Ram Setu - Decoded

I sometimes just love how wild my train of thought runs. This morning I was listening to the song Dhan Te Nan from the movie "Kaminey". One of the lines in it says "Koi chaal aisi chalo yaar abke samandar bhi pul pe chale, phir tu chale uspe ya mein chalun shehar ho apne pairon tale" listening to it I imagined the sea water flooding over the bridge and two people walking over the water. :P

Anyways from there my mind wandered off to the concept of water-walking and the first instance of people doing that - "The Ram Setu"

And I thought how can people be so naive as to believe that it was a miracle. But then stones floating in water can do that to people. However u also need to keep in mind that Nal and Neel were engineers and engineers do a lot of cool stuff!! :P

Nyways now as they were engineers they are bound to have a good knowledge of physics. And hence would know that if air is trapped within a shell of silica it would look like a stone but would actually be very light and would thus float.

Pumice is one such stone that floats on water. Infact as a recent example, after the explosion of Krakatoa near Indonesia Pumice rafts were seen floating for over upto 20 years. So that resolves the mystery of floating stones. But from where did so much Pumice come? Not sure how many of u know this but the Andaman & Nicobar Islands contain three big ancient volcanoes. One of which is Active even today. And the prime source of pumice is... Yup u guessed it right.. Volcanoes. So during the volcanic eruptions from those volcanoes pumice must've formed and floated to the coast of TN. Lucky for our heroes rt.

Half the mystery is solved. But then there's another rumour that it was the name of Ram that made the stone float. From a layman's perspective if I would've seen that I would go and tell : "They wrote something on the stone and the stone floated!!!" But here's a perfectly reasonable explanation. There were just two engineers who knew the difference between what'll float and what'll not. So how do they make the labourers know which stone to use and which not to use? Simple.. write something on it to differentiate.

And rest as they say was a miracle so big that people today are ready to cut each other's throats for it.

Note: This also explains why the Ram Setu is under water today. Pumice doesn't float forever. :)

The Blind Sheep

I was in four minds for the title of this entry...
1. The Jan Lokpal Bill/Anna Hazare and the hype created
2. Bhedchal
3. Andhon mein Kaana Raja
and 4. The Blind Spectators
and somehow I mixed up everything and came up with the above...

Why u ask? Maybe it's just me.. I have a tendency to look for areas of criticisms in everything... Maybe it's just because I try to think on lines different than what the rest of the world is. Even if the possibility or the reasons are completely alien to this world... Maybe.. I am wrong.. Maybe...
But I would still write.. Coz... This is MY BLOG!!!

I dare you to ask any college goer who's supporting the Jan Lokpal Bill, "What Anna Hazare and his movement is actually standing for??".. And a majority would have the answer that it's against corruption and corrupt politicians.. Ask a How or a Why? And there would be silence or maybe a meaningless retort. Facebook is filled up with news and statuses ad what-not related to this. I log into facebook to see what my friends are upto and I see status messages which tell me that I should support Anna Hazare if I am a true Indian. Are you kidding me.. U want me to stand up for something that shouldn't be there in the first place because I am an Indian.. It's like asking a Vegan to eat meat because he's christian... Whrs the sense??

After trying to ignore this for a couple of days I finally thought "Whatever! If so many people are supporting this.. maybe it's an important thing and finally we, the Indians have got the senses to stand against the govt. for a rightful cause. So maybe.. it's time for me to support instead of just thinking that it's nonsense once again." So I went to the site that describes the bill in salient points. The site that's now been on almost every alternate Indian's profile who's been active on facebook for the last week. What I read there got me thinking on how the Indian youth is like the sheep. You give them some nice sounding reasons and tell that what you are doing is going to benefit India and they will join you. Especially if some of their peers are already doing that. Not because they think it's right. But because you tell them it's right and it's the in-thing. Pick any from the following list: Corruption, Terrorism, Pakistan, Cricket, Bureaucracy, Red Tape, Politicians.. and a lot else. I know you have noticed that I added Cricket in the list too. That's there not because it unites us. That's because that too is a platform where we vent our anger and frustration. Pick the world cup matches and try to see how much we Indians have abused other teams/players. There is a thin line between making fun and abusing. And we are slowly finding it hard to notice that line and frequently cross over. This whole concept is actually exploited a lot by politicians these days. Instead of promising the growth they now depend more and more on the blame game to get votes. And we just like the sheep we are, blindly follow that.

