Fancies

If I can't have a white Christmas, then serve me up a green one. Give me trees studded with birds. Give me buttercups that are blobs of curdled sunshine; shoe flowers, white as snow with red, red streaks at their heart and friendly daisies that smile up at you as you blow them an airy kiss. And in the still, crisp nights I want to see merry girls with dark hair and pretty dresses. Their hair really being bits of the sky cut out, to let the stars shine through. I want to see droves of fireflies as they flit by and keep the darkness at bay.

And most of all give me dreams! A lovely golden boat of dreams that tips over when caught on a star and empties wishes into our hearts. A string of fancies that sparkle like tiny waves in the sunlight. Flecks of gold, that wander helter skelter, enticing us on and finally leading us home

Squiggles

I've always found writing to be an amazing stress buster. This probably explains the tiny pencil squiggles all over the walls in my room.

Thankfully, my hall manager hasn't checked up on me yet and so the squiggles keep building up. From where I'm sitting I can see the following quotes:

'Good girls go to Heaven but Bad gurls got to London'
and

'DO noble things, don't dream them all day long
And so make life, death and that vast forever,
One grand sweet song'

followed by a blurry

'It must have been Love
But it's over now...'

I can also see bits and pieces of a To Do list followed by a sharp invective :P

One peremptorily reads,

'Must have a bath' F&*!

And here in a corner I can see, the following string of words:

'Photoelectrochemical cells, Algae, Flux analysis. CHECK!'

I have a list of the universities I want to apply to on the wall beside my laptop. And above this list I've signed the following statement:

'The minute I get a good result. I shall come to Hyderabad.' -PdeSouza
This was attested by Tanushree Prasad on 20/8/2012 :)

My whole life seems to be spun around these phrases.
Right now, as I pull my hair out and try and get some work done, different phrases remind me of the good, the bad and the embarrassing things I've done.

They serve as a perpetual reminder that at any point in time, whether I'm on the Highest of Highs or the Lowest of Lows, Life has so much to offer.

There! my eye just passed over a squiggle that explains what I mean:

'Life is not an ashes to ashes or a dust to dust existence, but a soaring gift snatched from eternity'

blue

I suddenly feel so miserably insignificant today.

Everything I do is so pointless. I feel like I've been battling the universe to prove something and today I just can't seem to remember what that thing is.

It all started when this morning when I started looking at photographs on facebook and saw congratulatory posts and I had this weird 'dwarfing feeling' as Aditya B says.

Then the procedural maze at the lab to use a simple XRD apparatus bogged me down. To access XRD results, I have to wait TWO WEEKS. It took me a week to get signatures and now they're going to take another week for the scan. A black box period. How will I trust their results?! Maybe they'll feel lazy this week and give me some bogus data!

Why am I running around, fighting the system?!

Then I met my professor and he just found it funny that things are so slow in IIT. Hello? What about me dude? I felt unutterably weary as I sat in his office. Okay, I know I'm not myself when I feel an analogy from Harry Potter bubbling up to the surface. But I honestly felt as if a Dementor was sitting next to me, sucking up every positive feeling I had. I felt so drained.

Anyway time for a nap to forget everything. Then quiz time. :-/

Yay me!

To say I'm pissed would be an understatement.

I found the above post in my drafts. I guess it was too depressing for me to want to put it up on my blog at that time. I'm feeling blue again, dear reader. Life isn't the rosy sunset I once dreamed it would be. I'm going to mix up Ignatius Loyola's quote now, 'What profits a man if he gains the whole world but doesn't have a single friend to rejoice and celebrate with?'. I'm lucky and grateful to have made the best, most loyal friends in college. I've met people I've admired tremendously, so why do I keep wanting things I don't/can't have?

The Next Chapter

Dear Reader. Have you ever tasted heartache? Not the romantic kind, but the kind where a lot of familiar, friendly things seem to be slipping away from you?

Right until graduation, I felt close to my friends even though they weren't in Mumbai, but now they seem to be slowly but surely sailing away into a sunset; a gorgeous red and golden future of which I have no part.

I'm happy for them. I wish they always sail on clouds of glory so that I can tell my grand children, d'you know so and so? Well I used to go partying with them! Ha!

