100 Years ago... !

So today marks the centenary of the most famous natural disaster in all of human history. At 23.40 local time on 14th April (8.08 am IST on 15th April), the front of the starboard hit an iceberg, resulting in the sinking of the ship that was thought to be unsinkable and the loss of more than 1500 lives, a motley crew ranging from some of the wealthiest people in the world at the time (a first class suite on the Titanic cost the equivalent of $ 100,000 today !!) and hundreds of emigrants eager to start a new life in the land of hope and opportunity.

Over the past century, no other accident has been so closely examined. Dozens of documentaries have been made that feature various aspects of the Titanic : her design, her pomp and splendour, her maiden voyage and of course, her sinking. There are many theories as to why the biggest passenger ship in the world sank including one, by Robin Gardiner that, controversially, claims that it was, in fact, not the Titanic that sank but her older and sister ship the Olympic and that it did not sink naturally but was actually sunk purposely as part of a big insurance scam (though hopefully, the brains behind this did not mean to see over 1500 people die). This bizzare theory notwithstanding, there are endless debates on what caused the sinking: human error or design flaws. Was the ship too fast ? Could the sinking, so to speak, have been managed better in order to save more lives ? These, and many other questions, have not been conclusively answered to this day. To be fair, it was a confluence of many once-in-a-while factors that played their part in the tragedy'. It is now know that the winter of 1911-12 was one of the mildest in many years, causing significantly more ice to break off from Greenland and the Arctic and drift off, only to come right in the path of the busy Trans-Atlantic shipping routes (even though Titanic took the less dangerous southern route). The sea was exceptionally calm that night (its significance is in the observation that, had the seas been rough, the waves striking the iceberg could have been better visible to the people on the crow's nest). There was also the fact the the Earth and Moon were the closest in hundreds of years in January 1912, causing strong tides that took the icebergs much faster right onto the shipping lanes.  Then, of course, is the whole commerical angle to this fateful tale. The genesis of the Titanic was in the big race between the two premier shipping lines of the time, the White Star Line and the Cunard Line, with each trying to outdo the other in building ever more bigger liners. And, in part, this rivalry had to do with the decision to reduce, fatally in hindsight, the number of lifeboats on the Titanic. From the 64 proposed by the ship's designers, finally only 20 found their way on the ship, ostensibly to free up space and take in more passengers. There are many such stories and coincidences that have their part to play in the legend of the Titanic. Finally, there is the role of the Titanic as part of the larger geo-political picture. Some historians have speculated that the sinking of the Titanic actually started the 21st century as we know it, setting a chain of events that led to a century of World Wars. 

It is 100 years today, but the legend still lives on. And it will for the next 100 years, and even thereafter. There have been other natural tragedies, some that have taken more lives than the Titanic (the 1987 sinking of the MV Dona Paz in the Phillipines is supposed to have claimed about 3000-4000 lives !!) it is the story of the 'largest moving object ever built' that endures through generations. Perhaps, it is because the sinking of the Titanic reminds us that no matter, how grandiose and large we get in our design and engineering, we cannot conquer the forces of nature. Or perhaps it was the assertion that the ship was thought to be 'unsinkable' and that such a man-made structure should be overwhelmed by nature on her very first voyage (maybe if the Titanic had sank say, five years and ten journeys later, the legend would not have been the same).

Whatever the reason might be, the Titanic legend lives on forever !!

Read about Gardiner's theory here.

Amit

Book Review: Steve Jobs

Finally finished reading 'Steve Jobs', the only authorized biography of "the greatest business executive of our era". Written by Walter Issacson, a person with pedigree (former chairman of CNN and managing editor of Time magazine and who has earlier written about Einstien, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger), the biography is an up close and personal look into the life of a person who, most people agree, has shaped much of the digital era that we live in today. Indeed, the loss of Steve Jobs to cancer on October 5th last year triggered an outpouring of grief, even here in India, that is generally reserved only for the odd sportsperson or movie star. The book, which I believe hit the bookstores just after his death, therefore had to deal with very strong sentiments and high expectations. Besides, Issacson probably had the closest relationship with his subject that a biographer can ever hope to get: long conversations with Jobs (while on walks, Jobs' favourite style) and innumerable interviews with almost all the people of any importance in his life: family, friends and foes alike (and he did make a lot of foes !). And the book does very well in delivering on all these expectations.

