Hello, this is Abhishek. I am an Electrical Engineer by education, and worked for an Energy Management company in Atlanta, USA. After staying for 5 years in United States, I have moved back to my country, India. Besides work, I am a bibliophile and enjoys reading about history, current affairs, and biographies. I practice ‘Sudarshan Kriya Yoga‘ meditation and volunteer for a NGO, Art of Living. I am a vegetarian, and also a fitness enthusiast. I intend to work for spreading awareness about Cancer. Finally, I enjoy writing and I hope to integrate this interest into my career with more experience. Please like, share and subscribe to my blog. Thank you for visiting!
I think this is due to the shallow foundations on which this concept was built up. Looking into history, it all started with Milton Friedman and similar school of economists who were more right winged politically, favored capitalism over FDR’s new deal type social welfare, and promoted the idea of tickle down theory in economics. Their underlying assumption was that if the corporations are given freedom to operate and carry out business without any government interference, then they will become rich, but in this process they will make their employees rich and in that way the riches will trickle down the hierarchy. After the 2007 sub-prime crisis, this theory got shaken and people started doubting it.
So, globalization is very much based on this theory. Due to the large corporation’s greed for getting rich, and dominating business throughout the world ( especially US businesses), they started finding out ways to reduce cost in production and labor. Until early 1970’s, all the manufacturing was done in US itself. But to compete soviet based communism, US politicians started reaching out to other third world countries to bring them to capitalism and with this, China was approached by Nixon in 1972, and later other nations like South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and India become a part of outsourcing US company operations in those countries to reduce cost and labor. This was especially escalated during the Reagan era, when he removed many regulations in the economy and the financialization of US industries began.
Also, that was an era when computer, semiconductor companies and stock market was at high, and much of the software was outsourced to India and the semiconductor companies started operating from Taiwan, China and Vietnam. Even core manufacturing companies like GE went from electrical to GE Capital, under the leadership of Jack Welch. Also, Japanese competition had driven US auto companies to either close down or outsource to other countries to cut down costs. Thus, globalization was widely accepted by all american corporates as a way to stay at the top of the business and drive out other competitors.
But as the corporate CEO’s became rich and richer over the years, US employees started losing their jobs to skilled labor force from China and India. Soon, many companies closed their operations in US and the rust belt became completely rusted as Japan and Germany leaded the auto-industry. But US took lead in computer, e-commerce and wireless industry, with many leading companies like Microsoft, Apple, Dell, Cisco, Facebook, Google and Amazon. But, even though the founders and management of the company were Americans, but to stay ahead in the competition ( to reduce cost and increase the business), they had to hire immigrants from India and China, and this way the H1-B employment programme gained momentum to cater these companies growing requirement of engineers. This resented many local people and due to which silicon valley soon became the hub of immigrants.
Also, its worth noting that to gain funding from these tech companies and Wall street, US politicians (both sides) kept supporting immigrants to come in US and work. Until Trump started opposing this policy, it was business as usual for the companies. So, this is when globalization started becoming controversial. For the last 4 years, Trump has reversed many policies and decisions taken by US presidents ( both parties) and infact, his election is also based on his stand against globalization and immigrants.
But though globalization has led to many changes as mentioned above, but it has also made US companies lead the world. If they had not been provided all the labor force needed with the growing business, then they won’t have become giants as seen today. Also, I think with the disappearance of Soviet Union and its communism from global stage in 1991, it was imperative for US to lead the world after that, and with this the flow of US products and industries to other nations as well. We need to understand that even though manufacturing and services jobs might have migrated to China and India respectively, but then that vacuum was filled by growing entrepreneurship among Americans ( Facebook, Tesla, Google, Snapchat, Twitter, Whatsapp all were founded after 1991). Startups has become a new fashion for the young Americans in last 30 years and not working in a factory or doing a regular desk job. So, in a way, this has benefited all.
But globalization has its cons too. It has created China as a new economic superpower which is competing with USA. It has led to immense income inequality between the rich and the poor. Never in history was the wealth gap between rich and the poor so wide as seen today. Then, globalization has led many developed countries to depend on the other countries and so the supply chain economics has been affected. Especially, since the start of coronavirus pandemic, USA’s over dependence on China (which is a outcome of globalization) has strongly raised public opinion against globalization. Besides, globalization has enormously affected the environment, as the rapid industrialization of many countries has led to ecological imbalance and has contributed to global warming. Globalization has led to enormous consumerism and this has resulted in a society where the demand is ever growing and the supply is dwindling due to limited resources. So, to keep the supply in demand with the growing world population, more urbanization, industrialization and deforestation is being done today. All this is not sustainable in the long run and many intellectuals and environmentalists have raised up this issue on global platforms.
So, due to all this, globalization has become controversial.
Iclicked this picture in the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Colorado. It was a pleasant evening, and when I saw this little tree in front of the giant mountain, many thoughts started coming to my philosophical mind. After all, philosophy is one of my hobbies and I have always loved debating on several philosophical topics with my friends.
So, I find this picture to be very interesting. First of all, its very beautiful. The scenic beauty with the red rocks forming a barren mountain and this tree being the only green vegetation in the whole picture. Wow! I know we can find this in many places around Arizona or Nevada or even Utah. But this Colorado pic clicked my philosophical mind somehow.
