Sabyasachi Spring/Summer collection 2008- Mercedes Benz Fashion week at NY

At Mercedes Benz 2008 Fashion week , Sabyasachi Mukharjee carved his Spring/Summer 2008 collection out of anarchy picked from history books. At 28, this fashion designer, from India, Kolkata, has made waves with his unusual repertoire and this was the second time he was invited to participate in this show.

He maneuvered rich Indian fabrics in furious reds into bikini tops and slacks with voluminous flares; the layering in warm earth tones and greens doing a perfect job of toning down the ferocity. Sheer overcoats whisked the ramp and cream colored tops with symbols of various countries printed on them were paired with large green pants and similar. A lavish red trench coat, a cinched waist pleated red dress, a flat paneled cream and olive green ensemble looked classy and comfortable at the same time.

In his burnt-orange vest and hooded, over-sized formal wear there lied an irony; the irony thrown in consciously as a mix of shyness of a tradition with the impudence of breaking one. Subtle, simple, and not too cluttered, the designs oscillated between feminine and feminist. The remarkable combination of cream, red, military green, and henna dyes was young and serene, just like the beginning of a revolution.

His designs, they say, have an air of extremity and pander to sentiment. But whoever started a revolution without a sentiment overly expressed, a passion unfurled and a heart bound by ordinary rules? His impeccable cuts and perfect silhouettes, an ability to suffuse rude cosmopolitan streets with elegance have always been able to squeeze a wow out of his audience. Sabyasachi is known best for his flare of breaking traditions and merging cultures; and this collection is no different.

A physicist & a writer

I was thinking why I haven’t published anything on my blog when I have been writing in my private diary everyday. I believe it was fear of criticism.

A couple of weeks of writing just for myself and not for anyone else has brought my confidence back to life. Mainly because I realized that, in the beginning, I don’t have to know everything to be able to write, and that I have to start writing from what little I “do” know and keep learning while I am at it. This way I won’t lose my mind at least.

Also, it’s just a blog anyways.

Now about the books that I am reading.

I am reading David Zindell’s Neverness. Whenever I read a fantasy cum sci-fi I always think about Dan Simmons’s Hyperion series; about how alive it was, that it flowed through mystery, philosophy, imagery and science so beautifully.

Compared to Hyperion, Neverness is slow and over-speculative. The science element in it is wanting and the philosophy is not really that new (although well written). He has this entire section on Neanderthals that I found extremely boring and long. The hero is an epitome of Ayn Rand’s “Peter Keating” (I will have more to say on that later), or in casual terms, a wuss.

Nevertheless, Zindell is a profound writer and a good thinker. His descriptions are imaginative and novel. Only if his plot were a bit tighter and had some pace I would have enjoyed the novel more. But I haven’t finished it yet so I will refrain from making any further opinions.

I am also reading Linear Algebra by Jim Hefferson, a professor at St Michael’s College, Vermont. I found his book free on his site and is one of the best books on Introduction to Linear Algebra that I have ever come across! I don’t know why he hasn’t tried getting it published (or maybe he has and I just don’t know about it.)

Hefferson understands the lazy nature of his flippant audience who would read through a solution of a problem instead of actually solving it on a piece of paper and hence his examples and problems are easy, down to earth and effective in explaining the concept. I love reading the concepts and I love solving the problems!

(I wonder why practice is harder than understanding the concept. Maybe because “understanding” is done by the subconscious part of brain and is satisfactory even when it is vague and “practice” has to be done consciously; and anything done consciously is work and who wants to work? )

Here’s a link to his site just in case you are interested:

http://joshua.smcvt.edu/linearalgebra/

Three other non fiction, non mathematics books that I am reading right now are-

“Art of Non fiction” by Ayn Rand

“Elements of Style” by Strunk and White

“Francine Prose: Reading like a writer”

Art of Non Fiction is a usual Rand- authoritative, detailed, energizing and encouraging. Elements of Style, as thousands of readers have already attested, is like a bible for grammar and composition; and Reading like a writer is a book that I regret not reading before I picked up my first ever book 15 years ago. More about these books later.

Why is Atlantis a belief/myth and not a scientific theory?

Part1- Structure of the Pyramids

Plato, in his writings, talked about a powerful civilization that existed 10,000 years before his times in a city called Atlantis. It is believed that the city of Atlantis was lost in a deluge and some of the Atlantians escaped in ships to come back to teach their ways and technology to the world- technologies such as The Pyramids in Egypt and Central/South America.

At a glance, the structure of Pyramids point towards something close to what Atlantian belief says- that there probably was a technologically advanced civilization that helped humans build them. But then why do scientists tend to discard Atlantis as a reliable scientific theory and call it a belief or a myth? Why is structure of the Pyramids, its complexity or similarity between that of Egyptian and Central/South American Pyramids, not considered as an evidence of Atlantian intervention? Let’s break two of the popular beliefs into three parts- Assumption, Atlantian conclusion, and Scientific Speculation.

