About going home...

It has been a very hectic day today..;-) Half because of this rain, and the other half because of some Useful work that I did today. It has been raining heavily since two days or so. Firstly, we all managed to reach the plant only at around 1 in the afternoon only to land in the canteen to have our lunch. The roads were blocked due to some truck accident somewhere in the midway of Lanjigarh. In fact yesterday also we were stuck up midway for at least one hour thanks to the rain god.


One more reason for this day to be special is that, today I am going home..!! Yes, it's hardly been a very small time, 57 days to be precise, since I am in this forbidden place but time has come to go back and breath some urban air, eat some homely food and meet ol' friends. I am going at the cost of three days casual leave and two loss of pays so wish to enjoy it to the fullest.

Time to leave.... People are constantly having a watch at me...

In plant day

I am feeling I have become a Robot here. I have a fixed schedule and there is no room for any other things to do. Every morning I wake up with a hope to do something constructive and end up doing the same old pedestrian work. It starts with the usual hurrying up for the bus which nowadays leaves exactly at 8 am. Earlier we used to stretch this time to 8 30, but this new driver just pulls off, least bothered whether all of us are in or not. Having stuffed just two to three bread slices, at least five of us manage to end up being half-hungry..!! (I am one of those :-/ )

The moment I enter the plant I will have to rush to the control room to see if I have any assignments for the day. Normally I will have to just either update the operating manuals or do some data-entry work. No time to reason what I am doing. In no time it is the time for lunch and rush towards the canteen to avoid standing in long queues!! Done with lunch. And now back to the control room running around with the P&IDs and little bit of checking mails and news. Fast forwarding....
Time to leave.. In the bus.. Back to the rooms... Time for dinner and sleep... The same vicious cirlce continues..

Even now I am busy..!! Will elaborate later.. Got to vacate the system for some technical work.

C ya

Meeting with a foreigner

We have three Australian experts here in the plant who are exclusively hired by the company to advise us in the commissioning work. Today we, i.e. me and Thomas had a small discussion with the Australian. His name is Mr. Rod Watts from Queensland. The initial discussion was about the proper operation of the plant and stuff but later on got diverted to diversity in Indian religions. He is well over 50 years in age and has visited India first during the Indo-Pak war in the 1970's.

I was amazed by the amount of knowledge about the Indian culture he had with him. He knew every bit of information about various things starting from the 90's blasts to the Gujarat carnage to the recent Mumbai blasts.

It is definite that they are having a tough time here adjusting to our culture, I mean in terms of food and facilities. It is indeed commendable that they too stand in the queue in the canteen while taking the lunch in the Indian style. They have a strange sense of humor, half the time you won't understand what they are trying to tell you. They just speak and start laughing!!

I was telling about the technical advice they gave us today. He asked if I was here straight from the University and I said yes. He went on with the SOPs for starting of various pumps. Half the time he was insisting on getting used to the new terminology and using the generic terms. Indeed he has some 35 years of experience behind him.

Work has finally started and to my surprise, we are asked to work in 12 hr shifts from next week or so.. Lets see,,

It's about idling around in the office

It is very difficult to sit for hours together doing nothing. It is like going into a railway station early in the morning and find a really long queue, to book a ticket and realize that you nothing to do for the next one hour or so. Here they say that we are in the training period. But come on, it seems so stupid to simply sit idle whole day. You are not allowed to read any personal books, only the pure techie ones can be and should be read. Can I say that I am being paid for just warming up the seat whole day?? Hey, it isn't so. What my manager says is, you observe during your initial days and only after you get settled down you'll get loads of work.

Today I was asked to prepare the Condensate Area Manual. Since our plant is nearing up the commissioning stage, we are instructed to be prepared with all the SOPs and the Manuals by the end of this month. Luckily, my senior here insisted on me doing some part that work. I am happy. Yes I am. Now I am given a PC to work on with internet connectivity. Hurray, what more do you want? I gladly accepted the work and started working on it.

I still have some 50 more pages to write.....
C ya

Heat Exchanger ki shaadi me..

We had a Fresher’s Party arranged few days back in our plant. It was at a very short notice and all the new joiners had to perform something or the other on the stage. We also had to do something. We all decided to play a skit. It was all about the chemical equipments and their life style. Though the storyline was very simple, what actually made it sound good was the script. The catchy dialogues with those Mumbayya accent is what made the difference.

