Mormons at the Door

I never thought the day would come when a bunch of religious folk (read Christians) would show up at my door preaching the ways of God, Jesus. Or is that God? Whatever. Leave that argument and the conundrum about the Holy Trinity to the theologists.

I opened the door, rather cautiously, to two cheerful young lads clothed in black T-shirt and black pants. "Hi, I'm a disciple of Christ", read their shiny badge. Closer inspection of the badge revealed that they were members of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Mormons. Yay. Throughout the conversation the theme song from that SouthPark episode was going on in my head. Dumdumdumdumdum...

Wasting no time, they got down to business.

• "Do I have a personal relationship with God?". I replied with a dead pan expression that I am an atheist. In my experience with revealing this bit of "horrifying" news to theists, it's always the double take or the gasp. These guys did both.
• "Don't you want to know Jesus better? Let's pray!" There's a church down the street and we are having a service. Let's get to know Him better!
• "Are you a Muslim, Jew or Sikh?" What, I can't be a Buddhist or a Hindu? Close minded jerks.
• "Do you know of the great sacrifice?" Of course. He died, so that we may live. How the death of one person can magically forgive/pardon/redeem/give a free ticket to Heaven for millions of recurrent sinners for over two thousand years is beyond any rationalistic notion.
• "It's sad that you have not invited God into your life, we shall pray for you". The single most annoying (bordering on insulting) thing anyone can say to a non-believer.

I should have asked them some of my questions.

• Have you considered the fact that you could have been indoctrinated into "believing" in an entity that can apparently bring into existence all of creation with a single thought?
• Do you see this entity? Can you convince me without quoting the Bible or those Golden plates or some long winding theological argument?
• Are you a Creationist? Do you really believe that the world is 5000 years old and that Man tamed and saddled the T-Rex?
  
• You don't believe in evolution, you poison academic institutions with your biblical take on life and you ask for crocoduck fossils... Where do I even begin?
• Magic Underwear? You're just asking for more punishment.

Edit: I just realized. Absurdity has the power of numbers. Think about it. If a million people told you that 2+2=5, you would seriously start doubting that it equals 4 in actuality. Maybe there is a semblance of meaning to their approach you think. BAM! You've been lured in.
Another example of power in numbers. Were I to say,
" These french fries have borne the fire and brimstone of the Oven for me. Therefore I will worship the French Fries.", you will be quickly escorted out of McDonalds, thrown into a looney bin asylum and be fried with electricity until you start perennially drooling at the mouth. Supposing a million or so people believe in the Covenant of the Fries, could we brand them all as insensible people? No. You actually think that there must be some truth in the Fries. Such is the power of numbers. Propagate an idea and no matter how weak or illogical it may be, with enough people, it gains serious momentum. If people had questioned the concept of Fries in the beginning, (when the fries were ordered at the counter), all of this would not have happened. Rationalizing plays a key role in keeping these sorts of things in check. To prove my point check out the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster :the ultimate kick in the teeth to creationists.

So fine, I have a bone to pick with religion. My point is we can all be good decent human beings without a bearded man in the sky dictating the way we act and behave. If we can help others, live a good life and be of good moral fiber, we have essentially taken religion out of the equation. My doctrine sounds logical and plausible right? If you still need proof, look what Christianity has to say:

If your Gospel is a set of rules and regulations to live free from sin, and condemnation to hell for those who don't. Believe it or not, God labels your message as a perversion of the Gospel:Book of Galatians

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! Galatians 1:8-9

I rest my case your honour.

Religious disclaimer: As an atheist I really don't care about religion and sentiments. You are free to believe in whatever you want to. But when people go about trying to shove their beliefs onto others who don't want it or didn't even ask for it, that's just plain wrong. In which case I strongly urge people to ask questions of their own.

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My brain=Carnival of Dubiety

Word. I like it when the first sentence is just a word. Don't you? It looks bullshit free. It feels like 0-60 in dt seconds. But it also reminds me of unimaginative writers who use this scheme to compensate for their platitudinarian horseshit. But what does that mean? Don't all of us seek comfort in cliche? Isn't familiarity reassuring? I'm confused. Like a kaleidoscopically entrancing sort of confused; has a caffeine like aftertaste.

We are so boring in our ways. Most of us. Take a cue from children. Uninhibited, agnostic, instinctive little creatures. Bah. We know all this. We know that our individuality deserted us a long time ago. We are slaves to money. And rightly so. Can't do shit without money now. So we earn some. We save some. We get all choked up when we spend some. We assign value to everything from peanuts to Britney Spear's hair based on supply and demand. Demand. Strong word. Reflective of primal consumerist instincts. People buy clothes not to cover their bodies anymore, but because they NEED NEW ONES. No harm in looking good in public. And if you're going to ridiculous lengths to get new clothes, well, you're just passionate. Aren't we all passionate about something. Nice word passion. Lets us get out of just about anything. That and retarded. "Why did you rape this woman?" "I'm passionate/retarded." "Jury?"

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I am cloyed by it all. The alluring money, the promising government, the opinionated citizens, the plastic wrapped comic books, the frequently asked questions, the patients waiting room, the highest ever grossing ticket sales yet, the whole shebang. Even the one area I was interested in doesn't seem appealing anymore: Academics. The bureaucracy scares me. To become a teacher, I must awaken my inner superficiality, laying to rest my dignity. I must publish meaningless papers to capture the empty gaze of corporate scum, for "recognition". Ofcourse, I can strive for an honest route, but what if I fail? A deeper question now haunts me. What is the ethical thing to do? A still deeper question now rears it's ugly head. What are these ethics based on? Isn't there a subjective nature to right and wrong? Who decides this? God? Bite me. (Edit: Jonathan Haidt addresses the dilemma very convincingly.)

