Author: neoalchemist

There has been a long period of sanyas from my journal. The excuses are plenty, but I could have smuggled out some time every day just for my journal. But then again I think about different things to write about and in the process ignore the journal.

I have been really busy at work, and at home engaged in paperwork of my house purchase. Though the number of things in my pending list has reduced to single digit, it unfailingly keeps me occupied. Lately, I have been keeping off my journal due to lack of confidence(anything for an excuse). I do expect that I write something really worthwhile on the journal, rather than ramblings or some quick fix things. The way that I write in English has also put me into the same muddle.

I really do adore many journals on the net, mainly because of the style of writing, the way people say their thoughts in simple sentences. I make a huge mess of the same, and unconsciously use complex words to impress myself. But then on the other hand, I am also aware that the style with which I write is also unique to myself. I am also thinking of changing the design of my site, to make it a more simple one. I havent worked on any of the links of my site since I put it live.

I have never run short of topics to write. I want to write my opinions of the Palestenian conflict, How man can colonise Mars, my ideas for solving third world problems, About the new presidential candidate APJ Abdul Kalam, The idea that is India, The rising infertility in civilsed world (yes, I have got a theory for that), rising fundamentalism and the list goes on. But for all these to appear in bytes it takes a bit of effort., and thats what I am going to do in coming days.

In simple terms, I am back.

“Why does a massive ship made of iron float, where as a nail made of iron sink in water?”. Rashmi looked at me inquisitively as soon as I asked this question.

We were on a boat cruise, taking a short break at Thames River at Windsor. I never miss a chance to showoff. “I never thought about that” she replied. I cleared my throat as I set about explaining it in one sentence.

“you see” I blurted out, “any object in water will float, if the weight of the water displaced by the object is less than the weight of the object itself”. She innocently stared at me. I was feeling like a High priest of Egypt, explaining the mystery of the pyramids to a common man.

“well, in simple terms” I continued, “say you are falling into the river now and your weight is 95 Kilos..” she threw a sharp look as soon as she heard this. “and if the water you displace in the river by falling into it is either 95 Kilos or more than that, you will float”. I continued ignoring her sharp glance. “In case of ship, the weight that ship displaces is much greater than the weight of the ship and thats why the ship floats in the water”, I concluded.

Obviously, million times smarter than me was Archimedes, who found this principle. Archimedes was an ancient scientist, who is famous for the episode of Eureka! He is supposed to have run naked to palace, when he found the principle of buoyancy.

ps: Many might think this as a silly physics thing, a thing which they have learnt in school. I also have learnt the same principle during my school days. But understanding of the principle is miles apart from having learnt the principle. Unfolding of the principles in natural worlds gives your mind a real boost. You begin to appreciate nature in a new way.

ET – The Movie, is on a re-run in UK after twenty long years. I have heard about this movie for the first time from my wife. She was totally surprised that I didn’t know about the Movie ET! Well, I didn’t. Similarly, I have only heard about the classics like Casablanca, Fiddler on the Roof and even not-so-old movies like Pulp-Fiction. I never have been able to see the so-called Classic-Movies made in Hollywood.

When I was a schoolboy, my friends and myself used to pool 1 rupee each, and then go to a video parlour where we paid to watch “Tom and Jerry”. The earliest memory of watching a movie in theatre goes back to my primary school. I remember that our teacher took us all to watch the Malayalam children’s movie – Kummatti. Apart from a few glimpses, I don’t remember anything about that movie. But I remember that all of us – children – were very excited to go for it.

It was years later, that I saw a “Children’s” Movie, which was made in Hollywood. It was “The Kid” one of Charlie Chaplin Classics. Kumar Anna, my cousin, who was elder to me and was in college, took me for that movie. Still I had long years to go, before I got Interested in English Movies. It was not until I moved to Cosmopolitan City of Mumbai, that I got more acquainted with the English movies.

I haven’t yet had the opportunity to watch those so called “English-Classics”. Maybe my dosage of Malayalam and Hindi movies might be one of the reasons for my non-obsession with Hollywood productions. Anyway, as I sat watching the movie ET.., I realised, either I have grown up, or the movie was not that “classic” as it was made out to be.

