Sundarbans, West Bengal, India

I visited the Sundarbans for an overnight 24 hours in December, 2015. It is the largest mangrove forest area in the world but, like Bangladeshi people, most of it is in Bangladesh so you only get to see a fraction of it on Indian territory.

Our starting point was a three hour drive from Kolkata over a road surface worthy of being cast as the before model close up in moisturiser advertisements. The multitude of potholes on a relatively quiet highway through rural India might also explain the lack of toilets. A pre-booked houseboat was waiting for our entire group at the port, which we could reach only by wading our way through the waves of people crashing against the shore.

The population density reduced significantly once we were in the water. In a happy coincidence, we spent most of the period between two lunches on the boat, hopping off only for a walk around a nearby village and going through an unusually informative museum. A part of me is now looking forward to a rise in sea levels.

You should consider going if your definition of a holiday includes playing indoor games or vacantly looking into space but you don't want to do it in your house because that sounds like any another weekend. Driven by that criteria, and armed with the knowledge that tiger sightings are extremely rare ( birds are abundant, though ) and that mangrove is not a portmanteau of mango and grove, your retreat should be most enjoyable.

Boats

I was with family and not being the Whistler sorts, I spared my relatives the ignominy of being the muse of my ongoing, self-taught photography training. The choices that remained then were the boats and the water. Water has its qualities, sustaining life, pH 7, etc., but the dirty-green, more or less standing sorts can only capture your interest for two (horizon, reflection of something), maybe three (stuff floating in it, which includes boats) kinds of pictures. You soon find yourself checking WhatsApp, temporarily suppressing the knowledge that all you receive are good morning messages. It's too late in the day for that, and all the senders are on the same boat as you anyway.

Ferry cattle class -
Long boarding queues.
Very little foot space. No arm rests.
Choice of hair in your mouth or armpits around your nose.
But then, on the bright side, no hidden charges or sea port development fees.

Meet the New Boss

I've always felt that the superhero policy of not killing anybody sacrifices pragmatism for nobility. Suspiciously, there is no capital punishment in their world either. If they don’t want to play god then that’s fine but surely they could invite Thor over and let him decide. Character transformation is wistful thinking; Poison Ivy hasn't turned over a new leaf, the idea of a labile Lex Luthor is laughable, and the lip on the Hobgoblin isn’t wobbling. Even basic imprisonment would have kept them in check if they could just stop trying to escape all the time.

Fashion Trends in Time Series

Originally appeared on the Ather Blog.
For those who can't be bothered to go through till the end, these visuals are now available in R in the ggTimeSeries package.


Time Series Data

Any data which has some temporal identity can be considered time series data.

Your internet data consumption every month, tracked over multiple months, would comprise time series data. If you record the distance your car has been driven every week over a long duration then you are creating time series data. Flagging every instance that you used the phrase, ‘So what else is up?’ on a phone call would also make time series data. Time series data, actually, is all around.

Kudremukh, Karnataka, India

Kudremukh is one of the highest peaks in the state of Karnataka. It's called so because it resembles a horse's face which seems unfair considering we still call Sarah Jessica Parker Sarah Jessica Parker. K has nothing to feel bad about because the resemblance belongs to the same group as constellations and north Indian street food on south Indian streets. If you didn't already know which part resembles the horse face, assuming you know what a horse face looks like, you might not even recognise it when you see it.

It is an overnight journey away from Bangalore. The trek itself spans a total of 10 hours, reaches an altitude of about 2000 m, and never really becomes hard. If you're lost, you're likely to find a trail, other trekkers, locals, or your now cranky guide who has been looking for you. You won't be so tired by the end of it that you can't leave for Bangalore straightaway and reach by next morning but our organisers decided to keep us overnight, maybe to help the home stay guy make an extra buck and / or to let us play in the streams the next morning. This meant a Saturday evening making forced conversation, the best part of a Sunday cooped up in a Tempo Traveller, but a glorious Saturday night sleeping under the stars.

Us and Them: Wetware

So, 75 days after the trek, I quit my job and joined a start up. Such steps involve deep introspection, meeting some new interesting people, and one or two life changing events. As an insider, I can confidently reveal that a start up can hire you even if you don't have any of those three points on your CV. You should also know that if you let a greater number of life changing events happen to you then you risk overshooting the why-I-quit blog post and heading directly to the one where you describe your ride from one end of the Sahara to the other with just 5000 Indian Rupees, a goat, and a camera worth a few months of salary. By the way, this is not the why-I-quit blog post. This was just a rebuke.

I joined a company which is into hardware. We’re making smart electric scooters. For those who don't remember, hardware are things. They have a physical presence and therefore their existence goes beyond the hard drives of servers, computers or phones. For a guy like me, who types for a living interspersed with the occasional click or two, the new environment was refreshingly different. Over time, however, I got the feeling that somewhere deep down, software and hardware have a lot in common.

In the wisely chosen words of James Franco -

Goecha La, Sikkim, India

Photography

You’re most likely a city bumpkin and will find yourself going gaga over the views on day 1 itself. Unless the misfortune of bad weather befalls you, each day offers uniquely great sights, and will be colder than the last, so keep your pants on. This is all the more important if you’re the sort of traveler who doesn’t plan well and aren’t carrying enough charge or storage. Depending on the extent of your poor planning, you might run out of supplies or die midway so factor that in against your conservation efforts.

The descent has significant overlap with the ascent which provides you the option to click pictures of some of the stretches on your way back. By then you would have made your peace with being tired. You should have also become better at picking scenes which bring out the fancy quote in the foreground and cover pictures candidates which capture your vibrant, philosophical, spontaneous, tranquil personality. The selfie that goes on your DP is most likely going to be the one you take at the top so don't bother until then.

Indrani: The Murderer of Nouns

Disclaimer: I do not personally know any of these people. Except for the reported facts, most of this content is speculation and hyperbole. Peter and Indrani and the rest of them are probably nice, gentle people who wouldn't hurt a fly. May Sheena RIP, although it would appear that she isn't remembered all that much.

A reputed daily recently carried a confusing heading on the front page about an ongoing murder case. A lady called Indrani Mukerjea figured prominently amongst the participants, like that one kid on the team who understands why the science fair project is doing what it's doing. One is inclined, as was I, to think that the modus operandi might have involved giving people cancer by spelling her second name the way it is. Accepting that Narendra Modi had successfully distracted me from the Patels rioting in Gujarat, I decided to delve further into the matter.

Desiderata Errata

Someone on my social network recently shared the Zen Pencils' Desiderata strip and it seemed a little outdated and overtly optimistic. I took a stab at getting the updated and corrected version.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
or risk sweat patches and body odour.
Remember what peace there may be in silence,
and the data charges you would save on,
if you stopped streaming music to your phone all the time.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with the members of the local law enforcement.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
avoid being witty;
people get offended easily nowadays;
hence which you will be destroyed on Twitter.
Listen to others,
especially the dull and the ignorant;
their feedback is most likely going to be the market response.

Frankfurt, Germany

I had an evening to myself in Frankfurt, Germany.
This was the best flag I could find.

Copenhagen, Denmark

On my way from Iceland, I stopped in Copenhagen for a couple of days too.