ramadocblog

“She was red filled with ire!
A dry wood would have caught fire!
Just like the the waterfall it drops
Thank heavens for the emotional stops!”

How many times you have called this to someone in anger!?

The starting point of name calling usually is with this name! Of course for people like me who do not go to severe name calling!

read on!

Now do not call me that for delaying the answer!

The answer is Idiot! I usually use the indian version of GAVAR!

When you simply call someone an Idiot, you are actually calling him a deft definition of a child whose mental capacity is not gone beyond two years! In fact there is a big classification of Idiots!

As early as 1912, Edmund Burke Huey proposed a classification of ‘feeble minded children’ .
His classification goes like this
Idiots. —Those so defective that the mental development never exceeds that of a normal child of about two years.
Imbeciles. —Those whose development is higher than that of an idiot, but whose intelligence does not exceed that of a normal child of about seven years finally Morons. —Those whose mental development is above that of an imbecile, but does not exceed that of a normal child of about twelve years!

Of these three words moron is the newest (it dates to the early 20th century), and the only one coined specifically for the purpose of medical diagnosis!
The word comes from the Greek mōros, meaning “foolish, stupid,” and shares this etymology with words such as sophomore (“a student in the second year at college or a 4-year secondary school”) and morosoph (“a learned fool”)!

But in the age of the Millennials and the Gen Z and the latest generations; these classifications are what Joe says; a Moo point!

Imbecile began its life in English in the 16th century from the Latin imbecillus, “weak, weak-minded” while Idiot, from the Greek idios (“private” or “one’s own”), is the oldest of these words, and has been in continual use since the 14th century.

The levels of idiocy has also been extended to include words like Jobbernowl, loblolly, driveler! These offer just a glimpse of the many non-clinical ways our language has of referring to those chuckleheads in your way! And yes chucklehead is just a stupid person!

Finally the naming of Down’s syndrome is deeply rooted in the classification of idiocy. This was by the British physician John Down who sought a useful classification in order to provide better care. Apparently on his way to a brilliant career in London, Down chose instead to become the superintendent of Royal Earlswood Asylum for Idiots and later published a new classification of “idiocy” based on a theory that it could be related to ethnicity. This of course was shocking and it took one century for the great non IDIOTs of the British society to realise that there can be more intelligent people in other races also!

Down referred to the condition as mongolism then almost a century later a group of physicians wrote to the Lancet to demand that mongolism be abandoned as a medical term and the current term; Down syndrome, was adopted! The naming of this condition as Down is actually a definite breaking of prejudice!

Free of Prejudice and only pure talent also was Paliyath Jayachandran! He will be missed

Heartfelt condolences…

Om Shanthi
Shubh Ratri…

“It came so fast and went like a blur!
Week was a moment in a spur!
The first week is done no fear!
Still wish you a very happy new year!”


The first week of the year!

This year was a roller coaster ride!

Went from normal short blogs to full lenght blogs! Not to mention the sketches and the quirky poems (which are mainly for my life… I mean wife since she likes poems so much!).

In case you were wondering how it can be done in between the busy practice and handling kids and their homework! Not to mention the Hindi and Mathematics assignments (love the latter though!)!
Also since we are NRIs; we have to do all housework! So cooking is shared and so is other house work! It is not a simple task when the hours are limited and time flies like a jet on nitro!

This can happen only by time sense and discipline and no this is not the introduction of a self help book by Sriram!

In fact I need help! The day I am late in sketching or the blog is not done, my anxiety levels are through the roof! This when I am already a very anxious dude! Then if the sketch does not come out well, it is a big pain! Still I do put the bad ones since I want to improve everyday!

Then again I do not check my phone till I reach the hospital and see the pending patients! Early morning getting up and getting the kids ready to go to the school is a given! Even then no phones to be checked! It is a big step!

Only after all the pending work is done does the phone gets checked! The first thing I do is look out for celebrities in terms of birthday or historical!

This is actually a very difficult task since you need to find someone who is non controversial and non political! My personal preference is also for people who are older than me! And those who ‘deserve’ my respect! That’s already a very short list! Then again sometimes I select them for some amazing feat! Artists are selected irrespective of what type of ‘mortals’ they are! Rest go through scrutiny!

