Oh! I Just Love Civil Engineers

 “Civil engineers just love pouring that grey stuff up against timber. You would think they had shares in a concrete supply company. Seriously, I continue to argue with civil engineers who just don’t get the fact that a fully welded pipe or restrained pipe does not need thrust blocks. There must be a problem in university teaching or text books, but try as I might civil engineers go on burying concrete blocks. I point to refineries where the pipes are above ground with no thrust blocks to no avail.”[i]- Strainer

Similar was my situation when I was trying to convince a highly placed civil engineer that a fully-welded pipe does not require a thrust block and you know what, he treated me as if I had lost my mind.

Consider this simple example: There is a pipe that starts from a point A and ends at point B; in between it takes two 90deg turns, one at point C and another at point D. For now, forget about the point E.

Fluid density: ρ, OD = d, Pressure inside pipe = P, Velocity = V

Condition: Pipe is flanged bolted with the equipments at point A and point B. Fluid flows in the pipe from A to B or B to A (doesn’t matter) at pressure P and Velocity V.

So What Now: Thrust will be generated at both the turns (points C & D) due to pressure force inside the pipe, i.e., Pressure * Area of Pipe and also because of fluid’s momentum, i.e., Mass flow * Velocity. The same needs to be calculated for both X and Y directions and accordingly the resultant force shall be computed[ii]. It must be noted that thrust force due to pressure inside the pipe is considerable large than that due to mass flow and velocity and hence the latter can be ignored for simplicity.

 If you look at the figure carefully then you will observe that both the Y-components of resultant thrust force are equally[iii] opposite to each other and hence shall get cancelled. But yes, in this case the stretch of pipe between points C & D shall be under tension and it would be really amazing to see if someone takes this mild steel pipe apart because of this tensile force!

And how do you think the X-components are gonna behave. Does it seem like that they are forming a couple about point E and are really on the verge of twisting this pipe, is it so? Well, think again then. Because first they will have to break the bolts which have tied this pipe with the equipments at A & B and only then will they have the luxury to form a couple, meanwhile they will have to languish alone, and as they say not in this life guys.

So what’s happening then: Well, these stupid X-components don’t get the point and thus they also put the pipes between A & C and D & B under tension. I hope there is no need to tell as to what will happen of them. Let them have fun in trying to tear the pipe, hahaha…

Now do you seriously think that we require a thrust block in a fully welded and fully restrained pipe and if you do, then pray tell me how?

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[i] Strainer (Mechanical), 16 Feb 11 17:51, http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=292032

[ii] This is an online calculator which is available for free along with the theory behind this calculation. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/forces-pipe-bends-d_968.html

[iii] an assumption that pressure drop between points C and D is insignificant

Some of my friends, whenever they happen to find me listening to English music, would react as if I am doing something insane. They would say, “ye kya angrezi gaane sunta rehta hai. Kuch samajh mein toh aata nahin hai.” And there are others who would react the same way when they find me listening to Hindi songs or in their terms old Hindi songs. What I do not understand is this simple fact, what has the quality of music got to do with language and time. If it is good then it is good, whether it is English, Hindi, pop, rock, classical or hip-hop. How does that matter?

Everyone, it seems, have circumscribed themselves with some ideas which they consider fixed and rigid. They just do not want to experiment or be adventurous. What’s wrong in trying new things? Those who only listen to, say English music, are only depriving themselves of melodious voices of Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumar or more recent KK, Sonu Nigam, etc. They do not even realize what they are missing out, which life has to offer them, because of their pre-formed rigid minds.

Same is the case about movies, they would say, don’t watch English movies or don’t watch this movie or that movie or of that language or of that actor or some more restrictions. But I do not understand this, how does it matter if it is of any language or actor. A good movie is a good movie, as simple as that. Humans are humans only and everyone is capable of making good movies regardless of the language they speak.

It is not only about movies or music, what it really is about, is the prejudices and mental blocks that people form in their minds during the course of their life. Their egos, biases, and selfish interests would not let them try new things. They just do not want to.

Take this for example. One of my friends’ IE stopped working due to some unknown reasons and as a solution I suggested Firefox to him. But, he wouldn’t like it and cited many trivial reasons for that, such as it does not give me that feel, font is smaller, etc. Yes I accept that there are going to be some differences and fair enough if you do not like something as per your interest (which again is a debatable topic), but you should judge yourself properly because you may throw away a wonderful opportunity of finding and learning new things.

I consider myself a very shy person, but still there have been many instances when I have seen myself much more open and communicative with new people than those of my other friends who are otherwise usually very chatty. May be not so open, I am, when it is a matter of girls, but that is not the point, the point is that people do not want to try new things, new ideas, or listen to others.

