Bangalore Diary:Engineering Brain-Wired Friends

Dignity of Labor aptly applies to one of my school days friend, who was not a techie by educational qualification but by his act, read his achievements and of other friends engineering bent of mind despite they had no Engineering graduation.......

‘News paper boy, Welder, Refrigerator mechanic, Auto driver, type writer mechanic, Tape recorder Mechanic and Computer Hardware Engineer this versatile thundu, also disliked only one Job of the lot he did – i.e. of Sales Boy in a Saree centre’ --All these jobs were accomplished by my Pal B.K Muni Raju

‘Make in India’ is fashion statement for us for a quite a while from now. The statistics revealed in this newspaper report puts your brain into a BLINKING state of operation. Why is it so? Answer is other than Software Exports India has nothing in its womb to flaunt as ‘BHARATBORN BABY’.

In Nutshell the following table puts it across for you:

Software/Electronics Exports	Other Engineering Exports	Agriculture and Animal husbandry Exports	Natural Resources Exports (petroleum, mining, precious stones)	Handicrafts & others
61.29%	6.19%	3.3%	20.51%	0.39%
According to State of Karnataka, which is 4th largest Exporter in Nation, the graph should be in similar lines  for all states

Friends, Where is ‘70% Bharath Lives in Villages!? ’Statement —reflected in the above statistics!? Only 3.3% Exports is from agricultural, fishery and animal husbandry, a shameless number isn’t it?

Friends this is an effort to take you into an exciting journey of such inspiring Engineers by practice and not by mere degree acquisition in our mother-land.

B  K Muniraja, a Friend who brought out my cricketing skills to its best possible levels, is a true case-study for such Engineers we come across in our day to day activities. Second is my Uncle Venkatesh, A Retired Employee of Kirloskar Electric, Ltd. (Now ORIAN MALL) is one more improvising engineering bent of brain I have come across, Harisha, dropped out from graduation is excellent Electrical engineering brain and I had a pal in middle school called Arun, who at age of 10-12 was excellent mechanic of automobiles like scooters and TVS, LUNA mopeds. My cousin, Sapthagiri, who had no interest in rote Learning was a whiz-kid, with main motto of buying new Toys just to disassemble and re-assemble it.

Definitely if I do brainstorming many names get loaded  into main memory, but most hilarious one is of Amarnath P R, a Destructive brain, that had dismantled a Flute and his dad had preserved it to handover it as a ‘precious gift’ to his better-half on wedding day! A truly destructive-Engineering brain it was. The irony is, Muniraja, Sapthagiri, Arun and Amar did not acquire Engineering degree of STUDY-WRITE-SCORE cycle, But I acquired it despite none of these curiosity about machines having imbibed in me.

B. K Raja is a case-study that should speak to almost all TRUE-Engineers by practice, who never visits INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERS with Identification card or membership card rather practice it in workshops, mechanic shops, puncture shops, electrical live-wires on streets so on.  Pal, let us quickly dive into this safari:

Raja’s first job was of a Sales-Boy in Alankar Plaza, Kempe Gowda road (as a drop out from SSLC for getting detained in ENGLISH). Within a day’s experience he quit the job, true to his mindset of being a problem-solver not TRADER, like CAR-TRADERS, CAR-WALE, 99ACRES.com, Flipkart.com etc. Which is the only business or entrepreneurship in INDIA that has thrived for centuries (i.e. BUY à SELL model of business).

He quit, and very next day he opted to be in Welding-shop floors of Shanthinagar, Double road, (Kengal hanumanthaih Road) Bengaluru. He used to share about excitement and challenges in preparing shop-shutters and collapsible gates. I still remember his daily wages was 35 rupees (approximately in year 1985-1988). The ease with which he took into the job made him darling of his boss and was given on-site roles in different parts of karunadu. That used to get him extra bucks, which will be the money he used to spend for me, Amar and Harisha for evening snacks. The experience with WELDING took him to FRIDGE-mechanic in general and as KELVINATOR brand specialist, here also he excelled and again proved to be a key resource for his employer. All these days his morning routine used to be of NEWS-PAPER boy with Harish and Kondada Rama.  Who for being learnt Dignity of labor and self-respect can sometimes become ‘Laughing Stock’ for people called Editors who doesn’t know the galli and beedhis of Bengaluru except Vidhana Soudha, Mahatma Gandhi or Ambedakar Veedhi and doesn’t know how morning strays attack these boys and give 108 GYAAN on street dogs in their write-ups sitting next to ‘attached everything’ cabins.

TYPEWRITER-KI-DUNIYA:
Same K.H Road gave Raja an opportunity to learn servicing and assembling Typewriters (Mechanical ones) later he learnt handling electrical & electronics type writers too. Believe me dismantling a mechanical typewriter for general overhauling and assembling is quite a complex process like handling human-nervous system (no exaggeration!) But, that too finding and fixing errors is not Dr.FIX-IT jaise Kool job. It requires lot of analysis.Later He started his own Typewriter servicing centre called Rama Enterprises which progressed to become Personal Computer Assembling Unit as Raja even acquired skills to assemble Computers. This the journey of B.K Raja from Newspaper Boy to Computer Hardware Engineer.

INNOVATION IN NEWSPAPER DISTRUBUTION: ‘HARISHA's -cigarette RING’ concept

Though Vakra-Pissing people call Newspaper distributors with ugly-names. Here is Engineering Brain of Harish that helped many of his colleagues to effectively send Missiles of Newspapers to all apartments of three-five floors, by a simple technique of using Rings made of Cigarette paper   acting as RUBBER-BAND to maintain the paper intact until it reaches the fifth floor. Is Harish not an innovative Engineer?  This idea of using Cigarette pack rings became common phenomenon in those days across all newspaper distribution agencies. The Used-Cigarette packs were abundant in our stock as our daily popular game in summer used to be ‘Cigarette Pack and Baccha’ not CHESS or FOOTBALL in PC next to ‘attached everything’ cabins.   

Today all these are just memories of my school and college days in city of Bangalore with such innovative brains which never acquired an Engineering Degree by School Education but by Practice.