Author: drsriramnathan

“You can learn from them here and there!
You can learn since knowledge is everywhere!
You can learn from you child or your wife!
Just try to be a student for life!”

Roses for madams and Greetings for the sir!

Teacher’s day was the best!

read on!

Teacher’s day was fun in school! I made sure my kids also attend the school and be a part of the fun!

All teachers know that they are being pampered and they would be in the best mood! It would be a half day and half days are the best days! You can have fun and have lunch or some snacks and leave!

Some teachers who were always serious or Grumpy as my son would say! used to smile on this day! It was more scary!

Reminds me of the movie Tare Zameen Par and the teachers participation i the art competition!

While we were in Junior classes our seniors would come dressed in nice colourful sarees and coats and ‘teach’ us for a day!

We also did the same in the higher class! We made the teachers read the news and thought of the day in the assembly and then made them sing a song! While we ‘seniors’ at that time dressed in nice colour dress and took ‘class’! No one understood what we taught anyway because even we did not understand what we were teaching! But it was fun!

Some of the most favourite teachers or those who used to smile and help other students even on normal days would get bombarded with gifts and cards and flowers! They would be beaming with pride and joy!

Looking at these teachers, the grumpy ones would note down which student did not wish or give any flowers to them and ‘take it out’ the coming days! Mortals!

Since I have changed multiple schools, a permanent student teacher bond would never be formed but in the 11th and 12th class the behaviour of teachers does make an impression and they are the ones who are never forgotten by a student!

Our Physics teacher Usha madam was everyone’s favourite! She was unconventional in her approach but very intelligent! Her earnestness to teach and spread knowledge makes her one of the best teachers ever!

Even we students were not that innocent of course! It took a strict sir like Rao sir to handle a rowdy bunch like us! Sir used to teach us English wearing a coat and a formal attire even in the peak summer! He did not know a single word of Hindi which is why some kids used to write Chand or moon in hindi on the board just before he used to come and erase it! That was a clever reference to his bald spot! Now whether he knew or not is anyone’s guess!

When our class teacher who was also our chemistry teacher was being strict we used to say Hail Drago! A reference to Hail Hitler and drago was what we used to call her! Maybe she used to breath fire! And no, Game of thrones was not known or made at that time so our name was original!

Then we had Anna madam who used to teach us Mathematics which was my favorite! Ironic since I have not written a single Engineering entrance examination! But she was a maths genius! Her way of teaching was remarkable!

Oh to go to those small classes with the cool benches on which many had carved out so many names (Not me! I have always been a first bencher at least in theory!)! The last year of responsibility and to just read and study what is being taught and repeat! The last two years of school made us realise a bit too late that school was awesome! Teachers were fun and all they wanted us to do was study and do well!

College teachers!? Well that is a blog for another day!

With all the jokes on how you meet your teacher and tell her or him that you were his or her student and she or he would say, “Do not blame us! We tried but failed!”; I guess most teachers would be mighty proud of most of us! Of course if she or he remembers you that in itself is a great achievement!

Like Rancho says, “Knowledge is everywhere!, just grab it!” I prefer to be a student for life! You keep on growing only when you keep on learning!
A quick sketch of the great teacher who actually told his students to honour all teachers! Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan who was so famous as a teacher that for a change students used to rush into his class!

A very happy teacher’s day to those who taught without any ego and with genuine concern.

Shubh Ratri!

“Feeling alone don’t fret

This is just a call away

Just make sure it’s on 

Say OK; and it will make your day!”

Apart from the birthday celebrity of the day, did you know that a thing was invented or made or created this day in history which has for several years changed our life!

We use it so often that it is routine!

Intrigued!?

Read on!

The running joke about computer users is that the Internet explorer or the Safari is the most commonly used browser to download the actually most commonly used browser; Google Chrome!

Chrome has an amazing interface and ease of use! We love the start page of search and use it so much! In fact Chrome has a user share of more than 60 percent!

But chrome was not made or created today! It was its parent company, the Google!

For every system person or anyone for that matter, Google search is the best and easiest way to test whether the computer is connected to the internet or not! Just make sure you have a new search since the old search is still stored in the system!

