Archive for 2015
This is in continuation of Time Travel.
In the previous post, I explained the consequences of using a time machine. However, there's a bigger problem than that. The machine can only travel in time, not space.
Which means, even if we travel in time, we will be on the same spot in space. Therefore, our initial position (from where we travel in time) and our final position (where we arrive after traveling in time) will be different. How different?
The Earth rotates from west to east.
The equatorial circumference of the Earth is 40,075 km. (Source)
That means, if we're on the equator, we travel 40,075 km (in space) every day, just because of the rotation of the Earth. (From this point forward, let's assume the person who is going to travel in time does so on the equator.)
Number of minutes in one hour is 60, and number of hours in a day is 24. So, in a minute, (if at the equator) we travel x km.
x = 40,075 / 24 * 60
x = 40,075 / 1440
x = 28 (approximate value)
So, if the person travels one minute in the past, he will be 28 km west of his initial position (because the Earth rotates from west to east)
But wait. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Not only does the Earth rotate continuously, it also revolves around the sun.
The circumference of Earth's orbit around the sun is 940,000,000 km (940 million) (Source)
The Earth covers this distance in 365.25 days. (Source)
So, in a minute, the Earth travels y km.
y = 940,000,000 / 365.25 x 1440
y = 940,000,000 / 525960
y = 1787 (approximate value)
Put it all together and, in 1 minute, if your position in space remains constant,
where,
So, to overcome this problem, the time machine would also have to travel in space. Therefore, a time machine would also have to possess the ability to teleport us.
While talking to a friend, he asked me "What would you do if I gave you $10?". Now, $10 is no huge amount. You can't deposit it in a bank and wait for interest to accumulate. However, it's not that little an amount to just spend on candy etc. So, I said I'll keep it aside for future.
Then he asked me, "What will our classmates say?". Then again, you really can't spend $10 on much. So, we changed the question.
We made it $1000 and asked every classmate we could. Here are the results of this mini-research.
Note: All the subjects are 15 - 17 years of age. No names will be mentioned. Subject 3 and 21 haven't answered yet and will not be counted in the statistics.
Statistics:
Special thanks to Harshvardhan for helping me conduct the research.
A lot of people are talking about time travel and it is one of those things that people believe would be possible in the coming future. Well, I'm no scientist. So, I don't know if it is possible scientifically. However, let's assume that it is possible and that a device capable of time travel was made.
What then? Well obviously, it has to be tested. But, how will that be done?
Two options; going into the past, or going into the future.
Let's assume Dr. T invented this device that is capable of time travel. And let's say Dr. T wants to test it by going into the past. However, he knows the consequences of messing with the past. So, he decides to just go 5 minutes back into the past, just to see if it works.
To make this post less complicated, I'll refer to Dr. T of the past as Dr. U.
If Dr. T went 5 minutes into the past, he will see Dr. U pondering over what to do with the machine. And, if he waits for 5 minutes, Dr. U will also make up his mind to go 5 minutes into the past to test his machine. And this can keep looping.
Unless, Dr. T sends a sign to Dr. U telling him that time travel is possible. That would thus tell Dr. U that his machine works and so, after 5 minutes, he won't use his machine. But, by doing that, the time that Dr. T lived in has changed. It is now a world where Dr. T doesn't go into the past.
So, Dr. T can't return to his present, because there will be another Dr. T there. However, he can't stay in this world either, because of Dr. U.
A possible way to counter this would be to ask a friend for help. Let's call him Mr. X.
Now, before Dr. T goes into the past, he tells Mr. X to kill Dr. T after he sends a sign to Dr. U. Thus, if Dr. T dies in the past, Dr. U can live on to be Dr. T and know that the time machine works.
To make things easy,
At 13:15, Present,
Dr. T: Mr. X, at 13:20, I'll travel back in time (to 13:15) and send Dr. U a sign. As soon as Dr. U gets that sign, he'll tell you. After you find out, look for me in this room, and kill me.
At 13:20, Present,
Dr. T travels back in time.
At 13:15, Past,
Dr. U: Mr. X, at 13:20, I'll travel back in time (to 13:15) and send Dr. U a sign. As soon as Dr. U gets that sign, he'll tell you. After you find out, look for me in this room, and kill me.
Now that Mr. X knows he has to kill Dr. T, Dr. T sends the sign.
At 13:16, Past,
Dr. U: It worked. Time travel is possible.
Hence, hearing of the success, Mr. X goes to the room to kill Dr. T.
At 13:20, Past,
Dr. U is confident time travel works. Mr. X has killed Dr. T. And Past is now Present.
So, just to check if time travel is possible, scientists will have to do this much thinking. And, the scientist that travels time will have to die, and let his "clone" take over.
