Pitfalls and Potholes

Who would have expected a deep drainage pit showing its ugly mouth wide open in the middle of a city road? And who would have dreamed of dropping into one of such bunkers on a rainy day when we sail on water roads? Boasting of a metro city status and a booming economical hub, our city is not supposed to keep graves ready for the innocent biker. I've seen a couple of incidents that turned out to be accidents. Once a man on a two-wheeler first skidded, then jumped out of his seat, and finally came to rest after an unintended somersault, only to find himself lying inside a drainage opening! Accompanied with a couple of my friends, all I could do is to reassure him and advising him to be careful while riding. The second incident happened rather behind me when I was on my way to office, but the exact place where the first one happened. Hearing a THUD, I saw an elder person struggling to get up after falling victim to the same pothole. This time there were a lot of people to help him. All roads lead to hell? Gross negligence.

A somewhat decent-looking road

I may be talking a lot of civics, but I tell you the truth. To have a live demo of the scenario, choose a raining day, get into a rickety MTC bus, and travel through the pitfalls and potholes. I want to scream at the authorities, if they deserve any authority at all, "GO TO HELL".

Honey, I killed the Cockroach!

People for Ethical Treatment of Animals should answer some of my questions. What will you do if you find a family of cockroaches reside with yours? Will you live and let them live, or catch hold of them and safely relocate them to some other location, or move yourself away from them since they have been around the place before you had actually come to the place? OK. That's a tough question, for which I had been breaking my head to find an answer, at least until one of the arthropods casually crossed over my legs with remarkable 'cockiness'.

The solution was a well known brand of insecticide. Though I didn't like the very idea, there was no other way, though! I just bathed the cockroach with a fine spray of the poison. Alas! The poor thing eccentrically exhibited a Brownian motion of sorts before falling on its back, only to give up, unable to withstand the torturing stings of the spray. All was over in minutes. Similar fate was meted to her kith and kin and it was just a day's work for me.

Now the spray can lies idle, there on the shelf, as if grinning, with a sense of false pride that it can kill as it likes, when someone presses taps its head. Still, I feel a vicious cycle of having cockroaches 'walking' over my legs, before dying of suffocation. I might be hallucinating. But the ghosts still keep haunting.

Why I hate Grammar Class

A perfect grammatist's view of a beautifully written article.

It is not that I don't like grammar class. I hate it. One doesn't need poetic skills to admire a beautiful girl. A passion for beauty will do. If that is the case, why does one need to know all the intricacies of grammar? It is the world that a linguist may find priceless treasures in. For a casual traveler, comfort and convenience are the priorities. A little bit of geography would be an advantage, but not the minute topographic details. When a person has read so much of noted authors, and has written good language for quite some time, what is the real need for him or her to dig deeper into the ever stretching cave of linguistic algorithms?

A sentence, they say, is a group of words that give a meaning. When the writer is able to communicate effectively with the reader, what is the point in stressing on the knowledge of grammatical jargons? How will the mere knowing of the terms like antecedent disagreement, dangling modifiers, contractions and comma splices help the effectiveness of communication? The grammar teacher says that the right usage of components of grammar depends on the context. It makes me wonder whether the context lead to grammar or vice versa.

Grammar is a composition of widely accepted sets of rules for effective and universal communication of the language. If the ultimate purpose is fulfilled, why go for a hard and fast affliction towards this quaint chord of inflexibility? Grammar is supposed to make the use of language easier. If grammar itself becomes tougher, there is no other go. I quit the class.

My Dear Pluto!

My Dear Pluto,
It's paining to hear that the scientific community has thrown its axe of scrutiny right on your head. Knowing that they can't change your dimensions, they have changed their definitions. Losing an universal status you were enjoying for over 7 decades is not a triviality. You have always amused us with your so called eccentric orbit that often come within that of the Neptune, your mysterious composition, and hitherto unexplored surface. I don't know what others might think. But Venetia Burney Phair, who as a 11 year old schoolgirl suggested this name to you after the Roman God of wealth, might be looking for the proper reasons. What might William Tombaugh, who showed you to the world, have in his mind? Maybe, as his wife Patricia puts it, he is a scientist, and he knows why you have lost your elite membership of the planetary system in the solar family. Michael Brown, the discoverer of 2003UB313 (personally named 'Xena' by him), says: "I may go down in history as the guy who killed Pluto." I may have to change my favorite mnemonic that my teacher taught me, and which I teach my students, "My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets". So what, my dear Pluto? Once again, you are in an elite group, this time as the leader. Yes! You're going to lead the group to be rightly known as 'Plutons'. You have always been the symbol of coolness. When the world bids tearful adieu to you, I wish you a happy journey through the realms of Space. We the earthlings will be happy to find you there from the 'New Horizons', in 2015.

