The Sequel - Can I Call You On The Telephone

I am just about a thousand away from the 10,000 visitor mark on my blog, and thought it pertinent to write a sequel to my ever popular post, "Can I Call You On The Telephone".  As you would realize, this blog has since moved on to Solar Energy, back then, when I wrote the above mentioned post it was a very personal blog, expressing joy and despair at what was happening in life, to me and my friends.  Those were hectic days I remember, in the October of 2012, there was something in the air and I would keep on tapping on my keyboard to the wee hours of the night.  In October alone I had written 65 posts, and when I look back at my writings of then and now, I realize I have matured a lot as a writer and most definitely as a person.

So I was disappointed at this friend of mine who wouldn't pick my calls, there was stuff happening in her life and she felt this need to disconnect from old friends, seek out new ones and I was chosen for special punishment.  And then it happened, last month, after all most 8 months of silence, pain and sorrow had mingled with most things in life during those months for me, she called !  Now normally, I am an early riser, requiring only 5 hours of sleep even during my worst nights, and this critical day, I was sleeping with my phone switched off.  It must have been 10:30 am, and I was still asleep when the most important call of the day should have shocked me out of my sleep.  I got up around 2 hours later, did what I normally do, bath and deoderant mixed my world with the surreal smell of a Luxury Soap and Davidoff.  I looked at my mobile, and realizing it was switched off, turned it back on, and was, as said before, shocked out of my languid stupor by the name that appeared in the missed call list.

What ?!! the F was going on ? How the hell .......... ? Some immediate reactions and I am not too pleasant a person when I wake up, yet my mind was in overdrive, did she really call or was I dreaming this up, was the phone company upto some prank, was this indeed a late April Fools joke on a sad old man, I looked at the watch, it was 1 pm, pressed the call button on the mobile, it rang, so I was obviously off the "reject list".  I waited long enough for someone to answer and then cut the line.  She called back within 10  minutes, and they were the most torturous 10 mins of my life.  I am a very emotionally sensitive person, and with somebody I had no news of for the last eight months, even more so.  She could have died for all I knew and somebody, a family member or friend was calling me to let me know, or an accident, I was conjuring up the most bizarre scenarios which included the fact that maybe she or somebody had made the call by mistake.  But sure enough, all thoughts were put to rest when my mobile rang again.

"Hello," I said in a timid voice.
"Hi Mandy," the voice distinctive and unmistakably hers, I opened the door to the balcony and walked out into the heat of the afternoon sun.  Now I have this umbrella on my balcony that shades a coffee table and a couple of chairs but the umbrella still has to be opened.  I struggled with the umbrella, I think, I was too stunned to realize that the knot around it was still tied.
"How are you doing ?" I said in a quiet voice, while all I wanted to do was to ask her was where she had been all these months.
"I am fineee," the voice was faintly mocking, almost as if she realized my shock, sensed it.  I had finally got my umbrella open and plonked myself in the chair, a sense of relief writ large on my face, more out of the call than what normally would be the thought of getting out of the blazing Sun.  I suddenly realized I was happy, more happy than I had been months to hear this voice.

We all make friends in our lives, some more strong bonds than the others, however in these modern times, there is no space or time for mourning when a friend leaves or breaks the bonds or so I am told.  Though, I am more traditionally minded than most people when it comes to friends, I can't imagine cutting the string without a remorseful thought in my mind, most of my best relations are alive because I have chosen to keep them alive.  The feeling of happiness has permeated my thoughts till this day, and its almost turning in to June now.  I haven't written much of Solar in my May, but figured I would share my thoughts on this post with you.
You Win Some and You Lose Some But You Never Give Up Trying.

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Solar Cooking

As a corollary to my last post where I mentioned that renewables is not only electricity, I bring to you in this article more on how solar can be used as heating fuel for cooking.  The three most common

types of solar cookers are : The box cooker, Parabolic Concentrators and the Panel Cooker.  Most solar cookers work on the principle that the Solar Energy is converted to heat

for cooking, heat that is retained for cooking.

