Category: Uncategorized

“No sleep no rest! Gotta learn with the best! 

The duty is long and the chiefs is stern!

You have to be everyone and then some!

Just a few memories of the year of the intern!”

Today’s blog is of course on Doctor’s day! This is an extension of a series of questions asked in one of a special doctor’s group!

read on!

What made you become a doctor?

I was inspired by my distant uncle who was the only doctor in his village! When he spoke everyone regardless of age, simply listened! I wanted to earn that kind of respect! Of course my parents and especially my Mother wanted to see me as a doctor! I would have done anything at that time to make my parents proud and like typical south Indian parents, they usually do not show their pride openly but I knew!

Why did you select ENT?

Among all the specialities and subjects ENT, Ped and Surgery were my only taste! But among these three subjects, ENT was the only one in which I got the highest marks in the class! So I thought that I would be the best in this! Also this is an end speciality at that time! Now of course with the amount of specialisation this is a huge field! You have a myriad of patients and you can do surgical or medical practice! You see kids and see old people! In fact more than fifty percent of Patients who come to the OP can actually be seen by the ENT specialist! 

What principles or Oath do you follow?

My basic principles is that all patients are equal and no one is special! In the same line everyone must remember that doctors are MERE MORTALS!

They may ease your pain and make you feel better but still they are all humans! So if you reduce your expectations all will be good!

Investigations are only additional tools! 

MOST IMPORTANTLY only if a patient is happy can the doctor ever be happy. A failure affects two person the most; the patient and the doctor! But in the end I have understood that you cannot make everyone happy! You have take a hundred oath but finally at the end of the day all you have to do is look at the man or woman in the mirror and not feel guilty with your actions and your work is done! 

Are you happy with your decision?

I am extremely happy with my decision! Though there have been challenges, it would not have changed my decision! In spite of being the topper in Mathematics and Physics in my whole school I did not write a single engineering examination because I was focussed only to become a doctor! Though there are many things in this field I want to do but then all in good time! 

What are the challenges faced?

All said and done the drive of making money is a big strain on doctors especially during the early years when he or she is trying to catch up with his peers from other profession! Unless he or she stops the comparison he or she will never be happy! Lack of support from state, peer pressure and inadequate compensation is a big lacunae! 

What is your thought about the future?

The future is always bright! Progress and development is unstoppable! But all said and done, at least for some time to come, in spite of the AI revolution, the Human doctor is for now an irreplaceable profession!

What are your regrets/ complains?

Regrets will be many like the fact that your time is limited and that there is a level of expectations which you have to keep! But overall the regrets are small when you see the satisfaction on a patient’s face when your treatment has worked!

What is your aim as a doctor and a human?

My aim is to have a balanced life between family and hospital! You cannot work all the time and you should take care of your own health also! A doctor doing continuous shift and being tired is actually a big risk to everyone! Only a mentally and physically rested doctor can give a good result! DO NOT encourage such doctors! Remember that life and hospital will go one without you! NO one is special! There are a hundred people ready to fill in your shoes and do your job! So work well and take rest also!

My advice to juniors! “If you love your job then it is no longer a job! It then becomes a happy part of your life!”

I have loved being a doctor and more importantly made many people happy! 

A humble sketch of the legend in whose honour we celebrate the Indian doctor’s day; Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy 

Have a good night folks!

Shubh Ratri!

“It can light your mind if you think!

Or can make some lamps blink!

It can make you feel warm!

And slowly you will feel it’s charm!”

One of the most important piece of glass in every household before this invention was a magnifying glass! Now, it was not used to read stuff but rather used for an entirely different thing which also needed light but of the sun! Moreover it changed because of an accident! 

read on!

So this was before the invention of the one thing which has become a part of our life in ways that we could not even imagine! Though in most places it has been replaced by the modern electronic version but still there are some places it is needed for a light!

Yes! Matches!

We cannot imagine starting our day without the fire! And for fire we need either matches or lighter! As kids we used to love play with those matches! Getting burnt was the norm! How long can you hold it was the game! The most exciting game was getting two and if you are lucky three lights from a single matchstick! The trick was to immediately put the tip in water; wait for it to dry and light again! Two was easy! Three was epic! Four was unheard! 

