Saturday, November 2, 2013

Introduction!

We're Nakshatra. We are legion. We are starstuff. Expect us.

*cue menacing Star Wars - imperial march music*

Ahem, sorry for that bit of weirdness. So, about us. We are basically a bunch of jobless college students looking to learn the subtle science and exact art of amateur astronomy, and in the process get to know how science works. Most of our lives, we lived through a system that prioritized memorization over methods, that only made students to learn the dull facts and definitions as though that were all that is to science. Well, you can't blame the "system", if there is such a thing. They did the best they can under the circumstances, if we were in their place perhaps we could have come up with nothing better under the constraints they must have faced. That, however, does not change the fact that there is something severely lacking in how science is taught and understood by society, colleges and schools. Minds are not trash cans to be filled but candles to be ignited. We don't wait for the constraints to relax or the "system" (whatever that is) to reform itself to start a revolution in thinking.

We are "the astronomy and science club of NIT Trichy," or at least that is what our pages and posters proclaim. We conduct regular - cough - occasional stargazing sessions to look at and study the planets, Messier Objects and the moon. We also conduct talks on relevant science issues sometimes. Most of the time we just do nothing and make elaborate, far fetched plans of conducting events, workshops etc.

But we're new, starting out. Our operation is small, but there is lot of room for aggressive expansion. (Okay, I'll stop with the cultural references now.)

Knowledge and understanding have been cloistered long enough. it is time we experience a renaissance that had long been asleep.


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