjoy as it progressed (and learnt a lot of things in computer science), for nearly six months before I decided to focus completely on my renewable energy start-up (August '11). (2)

The business I started took off well, I got great people to work with and we also got the technology funding from a reputed multi-national company that gave us the access to advanced engineering tools for building our products and systems. I must say things worked better than what I had aspired. We had our ups and downs but fortunately nothing too adverse came our way, as we weren't doing some random stuff nor doing things at an unreasonable pace. During this course of time, we happen to get an opportunity to provide engineering solutions to an agricultural research in connection to renewable energy and water management. The project was supposed to be executed in an old and reputed engineering college which was established even before India got Independence. During the near end of that project I once again got all romantic about teaching as I was in an academic environment. I also wanted to make little more money to accommodate some extra spending and also pay off some personal loans. The other possible benefit was that I could get interns to my company straight from my class. Once I expressed my interest towards teaching to my customer (the professor from the college), he connected me to the evening college principal of the same engineering college. The evening college principal, a kind man with genuine interest towards academics, has also been the head of the department (HOD) of Electrical and Electronics Engineering(EEE) department of the Day College. He requested me to teach to the Day College students as a couple of his female colleagues from Day College had taken maternity leave. He was fine with me taking classes at the time that was convenient to me. Well, that's how I got my real break to teach at the university level.

Since I come from an electronics engineering background I was given Digital Electronics, core electronics subject, to the second year EEE students rather than an electrical subject. I was super glad to take the subject as it was one of my favorite subjects during my engineering days. That excitement for teaching engineering re-affirmed that my love for engineering had not reduced ever since I took up engineering education; as a matter of fact I was taking the subject eleven years after I studied the same subject at the college. I wanted to do a good job and wanted to do it exactly the way I wanted my teachers to do it when I was a student. Some of my teachers had done incredible job as teachers, whos work I still derive inspiration(3). I didn’t want to exactly teach but to setup up a mechanism for learning. I wanted to make myself progressively redundant in the process. I wanted the students to learn engineering to make world a better place. All my idealistic thoughts, which otherwise won’t find much vent flowed in my mind and heart when I got this job. I was happier than getting any job in the past.

My class comprised of about forty students. Since the college is amongst the top colleges in the city the students who joined it were also fairly meritorious candidates. They responded pretty well to some of my experiments in teaching. Like for instance, I avoided solving a problem on the board myself once I had taught a concept with an example, instead I used to ask the students to solve the problem on their note books and later randomly invited students to solve it on the board. Once the problem was solved by a student I used to ask if someone wished to contest for an alternate solution. Greater participation of the students led to further investigation and better understanding of the problem to the students who were not able to solve on their own. While trying all the experiments I started understanding how student’s minds work. I figured out that they weren’t accustomed to many of the ways I was trying in the class but still they welcomed, especially when I told them that talking to their neighbors in the class could be a faster way to learn for some if they cared to keep it low and not disturb the students who wished to learn by listening to my explanation alone. I experimented my ideas in giving the test question paper level as well. In the first test I gave a paper with one very application intensive question with many assumption the student had to make to solve the problem and another set of questions which were straight forward. The catch was that I gave them the choice to solve either the tough question that would account for forty marks or easy set of questions that would account for thirty marks and told them that in real life we seldom get equal choices and corresponding benefits associated to it. Though that question paper(4) became a matter of discussion and also debate in the whole department and perhaps the college but never the less I did attract many likeminded people towards me. The most fascinating thing as a teacher and as someone who once had an aspiration for a career in fine art is using colored chalks in the class. I greatly enjoyed using the full board space to draw various circuits, waveforms and tables using multi colored chalks that really gave higher sense of understanding of the subject(5). In all my teaching jobs I've kept my approach similar as in, when I was a student I always hoped for love and kindness from my teachers, which I thought would extinguish all kinds of fear and in way leads to greater learning; Well, in my class I ensured that no student was in any kind of fear and many a times I did build a great deal of harmony by encouraging situational humor to wipe off the barrier between the student and the teacher.

                         

The semester got over last week and I’m fairly satisfied by the way I did my job. I’m thrilled by  looking at generous feedback my students have given in the faculty feedback survey(6). I have to figure out ways to improve in some departments of teaching like the presentation skills and keeping the class discipline better, which is something I’ll focus during my next teaching assignment. I’m also very happy that many of my students want to do internship in my company as they loved the application based problems that were solved in the class and also got excited about the agricultural research project that we have done as part of my company in the college. At this point of time I’m in complete awe about the way things have fallen in place, favoring me to really live this dream of being an educator and an entrepreneur that I always wanted to be.