A bath tub filled with hot water is always relaxing. For one thing, everything looks magnified. I am quite the make believe artist. Wink wink. As I push on the water, I notice something delightfully strange, because I've read about it. The waves in the water can now not be just of any wavelength , but can only be multiples of a certain wavelength. Because the water is bound on all sides, what happens at those boundaries is a given, they are fixed points. So that enforces the water to move in a limited number of ways. But the number of multiples of this certain wavelength is another infinite set. How remarkable! An infinity in finite space. Perhaps every object encloses a certain flavor of infinity. It keeps me up at night.

This recursive tortuous quest to find meaning for everything is consuming me. How do I switch off? Without robo-tripping. How do I just lay off? Here is my lullaby: We are human beings. Our thinking only caters to our survival. Everything else is a bonus. The bonus is not limitless. There is only so much we are capable of perceiving. We've seen optical illusions, we've studied the fabric of space time, we're spending billions to save string theory. All because what we can sense is confined to a room in which logic does not arrive at the mythical "absolute truth". These words are inventions by us to communicate among one another. They are incapable of addressing, in George Carlin's words, a "greater wisdom". We might evolve into know-it-alls, but I strongly doubt that. As long as our incentive is survival, we'll never know the truth. :(

I feel like Rupert right now. I found him on plognark.

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Opposites

Ann looked at her reflection in the small mirror at the back of the kitchen and did her hair in a hurry. Her next order had been given but she hadn't yet attended to it. She took one last glance to pride on her locks before she stepped out to greet the customers and take their orders. It was one o' clock on a monday afternoon and there were not many customers in the homely little restaurant located near the markets of the sleepy little town. She saw the tall man sitting at the table smack in the middle of the restaurant and went over to him to take his order. She extracted her little Spiro-pad and waited patiently for the stranger; she could tell he was a stranger in these parts from his yuppy attire and piercing glances. Friendly folk don't stare at one another, she thought to herself as she clicked her pen to take his order of a black coffee. Black coffee seemed to suit him, she thought as she clipped the slip of paper from the pad to the ordering window. Strong, dark and bitter, yet something left desiring. She was tired of the life she lead here in this nameless town in the South. She was tired of the mundane, the ordinary and anything banal for that matter. She dreamed of stretching out in the sun of Rio, climbing the hills of Scotland and visiting the mystical lands of the east of Asia. She was shaken out of her reverie by Meg clanking the cup and saucer on the counter. Ann put on her smile; like she put on her make-up and went over to the man and placed it gently on the table and without another glance glided away to the kitchen.

Mark Gordon aka The Suit looked at the steaming cup of black coffee in front of him and his attention wavered for a moment before he composed himself. His wife had passed on and it was her request that she be laid to her eternal rest from the town she was brought up in. The Suit as Mark was called,was the head of a small business firm in uptown Los Angeles and his stiff demeanor frightened his rivals, kept his rowdy subordinates quivering in their shoes and piqued the ladies' interest. His life was nothing but a series of hurried motions: a cup of coffee quickly gulped down, hasty signing of reports and juggling calls from his clients. To say his life was turbulent was an understatement at best. He awoke a few weeks back in his hotel room thinking it was early morning in Tokyo while it was really midnight in New York. The deals and the numbers took him places; the world was a flurry of movements who had absconded him long ago and no amount of measures taken on his behalf would help him. He wanted to get off this bus, but the conductor was not interested in stopping.

He looked around the little restaurant. An elderly couple were sitting at the table beside him, talking in hushed tones. A truck driver reading a newspaper at the end of the row, waiting to get back onto the highway. Nobody knew who The Suit was. Nobody cared. For all they knew and cared he was some tourist from a snarky city looking for rednecks to take pictures of to show off to his wealthy friends back home. He reached into his pocket to extract his Blackberry. No signal. He was completely cut off from his work and his responsibilities. Yet the world moved on as ever without him. People drank their coffee, walked their dogs and read their newspapers. He was at the center of his private universe observing his surroundings.

Stasis. What he always wanted and couldn't get. Finally he had a moment of peace in his chaotic life. He smiled to himself and for the first time in a long long time, took in the fresh aroma of the black coffee and sipped it slowly. He counted out the change and left a little something extra for Ann. He walked out of the restaurant, his heart feeling ever so light.

Ann came by to collect the empty cup. How much longer would she have to keep doing this before her life got exciting? She picked up the dollar fifty cents and found a note. "Ann,thanks for helping me find what I lost". She turned over the cheque and gasped at the amount. She rushed back to the counter and hung up her apron. Meg,curious as ever, asked her where she was headed off to.

"Rio",smiled back Ann.

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Untitled

Beautiful. The grass at his feet, the gentle wind caressing his face and the sunshine that bathed his soul in all its glorious radiance.Just beautiful.He looked around and saw this grassy landscape stretch as far as the eye could behold. A lone birch tree stood a few yards from where he stood, a standing testament to time eternal. No birds or squirrels were found on its outstretched branches. Just a lone birch tree in the middle of nowhere. Just like he was. He walked to the tree and sat at its base and closed his eyes. Allowed the wind to tussle his hair while his heart and mind wandered. Involuntarily he reached into his shirt pocket and extracted a cigarette and lit up. Took a deep drag and blow out slowly and contentedly. Soaked in the peace and tranquility and pictured the movement of pure white clouds drifting lazily across the azure sky.

He had no idea what he was doing here. Right across the Tree was a Door. An old oak door with a number of cryptic engravings on it. He had tried opening the door to no avail. He raged,he fumed, he cursed and threw himself at the Door. But it would not open. He knew not what was on the other side, but it was his tendency to believe that what lay on the other side was of importance;of value. Time seemed to have no hold here in this land of eternal sunshine. He squinted at the bright sunlight, he felt alienated by the lone tree standing so ominously at the center of this grassy universe. He wanted out. He wanted the Door to open so badly. Hatred and anger turned to denial. Denial to pleading. Tears. Still the Door wouldn't heed.