The title for the play was “Heat Exchanger ki Shaadi”. It was played in LIT, Nagpur during their cultural festival. But still we cannot say that it was totally plagiarized. We, i.e. me along with Abhishek, have spent hours together to bring in some spice into the script. The script was never intended to have any double-meaning, but some people took it the other way. In spite of some initial hiccups as to who would be playing which role, everything was sorted out and came in unison to perform on stage.

The Heat-Exchanger, the girl whose wedding is to be fixed, was played by Neelam Agarwal, a bold and frank lady from Nagpur. She has been a part of our friends circle from the day one and has always stood to our expectations. After reading the script, any normal girl would have rejected the offer to play the role of ‘Heat Exchanger’ (HE), but Neelam was ready for it. Okay, enough of praising.. Now let me tell about the other characters. I played the role of ‘Boiler’, who is the father of this HE. Abhishek Rao, from Nagpur, played the role of Digestor who actually falls in love with the HE and is in contention to become her husband.

Gaurav, supported by Shrikant and Sandeep Bajaj, played the role of Triple-effect Evaporator (TE), the main villain. This TE has an assistant called Vacuum pump, played by Vijay Rana from Surat. The precipitation tank, who elopes HE with him in the end, was played by Biswanath Sen from Raigunj.

The script goes something like this: (It’s totally in Hindi)

Scene 1

Boiler: Beti, Kahan Jaa rahi ho?

HE: Mein shopping karne jaa rahi hun pitaji.

Boiler: Kuch hi din pehle to gayi thi??

HE: Haan papa, lekin mujhe apne tubes badalvane hain, aur mera scaling bhi bahut huan hai. Isiliye main thoda beauty parlor bhi jaake aaungi.

Boiler: Beti, kharch thoda sambhal kar karma. Aaj kal mehengai ka zamana hai. Aur tumhe pata hi hai ki steam ke bhav bhi bahut badh gaya hai. Soch samajh ke kharcha karna aur apni khayal rakhna.

HE: theek hai pitaji.

Scene 2

( HE meets Digestor on her way to the shopping centre and they both fall in love. In the background we have the song, Tujhe dekha to yeh jaana sanam )

(HE comes home and meets Boiler)

Boiler: tum aagai beti??

HE: Haan pitaji.

Boiler: beti, mujhe tumse ek bahut hi zaruri baat karni hai. Aaj mein tere liye ek rishta dhoonda hun. Woh ek nahi, do nahi, teen ke barabar he. Uska Naam he Triple effect evaporator.

HE: Mujhe nahi shaadi karni. Main toh abhi bachhi hoon. Mera toh abhi scale up bhi baaki hai. Mujhe nahi karni usse shaadi.

(TEE enters the scene)

Boiler: Aaiye, aapka hi intezaar tha.

TEE: Pailagu sasurji.

Boiler: yeh meri beti hai.

TEE: Mast hai..!! I mean namaste.

Boiler: Aap dono baat karo, main chalta hun.

HE: dono? Yaa charo?

Boiler moves out of the scene

TEE: Kya chamakreli he. Saala baap to khoosat Budda damaged piece lagta hai, aur beti lagta hai abhi abhi fresh stores aaareliye.. apun ko tere se shaadi karne ko maangta.

In the background, the song “Kab tak jawani chupaogi Rani”

Boiler enters the scene

Boiler: Lagta hai Sharma gai. Meri taraf se toh yeh rishta pakki.

Scene 3

HE meets digestor

Digestor: main tumhara kab se intezaar kar raha tha. Tum kahan thi.

HE: aaj plant me heat load badh gaya tha. Main busy thi.

Digestor: ek baat kahun?? Aaaj tum bahut sundar dikh rahi ho.

HE: sirf aaj hi??

Digestor: nahi tum toh roz hi sunder dikhti ho, aaj kuch khaas baaath hai.

HE: Kya khaas baat hai??

Digestor: Tumhare shells ki chamak, tumhare tubes ki lachak aur fluids ki mahek pe main fida hogaya hun. Ek baat poochu?? Tumhari khoobsurti kaa raaz kya hai??

HE: meri week main do baar caustic cleaning hoti hai. Isiliye main itni sunder hoon.

