When the Internet broke down…

Like a host of middle-class families across this vast land of farmers, politicians and scandals – both financial and otherwise, including ones involving fly ash and the humble broom  – and of course, industries, we own an internet connection.

It was really as an afterthought that we took one a few years ago – more to address the needs of our kids’ high school projects of the time, rather than anything else. Over time, this internet thingy began to spread in our lives like molten cheese on pizza in an oven. Staring at the computer screen graduated from a need, to a diversion to while away idle time, and then to an obsession where that activity of sitting at the computer table has begun to contribute to body weight and blood sugar. And we hardly have time to watch television; its 99+ channels and 24x7 programs notwithstanding.

A young genius, figured out a way to make money out of people’s idle time, and what a discovery it has been !!! He is now a billionaire !! Most importantly, if a fraction of that idle time was used productively, then the global GDP would have doubled or trebled before you could say “GDP”…. But alas, it merely wobbles and trembles with numbers that actually make no sense – either to the economists who crunch them, or to us.

Life has developed a whole new meaning with the internet ramblings. The spread of SARS, Ebola and their partner viruses are like perfume puffs in comparison to the spread of selfies or “like-i-titis” or the “plus-one-itis” in the virtual world. Ancient Greeks had only one Narcissus. We have them in shiploads.

Amidst all these floating viruses, our internet access broke down – suddenly. It was not one of those wholesome, fit-for-family-type breakdowns, that typically occur on Fridays, where the ADSL phone line goes dead for the weekend because a crow happened to polish its beak on an exposed wire joint, or the wire-junction box fell off its precarious perch on a lamp-post - the weight of a sparrow being the proverbial last straw for the rusted bolt. Neither was it the kind of fault where the world-wide-web becomes the world-wide-wait for minutes on end while the browser goes around in circles.

This one happened in broad daylight in mid-week, right in the middle of a skype-teleconference across three countries, with the ADSL light on the modem going off and staying off. I logged a call immediately, then after about an hour, went down to the local telephone exchange to complain a second time. They called back in three hours to say that they were shifting us to a new network – a new DSLAM – for enabling better service.

For the uninitiated, a DSLAM is a set of trays with blinking lights, and large fat cables coming out of it in all directions like an octopus with genetic disorder. It alone determines whether you are on the Net with a bunch of followers, or slammed into oblivion. Forever. Hence the name.

They did not have the courtesy to inform us beforehand of this major operation – almost a heart surgery in telecom terms – and were unable provide a time line for completing the exercise. Disaster ! Chaos !! We realized once again, after a long, long time, how heavy time is, especially when it hangs on your hand. Almost unbearable.

That evening, we had nothing else to do other than watch television. Like many couples across the world, in a decades-long marriage, we have over time, developed a healthy loathing not only for each other’s favorite television programs, but the favorite channels as well. And were now forced to watch TV. Together.  There were ads and ads and ads, with small breaks in between, for a film.

I, true to my genetic code,  wanted to flip channels, while she true to hers, wanted to watch the ads – soap, shampoo, cereal and all, with portions of film in between. What was worse was that we needed to converse !!!  The art of conversation, we realized,  had forsaken us a long time ago when kids and television entered our home. Now, it was not just lost art, it was a serious archeological challenge.

Those three hours can be described as a spate of nightmares as we watched ad after ad on channel after channel only to return to the film in which “tors” and “tresses” simply talked and walked about this room and that like addle-pated mannequins.  (I mean I would have called them actors... If they could act, that is.) Dinner was taken in merciful silence, a silence that reigned till next morning. The pent up like-it’s and plus-one’s were taking their toll.

The exchange called up at around mid-day to say that their job was done and we could get cracking once again on the Net. And lo behold !! We had only half the access….. that is to say, some sites were accessible while the vast majority was not. I rushed back to the Exchange to complain once again. They provided alternate DNS addresses. Same result. Contacted them again. They said “tomorrow”.

Yet again, we were forced to watch television. TOGETHER !!! And converse. The strain was beginning to tell.  We took turns at rushing off to a cyber café to relieve ourselves.

