Mukesh Prasad, Author at 55NDA Blog

The Medal

As we got to the end of our NDA stay, I wasn’t particularly expecting any medals or anything. So it was nice to learn that I would be given an actual medal for academics. Somehow I was set up as 4th in rank, 2nd in science stream. Well, that sounded a bit exciting. Wow, a … Continue reading “The Medal”

We had to do drill practice for getting the medal. It was an indoor ceremony. The other 3 didn’t seem to be taking it too seriously, but it was the only medal I was getting, so I was fully attentive and serious.

The drill involved marching up the stairs. The SM saab explained the correct form for the march up the stairs – you had to pretend as if you were going to stomp on the stair, but then had to control your leg so you actually put the foot down very softly, without making any noise.

Ok, sounded like fun, controlling the leg muscles that carefully. Only, the other 3 just totally ignored the SM saab, and kept making loud noises, stomping on the stairs. Nobody said anything. I wondered what was going on, but the other 3 were very busy in important ceremonial stuff as they were getting the medals in the full POP and I am sure there were other duties. So I didn’t get a chance to talk to any of them about this minor detail. The SM saab was supportive of my drill.

The next practice, the principal was present. Now the other 3 banged on the stairs, and I put my foot down softly. So to the principal, it looked like I was shamming, and not even bothering to make the proper military noise. He yelled at me a bit. I used to think he was a useless git, and looked at the SM saab for direction. He had an expression “What an idiot” for the principal, and after the principal had walked away, he told me I was doing well.

So in the actual ceremony, I continued putting my foot down very softly. I had to think about that one – the whole academy was watching, and perhaps many present would think I was shamming. But I knew the correct procedure, and by then had a “I don’t care what people think” attitude totally down, so I decided I was going to do what was the correct procedure, and the one I had drilled for, never mind what everybody thought.

So I was the only one soft-stepping in that ceremony. Not sure how it looked, for after that we were gone from the academy, and I never got a chance for any academy-feedback.

Smart but not ambitious. Lazy.

That was the summary of my evaluation at the end of 6th term, “Smart but not ambitious. Lazy.” It doesn’t sound too nice. But I couldn’t disagree, the squadron officers had captured me very precisely. I kind of liked it, bizzarely… I wasn’t lazy in one sense – when I joined, my physical fitness was … Continue reading “Smart but not ambitious. Lazy.”

That was the summary of my evaluation at the end of 6th term, “Smart but not ambitious. Lazy.”

It doesn’t sound too nice. But I couldn’t disagree, the squadron officers had captured me very precisely. I kind of liked it, bizzarely…

I wasn’t lazy in one sense – when I joined, my physical fitness was abysmal. But I worked enough on it to become “normal”, which to me was a big deal. By the end of the 3rd semester, I had achieved my goal of being at least normal across all categories.

In fact, I was so gung-ho on becoming normal, that once when I got sequestered along with him for 3 days due to some flu going around, my first term DCC was bitterly complaining “Why won’t you let me sham?” because I wasn’t going to waste that time, and I was obviously expecting him to make me do PT all the time. He really was very angry at my enthusiasm for being given “ragda”, and hated me. The hatred was specially worse, because he wasn’t very good at academics. He wasn’t very good at his sport, boxing, either, and took out all his frustrations once by making me stand at attention and practicing all his boxing on me, without gloves of course. (The upper-cuts in the solar plexus were the worst, though he was careful not to hit me on the face as some officer would notice for sure.) I was very proud of it later, because I managed to stand at attention through all of it.

So I wasn’t lazy in that sense, of working on my PT etc. I used to be practically dead by the time I got back to the squadron from my practice sessions.

But once I got through all the PT normally, and passed drill square, and was normal in everything else, I was pretty much in paradise. I really, totally, enjoyed the academy life. For at least three full semesters, I was having a really good time.

Would I have liked to be a serious academy appointment or something, ACA, ACC, BCC, BCA type stuff? Nobody asked me. It was my drill or my PT or my attitude, or something. Perhaps my drill wasn’t very good, or my rope climbing form wasn’t too good, or my bayonet charge wasn’t good enough, or I swam too slow, who knows what…

But if somebody had asked, and if it was a totally free choice, I would have said “no”! The serious appointments, all of them, basically seemed like a lot of work to me. You had to make sure you had nice clothes every day, and you had to waste a lot of your free time reporting to some officer, and taking care of juniors’ handkerchiefs and other important stuff. You possibly also had to stand around counting the juniors, and finding out who had what attend-C or whatever, and report that to the officers.