Coming back to the topic of Jan Lokpal Bill. How many of us actually know what is it. It is trying to introduce a Lokpal who has full and complete authority over the politicians of today. It sounds like a good thing because the politicians of today are corrupt and need to be curbed. But it's also giving a full and complete authority to the Lokpal. My bro asked the perfect question after reading this... "Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?" : Who's stopping the Lokpal to become corrupt by the power. The Lokpal would be in a position to manipulate any politician and in turn anything and everything in the country. Would there again be someone above Lokpal?? Or do we believe Lokpal won't be corrupted by the power because "WE, The People Of India" have the right to choose the Lokpal thanks to Anna Hazare now. But another question.. who actually chooses the corrupt politicians into power?? Isn't that us. So isn't the solution to the corrupt politicians actually in the way how we elect them. Instead now we choose to elect someone else to supervise the corrupt politicians once we've chosen the corrupt politicians into power. In my field it's called a Bad Fix.. Not fixing the root cause of the problem but instead adding code that just overrides the problem for some time. Some unforeseen byproducts of having a Lokpal that the so educated and aware youth of India have chosen to ignore are the huge expenses that would accompany the Lokpal Elections. Huge salaries and retirement plans that would need to be provided to the Lokpals so that they can not be swayed for monetary reasons. And of course the security and what not. It would be like a govt. over a govt. In terms of the days of monopoly.. It would be a king of kings.
And my last question... Do we actually need this??

Destiny & Probability

This afternoon I was talking to one of my friends and we were discussing an achievement when he said that it was just plain luck. As usual.. my mind immediately picked up a thread of reasoning that I had started some time ago. It centers on luck. Destiny. And believe it or not.... Probability.

I had read this book by Scott Adams called God's Debris a couple of years ago. The book broached the same point. What we call luck/destiny... is it not just probability playing it's part. One of my favorite arguments in the book happens something like this:

A delivery guy Y delivers a box to the person X. X starts the argument saying that the box has delivered the person. Y believes that it's the opposite. He's the delivery guy so he delivered the box. And it's revealed that the box was posted by X himself to his own address. The purpose of the box was to make the delivery guy come to his home. So the question hangs.... Who delivered whom?

Anyways coming back to the intertwining of probability and destiny. A Hindu holy scripture says "Karm kar. Phal ki iccha mat kar" Meaning that the duty of a person is to do the work assigned to him in the best way possible. But the person should not expect the outcome. The outcome may or may not be in the person's favor. Doesn't the second part sounds like probability. But then you ask.. why even work if the outcome is not in our hands. Well.. Probability is strange. But being a part of mathematics. Still follows some rules. Whatever work a person puts in goes towards improving the odds of the result being in the person's favor. But probability being probability sometimes it's the less probable thing that happens.

I wanted to talk a lot in this blog. About how probability has worked for me. But well.. maybe later.

Water and Me

So this Saturday when I woke up after a 16 hour Sleepathon... it had just stopped raining outside... The first thing I did was tp pick up my Cam and run to my window. I knew I'll find water droplets still hanging on the tree outside my window. I clicked around 5-6 photos with various zooms and shutter speeds. As soon as I was done I transferred them to my lappy to have a look at them without wasting any minute.

And here's one that I captured...

Now why am I posting only this.. you ask?
Well... looking at this pic elicited a thought chain that has been in my mind from quite some time.
Which is... Are we connected with the basic elements in different mythologies/fantasies in some way. The elements that I'm talking about, if you don't know, are: Earth, Water, Fire and Air. Some myths/fantasies add Spirit as a fifth element.

Not sure how many people would know or believe this... But I am very much into zodiacs/astrology/myths and their relation to the us, the humans. The year 2010 has infact been very helpful to me in this context. Some wud tell me that it's just a perspective or my way of looking at things and may not be completely true... But well... it's my blog.. so my view rules. :D

So again.. from the past some time it has been my belief that I have a relation to water. I am somehow connected to it. My being a piscean just kind of confirms the relation. Pisces is the only zodiac sign amongst all 12 that is truely and completely water. The other water signs namely cancer , scorpio and aquarius are half water. Cancer and Scorpio are primarily water but carry Fire and Earth with them while Aquarius is primarily Air.

Coming back from the detour. So 2010 confirmed that I feel a lot better if I have a natural source of water to visit often. In absence of natural source, lot of times a shower does the trick. In Hyderabad it was lakes, Mumbai it was the sea that I loved. Rain has been a common factor in both the cities. Now here in Louisville it's the river Ohio which my office window looks upon.

But what does this have to do with the pic you ask? Yes.. I detoured... So coming back from my memories into today's world.

When I looked in the pic above I saw the water droplets glowing like beads of light. And my brain took a train(oh! that rhymes... Cool!!!) to the glow within someone's heart. And then I thought that the glow in the water droplets is not coming from themselves. But they try their best to keep the glow. Give them just a ray of light... and they'll start glowing. Isn't the heart same. Give it just one ray of hope, one ray of something good. And it catches onto it with all it's strength.

