If you have been following my blog, you would know that I am a new father. About a month ago I had to bring my wife and kid back from the Maike (Mother’s home in Hindi). One of the big ticket items on my list before I brought them here was mosquito control. Our area (Kadugodi) in Bangalore is one of worst affected in terms of mosquito infestation. The corporation doesn’t give a damn. What’s worse is that a size-able percentage of these mosquitoes are the exotic variety that spread Dengue – Aedes Aegypti.

Dengue is a very dangerous disease to ignore. It has no known vaccine or cure. The body can only be helped to survive and heal itself. In kids specially, it can be fatal. All this drove me to Paranoia.  In this post, I have listed the various methods of mosquito control that I have tried and the highlighted ones that seem to work best.

Blockade

The best method of mosquito control is to simply mesh up the entire home. All windows/door/exit fans. We had already meshed our home some 3 years ago. What we had not anticipated was that the nets would tear in a few places within such a short period. I had to search for some kind of glue that will fix it. Finally, some pipe sealing glue worked perfectly. Once the nets were fixed, we were dealing with only a handful of mosquitoes per day that somehow managed to hitchhike a ride whenever someone was going in or out from one of the balcony doors or the main entrance. But to make the night miserable, all it takes is just one mosquito.  So, I had to take the war to the next level.

All out war

I had to try some of the usual suspects – Mosquito coils, liquidators etc. All of them worked, but I was worried about the effects they will have on a 4 month old baby. I myself felt drowsy in the mornings whenever I used a liquidator. I am pretty sure, it would do no good to a small kid. The other issue is that you need to keep using the liquidator day long as Dengue mosquitoes usually bite during the day . But some small harm still sounded better than Dengue/Malaria. I also tried the regular Dhoop (Incense). Dhoop is probably not as harmful to us as most of the commercial products. Also, the sandalwood fragrance is soothing. Overall, Dhoop seemed better than the regular liquidators, but the effects were very temporary.

In the middle of all this, I started wondering if I am the only guy who is struggling with this issue. Definitely this is an age old problem and someone should have solved it! I searched online and came across some mosquito killer machines. Although, I did not believe in their efficacy, I thought of giving it a try. I tried this one – Wantrn.

They claim two things – Lighting and a special TiO2 coating that emits CO2 to attract mosquitoes. The TiO2 coating claim is obviously a fraud. To emit as much carbon-dioxide as a human, one would have to heat about a Kg of TiO2. A coating would do nothing. I still had some hope that the lighting might trick the mosquitoes. There was no way to know other than ordering one for Rs.1000 and trying it out. The experiment was a disaster. Over a period of one week, under various conditions (light/dark, windy/still air, at various heights) the machine managed to catch zero mosquitoes! absolute zilch! I gave up.

Minimum Deterrence

I finally zeroed in upon some organic solutions. For example, Lemongrass oil is a very good repellent. Note that repellents are better than those that kill because, if you kill, you let evolution get the better of you eventually. If you just repel, you win! I tried making some oil using lemon grass and it seemed to work. But it turned out to be both cumbersome and expensive. Finally, I ordered some lemon grass oil from a local vendor who sold it for Rs.400/500gms. For an average Indian home, 500gms should last for about 6 to 12 months easily.

For using lemongrass oil as a repellent, pour about 2ml of the oil in about 300ml of water, shake well to form an emulsion. Spray the solution near the entrances. With the combination of lemon grass and the meshing, I am finally getting a good night’s sleep.  Also, lemongrass oil has a refreshing aroma. It is clearly quite harmless as it is also used in some forms of tea. It is quite surprising that such a cost effective and safe solution is not so popular.

Originally posted here on my ancient blog site.

My friend Ayan had called me up the other day. He was asking me if I was free. I replied,”Ya I am free, done with my projects and assignments finally,tomorrow have an exam”. Thats the extent of freedom I have had in the last 4 months. Exams infact are a big break. With such good profs. who needs to study?Infact it was during the exams that we decided to freak out and watch a few movies. Watched Dhoom-2 right in the thick oftension.Kinda pleasure to do the craziest thing when u r in deep ***t.

IISc seems a lot different now. We are no longer those enthu freshers now. We are worn out veterans. A month back the only way I cud solace myself was by saying,”If u can get thru this, u can get thru anything else in the world.” When a 5000 odd transistor ckt suddenly stops working the whole world seems like plotting ur suicide. I m sure ppl would have a climbed the dept. building and given a thought about taking a jump.