For there's no doubt about it, that each of them is going to be a very great, a very special person some day. They not only have the ability but also the drive and the ambition which are equally important. I have been inspired by them, and I have admired them.

The best thing that has ever happened to me was getting into IIT. Finally, it is not the lectures, or the opportunities which I value most, though they were certainly very helpful, but the people I have met. They showed me how to live. How to be passionate about something, how to want to contribute to a cause and most of all, how to just be myself.

They accepted me for who I was, an overly dramatic, crazy nerd. I didn't have to pretend to be cooler than I was, or nerdier than I was. They were my friends all the same. I've felt that most of my life, I've tried to adjust to the people around me in order to fit in. But in IIT I realized that not fitting in was the key to fitting in, and not fitting in, simply meant being myself.

I am grateful that I got a chance to meet the people I have become closest to. They are going to be starting new lives in a different country, but I guess I'll be starting a new life too. Here's to the next chapter!

Cheers.

Searching for Patterns

Life is like a great gilded book. Every second, the book expands as closely written pages are added to it. What is the book about? Why you and me!

Somehow, sometime, a dot of ink spilled on the first page and streaked out into the beginning of a story. As new characters were introduced, the story snowballed; driven by the momentum of the characters themselves.

If a tapestry could be woven reflecting the connections between the various characters, , Mandelbrot himself would probably be bewildered at the fantastic complexity of the picture; as hundreds of millions of microcosms cut across each other to form a picture that never seems to be complete; but is always tending to perfect symmetry.

Sometimes, one is rewarded by a flash, a view of a pattern which causes one's heart to ache with the beauty of it. And that's the secret. We search for these patterns, these micro symmetries and forget the all encompassing trend.

Everyone's actions affect everyone else. Just by existing, you are part of the pattern which would be completely different if not for you. I've given a great deal of thought to this. Sometimes I deliberately give in to crazy impulses just to see the pattern change and see the birth of new symmetries.

It's when I give in to my impulses that I most strongly feel that I am the Writer of my own Life. I feel Powerful as I control every other character in the book. They would not be where they are doing what they were doing if not for me.

P.S: This whole post is fresh evidence that I'm crazy. But the image of the book haunted me today and i had to put it down. I don''t understand exactly my own analogies but some part of me dimly understands what I have written.

"We are Young"

She was caught in a whirl of music, alcohol and dance. She threw her armor to the wind and responded to the rhythm. "We are young!" the crowd sang. And suddenly, she was shocked to find her cheeks wet with tears.

She woke up in a cold sweat and realized that it had just been a dream. She got up shakily and looked at her old, wrinkled, face in the mirror. Time had not been kind to her. Her hair was white as snow and her eyes looked so disillusioned and tired. A shudder wracked her frame. The only thing that was real were the tears.

Part 1

The storm expended it's spate of fury in a burst of rain.

Marion clung to the tree, her cheek pressed against the wood waiting for the rain to cease. As she waited she fell to her favorite past time of 'pretending'. She pretended that every now and again, time would cease and everyone assumed their true form and fulfilled their true purpose. She liked to think that she was really a dryad, tending graceful birch trees in the day and dancing on some mysterious heath on Midsummer nights. Life was really just an interlude between flights of fancy.

The rain ceased and Marion slipped away between the trees back home. Home was a small apartment in Mumbai.

Though her body anchored her to the city, her heart was usually always to be found on Prince Edward Island in Canada. Ever since she has read 'Anne of Green Gables' at the age of 8, she had dreamed of living on P.E.I with it's Violet Vale and Dryad's Bubble and Lake of Shining Waters.

All this talk of dreaming, must have given you the impression that Marion is a child. But, no, Marion is really 21; though she'd been a little girl too long to have grown out of the habit completely. All this speaks volumes about her soul, but I can hear my reader wonder what she looks like!

No, she does not have auburn hair and dreamy green eyes with a rosebud mouth, but fluffy, untidy brown hair and dark brown eyes with a tiny beauty spot next to her mouth. You might walk past her without knowing who she was. Marion possesses no exceptional talents except one; and that is the power to love. Be it, her family, her friends, her pet birds, the tree outside her window, Marion loved them all with an intensity which always caused her heart to break every time change crept into her little world.

