Electricity and my evolution towards power cuts from Coimbatore, Chennai and now at Delhi

Now a days there is too much issues with the electricity power cut, be it Delhi or Chennai or Coimbatore. The ability to sustain this issue of blackout has evolved from days to days in my life.

When I was in primary school during my 1st and 2nd class, I still remember my dad getting the kerosene lamp lit. My education was completely in Coimbatore, school and graduation to be precise. This was the time when I was in Lisieu(x) and during my 1st and 2nd class there was limited power cuts during the night and usually its because of a burst caused in a electric transformer or a short circuit issue from any of the neighbouring house.

We had two kerosene lamps. My dad used to service these two lanterns daily when ever he was home (Works 15 days of a month away from home), so during the fifteen days he is away for his work, we need not have issues with lighting these lanterns as they will be perfect for to be bright for the whole night, only thing is we will have to fill in it with kerosene when the tank is empty.

Steps to user a kerosene lamp is described her http://www.wikihow.com/Use-and-Maintain-Kerosene-Lamps

So initial stages we used the kerosene lamp, we still have it, as an Indian its mandatory to not let go of things that saved you at the time of crisis.

When I was in my 4th and 5th class of school, just about to reach high school and teen age. My dad changed the concept of Kerosene lamps to emergency lights.

I still remember it was a tall white cased Rolls company Emergency light with single tube in it. I also remember I studied for my history and Geography exam during my 6th standard under these lights. During the annual exams happens from March till April, we used to experience power cuts often all nights.

 When I went to my 8th class there was regulation from the government that to manage the power for entire state, there will be power shedding during one day of the month, usually the power will be restored as per order but only for selective places as there was two types of connections, a single phase and another three phase. Its Greek and Latin for me too, but usually there will be tube lights and fan at my neighbours while not at my place. My dad used to say that power is restored only for the other phase and not for ours. This time my dad changed the electricity to the house form single phase to three phase, so that there will power from any one of the phase if the other fails due to unavoidable circumstances.

For my 10th the power cut rule was completely changing from a hours to full day to blackouts, so my dad moved on from emergency lights to UPS battery supplied power.

I still do not know the difference between an inverter and an UPS, still we call everything UPS, and we had the Rolls company UPS fit in. By this time my house was now a duplex. We had the first floor built so the UPS connection needs to substitute for a tube light and a fan in all rooms of my house. The house is a 5 BHK duplex house. Hence it required big batteries and we had to allocate a special place for the entire unit where we cannot keep other things.

When I was in my higher secondary education the 11th and 12th I stayed at a separate place near my school as the timing to my tuition's were bizarre, Usually it was from early morning 4AM till night 10 PM.
This rented house did not have the sophistication that my dad gave me, so back to stage one: the kerosene lamp, then the emergency lights shifted to my place.
This time the emergency light too evolved. They had a old tape recorder style, cassette option to play songs during power cuts with lights at the same time. 

Now, my school part of life was over in accordance to the electricity issues that I had to evolve to.

College was fine; I was back to my place where the UPS was well maintained and working fine.

Usually combined studies happen at my place as the house was huge and my mom will not let me for night at a friends’ place as my dad was working away from home. Hence, in case of emergency it was mandatory for some male to stay, my grandfather was almost eighty so its god not to disturb him, hence it was necessary I stayed at my house.

My friends understood my state (still the same circle of friends not yet broken) and they will come to my house during study holidays to prepare. We did not have issues, as there was enough electricity for us to sleep more and study less.

By 2010 I was out of Coimbatore, the first time I am leaving home, Chennai is the capital of the state and huge and vast and my first satisfaction was there will be no power cuts. The moment I came to Chennai from Coimbatore I understood this place has something for someone coming from a small town but a clean and respected one. The Marina, the traffic and the best part was power cut happens only at one day of the month and is scheduled from place to place. Better than what I had experienced at Coimbatore.

By 2011, I was with my Brother at Government Guest house so it was uninterrupted power as the entire housing unit comprised of Government secretaries and diplomats.

By mid 2011, the Government had a rule that every house will have a minimum of 10Hrs power cut due to loss of power in the storage at sub stations also,  Tamilnadu was dependent on the winds to produce electricity which as a result of global warming and shedding of trees there were no enough production of power to share to the entire state, hardly power was produced from NLC’s thermal power plant and few Hydroelectric power plants across the state but that too was not sufficient to be distributed for the whole state uninterrupted.

