Category: Uncategorized

“They can be black or blue!
Even marigold or red too!
Just write and also right an ready to go!
Ball point pens work! An not just for show!”

The case of the missing ball point pen!

You would have bought so many pens in your lifetime but do you remember where they disappear?

Ball pens are alive is my theory!
Ok now before you refer me to a psychiatrist just…
read on!

The amount of ball pens we buy can be countless! Every visit to the magic shop which is the stationary shop you end up buying a pen or a set!

My daughter and me can spend hours in the stationary shop now much to the chagrin of my wife! It is like a dream land for us!

Stationary shop previously was a small shop in the corner with the smell of books and some pens hanging in the corner!

Those day we used to actually buy the pen only once in the year and other times we always used to buy the refills! I do not remember the last time I bought a ball pen refill! Occasional though I do buy the ink pen refills which are so cool! You just snap it in!

The amazing thing about ballpoint pens and even the now gel pens is that they last so long! You can simply write on and on and they would still write some more!

Though I always prefer either an ink pen or even a Pilot pen, ball pens are a necessity! You cannot live without them! In an emergency you need only the ball point pens! The ink pens would not do!

The days of reynolds and Rotomac were so good! The thin tip and the bold one!

But (yeah! What is a blog without a but!); now when we buy any ball pen, rest assured that it will be there with you for less than a week! If your pen is premium or even an Ink pen or a premier fountain pen then of course it may be with you for a while without getting lost but a regular ballpoint pen’s tendency of getting lost is remarkable that it feels they are alive!

If the pen is the click type then it takes longer for them to ‘escape’ while the ones with the cap have it more easy!
The first step is removing the handcuffs which is the cap! Once you lose the cap of a pen then rest assured that the pen will be ‘escaping’ soon!

In college I remember how many would take a slim roll of paper and write their names in the pen! That is tagging! If that happens then also the chances of ‘escape’ of the pen is less!

But the moment you put the pen in either your shirt or pant pocket, they start their plans to escape! Initial plans would be just jumping out and falling on the ground or on the table corners! Those places sometimes they are still found and ‘captured’ again! Then one fine day you have an important write up to do or you have to sign some important paper and lo! The pen has escaped!

I am sure one fine day one news item would announce that a secret world or island has been discovered which has all the escaped pens in the world!
I still remember in our medical college entrance there was a guy who was selling these cheap pens and for fifteen bucks you get fifteen pens!

I once got that whole set happily thinking that I do not have to buy any pen for the rest of the year! I thought that maybe the pens may not write well or may leak! In fact they wrote pretty well and no leaks! But at the end of the month I was left with no pens! I had lost each and every one of them!

Like the brick and ball game of computer, the more balls you have, the faster you lose! It is the same with the pens! When you have a lot of pens, there is a greater probability of losing them!

This in spite of being very possessive of my pen! I never borrow pen from anyone as much as possible and I do not like to give my pen to anyone! I am basically a very generous person even if I do say so myself but do not ask me for my pen! In spite of this I frequently lose pens! And after enquiry I have found out that it is a universal phenomenon!

Which is why I often wonder where do these pens we have lost (which is of course going to be a big number) end up! Or maybe you can refer me to a good neuro doctor or  psychiatrist! Speaking of a doctor reminds me of birthday celebrity and doctor and that too an ENT! Dr. Shriram Lagoo!

Now safely tuck your pen in your bag and sleep!
Shubh ratri!

“Oh don’t harm him he is trying to help
He spent sleepless nights for you
If the treatment doesn’t work you are sad!
But rest assured your doctor is also in the blue…”

Every other day when I read about the attack on the doctors I get so scared and sad.

On one side you have the distressed patient and his or her relatives who are high on emotions while on the other side you have the poor doctor who is simply trying to make you better.

Then a radical solution is maybe required for doing this very important job in the medical profession; Breaking bad news…

How about an AI?

In the novel Homo Deus by Yuval he says how the major thing AI cannot do is breaking bad news. The chief difference between an AI and human is being human or more importantly being Humane!

Unfortunately, the Human is not without issues. He or she may have seen so many patients, he or she would be so stressed himself, there may be a million things running in his or her mind!

The essence here is INTENT. No doctor would ever make mistake by choice or no doctor will make an intentional mistake.

