The Liedenfrost Effect

Ok, I am not entirely sure why I am writing a post on, of all things, an obscure scientific phenomenon which most people wouldn't have even heard of. Maybe it's because it has been too long since my last blog and I've gone cuckoo with the non-activity. Maybe it's because I was a brilliant student with a special interest in the fundamentals of Physics (nah, that doesn't sound like me) . Or maybe it's because this effect holds special significance for me, has a special place in my heart, contributing to my growth as an individual. There it is.


Before I go into why this phenomenon means so much to me, let me first try to explain what it actually means. The Leidenfrost effect is a phenomenon in which a liquid, in near contact with a mass significantly hotter than the liquid's boiling point, produces an insulating vapor layer which keeps that liquid from boiling rapidly. This is most commonly seen when cooking: mothers sprinkle drops of water in a tawa to gauge its temperature—if the tawa's temperature is at or above the Leidenfrost point, the water skitters across the metal and takes longer to evaporate than it would in a tawa that is above boiling temperature, but below the temperature of the Leidenfrost point.

Why does this happen? This is because at temperatures above the Leidenfrost point, the bottom part of the water droplet vaporizes immediately on contact with the hot plate. The resulting gas suspends the rest of the water droplet just above it, creating a sort of isolation film preventing any further direct contact between the liquid water and the hot plate.

A popular cultural reference for the Leidenfrost Effect is a staple in many yesteryear Tamil films, especially with those based on village themes. The plot would go something like this: the female protagonist's husband is in his deathbed; all hope is lost. Notwithstanding the odds, she goes to the temple of the village's 'kula-deivam' (usually, a Durga or Kali temple) and indulges in a sacred ceremony called 'poo methikarthu', or in other words, walking over a bed of hot-coals, and thus beseeches the gods for mercy. What many people do not realize is that this may actually be a lot easier than it looks -all you have to do is to wash your feet thoroughly with cold water before stepping on the coals. Mr.Liedenfrost and his effect will take care of the rest!

Having dealt with the scientific side of things, let me come to the crux of the matter - why is this little-known effect so important to me?

For that, I need to go back 5 years, to my first year in college. I had always been a reserved, mind-my-own-business kinda guy in school and was pretty much the same once I started college too. Then one day, the class was asked to choose a topic on science and speak for five minutes on that. This was something that was new to me. I had never been asked to do something like this before. And I am grateful to this day for having been given the oppurtunity then.

I chose the Leidenfrost effect. Why? Well, as I was furiously pondering what science topic to choose, my cousin came over, saw my predicament and handed me a book: 'The Fundamental of Physics' by Resnick & Halliday (for the uninitiated, R&H is one of the most popular college Physics books in the world). At first, I was apprehensive about the task at hand given the size of the book in front of me (certain editions of R&H are more than 1300 pages long) but as I sat down to read it, I realized I couldn't take my hands off it. It was then I discovered the Leidenfrost Effect and its many charms...

Having prepared for the 'speech', I was quite confident of myself. Until the time came when I had to stand in front of the entire class that is. All those butterflies in my stomach started buzzing like crazy, my knees turned into jelly, and I felt like I had swallowed my tongue. And then, something happened. I grew up.

In that instant, as I was standing in front of an expectant class, I realized that I could do this. I had always been doubting my own capabilities until then, but in that moment, I knew I was good enough. I knew I will succeed. And all the self-doubt was swept away.

Everybody goes through moments in life when they are not sure of themselves and are afraid of taking that next step. After all, it is human to err. But, the most important thing is to come out of that experience stronger. It is in moments like these that one learns the most about oneself.

The Leidenfrost effect was my Eureka moment. What was yours?

Where the streets have no name

Quite contrary to the title (I just chose it because it happens to be the name of a very famous song of U2 and had the word 'Street' in it!), the subject of my latest blog is a street whose name is known by every resident of Chennai. You guessed it, it is about that most congested of streets, none other than our very own Ranganathan Street (RS).