When my home at Coimbatore had to suffer a 10 Hrs. power cut, I at Chennai had to face 3-4Hrs only. Slowly it went from bad to worse as the inverters do not have enough time to fully charge, there be every chance of the machine going bad because of this.

By 2011 Feb, I had to move out of my brothers place a he was transferred to another district. I joined my Friends place and was not at a job  that time, so was paying bills and borrowing money from my parent’s. Here, during nights its usually sleep in open terrace, the temperature was cool-outdoors and indoors-it was humid.

By 2011 September, I moved out of my friends house to another place, a separate room with an attached bath and toilet. A friend of my dad had this built for his son, since they moved out of the place and this room was locked for many days unused, I was asked to use this by paying some minimal rent. This is where I started to plan my living and design the room upon my own interest, had an air conditioner fitted in, a computer with 2.1 speakers, a steel cupboard, a table. All set in to pass the winter that was coming first.

There was a little improvement with the power cuts during winter. People do not use that much of heavy electronics to drain out power. Usually water in Chennai is hot and people during both summer and winter prefer bathing in cold water hence the amount of electricity used was drastically reduced.

2012 summer it was, again the power cut was scheduled to 2 Hrs. everyday at Chennai and 6Hrs at rest of Tamilnadu. But I had a problem at it will be low voltage during the night and my Onida AC did not get enough power for it to run efficiently, this means I had to sleep out in open terrace till midnight and then get in, after 2AM there was full power restored.
There were even days when I had to sleep at Office because of the low voltage problem. Sleeping at office was one way of balancing the electricity blackouts.

By December 2012, my family had shifted to Chennai and we were at our house here and it was first time for my grandmother and mother to live in an apartment flat.

We had rented it out for past 6-7years and hence there were no single acquaintances in this place. The electric connection to my house was jammed the devices were not working properly. Usually all nights it would be blackout for my block alone, no one really cared, as the administration of the apartment was in pampers and I did not know whom to contact in case of emergency and did not know what to do at this new place, as my dad was also away for work during initial days at Chennai.

January 2013 it was and we had to renovate the entire house, like we had to do the entire wiring of the house and had to talk to the EB to check the pole of that was getting short circuited. We had to change the electric meter and fuse plugs. These changes were done with the help of my uncle who was working in EB,now retired but had his power still at the electricity board.

We had to install a new UPS as the old one was still left at Coimbatore. This time the entire unit was like a small table top, it occupied very less space and other think it to be some show case design in the room.

By 2013 July, I joined another company, hence I had to move to Delhi, it was from state capital to Country’s capital hoping at least there will be no power issues being the power house literally.

Electricity production and distribution in Delhi is privatised, so you might think their support is good as they need to answer the competitors but you know, its Delhi, and when you are at Delhi you be a Delhite. 'Never follow rules' the only rule that you should follow.

Fate had its coming, the company guest house had an issue with overloading. Whenever there were two ACs running the wire from the electric meter to the house would cut itself off and will lead to power failure or shortage.

We will have to go to the BSES office at 3AM or 4AM and these guys are true UP, they need extra money to come and do their work which will last for hardly a day or two. So the power cut and my backup was evolving from place-to-place and time-to-time.

By 2013 winter, we did not want any other device apart from light and the heater to run, so there was again this shortage of the wire due to the heater running.
By October 2013, the apartment association took all possible steps and changed all the meters connected were almost gone bad. So in place was a new meter and we were minimised of going to the BSES office.

Comes the summer of 2014 and April was successfully completed with dust and pollution. May-June 2014 was horrible. This was due to a Storm that affected all power storage grid of the North for which there was a loss of 40GW of power stored. This lead to power blackout at my place and many parts of Delhi and the Northern India.

The hard part is the inverter too does not work here and its not maintained properly. The worst part is the heat and heat-wave. Its average 42*C all day so you need fan at least to sleep else its dehydration of the worst order.

Had been in old age for few days, tried candlelight writing, candlelight dinner then candlelight research. What next??

Hope the electricity is restored to complete satisfaction. If not, at least sun calms down.

So it’s mandatory for me to evolve whenever I change place when it comes to electricity. Next thing I should try solar power. Not so far.