How about the fact the day in and day out he or she sees suffering and pain and may be it is too much for him or her! How about the consideration that he or she did not get a wink of sleep the other night or the night before and that thing is vexing his or her mind!

Then again he or she is simply another human with flaws and imperfections. Patience is not something which is common or usual when you have to see so many patients! For every bad news you need to tell the patient or the relative, he or she needs to prepare and get composed and do the same over and over again!

It is never easy! No one likes bad news and everyone likes to blame or “shoot” the messenger and healer!

I have often seen reviews of doctors; one common thing is that when the patient gives a negative review he or she would say, “he or she was so busy that he or she did not spend enough time with me!”

No one stops to think for a minute that the only reason you went to that doctor is because he or she is busy or famous! Then there can be no doubt that his or her time would also be limited! Of course there are some who have decided to simply give everything to this profession and they can go on and on and answer your questions and repeat with each and every patient! When this also happens the common complaint is that; “We had to wait for a long time to see the doctor!”

The biggest thing which you must always remember is that your doctor is a hundred percent HUMAN! Nothing more or less! Do not expect miracles! But rest assured no doctor would ever want his or her patient’s health to NOT improve!

When you recover just remember that the doctor also recovers a little from the stress which is medical profession! When you feel sad or do not respond to his or her treatment, a part of him or her also literally becomes sad and depressed or is lost in the deep abyss of medical failure!

So the solution can be found when they can add empathy program to the machine and there can be a AI doctor specifically for breaking bad news!

So accordingly we must have an AI doctor with emotions who is never tired! It will ALWAYS talk to you with compassion coolness and without any fatigue! You can go on asking the same question over and over again! You can ask the questions from anyone! Any number of relative can get access to IT and ask the same or any questions and IT will only be to happy (do not know the proper emotion here though since that will be a complex algorithm!) to answer your question again and again!

All will be done with the perfect amount of compassion as calculated by its data analysis of the patient or the bystander’s state of mind!

Another important thing is that IT is available at any time of the day or night and anywhere! You call and IT will be there to tell you the news!

But I unfortunately feel the MOST important advantage is that if you do not like the treatment or cannot take the bad news, IT can handle your assault!
You can show your anger in any way to IT and it will not get angry or heart broken! Even if you damage it, the spare parts would be made available or even a new one would be ordered and it will start without any issue! In fact it may even learn why or how the attack happened and try to make sure it does not happen again!

With the way things are going, I am sure that this is not a far future, in fact these repeated attacks would only hasten the HUMAN to AI transformation.
Only God can help US or AI!

This Guru Nanak jayanti I pray to the holy Guruji to shower you with peace and joy on this sacred day and hope every patient understand that his or her doctor is your friend when you are not well…

Shub ratri…

Wahe guru…

“Oh the road ahead so tortous and long!
Test you always weak or strong!
Course your quest is to reach the end
But do stop and admire each turn, every bend…”

There was this story I heard which used to be both funny and with a moral!

In fact the story in some ways is actually similar to a theory given by a prominent economist!

The theory is called Easterlain Paradox!

read on!

So the story is how I have heard it while the original versions or other versions may be there! This one my dad used to narrate to me in his Army style!

Once a King hell bent on conquering the world was going through a forest and he saw a Sage resting on the shade of a tree oblivious to everything around him!

The king saw the Sage resting without a care of the world!

He asked him “don’t have any work to do”

S-To which he replied with another question, “What work do you have?”

The King-“I have to conquer the world!”

S-“After then, what are you planning to do?”

K-“Then I have to become the greatest king in the universe!”

S-“After that, what are you planning to do?:

K-“Then I’m going to use my wealth and construct a big Palace!”

S-“After that, what are you planning to do?”

K-“Then I will use all my wells and get a place very close to the river!”

S”After that”

K-“Well, then I will lie down under a tree and rest satisfied that I have done so much with my life!”

Then the sage finally replied, “Well, you can see that I am doing exactly that! You however have a long way to go! Please carry on!”

We used to love this story since it actually told us in many ways that material wealth is not important! But peace of mind!

It has been said that even the richest of the rich are not happy like the king above! They are constantly searching for peace! This unhappiness in spite of wealth is called the Easterlain paradox!

The Easterlin paradox was a finding in happiness economics formulated in 1974 by Richard Easterlin, then professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and the first economist to study happiness data!

