Transporting cycle on a flight in India

               Here I would like to share my experience of transporting a cycle with me in a domestic flight in India. I traveled from Kochi to Delhi. I tried to dismantle my cycle ( Hercules Act 110) as much as possible so that the luggage will not be over sized. Anyway I always had the backup plan of sending it in train if the flight authorities deny.

               I got a cardboard box and two extra axles from a cycle shop. After dismantling the cycle, I cut the extra space of the box. After packing the size was about 130 x 70 x 30 cm and weighed 18 kg. The Air India airport staff were kind enough to give concession for that extra 3 kg. Also they gave extra care to the package on my requisition and applied a ' Fragile' label on it. Fortunately there was no damage during transportation. 

The package

The Fragile label for extra care

Side view

Security checked

Parts brown taped to prevent rolling around

Out of the box

Tire off rims to decrease box height. 

       Tires were removed from rim so as to decrease the height of the box. Also the tires were placed at sides of the frame inside the box for extra cushioning.Some extra foam was also kept inside the box over sharp parts and rear derailleur.

         Front and rear forks were fixed with extra axles to prevent distortion. All of this dismantling can be done with minimal tools. 15 no spanner and L keys of two sizes. A star shape screwdriver is optional and I used a flat screw driver for fixing tires over rim.

                                                                    

 

Minimal tools 

Final product 

The Prodigal son

 

This is an inspired painting. I am not so proud to say that, because the painting is very amateur and the inspiration is not a good one either.

We live in a congested area filled with apartments. There is an old lady living across our room. Her room have one door and window opening to the street. There is a wooden chair covered with old cushions and pillow in front of the room. Her relatives live on first floor. There is no much contact between them. Usually she spends her day sitting on that chair if the climate is good.

She has a son, a prodigal son. He is a drunkard, probably with psychiatric disturbances. Nobody knows what he does for a living. He wears shaggy clothes, sometimes a jacket. He comes in the evening and bills gates his mother. This may go till next day morning. Whenever he start abusing her, she gets into the home and shut the door and window from inside.

Rarely have I seen them talking amiably. Even then she will try to keep the distance. He will sit on her chair and she will sit inside the room. She may serve some tea and biscuit through the window. Then he will have his tea and talk to her through the window.

I never understood why is he infuriated against her and I never tried to. Also one day when he was yelling at her, my roommate who was trying to study then, went to him and shouted in some strange language. To my surprise he left the place. And the roommate never explained what he told him in spite of my repeated requisition.

The prodigal son

The Wikipedia doctor meets the Wikipedia patient

In these modern days in which everything is available on internet, the case of medical knowledge is also not different. Even me, a resident who is supposed to read original literature from big fat books find it easy to Google it.

I am not ashamed to say it, but I have become a big fan of Wikipedia. Even though I am not sure about its accuracy, it is easy it get a superficial idea about a subject from it. But I have to assure you that it is just literature. The real skill of a doctor comes from practice and not by literature alone. So definitely it is not going to be a substitute for doctor for treating illness.

Sometimes you get irritated by patients who come to you saying” Doctor, I read in Wikipedia that the medicine you prescribed is effective in only 5 percent of cases” or “the treatment option you suggest is a failure in fifty percent cases”.

Once a father of a boy asked me to comfort his boy suffering from hydrocephalus who was being taken to operation theatre for a shunt placement. It was his third surgery as previous two eventually got blocked.

So I asked him “why are you so worried? You have already undergone two surgeries and you know the usual procedures.”

He said to me “I know. But I read in Wikipedia that this surgery is associated with fifty percent chance of getting permanently paralysed.”

But he was smiling. I thought to myself “brave boy”. He recovered uneventfully from surgery that time.

Another time a young gentleman came to me when I was in Emergency room. He was having some intermittent pain or burning sensation in penis or sometimes in abdomen at some nonspecific points. All this started in two months and only factor I could pick out is his marriage was fixed around the same time. He has already undergone ultrasounds of abdomen, scrotum, urine cultures, microscopic examinations and NCCT abdomen, which were all normal. Then I assured him, “don’t worry, you don’t have any serious illness.”

Still he kept on asking “What is the reason for this, there must be some reason for these symptoms.”

The only thing that came to my mind then was “You can try searching in Wikipedia”

Relationship status " committed"

This is a typical example of how a man changes when he is engaged. This is my friend and roommate, a doctor and physician in making. We are also partners in crime, if downloading with torrent is considered illegal in your region.

Before his engagement whenever we opened his UTorrent app, we could see hundreds of hard core porn queued. But after his engagement with this beautiful girl, who is also a doctor by profession, he was most of the time glued to his phone and seemed to forget his laptop.

One day I found him with working with his laptop again. Curiously I peeked, you know what I saw; “one hundred heart touching romantic songs” being downloaded and all the porn were gone.

Dietary advices to avoid recurrence…

 

         This happened few days back. A college girl and her boyfriend came to Emergency Room. She was having nausea, vomiting with bloating and stomach disturbances. Just to mention she had her periods recently, regular and normal. She had taken food from a street vendor some hours before the onset of symptoms. Most likely diagnosis of an Acute Gastritis was put forward and she was treated accordingly. She got relieved after some time.

While prescribing some oral medications the senior resident told her “Please avoid food from outside. Try to stick to home-made food and purified or boiled water.”

Next question from her boyfriend was “Can she take some ‘Fanta’ now?”

Senior resident “!”

Sunny Leone and Mangoes

 Now a days, I cannot live a day without hearing about these two. No news media is complete without Sunny’s name it. What to say, Sunny Leone has achieved 2^nd rank in Times Celebex in April 14. A giant leap from previous position over so many hot girls of B town, including Deepika.








            Mangoes, this is the season of it. But the news is that European Union has banned import of mangoes due to some quality problem. This may be in effect till 2015. The result is mangoes are now available in local market for far much less price than usual. Media is also celebrating it, the various ways to make use of mangoes. Some even think it’s a sign of victory for AAP in ongoing elections. (Mango people party)

Back to Sunny Leone, the latest news spread is that she has performed a strip dance for 4 million rupees in a private party. Pictures are also available for proof. I have no enmity to her. But what makes her so expensive. Yes, the culture, the mere fact that it is difficult to find a similar woman who is daring to do such tasks. So I think Sunny should be thankful to rest of the ladies in India for making her popular.

The simple principle of Economics: Decrease in availability in market will increase the price and vice versa.