The Noble Gases

    --This post is totally dedicated to my two dearest friends Neha n Archana(Arch) who really made my life at FIITJEE simply beautiful !--

(That's Archana on the left,me in the middle, n neha to the right :))

        In a parrot-green Salwar with black chunni and pyjamas, I hurried up the white-tiled stairs, to reach the third floor just in time.

"What is your name?",the guard asked.

"Ravali",I said and started searching my name in the long list.

"Here it is",I pointed.

"Okay, you are in B01. Go straight and take a right turn. Your classroom is the last one there",he said in a hurry.

"Thanks",I paced up the corridor.

        Parrot green and light blue walls, tiled flooring, POP walls, glass doors , AC s was a complete change after the wooden benches of school. I found the classroom and was a bit nervous to open the door . Gotto to open this door for another two years, I told myself and walked in. The classroom was half-full and apparently there was no faculty member inside. I looked around where to sit, and finally found a seat in the second bench empty. Two seats in a bench. I went and sat there, beside a long n sharp-nosed, cute girl, who dint turn to look at me. Wierd. I took a deep breath and thought about strinking a conversation.

"Hi! Whats your name?", I asked her.

She suddenly turned towards me , as though just came out of a trance. "Oh..uhh..Archana",she said with a half smile.

"What's your name?",she asked.

"I m Ravali ", I said with a full smile :P

Strange girl I thought, but I never knew that, for the next two years I never sat beside anyone other than Archana.


        That was my first day at FIITJEE. I can't possibly forget that intro-conversation wid Archana (alias initially was Archie..then Arch finally somehow ended up as Arc -Tribute to my laziness :P) as we have always laughed and talked about how surprised she was at the way I asked her name . Anyways, that's how it all started off. My JEE prep and my so-called college life.

        (In this post I prefer not to write any acedemic stuff , as that will be dedicated to another post :))

The first class on the first day was Physics. My favourite subject. I liked the class setting, the lecturer , the green-board :P, the Saraswati picture on the wall, it all seemed so different n yet fascinating to me. Our faculty was Mr. Diwaker Jassal (Alias Con-hider !Coz He pronounces consider as 'conhider') Then we moved on to Mathematics, my next favourite subject, n simply admired our Math Faculty, Mr. Ramesh Babu. Then, we had a cool n good-looking Chemistry prof, Mr Ajay Tripathi (With whom Malavika teased me for a whole damnn year ! Gosh , its horrible to get teased wid a prof , yuck ! Mal I hate u for that !)

The next day, as soon as I walked in , I sat down beside Archana. You know , it was kinda automatic :). Two girls in front of us were kinda fidgeting. One had very long hair n the other a boy-cut. ( I cud see just their hair from behind :D). Then , the girl with the boy-cut turned around n said 'Hi', with an enormously big smile ! I doubted if she had more than 32 teeth :P.

'I m Neha, what are your names?"
"Ravali"
"Archana"
I felt like a school kid who just met a newly-admitted girl.
"You are from which place ?", she asked.
"Hyderabad", I remember saying in chorus with Arch.
"N u?"
"Dubai ", she said. It took me moment to digest that. Can't believe she actually came from Dubai to study here . Great, I thought.

        It was the lunch-break, when I went up to the Cafetaria for the first time with both of them. We were standing with our tiffin boxes n having lunch. I hated that. Why cant we just sit in the class and have lunch peacefully? But, they werent close enuff to object u see. So i kept quiet n we started talking again. I remember we first talked about which schools we were from, our siblings n then went on to talk about jee n acedemic stuff. After those two years , I bet you there isnt a single thing we have'nt talked about !

        After about a month I alomst got comfortable with their company, n we three started sticking to each other all the time. We had lunch together, we sat close to each other and after college we walked together down the stairs. We started doing Assignments n CPPs n CLIPs together. In two words, I was 'Having Fun' with them.

        Archana n I had a kind of 'telepathy' between us. We had this kind of superb understanding. I already get to know what she's trying to say n the same with her. Even a gesture can convey a whole meaning. I rarely find such people. She was a smart, talented , imaginative n cute girl , with a 'today's world-needs' attitude. She was a witty, stylish, dominating and a strong hearted girl. The best thing about her is her expressions. You just can't stop laughing at them ! Her fav dialogue was 'What's ur problem?!" , "One hit I'l give!". Trust me arch, I really miss those days we sat together n solved physics probs (specially those pulley ones ). Love ya !

