Ultimate fabric of everything

If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is. ~John Louis von Neumann

Going as per wikipedia, Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space, and change. They say that Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions. Quite complicated, right? In my opinion there is no definition to it. Its you who can decide what Mathematics is for you.

Here is what true Mathematicians think of Mathematics, it is something that they can sense and it proves to be a life-supporting element for them. Mathematics is something that they can see, smell, taste, hear and touch. In brief, they can sense Mathematics. Mathematics is not limited to numbers or ratios or percentages or calculus. There is no end to it. Mathematics, if was to be measured, its length would be equal to a number line, and a number line has no ends, and so is Mathematics i.e. it has no ends. It is so vast that even great Mathematicians devoted all their life into it and still they could not explore it end to end.

Go down deep enough into anything and you will find mathematics. ~Dean Schlicter
We come across Mathematics in almost every facet of life, without even having a slightest clue about it in most of the cases. It all depends on your perception. In the morning when you wake up with your alarm clock ringing, its all Mathematics which governs the GMT and assigns a time to every country on our globe. The interest earned on a bank account, the arrangement of seeds in a sunflower, and the shape of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis are all intimately connected with the mysterious numbers which are a gift of Mathematics. Even black holes result from God on dividing the universe by zero. You pick any incident or any rule, I bet each of them is governed by Mathematics.

Mathematics can be as mysterious as "finding highest prime number" i.e pow(2,43112609)-1 and as simple as counting natural numbers. What will you call what Aryabhatta gave to Mathematics, "0". Was it a discovery or an invention? Discovery, because 0 always existed, there were NULL things even before Aryabhatta proposed 0. Invention, because he suggested the symbol "0" for "Null".

I developed an interest in Mathematics at a very young age. I being a student of a boarding school, went on to become a lazy guy. I never developed interest in other subjects but always did good in Mathematics. I used to score somewhere around 60% when I was doing my primary classes, but always got highest marks in Mathematics, that what probably the reason that helped me pick my area and do better in it. I developed interest in numbers, because I was very much into solving puzzles and riddles. "Puzzles to puzzle you" by Shankuntala Devi is one of my favorite book.

Indians have always been considered the people gifted with the best of minds, and thats the reason why brain drain is so common in our country. Every other good college can be seen catering students with sky-soaring salaries. For example, this year 5 people have got placements of above 1 crore at IIMC, but all in foreign firms. So, my explanation to this is, probably our education system is one of the prime reason for attracting foreign firms to hire Indian minds. The level of Mathematics in our schools in more than enough to train our young guns and help them do better  than their foreign colleagues when it comes to performance in corporate world. Something saddening is that, there have been attempts by some fools to scrap this interesting subject from the curriculum and devoid people of the excitement that they can experience and can go through. Even making Mathematics an optional subject will not do, in my opinion. One can not think of the seriousness and the intensity of the problem that a person can fall into if he/she is weak at calculations. After all, you do not have an access to a calculator everywhere.

Fasten your safety belts for the global economy. Unfortunately this brave new world poses a serious and formidable challenge to the India. The problem is that our young guns are just not showing much interest or skills in the areas of math, engineering, science, or technology. As the workers of the baby boomer generation start to retire, we not only need to fill these jobs, but instruct our young people to compete for the global jobs of the future. So we should stick to the success mantra that we have been following for years and be proud of it. Let the Indian wagon of success speed up by making Mathematics more application based rather than plain, boring and formulae based.

IPL fever- R U Ready?

Nothing grips India’s imagination the way cricket does – no, not even the lovely Aishwarya Rai – Bachchan. Even as the common man gears up to spend hours glued to the TV set, games are never any good without some fun first! With less than a month to go, it's nice to see the fever rise in each of us. What better way to manage the fever than by spreading it!!

So, if you are an ardent fan of the modernized cricket and you enjoyed the glamour and excitement that came along with the Indian Premier League – Then you have a reason to cheer about. The much awaited IPL is back to make the country go crazy in 2010.

There were 97 players who had registered for the IPL 2010 auction. The list of players includes a maximum of 26 players from Pakistan. Several individuals and companies have shown a growing interest in owning IPL teams, such as actors Ajay Devgan, Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt, and the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group.

So are you ready to feel the heat? Though, last time the great Marathas could never capture the crown of Delhi in their proud history. But, this year the Chattrapati – Sachin Tendulkar is a whole new form and seems to be in a mood to show every ball, the fence. This year was one of the best, just 2 months have passed and he has already added five centuries to his account. Sachin's greatness can not be expressed in words, its his bat what has been reminding us of his clout. 20 years of international cricket, 17000 international runs, most number of centuries, almost every record is on Sachin's profile.So, we need to wait to watch his bat shine in shorter form of the game as well. He is also blessed with a whole troop of warriors recruited from the South (Karthik, Maharoof and Sanath).

On the other hand, the dudes are from the Delhi middle-order with the exception of Dilshan and Gambhir. Till now I mentioned big names only, but minnows can not be ignored as well. I hope there is no need to remind you of that. The team, Deccan Chargers finished last in first edition of IPL went on to win the 2nd edition. How can we forget the army ward, Manish Pandey who created history, becoming the first Indian to hit a century in IPL.

Its not just about big shots and bowling into the block hole. This form of business demands good analysts and managers. Like I have a word of praise for Mumbai Indians Management. Getting Dwayne Smith and Andre Nel as late additions in the last IPL proved to be a boon for them, though they didn't win it, but brought home some respect for sure. Then is our own Dhoni bhaiya, the super cool captain. Chennai Super Kings were either super lucky or simply super cool in pressure. They managed to win all of their tight games.

