Master

Though I used to boast a lot when I was a kid, recently I guess I don’t, and even when I was a kid, I was not a big fan of listening to someone boast …

So, when Master told me that he would reach the finals of the table tennis tournament with ease, I summarily brushed it aside, with sarcasm. Master, as I call him, writes to me every single day, OK, every single week-day, a mail from his mobile phone, teaching me not-so-easy-to-read Japanese words. He would carefully select an article from the day’s evening edition of Asahi and write down the Japanese-reading for difficult words. I am not a big fan of writing long emails, especially from my difficult-to-type mobile phone, though I really appreciate his long-and-useful mail-lessons. Reading his email along with the “article of the day” has become a habit. So is the habit of visiting his coffee shop with Shanthi and Solomon on Saturday’s, named “Charmonee” which I guess is French, is on the ever busy “route-1”.

When I met him for the first time in a friend’s marriage, I was impressed at the first sight. Looking at his suit, and demeanor, I presumed him to be a "big shot", a great man. He gave the speech for the newly-wed. A year has passed since, and getting to know him better, he did not disappoint me, he is indeed a great man, but he was just happy (without being a big shot). He was clear in his thoughts … simple in his approach, yet from time-to-time, he utters things-that-summarily seems stupid, yet worth pondering. He was born in the same year as my dad, never married, runs not less than a 100 Kilometers a week, competes in every single marathon in the Kansai region, and plays table tennis 3 times a week, in his 60’s now. Before meeting him, I had plans to retire early.

As usual I met him this Saturday, and invited him for a film party in my home-theater on Sunday; he told me that he would take part in the local table tennis tournament. With an 80% chance of rain, and bunking church when Shanthi’s not around, and nothing else to do on a rainy Sunday, I thought I better go to support him. I wanted to see him live up to his own boasting and hence expressed my desire to go and support him, he was happy, and told me to come early. I asked him, “How about, 12 Noon?”, for I considered, 12 noon to be early for lonely-Sunday’s. He replied, without hesitation that he would be "playing in the finals" by the time. I could not hide the sarcastic flash from my face, though I tried hard not to show it. For a moment I thought that he was also sarcastic.

Master, as I have learnt over the period of time, never cares about sarcasm, and never gets angry. He is a character, the character. Last year, he was eliminated in the earlier rounds by a man, whom I knew. In fact, I considered his table tennis as "beatable". Anyway, with nothing to do on Sunday, I decided to go and support him. I thought, that it’s a tribute to a person who writes to me every single (week) day.

Having said all this, I myself, like table tennis, hmmnnn…I play table tennis, better than my tennis, in my own amateurish style, with my JPY 800 racket, whose rubber Solomon likes to stand on. It’s lost its shine and gleams with Solomon’s shoe marks, does not have any grip what-so-ever, yet I stood second in the Kishoin table tennis tournament. I was mostly lucky as my opponents simply lost, and eventually made me win. And in the final’s, I was pitted against an old guy, far older than my dad, and lost my mood for any competitive table tennis against the elderly opponent, and simple gave way for his victory, and after he had won, I figured out, that I would have lost even if I would have fought, for his game was (far) better than mine.

I had noted down the name of the venue and told him that I would put the GPS enabled iPhone to test. iPhone GPS is not bad, after-all, it is the first ever GPS that I am using, and I never knew anything better or worse for any sort of comparison. During the rainy Sunday, in which you hate riding your bicycle, it took me for a real-good-ride. The iPhone GPS predicted that I would reach the destination in about 45 minutes by walk, and I took 55 minutes riding my bicycle. I was definitely not riding at walking speed. I will analyze what went wrong later. But, Master and I took only 25 minutes on our way back. Master is definitely smarter than the iPhone GPS, inside Kyoto. Or I went 30 degree uphill and came sliding down ;-)

7th, March, 2010, Sunday, woke up for the 1st time at 7AM, thought it was early, and wished to sleep for an hour more, woke up again at half-past-9, and stayed in bed till 10. When I finally managed to get up, a mountain of “to-be-washed” begged me for attention. I quickly transferred the mountain into the washing machine. Thanks to the drier function, I don’t have to bother drying the clothes. Made some garlic toast, and ate it with milk, took a hot shower, for some strange reason shaved my face (though I don’t do this (even) on weekdays) … and then left home at around 11:15AM, and hoped to reach the venue before 12. After getting to know some new places around my neighborhood as I was just going in circles, (thanks to iPhone GPS), I reached the Venue, 15 minutes past 12.