A pre deepawali cracker was lighting all the matches together! It used to look like a mini bonfire! 

But in the olden days, there were no matches! It has been told that those days light was started by rubbing wood or stones together but the more better and intelligent way would be using a lens to concentrate sun’s rays! Of course the latter needed sun or else it is no fun!

All that changed with the invention of the matches!

Now the person in question for the start of this invention was John Walker. 

About the age of fifteen John Walker was apprenticed to Mr. Watson Alcock a surgeon who was physician to the Marquis of Londonderry. There is not much detail of this period of his life but he worked as an assistant surgeon and it was claimed by his great niece that he was a “fully qualified doctor”. However he did not remain in this profession for long and it has been suggested that he could not stand the sight of blood which is nice in that if not for that we would not have a light!

After abandoning this profession he went to where he studied pharmacy with wholesale druggists in Durham and York. In the nineteenth century the science of pharmacy was still in its infancy with the transition from natural cures to scientific prescribing. And when John Walker came to open his shop he was thirty eight years old and in addition to a wide experience of botanical studies and herbal healing he had a sound training in the use of drugs in human and veterinary practice and a keen interest in chemistry.

A lot of his experimental work was with light producing agents including phosphorus. In addition to these experiments he also made a wide range of medicines for man and beast! Many of these “cures” would be banned today as being dangerous!

The experiments that led to his breakthrough came in 1826-27 and he was working at his home on the Quayside with combustible paste that he was developing perhaps as material to be used in percussion caps for the gun trade!

He knew the mixture would flare-up but was not explosive. The eureka moment came when he scrapped the mixing stick on the hearth at his home and it “spluttered and caught fire”. This was the breakthrough – not the flammable compound but realizing it would ignite a spill dipped in it!

By 1827 John Walker was selling these “friction lights” or matches to the public at 1s 2d (6 new pence) per 100 in a tin case with piece of sandpaper to ignite them. Originally the matches were made of pasteboard but 3 inch splints of wood were soon substituted – the friction head was added to the stick by dipping!

These matches were very popular in the town, with one early customer being the Stockton to Darlington Railway, but their fame soon spread. John Walker did not patent his invention as he thought it would benefit mankind however other inventors were not so benevolent and did protect their “spin off” developments! Unfortunately sometimes the selfish get the loot and get away with it!

Thus with the others especially “Lucifers” rapidly gaining a well established market John Walker ceased production in the early 1830s. But still Lucifer as they inspired name is a big cheat and a copy! 

The modern safety matches though were made by a Swedish chemist named Gustaf Erik. These matches used red phosphorus, which is not toxic, on the striking surface, making them much safer than previous matches. The match head was coated with a mixture of antimony sulphide, potassium chlorate, and sulfur, which could be ignited by rubbing it against the red phosphorus on the box! When it comes to safety then these are really safe! And of course they light up so well! 

Light in every way is the song Vande matram written by birthday celebrity Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay! 

A quick scribe of the legend!

Now store those matches safely!

Shubh Ratri!

“The icy monster has an icy heart!
It may not feel emotional or make art!
But come sun and the heat will be felt!
Then the emotional warm heart will melt!”

Now this story may seem familiar! A queen in a snowy place and a magic mirror created by trolls shatters, causing pieces of it to lodge in the heart and eye of a boy!
If your answer is FROZEN or Snow White then you are not wrong! But if you are really FROZEN to facts then the actual answer is the original story, “The Snow Queen!”

surprised!?
read on!

Published in 1845, “The Snow Queen” begins when a magic mirror created by trolls shatters, causing pieces of it to lodge in the heart and eye of a boy named Kai.
Seems nightmarish!? Well it was! In this Andersen’s story,the little boy named Kay gets shards of glass from a broken magic mirror embedded in his eye and heart. The glass somehow turns to ice, which — for reasons that aren’t clear — leads to Kay being abducted by a mysterious woman in white who swoops down on him during a snowstorm!

