Poetriture

Today, in the fury of reading everything there is to know about ISRO, I was struck by a very righteous question and subsequently got hit by the right answer. At the very least I feel that it is right. Also watching the movie “First Man” didn’t hurt either. I learned about the various missions we have undertook and how after facing extreme peril won over them, or won them over. I learned about the feelings of the entire nation after the “95%” success of Chandrayaan 2 as I too was in the flood of feelings when at 2.1 km above the surface of Luna, we lost our Vikram and Pragyan. The constant efforts to establish communications with it will continue till 21/9/2019 after which its lifespan will end. To the curious, that will be because of very little heat protection, the sun will literally fry the wiring in the instruments, rendering it obsolete. After that, as everyone says, we shall move on. We have come a long way from INCOSPAR in 1962, and since the formation of ISRO in 1969, ex...

Recently, I was having a discussion on this very topic with a dear friend of mine. It was on how it seemed cool to denigrate our culture, our values just for the sake of a few laughs, and that got me thinking how an empty rebellion, with no thought under it, was being flaked as it attracted scores of people behind it. Why did it feel cool to be an atheist? That answer is easy, it just means that you have at least thought about it. You are not sheep following traditions just for the sake of it. You take a scientific temperament or a template rather and apply it to the rituals and the stories told to you by your family. But this is a dangerous phenomenon, because once Occam's Razor is applied to thousands of years old history, it seems impossible to reconcile it with the mindset of today. What is so dangerous in that, you might ask? We'll get to that later, but keep that in mind that, once a framework of not just 'how to act' is replaced by 'what the world is...

When we observe the definition of a monster, different dictionaries give different definitions, but they all circle around a few specific words. Huge, ugly, evil, imaginary, angry and troublesome, are the adjectives commonly used to describe them. Also, when we take up the quest of searching where these monsters are found, they are found everywhere, i.e: monster of the seas, monster of the forest, etc. These examples, are enough to conjure up very vivid descriptions of monsters, though different for each of us, will all be in similar veins. But when that gaze is directed inwards, we also find some of it inside us. Anger, greed, lust, and so on. So we ultimately infer that monsters dwell in each and everyone of us. We are all capable of being bad. And not just plain old bad, we are capable of being absolutely inhumane, cruel and evil. History has enough examples of that. The monsters existing in each one of us, is the reflection of what is the worst that we can become. When small c...

We can easily imagine nature to be a detached, cold entity. It does not concern itself with the lives of so many that thrive in it. A sudden earthquake and a million lives lost, all to be seen blankly by the cold eyes of Nature. Important personalities, villages, humongous cities all turning to dust. A few good cultures survive for some time, then even they crumble before the strength of time. This is one species, entire kingdoms fall, none can be said to be permanent. All this is seen by the nature to be a mere passing of a flock of pigeons to us. From this one infers that, the nature is a disinterested power, merely waiting for all the life to end. And not just life, all things to end. The only constant entity that exists from the beginning of the universe. It sits there, observing without interfering the mechanisms of the growth of grass, flap of wings of birds, to the explosions of supernovae. None seem to stimulate a reply from the nature. There seems no way from which we ...