North American Culture

Dear Readers,

Hope you all are doing great in your respective lives. I am doing good too. Life is moving ahead as i contemplate it ...

This time i am going to write about something different. This time i am going to write something about North American (NA) culture. Yes, all you folks outside North America heard it right ... North America does have culture and in this post, i will make an honest attempt to describe it.

Few months ago i decided that i will grow my beards. I did that because i realised that i have never ever in my whole life experimented even a little with my looks. North America has an air of freshness and freedom that somehow gives you courage to experiment. So, I ended up growing my beards for a month. Then an interesting incident happened. While i was walking through the university campus one day, one of my friends from India asked me that why i am growing my beards and is Osama bin Laden my motivation to do so?!! Now off-course this friend of mine was joking but this incident left me thinking. I wondered why an Indian person was the first and the only one till now to ask this question and why none of my North American friends have raised this point yet??

I decided to do an experiment. I decided to grow my beards even longer and note how people from different countries react to it. Now i should accept that being in a Canadian university gave me a great opportunity to do such an experiments because of large international student community here. I grew my beards for almost 8 weeks after which it became unbearable to handle. So i had to shave, but my observations were really interesting. 

Out of everyone who saw my beards, my parents reacted in most extreme fashion. I usually make video calls with them on skype so that we can see each other. They saw my beards and almost tripped ... My dad even went as far as saying that police will jail me as i look like a terrorist! (by the way, he also asked if all my professors here have beards and if they are my motivation for having big beards :P) ... My mom also became very concerned ... she said that i look like a Muslim man and that i should change my looks and shave immediately. I couldn't reply anything on this and changed the topic of discussion. 

At university, all the people who made comments or gave a strange look at my beards were either from Indian Subcontinent or from Africa.

None, not even a single North American said anything like that. A male NA friend said that a hat will look great with my beards and a female NA friend said that beards look good on me and that i should always keep them. My beards became topic of discussion at one of the parties i went to with my NA friends. Everyone treated it just like a beard, nothing else ... nobody attached any images with it. 

And this concept of individuality i think is one of the major pillars of North American culture. In India, we divide on every single thing possible ... religion, colour, caste, province, language ..... list goes on ... One of my relatives in my hometown in India are living from past 40 years in a house which shares a common wall with a mosque ... but they have never once visited it! Here in North America, people from all over the world come .. with their different religions, languages, castes, colours, food habits, cultures, beliefs ... they all live equally, they all excel and prosper and make a better life for themselves.

Now i am not saying that everything is rosy here, there are off-course individual cases. But in general, i find, that the ability of North Americans to see every human being on planet with equal eye is very very impressive. 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - This sentence has been called "one of the best-known sentences in the English language" and "the most potent and consequential words in American history".

When i go back home, this is a quality, a culture, which i would like to take back with me from North America.  

Peace...

Karan

Thinking in new'fun'land ...

Holla,

me, from past few years atleast :)

Long time no see huh? Sorry, but it seems that i get motivation to write only when i am on road. Life seems meaningless and aimless otherwise which is not a very good mindset to write blogs i guess. But anyways, I recently moved to a new house and from past few days i am hanging out with a new bunch of awesome friends. It’s a much needed change in my life and i am happy at the moment :) (Wow!).

I finished my second semester few days ago and all my required courses are done. I have like 16 months to myself now for my research and thesis. This thought is scary for me, to keep myself motivated for so long to work on some random naval architecture stuff. But i guess i knew before hand that i will have to go through all this and hence i have been mentally preparing myself. Do i sound like an utterly unmotivated person? Voila, you got me right!

I think engineering as an organized profession is just a result of rat race of the world and universities churning millions of engineers everywhere are just factories fueling the industrial economy. Where are the days where people used to do things because they were really really interested in them?? This is something i see as a side-effect of globalization. An Indian is supposed to work hard because an American or a Chinese is working hard … what a bullshit! I don’t understand this but at the same time i do not have a better system to propose. It just seems to me that this is the natural way of life and somehow it makes me believe in the ancient Indian philosophy that everything is predecided. In a way it also makes me feel very very small in front of i don’t know what. I ask all humans who consider themselves as most superior of all a very simple question. Come up with a global governance system where there is no war and no inequality. Have we ever done it in past 5000 years? Can anybody do it in future?? I don’t think so. You see what i mean now? We are all just part of something random, prisoners of our own image.

