First Two Weeks in Bay Area

I became fond of Bellevue in three months. However, I forgot the heaviness in heart amidst hectic packing and checking out spree on the day of departure. Little did I know that my first two weeks in Berkeley would be so un-welcoming. I had booked a room in a Hotel room near UC Berkeley before leaving Washington. On reaching the Hotel in Berkeley at 10pm in the night, I was informed that someone had cancelled my reservation. I am still searching for that person did that. Hotel looked quite dazzling from outside but it was such a run down place from inside. The bathtub, broken sink, furniture, spider-web and ambiance all gave me an impression as if I was in 1960. I decided to checkout immediately and call a cab. A cab came and the driver was Nepali. It was already 11pm. All the restaurants were closed. I was dead hungry. How could an area near a university campus be such dead closed so early ? The driver stopped near a Chinese hotel which looked closed. I called the manager from outside the gate and he answered, "I will open the hotel later, go and have coffee and come back at 11:30pm". I told the driver to go to another hotel. I checked in an expensive hotel and after staying there for two nights I felt it was ripping me off by wallet, so I went to another cheaper Motel, the best known Motel in the town.

A new challenge in my life was to find an apartment as soon as possible. I never had to do apartment hunt before in life. Every morning I would get up, sincerely search Craigslist, seek appointments and meet Realtors, property owners and who not. Sometimes I got frustrated, but sometimes I met interesting people. I did this for two weeks, every day without failure. I would visit India grocery stores with the hope of finding some housing ad. I came to know of an Indian realtor and I decided to give it a shot there. On visiting the realtor's office, I found an Indian lady (I think she was wife of the owner) at the office who was from Hyderabad. Following is an excerpt of conversation with her:

Me: I am looking for an apt in Berkeley. Do you have anything available ?

She: When do you want to move in ?

Me: If possible, now.
She: No, we don't have anything now. We will have one available on Oct 19 and one on Oct 9

Me: Do you think any tenant might move out by Oct 1st ?

She: If I FOUND, I'll call (pronounced as kyaall) you. PEOPLES sometime move out before lease ends.
........

She was giving me different options and every sentence she uttered had some grammatical mistake or other, and she was speaking so confidently in typical southy accent. Although I saw two units she suggested, but I didn't opt for either. Both were quite badly maintained and environment was dirty. However, I still remember her punch line, "If I FOUND, I will kyaalll you".

Later that day, I went to Point Richmond area in East Bay area as I was getting an apt for 3-4 months lease. I wasn't even there to meet the realtor, I decided not to rent to an apt in that locality. I was passing through the most crime-proned areas and even during day I could sense that. However, later on the realtor (young American-Asian) guy told me that people in Point Richmond area wanted to keep the area as it was. He told me, Pixar company was started there. Essentially he was trying to entice me.

Next day, I had another appointment with an American landlady and she showed me a lot of her attitude. My first question to her, "So, where do you live ?". She answered, "Do you need to know where I live ?". I immediately decided not to rent her apt, although I stayed and let her show me her two units. The units were nice and furnished. She kept cracking meaningless jokes. I left her units with a sense of failure in finding an apt.

The following day, I had an appointment with another person who I later found out to be a billionaire. On seeing him for the first time, I got an impression that he must be a janitor as he was wearing shabby and dirty clothes. He then showed me an apt which was stacked up with antiques and different collectibles from China and India. He told me about his real estate business and other foundation work. The next day, he came to my Motel since he wanted me to show his other two properties in San Fransisco and East Bay area. He talked about his past and how he made all his property. I was impressed. Then he told me that I could stay in one of his mansions for almost free but in return I would have to develop some software to be sold to Google. Later on I decided not to rent any of his apt. At some point of time, I was wondering if he was like that old man in the movie, "Hostel".

It was almost two weeks I was staying in that Motel. Every morning, I would call frontdesk and extend my stay for another day. Meanwhile I befriended the manager there and his assistant who was Nepali. The assistant was excited as Prashant Tamang became the 3rd Indian Idol. I had not eaten home-cooked food for more than two weeks.

Eventually, I started seeing some light of hope. I visited the most posh area in Berkeley, Emeryville. I increased my budget limit so that I could find something. The real estate agent showed me an apt on 30th floor in a posh complex offering a nice view of San Francisco and Pacific ocean. Pacific Ocean was around 500 meters away from that complex. Strong breeze and sunlight would be there always. It was a high-end luxurious apartment. However, USD 1700 per month was beyond my budget. However, I do dream to stay in such apt someday. After that, I found an apt in a complex very nearto it within an affordable rent. However it was unfurnished. I had to furnish it. The landlady is the best landlady I have ever met. She is a Filipino. Here I am little settled now, going to work regularly and eating home-cooked food.

Lost In Translation

I realize how a lousy translation can kill the essence of something and make it sound funny. I can understand it may not be always easy to translate something from one language to another without losing original meaning, humor and flow but why is it so difficult to translate simple dialogues of Bollywood Hindi movies to say English. I wonder how Tagore had translated Geetanjali from Bengali to English. Let me give some examples from some movies that I watched recently.

