8 GB RAM

10 years back when I first bought my first computer, I asked the shop keeper to put a 64 MB RAM in the system. He said it is too high and that much memory will not be required. To convince me further he said that the computer that he uses regularly in his shop for billing has just a 1 MB RAM. But still I asked him to put a 64 MB RAM, which finally he did.

Around the same time, when I got to know that the production server of our clients had 8 GB RAM, I was surprised. I thought what it is going to do with 8 GB RAM. A couple of years later when I I installed Windows XP in my personal computer, I upgraded the RAM to 256 MB. That system still works fine, but I changed the OS to linux. Today my mobile phone has a RAM of 756 MB and it is considered a low end one in its segment.

I didn't move to upper version of Windows, since it required atleast 1 GB RAM until I bought a laptop. The first laptop I bought had a 2 GB RAM. The second and third ones had 4 GB RAM each. The net book I bought (just for fun) had a 1 GB RAM. I didn't buy a tablet, thinking it was enough, as my mini laptop was close to a tab.

The laptop given in my office had a 4 GB RAM, but still I used to see "OutOfMemory Exceptions" when I execute large software systems (bad coding???).

The first RAM that was put in my first desktop was almost the size of a half-foot ruler(7 inches approx.). Today's laptops RAM can be comfortably placed in the palm and the palm can be closed to completely hide it.

Today my laptop's RAM was upgraded to 8 GB. For the first time I am using a computing system with a 8 GB RAM. Now I think I can launch a rocket with my laptop.

- SPGR.

Complex plots and stories

I am amazed to see the speed at which my little friend Dhanu is able to watch and understand the movies. I never understood the plot or the story of any of the movies until I was in 10th standard. When I think about the reason, now I could realize that the movies in those days had complex plots and stories. Almost all the movies had rape scenes and the main characters or the villians(bad-boys) involved in adultry. By contrast most of the movies today do not have a story and if at all they have, its a simple one.

When my little friend Dhanu started watching movies, one the earliest movies he saw was "Naan Ee". The movie had a narration style as if its told by someone. Also it has the concept of a good boy versus a bad boy, where the good boy wins and the bad boy looses. So, nowadays whenever Dhanu watches a movie, he initially asks us who the good boy is and who the bad boy is. Most of time he is able to identify this himself. Also he is aware that the good boy will have a girl friend. Unlike the movies of the yesteryears its not mandatory that the good boy should marry that girl before the movie ends.

At the rate at which my little friends are watching the movies on TV, I fear that soon they will become movie buffs.

But on the contrary I identified that the complex plots and stories, with rape scenes and adultry have moved to the TV serials. Some of the plots of these serials are so complex that even I am not able to understand at this age. For eg. in a serial, the second wife of a man conspires to separate the third wife from her first husband. It took me months to understand this plot and still I have to agree that my understanding may be wrong.

One day I decided to spend sometime watching serials. I saw one serial where one guy was a bad boy and doing all sorts of mischives. After a couple of ad-breaks found that he has changed completely. He became a good boy and was helping everyone. But I was not able to follow the serial, since almost all the people around him were different, including his wife. It took me sometime to realize that it was two different serials. In the first serial he was a bad boy, and in the next one he was a good boy. I couldn't figure our when the first one ended and the next one started.

All the women in the serials can be classified into two categories - bad ones and the suffering ones. Yes you read it correct. There are no good ones. The bad ones will be conspiring to spoil the families of others. The suffering ones will be suffering all through the serial, and they will be crying, crying and crying all the time. I moved along the channels and got to know that in all the serials there were only the above two groups of women. In Mallu serials, it was even more worse. Almost everyone was crying. I was sad to the condition of these poor women. Endless cries.

Neither the men in the serials appeared happy. Almost everyone in all the serials looked like as if they have lost something and worrying over it all the time.

Once when I felt that I was surrounded by worries and troubles both in my personal and professional life, I decided to see a serial - one serial - continuously. I took that decision because almost all in that serial were having problems and no one was having a peaceful life. While watching, I felt happy that my troubles in life were nothing compared to theirs. At least the problems in my life will come to end  sometime. But for them, there was no visibility for a peaceful life. Their problems and worries kept increasing. But after a couple of days, I couldn't tolerate, as I started worrying for their problems on top of my problems and I stopped watching it.

- SPGR.

