How I taught my grandmother to read,, by Sudha Murthy.

After many years, got hold of one more book by Sudha Murthy. This was a collection of short stories comprising of her encounters with common people and many such occasions from her life.

I loved the book and completed it within (under) couple of hours. I particularly felt attracted towards the chapter on Bharat Ratna JRD Tata and also the chapter on what to learn from Russians.

The chapter which told Russians went to war memorial on the day of their marriage to offer their gratitude to the war heroes' just made me remember the small picture of MK Gandhi, which appears on my blog. I was quite happy with myself, that each day, I get to remember the father of our nation.

But somehow felt equally shamed, for not having picture of Tata's also in my blog. I am so much in awe of the Tata clan that, the least I could do was to have a picture of them on my blog and offer my deepest gratitude.

The Tata's have provided so many opportunities to Indian people over the last century as such that, its difficult to even think of an India without the Tata's.

To TATA is to India,

Cheers,

Shuttle driver #7 - Driver who busted a radiator!

Well, don't pop your eyes out. The radiator did not split up into two halves, instead just the coolant spilled out on the road, leaving us with an overheated engine!

This particular driver came to our route, just for a single day and that too for an evening drop. He brought his own vehicle with was a Tata Indica pretty old one 2006 model or so.

So if you are wondering, what story is associated with this driver, then here it goes.

- Apparently, everything went fine till HSR layout signal just before silk board junction. But then all of a sudden, there was smoke coming from under the hood/bonnet and there it goes all the radiator fluid aka coolant spilled out on to the road. The car refused to start.

On further examination the driver figured out that, a connection to the cooling fan was lost and as a result, the engine overheated due to the fan not functional. I wonder, what caused the radiator fluid to leak out. Looked like the water pump had failed to circulate the coolant.

So what did this driver of us do, he was a guy around 20 years of age. He used all his skill-set and took a piece of wire and directed the circuit straight from the battery to the fan bypassing the thermostat. ( I assume that's how the circuit ideally goes, with the thermostat notifying the engine temperature causing the fan to run and the coolant to be circulated).

He went to a nearby vendor and brought a bucket full of water and filled the radiator and started the engine. The fan by now had started running on battery power, no needed to start the engine and go by the thermostat to get it running. But the sad part is the water pump refused to work. So we were left with couple of fans to cool the engine down, with thermostat working correctly. So whenever the engine temperature went above a mandated range we would stop and allow the engine to cool down instead of blowing the engine. We stopped a couple of times, but we could get home.

Well, if you are thinking what makes this driver make an entry to this series, let me be bit more frank with you.

- There is a popular website, team-bhp.com where all the so called motor enthusiasts gather to discuss about automobiles. I too had tried to register for that website, back in the year 2009, but I was turned down badly, because, I could not write a proper essay on why I wanted to join the automobile enthusiast website.

 I was miffed for a couple of days, then I went back to the local mechanic near my house and discussed with him on vehicle I was about to buy. Finally I settled with Tata Indica Vista Tdi. But I never registered for that website team-bhp.com again. I was pretty confident that, when I could speak to a local mechanic on car related matter who was a hands on guy, why would I want or wish to register amidst only a bunch of enthusiasts who would themselves turn to a mechanic for their repairs. It was waste of time even writing an essay.

Today, after seeing this 20 year old cab driver making repairs hands on, my stand on that automobile website team-bhp.com stands vindicated. I pride the time where I go about talking to people on the field like drivers, mechanics, instead of a bunch of enthusiasts who know all about theory of vehicles, but need a mechanic to do their repairs, (these guys also know to write an essay too).

And regarding the driver and his car, he was from a village near Tumkur who had come to Bangalore to work hard and earn a living. The car he owned had costed him just Rs 80,000 out of which Rs 40,000 he had paid from his pockets and Rs 40,000 he was on loan, which he was confident of clearing off quickly. (It was a used car of course).

