Category: Uncategorized

“The train follows the track!

There is no looking back! 

Of course if there’s some slack 

Just Watch out for any crack!”

Some years back there was an interesting forward which was found to be more or less true which is a rarity in WhatsApp forwards which is why I have stopped forwarding any ‘facts’! This one was very interesting since it said that the modern rocket back is actually the size of two horse’s behind!

Read on!

Now the standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is four feet or 8.5 inches (US and their standards!). In normal human being terms; A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of 1,435 mm ( 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in). The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa!

The sequence described now is a famous one and is replicated more or less the same! 

Now most standards gauge was initially built in England! And it was replicated by them in other parts of the world!

Now why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used!

Why did “they” use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing!

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long-distance roads in England, because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts!

So who built the old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe (including England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since!

And ruts in the roads? The initial ruts were formed by Roman war chariots, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing! 

Finally that distance is the standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches! Which derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot. 

The Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two warhorses! 

There is a new modern twist to this! 

A a space shuttle sitting on its launch pad has two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank!

These are Solid Rocket Boosters, or SRBs. 

The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site! The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains!

The SRBs, therefore, had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses’ behinds!

So over two thousand years ago, the width of two horses’ behinds turned out to be a major design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system! 

Am sure when we have an advanced vehicle developed for interplanetary transport, it will be the size of two horse’s behind! Now that may be music to a donkey! Music makes me think about the birthday celebrity Pritam Chakraborty!

Now do not think about a Meter gauge and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

“All the houses clear and same!

May have different colour or name!

But the world outside is different you see! 

That’s why this flat works for me!”

When I was doing my MBBS in Kerala; and when I used to tell my friends that many people in Bengaluru live in apartments, it was a big shock to many! Now of course Kerala has some big swanky apartments but the average Keralite would not have seen himself or herself restricted in a closed space! 

They have such large houses with a courtyard and open spaces with a variety of trees in the back! The house was only a part of the whole system! 

Most of the houses were big and full of green! Many times there also will be a well and then some! The average house may not be bright much but the nature as its decoration, it used to feel grand!

We city folks of course know how to live in an apartment! Of course individual houses do have their charm and responsibilities but apartments have their own good stuff! If you are part of a township or society then it a very good deal especially in the early and later phases of life! 

As work increases in city though, these high-rises are the norm! I had seen one image of an apartment complex in China which made me dizzy!

Many family like to stay in independent houses if given a choice but the average worker is usually given an apartment which he or she has to share with others. That life is something different and the norm of the working class now. 

Now if you thought that the apartments were a new thing you would be surprised that they were here thousands of years ago!

It is believed that the first apartment buildings were built by the Romans two thousand years ago. These multi-story structures were called insulae (pronounced insul-eye) meaning islands, because they took up a lot of space equivalent to entire city blocks. These apartments were crafted from unforgiving materials such as timber and mud so fires and collapses were common. 

The rich continued to live in separate houses while the poor rented these apartment spaces from wealthy proprietors!

Bottom floors were usually taken up by shops and businesses with the upper sections reserved for residents which is so similar to the situations today!

Other evidence of vertical living has been shown around the world. In Arizona, for example, Montezuma’s cliff dwellings showcase buildings five stories high, while in the desert sands of Yemen vertical apartment buildings made of mud were beginning to show up. These buildings were built close together and are still functional today, needing additional plasterings of mud to keep the structure stable

In China’s Fujian province, squat circular structures called Tulou, three to five stories high, housed entire family clans. Looking like a pattern of radiating circles when viewed aerially, these structures housed living areas, storehouses and wells all fortified by strong exterior walls. The buildings followed the principles of feng shui and also served to keep inhabitants safe.

The elevator was a major game-changer in the history of the apartment building and a primitive model was commissioned by King Louis XV in 1743 so he could visit his ‘special friend’ housed in a different floor of the Versailles palace!

In large cities across the world, the Industrial Revolution spurred a rapid rise of the tenements with notorious living conditions. They gave way to to today’s fashionable condominium apartments especially after the building of the Dakota apartment building in New York City in the late nineteenth century, which changed people’s perceptions of apartment living as something only for the poor.

The first housing society in India started in 1914s in Grant road! While towns like Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, & Delhi soon followed suit. Ahmedabad had its first housing society called Pritam Nagar developed under the guidance of Sri Sardar Vallabhai Patel in the year 1927. 