I really liked the daily life and specially valued my free time, and if given a real choice, would not have wanted to lose any of the relaxation time after lunch, or any other sleep or free time.

Officers were good, and they kind of knew what the cadets were like. In my case, if they had tried to figure out my psychology, they would have known that I absolutely would not have wanted any appointment, even if I were considered qualified.

Becoming known throughout the academy was not a motivation for me at all. Since our first term I was somehow very well known already, and I had a high level of academy-wide exposure all through my stay at the academy. So any appointment wouldn’t have helped in that respect, it would only have been a burden.

The absolutely only thing I would have liked about those appointments, was the chance to shout loudly at the top of your voice during drill, that looked like fun 🙂

So the “lazy” and “not ambitious” was very apt. That’s just what the academy made me, thanks academy. That’s sincere, not sarcastic at all – I really do like the lazy and unambitious life, and it’s been totally amazing how much you can get done being lazy and not-ambitious.

Why do bridges fall?

Saw the movie “Madaari” about bridges falling and killing people. The movie says bridges fall because of ministers. If only the ministers were good, the bridges would not fall. Searching the web, I learned that construction collapses are rather common in India. I wondered, why don’t bridges and buildings fall in the USA and kill … Continue reading “Why do bridges fall?”

Saw the movie “Madaari” about bridges falling and killing people. The movie says bridges fall because of ministers. If only the ministers were good, the bridges would not fall.

Searching the web, I learned that construction collapses are rather common in India.

I wondered, why don’t bridges and buildings fall in the USA and kill people?

Then I realized, that’s not strictly true. Sometimes a barge or something hits a bridge, sometimes a tornado can break a bridge.

But bridges or buildings falling by themselves?

Yes, that can happen. Parts of a bridge fell in Boston, and killed a woman driver. Long time ago, I think 1990s. Single incident, sticks in mind, because it was so single!

Turned out the bridge in Boston fell because the construction companies worked for Mafia, and they were stealing the government money by supplying shoddy material and cutting corners…

So corruption can cause bridges to fall. In USA. And also in India, I think.

The difference is, in the USA people are honest. They can turn dishonest, no doubt. Even the most honest person can be forced into dishonesty, or fall into dishonesty. But as a general rule, people are honest to start with. So corruption happens some of the time, and is limited.

In India, it seems it would be a miracle for somebody to be honest in ANY bridge or building project. Any honest person would be forced into dishonesty, so it’s safe to say there are no honest people in such projects.

The movie was totally lying. The bridges do not fall because of politicians. Absolutely not. Politicians are just convenient scapegoats for evil ghoulish movie-makers out to make money from deaths, without addressing the real issues.

Bridges fall because of the people.

The people who die under the bridge – take any one of them. Put him/her in a Public Works Department office as a government official. Is there any, any, chance that he/she would not have taken bribes from the contractors?

Make him/her a contractor. Is there any, any, chance that he/she would not have given bribes and cut costs from material?

So who is to blame?

iPhones

Recently, I learned programming for the iPhone, using Apple’s new programming language called “Swift”. To me, it looks like after Steve Jobs, Apple just doesn’t have any vision or control left. The programming language, Swift, reminded me of another programming language called Ada. Like Ada, Swift has everything but the kitchen sink. (On second thoughts, … Continue reading “iPhones”

Recently, I learned programming for the iPhone, using Apple’s new programming language called “Swift”.

To me, it looks like after Steve Jobs, Apple just doesn’t have any vision or control left. The programming language, Swift, reminded me of another programming language called Ada. Like Ada, Swift has everything but the kitchen sink. (On second thoughts, maybe there _is_ a kitchen sink somewhere in there, I don’t know the complete language yet 🙂 ) Like Ada, Swift is one of those _have to_ learn languages. If you want to program iPhones, you have to learn Swift. If you wanted to program for Defense Department, you had to learn Ada. This forced learning by the US DoD did not save Ada from rapid demise. (By contrast, Android picked a slick programming language already popular, Java.)

Good programming languages do not include every feature available in the technology – the designers’ brilliance shines through in deciding what features to include and how to combine them. Swift designers had a lot of knowledge, but no sharpness at all – they just couldn’t decide what to leave behind.

