I am not a big reader but I enjoy reading books on Buddhist philosophy and motivational stuff.

Some of the books I have read are:

Albert Einstein: Out of My Later Years
A P J Abdul Kalam: Wings of Fire
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Buddha and His Dhamma
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Annihilation of Caste
Henepola Gunaratana: Mindfulness in Plain English
Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha
Paul Arden: It's Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be
Richard Feynman: Meaning of It All
Robert Schuller: Tough Times Never Last, but Tough People Do
Spencer Johnson: Who Moved My Cheese?
The Dalai Lama: The Art of Happiness

Not completed:

Harry Lorayne: Memory Makes Money
John C. Maxwell: Developing The Leaders Around You
Joseph Murphy: The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
Julius Fast: Body Language
Richard J. Davidson and Anne Harrington: Visions of Compassion: Western Scientists and Tibetan Buddhists Examine Human Nature
Robert Holder: You Can Analyze Handwriting
Thomas Harris: Im OK-Youre OK


Some of the articles really liked:
Reconstructing Iraq:Crony capitalism at its worst
Stories they don't want told
Indian economy doing better, but not good enough
Facts and Figures about American TV Habit[doc]
My country, right or wrong?
Why are we poor?
Find a Job in 10 Steps
India's Whiz Kids-the IITians
Hail the Maestro-Bismillah, read what this humble and modest man has to say
Where India really shines!
Republic Day
Republic Day 54
Pakistan Must Demand India's Sincerity...well, Read this article and the links around it. This is not my favorite but interesting one fore sure.

Writing is what I definitely shouldn't do. But I do it for the heck of it. You can find art of my writing on my blog. (pun intended)

I like any kind of music. May it be Rock, RnB, Soul, Hip-Hop,Techno-trance, Punjabi,or Hindi. Pop kinda sucks but it's ok sometimes. Basically, I love music. Mostly I like techno cause it makes me dance and cheer up my mood.

Also, DJing has always been my special interest but I didn't have resources then. Now, I've started learning, on some of the software, never got a chance to touch a real one yet. The software I mainly use is Virtual DJ 2. Also, Hercules DJ console is on my wish list. I'll soon post some of my amateur remixes here.

Well, I started dancing on stage since I started my engineering degree. I have performed on university level and college level competitions. Since then I have been dancing on the stage it's just a thing, which really makes me going on.

Acting: That is a newfound interest. My friends use to say that I act very well but I thought they are just joking and pulling my leg. For the first time I had performed on the stage in a Diwali function at WVU in fall 2001 and to my surprise everybody liked it. I had never received so many compliments. Next year too I performed that was a hit too. I have played the main roles in the skits, snippets are given below. I wish I had all the scripts. :( I do have videos though. :)

Diwali 2001.
Name of character I played: forgotten. some bihari name
Skit: A Bihari comes to the USA to study, meets a South Indian and a DBCA (Desi Banane Chala American). They have their fights for everything, funding, girls, it's all fun.

Diwali 2002. - found the script, click here to see it
Name of character I played: Hariprasad Thakur turns in to Harry.
Skit: A typical dude, Hariprasad Thakur, from Mumbai, whole lingo, and clothes of a FOB (fresh off the boat) comes to study in the USA, and says he'd never change but sees an ABCD girl and with help of his ABCD roommate becomes an American -now he talks like one and dresses like one.

Diwali 2003.
Name of character I played: Ram Prasad/Narad Muni
Skit: Narad muni asks Lord Vishnu about the poor state of the east and rich state of west. Lord Vishnu sends Narad Muni to pruthvilok as Ram Prasad. Ram Prasad comes from a typical middle class family to the USA to study, but he doesn't get funding and he sweeps the floor then he achieves enlightenment about east and west, and talks to Lord Vishnu about it and promises him that he'd complete his life has human to serve his country.

Diwali 2004:
Name of character I played: Desi Matrixwala -View the Video of the skit -about 15 mins.
Skit: A desi(with bihari/bengali mixed lingo) bollywood Director/writer/choreographer-desi matrixwala decides to make a movie hollywood eshtyle. Invites an American hero, one desi, one item number actress and one bhai with 2 punters. Whole movies goes thru mixed phases of Hollywood and Bollywood styles. A matrix fight sequence, and a dance number on "bilachi nagin nighali". Ends with a surprise.

My first fascination about AI, as of every child, was Robots . Since my 5th grade I wanted to see how a robot works or wanted to build my own robot. Nevertheless, I never a got chance to do that. Then during my engineering I had some courses that covered some of automation and stuff still not good enough. I was certain when I start my M.S. I will learn lot of good things but to my dismay there were no good courses. To look at good things I learnt about neural networks and Expert Systems. I have developed a few applications in both. My thesis was on neural networks and my PhD is in data mining.

I believe in three things very religiously. Attitude, Perseverance and Patience. I think even if you do not have 100 percent aptitude required for a job and if you have even 50 percent of all Attitude, Perseverance and Patience you can get that job done.

Therefore, I like collecting quotes and drawing inspiration from it. Also, I keep changing my signature and most of quotes presented here were my email signatures.
—A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets. -Arthur C Clarke
—An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot— Thomas Paine
—If it’s going to be, it’s up to me.
—The only factor that can give you refuge or protection from the destructive effects of anger and hatred is your practice of tolerance and patience- The Dalai Lama.
—If you’ve exhausted all possibilities remember this: you haven’t!
—Decision making is easy if there are no contradictions in your system.
—It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog –Mark Twain
—The tragedy of life is not that man loses, but that he almost wins. - —Heywood Broun
—No one save us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must tread the path. Buddhas merely show the way
—No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Consent -Eleanor Roosevelt
—No target is too small. No victory too insignificant- Arundhati Roy
—It is only the end that can justify the means.
—True happiness comes from doing what’s right not just doing what makes you feel good.
—A man would do nothing, if he waited until he could do it so well that no on at all would find fault with what he has done. - Cardinal Newman
—When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
—If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right.
—Repeated emotional reactions to feelings gradually nourish our ego.
—The process of becoming who you will be begins first with the total acceptance —of who you are.
—The history of the world is the history of a few people who had faith in themselves – Swami Vivekananda.
—The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall - Nelson Mandela.

Ohh. I love computers. I like to dig in it. If my friends and I have software-hardware problems, I like to explore them and find solutions to it. Also, I like programming, in my engineering undergraduate days I wanted to be programmer. I like VB and VBA both. I like challenging questions in Excel at MrExcel.com, and I try so solve them using VBA.

I like playing with Swish, create stuff in it. It's fun. If you'd like to see my computer geniuses- you can find them either in projects or stuff area. Also, you can check my Excel and VBA blog here