Nostalgic trip down memory lane

This Christmas I visited my mom’s home in the Thrissur – Palakkadu border after a gap of several years. The trip awakened so many memories and not in a way I expected too.

I had anticipated a barrage of sweet memories, which may or may not have been true, the moment I stepped foot on the ground after the long journey. However it was not to be so. First of all, I was exhausted after the long 10 hour-drive, which should have been shorter except for the mad traffic on the day before Christmas. It used to be fun when as children (me and my sister) our dad used to do the driving or when we simply had to hop off the train. The long drive made me exhausted and all I wanted to do when we reached was sleep. The food didn’t seem as good as I had remembered. And grandmother, who had made all the fuss which made me come, looked exactly the same as I had last seen her. Of course the old house with tons of wood and tiled roof had been demolished and a modern concrete terraced house had come up in its place which I whole heartedly welcomed. Instead of having to sleep in the red-oxide floor there were new beds. I happily fell into a deep slumber.

I woke up early next morning wondering what I was doing in a strange surrounding before I regained my senses. An occasional thumping sound awakened my curiosity and I went to the back door to check it out. I opened the door and stepped out into the backyard and for a moment was stunned by something that hit my face with such force. I almost lost balance before steadying myself and looked straight ahead and in that instant I knew that all the sweet memories and dreams I had in my mind were not imagined ones. For blowing through the mighty trees in front of me, shaking huge mango and tall palm trees with such arrogance, awakening the smell, music and memories of a forgotten childhood, I could feel the Palakkadan Kattu, the strong wind that blows through the Palakkadu-Thrissur borders in the mornings with such gusto you could feel the whole earth shake around you. The thumping of branches against windows and roof tops - the sound that had awakened me this morning – had been my morning alarm for all holidays when I was a regular visitor there. As children our favorite pastime in the morning was to stand against the wind to see how long we could withhold its strength.

And suddenly it felt like all my imaginations had come true at that instant. It was Christmas and its spirit had awoken inside me. The morning food with my favorite ‘Kallappam’ felt delicious. My brothers and sisters weren’t the tiresome brats they used to be but, just like me, they had grown too. The sound of cows and hens reminded me what we lost in the city. I suddenly found myself wistfully longing for the old house – with the thatinpurram and pathayam. And I felt sorry for my grandmother. She had indeed grown old and frail.

It felt so good to be back. Reminiscing now I could find no reason why I had deferred this visit for so long. Everything had changed and yet nothing had changed.

Ruchika Girhotra – shameful blot on indian police

A former DGP of Chandigarh, SPS Rathore, has been punished for the molestation of 11-year old Ruchika Girhotra. What is so special about this news? Hundreds of our sisters get molested in this country. And in very rare cases the offenders get punished. But the case of Ruchika Girhotra stand out in many ways.

First of all the offender here, SPS Rathore, was a high ranking police official. The victim Ruchika committed suicide after three years. Her brother was slapped many cases and beaten up by the police officials to intimidate her family. Her family was forced to shift out of town. The case dragged on for 19 years ( the incident took place in August 1990). And finally the punishment handed out was a mere fine of Rs. 1000 and 6 months imprisonment.

Ruchika Girhotra was a budding tennis player and she was molested when she went for practice by SPS Rathore who at that time was the president of the Haryana Lawn tennis association.

This incident shall remain a black spot on the Indian judiciary and law enforcement establishment forever.

Avatar - truly epic experience

Finally…Avatar was released on December 18th all over the world. I had to wait for two days to get the ticket. But in the end I believe the wait was worthwhile after all. Mesmerising 3-D effects, breath-taking special effects, wonderful characterisation and most important of all (surprisingly) great story.

Was all the hype justified? Almost you could say. However I felt that that the 3-d effect only managed to take away the spotlight from the story. I was truly surprised by the anti-imperialistic message of the movie. Not something you expect from a Hollywood movie – certainly not a big budget one like this.

The story wasn’t one that was unique – but had an epic quality to it. It has parallels in many classic movies, especially one of my all-time favourites “Dancing with the Wolves”. But James Cameron has certainly managed to infuse new life and dimensions to a story that is so much relevant in today’s world – that of an indigenous population being forced to relocate or become refugees under the threat of force in the name of development.

The action scenes were superb. And the audience were so sympathetic to the Na'vi, the sentient humanoid indigenous inhabitants of Pandora (a fictional planet) in their fight against the (naturally) American armed forces who use lethal weapons to safeguard the interests of the Military Industry Complex trying to exploit Pandora’s reserves of a fictional mineral called ‘unobtainium’.