Last night radhu had told me about the preparations rashmi was making for Vishu. Though it was a huge hint, I was not ready for what followed this morning. I was taken by surprise when I was woken up from sleep. Both my eyes held closed by my wife’s palms, I was led downstairs, where Vishu-Kani awaited me. (thanks, radhu.)

I was touched. Happy memories of childhood came rushing. So did the awareness that I was far-away from the family. Within an hour, the whole family was on the other end of the phone. I indeed celebrated vishu with heart full of joy.

The day ended with a Kerala style sadya at Rashmi’s house.

In recent days, there have been more written about the Hindu-fundamentalism and the way its tearing apart the so called “secular-fabric” of India. Nearly all the journalists are quick to jump the gun, blaming the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, RSS and other organisations for threatening the Secularism of India. The Indian press has been vehement in asking for the banning of these organisations to restore the secular balance and confidence of the minority people of India.

I wonder where the Indian press was, when SIMI was active in India. When the government banned SIMI, some sections of Indian press even were criticising the Government for the move! It was said that the “right wing” BJP government was doing this as a political move! SIMI was an organisation, which wanted India to be an Islamic State, a state that follows the Sharia laws. Ah yes, who said Taliban was not welcome in India!

Indian press seems to be ridiculously biased in its reporting, which reflects itself in the western media also. Killing of Graham Staines and his family, not only came in the headlines, but also a series of articles exalting their work, and how ashamed Hindu’s should be to be after that incident. The constructive work of organisations like RSS, hardly gets any place in the media, lest it be termed “non-secular”. I am sure the media’s bias has been to such an extent that the reader might be wondering if RSS does any constructive work at all! Here is a link to the newspaper report about the Kutch Earthquake [link]

Coming back to Graham Staines, the press was never really interested in finding why he was torched to death. They were after the sensational news, not the reasons why he was torched to death. Missionary proselytising activities have been going on in India for a long time with the support of heavy western funding. There is still a huge missionary network in India, hell bent on converting people to Christianity. These people don’t even hesitate to quote from Bhagavad Gita, to achieve their aims. For them Jesus Christ was the only saviour of mankind. But even then Hindus are fundamentalist and should be guilty as per the Indian Media [link]

On the other hand, Islamic preachers have also been active for centuries. Historically they have caused more damage to the secular fabric of India. The atrocities that were being committed by Islamic marauders centuries ago followed by the Islamic sultanates, and currently followed up by the fanatical breed of jihadi elements are listless. One may say, why go back into history, why dig sleeping graves. Indeed we should not be digging graves, but we need to look into all those facts to go behind the rise of so called Hindu Fundamentalism. Coming back to present, we saw the predicament of the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Buddhadev Bhattacharya, who said some facts about the unaffiliated Madrassa’s in the State [link]. He had to retract his statement, following the Communist party’s command. Sorry, you are only supposed to make factually politically correct statements.

Any culture that feels threatened will rise to defend itself, and violence becomes an option for that society. If you keep on suppressing a section of society, and in case of India, the majority Hindu community, time will come when they explode, which may cause damage which cannot be contained. The rise of Hindu nationalism is only an effect of this. Sprouting Madrassa’s around the country is fine, but singing Vande Maataram in Schools is wrong and is an indicator of the rising Hindu Fundamentalism!! And I always thought that Vande Maataram was a song sung by the Freedom fighters of India.

I do agree that violence does not provide a solution to any issue, on the contrary it fuels more hatred and violence completing the vicious circle. The rise of suppressed Hindu Nationalism is going to be a major factor in the future of India. Hindu’s are getting more and more active, and more getting aware of the suppression they have been facing for long. History doesn’t help here, India has seen a history, where Hindu’s have been on the receiving end for very long time. Its natural that slowly the people realise that this has to stop. Though it seems like a pessimistic future, 50+ years of Independence and misrule has brought us to this path.

