From shadows to the stars

No, this is not about "Titanic" or "Romeo and Juliet", pieces of fiction written to appeal to the feeling of self-sacrifice in humans. This is the tragic story of a real man, a great man. Alan Turing was a British mathematician, logician and also a computer scientist. Though the title is not formally bestowed on him, he is considered as the "Father of computer science and artificial intelligence". During the World War II, Turing was responsible for breaking or "cracking" of many German codes and crypts. He even created a machine that would help in cracking different codes. He was considered a hero and a cult figure in Britain. He was considered to be so important in the war that it was not revealed until after the war that it was he who had cracked the code. The Brits were so concerned for his safety. After the war, Turing became a computer scientist and is responsible for many breakthroughs in this field. In 1952, it came to be know...

Being lonely and being a loner are two different things. People often seem to confuse between the two. I am accused of being one, but I am the other. Lonely is defined as "feeling sad or depressed due to the lack of human (or otherwise?) company". A loner is not a person who feels lonely. A loner is a person who "prefers not to associate with other people", a person who likes to be alone. Feeling lonely is not good. If a person feels lonely, they can get depressed and disturbed. When feeling lonely, a person must seek help and companionship from the "near and dear ones".  I am often seen as being lonely. No, I am not. I am a loner. I rather prefer the term the "lone wolf" or the "solitary tiger". Yes, its just one of those romantic ideas I have about myself. But when I say that I am a loner, I dont mean that I shun human companionship. Not completely, at least. I have a set of people with whom I feel comfortable. Let us ...

Last week at the Golden Globe Awards, Jodie Foster did a brave and commendable thing. She “came out” of the closet by saying she had come out a lot earlier. For those unfamiliar with this phrase, “coming out of the closet” means declaring that you are a homosexual. While accepting that she has been gay for all her life, Foster has made a brave decision. She said in the speech (she was getting a lifetime achievement award), “Everybody I knew, everybody who were close to me knew that I was gay. But now apparently, I am told that celebrities are expected to honour the details of their private lives in a press conference and a fragrance a prime time reality show”. “When you have been in the spotlight, in the movie field for 47 years, you will learn to appreciate the importance and necessity of privacy.” I completely agree with Foster, who is also one of my all-time favourites. Everybody has to learn to draw a line, beyond which you respect the privacy of celebrities. How wou...

Some of you might have realised what I am gonna talk about in this blog from the title of the blog itself. But, anyway, let me go on. Have you ever been given something (a piece of writing, art, a short film, etc.) by your friend(s) asking you to give them your opinion about it? Okay. And has this work of your friend(s) ever been bad? I mean absolutely, completely bad. Okay. What do you do if this piece of work created by your friend is bad? You tell them that it is good anyway. Why? You do not want to hurt your friend's feelings and you just want to appreciate his/ her efforts, however poor they might be. You just want to be a good friend. You are also being a hypocrite. Yes, your intentions are good. You just want to help your friend. But does that change anything? You are still a hypocrite. This is one of the many complications that can and will arise from human relationships. I am not suggesting that one should reject all human companionship because of such...

I was just scrolling down the blog list to see when I started to blog, and it has been four years! I hadn't realised that it had been so long, and I am very happy that I have managed to keep writing over this period. Cheers people! I shall now note down some of the things that I have learnt about blogging in these four years. 1) Write like nobody is reading (cuz most of the time, nobody really is) 2) There will always be ups and downs in your blog. Sometimes you wont feel like writing. In such cases, take a break but don't give up completely. 3) People don't like reading really long blogs. Keep them as short as you can. 4) Also, keep the content general and non-exclusive. For example, not everybody likes reading about football. So I try avoiding writing about football (sometimes it will sneak in anyway). 5) Keep writing. If nothing else, you can read your old blogs and see the change in style of writing and in content and marvel about it! Cheers once again!