Republic Day Parade

On the 66th Republic Day I woke up at 9 AM. Somewhat early when compared to my normal waking time on a holiday. As soon as I woke up I remembered the Republic day parade that will be live telecasted from Delhi. Immediately switch on the TV and kept DD National. Around that time our President, Prime Minister and our chief guest for the 66th Republic day - Obama, the US President and the First Lady of US arrived at the dais for the function. I vaguely remember that the President used to come in a Chariot driven by horses. But now he came in a posh car.

I like the way in which Obama affectionately took Michelle to the dais. I think it is this love and care that every wife would expect from her husband, and Michelle is lucky in that aspect. When Obama sat on the chair allocated to him, I was happy and for a moment thought that he was seated in a chair in the hall of our home. It was raining and to some extent Mr. Obama got wet, though a person was holding a big umbrella for him. I think they didn't anticipate rain at that time and no arrangements were made to handle it. Some of the delegates got wet in the rain, as there was no umbrella for them. For sometime, I felt sad and indeed panicked upon seeing Obama getting wet in the rain. He is our guest!!! But it seemed that he didnt mind much about it.

[Pic: Obama and Modi]

I also had a tough time making my little friends Dhanu and Deepu standing in attention for the National Anthem. Also they wanted to see the "Motu Patlu" and "Ninja Hattori" instead of this program. I have to convince them saything they are given a holiday only to watch this program. Indeed in those moments I felt the belonging and closeness to my mother country. When the Ashoka  Chakra award was handed over to Mrs. Indu Mukunth, our PM Modi explained the situation to Obama. Mrs. Indu Mukunth was found bold and courageous while receiving the award.

[Pic:Ashoka Charka]

When the camera turned to the audience, I could spot Arvind Kejriwal, as usual with a Muffler around his head. Such a gesture in my home state implies that he has lost everything (thalaila thundu). I could also see Manmohan-ji with his wife. Sonia Gandhi was also present in the audience.

[Pic: Arvind Kejriwal, in his usual attaire]

Normally the Republic day celebrations in Chennai will be tele casted in DD Pothigai in parallel to the National Event. But this time, it was the Delhi event that was relayed in all the DD Channels. The Regional celebrations by the Governers of the State followed as a recorded program.

- SPGR.

What a speech by Obama

Morning I happened to watch a live speech by Obama. Actually I happened to stamp on the DD National channel while jumping between stations. Since Obama was talking, I thought of listening to it for sometime. But it was a beautiful speech that I stopped my other activities and listened to it till the end.

It was a speech given by him to an audience of students in an auditorium. Some elderly people were also seen among the audience. He told that his grandfather was a cook to some British person in Kenya. He went on the describe the discrimination that he faced in his life. He said "Due to the color of my skin, I couldn't walk in the some of the streets in that country." Also due to the color of his skin he faced many more hardships. I was watching his statements with a smile. Obama looks fairer (light-colored) than me. So, I was wondering what would have happened to me if I had born there. But Michelle looks darker than me. So, my complexion is in-between Mr. and Mrs. Obama. So now, in a way, I feel that I am closely related to the Obamas :-).

It is not that I had a smooth life without any discrimination. I stopped participating in stage related events (in school and college), when I realized that my skills were required only for the back stage works. Not long after, I realized that my area should be on the intellectual side, where the knowledge and talent matters, and not the skin color. At some of time in my life, I got so seriously wounded that for a brief time I hated my dark skin. Exactly around that I time, I resolved that I will marry a very fair (light-colored) girl and have fair skinned kids so that they do not face the difficulties that I faced. It took me a really long time to understand that the skin color doesn't matter at all. Though being light-colored or dark-colored does gets noticed at the first sight, after sometime it is the overall character and our approach that creates a lasting impression. Once I got this maturity, apart from other things, I also put an end to the habit of taking a look only at the fair and good looking girls, and started seeing all the girls, equally, irrespective of their skin color :-).

Oops... I digressed... Coming back to Obama... He re-iterated the point that both he and Michelle were not from a wealthy background or from a famous family. But at the same time Obama said that some of his teacher and elders were kind enough and embraced and guided him. They helped him in getting the scholarships and getting good education and come up in life. He said that we should provide opportunities to everyone to come up in life, and provide much more opportunities than one can normally imagine. It is this opportunity that will make the grandson of a cook, the President and a tea-seller, the Prime Minister. As a expert public speaker, he stopped at this point, for the audience to clap.

