31st Dec 2016

2016 was really the year of turmoil in many aspects

Hopes dashed in the ashes of reality !

Great ambitions biting the dusty track.

Giving up work to chase dreams and static life!

Grinding in a rut, facing derision and abuse!

The effects of demonetisation are given very nicely in today's Times of India article, where it seems in remote villages it has hardly touched the lives of people

Credits : Times of India 31st Dec 2017

Everything is fine in this tribal village as it has never seen scrapped notes

by Radheshyam Jadhav

ROSHAMAL: Tudkibai Pawara has not heard the name of Narendra Modi and is completely unaware of demonetisation.

Sitting in her thatched hut of interlaced bamboos in remote hilly tribal village of Roshamal (Khurd) in Akrani taluka of Nandurbar, Tudkibai is surprised when asked about the scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes because she is unaware that such currencies existed.

While people in other parts of India queue up outside banks and ATMs for new currency notes, many villagers in Roshamal in north Maharashtra, about 500km from Pune, are yet to see the scrapped ones. For many Adivasis, Congress still rules at the Centre and "Indira's daughter (actually daughter-in-law)", Sonia, is the 'Sarkar' (government).


Banks, ATMs and debit cards are distant dreams for these villagers, who still don't have basic facilities like roads, transport, electricity, housing and water.

"I don't understand what you people are talking about," Tudkibai tells her son, Sunil, playing the role of interpreter and translating questions to her in Pawari language.

In the adjacent hut, Devidas Pawara is unable to understand why all of a sudden traders in Dhadgaon town, almost 100km from Roshamal, are asking to sell his corn and jowar at the rate of Rs 10 per kg. "Generally rates are good and range between Rs 13- Rs 15 per kg. I don't know what has happened. I have not taken my produce to the market because of low rates" he says.

With no roads and bus service, Devidas has to depend on two-wheelers and jeeps that come once in a while to the village to take his stock to Dhadgaon. With no petrol pumps around, shops sell kerosene-mixed petrol in mineral water bottles.When told about demonetisation and restrictions on withdrawing cash, Devidas says, "Why do you people need so much money? Rs 2,000 withdrawal is more than enough. The monthly budget of our family is Rs 1,500."

Oil, salt, sugar, tea and sometimes vegetables are the only items on his monthly list as other requirements are met through farming, which depends on monsoon. Devidas has a simple cellphone handset but struggles to get the connectivity. He uses solar battery charger to charge it.

The government had given solar lights to Pawaras and had set up solar panels. Most of them are defunct now.

Devidas' wife, Sevibai, hopes to see a new currency note of Rs 2,000 but she has heard from her husband that new notes are duplicates. "My husband has seen the picture of the new note on a friend's cellphone and it doesn't look like old notes. We shall not use these notes," she says.

Ugravnya Vanya Pawara is afraid of talking anything about the government. When he realises the ongoing discussions are about the government and money, he becomes anxious. "I don't know anything about the government and money. I don't want to say anything. Please don't get me into this. I shall land in trouble. Let us live our lives," he says, rushing away.

Phulwanti Apsing Pawara, grinding jowar on a traditional stone grinder, says she is aware that the "Sarkar" has done "something" to money. Ask her who is the "Sarkar", and she murmurs the names of Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. To many Pawara, Vasavi and Valvi community members, the names of Indira and her "daughter" Sonia are associated with Sarkar.

"Every election, Rs 100 notes folded in pieces of paper having the election symbol reach the village and people cast vote on that symbol during elections. All these years, punja (the Congress' election symbol) symbols were there on the pieces of paper. But these days, various symbols like clock (NCP's election symbol) and lotus (BJP's election symbol) come with Rs 100," say youths clamouring at the corner.

There is confusion over how lotus has replaced punja. Some say that 'Indira's party' has taken a new symbol. As they talk, a black snake rustles in the dry grass. But they remain unruffled and allow it to go its way.

Tudkibai, meanwhile, prepares tea. "We don't use milk in tea," she squirms. But she is eager to see the old currency of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 and asks to communicate the message to the government that it must send a few old currency notes to her village.

Not only Tudkibai, many like her in Roshamal have not seen the scrapped currency notes. "Even educated boys like us studying outside have hardly handled Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Farmers here don't produce much and trading happens in Rs 10, 50 and 100 currency notes. Rs 100 has always remained the biggest currency here," says Sunil, studying hard in Nandurbar to become a talathi (a government post).

