On last Sunday, we turned those teen age boys once again

Last Sunday, 29th of July 2012 was a normal Sunday for mostly all people. But it was a very special Sunday for the classmates and teachers of the SSLC batch of 1982 A division of Leo XIII High School at Alleppey. We gathered in the same classroom after 30 years together with our families, in the presence of our respected teachers. Although many of our friends could not make it to the venue due to several reasons, their hearts were with us, which we could feel.

Std X A -1982 classroom

  I must confess that I never knew the skills of my friends, that's why I was pleasently surprised by the oratory ability of John Rollince, when he opened the meeting with his brilliant remarks. We started with a silent prayer and the first item of the agenda was to say condolence on Sivakumar Samu, our classmate who died just 48 hours ago. It was a sad moment, as he was one among us and tentatively planned to join us, although later informed us that he would not come due to some inconvenience. Sunil Thomas read our the condolence note followed by Commemoration of Jude Joseph who died in an accident a few years after we left our school. Anil Joseph read the commemoration note on Jude as well as some of our teachers who passed away.  


On our invitation, there were 2 guests also attended our gathering - Fr.Stanley, who is currently the manager of the school and the current principal Mr.Prabhakaran. Responsibility of welcoming the guests, teachers and families was mine and while I was saying my welcome address, my friends handed over welcome flowers to guests and teachers.

Current principal, George-sir, Francis-sir,  
Manager(Fr.Stanly),
EO Abraham-sir, Manual-sir and Wilkinson sir.

Seeing our teachers after long 3 decades was an experience for me. They were in their late 40s when we were in  the school and now have become old and we have reached our mid 40s. I am sure it was interesting for our spouses and children watching us becoming those teen age boys again in front of our teachers and among our friends. Memories were abundantly flowing from both my friends and teachers; we have literally transformed into our teens. Rajesh expressed that we were so lucky that we had them as our teachers and owe all progress in our life to them. Satheesh wanted this kind of togetherness to become a more close community like a family.

Manager Fr.Stanley and Principal Mr.Prabhakaran have urged us to support the renovation of the school. They expressed the difficulties of running the school in the changed world order. The school really needs a make over. With his oratory skills, Mr.Prabharan made us really feel  that the school is like our mother and we have responsibilities towards our school.

 One by one Wellkinson Sir, manual Sir, Fransis Sir and Geroge Sir have made felicitations and each one was so good. They poured out during their speeches that they are proud about us...... they were so happy, which they did not hide.

EO Abraham sir was looking fabulous. I can not forget his "signature smile" during his presidential address in the meeting. it was exactly like the smile that we are used to in his classes.

George Sir came down from Trivandrum to be with us. His Hindi comments was humorous and he sang 2 lines of"Kafi Kafi
mere dil me"...........very touching, indeed.

Manual Sir has advised the next generation to study and work hard to come up in their life. It was an excellent gesture for our kids.

Francis Sir has mentioned his own nick name during his speech.  He said he was popularly known as "Kakameesha" by the students. He said it with a smile.

Welkinson Sir have mentioned that he remembers Jude and Shigy clearly, as he was very fond of football and was  a source of encouragement for their foot-ball matches.

We had very limited time and had to finish the meeting and rush to the Pagoda resorts, where we have planned lot of fun and socializing. Vote of thanks was said by Mathew Thomas and we have given small gifts to our teachers during the vote of thanks.

Group photo outside the classroom.  
Jacob Fenn, Mujeeb Rahman,  VJ Mathew, Shiji,
Alex, Sonnel, Satheesh, Akhnis, Binoy Al, Sunil Thomas, Sunil AR, Anil Joseph,
Rajesh KS(Dr), George Kalacherry, Rajesh George, Justus, John Rollince, GeorgeSir,
ManualSir, Mr.Prabhakaran(principal), Fr.Stanley(Manager), EO AbrahamSir,
FrancisSir, WelkinsonSir,Jomon, Asif Muhammed, Mathew Thomas(Dr)

We have arranged a professional photographer for taking good photos especially for those who could not attend the gathering. After the meeting in the classroom, we have grouped in front of the classroom and taken group photos with and without families. All the photos included in this are taken by my son. But, good quality photos will be available a few days later from the professional photographer. After the photo shoot we went to Pagoda Resorts  and spent the rest of the day there. It was a fantastic day there except for missing the friends who could not join with us for the party.

