The Battlestar Galactica Series Finale was Frakking Awesome, ok?
I know the finale was broadcast last weekend, but I didn’t get to see it until a few days ago. If you haven’t seen it yet (or if you haven’t seen the series at all and are planning to start), don’t read any further because there are spoilers!
The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica earned itself a place in my list of “All-time favorite Sci-Fi shows” (alongside Star Trek: TNG, Star Trek: DS9, Stargate SG-1, X-Files, and Doctor Who (2004)) pretty much after the first season. During its run it was arguably “the best show on television”. Although the series faltered a tiny bit during the 3rd season, I have never seen such a well-written show with fully-fleshed out characters, a gripping story line, complex existential, religious, militaristic, and moral themes, and gritty, exciting action. The success and superior quality of the show is further supported by the fact that it attracted an audience that traditionally doesn’t watch Sci-Fi. In fact, many of my friends who don’t usually watch Sci-Fi (to the extent that some of them actually dislike it) instantly liked the show despite its obvious Sci-Fi underpinnings. The themes of the show were especially valid in a post-9/11 world. Here is a (by no means comprehensive) list of issues that the series tried to address:
- The effectiveness of armed insurgency or suicide bombing
- Personal safety (or the illusion thereof) at the expense of personal freedom
- Civilian versus Military rule
- The importance of wearing the uniform, military service, and upholding the oath you swear when you sign up (an aspect that particularly appealed to me)
- Divine intervention, divine providence, fate, and destiny
- An examination of the human condition in the direst of circumstances (when the survival of humanity is at stake)
- An attempt to answer the question of what it means to be Human
The series had a message that was so pertinent and so valid, that the cast was invited to a summit at the UN. To quote Robert Orr, the Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Planning, “You’ve got people thinking about issues that we try and get people thinking about every day.”
Ok, now that I’ve done more than enough gushing about the show, let me go onto the finale. I know that this subject has already been beaten to death since the finale aired, but I want to put in my two cents. The finale was frakking awesome ok? A lot of people are complaining that the finale didn’t address every single question that they had, and that there are some loose ends. Some of them are even complaining that the finale was a little too long, and even that the enter finale was a cop-out resolved by deus ex machina. Ok, they’re entitled to their opinion… but really? Yes, there were some deus ex machina moments (like Starbuck realizing that the opening strains to Watchtower were actually FTL co-ordinates to our Earth) that require a leap of faith. But that’s the point. I mean, what explanation were you expecting for Head Six and Head Baltar? Are they angels or demons? Schizophrenic hallucinations? No one really knows, and that’s fine. The point is that there we don’t know everything and that there isn’t an answer for everything.
You could make the argument that the writers had too grandiose of a vision, and that they had too many plot points, leading to some that were apparently unresolved. But again, it’s a matter of opinion, and it is quite subjective. For example, consider Kara Thrace. What is she? An angel? I don’t know, and I’m fine with that. She was apparently born with a destiny and with a task to perform. From the series you can tell that all her life she has been searching for a purpose. Her entire life has been an existential crisis and a search for relevance and validation. This search is finally realized when she finally leads Humanity to a permanent home.
The weakest part, arguably, of the finale was after they find our Earth. The surviving population is apparently content to leave behind all their advanced technology and start a pastoral life on Earth. This didn’t completely sit well with me. I found it a little hard to believe. One could argue that the human population on the ships haven’t really been leading a good life for the past four years. They have essentially been refugees the whole time. I guess you could argue that wouldn’t want any reminders of those difficult four years and would want to start completely anew. But I still have a hard time believing that the entire population would agree to that. In fact, when it became obvious that they had arrived on a pre-historic (150,000 years ago to be exact) Earth, I imagined that the population would probably split into two camps: one hanging on the the advanced technology, and another abandoning it completely. There would presumably be no contact between the two, and the technological group, to minimize their impact on Earth’s indigenous population would perhaps retreat to an island that subsequently gets destroyed by a natural disaster. It seems like a neater conclusion to the story. But this wasn’t the case, and even still, I don’t think it ruins the overall message of the finale or the series.
