Nostalgia

As you grow in age the one thing everyone lives with is nostalgia. The billions of neurons in our brain with emotional and practical hemispheres bring forth flashes of memories from the school days (your teachers, the punishments the spats you had with your mates) shopping and picnics with your parents and neighbours, the loves in your college days etc etc. This erupt more so on the onset of monsoons when your brain leashes extra spurts of amino acids. .
Socially too your mind gets into a melancholy when you hear of some past iconic places dying. There were two news articles alongside in the TOI Mumbai edition dtd 26.11.15. One was Cafe Madras selling Idlis at 20 Paise (the younger generation would ask what are these paisas and how they looked?) at the price at which it sold Idlis in 1940. This was to commemorate 75 years of its presence in Matunga without any change in taste and quality. This elevated my heart for the fond memories i had over the visits to my in laws place there and the frequent visits to Cafe Madras. On the other hand there was this news of The Rythm House, the shop selling music over seven decades at the famous location of Kala Ghoda, closing down. No one listens to CD’s and DVD’s anymore. They are bought online or simply downloaded free.
The old is waning. As the suburbs have their own shopping and Bazaar culture evolved there is no attendance at these iconic places. The Irani restaurants have mostly disappeared replaced by jazzy clothing and apparel shops. Dadar lost Mama Kane. The textile mills and along with it an entire culture lost in half of Mumbai now being replaced by plush sky scrapers. So many green areas so many hills and knolls cut down to make way for popping up new residential complex.
We are developing. We are making the world a better place to live in. But we are definitely losing something. Our generations to come may not have anything from the old past to show them to their grandchildren as the earth becomes a more populated place, may be just the Tajmahal and the Kutubminar and other such major structures.

Difference of Opinion

The other day my sister called me up to ask if Abu Dhabi was an essential part of the itinerary on the sightseeing map of UAE. Their tour operator had squeezed better options in Dubai in the time they would require to travel the 4 hours up and down in the four night package.
Now I was a resident of Abu Dhabi for almost three years and one can understand the attachment living in a place long enough. I also consider Abu Dhabi a better place with wider roads (including service roads) planted with infinite rows of dates and meadows enough to remember for the rest of your life. It has tall trees alongside that can bathe you with scented flowers if you were to walk along those footpaths and flower bedecked roundabouts that are maintained all throughout the year. It has such a visually charming beauty with beautifully laid out neighbourhoods and cute villas and a typically rich Arabic lifestyle.
What do I tell my sister? I cannot explain on phone the nuances of staying in a place so long. How can I tell her the difference between modernity and ethnicity? Dubai has the tallest city in the world. It has a mall you wouldn’t be able to walk in a day. It has a palm city that is built on water and which is a paradise. It has a desert with an unbelievable safari. You can spend days appreciating the tall buildings and the great towers with external glass lifts.
All of this occupied my mind while conversing on the phone. Finally I left it to her to decide on her own after having spoken about the avant-garde Dubai and the charming Abu Dhabi.

Water on Mars

News of water being available on the Planet Mars has excited the world. From all the photographs sent from Mars’s robotic and reconnaissance missions it was felt for years that the finger like and stream like patterns observed on rocky surfaces one day would lead to a conclusive evidence.
This would mean that there could be life in the form of micro organisms which stirs up scientific emotions to the fact that man can inhabit Mars albeit the composition of gases or the gravity or atmosphere. That life can be inhabited under a whole set of parameters different than those on Earth is something to contemplate.
So who can inhabit. Definitely Americans first! Their knowledge of space today and the financial strength they have has no second opinion. Russia in the decades gone by were good but since they have lagged behind on the monetary front there is a huge gap between the two although the European Union is not far behind Russia. China need to cover a lot of ground and Japan, India and the lowly South Korea are there too. India has had a good mission to Mars and their future plans with exceedingly economic missions are good in the hunt.
Although everyone is unitedly looking at all space missions in a friendly manner and helping each other in developing technologies we don’t believe the scenario would remain the same it is today. 20/30 years hence when enough number of missions have taken place and humans are ready to move to Mars what would the political situation be like. If we look at history and the coming years of peace keeping measures it looks relevant that America, European Union and Japan to align on one side with Russia and China differing on matters and again a cold war like situation arising. India would be neutral and South Korea may go with America and Co.
We know it won’t be so easy for an entire country to shift to Mars but then taking peace keeping measures will be another view point. How many people can travel 9 months under pressurised conditions and shift to Mars. May be we develop better space saucers to travel.
What will happen to all the history or religious texts is something to ponder. And this is logic as we all know!

Anant Chaturdashi

From my window I heard distant drumbeats of the processions that carry the Lord Ganesha for immersion on the final 10th day of festivities. I was instantly attracted by the drumbeats and I thought let me have a close up view of the entire proceedings.
It was about 6 in the evening and I roamed on the western express highway and the inside lanes. The traffic was sparse, as well as, being a Sunday but there were no processions. The heavy bass sound of the drumbeats was probably the precursor to the procession and probably preparations were on for the late evening start as the peanut hawker suggested.
I lingered around to find a ball flinging out of a ground chased by a stout collegian and being thrown inside. My curiosity pulled me inside and fortunately for me there was an empty bench to sit on.
The ground was square about 400*400 ft with patches of grass at the periphery on the outside of which was a square jogging track where some elderly people sauntered. On the external edges of this were arrays of benches donated by people and NGO’s hence were cast out of concrete or iron and some were even wooden. Behind rows of ashoka trees with their leaves forming an umbrella guarded the football and cricket ball getting into any of the surrounding residential blocks and the road.
The ground displayed a fusion of footballers and cricket enthusiasts and when the football entered cricket territory there was an small interruption in that and vice versa. Things went harmoniously and slightly behind on the southern flank there was equipment generally associated with a fitness centre and where a small toddler hung around his grandfather who was trying to keep his knees in order on an equipment. Beyond that guarded by a brick wall was the children’s playing area and I could see young mothers take care of their tots. Having watched the hectic football game with now the score level at 1 all and having a lot of catches dropped by the cricketers I decided to have a round of the jogging track. At the south west end I came across a square intrusion in the ground and where there were swings and seats and where cuddled young couples in all sorts of combinations. I decided not to peek into their privacies and walked back without still finding any Ganpati procession on the road.