On day three, a fellow arrived from the exchange to check. He said they had never encountered this kind of problem before. I said, “ditto”. He plugged in his modem and connected to the internet straightaway, then told me that he would send a replacement modem on Monday. That meant we would have to spend an entire weekend internet-less, save those couple of sites that were accessible. Wow !!!

The forehead wrinkled, the brow creased… the lips snarled, conversation was more like machine-gun fire, staccato included. Luckily for them, the couple of visitors who had planned to drop in during the weekend, called it off at the last moment.

More TV, more ads, more machine-gun fire. With staccato. In desperation I called up my hardware supplier and asked him to replace everything – the modem, the router, the works.  He too said, “Monday evening”.

On the great Monday, this fellow from the exchange turned up around lunch-time with a re-conditioned modem. He plugged it in. The problem did not go away. I asked him to go away.

That evening, my hardware vendor arrived with an integrated modem and router. After conducting some tests to satisfy himself that the equipment really needed replacement, he did it. Within fifteen minutes, our internet access was back on again, in full regalia. The router was the culprit – busy doing a bit of the job and ignoring the important and functional piece. Pretty much like a government employee in these parts.  I packed it in a plastic bag and sent it off with him. Relief at last !!!

The smiles are back, sans conversation, of course.  We are still catching up on five, almost six, lost days’ worth of like-it’s and plus-one’s.

Our marriage has survived this cataclysm.

WHY DO WE INDIANS HONK SO MUCH ?

The first time I went to a driving school, some thirty years ago, the “Masterji” – a toothless, old geezer with a white handle-bar moustache welcomed me with these words, “Horn bajana sikho”, (Learn to blow the horn)… That was even before I had inserted the key into the ignition switch for the first time.

And then the lessons continued in an ancient Ambassador car with no side view mirrors, barely visible dashboard dials, blistering hot air flowing on to my feet from the engine compartment, and a gear-stick in the throes of permanent orgasm. I had to literally shoot my hand out to catch the gear-stick in mid-motion to use it.

Turning right meant I would have to stick my hand outside the window pointing to the right; turning left meant I would have to stick my hand out again and make large circles like a flailing duck in mid-air; stopping meant I would have to raise my right hand up towards the sky outside the window for all to see. And honk.

The reason ? Cars are not supposed to have side blinking lights or brake lights – they drain the battery. Honking takes care of all that jazz.  Horns run on Cosmic Energy.

“Blow the horn even before you start moving”, was the command of Masterji.

I kept failing his little tests throughout the course because I was required to grapple with an orgasmic gear stick and an arthritic steering wheel, blow the horn, and flail my right arm wildly outside the window for every act of self-preservation. And, Man – I only have two arms.

Just when I thought that driving was not for me, after having failed to wave for the umpteenth time and bit my tongue in the process, Masterji said I was qualified to appear for the driving test.

And what a test it was !!! I was at the wheel of a relatively new Ambassador car, where the gear stick merely shivered at the thought of the vibrating engine, with seven other blokes, all examinees.  The Police Sergeant, standing at a safe distance, with Masterji in tow, yelled, “Move forward”.

“H-O-N-K” – I let out a lusty blast, moved into first gear and had barely moved a couple of inches when he yelled me to stop. 

“H-O-N-K” – I let out another lusty blast, raised my right hand outside the window and kicked the brake pedal. Forgot to use the clutch and the gear stick – the engine gurgled, sputtered, and stopped with a lurch. The fellow in the seat behind me banged his head against mine.

Masterji walked towards me – his smile was unnerving. “You passed – with highest marks”, was his happy remark.

“Highest ? I was the first examinee….”

“Never mind… go home now, and meet me in two weeks’ time to collect your licence”.

”WOW !!!

***

In a career spanning a few decades, Masterji, and  thousands of his ilk, have trained millions of drivers like me. The first and last lessons being, “Horn bajao”. (Blow the horn..)

And driving tests being what they are, one can very well imagine the quality of drivers on Indian roads. Which brings us once again to the question, “Why is there so much of honking in India ?”

