GodSend

Finally after more than 2 months of intense preparation and all hype, I have landed at Purdue University for my MS in Computer Science. This is situated in the state of Indiana. Its about 3 hours from the famous and well connected Chicago and about an hour’s drive from Indianapolis(Indy). I flew British Airways this time and the journey was pretty comfortable. I had little problems with the leg space (but not to be complained as I am pretty tall myself) but then the food, flight timings were all commendable. The first leg of the journey from Chennai to London was for about 10 hours and lasted through the day, most of the time flying over the desert regions of Dubai, Bucharest, etc. We could see some houses right from 38000 feet with the clear sky!

The second part was over the Atlantic and as per the pilot, we caught some favourable winds and reached in about 9.5 hours to Chicago. By the time I was out of customs, it was 1930hrs and guess what, it was daylight still!!

We reached Purdue at 0030hrs (wierd timings) but got some good accomodation immediately at a senior’s place (Hail IGRASP). From then on, its been a lot of roaming around Purdue, looking around the US, getting used to seeing so many white people around

I have been taking a bit of photos, but acutally want to cover a lot more sooner. There is just so much new to me over here (though I have seen some in movies). I hope to rent a handycam soon from the university and shoot a lot!

Hoping to continue more about my experiences here.. Probably after I move-in, get a laptop and a good internet connection. Now off to dinner..

This has been one of the most discussed topics in the news in the past few days after the prices had been hiked for all petroleum products. I am not going to discuss about these effects on our people. There were some thoughts though about how petrol/diesel has been retailed out to the consumers.

Recently I was out to refuel my vehicle in a petrol bunk nearby, which I frequent. The first thing he tells me is that “Sir, normal petrol is not available. Only premium fuel. Shall I fuel? How much?”. I guessed that this was some random event that had happened possibly because the normal fuel has sold out. But then upon returning home, my dad tells me that this has become quite common nowadays!!

For those who are not aware, normal petrol is the petrol that they usually market for the prices that are specified by the government. This usually has an octane rating of 91 or above and thus determines the combustion efficiency of the fuel. Premium petrol on the other hand has a higher octane rating and thus more costlier by around Rs.5 (owing to purifying/octane costs). The merits of the latter are supposedly marketed as cleaner combustion and higher fuel efficiency. However, you must not get into the notion that once you refuel with premium petrol into your Maruti-800, you can just start driving at 150kmph or go from 0-60 in 3 secs!! The effects of the fuel are very minimal to be noticed for day to day usages but probably the changes are only a matter of 1-10%.

Now, coming back to the main stream of discussion, petrol bunks have taken on this new strategy that forces their customers to pay extra for the fuel. This has somehow become the unsaid practice in most of the bunks in the city and arbitly connected with the recent hikes in the fuel prices.

Another interesting fact to be noted: Suppose it happens that the petrol bunk actually supplies you with the normal petrol claiming it to be premium fuel, how would you know? (Sounds corrupt and hilarious) Actually nothing can be done by mere customers like us who do not have the time to order him to test the fuel in front of us to assert its octane rating. Or probably he might not even agree to do it for you.

All we can do is to just trust some bunks and keep frequenting them. This would not be a problem at all if you manage to locate a bunk which always serves you with normal petrol, because then the retailer has nothing to gain! In bunks such as Shell Petroleum, they do not even market a normal fuel. They just supply with extra-octane petrol which happens to be about Rs.10 costlier with them!! But they would give a great service at their bunk and a nice wash to the windshield of your car.

One of the trusted bunk here in Chennai happens to be the TVS petrol bunk in Whites road. They serve Bharat Petroleum fuel and serve only Petrol (no diesel) and only normal petrol. TVS is a well known brand name and is commonly associated with quality and trust (here specifically quantity of petrol). That brings so many people to the bunk which is almost full most of the time. You will even find two wheelers filling in for Rs.500! This is where its found on Wikimapia.

As an ending note, be careful on which bunk you choose so that you get what you want rather than settling for premium petrol all the time. Use high octane fuel of you want to but there are again lots of points discussing its own merits and effectiveness. I myself am not convinced by that marketing atleast for the kind of cars we drive. Maybe I’ll use that once I own a sports utility vehicle!!

Here goes nothing!

I just bought my new domain and finally creating this blog after years of desire to have some of my own personal pages on the web. I feel elated and somewhat popular when I say “Check out my webpage at nkarthiks.info “. So continuing on the good luck till now, I am hoping that this will improve over the days and become better and more good looking.

PS: Just to remember, this was the original text “Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start” blogging!