And that is where dreams fit in. Everything in Life is ephemeral; change alone is permanent. Dreams on the other hand belong to one and one only and hence, one must guard them jealously and keep them close. They are the only things that lie between hurt, despair and ultimately cynicism and eternal beauty. Marion lives on dreams, lives for turning them into reality. That is why her world is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

In the next few posts I hope to make you better acquainted with Marion.

Moonlit Dreams

It's 10:00 pm and I've given up trying to coax sleep to sprinkle sand in my eyes. I've rather philosophically gotten up to stand by my window and dream.

I can hear the muted sounds of traffic as they filter through the leaves of the tree outside my window. The wing is quiet. The hostel dogs have finished their routine raid and have left the world to darkness and to me.

The moon is a young moon tonight. She seems to quiver full of expectancy. I can understand why people says that moonlight is dangerous. Nothing seems impossible or stupid when it's bathed in moonshine.

Is this the same moon that looks down on the Mens Wimbledon Finals Match, albeit unseen? Is it she that looks down on hunger in Africa, at war and bloodshed in Pakistan at despair and terror in Afghanistan? Is it she who has looked down on generations of lovers?

In a world of change it is so wonderful to have something that is constant, that will always walk in beauty through the night. For I've come to realize everything changes. Not just people and places, but ideals! Ideals change too! And I'm not sure I like that!

I've always wondered what Anne of Green Gables would make of today's world. A world so much more complicated and multidimensional than the one she lived in, in Avonlea. Would she retain that starry eyed romanticism? Could she hold on to her Dreams and Ideals? Well she must! Otherwise she wouldn't be 'Anne'.

I can feel sleep creep up over me as I write. It is such a lovely, delicious, cosy feeling! Good Night World and Good night Moon!

Because the first day of the monsoon deserves a post

The smell of the damp earth in the crisp cool air of dawn hinted at the coming of the monsoon. There was a sense of joy and jubilation in the tree outside my window as a lonely bulbul trilled hopefully at the gray Nimbus clouds. A pair of squirrels frisked together, scurrying up and down the branches, squeaking in delight in the early morning tranquility. Rain drops glittered like diamonds on the leaves of the tree, and sparkled down to the earth below like angels' kisses.

Whoever said grey was a gloomy color? I thought of farmers standing on their parched fields looking up at those portentous clouds, hearts filled with gratefulness to the rain gods. I thought of rivers swelling, bursting their bounds springing forth in majesty.

And then I remembered that I would now have to look forward to three gloomy, dank, dirty, muddy, crowded hours in a Mumbai local every day!

I shuddered.

How selfish and small is a human being? How frail and weak, engrossed with their tiny microcosm, losing sight of the larger picture altogether. Perhaps a little frightened of it too, frightened of ones insignificance in the general scheme of things.

I started my day with the song, 'Poker Face' sung by Idina Menzel. Idina Menzel is a really successful broadway actress. She's married to her co star Taye Diggs from the musical Rent. They've been together almost 2 decades. That's rare for showbizz people! I think that's very lovely. Thinking about it also made me feel slightly lonely.

I shook of the feeling, packed 'Places in Between' by Rory Stewart in my bag and set off to face the day.

Karad

So here I am in a place called Karad, somewhere in Maharashtra! There aren't many bears around. Which saddened me at first, because I wanted to see a real wild bear. But there are 2 rivers, and the scenery makes up for the mosquitoes and the heat.

Why am I here? It all happened this way. I wanted to do a CTARA project in summer.

Sometimes, i feel like my work in IIT is way too sheltered. If I have a question, I just go to the Professor and get my concepts sorted out. There's really no active learning. CTARA projects are different.CTARA deals with real world problems that are complex and multi dimensional. It's not just the technology one has to look at, but the social prejudices, the economics of the problem as well as legal factors.

For example, last year I worked in a slum rehabilitation colony Majas. Majas is huge. There are about 1000 residents living in the colony. These people originally belonged to slums located on the Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road. The slums were demolished to make way for the road and they were thus shifted to Majas.

