I am going to start this blog with my favorite song “Man Re Tu Kahe Na Dheer Dhare” from the movie ChitraLekha. The song is sung by Mohammad Rafi- the only man whose voice was (and still is) soft enough to slip through the crevices of this classic Sahir Ludhiyanvi creation.

And the perfect background to the song is Roshan’s music- a quiet mélange of the flute, some fleeting notes on a keyboard, Tabla, and that ever so expressive Sitar.

This song reminds me of the story of this singer I know- Shyam Subrahamaniyam
(who actually does have a voice exactly like Mohammad Rafi).

Coming from a family of genius mathematicians and gifted singers; Shyam is no exception. And in that family of gifted people was a woman who, according to Shyam, was exceptionally gifted. His mother.

For Shyam, his mother was a goddess- he worshipped her, the beauty in her voice, and the motherhood in her. Being the youngest and inflicted with several diseases at a very young age, Shyam had always been closer to his mother than anyone else. As he grew up, he turned into a brilliant singer and a banker by profession. His insecurities went away but the love for his mother remaind untouched.

In the last days of her life when she was really sick- coughing, spitting blood, insomniac- she wanted Shyam to take care of her. And he did- he had his bed right next to her, so that he can be with her every minute.

One night, out of frustration over his mother’s condition, he could not sleep; and so, in that insanely ineffable darkness, he started singing this song.

His mother, in her sickness, tersely instructed him, “Shyam. Will you please turn off the radio?”

Shyam stopped singing.
She died the very night not knowing that it was not the radio but her son singing.

I think that Sahir wrote this song for Shyam. Because maybe, in some time warped parallel world, he had met with Shyam’s helplessness. That, maybe, years ago, Sahir had taken a time trip to the night when Shyam’s mother died, plucked this moment out of his life, and turned it into this song. Sahir had known to be able to do that.

A translation of this song will tell you what the words mean, but the real meaning will slip from your hands. So, as far as understanding the meaning of this song goes, Shyam’s helplessness is the farthest that anyone can go. It is not entirely the meaning of this song, but it is the basis of it. And if you can’t understand the meaning of that helplessness, then you won’t be able to understand this song either.

Here are the lyrics:

Man re
tu kahe na dheer dhare…

Woh nirmohi moh na jaane
Jinka moh kare…
Is jeevan ki chadhti dalti
dhoop ko kisne bandha
Rang pe kisne pehre daale
roop ko kisne bandha
Kahe yeh jatan kare?

Man re
tu kahe na dheer dhare…

Utna hi upkaar samajh koi
jitna saath nibha de
Janam maran ka mail hai sapna
yeh sapna bikhara de
Koi na sang mare

Recently I have started reading Hindustaan times. I like the newspaper. It sounds logical- especially the op-ed section. When it comes to news it has verything- on how, why and to what Shilpa shetty is getting married, how one should value sports other than cricket, how AIIMs had their graduation day ceremony and how Sachin tendulkar did something really good for Indian cricket etc. They have business, cricket (the sports sections in HT is nothing but the cricket section, but I won’t pick that up right now), cinema, lifestyle, tabloid (why do cinema and tabloid have to be two different sections?), videos, blogs, weather, epaper, matrimonial, classifieds, views and news. To my dismay, and general annoyance (toward the commercialization of a newspaper)- there is NO SECTION ON SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY!!!

Why, may I ask, is there a 50th news Item on the same event about Sachin Tendular, but NOT a single word in the entire newspaper about the scientific work being done in all the top notch labs of India? How do I, as general public know, what the scientists of my country are doing in its labs? I am sure there is something terrific going on in ISRO and HBRC or ICSC Bangalore. I am sure there are brilliant Astrophysicists who are working day and night, with sweaty palms- without a supercomputer to their aid- on the Grand Unified theory and are attending international conferences. And I am sure that a lot of young scientists have qualms to pick up with the university politics etc. But there isn’t anything in the news about them! Not even a section, a puny column or anything!

All American newspapers have a science section where they talk about their space programs, work in chemistry, physics and medical science. Why can’t Indian newspapers include work from our scientists?