And, yes one more thing I have seen. People just do not have the patience to listen to others thoughts. They just want to say and say while not allowing others to speak and thus unknowingly depriving themselves of the knowledge they might have gained.

I just consider myself lucky and give many thanks to the almighty for setting me on a path of being open-minded and liberal, for making me read different types of literature irrespective of religion, nationality, for making me listen to different types of music and for making me watch and admire different types of movies.

And, thank you for giving me the patience to listen to others so I may learn from them as well.

Thank you for giving me the patience to listen even to the adversaries and people having different opinions.

Thank you!

And, I pray to Him that May I one day really become liberal and open-minded.

P.S: Listen to everyone but you always have the option of choosing what you want to take. Do not deprive yourself.

A Sunday...

(This post was originally published on Sunday, 4th March, 2012 when I was at site.)

I

Sunday was supposed to be spent sleeping and doing nothing but I ended up working and if not exhausted, was certainly tired out at the end of the day. Nevertheless, I think it was a day well spent rather than doing something futile.

In the office, cautiously opened my mailbox with a fear that there might be a response to the mail that I had sent a day before. And lo! There was one. “Can we develop a sketch incorporating all the above?”, the reply mail said. And that’s how I was set to work. There are days when I do not feel like doing anything and then there are when I feel addicted to work, fortunately it turned out to be latter of those. So, to my relief, I enjoyed working.

Once upon a time or should I say that once of those many times, someone asked me my caste. And, as is my usual policy, I told that person also, "I do not know, but what do you think?". Now to say something like that can only be considered a blatant lie. And so he said that it is not possible and turned his face away with a countenance that suggested, “He is not telling me because he must be from a lower caste”. Was he right or should his right or wrong even matter? Because the point of discussion cannot be what caste but it is much more than that. It raises some fundamental questions, which needs to be considered before we decide if an answer is even applicable, such as what is caste, why and how it was conceived, what were the benefits because of which this system was preferred over others and is the present practice adheres to those rules, if it does then has those benefits being realized and if not then what has led to this degradation (may be some other day).

II

I do not know why people fail to understand a simple fact that everyone is just a human being composed of same flesh and bones, having same sort of desires and wants, and if these customs of caste, religion, nationalities are not artificial and prone to error as well as subjected to rectification, then what are they? Caste system, in its purest form had it existed of that of division of labor, I believe, and not division of laborers, would have certainly been fruitful but it has now become a dreadful system which serves no purpose but flagrantly promotes hate and even being an intelligent set of species, it is beyond the ambit of my understanding, why can’t we get rid of it. Where all the rationality, intelligence of men does fade away like wisps of smoke when they discriminate with their own kind on the basis of religion, caste, color, creed, etc instead of treating everyone equally.

Just Some Scribble...

What is education? Is it just limited to acquiring particular set of skills in order to make oneself capable of earning bread and butter? Or should it be more than that?

Hmm...Education???

(I am not trying to write a critique on present education system, I am just trying to conceive an idea of education or should I say the way I see education).

The time of infancy, I think, is the most critical stage of our life, when we are inordinately open-minded and receptive to any sort of information. It is the time when any set of information given to us gets written in indelible link on our memory slate. Thus, the role of our parents and myriad relatives at this juncture, in my opinion, is very important. And, no wonder the terrorists prefer preparing their likes by brainwashing very young (may be children) rather than full-grow mature adults (in their case it might be very difficult or easy, again depends..).

The point which I am trying to make here is that every information, however subtle it may be, if gets implanted into the mind of child during infancy, in future would come to govern his/ her worldview and all his/ her life’s major or minor decisions. Thus, it is my dearest advice to all parents to disseminate as much secular, liberal still deeply religious education as possible and avoid brainwashing the future of this planet with intolerant, fanatic, caste-ridden poisonous one, in order to develop a perfect society, a perfect nation and a perfect planet (Utopian vision!).

During our schooling, the teachers come to play a very important role. In India, in ancient times, there was Gurukul system of education wherein students went to live with their teachers in order to acquire education. The teachers were called Gurus, who did not teach out of selfish ulterior motives of money, fame, etc but out of sheer love, for the upliftment of mankind at large. Then was the time when disciples truly respected their teacher (gurus) not out of fear but deference. In present system, education is a mere commodity which is sold by a vendor (lecturer) to a customer (student) at the highest rate possible. At-least in developed nations the vendor does his job very well, whereas in India with a borrowed and useless system, the vendor just fills his hours.

Even with vendor-customer relationship, the type of education that is taught cannot be considered complete. It is nothing but a machine making education to produce men/ women who will make heaps and mountains of money without any regard for moral and ethical values. What kind of country do we want?

What type of education then? It further gives us a question, why do we require education and what is its purpose?

The purpose of education or for that matter purpose of any action in life can only decided when we have that ultimate goal in our sight, the purpose of this life.

