Mashed Musings

Have you ever come across a situation when you want to laugh out loud but somehow have to hold yourself back because you know that if you start laughing

• You will fall off the chair.
• Collect the whole staff in the office.
• Your cachinnation might crack the glass door.
• You might choke yourself while tears run down your eyes.

So, you sit there like a lost pup trying to make sense of the rapid sentences falling on your ears. You try to arrange the words to understand the hidden meaning but by the time you grasp it, another convulsive sentence hit your eardrums. Something of this nature happened with yours truly and two of my friends when we decided to meet an agent to buy some Mutual Funds. We hopped into his office at around 7 pm and as soon as he opened his mouth, another of his colleague entered the discussion room and thus ensured the roller coaster ride. No malicious intentions, but you have to read some of his Quotable Quotes. He was fun to be with and was quite intelligent which stems from the fact that he started his introduction by saying the following line - “My colleague here is very intelligent, but, actually what I want to say is….” Throughout the next 2.5 hours, I wished for a Taser to materialize from somewhere, so that I could stun him every time he went off-topic.

So, here are some of the Quotes which describe the exact reason to buy Mutual Funds. There are no intentional mistakes. The lines are straight from the horse’s mouth :

• “You will die in five years. You will rash driving, drink and driving. You will die. Mutual Funds is not only ok. Your family need insurance too.” [We gave a collective gasp at the first sentence.]
• “I did research. You know how much a Tea stall wala earns? 5-15 lakh earning. He is wearing dirty clothes and pee-pull[people] with suits come to him and think that he is poor.” [Tea stall wala and Mutual Funds? The purpose of the quote was completely lost, but we still smiled and nodded our heads.]
• “Boys come to me for discussions but then they go and spend 20,000 on 4 girls. Girls are always selling boys. But girls are Pakka. They save money.” [girls selling boys???]
• “I don’t deal with girls. Girls always asking fathers. Fathers sitting in remote villages. They tell girls - take LIC, why do spend in Funds. Fathers don’t know anything but girls always believe them.” [ I just wanted to shake him and scream - CAN WE GET TO THE POINT???]
• Pee-pull[people] spend so much money. Globes[Globus], Lui Philip[Louis Phillip], MutthuBishi Lancer[Mitsubishi lancer], big house. They want everything. I buy refrigerator last month. I did one swoosh[he meant that he swiped his credit card] and there was fridge. [By now I was biting my tongue so that I don't laugh the next time he says pee-pull]
• Marriage very expensive. My one friend wanted to go to KuluManli for Honeymoon. His wife said we go to Mauritius. He said I have no money. His wife said, You beggar, I will give money. We go to Mauritius. [This one completely got me. I gave him such a shocked expression that he took it to be a genuine concern for his friend.]
• After marrige, your haircut cost 25 Rs, your wife haircut cost 500 Rs, your child playschool cost 50,000 Rs. You have no money. You ask fathers. He give money to grandchildren. Why will he give money to you? [ I was holding an imaginary knife and stabbing myself ]
• Life expectancy very less. I worked in Java, I got everything on table. Food on table, water on table. I was very handsome. Not handsome, but smart. But now look at me. I am having this belly with a child in it. [Thankfully my phone rang and I ran out of the room. I just couldn't hold it any longer.]
• A few days ago one of my friend go to Pondicherry to see movie. We don’t have halls in Chennai? He went for 2 days and spent 7000 Rs for the entertainment of the purpose(!!!!). Pee-pull[people] don’t save but they only do “swoosh”. [Now after discussing his personal life, he was pounding on his friend's]
• Unprofessional I dont work. The three of you can get me murdered. You pee-pull have already wasted 21 years in education. It is your money. [ ]

We waited with bated breath for another pearl of wisdom to drop out of his mouth. But he thankfully stopped. It was 9.30 pm now and we were damn hungry. We quickly signed all the necessary papers and burst out of the building taking deep breaths. As soon as we landed into the autorikshaw, we guffawed our hearts out, stunning the driver in the process. He must have thought that we were drunk. He turned once to check if everything was all right.

The Idiosyncracies of pee-pull. Huh!!!

Warning : This post is not for the weak hearted. You might experience nausea or temporary coma/shock after watching the disturbing images. Please keep a glass of water with you before reading further.

What you are viewing are the glorious images from the top Indian News channels. For those of you who are not very much conversant with Hindi, the translations are just below the images.

