Hooked to the hook (I mean the crochet hook)

It's not true that people can't learn new stuff after a certain age. Yes, an activity requiring rigorous physical fitness might be difficult for some, but a relaxing hobby should not be tough to pick up. Crocheting is the thing that I learned most recently (this year, March) and have been fascinated on learning it.



My first crochet blanket

I have a hard time remembering what the quality of my life was before we had The Internet, and with it Google, Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook :) Some ladies, from across the world, whom I would never see in my entire life have taught me how to knit and crochet by posting videos in YouTube. I am so very much grateful to them.

Like every other thing, I started with the simplest stitch, the single crochet and thanks to the mini booklet of Red Heart Super Saver, I could actually create a 36"X36" blanket just with single crochet stitches. It needed a lot of patience. Counting the chain was not easy, neither was the first line hanging from the base chain. I had to hang in there (well, not literally so) and created my first 6"X6" square. At first I was creating separate 6" squares and sewing them up. Then I figured out I could crotchet a strip by changing yarns after the desired length. The good things - you learn how to change colors and you don't risk missing a stitch or crocheting too many. Also, I didn't have to sew every square. There were 6 long strips which were sewn to form the blanket.

When I learned how to knit, my first projects were the inevitable scarf and hat. But now, I have advanced from "beginner" patterns to "easy" or even "intermediate" patterns so once this blanket was done and I got the hang of single crochet, I went ahead to the next lesson - double crochet (well, no points for guessing). There's only a very few things you can do with just single crochet. Also, double crochet stitches are tall, so the projects work up twice faster.

The best thing to do with a double crochet is to make a granny square. There are hundreds of different granny squares to make. You can join small squares to make blankets or make a big square blanket as a whole. I learned to make some newborn or preemie clothes as well. The soft baby yarns are so nice to feel (and pet) and the pastel shades look very cute and pretty.

Granny square blanket

While reading a pattern, I got stuck to see it needs a "hdc" that's a half double crochet, but then decided to learn how to do it and thus remove the obstacle. Now my 3rd project to come is that preemie sweater with a "hdc". Also, like I said there are hundreds of styles in granny squares, there are some with a circle in the middle of a square. In doing that, I found out what the difference is between giving you a fish and teaching you how to fish. Following a ready-to-bake pattern is simple, but that way you would not be able to create your own. If you find out "why" and "what's the difference between" the stitches, you can be as much creative as you want.

Now I need to get to my middle school geometry and figure out how to crochet an isosceles triangle (and not an equilateral one). I think I got the theory right, I'll have to put it to practice. Two more things for me to learn are - creating a bobble for which I'll have to make a treble stitch.

Welcome baby boy!

At the end of the day, you have a creative hobby that is relaxing. You get to learn something great. You can work with colorful yarns (the balls of yarn in my woven basket makes me cheerful and when there are cats who go crazy while chasing those yarns, it is even more joyous). The best thing is, when you create stuff for neonates, you can always feel good that you are welcoming some baby (often needing special care, or from families who cannot afford something nice and fancy) with a warm and colorful gift.

Stay hooked!

Planning for a family

This is a toughie. I read about a debatable topic - Is family planning needed in developing countries?
Well, yes!

I believe that family planning is needed for EVERY family all over the WORLD!

What are examples of unplanned families? What happens when people don't know what they are doing, or don't think of consequences? They make mistakes. If those mistakes involve the lives of people, they can be very costly and irreparable ones. When I think of non-planned families, what I mainly see is poor people, often uneducated ones, living on the streets with loads of children. Who were never taught to think, who just follow nature. That is just partially correct. Unplanned families can be found in plush houses too. There the couple might be told by relatives to have a baby by the time they celebrate their first wedding anniversary, or that might mean a teenager having a relationship and ending up as a single mother. Most cases of abortion will realte to this. Abortion is never a way of "planning". It is an unplanned end of an unplanned journey (unless the needs are medical). Have you seen any couple who have babies just to end their marital fights? I know of one such who adopted a baby girl thinking that would end their issues. How selfish can people be!! These adults could not resolve their own issues and they thought a baby would be able to fix that? What happened finally? They got divorced! Wouldn't that girl ever ask them - why did you intentionally bring me to a broken home? What answer have they got for her? Then there are people who are just fit and fine but would say "who knows how long I'll live, I want to see a grand kid!" That is very selfish too. What would happen if he/she doesn't see a grand kid? Do they know if their children are in a position to have babies? 


