From the Plop to all that Pondering

Every kid curses him for noticing the apple fall – thanks to him we have to go through the ordeal of learning all the Mechanical Physics there is around us. He has been praised, honoured, paid homage to and ridiculed. But he was a mere mortal at the end of the day. Seriously, had no one noticed anything else FALL before???? I mean, seriously! The moral of the story here is not gravity – it is something else. So Isaac Uncle was lolling around under the shade of the apple tree on a fairly pleasant day I am assuming. He was clearly doing nothing at all, except perhaps, taking one of his innumerable naps, dozing in and out of his daydreams – probably pining over the neighbourhood damsel. Had the apple fallen next to him, he would’ve just eaten it up. But no, the fateful apple decided to plonk itself on our Genius’s curly haired head. The apple bothered our man, hence he paused and pondered and brooded and fretted over that poor apple. He had to blame someone for this misfortune – and enter – Gravity. Which brings us to the question – why do things ‘get’ to us? Why do people fight for a cause? Is it just an itch? Why do they go all the way to find out about something? Is it mere curiosity? I don’t think so. It’s only when YOU are affected, do you want to move out of your comfort zone and bring things back to normalcy – relative normalcy at that. On the other hand, I feel it’s okay to be this self involved. If we go by the butterfly effect, what affects you is probably affecting the solitary glow worm that has been boycotted by the other glow worms for glowing a little too brightly in the quaint tropical forests of Balukpong. So at the end of the day, whatever you do is probably good for people around too. As long as you keep that in check, you’re good to go :D Unlike Newton, who, to satiate his urge to ‘find out’ screwed up tons of millions of happy teenage lives to follow!

Of Mice and Dolphins

So I am reading Douglas Adams.. yet again.. I can't seem to get enough of the bizarre, intelligent, witty world of his that doesn't quite fit into any genre at all - science fiction? humour? fantasy? not really - everything is very real and very improbable. But it's consuming nonetheless.

You love to see Arthur Dent in his innate misery - the quintessential common man- not so lucky with the ladies, not so lucky with anything for that matter. Zaphod Beeblebrox is irritatingly hard to resist - clueless, vain and patronising - yet very essential.

As you read the book you are only wondering how Adams conjured all that up. One quality that stands out in his style of writing is that the reason you can't keep the book down is because there's a bombardment of pictures in your head as you read. Adams will be talking about something as abstract as the enormity of the Universe projected in a vortex and come up with a piece of fairy cake. So the reader is looking at a fairy cake and something tells him that he is able to grasp the concept since he can visualise the idea - even though it is just the hungry thought of a stupid fairy cake.

Douglas Adams has been quoted to the point of belonging to a list of hackneyed phrases. And I'm sure you've quoted him without even knowing it.

To all who've read Adams you already know what I mean. To those who haven't, you're missing something!