From top to bottom : Commissioner Sahib’s dog found, Where is Sanif ? ( This is hopefully the dog’s name), The dog was kidnapped(??!!!) on 5 November 2007, Delhi Commissioner’s dog found (This line is just below Breaking News)

From top to bottom : Commissioner’s dog, The Dog went missing on 25 March (Errrr….wasn’t it 5 November earlier???)

From top to bottom : Queen cat on rooftop ( Well…its not a “queen” cat actually, but in India we have a habit of calling cats/girls/brides that way. ), the drama(of the cat, that is) lasted for 6.5 hours.

The last line is some “irrelevant” news on Amitabh and Thakery, neither of whom is related to the queen cat in any way.

From top to bottom : The cat jumped down finally on its own ( What were they expecting? That she will develope wings and fly away??? ), Cat stuck on rooftop (the “queen” part has vanished by now).

The last line is again some gibberish nonsense news which I am quite sure is not about the cat.

The first reaction on watching the images is a loud laugh but then if we think seriously, what are we looking at? Aren’t we somehow responsible of this Grendel? Or are the news channels taking the masses too lightly and trying their patience? Aaj Tak has been awarded the Indian Television Academy’s Best Hindi News Channel six times in a row and has a viewership exceeding 45 million and is closely followed by Star News in terms of viewership, but this does not stop them from being pedestrian. Does it?

Indulging in infotainment is understandable (but not justifiable) where the focus is on marketing and TRPs instead of journalism, but this kind of “breaking news” does not even come in this category. Do the news channels run out of relevant news (which is a hard feat to achieve, specially in India)? Or do they think that the Indian masses are so downright dumb that they will lap up anything served to them? Or is the “Indian mentality” of spicing up everything for its own vicarious thrills taking its toll?

According to a poll conducted by BBC/Reuters/Media Center, Media is more trusted than Governments. In India, 82% of the people who took part in the poll trusted media more than the Government. The most important news source for Indians are the News channels(mentioned by 37%), followed by newspapers. When asked about the most trusted News channel, Aaj Tak won hands on. And then what are we served? Breaking news about lost dogs and terrified cats?

Does these news channels realise the kind of responsibilities they are supposed to handle and the unabashed mockery they make of it?

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The concept of Parallel universes is not very old and the initial hints can be dated back to 1957 when Hugh Everett gave the “Many worlds interpretation” of the quantum mechanics. Ironically, even after being a Physics student for almost half a decade, I came across this concept while watching an episode of GhostBusters on Cartoon Network. In the said episode, it so happens that the parallel dimensions overlap suddenly and people are able to move from one world into another. The Ghostbusters come across a set of people from the other dimension and befriend them and so on and so forth. I was so amazed by the concept that it remained with me for long.

Also, its surprising to know that the idea was initially proposed in the 1941 short story titled “El Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan(The garden of forking paths)” written by Jorge Luis Borges more than a decade before the actual theory came into picture.  

The idea actually caught fire with the Superstring theory, which focused towards explaining all the fundamental forces of Physics by considering them as the vibrations of a tiny super-symmetric string. Suddenly a four dimensional world in which we live was not enough and scientists started talking about 10,11,20,100 and then n dimensions.

The theory also lead to a better understanding of the Big Bang Theory, which has been a topic of debate since its inception. If we consider the M-Theory(which is nothing but a super-set of the Super-string theory), then the universe consists of 11 dimensions out of which we are aware of only 4 as the rest of them are very tightly wrapped and thus are not accessible to us. So, basically our universe is just another bubble amongst the many bubbles occurring simultaneously in the eleventh dimension. And when two such bubbles collide with each other, then a Big Bang occurs which gives birth to another universe. So in a way, the Big Bang was not actually the “beginning of everything” but just happened along the way.

Scientists like Lisa Randall have further fuelled the parallel dimension theory by proposing that Gravity is a very weak force as compared to electromagnetism simply because it is concentrated in another dimension and just seeps into our dimension. You can read further about this here.

All this talk has been a topic of fascination and fiction for decades but Physicists have now started taking it seriously as it simplifies a lot of theories. On the other hand, ever since the concept took wings, there has been numerous fiction stories and movies based on this concept like Alice in Wonderland, The wizard of Oz, Spirited away, Gulliver’s travels, Chronicles of Narnia, The Hitchhikers’s guide to the galaxy to name a few.

