Viswanathan K's Thoughts

I would so like hope my daughter to develop the reading habit. So far though, no luck. She’s 8 now, and the only time she’ll read is in the school bus if her friends are reading on the bus too . Ages back, I’d heard of some parents who used to read the Harry Potter books to their kids, and remember thinking, “Really? Who would read such a big book aloud?”. But now, in desperation, I decided to give it a shot. She found the first 3 books very interesting. The stories weren’t predictable. Friends fought with each other and made up. Mean kids didn’t always get their comeuppance. Adults didn’t believe Harry because hey, he was just a kid. And the details of the Harry Potter universe, from muggles to mudbloods to house elves to squibs was fascinating. The book would raise many questions and answer them only at the end. And there were always questions that didn’t get answered at all. All this was a new experience for her, a different type of book, a fascinating world of its own. ...

Some time back, we went to this Harry Potter workshop at Jayanagar with our 8 yo. The workshop was more science than magic, but with the obligatory wand and Hogwarts style cape thrown in. Then again, as Arthur C. Clarke wrote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” One of the tricks started with the host asking the kids: “Which of your parents is rich?” There was pin drop silence. Not an embarrassed silence, more like a resigned silence. Apparently, all parents have done an awesome job at convincing their kids that they are not rich. But there’s a minimum age before this message sinks in. Because the youngest kid, wanting the show to go on, spoke up: “My mom’s rich.” His mom looked like she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her. The host asked her for a 100 bucks for the trick, but she didn’t have change. So I gave the guy a 100 bucks note, upon which he promptly informed everyone that if the trick went sideways, he woul...

“Any explanation is better than none.” -          Nietzsche We love to cite reasons for everything that happens. If the reason is correct, all the better; but that’s not a must. Obviously, nobody says that to themselves, but if you check out many of the “reasons” floating around, you’d see what I mean. It turns out that we don’t just stop at attributing causes to real life events. People even try and find root causes for battles from movies , like the Battle of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back ! So what were the reasons Darth Vader and Co couldn’t crush and kill the rebels in that battle? “Don’t place unaccountable religious fanatics in wartime command, and never underestimate a hegemonic power’s ability to miscalculate against an insurgency.” Well ok, those reasons would apply even today in the real world; so maybe this analysis wasn’t a total waste of time after all! A comment on Slashdot to the above analysis said: “…peo...

Guys don’t get what gals feel. Women say the reason for that is we guys are insensitive. But I think the real reason is to be found in the book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix . Check out this passage: “Don’t you understand how Cho’s feeling at the moment?” she asked. “No,” said Harry and Ron together. Hermione sighed and laid down her quill. “Well, obviously, she’s feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she’s feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can’t work out who she likes best. Then she’ll be feeling guilty, thinking it’s an insult to Cedric’s memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she’ll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can’t work out what her feelings toward Harry are anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that’s all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she’s afraid she’s going to be thr...