Drona's Dilema

Dronacharya was a great teacher and an exceptional warrior. He is described in the epic of mahabharata as a man of supreme competence.

One who was exceedingly well versed in military tactics and the most proficient user of vedic weaponaries like devastras, brahmashtras, brahmashira etc

He was the royal teacher to the pandavas (one of whom was arjuna) and it was his duty to train the pandavas to become the best warriors in the land.

However, the greatest criticism of Dronacharya comes from the incident when he demanded the thumb of eklavya, as gurudakshina (gurudakshina is loosely translated as tution fees for services of a teacher) for having obtained knowledge of archery from him.

According to the epic, eklavya had learnt the art of archery by watching the practice lessons of Arjuna and others while hiding behind the trees in the forest and he is said to have practiced those lessons incessantly till he attained a level of competence equalling the great Arjuna himself.

When Drona discovered eklavya in the forest and saw his terrific archery skills, he immediately demanded his thumb as gurudakshina from him. This would put a conclusive end to all his skills.

Many critics have argued that Drona was very cruel when he demanded the thumb of eklavya because eklavya was a pupil whom he did not even teach formally.

Further demanding the thumb would make eklavya incapable of any form of archery as he will never be able to pull string of the bow again.

The action of Dronacharya was regarded as the cruelest form of injustice and an act unbecoming of a noble teacher.

Now let us analyse from Drona's perspective whether his decision of demanding the thumb as gurudakshina was right or wrong.

Firstly Drona was a greatest practitioner of archery, his skill was unparalleled in his time. Numerous superlative words are used to describe in the epic for his exceptional level of expertise. If arjuna was regarded as the most powerful warrior of mahabharatha, it was only a reflection of the brilliance and competence of his great teacher.

His exceptional skill was matched by his passion and dedication towards the art of archery.

This is known from the fact that he did not allow the pandava princes (except arujuna) to shoot the eye of a parrot when they lacked adequate concentration skills for the task. This is because he considered a person not possessing sufficient concentration ineligible even to try and shoot the eye of the parrot.

Given the above zeal and passion, he was delighted to see Eklavya and was deeply touched by his level of comepetence acquired just by watching the lessons given to pandava princes. His admiration for eklavya was very deep though he did not show it out.

But now there was a problem, eklavya was not a prince but a son of a village chief and did not legally (under laws of that time) have any right to learn archery from a teacher and even less from a great expert like him. Eklavya had now broken the law of the land.

Before Drona could react his mind went back to the time when he and his wife was starving for food and were very indigent. A few years ago Drona was an extremely poor. He went to the king pandu for help to provide him with sustenance for living and also an opportunity to teach and practice his passion of archery.

King pandu granted him his request and gave him an identity and sustenance. So there was a burden of grattitude on Drona for all that king pandu had done for him. He respected the king for having provided him his needs and giving him an identity and was deeply loyal to the king. There is no way he would be disloyal to the king or break the laws of the land. It was his sacred duty.

Morever royal teachers at that time were sworn under a bond not to teach those skills of weaponary to persons other than those of royal household. There were two reasons for this

One, The reason was that the skills were regarded as the divine right of the royals alone and only the royals were supposed to learn it and Arjuna who showed a lot of promise was being groomed as the greatest warrior on earth.

Two, if those skills were learnt by common people they could use it in revolt against the king and the royal house hold.

Given the above drona now had the following dilema before he could speak to eklavya:

1. Drona was duty bound under his terms of appointment to not let eklavya have those exclusive skills that was the right of the princes alone. Drona's loyalty to the king could be questioned in the court with insinuation if it was learnt that he allowed (even if unknowingly) eklavya to learn the archery skills. Some people may even think drona was secretly training outsiders like eklavya in an attempt to over throw the king or his kingdom

2. Drona was also bound by his grattitude to the king for having given him and identity and sustenance when he needed them the most. To disrespect king's laws and be ungrateful was not his inclination. It would be a treachery. He had promised the king that arjuna will be the greatest warrior on earth and now he had unwittingly created a warrior who looked seemingly capable of defeating the great arjuna himself and had all the pottential to become the greatest warrior without even being formally taught.

