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“You say fast and then they say fastest!
You say computer and then the fast guys say, supercomputer!
Then you say nothing more
Simply a name of a machine; SYCAMORE!”

intrigued!?

read on!

There was this joke where a guy is asked in the army interview what is his best qualification? And he says that he can give answers very fast!

Then the examiner asks him what is the product of some complicated numbers like say 56 and 77 and he replies 14!

The examiner then says; “That is completely wrong!”

To which the guy says, “I said I can give answers very fast! Did not say they were right!”

So in the defence services, it is told that quick decision is the key! The chief intention here is that the decision must be fast and done without pressure and of course must be correct!

Most of the military decisions are actually done quickly and at the spur of the moment and this also is the same for certain medical decisions!

At that time you cannot sit and analyse whether the decision is good or bad or correct or valid! You simply make a decision and hope that it will be right!

Those who sit and analyse the decisions come later, they sit comfortably in peace and then analyse your decision! After observing the result of your decisions a guideline is formulated and that then becomes the rule.

Which is why you do need a system or computer which can make fast decision! This is where AI comes in and this is one of the chief reasons to consider AI in your decision!

Even a standard mobile or computer can make calculations and give you results much faster than you can even comprehend! Of course there are exceptions but like always they cannot be examples!

Now of course this can be done by a routine computer and not even a fast one! So imagine what a fast or super fast computer can do!
Of course one of the fastest computers in the world are the one which can compute in unimaginable speeds!

So while normal PCs and laptops usually have power of several hundred gigaFLOPS — Some computers have speeds in excess of 1 trillion (109) FLOPS.
The most powerful supercomputer in the world now exceeds 1 exaFLOP — 1 quintillion (1018) FLOPS!
We refer to machines like this as exascale supercomputers!
They were the fastest computers in the universe…till…

So among the supercomputers, currently top of the list is the Frontier — built by supercomputing giant HPE Cray — became the first exascale computer in the world when it went online in 2022.

As of December 2023, Frontier is the world’s fastest supercomputer.
It is based on the Cray EX and is the successor to Summit (OLCF-4).
Frontier achieved an Rmax of 1.102 exaFLOPS, which is 1.102 quintillion floating-point operations per second, using AMD CPUs and GPUs!

It was the top of the game till Google got the first quantum computer called the sycamore!


Traditional computers operate based on bits, which can be in a state of either 0 or 1. Quantum computers, on the other hand, operate on quantum bits, known as qubits. Unlike traditional bits, a qubit can exist in both states simultaneously, thanks to a quantum principle called superposition.

Superposition increases the computing power of a quantum computer exponentially. For example, two qubits can exist in four states simultaneously (00, 01, 10, 11), three qubits in eight states, and so on. This allows quantum computers to process a massive number of possibilities at once.

Another key quantum principle quantum computers exploit is entanglement. Entangled qubits are deeply linked. Change the state of one qubit, and the state of its entangled partner will change instantaneously, no matter the distance. This feature allows quantum computers to process complex computations more efficiently.

Of course now everyone would like to know what is the comparison of Sycamore with Frontier!

Well, according to the Google team, it would take the Frontier supercomputer merely 6.18 seconds to match a calculation from Google’s 53-qubit computer.

However, Frontier, the fastest computer in the world would take an astonishing 47.2 years to match a computation executed by Google’s latest 70-qubit device!

Now that is speed! And how speed becomes a bloodsport! Of talking about bloodsport has to remind me of our favourite movie and actor Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg known professionally as Jean-Claude Van Damme!
Have watched it so many times!

Now slowly say good night to everyone and sleep!!
Shubh ratri!!

“A rare sort it was you see
Not to cause sorrow or glee!
Not a part of crowd may be nice
But makes you lonely you see…”

The ever philosophical Anand says to babu Moshai that if you have to get a disease let it be so rare and elegant named one like what he has!

It was a rare tumour which he had but did you know that there are a couple of diseases which are so rare that there are only a couple of known cases!?

read on!

Of course having a rare diagnosis is the first thing we always used to imagine in the clinical year of our medical college!

The year when we start our clinical rounds and as we eager students listen to the symptoms of the patients, we start relating to them and start imagining that we have the same!

Some eager beavers would examine an old patient of our senior professor and silently announce that he or she has this rare disease and not the one diagnosed by our senior!