Obama also stressed the need to take care of women and girls. As fathers, brothers and sons, its our duty to protect the dignity of women, everywhere. He said only those countries grow where their girls grow, where their girls are given opportunities and where their dignity is protected. He continued that if a girl gets education.. She can later start a new business, invent something new, cure some disease,  her children will get good education and this is what is needed for a nation. He said that only those countries will grow, which respects their women.

Obama said that when Martin Luther King, Jr came to India he said that he was happy to be in the land of Gandhi and similarly now he is happy to be in the land of Gandhi.

I observed that his accent was not a 100% American accent. Without any difficulty I was able to follow and understand his complete speech. Or may be my familiarity with the American accent has increased. Without any doubt, he was an exceptional public speaker. Towards the end of the speech, the whole of the audience would have become his fans and would have approved all that he said. When I told this to my friend, she said "Thats why he is the President of America". To some extent, I can also talk like him and influence the audience. Let me see to where it takes me :-).

- SPGR.

The story of my watches (6)

HMT Automatic:

Once I was browsing and reading about fountain pens. I am one of those rare persons who still uses fountain pen for most of my writing tasks. But nowdays my serious writing got reduced to writing one page in the diary, of course with an ink pen. During that time, I came across a couple of posts by a person called Hari. whose hobby was collecting pens. He also had mentioned about his another hobby, which is about collecting watches. From some of this posts, I got to know that HMT watches are still in production and they are still sold in their own retail outlets. I browsed more on that and somehow managed to locate a HMT retail outlet near my place. I visited that showroom and bought an Mechanical Automatic watch.

I have written more about it here - My New Automatic Watch.

HMT Mechanical Automatic - Model NASS 11

Sonata:

The Sonata quartz was presented by Amma in 2011, and it is the only Sonata I have till date. The face somewhat resembles the TIMES watch that I had earlier. Till now it required one battery replacement. Its more of a formal watch and I wear it only for special occasions.

Sonata

Chennai silks watch:

This is a digital watch that I brought from Chennai silks in Trichy. It received the attention of some watch enthusiats in my office. This was the watch I was wearing when I met with a minor bike accident. After that incident I almost stopped using it.

[pic: Chennai silks watch]

Chennai silks watch - Not in service now.

- SPGR.

The story of my watches (5)

HMT Amitabh:

For one of my birthday, my first younger sister wanted to get me a wrist watch. I took her to the HMT retail showroom. After a long selection process, I finally zeroed in on the HMT Amitabh. The dial was good and shiny. At that time HMT was selling all of its watches at 50% off, and we got this watch for just Rs. 575. When I wore it to office it gained the attention of many who enquired about it. Many were surprised that winding watches were still available.

HMT Amitabh

Haneefa Watch:

This digital watch was got by my friend from a nearby super-market named "Haneefa". It was of very good quality and lasted for more than 2 years of continues use. The original watch is not there now. but the digital movement was no nice that I moved it another case and it is functional now.

[pic: Haneefa movement in a new case]

Haneefa movement in a new case.

- SPGR.

The story of my watches (4)

HMT Kohinoor:

This is my grandfather's watch. It laid idle for many years after it came into my possession. While at college I asked my father to give it for servicing. He gave it an old watch mechanic who brought it back to an excellent state. This watch mechanic was a retired school headmaster who had taken up watch sales and repair after his retirement. Around this time I was in college and in hostel. I used to come home once in a month. Once when I came I found that the watch was serviced and ready for use. I keyed it in. But unfortunately I kept keying in, until I heard a knocking sound and the watch stopped working. The main spring gave up. My father took it again to the headmaster, who repaired it again. In the next time when I keyed in, I keyed very carefully and stopped with 12 winding. But this time, unfortunately I dropped the watch, with the crown directly falling on the floor and receiving the impact. The crown was still functional, but it got into a slanting position. Appa again took it to the headmaster, who probably would have replaced the crown. After these two incidents I never touched the watch for a long time.

Nearly after a decade, I took this watch to the HMT service center. The watch mechanic there serviced it and brought it back to near showroom condition. This time, the face-plate is changed to a grey colored one, and also the back plate is changed, since the original back plate had a minor crack in it. But, through these upgradations, it lost its vintage look. Now the movement and needles were the only ones from my grandfather's days. Now I think that I should have changed the needles too :-).