Is science THAT irrelevant to Indian public?

OK! I have to stop communicating with the outside world before I spook someone out. Today, I was trying to find people to enable me; sounds like someone you might know?- let me give you a clue- he is sarcastic, he is miserable, some people find him insufferable and he is extremely sexy. (Gosh, you retards!) Dr. House! Who else?

The dying sensory nerves at back of my cornea indicate that I have way too much House in my system to not get withdrawals after I stop my House IV. I am obsessed with it, I keep dreaming about it and sometimes, in my sleep, I even diagnose my parched lips, failing liver and nonexistent heart septicemias.

Last night, when fetching a glass of water, I wanted to start limping like House and contort my face into a sarcastic mask or throw a soft top ball on the wall (or my whiteboard); I stopped myself from buying the latest edition of dictionary of diseases; I prevented myself from treating imaginary patients and be called a nutcase. I feel the need to be like him.

Frankly, it’s nothing new. I get obsessed with all the TV shows like this:

This is what usually happens: I start watching a TV show. Either I love it or I hate it. I don’t watch it if I hate it. If I love it, I keep watching it until I have seen all the episodes. Then, I am unable to do anything else. I live in that TV show’s scene all the time and reality seems like a dream. Then, when I run out of all the episodes, I have to stop watching the show and this is when I start showing signs of withdrawal. I get lonely; I have problems dealing with real life; I miss the TV show and I get nostalgic about it. It’s painful; until, I find another one to get addicted to.

But what fascinates me most is that I am addicted to fictional chars more than the TV show itself. Their idiosyncrasies, their craziness, their bizarre circumstances intrigue me. I hate the real world; it’s full of boring people- people who follow tradition, beat the same thought over and over again, even after its futility, and keep doing that until they sound ordinary. On the other hand, these fictional characters give me a sense of belonging (after all, we are all looking for a place where we fit in.) It’s hard to find people like Mulder and Scully, Dr. House or Captain Sheridan, G’Kar or Kara Thrace. Unfortunately, all of these characters are introverted, rude, selfish and antisocial. They all hate order, they are all anarchists and they are all alone. And maybe that’s what I find extremely relieving- like cocaine shots. Nobody controls them except curiosity and their quest.

I had more withdrawals for X files than for any other TV show. I had to watch the series, thrice, back to back, to come to terms with the fact that Mulder and Scully are not real characters. I had to stop watching Gallactica to stop trying to be like Thrace all the time.

Because when I am into these TV shows, I am rude to everyone around me- I have a condescending outlook toward everyone and I just can’t stand irrationality and ordinariness; I keep looking for Mulder and scully in people and get depressed when I don’t find them. I get disappointed in people when they take offense at my sarcasm or take it personally; and I can’t help but torment them more.

So, while I am addicted to House right now, I know I am going to lose it pretty soon. And then there will be withdrawal again; I will contort at nights thinking about what is it that I can watch and while I am doing that, I will finish a couple of History or math books- just to free my restless mind with something to chew upon. Such is the life of a Sci-Fi-path.

Here are three important facts that I agree to:

1. Javed Akhtar is “the” most popular lyricist in the Indian film industry today.

2. some people claim that Farhan Akhtar’s directorial skills in Dil Chahta Hai (to me it was just a plain annoying movie) were good.

3. and, some people, God spare their lives for this sin, liked Lakshya (the 3 hour ordeal where Preity Zinta, with her really bad hair wigs, and Hrithik Roshan,with his really bad hair styles, silently shape their boring lives into more boring filmy BS along with a background of what can be called, after the soundtrack of Slumdog Millioanaire, the most boring soundtrack that the film industry has ever produced).

Nothing had changed. All was fine till now.

But then came Rock on. Maybe I am just too old for all this, but I don’t see why the whole world is going crazy about Rock On?