All this in between the patients and the injections and the procedures!

Then practice has made it better and the sketch does not take much time! Then again my eyes are not what it used to be before and the accomodation does a number sometimes! The eyes get crooked or the nose goes to the dust! If I do not give full attention, it will not be good! This is because I am not a BORN artist! For the blog however, the words come easily enough!

However (see I did not use but!); it is real HARD WORK! To get a new topic everyday and make sure that gets linked which I purposely do as an experiment but now compulsory since that is something that an AI CANNOT do!

Which means that the blogs and sketches are hundred percent human! Many technical details and facts are verbatim though since they cannot be created! But the selection of topic and the “Nathan” garnish is hundred percent mine! My wife often complains that when I put so many personal things in the blog, everyone knows about you! I tell her, “no one knows me as well as she does!” and that is the truth!

Also I use Snapseed to modify my sketches so that no one can tamper or use the ‘original’. Many say the original looks better but that you have to see personally and decide!

Of course the assurance is that sketches and blogs are better! There may be repeats in terms of both but the latter version should be better is my hope!

How the week went by I don’t know! But was so busy that the collage I was to place on the first, am posting now!

And even then now there is no way that all 366 sketches come in the collage!

You can see them in my WhatsApp or X or IG page!

You can read the full blogs in my blog post!

I have often sketched Yesudas since I simply love his Ayyappa songs! They are so devotional and deep!

A very happy birthday to him…


Wishes for a great year!
God bless….

“The writing on the wall was for all to see
Then again I knew it was only for me!
The words were white and definitely loud!
Then again it was written in the cloud!”

Did you know that the person who is responsible for the safety of more than 300-400 people gets trained by being blinded!?

or by wearing Foggles! WHAT IS THAT!?

read on!

In this novel called Don’t let others rent space in your head by Gary Coxe; Gary talks about Irrational Optimism which is a different blog but then he tells about how Pilots are trained!

When we were young there were only two movies for people who wanted to be Pilots! One of course was Top Gun! While the other was this little gem called Vijeta! Everyone would have seen Top Gun and Tom with his Ray Ban and his confidence! The way he walks and talks and his whole attitude reeks of confidence which gets shaken when he meets with an accident of course. But this is what Gary is trying to tell in the novel about Irrational Optimism! Confidence is good but overconfidence is never good!

Then you have Vijeta! In a serene performance by the son of Shashi Kapoor; Kunaal comes across as a nervous guy who has no idea of what he has to do! He jumps from one place to another to finally join the air force to try and become a fighter pilot! That is the most difficult job in the force!

In one scene he gets frozen in mid air putting both him and his instructor’s life at risk! To recover from that and then become a pilot is a great task indeed!

Which is why training for the Pilots is a very important task indeed!

Apparently one of the commonest Pilot cause for a crash is the loss of orientation or Vertigo! Which becomes worse when there is bad weather and low visibility! Which is why fresh pilots are never allowed to fly in bad weather.

The crux apparently here is that the pilots must not trust their instincts but rely on the instruments! Now Gary states that when you consider the effects of vertigo and the training necessary to teach someone to ignore feelings and obey instruments, it might just sound as though the agency has appropriately strict guidelines in place but it is not so!

The interesting thing is that many, if not most, pilots who pass their instrument checkride, who are legal to fly in the clouds and take you up with them, have never actually flown through a cloud?

But rest assured their training has been done! This is where the Foggles come into play! In the instrument checkride training, the conditions of low or no visibility is presented while flying to the Pilot. He is either blind folded or the outer environment is hooded or he is given a foggy goggles called the Foggles! All these keep his outer environment and his or her own personal visual cues out of the action and he or she is asked to fly and land the plane only by using the instruments of the Plane and nothing else!


Of course you have requirements of certain hours to qualify for the commercial pilot license so you do not have to worry! Also a commercial flight has great ground and other technical support for added safety.

However, Gary actually makes a teaching point in the whole scheme of things in that he says that in many decisions of your life you must use your instruments to fly and ignore your feelings! This is because sometimes your feelings actually make you take the wrong decisions!