Majas had several problems. The colony was filthy because the residents has not abandoned old habits of flinging waste from their kitchen windows and continued this behavior in the colony. There were rats the size of puppies scurrying around. The people were so poor that even saving a few Rs here and there made a big difference to their life style. The economics of different solutions to their waste disposal problem was paramount.

In addition, there was insufficient security protection for the women folk. Drunken brawls etc. were pretty common in the evenings. A colony of that size by rights should have had a police chowky. The people of Majas were blinded my caste. They also mistrusted authorities. They were staunch supporters of different political parties with the Shiv Sena dominating the list and many a colony fight had a decided political edge to it.

I went into the field, with my lovely sophisticated ideas of biogas plants and different waste disposal schemes and my broken Hindi. I came out, a different person, though unfortunately my hindi did not improve much :P. I went in chock full of energy ideas, I came out a sadder and wiser person. The people did not want a bio gas plant. They wanted affordable water, which mean a revamping of their inefficient water distribution scheme. They did not want their septic tank to keep overflowing every day. They did not want a water tank located in such and such area because they believed the BMC would snatch the land away from them, and they would be left without a pump. They did not want such and such a person to be in charge of handling an issue and taking charge even if he/she was willing because they belonged to a lower caste. There were so many constraints!

Working with them ,talking to them, coming up with all the constraints and identifying possible solutions was challenging and I learned a lot! As anyone, who knows me would know, my Hindi is atrocious and communicating with former bar dancers and what not really was tough. Luckily, that helped me make a lot of friends as people laughed at my efforts and looked at me as a big joke and were ready to help the poor weak minded girl out as much as possible.

I got to know a lot of kids there my age, and a more determined bunch I have never seen. They were set on rising in the world and supporting their families. Their juggling of working at CCD in the day, studying in college in the afternoon and doing odd jobs in the evening and night was truly marvelous to behold.

In addition I met a lot of interesting adults. One of the women I met had been a bar dancer. She was confused and scared when the MMRDa relocated them and tried to teach them how to manage their cooperative housing societies. She actually had the guts to take up a Social Work course and learned the rudiments of managing a cooperative housing society, waste disposal techniques etc. Even though she was of a low caste, her learning prompted the rest of the society to accept her as secretary of the Union of Majas.

The good experience I had made me want do another CTARA project this summer, but this time in my core field of energy. I accepted a project to do an energy analysis of different types of brick kilns with a class mate. My team member went home and only came back on the 19th. Brick kilns close around this time before the rains begin. I thought we would have to drop the project. I knew I could not handle the survey by myself as I didn't know enough Marathi to save my life. However, we decided to just hop into a bus and try and do as much as possible while we could on the 20th of May.

It was a completely last minute plan.

I had been very frustrated with my other work. I decided to just play along with Fate and go to Karad.

And thats how I find myself here.

It was so hot in the morning, that I felt like lying down on the fiery bricks and let the vultures go at it. It was far too hot to live forget about moving and talking and asking survey questions. So here we are, back in our residence here waiting for the heat to abate before we venture out again.

After all, if all fails at least I can say that Life is an Adventure!

The Impossible Dream

A couple of days ago, my grandfather read me a passage from Hiawatha. The Song of Hiawatha is my favorite poem!

I was about 10 when my grandfather first read it to me. The squirrel Ajidomo, the strong man Quasind, the good Nokomis were so real to me. :)

Well,this time he read to me Hiawatha's wooing of Minnehaha, the lovely Laughing Waters.

I felt a little dissatisfied at the ease at which the whole business came about. Grampy laughed at me when I told him that.

He then told me that he used to read that passage to Grandy during his courting days.

So there were days of real romance... Not the crass, cheap kind that Louis L'Amour writes about but real moonshiney Romance.

I feel that our generation is very Unromatic. Our lives run like well oiled clockwork, efficiently, crisply, relentlessly. What happened to that touch of Don Quixote in us?

What happened to the Impossible Dream?

To dream the Impossible Dream
To fight the Unbeatable Foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go...

My first Date with Spinoza

Im so excited! The mail brought me a long awaited treatise on Spinoza's, Ethics this afternoon. I took it with me to the lakeside to read. It's impossible to muddle through a book like that in your room.