3. Drona loved the art of teaching archery he was deeply satisfied when he found that arjuna was competent to learn his skill and moreso when he surpassed his expectations. Nothing gives a teacher greater pleasure than to see his pupil succeed.

Now here was eklavya a boy younger than arjuna whose devotion to art of archery was incomparable. Arjuna needed to be taught and would practice only with his master but this little fellow has just listened and seen his classes while hiding behind trees practiced probably all day and night and learnt the art by himself. Surely he was a warrior far greater than arjuna himself and his passion knew no bounds. Drona's heart and admiration went to the little boy and he was filled with great enthusiasm to see him.

Now drona was caught with indecision and was torn between his passion and duty. What should he do to eklavya now was the question? He had already learnt much of his skills.

Now there was another twist to the tale. By gaining knowledge of archery through improper means (ie by hiding in woods) eklavya was to be considered as a thief of royal tressure since knowledge was also a tressure in those days.

A thief of any royal tressure was to be punished by death. If any gaurds see eklavya practicing his exceptional archery skills, they would immediately arrest him and take him to the king
who would execute him to ward of future dangers to him and his state.

The boy will be dead and this would affect dronas relationship with the king and all fingers will point to him for teaching royal skill to an outsider.

Even if drona tries to let the boy escape now and forget this incident totally, the other princes could tell the royals about it putting drona into trouble and gaurds could also hunt down this boy and kill him.

Now how does drona protect the life of this great genius and also not violate the law of the land and his grattitude towards the king? Drona asks for his thumb, a punishment harsh but better than execution of the boy.

We all face challenges in our life and we are some time torn between our passions and duty. How we react determines our importance of it in our lives.
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Letter to ASCI on Magical cures and Magical benefits

Dear Friends,

Today i sent a letter to ASCI to act against the Advertisers and Companies airing magical cures and magical benefits on TV.  The content of the notice is as below.  Lets see what they respond....

Where is your Lord?

Tells the severed limbs and broken skin;
That your words of faith are lies.
A bloody tale of death and pain
Reveals all the truth with cries.

A market place, a peaceful city
A time bomb did its plan.
Not by any satan but an evil mind
The very worst of human kind.

Did your lord stop evil or was he busy
With his plans of heaven and hell?
To punish the crimes after their death
Or reward those chosen lives well.

Tells the bloody streets and strewn up flesh
That your words of faith are lies
Your lord has no conscience and no soul or spirit
He is just an imaginary man in skies.

That your prayer to your holy one
And your imaginary man in skies
Is a waste of time with no real yield
And your words of faith are lies.

Forgive for peace

When I was small, I remember reading a beautiful quotation.

It said "Stick and Stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me". I was deeply enthralled with this idea. I wanted to apply this in my life and see whether it works or not.

So I decided that everytime I was served with acrimonious words from insensitive people, I would repeat these words inside my mind.

But then as I grew up, I realised that the idea itself was wrong. Words do have the capacity to hurt people. Words are as dangerous as daggers.

They can catch you unaware and enter deep inside long after the spoken words have been uttered.

So I wanted a solution. Clearly the imaginary idea that words can't hurt me was wrong. It was like wearing an imaginary shield that does no good in battle. I wanted an effective solution.

I wanted a remedy and a real cure and the answer wasn't too far to seek. I found the answer finally. Its called forgiveness. Forgiveness was the answer.

Forgiveness is an act of courage and strength. Many people do not know how to forgive others for the wrong done by them. Forgiveness is the only means through which inner peace can be achieved.

So let us learn to forgive and get peace in life.
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Intelligent living

How wonderful would it be if life would become more intelligent than what it is today? Here is a short imaginary story of how will it be..
My friend comes to my house to visit me. He sends me a message asking me to open the door. I am lying on the bed lazily watching videos on my mobile. Now I don't want to get up and open the door. What do I do?
I access home app in my super smart mobile phone which is connected to my home control super computer which is again seamlessly connected to all appliances and fittings of the house, the car, the wall, the bike, the office super computer and lastly the internet. Welcome to the world of super seamless connectivity.
The home app in my mobile shows authenticated symbol which means the small video camera inside the front door has taken an image of my friends face and iris, authenticated it as genuine.

