Beating the heat

The temperatures are rising worldwide. And it will continue to rise. As much as I hate it, I have started to like sweating. Most of the times I can't do anything to beat the heat. But, my sweat can. Its like our own body making our personal clouds and eventually precipitating them on itself. Quite a novel idea, isn't it?

Sweat is only one part though. If you are fortunate enough to sweat, that is, you are fortunate enough to be in a humid city like Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Chennai etc, you already have your own personal body temperature controller. But then, not everyone can be lucky, can they? I have had the opportunity to experience both the extremes, and so I am qualified enough to write and preach about my experiences. As you must have already realized, that I have lived through those almost-fatal summers in all kinds of cities.

OK. Coming to my tips...

1. Sleep a lot. Sleep is the number 1 enemy of the heat. But practicing this takes a lot of willpower and determination. Its definitely not a child's play. You have to be a ninja-sleeper to  beat the heat.

2. Run and walk a lot. This doesn't really fight the heat directly, but it tricks your brain and body to produce the required nano-clouds that leave behind their cooling effect.

3. Lots of ice-creams. In places where the sun dries up your sweat too quickly for your body to be able to sweat, you need alternate manmade techniques to battle the heat. The best and the quickest way is to eat lots and lots of ice-creams. It might take a tad longer but you can now make your body sweat internally, and thus bring on the cooling effect.

4. Take bath 4 times a day. That would not only cool you down, but also remove the sweaty layer on your skin, making it ready again for the next few hours.

5. Go for long rides alone. You will not feel the extra heat from your bosses, wives and your irritating friends. Use up all your sick leaves to run away from office. Use imaginative excuses to run away from home/wife. Hit the road, turn on the AC, turn up the volume, and race right through the heat.

All of these have been tried and tested by me. And I have substantial proof of the results. If you try any of these, do come back and let me know how you did.

Chill throughout the summers, Winter is coming...

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Anyone can memorize

Awesome video on memory. I wish I could remember like the old days. Those old WWF cards and all the wrestlers' stats. Cricket stats of all my favorite players. All the telephone numbers, my whole weeks schedule for school, or even where I kept my red coloured pencil. Who borrowed my comics, and how much money I have loaned to my friends. As the speaker rightly mentions, we have been off-loading this amazing power of our brains to our computers, mobile phones and the internet.

My contacts are always synced between my devices. I don't even remember my passwords to all the websites. The browser remembers them, and syncs across all the computers. If at all, my browser somehow forgets one of the them, I have to do a "Password Reset" or even a "Forgot Username" if I don't even remember my login name.

It's already well known that practice improves our memory. But, now a days, we don't really practice much, and at times, not at all. We rely on technology so much, that in a way, we have been using less and less of our brains. I used to remember multiplication tables, and just yesterday, it was very hard for me to remember what 7x9 equals to!!!

That's really sad. A few years from now, among all of us, there would only be a few who would have advanced brains if we keep evolving machines and become more and more dependent on them. Those few, would not be those who are or were really gifted. Instead, a majority of us would be so much dependent on machines, we would soon forget about the wonders we can actually do with their memory.

To be frank, my memory is quite good as compared to some people I know (please don't ask to name them), but this ability of mine has certainly been on the downward trend. I often grab a calculator to do simple mathematical problems. I have almost forgotten birthdays of all my close ones(baring a few such as sister, wife, etc.), since I get reminders just in time.

But, I don't want to go and win some World Memory Championship. I just want to have my old, helpful and amazing memory of mine. Actually, it's not that hard. Well, the guy in the video says so. I will give it a try.

Hi All, I am back

It's been quite a long time since I blogged. Quite a few things have been happening around me. Now things have settled a little, and finally, I got some time to take a deep breath. Had been real busy for the past few months. And as everything has an end, I am hoping that this (not being so busy) doesn't end so soon.

