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.