Auntz-the tiny species

Being an Aunt is not at all the rehearsal for being a Mom. I discovered that.

How many times in life you get scared to the bone-marrow?
Age-7. Groping in the dark.
Age-16. Board Exams.
Age-18. First bunk for a movie.
Age-23. First Interview.
Age-25. First elopement (doesn't apply to all I know)
Age-28..............
A soft, puny, extremely delicate midget of the size of your palm and with no bigger body organ of significance except a pair of the most articulate and curious eyes....you stand in front of this strange species called a baby...and your best friend watches you intently...waiting for you to take the pink human mass in your hands!!
I check back in the dictionary and conclude...no 'scary' is just not the word.
It's so much more strange and serious than that.

Holding a few weeks old (Ok, may be I should use the word 'young' here) baby in your hands is a completely alien feeling. It's a feeling that travels from being petrified to blank to weird to anxious to seraphic.
You are not sure whether you can manage not to bruise that lovely Johnson & Johnson's face before you muster the courage to take her in your arms. And then you are not sure if her questioning eyes would condescend enough not to bawl to glory while doing the honours in your arms. Would she accept my brave efforts? Would she scream now? Would she be comforatble in my gauche hold?

But then something totally unexpected happens.

She manages to scrutinise my face silently and then rewards the valour with an angelic smile.
A smile that only babies can manage. A smile that shines on you right from the eyes. A smile that is the best synonym for contagion, for bliss, for being touched.
And before you even realise, you establish a lifelong camaraderie with a four week young (see I corrected) buddy.

Meanwhile, your best friend, in her newly-acquired designation of a Mom, is still waiting for some comment, the long-awaited compliment. But who cares? Who has the time? You are busy conversing in baby babble about the many nuances of life with the new found friend. Wish there was a Do-Not-Disturb placard on diapers too.

Good Morning!
The world has changed for you a little..or more.
Well.
You are an Aunt now. Yes, officially, the Mausi of this angel.

And even if the poor parents struggle to convince you about the vices of lollypops, Candy jars and lap-times, there's no argument cogent enough to reverse the zeitgeist.
"I am the naughty Aunt. I have all the right and I will spoil her all the time." You announce back.
"From cookies to huge Teddys to Playstations to Short-skirts to Boy-friends. I take up the Pamper-zone. You don't tresspass in my territory and I would reciprocate the same etiquette for your discipline-territory."
"Come On." you continue reasoning with the Mom. "Your role is different. Allow me the luxury of mine."
And moreover, our gang of girls can bestow the blue-eyed baby all varieties of Aunts.

Some would teach her culinary secrets.
Some would bequest her the craft of shopping.
Some would make her the heir of long-nurtured rhymes, songs and Lullabies.

And I can finally pick huge piles of tiny-tomes from the Kids section of Crossword, my favourite zone, (which bestows me many curious eyebrows when I spend three-fourth of my visit here instead of joining the grown-up sections of Pulp fiction, Self-help and abstract authors).
Wow, I can actually buy those Peter-Pans, Heidis, Enid Blytons, Pirates, Fairies, Pixies all over again. And I would have finally a nice company to read them with.
As I walk away from the book store, all elated, I feel like giving my new friend's Mom a big hug.

That's the best present she has given me for our lovely past together.

I can't however because she is busy swinging her sweet-eyed cherub when I meet her.
But my eyes hug her nevertheless as I find time to discover that my silly-old friend has turned so beautiful.
Her eyes have a different dignity, happiness and soul now, as she graces the experience of being a mother.
That's something we Aunts can never emphatise with.
And so, because the Aunts know that she would be a Super-Mom, we can have all the fun as the Super-Aunts.

It's not rehearsal. It's recherche.
Something you won't understand till you face a baby.
It's not scary.
It's different.

A Terrorist Vs A Citizen not scared anymore I

If 20 people can hold 500 lives on the edge, imagine what a billion people can do in return


Anger can be sharper and more fatal than grenades.
All of us across India have seen and felt it alive in our hearts this weekend.
What has happened is sad but in some way, some way, it can be the watershed that might change India, for better.
And forget about anything else, if only, if only, we can keep this anger that's boiling in our veins right now, if only ....we can keep this anger breathing past the usual few weeks, India can be redefined historically.
How?
We get scared,
A country of about a billion people, a country with one of the finest Armed forces in the world, a country that is now leaving its footsteps around the Moon, a country with the most talented-dollar-paid-and sought-after IT brains, a country of martyrs, a country of heroic grandpas who still recount as bed-time stories the grace and valour with which they drove away a colonial power of 200 years...yes the same country....kneels down when 20 barbaric minds swim across our shores and attack our best insignia.
So what do we do?
Get angry for some time till our TV channels switch over to the quotidian, non-sensical 'breaking-stories' all over again?
Or choose to preserve and stock this anger and use it in positive and yet some conclusive ways that only a citizen has the power and dignity to apply.

Extreme situations call for extreme steps...I just heard this in one very nice and violent corporate debate on a News Channel.
It was wonderful to see how angry, disillusioned and disappointed CXOs are choosing to react in the aftermath.
And it turns out that there are many weapons a peace-loving citizen can fire to ensure that another Terror siege doesn't catches a city pants-down.

