Think different

An interesting mail that I got-
Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.
I read the examination question: "SHOW HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE HEIGHT OF A TALL BUILDING WITH THE AID OF A BAROMETER."
The student had answered, "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building."
The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this.
I suggested that the student have another try.
I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics . At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one . I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute, he dashed off his answer, which read: "Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2,calculate the height of the building." At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.
"Well," said the student, "there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer.For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building."
"Fine," I said, "and others?"
"Yes," said the student, "there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units."
"A very direct method."
"Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the building.From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building, in principle, can be calculated."
"On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street t, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession".
"Finally," he concluded, "there are many other ways of solving the problem.Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows:'Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer."
At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.
The student was Neils Bohr (quantum theory & physics & mechanics, hydrogen atom guru etc ) and the arbiter Rutherford.
THINK DIFFERENT

Crap!

Don't even bother to read this post. I have nothing on my mind... No real thought... Feeling crappy as hell. Just gonna put down some random thoughts.
Death sucks, for its damn ugly. But it happens once. Life can get even uglier sometimes and it just goes on and on... Crushin' u between two worlds, u dunno which is the real one, crushin' u 'til all air is squeezed out of ur lungs and u choke on ur own body.
Then it wakes u up. U thank heavens- 'twas a dream. Or may be this is a dream... Who knows?
Why do ppl lie? What is the whole purpose behind making others believe sumthin' other than the truth? It jus complicates evrything and then my head gets messed up.
Why do ppl lie to themselves? What is the whole purpose behind denying urself the reality? It jus makes u so complicated and then my head gets messed up.
Why can't we listen for once? Listen to me and to u?
Why don't we talk?
Why did love complicate passion? Wasn't passion enough for us to motivate to work? To make buildings and bridges and space-ships and super comps? Why did love happen?
And why did love happen?
Love makes u damn sad! Not only when its not there, even when its there. Especially then. And I am talking about pure uncomplicated love. Strong love. Which doesn't give way to hatred. Foolish love.
Why do we dump all our shit into the sea? 80% of life lives in the sea. Why are we giving life this shit?
Thats why life's so mean to us... It gives us shit cuz we give it shit.
I warned u in the beginning.