Song in the background. Chand ne kuch kaha, raat ne kuch suna….
( VP is listening to all this in the background)

HE: Yeh sab chodo. Mujhe tumse kuch zaruri baat karni hai. Yahan nahin, chalo garden chale.

VP meets TEE and tells him about the meeting of HE and digestor.

Scene (in the garden.)

HE: Meri pitaji ne mera rishta tai kar liya hai.

Digestor: Kiske saath?

HE: Tum shaayad jaante honge use. TEE hai.

Digestor: Main jaanta hun use. Wohh toh bada badmaash hai.

HE: wohh dekho wohh aa raha hai.

Digestor and TEE will have a confrontation with some tapori dialogues. (I don’t remember them…!)

In the meanwhile, Precipitator taking advantage of the situation elopes with the HE.

Song: Pyaar toh hona hi tha…

The End....

Freshers Party

We had a Fresher’s Party arranged few days back in our plant. It was at a very short notice and all the new joiners had to perform something or the other on the stage. We also had to do something. We all decided to play a skit. It was all about the chemical equipments and their life style. Though the storyline was very simple, what actually made it sound good was the script. The catchy dialogues with those Mumbayya accent is what made the difference.

The title for the play was “Heat Exchanger ki Shaadi”. It was played in LIT, Nagpur during their cultural festival. But still we cannot say that it was totally plagiarized. We, i.e. me along with Abhishek, have spent hours together to bring in some spice into the script. The script was never intended to have any double-meaning, but some people took it the other way. In spite of some initial hiccups as to who would be playing which role, everything was sorted out and came in unison to perform on stage.

The Heat-Exchanger, the girl whose wedding is to be fixed, was played by Neelam Agarwal, a bold and frank lady from Nagpur. She has been a part of our friends circle from the day one and has always stood to our expectations. After reading the script, any normal girl would have rejected the offer to play the role of ‘Heat Exchanger’ (HE), but Neelam was ready for it. Okay, enough of praising.. Now let me tell about the other characters. I played the role of ‘Boiler’, who is the father of this HE. Abhishek Rao, from Nagpur, played the role of Digestor who actually falls in love with the HE and is in contention to become her husband.

Gaurav, supported by Shrikant and Sandeep Bajaj, played the role of Triple-effect Evaporator (TE), the main villain. This TE has an assistant called Vacuum pump, played by Vijay Rana from Surat. The precipitation tank, who elopes HE with him in the end, was played by Biswanath Sen from Raigunj.

The script goes something like this: (It’s totally in Hindi)

Scene 1
Boiler: Beti, Kahan Jaa rahi ho?

HE: Mein shopping karne jaa rahi hun pitaji.

Boiler: Kuch hi din pehle to gayi thi??

HE: Haan papa, lekin mujhe apne tubes badalvane hain, aur mera scaling bhi bahut huan hai. Isiliye main thoda beauty parlor bhi jaake aaungi.

Boiler: Beti, kharch thoda sambhal kar karma. Aaj kal mehengai ka zamana hai. Aur tumhe pata hi hai ki steam ke bhav bhi bahut badh gaya hai. Soch samajh ke kharcha karna aur apni khayal rakhna.

HE: theek hai pitaji.

Scene 2

( HE meets Digestor on her way to the shopping centre and they both fall in love. In the background we have the song, Tujhe dekha to yeh jaana sanam )

(HE comes home and meets Boiler)

Boiler: tum aagai beti??

HE: Haan pitaji.

Boiler: beti, mujhe tumse ek bahut hi zaruri baat karni hai. Aaj mein tere liye ek rishta dhoonda hun. Woh ek nahi, do nahi, teen ke barabar he. Uska Naam he Triple effect evaporator.

HE: Mujhe nahi shaadi karni. Main toh abhi bachhi hoon. Mera toh abhi scale up bhi baaki hai. Mujhe nahi karni usse shaadi.

(TEE enters the scene)

Boiler: Aaiye, aapka hi intezaar tha.

TEE: Pailagu sasurji.

Boiler: yeh meri beti hai.

TEE: Mast hai..!! I mean namaste.

Boiler: Aap dono baat karo, main chalta hun.

HE: dono? Yaa charo?

