29 July
2013
29 July
2013
Fixing brother’s car..
28 July
2013
“Cha Singara” (Tea and Samosa)
28 July
2013
My tiffin box!!
Found this while rummaging thru my mom’s kitchen!! This was my “tiffin box” (my daughters call these “lunch box”es) – in fact my only tiffin box in my entire life. My dad bought me this in 1972 when I was kindergarten. I used it till 1983 (tenth grade)!!!
The original bright blue color is all but faded off. Amazingly, the “Ranjit” sticker is still there – well, some part of it is.
This was my best friend from 10:35 to 11:00 am every school day. Lunch was invariably a boiled egg, bread and a banana. And on special days, a sweet.
Atish, if you are reading this post, you probably remember how often we used to exchange my boiled egg for your “lobongolatika” !!!
On some days, during after school hours, this tiffin box also doubled up as a cricket bat !!! A tree for a wicket, tiffin box for a bat and a “cambis” ball… and we would keep ourselves endlessly occupied till our pickup bus would come. The tiffin box still has pockmarks from some of those wicked shots!!!
That one really pulled me a few decades back… and I am amazed at our parents value system of not considering anything to be too old to be used!!!
28 July
2013
Cloud computing – it works like magic!! Sorta kinda :-)
Impressed the heck out of my nephews and niece by showing them a magic. All they had to do is type a word in my iPhone (in the Notes app) without showing me – in fact I would hide in the next room so that I could not see it. Of course, I was sitting there with my iPad watching the Notes app synch and show me the word on the iPad immediately !! 🙂 A few dramatic moves and abracadabra later, I had their jaws falling in awe as I “telepathically” blurted out their word !! 🙂
I betcha Steve Jobs never thought of this application of his products!!!
My smarty-pants 9-year old nephew thinks he has cracked it. He believes I am Googling “What is Rishu typing?”. He is going to be very disappointed when he grows up and truly realizes what the Internet can or cannot do 🙂
28 July
2013
Zoomed pic for previous post
28 July
2013
Question for my friends in India
Can you help me with this?
Since the crack of dawn, my brother, dad and I have been sitting outside and enjoying the world slowly waking up. As we watched the rain soaked trees, buildings, birds and so on, we noticed something in the next building that we could not explain.
See the black, grill like overhang structure just outside the AC unit in the picture? It seems to be bolted onto the sill above. What on God’s green earth is that? What is the purpose?
My brother and I cannot seem to crack it.
Do you know? That is a AC unit, is it not?
27 July
2013
Music with sister
27 July
2013
If only every afternoon was this way…
… also called “Fuchka bibhrat”.
Not sure how to introduce the concept of “fuchka” to anybody uninitiated in this delicious snack. But if you have ever seen “Gol gappa” or “Pani Puri” in an Indian restaurant, you will know what I am talking about. It is sold on the roadside under highly suspect hygienic conditions. However, the taste trumps all and religiously my brother, sister, brother in law and myself go ever evening to a nearby roadside vendor here in Kalyani and partake of about 10 of those or so.
This afternoon, everybody was sleeping except my brother, brother in law and myself – so, for over two hours we debated extensively around the whole business model of selling “fuchkas”.
Essentially, we needed to estimate total revenue and margin levels. My brother and I were on two extremes and my brother in law was desperately trying to avoid taking any sides.
The analysis was intense – we had to get a scale (ruler) to estimate the volume of a “fuchka”, estimate how many “fuchkas” a standard size potato would fill, the size of the full container the vendor brings. We even applied time and work estimates around statistical distribution of customer flow, average serving time per “fuchka”, overlap period of one customer eating and the next customer being served. Finally, we had to review the formulas for volume of a frustum of a cone (his container), a sphere (“fuchka”), packing factor and so on.
After so much of precision, my brother and I came miles apart in our answers 🙂 I have 75% gross margin on average sales of 600 “fuchkas” per day with a revenue of around Rupees 2,25,000 per year. My brother came at 50% gross margin on average sales of 1500 “fuchkas” per day with a revenue of around Rupees 6,00,000 per year. Both of us agreed that the full container has around 2000 “fuchkas” when totally filled.
Finally we called truce over a cup of tea and agreed to ask the vendor this evening what his real numbers are. I am highly suspicious if he keeps any real accounts though!
It was a great way to spend some stress free quality time with my brother and brother in law though 🙂
You want to take any guesses?
27 July
2013
Ami ekhon boro hoey gechhi (“Now I have grown up”)
Broke every rule, convention and socially accepted behavior today and went out to run in heavy rains in Kalyani. And dragged my brother with me too!! In fact, we had dressed up for our run and then waited till the rains would start before getting out.
All those years of childhood that our parents would not let us play in the rain…. today was the day we had been waiting for to take our revenge together…. Parents kept complaining (the usual “Thanda legey jaabey” – you will catch a cold) – but now we are grown ups. So we could afford to ignore them!!!
It was just too liberating to be able to feel the heavy rain falling on our skin as we ran 8K in the empty roads. Everybody and sundry was staring at us from the shops, houses etc as we weaved thru every single street possible in the neighborhood. We also stopped at a tea stall where multiple people offered to give us a dry spot to sit in – but we just stayed in the rain and enjoyed our tea.
Finally, came back home and simply sat down in the rain for half an hour. My ever concerned sister got us some steaming tea again!!
Sitting in that rain together with my now grown up brother making idle chit chat we asked ourselves – What good is growing up if we cannot decide not to grow up? 🙂
“Ami tobu chhoto-i hobo, seta-i amar ambition” (“I just want to stay a kid and that is my ambition”)