But, what if the experiment was to travel in the future?
Going into the future is, as you'd imagine, the opposite of going into the past. The main problem with going into the past is having a clone of you. However, when you travel into the future, for the period of time you skipped, you didn't exist in the world. So, without raising any concerns, you can only travel short distances of time (in the future).
So, if Dr. T goes into the future at 13:15, and he goes to 13:20, he will have to come back to the present between 13:15 and 13:20. But, that means, travelling in the future is quite easy.
However, let's assume Dr. T lives in the year 1900 and travels 100 years into the future.
In 1900, Present,
Dr. T goes into the future.
In 2000, Future,
Dr. T sees a mobile phone and decides to bring it back with him.
In 1900, Present,
The mobile phone is now in this year. Which means, the future of the world has changed. The future that saw the invention of the phone has changed. And so, theoretically speaking, the phone that Dr. T brought back doesn't exist anymore.
So, as you can imagine, time travel is quite paradoxical. And so, I hope they never perfect it. Because, there's no saying how a small change in the past might factor into the world that we live in today.
A friend of mine had written a program that would balance chemical equations. I didn't want to copy her, nor did I think I'd be able to write such a program so I decided to start with a simple quadratic equation solver.
I just wish I had done this before solving 100s of them as homework.
Right now, it can only solve them using the factorisation (or splitting the middle term) method. But, other methods will be added soon. Here's a demo.
If you could select one superpower, what would it be?It's been a very interesting question, asked a lot in Facebook groups or on pages.
For the sake of keeping it short, let's only consider controlling the 4 main elements of nature; air, earth, fire and water.
When you think about it, each of these elements can be destructive, and constructive. Air contains oxygen which is necessary for living, on the other hand, too much of air (cyclones/tornadoes) can be destructive. Water is a necessity for most living things, but then, too much water, in the form of a flood or tsunami, is destructive. Earth is a surface that we can walk on. Without it, we would just keep falling. Actually, we would just float in air, but that's a topic for another day. However, "faults" in Earth can lead to earthquakes which can result in tsunamis and floods.
But, when you consider fire, you realize that fire can cause destruction even if it's in a small quantity. Fire spreads and even a small fire can turn into a huge one and ultimately burn cities to the ground. Which is why, in my opinion, fire is the most destructive.
However, that's not the only reason for choosing fire. If you think about it, earth, water and air are necessities, fire is a luxury (read the third paragraph). Of course, you can't cook without fire, but, cooking itself is a luxury. We can eat raw fruits and vegetables, we'll still get the necessary nutrients. But, we want a better taste, so we cook it, hence, fire is a luxury. Fire also provides warmth, another reason why it's a luxury. Fire is the reason we can drive vehicles, another luxury.
Even if you look at it from a mythological point of view, fire was always held in high regard. Prometheus was a Titan (Greek mythology) who was known to give several gifts to mankind. One of them was the nourishing part of cows (or beef). But, all of this went unpunished by Zeus, the King of Gods. However, when Prometheus stole fire from Mount Olympus (the residence of Gods) and gave it to mankind, Zeus eternally punished Prometheus. Fire was God's greatest gift to humanity.
But, the uniqueness of fire remains constant throughout the argument. If I was to possess the power of controlling water, I would be able to breathe and stay dry underwater (by controlling the water in a definite way). If the element in question was earth, I would still be able to change the hardness of the earth to survive a fall (though the fall itself might kill me). Similarly, controlling the air, I would be able to fly, and remain unharmed in a hurricane etc.
But fire is a tricky element. No matter how precise I am with controlling fire, if my body isn't immune to heat, I wouldn't be able to effectively use fire. Because, just being near a fire is enough to feel the heat and if my body can't withstand it, controlling the flame is a useless ability.
So, if I was to choose a superpower, I wouldn't choose controlling fire. However, if I was to choose two superpowers, I would choose controlling fire and immunity to heat.
Which element would you like to control?
"Memory of an elephant" is an English proverb that means really good memory. I was a bit curious about it so I looked it up on the Internet.
Turns out, it has scientifically been proven that elephants have really good memory. (Source) But, after reading about elephants, I started reading about spiders (I don't know why)
It's been an urban myth, I guess, that a spider's legs are immune to adhesion i.e. a spider's legs can walk on sticky surfaces (webs) But, after just a minute of reading, I understood that it's not the case. A spider isn't immune to adhesion. Spiders just have the option of making sticky web and normal web.
That means, the spider remembers which part of the web is non-sticky and treads only on that part.
Even in your house, if you see a cobweb, what do you do? You remove it and kill the spider if it's nearby. But if he's not, he will weave another web and he'll have to remember which parts of it are sticky.
