Infinite thoughts

Tornado Alert!!

2026-09-17T07:13:03.291+05:30

During the stay in Ann Arbor, although uneventful otherwise, I got to experience the tornado firsthand.

On one of the fine days, the weather had predicted rain in the late afternoon. Meghana and I were prepared with umbrellas. We visited some of the touristy places on the college campus, like UMMA (University of Michigan Museum of Art), Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, etc. (Details about these - some other time!!) After the visit, we decided to wait in the lounge area in the Michigan Union, where Mrunmay was to come and meet us after his classes. Mrunmay came in after his classes. And then came the demand for coffee.

Michigan Union hosts a cafe called SweetWaters Cafe. Spread across 37 locations across the states, I found this one to have one of the best frappes. I placed the order on their self-order kiosk and was sitting patiently for the barista to prepare the order. It appeared that the barista was a trainee and took longer than anticipated, resulting in exchanging calls with Meghana/Mrunmay about how long it was taking. Finally, I got the order, picked up the pickup tray, and started walking towards the lounge area, which was a floor below.

As I entered the lounge, I sensed my phone vibrating again. I could see Meghana with a phone in her hand and assumed she is trying to call me. Ignored and reached the table, only to realize that almost everyone was looking at their phones. Placed the tray on the table and pulled out my mobile as I heard Meghana asking if I had received any alert. Startled, I looked at my phone and saw "Tornado Alert".

The weather outside had changed suddenly, and there was heavy wind outside. The alert suggested that we should take shelter in the basement or some substantial structure, and we started wondering if we had to go somewhere or hold our post!! Looked around and found that most of the folks were sitting at their places, making me wonder if this was kind of normal to them. It indeed was. Mrunmay quickly checked with his roommate, who happens to be an in-state student and was used to these kinds of alerts. We also realized that the lounge was already at basement level, and we could see the ground level from the windows situated slightly above eye level.

The next several minutes were full of curiosity, anxiousness, and awe. I was observing things around. The television sets across the lounge were originally showing some news channel; now all of them were showing a standard drill for a tornado alert. People sitting next to the windows had moved away from the windows and had emptied the space. Thunderstorms started outside, and we could see the raindrops flowing almost horizontally due to the speed of the wind.

We had received this alert around 3:45 PM, and it mentioned that the alert was active until 4:15. Given our experience in India, where the weather and the weather department are out of sync most of the time, I was not sure if the storm would be over so soon. The visible speed of the wind was just too much. The only thing we could do was to watch and sit patiently. Ended up capturing some videos and snaps, though. To our surprise, the weather actually cleared in a few minutes around 4:15; the rain stopped, wind slowed down. Even with the heavy downpour, the roads outside Michigan Union were drained fully, with very little residual water around.

This was my first experience with a "tornado". In the last couple of years, our government has also started sending out SMS alerts, but they have been largely vague and too frequent, resulting in those getting ignored. We typically receive the following message, which is vague and unactionable at best!!

पुढील ३ तासात पुणे जिल्हयात काही ठिकाणी ताशी ६०-७० किमी वेगाच्या सोसाट्याच्या वाऱ्यांसह मुसळधार पावसाची शक्यता आहे. नागरिकांनी सतर्क राहवे. मंत्रालय, मुंबई

Two days later, I saw this in local news:

Disaster Recovery Center Open: A quick note for locals: the city has opened a Disaster Recovery Center at the Westgate Branch Library to help Washtenaw County residents impacted by the recent summer storms and tornadoes apply for federal relief before the deadlines hit.

This experience left me impressed with the efficient use of technology on multiple fronts:

The alert was delivered precisely: before the thunderstorm started; to all cellphones in the area (mine was an Indian number, on roaming; I still received it)
The info had a precise start and end time, which actually proved correct
The alert specifically called out what to do to keep yourself safe.
There's a set process to handle these recurring phenomena without people needing to ask for compensation or relief.

Although the area receives tornadoes routinely, I was relieved to see that the local government, including the university, is well-prepared to handle the situation, given that my kiddo is going to spend a good amount of time in that area :)

He is still a kid...

2026-09-10T13:05:58.549+05:30

During my stay in Ann Arbor, we met a family from India. The son had secured admission to Ross School of Business for his MBA degree. His mother and elder brother/cousin were accompanying him on his maiden study trip.

While generally chatting with the family, aunty was enquiring about quite a few things, cousin was also asking a few things. But the son was only a listener. This was the scene in every other conversation we had with that family. While I understand aunty's curiosity or anxiousness about the new country, the lack of knowledge on the son's part was surprising. The fellow had not even thought about which bank to use, which mobile carrier to use and things alike. Even when exchanging contacts, aunty was proactive, but not the son.

While we were sitting at the airport on way back, we met aunty again. She was also leaving the same day. While mentioning this to Mrunmay, I couldn't stop noticing the difference.

When it was confirmed that Mrunmay would be studying at the University of Michigan, he has been reading/searching about life there, how he will survive and settle in the new country. He researched the banks, phone carriers, dorms, and dining halls, including who the biggest rival is in the eyes of UMich students. He has been sharing that with us and had asked us to do a final pass/decision about important things like banks and carriers.

That MBA student must be at least 4 to 5 years older, and given MBA aspirations, is expected to be a bit more conversing/knowledgeable/curious. But he completely failed to communicate that. In hindsight, I am thinking if the problem was with that son or with that aunty? She seemed a lot more protective of her son, which was inappropriate for his age. And it is also likely that the son already had the info, but Aunty simply wanted to validate it with us. But overall, it gave me the impression that the son hadn't done his homework!!

While I completely agree that the son had no business making an impression on us, all these thoughts made me realize one thing again. Mrunmay has prepared himself well for staying alone and has been in that process for quite some time. And it surely is reassuring, as we would be hours apart and won't be close to him. And I also feel good about ourselves - as parents, we seem to have done a decent job on this front - of letting him grow independent.

This story also reminds me of one of our neighbours. I was in college, just about Mrunmay's age, and that neighbour's son would be around 35 or 40. That lady asked my mom if I could go and pay the electricity bill on their behalf as well. Mom casually asked why not her son... She uttered..

"लहान आहे गं तो अजून!!" (He is still a kid... )!!!

Back to school?

2026-09-08T19:37:00.000+05:30

Last few days I have been in Ann Arbor, a college town in Michigan State. Mrunmay is now studying his Comp Sci undergraduate course in the prestigious University of Michigan, College of Engineering.

After he moved in to his dorm, Meghana and I have been roaming around the town and campus, either to help him complete his shopping or to seek few moments with him before we go back to India. We attended the parent Orientation in the big and beautiful auditorium - "Hill Auditorium", walked across "The Diag", visited some cafes and watched the students from across the globe walking the lawns and roads of this beautiful town.

While sipping the frappe from Sweetwaters (BTW - this beats any cold coffee I have had so far!!) in the building of Michigan Union, I was wondering about college life now and automatically went back in the past.

The UMich campus is about 3200 acres. The students now have access to college WiFi, huge libraries, countless study spaces, big stadiums, and beautiful lawns. This literally means they have freedom to study whenever they want, wherever they want, and however they want. The university boasts about 2500 clubs of various kinds, allowing students to pursue their interests outside the curriculum. Students have freedom to choose courses of their liking (obviously under a prescribed list), ensuring a balance of classes across the weekdays.

Now contrast this to my college days.

My college campus as of today is just about 70 acres (that's almost after 30 years!!) Our library was rudimentary; there were practically no study spaces outside the classrooms. The internet was still a new concept; WiFi was not even heard of. The curriculum was set for the entire class/stream, except for one or two electives in 3rd and 4th year. On top of that, my college also had a uniform on Mondays!!

