How to Deal with Questions?

I won't be talking about normal questions which kids ask like "Why do we water trees?", but those questions when kids are in a weird state beacuse of separated parents. My Son, Shivay (5 years old right now), has so many questions where I have to understand how can I answer him in such a way that he doesn't get conflicted views.

It so happened that he was in Bhopal (but then he was staying in Udaipur), and he thought I would come to meet him where he was there for 4 days. I was not allowed to come over there and meet him, reason told was that in the coming week I was about to meet him in Udaipur.

I visited him next week in Udaipur, where the first question he asked me was "Papa, why did you not come to meet me in Bhopal, I was there 3 days ago". Now comes the hardest part of how to answer that question, there are so many ways of handling this situation. My viewpoint is that I don't want to complain to the kid about someone else, give him a reasonably satisfying answer which will settle his curiosity and above that I don't want to give bad memories from my side to the kid for very few days when I meet him in months. 

I responded and said, "Shivay, I didn't know you were in Bhopal, I came to Udaipur and then I came to know you are in Bhopal and would be coming back in 3 days", he started laughing (he was 3.5 years old back then) and thought of it as a funny incidence, which reminded me of Tom and Jerry show which I saw in my childhood where both are running in a circle and Tom isn't able to catch Jerry. Maybe he thought of it in the same way.

Recently, someone gifted him a piggy bank and he collects money on Sundays of every month. While I visited him I deposited 10 Rs. note in his piggy bank. He was happy as I don't think he understood the value of 10 Rs. Note vs 500 Rs. Note. 

Next time when I visited him, he said "Papa, 10 Rs. note is so small and I came to know that you have a lot of money". I could have given him so many answers, but I avoided giving him any answers. 

Though I have thought of an answer and a long-term solution that will help him in the long run.

Answer: Papa is saving money for you in a Bank that is protected by Police, who will make sure no thief can approach and hence, your money will be safe.

Solution: I will give him a Seed bank. He showed a lot of interest in seeds this time, he was happy to collect them as it was spring here. I hope he would love to see vivid varieties of Seeds vs. a few variations of notes in his Piggy Bank. A new hobby can be introduced in this way.

Once Modi ji said "Find opportunity in adversity", I firmly believe in this. 

Let's try Fish Farming :)

"I would be doing Fish Farming", when I told this to my wife in July'15, she asked "How much will you earn from it" and I replied "100 Rupees/Kilogram" very innocently. She didn't know the quantity I can farm, and hence replied for 100 Rupees why you want to start something new?

Agriculture is an industry, never seen as an industry. We look at it as a trivial work done by farmers with no/less formal education. On the other hand, these farmers are biggest gamblers you will ever see. Dependent on Monsoon, climatic conditions, post harvesting conditions and so many other things. Probability of their success is so low that none/very few of the educated, risk taking entrepreneurs would dare to try their luck in this field.

I hope you see the "void", essentially calling for new innovations necessary for this field.

I thought why not try fish farming? I have a mine which I am planning to convert into a lake in coming years, fish farming is the most logical business to carry out. But with no prior experience (not even handling aquarium) I thought lets try it at a small scale and gain experience.

So I began construction of an artificial pond with a pond liner (Supreme Company, 200 GSM plastic). The boundaries were made with overburden from mine (Mistake - Should have made the boundaries with clay/mud).

By September'15 The pond (100 feet * 100 feet * 4.5 feet) was ready. We poured 100 Cubic Feet of clay and 100 Cubic Feet of cow dung in it. According to fisheries department, it would help in growth of phytoplanktons as well as zooplanktons, initial feed for the little ones. (Mistake - Pond liner is a plastic, anything that comes inside this pond would stay there, hence these things would pollute water in a long run. This method is fine where land is excavated to form a pond).

In first week of October'15 fish fingerlings of Pangasius and common carp were transferred in pond. (Mistake - Pangasius doesn't grow well in winter season, so transfer fish according to climatic conditions prevailing.) 

Progress in 6 months (the last picture is of common carp after 6 months).

Overall my experience was good (Not financially though), the satisfaction was I can do this, obviously you learn from your mistakes and just repeat the process.

Dreams

Dreams - part of human life. We see dreams when we are asleep, but I am talking about dreams which a person makes for himself. Dreams are made everyday, sometimes they are forwarded to a stage where they are fulfilled, and most of the times they are either ruined or altered due to circumstances. My dream was to complete Master's degree in Computer Science, I was lucky to see that day. My dream was to make a warehouse in year 2012, but it was altered to expansion of plant. Some dreams get shattered, and you can't understand why, but then you need to live a life and understand that dream wasn't meant to be part of your life. They say 'pal bhar ki khabar nahi, per aadmi sapne 100 saal ke dekh leta hae', which means that you don't know what will happen in very next moment but its human nature to dream for next 100 years in his/her life. I see a dream, where I can fulfill dreams of many other eyes. I see a dream, to bring dreamily happiness in life's of people around me. I see a dream, where I am with people I wish to be with in my dreams. I know dreams which mean no harm to anyone, do get real.   