And that's just a common spider. Bigger spiders that live in forests weaves HUGE networks of webs and they still know which part is safe to walk on.
According to the article on elephants, one elephant remembered another one for 23 years even though they were together only for a few weeks. It's safe to say that an elephant's memory span can go up to 30 years. And according to the same article, an elephant's lifespan is 50 - 60 years. Also, elephants can keep track of around 30 companions at once.
Now, a common garden spider lives for 1 - 2 years and will remember about his webs for all his life. Bigger spiders like tarantulas live for 25 years or so, and they will remember about their webs for all their life as well.
I really hate it that the proverb is "memory of an elephant", when it could've been a number of other animals. I just happened to read about spiders and find out that they have an excellent memory as well.
We had our second computer practicals today and like before, the exam was really retarded.
First of all, the topics made no sense. One of the topics was Google Translate, and it is so easy to use. Forget about rocket scientist, you don't even have to be good with technology to be able to use it. Google has made it THAT easy.
The topics are written on a piece of paper and kept near the computer. So, the guy using the computer sees a piece of paper with "Google Translate" written on it and if he doesn't know how to begin, he's definitely going to google "Google Translate".
Voila! That's how easy Google has made it. The practical is redundant.
The second topic was using Google Earth, to locate your city. Again, if the person doesn't know how to use Google Earth, he'll just google it.
Click on it and you're half done.
Then you just have to do what any Indian is best at, choose the options that are free. And just enter the name of your city, anyone can figure it out. My classmates aren't geeks and even they could do this. (No screenshots because sadly, the web plugin for Google Earth doesn't work on Linux :( )
The third topic was using blogger and this one is, in my opinion, the second stupidest computer practical I have heard of.
Firstly, you have to log into blogger to start doing anything. Couple of reasons why that itself is a problem. We do it using the school's internet, which is being used by 10 other computers. So, out of around 15 people, only 10 can use the internet at once, that too very slowly.
Secondly, you have to log into google to use blogger. If you use your email-id, google asks you to verify your identity because it's a new login location. Of course, you can't verify because we're not allowed to carry our mobile phones with us. Or you could make a new google account, but wait, that requires you to verify using a mobile phone too. (Some accounts can log in without verification but those are accounts with low security and, uhm, not many know how to change the security.)
Thirdly, the practical itself is stupid. You're told to create a blog, and post something on it. Seriously, google has made blogger easy to understand, anyone can make a blog. But the posting part is what's stupid. It's a computer practical, not an English exam. The practical has almost nothing to do with blogs. A better practical would be to write an essay in Notepad.
And the last topic is, as far as I'm concerned, the stupidest. GeoGebra. We only have, like, 1 class of computer (practical) a month, which the teacher mostly uses for theory. All year, I think we've only had 3 or 4 practical classes. And, GeoGebra isn't something any average person can just figure out. So, most of us didn't know what to do. I just hovered over different tools and figured out their purpose and my practical was pretty easy, all things considered, but some people couldn't do it. It's not their fault, they simply didn't know how.
The teacher told us to study from the text book. For the practicals. Apparently, she doesn't know the difference between theory and practical. And since I didn't know much about GeoGebra, I had actually tried studying from the textbook. But here's the thing, the textbook English is really poor. It's really difficult to understand what you're supposed to, and there are no diagrams.
We also had to write the practicals. The board really doesn't know what practical means. I get it, you don't want to make things easy for the students, but, when have you ever been asked to write steps for using Google Translate? Or draw a diagram? A diagram, we had to draw a diagram for our computer practicals.
Not only are they teaching us stupid topics, they're asking us to present it in a retarded way.
One thing that I still don't understand is why, out of the 10 years of school, only 10th is important.
Because only 10th is important, a lot of students don't study at all the 9 years before. You can say that what they teach in 10th is more important than what they teach in 2nd. But, no, it's not.
You can know any formula of AP or how to solve any quadratic equation but if you're going to use your fingers to add or subtract because you never paid attention when the teacher showed you tricks for doing it, you're going to look dumb.
Whatever they teach in the 10 years is important.
Uh, let me rephrase that. It SHOULD be important. It's not. Over 50% of the syllabus makes no sense but, still, if you want to design the syllabus like that, make every part of it important. Let the parrots work for 10 years straight, not just one year.
I've said it before, when I asked one of my friends (who gets over 85% in the exams) what 2 raised to 0 is, she said 0. If 5th grade's marks counted, she would've made sure to remember that.
A lot of times I'm asked why my mental math is good,
IT'S BECAUSE I PAID ATTENTION IN 1ST, 2ND AND 3RD WHEN WE LEARNED HOW TO ADD AND SUBTRACT!
not because the marks counted anywhere but because it's a skill I'm going to need for the rest of my life.