I now press open door app in my mobile, the door automatically opens and my friend walks in. The entire process has taken just 3 seconds far lesser than what it would take for me to get up and open the door. I decide to get up now and put on my intelligent shirt and meet my friend.
The shirt is smart shirt as it is made of nano materials. It is designed with nano technology which ensures the material can never attract dust or bacteria so it never needs any washing. Of course it has intelligent minute chips and sensors that increase or decrease the flow of air through the fabric with touch of finger which means the same can be used in both summer and winter.
Just like my mobile which measure the pulse rate dynamically when I hold it, the clothings heat sensors monitor my body temperature and heart rate dynamically.
It continously updates the home computer on real time basis which then takes a decision to inform my parents or my doctor about it based on degree and magnitude.
As I walk out of the room, the fan and light gets switched off automatically. How? The motion detector and Rfid technology work in tandem to update the status that the room is empty to the control computer.
The home computer is updated in realtime basis which automatically gives switch off command to fan and light of the room. Everything happens in matter of 2 seconds because of power of super computing.
"Let's watch tv" I said. But there is no tv in the hall to switch on. I access watch tv app from my phone which automatically dims the light and switches on the side of the wall which doubles up as a very large lcd projecter tv. The wall has inbuilt hard silicon material embeded so it can also act as tv when needed.
The wall being connected to the home super computer knows my favourite channels and arranges them in the order of usage frequency. Ofcourse tv doesn't need a remote, my phone can control it too. Ofcourse all my favourite movies and videos are downloaded automatically and continously to the home computer.
Now we plan to go out somewhere. I go out and access "leave home app" and the phone connects to computer which commands to switch off all lights and lock all doors and windows automatically.
I sit inside the car and want to know how long will it take to reach the hotel. I press calculate time app and select destination.
The cars computer accesses the traffic data through the central traffic control computer, measures the average speed of the moving cars along the road which we are about to go it then measures the normal speed with which we travel usually and returns a figure 43 mins 28 seconds.
This figure changes rapidly as density of traffic and its speed change is updated on real time basis.
Of course no one drives a car these days that is stupid,old fashioned and dumb. We just enter the destination and select speed and recline in the car sofa while the computer drives the car to the destination.
I now access the hotels super computer through "eat easy app" and select our table and menus so that we don't have to wait for food.
I have always admired the way this hotel cooks its food. The food is made with addition of nano materials which ensures that when the food is chewed it maximises the taste on the tongue by vigorously exciting the taste buds and increasing its taste signalling efficiency to the brain.
Therefore the food would taste atleast 10 times tastier than the same food cooked without these nano materials.
I now order for diet food. The diet food is made with another set of special nanomaterial that ensures that it is digested but never aborbed by the body. Now what is the advantage? All fat people like me love this nano material coated food because on one hand it retains and maximises the taste on tongue and on the other hand it gets digested but not absorbed by the villi.
Which means one can eat tons of mc donald cheese burger and drink gallons of fatty ice cream milk shake without worrying about calories.
WOW. Food with absolutely zero calories. What an invention of man!
That was a fantastic dinner. I now have to pay the bill. Ofcourse not. When I booked the table and ordered food my account was debited in realtime through payment gateway.
The home control computer sends me a message that my parents are returning home from office and would reach exactly in 21 mins 12 seconds.
I need to reach home before that. I select fast button and recline in the car and car zoomes to my home.
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Letter to a Conceited Ape

Dear Ape,

I address you as an Ape because that is exactly what you are.  

Don’t be shocked.  Don’t be surprised.

I repeat "You are an Ape".  Nothing that you do will change this simple fact.  You are the fifth Ape, the direct descendant of the great ape family that originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago and reached behavioural modernity around 50,000 years ago. 