I feel this tree represents the human life and the barren mountain represents life’s problems, responsibilities and burdens. Human life is short just like this little tree, and is surrounded by the giant mountain of work stress and societal pressures. As the mountain is completely barren, so are the problems and stress in life. There is greenness in the tree, but not on the mountain. Similarly, it is our life which is good, enriching in itself and not the work or societal expectations.
Just as the tiny tree is standing straight in front of the tall mountain, similarly, we have to stand up and face the mountains of problems in life. This tree resembles the hope and faith in life. I remember the famous quote from the movie “Shawshank Redemption” that “faith is a good thing, and no good thing ever dies”, on the same grounds, this tree stands as an example to grow up in this barren land, in front of the mountain, proudly. So we have to stand up in life and even though there might be huge problems and anxieties,we got to have faith in our own abilities, that we can and we will face them successfully.
This tree also sets a living example that inspite of being the lonely tree in the whole area, so is human life. We come alone in this world and we have to leave this world, alone! Sorry to be so dramatic, but this is hard truth, and we have to bite the bullet eventually. Just as the tree has its short life, so do we. In today’s rat race to achieve so called success, fame, power, love and money, we often forget why are we working so hard and what are we running after. Because all the power, money, fame and human life is short lived, just like this tree. But unlike this tree,we forget to grow and blossom, and by not allowing ourselves to understand the basic purpose in life, we simply keep beating around the bush, and get involved in acquiring temporary pleasures in life. It is sad to say that we waste half of our health to gain the wealth, and then we spend half of that earned wealth to get back the lost health!
We need to find our true purpose in life, our genuine interests and live the life that will help us live the fullest, just like this tree does. It does not care of anyone’s opinions and neither does it stop growing or giving shade to the travelers, due to fear of being alone in front of the huge mountain.Then, why do we forget our work, our responsibilities towards society or humanity and why do we waste our life brooding about the past, worrying about the current problems and being anxious about the coming future?
Just as the tree doesn’t care of the depressing barrenness surrounding it, so should we not overthink or get too much involved in work stress or problems. After all, work or problems in life keep coming and going. We need to remember the famous commencement speech address given by Steve Jobs in Stanford in 2005. He did remind us that “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”
Today, we are seeing the impact of covid-19 and fearing the possible recession, but similar fear had mounted up during 2007 crisis, but it did eventually subside. Similar was during 9/11 when the whole world was afraid of terrorism, but eventually, it got over. And same has been repeated so many times back in history, yet we fear, doubt our potential and forget the fundamental truth that “this too shall pass!”.
Hence, I conclude my philosophical thoughts and I am glad to have caught this picture during my travel in Colorado. It reminds me of my life purpose, my potential and gives us a message that no matter, how tall the mountains of fear, stress or problems might be in this barren cynical world, there is a hope and faith in the form of this tree which stands straight with pride to face all those anxieties and fears, grows and blossoms amidst all the problems and performs its duty/work without worrying about the surroundings (past or future).
In Jan 2020, I got the opportunity to travel to Denver and Colorado Springs for business work. But along with business, we decided to roam around and as I had never been to Colorado, so I was quite excited for this new trip. Also, one of my colleague from my company was going to accompany in this trip.
January is one of the peak winter seasons in USA and Colorado lies at the foothills of Rocky mountains. So, I was quite concerned about the cold and the possibility to fall ill due to flu. ( on a sidenote, at that time, Coronavirus was not still known in USA, though it had been in China. )
So, this was going to be a week trip. We were going to travel on Monday morning to Denver and then fly back to Atlanta on Friday morning, and besides our work from 8 to 4 during the day, we planned to visit few places after work. So, I packed my bags and headed to the airport by Uber. Then, I boarded the Delta flight to Denver and after two and half hours journey, I landed in Denver. Denver airport is not big like Atlanta, but its roof is designed like the rocky mountains ( I realized after a while). Then, I met my colleague ( she had taken a different flight), we rented a car and started to roam around Denver. First stop was at the Colorado State Capitol building.
Top view from the Colorado State Capitol building. Also, seen are the snow capped Rocky mountains.
The Capitol is a large government building, and showcased an image of a typical bureaucratic environment. But, we wanted to see the mountains from a height, and so we joined one group which was touring the capitol building. The lady who was the lead of that group was gracious enough to let both of us enter the terrace of the building and so we captured the above pic from the top.
Then, after seeing the state capitol building, we decided to go to Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre which is famous for hoisting many rock concerts and also had seen The Beetles perform in 1964. The place is huge surrounded by red mountains as the name says. It was very surprising to have a amphitheatre built at such a high altitude location. The place indeed was very beautiful. But unfortunately,we had been in winter evening and it was chilling cold. Somehow, the beauty of the location made us bear the cold and we took tons of pics as well as selfies.
Red Rocks Amphitheatre from the topIn the giant amphitheatre surrounded by tall rocks.
Then, we decided to head towards Colorado Springs which is an hour away drive from Denver. Ignoring the traffic due to ongoing road widening, we reached Colorado Springs safely and ended our day. We had booked Double Tree by Hilton near Cheyenne mountain blvd, and we were very happy with the selection of this hotel.
