How to use IP Webcams as baby monitors

I recently googled for ways to use a webcam as a baby monitor and came up with some very innovative posts:

Some links using a webcam coupled with a raspberry pi:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-as-low-cost-HD-surveillance-camera/?ALLSTEPS

http://mattkaar.com/blog/2012/12/01/raspberry-pi-as-a-baby-monitor/

http://www.the-hawkes.de/a-raspberry-pi-powered-baby-monitor-12.html

http://www.the-hawkes.de/a-raspberry-pi-powered-baby-monitor-22.html

Another option is to just get a wi-fi webcam:

e.d. Dropcam has a nice webcam here: amzn.to/1iRsSXS But this webcam is expensive for $148.

Another interesting post got my eye: 

http://www.brockthompson.com/blog/how-to-use-a-foscam-ip-camera-as-a-baby-monitor 

Brock Thompson has written a couple of posts detailing the installation steps and method to setup a Foscam IP camera for baby monitoring. The best thing about this setup is that the camera is available for $62. http://amzn.to/1mbr6Bt One of the main disadvantages of the Foscam camera is the security vulnerability. Brock has a follow-up post regarding this at http://www.brockthompson.com/blog/3-ways-protect-foscam-hackers 

My Bucketlist marathon

This year has been my Bucket List year. Why Bucket List? because this year started out with lot of negativity. I was drowning in it and then decide to take charge of my life. Boom ! decisions were taken and off I went to India to settle some outstanding issues. But the stress had taken it's toll on me. I was overweight and out of shape. I received a lot of flak from family for all that flab. After my return, I decided to do something about it. I procrastinated about joining a gym, but then as the quote goes: "Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and it's toll on success and happiness is heavy."

And then my colleague and friend Xin mentioned about running a half marathon. Xin being a 3 marathon veteran suggested taking it slow and easy, while training for the marathon. I got interested in running the half marathon. I initially started running after office around the campus. For my first run, I took 42:05 mins for 2.61 miles and that meant an average pace of 16:06 mins/mile. I monitored all my runs using Runkeeper. I started running with another colleague, Jagadeesh but he injured his heel after a month of running. I was determined more than ever to achieve my goal of my half marathon. 

Another colleague Rajiv mentioned about a trail near my house and we ran on this trail one evening. I liked the trail a lot, it reminded me about Virginia. Also due to the intense summer, it was getting difficult to run in the sweltering heat after office. I changed my schedule and started getting up early at around 5:30 am. This ensured that I would complete my run at least by 7 or 7:30 am. I started enjoying my daily runs as this was my own personal time. I could think about anything and everything, sometimes things that bothered me personally, sometimes research problems. The endorphin rush at the beginning of the day changed my day and made me more productive. I started paying attention to my diet as well. 

I used to meet with Xin daily and we checked on each other's running schedule. Xin also emailed me a half marathon training schedule. Honestly, I never followed it but was glad to have a pointer on how many miles to run every week. I started referring to Xin as my 'Marathon Guru'. Xin gave me a lot of tips on diet and race preparation. We ran together a couple of times near our office and also along the trail near my house. At the end of six months, I had some wonderful statistics on Runkeeper (legend: green=walking, red=running):

I ran my half marathon yesterday and it was awesome ! Before the half marathon, I had run a maximum of 9 miles. After about 10 miles, my legs started cramping and giving away. The last 3 miles were excruciating. My pace went down from 11 min/mile to 13 min/mile. I chugged along and somehow saw the finish line. I cramped and slipped and heard someone shouting "Buddy, you can do it, Go for it !!" I smiled and ran towards the finish line. All my friends were cheering for me and the last 1 sec seemed like an eternity. Boom! I crossed the finish line and completed my first half marathon. 

I almost cried with joy. Everyone hugged me and congratulated me on finishing the half marathon. Mansi came to cheer me and was there for me. Thanks to Mansi for believing in me. Thanks Xin for all the motivation. Today, as I write this, I am content to have checked one item off my Bucket List :)

Florida yet again..!!

