"Dead zone" at Mahim Junction?

In all probability, a "dead" zone exists at Mahim Junction (a suburban railway station in Mumbai). It has come to my notice that whenever we travel from King's Circle to Mahim (via the Harbour line, of course), there is a brief period for which the fans go off and the lights come on (even during the day time), but are very dim - a sign that the lights might be powered by some standby.

Unlike the dead zone at Virar, where the dead zone is required for the change in the type of electrification (DC to AC away from Virar), this one seems to be present for a different reason.

Maybe it exists because there is a "handover" spot between King's Circle and Mahim Junction where the Central Railway (which handles the King's Circle part of the line) meets the Western Railway (which handles the Mahim Junction part of the line).

Add one more to the the mysteries of the Indian Railway world.

Rain damage part 2

Every weekend since the heavy rains of Mumbai (26th July 2005) has been spent in salvaging items that were soaked in the dirty water that entered my home.

This weekend I discovered more stuff that needs to be thrown out or destroyed:

• Some 10 to 20 EP (Extended Playing) records stuck together on account of leaving them out to dry. Maybe we should have separated them before drying. But then, with such a small home, it is not possible to spread each one around.
• More books disposed off; these simply refused to dry. I noticed that most books printed in India (with the low quality of paper) dried easily; the books printed outside of India have high quality paper and maybe the resin content in them is so high that the pages stick together and don't let them dry. After trying out all kinds of tricks like blow drying with a hair drier to putting them in a conventional oven, they did not dry. Maybe I should have tried out microwave oven.
• Memorable photographs like those from my Swiss visit - both negatives and developed prints - destroyed. With no backup on the digital media, its as good as history.
• Most audio CDs that I tested seem to work without problems. The covers (or liner notes as they are called) of some of them had to be disposed off. Almost all of my "Moment Records" CD collection lost their liner notes. Prime among them was an autographed liner note by Pt. Shivkumar Sharma and Us. Zakir Hussain. I had gotten this after attending a musical performance by them in Mumbai.
• Most of these Moment Records CDs featured pleasing prints of various traditional Indian paintings/scenes.
• Lost an entire book that came along with a 4-CD set of Pt. Ravi Shankar (issued for his 75th birthday celebrations) appropriately titled "In Celebration".
• Lost important interpretation of the Vedic chants from Taittiriya Upanishad from Pt. Ravi Shankar's "Chants of India". This interpretation has been described in the liner notes as being "quasi mathematical" and gives a computation to find the happiness or joy of the enlightened compared to that of the ordinary mortal and the relation in terms of all the other hierarchical entities that exist in between.

All in all - a loss that is going to be irreplaceable and not easily forgotten.

Washed out homes

The extreme rainfall on July 26th 2005 (Tuesday) filled our ground floor flat/apartment with about 2 feet of water. Although most of our electronic equipment like the refrigerator, washing machine, television and computer is in working condition, we lost all our cots. These were "box-type" cots which are typically favorites in any "space-starved, stuff-laden" metro apartment. The cots contained some clothes, books and other stuff. Due to the water, the books and clothes absorbed so much water that they become too heavy for the cot, which gave way from below.

We had to throw away several books (most were of little use - Engineering Drawing from Semester 1 of 17 years ago and the like). But, we also lost several photographs (including treasured ones for which we may not have negatives).

About 500 audio CDs were soaked; these have dried now. But, about 200 gramophone records are still with wet jackets and these would need further drying.

While I decided not to go home on the 26th and stay back in the workplace, my wife was not so lucky. She had to spend about 15 hours in the BEST bus to reach home.