The next day, started with starbucks coffee and breakfast at the restaurant near hotel lobby. We could see many US Air Force officers in the hotel due to the Air Force Academy presence in Colorado Springs. We decided that after work we will go to Garden of the Gods, which is one of the most beautiful places in Colorado. It comprises of about 1300 acres of vast sandstone formations and is designated as National Natural Landmark. Also, it is one of the most visited spots in Colorado. So, with excitement, we started our journey to the Garden of the Gods, and within 20 mins, we reached our destination. The valley is simply beautiful. It’s no surprise why this is called as God’s Garden!
Garden of the Gods
We started walking in the park ( the name is garden, but it is called as park!) We saw many, huge sandstone rock formations and some of them were indeed favorites for rock climbers and boulders. We saw many signs showing to preserve the natural beauty of the park by not stepping outside the walking fence, and were also warned by the possible hiding spot of rattle snake, whoa! Besides fearing to see rattle snake ( which we did not see), we saw other animals like deers, rabbits and squirrels in large numbers, roaming freely in the park. The park has neat pavements for walking and provides directions every now and then.
Soon, we saw a distant tall snow capped peak. We wondered what was that and then after reading the information board, we found that to be Pikes Peak, which is the highest summit of the southern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, with an elevation of about 14000 ft.
The info board overlooking the distant Pikes Peak
Finally, it started getting dark and cold, and so we decided to return to our hotel in Colorado Springs.
Later during the week, we roamed around the city in downtown, visiting new restaurants. Some of the good restaurants we visited were Rabbit Hole, Red Gravy, Colorado Craft ( the veg burgers were really good), Denver Biscuit Co and Odyssey Gastropub. I would recommend to try them if you happen to visit Colorado Springs/Denver area.
Finally, we completed our business work and headed back to Denver. Though there were many places to visit such as Air Force Academy, Cave of the Winds mountain park etc, but we ran out of time and the latter was closed due to snow. Hence, we both were happy to have visited Colorado Springs and Denver, we both had a good time and it was indeed a very memorable trip!
Now, looking at the covid-19 impact, I feel that we were fortunate to have traveled to Colorado just before the Coronavirus started mass lockdowns. I wish this virus subsides down soon and everyone gets to travel again to their favorite places. Till then, stay at home and take care!
Today’s world is a global village. Everyone is connected to one another in this vast network generated by the Internet. As said by Marshall McLuhan, a philosopher of communication theory, “The new electronic independence re-creates the world in the image of a global village.” This electronic independence is inherently dependent upon the Internet. It illuminates the lives of thousands of people by spreading knowledge internationally, thereby making us global citizens.
In the past, the communicating and free sharing of thoughts among people were restricted by long distance, nationality and/or religion. But now, even these barriers cannot stop the flow of information and knowledge. The new world of social networking allows free sharing of thoughts. Online social networks are created by websites such as Facebook, which has emerged as a giant in this social world. So how do these networks affect our education? How do they influence the lives of students?
Humans are social animals. We always like to remain in some group or another, and we prefer to follow what this group does. All of our traditions and cultures are the product of this group-oriented facet of human nature. A well-known American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, stated in his “Theory of Motivation” that the social need of human beings is the third most important requirement after our physical and safety needs — the third tier in his hierarchy of needs. Even our self-esteem comes after this social dependence. This is the main reason billions of people use social networking to stay connected, make friends and satisfy their social needs.
As of 2020 the world’s largest social networking company, Facebook, has 2.6 billion active users, and the number of users is increasing every year. One of the most interesting things to look at is the increasing number of student users on such social networking sites. As per the survey conducted by Pew Research Center, 72 percent of high school and 78 percent of college students spend time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. These numbers indicate how much the student community is involved in this virtual world of social networking.
Actually, many reasons exist that explain why students love to spend time socializing. Firstly, social networks provide them the freedom to do whatever they want — to upload what they want and talk to whom they want. They like to make new friends and comment on the lives of different people. Students can create other online identities that the real world does not allow. The freedom it gives them to act just by sitting in front of a computer enthralls them, and they then demand for more freedom.
Never before has it been so easy for young minds to create a digital image of their actions through such a spontaneous medium.
But this has a darker side that has gained the attention of many parents, and even of many eminent psychologists, all over the world. One of the biggest problems is the identity crisis this social networking produces. As said by Professor S. Shyam Sunder, a renowned researcher at Penn State, “The types of actions users take and the kinds of information they are adding to their profiles are a reflection of their identities.”
Many psychologists are worried about the identity crisis that our present generation may face today. The lives of people, especially students, are largely influenced by what is posted by other people on their profiles. The habits that students learn are decided more by what their friends do and less by the teachings of parents or professors.
Our students have become prone to frequent fluctuations in mood and self-control. If one of a student’s friends posted about his or her present relationship with someone, then other friends are pressed to do the same thing. Actions that attract more public attention hold more value, even despite some of them being immoral or illegal. We even see that many students are worried about their looks, and so they always try to upload nicer pictures than their friends. A recent survey has stated that whenever someone uploads a profile picture, it immediately affects the moods of friends. It often produces stress, anxiety or fear about their identities as people. Consistently thinking in this way can sometimes lead to depression.
The most important things in a student’s life are studying, learning good habits and gaining knowledge to become a person with moral character. But today, as we see in various studies, this optimal learning process is seriously jeopardized by students becoming entrapped by the ploys of social networking. Students neglect their studies by spending time on social networking sites rather than studying or interacting with people in person. Active and frequent participating in social networking can negatively affect their grades or hamper their journeys to their future careers.