Here also you have a sister who in this case is called Gerda!
Like Frozen’s Anna, Gerda the sister also has to save her sibling by launching a search-and-rescue mission to retrieve him from the Snow Queen’s palace, which is guarded by an army of bear cubs, snakes and porcupines!

In fact The Snowy queen has also been the inspiration to many other famous stories and adaptations including the The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe! It is presumed that the White Witch from C. S. Lewis’s novel may be inspired by the Snow Queen, as she turned Narnia into a snow-covered land, is also depicted as wearing a white fur coat and first appears riding in a sleigh, and kidnapped a boy!

Recently the author Karen Foxlee has used it to inspire her children’s novel “Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy,”!

Now Frozen was a blockbuster which launched a sequel and a whole set of very profitable merchandise which was based on the close bond of sisters! But when it was in the initial stages, Anna and Elsa were not even sisters!

They weren’t even royal! Also Anna was not a princess!
Elsa was a self-proclaimed Snow Queen, but she was a villain and pure evil — much more like the Hans Christian Andersen tale!
It was initially a story with an evil female villain and an innocent female heroine, and the ending involved a big epic battle with snow monsters that Elsa had created as her army!

In the original ending, Prince Hans ends up being the real villain, who triggers a massive avalanche and ignores the fact that the storm also puts Anna, Elsa, and all of Arendelle at risk! And Anna must now convince Elsa to help save the kingdom!

Then the makers thought to themselves, ‘Does it always need to be true love’s kiss that solves that problem? Does it always have to be the man who comes in and rescues the female? Could it be something different?’
With these questions in mind, the whole story was changed and it actually lead into a revolution of sorts with a story which was not a typical Disney Fairy tale!


So the filmmakers of Frozen bought Gerda in the character of Anna and to the faithful reindeer who comes to Gerda’s aid in the character of Sven who turns out to be a delightful character! Delightful and funny also was birthday celebrity Jatin Kanakia!

Now unfreeze the alarm and sleep!
Shubh Ratri!

“The table was so nice and white like cream!

And the napkin folded looked like a dream! 

But ’twill be opened and taken out soon!

To clean your lips or just a spoon!”

When you visit some fancy hotels or a resort or a restaurant, among the other things which gets your attention; one of the main thing is the Napkin! The neatly folded ones with different shapes!

Apparently there are so many shapes and types!

Of course that is not the surprising part! There is a type of famous Napkin fold which is a closely guarded secret known to only two people in the world at any given point of time apparently!

read on!

Napkin folding is an ancient art form dating back to civilizations such as the Egyptians and Greeks. Historically, it was a symbol of status and wealth for the host or hostess. Today, it has become a popular hobby and important element of event planning, with napkin folding now achievable with a variety of napkin types!

Am sure during the times when Jeeves was written, Napkin folding would have not only been a prerequisite but also a talent akin to some big educational qualification!

The earlier napkins were actually made out of expensive materials and used as a symbol of wealth and status!

Later on the Napkin used to reflect the status of the host or the guest with more complex and elaborate techniques for the more up in the status symbol!

So if you do not get even a Napkin, do not even bother to ask for anything!

Later on of course the napkin folding was more of an art rather than for function! The designs became more intricate and decorative with so many designs inspired by Nature, animals and what not! Just like a painting or a sketch, these had it own artists and people who used to appreciate them just like art!

Later in the 20th century, napkin folding became less formal, with simpler designs used for casual gatherings and more intricate designs reserved for formal occasions.

Of course in some official formal occasion napkins are an essential part! 

A folded napkin elevates your decor and gives your table setting an exquisite look! Of course just like most art; it is better seen! If you think about function, it may be limited!

Most of the times when I see such beautifully folded, I feel so guilty of breaking the design and using them! Once we had this amazing resort where they had folded even the towels in the shape of Swans! We did not use them for the entire time we stayed there! Do not worry, they had more towels which were not folded!

With all these it is so difficult to imagine a simple napkin being the subject of a state secret, but such is the magic of the imperial napkin fold!

