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Last night at 10, while waiting for the return of my son from his office, I had blogged this hilarious news item from DC:
DC Correspondent
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You may be wondering how the department of legal metrology had come to forecast Hyderabadi weather. There is a method in the madness in the war-rooms of late-night editorial offices of DC:
This weather item had appeared on Page 2. And Page 1 was full of legal metrology...and the sleepy sub-editor substituted it for the department of pure and simple 'illegal' meteorology.
For a few weeks there have been complaints in the newspapers that most of the petrol pumps in Hyderabad have been cheating their customers by tweaking the readings on their pumping machines. You ask for 10 liters of petrol to be put into your sedan and the digital meter on the machine reads 10 liters, while actually it pumps in only 9.5 liters...a wee bit for each car owner but a whopping profit for the pump owner in a day when he dispenses maybe 5000 or more liters or petrol.
How does the pump owner tweak his meters? The answer lies in the brains of unemployed engineering graduates of Hyderabad. When the going was good before global recession descended, Hyderabad city alone was churning out 70,000 engineering graduates every year. And what do they all do after getting their degrees? Hyderabad can't absorb all those thousands in its few industries. So, many of them turn, like our PM aspirant, into tea-shop owners. No problem...who knows!
The wealthy graduates go to the US for their MS degrees and get absorbed there. The rest turn entrepreneurs here itself. And since they are all talented and trained, it is an easy matter for them to replace the genuine chips that calibrate the digital meters of petrol pumps with slightly faked ones. And they earn a lot by this enterprise...enough to buy the latest Harley-Davidsons.
The petrol pump owners meanwhile keep one among their half a dozen pumps for the purpose of display of their honesty. This sole pump stands at a corner and stays un-tweaked. When anyone suspects the meters and tries to prove them by bringing a 5-liter can instead of his sedan, the boys in the outlet wave their hands frantically towards this genuine pump. Otherwise they usher your car as energetically to the most tweaked one. It is like the haaathi ka daanth...elephant's two proverbial sets of teeth...one for chewing and quite another for showing.
All this was getting leaked out in the newspapers over the last fortnight. And the legal metrology chaps were asked to go after the pump owners. Which they did. And perhaps were not 'pleased' enough by the pump owners. So they started sealing all the defective pumps in the city. This naturally enraged the pump owners and they went on a lightning strike a couple of days back. The Association for the Welfare of Petrol Pump Owners is very powerful...they can bring the city to a halt in just half an hour. And they expected the legal metrologists to be cowed down in a minute and tuck their tails and go home after giving a 'satisfied' report, as usual.
But the petrol pump owners forgot that Hyderabad had just now come under President's Rule under the direct command of the Governor, who, unfortunately for the petrol pumpers, happens to be an ex-police officer. And police know all about thuggery. So, he ordered the licenses of all the pumps that went on lighting strike to be canceled forthwith. This unusual development was not anticipated by the pumpers and they tucked their tails within 15 minutes and went back to pumping grudgingly...
This fascinating story was all there on Page 1 of DC yesterday. And the word 'lightning' in the strike created all the mischief. Lighting and thunder are associated with weather and that was how 'legal metrology' entered into weather forecasting on Page 2.
Anyway, yesterday around 2.30 in the afternoon my son was seen off to his office by his wife and Ishani ceremonially in his Tata Indigo sedan in fair but threatening weather. And he returned at 11.30 in the night to be received by his waiting dad to have their late dinner together.
And told me his story:
Apparently, for once the weathermen proved right. My son drives from our Chandanagar home to the Mind Space in the HiTec City, a distance of 12 km which he covers in as many minutes when traffic is dull.
As soon as he reached Madinaguda, cyclonic wind started and fetched with it a light drizzle. Hyderabad turns into Venice when even 5 mm of rains descend on it. All the storm water drains are eternally choked and each road turns into a Grand Canal...what you need to negotiate them are not cars but gondolas.
One good thing about rain in Hyderabad is that it drives all two-wheelers and most auto-rickshaws away from the road and the traffic is fairly muted. So my son was enjoying his ride and perhaps had a premonition that interesting events are afoot and so switched on the video of his dashboard iPhone. And pretty soon found that it was getting darker and darker and all the cars remaining on the otherwise busy road had switched on all their lights including emergency blinkers, and the video tuned delightful.
When he reached the Hafeezpet Flyover, the rain turned into hail...tup...tup...tup. Making it Son-et-lumiere show.
By when he drove under the HiTex mini-Charminar that is the Gateway to our HiTec City, the hail turned fairly loud...thak...thak...thak....THAK!
And as he took the turn by the famous Cyber Towers, it became a flood as well.
And a rogue car that took a sharp turn nudged my son's car into a mid-road puddle hiding a ditch.
And his car stalled...so did his video...
And nothing prompted it to re-ignite peacefully.
And he was on the point of calling help from the nearby Tata Motors outlet...when suddenly it fired again and he reached his office safe and wise.
Upon inspection under the hood late at night, he found all its contents, from battery to the a/c condenser, washed clean free of charge...courtesy the triumphal prediction of DC's 'legal metrologly', for once.