        Neha..I still run out of words to describe her. She is a very intelligent, matured, n a lovable tom-boy ! She loves being a tom-boy , but somehow, she is pretty n girlish. She is very cute, clean, n complicated ! She is the only girl i met who loves metal ! Tought to digest that. I mean , I m totally opposite. I love melodies, metal is not in my cup of coffee. She was good in Physics too n she simpy hated Chem. Has horrible hand-writing , sometime she herself doesnt understand what she has written :) n she 'wets' papers :P Sweaty handed girl, poor thing had to struggle in exams due to that. A simple, humble soul she is. The best thing about her is her smile n beautiful eyes. She has an enormous sun-shine smile :) Stutters n Stammers a lot while talking, who always says' I m flunking' , after every damn exam, but that's what makes her 'neha' :) Love you dear :)


I love singing, n I used to sing(pretty softly) in the breaks n entertain them. I used to have this habit to stick to the song , n then they start
'Ufff...enufff...I m on tonite on tonite on tonite, how many times?? Shakira vil prolly cum down !!'
'Okay Okay...I wont sing.!!"
......
"I m on tonite.."
"SHUT UP !" a chorus used to cum back !
And then they start suggesting songs..n on n on it goes....

We nick-named so many guys of our class, that I cant stop laughing at its stuidity now ! We alomost put up a zoo there..One was uncle-bear, another ugly-guy, flamingo,north-pole, thita...I dont remember em now..I m sure u guys(arch n neha) vil burst out reading these names n their origins !!

Well, this was the non acedemic fun we had. Acedemic-fun was mainly between Arch n me. We used to love solvin physics together(specially in the second yr). Aceds went on seriously apart from all the fun we had. I just like my life there..It was complete n peaceful. Stressful yet fun.


I had made friends with many others too, Malavika, Spandana, Devika (Mainly in the second yr)were the other close ones. But my whole world revolved around Math, Phy, Chem, Arch n Neha :D


        We were kind of the 'Three Musketeers' :P n 'Three Noble Gases'---Archana(Argon(Ar)), Ravali(Radon(Rn)), Neha(Neon(Ne)) :D :D I know it was very very very silly n funny to give ourselves these names , but at that point of time, it was like a 'Eureka' , we exactly fit into 'Three Noble Gases' ! :O :)

PS: For Arch n Neha, I really miss you guys :(.
@Arch...I finally completed your birthday gift (This post). Hope, u liked it :)

Running the Numbers

Where does the coffe cup go after we drink the coffee?

Where do our cell-phones go after we have used them?

Where do our cars get deposited after they retire?

Where do our breadboards and diodes go after being used?

Have you ever tried finding them out?

And even if we you did, can you imagine how big the numbers are?

When I say 1,000,000 trees are cut down everyday can you imagine how huge an area they occupy when put together?

Let's think.Let's answer. Let's Work. Let's help the earth!



The image below shows a huge collection of 'Bullet Casings' (More than 1,000,000):

Learnt about diodes right? The image below is a huge collection of 'Thrown-away" Diodes(More than 1,000,000):

The picture below shows 'Crushed-Cars' where are cars go after using them:

The picture below shows "unused" cell phone chargers:

The below image is a collection of "Unused " Cellphones in NewOrleans:

The image below is a collection of Cigarette butts:

More of them ?

Watch this video :

Chris Jordan pictures some shocking stats Video on TED.com

REVIEW OF A TED-TALK BY CHRIS JORDAN:

He begins by saying that his work is to convert dull looking numbers to actually visualise how big they are. Just as we did above.

All throughout the video he talks about how huge the numbers are running into and how ignorant and "I-Dont-Care!" have we become.

He begins off showing the the jaw-dropping image of what looks like pipelines , but a hug collection of plastic-cups put together (FOUR MILLION everyday @ Airlines). He then moves on to show cigarette boxes which when stood back and looked at , look like a skull ( A painting by Van Gogh) (400 millions die every year in America , today 1100 die everyday due to smoking) . On he goes, showing prison-uniforms (2000 millions). Abuse and misuse of priscription drug (213,000 drugs were shown in the picture). Another tragic phenominon of breast augmentation surgery, was pointed out by him which was picturised out of barbie dolls.

He ends by saying, that 'Change' can be brought out only by changing our behaviour . Our culture as a whole.

~~'Choice' is the name of life~~

How many of us
~~ wake up in the morning snoozing the alarm through another 5 minutes?
~~decide to postpone cleaning the desk for tomorrow?
~~leave exams to one-day batting?
~~don't get up ask doubts in the class?
~~choose to throw away stuff even if they work?
Choices...aren't they?

How does making these choices affect you ? It might leave you late to work or may be with more work-load....They just affect you , in a little way. The whole society chooses in this way. A bad choice might hurt for a while. If a society makes a bad choice it affects its citizens. But if the whole world is making bad choices, My, it affects in way isn't it?