Solar cookers based on their advantages and disadvantages can be classified under the following categories :

Panel Cookers
Category                                           Advantages                             Disadvantages

Fun Panel                          Built in an hour from one large              Not water proof
                                        cardboard box                                     Difficult in equatorial climates
                                        Easy to adjust for different sun
                                        angles
                                        Great Cooking power
                                        Very good for winter cooking



Windshield Shade              Fastest Cooker to make                        Only feasible where windshield
                                       Water Proof                                         shades are sold


Cookit                              Folds to the size of a large notebook      Not Water Proof
                                       for transport or storage                        Cooks best when the sun is high in
                                                                                                 in the sky



Box Cookers
Category                                           Advantages                             Disadvantages

The Minimum                    Simple to build from two                      Not water proof
                                        cardboard box                                  



Heavens Flame                  Extra Power due to multiple                 Must be turned more often to
                                       reflectors                                           follow the sun
                                       Can heat multiple pots                         Bottom of the oven not level as
                                       simultaneously                                   cooker tilts to the sun
                                                                                               Not water proof



Parabolic Cookers
Category                                           Advantages                             Disadvantages

Parabolic                           Cooks as fast as conventional               More Expensive
                                        electric burner                                    Can't be made without imported
                                        Can fry food                                       material
                                        Great Cooking power                           Can't bake bread



Based on the above parameters its easy to see that the parabolic cookers are the best as they fry food as well unlike the other categories that don't have the power to fry food.  But Parabolic Cookers are expensive to make and require some imported material as well.  I would recommend parabolic cookers any day over the other categories.
Whats cooking today, I can smell some beans.
                                     

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Renewables is not only Electricity

A lot has been said about how we impact the environment and how the environment impacts us, however a few salient points need to be noted, for one, renewables doesn't necessary mean electricity, it means cooking fuel, it means driving fuel and it constitutes heating fuel apart from electricity.  It is easy to be lead by the lobby that believes that only if generated electricity is received is renewables useful, energy is not MW or GW, it is MWhrs and GWhrs.  I have been talking about rooftop systems for a while now without touching on the other aspects of renewables, for instance biogas and biomass.  This is a segment that is really huge and getting bigger in the South East Asian countries.

In 2005, China had no talk of Biomass and Biogas, in 2008 they revised their targets and the first Bio Energy conference was held there.  Basically China has been seeing opportunities and then coming up with strategies to target respective markets.  In India we tend to think small, we think of building small Biogas Plants for house instead of ramping up and building Community Bio-gas and Biomass plants.  For centuries, we have had biogas plants that run small houses.  In 2011, China decided to revise it strategies, it decided to target 20000MW biomass and 44 billion cubic feet bio-gas for 2020.  That is a huge target and so how did they reach that target.  The target was reached using a benchmark for bio-gas that being imported Australian coal and another being biomass v/s imported LPG.

If we use relevant benchmarks for relevant existing technologies then there is a fair chance of renewables making it to the best of the best.  The only way to improve visibility of renewables is to used them against benchmarks and I think imported coal and imported LPG are correct benchmarks for the same.  Biomass's produces electricity and continuous energy at not Rs 7 / unit but at Rs 2 / unit, remember that a unit is1 KW hrs.  So, key factors for biomass power plants :

1. Availability and Price Fluctuation.
2. Logistics
3. Fuel handling
4. Tariff
5. Government Regulation
6. Technical Issues.

Biomass requires growing and careful cultivation of trees and then burning them to get electricity.  A 200 acre Bamboo plantation can feed a 1MW plant, if we use agriculture waste as source then it requires 10000 acres while eucalyptus or cashew trees require up to 1000 acres to generate 1 MW.
Burning trees to get energy, not a good idea unless the ash content is low.

