Live Like a Flame

Yes! Chandrayaan has managed the delicate slingshot operation to get itself round the moon and has settled into its orbit of comfort. This was the real test: we are now handling a machine further away from the earth than anything we have launched before, and this is something that only five nations of the world have managed. Out there life is dangerous: the earth’s magnetosphere no longer protects the spacecraft from interstellar radiation, and it is exposed to the solar wind and anything by way of flares the sun wants to throw at it. This radiation is what eventually fries the brains of things out there, as well as space dust and debris. Chandrayaan’s scheduled life is two years: let’s see whether it lasts teh distance, or even soldiers on longer than advertised like the Mars rovers. Or. like Phoenix, it might die before its time. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Now to see if the instruments deploy properly.

I have Google News alerts turned on for Chandrayaan. It isn’t on Twitter like Phoenix, Spirit and Opportunity, but this is good enough.

Google News Alert for: chandrayaan

Kanika Datta: Time for a little jugaad? Business Standard - Mumbai,Maharashtra,India And, finally, nothing exemplifies India’s ability to parlay cost advantages into world-competing solutions with Chandrayaan I, the lunar orbiter that was … See all stories on this topic

Chandrayaan-1 reaches operational orbit around moon Khabrein.info - New Delhi,Delhi,India Info Correspondent, Bangalore, Nov 12, 2008: Indian moon mission Chandrayaan-1 has finally reached its operational orbit around the moon. … See all stories on this topic

Chandrayaan-1 put in final orbit, it is 100 kms from moon Khabrein.info - New Delhi,Delhi,India Info Correspondent, Bangalore, Nov 12, 2008: India’s moon mission Chandrayaan-1 has been put into final orbit. It is now some 100 kms from moon and from its … See all stories on this topic

Mission accomplished! Chandrayaan enters Moon orbit IBNLive.com - New Delhi,India New Delhi: India’s first voyage to moon is now complete as Chandrayaan-I, India’s unmanned lunar spacecraft, has successfully lowered into its final orbit. … See all stories on this topic

Mission Chandrayaan-1 now successfully completed Economic Times - Gurgaon,Haryana,India Chandrayaan today reached the final resting orbit, about 100 kms from the moon. Chandrayaan will remain in this orbit for the next two years. … See all stories on this topic

Chandrayaan-1 reaches final orbital home Press Trust of India - New Delhi,India Bangalore, Nov 12 (PTI) India’s maiden unmanned lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 today reached its final orbital home, about 100 kms over the moon surface … See all stories on this topic

Chandrayaan reaches ‘home’ in lunar orbit (Lead) Thaindian.com - Bangkok,Bangkok,Thailand Bangalore, Nov 12 (IANS) India’s first unmanned lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 Wednesday reached its intended operational orbit at about 100 km from the … See all stories on this topic

Chandrayaan-I reaches its final resting orbit Times of India - India BANGALORE: Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft reached its final orbital home, about 100 kms above the moon’s surface on Wednesday. Chandrayaan-I will stay in the … See all stories on this topic

Chandrayaan enters lunar orbit 100 km above moon’s surface Mera Bilaspur - Bilaspur,Chhattisgarh,India Today, Chandrayaan-1 has arrived into its final operational orbit of about 100 kms from the surface of the moon. ISRO has said that during the last three … See all stories on this topic

Zee News Chandrayaan successfully lowered into final orbit Zee News - Noida,Uttar Pradesh,India Bangalore, Nov 12: India’s unmanned lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 was successfully lowered into its final orbit, about 100 km from the moon, on Wednesday … See all stories on this topic

And finally, a blurry picture of the moon from my mobile phone, on 12/11/08. No golden speck though!

November 14th, 2008 | Tags: chandrayaan, science | Category: Academic, Science | Leave a comment

The pier

The shell seller

Light and shade 1

The windbreak somewhat damaged by recent cyclones

Light and shade 2

Light and shade 3: note the bike tracks

Light and shade 4

More cyclone damage

More creative crabs

Light and shade 5: Eye of Heaven

Time and tide

Cyclone damage

Rough seas

November 8th, 2008 | Tags: pictures, Shankarpur | Category: Fun stuff | Comments (2)

At last!

November 5th, 2008 | Tags: Barack Obama, Politics | Category: Politics | Comments (1)

My holiday from unreason is over. The reason I’m blogging yet again in twenty four hours is because I’m unable to sleep. I’m unable to sleep because two sets of antagonistic muscles on either side of my body decided to rip each other to shreds four days ago. Lying down only changes the nature of the agony. At first I had no idea why they had done so and fingered everything from too many mawashigeris to Milonda’s fish fries. All blameless. Yet as I rolled around on my bed for three nights trying not to scream (because if I screamed my mother would’ve come running and if you are in pain you do not want my mother to come running, ever) little did I expect the true reason. It’s quite simple: the effects of the chemotherapy have finally worn off, and my period is back again. The cramps were so bad that the muscles on the front and back of my right side destroyed each other. Normally a period feels like you’ve been punched in the gut: this one felt like a full set of steak knives. Titanium sawtooth blade.

Along with it all my surly feminism is back with a bang. There I was, serenely floating above it all, patting angry young things on the head and not even bothering to count how much money I was saving off of Johnson and Johnson, and now I have trauma to my right extensor dorsalis because of a natural process?? This reaffirms my faith in the male gender of any creator who had better not exist because I intend to give him what for. However a quick and dirty trawl of the internet supports my prejudice that no one has done a study of the correlation between menstruation and bare-knuckle feminism. Therein lies the rich pasture of a Ph.D thesis (are you listening Debo?). The first thing a girl wants, after a week of this shit, is someone to blame, and lots of good feminist scholarship has stormed out of the house and into the street in that noble quest.

Well, failing a hit list of blamees, i will give you instead a poem I wrote on this subject back in the day. One of many. Best read while gnashing one’s teeth.

At this time of the month I can taste evil

And I can spit in the eye of anyone who makes me eat it.

I can roast the flesh of your self-esteem on my anger

I can use your skin for a drum: beware of me

I am unholy if that is what you worship

I am crazy if that is what you dare desire;

I can run rings around Saturn,

I can outstare Jupiter’s eye:

I can cry tears of blood and laugh yells of fury.

I can make a flute out of your thigh.

.

.

Nothing is amiss:

I must bleed at the end of this.

Gah!

Further thoughts on waking up: I have worked out the evolutionary significance of menstruation. On the face of it, you would think a design feature that causes half of a species to double up one week out of every four was a recipe for getting the species wiped off the face of the earth. But no, what this has done is boosted the intellectual development of the human race, because it is the most convincing argument against intelligent design. Men may be content to see their ability to pee their names on a wall as an instance of divine providence, but women are more likely to research the absorbent properties of sphagnum moss and buy Richard Dawkins’s books.  I do not think there is more profound evidence of the cussedness of the universe to be had anywhere. No wonder that the most advanced sceptical cults in the Indian esoteric traditions have always been hot for menstruation.

November 4th, 2008 | Tags: feminism, menstruation, Poems | Category: My Fiction, Poems | Comments (8)