I’ve amassed a lot of knowledge over time giving Career Advice. Now, I’ve decided to share this knowledge with the rest of the world. I notice that most people have the same set of questions, and I’ve compiled them all here for your convenience.

Q: What branch of Engineering should I major in – Information Science or Computer Science?
A: As everyone already knows, the right answer is B.A in Philosophy. There are several reasons why Philosophy is better than Engineering. Here are the top 2:
1) The net sum of knowledge gained during Engineering is negative.
2) Turning in a blank answer sheet has deep philosophical meaning. In a Philosophy course, it might get you some marks.

Q: But I’m really good with Computers and Programming.
A: So you’re willing to work hard? That’s good. Hard work will bring you deep satisfaction, loads of riches, power, fame, get you 120 patents and make Rakhi Sawant fall for you.

Q: Really?
A: No.

Q: What skills are necessarily to survive in the Real World?
A: You mostly need the “soft” skills. Namely being able to speak Jargoneese, ability to listen to endless rambling and suppress the urge to murder and the ability to pretend to look interested when 4/5ths of your brain has gone off to sleep.

Q: What should I look for in a company before joining?
A: The answer depends on if you’re going for campus placement or are changing jobs.
If you’re in campus, the most important thing is the magic number on the last slide of the PPT.
If you’re changing jobs, pick the job that has the chill life.

Q: How can I become rich and famous like Bill Gates?
A: LOL! Dream On!

Q: What’s your secret formula for success?
A: Aditya’s secret recipe for success:
1) Join Engineering
2) Play snooker for 4 years
3) Join Software Company
4) Redefine success as not getting fired. Then spend all your time writing silly blog posts

• 10 Comments

Back in College, I owned a bike – A Silver Suzuki Fiero and I loved it. Not enough to keep it clean, but that’s a different story. Anyway, I was riding to college in the freezing pre-dawn time (7:30 AM), lost in my thoughts, talking to the voices in my head.

Voice #1: “Why do these autos write 2500cc at the back when they only have a 150cc engine?”
Voice #2: “It’s the placebo effect. If you believe in yourself, the impossible becomes possible.”
Voice #1: “That’s ridiculous. The auto can’t increase it’s power just by believing it has a big engine!”
Voice #2: “You underestimate the power of self-esteem.”
Voice #1: “Auto’s don’t have self-esteem. They’re not even living things.”
Voice #2: “And you? You’re just a figment of this joker’s imagination!”
Me: “JUST A MINUTE! Who’re you calling a joker?”
Russian Voice:”???????! ???????!”
Voice #1: “What? We really gotta teach this dude some english. What…are…you…saying?
Russian Voice: “BIG! BLACK! 4-LEGS!”
Voice #2: “Auto’s have only 3 wheels, mate!”

Only at this point did I realize that the Russian Voice in my head was talking about the Big Black Buffalo that was proudly standing in the middle of the road. There it was, majestically rooted in it’s rightful place – in the middle of this urban, 6-lane road. And I was on a collision course with this monster.

Relativity says that time slows as you approach the speed of light. My corollary is that it stops entirely when approaching Big Black Buffalos. For a moment, my eyes met the Buffalo’s. It had the gangster look in its eyes. It seemed to be saying “Game Over!” Have you ever looked into the eyes of a Buffalo? You should try it sometime. It’s like looking at The Godfather. You suddenly have this inexplicable urge to bow down and ask for forgiveness for trampling on the Earth. At that point I realized that Buffalos are the true rulers of this planet. We’re just pollution.

Voice #1: “Aaarrrggghhh… Brake! HIT THE BRAKE, YOU FOOL!”
Me: “Eh? What?”
Voice #2: “See ya’ll on the other side of this world. It was nice knowing you, Russian Dude! Peace.”

I hit the brakes hard, but there was no way I could stop before I hit the thing. The Bike’s wheel crashed first, then me. I bounced off it’s thick skin, performed, involuntarily, a 360-degree somersault, and landed on the other side, flat on the road. The bike had crashed into the Buffalo, and rebounded right back. The Buffalo was unmoved. It hardly flinched.

It turned it’s head towards me, looked into my eyes and said “You Live. But I’ll be seeing you soon”. I managed to get my bike up, and limped my way to get some first aid. But the Close Encounters of the Buffalo Kind left me shaken. It took me quite some time to recover. I learnt to treat them with a lot more respect after this incident. I still ask for forgiveness everytime I see one.