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Win or Lose Does It Matter

In my last post I had mentioned that there is this woman I called on my return from Dubai, and met her in Jaipur which is a Western State capital of Rajasthan. An author by profession, similar in talents as me with loads of experience sales and marketing, researching and now writing.  An absolutely sane headed woman, I met her at this local cafe, and we have a lot of them, including, Cafe Coffee Day, which is a locally run outfit with its plants in South of India, to the global chains of Barista as also some absolutely local Madras Coffee Shop.  It wasn't till I met her that I realised, what a level headed person she was, I had known her before but as it turned out life, especially of authors and writers keeps evolving, maybe its the stories that we tell or the emotional catalysis that we go through, we emote with the characters we evolve.

In any case, as life would have it, I was late by over 30 minutes, got stuck up in traffic jams, and had a helling to receive when I eventually made it.  See, the streets were sublime in the way the night traffic stopped everything from moving, moreover I was on the phone all the time, there were these three guys who had been chasing me to get my first draft approved.  As I moved and stopped, and then moved some again, it was a sight to see me ducking out of the cops eyes, on the handset to the speakerphone, juggling between the my cigeratte lighter to the cable that charges the mobile.  The first guy, brusque and direct had me chasing a Toyota while he talked, 5 minutes and I knew this was the guy I was going to go with, I listened to him, and my own mind was churning over thoughts I had figured I would speak to with Richa, she would be waiting and yet this was important.  I had made a turn to the right away from the cafe towards Sawai Mansingh Airport and continued talking to this guy.  By the time I finished I had sent a draft to him from my mobile.

I entered the cafe and thought of her, she looked just the same, bright and sunny and a little angry.  I kept my cool and entered with a bunch of flowers in my hand.  I had the following questions for her and I was looking for keywords for my business :
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1.  What words do you think will emote very well with customers ?                        Yes I could work that out
2.   If I go with the regular keywords, it would only imply what the world is doing   Yes that would be true
3.   Do you think I should use a software to generate keyword listing                       No go the manual way
4.   How do I get the customers to my site using this keyword listing                      
5.   Is there somewhere I can find synonyms and acronyms for existing words ?
6.   Do you think you would be willing to write content for my site ?                        Yes I would do that.
7.   I want the site to come up within 2 months.                                                        A valid time frame
8.  Can I build this site from a template without requiring a shopping cart ?              Yes go for it
9.  What is the budget I use to build this site ?                                                         Rs 40,000/-
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The answers were rapid and it was like a quick fire round, I had already apprised her of my questionnaire and she had come prepared.  She was gentle and congenial woman, happily married with a young daughter, Bhavini, who she had got with her.  I was happy I had met her, she had come back into my life right when I wanted her to, and was still answering them questions like she always had, softly yet firmly, knowing exactly what was to be said, at exactly the right time.  She answered the questions honestly and I knew if she would write content for my site I would be in safe hands.

I had met her years back when she and I had worked for an organization which dealt in Financial Domain, she would help me with my work, sort out my personal life and even advice me on who to talk to and not to talk to.  Life was full of surprises those days, work was hectic and till a certain point in time I thought work was only for money, till she changed my concept of life.  She grew as a person and so did I, I would always remember us bitching about our bosses and colleagues, like an oasis in a desert, a flower in the middle of the marshlands, I loved this person for who she was and was happy to meet her today.
Honesty and Forthrighteousness are the traits I have always admired

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Cool your Windows

As I travel the length and breadth of the city, I come across many houses that use shading or a permanent awning to protect the windows from heat gain, and in affect the house during peak summers.  Some designs work and a lot of them don't, and that hardly is a matter of instinct, its all in the design.  It is abundantly clear to me, that there are some places that a permanent awning will work.  We did a project for a Gurgaon based house and found out the following things :

1.  East and West facing overhangs don't work.
2.  South facing overhangs work beautifully.
3.  For East and West facing windows use an external shading device.
4.  It is best to utilise an external shading that has a reflective surface on its outside.
5.  Also it is best to be able to have a ventilating cooling combined with shading for locations that are hot during the day and mild in the night.
6.  An overhang on a south facing window is most helpful when there is direct sunlight.
7.  It also occurred to me that the numbers seemed to suggest that the direct radiation only accounted for 50 percent of the heating, the rest was indirect or reflective radiation.
8.  A combination of internal and external overhangs work the best.