The Dalai Lama

In my school days there was a chapter in Marathi text book by the famous author Anant Kanekar. It was titled ‘Personnel and Social’. It was about how the personnel life of renowned persons affects the social fabric of ordinary people. People follow by example and they emulate the life of their idols. He had stressed the same by quoting examples of first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru and his relationship with female friends especially Lady Mountbatten and Gandhi being supported by two women alongside affected the general psyche of the public.
I was initially flabbergasted after reading in the newspapers today of the opinion expressed by the Saint Dalai Lama of his successor- ‘if female should be attractive’ which he reiterated to the interviewer. I have been following the Dalai Lama for years. In spite of living in exile from his beloved country Tibet he has led a very auspicious and spiritual life and his teachings have been broadly recognised worldwide. He has rapport with an entire gamut of luminaries who matter spiritually.
Why should he have made such a statement? The word Saint sounds more masculine in gender although there are several recognised feminine saints. There are many Indian Saints who are feminine and so not so attractive. Sainthood is a matter of holiness of the knowledge and wisdom of worldly matter. But what if a Saint is holy and attractive too? The Dalai Lama also said that due importance to should be given to women and they are better spiritual souls than men.
Yet it looks quite incomprehensible why The Dalai Lama chose his female successor attractive!

Its a scary world

If there is anybody claiming he was never afraid of anything in his lifetime should either be a saint or a coward not able to accept realities.
One of the early scares etched in my mind was during the Indo Pak war of 1965. I was then eleven years old. We underwent training in school in Pune (which had an ordinance factory manufacturing ammunition- a worthy target for the enemy which had sabre jet planes which could bomb the facility) about how to protect yourself in the face of an aero attack from the enemy. It was simple. Sirens were attached in different parts of the city and they would hoot a discontinuous sound in a up and down low and high frequency undulating tone on the arrival of signals from the border about possible infiltrations of fighter planes into Indian territory. Upon such a signal all the students in the class had to huddle below their respective desks and benches until as such time as another siren would hoot continuously which would mean that the fighter enemy planes were dog chased back into enemy territory. Imagine the bombs that fell on my head and shoulders during the time we went and came back from school. Playground PT and games were abolished during that period. I had a quaint deep dry throat about the dreams of my future loves being demolished by those devilish fighter planes. At home it may have been cosy in the warmth of the family but the glazed windows were stuck with newspaper shreds to avoid beams of light penetrating outside for the enemy aeroplanes not to notice a residential area and teams of patrolmen kept vigilance all throughout the night.
Similarly all those nuclear bombings during the cold war of Russia and America kept my tender mind in horrid tumult.
Recently there was a picture of a three year old curled up and washed on a sea shore showing the misappropriations of terrorists to appal the world. Terrorists are a most formidable threat to peace. Nuclear armaments may be used to terminate a whole world of peace loving people. Hiroshima and Nagasaki may be specs in such a scheme.
Our Earth which can last billions of years created by a coincidence of great cosmic events could be finished prematurely by the handiwork of a stupid thought. What can be created by humanity is still immeasurable. Our space probes have just passed Pluto, have not even reached the edges of the solar system and our telescopes have probed a few thousand light years in space. There are great mysteries to be solved Cosmic and Humane.
Let us be patient.

Ganesh Chaturthi

Ganesh Chaturthi this year will be celebrated on Thursday, Sept 17. Lord Ganesha stands for anything new to begin with. He removes all obstacles and leads one to prosperity.
Lord Ganesha’s features are very unique. He has the head of an elephant planted on his neck with four arms and a generous belly. There are various tales to the elephant head he acquired including that he was born thus. His other features too are represented according to the myths and legends in Hindu mythological scriptures.
It is well known that sage Vyas recited the Bhagwatgita (the epitome of Hindu philosophy) and Lord Ganesha wrote it. It is believed that Lord Ganesha is a supercomputer who could write at immense speed forwards and backwards. But Vyasa wanted Lord Ganesha to understand the verses of the Bhagwatgita before he would type.
Lord Ganesha is revealed as a computer thus: The elephant head has two large ears. These are the speakers. The eyes are the web camera. The trunk is the CPU and has horizontal scars standing for different drives. The large pot belly is the monitor and Lord Ganesha rides a mouse.
It would be an interesting analogy to find the first birth of a computer!

A P J Abdul Kalam-an Obituary

Born in Rameswaram, the epitome of Hinduism, (and where he will be buried too) and the one who carried with him the knowledge of the Koran, Gita and the Bible and the one who spoke pure Physics as an academia A P J Abdul Kalaam known as the ‘Missile Man’ is no more. The thought still aggrieves me because he was active and 83 and could have inspired students and guided institutions for another 10 years and that could have produced a still better India.
The humble man who acquired infinite knowledge in his lifetime and who pivoted the missile program and was instrumental in the Pokhran nuclear experiment and like Einstein always rued the negative aspects of the nuclear capabilities a nation achieved.
A great teacher, a grandsire of knowledge and humility an extraordinary writer an intellectual with no bounds is no more with us.
Thankyou Abdul Kalam for letting us know the flames of passion, the soaring of knowledge and the dedication of self and the goodness of life.

