I see the Blue Orb from where I sit, infinitely round, no borders in sight, clouds fly so low and land locked in oceans shallow.

A million lives were born a million died all this happened in the blink of an eye, yet, neither a soul entered nor any left; The dead went back to earth and the newborns rose from it.

Faith is of nothing, so is the color; man is of mud, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Old Testament assured heaven or hell, on what I said and did when I was down below. I learnt it again and again – what One is to sow is what One is to reap.

I see neither man nor his king; I see no fences dividing the land – fences for which men paid liberally with their lives.

I see the Sun I see the stars, the Blue Orb stands out but as a tiny dot.

Image courtesy: geography4kids.com

You know this man don’t you? (This news is pretty old, you can come out from under that rock, if you don’t). That is Gary Brooks Faulkner, the guy who went on a lone mission to capture Bin Laden, yes Osama himself! Insane, Crazy, Stupid, Idiotic, Suicidal, Laughable, mental etc etc…I know these are some of the words that are coming to your mind, but really, does it take a man to be insane to do this?

Gary is an old man, around 50, and he isn’t in the best of his health since his kidneys are weak. He had been saving up money through a job as a construction worker for around 8 long years, ever since 9/11. Would a crazy man in his situation be motivated enough to take up the job that he did? Well most of the guys his age would probably think twice about getting up from their recliners. He travelled multiple times to Pakistan, each time in search of the big O. Now, can a crazy man do that?

The most powerful weaponry, intelligence and probably one of the most well funded search and kill operations in the history of mankind has turned nothing of the terrorist, even after eight long years. How would you help the situation if you are willing to and really care? I share his helplessness (remember 26/11?). What he did was, may be passionate, not crazy and I know that it takes courage to do what he did…and one hell of a motivation. Would he have been successful in his mission? May be…sometimes all it takes is one person I guess.

Here’s me wishing him success in his next attempt. May the one help him not in vengeance but in his will to rid the world of evil.

PS – He took just a pistol a sword and a night vision goggle with him. Imagine optimism at its heights!

Precisely two minutes later, the events reoccur, this time at the other side of the planet.

“We are here, commander!”

“Sooner than I had imagined, the pod was pretty cramped though, can’t believe my limbs are still in shape [laughs]”

“It took us just Eight LY to get here sir”

“Well, the green one gets it right every time. Tell blues to turn the fire out, get the thunder bolts and put wings on standby…and hey, get me some numbers.”

“39.11 Lat and 96.35 Long, 150N. The green one is a genius sir, sets the course right as the sun’s rays”

“Reassuring, get NAASA on this ASAP and tell them I want samples by 45:37”

A few moments later, three quick flash bolts are seen. Shocks are felt, but no sound is heard. Three minutes later – a perfect entry.

It was 4:47, first contact, just when dawn was about to break. The blue beam of light, functioning as some sort of a search tool homed in on a window on an urban construct. As if by magic, the inhabitants hovered in mid air, still in deep sleep, more so because of the hypnotic blue stream of travelling light, flew right out of the window and straight up!

“Sir, I have some news for you; got word from NAASA, we have the reports ready.”

“That was quick! I wasn’t expecting anything till 30:00. What do we have here?”

“I hope you are prepared for this sir! I think we will have to…”

“You can cut the chase and get to the point real quick”

“ OK. Water, carbon and some salts with a pinch of common metals. They are made of earth sir, mud!”

“What? No hydrogen-zello quantum molecules? No iiridium-intello ions? Not even helium-plasmid nano structures? I had a feeling this wouldn’t turn out right. Send word to Green at once, get us the next co-ordinates”

A very intense bright light flashes, shocks are felt, but nothing is heard. Down below, another sunny morning breaks.

“…A second Sun shall emerge in the skies; the days shall be scorching and the nights restless. The moon since long hidden behind the new Sun’s glow, the world shall bake in this hell brought on Earth, the wicked shall be turned to dust and so shall be the sane…”.

Now this is not an extract from some biblical verse. I made it up. I don’t mean to be pessimistic or scare-mongering but the worst case scenario of an upcoming astronomical event is going to be just like that.

Betelgeuse, our stellar neighbor, the super-sun, is going bust anytime between today and the next thousand years. By bust I mean boom…you know, as a supernova. For the unwashed masses, supernova is the explosion of a star possibly caused by gravitational collapse and because of this, most of the star’s mass is blown away at extreme velocities.

This would be another blip in the cosmos for us, if not for the proximity at which this is going to happen – A mere 600 light years away!

Scientists have studied this and have categorized this as a Type-II supernova, its blast radius being around 450 light years. But are we safe being just 150 more light years away?

A case like this would involve huge Gamma ray (and all other kind’a rays’) bursts. High frequency lethal UV, X-rays etc, etc blazing at the speed of light and torching or mutating anything in its path. Won’t these lethal rays make it to Earth?