The boathouse is my 'thinking' spot. Somehow whenever I'm there the Heavens conspire to grant me whispers of half formed truths and flashes of something which is beyond a puny human's intellect. I think L.M Montogomery would understand my flash! It was exactly like she described it in her 'Emily' stories!

I read the first chapter. Let me first tell you the little I know about Spinoza. I have repeatedly come across his name when I have read 'The Razor's Edge' by Somerset Maugham and when I read 'The Brothers Karamazov' by Dostoevsky. I also kept on coming across references to El Greco's paintings. I was determined to follow up. Spinoza lived in the 1600's. He is a Dutch philosopher and is the Father of the Rationalist Movement. He defied the basis of Descarte's theories of Christianity and managed to straddle Materialism and Determinism without belonging to either. Spinoza played a key role in framing Dutch policies, as he believed he had discovered the secret of achieving 'Happiness', that ethereal concept which all of us want and so few attain.

In short in the 1600s Spinoza said that God/Nature is not external to the world as we perceive it, but the Creator cannot be separated from the creation as it is in the Creator's nature to create and thus it's creation can just be a manifestation of 'Itself'. This concept strikes a blow at the very concept of Religion and of priesthood etc. Now I'm not saying I agree with this, or that I even fully comprehend this, but it's something that I've thought a lot about. Why would God choose to create this world and no other? etc. This solves that conundrum.

Spinoza also says that man is not special. We are just a far more complex accretion of molecules as compared to other organisms. In other words we have a greater degree of animation. Our Thoughts and our Motion or Extension are intertwined inextricably. Smells a bit deterministic no? Shall have to read on to figure this out as I strongly belive or rather I wouldn't like to imagine not having Free Will! But just think about it! Doesn't this sound a bit like Evolution? Man is just more evolved, and has the greatest capacity to think compared to any other object on earth.

It inspires me to just imagine a plump little Dutchman in the 16th century thinking such beautiful thoughts!

Will post again when i read more, but I feel tingles of excitement already!

Questions

Is there a God? There must have been or what was the First Cause?

But if there is a God, is a he a good God? And if he is then why does Evil exist?

'Bad' people are bad because of circumstances beyond their control. Their 'badness' could be hereditary or it could be born of privations faced etc.

Are they really 'Bad'? Should they be punished for having the wrong DNA, or for a fault which was not theirs to start with?

Why would a good God do something like that?

The Hindu belief in rebirth and karma, where your sins catch up with you in your next reincarnation, seems to be the most logical theory to explain Evil. It justifies why I am me and not you.

The theory of rebirth tires and frightens me.

What is 'right'?

2000 years ago, the very definition of righteousness was different. Polygamy and so many other things were rampant. We read about this in the Bible. We are told that it was a custom at that time and therefore is acceptable.

Scary.

I wonder 2000 years from now, when we live in Huxley's Brave New World, (that is if global warming does no catch up with us first) will the Future look back at us and laugh at us for being monogamous etc? Shouldn't what is right be more absolute? More defined?

I want Answers. After June 4th I start reading Spinoza properly. Somehow I feel I will find something in his philosophy

HELP!

I don't know what I want to do with my life!! I want to do so many things!

I want to go on stage and throw in my lot with artists and vagrants and live a peripatetic life!

At other times I want to run off to Paris and become an author and sit late into the night discussing Spinoza with art students in a smoky cafe.

I want to continue with research in energy and live in a clean room!

I want to spear head the UN's Clean Energy Movement and Change the World! :P

I want to do absolutely nothing! And read books all day and eat chocolate!

*Sigh*

HELP!!

Night out

Things didn't go according to plan yesterday. We had everything charted out, but 3 am found us at lakeside. We were just a bunch of friends sitting together, 'neath a golden moon.

It was so painfully sweet sitting there, laughing over memories and talking nonsense in that delicious stillness.

The day, the tourist asked Shrax if she knew where IDC was, whereupon Shrax nodded her head saying, 'yes' thinking she had done her job! The tourist had to laughingly rephrase her question to 'SO where is IDC?'

The day we piled up in Tap and Gujjwujj's room and watched a horror movie, clutching each other and eating copious amounts of gujju snacks.

