Brief history of time: my edition

The flag...an entity that demands a lot of attention...an entity that demands and dictates a way of life...for us Indians it is a reflection of who we are...it is also a representation of the freedom we enjoy...this freedom that comes at great cost however...many a cop and many a soldier has died for a better tomorrow for us...the payback is very poor though even in today's times...we sometimes ta ke for granted the air we breathe because it has been 4 generations since we achieved freedom and few really relate to the great strife that got us there...there will be a day when we will look within and be forced to rise to the occasion as the challenge will come around the corner...lets hope that day is far away...have a happy Independence Day

Rani at her best…who doesn’t like to see the image of a one “man” army…even better when they are in khaki…I’ve been in Mumbai for the better part of thirty four and a half years now and there is not a speck of doubt in my mind that the most over worked and underpaid poor fellow in uniform is the simple but not ordinary cop…friends of the family have helped dad understand way back then why his son should not go to the rigors of joining the department in today’s challenging and slowly worsening times both at home and across the world…was it not yesterday that our boys in uniform had lathi’s in their hands on patrol while the trouble makers were using sophisticated automatics…the simple logic of a brave young officer decimated in duty…his wife and kids left behind to live a whole new challenge as a widowed family…who are not even called upon for follow up after the un-tolerably low “insurance” kicks in or some politician screws up on the officers much deserved hazard pay…life is t...

Space…the final frontier…these are the chronicles of ISS “M”…it’s been a while since we had a major scientific breakthrough…this one beats them all in terms of accomplishment…what can I say that hasn’t already been said…lets give each of the constitution of the scientific community their due respect…lets protect and defend their work…more than that lets understand the extra effort put up behind the space program…or pretty much any other program that our country runs…we are the kings of our own destiny it is said…in a time when every chip, resistor, capacitor came from outside, we started our little adventures into sounding rockets…today we have traveled a long long way in terms of our capability to assemble electronics and get it to work for us…don’t get me wrong…assembly is not a bad thing…the whole word does it…even the US…only their chips are a few generations ahead…most people asked how would one generate that big an antenna to handle the traffic…so they built the biggest ...

First DSLR picture ever by Mom....!!! 

Space...the final frontier...changed to...Airspace...the current frontier...every time i go to IITB i pick one of the aircraft models and fool around...this is the Light Combat Aircraft or as the guys who worked on it know it as "Tejas"...i guess its design time for the MCA next...hope the next generation of engineers learns from the successes and failures of my generation...if there is anything w e learnt while at ADA, its that nothing is impossible...the tools are out there...the engineers are out there...the only thing remaining is to put things together...and that's what was done...we hope to see in the near future rapid prototypes...given the lessons learnt on the Tejas were quite a few and very insightful...hoping every new generation brings many a "KH" to the fore front...its eventually the scientists that make the difference...and of course...ahem...the teachers in this generation who prepare the next one in what is more often than not a thankl...

For a telecommunications graduate or well post graduate...the words "bird" and "chirp" have a very special significance...specially when it has something to do with space...the satellites often come with neat names from our day to day life...anyways...the point being made here is that there is now one satellite at almost every 1 degree in space looking in any direction from the center of the earth...so in all this chatter trying to figure out who's saying what is a bit challenging...we observed that the concept of stealing data from a satellite comes with a cool tiny nano-satellite that docks on that bird of interest...this nanolite then relays all the frequency feed to its parent satellite...the ground stations then relay to a super computing farm...this decodes every single conversation and stores it in a highly compressed format (voice print plus phonetics)...the nanolite is so tiny that it does not even register a drop in momentum or addition of weigh...

Me with the pup...DSLR selfie...talk about photography extreme :)

Life is a set of patterns that one accepts as one's own in spite of the fact that the road is long and on any given day our past seven lives hold the keys to any days events...I kind of liken it to the approach from the IITB main gate to the department...life is grayscale when you look at it up close...but the true colors in the distance are what make life worth the "trouble"...I know I have been VERY difficult to get along with during the dark days...but then that's an experience by itself...thanks to all those who looked over my shoulders and smiled at every dumb thing I did...may the colors of Love, Life and a little bit of Literature shine on you in your journey...every life is a beautiful book...lets keep it that way and have a good read...! Happy New year to everyone :)

And it seems that what could not be done at new years was done today...!!! The TSEC reunion was incomplete without jham, vik and yash...however a 3.5 hour laugh riot with a surprise addition of oil baron Michael...and CTO Sangram...to the already distinguished list of Suril, Milan and Nirav along with the typist me :) If only the world knew these guys in their not so nascent form...they'd be surprised at how little some have grown up...most of the time was spent in explaining marriage to good old me...!!! We had a ball of a time...and we remembered EVERY single one of the TSEC crowd...thanks to facebook, linkedin and google...pictures included...!

