ramadocblog

Would you be shocked if I ask the question; what is the common historic link between the Middle east, Asia and America!?

The shock will come when I tell the answer by the way! The common thing is ‘The CAMEL!’

Then you will think what the Camel has to do with America! No no! You cannot store Oil in its hump!

The origin of the SHIP of the desert is actually from, hold your breath; AMERICA!

What’s unique about the earliest camels, Protylopus and Poebrotherium, is that they appeared about 45 million years ago in the North American rainforests and savannahs! One of the strangest places Paracamelus (which is also an ancestor of camel) fossils have been found was Ellesmere Island in northern Canada! The temperature there at the time was often below zero, with 6-month-long winters and very few sun rays. Not the place you’d expect to find a camel at!

Camels first evolved in North America around 40 to 50 million years ago, starting as rabbit-sized animals in ancient forests.

The earliest known camelid ancestor, Protylopus, was no larger than a rabbit and lived in the open forests of present-day South Dakota!

Over millions of years, they grew larger and adapted from dense forests to open grasslands. The sheep-sized Poebrotherium emerged 35 million years ago with features much closer to modern camelids.

The Ice Age camel Camelops evolved about 3 to 5 million years ago. Standing up to 7 feet tall, these imposing herbivores roamed widely from Alaska down into Mexico!

Then started the global migration and separation!

Around 6 to 7 million years ago, camel ancestors (Paracamelus) crossed the Bering Land Bridge (connecting modern-day Alaska and Russia) into Asia. These eventually gave rise to today’s Old World camels (the single-humped Dromedary and two-humped Bactrian)!

Then about 3 to 5 million years ago, early camels migrated south across the Isthmus of Panama, eventually evolving into modern South American camelids like the llama, alpaca and guanaco.

But the original native camelids (along with other megafauna like horses and mammoths) disappeared from North America about 13,000 years ago. Scientists generally attribute this extinction to a harsh combination of shifting Ice Age climate changes and aggressive hunting by early human arrivals!

So if you can speak to the camel and ask where it originally came from, it will look at you and say; “I am originally from America Mate!” Of course his CARD may not be green!

Then again all said and done the Camel is a majestic hard working SHIP of the desert and hard workers shine no matter where they come from!

Just like our hard working president Droupadi Murmu madam!

Now sleep like a Camel or Human! You decide!

SHubh ratri…

In three of the five most famous books by Robert Greene; Robert uses the MIRROR analogy!


In the novel 48 laws of power Robert Greene explores the Mirror Effect! The law titled “Disarm and Infuriate with the Mirror Effect” is told to be used as a tool for deception, seduction, and strategic psychological control. By mimicking an opponent’s actions, values, or body language, you neutralize their strategy and disorient them!

When you mirror your enemies by doing exactly as they do, they struggle to figure out your strategy. This reflection disarms them, making it an excellent tool for defensive shielding and offensive deception.

By mimicking an opponent’s behavior and applying it back to them, you subtly mock or humiliate them. This frequently forces them to overreact, lose their temper, and make strategic mistakes!

Then in the novel The Art of Seduction, Greene notes that because humans have a narcissistic streak, mirroring someone’s body language, values, and ideas is highly hypnotic. It creates an illusion of a profound, shared connection, drawing them under your spell!


Finally outside of psychological manipulation, Greene frequently emphasizes that you must act as a metaphorical mirror to yourself. Training your mind to see yourself exactly as the world and others see you is essential for acquiring real power, understanding your true flaws, and achieving Mastery!

If you are human and if you ever cross a mirror; you would definitely stop to check yourself even if it is for an instant! Unless of course you are a Vampire or a Ghost! Then you may ask then how are Vampires so well groomed! Well they groom each other!

Then you have the Man in the mirror analogy which is my favourite! The only person you need to answer to at the end of the day is the MAN or the WOMAN in the mirror!

Show your deeds to yourself in the mirror! Like the deeds of shakthiman or Bheeshma! Which reminds me of Mukesh Khanna

Now stop staring at the mirror and sleep

Shubh Ratri…

Sometimes when our concentration is somewhere else; we miss the obvious!

In an experiment it was shown that in a group of people playing basketball, the ‘audience’  failed to see a GORILLA!

That famous experiment is called the Invisible Gorilla experiment (I don’t think they spent much time in NAMING the experiment though!)

Anyway, the Invisible Gorilla experiment is a landmark psychological study that demonstrates inattentional blindness—the phenomenon where we fail to notice fully visible but unexpected events when our attention is narrowly focused elsewhere!