But finally, here comes vacation.Infact the last till may 2008!!!. 15 days of nothing. By nothing I mean absolutely nothing.. I sleep for 16hrs a day and still crave for more. probably recovered all the sleep lost in the last 4 months. alrite, I m feeling sleepy again..

May come with a decent post before May 2008.

Originally posted here on my ancient blog site.

My day started at 7:00. Caught a bus to Hubli in hope of meeting the NASSCOM chief, Kiran Karnik. Frankly it was NIkhil’s enthu that motivated me. Given a choice I would have slept peacefully throughout the day, But I finally made up my mind started a wonderful journey. Was recieved by Nikhil and was taken to his Uncle’s place. As usual the pessimist in me was still telling me that we were dreaming too far. Had our food and then moved over to our destination -Hotel Naveen. We had reached a little late and by that time the CM was already in. So we were kept out by the security. They let every Tom Dick and Harry MLA into the meeting but wouldnt let us in. Most MLAs rushing in seemed to be only capitulating on a chance to meet the CM. We gave a hundred explanations, but the police would just not give in. Then we stood there in the hot sun(even though there was tree shade just a step away) as a mark of our silent protest. I was suggesting some impractical things like jumping across the wall,and for a moment Nikhil took me seriously and was looking at the side pockets of the police checking if they had guns to gun us down if we did that. Then we talked of the bad shape of Indian bureaucracy,Babudom and stuff. But we made sure that we staring straight into that policeman’s eyes. It did begin to seem that he was cracking. Infact once he walked upto us and said “What can I do? I am just following the orders”. we sympathised with him.

Finally seemingly from nowhere an angel walked upto us. She was Ms.Sucharita,The regional director of NASSCOM. And surprisingly even she was not being let in. Now that is heights. Perhaps she is more important than the CM himself for this meeting. She was trying to find out the contact numbers of certain important ppl involved in arranging the whole meet, And coincidently we had them. So we gave her the numbers, she gave us the entry. Infact whats more during the whole waiting process we conveyed to her about our Braillereader project and she was so interested that she promised a meeting with Kiran Karnik himself. So after 2 enduring hrs in the hot sun we did get what we wanted. And probably we wouldnt have managed it if we had a got an easy passage to begin with. Life is seriously an exam!

Once we were in, we realised that we havent missed anything at all. Infact till then the meeting was all about some MLAs and CM speaking something irrelevant stuff anyway. And now they were all breaking for lunch. The CM left and so did the nasty security. Kiran Karnik had been already informed about two young students who had come all the way from surat just to meet him and so in his modest self walked upto us and said “I will be having my lunch now,do u mind talking to me about ur plans while I am eating?”. gr8!!!!! would we mind?? Then we talked to him about our endeavour to help blind ppl learn braille through the software that I designed. I should say we got a wonderful response from him and some other dignitaries present there. He also asked us about our future plans. I told him about my IISc and Nikhil about Planetread. NIkhil was introducing Planetread to him when he intervened and said “that Brij Kothari right?” then he ofcourse dint need any more intro.He was happy that young ppl like us are thinking on such lines instead of a software job and other non challenging stuff like that.

After that encouraging talk with him we went back to the Auditorium where various concerned ppl talked about the feasibility etc. about IT investments in Hubli. Would like to specially mention about Manivannan (The DC of hubli/dharwad) here. His presentation was awesome. What an organised man. The rest were somewhat boring. Later in the evening we were taken to the IT park there. Its been lying unused for years now. But it was definitely impressive. What it lacks is only ppl who have the guts and brains to invest there. The rest will be fine automaticalIy fine.

I almost forgot to mention the other side of the whole exp. We got a T-Shirt, some merchandise having some notepads I believe. Also it was a gr8 lunch. NIkhil dint inhibit himself from having ice cream an N number of times (I m only sure that N>4).And also the evening snacks that we had, where we met some more ppl doing interesting stuff.We also met the event co-ordinator who was also an young fella(Cant really remember his name). So that was a gr8 trip.All thanks to NIkhil. Returned the same day back to Davangere with loads of stuff in mind to tell my mom.Andyes I had one more T-Shirt.

Originally posted here on my ancient blog site.