We took a small example of buying vegetable in our HV discussion:

One can buy from a hi-fi 'Reliance-Fresh', or a local vendor who comes to every lane and makes his living, or from any other vegetable market (like Rythu Bazaar). Buying from

'Reliance Fresh' will surely provide you with comfort of AC and also the delight of vegetables and fruits looking fresh and bright, choice of taking as much as you require(Not quantized to kilos or dozens) , picking up even those goods which you might have forgotten on the way.

Well, if we go on and think about it deeply, does 'YOU' buying vegetables there make a difference to the owner. NO. Right? Does your choice is the choice of another person's livelihood? No, strange isnt it . I never thought that if I bought stuff from the local 'Bandhi-Wala' would actually help a man meet his bothe ends. Buying in Big Shops n Marts would anyway make no difference to the owner who already has plenty to feed his generations!

A/C 's and bright lights , shiny flooring are to make an appeal and attract the customer to buy there. But, did we ever realise that veggies at both these places are equally fresh? Probably the Bandhi-Wala sells better ones. Brands, Posh-ness of the shops, not only destroy are local markets but also use a lott of the country's resources in terms of power, and transport. Is it soo necessary that we need such luxuries to just buy daily veggies? Think again.

Now, one might say such bigg enterprises provide employment to its sales-persons.But, what were these people doing before the enterprise was set-up? They surely werent dying of huger, were they? They had their own ways of making their livelihood. Who would like to do a job where you stand for hours and are merely replacing a weighing machine, when you can yourself run a small shop atleast! Above all, a local vendor is an entreprenuer who sets prices by himself. But here at enterprises, they just have to work under someone all the time...

Moving to a large scale..Name one textile company which is purely Indian! We'd prefer a Reebok Shoe or a Lakhani one? Former. Right? Why are we running around brands? What is more important 'Hype' or 'Quality'?

YOUR CHOICE can make a difference. One cant change the world , but surely can change one's ways. Next time you go to buy something, think about it.Think about its quality. Think about how is it being produced? What are the resources used? How much of transport is being used? Am I helping a poor person make his livlihood? Am I contributing for my country's progress ? Think about it. Think for the society. Think for making a difference.

The NOT-SO ''beautiful''

REVIEW OF A SPEECH BY P.SAINATH, ON "GLOBALIZATION OF INEQUALITY" :

GOOSEBUMPS, accompanied me all throughout this video. And even a 'tinge' of bitterness. It took me an hour and a half to digest what I just heard. And probably more to reduce my temper and feeling of 'feeling sick'.

The title grabbed my attention. "Globalization Of Inequalities" . It was honestly, a striking title. I could decode it in two ways, One that inequalities are now Gobally prevelant. Second, Globalisation has lead to a considerable rise in inequalities. Which way? You have to decide.

First of all the '59 mins' , at the bottom of that window slunk my patience. Probably , you'll feel the same too :P. But still, it somehow started off. Suman sir asked us to write some points down. I tried scribbling somethings, but trust me. I hardly wrote a few words..I was gaping at the speaker!

The contrasting situations in the today's world was the essence of his talk, flavoured by striking examples almost of which I was highly unaware of. Starting with alarming situation in Vayanad ( I hope i spelt it rite) , where farmer's suicides have become an everyday's-news, he contrasted with the exposure of oppulence in the Metro city of Delhi, where theme wedddings (ONE acre of land---ONE Model of a monument---ONE wedding---for only ONE half of a day---spending so much money which I probably can't earn for ONE whole lifetime !). HUH. First rise in temper.

Unfolding 'The Seattle', he showed how , this heart-breaking incident had risen the indices of five major stock markets to their 'historic-high'. People rejoiced the leap , while the-affected suffered. One man's joy, another's life. The life's of the hundreds were meaningless to the stock market, yet they were meaningful in rising it. How?Smell of reconstruction dollars, he says. The greater the misery ,the better the stock exchange. How insane can that be?! Sensex, is the misery index, he says. He says with bitterness and sarcasm, that the generosity was deeply genuine, and was deeply appreciated by the fishermen who were wondering what to do with the 'neck-ties' given to them! Heights of insanity.

Forcibly destroying around 84,000 huts was a barbaric act, in Mumbai , of which I never heard of, till I saw this video. Why isn't it covered in the news?! The Govt. , a scared-cat as,their voting rights were also suspened. Heights of Injustice. Second rise of temper. Bitterness started. The saddest part was when a Bulldozer driver was feeling so bad to destroy their huts, but was forced to do it. I hate the Govt. Simply, hate it was the first thought which came to my mind. Bastards, our politicians are. There was a astonishing but true mail I had got a few years back. Where it quoted a question. "Which the organisation in our country, where 99% of its members involed in scams, 80% had illegal wealth, 96% involved in aqusition of Govt lands, them and their off-springs involving in murders, violation of human rights ,rapes , drugs and alcohol?" I was wondering.. After scrolling down, it said "The Parliament"

Generosity, had reached its essence when bed-nets had been sent to people who dint have beds. Globalisation of communicable diseases, he says. SARS had come into the news because it affected the ''beautiful" people. But severe cold which affected many 'old' and 'not-so-beautiful' people did'nt even make a bottom corner in the newspapers. Providing cheapest drugs for anti AIDS provided by an Indian company, was again intervened by the MNC's (in Pharmacy) and prices rose. And we wait to get placed in such MNC''s.