The paradox states that at a point in time happiness varies directly with income both among and within nations, but over time happiness does not trend upward as income continues to grow: while people on higher incomes are typically happier than their lower-income counterparts at a given point in time, higher incomes don’t produce greater happiness over time.

That is, in the short run, everyone perceives increases in income to be correlated with happiness and tries to increase their incomes. However, in the long run, this proves to be an illusion, since everyone’s efforts to raise standards of living lead to increasing averages, leaving everyone in the same place in terms of relative income!

Of course this is only one theory and wealth is very important so do not think that finance is not important! Just remember that it is not the only important thing! Once in a while stop being a King chasing after money and like the sage sit below a tree and maybe sketch or maybe write a blog!

Or Just do what you love and then you will be happy, Paradox or not! Maybe sketch, blog or even cook something you like for others! Now cooking reminds me of celebrity chef Vikas Khanna!

Time for the daily relaxation in the dark waiting for sunlight! Or in simple words; sleep!
Shubh Ratri!

“A shop in some place has books!
The shop is open tis never locked!
The owner says a reader doesn’t rob
A Robber doesn’t read so don’t be shocked!”

Some of the most competitive examinations in the world (or even universe!) can be said to be conducted in India like the IIT or the Medical entrance examination!

Getting into institutions like these are a matter of great pride simply because the entrance is so tough!

But (he he!) did you know that there was another university in India which was the world’s first Residential university where the entrance was more tough that any at a time when people in other places were trying to simply learn basic words!?

read on!

I have never attempted or written an engineering examination since I had the resolve only to be a doctor and nothing else! There was no ‘take what you get’ attitude!

But I know that some of the engineering examinations at least at that time was so tough! The amount of preparation required is so much!

Even examinations like the UPSC are big mountains to climb!

Now this particular University of the ancient times has such high levels of rejection rates! So much so that apparently even the gate keeper at the entrance would be so wise that if you fail to ‘pass’ his test or questions even there itself you would be sent out!

The university used to get applications from all over the world but only very few were even considered!

The training was intense and there was no distractions! You get up, you read, you discuss, you debate, you refer from the huge library and sleep a little and repeat!

Of course when it comes from an ‘angrezi’ author it has more credibility! It is unfortunate that when we were departing education to the whole world even when people had trouble grasping simple things and now the so called ‘civilized’ nations try to teach us!

In the novel ‘The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World’ by William Dalrymple, the author’s description of the greatest University of that time gives you goosebumps!

The university had a library almost as big as the Alexandria and was about nine stories high!

Of course those Illiterates who do not know the value of knowledge or education burnt and destroyed this treasure!

The famous libraries were called Ratnasagar, Ratnadadhi and Ratnaranjak. All these libraries were located in a complex called ‘Dharmaganj’.

And yes! The famous university was Nalanda!

Incidentally I did my LKG in a school called Nalanda but I am sure that it was not the same!

So Nalanda was a renowned Buddhist mahavihara (great monastery) in ancient and medieval Magadha (modern-day Bihar).

Operating from 427 CE until around 1400 CE, Nalanda played a vital role in promoting the patronage of arts and academics during the 5th and 6th century CE, a period that has since been described as the “Golden Age of India” by scholars!

Nalanda was established by emperor Kumaragupta I of the Gupta Empire around 427 CE, and was supported by numerous Indian and Javanese patrons – both Buddhists and non-Buddhists.
Nalanda continued to thrive with the support of the rulers of the Pala Empire (r. 750–1161 CE). After the fall of the Palas, the monks of Nalanda were patronised by the Pithipatis of Bodh Gaya.

Nalanda University was destroyed by Bakhtiyar Khilji which he had proudly reclaimed in his court records. Bakhtiyar khilji was a Turkish Afghan general of Muhammad Ghori.


Over some 750 years, Nalanda’s faculty included some of the most revered scholars of Mahayana Buddhism.

The faculty and students associated with the monastery included Dharmapala, Nagarjuna, Dharmakirti, Asanga, Vasubandhu, Chandrakirti, Xuanzang, Śīlabhadra and Vajrabodhi.

The curriculum of Nalanda included major Buddhist philosophies like Madhyamaka, Yogachara and Sarvastivada, as well as other subjects like the Vedas, grammar, medicine, logic, mathematics, astronomy and alchemy.