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(1) The lab tuition poster - Year 2004:

https://picasaweb.google.com/106423175487235708924/Lab2004#5962036537491399218

(2) My company website:

www.fluxgentech.com

(3)The Toastmaster's speech that I gave when I was with GE Aviation on three influential teachers.

http://isiganesh.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/toastmaster-speech-3-influential-teachers/

(4) The first test question paper:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50376777/Test1_BMSEE13.pdf

(5)Pictures of the board taken by my students after the class:

https://picasaweb.google.com/106423175487235708924/20131130

(6) Faculty feedback survey form:
https://goo.gl/photos/HU6c8PyjBCcSfUhn6

ಮೊದಲ ಪುಟ...

ಸುಮಾರು ಎರಡು ವರ್ಷದಿಂದ ನನಗೆ ಮದುವೆ ಮಾಡುವುದು ನನ್ನ ತಾಯಿಯ ಪ್ರಮುಖ ಆಸಕ್ತಿ ಯಾಗಿದೆ. ನನ್ನ ಸಹಪಾಟಿಗಳು ಮದುವೆಯಗುವುದನ್ನು ಕೇಳಿ ನಮ್ಮ ಅಮ್ಮನಿಗೂ ತನ್ನ ಮಗನ ವಿವಾಹವು ಶೀಘ್ರಧಲ್ಲಿ ನೆರವೇರಲಿ  ಅಂತ ಬಯಸುತಿದ್ದರು. ನನಗೆ ತತಕ್ಷಣ ಮದುವೆಯಾಗಲು ಅಂತಹ ಇಚೆಯೇನು ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಮದುವೆಯಾಗಲು ತುಂಬಾ ಸಮಯವಿದೆ ಯೆಂಬುದು ನನ್ನ ಅನಿಸಿಕೆ ಯಾಗಿತು. ಈ ನನ್ನ ಅನಿಸಿಕೆ ಇಂದ ನನ್ನ ಅಮ್ಮನ ಆಸಕ್ತಿ ಕಾಲಕ್ರಮೇಣ ಚಿಂತೆಯರುಪಗೊಂಡಿತು(೧).         

