Friendship++: Sharing memories with Paaji (Akash Mehta) on his B'day

"Thinking of what could be your b'day present, here I am with this..."

We all know "Akash Mehta" (hereafter Paaji) from different roles of his life. His roles include but not limited to a responsible son and a brother, a sports champion and a mathematics scholar, an orator and a fabulous "Punjabi" dancer, SRCC's (Shri Ram College of Commerce) Mr. Fresher and President later, DPSite (DPS, RK Puram) and a political associate. 

What many of us do not know is his soft corner for everyone he meets, rather known or unknown. His attitude is what makes him so special, different from other and above all an inspiration. From what I know, he almost every year celebrates his b'day with friends, unknown friends. Till now these unknown friends were from the localities of his city, Delhi, or any village he was visiting on that day. Yes, he spends this day of his life with people who need something. He with family and friends distribute food items, clothes and provide whatever generous help he can do to support the community people who are in extreme need. This is just a small excerpt from the countless things he did to help others. Another such incident I remember is his hug to the guy distributing food in mess and saying we are brothers so keep calm don't be tense, enjoy your job. The guy was surprised and also cherished that moment by giving an extra piece of the sweet dish to him. 

Something from the present now-

It so happened that Akash accepted a Masters course offer from London School of Economics this year, although he had another from Oxford University. As Paaji, was planning his travel to London, I (already in London) was excited to meet and welcome him right from the Heathrow airport. Then the day came (12 Sep'18) and in the evening I took that one hour of tube (London Metro) journey thinking the following... 

"सोचते यही थे की स्कूल के बाद हमारी दोस्ती कैसी होगी,

ये नहीं पता था की इतनी दूर फिर लंदन में आज मुलाकात होगी।

सबके हो चहीते तुम, तुमसे अरसे बाद आज बात होगी,

मिलकर फिर दोनों के चेहरे पर, वही मुस्कराहट साथ होगी| 

बाबा-बंसल-बोस, बल्लू-टोपर-HK,

हॉस्टल की वो याद साथ होगी,

मेहता के आ जाने से, नयी खुसी साथ होगी।

सात साल की ये दोस्ती, स्कूल हम साथ जाते थे,

साथ में पड़ते पड़ते, कभी साथ ही सो जाते थे,

अंकल के हॉस्टल आने से, सब ही खुश हो जाते थे,

आती थी मातू राम की जलेबी, सब जो मजे से खाते थे।

जो भी मिले तुमसे, उसे  हसकर गले लगा जाते थे,

जन्मदिन हो तुम्हारे, आइस-क्रीम पुरे हॉस्टल में बटवाते थे। 

डांस से आपने सबके चहीते बन जाते थे,

कंप्यूटर वाली क्लास से थोरो घबराते थे। 

किसी और का पता नहीं, हमारा साथ जरूर निभाते थे,

गाँधी क्लब के प्रेसिडेंट तुम वाईस हम बन जाते थे। 

हमारे इक फ़ोन पर, दिल्ली में मिलने आ जाते थे,

बंसल की दी की शादी में सबको डांस तुम करवाते थे। 

कहने को तो काफी है, सब लिख दे तो भी सारा बाकि है,

यूँ ही मुस्कुराते राहों, कुछ कर देखने की अब फिर बारी है,

बढ़ती रहेगी हमारे साथ, ये यादे जो हमारी हैं।

आज देखो आयी फिर मिलने की बारी है,

साथ समुन्दर पार, हो रही फिर मुलाकात हमारी है।"


Interested in the dance video- here on Facebook

      

Conscience++: Deciding your Being.

