Aerial shots

 I took a few photographs from a plane recently that were unique for the views. Some in Belgaum, and some in Mumbai. These are the shots. They can turn out well, or not. I think these did. They were from a small plane, an Embraer jet in the first pic.

Take off, at Mumbai

Landing, at Belgaum

Thinking- a Lost Art?

We had a lot of time on our hands in my years of growing up. We probably had a lot of physical activity too, but this post is about the time we spent thinking about things, when we were not playing, studying, or watching movies-in theatres.

One of our think-tanks in engineering college, Osmania University. 1977-82.


I am not sure what we thought about-maybe what we would do as a grownup, whether we even wanted to grow up (I think we did, as the grass appeared greener on that side then). Maybe about doing wonderful things like flying (my first flight was at age 23), travelling to a different country or countries (that happened on my Ph.D. cum sightseeing trip at age 26).

Most likely, thoughts also included finding the love of your life (maybe not, maybe you thought you had already found her/him with every new crush), owning your own car and going on an adventure (it IS an adventure, come to think of it, on our city roads), owning a Badminton court so you could play without interruption ( a friend from college in Hyderabad had this ambition of having a Billiards Table in his basement and playing with Me!).

The world of thoughts is not constrained by reality, and is positive at all times. To this world!

Innovations in Flying and Elsewhere

This was a Business Class like no other I have been in. Individual seats that can go horizontal. Was on this flight where I got upgraded, and looks like it was the right one to get upgraded on! Comfortable, so that even the half-hour delay circling over Mumbai did not seem like much (on a one and half- hour flight). Why don't they make all seats in an aircraft like these? Isn't that what innovation is supposed to do?

Anyway, let's leave that to high-flying innovators and concentrate on our job. What have we innovated lately?

Kite-flying and Other Pursuits

Flying kites has never been my thing. But caught up in the enthusiasm of our students who organised the event (hopefully they did not have classes at the time), and a couple of colleagues, I went along with the idea, and we flew a kite or two yesterday. By the way, it's the done thing to do this at this time of the year, in many Indian states. My learnings from the escapade-

It is not as simple as it looks. (I also had this enlightenment earlier when I began playing Golf)

The kite continues to fly only if handled correctly, so the flyer is an important part.

There is a time to tighten the reins, and a time to let go. Both are needed for the kite to soar as high as it is capable of doing.

A kite can take a lot of beating, and still fly. It does not give up easily.

A breeze is what is ideal for it to fly, not a storm. Nor a dead wind. Strikes me as similar to Buddha's Middle Path...

Krish on Mars

Krish (sorry, dunno how many h's appear in his name) goes to Mars. No, I mean, this would be a sequel after a few years. This is an imaginary recount of his trip there. Krish goes there, hoping to solve advanced problems. But what does he see?

Martians live contented lives.

Their religion is Humanity- sorry, Martiality-only, it does not mean what you think it does. They don't fight. Not even husbands and wives. The downside is that there are no husband-wife jokes.

They already have all the life-skills as they are born. No need for learning them the hard way, like we struggle to do all our lives.

The poorest man is automatically elected as the head of government. But the moment another guy is proved poorer, he has to give up his position to the next guy.

Martians don't have long ears. In fact, they are incredibly well-proportioned, and smile a lot, making them look even better.

They don't fly saucers, more like they use thoughts to take them from one place to another. Think before you leap is their watchword.

Krish decides he will find more job satisfaction here, and comes back to earth.

Random Diwali Thoughts 2013

The small plane is more fun to fly in than the big one. The Wright brothers had the most fun.

The Chinese are better at making Diwali stuff for the masses than India- fact of life. And a few other things, like furniture that guys want to buy.

There is no whiskey like the single malts- some of them, at least. My list would include most Islay malts, and Glenfiddich.

Food tastes divine when you are hungry. This is akin to the words of the great Confucius ( a man with a misleading name) who apparently said, "When hungry, eat. When sleepy, sleep." I agree.

What makes for a great movie is the edit. Mostly, it has to do with removing the unnecessary.

There is no greater happiness than friends, family  and nature. Everything else is a burden which we carry.

A Walk in the Park

That's just the idiom or a way of expressing the idea. What I really want to write about is walking-anywhere. Compared to the gym, it has numerous advantages, for instance. You don't need a membership that comes at a cost. You don't have opening and closing hours. You don't need an expert to tell you what to do-unless you want to hire one for crossing roads heavy with traffic!

A jog is boring, as it forces you to concentrate on the act. While walking, you can let the mind wander about, and it can go beyond the road you are walking on- on roads less travelled, so to speak. Walking is free, and comes with health benefits such as exercising the muscles, and sometimes making you more agile, if the traffic is heavy and you need to do some quick thinking to avoid oncoming cars and bikes.

Walking in a park may be a luxury, and environmentally unfriendly, since you may need to drive to the park unless you live close by. But walking anywhere is better than taking a  car anywhere. This major realisation came to me after observing what happens to a car (and the person in it) in Delhi. If you can't walk, take the metro or the bus, is my sage advice to anyone who is not busy honking their way out of the traffic around.

Actually, my preferred personal transport is a personal flying vehicle, but the question arises- what do you do for flyovers in the sky, once traffic builds up there? Maybe that's why the sages (powers-that-be) wisely decided not to build such devices.

Skyrocketing Becomes Expensive

Those who used to be high-fliers will soon be grounded. The price of petrol will actually be the only thing which can go skyrocketing, not the people who use the stuff as fuel to get themselves going. So you are not going anywhere anytime soon.

Environmentally, this may not be such a bad thing. There may be less vehicular pollution, and there may be a few more people who walk to save money. Breathing petrol fumes is not much fun anyway. Hopefully, it will stir people into researching alternative fuels and ways of going from place A to Place B. A good joke I read on Facebook the other day says poor people walk miles to find food and rich people walk miles to digest food.

All in all, a good move that might save us from bankruptcy, and bad health. Cheers!