I sometimes get amazed at people's irresponsibility and selfishness. 

Children are NOT sent by God. If they were, then people would not have more than they could feed. There is absolutely NO point in having ten kids just because that came naturally and then not being able to provide them with a good quality of life. It is much better to plan for fewer and raise them with proper love, care and dignity. I am not saying people should not have more kids. If they are physically, emotionally and financially able to take care of more, they can. They can adopt kids and provide a loving home for those who would have otherwise been orphans. There is hardly any deed better than this. There are quite a few celebrities who have done this. Even single people can adopt kids nowadays. I think that is an awesome move!

Planning can't be a bad thing. People might (and will) take wrong decisions sometimes, but even then you can't rule out the benefits of planning. Have you ever seen a law been implemented without planning? A town laid or a project started without planning? Financial planning is encouraged in every field. Educational plans give you a roadmap to follow. Then why not plan a family?

A manageable family is the base of a happy one. There the kids get enough love, care and attention. That enables us to create happy and healthy (yes, mentally healthy too) future citizens of the world.

The grandeur of a saree

There are many things in life that we take for granted. We are so used to see them the way they are that we hardly spend any time thinking about the effort (mostly long term efforts) that have evolved them from a primitive stage to what they are today.

Tagore family. Source.

When you have a walk-in-closet full (well, may not be literally full, but plenty) of clothes can you ever imagine that in the 19th century, women in Calcutta did not have any proper clothes to wear outside the women's quarters of their houses?

That is the background of the evolution of a saree. That single piece of cloth for which women all over the Indian subcontinent rave about!

In the 19th century there were hardly a handful of women who would think of going out in the public. So no one thought about having a proper style of dress for that purpose. In the absence of traditional clothes, one Bengali lady used to wear gowns just like the Europeans, some others had a hybrid between an European gown and a saree. Those look funny now, but we must bear in mind that just like an unstable piece of a buggy first version software, those were stepping stones too. A stalwart in this line was Jnanadanandini (Gyanadanandini) Devi. There were no ends to her enterprise. Being the wife of Satyendra Nath Tagore (Rabindra Nath's second brother), she was persuaded by her husband to come out of seclusion. She accompanied him to his workplace in Bombay, which was a revolutionary step in those days as it was customary for the wives to stay at the in-law's house even if her husband worked else where. When she was to leave for Bombay, Jnanadanandini found that she did not have any decent clothes to wear. The way they wore a saree in those days without a blouse or petticoat, was very uncomfortable to be worn outside. That is when she had this elaborate and cumbersome "Oriental dress" made. I have never seen any pictures of it, so all I know is that it was extremely uncomfortable and  practically impossible for the lady to put it on and off by herself. She never wore that thing again in her life. In Bombay, she liked the way Parsi ladies wore sarees. She decided to drape the anchal/pallu (the hanging part) to the back instead of bringing it in front. When she returned to Calcutta wearing a saree in her own style, it soon became popular with the girls of Tagore family. They called it "Bambai dastur" (Bombay style).

Traditional red and gold saree for my wedding

Just like the European ladies, they also started wearing a chemise underneath a saree, which was later replaced separately by a jacket and a petticoat. That jacket has evolved into a modern day blouse. Of the various styles of draping a saree, the greatest evolution came when pleats were added to the front. That drastically increased the leg span and also added aesthetics.

The Tagore family has done wonders in modernizing Bengal. However, even though Jnanadanandini was one of the foremost in the saree front, the final touches came from two other ladies.The maharani of Cooch behar, Suniti Devi started the style of pleating the hanging portion of the saree. This way, a lot of the heavy cloth could be kept on the left shoulder, neatly pinned with a brooch. It looked way nicer and also allowed ladies who wanted to cover their heads with it. Suniti's sister Sucharu, who was the maharani of Mayurbhanj wore a saree in almost the style we wear nowadays to the Delhi Durbar.

