Saturday 10 November 2012

The Book Review : The Bankster - Ravi Subramanian




An insidious sequence of events, twists and turns set beautifully to trap and engage the reader from the start to the very end. Ravi has managed to make sure that the element of surprise and anxiety never settles in the readers mind till the very last and ensured that predictability is abolished entirely. The Bankster is a true mystery in all its completeness and essence that can be set apart from the rest as a resonating example of what a mystery must and should be. 



Synopsis :

Bankers build their careers on trust, or so everyone thinks, till a series of murders threaten to destroy the reputation that the Greater Boston Global Bank (GB2) has built over the years. Who is behind these killings, and what is their motive? When Karan Panjabi, press reporter and ex-banker, digs deeper, he realizes that he has stumbled upon a global conspiracy with far reaching ramifications a secret that could not only destroy the bank but also cast a shadow on the entire nation. With only thirty-six hours at his disposal, he must fight the clock and trust no one if he is to stay alive and uncover the truth.


The story ensues from the diamond mines of Angola driven by a covert CIA agent and it passes hands to Vikram Bahl and comes Home to Mumbai where most of it is set. It later wanders off to the Europe pursuing a series of unfortunate yet seemingly unrelated events. The story set amongst the employees in the upper echelons of the Greater Boston Global Bank passes on suspicion as if in a relay race, making it almost impossible for the reader to arrive at a preconceived guess of the mystery man. Something that most mystery writes miss now a days is where Ravi Subramanian scores tons.


The story though extremely realistic has some minor flaws never the less, The story does lack a true protagonist  Karan Panjabi, the Banker turned reporter who is supposedly the hero of the tale come way after the middle of the story and almost to the end. His entrance is so feeble and uncared for that no one knows he is the protagonist till he solves the mystery. No character sketch, no intensity of feeling, no nothing of our protagonist is given anywhere. All on a sudden he drops in with a girl and takes charge of the story leaving the readers feeling lost and somewhat deprived. He could have done much good by introducing Karan in the start and channeling the story through him than from various unambiguous sources.


This particular defect extends to all of the characters and is the single most disastrous the writer made with the book. Almost all of his characters are uncharted and lacks depth. The only person whose character has been examined would be Vikram bahl that to as a consequence of certain events and not as part of a dedicated interpretation of the character by the author. 


Setting that apart the story is magnificently chartered and beautifully distributed across, Mumbai, Vienna and the Middle-East and a handful of well-placed characters. The highest point for the story is its unpredictability which is well supplemented and supported by Ravi's characters. The Bankster is a recommended read by me and is much more than just a financial thriller, the mystery and action adds flavour to the whole story.

I give The Bankster by Ravi Subramanian a rating of : 3 out of 5





This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com . Participate now to get free books! 

Saturday 3 November 2012

The Human Comedy



If one starts thinking about our live then we realize the utter foolishness that we live through every single day. Almost all of our routine actions are worth a hefty laugh and nothing more. Still funnier is the host of seemingly clever excuses that we come up with in the desperate attempt to cover our fallacies. When we look at this world from outside the oyster of our merry life, without pride nor prejudice, sans all preconceptions then we really can see that the world and all its worldly activities are nothing but one elaborate joke. A poignant one yet a joke nevertheless.


“Unless a man has pity he is not truly a man. If a man has not wept at the worlds pain he is only half a man, 



The words and deeds may seem too tall but it is not, for the comedy that our life is does not run in some elusive theater but inside the very space that we consider our sanctum sanctorum and protect with thick mortar walls and iron latches. Coming to think of it I find it in itself to be a bloody joke. 


and there will always be pain in the world, knowing this does not mean that a man shall despair. 



Just Looking around is more than enough to realize this foolhardiness, I believe this realization is what enlightenment is, and that is why Buddha laughed when he attained it. Of course this is but a speculation on my part irrespective of the fact that it would easily explain why this realization is so hard. After all enlightenment is supposedly omnipresent and yet impossibly hard to attain.


A good man will seek to take pain out of things.



May it be the silliness of belligerent driver who tries all the cards up his sleeve just to get ahead and yet ends up playing catch up with the same at the next red light. Or on a more serious note be it the general greedy who spends all their health in gaining his wealth and then spends all his wealth in re-instituting the same health he lost in making the wealth. I do believe in the story of Alexander the great who had conquered all of the known world and yet on his final ascend took nothing but good will and good deeds with him. The conqueror and the conquered, the king and the peasant would walk that path as equals, bearing no embellishments but deeds and their sanctity. It reminds us of the foolishness of worldly ranks and beings at large.



