Twinkle Twinkle Little Star(s)

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

This was the first poem that I learnt during my childhood. Me and my sister were chanting this line whole day when we learnt it, but only and only the first line because we didn't know the rest of the poem. I could never imagine these little stars would have a deep impact in my life ahead and my whole work would circulate around exploring these little yet important stars.

It didn't take that longer recognizing the importance of stars in my life. As soon as I began with the "most practical thing" of my life by getting enrolled into a school, I realized there was a whole game of stars going on there. Don't confuse it by assuming that we were taught by the celebrity stars in the class room. No, but the stars were something everybody was striving for. You wear a neat uniform-you get a star, your shoes are polished-star, your homework is intelligible-star, you are not talking in the classroom-star. So all good works were acknowledged and rewarded by these stars yet the definition of "good work" was itself very subjective. But I missed one critical point that it was not only star itself that matters, but the color is also important. This reality broke many "tiny" hearts even before they had blossomed. This was about my life before I struck a double figure into my age thingie. When I grew older, I heard about this phenomena once again from some big Lollywood hit where a woman misses her lover so much so that she developed "Insomnia" and she had to count the star all night to get some sleep. My eld. sis. was so much overwhelmed by this idea that she recommended the same technique whenever anyone of had a sleeping disorder.

Things went on and on, until I discovered there is a world for socially accepted (but not admitted) human species in the world. It took a 7 hours flight from home to Tilburg in heading towards this world of research. One friday, when I was heading to a masjid for Prayers, a colleague of mine asked me to say hi to God (he might be too shy or busy to visit God himself). As I nodded, he came up with another request. "Would you also ask God to give me some significance". This was something I understood spontaneously but I wanted more clarifications so I asked him precisely would he wanted. Ask God to give me more three stars on the variables I want. Clear enough? he said sarcastically. Thats where I went into my past without a time machine like in "Back to the future". Aaah, three stars. Eventually I noticed he ended up in something where he might have started the journey of education. This would be partially true about him but completely true about me. My search for three stars reached the apex when I started my own research work. My thesis all went into looking for these stars day and night. Now I came to realize the value of those three stars and in the wink of an eye, I went two decades back. Now I pray about those three stars because I do really care about the variables that takes weeks and months to be created yet without having a single star on them.

For those friends who don't know what these stars are all about, I would like to explain in Laymen's term. Usually the economists shows the importance of their defined variables by putting stars on their coefficient. Three stars if your variable is really important and playing a significant role in the stated problem, two stars if its important and one star if its little important. A "No significance" signal is delivered decently by putting nothing at all on the coefficient. This decency has been developed because there is no black star phenomena in here. Had there been the similar "KG Black Star" playing a role here, the economists would surely have shown their anger by putting this black monster over their variable particularly if they had worked really hard creating it yet the variable was of no significance.

Dear All, don't just forget to pray for significance in my case also. I pray that May Almighty gives this significance to all members of research community. Amen. :)

A Researcher

Every profession has its pros and cons; and research profession is no exception. Perhaps the most important and dominant feature of researcher is the one with which they earn their bread and butter, but saying this in a straight forward manner would make it a very negative profession. Let me rephrase it to make it sounds softer. Any research work is developed by a prior work; through either inspiration taken from that work or pointing out some weaknesses in the existing work, refining, value adding and developing an end product which is (probably) better than the one which is the foundation of this work. Here comes the controversial point I wanted to state earlier. If they do not criticize, they can’t develop, and if they can’t develop, they are finished. Hence the most distinguishing feature of a researcher is to point out (often unnecessarily) mistakes in others be it related to their work, personality, character or whatsoever. A researcher by nature or by profession is bound to pick out every minute point, digging out gratuitously all those things on which they can develop a theory or a model.

There is one important point in the discussion above; if you are a researcher and you do not have this “peculiar trait” in you, you should rather not waste time in this area anymore. If you want to be a researcher, particularly a successful one, make sure that every other word comes out of your mouth brings criticism on the counter-party. For the counter party; I believe it’s a right moment to put a word of advice. Perhaps day-to-day interaction with a researcher is hazardous to your health, career and motivation level. They can “rightly” point out all those personality characteristics in you that can be obstacle in your way to success. The most disappointing point comes is their declaration that you cannot move with your present weaknesses. They would amplify your weaknesses so much that at some point in time, you will start thinking how destiny can be so cruel to put all the weakness in this non-researcher class, blessing your opponent with all the rights, courage and strength such that they can easily judge you on their own set scale.

It is never wise to start an argument with a researcher. The one who starts such argument deserves a death sentence because otherwise he will hang himself from the roof and finish himself with his own hands.

Another dominant feature of a Researcher is their short memory. When it comes together with her “Always Criticizing” nature, then some really cute but annoying incidences happen. One fine Monday you go to office and you will be complemented by her, saying you look nice in red tie. The other week she is at odds with you and she will harshly tell you how horrible you look in the same old tie.

Probably with time, you might go crazy spending more and more time with a researcher. And that brings a very pitiful and afflicted person into the scene; who else, Researcher’s life partner. It is unintelligible that their life was perfect without a husband/wife, but still they chose to ruin the life of a human. From morning till dusk, you will always see them pushing their heads against their sophisticated models (which they develop perfectly matching with their nature), still they chose to get married. They are among those for whom it is said that they only see their kids growing horizontally not vertically. It is because when they leave house, their kids are sleeping and the time they come back from work, they are again sleeping ( Of course, who chooses to work at 1:00am or 2:00 am in the morning and going back again early morning before the sun shows up). Since they rarely comes in contact with the sun, whenever they chooses to expose to sun, it hides behind the clouds and then the clouds are also not behind their friends and they protest in form of loud and scary thunderclap and rain. So the researchers always seem to complain against the harsh weather. This is my personal opinion.

With their own weaknesses, personality traits and everything, world is incomplete without this special class of living beings. They develop and destroy and then develop and then destroy and that’s how sometimes they come up with some solution to a problem. They can surely live without world but world cannot live without them. We need them because we have no choice. They make our world a better place to live in.