Amreeki Rail

Departure was scheduled at 7:30am from Lafayette and it was supposed to arrive at Chicago at 10am. My intuition was right! Lafayette-Chicago ho ya Gorakhpur-Dadar... trains have to be late! Good that I booked a connecting bus at 2 and not 10:30 believing on the western efficiency!

We reached the station at 7 and saw no one! Not even an attendant. The entire station looked deserted. Then we realized where the waiting area was and to our surprise it was completely filled with people and supposedly we were the last to enter! The TC greeted us warmly and then told us that due to flood warnings (where we failed to see even a drop of rain anywhere!) the train had to reduce its speed by 10mph. With the American GPS technology, we instantly realized that the train was half an hour late. Finally it came at around 8:15 and I boarded!

Unlike what I had imagined (as shown in classics of 60s!) this train turned out to be a chair car. But it was spacious and comfortable. It started from Lafayette; I waved to Neeraj and fell asleep instantly. I woke up in around an hour and found the train was not moving. I heard an announcement that there is some switch failure and two people are working on it. Listening to this I dozed off. Another hour and I opened my eyes to realize that it’s still at halt. What was new to me that the train had a running commentary, where all they told us was that they didn't know anything, but these two people repairing a failed switch. What was this **** switch!!!! Nobody knew. Everyone was clueless. One more announcement told that there was a goods train over that switch, which is now moved and those two guys can now reach the switch! This made me realize that this so called switch.. is something which is outside, probably on the tracks... and not in our train!!! :P. A couple of more announcements acknowledged their efforts of fixing that switch on a Sunday morning!

What was different was this American manner of alleviating the restlessness by telling "Don't worry... everything gonna be fine... we are together gonna fix this honey!!" (Only the kissing part that usually follows was not seen)

Aisa hote hote finally it got fixed and the train moved. It was some 15 miles from Chicago and we heard one more announcement! "A second switch has failed! But don't worry, this time the people working on it exactly know what the failure is and they will fix it in couple of minutes!" WTH!!! That means previously they were clueless!!! But they did fix it in couple of minutes and we reached Chicago at 1:30.

In the meantime my mom was restless back in India and couldn’t sleep until that switch got fixed and I reached Chicago!

A Fundamental Question

I have a fundamental question:

Q: Why, in first place, human race came and settled at a place where for half a dozen of months its -25 degC?

...and then gradually they have developed technology to counter it!!!

They use tons and tons of salt, infinite fuel to clean the roads, remove the snow, infinite energy to keep the heaters on so that the ducts are not blocked, backup generators if electricity fails, backup stored fuel barrels if the backup generator fuel is finished. :P

Not only this, cars cost more as they should be equipped with heaters, cold start technologies, intruments to clean/scrub the windshields. This white snow also raises the insurance cost! Houses have to have an additional floor..below the ground.. the basement.. where people will feel warm and hibernate in winters... house cost increases!....... and much more!

.....and when it comes, the snowtime, these same set of people fly to warmer places like florida!!!! WTH!

The Equivalent MPG conundrum

Here's some Auto stuff..

This is the age of electric and hybrid electric vehicles. Every company is coming up with its HE (hybrid electric) versions of the cars claiming that they improve the fuel economy. Some numbers tell that the Prius has a fuel economy of 48 miles per gallon (mpg) on city cycle, Honda Civic hybrid was rated 40mpg whereas the latest hype is about Chevy Volt, claiming 60 mpg (combined mode) and 93 mpg (electric only mode).

The basic assumption lies in the fact that this equivalent fuel economy is higher because unlike normal vehicles, in HEVs or EVs less amount of gasoline is burnt. They had to find some way for comparing the fuel "burnt" as "electricity" (which produces no emissions) to the fuel that is burnt in conventional vehicles to come up with a number: miles per "gallons" (where there are really no "gallons" of fuel "burnt" in electric vehicles).

"To reach this number EPA created a conversion factor between quantity of electric energy (KWHr) and volume of gasoline (gallons). They did this by dividing the heating value of a gallon of gasoline by the energy in a KWHr of electricity to get a conversion factor of 33.7 gallons/KWhr." ..states the article below

But is this the right way to do it? Should they account for the energy losses in "preparing" that electricity? after all we should be concerned more towards reducing the fossil fuel usage rather than "increasing" the power train efficiency per se

..and if they do what are the new numbers? are they more realistic?

http://blogs.forbes.com/warrenmeyer/2010/11/24/the-epas-electric-vehicle-mileage-fraud/

This is a very nice article which sheds light on this issue. One of our profs shared it with us. You guys will find it interesting

Open to Interpretations!!