Jobs: A great read..

Through the book, Isaccson gives a neat account of not just Steve Jobs' life but also, by extension, of the evolution of the digital age right from the first Apple computer in the mid 1970s. Starting from his early life, his views on being put up for adoption after birth, his flirtations with Eastern philosophy and India (he stayed in India for seven months in 1974), followed by his successful partnership with Steve Wozniak to set up what is today the world's valuable organization, the book charts everything in great detail. And even though the book has the blessings of Jobs himself, it is by no means a loaded account of how great Steve Jobs was. It is inevitable that a person who was such a creative visionary would be lousy at relationships with others. And Isaacson does not sugar-coat or temper any criticism towards Jobs expressed by many of the people who Jobs might have turned the wrong way. His obsession with having full control over what was happening around him (that caused many a rift in Apple, including Jobs himself being booted out of the company in 1985), his tendency to view everything (people or products) in binary terms (either they were 'perfect' or they 'were shit' - and a person could move from one group to the other on the same day !!!) and his insistence on ignoring reality when it was not in his favour (his cancer diagnosis or his daughter born out of wedlock), all of these are described in great detail. In fact, reading through the book, one almost feels terrified at the prospect of having to work with him. Inspite of all these faults, Jobs went to create products that successfully married technology and the arts because 'he was right there, at their intersection'. The book also talks at length about Jobs' famous 'reality distortion field', whereby he was able to inspire, or scare, people around him by distorting reality into something that he thought was achievable.

Some of the passages that are quite engaging are the ones that narrate how Jobs was told to leave Apple in 1985 after his dominating style of work did not go down with the board and also his frequent spars with Bill Gates. In fact, the book gives a good insight by delving, at various points, on the relationship between them (who were right at opposite ends of the open and closed technology spectrum). It is quite refreshing to see their frank comments about each other, underpinned by a layer of respect below it. And while the book does not intend to either glorify, or question, Jobs's greatness as a product visionary (I do not quite agree with the first line calling Jobs as the greatest 'business executive'), there is one small paragraph in the book, that, in my mind, best describes Jobs' legacy. It is from Micheal Noer of Forbes.com. Noer was reading a sci-fi novel on his iPad in a rural dairy farm north of Bogota, Colombia. A poor six-year old illiterate boy who was cleaning his stables came up to him. Noer handed over his iPad to the boy. With no instruction manual, and never having seen a computer before in his life, that six-year old began using it intuitively. He began swiping the screen, launching apps and playing a pinball game. Noer wrote : "Steve Jobs has designed a powerful computer that an illiterate six-year old can use without instruction. If that is not magical, I do not know what is !!". While Apple products might not have (yet) changed the world, the passage encapsulates the great beauty of making things simple and intuitive. And no one did this better than Steve Jobs.

Finally, for all Apple devotees (is there any who hasn't yet read the book ? :), it is simply not to be missed. And, like me, if you do not know much about Jobs (or even hates him and his products - there are quite a few of those), this book is still a great read. It offers a wonderful insight into the man, both personally and professionally. And if you end the book with mixed feelings, I think the book would have done its job.

Cheers

Amit

A bit of Customer Orientation: Too much to ask for ??

Of late, the words 'customer centricity', 'customer focus' etc have gained enormous traction in corporate life. For example, Asian Paints, where I work, has adopted customer centricity as their main focus and key result area on which all employees, not just the ones facing the end-consumer, will be judged on (which, of course, means that a large part of our variable pay would be basis the scores on the customer centricity parameter). Such initiatives notwithstanding, when it comes to actual on-the-ground customer service, many of our service companies are light years behind. And as is to be expected, the worst performers on that score are our great government institutions, who almost seem to have a rule of thumb that a customer needs to make atleast 3 trips to the office (if not pay money under the table) before his/her work can be done. Besides this, there are other ways in which government organizations never fail to inconvenience the customer, like having inconvenient timings (closed on weekdays for example). Below is an instance which I experienced today:

I had to get my MTNL landline transferred from my father's name to mine (since my company only reimburses telephone expenses wherein the bills are in the employee's name). After going through the MTNL website, I found a link to download the form for the same. I downloaded it, filled it, my father and me signed at the appropriate places. Next I called up their customer care no. (1500) to ask where to submit the form. I was told to submit the form at the exchange to which my landline belongs to. So today morning, I went there and submitted the same. The lady at the counter tells me that a no-objection certificate from my father is also needed, along with ID proofs of both of us. I replied that my father had already signed an undertaking to transfer the line to my name in the main form. But, no, she said, a NOC is still needed !!! Thus ended my first trip to the exchange. On reaching home, I checked the downloaded form and found there was a Pg 2 which had a NoC form. But on closely looking at it, I realized that the form is only to be filled in case the existing customer has expired. So I called back the local exchange and explained the situation. Ok, they said on realization, a NOC is not required. But then came another twist. The guy on the line told me that I also needed to bring my electricity bill (which is in my name) to prove that the address genuinely belongs to me. Then I again went with all this and finally got my work done in the second attempt.

Now just consider. When I call up 1500, I am neither told to take the NOC nor to carry any ID proofs or other documents. Then the lady at the counter, without even looking at the filled form which is signed by my father (clearly proving he is alive) tells me to get the NoC. But she does not tell me to get a copy of electricity bill. Had I not called the exchange, I would have had to make a third trip just for the electicity bill. Looking back now, all this could have been avoided just by detailing the procedure to be followed for getting a landline transferred on the downloaded form itself !! Is that too much to ask for ? But then, documenting and releasing procedures have their drawback: the clerk at the desk facing the customer would no longer be able to show off his 'power' by subjecting the customer to his random whims and fancies and make him run around.

This is not an isolated incident. I have endured this on several occasions earlier, wherein a seemingly trivial job has taken multiple trips to the government office and several days (thankfully, have not had to grease any palms so far !!). Thus, for anyone, who has no choice but to approach a government official to get his work (quite a few services are online now-a-days, and god bless us all !), I can only offer two pieces of advice:

a. Carry along as many documents as you can (originals and photocopies), however irrelevant they may seem

b. Mentally prepare to spend a long time there, or make 2-3 trips atleast

I will soon be having my next run-in with government officialdom when I get my passport renewed later this year !! May God be on my side then !!

Cheers

Amit

Places to visit before I die.. the Andes !

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page" - St Augustine

The above is one of my favourite quotes. Indeed, the world is a fascinating place to be in. The sheer variety that nature has an offer makes travel such a fulfiling pursuit. Like most others, I am always eager to visit and explore new places in new countries. And like most others, I too have a list of must-visit destinations that I aim to visit atleast once in my lifetime. Till recently, Australia used to top that list. Vast open spaces of the outback, the great Australian love for sport and, of course, the kangaroo made it a really special place to visit. The forthcoming ICC Cricket World Cup in February-March 2015 provides people like me with the perfect opportunity to marry their love of cricket and their desire to go Down Under. Planning will start in right earnest soon and I will to watch a India game in a packed MCG on that tour. Friends Down Under, have given you nearly 3 years notice :)

While Australia still remains a destination to aim at, the relative ease in getting and staying there (direct flights, friends who have setlled there and the sizable Indian diaspora) mean that it is no longer the exotic place that it might have been a few decades ago. If I were to talk about visiting a completely new place, then the continent of South America would probably be the first place that I would mention. For Indians, who have, by their sheer strength of numbers, have 'colonized' most of the world, South America remains the 'final frontier' :). In fact, most of us (esp. those who do not follow soccer)  would even struggle to name 5 countries in South America apart from Brazil and Argentina. Partly because so little of the place is known to us, it has recently worked its way towards the top of my 'to-do' list. And the main calling card in South America for me are the spectacular Andes range of mountains.

The Salt Pans of Bolivia (Salar de Uyuni)..