A foolish man will not even notice it, except in himself, 



It is just as sad as it is hilarious, the life an average man lives. So full of gluttony and vainglory that his visions are tainted, his passions sacrificed. Living a full life is not gauged by the magnanimity of the deeds but by the heart and the will that set out to do what had to be done. He alone can live a life that is not to be laughed at but, smiled at with much envy and pride.  In this mad, mad world it takes much lunacy to laugh at it and yet greater amount to live a life of conviction that is confined not by social reasoning. 


 and the poor unfortunate evil man will drive pain deeper into things and spread it about wherever he goes.” 

― William Saroyan


Sunday 28 October 2012

The True Nature of Change




Humanity has always despised change and every now and then they erupt with such rage and violence that simple conscious cannot stand its toll. This all-consuming rage directed at whatever it is that has caused this change upon the delicate society. For over a decade we have been preparing for just another of these great changes. A change is coming where the old freedoms have to be re written with new freedom.


Though every time we say that it’s just another change we realize it’s no passing matter. The change how small or great is never the real problem but what happens when the change comes is what that bothers. As someone wisely said “The night is darkest before dawn”, so is the nature of every change. Just before the change all reduce to chaos, all become dangerously unstable, books are to be rewritten understandings are to be changed. The true colour and nature of change brings forth the rue colour and nature of the ones whose lives are about to be rewritten. Some of them accept, some resist, others fight and when the change is larger and ever the more radical the resistance is higher. 


For any change to take place in a society the society has to mature and a considerable amount of consciousness has to evolve and only when a society so becomes mature and potent that the change happens. And when the change is seen through and the perils of the darkness have been abolished comes solace, a deeper understanding of self and self-righteousness.


But then again we ask ourselves why change, can’t we live in the apathy of the world and let chaos be chaos? The truth is human beings are totally and completely incapable of handling serenity. Once freedom has been seen humanity cannot rest until this freedom has been established. Many lay there life for ideals far greater than themselves and in this process they become the ever remembered symbols of change.


Humanity has always been an optimistic species and even when subjected to darkest of hours they tend to find the way to light. Unlike what the majority of world believes humanity is not a lost cause, they are in fact lazy but never lost. As duly noted by one eminent mind that humanity tend to act only at the precipice of danger. They like the stupid frog sits in the water as it simmers only realize the danger when the water around it starts boiling. 


The time is ripe and humanity has made the duly awaited leap. Now all that remains is the change itself and when the time is right a spark will fly and that spark will ignite in us all a flame. A flame so glorious that it cannot be extinguished by any one or any power and that spark will see it through that humanity is changed for the better once again.

Sunday 7 October 2012

Date a Girl Who Reads



I Just stumbled upon something while blog-hopping and I just had to reblog it. I found it in a rather amazing blog by the name of seongyosa who working as a missionary teacher in South Korea. The article was titled "Date a Girl Who Reads", which has been retained by me. It is my understanding that she itself got it from another blog by Rosemarie Urquico. Now this is a viral literary essay on the internet. 
When I read this article I just had to publish it again, it is so beautifully written and I loved it so much. 


Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second-hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamier is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted.
Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail herBecause a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her.You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve itYou deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

Don't you agree that its beautiful, A simple way to talk about the girl of my dreams. :)

Saturday 6 October 2012

The Krishna Key by Ashwin Sanghi : A Review




The Krishna Key by Ashwin Sanghi is a rather refreshing break away from Indian contempory writing, a fast paced adventure with twists turns and amazing u-turns is what the indian litreature needs. We could do well with a couple of magnanimous hot cakes of our own other than the usual mystic stalwarts. Sanghi's The Krishna Keyis a slow adventure that unfolds in the mystic realms of India and its fully loaded.


The story evolves from the discovery of four Indus valley seals and the world of unprecidented knowledge that they are meant to unlock. Pepped with some gruesome murders, malevolent conspiracy theories and an uncanny resemblance to several dan brown novels, The Krishna Key by  Ashwin Sanghi is a true thriller. The story moves through simultaneously through both ancient and modern India along with its protagonist Mr Saini, who as in all archaeological thrillers is a history professors. He is a true 'European hero' in a very Indian novel who makes sure that he gets a taste of everything that's there to taste in this story, literally everything. 


