Mothers

A mother gives birth. That's how we get to breathe. A mother gives life. That's how we get to be the person that we are. Mother protects. A mother helps us differentiate between the right and the wrong. Mother cares.

A teacher is a mother. A nurse is a mother. A person who helps you get up when you slip over a banana peel, is a mother. A mother is not just a person - it's a feeling. The world's most precious and beautiful feeling.

The Time Machine Series- 01

It's here. Right in front of my eyes. A small chair inside a capsule. With small bulbs and accelerators. Glittering like a tiny starlet, the time machine is standing before me with its lid open. Welcoming me to enter.

I get seated. I glance the buttons once. Each one is quite self-explanatory. I press the red button.

And here I begin my journey. Moving across the fourth dimension.


I am moving with the speed of light. Towards the horizon. Towards another realm of existence.

I see light. And now it slowly narrows down. Yes, I can see something now...

Engrossed.

Engrossed in my books again. Miles away from the New Year celebrations.

The last-but-one engineering exam is on.

Engrossed in the last semester blues.

Engrossed in the thoughts of my engineering course coming to an end.

Tom and Jerry

Tom the cat and Jerry the mouse. The two characters bring memories to most of us. Memories of those summer vacations - when cousins would visit and all of us would watch these cartoons together. Memories of pleading Mom - to let you watch half an hour of this show while the exams are on. Memories of sheer fun you have when something very unrealistic happens - a heavy rock falls on Tom and he gets flattened to a disk.

We have 3-D animation today. And numerous other technologies I am unaware of. But do they have the innocence of Tom and Jerry?

Vibes

It feels nice when you get positive vibes - from people you meet. From the work you do. From generally everything around you.

That's when you feel you are successful. That's when you feel you are happy.

After all, success, joy, confidence - or for that matter, even dejection, are vibes. Imaginary. Just states of mind.

Yawn..

Gone are the days of 'Meri awaaz suno' - 'Sa re ga ma pa' and 'Indian Idol' are here to stay.

When Sunidhi Chauhan won 'Meri awaaz suno', she hugged Lata Mangeshkar and wept. That was when everyone in my family, right from the leaking tap to my running nose, from Mom to uncle, wept.

Today, every participant in every single 'reality' talent hunt show has a 'story' associated with him or her. Someone is a painter who's left his small-time job, someone's grandmother always dreamt of seeing her grandchild become a singer. And every single comment from the judges gets these participants into tears - and the camera zooms in on their faces. Three times.

And still I yawn and change the channel.

Has the audience gone stone-hearted?
or is it just the overdose of 'masala'tic reality shows?

Khichdi

As I am typing this post, I remember the three modes of Pentium. Then the six features of PCI bus. I also remember the steps of floating point pipelining for DEC Alpha AXP.

Then the data types of Pentium. Then the bus clock frequencies of 8085 to Pentium IV. Delayed, static and dynamic branch prediction logic.

I have a Microprocessors examination from 10:30-1:30 tommorrow.

I wonder how much I'll remember out of all this tommorrow evening.

That's engineering for you. No complaints, only addressing modes. [uggh.. I'll get back to my books..]

Fowl-foul

Imagine a hen [perhaps, a young one] in a poultry farm. Let's call her the 'sweet hen'. She has lived with her Mother Hen in one of the cages. Like all the mothers of the world, Mother Hen has been very protective of her.

One morning she wakes up to find her Mother Hen lying motionless in the cage surrounded by a group of other hens. The sweet hen gets scared - and flaps her wings against the cage. The owner of the farm comes in - opens the door and takes the Mother Hen out.

The sweet hen is devastated. She knows that she has lost her mother. She is weeping in a corner of the cage.

Some hours later, all the hen are dragged by their feet out of the cage - and thrown in a deep, dark pit one by one. The sweet hen has been mourning the death of her mother - now she has to lay silent waiting for death to come.

Death does come - they slowly begin to fill up the pit with soil.

Bird flu, as in this case, scares the humans - and then they show how inhuman they can get.

Where does humanity disappear when the human realises that the existence is in danger?

And that's when the fowl cries foul.

God and Man - Poem

the ant walking down
the dog playing around
the kid’s gleaming eyes
the old lady so nice
they are all God!

the flowers that sway
grey clouds far away
the fishes that swim
rivers full to the brim
they are all God!

the beggar, the giver
the mountain, the river
the father, the mother
the enemy, the brother
the dead cat, the angry lion,
the rabbit, the Hindu,
the Muslim , the astronaut,
they are all God!

just that a man
loves to classify
right and wrong
pure and infidel,
he’ll always keep them different
a rabbit as a rabbit
a flower, a flower!

Who is 'Aaditya'? Who is 'me'?

Something about myself,
I am Aaditya Joshi. Stand as tall as many others in my engineering college. Do everything that any normal 20 year old person would do. Eat everything a person from Mumbai would.

In simpler words, I am like many others, in many ways. But, perhaps, different too. I proudly bear the name that means the Sun; I am equally proud of the surname - of a family who call me their rising son. All of us are playing two roles - what we are to the world and what we are to our family. The latter is often what we are in person.

This blog is to have a talk with myself - more than anything else. Because often, we need that to get in tune with our thoughts.

As I like to put it, "Aaditya and me" is when the person talks to the reflection - when the Aaditya in me talks to the Aaditya that people see.

Confused? Never mind. This is my first attempt at blogging. Let's find out how it goes.