What is wrong with Femina Miss India?

I know there is no definition of Fugliness. I know that there is no definition of beauty. But I also know one thing- if you are in the business of beauty, the definitions come from the predecessors. After Aishwarya Rai, Sushmita Sen, Diya Mirza, Lara Dutta and Priyanka Chopra, if you think that femina Miss India has acquired progressively unattainable beauty standards every year then you are terribly wrong.

Don’t believe me? Go visit Femina Miss India’s website and after you are thoroughly repelled by an atrociously done website do (at your own risk) take some time to look at the contestants as well. More than half of them seem to be anemic and rest are just not 1/3 as photogenic as an ordinary model should be, forget about competing in international pageants. Well at least they all are tall and marasmic which probably would gain some sympathy for belonging to a developing nation which is still ruled by starvation.

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that the girls are ugly or anything. I just think that they need some more makeup (to hide their bad skins or malnourished under eye dark circles) or some good hairstylists (to hide their bad haircuts) or …forget all of that… how about some good photographer that would totally eliminate the need for the former two?

I don’t think India’s potential in beauty has dwindled as when I see the Indian film industry and the regular fashion scene in India, I see devastatingly pretty faces, some being better than any international models. Still Femina insists on bringing insignificant faces to its platform. Is there a good reason for it or is it because Femina has lost its repute and is unable to charm those women who actually have the potential to achieve something on the international pageants?

Phoebus was gone, all gone, his journey over

Recently I stumbled across this poem in the library. It’s written by an anonymous female writer.

“I shuddered at his touch. I felt the fear of it.

I trembled as if I knew the true terror of it.

I opened my arms wide and pressed him against my body.

Then I froze: I was ice, all ice. My blood drained into it.

He had fled. Here was my embrace—and there was nothing in it.

Fully awake now, I cried out loudly:

“Where are you fleeing to? Why are you rushing away?

Wait, wait for me. If you want, I can enter there.

Because the truth is, I want to live with you forever.”

I read these lines and thought that this is one of the most beautiful expressions that I have ever come across. If you want, read the whole poem and then you’d probably understand why.

White Dwarfs, Supernovas, Neutron stars and Black holes…

Just finished reading Isaac Asimov’s “Collapsing Universe- the story of black holes” . I believe that if there’s anything that can bring one closer to Astronomy, then it is Asimov’s writing. From his Foundation series to his three volumes of Understanding Physics- Asimov is the king of exposition through effective storytelling.

Collapsing universe is a layman introduction to Astronomy buzzwords such as White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars and Black holes. The book starts with explaining the four forces (Nuclear, Electromagnetic, Weak and Gravitation), atoms, density and gravitation. With these basics covered he starts building a structured story where he moves on to explaining the birth cycle of stars, white dwarfs, Neutron stars and finally black holes. The most interesting chapter was “The Exploding Matter” in which he gives an easy to understand review of Big Bang and the oscillating universe model. There are no equations and the book is strewn with comparisons of density, mass etc. which does two things:

a). It gives the reader a good understanding of the astronomical nature of the forces and structures involved in the subject.

b). Explains how physicists and scientists use these simple properties (density, momentum, mass, luminosity etc.) to answer questions regarding the mass of celestial bodies like stars, galaxies and universe itself.

The books ends with a bunch of speculations- some popular scientific conclusions and others Asimov’s own such as tapping black holes for enormous amounts of energies. A brief discussion of “Tunguska explosion” and it’s relation to black holes particularly interested me since I am a big X-files fan(lol).

Reading this book is like reading one of Asimov’s novels. It is full of science, ideas and of course, drama which keeps the reader intrigued till the end of the book. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Astronomy …or in Asimov’s writing in general.