Above the ‘Law’… Not me either.

*Over a crackling radio*

Five, Four, three, two, one………

*And the rockets fire. *

India's first cosmonaut takes off on a mission to moon…

"Aaj Tak TV camera zooms to cosmonaut Yuri Chekku who was sitting inside the lunar module of Chandrayaan 111. Pyaare deshvaasiyoon dekh lo hamara garv aur abhimaan oopar jathe hue…manzil ki aur…Bharat ka pehla cosmonaut Sriharikota ke janata ko haat dikaathei huei nazar aa raha hein."

Over the mission radio in lunar module:-

MN: "Yuri...Yuri Chekku...Cobra 1 2 3….craft deviating from path…Mission to be aborted"
Yuri Chekku (desperately):"Pleaaaaaaaaaaaase….Madhavan uncle pleaaaase….Don't exterminate me…"

Madhavan uncle clinically presses the red button.

*A massive explosion up in the sky…and the GSLV rocket falls crashing down into pieces*

"Ente Ammmooooooooo"

*A massive thud and Yuri Chekku falls from his bed after the frightening dream.*

Damn again….another childhood dream comes crashing down…Why I have to take all the risky jobs!!

Space flight is a dream of every child. But in my case I knew it was not a possibility coz I think a roller coaster ride itself is one of the most dangerous feat done by man which requires years of mental preparation and physical training. Moreover I was not exemplary at school in science subjects like Physics and Maths. Though not that bad, considering I was quite good at multiplication esp. with zero which my Math teacher did not appreciate due to strange reasons. And my physics teacher taught students, Force= mass * acceleration by displaying live the force generated while the mass (read ME) was accelerated (read THROWN OUT OF CLASS).

Probably the mistake lies in the way we teach our kids subjects like Physics and Maths... How can you expect kids to believe in the strangely named Greekish and Romanish laws…? Personally I never took Pythagoras seriously coz I was under the impression it was some sort of a dinosaur. And again it was hard to believe Newton's law coz a normal kid would just eat the apple if it fell on his head. Moreover I never stopped watching Tom n Jerry per se and the cartoon was consistently proving that there were no laws as such, which made it harder for me to believe folks like Archimedes.

I tried my best to appreciate these subjects as I reached high school. But for me Pascal was always a rascal. I never understood that law…During engineering studies I was forced to study Heisenberg's uncertainty principle...uh...a law which even Heisenberg is uncertain about and yet Kerala University expects me to memorize it!!…Besides, there were no movies where they showed mathematicians or physicist as heroes, while all woman drooled over Indiana Jones who was merely a nomad with no particular aim in life…And when finally Hollywood made a movie about a Mathematician it was called "A Beautiful Mind"…as if there is so much romanticism involved in formulas and equations .What an irony!….No wonder by end the of college I knew more of Max Payne than Max Planck..

But no one can blame me for not being scientifically inquisitive…I have had my fair share of science experiments trying to squeeze the dough (which mom had prepared for the chapatti)into empty toothpaste tubes…My idea of a sandalwood flavored toothpaste did not go down well with folks though…Further scientific exploits like attempts to "cool" television set using ice cubes only ended up in blown remains…That was a humble attempt to prove parents that I was not wasting time watching television while they were away…Neither were attempts to study electromagnetic inductions by giving minor electric shocks to bro consider research worthy. Not successful experiments...but you learn from failures too...right?

Well learning science has become a lot easier now. When I was a kid the only motivation for me was to win a Nobel Prize the chances of which dwindled each passing year…and that I had sworn at my physics teacher that I ll see him again only after I win the Noble prize was a bad bet after all. Poor old man might be still waiting. (Or is he..:-P).

However physics laws have evolved over the years.The other day I saw a kid trying to memorize Thackeray's third law of Reaction.

"For every Bihari there is an equal and opposite Manoos reaction."

Inquisitive me asked him what was the first law.

"A politician continues to maintain its state of rest or of uniform lethargy unless acted upon by an external election force."

Sigh…Kids now know a lot better!!

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Today is the third anniversary of this blog…A big thanks to all readers who have motivated me to write this long…Dedicating one of my all time favorite song to all of you…

This song is also an advanced badminton learner video mastered by only a select few players in the world.