Flying Boat

   

      
 When I was a kid, during my kindergarten & 1st standard times, I was close friends with a boy named Saravanan. We used to do paper craft together. One of the exotic models was that of a flying boat. It looks like a usual paper boat but has two wings projecting from the center. I learned the steps from Saravanan. I remember the procedure more as a journey, with every crease and fold, a new adventure in the journey that leads to a destination where the boat will be waiting for me, to fly up and away to a limitless beyond. There are several ways to fold in some steps, with only one of those options that takes me a step closer to the flying boat. In my mind it's more like forking pathways in the journey, if I do not choose the right one, I will not reach to the flying boat, but to some other weird looking structure.

      Luckily, back then, I had a travel companion in this journey: Saravanan. We used to tread together, him leading the way and choosing the right path. After walking the same path together a few times, I was able to do it by myself without his company.

   I moved to a new city, new school and new friends. Too young and too technologically limited, I couldn't keep in touch with my old school friends. But, whenever I made the flying boat, I used to feel that Saravanan was with me, that our friendship was still going on. This has been the case with each aspect of my learning and being, reminding me of someone or some moment in my past. It's like, as I walk through life, I break away little crumbs from people and moments, and glue those crumbs onto me so that it becomes a part of me.

      But with time, I forgot the right path. I was never able to find my way back to the flying boat again. As I grew up, I learnt origami which opened door to a lot of exotic and difficult adventures, but the flying boat still remains an unfulfilled journey. Even today, In my mind, I am lost somewhere, having taken a wrong turn too many, lonely, scared and wishing Saravanan was with me. I've not just lost my way to the flying boat, but also to the innocence of childhood, to simpler yet creative times and to the magic of growing up!

My dear flying boat, will I find my way to you again? Or will I just wither away, enacting an adult in this adult world?

Oh Saravanan! wherever you are, please come with your flying boat and rescue me, teach me the magic again!

Google will help me make a paper flying boat, but alas, it cannot help me regain everything else the flying boat stands for! The journey remains unfinished...

PRINCIPIA IDLISATICA

A scientific study of the cohesive and shear forces caused by thermal and phase change interactions between pulverized colloidal Oryza Sativa and its mold.

Dedicated to my Mom, or rather the absence of who at home enabled me, or rather forced me to venture into perilous, uncharted territories of the kitchen world.

                It so happens that, due to a series of unrelated events, blame chaos theory, our lovely family household has turned into a sort of bachelor pad run by me and another young(at heart) lad( read my Dad). This put me in a singular situation, kitchen patrol! Though I am pro all the way that pro can ever walk for gender equality, my conventional bringing up did not offer me an opportunity of running the kitchen patrol up to until now. This opened up the door to test some kitchen myths. This particular entry is a scientific study of the cohesive and shear forces caused by thermal and phase change interactions between pulverized colloidal Oryza Sativa and its mold or in kitchen patrol terms, the myth that by cooling the back of the idli pan by making tap water run over it, the idli won’t stick to the mold when we remove it. Now this procedure must have been in practice ever since tap water invaded the culinary territory in association with another procedure, dipping the idli spoon in cold water before scooping out each piece of idli. In my opinion the spoon dipping seems to be effective but when my Dad suggested that I do the invert-pan-run-tap water over procedure too, I was not sure if that will help. So I set out on the journey to find whether it is really effective in removing the idli from the pan without small pieces of it getting stuck in the mold and not just any journey but the unbiased and just journey of the “Scientific method” and experimental design.

                In my opinion, the scientific method or design of experiments(DOE) is the first thing that we should teach our children before we go through the one-two-three’s or A B C’s, not because I am a self-proclaimed rationalist but because I believe the best thing to teach kids is to teach them how to teach themselves and the best way to teach oneself is through the scientific method because it is the perfect recipe which has a pinch of this and a pinch of that and a whole lot of double blinding which shields us from our own mind playing tricks on us to tilt to one side of the hypothesis or the other. The absence of double blinding can lead to things like placebo effect- the term you would have come across if u had listened to arguments between theists and atheists, mostly in online forums, the before mentioned effect being often misquoted and misunderstood by the theists due to the very same reason the placebo phenomenon study was later on re-scrutiny proved to be inconclusive: simple fricking human bias!

            Firstly, I had five pans of hot idlis which needed to be scooped. I quickly formed the null hypothesis before the idlis lost more steam: There is no relation between cooling the bottom of the pan and the stickiness of the idli.

          First, I took a pan of Idli. I did not do the “procedure”. I tried scooping out the 4 idlis in the pan without cooling the back of the pan. I observed how much of the idli is stuck back in the pan. Next, I took another pan of idli. I turned it upside down and let the tap water cool the pan bottom a good few seconds. Then I scooped out the idlis. My observation concluded that there was no significant difference in the amount of idli stuck back in the pan. But the scientific method is about reproducibility of results. Also at this juncture it is important to point out that the experiment is not a pure controlled experiment but rather field experiment, meaning the subjects of my experiment- the idlis and the pans, were neither chosen by random sampling nor were they cooked under controlled conditions to render other factors influencing the stickiness uniform.