 

We know this because we have mountains and mountains of evidence in the form of fossils, DNA study, geological distribution study and Radio carbon dating to prove your animal and Ape origin.

But there is something special about you that set you apart from the rest of your Ape family.  

You are the smartest and the most intelligent Ape on this planet.

But this intelligence has also given you deep conceit, staggering hypocrisy and an amazing arrogance. 

You now claim that you are not an animal.  That you are not a product of evolution that generated a million forms of lives on this planet.  That you are not created by the physical and purposeless laws of nature that govern the universe.  You have disowned your own family “The great Ape family of Africa”.

You may claim that you are an absolutely divine creature and that you have descended from the heaven with a divine, celestial purpose and have a spiritual connection with your creator.  

But nothing that you can imagine will belie the simple truth that you have a TAIL BONE left behind your back like the other Apes, a proof of your animal origin.

You cannot ever deny the truth that your DNA matches with that of your nearest animal cousin the Chimpanzee to the extent of 98 percent.  This only means you and your cousin are lineal descendent of the great Ape family.  You cannot ever deny that you have appendix inside your stomach which is used by all apes to digest raw leaves and raw plants.  Of course you don’t have any use for it now because you are no longer a raw leaf eater.  There are million other evidences like these but many conceited apes amongst you will never agree.

So I shall now address your hypocrisy and arrogance one by one:

On the Ultimate Purpose of Life:

There has been enough discussion in your Ape community about the ultimate purpose of your Ape life.  I want to ask you one question.  Why do you think your Ape life should have a purpose? You Conceited Ape “Do you even bother to ask whether Chimpanzees your nearest cousin have a purpose of existence?” Do you bother to ask whether your farther cousin the baboon has a purpose of existence?

Because you do everything in your life with a purpose doesn’t mean that nature should follow the same.  Why do you expect the physical laws of nature to have Purpose? Why don’t you understand that the laws of nature are purposeless? Does the life of a butterfly have a purpose? Do plants and trees that grow around you have a purpose? Do incessant waves of the oceans have a purpose? Then why should your life alone have a divine purpose?

Of course you apes can add purpose artificially like saying that “The life of a colourful butterfly gives happiness to people around it”.  But then that is an artificial attribution of purpose by your Ape brain not the real purpose of its existence which is purposeless.

On Saving the Planet:

You Apes have deep conceit to spread awareness regarding saving the planet earth.

“Save the Planet”… What a conceit!

You are not powerful enough to seriously affect the planet. What you are trying to save is a hypothetical image of what you think the planet should be! The planet has survived traumas many billions of times of greater than what you can ever cause.  The planet has been through a lot worse things than you can even imagine.  

It has been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles…hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages…And you apes think some plastic bags, and some aluminium cans are going to make a difference?

The planet is fine. Compared to you apes, the planet is doing great.  It has been here four and a half billion years.   You have been here, what, a two hundred thousand? And you have been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years.

Two hundred years versus four and a half billion and you have the CONCEIT to think that somehow you are a threat? That you apes are going to destroy the beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floating around the sun? You apes are amazingly conceited.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after you are gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, because it is a self-correcting system.  The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into its system without any prejudice.

The Hidden agenda of Libyan War

Napolean Bonaparte once remarked "What is History but a fable mutually agreed upon". History is a beautiful fable written by man. Ofcourse all History is written by victors, therefore the victors have to be naturally on the side of righteousness and truth while the losers should always stand for all that is unjust and evil.

Such is the solemn veracity of reported history that plays itself before the world stage that it can be rightly called as some one put it "one damn thing after another".

In this article I shall try to explore one such truth of history that is unfolding before our own eyes even as I type this article. This is a story of how economic agendas blinds the greatest of nations and makes it a caricature and an opportunistic puppet of self interest and greed.

