Earth passes an arbitrary point in the cosmos during it’s orbit around the sun, and people all over the planet celebrate the event. And make resolutions that they promise to keep until the planet passes through the same arbitrary point again, but usually don’t.

This year, I stoop. Walk with the masses. Baa ram ewe.

I resolve to read a book a week, for this year. Take a couple of weeks off, 50 books by the year’s end.

Let’s go.

1. Superman

   Mr. Perfect goody-two-shoes who started off simple superhuman abilities. Leaping over tall buildings in a single bound is one thing. But over time, the scope of his powers extended beyond all basic concepts of physics and logic. Travel across dimensions? Into deep space? He transcends time, space and energy and yet, he retains a trivial primary charter of fighting crime in Metropolis? Why would he even bother?

   I would expect someone with as much power as him to be impassive… like Dr. Manhattan from the Watchmen. He would hardly bother with pedestrian concepts of right and wrong. And probably have better dress sense than wear a cape, and briefs over tights.

   Lastly, why does he even bother with a secret identity?

2. Batman

   This was DC’s attempt at making a more relatable super hero. A tortured soul, haunted by the horrific murder of his parents, which he witnessed as a young boy. Billionaire, loner, and spends his nights fighting crime on the streets of Gotham. While marginally more plausible than alien baby from Kansas, this is also where they have lost the plot a little.

   So yes, he did see his parents murdered. But since then, the only parent he has had has been Alfred, his butler. Alfred has raised him and cared for him, and moulded him into the aforementioned “tortured” soul. Lemme splice that again. Rich kid, and the only authority figure is technically his employee. That’s a recipe for a spoilt brat, a deplorable 1% human being, not a vigilante masked crusader.

3. Wonder Woman

   Princess Diana of Themyscira has an origin / back story that make her colleagues the caped crusader and the man of steel almost realistic. She’s essentially a greek goddess who fights crime dressed in lingerie. This is where we give up.

Marvel has better character design and origin stories than the DC lot. On the whole, the characters are much more relatable, and their circumstances believable.

1. Spiderman

   I like the idea of a school kid, working part time and struggling to make ends meet. He’s often torn between doing the right thing and making money. I also like J Jonah Jameson, the archetypal yellow journalist who vilifies Spiderman constantly, despite his obviously positive achievements. Peter Parker also has this tongue-in-cheek persona, and his clever one-liners are quite entertaining.

   Spiderman’s antagonists are kinda irritating though. Doc Ock? Green Goblin? Sandman?

2. X-Men

   I like that there are a number of people, each with one power, and one or more vulnerabilities. They have to work together to fight the forces of evil. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I also like that there are a number of other powered folk who are not particularly convinced that they are meant to be battling evil. Or rather, they resent being treated as freaks by the non-powered people.

   The villains are similarly powered people, and what often tilts the odds in the X-Men’s favour is their tendency to stick together, and have each others backs. Good stuff.

3. Captain America

   The origin story is a little… irritating. Super soldier serum during WWII ? Before Watson and Crick discovered the double helix? Come off it. Also, his primary weapon is an indestructible shield? Thankfully, the movies, and specifically, Chris Evans have infused this character with a lot of wit and charm, and the subtle one-liners referencing his very dated outlook and thought process add to this charm.

4. S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Avengers

   S.H.I.E.L.D. has an irritating backronym because it seems so contrived. But Shield itself seems seems to be almost an infinite visibility and control into peoples lives. They have a charter that seems to be beyond that of NSA, CIA, and FBI combined, and they police the whole world. There never seems to be any paucity of funds for them (flying aircraft carriers?) and they seem to be able to do anything and go anywhere, but are not aware of something as fundamental as a rogue enemy organisation within their midst? I hope the human race goes extinct before we allow an organisation like SHIELD to exist.

   As for the Avengers, err… first, what are they “Avenging”? Phil Coulson’s faked death? They are a poorly named, and poorly orchestrated band of vigilantes, who seem to get successful largely by luck and the ineptitude of their opponents.

There is an entire world of comics/graphic novels out there, outside the DC and Marvel cocoons, which feature no superheroes or flimsy origin stories at all. No costumed vigilantes, no mysterious super powers. These are true graphic novels, and are infinitely more entertaining than men wearing briefs over tights.

The change of expression on Mr. Shilly Ash’s face was encouraging.

She continued… whispered sweet nothings into his ear.

There was a twitch on the mister’s face - ah!, she thought, the magic is working.

Mr. Shilly Ash leaned over to say something in her ear.

