Fueling Thoughts

Recently, a company CEO while trying to push his niche and pricey Marine batteries, boasted that they were selected as OEM suppliers by the winners of a large Indian inland vessel tender, more specifically, the Kochin Metro's, water metro project.  Being both well-connected in this field and also keeping myself abreast with all the latest developments, I was quite surprised not hearing about this development. Thus, I called up the bid winning party to confirm whether it is true.  "Not at all, the principal rejected their technology, and so we are providing a competitor's product." was their reply. So, apart from spouting blatant lies, he also took the person in front of them for an uninformed fool: A seasoned Inland Water transportation specialist, at that.  No excuses for giving such a company a miss even if their product is good and competitively priced.  I will, and shall also make sure that everyone I work with does it as well.

  A favourite grouse of my fellow North-east Indians(many with an acute case of angry nigger syndrome) is that the rest of the countrymen know nothing about their area, confuse them with Nepalis or Chinese, think that tea grows in every backyard and so on and forth. That is, till they are reminded that they too know nothing about places like Kerala or Chhattisgarh and the people who live there. Because till about a decade or two back, the few times anyone ventured out was either to study, enrol their children in an educational institution or for health check-ups or cancer treatment in Vellore.  Besides, ignorance about other states and the geography of the country is endemic everywhere. My favourite example being an NCO from Signals Corps of the Indian Army who travelled with me on a train to Goa for some advanced training at the Army Signal Training Center in Bambolim.  An M.Sc. degree holder by his own admission, in his excitement of getting to see Goa and the sea, the ...

Linkedin is a platform that had first morphed from a professional and cribbing HR's network into a jobseekers forum, now is just a little more refined Facebook with kitty videos and children's drawings (at least previous work's drivers and handymen don't send me friend requests, if it sounds elitist so be it, I don't GAF). We have all manners of Deshbakts(Modi cultists), Trump, Russia and China bashing self-righteous inquisitors, hysterical climatistas, weeping willows, trolls of every form, and plagiarists aplenty. Ghost-written posts by high and mighty influencers to those promoted by paid ones.  Where having 10,000 connects equal to adding 2 inches in the chest or between the legs, depending on your gender. And now we have the LinkedIn Jail, Censorship and the threat of being deplatformed without a warning. In short the writing on the wall says, time to redevelop your website and start blogging there in parallel, because you never know when LinkedIn will deem yo...

I  know, I have used a trite, populist headline to get your attention and hope I succeeded. After all in my abysmally short avatar as an automotive writer, the question popped at me at every step was how to get better fuel economy from a car, motorcycle or even a lorry; not that many bothered to listen to my reply or ever tried out what I suggested. Everyone wanted a magic-wand solution, but I usually started out with “when did you last check your tire pressure?” I  entered the automotive press with travelogues, motorcycling ones. Soon came an offer to write a monthly column for a now defunct Automotive publication. Though it was India's first, it had by then already changed numerous publishers and the incumbent editor informed me that he was publishing it for the last 9 months, without any of his staff having a driving license. Nine months later after penning a monthly motorcycling column along with a series of travel and general automotive articles a...

“What do you mean mill-scale formation would reduce if I start using Emulsified Fuels, I sell the mill-scale!!”                                                                             But at what rates? I asked.                                                                  ...

The communication came in the form of a filled up feedback form from my erstwhile website. It was written in very poor English, which was all right as the sender was not from an English speaking country, but the tone was nasty and its insinuations, simply preposterous; that I had stolen his technology!!  I had never heard of this person, his technology or even seen the website, which he highlighted in his note. I replied back in the best Russian that I could muster( as I don't know Ukrainian) , that Fuel Emulsification wasn’t exactly rocket science, and I needn’t copy anything from him and wished him luck. He was apparently not satisfied and in his updated website goaded about how the Americans stole his technology, the Indians (that’s me) pinched it from the Americans and the Chinese just copied from the Indians. At least we were not at the bottom of the list!! Last month it was I, who was sending emails to several companies offering  Fuel Emulsi...

It’s ironic how the world’s two most used energy resources are the ones getting the worst rap. Petroleum is invariably associated with fundamentalist medieval regimes or brutal foreign invasions under the self-righteous guise of ushering democracy. While Coal, which produces 41 % of the world’s and 68% of India’s electricity, is usually thought about only in terms of pollution, mafia, miners dying in explosions and in the recent years; scandals involving corrupt Indian politicians and their Crony-Capitalist friends. Though boasting India’s first colliery but only having 0.37% of the country’s reserves, in  North Eastern India, it is also infamous  for the so-called Coal Syndicate of Assam and the notorious rat-hole mines of Meghalaya. The precarious conditions and safety records of the latter even made it to the pages of the L.A. Times, leading to the current mining ban imposed by the National Green Tribunal. It just takes a short 20 minute ride from As...

Some would be smart and sophisticated, others downright rude and crude. One will act as if he is doing  a great favour, another regard you with utmost suspicion as if dealing a thief and the third, talk so condescendingly one would think that you already owe him money. Lets accept it; friendly, sensible clients who pay on time and do it willingly and respectfully are far and in-between. I wish I could write a true self-help style article about how to find great, paying clients. Unfortunately, even after working for decades I am clueless about it and still have to put up with freeloaders, moochers and talk-you-downs on a weekly basis. Thus, as I lack both clairvoyance or the skills of Cold Reader, with wisdom garnered from innumerable  insipid professional experiences, I created a strict manifesto for screening out Shylocks amidst potential clients and regimenting my work. 1. Never Do it For Free. If you are good in something never do it for free even i...

A couple of weeks back I had the opportunity to visit a pretty large plant, an old one, a sort of local Industrial landmark, but well past its prime where even the signs of decay were showing signs of age. The white wash was peeling off most buildings and most of the metallic structures were either rusty or thickened by innumerable coats of paint. Their staff too, either seemed  approaching retirement age or were youngsters who looked as if they had grown up in one of the employee's colonies and filled up the posts vacated by the previous generation. Fuel Paradise Walking the plant's internal roadways below smoking stacks and trying not to gag in air, breathable only if one is used to the smell of ammonia and rotten eggs, we made our way to see a senior engineer whose age made one think that he had  not only witnessed the commissioning, but even the laying of the foundation stone of the factory. For a change, he was quite amiable, offered us water, spoke about...