Shelved

A poem in appreciation of the moon and continuation of my collection named Pareidolia
Your crescent
Glows and shimmers
In the shadow play
Of the dark clouds
In the clatter of the rains and mist
That shrouds
The night worms screech monotonous weary
They have a story to tell me
Of memories of the past
That has been shelved for a lifetime
Like a book read long back
Nevertheless hidden forever unknown
That was destined to surface
The clouds were just an imposter

Stephen Hawking and Alens

I remember Stephen Hawking saying not to peruse finding aliens for if they know us the deprived aliens will steel all our resources and in the end we will be left with nothing. For such is the ferocity of life in the universe. No mercy just the struggle to stay put on. And today I read of his ambitious multimillion dollar program along with a Russian tycoon to use all resources with fully loaded computer capacity using high resolution telescopes to search for aliens a program much bigger than SETI (Search for extra terrestrial life). The new program will focus on a million neighbour stars, the plane of the Milky Way galaxy and a hundred other nearby galaxies and more importantly to synthesise and analyse radio waves coming from space.
This is an amazing program for the next ten years. And if we can find the most touted bear sized aliens how our life would change! No radio, no television no computer would have changed as much as finding an alien in space not to mention the effect on the lives of aliens.

Walk to your health galore

At the age of forty my heart started emitting unusual palpitations. Over visits to the doctor it was confirmed that I had hypertension (popularly blood pressure) and that my systolic and diastolic needed attention. It was said to be a lifestyle (since when style become a disease)disease and besides regular doses of pills and control on salt consumption I had to be sleeping in time, eating well (!) and exercising at least five days in a week. No strenuous exercises and walking is for hypertensive’s. And so the trial was complete. Rest is left to you to mend your ways otherwise....you would yourself be responsible for your own undoing.
Since then I have walked to my hearts galore. Having walked a few years I realised that trial in question was a blessing in disguise. I walked along gothic streets and boulevard watching men and women in quixotic dresses and in linear diabolic gaits talking silently and in hushed tones or agitatedly pointing fingers. I have criss-crossed empty stadiums, with a fifty thousand crowd echo in my ears supporting my icon, in silent amazement. I have walked meandering pathways below a wooded forest with small springs of water coming down hillocks passing me below a little furrow making harmonious jingles and add to this the mist in winters and the picture is everlasting. I have treaded panting hills with billowing grey clouds and from where you can look down to a serene skyline with a wide road going to infinity and a plane hovering above to land with wild birds chirping around in thickets and a quiet town nestled below making no attempts to move life. I had pleasant walks in Sharjah and Abu Dhabi along crisp roundabouts and rows of never ending flowers of different colours and hues with a background of modern skyscrapers and along a corniche and watch distant dhow sway and heave in sparkling waters. Walk along malls in hill stations, climb difficult steepes, follow simple trails in meadows, walk along a narrow street with high red-stone walls.
All those in their late twenties and thirties should not wait for disaster to strike for the modern life would catch you before you say Oh no! Indulge in walking, jogging or swimming. Strike a gym, go for a yogic session. Find what you like. Keep yourself in shape and be fit. You will definitely love yourself.

Second Sun

When most interested in astronomy were reading ,talking and watching about the Pluto flyby of the New Horizons there appeared a small overlapped photo graph in various media showing Jupiter and a light emitting object. This was in relation to a similar solar system in deep space which had been located with a planet similar in size to the Jupiter but one that was glowing like the second sun in its solar system.
This is quite similar to a thesis our planet Jupiter is known about. It is widely believed that if our Jupiter were to amass a little more mass from its surrounding sky during the accreting process, in times of antiquity, then it would have started glowing like another sun( as a host of parameters would have combined) wherein the process of synthesising hydrogen and helium would have begun.
Having two sun’s to our solar system would have been interesting and the combinations of sunrises and sunsets and the amount of sunshine and darkness and the duration of bright and bleak and dark days and nights and their effect on seasons and evolution is going far too overboard and berserk.

July 14-Pluto Flyby

July 14 has arrived and New Horizons will flyby Pluto in some hours and send back amazing pictures of Pluto once considered greyish with red spots. Tombaughs discovered in 1930 as just a speck of light. His kin will watch the flyby with two inches of his ash tucked inside an aluminium shell in the wombs of New Horizons.
Since Jan 19,2006 New Horizons the spaceship is travelling to Pluto. Is it just a coincidence that it has not met with an accident in the infinite space. Or is it that the distance between two shards or meteors or dust for that matter is so huge that one can glide through easily. Its course has been changed nine times. It has passed through the maze of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter and has travelled a distance of 4.8 billion kms.
Man has learned to manoeuvre these unmanned spaceships, the sizes of cars, with ultramodern technology to their will. It takes nine hours for a command to receive response from New Horizons. Spirit lost a wheel (you could say a leg) but the astronomers still managed to move it on the rugged terrain of Mars on the rest of the three wheels. Qudos!
I sometimes feel the spaceships and these robots are made up of flesh and blood and sturdy bone and bear skin like we all humans do.