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The usual path for most people to take through the vast Literature of our civilization is fairy tales -> comic books -> Shakespeare -> Salman Rushdie -> “How to reach Heaven in 5 easy steps”

Each stage leads to higher consciousness and a better understanding of the Universe. Apparently. I don’t know. Because I never went past the second stage.

I love comic books. When I was little, “Tinkle” was my favoritestest book. I kept buying them like crazy. At first, my parents thought it was cute, and encouraged my “Reading Habit”. But when I was reading Tinkle in 10th Standard, they started to get a little worried.

Dad: “So you’re still reading Tinkle eh?”
Me : “Yeah. Tantri the Mantri is my favorite”
Dad: “Here. Try reading this “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea“. You might like it”
Me: “What’s it about?”
Dad: “It’s about an adventure of a Hero in Unknown Worlds”
Me: “Like Shikari Shumbhu?”

When I got to college, I was saving up pocket money to buy “Archie & Friends“. My Mom was getting pretty irritated with my sub-standard reading habits. She threatened to throw away all my previous Tinkle and Archie collections into the garbage.

Mom : “If I get rid of all your comics, at least you might try reading something different”
Me: “After I start making money, I’ll buy them all over again. Along with the entire Calvin & Hobbes collection. You can’t stop me, no one can! Muhahahhhaaha “

But comic books taught me the value of money. While in College, I started doing student assistantships, entering programming contests designing websites for random people and all kinds of shady schemes to save enough money to buy those overpriced comic books. At every opportunity I would go to the bookstores and sneakily read the comic books. I longed for the day when I could finally buy them. It a was very difficult time, but at least my life had purpose.

When my Wife, then my Girlfriend, and I were getting to know each other, it was a very awkward time.
Wife: “My favorite book is the “Bridges of Madison County“. It is so moving, so brilliantly deep and emotionally honest. It makes me cry everytime.”
Me: “My favorite is ‘Asterix and the Roman Agent‘. The best part is when Obelix hits the Roman legionaries. Hahahaha. It makes me laugh everytime.”

She kinda freaked out when she found out that I had a cupboard full of comic books. But I pointed out to her that she had a cupboard full of clothes and if you really think about it, comic books and clothes are not really THAT different.

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I hear voices in my head. I’ve always heard them, even when I was little. I thought it was normal. After all, everyone kept talking about stuff like “My Conscience tells me that…” or “My inner voice says…”. I assumed that’s what everyone was talking about.

The only problem is that the voices seem to have a will of their own. They seem to be vaguely interested in me and my life, but mostly they have an independent agenda. Mostly it is good company to have them around, but sometimes they can get quite annoying.

Like this time, back in PU College, when this really cute girl came up to me and said “Nice T-Shirt”.

Voice #1: “What mate, getting lucky today, eh?”
Voice #2: “Tell her that you wore the same shirt yesterday and forgot to take a bath today. Yeah, chicks dig that!”

Me (trying to ignore the voices, to the cute girl): “Why thank you! I picked it out just yesterday!”

Voice #1: “Hey everyone, check this out. Our man is actually talking to a real girl!”
I suddenly hear a lot of noise in my head. It’s like in a theatre just before the movie starts. Lot of murmuring going around. Suddenly, in my head, there is a new voice with a strange accent.

New Voice: “??? ?????????? ??????”
Voice #1: “What? Who are you?”
Voice #2: “Is that russian? How do you speak russian?”
Voice #1: “Looks like he’s from a previous birth. Poor thing. Some one should tell him the re-incarnation is complete.”
Voice #2: “…go..back..this..is..a..new..life..do..you..understand..”

In the meanwhile, the cute girl really seems to be liking me. She’s already asked for my name, and is now trying to make a conversation.

Cute Girl: “…and so, that book changed my life. Do you read a lot?”
Me: “Yeah. All the time. Read is all I do. That’s my thing!”

This was back when I hadn’t perfected my lying skills. I just blurted out whatever came out.

Cute Girl: “Really? Who is your favorite author?”