ಮೂವತ್ತು ವರ್ಷ ಹತ್ತಿರ ಬರಿತಿರುವಾಗ ಮದುವೆಯಾಗುವುದರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಶುರುಮಾಡಿದೆ(೨). ಸುಮಾರು ಹತ್ತು ತಿಂಗಳ ಹಿಂದೆ ಮದುವೆಯಾಗಲು ಹುಡಗಿಯನ್ನು ಹುಡುಕಲು ನನ್ನ ತಂದೆ ಮತ್ತು ತಾಯಿಗೆ ಒಪಪ್ಪಿಗೆ ಕೊಟ್ಟೆ. ಅದನ್ನು ಕೇಳಿ ನನ್ನ ಅಮ್ಮನಿಗೆ ತುಂಬಾನೇ ಸಂತೋಷವಾಯಿತು.ಆದರೆ ಆಂದಿಕೊಂಡಸ್ಟು ಸುಲುಭವಲ್ಲ ಮದುವೆ ಯಾಗುವುದು ಯೆಂಬುವು ಯೆಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ತಿಳಿದ ವಿಷಯವೆ. ಕೆಲವು ಹುಡಗೀಯರನ್ನು ಬೇಟಿ ಆದನಂತರ ಮದುವೆ ಅಗುವದನ್ನು  ಮುಂದೆಹಾಕಲು ಯೋಚನೆ ಮಾಡುವದರಲ್ಲಿ ನನ್ನ ಮನಸ್ಸು ತೊಡಗಿತು. ಆದರೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಅಪ್ಪ ಅಮ್ಮ ಮತ್ತು ನನ್ನ ಚಿಕ್ಕಪ್ಪಾ ಗೋಪಾಲಕೃಷ್ಣ ಮೂರ್ತಿ ಮತ್ತೆ ಚಿಕ್ಕಮ್ಮ ಶಾಂತ ಅವರು ನನಗೆ ಲಗ್ನ ಮಾಡುವ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ ವನ್ನು ಮಾಡುತ್ತಲೆ ಇದ್ದರು. ಈ ಸಮಯದಲಿ ಒಬ್ಬಳು ಮೆಕ್ಯಾನಿಕಲ್ ಇಂಜಿನಿಯರ್ ಹುಡಗಿಯ ಜಾತಕ ಮತ್ತು ಛಾಯಾ ಚಿತ್ರ ವನ್ನು ಚಿಕ್ಕಪ್ಪ ನನಗೆ ಕಳಿಸಿದರು. ಅದನ್ನು ನೋಡಿದ ಮೇಲೆ ನಾನು ಏನು ಹೇಳಲಿಲ್ಲ ಅವರಿಗೆ. ತನ್ನ ಅಣ್ಣ, ಅರ್ಥಾತ್ ನಮ್ಮ ಅಪ್ಪನಿಗೆ ಈ ವಿಷಯ ತೆಳಿಸಲು ಚಿಕ್ಕಪ್ಪ ಮತ್ತೆ ಚಿಕ್ಕಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಗೆ ಬಂದರು. ನಮ್ಮ  ಅಪ್ಪ ಅಮ್ಮನ ಮುಂದೆ ನನ್ನ ಚಿಕ್ಕಮ್ಮ ನನ್ನನು ಕೇಳಿದರು "ಏನಪ್ಪ ಗಣೇಶ ಹುಡಗಿ ನೋಡಕ್ಕೆ ಹೇಗಿದಾಳೆ?" ನಾನು ಅದಕ್ಕೆ "ಪರವಾಗಿಲ್ಲ ನೋಡಕ್ಕೆನೋ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿದ್ದಾಳೆ " ಅದಾದ ನಂತರ ಹುಡಗಿನ ನೊಡಬಹುದೆ ಅಂತ ಕೆಳಿದ್ದಕೆ ನನ್ನು ಈಗಲೇ ಬೇಡ ಅಂತ ಹೇಳಿದೆ. ಅದನೂ ಕೇಳಿದ ನನ್ನ ಚಿಕ್ಕಪ್ಪ ನನ್ನ ಬಳಿ ಕುಳಿತು ಚೆರ್ಚೆ ಶುರು ಮಾಡಿದರು. ತುಂಬಾ ಪ್ರೆಶ್ನೆಗಳನ್ನು ಕೇಳಿದರು. ಕೆಲವು ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆ ಗಳು ಹೀಗಿದ್ದವು - "ಯಾಕೆ ಈಗ ಬೇಡ?" "ಹುಡಗಿನ ನೊಡದ್ರಲ್ಲಿ ನಿನಗೆ ಏನು ತೊಂದರೆ" "ಈವಾಗ ಅಲ್ದೆಲೆ ಇನ್ನ್ಯವಾಗ ಮದುವೆಗೆ ಸಿಧ್ಹವಾಗತ್ಯ?" ಚೆರ್ಚೆಯ ನಂತರ ಹುಡಗಿ ಅಣ್ಣನಿಗೆ ನನ್ನ ಜಾತಕವನ್ನು ಕಳಿಸಿ ಕೊಡಲು ನಾನು ಒಪ್ಪಿಕೊಂಡೆ. ಚಿಕ್ಕಪ್ಪ ಹೋಗುವುದಕ್ಕಿಂತ ಮುಂಚೆ  "ನೀನು ಹುಡಗಿಯ ಜತೆ ಮಾತನಾಡು ಅಂತ ಅಷ್ಟೆ ನಾವು ಹೆಳ್ತಿರೊದು, ಮದುವೆಗೆ ಒಪ್ಪಿಗೆ ಅಥವ ಬೇಡ ಅನ್ನುವುದು ಪೂರ್ತಿ ನಿನಗೆ ಬಿಟ್ಟಿರೋದು"  ಅಂತ ಹೇಳಿದರು.            