The story is creative and refreshing yet the narration is far from being perfect. The greatest short coming of the story would be its beginning which is dangerously slow that it takes perseverance to reach the good part. Although it  gives the reader the feeling of a chewed Dan Brown novel at the initial phase, the story quickly picks up and metamorphosizes into a true thriller and by mid way it is gripping. The story takes you through the breadth and width of India following various clues and leaving behind a rather bloody tail and a lot of confusion. 


The next big disappointment occurs at the end where the author leaves the readers feeling 'ditched'. The ending is lackluster and does not do any justice what so ever to hype and expectation that the author has created through out the story. The problem is that its too surreal when the reader craves for something solid and substantial.


Then there are a couple of glitches in the story which involves a drastic change in the character of the characters and a rather poorly executed love story entwined into the main plot. One minute they are just acquaintances and the next they are in the bed making love. Nobody saw the love happening, what must otherwise have added some sugar to the feisty tale leaves behind a rather sour taste in the readers mind, after all no one expects a 50 something Indian college history professor to turn into a stud over the span of 4 pages. The love story was unwanted and unnecessary. 


Setting aside these two disappointments the novel is really good and can be easily ranked as one of the few very good Indian authored book that I have read in the last couple of years. I would suggest that the any one who can get your hands one just grab it. Aside from a few glitches I pointed out, the story is fabulous, gripping and very well researched. 
This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com.

Saturday 29 September 2012

The Silhouette of Silence



It was in one such night that I saw her, her real self her heart and her being. We knew each other much before and may be we were even what could be called as acquaintances but never friends. But that night changed it all, that one night. The night when I sat across from her, the night when our yes met not for the first time but for still the first time. I had known her before but that night when our eyes net under slow burning street lambs we came to know each other. That night under the simmering glow of the electric street lamb, in the bitter coldness of the European winter we met for the first time.




I must have known that the silence we shared was but only the beginning of a life long journey. A journey that would transform our selves and transcend our being. In that silence when our eyes met I saw something in her eyes that was burning, it was not revenge, it was not anger, it was not love and it certainly was not the glow of the hope but it was the reminiscent glow of the despair coming from the ashes of burned up dreams.
It took me aback to a darker time when the whole world was but the four walls of a prison cell for me, the days when my innocent dreams where held captive in the heavy chains, when the wings of my colorful dreams were clipped and all around was just darkness, blood and despair. 



That night under the simmering glow of the electric street lamb, in the bitter coldness of the European winter in her eyes I saw my eyes, I saw the same feelings, the same heart break. I was reminded of my death and my consecutive birth. I was reminded of the struggle and the daunting face of death and its giant red eyes staring down through you. Even when I write this my hand tremble with unimaginable fear and my heart beats  as if time is scanty and life is terribly short. 


That was the night I met myself, my silhouette in that silence I was acquainted with. Hers where the eyes of my past, her gently bosom bore the scars of the same torture that I endured. Her emancipated skin wore like a cheap gown the texture of undignified death. She reminded me of the times I had almost died and the times I almost gave up. The taste of her coarse lips reminded me of the stale and the dirt, the miserable life that I had escaped. And all around me was darkness I could see it crawling under my skin. Like a vicious creature it was coming towards me to consume what was left of me. There I lay in her hands, pressed against her cold body, with my lips just dangling above her sinister lips. In that truth of moment I realized that this is what I am and what have been and she is silhouette. The darkness of the past was but my past and I was as inseparable from it as darkness was from light itself.


That night under the simmering glow of the electric street lamb, in the bitter coldness of the European winter I met me for the first time and there we embarked on a lifelong journey of redemption.

Friday 28 September 2012

BlogFest 2012 Finalized Participants

BlogFest 2012


The finalized list of BlogFest 2012 participants.

Wendi Zwaduk - Romance to Make Your Heart Race
Colloquium
Megan Slayer - Too Hot To Handle
Supernatural Snark
Confessions of a Bookaholic
Still Blonde after all these YEARS! 
Delaney Diamond (sweet & sensual romance)
Good Choice Reading

