In 1999, I was working for the MSN team in Microsoft, and
decided I wanted to look for opportunities in a different group. My boss Brad
Thomson, said ok, and allowed me to look for other jobs within Microsoft. I was interested in a job as a programmer or developer
– designation Software Design Engineer.
At that time, the hiring group still conducted multiple interviews where
I had to demonstrate my skills in programming, analytical thinking, problem
solving, and communication.
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| Seattle days - 1999, in my apartment |
I actually enjoyed the interview processes. I interviewed
with four different groups. It was challenging, very different, and exposed
some gaps in my abilities and knowledge. Some of the interview questions were
easy, some were hard, some were above my level. I realized I didn’t want to
join one of those groups, I failed badly in one set of interviews, and I did
moderately well in the other two. Oddly the head of the group where I failed
badly, called me for a personal interview where he grilled me with a software
challenge, which I passed. Then he offered me a different job, which I didn’t
take. Eventually I wallowed in the MSN group, then I was fired (for
incompetence at programming) and went on to a dotcom company in California. I realized
that I was really bored of software, and so quit and returned to India. Also,
at that time, I had a deep interest in writing, especially screenwriting, I
missed my dad and my family, I missed India and so on.
But what remained with me from the Microsoft interviews were
two things. In one of the interviews I failed, the interviewer expressed
enormous passion for writing software; he waxed eloquent about what new things
he could do with code,what the new internet paradigms, object oriented code,
and some software and hardware novelties promised. He made me realize that I
simply wasn’t that excited about software or even computers, at that point.
After a few months in the California company I realized that a career in
computers was an intellectual and creative dead end for me, even though the financial
prospects in the software industry were quite excellent. (Actually, the big
dotcom crash happened shortly after I returned to India, but by that time it
was irrelevant to me).
The other interview question is the soul of this essay. This
was the problem set by the interviewer: “There is a long line of soldiers standing
along a hill. The line starts at the base of one side of the hill, continues
over the hill and out of sight and ends at the base of the other side. None of
them has watches or clocks. The commander tells his soldiers that on his signal
all the soldiers must fire their guns simultaneously. But not immediately after
the signal. They must develop a signalling mechanism among themselves, so that all
of them, even the ones on the other side must fire. The critical aspect is that
they all fire simultaneously.”
You might wonder what this has to do with computers or
software or Microsoft. Also this seems like one bizarre army unit and weird
commander. But this is not an unusual question in the software industry. The problem
is signalling. A computer system problem may involve one hundred printers
connected to a single main computer, all of which have to start printing
simultaneously. Or a controlling computer in a sports stadium, where all the
lights must be turned on or off simultaneously. Or coordinating a bunch of
satellites in space, thousands of miles apart, which must perform a
synchronized action, like photograph a nova. The solution is an algorithm that
solves this signalling problem.
Lights out
The interview question relates also to Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s two requests to the public, first to assemble in our balconies at 5pm on
March 23 and clap for the medical and other public servants who were fighting
the CoronaVirus, and then to switch off electric lights and light candles or
oil lamps or cellphones for nine minutes at 9pm on April 5. A huge section of India’s
population did both. There are two aspects. One is broadcast communication to
almost the entire. This was not possible twenty years ago, when most Indians didn’t
have television, only some had cable TV, dish antennas were new, cellphones
were new, the internet was in its early stages, and smartphones had not been
invented. Narasimha Rao or Vajpayee could not have communicated to so many
people.
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| Modi lights a lamp - April 5 |
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| Even the poorest Indians lit lamps |
The second aspect is synchronicity. Ubiquity of cellphones
means now everyone has a clock. In the 1800s the British army at Fort St George
in Madras (and presumably the forts in Bombay and Calcutta) fired a cannon, at
8am and 8pm everyday – hence the phrase gun-time. In several places across the
world, clock towers were installed. Temple bells served this function in pre-Colonial
India, though not everywhere.
So we had a whole country lighting lamps, clapping, ringing
bells, banging on plates and pots in unison, all solving my Microsoft interview
question in a national light and sound
show. But you had people acting according to their wishes, assembling in
groups, not maintaining minimal physical distance, etc., all of which were
severely lampooned. We already had incidents of bad coordination, when bus
stands were crowded, huge numbers of people had to walk hundreds of miles to
hometowns, people crowded ration shops. People abused even simple mechanisms
like circles to stand in, by putting their bags or markers there, missing the
whole point.
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| Wrong way to maintain social distance May be just avoiding the heat |
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| The right way to maintain social distance Villagers show the way |
But civilians are like that, they are independent actors not
a disciplined force like an army. Consider that soldiers spend about four years
practicing marching, before they get it right. Just getting a thousand people
to walk together takes years of training, practice, discipline and punishment.
But India (and the world) now has a few more questions and
signalling issues like this to deal with, once the national lockdown is lifted.
Most probably only certain sectors of the economy and the public will be
allowed to come out and do some things. Currently in my home state, Tamilnadu, pharmacies
are the only shops allowed to be open all day long. Grocery stores and vegetable
shops are allowed to open in the mornings. Some restaurants are open, but only
for pick up or delivery, not for dining at the restaurants. In the next few
weeks, different categories of shops, like electrical equipment suppliers,
hardware stores, petrol bunks, will probably be allowed to work one or two days
a week – but governments have to evolve a mechanism whereby people don’t crowd
them all at once, like the ration shops. Simply because India has far more family
operated stores unlike the West, where the large supermarkets have replaced
these in huge numbers, we don’t have the same problems, until now.
Similarly personal care services like barbershops, beauty
salons, small clinics, laundry services, will also have to open at least on a
trial basis. Since these involve personal contact, and great risk of spread,
they may actually take quite a while to be allowed.
When eventually other services are allowed to reopen, they
will all need phased reopening and closing, and operation time. Absence of
public and very limited private transport will be a nightmare.
Every service is
dependent on a large network of other services, most of which is impossible to
comprehend by an individual, or even an institution like a company or a
government. This will be a logistical challenge of gigantic proportions, with
no protocols, no training, a scared public, and a bureaucracy and security
apparatus with no training for such challenges. Communicating a lot of these
will be a huge challenge for Indians. We have a large workforce of computer programmers,
people managers, event managers, logistic coordinators and communicators, most of whom are working
from home now. Perhaps they can be of good help in these upcoming challenges.
Crowding at Koyambedu bus stand
A Microsoft memory (in Tamil)
Other personal essays
Additional Pictures
Almost all pictures taken from internet
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| Athletes light lamps on April 5 |
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| Soldiers in Siachen light lamps April 5 |
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| People clapping on Balconies March 23 |
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| Crowding at the Koyambedu intercity Bus terminus, Madras March 24 Bad signalling, lack of planning |
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