ಜಾತಕ ಕೂಡಿಬಂತು ಅಂತ ಚಿಕ್ಕಪ್ಪ ನಮ್ಮ ಅಪ್ಪನಿಗೆ ಹೇಳಿದರು. ಶೇಗ್ರವೇ ಹುಡಗಿಯ ಮನೆ ಮಂದಿಯನ್ನು ಬೇಟಿ ಆಗುವ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮವನ್ನು ಚಿಕ್ಕಪ್ಪ ಎರ್ಪಾಡು ಮಾಡಿದರು. ನಾನು ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗು ಎಕೆ ಬೇಜಾರುಮಾಡುವುದು ಅಂತ ಅವರು ಹೇಳಿದಹಾಗೆ ಸಿದ್ದಗೊಂಡೆ. ಹೋಗಕ್ಕಿಂತ ಮುಂಚೆ ನಿರ್ದಾರ ಮಾಡಿದ್ದೆ ಕಂಡಿತವಾಗಿ ಮದುವೆಗೆ ಮಾತ್ರ ಒಪ್ಪಿಕೊಳ್ಳೊದು ಬೇಡ ಅಂತ. ಹುಡಗೀಯ ಚಿತ್ರದಲ್ಲೂ ಕೂಡ ಪೂರ್ತಿ ಕುಷಿ ಕಾಣಿಸಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ನಗುದ್ರಲ್ಲು ಏನೋ ಜಿಪಣತನ ಮಾಡಿದಹಾಗೆ ಕಾಣುತಿತ್ತು. ಇಷ್ಟೆಲ್ಲ ಯೋಚನೆಯ ಮದ್ಯೆ ಹುಡಗಿಯನ್ನು ನೋಡಲು ಹುಡಗೀಯ ಹತ್ತಿರದ ಸಂಬಂದ್ದಿಯ ಮನೆಗೆ ತಲಪಿದೆವು. ಹೋದ ಮೇಲೆ ಹುಡಗೀಯ ಅಣ್ಣ ಮತ್ತೆ ಅವರ ತಂದೆ ತಾಯಿ ಮಾತು ಅಲ್ಲೇ ಉಪಸ್ತಿತರೆಲ್ಲರೂ ಆದರದ ಸ್ವಾಗತ ಮಡಿದರು. ಹುಡಗಿ ಕೂಡ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹೊತ್ತಿನ ನಂತರ ಬಂದಳು. ಮಾತುಕತೆ ಶುರುವಾಯಿತು, ಜತೆಗೆ ಉಪ್ಪಿಟು ಮತ್ತೆ ಗುಲಾಬ್ ಜಾಮೂನು ಕೊಟ್ಟರು ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗು. ಉಪ್ಪಿಟ್ಟು ಮಾತ್ರ ತುಂಬಾನೇ ಚೆನ್ನಗಿತ್ತು. ಇನ್ನೊಂಸತಿ ಹಾಕಿಸ್ಕೊಳ್ಳನ ಅನ್ನುಸ್ತು ಆದರೆ ಯಾಕೆ ಸುಮ್ನೆ ಅಂತ ಹಾಕಿಸ್ಕೊಳ್ಲಿಲ. ದೊಡ್ಡವರೆಲ್ಲ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದ ನಂತರ ಹುಡಗಿಯ ಜತೆ ಮಹಡಿ ಮೇಲೆ ಏಕಾಂತದಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾತನಾಡಲು ಕಳಿಸಿಕೊಟ್ಟರು. 

ಸುಮಾರು ಏಳು ಗಂಟೆ ಆಗಿತ್ತು ನಾನು ಅವಳನ್ನು ಬೇಟಿ ಆಗುವ ಹೊತ್ತಿನಲ್ಲಿ . ನನಗೆ ಇದು ಹೊಸದೇನು ಆಗಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ ಅದರಿಂದ ನಾನು ಅರಾಮಾಗಿದ್ದೆ ಆದರೆ ಅವಳಿಗೆ ಈ ತರಹದ ಅನುಭವ ಆಗಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಅವಳು ಕೇವಲ ಇಪ್ಪತ್ತೆರಡು ವರ್ಷದ ಹುಡುಗಿ. ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ತಿಂಗಳ ಮುಂಚೆ ತಾನೆ ಇಂಜಿನಿಯರಿಂಗ್ ಮುಗಿಸಿದ್ದಳು. ಅವಳ ಕಾಲೇಜಿಗೆ ಮೊದಲ ರಾಂಕ್ ತೆಗದಿದ್ದಳಂತೆ(ಮೆಕ್ಯಾನಿಕಲ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ). ಅವಳ ಏಕೈಕ ಬಯಕೆ ಮುಂದೆಓದುವದು ಎಂದುತಿಳಿದುಬಂತು. ಅವಳ ತಂದೆ ಆರೋಗ್ಯಸ್ತಿತಿ ಹದಗೆಟ್ಟಕಾರಣ ಮದುವೆ ಆಗಲು ಒಪ್ಪಿಕೊಂಡಿದಳು. ನನ್ನ ಮುಂದೆ ಇದ್ದಾಗ ಅವಳು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಭಯದಿಂದ ಮಾತಾಡಲು ಶುರುಮಾಡಿದಳು. ಅವಳ ಮಾತು ಮತ್ತೆ ವರ್ತನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಗ್ದತೆ ಎದುಕಾಣುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಆವಳ ಆತಂಕವನ್ನು ಕಡಿಮೆ ಮಾಡಲು ನಾನು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹಾಸ್ಯ ಮಾಡಲು ಶುರುಹಚ್ಚಿಕೊಂಡೆ. ಅವಳಿಗೆ ನಾನು ಮಾಡಿದ ಎಲ್ಲ ಹಾಸ್ಯವು ಕೂಡಲೇ ಆರ್ಥವಾಗಿ ನಕ್ಕಿದಳು. ಅದಾದ ನಂತರ ಸೂಕ್ಷ್ಮ ವಿಚಾರಗಳನ್ನು ಕೂಡ ಮಾತಾನಾಡಿದೆವು. ಸುಮಾರು ಒಂದುಗಂಟೆ ಕಾಲ ಮಾತಾಡಿದನಂತರ ಕೆಳಗೆ ಇಳಿದು ಬಂದೆವು. 

