Category: Personal

  • A post that says many things that I want to say but for which a singular title does not work

    The last time I wrote any thing on this blog was on February 5, 2012. The rest of that month and the days since have been tumultuous to say the very least. Many of my beliefs and faiths in various things and various people have been shattered. I went through a period, briefly of depression. I cannot claim that I am completely out of it, yet. Hence, the silence on this blog.

    I have been updating my tumblr in the mean time, once in a while. I purchased a new phone that I hoped will distract me and then realised that what I needed was not distraction but confrontation. The phone did help me calm down as I began to learn and appreciate a new instrument. I had named my last phone Robbie, from a tradition of naming some of the things I use a lot since my childhood days. I have named my current phone, Athira, the Indian name for the star Betelgeuse,my birth star, per Indian calendar system.

    I have started writing somewhat lengthy stuff on my tumblr which I guess means that I can take a shot at writing something here as well.

    I quit Wikipedia. I won’t be going back to that place, again.

    I trust fewer people now. I cannot live like this for long. I have started doing a few things to fill up the time generally.  I have started reading again. You can follow my reading on goodreads. I have also start putting pics up on instagram, though they get shared through tumblr.

    I have started taking swimming lessons. I had almost started doing OpenStreetMaps but left that for now. I started preparing for banking exam. Not reading much of that, now. I am spending most of my time just sleeping. I’ve started tracking my expenses now, now that they have spiralled out of control. I am not in debt yet. The depression made me eat – a LOT. That made me gain weight again. That meant more expenses, again.

    I wanted to say all of the above because it was just lying around there, like orphans, without being tethered to anything really. I started or promised to do a bunch of things since my first year of engineering. I really wanted to do them but I came in my own way. I am drawing up a list of stuff I want to do or said I would do and plan to implement them. One of the first things I had said I’d do was to learn swimming and do astronomy. I have started taking baby steps in both these fields already. I will write about both of them in separate posts on this blog perhaps in the new year, as per the Malayalam calendar.

  • Link-Bunch for Week 5

    Every week I read a lot. I get this from various sources – from other blogs, to twitter, to facebook. This is an attempt to collect the week’s posts and news stories I read and liked in one place. Will be done weekly or as often as possible.

    1. Brain Pickings Blog: A 1928 letter to Jackson Pollock from his dad. Letter writing is a lost art. I sometimes wonder what great insights we’ll miss out on tomorrow’s leaders, writers and others because these are all electronic now and I wonder how accessible they will be.

    2. George Monbiot is a journalist who writes for the Guardian newspaper. In this piece, he explores how the fast breeder reactor might be the best bet we have with current technologies. His thinking is pretty realistic and grounded. I wonder if the Indo-US nuclear deal will push India away from such technologies and go back to less mature technologies to serve corporate interests.

    3. Vidyut writing almost hours after the Supreme Court verdict cancelling 122 licenses in the 2G Scam whose verdict was delivered presenting an alternative perspective. My only concern, which I believe is still not addressed, is how this verdict will be implemented.

    4. Sonali Ranade writing about how capitalism needs to reinvent itself. An important step back and take a look post.

    5. danah boyd writing about how parents normalized teen password sharing of websites like twitter and facebook. An important read, especially for the parents.

    6. Abhijit Bannerjee argues well for the need of better and honest data collection in India in this article from the Hindustan Times.

    7. Krishnadas Rajagopal reports in The Indian Express on the Supreme Court questioning the Army invoking the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to protect its officers from charges such as rape and murder. An important perspective on the continuing public debate on AFSPA.

    8. Since I’m in the ship building industry, I just read this item in passing. Ship freight rates have now become zero. You can now hire a ship, apparently, by just paying for the fuel charges!

    9. Nuiman writes in countercurrents.org on the problems faced by the Malayalam publication Free Press. This is a dated article from 2005 but worth a read.

    10. Jonathan Shainin writes in bookforum.com reviewing Katherine Boo’s book, “Behind the Beautiful Forevers”. I yearn to read book reviews like this and aspire to write like this. Working on it :) .

    11. Emily Lakdawalla writes on The Planetary Society blog providing an awesome example on the keen sense of observation and what we can learn from it. It also is a push for naked eye astronomy that I have been slacking on. Worth a read, especially if you’re a parent.

