Joy

Oh joy, come in the form of an Avalanche and bury me in your beauty and your grace. Once again, peace has returned to my soul, under blue sky and golden sun, green grass and grey hills. I am whole and healthy and beautiful again.

Oh joy, come into my heart, fill it up and overflow the rim, drive out guilt and fear and sadness, wipe away my sorrow and bring to me the hope and cheer that are so integral to my health.

Oh joy, the wind is chilly and makes me shiver, but inside me is a warmth that cannot die. Burn a fire bright and let me be as I was before, the one with the spark, the one who could multiply joy for all the world to share.

It is a cruel, harsh, discontent society of people with whom we live, but there are those who have experienced light, who have felt joy, who know the spirit of happiness. Let not us few be forsaken, let us be brought together again, that the world may be peaceful and beautiful again. that we may each be cheerful, reinforce cheerfulness and share with each other the gifts we have.

There are many gifts in the world, each has at least one to give. I know I have several! Let me remain whole and healthy and strong and beautiful. I have been charmed, let this charm glow forth.

(Dedicated to MWC, the one who walks in light)

Magnesium Blue

I got a new laptop recently. It performs well, and it's an attractive, sleek device, with a lid of a deep metallic colour that the company labels as magnesium blue. I never gave it much thought, until today morning, when the protective plastic cover came off, and I could see the blue in all its brilliant glory.

What is magnesium blue? The term doesn't make sense. Magnesium is a silvery white metal; it tarnishes easily in air, reacting with nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water; it burns with a white light, and its compounds are typically white crystals (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium ). So where does the blue come in?

Actually, Google Search will be a good friend to you here. What is called "magnesium blue" or "Mag Blue" is really a proprietary blue paint mix owned by a Japanese company called RAYS Engineering. This company makes, amongst other things, wheels for racing cars. "Mag Blue" is a colour option they offer for these wheels. Check it out: http://www.rays-msc.com/wheels/index.cgi?d=10

What does this have to do with magnesium? Nothing at all. Magnesium is just a fancy qualifier to help us visualize the metallic quality of the colour.

You know those experiments they like to show kids in middle school, where you take a flower of one colour and put it in a jar containing water with some drops of coloured ink mixed in, so that the flower eventually adopts the ink colour? This is somewhat like that. It's like they took the silvery magnesium to provide the metallic finish, and added in titanium and iron to get the bluish hue (that's how we get blue sapphire - titanium and iron impurities in corundum).

So we've probably defenestrated the chemistry, in a very decisive manner. And as a reminder, we have that lovely shade, equal parts beauty and irony, called magnesium blue.

True Beauty

Rabbits scamper. The breeze blows strong, bringing ever more clouds above my head as I walk home, bringing the exciting threat of rain. It's so strong it might carry me off with it. I have indeed lost weight in the past six months. 

The sun is hidden behind the clouds, but a few fingers escape from the west to light up the east, where it is clearly raining in the distance, and a bright rainbow has formed on the horizon.

The first couple of drops fall, the first fulfillment of the promise. I give up trying to keep my hair in place, it's no use, the wind must have its way. I reach home, and my ears begin to hurt - the change in sound is so sudden and so drastic.

The blinds are open, but the sky is so dark, that even at this time of evening, I need to turn the lights on. I cooked the previous evening, so I can enjoy the weather today. I heat up my food, pull out a refreshing green bottle of Reed's Original Ginger Brew, and lean back on the couch.

It begins to drizzle. The drizzle becomes a downpour, and the downpour becomes a storm. I have never seen rain like this in this country. Huge drops hitting the ground so hard the ground might be groaning with pain.

I open the window, mesmerized by the magic of the night. It is dark enough now to justify calling it night. The ground is covered as though it were the beginnings of a flood - so much water is being bestowed by the skies. Little streams form and run towards the nearest drain. I might have been in Mumbai, had there not been this efficient a storm drain system.

Hard sounds become harder. This is no ordinary rain. It is now hailing; the first wave of hail becomes water as soon as it touches the ground, but the next wave retains its icy structure, and pretty soon the ground is covered in ice, piling up in high ground and flowing with the streams in lower ground. I feel for the cars left out in the open to battle the weather.

The hail is relentless. The pipes from the roof are right outside my window, collecting precipitation from the roof and guiding it to the lips of the thirsty earth. They sound like they are being broken, so intense are the little chunks of ice now hurtling from above.

And then the first roar of Zeus. Such power! Hera must have joined in for today's journey.

With every roar comes a flash of the white whip. It's close enough now that it seems the whip might strike the ground. If it did, we would receive the gift of fire, and Prometheus could cease his labours. 

I press myself against the window, toying with the idea of walking out into the night. Just for a second, maybe. Just for a moment, so that I can experience for myself the might of Nature. Such terror, such force, such strength!

We cower in the presence of one more mighty than ourselves, but at the same time there is a strong attraction to such a one, a strange fascination both beautiful and terrible.

On the thunder roars. On the lightning flashes. On the wind howls. On the rain lashes. On the hail clatters. On and on does Nature display her majesty. No thunderstorm is like any other.

And as slowly as it approached, so gracefully does the storm fade away to the mountains of the west. We've had our turn, and now it's time for others to witness Nature's exquisite grace.

Best Flight Attendant Ever

This was the flight on Southwest Airlines from Denver to Los Angeles.

"The cabin lights will now be dimmed for the duration of the flight. If you need to turn on a reading light, use the button above your head - it's the one with the picture of a little hairy lightbulb on it. If you press the button with the picture of a flight attendant on it... we will not be turned on."

Plenty of such goodies the entire flight. So awesome!

