Dirge of π

The whole concept of irrationality is alien in engineering which leads to a phenomenon called engineering approximation. There is no room for anything but floating point numbers. This poetry is π's battle for existence in the engineering world.

A lonely π wanders free,
Weeps at his irrationality.
Father "circle" makes no claim -
As orphan he had made his name.
Numbers chuckle at his his shape
But Mathematics won't let him escape
Clustered with Greek lexicon
With phi, zeta and omicron.
Oh, see how hard he has tried
To say his state is justified,

"You round me out and give a fix
As 3.14156,
I don't mind you mutilate,
Transform me or conjugate
As long as you can calculate
My floating points will truncate.
But answers embed fallacy
Dubbed reasonable accuracy.
When will you comprehend
Approximation is a rule you bend
Imparted on a π or cake
Or generally on a circular shape.
Will someone teach you please
The irrationality of Mathematics
I can work and I can fix
I compute, he just predicts
But 3.14156
Has got no tricks up his sleeves."

But still no signs of conviction,
They treat him like Greek lexicon
And shun his grandiose and his might
"Get the hell off my sight."
Sadly he just walks away
Engineers won't let him stay.
Ideology conflicts
While 3.14156
Walks in proud approximation
As welcomed substitution.

The lonely π wanders free,
Cursing his irrationality.
His helplessness has no defense
Yet oblivious to the existence
Of theoretical physicists
Who'll take him in, as he is.

P.S. Main tera π π chuka doonga.

A Really Really Serious Letter

The whole idea of a technicolour cellphone has been blowing me out, not to mention the amount of research-constructed-risk it carries to eardrums, vocal chords, heart, genitals and the emotional self. In a few years we might stumble across a conspiracy theory that the whole far east has been plotting against us so that a harmless looking bio-hazard, like cellphone, can be slipped in. They also invented exploding batteries, a failsafe substitute that will go unnoticed due to it's harmless appearance.

Hence, instead of calling you I am writing this letter.

Here are the last four lines of Alfred Lloyd Tennyson's "The Vision of Sin" with all the punctuations included, including the hippie style use of colon.
Fill the cup, and fill the can:
Have a rouse before the mourn:
Every moment dies a man,
Every moment one is born.

Charles Babbage (you might remember him as the guy who laid down the design of Differential Engine and Analytical Engine - precursors to the modern computers) wrote a letter to Tennyson, in which he correctly pointed out
"It must be manifest that if this were true, the population of the world would be at a standstill...I would suggest that in the next edition of your poem you have it read - 'Every moment dies a man, Every moment 1 1/16 is born.'...The actual figure is so long I cannot get it onto a line, but I believe the figure 1 1/16 will be sufficiently accurate for poetry.
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
Charles Babbage"

I was enlightened to this fact by Simon Singh's "The Code Book". I also drew my own conclusions out of this whole exercise 8.37 deaths/1000 population equated to 20.09 births/1000 population in 2007 comes nowhere near 1 1/16 as estimated in late 19th century. We might even contact the Tennyson Society and suggest them to change 1 1/16 to 2 2/5, which I believe will be sufficiently accurate for poetry.

I do believe that since Tennyson is a significant literary figure, people around the world must be working hard to construct better cellphones that will have improved capacity to risk the eardrums, vocal chords, heart, genitals and the emotional self. This will work in two ways - the crippled people will be genetically least sought after by the opposite gender while the effect on human genitalia will subsequently help in reducing the burden on earth. The researchers should work hard to ensure that more amount of psychological threat is induced in the population, with media lending a generous hand in mass distributing the results. It will be only a matter of time that we'll be able to satisfy Babbage's data and progressively reach Tennyson's results. I sincerely believe that modern research can come up with batteries having higher explosive capabilities and should send a 2 second, uninterrupted high pitch signal to the receiving end, yet remain oblivious to the sender side. This will ensure that the user, his neighbourhood influenced by a blast wave of sufficient radius of influence as well as the receiver accepting the deafening 2 second, uninterrupted high pitch signal are all affected.

And now (now now now... [echo]) for something completely different,

Frank : Did you know that "a la mode", in French, translates literally to "in the fashion"? A la moooode... It comes from the latin word modus to do or proper measure.
Richard : Frank shut up.

