Monday, August 13, 2007

IT Milan Bangalore GuruPooja Utsav

We had IT Milan's GuruPooja Utsav on 12-AUG-07, Sunday @ 10:30 AM.

The gathering was good ! It was huge !! My estimate is 850+.

Mohanji's talk

The "bauddhik" was really nice. I had thought that Mohanji will talk about IT .. or .. at-least about the contribution that he expects form IT ppl .. or .. min. about the IT milans that we have in B'lore & some guideline / advice as to how to take it forward & be more useful to RSS at large.

But he did not speak a single word in line with above items. 1st I was nervous but as his talk progressed I felt he is talking to regular "swayamsevaks". I felt more at home. He talked about the GuruPooja at large & how the external world sees it (as a money collection drive) vs how a swayamsevak feel about it. Nice jokes & small stories.

Also he made the group feel (at least I felt) that the group is learned & we know the state of the nation & its current problems. He did not explain any issue at details but touched every issue. Gave example of:
  • How Islam wanted to spread love & what it has become today.
  • How Isiyet (christianity) wans to spread friendship & what it has done to 1000s.
  • How Communists wanted to bridge the gap between haves & have-nots & what it has ended up doing
  • How the "poonjiwad" or capitalism (I guess) is trying to make those win who work more have more talent & how it has ended up increasing the no. of poor world wide.

To this he was very sure that Bharat has the answers to all the above problems as we have been attacked by each of these & in our own way we have learned to live with it. But today we are in a confused state. We 1st have to bring our own house in order following our traditions & show the world that our values really have the answer to the problems the world is facing. Then only others will listen to us. For this we need to be together.

he also mentioned that every individual's problem is nation's problem & at the same time nation's problem is also every individual's problem. It is the common man that is going to bring the nation back on track, not the political bosses or the MNCs.

He quoted 2 personalities:
  • Ex. President Kalam .. says .. we have stopped worshipping "shakti" .. shakti here refers to not police of law or govt. .. but the individual conscious .. all the problems that we see today are because of it .. to overcome this, we have to reincarnate (may not be a correct word) our culture & tradition.
  • Amul fame Verghese Kurien .. says .. it is the common man that we have to awake to bring the transformations in the society.

He mentioned that both of the above personalities have no relation with RSS but their conclusion is same as what RSS is following for last 80+ yrs.


Dr. Patnaik's talk

This one was also very good. he started in Hindi & then took permission to switch to English. he was sarcastic about the salaries that IT prof. get against in IISc prof. Then he also talked about:
  • Professional Hazard .. he mentioned that as age increases, ppl expect you to be president of a function & ask to cut rebins.
  • & Career Menopause in IT industry .. here he mentioned that ppl at his age do not know HTML, JAVA, ORACLE, etc & it is difficult for them to connect. he made a remark that you young ppl are expert in creating versions :-)

He was very empathic about IT professional's contribution to society .. to bridge the "Digital Divide" .. he appealed that IT professionals must spend time at least in the field of education at school or college level.

He expressed sadness that we do not have any good professionals who want to take up teaching as job as IT industry has nice pay & good perks. But at the same time he also accepted that nothing can be done & both academia & industry should respect each other. We in IT industry have more hands on experience in solving real-time issues. We should share this with the students. He mentioned that students out there are waiting for us to guide them & do good projects.

According to him we can do work in health-care or other sectors as well but it is easy & will create more impact if we contribute for education.

Overall a nice 2 hrs. program.

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