After having Pizza and Coke we headed to Central Campus for the midnight celebration. Me, Anish, Rohit, Vaibhav, Vineet and Yash with Yash having the control over the steering wheel reached central at around quarter to 12 (without taking any repetitive U turns or changing 2,3 lanes in one go). After having a tough time finding parking, we finally got one at some place which I don't know!!

As decided we headed to Grizlly's Peak Restaurant and Bar to see and be a part of the New Years celebrations. The restaurant was closed and bar was storming with people. Screens were put up which displayed live celebrations going at Times Square, NY. With a glass of beer in hand and chatting in a group of few, everyone was waiting for the stroke of 12, to see the famous ball drop, and to get insane in welcoming the new year.

It was going to be 1-1-11 within a minute and everyone including us started screaming the countdown. 5-4-3-2-1 and that was it! The ball dropped, couples kissed, singles danced, sane people became insane and drunk became the eye-catchers. The whole country and hence each and every single person at the bar welcomed the new year with immense enthusiasm! Music was put on, floor changed into a dance floor... and we, a group of 6.. stood in the corner and watched people!

And there she came, a blonde, not-so good looking, but.. guys.. a blonde! She approached us greeting.. "Strangers.. Happy new Year, Happy New year!!" We greeted the same adding to her enthu!. Then she directly approached one of us... aur uske balon se khelkar usko personally greet kiya... Happy New Year!!!! ...Wow!! Now that was unexpected.. we all were stunned and looking at that guy and imagining ALL what could have followed IF he had not jus stood there smiling! Bolta hai... "apna culture abhi tak bhoola nahi hu!"

This was not all. We came out. We were deciding.. Now where? She was there, that same gal, in a corner. And she approached us again.. Looking straight into the eyes of the same guy (I guess he is the most good looking amongst us!) she asked him if he had a lighter! He, along with one other guy.. smiled and said.. NO, we don smoke!!

She went away, opened her purse, pulled a lighter and lit her cigarette!!

We looked at each other, we looked at that guy, we smiled.. Happy New Year 2011.

The Graduate Student Dilemma: Part1

This is an interesting phase in every graduate students' life I guess. When we apply to universities for grad studies in the US we have no clue what we will be getting into. What we learn in the process of getting our prestigious degree named Btech or BE or BE(Hons.) we feel we have every possible knowledge of the respective field. Then we look at our projects and we mention that field in our SOP in which our maximum projects lie and quote names of some professors and a couple of their research papers (which sound interesting by reading their name!!). We get an admit, we feel we have conquered the world.. and we come to the US!

After coming here, everything is different! Professors are big shots in their field and batch mates range from people like us to married people having few years of industrial experience (in short Uncles). Seeing the variety of courses offered we get confused as to what to take and what not. Mostly in first sem we take courses that have funky names.. advanced powertrain controls, mechatronics and what not. During the course we get to know its nothing but math, only math: matrices, numbers and differential equations and ex tensive use of MATLAB!

Towards the end of first sem, we are in a process of selecting our next semester courses, and unknowinly we get our nam

es: controls guy, fluids guy, design guy etc. I am a controls guy! According to what kind of guy we are (which has nothing to do with bachelor's education ..gone are those days.. move on!) we start taking courses and start searching for internships for summers. Grad education suddenly feels expensive when we have to pay second sems tuition and we realise the fact that we got admit so that PhD students would get funded!! The "conquering the world" state of mind slowly fades away.We take up independent study projects with the sole hope of getting money some day!

Up till now we hardly know what we want to do. Seniors say, if you want to do a PhD, its better to stay and work for a prof in summers. If you want a job, get an internship and convert it. We say.. I don't know.. Let me keep my options open!

We fight, we attend career fairs, we apply to companies on the job portal and finally sooner or later we secure internship. Some profs tell their students to do a PhD and they will pay them.. such get converted into a doctoral student. Others fly to their respective company towns. (Some face a problem in their background/ DNA checks due to insufficient sample of hair etc, but even they fly one day! :P)

We say after internship, after getting some experience in the company/in a university lab, "I will be in a good position to decide what to do" and with this notion we start our third sem. Many people turn their heads off the PhD option as they either have converted their internships to full times or do not consider themselves as "PhD Materials", or have a greater vision of "starting up" something, or the sole reason is monetory. Some people like me are still confused and say.. PhD karni hai yaar, agar accha project mila to! Job as a back up to rakhunga! Ghanta backup! Excuse for having no vision in life!!

