Explaining what it is,with what it ACTUALLY is !!!

Damn!!That sudden jerk woke me up from a sleep I had been so deeply in since an hour or so. Furiously, I complained about the stupidity of the driver, rightly .I never uttered a word, yet I was bashing the driver for his inability to ascertain with the PIEV theory .The driver hardly put in his experience into play. He should have had a better idea about the Stopping Sight Distance in this case. And I was there, thanking at least the other elements that played a part. The braking efficiency, the friction factor and the speed of the bus that prevented any unwanted scenario, a collision (an accident to be precise).The whole “passenger” part of the bus was complaining about the negligence of the driver, but in the mean time, I was thinking about the skid marks made on the carriageway. The wearing course of the lanes as it is called.

You know everyone has a micro story to tell whenever he/she has come from a journey. However short the trip may be, it still has a pinch of drama in it. First, I wasn’t quite aware how my journey would unfold, but later on things were rather more vivid. The journey held a significant story inside it.

I was heading home. Few years back, as I travelled through this road, I saw things rather differently. I was unaware of a lot of things. My eyes are same but you know, the perceptions of things were so different back in time. So weird they seem now. Maybe not so weird at all, but weird when I compare how I see now with how I saw back then. Back in time when I stared out of my window, I saw nature and nothing else. I mean nature as it came, the way it existed. I could see greenery, hills, sometimes springs and streams, slopes, terraced lands, and other geographical entities. I stared into the river, noticed the greenish brown colour it flowed with. The banks with stone, and pebbles, and rocks, and sand. They were beautiful. I had some knowledge about why the rocks on the other side of the river were shaded into layers; they were the result of the always eroding river bed and the decrease in the river level year by year. It always took me by surprise how people on those hills across the river made a living, and how often they visited this side of the river. It was inspiring and beautiful back then. Things were far more enjoyable from a layman’s eyes. I could merely see what normal human eyes could see and ascertain. Maybe with a little bit of added general knowledge, but only a little bit.

Things have changed now. Instead, things have changed quite significantly. The same little jerk from the driver’s reckless braking some years back would have struck me as “the driver’s reckless braking”

and nothing else. What now I see is the involvement of SSD and PIEV theory in it. I assume myself; the braking efficiency and the reaction time, I draw and map the skid marks inside my brains. I’m concerned about the road surface wear. Oh dear!! My perception has been so awkwardly Engineerized(the word is hypothetical). I don’t know if this is abnormal. I’ve no idea if this isn’t good. All I know is that it is IRREVERSIBLE now. And you know, I hate IRREVERSIBLE things. Well, I am not sure about this one though. I am largely, clueless. Some people may take pride in explaining the engineering logics behind daily life stuffs to the general people. Taking pride in those vague “Yeah I got it” lines from them(the fact is that general people hardly get any clue about what these engineering guys are explaining). Some may find it unpleasant. Having lost their natural ability to perceive the nature to complicated engineering theories and terminologies, concepts and definitions may not come as pleasant to them. They would have rather enjoyed things as they originally were, or at least meant to be. Not this engineered measurement of nature. Meanwhile, I realised I fall in neither of those categories. I am rather amazed, if not perplexed about how broad these explanations have grown. How amazing things actually are.

Let me make a better elaboration. Few years back, when I was heading home or towards Kathmandu in a bus, I always chose the window seat. Towards the outer side of the road you know. Just to watch the Trishuli River and her beauty. I hardly slept throughout that part of the journey when the river actually accompanied me. She was utterly beautiful. Her seasonally varying complexion, the curves and bends, and the way she always moved forward was such a pleasure to watch. The way she surged forward was uneven. Sometimes she moved with such a menace, violent as a fire truck and sometimes as mildly as a closing mimosa. She brought gems for the banks in the form of pebbles and stones and at the same time aggressively thumped some huge rocks in her path. That was back in time though. When I didn’t have that “Engineering eye” inside me.

