Of Latitudes and Attidudes

The Mid-Program Academic Retreat ( MPAR ) held annually by Haas for their MBA students was eye-opening in terms of the quality of presentations. A group of over 240 EWMBAs and a smattering of full-time students gathered in the picturesque Silvarado Resort in Napa. The concept was brilliant and simple. It starts with the Haas curriculum that focuses strong on BILD . This flagship curriculum gives students the necessary tools to be innovative leaders in the outside world. When I was an exec MBA student there, this program was not a focus of our curriculum but I chose it as an elective and it turned into one of the most exciting and pragmatic classes I had taken at Haas. My own journey continued beyond the MBA but I loved the opportunities to support the school. At Napa, the students were put in teams of 5-6 to work on developing products that emphasize growth opportunities not for one but two sponsors. These sponsors were: SAP, Citi, Ford, Kaiser, Panasonic, Verizon, and Nike. Each sp...

Science continues to blow the mind. According to a new theory, every black hole contains a smaller alternate universe. Instead of forming singularities, matter inside black holes pops out into a different universe through wormholes. That's cool, you say. But this is the kicker: Our universe might just exist inside another, much larger universe. How? Short answer: Gamma rays. "These high energy bursts occur at the fringes of the known universe. They appear to be associated with supernovae, or star explosions, in faraway galaxies, but their exact sources are a mystery." According to a publication in Physics Letter B, Indiana professor, Poplawski proposes that the bursts may be discharges of matter from alternate universes. The matter, he says, might be escaping into our universe through supermassive black holes—wormholes—at the hearts of those galaxies, though it's not clear how that would be possible. According to the article, it seems that we can probably test this th...

minutes, hours, days weeks, months, years thoughts, lights, significance memories, ideas, inspirations time, space, everlasting change nothing remains ever the same it is in the spirit of Oneness that we collect here and now rest is a fleeting game

I was given a simple directive. At half-past 6, show up at kalpatru fruit market, near the Hanuman mandir. Joined by a US resident fellow on the trail of digging below the "surface" of India, I asked the rickshaw-wallah to take us there. It is located in the old part of Ahmedabad, beyond the lal-darwaja (that's the gate Maharaja Ahmed used to enter the then tiny city of Karnavati-nagari nearly 600 years ago), through the cacophonous maze of teeny-tiny gullies and jam-packed streets.  Here is where the pujari of the temple, for over two decades, has been providing free food to all who come to his door. The concept is simple. You show up, you get food. No questions asked but love and smile offered unconditionally. We reached there to find a few people still getting their evening meal, sitting by the side of the road. The pujari lives in the temple itself, in one small room that has nothing but a 15" TV and a couple of mattresses on the side. The rest is a kitchen and a...

From NY Times' David Pogue discussing perils of modern HD cameras in micro-gravity (induced in free-fall flights), I discovered a raging sensation of You-Tube, " Where the Hell is Matt " video, which made me curious about the song playing in the background, which led me to Rabindranath Tagore, which made me even more curious to discover the lyrics given below. Absolutely amazing stuff.  (thanks to the anonymous poster who  put this together) Stream of Life by  Rabindranath Tagore The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.   It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in...

I am not sure exactly what to feel. Sadness, anger, frustration - it's all welled up inside. One positive aspect of news reporting of the Mumbai killings is that the media is continually referring to the offenders as terrorists. I have been following this "terrorism" for such a long time that militant/freedom fighters are the only euphemistic monikers that I expect. This is a welcome change.  Even so, for posteriy, I want to document an AP report: " A police officer points out the spot where alleged terrorists are hiding to National Security Guard commandos outside a building housing a Jewish prayer hall which has been taken over by alleged terrorists at Colaba in Mumbai, India, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008. Teams of gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, a crowded train station and a Jewish center, killing people and holding Westerners hostage in coordinated attacks on India's commercial center that were blamed on Muslim militants. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)...

Finding the Vinoba Bhave ashram was not hard; I was merely surprised how long it took me to get there. It was supposed to be located at the outskirts of the city of Vadodara (India), but then, over the years Vadodara has grown to consume the surrounding villages and in this case, Gotri  gaam. Around 30 years ago Jagdish uncle took charge and settled with his wife and two young boys. One of the young boys, Kapilbhai, grew up to in-turn take charge of organic farming and that is why I was heading out to the ashram -- to learn and understand what's involved. I didn't get to talk to Kapilbhai much but I did spend some time with Jagdish uncle.  This is the story of how a simple man with a simple mission of feeding the world's hungry through ecologically sustainable agrarian practices came about in the city of Vadodara -- to be precise, then at the outskirts of the city, next to the cemetery. This ashram, founded by Vinoba Bhave -- the foremost land reformer independent India had...