I worked out the numbers and they seem to suggest that overhangs for shading would work best to reduce AC bills and still in some cases totally eliminate the need for an AC.  Awnings and Trellings though expensive are great for cutting down on heat absorbtion during summers, what may seem like a case for 20 deg C on the Aircon could be reduced to 26 deg C, thereby getting a huge saving on the annual AC bill

A few of the external shades that work very well are Trees and External Shades.  Good landscaping can tremendously help in bringing cluster of trees from locations around the house to shade in the summer and also prevent the winter winds from getting to the house.  Trees planted in the East and West are most effective to prevent the summer sun from gaining an entry while the south of the house can be left open to promote solar radiation.  Trees planted in the North cool down the surroundings of the house.

This project opened up new vistas in my brain, I had hardly recovered from my discovery of Solar when I realised that a good Renewable artist must get to the bottom of the muddle and discover what causes heat losses and heat gains
Creativity thy name, you are the window to my world

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Passive Cooling

This week, I travelled to Dehradun, I saw a lot of houses using innovative techniques to design a Naturally Cooled House, and one of them included a house near the Rama Krishna Mission.  It was a regular house and used solar water heating for its winter requirements.  During the summers, which of course, in Dehradun are cool as ever the same solar water heating was used to heat up water during the night.  The house belonged to a Mrs and Mr Ashwani, she is an IIT Delhi Engineer and has done a lot of research in farming techniques, using the innovation that he had learned and un learned in IIT to develop farmlands.  His house used something called as Passive Cooling to cool up the house, this included Natural Ventilation, Thermal Cooling and Evaporative Cooling.

The concepts became clearer as you looked at the house, and I have seen a [few structures] for myself, it utilised the natural methods of cooling, for instance using the [natural air flowing] through the house, the water evaporating from springs near the house and the stone and earth used to absorb and cool down the house.  All these methods are called passive

cooling and unlike mechanical cooling is natural and involves changes in the design and careful architecture.  The idea behind passive cooling is to understand what factors actually generate coolness in the house, and they are as listed below :

1.  Monitor the average minimum temperature.
2.  Monitor the average relative minimum humidity.
3.  Monitor the average maximum temperature.
4.  Monitor the average relative maximum humidity.

Ideally in the summer, in this nation when the temperature in most places touches 45 deg C, the relative humidity is very low, so the combined affect is to raise the temperature even further, scorching all vegetation and destroying human forms, the heat wave deaths are not unknown and largely touch up to 1000 every summer in the Delhi NCR region.  The government has looked at various bylaws to reduce this toll, which have culminated in the building of shelters, however it is to no affect, as they ignore the largely salient parts of the environment which takes care of itself naturally.

The ideal thing to do before you decide on a strategy for the same is to plot a chart vis-a-vis the relative humidity and temperatures be it maximum or minimum.  Then the strategy to implement a passive cooling system can be found out.  So basically, there are mainly 4 methods of passive cooling identified below :

1.  High Thermal Mass with Night Ventilation.
2.  Evaporative Cooling.
3.  High Thermal Mass.
4.  Natural Vegetation.

Based on the chart as I have decided to make I will go ahead and implement the following strategies, this is a very interesting piece of information that I came across while I was

reading an old article which says that "Passive Cooling gets rid of heat during the day and cools down the temperature during the night".  If we were all made aware of how much reduction of mechanical cooling can reduce harm to the environment it would truly make some remarkable progress in the Climate Parliament.  These techniques have been developed over ages and employed by our ancestors when the air conditioning did not exist.  To the best of the knowledge of the experts I know, you would want to reduce the heat gain in the first place with high insulation levels, heat blocking windows, proper solar orientation and good vegetation and greenery around the house.
Oh Lord' , Cooling of any kind helps, especially that you give to me. 