AND IF YOU DON'T THINK BASIC ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION IS IMPORTANT FOR A 15 YEAR OLD, THEN ARITHMETIC PROGRESSION, TRIGONOMETRY, RESISTANCE, METALS AND NON-METALS, WORLD WARS, LETTER WRITING, अव्यय, समास, AND THE FUCKING GANGA PLAIN ARE NOWHERE NEAR IMPORTANT.
Either make all 10 years count, or make none of it count and just have 12th as the main like every other country. (Yeah yeah, this makes India unique, all the patriotism. It doesn't make us unique, it makes us stupid because we know all about Hitler and yet we get confused while writing "occasionally")
When I pitched this idea to a person I know who is in the education sector, he asked me "If this change was made, would you be willing to go through all these 10 years again?"
"Well, if I agree to go through all 10 years again, would the person who decided our syllabus show me just how much he himself knows by telling me every answer I have ever learned in my life?"
"If I agree to waste another 10 years in this stupid system, will every teacher who ever corrected my exams and said "He needs to take academics seriously." write the exams I will have to write again?"
"If I agree to waste another 10 years, will the system agree to change the way I want it to or at least in a way it makes sense?"
If at least two of those conditions are met, I would go through 10 years of schooling again. But, I'll never have to, because the idiot who decided the syllabus doesn't know what a 15 year old today does. And I'm sure the teachers don't learn the answers that we have to, why should they?
In Science, we have a lesson that covers basic inheritance. We studied about Mendel's experiments on peas. And, we have the monohybrid cross and dihybrid cross. And for the preliminary exams, we were asked to explain dihybrid cross for 5 marks.
But, I didn't remember it that well, so I couldn't do it. However, it bugged me a lot, so, I tried it out when I came home.
Dihybrid was a piece of cake, nothing too difficult. My curiosity wasn't satisfied with dihybrid. And just for the heck of it, I decided to try the same with 3 traits. It took a while to put it together and the result was fulfilling.
I could even work out a pattern for the number of gametes, the number of distinct phenotypic results and the number of distinct genotypic results.
Of course, you can't be too sure with the pattern until you check it thoroughly. To do that, I tried doing the same with 4 traits. And sure enough, the pattern applied to it as well.
If anyone's curious,
Number of gametes for the F2 generation = 2 raised to n.
Number of 'observations' you get from the Punnett Square = 2 raised to 2n. (Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.)
Number of distinct phenotypic results = 2 raised to n.
Number of distinct genotypic results = 3 raised to n.
where n = number of traits.
And after finding and verifying the pattern, I was curious as to what it would be if the number of traits was 10.
Well,
Number of gametes for the F2 generation = 1,024.
Number of 'observations' = 1,048,576.
Number of distinct phenotypic results = 1,024.
Number of distinct genotypic results = 177,147.
Sadly, I can't do that on paper. And, my concentration isn't good enough to do that. So, I've been working on a program which would be able to generate a Punnett Square, and count the number of distinct phenotypic as well as genotypic results. There have been a lot of bugs in the first step itself, that is, inputting the number of traits and selecting a keyword for each.
I don't know how long it would take to finish the entire program. Or if I can even do it, but, it's certainly fun to try and come up with a way to make this possible.
For now though, here's trihybrid cross.
Just in case you want to zoom in, click here.
It's messy. Pencil is not my friend, the lead kept breaking.
Sadly, I couldn't capture the quadhybrid cross, it's even messier than this table and it's 4 times bigger.
I recently heard on the radio that NRIs can now vote in Indian elections without being here. Actually, they won't be able to do in the coming Delhi assembly polls but it's going to start soon.
Source
But, during the radio podcast, the RJ asked listeners to call him and tell him about their views, and one of the replies is really sad.
She says NRIs should not be able to vote from out of India because they left the country. She even went so far as to say "Mahatma Gandhi worked so hard for the freedom of our country, and he did it not so we could run off to different countries to earn more money. The NRIs obviously think India is not good and left the country to earn more money and so, they should not be given rights to vote for the country. They can just vote for the country they're living in."
Well, here's the thing. I don't think she understands what NRI actually is. NRI stands for Non-resident Indian. NRIs are basically Indian citizens who are TEMPORARILY living in a different country for reasons like education, work etc.
She's mixed NRIs and PIOs (Person of Indian Origin, read NRI and PIO for more information)
NRIs haven't left the country because they think it's bad, they've just left the country for education (makes sense, our education system is highly depressing) or work (they could have been transferred by their company, it's not all money based) or whatever reason, it's temporary.
And if you check the requirements for voting, they are:
1) The person must be of 18 years of age at least.
2) The person must be a citizen of India.
And so, NRIs do qualify for voting. The only reason they can't vote is because they can't show up in India for voting.