Coming next..... This decision / confusion phase comes from intense discussions on telephones during the summers! What happens next.. Stay tuned!

(*pics taken from PhD comics)

I have your Eclipse secured!!

Being an Automotive guy, being 20 miles away from Detroit and not going to the North American Auto show would the the dumbest thing on earth that i could ever think of! Everything was planned and me, Prasad with three other gals, Krutikka, Avani and Sofia decided to drive down to Detroit in Prasad's Coupe. Coupe is basically a two door 4 seater car where the people sitting on rear seats have to sneak in through a minute gap between the front seat and B pillar... Design doesn't make sense but the car looks sexy!

So after lunch we drove down to Detroit. GPS is a necessity while driving on US roads (There is no one on the road to ask for the way.. if you take a wrong turn.. so following the GPS lady is the most wise thing you can do!! ). We fixed the GPS holder on the windshield put the GPS into it, typed in the destination and got going. At the destination crowd was huge (in American sense.. don't compare it with crowd in Dadar Kurla local!!). We did not get space to park the car in closed parking (Mistake 1.. lack of patience shown in waiting for parking space.. ob.. we are mechites.. cute cars were waiting for us!!). We drove down a couple of miles form the destination and got a parking space on the road (anologous to P1, P2 in India) where we parked (Mistake 2!!.. never park on open roads in Detroit!). We were in a hurry, all excited, and made our third and final mistake.. took the GPS out, kept it in the glove box.. but forgot the holder on the windshield itself. (Mistake 3!!)

The exhibition was interesting, but what happened after that was more exciting. It was 6pm, pitch dark outside and chilling cold. After seeing all the models, satisfied and excited about the progress made by the auto industry, we started walking towards our car. Prasad and Sofia went ahead while me, Avani and Krutikka were a bit behind. It was foggy and we could only see the blinking headlights of the coupe. I was wondering why Prasad was not bringing the car ahead and picking us up rather than waiting at the parking spot for us to arrive. We din't know something was waiting for us there!!

As we reached I realised.. it was worse than I had thought. Up till now I had only heard "When you go to Detroit you HAVE to get mugged, not CAN or May Be.. but HAVE TO!!" Today I experienced it. The front window was shattered and our GPS and MP3 Player was gone!! And there was a note on the wind shield with a name and number on it. It said..

"I have your Eclipse secured"

We had no clue what it meant and we called on that number. A voice replied that he was a cop and was waiting for us at the spot. He has our MP3 player and called us at a lodge on M10 highway from where he would direct us to the police station. We decided that I and Prasad would head to him while the gals should take a taxi and go home. But as we reasiled that the taxi would charge $150 from Detroit to Ann Arbor it was a chorus.. GM!! chup chap peeche baitho!! :P

As Prasad was ready to head to that place, a second thought came to my mind.. what if he is not a cop and what if he wants to mug us?? Its risky! I proposed calling 911. Poora filmy hai na.. mein bhi waisa hi soch raha tha when Prasad was calling 911. Things got more interesting. We mentioned about the note to the police and even they had no clue what it meant nor they knew the name of the person mentioned. Further 911 told that there is no lodge or police station on M10!!! Now it was but natural to call them at the spot for investigation but we hardly had any clue where we were and hence we called them near the Auto Show building.

In the mean time that "eclipse"guy called thrice. Maine kaha.. koi cop itna to free aur concerned nahi hoga ki teen teen baar phone karega!! (Indian Mentality.. kya karu!) So we concluded that he is not a cop and started avoiding his phone.

We waited for long before the cops arrived. I got down the car so that they would notice me when Prasad made me realise that getting out of the car on the crime scene is not advised. They can straight away shoot me!! kya country hai bhai!! Exaclty as shown in movies they came sneeking from behind, ensuring we were not armored. After taking their permission, we two stepped out.

I handed the note to the cops. They had a look at it with fullest suspicion.. and to make it worse the saw blood stains on it!! They asked whose blood was it, I was speechless!! Bhai muze koi idea nahi tha!! Itne me Prasad came there and told them that it was his blood as he had cut himself while cleaning the broken glass. Furiously the reciprocated "Do you have any clue what it means to give a blood stained chit into a cop's hand!!!" Hamari to poori phat gayi thi.. Pahile se itne problems n now the cops are firing us!! WTF!!.