Slowly, AI is replacing Google as the default for many complicated searches but still if you want to know something then Google it was the norm!

During the COVID lockdown and the online classes, many kids used to even Google answers to questions posed by the teacher! The teacher used to be so impressed! I am sure she realised that later since whenever she used to ask a question she would tell that kid to turn on his or her video! 

Google has become so much a part of our lives that it is impossible to even think without it! The smartphone has robbed our smartness! 

Alexa may have scored in the voice assistant department, but when it comes to proper search, Google is the best for now!

The other day we heard a song played by our tour guide in Georgia and I recorded it. Later all I had to do was play it to Google and voila it found it!

Google is the best memory refresher! Remember that movie with that story line or that movie which was released in that year or that pair which acted in that movie!

Or my son’s favourite question; how old is that guy in the screen! Of course first sometimes I have to search who is that guy!

Everyday I search for the birthday celebrity of the day in Google then if I find someone worthy enough then I use the Google Image search to get a good picture of the person for the sketch! 

Without Google it is impossible to think what to do!

For those with android phones, it is the default but even in my iPhone, the first thing myself or many do is to install Chrome to access Google! Gmail is the best and default mail for many and Google Maps are the leaders!

Slowly and steadily though many are coming and very soon the monopoly would go! It is hard to imagine that even Google can be replaced but then who would have thought that Nokia would go or there can be no better invention than the Yahoo messenger!?

It is not that Google has only success! Ironically you can search in Google about its own failure! Like every account in Fb has a dark past in Orkut! 

So how did this engine come about?

So Google was officially launched in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to market Google Search.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, students at Stanford University in California, developed a search algorithm first (1996) known as “BackRub”, with the help of Scott Hassan and Alan Steremberg. The search engine soon proved successful and the expanding company moved several times.

Originally the search engine used Stanford’s website with the domains google.stanford.edu and stanford.edu

The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997. 

And finally they formally incorporated their company, Google, on September 4, 1998 in their friend Susan Wojcicki’s garage in Menlo Park, California!

By the way even this piece of History I got when I searched for This day in History in Google! Even the fact that today’s birthday celebrity has acted in over 300 films and his full name is Anant Nagarkatte is courtesy Google!

Thank you Larry and Sergey for Google! Till something better comes along, we will simply Google it!

Now Stop trying to Google the above information and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

“Call the cops there’s a crime! 

Better yet call the private eye if you have the dime!

Looking for clues is an art!

Which is why even Batman is a class apart!”

Without support it does not work! Nothing does…

A sure way to get the TRP were the detective series! Oh how we used to wait for them eagerly! The most important character which I later realised though was the sidekick! They were the ones who used to be ‘normal’ and bring out the best!

read on!

One of the earlier ones was karam Chand! I still remember Pankaj Kapoor with his carrot and his Quirky but innocent assistant Kitty!

She would innocently ask Karamchand how he guessed the crime and he would tell about what he observed!

Then there was the master director of thriller movies like Jewel Thief starring as a detective! That was called Tehkikaat ( transl. Investigation) is a Hindi language crime drama series starring Vijay Anand as Sam D’Silva and Saurabh Shukla as Gopichand. Each episode used to start with a murder or a mystery and Kallu mama would fumble and most of the time think what we all audience used to think and then Sam would come  to the rescue! 

Then the most famous detective series which is still my favourite was Byomkesh Bakshi!  The one which is still available to watch is based on the fictional detective Byomkesh Bakshi character created by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay. The series stars Rajit Kapur and K.K. Raina as Byomkesh Bakshi and Ajit Kumar Banerjee!

Now Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay had written them in Bengali and had in fact even stopped writing them because he was not that interesting! There are good translation of the stories which I have read and the TV series follows them as close as possible. 

I used to love that music in the beginning and fervently hope that the episode would not be continued to the second part! The first episode of the Homeopathy doctor and the lodge with the killing was one of the best! Of course many still talk about the obvious plot holes!