               

            I had three more pans left. Yes, that’s a good 20 idlis we have for breakfast me and my “bachelor pad” roomie, minus the one we keep for the crow. That’s tradition, more about it later. So in order to counter inter-pan variability of the factors, this time, I cooled only two of the four molds in the pan. Now comes the tricky part, introducing the data blind. If I know which two of the idlis are cooled and which two are not, then it might skew my observation due to bias. Now, I can call my Dad to scoop out the idli and observe the “residues” but it would mean I have to make him understand the intricacies of the important scientific experiment that is in process which is not a good idea especially when you are hungry enough to break a fast! So I closed my eyes and gave the pan a spin, so that when it comes to rest, I wouldn’t know which two idlis are treated and which two are as such. As I closed my eyes, the thought of my dad walking in on me with my eyes closed and the pan spinning briefly crossed my mind but luckily my experiment proceeded without interruption. I followed the same procedure with all three pans, the result: my null hypothesis holds! Cooling the bottom of the pan has no significant effect on the stickiness of the idlis! MYTH BUSTED.

                Until the next experiment crops up from under the stove or around the corner of supper, adieu and remember, Scientific method is the best thing to teach someone to teach themselves.

yosichifications of India!

Its been a while. today i'd like to take you along a recent train of thoughts i had. It ivolves industrial revolution, KFC and evolution.yes, Industrial revolution. thats where it all began. Mass marketed mass produced mass capitalism leading to mass consumerism leading to mass extinction of local ecosystems! Life took a giant leap from normality cos of it. globalization is a direct consequence of the outlook industrial revolution gave us. All is well, but there are certain things we fail to take into account. things, which do not have immediate effect but on a long run prove detrimental to the very survival of our race. Like the chicken on my plate right now. it was reared in some mass production poultry farm miles away which i have no connection to, and probably it grew to be obese with all the grain surplus and space deficit, later killed, processed, probably frozen, transported and now its on my plate along with various other ingredients with their fair share of the story of how far they have come to be on my plate. But i do not feel connected to the chicken on my meal plate. I have not seen this particular chicken before in my life, when it was alive or atleast when i was being cooked. The essential "chicken"ness is totally absent! it feels so unchickenly and artificial. whats worse, people get used to this artificiality.

why all the fuss you may ask. Let us go back by about three decades and consider the same meal. the chicken i eat will the be the same chicken which grew in my back yard, consuming the left overs of the house, thouse providing the crucial link for a complete nutrient cycle: whatever we leave out in our food, the chicken eats it and it inturn comes back to us when we eat the chicken. our whole life was in sync with all the natural cycles we are interwined with. But now globalization has screwed us big time. we consume food which is in no way part of our local eco-cycle. the sewage system also does not help in closing the cycle. the open-ended mass consumerism bull shit with no care for life-cycle management of products, use and throw mentality, out of sight out of mind attitude, its all in a big way fucking up our lives in ways we cannot fathom yet. we are no longer part of small happy local eco-cycles. we are  now a small part of a larger artificial globalization wheel, a wheel so large enough that no one knows for sure if the wheel comes a full circle, which i'm sure its not with all this open ended supply chains and utter disregard to recycling

the only solace is that evolution will take over and we will adapt to the change circumstances of our living environment. But experience has taught us there is a critical point for everything beyond irreversibility kicks in and everything just collapses into the never-ending logic of increase in entropy. nature's way of getting back at us! We cannot stop this global wheel and get back to our smaller wheels. But what we can do is, be conscious of the drastic change we are subjecting ourselves to and extend our control on things we can control, like recycling for example. on a larger level we can device economic and social models to incorporate both global supply chain as well as local self-sufficient economy/ecology. but what i think we should do first is to wake up from the hypnotic mind crapping consumerism bondage and start consuming just enough for our survival and not for increasing the bank balance of the capitalists. we buy things, we eat things, which we do not actually need. we buy them to fill a void which we feel inside of us, a void which has been effectively capitlazed upon by mass marketing. But this void cannot be filled by the chicken you eat or the ipod you buy, it requires a much simpler, subjective product which won't cost you any money. i'll deal with it ilater. as of now, if we follow simple things like recycling, being conscious of closing our open energy/food/nutrient/supply cycles most of our nutrient disorders will disappear and we will long healthy lives without the need for medical help. Nature is the best medicine

Stories I like - 3: Indian Superstitions

There once lived a man named sidhu in a village. He was well learned in ancient medicine and used to treat the village people for ailments. He used to concoct his own medicines from locally available herbs. He had two disciples who were working under him as apprentices. He was very old. So soon the disciples were expected to take over his role.

Sidhu also had a pet cat with him. He used to keep the cat in a basket and close it whenever he was preparing the medicines when people came. The reason being that, one of the ingredients for preparing the medicine was milk and thus the cat used to sneak up and drink the milk kept for the procedure. So he started putting the cat in the basket. The disciples who had joined much later on did not know this but were just observing this.