The napkins at Austrian governmental events are given the fancy fold, which results in a gorgeous flourish befitting the rich dignitaries who attend these types of events. Also known as the Hapsburg napkin fold, the technique is a guarded state secret, and it’s said that only two people at a time know how to do it; they then pass the knowledge on to another high-ranking official upon their deaths. Napkins folded in this manner are even kept in Austrian museums, public interest in their extravagance being so profound!

Profound also was the role of birthday celebrity Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao in the economic resurgence of Bharat! 

Now wipe your face with a towel after a quick wash and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

“My fingers run on the key!

You would think it will make music for me!

But the click clack sound was not the quest!

The qwerty keyboard types da best!”

Man (or for that matter woman!), have always tried to make simple things difficult! The forever quest of everyone is that he or she is in a journey which is different or special or more difficult that the other! Even in a team, on person would always feel that he or she is more valuable or doing more work or sometimes both! 

This is reflected in one of the most commonest things to have graced our fingers! The keyboard! My mother was great at short hand but she always would have trouble in the keyboard! She would tell why those i@@## could not simply write the alphabets in a straight line! In fact she was correct! The QWERTY keyboard may not be the fastest!

read on why!

So we all know the famous story of how the keyboard was introduced by American inventor and newspaper publisher, Christopher Latham Sholes!

His first keyboard was actually pretty straight forward!

This early typewriter used a keyboard that resembled a piano and had 28 keys arranged alphabetically. The idea was that this was the most efficient arrangement because users would know immediately where to find each letter.

– 3 5 7 9 N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  2 4 6 8 . A B C D E F G H I J K L M

In 1873, Sholes and his investors agrees to sell the production rights to the prototype to gun-maker Remington, which, following the Civil War, had branched out into appliance manufacturing. The Remington company made several modifications in the original design, including rearranging the keyboard to a  somewhat familiar layout as we know today!

Why this was done has one theory which is well known! According to this theory, the alphabetically-arranged keyboards allowed users to type at great speed, but when they pressed two closely located keys too quickly, the levers associated with the respective keys would become jammed! 

Therefore, a new layout was required that would reduce the key jamming. According to this theory, the QWERTY keyboard was designed to solve this problem with its planned arrangement of letters in different rows. 

But big surprise now is that this theory, however, has been largely debunked.

The QWERTY keyboard places keys that are commonly used in pairs close together, such as T and H or E and R, etc.  Thus, the QWERTY style turned out to be a more convenient typing model for users and they more easily became accustomed to it due to its user-friendly design!

Another more sound theory is that the the QWERTY typewriter keyboard layout was actually developed from inputs provided by telegraph operators, who would have been the largest users of keyboards at the time!

It was concluded that the operators found the earlier alphabetical arrangement of the keyboard confusing and inefficient for translating morse code.

For example, Morse code represents Z as ‘· · · ·’ which is often confused with ‘SE’. The Morse receivers often could not determine whether to use Z or SE until they received the following letters. Thus, to make it easier for the operators, S ought to be placed close to both Z and E on the keyboard for Morse receivers to type them quickly!

But according to some serious typing enthusiasts, there is another version of keyboard which is faster that the QWERTY! 

Also known as the American simplified keyboard, the Dvorak keyboard was designed by Dr. August Dvorak and Dr. William Dealey in 1936. The purpose behind this invention was to develop a more efficient system and faster typing speeds!

Dvorak and his supporters have argued that this non-qwerty keyboard layout is able to increase typing speed and accuracy by 74% and 68% respectively. Dvorak stated that the paired letters in his keyboard were placed in such a manner that typists could locate them faster. Dvorak also claimed that the unusual letter combinations in QWERTY layout were responsible for the frequently occurring typing errors! 

However, despite the arguments made by Dr. Dvorak, his keyboard invention failed to replace the QWERTY keyboard pattern. In fact, his claims that the Dvorak layout is faster have also received a lot of criticism. Also, by the time Dvorak came into existence people had already become familiar with QWERTY and regular users were unwilling to learn a new typing system.

Now since the familiarity is so much so that people can type in record breaking speeds! With the invention of the predictive keyboard and the latest SWIPE keyboard, typing is even more easier! 

