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29th July 2026. I woke up as Shruti was dressing up for work. It was somewhere around 7 or 7:30am - way too early for me to be up, if I wanted to have a productive day.

A song was playing in my head. An old song. An instrumental song. A song from my childhood.

A song from a cassette, which was basically a mixtape. I don't know who made it. I do remember the day I first heard it though. It was in dad's workshop. He had these two cassettes on a shelf. I wanted to hear them as I had never heard them before (I was given a free rein to play any cassette and record from his collection at home, but these two were always in his workshop). He told me the two cassettes were what he used to test any cassette player he was repairing.

One of the cassettes was a test cassette (basically a demo tape) by some manufacturer. It was the shortest audio cassette I had ever got my hands on - barely 3-5 minutes on each side. I don't think I ever listened to that cassette again.

The other cassette was more mysterious and interesting. It was the first 90 minute cassette I had ever seen. Dad told me I could take it home and listen to it. There was no list of songs. Only the text "Herp Alpert" written in a cursive hand that wasn't my dad's, on the title side of the case inlay. And the cover - it was a picture cut out from a magazine or something, and stuck onto the cassette inlay.

I think it was one of my favourite cassettes from that day on. It's hard to say that it was my absolute favourite, but it was definitely in my top 5. Kevin and I called the cassette "Herb Albert" (I assumed the person wrote it wrong on the cover - or maybe I didn't care? I didn't even know if Herp or Alpert were real names, and Albert definitely sounded more realistic!)

I played it over and over again. And thanks to its length and my cheap player, it had a tendency to get chewed up. Every time it got chewed up, dad would dutifully chop up the bad bit and splice it back together. I don't know how many times it happened, but dad eventually taught me how to splice the tape myself. He had a special non-residue "splicing tape" for this. I don't know how many times I spliced/tried to splice it myself, or indeed if I was ever successful, but I know that at some point he decided it wasn't worth the effort and decided it was best to split the tape into two cassettes. He gave me a dummy box, two dummy reels, and I split it myself. Ironically, I do not remember what was written on the label of the other half, and I think that half has been discarded along with the other cassettes I wasn't interested in.

As the years passed, my musical tastes expanded, and while this cassette remained a favourite, I don't think it was in my top 5 or even top 10.

Eventually, we outgrew cassettes. The drawer of cassettes wasn't touched for years - decades, even. After moving to Belfast, and moving most of my records here, I went through the cassettes. Most of them didn't appeal to me any more. But I still wanted this one. I've even played it in Belfast a couple of times - notably, the last time I played it was when I was fixing a cassette player myself!

I identified some of the Herb Alpert songs. Hits like Rise, Rotacion, Aranjuez, etc. But I never tried to identify this song. Or maybe it was because I couldn't? What would I even look for?

Until the morning of 29th July 2026. I woke up and started humming the tune. Shruti heard me and asked if everything was alright. I told her I am trying to remember a song from my childhood.

I went back to sleep, and she went to work. But later that morning, I used Google Gemini to identify the song from me humming the tune.

The search results looked weird. I clicked the first one. It wasn't English, for sure. The video was kinda weird. The man was half talking, half singing. I wasn't even sure if it was the right one. But played it through, half asleep.

But the tune was right. I had found it. Not the version on the cassette, but this was the song! The original, in fact! I also found the exact version that was on the cassette - it was a cover by Paul Mauriat!

And yes, it is even more beautiful now, some 35 years later, now that I have looked up the lyrics and their meaning.

ps: Listening to the cassette as I type this, there was one song that had the distinctive series of clicks of a lightly scratched record. I never noticed it until today! And I haven't identified more than half the songs to this date.

fun with phones

the time of landline phones will always hold an element of nostalgia for people who lived through it - and a facebook post about it reminded me of one such incident. and yes, this was before we even had caller ID.