"Carve out a niche for yourself."
Following questions are asked by my conscience:

Q1: Do you have choices?
Me: Yes, I do have. (Discover)

Q2: Do you have confusion in choosing them?
Me: Hm. Sort of. (Deciding)

Q3: Do you believe that what you choose will be the optimum?
Me: Hopefully yes. (Do/Being)

The third takes a clear assumption that if I know my capabilities I can anytime optimize my top two. So, I always convince myself simply not to decide in advance. Let first try it out. Try "Being" with the utmost efforts. Take decisions with best experiences (others+yours) and never loose hope. A person himself creates his luck. His decisions make him lucky. His own steps give rise to a thought labelled as "Luck".
Before choosing anything you always plan and discover  the "Thinking phase". This is mostly the most worried phase. You passes with lot of confusion, many filters, many suggestion, examples come in mind and sometime after experiencing all this you feel you are still in that same state.
Next comes the "Deciding phase". With confusion to choose, you fear to decide. This happens because you just don't want to face any odd situation happening intentionally or unintentionally. My Dad always ask me to never loose hope because hard work is always worth and learning never fails. So, step-up, re-think and re-decide once you get the taste of failure.
The third is "Being". You just begin with your conscience and guidance of your mentors. Once my faculty said that too much of futuristic thinking is also not good. One should not spend more time to start a single thing rather take decision and start being in it. You will save your time and post-facto you will learn from "the state of Being".

Q4. What should I do after "Being" in that?
Me: Help and let others explore their "Being". (Dedicate)

To elaborate my point of Q4 I am sharing below the message I wrote to the newly formed CSI-LNMIIT Council (2017-18) as it's past-Chairperson.

Hello All, Congratulations !!!

Now, "New members" will get their holds of our growing family. You will now explore the responsibilities, relationships, commitment and much more in which you need to have your utmost dedication. In the plethora of upcoming leanings keep 3 things in mind- 

"Said by our Honorable Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi in his speeches twice: 1. after winning national Elections 2014; 2. after winning UP elections in 2017"-

1. Work with Accountability: Say it be finance or it be any discussion, you must be able to justify/record every moment of it. In this way no one can have a second thought and will faith in your working. Don't be verbal at least take signature or a replying mail in approvals.
2. Don't have the Wrong Intention: Learning is a process, we all learn from our mistakes. So, committing few mistakes at first attempt is fine but the intention toward none of the mistake should be wrong. There may happen some confusion/diversity/hard-times during the entire tenure. Keeping the positive will up, try to resolve those as your intention were to improve/better it. We should never have second thought for our work, colleagues and guides. They are always respectable.
3. Hard Work to the Ultimate Limit: We all are aware of our Prime Minister's working schedule. You guys are benefited more because of the excelling and hard work of previous councils. Try to keep that spirit up with your innovations, energy and togetherness. No one should be considered senior-junior by post. One day work will speak for you. Just justify as much as possible the work you are allotted. 

NOTE: Take care of your health and academics too in all these busy-ness.

Wish you all the best for future endevours. Feel free to reach me anytime. Always there with CSI.

Pushkal

(2015-16 Council)

Internship++: Chennai to Chicago

Internship ++: Chennai to Chicago 

“Arise, awake and do not stop until the goal is reached”- Swami Vivekananda. Indeed this statement is a complete lesson for all the learners. My desire to bag an internship started from these aforementioned experiences. By the end of the fifth semester, I had started exploring the field of text analytics. I improved my coding skills in R programming and worked (as team mentor) on three projects under faculty. I also presented my text analysis research work for publication in an international journal. I used to meet faculty, code till late night and implement my ideas with my coding skill. Hence, some faculty members were aware of my skills and working domain.

At the beginning of sixth semester (in January), I got the opportunity to attend ‘Machine Leaning’ workshop at Central University of Rajasthan and I became even more definite about my future plans in this field. Then I started applying for various internships openings in India and abroad as well (IAS, CeNSE, IIT, NIT, CERN, AStar). I updated my Internshala account and started looking for more options. My actual goal was to convert a foreign based internship this year. I contacted some of the alumni that were working or studying aboard (Singapore, France, and Dubai).

The foremost thing to apply for an internship is a good resume/CV. I took suggestions and templates from my seniors and prepared one and a half page long resume. This was covering one publication, data analysis/java/C projects, 8.5 CPI, four teaching assistant-ships, and ongoing chairperson experience of a Student Chapter in the institute. Hence, I was ready with my stuff; only thing was to frame it in a captivating form. Once I completed that, I e-mailed it to one of the experienced professors of the institute for review and getting his letter of recommendation. He was a bit friendly with me and always guided me in my decisions. He asked for a weekend to review it and then I forgot that.