The mere mention of Ranganathan street springs forth visions of a sea of humanity on the road with no end in sight. I remember, on my first trip to RS, my mother described the experience as a 'walk down the streets of hell.' (Ok, those weren't her exact words, but you know what I mean! :) ). And yes, for the uninitiated, the road is a nightmare waiting to happen. What, with the ever-present crowds, the constant pandemonium and the distinct pungent smell emanating from the road, it is enough to drive even the most pugnacious of souls into delirium.

So what is this blog about? You definitely did not need me to tell you that RS was one of the most busy and ugly roads in the city. Let's look at this from a different perspective. Imagine RS with no shoppers, no crowds and no off-putting odours. Imagine a RS, which is absolutely devoid of the hustle and bustle that we know oh so well. Imagine yourself on RS, with nobody in sight, shopping all alone. Do you think you'll enjoy it?

I'm sure you won't. I wouldn't! You see, one of the charms of RS is the out-pouring of people who throng the street. In fact, the biggest crowd-puller in favour of RS is the crowd itself. People come to RS to not only shop for clothes or jewellery, they come to have the 'experience'. Shoppers get a lift out of seeing fellow humans enjoying a day out in the sun, shopping to their hearts' content (In fact, this is very potent business strategy for luring in unsuspecting patrons, employed to great effect by the various shops on RS).

I am one of those countless other people who invariably find themselves on RS come every Saturday for one reason or the other (with me, it's usually games). Over the course of my numerous visits to the place, I've begun to stop looking at all the negatives of RS (you know what I'm referring to) and started to see the positives. There's a real energy and buzz to RS that can make even the most slothful of beings sit up and take notice. The whole street reverberates with an undefinable but unmistakable sense of urgency and activity. There's quite nothing like it.

So folks, the next time you go to Ranganathan Street (I'm sure you will go, at least after reading this blog!), take a step back and look again. You might be surprised by what you see.

PS. Feel free to comment on your own unique RS experiences in this blog. I'm sure you have one! :)

You don’t have to be an Einstein to innovate

I couldn't have put it any simpler. The title says it all really. That one sentence captures the essence of my latest post on 'Of Mason & Merseyside'. So, if you'd like to know what in the world I'm jabbering about, read on.

This blog is the direct result of the influence a certain Innovation & Capability Building Programme had on me and my thought process. I had the good fortune of attending this programme, after I had volunteered to being an 'Idea Champion' in my project (I know, I tend to be a little over-zelous when it comes to stuff like this. :)).

Well, off I went on a balmy Monday morning to the training center, expecting to become an Einstein/Newton as a result of this training programme. I couldn't have been more wrong. If there was one thing I took away from the session, it was the fact that one doesn't need to become an Einstein or Galileo to innovate. After all, as we so often tend to forget, Einstein, Newton, Galileo & all those other luminaries were human too!

It started off with the instructor Geetha giving a small discourse on what the term 'innovation' meant. Innovation, she said, was not the random generation of a pot-pourri of ideas or solutions. Innovation, in her words, was 'people creating values by implementing new ideas'.

Next up on the agenda was the 'Innovation Igniter'. Taken by innovation evangelist Kumar Sachidanandam, a pioneer of the Innovations group in Cognizant, it was one of the more fun-filled hours of training I have ever attended. It had everything, right from the classical tutor-teaching-the-pupil routine to role-plays and games which exercised the mind, packed into an action-packed hour. Kumar thought us to broaden our minds, and contrary to popular refrain, told us all to 'think inside the box'. He reasoned for this by saying that only when one is given boundaries, or is confined by constraints, will he/she tend to force his mind to think for a solution, and as a result, innovate. It was an eye-opener of a session.

When the session resumed in the afternoon (after a lip-smacking lunch, all provided for), the topic of discussion revolved around the various problems faced in a typical project, and the ways to come up with solutions for them. The first step to idea generation is defining the problem correctly and concisely. Once that is done, we were then taught how to create solutions for it by a technique called 'Brain Writing'. The next step involves evaluating all of these ideas based on their merits , benefits and potential impact. Finally, an idea proposal has to be prepared with details on how the idea is to be implemented, the timeframe involved and the tangible benefits from implementing the idea.