On a personal note, I myself have been completely smitten by the idea and ended up writing a short story titled “The loop” based on this concept. You can read the story here.

Well, come to think of it, doesn’t this theory also answers the questions of the appearance of Aliens and UFO, Ghosts, werewolves, Witches, Yeti, Demons and so many other phenomenons which are beyond our understandings. Maybe they all exist in some other dimension and pay us a visit at times. What’s wrong in imagining??

Its a known fact that the speed of light is not fast enough to travel across stars or galaxies. A round trip to Mars would take more than a year of travelling at the current speed of our spacecrafts, or less if this new rocket technology is implemented. Then how would we explain so many UFO sightings? If Alien crafts travel at the speed of light(technically you can’t travel faster than that), then it would take them ages to reach our planet. There has to be some other mechanism. This is where the theory of parallel dimensions start making sense and this also gave rise to the theory predicting the presence of wormholes or wrap drives which is an equally interesting theory. But more on it later.

In the meantime, enjoy the following video titled - Imagining the Tenth Dimension

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Life is full of coincidences; some very minor, but occasionally - extraordinary. This is a list of 15 of the most incredible, unbelievable coincidences. Although I must admit that there has been no earth shattering coincidences in my life but I do believe that everything happens for a reason. What seems to be completely why-the-hell-did-this-happened, turns out to be thank-god-it-happened after a period of time. Ok, I do remember one coincidence. I was born on Labour’s day. I have been called a Labourer ever since I remember although I don’t faintly resemble one. Applying a break to the Blah Blah, here is the list which I found in my mailbox one fine day.

15. Childhood Book

While American novelist Anne Parrish was browsing bookstores in Paris in the 1920s, she came upon a book that was one of her childhood favorites - Jack Frost and Other Stories. She picked up the old book and showed it to her husband, telling him of the book she fondly remembered as a child. Her husband took the book, opened it, and on the flyleaf found the inscription: “Anne Parrish, 209 N. Weber Street, Colorado Springs.” It was Anne’s very own book.

14. Poker Luck

In 1858, Robert Fallon was shot dead, an act of vengeance by those with whom he was playing poker. Fallon, they claimed, had won the $600 pot through cheating. With Fallon’s seat empty and none of the other players willing to take the now unlucky $600, they found a new player to take Fallon’s place and staked him with the dead man’s $600. By the time the police had arrived to investigate the killing, the new player had turned the $600 into $2,200 in winnings. The police demanded the original $600 to pass on to Fallon’s next of kin - only to discover that the new player turned out to be Fallon’s son, who had not seen his father in seven years!

13. Twin Deaths

In 2002, Seventy-year- old twin brothers died within hours of one another after separate accidents on the same road in northern Finland. The first of the twins died when he was hit by a lorry while riding his bike in Raahe, 600 kilometres north of the capital, Helsinki. He died just 1.5km from the spot where his brother was killed. “This is simply a historic coincidence. Although the road is a busy one, accidents don’t occur every day,” police officer Marja-Leena Huhtala told Reuters. “It made my hair stand on end when I heard the two were brothers, and identical twins at that. It came to mind that perhaps someone from upstairs had a say in this,” she said.

12. Poe Coincidence

In the 19th century, the famous horror writer, Egdar Allan Poe, wrote a book called ‘The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym’. It was about four survivors of a shipwreck who were in an open boat for many days before they decided to kill and eat the cabin boy whose name was Richard Parker. Some years later, in 1884, the yawl, Mignonette, foundered, with only four survivors, who were in an open boat for many days. Eventually the three senior members of the crew killed and ate the cabin boy. The name of the cabin boy was Richard Parker.

11. Royal Coincidence

In Monza, Italy, King Umberto I, went to a small restaurant for dinner, accompanied by his aide-de-camp, General Emilio Ponzia- Vaglia. When the owner took King Umberto’s order, the King noticed that he and the restaurant owner were virtual doubles, in face and in build. Both men began discussing the striking resemblance between each other and found many more similarities.

1. Both men were born on the same day, of the same year, (March 14th, 1844).
2. Both men had been born in the same town.
3. Both men married a woman with same name, Margherita.
4. The restaurateur opened his restaurant on the same day that King Umberto was crowned King of Italy.
5. On the 29th July 1900, King Umberto was informed that the restaurateur had died that day in a mysterious shooting accident, and as he expressed his regret, an anarchist in the crowd then assassinated him.