A far as I could judge (as a die hard fan of Bollywood films, even the masala ones, Govinda ones and whatever you fling at me), the direction was awful; the dialogs were cheesy; the script looked like it was written by a high-school kid (or maybe that was the target audience of the movie); the music was boring and soporific (you can’t distinguish one song from the other), the lyrics (written by Javed Akhtar) are meaningless; Prachi Desai is/was and will always be an ordinary looking woman with no acting skills and Farhan Akhtar cannot BLOODY sing!

But what shocked me most was this- since when- since when did Indian Film industry start nominating, into singers’ category, heroes who have no voice, sense of rhythm, or tune (Farhan Akhtar)? Amir khan sang a song in Ghulaam (the song was a delightful peices and his voice has depth. He didn’t pretend to sing the song, he almost rapped it). Amitabh Bachchan’s voice is legendary in itself, but when he sang “Neela Asmaan”, his voice gave a certain blueish tinge to the song.

The “laundry ka bill” song (yeahs, that’s what I call it. I won’t deign to remember the real lyrics of the song) was neither well sung nor it had any good music/lyrics in it. Not to mention, how the raspy and out of tune song obliterated anything beautiful that the genre of rock music holds.

(Songs that have laundry in it, unless sung by Bryan Adams, cannot be accepted as legitimate lyrics. Am I the only one left with ears or what?)

But, what broke me completely was the horror of seeing “Rock On” being nominated in every major award Category in IIFA awards (I personally prefer to call them the Bachchan awards, since it’s less about excellence in cinema but more about bachchans and the young couple Ash and Abhishekh).

We are an industry that has spawned Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammad Rafi, Kishore Kumar and many other legendary singers; the new generation of singers isn’t less impressive either- shreya ghoshal, sonu nigam, udit narayan, alka yagnik, shaan…they are all such good singers. And they have worked so hard to be where they are- years of riaz and discipline and all for what- that one day, some major lyricist’s son, absolutely out of tune and with no whatsoever sense of singing and no voice, could claim a nomination right next to them?

It’s disappointing and infuriating to see Rock On being given so much of leverage. It’s a shame on the film industry. Here is a list of Indian actors, that I thought of (while doing my laundry) who are much better in their expression, voice modulation, looks, acting skills and probably singing (if they were allowed to sing like FA was) than Farhan Akhtar and are still struggling to get what Farhan Akhtar has got because of some pixie dust he got from his tooth fairy.

1. Arjun Rampal- good looking, tall, romantic, great acting, deep voice

2. Neel Nitin Mukesh- same as above

3. Jimmy Shergil- his small performance in Wednesday has left me speechless. (Aadi and I call him JCKaRV, which is Jim Carey Ka Romantic Version. )

4. Chandrachud Singh- This guy had potential, but for some reason, he is out of the Bollywood scene)

5. Harman Baweja- so what if he copied Hritik Roshan in his first movie (Hrithik Roshan is good enough to be copied). Harman is hot, has an great voice and his dialog delivery, with a little practice, can become one of the better ones in the industry.

6. Mukul Dev- this guy, we call him Kaling Ka Senapati, not only coz of his role in Asoka, but also coz we believe that Kaling ka Senpati probably looked like Mukul Dev. Mukul Dev has that villianish thing going on. He is one of those rare gems who can look good and also instill fear in the audience.

7. Milind Soman- Hot, hot and hot! His acting in the movie 16th December was marvelous.

8. Rajeev Khandelwal- Another hottie. I am wondering, if the music were different, direction were better and dialogs and script were written by someone sensible then, with Rajeev Khandelwal, Rock on would probably have come out to be an excellent movie. He has that chocolate face thing going on for him.

9. Abhay Deol- This guy is a complete package- he is cute, he is hot, he is tall, his timing for comedy is immaculate and he acts like the industry cannot train anymore than what he already knows. He is a born actor.

10. Rahul Khanna- both khanna brothers have been major disappointments for me after Vinod Khanna. But, either their eternal bachelor status or their dimples- both of them do tend to possess some charisma.

There is no order in this list, but after seeing Wednesday, I am pretty sure Jimmy Shergil deserves to be the current heartthrob- NOT Farhan Akhtar! UGH!