The first thing our clinical Geeta or the book we all used for examination was this book called A Manual of clinical surgery by S Das. You would not see any young clinical student without this book! While the seniors would never want to be caught with it!

One of the main things I selectively remember from that book is that, “A rare diagnosis is rarely correct!”

Now this is an often repeated quote in our rounds by seniors and everyone!
It is more possible that the ‘rare’ symptom or sign of a disease may actually be the ‘rare’ symptom or sign of a ‘common’ disease rather than the ‘common’ symptom of a ‘rare’ disease!

In our rounds one of my professors always used to say that since the prevalence and extent of Tuberculosis is so varied and wide, there is no part of the human body which cannot be affected by TB!

So whenever we think or used to think that the patient we have got has a rare diagnosis or a rare disease, we were rarely correct!

It was the same during clinical examination also! Many confident geniuses in the batch would even diagnose so rare finding and many times they would turn out to be correct but those were the rare genius minority! The majority average folks like me had accepted the safer common diagnosis path!

Then again when a rare diagnosis is made, there would be a rush to see the case since if you see a rare case you will certainly remember it for life!

One such case I remember was a case of Hydrophobia or Rabies which was not very common and we still remember the lady who fed up with so many students and teachers coming to visit and examine her once announced that whoever comes near she would bite him or her!

Now as medical students, rare diagnosis and findings used to thrill us which is why we used to rush if there was a rare murmur or a rare chest finding or even a rare skin lesion!

At some point in a medical student and later doctor’s life when he or she would be asked if he or she has seen this rare disease then he or she would like to say yes!

But there are a couple of diseases which I am sure no doctor at least in my circle (which is quite big I think!) would have seen! Many of them would not have even heard of these which includes me since before today even I did not know about them! Yeah that last part is not surprising

This first disease is considered to be the rarest disease in the world. Ribose-5-Phosphate Isomerase (RPI), is a crucial enzyme in a metabolic process in the human body. This condition can cause muscle stiffness, seizures, and reduction of white matter in the brain. The first known case of RPI deficiency was diagnosed in 1984 and since then there have been some more added to the list! The list now has only four members though! In the history of human civilisation there are only four cases of RPI Deficiency disease! Now that is rare!

In the search for an explanation for this rarity, it has been found that the patient has a seldom-seen allelic combination.
One allele is a nonfunctional null allele, while the other encodes for a partially active enzyme. Furthermore, the partially functional allele has expression deficits that depend on the cell type in which it is expressed. Therefore, some of the patient’s cells have a considerable amount of RPI activity, whereas others do not.

So with only four members in the list which in the 1990s was actually the rarest disease since it had only one known case was the rarest!
So with four, it is no longer the rarest!

Yes, I am coming to the point! The rarest disease is so rare that there are only two members in the list! It may be a field out there but the members are only two!

Yes, that was a clever pun on the name of this disease called the Field’s disease! This is the most rare disease with only two known cases!

Fields condition, also known as Fields’ disease, is a neuromuscular disease that is considered the rarest medical condition in the world. It was named after Welsh identical twins Catherine and Kirstie Fields, who are only two people known to have been affected by the disease!

The disease appears to be progressive in nature. It was first noticed when the Fields twins were around the age of four. By the time they had reached the age of nine, they were having difficulty walking and needed frames to assist them with walking. Their muscles have been gradually deteriorating over time. The disease affects the twins’ nerves, causing involuntary muscle movements such as trembling in the hands.

The disease has had no apparent effect on the twins’ brains or personalities. Doctors do not know if the disease is fatal and, if so, what the life expectancy of one with this disease is. If the cause of the disease is genetic, there is a chance that the twins could pass it on to their future children.

So make sure that if you are a medical student and you see a case of muscular degeneration, whatever you do, make sure you do not diagnose it as Field’s condition! At least not as your first differential!

Of course this is not a joking matter and it was not meant to be in any way. The whole point of the blog is to make the point that even with the countless books on medicine and research papers and journals and seeing countless patients, what an average medical student or doctor knows is still a ‘drop’ in the large and immense ‘ocean’ of data!

Now these diagnosis are rare and rare also is to find athletes like the flying Sikh Milkha Singh!

Now do the common thing to do which is sleep!

Shubh ratri!

“He or she will make you sleep!
It is necessary so you do not weep!
Do not fret! He or she is always on call!
‘Cause them anesthetists, are da best of ’em all!”


In our medical college and even in the post graduation period some surgeries were tricky! And the most important person who was needed had come from a line of ‘experts’ who used to give opium to patients!