The mahavihara had a renowned library that was a key source for the Sanskrit texts that were transmitted to East Asia by pilgrims like Xuanzang and Yijing.
Many texts composed at Nalanda played an important role in the development of Mahayana and Vajrayana. They include the works of Dharmakirti, the Sanskrit text Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra of Shantideva, and the Mahavairocana Tantra!

In the novel William describes the arduous journey of a monk from China who started on a journey of close to six years from China to Nalanda across deserts, rivers and all sorts of trials and troubles to reach this great place of education and was received with lots of adulation and open arms! An honour given to very few!

Education is thus what we have always given importance to and that is how it will be! So is the importance to art and literature. Only a humane human can actually appreciate art and music and creativity! One such amazing artist is Pulapaka Suseela! Listen to her songs and think of our glorious past and future!

Shubh Ratri!

“Got a new dress everyone said it’s too good!
I should be happy I know I would!
But little did they know t’was the old one!
Just told em it’s new for fun!”

Remember the tale of the Emperor’s new clothes!? It was a hilarious tale in which you had all the sympathy for the crooks who made a fool of the vain!
The story was inspired by a Spanish tale.

Or was it!?
In the In the novel ‘The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World’ by William Dalrymple; the author tells about a similar tale but Indian this time!

read on!

Clothes are the major draw for anyone! many would spend so much to cover themselves! Fashion shows and parades are there for new designs and to show you ways to cover you!

Being the son of an army officer, I have always been taught to dress decently and not for show! Even stepping out of the house just for a while you will not find me in casual dress! But (expected!), that of course does not mean that you need costly clothes!

Even now one of my best shirts which looks and feels so rich and good and is wrinkle free for more than ten years now was less than 500 INR while the super costly ones lie in a corner gathering dust! Those were of course the ones gifted by my wife since I would never spend too much money on clothes! If it was a gadget then of course there is no limit!

Even socially you have some rules! If you are rich then you do wear rich, branded and shiny clothes! While if you are super rich then you wear simple but decent clothes!

Then again, you will never find a girl who would say the she has enough clothes even when her clothes wardrobe is full! It is an argument you can never win! It is always, “I do not have any clothes to wear!”

The more exclusive the clothes, the better the deal apparently! Which is whey the story of the emperor’s clothes is so famous!

The tale as we all have read or seen goes like this; There was an an emperor who used to have an obsession with fancy new clothes, and used to spend lavishly on them, at the expense of his public and ignore the other matters of the rule or the state!

One day, two con-men visit the emperor’s capital.
Posing as weavers, they offer to supply him with magnificent clothes that are invisible to those who are incompetent or stupid. The gullible emperor hires them, and they set up looms and pretend to go to work.
A succession of officials, starting with the emperor’s wise and competent minister, and then ending with the emperor himself, visit them to check their progress. Each sees that the looms are empty but everyone pretends to see the clothes and weave more bigger stories about them since they do not want to left out or called a ‘fool’!

Finally, the weavers report that the emperor’s suit is finished. They acts as if dressing him and he sets off in a procession before the whole city!
The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear inept or stupid, until a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all!
The people then realize that everyone has been fooled. In various versions the King either runs away embarrassed or still continuous in vain!
The fate of the con-men is not revealed in the initial stories though in later versions they are shown to have escaped with the payment!

The tale was first written by Andersen and his tale is based on a 1335 story from the Libro de los ejemplos (or El Conde Lucanor), a medieval Spanish collection of fifty-one cautionary tales with various sources such as Aesop and other classical writers and Persian folktales, by Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena.

Andersen did not know the Spanish original but read the tale in a German translation titled “So ist der Lauf der Welt” (“That’s the way of the world”)!

Now the Indian version as mentioned by William appears in the Līlāvatīsāra by Jinaratna (1283), a summary of a now-lost anthology of fables, the Nirvāṇalīlāvatī by Jineśvara (1052)!

In this story, the dishonest merchant Dhana from Hastināpura swindles the king of Śrāvastī by offering to weave a supernatural garment that cannot be seen or touched by any person of illegitimate birth.
When the king is supposedly wearing the garment, his whole court pretends to admire it. The king is then paraded about his city to show off the garment; when the common folk ask him if he has become a naked ascetic, he realizes the deception, but the swindler has already fled!