Imagine, what happens when ...
A citizen refuses to vote for incompetent power-vultures.
A citizen wakes up and demands answers.
A citizen refuses to pay taxes.
A citizen gets oneself trained enough to defend and give back when a life comes face-to-face with a terror situation.
A citizen won't lose a second to slap back (if not in action, in equally reverberating words) whenever any narrow-menial-mean tongue starts talking or instigating our society into division of any kind...be it religious, regional, professional, linguistic, ethinc, any kind.
A citizen has the guts and the time to say 'Shut-up' when people use serious issues as water-cooler or coffee-table gossip meat that only sidelines sections of our society based on pre-historic-era questions like where they hail from, what language they speak, which God they worship, which domicile they use, which profession they follow .....refuse to listen...or better still, tell them with a stern-eye and a firm-tongue...Shut-up.

When, a citizen stops wasting time and energy on waiting and demanding from Government..and takes the dire scenario today in his hands...do as much as he/she can..by not only fighting terrorism with vigilance, hawk-eyed alertness, the same do-or-die instinct that motivates a terrorist, and help to security forces whenever possible...but also by ensuring that the roots of terrorism are attacked everyday...by taking care of issues like rumour-mongering, by fighting panic as bravely as possible and by beheading the very causes that are able to motivate a 21 year-young lad to believe and act on the command of 'kill as many as you can till your last breath'.
We may hoodwink ourselves into believing that our enemy nations are breeding terrorists, but it's time we have the nerve to realise that we do it everyday, in our normal lives whenever we disrespect a human or participate in gossips that alienate fellow-humans.

And when a citizen has the spine to stand up for his/her neighbour, be it in a train, a colony, an airplane, an office or a five-star hotel.

20 People-Not-Afraid Vs 500!
Imagine.... One Billion People-Not-Afraid against the Same 20!
Just look back at the incredible human-and-soldier spirit that bravehearts from the NSG Commandos and the Indian media people have showed between Nov 26 and 29, 2008, and we know that the word 'Imagine' is hardly needed.
One billion people-not-afraid against 20!
Let's wake up....to our own power!

Or

'Kooda-kachda' nikalna padega

Nov 26 -27, 2008 is the last nail in the coffin. Time now to shed our collars and put on the Sweeper's uniform.


48 hours gone now.
Taj is still under siege.
My friend in Mumbai tells me she is dead-afraid to get out as there could still be grenade-wielding terrorists randomly ambling on the roads.
TV Channels all over the world are watching as every Indian... be it the VIP hostage inside, the CEO, the police cop standing on vigil, the red-eyed journalist still reporting gunshots, the relative waiting outside, the widow of the martyr, the kid who came back from the-shut-down-school today and asked his mom bewildered 'What's happening', the waiter who saw the bullet shots, the angry filmstar speaking aloud on the TV, everybody, EXCEPT OUR HARD-SKINNED POLITICIANS, every Indian sits numb with terror.

It's not shameful anymore.
It's shameless.
And no, I don't want to waste any time now on saying these to our high-seated Neta Babus.
I am saying this to myself, to a normal Indian.
There's one thing called patience. There's another called paralysis.
There's one thing called being silent. There's another called being 'dumb'.
There's one thing called being calm. There's another called being deaf.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

I recall one very emotional and angry line from Naseeruddin in a movie...Mujhe apne desh se ye kachda bahar chahiye.
For how long would we accept and kow tow our daily lives, our loved ones, our mental peace to the grip of terror?

There is garbage in our house today.
It's time to pick up the broom and burn the garbage away.
And the garbage does not necessarily mean the terrorists or their attempts, they mean the roots where they come from. They also mean the hypocrisy, the compartmentalised mindsets, the discriminatory treatment, the professional-economic-religious divide that forces a 25 year old to pick up a grenade against a fellow human.
The garbage also means the impotent machinery we, ourselves, by our own volition, have chosen and seated at the top chairs of our country. The very chairs who just serve as wheelchairs or cushions where politicians sit, wait and watch the bloody drama, only to come out two days later to encash personal tragedies as political agendas.

If citizens can pick up pens and cameras and turn into exemplary citizen journalists...why not citizen sweepers or citizen commandos.
Our peace and unity is our own responsibility.
It's time to sweep it out.
I am going to do it.
And the first step, where I would show what my broom can do, is at the upcoming elections...with my NO VOTE.
Answer me, I am your new vote bank.
Unless you prove that you can take care of my India's streets, stations, hotels and homes, don't have the gall to come and ask me for a vote.
I am not voting for vegetables anymore.

I am busy sweeping.
If anybody wishes to join, most welcome.
Let's start, share and learn...what can a ordinary citizen do when caught in a precarious situation, be it a five-star suite or a station platform?
Let's step out and ask for answers and share tips from today.
From citzens to sweepers to commandos.
Flush 'em out! ........and the first step is here......

Section 49-O of the Constitution (Your Right to vote for Nobody; Or reject all the candidates in the fray)

Did you know that there is a system in our constitution, as per the 1969 act, in section "49-O" that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked and convey the presiding election officer that he doesn't want to vote anyone!

Yes such a feature is available, but obviously these seemingly notorious leaders have never disclosed it. This is called "49-O".