This brings me to the point where in I mention something about Tata Indica and Tata's as such. My current shuttle driver calls Tata Indica as poor man's almond. After reading the above driver's situation, don't you think its 200% true.

Tata Indica has always been a working man's car. That's the primary reason I chose Indica Vista. I had worked hard to save money and I wanted it to put it in a meaningful car. I don't mind if you call it a taxi or whatever, it suits me and I love it, to the core and even if I end up buying a used Toyota Innova, I promise, I have no intentions to sell my Tata car, because I am so much emotionally attached to it.

I would be more than happy if you call me a poor man, since I drive a Tata Indica Vista myself. How I long to write a lengthy post on Tata's. What would India be without the Tata's.

Cheers,

Gem of a song by David Gray

I generally used to share songs on Facebook. But considering, I have many people on restricted list and almost all of them whom I have unfollowed, plus my cousin scolding me for sharing songs on facebook, I am left with no option, but to write a post here and put the song across, so that, it shall be etched over here for ever.

Here s David Gray from the album WhiteLadder, from the days, when things were still uncomplicated. I used to listen to this song on the radio after 10pm, in the dark, when the whole world slept, those were the days, when soothing music was played.

Cheers,

Different routes, yet no result!

The day, I wanted to go to YellamanaGudda, it was a strike at Saundatti and neighboring villages, because of Kalasa Banduri Nala agitation. I drove across different village roads. I thought I should put up a map of my futile attempts to reach my destination, Saundatti Sri YellammanaGudda.

Eventually, in the evening, the agitation was over, I was able to get to the temple!

Pic 1 & 2 were different routes, I tried to reach there.
Pic 3 is the return journey back to Dharwad.
Pic 4 is the evening journey towards success!

Of going different ways..

2015, has been a year of mixed feelings for me. All the people at workplace, with whom, I openly speak to, apart from my cabmates, are parting ways. They are choosing better careers, better opportunities, some altogether a different land in search of work.

So while I joined this organization, 3 other people, joined with me, within a few days gap here and there. Two of them were in my team only, one person was there in a neighboring team.

My team size went down when the above 2 people left, I was the only guy left from that batch alongside this person who were left. He too was under tremendous pressure these days to deliver code, since he was on a critical project.

Now his tenure too is coming to an end. He is choosing to move to the US, in search of better opportunities. The reason why I chose to write about him is because,

1. He is my close friend with whom I speak openly about anything and everything, the last few remaining at workplace.

2. He was working with me in Singapore in the same building for more than a year. We both were at Changi Business Park, but apparently on different floors, I was on 4th, he was on 6th. So we never quite new each other, forget that, we had not seen each other at all. After coming here, we got to know, about our background and quickly we formed a group of 4 all of whom had co-incidences of our own.

Again cheers to co-incidence, cheers to ironies.

Department Lunch!

Once every quarter, we have a team dinner which covers all of the product development team at workplace. It includes close to 60-70 members. Its happening since I joined this organization. I skipped the very first one, and I guess even the second one, for which I was reprimanded badly.

So this time, it was close to our workplace called the Aloft Hotel. Highlights of this meeting included some quarter results announcement via skype from the US. But the biggest highlight of this event was

 - Employees who had no interest in listening to what was being told, looked as if they had come for the food.
 - Since beer was available, people queing up for beer.(male members only).
 - The question asked by our managers from India regarding sales results/other stuffs.( comprised of 2-3 only, none of which the crowd heard since there was no microphone.)
 - Couple of HR team members who were not interested at all in entering the hall and listen to the talk from US. I guess it would have made no difference to them, they clearly indicated they came for food only!
- Even before the session got over, few people just moved out to stand in line for the food queue. They were in a hurry to reach home, though most of those people would go by office shuttle.
- Joined the food queue quickly and left quickly. People like our cab mates, who were last and slowest in indulging in the food, were to find ourselves, in the middle of nowhere as everyone had left before we completed our food. What an irony!

Cheers,

Shuttle driver #6 - Driver who retired from the profession, did he really?