11 Choices of 1.1 Billion Indians

After browsing through many web-pages, what I see is posts/tweets/pictures/share/talk about are one from the below,

1. Sachin.

2. Cricket.

3. Rahul Gandhi.

4. Politics, scams and scandals, corruption.

5. Salman khan.

6. Movies and music from movies

7. P C Sreeram.

8. Photography.

9. Chetan Bhagat.

10. Writing a book.

11. Love.

Sports: -

Sachin is one representation for India in terms of sports across the globe. Unfortunately/fortunately cricket is not our national sport and neither is Olympics recognizing cricket a sport.

So one thing that I wish to India develops itself to get recognized as a sports 'developed' nation. A population with 1.2 billions and counting should at least have one world leader in every sport. We do have people competing in world level still we have less medal to show it.

I can see slowly we have started to think sports out of cricket. Hope in coming days we have one Sachin in every sports from India. May there be more glory during the olympics.

Politics: -

The Indian politics is another big department/research that most of them follow across the globe. yeah! The world's largest democracy. I am proud of it.

Just completed its voting for the 16th Lok Sabha. Results yet to be published (May 16 2014).

Our Politicians are known for their plus and mostly minus. The minus here is the scam and scandals of the government authority right at the time of election's getting themselves exposed.

Many want their idol to be a ruler of the largest democracy. Basically politics these days has come to publicity, fan following, increase in economy of one self. Hope the new government takes India one step better than the old one.

Fine Arts: -

On the big picture, 'arts' in one word is getting in to the Indian Film industry.The most popular industry across the continents.

The Super Star, Khans, Kapoors, Kumar's, Bachans, Hassans, many more. They have done their piece of work to make sure our presence is felt and make sure the other millions away from home feel home.

One thing that I am happy about is the outcome of live plays, enacting a play or staging a drama for live audiences and the westernisation effect to stand-up comedies. These have been in the past but now the reach to common man is more and is available to general public in their regional way.

Hope other art forms too prosper in coming years. Good that my nephew did not want to study engineering instead wanted to do some journalism, film making, some paintings and a small basics of music. I had to tell him all that you want to study were mt hobbies. Hope he gets what he wants. Good that kids these days are well tuned to their interests than forced to do against their wish.

Science and research: -

I remember Dr.Kalam, Dr. Baba in the research. Rest all are known only if I Google them or if I hear them on an elite show or from a news of inventions and discovery that is shown as special shows on TV.

The discovery channel and the National geographic channel bring you the details from across the globe on any scientific product be it mechanical, automobile. Most of their cultural shows, road trips are shot in India for the Indian subcontinent to watch.

Why an Indian channel is not coming out with a dedicative science ot cooking show? Instead of telecasting some soap serial.

Hobbies: -

Whenever you ask someone to write his or her first information such as extra curricular activities or hobby most of us would have stated photography in these parts.

One good thing is every one is a photographer and everyone is a critic. For a professional photographer he is paid to do the job. Is it your hobby or profession? Hobby, then you get obsessed with it for only a particular time. Profession, then you are going to perform only for the money you are paid.

I too had this photography as a hobby, but later learnt planting too helps and reading books too. Collection of Indian rupee coins made my hobbies go one step higher.

Sort your hobbies and do not stick to one thing alone that almost everyone wants to become.

Writing & Lit. : -

Last thing that come to mind is an Indian writer. We have many writers. Good bad and ugly writers still they are one. To my knowledge CB was the first to open the doors telling Indians anybody can write. I know my language or use of vocabulary are too less still I am trying my bit to write. I was not a book reader but, I was left with no choice, when my brother published his first book, it was a novel with just 200 pages, that is when I came to know the books from fellow Indian authors can be related to life events, being Indian, they too think of the same.

The above ten things are the first point that we Indians usually try to express our views in most cases. Either we try to debate as we know more knowledge on these or our media covers the most, covering up many other details across the country.

What I see from all the web-pages browsed, I just conclude, 

The more qualified you are the more skillful you got to be. Follow any interests, any stream of work, any hobby, but make sure you give your 100%, then expect in return. If you are not ready to give your 100% then please do not try. Concentration, dedication two things that need to go hand in hand.

Not my request though, but would be better if followed. 

The Three Foodies !! - 2 - Sagar Ratna, DLF Place, Saket

Ha ha! Rasam, the Aroma !!