Consider this now, Indian seers of yore said that purpose of this life is to attain Moksha or Nirvana, but then it should be lived self-less and motive-less or in other words purpose-less. And, it leads me to say, what the hell...? They always have me confused with their ambivalent statements, saying things such as He is everything and yet He is nothing. Now what am I supposed to draw from this.

Nonetheless, they devised a social system which they called varnashrama which has now been unfairly and very wrongly termed as caste system and instead of the original one this corrupted and atrocious system is now being followed, irrespective of its divisive and poisonous nature.

What was varnashrama and how it could’ve given us a goal of life? And, how could it have been possible to know the purpose and thence the type of education?

Some of my thoughts on education:-

1. It should form a person’s character; impart to him/ her courage and strength of a Lion accompanied with faith and humility to respect your elders and everyone else.
2. Give to him/ her technical skills, enough to earn bread and butter for survival and yet a yearning to perform in their fields with absolute excellence.
3. Instill in young minds the ability to think properly and independently.
4. 99.99% percent of a crammer is far worse than 00.00% percent of an original.
5. Can be had anytime, when you are ready.
6. Is imagination.
7. When a student fails, it is the teacher who does not know what and how to teach. Thus, it should be considered as the failure of teacher.

P.S: Inconclusive, I know it is!

Philanthropist and Not Corrupt

At the starting of every financial year we have to declare our investments and other applicable expenses which are, as per the rules of income tax department, allowed to be non-taxable. And later, for the same declarations, we have to show proofs. I think, almost everyone provides genuine proofs for the part under investments, mostly in form of insurance policies, but not so is the case for “other expenses”.

Other expenses generally include the following:- 
1. House Rent Receipts. 
2. Home Loan. 
3. Fuel and Maintenance: Expenditure on fuel for official duty.
Of the three, proof for only home loan, as I believe, is not faked, but proofs for other two are generally bogus. And the reason being, the sheer amount of proofs, which make their verification humanely impossible.
Why do people fake? It’s not a question which would require an expertise of a rocket scientist to answer.

Why am I writing this here? A few days ago, I had a discussion with some of my friends, who presented their arguments in support of such a practice and I would like to present the same here along with my own views.

Their arguments:

1. If we pay our taxes genuinely then it will only end up in the pockets of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, because of rampant corruption.

2. And, instead of paying it to the government and letting her waste our hard earned money on flawed policies, we must keep it with ourselves.

3. And, if you feel guilty for doing so, then wash away your sins by donating all the stolen tax money. (I wonder if anyone would actually do so).

What do you observe?

It’s a beautiful human trait, similar to the one exhibited by Arjuna, when he showed his reluctance to fight the war. Following is a quote from a book which applies wonderfully to the present situation.

The mind of man is indeed very clever, for, it always finds suitable arguments for what it wants to do, or for what it does not want to do. Wanting to get out of an awkward situation it deduces arguments which are sometimes too virtuous to be true.

Following are my views.

Yes there is ubiquitous corruption, but are we not becoming corrupt and justifying the actions of the very same politicians whom we so vociferously denounce as corrupt. On what grounds can we attack them if we are not clean ourselves?

We want clean and efficient system, honest and hardworking bureaucrats, sincere and visionary leaders, but do not want to clean ourselves. Is it possible? Let’s think…hmm…does it seem impossible? Yes, it is. Because the same bureaucrats and leaders who are later called corrupt get their training from our homes only.

And there are others who say that we should evade tax and then donate the same. Here it’s the same dangerous thought, which has no regard for democracy and its institutions, instead asks for subverting the same. It’s like saying if your ends are well intentioned then means does not matter. 
A quote by Nietzsche, “When you looklong into an abyss, the abyss looks into you”.

If we have once decided to live as a democratic country under a constitution and its laws, then it is our responsibility to abide by the same. And if we do have any problem, then it is only on us to fight for the redressal of same through constitutional means, instead of advocating “corruption”.

It’s a system, flawed may be, but still a better one than complete lawlessness. And with time we are sure to encounter or discover its problems and then an opportunity to correct the same. We should not miss them by blinding our eyes with our self-interests. It’s time that we honestly and sincerely accept that we all are corrupt and then should change ourselves, instead of living under our hypocrisy, and always calling only public officials corrupt.

I sincerely feel very sad and I just don't know why. 

That suicidal feeling seems to have overtaken me again. What is the problem with me? I have a job with a decent salary, good enough for me to sustain and which I am doing. Yes, I don't like my job, but then how many does still they seem to be happy. What is it that I'm looking for? What is it that can probably fill this vacuum inside of me? It's not as if I never feel happy, in fact I do, when I get a chance to play cricket with full energy so to say as if I'm deeply involved in it, as if there is nothing which I care about. But, still there's this hole which makes me feel, what am I doing, what could've I done...

