I miss the days of yore.

I am now 28. By June 2012 i'll be 29. And the year after that, shudder. I think i'll lose my memory.

Everything goes by so fast these days. Every day turns into a new month and then a new year. It just seems like yesterday that we were all, well, young. I remember with the fondest feeling, my memories of high school and then graduation. Going to school, skipping classes, exams, playing squash, girls, the excitement. It all seemed so fresh. Now, jaded. I don't mean to say that things are boring now. No, they aren't. I have a wonderful girlfriend who will soon be my wife (she is the prettiest li'l thing). I make decent money, fingers crossed. I have some real good friends. Most of whom have been with me since those earlier days I was talking about. Some left, some new ones came in, but thats the cycle of life. You discard, get discarded, recycled, redundant. But, I am digressing.

I miss the days of freshness. The days when we would wake up with a new adventure each day. When we would discover something new everyday. Study, swim, play squash, ping-pong, place bets, lose bets, won some, watch movies, talk rot. What was missing was the stress.


Let me introduce to Youngs modulus. It is is the ratio of stress, to strain.

E is the Young's modulus or the modulus of elasticity.
F is the force exerted on an object under tension.

A0 is the original cross-sectional area through which force is applied.

ΔL is the amount by which the length of the object changes.

L0 is the original length of the object.

So, that is what Youngs modulus is. It is a measure of the stiffness of an elastic material.
A formula by Thomas Young, a 19th century scientist.

Ironic isn't it?

So, if the object in question was me. Since i'm under tension. F would be the force exerted on me. My original cross-sectional area through which force would be applied would be my length multiplied by my breadth (all figures approx. or in my case round). Which is say, 174cms by 43 cms. i.e 7482 square cms.

The amount by which my length would change ΔL would be the amount i'm stooping due to the burden on my head.
And my original length is 174 cms.

So basically, E would be derived by (F*174)/(7482*ΔL)

Okay, this is turning into a complicated calculation. And I am sure I will get a few e-mails saying that I screwed up somewhere, so I'll end it there.

But isn't it funny that it's called the 'Young's Modulus'? Because the stress and the strain only keep ever increasing when we get older.

Whoa, that was intense. My brain almost got fried there.
Anyways bottomline is that I miss those days. I miss going to school. I miss playing squash. I miss my friends from college. I miss the the bus to college. Going to college in Pushkar's jeep. Splitting fuel bills due to our paltry allowance. I miss the paltry allowance. I miss my room-mates Ashutosh Prakash and Sachin Chauhan. I miss smoking with them. The trips we had on our Royal Enfields. The butter chicken at Koregaon Park. The Indian Ocean concerts. The monsoons of Pune. The mushroom on toast with my friend at SMS Quick Byte. The friend. The bike. The chowmein in the canteen. The skipped classes. The feeling of relief on getting a job.

Ah, thats when the shit started. This whole getting a job thing. Right after that, it was like Young was applying a lot of force on my head, and giving me stress due to which I now feel strained.


My advice to any of those reading this and are still in college or school. make the best of your time. Don't study so hard that you don't have time to smell the roses. Maybe you wont be the ace of your class, but you sure will come out feeling hella fresh.


And to all my friends and everyone else who has been a part of my life so far, Thank You.