Soon, Sidhu was long gone and so was the cat. The disciples took over his role. It was usual practice for the people coming in need of medicine to bring the ingredients as well.
Now a days, The disciples instruct the villagers who visit to bring a cat as well as a basket to cover it with!

Stories I like - 2: Indian elections

Bubbly was a first standard student. one evening he came to his mom and said, "Mom, please tell me the story of ramayana. My teacher has said that there will be a quiz tomorrow on it and whoever says the correct answer will win a prize" So Bubbly's mom sat him down and told him the story of ramayan.

The next evening, Bubbly came running to his mom as soon as he got down from the school van, hugged her and said that he has won the prize! Mom was so happy and she asked " so what question did the teacher ask?"
Bubbly said "He asked us "for how many years Ram was sent to forest?" I replied 8 years and won the prize! I'm so happy mommy. Thanks for telling me the story"

His mom was shocked. She had clearly mentioned to bubbly the previous evening the ram was sent to the forest for 14 years. But the kid had forgotten. But, how could the teacher mistake the figure? does the teacher really know about ramayan? questions were racing in her head. She decided to meet the teacher the next day.

Next day:
Mom: Sir, you have given prize to my son even though he said the wrong answer. whats this about? Do you not know that 14 years is the right answer? I think you have to brush up ramayan before telling it to the students.
Teacher: No no, Madam. I know ramayan like the back of my hand. But when i asked the question, among all the answers your son's answer of 8 years was the closest to 14 years. That is why I gave him the prize!

Mom: o_O !

Stories I like - 1: Indian elementary Education

Long long ago there lived a man in a village. His hobby was to grow parrots. He had a whole company of them. He was so fond of his birds. He did not cage them. The parrots were free to roam/fly about. Once he had to go on a visit to the next village in a month's time. He was concerned about his parrots. Some hunter might catch them in his absence. So what he did, every day he sat with the birds and said
 "we are intelligent. We'll not fly to a place where the hunter has set his trap. We'll not fly down and land on the trap net. We'll not feed on the bait grains he has kept. we'll not get caught". He kept on saying it every day and soon the parrots learnt to speak what he was telling them.
Happy, he left the village feeling sure no harm will come to his parrots. The very next day a hunter happened to notice the large company of parrots. Immediately he took out his net and set up the trap.

The parrots attracted by the bait started flying towards the trap. They were all saying "we are intelligent. We'll not fly to a place where the hunter has set his trap" and  they were saying "We'll not fly down and land on the trap net" as they flew down and landed on the trap. Then they started happily munching on the grains as they said " We'll not feed on the bait grains he has kept. we'll not get caught" and that's when the hunter wrapped up his net trapping all the parrots inside it. He was one happy man!

As the hunter left the scene with his rewards there were faint echoes of the words
"we are intelligent... we'll not get caught..."
"we are intelligent... we'll not get caught..."
"we are intelligent... we'll not get caught..."

xx

           Women! I find Women very interesting. Not just because men are naturally programmed to find them interesting, there is something to them which demands the attention of my aquarian curiosity. Just one chromosome different in the cellular level and what a difference it ramifies into in the macroscopic scale! the way women think is totally, i mean totally different from how men think. Maybe that is why I find "women" an interesting subject to ponder upon. I have been trying to grasp and understand the woman psyche. Naturally the first subject of my study is my mom. Now, my parents are from a conservative rural background.  So from early on, i was aware of the social inequality and male chauvinism and stuff. In fact this early awareness is what has made me a feminist. Most guys find the term "feminist" uncomfortable because they think that the term has an effect on their sexuality. But, I know that I am man enough and I am not afraid to be tagged as a feminist.

               But my conventional bringing up and the environment i was in has poured in some of the chauvenism inside me too!. Its like my nature is something but I have realized something else is right and i try to stick to what is right. For eg, I feel that women should have active career and social life, but my girlfriend did find sometimes my behaviour to contradict that feeling. Its a war! A war between what is right and what i(currently) am! Since I am confronting it inside myself, i find it easy to fight the chauvinism outside me; around me

            For a major part of my life I have been exposed to women in the role of a mother. This has biased my views considerably which i came to realize recently during a discussion with one of my friends. I was debating that mother's day is also a day of celebration of women other than woman's day. My reason being that motherhood is nothing but womanhood expressed in its strongest and most beautiful form. But she told me that many women would take offence on my reason. It was a great shock to me! Why would any girl feel offended for associating her womanhood with motherhood? I thought rather she would feel proud... I couldnt initially believe it. But slowly I realized that it is a natural reaction. We  have been forcing women into motherhood in a way equivalent to slavery/slaughter that during this age of transformation where woman liberty is slowly being realized,  women actually feel repelled by motherhood. It is then, natural that they find my reason offensive.But soon after liberation is fully realized, women will cool down and start looking at motherhood differently. But that doesnt mean my reasoning is correct too. Motherhood is not  "the strongest" way in which womanhood can be expressed. Its just one of the many ways which a woman can put to use her womanhood. But as I have witnessed womanhood expressed only in the form of motherhood most of the time, i have come to a subconcsious conclusion that motherhood is "the strongest" form of womanhood. In the future, when liberation is complete and equilibrium  is achieved, my reasons will still be flawed but also women will take my reasons to be rather weird than offensive.

