Monday 23 February 2015

The Lost Soul- A Sci-Fi Story!!

T-0minutes and counting

“Astronaut Cooper, We are ready to take off.”, communicates the guy from the base station.
“Positive” replies Cooper as the space shuttle starts to lift off from the Kennedy Space Centre on its way to the highly esteemed and sought after Mars Exploration Mission. The space shuttle starts its journey to the red planet with huge applause from the crowd and soon it disappears in a huge midst of clouds and trails it left behind.

“Astronaut Cooper, Report your velocity and the engine status, the first stage is set to be deployed.”
“Velocity reporting at 2400 m/s . Engine is functioning right. First stage is deployed. Over”replies Cooper as the Space Shuttle prepares its way out of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Claps erupt in the ground station as the shuttle successfully crosses the atmosphere. The smiling faces erupting in joy receive a big jolt when all of a sudden they lose contact with the space shuttle. They were no longer receiving signals from it and the faces became fiery at once. After investigating the reports, they found out there was a massive solar storm which was not scheduled for at least a month. Scientists started to find  a way to regain contact with the shuttle and know about its whereabouts only to be faced with disappointment.

Meanwhile, the situation was much worse in the Space Shuttle. Having faced a fierce solar storm, the Shuttle has been damaged a bit and the mission had been compromised. Soon after exiting from Earth’s atmosphere, the space shuttle was supposed to start its Hoffmann Trajectory towards Mars but that could not be possible without any support from the ground station. The signals had been lost and it was like being stuck in the blackout region forever. There was still a silver lining though, the engine was working well and there was minimal loss to the structures, so there was still some chance for them to return back to Earth manually without any ground support or if the signals came back to life.

Floating in Blank Space of nothing, Cooper was running out of ideas now. After the brief spell of solar flare, the shuttle lost its way and here it is now. It was like swimming in the middle of an infinite ocean where you can’t see the shore for eternity. He was looking perilously for any sign of Earth as they had escaped it just few minutes back. The hope was still alive if the physics went right.
That inspired him to work on the physics of the trajectory and he started to look into every minute detail hoping to get back to Earth. The quest for life can really make you do anything. As he was going through the maths nearing the solution, he was faced with an immense surprise. Through the small window of his shuttle, he could see a blue rocky like planet rising out of nothing. He erupted in joy just like a child when he finally gets his share of ice-cream. His prayers had come true. But wait!!

Earth is visible on the opposite side of where it should have been in theory. Who cares anyway when the destination is itself standing in front of you. “There could have been a mistake in the maths, a possible error.”, he thought to himself.

The battle was still not won yet. As the contact with the ground control was lost, it still was a big task in hand. Cooper had to manually steer the space shuttle according to Earth’s location and if he managed to do that tedious task, there was another might job ahead. The shuttle had to survive blackout while entering the Earth’s atmosphere. It would be a dangerous task in hand as the structure had already been damaged and there was no way to know if it was fit to undergo that operation. But he had to take the risk, it could be either him burning down in flames on entering the atmosphere or if the shuttle managed to peak through that, a movie franchise was definitely awaiting him.

Cooper started his quest back to Earth with his calculations which just had a minus sign missing in it. Since everything made sense after that, he went ahead with the correction and started to steer the shuttle’s way to Earth correcting for the Earth’s rotational speed as well. Things were going on pretty smooth with those precise calculations he had done. Slowly and steadily, the shuttle was standing on the face of the Earth marching toward it with pride.

The gigantic task was banging on the door now. It was time for re-entry. With his seat belt tightened, he oriented the shuttle towards the Earth at an angle of 45 degrees for minimal drag as the material could fail any time. Tightening his grip, he waited for that moment where he could feel the heat, literally.

The temperature inside the shuttle started to decrease exponentially as the shuttle begins its descent to the Earth unlike what he anticipated. The temperature was supposed to increase. “What is the sorcery?”, he murmured to himself in the shrinking cold which left him amazed and confused.  A deep sense of calmness also struck his mind since he knew he was safe now, the cold breeze was hurting him but his life had been spared. A sense of confused excitement ran through his body.
During the re entry, the space shuttle was oriented towards the coast of Japan, so it continued its descent in that direction. After the apparent blackout was over, Cooper erupted in joy as he could see floating white clouds in the sky and the calmness of the ocean could be felt from there. He started to work for increasing the lift of the shuttle to decrease the momentum and land safely on Earth, his last desire.