This year we were not planning on any vacations, but then American Airlines announced it's bankruptcy in November. Over the past year, I took the pain to accumulate miles on AA and here I am wondering if I can use the 100K miles ever ( 95K miles to be precise :P ). After a lot of discussions with Mansi, we zeroed on Orlando and Miami as our vacation getaway. Florida is our favorite destination so far, considering that we have been there 3 times in the past 6 years. Devotees go to Kashi or Haridwar on their annual pilgrimage and we end up visiting Florida :P I used all my miles to get a one-way to MCO and first class return tickets from MIA. 

Day 1: We decided to visit Daytona beach shores on our first day. Unfortunately due to traffic and accidents on the way, we managed to reach our hotel well after sunset. Not getting to walk along the beach during sunset did not dampen our spirits and we set out scouting for dinner. One of the recommendations we received for seafood was Aunt Catfish's On The River We had a mixed platter of catfish, tilapia, salmon and sweet potato fries with pineapple relish. The food was very delicious and is incomparable to the seafood we have at restaurant chains in cities. 

Day 2: I managed to click a few pictures the next day morning.

Daytona beach is by far the cleanest beach I have visited so far. We strolled along the beach after breakfast, took a couple of snaps and hit the road again. We drove back to Orlando airport, picked Mandar, Shirin and Meher and set off to Disney's Magic Kingdom. 

Disney's Magic Kingdom is a very large and extremely well managed theme park. We spent the rest of the day at Disney meeting Meher's favorite cartoon characters mostly princesses and fairies. The Disney castle is lit up in the evening and looks magnificent. There are a couple of shows featuring cartoon projections on the castle, followed by an electric parade and fireworks. One thing to note is that it's more convenient to take the fast pass so that kids can meet their cartoon characters faster. The food at Disney's is plain ok and very expensive. I recommend making reservations at restaurants early enough. 

Day 3: We drove from Orlando to Miami along I-95 and we decided to take a pit-stop at West Palm beach. We had lunch at an Indian restaurant Indus, which ironically was the only place open on Christmas day. The food was delicious and they had a $15 buffet with unlimited beverages and alcohol. Mandar's friends caught up with us at Indus and all of us left for West Palm Beach. West Palm beach is a very affluent neighborhood and is lined with colonial style villas. The beach itself was very nice and clean. After spending an hour or so at the beach, we headed to Fort Lauderdale. We made reservations for dinner at Las Vegas Cuban cuisine. Cuban cuisine is very similar to Mexican cuisine and the food was excellent.

Day 4: We stayed in Miami and and headed to South Miami beach by noon. South Miami beach has metered parking spaces, but finding a parking space is a bit difficult. We rented bicycles for $5/hr and cycled along the beach. Miami boasts of it's interesting Art Deco architecture. Most of the buildings from 7th to 14th street display their loud and colorful architecture. We had lunch at Pelican Cafe. This place was very pricey and was very deceiving in terms of the offers mentioned by the hostess. On a second note, we should have read the Tripadvisor reviews regarding this place. After lunch, we whiled away our time at the beach and then after sunset we headed to the airport. 

Overall, I loved this quick getaway to Florida. I wish we had more time to travel to Key West, but then that's for another trip ;) Looking forward to my next visit to Sunshine state !!!

What else to look at before moving to your new job? (Cost of Living comparison)

I have used a lot of tools to help me when I moved to a new city to determine the Cost of Living (COL) and to help me negotiate a job offer. These are a list of different websites that have reliable statistics based on different parameters. I wish one of the smartphone app developers to use these websites (with permission of course !) and integrate with the awesome Hipmunk UI. What an app would it be !!! 


Even Indeed or other job portals should link to these statistics and I am sure the job applicant will be happy to visit one site, apply for jobs, and (if the applicant interviews somewhere) he/she can quickly check the COL expenses and see if the new job site is more or less expensive than where he/she is staying now.


(Assumption: these websites are helpful if you have been selected for an on-site interview)
1. Glassdoor: Excellent website to check the interview process, sample questions asked and the average salary for specific position.
2. COL comparison: This website helps you compare what salary to expect at your new job based on your current compensation and how it should influence your decision while negotiating a job offer.
3. Paycheck comparison: This website helps you determine how much your paycheck will amount to after taxes. Very useful in determining your mortgage/loan payments. (The link opens Arizona state by default. Use the drop-down field to change state)


I hope these links are useful :)

Connect Airport Express as WDS relay to DD-WRT Linksys

Recently I got an Airport Express (Late 2010) running 7.5.2 firmware version. I wanted to connect the Airport Express using it's LAN port to my TV thereby enabling the internet on the TV. 