In 1999, psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris conducted this famous study at Harvard University.

The task was that the Participants watched a short video of six people—three in white shirts and three in black shirts—passing basketballs. Viewers were instructed to count the number of passes made by the players in white. Simple enough but here lies the catch!

The Surprise was that roughly halfway through the video, a person in a full-body gorilla suit walked into the middle of the scene, stopped, faced the camera, thumped its chest, and walked off.

The gorilla was on screen for about 9 seconds.

But did you know that  Astonishingly, about 50% of the viewers completely failed to notice the gorilla!


Do see the video but since you know the result; try to show it to someone who has not seen it before! They will be so busy counting the ball passes that they will not SEE or rather NOTICE the Gorilla!

The Key Takeaways of this famous experiment which has been repeated many times with similar results many!

On is the selective attention capability of the brain! Because our brain’s processing capacity is limited, we filter out vast amounts of visual information to focus on the task at hand. It is like if we are driving, we SEE only the road but do not NOTICE other things!

Also there is a matter of overconfidence: The experiment highlights an “illusion of attention.” Most people confidently believe they would notice a giant, unexpected gorilla!

There are so many real world implication of this like how having a cognitive blind spot can have serious consequences.
For instance, studies have shown that even highly trained experts—like radiologists reading lung scans—can miss obvious anomalies when their attention is tightly focused on searching for something specific!

It is such a simple but complicated thing! I still remember in our practical examination how we were presented with a scan with so many findings! We were to write the findings in the next station! But the very first question in the next station was; For five marks ‘What is the name of the patient?’

Most of us missed it!

So hopefully in the quest for the rare or unknown, try not to miss the OBVIOUS!

Obvious also is the fact that Sathyan Sivakumar is a good comedian!

Shubh ratri…

Do you know that there is a MASCULINE bundle in your heart!

Maybe that’s why men are associated with most things ‘heart’!

Both males and females have this  ‘MASCULINE’ bundle! Of course it is only in name! The name is BUNDLE OF HIS!

Ok ok; I will not be HEARTLESS; I will tell you more about it!

The most automatic organ in the body is your heart! It has to RUN non stop and it can be RESTARTED after it stops! The question then remains from where the IGNITION or start of the heart beat occurs?

In 1839, Jan Evangelista Purkinje discovered a net of gelatinous fibres in the subendocardium of the heart. Walter Gaskell in the 1880s observed that the impulse of the heart began in the sinus venosus, and that this region had the most rhythmic ability!

Then later on conducting bundle between the atrium and the ventricle was found by Wilhelm His, Jr in 1893! (THAT’S WHY ITS CALLED BUNDLE OF HIS! NOTHING MASCULINE ABOUT IT!)


In 1906, Sunao Tawara found a “complex knoten” of tissue at the proximal end of the His bundle. He concluded that this was the inception of an electrical conducting system which continued from the AV node through the bundle of His, divided into the bundle branches, and terminated as the Purkinje fibres!


Finally the BEGINNING of the heart beat was found in the end!

Arthur Keith and Martin Flack discovered the sinus node which is the beginning of your heart beat!

The sinoatrial (SA) node is the heart’s natural pacemaker. In a healthy adult, its intrinsic resting rate is 60 to 100 beats per minute (bpm).

This specialized group of cells dictates your baseline heart rate, though it naturally adapts and increases during stress or physical exertion.

The rate of the sinus node varies depending on how the heart is functioning and the specific rhythm it produces!

If everything is normal then the heart will have a rhythm which is equal to the rate of beating of SA node! Which is why a normal beating heart is said to have the SINUS RHYTHM…

Heart rate also increases when you are excited! Or laughing! Which reminds me of that hilarious show called Dekh bhai dekh!
Which of course reminds me of Shekar Suman…

Now relax your heart and sleep!

Subh ratri…

Todays blog will be BLOODY!

Its literal by the way!

This one act by anyone is one of the best forms of service and atruism!

You can do this act and it is true charity since even the recipients do not know who has given this donation!

Like the saying goes; “when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” It defines true charity as giving in complete secrecy, driven by genuine humility rather than the desire for recognition!

This is one such perfect example!

Blood transfusion!

But did you know that the first blood transfusion on record was performed in 1665 – between dogs!

Two years later, successful transfusions from lambs to humans were reported in Europe, but that method eventually was banned because of transfusion reactions.

Finally in 1818, British obstetrician James Blundell figured out how to provide his female patient with blood from her husband using a syringe. He performed 10 transfusions in his career, half of which helped his patients while half developed severe reactions. At that time though these were still good odds!