Why should you go and say "I VOTE NOBODY"... because, in a ward, if a candidate wins, say by 123 votes, and that particular ward has received "49-O" votes more than 123, then that polling will be cancelled and will have to be re-polled. Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-polling, since people had already expressed their decision on them.

This would bring fear into parties and hence look for genuine candidates for their parties for election. This would change the way, of our whole political system... it is seemingly surprising why the election commission has not revealed such a feature to the public.... A wonderful weapon against corrupt parties in India... show your power, expressing your desire not to vote for anybody, is even more powerful than voting... USE YOUR POWER!

__________________

Terrorism turns a commodity

Once you make it an everyday occurence, terror and false assurances lose their effect. And what happens next is more fatal than we can imagine.

Last evening, as I was winding up work for the day, my colleague asked me "What story are you working on?".
I said, "Commoditisation of technology".
Didn't know then that 24 hours hence I would be substituting Terror for Tech, while the headline of the article remains unchanged.
But I am not half as excited or intellectually tickled as when I was working and researching on describing how Technology is becoming the new 'Denim'.
And it's the very lack of ebullience that makes me sure that my choice of the word 'commodity' is not indiscreet.
Because, yes, we are now back to the Television sets, to our mobiles and to our coffee tables, as India's business face, Mumbai, faces another terror attack, this time at our Tajs and our Oberois.

But as we go from one step to another, from hearing it in a SMS to switching on our TVs to blaming the impotent systems and reckless governments etc etc, I get a not so welcome Deja Vu feeling. I know that the routine is starting. And four days from now, the lava would slowly sink down a dormant crater till it erupts back from another volcano. It would go back to the crannies of oblivion, for you, for me, for the media, for the authorities, for the cops. Except of course, for those, who lose lives or their loved ones.
And the epiphany that strikes me now is that the 'routine' is settling in even now. Because the first question we ask after we get the first iota of news is 'Ab Kahan'? ''Is baar Kitne mare'?

The fact is that...we are getting used to it....and slowly but strongly drowning into the zone called 'INDIFFERENCE'.
And it won't be long before the common man travels from the stage of being indifferent for others to being indifferent about his life too.
The risk is a given today. We have accepted it. At the back of our minds we know the uncertainity of life when we embark that train, that plane or even buy that movie ticket.

And that's not the only reason why I call choose to call terror a commodity?
There are more.
Because....Terrorism can not be branded as Religious anymore. It's entering new shelves, like geo-political, financial, Have Vs Have Nots, Linguistic, ethnic and what not.
Because....it is snarling everywhere...Borders, Parliaments, IT facades, Stock market centres, Airports, Jewellery markets, Temples, Mosques, Shopping Malls, Schools, Train Stations.
Because...it has spread its claws to all kinds of hostages and diluted its presence...from war prisoners, Passengers on an airplane, pilgrims in a shrine, to kids in a school, guests in a five-star hotel, scientists in a academic institution, on-field journalists, and tourists on a holiday. From our buildings, our combat infrastructure, our defence, our intelligence, our patience to our minds and ability to endure.
Because....one of my friends who lives in Jammu invited me over for her marriage and all I replied then was, "Is your city safe to come to?" And today she can give it back to me by flipping the same question back.

And that's why terrorism is becoming a commodity. Even politicians are encashing and using it as recklessly as salt and soap whenever they want to play their favourite games like one-upmanship, blame-storming and vote-mongering. Even some sections in media find it a hot cake to bake their TRPs and readership on. Even normal people like you, like me, on our dinner tables with that TV remote in hand today would use it as the perfect gossip subject. We would talk, get angry, blame the government, and sleep over it.
Only to wake up the next day, for another uncertain day.

I wonder if this approaching indifference would be the final solution. Coz solution it would be.
Who would the terrorists terrorise when the common man would get indifferent to life itself. When he won't panic about a bomb anymore, because he would come to the terms with a stage where bombs are everywhere, ready to blow anytime, anyone.
When there would be no fear what would they terrorise with?
When there would be no lives left to kill, who would they terrorise?
When cities would surrender themselves as graveyards, who would the power-hungry rule upon?

As I was thinking all this, I wondered am I just zombied with all those TV shots and news bytes of Mumbai again.
But 15 minutes later, I had this words from an office peon, as we were whiling away our time gossiping about the blasts during a power-break.
I could see the anger turning into a more ferocious shade in his eyes as he said this. "Ye terrorist kaun hai pata nahin, magar ye jab pakar mein aayen to inke saath inke rishtedaaron ko bhi shoot kar dena chaiye. Just shoot them. Inke terrorist banane ki wajah ko, inke saath, khatam karo. Phir woh chahe koi bhi ho, kisi bhi jaat ka ho, bada ho ya gareeb ho. Ab hum tang aa gaye hain."
I could hear his actual message, "Don't rub off and test the common man too much."
It's time both sides of the terror realise the price of commoditisation.
Commoditisation if it is, it won't be that stale as it sounds for an FMCG brand.
It would in fact, be more dangerous and conclusive.

The movie Wednesday may turn real some day soon.

