My Love with Fractals

Ever since I knew myself I was in love with science and its very diverse aspects. The various mysteries that it upheld and the many fascinating ideas that emerged from it. I always found it both interesting and engaging to chase around science and technology. This urge to know has always been as much part of me  as anything else, even my passion for writing. Its one side of me that I often do not ponder in my writings ever. The reason to bring it up now is of immense beauty, both in its meaning and its aesthetics. The reason is fractals.

For anyone who does not know what a fractal is the layman explanation is of utmost simplicity. A fractal is anything that is self repeating , That is if we have such an image that when zoomed in represents closely the original image then it is called a fractal. My introduction to fractals happened some years back when I was casually watching a soap opera. I just heard a character mention fractals as his mathematical curiosity and that caught my attention and then I was head over heels into fractals.

Nevertheless my inquiry into the world of fractals showed me many things including that of some very cleverly hidden secrets of the natural world. If you must know, fractals are everywhere around us, Fractal patterns determine how the blood vessels branch and how the snow is formed, one would never imagine its significance in the world. Any how that is not what I am here to tell you, this has to be told to   you by a mathematical wizard and I am not one. I am just here to point out to you the wonderful and beautiful world of fractals and I believe nothing could attain that edge than these pictures I happened to collect from the internet. 

Offending the Class Clown

Yes Mister! What do you want?

What is it that is about you that you make such a ruckus in this room? Is it there a thing that you wish to tell or is it just an undying need for attention that drives you. I understand that what that is talked about here is bit high flying and I expect not all to grasp the truth and beauty of it right away but this mockery is sure uncalled for.

Do you know what you are? You are the class clown, the truly unremarkable joker, the time filler who fills the void with his vibrant costumes and the dumbness of his mindless action. You are not important in fact you are not even unimportant, you are inexistential. Nobody weeps when you die a new masked clown takes over. Neither the nation nor crowd that cheers for you jokes weeps when you are gone. No unfathomable void is created when it is time for your departure. They all will wave you good byes and they all will exchange lot of goods and they will forget. They will forget you and your jokes and you will become one among the many in the albums. Neither you nor your jokes will survive.

It is a shame that you must be present here; it is a crime that you fill seats in this great hall. You are the crime and you should be abolished. The witless glutton that you are in your vainglory occupies all that is high and mighty when in the utopian reality you are who that destroyed what would have been another’s Holy Grail. The only thing that you the big waste of time and resources do manage to is to deny an interested soul a chance at redemption. I call upon god to take away all such worthless creatures; in fact it is just a crime that you exist. You should not exist and you should not be given a chance at life when a worthier life exists that would value what is it that have got when they do get it.

Dear mister class clown all I have is just one request do keep quiet or do bless us with your kind absence and abstinence, for all you do is corrupt the good and spoil the mood. I understand the world is spinning too fast for but don’t you try it to slow it down to your snail pace. Do understand you are the hindrance and the obstacle for what is that I am here and why others are here.

And the class clown cried. 

The Link

The sci - fi me was having a rather good time enjoying the discovery channel when I stumbled upon a curious looking and sounding program called "The Link" and hence my title. The show focuses on how seemingly unrelated discoveries or inventions are related and how one invention let to another and finally to the technological marvels that today we take for granted. The National Geographic talk about the show such:

"Technology is all around us. From computers to cameras, cell phones to sat navs – our dependence on technology has never been greater. But how many of us ever stop to question how these inventions actually came about? Challenging the commonly held view, that they appear fully formed, out of nowhere, The Link reveals the surprising origins of some of the most important technological breakthroughs, of the modern world."

So, why am I talking so much about a random show I happened to watch in National Geographic? The reason is simple. This is what is missing from today's educational system the worldwide. Lets take India's case for example, from the days we start learning we focus on passing exams and mugging up most things. It is a very selected few who go into inquiring about why it came to be. The fact is that education has reduced to more of studying and less of learning. How many of us, the educated mass as we call are able to explain why some certain things came to be and how they influence people, society and humanity at large. Take the case of fire or agriculture or the production line, do we know why it came to be, how it came to be or what it did to the society then? Isn't that what education was supposed to impart to us?

What I am trying to say is that at some time along the way we have lost sight of our goal and has gone astray. We don't need to overhaul our entire system, that's is not possible and even if its possible its not feasible. Our educators are good, our institutions are equipped enough. I don't mean at any point that all our schools are in surplus of facilities but I do believe that our schools have just enough infrastructure to create a thinking and capable tomorrow. What we really need is a change in the systems and its priorities. The priorities should move away from scoring marks and more on understanding concepts.