ನಾನು ಅನ್ದಿಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದಕಿಂತ ಚೆನ್ನಗೇನೂ ಆಯಿತು, ಆದರೆ ಹುಡಗಿಯ ಮನೆಯವರು ನನ್ನ ಮತ್ತು ಅವಳ ನಿರ್ದಾರವನ್ನು ತಿಳಿಯಲು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಆತುರುದಲ್ಲಿ ಇದ್ದರು. ಹುಡಗಿಯ ಅಣ್ಣ ದುಬೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕೆಲಸ ಮಡುತಿದ್ದರು. ಅವರಿಗೆ ತಂಗಿ ಮಾದುವೆ ನಿಶ್ಚಿತ ಮಾಡಿ ಹೋಗ ಬೇಕೆಂಬ ಬಯಕೆ ಇತ್ತು. ನನಗೆ ಅಷ್ಟು ಕಡಿಮೆ ಸಮಯದಲ್ಲಿ ನಿರ್ದಾರ ಮಾಡುವುದು ಸೂಕ್ತ ಅನಿಸಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಆದರೆ ಬೆರೆ ದಾರಿಕೂಡ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಇಲ್ಲ ಅನ್ನುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ಯಾವಕಾರಣವು ಮನಸ್ಸಿಗೆ ಬರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಅವತ್ತು ಏನು ನಿರ್ದರಮಾಡದೆ ಮಲಗಿಕೊಂಡೆ. ಮಾರನೇ ದಿನ ಬೆಳಿಗ್ಗೆ ಎದಮೇಲೆ "ಇದೂ ಆಗಿಹೋಗಲಿ" ಅಂದಿಕೊಂಡು ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಯೆಲ್ಲಿ ಯೆಲ್ಲರಿಗು ನನ್ನ ಒಪ್ಪಿಗೆಯನ್ನು ಹೇಳಿದೆ. ಅದಾದನಂತರ ನಮ್ಮ ಅಪ್ಪ ಮತ್ತು ಅಮ್ಮನ ಸಂತಸಕ್ಕೆ ಹುಡಗಿ ಮನೆಯವರಿಂದಲೂ ಒಪ್ಪಿಗೆಯೆಂದು ತಿಳಿದು ಬಂತು. ಈ ರೀತಿಯಾಗಿ ನಾನು ಕೂಡ ಸಂಸಾರ ಬಂದನಕ್ಕೆ ಬೇಳಲಿದ್ದೇನೆ. ಮುಂದೆ ಯೇನು ಆಗತ್ತೆ ಅಂತ ಮುಂದಿನ ಲೇಖನದಲ್ಲಿ ನೋಡಿವ್ರಂತೆ, ಧನ್ಯವಾದಗಳು.

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(೧) http://isiganesh.blogspot.in/2012/10/about-getting-married.html

(೨) http://isiganesh.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/marriage/

     

the trip!

A post that I was unable to finish for more than a year. Finally completed it today, here it is: 

It all started with a Facebook update (July '12):

"Hey, this update is regarding a trip to Himachal or Nepal or Uttarakhand or some such fancy place - which I'm super keen in undertaking this August. I'd say a hitchhiking to make it sound a little adventures - though the idea is to make the trip super economical. One more thing I'd say is to plan very little or not at all plan for anything - full on ad-hoc basis. As of now I'm going alone - if you like the idea, and also feel like joining the expedition, then feel free to let me know." (1)

Hari (my close pal and also colleague) and I wanted to blow off steam from our work, which took great deal of our attention for nearly ten months. I wanted to do this trip no matter what. Thankfully, Hari also agreed to do the trip and the crazy facebook post did attract my two friends, Christell and Amit. They both were ready  to join however they were very particular in doing the hitchhiking in Nepal alone. So Nepal it was.

