Day 106

Vidhi is on the way to her home for the first time! She started out from Shimla yesterday night, reached Delhi today early morning and left for Bhopal. After a overnight break at her Nana-Nani's house, she will start for Bangalore on Sunday and reach here by Monday.

Day 87

This post is about trip down the (near short) memory lane and recounts announcement of Vedika’s birth to the world.

This is SMS I sent to my friends:

India’s population++. Gender ratio infinitesimally improved. Plainspeak: It’s a girl :)

I had planned for sending at least somewhat different announcement rather than just simple ‘It’s a girl. Mother and daughter a doing fine.’ My geeky nature came up with above words couple of weeks before her birth and I had typed the SMS (with possibility of both boy and girl) the moment my wife went in labour. That I wasn’t with her, of course, gave me time to do such thing. Instance I came to know, I sent it to all.

Below are snapshots of reactions of our friends and families on her first announcement on Facebook which happened within 15-30 days of her birth.

• Chachu's announcement
• Papa's announcement
• Mummy's announcement

Day 82

Today, Vedika got her third dose of vaccination. She is acting little irritable whole day and is taking paracetamol every eight hours to avoid onset of fever. Apart from bit unrest, she seems fine.

Vedika - Day 78

Baby gets new gears!

(alright, these images are taken from web, but they show exactly how the stuff looks like, except that the carrier is in light blue colour)

Oh, I might add, these are her gifts from her Chachu & Kaku! Will upload with Vidhi in actual stuff soon.

Also to clarify those who bother, I am not buying pink stuff just because she is she. Maybe a pink bow...

Day 70

Baby Vidhi has reached Shimla with her mom. It's her first train and long distance journey. Apart from expected irritation from tiresome journey, she didn't exhibit any other worrying symptoms. Radhika had to sleep whole night on her side without changing sides on one birth so as to provide support and cover to Vedika and she definitely seemed unable to manage a good night's sleep. More detail as they come.

Day 67

Vidhi is showing signs of improved stability in her sleeping patter. She sleeps longer stretches at night and is awake for longer duration in day. Her kicks are growing stronger and she is becoming fond of gurgling and cooing when someone talks to her.



Heat in Bhopal is at its peak and has caused a little slowdown in her activity. Doctor has verified that her reduced activity is mere exhaustion from heat and is no sign of inherent malady.



Vidhi and her mom will travel to Shimla to her paternal grandparents two days later. That will be her first journey out of the house and first taxi/train/bus journey.

Links to share

1. Leading a team requires skills different from successful personal achievement. Here are nicely put tips for being a great boss.
2. Even in this day with GPS tracking, satellite mapping, Helicopter and what not, Amazon forests still remain out of reach of human. See fascinating narration of what lies inside through eyes of explorers who went in search of mythical city of Z.
3. Given this history, it is not wrong to assume that all government departments are wrong and ready to loot money. Frequent strikes by Air India workers seem to suggest entitlement. But every story has two sides. Here is a attempt to look from other side.
4. String theory suggests as many as 11 dimensions of Universe. Physical senses can see 3 dimensions. Brain can understand 4^th dimension of Time. Beyond that it’s mere imagination. But ain’t it fun!
5. Is character a well defined social concept?
6. There is science behind design of parking space and parking penalty!
7. And there is science behind walking: Part I and Part II.
8. Humans are fallible. Even those who sit at highest pedestal deciding fate of lives of people: judges. And they don’t make good decisions if they are hungry!
9. Look behind world of car salesman in US. Also good lesson in human psychology of selling.
10. The turning point of advertising: mix Sex and Ad.
11. Once American Airline decided to sell unlimited free flying passes for $300k+. It still lost. Because people just flew too much.?
12. Why do people overeat?

Cost of improper signage

Small things, yet very important. I am talking of traffic signage in India. Traffic signs are obviously very important for road users. They serve primarily two functions: information and warning. Informative signs provide directions, street names, speed limits, one-way streets, distance, nearest convenience facility, turn permissibility, and so on. Warning signs warn of work in process, diversions, traffic lights, stop sign, lane constraints, road block, weight limit, height limit, and so on. For drivers and pedestrians alike, they serve purpose to facilitate traffic, reduce inconvenience, reduce traffic jam, manage blockage and congestion, provide mental peace, and all in all are very helpful. In fact, I find proper signage so helpful — and this is not just limited to roads, but also in public areas like parks, hospitals, bus and railway stations, airports — that I feel instant gratification for that designer who decided to put a sign where he did in case I find one exactly when I need one.

