At least six screens and five keyboards surrounding you - a droning hum around you from the processors and the air conditioning duct - artificial sunlight - and a simulated locomotive running at 110 miles per hour without moving an inch - few people (generally two) skillfully running the loco without confusing which mouse is with which keyboard - this is one of the four simulators in my lab. I have shown my lab to many visitors 'n' number of times with the same enthusiasm as I did the first time, although I am convinced that my friends in the US have a similar lab that is approximately 2000 times better than this lab. (I sometimes think if I were to sell this lab to a scrap dealer, would I be able to repair my bike?) But on the whole this is an excellent piece of machinery that works in all sorts of ways like your spouse would. It gives you happiness as well as anger, and you cry in joy as well as frustration. In fact I have a pic of one of my colleagues sitting with his head on the table, fully frustrated that his controller is not working. (I am not allowed to put that pic here, not because my company will kill me in a road accident, but because the same colleague will volunteer to drive the vehicle used for that).
On a Saturday if I happen to come to lab (and I swear by God's secretary that I haven't done such a mistake since I resolved this new year not to work on weekends), I put on loud music in the lab while my tests keep going on.
Things keep going on here without knowledge of the outside weather or news. And it is one level below the ground floor. Not many people outside my group come to our labs and once in a while when the lift brings them to the -1 floor, they are too amused thinking they have reached martian bedrooms. I am sure this place will the safest to hide in Bangalore in case cousins of Laden think they don't like something on earth and blow themselves up.
My dil goes mmmm..mmmmm....mmmmm...!!