Then you have the final few minutes where we find out that the colonials landed on an Earth 150,000 years in our past. Though the finale could have ended with the scene where Admiral Adama sits on the hill beside President Laura Roslyn’s grave, talking to her while looking at the sunset, I think the final sequence presents a clearer message about the cyclical nature of human history, and about death and rebirth. I also liked how they pointed out Hera’s significance to Humanity and Cylons in the end, when it is revealed that she is Mitochondrial Eve. Finally, I also liked the conversation between Head Six and Head Baltar at the end where they compare our current civilization to the past human civilizations on old Earth, Kobol, and the Twelve Colonies (playing into the whole “cylical nature of history”/”death-rebirth” concept) but also note that there is always a chance that humanity won’t chose a self-destructive path again. I know that some people found the ending montage of the robots to be a little cheesy, but I think it was pertinent in the sense that humanity has always advanced faster in technology than in social maturity (Lee Adama talks about the same thing during the finale) and that we really need to be careful. With that, the series finally ended on a cautionary, though optimistic note.
Well, that’s my two cents on the series finale. If I had to condense that into two words, I’d say it like I said before: Frakking Awesome!
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The State of Computer Engineering
I was having a conversation with a few good friends (old college buddies, and fellow nerds) over a couple of beers a little while ago. We mainly reminisced about certain key classes we took while we were at ASU, and also about the state of CS and CSE graduates today. Indeed, the very nature of the degree. First, a little bit about those key classes that we took and still think about. These classes are CSE 225, CSE 421, CSE 423/438, and CSE 521. I wasn’t able to take CSE 423 and 438 because they were discontinued by the time I had completed the required prerequisites. But I was able to take the other three. All three classes deal with assembly programming. Assembly programming is the lowest level of programming there is. You directly control the CPU by sending it instructions. These instructions are actually decoded into a bit-pattern, which essentially translate into a series of on and off signals that travel to various places within the CPU (or even associated memory, I/O, etc.) and make it do cool stuff. At this level, you don’t have any of the niceties of higher-level programming-languages. There are no variables. There are no function parameters. There is no easy way to do I/O. Data can sometimes be program code and program code can sometimes be data, depending on your point of view. It’s a highly restrictive and immensely liberating and powerful environment at the same time. It takes a lot of effort to code in assembly, and much more effort to code well.
My introduction to assembly programming began with CSE 225. The class was taught by Lance Johnson and dealt with the Motorola 68HC11 (now produced by Freescale Semiconductor). I was pretty nervous about the class because I had heard how hard it was. As it turned out, yes, the class was hard. I put a lot of time into the class, and in the end it paid off. I got an A. The next class after CSE 225, was CSE 421 and this was taught by Dr. David Pheanis, one of the best professors I’ve ever had. Lance taught CSE 225 the same way Dr. Pheanis taught CSE 421, although it wasn’t as difficult. Both classes had “shotguns” (unannounced quizzes) and lab demos. In both classes you had to document your code thoroughly. In addition, you had to demo your code to the TA’s and every time you failed a demo, you would have 5 points knocked off your score for that lab. Oh, and in addition you were also graded on the efficiency of your lab solution. Embedded environments are usually sparse when it comes to resources, so getting your program to be small and fast is very important. Your efficiency score was calculated against the professor’s score. For every byte that you were over the optimal solution, you get one point taken off your lab score. If you ever beat the optimal solution, you got additional points. Pretty exacting standards.
In CSE 421, it was even harder. Dr. Pheanis would grade you on time on some of the labs as well. You also wrote code on the Motorola 6800, which was the predecessor of the 6811. As a result you were limited on the number of registers you had, which made it harder to write code (well, efficient code). You also had to have a very good amount of documentation. Each lab had a General Overview, User’s Guide, and Internal Overview. Any subroutines in your lab had to have its own User’s Guide and Internal Overview. Stack usage had to be properly documented. Logical groups of your assembly code had to be extensively documented and you had to explain the what, how, and why of your code. So if your program wasn’t adequately documented, you lost points. Our final lab involved implementing an Asynchronous RS-232 receiver and transmitter driver for the 6800. At the end of CSE 421, I learnt a lot of useful things. For one, I learnt how to write efficient code (something that has carried over into my high-level programming) and I learnt how to document my code really well. I also learnt how to be a good programmer.