Observing people, discussing with people, and inferring from conversations, and ignoring the permanent chaos on the roads, I have come to these deductions :

·         Honking before starting to move – Masterji effect

·         Honking while stopping – Masterji effect

·         “Beep…… Beep…… Beep” at precisely twenty-two second intervals on a perfectly empty road in broad daylight – the nervous twitch of the thumb – Masterji halo effect

·         “Beep…… Beep…… Beep” at precisely twenty-two second intervals on a perfectly empty road at night means, “be careful, I have only one headlight on to save battery, but I am driving a four-wheeler”.

·         “Beeep… Beeeeeep” – a literal blast – means “what is wrong with you ? Hell, I AM driving, and you better get out of the way before I hit you”… (Which I jolly well can, because Masterji taught me to do so many things before the car can be stopped…)

·         A furious “Beeeeeeeep” while driving at medium speed is used to get the casual stray dog, cat, cattle, hens, ducks, pot-hole or man-hole out of the way.

·         “Bepeep.. Beep… Bepeep…. Beep….Bepeep…. Beep” means “I am in a tearing hurry, but not driving with headlights on, as those would drain the battery….” – applies to ambulances with no siren, and police cars with a big boss inside…

·         Random beeps while all vehicles are moving at uniform speed mean “I have my side view mirrors closed to avoid damage, and am blind to certain things”.... There are many cars in India even today, that come without side-view mirrors, and people buy them because so many mirrors are not needed for a “good” driver - Masterji halo effect again.

·         “Be..pe..pe..pe…pe..pe..pe.. Be..pe..pe..pe…pe..pe..pe.. Be..pe..pe..pe…pe..pe..pe…” – applies to buses where the driver wants to tell the passengers that the road ahead is chock full of cars, so that he can drive really slow to pick up as many passengers as he can….

·         And then of course, there are the two wheelers, who have more decibels than speed, and use the horn as a sort of aural weapon – “Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep” – to clear the path ahead or scoot in between two stationary cars, only to knock back any side-view mirror that happens to stray into their path….

It requires an exemplary moron to put up speed limit sign boards side-by-side with three different speeds, for three different kinds of vehicles running on the same, lane-less carriageway.  We have them – in Kolkata, and many other cities as well. Naturally, honking is the only way forward.

Railway locomotives in India are equipped with what is known as “cattle-chaser” horns…. A single blast can render one tone-deaf for weeks, allowing one to appreciate the melody of rap music.

They say there is a first time for everything in life…. The other day I was being taken from the airport terminal at Kolkata to an aircraft, in a bus, across the almost empty tarmac. The driver honked thrice…. First, as we started to move away, then when he spotted the plane, and finally, as we stopped.

I had, till then, never heard airport vehicles honk, even in India…. (I seriously suspect airplanes in India have horns too…. though I am yet to hear one).

Long Live Masterji !!!

***

India's 68th Independence Day

Today is India’s 68^th Independence day.

The concept of a nation so diverse in terms of language, ethnicity, social customs, religion, natural resources, geographical spread, would not have been valid in the history of our civilization had it not been for the phenomenon that is India.

Amidst all the warring and strife that is tearing this world apart today, I wish to share with you the words of one of India’s most famous sons – the “warrior prophet” or the “militant mystic” as he was known in his time – Swami Vivekananda.

Take this, for example :

“Strength is Life, Weakness is Death.

Expansion is Life, Contraction is Death.

Love is Life, Hatred is Death.” 

Or this :

“The fire that warms us can also consume us; it is not the fault of the fire.” 

Food for thought – and you are free to draw parallels.

More than 120 years ago, Swami Vivekananda – then an unknown wandering monk - had delivered a speech at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago (1893) – a speech that captured the hearts of all those who heard it. And, still relevant.

I present a few paragraphs from that speech :

“…….I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth……..”

“…….I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to the southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation….”

“……Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now….”

“…..But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal….”

***

More than a century later, we have landed people on the moon… we have landed spacecraft on Mars and plan to do so on a comet…

 We have an orbiting space station that sees the world as one blue planet… And yet… That last paragraph has remained a dream – not a prophecy that came true.

We are yet to see one calendar week without strife, killings or persecution taking place in the name of ethnicity or religion, in some part of the world or the other.