10. Falling Baby

In 1930s Detroit, a man named Joseph Figlock was to become an amazing figure in a young (and, apparently, incredibly careless) mother’s life. As Figlock was walking down the street, the mother’s baby fell from a high window onto Figlock. The baby’s fall was broken and Figlock and the baby were unharmed. A year later, the selfsame baby fell from the selfsame window, again falling onto Mr. Figlock as he was passing beneath. Once again, both of them survived the event.

9. Mystery Monk

In 19th century Austria, a near-famous painter named Joseph Aigner attempted suicide on several occasions. During his first attempt to hang himself at the age of 18, a mysterious Capuchin monk interrupted Aigner. And again at age 22, the very same monk prevented him from hanging himself. Eight years later, he was sentenced to the gallows for his political activities. But again, his life was saved by the intervention of the same monk. At age 68, Joseph Aigner finally succeeded in suicide, using a pistol to shoot himself. Not surprisingly, the very same Capuchin monk - a man whose name Aigner never even knew, conducted his funeral ceremony.

8. Photographic Coincidence

A German mother who photographed her infant son in 1914 left the film to be developed at a store in Strasbourg. In those days some film plates were sold individually. World War I broke out and unable to return to Strasbourg, the woman gave up the picture for lost. Two years later she bought a film plate in Frankfurt, over 100 miles away, to take a picture of her newborn daughter. When developed the film turned out to be a double exposure, with the picture of her daughter superimposed on the earlier picture of her son. Through some incredible twist of fate, her original film, never developed, had been mislabeled as unused, and had eventually been resold to her.

7. Book Find

In 1973, actor Anthony Hopkins agreed to appear in “The Girl From Petrovka”, based on a novel by George Feifer. Unable to find a copy of the book anywhere in London, Hopkins was surprised to discover one lying on a bench in a train station. It turned out to be George Feifer’s own annotated (personal) copy, which Feifer had lent to a friend, and which had been stolen from his friend’s car.

6. Twins

The twin brothers, Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, were separated at birth, adopted by different families. Unknown to each other, both families named the boys James. Both James grew up not knowing of the other, yet both sought law-enforcement training both had abilities in mechanical drawing and carpentry, and each had married women named Linda. Both had sons, one of who was named James Alan and the other named James Allan. The twin brothers also divorced their wives and married other women - both named Betty. And they both owned dogs which they named Toy.

5. Revenge Killing

In 1883, Henry Ziegland broke off a relationship with his girlfriend who, out of distress, committed suicide. The girl’s enraged brother hunted down Ziegland and shot him. Believing he had killed Ziegland, the brother then took his own life. In fact, however, Ziegland had not been killed. The bullet had only grazed his face, lodging into a tree. It was a narrow escape. Years later, Ziegland decided to cut down the same tree, which still had the bullet in it. The huge tree seemed so formidable that he decided to blow it up with dynamite. The explosion propelled the bullet into Ziegland’s head, killing him.

4. Golden Scarab

From The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche: “A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the windowpane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to the golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata) which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since, and that the dream of the patient has remained unique in my experience.” - Carl Jung

3. Taxi

In 1975, while riding a moped in Bermuda, a man was accidentally struck and killed by a taxi. One year later, this man’s brother was killed in the very same way. In fact, he was riding the very same moped. And to stretch the odds even further, the very same taxi driven by the same driver - and even carrying the very same passenger struck him!

2. Hotel Discovery

In 1953, television reporter Irv Kupcinet was in London to cover the coronation of Ellizabeth II. In one of the drawers in his room at the Savoy he found some items that, by their identification, belonged to a man named Harry Hannin. Coincidentally, Harry Hannin - a basketball star with the famed Harlem Globetrotters - was a good friend of Kupcinet’s. But the story has yet another twist. Just two days later, and before he could tell Hannin of his lucky discovery, Kupcinet received a letter from Hannin. In the letter, Hannin told Kucinet that while staying at the Hotel Meurice in Paris, he found in a drawer a tie - with Kupcinet’s name on it.

1. Historical Coincidence

The lives of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two of America’s founders. Jefferson crafted the Declaration of Independence, showing drafts of it to Adams, who (with Benjamin Franklin) helped to edit and hone it. The Continental Congress approved the document on July 4, 1776. Surprisingly, both Jefferson and Adams died on the same day, July 4, 1826 - exactly 50 years from the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Has there been a coincidence in your life which gives you a terrible gooseflesh whenever you think about it?

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