Going back to other forms of water. The flowing water represents the life. A lifeline of a river... is also the lifeline of a human.
Starts in the mountains rushing down, with so much energy.. Isn't childhood the same? Trying to cut down the rocks to carve a new path.. Some are successful in that and some aren't... Beating against each rock that is in the path... Learning something from each rock.. each hurdle...
the river reaches the plains... The major portion of a rivers lifeline. The working age. Working.. sometimes giving.. sometimes gathering... sometimes flooding with emotions.. sometimes feeling emptied of everything.... The ups that are more and more difficult to climb with each passing hurdle... The downs which give just that little boost that makes it going on. Sometimes merging with other's lives creating a new one... Others just continuing alone.. making its own path...
the river reaches the last stage... the deltas... or the old age. After losing all it's energy it just wants to reach and merge with the sea. But still there was a lot of work it did during the plains. And it's time it deposits the good work done in the form of sediments, minerals before it drains whatever's left of it into the sea and dies....

The calm waters represent stagnancy in life, the whirlpools are the emotional vortexes that we find ourselves in a lot of times.

Rain.. isn't it a form of giving.. Without condition... Love... which infact if goes overboard turns into obsession and is as dangerous as the rain that pours down more water than is needed by earth and brings floods. Some areas.. arid areas desiring rains desperately while others have it in abundance....

For now I think I'll stop here. Lots of threads were running in my head while writing this. On zodiacs, on elements, on life.. Hope some of the above does make sense to you....

And Another Thing....

Sorry for the Title Rip off H2G2... I just love referring to the series... :P

In this blog.. I just wanted to tell a story...

Once there was a God. The One! The Supreme Being...

God felt bored and lonely. So God thought of creating something. Being the supreme one with all those powers it was very easy. So the next day He created the Universe. Soon enough he got bored with the static matter. So he thought of creating life. And so he created the plants and the trees. And with lot of interest he watched them grow, flower, bear fruits and die. But the cycle being static in itself. He soon got bored of it. Then he came up with the idea of movement and he created life that could move. The animals. It was refreshing as the new creatures could move according to their will. And with amazement God watched all of them. But he had no one to share the amazement with. Soon he got lonely coz he did not have anyone to talk to. He tried talking to himself taking sides. But still because both the sides were connected internally it wasn't like talking to a separate being. It was unlike sharing with complete stranger.
So he decided to break the physical connection. And He divided himself into two. Thus were created Adam and Eve. They enjoyed the feeling of sharing and enjoyed each other's company.
But soon enough Eve being the superior half started craving for the joy she felt when she created life. Adam couldnt help it. And because both of them were equal parts of God he had to share a part of himself with Eve to create a new life. And thus the life cycle of a human being was started. And continuing the life cycle we stand today, each human containing six-millionth part God.
I submit to your analysis the story.

Considerations based on some sayings and Holy Books:
1. God created Adam and Eve. No one knows where God is since then.
2. Females have always been given a higher importance in society. And it's them who primarily know the joy of creation of life. Just like Eve knew the joy of finding the Apple.
3. God is within us.
4. To find God start from looking within urself.
5. United we stand. As more and more pieces of God come together(think similarly) for a cause they approach God in power. Prayer may just be a way of using that power.
6. Wedding is a heavenly joining of soul (because it brings together two pieces of God)
7. The larger the population the lesser is the imprint of God. His presence being overshadowed by His absence. (Remember Light and Dark from my previous post)

I have lots others but I like 7. Any guesses... Well that was the total number of days God took to decide and split Himself up... :P

Disclaimer: Everything in the story above should be considered fictitious and any resemblance to any person or God should be considered as an implied coincidence. :)

Duality is Truth?? or Truth, Duality...

Dual.. a word that means two... also meaning fight.. challenge..
Truth.. What is Truth? Is truth what the fact says that it is. Or is truth what really happens. This takes me to a bigger question that comes right out of "The Matrix". What is real?

I'm still not sure what ending I want to give to this blog. But I just wanted to pen down my thoughts. Ok.. rather keyboard down my thoughts. :P

The word "Not" describes most of the things in life. Either you do something.. or you do "Not".
Darkness is nothing but "Not" of Light. It's a relative term. It's the absence of something.
Similarly Cold is absence of heat. It is relative too. -10 degrees sounds cold. But relative to -30 degrees it's warmer or hotter...
Same goes everywhere. In fact it's in the nature. Duality is all around us. Either you are the predator or you are the prey. Either you evolve or you are extinct. There are two genders. Male and Female. There's Life and there's an absence of it. Either something is or it is not. This is a very basic truth.

As I observe the world more and more I can see the concept of duality everywhere. Being a software engineer, the world these days appears to me as a huge concatenated if.. then.. else.. condition. The "if" part has the choice... "then" has the events that would unfold if you accept the choice and "else" has the events that would happen if you choose not to.