With great anticipation, she moved her hair away from her ear. Baby, said Mr. Shilly Ash.

Ya, honey? she replied - she was all for encouragement.

Then came the magic words….

“I need to go to the loo”!

All told, she did learn to drive in Delhi. A Delhi driver in a Bolero can best be likened to a medieval battering ram. The kinds that William Wallace used to bring down the gates of York.

I needn’t have feared, though. Contrary to all stereotypes involving women and Delhi, Ms. Shilly Ash is an excellent driver. All control and concentration, smooth handling and safe speeds.

Anyway, in an unrelated incident, a luggage auto had nearly ripped the front bumper off the Bolero, when the Bolero was parked no less. Insurance grudgingly paid for a new bumper, and we were car-less till the mechanic got the vehicle ready.

On D-Day, the missus and I headed to the mechanic’s on a bike. She drove the car back, spanky new bumper and all. Being relatively new to Bangalore, she was still unfamiliar with the route, so I went ahead and she followed me.

A little too closely.

At a signal, I gently ease the bike to a standstill, all set to wait for the lights to turn green. Quite unexpectedly, I receive what is best described as a swift kick in the rear.

I turn around and am nose to hood with Wallace’s battering ram, with the aforementioned spanky new front bumper positioned roughly where my bike’s tail-lamp assembly ought to have been.

No words were exchanged. I just stared at her, speechless, while she just stared at me, aghast and contrite.

Now, in itself, that’s not a bad thing. Lots of folk are clumsy, and it would hardly do to hold it against them. Sometimes even the most athletic ones cannot handle Bone China. I’m sure there are NSG commandos who’ve broken their share of glassware.

That said, it would be prudent to lock up the crystal cupboard in her vicinity. Anyway, it isn’t her propensity to break things that’s under the scope here, but her efforts at making amends after. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Ms. ShillyAsh also has a predilection for Paneer-based dishes.

Again, in itself, that is hardly note-worthy. Plenty of people love paneer. It is a very popular ingredient in many Indian curries.

Now, Ms. ShillyAsh had made a big bowlful of Shahi Paneer for dinner, and put the leftover in the fridge. The next day, she takes the heavy glass bowl out of the fridge, and sticks it in the microwave.

A few seconds later, a very distinct “CRACK!” is heard from the microwave.She rushes, but it’s too late. The bowl has broken, and the top half of the bowl comes away as a ring. Quite a clean break.

Would it had not been so clean! Ms. ShillyAsh declares the paneer perfectly edible.

“Hey, it was a clean break, right ?”
“How can there be splinters of glass ?”
“I am definitely not going to throw away perfectly good Paneer just because…”
“I won’t hear of it”.
“Admit it, you just didn’t like the Paneer in the first place.”

It took the combined efforts of me, her father, her mother, an entire regiment of the NSG and three rogue elephants to pry the Paneer away from her. I emptied the remnants of the bowl, paneer and all in a large plastic bag and quickly threw it into the dumpster, while listening to her mutter about “waste of good food” and “starving Ethiopians”.

She rues the lost Paneer to this day.

Oh, and I may have overstated the role of the elephants and the NSG.

Like every savvy internet user, I have a e-mail ID that I provide whenever some site asks for one. An ID where I receive all the myriad newsletters, announcements, and other random ignorable e-mails.

Anyway, the other day I logged into the bit-bucket account waiting for a "click here to activate your account" mail, and I came across a whole bunch of mails from a site called "SPN". Now I was curious. I don’t recollect subscribing to any such list. I open one mail at random, and I kid you not; this is how it starts.

"Sat Sri Akal semidog ji. Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!!"

A very Sat Sri Akal to you too, and Waheguru and all that, but exactly what is this very cryptic SPN ? The mail itself did not reveal much; it wished me and my family all the best for Gurupurab. But right there, nestled at the bottom of the mail was a link leading to this site: Sikh Philosophy Network

Now, I’d have passed this off as a prank or something, except the mail addressed me by the standard nickname ("semidog") that I use in all forums. It could still be a prank, so I tried to log into the site, with my "standard" password.

Accepted.

I had a profile on the site! Member since 2nd November 2004, with my date of birth and all. Home address, private messages, the works. Now on the 2nd of November 2004, if I recall correctly, I was in Japan for a 3 week business trip. That was quite a harrowing trip; the airline lost my luggage, I was attending business meetings wearing socks and floaters, and food (or the lack of it) was quite an issue.

That said, I still can’t imagine why Sikh Philosophy might have suggested itself to me. I may have been looking for the answers to life, the universe and everything, or I may have been looking for Tandoori chicken recipes. But do not be surprised if, when you next see me, I’m wearing a turban and break out into Bhangra.

