Just Musing

Friends,

                       Years come and go like the Year 2012 that has just passed by, perhaps, leaving behind not so pleasant memories. But, let’s say goodbye to 2012 now and welcome a brand New Year 2013, which, I hope, will not be a 'repeat performance' of the recent past. Well, there’s no medicine like hope, no incentive so great and no tonic so powerful. There’s always some light at the end of the tunnel; so, let’s keep moving forward and hope for the best. Let each day of the coming year bring you all happiness, reason enough to celebrate and cheer and may you all have a great year and wonderful time throughout the next year!

                Since my schooldays, I have always been fascinated by various kinds of machines, specially the so-called vending machines. I don’t know why vending machines are not so common in our country as in some other countries like UK, USA and Japan. When I went to U.S, I found the vending machines were  so conspicuous everywhere,  right from the Airport and Bus Stations to NEC where I had gone for training, in the factories I visited in Chicago or even in the Guest House where I stayed for a week at Oak Ridge. In the United States, the vending machine is generally meant for selling food items like burgers, snacks like popcorn, beverages like Coca Cola or sometimes even full packaged meals like breakfast or dinner.  In countries like Japan, where the population density is high and rates of vandalism and petty crime are low in comparison,  it seems one can purchase even a bottle of wine or a pair of underwears from a vending machine! Most vending machines are designed to be burglar and/or tamper proof and can even detect counterfeit currency.  In New Zealand, on the other hand, I saw at the airport a small, crude but ingenious ‘vending machine’ operating without electricity and with no one to attend! There was a glass box, placed atop a table and with an open top, containing a neat pile of the day’s newspapers; there was also a small plastic tray kept nearby in which the customers would put their dollar bills after picking up their copy of the newspaper along with the change!! Even in India, I came across such a novel, innovative vending machine which is described in my article “Those Wonderful Vending Machines” given below.

                    It reminds me of a very comic film I saw in the early seventies, named, “Those Magnificent Men and their Flying Machines” which was about the early models of the airplane, with their unconventional, strange and funny designs and their misadventures.  Almost everyone of us has longed to fly in a plane in our childhood and although we may no longer have the same sort of fascination now, who will ever forget the thrill of our first flight in the sky? An account of my intriguing "Maiden Flight” follows next.

Au Reviour  ---- Have a Good Day!

Vasant  Hattangadi  

Internet Humour

Laughter, the Best Medicine !

Three engineering students were admiring the Creator for his most intricate design of the human body. One said, "God must be an ingenious mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints  and all kinds of levers in the body"

Another said, "No, I think He must be a clever electrical or electronic engineer. The nervous system has so many thousands of electrical connections and the brain is the most compact and the biggest supercomputer in the universe"

The last one said, "I bet that He is a civil engineer. Tell me who else would think of running a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

                                            ***********

An architect, an artist and a scientist were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, because it's only true love that really builds a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time he spends with his mistress, because of her passion and the mystery surrounding her.

The scientist said, "I like both wife and the mistress."

"Both?" they asked.

Scientist: "Yeah. If you have both wife and a mistress, each will assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and do your research work in peace."

     **********

In some foreign country a priest, a lawyer and an engineer have been sentenced to the guillotine. First they bring the priest and put his head on the block, they pull the rope and nothing happens! The priest is glad and declares that he's been saved by divine intervention and so he should be released immediately. They let him go.

Then, the lawyer is put on the block and again the rope doesn't release the blade. The lawyer says he can't be executed twice for the same crime; so, he is set free too.

Next, they grab the engineer and shove his head into the guillotine, he looks up at the release mechanism and says, "Wait a minute, I see what your problem is. The catch on the lever......"