The speed had been controlled and the shuttle survived  the re-entry successfully. The gloomy face had all smiles on it. He was excited to be back on Earth but it was not going to last long. The moment he stepped out of the shuttle, he was set aback by what he saw. The ground was shaking and there was some apparent movement of the trees. Wait! The trees do not even look the same as he had left. Before he could even grasp a hold of what was happening, a loud thumping sound ruptured his ears. He turned back in fear and he just could not believe his eyes. A moving tree had caught hold of a chimp and was about to kill it.

A sense of confusion ran through his body. He looked for any inhabitants on that island but there was not even a single man made structure found. A lot was going through his mind and everything had started to make sense now. His calculations were never wrong. He was right all along. The solar
flare disturbed the trajectory of the shuttle and paved its way to the wormhole which had only been in books till date. All the unnatural occurrences confirmed this fact.

Cooper was stuck in a parallel universe now. In this universe, the chimps never evolved to become humans and the trees evolved to surpass the animal race. In this universe, Trees were the ultimate winner of “Survival of the fittest theory”. Trees were evolved to kill and wipe out every other organism on this planet. They were the superior race in this universe. The movement of the surface as he landed was actually their movement technique. They had been configured and adapted to live like that.

Cooper was the only human among those chimps and these ultra evolved trees. He was scared to death. He had found out so much and survived through all. He was set to change the laws of physics and give a new dimension to the existing theory. This definitely excited him.

He was stuck in this planet with no chance of getting back to Earth, his Earth. His evolved brain could help him survive here in the wild but of no use. He started his journey to find any possible way to get back to his universe. Days begin to pass with his survival extinct getting better but it was getting monotonous for him. Having lost all hopes, he decided to end up his life by drowning into the Sea. This was possibly some excitement in his life after those days as he began his descent into the ocean. The sea water had started to fill his body until he saw a bright light and thrown aback.

He was lying on the shore again.

Sunday 22 February 2015

10 things India need to change!

At certain point of time, We all agree to the fact that India needs change. People blindly blame the Politicians for not doing work, but most of the things can be improved by the public itself.  I have taken down 10 points which India needs to change:



1. Loiter in Public- This problem persists in all parts of the countries, at some places it's worse than the other. It's the public's duty to keep their roads and city clean



2. Pee in Public-  This is the worst of them all. Indian Men consider this a symbol to their manhood to pee anywhere they want be it a bus stop, empty wall or any road, as a matter of fact. If asked, Can't you control that for some time, they have a simple answer to that, Why would I do that, if I have got the privilege to pee anywhere?



3. Breaking Queue- Believe me, It happens in all parts of the country. Celebrities or MP's who apparently consider themselves important often break the line to get their job done. If you go to UP or Bihar, they might even take out a gun against you. And so, the system goes on and on.



4. Staring in Public- This is the most common scenario on Indian roads. It has succumbed to this level that it is now considered normal in India. Passing cheap comments, clicking pictures without permission happens every time and there is no one to complain.



5. No Respect for Historical Monuments- "Blah loves Blah", the most common lines found in any monuments of India. Every Wall, every door written with these bullshit. Well,we Indians have a great way of expressing our love.




6. Indian Standard Time- Indians have their own definition of time. If you are being called in a meeting at 10 A.M, the perfect time to arrive at the spot would be 10:10 AM, that way you would leave a mark on everyone of them, that's the excuse most of us gives.


7. More Interested in Other's Life- This is a completely true fact. Indians don't give a shit on what they do, but make sure they know everything about the neighbours. Just because the neighbour’s son got into IIT, you must get there too.



8. Engineer or Doctor- This trend is now setting off lately, but it still is prevalent in most parts of the country. There are only two professions in this World, doctor or Engineer. If you can't be one of those, your life will be ruined and no one will marry you. Believe me, that's what it is told.
Parents in India have a great habit of imposing their dream on you even if you don’t have any interest in it.


9. Priorities- The greatest example in this thing is dowry. A parent could spend 25 lakhs on dowry for marriage of her daughter, but can't spend that equivalent of money to teach her and make her own decisions. And apparently, In India, you can't make your own decisions in marriage too. you just have to do arranged marriage, if u like it or not.