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The Wall and Insulation

A lot of thoughts have flowed into my mind ever since I started on the project of Renewables, for instance, I forget about Sustainable Buildings, where all the work of saving energy happens.  Truly a noble thought, room heating and cooling can only be of used if I can provide mechanisms to reduce Heat Loss.  Interestingly, I spent a lot of time  figuring out the people who are involved in the process.  There are Mechanics, Carpenters and Plumbers who make this come true.  A wooden wall is built with two panels with insulation inside and heat loss occurs through what holds the structure together.  This includes any drilling or cuts that are made into the wall to hold the pieces together, the studs here are of particular importance, as they hold the wall together, for a wall the size of 15' X 10' there might be at least 10 studs that make them work.  The studs would have to have a very low R factor, so that the heat loss is reduced in places where they are drilled.

There are concepts that are becoming clearer now, the building and construction industry needs to undergo a drastic change, the walls here are mostly cement with high thermal R, hardly any retrofitting can be done without a substantial amount spent on it.  Wooden walls on the other hand are easy to thermal proof and retrofit.  It isn't for nothing that the Building and Construction Councils in India is already recommending wooden walls with insulation and glazing to be installed in a variety of locations.  These have been the salient thoughts that have come through :

1.  A wooden wall structure is better for Indian Conditions too.
2.  There is hardly cost involved as opposed to cement and mortar.
3.  In all likelihood by the turn of 2015 there will be more wooden houses.
4.  The potential for it is today, to research and create awareness.
5.  Costings are simple and will appear in my next post.

Here are few talks I had with people, one of them a trained professional from the renewable sector, he was sure that LEED was going to work, "The Renewables and LEED certified buildings go hand in hand."
"I am sure you are right Mr Krishnamurthy."
"Maninder Ji, I have been in the business for 10 years and I dare say, there is no better way to look at this than to have buildings that retain their temperatures."
"Do brick and mortar walls have the same potential as wooden walls buttressed by insulation."
He rubbed his bald head and said quietly, " They don't stand a chance, there is no comparison."
I assumed instantly that he knew what he was talking about, and goaded him to tell me more, "So how do I convince clients that a wooden wall is much better."
"Assuming they don't know anything about a wooden wall, you first explain to him the differences, once having done that, create an environment for talking about the wall, maybe even give him a demonstration of a wooden wall, there are a lot of walls available in Himachal Pradesh, that have been built on wood and they could be built on the same philosophy."
"Hahahaha, thats funny, those are flimsy houses."
"Maninder ji, you haven't seen the best houses there are beautifully built, hahahahaha !!
I laughed again at his taunt, "Hahahaha, but what about the costing ?"

I left the matter at that, he said he would get back to me on the costing, still awaiting details of it to arrive, sooner than later, knowing Krishnamurthy, it will arrive sooner. He is a very refined man, a firm believer in God, wears a tikka on his face, and always carries the Geeta, the holy Hindu book, with him.  He has always trusted me and assumes that I will always do the best for me, and in 2 years of our acquaintance we have not let each other down.
"A wooden wall for my mortar, ahoy, blast through my son."

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You Win Some You Lose Some

On my return from Dubai, I met up with an old friend of mine who works for a large BPO in Noida, I hadn't spoken to her for a very long time, I was feeling lonely, very down and out and called her on a hunch.  I was probably more than hunch, I really wanted to talk to her, smart, intelligent girl with everything in the right place.  To my amazement, she picked up and spoke like normal, like nothing amiss had ever happened.  She talked like she knew me exactly like I was 6 months ago, we spoke for a long time and my mind was absolutely at peace.  She works for Barclays in Delhi -  NCR, and is admired by everyone as a planner and somebody with her head in the right place.