But Byomkesh never liked to be called a Detective! He was Satyanveshi or the seeker of truth! In spite of the cool crime solving abilities of Byomkesh dada we used to love Ajit! One of the episodes he tried to do a Byomkesh and actually thought what the audience thought! The spider venom which was used as a drug by the wily old man! How the clever old man used to get his supply in spite of the strict control! When he suggested that the old man used the real spiders in his room Byomkesh bursts into laughter! I have to admit that I was thinking the same thing! 

These sidekicks are very important in bringing out the best in the main lead! Sometimes you need the support to get the best out of you! These sidekicks are not inferior in anyway but just that they have their own forte!

If you have a good support even you can become a great detective or may be a great man or woman for that matter! Think about it! 

Blogging about Byomkesh was only because it is Uttam da’s birthday! Uttam Kumar (born Arun Kumar Chattopadhyay) may be one of the most iconic actors of Bengali cinema! His list of achievements are many and include the very first National Award for best actor! I have simply loved him when he became the first actor to play Byomkesh in the Satyajeet directed Chiriakhana! Imagine that Satyajeet was himself a big fan of detective stuff that he created an Indian Sherlock; Feluda! Here also you had a great Sidekick but then that is a blog for another day!

The story and movie Chiriakhana is known but the way it has been handled is simply epic! Not a big fan of Uttam da insisting to smoke on camera though since Byomkesh was a strict non smoker in the novels but then no one can be perfect!

Now if see a couple of Byomkesh episodes and sleep if you can!

Shubh Ratri!

“Say it once and then again 

Make sure it’s not a chain

All you have to gain 

Is to simply ascertain!”

Do you remember the song ‘wake me up before you go go!’?

Makes you  wonder why we say some words twice! 

It is all because of Lexical Cloning!

Read on!

First understand what is Lexical cloning; it is the process of creating a new word or phrase by modifying an existing one, often by adding a prefix, suffix, or combining it with another word!

This can involve Affixation like adding a prefix or suffix to a word, like “unhappy” or “happiness” or Compounding which is combining two words to create a new one, like “classroom” or “chairman” or Blending which is simply the merging parts of two words to create a new one, like “smog” (smoke + fog) or “brunch” (breakfast + lunch) or like Chandler did with male nanny or “manny!” and there is also a type of cloning where you simply double the words! 

There are other places where we use Lexical cloning by repeating the same word twice one after another. 

For example, when someone uses the expression, “I’m dead,” we know that it doesn’t literally mean that they’ve physically died. So when we hear someone described as “dead,” we may want to clarify, “Do you mean dead dead?” to refer to the physical act of actually passing away instead of just the expression to mean that someone is in trouble!

Another common way is when you ask your kid or anyone before exams if he or she has studied? and he or she says, “I have studied but did not study study!” Which means that he or she has read it once or twice as a glance but has not read it more deeply! 

Another example is BYE BYE! Not only the NSync song which has been made famous by the new DeadPool movie but also the word as such!

Have you ever wondered why we say ‘bye’ twice!?  or the dead twice or study twice!?

The ’emphasis’ on the second time is to create more EMPHASIS!

When you need a quick, informal way to bid your friend adieu, you’ll probably say, “Bye!” It’s shorthand for “goodbye,” and when adults speak to babies and children, there’s a tendency to double it: “Bye bye!”

This is to reassert that they are leaving for sure! 

I guess when it comes to babies and kids you need to do this! Like No no or yes yes! No no is more common though! Yes usually comes alone though since it does not need much emphasis!

In our medical school I always used to wonder why we used to say AGAR AGAR! Initially I thought that the teacher is just repeating for clarity and I just wrote AGAR once! But that was apparently wrong!

So as you know an agar plate is a Petri dish that contains a growth medium solidified with agar, used to culture microorganisms.

But how the AGAR got another one is because of a Malaysian custom! 

In the 19th century, Chinese migrants brought the Japanese product to Malaysia, and adopted the local name of ‘agar’, which means ‘jelly’ or ‘gelatin’. 