Until such a time comes, the war rages on...

cook book

             Recently i read a book titled blink. The author discusses about the subconscious and the decisons we make there without being consciously aware. It srtikes me because there were a couple of instances, when, i have personaly  realized that some thoughts  and opinions i had in my mind  was not out of conscious decisons but had been formed in a subconscious state and were slowly pushed up into my consciousness. Everytime, the realization came when someone asked me some question related to that opinion, like," why do u prefer this?"  or" whats the reason behind your view?"

              Thats when i realize that i'm consciously aware of my opinion but do not have any record of how i came about forming that opinion. Such questions take us by surprise. And many a times we try to cook up some answer and eventually we end up  believing that the cooked up reason is the real reason behind our opinion. For eg, in sports i dont prefer playing cricket, and when someone asks me why, i say its because, i dont go to sports ground often and when i do, i want to use the entire time spending my energy and working my muscles but in cricket, only two people are active in an instant and so i find it a waste of time. I know for sure that this is not the reason why i initially formed dislike towards the game.But i've used this cooked up reason so many times that i cannot find the actual reason. 

                   Extending this line of thought i came to realize another beautiful phenomenon. We form a theory or opinion or we read about something and ponder over it choosing our sides. Untill the instant we put such thoughts into words and write them down or tell it to someone, the entire thought process has some level of vagueness and abstractness. And in the process of telling it to someone, we realize that the thought has some gaps to fill or even sometimes it so happens that we evolve a better version of the thought or in some extreme cases we realize there is a flaw and arrive at an opinion entirely opposite to our initial thought  just by trying to put it in words! Now, why am i writing down all this? Because i am about to pen down some of my profound( this term is relative, confined to universal set of my thoughts alone) thoughts which i have rarely discussed with someone in my subsequent posts and any comment/debate on them are welcome. Infact I want you friends to share your views about those topics starting from this post which will help us in refining each others' ideas

kaaka suttadhu paati suttadha, paati suttadhu edha?

hello all, long time no see. things havent been the same since college got over. Job, targets, coffee, travelling, house-keeping and numerous other things which were never a part of my four years college life have kept me busy.
Right now I'm in the national capital of India. Its my last night here. Looking back, i'm getting reminded of einstein's quote "the only constant thing in the world is change".
Lotsa things have changed since my last post, for the better or worse Iam not sure of yet.
i have been travelling considerably adding four to five new states in my 'places visited' list. I have come to know more about India in the past five months than from years of geography&history in school. Let me share one interesting trivia regarding the same:
Along with me, four other fresh engineers were posted in delhi for training. The five of us are from five different states and speak five different languages. Myself from chennai speaking tamil, a kannad guy from bangalore, a telgu girl from hyderabad, a punjabi girl from ludhiana and a bengali guy from kolkata!
And the common language for communication is Hindi. All these days i hadnt grasped the depth of the sentence 'unity in diversity' up to until now.

Once the five of us wandered into a conversation about our kindergarden stories. Looks lik every state has its own syllabus even for lkg! Except for one story there was nothing in common among the five states.
And thats the story of "crow and the old lady". in the story, an old lady is cooking and selling some eatable under a tree. A crow from the tree steals a piece of the eatable when the old lady is distracted. As the story goes, the crow loses the food to a fox.
Notable thing is that, though the story is common in five states, what the old lady cooks is different in different states. In tamil nadu she makes hot vadas, in karnataka its bajji, in andhra its muruku, whereas its paneer in punjab and fried fish in bengal!

What a Nation!

Proud to have born in this land of diversities bonded by democracy.
Now this is miracle on daily basis!

void by failure final chapter

after a long gap, here's the final chapter of jack's "petventures".

      Jack is now 15 studying 10th standard which is a critical stage in school life cos you gotta compete in a state level annual exam. everything was going busy until one fine sunday while they were having their breakfast, jack heard some animal sound coming out of the spare bedroom. he went inside the room. there was nothing strange visible. but then again a scratching sound from under the bed. there were many packages stacked under the bed which is usual if you're a family moving from time to time. when he moved some stuff to the side, he found two cute kittens! just hours old! haven even opened their eyes! both had white fur! one had black patches and the other kitten had red patches.

       jack thought the mother cat will come n take the kittens away havin realized that its hideaway was exposed. but the mother cart never came. next day, the kittens started "mewing" out of  hunger n jack couldnt stand it any more. he took out the plywood box which he made for the school science exhibition spread some news paper over and kept the kittens in it. then  he kept a bowl of milk inside. but the kittens were too young to understand they've to drink out of the bowl. so he taught them how to. they were very clumsy. so jack made a feeding bottle out of an old lubricant oil can and fed the kittens.