New Horizons is the spacecraft NASA has sent this January to study Pluto. This vehicle would reach Pluto by the year 2015.

Matrimonial Melodies

Marriage is an institution that has always been a controversial topic ever since it was invented. I still wonder what might have put man in need of such a complicated organization. Nobody knows for sure when the first ever marriage was performed. For centuries, we've been debating and displaying the pros and cons of this institution. Courtrooms witness moments of despair mingled with relief in the form of divorce cases. Is marriage one of the by-products of civilization? Or is it a systematic method approved with an eugenic approach? Why are brothers not allowed to marry their own sisters (In most parts of the world save some tribal areas)? Why do men marry women younger than themselves? What makes marriage so special and indispensable? A vast horizon of questions emerge as we contemplate.

We often come across couples complaining about difficulties in continuing as life partners. Most of the marriages end up being disasters, though the couples physically live together. Several hurdles prevail in the path of marriage. In a multi-faceted society like ours, we have all sorts of monsters such as caste, dowry, male chauvinism, and so on. Western culture is no safer than ours. Marriage is no more sacred for them. It's just a kind of mutual agreement. Once you get into a quarrel with your spouse, the very root of the marriage is shaken, and you are out of it! No wonder children use the initials of their mothers. After all, one can change his or her father, but not the mother.

It's surprising that we haven't invented something like 'spouse management' yet. In most of the families, marriage exists only because of the patience and sacrifice of either of the couple. Still, they get together when a problem arises. There is a mutual understanding between the two. Good children are brought up by good parents. When you compare the life history of a criminal to that of a genius, the difference becomes apparent. Good parents bring up good children; good marriage makes good parents. Thus, it entirely depends on being together.

But how does this make us different from animals? Lions stay together in prides. Sheep stay together in herds. Birds stay together in flocks. The difference between them and us is that we have emotions, logical thinking, and understanding. Marriage is all about sacrifice. Modern day marriages have taken a new dimension. People fight for the right to perform gay marriage. There are states that have approved it. There are laws that approve it. Marriage doesn't need a man and a woman anymore. Gone are those days. It is no more the same old one-way journey. In the world of metrosexual celebrities, marriage is not an essential aspect of life. Yet, whenever I see the old couple walking every evening, hand in hand, I realize the real meaning of marriage. I feel like visiting the sanctum sanctorum of a sacred institution.

Most hated

Sweet Melody

Football chemistry

As the Football fever takes hold of the globe, this is the right time for me to tell what a football has to do with Chemistry. (May Pele forgive me!)
There are molecules composed entirely of carbon. One such molecule, gets its name from Richard Buckminster Fuller, a renowned architect who designed the geodesic dome.
Since this type of molecule has a shape similar to that of a geodesic dome, it is also known as Buckminsterfullerene!
But where does our truncated icosahedron (nothing but the lump that the likes of Ronaldinhos and Beckhams will be rocketing into the nets soon!)come into this?
Well! The smallest fullerene has the shape of a football of the type made of hexagons and pentagons, with a carbon atom at the corners of each hexagon and a bond along each edge. Technically, it is called C 60.


Discovered by Sir Harold Kroto, Richard E. Smalley, and Robert F.Curl (they were the recipients of the 1996 Nobel prize in Chemistry), Buckminsterfullerene's atoms are bonded together into a hollow polygon structure with 60 vertices and 32 faces, 12 of them being pentagons and 20 hexagons. Thus, the molecule has the same geometry as that of a football.


Also nicknamed 'Buckyballs', these molecular footballs have led to new branch of Chemistry.

An Orphaned Rain

Public radios screamed
Weathermen swore in centimeters...
Incessant was the word.
"Get soaked!", said my soul.
Literally locked in a jail,
I peeped out of my window
Now decorated with water drop curtain.

The perennial street vendor
Had deserted his mobile stall.
Where the hell did the Old Man go
Who nonchalantly curses the passers-by?
There was no traffic jam
As there was no traffic...
None dared the rain.

The Children of Water
Fell in Love...
With Earthlings.
But the Children on Land
Went Indoors...
Keeping themselves away
From the 'venomous' drops
That would cure them!

With all her symphonies unheard...
The Bride of Water Kingdom
Traversed the barren streets,
The deserted fields, and concrete jungles...
All alone