Nazira, now and 16 years before...

Nazira is a small town in the Sibsagar district of Assam, India. This was the place where I spent four years of my childhood; in fact I studied till my second grade there. Now, 16 years later, my father is again extending his service in Assam…the district renamed to Shivsagar, is fully grown into a big city with lot of hotels and cars. My mom and sis are spending their summer holidays there. Today they had gone to my father’s workplace, an oil rig in the forests of Assam. They happened to pass by the town of Nazira. Now Nazira has a shopping complex and lot of big bungalows .Then it used to be a lifeless town, whose major population belonged to the ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation). Even now it is the case, but the local people had become rich now. The shore of the Brahmaputra’s tributary which once used to be deserted is now full of shops and crowd. I still remember the sight when the river used to flow brimful. This is gonna be a memorable visit for my sister, who was just a three year old kid then. I missed this trip due to some expected work in Bangalore :o(

Did you have a big cake in your mouth...Mr.TechLead?

People always want to save their own skin. I experienced this last Friday. Important issue, on which a decision was made along with the technical lead of the project last week, was not communicated to the project manager…and this lead to all problems. The mutual trust I had with my peers is shattered :o(We were closing the design phase on Friday. When my project manager darted with the issue, I came to know that the gap in communication. The technical lead was also present at the scene in the next PC terminal. Well Mr.Tech Lead, Did you have a big cake in your mouth then? From now on, I think even an issue of the size of mustard needs mail communication.

Brilliance...Burning Bright

After my usual visit to the temple last Saturday evening, I went to Jayanagar 4th block shopping complex. Of late I spend my Saturday evenings at this place because I like to see the bustling city life here, I love seeing huge crowds of people enjoying their weekend. I relished on ragi roti (pancakes made of certain variety of cereal), a local delicacy. In the fast food corner, I met my colleague Poornima who had come there accompanied by her husband Shyam Sundar. I proceeded to my favourite coffee shop nearby that served traditional South-Indian coffee. Sipping my coffee, I enjoyed the sight of wide variety of people bustling. Meanwhile I happened to notice two bright young boys enjoying their ice-cream. Later we got introduced…The two boys were amazingly brilliant; their brilliance shone in their eyes. I really like to see such people. Good luck boys Pratap and Santhosh. The return walk was a tiresome one perhaps.

Amusing human psychology - 1

There are people who would be friend only if you praise them…I am bewildered by such people. Since because a person has wealth, you can’t bend yourselves to their wishes or agree to what they say… this is another category of people which I am seeing right now in front of my eyes. Really amusing human psychology right! These people would do anything to show off their importance. You need to be careful with such people.

First Circuit designed in my career

The first circuit I designed in my career is something that I would never forget in life…The solitary moments in the company when I designed it, early morning around 6.00am…The beauty of the datasheet…the versatility of the design guide…the CAD notes…the intriguing decoupling caps and so on…and also the exclamations received from my peers on seeing the design. Though this happened some 5 months before, today was the day of the design closure and launch to the next stage of the product cycle, so I would be busy placing my designed circuit on the board :)

Fry your Brains

Today, the feel of working on a Saturday was relieved. Our team members went out for a Movie…’Bheja Fry’ at the PVR for a Morning show. The film was clean fun and was a nice movie to watch. It is about people who really fry your brains. The movie had nothing to express, but was a comedy movie. The 2.5 hours passed like few minutes. Later we had lunch at the ‘Sahib sultan’-Forum. The ambience of the restaurant was really good. Now I am sitting in office after an hour of strenuous drive back, though my manager drove the car.

Ramya, The new word for joy

‘Pogaatha Ellai Poi vanthalum, punnagai seyyum oruvan…Neethaana?’ goes the lyrics of a Tamil song. The verse can be translated as ‘the one who smiles even after returning from horizon…Is that you?’
Ramya, my cousin sis is a perfect example of this verse. The moment she sees a new person, she wears a smile. I was in CBE for the past 4 days with her and here in Bangalore now, I miss her

Case of semiconductor

I got a product-line CD from a Japanese company. I was thrilled to see the way the word semiconductor was interpreted. The word is a series of 3 symbols Half, Conduct/guide /Body.
Really amused by the way words are formed :)

Raja alias Kolaikaaran

Raja, Or Kolaikaaran (Means Murderer in Tamil) as we used to call him in college is in Indian Air Force now. He will be in Bangalore for the next 1 year or so. I spoke to him yesterday. Speaking to your old friends after a long time is always a thrill. I wish him best of luck in his forthcoming exams and his future service for the country.

Operation U43

It was a crucial moment for all of us. A pre - testing was blocking everybody’s time. The operation required to remove an organ (IC - U43) completely from the PCB board. Knowing that I had to remove an IC that is very small with lot of veins (traces) running adjacently and lot of vital organs lying nearby, I relied upon the skill of our lab technician Manjunath BV. With lot of effort we first isolated the vein junctions (the PCB pads) from the IC pins, this was the most difficult as the veins were so close to each other by 0.5mm. After about 40 minutes of hard work, finally we isolated the entire organ about (7mm by 7mm) from the body…the IC from the board.
The operation is a success…The PCB will be given a small test injection (probe) tomorrow before the full test is carried on it.