And this realization sucks, believe me it does. It has made me a sad person in general. Whenever i do anything which can be considered hedonistic in a smallest possible way, i feel bad. If i drink, or eat good food or party, i feel bad. I feel bad for someone who has no access to all this and i feel bad for my helplessness in helping them. I feel bad when i waste time because i think i should work hard, but then i think work hard in what?? How is naval architecture supposed to create a world with no war and no inequalities?? Shouldn’t we put our time and resources in solving this question then in our blind quest of never-ending materialism! Sometimes i think those humans in ancient India who spent all their life in seclusion thinking about life must have pondered over this question. Weren’t they the most modern human beings who ever walked the earth, the only human beings who were real and free from the prison of their own images?? Hats off ...

At the moment, i neither have a solution to propose to this world, nor do i have balls to lead a secluded life like many of my ancestors did. And it makes me sad.

Conclusion: It’s bad for you to think a lot when you don’t have enough will power to do things that you think are right. (Huh, even the conclusion is a catch 22)

Anyways, i hope i have depressed you enough by now, or maybe you just think i am crazy. Whatever it is, I would love to hear from all of you on this. Till then, chao chao.

For a better world...
Karan

My sms conversation with a girl :)

Hi everyone,

It will soon be 6 months of my living in newfoundland. Life has been good till now. I just wanted to share some interesting sms/text exchanges i had with a girl few nights ago.
...........................................................
Me: U Blond!

She: You black … (not politically correct nay?) I refer to your hair too but now I sound racist :’(

Me: Racism is history so evolve; you are a mystery I wanna solve ;)

She: Oh dear god don’t even go there! This disease aint one you wants near!!

Me: You are not a disease but a remedy, without which my life is a comedy (H)

She: Comedy is such that one desires in the cold cruel world of Expires!

Me: World is cold and cruel when you are alone, in lonely nights you moan, let me take your pain, let us walk the tropical rain!

She: Agreed the world is a dungeon. Too bad the monsters are within. Only way is to be born again. Tho with u ive been locked in.

Me: It’s not clear to me what you said, ‘was it no?’ I dread … All I need is a chance, my heart dances at your glance :$

She: Do they dance or jive, I ask? The light flickers behind your mask. I fear the blood that runs thru yer veins is clotted and on my shirt you will stain <:/>

Me: People always complain, but it is not love if it doesn’t leaves a stain! No one is perfect give it a try, let the fucking stain dry …

She: That’s a sure problem given the stains have bled through. Now my hearts out drying and im through waiting on a cue

Me: I know you need your time, the truth is sublime. Love is the only cure for broken heart, as they say when they are high!

She: Id love nothing more now than to drown myself in a high..To be rendered totally inoccupiable for just a while by
.......................................................................

I am expecting a dinner date with her sometime soon :D

Peace!
Karan

new'fun'land part 2

Hey Everybody, How is she cutting? (as they say in newfoundland for asking how are you)

I finished my first semester in Canada this month. I got to know the education system of western countries better then i had known ever before. My friends might take it as a joke, but i really worked hard acadimically. This was partly because of my previous knowledge which was almost zero (thanx to my 4 year holiday at IIT) and partly because i wanted to maintain an 80% this time. I almost succeded. Results just came out and i got 81% , 79% and 72% in 3 subjects i took making it a total of 77% approx. Not bad for me seeing my previous record for sure, but i will try harder next semester. The goal is 80%.

If i compare the organised university education system in canada and india now, i get a feeling that west is still way ahead. My collegues in india were by far smarter then most of my collegues here in canada but the amount of research that goes in at university here and the superorganised industry-acadmia collaboration dazzles me. In a broder perspective, it dazzles me that how a country like canada of size 3 times that of india and population 3% that of india maintains itself so beautifully. As i often say to my friends here, even the wilderness seems organised in Canada.

Anyways, i will keep trying to break the code, as always. As of now, i have decently acclemetised with the climate here. I have come to term with life in sub zero temperature. It sucks to sit in house all day because its freezing outside, it sucks to sit on the freezing toilet seat everyday, it sucks when i wake up every morning because the house heating dries my throat and choakes me when i am in sleep, but ... i am doing just fine!

I am coming to terms with life of canadians which used to freek me out when i came here. This whole society is obsessed with individuality, but somehow i find them most unindivisual (not sure if its a correct word). Capacity of canadian, westerners generally, to follow intructions is amazing. I dont know how to explain myself, its just that the longer i am staying here, the more critical i am becoming of western society. Everytime i compare the beliefs of hinduism with beliefs of westerners, it becomes evident that hinduism is by far the most mature religion. It is becoming evident to me that for hinduism, most for the things/thought processes/events that are happening in west are 'been there, done that' kind of thing. I can see christianity slowing dying here, i can see how cool it is for residents here to say that they don't believe in god, i can feel why so many civilizations/beliefs/religions came to earth and disappeared and now i can understand why hinduism stayed for ever and will stay for ever. As its famously said in india 'kuch to baat hai ki hasti mitati nahi hamari (there is something in india which makes it never lasting)'.