An year in life.....

An year in life, 2010-2011. One of the mysterious years. Summer of 2010 itself was so gloomy with Intel internship not starting, which wasn't a big deal once you know you did your best to do find an internship, got it but didn't start due to some strangest reasons,as they say "Man proposes God disposes". Summer at New Media innovation lab was quite interesting with work varying from Wordpress learning to Mobile web stuff. Summer ended with even stranger void in life, 6 August 2010 Nanuji (my father) winked at me on some joke (man's joke :) and I thought your father becomes a friend the day when he is comfortable winking at you at that time and even you are comfortable. That friendship wasn't meant to be long at least physically. 8 August to 8 October, 2 months of living in a hell. Seeing someone die everyday is like some part of you dying every second. 8 October was the day he left us physically, in those 2 months I came to know what it meant to be "man of family", and my life changed forever. Next 10 months were like I was doing things for which I was too young. Everyday was like a test, sometimes I had the answers sometimes or rather most of the days I failed miserably.

Learning from your mistakes is best way of learning new things. I found "you can be as mad as a mad dog but then you have to let it go".

I talked with several different people with completely different background. I found people shouldn't be judged by their appearance, wealth or any materialistic things. A person can be your Krishna, your Bhagwat and you should respect everyone and anyone. A person who isn't nice to you, try forgiving him/her and those who love you try to be with them forever.

Saw days where I just couldn't answer why? I found that people have come up with there struggle phase and that is unavoidable, you can only make it easier by "never giving up" and always carrying a smile on your face would do 90% job.

People change drastically at some point of time. I found that having expectation from anyone is like expecting sun would rise from west.

You never know the future and probability. I found that you haven't seen the future so don't think you can do this thing in future. Do it today and plan for tomorrow too, because someone else might rely on your planning.

Money is one thing which is always scarce. I found that more you run behind money the more you will run, it is necessity but you shouldn't make it your obsession. You won't have time for others than to use that money fruitfully.

Success is a parameter set by you. I found that for someone success is being on top of world and while, for someone else its earning a piece of bread for his children everyday. Life is a strange after all.

You can do anything. I found that result is not in your hand, but you can try everything. If its meant to work it will and if not you won't be able to make it happen anyhow. Yes but try your very best so that you won't be sorry afterwards.

Never run from your responsibilities. I found that running away from things is worst decision in life, and taking help of materialistic things like alcohol is even worse. Satisfaction is in your brain not in things.

These were some of the things I saw too closely, I feel I was lucky to have a person like him in my life who trained me for everything in life. The Guru I could have asked for was my own Nanuji.

Time to blog!

Hello World! Seems to be the time when I feel like blogging, mid of the semester when so many things are going on. The hunt for something is always there, at the moment its summer internship/something constructive to do in summers. Sometimes I feel that because of the hunger to hunt I have forgotten about very basic concept of "Try to keep it simple and stupid". Expectations are always building up mostly not from others but from me itself. Today saw a video in which Virendra Sehwag talks about Sachin Tendulkar's greatest achievement "200 runs in an ODI match". He said that when Sachin was close to the achievement last time, when he scored 175 runs against Australia, but couldn't achieve it he humbly said "If its in my fate I will achieve it". Sachin always inspires me, his humble nature mixed with hard work does the job. I tell myself in the end "don't worry just work and work, if its in your fate you will achieve it".

The 50th one!

Saw that this will be my 50th post. 2 years of blogging has been really a nice experience. In this post I mainly see back my last one year "2009". The year where I traveled a lot (Land of dreams, city of lights, beautiful beaches) saw lots of people suffer (everyone in family was going through some problems), saw lots of close one's leave (some left forever and some didn't left me a chance to stay with them further), made lots of new friends (friends made in France, friends made in US).

Next year 2010 will be a whole new experience, I hope it is for best. Happy new year to all of you and I hope it goes well for all of us.

USA and my first Semester as master's student

So finally got enough time to think and write down what I think. So after awesome experience in France, spending a month at home is always best time. In the middle went to Manipal which was like one more trip to heaven, the weather in Manipal just sets up the mood. Now next trip was to USA, an unknown land to me but as they say its always exciting to explore new places. Well the exploring part was more intellectual till now rather than exploring different parts of USA. Have finally figured out what does research means to different people, atleast to me it means that I should be able to make something work in the end of my research and people can use it. People here are really friendly and a big misconception that American's have limited knowledge about world outside USA isn't completely true. At least some of those I met were really smart people, thinking about what they will do in like next 5-10 years. American's have tendency of wasting things also like the one promptly seen was wasting electricity (all there stores have all lights open even at night when shops are closed, they even don't switch there LCD panels) and at the other end they want to move to solar powered systems and how to conserve energy, recycle everything (which is good approach). This trip is really helping me to understand how to handle pressure in tough situations esp. when deadlines are around you and nothing is working. Will be back to India again in winter and really hope to get good amount of rest before gearing up again for next semester.