At over 7000km long and with an average elevation of 4000m, the Andes are truly close to the Himalayas in laying claim asthe world's most formidable mountain range. And nestled within it are, supposedly, few of the world's most breathtaking places : the ruins of Macchu Picchu in Peru, Lake Titicaca and the Bolivian salt pans (see picture - which when covered with water become the world's largest mirror !!!). It also has one of the most inhospitable terrains on the planet which means, of course, that has one to be physically very fit to attempt some of the treks, including the 4-day long trek to Macchu Picchu. In this, and in many other respects, I am a long way away from attempting my South American adventure. Take the cuisine, for example. For a veggie like me, life can be quite difficult in those areas. And one also needs to have a decent understanding of Spanish in order to interact with the people there. To add to it are the finances and the logistics involved. Given the long travel times involved (a Mumbai- Lima, Peru return ticket costs upward of Rs 1 lakh and total one-way travel time is more than 30 hrs), it makes sense to 'make it large' and cover most of the continent in one trip. That would imply atleast three weeks of stay there and estimated per person cost of about Rs 4-5 lakhs. Still some way to go !!!

But till I manage that, the Andes and South America would remain one of my dream destinations. One day, I will definitely say aloud 'América del Sur, aquí estoy!'

Cheers

Amit

Two books and a movie...

Lately, I have fallen quite behind in terms of my reading. For whatever reason, I have just not been able to spend as much time on reading as I wanted to. This, despite the fact that the last trip to my local bookseller (who gives books on rent - god bless him) in mid-January saw me as bring as much as 4 books. Even after a month and a half, I have finished only 2 of those and have started the third. Also there is a huge backlog of Times Crest articles (since November), whose soft copies are gathering dust (metaphorically speaking :) on my desktop. The story is quite the same when it comes to movies. With the baby at home, it is a long time since I have last gone to the theater. Have got to make do with watching downloaded stuff (old movies only). Clearly, a lot more time needs to be put in both these activities viz. reading and watching movies. Till that time, here are some thoughts on the couple of books and movie that I have finished recently.

The first book that I started off this year was Chetan Bhagat's Revolution 20-20. Frankly, for quite some time, I had not even heard about this book. It was only when I started to see the college-going crowd eagerly lap it up in the local trains that I became curious about it. To add to it, of course, was the name (the book's as well as the author's). But having started reading it with moderate expectations, I must admit it has fallen short. Set mostly in Varanasi, the book has three main characters:  Gopal, a wannabe IIT guy who, after failing it to make it there, joins hands with the dubious local politician and starts his own engineering college. Then there is Aarti, his childhood sweetheart and finally, Raghav the third point of this triangle and a IT-BHU grad-turned-journalist with a mission to expose the corrupt, a mission that brings him into direct confrontation with Gopal. The plot, of course, is nothing new and Chetan Bhagat fails to infuse it with much of life. And for a title like Revolution 20-20, you expect him to go beyond the lives of the three characters and address some of the bigger issues facing society. Sadly, there is not much of that either. And finally, there are hardly any shock moments in the book, so required for a novel that otherwise, has nothing new to say. Surely not amongst Chetan Bhagat's better works and can be safely avoided.

The Ascent of Money: a recommended read..

In contrast, the second book in my list was a pleasure to read. Niall Ferguson (a Harvard professor) has written 'The Ascent of Money' and it is a fascinating read if you are interested either in history or economics. And if you are interested in both, it is simply not to be missed !!. He begins with his central point that far from being reviled as the root cause of most evil in the world, money (in its various forms and hues) has actually facilitated the progress of mankind from medivial times to the prosperity (albeit unequal) where it finds today. He then proceeds to trace the historical evolution of the main pillars of the modern financial system i.e. Banking, Bonds, Stocks, Insurance and Real Estate. In each of these five chapters, Ferguson takes a detailed look at the origins of that sector for e.g. the concept of Bonds took shape in Italy in the 14th century, whereas Insurance as we know it today developed in Scotland in the middle18th century as a means of providing for the wives of the Church members who died unnaturally. It is great to get the historical context of all the things about finance that we take for granted today. He finishes with a chapter on the international linkages in the world of finance and goes on to mention that the financial world is very much akin to the natural world in that, it allows for natural selection, survival of the fittest and is as much vulnerable to outside and unforseen events. Though the book sometimes feels lengthy, it is still a good read and in fact, I believe it should be part (if not directly, then atleast as recommended reading) of any B-school course in finance and economics (if it is not already). For those who do not want to take the pain of reading it (or cannot find a copy), there is also a 4-part video series, which can be found here. And finally, you do not need to be a finance whiz in order to comprehend the book. A basic understanding of the terms would do just as well. As mentioned earlier, a thoroughly recommended book, if only to learn about the past.