Black and white with the HJT...this bird was HAL's baby project..."Sitara" saw two versions 2003 an 2004...lets hope the lessons they learnt on this project helps with the future "Make in India" ideology...from a tiny personal perspective...if "all we have to do is assemble the aircraft" is what you feel about these projects...haha...you are way out of your depth...in case you feel the urge to learn some history...you should visit the HAL museum in Bengaluru someday...you will learn how aviation in India went through its better and tough times...to most people who comment about tech in India and are outside our borders...please feel free to come home and start your own outfit to improve things...! The level of complexity in just aircraft communications is mind boggling...but then as a country that never even saw a HAM radio in an engineering college during our days...there is much hope to improve things...! and its not like you cant do it...guy...

Mr.Spock as the character was so named...half "vulcan" half "human"...one who had it in his destiny to see his mother planet Vulcan disintegrate before his eyes and to live...with his family being on Vulcan as it vanished...we as mortal humans on this grid...have it within us to at least "try" and understand all that is changing around us in nature...stuff being told to us in that silent language that she is so fond of...lessons of a lifetime that we can never relate to because we're too busy being "mankind"...!!! I'd say we have very little time left on this beautiful planet unless we change our ways...we are like the fungus on a flower that's eating the very flower that is feeding it without giving any back...!!! I'd say someday we are going to look at the earth differently...we will look at the sky...and it will have no answers for us...for we will have taken away too much...and those answers that will appear will not be ...

Visit to Hard Rock Cafe, Pune...first time to the cafe anywhere on this planet...i was lucky to be in the company of their top chef...its a treat to listen to the history of the place...the food available is a brief remembrance of my visit to the US...ambience was outstanding...good to be there on a weekday...weekends are very very packed...if someone has a birthday...the whole staff gathers together for a celebration dance...YMCA i think is the signature tune...! My friend listed the entire process from sourcing to quality and temperature checks of the food...! They actually have thermometers that measure the temperature of your food...the QA checks are so stringent that the whole order is junked if it is not to specification...and even then they have only a near ten percent maximum wastage policy...the orders are timed and they disappear from the pending list after a specific time...!!! Thank you Gary and Mangesh for a wonderful evening. :) This photo was in my phone for a ...

If the angels had a bank...they'd call it the sun...if they could speak...they'd be singing...and if i type too much here they'd probably take me away :) I have "noticed" that the weather is getting warmer in town...a bit everyday...a byte a week...a megabyte a month and a gigabyte a quarter...and there is nothing we can do...well given that mankind has taken away the very clothes that dressed this planet...tree cover gone for buildings and roads...the arteries and veins gone as seas and rivers polluted...half the life forms gone never to return because we wanted to sharpen our arrows and "practice" our bullets...and the idiots say "ooh its so warm out here"...to accelerate things we reproduce like there's no tomorrow...saala neeche se mat socho...upar se socho...! from the creators perspective...its just a game...one he can shut down if he wants to at any time of the day...we're just plastic beings in glass jars on this grid....

Photo by Sanjay Mohite ...over the years he has been lucky to have well wishers help him with photography equipment...i wish him all the luck with what was initally just a hobby for a simple boy...today maybe even the beginnings of a profession...! Way to go Sanju. Photo taken @Aero Dept. IITB...!

This is a must read for everyone who uses the internet or any other communications medium for their day to day life...from a wannabe communications analyst perspective...its a 101 for electronics warfare newbies...like I've said a million times before...if you can't trust the communications gear...you can't go to war...! But after reading this one...i'm going to modify that line to if you cant trust your communications gear...ha ha...you're not sleeping are ya...! everyone is profiled at some point or the other...the fun part starts when the profile is used against you by state actors...or even worse non-state actors apparently working for the state. Trust a tortured and mutilated soul when he says that these actors will not listen...mostly because they have their heads so far up the flag pole they can't see light of day...by the time they realize what they've done they are usually looking at a bill the size of a hurricane or two...as the idiots acros...

http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/02/f35-delays-sentience/ "Eliza" to the n-th degree of intelligence and the first thing that happens is she goes self aware :) making a world closer to the terminator series eh...sky net coming to the table to play ? found this a funny read....don't know what the idiots will come up with next...!!! if they have anything to worry about it would be ET coming around the bend with an intent of showing mankind why its going to go extinct...gave the human fools a planet to look after and see what they did with it...i mean in this matrix where no one is technically going anywhere...what is the point of one-up-man-ship...anyways...i believe in the code...i've seen it run all my life...more so these last few years than childhood...then again the puzzle books from the Garden Book stall at Chembur did have a beautiful page or two when i was about five...been a while...thought i'd say hello to the old man...but he isn't around an...