Impotency kills

The difference between ‘important’ and ‘impotent’ is more than just a spelling mistake

NOBODY told me that ‘Mumbai Meri Jaan’ is a horror movie. Horror that leaves you stupefied. Horror that brings you face to face with the spectre of real-life. Horror that freezes you of the fluid of thought. When even fear flinches to flow, for what do you name it – the fear of plunging yourself in the ‘you-never-know-when-it’s you’ terror of everyday life; or the fear of helplessness, the feeling of being handicapped in a world of cell phones, heart-transplants, space-shuttles and Cyborgs. Being scared is not a familiar feeling after a cinema like this.

And then you discover that horror too, comes with a long menu card. The most horrifying part for me in this blood-splurged reel were not the scenes of the blasts, not the amputated bodies shown strewn all around the living fibre, not the daredevil attempts of the director to make the disaster look as alive as possible…No, the part that grips and numbs you is where you see the typical journalist Soha and the typical cop Paresh crying over their irony.
Everything is fine, practical, matter-of-course, the-way-of-the-system, non-mutable and all that…until it happens to you, until it touches you.
Writing about it, talking about it, gossiping about it, investigating it, doing the autopsy, everything dwarfs in comparison to the terror you feel when you see it all naked with your eyes, or worst when you imagine your most-feared sights when one of your close ones is incidentally in the city of the blasts that very day. I had only to go through a night full of that fatal terror, fear and anxiety during the Ahmedabad blasts to realize that.

The irony could only be the last nail in the coffin. The irony of impotence.
I am a journalist. My friend is a teacher. My neighbour is a doctor. In the course of my work I interact with top-notch technologists, CEOs, enviable geeks and acute business minds. Another one I know is a senior official. The list has barely started before I start citing Income tax officers, Black-Belts, mighty editors, cerebral scientists, stellar celebrities, media moguls, CAs, bank managers, bright students, spiritual gurus, high-flier executives, book-authors, advertising geniuses, PR power looms, NGO enthusiasts and so on. Professions vary and so do the powers they wield.
Everyone is powerful in their own way. Everyone has a strength that can make a lot of difference. Unique, inimitable, stark, heavy-duty and formidable. And we don’t need their visiting cards for the adjectives to be earned. At the end of the day, if not anything else, there is a citizen, a human being out there.
I don’t know and can not speak on anyone’s behalf, but the question at least to me is scary enough. How much of the power inherent in me, have I even cared to use till date? How much of the potency that my life has, do I bother to value, if not apply? Why does a movie like this leave me thinking and regretting for letting complacence, pragmatism, helplessness and fear sabotage my powers?
Don’t we all have the powers scary enough?
Power of speech, power of vigilance, power of reconciliation, power of peace, power of negotiation, power of precaution, power of teamwork, power of faith, power of initiative, power of contribution, power of denial, power of consciousness, power of sensitivity and the power of effort?
Is it impotence or worse than that – the illusion or acceptance of impotence? Don’t we know how terminal a stage that is?
Why don’t we bother or dare to stop our powers from rusting away?
Terrorism and impotence – it’s a new chicken and egg story all over again.
Meanwhile, Ram Gopal Verma and the Ramse Brothers have more competition than they think. Watch ‘Mumbai…’ only if you have intestines long enough.

Pratima H

When it's time to hang up

Life keeps dialling. But once in a while it helps to hang up.

I LOVE MEG RYAN.
And before you think, I am turning a vagrant right in the first line, let me make it clear that this digression is not only deliberate but a much sought-after one.
Come on now, when and where do I get a chance to venerate the masterpiece that Hollywood is blessed with. She's awesome. Just superlative is the way she charms with a gauche gait, boorish ways and the way she stands miles apart from other screen belles. Give her any hair-style and she would look beatific. Give her Tom Hanks or Russel Crow and she would make the Love story as absolutely convincing and touching as one can imagine. 'You've got mail' or 'When Harry met Sally', she sweeps every one off with hers signature romantic panache. I tell you what. It's all in her eyes. One of the most beautiful pair of eyes God ever created. Specially, when she looks ponderingly down after uttering a crsip-deep line. I LOVE MEG.
Ok, back to the point now. So, it's because I adulate her head-over-heels I never lose a chance to get handcuffed with my remote whenever HBO or ZEE Studio plays one of her movies. So one idle Sunday when I was grumbling and surfing the TV channels, Voila! I catch Meg's face and I stop. It's some movie named 'Hanging up'. Habit-stricken, this die-hard-devotee just dumps every other chore aside and squats at ease.
It's been quite some time and I still don't get the drift. She appears to be a typical woman. Sandwiched between her garbs as a sister, wife, mother, boss and daughter. Trying to multi-task as she emotionally and singularly struggles to keep her bed-ridden Dad in high spirits while she juggles work, home and two ingrate sisters (one of them is my another all tiem favourite...Lisa Kudrow, I love you too!)
Ok no more wandering about.
So back to the movie.
So, Meg like a true-blue woman goes on, and on and on. Her life shuttles between calls from sisters, from the hospital, and from her dumb secretary. The fantastic bit is that no one, not even she, notices how her emotional strength and stamina is crumbling beneath each great mandate she takes up.
And one fine day, a stranger, a woman, elderly and experienced, lends her a shoulder out of the blue.Without realising, that is probably the one cradle she is long seeking, she crashes down and sobs. Sobs liek she never has done. Sobs like she should have done long back.
And then the sage lady pulls out her words of wisdom.
"You know what you should do?"
She takes out her phone, and presses the red button.
"Hang-up."
It's almost an epiphany.
Meg rushes back to her home and furnishes all her telephone sets to the dog to gnaw at. Her secretary calls right after and she tells her to shut up and manage everything alone. Her sister calls and she gives a cathartic response before cutting off the line that leaves the caller dumb and stupefied.
In short, she hangs up.
Now is that all I got out of the whole plot? And if so, why the heck I am writing a piece on it? Just to lionize Meg under a new pretext?
Well, the truth is that even if for just a moment, the line really penetrated me deep down.
Life is important.
Tasks beep on.
Duties are serious.
Relationships need attention.
Chores can not be just wished away.
People around us need us.
Problems need solutions.
The pillar-to-post lifestyle is of our own making.
And the network of life's constant telecom line never goes weak.

