Quotes over the ages

There was a time when I used to study from my notebooks more than any text. All that became a thing of the past when in college. Notebooks became more of a symbol of expression during the lectures (often monotonous). One habit that I caught up was writing down a quote on the first page and omit writing down my name. Due to the fact that I didn't have many notebooks during the four years and cuz I might have lost one or two, I could recover only 4 of them:

S5:
Science is an ongoing process. It never ends. There is no single ultimate truth to be achieved, after which scientists can retire. And because this is so, the world is far more interesting, both for scientists and for millions of people in every nation who, while not professional scientists, are deeply interested in the methods and findings of science.
- Cosmos, Carl Sagan

S5-S6, Still one of my favourite quotes:
It's so easy to run to others. It's hard to stand on one's on record. You can't fake virtue in your own eyes. Your ego is the strictest judge. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence - love, kindness... But there isn't substitute for competence. That precisely is the deadliness of second handers.
- The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

S6-S7, Very meaningful at that time:
My past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance, the present was vague and strange, and for the future I could form no conjecture.
- Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte. ( The irony is that I never completed that book)

S7-S8:
I yearn to define my life
Placing faith in chance to meet me in halfway
Back row to the left, a little to the side,
Slightly out of place
Look beyond the light, where you least expect
There's someone special.
- From the song Someone Special, Poets of the Fall

Insipid

Today is Tuesday
say how the day?
boring to the core,
raining more and more.

hows life?
full of stuff;
what kinda stuff?
stuff that make you laugh;

is it worth a laugh?
go ask your staff;
what will my staff say?
"are you gay?"

are you in love?
no I'm not;
torn between freedom and love,
I'm all bigot.

its a narrow lane to my house,
narrower is my mind.
my life ain't even a clause,
freedom where shall i find?

what do you seek?
abandon the meek
move free above the ego
alas! something that ain't easy to forgo!!

to be free from bonds,
bonds that create bounds,
then the vim shalt return,
least ways for a sojourn.

Ch4 : The Truth!!

"Damn!! how disgusting...these assholes changed my name from Neetha to Neha!!! One day I'll have my payback.". Neha was talking to herself, but she didn't know she is being overheard,Yes!Deepak, it was him.....!!
Stunned by the other side of his dear girlfriend he made a snort, Neetha realizing the presence of a stranger, in panic, shot from her revolver (hidden inside her hand bag) in the direction of the sound. With a loud yell Deepak fell down, Neetha felt a thunderbolt running down her spine and rather caught out.Deepak was rolling on the floor with pain, he was miserable. He felt like the angels calling out to him, "Deeepak....".

"Eh!! What the hell?? Shit!! A nightmare.It is already seven and I'm not ready for school yet.Shouldn't have seen 'The Unfaithful' the precious night." Deepak stopped rolling on the floor and got up to get ready for the school.
But why the hell did he think of Neha as a traitor, the reason she would turn rebel is not going to be as filthy as a name.The question dogged him to the class and he found no respite from his thoughts. Even in Neha's company he felt off sorts.
"Why are you so moody Deepak???",Neha asked.
"OH!! Eh!"as if just waking up from a dream."No,nothing". He longed to tell her about the dream but something held him against.
"Is there anything that i can help you with??"Neha looking very much concerned.
"Its so nice of you Neha darling, but no nothing of a great concern.Just that I'm having a minor head ache.." Deepak evading the temptation to open himself up.
"Ok...then i guess you need to take some time off... "Neha replied.
"Yeah!! I guess i get going now Neha dear..See ya tomorrow...."
Dé·jà vu!! He felt he had talked to Neha in an almost similar manner sometime back. This has become a pretty regular occurrence nowadays this,Dé·jà vu!!
"Some thing's wrong somewhere, the only person,one i can trust, who will have a solution for this problem is my dad..But he's off to some business tour from the next day of our 'small freak accident'. He had left in haste, never gave an indication as to his departure..."
He walked back home for he wanted to stack up his thoughts into a neat pile so that he can figure out whatever his problem was.
A pleasant surprise waited for him back home, his dad had returned from the "tour". Deepak was ecstatic and cried out with joy, for he felt comforted and safe.
At nightfall he went to his dad for some counseling on his problem.
"Dad i believe you might have read my mind already,eh..i don't know what's happening I'm confused..eh..."
"Say no more son...I understand.Once me too felt the same. Yes son you are gifted too..like me and like many others who roam this world.The next few things I'm going to tell you is going to take a lot from your part to assimilate in one go...But I've to do this, the time has come for you to know the truth."
Deepak stood amazed and anxious, what on earth was going on??
"Listen boy, I've been away to see some of my old friends, them belonging to group called The Council of AEI.I know its going to be too much for you to take in but you have to be patient and listen.AEI is 'Aliter Encampments for Ithopia'. The world is not what you see around boy, we are time travellers from the world of Ithopia. The place you call Universe is just another part, in fact the primordial part of a greater system called Ithopia. We are from the future boy! You are unique because during the years of my research about our past you were born. The so called business tour i was away for, was a journey back to our time because after that accident i grew concerned about you, for in this primitive place there is no automotive security and the people here are very slow for they take hours to reach just 500km(less than half a minute journey in Ithopia),I've got the permission from the council to take leave from my assignment for a couple of earth-months. We have the science of psychohistory**(developed by the great mathematician Hari*) so I can most often predict the future correctly, and that's what you know as my mind reading capability.We are researching about the possibility of settling in the past because our world is getting crowded more and more.We live in the planet of Earth in fact right here but a 10000 years hence..And the deja vu you have been having is because you too have the elements of psychohistory in you so you tend to see a lot things of the future through your dreams.Take your time to come in terms with the reality and and when you are ready I'll be taking you for a trip back Home....."