The day we painted our wing t-shirts. The outings we had gone on, the places we had been to, the people we had met!

Our past seemed to be separated from us by just a pale quiver of moonbeams. It was very near and very, very dear.

After that at around 5ish we went to the VMCC roof top, considerately making enough of noise to dislodge any sweethearting couples. The view was breathtaking! Tap saw hope in the shining lights of the airplanes that roared above us, while I saw hope in the beacon of light shining through the tangle of trees on Sameer hill. We watched as the sky lightened and dawn broke.

Shrax was in her element! She organized a full scale photoshoot. I don't think I've laughed half as much at the kind of poses she was wheedling us to do!

It was pretty satisfying to see the sun rise. The sky was streaked with pink. It was as if Aurora had decided to become a hipster and had got highlights! :P

It just shows doesn't it? Everything happens for the best.

:)

It does feel good to have your own teeny weeny slice of the internet!

*Sigh* This semester has finally come to an end! And whatte semester it has been! I socialized like 400% more than I've ever done!

Apart from that, I had 7 courses + a seminar + my 12 credit Design Project. *Time to gloat over how much I've churned through*

I didn't do too great on my endsems this time. I have never had more projects and I sort of got really burnt out working on them, and then just couldn't focus on my endsems :(

I guess I should be feeling sad about it right now but I dont. This was probably my funnest sem so far. I've realized how truly awesome it is to be in college. In the words of my fav Party Song, 'I knew it was Now or Never! These were the best days of my Life!'

And it's not over yet! H is leaving tomorrow for JHU. And so tonight, we're planning on partying like crazey. I'm so excited! I'm going to dance and dance and dance and pretend tomorrow does not exist.

I guess in the cold gray light of tomorrow, today will seem very far away and consequences of this semester will catch up with me. But today, tomorrow does not exist. Hang Consequences!

'Anne'

I've just been reading the 'Anne' series by L.M Montgomery for the umpteenth time. Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Willows, Anne's House of Dreams, Anne of Ingleside, Rainbow Valley as well as Chronicles of Avonlea, and Further Chronicles of Avonlea.

How I love Anne! She is my favorite character. Whenever Life pulls a fast one on me, I always wonder, what would Anne do? She is whimsical,clever, impulsive, good and sweet. I love her 'good'ness. She's good without being a prig. She's by no means perfect, and constantly laments having red hair and comforts herself with her pretty nose. She is also very proud at times and finds it very hard to forgive digs about her hair!

L.M Montgomery has described her gray, starry eyes that change with mood and I can almost see them flashing an approval at me, when I go for a walk at lakeside and indulge my Imagination. Dreams make life worth living.

Anne does not live a half life and is capable of experiencing the most exquisite joy and sorrow. I've realised that it's very difficult for people to be happy, really happy. Not just when they win a prize, but by regular every day miracles like a gorgeous sunset or an encouraging word. But these 'regular' things just seem to give Anne more and more scope for imagination and she revels in that! I love that about her!

That makes me think of Charlotte Bronte! How can a woman living a prim secluded life write something like 'Wuthering Heights'?! How can she write about Catherine's love for Heathcliff and describe it like 'the rocks on the moor below, comfortless but necessary.' How did she feel those emotions, to write about them like that? Did her life open up her 'golden casements' to 'perilous seas of faery lands forlorn?

Anne is not a genius, but she has the keys to her casements and it casts a golden cloak over her life making her one of those lucky, happy individuals. I love the way she describes 'people who belong to the race of Joseph' and I always have a weather eye open for people who do! I feel I have found a lot of them as I've followed my wayward star and I feel that they've made my life all the richer for it.

Anne's optimism, her sense of humour and her strength and her 'fineness' have made her a role model for me. I wonder if any of you have read this series and love Anne too? If you do, do tell me about it! I'm all up for a nice L.M Montgomery revel! I've read every scrap she's written and though I don't think her a brilliant authoress, I think her books have a rare sweet charm, somewhat like bottled moonshine, or like bluberries fresh from the dell, which i've never come across before!

Shannon's Way

So I was reading 'Shannon's Way' by A.J Cronin and I fell in love with
the story!

