Yesterday I dreamt a Black Hole!

Scientists speculated about the existence of black holes over a century ago. Nowadays it is commonly accepted that every galaxy in the universe has a black hole at its centre. And what is a black hole? A black hole is a region in the universe with gargantuan mass and high gravitational pull. The mass and gravity of such area exceed several times that of a common star like the Sun. Due its gravity, nothing can escape from a black hole, even the light rays, once they are caught inside by its borderline, called the event horizon. Since no light rays can come out of it, black holes always appear blank. They are invisible black areas in the universe which can be detected only by its interaction with nearby space, time and other matter in the vicinity.

A common visual representation of a black hole

Imagine a black hole as something like a water-well on our earth. Assume that, the well has some sort of magnetic capacity which will attract everything that goes above. If you try to peep into it, you are definitely pulled in, even if you are standing a bit away from its edge. And you can never ever escape. Whatever kinds of rescue devices are brought to this place, and whichever human of Supermanic abilities offered help, the recovery is impossible. Any such retrieval measures is suicidal; they will be killing themselves. The fate of something that goes into the well is uncertain, as nobody has so far returned, once went into the well…

…that was how a black hole appeared in my last night’s dream!

In the dream, I and my friend wished to go to someplace, and we had to go through the dreadful place where this well-like black hole existed. My friend was in haste, so he left first, and I agreed to go after him. I never imagined that my friend would have shown that condemnable courage to offer a furtive look into the black hole. But, fatal things happen sans any procrastination, though happiness always comes delayed.

Water well

That was shocking! I never guessed my friend would have even dared to go close to the well. How could he act so stupidly? So what I do next? I have another friend, a trusted one. I can rely on him, though I am unsure about his capabilities. We both decided to go to the black hole for a sneaky inspection. We found the black hole has a circular sidewall apart from the concrete bar overhead supported on two vertical columns.

Though we both were hesitant a bit to approach the black hole, we decided to offer a cautious glance, doing away with our fear. We went close and tried to look into the well, by clutching firmly on the sidewalls. Everything is dark inside the wall. Darkness gushes upwards in a continuous manner from the depth of the well and comes to a halt at the edges of the sidewalls. Is there something attracting us smoothly? We leant a little more towards the mouth of the water well. And yeah, that is true! There is a sort of magnetic pull coming from the depth of the chasm. We withdrew ourselves back. So, it is true! Our friend has done what he shouldn’t have attempted.

A problem! My friend couldn’t have gone inside by simply looking into it. Because as we experienced, the magnetic attraction was not so great that it did not pull us while standing close to it. My reliable friend came with a solution. As we are close to the black hole, we could have controlled the time. Yes, the time! According to Physics, the time in the surroundings of a black hole runs slower than on earth due to gravity. By the way, do you remember Interstellar (2014), the film by Christopher Nolan? We can’t be sure if my friend is completely lost forever in space-time, or whether he is experiencing the pleasant state of timelessness in the web of the black hole.

My reliable friend tried to do something that I couldn’t have done. He manipulated the time, and we both went back to a time phase in the past. We found ourselves exactly a few hours back from the present. We saw my former friend standing at the tip of the black hole. What is he doing there?

We saw him climbing on a nearby tree, and jumping down in such a way that he would not have fallen directly into the well. I understood! He is testing the magnetic power of the well. Would he be pulled in by the black hole, if he let him fall from the tree above, by narrowly missing the mouth of the well? That’s what he is testing. Having such an idiotic curiosity is surely poisonous. We saw him falling straightly into the black hole while jumping down from the tree slightly allowing his body parts to be at the magnetic field of the black hole that extends infinitely upwards. Having witnessed the mishap, my reliable friend brought both of us back to the present time.

After waking up from the dream, I soon recollected that all the history of the entire universe is recorded in a mixed language of English and Mathematics on the inner walls of the well. The inner walls were imprinted by amber coloured digital figures all the way from the top, and that writings extended infinitesimally towards a bottom that existed somewhere in the far ends of the universe. 

It seems that reading hypothetical scenarios in Quora makes me watch such weird dreams nowadays.

A Confession

It’s been a long time since I wrote anything about my past days. I think you know how much eloquent is me when my topic of writing is about the early days those were at the brink of forgetfulness.  But, I think at least through this useless chronicling of my mesmerizing olden times, I can keep my fading memories alive.

This time the story is about a person whom I met when I was in Trivadrum during my initial days there. He was very funny, and dominating with some leadership qualities. I think I have told you about my admiration for taller persons, germinated during my growing ages when I was treated by others as a short guy. We both became befriended very easily and smoothly, and at the end of everyday, we used to have our evening jaunts together through the city in the process of acquainting with its many newly found curiosities.

Let me come back to the story. After our months long staying together, we both parted, but the contact was active. We used to meet each other, whenever he came to the city, and at one time, he had forcefully got me out for a ride during my office time, while he was on his occasional city visit. That time his purpose was to buy a cute little puppy from a pet shop located at some distance.