Assumption#1: The Pyramids are huge and perfectly built structures.

Atlantean Conclusion: Since the technology at the time when Pyramids were built was extremely incipient for the complexities involved in Pyramid construction humans could not have made such structures without any external/technologically advanced or superior help.

Scientific Speculation: The basic question is how did we learn to build anything? The answer lies in structures built by humans earlier than pyramids. When archaeologists dig around the area of the Great Pyramids of Giza and those built by the Mayans they see remnants of a rigorous trial and error method to build something like the Pyramids. The scientists claim these structures to be “the lousy attempts to build Pyramids”. The amazing but not so surprising fact is that these “lousy Pyramids” date back to a time hundreds of years before the “prefect Pyramids” were built. A rigorous trial and error method that spanned hundreds of years indicates a gradual progression in the development of the complexity of Pyramid building which in turn states that humans were rather self taught in the art of Pyramid building no matter which continent they belonged to. If the technology was just given to these people by some other civilization, then there should have been no signs of trial and a sudden appearance of perfect Pyramids, built from the knowledge conferred to humans by Atlantians, would have been observed.

Assumption#2: The Pyramids of Egypt and Central America look almost similar to each other. How did they know about each others designs?

Alantian Conclusion: There was someone who communicated same designs to these people and that was achieved through a higher level of communication which indicates a technologically advanced civilization (Atlantians).

Scientific Speculation: Look at the structure of Pyramids. They are all tetrahedrons. This is because it was the only structure that could have been built using only stones without any binding agent to make the walls stand. That is why all these structures taper at the top. People in those times had not figured out a binding agent except for mud which couldn’t have been strong enough to hold a structure like a straight wall. Also, scientists don’t seem to find any common denominator in the languages spoken by the peoples of these two continents which would have proved the existence of a common instructional-language that Atlantians would have used to teach humans about building Pyramids. A detailed discussion of language diversity requires a new blog entry.

The skepticism that scientists show towards Atlantis arises due the nature of science and its ways. Archeology, just like any other science, has very stringent ways to authenticate an observed pattern as a theory. In science, a phenomenon, although is the beginning of a theory, cannot be the basis of the generalization required to form a reliable theory. This is the biggest reason why structure of Pyramids cannot be used as an evidence of Atlantian existence since its pattern directs us more towards thousands of years of evoultion in contruction technology and not a sudden upsurge of any kind of new or astrounding technology. More on this…next time!

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.

New Shoes

So if you are a classical dancer I would assume that you know that to be able to do classical dancing you need to literally give your soul away to dancing. The irony lies in the fact that the time you pledge yourself to Classical dancing of any sort is the time when you actually begin to have a soul.

I can still feel the tension in the muscles of my neck & my legs when I think about my Kathak dancing days. Those were some beautiful days- when dancing was not a serious art but just an energy release; a daily practice; a thing that connected its pulchritude with it’s inner meaning with a rhythm too complicated for a 6 year old to learn/understand. But I danced…not because I understood the beat; or because I had any deep or philosophical thoughts related to it. I did it because I simply enjoyed it. I felt as if I would dissolving into motion in such a way that people will not be able to see my body… my arms or legs as separate entities…

My spine used to straighten itself in a subconscious gesture of getting ready; the mind would start syncing itself with a rhythm which was so well practiced that I didn’t bother to think where it’s coming from- my heart; the stamping of my feet or the tension of the thin sheet of stretched skin on the tabla. I had a feeling where I could not remember anything else because somehow the mind used to settle in and manage a rock solid focus on the notes. The outside world remained outside leaving just a fierce rush of energy gathered to be released.

That was then…Kathak…done barefooted. Now I have worn some new shoes and have changed- from intense stamping of feet to fragile movement on toes and heels- my style has changed from being earthy to dreamy. The motion has changed its face and I have started revolving, closing-in real tight, to move in circles- faster and faster till I become the focus myself as if… if I come to a stop it would be to release everything and fling it into the air- like sachets of colors tied to a wheel bursting when it comes to a screeching halt.

I have acquired a new soul…a new kind of motion…a new style of dancing- Jazz with a blend of Hip-Hop and I am loving it.

KaZam!!!

I don’t know if someone noticed or not but somewhere around 250 B.C. a man called Archimedes was born in the Greek city of Syracuse.

