Should I buy a can of diet coke, or should I not? There's too much crowd near the counter, it will take me a while to reach there, especially, with the plate full of Biryani in my hand - so ditch! I decided against the coke, and stopped & turned - only to find out the fellow behind me hadn't stopped... The rest happened in ultra-slow-mo... I braked hard, trying to balance my plate of Biryani. The bowl of curd went careening over the edge of the plate... all the way down to the floor... it did an odd twirl on the carpeted floor... the curd splashed out - almost straight up - some of it even reached my eye level - while the rest of it splattered around forming an interesting pattern of white dots on me, the fellow behind & a couple of table on both sides, as I and the fellow behind looked helplessly at each other!

It would have been a funny situation to the neutral observer - only there were none - observers, having had their share of flying wisps of curd dotting them, were hardly in neutral frames of mind!

A new post every 4 months on an average - not bad at all! :) Wonder if I still have any readers!

Horns of a Triceratops - I mean - Trilemma!

8 kilometres to office - through typical Bangalore terrain (read bad roads & many ups & downs), flyovers, traffic, rush hour...

Option 1: Buy a bicycle - cycle to & fro.
Option 2: Walk one way (how much time will it take?) and return by the bus!
Option 3: Take the red bus to Tin Factory, walk the last three kilometres, same the way back the other way round!

Decision time! Objective - to get a little bit back into shape... I know, I know, Round is a shape - very funny!

Face(?)-lift!

The old template was no longer supported by Google - the unique image on the top-left corner long gone missing - and it being impossible to edit the look or feel of the page anymore - it was time for a change - overdue in fact - for years! 'Why bother?' you ask - 'It is not as if you will post anything here!' And you are right of course! But then, a change just felt right too!

So here's 'Free Wheels' in a new avatar - and Archives back online after years... but, to some extent, I do miss the old pink...

What did the gun-toting Delay Capacitor say to the 0-ohm Resistor? :)
"Resistance is useless!"

My bi-cycling ordeals - chapter N!

My bi-cycling ordeals - chapter N!

I borrowed the Texins bicycle to go home yesterday. Cycling 8 KMs felt good & was fun, albeit a little tiring for the Quadriceps & Hamstrings. However it would have been a bit more fun, if:

1. The cycle had any brakes to speak off!
2. The gears changed… when I wanted them to!!
3. The cycle hadn’t made me miss the bus the day before!!!
4. Folks around didn’t respond to me stating that I will borrow the Texins cycle with blank stares & questions in the line of “What Texins cycle? You mean take out those pedaling thingies from the gym?”

To elaborate…

1. Brakes: Well, exaggerations apart, they are actually there! But this does not say anything about their being effective in – well – braking! (They look good, I will admit – they lend the handle bar a bit of character!) To quantify: coefficient of rolling friction of cycle tyres on road is supposed to be of the order of 0.005. [Source: Google.]  With brakes pressed all the way with knuckles going white – as would be the case when there is a Bangalore Auto-rickshaw swerving in front – the effective coefficient of friction probably increased to 0.0075 or thereabouts! And I do have quite a good grip – I tested 470 in one of those grip-testing machines that anyone who has visited a Durga Puja pandal & fair would be familiar with (for others, the scale is 0 to 500, 500 being the strongest!!)

Recommendation: Let’s get the cycle repaired & serviced!

2. Gears: I will admit that I am not an expert on geared bicycles & therefore don’t know what to expect of them. However, I am reasonably certain that gears are supposed to change approximately when I shift that gear-knob near my right hand, and that they are not supposed to randomly change out of the blue, when I am happily cruising away on the main roads, about 15 minutes after I have stopped fiddling with the gear-knob, and with a sickening jangle which caused my heart to skip a beat under the apprehension that the chain had come loose, as used to frequently happen in my old non-geared Hero Ranger Devil!

Recommendation: Same as above!

3. Missing the bus: So this is what had happened. I had checked at 6:30 PM day before yesterday if the cycle was available, and was assured it was. However when I went to Texins at about 8PM, I found out that although the cycle was indeed there, what was missing was air in the tyres – there was none of it. Absolutely zilch. Not a molecule of Nitrogen, not an atom of Oxygen, not even any whiff of those rare, inert gases. Under the possibly misplaced conviction that presence of air was essential to enjoying a bicycle ride, I, Kulkarni & one of the housekeeping folks laboured for about half an hour in a futile effort to pump air into the wheels! By the time we had given up, it was too late for me to catch a bus. Interestingly, today, air was apparently filled into the bike tyres using the same pump, but by a different house-keeping guy – so evidently the job requires some amount of skilled effort!

Recommendation: Can we put together a protocol which should automatically come into play when someone asks for the cycle, including, at the bare minimum, checking if the cycle is ride-able in terms of shape & presence of wheels, tyre pressures, etc?

4. Folks with blank stares: This has a slightly indirect implication on the whole premise of having fun with the cycle. The logic runs in the following lines: ‘Blank Stares’ implies ‘no one knows about the cycle’ implies ‘the cycle is not used much’ implies ‘falling apart due to disuse’ + ‘lack of knowledge about aforementioned falling apart’ implies ‘when someone actually wants to use it, he is not able to’ implies ‘the cycle isn’t used much’ implies ‘Blank Stares’ & so on…

Recommendation: We should advertise more about the cycle ...

P.S. For the uninitiated, Texins is the Employees Welfare Association of our company. Let it be noted that my opinion about the bi-cycle does not in any way reflect my opinion of Texins - Texins is & will remain one of the best things in the company - it would be hard to find a parallel for Texins in any other company in the city or even in the country. It is one of those things that make us stick to the company - for those of us who have been around for a long time, that is!!

Discover Brain Games!

30 - beat that!!!

http://www.discover-brain-games.com/

Some simple games to pass time - Beware, they can be addictive!!

http://www.discover-brain-games.com/

The Secret

The Secret

Type out your thoughts
In Snatches!
A word here, a phrase there,
Even whole lines that may rhyme, or not!

Abstract, it must be.
Play with the order
of words - Verbs afore, Subjects behind!
Jumbled up, all, as you wish them to be!

Coin a few new words.
A few
mind you!
Not too many that the gist be missed!

A rhythm, divine or otherwise,
Helps!
Try to think as have many before you!
You will find out it is easy.

Finally, add it up,
Publish it on your blog,
Add links from Google,
Facebook, Twitter & the lot.

And Lo & behold,
You are a poet!
As am I one!!

What colour are you inside?

What colour are you inside?

Satin Pink & Turquoise Blue,
Bloody Red & Plain White too!

Purple, Beige, Grey, Yellow, Green,
Is that the colour you are within?

A - B - C - D - E - F - G -
Even None with that thick, black T!

Nylon Nets & Crimson Lace,
Black & Blue - in the Book of Face!

Be bold & reveal your innermost hue,
And ne'er an ailment may befall you!!