................

I sometimes sit back and wonder

wonder what this life is all about

One moment its blissful and happy

the next, filled with a thousand doubts.

Quantum Mechanics To The Rescue

My college convocation is around the corner and for the past few days i had been debating with myself whether to attend it or not. Why debating?I mean its always nice to go back to your college, catch up with old friends, relive the memories and to top it all, formally be declared an engineer (as if it makes any difference though). But then i wanted to avoid running into certain people.Although there are a lot of people i really really want to meet( and yes it includes you too dumbsentis :P ), i wasn't sure that the joy of meeting these people would outweigh the unpleasantness of running into these other certain people.While i was still lost in my ambivalence,i chanced upon an article on Wikipedia and to my surprise, it was quantum mechanics which came to the rescue of my conundrum.

In 1935, Erwin Schrödinger designed a thought experiment to critique the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.The following is the jist of the experiment:
A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device(which must be secured against direct interference by the cat) : in a Geiger Counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.
For more, click here

Now you all must be wondering what the fuck has this got to with the the problem i was facing, right!!Well you see, according to quantum mechanics, the cat in the box, left to itself, is simultaneously, alive and dead. Yet when we look into the box, we see the cat either alive or dead, and not a mixture of both. So similarly my trip will have both positive and negative outcomes if left to itself. Only when i make the trip will i know which one of them it actually is.
Am sure Schrödinger, while devising this experiment would have ever imagined that it would be put to such use :P.

PS:Am pretty sure that this Cat's gonna be alive after the trip,coz running into the other undesirable ones really does not matter anymore. :P

Best Friends

Why is it that we always fall for our bestfriends?Is it because we know we can trust them? Is it because we know them so well? Is it because they know exactly whats going on in our head?Or is it because they are there any day, any time, anywhere without the promise of kisses, intimate touches or whispered sentiments of love?
I think we love them because they are there when there's nothing in it for them, nothing except that smile they hope to see on your face.We love them because they love us for exactly who we are.We love them because this life just would not be the same without them.And we love them simply because we love loving them.

ANATHEMA

Anathema. I don't know but for some reasons i have always loved this word. And i have always wondered how such a beautiful word could have just the opposite meaning. I mean how could someone ascribe so unsavoury a meaning to so poetic a word (exaggerating!! naah i don't think so.)? What was he/she thinking? This word could have so easily meant something positive, something sacred, something beautiful. No No..think of it. For example: "Aahh what an Anathema those eyes were! I wish i could keep looking into them forever" or "The Anathematic view from the top of the mountain took my breath away" or or "Beta, Anathema..How was our day at school today". I would have so loved to give my daughter this name (if and when i had one i.e.), but for some lunatic's whims and fancies (well to come to think of it, this whole thing might just be one of my whims and fancies, but then since its mine i guess i have the liberty to ignore it..:P).

So i did some research on the origin of this word and voila, it turns out i was right (or atleast partially).The word has Greek origins and it originally meant something lifted up as an offering to God, or in other words, something Sacred . But somehow later, with evolving meanings, it came to mean denounced, cursed, etc etc.(and here i thought evolving means tending to something better...) For more, click here.

But after learning this, i guess i don't really care what it means now. I was right about this word all along. Although i think i still can't name my daughter that.. L

And here's something before i end this post

"Its such an Anathema (read curse) that a word as Anathematic (read sacred) as Anathema should have evolved to acquire such an An/Un- Anathematic meaning."

What say eh!!!

Its Raining

ensconced in the bed by the window-side sipping a steaming mug of hot cofee..... and listening to the rain splashing outside......harldy few other things enrapture one the way this does.....the serenity of it all seems so perfectly utopian.....theres this sense of some kind of inner joy, some kind of calmness being felt after a really long time...all the doubts, the fears, aspersions, all just seem to simply fade away and you just love everything about life at that moment....the verdure spread outside gives everything this pristine touch.....more like ''i feel like a new born''.
And you just simply sit back and wonder how can as inane a phenomena as water cycle make this world look so amazingly beautiful...even if only for a short while.........

"In India you don't cast your vote, you vote your caste"
I read this quote in the book "Inspite of the Gods...The strange rise of modern India" by Edward Luce.
How very very true!

7 Pounds

Just done watchin this movie...ironical that i should see this movie just after i had been through with my last post (happiness).why ironical??well for that you need to watch the movie. and watch you must because its a brilliant movie.

PS: Thats 3 brilliant movies in a row now.It started with Masoom, then The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and now this. Some one seems to be on a roll eh!! :P

Thoughts.....Fading away

dew wets the freshly awoken leaves and the air around fills with melodious chirpings. sun's crimson knocks on my window, letting me know its dawn...thats when i realize i have been up all night. with the battle between impending sleep and insomnia still continuing, i try to focus back on my thoughts...the thoughts that have kept me up all night...the thoughts that have troubled me quite often lately. but it becomes difficult to concentrate now...probably dwelling on something continously over a period of time slakes one's ability to think.....then very slowly, sleep starts to creep in, bringing along with it a tranquility that is way too overwhelming....i feel the subdued insomnia finally give in.... the eye-lids now no longer amenable to being kept open droop down with a silent thud. i let my body relax and adjust the cushion below my head......but wait....what about those thoughts...what about that turmoil.....a few more minutes of contemplation....of digging deeper.....of thinking them over just one last time....of ending the turmoil once for all......
naaahhhh.......who cares...theres always the next night......

Morning Thoughts

I have just gotten up from a deep slumber, and while still lying on the bed, these thoughts flashed through my mind....
I was chatting with one of my friends the other day and she told me this....
"you only realize the importance of certain things in your life after you lose them"
well in certain cases, its just the opposite. Like, i was so used to getting up every morning to something which at that time i felt was really important in my life. It's been a month now that i have been getting up without it and although i still feel the occasional pangs of it not being there anymore, i realized today that i had attached undue importance to it in my life.
Well now i gotta rush to office, but more on this when i come back.

Stupid things men do

It was 5.30 in the morning. He tried to search for his phone on the bed, so that he could stop the "departed" soundtrack screeching out as his alarm. He looked out through his room's window, it was drizzling.He thought for a moment to chuck the plan of going to station, but then he had to be there to recieve her. The train wasnt expected till 8, but the bus leaving for staion left at 6 and if he missed that, he would not get another one till 8. He put on a T-shirt and kept an ironed shirt in the bag, into which he could change once he reached the station. Afterall, how would she hug him if he was bedraggled!No umbrella you see. The bus would have taken him till the station, but he got off a good 2-3 km before, there were no flower shops near the station.

He had been planning this for days. He would pick her up from the station, they would go for a breakfst buffet at the town's most upbeat restaurant, catch a movie or go shopping. In effect, just spend some time alone with each other before they met their other friends. They were meeting after 2 months afterall.

Flowers bought, he started walking towards the staion. He couldn't stop the grin spreading across his face. If just the thought of meeting her made him so happy, what would happen when he actually did. He was already drenched from head to toe and was wondering if the restaurant would allow him to enter even after he changed into the shirt. By the time he walked upto the staion, it was already 7.30. He decided to call her up. She had asked him to wake her up half an hour before the train reached the station.It took two calls to do so. And what she told him, made him realize how very stupid he had been.

The train which was supposed to leave the starting station at around 10 p.m had not done so till 4 a.m.Why hadnt he called the railway enquiry before leaving. Why. Indian railways wasn't famous for no reasons! The excitement of meeting her had clouded his sensibilities.But then when had he been sensible ever in his life.

Ironies of life you see.