More things got added, more styles were interchanged later, through the ages. Now ladies do not cover their heads, nor do they wear bejewelled brooches. If you watch old movies, you'll see how the style has changed over the years. The accessories have changed, so have the blouses. On one hand designer sarees have taken place of traditional ones, on the other many traditional styles have been rejuvenated. Whatever happens, a saree will always retain its grandeur all over the world!

PS: I wore an absolutely traditional saree in the old Bengal style for my wedding. 
Note: The people in the Tagore family picture are - Jnanadanandini (in the white saree), her husband Satyendranath (standing), Kadambari and Jyotirindranath (sitting). Jyoti and Satyendra were Rabindranath's brothers. Kadambari was Jyoti's wife.

Vishwakarma's workshop

Do you know who Vishwakarma is? He is the engineer god of the Hindu mythology and my joint favorite one (Saraswati being the other). I am his fan. It's not that I like him because I am an engineer, I started taking a liking for him, from when I was 3-4 years old. I don't know why, but I did.

Boeing 787 - DreamLiner

On Vishwakarma pujo, which falls on the 17th of September every year, I put flowers on every gadget in the house. Not just the refrigerator or the TV, but the water pump, the electric meter, old phones and cars all got their fair share that day. It's not "idol worship" but thanking the mechanical/electrical/electronic things for their service throughout the year. I love them!

Recently, I visited a place which can be aptly called Vishwakarma's workshop. It's the Boeing factory in Everett, Washington.

I love aeroplanes. The marvel that helps humans (and animals and postage and cargo) to fly is truly a miracle. Who would have thought that the basic principle of maintaining equilibrium was gained from the Wright brothers' knowledge of bicycles? When the plane accelerates on the runway, preparing for take off, I love the speed it runs at....and the moment it lifts off, I can't but wonder at the human mind....that has enabled us with super powers! All these I like seeing at the Boeing Future of Flight...what humans are capable of.

An Air India plane in the Boeing workshop

At the Boeing tour, the guide takes us along the factory and shows us where actual 747s and 787s are built. You would see the huge planes standing there, some getting wings attached, some having the tail fitted...they don't have any paint on them at that time. As we live close to the Boeing field, we sometimes get to see brand new 787s on test flights. Some of them still lack paint...the flight tests their functionality and not the look and feel I guess ;-) Being a test automation person by profession, I wonder how the automation for testing air-crafts are written. How perfect they should be. If my automation doesn't work, I will still be able to test most features manually. Even if everything fails, it'll still be a software that's crappy and a phone that doesn't work. But, if the software of a plane is buggy, the lives of 350 people would be at risk! Can you imagine the responsibility of the testers?

On a big scale there is the mechanical aspect, the load balancers, the stress testers. The materials that are used - composite fibers and the like that will use less fuel, shutterless windows for 787 to decrease more weight talk about ground breaking technology. On the other hand, there is electronics. The fine wirings, the sensitive gadgets for the pilot....that's one engineering marvel I must say!

At Paine Field, Everett

When we started making trans-continental flights, we mostly had to take two stops. My first trans-Pacific flight took almost 17 hours to fly from Hong Kong to San Francisco. A 787 would fly non-stop from Mumbai to Los Angeles. Probably in a decade a 797 would be faster, cheaper and better fuel efficient. The youngest people to ride a 797 are definitely not born yet. What a wonder we will have for them to fly in!

PS: "If it's not Boeing, then I am not going!"

The Springing Tiger

If you are born in a Bengali family, you are expected to be able to know and sing Rabindra sangeet, similarly you will be taught about India's freedom struggle and about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose among quite a few other things. Then again, in my family every generation has each seen a Netaji-enthusiast, if I may say so. In our generation that is me. I have been accumulating quite some facts about Netaji over the last few years so this is a perfect place to share that...

I have heard people branding the current generation as "they don't know anything about Netaji" many times. I am not saying that the current generation as a whole is very enthusiastic about Indian history, but I would also say that the past generation has done nothing to imbibe in us a sense of patriotism. We learn what we see, so if our parents and teachers never lead us by example, how do they expect us to learn and show interest in our tradition, culture and country? Apart from home, there's another place to learn - in school. For people who are off touch with history after high school, what did they learn about Netaji from text books? Our history book, the one published in Delhi said that Netaji was killed in an air crash on August 18, 1945. How did they know? What proof did they have? If the government tries to wipe someone out of the minds of our countrymen, how are we going to stop that?