Roof Beam Reader
Believing is Seeing
Desperado Penguin
A Dragon's Love
Patricia Leever
Tanya & Diana
Author Killian McRae
Ruby @ Ruby's Reads :)
Lee's Musings
Love is a Many Flavored Thing
Elisa Dane
Kacey's Kreations
V.S. Morgan - All Shades of Love
Hannah Downing Author
CMash Reads
Therese Gilardi: Beneath The Sunglasses
Seductive Musings
Snarkymamma
Kiru Taye Writes
From the TBR Pile
Hesperia Loves Books
Feather Stone, Author
Nicki Elson's Not-So-Deep Thoughts
Malevolent Musings
Kelly's Lucky You
Felicia Rogers Authors
Obsession with Books
Rebel Writer: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy
Jessica E. Subject
Dianne Hartsock
Diva's Bookcase
Hope. Dreams. Life... Love
Jennifer Lane Books
Fierce Dolan's Writing Utopia, One Word at a Time
Oh! For the Love of Books
Coffee, books and me
Kay Dee Royal Paranormal & Erotica Romance Musings
Wicked Readings By Tawania
For Those About To Read
Booksnob
Amaterasu Reads
Keenly Kristin
Ashlynn Monroe's Blog
Bewitched Bookworms 
Another Author
Michelle Santiago
Sharon Hamilton Author
Jennifer DeLucy's Blog
Can We Talk About...
J.C. Martin, Fighter Writer
Leontine's Book Realm
The Enigmatic
The Solitary Bookworm
EGC
Hott Books
I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read!
Starla Kaye
Stacie Vaughan
Book Obsessed
Margay Leah Justice
Two Little Cavaliers
Cherie Colyer
Curling Up By The Fire
Jill of The O.W.L.
Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book
Lucidity
Letters Inside Out
noodleBubble nice Blog
Carol Oates
AsianCocoa's Secret Garden
Christmas TV History
D.J. Kirkby
Fangs, Wands & Fairy Dust
The Book Pushers
Into the Mystic
Ravishing Romances
Alexia Banks
I'd So Rather Be Reading
Havan's Heavenly Haven
MamaNYC
The Cozy Reader
Reviews By Molly
Nuts and Crisps
The Wormhole
The Enchanted Book
NOVELS ON THE RUN
Socrates Book Review Blog
Si, se puede
Cuzinlogic
Love To Read For Fun
Simply Ali
Crimson Romance
Alaiel Kreuz
Ex Libris
Joyousreads
Tiffany's Bookshelf
The Tales of Dexter, Nora, and Chloe
Tall Tales from a Small Town
Midnight Thrillers
Notorious Spinks Talks Books
Mochas, Mysteries and More
My Little Pocketbooks
Mocha Girls Read 
The Smiling Pains of Novelist Destiny Booze
KMN Books
Knitting and Sundries
Think Sincere
The Maiden's Court
Vanessa Morgan
With Our Best
Reading Romances
Wordshaping
Ashley's Christian Book Reviews
Ashley's Bookshelf
JennReneeRead
Jaclyn's Musings
Parent Palace
Double Crossing
Jamie Haden
Writing Is A Blessing
The Relentless Reader
Bookvisions
Jennifer Wells, Paranormal Romance Author
Hlidie McQueen - Writing by Moonlight
A Passion for Romance
Leeswammes' Blog
At Home With Books
Becky WIcks
Susan Frances
Gemma Parkes Living and Loving
Jade Kerrion: Where Science Transforms Art
Mom vs. the Boys
Tami Brothers ~ Live, Love, Write!
Randomness from Mommyville
Feather's World
Reading Angel
JennRenee
Girls Just Reading
Blessed In Homemaking
Doing Dewey
Pages Off Life
Full Moon Bites
Lena Sledge's Blog
Lille Punkin
1099 Mom
Lyn Styles
star shadow blog
Life on the edge...of Appalachia
Chopski's blog
Cherie Reads



Content and Image courtesy : A Journey of Books

Tuesday 18 September 2012

The Bird with the Broken Wing


birds perched on a tree


This happened some time back almost during the time of the last angst autumn. In my evening fiestas I used to gaze at the horizon, I used to strain my eyes as it trailed the changing shades of the sky and merged into the darkness of the night. A particular sight awaited me every day without fail and if it didn’t I seemed deem myself a failure for the afternoon. This mellifluous sight was that of a bird, petite and cute beyond compare. With much energy it filled my evening sky with its wondrous twitter. I am from now on going to refer her as a she for I know not how to find the gender of a bird and it is always much cuter when it is a she.


She was so dainty and yet so active, flying around the sky as if in some desperate pursuit, soothing was her voice, her chatter, her far away tweets. Yet unknown to me she had a heart of lead that weighed on her. I never knew then that all her energy was just a pretend, an act of the eloped. It would be some time since then when the bird would eventually come to rest in my palms and we would share much love and many emotions. But going back to the story, by then she had made herself a humble abode upon my little cherry tree, Indeed the cherry tree was not that little but she was a bit little when viewed in the context of the behemoths that surrounded her in the nearby woods.