I must have been about 16 or 17 at the time. I picked up the phone to make a call (probably to Satej?) but instead of the dial tone, there was silence.

I was surprised, as it wasn't raining or anything (that's usually when the lines went dead!). after pressing the hook a couple of times with no success, I call out across the house: "mom, the phone's dead!"

and a voice on the line said "kris?"

turns out aunt Avita had called us at the exact same moment as I lifted the phone off the hook, so I didn't hear it ring, and she didn't hear the ringing tone on the line either!

it took a few seconds for us both to understand what happened, and I still marvel at what set of coincidences led to this happening!

also points to the time when phone circuits were fully analog, and you didn't hear the ringing tone on the line until the phone rang at the other end!

The weird restaurant with alive crustaceans

I was riding Carly. I was at the d-mart signal, the one that was next to the police station, planning to take a right at the junction towards IC colony on link road. The signal turned green, but as I was about to turn right I saw link road was closed with metal barricades, with a sign saying parking only. it seemed like there was some sort of event happening further down link road, and the road was closed to provide motorbike parking for people attending the event. while the side of the road that was closed was for oncoming traffic, I decided to not bother trying to go that route, and went straight from the signal instead, taking the inside road to IC Colony. As soon as I got through the junction, I noticed a bunch of policemen stopping vehicles. Before they could stop me, I approached them and asked if the road going ahead was open as I had to go to IC Colony. They said yes it's open so I rode ahead. Instead of taking the main SV road, I took the turn into the shortcut through the slums. The start of the lane was as I remembered it, but then it got much narrower and there were loads of motorbikes parked, leaving barely enough room for me to get through. At one point, Carly even scraped a parked motorbike, but it was at low speed and I was riding cautiously so hopefully no damage done (the bit that scraped was the left passenger footrest). but ahead, the space got even tighter - so tight that it felt like I was riding though a house or something - the roofs of the structures on both sides met over me, and while there was still daylight filtering through from somewhere, it was barely broad enough for Carly!

The road then literally ended at a door. double doors, rather - wooden, and perfectly painted a glossy white. Thankfully, the doors weren't locked, and I could see one side was ajar. Not sure if I should continue riding ahead, I stopped, dismounted, and opened the door to look inside. It was a house, or a restaurant - definitely not the road through the slum! The room I was in had a kitchen to one side, and a lady was preparing something. THe lady asked me if I had a minute and if I could help her with something. I told her I was just passing through on my motorbike and somehow got lost. She told me she'll guide me through but I had to just do her one favour.

She was preparing some sort of dish - it was a pie-shaped thing with fish inside it, which she topped with a disc of rolled dough. On the side of the plate there were some sort of crustaceans - maybe large prawns, or maybe langoustines (I don't remember seeing claws though!). I assumed they were cooked, but it was hard to tell from their appearance. The pie and its lid were definitely raw though. I asked her was the pie thing was and she said "it's a chapati" which struck me as weird, as the dough was white like refined flour, not brown like wholewheat flour, I didn't ask any more questions though as she handed me the plate and asked me to check with the person in the next room that it was plated correctly.

I entered the next room while the lady went off back to where she was working, seemingly to plate another portion. The next room seemed unoccupied, although there was a large table, with a few places set with cutlery - and one place was set with a plate as well, quite similar to what I was holding.

As I couldn't see anyone, I set the plate down and walked to a doorway or passage in the corner to check if someone was in the next room. I saw someone there and asked them if they could come to the table to check if the dish was plated correctly. She asked me to bring the plate over instead. As i picked up the plate, I noticed the crustaceans were alive - and in fact they were twitching their legs and moving their tentacles/feelers. It really creeped me out and I set the plate down hurriedly, dropping the crustaceans onto the table as I did so.