Getting too much involved in social media can lead to an addiction that inculcates bad habits. Students prefer to chat with friends for hours, and this leads to a waste of time that could have been used for studying, playing or learning new skills. It is often said that a long-term friendship or relationship is developed when people meet each other, spend time and share their experiences. But this virtual way of communicating with each other does not lead to a natural, friendly experience and hence cannot produce a healthy relationship with those friends. Also, these relationships tend to terminate easily due to a lack of personal contact.
The system generates a competition to make as many new friends as possible and the so-called “social quotient” of a person is decided by how many friends they have and not on how good natured and congenial the person really is. Often, students who are not old enough to accurately analyze the world “like” or comment on social or political issues, and this leads sometimes to serious controversies.
Considering all of the above pros and cons, it is necessary to develop certain regulations over the use of such social networking sites, especially for high school and college students. But still, students should get the choice to spend time socializing in an effective way. It should not hamper their school or college performance, and it should be kept in mind that social networking sites create virtual worlds that drastically differ from reality. Students should develop the cognitive and intuitive ability to analyze how much time they want to spend on social media. It is left up to the students to decide what really matters in their life and how much of this virtual life translates into their real life.
We had always longed to travel to the west. As Joe Flower said: Money lives in New York. Power sits in Washington. Freedom sips cappuccino in a sidewalk cafe in San Francisco.
When we finally visited San Francisco on Thanksgiving weekend, it seemed that this city harboured the freedom and sense of achievement even in confined spaces. The city is full of vibrant colors, with an open culture and welcoming atmosphere. The city has a unique architecture not found in any of the other cities I visited before. The houses are small in size, but the people have big hearts. The language spoken is English, but we could see more Chinese and Hispanic people. We could see the companies dominating the globe by their impact on technology such as YouTube, Uber and Tesla, but all in small buildings. Though the work campuses of Facebook, Google and Apple were huge as their contribution to the world, they still carried a sense of freedom and true entrepreneurship which makes them truly innovative. This article highlights how we came to the west to see the golden state, how we saw San Francisco( we can call it simply SF now), the places we visited such as golden gate bridge and fisherman’s wharf, then traveled to Yosemite, what to carry and what not, our then stay in Monterey, seeing the historic 17 mile drive, then back to SF.
Below is the quick itinerary we followed during our visit.
Day 1 — Flight to SF in early morning from Atlanta. Reached SF around 9:30 am. Checked in the hotel, had lunch and visited Golden Gate Bridge & Lombard street in the afternoon. Visit to Fisherman’s Wharf at night. Overnight stay in SF.
Day 2 — Travel to San Jose(SJ), visit to Palo Alto, mountain view and Cupertino. Lunch in SJ and then travel to Mariposa for overnight stay.
Day 3 — Visit Yosemite the whole day and travel back to Monterey for overnight stay.
Day 4 — Toured the 17-mile drive scenic drive, beaches in Monterey and travel back to SF via the Pacific coast highway.
Day 5 — We had to work remotely and hence, we visited Alcatraz in the evening. Back to Atlanta by overnight flight.
Day 1: Nov 28th, 2019
Visit to Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard street atop and Fisherman’s wharf
We started our journey from Alpharetta, GA to the Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. We had booked an early United Airlines flight which departed around 7:30 AM and which would land in SF around 9:30 AM PST. As we both were just traveling, we decided to take my car to the airport as it will be better for us to commute back while returning to Alpharetta on Dec 3rd.
We got up early and got ready to head to the airport. It was good that we had packed our bags last night. Soon, we reached the airport. Then, I checked my bag, took our boarding passes and headed to the gates. Wow, all set to go to SF, our very first visit to the golden state of California. We were very excited and waiting for this trip for weeks. As it’s said, “Old habits die hard”,so we had done everything needed for the trip at the last moment..lol. We booked the hotels for all the 4 nights including the car rental on 26th, and struggled hard to get the car rental. So, we soon realized we had run out of all the options of the car rental on the first day of thanksgiving ( which was 28th ), and so we finally booked the Budget car rental from 29th morning to be returned on 2nd Dec evening.
Word of Advice: please never book car rental late on a trip to SF during thanksgiving weekend. I will say book it at least one-two weeks before.
Having gone through all these fluctuations in the trip booking, we both were quite anxious for how this trip would go. With all this going in our minds, we reached the gate. We did not have to wait longer and soon, we found ourselves in the flight. Yes….and our trip began.
The United flight experience as many others must have had, was not at the best. But it was still relaxing with some TV shows running on the screen, ( no movies though). I slept for sometime, and then after some coffee and cookies, our flight landed in SF. that’s where we were now. We wanted to shout to the world..hey, hey, hey…there we are, in SF finally!
We collected our bags and then booked an Uber to go to the hotel. As we did not have any car rental for the day, we decided to keep our bags at the hotel, and then head to the Golden Gate bridge. As soon as our Uber came, we moved in the car and both started to look outside to the SF city. It was a 30 min journey from SF airport to the Hilton, financial district. We were surprised to see small houses surrounded by barren hills ( felt like desert), crowded streets and some companies which we knew located in a small confined space. Soon, we reached the financial district and saw our hotel surrounded by Chinatown. This was my first experience of seeing and staying in a Chinatown. I later found that this part of Chinatown is primarily the Cantonese part of china.