Here are a few questions I asked her, and she was as usual forthright in her answers,

1.  Q.  Hows work ?
      A.  Regular, routine, just normal.

2.  Q.  Is everything OK at home ?
      A. Things are absolutely fine Mandy.

3.  Q.  Are you still cooking your own food ?
     A.  I do even now.

4.  Q.  What about health food ?
     A.   I am still a health freak as ever.

5.  Q.  Did you ever think about what happened ?
     A.  I have always thought about it.


Four quick questions, to get the conversation going, and we connected immediately, she could help me a lot, I knew it immediately, for one, she could help me get this business in order, and she answered back, "I don't have the time Mandy, but for you anything."
"You need me, and I know that, you just haven't got around to calling me.  After all, what are friends for."
I apologized instantly, I knew what she was talking about, my vision without the right people around me would be of no use to anyone.  There are folks in my life who give me nothing, and here was woman ready to sacrifice her hard earned weekends to give me advice.  So what kind of advice did I need, was there anything specific that i wanted from her, I looked up my Mission Statement and my went back to the days when I had written it, I was working for a software company then and wanted to turn things around and had hammered hard on a statement that adequately described me, one of the points that stays and will stay forever in my mind is this point I made to one of the people in the company,

                         "I must find people who can help me with what I have"

I had found her and was happy that I had her with me.  Its amazing what life brings us to,  I don't believe there is anything is anything in this life that brings more happiness than knowing that happiness is at hand.  I have doubted it many times that I didn't have it in me make it big in solar, occassionally even resorted to to subterfuge to get my life on track.  I have lied my way through trouble, the other day I was fined by a cop for skipping a red light, I tried to convince him that he should let me go scott free, and he agreed.  I was amazed at that thought, he let me gok and that did me a load of good.  For one, I realised that castes and communities don't mean a thing, in my lfie the only thing that matters is love.  I will live and die with it.
Customers are people, and nothing relates more than the heart

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The Designer and the Presenter

Back home from a hectic trip, on the flight I met this lovely lady, Nguyen, from Vietnam and a beautiful lady at that, she was travelling to India on a business trip, turned out she was a marketing professional, with loads of experience for young lady of 25.  Now, I am not somebody who trusts people immediately, but I knew I had to talk to her, she was talking to an air hostess, when I bumped into her arm, I am sure I did deliberately but something pushed me into it.  I apologised immediately, "I am sorry."  She smiled with a wave of her hand to suggest that it was ok, and I continued loading my bag into the luggage bin.  I had the window seat and she an aisle, for a big man, I have always found the window seat uncomfortable, I still remember enjoying a ride in a DC-10 some years back, I found it to be the most comfortable plane of all, there had been this Sardar family with me and we changed seats because they wanted to be together.

She looked at me, "Nice view ?"  The plane had taken of and I nodded approvingly.
"Can I get the window ?"
Who am I to say no to a lovely lady, and I unbuckled my seat belt and moved out to allow her to settle in to the window seat.  There was no doubt in the mind that I was going to enjoy the aisle more, and I still had a view to the window now accentuated by long hair and beautiful pointed nose as she looked curiously outside.

"Do you travel often ?" I asked nonchalantly looking at the on board magazine.
"Yes its part of my work routine, you ?
"I am Solar guy, I sit at home when there is no Sun and look for hot destinations like Dubai, no puns intended.
"Oh," that sounded enquiring, so I proceeded to tell her more.
"I am regular marketing person, travelling talking to people, to find out where my next order will come from, it is important to keep in touch with everybody you know and networking is a very huge part of my game," I said grinning from face to face.
"Really ?" she sounded disappointed.