[pic: HMT Kohinoor, My Grandfather's Watch]

HMT Kohinoor

- SPGR.

The story of my watches (3)

Nelson Quartz:

When I was in 11th standard, Appa got me this watch. Appa took me to Mainguardgate with an idea to get a watch for me. We went through many watch shops, but I didn't like any of them. When we went to a shop in Super Bazaar, I liked one watch, which had a day-date feature and a dual tone dual tone dial - white and gold. It had the name "Nelson" written on it. It was a bit costly in those days, costing about Rs. 450. But still Appa went ahead and bought it for me. I wore this watch from 12th standard until I completed my UG. It was used almost daily. I still remember the day it received its first scratch on the crystal, the evening before my 12th chemistry public exam, when I was wearing it and studying for the exams. After that it received many scratches, but served loyally. Later on I gave it to my father, who changed its case, strap and used it for some more time. Eventually it was destroyed.

TIMES:

This was a quartz watch bought by my sister from Vizag. It had a black case, black resin strap and a gold face. The needles of this watch was especially cute. Once when I banged the door of "Rockfort Express" in an attempt to open it, it received an impact on its crystal and the crystal cracked. I moved the machine of this watch to my another watch and this watch was eventually destroyed.

Casio DB-36:

My younger sister got this watch from US. This was a wrist watch that had many features and it is one of my favorites, since my watch wearing habit started with digital watches. It also had the ability to store 30 phone numbers which came handy whenever I forgot to take my mobile phone to office. "10 year battery" is written on its face-plate, meaning that its battery will last for 10 years. Bought in 2010, it still keeps perfect time, and didn't required a battery replacement.

[pic: my casio DB-36]

Casio DB-36

The power of memorizing

Today morning while waking up, before getting up from the bed, all of a sudden I tried to recall the concepts, definitions and formulas that I studied in school, for no special reason. I was happy that I still remember and was able to recall some of what I have studied in school. While in school, I was notorious for my memorizing skills. Some used to make fun of me saying that I just memorize without understanding, and that they study by understanding. But in my experience, the converse is true. When we start memorizing a concept, even if we do not understand anything, slowly we will start understanding and once we memorize and understand, it will never go out of our mind. Me still remembering and recalling some of what I studied in school two decades back is an example.

Some of the definitions that I was able to recall are:
(Note: I am giving here as I recalled, and it may be wrong. Readers are advised to refer to the net for verification.)

Pascal's law: "An increase in pressure at any point in a liquid at rest is transmitted equally to every other point within the same liquid."

When I studied this definition, I was amazed by this simple discovery by Pascal. This law is the basis for the hydralic brakes (oil brakes) used in the cars and other vehicles and also in the hydralic jacks, that is used to lift the cars in the car service centers.

Archemedes principle: "When a solid is immersed in a liquid either totally or partially, it suffers an apparent loss of weight. This loss of weight is due to the upthrust it experiences and it is equivalent to the amount of liquid it displaces."

This is the guiding principle on which ship floats in water. I vaguely remember that Archemedes discovered this principle when he was given the task of identifying the quality of originality of Gold.

Allotrophy: "Allotrophy is the property by virtue of which an element exhibits the same chemical property, but different physical properties."
This law talks about an element changing its shape (physical shape), while retaining its chemical property, when subject to certain external stimuli.

I also remember the Newton's first, second and third laws, laws of thermodynamics, Faraday's law and a few more.

I was also able to recall some of the mathematical formula, but due to formatting issues, I am unable to write them here.

This power of memorizing also helped me when I selected software development as my profession. This moved me away from being a Google (copy-paste) programmer. I know almost all the syntax of Java and other programming languages that I use in my day-to-day work, by-heart. I memorized them, which eliminated the need to refer to the net for their syntax or examples. I also know the design-patterns and enterprise-integration patterns by-heart. I memorized them too, which totally altered my approach in solving the issues in the software that I develop or maintain.

- PAVALA G SUBRAMANIAN.