Boiler moves out of the scene

TEE: Kya chamakreli he. Saala baap to khoosat Budda damaged piece lagta hai, aur beti lagta hai abhi abhi fresh stores aaareliye.. apun ko tere se shaadi karne ko maangta.

In the background, the song “Kab tak jawani chupaogi Rani”

Boiler enters the scene

Boiler: Lagta hai Sharma gai. Meri taraf se toh yeh rishta pakki.

Scene 3

HE meets digestor

Digestor: main tumhara kab se intezaar kar raha tha. Tum kahan thi.

HE: aaj plant me heat load badh gaya tha. Main busy thi.

Digestor: ek baat kahun?? Aaaj tum bahut sundar dikh rahi ho.

HE: sirf aaj hi??

Digestor: nahi tum toh roz hi sunder dikhti ho, aaj kuch khaas baaath hai.

HE: Kya khaas baat hai??

Digestor: Tumhare shells ki chamak, tumhare tubes ki lachak aur fluids ki mahek pe main fida hogaya hun. Ek baat poochu?? Tumhari khoobsurti kaa raaz kya hai??

HE: meri week main do baar caustic cleaning hoti hai. Isiliye main itni sunder hoon.

Song in the background. Chand ne kuch kaha, raat ne kuch suna….
( VP is listening to all this in the background)

HE: Yeh sab chodo. Mujhe tumse kuch zaruri baat karni hai. Yahan nahin, chalo garden chale.

VP meets TEE and tells him about the meeting of HE and digestor.

Scene (in the garden.)

HE: Meri pitaji ne mera rishta tai kar liya hai.

Digestor: Kiske saath?

HE: Tum shaayad jaante honge use. TEE hai.

Digestor: Main jaanta hun use. Wohh toh bada badmaash hai.

HE: wohh dekho wohh aa raha hai.

Digestor and TEE will have a confrontation with some tapori dialogues. (I don’t remember them…!)

In the meanwhile, Precipitator taking advantage of the situation elopes with the HE.

Song: Pyaar toh hona hi tha…

The end..

Tour de Vizag

It is always refreshing to visit a new place during weekends than staying back at your place and heat up the bed. It can be a market place, a tourist destination or a city. Last weekend, on the Friendship day, I along with two of my room mates went to Vishakapatnam to vent out our week-long work stress.

Now that we have been allotted our respective sites, the work load has increased tremendously. My area manager keeps pestering me to draw the piping and instrumentation diagram of my area. For all those who don’t know what exactly a piping and instrumentation diagram is, it is a representation showing the exact dimension of each pipeline and the valves along with the instruments attached. There are totally 800 valves and approximately 60 different pipelines at my site. You can imagine the gravity of this task. It normally takes weeks to draw it on a Computer.

I was telling you that we had been to Vizag last Sunday. Abhishek from Nagpur and Vijay from Surat, along with Suresh from Faridabad were my companions during the whole journey. We had booked our train tickets in advance to avoid any last minute inconvenience. Though it takes only six hours to reach Vizag from Muniguda, it’s always advisable to travel with a reserved ticket.

Everyone was a bit apprehensive about the journey after getting the news of floods entering the Vizag airport. But then we all decided to move on with our plan. The train was at two in the night. So all of us decided to sleep till one and then get ready to leave. The alarm rang and nobody was in a mood to get up. Finally at around 1:15 we all got up and started packing all the basic things which we might need during our short stay there. We literally had to run to the station to make sure we did not miss the train. Everything went smooth and we reached the Vizag station by around 8 the next morning.


We had collected lots of information about the places of interest at Vizag beforehand and therefore didn’t find any difficulty in choosing which destination to visit first. The roads are neat and clean when compared to Bangalore. We took a bus to Kailash Giri from the ‘complex’ area.
Then we went to the CMR shopping mall, which is supposedly the largest in the city. Everybody went on a shopping spree, starting from T-shirts to Jeans to Bags and even Camera! I bought a denim trouser from my selves. Most of the items had the exorbitant price tag.


From here we all went to the Beach, RK Beach. I have been to most of the beaches in the Arabian Sea coast, but this one was truly breath taking. The high waves it produced and the crowd who had come over were really enthralling.

Here are some of the snaps taken at that time.

Finally we had to catch the train back at 7 in the evening. Reached Muniguda by around 12 or so.