I googled around and came to 3 links:
1. Old download squad link
2. rgbdream link
3. DD-WRT link


I followed couple of the steps from the 2nd link and have described it below:


I. DD-WRT (Save settings after each step)
1. Connect to your DD-WRT router using an ethernet cable and change the Wireless security setting to WEP. Select the 26-bit setting and generate the key. Please copy this and save it for connecting to the DD-WRT router later.
2.  Wireless -> Basic Settings Set the channel on the DD-WRT to 1.
3. Wireless -> WDS: Select LAN option and enter the Airport Express's "AirPort ID" (can be found on the underside of the AirPort Express itself - be careful not to choose the "Ethernet ID"). I also named it as "AX"
4. Set Lazy WDS and WDS subnet to disable
5. Administration -> Management: Set Loopback to disable.
6. Security -> Firewall: Turn off "Block Anonymous Internet Requests."


II. Airport Express settings (Please connect the Airport Express to the DD-WRT router using an ethernet cable till the end)
1. Reset the Airport Express. Unplug the AirPort Express from the power outlet and press and hold the reset button. While still holding down the reset button, plug the device into a power outlet. Hold down the reset button until you see the light flash green four times. Let go of the button and the device will reset itself. Wait the requisite 45 seconds and configure it with the AirPort Express Assistant or AirPort Admin Utility. Instructions 
2. Click on "Manual Setup" after you see your Airport Express in the Airport Utility.
3. Airport -> Base Station -> Give your Airport Express a name (use the same one you entered in the DD-WRT WDS page. (step 3 from DD-WRT settings)
4. Airport -> Wireless -> Wireless mode -> Select "Participate in a WDS network"
5. Select the Wireless network you are connecting to and this should be the same as the one on the DD-WRT setup.
6. Radio mode -> Select 802.11 b/g compatible mode. Once this is done, you can copy the 26-bit key generated by the DD-WRT.
7. Select the same channel.
8. Airport -> WDS -> Select "WDS Relay" as the WDS mode.
9. Enter the Wireless MAC ID from the DD-WRT to the WDS Main field.


Click Update and the Airport Express should flicker from orange to green. You can unplug the ethernet cable from the Airport Express and now use the Airport Express as a WDS relay.

Trip to London - Part II

Couple of tips when planning for a trip to London, UK:


1. London, UK unlike most of the cities in USA is very well connected and public transport is just awesome. For planning trips, I used the Transport for London website. Another tip for people who end up staying near Heathrow hotel, you don't have to pay for the Hotel Hoppa (about 5 pounds) to go to the airport. There are a couple of free buses that go to Heathrow Airport and you can take them to the airport or the nearest train station (Hatton Cross).


2. For traveling using Tube, make sure you buy an Oyster card if you are on a longer trip. Else, take the day pass (about 8 pounds) if you intend to tour Central London for just a day.


3. The long-distance/overground train ticket prices fluctuate a lot. I use thetrainline.com and it's accompanying iPhone app to plan my trip to Durham, Cambridge, etc.


4. A trip to England is incomplete if you don't visit Scotland. Most of the time, the train ticket is almost equal or more than an air-ticket. 


5. When planning a trip to Scotland, look up the different tours offered. I ended up taking the Loch Ness, Glencoe & the Highlands tour by Timberbush. 

View of the Scottish landscape during one of our pit-stops

6. Also, an excellent tour to take is the Royal Whisky Heritage tour. Hint: Don't buy Whisky, as it's very expensive, instead pick a bottle at the airport duty free shop. You will get the same brands (Balvenie, etc) a bit cheaper.

World's largest Whisky collection - 1

World's largest Whisky collection - 2

World's largest Whisky collection - 3

7. Use the Traveline Scotland website and iPhone app to plan your trips in and around Edinburgh. Hint: Keep some pounds change (around 1.5 pounds) for the bus fare.