Now of course these stories may or may not be true or real but the message what they try to convey is the essence of these stories!
The message here is that it is best to trust oneself and be honest; Speak up for the truth and what is right. Without honesty, people often end up looking very foolish! But of course see the time and place to show your honesty! Now speaking of emperors, you must recognize the emperor or King Ornithologist!

If you are a bird watcher or even a passing photographer you would have surely read his book!

Now put on your night ‘clothes’ and sleep!
Shubh Ratri!

“It’s brown and hot! The taste is a kick!
Don’t drink a lot, twill make ya sick!
Dunno bout you cause maybe it’s just me!
The best coffee is the filter one you see!”

So do you take coffee or tea in the morning! Well, many times I do not take anything and it still works! But if you are from the South of India then pure filter coffee it is for you!

In the north, the sweet Masala Chai is preferred!

Since I am an Indian first! I love them both!

You would think it is easy to make the coffee, well if it is instant then yes, but if it is the authentic filter coffee then it is a process!

read on!

First and foremost is the selection of the perfect coffee powder! Even here the taste is different for everyone but there are many who say their own brand is the best!

The powder itself can never be mixed directly with the milk which was once done by someone I know! Her father still drank the coffee since it was her first time!

The selection of powder also has other issues like you have to also see the amount of chicory in the coffee powder! Chicory adds sweetness, a caramel flavor, and a lot of specialness to your coffee apparently but basically it does make your coffee the perfect colour!

There have been countless trials and errors with so many different combination of powders to get your proper fit! Many visits to different places we used to get so many different powders and use them for ‘test’! Most of the times they fail and we get back to our own combination! Occasionally in a marriage or in an old hotel you would get the perfect tasting coffee and if you enquire you can get the powder they use and that is added to the mix for experimentation!

Your coffee needs not only to taste good, but the colour is the most important! If it is not the perfect colour then the lover of filter coffee may not even drink it! Even the level of sugar is like the rocket science! Unlike tea where you have to add a generous amount of sugar, in coffee you must add very little! True coffee drinkers may even drink a sugar less coffee but if they would throw out a sweet coffee! The only coffee which can be sweet is either a bad one or a cold one!

Of course in Bangalore, a sugar less coffee does not mean a coffee with no sugar but a coffee with sugar which is ‘less’ than the normal level! So it still has sugar! There is also a trend to add jaggery to the coffee but that is not authentic apparently!

There are many such hard and fast rules of coffee unlike the tea! You can still over boil the tea which may make it a little bitter but you can NEVER add the decoction (the warm water with the filter coffee) to the milk and boil! If you do that then it will certainly get burnt!

A true coffee lover which is by default filter coffee drinker can find out if the coffee is burnt! He or she can also find out whether you have made the coffee with the first batch or the second! Only the first batch is the best!

You need to use your perfect mixture of powders and set it some time before!

Previously we used to use the filter coffee jar with the small hole in the bottom and now the automatic ones are used! The amount of work involved is really too much if you are the only one who drinks coffee in the house!

After you collect the warm decoction you need to heat the milk separately and then turn off the gas and add the decoction slowly till you get the perfect colour!

Add a couple of more dollops for that for more kick and you have your filter coffee! Washing and cleaning of the filter coffee and the amount of waste it generates is actually a lot! It is a messy affair and more often than not the effort is simply too much!

The best coffee is thus which is made by someone else! Then finally (yes, it is still not over!); the coffee has to be served in that typical brass vessel with the cup and saucer which is called the ‘dawara’! Even that has to be the perfect colour! The colour of the glass and the coffee inside must complement each other! By the way even those brass cups have to be washed and kept in a special way or else they change colour! All that effort for that wake up juice which coffee!

For now, since only I drink coffee in the house and that too when I have time (and patience!); filter coffee is something I drink only outside once in a while!
For routine, it is unfortunately instant coffee powder! I mix a couple of brands to get a proper taste though! Since milk is also something I do not use now, the perfect coffee is a dream! The soy or almond milk simply does not boost the taste of coffee but then that was a hard choice I had to make!

Sometimes though if you have a headache then it is better to take a hot masala chai! or get a head massage! Like one from the Birthday celebrity Jonny Walker! I actually sketched this listening to his ‘Sar jo tera’ song! Though my best Jonny moment is the one in Anand! Murari lal!

Now put fill the powder in the filter of the filter coffee and put hot water and cover nicely and sleep!
Shubh ratri!

“It’s fun while it lasts
Life is such a race dats fast!
Only your deeds and fame stay
Work a lot, some time do play!”