A few days back, I was a little sad and taken aback when someone told me that I was ignoring everything else for work. But the good part is I realized that it was actually true. I also realized that I was not getting enough sleep and rest and that, in a way was really getting back to me. Thanks, "whoever" it was. Actually, 2 of them.

Ok, enough said. 

• Amit Chahar got maried. Congrats Amit and Asha. Lets meet soon. Sorry I couldn't attend your marriage.
• It was Amit Kunjal's birthday yesterday. I actually wished him a day in advance.
• Happy Birthday Shakul Jugran. Calls for a treat.
• Happy Birthday Debasis Biswal. Come to bangalore once and we will have a blast, all expenses to be borne by you of course. 

I recently went to a remote rural school on an official visit. It was a joy ride. The weather was perfect. But the best part of it was interacting with students and teachers. I didn't know the local language (Kannada), but that didn't matter. I was surprised to see almost all of them conversing well with us in English. I am not sure if I was that good back then. Students even in the 7th grade looked so very young. They made me look really old. Brought back old memories. Came back and added a few friends from school and college on facebook.

One day, away from office, city traffic and among the children was worth spent. Looking forward to more such trips in the future, now that I am trying to reduce my working hours :) (Seriously.....@"whoever(2)" Believe me... I am not a workaholic, it's just that someone needed to pinch me to wake me up).

My 100th post

Ok, so a milestone reached. Feels good. This was a picture clicked in Puri. I kind of like water, typical of a cancerian. I just can't resist the temptation, its too much for me. I like getting wet in the rains, love to play in water and that day also I couldn't stop myself from getting wet. What a pity, I don't know swimming and on top of that, we were in a hurry, Ashish's flight :(

Could have played a little more and may be watch the sun set. It was after a long time that I was at the beach, looking at the open seas. Away from the hustle and bustle of the city traffic, away from my laptop and work. I love the sound of the waves hitting against each other, love to watch the lone boats travelling the high seas, and the occasional noises of the vendors. It was a very pleasing experience. Wish I had a house besides the beach.

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Just in time - Again

Continuing from the previous post, the journey back to Bhubaneswar on the Scooty was very very thrilling. Every 2 minutes, I used to ask Ashish to look at his watch while I was on full throttle. The Scooty was running a race of it's lifetime. I had never been in such a hurry before, well, may be I was, 2-3 times, :).

Finally, we did manage to reach the airport on time, just before the checking counter shut down. And Mr. Ashish could fly back to Hyderabad that day. What a relief!!!

People had always doubted my Scooty riding skills, but yet again, I have proved them wrong, and yet again, I won the race against time. I was in a similar situation when a friend of mine asked me to drop him at the railway station. It was in Bangalore and I had a Pulsar 180cc with me then. I made it on time then as well. A few days back I was mocking at Vishal and Gaurav for missing their flight, by 10 odd minutes. Now, I realize the importance of each minute, especially when you are running to catch a flight or a train. Hahaha, but in the end, it's the result that matters. They missed it !!! Kudos.

A Scooty’s trip to Puri

For the people who are ignorant of this word “Scooty”, let me first  introduce this to you.

Scooty is an Indian brand of scooters manufactured by TVS Motors. Basically, it was designed for women, and at one time, was the largest selling scooter brand in it’s segment. Equipped with a 60cc engine, it can hit a top speed of about 60 kmph with a single person. However, the max speed dropped to a surprisingly lower value, somewhere around 45 kmph when you add on a pillion. If you want to know more about this scooter, visit the website.

Well, mine, not exactly mine, but my sister’s scooty is 6 years old now. And whoever rides it now, vows never to ride it again. But during it’s initial days, I used to love scooty rides a lot. :) And, so, there is some kind of attachment between the two of us.

