Digital Portrait

Stylus on Note.

Monkey D. Luffy (in Colour)

Oda sensei uses transparent Copic markers to fill colours. I really thought replacing that with opaque colours would be interesting. For this one, I have used acrylic colours. Oda sensei's line work is very fluid.

The jagged brushwork is very similar to Kill la Kill backgrounds.

Renji - The Villain

Tite Kubo has taken a lot of flak for his minimalistic (sometimes, downright lazy) style. I still find his contrast dominated works amazing.

Bit by bit, I am growing more comfortable in using a fountain pen as a substitute for G Pen. Fundamentally, it's still dip and draw instead of cartridge. I do not have screen tones. The grey areas have been blocked using pencil instead.

Kishimoto's Itachi

I feel that these exercises are teaching me a lot about inking. The paraphernalia I use is very suited to Tite Kubo's style. Kishimoto's Itachi didn't turn out bad either. Google Photos does something to the colour. The original scan is not brownish as suggested by the following picture.

Aizen Reloaded

Tite Kubo's style is easier to imitate than Watsuki. When it comes to manga, Kubo seems to be a master in contrast (a la Tim Sale or Brian Stelfreeze).

Nobuhiro Watsuki is so badass

...that it took me over 1.5hrs to do this and its not even close enough.

Textual automation in a simulation industry

I have been observing people lately who do similar work as mine. The core engineering group is highly dependent on simulation of physical problems. All of it is to essentially de-risk actual physical events or worse, to evaluate the root cause of a real world problem. Well, one of the key causes of such kind of work in India can be attributed to the lack of manufacturing units. Our engineering education, no matter how rigorous it may be, on one hand addresses the curriculum from a purely theoretical standpoint, while on the other hand helps create brilliant analysts who can actually shine through jobs that require simulation on a computer. It doesn't mean that the person is incapable of real world engineering. It's just that he has very less opportunities here.

The toolset of the environment

As of today, I have come across many software that ease the process of creating these models for simulation. There are essentially two types of such software. One that takes the parameters of the model in a text format and can run the required analysis, and another that only allows the user to operate within the proprietary limits of the software itself. Needless to say, unless the latter kind of software exposes any API to let the user tinker with its parameters, any kind of attempt at automation will be futile. Luckily, it is the former group that forms the majority of the environment in which a simulation engineer with Mechanical Engineering background thrives.

Let me clarify a bit about the subset of people I am referring to. These are the engineers who work on structural problems, problems of fluid dynamics and in general static and dynamic physical systems. Often the toolset comprises of the bigger names that serve the foundation of such computation. Say, in the fluid dynamics world, there is Fluent, Star CCM+ and their likes, while in the structural world, there is Ansys, Nastran, Abaqus and their brothers and cousins. These simulators work well with hand written textual inputs that describe the nooks and corners of the model. And indeed, that's how such a software should be. The really good ones also have exposed APIs thus even encroaching the territory of the latter kind of software described in the earlier paragraph.

What is needed?

In short what one needs is a lexical parser. In fact, the knowledge of a simple language that supports regular expression is what the engineer needs in his arsenal. If there is one thing that he needs to learn it has to be regexp.  Let me put it in a way that would set a pathway for learning. One of the easiest way to deal with this is to work on it using the standard grep program on any *NIX machine. However I really found this to be a difficult job as many of us have to log into clusters and just getting into something complex for the experimentation kills the drive to have a go at it. One simple alternative is to use a text editor that supports at least basic regexp and start off experimenting with simple find / replace expressions. While Vim, with its availability on both Unix / Linux as well as Windows, is a good idea, it may be a daunting task for a beginner to start working on a purely console based editor^[1]. One alternative is to use Notepad++ or similar text editor on Windows.

Text editors do have quite a bit of limitations regarding this. I have to admit that the implementation of regexp in text editors is not really exhaustive. Also, most editors really focus on simple find / replace solutions. This is when one has to upgrade to a programming language that has really good support for regexp. Also, it would be beneficial to choose a language that is simpler to code. I have been using Python for it lends well to rapid prototyping. Indeed, any similar scripting language can be used - whatever the user is comfortable with and whatever is available at hand.