One of the greatest joys of being a child is that things are always good or bad! There are no grey areas! A person also is either good or bad!

In a twist, if you have a twin; you can have a good twin and an evil twin!

Did you know that even our Earth has an evil twin!

read on!

In the same way even in the movies those days you know there are some who are good while one is bad! Even in comics you have a hero and his or her arch nemesis who is bad!

Which is why when you see movies like the Jewel Thief, the most decent guy turning out to be the chief villain is a shock! It is like Aishwarya in the movie Khakhee!

When you have clear good vs bad, it is a normal thing but unfortunately life is not movies! You may be the hero in your story but you may also be the villain in some other person’s story!

In all these stories perspective is the key! For every winner there has to be a loser! That is the way it has always been! Like how the history always is with the victor! There will be so many ‘true’ stories which would have been buried with the truth! Here also ‘true’ is in parenthesis since even truth is actually many times a point of view!

What he or she said and what you interpreted and what she or he actually meant are complex things! It is a wonder how we have so much peace when actually there is a literal volcano ready to burst ever instant!

In the movies or novels about twin, it is always shown that one of them is the timid and meek twin while the other has a dark side! This is a common theme! The dark side twin usually does not take any nonsense and sometimes is true evil! The ‘evil’ twin is completely opposite of the ‘good’ twin though in most novels and movies they all become good or get defeated in the end!

The evil twin phenomenon reminds me of the The Third Twin by Ken Follett!
Now that is a novel with so many twins of the same person and all except one turn out to be as evil as possible in different grades! A typical Ken follet thriller which was entertaining as always!

In the novel Man is not from Earth and many other ‘alien’ movies it is often shown and referred that the ‘alien’ is ‘Martian’ or from the planet MARS! There have been missions to even send probes there to find out more! But if you see the dimensions, there is another planet which is like earth but like its ‘evil’ twin!

Yes! VENUS!

Venus and Earth are sometimes called twins because they’re pretty much about the same size. Venus is almost as big as Earth. They also formed in the same inner part of the solar system. Venus is in fact our closest neighbor to Earth. So they were formed in the same part of the solar system, made out of the same materials. They’re about the same size!
Till now all good and syrupy! Then somewhere along the way the evil crept in!


Some people like to say Venus went bad or something went wrong!
On Venus, what happened is its large, thick carbon dioxide atmosphere is driving a greenhouse effect! In fact, it’s so hot on Venus that you can melt lead! The temperatures on the surface of Venus are over 900 degrees Fahrenheit, and then Venus is covered in a 15-mile-thick layer of clouds! The toxic clouds of sulfuric acid start at an altitude of 45 to 70 kilometers! The clouds smell like rotten eggs! And those clouds are made of sulfuric acid! So you think acid rain is an issue! This is pure acid out there!

Venus rotates very slowly on its axis – one day on Venus lasts 243 Earth days. The planet orbits the Sun faster than Earth, however, so one year on Venus takes only about 225 Earth days, making a Venusian day longer than its year! This year on Earth though is close to its end! That is good news! Bad news though is that we lost a great actor and a great comedian Delhi Ganesh today. I still remember his effortless dialogue delivery and down to Earth manner. You will be missed sir

Heartfelt condolences

Om Shanthi…

Done in Less than four minutes and with a pen!

“The world is so sensitive you see!
It’s a fine balance between you and me!
Sometimes it’s nice to be like a river!
Sometimes it’s better to be calm like the deep sea!”

Everyone remembers 1983 especially Indians since that was the year in which we won the cricket world cup!

But (you expected that didn’t ya!); the same year there was a bug which could have started a world war with disastrous consequences! And we were saved only because of a gut feeling!

read on!

So all we remember about 1983 was the world cup and the fact that it established India as one of the top players in the world! The supremacy of South African team was broken and the respect which the team got has continued even till now!

There have been innumerable stories and movies on the amazing victory not to mention how we adored Kapil and Sunny after that!

Cricket became so famous that it was the go to game in any break! The team after the win was one of the best teams ever and even now people talk about the win with nostalgia! There is no one in India who has not played cricket when he was young after 1983! He or she may not be good at it but would have definitely played!

Batting is something everyone likes to do while fielding is a bore! But then cricket was our national pastime after 1983!

This in spite of the fact that there was no direct TV broadcast!