There are certain things in life that I will never understand.
e.g., why don’t Indian parents ever (EVER) get the concept of a “Boyfriend” (or the difference between a friend and a boyfriend);or, why do people give starting page of a chapter in a book a dog-ear; or, why do some people get annoyed when someone addresses their “dog” as …well …a “dog”; why (no really, why?) would anyone want to get a hamster for a pet, and in the end, the biggest and most confounding conundrums of all, why do Amway Indian couples, at Indian grocery stores, suddenly act as if they are trying to be your friends when, in reality, they are trying to make you a member of their super successful Amway business?

I mean, come on you guys! No one is that stupid! Do you ever get anyone to buy an Amway business like that? There is a reason why the entire world of businesspeople and salesmen follows a conduct, a code of properiety- like never to bother people when they are on a family picnic, or when they are shopping!

The worst part is that these Am-couples try to be subtle, assuming that the whole chicanery actually works! They’d do anything to start a conversation,

“Are you from Delhi?”
“Are you a Punjabi?”
“Are you Rajesh? I swear I thought you are him…coz you look exactly like him!”

Then the conversation will drift on to lost uncles and aunts living in the same towns as yours or, them having a primate ancestor living in the same city as yours. Then comes the exchange of numbers “to give calls to each other and make plans for the weekend”.

Three days later, you will receive a call from the person asking if you’d consider, by any chance, selling toothbrushes/pastes/shampoos/conditioners from home, and, become a millionaire!

This thing has happened to my brother 20 times (every time he/we’d go to a grocery store) and recently, it just happened to my boyfriend…when… well we were shopping at an Indian grocery store.

But I won’t be a complete B**** here. I will tell you why the whole thing doesn’t work; and, why it’s so ridiculous to assume that inducing pangs of “swades nostalgia” would get you an Amway member. You see, it’s the premise that is wrong.

First of all, most of the Indian people who either have jobs or businesses of their own, do not want to get into Amway/similar business, and so, your affected friendship won’t really help you there. Secondly, if someone is interested in getting into Amway they don’t need to be mollycoddled into a phony “Desis of the world Unite!” banner to become Amway conscripts.

So, my advice to All ye faithful to AM-way is this: Stop being so bloody phony about the whole Indian bonding just ‘coz you want to score an Amway point! You want to talk business?- then talk business directly! If people are into it, they will buy it, and if they are not into it, no amount of faking will make them buy it. Don’t try to be their friend or make fake “hang-out” plans for the weekend! Grow out of it and come up with a new, sensible strategy.

Question is: How much devoid of personality does one have to be to start a “we hate rakhi sawant community”?
Answer: Totally! (this word is so unique that it’s actually copyrighted by a friend of mine; so don’t use it!)

Today, I came across a “We Hate Rakhi Sawant” community on Facebook (my cousin recently became a member of it and it shows up on my “events”). The owner of the community is a mentally retarded idiot, an imbecile who has no sense of propriety, and, seems eager to validate his existence by forming a community on Facebook that calls names to an as devoid of personality celebrity as he is, Rakhi Sawant. The community members are extremely loyal to the cause as well; they are trying to gather as many Rakhi haters as they can for some imaginary campaign of theirs to take over the world or something.

Since, I was curious about what went on into the minds of these people, I went to check out the community. Obviously, it had no discussions, except for those 99 slanderous, in your face comments about how bad Sawant is- typical of the youngster Indian generation these days.

I have two things to say about this whole affair:

1. If you don’t like a thing, DON’T WATCH IT! No one is actually forcing you to watch ANYTHING you don’t like! But people like these (the lynching mob people, the demonstration on an insignificant slight people and the “we make online communities for no reason at all” people), watch such things, and then believe that it’s their moral right to spread that “they” don’t like that TV show celebrity etc.

2. My opinion of Indian men is just devolving every day. I mean, I can understand a guy being mean to a woman who has done something wrong to him, but, I don’t understand swearing on celebrity women just coz you happen to dislike a TV show. It’s reprehensible and it shows, that although you might have come to US and spent thousands of dollars on good education, you still need lessons in civility and decorum.