That's when I realized I had picked the plate which was already set at the table, instead of the one I was supposed to get checked. However, the crustaceans on that plate were moving as well, and I found it too creepy to pick that plate up. Instead, I did my mest to get the crustaceans that I had dropped from the other table, back on to the plate. It was a little difficult, as I didn't want to touch them, and I also didn't want ot dirty the cutlery. I did my best to pick them up with two knives, handling them as delicately as I could to not injure or kill them.

That when I noticed the crustaceans on the other plate were trying to get onto the table as well. I was at my wits end, thinking there's no way I could undo the mess being created.

And that's when I woke up.

the problematic motorbike ride

I was out on my motorbike for a ride. It was a Saturday morning ride with "CoBAM" (ie City of Belfast Advanced Motorists). We were midway through the ride, at a break, when my "observer" (basically the person I was paired with for my ride) asked me a few questions about the bike. Like when were the tyres, brakes, etc serviced. He asked me to press the front brake lever all the way in, and to my surprise, I was actually able to! I told him that's weird and has never happened before. He asked me to press the brake hose with my hand. Strangely enough, the brake hose was soft and squishy, and when I pressed it, it was more like a rubber garden hose than a brake hose! He said that's the problem, there's air in the brake hose. He said the brake should be bled and topped up with fresh hydraulic oil. I explained the braking system of my bike, that it has a combined braking system, and that the brake bleeding procedure is a complex 5-step process that needs to be repeated multiple times to work. Also, I didn't have any of the tools for it.

I suggested simply topping up the front brake system, and squeezing out the air, instead of bleeding the whole system, as a quick fix to be able to ride the bike till I got home. I had a screwdriver on my keychain (fun fact: that keychain was purchased in August 2021, when my previous bike's rear brake had jammed locked, and purchased the screwdriver-keychain as it was the only suitable tool available at the petrol pump bang opposite where the bike had jammed!). Opened the reservoir and it was completely dry. 

I walked to the nearest petrol pump and purchased a bottle of hydraulic fluid, and filled the reservoir full. Then closed the reservoir and we both tilted the bike to the right to give it the best chance of draining down. The plan was when the bike was tilted, I'd pump the rear brake pedal, which would pump the front brake system, from the opposite end to the lever, forcing air out and pulling hydraulic fluid in. Unfortunately, we tilted the bike too far and it actually tipped over - right on to me!

Thankfully I was not completely pinned down and I was able to wriggle out without any injury - we then got the bike upright, and decided to try a different approach.

And that's when my alarm went off, and I woke up - an hour before I was supposed to head out on my Saturday morning CoBAM ride!

Thankfully, no technical issues on the ride, but I must admit I was a little nervous when I performed the "rolling brake test" as I headed down the driveway!

ps: I forgot to note this earlier, but in my dream there was also a drawing pin stuck right in the centre of my bike's brand new front tyre! I remembered it as I walked past my bike in the driveway today, and felt the urge to check the front tyre!

Are we teaching programming wrong?

A YouTuber's channels ("Dave's Garage" and "Dave's Attic") frequently leads me down a bit of tech nostalgia as he's very much into retro tech but in a much more accessible way than most Youtubers do. He also responds on video to some comments on his videos, and has even responded to mine a couple of times, so I do like his stuff.

Anyway, one of his videos sparked a discussion about how people learned programming in the past and how constraints helped people learn better. And my comment reminded me, I still remember the actual hex dump of my first ever assembly/machine language program, 30 years later!

The story behind it is weird: in 1996, my dad brought us our first home computer. It was a 286 with 1mb RAM and a 40MB hard disk. It was loaded with MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 3.0 and a few random things (Dbase 4 and WordStar 7 as I was learning those in school) and Microsoft Qbasic.

At some point, dad had picked up a "MS-DOS 5.0 User guide" and "MS-DOS 3.0 Programmer's guide" from a "raddiwala" (ie a scrap shop/recycling shop). Both books were wildly outdated in 1996/1997 but as I felt like I had already exhausted the possibilities of what could be done using QBasic, I lapped up and assimilated the knowledge contained in both those books very eagerly. My only problem: I had no way to put them into practical use! I lacked access to an assembler, and before the days of the internet, I didn't even have access to a way to get one! However, I figured a workaround, a way to make a start.