On this day – the 68^th Independence Day of India – I pray – for world peace.

***

Sources :

http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/news/index.php/2013/09/vivekanandas-speech-to-1893-parliament/

http://www.ramakrishna.org/sv_sa.htm

http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/bCxLFO6mXEnWV5jYzweoII/Vivekanandas-120yearold-911-speech.html

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/80592.Swami_Vivekananda

The numbered world

These days a normal person goes to office with :

1.     Mobile phone

2.     Wallet

3.     Driving Licence

4.     Credit card

5.     Car keys

6.     Home keys

7.     Office keys

8.     Sunglasses

9.     Reading glasses

10.  Ball-point Pen

11.  Wrist watch

12.  Loose change (coins)

13.  RFID card for office

14.  Customer site Identity Card

15.  Handkerchief

Some carry two more:

16.  Cigarette pack

17.  Lighter

Life has become so incredibly complex (and numbered)…..

There was a time in our lives when we did not even need to wear anything – jumping around in our birthday suits was considered de rigueur – life was so simple and exciting !!!!… And then it all started building up.

If you look around today it is numbers, numbers all the way….. You have on an average at least 3 credit cards with 16-digit identifiers followed by a 3-digit authentication code. Each has its own “T-pin” number about 6 digits long, which you need to memorise. Each month you get three bills and need to verify those bills against all those numbers….

If you need to raise a dispute on any card bill, you will have to respond to an emotionless, automated voice, punch in your card number (16 digits) and card-specific T-pin number (6 digits) on the hotline and hope you can talk to a human being at the other end. If the call falls through for some reason, you will have to repeat the process.

I must confess - I lost this battle; threw out the T-pins and never raised a dispute since. If they send wrong bills I simply do not pay – till they call up, and then I voice my opinions.

Then, of course you, have the ATM card and another 6-digit access code to memorise – and only 3 chances to get it right with the ATM machine !!! Not fair at all, or rather impolite, if you ask me.

Go to your drawing room and you have a TV set with 92 channels and about 31 buttons on the remote. 60 of those channels show runs and re-runs of very similar soap operas – with 7 base variations of 4 basic plots. 70% of the faces and about 80% of the ads are common.

A villain in one serial is a do-gooder in another and a dying man in a third. And his wife in the first serial has just died in the second. How do you know what to follow ? That is one losing battle – with total confusion reigning supreme….

There was a time when I watched cricket on TV – but that was before the game reinvented itself as the International Cricket Circus and those guys in the field actually played cricket instead of vending biscuits and motorcycles….

Then there is the stereo / home theatre set with 27 control buttons, multiple types and multiple formats of CDs…..  The music too, has changed – you either get the loud jackhammer class of music with someone screaming like a donkey being given the treatment with the jackhammer or you get re-mixes of old lovely songs sung afresh to that same jackhammer music. The single remote can control the Stereo unit, the TV and….. I am so confused that I have never used it….

Go to your workplace and you have to not only take care of 25 server passwords – you have to change them every quarter !!! Then you have more 6-digit access codes for your own office, your customer’s office and your vendor’s office. Then of course, there are other passwords – e-mail, workstation, applications and so on…

They gave me a new phone at my desk after installing the latest digital PABX. This one needs a 9-digit access code before I can dial a 12 or 14 digit international number !! How often can one rattle off 21 or 23 digits from memory ? It apparently has a voice-activated redial facility – but simply refuses to accept my voice command. That is going to be another losing battle, I am sure…..

The other day I forgot my ATM access code in a foreign country, after having spent a month in India and using the access code for my ATM card there. I knew I had only three chances to get it right, and only 10 dollars in my pocket. The ATM machine spit out my card with the first two tries… I gave it up – went home, changed into a comfortable pair of shorts and vest, switched off the TV, darkened the room and had a l-o-n-g swig of whisky. No luck – numbers raced through my mind like a torrent – but I knew they were not the ones I wanted… A couple more swigs – and I realised it was hopeless. Returning my card meant the Bank would give me another set of numbers to memorise….

