Category: Uncategorized

For an average child, the moon and the sun is the same! Just that one comes in the night and the other during the day!

In fact he or she may at first think that the moon is more powerful since it gives light in the night! While the sun gives light in the day when there already is so much light!

Also when you see; practically they look the same size! Though in fact the moon gets bigger and bigger and becomes the size of the sun!

That is the issue of perception!

Size only matters when it is close to you!

Which is why even though the sun is so big, it looks the same size as the moon! This is because, even though the Moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun, it is also also 400 times closer to Earth!

This is also why solar eclipses are so dramatic when you realise that the tiny moon completely covers the sun! This means that from Earth, the Moon and Sun appear to be roughly the same size in the sky. It is a complete coincidence!

For scientists, solar eclipses have played a crucial part in our understanding of the Universe. By shielding telescopes from the Sun’s glare, they have allowed us to explore and learn about the solar corona, a glowing ring of super-hot gas that extends millions of kilometres into outer space and causes solar winds!

Then again they also gave Validation to Einstein!


The most scientifically important solar eclipse occurred in 1919. Then, a team led by Arthur Eddington captured pictures of stars behind the Sun as darkness fell. They compared the stars’ positions to where they would be on a normal night, and made a startling discovery ­– they had moved!

This meant the Sun had bent the starlight. The only theory that could account for the amount the starlight bent came from Albert Einstein!
Eddington’s results catapulted Einstein into the limelight and started to turn scientific opinion in favour of his general theory of relativity!
Even now when it comes to Physics; Einstein is right up there with the stars or rather the moon!

The bad news is that the Moon is slowly drifting away from us! It is escaping at the rate of 2.5 cm every year! Some time in future you would look up in the sky and the moon would have escapes! It is thus a visitor who will stay for some billion years!

Of course some people will look at the moon and see only the spots! While many others see the beauty! Like the one with the scars but still beautiful like Merle Oberon…

Let’s look at the beauty and see beyond the scars…

Shubh ratri…

At first I was afraid, petrified! Then I will survive! Yes, the lyrics to one of the most popular ‘survival’ songs actually is a case study in Psycho-Cybernetics!

Before that you must know about Cybernetics!

Cybernetics which is a term loosely translated from the Greek indicates “a helmsman who steers his ship to port.” 

While Psycho-Cybernetics is a term coined by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, which means, “steering your mind to a productive, useful goal so you can reach the greatest port in the world, peace of mind.”!

In this very popular book, Maxwell who is a plastic surgeon by profession states how the strongest computer in the world that is our brain has the power within and we have to unleash it somehow! How you can bear pain without anesthesia if your mind is powerful enough! How what you feel is actually the power of your brain and nothing else! 

Although he was a plastic surgeon (I know many plastic surgeons who hate the term ‘Plastic!’; they feel it feels so artificial while in fact they like to make you feel as natural as possible!); Maxwell understood that before he could make any change to the face or any part of a patient’s body physically, he must make sure there is a mental change!

Even before the procedure there has to be a fine balance between expectations and results! If your expectation is high then no matter the outcome, you would always be disappointed! While if you have a guarded expectation, your results would be much better!

Maxwell also states how when you get exposed to any problem, then at first you get terrified or petrified! But then the constant stimulus of the same problem will make you adapt!

It it the same in animals! 

So apparently animals continuously exposed to a uniform damaging stimulus at first display the symptoms of the ‘alarm reaction’ and later pass into a resistant phase. The hypothetical measure of an individual’s capacity to resist stress according to Maxwell Maltz  is adaptation energy!

It is like a  Each person is believed to have a finite amount of adaptation energy, which is used to cope with different types of stress. Energy expended to cope with one type of stress, such as staying up late, results in less being available for other stresses, such as training. 

When adaptation energy is low, a person is more likely to suffer from stress-related diseases and conditions known as burnout and rundown! So anything which increases your adaptation energy will increase your healing power!  

Some may use medication while some others meditation! Many can listen to songs or watch a positive motivating movie! Some may read a book and or a good blog (not necessarily this one!)!

Or watch some nice feel good movie like the one directed by Sooraj Barjatya…

A quick sketch and blog on a day which went like a blur!

Shubh ratri!

Mirror mirror on the wall!