So we may not get to know which keyboard is better since even otherwise very soo, voice typing will surely replace the actual typing soon! Or maybe even thought typing!

All said and done it is a real thrill to see people typing at record breaking speeds! 

Of course when you talk about speed then the no one can come close to birthday celebrity Pilavullakandi Thekkeparambil Usha! 

Now type GN in you keyboard and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

“It runs only in circle within the wheel!

Thank heavens that it does not squeal!

Never had a creature like this in this house!

It is round and small and tis called a computer mouse!!”

There was a time when we all had that irritating mouse! The one with the ball! Some early geeks would have had the ball on top which was the trackball but the ones which most had were the ones with the ball on the bottom!

Somehow though I used to like it! It was a marvel how the ball inside would move and and the arrow would move along with it!

Then later came the wheel! Not the chariot kind but the mouse one!

The wheel is still an integral part of the mouse unlike the ball!

Did you know that the original function of the Wheel which turned out to be scroll was actually made to zoom!?

read on!

So this mouse had some smooth function when it started! You could always tell a new mouse from the old by the scroll!

The ball would have becomes dirty and it acted almost like a mini vacuum cleaner! The thrill of discovering an old mouse with a computer arrow going slow was so cool!

Then all we had to do was remove the ball and you would be surprised at the dirt collected! Slowly but surely all the dirt was cleaned and a gentle blow here and a firm wipe there and the ball would be shining! We would remove it and play around with it just for fun!

Finally the joy of seeing the arrow move so prompt along with the mouse was unparalleled! Many times I would invert the mouse and the ball would disappear! Then we would manually move the mouse and see the arrow move! That was thrilling! My kids would  laugh if they read this now!

The horror is when the mouse moved but the arrow remained in the screen in spite of cleaning and clearing all the dust! Then you know the dreaded windows frozen screen! Only the three magical buttons may work or you would have to go for a hard restart fervently praying that the work may have been stored! Which is why even now as a habit I keep on pressing Ctrl + S every instant when I type something! 

Now in spite of the terrible mechanical look in an otherwise smooth non moving parts device, the mouse had its own appeal!

The only two main moving part at the time were the mouse and the CD/DVD tray which always had issues! No wonder both have been efficiently removed by versions which do not have moving parts in them! Still I miss the mouse!

With the wheel now remaining the only moving part of the mouse, the thing to go was the ball which has been now been replaced by the optical scrolling!

The original inventor of the mouse wheel has been credited to be Eric and his team from Microsoft. In his own article titled The History of the Scroll Wheel; he explains how it was first thought for the zoom function! 

Back in 1993, as he was watching many Excel users do their work, he noticed the difficulty they had moving around large spreadsheets!

Finding and jumping to different sections was often difficult. 

Eric then had the idea that perhaps a richer input device would help.

His original idea was the zoom lever. 

This was simply a lever, presumably for your non-mouse hand (i.e. on the left side of your keyboard if you’re right-handed). When you push it away from you the spreadsheet zooms out. When you pull it towards you, it zooms back in!

He prototyped this by hooking a joystick up to his computer and using DDE to connect it to Excel for zooming. Using a joystick button along with the stick, he also had it do “data zooming”, which was drilling in and out through Excel outlines! 

But focusing on zooming was a very Excel-centric approach. More specifically, it was a very 2-D centric approach!

That is, using an application that presents 2-dimensional data, like a spreadsheet or graphics, it’s very useful to zoom in and out. But the other main style of application is a linear flow application like Word, and there it’s not as useful. You could do zooming with Word, where zooming out shows you a multi-page view and then you click on a desired page and zoom into it, but that’s not as natural as with a spreadsheet or graphics and images!

Around this time, the hardware guys came back and said that they had considered adding a wheel to the mouse, but they didn’t know what it would be used for. Document navigation answered that question, so they said that if Eric could get Office to support it, they would build it. 

This really meant Excel and Word since they were the “800 lb gorillas” — if Excel and Word supported something, then the other Office apps would follow, and if Office as a whole supported something, then everyone else would follow too! This is because during that time, computer was mainly for word and excel work which means documentation which it still is today if you take out the games!