Traveling through life

I have been commuting by train for the last one year. Although I am practically in favor of running more trains more frequently, for obvious reasons like it takes 1/3rd the time to travel the same distance by trains, like there is no air pollution insulting my respiratory lining, like it is almost as cheaper as it is quicker compared to the bus services; a part of me misses traveling by buses as I'd been doing for about four years after finishing school.
I never thought even once while taking the bus trips up and down every day, six times a week for all that time, that silently the experience was metamorphosizing into memories worth putting down on my blog for the world to see.
Traveling by a bus is an altogether different affair from taking a train for the same purpose. The most significant difference being the speed, obviously. I am awkwardly aware sometimes, when I look out of the train, of the rhythmic horizontal nystagmus my eyes can't avoid. In a bus, I always get the time to focus and shift my gaze voluntarily to scenes outside, even if I have no place to sit. It allows me to capture the world outside.
The world outside a train is constant, its like a painting. The one outside the bus is like a motion picture, the positions of people and vehicles at least, changing every minute, although its the same route everyday. It is different.
Even the world inside a bus is dynamic in every possible unit of time. If I catch a train everyday at around the same time, I get familiarized with most constant faces within a couple of days. Of course, that is applicable to the ladies' first-class cubicle. But recognizing the same unknown faces twice a day is painfully sad! There is no class system in the bus. In fact, there is a certain class of people who take the bus. People who can afford to avoid the over-stuffed trains but cannot afford, under non-emergency circumstances, a cab. No fisher-women or vendors with huge portable stalls take a bus. Students contribute to the narrow yet colorful spectrum of people using the bus during specific hours of the day. The only face one may see too often to not remember and recognize the next time in a bus is that of the conductor. And it is a big advantage if he remembers you, especially during the beginning of the month when you've just received your pocket-money in the form of crisp large rectangles.
To me, the most exciting part used to be looking out of the window, wherever I sat or stood in the bus. Its difficult to do that in the train. Getting a seat in the train is as common as the Indian cricket team winning the finals. And if you turn your head to either side to look out of the window, the aunty sitting next to you keeps on constantly giving you reproachful glances as if you were staring at her or looking into her newspaper! Its so annoying!
I remember, I would usually find a place to sit once I got into a bus after a few stops. And then looking outside the window many times I'd count approximately. I'd count that approximately 90% of the faces are smiling. I repeated that count at regular intervals to make sure that Indians are still the happiest people in the world! Then once I'd concluded that approximately 95% of men in Mumbai don't tuck their shirts inside their pants. And that approximately the same percentage of non-malnourished middle-aged men have protruding bellies. All traffic policemen have a moustache. Our country is severely deprived of good-looking men. Most travelers inside a bus are interested to know the number of the bus theirs just overtook, me being no exception.
I miss those things.
At other times I'd be lost into my own thoughts only to feel I've reached in half the time I usually take. Sometimes I'd be traveling to some other time-zone along with the protagonist of the book in my lap. Its very tiring to read in a moving bus though.
I especially liked the road-trips during the night, the yellow lights showering over the road ahead, reflected on smooth curves of the bodies of cars with tiny yellow-red lights on their backs. If I got later than usual sometimes, the hassle witnessed during the same morning at the same place would seem to have occurred ages ago, the traffic reduced to a quarter, all signals blinking yellow, shutters of most shops down, families off to sleep on the dusty edges of the road... Once I saw this middle-aged woman strolling around a garden that children and couples flank during the lighted hours, in a black dress, tight and revealing ugliness, crass and gaudy make-up on her face, and somehow I was scared a bit to see a prostitute for the first time in real, at work, as my bus carved a semicircular path around the garden. Otherwise, the strong cool wind in my face as the driver took his 'plane' off the unhurdled road in the night always filled me with the adventurous feeling of a lonely traveler, somewhere in the middle of my journey.
Certain odd land-marks had been recognized by me. The journey on a highway is totally different while traveling in the opposite directions. The trip in the mornings had different land-marks than the ones made later in the day, returning. In the train, one usually selects a side and the same scene remains when you travel up and down. I had recognized the stops where students got in or got out of the bus, stops where the bus virtually never stopped, stops where couples would stand with their backs facing us, exposing to our society's shame the disrespect we show for other people's personal life. I would eagerly wait for the ads on the billboards to change, especially the Amul butter ones. I religiously would shift my gaze outside, everytime I passed in front of the few shops on my way which had large glass facades to see my wavy reflection and then correcting my slouched posture immediately. Talking about religion, I never forgot to recognize a temple my parents used to take me to when I was young which came on my way in the morning. Also, on the return journey there was this unremarkable movie theatre that shows dirty Z-grade movies. Ironically, just outside the theatre is a temple. When my bus stopped near this theatre, I would see more faces turned to see the poster of the current movie running in it than the faces turned and bowed to the deity in the temple. I am sure, the former ones must be left with a feeling of guilt and embarrassment when they happened to see the temple.
There were more reasons that made my daily routine of traveling by bus more endearing than the super-boring minutes I now spend in the train. The FM signal in buses is way better. Only occasional voice-raising happens when a man sitting on seats reserved for women is confronted by the fairer sex. Most of such men do what they never do otherwise, pretend to not pay attention to the woman! Some give lame excuses like they sat there on the first stop. They might as well say that Tom Cruise needs valium! Ultimately the dumass vacates the seat for the lady when the conductor interferes. No quarrels between passengers take place apart from that. Also, there is one thing you can do only in a bus. If you happen to encounter a cute face in the bus and some shy, slightly overlapping glances are exchanged between the two of you, you will at least be gifted a moment of intimate connection when your eyes hold each other for a moment, just a moment, when the cute face is dragged by the body its attached to outside the bus and you look down from the window and the final and longest glance lingers in mid-air, the connection breaking as the bus accelerates. Its more of a hi than a good-bye, as would have been appropriate. The train moves too fast and platforms are too crowded and the people too busy.
It never occurs to us how much changes when we change a house, a system of life.