Finally tears turned to acceptance. He stubbed out the cigarette. It wasn't that bad here after all. Slipping another cigarette into his mouth he flipped his whole life in his mind; like flipping through a large photo album. Everything seemed insignificant in the grand scheme of things. His mediocre schooling, his mediocre friends, his mediocre girlfriend and his mediocre job. He had done absolutely nothing that he ever wanted to do by the time he was as old as he was now. How old was he? He laughed at the notion. Everything seemed so pointless. He got up and went over to the Door and tried the knob. It opened.

He peered in.He saw his childhood self seated at a table, all alone. He could his childhood classmates passing comments about him. Freak. Weirdo. Alien. He blinked. Now he saw himself seated at The Ritz waiting, at a table for two, for the woman of his dreams. She never showed. He tried to look away but his eyes were transfixed at the new scene that unfolded before his eyes. His boss berating him in front of his co-workers. Their faces were somber, but their eyes told a different story. He stood there while his colleagues were laughing at him.

He closed the Door with a strength unknown to him. He walked back to the open embrace of the Tree and sat at its base once again. His life was a joke. He couldn't believe that a few hours ago( maybe a few days?) he would have given the world to get back. He was happy here. He felt the balmy sunlight seeping through the branches and lit up his cigarette. He closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep; the cigarette still burning bright...
*****************
Time of death : 10.45pm. The young doctor looked at the comatose man and felt a twinge of pity. What a waste of life, he thought sadly. A car accident definitely wasn't the way he wanted to leave this earthly plane. He reached around to shroud the body in white sheets. He thought he saw a glimmer of a smile on the dead man's face. The young doctor dismissed this absurd notion. The late night shifts were playing tricks on him.

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I Blame Inertia

We all get bogged down by the workload imposed by our slave driving overlords...uh, I mean our lovely professors and sometimes we sleep a bit too much when aren't supposed to or just feel like bunking one class to relive the freedom and who-gives-a-flying-.... attitude of our undergrad days. But we need alibis and good ones at that. No more can we get away with juvenile excuses, our lecturers expect and we should provide ones of better quality and standards. We are masters students after all aren't we?( expect for those lucky doctorate classmates of mine, why you little....)

So without further ado I present to you a list of alibis worthy of our advanced scientific standing (and if you guys add to the list, they will be peer reviewed! Excuse the PJ and read on).

• Couldn't get the day rolling. I blame inertia.
• I got a head start but static friction had to rear its ugly head.
• My caffeine levels were at an all time minima.
• My circadian rhythm is still tuned to Indian Standard Time.
• Daylight savings time already?
• Had a late night argument if Krishna's blue skin was a symptom of cyanosis.
• My hepatic cells had a rough time detoxing the ethyl alcohol.
• Silicon based organisms from the 6th dimension paid me a visit at my domicile.
• I'm having H1N1 symptoms...Uh, why are backing away slowly?
• My canine ate my assessment and so I'm doing an experiment on the effects of cellulose on epithelial cells.The results should be out soon enough.

On a lighter note, I'm turning 22 tomorrow! Woot!
:-)

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The House Algorithm

We all yearn to be the antisocial and sardonic diagnostician, who as biting and sarcastic as he is, has captured our imagination with his quirky remarks and come backs. Yes, it's House as portrayed by Hugh Laurie (brilliantly I may add) who keeps us glued to the TV or our computer screens week after week as he tackles the strangest of medical cases. A challenge has been presented. House accepts and conquers it by the end of a 45 minute episode. The patient survives, House is satiated and his peers are frustrated and further alienated. Brilliant. Yet behind every House mystery, there is an algorithm or flow chart step that is consistently followed in every episode. Sort of like a Scooby Doo episode, where the gang look for clues, Velma goes "Jinkies", Fred suggests splitting up and they finally catch the "ghost" after a series of goof ups that would make the Hooded Claw wince in pain. So what's the House Algorithm? Let's find out.

Pick an interesting case.
Fever,stomachaches and sniffles? Yawn. Give the poor fellow some paracetamol and send him on his way. No fever but severe internal bleeding with an Alien Hand Syndrome? Gimme that patient file....

Talk to the team.
Gather your peons around you and demand differentials. Reply caustically as possible while shooting down all possible causes. Order an MRI, a CT scan and a blood works. Make the African American or the Indian do the hard work. That being done,pop a Vicodin and look amused. Limp away to Wilson's for some character development.

Search the house(no pun intended)
Send the lackeys, preferably the smoking bombshell with a genetic predisposition and self consciousness issue to the patient's house to look for clues. While there, the peons bitch about what a rough taskmaster you are and about idiosyncrasies regarding their lives that nobody cares about. They find a bag of Ecstasy, but (surprisingly enough), the tox screen comes clean.

Patient seems fine....NOT!
The ever-faithful plastic surgeon is doing a standard lumbar puncture, when the patient starts going into V-fib. Call in the crash cart, send out the fretting wife or girl friend and prepare to jump-start the heart. Charging....CLEAR! (ZAP!). Fade to black.

Extreme Measures
The team starts making more and more idiotic differentials and it's up to you to put them in their place. Could be lupus? It's NEVER lupus*. Suggest starting the patient on methotrexate. Ignore outcries that the patient's immune system will be fried. Relax. Your ego allows you to play God with another man's life. Ironic that you are an atheist. And besides, there's another good ten minutes before the good stuff happens. Pop vicodin and argue with your boss. Hassle her until she caves in to your demand for a dangerous and probably unwanted brain biopsy though the patient has just come out of chemotherapy. Make an abrupt comment about her pistons before limping out in triumph. Pop more vicodin for good measure.

Talking to Wilson and the impending epiphany
At a loss, you amble into Wilson's study and plop on the sofa. After a series of back and forths, Wilson says something that somehow translates into a medical homology. Wait for your camera close up, echo Wilson's last words and amble away to the nearest phone. Or better yet, step into the operation theater just in time to stop the Ozzie chap from performing dangerous irreversible brain surgery on your patient.

