My mom at 60

After 42 years of long teaching career, my mom retires from the work as she turns 60 today. She is satisfied today for the work done and teaching the fundamentals to the kids in Pompeii Higher Primary school Gurpura- kaikamba for 32 years and last 10 years at Parochial Higher primary schools at Bajpe.

We are joyful and proud today for having you as our mother and pay our sincere gratitude for growing us up with great values, providing education and career.

We wish you peace, happiness and good health in your retired life. Be happy and cheerful.

With Warm wishes,

Pimmu, Jesu and James

Probable solution for arresting black money

1.       All the purchasing/selling above 20,000 Rs should be through the bank only and cash transaction should be banned.

2.       With this method, we end up routing all the financial matters through bank and it is easy for to find out the net income, taxes and so on.

3.       All the bank transactions should have PAN card number necessary on it for tracking purpose.

4.       When you transfer the plot/house from one person to another person, the registrar should demand for the money transfer details to ensure the white money usage.

5.       The RBI should hence limit printing the cash.RBI should keep the equivalent amount of gold as a safety for the money released.

6.       Option should be given to convert all the black money to white money by paying the tax  for the black money involved. The names of the people should be kept confidential.

I am confident, this will solve 60-70% of the problems. Please implement  this atleast in one small state like Goa  to understand the effectiveness and impact

Nature photos taken by me-2

Nature Photos taken by me-1

Terrible Journeys-1

1.       Diwali 2007 in general class trip from Coimbatore to Mangalore:

I was working in Coimbatore and my usual practice during holidays to go to Mangalore. But this Diwali was never planned. I was thinking to stay back in Coimbatore. But 3 days of holidays gave me a temptation to go to Mangalore. But it was too late to get a berth in the train. Train was an easy option to reach home. I took risk and decided to go by general class and prepared myself for a terrible journey.

First of all, there was no place to get into the train for almost 3 minutes after the train stopped in Coimbatore Junction. I had a bag behind me and overall i was finding it difficult to fight against the crowds pushing and pulling me. I succeeded to put my one foot on the step and made enough fight to land second one too just in time and the train started moving.

Now i was sure that i will reach Mangalore and i was sure that no seat will be available throughout my 9 hours journey. Palakkad is about one hour from Coimbatore. I was standing somehow and hoping that many people will get out the train at the pallakkad junction. My hope was true, there were 5-8 people got out of train. But my relief was there only for 2 seconds as i saw a small mob of 10 people are trying to get into the train at the same time. I was still in the passage, standing with great difficulty, now decided to push myself in the main passage hoping for a better situation. I was prepared to stand till the morning, but wanted to stand without any difficulty.

The train moved from Palakkad junction towards Calicut. I saw number of people sitting on the floor obstructing the main passage.I was thinking ‘ why i cannot also follow the same thing’. I searched for the place to land myself, removed my small towel spreading across the place where i am going to sit and slowly sat.

A great relief. My rest of the journey was with seeing people around and with breaking sleeps. The train arrived on time at 04:30 to Mangalore.

At the end i was happy reach Mangalore ‘somehow’

Since i was coming to Mangalore more often, sometimes every week if necessary, i chose this option as i was spending half of the money from sleeper class and learned some techniques to manage to get a seat.

2.       Bus trip from Coimbatore to Mangalore Via Mysore

It was in  2010 and i got bored going by train to Mangalore. I decided one day to go by bus Via Mysore. I went couple of times before but i had good planning  then. In this case  the decision to go to Mangalore took place around 4 PM in the  evening.I don’t remember exactly why i have decided.

I took bus from Gandipuram bus stand in Coimbatore at 7 PM and moved towards Mysore. Let me tell you one thing here. Travelling through the satyamangalam Ghat sections with steep curves and hair pin bends is a great experience

The bus takes 6 hours to reach Mysore and the time was 1 AM in the morning. There were no deluxe and premium buses available at this time. I had to make one more cut journey. I got a  bus  moving towards Madikeri and had no other option but to get into. The bus was full even though it  was just after midnight. I stood for 3 hours for my journey to Madikeri.When i was getting down, i came to know that the same bus is going up to Sullya. I took additional ticket and the bus moved through the Ghat sections.

Now my stomach started working and  i started omitting. I stopped the bus for 2 times  for completing the omission properly. I was relaxed by the time i reached Sullya. There was another government bus ready at Sullya bus stand to go to Puttur and  again no choice to but to get into yet another cut journey ( cut journey is my terminology ).

At puttur, there was a bus to go to Mangalore, but i opted for B C road as i can reach Kaikamba from B C road. Getting down at B C road, i  made a big mistake in my decision to go to Kaikamba via Kuppepadav. This was indirect way to go to Kaikamba. The usual bus travel time is 40 minutes where as this Bus took 1.5 hours from B C road to reach Kaikamba.i was not aware about this also never asked  the conductor.