This post is actually only for ‘Rasam’ lovers. I almost tasted rasam last time when I was at my house during my vacations at Chennai by November 2013. So after almost three months I taste rasam. This time it was at completely different region, which is not known for rasam, instead famous for Daal Makhni and Rajma, Delhi it is.

This time it was not three of us. My team accompanied me, my company colleagues on a team lunch.

To accommodate the taste of everyone, the only option is to take you where there are multiple outlets and each member can have food of their own choice. There will be no question of the taste or no comments on the price that you are spending to cherish the moment. This happens once in a month (Yeah, I am lucky to work for this company, not to forget I had to clear a test and two interviews, to be here).

So we were at the Food court, DLF Place, Saket at Delhi. Yes! A food court, I understand the happiness to be at a food court for that I love to eat food. I am amidst fifteen kiosks of great food servers from the past not known what to eat in first place, then the confusion, What to order and where not to order from?

So out of previous experience going to malls and eating in food courts since 2010 at Chennai, the mantra to eat in a food court is simple, you got to decide the cuisine first then, the hotel/sever that make that particular cuisine tasting the best.

This comes only out of practice I too had difficulty during my initial phase eating at malls, as in Coimbatore we were known only to restaurants and not for food courts.

The more time and food you waste ordering in a food court, the more knowledge and expertise you develop in ordering and enjoying food.

Like I said simply make up your mind on what you are going to have, if necessary try one extra dish and nothing more.

Okay, coming back to the story of Rasam.

Working for an IT company, its natural that I have a team and time to discuss my schooldays or moments that I cherished and lots of other discussions to keep your stress out, on one such conversation I happened to quote 'Rasam naa Vadavalli mammi thaan' meant Rasam means what Vadavalli aunty used to prepare for me.

This lead to my craving for rasam all of a sudden, I had to disturb my two friends about rasam and even asked them to check online recipe and method to prepare it at out place. All the online methods or plans to make rasam at home did not yield a fruitful result.

That is when I came to a conclusion to have a complete rasam rice unlimited offered at Andhra Bhavan. You see always there is this thing called fate, you plan and he too plans accordingly. Here is the twist, unfortunately one goodu boy met with an accident and the doctor has requested him not to strain his legs. So I had to wait for my time to taste. Not knowing how long will it take for him to get his leg will become all right as we travel to taste foods in three or more. We make sure one of us is not missed on the taste that other is going to enjoy almost in all cases.

There happens to be exceptions, but not for rasam as the conversation was with this goodu boy who also wanted to taste rasam, and rasam can wait naturally.

The more you wait the more beautiful the thing look, it is applicable to food as well, but you got to know where it is served with the wright taste and procedure.

After a day, my mobile phone beeped with a notification that the team is scheduled for team lunch, in two days, my mind-voice says (use paniruda kaipulla, [Vadivelu]) this is the chance for me to taste rasam that I desired to have not knowing when.

So as planned we went to the food court in the near by mall, DLF Place Saket, Delhi South.

I had to pause for a moment as here in most hotels they serve dhal, rice, roti and paneer as meals. I had to look out for a south Indian hotel that serves rasam, luckily for me there was Sagar Ratna; they had rasam rice in their menu. I immediately gave my cash card and said one rasam rice jaldhy dhena.

The cost of the plate was 120/-INR plus tax.
 Served with 200-250Gm of Rice in a plastic plate and a pappad.
The Rasam is served in a cup about 150-250 Ml.
There is a mixed vegetable pickle served with the above.

The food is limited. The rasam was Famous Mysore rasam with more of coriander and spices.

The best part of having rasam is drinking it, its more or less a tomato soup rich in spices and taste. They also serve Rasam and pappad as starter for 45/-INR plus tax.

[pic curtesy zomato.com]

Ah! The aroma of rasam brought my Vadavalli Mammi's memory and days. I have tasted rasam almost every day she prepares, while I generously miss what my mother or granny makes at home. This mammi had a specialty in her hands in preparing rasam. May be next time when I go to Coimbatore will taste rasam one more time from my Vadavalli Mammi.

My dad is a patron to rasam, my granny or my mother used to cook rasam daily for my dad and my grandfather, I was not a big follower of the rasam that My granny or my mom used to prepare, still I like to taste rasam occasionally. May be, I am following my dad and Grandpa’s way but with some simple specification of taste (only Mysore rasam).

Next time if you wish to taste something from the South Indian try Rasam Rice from Sagar Ratna, DLF Place, and Saket at Delhi.