I don't think it's a good idea either but not because of that stupid reason. It's just that the voting will be done through the internet (using proxies) and that's a little insecure in my opinion.
However, there are rumours and suspicions that the ballot elections are tampered so, there really won't be much of a difference.
Also, in my opinion, NRIs are a bit more logical than the average Indian citizen and their votes might actually improve the country. Besides, like I said, NRIs should technically be able to vote already.
Whoever said this on radio should really do their research before saying something as heavy as this.
And one really funny fact about this woman is that she just moved to Pune from the North. So technically, she's also moving to different locations for money (according to her logic) so, she really has no right to judge NRIs.
Hyouka is a pretty non-mainstream but it has become popular because of the "kinninarimasu". So, a lot of people have seen it now.
If you remember the series, you'll distinctly remember the last part, because, to me at least, it was the one of the worst endings ever. It begins with Chitanda talking about her career options and how she can't take care of the business so, she's going to try and research new ways to increase the harvest etc.
Then, Oreki says to her to let him take care of the business side for her. And for that brief moment, I felt happy for him because grom the first episode, he had been slowly captivated by her and it would've been a good ending to show that he fell for her and did something about it.
Yes, he doesn't do anything that takes too much energy, that's his nature. But, throughout the Anime, his character is developed and he does, willingly, do some thing (like going to a library to research out of curiosity) So, it wouldn't have been that wrong to show that he ended up doing something about his attracion towards her.
But, then, we see that it was just Oreki's imagination and he leaves, without saying it. Again, this does fit his initial nature, but, like I said, it wouldn't have been against his nature if he had said it.
And, this leaves a very open ending to the Anime (which I hate) since they just finished high school and even if Oreki managed to resist this time, he might not be able to in the future (because his character does change). Of course, it could also be that Chitanda has to leave the city for education. Frankly speaking, there are a lot of scenarios that could happen.
But, I, like Sheldon, need closure. I can't stand not knowing the end to something. I can formulate theories, but, I need to know which one of them was right.
Then, I read somewhere that the Anime has actually planned a season 2 but it's been over two years now, and nothing.
However, the Anime was based on a light novel, which has 5 volumes. And Hyouka only covered 4 volumes. So now, I'm reading the novel and look for a better ending.
All in all though, it was a really good Anime. One of my favourites. Mostly because it wasn't hyped too much and the mystery content was amazingly explained. A must watch for mystery fans.
Religion-wise, people can be classified into 4 categories. The first is the rapidly growing atheist category. These people have no faith in any religion. They often debate with the theists about anomalies in myths and such.
The second category is where most of today's teenagers reside. They don't actually believe in any of the stories or theories, but, they don't want to admit that they are atheists and ruin their 'image', ironically, if all these people just admitted that they were atheists, I'm pretty sure the number of atheists would be larger than the number of theists.
The third category is the smallest of all. It consists of the theists. These people, despite the fact that they believe in the existence of an almighty power, have my respect, because, they don't blindly believe. These people are mostly priests, with only a few exceptions. And, most priests (in India) don't even come under this category because, well, they just know being a 'baba' means quick money from gullible citizens. Anyway, these theists have actually studied the myths related to their religion very carefully. The don't just know the "popular" stories, they know most, if not all, of them. And, they actually follow the "amendments" strictly.
The fourth category is, as far as I know, the largest. And, in my opinion, the stupidest. Not because they believe in the existence of God. It's your life, believe in whatever you want. But, it's because they are concrete examples of ”blind-believers". It's what atheists call the theists and these people just make it worse for the real believers.
When I say blind believers, I mean, they don't know about the myths. I don't know much about Christianity, but Hinduism has a LOT of myths and different Gods and Goddesses. These people only know the very mainstream ones. But, that by itself is still fine. You believe in just one God, fine by me.
The reason they are, in my opinion, the stupidest is because they have the nerve to go around calling themselves saints. These are the same people who pick fights with atheists. Of course, a lot of atheists know myths and deities better than these people so, the argument is pretty one sided.
I mean, if you believe in one God, just do it, don't go around picking fights with people who don't. I'm not saying atheists are right either. Being one of them, I know how it is, it starts with a simple atheist post on Facebook and ends with all the fake theists on your friend list against all the atheists on your friend list. I don't know why we can't just believe/not believe without feeling the need to prove it.
And these are the people who have statuses like, "Atheists, why do you need Christmas holidays?" Well, I don't know about other atheists but, I don't mind going to school in December, but the question is, will my teachers show up? The answer to that question is because it's been declared a holiday. It's not like the theists take a leave on that day. Everyone has been given that holiday because the majority of the population took leaves anyway.