I guess you could say, Solar is not high on the list of many people, most people think of it as alternative employment.  I had to convince this lady that we were also sales people, that we too talked to people to figure out what was going on in a region.  We too spoke to clients to get an idea of where the project was headed, I had had a heady second meeting with Ahmed and was proud of what I had achieved with him, handed over my design papers to him and the commercials would be worked out later.  I was sure that he was busy already on his desk, spelling out the proposal that he would give his immediate bosses, the Sheiks who ruled Dubai.

"So you have a boyfriend," I asked to shock her out of her disappointed tone.
"What do you mean ?" she gave a sharp look, the flight was already curving to the right, we had left Dubai airport below and were heading for our destination.  If she had turned any more, she would have been over me.
"You sound like somebody who likes to party and dance, I like outgoing people." as blunt as ever, as I took out my laptop.
"Well, I am a party girl and love the thought of going out each night, its what keeps me alive." she did open up and I admired her for that.
"I love to party as well, let me show you a presentation that I have been showing people." I pointed the screen to her, quickly changing the topic from a personal one to a more professional one.  I could learn from this woman, I knew that.  The presentation was slickly designed one, done up by Sashi, whose hard work had left even me dumbfounded, and I was a stickler for schedule.  He had designed the presentation inch perfect, almost like he owned the project, "You just give me the data and leave the rest to me. The graphics, the layout, everything that deals

with design."
Without a moments hesitation, I had given him the full right to do as he pleased and along with that the box that contained original Photoshop CS 5.5, I had purchased on my last trip to Dubai.  He was happy, and getting married in June, and I shared his enthusiasm for life and work.  Work had this way of getting me depressed, every project I worked for and didn't pay dividends brought up tonnes of memories that bit me even today.  If I had my way, I would just bury myself and hope the world never found me.  Sashi had brought some good memories with him, all that showed me that I was just him.  If ever I found myself faced with negativity I would just stand up and face it and it would go away on its own, but Sashi had to fight it to make it go away and I was all with him, if we had to fight negativity then we would together.

Nguyen was browsing through the presentations and looked interested, the flight had stabilised as much as my mind had now, and I paged the air hostess, she came up immediately, the tag on her said Shilpa, she was the only Indian in the crew, "Shilpa, could you get me and the lady some champagne."
"Of course, anything else sir ? she looked inquiringly at the lady, I still hadn't got around to asking the lady her name.

"Yes and some pastries and cookies," I said wanting the full Monty for the lady.
Nguyen was slim built and she was packed with energy, the way her fingers moved on the laptop, I got the distinct idea that the laptop was in the right hands, most people have this habit of not knowing how to handle a laptop, I preferred a person with skills to handle my laptop.  And skilled she was, she wanted to make some changes to the presentation and I nodded yes.  She worked on it for 15 minutes not uttering a word, just typing, re-adjusting and aligning text.  After half an hour of hard work, we had the presentation ready.  During this time she had asked me a lot of questions pertaining to Solar and Renewables, which I had readily answered, while I thought I had to make a presentation to her, she had prepared one and was ready to present it to me.  That was professionalism and I had judged her right.

Sashi was the designer and Nguyen the presenter, it was a fatal combination, I was already imagining if I could the two of them to work together in my limited budget, I achieve miracles.  I was dreaming up strategies to get Nguyen to work with us and she being a smart woman that she was would say yes.  This was a project worth taking a risk on and she will say yes.  My mind was fighting the negativity, I have to get this negativity out of the way to make anything viable, fight tooth and nail, and then understand when it clears up, the horizon is a blue mist far away, where we must make our own path.