Bengaluru had its first housing society project in the 1970’s called Paresh Apartments Co-operative Housing society build in 1974 in Malleswaram town! Now of course apartments are mushrooming all over and the outlook towards them is slowly changing. What remained constant and that too for a long time was the chief ministership of Naveen Patnaik for the past 24 years! He is known as the Politician with no foes so much so that he has even been awarded the Ideal Chief Minister award!

Hoping for more administrators like him…

still praying for those affected by the apartment fire.

Shubh Ratri…

“Oh the thick black smoke

Burns your eyes and makes you choke 

The fire burning and no way to escape 

Praying to God all for their sake…”

Remember how many times someone sniffs something near your kitchen and asks you. “Is the gas leaking?”

The typical smell or odour of gas is now so familiar that it has become one of the most important safety measures ever to be implemented! But though the odorisation was advised as early as in 1880’s it finally came into practice only after a big bang of tragic proportions! 

Read on…

Historically, first gas odorization was carried out in Germany in 1880’s by Von Quaglio who used ethyl mercaptan for detecting gas leakages of blue water gases but it was not widely practiced till much later. 

Starting with the year 1807 when Pall-Mall in London was experimentally illuminated, the beginnings of gas industry in the European countries were exclusively associated with town gas. This gas, produced by carbonization of coal, contained mainly hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Besides other components, gas produced from coal contained a wide range of sulfur compounds which made it easily detectable in case of leaks and lent it the typical “gassy odor”. 

Later on the commonly used gas was the Natural Gas. Now, Natural gas is an odorless and colorless flammable gas. 

Now the big disaster which happened in The New London, Texas. Here the economy was boosted in 1930 through an oil find in Rusk County. As a result, the London School was built in 1932 at the cost of 1 million dollars and was considered a modern steel-framed building!

In 1937, the New London, Texas, school board decided to cut costs by dropping their contract with the United Gas Company. With approval from the superintendent, plumbers tapped a residue gas line from a local oil company to use green or wet gas. The oil companies typically would flare off this waste gas. However, utilizing the waste gas became a common money-saving practice for buildings on the oilfield at that time, although the oil companies did not explicitly authorize its use.

The odorless and undetectable natural gas leaked from the residue line’s connection and made its way into the crawlspace, which ran the school’s length. The gas built up until there was a spark igniting the gas. The explosion left behind a collapsed building, with as many as 295 deaths!

That was a big wake up call all across to do the mandatory Odorization of the gas and even now the same or similar compound is used which is ethyl mercaptan. The role of this substance in saving possible explosions and lives cannot be measured. 

Unfortunately some explosions can still occur like the one which happened today. Heartfelt condolences to the ones who lost their lives. With the help of firefighters, doctors, medical personnels and many others; many lives were saved. 

We need more people like them who can make sure these accidents are limited and prevented. Like Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, the Metro Man who has made Kerala fast and safe. 

Praying for the poor souls…

Shubh Ratri

“वो सिर्फ क्रांतिकारी नही, महान कलाकार भी थे
एक वार गोली से और दूसरा कलम से करते थे!
कितने नेता याद आए और कितने भूला दिए गए
मगर राम प्रसाद बिस्मिल के कारनामे हमको रुला दिए गए!

It is amazing how we have accepted so many rules in English and we just carry on without a thought! There are some rules which we follow and we just do it!

Some time back I was the scientific content editor of a medical drug index and my boss was a guy who had English as his third language! My immediate superior was another guy who spoke English in an ‘accent’! Which one is for me to know and you to guess! Needless to say, it was not a good time to be writing in English since their ego was bigger than the Grammar!

Read on!

For every point you write, you can write the same thing in two different ways and both can be right!
Like say I have written; “Raju owned a big red ball!”; my superior would cancel this and rewrite it as; “A big red ball was owned by Raju!”!
Of course this is just an example since the statement would be something else but the fact of the matter is that if you want to find out an error then even diamond can have rust!

An issue in the English language is the letter ‘S’ (it may be the first letter of my name but then that is just a completely different matter!).
But this ‘S’ becomes a challenge when we have to deal with possessives. It’s a rule that an apostrophe followed by ‘s’ shows possession. But what about words ending with ‘s’? Do we add another ‘s’ or just an apostrophe? For example, is it James’s car or James’ car? Apparently both are acceptable, but it’s best to stick to one style!