8. The Wi-Fi in most of the hotels were very expensive (about 15 pounds per day). You can opt for a Mi-Fi rental from XCom Global (if you are traveling from USA). The rental rates are very reasonable and allows unlimited internet access. XCom's Mi-Fi service has been recommended by EnGadget and I rented the Mi-Fi for my entire trip. I also rented an extra battery pack and took the insurance as well (Since I rented for a month or so, the rate was around $13.90 per day).

Thanks to Sushant Jeurkar for helping me with the Scotland trip planning. Thanks to Ameya for taking the time and showing me around Central London :)

Posting some random snaps:

Durham Cathedral

Random Cherry Blossom @Durham, UK

College @Cambridge

King's College @Cambridge

Westminister Abbey

St Paul's Cathedral @London

London Eye

Big Ben

London Bridge

Piccadilly Circus @London 

Lord's Cricket ground 

Match in progress @Lord's Cricket ground 

Sherlock Holmes Museum 

Regents Park - 1

Regents Park - 2

Trebuchet @Fort William, Scotland

Scott Monument @Scotland

Scottish Parliament @Scotland

Interesting Chess Whisky set @Whisky tour

Crown Office @Scotland

Church/Cathedral near the Assembly @Scotland

Oldest Whisky :)

Tower of London bridge @London

Guard

One of the Towers of London

Parade at Buckingham Palace

Memorial in front of the Buckingham Palace

Trafalgar Square

Trip to London - Part I

In Feb, I was asked to send my abstract to the AO workshop being held in Durham UK. I fervently started googling to find out the visa process in case the abstract was accepted. The UK visa application process (when applying from USA) is submitted online. It's very detailed and at the end of the application, you have to go for a biometric scanning. After the biometric scanning is done, send the documents by courier to the UK embassy. Two grouses: (1) the visa application website does not say the charges for the visa until you finish everything. Perhaps, it would be easy if we know the charges for a 6 month multiple entry vs 1 year multiple entry upfront. (2) the application instructions mention that you should send a confirmation of your travel plans including air ticket. Another paragraph says that tickets should not be bought unless the visa is issued. This is misleading. 


So I sent all my documents without booking an air-ticket. The UK visa was approved and I received my passport in 5 days :)


One thing that I forgot was getting an US to UK adapter plug. I suggest getting that adapter in US before travelling. My itinerary involved trip to London-Durham-London and back. But then the trip turned out to be longer than planned.


To be continued ....

Jan 14th 2011

D-day. Status updated from single to married. 


Note to myself: I want to see when everything will return to normalcy. If yes, how much time will this process take?

10 things about 2010 - my perspective

2010 just whizzed by. Here's my perspective on top 10 things that 'happened':


10. Traveled a lot this year. 4 more trips and I will reach Gold status with AA.
9. Flat panel LED TV- internet connected finally. (Mansi & Neeraj are aware of my failed boxee attempts :P)
8. Trip to Atlantic City :)
7. Upgraded to the new iPhone4 that helped the long distance relation with FaceTime. But the alarm SUCKS !!!
6. Meeting friends after 10 years - priceless :) 
5. Spending Diwali with Meher :)
4. Moving to a new place is tiring but it is something to look forward to. Sunspot is an amazing place and this movie captures what I felt initially !!!
3. Winning 2 research proposals. Conducting independent research and collaborating with a group is awesome :)
2. I always wanted to buy a manual transmission car and I finally had that dream come true. Traded in the good ol' Pontiac for the new Accord :P
1. My first job :) 

2010- Movies and Music

2010 has been a mixed bag in terms of the movies I watched. Though I haven't watched LSD or Guzaarish, my opinions are based on tweets and posts by different critics (Rajeev Masand, Raja Sen and Anupama Chopra) 


Movies I liked/loved:
1. Flipped : If you are a fan of Rob Reiner's classics like "When Harry met Sally", "A Few Good Men", "Bucket List", chances are that you will like this movie about two children growing up in the 60's in N America.
2. Inception
3. Udaan
4. Do Dooni Chaar
5. Tere Bin Laden
6. Band Baaja Baraat
7. Phas Gaya Re Obama
8. Raajneeti
9. Ishqiya
10. Dabangg

3 years and counting

It's been a wonderful 3 years with Mansi and this year we decided to celebrate our anniversary at Atlantic City. AC is more popular for it's casinos and so we ended up staying at Trump Taj. We took an early morning stroll along the boardwalk behind the hotel and it was awesome. Lunch was an excellent kabab sandwich/gyro platter at Bill's Gyro & Bar. This place has the best reviews for Greek food in AC and I looked up the reviews on Trip Advisor, Yelp, etc. 