Ok, I've bored you enough. The key thing to be understood here is, innovation does not simply mean sitting in a corner and striking a pose implying deep thought. It is much more than that. In fact, as Geetha and Kumar were at pains to point out, idea generation is but the first step to innovating. If the idea one has generated has not been tried in the real world (no matter if it succeeds or not), the idea itself is wasted.

So, folks, I hope this blog cleared a few cobwebs in your head on what innovation meant, and what it means to 'innovate'. So, what are you waiting for? Start innovating! :)

Dump & Dumber

This blog is about something which might make the ubiquitous software professional, wherever he/she is, squirm uncomfortably in his/her seat. It is about that taboo term in a software company (at least as far as their academy is concerned), dumps.

Dumps, as you might well know, refer to the 'material' used by a large portion, nay almost everyone, of budding software enginners, in order to succeed in their internal/external certification exams. In other words, if certifications were a computer game, then dumps are its cheat codes. I hold my hand up here, as I have on occasion used them quite extensively myself. Let's face it, anybody who claims to have never used them in clearing their exams at some point in the past, is either a lying hypocrite or the male version of Mother Teresa.

Weird name, dumps. Although I have to admit, it is the least imaginative of all the aliases I have heard used to describe it. Back in my days at the Cognizant Academy, people were terrified of using the word in classrooms and hallways, lest they be overheard by an eavesdropping Batch Owner, or be recorded on CCTV cameras committing this cardinal sin(!). So, they used to come up with very innovative names for referring to them, the most hilarious of them being the time when they were known as 'sambhar and vadai' and other such misnomers (add the name of your favourite breakfast item here). Things have turned quite sour too for people over-reliant on dumps, on more than one occasion. I have heard rumours about people getting caught red-handed distributing this 'gyan' in toilets and janitor closets.

Given all this history, it really does make one wonder: is it worth the risk?

Let me illustrate by narrating an anecdote from my own experiences. I had a certification exam last month, for which, as usual, my friends (God bless them) provided me with a variety of dumps. Looking at the vast amount of material at my hands, I realized I had the following conundrums:

• How will I be able to remember answers to questions when I dont know what the questions themselves mean?

• How can I trust the veracity of the answers given in these dumps, when I know only too well that it was prepared by some over-zealous fellow Cognizant colleague?

• Why should I spend all my efforts going through pages and pages of dumps, when I can rather learn the actual material, prescribed by the academy for the exam?!(and probably finish learning a lot sooner!)

• Why am I placing my faith on a few sheets of paper, when I can't place it on my own learning abilities? My own self?


When you stop to think about it, you will come to realize (as I did), that the best way to clear any exam is to go about it by that most old-fashioned and effective of ways, hard work. In fact, dumps quite often have the opposite effect on you from what they are actually meant for. They make us dull and unimaginative, while cruelly compromising our knowledge on the subject to a few loose answers. They make us dumber then we really are. (No offence!)

If you put in the hours learning what you are supposed to, instead of pointlessly mugging a load of incomprehensible answers, trust me, you will come through with flying colours. If there's one thing I've learnt all through my academic career, it is that there is no substitute for hard work. And the satisfaction you get from clearing the exam on your own efforts is unmatched.

I realize I may have ruffled a few feathers with this rant, but I've wanted to say this for a long time and finally I've got it off my chest. If there was nothing you learnt from this post, then at least keep this in mind:

Honesty is, and always will be, the best policy!

PS. FYI, I cleared my certification exam with 78 percent, without any help from M/s. sambhar and vadai!

The best band in the world?

I have always been a melody freak.