Now do you remember this this rule in school: “I” before “E” except after “C”! You would have wasted hours trying to memorize this but actually there are many exceptions to this rule! Consider ‘weird’, ‘seize’, ‘neighbour’ and ‘height’. It’s a rule that seems to be broken more often than it’s followed!

Another crazy word which I like to avoid since I am not sure of its usage is the he word ‘none’! It is often treated as a plural because it seems to suggest more than one thing!
However, ‘none’ is singular and takes a singular verb. For example, it’s correct to say, “None of the cake is eaten”, not “None of the cake are eaten”. But, in informal English, ‘none’ can be used with either a singular or plural verb!

English is also full of homographs — words that are spelled the same, and even often pronounced the same, but mean different things.
Like you have tear (to rip) and tear (as in crying)!, bass (a type of fish) and bass (a low sound), bat (a piece of sports equipment) and bat (an animal), bow (a type of knot) and bow (to incline) to name a few! These are just a few!

It’s perhaps one of the hallmarks of English that words can be spelled similarly with absolutely no guarantee of sharing a similar pronunciation. Think: cough, rough, though and through! These remind me of Dharam paji in Chupke Chupke!

If you clip something, are you cutting it or attaching it together? If something is transparent, is it invisible or obvious? The answer, confusingly, could be either one!

A “contronym” is a word that has two contradictory meanings, and the English language is full of them!

There are some words (like “record”) that mean two completely different things when used as a noun versus a verb. And on top of that, we use different stress patterns when we say them out loud: “REcord” for your Dad’s old Beatles album, and “reCORD” for when you’re leaving a voicemail!

Then we have 16th century academics to thank for some more confusion! Words like “debt” and “doubt” inherited a “b” as a reminder that they came from the Latin debitum! But the b is just a silent reminder!
But on top of this, some spellings were changed to match completely unrelated Latin words. The Old English “iland” became “island,” for example, as a nod to the Latin word insula! So some letters now just stand a silent testimonials to their once glorious past maybe!?

Although there are a ton of such things lets end with the word “queue.”! Each and every letter after Q is just a symbol of the wastage of a line! You have added five letters when none was needed!
Of course now that is English! Today’s intro though was written in Hindi as an ode to the great birthday celebrity, Freedom fighter and a legend Shri Ram Prasad Bismil…
My humble Kindle scribe of him which came out well showing the amount of respect I have for him.

Listen to his quote before you sleep!

“सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना, अब हमारे दिल में है. देखना है ज़ोर कितना, बाज़ु-ए-कातिल में है?”
“वक़्त आने पर बता देंगे तुझे, ए आसमान, हम अभी से क्या बताएँ क्या हमारे दिल में है खेँच कर लाई है सब को क़त्ल होने की उमीद, आशिक़ोँ का आज जमघट कूच-ए-क़ातिल में है सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है.”

Jai Hind…Shubh ratri!

“The whisper in the wind gives it away
some secrets are not there to stay!
You may not say anything ’cause you shy!
But I know it all! Don’t you cry!”

For years this gland used to come in the way of surgeon! They used to feel that this shield like organ has no function whatsoever! So much so that the most renowned surgeon of the time, Kocher told that, ““Surgeons had simply assumed that the gland has no function whatever…”;!

Now of course both ENT and Other surgeons fight to handle this gland!

Later on of course it was found to be involved in almost all aspects of metabolism in the body! It even turned out to be responsible for multiple chief functions in the body such as fertility and mental alertness!

Read on about the gland which was thought to be just another appendix! (By the way, maybe some time in the future some one may come up with a big revelation that even appendix is important!)…

This description of a malady of this gland has not been added to the annals of medicine and history!

It is by Sir William Withey Gull in 1873 and is produced verbatim below;

“after the cessation of the catamenial period, became insensibly more and more languid, with general increase of bulk… Her face altering from oval to round, …the tongue broad and thick, voice guttural, and the pronunciation as if the tongue were too large for the mouth (cretinoid)… In the cretinoid condition in adults which I have seen, the gland was not enlarged. …

There had been a distinct change in the mental state. The mind, which had previously been active and inquisitive, assumed a gentle, placid indifference, corresponding to the muscular languor, but the intellect was unimpaired… The change in the skin is remarkable. The texture being peculiarly smooth and fine, and the complexion fair, at a first hasty glance there might be supposed to be a general slight oedema of it… The beautiful delicate rose‐purple tint on the cheek is entirely different from what one sees in the bloated face of renal anasarca.”!

