Abhishek Chaudhary

Now - Security minion.
Before - A bit of cloud

[Thejaswi Udupa @udupendra]

Apparently Bangalore groundwater has high levels of heavy metal contamination. I guess that explains the genre's popularity here.

[Abhishek Chaudhary @abhizz]

@ansh_chokshi on-the-mill !!
gtm

[Troll Football @TrollFootball]

Harry Kane in The Matrix

[Vikram Chandrashekar @Vikrchan]

A post from 8th July got me thinking about writing this piece.

Chugging along : Island express

This is about a pilgrimage which began on the first Wednesday of the year, every year. We took the train which was meticulously booked 60 days in advance. The programme was more or less fixed for the entire journey except when sometimes nature decided to change course. The journey began at the Bangalore City railway station. We were sure the train wouldn’t move till that one relative came running just a minute before, with fruits in his hands, and one of us would have to go to the door to collect them. As if on cue the guard would wave the green flag. It was on the famed Island Express. Even today that's the name that sticks for many of us.

The train’s journey was from Bengaluru to Trivandrum. Our stop was always Kottayam. The train traveled through Tamil Nadu during the night. The next morning around daybreak the train entered Kerala. A unique thing about the journey I remember was the fuelling station, Shornur. The Island Express would take a perpendicular path to a station called Shornur and change the engine direction. The first few times I was so fascinated that we changed direction of travel even without moving seats. This was also used as a fuelling station for us. It was always idlis from a friend's home. Neatly packed idlis in banana leaves wrapped in newspaper. Everyone got a packet. The chutney pudi with oil came from a common container and was poured on the idlis. I liked my pudi poured on the side so I could dip in as much as I liked. This was usually followed up with a sugary, watery tea from the station. For several years now the train doesn’t go to Shornur and fuels up at Palakkad.

Next it was the time to fight for the window seat, for the best part of the journey, when the scenes of everyday Kerala life could be enjoyed. The weather was pleasant early in the morning. Kilometers of paddy fields, lakes and rivers flowing. The train would pick up speed steadily and the sound it made when it crossed a bridge would always bring joy and smile. Vehicles impatiently waited at railway crossings. School children waved at you from the side of a small road . Fishermen sold their wares and one could see people going to a place of worship on their way to work. This usually lasted for a short while before office goers got on to the train. It became a local, seats reserved or otherwise. Some of them climbed on to the upper berths and with four legs across berths serving as the base of the table, the suitcases as a table, started off on a game of rummy.
On the lower berth someone was saying "korache taLLii iri" and would sit with his umbrella for support, just in case the train jolted a bit too much. I could never comprehend how the guy who comes with the "veLLam and chaya" made his way through the commotion and easily moved from one compartment to the other. By now I was mostly half inside the window grill, busy looking out and enjoying the scenery. At Ernakulam the train returned to a better state since many of the office goers get off and one could get back a little more of their seat.

The return journey was a lot less exciting because we were getting back to normalcy, which meant school or office from the morning we reached. So to make it a bit better we were allowed to buy some books at the railway book store while we waited to board the train. A small outlet on the platform, sometimes just a window in Tier-3 town stations. We were allowed to top up the books with an apple juice or two from the HPMC Centre to beat the afternoon heat. One such journey I bought a comic which I finished even before the train arrived.
Once onboard the train I was bored out of my wits with nothing to do. I had to wait for the next event which was a late lunch at the Kottayam railway canteen. Some people who were agile usually rushed to the canteen and would get packed lunch. Rice, sambar, pickle and pappadam. The sambar to rice ratio that was served was usually low, we carried pudi or curd to make It palatable.
Any drier, Kerala would be declared a complete dry state.

Thankfully my eye wandered in boredom and saw that the neighbouring seat passenger had a Reader's Digest lying around. I was in two minds, "should I ask to borrow it or not?". I took my chance. The lady agreed happily.I assume. The magazine featured an article, "The Day the Island Express Fell", as the main article. I, of course jumped straight to the article and started reading it with a short break for lunch. The article was so impactful that I kept thinking about it later, even when I had a hot parippu vada in my hand from Thrissur. The fact that it happened I knew from the newspapers. The fact that the accident had taken away many lives including a cricketer I had watched play for Karnataka, Ranjit Khanwilkar was known. It never had hit me so hard till I read the article.

A few years later when we took the train back from Trivandrum and it slowed down on Peruman Bridge in Kollam, the whole article came back to me vividly. I could imagine the accident in its totality. Scary indeed.

Last night, I wanted to read the article again after a few decades. I searched, found it online and reread it on Scribd.

Some journeys stay with us because of where they took us. Others stay because of what we saw and felt along the way. The Island Express somehow did both.

#islandexpress #memory

[www.sidin.co @sidin]

I grew up in a small farming village. And one day my uncle came and told me that he was retiring and going to live near some religious town. And he gave me a few things including some items of jewllery.

But it turned out that one ring in his collection he had stolen from someone many years ago when he used to travel for work.

A few days later a bunch of underworld goonda types came to my village to get the jewellery back. So I had to run away with my friends to save our lives.

We were super upset. Until we met a local ayurvedic doctor who told us that the ring was cursed and we had to go and destroy it if we wanted to be truly safe.

So then I had no choice but to improve my fitness so that I could finally reach the mountainous region and dispose of my uncle's jewellery. It was really painful, and we often had little food, and no sleep. And once or twice I was sure I was dead.

But eventually we managed to do it. So that is my story.

[Abhishek Chaudhary @abhizz]

@sidin @ponnappa plzz tell how did you manage two breakfasts?

[Abhishek Chaudhary @abhizz]

@shantanugoel @mohsinkhawas Shantanu is ramgopalbajaj not shayamgopalbajaj

[Abhishek Chaudhary @abhizz]

@manaman_chhina what is the cumulative waist line here?

[Shantanu Goel @shantanugoel]

Ok, so it seems I'm allowed to finally talk about this.

I have not been testing GPT 5.6 sol for the last several weeks, and so I've not been blown away by anything yet.

I also don't know how it will perform compared to Fable 5 and whether it will use lesser tokens or more.

I should add that this is my personal opinion and not a benchmark so please take it with a grain of salt.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

[Abhishek Chaudhary @abhizz]

@shantanugoel deep insight this

[Abhishek Chaudhary @abhizz]

@thepawmic give camera to the mouse in second frame (:

[Dharmesh Ba @dharmeshba]

@abhicantdraw Will they sit in last bench?

[Abhishek Chaudhary @abhizz]

@hellonehha what? Tom cruise filing his next 😎

[Chess Master @xxChessMaster]

😅

[Abhishek Chaudhary @abhizz]

@AramideOyekunle

[Abhishek Chaudhary @abhizz]

@shantanugoel this tops all my imax view. What a high octane pacer,discovered ramin djwadi after this and a big fan since

[Abhishek Chaudhary @abhizz]

@_svs_ I had followed you here a few years back, but only got to know that you hail from an Army family. As someone who lived in army cantonment for a brief 3 years, and has great regards, I am sure you dad must have been a thorough gentlemen. Will you ever share cantonment stories?

[Abhishek Chaudhary @abhizz]

@baxiabhishek taste.md

[Sidu Ponnappa @ponnappa]

the demand for fde (remember an fde is an external consultant by definition) comes from the blocker that enterprises cannot go AI Native without a significant reorg - a process that will take a decade if not more.

So AI Native will have to be bolted on.
AKA consultants.