HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

The time never does stop in its relentless race against itself. Never tiring, ever lasting. Another one of its leaves gets plucked off its tree; and a new leaf grows in its place.
As the clock strikes twelve tonight;a cliche so overused; an end has ended and a beginning has begun.
In the ashes of the time gone, sadly my sense of raw nature got both lost and regained. A part of my soul got entangled in the vines of worldly idiocy. A part of me got dragged in the tempestuous flows of the very time I am writing about. However, Fortune's a great mate, for time saw me better off as the old me and now my eyes have opened, seeing what I did not for so long.
Seeped in the fluidity of time, ties holding back my wings have broken and now I soar... The sky and beyond, fearless and basking in front of the millions of them, honeyed suns. A new year to experiment with replaces a good year gone. Not even a tear to bade goodbye to what is gone, just tinkling laughter welcoming the new.
New seconds wash by; or maybe, just maybe it is just the old ones coming back- giving us a chance to relive those. An endless cycle of getting it right...
Suppose it all ends when we finally get it all in place, when finally the stars we love lines up...
And till then, it is all a pursuit of doing just that... And here is one more of those, time's jokes.
Time playing that cosmic joke; going back in time and coming back to now, a perpetual cycle of movement between here and now; and in that one cosmic heavenly second, it is all over... Till then it is a journey, an adventure, trying to find out what we should be getting right, exactly, and if we do find what that is, trying to figure out how to do that. Wow. Imagine the hard work...
Well then, Happy journey through 2010, in other words, Happy New Year.

a train of thought

Energy, mass, matter, momentum, charge… they are just a few elementary quantities from the lexicon of physics. So different if you take their worldly meanings, but so similar if you consider them as something beyond their usual concepts. They are all physical quantities that can be measured and in this world, they always thrive as “the always conserved” quantities. Their amounts in the whole universe remain conserved. A constant throughout eternity, just static and stagnant-stuff that never change… but I’d always thought that everything changes. After all, nothing is permanent and plausible but change; right?
My physics sir once said-these concepts take you nearer to the ultimate, the supreme; what some would call God. Imagine, science, which usually shows the big finger at religion, actually takes you nearer to God. But I love the idea. Through science, towards God.
When people began dividing things, they reached to the atom, which they considered the indivisible, non-creatable, and indestructible. But then as a blow to Man’s pride, came the neutrons, protons and the electrons. But then came the gluons, quarks and all the other divisions of the atom. Now the electrons have been promoted to the position where the atom once was long back. Maybe one day, they will be demoted and another particle will take their place. The fact that such a big universe has such tiny specks of particles which cannot even be predicted is itself a big ultimate truth and the mysteriously gnawing pain is that we going farther and farther away from the truth by reaching nearer and nearer to the basics. Just as we feel we’ve reached our goal, some new discovery is made which demolishes all our previous beliefs and we somehow end up in square one. But then Man is as curious as a cat, so we keep trying and thinking and finding. Maybe one day, we will get to it, get it right…
Maybe, science is the pathway to the superior...

SUCH A BOHR!!! (TO BOHR OR NOT TO BOHR)

(To all those hard-core Chemistry-loving people, read at your own risk. Please do not take it to your hearts. I’ve nothing against Chemistry as such. Just that, I loved the heading so much, I’d to write something under it.)

Have you ever sat in a Chemistry class? Of course, what kind of a question is that, right? Ever wondered why we are learning things that are not, in reality, quite right? As to why theories which have demerits or those which have been proven wrong ages ago are taught to us, and we like puppies learn them by rote? So many equations making rounds in our minds, i.e. till the exact moment the exam starts. When the exam begins, the whole of mole concept, quantum theory and mechanics and over a dozen other rules and theories go vamoose…evaporate into thin air. The only equation in chemistry I agree with is,

Electrons revolving around the nucleus = Stars revolving around my head.

The proof is for all of you to experience. Sit in any Chemistry class with the section dealing with quantum mechanics or any other section. I can guarantee that you will see stars revolving around your head with a similar motion of electrons around the nucleus in the Bohr model of atom.

