'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

I Love the cold and the rain...

Rainy day on an October Wednesday.

India Reborn

"The civil works for the Bandra Effluent & Influent Treatment Plant, Mumbai is almost on the verge of completion. This will be the largest pumping station in the world in terms of capacity and discharge. The project is being funded by World Bank. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation are the clients for this project."

Taken from the HCC India website.

The White Dance of Death...

As the Frost Princess spreads her icy fingers over the land I come alive.
It is winter where I achieve the most.
It is winter during which I live the most.
The season of the dead is the time I live the most.
Walking in a dead land I dream the most.

As the White Dance of Death speeds up I laugh the most.
As the bitter wind cuts through the bone my heart warms the most.
As the nights become long I stay awake the most.

- by Azahar Machwe

Concept of Reality

Everyday we see so many things that, even though small, get us thinking.
Simple things like looking at the stars on a clear night can sometimes fill us with
a deep sense of joy and at the same time that of loneliness. Joy because we know that
our reality is just a very small part of the reality of the universe. If we someday
do manage to escape the confines of earth there are so many worlds to explore and
so many realities to experience. The loneliness we feel because we may never
actually leave this planet in large enough numbers since the human species is very
good at destroying itself.

The goals of our species as a whole are highly divergent.
Everyone lives their own private lives and the society itself is highly stratified. With so many
divergent paths and stratified flow of lives most of our energy gets wasted as friction.
The friction between different people and their lives. How are we to progress if
friction takes away all the energy?

I believe everyone should read the Rama series of books by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee.
Maybe it will open our minds.

The bounds of science?

Today I was watching a hindi horror movie (named 'Raat' meaning Night). In the end when people start asking how and why questions (with respect to the supernatural) the priest (who helps to get rid of the 'evil force') gives a very impressive answer.
He gives the example of how when we light a lamp in a dark room the darkness doesnt dissappear, its boundries are just thrown back a bit. Similarly what we know (with respect to science, logic etc.) is like a narrow area of light in an infinite black sea of what is unknown. What things lie just beyond the circle of light who knows? How these things affect us, we have absolutely no idea!

People will argue that science will one day explain everything. That one day will not come in our lifetime, maybe not even in our grandchildren's lifetime. But assuming that one special day does come when everything is explained in a balanced equation, the big question then is: will we like the explanations provided. What if the truth turns out to be stranger than fiction? Quantum mechanics already has many such tales which are much more entertaining than any gossip. The way we lay down the rules is not always the way the game is played! Thus what happens when we know THE TRUTH. Will we accept it or will we call it a lie or a mistake and move on in our search?

Most people would counter me by saying that ifTHE TRUTH is a scientific work then it would be testable. Thus the choice of accepting or rejecting is purely cosmetic. If tests prove something to be right then whatever it stands for must be right to. I would ask the people who raise this issue a simple question: How do you test the unknown i.e. how do you analyse something when it changes when you attempt to scan it (Heisenberg's Uncertainity Principle).

Maybe the truth has already been given to us but we choose to ignore it for something that (atleast on the surface) appears to be more 'testable'. Wouldn't it be tragic if 100 years down the line we realise that the 100 year research effort could have been spared ifwe had just reached back into history and tapped the knowledge of the ancients. If we had just started understanding how minds free from the daily assault of TV, radio and the iPod actually worked!
If we had just tried to learn what people already knew after years of dedicated searching (and not just 3 years of post-graduate re-search!).

Whatever happens, whether the darkness is pushed aside or the light of our 'society and science' goes out forever one thing is for sure, that THE TRUTH will most certainly be stranger than fiction and some people will always wonder: what does the darkness hold for us beyond the light?

Azahar Machwe
Bristol 1st October '05

Conversations with the Blossom...

honey_blossom0: wah
XY: in ur wedding u gonna be walking down in ur virgin whites with a switch blade strapped to ur thigh and a 9mm in hip holster
honey_blossom0: lol
honey_blossom0: nah
honey_blossom0: that day is special
XY: ok so u gonna finally bringout that Stinger launcher
XY:
honey_blossom0: lol
honey_blossom0: shut up
honey_blossom0: that day is special
XY: oh.. damn
XY: that M1A1 tank is gonna rip up those cute trini roads
XY: cant u just use a limo
XY: like normal ppl
honey_blossom0: lol
honey_blossom0: u got a sick sense of imagination
honey_blossom0: lol
honey_blossom0: nice
XY: thanks
XY: i love u for saying that

Choices...

You have two choices in life:

1) You can stay single and be miserable or -
2) Get married and wish you were dead...

Girls are weird.. but...

Girls are weird.. but
if u do manage to figure them out then they are worth holding on to, like that expensive DVD recorder u bought.. and took the time to learn ALL the advance features.

