Caesalpinea

my fav song "oru rajamalli vidarunne pole.."

It was uthradam day, and I was coming home after a long gap of 8 months. The freshness and joy of Onam was in the air .But I was unpleasantly surprised not to see a Caesalpinea(Rajamalli in Malayalam) shrub which I planted 7 years back in our courtyard (muttam). I was told that the shrub was cut to make way for an earth mover -JCB as part of the renovation work. It was inevitable, they said. To make up the loss of 1 shrub, they have got 3 new saplings and is planning to plant two of them on the two sides of our gate. I said ok no problem. 3 for 1, better! I was in no mood to argue with my beloved parents. Instead I would thank them and my ancestors for planting a wide variety of trees/plants and maintaining our place ultra green.

So what's the big deal with that caesalpinea?

I spent one year of my life at Thrissur in a hostel.It was a virtual prison in fact.No TV, no entertainment, no sleep more than 6 hrs.. the wardens used to wake me up . I used to sit in the balcony of our hostel while studying. There was a ceasalpinea shrub at the courtyard of the hostel. Often I daydreamt, gazed at the sky and the beautiful flowers which the shrub bore. The effect of mother nature was so tranquilizing. After doing this for almost 10 months I felt some sort of attachment with that shrub. When I came back from Thrissur, I took a dozen seeds and planted it at my home. But only one of them survived. A few months later it started flowering. I felt as if I ve become a dad. :-) I seeked amma's help to water and nurture it till it become stout and strong. It grew along, attained almost 3 m height and was undoubtedly the eye catcher in our garden. I loved it!

Now hoping that the saplings grow soon and start flowering!

one of the saplings, ready to be planted.

Ending my Aestivation

Was I aestivating?
Yes ,aestivating in blogosphere to be precise. 5 months were a bit too long. What happened to the blogger in me? Did I get preoccupied with too many things? Or devoid of topics?

Laziness,2 cut flexor tendons and 40 stiches played their parts.
Now the summer has gone and raining has started. Mother nature and my inner self started downpouring, ending the frustrating 'summer'.

I am back!

Men who eat Iridium-192 for dinner!

A few days back, I attended a certification training in Industrial radiography along with some of my colleagues . Its somewhat similiar to clinical radiography. Doctors check for cracks in bones and position of internal organs, we check for defects like cracks, porosities, slag inclusions etc in welds. Both the parties need to interpret the radiographs, arrive at conclusions and take remedies. On both the cases, the equipments will be handled by trained technicians. One of the major differences in clinical and industrial radiography is that - apart from X rays, Gamma rays are also used for industrial purposes.

During our training, I asked the facilitators whether we can see the equipment if they have got one with them. They said no and gave a list of reasons like-its bulky, we dont have it here etc.. It never bothered me. The only practicals we need to do was the interpretation of radiographs and moreover I have seen the X-ray equipment during my final year B-tech project. There the radiography took place inside a darkroom which had thick lead and concrete walls and the controls were outside the room. It was ensured that no X-rays came out of the room by putting detectors outside.

The next day after my demand, the tutor came shouting " hey guys, equipment and operators have come , they will demonstrate". All of us went to the backyard to see it. There was a Maruti Omni parked and two men were standing near it. Both of them had similiar physical features, they looked somewhat tired,had sunken eyes and brown hair. They opened the back door of Omni and took out some equipments. " Hey this doesn't seem X-ray equipment" I told Ramzi. " It has got long tubes" he replied. "F**k man , its the Gamma ray source, stay out of it, come on we ll move" I said and we virtually dragged each other out of the place. I was shocked! The Gamma ray equipment never came even in my weirdest thoughts. I thought they brought the Xray equipment for demonstarating how the operators setup the current and voltage parameters.

Why did I run? There wasn't any danger unless they switched it on by cranking. The capsule was enclosed in a lead box which prevented the radiation from leaking. One of the operators had a detector to find out radiation leakage.But I know well that the Gamma ray sources are unpredictable and the radiation is invisible.The monsterous trefoil symbol (radiation warning symbol) on the equipment really frightened me.

Radiography using gamma rays is done usually in the night, when no other people are working nearby. But in fast track projects like the one which I worked last, it was even done during daytime, evacuating all the personnel working over there. We used to go to a base camp which was 2 km away from the site to avoid getting exposed. Though gamma ray radiography was used in our project, I never saw the equipment, infact I have seen it only in pictures.

But what about those guys who operate the equipment? Aren't they humans? Don't they have the right to live in this world without getting exposed to harmful radiations?

They do it for money. They get 5000-10000 Rs per month. Most of them are illiterate and are from financially poor background. They are mostly ignorant about the ill effects of radiation poisoning. There are standard safe practises which need to be followed, they should even use a protective apron and dosimeter, but in industry they neglect it.We had a chat with the operators about their experience with handling the equipment and its ill effects. They often get radioactive doses. Only after prolonged exposure, they will come to know that they got exposed. They feel dizziness,itching ,tendency to vomit etc. They either go to a physician and take some medicines(wont be of much use) or take refuge in alcohol . But knowingly or unknowingly they are killing themselves. On the other hand,they virtually save lots of lives-if they find cracks and defects present in the welds of pipelines and pressure vessels which would have caused gas or steam to leak and lead to explosion that would take 100s of lives.

Shouldn't the use of gamma rays be stopped ? It is a kind of non-destructive testing (NDT), but it is a destructive test as far as our mother nature is concerned. NDT techniques like ultrasonic testing can be supplemented to find the weld defects, I say much effectively using methods techniques like pulse echo method and TOFD (time of flight diffraction) method. This technique is being effectively implemented in offshore pipelay vessels(ships or barges that lay subsea pipelines ). Some of the codes and standards insist to go for 100% radiography for certain welds. The guys who write them never get exposed to harmful radiations and it will be the poor operators who will suffer. The codes and standards should be modified and the usage of gamma ray radiography should be stopped. Why should we still bank on a century old technique with hazardous effects when new techniques are available?