Eric was completely fixated on the idea that the wheel should be for zooming by default, but finally relented when he met resistance from legendary technology journalist Walt Mossberg. Before they shipped it, they added a button under the wheel, and made the default wheel action “scroll”!

The rest as they say is how the Wheel was made! My mother used to love the older mouse only since she used to play a cute little game called the Monster Hunter with it! The optical mouse was never that good for her because it needed the mouse pad! Another mom favourite were the cop movies of birthday celebrity Suresh Gopi especially Eklavyan! She would have felt so happy with his recent victory! 

Now keep the mouse pad safe and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

“The bullet would have surely shot the Batman!

But his arch nemesis The Joker came in the way! 

Bewildering everyone! He said! Being his enemy is my life! 

Don’t shoot and take my life away!”

Everyone knows the adage, “A friend in need is a friend indeed” but it brings into question why a phrase like this is needed since the very definition of a friend is a person who would anyway help you!

This is when this amazing book called the 48 Law of power by Robert Greene comes into mind! In the very second law he states that you must never Put Too Much Trust in Friends; Learn How to Use Enemies. Keep a close eye on your friends — they easily become envious and resentful, and will undermine you!

In contrast, if you promote an enemy, he’ll be more loyal than a friend in an effort to prove himself. So use your enemies! 

While a friend expects more and more favors, and seethes with jealousy, these former enemies expected nothing and got everything!

A man suddenly spared the guillotine is a grateful man indeed, and will go to the ends of the earth for the man who has pardoned him! 

The author also talks about the Emperor Sung of China (he became the emperor in 959), who managed to break the pattern of coups, violence and civil war by making his former enemies his friends.

The collapse of the T’ang brought chaos to China as numerous dynasties vied for control. After 50 years of turmoil, one ruler emerged to re-unite the country. Donning the yellow robe, he declared himself T’ai-tsu, Emperor of the Sung. His dynasty would last 319 years!

Japan was nearing the end of the Sengoku Jidai (“Warring States Period”) when lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi wrapped up the unification of Japan that had begun under his predecessor Oda Nobunaga. Unlike his former lord, Hideyoshi made judicious use of mercy to turn former enemies into allies. Those who opposed him in one campaign would become the vanguard of the next. This snowballing effect allowed Hideyoshi to bring Japan under his rule by 1591! 

Another story like this but closer to us is the story of Chanakya and a minster of the enemy called the Rakhsasa. Now the minister of the enemy made lots of attempts to kill Chanakya’s king Chandragupta but Chanakya always spoilt his plans!

In one instance, he saved a soldier of Rakhsasa from being killed for punishment and that soldier not only became his friend but also his trusted spy! Which made the job of Chanakya much easier! 

After several attempts by Rakhsasa on Chandraguta’s life he was finally left with nothing but hate and desperation! He also understood though that Chankya is a formidable enemy and the masters Rakhsasa was trying to protect and support were incapable of their post! 

At this juncture Chanakya offered him the place of Chandragupta’s Minister! It was a master stroke! In spite of being the enemy Rakhsasa was actually a clever minister, only that Chanakya was more clever! 

Chanakya then had nothing to worry about and retired to his Ashram while his king was safe in the hands of Rakhsasa! 

If you make your biggest enemy your friend then he or she will make sure that the responsibility they have been given will be fulfilled with utmost sincerity which you may not get from your friend! 

So if you have a nemesis or a great enemy; reach out to him or her and maybe he or she may help you out in ways you could not have imagined! 

It is also difficult to imagine now how one of the cult comedies made in Bharat had the birthday celebrity Satish Ravilal Shah as a corpse for the most part of the film but still played the most important part in a hilarious way!

Do not watch that movie if you want to sleep! But do watch it if you want to laugh hysterically!

Shubh Ratri! 

“Just want to clear my head and drive the sleep!

Want to smile without looking like a creep! 

This may not make me a king in any way! 

But a hot water shower will surely make my day!”

The common point between Agatha Christie and Stephen King! 

Then you have the recent Pulitzer prize winners; Junot Diaz, Colson Whitehead, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Jennifer Egan!