    12. Strategic analyst B Raman writes on the impact of the Supreme Court verdict in the 2G scam on the up and coming UP elections.

    13. Stephen Clark reports for Spaceflight Now on the SpaceX successfully testing its launch abort system, an important step towards man rating the SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, which the US hopes to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

    14. A controversial film made by film maker Sanjay Kak called Jashn-e-Azadi was to be screened at a festival on Kashmir at the Symbiosis International University, Pune. The programme was cancelled because of pressure from the right-wing group, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and Pune Police. A student, Akshath Jitendranath, writes about dissent and its value in society and specially in the campus.

    15. Farah Rahman writes in The Mint about how Indian children are not encouraged to tinker.

  • An Obituary of a Tea Shop

    The management moved recently to remove all the tea shops in the ship yard where I work. The grapevine and the only reason known for the removal was to reduce the time wasted by engineers in the tea shop. This post is an obituary of one of the tea shops that was shut down.

    This happened two weeks ago. The tea shop that I used to frequent almost daily at 10.30 am was shut down. The grapevine spoke that the management had cleared all tea shops from the yard. This was a move, apparently, to reduce the time the engineers wasted here. I speak about the shop – a tin and plywood shack really – that was run by three ladies. The relationship among them was unknown. Their real names are also unknown. One lady was definitely old and the other two were definitely young – perhaps in their twenties.

    The central location of the shack meant that it attracted quite a large customer base – contractors, workers and engineers. The shop, in addition to tea also served up samosas, various farsan items, choclates, biscuits, cigarettes and tobbaco.

    The shack was a meeting place for engineers from different departments. It was also a meeting place where people at various levels – from workers to engineers and even managers spoke with each other. Enquiring about work – but also about people’s backgrounds. About their families and co-workers and their well being. Here, tea was bought, farsan was had. Many things that cannot be negotiated over email or in official settings were sorted out here. Co-workers and juniors confronted other co-workers and seniors on various things that concerned them – openly. The shack thus served a social function.

    The shack also addressed a problem. Our canteen is infrequently open and poorly stocked. The shack provided a solution by offering the aforementioned items at any hour of the working day. The quality of tea was also much better. Many people suggested, in conversations, suggested that the canteen staff be sent as trainees to the tea shack.

    I guess at some place in our minds, we knew that the shop would close down. The shop occupied a space where construction of the yard was progressing. It had to be removed for the construction to continue. It was also possibly not following many rules that such an establishment would have had to follow in a town or a city. However, this brief association with the shack proved to be a space where I met with many of my colleagues and my seniors – where we shared a cup of good tea and some idle chatter. Now, with the shop gone, we miss both. The day seems somehow incomplete and the people somewhat restless.

  • A new Dell Inspiron 14R

    I am now waiting for the arrival of a brand new laptop. This will be the first laptop that I buy off money that I earned. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 14R, Intel Core i3 processor with a 2 GB RAM and a 350 GB Hard Disk configuration. This seems very little in today’s world of terabyte level consumption, however, this is what I have asked for.

    Only thing that put me off a bit in the Dell experience is that their website provided wrong information. Following this webpage, I went to the Staples store in R City Mall which had only 1 DELL laptop in the whole place! The Dell Experience Zone is actually on the ground floor inside Croma. A little off-putting but it’s now ordered and expecting it around November 8, 2011.

    Also thinking of reading Michael Dell’s book.

  • To Mumbai and back

    This article originally appeared on my blog http://lifeofpradeep.wordpress.com. I recovered the post using Wayback Machine.

    Diwali gave me my first occasion to return home from Bharuch. This is a relatively small route to travel but is perhaps the busiest. Being on the straight Mumbai-Delhi line via Ahmedabad means some pretty heavy rush on the train lines. Wait listed tickets and endless refresh button clicking ensued.

    The Bharuch (BH is the Indian Railway short code for Bharuch Junction) – Mumbai Central (BCT is the Indian Railways short code for Mumbai Central) journey was nice enough. Got on board at 2338 hrs and reached Dadar at 0415 the next day and reached home by about 20 minutes.

    I used IndiaRailInfo.com to get the time-table. The website is pretty accurate in this regard. I also found it had this volunteer group that did many interesting things around the website – reported train progress reports, guessed whether a waiting list ticket would get confirmed or not (it predicts this but does not claim accuracy) and provides a very basic interface. I first started using this website in January when Kirk was here. Slowly I began to notice some of the crowdsourcing features around this website. One more piece in India’s strange love story with its Railway network.