Smile

There are smiles and smiles. Some are fair and others are dark. Some more could be brown and others dimpled. Some creased at cheeks with some reaching folds in foreheads. Baby smiles and coming of age smiles, adult and age old smiles.
There are as many smiles as as many faces. Every face differs from the other and we have been naturally taught to appreciate smiles. Mothers want their sons and daughters to smile and they get worried when they cry. Some smiles evoke cries and some may recognise it and others defy.
Some smiles give you assurance, a sort of a guarantee, and there in its depth lies conviction. You start to believe in the first encounter itself that this face will not ditch you, never. You feel like submitting yourself to its awesomeness and following it barely without caring whether you gain or loose. Just give in. Just be submissive
There may be a very indelible sweet smile which you may want to see it forever. It has the depth of a flowering valley which you could be watching passing through an aeroplane. It has the everlasting quality which you would love to visit again and again. Returning to it is a passion that begets you after a tiring season or a worn down sequence of events
How your face can give so many expressions could be a study in itself but the person who can emote all the smiles in the world must know the world better. Actors should be good at this. Can you recall Elizabeth Taylors smile.Try thinking about Anthony Quinn, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Sean Connery any face you like and the reasons would be linked to its witty pleasant everlasting smile.
Awful smiles: There are some faces which don’t look in the mirror to find how their face looks when they smile. So they don’t know how to widen their lips to broaden a smile or to create a dimple on their cheek or stretch their eyebrows in awe of a happening or let a grin off. Their faces are stern, their smiles defensive and people in their presence will not know how to react?
Smiles that laugh at you : The conversation that leads to this smile is sarcastic. You never know how to react to this! If you smile back it would mean your acceptability to being made a fool. If you keep mum there will be an air of disapproval and could be followed by strained moments. Beware of such people.
Never smiling faces: These need to be sent to laughing clubs so that a permanent genetic disorder could be rectified. A huge room filled with fat and slim and elegant faces could turn into a hilarious uproar caused due to a stupid pj but this dumb would remain solid rock unnerved unmoved and unperturbed. I sometimes wonder if their metabolism suffers without a proper churn in their bowels.
Pursed smiles: These vanish away into oblivion the moment they appear. They disappear from one end of the mouth to the other and the observer is bereft of reasons for their disappearance.
Dimpled smiles: They look much better on young female faces. Not that they rub away the handsomeness of men. It is a sheer pleasure to watch the dimples on their cheeks and permanent ones on their chins. The dimples on the cheek that form during smiles are a revelation as they transform the face into a glorious blossom.
Manly smiles : Females could fall in love with this. They will start adoring the person who seems to represent some zodiacal patterns.
Gentlemen smiles: These are absolutely refined and are generated with ease and comfort and are savvy in the presence of a crowd. People may get bewitched and may fall to these unknowingly.
Feminine smiles: You will remember this smile in your dreams. These will flash into your daily chores and make your life miserable.
Motherly smiles: Soothing, assuring asking you to keep going come what may. The wave of arm with a smile as you board the school bus. The assurance is so eloquent when in solving a problem and the expectancy that it gives is a lifetime full of memories. You recall it when in trouble and you look forward to it in times of distress.
Smile of a saint: There is a hundred philosophy bound into one. It won’t be wide and charismatic but deep and divine.
Smile of a witch: This is the most dreaded one. It is huge wide and loud coming out of a creased round face (black or white) with dishevelled hair and with crooked intentions.
Smile of a crooked: These are very unnatural people and their smiles are artificial. They don’t know how to smile and look at worldly things wonderfully. They smile because you like them to otherwise they would look awfully sadistic. This smile will bring you relief because you will have gone through a very stressful time and more importantly it is also a parting smile so that you can immediately show your back and unpack your thoughts in the open air.
A very serious smile: This is something that wants to get out of a situation. Is it intended to fool the surroundings or is it trying to lighten the air one doesn’t know unless and until you are a part of it.
A twitch: This may not necessary be a smile but since it is given out of a corner of a pursed lips we can take the liberty to put it under this category. Normally it is a rejection of whatever is happening or whoever is instigating and it is a response to an activity.
A Monalisa smile: A woman smiling in pregnancy is what has been analysed recently. Otherwise saintly! As mature as ever!! The image of this painting will be permanently stored in one neuron of your brain and will never empty.
An aristocratic smile : Smiles that are exuded by the rich and famous with a thousand things engulfed within its premises and it is a all knowing thing which acknowledges for itself and its successes. The poor cannot imitate this smile since it is cultivated by the rich in environs that are subtly socialite. These are well bred straight faces which never shake under any circumstances. There are too many restrictions to this smile and too many byelaws which need to be honed over a period of time and when you see it executed the visual is awesome and one in enthralled in its sphere of influence.
A smile is a milder version of the laugh which is generous and can create a jamboree of sounds. Laughter is the better medicine like a laughter club can drain out toxicants from your lungs by the angle at which you crane your neck and the manner in which you exhaust your windpipes. It will thunder in a clear sky . But you can have the last laugh and in that sense the laugh can be canny and cunning to say the least. A laugh makes broad chins sometimes a wide agape mouth and your eyes could shine like diamonds. But it could end with drops oozing out of your eyelids like tears breaking down into a pool of drown.
Giggle: Bodily laugh. You have to use your entire upper body to do this. No inhibitions no hidden agenda. Wide mouth, chest heaving, arms shaking, neck stretching. It could be as good as doing some yogic exercise in spiritualism for it releases endomorphins so much required by your body to relieve stress and pain. At the end of it your soul may be free and you may be weightless. And the people who accompany you could too be blessed.