It is not every day that I travel between two of Maharashtra's two favorite cities...Mumbai and Pune...however on a day like yesterday when the express-way was closed and it was raining cats and dogs in the ghats...there was a point when I considered turning the car around and going back to Pune...just then I saw a traffic cop standing in the torrential rain guiding the traffic...not without reason...maybe just a little faith...I decided to continue toward Mumbai...for sure they were on duty and for sure they were around every 250 meters give or take some...it took a lot longer than usual...but they were there none the less...throughout the length of Lonavala and the entire NH-4 ghats...we inched toward our destination and I think if it were not for these guys I'd have been stuck in the ghats for a dozen hours or even a day easily looking at the volume of traffic...I take this point to thank the guys form Mumbai/Pune/Maharashtra in the traffic service or otherwise in unif...

It is not every day that greatness is born...it is also not every day that greatness is followed...in this case both are true...Kalam Sir and all those who followed him, his books, his technical and non-technical writings and his speeches...we all need to take a minutes silence to pay our respects to him...and maybe...just maybe...we need to work even harder to prove his point that the next gen can change things for the better...today...we need not even count the number of lives touched by this scientific leader and the countless numbers that will stand in respect for this man’s journey to heaven...they can call it a state funeral...a folded flag...a twenty-one gun salute...however I think it is the start of a new revolution for this generation...or well those who take it as their mission...let’s try to see if we can wake and take this country to that page in history where his ideals and his vision of 2020 can be realized...it’s going to take a lot of work to make it by 2020...o...

The Deccan Queen...commissioned June 1 1930...I travelled on this mighty steel queen after a good 20 years last weekend...its a delight to relive the wonder years when we used to go to Pune for every school vacation...i still hang around the same place...the coffee is still good and the cutlet is still served with buttered bread...20 years and the service is still excellent...the serving chap didn't even take any money while delivering the food...said "baad mein le lenge saab"...and given all the possibilities of things going weird in terms of train delays...she left Mumbai on the dot and reached Pune on the dot...the compartment got a bit crowded after Karjat as apparently the ticket holders can board at that junction...but I had a window seat and the "drive" was totally rain green through the ghats...the rivulets of rain water running down the mountain sides...the Indian Railways can take a bow...a train well kept :)

From this end of the matrix...Happy Diwali to everyone...three little cubs including me took a vacation in a village near "Belagavi"...didnt know the name had changed...! :) Thanks for a wonderful visit and wishing all the crew of SpiceJet a good time for not making a "cub sandwich" out of me during my air travels :)

Tolerably intolerable...in the long list of award returning and medal burning...it seems we should start with basics...the army, navy and air force should no longer tolerate pakistani bombing and shelling...teachers should no longer tolerate having to pass students who have failed their class...doctors should no longer tolerate disease and illness...lawyers should no longer tolerate the unjust and obviously unfair practices that allow clients to get away with all including murder...the administration should no longer tolerate the corrupt...the farmers should no longer tolerate the middle men fleecing them of their produce...and so the list of tolerably intolerable things is a bit long...normally i would not comment on a topic as hot as this one...but then hotness is decided today by the writers a bit more than the common man on a normal day...for decades we have been tolerably intolerant...i believe that the institution of the top office of the country is in need of protection......

At Rucha's birthday

Travelled to Haridwar for the weekend...spoilt brat me flew business class...and so did my family (aunts)...and stayed at the Radisson who did an outstanding job of looking after us...I have never seen a river so pure...and clean enough to see the blue waters of the river as it rippled by...attended the Ganga aarti at 6:30 am and finished my tour of duty with what I had set to accomplish...then went on to Rushikesh to see the Laxman Jhula...there is so much history behind this place...it was good of us to allow for a guide who took us around the various temples...saw the one faced rudraksha for the first time in my life...did some shopping for my family...returned to Haridwar...saw more temples there and then finally came back home just the way we had gone there. The reason i write this is that i appreciate the town of Haridwar and its people for being simply wonderful toward tourists...they know that tourism is their bread and butter so they tend to look after them quite well...