This was too much for young Deepak, he didn't speak a word but stood gaping at the stars wondering if they looked the same from some other world he couldn't even think of and if the dreams were to come true,he would think no more..... He couldn't sleep,he feared he might see something he didn't want to...The world around him was changing and so was he......

**Psychohistory has been assumed to be implanted into the human genome by some technique developed long after our era.(OH!! By the way for those readers who don't know what psychohistory is, its a mathematical thesis presented by the mathematician Hari Seldon in the epic Foundation series .... )

Return of the KUE

THE EXAM MENACE

I've reached the point where I'm starting to hate exams. I love to study to gain knowledge and i agree that if there weren't any exams, i wont open a single text. Yet i feel this could somehow be made better. I've seen many hoping during the examination period that they wish they could study it properly (just not from an examination point of view). That means somewhere our whole examination scheme has gone wrong. Everyone's forced to score marks, not learn the subject. For an outsider, both may seem to be the same. But any engineering student in this university can easily feel the difference.

It's a tough job to set the clock working straight in the field of education. The history of Keralites being successful abroad is a testimony to our good education, or is it? Our success is our perseverance, the will to do work. Is that the real path to success? I don't know the answer yet. If making money is success, then yes, our system is not flawed. I'd happily die poor if I can contribute something invaluable to humanity in the future.. At least I think so now, when my mind is not plagued by the human greed towards money.


2 days later:

GUNYA STRIKES BACK

The galactic empire is suffering from civil wars, catastrophic environments and continual brain damage. Just when you thought nothing can prevent the onslaught of exams, the superhuman Gunya comes to our rescue.

KUE: Nothing can stop me from killing innocent students...HAHAHA
Gunya: You think so?
KUE: Yeah. Last weekend is just a blip on my radar now. Looks like a feast ahead now. I'm almost finished killing all except the first years. Hehe..look at S4 applied, the self proclaimed kidus, suffering under my wrath.
Gunya: How dare you kill S4 applied! *Dishum dishum..* you shall not wake up until next month.

The Prelude

Oye...Superb...The prelude to the foundation by Issac Asimov had already had a chunk of my heart and a corner of my brain(the portion i use for imaginations).

SPOILER WARNING:NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK.