No human can ever resist the temptation of looking at the mirror! It is because they see a face he or she is so familiar with! It gives you a sense of calm and consistency! Or any other reason you can think of to stare at yourself!

But do you know about the Mirror test!?

What scientists call the mirror test is used to determine whether an animal has the ability of visual self-recognition, which is considered a marker of intelligence in animals.

The was developed by psychologist Gordon Gallup in 1970, and involves placing a visual marker — like a red spot — on an animal’s body. Scientists proceed to observe what happens when the animal is placed in front of the mirror, watching the animal’s reaction both to their reflection with and without the marker. If an animal passes the mirror test, they will usually adjust their body position in a way so they can get a better look at the marker on their body and pay more attention to that part of their body. This suggests that the animal knows something is different about their reflection.
Now every normal person when encountering a mirror would stop and at least take a glance at the mirror!

This means that the human or the animal for that matter recognises the fact that there is something different about the reflection or the fact that it is a ‘reflection’!

You would assume that all humans and most animals would pass this test! Well, humans do pass it after the age of 18 months or so and only a few animals pass it! At least in studies since we of course cannot ask them!

Like cats and dogs do not usually pass the test (at least not officially!)

Most primates like your distant cousins…I mean the homo sapien’s distant cousin like the Chimps and Baboons pass it in most studies!

The interesting thing is that even Dolphins pass the test since it is anyway a Mammal!

Then again there is another proper fish which in 2019, the cleaner wrasses — which are tiny tropical reef fish — were the first fish to pass the mirror test!

Moreover in 2008, Eurasian magpies were the first non-mammals to pass the mirror test!

Another interesting observation was when ants were found to pass the test!
It is not very surprising since ants are an incredibly social group of insects and have displayed impressive teamwork abilities, such as relocating their entire colony!

So a study found that three species, Myrmica rubra, Myrmica ruginodis, and Myrmica sabuleti have shown potential for self-recognition!
When exposed to a mirror, ants of all three species marked with a blue dot would attempt to clean themselves by touching the mark. Similar results were not exhibited when ants were marked with a brown dot, which is the same color as their body. It appears that the ants used their mirror reflection to see the unusual blue dot and attempt to clean it! Now maybe it was because the dots were blue and not red! In any case it does make them Mirror worthy!

Of course I have always mentioned how at the end of the day you are answerable to the man or woman in the mirror and be proud of him or her!

Of course if you are Shivaji Maharaj then even the mirror would be proud!

Har har Mahadev!

Shubh ratri
Jai hind!

The best drink in the world from the dawn of life to the end of universe would always be water!

As a child on a sunny day when you run and play and come home, the first thing you ask for is water!

Sometimes you drink so fast that you cough! You just can’t wait to quench that thirst! At that time it is the sweetest thing in the world and the most satisfying feeling after you drink this nectar!

Did you ever stop to think that the water you drink right now in one part of the world would one day become rain in a different part! The water in the glass right now may be trapped but it is a patient prisoner since it can wait! It will anyway outlive you and then it will be free to flow!

It can take any shape and colour and taste! And finally it can roam the skies as a cloud and get sweet in a flowing river or salty in the mighty ocean or sea!

Did you ever stop to think that the expiry date on the bottle is not of the water but of the bottle! Water does not have an expiry date!

Finally did you ever stop to think how the amount of water in the Earth is always constant! It just changes shape and state but the final amount remains the same!

Ever since you have life on Earth, the one thing which has always been constant is the amount of water!

Have you also wondered how the thirst only gets quenched for that time! Your thirst is controlled! It’s never cured! It’s because the water you drink again gets out of your system one way or the other and finally you get the thirst back!

Now it is seen that normally when we get dehydrated (as measured by an increasing concentration of solutes in our blood) thirst kicks in to make us drink water to dilute our blood back down to an acceptable level. But, once we start drinking, this sensation generally subsides within a minute or less, even if we were really thirsty!

But actually the hydration actually takes time! The feeling of satiety is so that we do not overload the body with water! Yes! Even drinking more water is not good!

So the body even has a protective mechanism against the nectar of Gods! Water! It has been suggested that receptors in the throat – and the thirst centre in the brain that’s connected to them – are able to reliably identify the action of swallowing fluid (as opposed to swallowing food) and have the ability to ‘switch thirst off’ long before the fluids have been absorbed properly. It’s like the receptors send an advance signal that says “don’t worry brain, water is on the way, you can stop being thirsty now”!