Pluto Flyby

Astronauts have stayed in mock up spaces for about ten months to emulate and understand the hazards of a long travel to Mars in space travel conditions. But can we do that for nine and a half years if we have to travel to Pluto. Difficult! That is one reason why we are choosing to develop alternative modes of travelling in space.
New Horizons began its sojourn in Jan 2006 and after a travel of 4.8 billion kms (24 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun )it will make a flyby 12500 kms from the surface of the dwarf planet Pluto and take reconnaissance images. In the mean time the latest space ships travelling to Mars and Sun have more sophisticated technology than the one employed on New Horizons.
Pluto not long back considered the ninth planet of our solar system was demoted to a dwarf planet since it didn’t fit all the parameters required to be a planet like its wayward trajectory. Thus poor Earth was reduced to an eight planet solar system. Pluto in olden times had just one clinging moon Charon but with time Nix and Hydra were found and in the near past P4. New Horizons sharp camera now has added another moon the newly designated P5.
Monitoring such a long voyage may not have been easy and New Horizons may be quite lucky in the sense that it has not collided with a meteor (it can be destroyed by a one mm grain for it travels at 55000 kmph). The biggest worry for the control rooms now is to put it into ‘bail it out trajectories’ or thrust its disc in front to take all the attacks head on.
The coming week should be as interesting to Astronomers as it should be to the people who look towards the magical skies in amazement.

Yoga Day-21st June 2015

Thousands who die every day want to live forever. A thousand who are born everyday would yearn to live an eternity.
Yoga has been here for thousands of years. The Rishis and Munis of the past practised it and lived a long and healthy life. BKS Iyengar and Guru Ramdeo kept the flame glowing in the modern times and the time has come when Modiji is taking it into an international platform.
Sage Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga comprising the eight arms the first being The rules to be followed and not, The Postures, The breathing, The senses, Awareness, Meditation and Trance
Yoga is union of the self with the universal. The third ‘ang’ among the ‘ashtang’ sutra, for the ovrall wellness of the being, propagated by the Sage Patanjali is the Asana ie Posture simplified as Yogasana the physical explorations of your body.
If we can understand Yoga and the Bhagwatgita (which teaches ways to achieve a sound mind) it would be a great take off to attain a fulfilled and blessed life.

Extraterrestrial Estate

Extra terrestrial Real Estate
Dennis Hope made $10 million selling plots on Moon, Mars, Venus and Mercury. There are websites who claim to have sold 300 million acres of land on these extraterrestrial objects in the last 22 years. Mythologies in Himyaritic and Sabaean civilizations claim planetary inheritance existing over several thousand years.
Maria Hugo of Spain claims ownership of a part of Sun and has registered the Star and notarised it in an office in Spain. She sells solar flares emanating from those parts she claims to own and can bill you and me for the solar energy you could be generating out of those flares. Further she could bill you for the light you receive or the sunlight supported farms you grow or the wind it generates etc etc
Even empty space between objects is available for sale.
It is a matter of objectivity whose space the Russians , Americans, Europeans or for that matter Japanese, Chinese , Koreans and Indians used to fly all those space ships into the Moon , Mars, Mercury, Venus and outer echelons of the Solar system including the Sun itself. And whose space is International Space Station using anyway.
Extraterrestrial space is nobody’s estate as per the Outer Space treaty signed by most countries. The land being sold on extraterrestrial objects is neither realistic nor speculative. It is just imaginative and a figment of psyche. People buy, sell, invest, gift these lands for the thrill of it. Feeling that I have a land on the glorious Moon of which there are thousands of legends and where the famous Apollo missions landed is a matter to be proud of. Mars the planet where the most activities on any extraterrestrial object are taking place presently is also the world of Edgar Rice Burroughs ‘Barsoom’ and his eternal Princes and where once flowed active canals and life may have thrived. Buying a land on any of these objects where you now can just crane your neck futuristically in the skies and watch the twinkling stars could be a chance to behold. It could satiate a lot of your emotional side of the brains hemisphere.
People buy and sell a lot of material goods. But buying a fantasy is amazing. Is it exactly like buying a fantasy book or watching a fantasy movie that you have paid for?
Or is it just that somebody is looting you with his idiosyncrasies!

The Pigs Tale

Once upon a time a king is visited by a fortune teller. The king’s stars foresee that he would be dead in a week. He also predicts that the king would be a pig in his next life. Since he wouldn’t want to live a pig’s life his son the king then would slay him to end his miseries forever.
The futurist suggest that he should immediately swear in his son to the throne and make it known to him about his afterlife. The pig born after his death would have half a curve of the moon on its forehead for the king to be identified.
So said the plan is agreed by the king and the son in the presence of the fortuneteller.
The crown prince was sworn in and the king died within the week.
After the 10th day of mourning, as per rites the son began his search for the new born pig. After extensive search for a few days the pig with the half moon curve is spotted in the neighbourhood. The son immediately retrieves the sword from its sheath and raises it to kill the pig.
Lo and behold the pig twitches its neck and cries in anguish,
‘Wait! Don’t kill me. I have been living with this herd for the last few days. I wish to die no more. I am happy with this life. Spare me and forgive me for my false instructions earlier.’ So saying the pig runs away in its herd joyously.