Consider this story now. One dictator rules a nation for over 30 years, he is well recognised by the world community as the true representative of its people in so far as he gives speeches before the united nations and signs sovereign agreements on behalf of his country. However being from military background he is inclined towards agression. He commits many acts of agression for full 30 years of his rule and violates human rights of civilians in all possible manner.

Nobody seems to care about how many people he has butchered in the last 30 years of his rule. After all, all sovereign nations are governed by UN charter isn't it. How can other nations interfere into the internal problems of
another sovereign nation?

The western powers are overwhelmed at this celebrated dictator and even invite him for a tour of their countries. Ofcourse their interests are directed by oil this dictator would provide them with. The UK falls head over heals and the one of the most prestigous university in uk aka the prestigious london school of economics gives his son a phd and trains many of his staffs and most graciously accepts a small donation of millions of pounds.

The french government provides him with huge cache of weapons and tanks in return for his liquid gold and so does the uk government. The US is pretty neutral as it has already fully tamed its own oil provider aka saudi arabia. It keeps friendship still.

Suddenly this dictator turns a little more aggressive he starts supporting the irish rebels in ireland who seek independent nation to the ire of the uk govt. The relationship with the french also turns a little sour after the dictator signs weapon purchase agreements from russia as it is cost effective.

Now arrives the year 2011, suddenly some educated youths of libya start protesting in the streets against the dictator. While under normal circumstances such a protest has no impact, the advent of social networking and mass media ensures that this information is spread across the world.

The russians are worried whether they will get paid for all the weapon contracts and weapon delivery they have made. The uk and france are looking for a new oil supplier as us has increased its oil intake from saudi and russian oil is becoming costly as it is being consumed by energy hungry economy of china and growing domestic demand of russia.

What better way to secure oil from the largest oil rich nation in africa than to support the democratic aspiration of people of libya and support their legitimate cause of freedom struggle?

Isn't it the moral duty of every right thinking nation to support the right of people to represent themselves in its own state? Of course the precondition is that it should be an oil rich or resource rich nation for west to support them.

Murderous regime of kings and dictators have no legitamacy to rule (unless they supply you lots of oil in return like saudi and others).

Ofcourse democratic aspiration of people of swaziland, people of ivory coast or host of other african nations or arab nations can wait for some more time till we finish off with the democratic aspirations of resource rich nations first.

The united nations passes resolution sanctioning no fly zone over libya because its people are being killed by a murderous regime. Russia abstains from voting and says it regrets military action in libya. Of course russia you have reasons to regret if the old dictators regime is toppled who will pay you the balance money for your weapon contracts?

You did all you could to stop the military action and now in final show of solidarity with the dictator you issue a regret statement saying that its libyas internal problem they should sort it out. But did you think that way when you attacked your neighbour Georgia? Perhaps it was your internal problem then.

The uk and france are overzealous to settle their old scores and also find a new supplier of oil for the euro nations. The only problem they could face is that they would be fighting mostly their own technologies and weapons.

The Us is slow because it doesn't need libya as of now. Saudi oil is sufficient. All weapons supplied to saudi king will obviously be used for defense of saudi nation and not on its populace if there is a riot. Even if it does happen, it is an internal problem of a sovereign nation which another nation cannot interfere as per un charter unless that nation happens to be our enemy or possessing weapons of mass destruction.

The saudi king recently sends his troops to yemen and those troops shot down democracy protestor with american guns. But then american guns in the hands of nato also protect democracy protestors in libya.

Adam smith mentions in his book "The wealth of nations" about the invisible hand of self interest that moves the world of economics. In similar manner I would say that it is the invisible hand of greed and opportunism that moves sovereign nations and guides all of their actions whether at war or peace.

Therefore Every word uttered from the mouth of these so called great leaders smells of hypocrisy. Every deed a proof of greed
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My Poem

Today i found an old piece of paper in my cupboard, i realised it had a poem which i had written in 2006.  I felt exhilarated to find my poem and i now share this with the readers of my blog.

The poem is Titled "The Patriot - A Tribute to Indian Army".  The poem is self explanatory written with the simplest words.  Please post a comment on what you feel about it.