A JOKE
Minister conducting wedding ceremony : "if anyone knows of any just cause or impediment why these two should not be married ,speak now , or forever hold your peace "
Tremulous voice raises an objection.
Minister : " Sorry ,you cannot object - you are the groom "

Radio Ga Ga

Today I got up in the morning and started doing some work. I had put on some music in the media player. After some time I realised that Radio Ga Ga was playing.
It gave me such a feeling of pain and loneliness about the days gone by that I cant even begin to describe it.
I do remember one thing though. It is clear as crystal and will forever remain so. The winter of 1995-96. I had my Xth class board exams in March 1996. So the whole of winter was spent at home. The deal with the exams is that your academic year in Xth class goes from April-December, instead of the usual April-March. So in Xth basically you get to sit at home from just before Christmas till the exams in March next year. In between you have to pop into school now and then to give your pre-board exams, lab practicals and other stupid stuff.
Thus I got to sit at home and do absolutely everything (except study ofcourse) during my favourite season of the year (winter).
That winter was dominated by RADIO. I had gotten a Phillips portable radio some time before. The funny thing was that there used to be just one FM radio channel in Delhi at that time. This was the All India Radio 24 Hour FM radio service (launched on 14th Feb. 1995). It used to run at 102.6 MHz. So it was the only source of entertainment during those long and lonely winter nights. I did not have a CD player then and did not really know anything about music except that I liked it. In 1995 I had discovered Stephen King and I was going through his books one by one like termites through wood. It was the second most fascinating winter of my life. It was the first time I used to stay up late (VERY late) and just do stuff like listen to the radio, read, play with some toys (I was just 14 years old!). Radio became something to look forward to everynight. I was never a social person with tons of friends. All my friends in any case were busy with studies. Thus it was just me, my radio, my books and my toys. Thank god I have a vivid imagination.

The only problem was that the radio service used to end at 3 am and from 3 am till 6 am there was nothing on the radio except Indian classical So most of the times I used to fall asleep between 3 and 6 am. I used to take the radio with me damn near everywhere! If I was having a bath at 2 am (quite a normal thing for me to do) the radio would be in there sitting on top of the bathroom cabinet struggling to be heard above the roaring of the shower. I really used to enjoy listening to the RJ reading out peoples letters and stuff on the air. Many times it was my only connection to the outside world. I cant quite remember why I never used to watch TV. Maybe because the TV room was locked to keep me out! I dont really remember. But those days and nights were amazing.
I hardly used to step out of the house during that time. No school nothing. And radio as my only contact. To live in New Delhi, cut off from the rest of the world and living in a kind of monastic reclusion with the voice of the radio (instead of the voice of God) to keep me focussed.

Then just before my Xth boards I had my birthday (3rd March!) and got my dad to buy me a CD player/Tape/Radio system. A portable one. I was overjoyed! It was my first step into the world of music. The first music CD I bought was '101% Hitz'. The second and third CDs I was gifted: Queen The Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and Micheal Jackson's Dangerous.
It was then I discovered the song Radio Ga Ga. But its significance was not obvious to me immediatly.
The song talks about the ending of an age.
In 1996 an age did end for me. Infact in 1996 I became a whole new person. Someone much darker on the inside. I became what I am today. With the ending of the winter of 1995-96 as the hot winds started blowing across the Indo-Gangetic plains and spring turned to summer many things happened which changed me forever and Radioo Ga Ga did happen.

Firstly I became busy with the new school year and new issues. I virtually stopped listening to the radio and got involved with my new computer (purchased for me by my dad on 28th March 1996). It was his last and biggest gift to me.
I still remember during my board exams I was reading IT by Stephen King. My exams ended on the 27th of march and I got my PC the very next day. I got a couple of games with it. The one game which really influenced my life (I was already fond of video games!) was
Ultima 8: Pagan. I must have played that game so many times. I really did get under the skin of the game and explored every nook and cranny of the virtual world of Pagan.

Thus dawned the Age of the Computer and it forever took me away from the simple pleasures of life and of just sitting at 2 am on a winters black morning listening to the radio.

Someone wrote:
"Its hard cause theres no one to say it to ….BUT ITS STILL THERE.. ALL OF IT…

I don’t even know whether I want it to go away.

Cause this is after all my strength.. that keeps me going one after the other…

And what would I do without it POBABLY NOTHIN

So maybe I should thank it cause this is the only thing that promises to stay with me…. FOREVER…AND FOREVER AND FOREVER."

Isnt it amazing?

Never Marry!

I will NEVER NEVER NEVER marry.
Life is much more simpler when you stay alone and live for yourself!
Your productivity levels are much higher and stress levels lower.

I am a pessimist when it comes to love
about everything else Im optimistic.