And today, when I chose the same seat and looked out of the window, the wholeness of the things I saw was different. Those beautiful ripples are now a hydraulic phenomenon as I reckon. The unsteadiness of the river discharge. I can imaginatively draw EGL all over the river surface. Call it a 2D or 3D motion. I can figure out streamlines, streaklines, even draw flow nets all inside my brains.

Those effervescent fierce white water eruptions are no more beautiful, are they?? They are the result of big humps underneath the river or the change in flow characteristics of the river; hydraulic jumps, Froude’s number and so on. I imagine RVF, GVF, and SVF everywhere around (things get really awkward). The beautiful curves fit into the definition of a “river reach” and I involuntarily draw an image of the reach inside my brain, AGAIN (this time with a Software k/a HEC-RAS). I see the river meandering, I see it braided. I see ox-bow lakes. I see dunes, antidunes, delta and other land forms around the river. These pebbles, rocks and boulders (as I call them now) are merely depositional elements of the river. Their movement accompanied by flooding and the force and the steepness of the upper part of the river. Those shaded zones of rocks are the result of continuous erosion of the mobile boundary channel of the river, as I understand now.

And if I accidentally take my eyes off the river and watch those green hills, I realize the difference there too. That is slightly unpleasant to me now. Back in the days, I could classify the greenery merely into herbs, shrubs and trees and nothing else. I had slightest hints about terrace farming and the bridges (suspension bridges). Now I see the hilly areas differentiated into different land zones on the basis of the possibility of agriculture and vegetation in them. I watch and classify them inside my brains into Region I, II, up to IX (its the Land classification system, precisely speaking). I involuntarily think about how the farmers irrigated their lands. Do they use sprinkles, do they use drips, or is it just the rainwater they rely on. And the bridges? Well they are suspension bridges, suspended bridges, parabolic arches, stiffening girders, every bridge bound structure I could imagine. To my utter dismay, I even run through a mathematical equation and a numerical example in my head (Now that is “ridiculous”). It is so damn annoying you know. Even landslides are no more as simple as they were. They are topples, falls, slope failures, wedge failures, typical mass movements. I engineer the remedial measures inside my head myself. Oh yeah!! Driven Piles, gabion walls, stone masonry walls, vegetative remedies, and stuffs. I take pride in it (not exactly I guess. Still the big part of me remains annoyed to this new way of perceiving things). The man by my side stared at some unnatural landforms across the river. He has his own explanations about what they actually are. What might have caused them to appear? If I wished, I could explain it to him. But I didn’t bother to. I mean I was still annoyed, still contained and contempt about all this. Inside, I was like “They’re just faults and nothing else, man!! Those thrust zones, accompanied by some clusters of igneous rocks, limestone and dolomite, quartzite, phyllite, I-don’t-give-a-damn-ite. I realised I was giving the man weird, a mildly raged look (if it exists) and before he could say a word I calmed down and turned my head away, changed my playlist. No more GRINDCORE and DEATH METAL stuff. I switched to Presley and his tenderly soft music.

I vowed not to concentrate on this "Civil Engineering" portrayal of things that was exasperating me within. It was fun at times, but no fun at all. After some time, the bus stopped because some random guy inside the bus had his renal mechanism outperformed by his over smart kidneys. I jumped off the bus to have a release of stress and just when I was about to feel freshened up all over again, I noticed an auto level at some distance. I couldn’t help myself inquiring about the purpose of its existence. I could see some machinaries, equipments, and a bunch of “yellow capped” men working around. People around me were talking about how they were “pitching” the road. And yet again, my mind started spilling its mastery, quite unwanted (NOT AGAIN!! I was exclaiming within). I could see them repairing the wearing course, the pot holes were being refilled and those undulations all those OVERLOADED INDIAN SUPERTRUCKS made were being resurfaced, and surface dressing was being laid in the worn out regions. I could smell the aroma of the M30/M70 grade bitumen( OK, not aroma). I could also figure out a pneumatic roller and a hoe (for whatever reason it was there) alongside. The only time I felt if someone asked me curiously about the activity and I would have explained with excitement. Well, didn’t happen though.  And I was again like “WHO CARES!!!” I could see gabion walls and retaining stone masonry walls there too. While the others talked about the steepness of the road, I imagined the earthwork involved and how the ground slope had been maintained.

