About destiny...

Often we get a chance to turn our lives around.
We get asked a question and our answer holds the key to us accepting or rejecting the change.
Now people think that there are just two answers you can give: Yes/No. But they are wrong. They are thinking in binary. There is an entire unexplored universe of answers between Yes and No.
These answers we dont just communicate through our speech. These are communicated using all six senses.

Couple of days ago (on Monday to be exact) someone from India called me up to ask me a question. That one answer had the power to change my life completely. To turn it up side down or right side up (depending on your point of view!). It would have taken away years of anguish and depression. It would have made a new man of me. I would have seen the world in a totally different life.

But desert winds dont encourage the blooming of flowers.
Or maybe heart is a desert where I will not allow flowers to bloom.

Thus I answered as honestly as I could. The feeling of loss will never leave me and I shall forever remember the day I turned my back on the garden of eden to walk into the lonely desert.

The Seeker

The Seeker ... an unfinished poem by me :)

The earth will shake,
the skies will darken,
When I walk the roads,
all shall fall to ruin.

Hear me come,
hear me tear the world apart,
I travel through the night,
I come to claim your heart.

The mighty shall fall,
the weak shall rise,
The Seeker shall seek,
what the Others desire.

Through wind and rain,
with rage and an iron will,
wearing the cloak of loneliness,
He shall claim heath and hill.

When the terrors of his heart,
own the night road
and his deep desires
rule all that is good.

None shall stand in his way,
when he curses them away,
like a fury from hell,
He roars down the lonely way.

Dreams about school..

Another wet and cold sunday morning here in Bristol UK. I just got up for a cricket match. But my sleep was not untroubled. I had this strange dream.
I had been missing school for the last four months and I was wondering how I would go back. I was trying to think up an excuse for my absence. I had been off for more than three months and I was nervous as to what would happen when I return.
Strange as it sounds we all have nightmares about school. Why is that the case? Why this common fear of school?
I believe that formal education for some people can mean the killing of something which God has given them. I am talking about instinct and the ability to free-think (or think freely).
The problem is that as the modern society gets more materialistic people are having to work harder to earn more money. This means that sometimes they are spending less time with their kids. To educate their children there is need for an assembly line system of learning as provided for in a school.
In India the system takes a strange approach to educating a child. First we systematically take away any kind of individuality from a child. We do this by having an almost uniform education system for the first ten years in school. Thus this first stage is the stage of uniformization. The randomness is reduced in the population of kids and they are made to converge to the common target of the 10th Class board exams. Once the kids have proved (or failed to prove) themselves on this common platform they are allowed to 'diverge' into three different classes: Sciences/Commerce/Social Sciences.
The schools in New Delhi surprisingly discourage brilliance in Social Sciences and encourage it in Sciences. They do this by ensuring that the marks required for getting Sceince are the highest followed by those for Commerce and then finally comes the 'Social Sciences'.
Students who get great marks are 'encouraged' to take sceince. Science (at least when I was in school) was considered to be the elite subject and the Social Sciences classes were populated by the failures and the rejects.
It is also strange that for a country of one billion we give least importance to social sciences.

Arti says:
seems u miss teasing me lots
INDIA WINS!!!!!!!!!!!! says:
its easier for me to tease than love
Arti says:
u are WEIRD!!
INDIA WINS!!!!!!!!!!!! says:
thanks!

It is indeed easier for me to tease than love. :)

Let the sparks fly! Diwali '05 

Vapour trails from a rocket.. Bhuvans backyard.. 

Me and Johnson... Diwali '05 

Waiting for the rocket to go off... 

Me on Diwali day 2005 

A land of million saints...

That is what I think India is.
Changes are often bought about here after lives have been sacrificed. Progress is purchased with blood of innocents.
Three incidents which highlight this fact are:
1) Uphaar Cinema fire in New Delhi (June 1997) in which over 50 people (mostly families with children) died.
2) A school bus full of children plunged into the Yamuna (November 1997) killing 28 children.
3) The earthquake which rocked Gujarat (January 2001) killed more people than it should have because most buildings were made outside building regulations.
After the Uphaar incident the Munciple Corporation of Delhi (MCD) cracked the whip on defaulting cinemas. Many cinema halls across Delhi were closed because they did not have adquate fire saftey measures in place. Similarly after the bus incident it dawned on the Delhi Govenment that they should probably have some kind saftey regulations (and enforce them!) for school buses.

In India rules and regulations always get made after people have lost their lives. Thus it is logical to suggest that the people, who have given the ultimate sacrifice so that our city becomes safer, should be given sainthood.
I dont know if this total disregard for human life is unique to India. But it surely drives all progress in India.

Looming buildings at QC, Cambridge... this is some of the old student accomodation! 

Queens' College, Cambridge 

'Never feel that way'

The flames of yesterday burn long and hard.

Recently I was in Cambridge (as can be seen from the pictures). It is a lovely old town. When I was there it felt as if I was no longer in England. No Tesco at every corner. No huge super-stores. No empty lots growing weed. No run down houses.

It was all so sophisticated and posh. I almost felt out of place. And as a joke when I said to my supervisor that 'I feel inferior here' he turned around to me and told me 'Never feel that way'.
That single sentence was enough to set fire to my brain and inspire me more than anything else!

Sometimes some very simple things can inspire us to achieve great things.

"When you never look back to see the light of tomorrow"
"It is time for you to reflect and loose control"

"Carpe Diem!"

-Unknown

The Mathematical Bridge, Queens College, Cambridge. 

The play of darkness and light... education VS instinct. 

Stained glass windows in Queens' College, Cambridge. 

Queens' College, Cambridge. Near the Old Combination Room. 

Women and Kamimazee

rere25: most women dont know what they want in life until they are at least 25 or older
rere25: the younger ones are sometimes scatter brained

XY: i dont think women EVER know what they want in life... till they get a kid
XY: then they r more focussed than a kamikazee

Lord of the Ring!

Yesterday I saw the M57 'Ring' Nebula from my telescope. The first real deep sky object I have managed to see with it. I have a 130mm Newtonian reflector telescope.
Image taken from: http://home-3.worldonline.nl/~ppsmeets/Deep%20sky/Messier%20nummers/M57.html