Next morning I borrowed some money from my colleagues…. Two days later I tried again…. Same result – two tries – two sets of wrong numbers – and I did not dare a third attempt. That evening I tried the same exercise – a few large pegs of whisky in a darkened room. The only difference was that I kept holding the ATM card in my hand and staring at it while a Tagore song played in the background.

Three pegs and five songs later it came back to me – I remembered the code. Finally. I drove over to the bank immediately – and – what a relief !!! I could, at last, withdraw some money……

There was one a time when I dreamt beautiful dreams – last night all I dreamt about was 6-5-0-8-9-3-4-8-2-1-7-4-6-3-2-0-6-4-1-1-0-0-7-6-6-7-9-6-5-4-3-6…. They came at me like an infantry moving forward, armed with guns and spikes – I was running and they were chasing…. Chasing till I woke up….

I have been dreaming numbers for a long time now…..I wonder – where will it all end ? What will happen when my memory starts failing me ? You tell me…. If I want to jump around in my birthday suit once more I’ll have to join a nudist camp – right ?

**********

Air travel economics – then and now…

Some thirty years ago, in the February of 1984, I boarded my first plane, a B737, to travel from Kolkata to Delhi. 

It was a landmark event in my life. Air travel was a big thing back in those days, with only the upper echelons of government and corporations being privileged enough to avail of it. And the heroes and villains of Bollywood and Hollywood. The more vile the villain, the more gleaming his aircraft.

Most companies in the regular course of events, provided train fares for business travel, with the junior officers travelling first class and the rest, three-tier sleeper, second class. Very seldom would one find normal working class people like me, boarding a flight.

As the plane started accelerating on the patchwork of a runway at the then Calcutta airport for take-off, I still remember  hearing funny sounds emanating from the rear of the craft, like pots and pans falling down in a distant kitchen… and then we took off on screaming engines, leaving the pots and pans behind.

Little did I realize then that I would be spending a large part of my work life rushing about in the skies in pressurized metal tubes, looking down upon things and picking up geographic details about this planet till I became a repository of useless bits of information.

There was only one domestic carrier back then, and they called the shots. The food was nothing to write home about – in fact it sometimes caused widespread flatulence to the discomfort of every other passenger on the flight. The air hostesses were by and large gracious, only the aircraft were always somewhat dated.

A few years later I made my first “phoren” trip – to the US and that was my second flight. All those stories they said about drinks and movies being available for free on international flights, were lies – on one airline I had to pay for the beer, while they charged me a dollar to watch a movie on the other one.  I noticed people curling up their feet under them on the trans-Pacific flight and thought, “how boorish and uncultured these people are…” I sat like the perfect gentleman in my seat, although I had taken off my shoes. Some fourteen hours later when we were about to land, my shoes had grown visibly smaller and I could barely walk – I remember hobbling out of the plane with swollen feet…..

Those were the days of “smoking flights”; smokers were generally located in the rear cabin. Good food, a good drink or two and then a good smoke – air travel was wonderful, although the rear cabin became messy after a while.

And then came the first of the many fuel crises…. And all these airline companies started to economize. This economic drive started taking many forms. The first was the smoking ban. Then aircraft wings gave birth to winglets. And then over the years many other measures followed.

In the middle of all these happenings, the Indian Government, true to its style of swimming against the current or being completely oblivious of it, decided to “open up the skies” – and the Indian passenger was suddenly swamped with a bouquet of airlines on the domestic circuit. With air-hostesses wearing skirts. A far cry from the demurely-clad ladies of the original domestic carrier.  I have the distinct impression that it was those skirts that drew the crowds away from the grand old airline, initially.

As if that was not enough, the food on these private airlines was simply superb. But competition began to heat up. Then one of these private airlines started serving free alcohol on domestic flights.

Finally !!! Heaven had come to India !!!

One got to see staid gentlemen in suits and ties being physically carried out of the aircraft at nine in the morning – after a two-hour flight through Heaven on six pegs.

Needless to say, something had to snap. Something did. The grand old airline went running to Mommy, crying, and racking up more losses than ever. Mommy cracked the whip and issued a diktat – NO ALCOHOL ON DOMESTIC FLIGHTS. That was it. Heaven had a blip. And adult Indians were admonished like school kids and told “not to do things”. And that airline went belly up. Economics, they say.