"I didn't appear for the exam last time because I did not have the exam fee to pay," says Sunil, who is uncomfortable talking about backwardness and poverty of his family and village.

B V Tirmile, a teacher in the government's Adivasi ashramshala resting under a tree with his wife and son as the children in the school wander, asks, "At the first place, tell me how you reached here?"

He says, "Nothing happens here and nobody comes here. People here hardly need money and so they are not concerned or even bothered about demonetisation."

B V Tirmile sums it up. "This will be one of the most unaffected villages in the demonetisation process. There is no question of banks, ATMs, cards and anger against the government. Everything is fine here."

Why do you people need so much money? Rs 2,000 withdrawal is more than enough. The monthly budget of our family is Rs 1,500

With 2016 giving way to another new year 2017

New hopes arise! Thanks for the bounties of last year!

Wish that the new year goes better than the last

With ambitions realised at last!

Health, wealth and family remain close to my heart!

Prayers to the supreme being 

And thanks to all! 

How the zebra got its spots

From http://ideas.ted.com/how-the-zebra-got-its-stripes-with-alan-turing/

Like all the best scientific ideas, Turing’s theory was elegant and simple: any repeating natural pattern could be created by the interaction of two things — molecules, cells, whatever — with particular characteristics. Through a mathematical principle he called ‘reaction–diffusion’, these two components would spontaneously self-organise into spots, stripes, rings, swirls or dappled blobs.

In particular his attention focused on morphogens — the then-unknown molecules in developing organisms that control their growing shape and structure. The identities and interactions of these chemicals were, at the time, as enigmatic as the eponymous wartime code. Based on pioneering experiments on frog, fly and sea urchin embryos from the turn of the 20th century — involving painstakingly cutting and pasting tiny bits of tissue onto other tiny bits of tissue — biologists knew they had to be there. But they had no idea how they worked.

Although the nature of morphogens was a mystery, Turing believed he might have cracked their code. His paper ‘The chemical basis of morphogenesis’ appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in August 1952.

Sadly, Turing didn’t live long enough to find out whether he was right. He took his own life in 1954, following a conviction for ‘gross indecency’ and subsequent chemical castration — the penalty for being openly gay in an intolerant time. In those two short years there was little to signpost the twists and turns that his patterns would take over the next 60 years, as biologists and mathematicians battled it out between the parallel worlds of embryology and computing.

The essence of a Turing system is that you have two components, both of which can spread through space (or at least behave as if they do). These could be anything from the ripples of sand on a dune to two chemicals moving through the sticky goop holding cells together in a developing embryo. The key thing is that whatever they are, the two things spread at different speeds, one faster than the other.

One component is to be auto-activating, meaning that it can turn on the machinery that makes more of itself. But this activator also produces the second component — an inhibitor that switches off the activator. Crucially, the inhibitor has to move at a faster pace than the activator through space.

The beauty of it is that Turing systems are completely self-contained, self-starting and self-organizing. According to professor Jeremy Green of King’s College London, all that one needs to get going is just a little bit of activator. The first thing it does is make more of itself. And what prevents it from ramping up forever? As soon as it gets to a certain level it switches on the inhibitor, which builds up to stop it.

“The way to think about it is that as the activator builds up it has a head start,” says Green. “So you end up with, say, a black stripe, but the inhibitor then builds up and spreads more quickly. At a certain point it catches up with the activator in space and stops it in its tracks. And that makes one stripe.”

From these simple components you can create a world of patterns. All you need to do is adjust the conditions, or ‘parameters’. Tweaking the rates of spreading and decay, or changing how good the activator is at turning itself on and how quickly the inhibitor shuts it down, subtly alters the pattern to create spots or stripes, swirls or splodges.

While studying elegantly striped marine angelfish, Japanese researcher Shigeru Kondo noticed that rather than their stripes getting bigger as the fish aged (as happens in mammals like zebras), they kept the same spacing but increased in number, branching to fill the space available. Computer models revealed that a Turing pattern could be the only explanation. Kondo went on to show that the stripes running along the length of a zebrafish can also be explained by Turing’s maths, in this case thanks to two different types of cells interacting with each other, rather than two molecules.

It turns out that the patterned coats of cats — from cheetahs and leopards to domestic tabbies — are the result of Turing mechanisms working to fill in the blank biological canvas of the skin. The distribution of hair follicles on our heads and the feathers on birds are also thanks to Turing-type self-organization.