    IndiaRailInfo.com predicted that my ticket would be confirmed, however it did not and I returned from home by bus – a Neeta Volvo. I slept pretty well and reached Bharuch at 0430 hrs and walked the last mile home.

    As I type this, I am back in Bharuch and back to work.

  • At Bharuch

    I usually look up the place I am going to – if not days in advance then at least while going there using a mobile web application. While reading up about Bharuch where I have been since October 6, 2011, I found little or no information. The geographical information (which I have taken recent interest in learning more about) about the place is lacking. The Wikipedia article on the town just keeps on repeating a similar set of facts and figures and is in need of copy editing and addition of a lot of information. Google Maps doesn’t do much better. While it has captured major town locations, it does not have road names for every road. In short, it is a mapper’s paradise.

    All of that said, my first experience of staying in any place other than Mumbai can be best defined with just one word – SLOW. Bharuch is a slow town. It is a small town. Although, it is a town that is growing at a frentic pace as the nearby Dahej SEZ project is building up. The landscape is changing – faster than the pace of life here. People seem to be only coming to terms with the change. Slowly, there are more people from outside Bharuch in Bharuch than people who are originally from Bharuch.

    It has been 2 weeks since I have been in this town. I have spent most of that time going to and fro to work and learning the ropes there. I am yet to go into town and explore it like it should. Mostly, it is the heat that stops you from wanting to go out anywhere after 9 AM in the morning. Then, it’s only after 4 PM that it is even worth considering going out. The constraints that this places means that I have not had time to explore this town.

  • Moved to Bharuch

    This article originally appeared on my blog http://lifeofpradeep.wordpress.com. I recovered the post using Wayback Machine.

    I travelled in Saurashtra Express for about 7 hours to reach the city of Bharuch on October 6, 2011. I got off the train, checked myself into Shital Guest House and on the next day reported to work at ABG Shipyard Ltd on October 7, 2011. My position here is as a Graduate Engineer Trainee (GET) in the Planning Department.

  • First rains for 2011 in Mumbai

    [Placeholder: I lost the images in this post. Post skeleton found here. 7 pictures]

  • What’s next?

    This is a question that I was asked multiple times during my vacation to Kerala last month. It was perhaps a way of conversation for them but I did not really have a good answer for this one despite knowing well before hand that I would be asked this question. For the past two days, this question has returned with a vengeance and has forced me to think along a future trajectory.

    My bad graduational injection means that my life needs an orbital correction. Based on various conversations I had today and yesterday, these are the options I have narrowed it down to:

    1. Go to Russia and learn about rockets
    Russia is a country I admire for their rocketry prowess. I love the shear volume of rockets they have and they launch every year. It is a trade that I’d love to learn and it’s best to learn from the best. I am looking at Universities that offer post-graduation courses in Aerospace Engineering/Rocketry/special machines. I learnt that admission for international students closes on June 20, 2011. I think applying for the 2012-13 academic year will give me the benefit of learning some Russian and in the meanwhile accrue some work experience.

    2. Join the Armed Forces via the Short Services Commission
    I’d love to be in the Engineering Core of the Armed Forces and help use space to improve India’s military prowess. This option is a bit clouded because I’m not entirely sure why I want to do it and is my father’s dream (he has not told me so openly  – but I see it in his eyes sometimes) of what I should be doing.

    3. Get some job – marry and settle down
    I know it makes you go eek in your guts but for some people it’s a very good option. At various points in my engineering degree, experience has made me want to do this. Complete my degree – get some job that pays well – marry and settle down. Not exactly path breaking but gives you time for hobbies like astronomy, weather man, philosophy etc.

    More options are yet to be considered – like being a liason officer with ISRO, going to Bhutan and settling down there, going back to my older interest of working with a museum, becoming a weatherman or becoming a sadhu and wandering in the Himalayas . I probably wouldn’t do some of these out of sheer laziness but these are thoughts that have passed through my mind as answers when relatives in Kerala asked me the question – What next?

  • Me is back

    It has been a tumultuous month of May. I was in Kerala with my folks for nearly 3 weeks and am now back in Mumbai. Will start contributing to Wikipedia from this month as well. Regular blogging should resume soon.