By and by came a new set of aircraft with “fly-by-wire” technology – whatever that meant. The first one crashed, killing all aboard.  Then no one wanted to fly those planes, until…. until there was a hefty salary increase for the pilots – which automatically dispelled all fears.

Then everyone started flying the new machines and no one wanted to fly the old B737s because they were now “old and unsafe”, but which were till then, the bulk of the fleet. In sheer desperation the government recruited retired pilots from the Indian Air Force to fly these oldies. These magnificent men – highly trained as they were - had honed their flying skills on supersonic fighters. It was like asking F1 drivers to drive vintage taxis along pot-holed roads.

The ancient B737s with the new pilots took off at a forty-five degree angle, with engines screaming, sucking the breath out of the passengers…. And they touched down with a series of thuds that left one wondering if one had actually landed or been shot down.

I had accumulated so many points on domestic trips during this period that I took my entire family on a vacation using my frequent flyer points. I should not have done it – I realized later. The grand old airline got merged with the national carrier right afterwards. And both have been lying belly up side by side since then.

Meanwhile the economic drive kept making its presence felt in bits and pieces…. Frequent flyer programs got modified over the years – benefits are now available only on the web-site. I have held gold and silver cards on many of these airlines – a lounge facility and some extra kilos of luggage are the only visible perks. And of course, a set of flashy baggage tags that I can show off to my neighborhood barber. Period.

Not to mention the fact that we now have to print our own tickets. Gone are the days of those nice little booklets, with tear-away slips for each leg of a journey. I am sure the airlines have saved a fortune on these paper tickets over the years.

***

Back in 2001, I happened to take a domestic flight in the US – a two-hour trip from Portland, Oregon, to San Francisco late one evening. Rushed to the airport from a meeting, with no food for about seven hours and I was famished. For one used to domestic flights with snacks and food in India, I thought I would get something to eat on the flight. There was only one air hostess who said she could serve me only beer and pretzels – and the beer would cost a dollar.

“What about me buying some food ?”

“Sorry Sir, there is no food on board. I can give you two packets of pretzels, if you wish.”

The beer did help a bit, but it was another three hours from then that I was able to eat something. Rude awakening – that. And then I realized that most domestic flights in the US were similar – highly economic.  They saved on the food, they saved on fuel by not carrying food, and the pretzel makers made a killing. The only time I had an onboard meal in the US was on the five –hour flight from LA to NY.

Here in India, the US malaise started spreading within a few years – “budget airlines” were introduced. Everything – including the passenger’s dignity, is on a short fuse. Leg space is at a premium on these flights  – I guess they put in a few extra rows. A shortie like me finds the knees brushing against the seat in front – and I can only pity the longer specimens of our species !! At least they sell food separately like street vendors (or should we call them “aisle vendors” ?), and that is a relief.

The Government, of course, does not see them as “budget carriers” – I once bought a one-rupee ticket on one of these budget flights and paid some two thousand rupees in taxes.

Things have started changing on the regular, “full-fare” international flights too…. (The drama starts at the airport these days, where it makes perfectly good sense to walk in naked and then dress up after the security check.)

The economy class seats feel distinctly smaller, or perhaps I have grown fatter over the years, and the “personal TV screens” are but six inches from your face if the fellow in front pushes the seat back. Enough to give one a healthy squint. But they still pack those seats with useless items – a pillow, a blanket, head-phones, and sometimes a newspaper – where should one sit ? And keep all that stuff ?

Ever travelled on those turbo-prop aircraft in these highly economic times ? I once did, from Kolkata to Dhaka. The plane was kind of hanging in mid-air while a flock of geese over took us in mid-flight. I am sure they reached Dhaka long before we did. Or one of those ancient Tupolev aircraft ? The toilet has a big window and no lights. Kind of shocks you till you realize there cannot be anyone peeping through that window at fifteen thousand feet to watch you do it.

Once upon a time the onboard food on the international flights was filling. Then economic drives made it adequate – the number of dishes or courses went down. Then as oil prices spiraled, the quantities too started to dwindle. Of late I have noticed that they serve just enough to keep one from feeling hungry for the duration of the flight. You can hear you stomach growling upon touchdown. Amazes me how they figured that out.