Explanations
"You have Guillian Barre Syndrome. It explains the arrythmia, the BP and the muscle weakness. Also the fever that wasn't an infection. The bad news is it's not curable, the good news is you'll live". That being said,return home and play a sad tune on your piano, while cut scenes show that your peons are having a great time. Pop Vicodin. Roll credits.

*Although Lupus is a ongoing gag in House MD, it is still a very debilitating systemic immune disorder. Read about and spread the awareness about systemic lupus here.

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Money Matters

Welcome to the first rant in a long time. This isn't a post. This isn't a short story. It's a full blown rant about something I've been thinking about for a while now.Let me explain.

Tonight I went to the Leeds student union for their Give-it-a-go session on Iaido. For those of you who are unaware, it is a Japanese martial art, where the sword is unsheathed and sheathed again after a number of graceful and masterful swings. The martial artist fights an imaginary opponent,all the while being acutely aware of his surroundings. I was blown away by the sheer mastery and liquidity of the movements, each one subtly giving way into the next. I wanted to sign up for training. I was told that the annual membership fee was 10 pounds. I was overjoyed.

Then God or whoever the hell is up there(an oxymoron?) realizes that some poor dope has taken the bait. Time to reel the sucker in. I'm informed that the iaido obi and the wooden kendo like sword set me back 50 pounds. I'm thinking that's fine, a tad expensive, but alright,if that's what it takes. Then He/Fate decides it's about time the damn fish stopped squirming and down comes the ceremonial fish bonking hammer. It's 50 quid to get a membership for the sports hall in the University where the events take place. So lets see...10 and 50 and 50. That's 110 quid with another 20 or 30 for misc charges and I'm out nearly 150 quid. I couldn't afford it.That's when I realized.

I couldn't afford it.

I had the interest,I could with some hard work and time management,spare the time,but yet I'm denied the pleasure of doing something I fancy simply because I can't afford it. And that's not fair. Other examples which I'm sure my friends in foreign countries can understand:
• Looking for the least expensive item in the aisle at the supermarket.
• Putting off shopping or stock piling foodstuffs to avoid shopping.
• Purchasing stationery,detergents,clothes,rice and masalas from India.
• Kicking your rear end for your inability to spend 32 quid on a pair of Reeboks or 15 quid on a pair of Everlast gear even after a whopping 70% discount.
• Resorting to the dollar/pound store to buy your stuff.
• Walking to University cause you spend 275 rupees on bus fare daily. Or forced to get a bus pass since your residence is too far away.
• Can't get a goddamn pizza or a chicken sandwich or order takeout on a rough night cause the cheapest thing on the menu is 4 quid and the bastards don't deliver unless the order is for a minimum of 6 quid.
• I FINALLY found a DeathNote T-shirt, a shop that sells Shonen Jump Magazine and Bleach merchandise. It's 16 quid for the T-Shirt, 6 quid for the mag and 10 for the Bleach stuff. God is loving kicking me in the teeth.
It's times like these when you really wish that our Indian economy did a whole lot better. At 81 rupees to a pound,I'm getting an arrhythmia every time I go shopping or start gasping at train fares to Manchester. At times like this I wish that I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and wish I could cold heartedly look at a peasant and tell him to eat cake.
60 odd years of independence and we still aren't doing good for ourselves. A land of a billion( that cliched term again), a majority of it illiterate, steeped in poverty and the rest of them a bunch of plain morons with more money than common sense. You know who I'm talking about. The politicians, the educators of this country. I have graduated from India's number one private university and what has it taught me? Wear my ID card at all times(even if I'm taking a piss) , that it's ok to plagiarize, that 75% attendance is just a crock and that the GPA never really matters at the end of it all. And people wonder why people take loans and go abroad to study.
We all have difficult circumstances; my mother has an autoimmune disorder and can't work and my dad is doing his best to give his only son a fair education. And for that I am ever so thankful. But at times I just wished that life would have been better. Not that I am dissatisfied with the life I had thus far. But a person can only take so much before breaking. I am at the end of my rope.

I just wish that I could trade my writing skills for a truckload of cash. I could finally buy stuff without feeling guilty.

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Green Eyes

Rebeca tilted her head back and caught the sunlight gleaming between the branches of the apple tree. As the wind blew through, the leaves shook and swayed in a hypnotic motion. Rebeca took her time and gently daubed at the beads of perspiration that lined her brow. Any boy would have attested even this simple gesture as extremely erotic. That was Rebeca's forte: her green eyes would stop any boy in his tracks, that indescribable beauty and the uncertain depth behind them would entice any member of the opposite sex. But that was another story altogether.

She saw the old Buick coming into the parking lot and a thin man stepping out of the car. Her father. She had always loved him dearly and he loved her back. Unlike her mother. As far as she could remember her mother had always fancied her elder sister,Erica. Erica wasn't the prettiest face at school, but her warm and charming personality rivaled the cold yet sexually charged demeanour of her younger sibling. Both parties had their supporters and detractors. She waved glumly and caught her father's attention. Picking up her gym clothes she walked across the stretch of the road to the Buick. She flipped her hair nonchalantly, inadvertently attracting the attention of a gangly looking youth. She winked at him and carried on as though nothing happened.Just another in a long line, she thought to herself as she got into the car.

She fastened the seat belt and was soon lost in her thoughts as the Buick sped along the highway.Things were never good at home. Her mother and sister were always plotting of ways to make her life miserable. If it wasn't for dad, she would have caved in years ago. And she was only 15.She had a bad day at school. Thomas, the resident idiot and bully, had taken her lunch money and yanked her beautiful black hair for good measure. She never was good at confrontation. Assuaging the beast seemed to fare no better either. Then came her biology class. Miss Marie, bless her soul, had taken great troubles to teach them despite her rheumatic pain. Mendelian genetics. Rebeca usually never paid attention, but something about this topic had her undivided attention.