This shoddy approach extends to the development environment. I have worked in a lot of development environments, and have never seen anything as shoddy as Apple’s development environment Xcode.

My take – Apple has no good leadership anymore, the company is going down the tubes. Modi government I think just gave them a lifeline, but China appears rather angry at them, just the Indian market might not be enough to keep this lost company churning.

Borrowed Intellectualism of India

I recently had an interaction with a young man from India over the Facebook. He wanted to know what a “real man” meant. I gave him the example of the Gurkha retired soldier, who defended a young girl from being raped by a mob of 40 people. (It wasn’t that difficult for him apparently to … Continue reading “Borrowed Intellectualism of India”

I recently had an interaction with a young man from India over the Facebook. He wanted to know what a “real man” meant.

I gave him the example of the Gurkha retired soldier, who defended a young girl from being raped by a mob of 40 people. (It wasn’t that difficult for him apparently to face 40 people, once he got into crazy mode, he just had to kill 3 of them with his Khukari, cut another 8, and the brave rapists then fled despite their heavy numerical superiority.)

The guy was upset over the example!! Hard to believe for me. The guy was uttering words like patriarchy and misogyny (hatred of females) and all. I didn’t get it – what did he want, the Gurkha should have let the young girl get raped, in the name of female equality?

The young man didn’t make any sense in his ramblings. I basically told him, as he seemed to be an intellectual young fella, look – you all should just go and learn how to use condoms, and go out have sex between willing boys and girls! India has a lot of sexual repressions, which leads to rape. Be revolutionary, destroy your chains.

He ignored this sage piece of advice, and kept ranting and raving about how I didn’t understand patriarchy and misogyny.

I still didn’t get it. What patriarchy? That’s a Western Abrahamic concept, in India the deities include women (Durga, Kali) etc, and the society is a mixed patriarchy-matriarchy. What misogyny? He was the one saying the Gurkha should have let the young girl get raped… If that’s not misogyny, what is?

Then I realized. The dude had no clue what “patriarchy” and “misogyny” meant. He had read it in some Western articles, rote-memorized the words, and kept repeating whenever something involved with women came along!

This, I felt, is rather sad. When even your intellectualism, your deep thoughts, are not your own – you have to borrow from an alien world without understanding that world’s concepts – how can the young face the real problems in India? Using the tools (concepts) from an alien culture cannot help them, they have to invent their own tools that really apply to the situation!

A Developer’s World View

Murali talks about “Appy Times”. Hot stuff is happening in computing technology, all these apps are coming out, new technology to build those apps is coming out… As someone working in the software field, surely I would be up to all the latest, and know all the buzz-words and tehnologies? Not really! When Murali asked … Continue reading “A Developer’s World View”

Murali talks about “Appy Times”. Hot stuff is happening in computing technology, all these apps are coming out, new technology to build those apps is coming out…

As someone working in the software field, surely I would be up to all the latest, and know all the buzz-words and tehnologies?

Not really! When Murali asked me about bootstrap, a popular framework for mobile “first projects”, I had no clue what that was! In fact, on my Android phone, I had absolutely NO apps at all, except what I needed for my work. Until a few months ago when I ran into 55-NDA again and downloaded Telegraph and Whatsapp! So I am really not an “appening” dude. I really have no clue about the latest app that just came out and will cook lunch, or whatever…

I have seen more “next biggest thing”s in technology die rather than live. Even when they don’t die, they change. I worked on something called VisiCalc, which back then was considered a revolutionary technology. It was the original spreadsheet, and for the first time made businesses take personal computers seriously. But it’s no longer around, long ago replaced by something called Microsoft Excel.

I saw a language called “Ada” which was going to change the world – nowhere now. There was Pascal before that. Even things which succeed, have limited life-span. The “C” language once was used for everything. Then its bigger better version called C++ came along. Now it’s been entirely replaced by Java (and on Apple side of things, “Swift”) and new programmers haven’t even heard of “C” or “C++”. Lisp was once the coolest thing in the programming world. Now, nobody knows what that is.

So when I come across the “next biggest thing”, now I have a wait-and-see approach. If it survives, it will eventually come my way… and ideally someone will pay me to learn it! Though sometimes I have to scramble – and learn some new thing that has rapidly taken over – on my own before I can get a job in it.

For an intellectual hobby, I have kept up with physics. Things seem a little more permanent there. Force still equals mass times acceleration.