Coming to the movie now. Watched the Marathi movie 'Gabhricha Paus' ('The Cursed Rain'). A much-acclaimed 2009 movie about the prevalance of farmer sucidies in Vidarbha, the movie stars Girish Kulkarni and Sonali Kulkarni (starred in Dil Chahata Hai opposite Saif) as the couple Kisna and Alka. The movies begins with a farmer suicide, which then makes Alka fear and obsess that her husband would be the next in line. Kisna, of course, is very much the hard-working and optimist types. After two years of drought, all eyes are on the monsoon clouds as another sowing season approaches. But then, the Cursed Rain comes down in torrents, thus destroying Kisna's hopes of finally getting just reward for this hardwork and toil. The movie, directed by Satish Manwar, may not be a masterpiece, but it definitely takes a sincere look at the troubled times faced by the farmers and has good moments of black humour, none better than at the ending. Also it marks another step in the ascent of Marathi cinema from the run-of-the-mill slapstick comedy variety to a medium that looks at all facets of modern life, both urban and rural. Would heartily recommended seeing it once.

Signing off for now. Have currently started off with Steve Jobs' biography by Walter Isaacson. Will write about that when I finish.

Cheers

Amit

Nagpur tidbits..

The week gone by presented us with an opportunity to take a short vacation. Given that Monday was a bank holiday (Mahashivratri), adding another couple of days of leave gave us a full 5 day break. And off went me, Anjali and Aarya to Nagpur, the place where my in-laws (temporarily) reside. The trip, of course, was planned well in advance which ensured that we got confirmed train tickets, especially on the Vidarbha Express which is known to be booked months in advance (now, of course, with the non-stop Duronto having started, the situation has improved somewhat). Of course, we could have taken the flight, but, given that it was quite sometime (more than 2 yrs) since we last experienced a longish train journey, we decided to undertake the 14 hr trip. Being an overnight journey, our prime concern obviously was how would Aarya cope up with her first experience of the train.

As we boarded the Vidarbha Epress last Saturday, those concerns receeded somewhat. A word about the AC coaches. Our coach was one of the newer ones to be inducted into the Railways and therefore, was quite impressive. Though I still cannot understand two things a. Why do they need to have curtains in every compartment ? and b. Why cannot a train of such a stature not have a pantry car ?. Thank God for the Aloo Parathas that we had the presence of mind to carry from home. Else we would have been struggling to fill our tummies. The standard biryani that was offered was, to put it midly, no great shakes. Coming back to Aarya, she thankfully put to rest all our fears regarding adaptability. Our worst nightmare was that she will wake up howling in the middle of the night and shake up the entire bogie out of their collective slumber. But thankfully, nothing of the sort happened :). After having her daily dose of milk around 11.30 ish, she went to sleep. Her only grouse was that the berth that she was sharing with her Mom did not give her the space to toss around while sleeping as she does at home. And for this reason, she was sufficiently irritated, as she made it clear by crying every half an hour so. A few quick pats on the back put her back to sleep again. And with this major problem being overcome, we awoke on Sunday morning and landed in Nagpur.

This was my second visit to Nagpur. Both have been in February, which is probably the best time to visit that city. Otherwise, Nagpur, like most of central India, can be brutally hot or cold. And this time, like the last, I quite liked the city. While I cannot claim to have seen a major part of the city, the parts which I did see (near the Station, Dharampeth, Burdi etc) were quite good. The place where we stayed (at the RBI quarters where my mother-in-law works) was even more impressive. Nice and wide roads, less of traffic and no major commercial centers meant that the Civil Lines area is wonderful to have a stroll either early in the morning or after dinner. On Monday, we went to the nearby holy place of Ramtek (about 70 kms away). Ramtek is supposed to be the place where Lord Rama is supposed to have visited and stayed in his exile and hence there is the standard fare of temples and lakes on offer there. Nagpur also, is the ideal base location if you are a wildlife lover. Major national parks like Pench (90km) and Tadoba (150km) can be covered in a day each. We had visited Pench last time around. It was my first experience of a wildlife reserve and I loved every moment of it. Other attractions in Nagpur include the so-called 'zero-milestone' that is supposed to be the geographic center of India :). And finally, if you are in Nagpur, it is impossible to escape one ubiquitous name. Haldirams is all over Nagpur. And not just sweets and farsan, in Nagpur you get Haldiram's bread, milk etc etc. I heard that they are also foraying into the education business !! Haldiram's Institute of Engineering anyone ? :)