Back in the car, Rebeca looked out the window, as the scenery rushed by and the wind gently caressed her locks. She recalled events that upto this moment,had been assumed a part of the suburban life and a nuclear family with two point four kids. The loud arguments Mom and Dad had in the kitchen that she witnessed without their knowledge, cuddling her Snuggles bear. Why Mom always picked up Erica from school leaving Dad to pick up Rebeca. The distance with her mother. The frequents fights over nothing leaving Rebeca in tears. The divorce that should have happened.

Mom had brown eyes. Erica, hazel. And her father, black. Mendelian genetics. She closed her eyes.Her brilliant emerald green eyes. She was the mistake, the inexplicable error that had split the household. Mendelian genetics.

Her father backed the Buick into the driveway.He caught Rebeca's piercing stare in the rearview mirror. The same eyes that tempted him so many years ago. Rebeca still had her seatbelt on. She wasn't very good at confrontation. But it had to be done. A lump in her throat and butterflies in her stomach.

"Dad. We need to talk...."

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Http 404: Ideas not found

Although there are a million things to blog about, for some peculiar reason, yours truly has hit a road block on the idea expressway. I seem to have exhausted my reserve of creativity for the time being and therefore unable to come up with something witty or snazzy that garners the 3 odd comments from my faithful readers(comment people!! :-D).

Foreign Universities? Everyone knows they work better than the Indian system.
More about Leeds? This isn't a travel blog dammit!
Short stories? I'm not depressed enough yet to pen a story.


(click, click...) Out of Ammo!!

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Anchiornis huxleyi

The fossils of a bird much older than the archaeopteryx have been discovered:


http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/47800/title/Feather-covered_dinosaur_fossils_found

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The Path of The Master

Dear Mom and Dad,

Lots of stuff happened, so I'll give you the gist of what was said today.

1.you to need to work hard. so hard that you'll kill yourself. no pun intended,
2.Plagiarism = Bad. Get caught and you get chucked from the Uni.
3.Lots and lots of background reading. Plenty of well spaced and timed assessments ranging from ppt presentations to literature reviews to essays with references and attributing.
4.Check the virtual learning environment daily for news, updates and email from the staff.If my laptop conks out, I don't care where you are and what you are doing, a direct debit of 450 GBP is required post haste.
5.Flunk once and they give you a chance. Flunk again and you're dead.
6.No bunking. Unless there is a family crisis( god forbid) or personal illness(forbid that too), bunking is severely frowned upon. None of that VIT's 75% attendance crap. 100 % all the way. Continued bunking will get you kicked out.
7.Time management is of the essence.Oh shit,look at the time!!
8.Make use of the student services for emotional needs. Chances of you having a breakdown from the stress or going insane from homesickness or both are imminent.
9.Work hard and be earnest in your work, you will be rewarded(in a philosophical sense). Give a man a fish everyday and he will be a B.Tech, teach him to fish and he will be a masters.
10.Enjoy your time at Leeds.(with the above 9 points, are you kidding me??)

Archaeopteryx87 is back on the scene,treading the path of the masters with fresher and mintier breath to boot!

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Eggbert

He saw a thin beam of light.She saw the cracks in the shell. He saw his mother’s face. She christened him Eggbert. The youngest. His brothers and sisters all cheered excitedly, their voices blending as one. His mother smiled at him; he could see it in her eyes. Soon after he felt Hypnos summoning him and at once fell into a deep slumber.

He awoke to find worms being pushed into his beak. Eat she commanded, for you must keep your strength. The world does take kindly to weaklings dear Eggbert, she adds warmly and Eggbert dares not to disobey. His brothers and sisters are already fed and looking content,wandering about the limited space of their nest that their mother worked so hard to build. Indeed a labor of love. Eggbert looks around and discovers a human reading a letter in his room. He swings his arms triumphantly and lets out a cry that is muted by the sheer distance between them. Good tidings,muses Eggbert and takes a peck at his worm.

Two months pass by.

His brothers and sisters have all left the nest and taken to the azure skies. Leaving their fears and tribulations behind and with nothing but the thermals to guide them, they had sought the freedom of the skies and left their mother behind. Only Eggbert the youngest remains in the nest. His mother could use the company he argues. His mother thinks otherwise. The lord of the skies has given us these wings for a reason young Eggbert, she patiently explains. It is for your own good that you leave this place and take to the sky as your siblings did.

But Eggbert points out that the humans tend to their own for years. He has seen many children old enough, but still at their parents’ side. Surely there must be a reason for that he says, but his point does not hit home.

One day, Eggbert sits perched at the edge of his nest and observes the once jubilant human youth,weeping. Around him are packed cases. His parents are crying. A distant journey seemed imminent. But his thoughts were cut short,as he stumbled forward and fell from his nest. Stumbled? No. He was pushed. By mother dearest.

He plummets at an alarming speed, his mind unable to form coherent thoughts. Why mother? Why? How can you do this to your youngest? The one who wanted to be at your side always? Pushing back tears, he finally understood. It wasn’t easy for his mother either to see him parting ways. The boy’s mother was weeping, as was her son. Eggbert and the boy were no different, both had wings but couldn’t use them. Eggbert swallowed his tears and atlast understood his mother’s wishes. She wanted him to be happy. He flapped as hard as he could and found a warm themal and instinctively rode it back towards the open skies. He looked at his mother who smiled back at him with teary eyes. A final glance at the weeping child.

Find your wings young child and fly! thought Eggbert the egret as he soared into the heavens.

Archaeopteryx87 will be on hiatus till yours truly gets settled down at Leeds. Or until Vyaas whips up a good post from sunny L.A

So stay tuned. Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel!

