Me Myself and the crazy world

So the latest "fad" is calories. Every other person is talking about that as if it were the dreariest evil to have possessed humans. Even kids in Gymnasiums, Playgrounds and eventually Social Media, are tracking like pros. How cool is that? Really, that's bat-shit crazy. Rule of thumb being, understand and act and not to act what you do not understand. So here's a crash course. Calorie itself is a defunct unit of measurement of energy (heat really) and defined as the amount of heat required to increase the temperature of 1 gm of water by one degree (at one atm. pressure, but that's a separate topic). It's since been replaced by Joule but is still used widely in food industry.  Actually, what food industry calls a Calorie is really a KiloCalorie. A single small calorie is just too little energy to be of any significance. Considering that it was a unit of heat, it was actually calculated thus, by burning food to raise temperature of a Kg. of wat...

He sat in his darkened cubicle mulling over a million thoughts, sitting at the verge of an immense breakthrough that would put his name in the vestiges of history of his kind. He had lived long enough, learned and applied all his knowledge to arrive at this precise moment when he could just sit and contemplate about "life", while the most relevant chapter of all times is about to unfold. He'd make the official announcement tomorrow, a breakthrough on which he spent good long months of his life and is now deemed a success. The child of Honda. Today as he sat, he felt he sits with his Gods. No smaller is his achievement, after all he has finally succeeded in bringing intelligent "life" to fruition. True, organic life, that can regenerate, reproduce, think for itself and learn. Life, modeled in his own image. Life, that'd be his progeny, not a son but a race. A different thought came over him, now. What great would he accomplish with his new creation by hi...

Internet, ah! This hyper speed portal to such a vast amount of knowledge all around us. Knowledge that may or may not be true, but that is a different thought altogether, and we may dwell on that later. The current reverie centers around the presence of such a huge amount of information and the ease of access to it, but where is it taking us.  I, for one, am extremely touched by the tools at hand today and find myself scouring the net for satiating my veritable appetite for more information. Not always do I know what to do with that information but there I am on the web, watching, reading, listening and what not. It helped me with fixing that dual-shock remote of my PS3 console and even replace the touch panel of a phone. Things, that I would have done, nonetheless, but would have taken a lot more time to figure out the right way to accomplish. (After all, I always opened up electronics way before Internet told me how to do that). I just recently managed to cultivate button ...

So what really happened? It started with a lot of people changing their Facebook profile pictures, using a Facebook provided tool, which overlay the image with tricolor. Why did they do that? No one's really sure or has the true facts. Not that I do. All I have is the reason to "why did I change my display picture?" A simple answer, to commemorate our Prime Minister's visit to the Silicon Valley. Whether I like our PM or not is immaterial, he is my PM. He represents my country and that is it. Once he is elected, he is the one and I stand with him until he steps down. And to show that, I changed my profile picture. Why do I need to show? My prerogative, my wish, my freedom. Now you may ask why only that particular profile picture, why not something else. Let's think of old times, when kings traveled. They had flag bearers. The flag bearers carried one flag, not different ones to their liking. Same reason, I changed my DP to what it is today. This is where...

So they modeled a parallel universe. So our future is their past. Good one. But what does it mean to a layman.  Parallel Universe moving backwards in time First a few facts to consider. Read the link. Not everything would make a lot of sense to all and thus confuse a lot of people. And then read this. It's a humble attempt at trying to "understand" and make sense of what it implies to our mundane life. When they say another universe moving backwards in time, they forget to mention, "from the frame of reference of someone in our universe". To a physicist, the frame of reference is the most important factor while describing an observation. The frame of reference is where we observe from. For a person standing on the road, the cars are running, while the ones driving the cars that man is moving backwards. Same applies here. But, then what does that mean. Does it mean that those living in the other universe, know our future? Can we ask them? Or does ...

So, like many of my other friends back home, I also went through the process of "Upnayan Sanskar" when I was in college (yes that late, for I could never agree to it, felt weird... but anyways). The ceremony has started being considered as a step into adulthood, but alas it wasn't really. The ancients divided life into phases, one of which was the "Brahmacharya Ashram", when the purpose of a man was to learn whilst not being bothered by the temptations of life. An important part of that ritual involved shaved-head-dhoti-clad boy requesting alms from the elder women around, requesting "Mata! Bhiksham dehi." (Mother, please provide alms). It is a ritualistic tradition, to be followed since things are done like this here, now. But I wondered what it meant in the day of old. Then, young boys, prince or paupers alike, would go about their days of learning, requesting alms from the community. Did that make the time socialist ? At first I thought ...

I sat idly in front of the television set watching Indian channels. It's been long since I had really sat like this watching Indian serials, those were a luxury in this foreign land. And even more so, been never a fan of MTV India, lest it played things like Coke Studio or Dewarist. And coke studio is what I waited for, since I had scrolled and saw it in the listing. But right now some top 20 were playing. I sat, absentmindedly watching, for that is my nature while I go into that pondering mode. So is my nature that I lose sense of what is happening around while doing things that interested me more, like flying my newly acquired heli. A nature acquired from long hours of study sitting in front of television during my kid years. Yet it was not so that I did not know what was playing, nevertheless I paid no attention. Entertainment is art. Some say art defines the state of affairs, I thought differently. Maybe the state of th...