By that time he got married, and our attachment was getting faded. Our calls became very rare and less frequent. However we were connected through occasional mails, and seemingly meaningless activities through social networking sites.

On one night, when I was fast asleep, I was woken up by my cell phone ring. I had developed a habit of waking in the early morning, when my hostel mates were sleeping, in order to go on with my routine gymnasium visits. So, early to bed, and early to rise had somehow become my life policy, (though I rarely follow that policy nowadays).

I stretched my arms to get the cell phone in my half sleep state, might be the Non-REM state, I think I might have been sleeping without seeing any dream. Seeing my friend’s name on the cell phone, I attended the call, thinking what hell had made him dial my number at that unnatural hour. The time was between 1 and 2AM, so you can imagine what a sleep loving young man might be thinking at that time.

I could hear him breathing heavily, but I failed to identify whether it was because of tension or happiness.

“Why brother? What happened at this hour?” I asked without hiding my irritation.

“Boy, I have become a father. My wife has just given birth to a baby girl. Oh she is so cute little one”, he said while struggling to get breath.

“So? So what? Is it the time to call me to tell such simple matters? You call me at this hour to say such silly things?” My voice was very rude, though I didn’t realize it.

 “Yeah man, you are the first one I call up to share my joy. Only your face came to my mind”, he said apologetically. 

I doubt whether I had congratulated him. But that call didn’t last long. I cut the call, and returned to get back my lost sleep. Only the next morning I realized the serious mistake I made while treating my friend. It took a lot of time for me to realize how valuable my friendship was for him.

My friend, I don’t know whether you remember this. My deed was indeed beyond forgiveness. But, still I am wholeheartedly apologizing for the mistake that I committed. Please forgive me! Won’t you?

A Brotherly Influence

After a somewhat moderately long period of total forgetfulness, the memories about him struck me again. He had a great influence on my life so far, on the way I think and on the way I behave. I will not introduce him to you as my role model, or anything of that glorified sort. But, it is true that he had a unique charming method to attract anyone to his charisma. Everyone who met him became his friend or follower the next day, because of his conversational abilities with which he used to attain the leadership of any group that he happened to became a member.

I know I have told you enough about my Trivandrum life. This blog had its origin during my time there. But stories about him I hadn't written, of which the reason I am also unaware of. He was living next to my room at a place; a place, which was very rural, but close to some business areas, where he was doing a job, and I had just initiated my career. Though, at first he was slightly indifferent to me, partially owing to the simpleton image I used to create in everyone’s mind, he even apologized for underestimating me, later when he found me as a capable one.

We became friends despite of the difference in our ages. Even though he had a great superiority over me in experience, and knowledge, he took me as his trustworthy, and treated me equally. We pretended several times as brothers, both in public and in private; and enacted scenes in a very sincere manner as if we were family members. I don't deny that he used to exploit such occasions to put commands on my head, supported by the elder brother role he played. 

Some days we together went to a bar in the city at night times. We traveled on bus leaving our vehicles at our apartment. His sense of taste in liqueurs was commendable. We used to occupy a table positioned at the centre of the bar and spoke each other joyfully and playfully in the spirit of the drink that we consumed. We used to have fried fish as accompaniment, encouraged by his knowledge in cocktail accompaniments. It was in his presence and with his encouragement, I learned to shed my inhibition and started to speak to everyone.

He used to share with me about his business plans, and about the plans that he had in my mind regarding his dream home. He drove with me on weekends to some different places located close to the city, where he had bought some acres of land in order to do merchandising. Last time when I saw him before leaving Trivandrum, he was in the process of achieving his dreams one by one.

Elementary Lessons in Politics

I had my first lessons in Politics at some point in the highly-prone-to-learning days of my (probably everyone’s) life. It happened when I was living the life of a primary school kid – a little bigger than a toddler – who used to undertake that universal journey from home to school and back every day, wearing knickers and backpacks, and carrying a water bottle, in search of knowledge and experiences, though unwillingly, but in some days enthusiastically, and in some other days being pushed, pulled, pinched and dragged by his furious, yet responsible elder sister.

This is the story of my third standard. I guess learning was not happening as fast as the same is being happened among the present, highly sophisticated young generation. Politics was never heard of. But we were outgrown enough to learn longer rhymes, bigger stories, more complex alphabets, and more complicated Maths, though were far inferior than today’s kids who learn the language of C and C++ even from the kindergarten level.  

The school was going very smooth. Our class was made of both girls and boys, and in the conservative way, both these crucial segments of humanity were made sit in two different seating rows. That gave each one of us greater freedom to mingle within our own respective segment. Boys became more friends. Similarly girls. I invite your attention to the boys section. Probably I can better tell the stories happened among boys, right? I happened to notice schisms in the tight pack of our friendship. Though was not influential to our daily activities in any way, the boys became parts of two different groups headed by two boys, L and S (the names are kept hidden in order to prevent them from gaining free fame). 