        
            he was very happy and enthusiastic in taking care of the kittens. days passed by. the mother never returned. as soon as jack returns from school he would go play with the kittens. the red kitten was very active and adventurous and the black one was a little introvert type;) jack's mom would tease jack saying that the red one was his sister and the black one was jack. to some extent it was true. there was some amount of sluggishness associated with jack but not out of laziness but out of patience and serenity. everything was going well n good until his mom raised the question as to how long is jack going to keep the kittens. he wanted to keep them forever but he knew that he was already distracted by the kittens from his studies n also that it was difficult to take care of them cos they urinate every hour and the entire room smells of urine and milk. 

      
            he made a difficult decision. to "let the cat out of the bag" uhmm out of the plywood box in this case. he took them out to the backyard and released them. he very well knew about the wilderness and instincts of  cats and was sure that they will survive on their own. two days passed by. the kittens had strayed to the nearby colony houses and the kids living there had made the kittens their pet. jack could see the kids playing with the kittens from his window. he felt rather happy for the kittens to have found a home, than feeling bad

      
           after about a month, jack's mom told him that one of the kittens died! the red kitten. a stray dog killed it! jack cant remember how he felt on hearing the news cos its been so long, almost 7 years. the black kitten was safe. jack had some small happiness in the corner of his heart that the black kitten was safe cos of its characteristics similar to himself, which his mom used to tease about.

      
            later, one evening jack was alone in his home, watching tv. his mom had gone out for some chore, his sister had not returned from college yet. he saw that a cat jumped into the bedroom through the open window. jack made loud noise to scare away the cat but it didnt budge. he went slowly near the cat.To his surprise it was the black kitten he took care of!!! the cat seemed to have recognised him and so did not run away like the other cats which sneak into the house for milk. but as he went closer he observed that the kitten's fur has withered in many areas and he was bald in many spots. it looked like he had some skin disorder. he looked very ugly, not like the small cute kitten jack had been with. jack just stood by the window and stared at the kitten. the kitten also looked at jack. jack felt that the kitten was trying to talk to him. few seconds passed with no one moving. jack then tried to make the kitten go out the window. the kitten was now actually almost a cat now, he had grown. the kitten found it difficult to climb to the window. jack helped him out the window. the kitten stood outside the window looking at jack for a while and then it walked away. jack also returned to the tv room.

      
           the next day when jack came home from school, his mom informed him that the neighbors told her that  the other kitten also died. it was sick for about a week and finally died today, she said. Alas, the kitten had paid one last visit to the place which was its home and to the person who was its parent. Jack now understood what the kitten was trying to tell him the day before!

              and that brings us to the end of jack's journey to find a pet.

void by failure chapter 5

ANTLIONS

Two butterfly seasons after:

                Jack successfully grew more butterflies for the next two seasons. Eventually he grew out of the fascination of rearing caterpillars. He needed something new. That's when he went to a village on his vacation. It was his habit to hunt for ant lions whenever he went there. Only this time he had seen a program in nat geo about ant lions. Ant lions are actually larvae of a flying insect somewhat like a dragonfly.

Ant lions dig pits in loose sand and wait hiding inside sand for ants to fall in the pit. once an ant falls and struggles to climb out the ant lion grabs it and takes it inside sand. To hold an ant lion feels soft and squishy.

Jack, determined to grow an ant lion till it becomes a fly, carried some ant lions to his home back from vacation. He filled a small tray with sand and let the ant lions in it. Its very fascinating to see how the ant lion digs the pit. The creature looks scary but the pit it makes looks so beautiful.It requires patience to watch the ant lion make a pit.

Everyday he used to catch ants and put it inside the tray. He watched how the ants fall into the pits and how the ant lions throw sand over the ants and grab them and drag them inside.

Over weeks his ant lions had become bigger in size. He thought they would pupate any time. But he was wrong. Unlike his former pet, ant lions pupate after four to five years of feeding and also only when circumstances are favorable. They need a plant or some support nearby because just like the butterfly, when an adult ant lion fly emerges out of the cocoon its wings r crushed and wet and the fly needs to climb on some support in order to expand and dry its wings.

Jack waited for sometime. Finally he discovered that the ant lions need much longer time to pupate and also he was getting bored of catching the ants for them. so one day he released the ant lions. adieu

void by failure chapter4

A Piece of Green Wax!

He watched with tears in his eyes and a heart as heavy as an elephant, as his best pal ascended into the sky defying gravity! There was no sadness in his tears but ecstasy. He felt like BRAHMA( Indian God of creation)!

EARLIER...

Jack is now 12 years old. Having enjoyed enough of wilderness he moved to a growing concrete jungle; a small town where generally one's grandfather used to be a farmer; which will be his neighbourhood for five years. he was already in his 4th school studying 7th standard.

Jack was a bright child. He was interested especially in life sciences, may be due to his early bonding with nature. Also he was becoming fond of another subject "Physics". He was very fascinated when he learned about the metamorphosis of butterfly. From an ugly looking worm to a beautiful splendid creature of natural flight! He felt a sense of unexplainable irrational joy and enthusiasm, just by thinking about butterflies and their life cycle.