**********

10 Laws of Computing

1.   If you have think that you really understand your computer, it's probably an obsolete model.

2.   When you are computing, if someone is watching, whatever happens, behave as though you meant it to happen.

3.   When the going gets tough, it's best to upgrade your computer.

4.   The first place to look for information is in the section of the manual where you'd least expect to find it.

5.   For every action, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.

6.   To err is human ... to blame your computer for your mistakes is not only more human, it is also but natural.

7.   He who laughs last, probably has a back-up.

8.   The number one cause of all computer problems is computer solutions.

9.   A complex system that doesn't work is invariably evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.

10.   A computer program will always do what you tell it to do, but rarely what you want it to do.

************

My Maiden Flight

 My  Maiden     

      Flight      

                                      

Vasant  Hattangadi 

     The day I was to fly down to Canberra had dawned at last! After years of slogging in BARC, I had bagged a two-month assignment in Australia!! It was to be my first air travel and I was already feeling pretty goosey about it. I tried, of course, not to show it as I knew my wife was feeling nervous too. I spent the whole night dreaming about my plane crashing in the Pacific!  Keeping my fingers crossed I had cheerfully reassured my wife, however, not to worry and that I would be back in one piece. Both my sons were so excited about their Papa going abroad in a jet airliner that they kept boasting about it to their friends. The younger one was especially thrilled that he was to go to the airport in a taxi! While I was trying to hurry up everyone lest I miss the flight, he was gleefully saying, “Papa, how nice it will be if you missed the plane! Then, you too can come back with us in the taxi!” 

       When we landed at Sahar, we found Mehtas, Khannas and other friends already there to wish me ‘Bon Voyage’. Instantly, I got busy checking-in the luggage, collecting my Boarding Pass etc and getting last minute instructions from spouse regarding taking my medicines and writing letters home regularly, abstinence and self-restraint! During this entire melee, someone quietly pulled me aside and told me, in a very confidential undertone, not to forget the goodbye kiss! It was charming Mrs. Khanna, from whom I had least expected such  ‘gallantry’!! I politely asked her as to how ever I could possibly oblige with that well-built, athletic husband of hers lingering around. “I meant your wife, you dope!” she yelled. Some people will never learn. 

      Our aircraft was a Boeing 747, named Kanishka, which would be blown up to pieces in mid-air over the Atlantic by a terrorist bomb just three years hence. How nice it is that we don’t know the future! Else, it would have only added to my misery; what with those horrific scenes of plane crash from old movies already haunting me. For some reason there were very few fellow travelers on the plane, that day. I was reminded of an old British film, in which a psychic air traveler gets a premonition of the pending plane crash and she shares it with her co-passengers. Soon, the news spreads like wild fire and reaches the pilot, who loses his nerves and transforms the nightmare into a virtual reality. I was feeling so tense myself that I did not even notice the beautiful airhostess at the entrance! 

       Seated just behind me was a young Maharashtrian couple with a small kid, probably going on a holiday to Singapore. The lady was pulling up her spouse for hovering longer than necessary at the entrance, while the poor fellow was at his wit’s end trying to explain that the air hostess was just a long lost, distant cousin! Meanwhile, the kid was getting restless and started pestering his father as to when the plane would take off. The hapless husband at once took the opportunity to escape his wife’s diatribe by starting a long discourse on how the plane would first taxi down to the runway, how it would then gradually pick up speed and finally take-off majestically like an eagle into the sky. 

       “And then what? ” asked the kid. “Why, then we will fly down to Singapore, of course!” “Daddy, does the plane have a horn like our car?” asked the inquisitive little boy. Daddy was not sure if planes are fitted with horns. “But, they must have a horn, Daddy” insisted the boy. “What if another plane comes along and there’s an accident!” The man tried his best to explain that air travel was safe and there was hardly any chance of a mid-air collision. But, the kid wouldn’t agree. “Why do they have their headlights on, then?” After a while he asked, “Daddy, when will our plane fall down?” I jumped in my seat! But, the kid kept quizzing his father: “Won’t our plane plunge into the sea?” “When we reach Singapore, will it crash land at least? ”

        Suddenly, our aircraft momentarily dropped down a few hundred feet and immediately soared up again as we passed through an ‘air pocket’, replicating a similar upheaval in my stomach! The little rascal in the hind row started clapping with glee! The pilot came on the public address system to announce, “Sorry about that little bump, gentlemen. In such inclement weather, some turbulence is quite normal. It’ll pass off soon. Nothing to worry” Just then, the pretty, young airhostess came running and heaved herself into the next seat. She looked pale white with fear in her eyes. She started praying crossing herself repeatedly by her right hand while squeezing mine with her left. “Hope you won’t mind, Uncle. I’m so scared, no! This is my maiden flight, you see.” “So is mine, baby!” I tried to comfort her, patting her hands gently like a true, affectionate uncle. What else could I do?