Inside the big gymnasium, there was Master, standing with a grey Jacket, white gloves, and a dry unfathomable smile in his face. He was standing as if he wanted to leave. Looking at all this and adding my own creativity, I for a moment, thought, that he had lost and was just waiting for me, and would probably leave with me. He was standing with some kind of urgency in his face. He did not bother much even when I went near him, and with the same dry smile in his face, he told me that in the first round, his opponent got defeated 3-0, and quickly ran to the toilet. Urgency ... ah, my creativity.

I saw a big contingent from Kishoin (the place where I live), and the place where I play table tennis. The group from Kishoin was happy to see me, and even gave me some sweets, for they thought I had come to cheer them. But when they learnt that I had come to just support my friend, they gave a, give-our-sweet-back “you moron” look. Despite their staring at me, I ate it.

Master was running here and there, till his 2nd round match. He predicted that he would beat his next opponent, 3-0, and he did. For the first time, I saw master, playing table tennis. His table tennis, like his whole life, was smooth, ordinary, simple, neat, and gentle; it was an ideal show like the great Roger Federrer of tennis. Master never tried to win, but his opponent simply lost trying to win. Master for his part, made sure he kept the ball at play. His face did not look rash, confident, or dejected, it was just flat. During the match, he was just gently smiling at his opponent. And while I was clapping intently to support him, I felt, it did not matter much.

After the match, master came to me, and while I congratulated him, he told me that it would be difficult to beat the next opponent. He was not worried, but he just thought that it would be difficult. And difficult it was, master lost the 1st set, without any fight. The opponent was way too good. After the 1st set, for a moment, I thought, everything was over. Into the second set, master lost the 1st 5 points in a row, the opponent was 180-degree opposite to master, he would cheer himself, with “ehhhh” and then look at Master and say things like, “now-you--serve” and things like that. I thought, master is losing the mental game. But master was just trying to keep the ball in play. And into the later part of the second set, his opponent started making errors, unforced errors, and got into a shell … really … no-body could believe it. He lost the 2nd set 12-10. And went on to win the 3rd, but he lost the 4th and the 5th, 11-2 or something like that. After the game Master told me that he was lucky. I thought the guy perished in his own mind-games.

As promised earlier Master was in the finals. Having seen his game, I was no more surprised that he was in the finals. I am sure that, if I was ever pitted against him, he would defeat me, while he is just sleeping.

Master and I had earlier planned to leave the venue at around half past 2. But since the final’s was yet to take place, Master was worried about his promise. He went into the match with a lot of confidence, and won the 1st 5 points in the 1st set, and suddenly I saw some anxiety in him, and he started playing for the winners and eventually lost the game-set-match 0-3. He was different in the final game, it seemed like he wanted to win. I should never take the credit away from his opponent, who was very brilliant.

After the game, I promised myself that I would indulge myself with a better table tennis racket that Solomon wouldn’t stamp, and put in some more practice and beat the guy who defeated Master. Vengeance is it? I am sure I can defeat him if I practise 24-hours a day, for 1 whole year ;-)

We reached home at around 3PM. Master was more interested in coming back with me just to keep his promise, rather than receiving his runner’s up trophy. He is a "real Japanese" man, a nice human being, an innocent child in his sixties, who teaches me a lot more than Japanese. I used to like him, and now it’s a mixture of respect and liking.

In 2007, when I stepped into Kyoto, I would have never dreamt that I would meet so many humble, yet great people. Now I know that, there is something special in Kyoto that I would never get anywhere else in Japan …

Mortals

If we shall say that, it’s hard for someone to find the way into the heart. It’s doubly hard to let them leave. In planet earth, most of the human lives are attached, with emotional attachments. Like it or not, we will have to live with it. Trying to be conservative and closing the way to you, might make things worse, loneliness. And allowing many would makes things equally difficult as allowing none.