It may not be as effective when it comes to food though! But still it depends on your brain! You actually need only a couple of Puris to solve your hunger! Anything more than that would actually become your fat friend!
Now lets not digress! Quenching thirst is the matter for now!

Our whole life, day in and out we spend in quenching this never ending thirst!

You cannot have a drink of water which can make your thirst to end forever!

Also imagine that the drink of water you are drinking right now is older than not only you but also any living thing on Earth right now! So next time you drink water, just respect that for an instant!

Respect also was what Swamy Vivekananda had for Ramakrishna Paramahansa.

We can respect everyone also!

Shubh ratri!

I still remember that ad in TV where people were urged to simply give water mixed with sugar and salt to children with vomiting or diarrhea.

Our Peds posting in one such ward was spent only in advising that and the great solution which is a life saver! The ORS!

Did you know that the use of ORS was pioneered by an Indian!?

So in 1971, Dr Dilip Mahalanabis was called to serve at a refugee camp in West Bengal where the death toll due to cholera was rising day by day.

At that time though the only solution was to put a drip (IV or intravenous line) to rehydrate the severely dehydrated people who were at a high risk of dying. However, only two healthcare workers among his staff were trained in putting an IV line. An alternative had to be found to help the endless number of people who kept coming in with diarrhoea. In such dire circumstances, when he realized that they were losing the battle, Dr Dilip allowed people to give the rehydration therapy orally!

Despite continuous criticism and resistance from clinicians, Dr Dilip believed that oral rehydration therapy could be given by even untrained relatives of the patients. He kept several drums of the oral rehydration solution (ORS) by his side and asked the family and relatives to keep giving the solution to the patient. The medical fraternity witnessed the miracle of ORS when the death toll among cholera patients dropped from 30 percent to less than 4 percent! Patients were getting better soon and returning home!

This doctor had begun researching oral rehydration therapy in 1966 as a research investigator for the Johns Hopkins University International Center for Medical Research and Training in Calcutta, India. During the Bangladeshi war for independence, he led the effort by the Johns Hopkins Center that demonstrated the dramatic life-saving effectiveness of oral rehydration therapy!

The simple, inexpensive Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) gained acceptance, and was later hailed as one of the most important medical advances of the 20th century! Even now when anyone is tired or simply sick, a glass of ORS is a life saver! It not only takes care of the sugar and salt but also levels up vital electrolytes and minerals!

Thousands of children who recovered owe their life to Dr Dilip!
Another great doctor and human was Bhakti Yadav aka Doctor dadi!
Read about her!

It’s inspiring!

Shubh ratri!

It has been said that moments after the first artist was born, the first critic was born!

The moment success comes to anyone, pride and envy comes to another!
Pride and envy has caused much more problems to the Human society even more than disease and poverty!

Like it has always been said, there is no actual treatment for both Alopecia and Jealousy! Though Alopecia can still be managed!

Did you know that there was a great Indian scientist who not only made such great strides in the field of Biochemistry but has given us such valuable products which we use even to this day!

This great scientist subsequently discovered folic acid as a cure for tropical sprue! He discovered methotrexate, a chemotherapy drug still used today and also used for rheumatoid arthritis, and diethylcarbamazine (DEC), the only effective drug for treating filariasis. He is also credited with the first synthesis of the chemical compounds folic acid and methotrexate! Imagine that!

He would have and most probably had in fact discovered many more chemicals but the green eye of envy stuck hard! A contemporary Cyrus H. Fiske, suppressed and destroyed many of his important works out of envy! 

In fact he was so talented and gifted and inspiring that under him, Benjamin Duggar made his discovery of the world’s first tetracycline antibiotic, chlortetracycline, in 1945!

Duggar identified the antibiotic as the product of an actinomycete he cultured from a soil sample collected from Sanborn Field at the University of Missouri! Yes! The same one which is in our own Bharat!

And yes! Even the scientist of such great talent was Indian!

This great scientist was Yellapragada Subba Rao; a pioneering but forgotten Indian biochemist. Many don’t even know his name; he deserved much more respect from this world! When the world speaks about Newton and Einstein; do put in a couple of words for forgotten scientists like Subba Rao!

Another great personality who is not that known is Anuraadha Koirala! A Padma award winner and a legend!