I am, Sir, yours, etc.
Sauvik

Mosquito

My brother was killed in a war. And like all wars, the toll of casualties never took an individual into consideration. It is easy to device strategies and weight every grain of salt if you are trapped in a war which involves specimen of your species and specimens of seemingly harmless weapons that animate themselves to strike upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger. What if that was not the case? What if you were meant to be just another casualty in this war?

This creature had a strange habit of changing his outer shell to a black coloured one ^{[See translator's note #1]}. For some reason, it used to render him happy, or so I presumed. What this bloke didn't have a clue about was the fact that it used to drive me mad, it used to drive my brother mad and his cousins and nephews, too and even the queen. For some reason it created an effect of hypnosis which came only second to that created by inhaling diluted prallethrin. Contrary to popular belief, prallethrin doesn't kill you. It only gets you a bit high, much like a poor man's version of chasing the dragon.

So there was this guy, swiftly changing his skin and turning black. Everybody was driven nuts. And more so, my half witted brother, ZBZG. That perpetual moron always acted on his impulse and this time he couldn't help himself drifting towards this skin shifter. ZZBZ, his best friend and a quarter witted guy, also joined him. To tell you the truth, I was enjoying the scene like a distant spectator. I watched in amusement as ZBZG and ZZBZ unrolled their tubes and punched the needle through his black skin. These fraction wits were enjoying themselves and paid less attention to the skin shifter. The skin shifter grew aware of their presence. He turned his head and with one blow struck ZBZG dead. I couldn't believe my eyes. ZBZG was no more. ZZBZ sensed the second blow coming and moved himself out of his way. I didn't care about ZZBZ. There he was, my brother, lying dead. His natural flapping frequency 15 cents above A# of 7th octave silenced forever.

ZBZG's body slowly detached itself from the beast and fell to the ground while the skin shifter walked away. With a heavy heart, I drifted myself closer to my brother to pay my last dues. ZZBZ didn't come close. He was too disturbed to see the blood mixed with some red colored food ZBZG had managed to extract from the skin shifter.

I wanted to kill him, kill him badly. But attacking a skin shifter was not so easy. It is easy to kill a skin shifters where they are rare and our race can outnumber them. We do hear it from our distant relatives that they had managed to kill a skin shifter but such news comes once in every hundredth generation. And I knew, killing him alone would require a great deal of courage, a whole lot of intelligence and some help from another species. I knew just the right guy.

A communication problem always existed. These long tailed, moustache wielding, sharp nosed creatures were not from our community but were threatened by these skin shifters. We were united by a common enemy and just for the sake, he let me have his red fluid for food for I knew that this creature carried the finest germs in the entire world. All I had to do now was to suck the skin shifter's fluid out of his body and let the germs do the job. With great preparation, I flew into his castle. To my amazement, for the first time I saw the skin shifter without his skin on his bed. He was not alone. I saw a second skin shifter with him and possibly a female of his species. His black and her red skin lay on a wooden furniture.

I was about to approach them when this strange orange glowing light made me dizzy and was getting me high. I wondered, orange never got me high. It was always black. When suddenly a revelation hit my head like a lightning. That orange light was emitting prallethrin. I was loosing focus but the vision of my brother dying and a distant sound of his sweet 15 cents above the A# of the 7th octave kept me flying. I unrolled my proboscis in the air and struck him, making sure that the assorted collection of germs from the other creature's fluid gets into him. For some reason, he had no clue I was there. Maybe he was too busy playing some stupid game with the other skin shifter ^{[See translator's note #2]}.

I could not hold any longer. The prallethrin was making me dizzy and I fell off his body.

Few weeks have passed. The skin shifter bloke was dead. I heard them say that it was some strange variant of plague. I don't care. I took my revenge. However, I must mention that I had stomach troubles for a week, strengthening itself with recurring events of indigestion. That skin shifter was surely junk food.


Translator's Notes:

1. I didn't know that black coloured clothing attracted mosquitoes. Now that I am aware, I'll do my designing works on white and light coloured stuff.
2. You've heard it before but just for the record and as a public service announcement, "Do not have unprotected sex. Use a mosquito net for safety".