The story of my watches (2)

While I was in 10th standard, Appa bought a digital watch from a Burma Bazaar shop, which was near the Armoury gate ration shop. This was a Burma Bazaar shop selling electronic items that existed in those days, prior to the roadside Burma Bazaar shops. It was a black colored resin-strapped number watch. It had an analog face around the digital screen, purely for aesthetic reasons. I wore this watch for the whole of 10th standard and this was the watch I wore for my 10th standard public exams. Prior to this Appa got me another rectangular number watch, a model famous in those days. But unfortunately this watch was short lived.

The watches I wore in my childhood will not be complete without writing about the "shoba watch". In 7th standard my parents told me that they will get me a watch if I take good rank in the half-yearly examination. That was the time when I started showing good interest in my studies and I think I got 2nd rank in that exam. One evening when parents returned from town(in TVS 50), they bought a new "shoba watch". It was a HMT ladies model winding watch. They gave the watch to me. It didn't fit my wrist, but still I wore to school for a couple of days, and also wore it for the exams. After that my mother started using it. The watch still works and in my last visit to my native, I keyed it and it immediately started ticking.

[Pic: HMT Shoba]

HMT Shoba

- PAVALA G SUBRAMANIAN

The story of my watches (1)

I do not know when my obsession for wrist-watches started. I am neither punctual nor understand the importance of time. Recently when my sister asked why I have the obsession for watches, after a long thinking, I said "May be they were the first sophisticated devices I ever had in my life."

The earliest memories of me having a watch dates back to my childhood when I wore digital watches, more popularly known as number watches in those days. These wrist watches were bought by Appa during his "line duty" to Delhi. Those were the "ladies model digital watches" and were initially used by Amma.

I still remember the look, feel and color of two such watches. Once dark blue(the Casio blue) and another golden-yellow. They had a stainless steel case, back cover and chain. They were cute little watches with a simple machine inside. I continued to use one among - on and off - till I was in 9th standard. They were also the prey of my early inquisition to know about the internal workings of a watch. Two decades later, I realized that those watches were the imitations of the famous Casio-Mini ladies model watches.

Those watches were eventually destroyed by me. Now I sadly remember hitting one of them with a hard stone in an attempt to open it, which destroyed it. Also in that watch, I discovered that the screen(the LCD one) is made up of multiple thin layers. Yes, I peeled the layers of the screen one-by-one.

Had I preserved them, those would have been my invaluable collectives now. But unfortunately, they continue to exist - only in my memory.

[Pictures of Casio Mini below]

- PAVALA G SUBRAMANIAN.

The story of my bicycle

I started riding bicycle when I was studying in second standard. Appa, and at times Sathi mama painstakingly used to run behind the cycle holding the seat. I still remember the way Appa used to run behind the cycle. In those days, I used to rent small cycle from cycle shops, which was the norm in those days. Soon I learnt to ride my Dad's Raleigh cycle in monkey pedaling and also in bar pedaling.

The moment Appa comes back from work, I used to take his cycle and go out for rounds, mostly in monkey pedaling. One day I was riding cycle along the Jesintha Akka street and came back home to have a short break and have some water. I saw a beautiful new light-blue colored cycle in front of our home.  When I went inside I saw Alukkuli Thatha (my maternal grandfather) inside, as usual in his beautiful smile. I was filled with immense joy when I got to know that he has bought and brought that cycle for me from native. I immediately took it and went for cycling again. All my friends watched it with jealousy :-).

That was a "Hercules Captain" cycle, which became my companion for the next 25 years. I went to school on it, took my sisters to school on it, went to the passport office to apply for a passport on it, and I used it to go to all the places, until my marriage. At times I have rode it for more than 14 kilometers in one stretch. I have spent lots and lots of joyful evenings with it, going for long "rounds" around our area.

Even driving a car didn't give me the pleasure and happiness that I used to get when I rode my bicycle. I started using a bike only after my marriage. Because of my personal bonding with my cycle and the memories of my grandfather associated with it and that of the happy moments I spent with it, I refused to give my cycle to anyone even when I no more needed it.

I also had a similar bonding with my small tri-cycle, which I used in my childhood. But unfortunately  it was given away and it went out of my possession. Years later I saw that tri-cycle in someone else's home, parked in front of that home. My heart became heavy and I became very sad. But there was no possibility of retrieving it again.

I definitely cannot even imagine someone else having my Hercules Captain cycle. It is still preserved in my native. Hoping to relive the happy moments with it again in the later part of my life.

My Captain Cycle

My Captain Cycle

- PAVALA G SUBRAMANIAN.