I can imagine reaching for Mars...i can also imagine one giving one's last breath for his country's freedom...i can imagine people now talking about cleaning up the rivers and seas...i can imagine the corrupt hand being forced to finding that the system will cut it off...i can imagine a country going so far as to measure it's bad debt to finding out the reason for its poor currency...i can imagine a populace being slowly awoken from their slumber into thinking that they can start up stuff in India...there seems to be a pace being set at the top office in the country and there is for once hope that there may be more challenging days...not better days but more challenging days...days that will force us into thinking...a talent so lost in the Indian young that the once lost world of basic sciences is now thinking about sensors and equipment that would help build electronics...the guys are actually thinking about trying to understand mathematics at college level...its...

The Original Seven Bungalows-1950's [1] Kaikei Villa, [2] Talati Bunglows [3] Rus Cottage [4] Jasbir Villa  [5]Gulistaan [6]Vijay Bhawan [7]Shanti Nivas The round seven bungalows garden-named 'DN garden' in memory of Dadabhoy Nawroji's bungalow which was near, can be seen as a round lake- the present day 'nana nani' park(which was built later in 1990's) was a long line of coconut trees (seen as 3 lines of coconut trees) in front of the bungalows. The huts near the lake (now garden) were occupied by East Indian Christians,many of whom are still staying in same place but in high rise buildings salt pans(to the right) and tidal area were covered by high tide ,upto 4 bungalows .(in case of a tidal wave or tsunami in the future it may be covered by water again,because it is below sea level) The two isolated huts seen in front of the lake near the salt pan were later in 1980 bought by Raheja builders and made into spring leaf so...

HOLI-DAY :)

IPhone 6S activated with a 4G Sim...i'd say all in all a good way to start the day...all thanks to Pallu tai...Both Rekha and Sheila Kaki's...your love for me is unbounded...now that I have activated it...I have no idea of what to do with it :) I usually use a phone for sms and calls...internet rarely is on during the day simply because Whatsapp keeps going beep every ten seconds in office and personally though its a cool app i'd rather not have it do that...!!! Looking forward to using this phone in some unknown yet ways...anyone having suggestions for cool apps please let me know...the snap is taken from my old Sony and its "giving me" those looks saying "you're going to throw me away ain't ya"...to which i have to say "old faithful...you're now backup...not primary :)"

They said we are a country of elephants and snake charmers..."fine" by me...they said we have such a weak economy...okay point taken....maybe the dollar etc. are "stronger"...some said no to our joining the suppliers group...just "perfect"...at times some called us brown skin "losers"..."cool" with that too...the one mistake they made is that they brought technology into this world...so now that they have created the monster...who's going to tame it...? we asked them...seems they can't...so they had to sell their chips and components to bigger and wider markets...so that they could make us dependent on that drug called technology...guess what we were hooked...and it hit us in a better way than ever before...twenty satellites in one go is no minor achievement...it is our polite way of saying thank you for everything you said we could NOT do...for the shipments of chips and components you thought you could stop through sanct...

Tejas...its been a while since Bengaluru...what started out as the first assignment away from home in Mumbai...with all the lab hardware just lying around and no one using it...we started our work in all earnest a whole six months after joining ADA...embedded systems were not a new thing...neither was programming to me...however to write code for a program as intense as the Light Combat Aircraft...its a whole different ball game...the guy who led our part of the project left six months after i joined ADA...so all the responsibility fell on the team to take things forward...we were given basically black boxes to begin with...and they were literally black in color...so the first question asked was "ye karta kya hai"...or well "what does this do"...so the chief took his time to explain the dream to us...he was a scientist 'F' at the time...and he could have chewed us up for asking "dumb" questions...but anyways...he was a great guy...under his l...

And so we decided to attend Gaurav's wedding in Nagpur...much to Zameer's resistance we eventually flew to Nagpur...the trip was surrounded by cloudy weather...but thanks to God...no rain...we were received at the airport by Manish and put up at the service apartments booked for all wedding guests...the journey was outstandingly quick...the wedding was beautiful...everything was prim and proper...the ceremony was done in the traditional way and we had our fill of starters early on in quantities that had us almost skip lunch :) Tried to sync up with Vivek so i could catch up on old times...but that was not to be...we wrapped up quite late into the night...Gaurav's family looked after us very well...bumped into Manoj at the wedding reception...we met up after almost four years...he was...is...and will remain the bright kid we picked him up as at KPIT...he dropped us back late into the night and to the airport too the following morning...went home to see Myra wagging h...