But once in a while, it helps, ..........it really really helps, to just HANG UP. And it's more emotional than physical.
After all, a break is better than a break-down.
Before the mind turns mechanical. Before the heart goes shallow. Before life tunes into an auto-pilot. Before the sap of life drains out in the mud of relentless headaches.
Shut out the noise for a while.
No matter where it is coming from - traffic horns, mobiles, friends, work, people important, people unimportant, your own strenous benchmarks, or the daily race of life.
Go inside. Shut back. And enjoy the silence before it goes silent.
Hang up.
You will know it's worth when you hang in again.
And that's why..
I LOVE MEG:)

Eka: The story of an Indian champion

Sometimes it takes a trillion flops to make a Superhit. World’s fourth fastest supercomputer from India shocked everyone…pleasantly. But little do we know of the actual epicenter. Here’s some lowdown on what makes Eka a simple masterpiece!

Pratima Harigunani

OCTOBER was cruising towards its close. The clock was viciously steering towards the midnight stroke. Sweat-swathed eyebrows, nervous eyeballs, twitching palms, pounding heartbeats, crossed fingers, distraught glances and agitated minds. The air was bubbling with tension, anticipation, fears, prayers and tumultuous hope. An unknown campus in Pune's Hinjewadi outskirts was literally living a rocket launch NASA moment and just a hair distance from making history. It was nothing short in stature or excitement though. The 90 per cent run of India's supercomputer-in-making was successfully through, but the clincher was actually now. The last 10 per cent run-time. It might happen, it might not. Some kilometers away on his way and continuously on the phone, Dr. N Seetha Ram Krishna, project manager, CRL and one of the key architects, understandably still kept arming his team against the Murphy's ways, "It may fail, be prepared for everything." As the reverse countdown begin, every heart and hope in the jitter-packed room started racing high. Five, four, three, two, one and … YES! The supercomputer hit the 117.9 teraflop mark. At about 11 pm on October 31 at a TAT facility in Pune's Hinjewadi IT park outskirts at CRL, shrieks of joy, sighs of achievement, and euphoria was all that could be heard, seen and felt next. India's technological razor had made its sharpest cut again. The dream was finally alive. And one hour later when Dr Krishna looked around the same room he met another once-in-a-lifetime sight.


Exhausted with 22 hours of grinding toil for the past six months and worn out of a peak of excitement and tension just some minutes back, everyone in the same room dozed off into a blithe and well-accomplished sleep. "That's a lifetime experience." It surely was. India through CRL (Computational Research Labs), a Tata Sons' wholly owned subsidiary, had claimed its space in the world top 10 supercomputer league. Fourth in the global ranking and fastest in Asia. The 120 teraflop (sustained rating) supercomputer with a peak hit of 172 teraflop was actually a reality in October 2007, with the added pride of being the largest privately funded supercomputer in the world. And the story of this distinctive feat starts six months back? May be not. India's supercomputing lineage Supercomputing may have turned as spruce, breakneck, and swanky a game as F-1 today. But turn back the leaves of history and you find all the flavors of a long, patient, and sole marathon.

Performance was at the core then too but accompanied with stamina, persistence and time. Interestingly, the annals have their origins in the late 1980s when apparently India began developing supercomputers after being refused a Cray supercomputer by the US. For India, in particular, the epic of supercomputing scribbled its first page with the Param supercomputer programme. Param, the first Indian supercomputer, was developed by the Center for Developed and Advanced Computing (C-DAC). C- DAC pioneered the supercomputing movement in the 1990's giving India her first indigenous supercomputer in 1991 (PARAM 8000). The PARAM stock continued with PARAM 8000-600, PARAM 9000, PARAM open frame, PARAM 10000 (with 100 gigaflop (floating point operations per second) and finally PARAM-PADMA in 2003. Param Padma teraflop supercomputer with one teraflop of power (a tenfold increase over the country's previous supercomputer), heralded India's entry in the top-500 league. It was ranked 171 in a list of the world's most powerful supercomputers by Top 500, a respected rating agency for the high-end computing fraternity. Another member of India's elite circuit was Kabru, a cluster of smaller computers done at the Chennai-based Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMS) that crossed the teraflop barrier. Other stellar names of the crème-de-la-crème are the NAL's Flosolver (National Aerospace Laboratory), Anupam (Bhabha Atomic Research Center), PACE (Advanced Numerical Research Group) and CHIPPS (from the Center for Development of Telematics — CDOT, Bangalore) and the supercomputer at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, New Delhi, which finds a place among the top 500 supercomputers of the world. That was the pedigree that supercomputing had to take over from as it moved on to Eka. And interestingly, in a privately-funded environment this time. The epic entered a new epoch.