MS-DOS 5.0 onwards contained a tool "debug.exe" (the Microsoft debugger) which allowed debugging of running executables. Buried in all of its functionality, it had the capability to overwrite code manually using x86 assembly. So I loaded a random executable in the debugger, and overwrote the code with my own program. Once done, I used the hex dump functionality to take the binary representation of what I had just written - and wrote it literally on pen and paper. Yep, this was back in the days before copy-paste and screenshots!

I then wrote a QBasic program to create a binary file, which I could then execute and test. And it worked!

The whole process was so long and tedious that the hex dump of that program is etched into my own non-binary memory. It's all of 2 bytes, which makes it easier to remember, but still, here it is (in Hexadecimal):

CD19

It's so weird that I actually remember it so literally, that I had to double check that I indeed remember it correctly - and I do. I remember it so literally that I had to actually convert 19 in hex to decimal (ie 25) to know what to input into the online assembly tool!

This is the sort of effort that definitely etches things into your memory. I don't remember any other two bytes I've "composed" myself. So yeah - my first ever assembly program, and it was written without a proper compiler because I didn't have one.

Thankfully my cousin Ted was into programming and he had MASM and TASM, and I managed to get them on floppy disks (he had a Pentium-100 running Windows 95, absolutely blazing for the time and for me!). And so my second assembly program was written on a real compiler.

ps: if anyone is curious, the assembly for my first program is "int 25", the execution of which triggers a software interrupt that's handled by the IBM BIOS as the first step of the boot process - basically, initiate a software reboot! it needs to be in a ".com" file as ".exe" files need a header which I obviously didn't know how to write!

The parking lot standoff

I was driving into a parking lot - it was a large open-air parking lot, which was walled on 2 sides and had a building on the other two. The parking bays were weird though - instead of being at right angles to the edges, they were diagonally angled. The parking lot had one entrance and two exits - one exit adjacent to the entrance and another at the other side, and I was actually not planning on parking, but simply entering from one side and exiting from the other.

I worked my way through the lot towards the other exit, only to see that the gate at that exit had been locked. I had to reverse my way out of the parking lot and find some space to turn the car around as it was really tight. I tried turning the car around, but I was struggling to make any progress as it was really tight - I would keep leaving the car to check around and see how much room I had.

But then, I decided to try an alternate approach: I popped the boot of the car open, and there was a parkign brake, pedals and wheel in the boot! It wasn't facing backward though, but instead from right to left (ie I was facing the right side of the car when behind the boot-mounted steering wheel)

I found it a lot easier to manoeuvre the car in reverse from that spot, and once done reversing, I decided to drive forward from that point as well. However I misjudged my manoeuvre a bit and scraped the front fender on an adjacent car. It was a really light scrape though, with no mark or dent any sort of damage on either vehicle.

I quickly moved back to the boot driving spot to get out of there before anyone noticed what had happened. I reversed a bit and was out of that spot, having successfully turned the car around, when a uniformed security guard approached me.

Thankfully he didn't bring up the scratch (he was probably out of sight when it happened) but I asked him why the other exit was closed. He said it was to prevent vehicles driving through as that was a significant problem in this lot. I asked him what's the easiest way to the road on the other side and he told me there's an adjacent parking lot with the entrance on this side and exit on the other. I thanked him and he walked off.

I got out of the boot and hurried to the front end of the car to get into the driver's seat, but something was wrong: the bonnet was open, and I sat on the engine cover!

It felt weird sitting on top of the running engine, but thankfully it wasn't hot (or maybe the heat hadn't gotten through the engine cover which had plenty of insulation) but in my hurry to get off the engine and into the driver seat I bumped the bonnet. I bumped it pretty hard (although I didn't injure myself) because it popped out of one of the hinges!