It was 3rd August 2012. We (Hari and I) were about to leave our respective places in an hours time to the railway station and we got a call from a lady who represented a technology multi-national company that had helped us by providing the hardware and software for our business. She wanted to know if  Hari or I could speak in an international conference in Austin, Texas given an opportunity. We both told her that we were leaving to Nepal to take a break from work. Though she wanted one of us to change our plan, that is to stay back in Bangalore, but at the same time she wasn't sure if the plan to invite us will be confirmed. She told us to consider it as an urgent request and make it to Austin if confirmed. Besides, Hari didn't have a US VISA where as I had one (thanks to GE - my previous employer) and the conference was in less than four days time. So it was me who was suppose to make the decision of staying back in Bangalore or not. I told her that I'll not stay back in Bangalore since it was too short notice and can't take a chance in missing the Nepal trip. I also told her that we will be traveling to Kolkota by train and in case the invitation gets confirmed then I'll try to take a flight to Austin from there itself.

My best friends, Vinod, Vinayendra and Rakesh, had come over to my place to convey their best wishes for the trip when I was leaving my place. With all the apprehensions till that last minute we, that is, Amit, Christell, Hari and I started our journey from Bangalore railway station. We were pretty lucky to get the tickets to Kolkota that too in sleeper berth considering the fact that we all decided to do the trip to Nepal in less than a weeks time. The journey to Kolkota was fun. We had lots of fun discussion while pulling each others leg. I also got many calls from the US regarding the conference but unfortunately I wasn't able to speak to them continuously even for a short duration as the mobile network coverage was very intermittent and also the mobile phone battery was getting drained. Finally the invitation to speak at that conference got confirmed  after a chat with the organizers of the event and I accepted to speak at the event. I knew that it was an opportunity that will not come often and at the same time I didn't want to miss the Nepal trip. I told Hari, Amit and Christell that I would some how try to join them at Nepal even if I miss the significant part of the trip.

Since I didn't have access to internet nor continues mobile coverage in the train, my close pal, Vinod did all the talking and mailed my details, such as passport number and other personal details, with the people from that company once the plan to US got confirmed . When I reached Kolkota all that I had to inform was my flight plan to that company's travel coordinator. The invitation to stay in the US was for one week which included food and accommodation. Initially I was tempted to stay in the US for the whole week but in that case I'd have missed the complete hitchhiking trip that I desperately wanted to do for so long. As giving that talk in that forum was the most important activity of my visit to the US, I got the return tickets booked just after the day of my talk, which meant that my stay in the US was confined to less than 3 days. I didn't think much about it once I got the tickets booked as I knew that I'd be making a lot of overseas travel as part of my work in the future.

Though I made the decision to fly to the US in no time, my preparation for the trip was absolutely zero. Thanks to my friend (lab mate from IISc) in Kolkota, Madhurima and her husband Nirupam for their kind help, without them I wouldn't have done any shopping before leaving the country. It was my first trip outside Asia and second trip outside India. I must say that there was little apprehension before I left Kolkota as I didn't have the print out of the air tickets and the invitation letter, and to my bad luck all the browsing centers were closed near the airport since it was a Sunday. Anyway, I later learnt from a friend that all I needed was the PNR number of the flight and getting a ticket printed at the airport is no brainier. As there weren't appropriate flights from Kolkota, I had to take a flight to Bombay and from there to Frankfurt and from there to Washington airport at Dulles. After arriving at Dulles I had to kill nearly six hours to board a flight to Austin.

A lady from the security department at Washington airport informed me about a famous museum which was near to the airport. I got deeply thrilled about visiting the museum when she told that I should be able to see it and still safely board the flight to Austin. With the help of other airport officials I could figure out the logistics to the museum and I did visit. It eventually turned out that my visit to Smithsonian's National Air and Space museum was the only significant place I could see during my trip to the US. The time spent at the museum was great, as an engineer who had worked in aviation industry for some time I could appreciate the technological advancement in the field. There were space shuttles, aircrafts, missiles, gliders and many more. I also saw the first generation computers used in the flight management and control system that was displayed over there - remember UNIVAC (any computer science geeks reading this post)?