Of course, atheists make it even worse by saying, "If we can't enjoy holidays, why do you get to benefit from modern medicine? Next time you have a cold, don't go to a doctor, go to church,"
Though what pisses me off the most is the fact that these theists don't really follow their religion. As in, they go drinking, and commit all those other sins, and then when they're in trouble, they pray to God. They justify it by saying "I just drink occasionally, it's fine." It's not. If you want to be a theist, you have to follow the "rules" 24/7 till you die. I mean, by that logic, I am also allowed to kill people as long as I do it once a year or so. (It'd take a few years but, if that logic was accepted, the atheists might just be able to take over.)
To be honest, right now, I don't really want to call myself an atheist either. Not because of all the hate I get from my relatives or basically any grown up in this country (aka fake theists) but because that term is starting to become like "otaku". Everyone is just fighting amongst themselves based on their religious views.
The Hindus fight with the Muslims, the Christians and what not, while the atheists fight with all of them. If they could just stop fighting and quietly follow their religions, the world would be such a better place.
This has been a very active debate ever since atheists started openly debating about the existence of Gods. Does our life just end after we die? After all the years we spent, does our mind just stop thinking?
We're told that afterlife does exist, by a lot of people. But, the concept of afterlife is pretty mainstream in most popular religions. It states that after death, we are taken to a place where we are first judged based on all our past actions. If God thinks you were a good human, he sends you to heaven.
Heaven, a place that has increased all our expectations. We've come up with such theories about it, I doubt, even if it does exist, it's going to be as good as we expect it to be. I mean, think about it. Who made heaven? God. Who made the Earth? God. Do we like life on Earth? When you add computers, movies, food, drinks, women, yes, we do. But, heaven is like God's own place. So, obviously, there won't be any meat (unless you're christian) Drinking is considered a sin in most religions so, there won't be any kind of alcohol. God never created computers or cameras, so there won't be any kind of media to keep you entertained. And women, well, everyone thinks Heaven is a place where the residents are beautiful and they serve you as you want.
But, if you ever actually read the "rules" of most religions, you'll know that lust is also one of the deadly sins. So, it's not like you're gonna have a lot of fun with the ladies on God's turf.
And if God thinks you've sinned too much, he will send you to hell. We've all imagined hell as a place underground, where there is no food, drink, and is probably full of demons that God has damned to eternal captivity.
Some even believe in rebirth. And if I was to believe in one of these theories, I would pick this one. But, then, I found out that the theory of rebirth revolves around karma. Which means, basically, God judges your entire life and based on that, he decides which creature you'll be reborn as.
For some reason, I don't like being judged by someone who did such a bad job making certain people, so I started thinking about different methods of afterlife.
One theory that I came up with, and that I liked, was well, rebirth. But not as an animal, based on my life performance. Maybe, after we die, we are just born again, in a different dimension. Of course, if we're being reborn, we'll have memory of our life on earth.
But then, if we're living in a different dimension and if the way to get here is by dying on Earth, that means everyone in this dimension was a resident of Earth before. Then comes the question, will my body be the same? Well, no, there's no reason for it to be the same. So, you'd have a new body, maybe even a new gender, but the same mind. In this world, man trapped in a woman's body would actually make sense.
So, what happens after you die in this world? Simple, you are reborn in the next dimension. It is said that there innumerable dimensions, so, what if we just kept traveling from dimension to dimension after death. Maybe there aren't innumerable dimensions. Maybe there are only a few hundred.
But that's still a 100 hundred lives. Maybe, after we're done with all the dimensions, we are reborn on Earth again.
Next time you meet someone who claims to have reborn, you might want to think about this theory.
Another theory that I'd personally like to believe in is, we are reborn, in a different year. For example, if I die in 2015, there's a chance I'll be reborn in 2100s or even 1900s. Of course, if you're reborn in the past, you'll be in someone else's body, maybe even a popular historic figure like Hitler.
Through various movies and series, you have learned that we shouldn't change the past, but if this was true, you might be able to. And your future, the present, would completely change.
I'll conclude before this gets anymore complicated. All these are theories, there's no explanation yet, the only way to find out, is to, well, die.
I'm not a huge fan of powers like invisibility, invincibility, immortality etc. and least of all, telepathy. Telepathy is the power of sensing or reading a minds and communicating mentally. For now, let's just talk about telepathic perception that is, mind reading.
As I said, I'm not a huge fan of such powers and so, I haven't seen any movies or read any books that featured such powers, but I do remember one Marathi movie about it. It seemed like a typical movie for supernatural powers.
A guy wishes he had some power, he gets the power due to weird reasons, he realizes how much work it is, he goes through a lot of hardships, and in the end wishes to lose the power.