“It’s the marriage of my son” she said

He is coming home this week

Show me a girl with moonlike face

A Princess most beautiful i seek

Let her face be bright and glow be fair

Two rosy lips and shining hair

A heart like water with love and care

Like a fairy like a dream beyond compare

Let her voice be sweet when she sings

As sweet as the fruits of the early spring

Sweeter than the melodies a nightingale brings

“Three more days for my brother to come”

Seventy two hours so long and tall

Why are mornings so slow and dull?

And the night doesn’t seem to fall?

“I will bring him tasty fruits and sweets” she said

I know his favourites all

Four years wait and three more days

Mr Time, will you please not crawl?

“My son, my lovely son will be here”

Said father with thoughtful pride

I will hug, kiss and pamper my son

After four years my love can’t hide.

And when I hold my son’s hand in his wedding

And hand him his beautiful bride

All tears and sorrows of my life will be dried

And soul will be gratified

Fragrance, Fragrance in the air…

And the Nature looks so fresh and sweet

Finally the day arrives with colour and light

And the Heavens seem beneath their feet

And the home is filled with thrills and joys

And the little sisters face looks so bright

And the father’s heart is full of delight

And the mother’s dreams are at its height

In far off land a soldier is killed

By Naxal bullets in an ambush unfair

His body is cut and strewn around

Thrown for dogs to eat and stare

When his comrades returned after night fall

Some pieces of flesh was left of all

Gathered in coffin too small and light

A moment so tragic a patriot’s plight

The father now waits in station for train

Four hours before its time

Little does he know that fate holds Pain

Perhaps his love was his only crime.

Appears a soldier with a coffin and a cold silence

There are silent meanings to words unspoken

Can words describe the father’s pain?

The pain of a heart that is broken.

Will time ever heal the parent’s grief?

Too big for old hearts to bear

Or will you convey the news to his little sister

Who is still blissfully unaware?

Failure of Imagination

Which is the greatest and most devastating of all failures that haunt the mankind ?
If the list is drawn, the top slot would always be occupied by failure of imagination. But why is this a failure in the first place? How can the act of not imagining something be regarded as a failure? These are questions that must now be answered.
History of the world is a solemn testimony to the truth of this statement. What exactly happened on september 11, 2001? A failure to imagine that aeroplanes can be hijacked and used as guided missiles to destroy buildings. Result was mass devastation of life and property and unwanted war on an ill fated nation.
And Why did the Titanic sink? Iceberg? Oh no not iceberg. The major reason it sunk was failure of its design. The designers of titanic failed to imagine that a ship could hit icebergs in the atlantic ocean and so they didn't use thicker steel body as it is used in the ships of today. A ship shouldn't be made of so a light a metal that can cause a hole on collision with an iceberg.
Why did the chernobyl nuclear disaster occur? Why did we have bhopal gas tragedy? What was the true cause of 26/11 tragedy?.
Some designer of boiler plant failed to imagine that water pipes can get clogged by usage and didn't put the safety valve in the design causing bhopal gas tragedy. Somewhere else some people who were the law enforcement agency couldn't imagine that terrorist could take easier sea route to mumbai for attack.
We now realise that Failure of imagination is disastrous. Einstein had said imagination is more important than knowledge.
This is true because all Knowledge is the effect and result of imagination as imagination is the key to all knowledge. Without it there is no life no civilization and no possibily of humanity.
Every object that we use in our life is a result of some ones imagination. Just look at a simple object like a chair. The chair was created in some ones mind used by him many times to sit on it in his mind. He could feel his balance on all the four legs of the chair in his mind. And then it was created in physical form. All physical objects in this world are nothing but mental images of man looked from that angle.
Having understood the importance of imagination and the devastating effect of its failure one should also note that there is no alternative to it.
Imagination is the highest form of human intelligence. So it should become a seperate discipline neutral of all subjective knowledge. The ability to imagine must be exploited to the fullest extent possible by special training to the mind.
Imagination is the key to all inventions and progress.  Imagination is life.