10. Hypocrisies in Religion- Most of the population in India are ignorant of the teachings of their religion, but they go on pounding it and will go to any extent to defend it. The riots taking place almost every time in India is one such example. If that's not enough, there comes caste and its divide. What's the point of fighting over all these petty things when you can't defend the origin of any god. There is no proof of their existence why fight over it?

Friday 20 February 2015

The Solitary Amender!

  Wandering along the street of the School where he spent most of his lifetime, Rohit Sharma couldn't control the pain of watching my son Rohan being scolded by me for faring poor in the tests after the parent teacher meet in a sunny afternoon. Mr. Sharma had always been known as a calm and comforting man but this time he couldn't resist. He went ahead to talk to me seeking for the reason behind his disappointment. The reason was pretty obvious. Rohan succumbed to the pressure of the fierce competition with his neighbours, cousins, siblings or literally everyone and couldn't perform according to the high aspirations. Mr. Sharma had lived his life with principles, discipline and quite high self-esteem. He felt dismay for what was happening with Rohan and thus decided to intervene in the matter.

After some quick answers he was seeking, he invited me and Rohan to his house and it was a big deal for the adjoining colony. No one knew much about Mr. Sharma but people had made up many things to equalize for the fact that he owned a Rolls Royce just being a primary School Teacher. Some said he came from a rich background and some had allegations of him having a strong underworld connection. But I was one of the lucky one to find out or even enter his royal home and we finally did.

Being from a small city in a poor state of India, one would not expect to see the amount of royalty put in that building and once we entered the building, the sonorous architecture left our eyes wide open. He invited us to his drawing room to talk more about the thing he saw on the street. As part of embracing our Indian culture, I insisted my son Rohan to touch his feet. The moment Rohan went ahead, Mr. Sharma receded his feet and that took me in despair.

“Why do you want to take my blessing?” his statement followed his actions. “Just because I am an adult doesn’t necessarily mean you bow in front of me, you could be greater.” I was awe-struck for another five minutes. “Who says that to a kid?” I whispered to myself. That the worst piece of advice anyone had given to a child, at least that’s what I thought that time.

 After two minutes of profound silence, I decided to ask him what he really inferred. “Do you really think you are right? That’s not the best piece of advice I have ever heard!” I asked him doubted. “What can be possibly wrong in showing respect to someone who is elder than you and definitely has a much richer experience and outlook to life” I uttered again.

“There is no right, there is no wrong. We are forced to believe what others want us to. We are all moulded according to the needs of the society and the people around us. So the important thing is always to make your own decisions in favour of the society, thinking about its consequences as well. The important part is thinking. Don’t do anything just for the sake of doing it. Think before you act. You will be amazed to see everything that follows.”

 “Well Of Course, if you want another generation of mediocre people, follow what everyone has to say. Hide what you really are. Have a sugar coating on yourself so that society gives you thumbs up and live your life killing your creativity.” He continued in despair

This topic definitely suited him and it felt as if he was waiting for this day to happen all his life. The excitement in his eyes was clearly visible. It was like a kid getting to play computer games for the first time. His mind was swirling was information and facts and he kept pushing it out just like a river breaking the dam barrier. Before I could notice, he started all over again.

 “The first step to success always starts with you identifying yourself. You must know who you are, what are your strength and weakness, what fascinates you and what doesn’t. Get your facts straight and your mind open. And that doesn’t come with fear. Tragically, we Indians have the habit of doing everything over fear. This certainly matches up with the thing you were doing on the street earlier this evening. You were not scolding him; you were stripping him of his confidence and his chance to survive without fear”

These things continue to sway over my head and left me puzzled. I asked him with amazed wariness “I get some part of it but certainly not agree with everything you have said so far. Can you shed some light on it?”

“Let me tell you the story of my life. The way my life changed and how I began to see my motive for which I was born.” he replied.

“Sure”, I said with utter excitement looking over the gigantic clocked on the wall which truly agreed with the Relativity Principle.

"I was born in a middle class family here in Patna. My father being a shopkeeper at a local vendor store always insisted me on getting a good education. His aspirations and dreams were being forced on me. I was just an above average student back then. So I definitely did not meet my parent’s expectations. The burden of it made it worse. I was not free. I succumbed to pressure and could never perform to my full potential. Things went on like that until I was on my own. My Parents died in a bus accident when I was 14 leaving me alone and handing me over all the responsibilities I had to take. I was in shock for few days until I saw the silver lining here. I was all alone and free of all the responsibilities. I had to take my own decisions and would have to stand by it if it failed.” he stopped to sip a cup of tea placed on the table nearby.