Beyond this point, I would be leaving the generics and cite examples of my own approach. Anyone interested can easily extrapolate or morph the information to suit his own needs.

Parsing text into bits of useful information

The text often follows a pattern and that's a good thing. In my case, the two most frequently used solvers are Nastran and Abaqus. The former has a very rigid syntax while the latter is a bit more human readable. From a lexical coding point of view, I must say, the more rigid the syntax, the better. Indeed, when I had to think about dependent entries laid out in a sequential manner in Abaqus, I was cursing its syntax. This meant that there were keywords that had to be a slave to another keyword and the lexical parser should be able to create master information and slave information. I am quite sure that every solver (in any field) would have its quirks.

Identification of this pattern is only half the battle won. At this point one will have to come up with a framework that can do generic parsing. In my case, it was a labyrinth of classes that threw out a nest of basic data structures - lists, dicts and tuples. One of my colleagues prefers to extract data as custom class objects. I differ with that philosophy. If the data exists as custom class objects, the author will have to write a lot of other methods to extract the data contained in those objects. That is inefficient. It's like extracting randomly scattered data from a box, organising them and putting them in another box. I prefer the organised data straight out of the first box. His methods have their own merits - i.e. if there is an industrial level distributive application being written, I can acknowledge the usefulness and to some extent necessity of such an approach. Then again, here we are talking about the simulation industry where rapid, disposable^[2], development of code comes more handy.

What we are looking for here is to build a framework with a handful of exposed APIs. These APIs will become the backbone of any disposable application that one intends to build. For example, the framework I use to parse Abaqus files allows me to write complex alterations in only a couple of lines. The most expansive ones does not exceed fifty lines. Of course, the framework took me months to build and contains a few thousand lines. Knowing that those thousand lines will work well in the background, writing disposable programs takes anything from few minutes to at most a few hours.

As a concluding remark, I can say that this is one way of doing things but is not a do all, end all kind of scenario. I am quite sure that there are other ways of textual automation, some more efficient than the others. In case one is totally afraid of writing codes - and I have seen quite a few people - they should be able to do some level of lexical parsing using a modern spreadsheet software.

Notes:

1. It would be a good idea to invest some time in learning to use a faster editor like Vim in order to code. Even Emacs will be a good option. Personally, I have a bit bias towards Vim.
2. By "disposable" I mean applications that exist only to solve a problem at hand and may have no importance later - thus negating any merit in storing the application in a cool, dry place.

Making of Duality Music Video: my POV

There has already been a very detailed "blood, sweat and tears" version of making this video posted on our official news blog by Sudipto here. This post analyses our efforts from a very different angle and might be a very good read for those who are willing to take the DIY route in making music videos.

There is only one underlying concept behind making any video production work - be it an MV, a short or a feature - and that is planning. I cannot stress that word enough. If anyone remotely thinks that "let's shoot first, we'll edit it later" attitude will work, they cannot be more mistaken^[1].

The Importance of Shooting Script

I had a copy of Satyajit Ray's text on making movies that was primarily written for kids. This piece essentially made me realise the importance of storyboard and shooting script. I insisted that we do it. Being the first video shot by our photographer, he wasn't so much aware of the pitfalls that might crop up if a proper shooting script is not prepared. In hindsight, I can say that about 40% of the shooting script was used. I am quite sure that this MV has been a tremendous learning experience for all of us and that the shooting scripts of future productions (for us as well as for Sagarneel Biswas) will become much tighter in coming times. I will not be surprised if there is a near 80% correlation between the shooting script and the actual shots in Sagarneel's future works. The development of shooting script requires some knowledge of the shooting process. Thus, this experience will help him build tighter and more feasible shooting script for future

Finally, we had a storyline that was converted to a workable shooting script. But we shelved it. Primarily because we did not have a model to work with.