Coming Soon.......Please expect a blog soon on my experience at the Pagoda with friends.

The Tower of Babel again - Higg's Boson @ CERN

No doubt, science has to progress and every step towards better understanding of the world we live and its origin is absolutely useful. The LHC(Large Hadron Collider) at CERN in Switzerland has been one of the most discussed experiment in the recent history. Yes, such experiments are required and we should celebrate the success of  hard work by scientists. If our coming generations could understand the primary building blocks that make up all the materials in the universe, as Higg's hypothesis, it would be a great leap and it may even turn around our way of life and would probably address energy needs and how medical procedures are done...many more. My only concern is with the name used by everyone... by the media, scientists and even the common man calls the experiment as a search for "God particle". One would probably question me..."Why this fuzz ? It's just an expression?". That's the point. There is a clear differentiation between material and the creator of material. Creator of material is not material. So, how much ever we go down understanding the particles which make up the smallest particles that we know currently, every smallest particle is still physical, even if it can be observed only with a LHC. It is not just another hypothesis that God created everything in the universe from Word....in other words, matter is not made up of matter that we can discover and hence what we discover with a Large Hadron Collider is a just Higg's Boson and not God's particle. Oh..Oh...wait a minute.....on the contrary, why only call Higg's Boson God's particle ? Let us name all particles, atoms and molecules as God's particles, as every thing is from God.

Insurance companies !! A life support system in wrong hands

Trying to get an accident claim in India from govt.owned insurance companies can take easily more than a life term. This is my close experience about how my father-in-law is suffering with United India Insurance for more than 14 years.

His son and family passed away in a car accident in May-1997. He was an engineer and was around 30 years then. His wife was a few years younger to him and his daugter was about to go to play school. The accident had happened in a small town in Tamil Nadu. You can imagine the frame of mind of the parents who hear the shocking news of the death of their only son whom they have thought to be the pillar of their family and expected to take care of them after a few years.

As usual the case was filed in the local court in Tindivanum and a prominent local lawer has promised that he will take care of the case and as soon as possible the same can be closed by getting the maximum claim amount. My in-laws are from Kochi and both of them were ailing from health problems. Over 6 years it took for the Tindivanum court to spell their decision to pay a compensation of approximately 8 lakhs against the death claim of 3 persons. United India Insurance Company, a government of India enterprise, have delayed any action from them for more than an year before they went for an appeal to High Court in Chennai saying that the amount awarded by the lower court was too much and pleaded for reduction in the amount. They chose to make the case split into 3 seperate petitions, which is a cheap tactics to increase the effort of claimants in dealing with the case. For insurance companies, claim and compensations are an every day job and they knew the other party who resides in Kerala state will not have the energy and resource to attend to these cases in seperate dates regularly and they can drag it further for many more years.

My father in law was refered to a Chennai high court lawyer by the earlier lawyer. The new lawyer was such an irresponsible person, that I still suspect whether he was taking care of the interest of United India Insurance company. My father in law was completely in the dark about what was going on in Chennai High court due to his attorney's ignorance and mis-communication. After I have relocated to Bangalore in 2009, I made many trips to Chennai High Court and finally decided to move the cases to Lok Adalath. During November 2010, an agreement between United India Insurance and us was made in from of Lok Adalath for a reduced amount from the awarded amount by the lower court. After November 2010, when I am writing it now in June 2012, 17 MONTHS after the settlement on a reduced amount in front of Lok Adalath and 15 YEARS from the accident death of the 3 member family, our lawyer is saying that the sum will be issued soon. How soon is the "soon".....who knows ?