Do read about her!

Shubh ratri!

This was initially started under a Banyan tree!
And now the decisions made in this place can change the fortune of not only a person but also a whole country!

With the recent screening of movies and series of Stocks and stock exchanges; the general public has started getting to know about stocks and how the market works!

Slowly the financial sections of the paper (for those few who still read em!); which used to be in the last section, has slowly started gaining prominence!

This is because what happens in the financial world and market actually makes the whole flow in all the pages! Each and every single story in every page can finally be linked to a financial decision in one way or the other!

All said and done, Money speaks! It is a very important factor in your freedom and life. Of course it is not the MOST important which is where people falter!

Each and every individual who is a human with a social life finally thrives to earn a financial freedom!

Then again the world of stocks is full of bear and bulls and mainly shocks!

The interesting thing though is the fact that the sixth largest stock exchange in the world which is the Bombay stock exchange was started under a Banyan tree!

Bombay Stock Exchange was started by Premchand Roychand in 1875. In the 1850s, five stock brokers gathered together under a Banyan tree in front of Mumbai Town Hall!
A decade later, the brokers moved their location to another leafy setting, this time under banyan trees!
Finally in 1874, the brokers found a permanent location, the one that they could call their own. The Bombay Stock Exchange continued to operate out of a building near the Town Hall until 1928. 

The street on which the present site is located came to be called Dalal Street in Hindi (meaning “Broker Street”) due to the location of the exchange! It is also one of the oldest exchanges in Asia!

Hope you have some stocks! and of course pay tax or Lagaan!

Which reminds me of the celebrity Ashutosh Gowariker! You expected that right!?

Now lemme watch some Swades and think about home!

Shubh ratri!

Do you know that Eskimos who are surrounded by snow have around fifty names for the types of snow!

In Nunavimmiutitut, the Inuktitut dialect spoken in Canada’s Nunavik region has at least 53, including matsaaruti, for wet snow that can be used to ice a sleigh’s runners, and pukak, for crystalline powder snow that looks like salt.

You can have crunchy snow or hard snow or soft snow! Just when you thought you just want snow! What’s the great deal you ask? Well, in spite of fifty names for different types of snow, the Eskimos do not have a single name for, you guessed it; snow! 

Yes! They have snow all over but do not have a name for snow! 

Which means there is a word for a falling snow or an already fallen snow! But no word which means just snow!

Then again another surprising fact is that the Scots have at least 400 words for snow!

Now don’t you feel lucky that all you need to know in English about snow is that it is called, well; SNOW!

It’s like you go to Starbucks or Coffee Day and there are tens of different types of coffee or drink! You have Mocha, latte or frappe! Then again you are stuck in the counter and all you actually wanted was maybe a simple filter coffee or even a Tea! But then you have to tell the person that you need a simple coffee! Nod for whipped cream or some other stuff he or she would tell and you would nod along as if you understood everything! Then when you get that huge cup of coffee after getting your name called out so loud, all you like to do it grab it and scoot!

Of course then you would drink a little and would just waste the rest! You may keep the cup with your name though!

Better to go with your daughter who would confidently go to the counter and say I want a Strawberry Vanilla Bean frappuccino with chocolate sprinles and whipped cream to go!

Now that’s snow off or rather show off! Of course when your work is as good as the work of Late Sushma Swaraj ji then thats itself can snow or show!

One of the most busiest days ever! 

A quick sketch and an even quicker blog!

Shubh ratri!

Limits to medicine:Medical nemesis is a hard hitting novel by Ivan illich tells how the present day doctors are simply the priests of yesteryears who simply comfort but actually make no difference to the disease! Case in point is how according to the author is how the fall of TB and whooping cough is mainly because of better housing and nutrition and not medication!

Of course it takes some neutrality to just read the novel as a doctor since it is obviously against them!

Then again if you do not have good critic then how would you improve!? Just be careful of those whose past time is criticism! Those who only complain and never praise do not deserve either your time or your effort and most importantly your respect!

In one of the chapters, Ivan mentions this interesting story! In fact there are so many references and this goes to show how much research has gone in the novel so let us give him due!

So the example given was of something called the Paradoxical disease control! This was in relation to the insecticide DDT as studied by Davies and W. F. Edmundson.