Chinatown, where we stayed in Hilton hotel
We then checked in the hotel and went into the rooms. The room with two queen beds was nice, with an amazing view of SF city as seen below.
After watching some Netflix, we headed out to tour the windy city of the west, and our first stop was to have lunch at “Raavi”, an Indian restaurant located at a conveniently walkable distance from the hotel. Just like other Indian restaurants in the US, the food was similar in taste, but just more expensive. Then, we took another Uber, now to see the golden gate bridge. It was very nice of the Uber driver( who originally was from Brazil) that she soon realized that we were new to the city, so she stopped at the Lombard street. Then we immediately went out to see the most crooked street in the world from the top and took some nice pictures. Then she dropped us at the golden gate and we just glanced at the gigantic architecture designed and built by engineers. We took some really nice snapshots and started walking on the golden gate. As usual it was very busy, with lots of people walking on the bridge. Though it was afternoon, the bridge faced cold winds coming across the pacific and as we had read, the waters beneath us were very cold too. There have been many incidents of people committed suicides by jumping off the bridge, and so we could see many signs of counseling assistance, depression assistance contact etc with quotes on life. This made me sad of how tragic that fate would be for anyone who jumped off this bridge into the bay from such a height, with icy waters beneath and cold winds on the top. This bridge was very much surrounded by some of the harshest weather conditions, yet, it stood upright witnessing not only the weather conditions, but also the historic events this city has witnessed for over the past few decades such as world war 2 front against the Japanese, the hippie counter cultural revolution and then the silicon valley boom. At one location, I saw one name “ Gauri Govil” being carved in one of the pillars. Later, I found out that a 2 year old Gauri had suffered the worst fate of falling from this bridge in 1997. It was an accident due to some hidden gap in the bridge structure and that was not realized by anyone before, as this was the first incident after the construction of the bridge. I could not imagine how her parents must have endured this horrific and deeply sad accident, and I pray to God, that no other parent should suffer this fate while visiting this bridge.
Golden Gate Bridge
Then, we walked back across the bridge and went back to the hotel. It was tea time and so we went to “Raavi” and had a nice tea and samosas along with the usual philosophical and spiritual talks we often have at such times. Then, we decided to walk to the Fisherman’s wharf. It was not far away from our hotel and it took us like 20 mins to reach there. While walking across the streets, we could see some of the homeless people, the dirty streets and the old architecture of the city. The walk around the city reminds us of the old hippy days this city witnessed and how unchanged still it is in spite of the world having changed since that time. Anyways, we reached the fisherman’s wharf. It was a nice spot with many restaurants ( mostly seafood ) and a walkway along the bay. But we both being vegetarians, we could not eat anything there. So, we stopped by one of the Indian restaurants — “curry leaf” and had a nice dinner together. After all, it was a long day and we were tired and soon went to the hotel, with the thoughts about how the next day will be. With excitement, we went to sleep.
Day 2: Nov 29th, 2019
Visit to Silicon valley, San Jose and travel to Mariposa for overnight stay
After a long tiring yesterday, as expected we woke up late. Then, we got ready after the morning daily routine and had a healthy breakfast in the hotel. Then, we went to the airport budget car rental and picked up our car. And that’s when our real journey started as we had our car and with our freedom to visit any place, anytime. Hurray!
With excitement, we decided to go to San Jose. But on the way, we had planned to stop by some famous companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Tesla, HP etc. so, we started across south San Francisco, then Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Cupertino and San Jose. We really liked the small and beautiful town of Menlo Park. It was neat, organized and displayed exuberance and wealth. I remembered from Steve Jobs Stanford commencement address, that this was the town where Stuart Brand had published “The Whole Earth Catalog” and how it inspired Steve Jobs and his generation. I wished I could meet him as I was in his town. Maybe someday later..then, we saw Facebook campus located on hacker way, just as the name says the company had hacked into our personal life and showcased it on the wall with an alias “social networking” (only with our consent…).
The campus was huge and while riding through the campus, we were stopped by the security personnel, and he kindly reminded us that this was a private property. So, we immediately rushed out of the campus and started our journey again through the Menlo park city. We saw Stanford university and I can say only one line for it….”beauty with a treasure of knowledge”. For me, this year has been quite different, having seen Harvard-MIT-BU when I had visited Boston in October and now, I was seeing Stanford, though from outside. I had always wished to see these universities as they have been the beacon of knowledge and innovation for the past few decades. Most of today’s technological innovation can be traced back to the research done in Harvard-MIT-Stanford. This trio has produced the world’s biggest and most innovative companies such as Microsoft ( Bill gates, Harvard), Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg, Harvard), Apple ( Steve Jobs, as he stayed his whole life near Stanford campus), Tesla (Elon Musk, though not from any of these universities but had enrolled in Stanford for PhD but dropped out after 2 days), Google ( Sergey Brin, Larry page, Stanford), Bose (Amar Bose, MIT), Nike ( Phil Knight, Stanford) and many more. It did not take me much time to sense an air of curiosity and rationality on this campus. I wished to stay more in this place, but we had plans ahead for the day.