Yes! He was describing a condition which was previously thought to be limited to skin and hence called Myxoedema! But essentially it was reduced function of one of the most important glands in the body! The Thyroid!

Myxedema was first treated successfully in 1891 when George Redmayne Murray diagnosed a 46-year-old woman with the disease. He prescribed an extract from sheep thyroid. The patient improved significantly within a few weeks and lived another 28 years while taking the sheep thyroid extract!

Later of course it was found to be GRAVEly important! (Those who know thyroid will get the pun; others can GOOGLE it!). Thinking of Google (I think we are always thinking of Google!); reminds me of Birthday celebrity, our own Pichai Sundararajan or Sundar Pichai! A quick scribe due to limited time!

Now search for How to fall asleep in Google and sleep!
Shubh Ratri!

“He twist his fingers and bends his thumb!

He stretches them far till they feel numb! 

Then like a trigger it goes and gets a hit!

It’s not war, just a game of marble you twit!”

If you were a student of the Kendriya Vidyalaya especially in the north then you would have definitely played this game which is one of the oldest games in the world!

Now you can use many materials to play this game but the most preferred and famous is the one which you play using these small balls made of glass! 

Boys used to love playing with these especially because of the double entendre!

Yes! Marbles!

When we were young(er!) we had a big supply! There were guys who had marbles in big bottles! They were the champions who had won countless games of marbles!

I was fascinated by the little glass miracles! It is a fact that no two marbles may be exactly the same! The best of course were the slightly bigger ones and one of the most prized possessions were the ones which have got cracks inside but the crack is not reached the surface which is still round and smooth!

These cracked marbles used to have such beautiful designs especially when you place it towards the sunlight! Blue marbles were the common ones so other colours were so much in demand for being rare!

The common ones were actually dirt cheap but the real prize of a marble player were the marbles he or she had won by his game!

There were those who used to use their fingers as mini catapults to propel marbles and shoot! It was like watching a live T20 match since in the limited time of lunch break we had to finish our lunch, arrange the game, win a few and rush before the bell rings again! It was literally a rush and race against time!

It has been said as one of the world’s oldest games!

The game is played with colored balls that are about 5/8 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter. Marbles may be made of clay, glass, plastic, or agate. Particular marbles may be known for their use (shooters); their original material (alleys were once made of alabaster); or their appearance (cloudies and cat’s eyes)!

The object of marble games is to roll, throw, or drop against an opponent’s marbles—often to knock them out of a prescribed area. If the game is played for fair, the winner is the one who shoots the most marbles out of the circle. In a game for keeps, each player is allowed to keep all the marbles won!

Of course we had different versions of making use of the marble and since I was really poor in the actual game, we used to play the game on board with the marble! 

Apparently there are different version all over the world! 

In taw, ringtaw, or ringer, players attempt to shoot marbles (sometimes arranged in a cross) out of a ring as much as 6 to 10 feet (2 to 3 meters) in diameter. In this game the shooter, which is held between the index finger and the outside of the thumb, is propelled forward by snapping the thumb. If knuckling is called for, at least one knuckle of the shooting hand must touch the ground!

In a game known as hit and span, players try to shoot or roll marbles either against an opponent’s marbles or a hand’s span from them. In various pot games (a pot is a small hole in the ground), including moshie, players try to pitch their own marbles or knock opponents’ marbles into a hole! This is so similar to the ones we used to play! Our own version of the Golf!

In bridgeboard, or nine holes, a board with several numbered arches is set up, and players try to shoot their marbles through the arches. Apparently Local, regional, and national tournaments are held in many countries on this! 

Our marble playing though was limited to the lunch break in the KV! Another break activity was discussing movies! There was one movie which was very popular among girls which had Vijayshanthi! The movie was based on the birthday celebrity, a former tennis player who became the first woman in India to join the officer ranks of the Indian Police Service. The movie was in telugu called Karthavyam and was based on the life and times of Kiran Bedi who has been an inspiration to many women to join the IPS! 

A quick kindle scribe sketch without any shading or erasing! 

Now stop playing with marbles in your daydreams and sleep!

Shubh ratri!