After watching all the kids in Mrunmay's college, the freedom and facilities they are enjoying, I felt the urge to join the college again. Sitting at some random place surrounded by other kids, sipping cold coffee, listening to music on your earbuds, and focusing on your studies... Sounded real fun.

When I mentioned this to Mrunmay, he said - Why don't you think of doing a PhD or something here itself?? Only on one condition - take admission; only after I am out of here!!

Story of lost battles (potentially?)

2026-09-07T21:35:52.000+05:30

Two personalities have been making rounds in Pune for the last few days. Vidyanand Bapat and Santosh Pandit. Both appear to stand against the establishments, yet now appear to have lost the narrative.

Mr. Bapat does have a very valid point that DJ and loudspeakers should be banned. They do not serve any kind of purpose in "celebtating" Ganapati Utsav in a traditional way. The utsav was started when there was a need to bring various social strata together under one umbrella. After independence, that need was gone, but the tradition continued. However, over the last couple of decades, this has become more of a nuisance than a way of being together. Almost every corner of the city has a separate pandal, with its own speakers spitting out anything but the "bhakti geete". I must admit there are certain "मंडळे" who do good work, have some social initiatives all round the year. But these are far and few. I want to focus on the noise others generate, as that is the main point of contention. Mr. Bapat picked it up very well and used the forum to put forward the point. The media picked it up. However, after a few interviews, Mr. Bapat started sounding like having an hidden agenda of demeaning the Hindu religion. His comments went far beyond noise pollution and started hurting people's sentiments beyond the sound pollution point. And this is where I feel the narrative is lost. Now several of the early supporters are questioning his intentions. The political parties are taking advantage of the diluted narrative, and it is getting spun, resulting in no reduction on sound pollution. If Mr. Bapat had kept it to sound pollution, inconvenience to residents and may be traffic congestion, without deliberating over his beliefs or lack thereof, thousands of punekars "could" have stepped out to support and push the government to implement the court's ruling/guidelines. I don't see that happening now.

The next one is Mr. Pandit. He used to create videos exposing several bad practices or local government issues. E.g. traffic violations, bad road conditions etc. I had came across his reels a few times. Today he has been arrested for some supposedly provocative reel basis some woman's FIR. It also has a backdrop of the fact that he caught some politician on video violating traffic norms (e.g. HSRP plate, seat belt etc), and a suggestion of corruption in open gym project at some location. However, when I watched his reels, what came out was his language - not one that any sane person can approve of/support. And that is where I feel Mr. Pandit lost it. Here again the narrative will be spinned and basic point will get sidelined.

In both cases, had the person kept it to the point, not digressed, there was a hope to see some change on those specific points. Now, I don't see it happening.

Beyond the Ribbon: Decoding the Surge of Foreign Honors for India’s Leadership

2026-09-01T17:06:14.939+05:30

In recent news, the Indian PM was conferred with the highest state honor by Uzbekistan - the Order of "Oliy Darajali Dustlik" (Order of Friendship of the Highest Degree). There are close to 30 such state honors received by the current Indian PM. I had been wondering about why any nation would confer such honors to foreign individuals. I had to do some digging (very easy these days, isn't it?)

So, these state honors, when conferred on foreign heads of state, can serve multiple purposes:

Announcing, confirming, or institutionalizing bilateral ties
Geopolitical
Economic or cultural leverage
And last, but not least, Soft Power Projection.

Some key advantages for India-Uzbekistan are around nuclear energy, Trade, defense, and also cultural and geopolitical. To see how this pans out, we will have to wait for a while, though.

If you have noticed (and I am sure most of us have), there's a significant uptick in the Indian PM receiving such state honors since Mr. Modi has come to power. There have been only a handful of such honors for the past PMs (including "Nishan-e-Pakistan" conferred upon then-PM Mr. Morarji Desai). The primary reason for this uptick is the current government's policy shift from "Non-Alignment" to leading in a multi-polar world and deliberate outreach for "Personalized" diplomacy. Mr. Modi does have a penchant for getting recognition, and that is working out well via this series of state honors. Some of the important state honors which India has received:

Award & Country	Year	Corresponding Major Agreement, Framework, or Milestone
Order of Zayed(United Arab Emirates)	2019	Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement & CEPA: Conferred in the wake of elevated energy, defense, and security pacts, which subsequently paved the way for the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) signed to dramatically scale bilateral trade.
Order of St. Andrew the Apostle(Russia)	2019	Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership Framework: Acknowledged long-term defense cooperation (including the S-400 missile systems deal), joint nuclear energy projects at Kudankulam, and bilateral energy supply agreements.
Order of the Nile(Egypt)	2023	Strategic Partnership Agreement: Conferred during a landmark state visit where both nations officially elevated relations to a "Strategic Partnership," focusing on expanded defense manufacturing, counter-terrorism cooperation, and Suez Canal economic zone investments.
Legion of Merit(United States)	2020	FOUNDATIONAL Defense Pacts (COMCASA & BECA): Awarded by the U.S. government for leadership in advancing the U.S.-India strategic partnership, directly underpinned by the signing of critical logistics and geospatial intelligence-sharing agreements.
Order of the Druk Gyalpo(Bhutan)	2021	Bilateral Framework on Hydropower & Development Cooperation: Recognized the enduring economic, hydro-energy infrastructure development, and space cooperation frameworks (including joint satellite development) binding the two neighboring economies.

Now the question is the other way round. Has India conferred such state honor to any foreign heads of state? The answer is no. The highest civilian award "Bharat Ratna" has been given to foreign nationals, but not heads of State. The awards that could be conferred to foreign statesmen are in the category of "Padma Awards", which actually rank below Bharat Ratna and hence have not been handed out for visiting Presidents or Prime Ministers.

Ultimately, it depends on how one wants to see these honors. Some may call it unnecessary, while others may call it necessary to ensure India gets its due recognition in world politics. One thing is for sure - these honors serve as public scorecards for how nations navigate a shifting global order - turning mutual interests into visible milestones, and ensuring that diplomacy is never just spoken behind closed doors anymore and is worn proudly on the chest.

New beginnings

2026-08-31T07:56:05.188+05:30

So, you left us a new freshman..

As soon as Meghana and I entered the cab, the driver uttered. It took us a while to understand what was he saying, but then we realized. He was picking us up from the dorm address, carrying two empty suitcases. For the 75 yo, who had spent his entire life in the college town, it was an easy guess. He must have done it several times by now.

All he needs to do is to follow the good things that he has learnt from you..

William said to Meghana. Years of experience talking. Assuring the parents that they have done a good job until now and giving hope that the kids will do good based on their teachings. And ending the topic with a note... "We'll take good care of him". Town's representative citizen assuring the guests that the town will not let them down.

Meghana and I are visiting Ann Arbor, where Mrunmay is about to start his undergraduate studies in Comp Sci at the College of Engineering, University of Michigan. Mrunmay's journey towards the undergraduate studies started long back. His robotics achievements, carircular excellence, social impact projects, and his interest in extracurricular activities made him eligible for several prestigious universities across the globe, including Purdue, the University of Toronto, and obviously the University of Michigan. After a lot of deliberations, discussions, and thinking, Mrunmay finally decided to accept the offer from UMich, and here we are. In the college town. Ann Arbor.

Mrunmay has been confident and anxious at the same time. Rightly so. Moving out of the city where he grew up, flying to a city which is almost 12hr apart in terms of time, not having any close family or friends, and staying alone in the dorm. It is not easy. Although he had done solo travels, this is his first such experience, and he is definitely looking forward to making the most of this opportunity.

As parents, it is a mixed feeling. On one side, we are extremely proud for the fact that Mrunmay got admission to this prestigious university, for seeing his effort getting rewarded in the form of admission to UMich and on the other side, it is difficult to digest that he will not be close to us, that we'd see him only on video chats for months together and our future meets would be only once or twice a year. One thing that will keep us going is the trust that he will grow into a mature, wonderful adult who is on the path to fulfil his dreams!!