Deep though which can reach the skies! Of course for being a Pilot you have to do multitasking! Which reminds me of Multitalented Pritish Nandy! Heartfelt condolences

Om Shanthi

Shubh ratri…

“What’s your favourite colour was the q!
Colours there are plenty not one or two!
Red has been the top in my sight!
Then again mix all up you get white!”

You know some metals are ICONic!? and they have an attractive personality!?

Do not try to strain your brain now!

read on!

Without much ado I would tell you that these metals are Magnetic! They are Iron (I), Cobalt (Co) and Nickel (Nic!)! The acronym is copyright to me now!

We used to love magnets! Our most common source of magnets was in the small motors which used to come with most cars or circuit kits!

The way it used to work was so amazing!

We used to remove the tip of the motor and attach a plastic fan! This used to give so much air in small volt! One fine day we decided to up the voltage and see if the fan could lift the motor and we could make a Helicopter!

The motor which normally used to work well with the 3 volt adapter then got a boost of 12 volt! It was a adapter from dad’s car battery charger!

The moment we connected it, there was a sudden surge in the speed! It simply moved so fast! So much that it lifted the motor! We had a lift off! Then immediately there was a sudden spark, followed by the dropping of the motor and some fumes! My mom immediately picked up the burnt smell and asked from the kitchen if everything was ok!

All ok was our reply!

Yeah sure, the motor was gone and burnt without repair but at least we could play with its magnets!

The circular magnet was the best part of the motor! That motor was also like a speaker! If you connect the wire to the speaker to the motor and place it on a solid surface and if you place your ears close then you would see that the motor does not move but you can hear the song! Of course that is also the basic structure of a speaker!

One of our favourite projects was to make the electromagnet! Wrapping an iron rod with copper wire and then when you electrify it, you get a magnet!

Later on in our physics labs we used to love charting out the magnetic flow using small iron dust!

Magnets were the most natural form of a magic! Some huge magnets are in fact so powerful that they can simply attract! Even the MRI machines actually have huge magnets which is why you have to be very careful while entering an MRI!
Also the fact that MRI works using magnetic properties in your blood is also pretty interesting!

Magnetic resonance imaging works by passing an electric current through coiled wires to create a temporary magnetic field in your body. A transmitter/receiver in the machine then sends and receives radio waves. The computer then uses these signals to make digital images of the scanned area of your body!

The origin of course is also interesting! They come from Lodestones!

Lodestones are naturally magnetized pieces of the mineral magnetite. They are naturally occurring magnets, which can attract iron. The property of magnetism was first discovered in antiquity through lodestones.

Pieces of lodestone, suspended so they could turn, were the first magnetic compasses and their importance to early navigation is indicated by the name lodestone, which in Middle English means “course stone” or “leading stone”, from the now-obsolete meaning of lode as “journey, way”. The name magnet may come from lodestones found in Magnesia, Anatolia!

The chronicled history of magnetism dates back to 600 BC. Lodestone’s magnetic properties were studied and documented by the famous Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus!

Around the same period, the magnetic properties of lodestone were known in India, and the well-known ancient physician sage Sushruta applied it to draw out metal splinters from bodies of injured soldiers!

The three elemental metals that are naturally ferromagnetic are iron, cobalt, and nickel! The ICONic trio!
Another Iconic personality is Harris Jayaraj! I just love some of his songs! Peppy and fast and they lift you up and attract your musical quest like a magnet!

Now listen to some HJ numbers like Vaseegara and sleep!
Shubh ratri!

“It has no colour but takes it all!
Can rise like wind and then take a fall!
Drink it up with no regrets!
Cause it’s simply water you all!”

Everyone looks into it but everyone sees a different thing always! No two people can see the exact same thing! Then again if one person looks into it then he or she will always see the same thing! It is never different!

Then again no human or any being can stop looking at it!
They also reduce anxiety for some and increase for some others!
Now now! Patience!

read on…

Without dangling the thread of suspense let me tell you that the answer is a MIRROR!

Whenever you give your pen to someone to write anything, more often than not he or she would sign or write his or her own name! That is a natural tendency!