“The poor bloke was saying for all to hear!
I had a malady and but no fear!
The doc cured me for a while!
But the meds were useless! What worked was his smile!”

One of the most common good compliments a patient can tell a doctor is. “when I speak to you and see your cheerful and smiling face or just your positive spirit makes half of my troubles to simply disappear!”

Of course this does not happen many times since the doctor is also human and affected by the things around him or her! It is rare to find a doctor who is always smiling or cheerful and if you do then do check if he or she is real or not!
Nevertheless it has been found that just a pleasant demeanour is what is required most of the time for the patient to be happy!

It has been said that the mere act of smiling can make a huge difference in your state of mind! Countless books on management and etiquette have even told sales people who make calls to smile when they make the call! Even if the person on the other end of the call cannot see you, the effect of the smile is seen!

That brings us to laughter therapy!

Apparently it was King Solomon who gave us one of the earliest recorded accounts regarding the healing power of humour and laughter!

It has also been seen that the ancient Greek physicians prescribed for their patients to visit the hall of comedians. They would send their patients to the theatre to be entertained as part of the healing process!

Early Native Americans had clowns who worked with Witch Doctors. They too realized the powerful effects of laughter and humor in healing, The 3rd most important person in the tribe was the clown! Now do not ask about who were the first two!

In the 1300’s, surgeon Henri de Mondeville reportedly told jokes to his patients in the recovery room! Of course he did that only when the surgery was successful!

We have also seen in many great civilisations like even in Bharat, court Jesters like Tenali Raman (Raman is what people call me many times but I am not that funny!) were hired to relieve the royalty’s stress from their governing duties! They used humour to give wisdom and many times their jokes were possible advice and real opinions!

In the 1600’s educator Richard Mulcater recommended laughter for those suffering from head colds!

However, the most significant recording of the benefits of humour and laughter came from Norman Cousins in his book ‘Anatomy of an illness.’
In 1964, Dr. Cousins was diagnosed with a crippling and extremely painful inflammation of his body, which doctors diagnosed as Anklyosing Spondilitis.

He checked himself out of the hospital, hired a nurse and moved into a hotel! Then he watched comedy movies such as Candid Camera, the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy and many other comedy movies!

He later wrote. “I made the joyous discovery that 10 minute of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least 2 hours of pain-free sleep.

He recovered from the condition and spent 20 years teaching about the merits of humour and laughter in healing!

Experts now agree, laughter is good for you. It boosts your immune system, it relieves pain, tension and stress, it stimulates the heart, lowers blood pressure and much more!

So practically Laughter therapy is a kind of cognitive-behavioral therapies that could make physical, psychological, and social relationships healthy, ultimately improving the quality of life.
Laughter therapy, as a non-pharmacological, alternative treatment, has a positive effect on the mental health and the immune system. In addition, laughter therapy does not require specialized preparations, such as suitable facilities and equipment, and it is easily accessible and acceptable.

Laughter decreases serum levels of cortisol, epinephrine, growth hormone, and 3,4-dihydrophenylacetic acid (a major dopamine catabolite), indicating a reversal of the stress response. Depression is a disease, where neurotransmitters in the brain, such as norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin, are reduced, and there is something wrong in the mood control circuit of the brain. Laughter can alter dopamine and serotonin activity. Furthermore, endorphins secreted by laughter can help when people are uncomfortable or in a depressed mood.

Mention laughter and you have to remember birthday celebrity Rajendra Nath Malhotra! In fact he was so famous that his character called Popatlal is now a trademark!

Now stop laughing without any reason lest someone mistakes you for being insane and sleep!
Shubh Ratri!

“The graphite was black and dull

His twin the diamond was bright and shiny! 

But the sketch on the paper loved the former!

The latter was actually not too sharp and very whiny!”

So when you are a Harvard dropout you may feel disheartened! Add to this big failure you somehow get a great idea and start a new company! 

Then how about when the first company you started is a big failure! 

That is full stop for most but this guy went on to become one of the wealthiest dude in the world!

So apparently State and local governments frequently used to perform traffic surveys with a pneumatic road tube traffic counter some time before the tech was available or developed!

Rubber hoses were stretched across a road and wheels of passing vehicles create air pulses that are recorded by a roadside counter!

In the 1970s the counts were mechanically recorded on a roll of paper tape! The time and number of axles were punched as a 16-bit pattern into the paper tape! This was the way data used to be collected at that time!

