The planetarium problem

When was the last time you asked someone about their plan for a weekend and they replied that they would rather spend their time in an art or a science gallery than in a theatre or a shopping mall? Obviously, going to a science gallery and getting surrounded by students of internal combustion is not a wise option. But the old science strain in my blood still being persistent I decided to give it a try. I mean, how boring could it be?

The outcome of all those thoughts was me standing at entrance of ‘Birla Planetarium”. I saw a beard with side whiskers inside the counter and a man announced the entrance fee through it which was not much I thought for a scene of space documentary, a 3D movie and a gallery visit. My first shock was that they wouldn’t play the documentary as the theatre didn’t have ample number of bricks. When I entered the building I couldn’t find pictures that would tell me something about space and that kind of clever stuff. All I found was a toilet which could by no means qualify as one and a periodic table with most of the elements removed.

Not being wise enough to think of anything else I drank a thoughtful coke. Then I headed for the 3D movie wherein I encountered a herd of boisterous and immoral school kids accompanied by a despondent teacher who was probably the idea behind infesting the place with kids unfit for consumption. I got a seat amidst these insects and the 3D thing was played. I was loudly protesting that the quality of images wasn’t satisfactory when a dark girl who looked at me like a stray dog would have looked when you pinch its hard earned bone. Then the despondent lady strongly advocated the use of a paper they call 3D glasses in a cold manner. Another old man with even bigger whiskers than the ticket counter chap seemed to support the lady and tried to smile at her. She being still grave and cold he abandoned that project.

That being a 3D show I expected some stars and meteors to appear to fall on us. But all I saw there was a picture of some trees, a mountain and a lake. Then the screen was filled with ugliness when some insolent monsters started running towards us making a great deal of clamour. A bitter faced small girl tried to wrong everyone by reckoning that they were crocodiles but even in distance I found that they were dinosaurs. As the noise continued to increase and I didn’t quite like the idea of facing those colossal wastrels, I quietly left the hall leaving the ruined kids to their own devices.

It was a frustrated I that entered the museum and to my relief it was empty and it was empty for a good reason. The main hall was filled with portraits of two political birds and I don’t like both of them. One was an immoral language terrorist and the other was a bearded atheist. Both shared a common opinion that when a student is from a community that hasn’t done anything worthy he or she deserves a place in good institutes.

The science section of it was even more depressing. It was filled with toy aircrafts, some abandoned engines, and miniature models of some landmarks that were made out of some school project but it had very few things to look at. It was very evident that it was poorly funded. Perhaps the politicians of today who try to ingratiate themselves with the names of those two birds had eaten away all the funds that are given to construct state of the art theatres and working models and had spent fifty p. for that darned portrait collection and some steel scrap.

So, such places exist just for namesake and there is not much you can see or learn there. And what’s more they are all named after those birds that haven’t got the slightest grip on the subject of science. They are all maintained worse than public rest rooms. Still if you want to pay them thirty quid that would be sent to a man in white and spend two of the most reproachful hours of your life, you can. But for the love of god, don’t.

The local loonies have ruined my TV

Its time for another one of my out cries. I have quite often inserted the fact into my posts that I am not very fond of watching television. But I do spend some time with it. In the evenings if one wants to heal the bruised spirit and feel a bit bucked up, one has to sit down with a cigarette and why not. It was through the aromatic smoke of a meditative cigarette I was scanning the screen of the old TV. And immediately I was very peeved.

First of all let me bore you down with some of my childhood facts. I always used to enjoy these science channels especially when they show a lion devouring a poor antelope or a zebra. That is a sight to be enjoyed by everyone, not by the zebra of course. I personally blame the zebra. When all the eco-blighters talk about camouflage and stealth these gory zebras flaunt some black and white streaks which can readily be seen by a colour blind hog. I am afraid I have digressed from the motif a bit. What I mean to say is I was a nerdy bio-freak in my school days.

That animal lover strain still persists in my blood perhaps, because I still love watching these science channels. I have been deeply touched by the documentaries of Attenborough regarding evolution and life of myriad species in this bio-sphere. I love watching documentaries showing latest developments in technology whether it makes sense or it doesn’t. Apart from all the other reasons, these channels are an excellent source of English. I still believe no one can do an eco documentary better other than old Attenborough. These programs are much better than watching movies and news. Because the words you hear in News are too boring and all that you can learn from movies are “What the ****!”