After a good break of four days, we were back in Mumbai on Thursday morning, feeling refreshed and with happy memories of Nagpur.

Cheers

Amit

SPCE alumni meet.. trip down memory lane.. Part Two !!!

As mentioned in my previous post, here is the balance part of the post on the SPCE Alumni get-together, though quite a bit late.. :(

After the walk down memory lane through the college campus that got me all nostalgic, it was time for the evening programme to start. On the dias were the current principals of SPCE and SPIT and the other office bearers of the alumni association. Currently, Dr. PH Sawant from Civil Engg dept. is the SPCE Principal. I do not recollect him from our days, so must have joined recently. Dr. Prachi Gharpure (looking lovely as always) is the Principal of the unaided wing. For my Mech classmates, our Prof. A V Bhonsale (Engineering Controls anyone ?) is now the HOD of Mech department as also the Vice-Principal. Apart from these, the only other profs. whom I knew that day were Dr. Shubha Pandit (HOD-Elect) and, of course, the tireless and good-ol Prof. VD Raul. In charge of the alumni network, the man's energy is amazing. During the course of the evening, it was revealed that Prof. Raul has tried to kickstart the Alumni network movement thrice so far. The first two times (in the 1990s) it died a natural death but with the latest attempt having started in 2005 (the Annual Alumni meet started in 2005) and still continuing, hopefully it will be third time lucky for Prof. Raul and the Alumni office-bearers.

Coming to the audience, there were, quiet dissapointingly, only about 100 odd alumni who turned up. A huge chunk of them, of course, were from the 1986 batch who were celebrating the silver jubilee reunion. The joy on their faces as they met old batchmates and came back to their alma mater was something to savour. It was also heartening to see Sh Kothare from the 1967 batch show up !!!.. (Must have been the second batch out of campus). But apart from these, the turn out was quite low. In fact, there was not a single person there whom I knew or recognized, which would mean that possibly none from the 1999 to 2002 batch was present :(. As the speeches and the felicitations were going on, I chanced to see a copy of DISHA 2010 and spent good time browsing through it. It provided a good overview of the college activities and was especially heartening to see the strides we have made on the sports field. In fact, SPCE now boasts of a women's basketball team (can you believe that ?) plus other traditional sports like volleyball, football etc. In addition, we already have a alumni who has played for India U-19 in cricket. In Saurabh Netravalkar, we might see a future Indian cricketer from SPCE. All the very best to him !!. Interestingly, there is a now a system of a joint General Secretary, with one representative each from SPCE and SPIT jointly handling the post. Wonder how they work together !! :) After the function was over, it was time to chit-chat over dinner, which rounded off a nice evening.

Before I finish, a word about the enthu for the event. Quite shocking to see only about 100 of the 5000+ (and that is a conversative figure) alumni show up. In fact, one of the key discussion points which I had with the office-bearers during dinner was how to fix this low turnout. For starters, alumni could all register at the Alumni website i.e. http://alumni.spce.ac.in/. This would be a useful starting step whereby atleast our contact details would get recorded in the alumni database and thus, we would get intimations regarding future events conducted by SPCE-AA. I am glad to find 7 others from our Mech-Class of 2000 already registered there, but more are definitely needed. The Alumni Association is also present on Twitter (@spceaa), though not very active. Hopefully that will change soon as more of us follow and interact regularly with the alumni association on Twitter. Small steps like these would help increase the awareness levels regarding the alumni network, which is so vitally important for the growth and development of the institution. Would urge all SPCE/SPIT alumni reading this to not only register on the alumni website but also to share this with their classmates. In 2012, SPCE's 50th year, it is the least we can do to kickstart the process of having a vibrant alumni network.