An Experience at Guntur

At a guntur restaurant one beautiful morning, i was slowly sipping my favourite cup of coffee and cherishing fondly the gift of solitude and unusual silence.
With the golden rays of sun touching the glass windows of the restaurant and slow submissive, graceful movements of tree leaves outside the window to flirtatious action of the morning air, it was wonderful start of a beautiful day, the best and the finest possible.
Suddenly a couple entered the restaurant to disturb my philosophical joy. I thought nothing lasts long in life.
I noticed a lady with a small baby and a young man in early thirties. I thought they should possibly be a newly married couple. May be they wanted to try an early breakfast at the restaurant. Hmmn...cooking was definitely becoming outdated these days.
Suddenly, i saw a small baby in the arms of the lady, I must confess, i was instantaneously attracted towards the baby and was admiring its inquisistive expressions.
Babies to me are very special and interesting as their actions are most natural and honest, their expressions most inquisistive and intelligent.
They lack the deep hypocrisy and immeasurable prejudice that is built in our system as we grow older and older.
Suddenly the baby started to cry, making its mom extremely uncomfortable. The mom started the standard procedure taught to married women to handle such situations ie try feeding food to the baby, check for wet nappy and comfort the baby by hugging it or making weird sounds (some call it lullyby or whatever to scare it into silence).
She tried all the tricks in the book but to no avail. No matter what she did, the baby would not stop crying.
The lady started looking around and smiled at everyone to hide embarassment to herself, i smiled back
at her and waved to the baby so that she would feel better and the situation would look apparently normal.
The young man like a typical Indian husband wasn't much bothered about what was going on around him, afterall the baby is the mother's problem isnt it?
Now this is a normal incident that happens everywhere. What is so special about it? But my mind had started thinking on something deeper.
I was now thinking why do the babies cry so much and so often? and why wasn't her mother able to console it?
Does the answer to this question lie in the study of body language of the child and child pyscology, i think it most certainly is.
Firstly to understand body language, we must know that human beings have extremely underdeveloped capacity to communicate with actions or gestures alone. We may be able to show actions for a couple of things like water, pain etc but will definitely falter at later stage.
This is because we have developed language as primary method of communication over long period of years resulting in complete death of our ability to communicate with body and actions alone.
In the animal world the reverse is true, animals communicate completely with their body and actions because they dont have any language.
This is very effective form of communication in the animal world and particular actions are decoded and understood as good as language in humans.
When two flies are flying around your room, it is not just randomness but they are constantly communicating with each other about food, temperature, danger signale etc But How ? By action. Body language my friend.
How do you think a male bee communicates to a female bees that it needs a companion for mating? Simple make two rounds around the female in clockwise and anticlockwise direction, if the female is interested it flies with the male for mating.
In human beings, we need to resort to language to achieve the same effect, going around girl in clockwise and anticlockwise direction would only make people laugh and cause embarassment.
Now how do babies try to communicate with the world. Surely language communication is not possible as the baby doesn't know any language. So how does the baby communicate with the world. Simple. by crying. Yes you read it right. A baby communicates with the world by crying alone.
Animals naturally and instinctively communicate by use of sound made from their mouth organs that is mutually understood between them. Crying is the most natural method of making sound through mouth. So Crying is a part of body language communication or lets call it an attempt towards body language communication as we humans dont understood uniqueness of each cries and cant decode it.
A baby cries not only to indicate its physical needs like a bad nappy or hunger but for many psycological needs that arise due to world view it has.
Just Imagine the world of a baby. How will it be. Just think and see.
A baby has a developing vision system and hearing system and a feeble perception of world but it is bombarded with the same amount of noise and information like us. Its mind is full of constant amazement and confusion. It is continously trying to make sense " what the hell is going on around me?"
The world outside is super complex yet wonderful. The reality is seemingly comprehensible yet extremely confusing.
Sound and light is the first Instinct. So a baby observes that some objects like cell phones, speakers that make sounds sometimes other times they do not. tats very confusing. Some objects like door lamp or tube light are stationary and give out light some times and sometimes they do not. Tats again confusing for the baby. Some objects are moving others are not.
So many confusions in the mind of the baby and complexity of reality which is incomprehensible creates deep insecurity in the mind of the baby. It wants a reassurance from its caretaker of physical needs...its mom. It communicates by crying. The smoothing touch or warm hug provides the most instinctive and natural form of re assurance to the baby.
This insight of insecurity in the mind of the baby helps us to know why babies cry so often. Other reasons it cries could be because of maladjustment to light and sound. For eg if there is heavy light or loud music, it is hurts the soft developing eyes and ears of the baby so it asks by crying that you should stop it.
Now this insight will help us to also know that we should let a baby cry if it is crying for its psycological needs rather than its physical needs. This is because by letting it to cry more, we are allowing it to better adjust its mind to the world outside and remove its sense of insecurity or constant reassurance from its mother thereby letting it to learn faster.

