I couldn’t have understood myself better than what I understand myself today. The truth is that I am most confused person on the planet earth. There are times when I believe that I should strictly concentrate at one particular thing and then I find something else very interesting. Ultimately, in the confusion, I lose out on both. This is what has happened with me from last one year whenever I look at those Millennium problems.

I know, the stakes are higher and it might sound like I am bluffing here. I truly want to solve one of the six problems (considering that Poincare Conjecture is already solved). Yang-Mills Theory is something I would be excited to work on, however, considering my latest interest in computing, I would definitely like to work on P V/s NP problem. And in this confusion, I have made no progress on any of the two and if things go this way, I might never be able to make any progress.

Yang-Mills Theory it is. Yes, I hope to have taken a decision now. And I certainly hope to keep this decision for the next couple of years until I do something substantial on solving this problem. Like always, my approach would be simple and creative. Since this is going to be an absolute thrilling and ground-breaking ride, I am excited to take up this decision. I feel fortunate to stand at a position where I have confidence to take on something huge and faith to complete it in next few years. I hope to succeed in this effort, Insha’Allah.

Next tasks:

1. Understand Yang-Mills Theory

2. Understand the prior work done on this.

3. Think on possible solutions.

4. Publish it.

Since this blog has become a vital medium in my communication with you, in subsequent posts I would like to keep you updated on how my research is going on. Remember, this is all my part-time research and I might be slow in posting the latest updates.

...And there are times when you just feel lucky about the way you are. After being awarded "Rookie of the Year" by my team at ACE conference, I just feel how lucky I am being at Microsoft and what a journey it has been. To be frank, at my home, it's just another award among my dozens of others. But what makes it special is the fact that it's my first as a "Professional". It all started in early 2007, when one of my best friends, Kiran, asked his Uncle to refer me at Microsoft. Things worked and I wrote a written test for internship, went through couple of interviews and subsequently got selected for five months internship. Being an electronics student (I still like to keep my identity as electronics guy), it was a challenging task before me to cope up with the best minds in software industry. I joined MMS (Microsoft Managed Services) team as an Intern. My five months internship included tasks like understanding Data Protection Manager 2007 and developing tools in PowerShell for the same. Fortunately, the task was easy than anticipated. I developed around 13 tools within 3 months and tools turned out to be pretty helpful to the team.

But life is not as easy as it sounded. Almost at the end of my internship, I got to know that there are no open positions in the team. Just when I was thinking, lets return to my beloved electronics... I got a call from HR that my internship is extended for two months and I am supposed to join a new team called "ACE". Wow... that was a shocker! Lucky again. This time around, my job revolved around Performance testing of IT applications. The work demand was simple and quite. I did manage to learn and do End-to-End performance testing of ASP.NET applications and it worked. I was offered full-time employment at Microsoft's ACE team. The pay was handsome, I liked the people around me and moreover, I was in love with Microsoft's work culture. Which company would allow me to come to office at anytime I feel like?

Being a full-time employee at Microsoft brings in lot of responsibilities. The responsibility that you are now a member of a company that revolutionized the way people look at computers. Responsibility that you are now treated as creator of windows in your neighborhood and relatives and you are supposed to solve each and every windows related problem. With the Vista's arrival, my mobile was on continuous stress with every other friend, relative and neighbor calling me up. There I was, with XP installed on my PC, trying to answer, questions on Vista. They say, when you are brave, flukes work!

Performance of Web applications is a large field and I have to admit performance testing is just the tip of iceberg. Every project that I have taken up helped me understand new things, made me better and confident in what I am saying. One thing that I never hesitated to project myself as.... " I am Rookie ". I am not an expert in this field, I am learning each and every bit of it and hopefully some day I might consider calling myself as expert. Till then, I am just a student who doesn't hesitate to ask questions, no matter how stupid they might sound. Time and again, I have been reminded by few people close to me that I should restrain from being over-simplified and project a different image before people and team. That's how people project themselves in Professional world. I know, in professional world, a big fish eats a small fish, that's the logic that is supposed to work best. But somewhere, my conscious says, I should act truthful not just to the people around me but to myself. I think that's what defines "Open and Honest" policy of Microsoft. Someone told me that when you accept what you are and willing to work hard towards excelling yourself, you are following all six policies of Microsoft. You are being Open and Honest, you are taking up the big challenge in venturing yourself into new fields, you are being self-critical by accepting what you are, you are being respectful to the people who are better than or just like you, you are showing the commitment of learning new things and you are passionate to excel and make it large. Mind you, only a passionate person has guts to accept what he is. Ask a non-passionate person about himself, he won't reveal his true identity.

Having said all that, I know I write well! My ex-manager says "it's all about managing expectations", with all due respect to him, my philosophy is "it's all about delivering beyond expectations". I look back at life, I have not just saved memories for myself, I have given memories to others and I hope I continue to do so. I stand today with a promise that "journey has just began and big things are yet to come".

Keep an eye, Abu is here to make a name.

I was watching a movie in a theatre and suddenly my hands were caught tightly by the person on the adjacent seat. He stretched my hands in opposite directions… I was immovable and clearly out powered. I tried looking at his face but I couldn’t… he was behind and I certainly couldn’t tilt my neck 135 degrees. I struggled to free myself, tried to push myself out of the seat. It was all dark, it appeared as if whole theatre was empty. Suddenly I caught the glimpse of the ghostly figure who has taken me under bondage. He was black, long hair and very scary. He was the devil…

Instantly I started chanting La Ilaha Illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah. The devil continued to put more and more pressure on my hands… I had faith in Allah… I kept praying loudly … and suddenly I realized I was not in theatre but in hotel. I could feel the devil sitting next to me, holding my hands tightly and me struggling to move. My brain could process that it was more than a dream and someone is actually there. I could feel the pressure of touch on the skin of my wrist. The devil was actually there… He was strong but not as strong as my will power and faith in Allah. Finally after sometime the devil vanished and I woke up…

As a person who truly believes in science, it’s hard for me to convince myself that there is actually something called “Devil”. I strongly believe, whatever it was, it can be explained through science. This is not the first time this has happened with me. In last few days, this is the third time. My encounter with these types of dreams and devils dates back to my childhood. On many occasions, I have witnessed a dream in which I am lost in an underground chamber, searching for a way out and the dream abruptly ends. But it doesn’t end there. The moment the dream ends, I come to my conscious but I won’t be able to move, won’t be able to open my eyes and in short nothing in my body works except my brain. I have lost the count on how many occasions this has happened. Sometimes, I feel that I am dead and that’s why I am unable to move or open my eyes. During those stages of conscious but immovable, I keep thinking about the summary of my life. What would be my answers to Allah (God), when he asks how I utilized the resources he gave to me. Let’s say this way, eventually every one of us will die. Death is certain but it’s not the end. We are answerable for everything we have done.

Human brain is far more complex than we think it is. The devil could be just a virtual creation within my brain. Our senses send the signals to the brain, it is the brain that does processing of these signals and reacts accordingly. Now, think of a situation where processing is corrupt… the brain will reacts in a wrong way. It is our misconception that brain will interpret the sensual signals correctly; think of a situation that can make brain process these signals incorrectly. Well, how about creating a machine that introduces noise or corrupts the sensual signals?