The movie which I remember showed one guy who wished to be able to read the mind's of women. When he got the power, he realizes how much women think about and so on. And it always bugged me how they only showed one problem behind mind reading, when there're so many.
Let's assume a kid was born with this power. First of all, he would have to grow up knowing everything his parents didn't tell him. That means, while his parents told him stories of Santa Claus, he would be hearing "Santa isn't real", when his mother tells him about the Mahabharata and Ramayana, he would her his dad think "I don't know why I ever married this girl, she believes in this story (#ArrangedMarriages)" Basically, his childhood would be screwed up.
And that's still assuming he was given some orientation, as in, not to tell his parents that he can hear their thoughts. If he was never told this, and, being naive like any other kid, he would've just told his parents. His parents, after finding out that he wasn't lying would probably be too scared to be around him, and he'd be all alone.
Now, let's assume he makes it to school. In an Indian school, there are at least 40 students in one class. So, he'd have to spend around 6 hours hearing 40 people's thoughts. And these are all kids, so they would be thinking about the most random things. Besides, because of all the "voices" in. His head, he wouldn't be able to hear what the teacher is saying. So, it's useless to go to school.
As he grows up and enters high school, it'll get even worse. High school is when every kid in class has a crush and are thinking of their crushes during boring classes. And I, personally, wouldn't even want to hear anyone's thoughts about their crush. He would know a lot of secrets. But, he can't tell them to anyone because his source is well....you know.
Worse would be him going to a movie. Even worse would be him going for Jism 2. Listening to a theater full of guys think about Sunny Leone, that can't be fun.
Of course, there are a lot of perks. He won't ever have to study. He can just copy by listening to someone. He would easily find out if a girl likes him. He can meet anyone and know their deepest secrets, a great way of helping your country, being a telepathic spy.
But then, it kinda makes you think. Maybe this power has an off-switch. As in, you can just stop reading minds for some time. But, that's exactly like logging off when a group chat is lively. You know it's just spamming you, yet, you don't want to miss if, in case, something does happen.
So, would you still like to have this power?
I've been meaning to write about this for quite a while but somehow I always forgot.
In 10th, we have school right after the 9th grade examinations, which means school in the summer. As if that isn't bad enough, we even have exams as soon as school reopens in June. And these exams, being the first of 10th, were a learning experience for all of us because the correction was pretty strict.
And stupid. I can't complain about most subjects because, well, I didn't really write much in the exam, but I was pissed off when I got my English marks.
For English, we have a few comprehension exercises which cover Grammar as well and then an entire section for writing exercises. In this particular examination, we had been given the topic of "Teacher's role in shaping the future of a student" for an 'expansion of ideas' exercise.
For those of you who don't know, in expansion of ideas, you are given a proverb, saying etc and you have to explain it with examples.
And I did the exercise because I knew a solid example, Leonardo da Vinci, and I knew a lot about him because of 'Da Vinci's demons'. And while describing his father, Pierro da Vinci, I wrote "Seeing his bastard son decorate his shield so well, he sold him to an artist Andreea Verocchio."
And I got a remark saying "Don't use bad words". Now, our English teacher likes to discuss our mistakes in front of the entire class, which I think is a good way of letting everyone know what mistakes not to make. And she brought this topic up.
The entire class started either laughing or gasping because I wrote 'bastard' in an exam. Of course, most of my classmates don't know the real meaning of that word. Naturally, I defended myself by saying "It means 'illegitimate child' and that's how I used it, not as a swear."
After some discussion, the teacher concluded with "Don't use slang in your writing exercises again." If any of you know how bastard (illegitimate child) is slang, please let me know. As far as I know, the meaning of bastard that we all know is considered slang.
What's worse is, I was expecting a good remark for using that word in the way it was meant to, and not as a curse.
So, again I defended myself, to which she replied, "See, I know the actual meaning of that word, but some English teachers from small villages might not know the meaning and they'll just cut your marks for it. So don't use that word again."
What. The. Fuck.
Am I not supposed to use colourful words in my writing exercises? And to be honest, bastard is hardly a colourful word. Illegitimate would've been tougher to understand. And if these teachers don't know the meanings of such words, why are our papers even going to them for correction? Let them correct the papers of students that they teach.
It's not fair to call villagers bad writers but, I go to a good English medium school, why should I dumb down my vocabulary so that some under qualified teacher can understand it?
Is there really such a shortage of teachers in the country that we look towards such people to correct the papers? Like I said before, if the country can't host an exam this important properly, it should stop trying. It's not the country that suffers, it's us students that suffer.
To this day, I'm scared of using words that are longer than 5 letters while writing an essay.
Lately, I've been going through a lot of bollywood critic's videos on YouTube and one thing that most have is how, even people like R D Burman, copied western music.