I'm not going to tell you the plot, because this is one book you have
to read! But I will tell you how the main characters touched me and
how by just knowing them so intimately, I feel like I'm a better
person!

That's the sweet thing about books! Every time you read one, your
circle of acquaintances expands. You learn more about yourself because
you see reflections of your best and worst emotions in the characters
you come across.

Back to 'Shannon's Way'! Robert Shannon is a brilliant young doctor,
who throws away a brilliant career away to continue the research he wants
to work on. The difficulties that he faces to achieve his goal are incredible and it truly is amazing to see the single minded determination with which he follows his lonely star.

The ending is very sad though, just after he finishes with his experiments, word comes that another researcher in another land has already published the results and Shannon has nothing left-no fame, no recognition, nothing.

Shannon is the protagonist. His is a straightforward character really. No other option is possible to him but to carry out the research he loves. It is not in him to even regret making his decision to throw away his career to pursue his passion. He is idealistic, splendid and noble.

But the character that appealed to me the most was of Jean. Jean and Shannon are madly in love, but as they are of different religious faiths, Jean and her parents believe that a true understanding in the form of marriage can never exist between the two. Jean is obedient to her parents and breaks off with Shannon though she loves him.

Shannon implores her to marry him several times. He tries to reason with her saying that he would respect their difference and it would never come between them, but Jean with her close knit, religious family is torn between her love for Shannon and what she considers to be her duty to her family and to her God.

Right at the end however, when she learns about Shannon's condition, when she learns that he has nothing left and was broken and disheartened, she realizes that her place is by Shannon's side. The God of her fathers loved each and every single person. If God could overlook differences among people then there was no reason for her not to be at the side of the person she loved the most.

Her struggle through out the book between duty and love was heartrending. The understanding that illuminates her at the end when she goes to Shannon seems to be of another world when you realize that Love is not a sacrifice but a gift. It is a coupling of souls of which externalities and man made conventions form no part.

This is what inspired me. And I hope when you read this book, it will inspire you too.

A getting back post

I can't believe it's taken me so long to write a new post!

I've just been going through my old posts and I feel like I've just had a reunion with an old and dear friend. I guess I've been too caught up with useless things really and have ignored a part of me, which is probably the most important.

I love walking by myself thinking my own pretty thoughts. And it surprises me and hurts me to think i've been worrying about so many silly things that I haven't had time for mulling over Cabbages and Kings!

So heres to getting back to being 'me'!!

Right at the present, I'm really involved in this new project called TIFAC. Every 20 years the government gets a bunch of experts to write a report on what they envisage to be the future of a sector in India. For example, what should the agricultural scene be like in 2035? What kind of equipment would be present etc.

Well this time Professor Rangan Banerjee is the expert in charge of writing the report of the future of energy technologies. He proposed that students make a parallel report as we are going to be the ones in charge in 2035 blah blah blah :P

Well here we are! We're about to write a report that has the potential to change the course of a nation! To write something that might be implemented. It is a grave responsibility. What should be our objective?

I mean, what should be our immediate goal? Should we aim for energy security, should we aim to start employ new cutting edge technologies to make our country more efficient? Or should we first ensure that people in rural areas and undeveloped areas get access to the grid?

They have to be connected to the grid at some point. Employing decentralized energy sources there will not give them a continuous energy supply through out the day. In addition, sometimes if renewable energy sources were deployed, there would be excess energy production in some parts of the country, while there would be a deficit in another part. By connecting everyone with a grid, we can ensure that no energy is wasted.

On one hand I see unborn generations scowling at me, living with inefficient, out dated technologies and on the other hand I see the miserable present and I shudder!

It is very important that India starts using the latest, most efficient technologies. This usage would encourage R&D and ensure the start up of a local ecosystem for that technology. More importantly, India is producing far less power than the demand. This gap would be bridged a little with more efficient technologies.

So suppose, we decide to adopt hydrogen as an efficient energy carrier, the future would vastly benefit from this. But revamping our entire system, will not help people who do not even have electricity. We need a parallel movement for them. It is important that we find a delicate balance between the needs of those present and those to come.

I hope that we achieve this balance! I sympathize with policy makers most heartily now. Making a decision like this is not easy!