Our cradle rocks above an Abyss !!!

Today I realized the very futility of my existence. 

It is a holiday today, 24th of February, 2013. I just now took a bath and went out to the park for a stroll under the sun. Right now the sun and its warmth is so soothing; in a couple of months the same sun would be hell bent on frying us up. But till then it is so soothing. It is then that I realized something.

I realized the very existence that I have is nothing more than a blip in the universal time frame. I am but a worthless creation in the universe and I have so much of ego in me. I looked around to see if I was correct. If the feeling that I was having was correct. I realized yes it is indeed correct.

Just Imagine !!!!!

• The universe, at least the observable universe is 15 billion light years across which makes it something like 3500 billion cubic light years in volume (and it is expanding every moment) and that 1 light year is like 10 trillion kilometers. Now the number that finally comes out is just humongous.
• In the aforementioned universe there are at least a 100 billion galaxies one among which is MILKY WAY, our home galaxy.
• In Milky way, like most other galaxies, there are close to a 1000 billion stars out of which there is a small star called SUN.
• In SUN's family there are 8 + (many) planets, hundreds of satellites (moons) and thousands of other rocky stuff out of which a very average sized planet is EARTH.
• On this earth lives 7.5 billion earthlings and hundreds of millions of other birds, animals and other known and unknown creatures out of which one human being is me, Shubham Chakraborty.
• And I am standing on a CRUST of thickness 32 kilo metres which is separating me from thousands of degrees of boiling hot lava below my feet. 
• You might say 32 kilo metres !!! Whoa ..... but hold on the lava we are standing on is 2400 kilo metres and below it is another 3200 kilo metres of hot core. So dear we are at the mercy of this thin crust which is floating on the lava..
• And when I looked up into the sky I realised that only 15 kilo metres of any worthwhile atmosphere is separating me from a certain death of vacuum. 
• And guess what, me and people like me have some really bloated ego !!!

We human beings don't take enough time to think about the very futility of our existence. That when we are here we are to hold hands in hands and do something that is for the benefit of all. Universality and not Humanity is what is the need of the hour.

Friends, fighting ego is the most difficult thing because ego will not let you realize, let alone accept, that you have an ego. So when you feel you are something GREAT keep the aforementioned points in your head and your feet will remain firmly grounded.

As Vladimir Nabokov  put it, 

"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.". 

What is in a SURNAME???? Quite a bit .....

We all are living in a male dominated society. A society which for arbitrary reasons thinks that males are superior to females and females should be treated, more or less, like slaves. In this society it is important to give birth to a boy than a girl as the boy is responsible to take forward the clan, "vansh". And combined with other evils like dowry and the age old fact that girl, after marriage, will go to the husband's house, makes girls a very expensive "commodity" of a household. This is another reason why female foeticide and infanticide is so high in our society.

I have been, like many of my like minded people, appalled at this entire turn of events. I thought that my parents are not of that mentality, but alas!!! i am so  very wrong.

The other day I had a heated argument with my mom regarding the inclusion of surnames in names. Mom said that it is important that we should have a boy child rather than a girl because my father's clan has to be taken forward. I was amazed at that stuff and I was forced to ask whether she thought that we are a species of dinosaurs on the verge of extinction and we need to preserve our clan!!!!

I finally figured out the root cause of all these problems. SURNAME.

After marriage girls are supposed to change their surnames and adopt the boy's. This way her identity is being lost. And boy's clan will move forward.

A  boy in the family is must to take forward the surname, clan. It doesn't matter whether scientifically we are taking forward our clan with the help of our GENES or not. SURNAMEs it is seems are more important than GENES.!!!


Surnames also indicates whether I am a brahmin or a dalit. A SHUBHAM is not indicative of my caste but SHUBHAM CHAKRABORTY or SHUBHAM CHAKLADAR spills the beans.

And finally,  as someone pointed out, even a female dominated society is not good enough as the problems will persist in an entirely new avatar.

So the need of hour is not to have either a male dominated or a female dominated society; rather a balanced society.

