The rose plant that I have in a pot perched on my balcony is a story of survival. It flowered, grew, withered, sprouted and just about survived. But it’s time had probably come. The branches were withered and the leaves were dry or unhealthy. I was willing to let go of it. I did the occasional pruning and deadwooding, but not regularly. I watered it nonchalantly almost everyday. It didn’t look heàlthy and its days seemed to be numbered. But it had its own plans and over the last few days a small bud appeared on a delicate branch. I saw 2 bright new twigs with leaves sprout out of drying stems. For unseen by me, my mom was carefully…

Is this the beginning of the end. My Pluto guitar is about 12 years old and has been the main guitar I have used in my life. You can read the short story of how I got the guitar here. When we were returning from Australia in 2014, it got damaged in transit – Malaysian Airlines refused to let me carry it on board and asked me to check it in. I had to sign a waiver and that was it. It still sounded great even after this damage – there were cracks on the body in front and probably one of the support beams inside. I’ve used it immensely till now. It continued to sound good, but recently the…

(Warning: Hypothetical Conversation only included) So I had this end of life discussion with a Microsoft employee who’s father was extremely sick and was probably not going to make it. Me: Your dad is very sick and is on multiple life support medications and machines with continuous dialysis. He has multiple cannulae infusing medications and more tubes monitoring his vital signs. He appears to be unresponsive to everything. Him: Doc, have you tried disconnecting and pulling out all the tubes, cannula, wires and monitors, turning everything off for 10 seconds, putting them all together again and then powering everything back on. (Silence)Me: That would result in a hard reset of his life. Him: And what exactly is that Doc?Me: All data and malfunctions will…

In an academic institution, a large part of progressing through a career is having enough publications to get to the next rung. It’s a battle I was aware of when I joined, but have not been motivated enough to fight well. Maybe I’m not equipped, maybe I’m not a battler, maybe I’m just plain lazy. “Not enough publications” is a yearly ordeal I hear every June as I settle into a stagnant life in my C grade quarters and I find myself unable to remove the Asst. in my designation. This is also an easy excuse for not being allotted a car park at work. But it hasn’t impacted on the joy factor in life thankfully. Only my overall impact…

I have a small balcony garden that has made it to my blog on a couple of occasions. Summers in Vellore are harsh and the plants don’t like it since the sn sun shines directly on this side of the building through most of the day. I usually water the plants in the morning before I go to work. However, there are days when I can’t and by evening a couple of them start to wilt and droop. What surprises me is how they revive soon after I water them in the evening! I tried a time-lapse video over an hour or so and you can see how they perk up: Now there are some downsides. By allowing it to…

The layover trilogy series has 3 parts and must be read in this order:The K terminal layoverThe D terminal layoverThe H terminal layover Experience is quite a teacher and I came up with a robust, but delicate plan (Oh! The paradox of it all). The starting point was Vellore and the destination was Kodaikanal. Rather than a lonely layover at the famed K terminal, I chose the more bustling Hosur junction – let’s call this the H terminal. I booked a combo which would give me a 1 hour break between buses. Neat! I finished work early and called Bus 1 as there was a discrepancy in the boarding times – it was 1 hour earlier than I thought. No…