This is one is coming pretty late but given the schedule here I think the delay is self-explained.I definitely dont consider myself knowlegable enough to write confidently about IISc in general;but I think I can atleast tell as to why this place is this best place that I could have been in.

IISc Campus:

Its the most beatiful one I have seen.Its a 550 acres campus and I think if we patch together all the land that recieves direct sunlight even at noon it will come to 2-3 acres.That doesnt mean that its a jungle out here.Everything is so well maintained.And the fact that I have not had too many blood sucking mosquitoes bothering me testifies it.I now know why most ppl here get addicted to IISc.Already I am worried that I will have leave this place in just 2 yrs.Most of us freshers are still confused about some places here.The space has been utilised so well that it adds to the confusions.Its really easy for a visitor to get lost.The one building that I liked the most is the main buidling.Standing in front of that majestic building we go through a whirpool of thoughts.Really inspiring place to be at.No matter how many times I pass that building I still have a good look at it.The Amenities here are cool too.Never have to leave the campus for anything.I have been out for something like 5 times tillnow.The mess is wonderful in every way(ya I mean it,I m not being sarcastic)and is highly subsidised.So I dont need to visit the canteens too.Anyway the canteens are far enough to give a second thought about visiting them.

IISc life:

As anyone can guess,life here is too dedicated to Science and Tech. that very little of anything else goes on here.But again it being a campus having more than 2000 students does have people having diverse hobbies and interests.So although the ratio of ppl of a particular interest would be small,in effect the numbers would still considerable.Forexample on August 15th we had the Freedom Run(a Cross Country of 5KMs)>I surprised to see that more than 200 ppl in all ran and the quality of atleast the top few timings was indeed very good.Again we have a music club that boasts of lots of good singers and instrumentalists ranging from Piano to Saraangi to Flute to Violin to Ghatak to Guitar.Wehave decent hockey team,volleyball team etc.The Gymkhana facilities are excellent but as far as my observation goes it remains largely unutilised.

Personal Experience:

Let me introduce my course first.I am doing an MTech in EDT(Electronics design and technology).My Dept. is CEDT.(Center for EDT).Its mother branch is ECE.But it has been seperated from it since 1997.Its main aim is to prepare Electronics Engineers who will Entrepreneur in future.And to some extent to do pure research too.So it is one of the most practically oriented courses in IISc with around 2/3rds being practical.Thats the main reason I liked the course.

My days here started with glitches as usual as it has been throughout my life when I get into a new place.I was supposed to pick a chit for the hostels and I managed to get one of the worst hostels(not that it isbad.But I get jealous when I look at the newer ones,But considering the fact that we are at our rooms only to sleep it hardly matters).Then the same day the officials here told me that they cant admit me coz I had no proof of course completion or even the final sem marks card.So i had to get them faxed the same day and finally I became the last person to be admitted this year.

The next day began quietly as we had lots of introductory sessions,a briefing about our course and its aims,A tour of the labs in our Dept.Mostof were finding all the explanations flying off the top of our heads and I began to realise that 2 yrs in MTech is not even enough to explore our own dept. properly,let alone the whole IISc.Our department like most here has lots of collaborations with companies and so gives the real feel of the latest technological challenges that the indusrty faces.

On a lighter side I have been playing chess and listening to music like a mad here.Most of my life is in the labs so have transferred my music to a comp in the dept itself.So its FM+ hard disk Music + the Music we face from the assignments.My day starts at 7:30 and ends at 1:30 in the night almost daily including the sundays.(Did I say on a lighter side???).Made quiet a few friends here.Some becos of chess and some becos of music club here.But mainly there are only two ways to be friends here.Either u share the Dept. or the Mess.In my case there are only few that match both criteria.One of my good friends here is a girl(surprised??even I was. There are only 2 in our MTech batch.) She claims to be a cold blooded(even I dint believe but it seems like its true)and is also a stock market freak. Also she is basically a Gujju who doesnt know Gujju(just complimentary to me)Then there is this Pradeep who is fast turning out be the night out partner here in labs. He is generally the last one to get out of the lab.The third one who matches the above mentioned criteria is a localite and has a Honda Dio. So cant really say much about her coz she always speeds away from us cyclists.
So thats it friends. Dont really hope to blog regularly from now on.Infact even to write this small post I took 5 days.So its been a fortnight + 5 daysalready.Here I go on an endless hunt for knowledge.