All in all I would give 9 out of 10 for Avatar more for the message and the story telling rather than the 3-D gizmo because this is one movie that has an epic quality about it even without the (truly superb) special effects.

Armageddon on unlucky Friday 13th

In 1998 a science fiction film, Armageddon, starring Bruce Willis was released. The movie was about a group of blue-collar deep-core drillers who are sent by NASA to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. At the time the movie attracted only Bruce Willis fans but now scientists all over the world are renting and watching this movie along with scores of other sci-fi movies to see if they can really find a way to escape doomsday – a giant asteroid hurtling towards Earth.

Even though it is not common knowledge, the truth is that the Earth is under constant bombardment. Each year, many fragments of debris hit our planet. Fortunately for us, most are so small that they burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere. Many scientists now believe that one of these hit the Earth 65 million years ago, killing the dinosaurs, along with 90% of all life on the planet. What is more, it is only a matter of time before the Earth is hit again.

In 1994, something happened which showed us how imminent the danger is. Astronomers realised that comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was heading straight for the planet Jupiter. The stunning - and violent - impact created an explosion the size of planet Earth, and it was the first time a collision between two astronomical bodies had been observed. If Jupiter had been hit, then the Earth could be next. And it seems the scientists’ worst fears were coming true.

In 2004 an asteroid was discovered and estimated to be directly on collision course with Earth. Scientists named it Apophis. Apophis's length was estimated to be 350 m (1150 ft).Upon its discovery in 2004, Apophis was briefly estimated to have a 2.7% chance of impacting the Earth in 2029. However, there will be a historically close approach to the Earth, estimated to be a 1 in 800 year event (on average, for an object of that size).

On Friday, April 13, 2029 Apophis will approach the Earth no lesser than 29,470 km (18,300 miles, or 5.6 Earth radii from the center, or 4.6 Earth-radii from the surface) over the mid-Atlantic, probably appearing to the naked eye as a moderately bright point of light moving rapidly across the sky. Depending on its mechanical nature, it could experience shape or spin-state alteration due to tidal forces caused by Earth's gravity field.

Even then another danger faced is the threat of collision with artificial satellites. However the European Space Agency has dismissed such threats. According to them (1) Apophis does not pass near the zones where most satellites are located and (2) man-made satellites and Apophis both have small cross-sectional areas. Even if a high-velocity impact occurred, at most a large satellite could change Apophis' position 7 years later (in 2036) by only 100's of km. This can have no meaningful effect on Earth impact probability estimation. At such a late date, impact with an artificial satellite would be like a bug on the windshield of Apophis.

Wait before you breathe with relief. New studies have shown that there is a possibility that during the 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a gravitational keyhole, a precise region in space no more than about 600 meters across, which would set up a future impact in 2036 on – guess when – again April 13^th !!

The exact effects of any impact would vary based on the asteroid's composition, and the location and angle of impact. Any impact would be extremely detrimental to an area of thousands of square kilometers, but would be unlikely to have long-lasting global effects, such as the initiation of an impact winter.

An impact winter is a period of prolonged cold weather caused by the impact on the Earth of a large asteroid or comet. If such an impact occurred on land or the floor of a shallow sea, it could cause large amounts of dust or ash to be thrown into the Earth's atmosphere, blocking the Sun's light and dramatically lowering the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface. Impact winter is one of the mechanisms proposed for Extinction Level Events (ELE), such as the asteroid impact at Chicxulub in Mexico which supposedly led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

So how do you face this threat to humanity? Will the method in the movie of using nuclear weapons work?

The most obvious strategy to protect the Earth against an asteroid might seem to be to try to destroy it with nuclear weapons. This plan has two fundamental problems. Firstly, you would have to attach a bomb larger than any yet created, to a very powerful rocket. This might be nearly as dangerous as the asteroid you were trying to destroy.

More importantly however, a nuclear blast might not destroy a large asteroid completely, but merely split it into chunks. Instead of one large impact, you might end up with several smaller ones, which would end up doing nearly as much damage.

If we cannot destroy an approaching asteroid, then the only other tactic would be to try to nudge it forward just enough to make it miss the Earth - like stepping on the accelerator of a car to make it miss a train at a level crossing.

Some scientists think they can use the power of the Sun to nudge an asteroid away from the Earth. After all the sun is the biggest power source in the Solar System. In the same way as you can use a magnifying glass to set fire to a sheet of paper, you could focus the Sun's rays onto a point on the surface on an asteroid. The spot where the Sun's rays met would heat up, blasting particles of the asteroid into space. This would act like a rocket engine, and might be enough nudge the asteroid out of harm's way.