The Shoot that was Later Discarded

Everything looks like a lesson in hindsight. Maybe that's what "motivational speakers" like James Clear (read this) or entrepreneurs like Paul Graham (read this) meant by jumping first, hustling later.

We drove to a deserted field with a railway track near the outskirts of Bangalore on a Saturday evening. We did not have a concrete plan. Sagarneel shot a few test shots so that we could prepare ourselves better for Sunday's extensive shoot. The prime lenses, a monopod and a shoulder pod had been rented out^[2]. Sudipto carried Korak's drums from IISc - a location diametrically opposite to where we were shooting. We were there by 8 O'clock - ready to film the band shoot. We only had about two hours of shoot. We had to cycle through the same song over and over again as each of us did our individual takes on the song. Then there were the group shots.

A few of Ugyal's shots, especially involving a not so daring stint at playing the solo on railway tracks were captured. The locations were not researched a priori and we kind of went with our guts as to what worked and what didn't. We were not even half done when we had to stop our shoot because of the scorching sun.

Any decent photographer knows that nature only gives them a small window of opportunity right during the gentle sunshine of the morning and the setting sun at the evening. The images captured in the scorching sun usually have very harsh shadows. Not to mention, we would also have tired and burnt look on our faces. For us it meant stopping the shoot till afternoon 3 O'clock. Having nearly nothing to do, we resorted to a good rest under a tree that was infested by termites near its roots and sparsely populated with leaves at its top. Sudipto and Sagarneel went ahead to get us some food. It was more like a picnic for us^[3].

When we resumed our shoot, we were able to wrap up Sudipto's parts as well as a few more band shots.

I had put together a rough edit later. It looked decent. Little did we know that we would end up discarding the entire shoot.

Filming the "Story"

Ugyal knew Priyanka, who studied at NIFT. We asked her to get hold of a model for us. Meanwhile, we had already learned the pitfalls of unplanned shoot. We tightened and cleaned up the shooting script.

One evening we met up with Priyanka. She brought with her Sakshi, the girl who would model for our MV. Priyanka agreed to style us all. We had to take care of six separate shots - the highway shot, the map shot, the park shot, the coffee shot, the chase shot and the wake-up shot. I designed the paraphernalia and Ugyal and Sudipto got them printed on desired objects - hard paper, stickers and a T-shirt.

Sagarneel, Sudipto and Sakshi shot the highway scene near the outskirts of Bangalore separately. The girls did not have much free time from their courses. So, we were under pressure of wrapping the entire "story" shoot in one weekend. This was by far the smoothest shoot sequence we had.

We had a call with Priyanka beforehand. As a result, Sudipto and Ugyal took care of most of the apparel before arriving at the shoot. Before lunch we had already wrapped up the outdoor scenes at the park and with the map. For the indoor shoots, a fellow member of the Photographians group, Partha, allowed us to shoot in his apartment. The wake-up shot was filmed first, followed by the chase shot and finally, the coffee shot. Barring one solo shot of Sudipto, the entire storyboard was wrapped up. All this time, Priyanka took care of the styling for the band as well as for our model.

We couldn't have been more grateful to the girls for their enormous support. Priyanka's involvement had an adverse effect on our MV. We looked so much better on frame than our usual selves that the frames from previous shoot looked like a cheap home video from the 80s. After much thought, we decided to scrap the whole shoot. It meant that the band shoot would have to be re-filmed. It also meant that the girls wouldn't be seeing their fruits of labour for another six months.

Wiser People Re-film the Band Shoot

We had become wiser. Shooting each of us individually was not at all necessary. Filling the frame is something that becomes a necessity when depicting fast motion sequences. A bit of hand jerk also adds to the effect of pseudo-motion to an otherwise static band shoot. All we had to do was select a nice location and plan the shoot accordingly. Korak was the cultural society conveyor of IISc. He made arrangements so that we could shoot in the practice room. I was happy that we needn't worry about the scorching sun outside.