Sometime back, people burnt a cinema Hall in Indore, MP, India because they didn’t approve of Jodha Akbar the movie. A little while back, they banned a movie because it had lyrics offensive to some people belonging to a lower caste. And now, now we have “We Hate Rakhi Sawant Community”.

Now, I LOVE Bollywood, and sometimes,in fact, I am obsessed with it; I am a fan of lot of actors and actresses, I love to read reviews of movies, listen to Bollywood songs, and sometimes, even go to the extent of reading my favorite actors’ blogs and praise them in some form, but frankly, burning a cinema hall, banning a movie, and starting hate communities where free speech comes from the dumpland is just a micrometer close to being psychotic (or pathetic)!

I’d like to tell you that my own opinion of the TV show “Rakhi Ka Swayamwar” are not positive at all! I think the show is ridiculous. But I hate it, just as I hate every other TV show that panders uselessly to so called Indian sentimentalilty about in laws and extra marital affairs.

But my question to all the Indian Males on facebook, Orkut, Hi5 and other social websites, is this:

Is it really that hard for you guys to not swear on a woman “no matter how bad/slutty” you might think she is? As in, no matter how bad you think about her, can you at least be a real man and not insult ANY woman on the earth just because you respect women-hood in general? I think that that’s what being an Indian was all about…that although, you don’t respect women (in particular) so much, you do respect womanhood enough to not curse / speak bad to/about any woman! Right?

Now I know that the question will shoot right across the psychos who think that it’s passe to be civil to women these days, but for those of you, who have been forced into it by bully peer pressure, can you, at least, reconsider it?

*Term metaverse taken from sci-fi novel Snow Crash

There is nothing more pleasant than to wake up after 6 hours of really disturbed sleep and find your address bar suddenly gone from your firefox browser. You think, maybe you did something wrong. You think,”You stupid lay user you! You probably hit one of those hidden buttons designed for some invisible way of removing the address bar. Well, enjoy your own work! Go ahead and try accessing your wordpress / Facebook /Orkut & other sites through Google! You are so stupid you probably deserve it!”

Well…now that you have f***ed it up this bad, you feel that you should at least *try* to find a solution. So, you go to the Google search bar (which is the only thing working in your navigation bar), and type in:

“My firefox address bar is not working! Help!”

…and get ready to trudge through all the 1000 forums where someone might have posted an answer. You actually found a forum called BUG#240242 in Mozilla Firefox. This is how the thread goes:

Summary: At random, the location bar ceases to load pages

Steps to reproduce:
1. Enter a URL in the location bar
2. Hit the Enter key or click the green arrow

Expected Result:
URL opens in tab

Actual Result:
Nothing. No new page will load from the URL bar in any tab.

In reply to it, someone had written:

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can’t fix it, because your description didn’t include enough information. You may find it helpful to read “How to report bugs effectively” http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html. We’d be grateful if you would then provide a more complete description of the problem.

The next reply is the first user, typing pages of information according to the forum’s instructions and there are several such versions of the same problem typed again and again. Apparently, everybody has, in some or the other, ended up confused and with their address bars missing. And no replies with any solutions in it.

You get the message. You are pathetic. Just like every other goddamn lay user on this earth.

So you find that it’s a firefox bug and no one really knows how to fix it. You allow yourself to panic. A lot. Because you have a press release to finish and you will need an address bar for your research. And Because if the big shots of the open source community don’t know how to fix it, then there is nothing in the hell that you can do except dilate your pupils and make a face like you have just eaten a rotten egg…
you see, a browser without an address bar is very painful and annoying.

Humph! You don’t want to get back to the horror of using Internet Explorer again- those hundreds of pop ups, that snail mail speed and those mps crashes. So, you finally will have to turn to a new browser. Painful still, but doable. You have heard about google chrome. Maybe you should try it.

You go to Google and search for Google chrome and get to the place where it says “Download google chrome” and click on the button. It will take you to the terms and conditions page. For a second you wonder if it says,

“Listen! We are Google, and your relationship with us is very special, as in, we value our slaves. Please get your branding done as soon as possible ‘coz in the near future, when the revolution hits the world, and if you aren’t a Google-ite, then we won’t be able to save you….at any cost!”

