True heroes are forgotten and terrorists become martyrs

Some of the sentiments in my previous post are echoed in this great article on the first paramvir chakra winner Major Somnath Sharma.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/nov/03spec.htm?q=tp&file=.htm

Check it out !

Punishment for Afzal and Activism

As a child I was taught that every good deed will be applauded and mistakes would be punished. It seems not everybody agrees with me. For last couple of weeks I have been following some discussion regarding the capital punishment given to a 7/11 accused Afzal. One of my juniors in college is trying his best to build support for a presidential pardon. He has many arguments to support his position; however I still fail to see his point. To such people, it seems to be fashionable to paint themselves as a secular social activist and oppose any sane decision. As far the accused is concerned, the fact that three different courts have upheld the sentence proves beyond doubt his guilt. The argument that his wife and child would be left alone should not hold water, since law should not bend for any body based on their relations. I am quoting the funniest argument I heard.

pls take into cognizance the fact tht the intent of the terrorists who attacked our Parliament was not to murder our politicians, but to spread their demands thru an appropriate platform... had they wanted, they could have killed many... and who are u fighting for?? our hon'ble politicians? ? have u never wanted or said "in saalon ko to line main khada kar ke goli maar deni chahiye"??? y so much pain, agony, and hue and cry if somebody gave shape to every indian's idea and thought?? still, this is wrong and not pardonable.. . this is not the right way to take things forward, even if this is what i wanted to do when while protesting against reservations, my 'helpless and innocent' fellows and friends went on hunger strike and were lathi charged at the cue of these very politicians... what came out of it?? out of all the peaceful protests?? we lost tht battle, fell on our face... these politicians are dumb and deaf, and need an explosion to hear wht is being said...
in today's world, when u can sing "khoon chala" frm RDB, and clap when aamir khan murders our defence minister, then how can u not side with Afzal?? dwell more into his demands pls...

Not everybody takes things in the same context. The recent trend of extremisms in some of the movies (Which I also appreciated) seems to have brainwashed many people. They fail to distinguish between the internal corruption and international terrorism. I feel it is most irresponsible and idiotic to think that even if a terrorist goes against the system, he should be glorified as a hero.

Punishment is a necessity in any civilized environment. Are we such a weak state that we can not even punish our guilty. I have always followed the guiding principle of “Naimatma Balheenien Labhya” , or perfection can only be achieved by strong. I guess, India still has a long way to go …

Of Culture, Saraswati and Barkha Dutt

While I don’t usually agree with her, but I do admire Barkha Dutt a lot. She is one of those few journalists who in spite of having their own opinion, still try to present a balanced account of any situation. The other day while reading one of her articles, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that she was a fellow modernite. The article was concerning the recent "Vandemataram controversy" and talked about the presence of religious symbols in the Indian school system.

I distinctly remember the mural of goddess Saraswati, she talked about that was embedded in the wall at the school reception area. In sixth class when I started school we used to pass it 3-4 times every day. It was like an unwritten rule, that anybody who passed it, used to touch the feet of the goddess. Even when the traffic was heavy, the unordered flows of students used to converge to single orderly line then again revert to the previous chaos.

At that young age we needed to jump to be able to touch the second feet of the goddess, but by the eighth class it had almost become a reflex action. There was a joke that any body that touches the parrot on top of the mural would come first in the class. While I never touched the parrot, but I think I can count the times I did not touch the feet on my fingertips, and I must have passed that corridor more than five thousand times.

In those times communalism, secularism were words I wasn't aware of. I think what the school taught us was the respect for the knowledge that we were getting, a respect which was observed by all, irrespective of the religion. About a year back I visited the school. The reflex action is still there, the respect is still there. Is this my religion or my culture?

Pizza with multinational friends

Pizza is probably the most widely accepted grad student party food all over the world. Last friday, Lee invited me and some of his friends over for a pizza party. I remember the first time I had pizza made by Lee was on the first day I came to US. It was Lee's turn to cook and in his enthusiasm to welcome his new roommate, he invited his friends Charlie and Jay and had decided to make pizza. He has always been very meticulous when it comes to cooking. He himself makes the dough and the sauce, shapes them into the pizza with chedar cheese on top of it., bakes it for the right time and hey presto, you have a pizza ready to eat.

Coming back to the present, this time we were all supposed to gather at Nina's house for the Lee Pizza. He had also invited Faizal , a fellow student from pakistan. There were four of us each from four different nations. Offcourse as for the pizza , it is getting better in taste with time. Soon, we gobbled up all the pizzas save for the fourth one which got burnt in the oven since we were preoccupied with the banter. Later in the evening we headed off to gameworks the gaming arcade. One of the games I really like is DDR. Save for Lee who has played it since infancy, I am pretty good at it. Offcourse the "table hockey puck" game is also a great time pass. My team won 2 of the 3 games we played. Finally we ended the evening with a couple of doughnuts from crispie creams at midnight. Although my evening went on since I was expected to call a friend...

Twenty five and going ...

Twenty five!! Seems like a big number. Almost every body expects you to be more responsible and mature as if you have moved into a new category. The realisation came to me, when some days back my kid brother asked me how old I was gonna be this time. The comment I got back was " Wow 25 is big".

Well, All I can say is, finished with a quarter of my time, and ready to make merry in the rest three quarters.

The Anti-Matter Blog

I remember talking to a friend who suggested I should write something about "Anti-matter". Till this day I have been thinking. The problem with anti-matter is that nobody knows if it exists. Infact, matter by defination is something that can be felt/seen/smelt etc.. effectively they have an existance. However anti-matter, just be virtue of its english meaning does not enjoy an existance.

It all stared when a guy named Paul Dirac was solving his recently invented equation in quantum mechanics. As is with most mathematical equations, he got a negitive solution for one of the calculations for the energy of an electron. Instead of following the convention of ignoring the negative solution, he decided to propose the concept of an anti-matter particle. Since then it is believed that every particle in this universe has an anti-matter particle. If their is a collision between the two, they annihilate each other to produce energy as per Uncle Albert's famous E=mc^2 equation.