Wishing him All The Best for his studies, his growth and his success!!

Matka King: A Disappointing Tale

2026-05-08T17:44:00.001+05:30

Returning from a long hiatus... will that still be called a hiatus or was that a break or a sabbatical?.. Let's not worry about it.

Happened to watch "Matka King" on Amazon Prime over the last few days. The story is based on a known-but-not-so-known person in 60's/70's Mumbai. I have no idea whether the story truly represents the original personality or not, and that is not the point of this blog.

The series started with some catchy sequences and held the audience halfway through, about 4 to 5 episodes. Each one is almost an hour long, and it did hold a good story in those episodes. Brij Bhatti, the lead of the series, portrayed by Vijay Varma, working for Lalji Bhai (Gulshan Grover), decides to separate out and starts his own "honest" business of gambling via Matka. The USP was to be honest all the time. Open the cards in front of the people; in fact, have your players open the cards. This built the trust with the gamblers very quickly.

The story goes about how Brij expands his Matka business from opening cards once to a jackpot combination called "Sangam" and how it supposedly spreads across India. As his small outside-the-mill game grows into a nationwide empire, it is obvious that the political and underworld would take interest in this humongous money. And that is where the story starts becoming dull and eventually fades into a "let me finish it quickly so that I can move on to my next series" feeling.

What I liked the most was the supporting cast. Siddharth Jadhav as Dagadu and Kritika Kamra as Gulrukh were great. Kritika had two jobs: to look fabulous, which she did, and to act, which she did to some extent. Siddharth had only one job—to act—and he did. The changes in Dagadu's character, from stranger to loyal member to disgruntled person, Siddharth has portrayed well.

Gulshan Grover, the OG "Bad Man", is totally wasted in this series. His character "Lalji Bhai" is not villainous enough, and Bad Man was helpless on that front. Sai Tamhankar, as Brij's wife Barakha, had some role to play, but again, as an actor, she is wasted too.

And the lead role—Vijay Varma—many a time I felt either the character itself doesn't show any emotions or Vijay cannot. I couldn't decipher. But bottom line—90% of the time his face was expressionless. So you decide whether Vijay was successful or an utter failure.

One big miscast was Kishor Kadam as Prashant Bapat, CM, MH. IYKYK.

Last but not least—the Journalist TP. It took me a while to recognize the actor, Girish Kulkarni, as TP. He has carried himself well as TP D'Souza. The makeup man had done a fantastic job of putting Girish in TP's character.

Overall impression—not so great, and I will attribute it to the director. The plot doesn't have enough drama; many characters have been introduced, but not developed. e.g., SI Eknath Tumbde (Bharat Jadhav)—he gets some good footage, but the contribution of this character to the storyline is 0. Similarly, Maqsood (Cyrus Sahukar)—he also gets good screen time in the last 2-3 episodes, but that character is also left hanging.

One thing that I definitely noticed are the sets. The story happens in the 60's and 70's, and it definitely is challenging to set that up in the studio. One needs to be detail-oriented in every frame, and I feel the production designer/director have done a fabulous job there.

There are many other series on OTT; this one can be avoided for sure.

Books and Robots - on the journey of success

2024-05-23T23:38:00.002+05:30

Today was a special day. My son's results for 10th standard were announced today and he cleared the exam with flying colors. Three subjects with A* grade and remaining three with A grade, totaling about 87% of the score.

However, what makes this achievement special isn't just the marks themselves but the journey and other accomplishments he garnered along the way.

If you have been following my posts on various other platforms, you probably already know that Mrunmay has participated in the Robotics competition - FTC - First Tech Challenge. This was a very competitive event where his team had to compete against some of the best teams in India and prove their mettle. The FTC is not only about robotics competition alone but is about a few other aspects of life as well. This includes outreach, STEM-D promotion, fundraising etc. The team, comprising 15 children, was preparing for the competition the entire year and the competition was scheduled for the last week of January earlier this year. And guess what the board exams were scheduled in the following week itself. During the year, they spent several weekends doing outreach (teaching robotics in some schools or similar organisations), reaching out to businesses to raise funding, and preparing for the actual robot competition.

We were aware of the possibility that these two critical events would coincide, and Mrunmay prepared himself mentally for the challenge. His mock exams started in November and continued until the end of January, requiring him to balance his studies with the intense preparation for the robotics competition. Both pursuits were significant to him, and seeing the outcomes of both, I can confidently say he has manged this very well.

In the robotics competition, Mrunmay's team won the prestigious 'Inspire Award' which meant a chance to participate at the world stage. Not just that, their team was also in the top 4 finalists in the Nationals.

[Photo taken just after the award ceremony, team holding the Inspire Award Trophy, along with two of the mentors]

And now, his studies have also shown the result with a remarkable A* in three subjects. I must also mention that he had chosen Computer Science as his 6th subject and he studied entirely on his own, as the subject was not taught in the school, but it was his interest area.

When Mrunmay shared his results this morning, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride and joy. His hard work and dedication have paid off on both fronts. I am confident that this experience and the lessons learned will shape his formative years as he moves towards his professional aspirations in coming years. Looking forward to many more proud moments with my son!

Twiki to Notion

2022-07-21T10:07:00.003+05:30

I recently got started on Notion, primarily as part of my new project. I had seen the Notion used by one of my earlier customers but wasn't impressed by what I had seen. However, I had been hearing quite a few things about this on Twitter. And it constantly intrigued me as to why people are so ga ga over it.

I had been dabbling between Google Docs and MS OneNote for quite some time. Used docs when I had to write structured content, such as an idea, feature or some strategy. And when there was time to simply jot down some points or take notes from meetings or while reading books, I resorted to MS OneNote for its ability to create unstructured and structured content both. However, I was still feeling handicapped. The "organized" person in me was wanting more. So finally decided to learn more about "Notion".

I took a different route this time. Instead of simply registering and starting using the app, I went through a couple of YouTube videos. And that was the best step IMO. I came across this video by ProductiveDude which showed several interesting features of Notion and how would one put them to use. Inspired by this learning, I got started with the Notion App and so far have been happy about it.

While watching the video and also when I started using Notion, I realized how things have changed, rather improved tremendously over the last 20 odd years.

I distinctly remember the use of "Twiki" during my early days in Persistent. Vinod was championing this then-awesome tool "Twiki" which allowed project teams and members to create content in a centralized location and as per their needs. It didn't call for a specific structure and as long as one had created access, he/she could organize the data in whatever way. It also had some weird ways of its own. For example, if you want to create a new page for today's meeting notes, you simply add the text "MeetingNotes-20210721" to any of the editable pages and save it, you have a new page created with the specified name. Basically use mixed case names to create new pages. It was weird in the beginning, but I guess that was awesome in those days.

Then the time came for Google Docs, Sheets and other apps which were web-based and allowed users to create shareable content easily. This was still not the same as a centralized content management system, but this opened doors for a variety of possibilities to collaborate. I was amused when I could see other folks also editing the same page/sheet when I was also editing the document.

Additional Reading: History of Wiki

While Wiki/Twiki allowed users to create "structured" content, applications like Microsoft OneNote allowed users to create "unstructured" content as well. I could write anywhere on the canvas or could draw an image and mix it with text around it etc. This was fabulous as it allowed thinkers to do a lot of thinking digitally before they can give structure to their thoughts. OneNote still lacked the centralized mechanism to edit.

With the widespread usage of Web2.0 over the last 10+ years, we have seen several use cases of centralized content management - Evernote allowing notes taking/editing from the web or phone and that too simultaneously by multiple users.

