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I have had three sleepless nights. Every hour of lost sleep supposedly drops IQ points significantly. I don’t worry much about it since mine wasn’t a significant number to begin with.

I am in one of the two places which I call as my hometown – Madurai. I have many childhood memories attached to this place. I like this place since it kindles those memories back to life.

The prime attraction here is the Meenakshi temple but my divinity is with the resturants around this area. The food here in Madurai is absolutely the best.

The Biriyani, my favorite food is even more favorite when it comes from here. Mutton Chukka is another delicacy which I enjoy. The “Jigarthanda” dessert to close the course is the perfect anesthesia.

A heavy round of hogging these tantalizing mouth watering food makes me drowsy. The drowsiness is amplified due to the tiredness of the travel. I am even more exhausted because of my packed schedules of meeting my relatives during the day. I am now running on fumes, hungover and yearning for sleep.

It has been 3 days since I got any sleep longer than 5 hours. I find it difficult to sleep because of the sun, the mosquitoes and a photo frame.

The temperature here is uncomfortably hot by the day. It is averaging around 37 degree Celsius. The sweat keeps dripping from my forehead, even with two fans on. I couldn’t manage to sleep for more than 15 mins during the day.

The nights bring with it the mosquitoes. There are so many and that one can never kill enough. These blood thirsty vampires are not repelled by the repellents. They continue to hum near the ears making it difficult to sleep. Any attempt at swatting them ends up with me giving a tight slap to my own cheek!

Their bites? Always in the most inconvenient places. The hardest place is near the elbow. The skin there presents an unique challenge. It is like a cloth when the arms are straight and won’t provide necessary grip to give it a deep relieving scratch. If you tighten it by bending at the elbow then the sharp angle makes it difficult to get a satisfactory scratch on the itch.

Today, my third day, I was too tired to be disturbed by the heat or the mosquito. Today, there was the incident with the photo frame which woke me.

My aunt wakes up at 4am. I had been complaining to my aunt about the lack of sleep. She tried to be careful and left the room without making much noise. Before she left the room she thoughtfully increased the speed of the fan.

I had no idea that this fan had a Turbo mode. It started a violent tornado and this sudden wind briefly woke me up. But I could manage to quickly fall asleep.

The tornado nevertheless continued. It kept moving things and finally the photo frame fell. It fell with a loud thud. I shot up, wide awake.

Here I am!

After an eager month-long wait, my gift to myself finally arrived — the legendary “Casio Royale”. I gifted myself a “Casio Royale” to celebrate the successful  outcome of the months of effort put into the admission process.

It’s time to bid farewell to my old Casio F91w for the new upgrade, Casio AE1200. I still love digital watches. What is its super power? It tells time just like what a watch is supposed to.

I got into the habit of always wearing my watch from my mom. Initially, I wanted to emulate her. Now it is so much of a habit that you can essentially call it a prosthetic.  I hardly ever remove the watch. It stays on my body 23 hrs a day. The colour of my arm is a testament to it. So, a new  watch would make for a perfect gift.

I needed a watch which was light, low maintenance and rugged. Just as an upgrade I wanted to have world time. I am feeling international now. I reasoned that I need to check at least two different time zones constantly without having to subtract 4.5hrs or worrying about DST.

This watch in addition to these features also provides 5 alarms. Provision to toggle DST(daylight saving time) for each time zone separately. Quickly switch home time zone, stopwatch and timer. Two bright leds. I think the only feature it lacks is the ability to launch missiles!

Smart watches can do a whole lot more. I have quenched my curiosity for these watches by gifting my wife one. But I couldn’t make myself to like it.

Firstly, I expect a watch to tell time. Just when you need to check time, smart watch might remind you that you have been lazy and walked only 1000 steps today. It sends you on a guilt trip instead of telling time.

Then the watch face. Unlike the smart watches the vintage watches can’t have their faces changed by a theme change. The design of each aspect of the watch face had to be deliberate and usable and yet fashionable to be liked by the majority of the population. So you can feel assured that the designs function well.

Finally,  the biggest problem with smart watches is that they need constant charging. Smart watches are a joke when it comes to this department. The longest you can expect for a smart watch to remain charged is around a month or two. Contrast this to my earlier F91W or the new AE 1200 which has a battery life of 10 years! They will out last the straps of the watch itself.

Making a good product takes a lot of effort. The model AE1200 was launched in 2012 and my previous watch F91W in 1989. The attention to detail like the change of beep sound when you complete loop through all modes, the choice of buttons to control modes, the led placement and the accuracy of the clock is very inspiring. It tells you that there was a team who engineered the product so well that it survived the test of time for so many decades.

Today I am feeling very proud wearing this watch. I had to source it from someone who traveled from US. The third thing which I have ever imported in my life. The first two were a Kenwood Radio and an ADSB dongle. It was totally worth the effort and time.

One day I would love to engineer a product as refined as this – just like those brilliant minds at Casio behind these watches.