His school was located in the banks of a famous river of the state. There were lots of vegetation around the school campus. Especially a poisonous plant named erukalam. And butterflies have this funny habit of laying their eggs in the leaves of such poisonous plants so that the larvae which hatch from the eggs,namely caterpillars,feed on the leaves and become poisonous themselves thus providing natural protection against predators.

Jack had seen black and white pictures of the butterfly life cycle in textbooks and it didn't take him long to figure out that the funny-coloured worm living in the erukalam plant around his school was indeed the caterpillar form of a future butterfly.

He made up his mind to rear a caterpillar till it becomes a butterfly; to travel along with it in its journey of life! But mom can be a problem. He decided not to tell mom. He caught several caterpillars and put them inside his geometry box. This time he was careful enough to punch some extra holes in the box for circulation! the "rabbit in the box" incident may have been behind this precaution ;). He also regularly put fresh leaves for them to feed on.

He then chose one caterpillar which showed more growth than others, he released others in their natural habitat. It is really amazing to observe how the tiny thing munches away the leaves like some machine and how it gets bigger by the hour. It used to defecate at the same rate of eating. So jack had to clean his box often. He learnt that having a pet comes with attached responsibilities. But he was happy to do it.

He eagerly waited for the next stage of its life cycle-The PUPA. And one evening it finally happened. Mr.Caterpillar climbed to the roof of jack's geometry box and hung himself upside down like a bat. He then started to shrink and have jerks as if he was having hiccups. Then slowly his striped coloured skin started to peel off showing a wet light green inner body. Jack was amazed and nervous at the same time.

He did not know whether what was happening was right. He knew how a pupa looks like but he had imagined that the caterpillar will build a cocoon around itself like a spider building a web. But this was a surprise. But after an hour he was satisfied that everything was fine as the form attained the familiar pupa shape. Now his pet looked like a solidified droplet of green wax and even felt like shiny wax.

He then waited days and days for the transformation to complete. It was amazing to see how such an active big life form has become so small; so plastic and so lifeless. Jack wondered what was happening inside. He wondered how this small blob can be considered a living thing. He wondered how the pupa is sustaining its life. Its not breathing or eating. It is sealed in an airtight shell. Without his knowledge Jack had stepped into the realm of philosophical thinking.

Slowly the colour of the pupa began to change. There were shades of black and orange visible. Everyday jack used to have a look at the pupa at least ten times. He could clearly see the shape of a butterfly now. Once there was an ant trying to break into the shell. Jack was lucky to notice it early and defend his helpless immobile pet! He was so scared that the pupa might have been damaged. He was not sure whether to call it damage or injury. The transformation did not stop. He was glad.

Then one fine afternoon when jack was in his school, the pupa started to crack. There was a vertical split near the proboscis(the straw like mouth of the butterfly) area. Jack couldn't watch closely after that as the class started. When he finally took a peak into the box the "MONARCH BUTTERFLY" was out of his self designed womb flapping his wet crippled wings. For the next hour jack watched in ecstasy as the wing straightened and dried. Finally his pet was in its beautiful form. Jack held the butterfly in his hands as it was flapping its not-yet-ready wings without realizing that once the wings are fully dry and flat, he had to say goodbye to his longest kept pet!

void by failure chapter3

The Eagle

Four years have passed since the flying squirrel incident and jack was already in his third school with no success in his pet raising ventures. This time he was living in a dense forest in the foothills of western ghats-Mudhumalai. He had many friends now. They used to roam around together in the forest in the vicinity of their neighborhood playing (cop-thief) திருடன் போலீஸ் .

On one such occasion jack and his friends heard loud noises of monkeys in the nearby bamboo bush. When they got there they saw an injured eagle fighting to get away from the monkeys. They rescued the eagle. There was a deep wound under the eagle's wing. So the poor bird couldnt fly properly.

The kids decided not to tell the elders because they feared that the elders might take the eagle away somewhere. one of jack's friends had a small hen-house. The eagle was sheltered there. Meanwhile the evil monkeys were planning to catch the eagle again.

That evening when everyone had left, the monkeys came near the house and examined the spot where the kids had gathered to examine what was wrong with the eagle. The monkeys tried to sniff a trail in vein. Defeated, they left. Jack was happy seeing this not realizing that the monkeys will soon get what they wanted!

For the next couple of days, the kids tried to feed the eagle. They tried carrots, vegetables and then realizing that Mr.eagle may be a pure meat eater they tried to bring whatever natural food they can get their hands on-earthworms, beetles, grasshoppers etc...But Mr.eagle never opened his mouth...uhm beaks.

Sunday is usually when Indian families cook non-veg food. The kids decided to wait till Sunday which was two days after. Meanwhile they tried to teach Mr.Eagle to relearn his flying skills. The wound was healing quickly because of the medical attention by the kids. But even then flying was difficult for Mr.Eagle.

It was Sunday. Jack eagerly opened the hen-house with a piece of raw chicken in his hand. He was not invited by a 4day-domesticated bird of prey, but by a corpse!
Yes! the eagle had given up its struggle for life. It had passed away peacefully sometime in the middle of the night. Jack and his friends were mourning the entire day. They burried the eagle in their backyard.