     The rest of the journey was smooth and without an incident. The kid, tired from his own incessant questioning, went to sleep. The couple finally disembarked at Singapore and I heaved a great sigh of relief. Thank God for small mercies. Early next morning, we landed in Sydney and for the first time I set my foot ‘down under’.

  

(Published KS, LXXXIV, No 10, p19, Oct 2003) 

Those Wonderful Vending Machines

Those  Wonderful  

 Vending Machines 

Vasant   Hattangadi

   Indupachi was squatting amidst suitcases crammed with all those alluring foreign goods that she had brought from her recent trip to U.S. She was so excitedly narrating her experiences and she seemed particularly impressed by their huge departmental stores, mega-shopping malls and automatic vending machines. "Just drop a coin in the slot and out you get snacks, coke or even a complete TV dinner! I wonder why don't they make such wonderful machines, here." she mused. 

       Well, we too have had such vending machines since ages. Even in my school days in Dharwar, I remember, there used to be at the railway station a tall, red contraption to sell 'Platform' tickets. That it used to be 'out of order' most of the time (probably from lack of use) is another matter!  Later, in Mumbai, I came upon a weighing machine with blinking colored lights that would give you along with your exact weight also a prediction of your future. I once had a try on one such machine during my job hunting days, more to gauge my luck than to ascertain my weight. I dropped in a coin and out came a tiny card with my weight neatly printed on it together with the prediction that I was soon to get a decent job! I then put in another coin to find the card saying this time, that the job would have something to do with the ocean!! Encouraged, I tried a third time with the hope of finding some more details as to the nature of the job etc, only to receive yet another vague prediction with an added, sound advice: "Time is money, dear friend. Don't waste both!

    Even in a remote place like Bankikodla, in one of the wayside shops, I had once seen a unique, indigenous vending machine for selling Neera. Everyday, on my return from my morning walk, I would stop at this shop to have a glass of Neera. On inserting a four-anna coin into the machine, a small round, horizontal turntable on the front panel would rotate through half a turn to bring forth a glass of fresh, sizzling Neera! One day, I put in my coin and waited for some five minutes with no sign of a glass of my favorite beverage appearing.  So, thinking that the coin had got 

stuck somewhere inside the machine, as it so often happens with these coin-operated machines, I gave a rather smart bang on the side. A rather shrill, if somewhat mechanical voice emanated from the machine asking me to hold on for a while and excuse the "interruption", with an apology that the inconvenience caused was regretted. After waiting for few more minutes, I pounded once again on the metal cabinet with the same result. When I banged rather impatiently for the third time, however, a lanky, dark man emerged from behind the machine yelling, " Arre, Bhaisaab! Have some patience! I don't have empty glasses here, okay? Arre, Ganpu, get those damned glasses fast, will you? This old man's dying for Neera!"

      Some years back, a local dairy in Santa Cruz had installed a milk vending machine at the suburban railway station, which they had fondly named as "Doodh Ganga". All you had to do was to drop two two-rupee coins in the slot and push a red button for the machine to dispense with exactly one liter of fresh, whole milk through a tiny chrome-plated spout on the front panel. For the first two days, the company did brisk business with the sales going much beyond their normal expectations. The local populace had found the milk to be quite good, thick and creamy and so they had even started patronizing the shop. On the third day, however, when I went to buy my milk the machine had already sprung up an unusual technical problem! I dropped my coins into the machine, held the bottle below the tap and found somewhat to my discomfiture, that even after the bottle had been filled upto the brim, the flow of milk didn't stop! It merrily kept on filling the bottle and before I could say "Doodh", it was already overflowing. As I didn't have another empty bottle with me, on the spur of the moment, I beckoned a poor, street urchin who was standing nearby with his katori greedily watching the whole process. But, as the poor fellow lunged forward to help himself with some free milk, the next man in the queue gave me a dirty look and shooed him away while pushing his own bottle below the tap which was gushing out milk non-stop! The word soon spread around like wild fire that the "Ganges of Milk" was in virtual floods! Before long, people from the neighborhood were seen rushing towards the railway station in large numbers with empty utensils, glass bottles or whatever else they could lay their hands on, to get their share of milk, gratis! It must be made clear that Lord Ganapati had nothing whatsoever to do with this "miracle"; he developed a liking for milk much later.