It is high time that the government get out of insurance business.

Fr.Thomas More CMI

Have you heard of Fr.Thomas More CMI. A catholic priest, a social reformer, thought provoking speaker and a simple human being who loved the peasants and farmers of kuttanadu, the rice bowl of Kerala. Fr.Thomas more passed away an year ago. Kuttanadu Catholic Association and Kuttanad Integral development Society, two of the many associations nurtured by Fr.Thomas More, has released a memoir on him on the first death anniversary gathering at the Darsanapuram model village created by him.

This 114 page booklet has several articles including one written by me on page 108/109. If you would like to read, please use the following link.

http://issuu.com/karikkampallilfamily/docs/suvachanam_final_01/1

My thoughts on next big thing is software and IT industry

Dear Friend,

Some fundamental questions in software based application systems were never got me any answers.

One of them is - Why should any customer need to buy software like a garden, when they only need a flower? Most of you who have spent time in implementing systems would have surely felt the unnecessary usage of time, resources and efforts during the phase of implementation. Software systems take too long to implement in an enterprise and comprises of a huge quantum of wasted efforts in comparison with the finite results aimed which are seldom achieved completely. The reason for the IT industry does not often deliver what is expected is debated is attributed to many aspects including process, people, technology etc. and many more. My belief is that the main reason is in my question. The customer wants a flower, but the industry is offering him a garden, sometimes a forest itself. The industry convinces the customer that you cannot get a flower unless you have your garden, which appears logical to the customer. The customer also feels comfortable being in the community of other customers who have similar gardens.

If we have to make good applications, which is precisely providing end result as required by a customer, it is important that the customer should be able to demand what he needs and there should be technical capability and subject matter knowledge available in the industry to deliver the needs. The concept that I would like to evangalise under the name "Subscriber Computing" is covering the various aspects that could potentialy be the next evolution in the industry.

I have been talking to variety of professionals over last 6 months about this subject and made notes of what they feel about the Subscriber Computing approch. I have recieved seveal creative critisism which helped me refine my thoughts. All these collective thoughts have been put into an eBook form and published for you. You can download the eBook and read it on your PC, iPad, tablet or even on your smartphones. I have avoided printing the book so that  I can keep the cost of making the book available at a bare minimum.

The title of this book is "Subscriber Computing: Divergence of Application software development from Software engineering".

You may download this eBook at http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/subscriber-computing-divergence-of-application-development-from-software-engineering/18829729

Kindly forward this to people who are in your contact list about the book and join me in evangelising the concept of the next big step in software industry.

Please give me your feed back either by an email to me at gtk918@gmail.com or visiting my blog site at http://gtk918.blogspot.com/ Your comments are very valuable in improving the concept and making an impact with it in the industry.

Thanking you,
Sincerely Yours,
George Thomas

At last the leaders in Kerala are talking something for the people

I have written earlier in this blog about the inertness by the leadership on the Mullperiyar dam. Finally, the leaders have woken up, thanks to Minister PJ Joseph. His remarks in public followed by a public uproar has made everyone to react to it.

It is now the turn of Central government and the Judicial institutions to listen to the worried millions of people in the state. People in Tamil Nadu and their leadership has to understand that by supporting the safety requirements of 3.5 million people in Kerala, they are not going to loose even one drop of water. Instead they will gain goodwill in the state. Hope wisdom prevail.

Project management success mantra

Be in control as a leader but never behave like a boss,

Enhance knowledge with Subject matter Experts,

Do not enter when exit is not clear,

Depend on God but never ignore Numbers and Dates,

Believe that Quality is a culture and

none would be proud to produce sub-standard results,

Measure all possible downfalls,

An effective communication would be your key to success,

Break it into smaller meaningful blocks,

Plan it macro and then plan it micro,

Review review review always while in execution.