Other researchers are focusing on how Turing’s mathematics can explain the way tubes within an embryo’s developing chest split over and over again to create delicate, branched lungs. Even the regular array of teeth in our jaws probably got there by Turing-esque patterning.

Meanwhile in London, Green has also found that the rugae on the roof of your mouth — the repeated ridges just above your front teeth that get burnt easily if you eat a too-hot slice of pizza — owe their existence to a Turing pattern.

As well as fish skins, feathers, fur, teeth, rugae and the bones in our hands, systems biologist James Sharpe thinks there are plenty of other parts of the body that might be created through self-organising Turing patterns, with positional information laid on top. For a start, while our digits are clearly stripes, the clustered bones of the wrist could be viewed as spots. These can easily be made with a few tweaks to a Turing equation’s parameters.

Sharpe has some more controversial ideas for where the mechanism might be at work — perhaps patterning the regular array of ribs and vertebrae running up our spine. He even suspects that the famous stripes in fruit fly embryos have more to do with Turing patterning than the rest of the developmental biology community might have expected.

Given that he works in a building clad in horizontal wooden bars, I ask if he’s started to see Turing patterns everywhere he looks. “I’ve been through that phase,” he laughs. “During the centenary year it really was Turing everywhere. The exciting possibility for me is that we’ve misunderstood a whole lot of systems and how easy it can be to trick ourselves — and the whole community — into making up Just So Stories that seem to fit and being happy with them.”

Slowly but surely, researchers are piecing together the role of Turing systems in creating biological structures. But until recently there was still one thing needed to prove that there’s a Turing pattern at work in the limb: the identities of the two components that drive it.

That mystery has now been solved by Sharpe and his team in a paper published in August 2014, in the journal Science. Five years in the making, it combines delicate embryo work with hardcore number crunching.

Sharpe figured that the components needed to fuel a Turing pattern in the limb must show a stripy pattern that reflects the very early developing fingers — either switched on in the future fingers and off in the cells destined to become the gaps, or vice versa.

To find them, graduate student Jelena Raspopovic collected cells from a developing mouse limb bud, in which only the merest hint of gene activity that leads to digit formation can be seen. After separating the two types of cells, and much painstaking molecular analysis, some interesting molecular suspects popped out. Using computer modelling, Sharpe was able to exactly recapitulate a gradual appearance of digits that mirrored what they saw in actual mouse paws, based on the activity patterns of these components.

Intriguingly, unlike the neat two-part system invoked by Turing, Sharpe thinks that three different molecules work together in the limb to make fingers. One is Sox9, a protein that tells cells to “make bones here” in the developing digits. The others are signals sent by two biological messenger systems: one called BMP (bone morphogenetic protein) signalling, which switches on Sox9 in the fingers, and another messenger molecule known as WNT (pronounced “wint”), which turns it off in the gaps between fingers.

Although classic Turing systems invoke just two components — an activator and an inhibitor — this situation is a little more complicated. “It doesn’t seem to boil down to literally just two things,” Sharpe explains. “Real biological networks are complex, and in our case we’ve boiled it down to two signalling pathways rather than two specific molecules.”

Further confirmation came when they went the other way — from the model to the embryo. Another of Sharpe’s students, Luciano Marcon, tweaked the program to see what would happen to the patterns if each signalling pathway was turned down. In the simulation, reducing BMP signalling led to a computer-generated paw with no fingers. Conversely, turning down WNT predicted a limb made entirely of digits fused together.

When tested in real life, using tiny clumps of limb bud tissue taken from early mouse embryos and grown in Petri dishes, these predictions came true. Treating the cultures with drugs that dampen down each pathway produced exactly what the program had predicted — no fingers, or all fingers. An alternative simulation with both signals turned down at the same time predicts two or three fat fingers instead of five neat digits. Again, using both drugs at once on real mouse limb buds created exactly the same pattern. Being able to flip from the model to the embryo and back again — making testable predictions that are borne out by experiments — is a key piece of proof that things are working in the way Sharpe thinks.

And if the theory is finally accepted, and we figure out how and where Turing systems are used to create structures in nature, what can we do with this knowledge? Quite a lot, according to Green.