Now the easy answer is that they are all great writers!

In fact the list is much longer because of one trait or habit which they all share!

They used to get the best ideas when they are in the shower!

There is a name for this! The bathroom brainwave!

In the popular book the 5am club, Robin Sharma has stated how getting up at 5 am is the most coveted secret of highly successful people! Adding to that routine is the early morning shower! 

When you shower, you apparently get amazing ideas! 

A Nat Geo article explains that rather than constantly grinding away at a problem or desperately seeking a flash of inspiration, research from the last 15 years suggests that people may be more likely to have creative breakthroughs or epiphanies when they’re doing a habitual task that doesn’t require much thought—an activity in which you’re basically on autopilot!

This lets your mind wander or engage in spontaneous cognition or “stream of consciousness” thinking, which experts believe helps retrieve unusual memories and generate new ideas!

Researchers have shown that the default mode network (DMN)—which connects more than a dozen regions of the brain—becomes more active during mind-wandering or passive tasks than when you’re doing something that demands focus. Simply put, the DMN is “the state the brain returns to when you’re not actively engaged,” explains Roger Beaty, a cognitive neuroscientist and director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Lab at Penn State University. By contrast, when you’re mired in a demanding task, the brain’s executive control systems keep your thinking focused, analytical, and logical.

So one of the routine mechanical and automatic task in most people is taking the shower or using the restroom! The brain here is not having any distractions and is now free to release its creative juices! This may also be the reason why like in the movie Psycho, people are more sensitive or vulnerable while taking a shower!

Amid the mist and suds, a good shower can relax not only your body but also your mind, unleashing streams of consciousness, clarity and creativity.

Research shows that what is known as the “shower effect” also can occur outside the shower, and many of our best thoughts don’t happen at work or school — but occur while going about our days with ideas incubating in the background!

Typical triggers for events, that make us feel great and relaxed and therefore give us an increased dopamine flow are taking a warm shower, exercising, driving home, etc. The chances of having great ideas then are a lot higher!

Still, that’s not all there is to it. Dopamine release is an essential component but Dopamine alone, which gets triggered in hundreds of events, where we aren’t very creative, can’t be the only reason. Another crucial factor is a distraction which may provide the break you need to disengage from a fixation on the ineffective solution!

Basically a calm and relaxed mind and a clean body gets your creative juices flowing! Time for a shower then??!!  Of course if you want to be successful and famous like birthday celebrity Gautam Shantilal Adani then you have to get out and work more! 

Though a warm bath before sleep may give you good sleep!

Shubh Ratri…

“He had fallen down the pit and was in the blue!

How to escape he just had no clue!

Then he felt glad as he saw his mate!

Happy that someone else is sharing his fate!”

In the movie Three Idiots, when their friend was assumed to have failed his two friends were sad! But when they find out that he had topped, they were more sad!

In a malayalam movie which is a cult classic, called Nadodikkattu; Mohanlal gets into trouble for having harassing his boss! He then feels happy when his friend also gets into the same trouble!

There are so many examples of this all over whether in life or in movies! When one is down and he or she is feeling down, he or she gets special pleasure when someone else is also down!

It is like how in the days of power cut and intermittent electrical supply, whenever the electricity used to go out in my house, the first thing my we would do is see if the neighbour has the supply or not! When they also were in the dark then we would feel happy! 

Even in the school days also, when one used to get less marks then he or she would be sad but when his or her friend also gets less marks there is a mild feeling of happiness!

Now this is perfectly normal and of course a primitive behaviour! Within limits it is a perfect example of human mentality but when it becomes extreme in that when you fail, you try to pull others down then it is an evil phenomenon called the crab mentality!

So if you notice a pile of crabs in a bucket, where they all try to escape while pulling back any crab who manages to escape so that they’re back to their misery and the group’s collective demise! 

According to Psychology Today, crab mentality is an analogy to the selfish and envious behavior of someone upon other people’s success. Crab mentality is also defined as someone’s tendency to pull down people around them who they consider are better than them in any aspect. People with crab mentality often think that if they can’t have it, then other people can’t have it too! 

