Fueling Thoughts

I first wanted to post a cartoon of a bare human arse as my solemn message to all online Trolls but decided that in these trying times it may be misinterpreted: As pornography, sexism and insulting to a woman's dignity if female, or an invitation to be sodomized or solidarity with Gay pride if male.  One of the primary reasons I gave up on Facebook (never to regret) were the Trolls that seemed to come out of the woodwork at every step wearing the widest assortment of masks, but quite unitary in their task: to argue, demean and intimidate people little known to them or even complete strangers.  These comprise all manner of Desh Bhakts(Indian Hindu Patriots) or zombified Modi cultists, many of them NRIs( Indian origin emigrants) or those who will scoot abroad at the first opportunity, but always up in arms to defend Hinduism and Mother India's Honour and Virginity. Not to forget the innumerable Muslim bigots who try to first pose as liberals (often hiding behind Hindu and Christi

The 1st time I was seriously asked if I was an Alcoholic was at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Chiang Mai, then held in a large colonial-styled bungalow not far from the McCormick Hospital, which I also later learned was a hotbed of ex-pat politics. I was dragged there by a friend who religiously attended their meets, and partly by my curiosity. What I didn't know was that it was expected from everyone to introduce themselves and say that they are Alcoholics and next whether they are still partaking or proudly declare that they haven't touched the devil's brew for "n" number of years. So when it was my turn to introduce myself, I only stated my name and country, as I didn't consider myself either then or now to be an alcohol abuser. Immediately a stout bald gentleman in a Pink Hawaiian shirt, a thick gold chain and a young Thai girl on his side, with the demeanour of an ex-US Special Forces guy (but might have been a retired Xerox salesman for all I know)

I was still too groggy in the morning to notice that his breath reeked of stale booze when he stopped me outside a store where I just purchase milk and showing me his calloused dirty hands said that he was an out of job mechanic and if could I help him buy some rations as he has two small daughters to feed. Frankly,  I didn't like him at all, but his plea about having kids to feed struck a cord.  The dislike only deepened when sensing my positive disposition he quickly added a list of stuff: flour, tea, sugar and rice.  "Whoa, I am not getting you your  shopping list" I told him and just asked told the store clerk to give him a kilo of flour on my account. "What, you can't even buy me 5 kilos" he retorted angrily and bitterly, to which he received a string of expletives(my first in the day) and was left standing empty-handed. It was obvious that in his eyes I was a fat selfish   Bourgeoisie  unwilling to help a desperate man, whereas  I saw an entitled ungra

 Rajiv Bajaj, the Big Boss of Bajaj Auto once remarked that innovating in India is equivalent to "MAD IN INDIA." He couldn’t have been more right.  In the last few months of building the prototypes of our shallow water boat motors, we are stumbling against every single obstacle possible; both those envisaged and others we couldn’t even imagine.  The 3d scans all came with skewed geometry, necessitating manual remeasurement and rectification. Every bearing housing was either too tight or loose, the same with the shafts. Most aluminium casting shops refused right away to make sample pieces and the one that finally took the job neither sieved the sand nor removed the dross, resulting in pockmarked casts with black spots, but blamed our 3d-printed patterns for their bad quality casts.  While trying to get the gears made, one irritated Sardarji remarked that they don't have time to make one-off pieces (that's just normal spur gears), besides he couldn't guarantee the r