The days of old Every year during summer vacations, we used to visit our hometown. That was a time of reunion with all brothers and sisters, dadi, bua, chacha, taiji and "tauji". The term Tauji, seemingly bursting out of the term Tau, encompassed the thought of "elder" and awesomeness. With his quiet demeanor and the incapacity of getting angry no matter how hard we tried to get on his nerves, a chill crawled down our spines when he would address us with utmost respect as if we were not kids. The days of old, when we used to go around the city, a bunch of rowdy kids with our dog, discovering new alleys and roads with our gang leader kukku didi. It was fun. We were kids then. The new days Kukku didi has a school going kid. She made us mama, mausi long back and it never mattered. We were still kids, a little grown up though. My own kid sister now has her kid, and I am mama to another kid. But mama always meant utmost fun and frolick, after all I am blessed wit...

It started with a warm sunny morning. He sat there soaking the sun, drinking the cool spring water. It was extremely serene outside. The kind of day that everyone desires but few experience. The day was perfect to take a plunge in the pool and then lie in the sun. Wasn't too cold, nor too hot... Just perfect. But then he had to fly. It was his prerogative to fly. And a prerogative he loved and enjoyed as if it were his life. That was he was destined to do, and that was what he always did. Fly... He started and was soon soaring over the high cliffs. The ground underneath was green and calm. He could see the shimmering waters of the river below, shimmering like a million diamonds in the sun. He could see the green grass on the banks, as if a carpet was laid. He could see the shadows cast by the foliage of the mighty trees of the forest below. There was peace all around, he was in an almost soundproof shell with just the din of the wind was all that could be heard. It was like ...

Truth, as defined by the Oxford dictionary and as would be widely accepted means "that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality". Is it a good thing? As again widely accepted, it certainly is. At least it is considered so by those who are, or should I say, try to be righteous. So considered a good thing, by us commonplace people who try to be rightful in their way of life, in accordance with their beliefs and social principles. Still!!! Another truth lies in the fact that most of the time we all righteous, commonplace people refrain from it. I do not proclaim that we all lead a life of blatant fibbery, but rather that we strive for a safe separation from the truth. But why do we do that? Amidst it's all godliness, this truth hides a bitterness that is all overpowering. It defeats the pertinent abilities and has the effect of dragging the human nature, at the receiving end, towards acts that can no longer be considered kosher. The effects might be short liv...

Picking up my bolg almost after eons now, I was wondering what to write about. But then what better to write than what facebook says, and the only thing "it" says, what's on your mind. Being an avid fan of order and rules in person, it comes as a surprise to me, myself, that I am unable to relate myself to the usual norms, customs, practices and traditions that we all tend to follow. I'm not a perfect man, nor is anyone else. And so to keep this imperfect world in order we do need some guiding principles. Some tend to be the laws of our land, which also, of course, sometime fall short or far fetched. But I do not find myself much in disagreement to those, for those are still open to amendments. What bothers most are the so called unwritten laws that we tend to drag the baggage of, in the name of traditions, culture and what not. Who made these traditions, who wrote that we need to follow a specific moral code and what is this moral code anyways? How do we say that som...

मन समर्पित, तन समर्पित और यह जीवन समर्पित चाहता हूँ देश की धरती तुझे कुछ और भी दूं!!! Had been thinking of writing a blog post on the day of our Independence but there were too many thoughts in the mind that it was too difficult to pen down one. With the advent of social media and with almost all of the educated, semi educated and literate youth on social networking sites, it has become quite to easy to congratulate each other on our Independence day and show ourselves that we belong. And to carry on with this pretense a lot happens without thought, without assessing credibility of information. An immense contribution from preconceived notions of a few, a mere desire of many to flow with the currents and then those few who have an obsessive compulsive disorder of posting everything without a thought. This all was fine with me until recently when it started encroaching upon my belief system that stands on one single ground of "thought". Ever since Anna has taken up the cu...

Listening to Metallica's death magnetic, watching as the suspense build up waiting if one of those armed men would panic and it would end up booming all the way, but then happens the day that usually never comes... Peace reigns, brotherhood, love for thy neighbor and all that should be "in a perfect world" But then do I ask is it really a perfect world? Maybe in some other parallel universe, but not here. It's been two days now, media coverage is declining, politicians have started chewing on the leftover bones... been two days... And my perpetual anger has a new fuel. Who dares push us around, who dares think we can hit the ground? But then are we really proving any better? Yes we were a country of peaceful men and women. Yes the father of our nation is well acknowledged as the prophet of peace in modern times. Yes he did baffled the british with his methods of peaceful agitation. But that was more than 60 years back. That was during the days when the men were...