Sitting in this remote corner of the world, i miss home. I have good friends around and i am learning a lot academically but i know for sure that i will not stay here for more then 2 years. This life is just too comfertable for me. I dont like the differences that exist in the world. I dont like it when i see that ppl working as waiter/waitress here can afford to fly/travel around the world/use blackberry phones/ have cars where as my father who is working as a doctor from past so many years has to think so many times before doing/using anything similar. I dont want india to become like west, not at all, but i am just very uncomfertable with the differences.

Signing off,
Karan

Hi one, Hello all :)

hello europe! (cape spear)

I will describe my 10 days in new"fun"land in short...

I took my air canada flight to st. john's from montreal at 2pm (montreal time) on 5th Sep'09. The flight was usual one and as i had expected, i met few new international students going to join MUN. One guy from india and one from china, both of their name i don't remember now, were sitting around me. Chinese guy was very interested to see outside the window and hence, tough i had a window seat, i exchanged seat from him.The indian guy who was sitting just behind me had become friends with a japanese girl by now, who was coming to st . john's as a tourist. Few days later when i met him, he told me that they toured around st. john's for 3 days together. We reached st. john's at around 5:30 pm local time. So after compleating the formalities at airport and after meeting the university representatives, i took a cab to my previously arranged accommodation. I am going to stay ("surf the couch") for coming 2-3 days with a couchsurfer. For more details, visit: http://www.couchsurfing.org/. When i reached his doors, he warmly welcomed me. We talked about ins and outs of life, had dinner and retired for the day. For coming 2 days he helped me to find a permanent house, showed me around city, made me a honourary newfoundlander by getting me screeched in. I am very sure that i am the first international student of this year to take part in this ceremony.

the battery :)

Now, the place where i shifted used to be a youth hostel (mentioned in lonely planet travel guide) for travellers and the land lady recently converted it to student residance. They still have a dorm for travellers. So almost everyday when i come back from school, i meet someone from a different corner of the world. And there are full time students from canada and nigeria living here. I think it is a great way to live.

10 days here and i have already seen cape spear (the most eastern point in north america) and quidi-vidi brewery and have done a hike around fresh water bay. Till now the experiance have been amazing but i am not at all comfortable with the dropping temperature. People have already started telling me the tales about terrible winter. Window's will break, main door will not open and u will have to jump from the window, your ass will freeze, you can snowboard from your home to the university etc. etc. huffff i am kind off affraid ... but we will see ... we will join hands and keep moving :)

I have started playing basketball, today i signed up for juggling and fencing classes, i have met my supervisors, i have attended classes and i am in full spirit to cherish life as it comes.

Wisdom Unlimited ...
Karan

How did it happen?

Hi everyone :)

This September, I am going to do my masters in naval arch at memorial university of Newfoundland. Now when everything is ready and settled, I thought I would tell you all the story of how it happened!

My effort to study abroad started 2 years ago. From the first day, this decision was motivated by all other things except actual real studies. In final year, I tried desperately to get into a university abroad. I applied for courses ranging from masters in civil engineering to masters in coastal engineering to masters in management to masters in social entrepreneurship. Absolutely aimless academically. Then something happened and I quitted all my plans … lost … tired… dead!!!

After I finished my final year, I was lucky enough to arrange an internship in France (probably the only one from IIT to do an internship abroad after final year). The experience of living in France was fantastic …. But I missed India … and as always made plans of purposeful work that I will do when I am back.

After coming back, I joined Pipavav Shipyard Limited. It’s a shipyard in the remotest possible location in the Indian subcontinent. I joined the company with the motivation of contributing towards the booming shipbuilding industry of India. But immediately after joining the firm I realized that the chaos and un-organization that paralyze the Indian manufacturing sector was also an integral part of this firm. Ideally I should have worked harder to find remedies of these problems, but instead, I started planning my exit from the firm. Within a month I was back to my study abroad obsession … as aimless as before. This time, the fields where even more diverse. I decided to apply for project management, observational oceanography, global innovation management and naval architecture. Such was my madness that I travelled across the country to get recommendation letters from my professors. The naval architecture course I was planning to apply was in NTNU Norway. So I took recommendation letters for all the four courses and was planning my travel back. I don’t know what came to my mind, I requested my professors to give me one extra recommendation letter for naval architecture without specifying the university name. And they obliged.