Hills and Valleys

It is the first week of June and the ruggedness of a long sultry summer has taken over me. The monotony of life has left me jaded and my Achilles tendon no more responds to my inner calls to stretch ahead.
Then I see this serial called ‘Hills and Valleys’ and my sinuses record the cool peaceful breeze over my body distressing my nerves. I recall all those sojourns over the years and wonder why it is so rejuvenating to visit these hill stations. The catch lies in the words ‘Hills and Valleys’. You travel from your regular buzz of the four /six lane speedy highways and take a detour and climb up hills after hills watching the valleys deepen and you start realising you are into a different world altogether. Your mind sets in calm and serene green foliage than stretches all along the horizons.
You drive down across and stand on a plateau and watch the sun drenched valley below and see a small village and the crest of a temple and smoke billowing out of a thatched roof hut beyond somewhere a stream is growing into a river and around the green forest grows taller and taller into a gigantic mountain. One mountain ranges gives way to number of them beyond and finally they grow smaller and smaller into oblivion.
As you peep into the valleys your heart is taken down to the lowest of recesses and it suffers to the pain of unknown and on the other mountains overwhelm you beyond the realms of life. The mist as it passes through the valley is a riot of thoughts. The late sunrises and the early sunsets and the play of dark shadows all over the valley is a sight to behold.
The summer will pass now and the monsoons will set in and I will definitely plan to visit the hills when they would be different play of dense dark clouds and flowing mist and relentless rain and wrapped in rain coats your body shivering it would clasp a cup of tea and enjoy the deep mystery of life.

Books in Kilograms 2

I had earlier written on this and was dismayed to have read an advertisement that sold books in kgs by weight. I was appalled and thought ‘what’s happening to this world’? Now, today I read an advertisement in a newspaper (from a famous group) that has made a distinction between Mills and Boon (Rs 50/ a kilogram), Dictionaries (Rs 100 a kg), Children’s books and LITERATURE ( Rs 200/ a kg) and Premium Authors -Jeffrey Archer, Sidney Sheldon, Paulo Coelho to name a few- (Rs 300/kg).
‘The Times they are a changing’ is my favourite song sung by Bob Dylan. The song was more about relationships. But times have to change for every little thing. However every generation thinks they wouldn’t change to this extent.
Let us have a small comparison of the differences three generations has seen. Say between my grandfather and me. He heard a radio late in his life. So how was life without a radio? Sparse books, late edition newspapers, horse driven cart, no fan, cow dung floors (a big part of India still has this flooring). It must be a lot of solitude under banyan trees and cool thick walled temples. Far from the din of today’s chattering wheels and internet shops we need to think who is living fuller! But let us leave that to some other day.

The Vagaries of Life

The Latitude and hemisphere effect
My parents in their younger days knew bleakly the far off countries like the black Africa and the white America and the definitive Gora British since they still ruled. My grandfather only knew the British and a foreign country called England and the way they travelled in Ships and their royal welcomes at the gateway of India. My generation knows UK, Australia, America, Africa, Europe and the illusory Switzerland. My offspring know to fly in every nook and corner of all the latitudes and both the hemispheres of this globe and can narrate at length about the tallest building in Dubai and Mount Titlis and East and West coasts of America not to forget the bliss of Maldives and the harbour bridge of Sydney.
The colour of the skin or the stature of your body are discussed at will and never mind the racist splurge or the caste overtone. What was once spoken in hushes and whispers is spoken loud. All the colours, the tall and short have mingled and the entire world with all its communication skills is trying to set up a universal mindset. It is not very long when there would be a united cosmic mind able to rise to the skies and reach far galaxies.

Speed In Space

Thinking about travel time in space I cannot hide the image of swirling flying saucers at breakneck speeds trekking the skies. From saucers they become vanishing points in no time.
50000 kmph is the rate at which our present day rockets reach thrust. However there have been technologies which are being studied over several years that are of note and kindle hope of travelling to cover some distance in space beyond our solar system and into the world of colourful and explosive galaxies.
One of the technologies being studied is a plasma rocket. The technology uses radio waves to heat gases such as hydrogen and argon to create hot plasma. Magnetic field force the charged plasma out of the back of the engine producing thrust in opposite direction. Another technology that can be used to travel within the solar system is the electric solar sail. This uses long charged tethers to convert natural solar wind momentum flux into spacecraft thrust. This will require water mined from the asteroids

Breathe Deeper

We need to think, we need to ponder, we need to breathe and need to celebrate a silent moment before we react to a situation. Life after all is not that short!
Today’s newspapers are publishing news and articles with the blink of an eyelid as they have to come up with reactions. News channels ‘breaking news’ are dividing your nerves leaving your thoughts betrayed and confusions more liberated than ever before.
Management modules require a person to be more proactive to generate better results to a company. Most emails generated in the office cubicles and work stations could be reactive in a hurry to prove the time taken by a manager to prove his worth.
Put something in your brain and it takes the idea to pass through miniscule neurons and their mast pinheads to looks to solutions and could sometimes a time elapse to comeback. Wait and breathe and look for an alternative may be you could find a better solution.
Congested roads, time schedules, proving yourself worthy, maze of thoughts, faster life may block your arteries. Relax, breathe a little deeper, a little more and live fuller.

Some Poems

My first natural instinct as it darkens is to look at the heavens and sight the Moon in the star spangled night and wonder at the flowing brightness of the Milky Way. Whether it is the mellow crescent moon in the night after a hot sultry day or a full moon set overhead on a cool winter night (warming your body up in front of a bonfire). What a soothing effect the moon has on our heart!