During Easter, UK has a 4 day holiday. It begins with Good Friday holiday, followed by Saturday and Sunday, and the Easter-holiday falling on Sunday is given on Monday. We had 4 full days in our hand and we planned a holiday to Amsterdam.

Going by the title of our guide book, Europe on a shoestring by lonely planet, we took the easiest and the economical option to reach Amsterdam. We went by bus. It was told that it would be a 12 hour journey, including a ferry trip, which will take us and our bus accross the English channel. Our journey was to commence on Thursday evening, and we will reach Amsterdam on 29th late morning.

The accomodation we were trying, were mainly hostel type, but most of them were booked already, and since Easter was long weekend, we didnt get any booking at any hotels within Amsterdam city. The alternative was to look for accomodation just outside the city, and we got the booking near Schipol Airport, the Airport of Amsterdam.

The next important thing to get next, after the tickets and hotel reservations was the schengen visa. It will indeed suffice to say that we got the visa in time for the journey. Just because you stay in london, shouldnt have made us believe that there wont be any queue in the Embassy for the Visa. We got our Visa during our third visit to the Embassy office.

The thursday trip was getting closer, and thurday apparently I got even more busier than usual in the office. Finally in the evening, all packing done, we set off to Victoria Coach Station in Central London, to catch our Coach to Amsterdam.

To be continued…

I have been working on my personal website for quite sometime now. Unfortunately, its nowhere near completion yet. Occasional spurts of time-dedication did help, eventhough the completion of the site is taking longer. Its starting to bother me and I will not be surprised myself, if I put my not-so-fully-complete site live soon. Different thoughts start rushing in as soon as the go-live of the site comes up in my mind.

It all began with the thought of getting a domain name for myself. Not being a much creative person, I had my “inspiration-factor” to help me. Soon I had my domain, www.neoalchemist.com. The domain name was purely inspired by the term itself – neoalchemist – which was coined by my friend praveen, who shares my real name itself.

After the domian name, I had to write some code so that it can be redirected to my livejournal account. It took no time to write a javascript, which adorns the neoalchemist site now, which redirects the visitors to my live journal account. Design of the website was a major issue. Help was at hand in the form of my sweet wife, radhu who sat with me patiently as I was going on with the list of things which I needed on my site. The first thing I wanted was my journal to be linked to the website. I didnt have a livejournal paid account, so that I could link my journal direclty published at my website. I opened a blogger account, and it did indeed help me publishing my journal immediately.

The html code did take some time, as when you really get involved you dont realize how much time you spend on it. Unknowingly I was putting in a lot of time in coding, not just putting up raw html codes, but deleting, changing, linking, a lot of time was spent behind it to get a prototype of the design. Many factors came into consideration. Finally on suggestion of msram that I should be using no <table> tag, but should be using CSS fully, I started using full CSS for the website. I did realize that this caused a problem with Netscape 4.x browser., but then decided that initially I will keep the design for the IE, ignoring the Nutscape Netscape browser.

Integration of the site with my Blogger account was already happening. But part of me was still fully supporting account. Finally it was the which won, and soon I upgraded my LJ account to paid account. Now I had to work again with integration of my live journal account with the website. Understanding the style code was really a uphill task, and finally I managed, again thanks to my sweet wife, who logged in with her early adopter account. Once I was in her account, I could see for myself, how the Style codes worked. It didnt take much time after that to create a basic style code for myself, with barely any style attached to it. I needed just the entries in my journal to come through to my site.

Once that was accomplished, Next was to code the appropriate links for the previous and latest entries. A bit of brain-racking with javascripting and the url syntax made it possible for me to devise a way to link my livejournal previous entires. Still a lot is remaining to be done on the livejournal side, so that the redirection and the day view also corresponds to the style which I have created for my site. Another feature to be added is the Search facility, which can search the content of the my livejournal and present it in proper day view.

Though a lot of work remains to be done, it will be better to get my site online soon, which I think will encourage me to update it more frequently. All your /bouquets/brickbats are welcome and feel free to respond to me at praveen@livejournal.com. All your suggestions and criticism will help me learn the user-friendly-factor of my site.