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After Dark

Eyes open to greet pitch Black. It takes a moment for the boy called Lost to make of the situation. The back of his sheets are sticky with perspiration and there is an odd ringing in his ears despite the utter lack of sound. He hears his grandmother snoring away blissfully in the adjacent room, her inhalations and exhalations with a rhythm that matches that of a sine wave. Inhalation.Peak. Exhalation. Trough. The cycle repeats itself yet again, much like the Life of Brahma; where it starts and where it ends he has no clue.
It doesn't take him much time to put two and two together. A black out had occurred at some point in the night. As though to confirm his theory, the lone mosquito decides to buzz its greeting in his right year.
Shallow breaths. Panic. The dark had been his greatest nemesis since his childhood. He wondered how his grandparents waged the war against the darkness with such courage. His mind was occupied on the rats that would eat him alive from under his bed. Surely that was a squeak he just heard now wasn't it? It must have been the Mysore pak he had just before bed. And now they were after him. Keep calm, he instructs himself, although he does so just to hear the sound of his lone voice in the ominous darkness.

A thin gleam of light from the neighbours' house makes it way through the thin creak of the wooden window. Refuge, he thinks, and focuses his very being on the ray of light, draining every last bit of comfort it offers him. He stays still in the darkness hoping he isn't consumed by its chaos or that of his own mind.

Finally he feels a cool blow of air across his scorched face. He drinks in the light of the zero watt bulb as it powers on. He feels the weight of the darkness lifted off him and at last he drifts off into a dreamless slumber....
*********
The boy called Lost wakes up to greet the Darkness. Long time no see.. it whispers gleefully to him. The fever is making him hallucinate. He strains his ears to listen to the snoring and his eyes to find the stray ray of light. He hears nothing. He sees nothing. He stretches over and flashes the flashlight at the radium dial of his clock. Midnight. He wonders what time it is in his home land but his head is too woozy from the fever to do the math. He staggers across and makes his way to the kitchen and swallows two Advil with a glass of warm water. He returns back to the room. The Darkness observes that tears are flowing from his eyes.
Is it from the fever? The loneliness? Or that of the Dark itself?

Only the boy called Lost knows.

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Transit

The boy called Lost was seated at the international lounge at Heathrow, thumbing through the latest issue of Bleach, with the signature white Apple earphones snaking its way from his ears to the depths of his pockets. Letting out a sigh, Lost extracts the new iPod and gives it a lazy shake. With a cheerful blip, the song switches to "The Precipice of Defeat". Of all the songs, mumbles the 20 or so old boy and gives another shake;this time a tad more vigorously than intended. Neko Case starts crooning away. The boy returns to his copy of Bleach, although he cannot concentrate on the epic battle being waged.

Time feels insignificant, he muses. Centuries ago, wise men and women traversed the lands, taking aeons to arrive at their destination. Nowadays in a span of less than half a day,entire continents are covered. Absurd. Hours ago, he was at the airport of his native land,wrapped in a tight embrace with his family. Tears were flowing freely and promises of constant contact were made. Pinky promises. Yaksoku. And now here he is, in the UK and still only halfway there. Another few hours to his new home in the US, where he shall begin a new chapter. New clothes. New friends.New Home. He notices not the spunky youngster who plods next to him in the lounge.

Lost aren't you? he queries with a grin. Lost wonders if he has a case of sadism. The youngster waits for a reply. He doesn't get one. Lost rips off his earphones with the music still blaring away and looks at the red haired man with a less than happy look. Probably, he replies. Just as I thought!, he exclaims. I've been following you kid, you looked lost the moment you took the flight. You think that you can possibly leave everything you hold so close to your heart and start a new life in a new place? You can't do that kid, I can see right through you. You put up a straight face at the airport, but you are broken inside. Cracked, tending towards shattered in a mathematical sense. He tussles his blazing red hair with the gentlest of care. Letting his accusation sink in, to simmer and to ultimately boil over in a seething rage. Hoping Lost will take the bait, hook line and sinker. However he does not get his reward, his victim seems to be a calm stream albeit a deep one.

The red haired man with a fiery temperament to boot, loses interest in the game. He gets up from his seat and walks away, gently swinging his customs free shopping bag. Get thee behind me Satan, mumbles Lost quietly.
That's pretty rude of you brat. I gotta name you know. It's Despair. And believe you me, the pleasure is all mine,kid. He laughs as he walks away, his right hand clutching the bag and his left, smoothing his hair.

All alone again. The boy called Lost looks at his watch, still displaying his home time and feels the first twinge of sadness at long last. A hundred emotions seem to burst forth,as though the words of Despair acted as a sort of catalyst. Moist spots appeared on the page, where Ichigo showed off his Bankai. Tensa Zangetsu. A few minutes to go and he is to leave this land of limbo and continue on his way again.

At last he arrives at his destination. The united states. Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses. Not to mention your emotionally drained immigrants. He gets his hand baggage and troops behind the horde of people waiting to get off the plane. The air hostess with the blond hair beams her widest smile and wishes him a great time in the States. He nods.
A stray glance at her name tag.
Hope, it says.
A million doubts and vagaries present themselves to the boy called Lost.
Ah, but there is Hope, he tells himself as he returns her warm smile.

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Let me count the ways

My fingertips are poised just above the keyboard. A ton of things that are on my mind that demands in an urgency that I cannot describe, to be detailed and divulged. And I speak for my friends and myself that the last two months have been nothing short of turbulent. Emotionally.

And being a member of the male species of Homo sapien, I am expected to put up a strong front for preserving the dignity of my brethren, "Be a Man", and keep my emotions in check. But some times even the guys need emotional jettisoning. So here goes.

Most of my friends are leaving to the states by this week or the next. I myself will be leaving to Leeds mid-September. And one of my best friends is leaving in a few days.