In this country it is customary to repeat the word twice to give it more emphasis, the literal translation being ‘gelatin-gelatin’ so the product was called Agar Agar! It still is called that to this day! You can try writing only Agar once at your own risk risk! Risk also was playing a villain in a cool movie like Makhi or ee or eega but birthday celebrity Sudeepa or Kichcha Sudeep did it and how HOW! See what I did there there!

Ok now enough! Night night! I mean Shubh ratri!

“He was flying but had no wings!

He used to dance, he even sings!

He used to be the best of em all!

The king in grandma stories stood very tall!”

Grand mother and her stories! The summer vacations or the time when your grandparents come to live with you are the time of stories! 

From imaginative stories from Ithihasa to their own stories of childhood, it was always fun to listen to them!

read on!

My dad’s mother loved to talk! We only had to listen!

Ask her about her village and the memories and stories would flow like water from a cracked dam! After several sessions the stories would overlap and seem the same but then they remain interesting all the same!

By default Grand father would not have many stories to tell though there were several stories about him which were narrated by my uncles and everyone else!

One story of how she used to sing in her class and when one great personality had come for a school function and was mighty impressed by her singing was her favorite! He toothless grin would be so big and her old eyes would still twinkle when she used to narrate this story! Many times the personality and her class may change but the theme was the same! 

The famous story of Nala and Damayanthi she used to tell with so much emotions that it used to give wings to our imaginations! 

The best story she used to tell which we later read even in our books and Ithihasa was the story of the sage and the fish! How a sage found a small fish while taking bath and he put it in a bowl! Then how the fish kept on growing and the sage kept on increasing the size of the bowl! When finally even the lake or the river was not enough and he had to shift the ‘Fish’ to the sea! At this moment she would declare with a sense of devotion and respect that the fish was none other than Bhagwan Vishnu! We would listen with rapt attention even though we knew this! 

The story telling in the night was a custom in many households! During vacations and holidays it was the norm! There were great storytellers who were the favourite uncle and aunts! Unfortunately now they have been replaced by the screen! The stories now need more special effects to hold attention and must not be repetitive!

The thrill of your own imagination taking over the story is no longer there! When my grandmother used to tell about how the fish grew, I used to imagine a big whale growing slowly but steadily! 

By the way if you find a fun fact, our relative the mammal ‘whale’ is actually one of the largest living thing in the world! To add to the thrill it is also the one which makes the loudest sounds! 

The Antarctic blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus ssp. Intermedia) is the biggest animal on the planet, weighing up to 400,000 pounds (approximately 33 elephants) and reaching up to 98 feet in length! The blue whale is so giant that its heart weighs as much as a small car and the arteries of its heart are so large that the average person could swim through them.

A blue whale’s brain can weigh up to 6.8kg! It can make sounds upto 160 decibels! The jet engine reaches around 140 decibels for comparison! Blogging about stories and big reminds me of the celebrity of the day Ram Kapoor! 

Now ask Alexa to tell you a story and sleep! Or better yet listen to some instrumental music like say, Kenny G and sleep! 

Shubh ratri!

“The lips are moving can’t hear what you say!

From the time the flight landed been this way!

To travel you are not that old! 

Still should avoid when you have the cold!”

The most irritating thing when you drive is of course traffic jam! Specially when you have a shortcut to go somewhere and that bridge or tunnel is blocked! 

That nagging blocked sensation and pain you feel when you are in a flight specially if you have a mild cold is chiefly because of a similar reason!

Read on!

So the middle ear is a structure which has your bones of hearing with its muscles and apparatus including the smallest bone in the body! Smallest bone!? Well, that is a blog for another day! 

So while the middle ear is seated inside a cavity in a bone called the temporal bone, it still needs to know what is the news outside! 

Which means that the ear is disconnected from the environment like some people living in an underground bunker or down a submarine! When this happens there occurs a difference of the pressure in the atmosphere and the ear!

Unlike Human Beings, air pressure believe in equality!

So the air always flows from a high pressure area to a low pressure one! This keeps on happening till both the areas are almost equal pressure! 

The way for the air to go from high or low pressure area is this small tube which connects the ear to the environment! This is one of the most vital structures buried deep within with two openings! 