My wife and kid are spending their vacation back home and I am living alone bombarded with emotions. Man it’s hard for me to stand, sometimes often.

There are some people who have got their PR in your heart. It may be your family, friends or your co-worker. Sometimes they are in your heart, since you respect them, or sometimes you like them, friends for example, or you love them, as your kid, Mom, Dad, Wife, Siblings, … You never miss those people you respect, for example, your manager in your first job, or a brainy co-worker that you admired. But you miss friends, and family. Sometimes it’s hazy when we try to differentiate the feelings towards a friend and a family member.

Recently, I started liking weekdays, as I am busy with work, and the room for emotions squeezes out into vanity. But once you return home, its cold, heater doesn’t help, yes, you seek warmth, and man-made heaters are useless. You miss the warmth of your family, friends, and the need to socialize. You live to perform the ever mundane tasks of making things that are faster, cheaper, lighter, etc. and all things that we think can make your company’s stakeholders rich. Mundane task, oh these mundane tasks. Sometimes there is a feeling that everything is Mundane, tennis, photography, eating, drinking, everything. Why!

Initially, I judged it as depression, till I started listening to Anto over the telephone, saying “arigato”, “potato”, and a host of non-decipherable words. They echo in my ears, long after he speaks to me. He’s a kid, and never talks for more than a minute, and his creative words, which only god and angels can understand. Sometimes, I listen intently to what he speaks, the more I concentrate, the less I make out. So these days, I just listen to the tone, which he changes with finesse. Probably, like his father, he may talk people into anything or is he an orator of some sort. Well, frankly, I have no idea. I miss him, that’s it, and sometimes terribly.

Sometimes you might assume that some of your friends might compensate these loneliness with their friendship. But, probably, you, and your heart, don’t want any compensation. They just want what they want. They never seek compensations. They don’t use their head, they are heart, the emotional part …

From time to time, I clean my home to find his table spoon, well below the TV stand, or the refrigerator, just to smile at it. I would have yelled at him, when I see him doing that, but now I simply miss those things.

These emotions, are without doubt, hard, but are wonderful. I want to cherish them with joy. But it beats me, more than often …

iPhone 3G-S (Beware)

Slowly and steadily I am getting used to the iPhone which replaced my (much loved) normal phone. Though everything’s new, one thing is for sure, I will have to get used to this, paradigm shift in user interface, or should I say, mobile telephones. But, being an avid user of a (normal) mobile phone, I expect some of the (useful) features that were available in my normal phone in this apple’s version. Trivial things that made me comfortable with my old phone are no more available in iPhone, I will be listing them after some (brief) complaints on the contract related stuff …

The iPhone contract (in Japan, Softbank) in itself is a bit less user-friendly,
 The Japanese carrier Softbank sells the iPhone at a price much (much) higher than the US. Never know why? Its really ridiculous ~~~
 Previously, I used to pay a small insurance on my telephone that covered my phone against repairs, or accidental break-downs, like falling into water, etc. And, iPhone too comes with an expensive Apple care, which does not cover accidental break-downs etc. (The safety pack (Anshin pack) is no more available). So if you accidentally drop your phone, you will end up paying JPY ~20K, or JPY ~60K depending on the damages (your luck). And when I think about this (accidental fall), and the 20-60K thing, somehow I am uncomfortable handling the phone. Phooo …. iPhono-dropo-phobia is it?
 If you wish to re-pay for the iPhone in installments, then you will have to repay in exactly 24 months, and you enter into a contract for 24 months, and you need to cancel “some the contract” exactly after 24 months, not the 25th or 23rd, barring which, Softbank will extend your contract for another 24 months. And, you need to pay another JPY 9800 to break the contract. And … the beautiful (hmmm … the bad) thing is, as of now, Softbank would never know (say), when your 24 months will expire. Is it a trick Softbank?
 Once you sign your contract, there is no way out. Absolutely, no way. Funny thing is, when you sign up with them, they get your signatures in at-least 5 different places. So, you will be signing more times than, when you are buying a brand new car. Somehow this made me uncomfortable.
 One important thing, I still use Softbank, NOT because I like them, but just because many of my Indian friends (still) use Softbank, and they would kick me, if I changed my carrier. Sigh. I hate the signal quality. Once I happened to visit someone near Himeji, and there was absolutely no tower for a long-long distance in and around the area. In fact, I HATE Softbank’s signal quality. iPhone 3G only adds to the woes.