I got on to the bus and the bus moved. After some distance, I encountered another “Engineering” entity. When I was a child, I had seen a synchronized parade of army disrupt their harmony while running over a bridge. It was explained to me by my uncle later on and I had little knowledge about this resonance phenomenon and how the bridge could collapse if the loading resonated with its natural frequency. I even knew how a fairly long bridge was constructed in parts and not a whole, that very small gaps were left in between those parts. As the bus moved through the bridge, I could roughly assume the bridge span, its design period, even HFL, foundations laid underneath it and so on. I even drew Influence Line Diagrams ( I was getting mad, weren’t I ??). I watched out of the window and saw some under construction buildings. I made assumptions about the bar diameters they were using, the stirrups, the curtailments, quality of the Portland. I even made a rough cost estimate of the building ( I noticed I was having fun now ). It was fun. At least now. While I was reading the newspaper (I always begin with the sports page) and time and again my head would stop at a huge Tender Bid Notice. I checked its type, read the contents and issues presented over there. The man by my side was a bit amazed now. I didn’t look like a contractor or a client, did I?? It was fun though. The man wanted to enquire as I noticed, but I seemed disinterested. Voluntarily disinterested.

At this point, maybe I was done and dusted. You know, got nothing more to imagine in the “Engineering way” as I liked it. When the bus stopped for lunch, I was a different man already. I was rightly satiated and maybe a bit bored since I had nothing left to challenge my old school knowledge and that I could put things into that “Engineering Scrutiny” and come out good with my sane inferences. The man who sat next to me gave me a short smile and I didn’t hesitate to reciprocate this time. He took his plate of lunch and I took mine. I sat in the corner table watching the bus driver reconfigure the A/C.  After the lunch time was over and I was on my way to the bus, I noticed something. While I was queuing up, I saw two guys with Beats’ Headphones around their neck talking about how technology could be used to make the bus journey further more pleasant. They were talking about some simple digital plug-ins. So not expensive swipe screens on the back of the seats which would allow passengers watch videos, and listen to music by plugging in their headphones into those 3.5 mm jacks and enjoy the ride. I liked the idea they put forward.

Now, having faced my entire struggle (a strange struggle I must say) with the hard earned knowledge throughout the journey, I now came to a point where I could clear see that my difficulty was being shared. Things weren’t easy for my other Engineering counterparts as well. I could now imagine with a bit clarity. One of my EX Engg. Friends would think all the time about developing some sensors that would make life inside the bus easier. Always craving to materialize their sweet dispositions. How a Computer Engg. friend would think about the use of AI, programmable digital technologies inside the bus as well as everywhere. How an Electrical Engg would probably follow the transmission line all the way through. Just going through every sharp bend and steep slopes, voltage grids, transformers and power cables, circuit breakers and steel towers throughout the journey. Things were no more simple to them too.  That came to me as a relief. I also imagined looking at my phone and its pleasing UI how some of them saw an entire circuit map whenever they took a look at their phones, and some even saw the X-rayed image of their phones. It would be so tasteless to not being able to enjoy a song and alternatively think about the MIDI sequences, the digital coding that make the 0s and 1s in a digital recording reach the human ears. I felt mesmeric about how I could freely enjoy simply listening to the songs, avoiding a digital quandary. I didn’t have to bother about the cut-off frequency and the bitrates. Those analog-digital-analog conversions and those unpleasant attenuations and so forth. I was a relieved man now. Not alone whose eyes were veiled by that “Engineering Smog”. I had company. And this was a bit satisfying culmination to my awkward, changed  way of viewing normal things inside such technical tints. I could still enjoy the underlying vintage feel  under the crust of my new found CIVIL ENGINEER’S Perspectives.

Now that I had parted with the river ,I selected a “TOOL” playlist in my cell and closed my eyes for a nap through the journey ahead, with a (slightly evil) grin in my face.