The last class I took with Dr. Pheanis was CSE 521. You could register for this class, but more often than not, Dr. Pheanis invited you to take the class if he thought that you were a good student, and that you could handle the course load. I was privileged enough to be invited by Dr. Pheanis. In CSE 521, you write assembly code for the Motorola 68000. The 68k is a beautifully designed processor. The instruction set is almost completely orthogonal, and in general, it was a complete delight writing code on it. On a side note, writing on the 68k spoiled me to the point where it was impossible for me to pick up x86 assembly. The design is just atrocious. Anyway, the class was hard. I took it during my final semester at ASU, and I had two other classes (that I actually needed to graduate), but I spent the most time on CSE 521. In addition to the usual stuff you got graded on in CSE 421 (demo-passing code, efficieny (time and speed), and documentation) you were also graded on English grammar. I remember getting my first lab back and finding red marks all over it. Granted, I had done a little better than my classmates. I’ve always been comfortable with the written aspect of the English language and I thought I had a decent grasp of the language. Well, it wasn’t as decent a grasp as I had thought. I was introduced to problems such as “it or this without proper antecedent”, “the scope of ‘only’”, and “proper hyphenation”. Oh, there was also the infamous “Avoid ugly passive voice” stamp. Examples of such problems:
An “it or this without proper antecedent” grammatical error occurs when there is ambiguity in a sentence about exactly what “this” or “it” is referring to. For example, “Susan bought a dress and a hat. It was green.” In this example, we can’t say what “it” is referring to; it could be the dress or the hat. The sentence should be rewritten: “Susan bought a dress and a hat. The hat was green.” The “scope of only” is an interesting one. Consider the following sentence: “John only drinks water.” You might think it means that John only drinks water and not any other kind of drink. Actually, the only restricts the scope much more than that. What the sentence actually means is that John only drinks water and does nothing else. He doesn’t eat, sleep, sit, stand or do anything else for that matter. He only drinks water. The correct version of the sentence is “John drinks only water.” In general, you want to use “only” as late in the sentence as possible. Hence, the “scope of only”. Then there’s “proper hyphenation”. You generally want to use hyphens with compound nouns and adjectives. For example, “dining table”, “fish tank” and “operating system” are compound nouns whereas “black and blue” and “extremely hot” are compound adjectives. When you use an adjective to describe a compound noun (or vice versa), you need to properly hyphenative. Otherwise, the meaning of the sentence will be ambiguous or nonsensical. For example, consider the colloquial expression “It was a cold ass day”, meaning “It was a really cold day”. Does it mean it was a “cold-ass day” (compound adjective “cold-ass” with noun “day”), or does it mean it was “cold ass-day” (adjective “cold” with nonsensical compound noun “ass-day”)? Properly hyphenated, the sentence should read “It was a cold-ass day”.
You might wonder why English grammar is so important in an assembly programming class. Programming is more than just writing code. Once you write something, you (or someone else) needs to maintain it. So it is generally helpful if you can tell what your code is doing. This is especially important in assembly programming where it is not immediately obvious what the code is doing. I remember how Dr. Pheanis used to say that Engineers generally have terrible documentation skill. This is very true. I cannot count the times I have scratched my head looking at code I only wrote a few months ago, trying to figure out what exactly I was trying to do.
Now to the original point of my post. Larry Wall (creator of Perl) along with Randall L. Schwartz and Tom Christiansen outlined the three virtues of a greate programmer:
- Laziness – The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don’t have to answer so many questions about it. Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer. Also hence, this book. See also impatience and hubris.
- Impatience – The anger you feel when the computer is being lazy. This makes you write programs that don’t just react to your needs, but actually anticipate them. Or at least pretend to. Hence, the second great virtue of a programmer. See also laziness and hubris.