At this point I also refused to do any rough edits on the "story" section unless I had all the shoots ready. What I learned during the rough edits of the first band shoot was this; it is nearly impossible to make any informed judgments without knowing what exactly one has in his hand, that it is not possible to arrange pieces of a jigsaw puzzle without having access to all the pieces.

The shoot itself went relatively smooth. The broken stuff lying around in a sea of cobwebs turned out to add a lot of colour to the frames. I think we took around five hours to wrap the whole band shoot up. The close, clumsy room and good choice of primes^[4] ensured that we had loads of good colourful captures.

A side story: A young girl had her first communion. While we were shooting and making noise in a closed room, her parents were playing host to many guests who came to the event in an auditorium outside. They were kind enough to invite us to have lunch. As usual, we ate well!!

Editing it all Together and Certifying the Final Product

I used Adobe Premiere Pro to put it all together. It is an excellent (albeit expensive) non-linear editing tool. I had used Sony Vegas before but Adobe's Premiere Pro feels more powerful.

The techniques I used was relatively simple. Create a "story" comp and a "band" comp. Each of the comps had multiple layers of the shoots. These were sequences that were sorted by Sudipto and handed over to me. Transitions between scenes were created by slicing off chunks of each layer. Think of it like a book. You can expose a particular page by punching a hole of desired depth. To ensure synchronisation between the two comps, I used precisely times markers.

The band shoot has quite a bit of colour correction to distinguish it from the other sequence. The story comp has a bit of muted colours when one compares to the vibrant yellowish tint of the band comp.

During this time I realised that I did not particularly enjoy editing videos. Especially, one that involved precise trimming and synchronisations. It is too much of an effort. Unless, I like doing something, I don't feel like putting that much of an effort. If I draw parallels, mixing is an equally (or even more) tiring when compared to video editing. However, I like doing it. To me, editing felt a bit more mechanical.

Once the video was put together, we had to create a timecoded version and apply to CBFC.

CBFC took only a week to give us a certificate.

My Final Thoughts

It has been a good learning experience for us all. I can only enumerate the things that I have learned personally.

1. Prepare a shooting script. It will accelerate the shooting process and ease a lot of problems during the editing stage.
2. A bit of experience comes handy. However, the lack of that shouldn't stop anyone from preparing the details. As I had stated earlier, there is nothing that can be called as lack of preparation.
3. Every look has to be deliberate. Even a shaggy look of a character has to be deliberately put together. Otherwise, it just looks like a lazy home video.
4. It is okay to discard sub-standard shoots and re-shoot sections. This is also true for any art form. If there is a badly recorded section, it is worth re-doing that instead of putting out a substandard product.
5. I don't like video editing.

Well there are more but those are embedded in my experience and is hard to objectify or quantify them. This was a long post, too.

Regards.

Notes:

1. I have learned this while producing albums. In making records, the analogous philosophy - "let's record first, we'll fix in the mix later" - also doesn't work.
2. Sagarneel has quite an arsenal of gears at his disposal. Thanks to that, we did not have to rent the entire equipment.
3. Those who have read the original article know that, barring Sudipto, we all take our food very seriously.
4. I can't recall exactly, but I believe Sagarneel used a 50mm and a 28mm(?) to film the entire band shoot.

My one+ year stint with Tumblr

Tumblr was a decent experience. However, it is not exactly a blog in the traditional sense. I found the following things not in line with my tastes, sensibilities or modes of operation.

Firstly, Tumblr focuses on micro content. Although the mechanism isn't exactly so, the layout is more in sync with such a philosophy. These micro chunks of content is something that is expected to arise from cellphones or tabs. I have seen many high quality posts but they are more of an exception than the norm.

Secondly, their sharing system is something that resembles a tumbleweed, and that's where probably they derive the name from. A comment is no more a comment - the post must be tumbled / reshared with the comment appended. This breaks the chain of linear conversation. I am yet to see what a modern CMS - discussion hybrid like Discourse is doing for they claim to have come up with a new paradigm in online discussion. I had to even set up a Disqus plugin on the site to enable discussion (even if it is sparser than matter in this Universe).