This was followed by coffee at Starbucks, located inside Trump Taj. Coffee@Starbucks is usually accompanied by some random discussion. Every couple has their specific coffee place, I know some couples who prefer Tim Hortons or Dunkin' Donuts or Panera as their preferred location for airing opinions. ( I am not suggesting nagging, but I think women have lot to talk and guys prefer to listen most of the time). 

We had dinner at Hard Rock Cafe followed by a gambling session. We tried our hand in Roulette and that was an exciting game. The probability formulas were tested and we ended up with some winnings. Mansi was the book-keeper/cashier and ensured we made a profit :)

We started early for DC the next day (as per Indian time) and reached home by evening. We barely managed to get ready and leave for Rinu & Jaimy's X'mas party that was preceded by a sit-down dinner at Bangkok Joe's. I think the food was just ok and the service was really terrible. But all that was compensated by the White Elephant game hosted by Rinu & Jaimy at their place. Each gift had a price limit of $20 and could be stolen only thrice. Yours truly was randomly chosen (chits) as the first person to open the gifts. I ended up opening three gifts and all of them were stolen from me. I ended up stealing Mansi's gift (tool bag with no tools) and she stole a box of wine glasses. This was followed by a photo shoot thanks to Saif :) Excellent evening to top off the anniversary celebrations :) 

My song dedication for Mansi: 

Zamaane Ko Chod Dein 

Riwajon Tod Dein 

Toote Na Sapnein Kabhi 

Hai Nazuk Yeh Sapnein Sabhi ........

Mansi’s Dad is Flip’ped

Mansi’s parents visited us in March. Now since SD’s birthday falls on March 1, she decided to buy a gift for her Dad. Choosing a gift is difficult, but reasoning how useful the gift will be is even more tedious. Considering that Meher’s been running around, etc Mansi decided to get (1) camcorder (point and shoot type) or (2) fitness monitor+music player (iPod Nano).


After a lot of consideration and deliberations, she decided to finally get the Flip UltraHD Camcorder, 120 Minutes (Black). Mansi’s dad was very happy with the gift. Why ? Ease of use and easy to download the videos. As mentioned previously, he uses a Dell Inspiron with Ubuntu goodness. Now the Flip records HD quality video which means 1 minute video takes about 140 MB approx. Looking at the easiest way to transfer/share huge files,  I setup a DropBox account on his laptop, so that he can share his video experiences easily. Flip connects through a USB port and mounts as Flash Drive on Linux (open source goodness). Copying the files is just Drag and Drop :)


Everyone’s happy !!! 


(PS: Thanks to Aditya for buying this first and recommending it to me !!!)

Creating Letters in Latex with Letterhead and Scanned Signature

With graduation nearing and my fervent attempts at applying for Post Doc positions, I am required to sometimes write a cover letter and include my signature. I feel that using Adobe PDF writer to make a stamp of my scanned signature is cumbersome, as I need to rely on using a Windows machine for that step or install Adobe PDF Writer on my Mac.

So I searched and came to this solution. One awesome reference is from Dr. Balkrishna@WSU He has generously uploaded his templates here. I have modified them slightly to include my scanned signature.

Another option is to use the example by Robert McNees here.

My final PDF looks like this. Source file for generating your own letter: VT_letter.zip

The original newlfm package manual can be browsed here.

Note: Using the VT Logo is at your own responsibility. I have used it for illustrative purposes.

2010: another year ?

My first post of 2010 and I am not sure what the title should be. 2010-10 years after graduation, 10 years after giving GRE/TOEFL, 10 years back-working on BE project, 10 years back-doing my VLSI course, 7 years after a MS degree, couple of months away from another degree? So has the past 10 years of my life been an educational experience literally speaking (PJ)?? Yes and no. Yes, academically speaking. Yes, for independent way of living. Yes for learning to live life and learn from those experiences. Yes on how things go right or wrong based on your decisions. No, because some things are not in your control and you learn to live with it. 6 years- since I have met family (Thanks to Reliance and Skype). 10 years- 3 recessions (2001, 2003, 2009).