Now I was in trouble. Not only did I not read anything, I didn’t even know any random names to throw around. I felt I should say “Whoever wrote our Physics text book. I like it because it’s pretty small, eh?”, but that didn’t sound sophisticated enough.

Me (to the voices inside my head): “Hey guys, a little help?”
Voice #1 (ignoring me): “…and you can take your fancy russian accent back to Serbia. I am the leader over here!”
Voice #2: “Err…I think you mean Siberia. Serbia is a different country”
Voice #1: “Oh, you SHUT UP! You’re going to be going too, if you don’t watch out”
New Voice: “? ????????? ???? ???? ????!”
Voice #1: “What did he say? Listen mister, you’re gonna get it real bad…”

Me (to the voices inside my head): “Take it easy guys. Relax. Focus a bit on the outside. I need some help!”
Voice #2 (ignoring me): “If you don’t watch your language, You’ll be the one back in Russia…”

I hear a lot of shoving and raised voices inside my head. Sounds of something crashing. This is great. A fight has broken out inside my head amongst the voices. And they’re thrashing the place. Now I know why my IQ keeps dropping. I’m standing there just staring blankly like a fool. I decided to take matters into my own hands, seeing there was no help coming from the brain department.

Me (to the cute girl): “I mostly read Classical Russian Literature”
Cute Girl: “Really?”

There is suddenly a shocked silence in my head. All the fighting seems to have stopped.

Voice #1: “What did you just say? ARE YOU CRAZY?”
Voice #2: “Classical literature? All you’ve read are comic books!”
Voice #1: “Old Tinkle comics is as close to Classical as you’ve gotten!”
Me (to the voices): “I don’t know why I said that! Quick, tell me some Russian authors’ name”
Voice #1: “Err…..OK, go with ‘Elizabeth Taylor’ “
Voice #2: “That’s not Russian. Try Vodka Martini.”
Voice #1: “That’s not even a NAME!”
Russian Voice : “Mikhail Kalashnikov! Mikhail Kalashnikov!”
Voice #1: “Isn’t he the dude that invented the AK-47?”
Voice #2: “Doesn’t matter. It sounds Russian enough. Go with it”

Me (to the cute girl): “Yeah, Mostly Mikhail Kalashnikov”

The girl’s expression turns into a frown. Oh, no! She’s knows about the AK-47. Aaaarrrrghhh. You stupid voices! You’ve gotten me killed. Oh no! Why do I even listen to you?

Cute Girl: “Kalashnikov? Yes, sounds familiar. You should tell me more about him. I’ve gotta go to class now, but I’ll see you later!”

Phew! Just Saved!

Me (to the voices): “Guys, that was a close one!”
Voice #1: “Yeah. Good for you. Russian Voice, you’re not so bad after all! Come on, I’ll show you around!”
Russian Voice: “???????, ???????!”

• 6 Comments

Here is a plot of my weight against time. If you can’t see the image, please click here.

Copyright © 2007, Aditya Kulkarni. All rights reserved.

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Soon after I started working at Trilogy, I started getting interested in the stock market. The world’s biggest Casino! Where fortunes are made and everyone gets rich! I used to work with this guy, let’s call him Atif*, who got me very interested in this stock business. He used to give me stock tips everyday, and made “guaranteed” predictions that stock X was going to double within a month.

One day, he “highly recommended” the Reliance Petroleum stock to me. They were coming out with an IPO, and, according to Atif, anyone who didn’t invest in it had “bloody stone-cold rocks in their head”.

So I go ahead and apply for the Reliance Petroleum’s (RPL) IPO. It’s only 90 rupees a share. That’s cheap. Even Fried Rice in Shanti Sagar costs more than that. It must be a good deal.

Day 0: The stock opens on the stock market, and rockets to 110 Rupees. I’m feeling good. Wow, this is easy money. Why haven’t I been doing this for years?

Day 1: RPL = 85 rupees.
Oh man! I’ve already lost a few thousand rupees. I should have sold it off on the first day itself. But that’s OK. I read on the internet that investing in the stock market requires a lot of patience. So I’ll wait one more week.

Day 3: RPL = 80 rupees.
Oh, great. Just great. The stock just keeps on going down. And Atif has suddenly disappeared on vaction.

