Happy New Year

March 30th is Ugadi, or New Year, today in Southern India. It's an official office Holiday and only a handful of employees came in to work. Many Indians celebrate by attending temple, shopping, and other festivities. Houses are adorned with mango leaves and chalk drawings and symbols.

Northern Indians celebrate the New Year with Holi, the festival of colors. Very few Banglorians celebrate Holi, but when I walked through the streets every now and then I would catch a glimpse of a person with color on their shirts or saris.

Here's a photo from the recent Holi celebration. The colors wash away, eventually.

Indians and Their Sports

Indians love their sports. The Commonwealth Games just wrapped up, an international sports competition for eighteen countries that associate with the British empire. Rifle shooting, tennis, and cricket got the most attention from the Indian press. A few Indians earned golds in weight lifting; it was an odd site seeing beefy Indian men and women on the lifting deck, an unusual site unfamiliar to an American.

The Indian national cricket team plays roughly once a week against other national teams. Within India, there are twenty two venues where matches are hosted. India hosted matches are rotated through the twenty two. Most recently, India played Great Britain in New Delhi. The Indian team also plays away games which are most prominently visible on television; every store, restaurant, bar, etc. broadcasts the match. Team notables such as Sachin Tendulkar earn sponsorship and other accolades that make their image ever present

Sania Mirza , a young female tennis player, receives a tremendous amount of attention by Indians who are proud of their first mega tennis star. At age twenty, she has yet to win a grand slam, but her accomplishments on the court are growing every year. Female tennis players are competitive through their twenties; Sania is off to a great start.

Badminton is played by many Indian people and gets press attention, but their are no individual standouts with a dominating presence. Even cricket is played by Indians of all ages. Each neighborhood in Bangalore has large areas devoted to cricket playing, all of which is unorganized, haphazard, and very fun. Lucky for cricketers, the open grounds are available to the public. Other facilities, such as tennis courts or swimming pools are very inaccessible. Only club members with lakhs to spare or rupees for bribes have access to sports facilities which are widely available to the public in other countries. Starting April 1, I am joining the Malleswaram Association, which are outfitted with sports arenas and courts.

Updated Timezone

Thanks for the reader comments - I've updated my timezone, so future entries will have accurate timestamps.

Publishing A Book

I am currently researching the process of writing a book. I've always wanted to write a book about a technical topic, and my five years at an e-commerce company have prepared me well to write about the publicly available software products that my employer provides customers. Publishing a fiction work or a non-fiction book on one of my topics seem out of reach, as there is little motivation to just write a book.

To kick off the research process, I contacted a former manager who has co-authored several technical books such as "The Elements of Java Style." Publishing a technical book is a very different process than writing an academic book. Famous tech publishers such as O'Reilly or Addison-Wesley aim to support the author through the process and see it as their job to facilitate the writing process. Friends in academia depict less nurturing attitude by publishers of research. Publishers attitude to academics is more rigid; in fact, they act as if they are doing the author a favor by publishing their work. Academics have to write a complete work before their drafts are accepted for evaluation by a publisher, whereas a technical book author can provide an outline and the first few chapters and submit them to the publisher. The publisher then decides whether to go forward with the book and connect the author with reviewers.

Several author-friends have guided me towards a classic book on writing style, "The Elements of Style." There is an illustrated version now; however, it is too difficult to purchase US books here in India, so I will settle with the original version.

I'm waiting for a co-worker to wrap up work before I head off to dinner. To motivate them, I sent them a little message.

She has a habit of filling in 0hs and Zeros on paper while waiting, bored, or on the phone.

Other co-workers are waiting for counterparts in Seattle to get leave their homes and arrive at their desks. Bangalore is 12.5 hours behind Seattle. When e-mail doesn't cut it, late hours and conference calls are a substitute. Americans arrive at the office between the hours of 9-10am, so Banglorians wait to 9-10pm for them. The Germans are much easier to work with, their days start around 7:30am and their timezone is 4.5 hours behind.