There was a time when we were "ruled" by others. Those were the days when the country came together, and we should see this as the silver lining in the cloud that covered our nation for more than two centuries. Those were the days when the first shoots of leadership germinated in this country. Instead of the Kings of old, who led their men to fight their kin, a new generation of leaders came into existence. Those were the leaders who brought together the masses, for that was the need of the hour. Those were the men who led the people against the "rulers". Some were revolutionary, others were otherwise revolutionary. History has been a witness that while most other countries gained freedom by war, we did under the leadership of a man who knew how to channel the energy of the mob. The path he followed was "Andolan" instead of armed revolution. He was the "Father of our Nation", he was Mahatma Gandhi. Ours was a nation of oppressed, suppressed, po...

As with all other things, the video has been doing rounds on facebook these days. Illustrating the value of Rs. 500/- for different people the video wishes to enlighten the public towards the glaring and ever widening class separation in the country. The intent is highly commendable but where is the practicality? While the video enlightens the hip and happening young generation that's oblivious to the fact that there is, unfortunately, enough poverty in the country, pries open our eyes to the fact that a lot of students have to drop off from school owing to the lack of "money", it still tends to predilect towards monetary philanthropy. Is that really what we need? Will shelling out our hard earned money towards charity really going to get us a shining India? Will the foundations of a futuristic Mahaan Bharat, rest on the garbage dump of alms? If we all start living poor just because our neighbor is poor, and because you love thy neighbor. If everyone starts sending the...

We were driving back home in CLT, from work and Ankush was driving. Ahead of us a car spewed some weird fumes which entered our radiator and into the car's ventilation system. We could smell it and it smelled bad. Well!! But that's not any experience, we know how it smells near a sugar factory, paper factory or right outside a big city. While I was being sent to this "other people's dream" country, we were given a cross cultural orientation session. As ever and as my detestation goes about such tutoring, I filtered out most but two things I still remembered for I had a "as usual" argument with the session coordinator about those. She had asked us: 1. Do not stereotype 2. Americans are highly sensitive to smell. A lot of grubby nonsense about body odor, spicy food and the like. Hmm!!! I found that self contradictory and fought. Anyways, after coming here I found 1. Who, ever goes out in the "out"? Life here is contained in airtight houses, of...

Today Maybe this is not the right time and the right world for me. I should have been born way back in the 14 th century, when men went on voyages across oceans and continents on conquests that would change course of history, conquests that would make them richer in monetary terms and also in life's experiences. Conquests where they would observe and accumulate knowledge of hitherto unknown. Conquests that would yield, nothing but would still be worthwhile and fun for someone with a keen sense of observation. But gone are those days. Voyage has taken the shape of a high speed flight plan, or a cruise with well chalked out routes and no surprises in store. The world has become one big city and the whole earth can be watched and unraveled in detail on a puny 14 inch monitor, using google maps or wikimapia with the latest addition of street views and 3D imagery. Lest there is too less to discover, still lesser to know that might need one to go out of the confines of his abode....

After eons, I finally got an opportunity to have lunch with my buddies in the break room today. And as we sat chatting anything and everything and came up to the possibility of defragmenting a man to allow him to tie up his whole body to serve specific purpose. It came up that I could serve vengeance to the extent of creating a bug that evolves and reproduces itself that no one could debug it for it will create copies of itself faster than one could remove it, if ever someone tried to convert my body into a robotic manifestation. And someone just said that my joke was something to be thought about. A bug that evolves... Well, it is not. If only we look, such bugs are all around us. But those are too small to be noticed, and probably that's why those are called viruses. Still it was an idea nonetheless. An idea different from a perspective we usually take. Such gibberish, such unusual and unexpected conditions lead to real innovation. I still remember reading about how Schwarzc...

Space time curves over itself. That's every Physicist's dream or nightmare. Those who say it does would love to hear someone prove it, those who say it does not live in a constant apprehension of someone proving it right. So is the Schrodinger's cat. The cat in the box is both dead and alive, unless the box is opened. So is an electron which is both matter and wave, and will continue to be unless we humans actually devise a way to "see" it. But it's the inexplicability of what is and what not defines the region where we "live". It's the inexplicability that calls for the need of opening the box or searching for the way to see an electron, and makes the pursuit worthwhile. The pursuit is life. A consistent, predefined, meticulously engineered, straight line might be the best suited approach of building a minaret but it never draws the "life" that's in the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The realization was sudden when I sat on the passenger s...

The weather is just like back home when winter started. Miss those winter days of, the steaming cup of hot tea which I could have both when mummy made and when bua made. The days of endless. meaningless walks on canal road, when every few steps led to a meeting with another friend. The days when we were free to create all that laughter and ruckus on the road, the way Bulli would cry out the honourable salutation of "Bhai ko", God alone knows what that meant but that was our way of saying rather shouting a powerful hello. I remember the woolen cap that mummy wanted me to wear and I would'nt. And to top it Kamal would come wearing one, showing off as an example. I remember the occasional momos and soup. The days of miscalls. When we wanted to be independent. When we took tutions to earn and get that sense of independence. The days when we earned and spent without a thought, for it was for spending that we earned. Yet we saved. Those were the days when Kamal would miscall me...