Then again one of them in that very line was the first doctor to be celebrated by a doctor’s day!

Intrigued!?

Read on!

So when we used to have a case which is specially tricky or needs some good control of pain and more cooperation; the only specialist we needed were the anesthetists!

There were days marked for them and they would leave soon after! Though we have many times even done surgeries like tonsillectomy and Thyroid surgery in local anesthesia; many cases need General Anesthesia!

Also when the anesthetist is involved then the surgeon’s stress and pressure is reduced! He or she would keep everything ready and we could simply do the job!

The amount of knowledge and composure needed to be an anesthetist cannot be told enough! Especially when there is some complication or the dreaded ‘Patient not waking up!’.

Though they would be sitting on the sides with a paper on hand or may be a coffee mug, am sure that the mind and focus would be on the patient!

Now of course we have amazing drugs and medications which can control almost all aspects of anesthesia like heart rate and sedation; one of the first ‘anesthetic agent’ was actually opium and its analogues!

Am sure many would agree for a surgery if the offer stil stands now!


While the use of opium poppy and other herbal remedies as anesthetics date back to early civilization, the first public demonstration of modern anesthesia was on October 16, 1846 (“Ether Day”). William T. G. Morton and surgeon John Collins Warren made anesthesia history at Massachusetts General Hospital with the successful use of diethyl ether “anaesthesia” to prevent pain during surgery.

Since this historic milestone, advancements in anesthesia administration and newer anesthetics led to the medical specialty of anesthesiology in the early 20th century

The early history reveals that Babylonians relieve toothache with henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) and acupuncture is being practiced in China, according to Shang Dynasty pictographs on bones and turtle shells maybe some of the local anesthesia techniques.

Our own Sushruta uses cannabis vapors to sedate surgical patients. Over ensuing centuries, other herbs like aconitum would supplement that sedation in India and eventually in China.

German physician and botanist Valerius Cordus (1515–1544), synthesizes diethyl ether by distilling ethanol and sulphuric acid into what he called “sweet oil of vitriol.” This was a major step in future anesthesia though it would be used only three hundred years or so later officially!

Joseph Priestley (1733–1804)—English chemist and natural philosopher, discovers “airs” of oxygen and nitrous oxide; the first to isolate oxygen. This was also essential since when the patient is unconscious, we have to pump oxygen.

Humphry Davy in his Researches observed that “As nitrous oxide in its extensive operation appears capable of destroying physical pain, it may probably be used with advantage during surgical operations in which no great effusion of blood takes place.”

William Clarke (1819‐1908)—In Rochester, New York, a medical student etherizes a single patient for a dental extraction! This may be one of the first time it had been used like this but it was not ‘official’

Subsequently Dr. Crawford W. Long (1815-1878) etherizes James Venable for removal of neck cysts on March 30, 1842. Dr. Long would become honored as the 1st anesthesiologist on a US Postage stamp (1940) and as the inspiration for the 1st “National Doctors Day” on March 30, 1991!

On October 16, 1846 William T. G. Morton (1819-1868) made history by being first in the world to publicly and successfully demonstrate the use of ether anesthesia for surgery.

This occurred at what came to be called “The Ether Dome,” at Massachusetts General Hospital on patient Edward Gilbert Abbott. Surgeon John Collins Warren noted, “Gentlemen, this is no humbug.” Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894)-suggests the terms “anaesthetic” and “anaesthesia” in a letter to William T. G. Morton.

This started the anesthesia revolution and evolution to the advanced science and speciality it is today!
The very act of making someone unconscious and making them non responsive to pain is magical, genius and feels crazy!
Crazy reminds me of the celebrity of the day, Crazy Mohan!

Sketching a famous anesthetist would have been a tricky affair so I went the surgeon’s safer way!

Wishing all my anesthetists friends and colleagues a very happy anesthetist day!

You are the reason why many patients and surgeons sleep at night! Like you all must do now!
Shubh Ratri!

“Don’t be sad it’s all good!

Everyone is right where he should!

Speak decently not to loud!

Cause you wanna make him proud!”

The other day a question was asked in a group about why son’s of legends do not become that famous?

Of course there are exceptions and that is the key!

Now exceptions should never be taken as examples but (yes, you knew the ‘but’ was coming!); in this case in the select exceptions, the learning can be summarized in one line; “Avoid stepping into the shoes of a great man (or woman for that matter!)”

read on!