Two week later, my friend & I got an email mail from the same professor stating – “After lot of background processing, Nielsen has zeroed in on you two. Congratulations for that and you two have earned it and truly deserve it! The work that they do is perfectly fitting your ambition to work in data analytics. I advise you to take decisions accordingly”. (So, Internship.)

I was surprised and a bit confused because I had neither applied to such company nor sir had mentioned anytime in past about this offer. I was looking for internship under some professor but not in corporate world. I immediately called him for more details. On the phone, he explained me that the resume I had shared with him some days back had been selected out of fifteen students for the summer internship at Nielsen’s Chennai office under company’s Director. He added that this can be extended as our curriculum B.Tech Project and I could look forward to a job prospect if it suits me and the company. The next step will be a phone call from the company’s Director under whom me and my friend will be working. If that went fine, surely we will get this internship with a decent stipend offer.

A month passed and I was curious about the offer because the foreign internship was still on my mind. In second week of March, I got the phone call from company’s Director. He asked me the details and my role in the projects, CPI, and exact working domain for my internship project. Soon, I got the offer letter stating 16 May 2016 as the joining date, 25,000/month as stipend, 2nd AC travel reimbursement and starting 15 Days stay in a four start hotel in Chennai. So, everything was covered in this. We were about to experience an MNC culture with world class learning opportunities and luxuries.

We joined the company on 16 May 2016. We met our guide, the Director of the company. In an hour long session, we all (2 LNMIIT + 1 IIT Kharagpur student) discussed our experiences, family backgrounds and working domains. At first meeting itself it was clear that the guide is very humble and friendly as was mentioned by our professor. Also, we got to know that he has wealth of experience with Ph.D from IIT Kanpur, 3 patents, several publications and much more.
Our project was related to Data analysis using R programming and social media. We took data from Twitter etc. and processed it to match with sales. In the first week itself, we got a mail from Nielsen’s Mumbai office that our project will be showcased at company’s symposium in Chicago (USA) in July. Yes, it was USA – a country I so eagerly wanted to visit. Our mentor confirmed that we were to meet and present our work to top officials. The visa, travel ,accommodation etc. will be taken care of and paid by the company itself. So it was like a dream come true for me (Internship++).

All of us applied for the US Visa, and got it. The project was in a good shape by the end of June with only presentation and reports left. The results showed 95 % accuracy with a visualization application completely deployed by Shiny platform. We shopped to get some branded formal suits for the presentation. Tickets and hotel were booked, the currency was converted. And then something strange happened.

We got the mail from New York head office that the event had been postponed due to company delivery dates and client requirements. All my excitement vanished. Next day our mentor confirmed this and asked us not to lose hope. This was an add-on to the internship experience and not the end of the world. Good news was that we got the visa for ten years, hence could explore future possibility if we were to join again. Since the US visit got cancelled, I got to stay one extra week at home which in a way was also good.

But what I got from this internship was great satisfaction. It proved the fact that one’s work and trust in people (professor, guide) are essential for learning and converting great opportunities. Success and recognition are a by-product of the same.

At the final day, we went out for a dinner with our guide. We enjoyed South Indian food while cracking jokes with each other. With great memories we returned to our respective hometowns. I did a lot of shopping for all the family members. They were very excited about that.  Finally we joined the 7th semester, we are in touch with our guide and are working for a publication from the results. We wished him both ‘Friendship Day’ and ‘Teachers Day’ because for us he was a friend who knows better than us and guide who always carves out the niche of ideas and comes up with solutions.

So, I got a global Nielsen learning experience, loads of pleasant memories of Chennai, and yes a 10 years business, conference and tourism Visa for US. Learning and memories are the things that no one can steal from you.

-Pushkal

Disclaimer:-This story was first written for "You Internship Story Contest 2016" organized by INTERNSHALA. It was selected for posting (here) as one of the top 80 from 1670 entries received that year.