And these choices define how someone's life is going to be. Yet I see that there's a hidden element of probability. Of possibility. Of uncertainty. Of the unknown. Unknown again is simply an absence of knowledge. (which results in my derivation of my life funda of the unquenchable thirst for knowledge) The less the unknown... The more you know about the effect of the choice you make. Which is why people like to discuss things before choosing. They want to see things before buying. Find out about other person before marriage. Find out about someone before dealing with them. All to limit the unknown. And yet I find that the unknown is the most powerful element in the equation of life. Look at the universe. The absence is much larger the presence of things. There's more empty space than matter. There's more cold than heat. There's more darkness than light. So where's the duality you ask. Everywhere. Even in the truth. Either something is true or it is not(False). Yet duality in itself has no other. Do not think of singularity. Singularity is because something that is unlike it is present. Multiplicity.. Yes that exists but not as a dual to duality. Multiplicity is just a large grouping of duality.

Well this actually takes me to a new thread. Computer world is not so unlike the real world. Or rather the world we live in. The basic logics behind any program consist of the if.. then.. else conditions just like the life. Deja Vu is like the repeat twice. A few people liking the same things is like a for loop with the a random function in it. And so on... I think I would rather dedicate another entry sometime on this... For now I would rather choose "Not" to continue on this. :)

Musings of a Frustrated Soul

Since a couple of weeks I've been in Chennai... and no wonder that I've been thinking a lot. Before coming here one of my friend gave me an advice about the office.. rather a warning:
"Dude!! the office stinks like shit in rainy season. Take Care...."
I asked him: "But it won't be raining right now na... ??"
"Ya!! It won't be raining. So it'll stink like a dustbin..."
Reason: the office I'm going to is right opposite the dumpyard of Chennai. And it's alongside a marsh.
But once you are in the office there's nothing like it. You have an almost food court inside the office complete with Spencer's, LandMark, a couple of juice stalls, Barista, a couple of other coffee stalls, an ice cream stall, two biryani centers, a shop each for north-Indian, andhra and Chinese food and all this apart from the normal office canteen. And from the windows of a few top floors you can have an awesome view of the marsh which more looks like a lake. And did I mention that this marsh is also a bird-watching area. And by bird-watching I meant literal bird-watching.
Anyways, enough about my office. Now about where I stay. When I say Sastri Nagar not many would identify it to be in Chennai... It doesn't sound south-like.... But here I am, in Sastri Nagar... one of the posh areas of Chennai... and 1 km away from Elliot's beach.. where, as another friend pointed out, most of the people in Tamil Film Industry dwell.
So last weekend, on the suggestion of this friend I went to Elliot's Beach. It was way past sunset. And I was in no mood to spend more than 10 mins on the beach. Coz I've already seen lots of beaches in Mumbai too. So I walked from my house to the beach. I was about a couple of hundred metres away from the beach and yet I could hear the sea. And pretty soon the beach too came in view. It seemed no different from the ones in Mumbai. Similar stalls lined the road. Selling tea/coffee, and chaat-papdi. Not to forget the bhel-puris in typical Mumbai style except that when u neared a stall no one called out to you to sell something and when you heard it was not the smooth Marathi that sounds a little like Hindi but some language which feels as if someone is hitting you with words. Once a Telugu friend told me what they called Tamil in Telugu. I don't remember the word exactly but he told me the meaning and I do remember that: "It meant harmful for ears or not very good to hear" So about the beach yes... Through the sparse distribution of stalls I went towards the sound of sea. Slowly the sound of sea grew... and the sound of stalls dimmed out.... And there I was... a cool sea breeze flowing around me.... Drenched in the noise of waves... Looking out at the waves again... in wonderment... as I've always have... And the beach suddenly was nothing like that of Mumbai... The waves were bigger.... Made more noise and crashed on the beach somehow... unlike Mumbai.... I've always wondered on how the waves crash onto the beach and return only to come recharged with new energy... as if to test the boundaries of sea..... As if to expand the boundaries... And there I stood thinking along those line again... Transfixed by the oncoming waves.... And looking onto the moonlit sea. Have I ever told you... a moonlit sea looks much better than a sunrise or sunset time sea... U can see just a few waves at night... lit by the moon... U have to stare hard enough to see how a wave forms.... and all ur concentration is on that single wave. I stood there for around half an hour... thinking how I am getting late for dinner. Then I remembered I had spotted a Domino's near the beach and I gave up the thought of returning soon. I went in Domino's ordered a pizza with coke and sat there waiting. For some reason I've never come to find out how Domino's serves you within half an hour when you are ordering from home but when you are sitting at an outlet it takes them more than half an hour. Anyways... after around an hour I left Domino's and went back to the beach. Once again thinking that this time I would just gaze once and leave... But call it my love of sea or whatever that it wasn't another half an hour that I could leave.
The next three days.. I was down with fever..... But that's another story....
For now I leave you with a question: Can a person be frustrated and happy at the same time for the same thing?