Just a few years ago the food trays were larger than the pull-down tables. Then they were changed to fit in just right. Now the trays are smaller than those tables.  That was also the time when the tray was full of food items and the cutlery was placed over the tray. Now the cutlery, by and large plastic, fits in the tray among the different bowls and there is space for something more. Having a meal with plastic cutlery in those cramped confines is also a challenge. One needs to hold the fork or spoon parallel to the wrist, pointing to elbow, to eat. Try it out, you fortunate ones, who do not travel too much…. An elephant, stuffing hay in its mouth would look more elegant.

The salad once had three or four olives in it. Now there is only one, and that too, in three slices. I am sure some Consultant found out that if you saved two or three olives per tray per flight, then over a life time, you could save a billion dollars, and of course, some olive gardens !!! A part of the green initiative, I suppose…. Reducing the “carbon footprint” and effects of “global warming”..blah, blah and blah….

I am sure all of you remember time when the drinks trolley had only alcoholic beverages and there was a “drinks round” followed by food. Now that trolley carries three or four bottles of different kinds of alcohol crouching carefully behind row upon row of canned fruit juice or sparkling water. And the drinks are served WITH the food. The wine glasses have vanished from the economy class. The whisky tumblers have grown smaller over time – the last one I had just the other month was the size of a three-rupee tea cup on the streets of Kolkata. Single malt has all but retired to the business and first classes. The supposedly Scotch whisky I had on flight a couple of months ago, tasted like “Phosphomin” – that green solution a doctor once gave me as a kid. (My parents had to literally fight it out to give me a dose – but that is another story).

I made the mistake of asking for a salad dressing on one of the recent trips. The air hostess raised her eyebrows, smiled and said, “Sir, this is economy class !!!” As if I did not know.  

Tickets and olives gone, serving less alcohol than a thermometer, food that would keep a Barbie doll hungry, and these airlines still say they do not make money. Devastating economics, I must say…

No wonder Bollywood and Hollywood heroes and villains have taken to luxury yachts these days.

***

The Electrical Foreman & Electrical Engineering Theory

It was at my first job at a hydro-electric project, that I began to learn my subject seriously. (I mean, who does in college ?) I purchased all the Electrical Engineering text books prescribed by my erstwhile Alma Mater with my first and second salaries and then started studying, albeit with a glass of whisky in hand. Learning came late to me in life... like a...

I had this large team headed by three electrical foremen – one in charge of plant and machinery, the second heading the work of transmission and distribution lines, while the third was an assistant to the other two. Managing this bunch forced me to study many things.

I have written about foremen in the past; this class of people, a genre that has held the traditional industries in thrall for more than a century – from the days the first factories were born, and up till now, exist in their pristine form in the traditional industries.

In those days back in the eighties, each had his own style of work or “gharana” with their own fan following that extended from the lowest workmen to the highest project managers. And they went to ridiculous lengths to preserve their brand of expertise, with the firm belief that nothing of what they knew could ever be gleaned from books or any other source, but them… Contesting anything uttered by one of this species could be quite similar to a short visit with a mamma crocodile guarding her clutch of eggs, only more dangerous……

The eldest among these three men, let us call him “Sen Babu”, was a man old enough to be my father, and who had learned his work the “hard way”. A quintessential Bengali, the only thing that made his blood boil was the word “nonsense”. It was from him that I learnt the basics of electrical engineering practice – right from how to assemble a motor to identifying the gauge of a wire.

I must admit that the expertise and meticulous approach of these foremen were unparalleled. My team, under Sen Babu, did a fantastic job. With only about ten or fifteen men, a couple of winches, a few rollers and no loudspeakers, tea-boys or compounders, we laid miles and miles of cables up and down the hill-sides, along trenches, up along steel structures or strung them with wires across hill-tops.