When one starts to speak about de-prioritizing marks people usually come to conclusions that exams are the villain and they should be taken to the guillotine. In fact that will only cost us dearly, exams should be there otherwise how will we evaluate our children, how will we ensure their progress? What we need are exams that evaluate children's understanding of a subject and their ability to correlate and infer. We need exams that will ensure understanding and model our syllabus and curricular to attain this aim. This does not involve a major over haul of anything but a few fundamentals of our educational system. 

Let our children be Einsteins and newtons, let them make and create and innovate tomorrow, let them know that they alone have the ability and the power in their hands to craft tomorrows dreams. Let them understand that their dreams are not simply dreams but visions for meeting tomorrows challenges head on, solve then and conquer them. When they understand this and cherish this revelation then only we will have completed our responsibility towards our children and completed our link to the next generation.

"Do watch "The Link" on National Geographic if you can its a great show to watch if you are a technological junkie or just a curious homo sapien!"

731 Days of Frivolous Love

It was not two years and one day ago that I met her. I knew her even before, In fact I might have even known her from another life. I have seen her even before that, not superfluously but even in the much simpler most straight forward sense. We were friends then and then we were better friends and now much more than just friends in the contemporary sense. But still we are friends first and anything and everything next.

The first time I met her was in my first days of college, in the most casual way, unnoticed and perturbing of each other’s existence. The first time I talked to her was in the gleaming presence of borosil glasses of the many million shapes and the vast variety of colourful liquids that it contained. Under its silent and tinted rendering of a magnificent evening was the first ever sounds greeted her in menial enquires. Then the first share the first touch, the first embrace and the first kiss and above all the first tear drop of love.

Two years back on that day lost among the wondrous celebrations how did I realized that it was to be her? That I don’t know but when our eyes met that day, then and there. I knew we were much more much more than what the earthy bodies have bounded us to be. We sue had history: a history that spanned eternities together. Her imperfections so perfectly sculpted that they fit like a hand in a glove to my imperfection. SO does my imperfections to hers. We complement and we complete and in unison we are eternal, transdential and complete.

Today all I price is her nearness all that I care for is the pungent fragrance of her aroma. Today everything is but another way to her just another step towards the ultimate union that is her and in her. Today everything is about her and about our love for one another. The one fact of the most greatest consequence today is that I am hers and she mine.  The one ultimatum is and is always is that

I LOVE HER.

Its all about Love

Hasn't it always been about love? Wonder what I am taking about? I am taking about marriages. India is a confusing country for a marriage to exist, to one side we have lots of customs and the rich cultural vibrancy that at this epitome of ethnic diversity throws about and to the other we have the largely commercialized and institutionalized gala called a marriage. Somewhere along the way I start wondering what really is a marriage about? Is it about two people in love uniting or is it just something done because everybody else seems to be doing and is it just at the primeval end a means to keep ones clan running.

The one word that describes the ‘wedding’ industry could be magnanimous; the elusive and lucrative industry has stripped Indian marriages off its essentialities and replaced them with material substitutes that corrode an institution that has long been considered scared. The sanctity of the marriage has been long lost; it has been violated and prostituted. But what surprises me the most is how people could be so blinded that they could for go what is essential and indispensible in a marriage, Love.

History is the witness when it comes to marriages in India. History bears witness to the freedom of choice and the simplicity of the great Indian weddings. Brides were respected and bridegrooms stood proud without a price tag.  What now appear to have become a largely commercialized and hyped up cultural gala and festival with much diminished  importance for the actual wedding was not always so. The advent of arranged marriages are not so clear to me but must probably they came from a group of controlling fathers eager to extend their family lineage and false prestiges.

It passes my mind how arranged marriages could ever succeed, it is incomprehensible to me how two people completely unknown, unaware of each other even to the slightest character could ever co-exist as such. At least isn’t that not a gamble? A leap of faith? Of course they succeed what choice does they have?  We live in a society that taken over by its totalitarian dystopia dictates terms and conditions on our existence. They expect us to obey and follow the crowd like buffaloes and those that dare to stand apart are either classified as philosophers or mad men. Then again I believe, this lack of choice and subjection is the one and only reason as to why such a marriage should exist, Like my friend so daringly terms it, A compromise!

Don’t for one second believe that I disagree with the fact that occasionally there comes a couple that are just perfect or so near to that place. What we call a real match made in heaven. But isn’t that just and odd chance a, a play of probabilities? Love marriages or as I call it a real marriage exists and stems from love the sole reason that appeals to me when committing to such a demeaning soc ial institution. Why else should one marry if not for love after all marriage is all about love!