(also, 2000-single, 2010-committed :P)

what's new about 2010 ??

2010 for me means: graduation, job, India trip ??

2010 and my friends: Most of them are parents/to-be :) Recession and baby boom :)

Hope this year is what everyone hoped for !!!

What to look for when buying a laptop for parents

It's been a year since Mansi gifted her dad with a Dell Inspiron with Ubuntu installed. It's been great so far with no panic calls for viruses or spyware slowing down his laptop. Again bow of the hat to Manas, who tried this experiment first.

So based on my experience, here are some tips when you are searching for a laptop to buy for your non-techie parents:

1. Get a laptop with decent hard disk space and memory. Most of the time, if it's just web browsing and chatting, a Celeron will do. So you can save some money by not opting for a high end Core 2 Duo. I would rather spend money on getting a laptop with a webcam and mic.

2. Choose a brand that has a presence in India. AFAIK, Dell, HP, IBM-Lenovo all are great. But I chose Dell, because I am happy with its customer service.

3. Though it may seem a bit difficult at the beginning for your parents to understand Linux, it will pay off on your time if you select Linux over Windows. For one, they won't click on IE by mistake and unknowingly allow the laptop to be infected by viruses or adware. From my experience, I have seen that once your parents' laptop is infected with either virus or spyware, (i) you end up considerable time finding someone in your neighborhood (in India) to come to your place, look at the laptop and try resolving it. (ii) your parents keep worrying about what virus may affect it next, etc and so on. So to avoid all these issues go for Linux. Select your distro, install it for them (I chose Ubuntu).

If you decide to install Ubuntu, a couple of tips:

1. Install Picasa, so that they can share albums online. Picasa is available by adding Google repos: http://picasa.google.com/linux/thanks-deb.html

2. Install OpenOffice which is in fact a good replacement for MS Office.

3. Something of an option, you could choose to install Dropbox, so that you can share larger files. Dropbox is free and starts with free storage upto 2GB. Dropbox syncs up the files on all laptops with the same account.

4. Skype works like a charm on Linux distros.

5. Install VLC and other video codecs.

6. Last but not the least, set up ssh and vnc on the laptop, so that you can debug and resolve issues online :)

Overall, Linux should be able to provide a worry free User Experience to the older generation :)

Happy Holidays :)

An applicant's experience at Job sites

I have been actively applying for positions at various companies. Some are great and some are cumbersome and tiring. I can classify them into 2 groups:
1. Select job and add to job cart followed by atleast 10 clicks till the final submission.
Now if I had 10 jobs in my cart, that would amount to atleast 100 clicks on the "Save and Continue" button. I also forgot to mention that every job needs to know the source of application and that's easily two clicks per application.
2. You make your profile just once and keep updating it. Add jobs to cart and apply. Just two clicks. Some positions require you to fill a questionnaire. Filling a questionnaire is fine as it gives a sense of what is expected from the candidate.

I like the second category better, as it's streamlined and fast. I do not understand why would companies stick to the first category when you know that the candidate's information is not going to change between job applications. But hey, no one's complaining about the job applications in this economy. Just seeing vacancies is a ray of hope in these dark times.

However, applying to jobs is not easy, because you are relying on so many search engines and job sites. Some search sites such as (HJ, LU, LI) are good in searching and displaying positions with the keywords and what opened after your last visit. Some websites like JF and CB spam you with all kinds of stuff. (I have deliberately abbreviated. From my perspective, I have categorized some search sites to be useful and some are spammy)

The only webpage where companies can expect maximum user interaction is on the Employment or Careers page. If that page does not convey information easily, it's disappointing. Some companies still rely on sending resume by fax and that's a bit surprising. Sometimes, I see positions advertised but no way to contact the HR. (I think it's because the company has already tied up with some recruiting company to search for candidates. In that case, we have to be lucky to find the recruiting company first). Also some websites are only compatible with certain browsers (IE-oh ya) (I have stopped using Safari for job applications. IMHO Safari is not compatible on most websites except Apple). I am no User Experience or Human Computer Interaction major, but I am just blogging my disappointment in clicking to death till I finally submit my application. Hoping for better times !!!

