Nano experiences

Extracts of my letter sent to Business Today

With reference to your story in BT January 24, 2010 about experience of Nano users, Nano seems to have completely missed its market for which it was originally intended viz. the first time car buyers or the two wheeler owners who want to migrate to four wheels. All the interviewees in the story already have multiple cars with them and are definitely not first time users. Has Tata missed something here.

Giants of Science

Just finished reading "Giants of Science" a book of mini-autobiographies of leading scientists, innovators and thinkers starting from Pythagoras to Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, to Faraday, Hertz, Einstein, and Fermi among others. It gives a brief bio of their early lives followed by their scientific experiments and innovations, which has richly enriched modern lives. Highly recommended

Why Have'nt you Written

Just finished reading "Why Have'nt You Written" Selected Stories from 1950 to 1972 by Nadine Gordimer. The stories belong to that era when South Africa was under aparthied rule. Most of the stories deal with subtle tensions arising out of racial strife.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Bad Beginning

Just finished reading the first book of Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events". The first book is called "The Bad Beginning" involving the unfortunate events surrounding the lives of the Baudelaire children. I think post Harry Potter, children's books have undergone 360 degree change with calamities and disasters being the central theme of any series. Gone are the days of William series books by Richmal Crompton a delightful series involving the danger with which William regularly goes through his life. I guess, the danger part has been upgraded substantially. The first book looked good. Goodreads 4/5 

Andheri East skywalk goes haywire

Now that the contours of the skywalk being constructed at Andheri east is getting clearer, it seems the skywalk is going haywire or nowhere. It starts at andheri station and goes alongside the road towards sahar and joins the andheri west east bridge. That's all. What is the use of such skywalk which no one will use because nobody needs to go the west-east bridge at all. There are no offices there and from the bridge itself it is a long walk to anywhere. What's wrong with these guys MMRDA or BMC or whoever is implementing this project. It would have been better to take the skywalk along the andheri-kurla road and deposit it before the highway into an underground section and bring it out after the highway onto the chakala section, because thousands upon thousands of people walk this section everyday. Also crossing the highway will become easier because presently it is dangerous and time consuming. Who cares for people anyway!!

Basu alive even after death

It seems Jyoti Basu is still alive amongst us, even after his death. His two corneas has been transplanted to two different patients, while NIMHANS wants to study his brain. Let's hope that the two patients who has benefited from Comrade Basu's eyes are not politicians, otherwise, we it will be shudder time all over again. NIMHANS should make a deep study of his brain and find out how Basu continued to be a communist marxist while communism itself collapsed all over the world and also while his son was a staunch capitalist.

Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar Metro 1

Anil Ambani's consortium says that Metro 1 between Versova to Ghatkopar via Andheri will be ready by end of 2010. I can't see how that will happen, becase work is incomplete in many places, not started in certain places like over the Andheri railway station, near Asalpha, towards Ghatkopar etc. They have taken more than 6 months and still not completed the first station so far at Chakala, how in the earth will they complete the entire project by end 2010, i fail to understand.