Chaitanya’s Quill

Post Number 54 : Things School Could’ve Taught Us – Johannes Kepler

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

An article exploring Kepler, the person – sci-fi novelist, dedicated son, and astute scientist.

Do you remember Johannes Kepler? For those of you who had Physics in Class XI, this scientific bad boy made a cameo in the chapter on Gravitation, mentioned a page after the one which carried his three laws of planetary motion. Do you remember the laws? (Hint : Law of Orbits, Law of Areas, Law of Periods). Do you know anything else about his life? If you know next to nothing, don’t fret. I didn’t know squat either. Truth be told, I didn’t even remember the laws. But I read about him in Maria Popova’s Figuring, and she gave this visionary a backstory, a personality, a rich, vivid life, enough to make me wonder why my textbook didn’t carry any vestige of the same, and how many fascinating people and events never made it to those pages; forever hidden behind the sole accomplishment that was ascribed to their identity. So here’s an attempt to deconstruct the earthly man behind the planetary laws.

Kepler Full

Sadly, this was all the space that Kepler was given. Credits: ncert.nic.in

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Post Number 53 : Around Europe in 100 Days – Nous Voyageons aux Hollande

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

A travelogue capturing the experiences of Amsterdam – delays, canals, Red Light district, and fries.

DAY 1

Having explored Brussels and Bruges, we set out early for Netherlands. It was to be a 3-hour journey so we were confident of making it there by noon and were already planning what all we could cover within the day. But if there’s anything we learnt in these 100 days, it’s that plans go down the drain quicker than gelato down our throats. Due to some construction work, all trains to Netherlands were delayed indefinitely. We sat on the station for close to 90 mins as train after train got delayed and/or cancelled. Finally, frustrated, we jumped on a random train to Antwerp just to go somewhere.

Antwerp

The Antwerp Station is an Architectural Beauty

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Post Number 52 : A Case For Re-Reading(And Re-Everything Basically)

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

An essay exploring the need to re-visit old books, and more.

Today marks a full-circle moment for me as a reader, 6+ years in the making. A sub-conscious itch has been scratched. I’ve re-read ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ by Mohsin Hamid and can now claim not only to have understood it but to have liked it too. But why should you, kind reader of the blog, care? Well, you shouldn’t, to be fair. But I hope you empathize with my sentiment of achievement. Because this book ‘launched’ my ambition of reading diversely, fuelled equally by unbridled curiosity and a bruised ego.

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Courtesy: Amazon.in

22nd March 2014 was my last Board Exam. A rite-of-passage had been…passage-d? I came home in a mental state that was common to me then – happiness at having written the exam, with sudden pangs of panic that I’d made an error, my percentage would drop, no college, no future – the usual overthinking spiral. A string of stress inducing entrance exams were a fortnight away and nearly two years of analyzing sin θ equations, monkeys hanging from pulleys, and seeing how Cyclohexa-1,3,5-triene reacts(that’s benzene, if you recall), were to (hopefully) bear fruit. But that night I put that aside and picked up this book, having refrained from reading for recreation all this while.

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Post Number 50 : Around Europe in 100 Days – Nous Voyageons en Belgique

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

A travelogue capturing the experience of Belgium – Brussels, Bruges, Beer, and Fries

Still buzzing from the trip to Paris, we rested for a solid 12 hours and decided to leave for Belgium. We had a week off and there was no chance we were going to spend it in Lille. Deepesh had officially joined us and the six of us booked the Airbnb in a rush and boarded the train to Brussels. The bogey we sat in had an overexcited annoying group of men drunk on beer who spent their time (loudly) shouting at each other until they got off and decided to pee on the train tracks in a queue. So much for Swachh Belgium Abhiyaan. I was weaning off my ‘Look! European grasslands!’ phase but I still see pictures of landscapes in my Camera-Roll so we’ll treat that as Work-In-Progress. Read More

Post Number 49: Around Europe in 100 Days – Nous Voyageons à Paris

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

A travelogue on exploring Paris – tourist spots, commotion, eccentric crowds, and Seine

Still reeling from the adventure of the first day, we took things slowly in the subsequent days. We attended the orientation program of our exchange university, realized there were too many Indians there, got ourselves French SIM cards, explored Lille, realized McDonald’s served beer and that avocado sandwiches were atrocious, visited an art museum that was so painfully dull that we resorted to making memes, went to the local casino, and settled on Maggi as our staple dinner. Over the weekend, Sumit’s friends were going to be in Paris so we decided to join them. Read More

Post Number 48 : Around Europe in 100 Days – L’arrivée en France

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

A travelogue exploring the journey to Europe, full of misadventures and bad luck.

Once upon a time (in 2019), when Corona was but a beer and the word pandemic made one harken back to the days of the Bubonic Plague, I was fortunate to get a chance to travel through Europe in the name of ‘Student Exchange’- the global tourism scheme sustaining many a hostels, dingy pubs, (misguided) 2004 movie enthusiasts, and petty thieves relying on the naivete of unsuspecting kids travelling through post-colonial colonial countries.

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Post Number 47 : The Fault In Our Stars

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

An essay exploring the modern culture of celebrity worship.

*Slight Spoilers for Watchmen, HBO Series*

Last week, I wrapped up my binge of the HBO series, Watchmen. The show (which is excellent, if a little convoluted) had many complex characters. My favourite was FBI agent Laurie Blake, member of the Anti-Vigilante Task Force. Laurie was someone who had lived her life as, with, and around heroes. She embodied layers of paradoxes – she was the younger Silk Spectre, daughter of two superheroes, ex-girlfriend to Dr. Manhattan but she had abandoned her vigilante days to work with the FBI to catch them instead. Despite her disillusionment, she went to those blue phonebooths to leave resentful but hope-filled messages to Dr. Manhattan. The country was full of phonebooths where people voiced their deepest prayers to an omnipotent blue being who’d left for Mars. Holding out for a hero.screen-shot-2019-11-01-at-4-58-41-pm-1572642227

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Post Number 46 : What Do Pandemic Stories Tell Us?

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An article exploring the themes running through books and movies on pandemics

“…Eyes are also needed to see this picture, a woman laden with plastic bags, going along a rain drenched street, amidst rotting litter and human and animal excrement, cars and trucks abandoned any old way, blocking the main thoroughfare, some of the vehicles with their tyres already surrounded by grass, and the blind, the blind, open-mouthed and staring up at the white sky, it seems incredible that rain should fall from such a sky.”

 – José Saramago

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Post Number 45 : Figuring – Maria Popova

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

An article reviewing the titular book by the famed blogger and writer, Ms. Popova

“Lives interweave with other lives, and out of the tapestry arise hints at answers to questions that raze to the bone of life: What are the building blocks of character, of contentment, of lasting achievement? How does a person come into self-possession and sovereignty of mind against the tide of convention and unreasoning collectivism? Does genius suffice for happiness, does distinction, does love?”

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Post Number 44 : A Millennial’s (Existential) Brush With A Global Pandemic

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An essay capturing the thoughts upon being quarantined at home due to the pandemic

It wasn’t in my plan to be under a semi-quarantined state upon coming home because of a global pandemic. I suppose it wasn’t in anyone’s plan but here we all are. 2020 has turned out to be quite the year, hasn’t it? Coronavirus has brought the flurry of commotion around the world to a surprising standstill. And thus began my first brush with a global pandemic.

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