Nithin Kamath's Weblog

Atul Chitnis introducing Philip Tellis at FOSS.in 2009

The 2009 edition of FOSS.in came to an end yesterday and this was my first experience attending such a big conference. So how was my experince? All I can say is that I was totally blown away by the spirit, dedication and enthusiasm of the people who were a part of FOSS.in. I salute all the people who made FOSS.in such a memorable experience.

For a first timer like me being at such a event can be a bit overwhelming, but thanks to Laxminarayana Kamath I got to meet up with lot of people right from Baiju, Santosh, Debayan, Sham, Tony, Ankur, Deepak, Anil, Hardik, Vignesh and lots more…sorry folks I am not able to mention all your names but I sure remember you.

FOSS.in has lots of talks and workouts, I attended a few of them and to sum them all up I would quote what Philip Tellis had quoted in his ‘Shut up and hack’ keynote “Have Itch, Scratch”, that is what the conference is all about and the tag line of the event ‘Show me the code’ is justified. If you were at the workouts and seen the number of them this year you could have understood what the Itch can do.

One more thing that made this years FOSS.in special and convinient was that it was held at NIMHANS Convention Center with three auditoriums for talks, one whole floor for the workouts – WOW! Thats how it should be.

So I will wrapup this quick writeup on FOSS.in 2009 with a BIG Thank You to the Team FOSS.in for organising such a big event in such a smooth manner.

Couple of weeks back on a Sunday evening I and Harish were sitting in the BSK IInd stage park chatting about how tough the life of a software engineer has become. Suddenly a thin and untidy looking man came up to us and started begging for a single Idli saying he had not had food for a day or so and was feeling very hungry, but by looking at him we could make out he was a bit drunk.

So we told him to go away but he was persistent and kept on asking, after a couple of minutes we felt it was wise to give this fellow the benefit of the doubt, after all he may not have had food for sometime which is resulting him in being a bit shaky. So we asked him to come along with us and we proceed toward the park exit.

The moment we reached the exit of the park the man stopped in his tracks, we called him telling the hotel is just a few yards away, but he stood still. Finally he opened his mouth and told us he does not want anything. We insisted, but he did not listen. So we went back to the park, meanwhile he had found someone else to beg for a Idli (Never knew Idli was the codename for Liquor!!)

All of us have at some point of time have had an experience which would have touched our hearts and would stay in our memories for years to come. I personally was a viewer to one such event, a couple of weeks back. It was Sunday evening and I was walking about in Jayanagar exploring the various cross roads. I came across a small park and I decided to give my legs a short break and sat on the bench near the kids play area.

It is always fun seeing kids play and how small kids become friends in just seconds and interact without having any language barrier. There were many rides for kids here, one such ride was a side ways rotation ride and was about 4-5 feet high from the ground. Since the ride was higher than ground and was like flying in air the kids were enjoying it to their max.

As I watching, just one boy lets name him Arun was still in the ride and Arun’s middle aged father was rotating the ride. After about 5 minutes Arun wanted to get down, just as his father was putting him back on the ground a small boy lets name him Varun aged around 5 -6 years with torn and dirty clothes walked up to Arun’s father and pointed to the ride. Arun’s father politely asked Varun if he wanted to get on the ride, and picked him and placed him on the ride and started rotating the ride. Varun was smiling and laughing the whole time he was on the ride. After a couple of minutes Arun’s father put Varun back on the ground.

The moment Varun’s feet hit the ground it was unable to stay put, he was jumping around and his excitement knew no bounds, the expressions on this face cannot be put in words. Hats off to Arun’s father who took the exra effort to bring a smile on this poor boy Varun’s face. From what I was observing most of the other fathers and mothers when seeing Varun nearing the rides where their kids were playing would pull away their kids and give strange expressions which would translate to who let this kid in, can’t he go somewhere else and play.

It was mixed bag for me, on one side Arun’s father had treated Varun as he would do for his own kid was a great source for happiness, on the other hand other parents who were very worried about their status and standing in society than care about a innocent kid were a source for sadness.

It is important to remember that small actions can mean so much to others, I can still remember the smile on the boys face and the sparkle in his eyes. Did you have any such experiences, please do share through comments.