What do you say about that? Being a Chemistry loving person, I love knowing things as well as learning Chemistry as long as you don’t have anything to learn by heart. When I was a small kid, when anyone said Chemistry, the idea I got was all about 2 test tubes and inter-changing/inter-mixing their contents and there occurs a blast. But here I am in 11^th and what do I come to know… there’s no mixing-matching, no explosion, just learning about this Bohr guy and that Rutherford guy. So sad, man!

To me, all these Bohr-Rutherford-Dalton and a few Heisenberg-Schrödinger guys are the same…proving this, disproving that! What’s the ultimate result? We, poor, poor students have to learn all their mistakes, misjudgments and miscalculations. And here’s another Chemistry equation I believe in,

Dalton + Rutherford + Schrödinger + …+ (whoever made the newest finding in Chem.) =

Cranky students with splitting headaches who turn into grouchy adults.

That’s my goodbye present for you people…happy at last, eh, you ungrateful wretches??? Me too, for I don’t have to make you read my high-standard articles again as I understand they are too high for your low-down brains to digest. But I feel you should be grateful that I have said what you feel, anyway,

Thank you…

PS: - (Don’t you dare not read this…it is a Post Script, for god’s sakes!!!)

No electron or atom or scientist has been harmed during the making of this article. Only this paper and the author’s keyboard have endured a few damages, not serious as such. All ideas, views and conclusions are purely a work of genius and this work is not to be supposed to be a work of a lunatic. The consequences would be dangerous since anyone doing so will be arrested and/or fined under Self-Proclaimed Genius Act 2006.

Thanking you for your co-operation,

Yours scientifically,

A self-proclaimed Genius.

CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BATHROOM SINGER

Well, I had just sent an article of mine to the Woman's Era. And guess what? It got published... I am just putting it on the blog for those people who wouldn't be getting the issue in hand... lol!

Confessions of a Teenage Bathroom Singer
(Confessions as in confessions of my dreams, and not as in confessions of any thing, good or bad done by me, which are next to naught, zip, nil, etc.)

I am the greatest ‘Bathroom Singer’ of all times…you wanna know why? One day, as usual, I was having my bath, and naturally I was singing. Turned out that my singing was so loud that even my neighbors could hear it. At that time they had a guest, a music director by fluke, who loved my song. He came over and signed me for one of his forthcoming films. My joy knew no bounds…as if!!!
The real thing is that my bathroom is cluttered with stones, sticks, chappals, shoes and even one of a pair of beautiful new high heeled shoes and you goddit, I am waiting for the other shoe, for not only am I a bathroom singer, I am also the world’s stingiest person alive (of course, next only to the Guinness record-holder…even I don’t collect soap chippings and create a new soap.). Let’s face it; I don’t waste my money on things I can get for free. My singing has led to our colony winning ‘The Noisiest Colony’ Award… but do they give me credit? Uh-uh…no way and they say I am the stingy person here!!! Tightfisted colony!!! Really, my neighbors have pleaded, begged mercy, prayers, fought, showed fists, then given up and, guess what, finally joined the cult of BSA!!!
Have you not heard of BSA, not the bike folks--more like, Bathroom Singers Association—more like Bathroom Singers Affrayoonion! Well! I am its President…my bad luck! And tomorrow I am gonna resign from the “Prestigious Post of Presidentship”, i.e. PPP. With that, I am free like a bird. As if! (I luv saying those words, man!!!)
Actually, I am the President of the teenage wing of our dear old BSA, and did you know that this “Celebrated and Deemed Organization” gets the “Best Debating Team” Award too…as I said insiders call it the AFFRAYoonion. The Presidentship is a highly sought-after and lucrative post…yes, you do get paid! Our aim is ‘the betterment of human beings, but primarily that of the bathroom singers from all the nook and cranny of this earth’. And my ambition, as an up and coming ‘Restroom musicist’ (our other word for the same), is to become one of the greatest and to conquer the earth with my power of making music in the restroom, plus to earn the fresh wads and rolls of those sweet-smelling, crisp and papered greens…you know what I mean!
Anyways, I am not just a Bathroom Singer. I am also a Thinker, more of a Big Potty Thinker…I know-it’s gross, but when I do Big Potty Thinking, I get great ideas like that of the telescope… Hans Lippershey and Galileo … really great people, talented too. So talented that they took off with my idea many years before I was born!!!
Anyways, the BSA legacy has deteriorated due to the world’s mammoth water problem and this led to world’s careful use of water and a reduced amount of shower time. This meant a significant drop in our activity. So to all of you who are reading this terribly written, but (!!!I hope!!!) informative piece, that you try and uphold this legacy of using the greatest instrument God has given you, your mouth. Sing a ding in the bath as if it’s your last. God has given you a mouth for a purpose. If you are ashamed of it in public, God has given you the even more valuable gift—the Bathroom. So enjoy…
PS- For a membership in the BSA, contact 190-4425-BATH-01…
Signing off,
Yours faithfully,

The BSA youth-wing President.