But (unexpected!); the year also had a near miss of epic proportions!

In the novel Nexus and in the novel Scary smart; the authors talk about how AI will be a threat and how!

With this example the point is driven more strongly across!

So in 1983, Soviet commanders were alerted with a message that the United States had launched five ballistic missiles at them!
Imagine you are the person who gets this message and if you were a little hot headed or even more or less ‘normal’; the counter reaction would be scary!

The issue was that a bug in the software had interpreted what the Soviet early-warning satellites picked up as a hostile attack, when in fact it was nothing more than sunlight reflecting off the cloud tops!

Soviet protocol necessitated that Russia respond decisively, launching its entire nuclear arsenal before any US missile detonations could disable their response capability!

This catastrophic error could have launched a world war that would have dwarfed the damage caused by the Second World War!

Of course nothing of the sort happened all because of the level headedness of an army officer!

The officer in question was Lt Col. Stanislav Petrov, who intercepted the messages and flagged them as faulty! He reasoned that if the US was really attacking, they would launch more than five missiles! Now that is some amazing expectation I must say!

He further said that he had a funny feeling in his gut that led him to investigate further! How many times you would have had this feeling and acted upon it! Would you expect an AI to have a funny feeling! It may tell you to stop ‘feeling funny!’ Talking about feeling and funny and so many emotions reminds me of Shankar Nagarakatte or Shankar Nag!

Now be thankful to Petrov and sleep!
Shubh ratri!

“You may think options there are a lot!

Lemme tell you they are quite few!

So remember to spend it on the most important!

Course the most important for you is you!”

Meurisse, Thibaut in his books always tells that time is the most precious commodity! 

He then tells that if you are feeling guilty of saying NO then don’t!

read on!

There was a time when I was completing one Thesis or the other since I love knowledge and I love to write!

The whole idea of the charts and the tables was nectar to me!

This is specially when the Thesis is not yours then the work of research would be done by others and all you have to do is analyse and compile the data!

In an emergency I had finished a whole thesis with the available data in one day! All I had to do was make the specific corrections and modifications and then add the charts and tables!

If the data is already these then it is a piece of eggless sponge cake! Also compared to many in my ‘group’ I was pretty good with the WORD since I had worked as a medical writer for some time! Among the Medical writers I was actually one of the least experienced one but when you compare to the non writes then it is like the one eyed person in the land of the blind!

I also knew that it is imperative to send the thesis on time so that it does not get rejected by flimsy reasons! Since at the time, the center receives a lot of thesis during the exam season, they become more lenient in approval!

But if you delay and send them later then they have only few thesis to see and approve and then they would look through the magnifying glass and see even the smallest errors! 

One of the Thesis was rejected from the central board because of some technical issues and my friend just pounced on me for that!

He told me that I no longer try to keep in touch with him and do not talk to him more often!

I had cleared the exam the previous year while he could not and moreover he had moved to another place. 

We were anyway not that close but I told him something which was so true even when I did not realise it! I told him, “Yeah right! Just remember that even now the only reason you are talking to me or calling me is to finish your thesis! Once that is over, rest assured unless there is some corrections or modifications, you are never going to call me again!”

I did the modifications and the Thesis was accepted! And yes! My words were prophetic! He (or she!) has not called me for the past several years! 

The surprising fact is that I had done around four thesis work during that time and all the four have the same ending! No call back! Not even a Happy deepawali! Of course until the next ‘rejection’ or ‘help’!

Also no! This is not an exercise in self pity! That boat has sailed long back! 

Like the author says, TIME is your personal wealth! 

You must not feel bad if you cannot give your precious time to everyone!

You are allowed to be thrifty with it! It is your own currency and you have the sole right to spend the way you want! 

Another important rule which was told in another self help book was that no one likes to be reminded about how someone was helped by someone else! Of course there are some who would acknowledge the help publicly and proudly but the modern society which is the reel or meme generation likes to do charity ONLY for public or publicity! Which means they do that in the open! But help is taken secretly! 

So all said and done, when you say that you do not have time, it simply means that you have priorities! And you do have the right to select your priority so do not feel bad when you say NO! 

So you do not have to do many things at one time! Just try to do one thing properly! Multiple things reminds me of Mr Yogi or birthday celebrity Mohan Gokhale! 

Now use your time in the night to sleep!

Shubh Ratri!