At an emotional level, crab mentality can stem from a deep-seated human need for self-esteem and social comparison.

A theory called the Tesser’s self-evaluation maintenance theory (SEM) suggests that individuals engage in self-evaluation not only through introspection but also through comparison with others, especially those within their close social circles. 

So when someone close to us excels in areas we value, we might feel threatened and act in ways that downplay their achievements.

This mechanism can partly explain why individuals may attempt to pull down those who achieve more than themselves, as a way to protect their own self-esteem and social standing. Emotions such as envy may be generated when individuals feel threatened during self-evaluation. This can lead to a desire to diminish the well-being of others, particularly when their success highlights our own failures or inadequacies. This is very commonly seen especially among peers who tend to put others down or try to downplay their achievements!

Some amount of envy is the basic tendency of every normal human being but that envy must make you work more hard and better! If you cannot compete, do not become like the silencer from 3 Idiots who will try to sabotage the competitors! 

In a similar context I chanced upon a beautiful movie called the Maidan starring Ajay; here also a disgruntled person whose ego is bruised tries his whole life to downplay and sabotage the career of on person and in that process the whole Indian Football team! A must watch film which shows how the bureaucracy those days made sure that we do not excel in sports! Watch it also as a tribute to the greatest coach who made sure we got a medal in football in Olympics! A feat which has not been repeated for the last 60 years! The man in question is Syed Abdul Rahim who was the pride of Bharat but I was really upset the way he smoked constantly! 

Watch this movie and you will appreciate this legend! Try to pull yourself down to sleep though!

Shubh Ratri!

‘He went to a class on the management of time!

He left in a huff without payin a dime!

They asked him why so much anger and hate?

’cause the time management bloke himself came late!”

Everyone would have heard the saying, काल करे सो आज कर, आज करे सो अब। पल में परलय होएगी, बहुरि करेगा कब। 

Somehow this saying is imprinted on my mind and body! But unfortunately this actually causes anxiety! Apparently the urge to finish a task is a common problem with Type A personalities! 

Making of a list of tasks to be completed is a good thing but some people get more anxious when the list is not ticked complete!

Of course most of the time doing work in time or even before is a good thing!

In fact the defeat of one of the greatest kings Napoleon Bonaparte was because he did not follow the above rule!

Read on!

Napoleone di Buonaparte; later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led a series of successful campaigns across Europe during the Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars from 1796 to 1815. 

He had many major conquests and victories! In fact, once he even came back from defeat and his comeback was more strong and forceful as before!

But the battle which finally gave him the biggest defeat and final surrender was the battle of Waterloo! This when his army had more number of soldiers and more experienced! 

On June 18, 1815, Napoleon led his army of some 72,000 troops against the 68,000-man British army, which had also taken up a position near Waterloo, where they were able to communicate with their Prussian allies!

It would have been an easy victory had he attacked earlier! 

In a critical blunder, Napoleon waited until midday to give the command to attack in order to let the waterlogged ground dry after the previous night’s rainstorm. 

The delay gave Blucher’s remaining Prussian troops, who, by some accounts, numbered more than 30,000, time to march to Waterloo and join the battle against the French later that day!

Although Napoleon’s troops mounted a vigorous attack against the British, Wellington’s position along and behind a ridge top — which had negated an early offensive bombardment by Napoleon — and the afternoon arrival of Blucher’s Prussian army turned the tide against the French!

The Prussian cavalry attacked and harried the retreating French troops long into the night. By some estimates, the French suffered almost 40,000 casualties (including dead, wounded or taken prisoner), while British and Prussian casualties numbered some 22,000. An estimated 10,800 men — most of them French soldiers — died in the Battle of Waterloo!

Ultimately, the Battle of Waterloo marked the end of Napoleon’s storied military career. He reportedly rode away from the battle in tears.

Of course when a failure happens there are a countless reasons which come up and everyone with a brain would have at the very least two opinion! So try to do things on time but do not over think if some things take time! That is actually an advice to myself! One defeat though does not take away the fact that he was a great General! Like how no one can deny the fact that birthday celebrity Amrish Puri was a great actor!

Now try to get up on time and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!