Then, we saw some more companies in Palo Alto such as HP, Xerox ( where the first GUI was invented, though they were not pragmatic enough to commercialize it, which then Apple and Microsoft took it from xerox) and Tesla, though they did not have big campus like Facebook. Soon, we started towards Mountain View and saw the gigantic Google campus. Wow, this was quite huge just like the search engine has engulfed the globe. Then, we saw the apple campus in Cupertino. By this time, we had become used to seeing companies on our way and simply admired how much this small place on the west coast of the United States has impacted the world. We daily use the products and services made by these companies. We all have Ihone, we use Fitbit, we do everything on Internet, we connect and share with our friends on Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp, we use laptops, we dream of buying a Tesla someday, we use Bose headphones, wear Nike shoes, and do our transactions through PayPal ( which was co-founded by Elon Musk). So much of our life is been occupied and even assisted by these products and services.
Finally, we reached San Jose and ate a nice lunch in one of the Indian restaurants. Then, we headed towards Mariposa for our overnight stay.
Day 3: Dec 30th, 2019
Visit Yosemite National Park and then travel to Monterey for overnight stay.
We started early after breakfast to see the Yosemite National Park. We were told by the hotel assistant that due to the snow, we were supposed to put chains on the car. So, we decided to rent wheel chains at a local store in Mariposa.
Word of Advice: bring car wheel chains with you during winter visit to Yosemite.
As we started to travel through the valley, it started getting cold. The roads became narrower, turning in a zig-zag way and the mountains became taller and covered with ice. Soon, we were surrounded by this beautiful valley wearing a thick sheet of snow and sheltering a vast canopy of pine trees. It was mesmerizing! Our car seemed to be such a tiny thing in front of the majestic beauty of nature. Later, as I came to know about John Muir who had been enchanted by this nature’s display at best and had decided to make this place his home. I could agree with John on why this place is so serene, spiritual and a rarity of nature’s creation.
Yosemite valley with the famous El Capitan
It was November, and it had just started getting cold in Atlanta. But here in Yosemite, it had already snowed a lot. It was snowing everywhere. We soon parked our car and started walking through the valley taking photos on the way. We took photos of the famous El Capitan and wondered how Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson must have climbed the dawn wall on the El Cap, that to in the middle of winter. We then visited a local store and bought some souvenirs. Then we had lunch and visited a local museum depicting the history of Yosemite. I got to know about John Muir and how he had convinced the then president of the United States, Theodore “Teddy’ Roosevelt, to make this place a national park. We saw two films on the history and conservation movement of this park.
Yosemite valley museum
Then, while sipping coffee/tea, we kept walking through the valley until we got lost near one of the lakes. Though we were surrounded by few people, as it was getting dark and late, we initially decided to use our memory skills to find a way out. But soon, we could see no one around us and after having realized we had lost our path, we finally came to our savior “Prof.Google” to guide us. We were fortunate enough to have a network on our phones, and so following the path suggested by the omnipresent google, we arrived near our car parked location. Alas! A sigh of relief.
Soon, it got darker and we could just imagine how it would be getting stuck in the middle of wilderness, surrounded by darkness and cold icy weather. Then a thought came about how brave and courageous John Muir must have been to stay alone here for two years. Respect!
After clicking and saving several photos on the phone as well as in our memories, we departed from Yosemite towards Monterey. I wished I would come back here again ,someday, in summer to see this beauty during summer time. The journey to Monterey took almost 4 hours and we landed up in the hotel besides the wonderful pacific coast beach. After an exhausting day, we soon went to sleep.
Day 4: Dec 1st. 2019
Visit to Monterey and travel back to SF
We started our sightseeing of Monterey by having our breakfast at the famous “Googie Grill” at Del Monte beach. The breakfast was simple with waffles and coffee. Then, we visited the nearby Del Monte beach. It was a pleasant experience to wet my feet in the Pacific Ocean. This was the second ocean I was visiting after the Atlantic ocean this year in Miami, FL. Then, we decided it’s time to traverse the famous 17 mile drive. We bought tickets to enter the drive, they gave us maps about each point and we started driving through this Hollywood experience.
Entering the 17 mile drive
The driveway showcased an exhibition of wealth and grandeur. It was beautifully decorated with flowers, trees, big bungalows and palatial houses on our eastside, while the pacific ocean dominated our west side of the drive. We stopped at almost all the 17 points, some were exceptionally worth watching and worth picturing, which we did. Everything was great except the weather. It was raining, though not heavily, but still it rained enough to obscure our camera phones getting drenched somewhat. In addition to rain, there was a strong wind blowing from the ocean and this led to the pacific ocean kind of angry with huge waves and tides hitting the coastal walls. So, this made our drive tour a bit difficult to enjoy, like sitting near the beach for hours, or watching the sunset etc. But we were more than delighted to have got this opportunity to see the scenic drive.
Pebble beach
After touring the driveway, we decided to move out to see some other places nearby. Having read the forecast of rain on that day, I had taken a raincoat and umbrella with me. So, it was a good decision to be prepared for all weather as we understood California has all the seasons with rains in Monterey, cold winds but not snow in SF, and snowy and chilling in Yosemite. ( we had also planned to visit Lake Tahoe, but had to cancel it due to the winter storm happening there.)
