Sunday, December 26, 2004

I would say Newton's third law was for sure an adaptation of certain Hindu philosophy and our ancestor's superstitions. If you want to call them procedures, well.. you may name it whatever way you want to. In fact certain superstitions are actually measures to nullify the reaction. I say 'certain' because I was able to guess the hidden meaning of a few of the superstitions only. Newton's third law says: Every action has an opposite and equal reaction. Now for example, there is a case where elders say: You plan to travel somewhere and at the time of your departure you hurt yourself. The superstition is that it is not a good sign and to nullify it, you should always drink water, sit for while and then leave the place. Ok. The only sane reason behind this could be that when you have hurt yourself, there are chances that you might feel dizzy and is always better to rest for a while, make the body feel at ease by drinking some water and then travel.

Here the action is hurting yourself. The reaction is that you might feel dizzy and prescribed action to be taken is that you drink water, rest for a while, to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling.

Another example is to wash or wet a coconut before you spilt it. In fact, I have been always been the kind to contradict my parents and ask them why I will have to do this before something else is done. Unfortunately, they would not have an answer to my incredible questions. I was just thinking about something else and managed to find an answer to this. Oh ok is this what they call Serendipity? Anyway, the conclusion that I came to is that, when a coconut is ripped off from its hard covering, the hair on the coconut still stays on its body. Generally, it is a practice that, when the coconut is split the water from it is saved in a container and then consumed. Now, what happens if the coconut is not wet? The strands of the hair fall into the coconut water and we will need to take trouble drinking it. Now, when the coconut is wet we wont have such a trouble.

Well, to tell you the truth, I should say I was able boost my confidence and categorize myself as an intelligent creature only after such occasions where I managed to find reasons behind such procedures.

Sunday, December 05, 2004

Phew...what a mind boggling site. I mean sight!! The moment I saw it, I decided that it is for sure a bloggable incident. I know for sure nobody is going to believe that such a thing can happen. Neither did I. Well anyway, where do I start...ok. It was a bright morning. I would have had started my day quite normally I suppose, because I don’t quite remember anything significant. So, I shall give you a glimpse of one of my normal starts. I got up around 6.30 in the morning. The 'Cat' got ready by around 8.00 am and started on its 'Black'. Well that’s how a friend of mine, Rameez, calls me, when I go on my bike!! He calls me 'Black Cat'.

Every time I set out to my office, I need to pass through an ordeal: crossing the closed railway gates. It is an art to cross the pair of closed railway gates. Adjustments have to be made, as the first gate requires power and second gate a special talent or knack. Well when that is done, after surpassing the suburbs, the next thing that I need to concentrate is, on crossing-over to the other side of the main road from the side road. Many a times I have felt so proud of my driving skills, seeing the way I handle this task. I even come to conclusions such as, 'I would have made an excellent racer or rather a maneuverer when it comes to riding two wheelers, such balance, such techniques, such...' OK… I can hear my inner voice warning me, 'Don’t overdo things'. So I shall just stop here.

Anyway continuing on the journey to my office, after I cross the main road, I need to take a 'U' turn. Well this turn is, I could call it, the technical start of my journey to my workplace. This road being the road that almost at least one person of every ten thousand of the population present in Chennai would take - in a week, if not daily. I start afresh from this point, with riding the bike as my mainstream thought, with utmost concentration, with a feeling of 'I am one among the adults qualified to ride on one of the main roads of the city'. It is not that I think of all that I wrote here, every time I go on this road.

As I went a about a tenth of a kilometer, I saw a man on the same road on his Bajaj M80, a possession that every food vendor would have. By the looks of it, I guessed he was a retail fish dealer. Oh yeah, I shall give you hints of identifying a retail fish vendor. One: he would be dark in color. Two: he would wear a soiled shirt; I write ‘soiled’, because one will never be able to register the color of the shirt and other aspects of such people at the same time. It is something like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: You would never be able to measure the position and the momentum of a particle at the same instance. So you have to assume that he would ideally be wearing that sought of color. Three: he would be wearing the typical striped shorts that covers half of his thighs and just slightly above it would his actual other half of his dress: the lungi. I wonder how they ever manage to do this: folding the lungi to a length just above their short's length. Four: He would be seated in such a way that one slight push from behind, he would be out of his vehicle. These guys have so much consideration to their luggage! A consideration that I can’t imagine he giving it to his newly wed wife.

This luggage, a rectanglish box rested on the stand, occupies three-fourth of the bike. The box is ensured that it is well placed on the stand, with the usage of the rubber tube running alongside the opening of the box that is looped from beneath the driver’s seat. Now this main road is where there is a considerable amount of traffic. As obviously I wasn’t quite impressed with this guy. However handsome the guy may look, one can never be impressed by the side profile of a guy fitting the characteristics of my description given above. After all this, my eyes did turn towards the guy!! Not exactly towards the guy, but somewhere rear to whole setup.

Now, the box that I mentioned was covered with a cement sack: a sack made of synthetic strands. This is another trademark of a fish vendor. The box was loosely covered with this cement sack. With the said considerable amount of traffic remaining on the road, I saw a crow perching on the rectangular box. I didn’t know from where it originated!! But I just saw it landing on the box. Our man would be traveling at a speed of 30 Km/hr. My first wonder was how the crow managed to land on the box. While I was still wondering, the crow started pulling aside one part of the cement sack. After that was done, it pulled the other part of the covering from the opposite side. 'Amazing!!!' I thought. I suppose those are exactly your thoughts. After doing all these, I saw its head vanish into the box. Guess what? the next second it was holding a fish in between its beak. Yessss a FISHHHHH. Oh my Goddd!!! Unbelievable.

As a human being I was able to identify the setup of a retail fish vendor. How did the CROW ever manage to do it??? As human beings I believe we all have the excellent capability to adjust to the speed and position. An excellent proof of that is a teenager managing to get onto the moving bus. But how did a CROW ever manage to do this??? As a human being we all have a moderately fair road sense. Where did the CROW pick it from? Well believe me, such a sight it was. We think we are all intelligent creatures!! Well, take the last sentence in place of the usual tinge of sarcasm present in my writings.

This happened quite a few weeks back, say about 3 weeks back. It has still managed to stay on top of my mind. AMAZINGGGG!!! That’s Intel Inside in its true sense!