Thirdly, the internal dashboard seems more in line with Facebook or Twitter. There are trending posts highlighted that belong to the channels one has subscribed to. While someone may want a Flipboard like experience, I prefer the very personal dashboard of Blogger or even better - that of WordPress.

Finally, the customisation is something that leaves a lot to be desired. In both Blogger and Wordpress, I was able to set up the blog to nearly 90% of what I expect it to be. I understand that there are designing freedoms that must be restricted so that the engine can function properly.

My one+ year stint at Tumblr is still available at 54uv1k.tumblr.com

Regards.

Dear readers,

This is the cake we (me & my sister) got for our father's birthday.



Here is a rant against Monginis - We went to the outlet near Panchasheel Housing complex, Birati. I haven't met a bunch of more rude shopkeepers in recent times. Firstly, they had all the cakes decorated with Christmas stuff. Most of the decorative stuff, including the text were moulded with plastic and was replaceable. These guys were so rude that they were not ready to replace the markers themselves, nor were they ready to write the text on top of the cake. Bottomline, we got the cake from somewhere else.

Here's wishing my father a happy, healthy birthday.




Regards.

The Dairy Milk that I couldn't eat

Dear readers,

I decided to take a spoon of Chyawanprash everyday for its claimed health benefits. The medium sized Dabur's product is worth 125/-. I paid the shopkeeper two 100/- notes but he couldn't manage to get a 5/- change that he had to pay me back. To spare him from the trouble I decided to take a 5/- Dairy Milk bar.

If you had read the first line of this entry, you would know that I also needed a spoon. I rode to the nearest utensil shop and bought a steel spoon worth 15/-. To my dismay, even this shopkeeper did not have 5/- change for the two 10/- notes I had given him. I recounted the incident at the last shop to affirm that I really did not have 5/- change with me. He thought about it for a while and said "Chalo, chocolate hi de do. Aap bhi khush, hum bhi khush, bachhey bhi khush." (Okay, you can give me the chocolate. You'll be happy, so would I and so will be the kids.)

Chocolates are the new currency.

Regards.

Random tests.

Hello [Hello] [Hello] {simulates an echo}

 

This is Plan 9 from Outer Space.

 

Regards,

Sauvik

 

 

Playing live in Bangalore (November Reign)

Dear readers,

It has been a nice month for me. Our manager Anirban "Kaké" Ghoshal has almost kept the whole band busy. We had shows every weekend. Most of the shows were in pubs and close spaces except one open air show. You learn a lot of practical things from all these shows. Open stages are more fun to play. However, in most cases, you might get a monitor mix that you will never be completely happy with. What I have learned so far is to trust the other band members - that they will play their parts to the best of their abilities and to play my part to the best of mine. This invariably means that you do the shows with some gut intuition.

I really want to get some exposure in playing open air shows. It is a different set of ballgame altogether. That being said, I am looking forward to playing our songs in front of an younger audience -school children.

Sagarneel Biswas has been tracking us from venue to venue. You can find some really good snaps of the band if you click on the image below. Do check out his other works as well.

My PhD defense has been fixed on 8th December. I am not so well prepared, especially considering the fact that my external is IIT Kanpur's Prof. C. S. Upadhyay and he had sent a 4 page set of 39 questions as reviewer's comments.

Regards,

Gigs and problems

Dear readers,

We kind of played quite a few gigs this month. These are like practice sessions, but with an audience. I am also a bit more alert than I would normally be in a practice session. There are good venues that have transparent payment structures (e.g. The Kyra Theater) and there are venues that exploit the band (wouldn't name any). Nonetheless, we played for the sake of people who came to watch us - and let me tell you, it is worth the crap the venue or the organisers or the scenario throw at you.

Some of the most useful comments came from Ananth Menon, the guitarist of Galeej Gurus. We (more specifically, I) will have to surely look at these things and work everything out.

Our setup has increased its size by about 30%. Transportation is a problem. Previously, we could lug our instruments on our shoulders and go for a gig. It is not the same anymore. Last time while getting back from HRC, we had to split our luggage in order to reach back conveniently and still not pay too much on transportation.

