Friday, September 5, 2008

Wrecked by Science

Since I have been down with cold and sleeplessness due to overflow of dreams, I have not had strength to take to pen or do much serious work. Theory of scattering of light by a system of multitude of arbitrarily shaped particles at arbitrary positions and moving at arbitrary velocities is a particularly taxing work to study and requires clean nose and a head clear of the spilt dreams. So I now spend much of my time (this does not include the mysterious amount of time I spend at the "Office") cuddled up in my bed under the dim yellow light produced from the excitation and de-excitation of x times y times N molecules in the almost transparent tube; x being the mass of the gas inside the tube, y being the inverse of the molar weight of the gas and N, of course, being the Avogadro's number. Poor fellow could never rest in peace, his name being called every time somebody calculates the number of molecules somewhere. Cuddled up in bed, under the blanket that helps me be isolated from the surroundings, holding up a hankie under my nose, clutching the book in my other hand, I spend some quality time with myself wandering beside Richard Mayhew in the London Below.
Did you ask who is Richard Mayhew?
I say 'Shame on you'!
Suffice it to say that when I step out of the blanket, he is just a character in "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman.
Am I delirious?
Oh well! Its possible but improbable.
What am I blabbering?
May be I should give a introduction to what I am going to write. But the piece is going to be so short, it might not be worth an introduction. Does not matter; for your sake, I shall. This is a story of how Science wrecked my life. There you go!

Not a wreckage that I can not recover from. Its like one of those annoying holes in the umbrella the moth makes, you never knew of until you took the umbrella out in the rain. Its one of those things that has made my forehead flat! Every time Richard Mayhew talks to the mysterious girl named Door, Neil Gaiman, probably out of fascination, gives the description of the girl: 'pale elfin faced, with opal coloured eyes'. So every time I look into Door's eyes, I see eye balls that glitter orange and red and green and blue and keep shifting colours for as long as you look. Beware! It can drive you crazy. Every time I see those shifting colours, I inevitably slap my forehead. Opals in optics can be red in colour. They can be orange or green or pink or blue. It depends on the periodicity of the constituent material and is tunable! But opals in arts and literature has always been blue. The blue that the natural opal is often found in. I had known this as a child. I had known it until I took up to study opals the last seven months of my academic life. But thanks to Science, I now always see multi-coloured pupils in Door's eyes, which is not really a charming site, believe me! And then I remember that I am reading a novel and not a science theory. This is often accompanied by slamming my forehead. Which in turn has only aggravated my illness. Then I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Then I open them into Door's beautiful blue eyes.

Apart from the pain from slapping my forehead, there is this bad feeling of being slowed down and a feeling of guilty that science is preventing me from giving the book the appreciation it deserves.

Thats the story of how science wrecked my life! But its not fatal. And all is well that ends well. I just wanted to pin this up in the blog.

The "Neverwhere" by the way, is a really awesome book. I have not finished it, but I will soon. And oh! Neil Gaiman's new book, "The Graveyard Book" is set to be released and is expected in the stands by October. I had read a chapter "The Witch's HeadStone" from the book and take my word, its going to be the "cool, spine-chilling, heart-warming, chocolaty" book. I don't know how else to describe the book. I have never been crazier about a book. So watch out for it, all ye fantasy lovers.

nja na
Jade

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