Idle musings

We continue to be in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. India experienced lockdowns with some relaxations in the time interval between 24-Mar-2020 and 31-May-2020. It seemed unbelievable that a country could be shut down for this duration, but all of us have lived through it. In the lockdown, a close friend suggested that I should write a blog post about the experience. I did think about writing about how our lives have changed, but since I was unduly optimistic, I thought that normalcy would return in three months or so ! I thought I could write looking back at the previous three months or so ! How wrong I was ! It has been now more than seven months since the first lockdown was announced and even now, the country is dealing with the pandemic, which slowly appears to be heading towards a semblance of control. The festival season is in progress now. I sincerely hope that there is no upward spike or second wave after this season. I see that people have become lax in using the mask in...

It was in 2004 that I purchased the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsig. I am a quality assurance professional since 1996 and continue to be extremely interested in my job ! I got to know that Pirsig's book was about quality. Naturally, it made me pick the book up. When I read the book for the first time, I must confess that I quickly skimmed through some of what I thought were the "boring parts" in the book. Since then, I have read the book again a few times. The book has grown on me, particularly the boring parts ! My latest reading started on or around Independence Day in India, i.e. 15-Aug. In the book, Robert Pirsig has described two journeys: one is a physical one, with his son and friends on motorcycles and on feet, hiking in the mountains. The other is a mental one where he explores different attitudes of people and discusses abstract concepts. In my first reading, the physical trip narrated in the book attracted me m...

It rained heavily in the afternoon on 05-Oct-2017 in Bengaluru. The web page www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/bengaluru-battered-and-bruised-by-record-rain/article19807256.ece   describes the effect of the rain on that day. The rain on that evening was 65 m.m., quite a lot for the month of October ! I work at Manyata Tech. Park. I use a Volvo bus service established by the Tech. Park to travel the 20 k.m. to work and back. In the morning, the bus comes at 7:45 a.m. and I usually reach Manyata by 8:40 a.m. The evenings are more of a pain: I usually take the 6 p.m. bus and I enter home at 7:50 p.m., typically. This means that I spend nearly 3 hours in the bus every day. Since I cannot change the location of my home, this is a routine that I am accustomed to, now. I feel dissatisfied sometimes, but by and large, I am OK with my work and the time spent on it. However, on 05-Oct-2017, my patience was tested. That afternoon, it rained heavily. At 3 p.m., I could see heavy...

    Like I do when I write all my blogs, I have a feeling that this one may also be long and about as exciting as watching the paint dry. In fact, this blog post is exactly about watching the paint dry ! We are getting our house painted. In this blog post, I shall describe what happened and what I have learned from the experience. First, some background :     The house that my uncle, mother, wife and I stay in will be 24 years old in March 2014 ! Our family has seen joy, sorrow, some sickness and its fair share of happiness in it. As spring settles in Bengaluru and the old trees in the roads and parks shed their leaves to don a new coat of refreshing green, it is apt that our house also has a new coat of paint both inside and outside ! My uncle stays in the ground floor of our house and it was he who pointed out that it was time for restoring and repainting our house.     The standard disclaimer applies : I have avoided names in this blog as...