Regards.

My first Agatha Christie novel

Dear readers,

It would be weird to state that of all the innumerable books that I have ever read till date, not one was an Agatha Christie work. That being said, I made my debut with a novel that had a nice ring to its name - Five Little Pigs. In hindsight, I believe my decision to pick this novel off the bookstore shelves might have been subconsciously influenced by my familiarity with the Holmes' story - Five Orange Pips.

Now I know why people who love deduction based detective works swear by her name. The pacing is impeccable. It is my personal opinion that the pacing of the events is far superior than any of the Holmes' stories. Again, we must remember, she was perfecting a genre that was invented by Arthur Conan Doyle.

I could care less of the ending. The novel had double denouncements - the first one directing Poirot to a wrong deduction. While the ending is not exactly an icing on the cake, I take this as a property of this particular novel.

I am certainly looking forward to another work by her. Dame Christie can surely hold my attention (and billions of others' as well).

Regards.

For those who have read the book - I am surprised that all the 'pigs' ignored the existence of Miss Lemerchant as a 4 year old kid. One of them - Governess Williams even says that there were 4 ladies in the house, thus omitting Miss Lemerchant altogether.

The average day of an unemployed youth.

1. Wake up
2. If IST > 1130 hours goto step 10
3. Make breakfast
4. Eat breakfast
5. Go online
6. Check mail
7. Take a nap
8. Wake up
9. Check mail + search contacts + try to send an application
10. If (IST > 1500 hours) && (no_of_people=2) goto step 13
11. Make lunch
12. Goto step 14
13. Order lunch
14. Eat lunch
15. Check mail + search contacts + try to send an application
16. Watch cartoons
17. Take a nap
18. Wake up
19. If home_supplies > threshold goto step 21
20. Visit nearby grocery stores
21. Refill supplies
22. Take a nap
23. Wake up when someone arrives
24. Check mail
25. Fiddle online
26. If !(desire_to_cook) goto step 29
27. Make dinner
28. Goto step 30
29. Order dinner
30. Eat dinner
31. Check mail
32. Watch cartoons
33. Go offline
34. Sleep
35. Goto step 1

Dear readers,


My average day is more or less based on the aforementioned algorithm. In the wildest scenario, there maybe a 20% deviation.

Regards.

Two Books

Dear readers,

Day before yesterday, I paid a visit to Blossoms Book Shop in Bangalore. I was looking for either of the three books -
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
Oranges are not the only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson
Collected Short Stories by Roald Dahl.

It was strange that I couldn't get either of them, considering the fact that their collection is pretty extensive. Instead I ended up buying Anne Rice's Violin and Joe Sacco's Palestine. Basically, both of them were picked via a blind plunge.

Regards.

I threw the Yellow Spray Paint away

"Eventually you fall asleep. And when you wake up, it's true.
You are part of a brand new world."
- Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

It has been a week less than two months that I have left Kharagpur. It has been a huge shift from the hectic schedule I had been surviving with in the last six months of my Ph.D. Nowadays, I do nothing.

Kafka on the Shore is a strange book. I am not trying to review anything, but just to be clear, it is a strange book. I am unsure of its meaning, lost in its allegories and metaphors. The story seems to be non-existent. Still it feels so good after finishing the book. Leaves a nice after-taste, a satisfying sense of umami.

Ph.D. life was much more organised. It was anchored, too. Thus resisting any free body motion of my thoughts or actions. The implications were calculated, the directions were computed and the journey was constructed. What happens now is a different question.

Two strange parallel lives lead their individual ways only to satiate the drive of emotions and prejudices. One does not know of the other. One does not come to know of the other even in the denouncement. Yet, they are related. They could be two bodies shared by the same soul. When the purpose of one is over, the soul fragment abandons the body. It's all a theory. The hypothesis holds true until a counter-evidence comes along. Science has always advanced from counter-evidences.