Hopefully our scientists will also devise something to hold these threats at bay or we could soon be following the dinosaurs.

**

Apophis is the Greek name of the Ancient Egyptian enemy of Ra: Apep, the Uncreator, a serpent that dwells in the eternal darkness of the Duat (underworld) and tries to swallow Ra during His nightly passage. Apep is held at bay by Set, the Ancient Egyptian god of Chaos.

The Rahul Factor...much ado about nothing

Personally I find Rahul's visit to campuses in Kerala very heart-warming...and amusing too. I mean its a good thing students in Kerala got a chance to interact with a person of such stature – he is probably the future Prime Minister of India. But why did he come? He obviously didn't visit the colleges to spread messages on national integration or the ahimsa messages of that Big G. But rather to conduct the organizational election for KSU. Now that’s funny – considering such a thing hasn’t occurred for the past 16 years. Now that’s some democracy! Some big leaders chose – some ‘kutty’ leaders get chosen. Just like that. So the real reason why Rahul came spending crores of rupees was for his organization.

And for the girls who swooned on the scent of his foreign perfume – that perfume was gifted by his Latin American girlfriend. Yea the one he was spotted with during his New Year backwater fantasy trip to Kumarakom in Kerala a couple of years ago. The same girl who was later detained at the Boston Airport for illegally carrying huge sums of dollars. Never heard of this? Hail the subservient media tycoons. Again personally I have nothing against an unmarried couple living together – I am all for it. But how come our staunch conservative society (read grand old political parties) has nothing to say against the ‘immorality’ of the young Gandhi surprises me – be it about girlfriends or wasting precious tax-payers’ money. Guess that happens when your mummy happens to be the most powerful political person in the country. Sigh!

My consolation? He is 39 years old. Not that young.

Big Fearful Neighbor

A couple of years back I had attended an Air Force interview in Mysore. After a grueling session lasting 5 days they declared me (along with many others) not good enough to be an Air Force officer. Even months after that I would smirk and say “Let the next war with China come. Then these fools at the Air Force will rue not taking me when they get beaten black and blue by the Chinese.”

My self-loathing apart, these days after every war of words between India and China, I fear if my prediction will come true. If a war comes can India truly beat China? The Chinese army is definitely much superior to ours in numbers as well as technology. But even more than the might of armies – what about the nation as a whole? Ours is such a diversified land and people compared to China whose people, more or less can be defined as indigenous. They all even look so much alike. We, on the other hand, are unified only in playing the blame game.

We were defeated once. Make no mistake – there was nothing to be proud of in that war. China unilaterally declared a ceasefire after kicking our ass (not the Biblical ass, the other one - literally). So in midst of our efforts of trying to provoke the bigger, fearful neighbor everyone just ask themselves – are we ready?

Okay – maybe war maybe a long way away. And, yes, maybe I am being pessimistic. But if a war does come ultimately what will help us survive will be our unity rather than the military strength. For sooner or later we will have to resolve all our disputes, border issues and all. I am not raising a war-cry. All I am saying is we have to be prepared.

As for the rest - Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)

Kannur Election – Meddling in State Affairs

After the controversial governor decision in the Lavalin case, another contentious decision has been made against the LDF-ruled state government in Kerala – The Central Election Commission has asked to remove the Collector of Kannur following complaints of fraud and irregularities in the voters list.

What has personally troubled me even more than the decision to remove the present collector has been that the EC suggested two names in the panel to be forwarded to them for selecting the new collector. Now while it is true that IAS officers are in effect central government officers this is unabashed meddling in the affairs of the state. The action by EC raises way too many questions - How did the Election Commission come up with these two names? What are the criteria decided by the EC for an IAS officer to be ‘honest’? Is the EC monitoring the IAS officers inn the state? What right do they have for that? Did the Central Government interfere in this matter? Or rather, did the Chief Election Commissioner, who is notoriously famous for his pro-Congress sympathies, just obey the Congress high-command – and suggest the names that were recommended by the state congress leaders?

Moreover the EC has not made clear the reasons for asking to remove the Collector. If there are irregularities in the voters list how is it the collectors fault? Do any of us go to the collector to get our names in the electoral list? Was it because he slapped a case against a Congress MP and asked to take action against a Central minister for violating the poll code?

The action taken by the CEC is dubious, to say the very least. There is no doubt that outside political influence has played a significant part in this decision.

When did the EC cease being an independent body and turn into political puppet?