I did reach Austin without much difficulty. It was little funny during the check in and check out of luggage at various airports as I had this tent, sleeping bag and other trekking gears with me through out the trip. Thankfully the immigration department didn't ask me the reason behind it. The company which had sponsored my complete trip to the US had arranged a cab at the airport to the hotel as well. I was pretty excited when I reached the hotel. It was a five star hotel. It was the first time in my life I was staying in such a posh hotel. I tried my best to take great advantage of the facilities provided in the hotel, I started off with the telephone. I made a three hour long phone call to a good friend in Michigan and only when I left the hotel I figured out that making phone calls weren't part of the deal.

Next day morning I went to the conference location, that is Austin convention center. I had a nice breakfast and met people from that company with whom I had earlier interacted as part of work. There were thousands of people from all over the world attending the mega annual event organized by the company. There were people from Industries, academia, government setups, media and what not. After attending the key note by the CEO of that company I got in touch with two ladies who offered to assist me for my talk which was scheduled the next day morning. I prepared the presentation in one of their laptops, which didn't take much time as all the stuff I wanted for the presentation were stored in the web  - all thanks to google mail and dropbox. I discussed the content with one more lady who was in charge of the event in which I was a speaker. She didn't alter the content much but told me clearly to wrap up the talk in seven minutes. She also directed me to a video interview the very same day. The interview was good fun. The two american ladies asked me many questions which were related to my work and the business that I managed and co-founded. I candidly answered all the questions, the best part was that they didn't influence me or prompt me, they just recorded what ever I said. It was for about twenty minutes. Some months back I saw a minute video that was made from that interview to promote a social initiative by the company in the developing countries, perhaps you can consider watching the video (2). The day ended with me having dinner at a posh restaurant with the India team of that company.

I got up at around 8'O clock on the day of my talk. I was suppose to speak at 11 PM hence I wasn't in any rush. I glanced through the print out of my presentation while having my breakfast in the hotel where I was put up. I did think about the journey that I had taken to reach the point where I was sitting. I did remember the time when I was slipping while pursuing my entrepreneurial dream. I also remembered the time I left my job at GE, a big MNC where I was having a safe and neat career. I felt damn good. I didn't have to give a dazzling presentation to impress the crowd as I had a story to tell which itself was fairly interesting. However confident I thought I was, the truth was that I did become little nerves when I actually went to speak. I started of my talk with the statement " Hello, I'm doing this for the first time. Please have a smile on your face so that I feel comfortable while I go through this". The whole crowd laughed at it - that acknowledgement was a very positive feeling and I nearly cracked the talk then alone. In fact they did like my story, my sense of humor and most importantly my passion for work. I ended the speech (3) by saying " 400 million Indians are deprived of electricity. It's a concern as a countryman and opportunity as an engineer". There were nearly two hundred and odd people in the hall and many came over to congratulate me after the event. I knew that I had done quite a lot of grammatical mistakes in my speech and didn't distribute my time efficiently but what I cared and what mattered was that I did present it as a story of a dreamer who had a real desire to do things for a worthy cause. After the talk I got pictures (4) with dignitaries present there which included Sir Robert Swan - the first man to go to both the north and the south pole. It was awesome to meet such people. After the event I didn't want to talk to anyone or meet any one, I just wanted to enjoy the moment with myself. I can't really articulate how I felt at that time.

I spent the rest of my time at the conference by checking out the exhibition area where there was a grand display of amazing engineering systems. I got a chance to talk to some of the level headed engineers from across the globe who had built robots, medical equipments, earth movers, aerospace machinery and other fascinating stuff. Since I was leaving to India next day I thought of checking out some places near the hotel. Though my initial plan was to cycle around Austin downtown, thankfully, I found some guys, from the conference with whom I had dinner previous night. They were going to a place called Congress avenue bridge which was on the Colorado river that flows on the middle of the Austin city. The interesting thing about that bridge is that about one million Mexican Free-Tailed Bats live there. These bats migrate to Mexico in the winter and spend the rest of the year below the bridge. We could see these birds flying in huge number once it became dark.

Meanwhile I had got updates from my friends, Hari, Amit and Christell, with whom I was going to Nepal. Hari had mailed me about the place they were staying. They apparently had a crazy hitching hiking experience from Kolkota to Kathmandu while I was traveling to the west. They decided to camp at a place called Pokhra as suggested by the Nepali localities. I mailed him back about my return to India and subsequently to Nepal. I was looking forward to join them at the earliest.        