Anyone who has learnt the book 48 laws of power by Robert Greene would know this as the 41st law. 

The further elaboration on this law indicates that the author is focused on the complex relationships between a successful father and his son who wants to become powerful, but he needs to do something impressive in order to declare his position! 

The author implies that if you have a great father, the only way you can become a greater son is by not following in your father’s footsteps! 

Now here he or son is only a metaphor; it can be she and daughter and mother and also can be a predecessor or successor! 

When you follow a great man or woman or a leader and try to step in his or her shoes, the burden of comparison will break you! 

Many successors struggle when they have to succeed a great leader or famous parent. It’s difficult because the predecessor succeeded by building power from scratch. The successor is starting with a mountain of expectation which is difficult to improve on. 

This is why you should avoid stepping into a great man’s shoes.

There’s also outside pressure on the successor to continue on the same course, since it’s working, rather than break with tradition and precedent. 

The successor may be afraid to lose his inheritance as well, and therefore hesitates to change things.

According to Greene, when you succeed a great leader, you must find or create your own space to fill.

To avoid stepping into a great man’s shoes, start creating your space by separating yourself from your predecessor!

“Kill” the past and your predecessor by disparaging them. Contrast young with old, the new era against the old era. When John F. Kennedy was elected president, he did everything he could to distinguish himself from Dwight Eisenhower and the fifties era, by making the old look stodgy and the new vigorous and exciting. For instance, instead of playing golf, which was associated with Eisenhower and an older generation, Kennedy played football on the White House lawn!

He also mentions how you must simply remove all traces of old so that the comparison never happens! 

When General Douglas MacArthur took charge of American forces in the Philippines in World War II, an aide gave him a book of instructions from predecessors. MacArthur told him to burn the manual and any copies; he would make his own decisions in his own way. 

Similarly, you should reject precedent, and learn to respond to circumstances, which will be different from those of the past!

Of course these are extremes! What can be done is to take the best of the old and get better! Keep the ones which work and then do something new!

Many times we have seen how the son does not join the father in his or her business or work; this father may feel bad but in fact he must feel more proud that the young fella wants to carve out his own niche!

Always remember that a son is overwhelmed when he is known by his father’s name and fame while a father is happy and proud when he is known by his son’s name and fame! 

Now imagine if someone had a father like our celebrity Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam BR! 

Now those are shoes impossible to fill!

Let’s now not worry about making our father proud since he is already so! Just try to make the man or woman in the mirror proud of you! 

Shubh ratri!

The only way you can get to sleep is when your mind is not racing with the speed of a locomotive or even an airplane!

When this happens and you are not able to sleep, do not fret! You can get your shut eye the next day!

But do you know that the record of not sleeping is of 19 days! Or is it!?

And you were feeling drowsy losing one day of sleep!

read on!

Missing 24 hours of sleep isn’t uncommon. Still, missing a night of sleep does affect you. Studies have compared 24-hour wakefulness to having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10 percent. This is above the legal limit to drive in many countries!

After 72 hours without sleep, most people experience an overwhelming urge to sleep. Many are unable to stay awake on their own.

There occurs severe side effects including hallucinations and severely reduced brain function!

This is 72 hours! Imagine 11 days or 19 or…more than fifty years without sleep!

In January 1964, American student Randy Gardner was shown in a photo sitting on a bed next to various household objects he will later have to identify by memory as part of a sleep deprivation experiment in San Diego, Calif. 

On Jan. 8, 1964, Gardner reached the last day of the experiment. He had been awake for 11 days straight — 264 hours — a new Guinness World Record!

Gardner, McAllister and Marciano (his friends) won first place at the San Diego science fair.

Although Gardner’s record was broken within the same year, his experiment is one of the most well-documented cases of sleep deprivation. It supported later studies of “microsleeps.” According to Guinness World Records, microsleeps are “momentary lapses into sleep that last for just a few seconds.”

Decades later, urged by this and similar experiments, the field of sleep research had grown exponentially, including the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation.

The last Guinness world record for sleep deprivation was awarded in 1986 to Robert McDonald, who deprived himself of sleep for almost 19 days!

But from 1996, the GWR stopped tracking sleep deprivation, citing the “harmful” effects of sleeplessness. 

So just when you think three weeks of no sleep is dangerous, there is this 

81-year-old farmer named Thai Ngoc  from Vietnam who claims to have not slept since 1973!