The IPL 2010 will begin on 12th March and the final match will be on 25th April, 2010. The final schedule of IPL 2010 which is to be played in India rather than an international location has been announced. The first match will be held between the defending champions Deccan Chargers and the Kolkata Knight Riders. A few new venues – Vishakapatnam, Ahmedabad and Dharamsala have been added.

This huge amount of money was never seen in the history of cricket. The prize money announced was three times the prize money of a cricket world cup. IPL has managed to squash everything in its way and create history in the world of cricket. This is the main reason why the cricketers from all around the world are trying to make their place in the Indian Premier League.

How does India benefit from it? BCCI should also keep a close watch on Shane Warne. He continues to get the best out of his guys. Kamran Akmal and Pankaj Singh came in for this game and made their skipper proud. Employing him in some capacity with Indian Cricket should be priority number one. And make him the coach when Gary Kirsten gets sick of the Indian board. If anyone can make India true world beaters, it is Shane Warne. He has managed to get even Munaf Patel motivated and kicked up.

IPL has also witnessed a few unfortunate incidents, be it from ethical point of view or personal ire. The bhajji-sreeshant slap episode, then politically influenced protests against the cheer leaders, then racist attack on one of the cheer leader and the latest being the ban imposed on Rajasthan Royals team all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja.

Such incidents are very much unfortunate and are not expected in a country where cricket is considered to be more like a religion than just a sport. So it’s going to be yet another season full of enthusiasm, excitement, glamour, &ample fun. The pre-IPL craze says it all. It is going to be a success story all over again. So gear yourself up and get ready for IPL 2010. You surely wouldn’t want to miss it, would you?

Colours of Intoxication

Imagine you're walking down a city street in India. Spring has arrived and the sun is shining brightly. The level of excitement in the air is contagious. From around the corner a child runs out and throws a water balloon at you, giggling as he runs to find his next target. A cloud of colour bursts into the air as you realize that the balloon wasn't just holding water. It was also holding coloured powder in celebration of the Hindu Holi Festival of Colours.

So this year, 2010 as always India goes to celebrate one more Holi. As always people apply and splutter various colours on almost everyone they know and yes they don't really know. Originally a festival to celebrate good harvests and land fertility, it also remembers events in Hindu mythology. Today, it brings together Indians, Nepalese and others who celebrate with eating, singing, dancing, colourful games and bonfires. Holi is especially known as a ‘colourful celebration’, named thus as it is people mark the day by colouring themselves and throwing colours at each other. Friends and family cover each other’s faces, hair and clothing with colourful powders; painting even faces and hair. People go out spreading colours throughout the streets.

Now comes the thing, for which this post was meant for. Let me introduce you to cannabis indica. Google gave me that scientific name for our own favorite "Bhang". Some call it Indian hemp, some soft drug and biologists call it Cannabis Indica. In many places people get drunk in Bhang if not other alcholic beverages. Yes people get cleverly masked in unrecognizable formats where one drinks and lashes out in objectionable manner.The tradition of consuming bhang on holi is particularly rampant in North India where Holi itself is celebrated with a gusto unseen anywhere else. Bhang is made from the leaves of Hemp and is considered to be the least intoxicating of the cannabis preparations in India. But is capable of giving a high for the entire day and is sold openly during Holi festival.

The Bhang usually comes in two varieties – capsule, and dried Bhang leaves. The capsules or golis are added to ice cream, sweets, paan etc. The dried plant or leaves is soaked in water and then it is cleaned and finally grounded on a stone slab to get the paste which is taken along with Badam milk or any sweet preparation.


The sweet and the Bhang are considered to a highly potent combination and is said to give a real high. Therefore many revelers wait for Holi to get intoxicated in public. For fun, many people are also fed bhang mixed drinks and sweets without their knowledge. Sale of Bhang during other days is prohibited in many places except in some temples and places associated with Lord Shiva.

This Holi, even I enoyed to the fullest, consumed Bhang from our own, AITian's Baba shop(not the computer one) in Dighi. First, one hour goes very normal, if you don't know much about it, you will feel like you wasted your money or you would like to go and have one more glass. Next one hour, goes in explaining what are you feeling like. Example, I kept laughing and trying to explain my friends that someone was forcefully pulling my cheeks backwards and was compelling me to laugh. Thirdly, everyone of us knows that Time is Money. So, if you have wasted a lot of your time, I have an alternative, consume Bhang and time will stop for you. A music video will appear as if it was a movie. I think that is more than enough I can explain, my limited vocabulary stops me from explaining other feelings I had on Holi. Then the Indian victory on arch-rival Pakistan in the hockey world cup added to the flavor of Holi. So, there was not one, but two reasons for everyone to celebrate.

But there is something that is needed to be given a thought. Over the centuries and over the decades the festive spirit of Holi has lowly deteriorated; it has been hugely corrupted and misused by people. I greatly feel this has been due to an excessively bad influence of Bollywood movies of the 1960s and the 1970s. The Bachchan era (Don and Sholay) bought in a lot of celebrity status to this festival and corrupted it with open indulgence in consumption of narcotics, alcohol and objectionable sexual opportunism and exhibitionism. Lets get Holi that same importance again what it had years ago and be sober on such auspicious occasions. Its good that one stays away and discourage usage of Bhang or Joints or to that extent alcohol to the fullest extent. I'll for sure!!!


NOTE: I also want to remind that in this festive mood, it is easy for everyone to forget that there is something known as the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in India. Few Indians realize how powerful this act is, with potential for abuse. For example, someone arrested under this act is presumed guilty until proven innocent, which is against normal jurisprudence. Bail can be granted only after a court hearing. Given the Indian judicial system, this can take a few months to many years.