Hope to see more of you around at the next alumni reunion in January 2013.

Till then...

Cheers

Amit

SPCE alumni meet.. trip down memory lane.. Part One !!!

Last weekend (on the 7th to be precise) gave me an opportunity to visit my Engineering college i.e. Sardar Patel College of Engineering (or SPCE for short). For the uninitiated, SPCE, which is celebrating its 50th year in 2012, is one of the premier engineering colleges in Mumbai University. In fact, it has recently received autonomy status. Living in Mumbai and just a couple of stations away from Andheri, where SPCE is, I am guilty, and rightfully so, of not visting the college more often. The one occasion that presents itself is the annual alumni meet of the college, that generally happens on the second weekend of every new year. The alumni meet started in 2004 and I have attended it a couple of times so far. But have missed it, mostly due to my own laziness, the past couple of years. So this year, when the e-mail from the indefatigable Shashikant Banka from the SPCE Alumni Association landed in my inbox, I knew I had to go. Even though a post on Facebook (to check if any of my friends were interested in tagging along) failed to get a positive response, I then decided to do it alone.

Now since the best way of reviving past memories is to actually relive them, I decided to take the train and walk from Andheri station. The road from Andheri station to SPCE, of course, has changed beyond recognition over the past decade. The pillars of the still under-construction Metro line stand right in the middle of the road, which is now partially closed to traffic. Quite different from our days when a simple walk on that road in the evenings was maddening with the terrible honking of buses and auto-rickshaws around and the ever-growing numbers of pedestrians. Of course, some old landmarks are there e.g. Navrang theater (which I best remember when our Mech class, then in 3rd year, had gone to watch a supposedly soft-porn movie and came back bitterly let-down ;-). These, and other thoughts, kept flooding in my mind as I neared the Bhavan's campus. Outside the campus, Shetty's Chinese is still around and so is our dear ol' Gupta ji (albeit in a completely renovated form: It is also called differently, forgot the name though). Unfortunately, I did not see him around that day. But opposite to them is the Vrindavan restaurent, opened probably 2-3 years ago. The usual all-cuisine Udipi restaurent, the food tastes great (they had provided the dinner at the alumni meet). But I guess the current batches, which might be used to Vrindavan, might not fully understand the importance of Guptaji and Shetty's in those four years :). I then entered the Bhavans campus, which also looks different from a decade back. The road from the entrance to SPCE is nicely paved now. SP Jain has a well-maintained garden in front of it and the temple in the campus also looks more impressive. But one thing that has still not changed is the typical odour of birdshit that hits you when you near the SPCE building :). Especially, going at the time when I did i.e. just after sunset, the odour is just too strong to ignore. It was the same in 2000, it is the same in 2012 as well !! :)

Finally entered the SPCE building at around 6.45pm. The registration for the function was actually only till 6.30pm but I discovered that not too many people were around and the official part of the meet was some time away from starting. After a couple of cups of coffee and some chit-chat, I set out to re-discover the SPCE building. And the thing that struck me was that the basic building has not changed one bit over the past 12 years of so. Of course, most would know that the non-aided branches (i.e. Comps, Electronics, IT and the recently started Electronics and Telecom) have now been spun off into a new college i.e. Sardar Patel Instititute of Technology (SPIT) few years back and which houses itself in a brand-new building behind the SPCE building. Thankfully, the alumni meet was for both SPCE and SPIT !. As I roamed the workshop (looking much the same only with a few offices newly added at the rear end) and the main building, the memories kept on coming. The two walls at the main staircase reminded me of SPACE 1999 where we had put together a huge full-scale painting as part of the decorations. The various notice boards displayed the latest goings-on in the college, including an offer to students of the Akash tablet for around 1200 bucks !!. The quadrangle has been converted into a mini-auditorium with a steel frame overneath and fans hung from there. Sad to see that playing box cricket will no longer be possible there :). Much of the remaining building is as it is including, I believe, the paint on the exterior, all worn out and in desperate need of a re-coat. Could not get the time to go to the hostel though.

After the tour around college, got back to the quadrangle for the function. Will write about the alumni function itself in a follow-up post. Till then, keep reading and feel free to share it with your other SPCE friends and batchmates.