I see Notion as a combination of several good features for structured as well as unstructured content. I am still an early user of Notion, but can very well see the similarities and improvements that happened over the years in this content co-creation mechanics. In Notion, I can mix a paragraph with a to-do list, which could be a link to another page followed by a synchronous block which will follow me on all the required pages. It can have tables, embedded video and not to mention tons of plug-ins to pull data from.

Source: https://www.notion.so/startups

While Wiki/Twiki has retained more or less the same user interface / UX over the last two decades, Notion gives a breeze of freshness and makes it very attractive to use. I wouldn't be surprised if I migrate completely to Notion in the coming months.

Music Musings

2022-06-25T18:40:00.000+05:30

Songs have a huge role in our life. In childhood, the primary source of songs was Radio. It slowly expanded to TV, then dedicated music channels. Somewhere in between or in parallel to Radio and Television, there existed the parallel world of Cassettes (and then later CDs) which served the audience. Since then, we have evolved to on-demand, yet unlimited songs. Each of these phases has/had some peculiarities of its own.

When I was a regular listener of the radio, there was only a handful of channels - probably two or three. One channel was primarily for music where Hindi songs were dominant and the other was for general. I think they were named “विविधभारती”, “आकाशवाणी अ” and “आकाशवाणी ब” etc. The beauty of the songs on the radio channel was the surprise element - you could get to listen to a song of your liking which would lift your mood automatically.

The television channels, specifically those dedicated to music stole the limelight that radio was enjoying. However, in the initial days, “चित्रकार” and “छायागीत” had a huge audience as those were the only shows where people could watch the movie songs. With music on the radio, it was easy to multitask. Television music shows, although gave audio-visual pleasure, they reduced the multitasking ability. We were not in the age where you could keep the TV switched ON in one room and roam around the house (if you try, the TV would get switched off in a couple of minutes with a rhetorical question “उगाच का वीज जाळतो आहेस?”).

The cassette players gave you the ability to have your own set of songs with you, you could carry cassettes or even a player with you. One could pick pre-recorded song cassettes or get a custom list of songs recorded from a store nearby. Or for that matter, one could also record the songs from the radio directly!! The most amazing invention in those days was the “walkman”. This gentleman would accompany you easily anywhere and would fulfil your thirst for music.

Eventually, we entered the digital world and the music lovers were swept by MP3. Several of your songs got digitized and got circulated and found a place on almost every PC. The MP3 files were getting exchanged via CDs which now had decent capacity. Players like WinAmp were ruling the digital world, only soon to be replaced with another amazing masterpiece by Apple - iPods. This tiny gadget could store thousands of songs and you could easily play your playlists as per your mood. The launch of iPods and their low-budget clones caused the genocide of the walkmans on this planet.

With phones getting smarter, even iPods got replaced with higher storage capacity phones and music shifted to phones. Radio also made a re-entry with Phones having FM capabilities. However, one still needed to have their own set of songs stored locally. With internet penetration and VAS by mobile operators, the need to store songs locally changed pretty soon. Services like Saavn, Gaana, Dhingana, and Hungama helped music lovers to find and listen to the music of their choice on demand. With some consolidation and entry by foreign players, currently, this world seems to be dominated by Spotify and JioSaavn and Gaana. These on-demand streaming services allow you to listen to a variety of music at a fraction of the cost as compared to their physical world counterparts - Cassettes and CDs.

All these thoughts started when Mrunmay got me on to Spotify and I started setting up the playlists on that service. I realized even if the streaming of music has changed the form and medium, one thing that is not changed is personalization. In the days of radio, they used to run programs like “आप की फर्माईश”, “जयमाला” where the audience could send postal mail and request for a song. There was also a variant where a person could call up the phone number and request a song. While this was more like a single demand, the need was to listen to a song that an individual likes. This was fulfilled by customized cassettes and CDs in the latter days. It got a good uplift with digital playlists and the ability to have unlimited such playlists. This concept got mimicked in streaming apps as well.

The latest streaming apps are also solving another problem - introduction of new/different songs OR discovery OR promotion. JioSaavn has a radio mode where you can start a radio from any given song or artist and the backend algorithm keeps on playing various songs as per the built-in logic. However, their playlists are static and need to be updated manually. Spotify has taken this experience to a higher level with its “enhance” mode. Based on the songs in the playlist, it “suggests” new songs and one can add those songs to the playlist with a single click/tap.

One thing that remains to be solved is the portability of the playlists - if I switch from one streaming service to another, I still need to manually create playlists on the new service and there’s still no easy way to import playlists from other services (at least I am not yet aware of). There are some third-party services which allow you to achieve this, but I am kind of wary of third-party services and hence haven’t tried. Hoping that these streaming services soon solve this problem too!!

What is your favourite way to listen to music? It would be fun to listen to some experiences in your musical journey. Do share!!

Father’s day

2022-06-20T23:01:00.003+05:30

I am not that person who doesn’t believe in celebrating these days. I appreciate the fact that the western culture has carved out days to celebrate these special relations. In routine life, we forget about the power of gratitude; we forget to dedicate time to nurture the relationship; we may tend to start taking things for granted. Such days allow you to rethink your acts, give some time to that relation and overall improve the happiness quotient of people around you and people who matter to you.

I feel fortunate to be part of the internet revolution, specially last 10 years or so. I was part of Giftease for a good part of last decade, where it was our job to find out ways to coax the customers to send out gifts. This was the time when I really started following the “gifting calendar” per se. I was introduced to numerous occasions including women’s day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, entire valentine’s week, sibling day, daughter’s day and what not. I, automatically, started sending or purchasing gifts for those occasion days. It made me realize that a small act of consideration has a big impact on your relations. It brings joy and happiness and at the same time conveys that those relations matter to you.

As I left Giftease about 4 years back, I also lost touch of several of those special days. But some of them are still on my list. Women’s day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Mrunmay has picked up the idea of giving gifts well and has been making it a point to do something on those days. For some things, he takes help from either of us, but he also thinks of his ideas to make these days special. Yesterday was such a day. I knew something was cooking, but as I was supposed to be on the recipient end, I kept quiet. Meghana had instructed me not look at amazon order notification for couple of days (for obvious reasons) 😁 and I followed it religiously.

On Saturday late night itself, I received my first gift. With Meghana’s help, Mrunmay gifted me a nice reading lamp clip for the book reading. This was on our list for quite some time but we never really ordered one. Looks very nice and I am hoping to start using it soon.

The real gift came my way in the evening. Mrunmay took me and Meghana into the room to gift me (rather us) with something that he did completely on his own.

While it is still not fluent, I loved the thoughtfulness in selecting the song for the occasion. He actually wanted to practice a different gem from Marathi genre - “दमलेल्या बाबाची कहाणी”, but as one can guess it is complex for his current skill level.

I thought it was all for the Father’s day, but it wasn’t. I was treated with delicious homemade pizza right in front of me!!

As we were finishing the dinner, there was a delivery notification. I had no idea that this would be another gift! It turned out to be another item on my wishlist - a wireless charger!! Since Meghana and I shifted to the latest OnePlus and both of us have AirPods given by our respective employers, a few days back I had expressed my desire to have a wireless charger. And here I was holding it in my hand!!

With that, Father’s Day came to an end.

We tend to get busy in our routine life but the experiences like this make us realize - what is really important in life. I am sure I would have lot many such memorable days in coming years!!