 Finally getting a grip to what he was talking about, I was amazed and excited to know about his roller coaster journey. The story of his life definitely seemed like he build it on his own with his own calibre. I had already thought of his name for the time I was about to recite his story to my friends.

Finishing his cup of tea he strived ahead to complete his story with more excitement sparking through his eyes.

“After that incident, I decided to pursue my engineering in Computer Science having my long standing interest in it. The Bank helped me in providing loan for my education. The logic application and clear view of the subject made me stand out from the crowd. I started to get noticed by everyone around, managed to pull off a decent intern-ship and Job at Microsoft India. But one thing always bugged me, the narrow mindedness of the people and their thinking depending on others. So I started preaching stuff to my closed ones. I needed a bigger audience. What could have been better than writing a book about it. So in my free time, I decided to write books preaching about the application of logic in real life. It mainly dealt with atheism and philosophy for a happier and successful life. Luckily, one of the books got viral and I could manage a great income from that. The job was paying me well too. I was earning lots and managed to marry a beautiful women, just like the way I wanted.” He continued.

"Still, there was something missing in my life. The job satisfaction was not much. Each time I went to interview for hiring students in different college, I felt dismay for our education system. We had been training robots all along. It was time to change everything. I felt as if there were problem with the way we were raising kids right from the childhood. So finally I decided to take a small step myself for improving that condition. I moved back here to my home town and joined this school as a primary teacher. It was a bit shocking for my colleagues and friends as I quit a high position job at Microsoft to join as a primary School teacher. But I was happy, my family was happy. That’s all I needed. And I had the satisfaction of daring to change what I wanted to see.”

 “When I saw you scolding your kid near the School, my mind automatically reminded me of the pressure I used to face and could totally relate to it. So, I decided to call you in and portray my story. I felt connected to Rohan and knew he has the calibre just like the lacs of kids in India who are unable to succeed just because of the pressure they are mounted upon. I think I did my job well to educate every person I can. Promise me this, you would give your kid the freedom to think, the freedom to open up and also stop others who are acting as a barrier to the country’s infinite breathing talent.” he completed profoundly boasting and taking a deep sense of respite doing this.

I had been mesmerised by his talk, by his story. I went ahead to promise him for that. The large clock on the wall had rung again. This time it was 6 P.M. We had been talking for 6 hours without any sense of exhaustion running through us. The name I thought for him earlier made more sense now. I told him of that, “The Solitary Amender”. He smiled at it and took a deep breath of relief on hearing the same. We finally went ahead on our journey to home with a much enlightened mind and such deep insight that took me for a roll.

I knew my life had changed. I had heard before that your life can change any moment by any person. I never believed in those. But today, having experienced that, I went in as a different person and came out as a much improved version. The smile on my face never retired as I took the oath of passing this on and on and giving the legacy a life.

Wednesday 11 February 2015

Manipal for Dummies!!