There was a distinct possibility that I would hire her now.  It was all coming together like a pack of cards at Diwali that would finally show 3 aces in my hand.  I believe there is a time, product and price for any project, it comes together when the time is right.  We all make our decisions and live by them, sometimes just sometimes it is time to change an existing scenario to make way for a new person who will take the baton from you.  It isn't for nothing that I was sharing my data with her, she was needed and required in the team and I was willing to go after her.
Sometimes we lead and sometimes we chase, either ways it pays to win

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Plaguarism - Beware of the disease

I travelled to Dubai, last week, there were too many of these customers, who thought it right to give me advice on what to do, Dubai is a great city and has enough sunshine to make solar work, I had projects ranging from 25kW to 100kW.  There was certain client, Ahmed, who seemed to be suggesting that I needed to give a concrete proposal to make things happen, I was amiable and open to discussion.  The first thing that seemed striking to me was that there was nothing in his conversation that suggested he knew anything about renewables, it was just the lure of money that he was holding on to.  When I questioned him about the specifications of the systems that he wanted he was vague and non committal.  Initially I was very open with him and gave him all the information that he required, as a matter of fact, to the extent the design that I mentioned in one of my previous posts, which I will briefly touch upon in this post below, was also passed on to him  :

I    SCP - Mini Home

-------------------

1. Design
-----------
A home consumes 81 w * 3 hrs = 243 whrs/day

PV
---
243/5.5 = 45 whr/day = ideal array size

45/0.72 = 62.5 W PV

Battery
-------
243 Whrs/day (Avg daily load) / 0.9 Inv Eff
= 270 Wh/day

270 Wh/day / 24 DC system volts = 11.25 Avg AH/day

(11.25 x 1.11 battery temp multiplier x 2 days

autonomy) /0.5 Battery DOD
=60 Total System AH

Charge Controller
-----------------
15 Amps

Inverter
--------
81 W total AC load = min inverter continuous watt

Inverter size 240 VAC 100W

2. Final Specs
-------------
PV 100W
LMLA battery 24 v, 60 AH
Charge Controller 15 Amps
Available Energy/day Whrs 250
Inverter Capacity 600 VA
Autonomy 2 days
Price : Rs 50,000 ex india

3. Load as given below
--------------------
15w x 2nos, 11w x 3nos, 9w x 2nos running for 3
hours per day

Obviously, this was a huge step for me, to give my research to somebody who knew very little about Solar.  Ahmed seemed happy on receiving the design specifications but still non committal, I sat with him for over two hours, where various people from his team looked up the specs and asked me to design for a 5kW and then a 25kW system.  It was akin to a classroom where I was handing out my learning to people for free and after a while I stopped liking it.  My ire must have been obvious, as his tone suddenly changed and he got more aggressive.  Sitting right there in front of me, he started to call other suppliers and started to ask for prices for my design.  Now I am a reasonable man, but these seemed way out of line.  My designs were being handed out for free.  I got up immediately and pulled the sheets away from his hands.  

I had entertained this mans request for over 6 months, giving him documents pertaining to ISO certifications, Company Balance Sheets and now design specifications and he had the nerves to call a competitor with my design sheets.  I took the sheets of paper and fortunately there had been no photocopy of this, walked out of the office.  I knew I had invested a lot of time and money on Ahmed, yet there was no way I was going to bow down to this kind of common thievery.  I walked out of the office, thinking of what I was going to do, the Dubai trip seemed like a waste, money was inconsequential, my mind today was feeling let down, more depressing than the Middle East heat.  I walked into a Aircon cab and walked in to the Aircon Hotel all in a daze.

Took the lift up to the room and sat in the room thinking about the next step.  I could call back home and speak to Amit, a good friend of mine and ask for advice, or I could call Mustafa and discuss further details of the project or I could just sit and brood.  There was inactivity everywhere in my mind, it wasn't thinking, till I spoke to Amit, he cleared my mind and told me what to do :

1.  Write an SMS asking for a re-meet.

2.  A mail is preferred but in any case don't go without fixing an appointment.

3.  Postpone your return for another day either way.

So, here I am in Dubai, waiting another day and looking to meet Ahmed again, this time in a better frame of mind to handle the situation.  We all do what we have to do, and some decisions we regret and try and make up for it.
Life is about second chances, when you get one, grab it

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