Cities would hire private companies to translate the data into reports that traffic engineers could use to adjust traffic lights or improve roads! 

This guy who had just dropped out of Harvard his friend were previously high school students at Lakeside School in Seattle. 

The Lakeside Programmers Group got free computer time on various computers in exchange for writing computer programs!

These two thought they could process the traffic data cheaper and faster than the local companies by building a computer that could process all the traffic tapes using the Intel 8008 processor!

The goal was to sell such machines to states and local governments as a time and cost-saving tool!

The next step was to build a device to read the traffic tapes directly and eliminate the tedious manual work. The Intel 8008 microprocessor was announced in 1972 and they realized it could read the tapes and process the data. 

Finally with a couple of members they went to talk to Paul Gilbert, another electrical engineering student, who worked in the high-energy tracking laboratory. It was there that Paul Gilbert was approached by the duo to become a partner in this company called the Traf-O-Data!

That year Gilbert, piece by piece, wire-wrapped, soldered, and assembled from electrical components the working microcomputer!

The two original dudes wrote the software! 

Now there were many reasons why the company failed but the chief ones were that the company had done zero market research and lacked any real business model!

Finally the State of Washington offered free traffic processing services to cities, ending the need for private contractors, and all three principals moved on to other projects!

Of course big failures sometimes give more experience than even successes! The failure gave the duo lessons which they would use in their new venture which was of course a big success! The other dude is Allen while the Harvard dropout is a dude you may have heard about in passing!

A geeky guy called Bill Gates! 

The real contribution of Traf-O-Data was the experience that Gates and Allen gained, skills they used to write Altair BASIC for the MITS Altair 8800 computer! So it has been said that even though Traf-O-Data wasn’t a roaring success, it was seminal in preparing them to make Microsoft’s first product a couple of years later. They taught themselves to simulate how microprocessors work, using DEC computers, so they could develop software even before their machine was built! 

The earlier failures gave them valuable lessons for future success! There is a similar anecdote in birthday celebrity Ashok Saraf’s initial days as a comedian! Once when he was going to Kolhapur for the shooting of his first film, the policemen recognized him, however they made fun of the actor saying that their life is better than that of the actor. After this Ashok Saraf hid his face under the blanket! Later on of course he became a super star of Marathi and Hindi cinema!

Now turn off the computers and sleep!

Shubh ratri!

“He bawled like a baby and laughed for fun!

He had just heard a story and another one! 

The once upon a time now gave him laughter!

’cause he knew ’twas real life and no happy ever after!”

All of you would have heard the amazing story of Margarete von Waldeck! 

Yes, the name may not be familiar but as you read the story you will get glimpses of the tale you have been told and the truth which was kept on hold!

Read on!

So Margarete von Waldeck, was a 16th century Bavarian noblewoman. 

Margarete’s stepmother, despising her, sent the beauty, Her strict stepmother and father sent her first to her uncle’s house, and then to the court of Mary of Hungary, where she was pursued by Prince Philip. Alas, their relationship was doomed, as Philip was a Catholic and Margaretha a Lutheran!

His father, the king of Spain, opposing the romance, dispatched Spanish agents to murder Margarete. They surreptitiously poisoned her.

Margaretha’s letters to her father before her death speak of failing health and the Waldeck chronicles suggested that she had been poisoned, dying at the age of 21.

So, does the story ring a bell? Look in the mirror perhaps!

Yes! This is the original story of the snow white and the seven dwarfs!

Now where are the dwarfs you may ask!

Well Margarete grew up in Bad Wildungen, where her brother used small children to work his copper mine. Severely deformed because of the physical labor mining required, they were despairingly referred to as dwarfs!

The poison apple is also rooted in fact; an old man would offer tainted fruits to the workers, and other children he believed stole from him!

Another interpretation does not involve the apple, in this the Wicked Queen tries both to suffocate Snow White by giving her a lacy bodice and then tightening the laces and to stab her in the head with a poisoned comb. The Queen gets her comeuppance at her step-daughter’s wedding, when the prince orders the her to wear a pair of red-hot iron slippers and to dance in them until she drops dead!

Other versions in other countries have Snow White taking refuge with robbers rather than dwarfs, or staying in a haunted castle or a house on the seashore, rather than in a forest! Other variants include an enchanted dress, poisoned stockings or deadly flowers, rather than poisoned apple, or Snow White being called Ermellina and running away from home by riding an eagle who takes her away to a palace inhabited by fairies!