 At last i got down at 09 35 Am at Kaikamba and my brother came to pick me up.

My house construction

With the cost going up day by day, we( me and my wife) decided to build a house in  our native place Gurpura kaikamba.  I never had any knowledge about the house construction process, but there were lot of decisions i  needed to take for the progress of the house. I have bulleted the process of my house construction and various thoughts towards my decisions on designs and selection of materials.

I hope the process and factors i have mentioned below will be helpful to you in the event you come up with building a house.

1. NECESSITY TO BUILD A HOUSE: Since there was already a plan to build house, i thought better make it sooner than later. Please make a decision based on your requirements.

2.PLAN: This is the most important step of decision making. I am sure everybody will have some idea how own house should appear. I made a draft plan and discussed with a  civil engineer consultant  and fine tuned it to my requirements.

I have a tip here inform. Listen to everybody’s ideas. See some houses for more ideas.But decide what you would like to have

1. Levelling:  make the plot  flat and clean. Since there were trees before the house, i have ensured that there are no roots on the area where the house will be constructed.

2.Marking: This is the most important step. Marking will be done as per the blue print.

3.Foundation work base work: The foundation will be made by digging the marking. Below picture will give an idea.

The depth depends on the height of the building. For a normal 2 floor building  the depth should be 3 ft. I had rock at 1.5 ft and after it was chipped using compressor.

3.Foundation stone construction:  The stones will be built sideways  as per below picture.

               

4.Filling the mud: The height of the foundation was around 3ft above the ground. The mud was filled as shown in photo. We had to ensure about the mud without any plastic, roots and other foreign materials.

I did this work in July during masons and hence there was no need for me to put water. I allowed the foundation to settle for 20 days.

5.Construction up to Lintals: Now the stones will be build along the length of the line. If you look close on the below photo, you will understand.

6.Lintel work: Lintel work will start after reaching 7ft height. Wooden planks will be prepared for concreting the windows side ways protector, sit out, work area, stair case.

7. Reinforcement rods for concrete: Beams will be made out of concrete. Size if the rods will be higher (16mm ) for beams and less around 8mm for  the other area.The rods intersections were tiled  with the wire for uniformity and tightness.

8. Lintels concrete filling: This was the photo of the stair case once the concrete mixture was put in.

We waited for one week before taking up the construction.

9.Built up to the terrace: The stones construction will go further up by 3 ft making it total 10 ft from the ground. I do not have pictures to show this.

10. Terace concrete preparation: This is another important milestone. Below pictures will speak better about  this.

11. Terace:The concrete  mix was made and terrace was built.below photo just after the terrace. The entire work of the concretisation has to happen on the same day. The terrace concrete work was completed around 1 PM and immediately plastering was done on the terrace.We kept the terrace with water for one month for curing.

12.Stair case room construction: Since i had  decided to have the staircase inside, it costed me additional 1.5 lakhs in 2011. The stair case room was constructed.

12. Electrical work and plumbing work: Before the plastering, the chipping work for the electrical work started.The electrical chipping work can start after 20 days from the  concrete day at the terrace.

I had to make a lot of thinking to keep the electrical appliances and make arrangement for the electrical points. I decided  the location of the refrigerator,washing machine,oven, electrical cooker, fans and lights, switch board near to the bed, the light positions outside and upstairs.

I also decided the toilets and bathrooms, the position of commode,shower, washing basins and so on.

13. Plastering: Soon after the chipping work, the plastering started. In order to save time and speed up theprogress of construction, the electrical contractor finished the chipping room by room so that the plastering can be started paralely.

Plastering of the entire house took about 40 days. This could have been reduced to 30 days, but there was a delay in work from masons.

13 a: An important matter is to fit  all the windows before the plastering.Masons will complete one wall on the same day.Another point is that plastering will commence from sealing and then on the walls.If you see the below photo, we can identify that the windows have been fit  at the time of plastering.Also we have to fit the  wooden shutter for the door.

14. Flooring: I decided to put granites  in the living room hall and stair case steps and bedrooms and the kitchen area will have the tiles. Selection of tiles was based on the color combination keeping in mind  of the color of the house, cost and the quality. I took one day off from the office for tiles and granite selections.

At this point of time, we had the temporary electrical power connection given to the house in order to carry out the tiling and graniting work.

15. Once coat of paint: One coat of white coat was painted in the mean time.

16. Electrical work: Complete wiring for the house was done after one round of coating was completed. Plumbing work was 90% completed. You can see the water connection pipes in the below picture.

17.Painting: I had chosen  redwine white color in side and creamish white outside.There were 7 people for painting and the painting work for the entire house including the doors and windows was over within one week.

18.Finshing work:This includes

·         Fitting of electrical lights and switch boards

·         Bathroom fittings

·         Show case readiness

·         Furnishing  according to your intentions.

Some of my house photos are below