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Treating Sewage

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Background When buying the flat, I asked the builder about sewage management. The property is on the city outskirts, right across from a river, with no municipal drainage. Wanting to avoid contributing to river pollution, I pressed for details, but the builder’s response was vague. Apparently, the local municipality had insisted on treating sewage within the campus. Eventually, the builder made some clever moves and tricked the Resident Welfare Association (RWA) into paying for the plant. By the time I discovered the association existed and had funded the facility, it was too late. Seeing how things were handled, I decided to take over the RWA and manage operations myself How the Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) Works Here is a brief look at the design: Collection: Wastewater from toilets, kitchens, and greywater drains into two underground tanks before being pumped into the STP. Biological Treatment: The STP tanks are primed with bacteria. Air blowers continuously aerate the tanks to ac...
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What does lineage stand for?

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Question: Beyond inheritance (including legal aspects), social & cultural identity, DNA (biological clarity), succession, and continuity what lineage stands for? Answer: Let me try to explain with personal experience and insight.  Your mileage may vary. I perform 'Tharpanam' on Amavasya and other prescribed days.  While performing it, I try to recollect the ancestor's face, whom I have seen or have seen their pictures.  It is considered such rituals are performed to please the ancestors.  I do not attach much importance to that perspective.  I perform them because I want to.  I realized that they are for my own benefit.  How?  Here it goes. On performing the rituals over a few years, I get to remember the qualities of my ancestors.  Either I am lucky that I could see only their good qualities, or I do not have any memory of their bad qualities.  I also noticed that the qualities I see in them are also present in me at some point...
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Why Government Regulations often fail?

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Tamil Nadu has the Tamil Nadu Regulation of Rights and Responsibilities of Landlords and Tenants Act of 2017.  Also, Tamil Nadu passed the Tamil Nadu Apartment Ownership Act 2022.  They provide guidelines for respective domains.  They expect a registration with the government.  A web-site exists for all these and very few residents and apartment associations are even aware of these acts.  Nevertheless, properties are being rented out and associations continue to function. The act pertaining to tenancy states that the deposit cannot be more than three months of rent.  This is not followed by most owners, but tenants agree to pay a higher security deposit.  The demand overrides the government regulation.  This implies that neither the owners nor the tenants take the act seriously. A mandate like these from the government has at least one clear goal - to intervene in case of a dispute or a violation.  Why do people ignore such mandates and proce...
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AI and "I"

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It is believed that AI will eliminate millions of jobs in the coming decades.  Most of these jobs are likely to be information or desk jobs.  These are the ones that got created in the past couple of hundred years.  Before we continue, let us look at some of the theories of longevity of professions: As per Nassim Taleb defined Lindy Effect, for non-perishable things (ideas, technologies, professions), future life expectancy is proportional to current age. For example, if a practice has survived for 1,000 years, you should expect it to survive another 1,000 years. If it’s only been around for 70 years, its expected remaining lifespan is about 70 years.  AI will drastically reduce the remaining lifespan of many jobs.  Again as per Taleb, technology doesn't usually eliminate a human function; instead, it strips away the fragile, artificial parts of a job and forces the role back to its most ancient, Lindy core.  So, in many desk or information based roles, the...
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Connected World, Universal Values and the Hatred for Local

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A person wondered why there is so much hatred against Brahmins.  But the hatred is not just against Brahmins; sometimes it is against Hindus as a whole.  The mutual hatred between Muslims and the Western world is beyond the scope of this article.   Brahmins in particular and Hindus in general do not exhibit so much hatred against any other groups but are still hated if we look at social media posts.  Indian cinema has been portraying Brahmins as the bad guys - not the typical strong man villain, but the cunning one.   For a few centuries earlier, it was the Jews.  During that period, in popular western literature Jews were the cunning villains.  We may get the reason for that if we understand the motive of universalizing religions.  I see this as an influence of so-called universal religions like Christianity and the effect of a connected world where written communication became prominent.  Universalizing ideologies rely on standard...
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Is our pursuit of knowledge Dharmic?

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 A few days ago, I began watching a Tamil movie - கெணத்தை காணோம் -  'The Well is missing' - The title is based on a popular comedy sequence.  The movie is about a parched village, its people, an accidental discovery of a dinosaur fossil and its consequences.  It has rustic village humor and portrays people as they are - lazy, some of them cunning, indifferent bureaucracy and brutal police.  In the past 5-7 years, Tamil movies are marked by sob stories of common man being wronged by the "system".  There has been consistent propaganda against the state (that is Bharat as a nation), its system and governments.  This movie comes close. The hero, a sculptor and the disinterested priest in the local temple offers his land to dig a well for the villagers' benefit.  While digging, the villagers find fossils of a dinosaur.  The government departments get alerted. An ambitious and cunning researcher and her (archaeology) department are shown as the vil...
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துரந்தர் - நிறைவை நோக்கி...

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விமலாதித்த மாமல்லன் 'எழுத்துக்கலை' என்ற புத்தகத்தில், கதை சொல்பவர்களின் அசிரத்தையை சுட்டிக்காட்ட எஸ்ராவின் ஒரு கதையை உதாரணமாகக் காட்டுகிறார். அதில் எஸ்ரா ஆவடி, தரமணி, நுங்கம்பாக்கம் என்று குழப்பி இருப்பார்.  ஒரு கதையில் நிகழ்வுகளில் மேலதிக விவரங்களைத் தருவது, வாசகர்களை கதையில் ஈடுபடுத்தும். அந்த விவரங்கள் சரியாக இருக்க வேண்டும்.  மேம்போக்கான அல்லத தவறான விவரங்கள், படிப்பவர்களின் அனுபவத்தை பாதிக்கும்.   தாளித்துக் கொட்டுவது சுவை சேர்க்கும் என்பதற்காக, பாயசத்திற்கு கடுகு தாளித்துக் கொட்டுவதற்கு ஒப்பானது.  எழுதுபவர் எந்த அனுபவத்தை வாசகர்களுக்குத் தர விரும்புகிறாரோ, தவறான தகவல்களால், அந்த அனுபவம் சிதைகிறது.    விவரப்பிழைகள் இலக்கியத்திற்கு மட்டுமல்ல, சினிமாவுக்கும் பொருத்தும்.  சினிமாவை ரசிக்க, காட்சிப்படுத்திக் கொள்ளும் கற்பனை திறன் குறைவாக இருந்தாலும், விவரப் பிழைகள், தீவிர சினிமா ரசிகனுக்கு எரிச்சல் ஊட்டுபவை. தமிழ் சினிமா உட்பட, இந்திய சினிமா, கதை நடக்கும் இடத்தைப் பெரிதாக எடுத்துக் கொள்வதில்லை.  ஒரு கதை சென்னையில் நடக்கிறது என்றால், சென்ட்ரல்...
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