Pratik Poddar

Just uploaded some photographs of my 14 Day Trip to Haridwar, Yamunotri, Gangotri, Mussoorie, Kedarnath, Badrinath, Rishikesh on facebook. Along with doing some good work, visiting some temples, enjoying nature and having some interesting philosophical discussions, I tried to learn some photography as well. Link for the photographs is here I will use this space to cheer for the Uttarakhand Government for the great tourism development in their state. Looks like the economy of the state is driven by tourism, at least in these 4 months. http://www.gmvnl.com/newgmvn/ shows the great work that they are doing. However I still do not understand some things. I am hoping that a localite would read this and answer. 1) Why are "Prayags" (Meeting point of two rivers) not developed as tourist spots? Two rivers, one grey, one green in colour meet at a point and form a beautiful scene. I could capture one of the prayags out of the 5 great prayags forming the Panchprayag. I am sure go

I wrote a post on purpose of life a few day back. I had some interesting discussion and I am revisiting the post. Some revelations: 1) Life does not have a purpose. Anything created does not have a purpose. Creator has a purpose. So, The creator of life has a purpose. 2) So, the purpose of life is the purpose its creator (God) would have while its creation. Any guesses? 3) As far as I can guess, God would have wanted us to live in such a way that we do not disturb god's world. We help it grow. We help it continue. We help it evolve. We improve the world. 4) So, Purpose of Life would be Help those in need Reproduction Be happy and make others happy Make the world a better place to be in Change the way people live their lives, hopefully in a positive way 5) In Hindu Dharm, there are three types of Rin which must be paid off before one's death: Dev Rin, Pitra Rin and Rishi Rin. Dev Rin is paid off to Devtaa by doing Yagya; Pitra Rin is paid off to Pitar (ancestors) by

Read about this concept in Ignited Minds by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam but I could not appreciate it until a discussion that I had in a beautiful swiss cottage on a beautiful hill in God's own place Uttarakhand :P Some of the ideas in the post are original. I have absolute faith in the idea and if you do not agree with me, I will love to have a discussion. :) Dr Kalam identified five important areas to transform India. These are: 1) Education and Health Care 2) Agriculture 3) Information and Communication 4) Infrastructure 5) Critical Technology Pramukh Swami Maharaj of Swaminarayan Sanstha at Ahmedabad suggested a sixth dimension: 6) Spirituality I did not appreciate the sixth point that why do we need spiritual development for development of the country.  But indeed, we need spiritual development. Spiritual development would comprise of the basic human quality to differentiate between good and bad, right and wrong, God and Satan. Spiritual development would include not ch

Finally its over.. Passed all courses.. I always wanted to write this post.. Its not at all interesting.. But I always wanted to do the analysis.. Some not so well known generalizations of CPI: (which I have heard in the last 4 years) My mentor, brother, friend, senior (all in one) told me before even I came into IIT, "CPI badhegi nahin giregi.. shuru mein acchi maar lena" First year second sem... may of us are in the false impression.. "Abe wo to main padhta nahin hoon.. main padhta to main bhi dassi hota.. its just about choice" . Bull shit statement hai.. Main kitna bhi padh leta 9.5 nahin hota.. ya phir main itna padh hi  nahin sakta tha ki main 9.5 le aaoon.. Second year first sem.. "Ya to CPI le aaon.. ya CG/Manager Ban Jao.. Ek hi baat hai" .. kfh? kitna stupid statement hai.. Third year second sem.. "CPI important to hai.. saali companies ko kaun bataye ki CPI basis par shortlist na kare.. us nehli se jyada CS to mujhe aata hi hai&

Commencement Lecture by Prof. Satish Rao, University of California, Berkeley. (Congratulations! Letters and Sciences, Computer Science Majors, Class of 2003) Link shared to me by Giridhar Addepalli, Senior Software Engineer, Yahoo! Banglore & IIT Kanpur Alumnus. Enjoy! -- John Henry was a steel-drivin man. John Henry worked on the railroad, he drove steel. This consisted of driving a metal spike into the rock with a hammer. John Henry was the greatest of hammerers, as well as the best of gamblers, the biggest of drinkers, nastiest of ghters, and the best of lovers. He was born to the railroad. When he was a baby, he told his momma that he would die with a hammer in his hand. More importantly, its how he fed him family. He worked on a legendary connector in West Virginia, which is a long tunnel in a mountain connecting two sections of track. It took years and hundreds of men to build. One day, a man brought a steam engine to the tunnel and said it could drive steel better

Movies and TV Series have been an integral part of my IIT life. In last 3 years, I have watched more than 400 Hindi Movies and 150 Other Languages Movies (Telugu, Tamil, English, French, etc). Apart from being with 3-4 close friends, I enjoy spending time watching movies/TV series the most. Saw Friends, 24, Seinfeld, 2.5 Men, HIMYM, Hustle, BBT, Tales Pin, Duck Tales, Hannah Montana, Roadies with 100% loyalty and dedication. Just did some math to find that I have devoted approximately 2700 hours to movies/tv series now. That means, on an average I spend approximately 2.5 hours per day watching movies/tv series. :P Movies This Sem: Aamrass Ajab Prem ki gajab kahani Morning Walk London Dreams All the Best Rocket Singh 2012 Twilight Mujhse Shaadi Karogi 3 idiots (twice) Mirchi Its Hot De Dana Dan Akele Hum Akele Tum Julie Pulp Fiction Raat gayi baat gayi Saving Private Ryan Pyaar Impossible Do Knot Disturb Aao wish karein Ishqiya Money as Debt 2006 Good Will Hu

This is my last post from IIT as a student. We are graduating from the best engineering institute of the world. We are seen as among the smartest of the country. Since we are graduating now, I hope this post will help you mull over some of the basic questions which I have been thinking about for these 4 years. As an individual, we have our own problems and will have some throughout our lives (supporting family, paying off loans, getting a job, securing your job, fighting recession, divorce, death, market crash, business loss, health, health of near ones, etc). I agree that we have to take care of these problems first. But look at the bigger picture. Think of a person seeing us from an outside world. Did we meet the expectations of the world? Did we do what we expect out of us? By fulfilling expectations, I don't mean earning 100,000$ a year at the age of 22. I mean doing something "meaningful". Doing something that would be useful for the country/world/human race.. Le