Exams....Listen 2 me crib :-

Right in the middle of the exams and I am here writing this blog. sad situation. and to say my marks are going down would be an understatement.
Finished 3 of my exams-chemistry, computer and math. Chemistry was actually better than i expected; computer was good, but my god i make the silliest of all mistakes--just kick me and as for math it was like being in a whirlpool. saw the 1st question, ran to the back of the question paper. saw those questions and just had to keep turning the pages to get a question which i knew or at least had seen before. at last the mission was accomplished. when i came out of the exam hall, i could say that i'd done the exam well. at least i wont flunk.
Tomorrow, its english. therefore its time for me to sit back and relax not that you'll ever get marks in this. at least you dont have to worry cos worrying will never help. Went through the thw lessons and all, but its all luck based tomorrow, and of course the ma'am's mood when she's correcting our papers.
The last exam is physics. that remins me... i've to go and learn that now itself. so see ya. will crib later!! take care till next time! ummmmmaaaaaa.

my pilgrimage

Here's a poem i wrote. it was for a competition at school... hope u like it!!!

My pilgrimage…
It wasn’t to Mecca or Medina;
It wasn’t to Varanasi,
Nor was it to the Vatican.

It was going back home
To my Amma, to my family;
Going back to India,
To the place I still consider home.

Staying away for years
From the native soil,
From my Amma’s soulful love,
So divine and holy and only for me.

In the flight back home,
My memories overtook me…
Took me to the past, to where I grew;
To the colors, fields, dances and lullabies.

Incomplete was I…
For so many years I was away…
Amiss was Amma’s curries, spankings, cajolings and nagging;
And Appa’s thrashings and bashings and the teeming yet hidden love.

The endless 2 hours had now ended;
The pilot announced the arrival of India…
I, a pilgrim, spiritually yet selfishly,
Had reached the place that created me.

I got down—on thick concrete grounds.
What would I have not done for the moist native soil??
Not disheartened, I took the taxi to my village.
I saw going apast me many years of change…

I soon saw my house before me, unchanged.
Thankful was I for the time’s patient wait.
Outside stood Amma, to usher me in,
Telling me that I’d grown ill and thin.

Appa and Amma hugged me tight;
Tears welled down my cheeks.
I’d reached my destination.
Isn’t my pilgrimage a pilgrimage in itself too?

My pilgrimage…
It wasn’t to any spiritual centre…
It was to my parents, to what created me.
It was to the place that completes me.

MUSES

MUSES

I looked up at the night sky… the breath-taking view of the stars… the huge moon—beautiful with its starry backdrop.

The night is my best friend, for now. With its silence engulfing me, my mind becomes free.

It has been long since I used my pen, since I wrote anything. But today, all I want to do is feel my pen on the paper, the ink seeping into the paper for all the tonnes of blood and sweat drained out of me over the years.

Sitting in my garden right now, under the night sky, as I put my thoughts onto paper, I see ants scurry past—a few trudging up my wrinkly old legs only to be pushed down. One lucky ant scurries past my pen. The darkness somewhat gets dissolved by my dearest little stars.

Clinging onto my beliefs, I still those stars to be my friends—long gone—looking down onto me.

As I look up, I see the old oil lamp flicker at a distance. It’d been a gift from my mother-in-law, a family heirloom, it seems. Customary as it is, I’d lit it as the sun had gone down. The oil would get over any moment now and I’d have to go take the lamp inside.