We apologised. They investigated, registered a report and told us to follow them. I thought there would be some formalities that are needed to be done at the police station untill I realised that we had reached an accident scene. Ab ye kya naya panga!! A cop got out of a car and approached us.... We were quietly staring at him as he was walking towards us. He came and.... handed me our MP3 Player!! Dude.. I realised.. this is not India bhai!! Cops are actually so much caring!! Before I got a chance to thank him he disappeared at the crime scene!!!! I was looking at the MP3 Player in my hands and then suddenly saw the words "Eclipse" carved on it!! It was its make!! :D :D

All of us laughed. We finally decoded what did that note meant! Driving back home on a highway at a speed of 70 miles/hr, with a window broken and -15 deg centigrade outside was in itself a different experience!

And above all that we were fortunate that the cops didn't realise that we were 5 ppl in a 4 seater car!!

Déjà vu

This could be a case of déjà vu for Pune. As swine flu cases are rising day by day in the city, the state government has enforced provisions of a 112-year-old law that came into force because of an epidemic during the British Raj. It was the year 1896 when bubonic plague had struck Pune. It was the worst period the city had ever experienced in its history. About 300 to 400 people used to die at a time and it was difficult task to cremate all the bodies. The act empowered the government to take any decision to control the epidemic. Powers included taking possession of suspected patient, controlling places of crowd and examining any individual or any place without permission from a legal authority. The appointed officers took advantage of the situation and used to humiliate, torture and beat people, including women, which led to unrest amongst the junta. That time Chafekar brothers came forward as saviours which lead to the assasination of Gen Rand and helped in bringing the situation under control.

This time its little bit different. We would not need any Chafekars to kill any Rand. Under the act, the officials can forcibly take suspect swine flu patients for screening — but it does not apply in the real context because anxious people themselves go to hospitals without doctors’ references. Just a sneeze and there is a sure visit to Naidu hospital (the only hospital where Swine flu is being treated).

It all started with the arrival of an exchange student from Chicago. Abhinav Vidyalay english medium school was the first school to report swine flu patients. Daily the positive cases were increasing rapidly with growing panic in Punekars, esp children.

There were two groups of people in Pune. One who felt there was nothing to get afraid as it is just another type of influenza and the other group was taking all sorts of precautions to prevent the spread. The former group came up with statictics like, the mortality rate is just 0.01%, and making people remember the outbreaks of more dreaded diseases like SARS and Chikungunya. But they failed to understand that the infective period of H1N1 is from a day before you can see the symptoms to 4 days after, with symptoms just same as normal flu and hence deceptive. At early stage it is curable by Tamiflu, a drug which has to be taken only when tested positive. If someone takes it as a preventive measure, then the virus can develop resistance to the drug increasing the chances of getting infected.

The nightmare worsened after the first death. The two prevaling groups started merging into the latter. Panic increased. One more hospital, Sasoon, was granted permission to check patients for the flu. More and more people started queueing up at these hospitals and the authorities started facing crunch of the medium in which swab was to be preserved. Although these two hospitals were not adequatly equipped the govennment was resistant in allowing private hospitals to do the testing. And without any permission private hospitals would never take a risk of dignosing any patient, esp after the first death.

The death toll is rising. Today the count is above 10, with age groups ranging from 9 months to 65 yrs. It is forecast that the virus would prevail for atleast a year after which it would make a sesonal appearance. Now a couple of private hospitals have been granted permission. There are preventive measures excersised by the citizens. Some of the household measures include- chewing 1 clove a day, inhaling clove oil camphor fumes, eating raw garlic, onion, ginger, drinking hot milk with 2 gms of turmeric, eating lots of vit C fruits and washing your hands thouroughly for atleast twents times in a day (as this virus remains active for 8 hrs and could be residing on hard surfaces like tables, door knobs newspapers etc).

Malls and roads are deserted. One can clearly see the difference ib the crowd on one of the busiest roads in Pune. There are hardly any people seen outside. and whoever is seen is seen with a mask on. N95 masks esp prepared for swine flu protection is not available in Pune. People are buying normal surgical masks for 10 bucks which were normally sold for a ruppee. Children are not permitted to go out to play. Schools are shut down for a week. Janmashtami celebrations in the city have been unanimously cancelled and people are taking care to avoid crowds.

As on one side we are gearing up for our beloved Ganeshotsav festival, with scluptures and decorations going in full swing, on the other hand people are apprehensive about carrying out this festival on public scale, just hoping that Vighnaharta will come our rescue.