The same Archimedes who gave the world the fabulous principle of flotation-who devised several war machines that Greeks used during the Siege of Syracuse; proved several important formulae and was the first one to come up with an approximation of the value of pie…

The same Archimedes who lived alone; was/is laughed at for the myth that he ran out of bath-tub naked shouting “Eureka! Eureka!” and was called a crack-head…the same Archimedes…who once, while working on one of his unsolved problems, by the hands of an insignificant Roman soldier, died…alone…

A pot full of burnt coffee

Remorse is my muse. There are only few things that can make me write- loneliness; remorse & depression( mine or someone else’s) . Right now it’s remorse that’s generating these words that I just cannot prevent myself from writing. I have hurt someone terribly and I really don’t have any escape from it. I will have to live with it and there’s nothing that he or I can do about it. But even when I don’t feel like I deserve a whole lot at this point in life I do have a right to wade through some nostalgic moments between him & me…

October was going to come to an end and there was nothing unusual about it. Just that the weather had turned so beautiful; the leaves had started falling all over the place and all the side-walks and apartment complexes had acquired some fuzzy combination of greens; reds & yellows….

And it’s in this October, that one starry cold night, we had walked around my apartment complex- laughing; fighting; teasing & cracking jokes, when we realized that he had to leave for his flight back to Houston next morning. I didn’t want to think about it and that was the time when we started discussing about the library that I have always wanted to build in future. I was talking about my dream- the structure of the library; the activities; the library gazette; books etc. and he was talking about reality- investors; money; land; loans blah blah. That’s what we are when we come together- a hit at reality with a strong dash of dreams and both of us can get drunk on it until we fall in love with each other again. lol

Then there was that night at Austin when we had gone to a club and after a while, sitting on a small bench at 6th street, eating hot-dogs from a small street corner stall, had planned a classy bar/pub/restaurant of our own in India.

And then, a few days back, on his last trip to California, we both stood at the rim of the valley and could see the hustle bustle of the city- shimmering; silently hanging between the heaven & earth…we talked about its streets, it’s capacity to grow; give & take. He was telling me about his life 3 years ago – his life when he had had to get up at 6 in the freezing mornings of Chicago; attend school; clean floors & toilets; work at the lab and then finish homework till 3 a.m. He told me how on Saturdays he would race for money to pay his school fees and how he got over the period where he gave up a blindingly fast paced life to settle for a pace that would give him a solid future rather than some worthless fame in a small town. At that time I wish I could just get lost in his numerous stories and keep listening to them for ever.

I told him that he is the only man who has ever made me feel so alive- maybe because the times when I am completely myself are only those when I am around him. With him I am not scared to be who I am/was; I am not shy; my ideas are not crazy or impractical and I am this super confident girl who he loves so much that he would even swallow a real bitter gulp of my dishonesty and simply say:

“Things like these have been brilliant experiences for us to learn from and head stronger towards what we really want to be.”

I can’t believe that when I had first met him I had thought that he is nowhere close to what I had seen in my dreams and now as we are coming closer and closer to each other, I feel that by some miracle all of this exactly looks like my dream! I could call it my sixth sense…but this feels so much more powerful than that…something beyond a sixth sense…something more artistic; more omnipotent and something that’s definitely making the world tilt towards my side.

Loomings- II

Recently I realized that I am trying too hard to find patterns in life- whether they exist or not (this has something to do with some free IQ test on the internet that I took a while ago and the 4 line report had said that I am a genius when it comes to patterns. Such things are good for your moral boost-up but the downside of this is that now subconsciously I feel that it’s my moral responsibility to find patterns into anything… )

It so happened that a week or so ago I had come to believe that my car radio is gone crazy. I could not make it to work. I thought it was some moisture problem and the radio is screwed and I will probably have to get a new one or get this one fixed. Now things like these are expensive in United States (I am told so) and being a desi I am not supposed to indulge into such luxuries of going to a car mechanic or get it fixed professionally.

Then once when I was in one of those Newton moments of my life while driving to work I looked at my cruelly silent car radio and thought how weird it is that the radio’s display got messed up so bad but in some kind of a pattern-istically driven world it says COdE …which so easily could be read as code!! I smiled and figured that maybe it’s some kind of a sign of my genius or just something I am supposed to understand ( ) and I went on with my work…waiting for my salary to get deposited so that I can go and get it fixed. Once, while talking to Raunak I casually mentioned this divinity of patterns in life to which he responded with a 3 secs of pure silence and then bursted out laughing. I was just going to form an opinion about his ignorant laughter like people have made of all those people who stoned Jesus to death upon announcing the message of love for centuries when he told me that it INDEED meant CODE!! Then he told me that since I had jumped my card a few days ago a radio code & serial number have to punched in to get it back to life.

Can’t Paul Shaw(guy who sits in the neighboring cubicle) for once… just not eat an apple and relieve the entire world of those annoying chomping noises???!!!!!!!

…I waited for another week in sheer silence & laziness because now it was just as trivial as obtaining the code from the dealer and I could do that anytime. It’s a whole different topic of research as to why I never considered looking at the Anti-Theft radio ID card kept in my purse all the time in order to obtain the code but I won’t go deeper into that because if I do than I believe that I will add something to what I will call a pattern that has formed in my life which people usually pronounce as stu… oh well…all is well that ends well…