“You can live without rugae but the things like your heart valves or your whole palate, they really matter,” he says. “The regenerative medics working on any stem cell technology or cell therapy in the future are going to need to understand how these are made. The growth factor research in the 1980s was the bedrock of the stem cell therapies that are starting to go into clinical trials now, but it inspired the whole world of regenerative medicine. That’s the kind of timescale we’re talking about.”

At Guy’s Hospital he sees close-up what happens when development goes awry. His department specializes in birth defects affecting the face and skull, and Green believes that understanding the underlying molecular nuts and bolts is the key to fixing them. “What we’re doing now is very theoretical, and we can fantasise about how it’s going to be useful, but in 25 years that’s the kind of knowledge we’ll need to have. It’ll probably be taken for granted by then, but we’ll need to know all this Turing stuff to be able to build a better body.”

In the last years of Alan Turing’s life he saw his mathematical dream — a programmable electronic computer — sputter into existence from a temperamental collection of wires and tubes. Back then it was capable of crunching a few numbers at a snail’s pace. Today, the smartphone in your pocket is packed with computing technology that would have blown his mind. It’s taken almost another lifetime to bring his biological vision into scientific reality, but it’s turning out to be more than a neat explanation and some fancy equations.

Great Inventors and the Driving Force behind their Inventions

Ten of the greatest inventors who helped change the world.

1. Thomas Edison (1847 – 1931)Edison filed over 1,000 patents. He developed and innovated a wide range of products from the electric light bulb to the phonograph and motion picture camera.

2. The Wright Brothers – Successfully designed, built and flew the first powered aircraft, showing that man could fly. One of most important inventions of Twentieth Century.

3. Benjamin Franklin (1705 – 1790) Polymath who discovered electricity and invented the Franklin stove.

4. Nikola Tesla (1856 –1943) Serbian born scientist who emigrated to the US. He was a brilliant scientist who played a key role in the development of AC electricity – through the AC induction motor, transformer, and Tesla coil. His method of AC electricity has been the template for global electricity use.

6. James Watt (1736 – 1819) Inventor of the steam engine, which was critical in the industrial revolution. His invention of a separate condensing chamber, greatly improved the efficiency of steam.

7. Alexander Bell (1847 – 1922) Credited with inventing the first practical telephone. Also worked on optical telecommunications, aeronautics and hydrofoils.

8. Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 – 1519) One of the greatest ever minds, invented models that proved workable 3-500 years later.

9. Galileo (1564-1642) Developed a powerful telescope and confirmed revolutionary theories about the nature of the world. Also developed an 

India at the Rio Olympics

It was famous, don't you see,

Indian athletes did well at the opening ceremony

Carrying the tricolor proudly

Hoping to win medals in swimming, shooting and archery!

But alas it was not destined to be!

Competitors with keener eyes, swept all the medals away in a trice!

Gold, Silver and even Bronze

Slipped away from our countries grasp!

Now the situation was do or die!

With few days to go before the final sigh!

Dipa tried extremely hard! Just fell short of a vault!

Then on Raksha Bandhan day

Sakshi and Sindhu made the day

A bronze and silver won they!

What joy! What a triumph for all that day!

When the Games were finally over!

All were left with some shreds of bother!

If only we had all tried harder!

Sent children to play instead of reading Harry Potter!

If only sports had more importance in the scheme of things

It would not have been so few medals at the Rio Olympics!

Compilation of Famous Quotes on science & character by famous people

Evolution of Man

By 2040, cabs will be driven by Google robots, shops will become showrooms for online outlets and call centres will be staffed by intelligent droids.

That’s the scenario depicted in recent research which suggests robots could be taking over our lives and jobs in less than 30 years.

The competition for work caused by a rise in the robots population will see us heading to surgeons for ‘additional processing power for our brains’, they claim.

We may also be requesting bionic implants for our hands that will make us able to perform tasks as fast as any machine.

Futurologists, commissioned by global job search website xpatjobs.com, say workers will have less job security and will work more unsociable hours.

Those who take these risks and innovate with their own bodies will be the biggest earners in 2040, they claim.

However, the study added that workers may be left with poor eyesight, smaller sexual organs, and constantly-furrowed brows as they struggle to keep up to life in the 21st century.

Difference between the sexes may cease to exist. This will slow down reproduction rates and lead to dwindling of the earth's population in a natural manner.

My poem for Young Girls on the occasion of Women’s Day

You are sixteen going on seventeen

If its a career in science u are aiming

Coaching classes will fall in line,

To go for Physics, Chemistry, Bio or Mathematics

The choice is really yours!