Vyaas. You've been one of my best friends since school. A real bro. Words cannot describe the great times I had at your place, scrunched into your bean bag couch and flipping through your Spider-Man comic books. The long walks from Focus back to your place, the awesome conversations we had on the water tank on the roof, the temporary obsession with Tony Hawk, nailing that ollie on your old skateboard, the mad study sessions with Arind for the Boards(or AIEEE?) at my place and your roof, your Linux lectures hoping to open the eyes of a Windows fanboy..

Take a breath. Next plunge.

The great times at Fruit Shop(Lime mint cooler detester), your infectious inspiration on physics, your Feynman fetish(O'please forgive me!!!), Vishwam's farewell party, your never ending collection of quirky Youtube vids, the Safely-eject-hardware Rule, the way you make people laugh and always get the joke, for telling me that I was funny, for giving me a spot on this blog, your passion for football(or politically correct: soccer) and your dark cynic to match your bright witticism.

Next plunge. Third time's the charm.

Our common laments about our educational system, the great mourning of MJ over lunch at your place, that Demonoid invite that expired before I could use it, British Council books all over the place, teaching me the physics that I never could grasp at Focus, for always lending an ear and giving me a "Heh Heh, Sure, Maan.." when I needed it, for introducing me to Google Docs and Reader(I'm an addict now thanks to you! :-x).

And finally I want to thank you for believing in me and inspiring me even when at times I lost faith in myself.

I propose a toast.(Raises a glass of imaginary beer)
To Vyaas, the boy who Lived.(above Hot Breads)
To all the great times we had. (Downs beverage quickly, refills.)
To your continued success wherever Life takes you. (Slurred, but still somewhat coherent)
To new friendships made and old ones preserved (Bartender warns me I've had enough)
To my bro. (Dancing on the table with the lamp shade on his head)
Cheers.(Fucking hammered).

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Departure

Damn the power grid.
The backlight from my mp3 player illuminates the room just enough for me to make my routine observations. Brother is sound asleep.A log listening to Elton John. His earphones are securely plugged into his ears, blaring the chorus of Someday out of the blue, which I can barely make out through Dylan's shrieking harmonica emanating from mine, the two songs together sounding like discordant heavy metal. Isn't heavy metal discordant anyway?

Bob Dylan has so much to say about the world we live in. I think he's a genius because I can almost never understand his songs. But when I can, I hear the bells of epiphany. My very own Confucius, in mp3 format.

Would it be possible to fuck up my parents' sub-conscience by channeling a loop of Dylan's lyrics straight into their ears while they're asleep?

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

Rad.

I disentangle myself from the wire and my sacred thread. Sacred thread. Thats how neo-NRI-brahmins explain it to their sons. The sacred thread- bestowed upon you to make you a man; wise and able. More like the bane lassoed around your torso marking you out as the 21 year old vegetarian virgin.

I scramble for my cellphone when I feel it vibrate. Could it be her?

Its been 3 weeks since she left me bleeding from the heart break. A classic best friend falling in love blow-up. If there were a God, He's run out of ways to entertain himself. As I suffer from withdrawal, she has her arms wrapped around some block-headed pillar of testosterone. Fucking hilarious.

Could I ever fall in love again? Fuck it.

It's just phone spam. Fucktards.

I get off my sweaty back. We must be on low voltage again. Fan looks like its pushing against some sort of dense ether. I lower my head to see if my brother is comfortable. I take his blanket off. I love my brother."The Americans rule the world. Our lives are irrelevant. I wish to die.", he whispers to his imaginary friends Jimbo and Panzz when no ones looking. Delusional views. Surreal aspirations. These are the most important formative years of his life. And I'm going to miss them. He'll cope. In time. I hope.

I walk over to the bathroom instinctively. I check to see if the lights in this phase are working. They are. I could drop my pants and give me fifty. But thats just beyond boring these days. I've nailed every celebrity chick in every possible position in every possible micro-gravity environment. I take a closer look at my face in the mirror. Pulling my hair back reveals a couple of zits, an ever receding hairline and my birth mark defect. Fucking black spot. Lightning shaped scars are way cooler.

I decide I'm going to read Feynman and sprinkle some water on my face. The corridor leading to the hall isn't lit.Reminds me of the future. I wait to hear my dad's snores to make sure he's asleep. Not that I'm scared he'll catch me reading physics at this obscene hour. Somehow, his presence brings out the worst in me. I fear the man.

Back when I was going to school, my father was something of an idol to me. Perfection. But over the last 4 years, I've noticed more than cracks in his armor. I don't know if I've grown up or he's going senile. For him, practicality is the approval of God, passion is over-indulgence and average is dumbass. He is a very responsible man, in that he takes care of us. Protects us. But protecting your kids is different from bringing them up.

I enter my chamber of eternal happiness. My study. Lit only by various LEDs- Red, green and blue. Enough to start a circus for Liliputians. Router's lights flickering like crazy. I must be having a good number of seeds.

99% of Frasier season 6 completed. The bungling,lovelorn, morally upright, revered radio psychiatrist always finds himself in an ethical pickle. His principles always end up biting him in the balls. He never learns. Makes good television. It lasted 11 seasons.

My laptop makes a whirring squeaking sound. The hub of it's cooling fan was permanently dislodged when yours truly was playing mad scientist. I need to get a new one. I'll get one in L.A.

Facebook is full of mindless shit. Status messages are either allusions to some insignificant event I never witnessed, or some current feeling thats gone trite with typing, or some quotation or lyric that preaches anything from world peace to fuck everyone. The best way to deal with the entropy is to contribute to it. As usual, no one has anything interesting to say. She always did. But I liked her.