- Hubris – Excessive pride, the sort of thing Zeus zaps you for. Also the quality that makes you write (and maintain) programs that other people won’t want to say bad things about. Hence, the third great virtue of a programmer. See also laziness and impatience.
In addition to the three listed above, I’d like to add another one: Passion. This is the virtue that makes you like writing code. This is the virtue that makes you sit up till 3 A. M. in the morning hacking out a Mandelbrot-Fractal Generator or an artificial-life simulator just because you think it’s a cool thing to do. This is the virtue that makes you crash your box because you decided to do something bleeding-edge and incredibly unstable and dangerous just because you wanted to. This is also the virtue that gives you the desire to learn; the urge to acquire newer and better skills and to be a better programmer. Passion, is unfortunately in short supply these days among most programmers that come from college (or at least, ASU). In part, I blame the administration itself. When I was in college, the department tried very hard to force Dr. Pheanis out of his class, ostensibly to “modernize” the curriculum. Their rationale was that the processors used in Dr. Pheanis’ classes were “outdated”. Apparently they weren’t able to grasp the concept that assembly programming is not about using the latest and greatest processors, it is about learning the fundamentals. Dr. Pheanis’ last class was in spring of 2004. He’s a professor emeritus, and no longer teaching at ASU. ASU’s current computer engineering curriculum doesn’t have many interesting courses, for example, as I found out from Marc, ASU isn’t offering a compiler-design course anymore. In an urge to make the course more “modern”, I think a lot of soul has gone out of the program. Just taking all the classes doesn’t turn you into a Computer Engineer or programmer. It’s true that I learnt a lot of theory and a lot of other useful stuff from the classes at ASU, but a lot of times I went out of my way to learn things on my own. When I started college, I didn’t know the first thing about Unix. I knew how to write code (I wasn’t great… yet 
heh), but that was it. During my first semester I taught myself how to work on a Unix system. I learnt how to use vi and how to write shell-scripts. Over the years I started teaching myself more and more stuff – I taught myself Perl and PHP, and picked up the finer points of web development. I taught myself how to set up and administer a FreeBSD server. What also helped me a lot was that I was around people who found these kinds of things as interesting as I did. The classes and professors fostered the type of environment where you felt inclined to learn more than just what the curriculum offered. There are graduates these days who don’t think there are other development environments besides the GUI. I was writing code on a Solaris system when I was in college. My development environment consisted of the commandline and vi. It’s actually only recently that I’ve been using IDE’s (I hadn’t really used an IDE since Borland’s IDE for C++, and that was during my junior and senior years of highschool), and while I definitely find that they enhance productivity (especially for large projects), I feel equally at home hacking on the commandline. There are graduates today who don’t know anything more than what they’re taught at college (I like to call them “cookie-cutter programmers”). They know Java and/or C++ (and perhaps Lisp, and C). They know data structures, and maybe they’ve heard of Linux. But they really don’t know anything besides what they’ve been taught (I don’t think all is lost, however, there still are graduates who do more than just the curriculum – who are passionate about the field).
I guess what I’m trying to get at, is that I think CS programs at should should foster an environment of self-discovery, self-learning, and exploration. Unfortunately, I find that this is not the case with ASU’s CS program these days. Compared to what it was when I’ve gone through, it just contains a bunch of stock classes that have replaced the older ones. The reason? Supposedly “accreditation”. In fact, I remember feeling extremely disappointed when Google closed their doors in Tempe. The Google office was very close to the ASU campus. Their closing told me that they weren’t able to attract good talent from ASU, and that’s just disheartening. Perhaps the heads of the CSE department at ASU should be more concerned about giving students good, practical knowledge, and teach them how to be better Computer Engineers and Programmers than just being concerned about accreditation.
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WTF is up with the 2009 Acura TL?
I love my 2007 Acura TL. In my opinion, it’s the perfect mix of luxury and sportiness for the price. I love the way the engine growls when I step on the gas, and I love the way the body looks. For this reason, I was pretty excited to see what Honda would come up with for the 2009 Acura TL. When the 2009 TSX came out, I was even more excited because it looks pretty awesome and I was sure that Honda wouldn’t disappoint with the TL.