So when the opening gets blocked or gets altered, the air in the middle ear goes crazy and the drum starts to act! Which is why you get the pain or block! The suction effect can even cause water to enter the ear instead of air by compensation! 

This is why this little tube is so important! 

The tube is named after a remarkable person who also discovered the valve of the veins which also bears his name! 

The person was Bartolomeo Eustachio (writing under the Latin surname Eustacius) who wrote a remarkable series of scientific works on the anatomy of the kidney, the hearing apparatus, the teeth and their structure, and the circulatory system, including the lower vena cava and its valves (now known as the Eustachian valve!)

Eustachio extended knowledge of the internal ear by rediscovering and describing correctly the very important Eustachian tube! 

He was the first to describe the internal and anterior muscles of the malleus and the stapedius, and the complicated figure of the cochlea!

So next time your ears get blocked you can think of Bartolomeo Eustachio! To unblock it though you must ask another called Antonio Maria Valsalva! Then again that is a blog for another day! 

Another great personality closer home is the celebrity of the day; After becoming a doctor this person he returned to Calcutta to start his practice. Initially, he would see poor patients for free. His practice became established and people started coming from villages and far flung areas to get treated by him!

He observation of language issues prompted him to translate and write medical books in Bengali language!

His friends, patients and fraternity requested him to start a college where he could share his knowledge and treat patients. The fight for freedom from the British Raj was getting intensified in those days. There were more and more reasons to start a medical school in Calcutta, that was not associated with the Raj. He gained conviction that the idea to build a school with modern outlook was the need of the hour!

The hospital started by him with great difficulty and struggles is now a well known hospital in the news. 

Hoping for justice and saluting the legend who made this hospital. He is Radha Gobinda Kar. 

Now take warm water so that you do not get ear block and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

“It’s a race againts time for submit!

You have to do it cannot omit!

Thank God we just did it, phew!

So when is the project due!?”

School projects! The pain or…!

Some school projects were so much fun especially if they were group projects!

Read on! 

The main issue with the school projects is the deadline and the specifications! 

Once we had the project on penguins and everyone got eggs and started carefully cracking them on the top and then emptying it slowly and then sealing that with an eye dropper and voila you have a penguin! 

So everyone had the same idea and the only thing different was the side black colour coating which indicated the black fins! Some would draw the eyes nicely!

The moment a project was announced a time bomb or alarm used to start in my mind! Till the project is done I would not rest easy! My daughter also has the same problem! She will finish the project as soon as possible and not rest until it is done!

Another most popular project was the village scene! Of course the field was easy since we all used to play with mud! The best seed were the mustard seeds! They used to come in a couple of days but they used to dry off in a week or so! Which is why we had to show the project before that!

Once we wanted to demonstrate the volcano so we had the whole village scene ready with a water bed and a big mountain! For the volcano we needed a flower pot!

Now getting a flower pot during deepawali was not a big issue but other times it was almost impossible to find!

My friend Ashu and me then took on our trusty old cycle and started our quest on a sunday! With some money in hand we searched all the small stores called Fancy stores of Lal Bazaar in Secunderabad! Fancy stores or Stationary stores were the best when it came to projects! You would get everything and you can do anything!

I have bought countless chart papers in my life and even last month I had to rush in the late evening to get a chart paper of a particular colour for my daughter! The last moment rush does not change!

So after going to every other Fancy store we, went to the stage two which was to go to the stores in the side roads! Then one old shop in the corner had an uninterested dude sitting with no care for business of anything else! 

At first he did not understand or (pretended not to!) as to what we want and later on he slowly nodded that he might have a couple of old stock! 

We were delighted at first but then thought what would happen if it did not burst! Anyway since we beggars had no choice we got two and rushed home!

The next day we proudly showed our project to our Yadav madam who was like a terror for some and a great fun for others! When we were putting the flower pot on the hole of the big mountain made of mud, she snatched it immediately and left in a rage!

She categorically told us to change the project! Which is when the other team member Arjun stepped in and we made a safer project of matching! You match the tables and the light comes on! Fun but routine!