Event++: My way to manage an event

      "Why to actually have an event???"

This can be summarized with Cesare Pavese's quote-

"We don't remember days, 

we remember moments"

Hence to get these sorts of memories; to build relations; to inculcate the spirit of teamwork and to check your potential of doing things, an event is the best way to get all these with one shot. For sure this will need many investments in terms of time, brainstorming, finance and so on so forth. You might have to struggle and somehow manage your conflicting team views but the takeaway will a better worth of all that simple efforts and presence of mind.

Once Director Sir taught me that for planning an event take care of two hierarchies one is as vertical and other is as horizontal. In this, the later represent departments and officials with whom you have to coordinate say it be IT Team, Finance, Cosha, Public Relations (LT, Taxi, Food), etc. and the vertical one start from student, faculty, HOD and reach the top officials' group- Director, Chief Guest, Speakers, Sponsors etc. Hence, before reaching till this top officials' group one have to go via many filters and that is necessary too. You can't trouble the supreme authority and let him scrutinize your applications; you must be well prepared in terms of approvals and perspective of the event you are planning.

Vision => Progress => Final Implementation =>Event

Starting and planning some event is decided by your vision. This vision includes the target audience, need of that event, approvals-things needed and guests. Then there comes the Progress phase which is the most crucial one in deciding the events' prestige and potential. You need to have few meetings, mail discussion and lots of brainstorming in this. New ideas must be discussed along with sharing of past experiences that will help to improve from last work you did. Any miscommunication or point missed in this phase may lead to loopholes in the event. If that loophole got cracked at some time you might be in sort of trouble.

In progress always respect you elders and motivate your team. As per my personal experience, every progress phase has a threshold point and at this point due to conflicts a team might split. Tough criticism comes and each one start blaming other. Keeping aside all these issues the final implementation must be focused because starting something is easy but to complete with perfection is hundred times tougher.

The final implementation includes the invitations, bookings, decorations, order, purchase and inventory assembling. Prepare a checklist for all these. Also from an event perspective, this covers the final work distribution like who is going to handle what (anchoring, technical assist. escort guests, high tea, etc). Each domain will be mentored by individuals; their presence of mind, leadership and dealing ability is tested. For say personally, passionate for anchoring, an anchor has to take on-stage decisions, prepare line and keep track of audience as well as the upcoming performance. Steve Martin has urged, "Be so good they can't ignore you." And that implies to every role you play in your life. Give your best so that the others themselves offer you the best without explicit request.

This I experienced when the chief guest himself at the end of the event presented the bouquet and encouraged the way of managing an event. Finally, always remember to thank all the attendees who devoted their time, chief guests, speakers and faculties without whom support an event is nothing. The success of an event lies in the support of these people.

Do remember post event logistics also, the finance clearing, event report and collection of feedback. Sometimes a small bit may create a big issue later, especially when finance is related. An event report must be circulated to cherish and update all that efforts you put and for record purpose also.

With a center focus to one of an event (CSI Felicitation Ceremony 2015-16) I shared this experience. Indeed, I faced many difficulties but now I can proudly say that we reached many milestones. The consent and visit of CSI Exec Com, President (2015-2016) Prof. Bipin V. Mehta, Director of School of Computer Studies, Ahmedabad University was itself the success of this event. His esteemed presence proved that work done for betterment and with hard work are always recognized and praised.

Thanks to Director Sir for encouraging students throughout the year. In one meeting he said that we need to match his pace, but when we went to invite him for this event he said, now we are ahead of his pace. This was the best compliment and appreciation our team can have. After the event HOD Sir said that I already knew that the event will be good because you were managing that and I had seen your dedication earlier also. A blind trust is the hardest of all and we achieved that. I would extend a special thanks Prof. Ravi Gorthi, Dr. Amit Neogi, Dr. Sakthi Balan, Mr. Mukesh Jadon, Mr. Vikas Bajpai, Mr. Dinesh Khandelwal and Dr. Preety Singh for all the help, encouragements and supports that they gave in various capacities for the student chapter of LNMIIT and trusting me for this profile.