Yeah. Seriously… WTF?! I don’t mind the grille. They seem to have borrowed that from the MDX, and the TSX has a similar one. It’s not bad at all – it’s pretty streamlined and aggressive-looking. But seriously, what the hell is up with that curve on top of the front-wheel. Seriously?! It totally breaks the streamlined look when you look at it from the side… it just looks bad! So yeah, I was a little disappointed, but I thought that the weird curve was something I could get used to. So then I tried to see what the rear looked like. The rear on the current generation of Acura TL is very nice. It’s imposing and it kinda raises up the rear of the car giving the entire vehicle a pointed, streamlined look. So what did they come up with for the rear of the 2009 Acura TL?
What the hell, guys?! You kinda just took the rear of the 2008 Honda Accord and the 2007 Civic Coupe and squished them together to form a horrible ugly mess! I thought the rear of the 2007 Civic Coupe looks pretty nice. Even though the tail-lights were small, they were balanced out by the larger trunk door. I didn’t really like the rear of the 2008 Accord because the rear lights looked way too small. Honda seems to have taken the worst of both ideas to create the rear of the 2009 Acura TL. It has small tail-lights and a small trunk door. It’s just ugly.
So yeah, I’m pretty disappointed. I hope in newer versions they will redesign the rear exterior (like how Honda does with the Accords and Civics), but I doubt that’s going to happen seeing as how they barely made any changes to the current generation from year to year. All in all, I don’t like the 2009 Acura TL, and I think they could have done a way better job. Guess I’ll have to wait till 2015 to see what they come up with next.
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Change
Sorry about not writing for so long. I was slowly getting back to “normal life” and I felt kinda apathetic about writing. Then when I actually felt like writing, my internet connection went down. It’s a long story, and I’ll talk about it later, but basically I have no more static IP’s. But I’m so glad there’s this.
My whole vacation was about “change”. Scratch that. Going to war, coming back, and settling into normal life has been about change. Usually I’m averse to change. Yeah, I’m that guy who orders the same damn thing everytime I go to a restaurant. Mostly because I really like the dish. It’s not so much I like being in a rut (I don’t), but it’s more that once I am comfortable with something, I don’t like changing it. Change makes me stressful and agitated and I usually don’t like it. I like to have a handle on every aspect of the situation and I hate “unknowns”. But if anything, I think I’ve learned how to deal with change.
I find myself thinking of the “good old days” a lot. I get patronizing scoffs from older people (people in their 40′s or 50′s) when I say this, but seriously; it’s true. After college, a lot of things changed. I started working, I got a house, and then I went to war. I listen to music on the radio, and I say “What is this shit? Music was so much better in the 90′s!”. That’s also when I realize that I sound like my father (of course, he claims music was better in the 70′s). But again, it’s more than that. I think I’m in that gray area when you realize that you’re actually starting to become a “grown-up”. Some people say it’s because you lose the clichéed “innocence of childhood”. But I think calling it the “ignorance of childhood” is more apposite, and as we all know, another cliché tells us that “ignorance is bliss”. My view of the world has become significantly grayer and duller over the years by layers and layers of cynicism. I don’t mean this just figuratively. No, really – I distinctly remember the days being brighter when I was younger. Is that what happens when you “grow up”? I remember wonderful summers in India, when I was seven or eight. There is this tree in our backyard that we children would play around. The sunlight was brighter, and butterflies would be flitting around us as we played. I didn’t see that many butterflies when I went to India this time, or the last time for that matter. Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough.
When you grow up there are a lot of new things you learn, things you wished you didn’t know. You are expected to take part in “grown up” discussions and things like that. Stuff that’s really tiresome. Sometimes I feel that everyone talks, but nothing gets done. That’s really frustrating for an engineer, who’s whole life revolves around solving problems. I’d say for the most part of the eight years since I left highschool, my life was constant. But I think it was the going away for a year that made me realize how much had really changed. Being out there for a year made me re-evaluate so many things, especially my personal relationships (these especially for the better). I think part of it was because I was a passive spectator to my own life, one that was moving along without me. I mean, life wasn’t really “going on” for me. Life for me, was Arizona and I sure as hell wasn’t in Arizona for a year. It’s funny when I try to place things or relate to things and I realize that my point of reference is from two years ago. It’s very disorienting to immerse yourself into an environment that’s a year ahead of you… like stepping into a moving train.