So, then we went to the Carmel by the Sea which is a very pretty town near the ocean. We were driving on the pacific coast highway which is one of the best highways in the United States. I wish we were in summer here as it would be sunny and glowing as it’s known to be. Our last stop was at the Bixby Creek bridge which marked our end of journey for the day and we realized it was time to drive back to SF. It was evening time, the sun had already set though due to rains we could not see it and then, so we began our trip back to SF, it was a 2 and half hour journey which we took with a short break at one of the Indian restaurants in San Jose. We reached SF at night and immediately went to sleep.
Day 5: Dec 2nd, 2019
Visit to Alcatraz and fly back to Atlanta
We had to work remotely on that day, so we worked in the hotel until 12:30 pm PST. Then, we parked the car near Pier 33 which is the Alcatraz landing location. We almost reached at 1:30 pm and we were among the last people to board the ferry. The ferry departed and I remembered my last ferry trip to the Andaman islands. How beautiful that time was! I was missing my parents, especially my Mom so much.
Ferry to Alcatraz, view of SF city from the bay
Within 10 min, the ferry reached Alcatraz island. The island displayed the sign of Indian land, and I wondered what this meant. After watching a film on the history of Alcatraz islands, I learnt how the native Indians had occupied this island during the counter-cultural revolution and fought for more freedom just like the African-Americans had been doing at that time. Then, a pretty lady welcomed us and gave us directions on what to see and where. The island is quite small and only the prison for which the island is known for, is open to the public. We watched one film on the history of this notorious Alcatraz prison.
Alcatraz prison
Then we toured some rooms and buildings in the main prison cell. We were provided a portable audio device with headphones to listen to the description of main parts of the prison, which notorious men had stayed here, how the escape attempt was planned etc. We then took some photos around the prison with the glittering SF city which could be seen across the bay. I could just imagine how helpless these prisoners must have been to live near the city yet could not escape this prison due to the extreme cold waters, strong winds and high security. After touring for about a hour and two, we returned back to SF city. This was the last destination of our SF visit.
Finally, it was time to return back home. I could see how much time is important, and how short we have it. We get old fast, time runs away, people change, things change, situations change, and we don’t have time for brooding over the past or fighting with people over petty mistakes, or even just sweating the small stuff. The world is big, and a lot can be learnt when we travel. It is not wrong to say that travel does widen our horizon. It not only gives us experience, but also makes us feel connected to this world. We become aware of our life and stop restricting ourselves in our self-created limits. Though I am not saying that a lot changed for me on this trip, I could see how much changed I was and at the same time, how much things have remained the same in my life. I had seen a part of the west coast yet I knew I have to go back to my home for the same work. But then, I was refreshed to do the same work as if new energy and enthusiasm had been rendered by this joyful city. Though I was staying on the east coast ( not exactly..), I could understand that life on the west coast was not much different than my life. And this can be extended all over the world too. Yes, we are after all humans, connected to each other and yet we fight and discriminate and despise each other. I did not understand why! I know this is somewhat a philosophical talk, but these thoughts kept coming to my mind. I do not know if i would get another opportunity to come to this city again, but i thought that life had brought to me and my friend here, and we had a really good time, traveling the city together. May we travel to more places in the world, and may others also come to this wonderful city and witness the aspects of life which I had seen during those 5 days.
Finally, concluding, when I had visited New Orleans ( Nola.) with my friends last December, I had seen a poster with the following line: “If you want to see America, go to New York, New Orleans and San Francisco”
By this tour, we both had seen all three cities. I compared them and found that if New York has the money, New Orleans has the food & music ( especially jazz), then San Francisco has the philosophy of life, mixed with the beauty of nature and technological innovation. In short, this was a memorable trip, for times to come….
Today, the entire world has been affected by Coronavirus pandemic. No country has the chance to isolate itself, however remote it might be located or however powerful it might be. This pandemic has created a havoc by bringing deaths, lockdowns and fear amongst us. Enough is being written and shared about the origins of this virus, how it spread to the world, what precautions to take to isolate yourself based on social distancing and what to do if we feel we are affected by Coronavirus. There are hundreds of post everyday on social media, television, YouTube to make the world aware of this pandemic and to take measures to prevent the spread of it. Too late, too little though..anyways..
I am not writing this article to emphasize the same things which we listen and see and read everyday. To begin with, it would be imperative to make this clear that this pandemic is no good for the world, As said before, it’s been quite difficult time for us when we cannot go out of home, when there is shortage of basic supplies( real shortage or stocking ??), when the brave doctors and healthcare people are risking their lives to treat the sick and affected people, when in this so called free world, we are in a state of lockdown and being constrained in our homes, even working from home, when we see that thousands have lost their jobs or business due to shutdown of restaurants, hotels, offices, malls, concerts, games, schools and colleges. This is not a very good time for the world economy. The so called “Trump Bump” effect has all but vanished, the factory of the world “China” has closed down its factories and already struggling developing economy like India are facing even slow growth rate.
But every cloud has a silver lining, so amidst the negative and depressing views expressed for the past few weeks, I thought to write something on the positive changes we are seeing today, and what will come next after this subsides.