I will present a few poems from my collection (Pareidolia)

PAREIDOLIA

I can see you in the crystals of my granite floor
On the floral motif over the vase
On the walls where the paint has scaled
On the quilt that dons my bed
On the leaves of the hydrophytes that wave
On the moirés of sand on the beach I walk
I can see you in the illuminated dark clouds
In the backdrop of a deep azure night sky
In millions, all alone even as I close my eyes
Ubiquitously just everywhere

Now I am happy
I can see the glow behind the palms
From where you will rise
Behind those serrated mountains

SALVE

In the jostle of a crowd dismay
And the din of a mind astray
Chaos of a pile of work
I need to see the storm blow by

As I wait for the revved up engines to move
Scurrying to go everywhere
I see you through the windshield
Half of you hanging
A cup of grey bowl
Over a bright blue sterile sky

Who said the sun can cover you
Now I feel a balm
Like in all those blossom nights
And hope to finish all by myself

TELL ME

Your crescent hangs beyond trees and buildings
What do you watch?
Husbands lying with wives
Her soap has taken a new turn
Or the boy not studying
His computer has taken over him
Young mothers singing your lullabies
The pressure cooker whistling for a release

As night turns dark do the lovers love the same way
They used to?
I wonder through all your crescents
If over the years the switch you have seen
Has made you remorse
Or are you still happy!
Tell me?

Mind and Body Lag

I drove 800kms in two days (almost seven hours on both occasions) and was wondering over my mental state. I was not alone and my wife kept on reading the sign boards and the name of the hotels and which village we passed by and discussed where we could lunch or have tea. Back home my head was numb and my activities lethargic to say the least. I began thinking whether it was similar to a Jet Lag.

I often travel long distance in trains and my condition is not so different.

We travel a lot these days. It could be for business or for pleasure. We could be travelling by an aircraft or in a train or wading through waters in deep sea on a cruise liner. We all suffer from this syndrome in some way or the other and suffer bouts of drowsiness, indigestion, nausea or vertigo.

International flights across time zones in different directions lead to jet lag. This can cause circadian dysrythmia or desynchronosis which is disturbance of the internal body clock. I have often found travelling in a train from the eastern part of India to the western disturbing my mindset and although the sunrises and sunsets may differ by about 45 minutes the continuous heaves and rattling below could leave the traveller shattered. It could take more than a day to come to your original state. This could even be the reason when you are resting in a ship with your eyes closed or only concentrating on the interiors of the ship and the oscillations of the ship could cause all the discordance with equilibrium.

Eating a healthy food and keeping yourself aware of the travel could obviously help you. Light food, fruits and soups could have control over your bowels and conducting light exercise like sitting on the edge rotating your neck, stretching yourself often in airport lounges, railway platforms and liner decks. We must never forget to keep taking deep breaths at comfortable intervals even if you are driving and also indulge in some hip and trunk exercises and contract your bellies often. Some snoozes will also help you a lot. Quite relaxing music can help.

Hormone melatonin could help you if you are travelling across time zones. Some doctors may prescribe sleeping tablet for a couple of days to recuperate. Across the counter drugs like Stugeron or Promethazine could help but it is always good to take doctors advise.

Books in Kilograms

Stationery, Grocery, Vegetables and fruits, Shoes, electronic goods are sold differently. Stationery is sold in numbers or dozens or pairs (all in close relationship with numbers), Grocery in weight, Vegetables in weight and fruits in numbers and dozens. Shoes are sold in pairs and electronic goods in numbers. All these goods are consumer usable, food to eat or shoes to wear or a television to entertain. There are standards of weights and measure that a country approves and others like a dozen or pair can be known out of common sense.

I am trying to disembark on something that appeared in a newspaper advertisement which sprang out from my heart a cry that will reach all those connoisseurs who line up books neatly in their bookshelves in the studio. All those aficionado who climb stairs of libraries and wade through innumerable books standing between rows and long rows of cabinets. The books that have history, the books that have science, that have mystery and those longings lovers may have celebrated and that rocket technology that may have taken man to the moon or mars.

How could anybody think of selling books in kilograms! Textbooks, novels, porn, history, science cannot be weighed on the same scale. There would be a day when a painting could be sold in kilogram, when a pashmina would be sold by weight!!

Aha..

Space Exploration..Benefits

Some people thoughtlessly keep asking the purpose of space exploration and the billions of dollars spent by NASA, ESA, ISRO, Russian, Chinese and Japanese space agencies. Besides what we would gain if man finds an organism on Mars and if SETI can find out the possibility of planets with habitation some of the minor benefits are mentioned below......these are tips of the iceberg examples.

*Worms on ISS offer clues to keep astronauts healthy on space trips and offer solution to osteoporosis patients on earth
*How did the robotic missions opportunity or spirit and now Curiosity collect samples on Mars. Their robotic arms stretched, bent at their elbows and then sank onto the Martian regolith and drilled and scooped samples back. This technology is being used to carry out accurate brain surgeries where our hands and arms are flexible and inaccurate and risky.

*ISS as ‘global observation and diagnostic centre’. ISS monitors weather, earthquakes, tsunamis and keeps minute eyes on movement of traffic on land and sea. It thus is capable of giving advanced warning signs and clear pictures of coral reefs and offers sharp images.

*As many as 1.7 million students questioned on the ISS about its technology and purpose. This is something not taught in curricula and the question raised show positive inclinations and curiosity about things happening not only on earth but also in space thus proving to be a great educational drive indeed.

*LED light used to grow plants in space is used to cure bone pain and arthritis. Infrared ear thermometers, artificial limbs are other applications. Grooving on concrete surfaces to avoid skidding, rubber stronger than steel to be used in parachutes to land on Mars are some more examples.

Psasms in Time

I saw a documentary that showed the history of the earth and life itself. It was beautifully chronicled and more serenely illustrated. However it was based mostly on evidences buried in the sediments of rocks buried in slivers of time and in the open caves of carves sliced to reveal history of the jingles of time thought to have gone by. It covered 13.7 billion years of the birth of our cosmos and the evolution of over 4 billion years of earth. The earth was first a globe of molten lava. Then over millions of years it froze into a crust of ice. And then in another stage of millions of years grew warm and again went through a period of an ice age. In between several creatures made their presence on the planet under the sea and over the dry arid plains and over time moss grew on the rocks which yielded to make way for all the foliage and plant life.