We used to show many of these projects in the school exhibition but then that is the blog or blogs for another day!

Anyway we did take the project home and in Ashu’s house we thought that Madam was simply overreacting! So we placed the remaining flower pot and lit it! It did not make any eruption though! Just a whiss and a sudden blast! The whole mountain was in pieces with a big sound which drew Ashu’s mother who gave us a surprised look! Apparently if you keep the flower pot in closed spaces it may not flower but it may burst like a bomb! Ok then! Lesson learnt the hard way! Guess the matching project was safer! Although if you think about it, the volcano was more accurate! Now like our madam found risk in our project the birthday celebrity of today Shailendra used to find divinity in humanity with his lyrics!

Now keeo stuff ready for your kid’s school projects and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

“The light comes on and then the sleep does not come!
The phone makes you insomniac and then some!
Put it down, there’s a whole lot to see and hear!
Just talk to family and friends far and near!”

A great entertainment when you had no entertainment in your computer was this programme which was actually made to save the screen!

yes! You got it!

read on!

There was a scene in the series Office where the whole gang was actually staring at the screen of the monitor and looking at the square box jumping up and down!

When it used to hit the corner it used to change colour! Then you would think it would hit the perfect corner which is what the office staff watching with interest and not the talk from the boss!

The amazing screen saver!

The standard moving box screensaver was also very popular! It used to look like a ping pong ball hitting the net! Everytime it used to hit the colour used to change! For folks who did not have reels or shorts; that was a great time pass!

There was a time when screen saver was like the status in your whatsapp or FB! It showed your interest or passion!

People used to take a great deal of time to decide on the perfect screensaver! There were so many apps and programs and one of the great deals of new movies or books were its screensavers!

Some cool screensavers also came with music and songs! One of this was my brother’s favourite! The moment you were away from the computer for even five minutes the song would blaze over the speakers! Even now I cannot listen to that particular song though I love music!

In fact many inbuilt music players like the windows media player had these amazing screensavers like audio waves! They were just simple waves which used to move with the intensity of the sound!



Later on even smaller mobile devices started adding a modification of the screen saver which is now called the lock screen! Wallpapers though shifted without any change! Another craze were the icons! Of course all these were part of a broad classification called the Theme!

But did you know that for all the fame and name, they were actually just a passing invention to prevent screen burn out!?

In 1983, a computer programmer named John Socha created a program, called SCRNSAVE which was barely a program at all—after three minutes of inactivity, it turned the screen into a blank, black square!

At the time, Socha developed SCRNSAVE for a mostly a specific practical purpose. Before that you must also know that Socha was the creator of Norton Commander, a file management program that gave computer users a way to interact with their files on early disk operating systems more easily!

In the 1980s, some of the high-contrast computer screens that Norton Commander ran on were susceptible to “burn-in,” a phenomenon where overuse of certain pixels could leave a ghost-like imprint on the screen.
Even we have heard stories of pixel burning on the screen! It was a horror story in the IT world!

So the original purpose of SCRNSAVE was exactly as practical as its name suggests—its darkened image saved screens from permanent damage!

When Socha first wrote the program, he couldn’t have known that his algorithmic experiment would create an entirely new genre of graphics software built primarily for pure entertainment! Soon, other software engineers would follow his lead and go on to develop some of the most iconic visuals associated with early computing!

Of course the screen saver was not one of the greatest invention but still it was fun! But if at all you need to know the greatest Indian Hockey player then without doubt it would be birthday celebrity Major Dhyan Chand! He was so good that there are legendary stories about his abilities and they are all true!

Now turn off your non screen saved computers and phone and sleep!
Shubh Ratri!

“Is this deja vu or something new!?
The places I’ve been to are quite a few!
The memory takes so much space!
Then again da special ones always get a place!”

Whenever you go back to the place you were before you would fondly remember how the street or the house or the area was before! The outer aspect may change beyond recognition but the foundation though remains the same!

It is the same with your brain!

read on!

It is like how even though my old school looks now more old and less scary and the benches look and feel very small indeed; the feeling is the same!