Subscription Services

2022-06-19T10:17:00.002+05:30

As the internet penetration increased over the last 2 decades, it also gave rise to digital subscriptions. The internet users slowly started developing trust in internet-based payments and that too on recurring payments. It probably started with the tech community using the recurring payment systems and slowly spreading that faith to non-tech-savvy users. There was also a phase when I started using the credit card for online transactions but wasn't comfortable storing the card details with the merchant. I used to enter the details every single time. (That is how I still remember the CC number that was in use at that time)

In the late 2000's I was introduced to Ecom website development and since then it has been part of my professional as well as personal life. Over the years, I learned about the PCI-DSS standard, and the extent to which the Ecom companies make an effort to protect consumer data. There have been instances of a data breach across the globe, but along the way, I also learned to be selective about where to share my card data.

The pandemic over the last 2 years gave a tremendous boost to a lot of digital services and many with subscription models where automatic renewal of the service is intentional. While reviewing my CC statements I kind of realized how big that change is. Thought of listing them down:

AWS - Amazon Web Services - One of my websites - tech-term.in is hosted on this service and it follows “pay-as-you-go” model. I was introduced to AWS as part of my first startup - mSauda - where I dabbled a lot with various AWS services.
OTT platforms - Amazon Prime/NetFlix/HotStar/Zee5 - The hook that Amazon threw to catch the customers in their early days in India, we were amongst those customers. We have been the “prime” customers for several years now. This service not just allows free delivery but also a lot of content on their OTT platform. We also invested in their Firestick product and enjoyed several movies and web-series over the years and through the pandemic. Netflix is another OTT platform but much better quality and content. The monthly subscription, though a bit expensive, we are continuing primarily because of the variety of movies and TV shows it offers. Plus it also offers Dolby ATMOS (5.1) sound on many titles. [Just realized I also had a subscription for BigFlix where we used to rent CDs/DVDs - read more about it here]
Kindle Unlimited - Apart from Prime and Netflix, Kindle is the biggest used service. Mrunmay and Meghana are voracious readers (Mrunmay outpacing Meghana now) and Kindle Unlimited has a huge collection of books of their choice. The subscription cost is absolutely affordable if you know you are going to read everyday.
Mrunmay’s Reading Streak!!
BBDaily Milk Service - BigBasket managed to tie up with our local milk provider and also successfully managed to screw up the service by making it totally unreliable. I have stopped this service for good now.
Storytel - When I got started my N’th exercise attempt in late 2020, I decided to opt for this audio book service to listen to during my exercise. I have been using it on and off, but have been happy about it so far. The main advantage of audio book is that you can listen to it when you are doing some chores or not-so-focused tasks. But it also deprives you of the joy of holding the physical book and reading it.
Spotify - This is the latest addition to my subscription service. Mrunmay convinced Meghana and I to go for this service as it offers several songs, with high quality. And with premium subscription (family subscription) it doesn’t stream the ads and also allows to download the songs. Happy with the content availability from this service. I have started shifting my Saavn playlist to Spotify now

Which subscription services do you use and like?

RRR - A Good watch

2022-06-12T13:37:00.003+05:30

Watching a dubbed movie is not exactly a choice for us as a family. I have been doing it occasionally, had watched some movies on Sony some time back. In recent past, it was “Wild Dog” starring Nagarjuna and Diya Mirza. Typically the plots are better in the South Indian movies, is what my observation is or I have been extremely lucky to have watched movies having a better plot. Meghana is not that inclined to watch such movies as watching a dubbed movie/series is a incoherent experience - lip movements and the audio create a feeling that something is wrong and then you can’t focus on movie or story. The songs are usually the worst of the lot as they are typically “प्राची ला गच्ची जुळवणे”. Mrunmay wasn’t a big fan either. He may have watched some while around me.

In his recent trip to Bengaluru, his cousin took him to a movie - RRR. And since then Mrunmay has been only talking about the movie and the songs only. He must have listened to the song “Nattu Nattu” - maybe - a thousand times!! And there was a constant demand that we watch the movie together. With all the persuasion that Mrunmay did, Meghana also agreed and finally we had the movie night yesterday.

The movie is based on a fictitious story around freedom fighting in India and revolves around the British oppression. The story starts with an event showing oppression event by the British Governer followed by a nail biting sequence of a police officer catching a rebel by piercing through a mob of thousands, only to prove his loyalty to the British Empire. The story builds up through various incidents around the two lead characters - Ram and Bheem. It takes a good amount of time to reveal the real plot of the story. At one point, we actually felt the movie is getting over, even though it was only half time. I can’t write much for the fear of it being a spoiler, but the story grips you till the end if you survive some slow sequences in the middle.

What I like the most is the cinematography, the creativity and the directorial ingenuity. Some sequences make you drop your jaw and others make you think if you would have ever thought of that kind of picturisation. Inventive use of the names of the lead characters “Ram”, “Bheem” and “Seeta”, without denouncing their characters. In fact, one might feel proud after seeing those sequences. The only song that made a good impact on me is “Nattu Nattu” - Amazing synchronisation between the dancers, the pace of the movements (I still feel the pace is actually an outcome of the editor’s work - which Mrunmay counters profusely!!).

The movie “RRR” stands for “Rise, Roar and Revolt” and it lives up to the name to a large extent. The dubbing has been done fairly good and except for the lyrics, overall dialogs are also good.

The South Indian movies (e.g. Bahubali) bring lot of grandeur to the picturization and RRR is no exception. Beautiful, creative and yet grand sets are the proof of that.

The movie is definitely a one-time watch. Do watch it in your preferred language.

State of Digital Payments in India

2022-06-06T22:35:00.003+05:30

It has been a while now since digital payments in India have become more mainstream. Although digital payment options were available to Indian consumers for a long time, the real growth happened after the demonetization in late 2016. PayTM jumped on the opportunity and benefited to a large extent as they already had the network, the infrastructure and marketing muscle to materialize the digital push. However, there were other players as well - MobiQuick wallet, PhonePe, GPay etc.

Another great enabler was the Indian invention called UPI by NPCI - Unified Payments Interface. Although the UPI was launched before the demonetization (Apr 2016), it wasn't understood enough by the masses. I remember an incident when I had tried convincing my vegetable vendor to accept UPI payment instead of insisting on cash. He was absolutely unsure and reluctant.

Fast Forward to 2022.

The UPI payments are ubiquitous. Every nook and corner accepts the UPI payments. In fact, a person like me who firmly believes in using credit cards wherever available has started spending money via UPI instead of CC. Lockdown, COVID pandemic and fear of spreading the virus via touch has forced almost every merchant to ride on the UPI bandwagon. Although the government has its own app - BHIM, the real enablers were the QR codes made available by several intermediaries like PayTM, PhonePe and GPay. The QR codes served two purposes - fetch the attention of the customer and ease of initiating the payment. Simply scan the QR code via your favourite app, enter the amount and UPI password and you are done. Within seconds the money is transferred from the customer to the merchant's bank account.

The ingenious Indian mind found some crazy ways to cheat the merchants. Some folks stored the screenshot of the payment and showed it for repeat purchases. Increased UPI payments also led to some glitches in the system resulting in the loss to merchants. PayTM launched the "SoundBox" which solved both the problems. A busy merchant can simply pay attention to announcements coming via SoundBox for the payments made without worrying about the actual receipt of the money.

A piece of recent news on UPI mentioned that it is now capable of handling 50,000 transactions per second. In Apr-2022, UPI handled about 550 Cr transactions worth INR 9.83 Lakh Crore. And this volume is showing significant growth m-o-m on a regular basis.

One of the interesting areas of UPI is “request money”. This has a huge potential for legitimate merchants to improve collections, but at the same time a malicious tool for fraudsters to rob innocent individuals.

On a non-UPI side of the business, the RuPay network is making life miserable for the Goliaths of the credit world - MasterCard and Visa. RuPay is an Indian multinational financial services and payment service system, conceived and launched by the National Payments Corporation of India in early 2012. RuPay is going places with strong support from the Indian Government and robust implementation. I will cover this story at length at some other point in time.