That evening the monkeys sniffed their way to the grave and dug out the eagle. They then fought with each other on who should first peel off the bird's feathers. As Jack watched, the monkeys moved out of sight with his 5day-pet in their hands!

Will jack ever get to have a proper pet?

void by failure chapter2

Rabbits

&

Flying Squirrels

Jack was in his LKG. they were living in a scenic mount covered with green curtain. the place was devala where tea estates were abundant; also was wildlife. there used to be occasional visits by leopards and elephants!

jack's dad used to tell him about a fluffy furred creature with huge ears the size of his hand and hair as white as milk. this creature used to hop in a funny way and people call it RABBIT. jack had never seen the creature before. his mental picture of rabbit was more of a sheep with fur till its ankles.

jack's father decided to bring one for his son as jack was pestering him for a pet. He caught hold of a wild rabbit and took it back home.

when jack returned from school he was invited not by his first pet; but by a new non veg food!

his dad had put the rabbit in a box in his hefty enfield bullet for a safe ride back home which eventually became its coffin partly because the person who designed the box did not consider air circulation and partly because the government was too lazy to maintain the condition of roads in that area.

Poor boy jack. he did not have the chance to see even the dead rabbit!

jack also used to pester his dad to get him a flying squirrel. its a type of gliding rodent which inhabited the local ecosystem. though jack had not seen one. once a flying squirrel landed on the butter fruit tree in front of his house but before he could catch a glimpse it disappeared.

once again his dad decided to get his son a pet, this time a flying squirrel. it was rather by accident. a squirrel landed right next to him and he by impulse caught the rodent.

when jack returned home he was again not invited by a new pet, but by a big bandage on his dad's palm! the squirrel had bitten his hand and escaped, leaving both his dad and himself in pain.

will jack ever get a pet? or at least see one?

void by failure chapter1

Seeds of Dream

"it was fun". this is how dad's bed time stories would start. what followed was vivid nostalgic description of how a life form which cannot talk, cannot express emotion, cannot laugh at your jokes made dad's childhood life happy.

"is dad making up these stories?" jack had thought many a times

the answer came when dad's sis i.e jack's aunt told him about his dad's childhood companions conforming to dad's version.

The seeds of dream have been sown.

jack's dad grew up in a farm. so there was constant presence of animals in his stories. like for once, he had a mongoose as a pet. he used to tell jack how the little animal thought that he was its parent and how it would cuddle up beside him while sleeping etc... etc...

this is where it all began. the never ending quest in search of a pet like in his dad's stories. a companion. a life form with unconditional love.

this quest lasted longer than normal because

1. his mom hated pets

2. they had to move due to dad's occupation which made it difficult to have a pet

Will jack's quest be successful?

what adventures await him on the way?

void by failure

hi people,

im back after a long gap.

some stuff i had to take care of.

here goes....

i'm going to narrate a story about an avid young boy and his almost constant failure in attempts to have a pet. He tried having some pets which one may consider unusual to the extent of being eccentric. like antlions and caterpillars!

facts:

1. his mom hated having an animal in the house

2. his dad used to tell the boy about his own childhood pets as bedtime stories

Result:

1.conflict of interest!

2.eccentric solutions to meet mom-norm!

i'll follow up with the chapters of the story.... stay updated...

Walking down the memory lane...

I missed my night meal in hostel mess tonight. So i went out to eat. as it was very late i decided to walk to the nearest pastry shop.

While i was walking on the pavement by the side of the road amidst the buzz of traffic, i drowned in my sea of thoughts and as usual fished out a beautiful pearl.I mean that i figured out something substantial, something universally applicable among my stray abstract strings of thoughts. And the discovery is: people can be approximately put into two categories
1) Those who chase the big, most sought after pursuits of life Viz: money, power, fame or their big dream, inspiration, magnum opus etc. these people are very focused

2) Those who admire the minute details of life and relish every single happening, imperfection, small surprises etc... they don't have any big ambitions. they just live life as an art

(now the problem is that i fall in the second category and its very difficult to make a good living with such an attitude with an added anxiety factor of all the relatives' eyes on me thinking "this boy has got everything he needs to attain a good status. he's going to come out with flying colors")

with the satisfaction of having achieved yet another milestone in fishing out conclusions from my solitude-abstract-thought processing i reclined in the steel chair of the eatery. To my surprise there was a juice item in the menu which i hadn't tasted for a while. how long? 15 years!
yes. now starts the journey or rather a picnic down my memory:

i was in kinder garden then. we lived in government quarters in the middle of a beautiful tea estate in a place called Devala. there was a fruit tree in front of our house. the name of the fruit is "BUTTER FRUIT". the Fruit is of the size of a mango with a round bottom and a tapering top. it turns dark purple when ripe. it has a big round nut in the center.