Behind Enemy Lines

My post is not about the movie by the same name, but about the op-ed article written by Col Harish Puri in The International News Jang. Another reason is also because of the aftermath this article has had on the blogging community and the Indian soldiers. This letter assumes more significance in light of Clinton's remarks. Below is what Col. Puri wrote:

An open letter to Gen Kayani
View from the other side Col (r) Harish Puri

Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Dear Gen Kayani,

Sir, let me begin by recounting that old army quip that did the rounds in the immediate aftermath of World war II: To guarantee victory, an army should ideally have German generals, British officers, Indian soldiers, American equipment and Italian enemies.

A Pakistani soldier that I met in Iraq in 2004 lamented the fact that the Pakistani soldier in Kargil had been badly let down firstly by Nawaz Sharif and then by the Pakistani officers' cadre. Pakistani soldiers led by Indian officers, , he believed, would be the most fearsome combination possible. Pakistani officers, he went on to say, were more into real estate, defence housing colonies and the like.

As I look at two photographs of surrender that lie before me, I can't help recalling his words. The first is the celebrated event at Dhaka on Dec 16, 1971, which now adorns most Army messes in Delhi and Calcutta. The second, sir, is the video of a teenage girl being flogged by the Taliban in Swat -- not far, I am sure, from one of your Army check posts.

The surrender by any Army is always a sad and humiliating event. Gen Niazi surrendered in Dhaka to a professional army that had outnumbered and outfought him. No Pakistani has been able to get over that humiliation, and 16th December is remembered as a black day by the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani state. But battles are won and lost – armies know this, and having learnt their lessons, they move on.

But much more sadly, the video of the teenager being flogged represents an even more abject surrender by the Pakistani Army. The surrender in 1971, though humiliating, was not disgraceful. This time around, sir, what happened on your watch was something no Army commander should have to live through. The girl could have been your own daughter, or mine.

I have always maintained that the Pakistani Army, like its Indian counterpart, is a thoroughly professional outfit. It has fought valiantly in the three wars against India, and also accredited itself well in its UN missions abroad. It is, therefore, by no means a pushover. The instance of an Infantry unit, led by a lieutenant colonel, meekly laying down arms before 20-odd militants should have been an aberration. But this capitulation in Swat, that too so soon after your own visit to the area, is an assault on the sensibilities of any soldier. What did you tell your soldiers? What great inspirational speech did you make that made your troops back off without a murmur? Sir, I have fought insurgency in Kashmir as well as the North-East, but despite the occasional losses suffered (as is bound to be the case in counter-insurgency operations), such total surrender is unthinkable.

I have been a signaller, and it beats me how my counterparts in your Signal Corps could not locate or even jam a normal FM radio station broadcasting on a fixed frequency at fixed timings. Is there more than meets the eye?

I am told that it is difficult for your troops to "fight their own people." But you never had that problem in East Pakistan in 1971, where the atrocities committed by your own troops are well documented in the Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report. Or is it that the Bengalis were never considered "your own" people, influenced as they were by the Hindus across the border? Or is that your troops are terrified by the ruthless barbarians of the Taliban?

Sir, it is imperative that we recognise our enemy without any delay. I use the word "our" advisedly – for the Taliban threat is not far from India's borders. And the only force that can stop them from dragging Pakistan back into the Stone Age is the force that you command. In this historic moment, providence has placed a tremendous responsibility in your hands. Indeed, the fate of your nation, the future of humankind in the subcontinent rests with you. It doesn't matter if it is "my war" or "your war" – it is a war that has to be won. A desperate Swati citizen's desperate lament says it all – "Please drop an atom bomb on us and put us out of our misery!" Do not fail him, sir.

But in the gloom and the ignominy, the average Pakistani citizen has shown us that there is hope yet. The lawyers, the media, have all refused to buckle even under direct threats. It took the Taliban no less than 32 bullets to still the voice of a brave journalist. Yes, there is hope – but why don't we hear the same language from you? Look to these brave hearts, sir – and maybe we shall see the tide turn. Our prayers are with you, and the hapless people of Swat.

The New York Times predicts that Pakistan will collapse in six months. Do you want to go down in history as the man who allowed that to happen?