One of the major “changes” I’ve had to deal with is my little sister’s marriage. I knew it was going to happen one day, but it was more of an abstract concept than something concrete. But yeah, my baby sister is getting married – later this year in fact. It’s a happy occasion, but still different than what I’ve been used to. Some changes haven’t been so happy. It’s sad when you look at an old photograph and realize some of the people are no longer around… and that some of them won’t be around much longer. I wonder if cynicism is the inevitable consequence of knowledge and adulthood. I do find myself looking at a lot of things through jaded eyes. Somewhere along the way I lost the sense of wonder I had during my childhood, or even in my early college-years. I guess I still believe in the goodness of things, but more often than not I am surprised by it.
I think it will get better though. Being in touch with my family, being around my family, and in the company of old friends helps it out quite a bit. Just like anything else, it’s always only a matter of time…
I’ve got a few pictures here from my trip in India. There are a few missing which I will upload later. There are also others that I lost when the drive on my laptod died (this always happens to me). I’m going to try and salvage what I can from it this weekend and see if I can get the pictures back. I’ve got pictures of my highschool teachers and highschool principal here. The feeling I have towards them can only be called “reverence”. In Hinduism they say that the Guru (teacher) is equal to God. Nothing could be further from the truth when describing my teachers. I would not be where I am today, without their help.
Acha
Amma
A Newfoundland I met at JFK.
The cutest doggie in the world.
Mr. Andrews, Mr. Dogra, and I.
One of the most amazing persons I have ever known.
My old class-teacher, Mr. Joy standing in front of good old 12 A!
Mrs. Ghosh, my old Ibri house house-mistress. She never actually taught me, but that seems irrelevant. I still remember reciting a piece from G. B. Shaw’s Pygmalion for the House Recitation compeition.
I certainly wouldn’t have understoon Electricity and Magnetism if it wasn’t for Mr. Srinivas. One of the most interesting and engaging teachers I’ve had.
Mr. Stanislaus wouldn’t let me synthesize RDX in the Chemistry Lab. That was probably a good thing. It’s also because of him that I can still amaze Chemistry Geeks with my random bits of Chem knowledge.
Our cats in Muscat. Thomas, Sundari (meaning “pretty one” in Malayalam), Karamban (meaning “black one” in Malayalam), and Tiger Poocha (literally translated, “Tiger Cat”. It’s a name I made up).
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It’s finally here
Tonight is the last light I will sleep as a civilian. Although technically I came under orders on the 26th of August, it’s only tonight that I feel, is my last night as a civilian.
Starting tomorrow, I am a full-time soldier for at least a year and a half, waking up at o-dark-thirty every morning.
I don’t think I can put into words the emotional turmoil I am feeling right now. Tonight I saw many of my friends for the last time (for about a year and half). My family has been with me for the past two weeks, and I will be seeing them for the last time (for a year and a half) tomorrow. I cannot ask for a better set of friends and family. They are the most magnificent, caring, loving people I have ever met, and I am blessed to have them.
I want you all to know I love you, and I will sorely miss you all. Thank you for all the surprises and the gifts you have given me over the past month. Thank you for all the love, laughs, and beautiful memories. Thank you for making my final month before my mission to Iraq a treasure-trove of good memories. Thank you for everything.
I will be counting the days till I get back…
I have updated my blog. If you are still seeing this entry, it’s due to a bug I have in my redirection. What you want to do is clear your browser cache and reload the page. It should redirect to the latest entry. The best way to know if I’ve updated my blog or not, is to take a look at the calendar..