In the same way, no human can resist looking at the mirror when they see one! Even if it is a passing glance!

Mirrors are so essential that no house can do without them!

Even if he or she asks him or her; “Am I looking good?”; he or she would always double check in the mirror!

It is amazing how you look at yourself in the mirror and see that the person in side the mirror is looking at you actually! Have you ever wondered if the image stays there after you!

Did you know that when you feel that you are not looking good and anxious, the mirror lets you know that! Then again it can also reduce your anxiety! It will show you that no matter how much alone you are in this world, there always would be that man or woman in the mirror who will always be with you and know your innermost thoughts! The one who knows all your secrets! And the one who would never betray you!

Ok that was too deep! Then again mirrors came to the rescue in tall buildings and how!

Now when elevators to tall buildings used to take so much time to travel people used to complain that it was slow! Now you cannot increase the speed too much so a better option was to install mirrors in the elevators!

Now every human likes to see the mirror since that face he or she sees is a familiar one! And this was an effective way to pass time!


Apparently elevator mirrors serve multiple purposes beyond aesthetics, such as alleviating anxiety by creating the illusion of more space and enhancing safety by allowing occupants to see who is behind them!

Additionally, they aid in accessibility for wheelchair users and offer a harmless distraction during elevator rides!

Just make sure that the mirror is clean though! Since a dirty mirror still gives an image but it may not be to your liking! Then again you can clean a dirty mirror and remove the spots but no amount of cleaning would remove the dirt in your minds and soul! That need spiritual cleaning!

In Japan – which is thought to be where the lift mirror was first introduced – the chief purpose was accessibility. Platform lifts can make buildings accessible for wheelchair users where stairs present an obstacle. However, the size of the lift may mean that there is no space for a wheel chair user to turn around inside it!

The placement of mirrors helps someone in a wheelchair to back in or out of the lift safely without having to turn. This can prevent accidents and make life easier for anyone with a physical disability using your building! It is like the rearview mirror of your car which you can use when you are reversing!

Mirror mirror on the wall! As a director and actor K Bhagyaraj was tall!

Now look at the mirror with confidence and brush your teeth and sleep!

Shubh ratri!

“He screamed at the poor old bloke
In a language only he spoke!
Still the guy felt sad!
Its the tone and not the language which is bad!”

What is the connection between the Periodic table and Sanskrit!?

That is for you to know and me to explain!

read on!

Who does not know the periodic table! Some may even remember the elements on the table!

Most remember the order of at least the first twenty or forty elements though during schooling years, it was imperative to know the whole list!

Lanthanides and actinides who were mentioned separately were a big bore though! It was so difficult to remember their names!

I had learnt a Mnemonic to get the elements by remembering their symbols and it really worked! During one physics test I was so happy when questions like write the atomic number and Names were asked! Then when I heard couple of my classmates ask for the log book I was so surprised since that question was in the end!

Then I realised that the Log book which we used to use also had a section where the periodic tables were mentioned! All that memorisation for nothing!
It also had a couple of other ‘information’ which could ‘help’ us in the questions! Guess studying and memorising is good! But being smart is better!

Now the person who created or the founder of Periodic Table was Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev!

He also went further in conceptualizing periodicity as a fundamental law governing the nature of the elements. Based on that insight, whenever the properties of a given element didn’t fit the overall pattern, he famously left an empty spot in his table for an as yet undiscovered element!
In spite of the critics at the time, the missing spot ‘elements’ were discovered later with the said properties validating Dmitri!

He was puzzled about where to put the known lanthanides, and even predicted the existence of another row to the table which were the actinides which were some of the heaviest in atomic weight and even these were found later and shifted to another block just as predicted!

Now the more interesting point here is that he used the prefixes eka, dvi, and tri, Sanskrit for the numbers one, two, and three, to name these hypothetical elements, referring to the number of places they were from a known, lighter element in the same group!

Have you heard these names before!? Well yes! They are Sanskrit!


Let that sink in. Not Greek. Not Latin. Not even German, the lingua franca of science in continental Europe and of Dmitri at the time.

But Sanskrit!