The Delivery Guy

It's an age where, at least in the United States, pretty much anything can be delivered home. All the way from pizza, through dinner, into groceries and upto furniture. You don't ever need to step out of the house, everything can be brought, either free for for a fee, right upto your doorstep. Even services are to be had right at one's doorstep - the cable company, the plumber, the electrician, the carpenter, the car mechanic - you name them, and they are there for you, just a phone call away.

Most stuff can be done online, and when it can't be done online, it can be done by someone coming to your home, to do the job for you.

I had food delivered today for lunch - why? Because I'm lazy. The reason is not important. The food will last me three days, because apparently, I eat like a bird (pecking away at stuff rather than engorging on it, but whatever), but that isn't important either. What matters is I made a phone call, and somebody brought food home for me.

That somebody was a guy. I've had and seen tons of stuff delivered all over the place, and here's the thing that gets me - it's always a guy. I've never seen stuff delivered home by a girl. The pizza delivery - by a guy (and I've been eating pizza for about ten years now). The food I order - delivered by a guy. The furniture I ordered - delivered by two guys. Even UPS and Fedex deliveries - I have always seen guys driving the trucks.

Why are there no women doing these jobs? How is it always a guy? I mean, it's possible that they are out there, that some pizzas are delivered by girls, but are they so rare that I am yet to see one?

Even in the movies and TV shows, it's always guys who make the deliveries. The only time it's a woman is when some company is trying to sex up its ads, and hence show a hot model doing the delivery job.

Here's a clue - women tend to show up disproportionately as waitresses and receptionists. I'm yet to see a male receptionist - either in the movies or in real life - and I tend to see a lot more female servers than male ones in restaurants. In movies, the servers are almost always female.

I'm not paranoid enough to go reading too deeply into this, but it is an interesting trend nevertheless.

Why I Love Being An Engineer

Because... it's awesome.

So, I have this bathtub in my apartment, and there is only one outlet from it into the main drainage channels. This outlet has a stopper, which is screwed in, and which can be pulled up to create an opening for water to flow out, or pushed down to let water fill into the tub for a nice, warm soak.

The opening below the stopper isn't large, it's about an inch or so in diameter, and has a floor shaped like a plus, so that water flows through the four holes into the main drain. It started clogging whenever I showered some time back, although it only became really noticeable last week.

Now of course, any kind of clogging is completely unacceptable in a bathroom. I went out and bought a plunger, thinking there might be an air bubble or something stuck somewhere, although that scenario is more common for a toilet than a bathtub. Still, you never know.

It didn't help. It took me about a half hour of trying to realize that. I already suspected the real cause, but I guess I didn't want to acknowledge it until then. I also wasn't sure that the stopper could be unscrewed, but I didn't have anything to lose by trying, now did I? So I put away the plunger, and began to turn the stopper one way. Sure enough, it unscrewed, and there it was. My suspicions were justified.

Hair. Lots and lot of hair. I started to pull it out, and it just kept coming! Had I really lost so much hair in six months, just in the shower? Surely not all of it could be mine. It wasn't just stuck in the accessible portion of the outlet; when you have that much hair, and six months of soap and shampoo and cleaner flowing down the drain and getting trapped in that hair, it all gets slimy and sort of stuck together. So once I started pulling out the hair, it just kept coming.

It took me three sheets of paper towel to fully pull out all the hair that would come. I was pretty sure not all of it was mine, because out came a rather long piece of plastic, wrapped up in the hair, but which definitely didn't land up in the drain due to me. At any rate, I was able to clean out and unclog the thing, and sure enough water flowed freely after that.

But think about the situation, and how different it would have been, had I not been myself. Some people would have just called the building management or a plumber, since they couldn't be bothered to solve the problem for themselves. Some people would have made a half-hearted attempt, just for the sake of it, and then called for help. Some people would have been able to isolate the problem, maybe even unscrewing the stopper, but then refused to dirty their hands to pull out the hair. I had none of these problems.

That's partly due to my training as an engineer - solve the problem. It's also due to my upbringing as a child of scientists - understand what's happening. And finally, it has to do with my ego, my attitude and my self-reliance - do what it takes and do what you can.

Turns out, understanding what's happening helps you figure out a solution to the problem, and doing what it takes, or at least what you can, actually helps get stuff done. And, as it turns out, we are actually capable of doing a LOT. We just don't realize it.

Random Conversation: Hablo Espanol...

"Ola."
"Hello."
"Como estas?"
"Bien, gracias!"
"Hablo espanol?"
"Pokitos..."
"Ah... where are you from?"
"India."
"You look just like someone from Mexico. Do you work here?"
"Yes, I just started working here."
"You look like you're seventeen. Well, this is my stop, so I have to go, but it was very nice meeting you!"
"And you, too! I hope you have a good day today!"
"Thanks, and I hope you do too, senorita!"

I need to learn Spanish.

Simple Joy

My train station is a quiet little place near my home; while the world flies around it, people come and go, and there are moments where it is indeed so still that even a gentle breeze can be heard to whisper. Even during the day, these quiet moments are to be had, and they are mine for the taking, if I am so lucky. Fortunately, trains have timetables, and that helps too. 

Take for example, the four minutes that exist on weekday mornings between 8:38 AM and 8:42 AM. At 8:38 AM comes the train going north to Downtown, and it picks up everyone on the station. Because everyone is going to work, to Downtown where the work is, in the morning. I am one of the lucky few that needs to go south to work. I may be joined perhaps by one or two other passengers going south in the morning. So, for the four minutes until 8:42 AM, when the train going south will come by, I am usually alone on the station. Alone with my lover, the wind.

Of course, these four minutes are also the best time to sing Caribbean Blue by Enya out loud on the station, where I am in full public view and hearing and yet nobody might see or hear me. It's my own little secret, thrown open to the world and yet hidden. It's sweet and yet sad. And strangely, it's a simple little joy.