Withdrawing from ATM has become so much rare that when I walked in to an ATM center during my recent trip to Goa for few seconds I was dumbstruck. I felt like I was operating some new machine! Except for the Goan cab drivers, everyone was happily accepting digital currency.

From the illiteracy and lack of faith about the digital payments to primarily accepting digital payments, India has come a long way on this digital journey, but we are still far away from cashless economy IMO.

A Small Trek on Tukai Tekadi

2022-06-05T23:11:00.002+05:30

“Empty can वापस आने दो !!”

A man was shouting on the megaphone. A couple of hundred people had formed 2-3 different human chains in various directions and the cans filled with water were getting passed along. The crowd had kids from age 6 to adults who are approaching their second childhood.

The occasion was the community event organized by my son’s school - “DLRC - DriveChange Learning And Resource Center”. As the normal school opened this week, the school jumped on to the opportunity to take the kids and the parents out to an outing, but with a purpose - Tree plantation and watering the plants on the hill.

“Vasundhara Abhiyan” is an ENGO (Environment NGO) working towards tree plantation and conservation. The Baner chapter has started work on Tukai Hill and has planted more that 25000 native plants. With the help of volunteers from this ENGO, DLRC planned the community event to contribute to this noble cause. And hundreds of us reached the base of the hill at 6:30 in the morning on Fri last week. Even though it was a working day, I could witness several parents also joining in, including myself. Initially I was planning only to drop Mrunmay at the base and then return to take care of regular house chores. However, decided to do the otherwise and joined the club of these parents. And I was glad I did.

The path to the top of the hill is a narrow road, made primarily of man made steps and some natural slope. It took us about 20 minutes to complete the climb as not everyone was accustomed to climb a hill and we had very small kids in the group as well.

As we reached the top, the volunteers were ready with the plan. One of them instructed the crowd what needs to be done over a megaphone. However, the folks at the back could barely hear. All of a sudden the crowd moved towards a small open water tank nearby. There were several empty cans kept next to the tank. There was a continuous flow of water coming through a pipe and few folks started filling the cans with the water.

It was obvious that the setup was meant to water the plants. At first, I felt it was most unorganised way of watering the plants. Soon, I realized that it was meant for a group activity and not for a single person. People formed 3 or 4 lines in different directions and cans started getting passed along. Few enthusiasts had reached to the end of the line and had started watering the plants and rest of the folks were happy being the carriers. And soon we started hearing the order:

“Empty can वापस आने दो !!”

The cans those were taken to the end were not coming back and the lead volunteer started saying it through megaphone. Suddenly some people appeared with long sticks and soon cans started appearing on those sticks. Kids found fun in collecting these cans and returning them to the base i.e. water tank. Now the water distribution was streamlined and the hands were moving swiftly for passing the can to the next person.

While the “passing the parcel” game was on, kids rather “Young adults”, were engaged in their own conversations. The conversations from pulling each others’ legs to appreciating someone scoring all straight A*.

After almost 90 mins of the work, we gathered at another part of the hill. We were hoping to do some plantation there, but the volunteers told that since there is not enough rain yet, it would be wasteful to plant a tree. Except for this small disappointment, the whole event turned out to be a good fun, a change from normal routine work and as expected, tiring!!

The hill gave a good view of the Baner area to a large extent and the clear blue skies. It was almost 9 and time to return home to get back to the work and other routine stuff. But couldn’t stop myself from taking this selfie with Mrunmay as a memory of this short trek!!

Maintaining Sanity During The Lockdown

2021-06-26T00:23:00.000+05:30

The lockdown has become "मारुतीचे शेपूट". Week after week, it is getting extended for various reasons. Earlier there was second wave. Now, there are talks about "Delta Plus" variant or third wave. No one really knows when we will be starting with normal life.

All the sincere folks are spending time indoors with minimum exposure outside. This has created a different problem. What should folks do staying at home? Initially, we consumed lot of online content. Several movies and serials. However, over a period of time, the appetite to consume more content has gone down. I am spending more time in searching what to watch than actually watching something.

Over last few months, I have deliberately developed some different habits or hobbies, which are helping in keeping the sanity in this lockdown.

Karaoke

About a year back we bought Persang Karaoke set. Mrunmay was developing some interest in singing, so it was perceived to be an apt addition to the gadgets at home. However, it so happened that Meghana and I developed keen interest in singing. Many-a-times, the weekend evenings are filled with the karaoke songs at home. It was a realisation that I could sing that well (!!). Or I would say I have been able to satisfy myself and Persang so as to get scores like this 👇

Gardening

This is again a join effort with Meghana. She is "ब्रम्हा" and I am "विष्णू". It simply means she gets new plants and I look after them. We have a very good backyard. Until last year, we were relying on hired services of a gardener. However, that was a very bad experience. The gardener didn't even know when to do cutting, when to apply fertilizer. Usual experience was like:

"Should this plant be cut now?"

"Ok, I will cut it if you are saying"

"..."

"When do we administer the fertilizer?"

"will do it today sir, if you are saying"...

Finally, we decided to take control of the garden ourselves. And here is the outcome:

After doing it for few months, we have started to see some benefits. It is absolutely therapeutic to take a stroll in the backyard, check out the plants and see their growth. Now I have also started experimenting with composting. Let's see how it turns out.

Drawing

This is completely Meghana's activity. She has developed good interest and skill in zentangles and mandala. A girl who was hesitating to draw, now draws various patterns and also posts on FB without any fear of getting judged. What a journey! Many-a-times in the spare time, she can be found with her set of pencils, pens and paper. Gets immersed in the drawing and the pattern. And after a while a beautiful drawing can be seen. I only envy seeing her getting so lost in that joy!! Go Girl!!!

Playing Keyboard

This is another hobby that I have picked during the lockdown. The trigger was again Mrunmay's interest in the keyboard. Since he expressed interest in learning keyboard, we had enrolled him for a class few months before the lockdown started. As part of that, we had bought the keyboard as well. It came in very handy. By taking inspiration from him, I have started playing some tunes. It may not be any closer to perfection, but it gives me joy. And that is important, isn't it?

It is important to keep on doing something different. During normal days we were exposed to different people, different environments and different experiences. With lockdown, the world has shrunk. It is upto us how to keep it expanding and how to keep experiencing different things. I bet you all also have devised ways to do some interesting stuff. I would love to hear about it. Do share!!

Vaccination

2021-05-01T11:54:00.003+05:30

Today is 1st of May. Government of India announced the eligibility for all adults and vaccination is expected to start today.

But where are the vaccines?

Not in sight at all.

Should you worry? May not be. May be yes. I don't know.

This is little ranting and also an attempt to bring some sanity to thoughts to myself and my readers.

Second wave of COVID-19 has hit India badly. We are seeing the infections in every corner. No day passes by when we don't hear anyone known getting affected or even deaths. It has been proven beyond doubt that vaccination is the only reliable way to avoid serious illness by COVID-19. Then why isn't it available in required quantities across India?

We all need to remember we are 130 crore people country. The challenges are mammoth. Probably no one has had any experience in handling such a huge pandemic. Some mistake have happened and are bound to happen.

I have a feeling that GoI definitely failed to anticipate the impact of second wave, grossly underestimated the need of the vaccine, quantity and lead time requirements.