Before you start to think why let us know about Otto von Böhtlingk who was a Russian-German Indologist and Sanskrit scholar. His magnum opus was a Sanskrit-German dictionary. During that time he was preparing his second edition of his book on Panini!

Now who was Panini!? If you are an Bharatiya, you would know or at least heard of him somewhere! Even then just know that Pāṇini or Sanskrit: पाणिनि, was a Sanskrit grammarian, logician, philologist, and revered scholar in ancient India, between the 7th and 4th century BCE

With his most notable work, the Aṣṭādhyāyī, Pāṇini has been considered the “first descriptive linguist”, and even labelled as “the father of linguistics”.
His approach to grammar influenced many foundational linguists in the modern time like Otto von Böhtlingk!

Finally let us see the explanation!

By using Sanskrit prefixes to name “missing” elements, Mendeleev may have recorded his debt to the Sanskrit grammarians of ancient India, who had created theories of language based on their discovery of the two-dimensional patterns of speech sounds (exemplified by the Śivasūtras in Pāṇini’s Sanskrit grammar!).

Mendeleev was a friend and colleague of the Sanskritist Otto von Böhtlingk, who was preparing the second edition of his book on Pāṇini at about this time, and Mendeleev wished to honor Pāṇini with his nomenclature!

That my friends is the complete picture!

Another picture which is not only complete but also amazing would be the life story of our celebrity! Captain Bana Singh PVC! Just listening to his saga of his part played in the Capture of Siachen post will make you feel so proud! Do read about him if you can, thats written in English or any language, not necessarily sanskrit!


SHubh ratri!

Jai HInd!

“It goes and comes and never stops!

That’s like rabbit jumping hops!

In comes the new out with the old!

Just like life that’s one year old!”

This was a king of kings! Yes; ‘THIS’ since ‘it’ is non living!

The fact remains that ‘it’ was the most powerful in the world!

read on!

The movie Oppenheimer is more about the person than the basic reason why you watched the movie! Yes! The development and deployment of Atom bomb! 

Instead the movie becomes a soap opera with ego clashes and trials! Frankly  in spite of being a big admirer of Nolan movies, this was a disappointment! 

The bomb is left to the background and this cannot be right since that’s is the first time an atom bomb was used and the whole world saw the destruction it can cause!

The human being is the only animal in the world which can try to develop much more complex means of annihilation of his or her own species and planet!

Now you would think that it was the most powerful bomb! But it was actually just the beginning! The race would lead to even more complex bomb! 

The atom bombs use the fission of atoms to give so much energy! But you have another bomb using the Fusion energy which in fact makes the sun blaze which is much more more powerful than fission bombs!

In fact the initial step to make hydrogen bomb is to first make an atomic bomb! That is the needed first step since the energy to produce Hydrogen bomb is huge which can be created only by a Fission bomb! This is also mentioned in passing in the movie since there is one team which wanted to develop the Fission while one wanted to make the Fusion! Then he was told how the first step to make a Fusion reaction is to first make a fission one!

And a hydrogen bomb can be even 1000 times as powerful as an atomic bomb! 

Now as far as weaponry goes; the most powerful bomb ever to be produced and ‘tested’ is the king of bombs called the TSAR BOMBA!

The Tsar Bomba is the single most physically powerful device ever deployed on Earth, the most powerful nuclear bomb tested and the largest human-made explosion in history.

For comparison, the largest weapon ever produced by the US, the now-decommissioned B41, had a predicted maximum yield of 25 Mt (100 PJ). 

The largest nuclear device ever tested by the US (Castle Bravo) yielded 15 Mt (63 PJ) because of an unexpectedly high involvement of lithium-7 in the fusion reaction; the preliminary prediction for the yield was from 4 to 6 Mt (17 to 25 PJ).  By comparison the Hiroshima bomb had an yield of around 16KT (Thats Kiloton and not Megaton which is much higher!) 

A comparision is that Tsar bomba is 3,300 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima!

All that force and power is trapped inside an atom!

In fact it was opined that if atoms of a single average human are converted into bomb then according to Einstein, it will be equal to thirty Hydrogen bombs! See the power inside you!? You are actually a bomb!