Enough of the contract, the following features that are normally available in your standard mobile phone are not available in your phone,

 Disaster warning, like earthquake warning, which was part of my earlier mobile phones, is not available in the iPhone. So users of iPhone cannot be informed of disasters.
 In my earlier phones, there used to be small (multi-colored LED), that would flash, when there is a missed call, or an un-read email message. This really helped me know about the missed call without un-locking the mobile phone’s screen. In the iPhone, there is no such LED, or any Indication, you need to check your home screen to find out.
 I like clean desktops, and in my earlier phones, I go to the Menu-bar to see the applications and perform other operations. So, when there is a missed call or something, the notification was very clear. But in the iPhone, it seems to be lost in the crowd of icons in the home screen. I think, the home screen is (very) crowded.
 Getting a App store account, without a credit card, was a night-mare. And it is mandatory for downloading applications (which you will need for transferring your phone book from your previous telephone).
 Transferring “my phone book” from the previous mobile phone to the iPhone was a pain in the Ass, really. (Especially with the procedures that I had to go through)…

Though I would never come to terms with the contract related issues, even after I signed one, I think the functional issues in iPhone are due to the paradigm shift, which apple experienced.

The standard mobile phone started as an extension to the basic cordless telephone. Features that were needed while we are on the move were then added to it, bit by bit, like, a pager, the music player, an email client, a mini web browser, the document viewer, a movie player, television, … and a host of applications.

Now, iPhone started as a (simple) Music player, in iPod touch and grew into a mobile phone. The only new thing they have given us is the touch panel. Now, if that is the only thing that made it unique, there are a host of other telephones like the Nokia N95, Sharp 941, …. Which are far better than the iPhone, in every single aspect.

But then, why did I buy an iPhone. Do you want to hear why? Frankly … I wanted the Nokia N95, I searched, researched, and found out that no-carrier in Japan has one. And … then I though, I would settle for the Sharp 941, the worst part is 941 is almost 2 times expensive than an iPhone.

Recession lurking around, I became a proud owner of the (all new) iPhone 3G-S …And started counting to 24 ;-)

Sayonara ...

You made me hear the world, when I was away from home, and at home. The gray shade in you had been turning white, age shows. You brought me messages and pictures from friends. I always walked with you. Even Shanthi used to be annoyed if you don’t accompany me. Living in Japan, I made you silent for most of your life, but you had to listen to my conversations, and occasional blushing and blabbering. If only you knew Japanese, you would have been laughing everyday, at me, when I talk. You were not one of the best of my friend, but helped me make best friends, a lot of them, thank you. You woke me up. Sometimes I have played with you, but I should be honest, I didn’t enjoy it.

Antony liked you too. You would make him smile when he cried. You lit up even after he threw you to the wall, the floor, and every-place he can throw you to. You started again and when he walked over you, a few times. Probably, he believed that you can talk. Sometimes he saw himself in you.

I had to part with you. Mortality had got you too, or was it my greed, selfishness, ego, or what-ever. Of late, I had been thinking of abandoning you, and yesterday decided on it, and got the all new, iPhone 3G-S.

Missing Anto …

Discounting anger, it’s long since I was emotional to this extent… Least did I expect this to happen. After 3 weeks of vacationing with our parents, I had to leave, my family, for work, back to Japan. After a long … long time, my eyes welled up, I was reluctant to leave.