Tunak tunak, tunak tunak, tunak tunak bolo ta ra ra ra.

Being locked out with all the spare keys located safely inside the house posed quite a predicament. They approached various avenues for help, none of which yielded any result. That’s when Mr. Shilly Ash had a brainwave. He would climb into the balcony of the house (luckily the window had been left open) from the balcony above and then enter the house. Dangerous as it sounded, Ms. Shilly Ash agreed there was no other choice.

So they made their way to the house, and balcony, above. They surveyed the area and saw different things - he saw an easy jump, she saw a free fall. With great trepidation, she watched the mister lower himself. He somehow managed to find the right holds. She waited with bated breath, not letting the agony show when he disappeared from her vision, till the time his voice announced a safe landing.

While Mr. Shilly Ash got inside the house using the open window, she ran to give him a hero’s welcome. He was her hero! who had saved the day and how! Planning the myriad different ways in which she would greet him, she saw the mister wearing a sheepish smile.

The key was hanging on the door…. outside!

We’re off to Goa for an all too brief, four day vacation. We had no plans, no agenda. Just laze, eat, and soak up the sun. Bookings have been made, swimsuits and sunscreen have been packed, cab has been called for, and we’re all set.

Well, except for Ms. Shilly-ash, who chooses just that moment to… (hold breath)… straighten her hair. She spends nearly half of the 5 hours of sleep we’ve afforded ourselves, laboriously ironing her locks.

Alright, I’ll let that pass. She does want to look her best for the beach, an acceptable wish.

But of course, in less than twelve hours, at 10:15 AM to be precise, we are playing in the water off Baga beach. And the salt water has reduced her diligently directed coiffure to a knotty mane.

Was it worth literally losing sleep over, I ask. “Well, at least it looked great on the flight.”, she says.

I’m speechless.

On the way to work today, the sun just seemed too bright. I barely open my eyes, even with my mildly tinted visor. It didn’t seem as bright yesterday, but today was really harsh.

It got me thinking about the sun’s declination. On the 21st of June, summer solstice, the declination of the sun at the tropic of cancer (approximately Calcutta) is zero degrees. So maybe today, May 28th, maybe the declination in Bangalore is zero. I wanted to verify this hypothesis.

First Google yielded very little information. Even Wikipedia was of little help. I got some information on the terminology (the words declination, solstice) and some numbers (tropic of cancer is 23.44° N, Bangalore is 12.97° N)

I turned to Wolfram Alpha. I tried combination of words like sun, solstice, equator, declination. It threw about a few numbers, but for the most part, it said "I dunno how to process your input".

Ok, fine. Since everybody was being so uninformative, I decided to use a little bit of high-school trigonometry and find out the answer myself.

First, let’s analyze what I already knew.

1. I knew that the point at which the sun's declination is zero follows a sinusoidal waveform, with the peaks at the tropics and the centre at the equator.
2. I knew that the peak was at summer solstice, which is Jun 21st.
3. And of course, I knew a year is 365.25 days long, and Bangalore & Calcutta latitudes.

Back to Wolfram.

12.97 / 23.44 = 0.5533

Bangalore is 0.5533 of the angular distance from the equator to the tropic.

Arc Cosine of that = 56.40 degress

It was also 0.98 radians, but I decided to use degrees in my calculations.

(56.40 / 360) * 365.25 = 57.23 days

So basically Bangalore is zero declination 57.23 days before and after the summer solstice.

57 days before Jun 21st = April 25th
57 days after Jun 21st = August 17th.

So there we are. The sun is closest to Bangalore on those two days, April 25th and August 17th. Today is neither of those days, and the sun just happened to seem bright to me today.

But it does feel good to have "proved" it.

It so happened that in his younger days, Mr. Shillyash used to watch hindi movies right, left, and centre without any discretion as to what to watch. As a result, he ended up watching some, ahem, ‘interesting’ movies because of which he vowed never to see hindi movies again.

Then, he met me and realized that I am a big fan. (The difference of course, is that I use some discretion!).

In the course of our relationship, he sat through all the movies that I recommended as must-watch, but the paradigm still exists.

How does one fight this paradigm? How does one explain that beyond the apparent idiocy, there exists a world that is intelligent, sensitive, thought-provoking, and sometimes… just entertaining.

Dear God, how do I highlight the unfairness of the paradigm that after watching an unbearable English movie which might have been recommended by ‘credible’ sources makes him say “this is just like a Hindi movie”.