In Physics don’t forget Newton’s laws are waiting

Electromagnetism, modern physics turn on the heat

Chemistry is full of equations on organic 

Sulpher, Phosphorous and Chlorine u'll be making

Differentiation and Integration are lurking

If it’s maths u are mastering

If it’s a doctor u are aiming to be

Enzymes, hormones and diseases are ur cup of tea

Don’t forget that at your tender age

You can’t really know 

What’s right for u

But follow your heart 

And surely baby

Everything will turn out right for u!

Start of Std 12 Board Exams

Sona's board exams started on 1st March. It was a really hectic process, deciding who will drop her , pick her, accompany her to the room etc. She at first refused to let us fussy old parents near her. It is big insult for a girl her age to be accompanied by those unwanted yet necessary appendages- parents. I recollect faintly having such feelings for my parents, but not nearly as fervent as her feelings are. After the English exam was over she reluctantly revealed that the fan in her classroom was not working. I demanded immediately to know whether any of the students had reported it to the authorities, but it seemed that no one had. I immediately decided to do something about it, though Sum didn't agree with me. I tried to call up the school but no one picked up, so I wrote a mail instead and lo behold there was a reply a few hours later which confused me. I had written a nice and proper letter to them 

Dear  Madam,

                          My child is appearing for the Std 12 Board examination and the exam centre is at your reputed school in the seventh standard classroom. Unfortunately during the first exam in English on 1st March, the ceiling fan in the classroom was not working. You can surely imagine the plight of the students already under a lot of stress and tension in the sweltering heat of the sun in the first floor classroom. I am sure that once this problem is brought to your notice the fan in the classroom will be made operational so that the students will not suffer in the heat which will only increase in the days to come. Expecting your kind cooperation in the matter. 

Thanks etc

and the reply was as follows

Dear Sir,
        I am extremely sorry for the inconvenience caused however care is being taken and I ensure that this will  repeated in future.


Thanking you, etc

Now is this just a grammatical error, which considering the  state of English education in India is quite justified, or (horrible to think of) a disguised threat.
The only way to find out will be to wait for the next exam.

Project D C Motor

Both projects ordered online are working well.

Dc motor

Burgler Alarm

Jobs which are not likely to be replaced by Robots

Recently I saw a video on Facebook where a robot is being used to lift and place loads which it does very effectively even when there are obstacles in its way. The future is not far away when all repetitive, mundane and even dangerous tasks will be taken over by robots and automation. This is not exactly good news for a country like India with a large unskilled manpower and need to create jobs in unskilled and semi skilled workforce. In another ten years or so jobs like tele calling (call centre jobs), cashiers, tellers, drivers may be replaced by robots. The jobs which will then survive are those which are a mixture of the creative arts and science which robots have still to become creative.The job with the lowest shot at being overtaken by technology in the future? Mental health and substance abuse social workers. They have a 0.3% chance, according to the data. Occupational therapists also rank at 0.3%, while dentists, surgeons and nutritionists appear pretty safe at just 0.4%.

Our Digital World

Nobody will deny that the world we live in today is the digital world. What is it that I truly mean when I say that it is a ‘Digital World’.  As everything has a pros and cons, let me ponder on the pros first

1. We have easy and convenient communication with mobile phones , Skype
2. We can store our memories and capture time with digital cameras
3. A plethora of TV channels are available for entertainment and news over Dish TV and Cable.
4. We can build contacts and keep in touch with a range of friends from chaddi buddies to stranger met on a bus journey over social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.
5. We can do our shopping, work , get jobs, hire workmen, date, get married , etravel, perform pujas all on the internet, without moving from the cosy comfort of our homes.
6. We can learn new skills like cooking, musical instruments, languages, from numerous sites available on the internet

Indeed the advantages of a digital world are too numerous to enumerate. But since every silver lining has a cloud, there are some disadvantages too