In "Apne", Sunny Deol was going afroad on business purpose but his father wasnot happy with him . However, his mom said to him, "...Mein unhe samjha lungi..".Subtitle on that diaglogue was: "...Don't worry, I will satisfy him..". In many other movies, translators just translated word-to-word, e.g., Butterfly for 'Titli', 'Bhabi' for sister-in-law. I am wondering how would viewers understandwhat Bhabhi is if they cannot understand original dialogues. I was also surprised to see incorrect translations of dialogues in "Aporajito", a sequel of Pather Panchali by Satyajit Ray. "Appu" (correct one should have been ApU) was baptised as a priest and he was instructed to pour Ghee (like butter) on fire. However, the translation was "Put honey on fire". Is Ghee same as Honey ?

Earlier I used to tell my friend -- I would like to work for Quality Assurance in Netflix, that is, I would like to get paid for watching movies. Now seeing such incorrect translations, I tend to feel more motivated for QA job title.

On Move

Writing after a long time. Was busy shifting from Riverside, CA to Redmond, WA. It does not rain that much in Redmond now. Shops, grocery stores, restaurants are close by compared to that in Riverside. Lush green surroundings add to the beauty of the place. Interestingly, found an Indian restaurant named Preet's Casual Indian Cuisine. This place serves snacks like parathas, chaat, tea, etc and not main course dishes. Such was the restaurant I was looking for in US. Next, this place is full of Indians (H1,L1,F1)s and GCs and can also see many married couples stralling in the evening or going back home carrying grocery bags. Also notice many Indian pregnant wives. I hardly used to notice such crowd of Indians in Riverside. Probably because it is university campus environment. Have to visit several places in WA. At least Redmond hasn't alienated me so far.

Silver Line

Every Dark cloud has a silver line. After abysmal performance of Team India in World Cup 2007, millions of cricket fans are furious. However, India's defeat might be good for several other things.

Several board, entrance exams are scheduled in April and May. IIT JEE entrance is scheduled on April 8. Students can now focus and study instead of watching matches on TV.

India's early exit from World Cup tournament also teaches several Indian players (hopefully ! and others too) that success does not come from past laurels. There is no substitute for hardwork, dedication and determination. Money and stardom cannot buy victory.

Awesome Talk

During the course of PhD, it often comes to mind if doing PhD is really worth it. Several thoughts cross through mind -- all friends are doing job, they are settled and even have family of their own; parents need helping hand; am I really going to change the world with my work etc etc. I feel if something is difficult it means something worthwhile, even if the thesis does not turn out to be ground-breaking. The uncertainty a person goes through teaches one to become patient, matured and persistent. Sometimes, I feel doing PhD is meaningful only in places like MIT.

Attending to technical talks is integral part of PhD life. But theoretical talks are most interesting as was today's talk by Nicole Immorlica which made me realize once again how exciting research could be. She got PhD from MIT and has been working with Microsoft Research. I learned some nice theoretical results in Algorithms Game Theory. Specifically, she gave nice application of Classic Secretary Problem. The Secretary problem states:

"If an office wants to hire a secretary from a set of N secretaries, assuming that each secretary has some measure of her goodness, and decision to hire or reject should be done at the end of interview. The question is how to ensure that the office hires approximately the best secretary (if once rejected secretary cannot be hired or once accepted secretary cannot be rejected later)."

Game Theory is one of my favorite subjects and auction-theory that she was talking about is one of its sub-field. Furthermore, I feel one of the features of presentations given by theoretical computer scientists is that those are immaculate -- such talks are absolutely free from rubbish, everything is precise and succinct. In contrast to common wisdom, theoreticians are have also good sense of humor. Basically, a clear and careful thought processing shows up in the presentation. That's when I realize, Aha ! here is the fun of doing research because no one else knew this result before her.

Indian Universities and Application Process

Although many universities in India have international repute, the application process is those univs is pretty much done in the same old fashioned way. I am sure there is increased number of students, faculty and staff, but the attitude of the people has not changed much. Recently I had to contact several univs to enquire about admission procedure into MSc programmes. Only thing I could say, I ended up being frustrated.

Although many universities have launched their websites, there is hardly any relevant information on those. For example, I was directed to the website of Periyar University to dig information about MSc in Life Science and actually there is nothing on it. I could barely understand, why can't they post contact telephone numbers.

There are different issues to deal with even if one gets contact numbers. I was visiting North Bengal University website and surprisingly there was no contact number. Only contact number one could find was of the company (AMBITION) which made homepage. So, I had to call them to find a relevant number of the Registrar. On another occasion, I tried to talk to staff in a college in Anna University. It appeared as if I made a mistake by calling them, the person was in so much hurry to hang up that I had to request not to hang up before asking every question. I had to send 4-5 mails and call equal number of times to get one piece of information. I really don't understand why they don't learn etiquettes of telephonic conversation.

I was little surprised that one has to struggle so much to talk to staff or people in Delhi University or JNU. Either there is no departmental homepage or even if one exists, there is no contact numbers of staff in the office. One has to go through separate directory search to unravel contact number of only Dept Head or professors. Sometimes, the website of a University is not even accessible, e.g., Univ of Tezpur.

Furthermore, I don't understand why can't they upload .doc or .pdf version of the application forms on their webpages. One has to order the application forms by sending Demand Drafts by post and acquire the application forms. Why can't they make it credit card payable ? What is the point of having booming IT industry ?