I got the bonnet back down and got into the driver seat, in a hurry because I was hoping I wasn't fined for not paying to park there. I looked around and saw a camera pointed right at the car, so my entry and exit was definitely registered. I hoped I wouldn't get into trouble but reminded myself I had told the security guard I was unable to find a spot here.

Out of this lot and into the next, I decided I couldn't drive with the bonnet only half-attached as there was a risk it'd entirely come off while driving, which would be dangerous. I found a parking spot which was covered and popped the bonnet open, to try and get the detached hinge reattached. As I was trying to figure that out, a teenage girl sneaked up to the car (the driver door was open), turned the key off, took it out and ran off with it!

I was stunned and cried out "help, someone stop her, she's stolen my car keys" but a man who was standing there didn't react.

I chased her and thankfully she didn't run too far - instead she ducked behind a car and I cornered her. I took out my phone and took a photo of her, and acted like I was making a call. I told her I'm calling the police and I would send them the photo of her if she didn't hand me the keys back. She walked up to me and was about to give me the keys, when I turned the phone camera on, started recording a video and told her I'm going to ask her some questions which I am going to record so that there are no conflicting evidence later. I snatched the keys from her while recording, and trapped her shoe under mine to prevent her from running away. I asked her to speak to the camera and tell me what she had just done and why, and reminding her that there was an eyewitness there.

Before she could start to answer, I felt my heart racing and I asked if she realized doing what she just did could impact someone with a heart condition.

And that's when I woke up.

Interestingly, this dream seems related to an incident from Saturday - I was cycling home, and a young girl blocked my path and started dancing in front of me. It was obviously not ill intentioned, but it was really weird. I initially thought she was dancing to some song that she was singing, but she was just saying random things while dancing! She had a couple of friends (or maybe sisters?) older than her sitting on a nearby bench and laughing all the while. I asked her what's the name of the song she was singing, and told her I don't recognize it - I then asked her if she was making up a song. All this while she kept dancing and saying random unintelligible stuff. After a few seconds I acted annoyed and told her I need to head home. I pointed at a dog running by and asked her to dance for the dog instead.

She then asked me something really weird: she asked me why my beard was grey!

I told her it's because I'm old. She said "you're big old!" and laughed and stepped aside.

I pedalled as quickly as I could away from her, and she actually playfully chased me but thankfully couldn't run as fast as I rode off.

Also, last Thursday, I was cycling home from grocery shopping, and was talking to mom on my bluetooth. As I was getting close to a group of 3 teenage girls, I was hoping they didn't do anything weird as they were staring at me cycling towards them. As I got closer they stepped out as if to block my path and say something to me. I made a sign with my hand as if to say I'm on a call... I think that confused them! In hindsight I wonder if they thought I was trying to say they should call me or something 😒

Grandma's Michelin Star Lunch

Grandma's Michelin Star Lunch

It was late-ish afternoon, in what definitely felt like somewhere in India, but a house I can't recognize. I was sitting alone at a dining table, on a stool. It was an open-plan style room, with the kitchen to my left and the living room to my right. Grandma (nana Ivy) was pottering about in the kitchen, preparing a meal. She walked over to the dining table, and set down a small stainless steel plate. It had 3 things on it, and the weird thing was that every thing on the plate was half a portion. As grandma set the plate down in front of me, she told me these are my appetisers. She went back to preparing the rest of the meal, and I was about to start eating my lunch. I was curious about the beef cutlet, specifically half the cutlet that was on my plate. It was my absolute favourite thing to eat and I was a little disappointed that I was only served half.