I came back and applied to all the four courses. I still had one reference for naval arch course with me. One day when I was doing some online research, I came across memorial university of Newfoundland. One of my friends had mentioned before about naval arch course in this university, but I don’t know why, I had never given it much attention. Well, just because of my habit, I emailed a couple of professors asking them about graduate student opportunities. Off course, there area of interest became my area of specialization in the email. And voila … I got a positive reply!!! Blood rushed and sleep flew. All of a sudden, I could see that this is the place where I stand real good chances of admission with full scholarship … infact much better chances then all the other applications I had already made. Within 2 weeks, I completed all the application formalities. This is my general tendency, when I am on something, I am on it with all I have. But the bottom line is that I could make this application, because I took that extra reference from my professors … ahhh what an idea sir ji!!! Now the wait for the final decision from the universities started.

Surprise Surprise!!! … Life is such a surprise ….

My boss in the company asked me to go for a 3 months training in china, from January to march. I was asked to sign a service agreement bond according to which, after I return, my company will expect me to work for at least 3 years with them. If I leave in between, I shall pay them Rs. 8,00,000 or 16000USD (which they said they are expecting will be the total cost of the trip). Fuck … I was out of sleep again!!! … So much effort in past 6 months for university applications … and all in waste … because if I leave the company after coming back from china… I can’t even imagine to pay this huge sum of money… what shall I do?? What shall I do?? I can refuse to go to china but it will not put a great impression on the company in these times of recession … and I am still not sure if I will be selected in any of the universities I applied … so what shall I do … what shall I do???

Few nights of thinking, few hours of Google research, some discussions .. and BANG! … I have a plan. I calculated that whatever I do and how ever expensively I live, the total expenditure on trip will not be more then 2,00,000 Rs. Or 4000 USD … which is 25% of what my bond amount is. So what I did is, I went to my boss and made a genuine request. I asked him to put a clause in the bond that I will pay either 8,00,000 Rs or the actual cost of the trip. And they obliged easily because they didn’t expected them to be much different.

Tough this amount (4000USD) is also big; it was well inside my payable range. And I calculated that it is approximately same as 3 months of my salary. So it will become a kind of self financed 3 months trip to china. This idea was much relieving. And now slowly, as preparations for china began, excitement started gripping!
I was already 2 months in china when I heard from memorial university of Newfoundland that I have been selected with full scholarship! Rest all universities either rejected my application, or provided me partial scholarship. Pffff … one extra reference letter can do miracles.. hehe … rest all that happened in china is mentioned in my previous posts.

I returned from china in the end of March and joined my firm. My company knows nothing yet. I cannot tell them anything before I get my visa … because what if I tell them and then my visa is rejected?? … So then followed the ugly paper work and everything else that goes into getting the passport stamped with visa. I received it in the beginning of June. It was time to inform my company that I want to leave. Telling my boss on face that I am leaving was the toughest exercise and a good experience. The information was passed, the awkwardness generated, the financial formalities completed and the resignation was given. 30th June was decided as my last day in the firm. After bidding goodbye to my friends in the company, on 4th July, I reached home!

So, now after all the ups and downs, all the planning and chaos, all the randomness and aimlessness, I am ready to go to Memorial University this September. Visa is ready and plain tickets booked.
But why I am going there? This question still prevails. I can give many answers but none of them satisfies me completely. I am definitely not passionate about ship building or naval architecture or even engineering. I prefer admiring the beauty of engineering by looking at the grandeur of it rather than by playing with it. If I work as an engineer, it will always be to make a living. Then why I am going to do masters in engineering? May be because I think by becoming super specialized in one field of engineering, I will be able to take an year off to travel in India and search for business opportunities and things and I want to do in my life. This master course is to give me more confidence that if I take a year off after I finish it, I will not be screwed if I end up with nothing concrete after a year of wondering. For this to happen, I shall study hard.

Strange as it may sound, this is how I am justifying this decision at the moment.

Peace! :)
Karan

A trip to an island :)

Last Sunday, I, with 5 other juniors from my university who are in my company these days as summer interns, went to an Island. This island is called Shial Bet. Here is the island on google map:


View Larger Map

During the mumbai terrorist attacks, an article in times of india suggested that terrorists might have halted on this island while coming from pakistan to mumbai for refueling. So we were a bit careful :)

What an amazing island it was!!!... life on one side, barren on another ... waves crashing on the steep cliffs... beautiful small beaches with kingfishers ... and lots of solitude ...

The only way to the island, the mighty "Jai Chaamunda"

Sun dried fish/prawn ... anyone? :)

One of the few pics which make me believe that ignorance is a bliss ...

BoOm Shankar :)

found some friends :)

mystic ...

capturing the beautiful shoreline

juniors jump with excitement :)

the power of technology ...

the ugly port cranes in the background

:)

Every great trip in Gujarat ends with a chagda ride!

May peace be with you :)
Karan