Other versions have evil older sisters, rather than a stepmother, and Ziricochel (as our heroine is called in this Italian version) taking refuge with the Moon, who also plays the role of the magic mirror! The sisters send an astrologer to kill Ziricochel, who, after several failed attempts, turns her into a statue using an enchanted shirt. All comes good in the end, however, when the prince’s sisters remove the shirt and revive Ziricochel!

So convinced are the residents of the mine’s location – the village of Bergfreiheit – that they now call the village Schneewittchendorf (Snow White village)! Like they say it takes a village to make things happen! Maybe this is the reason why they are called fairy tales since only in them you have the ‘Happily ever after!’. Real life of course no fairy tale like the life of birthday celebrity Sunil Dutt who had struggles with his son but still came out shining because of resilience and determination which is what required and not any Prince charming’s kiss!

Now read some fairy tale to your kids and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

“The bell has to go ding dong!

Any other way is wrong!

The horse may not dance and hop!

But the Hooves always go clip clop!”

Any speaker of basic english (like most of us!) actually follow this rule without a thought! Now just think for yourself! When you describe the clock, you would always say tick tock! Have you ever said or hear anyone say tock tick?! How we always say Fiddle-faddle and never faddle fiddle?

There are numerous examples all over and we just follow it! It is always Chit Chat! No one usually says Chat chit! The big gorilla is King Kong and never Kong King! Unless of course you are master Yoda that is!

This rule is called the Ablaut reduplication!

READ ON!…

How does Ablaut reduplication work?

So, to explain the rule: if you have three words, then the vowel order has to be I, A, O. In the case of two words, the first is almost always an I and the second is either an A or O. For example, Mish-mash, chit-chat, dilly-dally, tip-top, hip-hop, flip-flop, tic tac toe, sing-song, ding-dong, King-Kong, ping pong! 

Another interesting grammar rule that we implement subconsciously applies when we describe things such as the name “little red riding hood”. Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose-noun. 

Here are some examples! They have a lovely old red post-box! or I bought some charming Victorian silver ornaments at the flea market! If you try to change the order (try it mentally!), it may still convey the meaning you want like a toddler learning to speak! But it does not feel right! 

This explains why we would say little green men instead of green little men!

There are exceptions to the adjective rule as the I-A-O rule takes priority over everything else. An example: Big bad wolf. This rule is deeply rooted in our language, and it defies logic too. If we think about it, a horse’s four hooves make exactly the same sound as they hit the ground but to describe the sound we say clip-clop. Or It is always The little Red Riding hood! Never any other way! 

Now of course this rule is not only in English but in most languages! This is because the Ablaut reduplication isn’t seen just in English. This is because of the letter e! This is the most commonly used letter in the English language! 

So taking that into consideration, the letter e and the various derivations of the sound e are also essential in Indo-European languages. English also belongs to this language group. The words within this language group, generally speaking, follow specific patterns – usually consonant – vowel – consonant. So this rule also applies in Indo-European languages, and it also behaves similarly. 

Here we also should know what are known as the Ablaut grades. 

So Ablaut is the name of the process whereby the core vowel, which is almost always an e as mentioned above, would either be lengthened, altered to an o, altered and lengthened, or completely removed, known as the zero grade (an example of a zero grade: does not – doesn’t). 

This results in five ablaut grades overall: full grade (e), altered grade (o), lengthened grade (ee), altered length grade (oo), and zero grade (nothing). The first vowel is almost always a high vowel. This is then followed by the repetition of a lower vowel in relation to the first vowel. This is why the order is I, A, O! 

These grades give us patterns like sing-sang-sung outcomes in English, although we don’t use this process anymore to make new words but these matter when you use reduplication!

You will never eat a Kat Kit bar. The bells in Frère Jaques will forever chime ‘ding dang dong’! There are similar unwritten rules to be followed when telling things like black and white! It cannot be white and black! Does not sound right! Like the name of today’s birthday celebrity is Dinyar Contractor and not Contractor Dinyar! Still remember his spectacle movement scenes with the simultaneous movement of ears! It used to be so smooth and funny!

Now brush your teeth and sleep! Not the other way around!

ratri shubh…I mean Shubh Ratri!