2008... for better or worse...

Picking up from where muddu has left off, i thought i would do some research as to why it has been such an ominous year. According to the chineese astrology, this year is termed as the rat year. It is an animal associated with aggression, wealth, charm, and order, yet also associated with death, war, the occult, pestilence, and atrocities. While i have seen nothing regarding the wealth and order(and not even charm, except for few good looking girls i have seen at Forum :P)... this year has been a true representation of aggression, death, war, occult, pestilence and atrocities. While most of the other predictions that i have stumbled upon in the internet for the year 2008 have been proved to be fallacious, it is certainly an year to think about, rather than just forgetting and moving forward. 2008 has seen some disastrous events like the economic slump, the market blood bath, terrorist attacks. People have reacted to the atrocities. A great leader emerged in the americas, few more were duly elected in india. Let conscience prevail and bring positive changes...


Let us also pray in these last moments of one of the disastrous years... so that peace and prosperity is restored everywhere.

So.. i propose a toast to a better year and a better world...

Happy and prosperous new year 2009

My mom's physics

Are you better than your mom in applying physics and its concepts? I am certainly not.

Here are two such incidents that occurred to me....

1) After coming to bangalore, i started cooking and my mom gave me instructions that when cooking daal , add salt after the dal is cooked. I have been wondering why. But it occured to me that the boiling point of water is increased when we add impurities, especially salt. I googled and found out that the boiling point of sea water is 103 odd degrees. My mom never knew this but she knew that adding salt delays the cooking of daal. Howdy hell i didnt know that... and i claim that i got 120 out of 120 in phyiscs in my 12th(and 30/30 in practicals :P).

2) This incident made me think that my mom(or her mom, or her grand mom) discovered things that newton proclaimed to have discovered. Whenever i had some hot water in a bucket, my mom insisted me to add some cold water to it immediately. I asked her why and she said that because of this the hot remains hot for a longer time , even if you left the hot water just like that. Years later i read that newton's law of cooling is exactly the same. It says that the rate of cooling of a body is directly proportional to the difference between the temperature of the body and its surroundings.


You have the answer now, are you still better than your mom in application??

Journey into the dark... in Balram halwai's cab

Aravind adiga's first brainchild 'White tiger' is, as many would concur, a roller-coaster ride into the darkness of india. Let me first make it clear that it does not have a great story. But, the way the author narrated the story of a driver and his ambitions to become a 'social entrepreneur' is truly commendable. Balram halwai , the protoganist of the book comes from a remote village in Bihar with not many dreams but ends up as an owner of an enterprise. His journey from the school, where he is bestowed upon with the title 'White Tiger', through the tea shop in dhanbad, the driver of Mr. Ashok, and finally a successul owner in Bangalore, is truly amazing.

Balram, the driver of one Mr.Ashok is portrayed to be a highly intoverted person. I really loved the way the author described subtle things in the life of a driver and his encounters with the other workers in his owner's apartment. I am presently reading the author's second book, 'Between the assassinations'... will soon post the review of it here.