But only for a second.

Of course you don’t read the T & S page since you know it’s absurd. No one. Absolutely no one *actually* reads the T&S pages except for those paranoid morons who have nothing else to do other than to sit and read 20 pages worth of legal jargon and call themselves Hackers. Also, no corporation (even if they are as genius as Google) can own the world and its people or make you a slave through a browser T&S contract.

You passingly remember that, in a Resource collection lecture, your sneaky looking Journalism professor was able spell out the names, social security numbers, addresses, habits, paranoias, names of toilet bowl cleaners and cars owned by you and all your neighbours by “Googling it”.

You agree to the terms and services page as casually as you have done to other T&S pages (most of which said that they are entitled to read each and every word that you write to your wife, children, that other woman next door, and your secret brotherhood emails to your highschool friends; that they have copyrighted your soul and your first borns.)

You check the “please help google by sending all the crash reports for better services” box. You wonder if it has a double meaning. But you check it anyways. You are a conscentious citizen.

The download begins. Blue bars flicker. It will only take 1 min 24 secs. A minute and 24 seconds later you have the latest version of Google Chrome.  You open it. A simple page loads up.

It says,” As you visit sites, thumbnails of your most visited sites will be shown as soon as Chrome loads up.”
You wonder if it will show that free porn site that you visit like a thousand times in a day.

Chrome is definitely faster than firefox, looks more lightweight and viola- it has an address bar! A sudden calm is settling somewhere in your mind. You are sensing happiness and satisfaction. It’s like someone has given you your regular dose of morphine. And now you can browse- teary & red eyed – for another 24 hours and maybe more, continuously. You wonder why such silly things bother you so much. You must be crazy. You smile, kick back and continue your daily grazing around.

A wealthy young lad (Devdas) in love with his childhood girl friend (Paro). A huge amorphous mass, society, standing right between them. A matter of personal choices and ego masqueraded under the rubble of social stratification; and a brooding and sardonic nature that drags Devdas to his deprivation. The result- a painful and tragic death. Of love. Of Devdas…

… and a legend is born.

In his movie DevD, director Anurag Kashyap has set out to discover the psyche of this legendary “Devdas”, twisted to fit into modern world. Placed in backyards of Delhi- DevD’s music, sensibility, and characters converge into a shambolic collage where the original concept of the novel and suffocation of the modern Indian youth scream together in their own distinct flavors.

Dev (Abhay Deol) is from an affluent family of Punjab studying in London. He has a steaming long distance affair with his childhood girlfriend Paro. But when Dev arrives in India, he finds his love for Paro trapped in social conventions, hypocrisy and distrust arising from their own (Dev’s and Paro’s) unbridled sexual explicitness. Jealousy and hatred prevails, Dev refuses to marry Paro. Paro gets married to another man, and Dev (being the rich and spoilt boy of 27 years) starts drowning himself into single malt Glenlivet.

Paro starts a new life with her new man and Dev, neck deep into drugs and alcohol, meets Chanda- a victim of high school tragedy and an escort. Abandoned by the whole world, 19 yr old Chanda is  highly educated, intellectual and believes in a guilt free life. Dev and Chanda connect well, become good friends and fall in love with each other. The problem- Dev believes that he is still in love with Paro.

If it were a painting, I’d classify DevD under Cubist- every character seen from every angle and thrown flat on the screen. The movie’s strengths are its editing, nonchalant (and commendable) performance by the actors and an off-beat music teamed with chaotic cinematography. Its weakness is that it suffers from time dilation induced by boredom- the last 45 minutes painfully hang at the event horizon of a black hole ( there were moments when I could get up, wash my dishes, come back, and not feel that I have missed a whole lot.)

So, if you aren’t planning to watch this movie in a cinema hall, and if you belong to the generation that bleeds love from outside and an obsession with self inflicted problems from inside, a.k.a “the Y generation”,  then you will love this movie.

For everybody else, it’d be just some garbled noise.

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?

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.