Holi Hai!!!

Holi! The festival of colors! (Follow the link for more details) Let me start by wishing you all a very happy holi and may this year brings to you and your family happiness and joy at par with the vivid colors this festival showers at us. This festival has a very long and rich history. (Something you can read in wiki if you are interested that is.) Let me come down to the things that are most memorable for people like us.
As most of my life I have lived in north India, I may have some different perspective of this festival. It starts with the Holika dhanan (The Holi bonfire). Preparations used to start many days ago where we all would pick up a place and start stacking up wood for the bonfire. Day by day it used to increase in size. Some times there was competition of whose bonfire pile is bigger or taller etc. (This by the way cleaned up all the mess created in a year by fallen tree branches, bushes, leaves and what not. Cleans up the city I say) On choti holi or what we can say is a day before holi we have the bonfire, a mark of start of holi, and enjoy. (Holi has started).
Holi is the day when we all come out and meet everyone, put colors on each other. Offer sweets, refreshing drinks and colors to people coming to home. This thing goes on till late afternoon after that we would clean up. (a tough thing to do after being painted black, blue, red). The milan (meeting, wishing and eating sweets) does not stop. Many times the milan goes on for days altogether. Many of you might remember putting oil and other creams before coming out to play. Elders generally played with dry colors (gulal) and kids (us) with strong wet color and lots of water. These colors take a lot of time to go also (Many times it takes weeks before the color comes of). Many on the roads are seen playing with paint. There are many variants also where you can use colored water, balloons, mud and what not. Bhang is the official thing used to get high on that day.
What remains of holi is a funfilled day or days (whatever is your idea) with pink, green, silver and all the other colors still on your face even after the skin is raw after scrubing, torn cloths (yes! It is fashion, tear the cloths. And some times people find it hard to cover up as everything goes… gross some say) and lots of memories…
Happy holi to all of you there again and enjoy this day of colors. :)

Engineering Disaster

This is not about all the destructive thing engineering has given to world. This post is not on explosives, tanks etc, it’s not on destroying anything (well not intentionally at least.) Well with this disclaimer let me start.
From very early I was fascinated with the engineering world. I used to love watching the Steam Locomotives and ask dad all sorts of silly questions. Watch the video of the rocket launches and imagine being a part of one such launch one day. To the extent that, I had opened up all my toys to see what is inside them. What makes it make noise, or give up sparks, why some of them when pulled back goes in front, why does the talking doll talks, I even blew up the small “hot wheels” to see how strong they are, opened up the small dc motors (and think how can this thing go round and round?) As I grew up, the understanding of such things improved, but the habit did not go. To the extent I even opened up the old TV the day new TV came inside the house. Opened up mixies, irons, even the scooter (I was amazed when I opened up the engine and then the equally amazed mechanic came to fix it,) I had opened up cameras and what not. I used to make things too. Small kaleidoscope, telescope (well you could not see much through but it was a good one) and many more things.
All this was attributed to my dad who also been an engineer would open up the home appliance to fix it himself and I would tag along with him. My mom also got used to it with time. There were some success in such experiments and more often then not there were disasters, what my mom used to call engineered disasters. Here are some such disasters.
Disaster one!
Once the mixer grinder we had stopped working. So mom asked dad to get it fixed. Dad as usual kept saying yes then conveniently forgot all about it. After a week of such daily routine ignorance dad got, well let’s just say, an ultimatum. So on a weekend he picked up the thing and started working on it. Me happily got tagged in as an assistance. What followed was a brief happiness of success and an engineered disaster. The mixer grinder got fixed ok! It worked for a day also, but then it started giving electric shocks every time it was switched on. Since only mom used it she got quite a few of them. Then she picked the thing up and threw it in the trash can and got a new mixer grinder. It wasn’t just that. Even the work area where we worked was a disaster. Oil spill, tools thrown here and there, wires, paper and many such things. After work dad and I happy with the results left the place just like that. Mom had to fix that war zone (place where we worked) up too. Oh! By the way it took dad full 3 months to realize that we got a new mixer grinder. (May be because he hardly went to the kitchen)
Disaster two!

Desert water cooler

Most of you must know the thing called a water-cooler (Desert water cooler). This small metal box with a water tank, a fan, a water pump and Khus-Khus pad on the 3 sides, were prominent thing when Air-conditioners were not there. Or they were too costly and meant for the rich and famous. (So to pump the water on to the Khus-Khus pads these things have a small water pump. Mostly the Tullu brand!) One summer our Desert water cooler stopped working and the trouble was pinned down to the water pump. We needed a new one! So dad and I went to the market to get a new one. We saw a more powerful thing as compared to what we had and bought is quickly. Came back home, installed it and switched on the full thing. The pump worked like charm, throwing water with good pressure on the Khus-Khus pad and the fan blew out cool damp air. We were very happy. But this happiness was short-lived. What followed was that the pipes with in the thing could not sustain the pressure and burst open. Water spray started to pour out and into the room. By the time we could stop it the room was fully wet. Bed, table, books, actually the full bedroom. Mom was obviously mad at us but she calmed down when we helped her clean the mess up and get a smaller pump for us.

I got a bagful of such stories but they never stopped me or my mom and dad encouraging me to keep experimenting. Sometimes though, my mom says, “God bless your wife. Whosoever is she. :))
PS. Its not that we (dad and I) always had disasters. We had our share of successes. Will write about it some other day.

Best Dress Poll

Before I put up a new post let’s have a opinion poll on what is the best dress for girls.
Do consider the fact that this question is valid for special occasions. Like marriage and more. Start voting. This will be open till next week.