-Pushkal

Learning++: My learning experiences

Once my literature teacher said,

"Learning is a process, which comes after cascaded failures and their experiences"

Indeed, failure plays an important role in our learning. But, what if we escape that failure. In this way, we can carve out with a simple protocol of learning without failure. Albert Einstein quoted Experience as the only source of knowledge. Hence, this escape or jump comes from once experience.

If you already know the thing that will restrict or trouble, you might opt another way or plan for facing it with utmost efforts. For me my learning comes from my present and past experiences; getting an insight of other's experiences; my surrounding and foremost my elders and respectable. Note the thing that Rome wasn't built in a day. Similarly, your experiences will be stacked one after the other. One good thing about experience is that it can be twice of your failure because you gain experience from your failure and from the examples of others too. Hence to learn or gain experience, always keep the company of people more experienced than you. Moreover, this learning can be gained from anyone say a 5-year-old child or your 60-year-old GrandPaa. Difference will be only that in the later the learning is supervised. So keep you senses open who knows where you can learn or should I say gain experience.

My Dad taught me a lesson that when you go for a task just don't go blindly, plan for it first; think the pre-requistes and agendas. For example when I use to attend meeting with faculty or Director Sir I always know my stuff which I have to discuss. For this you can jot down your things, if paper is not preferred by you, just screble them as draft message in your cellphone, now that can't be an excuse because you might not have pen and paper but you defineltly have a cellphone always, so Go Green too. Belive me, persons I met right from real estate tycoons to universities head they do this without any miss. They write their to-do-list, appointment list and minutes of the meeting to discuss along the day and after the meetings. This will allow your mind to get free from certain issue, say free your RAM and fetch new code to execute in your life. 

Excuses are the reason of your failure. The excuse came into play only when there is a failure. Ever heard anyone giving excuse for achieving something. Ever heard that I was not well so inspite of taking rest I studied well and got good marks but the converse is obivious though. Many people expect many thing from you. Your parent want you to lead your life sucessfully. Your teacher want you to study hard, learn and achive more. Your elder brother want you to stand on your own feet. Your younger brother want an inspiration and support. Hence, to play different roles in life and to achieve every aspect of success never stop learning. Inspite of excuses, with a bit of interespection check out the possibties to convert your reason of failure to success. 

Every coin has two sides, no matter as the sun set and the darkness comes but that also bring shining stars night with a soothing moon light and that is good too. No matter you are far from your home and kins but you are far because of good reasons, a better place where you can learn. 

A healthy environment is boon to learing and negative comment is a path of improving.  

All the best. 

-Pushkal

Dreams ++: My experience of CSI-LNMIIT

CSI-LNMIIT 2015-16

"Just try for the best,don't think of the rest."

My experience of CSI or I should say my contribution to CSI Student Chapter 2015-16 was mere my interest and passion that I put in exploring myself. I always try to set targets for me and try to achieve them with full dedication as far as possible.

The key "funda" in my working style is to never come empty handed after spending your time for a particular task. If you had spent your time so you must have to convert it into something fruitful. In this, your presence of mind and experience will matter. Don't delay work because of your tiredness or say someone's negligence. This will restrict you in getting the opportunity which you might have got with that "YES SIR" kind of motivation. 

I always test my limits and fortunately I had carved out each target I set for me. From being an anchor since ninth standard, a poet, a cricketer and so on so forth I also tested my managing and leadership strength. Instead of leadership, I should say it an understanding. Nothing comes free in 21st century say it be relations tough. My bondings with cool friends, my relations with respected faculties and countless memories of CSI event speeches are my gain from CSI 2015-16. After some years down the lane, I will cherish and remember those days standing side by side with all CSI team in best and worst situations.

I suggest one to be a problem solver and likewise, opportunity creator and a better opportunity will try to grab you. Do your work with dedication and the by-product of success and recognition will follow up.        

Hope you like this, this was an exceptional experience this past year has given me. Willing to write more with all your love and support.

-Pushkal