I am a follower of Rabindranath. I try to understand his inspiring poetry and songs and try to live up to them as much as possible. I know that who tolerates oppression is no less at fault than the oppressor and I also know that when the call of humanity/truth comes we will have to answer to that. I got a chance to attend a seminar at Netaji Bhawan on the eve of Netaji's 108th birth anniversary, I was happy that I would be able to get some of my questions answered. The entire afternoon I went through paper clippings about Shah Nawaz committee, Khosla commission, day to day reports of Mukherjee Commission, news reports, articles by Pabitra Ghosh and similar stories that my uncle has patiently collected. [Kakun's idol is Sidhu jetha and he is getting quite close to being the "encyclopedia".] Armed with the knowledge of the fake plane crash and the high discrepancy between the so called eye-witnesses' reports, I went to take on those people who are happily basking in the reflected glory of Netaji and have made quite a marketable commodity out of our great statesman.

I wouldn't go into much details about the seminar. I just want to let you know that I confronted the Bose family and though Sugato Bose was trying to snub me down, my loud voice and fast speech finally got to ask all the questions (read rhetorical questions). They couldn't answer. Well, they didn't have anything to say. They are claiming that the ashes at Renkoji temple are Netaji's. Do they have any proof of that? Was there any recorded plane crash on August 18, 1945? No. What happened to the documents? They are all burnt ( oh sure!) One eye witness said the plane nose dived and crashed. Another said it broke from the middle, while a third said it toppled to the right side. They all claim to be on the same flight. Is that what you call a "slight discrepancy"? Well, the crowd did cheer for me!!! (I feel so happy even now when I think about it.) It doesn't solve the problem, but it does open some eyes.

The Supreme Commander of Azad Hind Fauj

Do you know what Netaji's plan of action was when he became the President of the Indian National Congress in 1938? The first thing on his list was population control. He said that if we can't control the number of mouths to feed, all our plans will fall through. If he were here, we wouldn't have the dreaded Partition, nor would anyone fan the flames of communal problems. There wouldn't be any separate penal codes. Can you imagine? India, Pakistan and Bangladesh together as a superpower!!! The Arzi Hukumat e Azad Hind (Provisional Government of Free India) was formed on October 21, 1943 and two days later, on October 23rd, following the Geneva Convention, Netaji declared war against the Allied Forces. Just think of the nerves of steel!! India can't even shut the silly infiltrators out now and Netaji declared war against the Allied forces!! Apart from the bold supreme commander there was a nation builder side to him as well. Do you know that in the Indian National Army (INA)'s kitchen everyone shared the same food irrespective of caste, creed, religion? They ate sitting next to one another. The only salutation was "Jai Hind". To the INA country came first and then religion. Like Abid Hasan says, it is not that they abandoned their religions. Abid became a better Muslim while he was serving in the INA but he was at first an Indian. 

It is our bad luck that Netaji could never come back to lead us in free India. What happened to him? 

However much they try, it is not possible to quiet the "roaring tiger of Bengal". Netaji's spirit is still here amongst us. If it is possible, get a copy of Anuj Dhar's "Back from Dead" and you will time travel through the fake plane crash to the fake commissions. I think it is a must read for every Indian. I recently got a Kindle copy of "India's biggest cover up" by the same author. I am reading it now. It is, I would say the follow up to the previous book, but you can read it just by itself as well. Take a look at Shyam Benegal's "The Forgotten Hero" as well if you haven't. I think we, as Indians have complete right to know the fate of our hero and it is high time that we know it. We will never let Netaji become "forgotten".

Jai Hind!!

[Some parts are excerpted and translated from my speech on "Netaji and the present generation" at Jadavpur University, Calcutta.]

Taking some time off

I have always seen blogging as a way to relax and unwind. For this very reason, so far I have never written anything technical here not intend to do so either in the future. Life, however doesn't go on my terms. So I am facing some challenges now. That means I will have to fight, fight, fight before I feel comfortable enough to relax.

I have announced "emergency" in my life. So things wouldn't be as great as they generally are. I will also have to prioritize matters, weight options and move on.

So that's it for now. This was a brief message I know and doesn't have much details. I will get back as soon as I can and share all the stuff that I hope will be soon put behind me.

Take care you all...