The rules, the tracks, the gear, the pitstop, everything was new, faster, and more competitive this time. And the chequered flag was only six months away. Eka incubates Tata's HPC (High Performance Computing) initiative dates back to June 2006 with the aim of becoming the one-stop-shop and achieving the iconic journey from atoms to applications. It armed CRL, its subsidiary, with the mandate of the Eka (Sanskrit for the number One) Dream. This 75-member team, which was divided into hardware, system software and applications, had beyond the obvious challenge of achieving the supercomputing power as set, also the nigh-impossible goalpost of doing all that in flat six months. It had Dr Sunil Sherlekar, the Head of R&D in CRL and also one of the founders Dr Narendra Karmarkar. This concept was presented to the Tata Sons Board to get the funding. Since then Dr Karmakar left and Dr Sherlekar stayed as the remaining founder. Incidentally, Eka also claims the distinction of being the only supercomputer funded by a corporate. CRL had the task of fully integrating and designing Eka with an in-house developed technology. The race flagged off. In June 2007 when the building infrastructure was set ready in Hinjewadi, a 4000 sq ft floor area set in record time, becomes the data center to house Eka.August saw the initial machines with 16 teraflop peaks and the first prototype going operational. September, the building blocks get ordered, set in place in due time and October sees the 172 teraflop peak system operation. In six weeks record time, the actual 120 teraflops (i.e. or trillions of calculations per second performance) happen, and Eka is born.

Nuts, bolts and paraphernalia

Eka's mandates and appetite on the technical depth were not simple by any account. Among the many objectives for CRL, was the ability to accommodate scalable parallel storage and scale at the lowest footprint space, HVAC for air distribution and cooling optimization, energy optimized operations, usage of indigenous building blocks, fully-automated monitoring and control, and accommodation of multi-system architecture and networks. Eka is built with 1794 blade servers using common off-the-shelf hardware using quad-core Intel clovertown processors. It has 400 ton cooling capacity and 2.5 MW power requirement. Its benchmark is 117.9 teraflop, and achieved final performance of 120 teraflop on a sustained basis with 172 teraflop as the peak score. There are 28 Terabytes of memory with a storage counterpart of 80 terabytes. Eka used DDR 920 gbit/sec)Infiband interconnect .technology for interconnecting the overall processors and storage, Linux OS, XC3 3.2.1 open MPI developer environment compilers and library. Cabling overall spread over 45 km falls between 10 km electrical, 15 km Infiniband and 10 km Ethernet areas. Other numbers of note include 28 TB RAM, 80 TB disk.

The revolutions in the evolution

There were quite many new approaches and dimensions during the making of Eka. The key was in the design of the architecture, then designing algorithms for application classes (a term that itself is nascent in the scientific domain and an ongoing research game), and the mapping of algorithms to the architecture. CRL also chose the not-tried-before circular layout, which serendipitously took the form of an octagon for stacking the servers and switches. Supercomputers don't come without their share of burdens. Scalability is a major issue. CRL addressed scalability by doing away with the need of connecting all nodes to all. Judicious balancing, compute and communication, and guaranteed load balancing were some of the ideas attempted here. Another concern was the cost per teraflop, which the Eka team managed to handle with reduction in interconnect switches, cables and connectors so that Interconnect scales up linearly. Similarly, usability, another issue with supercomputers was faced in the eye with innovations in library and Maths kernels thus hiding complexity of the underlying hardware, as shared by Seetha Ram Krishna. Additionally were solutions like novel interconnect architecture based on projective geometry that takes care of complexity as well as near linear speed-up of applications. There were also better algorithms for specific applications that helped Eka. In addition, the key points of uniqueness in terms of architecture are high density packing, projective geometry interconnect, hybrid parallel programming paradigm, optical interconnects and of course the circular layout as mentioned before. Props and poles As Dr. Sherlekar points out, fair share of credit of Eka goes to enabling technologies in networking, storage, power and cabling etc. While some of them had evolved to an adequate extent already, thanks to ongoing innovations, some of the path-breaking innovations that made Eka possible, in fact, happened during the making of Eka, with the concerted efforts of CRL and other partners in respective areas.

Cabling, for instance, is one major example. Eka became the testing ground of early fibercable technology since it was not feasible to use erstwhile copper cables beyond seven meters due to breakage concerns. The new technology that covered 20 meters, is already in production mode now. From processors, multi-core, programmable voltage, Interconnect Infiniband, sensors to cooling technology, every paraphernalia was as cutting-edge as Eka itself turned out to be.