Well, I was somewhat disappointed, but, is it really such a bad thing? After a few videos, I realized that most of the hits were copied. But, does it really matter? It's not like they ruined the original song, as a matter of fact, these songs might be popular only because our composers made it popular.
And the second thing that bugs me is, if 'kaho na kaho' 'pehli nazar mein' 'mehbooba' 'chura liya' and other older hits were all results of copied music, fine. It's still much much better than the music we have today.
And what do we have today? One wannabe Pitbull who "raps" about his to-do list, other Punjabi "singers" who were "inspired" by this guy "rapping" about things that make no sense, and only a few actually good songs.
If that's the result of Bollywood's "original" music, they should just stop trying. Go back to copying, we're much better at that.
I don't watch TV because it mostly consists of drama. But, there are some comedy shows. I know a few Hindi ones and one Marathi show and I'll admit, all of them are funny. But, there's a difference between PJs and actual jokes.
Most of the comedy shows are reality shows that have partners who present sketches or so. Comedy nights with Kapil is one show I know that has a bit of stand up comedy and sketches too. And when I first heard from a friend that it has stand up comedy, I was pretty surprised. And by the way, this show is pretty much the only comedy show that every family watches and it makes me sad that this is their idea of funny.
If you've ever seen stand up comedy, you'll know that it's basically telling jokes, without props or anything of that sort, with hand gestures and voice changes etc. and the world's #1 stand up comedian right now, Russell Peters, is Indian. Of course, these jokes are to be told in a proper way, you can't just memorize a bunch of random jokes and tell them.
And what I've seen in a lot of stand up comedy shows, Indian and otherwise, is that it has a lot of audience participation. Its not like the audience is called on the stage, but they do speak to different people in the audience and make jokes on them etc.
But this show, it's as if the entire thing was set up just for "Paaji". There is no improv comedy based on the audience, it's entirely scripted.
And there's another show. I haven't really seen it on TV but I saw a few videos on YouTube. It was Rising Stars of Comedy on NDTV. That show had actual stand up comedy with Indian comedians from various laughter clubs across the country. All they put on YouTube were 10 minute clips and yet there are so many videos of that show. That means, there's no shortage of stand-up comedy in India.
And all of them are funny. And they talk about the life of Indians, maybe a few racist jokes, political jokes but all of that is much funnier than the sketches of Comedy Nights with Kapil. Why? Because the entire show is based on cheap jokes. The show is based on really bad puns, and the kind of shitty jokes that are popular on Whatsapp.
And I still don't understand how this show is so popular, and an actual funny show, with real stand up comics is still unknown to the majority. And the worst part of Comedy Nights with Kapil is "Paaji" laughing. We get it, you're getting paid to laugh. But enough, he laughs at the most absurd things. It's as if his sense of humor is so messed up, he'll even laugh at "hello". And what's worse is that they have a mic near him. Which means, the viewers have to put up with this guy laughing for no reason.
If you want to laugh, check out Russell Peters, Vir Das, Kunal Rao, Sorabh Pant, Sanjay Manaktala, Jeevashu Aluhwalia, Sahil Shah, Varun Grover, Azeem Banatwala, Atul Khatri, Maheep Singh, Angad Singh Ranyal, Neeti Palta, and there's many more. And this is just the names I got from YouTube. Just half of what you can watch on TV. And their improv comedy is so much more better and funnier than the scripted comedy of any other comedy show.
It's more of a social obligation to celebrate this one day. I say obligation because that's what everyone talks about when you go to school/work on the 2nd. Everyone boasts how awesome their party was and something like that.
But I fail to understand the motive behind the hype. For one, you end up spending your entire Christmas bonus in one night. Second, people are EVERYWHERE. That means, if you want to reach a restaurant by 9, you have to leave your house 2 hours before.
And well, since people are everywhere, you have to wait at restaurants/clubs/etc.
Of course, it's mostly just grown-ups that get to celebrate. But, even the kids are hyper before midnight on the 31st. Then, when it's midnight, they wish everyone by text, calls, Whatsapp, Facebook (can't meet in person because they're still kids) and everyone's really happy for 15 - 30 minutes.
After that, we all realize that that's it. We realize our holidays are about to end and we need to start studying again. So, that's it. The hype is about 15 - 30 minutes.
Even worse, in my opinion, are the cheesy messages you receive. Most ironical, as far as I know, is the fact that you get messages saying "May this year be full of joy...blah blah...and all your wishes come true." from people you haven't even heard from in months.
And the worst of all is the fact that this day or transition from one year to another does not count for anything. It amounts to nothing, at least in India. If you think about it, you'll realize, our fiscal year starts in April. (Source) And our academic year begins in June (for schools) and July (for colleges).
So, there is no apparent reason for celebrating.