Again, the scientists say that our atmosphere should be sufficient to hold out all of them, except the Gamma rays and the Gamma rays are emitted at the poles of the blasting star, along the axis of rotation. They say the axis of rotation of Betelgeuse is away from us, so we are safe.

Even if we are safe from all these, there could still be several unknowns. What if there are other intelligent beings out there that are in the blast radius? We are talking about a big circle with a diameter of around 1000 light years here…there is a chance right? If they are intelligent enough they would be preparing to leave right now as we speak…and they might just be headed to a cozy, defenseless world next door full of meaty creatures.

If only Sir. Hawkins had not made this statement recently, I’d actually have been looking forward for these events.

There is an elaborate article about this here. You might as well start saving grains in your underground bunkers.

Image courtesy.

A certain Asian minister is taking fire these days for being gifted with the power to understand God’s intentions. Here read this.

If not for his polite remarks, I would have certainly misunderstood this as a desperate attempt by a greedy politician to retain lucrative foreign investment. I mean come on! These are just monkeys and rats. Throw them in the gamma chamber, run them through that carcinogen diet…we want to fight cancer don’t we? After all didn’t God give these creatures to us?

If I was him I’d definitely ask you to prove me wrong…how can you prove that God did not give you these animals to abuse use in any way you want? You’ve had turkey for thanksgiving (or goats for Bakr-Id) for as long as you can remember…God gave it to you, remember? They are not the same you say? Aren’t they being used for the same purpose – Your betterment? How can you say they are not the same?

If you are trying to say that the former involves pain and suffering but the later does not (obviously, on the part of the animal)…I’d say you better come up with a convincing explanation.

I am asking you again…did God create animals for man?

Image courtesy

I understand the humble motive behind your action Sir M. Singh. I understand that you want to convey peace with the simplest of the ways possible…but isn’t it ironic that you are trying to bring peace through mangoes on the very same day they acquitted the most wanted terrorist?

Today, as a rational citizen of a peace loving nation, I am asking you, aren’t the mangoes too heavy for The Dove of Peace?

At a more personal level – what a terrible waste of mangoes…sad.

More on this here and here

She had been in this camp for all the time that she had known. She was relocated a couple of times when she gave birth to Lill’johny and Lill’ella. And a few more times when she gave birth to her other unnamed eleven children. All of whom were taken, rather harvested right from her arms soon as they were born. This time however, a desperate mother that she was, had hidden Lill’Mea cleverly wrapped under her arms. How she managed to evade this little one from the morbid eyes of the snatchers? Only the cruel god that forced her into this hell knows.

It was just last fortnight that her friends, who were more of sisters to her, Ms. Lellan’l, Ms. Woort’h and Ms. Pe’ngn disappeared just as mysteriously as Ol’Herth, Ol’pate and Jhan’p, all shared cells adjacent as Ms. Bauder’ben’s.

Ms. Bauder’ben however had learnt to make sense of these noises. Noises, as mundane as they were, had already given out the signs. “Someone is going to disappear today” she said to herself in horror.

It wasn’t long before the noises morphed into men. Four dark strong men whose faces she could not discern because of the green cloth masks they were wearing.

First it was Ms. O’Hara then Ms. Ch’en and later Ol’du.

This time however the mayhem did not get the best of Ms. Bauder’ben. She could see how the women were being manhandled. Dragged by their arms, some by their neck and some by their waist and legs. Just when she thought the men were done, one of them, the one who was bare feet, lurched at her and before she knew it she was dragged by her neck, Lill’Mea however was lucky enough to remain hidden in her mother’s arms. Strange that the men did not see this little creature hidden right in her mother’s arms.

By the time she could regain her senses, along with sixty eight of her fellow camp mates, she was put into, rather stuffed into these small metal cages that the men had fastened to the cargo hold of their big old truck.

The next two hours were the most gruesome of her life.  Ol’du, who was in the adjacent cage with twenty others screamed in pain as she broke her arm that was caught below three of her cage mates when the truck went past the turn swiftly. Ms. Ch’en broke both her legs, Ms. O’Hara, her neck.

Ms. Bauder’ben however dislocated both her shoulders. Lill’Mea still precariously held between the arms of her mother.

The world was such that the people little as bothered as the truck sped past them right in broad daylight, with the women screaming at the top of their lungs. Some people moving in the car behind the old truck even went as far as point at the bleeding limbs of the women and others giggle at this sight. “After all, this world does take prisoners” said Ms. Bauder’ben to herself.

Not before the gruesome hours passed were the women brought to the backyard of this urban place. Again, dragged by their limbs they were lodged into these tiny cages right at the center of the urban construct. It came to the notice of Ms. Bauder’ben that this urban construct had tables all over with fancy chairs laid around them.  Some at a distance, had seated families with little children in them.