1. The human touch has been removed from our online transactions, leaving our world a little bleaker as we miss the smile, touch and warmth of another human being. Of course it removes the irritation and rudeness too.
2. Since we are bombarded by news, stories and information since a very young age, nothing has the capacity to shock us anymore. It is almost a case of ‘been there’, ‘done that’ replaced with ‘seen all’, ‘heard all’. This makes everything we experience slightly diminished in the light of the amazing experiences of which we have heard or read about. 
3. Porn which is everpresent on the internet is corrupting young and impressionable young minds. This is an evil which cannot seem to be eliminated.
4. Stories are not the same anymore. We have simply heard everything there is to be heard be it crime, romance, mystery, magic, science fiction, supernatural , horror. To a certain extent our appetite has been jaded with a superfluity of tales since time immemorial. 
5. Since the stories about human greatness are everywhere- the greatness of Einstein, the prodigy of Mozart, the excellence of Newton, the goodness of Gandhi, these heroes are so exalted and glorified as to be almost supernatural in their greatness, new heroes find it harder and harder to measure up in the digital age when even tiny misdemeanors are magnified and tarnish their images.

The image below echoes my feelings

Pishi and Pishemoshai

Yesterday was 1st Jan 2016. The beginning of the new year. I had chalked out all the various tasks I had to do, as it was an important day-the beginning of the new year, carefully in my mind. Visit to the temple, making payesh, morning prayers, phonecalls to all my near ones. The last one troubled me slightly as I had a call to make to my pishemoshai to wish him new year greetings. This was a task which I faced with a tiny trepidation in my mind, which was always the case whenever I had to talk to the venerated elder of our family. Pishemoshai had always been one of the most important members of my father’s side of the family. His successful career as an inspector, SP and then DG of police was one which was always talked about and discussed in our family circles. He had always been helpful to everyone of his wife’s family and had helped out my father, my uncle, cousins and brother at various times when it was necessary to get a recommendation letter or pull some strings to get something done. He was always looked up to in the family and the arrival of pishi, pishemoshai or their children to our house was always an important occasion. The best dishes were brought out and sweets, nankeens and various delicacies were prepared by my mother and grandmother to greet them on their visit. Pishi too shone in the reflected glory of Pishemoshai and did not fail to regale us with stories of the important personages she met or the important events she attended as the wife of an important person. As she was an adept storyteller we would all listen to her with rapt attention and interest. Pishi and pishemoshai were highly interesting and reverential figures in my mind that of a eight or ten year old little girl.  Once they had left my mother , father, grandmother would discuss at length about their wealth, their contacts and their influence. Pishemoshai was tall and athletic with a face like that of ACP Pradyuman in CID which inspired fear. Pishi was small, petite and pretty. She would make it quite clear that at home she was the boss and not pishemoshai. In spite of numerous quarrels they would have with each other they were a close couple. I was specially scared of pishemoshai’’s beetling eyebrows and fierce expression when displeased and tried to stay out of his way as much as possible. He treated me always with kindness and sometimes observed that I was a ‘bhalo meye’. 

      Impressions of our childhood are hard to get rid of. The slight fear and trepidation which my pishemoshai induced in me remained in me even when I am 40+ making me slightly reluctant to talk to him, in case I should say something which should cause him not to think of me as a ‘bhalo meye’ any more. Today he was 85+, we had lost pishi a couple of years back, he was staying with his son and his family in his house at Kolkata. When I called him, he received my call eagerly and asked about my family. I replied that everything was as well as could be wished for and asked after his health. 

“ Boyosh to hochhe ma”, he replied and I agreed with him. After racking my brains for a topic on which I could talk I asked him about my cousin’s family and the name of his granddaughhter. which I could not recollect. He could not recollect this and after a couple of awkward pauses I tried to change the topic. “ Yes Mali is her name”, he burst out after a while, he seemed to be pleased to have remembered her name. I poured out various platitudes and sundry observations to which he listened with attention. I was trying to hastily finish off the call which was more of a duty whereas he seemed to want to stretch the conversation. After chatting desultorily for a few more minutes, thankfully it was time to say goodbye. I realized that the shift of time had changed my once mighty pishemoshai into a feeble old man. 

1st Jan 2016

The beginning of another new year. Today was bright and sunny, moderately chilly. Got up by 7.00am in the morning, after morning prayers etc, decided to make payesh. There were two prank calls on my phone at night 1.45pm so I was quite groggy in the morning. Baba gave the good news that Shiltu had said yes for domicile certificate again, so Sum got all papers ready for courier to Kolkata. Shruti then came to ask about her resume to Sweden from Sum. I gave her some payesh. Afternoon cooked an elaborate meal of sag, shukto, payesh, raita, manchurian. Evening we will all go to Kali temple for blessings. Hope this year goes off well, as it will be an important year for us all.