Thai Ngoc, who hails from Quang Nam province, spends his days tending to crops and ponds, as well as raising fish on his farm in the Na Trang valley. 

Unlike others who rest when the sun sets, he purportedly works tirelessly day and night!

According to Ngoc, he began to lose his ability to sleep after contracting a fever in 1973. Since then, his condition persisted despite seeking medical advice and medications from the local doctors. 

Ngoc said he would occasionally turn to alcoholic beverages, but they only leave him in a drowsy haze without causing him to fall asleep!

One theory surrounding Ngoc’s insomnia is the possibility of post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from the Vietnam War. Whatever be the reason and also it really does not matter if the story is true! Just reading the story and writing this is making me sleepy! Am sure it had the same effect on the reader of this blog! I can almost feel you trying to stifle a yawn!

Now if you are feeling sleep then, Congratulations! And celebrations! Of course you guessed it right! That does remind me of the celebrity Cliff Richard! The ‘bachelor boy’ and his soulful music! The very first english album or song I heard in my conscious (occasionally that is!) life was Greatest hits by Cliff Richards! Every song of that album is gold!

Then again if you are really sleep, then just listen to ‘constantly’ and sleep comfortably since it is normal to sleep in the night!

Shubh ratri!

“Data data everywhere no time to think!
Information overload will make you sink!
Excess of even nectar is bad!
Data overflow will surely make you mad!”

We always know that knowledge is power and information or data is the king!

But do you know that there is a type of information which is actually blinding!

Metaphorically of course but still!

read on!

When we were residents, we had a teacher in pediatrics who was our on duty guide or duty medical officer!

He used to tell that, there are two doctors who are the most confident! First is of course the professor and the senior who knows everything and the other is the resident who actually knows nothing!

During our post graduation period also there was an associate surgeon who used to tell us that, “I am the most scared of the junior most doctors in the department!”

They apparently know only one thing or most of the time not much about the complication that they are virtually fearless!

It is like a child who would cross a road or simply jump down a cliff if allowed to do so since he or she does not know the risk!

There is also a group who have one single point or one single belief and information and then that makes them blind to any other matter!

This is called Information “blindness”!
The official definition is having high confidence in a belief which means our brains do not process contradictory information! an alternate definition in terms of business sense is —a condition where information exists but cannot be seen in a format or timely enough manner to make sound operational decisions!

Researchers have found that people are selective about the information that they process, depending on whether it confirms or contradicts a prior belief.

It has been shown that when people are highly confident in a particular decision, they selectively integrate information that confirms their decision, yet they do not process information which contradicts it. This biased intake of information might lead to inaccurate and skewed perspectives – a process highly relevant for many societal issues such as political or scientific debate.

The basic issue here is that you have a particular belief and you have some information on that belief then you would accept only that information, and you will reject any other opposing information!


The cognitive and neural mechanisms which causes people to ignore information that contradicts their beliefs is also a phenomenon known as confirmation bias.
For example, critics of climate change might ignore scientific evidence that indicates the existence of global warming. This is a common problem and a severe one if it affects the leaders and important decision makers of a country!

Just read about this study; 75 participants were asked to conduct simple task: they had to judge whether a cloud of dots was moving to the left or right side of a computer screen.
They then had to give a confidence rating (how certain they were in their response). After this initial decision, they were shown the moving dots again and asked to make a final decision.
Now the information was made even clearer the second time and could help participants to change their mind if they had initially made a mistake.
However, when people were confident in their initial decision, they rarely used this information to correct their errors!

Of course it also shows your confidence level which makes you more confident on your decision even if there are signs to prove that they may be wrong!

25 of the participants were also asked to complete the experiment in a brain scanner known as a magnetoencephalography (MEG) scanner. The researchers monitored their brain activity as they processed the leftward and rightward motion of the dots.
Based on this brain activity, the researchers evaluated the degree to which participants processed the newly presented information. When people were not very confident in their initial choice, they integrated the new evidence accurately. However, when participants were highly confident in their initial choice, their brains were practically blind to information that contradicted their decision but remained sensitive to information that confirmed their choice!

This of course is a limited analysis and comes into play only when the decision taken is later on proven to be wrong! If the decision and ‘gut’ feeling turned out to be correct that rest assured, even the psychologists would change their definition!

We succumb to information blindness in many ways. For an example that we can all relate to, think of all of the information we have at our fingertips thanks to Google and now AI!