Little did I know of, what had I got myself into when I joined the doctoral program. Things you take for granted no more remains so once they become the essence of your identity. After that, you fight for it. Even if that means sleepless nights without proper food. I have an unfinished business that when completed at the right time will close the entrance forever. What's opened has to be shut. The time hasn't come yet.

I wait patiently.

Kafka on the Shore is a strange book. You might like it. You may not. The book exists along with millions and millions of other books. You may want to walk into it, try to perturb the lives of the characters. To them you are just a ghost staring in their direction. They have grown used to such lost souls. Occasionally, they might release a sigh of sympathy. You may never notice.

Leaving Kharagpur with the biggest uncertainty of my life

Dear readers,

Tomorrow I will be leaving KGP with one of the biggest uncertainties of my life. While I pack my belongings that I have accumulate over the last 9 years, I feel marginally sad. I realise that I have become institutionalised.

Right now, I am no more a student. On 28th evening, I ceased to be so. I am still a doctoral candidate. This will remain so until I defend my thesis and get my doctorate.

Right now, I am jobless. I will have to find a suitable job that will give me a decent work-life balance.

Right now, I am waiting.

Right now, I am excited to meet my future self.

Regards.

The bad policies of Cafe Coffee Day

Dear readers,

It so happens that there exists a CCD in the campus of IIT Kharagpur and I have been regularly visiting there since April 2010. Over a period of one year I have observed their customer policies and realised that CCD still banks on cookie cutter management strategies that fail to engage the majority of the crowds over here. For a coffee shop / brand, this is the perfect breeding ground for loyal customers who will graduate and spend their time (and money) on the more expensive retail outlets outside the confinements of this campus. This is not the case.

An important thing to understand is that CCD doesn't operate as a franchise. Instead the outlets are company owned, company operated businesses on leased / rented grounds. This also means that the management and customer relationship decisions are fairly universal and are at the very least under the same larger umbrella of policies.

1. Pushing of unnecessary food items - While this is effective for first time customers, people who have been regular at any food joint have usually very specific demands. For examples if you take object X from the  menu for a continuous span of days, they'll blatantly tell it on your face that the stock of X is over. This is to push you into buying object Y or Z. You may argue if such a statement is genuine or not. Let me cite a specific thing to strengthen my case.
Sometimes we used to ask when will object X be in stock. One of the employees says, Wednesday. Sure enough, you get it on Wednesday. On Thursday the same employee says that the object X is no more in stock. On Friday some other employee comes along and gives X. Stock of CCD, IIT Kharagpur usually arrives fortnightly. Hence an object cannot magically disappear or reappear in this fashion. Such instances have occurred multiple times in the last one year.

2. Loud unnecessary music - This prohibits conversation. Period. CCD (or at least the one in the campus) is not a place where you can have a decent conversation without increasing the average decibel of your vocal throw. This is exactly opposite to their motto "a lot can happen over coffee". The choice of songs is questionable.

3. CCD has a tie up with 9XM (some stupid channel) - Either the top management has thought that such brainless programming will be the new taste of the youth or the fellows at 9XM thinks that they are hip and cool. Well they are also dumb. You can judge it yourself by staring at that channel for an hour. But I doubt if your instantaneous intelligence level after an hour long exposure to 9XM will allow to to judge anything.

4. They push the customers away - This scenario occurs in two cases. The first is when there is a huge rush. Instead of customer satisfaction, they focus more on serving as many people as possible. Hence, a decent length conversation is virtually impossible. This can still be excused as they are trying to do business. However the worse is when there is a change in shift. They have a sales entry log or something. A person P at the counter registers some order and say the customer places more order after the person P's shift is over. They ask you to clear the bills stating unless this is done, person Q cannot take in the newer order. This usually happens during afternoon times.


Regards.


Disclaimer : This is a third party observation and the report is based on my sole judgement. If you have any objections, please contact me. This is not a legal grievance. As such this is not a defamation of a person living or dead. I have been granted the right by the Constitution of India to express my opinion on a corporate entity.