Strangely the families, as normal as they appeared were oblivious in spite of watching all that Ms. Bauder’ben and her fellow mates were going through.

What a cursed day this was!

An hour passes. Ms. Bauder’ben, unable to bear her situation, passes out.

She wakes up to a strange sense of smell. Strange, yet familiar!

Smell of burning flesh! To her horror she could now clearly see the feathers of her kind littered all over the floor!

Post Scriptum: A mother and her child walk to the counter of an urban diner – “Maharaja Diners”. A message on menu board goes something like “Pick what you eat!” The child points at a tiny chick in one of the cages and the cook glees and picks up his steely knife!

This was imagined by the author (P.E.T.A Activist) when he was overtaken by a chicken truck, on his way to work.

I read about this scientist guy somewhere on the net. He was trying to find a way to meet his dead father. I recall he had some theory that involved traveling at the speed of light and so on…but what truly are the challenges? I know the theory of relativity would object to whatever logic one puts together.  At this point in time is it possible to say anything on this for sure? I feel like one of those medieval men that dreamed of flying machines.

I can’t argue on the possibilities but what I can for sure is put together the challenges involved.

To simplify, let’s imagine a human’s life as a banyan tree. Our life is what we choose to be, or in some cases forced to be cos of some events we could not control, each of the actions would branch out just like that on a banyan tree. One thing branches to another and so on. Now for the fact that we live in a society and since our life is so obviously tied with many others, the tree just gets bigger.

The fascinating part is that all of these branches are bound with time which hypothetically always goes in one direction. Also consider that time is just relative and for most of the part imaginary. Given this, what exactly does it take to go back and change a branch? It’s a dizzy situation, in fact right now I feel like the first time I learn’t how a recursive function works in C!

In order to change something that has already happened one would also have to change all the subsequent events. Imagine doing this in this universe that we live in, with variables such as galaxies and stars. We practically have to change everything! I don’t want to start on what it takes to make an event happen before it happens.

One can also play with theories such as alternative dimensions etc. Alternative dimensions, if ever proved to exist are just what they are – Alternative. If event in any of these dimensions converge then they would seize to be alternative universes, or so it goes logically.

So irrespective of whether I am a medieval dreamer of flying machines, the fact remains that right now, this is what we have, one chance. One chance to do it right, one chance at life, one chance to do the things that we love and one chance to say what we want to say to our loved ones, one chance to dance when the music plays.

Just like master Oogway puts it “yesterday…is history, Tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift, that is why it is called the present”

I don’t know about you but a lot of that is happening to me lately. Here are the top 5 things that stop me from getting there.

1. Other great blogs
Surprisingly this is the top 1 thing that keeps me from getting there. I spend more time reading than writing them and I come across so many great blogs every day. It’s so easy to get intimidated by knowing the amount of effort and skill required in building up a great blog and more importantly, the significance of knowing what it takes to keep one’s readers hooked!
Note to self-Writing as often is equally important as writing as good

2. I don’t have a Subject!
Unless one is hiding under a rock for most of the day, this cannot happen. Yet, when I start thinking of writing something, this comes up. There are so many things happening around, both outside and in my mind. Honestly, I should not be looking for a subject. Instead, whenever I feel like writing I should do just that! Subject is for procrastinators. A subject will appear when one is done writing!
Note to self-If laziness doesn’t kill you, procrastination will!

3. It requires too much homework
It takes great skill and interest to come up with an amazing line on something. At times great ideas won’t sound so great if they are not put out right. It’s necessary to get all the facts together before you write something. Readers hate incorrect information. Not writing is far better than writing something imperfect. These are the kind of thoughts that ruin the spirit. I expect magic every time. But the fact is, real magic comes with practice.
Note to self-read the above ‘Note to self’ with procrastination and laziness interchanged.

4. I may regret this later
So far, out of the many posts that I have written, I never had to recall/delete any of them, yet this thing bogs me down when I sit here and write something up. I have seen people delete their blogs entirely let alone any one particular post and it bothers me. Deep inside, I am scared that I may have to delete something just because I wrote it too spontaneously.
Note to self-Look for that little button named ‘Edit’ when you find something not right.

5. Too offbeat/small talk
It’s nice to have a theme/tone to one’s blog. People find it easier to read if things are ordered in a particular fashion. I have claimed here that I do not follow any particular theme for my blog, yet before I start writing anything I try to assess if the contents offset the balance with earlier posts. This usually results in me ditching the plan altogether. The same goes with writing about little things in life like an interesting conversation that I had with a complete stranger or that beautiful sunset that I saw on my way back home from work. The fact is all these things could be successfully written about in a micro blog.
Note to self-Keep em little, keep em simple

So there you go. Those were some of the many little road humps on my blogging journey. I am interested in knowing what bogs your blogs, so please feel free to leave your comments.