Sen Babu had a healthy loathing of the way the utility companies went about the cable laying job. If any of the workmen did not work properly, or was out of synch with the rest of the gang while working, he was threatened with banishment to these utility companies…

Sen Babu had heard about Fleming’s left-hand rule and joked that he must have been a Bharat Natyam dancer, because this rule, in his opinion, was useless in real life. If one wanted the motor to turn in a particular way, all one had to do was to switch terminals…..why enact “mudras” with the fingers ?  

To make an honest statement, he actually demystified my subject for me…While explaining three-phase circuits and wiring, he would often exclaim, “Teen gachha taar – eteo confusion ?” (Just three wires… and you are still confused ?)

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There was this newly-arrived high-power motor at the site, which I had been asked to install. I did remember a thing or two about motors from my college days – they whined and kind of spun uncontrollably when powered up – but they were supposed to have three, or at best six terminals. This particular one had nine !!!! It was not mentioned in my professor’s notes. And neither in those books that I had bought. And the metal plate from the manufacturer that contained the suggested connection diagrams had fallen off in transit. A conspiracy of Fate, if there was one – stupefying an already bewildered engineer….

I stared at it for so long that my foreman brought me some tea… and then he confessed that he too, had not seen a motor with nine pieces of wire sticking out of it like some freak octopus. One smart fellow in the team (an aspiring foreman) explained that these motors worked with “German connection”, but could not explain what that connection was… It took us two full days to solve the “mystery of the nine terminals”…  and there was nothing German about it!

(I came across this “German connection” thingy once again many years later at one of the steel plants in India. This time it was a couple of  transformers that had the disease. What I learnt was that they always gave balanced three-phase voltage irrespective of the load. Pretty smart people, these Germans, I must say…..).

About four hundred odd motors and fifty odd transformers later, the installations were complete and the plants and equipment started running. We entered the support and trouble-shooting phase while the civil engineering group started building the actual dam. Sen Babu simply amazed me. He could put his screw-driver to a motor and diagnose its problems straightaway. He could repair circuit-breakers within the hour. And all this while he kept teaching me. We had star and delta connections for lunch and dinner. And complex control circuits, wire splicing, cable-jointing in between. And let me share a secret with you – in all the control circuits I have devised,  implemented and maintained ever since, I was never bothered with any stability calculations of the kind they taught us in college. Remember that funny control circuit theory paper in college in which half the class failed routinely ? I, for the record, had managed to scrape through, like a cat hanging from a ledge… The control circuits worked just fine without those calculations. If they did not, they blew a fuse.

Time and again, Sen Babu would ask me, “Ei sob ki college ey shikhechhilen ?” (Did you learn this in college ?) and “Ei bepare apnar boi-te ki bole ?” (What do your books say about this ?) If my text book did not explain a particular practical problem, he would flash a knowing smile…. “Bujhlen shaheb, engineering amader kachhei shikhte hobe….. Oi Phleming aar Eewton ki korechhe – apnader jibon ta khali kothin korechhe…Electrical shudhu konsep… haath lagate parben na… tipey tipeo dekhte parben na…. dekhte gelei shesh.” (You need to learn engineering from us… All that Fleming and Newton did was to make your life difficult…Electrical (engineering) is all about concepts… you cannot touch electricity, neither can you squeeze… try it and you will be finished…)

Food for thought there…. In all the years since then, I am yet to fathom out why they taught us the rest of the stuff across all those ten semesters. My expertise grew to the extent of those five chapters and it was enough to win me laurels then. And it has remained limited to those five chapters ever since.

One fine morning, a conveyor belt called it a day. We rushed out to investigate. He brushed aside the crowd milling around,  pressed the starter button and declared, “Motor ka khatiya khadi.” (A rough translation would be : This motor is ready for its last journey.)

I was amazed. I asked him how he knew.

He then propounded his greatest theory on electrical engineering – something I remember to this day, more than thirty years later : “Shunun Shaheb - jeta cholbe, seta jolbe na; jeta jolbe seta cholbe na; jeta cholchheo na, jolchheo na, setatey power nei.” (Look, Sir, that which runs will not burn, that which burns, will not run, that which neither runs nor burns, does not have power.)

A truly original hypothesis that I am yet to find fault with. Wish they taught that to us in college and built the entire electrical engineering syllabus around it……