As days flew by like the leaves in the autumn, she and I had made an invisible connection. I would often feel like she was talking to me when I heard her distant cooing and I would feel that the eternal dance of hers was but for me to watch. True or not we had got connected in a level of existence in a realm much above the one of common understanding. She had become my pet, neither the one that was bound by the materialistic confines of a cage nor the one whose heart and thought was confined by an authoritarian lease, but my pet nevertheless.


Abstract Bird
But then it had occurred on that day when the fate stood still, as it watched an eternal criss-crossing of destinies when my little bird had got hurt by some despicable evil. Her wings had been clipped, her freedoms curtained, she fell from the sky like a stone on to the heaps of scarlet leafs. She laid there in waiting for my warm hands to cup her and carry her to the warm coziness of my home and to the warmer corners of my heart. There I did dress her would with much love and compassion as if she was my little daughter, that too quiet literally with bandages and ointments that I had. I cared for her, I looked after her and from that day forth till today we spend innumerable evenings discussing and rambling about many a wonderful things during our customary evening siesta.


But then again as she gained my heart bit by bit, I started to dread the reality that was today, an inevitable day that was not in my power to prevent, I would have been cruel and selfish in the past few days praying that she never would get better but then again this was the day for which I had cared for her, the day she could be free once again and adorn my evening sky with her tweeting and ramblings. I know she would never fly far away and I know the cherry tree will forever remain her abode but then you could never tell and this very thought had been haunting me for some time now.


But nevertheless today is here and the day must happen for our destinies were written not now but ages ago. It stood there cupping her in my arms as it ruffled around her petite silhouette. I slowly undid her band aids and held my hands up in the air and with tears rolling down my cheek and sinister thoughts haunting my mind I let her go. I watched her fly away from by hand just like she always did I could feel the instantaneous loss of weight upon my hand. My heart skipped a beat when she skipped a flap of her wings and for that one moment when she appeared to fall my heart leap. But she is the child of freedom, it is in her nature to fly and it was inevitable that she would do that. I always knew that she was destined for freedom, though it is true that I wish she would not but hers is the sky to fly and ones again as I sit back in my chair looking up at the evening sky I knew what we were and how we were to be. 

Sunday 16 September 2012

Just Married, Please Excuse

Just Married, Please Excuse, Yashodhara Lal


Yashodhara Lal has did a stunning job when it came to writing her debut novel, Its simple, its sensitive and its sensible. The plot of the story can not be disclosed as I will be called a 'spoiler' but the essence of the story is this, the life of an average couple in the midst of the modern Indian urban cacophony.


The novel brings out the the collisions between tradition and modernism, the urge to be secure and independent and above all a desire to fit in. The story duly highlights the various emotional upheavals and the various tantrums of a modern marriage and the conscious effort that was needed to make it work every time it threatened to fall apart. As with most couples 'falling apart' seems to be central theme that the story revolves around. Incipiently the protagonist gives away the impression that the marriage in question is destined for the abyss and  chapter after chapter seems to be strengthening this conception. 


The story can never be called a classic or even for that matter an exceptional piece of literature, but I doubt that was ever the authors intention was either. The truthfulness and the simplicity of the story as it moves from city to city and from people to more people remains largely the same. The story though some what predictive is nevertheless very engaging and is a looking glass into the life and times of the modern Indian household. The story is engaging, indulgent and stunningly simple, there are now wild goose chases, no extravagant stunts and certainly not flamboyant turning of odds. Everything is laid down neatly by Mrs Lal in a simple and straight forward narrative. 


Just Married, Please Excuse is no Shakespeare or Dickens but that being said it is not a Mills and boons either. It is a sensitive and simple story that has been narrated with utmost honesty and love. The areas where it will score in a readers heart can be easily enumerated as its simplicity and its innate ability to be related to the lives of people that you and I know in abundance. In short it is a story about any metro-sexual modern couple out there in India's several metropolises. 

Saturday 15 September 2012

My Love with Fractals


Fractal wallpaper 1

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. 


Fractal wallpaper 2

Fractal wallpaper 3

Fractal wallpaper 4

Fractal wallpaper 5

Fractal wallpaper 6

Fractal wallpaper 7

Fractal wallpaper 8

Fractal wallpaper 9


Thursday 6 September 2012

Offending the Class Clown


Class Clowns



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. 

Monday 27 August 2012

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."



graduates after convocationSo, 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. 



teaching our children


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!"