A power of another kind; powerhouse of acting was also Charu Hasan

Now hope you enjoyed the first Sunday of the year! 

Shubh ratri!

“The bed so soft it feels like a cottony cloud!
The size so big t’will make you proud!
All the money you have in the keep!
Not enough to buy you some sleep!”

This is never a thing which you can see or feel! But still it is worth thousands of dollars and is one of the most exclusive commodity in the world today!

No! It is not your brain which you may not see but know it is there! But it can really stump your brain!


read on!

The biggest commodity in every industry is of course money! Then there is a form of money which you cannot see!

If someone says money is not necessary then he or she is either lying or well he or she is definitely lying!

Only thing is that it is not the most important thing and not the only necessary thing!

In the novel called the Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous he talks about different forms of currencies over the history starting with salt or a piece of limestone to gold and other metals to paper money!

Except gold which is a currency which can always be quantified and which would never fade away, other currencies are dependent on the state of the government and other economic factors.

This is where the latest currency craze, which is bitcoin comes into play! Now this is one the many types of currencies which is not under any control!

Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto!

But did you know that even that is a pseudonym! No one has actually seen or met him!

In a documentary it was speculated that that Peter Todd, a college student in 2008, might be the original creator of the cryptocurrency!
Then again it has not been proven possibly so that people could take Bitcoin seriously, so they could believe it was created by a famous cryptographer and not some kid still in school!

Use of bitcoin as a currency began in 2009, with the release of its open-source implementation

In fact in one country in 2021, El Salvador adopted it as legal tender!

Now how powerful is a Bitcoin? Well, the first time Bitcoin was used for purchase was in around 2009-10 for buying a pizza! The buyer paid ten thousand bitcoins for that!

That would have in all probability the most costliest burger in the world! Because cut to 2021 and the value of a single bitcoin is 46k dollars and in 2024 Bitcoin’s price today is US$98,139.43!

And if you think practically it is not gold or cash! It is a mode of transaction or legal tender which you cannot see or hold in your hand!
It’s a mode of payment which is virtual! The Bitcoin are limited currency which cannot be produced more if you need so there will not be any recession!

It is not controlled by the central government and Bitcoin cannot be hacked since it would take so much more effort and resource and the end result without POW is useless!

POW is proof of work which has to be authenticated by a group who are paid for it and they will also never be hacked! Also the cluster size is fixed and that the original Bitcoin can be modified but that will lead to another currency so it is better to not modify it!

Then again you would think if you cannot touch or hold it then how can you put value to it? Well, if you practically think then even the 500 INR in your hand is having that value only because the government says so and certifies it! Without that it is just a piece of paper! Like how during the demonetisation that 500 rupees became ZERO overnight!

For now in spite of the controversies and illegal trading, for all practical matters, Bitcoin is one of the top contenders for the currency of the future! Let us wait and see how it goes!

Like old times maybe we return back to salt for money if the Bitcoin is a bit too much! Now speaking of old times reminds me of Sital Batabyal and his old super cool movies! I used to love watching his classic movies! You may know him as Pradeep Kumar!

Now crypto or not! Let all trading cease so that you can sleep in peace since Bitcoins may give you a comfortable bed but sleep has to be earned without it!

Shubh ratri!

“The sun shines bright and white!

Takes the darkness away ain’t that right! 

Then again even the night not so bad!

All that silence makes you glad”

This was a gas used like alcohol!

Of course it got used for medical reasons!

Started by a Chemist, popularised by a dentist and even Joker from Batman uses it!

read on!

The moment I mentioned Joker I guess it was obvious that it was Laughing Gas! 

The actual used of this is now in anesthesia but when Nitrous Oxide was discovered it was actually a recreational drug!

In fact this was gas which was used to get a high! 

It was an addiction like smoking! In fact the chemist who described so many elements died by constantly inhaling it! 

Even after the invention it was mainly used as a party pill!

Despite Davy’s discovery that inhalation of nitrous oxide could relieve a conscious person from pain, another 44 years elapsed before doctors attempted to use it for anaesthesia!