Here is the video he uploaded on the YouTube this morning:
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Last night at 10, while waiting for the return of my son from his office, I had blogged this hilarious news item from DC:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Heavy Rains in next 48 hours
DC Correspondent
Hyderabad, March 3
...The
legal metrology department has forecast rain or thundershowers with or
without hail over the next couple of days in the city....
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
You may be wondering how the department of legal metrology had come to forecast Hyderabadi weather. There is a method in the madness in the war-rooms of late-night editorial offices of DC:
This weather item had appeared on Page 2. And Page 1 was full of legal metrology...and the sleepy sub-editor substituted it for the department of pure and simple 'illegal' meteorology.
For a few weeks there have been complaints in the newspapers that most of the petrol pumps in Hyderabad have been cheating their customers by tweaking the readings on their pumping machines. You ask for 10 liters of petrol to be put into your sedan and the digital meter on the machine reads 10 liters, while actually it pumps in only 9.5 liters...a wee bit for each car owner but a whopping profit for the pump owner in a day when he dispenses maybe 5000 or more liters or petrol.
How does the pump owner tweak his meters? The answer lies in the brains of unemployed engineering graduates of Hyderabad. When the going was good before global recession descended, Hyderabad city alone was churning out 70,000 engineering graduates every year. And what do they all do after getting their degrees? Hyderabad can't absorb all those thousands in its few industries. So, many of them turn, like our PM aspirant, into tea-shop owners. No problem...who knows!
The wealthy graduates go to the US for their MS degrees and get absorbed there. The rest turn entrepreneurs here itself. And since they are all talented and trained, it is an easy matter for them to replace the genuine chips that calibrate the digital meters of petrol pumps with slightly faked ones. And they earn a lot by this enterprise...enough to buy the latest Harley-Davidsons.
The petrol pump owners meanwhile keep one among their half a dozen pumps for the purpose of display of their honesty. This sole pump stands at a corner and stays un-tweaked. When anyone suspects the meters and tries to prove them by bringing a 5-liter can instead of his sedan, the boys in the outlet wave their hands frantically towards this genuine pump. Otherwise they usher your car as energetically to the most tweaked one. It is like the haaathi ka daanth...elephant's two proverbial sets of teeth...one for chewing and quite another for showing.
All this was getting leaked out in the newspapers over the last fortnight. And the legal metrology chaps were asked to go after the pump owners. Which they did. And perhaps were not 'pleased' enough by the pump owners. So they started sealing all the defective pumps in the city. This naturally enraged the pump owners and they went on a lightning strike a couple of days back. The Association for the Welfare of Petrol Pump Owners is very powerful...they can bring the city to a halt in just half an hour. And they expected the legal metrologists to be cowed down in a minute and tuck their tails and go home after giving a 'satisfied' report, as usual.
But the petrol pump owners forgot that Hyderabad had just now come under President's Rule under the direct command of the Governor, who, unfortunately for the petrol pumpers, happens to be an ex-police officer. And police know all about thuggery. So, he ordered the licenses of all the pumps that went on lighting strike to be canceled forthwith. This unusual development was not anticipated by the pumpers and they tucked their tails within 15 minutes and went back to pumping grudgingly...
This fascinating story was all there on Page 1 of DC yesterday. And the word 'lightning' in the strike created all the mischief. Lighting and thunder are associated with weather and that was how 'legal metrology' entered into weather forecasting on Page 2.
Anyway, yesterday around 2.30 in the afternoon my son was seen off to his office by his wife and Ishani ceremonially in his Tata Indigo sedan in fair but threatening weather. And he returned at 11.30 in the night to be received by his waiting dad to have their late dinner together.
And told me his story:
Apparently, for once the weathermen proved right. My son drives from our Chandanagar home to the Mind Space in the HiTec City, a distance of 12 km which he covers in as many minutes when traffic is dull.
As soon as he reached Madinaguda, cyclonic wind started and fetched with it a light drizzle. Hyderabad turns into Venice when even 5 mm of rains descend on it. All the storm water drains are eternally choked and each road turns into a Grand Canal...what you need to negotiate them are not cars but gondolas.
One good thing about rain in Hyderabad is that it drives all two-wheelers and most auto-rickshaws away from the road and the traffic is fairly muted. So my son was enjoying his ride and perhaps had a premonition that interesting events are afoot and so switched on the video of his dashboard iPhone. And pretty soon found that it was getting darker and darker and all the cars remaining on the otherwise busy road had switched on all their lights including emergency blinkers, and the video tuned delightful.
When he reached the Hafeezpet Flyover, the rain turned into hail...tup...tup...tup. Making it Son-et-lumiere show.
By when he drove under the HiTex mini-Charminar that is the Gateway to our HiTec City, the hail turned fairly loud...thak...thak...thak....THAK!
And as he took the turn by the famous Cyber Towers, it became a flood as well.
And a rogue car that took a sharp turn nudged my son's car into a mid-road puddle hiding a ditch.
And his car stalled...so did his video...
And nothing prompted it to re-ignite peacefully.
And he was on the point of calling help from the nearby Tata Motors outlet...when suddenly it fired again and he reached his office safe and wise.
Upon inspection under the hood late at night, he found all its contents, from battery to the a/c condenser, washed clean free of charge...courtesy the triumphal prediction of DC's 'legal metrologly', for once.
Here is the video he uploaded on the YouTube this morning:
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