The other day we were in my ancestral village in a remote part of Palakkad in a place called Chittur!

The roads have been modified and developed and there were some new buildings but more or less according to my dad many things were the same!

The most important was the the old Banyan tree!

He still remember how elders used to warn the kids that the Banyan tree is haunted and they must never go near it in the night!

That may be scientific but then no one would ever know!

His old house in a small corner of the village is still there albeit now painted and plastered to make it more stable! This time we could not go inside but I remember going inside the last time and dad fondly showed us where they used to eat sleep and use the open toilet in the night! The actual other toilet was outside and a hole in the ground!

Just like the Banyan tree which remains the same the brain also has a central part which is the first to develop and remains more or less the same! Like the Banyan tree it is is the oldest and innermost region of the brain. It’s designed to control the most basic functions of life, including breathing, attention, and motor responses!
This innermost oldest core of the brain which is the chief processing unit is called the Brain stem!

The brain stem begins where the spinal cord enters the skull and forms the medulla which is the area of the brainstem that controls heart rate and breathing!

In many cases the medulla alone is sufficient to maintain life — animals that have the remainder of their brains above the medulla severed are still able to eat, breathe, and even move!

Like an unplanned or a village like above the new structure like the cerebral cortex and cerebellum are formed over the old foundation of brain stem! While the modern brain is for evolution and progress the Old Brain parts are simply Wired for Survival!

So while the whole world around progresses and evolves, the central root or the basic nature remains the same! It is vital, it is your identity and you may change the external appearance as much as you can, but the core does not change! Like Metallica say; But the Memory remains! Fond memories of birthday celebrity Ananth Narayan Mahadevan in his old serials also remain!

Now let the brain stem rest!
Shubh ratri!

“He looked at the noose and gave a smile
The blood of the hangman froze a while
They can cage a man with lock and chain
But his revolutionary thoughts will definitely rain!”

What do you want to be when you grow old?! or What is your plan or what do you want to do?

even when you were in your 20s or 30s many elders may ask you this much to your annoyance!

Do you know there were young revolutionaries who had done so much for the country at the young age of 22?!

read on!

Most kids start with astronaut! or a rocket scientist! After they grow up and realise that they cannot be king or queen when they grow up no matter what their parents had told them that is!

My “I want to be a doctor” phase started when I was in the 7th class after a visit to my village in Kerala! There I saw the real respect my uncle who was a doctor used to get from all over!

Then again most kids keep all options open! Many may not even think what they want and just follow the ‘crowd’! So when a young kid in those times decided to be a freedom fighter then that is a mighty big achievement indeed!

The other day during an online tuition session my kids were asked to name some freedom fighters! Of course after the select few names that everyone knows and in spite of the freedom fighters from all over India special I had done last year; it was still difficult to remember many names.

Just for that will have a refresher sketch series soon!

We are Indians very easily forget so many young revolutionaries who gave up their lives for the very freedom which we enjoy!

The movie Rang De Basanthi was a testament for just this sentiment! When the Producer suggests the lead actress that she must make a movie about the “famous or more recognisable” freedom fighters. She replies with desperation that these revolutionaries were so young when they did what they did! Meaning they deserve more recognition!

At the age when majority of population do not even know what they are going to do with their lives, you have young fighters who were ready to give up their life for freedom!

Just think about the mind of Bhagat singh when he collected the blood soaked sand from the Jalianwala Bagh after the cruel massacre?

That jar was a constant reminder of the Homicide which should have immediately shaken the system! Instead the officers of the British army were busy collecting donations for the pension for the ‘inconvenient’ early retirement of the perpetrator of the massacre.

What prompted them to shun the western attire and be proud of their own dress and culture?

Or the fact that these young Indians were staring at their deaths and just bravely smiled and accepted it.

It is just their love for their country and nothing else! The love for your motherland is a pious one indeed!

A humble sketch dedication to the birthday celebrity who was just 22 years when he became Shaheed. Sri Shivaram Hari Rajguru. Hopefully that is one more name my kids remember forever.

A sketch made with pride and it shows!

Shubh ratri…

Jai Hind…