It's not that I worry about dying, it's just this dream which horrifies me. I see myself in a room on a bed looking at the ceiling wondering what could have I done with this life. 

As I look at my grandfather's, my parents, and other people's lives, I see nothing which can probably motivate me to do something in life, I see no real purpose. They lived the way millions had before them and millions will after them. So, what's the point? Why is everyone striving so hard to earn and collect materials? What is everyone trying to achieve? What will happen in the end?

Why did I write so? It was a mindless statement, delivered without due thought. How can I just write about movies, "which have nothing to do without reality." Did I have some concrete information for that? No, I didn't.

How did I realize my error? As I do not expect anyone else to read and "comment", so I read it "as usual", while trying to figure out why anyone else would come and read it.

Why am I writing this here, could have easily edited the earlier blog? Oh! come on do I need to explain this also and that too to myself. As they say, "vainglorious".

But, in future, I will try to make sure that I do not write hastily.

Anyways, my office hours were as usual boring and monotonous, but there's always a story to tell, though I do not write everyday, but today I would like to share something.

Mr. Eccentric was as usual whining about Rs. 3300, that I owe him, in his words, which in actuality belong to, as we have to come to call it, the Recreational Committee or is it Club or is it Council...oh! come on man what is it...whatever, the point is that I was avoiding him for quite a number of days, thinking that when he would actually need it, I will give him. But, today he asked me again. So, I decided to give him back.

While transferring the money to his account, the bank's portal asked me "Transaction remarks", and just to have some fun I wrote in it, "Bheekh", which in English means Alms. It doesn't sound so bad in English or does it? Only native English speakers can actually tell, but to me, in English, it surely doesn't. But to him in Hindi, it surely sounded like Hell. I also admit that it does sound bad in Hindi.

But this bad it would sound to him that I had never imagined, and that he would react like the way he did, surely was inconceivable by me. 

He quickly read it and then agitatedly asked me, "Yeh kya likha hai tune", "What is this that you have written?”. And, then suddenly started shouting angrily, "I will tell you in open forum", "I will bring this in front of everybody" and blah blah.

I have known this person since three and a half years, and we have since been quite friendly. But, after this incident and when I look back, I can remind myself of a few more, I can surely say that I cannot claim to have known him.

I don't know how he can behave like that; he behaved as if I actually meant to hurt him or genuinely tried to humiliate him. Have we not been friends long enough to understand each other at least that much and that friends never actually mean anything from their hearts, even though sometimes they might say very crude jokes, which might seem like nasty, though not intended to hurt? Can’t he remind himself of how many times he had said things to me of a similar nature? And, that I never actually took it the way he did today, because I have always believed that he never meant them, which indeed he did not (atleast that’s what I believe), same as I did not mean today. 

Whenever any of my friend says such a thing which might be bad but not deliberately designed to harm, I always ignore it saying "Koi baat nahin or jaane bhi do yaaron or dil pe mat le yaar", "No problem", for I know it's hard to have good friends.

But now it is certain that I shall refrain myself from being friendly with him anymore and would not talk to him except for professional matters.

And, I have also realized one thing after this incident that I will have to be very careful while making remarks or passing jokes, especially with whom, which as a matter of fact leads me to believe that I should adopt a silent way, because I don't know what I would say and how would it be taken up.

P.S: There’s sufficient reason for me calling him eccentric and it is not only due to this spat with him and certainly not because I do not like him, but we “all” agree with him being termed as such. While, that “all” may not actually include all, but I think finding exclusions may result being a futile activity.

Happy New Year 2012

2012 has finally arrived. While some prophesied that it would be the end of world, millions wished each other a Happy and Prosperous New Year. Withal, I wish everyone a purposeful and meaningful new year, this I also wish to myself.

A friend once asked me, “Where do you see yourself, five years down the line?” to which I said, “That’s a difficult one. Give me some time to think.” So, he asked me another question, “Where do you want to see yourself?” and then I answered, “May be first one was easy to answer.”

See that’s the problem, you might learn to do many a things for survival and start making money, but after a few years of monotonous and banal life, it occurs to you that, is it really the purpose of my life? Is it for I was born? And then a fearful thought takes its birth in the mind, “Will I go on living like this and suddenly die without any warning. What is the purpose of this life? Why does this world exist?”, and with passing of every second it grows stronger and stronger. It surely had grown in me and sometimes, it makes me consider the idea of putting an end to this mundane existence. But then comes another feeling, as Tom Hanks said, that I have to stay alive, I gotta keep breathing, because tomorrow the sun will rise and who knows what the tide might bring. It may intrigue someone as to how can I seek an answer in a movie quote, which have nothing to do with reality. I don’t know but somehow it comforts me!

Once again I wish you all a very happy new year… and hey! You too have a great one..!