Overhauling memories

Cute cars are'nt they ? They are 23 years old now.
These were gifted to me and my brother by Rail maama, a neighbour whose acquaintance we gained during one of our train journeys from Delhi to Chennai. Hence the name.

Couple of weeks back these became hand-me-downs to Vidush.

He enjoys playing with them even though keying them does not result in any movement.
Today I decided to fix that. As I took them upstairs and opened them up with a screw driver, childhood memories came rushing back. The numerous hours spent playing with these cars - setting up elaborate tracks with cardboard boxes and textbooks and watching the cars flying off or toppling over.

Rail maama was the one who introduced us to the world of eggs. For orthodox Hindu brahmins this would be blasphemous. But he himself was an iyeangar and did'nt seem to care a bit. We were too young to know. So one afternoon when we were at his place, he started beating the eggs in a glass and quickly prepared an omlette. He then toasted couple of breads and prepared a sandwich. Some ketchup was added and offered on a nice place. We started reluctantly but finished off the sandwich in no time. There was an implicit agreement of not discussing this act with our parents.

Back to the cars. After the covers came off, I noticed that springs inside were all rusty - not a surprising thing to discover after 2o odd years of unuse. The chasis was dirty as well. After cleaning the covers with detergent water and overhauling the mechanical systems with some seasame oil the cars were back in action.

Initially Vidush did'nt seem very excited to see the cars actually moving now. After a couple of runs when he noticed the wayward trails the cars were taking, he seemed to take a liking and kept throwing the cars back to me to key them back again.

Thank you Rail maama - for the cars and the eggs.

Write on

It's that time of the year again. NaNoWriMo time. Frentic typing, twiddling fingers, scratching heads - all of that and much more. As the badge on the left shows, I am doing it this year as well. Spurred on by last year's 'victory' I guess.

A bigger challenge this year - considering that the first week I have a technical work-out at my company. The week-end after is a team outing for a couple of days and the month end there is a week long conference that I want to attend.

As a prize for last year's winners, nanowrimo organizers have negotiated a deal with CreateSpace. There is an offer to get a free proof-read copy of your novel in paperback form from CreateSpace. Valid for six months from now. Tempting as it is, it would take quite some effort to polish last year's 'work' to a publishable form. Maybe I will take a stab starting December.

For now, it is my new novel that gets priority :-)

Sleepless Class

That is what the Sleeper Class (SL) on the Indian Railways has become these days. I was initially surprised and later shocked to realize that the 3 in 3 tier compartment has been taken more seriously. The side berths now have a middle berth ! Yes, one might imagine that this to be an impossible engineering task, the railways has actually managed to squeeze in a berth there.
What the railways has gained is additional 9 seats. What it has, lost big time, is usability.

The width of regular berths too have been reduced. Once has to be a trained gymnast, if not an olympic medalist, to actually get into the side middle and side upper berths.
And looks like I am not the only one complaining.

While the intentions of Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav to make Indian Railways a profitable PSU are commendable, steps such as the above are not the right means of getting more revenues. While this technique worked for freight trains, this is a nightmare for commuters especially on long distance routes.

So Mr. Yadav, can you kindly return to the good old Sleeper Class ? And return our hard earned sleep on rail journeys.

What's your moth story ?

I got to know about the The Moth society from Malcom Gladwell's blog. It is a club in New York that conducts live story telling events. Many celebrities, including Malcom himself, have told their tales here. Most of the celebrity stories are available as podcasts for a small charge. There are a few recordings that available for free. I heard a couple of them and found them quite interesting. Elevator ER was riveting while Anthony the hat was funny. Planning to hear the others over the next few weeks. Do check them out when you have time and connectivity.

Also thinking of telling my own 'moth story' - maybe not on the real stage; just on this blog.

Dry-cleaning chat

My neighbourhood dry cleaner is definitely chatty. I went to him a few months back to get my jacket cleaned. The 10 odd minutes I spent at his shop, he gave an overview of his career up until his latest job as owner of the dry cleaning shop. He told me that he was into catering - worked for a five star hotel and then started his own business. He was doing well but unfortunately met with an accident which forced him to start his current venture.

Yesterday I had get one of my trousers dry cleaned. The first question he asked me was
"Is the IAEA aggrement good for India ?"

I was a bit taken aback. I replied that it was good for the country in the long term. That was my honest personal opinion.

"Everthing is good in the long term - nuclear agreement, stock markets ..." was his reponse.

Quite a profound observation, I thought.

What do you think about the nuclear agreement ?

A new beginning - in July

More than six months since my last post ... long time indeed. Had been a tad busy - posts were happening on the internal blogs though.
Since January, I got myself an iPhone (2G), Vidush turned one, I got promoted and I was (finally) part of team that won a quiz competition !

Sat through a different kind of lecture yesterday at work. It was talk-cum-dance performance by Dr. Sharada Srinivasan. She talked about the musical pillars of Hampi and then did a Bharatnatyam performance inspired by the musical pillars at the Vithala temple. It was quite a fascinating experience.

It was also sad to hear that the nearby area of Kupgal that is also a neolithic site and full of sonorus stones, is been ruthlessly exploited by the local mine owners for quarrying purposes.

We had been planning a trip to Hampi for quite some time - now I really want to visit the temples there on my next vacation.

A Dead Pup

I saw a dead pup, lying in the middle of the road.
Open jaws, cold paws, run over, probably mowed.

Would the father have cried, the mother bellowed ?
Are they even aware of the cruel blow that an unmindful human has endowed ?

As the world moved on, unmoved - nobody mourned
Have our souls died ? I implored.

I guess so - as dead as the pup lying in the middle of the road.