We went looking for food on a weekend...Baner was congested in terms of traffic...it was almost backed up two kilometers toward town...so we decided to abandon the original plans and arrived at the decision to take our stomachs for a ride to New-Yorkers in Hinjewadi...knowing full well that he worked there and would look after us very well if he knew we were coming...we ordered food and were generally chatting up when in walks Mangesh...takes a look at my cousin sis and says hello as he has met her in the past...and walks by our table...then turns around...has one look at me and tells the entire staff "is table ka bill nahi banega" or basically "dont bill this table"...!!! We had a good lunch and dessert...they are apparently waiting to expand the lounge and improvise on their liquor offerings...the food is great and only after making a deal with Mangesh that Gary and me would return for free food did he accept that it was ok for us to pay the bill...!!! I wis...

Freedom of speech it seems...In a country that cannot protect the families of those who are serving from the media irrespective of the force much less protect their own force...i'd say lets reverse the game...let's get that Gabbar into play...no hard feelings...but i kinda liked the movie...i guess it would be a great idea to get the chats and talks of their most private discussions and then put them out for every ear to hear...after they have been put into that very situation that the forces have been put into stone for stone and word for word...i'd say take their philosophy and shove it down their own throats...there should be no mercy...the force is not to be messed with [sounding a bit jedi here!]...let's not fight it out...let's Gabbar it out :) We have suffered greatly trying to protect idiots that are not worthy of our protection...and i feel this could be best done by sending the idiots forcibly to uncomfortable remote corners of the country ju...

Let it not be another year gone by...let it not be another day of only pinning that flag to your jacket...lets make India a better country...lets help the people who want to leave...leave...officially at government levels...!!! Lets cherish the one's that want to stay and lets get on with making a better part of this planet...we have been divided too long...lets clean up the mess...on a war footing...as they say in the army...war helps bring out ones true character...and experience can be a cruel teacher...well i'm not army...have not yet reached that level of patience...not yet :) but the future could be better...!!! There was an opportunity once way back to go work for a certain government outfit...however being the Indian version of "jack reacher" was not to be...not because it could not be done...because the cases being dealt with are so severe that one's mental balance is often affected...so i guess dad had a "simpler" life in mind for...

We have a tolerant mind set...always have had it...but this should not be tested and is never to be messed with...most people have no concept of how difficult the terrain is in those regions and meeting a human soul in that cluster of mountains is itself difficult...sadly our boys have to clean up terrorists in that inclement geography...I'm very happy that the Paki's think we killed only 38 idiots...I bet they got that figure from our press release rather than their own intel who probably can't count right now...!!! We've been screaming that there is a need for intervention across the board...and no one was listening because it was not their house being attacked...even after finding the most wanted terrorist in the world in the frigging middle of their country...!!! Today I am very happy to say that the defence minister is for one an engineer (IITB) and one with a bite bigger than his bark :)...the team finally used their heads for the right fight rather than onl...

Demonetization...hot topic...its been a while since our country's currency was last devalued by about 30+% in a single day...let me guess...by the then ruling party administrator...given the many scams in the past decades...the poor chaps at the economic offences wing (EOW) being totally under-staffed, under-equipped and under-paid for the investigations that they do, someone I knew once told me that there is a line below which the scams though listed on the black board are never investigated because it was too many in number and not enough people to complete the investigation...! I seriously pity the investigative team here because we the common man will never understand the pains of that department...this department should be credited with the catches of many lakh crore scams in the past decade but sadly today we have lost complete faith in their abilities to do their jobs...in one stroke the current administrative leader of our country has forced a record of all possible c...

Milan, Hemang, Sachin, Nirav, Yashodhan and self...TSEC get together 2016 Christmas break

Name on the cake says a lot about the friends that hang around you...happy birthday Sumit!

So i got an upgrade at work...but it came with a condition...i am now software team leader at Lear...had to go to Germany for a week for knowledge transfer...I have to admit Germans are a wonderful lot...flew direct to Munich...went to the wrong terminal at the airport and couldn't find the way out...so after passport control went to the Lufthansa counter only to see my bag being dragged into the unclaimed luggage all within less than 25 mins from landing...all that efficiency we hear about...i experienced it !!! :)...after collecting my bags went to the hotel...being in a country far far away is one thing...but having old friends in the same city as the one your'e going to is quite another thing...meet Nikhil...old pal and former Lear employee...i got his number in a single ping on messenger and he was most gracious in showing me about the BMW vault and taking me to lunch too...so i spent most of my week at work and at the hotel...knowledge transfer from Michael was qu...