Initially central government was controlling the purchase and distribution of the vaccines. That seemed to go well in the initial days. However, as days passed by and target population increased, the shortcomings started to surface. Vaccines started disappearing from the vaccination centres. People started going from one centre to other in search of the vaccine. The appointments didn't work as there was no sufficient stock available.
Need for second shot added to the misery of people. They need to have second shot from the same manufacturer for completing the vaccination. The stock received for Covaxin and Covishield varied every day and then people started scrambling for second shot. I know few who have been waiting for their second shot as they are not finding the centre with required stock availability. These are 45+ folks and they find it really difficult to search across the centres.
GoI suddenly announced that effective 1st May states can purchase the vaccines directly from the manufacturers, essentially decentralising the process. This appeared to be a better move as now states can manage their state of affairs without any dependency on the central government. At first this looked good. However, now it appears as if the Centre has done this without planning. If states or private hospitals are to place order with the manufacturers, when would they receive the stock? No one knows.
In all this, the people who need to get their second shot are getting burned. Struggling to find a centre where they can get the second shot. Many of them tried to complete their second shot before the frenzy starts today. But were unable.
The CoWin app, which is used by the government for registration and appointments is now only getting registrations done. No appointments since there's no vaccine. It is utterly impossible for people to keep checking it every day and schedule the appointment. I am afraid people will start losing patience and also the willingness to get vaccinated.

Even if I completely understand the scale at which all this needs to be operated, I strongly feel the government has failed in planning and execution too. It would have been easy to reach out to private sector to help plan and strategise complete vaccination drive. In fact, it could be done even now, only if the administration is willing to do so.

I hope better sense prevails .. soon...

Movie Review: Shakuntaladevi

2020-08-09T22:39:00.000+05:30

Mrunmay was keen to watch this movie about the Math Genius and had kept his eyes on the release date. So as soon as it was released, we watched it on 1-Aug. So the review is a bit late and some points may be little blur in details.

My first reaction after the movie: this is a story about a celebrity (and that to an egoist celebrity) and her daughter. I really don't know how close this one is to real life and hence putting up my points from the movie angle only and not comparing it with real life at all.

Shakuntaladevi, who was a genius in maths, since her childhood, grows doing Math shows across various places - schools, restaurants and what not. Having sacrificed her childhood and schooling for being the primary bread-earner of the family, she develops a huge grudge against her father. And against her mother too - for not speaking up.

As life takes turns and as Shakuntaladevi fights against the odds, she reaches London. After more struggle there, she finally finds herself doing more shows not just in London but across the world. She wins her fame further by defeating a computer.

After an encounter with Paritosh, Shakuntala decides to be a mother and have a baby. However, after couple of years, restlessness grows and the stage starts calling her again. Paritosh supports her wholeheartedly and takes complete responsibility of the baby girl. Shakuntala starts her math shows again touring from city to city, living out of a suitcase. During one of her conversations back home, she realises that she is going away from her daughter emotionally and then decides to take the daughter with her around the world, against Paritosh's will.

And there starts the conflict between the daughter and mother. A mother, who had lost her childhood for earning the bread, does the same with her daughter, without realising that.

The story develops to show the emotional trauma the daughter goes through for several years. And then there comes the fight between egoist mother who wants to decide everything for her daughter and a daughter who wants to live her own life.

The movie ends on some expected notes.

Vidya Balan, has played the lead role very well as usual. However, at times, the character portrayed is little bolder for her time and for audience's imagination. A genius, who is lost in her own world, always thinking around the numbers - very well done. Sanya Malhotra plays the role of Anupama, Shakuntala's daughter. She has done marvellous job portraying the troubled child, showing her angst against the mother and her ego. Jisshu Sengupta has a very limited but important role as Paritosh.

On the whole, it boiled down to two things about this story:

Fight between mother and daughter.
Trivialisation of the math genius - it appeared as if she could do only one thing - finding out cube root of large numbers. Most of the places use this trick although there were ample opportunities to show various other aspects.

The movie definitely has a female empowerment angle - the strong female characters - the lead herself being female. But sadly it undermines the father's role severely. Paritosh plays a crucial role where he uses his right on the child to get her daughter proper schooling, which she was deprived of. Had he not forced Shakuntala to put Anupama in the boarding school, Anupama would have hated her mother even more fiercely. This gets completely discounted as the story ends.

Well.

It is absolutely okay if you miss this movie, IMO.

What do Italians eat as staple food?

2020-07-21T22:21:00.001+05:30

As the lockdown is continued, the domestic help is not available and we are our own to prepare the daily food. Although the restaurants are allowed to serve delivery orders, I have decided not to indulge for some more time. This gives rise to the discussion about "what is it for tomorrow's meal?" - which is very common, even otherwise. However, now that we are not ordering from restaurants, we are tempted to try out different cuisines (that's common now-a-days).

During one such discussion, Italian cuisine popped up. We have tried our hands on preparing Pizza (using readymade base) and it worked out pretty well. Next one is Pasta, which is an easy affair, but it hasn't seen the light of the day as yet. While discussing all this, suddenly a question popped up..

"What do Italians eat routinely?"

Do they eat Pizza and Pasta as daily meals or there are other items which are far more common that Pizza and Pasta? If you have been to Italian restaurant, you would have known about Risotto and Lasagne and may be couple more. But I never had delved into thinking about their staple food.

It took me a while to find right information about the food that Italians eat commonly. Most of the articles were about Italian recipes without talking about the piece of info I was looking for. Then I bumped onto a question on Quora - "Is Pizza a staple food for Italians?". While this answered from Pizza perspective, that question still didn't answer what is the staple food.

Finally, found a very good link:

Some of the common items are:

Pasta
Crostini
Soup
Rice and Rice dishes (Arancini, Risotto)
Lots of variety of bread
Variety of meat and fish dishes
Spaghetti
Contorno (Vegetables)

Important thing to note is they eat several times but have smaller portions. Pizza is typically a weekend item and that too with less toppings.

If you are looking for the complete list of Italian items, Wikipedia has it all. See for yourself!!

Many-a-times a cuisine gets misrepresented in the outer world and I think Italian cuisine is a good example of that. At least here in India, we know only a handful list of Italian items dominated by Pizza and Pasta. Rest is little known. But at least now, you know a bit more about Italian food, isn't it?

Why is a country referred as "She"?

2020-07-16T22:47:00.000+05:30

My curious fella once asked - "Baba, why is a country referred to as 'she' or 'her'?" e.g. Her Flag etc.

I didn't have an immediate answer. I somewhat knew why would it be, but I couldn't put it in a logical convincing manner. I realised, I needed to look up some references.

My thinking was on following lines.

The word "mother" instantaneously gives reference to "birth", "care". Since one takes birth in a given land, it is easy to relate it to be "motherland". It invokes the emotions similar to visiting your mother when you come back to your native place. So the feminine reference is largely on an emotional basis rather than any grammatical one.

My research started indicating that although majority of the references are feminine, there's no basis for that in english grammar. English language is gender neutral and has no feminine and masculine distinction between words. However Latin, from which English is originated, it has gender. There also seems a good support for using "it" instead of "she" (read this).

However, I found a good logical explanation here. This is in the context of why Germany is referred as "Fatherland" and India uses "Motherland". You can get good history about both these words and can see the origin of both the words.

I also feel that projecting land as "mother" also helped immensely during the war times. It is kind if easy to invoke "warrior" feelings when one's mother is in danger. The "fathers" were supposed to be strong and capable enough to take care of themselves, but the perception about "mothers" was not the same. So the armies could easily be charged to protect their "motherland" and that is how the country or land started being referred as feminine.

Does anyone have better explanation or information to support or counter this?

Lockdown Thoughts

2020-07-11T23:17:00.001+05:30

Since the lockdown got announced again yesterday, there is unrest and uncomfortable feeling amongst the people around.

First of all, I sense utter distrust that this lockdown is not going to be useful. If the administration couldn't set up required health infrastructure in last 100 days, how would they improve it in next 10 days? On what basis, did the government announce "unlockdown 1" and all? Many people had just started with their business and again this lockdown.

One thing is clear to me. Lockdown or no lockdown. Social distancing is required. Wearing masks is a must. Do not let your guard down. And while taking care of your physical health, you also need to take care of your mental needs. Especially of the little ones in your house.

