Just thoughts

  By Rithvik Dedicated to a friend who is impossible to hate.

H.G. Wells was introduced to me by more than one article and book as one of the earliest and finest science fiction writers. I have read only excerpts of his popular 'The Time Machine', and they did not disappoint. Naturally, when I chanced upon 'The First Men on the Moon' in the library, I started reading it immediately. For the first three-fourths of the book, I was utterly disappointed and even a bit bored. I felt like the narration was just off. And I absolutely hated the narrator. As a character, he seemed selfish, annoying, impulsive, insufferable, and a moron in every sense of the word. I was boiling with rage at Bedford during the scene when he loses control and punches through a Selenite's head, and then proceeds to massacre many more to escape, just because they were asked to walk off a gangplank to travel to a lower part of  the moon. He did not attempt any form of verbal or nonverbal communication and clarification with the Selenites! I was even consider...

By Rithvik  

I have heard great things about ‘A Brief History of Time’. It has been on my reading list for as long as I can remember. I can tell with absolute certainty that this book deserves all the praise it gets. I had a collection of facts, partial understanding of some concepts and theories, and titbits of information about astrophysics stowed away in my head. This book not only aided me in organising the knowledge and making connections, but also taught me how a scientist would go about using information such as this and experimental data to create theories and hypothesize. I must admit that I was quite struck by the length and nuance of the verbal arguments and chains of thought Hawking embarks upon in the book; being more used to equations, formulae and numbers, these quasi-philosophical discussions and ‘proofs’ gave me substantial discomfort. But the more I think about it, I realise more the effectiveness of this kind of reasoning. The mathematics will let one make predictions (limited, ...

  I I was planted in 2016 in an urban residential colony, where everything was green. The roads were lined with myriad trees, arching over the tarmac forming a lovely ceiling, shielding vehicles and passers-by from the cruel sun on hot summer afternoons. Two-way roads were partitioned not by iron and concrete barricades, but by picturesque bougainvilleas almost always in full bloom with pastel-pink flowers. Birds ruled the canopies: flowerpeckers, Shikras and a plethora of passerines in between. Empty plots of land were usually kept unkempt, becoming ecosystems in their own right- shrubs and herbs grew unchecked, and warblers, Grey Francolins, peafowls, many reptiles and little critters found a happy home in the thickets. In the centre of this paradise was a huge piece of public land, completely vacant. If you ask any citizen of Coimbatore what the fate of 6.5 acres of empty land in a residential colony would be, a) they wouldn’t believe that such a thing even exists, or b) they ...

Lovers cannot match that glue That binds my heart to thee. When tragedy falls, and all is blue Thy song shall always set me free. Alone in thine abode, I fall into this State that others perceive as misery bleak; But do you know, darling, that 'tis but bliss So absorbing that I forget to speak? I am in raptures, yet i have seen you not- I have only, from afar, heard your call. But how have you, with just that, wrought Love that I just cannot stall?