There is a spectrum of usefulness between finding facts, piecing together information, and understanding what it means!
A common issue we doctors face is when the patient has already investigated his or her symptoms and signs and is now overwhelmed with information!

So when you have a mountain of data you must break it into smaller manageable pieces and then analyse the data! Or more importantly seek help! In the tsunami of information, it is always better to seek proper advice! Or maybe listen to some wise old man (or woman for that matter!); speaking of wise, reminds me of Ashok Kumar and his intro during Hum Log!

Now listen to the first rap song in the world sung by Ashok Kumar and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

“You can buy anything if the price is not wrong!
The brain is strong but money is strong!
Some may even sell their soul to you!
Then again that’s life which sometimes is a zoo!”

Do you know what is the similarity of The Roman Empire and a tooth!

Do you also know one of the most valuable tooth in the world!?

Apart from the one you own that is! Also this is directly linked to getting a wife in the old days!

read on!

Don’t worry! I will give the answer to the first one quickly!

Well both The Roman Empire and couple of famous tooth were sold and bought in an auction at some point of time!

So the origin of auctions can be traced back to approximately 500 B.C when in ancient Greece women were auctioned off for marriage!
If you think that is illegal, during this period, it was illegal for women to get married without going through the auction process!
The auctioneer started the sale with the woman who was considered to be the most beautiful among all the women being auctioned that day!
So the best was kept in the first!

The auction followed a descending pricing method, beginning with the highest price and going lower until the lowest bid was found, as long the bid price was more than, or equal to, the reserve price set by the seller. If the buyers could not get along with their new wives, they were allowed to recover their money! Now that is a cool refund policy!

And NO! This does not happen anymore! Well auction is still there but not ‘those materials!’

So early auctions were used to sell farm produce, estates, and slaves. In the American Civil War, soldiers returning from war frequently sold their war plunder through auctions. However, the only soldiers who were allowed to sell the spoils of war were those holding a rank of colonel or higher!

The business of auctioneering grew rapidly during the Great Depression when many people became bankrupt and, therefore, were forced to liquidate their assets. Auctions helped the individuals and businesses affected by the crisis to sell their assets quickly.

The need for qualified auctioneers prompted auctioneer Carey Jones to establish the first auctioneering school in early 1900. The school, located in Davenport, Iowa, was known as the Jones’ National School of Auctioneering and Oratory! So if you speak well then you can sell well!

Online auctions are popular with sellers because the huge number of potential bidders makes it easier for them to get a good price for virtually any item they have to sell. Buyers like having a wide range of products to choose from and being able to find just about anything they’re searching for to buy!

Of course we all have made bids in ebay those days when auctions used to be popular! I have bought a guitar with an auction placed so low that I never thought I could get it! Same with a business class airline ticket!

If at all you think that there are some weird things you can buy in auction, well you are right!

Long ago apparently even the Roman empire was sold in an auction!

In 193 AD the Praetorian Guard, who served as the secret police, put the Roman Empire up for sale! By the way it was sold for 6,250 drachmas!
Bizarrely, the highest bidder ended up getting beheaded! I guess it went over their heads!

Another bizarre (there are actually many!); things sold at auctions include Queen Victoria’s undies! It was embroidered with her initials “VR” for Victoria Regina, the undies were in pristine shape, having been wrapped in tissue and kept in a temperature controlled room! Sold in 2015 for $16,300!

Another was Elvis Presley’s lock of hair. Sold for $115,000! and also Ronald Reagan’s blood was sold in 2012 for $3,550!


But what I felt bizarre in the list was the above average tooth!

So apparently John Lennon’s molar was sold to a Canadian dentist named Michael Zuk who has the tooth on display in his surgery which was Sold in 2011 for $31,200! Now you would think that is a costly tooth!
Well it is! But that is not the most valuable! The most valuable was of a famous short tempered physicist associated with a fruit!

Let’s get to the point! Or else for every action!

Yes! Isaac Newton has the most valuable tooth of all time!
One of his teeth was sold in 1816 at auction for approximately $3,600 or $35,000 in today’s terms! Now that is a mouthful! Also mouthful was the famous dialogue of Amit in Namak Halaal! How he makes a monologue of the two batman who were both named vijay with different surname! One of the Vijay he spoke about is the birthday celebrity of the day Vijay Singh Madhavji Merchant!

Now that is a memory which cannot be auctioned ever!