Things only got bad when we reached the Madurai airport, being a domestic one, security used to be a bit relaxed, not anymore. Normally the procedure to board a flight in Madurai is

“ You Check-in→ Clear the Security screening → boarding”

You enter the airport to Check-in, after which you would be allowed to come out of the airport to talk to your folks who usually wait outside till such time your flight takes off. So, usually I come out after checking-in, talk to them, and bid good-bye before proceeding with the security. So, this time, I left some hand-baggage with them, hoping to collect them after my check-in.

But, after check-in, this (merciless) military policeman, guarding the airport entry, for in-explicable reasons, did not allow me to go out of the airport, to meet my parents. I was upset, as I could not bid good-bye to my family members. Shanthi’s parents had come down from Trichy just to see me off. Some how, while all these things were happening, for a moment, I thought that I would be missing Anto, very much. Shanthi was standing on the other side of the gate with Anto, and me inside the Airport. Cursing those terrorists who are the reason for this “high security”, I was still hoping to find my way out.

Madurai is a small town, hmmm…, not so small though, but small. But, somehow, I knew many people who work in the Airport. Talking to a few of them, I completed some procedures to get out of the airport, talk to my family members, and bid them good-bye.

But, after the incident with the security personnel, and the subsequent emotional flash, of missing Anto, I felt like I am going to miss, Anto very much. This thought did not strike me when we were arrived at the strategy of a month each in Madurai and Tiruchy. Shanthi and I had decided that Anto together with Shanthi will stay back for a month each with my parents and in-laws, hoping that he would get used to my parents, in-laws, traffic, noise, dust, mosquito, food, etc …

The emotional feeling would only grow stronger and stronger when Anto was enjoying innocently, watching the cars passing by, and making inviting gestures at the other kids. For a moment, I thought, he was ignoring me. Silly me! The gravity of the situation took to me.

Actually, many of our close family friends did warn me about this “missing phase”, which I could not visualize when Anto was always with me. A transit time of 18 hours in Kualalumpur helped me with the introspection. From the time he joined me in mid 2008, I had less time for him, as I was always busy, with my career, Japanese language, sports, photography, etc. I did not spend much time with him, to the point that, when I spent 3 hours with him in the absence of Shanthi, I wrote a blog. I loved him; somehow, I did not find time for him, with him. But, the past 3 weeks, without my own knowledge, I spent 3 weeks with him, all time, all day long. And, probably, he got closer to me than ever before. I had always loved him, so much… but never imagined that I will miss him, if he is away from me, for his much needed education. I don’t know, if he is missing me.

During the course of writing this post, I was wondering, if I could cut short their stay in India, may be, 15 days each or something. Looking loo…ong down, one thing is for sure, I need to get used to living away from him. He may go to a college is another town, find work in a far away country, marry and go away … But …now, its … hard, for me.

I am just wondering, how much my parents would have missed me, when I left them for work, to Chennai, to Bangalore, then to Japan, when I got married, … , I wish they did not miss me ;-) but … for now,

I MISS YOU, MY SON ANTO

背伸びをするな

During the later half of the year, I almost burnt myself down. Partly owing to my self created hyper-unrealistic schedules. After coming to Japan, especially after marriage, till the first half of this year, magically, I managed (for quite sometime) to work to those packed schedules, but slowly I started feeling like that inside my head there is no more space for my brain to maneuver. Steadily, I realized, my performance started to take a nose dive. It became notable during my Tennis sessions, I lost concentration to such a level, that, I even thought of quitting it, a month or so back.

But then, I sat back, and decided to look back, at what is really happening to my life. I am not a super-man, neither have I ever thought that I am one. Despite knowing this fact, I am a bit lenient when it comes to adding “bits” of something new to my schedule. Curiosity, at its peek, I wanted to try every single thing that comes my way. Few things that I have been doing or have tried in the past couple of years goes like, Photography, Japanese language studies, Tennis, Table tennis, Marathon, rock climbing, besides studying a hell a lot of new technologies.