A friend, after coming back from a spontaneous trip to a local bookstore here in Bangalore, gave me a small gift today. The book's topic was fitting, anecdotes from the a Stanford GSB graduate detailing his first year experience. The grim title "Snapshot from Hell," by Peter Robinson, doesn't invite the causal reader - it's readership is largely future MBA students and those interested in Stanford. While it discusses experiences of a one year period, it's still creates a photo, a snapshot if you will, of hyper-intense graduate classes taught by engaging, world renowned professors.

The discussion of the application process was cathartic; having just completed my own application to the graduate program, I had a strong opinion on the process myself. Peter provides few details on his goals for going to business school and highlights haphazard goals like wanting to live in California and eyeing jobs with larger paychecks.

The author's discussion of the mind-bending math problems give the coursework an aura of superhumanness. It purports that an mixed approach of summer classes and painful homework was required for a non-math major to get through the hellish material. The description seems antiquited now, as the GSB web site provides glowing details about it's social innovation and entrepreneurial coursework.

Everyday I come across a great idea or a compelling piece of knowledge. There's an uptick in happiness whenever it happiness; and an equally interesting rise occurs when I share the the compelling idea or wisdom with others. To that end, I am joining the millions of writers who publish their words on the internet in the blog format. What prompted my first blog? Well, an article about the science behind happiness, recently published in the WSJ.

Many researchers have focused over the past few decades on the science of gloominess; now researchers are turning to happiness. The questions being asked focus on how an object can make a person happy, what are the characterisitics of happy people, and what are the properities of activities that make a person happy.

Working at large e-commerce retailer, the discussion of "happy" products puts forth that items that are sexy or desired by others have high happiness factors. The iPod is a great example, a several hundred dollar product, the average consumer has to save up a enough cash to purchase one. A pencil, on the other hand, is accessible common, and won't have the same happiness lift. Many people buy expensive items because they are status symbols that convey their success. A broker, for example, may wear an expensive watch to convey that he is successful and in turn appeal more to a client.

Focus groups are old hat to many product manufacturers. By putting a group of people in front of, say, a dishwasher, monitoring them, and asking them questions, manufacturers attempt to gauge interest and potential. The subject's smile or even brain waves are assessed and used as feedback in the design.

But acquiring the product does not necessarily contribute to happiness as much as the anticipation. The use of anticipation can one person put a smile on anothers face. The art of the build up, if used sparingly and in non-annoying ways, is a powerful means for increasing others happiness.

Salary and sex life are also mentioned. An amusing anectode: a person with no sex life has to earn $100,000 to be as happy as a person with a regular once a week earning $50,000. The figures do not place a valuation on sex, e.g. once a week may be equivalent to $50,000; rather, it implies that there are various sources of self esteem and happiness, Salary is a source of self-esteem as is a sex life.

Other interesting factors: people measure themselves relatively to their peers and not in absolute terms. This is a little more intuitive. I disagree with the specific mention of peers, I believe the point of reference can be anyone. For instance, a young businessman could compare themselves to a billionare, a movie star, etc. In local terms, we compare ourselves to others, but a tremendous amount of research related to icons and celebrities discusses the impact of a beautiful actress on the self esteem of young women. Icons, or even toys like Barbie, are reference points just as a peer might be.

Physical excerise is also a key aspect of happiness. The article only briefly mentions a report on seniors becoming more happy when the engage in physical activity. It's become common knowledge that excersise releases endorphins, a protien known to stimulate the brain in a positive way.

So, embracing the happiness research, we can all make navigate our day to day lives a little better by understand the basics. We can use anticipation in more ways than just selling a product. Why not make routine conversations more interesting with pauses and teases. By understand how we compare ourselves, we can prevent ourselves from going down spirals of dismay. It all start with understanding the process.

The article can be found here.