120 Teraflops-milking the COW

The proof of the pudding lies in eating it. The actual work starts now when the supercomputer can start working on problems that have been waiting for the power of a superhero. Eka's usage is outlined wide and deep. Its applications - current and potential - cover a long spectrum. From system architecture research, system software research, mathematical library development, large scientific problems, application porting, optimization and development to future technology development and data center development, the possibilities have just started surfacing. Talking of simulations Eka's purview covers computational fluid dynamics and nanomaterial simulation. As Head of Applications Group Dr.Rajendra Lagu rightly says, "The young scientific minds are the ones to be looked onto now. There are for sure many applications that nobody has ever thought of yet." Eka is open for grand challenges. The exciting areas ahead range from aeroacoustics, weather modeling, carbon nanotube modeling, CFD or Computational Fluid Dynamics, Number Theory, Motif discovery, molecular docking, aircraft simulation, bio-medical simulation, to business applications like SCM (Supply Chain Management), BI (Business Intelligence), email scanning, pattern detection, video surveillance and so on.

May be the next Tata car would be completely simulated on Eka. Some 'grey' matter Eka is not without its share of criticisms and correction points. At a CSI seminar, an elderly and senior scientist in this domain pointed out areas like use of analog devices that was conspicuous by its absence in Eka; the complex use of FPGS; the perception that differential calculus is the ultimate in mathematics. CRL's explanation to them goes thus. The latter is still a topic of research and even CRL is doing work on inverse problems in this area. As to the use of analog devices, there are constraints on programmability and limits of a fixed function in an era where digital is in vogue. Even switched capacity filters, the hybrids are not in vogue, explained Dr Lagu in response.

The human in the superhuman

The real beauty behind the mystery of Eka, the supercomputer is the very absence of mystery. As Seetha Ram Krishna emphatically demystifies it, "Any company can achieve this. There's nothing complex behind it. Just some knowledge, expertise, logic, ideas and electronics put together in a system I can make it possible. "Today, with Internet as the ever-accessible ocean of knowledge and science, anyone can make their own supercomputer, albeit with levels of scale," he says. It was not a cakewalk. Every day was an ordeal, every runtime taxing and expensive. Problems were consistent, dead-ends kept coming, speed-bumpers were frequent guests, pressure levels always northwards, a new bottleneck knocked everyday and the Eka team was on an incessant 'on-the-toes' mode. But the dream, the passion, the resolve were the fuels that never ran out and made Eka a reality. The future of supercomputing is something that will unfold interestingly. "A supercomputer is a force multiplier and the third pillar of science. They are becoming all-pervasive to the games we play and the digital content we consume," says Dr Lagu. The Top500 supercomputer list would remain on Eka and CRL's dashboard. But the list, updated every six months, would be as fickle as the speed with which faster systems keep popping up. The top-ranker IBM's BlueGene/L System has achieved a benchmark of 478.2 TFLOPS. Pitted against computing superpowers like China, Japan and the US computing, India's sprint will be something to watch out for. Competition with the likes of China's Dawning, Japan's NEC's Earth Simulator and IBM's Blue Gene stirps would not be easy. The race is going to turn ruthless but will surely have India on the fast tracks.

Next on the cards for CRL, are plans of building a bigger machine that incorporates accelerators in addition to building domain-specific software libraries tuned for Eka architecture. Besides this, there are on the anvil, innovations on the software stack and productivity tools for the imminent many-core revolution. CRL also intends to explore hybrid architectural solutions for peta class machines with the use of FPGAs and accelerators. "What's a factor of concern however is the critical need of development of human resources in this space. It was tough to make about 75 to 80 member Eka team and we know how we did it. The future problems won't be the hardware or software, but the peopleware." Dr.Lagu stresses. Eka and its likes could buck the trend and drive more Indian cerebra to experience the inimitable thrill that CRL's team experienced that historical night. After all, it was indeed an eka moment. It's intriguing at this juncture then to think of some words that the father of supercomputing Seymour Cray said: "It's always easy to do the next step and it's always impossible to do two steps at a time."

(Acknowledgements to Dr Sunil Sherlakar, s the Head of R&D in CRL; Dr Rajendra Lagu, Head of Applications Group, CRL and and N Seetha Ram Krishna - project manager, CRL - all key members of Eka team and CSI –Computer Society of India's Gireendra Kasmalkar Pune for sharing the Eka story)


Vital Stats ·
1794 blade servers · 400 ton cooling capacity
· 2.5 MW power
· Benchmark performance: 117.9 teraflop (processor speed of one trillion floating point operations per second)
· Peak score: 172 teraflop
· Sustained level: 120 teraflop
· Gigs: 16 GB RAM, 80 GB hard disk


©CyberMedia News

Sand or Silica: Extraordinary stories of ordinary people

Extra-ordinary Stories of Ordinary People: 1.0

Salim ki kahani

June 25, 2008:

Pratima Harigunani

“ARE YOU NUTS?
Driving over 200 kmph and then spinning around the turn and halting right there at a feather’s distance to the girl! And this lanky yokel from Pune would do it?!!”, hollered the director.
“Sir, aap ek baar try to keejiye (give him a chance),” entreated the confidant spot boy. “If there’s anyone in India, who can do this stunt, it’s him,” he confidently bragged.
Ten minutes later, a car was screeching down the long road at breakneck speed, whizzing by a dazed film crew, and then taking a pronto turn, chalked two circles with the hot rubber and then suddenly took an almost impossible, suave, smooth, neat halt near the heroine.
A big applause followed and the director happily chewed back his words. After all, this was a scene long due for the past so many weeks and everyone, in the crew, from the director to the cast to the spot boys were losing their patience by now. It was one thing to steer a car at top speed but to make it saunter back in precision, and that too after some spine-chilling loops…was in one word, Phew!
So when this simple-looking hero, stepped out of the car, he was deservedly overwhelmed by hands congratulating him, thanking him - of the director, of the many assistants and of Bipasha Basu, who all, had almost given up the hope of the scene ever seeing the light of the camera.