All through the movie I had a critical corner of the brain telling me the far flung imaginations of one’s mind and the extreme vision of your brain to back something that goes back to trace the trails of time.

The Hindu philosophy believes that the world is a figment of imagination and everything is ‘Maya’ an illusion. Some daring observers from the west too have imagined this entire set up being played to some pre-recorded tape.

How do you wipe these blotches and clear your mind and arrive at an analogy that cancels the hypothesis and makes life a more realistic place to stay in.

What will strike you through all this is we had been thinking only about the past. As I write this the present moment has eloped into the past. Only what remains is the future! But isn’t it a fantasy. Things bring us to the evident future of the near and far cosmos that could show its true colours over a period of the coming time. Secrets of the present are embedded in the past and they will be revealed by the future. Mars today is what earth was a billion years before and its crust and atmosphere are undergoing the same changes as earth went through could also be observed on a planet in deep space by the Kepler telescope in the near future or by more sophisticated telescopes that are being thought to be placed beyond the earth’s atmosphere. More of the hypothesis could be proved right or wrong as we experience the shape of proof to come from the study of astronomy and astrophysics. Some evidence has already come (like formation of metals and minerals in the interstellar clouds and the stage of various stars in the star formation) forth and more will follow as time progresses and then we will be able to link what happened 10000 years before and a million and a billion and be able to connect our past with the present and the future in a better way.

We are at the cusp of better understanding of the cosmos.

Infinitesimally Small

We can see 93 billion light years into the Cosmos and that is our Observable Universe. In trying to see the ultimate we focus on matters available through the telescope and see its infinitesimal nature. Rather than the telescope having to see the far fringes of that space it is the magnanimity of its heart to peruse to see beyond. It is a way of opening up new vista of knowledge and trying to unfold the ultimate truth.

There is a very famous series of pictures in which the Earth and its size is shown first. Then it is compared to some bigger object in the solar system viz Jupiter and then to the Sun and you go on with bigger and bigger objects in the sky. Gradually the Earth size reduces and you cannot see it with naked eye and then vanishes and objects keep increasing in size forever

All this Makes your mind have a bigger conception of life and takes you beyond the ordinary and makes you feel infinitesimally small- an iota in the cosmic set up.

Conserving Nature

Rohinton Mistry having visited Mumbai after a long time has said in an interview that he was happy to see kites flying on the Mumbai skyline following a thermal but was sorry he could not see many sparrows in the house. Many a friends from far off places have complained that the sparrows are a threatened species and were less found these days than in the recent past of 20yrs.

The reason being the interception of waves by communication towers hung all over the country and the breeding of these tiny birds thus severely affected. The other reason could be the closed apartments in metros and these tiny tots have no place to sleep.

In the large houses with high ceilings these birds in households were usual with their cyclical hopping on floor picking insects intermittently with their beaks being a common site. Their flybys from outside veranda and windows with hay punched between their beaks and their fluttering around holes and perches to make those innocuous nests. Their eggs spoiling down and babies craning their necks out of those nests was a part and parcel of any house. They were with you and you were with them. Probably this is how culture is lost and ethos vanish in these small closed houses called apartments or flats. We lose resilience and perseverance and have no time for such old lingering.

My daughter-in-law has hung two lantern sized cylindrical glass bird feeders with proper rests in our terraced garden as well as a ply board nest (for off seasons stay) and fills up these cylinders, which has small holes on all sides, with bajra. Flocks of sparrows visit the cylinders, cling to the rests all through the day and feed themselves by poking their beaks into those holes. We need to conserve nature.

Time Travel

We were travelling at a breakneck speed on the modern expressway and the other side of the road was not much in view due to the large width of the central verge. The three+ highway was a master construction and the better vehicles zipped past from either flank in the mellow sunlight guarded by thickets that roared past in the din of thick abrasion of the wheels on the concrete road which created a monotonous grind in the mind as you focussed deep on the lanes. Unknowingly there came a time when most of the vehicles in view were travelling at the same speed and it felt as if we were travelling either to eternity or to know where.

Suddenly I recalled time travel in a tunnel on a superhighway. Travel at 100...200....400 kmph and get sucked into the tunnel and end up on the other side light years in space and gradually decelerate to 400...200....100 and arrive at the other end. Simple and sweet for an interplanetary exodus of a few light years! Just like you were visiting a friend on a sunday evening to a suburb through a subway. You would also recall watching Hindu mythological TV series in which Gods disappear from Swarg ( Literally heaven -but let us just call this a planet) and appearing on Prithvi (Earth- another planet).

Simply nerve shattering!

Growing Lettuce on Mars

How is plant life possible? Photosynthesis is the conversion of light into chemical energy that has carbohydrates. This conversion happens through proteins that have a green pigment called chlorophyll the reason for the green fauna on earth. On Mars there is an atmosphere with sufficient sunlight enough carbon dioxide (96%) and traces of oxygen, methane (very life supporting) and water that makes one believe growing plants possible but without the green pigment. This will conclude that plants may not have the conventional green leaves but surely they can be grown.

Small glass shield terrariums have been planned to be used on the moon to grow plants. By carrying a miniature greenhouse cold frame with proper installations like heating, cooling, lighting etc students involved in project works plan to grow lettuce on Mars.

Amazing!