And I strongly believe giving up of surnames and going just by the First name would be much beneficial.

Imagine a society which just have names for people and no surnames. The following things will be remedied.

1. Caste based discrimination would be on the edge as NAMES alone will not tell you about the caste.

2. The problem of taking forward of clan will get abolished automatically. No SURNAMES and hence, none to be carry forward either.

3. Females will no longer have to worry about a surname. They will be free to marry anyone of their will specially in the absence of the direct know how of a person's caste related background in the absence of a SURNAME.

4. Female foeticide and infanticide will definitely come down as the need to take forward the SURNAME based clan system will no longer be there. It will be purely scientific and GENE based clan system in which both males and females will have equal share.

But the problem is how to do it.

Government will not do it. The reason is simple. Politicians are narrow minded, have regressive thoughts and depend on vote bank politics.

They are corrupt and what not and expecting them to establish something scientific and logical is beyond question.

We ourselves will have to do it. It should be started off as a fashion and we may not be able to achieve our goals in one generation, but we will be able to do it over a period of time.

Guys of my generation and all those who concur with me kindly take note of this and do the need full. There are guys of my generation group as well s others who will not concur with me and they will show the world that they are still inherently patriarchal in nature. Some are highly qualified and are working at big places and yet have a narrow social view point. I can excuse them. For they know not what they are doing.

But for the rest of you, kindly do something.

My poor Canvas 2

As I told you all in my last post that I am obsessed with my mobile ..... Now I have installed Debian OS side by side Android ICS on my Canvas 2..... and I am excited.

Frankly the new Debian OS is not working smoothly ... but then Canvas 2 has its own limitations.... I am wondering how would Galaxy Note 2 behave ..... I wish I had one and I would have experimented with it .....

Anyways here are the pics.....

And here is the video link.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIdRMmlgtZo&feature=youtu.be

Stay tuned for more guys ....

My obsession .....

Yes I  am obsessed..... badly at that ..... I am ready to kill and be killed ..... I have lost the sleep at nights .... my day time restlessness has increased manifold ...... and ya I have no hesitation in accepting that I am obsessed ..... and the good part is that my wife knows about my obsession and she is also obsessed about my obsession and is getting obsessed to get me rid of my obsession but I am not sure whose obsession is more powerful- her's or mine!!!!

 Anyways the reason or rather the object of my obsession is my recently acquired Canvas 2.... It is an Android Device running on Ice-Cream Sandwich .....

Generally people install GAMES and songs in the mobiles.... or sometimes they end up using it for office purpose ..... but I am using it for a different purpose .....

The following is what I have done till now.....

1. Sourcelair --- This is a C/C++ compiler for android phones .... trust me it works well...

2. Terminal IDE -- Helps me play with the Linux kerner inside the Android OS...

3. DroidEDit --- Helps me type my source codes for Python as well as LaTeX .....

4. TeX Portal -- My LaTeX Compiler ....

5. Py4Android --- My Python Interpreter .

6. Android SDK Manager ---- To tinker with the APK files.

and many more are in offing ....

I have been on an investigation spree ..... I hope I don't end up turning my Android Smartphone into an EXPENSIVE PAPER WEIGHT.

Some recent events

It has been quite some time, as per my standards, that I have written anything. So it was pretty imperative that I write anything, something. So how about some recent events of my life.

December 2012 ended with my Low Power AC getting great reviews from judges at National Science Congress. Though we couldn't make it to the final 25 but we will get another shot at it this year.

And then came January and Odyssey of Mind. Lots of struggle. Many of my team members changed. One did not turn up on the final day. But all the three vehicles and the different propulsion systems worked and we came 2nd. And viola we are selected to go to the World Finals in USA this summer.

My decision to leave the corporate life and enter teaching as my career is paying me back. Money is not much in this line but ample creative and intellectual satisfaction. This is something I have craved for a long time and many many thanks to Veena Mishra ma'am, Balachandran Ma'am, and our Chair Person ma'am for providing me with the opportunities to do all the crazy stuff that I am doing.

I hope to do more and more such things.