From the beginning itself the gravity shafts and the magnetically levitated express ways had left me hallucinating about the hyper-complex society of Trantor and I wondered what it would be like to have the whole of the galaxy discovered,settled,unified and had a history of a million years.The concept of psychohistory is absolutely wonderful a concept all credits to the ingenuity of the author to have thought of such a powerful theory.All the arguments lead through a powerful and gorgeous thread of neatly knit plots that leaves us spell-bound.
I'm most attracted to Hari Seldon,partly because we both share our first names and the love for mathematics,and obviously because he is the man with the innovation.Chetter Hummin aka Demerzel aka Deneel simply is a fantastic creation of a remarkable writer and its even more impressive when he finally uses the idea of an immortal humanoid to perfection.The guise of Demerzel was i feel the heart of the whole story and shrewd statesman he is just adds to the tally of remarks you can make of this man.Not to mention i was also captivated by the natural grace of Dors Venabili another of the clever and charismatic creations of a decorated author.
Trantor,the head quarters of the Empire ,a complex of worlds like Mycogen,Wye,Dahl,The University is a splendor in itself thanks to the foresight and vivid imagination of the author.
The concept of a domed,certainly not doomed,city or planet rather is very convincing an idea for the writer makes its necessity obvious citing the ecological situation of the planet.
All other characters stand by their duties in fulfilling the needs of the plot and each are impressive in their own attitudes and complexities.Be it the bald Sunmaster of Mycogen, or the moustached Dahlite Jirad Tisalver or Mother Rittah or the delightful Raych or the Madam Mayor of Wye.
A part of the story that captivated my attention was the hand-on-thigh theory of Dors. The expertise the author has shown in making such a trivial thing into a cornerstone that was to lead our hero into the beginning.
And finally the whole plot from the beginning to the beginning is so cleverly conjured up that it the level of fascination and wonder which urges you to believe something like this can be a possibility however far it may seem.The climax of the story is amazingly a shock,rather a delightful one, for you dispense with the idea of a robot in due course of the story(atleast that was the case with me. I took the whole idea of an immortal robot indistinguishable from a normal human and with mental powers for granted ).

I'm more than sure i have done little justice to the book and the author through the preview (or rather something like that),so keep flooding in the comments,baby.

Stars are just a speck in the sky, What are you?

Another day wasted [1]. Thought I'd make use of this free hour trying to blog. This one's related to the Futuro in some ways, but is from a completely different view point. The idea of the blog arised when my fellow blogger, aj sms-ed [2] me this question. It was about what will happen in the future. Too bad i dint save the sms, but one of the options was human's will evolve into something superhuman. Anyways, the point i want to make doesnt lie as much in the question as in the answer i gave to it.

"Have you ever thought.. Humans occupy a very very small area in the timeline of evolution. Many other living beings have been around before humans evolved and are still here. Darwin's theory says about survival of the fittest. Is human race the most equipped to survive a catastrophe on earth? I think not... Until we start colonising other planets and discover interstellar travel, we are just too many eggs in the same basket."

'An Inconvinient Truth' is a good place to start from, if any of the readers plan to continue on this line of thought. The documentary says about the effects of global warming, and our role in it. We just might be scripting our own end, an end that would lead to the rise of another living being superior to us (hopefully)... There was a time when Dinosaurs ruled the earth. Nature always has a way of doing it's own balancing act. Every ice age was preceded by some of the warmest years. This just might be humanity's end, and we might be the last surviving generation. There's no use getting anxious about the unknown. So other than doing our bit to save mother earth, all we can do is pray for the best.

Keepin the religious aspects apart, I'm someone who believes in extraterrestrial life. So dont worry if the human race dies out, or even if life is wiped off the earth. There i can see another John playing in the fields of Ciam [3].

[1] just that I didnt study anything doesnt mean the day was wasted. But just for exaggerations sake..
[2] sms-ed: short messages send from one mobile to another. SYN: time-wasting.
[3] a fictitious planet in the Andromeda galaxy

FUTURO

Hmmm...For the last few days i have been involved in a lot of extra-curricular activity(very unlike me)like watching tv series,reading books,playing etc.

I am a very contemplative and analytic by nature,which made me look deep into what the series and the books would mean if they were to be true.
The series "HEROES" and the book "PRELUDE TO FOUNDATION" ,by Issac Asimov, deal with a hypothetical situation which allegedly is going to be the future of mankind.
According to the series the human gene is under a constant process of revival and goes on explaining the plot using Darwin's theories. They say nature has its own way of controlling living beings and technically speaking,the process of natural selection and the concept of survival of the fittest is ultimately going to make our genes alter themselves and express in a different more adaptive way. But there can also be a counter argument that the evolution process has long remained in a quasi state,which eventually has made us make adjustments to our environment to suit our cause(with its own consequences of course).

The book rather emphasis and solidifies this argument about we human beings being very manipulative towards our surroundings and in the end resulting in a galactic empire which is extremely mechanized and technologically very sound. The author has predicted the future to be a world full of robots who are going to be the loyal servants.

So i feel that our future is in a mixed bag of fortunes bound to be opened at the stroke of a great catastrophe (or a revolution), which might just sweep away the present and in turn bring a new dawn we never imagined and most probably will never.