certain tracks

I stumbled across this gem recently. There’re certain tracks that set you on that apt calm temperamental disposition to create and work passionately on what you love. This is one of those. And that’s one step more to the corpus of the garden of thoughts.

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Family Happiness

sprouting skylines

A sunset drenched view of an elegant Dubai skyline captured sometime before 2014. Sunlight is painting.

“ Pilgrims from all over the world were making their way to the place deemed the pearl of the Middle East. The city was reminiscent of a modern-day Persepolis. Its buildings, like towering pillars, tested the sky’s limit. The evenly paved roads belched with the smell of new tarmac, as if a million masons woke up every morning and by hand lay asphalt one grain at a time. People of all colors, ethnicities, creed and social statuses came bearing money, knowledge or experience in order to build their legacies in the new kingdom, sprouting out of the desert. Dubai had arrived. ”

― Soroosh Shahrivar, The Rise of Shams

fragments of pathways.

It’s those small moments that add up as we inch towards our new day, new destinies and new experiences. Remember when we spoke of sonder? We also revisited it recently in a video with traffic blur.  The bulk of our lives are those simple moments. While living in the ordinary and mundane, this is missed. Often it is rediscovered in the quietude of our every-day.

“As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness — just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”

― Laura Ingalls Wilder

garden of thoughts.


Recently I read a very interesting post on what really matters on what you build and long for. It can be anything – it can be a product, a service, experiences, personal connections, travel spaces, mindset, you name it.

“Do you see all those people who whipping their smartphones out as soon as they get on the train or stand in a queue? They’re not just avoiding boredom, they’re searching—but not only for information, or laughs, or updates. They are searching for a feeling of connection.

We want places to go and places to be. Places to kill time and places that make us feel a little less lonely in the moment. Places to learn. Places to share. Places that make us feel safe, or smart, or welcomed, or funny, or hopeful for the future. But most of all, we want places to belong and places where we feel like we matter.

Those places used to be our family homes, our dinner tables at 6 pm, or football games with friends on Saturday afternoons. Increasingly they are digital spaces.

Whatever you’re building, think beyond features, functionality and design and think first about how the person you serve wants to feel when she arrives at the place you’ve built.” [ source ]

This is exactly on the nail on how I conceive and present the soul of The Border Of a Mind to you as a valuable reader. As I wrote previously, I put my heart and soul into every little word, graphic and theme that you find inscribed here. In this world of bustle and commotion, I always love to prepare this place as sort of a virtual garden of my thoughts and whisk it with some spice of original arts and photography.

orange creep on swirling clouds.

From a winter sky in the UAE with scattered clouds sprouting gradually after an enchanting daybreak. Thin rays of orange creep up around the office premises and that leaves me in awe of this enrapturing spectacle on the horizon.

“ We’re not moments, Megan, you and me. We’re events. You say you might not be the same person you were a year ago? Well, who is? I’m sure not. We change, like swirling clouds around a rising sun.”

Brandon Sanderson, Calamity

Thou knows that sunlight is painting. You know.
Read Spontaneous pleasures.

the flicker of leaves

My vehement fascination with petals and the art in their arrangements transcends to tree trunks and stems as well and this is what we have pulled off  : )

This is a mobile photograph taken from Al Ain Oasis. Down the memory lane, my 2019 year started on top of a mountain in the UAE. Instead of chasing fireworks, we pursued mountain trails in 2019. In place of the rabble and gaggle of a fireworks crowd, we tried to embrace the assuasive and soothing equanimity in the mountains.

“You are most beautiful in your purest form. You are a manifestation of God himself. Open your eyes and let the light flow right through to your core. All it takes is for you to notice a flicker of leaves, a momentary glance from a loved one, or for a wave to hit your toes and freeze you in that timeless place where you know with every cell in your body that God, indeed is real.”

Soroosh Shahrivar, The Rise of Shams

stumble over pebbles.

These are some pebbles that I randomly glanced at Corbin’s Cove beach in Port Blair during a visit with Netta in 2018. It’s a beautiful palm-fringed beach with pleasant blue sea water and lush green coconut palms. They’re enriched with colorful corals and artful rockfaces at the peripheries. I have some vague recollections of an old post that I read on medium portal which spoke about the art of seeing beauty in the everyday. Pebbles purvey such thoughts on appreciating such beauties around us. The detailing and subtleties of these pebbles graciously nudge of themes in a philosophical context. As Emilie Cady puts it, ” Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains“.

“A rock, a large piece of rock weathers off a cliff and dives deep into a pool of gushing water. Back washed, It journeys roughly and knocks of other rocks, smashing through the waves as it loses itself in scattered pieces except for its core. That core travels far and wide, it coarsely gets ground by gravel pieces smaller than itself and bullied by boulders all of which it bears up as it withstands the pressure of a distant journey off the shore. At some point, it gets dry and it encounters mud, it gets smeared dirty but the mud doesn’t stick, the rain washes of the mud and it rolls off into the sand. It dances in the sand and dives into the bottom of the waves.