As we all have been lockdowned or in self-quarantine inside our homes, this has led to an unprecedented decrease in the outside travel. During normal times, it is highly unlikely to keep people away from eating outside in our favorite restaurants and enjoying the delicious cuisine. Not everyone is a lover of home food or cooking, especially those who are busy in work, business or study. But now, its too high a risk to eat outside. So, we have been compelled to eat home cooked food. But this also presents a novel opportunity to try something new in cooking for those who are interested. Home cooked food is way better than junk food, and one of the pandemic effects has led us to eat good and nutritious food in our homes. Of course its up to us to avoid ordering junk food from outside, but the possibility to cook and eat a lot of fruits, vegetables has never been so high as today. As this pandemic virus originated from the some animal ( maybe bat) being consumed by someone, https://www.peta.org/blog/links-between-meat-and-coronavirus-facts-myths/ so this also leads to the theory to promote vegetarianism. In no way this is meant for any religious or political support, but the very basic fact that science has proved that animals have many virus and consuming animal meat inevitably increases the risk of being affected by them and then leading to the origin and spread of such pandemics. We can look into pandemic history and we can deduce the facts that most of them have been linked to some kind of animal meat consumption. Say SARS, or Swine Flu, or Ebola, we come to the same conclusion. So, this pandemic has led the world to think and adopt the vegetarian art of eating, which is far far more better.
Moving ahead, this has not just affected our food habits, but also our work habits. We are working from home with the use of advanced technology such as high speed internet, video conferencing and cloud technology. I wonder if any of this was not developed, then it would be so much difficult to sustain the business. Looking at the way teleworking is being adopted all over the world, it might become the de-facto work habit even after this pandemic ends, and will affect the people-work relations. There are obvious pros and cons of teleworking. Not everyone can do it, especially the professionals who have to work with people, in real world service and manufacturing industries etc. Usually automation is viewed as good for business as it reduces human errors, increases efficiency and cuts down costs. So, the business executives love automation, robotics and any technology which would reduce the the human element in the business. But for the employees, it always brings the uncertainty of being laid off, and their jobs and skills being redundant. So, there has been quite mixed views on the need to develop and implement automation, robots or any technology which wont need humans to work on the job. But looking at the effects of this pandemic, I think that never has been automation so useful during such troubled times. It not only promotes the social distancing but also keep the business moving. Had not mobile systems, ATM’s, vending machines, e-health check, online education, weather monitoring, voice recognition, navigation maps etc being developed and automated, it would have been much more difficult to reduce the spread of pandemic. Today, we get the social media feed on Facebook & Twitter, weather predictions updates, we can pursue our studies online, we can watch movies on Netflix instead of going to theater’s, we don’t need to buy newspapers & magazines like our previous generations did, but we get all the live information from internet, and television, we don’t need to go to restaurants to eat, but we can order for home delivery for meals and groceries using Uber eats and DoorDash. All the technology being deployed has rendered its usefulness in these turbulent times.
As we are stuck in our homes, and besides the bombarding of the infotainment on us, it also directs us for introspection. “If we can’t go outside, then go inside”. Funny as it may sound, but never has been such a wonderful time to be calm, peaceful, to enjoy our own company, to be ourselves. This is a time to spend with our family, our kids, to learn something new like cooking, painting, to learn music, to write, to read, to learn dance, to clean our closet, to watch good movie, to listen songs, and much more. We are always so much imbibed in our daily monotonous work to earn, to grow in company or business, that we often forget the real reasons we are working so hard. We forget that we are earning money for our family, for fulfilling the basic needs such as food and shelter ( after all, its a big philosophical quest to understand what is that we need in life?) But we all forget to enjoy those precious moments with our family, eating our favorite food or having a good night’s sleep in this materialistic pursuit of worldly things. We have been in a rush to keep looking outside for survival under the notion that if we don’t rush, someone will crush us. It isn’t surprising that a humble, satisfied person is being looked down in today’s world. The world admires the aggressive, competitive, ambitious like the Job’s and Musk’s, but with all due respect to the immense contribution of these men and women to the world, it needs to be understood that all cannot become Gates and the Buffett, the world is unique with diverse people, with their different interests and talents. The world needs Gandhi’s and Mandela’s too, it needs Lennon’s and Dylan’s, it needs Hawking and Feynman’s too. So, just following the crowd isn’t going to solve the problem.
Since the fall of Soviet Union and its alleged socialistic ideology during 1989–1991, the world has been led by the tenets of capitalism for the past 3 decades. Never has been the pursuit to become wealthy has been revered as seen today. Even innovation which is one of the finest aspects the free world of capitalism promotes has been drifted to the sole purpose to make companies and its investors rich. In spite of the aberration seen during 2008 financial crisis, the approach to capitalism has not changed. Maybe, such chaotic times make us thoughtful to think and debate of how the world is functioning, is it sustainable? Is this model going to solve problems such as global warming, vast poverty and unemployment seen in the third world countries, and of course such repetitive occurrence of pandemics?
Finally, this is a vast topic which needs to be debated and expressed on our social media, instead of the Facebook memes and TikTok videos being widely circulated all over the world. The pandemic has brought in a lot of troubles to the society, but also this leads to introspect our way of thinking and living.
The silver lining is that this pandemic has united the world separated not just by geographic boundaries, but also by man-made differences of race, color, gender, caste and religion. This has proved that the virus does not distinct between any of these fictitious differences. The virus also does not differentiate between rich and the poor, the weak and the powerful.
Even the most powerful nation on this planet can be affected is a testament to the nature’s power and strength. This also makes humans enfeebled in front of nature’s force however powerful weapons we have developed. Thus, this could be a message for us to unite, drop all the barriers, live and let live peacefully.
AbhiKNotes - The blog of Abhishek Karadkar 