The use of nitrous oxide as a recreational drug at “laughing gas parties”, primarily arranged for the British upper class, became an immediate success beginning in 1799. While the effects of the gas generally make the user appear stuporous, dreamy and sedated, some people also “get the giggles” in a state of euphoria, and frequently erupt in laughter!

Only later a dental surgeon named Horace Wells used it as an anesthetic agent when it was realised 44 years after the discovery of this gas that it relieves pain! 

Of course now it is not a primary anesthetic agent and acts mainly as an adjunct but it was a major push towards anesthesia and development of other more potent medications and drugs for relieving pain during surgery.

Now this gas has a new use! 

In the early 1980’s, the low-dose dental titration technique was first used to investigate and treat psychiatric conditions, including substance abuse! The gas is now a research project for its use in Neuropsychiatry!

So if you meet a Neurologist or a psychologist at some time in future and if he or she is laughing even at your bland jokes then make sure there is no leak of the Laughing gas!

It is no laughing matter that Chetan Anand was an accomplished director and producer specially his series on Param Veer Chakra!

Now let those conversations and laughter cease cause this is the time to sleep! 

Shubh Ratri!

“Made yesterday broken very soon!

Keeping is rare like the dark side of the moon!

Make them and make sure they are set!

Breaking a resolution is an easy bet!”

Oh the resolutions!

So easy to make and so easy to break!

then again; that is what makes you a mortal!

Read on!

I normally try not to make resolutions! Maybe that is my resolution which is to make no resolution! This is because over 90 percent of the new year resolutions do not work!

But if at all there is some version of resolution it can be to make blogs which are shorter and more interesting! It may even be a blog which I have written before but a crispier more readable version!

It is the same with the sketches! and maybe even poems!

To make better versions every single day!

That is the only resolution which is required and it does not need the completion of the revolution of the Earth to start! Which is to be your better self every other day!

Traditionally of course we still believe that our new year is during the months of March-April and we usually celebrate them with much more pomp and conviction! In fact we used to get new clothes for sure only during ‘our’ new  year! 

The ‘English’  new year was only for the cake cutting and watching new years special on the TV! We all used to see the pre recorded program and felt so nice and special! The countdown in the TV was the official countdown since our clocks were never in sync! There was no mobile network and there was no OTT!

So there were no resolutions and we did not think about this “New year” much! The march april new year was the time to celebrate! In fact that was the origin of the new year and new year resolution since it was the time of harvest!

At that time in an effort to impress upon their gods and benefactors, people would like to be better versions of themselves!

The beginning of the year was like a start over of life! From this point onwards was the key! And everyone needs a start over; a turning point in their life!

It is obvious that like India, many civilizations across the world have celebrated the turning of the year for millennia!

Although they didn’t necessarily use the term resolutions, they tried to enter the new year with a positive mindset, as recorded by early first century texts such as the Roman poet Ovid’s “Fasti” — a six-part account of the Roman year and its religious festivals.

They also exchanged gifts of figs and honey or other foodstuffs that represented prosperity, and ensured they worked for part of the day as a good omen for the coming year!

When it comes to ancient forms of New Year’s resolution throughout history and across cultures we see the same principle at play.

In Ireland, having a clean house at the start of the year symbolized a fresh start and the luck of the house for the coming year! This is what we do all over in Indian festivals! The concept of out with the old and welcome the new is spread across almost all the Indian festivals!

There’s also the figuratively regenerative burning of the Año Viejo in Colombia, Ecuador and other parts of Latin America. In this out-with-the-old tradition, which is Spanish for “old year,” families stuff a life-size male doll with memories of the outgoing year or other materials and dress it in their clothing before setting the doll ablaze at midnight! This so similar to the Baisakhi or Lohri festival!

All in all, the new year is a time to try to be the NEW you!

But (yeah, my resolution must be to use less of but!); the most important resolution to make is to just be a better version of yourself every single day! A positive step upwards no matter how small will finally make you much better! 

Like the proverbial Tortoise or the slug which climbs two steps in the morning and then falls one step back, the journey to perfection is a journey! You can never reach the end! The whole point is to enjoy the journey and learn and better yourself if possible!

Fun and joy reminds me of Asrani and his comic timings!

Let this year make you strong!

Shubh ratri!