For Salim, a common cab driver, who shuttles between Pune and Mumbai and nearby stretches ferrying passengers on normal days, this truly was not a normal day. “Maine Bipasha ke saath baith ke Thums Up piya. Unhone muje bola ki mein to ye scene ka aas hi chod chuki thi. Mera naam poocha. Accha laga. Wo din, mein bahut khush hua.” He says with a glint of the moment, he seems to line all over again as he recounts his adventures.
The sincere, sweat-earned, arcadian look on his face makes you squirm in your seat with an uneasiness. A Thums Up can be a trophy? And a small Gold Medal, can really be someone’s spring of joy forever? You have no choice but to believe as he shares his pride in an innocent, yokel but genuinely exulted voice.
“I got a gold medal for saving the life of me, the passengers on board and the bus, once when a Volvo I was driving met a brake-failure at top speed on one of the Ghats at the edgy Lonavala route. It was an absolute-death situation. And if the driver gets panicked, all is gone. Everything rests on the calmness, composure and the presence-of-mind of the man on the wheel at such a moment.” And so did he, by staying cool and smartly de-accelerating the bus by manouevring the gears. In return, he got wishes, blessings of the many passengers and a gold medal from the Travels’ proprietor.
The medal was the best and the second most emotional turn of Salim’s life.
“Mein aur meri biwi ne do din tak khana nai khaya, khusi ke mare. Uparwala bahut meherbaan hai.” Beams Salim.

Today too is one another special day in his life as he is driving me to Mumbai in an Innova. “Madam, aaj kismat se Seth ne ye ghadi chalena ko diya, kyunki doosre car nahi set ho paya. Sacchi bolta hoon, Innova drive kar ke life ne ek aur sapna poora kar diya. Majja aa gaya itna accha gaadi chalake.”

What amazes and humbles me is not the adventures this seemingly simple driver has been living off and on, but the sheer simplicity with which he embraces and celebrates life’s small but true bounties.
This was not what I expected as I opened a casual conversation on a boring three-hour drive from Pune to Mumbai one afternoon with the cab driver.
And when I ask, where he hails from, his sad but dignified and composed reply reveals the first most emotional turn of his life. Destiny brought him and his wife to Pune when an unfortunate earthquake hit his hometown in Latur. The Salim who saw his parents and other family members as mud-swathed corpses was certainly more brave than the daredevil driver he turned into. He saw, absorbed and accepted it all with a patience, faith and fortitude that probably only the common man is capable of. Amidst his tragedy, he extricated some more living bodies and contributed his bit to save some lives. “My wife incidentally, is another poor soul, who was hit in the calamity, and whom I happened to take out from the debris that day.”
Life left him bereft, of money, job and worst of all, his dear ones.
And so fate brought him to Pune to start everything from scratch.
The small child, who embraced his first toy- a car in all rapture, who used to be all in awe of his father’s taxi, and who shocked his Dad when he learnt driving by stealthily taking the taxi on a trial spin one evening while his father was having tea after a long day work, was now going to start an entire new life and his daily bread by driving taxis.
But he refrains from cribbing or making any complains at all. Uparwallah has been very kind in his estimation. “Wo niyat dekhta hai, aur barkat deta hai.” Staunchly believes Salim.
Clinging relentlessly to Niyat and himmat thus, Salim’s hopes and dreams now envelope his son Sulaimaan. “He too loves cars like me. I want him to rise high in life and do things much beyond I could dream of. I will give him the best I can.”
My stop has come as he finishes his sentence and all I can give him back for a hard-hitting inspirational ride is one heartfelt - Ameen!

Pratima Harigunani

The pot thanks

As I enter into this new kitchen, ready to marinate my thoughts and whip up something palatable, I need to take a bow before two friends who literally dragged this sloth into this new world. Shashwat, who is a chef-d'oeu·vre himself, is not only my mentor and Guru in the big, spicy oven of journalism but also a dear friend whom I will always look up to. And Sanjay, my good old friend, you should actually get a gong for keeping up with your patience and hope on this.
Till I bake something new, thanks buddies!

Life is delicious

Good food ends with good talk.
Geoffrey Neighor must have been quite a gourmet to say this.
Thanks buddy, for helping me, and many more gourmands like me, who love good food and a good conversation with equal appetite.
And life has hardly left me to starve on either of them. Every day is a new recipe. On my way to work, at work, off work, there's always a big buffet to dig in. So many stories each day, lying free, sauntering happily, pass me by and I wonder, why the heck was I fasting till now.
So here I am, ready to serve and have the cordon bleu.
Come, let's dine.