Purani Jeans...

The moment he saw them, he knew he had to have them. It was love at first sight. He made his move. And walked out with a new pair of size 34 jeans. He felt jubilant. Lucky. Satisfied.

It soon became his favourite pair. He wore them everywhere. With everything. Always. The jeans moulded themselves to his frame. They looked good. He marvelled. As did his friends. He took care of the jeans. It was the best thing he owned. It was perfect.

Things were fine. Then he had an accident. And the jeans had a tear. He was careless. He patched them up. They were still size 34. He still loved 'em. He just wore 'em less. Because they didn't look good any more. But it was the same pair of jeans. He grew older. And larger around the middle. The jeans stretched. As much as they could. But they were still the same (with a patch).

And one fine day... the jeans went out and a new one came in. Shinier. Bigger. Suddenly, these were the "old ones". They didn't look good. They didn't fit. They got dumped. Replaced. By a new "better" pair.

The jeans were still the same. Size 34. They never changed.

But something did.

Nuclear Power...

In the beginning there was just, the word... And then came science... And then someone discovered radioactivity. Everyone found this interesting... Others extended the concept and discovered fission... Then things became really interesting...

That was the advent of nuclear energy...

Now there was a set of people who thought nuclear energy could be the new-clear source of energy. So they built reactors... A lot of people heralded the idea... But there was also a set of people who thought it was dangerous. They opposed it. There were demonstrations, pamphlets, speeches, conventions... The lot basically. The reactor-builders still went ahead and built reactors. There were accidents... and another round of demonstrations, pamphlets, speeches and conventions... The reactor-builders improved and built better and better reactors..

Of course, there was this other set of people which wanted to make nuclear bombs. That was scary... There were people who opposed the idea, organized demonstrations, conventions, speeches - you know the drill... And the bomb-makers continued to make bombs... and deploy them... They made them more and more sophisticated, bigger, "badder" as the clamour against them increased...

There was also this set of people who got nostalgic about the world before nuclear power. Presumably these were the set of people that also got nostalgic about the world before rapid industrialization (when that happened) and longed to go back to the time when the earth was flat. They advocated letting the U-235 disintegrate in peace. There were demonstrations, speeches, conventions and pamphlets.

People got confused, divided... And all this while, the bomb-makers made bombs... the reactor-makers made reactors, they won the preeminent science-prizes... And there continued to be demonstrations, pamphlets, speeches, conventions and peace-marches...