My last day in the US wasn't of any importance as I had nothing in specific to do or visit. It had all worked out fine. It so happened that the maximum money spent in the US was on phone calls and I came to know of it only when I was checking out from my hotel room in the morning. I was left with just two dollars when I left the hotel. Thankfully there was a cab arranged by the company to the airport. When I entered the airport I had only one dollar as I gave the other dollar as a tip to the driver who did a neat job. My return journey to India wasn't much different from my journey to the US. I reached New Delhi airport in the middle of the night (at about 1AM). I called my home and also my friends - luckily they were awake or got up to pick the call. 

The second episode of this trip wasn't less exciting, must say reaching Pokhra in Nepal itself was sort of an adventure. Here goes the short description of the Nepal escapade.   

Fortunately I got a flight to Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, at an affordable price from New Delhi by around six in the morning and reached safely in a few hours. The immigration check hardly asked for the passport and didn't bother to even check the luggage - anyway I didn't face trouble until I got out of the airport. Kathmandu people were observing road transportation strike that day. It was almost impossible for me to reach Pokhra that day and I was planning to stay at Kathmandu, but then I came to know about the flight service between Kathmandu and Pokhra. After lots of running around and bargaining I some how managed to get a seat in a 10-seater small airplane. I really enjoyed sitting next to a window in that small airplane which maneuvered in the sky like a bird and that too at a fairly low altitude - I could see hills, people, houses and valleys so clearly. It was spectacular! 

Meeting Hari, Amit and Christell at Pokhra was very delightful and felt very nice to keep up with the promise of joining back in spite of all the temptations of staying back for some more days in the land of opportunities (read: America). For next three days we did the Ghorepani trek in the Annapurna region to reach the peak of Phoon hill. We saw the beautiful Mt. Annapurna (8091m) and Mt. Dhaulagiri (8167m) from Phoon hill top. The view was extraordinary. Hope some day I climb these mountains which are considered as tough as climbing Mt. Everest. I'll not be able articulate the beauty of the place, you can check the pictures which is pasted in the bottom of this post (5). We even managed to go to Lumbini, the birth place of Gautama Buddha after the three day trek. We got cycles to roam around the place and see Buddhist monasteries setup by various nations. The Mayadevi temple, the exact birth place of Buddha, was a peaceful place to spend some quality time. We took the Sunauli (near Ghorakpur) route by bus to reach India and later managed to get a train to Delhi from Ghorakpur (in Uttar Pradesh). The train journey from Delhi to Bangalore shall always be remembered for innumerable card games we played and all the funny names we kept as a penalty for losing the games. It was helluva fun I must say!       

Well, I still can't believe the universe choose all these events to happen in a span of fifteen days but yeah I'm certainly glad that I did have a role to play in making it happen.  

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(1) The FB post led to a lot of interaction, people started asking me lot of questions on travel and logistics for which one of my response was something like this: 

""Here is the rough idea: Lets say we get a train to Culcutta or Delhi. If we choose Delhi, then we shall check out for buses and trains available to places where there are mountains and valleys. Let say there are tickets available to Shimla and Uttarkashi. Assume, I prefer Uttarkashi and you prefer Shimla then we have two options, either to toss a coin or I go to Uttarkashi and you to Shimla. Lets say we go for tossing the coin and you win. According to your choice, we'll reach Shimla. Then lets talk to people there and find out places there and then perhaps leave to a place where we can do some trekking or mounting climbing or river crossing or any fancy adventure, if both of us find it interesting. When we are there if we hear about another place very close and tempting then lets go there as well. As per cash, I prefer keeping money aside for train tickets and rest not much at all, I don't mind begging for shelter/food/transport there - if in case thr is some way to make money there I don't mind spending a day on it. As per time, when we really miss doing the work we do for our living then lets return back. With this info, I leave you to do the math on the budget and the duration. so what say boy?" 

(after seeing this comment not many wished to join though many liked the comment )

(2) Planet NI Video interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn0QOSTsGJQ

(3) My talk at Austin, Texas 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m99BDbaWko8

(4) The US trip Pictures: 

https://picasaweb.google.com/106423175487235708924/TheUSTrip12NIWeekConference?authkey=Gv1sRgCLiKttTy3-GblwE

(5) Nepal trip Pictures:

https://picasaweb.google.com/106423175487235708924/Nepal12?authkey=Gv1sRgCP-T39mU6IeBOQ#