Shubh ratri!

The unstoppable US volume 2 by Yuval Noah Harari and Illustrated by Ricard Zaplana Ruiz.

A novel primarily for kids and the language follows the said pattern of books for children with illustrations aplenty!

It is advisable to either read in paperback or read it in a tab or Ipad using the kindle app since many pages have high graphic content which cannot be appreciated in the kindle ebook readers including Kindle Scribe.

The book is volume 2 of this series and though there is no story so to speak, it is recommended to first finish that novel and then start with this one.

A timeline of history according to Yuval is the beginning which may the only technical part of the otherwise simple to read and understand story like book.

They tell about the agriculture revolutions and how cereals changed the world; how that lead to more problems and then more solution and so on!

Just throwing the seed and then planting them and then the water reservoir, then boundary, then granary for storage, then protection and then armies and then finally kingdoms!

Like Nexus, here also he tells about bureaucracy and how they actually control the whole network of things!

In between he adds his two points on belief system and creation of Gods and demons and how they are all mere stories that adults tell!

He also talks about discrimination using safe examples which would not get him in trouble!

In between he also puts his own controversial views which is better read by yourself!

He tells about how agriculture won over herders and gatherers and how skeletons tell stories!

In between he tells about record keeping, fear of tax and fear of God!

In a metaphorical sense he tells about things like money and country are simply stories and not things which you can see but they are there and that’s that!

While the first book is a must read for kids, this one can be read when you are a teen or above!

Since there are already too many exams for our kids anyway and also since the author also states how exams were created!

read it at your leisure as it is for leisure reading only!

“It take the shape of the glass!

As a liquid it’s high class!

There may be many stuff precious you call!

But a glass of water when thirsty is the top of them all!”

When we spoke about the blood transfusion, you would think that it is very precious! Well it is but did you know that it is not even in the top five of the most expensive liquids (by volume!) in the world!?

In fact a perfume is in the top five!

read on!

In college one of the common camps or services we used to do as medical students was to do Blood Grouping camps and form a list of the blood group!

This was usually part of an association and also sometimes with some school or company or even a whole village!

Of course service was a big criteria but the chief attraction was the food and snacks for the ever starving boys of the men’s hostels!

Many times we used to be taken to remote villages and sometimes it may be in the middle of the city also!

Our main aim was to do the blood grouping then and there and make a list! We used to give one list to the organizers while one list was with us; the Kerala Blood donor’s forum! Many times when there was a requirement for blood, the patients were advised to approach the member of this forum and he or she would try to juggle the list! 

If they were lucky we would get an instant match and a willing donor and this was done over and over again and the services provided by the purely volunteer based society were simply amazing!

Now of course for the person receiving blood, it would have been the most expensive liquid in the universe! 

Practically though it does not even feature in the top ten! But then that is only in the monetary point of view so read it in that sense only!

There is a brand of perfume called Chanel which is the epitome of luxury! Now since I am an allergic person, I do not use any perfume (hopefully not required!) but the perfume industry is rich! And among them Chanel is in the top apparently! And among Chanel, a perfume called the Chanel No. 5 is perhaps the peak of luxury in the perfume industry. Its known for its exquisite scent derived from rare and expensive ingredients like jasmine and May rose. Workers harvest the flowers used in Chanel No. 5 by hand in the Grasse region of France, and it takes thousands of blooms to produce just a small amount of essential oil! 

Or you can simply take a nice bath once in a while to smell good! Just keeping it cheap (er!).

The second in the list is King Cobra venom! The king is rightly feared for its lethal effects and it is also revered in the medical community for its applications!

 The proteins found in this venom are being studied for their ability to treat severe pain and even to kill certain cancer cells, making it a key substance in medical research.

The process of extracting venom from a King Cobra is fraught with danger, requiring expert handlers who can ensure the safety of both the snake and themselves. The venom’s rarity, combined with the high risk and the specialized skill set required for extraction, significantly contributes to its exorbitant price!

Yes, I know! You want to know the first! Well it is a scorpion! The Deathstalker Scorpion Venom tops the charts as the most expensive liquid, priced at an astounding $39 million per gallon. 

The cost of scorpion venom reflects its rarity and the laborious process involved in its collection. Each scorpion produces only a tiny amount of venom, which must be extracted without harming the creature. Moreover, the venom’s complex composition of proteins and peptides makes it a key ingredient in innovative medical research, driving up its value due to the high demand in pharmaceutical development.