From the time I've been in school, I have always had a thing for, what I call 'build-up' songs. Songs that start on a slow note, pick up pace in the middle, and climax with a flourish. Till late, I had been listening to the usual Akon, Backstreet Boys and Sting songs doing the circuits. Then, one day, my brother's friend came over to my house and added some songs to my hard drive. When I got down to listen to these songs, I wasn't expecting much (After all, college dudes don't have the best of taste when it comes to music ;)). I couldn't have been more wrong. That was the day I was introduced to Coldplay. I was never the same again.


Coldplay. A 4-member British alternative rock band, formed in London in 1997. The group is made up of Chris Martin (lead vocals, keyboards, guitar. Incidentally, he's the husband of movie star Gwyneth Paltrow), Jonny Buckland (lead guitar), Guy Berryman (bass guitar), and Will Champion (drums, backing vocals, other instruments). And the songs they've churned out over the years is absolutely mind-blowing. Honestly, I can't think of a single Coldplay song I've heard that can be described as average. The guitars, Chris Martin's vocals, the lyrics..... I could go on forever.

For what it's worth, here's my list of top 10 Coldplay songs I've ever heard (in no particular order):

1. CLOCKS: Winner of the 2004 Grammy Award for Record of the Year, Clocks is , IMHO, the best Coldplay song there is. If someone were to place a cocked gun to my head and asked me to pick one Coldplay song from the lot, I'd say Clocks. Over and over again.

2. SPEED OF SOUND: This was among the first Coldplay songs I'd heard. And I was hooked, line and sinker.

3. THE SCIENTIST: Now this is a beautiful song, if there ever was one! Most online polls on the best song of Coldplay place 'The Scientist' on the top of the tree.

4. FIX YOU: The perfect pick-me-up song. I guarantee you, you will be moved by the amazing lyrics. The guitar section in the middle of the song is exhilarating.

5. VIVA LA VIDA: This song, released in 2009 as part of their album Viva La Vida, was on repeat on my music player for days. Very catchy track.

6. YELLOW: This is the song which rocketed Coldplay to stardom. All the success that Coldplay has today, all of the plaudits and the scores of fans around the world, they owe it to this beauty.

7. TALK: Another great track. I'm running out of adjectives to describe the beauty of these songs.

8. LOST: This song features some great piano work. The whole song uses only the one instrument, the piano. The lyrics are pretty moving too.

9. SQUARE ONE: This is the song I've been hooked on to for the past few days. That's the essence of a Coldplay song. You never get tired of any of them.

10. IN MY PLACE: This might come last on the list, but it definitely isn't last on my mind. The opening guitar solo is one of the few pieces of music that has the capacity to transport you to a different..... state.

Well, there you go. My list of top ten Coldplay songs. There are scores of other great songs, I'm having a hard time choosing them! :). In times like these, I often wonder, is Coldplay the best alternative rock band in the world? Well, maybe not just yet, but they definitely are on their way to getting there.

If you own an iPod or a GoGear, go out and get these songs in them pronto. I promise you, you will not regret it.

PS. If you're a fellow Coldplay fan, please post your comments on what you think their best song is. :). And if you've never heard of Coldplay before, you can post your comments thanking me ;).

What Up?!

PARENTAL ADVISORY: The following blog's contents might be offensive to certain readers. Proceed at your own risk. ;)

The Vicky-Mendoza diagonal. Sounds familiar? ;)

If you're an avid follower of the TV series 'How I Met Your Mother', you'll know what I'm talking about. The hit rom-com TV show on CBS, now running in its fifth successful season, has proved that it is a worthy successor to the 'Friends' legacy.

The plot is simple. The story revolves around the five main characters Ted Mosby(Josh Radnor), and his best friends Marshall Eriksen(Jason Segel), Lily Aldrin(Alyson Hannigan), Robin Scherbatsky(Cobie Smulders) and last, but definitely not the least, Barney Stinson(Neil Patrick Harris).

The reason for my writing this blog is not to "enlighten" people on the show, or its plot (for which, if you are interested, you can visit www.wikipedia.org, or https://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/.) My reasons are, a bit more selfless. ;). I am writing this blog in order to enlighten the world on a few of Barney's principles.