Feynman's lectures volume 2 lies open in front of me, it's pages flipping back and forth, showing me a glimpse of my prospective career in fluid dynamics. Differential equations describe life in real time. It's enigma lies in it's simplicity; not in solving them, but in understanding them. The Existence and Uniqueness theorem is the most beautiful statement in all of calculus. It states that if you know how a phenomenon starts, i.e it's initial conditions, the outcome of that phenomenon is unique to those initial conditions. I often draw parallels with life from such principles. Ofcourse my life would have been different had I enrolled at a different school. But the certainty of the outcome is nullified by countless factors. What if we could infact come up with a differential equation for life, completely deterministic? Perhaps there is;one that needs a language far superior to mathematics to explain it.I love science too much to practice it. I hope to teach someday. But maybe I'll need to run a family and will need a better paying job. Or maybe I'll just die a lonely man. Fuck it.

I don't feel like reading any physics now. I open up my browser again blankly. I let my fingers think for me when I type in youtube.com and search Zidane. Zidane is poetry in motion. I watch videos of him again and again, hoping to spot a flaw in his 360, a moment of indecision in his passing. I try and play like him and thats made me a tad authoritative on the field. I've become a victim of his perfection. Perhaps it would be a lot easier if everyone shared the same level of footballitis. I wouldn't get so frustrated all the time. Know whats worse than an ankle sprain? An ankle sprain and a headache.

It's 3 a.m. I need something to ponder about. I'll watch some T.V. until something provoking presents itself. I change channels faster than grandma homing in on her soap. I stop at Brad Pitt. He's saying something to George Clooney. I'm still too groggy to make out what they're saying. But I know the movie. Infact, I had a similar idea a long time ago about a smorgasbord of unemployed Indians who successfully rob Tirupati's Tirumala Devastanam. That place should easily make a crore of rupees a day, feeding off the faith of rabid devotees. It definitely has lesser security than the Belagio. Or does it? Could they be forwarding the money to acquire government classified weaponry? Religion always seemed a scam. Head hurts.

I switch off the T.V and head outside. My rooftop is my thinking sanctuary. My most profound questions have been answered upstairs. Somehow, the vastness of the nightsky catapults my thinking to farther horizons.

Nothing arouses my curiosity more than human psychology. Why do we behave the way we do? Why do we do things that are sure to lead us to misery? Why do we give our kids such idiotic advice? Why do we fuck women and feel guilty about it?

I climb up the water tank and inhale the moist Chennai air like a crack head. This is my crack. This is where I always felt I belonged. Never will I find such a group of friends. I've grown up with the guys. Could I possibly smuggle Avi into the U.S? He's pretty small.

I watch a slideshow of my life before me, framed on the clouds, the chilling wind the background score. Friends, college, football. My mom. I'm sure no one loves me more than my mom. She's going to be broken the day I leave. I'm leaving on her birthday. What a terrible son I've been. Fuck. Am I crying? Fuck.

What will I come back as? Should I care about that now? Deep down, I know this is the last chapter. My dependence on my parents will slowly fizzle away. I don't know my relatives well for me to say anything in family functions. My family and I part ways at this point. Indian families have a tradition of sticking together. Unlike Americans who feel embarrassed to live with their parents, here in India, sons take pride in letting everyone know they can fend for a couple more people. Parents take care of us for the first half, we take care of them for the other. This doesn't apply to daughters however, which exposes the male overhandedness in the practice. Busted.

I turn on my mp3 player and play BB King. I stare at the full moon listening to Thrill Is Gone, the masterful cadenza reminding me of the good things in life. I see her one last time, smiling at me. I close my eyes. Kids' stuff.

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Hidden Sun,Clouded Thoughts

I am an atheist with utmost respect to the rest of the God fearing folk out there reading this. Most theists might brand me as a lost cause or give me the more sympathetic and condescending "He'll realize Him one day". Dream on you people,it ain't happening. Others try to give me reasons to believe in His existence( I always wonder why the monotheistic believers never had a woman's Lib meeting on this).
The presence of complex organisms. Evolution, I say.
Origin of the Universe. Big Bang and the theory of eternal regression,I retort.
Intelligent lifeforms and diversity. A few million years is a speck with respect to the age of the Universe. Give a few more and I'm sure we'll sprout wings and jump from building to building.(Swats away angel believers and Spider-man fans)

Most lose interest at this point but some persist. The solar eclipse! they exclaim with a joy so profound you might think they won the national lottery. The moon is many times smaller than the sun and it is at a distance such that it blocks out the light of our gaseous fireball for a few minutes. Day turns to perpetual night, as the Sun is plundered of its light by the Moon. The stars peer out. The moment of truth. Complete darkness. Slowly the light permeates from the edges creating a spectacular sight that resembles a cosmic engagement ring. And the Moon retreats from the Sun's path after claiming its brief victory over the Sun, plotting its next celestial attack on the fireball in the near future. There! they say triumphantly. Such magnificence must certainly indicate the existence of a mighty creator with an eye for detail and beauty.

Co-incidence my friends. A simple mathematical co-incidence. The Sun measures 1.4 million km across, while the Moon is a mere 3,474 km across. In other words, the Sun is roughly 400 times larger than the Moon. But the Sun also happens to be 400 times further away than the Moon, and this has created an amazing coincidence. The moon is pulling away from the Earth at a constant rate every year. Meaning that in a few hundred thousand years, full solar eclipses will be a thing of the past.

While the theists try to counter this shocking turn of events, lets move on.
A number of superstitions concerning eclipses are going around and it's getting more and more retar... I mean ridiculous.
Temples are cleansed before rituals are performed. The light from the eclipse is evil and the idols could be contaminated!!!(Insert Frankensteinan laughter here)
Banks won't issue loans: The loan may not be sanctioned and the money may be cursed.
Pregnant women are in danger and may bleed excessively. A slap to every respectable neo-natal care expert out there.
Astrologers predict tsunamis and floods and basically Armageddon during an eclipse. These people soldier on under this deluded pseudo-science and actually consider the sun and moon as planets. You still want to believe these guys? Always search for the truth in fact; never in superstition and voodoo.


As for Armageddon: Either I'm still here or Heaven has a really good internet connection.^_^

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