whats in between the nut and the purple skin is of our interest! there is buttery flesh which is scooped out, milk and suger added and beaten like we do the egg before omelet. it tastes a bit sweet and is very thick. i used to try to climb the tree to reach the fruit but it was very difficult. once i fell off the tree and the scar is still somewhere on my scalp hidden by my hairline."BUTTER FRUIT JUICE READY" said the waiter bringing me back to the present. i emptied the glass, got a cake and started walking back.

i happened to cross a stray dog who was so skinny but he dint bother to stop or i would have given him a piece of the cake. two bites later i figured out i wont be able to finish the cake and was feeling sorry for not having shared it with the dog. then i thought how much food goes waste in the form of unfinished plates or even the small chunks which are unpickable with the spoon and fork!


this is when i went to PICNIC no.2:
i was in my fourth standard. our house was in the the middle of the forest of Mudhumalai in a place named kargudi.

the school was 14kms away. so there was a dedicated school trip by the safari truck. there were around 50 kids all over the establishments from masinagudi to thorapalli. and there were around 5 different schools. once in a while there'll be only half a day class in my school. but the pickup will come only in the evening. so i used to catch a bus home. on one such occasion i forgot to finish my lunch in school. so i had to finish it sitting in the bus depot.

as usual the place was very dirty the added noise and smoke of the buses in idling made it a very awkward place to even think about eating. as a result i was able to finish only half of the rice in my tiff-in box. i even remember the curry and side dish.

now how did i remember this memory?--> i was having the same situation now.
noisy vehicles, dirty sidewalk and a cake in my hand...(the leftover of which ended up in a trashcan. i still feel sorry for that dog)


the end.

REINCARNATION

Iam popular among the kids of my relatives because i keep them entertained and really step down to their level. My favourite one's "Nithish", my cousin brother's son who is very close to me and iam a kind of a hero to him. Well that's history. I had to leave my native for my higher studies and now "Rithanya" Nithish's younger sister doesnt even recognise me :-(

Nithish and me

Rithanya

That was untill this summer.Last week i was to my cousin's place. Both Nithish and Rithanya were there as they were on summer vacation too. Initially Rithu(short form of rithanya) was very shy and didnt even answer my questions. But soon when Nithish and me started playing, rithu had to join us as we were her only available playmates. This was the icebreaker between me and rithu! She slowly started talking to me and soon was under my spell. we first played hide and seek, monkey and ball, then some pc games followed by drawing mushtaches to their photos in ms-paint,then i showed them some magic tricks (really kiddish ones like where u cut your thumb into two parts etc...), then an origami session followed by launching the rockets and freeing the paper bats we made during the origami session and finally a shuttle cock game on the terrace. by the time i left, rithanya had become as close and as intimate to me as nithish.

This Summer

Its almost a two-hour journey home from my cousin's. I was lost in thoughts. How Blank and inert this world has changed me. I was faaaaaaaaar away from my original self lately. "Lately" is an understatement. Its somewhen from between the day i joined college(3 years ago) and (/till) yesterday. The person who was with these kids today is the REAL "Me". "I" got lost somewhere in this busy grown up's world. i dont mean that the real me is a kid. What I mean is the enthusiasm in whatever i do and my creativity; though i've been harnessing my creativity in my college life(for some adolescentish reasons included;) ) it is in no way comparable to how i felt using it for those kids.

In the dull, monotonous lifestyle of college i've lost my originality. This originality is compatible in the grownup's world but for no reason i've abandoned it, though not intentionally or suddenly. It was rather gradual and out of my knowledge. There is no specific reason for this abandonment. This's just what happens to everyone out there. Its just how we humans transform. From fully enthusiastic self aware individuals to bleached, money making robots; conrol freaks! As the saying goes

"In the process of searching for the answer, we loose hold of the question!"

May be i'll even need more reincarnations of my originality in many a future summer vacations to keep the REAL "me" alive!

First thing i want to say is "use dark colours" for blog themes so that we can conserve precious power. Speaking of power, power is one of the most sought after things in the world. What is power? We humans (with a big 150 pound brain capable of complicating simple things)mess things up and then try to simplify it. But the resulting solution is not simpler than it was initially. Thus we entwine ourselves in this deep Sh!t; this entangled complex bundle of strings which was once solvable but due to ignorance and negligance; has piled up to become too complex that even the sharpest minds together are finding it hard to arrive at even a short term remedy. Name it: Global warming, currency, economic inequality, religious disputes.....
coming back to my question, what is power? Is it gaining the upper hand in this man made entwinement? Is it being in a postion to control a person /s, state, country?
What binds other elements to our power? The manmade laws, ethics or the more primitive "fear"?
Whatever we think are binding us to power, they are all just illusions. What binds a soldier to his superiors? why should he obey their commands?
There is nothing blocking him to act on his own free will!!
Real power is something unavoidable, uncheatable, supreme. The only real power in this world is the control which our mother nature has on us. That is real power. In whatever way we try to conquer nature, we fail. It reminds us of the supremecy of nature's power. There are more Bermuda triangles than there are area 51's. There are more natural disasters than there are wars. Overall, nature is holding the sceptor. And we should realize this, so that we can live in balance. Balance is essential for survival, for sustainability, for happiness.