Barney Stinson, the funniest artiste on TV I have ever seen. And that is an understatement. Barney plays a drifter on HIMYM, a playboy who is always on the lookout for beautiful women to bed. In this "noble" quest, he goes about devising strategies and techniques to attain his "objective". Over the course of the previous seasons, Barney has been the architect of so many hilarious escapades on the show, that he has something of a cult following in America! (Barney's blog, for example, has thousands of followers.) Given the amount of "joy" he has brought to the world, through his "gyan", I only thought it fair that I share some of it with my beloved collegues at Cognizant. ;). So, here goes:

Number One: The Hot - Crazy Scale

The Hot-crazy scale is a graph drawn to judge the level of "hotness"(Y-axis) against the amount of "craziness"(X-axis) a girl has. For example, a woman who has fits of anger or is accustomed to beating her boyfriend with a hat, will rank very high on the crazy, and very low on the hot. On the other hand, if a girl undergoes cosmetic surgery, enhancing strategic places on her body, her hotness quotient shoots up. A man, looking for a date, must always ensure that the woman he is about to date is above the Vicky-Mendoza diagonal (the X=Y line) on the Hot-Crazy.

Number Two: The Lemon Law

This law (made up by Barney in Season One) states that, when a person is on his first date or is on a blind date with a woman, he must be allowed a chance to decide whether to continue on the date, or end it abruptly(if he doesn't like the looks of her). (It is another matter that it led to disastrous consequences for Barney!)

Number Three: The Three Days Rule

According to the Three days Rule, which according to Barney was heralded by the Lord Jesus himself(who took three days for his resurrection), a man, who has succeeded in getting a hot girl's phone number, must wait a minimum of three days before he calls her up again. That will ensure a sort of anxiety on the part of the girl, who will be wondering what happened to the guy she met and gave her number to, giving the man the ideal oppurtunity to cash into. ;)

This is just a sample. There are many more such instances of Barney's "gyan". If I proceed to list every one of his "principles", I'm afraid, it'll run into many hundreds of pages. And I haven't even started on his catchphrases yet!

All said and done, most of Barney's gyan is cockeyed. But that doesn't take away anything from the fact it makes for great TV. I haven't laughed as hard as I have when I've been watching Barney perform!

So, guys and gals, I hope I'd provided a few laughs through this blog. If you want to watch more of Barney Stinson, suit up, and watch 'How I Met Your Mother', telecast on Star World on occasion.

PS. Other Barney fans out there.... please feel free to add your comments on what you like the most about Barney, his catchphrases, his mannersims, anything!

I Spy!

Have you ever been in a situation were you've felt you were being followed? Or, maybe felt that you are in the middle of something fishy? Taking it further forward, have you ever found yourself in a sticky situation, that you would have liked to wriggle free from? If your answer was 'yes' to any one or more of the above questions, then this blog is for you.

Given the troubled times we live in, sooner or later we'll all find ourselves one day in hot water, either unintentionally or otherwise(God, I hope not!). If that is the case, you might find the gyan in this blog come to your rescue at the time. (You can thank me by posting a comment. :) )

Well, you might be wondering how I might help you in the above described circumstances. This is where my vast collection of Perry Mason novels comes in handy(55+ and counting). Perry Mason, for the uninitiated, is one of the most popular fictional mystery novel charaters of all time. Written by Erle Stanley Gardener, Mason is a defense attorney, who practices his trade in Los Angeles. Along with his utterly loyal secretary Della Street, and trusted sidekick, detective Paul Drake, Mason solves the most intriguing and mystifying of murder cases, most of them culminating in the courtroom. Gardner, it is said, had more than 135 million copies of his books in print in America alone, in the year of his death (1969).

Given my penchant for Mason novels, I tend to follow his adventures religiously. For regular readers of the Mason cases, the fact that he wriggles out of the most difficult of situatuons in the most ingenious, yet simplest of ways would come as no surprise. Over the years, as I've devoured more and more of Perry Mason, I've come to realize that most of his methods are actually very relevant and practical in our everyday lives. These methods are born out of pure common sense, and can be applied by all and sundry to keep themselves on the lookout at all times.