I see my granddaughter, Aditi; play with her mobile phone. I’ve never understood the intricacies of this piece of metallic plate, but you wouldn’t fine me complaining. This girl, she does all sorts of things with it. God knows what she does. The extent to which things have changed. It’s just that all this makes me feel older than my age—ancient antiquity, I suppose. A person I respect a lot once told me, this is generation gap, dear. Children can’t wait for and parents can’t keep up… and then grandparents just don’t exist…

When I was young, about 10 or so, I’d been to school. All because of Acchan, who raised me and my sister just as if we were kids and not a bad omen as people considered girls then. Lot has changed now. Anyway, this meant we were sent to an all-boys’ school. It wasn’t really an all boys’ school. Not now anyway. Just that, till then not many girls were sent to school. We were literally invisible in the sea of rowdy boys, big, small, fat, skinny, seniors, juniors… okay, maybe I’m going too far. They were not all rowdies. One of my seniors happened to grow up to be my husband. Ha-ha!

Anyway duty-bound to Acchan, we did learn. We put our heart and soul into it, but only for 5 years, because Amma wanted us to get married as we had reached the age, she said. By that time, we’d learnt enough to read and write. I wrote. My pen was my treasure. My mind, my thoughts, all spoke through my pen rather than my mouth. Reading and writing had become a passion, not a passing phase. However, marriage changed it all. Married to Ettan. And who had any time for reading and writing in between the cooking for a throng of people in the then-joint family? A pen or a book was just seen in my dreams. Not that I missed them very much. There was so much to do. Just seeing the satisfied looks after a good meal was a great reward. Looking after my family hadn’t meant that I was their slave. I loved them and had fulfillment and contentment in doing just that too. Marriage had begun a journey of mine—unending one. Just like these ants, trudging up, but never actually reaching anywhere… for where was there to go???

A shrill noise shattered the velvety silence, the calm of the night… and of course, the stream of thoughts. That’s Aditi’s, I mean, Ady’s rock-punk music or whatever she calls it. What do teenagers’ get by shredding their beautiful meaningful names into such words… and rock punk music??? Ah! music! Music was what Acchan used to sing at sunrise and what Amma used to make with the veena. What do these youngsters of today know about music! Music is not about breaking nerves; it’s about soothing them.

I’m feeling so distant from everyone in the house. In the humdrum of office and school, both my daughter, Suhasini and my Aditi were never to be seen. They were almost lost to me. The only time we got to see and talk and have fun with each other is during the filling up of our stomachs. I love those certain family times. My son in law, Bhaskar… They were happy, you see. My Suha and Bhaskar. And Aditi stands testimony to that fact. But I can’t help wishing for the times before, when we had evenings to spend together. Our whole family of aunts, uncles, everyone… at the time of dusk… Drinking hot cups of coffee or tea at times. Steamy hot coffee in the chill of the evenings. Aah….

Just the thoughts of an old woman—who cares about her! Just then, surprised I was to feel something on my back. My Aditi had just come near me and covered me with a warm blanket—to protect me from the cold, she said. I felt warm inside. No, not the blanket; it was love. A young innocent heart still worries about an old wretch like me… May God bless the kid!

There’s still love. Maybe it’s just that the way it’s shown is different. My Suha makes the best ginger tea for me, everyday after she comes from work, how much ever tired she is. Does she listen to me when I tell her to rest! No! Aditi, she does such tiny, tiny things that touch my heart ever so much. Bhaskar had passed away. Suha never did re-marry. My stubborn streak is recited in her, I suppose. She’d said she had loved Bhaskar so much that she could never imagine anyone else in his place. She said she could never imagine Aditi calling anyone else father. Well, I never forced her to, for I was too old for that. Thank god, for her job. It was a huge relief. She had become an independent woman. She touched me by saying she wanted me to help her look after Aditi. That made me feel I wasn’t a reject, that I wasn’t a dependent person. I got to bring Aditi up, love her, see her grow up to a frisky adolescent, help my daughter take care of this lovely home and be there for them. I feel as if I wasn’t just furniture for decoration; I gave back as much as I took. At least they made me feel so.

I’ve felt lost in old age, so many times, and she’s always rescued me back. Today, my birthday, she, Suha gave me a beautiful fountain pen. My eyes stung with tears. That was the best present anyone had ever given me and that was the best moment in my life. I don’t have anything to complain about… Now, with my pen back in my hand, I feel as f I’ve reached somewhere—even if it is just the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning… but at least, old age, so dreaded wasn’t so bad, after all. After all, I was happy…