The Mysterious Power of Numbers

Is there a deep mystery hidden in Numbers?

Let me open your eyes and raise consciousness levels to understand the mysterious and almost divine power of numbers.  Let me start with an example, some one asked me recently on how is it possible for big bang theorists to conclude that a perfectly life-friendly earth could be formed by a big bang?  Surely earth is filled with too many perfections that sustains life.  These are too difficult to imagine to have been created by chance theory of big bang alone.  For example had the power of gravity been at a higher degree than present, we would not be able to walk or move our legs because of high intensity of gravity.  Needless to say that had gravity been lesser, we would be floating in space.  It is the right value of gravity that makes life possible and keeps earth in motion.


The same is true about every element on earth like Oxygen, Nitrogen and Carbon dioxide values in the atmosphere.  Had carbon dioxide been at higher level than what is present or oxygen been slightly lesser than the present quantity in the atmosphere, life would not be possible because of imbalance in the carbon cycle and subsequent death of plant life and animal life.  So many perfections are there on our earth which seek explanation and defy the theory that a big bang could have created earth by chance alone. 

We live in a life friendly planet whose perfection is extremely extremely improbable to have been created by chance alone.

The Most pertinent question here is as follows "Can chance ever create perfection?" by perfection i mean Perfection of not a small measure but a very large measure. 

The Answer to this question lies in the mysterious power of numbers.  Let me explain this with an example:

Imagine that there is a very big hall, now this is the biggest hall in the world whose capacity is 100 crores or 1 billion people.  A billion people enter the hall.  Each person sits inside the hall occupying a chair and a desk before him.  Each mans job is to cast dice 10 times consecutively ie one throw after another and record the result on a paper.  Is there a probability that a person will get the number 6 in all the 10 trials?

Had it been an individual casting the die for 10 times, we could say with a good certainty that he would not get the number 6 in 10 consecutive trials, but if the population is as big as 100 crores, it is not very difficult to imagine that some of them could get the number 6 in all consecutive 10 throws of dice.  To be mathematically precise one person in every 6 crore people will get it the number 6 in all 10 consecutive trials.

This my friend is the mysterious and almost divine power of numbers.  The most beautiful insight of probability theory is that given a very very large number population doing the trial, the smallest probability or the seemingly impossible could also be realized.

The seemingly impossible or highly improbable event is also possible if you just had the power of numbers with you.  The remotest and smallest possibility could also become true with a large population trying the activity.

Now coming to the question of earth's apparent friendly perfection for sustenance of life, we should conclude on the same principles as discussed above.  Today scientist tell us that there are atleast a billion planets in our galaxy and atleast billion galaxies in our universe.  Which means the total number of probable planets in universe are a billion billion.  Now does it look so improbable that in the process of big bang, the vast energy of hydrogen was thrown in various places all over the universe and one planet out of billion billion planets had got the right mix of oxygen, nitrogen, gravity and molecular framework necessary for sustenance of life.

Perhaps not if you view this in the context of vast majesty, magnificence and grandeur of universe and the fact that there are various planets having different combination of elements which cannot support life.