Day 7: RPL = 89 rupees.
I learnt that the absolute price of a stock is meaningless. What matters is how much the price changes. RPL stock can be 90 rupees, Infosys can be 19,000 Rupees and TCS can be 500 Rupees. There is absolutely no meaning to the absolute price of the stock. There goes my cheaper-than-fried-rice theory.

Day 12: RPL = 118 rupees.
Ah! My patience has paid off. I’m going to sell the stock. Or should I wait for a few more days for it to go up? What if I sell it now and it goes up tomorrow? Maybe I’ll wait till it reaches 120 rupees, and then I’ll sell it off. I promise.

Day 13: RPL = 119 rupees.
One more. Just one more rupee and I’ll sell it.

Day 14: RPL = 75 rupees.
Aaaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhh! Dammit! I should have sold it yesterday only. The stock has fallen to it’s lowest level! I’d have been better if I had kept the money in my Savings account. At least they pay 3% interest!

Day 40: RPL = 120 rupees.
Finally! After more than 1 month, the stock has finally reached my sell-off threshold. I immediately sell it off. That’s it. I don’t want anything to do with this stock market. It’s too risky.

Day 41: RPL = 149 rupees.
Oh, COME ON! The stock goes up AFTER I sold it. Why does this happen to me? WHY ME?

Day 42:
The bank pays me the money received from the sale of the stock. But wait, there is more bad news. The bank has charged me 0.75% transaction fee. Unfortunately, that’s on the selling price, which is equal to 20% of the profit. Plus, there’s a 2% education tax and a service fee and VAT on that. Additionally, I also have to pay Capital Gains tax. I calculated that I’d have been better off putting this money in a simple Fixed Deposit. %@*#@!$ stock market.

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I’ve never understood Orkut. I don’t understand what makes it so popular and why people spend so much time on Orkut. Apparently, I totally missed the “Social Networking” bus.

So, in an effort to catch up, I recently asked a “Master” of Orkut some tips and tricks. I was shocked to learn the existence of several “unwritten” laws that need to be followed for proper Orkut etiquette. Here are some of the Orkut Laws that this person shared with me:

Orkut Law #1: U wil lern 2 spek da talk.
Apparently, using complete words and correct grammar will reduce your “coolness” factor. Only nerds and Grammar Nazis speak in proper English with full words. On Orkut, your sentences don’t even have to have a subject, predicate, verbs and adjectives. That’s what they mean by freedom. “Free us from the tyranny of the subject and the verbs”

Orkut Law #2: Thou shalt upload photos from all your trips.
The Orkut album section apparently says a lot about you. Proper Orkut etiquette says that you should upload 1 photo for every trip that you’ve gone to. If these trips are to foreign places, then you get bonus points. And If you’ve been to the Golden Gate bridge, you HAVE to put a photo of you in front of the bridge. It is an Orkut LAW.

Orkut Law #3: Collect scraps and testimonials
The number of scraps you have is a direct indicator of how popular you are, not just on Orkut, but also in real life. Also, if you have testimonials with weird ASCII art like this makes you cool.

               .-"""-.    .-"""-.
              /       `..'       \
             |                    |
             |      H A P P Y     |
              \    VALENTINE'S   /
             __\     D A Y !    /
        _   /  |`\            /'
       | \  \/_/  `\        /'
       \_\| / __    `\    /'
          \/_/__\     `\/'  .--='/~\
   ____,__/__,_____,______)/   /{~}}}
   -,-----,--\--,-----,---,\'-' {{~}}
           __/\_            '--=.\}/
          /_/ |\\
               \/ 

Orkut is really a contest to see who can collect more scraps and testimonials. Even though Orkut allows you to delete scraps, it is Taboo to do so.

Orkut Law #4: Thou shall join Communities
The Communities you join show your intellectual bent. If you are the computer geek types, then you NEED to join the “C++”, “I Love JAVA” and “Javascript is my Mother Tongue” communities. You don’t have to do anything in these communities, you just need to join them. You also need to join the your local City’s community. Also communities around your favorite actor/actress, and some “cool” communities like “Bangalore Party People”

There are lots of laws like these. It is acceptable to change your name to indicate if you’re travelling to a different city (“Aditya (in SanFrancisco) Kulkarni“), if you’ve gone on a latest trip (“Aditya (new pics uploaded) Kulkarni“).

Do you know any more Laws Of Orkut?

• 8 Comments