Mrunmay has been waiting to meet his grandparents for over three months now and was anxious to meet them in next few days hoping there would be further relaxations. They are in same city, but still we couldn't meet him. The thought to meet them crossed my mind several times. But I had controlled it until now. Meghana's parents are in susceptible age group and I didn't want to out them at risk.

However, the additional lockdown disappointed Mrunmay so much that it somewhere shook me. Meghana felt that he deserves to see some of his favorite people. After some careful thinking finally decided to go and visit them.

It was a good time spent with them. I realized even I felt extremely good by meeting them.

We humans are so used to meet different people and derive joy out of it. Not seeing your loved ones for such a long time is very difficult. No technology can replace the in-person feel. It is okay to have your professional meetings virtually, but for your closed ones, you need real meetings.

Really hoping this gets over soon and we return to normalcy.

पुनःश्च Lockdown

2020-07-10T22:33:00.000+05:30

So, it is announced now. The number of cases in and around Pune were increasing continuously. Thanks to all the free flow on the streets. People giving up their precautions and pretending that the pandemic is over. When everyone should have resorted to essentials only, people were finding it brave to step out.

On a personal level, I have stepped out only for necessary thing - once every week - typically for vegetables and other perishable items such as curd. As a family, we stepped out for couple of important items - a work chair for Meghana, few utensils in the kitchen and some art material. First two items had become a priority over last 3 months. Third one was essential to keep ourselves engaged during the lockdown period. However, we ensured that we picked up only essential stuff and left the shop at the earliest.

On the online shopping front, we ventured onto few items, but mostly those were of P1 category, if not P0. However, for all such items, we ensured that the packages were left in a corner "quarantined" for 24 hours and then only opening.

Barring one visit by Meghana to her parents, we have avoided all other visitors or temptation to visit other relatives. Our little one is extremely disappointed with this latest news of another lockdown. He was so much hoping to visit his grandparents in next couple of weeks. But looking at the situation, it would be few more weeks, before we can venture out.

I hope the administration is geared to handle this lockdown. Some mistakes are getting repeated in every lockdown. The most prominent one is to keep grocery stores shut. This forces people to hoard, stock and unnecessarily crowd the shops just before the lockdown. It is a no-brainer that this would help the spread and not help contain it. But this aspect seems to be neglected by the authorities.

I urge everyone to stay home even when the Lockdown is lifted, step out only for essentials and thus help contain the spread!!

Together, we can.

Facelift

2020-07-09T23:06:00.000+05:30

If you are reading this regularly (?), you would have noticed it. The blog has got a face lift.

It all started when I realised that one of my avid readers is finding it difficult to search posts on a mobile device. He has been reading my posts on his mobile and has read several of my posts. But searching on mobile was a big problem for him.

I acknowledged that it was a time to relook at the blog theme.

After spending an hour or so, I bumped upon the current theme. I was looking for 2 features primarily.

Mobile First
Easy access to archives

After trying to fix the old theme, I finally gave up and decided to look for a different theme.

This one is giving a fresh look to the blog. The ocean background is absolutely stunning and the white area for blog posts is giving the required contrast. The left navigation is prominent and can be customized to add more widgets in future, if I decide to. When switched to mobile view, the left side bar gets nicely tucked under the menu and is still available for readers to use. (This was one of the biggest problems in earlier theme)

As I was trying these changes, I got instant feedback from my avid reader - "Wow!! this is so refreshing. Earlier one was bland!" - Mrunmay exclaimed!

Then both of us together made some changes to the fonts and then published the theme. Hope you all like it. Leave your feedback in comments section!

Lockdown Day #45

2020-05-08T05:58:00.000+05:30

After the initial enthusiasm that lasted for 8 days, I got to pen down the thoughts only today. In the initial days, there was excitement about noting down the thoughts, experience for posterity.

But on 9th day onwards realized it has become repetitive (not a surprise at all). The work - office work as well as home work started consuming most of my time. There was stress building up as Mrunmay wasn't getting enough time from us (Meghana and Me). So blogging took lower priority as compared to spending time with Mrunmay.

While we have spent more time with him as compared any other vacation, Mrunmay is finding it very less. It is natural. Seeing your parents 16 hours in front of your eyes and still getting about 60 to 90 minutes of their time - most of the times fragmented is NOT same as seeing them for 4-5 hours and still getting 60 minutes of their time. Can't get a better way to learn/teach "Theory of Relativity"!!

Just the other day, realized that I have lost almost 3.5 Kgs of weight since the start of March (which was mostly start of self-imposed lockdown). Some reasons behind this weight loss could be:

Change in food habits: Outside food is completely stopped. No pizza, No burgers, No Chinese. It is all home-cooked and mostly maharashtrian - which I have been eating since childhood.
Changed water habit: Given that it is all summer during this lockdown, your body needs more water. Had I been in the office, I would have been chilling in the A/C. It automatically reduces the water intake. However, after locked down in the home, with no A.C. or cooler, I am drinking water more than ever. As soon as I get up in the morning, I get my water filled up and this continues until I have washed off the last utensil in the night or cleaned up the kitchen platform. A lot of sweating and a lot of water intake throughout the day!
Lot of work: We have given up on the material pleasures of sitting quietly after coming home, relaxing, chilling, or simply snoozing in the weekend afternoons. Apart from 8 to 9 hours of office work, the remaining time goes in cooking, cooking, cooking, cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning. And on weekends - it is more cooking, more cleaning and also deep cleaning! It is not a joke. That is what is happening. The physical activity has gone up at least 4 times during this lockdown.

The currently extended lockdown (3.0!) is slated until the end of next week. However, it looks like shops have started opening up and people are stepping out, albeit cautiously. Now it's time to do the shopping list - mostly things that you want now to be replaced as you have used and realized they need serious attention.

First on my list is the food processor pot! That is something I have been using every single day - almost. Its lid is broken and hence needs to be held manually and is a real pain. Next in line are the pans - all are blackened and out of shape. I have also realized that the water tap at the kitchen sink is not so friendly for controlling water force and probably needs either attention or replacement. Two of the copper bottom utensils have lost their attachment with copper and are ready to reach nirvana!

And most importantly - my ISP. The connectivity has become totally unreliable. Although I got the bandwidth bumped up at the end of March, it still gives problems. In fact, it has deteriorated over this week. While I have my doubts about reliability of other providers, I would surely give it a try with some other provider.

What's your list of items to do at the first chance you get after lockdown is lifted?

Lockdown Day #8

2020-04-01T22:34:00.000+05:30

And the boredom is kicking in. Mrunmay's exams are about to get over and there's only so much he can do on his own. Meghana and I are on call almost through the working hours and hence can't spend time with him. And the post lunch he starts getting bored. Today he said - "I am hating this WFH". I am not surprised. There were very few days when either of us were WFH and he was also home. So he is not used to see us around but not spend time with us. He is finding some ways on his own to keep himself occupied - reading and TV is common. Now he ia also spending time with his Robotics kit, some Python programming, some synth etc. Hope he will find more ways as days go by.

Another day has passed without stepping out. Routine is somewhat settled, but will change again as Mrunmay's exams will get over on this Friday. Hopefully I can start working early and finish early so that I can give him some time.

I was talking to one of the team members generally checking if he is doing well. He seemed doing just fine.. said "my wife and I both are having fun, both continue doing our work, but having fun". That made me realized that every person doing WFH may not be going through same state as I am. Here Meghana and I barely get time to talk to each other through the day. And this diff is probably keeping their energy and enthusiasm.

With the rising cases, it looks like the rules will become stringent about stepping out. I heard even jogging outside is not allowed even if you are alone. Seems weird though.

Will need to see how this Lockdown unfolds further.