TED...

A big TED fan myself, Im quite happy to be in the company of two other TEDsters. And on Monday, we are all looking forward to attend one of TED conferences in Brussels (TEDx). This time as an audience... maybe someday as a speaker ;). TED... here we come!

Hope...

A year has passed at a breathless pace with constant reminders of what is gained and what has been lost. A year ago I had walked through the security gates constantly looking back, waving at my friends and hoping for time to freeze. All confused and scared, yet with an audacity of hope, I had landed in a completely new place to start things all over again. And then, then time flew... A year later, when I reflect on things, I realize that a part of me is still there; there with the people I will always love and hope to see them again someday. Hope is after all a good thing. Isn't it?

Isn't it? :)

The culture of science...

Im in the middle of reading a very interesting book "The demon-haunted world" by Carl Sagan on science, its culture and its importance like a candle-light in the dark. It is quite an interesting book by Sagan who was an Astronomer by profession and is famous in the world of science for his popular-science books. This is my first Sagan book and I cannot quite comment on his work. But honestly, this book is a must read for those who are in a quest to find answers to some important questions. As I read this book, thoughts keep popping-up in my mind and so I try to put them in words. Well... I would not be discussing this book in my post; rather, I would like to share some of my thoughts and my approach to science as a culture.

Science to me is, making things simpler. Given a problem, I always try to approach it in a way such that I break it into several smaller problems and then try to tackle them one at a time and finally put them all together to come up with the whole solution. Yeah... this is how we are always taught right from day one in school. But as we go higher and higher, problems tend to grow more and more complicated and the ability to handle them tends to go more negative. It is the ability to consistently develop the habit to handle complicated things, is what matters most. It is a culture that one needs to consistently adapt and progressively work-on until it becomes a salient feature of oneself.

The idea of science and scientists is not quite clear in the minds of a vast majority of people in society. Most often, people doing science are either nerds or one of those who cannot make a successful career in the materialistic world. A scientist is always portrayed as someone with long-grey hairs, wearing weird glasses and a long-white apron and blabbering some abstruse words all the time. The best examples are generally shown in our movies. It generally annoys me when I see that a scientist in movies is always mixing coloured solutions and creating smoke around. To add on... these solutions come in all different colours... pink, red, orange, green and whatever the director can imagine of! This is not quite true. Not every scientist is a creepy-looking person and niether he mixes weird-coloured solutions all the time! Scientists can be sexy, well-dressed, well-mannered and just like any sensible person around. Well... I believe that the entertainment world that creates a profound impact on people's minds should work on treating science as the most integral culture of our society and change its approach towards science and scientists.

Coming back to my approach of science, I believe that the clue to solving any problem lies in its very basic. Given a problem, all I do is... get to its root and try to visualize it in my mind's-eye as to what could be done to separate it out into smaller fractions and then handle them one by one. It took me quite a while to understand and adapt this idea; and honestly, since then, work has become more of a fun than pain to me. Every morning I look forward to go to work. Its like I cannot wait to start working.

Science is everywhere. Just that, we dont realize it and most often find ways and means not to accept this fact. Especially in a society like ours (Indian), we prefer spending all our energy and time on brainless issues like caste, religion, superstions etc... and forget about the fact that the progress of any society lies in its approach towards science and how fast it can change itself to adapt science as a culture and not brood over conventional ideas and belief-systems. It is true that any society or country which adapted science as its culture has always progressed faster. Any government whose main agenda has been development of science, has always advanced and accelerated the quality of life of its people. I believe, the moment we realize this and start questioning ourselves, we can bring the much-needed change that science can help us with.

The dancing dream...

Finally I come to an end of my first level of Salsa course that Im into since the past three months. Its a great feeling to be able to dance or even move my legs in sync to the rhythm. I have always been a person with two left feet and dancing has always been a dream to me. Whenever I saw people dancing, I would just dance from inside. Never on the outside was I able to even move my legs or upper body... would just land up shaking my head sideways! Honestly, I always was ashamed of being an Indian and having all the bollywood music and dance in my blood :) and yet, not able to even move my feet.

I was always shy and never dared to register to any course. But this time, I was all determined to finally move my legs and enrolled myself to a Salsa course. Intitially, it took a lot for the instructor to make me move. He had to forcibly push and pull me around to make me do a few movements! I still remember his blank face after my first class ;). And now... yes... I can move to the music! I even managed to dance a bit during a party with my colleagues. Its so much fun and now I realize how much I actually like it.

The amazing beast...

One by one, Im trying to live my childhood dreams. Dancing, biking and horse-riding being a few of them, Im trying my best to live them all... from that long list of dreams I have. This weekend was my first ever horse-riding experience.

Dressed up in loose (my advisor's) pants and helmet looking like a cartoon character, I approached the surprisingly huge beast. The 400 kg purebred war-horse looked at me with pride. His elder friend another huge-beast about 600 kg was staring at me from a distance and seemed as if he was all prepared to trample me in-case I hurt his younger friend. My advisor chose the younger one for me.... as it was my first time. As I approached my horse, the older one started walking towards us. It was amazing to see his kinship. Fearing a possible attack from him, my advisor locked him in his stable. He definitely did not like this idea and was not budging to any commands given. Once he was in, we set up to the field with the younger horse. We could hear the older one neigh loudly from his stable. A good background music for sure.

After a short theoretical introduction to various horse equipments, horse-movements and different breeds etc... it was my turn to hop-on my handosme friend. I was full of excitement and enthusiasm added with initial nervousness. The beauty seemed to understand my nervousness and probably decided to co-operate and tolerate my mistakes patiently. He ignored all my wrong moves and was standing still, helping me to hop on him. I chose to get onto him using a chair as he was too big for me. I looked like a tiny insect in front of him (and he is just 8 yrs old!). After few trials, I was up there... sitting with pride on my new-found love. Two rounds of slow trotting and I was so happy on him. He then suddenly decided to take me by surprise and started galloping! I was absolutely un-prepared for this movement of his and started screaming. He suddenly slowed down, and turned his head back and looked at me which seemed like he was having fun and mocking me. The best way to handle a galloping is to get into the rhythm of the horses' movements. Otherwise, there is opposite movement and one can land up having a lot of pain due to a heavily pounded ass! Luckily, my handsome stopped before it hurt me too much.

A few more rounds of trotting and some more galloping... and there I was... all cool and smiling. The funny thing about Egbert (which is his name) was that, he stops at any momet if the rider utters the word "cookie". This is because, he is given a small cookie after every short run and he likes the cookie so much that he just stops even at the mention of the word "cookie".

I will get to train with him now on... I have finally made a headstart with my horse-riding dream and ofcourse... its my new hobby now.

I open the old box of trinkets again...

After receiving a personalized calendar from friends who are now a reminder of beautiful memories... I have drowned myself in the memory of those wonderful days. No matter how much I avoid, no matter how much I stop myself from thinking, it is still difficult when life always tends to revolve around the old box of trinkets!