I thought to myself, maybe I shouldn't be expecting so much, after all grandma is old and cooking such an elaborate meal must be very tiring for her, so I shouldn't actually expect more. And these were just the appetizers, so there's obviously more on its way! I also noticed that dad was helping in the kitchen, quite silently and inconspicuously in fact, just putting things away without speaking. I wondered why I was eating alone. I ate the half cutlet and really enjoyed it - it was every bit as good as I remember from years ago when I was a little kid. But then, grandma interrupted me and told me, I'm going to have to put up with something unconventional as dessert was ready and unfortunately it can't be kept until the end of my lunch as she had timed it wrong and it wouldn't stay as intended for much longer.

At that point mom sat at the dining table beside me, and grandma brought both of us a plate each. small stainless steel plates with dessert on them. dessert was a weird 3 layered thing in the middle of the plate - grandma described it as she set it down. the bottom layer was sweet potato, the middle layer was some white foam thing that was made of a couple of fruit, and the top was a green paste made of some other fruit.

my first reaction was that sweet potato would be a very interesting addition to a dessert and I had absolutely no idea how it would work with the other two kinda dessert-y stuff.

my next thought was, grandma didn't serve me half a cutlet because because she's tired or old or anything. she's making a fine dining, Michelin-style lunch for me!

and that's when I woke up.

Rushing to the doctor

I was walking with dad. we had just stepped on to the road from the small gate of Alfa. dad was taking me to our family doctor - Dr Vora. I'm not sure what exactly was wrong, but I certainly didn't feel right. Strangely though, we walked left instead of right - the longer way to the doctor! after maybe half a minute, I asked dad why we were walking the wrong way, the longer way. I also glanced at my watch and noticed it was 10:15pm. I thought we were too late - doesn't Dr Vora close his clinic at 9:30pm? Dad said no, he's actually in his clinic till 10:30pm - he switches off the bright lights, draws the curtains and reads by candlelight for an hour every day, so we still had 15 minutes. But then dad started jogging. I told dad to stop, as he had a heart condition and shouldn't be jogging at his age and with his heart condition! He told me I needed the exercise. I told him I would jog to the clinic and he could walk and catch up with me there. I jogged a bit but was soon very breathless and was forced to walk - in fact I was so breathless that I had to walk quite slowly. By the time I was going around the corner to arrive at the clinic, dad caught up with me. The door of the clinic was shut and th windows were dark, as I expected.

Dad knocked on the door and a nurse opened it. The room was dark inside, and the nurse held a lamp, its glass smoky and its light quite dim - only bright enough to see her face and follow her into the room. She said the doctor would be out of his private room in a minute to see me.

She hadn't shut the door, and the street lights lit the room to some extent, when someone appeared at the door and said hello. It was uncle Cossy!

He said he saw us entering the clinic and recognized us as he was walking to Alfa from the bus stop.

I asked him how come he decided to come visit us unannounced, and he said it was a last-minute thing, he had to come to Borivali to purchase a charger as his phone's charger had stopped working - in fact that's why he couldn't inform us either.

At that moment the nurse returned to the room and told us that she was leaving, but I should wait there for the doctor as he was just wrapping up and would see me and lock up the clinic.

and that's when I woke up.

Grandma drying the washing

We were in Belfast - on the first floor of my home. I was standing in the passage, and Desiree was standing next to me. At the other end of the passage, grandma was taking clothes out of the washing machine and putting them on the clothes horse. Uncle Dirk stepped out from the room (the door was behind me) and started talking about how the natural lighting of the passage was excellent at this time of the day with the utility room door open (that's where the washing machine is). I told him that it's a shame as the bedroom itself gets light at an angle while the utility room gets more direct light. He suggested replacing the utility room windows with a fogged bathroom style window to diffuse the light, and leave the door open or even eliminate the partition between the utility room and the passage. I looked at the utility room window and was surprised to see Mackayla sitting on the ledge!

and that's when I woke up.

ps: I actually had more dreams, but I was so overwhelmed I only tried to remember these 3. the first thing I did when I finally got out of bed was count the number of alive vs dead people - it actually felt like I had more dead people in my dreams than alive!