Ideas & Views

Mathura, the birthplace of Sri Krishna, is where I spent one year after my undergraduation. A batch of 23 fun loving people – that’s to be euphemistic – joined me in this journey just out of college. After my first trip to the much hyped about City, I guided people who came to me for advice and who still had high hopes of pub, music and galore, that if they stand at one place for more than few seconds in the City, they would surely have some cattle deposit its charge, hot and rot, on their shoes. With our exaggerated observation, we all agreed, after visiting the City only twice, that, there must be at least one-lakh shrines in this holy City. One fellow wouldn’t agree on this number and even started out to count them but for the fear of him growing old, we added the word ‘at least’ in the count. Few of us felt that this should be reported in Guinness Book of World Records so that U.P Tourism would see the light of the day. Whoever said India is a developing country, should clarify in

few days back, i had watched the movie "Day after tomorrow". The movie is about a consequence of global warming- the advent of ice age. Some parts of the northern hemisphere, whose warmth is maintained by the warm ocean currents of the atlantic, are frozen because of the melting of a large antartic glacier.......ice age due to global warming!!!!!sounds like an oxymoron!!! well, the concept is picking up. i am half way through Michael Crinchton's 'State of Fear', his latest best-seller on shelves. the front and back flap of the novel gives no outline of the story. nor is there any preface or foreword. let me break the rules. the plot is about global warming, environmentalists, climate/weather change, and so on. when the news of the tsunami came early sunday morning, more than shock, i was thrilled.is the tsunami real????ofcourse, i got my answer when i read that this man-eater wave of indian ocean is equivalent to a million atomic bomb explosions. this is defin

Here comes the world's worst (worst in my life time so far) disaster, claiming more than 70,000 people. Every news site, news channel is running a live score of the casualty. And not to spare, every blogger has something to write about it. A catastrophe of such magnitude is bound to affect every living soul on mother earth, especially when She is the cause. Its the poor who is affected again. Even mother nature, let alone the Govt, is being biased. Though this one time, unlike the Govt ways, the rich doesn't get richer but the poor haplessly gets poorer. Those who were in the huts are now in the streets. Concerning India, we have proved it time and again that we are a country rich of humane values. Though our own arm is bleeding, we have extended a helping hand to srilankans by sending 4 warships full of emergency supplies(blankets, sareers, pans, medicines,etc). Even Pakistan has sent rescue naval staff and supplies to srilanka and thai, which is quite a surprise!!!( no

All said and done about Dan Brown, Deception Point (DP) is a let down for those who have read DVC and DF. Though Brown has tried to convince that all the technology described in the book is real, it sounds far from it. The usual escape from death and the himalayan trials of his main characters shout loud and clear " u r reading fiction". The protogonists can sink into a shark's mouth and still come out safe with the slighest injury to their arms.....because the shark was not hungry!! I am struck for words to describe the plot of the novel because even a slight hint might make the reading uninteresting. Brown, as usual, has a qualified, intelligent and smart woman for the heroine and a matching (that makes simpler) hero for her to pull her out of mishaps. the same old villain is disguised from the start, though, in DP, it becomes obvious after few pages who the villain is -atleast i guessed it right. the story revolves around a path- breaking NASA discovery and serves Br

Let me make a declaration. With this small piece of my blah-blah, I do not intend to hurt anyone's religious sentiments. I dont know whether the reader(that is you) is an ardent follower of Hindu rituals and observe its prescribed austerities. This piece is just an outcome of the Chinese Tantra targeting my inbox, the fourth I had received in a day. Today's teenagers seem to question everything under the sun and more so when it comes to following or adapting a religious faith. It is commonplace to hear teens screaming ”Jesus!" or just " Jeeez!!", when excited or shocked. Hindu elders even accepted this practice as long as they dont hear 'shit' . Coming to the crux, belief in sending spiritual mails is nothing but out-right foolishness. Let me baptize these spiritual mails as 'spimails' for my convenience. Indian teenagers and just-turned adults are into the habit of getting easily fascinated by anything that is foreign to our culture. Who s

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown One of the finest story-tellers of our times, Dan Brown, is stunning with this suspense science-thriller. More so as an English Teacher. His expert research on the technical matter of the novel took me by surprise. Those who had missed reading the flap of the backcover would only conclude that here is another novel from a great computer scientist (an open challenge from Dan Brown to Bill Gates though!!). Unlike Michael Crinchton, Dan Brown cleverly refrains from wandering away into sheer exaggeration and technological impossibilities. Thats the genius in him. There is more to learn than to merely read. Clearly Dan's way. I have not heard of NSA before, not that there is 'Nothing Special About' it.For those ignorant-pots like me, National Security Agency or NSA, is a top-notch U.S Govt agency like CIA/FBA that holds the world's most precious and exclusive data - data about the country's various spies covering the vast Earth , enemy

Timeline- Michael Crinchton As the name goes, the story is a scientific fiction. An ingenious figment of imagination after a thorough study of tomes of research journals and papers, Timeline is a pure fancy how of quantum theory. There are two underlying concepts of physics elaborated and exploited in this novel. Quantum theory (especially for the not-so-physics minds) is that there are multiple universes existing parallely. We are part of just one universe and the objects in other universes are not visible to us. Then how do we know them? We come to know of the existence of other universes because of the interaction between them. As an example, Crinchton explains the interference pattern obtained by a single ray of light passing through a slit (remember high school physics!!) as a result of the interaction with the quanta of some other universe. Secondly, Time is not a variable at all. It is rather a constant from the time the universe is created!!! now, now, it is very diffic

hi, to start with, a simple thanks to those listening eyes(!!) who have the time and tide to read some nobody's voice. i am new to this blog business and trying to get a feel of these blogs. this is the first time i would be typing into a PC without spell check, grammar check and all the parapernalia's of Gates' brain child (or rather children). it is a nice feeling to type whatever i feel, get a deep satisfaction of having shared my innermost feelings to some confidante, a confidante who can never betray me. this is indeed a writing without purpose. and hence a writing which cannot be copyrighted. why is this happiness to type a blog?? have the ever advancing tools of communication widened the gap??why is the hesitation to share with someone flesh and blood?? why is the machine a companion?? why are we talking 1s and 0s??what ever happened to 'language skills'?? why do the fingers play the vocal chord??? whatever, here is something that gives another meaning to fre