In USA I’ve found signs to be absolutely well placed. Almost as if someone is reading my thoughts and the moment I feel I need directions, a sign happens to be right there as soon as I look up. This, unfortunately, hasn’t been the case in India. Indeed, while they are absolutely important to avoid unnecessary U-turns and save fuel cost and traffic congestion, I doubt anyone in Indian municipalities — which are responsible bodies for this kinds of works — pays any iota of attention to them. There are many problems:

1. Major issue is that there aren’t just signs where there obviously should be, like fork in the road or a flyover or traffic junction or closed road.
2. Content of signs leaves enough to be desired
   1. First, there is a issue of font size. There is hardly any standard for any sensible font size which can be read by driver is who driving at or below permissible speed limit. More often than not, it’s too small that you need to be parked to be able to read.
   2. There appears to be is no standardization on sign language too. Often for temporary signs (for construction work, for example, which in Indian case, temporarily last for up to couple of years) signs are not phrases but full sentence. Combine that will small font size and you are predestined to be unable to read it.
3. Biggest issue is of placement
   1. While vehicles are permitted on all lanes, sign is placed exclusively to cater to lane nearest to it, even when it is applicable to all lanes.
   2. Sign is too close to the point where decision based on that information can be made e.g. you are already on flyover when sign says where this flyover goes and where road below does, or sign on left lane is so close to junction that moving to left lane at that point is impossible, or speed-breaker sign is after speed-breaker.
   3. Sign is hidden behind an advertisement poster or an overgrown tree
   4. Sign has moved/shifted/turned by forces of nature and time or is misplaced in the first place where it points to direction which is wrong is vague (arrow marks the street where there isn’t any). This is specifically bad of places like Bangalore where concept of perpendicular road crossing is rare and you’ve multiple roads crossing at odd angles.

None of this, of course, matters to traffic police should they decide to cite you for violation. You may have driven on a road couple of kilometers before you see a speed-limit sign (if you do, despite above) yet you are expected to somehow know that and not exceed that. You may come across a traffic junction and keep looking if and where is the signal for you, for it’s either placed at strange angle or is behind a tree. Blind turns and road conditions ensures that one may drive at full speed only on roads where one has driven few times. Do not expect speed-breaker or turn sign will warn you. You will have to remember that. That and that pothole which is just there unannounced ready to engulf you with your car.

And improper signage is not just small annoyances. I personally have wasted quite a lot fuel and time on missing a turn or driving on a flyover when I am not supposed to. Subsequent course correction adds to unnecessary traffic congestion and caused road rage. Compared to investment of putting useful, readable, properly placed signs, returns on overall fuel, time, accident saving, and public convenience is expected to be high. I do not have numbers with me but I’d expect them to have one of highest return-on-investment for any public expenditure work. Yet, there is no future where I envision this will happen any time far.

Day 55

Received Vidhi's birth certificate from Municipality of Bhopal. They have misspelled my name and missed the 'i'. Let's see if correction works. If not, I hope, it won't be much of a problem.



On her front, baby darling is growing smoothly. She has started to respond positively to her mother's face and voice and smiles often. Her newest habit is sucking her fingers and fist. She seems to find immense joy and juicy delicacy in it for she ends us licking and sucking at her fingers often with sounds akin to eating tasty fruit. It's an constant source of amusement and annoyance to Radhika to make her stop doing this. We try not to encourage her to have a habit of sucking thumb.



Radhika also tells me that baby Vedika has followed family footsteps and have started watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S which is our family sitcom. It keeps her engaged for few minutes at least. Night 11pm-1am remains her favourite play time.

Birthday wishes

Birthdays are special occasion for most people. Special day, celebrated, purely because it happens to be the day on which the self, which, of course, is the center of known universe — not in cosmic sense but in sense of world around it — came into existence in its own conscience. An exercise in narcissism, no doubt, yet perfectly valid, for any other metric of time is intellectual, theoretical, abstract, and in any practical sense, immaterial. A person’s conscience has only one true timescale which runs from birth to death. Of course, why the day, and not moment, hour or minute, and why annually, and not in any other periodicity, is purely conventional.

Most people like to make their birthdays special day for themselves, affording themselves luxury of their favourite pastime, meal, indulgence, or anything that brings them happiness. Most of remaining people are generally upbeat their birthdays if not making a fuss of it. Rest, just let it be.

For those who care, of course, receiving birthday wishes is expected. It is desired from one to wish another birthday wish, if former happens to come to know about this, and is in presence of later, even if there is no familiarity between them. At their annual frequency, birthdays, naturally, become convenient touch points with people whom one would place in acquaintance category — not too friendly to connect often, yet preferable to be in touch with. Given that people expects and like being wished on birthdays helps the matter.

What doesn’t help, apparently, is the mechanism for helping you remember their birthdays. People expects, surprisingly, that you wish them because you remembered their birthday. This also applies to any wish-requiring occasion such as anniversary. An emphasis on expensive brain real-estate marks the importance person has in your life. Even if you took help of any of technological aids (calendar, reminder), you are not to disclose, for it will reduce well-being conveyed by your wish. No wonder impact of my ‘Happy Birthday’ drops a notch soon I tell them — only on being asked how come I remember — that I remembered it because I was reminded by my calendar system. I must pretend that I remembered. My getting external help seems to suggests farcical wish and not a genuine one. That I bothered to make note in may calendar and took effort to wish is easily swept away. Of course, wiser next time, I just remember. That is not to say that people don’t know it but they would rather not have this be stated explicitly. How many birthday wishes on facebook, a purely rhetorical question, mind you, are because your friend saw the reminder on top right? Yet, would one dare to draw the attention to the same? No one does, of course.

Seems I find this topic little more fascinating than I imagined — I have written on the same couple of years earlier too.