Unfortunately though, everybody doesn’t think the same. Some reactionaries or bitter faced cultural terrorists I would like to put it have promptly reacted to the feelings of people who have followed the skein of thought which I did. Those language extremists fancied that those channels ought to be voiced in the regional languages. I bet none of those parochial dick heads have watched a single episode of ‘The Show Case’, ‘Predator and Prey’ or ‘Man Vs Wild’. And nor have the imbeciles who have made noises in local languages behind the screen thinking that it goes well with the video. I initially watched a cultural documentary and thought it was a program for the mentally disabled who don’t know anything in English other than “Like, eh, ah, …”, but then I found that every single show in The Discovery has been successfully spoofed.

Then I changed to ‘The Animal planet’ unable to withstand the pain of watching ‘The Future Weapons’ in Tamil and to my relief I found a documentary being played about a sea cow that looked like a cross between a hippo and a whale. It was calmly grazing being very kind to other fellows and I felt like having one as a pet. But it seems they are not at large.

It won’t take much time for the ribald group to spoil that channel too. Its easy to understand what they are on about. They want the knowledge to reach everyone. But for a fellow who doesn’t have the basic understanding of science what difference is it going to make? They will simply think that they are showing a fishing program. We do not have any scientific words in our language. If it is about Kamasutra, yes we do. Anyway we are being governed by such narrow minded hippies who can’t accept the weakness in our language. And I do not hesitate to mention again that they are a type of terrorists.

While the infection spreads there is remotely good news as well. I was reading the other day a report on humorous things that one can watch and the list was disappointingly bad. All we have are serials where a hero might poke a girl’s bottom and you hear some inane worms laughing in the background, shows where a man throws a banana skin on other’s path, cartoons where a dog shoots the enemy with a gun and other types of non-sense. Now the only channels that make me laugh loudly are science related ones.

Indiscriminate Intelligence

I am not a sort of chap known among my pals for my swift thinking. And the only reason why I didn’t publish anything in this rotten old page of mine is that I couldn’t simply just write any. Suddenly a thought came when I was given a topic in an analytical writing examination which sounded something on the lines of “The Government should impose regulation of sorts to the excessive growth of technology and so forth.” that I must publish the outcomes of my efforts here in this blog. For some extraordinary reason though, I have settled on “Many Scientists in our time spend too much time with trifling projects and we hence are in need of more radical thinkers”, because I find this more germane in today’s milieu.

A very sound and popular argument that supports the above claim is that the specialists tend to have narrow foci and they fail to see the big picture mentioned god knows what that is. For me they miserably fail to see the world as it is. I was just grazing the inter-web to know what are those men in white suits and yellow goggles are upto. Sure the technical world is inundated with latest projects. But having scrutinized the crux of some of them I report with pain that those industrious fellows have gone fantastically mad.

A bloke for instance has been carrying out a study to find out why a member of a particular species of sorts hates his young son. It has been reported about the young ones that they are fleshy covered with hairs all over the body and they are suckled by multiple mothers. A sensitive parent will naturally loathe a fat, hairy, poisonous, immoral kid who goes about displaying such erotic scenes with the lady next door. So the whole study is ludicrous.

I lost count how many projects are now being done towards environmental protection. I have a point to make about global warming. Humans have already survived in ICE AGE and we are living in a warmer world now and we may most probably manage if world becomes much warmer in another fifty nine million four hundred and thirty thousand and five hundred and sixty four years and that is what was described by a nerdish chap called what-was-his-name in his Theory of Evolution. After all that is nature. We can’t prevent the happening if it ought to happen. Without comprehending that the scientists exaggerate the outcomes and tell us that we will be boiled in another three weeks and the Tasmanian rare fruit bat won’t be able to have sex. Because of those restless souls there are countless researches going on. Counting the number of shells of a not so particularly useful sea mollusc that were set aside by waves was a good one.

When are we going to land on another planet, I mean outside this solar system to meet our cousins there? Where is the next Veyron, for Pete’s sake? These were not the products of scientists. Things happen when people look at the world or for that matter the whole universe as it is or as it looks from outside. Things happen only when someone thinks, okay we are here and what kind of loonies live in the other world and how the deuce we get there? Veyron was a brilliant science exercise. But the genesis for that is a chap who wanted to rescue the company and make a car that takes all the laws of physics and tears it into pieces.