     Today, we have made such technological advances with the modern, smart-cards etc, that the present-day machines almost match the humans in their abilities and intelligence. The day may not be very far when, who knows, a future vending machine may be just a robot with human-like attributes, that can give you a convincing sales talk besides letting you even haggle over the price: "Two minutes,Bhaisaab! I can show you some latest designs, which I'm sure you'll like. And just for you, I'll make one last, very attractive offer  -------------"

--------- x --------

( Published  in  Kanara  Saraswat, January 2004 )

Just Musing

On  Muggers  and  Prowlers      

Hi Friends,

                When I went to New York in 1984, several  friends had warned me against moving around in the city late in the evenings after dusk, when it gets too risky to venture out all alone in Manhatten streets for fear of getting 'mugged' by a ruffian. Until then, I used to think that mugging is just 'cramming or rote learning'  or what people do in their school days just before the exams. In New York, it meant  what some people did to strangers on lonely roads to rob them of their jewelry or wallets at gun point. It's only in the big cities like London or New York, or Mumbai for that matter, that one is most likely to get mugged, probably because that is where the most gullible tourists or the rich businessmen visitors are found. They are usually new to the place, carry loads of money with them and so become easy targets for the prospective mugger. 

                In any case, I found from the Internet, that to avoid being mugged in a big city like New York or Mumbai, there are certain "Do's and Don'ts" that one must follow most diligently:  "First of all, when you walk down the street act confidently as if you have been staying in the city all your life.  Walk at a good pace sticking out your chest and pushing back your shoulders with your head held high and wave occasionally at a  passer-by as though you have seen an old friend or acquaintance. In other words, walk with a sense of purpose. If you are wandering aimlessly, look lost or nervous, then you are more likely to be an easy target for any mugger. On the other hand, if you look cool and confident, the mugger will, in all probability, leave you alone and give you a miss."  All the same, what do you do if you still come face to face with a potential mugger on the street? 

              "Whatever else you may do, do not shout, "Help, police!"  Studies have shown it causes the police to flee from the 'scene of crime'  while at the same time, it attracts attention of even more muggers. Instead shout, "Hey, this man is giving free passes for Jojo's Cabaret show!" and the mugger will vanish like magic. If you sense danger or if you are being 'stalked', then immediately move towards a more populated, safe area like a cafe. If you know Karate or Judo, don't even consider defending yourself by giving him a free demonstration of your skills. For all you know, he may be armed and faster than you in pulling out his gun. If you have a knife, don't pull it out on him for it may only prompt him to pull the trigger. Using a pepper spray may be a better idea. Remember, fighting back only increases the risk of harm to your person." 
              It is best not to carry a lot of cash with you and if you do, don't lie to him that you have no money on you. He has done his 'homework' well and already has a pretty good idea of how much cash you have. It may be a better idea therefore to give him what he wants; after all your life is worth more than any money you may have in your wallet. Besides, he may even decide to take your mobile or ipod instead of the money! Lastly, be alert. Don't walk like a dumb ass or a country yokel walking in his sleep, listening to lullabies on his i-pod and admiring the pretty buildings around; such a person makes an easy target for any mugger."  When in Mumbai, it may be a better idea to tell him you are from 'so and so' outfit and in all likelihood, he may just say,"Sorry, Boss!" and disappear from the scene!!

                  Many a time, the mugger shows his human side too; you will find him helping a senior citizen or a blind man cross the street or do some petty, odd job for him. Read my own experience in a New York Hotel with a man who, I found later, was probably a mugger; meet him in my next short story,"Encounter with a New York Mugger". It may also happen sometimes that one whom you mistook for a thief turns out to be someone you love dearly, as happens in my second story,"A Prowler in the House".

                 Bye, for now!

Vasant  Hattangadi

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