To be continued...

Cheers

Amit

 

Oh.. the railways.. !!

An article in the Indian Express caught my eye yesterday. It talked about the Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi seeking government assistance for the cash-strapped railways. Before we dismiss this as another instance of a mismanaged institution asking for bailout from the government and utter the privatization-word, one needs to consider the enormous social importance of the state-owned railways. That the railways are absolutely vital to the nation's all-round growth is undeniable. I, for one, am a big fan of the railways, even given all the dirty compartments, over-crowded stations et al. A train journey is an experience in itself which air travel cannot hope to match. I fondly remember the 24-hr journey from Mumbai to Bangalore nearly a decade ago. As the Udyan Express halted along the way, one was exposed to a microcosm of India with all its varied cultural hues. By contrast, air travel is just so non-happening !.

Now, when one considers the fact that the passenger fares have not been raised for nearly a decade (alteast I cannot remember the last time they were raised), you can only imagine the financial plight of the railways. Populist measures by successive railway ministers have ensured that the revenue stream is reduced to a trickle, when, at the same time, the salaries of the employees (and the railways has over a million and a half on its rolls) increases with successive pay commission implementation. And when someone like a Dinesh Trivedi wants to introduce dynamic pricing in the forthcoming Rail Budget (though it remains to be seen how beneficial it is in a scenario where demand far outstrips the supply), he is scuttled by his own boss and his predeccessor at Rail Bhavan, the honourable Ms. Mamta Banerjee. Its high time that the Government realizes that introducing new superfast Durontos and giving sops to the home state of the Rail minister is not the way of improving its quality of offering. Today, a large proportion of the customer base of the Railways can afford to, and I daresay is willing, to pay extra in return for cleaner stations, tamper-proof reservation system and punctual schedules. The success of IRCTC proves that improvement is very much possible. Hope the Government and Mr. Trivedi rises to the challenge (though with the Congress-TMC relations under strain, it may be a matter of time before Dinesh Trivedi is replaced by another populist politician ! ;-( .  I, for one, would be keenly watching.

- Amit

Welcome 2012... !!

It is the first morning of the new year. In fact, half the day has already past and we are 365.5 days away from the next new year :) And the day is no different from yesterday, as I had mentioned in my earlier post. Sometimes, I find the New Year celebrations a bit over the top. I mean what is so different and special about the 1st of January. Do we suddenly experience a sea-change in us ? Do people suddenly appear different ? What is it about this date that we suddenly become conscious of all the sins that we have been doing in the past ? But then, as they say, if you want to turn over a new leaf (albeit briefly), there has to be a starting point. And therefore, I guess, it does not matter if that starting point is either someone's birthday or a randomly picked date from the calendar like the 1st of January.

So here am I, with this new blog. As I indicated earlier, this is just a cosmetic change designed to shadow my inherent laziness all throughout last year as far as blogging went. Just six odd posts in the last year was way below par. Anyways, it is time now to look towards the future. One change that would have been immediately noticed is that the title of the blog has now expanded to 'Thoughts along the way... '. Which way, you might ask ? Well, the answer is : I do not know. But what I do know is that I am along a journey, a path that takes me to a destination that I am still not sure of. I will get there one day, of this I am sure of. And this blog is just an opening for all that I think of during this journey. In fact, come to think of it, we all are making or individual journeys. 'Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana...' as Kishore Kumar famously said. Or, a couple of years later, in a mood considerably more melancholy, Kishore Da went 'Zindagi Ke Safar Main Gujar Jaate Ho Makaam..'. The concept of life as a journey has been celebrated since time immemorial. And it is this concept that I seek to discover. To walk along the journey of life, to take the rough with the smooth and to finally keep improving through all that, is what we should all look for.

But thats about it for the gyaan or, more realistic, a manaic typing of thoughts that suddenly shot up in my mind over the past 10 minutes or so. In fact, I have resolved to write most of my posts in not more than 30 minutes. Just allow the thoughts to flow. Of course, the end result might be that you, dear reader, is subjected to quite some thrash. But then, I think, it is worth experimenting.

So till my first real post...
Cheers
Amit