Just & Must

O ften games are part of childhood memories and each of us may have played several board games that were not only intriguing but hold a deeper meaning to existence. Games are a microcosm of real-life strategy and problem-solving skills.   Many of these children grow to be the likes of Bobby Fischer, Vishwanathan Anand, Garry Kasparov, or Lee Sedol, These are some of the great human minds or Tendulkar of board games.   Games lead to an interesting evolution in modern-day computing and other technological developments such as deep learning, in simple terms machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI). Refer to my last blog on AI and there is a glimpse of challenges thrown at the human race by them.  Who will be the Master? It can mimic the brain functioning of human beings in detecting objects, recognizing speech, Translate language and make decisions, Deep Learning AI is able to learn without human supervision and use data to draw interference. AI Guru Kai-Fu-Lee predicts nearly 50%

I t was a dark and rainy night in a deep dense forest, a pair of foot steps moved with a confidence of reaching the destined location. Winds carried the howling sounds of Jackals and echo of laughter from spirits seems to prevail in that hour of night. Raja Vikramaditya climbed the tree and brought the corpse down, and as he carried the corpse on his shoulders the ghost possessed the corpse spoke “ Dear Vikram, People enjoy this time of night to sleep and not do what you are trying at this hour”, And so began the journey of Vikram and Betaal which many of us must have read, heard or seen in their childhood. But as I read these today, the stories makes more sense to our life than ever.   Puzzles and question raised by Betaal during the multiple failed attempts by Vikram as he answers them with full earnestness. Assuming the role of Betaal, I begin my modern day story for all of you:  Small town man named Shyamu began his business of manufacturing, his made to order hydraulic machines fo

T he nineties were amazing and exciting, lives were simple, who can forget melodies from Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, and Ashiqui the musical or Sreedevi from Chandani and Chalbaaz, or Maine Pyar Kiya, this was the era of magic for many of us while growing up in our teens. All of these in audio cassettes and walkman to play them with limited 60-90 minutes tapes. Or, when we could memorize about 30-50 telephone numbers. during that time, the telecom was limited to a few households and the concept of PP(Padosi ka phone number) was prevalent and we would share their number as our own with pride, and neighbors obliged with a smile and a cup of tea. PCO booths were the place to call and people’s identity was easily associated, identified, and verified with a thick yellow book called a telephone directory. Friends were real, not virtual and people always found time to meet in person. Today, We live in a smart society with access to a high-tech internet world with smartwatches and smartphones, a