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Arizona Thunderstorm
There is a thunderstorm brewing outside. One of the many we’ve had over the past couple of weeks. Thunderstorms in Arizona are quite simply, amazing. Dark clouds roil in the sky. They look like herds of elephants. If you look hard enough, you can even see some of them. A trunk here… a tusk there… I would go and stand outside, except that the wind stirs up a significant amount of dust, and I really don’t want to breathe that in.
When the rain finally does come down, it kicks up the dry dust. Then the desert air is suffused with the gorgeous scent of rain-on-dry-earth. Electric fingers reach down from the sky followed by rumbling thunder. The world is lit up in an eerie white light, throwing things into sharp relief, as if the lightning was the world’s biggest camera flash, and the heavens were taking pictures of the inhabitants down below.
The sight is awe inspiring. No wonder our ancestors thought that divine hands were behind them. It makes me feel so small and insignificant. Human beings are the most successful, and the most arrogant species on this planet. We can still be humbled by Mother Nature’s whims and fancies.
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You Can Start Looking Now
I know I haven’t posted in a while. That’s mainly because I’ve been busy and lazy – an interesting combination. I was having my military training over the past two weeks, so I really didn’t have time to update my journal. In addition, my DSL service is being really flaky. I’m dropping connection and then my modem refuses to retrain. I’m talking to Qwest right now. I’m pretty sure it’s their fault. Hopefully they’ll fix it.
Anyway, so I had a few conversations with my parents over the past few weeks, and the subject was marriage. No, it wasn’t something like “Son, we need to find you a girl now.” It was more like “Hey, you can start looking now if you want”. I talked about this a little bit sometime ago, and I was thinking of talking to my parents about it as well. Truth be told, I guess I’m not averse to “settling down”. The fact of the matter is that I would really like some female companionship of a serious and lasting nature in my life right now. Merely dating wouldn’t do that for me. It used to bother me that I never really dated anyone during my college years. But in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t. I can totally see myself neglecting my academics. Also, the fact that I had no woman, meant that I wouldn’t be spending any time with her. Which meant that I had time to pursue my nerdy pursuits. Which in turn led to me picking up some really useful skills, and accomplishing some really neat things which finally led to an internship, and then, a job at Intel. So in the end, it’s not all that bad.
Actually my parents weren’t the first people to tell me that I could start looking. It was my aunt. I was in California over the 4th of July weekend, and my aunt said that my cousin and I should “start looking” now so that we “could get married when the time comes”. I thought it was a little funny, and actually I didn’t find her idea that far-fetched. I have been sort of “pseudo-looking” – I just haven’t found anyone. So I half-jokingly tell this to my parents and they said “Oh yeah, you should start looking!” So then I decided to see what my options were. Of course, they would ideally want me to marry a Hindu, Nair, Malayalee girl. But what about a girl from another culture? A Tamilian girl perhaps? I asked them. Their response was measured, and I guess, cautious. My father only told me that it may work out initially but that difficulties could arise once children came into the picture, or possibly, even before that, and that there are greater risks. So I’m not sure if they meant it was ok or not ok for me to look for girls from another culture. My parents have never really talked to me that much about marriage, and so I was really happy to see how open-minded they were about the issue. To those who might be thinking that this has the makings of an arranged marriage, it really doesn’t. First of all, they aren’t the ones looking for a girl – they’ve left it up to me. Although, I do know that if they come across a girl they think I might like, they may recommend I get in touch with her. I don’t see that as bad either, since it’s like my parents are hooking me up. The funny part was when my father told me to put myself up on Kerala Matrimonials. He said “Oh, it’s just like a dating service!” I thought that was funny. I don’t think I’m ready for that yet though…
I’m keeping an open mind and also keeping my options open. I guess if I try and concentrate too much on one particular goal, it may close out other possibilities. If I need to find a nice Nair girl, it’s harder for me, because there are very few Malayalees in Arizona. But I hear there are many in California and Texas. Oh well. I don’t think I’ll actively go around looking, but I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. At any rate, there’s no point in looking now, because I’m going to be in Iraq for a year. Now what are the odds of meeting a Hindu, Nair, Malayalee girl there? I’d laugh if I met one – in the Army nonetheless!
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