Rising like a phoenix through the ashes, it emerges polished, looking more beautiful than it did when it got edged of the cliff. It rises a pebble, smooth and sleek. Coveted by rocks starting their dive.

To be a pebble you have to run the turbulent tidal race.

― Victor Manan Nyambala



bridge bearings explained for the layman

For almost the entirety of the past decade, I’ve been associated professionally with the design and development of bridge bearings in some way or the other for my current employer in the United Arab Emirates. I’ve worked on other product ranges as well, but my expertise and professional acumen are persistently pinned to this particular product owing prominently to a large amount of time I have spent on the design of bridge bearings over the past several years. Many of the people whom I meet, not necessarily from an engineering or technical background often get curious about what I do and when I start talking about bridge components, they’re bewildered. So I decided to write about bridge bearings for the layman in sort of a lucid non-technical parlance. As a prelude, let me enunciate that bridge bearings, as such is a broad discipline and I’ve worked only with a few types of bearings and is still on the path of learning for expanding horizons and filling knowledge gaps. With that sphere of humbleness, let’s begin.

Next time, when you travel through a bridge or any underpasses nearby, just before entering a bridge, pay close attention to the piers of the bridge and how those segments are held together. If you notice closely, you’ll find some devices at the interface of the top and bottom structures. These special devices are bridge bearings. Chances are that you wouldn’t have even noticed that these devices are in place. In some cases, these devices may not be visible directly as they’re mostly covered by Aluminium or steel cover plates to prevent any potential corrosion risks. But now you know that there are devices like this around.


The top portion is generally called “superstructure” and the bottom portion is called “substructure”. “Bridge Bearings” are devices used for gradually transferring loads from superstructure to substructure. These loads would include self-weight of the structure, traffic loads, wind loads, earthquake loads, etc. They also facilitate movement induced by expansion/contraction of concrete. These movements include thermal movements as well as creep and shrinkage of concrete. To some extent, they can also take rotations as well. Rotations are generally due to traffic loading, construction tolerances and general settlement of foundations, Based on the load capacities, configurations, etc, there are several types of bridge bearings used worldwide in civil installations. These include pin bearings, roller type bearings, rocker type bearings, sliding bearings, knuckle pinned bearings, pot bearings, elastomeric bearings, disk bearings, spherical bearings to name a few of them. Different configurations are designed and manufactured depending on the specific set of applications in which they are being used. Bearings can also be used for restraining movements in one or both directions as well as allowing movements in any one direction. Accordingly, different types of accessories are used on the bridge bearing assemblies to achieve the required purpose.

Some of the components which are used in the bearing include elastomers (rubbers and other engineered polymers), structural steel plates, bolts and sockets, round bars, PTFE (commonly known as Teflon), stainless steel sheets, etc. Depending on the type, a bearing can contain one or many of these components. Bearings are used in bridges, buildings, steel frames, offshore structures and a lot of other places. Many international codes are used by international manufacturers for designing these components.

To give some slice of history, until the end of the 18th century, all major structures were built using stone, bricks or mixed masonry. These structures are least affected by normal environmental changes and any slight movements that might occur are normally compensated by minor support displacements or deformation of materials involved. In the 19th century, cast iron and steel structures were increasingly used which were flexed to larger span lengths and they eventually turned out to be more slender and flexible and were required to be fitted at their support points through special devices. These were the first “bearings”. These could withstand movements induced by expansion/contraction due to temperature changes. Initial bearings consisted of simple metal plates sliding over each other or steel rollers or both of these combined. To provide rotational capabilities, swivel arrangements were extensively used. As technology progressed to the 20th century, Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) structures took steam. After the second world war, the situations demanded and favoured the extensive rapid development of reinforced concrete and pre-stressed concrete. Slender structures started to be reliant more and more on these bearing devices to accommodate rotations and movements. Subsequent years lead to the development of elastomeric bearings made of plain rubber. Later, steel plates were used inside these rubber pads and this specially designed stack became capable of sustaining larger loads and magnitudes. Subsequently, other modern bearings like pot and spherical bearings were developed which includes a combined usage of elastomeric, polymeric and structural systems that work together to be used for achieving higher load capacities, movements and rotations. Elastomeric bearings and its variants (with support plates and accessories) still continue to be the most flexible, robust, cost-effective and maintenance-free bearing solution.

Now, if we delve in more, we’d digress away from the layman terminology we’re using and would enter the techno geeky world. So for now, that’s some basic layman understanding on bridge bearings.

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Bearings are an integral part of large infrastructures such as buildings,  heavy buildings and high rise buildings serving critical functions and ensuring the safety and stability of structures.