You need trained specialists to collect scorpion venom using either mechanical stimulation or mild electrical shocks to induce the scorpion to release venom!

Handlers must execute this method with precision to ensure their safety and minimize distress to the scorpions. They then carefully extract the venom and store it under stringent conditions to preserve its bioactive compounds!

But remember that, even if it is not in the top five, blood is still in the top ten and every drop is precious! Precious also are the memories associated with old movies! 

One such movie was Roja which reminds me of Arvind Swamy!

Shubh ratri!

A quick sketch on a busy day!

“What to write everything has been told
His generosity is not new but very old!
He would do everything for his watan
After all he was an Anmol Ratan…”

When we were young (er!); anytime someone had to show some attitude or if someone showed attitude, the common comment was, “Tu kya TATA ya BIRLA ka beta hai!?”

Of course we never knew anyone remotely related to either one!

But if you had to name a rich and famous person who is not an actor or politician then Tata would be in the top!

Even kids knew Tata meant power and money! As adults we realised that the name indicated a good businessman and leader!


The stories and gossip about the Tata group were usually inspiring!

The story of how the Parsis came to India and how they became a part of our country has been told so many times! My mother used to tell the story and later on we read it in our books and then of course so many novels including the novel by Ashwin Sanghi and his Novel The Magicians of Mazda also tell about that and many stories of Parsis and their customs and the ‘secret’ of their long life!

If you want to know more about them that that is a good novel to start!

One of their most famous story is the “Sugar in the Milk” which am sure we all would have heard! But still it is nice to hear a good story again!

This Sugar and Milk in Parsis (Parsi / Parsee Zoroastrians) folklore, comes from the time when they came over from Persia (modern day land of Iraq and Iran and other countries) to save themselves and their religious faith.
At the time they were escaping and were trying to find safe haven to continue practicing their faith.

They landed in Sanjan a port in the Indian State of Gujarat. The King Jadhav Rana, who was the ruler of the land was good and a fair ruler! As per our tradition, atithi devo bhava which means that guest is like God; but then to give refuge for such a huge number of people was a difficult task indeed. Since he did not want to refuse them outright and since the language of Indians and Persians was different, so to welcome the strangers and communicate that the land was already filled with people to the brim, he sent them a full glass of milk!


The Zoroastrian priests immediately got the message and since they were also peace loving religious people, they wanted to send back a message that they would make the land and community richer and more prosperous by their good values, knowledge and hard work.
The Parsis added sugar to the glass of milk! The sugar mixed with the milk but did not drop out! Of course it also became sweet!

The King Jadhav Rana was so impressed with this gesture that he granted them asylum and welcomed them with gifts and helped them settle in the new land of India. Parsis thus settled and assimilated, blended in India like sugar in the milk!

There is another story about Tata itself which is also famous among the current generation! That showed what an amazing businessman he was!

The story begins in 1998 with the launch of the Tata Indica.

India’s first diesel-powered hatchback, the Indica was also widely seen as the country’s first indigenously designed and manufactured car. It was also a car close to Mr Tata’s heart.

Sales, though, were poor, and a dejected Ratan Tata looking to cut short his losses flew to the US to offer the factory to then Ford boss Bill Ford!
Contrary to the Bon Jovi song Misery loves company unfortunately , the meeting did not go to plan.

Ford reportedly chastised Mr Tata, declaring the Indian company should never have started manufacturing cars and that buying the plant would be a ‘favour’ to the Tatas!

A “humiliated” Ratan Tata walked back his offer to Ford and returned home with renewed focus and determination, and a very clear goal – to prove his doubters and critics wrong!

And what a comeback it was!

Nine years later – after transforming the Indica into a success, with European and African exports by 2004 and domestic sales peaking at 1.42 lakh in 2007 – Mr Tata did just that!

By 2008 it was a Karmic reversal! Ford was struggling!

The recession that roiled the American economy took its toll and the company was nearly bankrupt!

Ever-aware, Ratan Tata moved, and moved swiftly, to snap up Jaguar and Land Rover, forcing Ford to acknowledge the Indian company was doing it a ‘favour’!

Writing about Ratan Tata and his generosity and charity work need no introduction. Stating anything more is actually less!

We have lost a legend but having lead a successful life and career of 85 years is of course a great achievement!

He will be missed by many but his legacy will continue for ever!

Heartfelt condolences
Shubh ratri…