The author states how this is a good example of paradoxical disease control from Borneo: Insecticides used in villages to control malaria vectors also accumulated in cockroaches, most of which were resistant! Those roaches would see the end of the Universe and maybe even survive that! Anyway that was not the crux! The issue was that the lizards who fed on these ‘chemically infused’ roaches were not resistant to the effect of DDT!

So the Geckoes those fed on these, became lethargic, and fell prey to cats!
The cats thought it was a great slow food! But of course they also were very sensitive to the DDT!

The final effect was that the cats died, and then the rats had a free run!
The rats multiplied, and with rats came the threat of epidemic bubonic plague!

To cut a long story a little less long; the final solution was that the army had to parachute cats into the jungle village to get the rats! And of course the DDT was stopped! Nature is nothing but balance!

A perfect balance were also those ACK comics especially the ones of Ithihasa which were a treasure house of knowledge! Fun and informative! Especially the Magnum Opus Mahabharat and Ramayan!
The sketch of today is of this great celebrity who made many of those stories happen!

Kamala Chandrakant!
Thank you madam for the amazing work!
We will miss you! Heartfelt condolences
Om shanti

Shubh ratri…

The crux of this very useful invention was the fact that you have return customers and like the printer! Even the printer manufacturer knows that the real money is not in the sale of printer but the cartridges!

This is something which you use to cut your face every day!

Now do not get any violent thoughts! Its Shaving Blade!

The best blades we used to have were the ones from Dad’s shaving razor! The rectangle shaped blade was so thin and sharp and many times rusted!

The good quality ones used to be more clean for longer duration! Talent was to break them into two blades each!

It was a thrill to see your dad shave using those blades which looked so dangerous! Of course many of us used to use that blade to sharpen our pencils! Sharpener was only during the initial days when the school began! Even otherwise though, it was better to sharpen the pencil with a blade since the sharpener those days would always break the lead! If you do not insert the pencil properly or if the lead is broken in an angle then the lead would not get sharpened properly and the pencil would go on getting broken and short!

Of course by the time we grew up, those razors were long gone! Now was the time of the disposable razors! Even though those razors were supposed to be used only once, we used to use them lots of times cutting our face all over! The end of every shave used to look like a war zone!

Later on the double blades and then the triple ones were the routine!

My present blade called the fusion is five! Unfortunately once you are used to the higher number, it is difficult to go down! The best shave is always the one with the new blade! Every day after that cutting experience goes down!

Looking at the history it has been seen that circular razors made of solid gold or copper can be found in some Egyptian tombs from as far back as the 4th millennium BC, though many other tools were used by men to shave their faces!

Apparently there are drawings on cave walls that show prehistoric people using clamshells, flint knives, and even shark teeth to shave!

A circa 1762 invention by French cutler Jean-Jacques Perret added a protective guard to a regular straight razor! This was a major step in the shaving area!

Of course the proper safety razor came later!

The first known occurrence of the term “safety razor” is found in a patent from 1880 for a razor in the basic contemporary configuration with a handle in which a removable blade is placed. Of course when it comes to shaving, then there is only Gillette! At least for now!

As a young man, King C. Gillette (1855-1932) worked as a traveling salesman. Always interested in inventions, King received a number of patents, none more important than one for a disposable safety razor blade.

In developing the blade, King was inspired by one of his employers, William Painter, who made his fortune inventing the disposable bottle cap!

Painter advised Gillette to invent another disposable item that would create a steady stream of return customers!

In 1895, Gillette worked out the idea for a razor blade that could be fit into a holder and replaced when dulled, thereby insuring a sharp blade for every shave! After an extensive search, Gillette found William Emery Nickerson, an MIT trained engineer, to produce the thin, sharpened steel blades he envisioned.

Now of course you do have many imitations but as far as shaving is concerned, Gillette blades are one of the best!

Also one of the best Padma winner is Dr Subroto Das! His efforts for highway accident victim support is simply remarkable!
He developed Lifeline Foundation which is a highway rescue response model that was among those used in designing EMS services in India.

It was noted that the foundation worked on utilizing existing healthcare infrastructure and coordinating with emergency rescue departments.
In 2007, Gujarat became the first state in India to pass Emergency Medical Services legislation, with Lifeline Foundation participating in the process!

Now he is a clear winner! Do you know him or about him!?
Well, now you do!

Shubh ratri!