I still don’t understand the reason for this fragmentation. Perhaps the instinctive behavior, which is more transparent among the kids than the matured ones, might have prompted us to show more affinity to the one who looked friendlier from the individual point of view. I was comparatively inactive, as far as this mock politics was concerned, so I happened to live the life of a NAM country (Non Aligned Movement), like India in the international politics during the WWII. Some other boys also were there who lived a groupless life like mine, but we didn’t have a common policy; there we differed from the international policy of the NAM countries.

When I gradually happened to understand the stronger bonds created between the members of each group, I also realized the importance of becoming a part of a group. I knew that I was missing the adventures that the strong members of each group were passing through. I was also not considered for the special gifts and food items each of the group members used to share within the group. I didn’t need a second thought of joining the class politics. My immediate affinity was towards the group headed by L. L and his friends welcomed me to their group happily. 

But after becoming a member of L group also, I was inactive in terms of class politics. I used to keep a healthy relationship with the other group members also. Always L group was stronger in terms of headcount and talent. When my group members noticed my free-mindedness, they decided to keep me as a reserve member. I was not taken seriously in the joint interactions within the group.

Most often the S group remained a one member gang, only sometimes accompanied by one or more accomplices. Quitting a group and joining the other one was very common. I also had a single experience of quitting L group and joining S. It was when L denied a favour to which I asked him, and I immediately joined S group, proving my capability to create changes in politics. Following me, more dissatisfied members from the L group also jumped to the S side, giving hard blows to L group and its leadership. That was the only time, when S group surpassed the L group in terms of headcount. But my alignment with S group remained only for two days, and the third day I rejoined L group. After that L was keen on taking me also seriously, and I also decided to be an active member of L group.

You need to keep in mind that there was not any fight between the groups. No wars, only cold war; that was the situation. By the end of the academic year, S also became a part of L group, and the groups were dismissed afterwards. 

The lessons I learned from the class politics:

• Everywhere in humanity, there are groups; two of them are most likely to be prominent.
• Right or Left, you always will have to be part of a group. Having no sides will not take you anywhere.
• Quit a group and join the other, if you feel that you are being sidelined. That will help you to get acceptance in your home group.

I think these rules are applicable everywhere in Politics.

Something Special

“What was that aesthetic factor which had drawn your attention to her in the initial state of your blooming love?” I asked.

Finding my question as a complicated one in terms of its construction, and linguistic style, I rephrased it, to make the question a simpler one and thrown it once again at the brooding brain of my friend who was scratching his head thinking deeply about it.

“Err...I mean, what quality or characteristic of that girl attracted you in the beginning?”

“Oh…! Yeah…,” he nodded as if he understood something, and continued, “Well, it was the way she arranged her hair”.

“The hairdo?”, I exclaimed. “And in what special way she arranged her hair in order to make it an appealing one to a complicated guy like you?” I asked him, who had earlier identified me as an average guy just like him after reading my story which detailed how I found the Fragrance of Love. 

“Yeah, I agree, her style is neither Monroeistic nor Taylorian, but the way in which she clipped her hair at back by taking a portion of the hair from each side was what I found as attractive”, he said deeply reflecting.

"Oh, that is romantic, I presume," I said.

"And there is one more thing," he continued, "that her eye brows are very thin really, and she used to wear an Indian bindi, in the exact middle of both her eyebrows."

Here is someone who falls for a girl's eyebrows and hairdo, I thought. Everybody will have a special interest like my friend has. Perhaps, you might like the way she walks, or the way she talks, or the way she puts her specs. I had a special liking for her smile; I am talking about the girl who appeared in My First Love and in the Fragrance of Love. I am not sure if we can call it fetish. Well, fetish will be a hard word to describe these kinds of special affinity that one feels seeing a girl for the first time. Fetish, as described by online dictionaries, is a form of sexual desire in which gratification depends to an abnormal degree on some object or item of clothing or part of the body. Mine was not fetish, neither was my friend’s, I am very much sure.

You might be remembering my recollections about my Cross Eyed Classmate. Well, that girl was cross eyed. But what acted as the root cause for my attraction towards her was not her disability. She always had her own dignified way to deal with everything. Her charming nature with full of confidence, though subdued with silence, was what attracted me, that you know (My new readers are requested to read those posts also). 

I am seriously trying to think about the number of friends who revealed their intimate feelings with me. Someone was attracted to his love interest thinking her as the most innocent kind of the whole lot of girls, (initially I also had a similar kind of feeling towards the girl whom I liked, making me once again the average guy as described by my friend). On another occasion, I liked a girl thinking her as a sophisticated kind; well she was sophisticated, but was too sophisticated to make a match for me.

I actually do not know what specialty of a girl makes a man of my kind feel attracted to her. If you like a girl because of her smile, the next day you might like another girl because of her choice of dress, and after a few years your reason for attraction for a third girl might be her degree of maturity.

In Pictures:

Picture 1: An early photograph of Marilyn Monroe

Picture 2: A young Elizabeth Taylor