You are stuck in this vicious cycle of the Indian education system. You are preparing for the highly esteemed and overrated J.E.E and you know you don’t stand a chance. You have heard of Manipal(not Sikkim wala) from some distant relatives or family friends who just can’t stop boasting about it. All you can think to yourself is it must be a big hype created by its students. OR IS IT?
To know what it really is like to be a Manipalite, you screw up your J.E.E (not really!) and you finally get admission in Manipal Institute of Technology( Nadella wala). Let us assume you are a from a small town and a middle class family. What would be the first thing that you notice when entering into the glorious Manipal Era. There is no marks for guessing. It’s the greenery of the campus and its glorious infrastructure. Naah, Just kidding. Hot girls. You would notice hot girls.
Manipal is located in the rocky hinterland of the Malabar Coast of south West India, about 8 km from the Arabian Sea. Having an advantage location wise, the open-mindedness of the people adds cherry to the cake. There is a famous song “Summer of 69" re sung by Indian artists dedicated to Manipal University and that song totally fits on your life once you are in Manipal. 
Manipal is like the sparky teenager of India which always likes to stay in the news. The irony is this teenage is over 50 years old and still partying hard. It has been known long for its partying spirit, but last year it covered the headlines with two of its graduates becoming the C.E.O of the software giants Microsoft and Nokia. Manipal still boasts of this tremendous achievement and people have actually got an idea where Manipal is. 
Being located in a very small area of 26 km^2, the life of every Manipalite revolves around few of the things that make Manipal what it is now. The word “Tiger” apparently has a wide importance in Manipal. First being the Tiger Circle, giving you a grand welcome to the University town and the other being “Eye of the Tiger” which has bended its mark in Manipal. Dee-Tee. This word is enough to put up spirit in a dying soul. Although it’s small, this pub has an amazing crowd and music and it has witnessed so many love stories in making. All these things make Dee-Tee the favourite place for students there. There are many places for hangout these days including the famous beaches- Malpe and Kaup. 
I guess I forgot we were talking about Manipal Institute of Technology, an engineering College. That implies we have to talk about the same old boring study stuff or may be not. Manipal has been famous among the companies for their student’s amazing communication skills. Being in India, you really can’t expect major difference in the teaching curriculum but having better soft skills certainly gives us an edge. Hence, the placements are soaring new heights every year making Manipal quite famous among the youth.
S.P, T.C, I.C,Sheila, Syndicate, O.B, K.C. These are the abbreviations any MIT graduate can never forget as if our life is dependent on it and actually it does. Oh and how can you forget Om Xerox, the billionaire shop from Manipal which functions as the Brain of Manipal. Spending time on I.C discussing the application of Continuity Equation( You are possibly an engineer, figure it out!) was every student’s favourite past time. Well No, the former part is true though . The favourite past time was appreciating the natural beauty.
“Born in India, Brought Up in Manipal”
This phrase became very famous among the pass outs of Manipal University. There is another phrase that goes “ You don’t know what you have until it’s gone”. This phrase doesn't actually describe Manipal pretty well. Because the moment you enter Manipal, you know its value. You don’t have to lose it in order to value it. Manipal is a way of living. Manipal is life.
Inspired by life. Inspired to live!!

Monday 9 February 2015

2014 in Butts!


2014 saw a lot of trends varying from FIFA to ISIS or from war in Gaza to Kim Kardashian’s Butt breaking the Internet. Oh Well, I said it, Butts. It ruled most of the 2014 with Kardashian eventually freezing the Internet with her huge butt.


Many claimed that it was a fake butt, and in this particular picture, it actually looked like it. But She said that it isn’t her fake butt and we have known Kim to be a very generous and kind woman for she has ruled the Internet pereodically. She has been kind enough to gift the humankind her sex tape which eventually skyrocketed her image. So we should definitely trust her to be true. Although that doesn't answer the question to why her butt looks like two butt joined together, I guess it would be the mystery of the ages and Scientists somewhere probably would have started working on that.

And then we also had Miley Cyrus with her twerking and damn it was so funny. She started off the twerk trend and her butt is not big at all. So Why did she do it at all? Could you believe your eyes? I definitely couldn't. Maybe, Butt is the answer and question to so many things.

There was also Nicki Minaj with her viral video “ Anaconda”. If you are a butt lover and you have not seen this video yet, then you certainly have missed a big deal. She carried on the trend set by Miley Cyrus in Twerking and all she did in her music video was twerk along with other fine respectable ladies out there. So basically there was a lot of butts to be seen all around grooving to the music. I wonder what was the use of word Anaconda in this video!!

Coming back to India, we had our own version of Kim Kardashian — K.R.K. No, Damn, I am not going to talk about his butt, I think talking about Miley’s butt was enough. K.R.K started off his chain of tweets: “Please RT if you think that “fill in your choices” has the biggest butt in Bollywood”. The name included that of Parineeti, Katrina, Deepika and Sonakshi. Sonakshi was quick to respond with her tweet “Please RT this if u think @kamaalrkhan is a woman disrespecting waste of space and deserves to be hung upside down and given 4 tight slaps.” This news was not a global piece but it definitely stirred news in India and K.R.K finally managed to maintain his decorum and respect in the industry.

Any ways, at the end of the day, girls were known to have butt and it went all crazy swirling the news and apparently “breaking” it too. But what’s the big deal, everyone has a butt. I have one, you too do. Some manage to do new things with it and it gets famous. Well, polishing it and making random moves with music is now old, so think of something new.

“One butt to rule them all” could be an apt quote for the year 2014 but there were also butts which acted as a catalyst in igniting the initial reaction before we got the big butt news.

And yes, in 2014, Men were not supposed to have Butt.