For example:

Situation 1: You are being followed. How do you lose the tail?

Answer : Get to the most crowded alley you know nearest to you, like a shopping plaze or a marketplace. If there's a bus stand or a metro station/subway nearby, its even better. Do not let the tail know you're on to him. Tailing a person in a crowd is a helluva lot harder than when you're all on your own.

Situation 2: How do you determine that you're being followed, in the first place?

Answer : Public transport. When you board/disembark a bus or a train, do it unexpectedly. For instance, leave a metro train just as it's doors are about to close. If anyone's following you (god forbid), he'll be caught off-guard and try to catch up with you, by jumping off the train himself, thus exposing his intent.

Situation 3: You're registered in a hotel room in an unknown city. You have a feeling you're room has been searched, your personal effects gone through, while you were away. How do you confirm your suspicions?

Answer : The human hair. Place a single hair in the keyhole of your hotel room's door, or in a recess on the door. If somebody has been nosing around in your room without your permission, the hair will not be in its place when you return. What you do after that is entirely upto you.

Situaton 4: You're being challenged by an officious looking person as to your purpose.

Answer : Most of us, at one time or the other, have been caught red-handed doing something we shouldn't be doing, or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time. How do you get out of this? Remember the Vivek joke in Minnale, where he gets caught for speeding by a traffic policeman and claims he knows the IG of police? It might have led to an hilarious end in reel life, but, in the real world it might actually work. Whenever you're challenged by authority, lay claim to a higher authority. It may just save your neck.

Makes you feel like a spy, doesn't it, reading all this? Well, you'll find that these methods may come to your rescue one day. The most important thing to remember when you're in trouble is to maintain a cool head and rely on your common sense(something Perry Mason has in abundance).

I am not writing this blog intending people to get into trouble. On the contrary, I am writing the blog to help people keep out of it. Remember, the best way to get out of trouble is to stay out of it.

Here's hoping nobody ever gets a chance to use any of these methods...

Stay safe. Be happy!

PS. Caution Advisory: Some of the above described methods might lead to dangerous consequences. Follow them at your own risk.

You'll Never Walk Alone

If you are a serious Liverpool supporter, a die-hard fan who lives and breathes for the Reds, you must need no introduction to "You'll Never Walk Alone" (YNWA). The iconic anthem of Liverpool Football Club has come to mean so much more than just being yet another football song.

But then, how many people actually know the song? All of us fans in India hear the song being recited on our TV screens during games and wonder what all these people are shouting for?(Yeah, I've done that on occasion myself). So, before we proceed, here are the lyrics of YNWA:

When you walk through a storm

Hold your head up high

And don't be afraid of the dark

At the end of the storm

There's a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind

Walk on through the rain

Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on

With hope in your heart

And you'll never walk alone

You'll never walk alone

Inspiring, isn't it? Now, imagine hearing this song being sung by 45,000 people, with hope and passion in their hearts, as you come walking out of that famous Anfield tunnel. It will be loud, I can guarantee you that!

Remember May 25, 2005, Istanbul? The night the greatest Champions League Final of all time was played, and Liverpool created sporting history? It is said that, at half-time, when LFC was 3 goals down, the whole red-half of the crowd at the Ataturk Stadium sang YNWA continuously, without pause. The song even drifted down to the players' dressing rooms, invoking a reaction. And the rest, as they say, is history. There is no better example to prove YNWA's worth to LFC.

YNWA is so much more than being just an anthem for the football club. It is the only song which, as far as I know, has the ability to whip up a frenzy even in the average supporter. It is a song which gives hope in our hearts, feeds our passion for the club and makes us believe, both in good and bad times.

Don't agree? Try looking up YNWA on youtube. Or hear it online. Or, watch a Liverpool game on a Champions League night. You'll see what I mean.