Ok, the story continues. Ashish, who was in Bhubaneswar, for  attending Sidharth’s marriage, wanted to go to Puri. I told him that we can take a car/taxi. Not willing to contribute to the already increasing Carbon levels in the atmosphere, he recommended to avail the public transport. Hmm, Bad Idea, I thought. But, I knew that I will not be able to convince him to take a taxi, he would have never agreed. So, I gave him another better (looking atleast) option. My Scooty. And he somehow agreed.

Well, there was one little constraint. He had a flight to catch, the same day, at 6:45 pm, that very evening. And so, I worked out all the calculations (taking into consideration all the factors, including the max possible speed of my scooty) and arrived at our scheduled departure time, 9:00 am in the morning. Well, true to their reputations, NITKians, never made anything on time. Or they always did something wrong. Ya Ya, I am one of them. But, I can give you some more examples. Mr. Vishal and Mr. Gaurav missed their flights by just 10 minutes who wanted to attend Sidharth’s marriage. Mr. Srinath, who is currently a student at IIM, Kolkatta, by mistake booked a train ticket for the day after when he was supposed to travel. He managed his time well, but had all the wrong data and inputs. :) And I wasn’t even expecting Mr. Ashish to make it to my house before at-least 11:00 am. And I still over-estimated. He reached my house at 11:30 and then we started.

Puri is around 60 kms from my house. And, I just did a test ride on my Scooty. A max speed of 43 kmph. Hmm, Well, at that speed, I thought it will take at-least 2 hours to reach Puri. And we did it. YAY!!!

But the return journey was more fun, exciting and tensed. For some reason, my Scooty refused to buzz beyond the 40 kmph. At the place where we stopped for food, we got a bit late and lost a few minutes there (may be 10 minutes). And, it was already 5:00 pm and there was still some 30 odd kms to cover. If at all, Rajhans misses his flight, he and only he would be the sole person responsible. He did all this, wasted time, which could have saved us a few minutes.

Did Rajhans miss his flight? Did Scooty survive the torture? Did we manage to break the NITKians record of never being on time?
To be continued… 

Chennai-Hyderabad-Bhubaneswar

Airports are a fun place. Before taking off from Chennai, I was wondering how would I wait for my connecting flight from Hyderabad for 5 hours. I always wondered how people managed to wait for so long at the airports. The most painful thing being at an airport is that "No smoking". What a relief when a friend told me that there was a smoking room in Hyderabad airport, I was delighted. But then, I didn't have any cigarettes with me. I had around 5 hours to waste before my next flight was scheduled. I could have easily gone out of the airport, roamed the city, smoked a few and drunk some beer.

Well, those things are history, so I saved up so many calories, the local temperature was 30 degrees. So, I bought myself a McDonald's Happy Meal, which cooled me down (the Coke). There was a guy, who bought a Coke, and after one sip, realized that it was Sprite. I thought I would be witnessing a murder today. But the McD people replaced his Cold drink with his favorite brand without any fuss, probably sensing some danger, and that was enough to settle him down. I think, this can be a good advertising idea. :)

There was a kid, who wasn't too happy to see his food at the McD, but was just overwhelmed to see the toy that came with that meal.

I finished mine, and walked out. Now what???

Well, I walked towards the Departures, and tried to enter. The guard said that I was too early. He said that, he would allow me in, but later I will not be allowed to come out. I thought, for a moment, and inside the glass doors, I saw an advert saying, 45 minutes of free wi-fi. That was like, the TOY with the Value Meal. I said, I just had my lunch and I wouldn't need to come out.

Opened my laptop, and tried connecting to the wireless. Wasn't easy, but I always figure out these things. So, in 10 minutes I was logged into GTalk. I started conversation with a few, and after sometime, none of them were replying. Well, I have internet, but now, I can't chat, a dearth of online friend, where have they gone??? May be a bar, today's saturday, one of them has gone for a walk to the beach. :)

So, I thought, why not write a blog. It's been quite some time that I had written. So, I guess, I have used up the whole 45minutes of free braodband, and now I have to take out my Reliance NetConnect Broadband+.

Hold on guys, brb.