I enjoyed each one of the activities, and I wanted to master them all. It seems that realization follows once something notable happens, mostly with a negative effect. For me, realization came, when I realized (after being pointed out many times), that I was not even listening to others properly. At some point, I just heard only half of what people said. For example, after returning home, my wife starts explaining the things that happened during the day, and most of the times, I would not have listened to her, even a bit. I soon realized, I was not able to listen. It was something like the hard-disk inside my head became “disk full”. Not something pleasant.

Not being sure about the cause of this, “listening disorder”, I just started to check, I called off some of hobbies one after the other, table tennis was the first in the list, just because I was reasonably good at it. And then slowly, reduced the number of times I ran in a week, and also reduced the number of books that I was reading.

Results started showing up, incredibly fast. Tennis performance improved, incredibly fast. I could listen to my wife with ease, though I acted as if I could not hear ;-) … So … 2009 taught me a good lesson ~~~~ I have to take few things at a time, and never, “Bite more than what I can chew” …

Mac or Windows …

Back in year 2000, I got a chance to use an iMac for work. The first impression was, “looks were far better than its underlying software”. I found it extremely difficult to use, the mouse, opening and closing applications, ejecting an USB disk, opening a drive and browsing for files inside folders, …, it was tedious for a normal user like me. Our company was trying hard to write device drivers for this beautiful (yet not so useful) computers. I thought, that an iMac would (only) fit well on a front-office. May be harsh, but that was my impression. I thought, Apple made beautiful yet unusable products. I was impressed with the iBook too, an Apple product, it looked very cool, and that was all I could say about it.

The impression has not changed, yet, probably because, I never got a chance to work with Mac again. And on top of that, I was (very) happy with windows.

I had been a system software engineer, churning out, firmware, device drivers, and a lot of test applications, everything in or using Windows. I find it fast and easy to work in windows, even today, working with a hardware team developing almost everything in Linux, but I still use Windows ;-) …

Long back, I had my own complaints, like “the BSOD”, that popped up more often than the dialog boxes that I had created. The kernel issues, (mostly documented, and some undocumented), caused nightmares. But, things that you coded, would mostly work, and if not, debugging support was good. It helped *normal*, *non-geeky*, software engineers write working and commercially viable applications and drivers.

That apart, in my earlier job, Mac related developments were reserved for geeky engineers, who were, probably, above normal. I would say they were hackers, who would find undocumented stuff, prodding the web, or reading sample code, or in the worst case, reverse engineer some of the already working code. Mac had virtually no (good) debugging support, and simple issues would take developers days to fix. Not only the development in Mac, only geeks could use it.

Mostly after the iPod’s success, Mac came into Limelight…

Bad time for Microsoft started (continued …), with the much hyped Vista, ending up not even better than XP, Windows users were fed-up and started looking elsewhere. Jobs is very good at attracting people hating MS, because, he hates MS more than his love for Apple. And good time for Apple, Many people, were bored to see the “same old windows screen”, which changed little after ~95, thought a hell a lot changed beneath. They also loved the Mac’s looks and sometimes started living with the interior. It’s purely my guess, sometimes we just get married just for the looks, and then live with the (odd) issues. Apple, flush with the cash, from iPod sales, pushed Mac to new levels. The best move was to junk the expensive and power hungry PPC and move towards cheap and low-power Intel. Eventually, they are poised to be a serious contender for Microsoft.

Will Microsoft bet its fortune on Windows 7 …

One main difference which is Microsoft’s strength and Apple’s weakness, is the ease with which a PC running Windows can be configured. Addition of a hardware support is easy, a reason why, it beats Mac by 9 to 1 in sales, even today. But this weakness in Apple is slowly becoming its strength. As hardware additions becomes difficult or impossible, Mac is more stable as there are no third party drivers. Hackers spare Mac and target the PC, and this would prompt Microsoft to release patch after patch, and suddenly the system would become damn slow, just because of all those patches.

Though I said all this, I want to try using a Mac. I would say, I really want to be a geek ;-) … For the time being, its expensive, and out of my reach. Somebody please gift me your used Mac ;-) …

Note: All the impression about Mac are mine, and I guess it might be mostly outdated.