The top 20 % consumed EIGHTY-SIX % bottom 5% live using only 1.2% . These inequalities have been growing faster in the last 15 years , than the last FIFTY years . The top 20% of the world have doubled their net-worth in the last four years.Alarming such examples, he stated. Couldnt believe they almost shook me up, totally.

He ended his speech narrating the stunning story of Nero, an inhuman King, who burnt prisoners alive to provide light to a dinner-party to all kinds of people to win their hearts. I thought how could people stand and have dinner when others are dying of pain?! But when he said "WE are Nero's guests", I was taken aback. The whole speech dint strike me as much as this one line did. Yeah, YOU and I. WE are Nero's guests. We eat at not 42 rupees a kilo of rice, but at the cost of a farmer's death. At the cost of hundreds of hungry, working to reach the morsel to our mouths. INHUMAN, aren't we?

My first ''Love'' !

It happened probably 10 or 12 years back. He had a round face and even a round body.(His height was as much as his diameter!) His features were almost insignificant. His eyes were just two small dots and had two small unsymmetrical curves as his eye brows.His nose was jus one straight line just as his fingers. His lips were curved into a smile facing me. (Rather beaming at me).His big huge belly was somehow borne by two straight lines as his very very thin legs. Such a man could never probably exist. But it dint strike me then.And i dint care.HE was the man of my heart.My man of my imagination (then, not now :P). My first 'OWN' drawing.

Yeah, it was at that moment when I had my first love, trust me a life-long love of "ART". It just began with that drawing of a man at home (On my OWN), when i went and showed my mom. She was happy and must have said some great things about it(Probably, I must have been too stupid to believe them though). On and on it went. First drawing. Then crayon work, then water colours,then sketches,then pencil shading,then poster colours, and finally today i can (though not correctly) do some oil-painting too.It was probably the only thing loved doing as i spent the whole summer holidays of school life with my art books.

I had attended(In my 4th class) a few months classes with Dr.B.A.Reddy as my master where he never taught drawing. But brought it out of us. He gave simple topics like a 'play-ground','hide-n-seek','road-side-vendors','My pet'and i had to imagine and draw. I had to fill my own colours of my own choice. And after i finished he questions why did i draw it like this? why did i colour it like this ? And i had answers,somehow. It went on like that for about 6 months. Every weekend i used to go to his house where about 30-40 kids used to come too.I dont really remember how and why i left that institute (or rather his house) but i dint leave my love.Then i dint go for any classes for about 3 years.

But all those years , I has school work to do(Charts , crafts..). Then i came across another artist (art-teacher) Mrs. Alkalal.I had attened her classes again for about 6 months in 7th class, where she had a different stlye of teaching. She asked me to imagine how an object looks like when light falls on it. How and wat size of a shadow is created. How the shades differ.That was when i learnt how to shade. How magical colours were...How to merge colours...How tremondously beatiful this world was...Honeslty, painting taught me not only how to paint but also how to look at the world. It was a great vision this teacher had given me. Its not just painting on paper. It was the world i am painting!

After about 6 months , i had to leave her classes as i had began pounding on my acedamic career again by joing the well known (for seenu sir) Sharma institute. Then my art life began falling. Dint paint , dint even touch my paints for about many years. But again i kept my love alive. This time i started participating in many painting competitions.Which gave me confidence, ideas,time to paint and finally to keep my love alive! I had won plenty of prizes too!Appreciation was one more thing i found as a by product of art...It makes you happy and paint more too!

I have seen many people asking me ''where did you learn painting?'' .Trust me, it can never be 'taught'. It can just be guided, nutured and...believed in! The whole 'science' of fine arts must ideally deal with imagination and capturing it, not achieving perfection in shading and blending. A child need not be taught how to walk, he ll learn it by himself. Similarly here...One doesnt need to learn drawing and sketching. It is all in-built in each one of us...Encoded in our DNA!
Finally, I am just still one little peck among lakhs of artists across the world...I have a lott more to do and learn...But trust me , after all these years of painting i have learnt that doing something you love doing, for ur passion, to fuel ur love, makes it beautiful and magical...And above all, I have learnt that 'True Love' never dies !