I should rather call him driver #1, since he was the shuttle driver, when I joined this current organization in the month of June 2013. He belonged to a place called Hariseve, on the way to Hassan, and apparently till date, he has been (close to) the longest serving single driver for our route!

There were few weird things about him too.

- This cab was the most dirtiest till date, it was a Tata Sumo manually steered, with almost zero maintenance, full of dust inside, poor suspension, poor state of the vehicle. I wonder, who could look after a cab so badly.

- He turned out to be a relative of the cab owner or rather travels owner.

- After doing duty for close to 2-3 months he was about to retire, trying out in a different profession, though he was just 30 years.

- During his tenure, one of the lady at our office left her gold jewels in the rest room making us go back to office at around 9 15 pm and thus we ended up returning home at around 11 PM. The same lady commented that I had a bad attitude, when I came to the cab late by 15 minutes on two different occasions. What a hypocrite!

- One day during his time, the traffic was held up so badly at Gowdanpalya Padmanabhanagar that, he was on his way to Kengeri for the first pickup at around 10 10 AM, while my pickup at Arehallli was at 9 40PM. So instead of waiting on the road for not sure how long, I hopped on to the cab to go in the other direction of office towards Kengeri and then come back! It was one of a kind day!

- One more thing I could remember with this driver was, his ability to shift gears without using the clutch, I was shell shocked, I had seen this done by bus drivers, but on a Tata Sumo, believe me, it was like the 8th wonder, though, I have never tried this on my vehicle.

- Also, the weird thing about this driver was, he used to drive in all the wrong gears, moving the vehicle from second gear, driving in 4th gear at speeds of 20kmph using the clutch.. It was a nightmare for the cab members as by doing this the pickup just went bad, making us all very impatient.

- This driver also told one very weird incident at his native village, where oxen (alpha male fully grown bull oxen) were sold for more than a lakh rupee and once, an oxen was killed by a predator and had eaten the kill to the half. He told the villagers had injected tranquilizer into the partially eaten dead animal and how the predator had been caught, when it came back to finish the oxen. Man, some people really have stories and experiences to share!

Never mind, it all got over one fine day and then started the never ending issue of finding a permanent driver for the Kengeri route, which to this day, persists!

Cheers,

PS - After that comment on my attitude by that lady, I stopped speaking to her afterwards. Not only that, I stopped speaking to any and every lady in my office. I have maintained this even to this day and speak to none. Only occasionally when I have to submit by expense bills to the HR or get a photocopy done, I speak to the concerned ladies.

Shuttle driver #5 - Driver who did not see a road divider in the dark!

Driver #5, is a very recent one infact, he was doing duty just few weeks back till date. He came as driver for our office cab for 4-5 days after which we got a new cab altogether. Couple of strange things happened during this 4-5 days as well.

To start with he was another guy who was 5 feet tall, fairly short and used to drive a Toyota Innova. Visibility to him was fairly poor, and one thing I observed was, he used both of his hands to drive the vehicle (I meant on the steering wheel). When he shifted gears, he quickly got back his left hand on the steering wheel (almost within a flash).

So whats so queer about this guy you may be wondering.

- While taking a right turn somewhere near Jayanagar 5th block, this driver, did not notice a road divider in the dark due to his visibility owing to his height and as a result, the front vehicles nearly missed coming in contact with the road divider, but when he swerved right, the vehicle hit the road divider and got stuck. Though the damage was minimal, it was stuck,with front wheel in the front of the divider and back wheel behind the divider. We retrieved the vehicle and continued.

- One more incident that happened during his stay was, at Kadirenhally, when there was a BBMP election promotion, people were asked to move quickly to make way for the people. Our cab stalled at this very place and few people managed to give it a push to a road side. We managed to start it, the fault was owing to a faulty electrical connection, owing me to write a post on " how to shame a toyota innova "

And this driver was from Kukke Subrahmanya and I asked him, if he had ever climbed Kumaraparvata. The answer was negative!

Cheers,