Early transfusion attempts though were frequently plagued by adverse reactions.

The discovery of human blood types in 1900 and the development of anticoagulants for blood storage in 1914 ultimately transformed blood transfusion into one of the most critical procedures in modern healthcare.


Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner discovered the primary human blood groups (A, B, O). This explained why some transfusions were fatal while others succeeded, earning him a Nobel Prize. The AB blood group was later discovered by his colleagues.

Then you had the famous Rh Factor! Landsteiner and Alexander Weiner discovered the Rhesus (Rh) factor, further enhancing transfusion safety.

Then you have the era of the modern Blood Storage and Modern Banking!

Scientists in Belgium and the U.S. discovered that adding sodium citrate prevented blood from clotting outside the body, allowing for blood storage.

During World War II, the demand for blood surged. Dr. Charles Drew revolutionized blood preservation by separating and storing plasma, which was crucial for saving soldiers’ lives and establishing the precursor to the modern blood bank.

Then again you can also have an old Hindi movie showing three people DONATING blood at the same time to one Woman who turned out to be their actual mother!

That’s not bloody! Speaking of Hindi movie you can see this scene and listen to Hemant da!

Shubh ratri…

Did you know which is the most important REASON for human evolution?

Actually your interest in that DID YOU KNOW is the answer!

The only real reason apart from the supposedly amazing brain of why only Humans topped the chain of the evolutionary tree is this simple practice which most humans do!

In fact the very fact that social media is so famous is simply because of this!

The practice is GOSSIP!

In the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, historian Yuval Noah Harari argues that gossip was a vital catalyst for human evolution and survival. It acted as the foundational building block for large-scale social cooperation.

Now you must not gossip as a negative or trivial behavior, Harari highlights it as a critical evolutionary milestone of the Cognitive Revolution that allowed Homo sapiens to dominate the planet!

According to Harari, human language did not evolve primarily to discuss philosophy, mathematics, or the physical environment. Instead, language evolved as a way of gossiping. While many animals can communicate basic environmental dangers (e.g., a green monkey can shout, “Careful! A lion!”), Homo sapiens developed the unique ability to talk about themselves and each other!

This is very vital because according to Yuval for an early human, it was less important to know where a bison was, and much more important to know:
Who in the tribe hated whom.
Who was sleeping with whom.
Who was honest, and who was a cheat!

And several centuries and development later; this has not changed! Not even a bit!

Then you have the positive effect of Gossip in that it builds trust and cooperation!

By talking behind each other’s backs, early humans could track shifting alliances and gather reliable information about who could be trusted. This social data allowed human bands to expand.

Without gossip, individuals could not truly know the character of everyone in a large group, forcing them to remain in small, fragmented troops similar to modern chimpanzees. Gossip allowed early Sapiens to form tighter, more sophisticated cooperation networks, giving them a massive competitive advantage over other human species like Neanderthals.

Then even Gossip has a limit!

Harari notes that sociological research places a strict biological cap on gossip. The maximum natural size of a group bonded purely by gossip is about 150 individuals. A human being cannot intimately track or gossip about more than 150 people at once!

To cross this threshold and build massive cities, nations, and empires, humans eventually had to transition from gossiping about real individuals to believing in shared fictions and myths (such as religions, nations, corporations, and money)!

Harari emphasizes that humans never outgrew this evolutionary trait. Even today, the vast majority of modern communication—including emails, phone calls, text messages, and news columns—remains essentially gossip. Whether it is political commentary or celebrity drama, our brains are still fundamentally wired to track social dynamics and reputation!

Even a blog is read more if it has some GOSSIP! Facts are boring! Though Gossip is a vital part of human existence is a FACT!

It is also a fact that Pritam Chakraborty does make nice music!

Now stop Gossip and sleep!

Shubh ratri…

All of you know landing strip! It is the array of lights which the Pilots ‘see’ to land their planes.

But (the but and the blog are inseparable!); did you know that there is an invisible landing strip all over your Garden! Now it is not a top secret landing strip for those ALIEN ships in the area 51! But these LANDING STRIPS are INVISIBLE to the human eye!

They are for a special kind of flyers!

One of the most important species in the world! Not humans (of course not! In fact Humans are some of the LEAST important species in the world!); but insects! Specifically the BEES!

In the book called greatest show on Earth by Richard Dawkins, he states how some flowers smell and taste good and they attract certain insects and humans alike!

These are the ones they have to attract so that they can help them in pollination! In fact the insects see ultraviolet spectrum so that they literally have an ultraviolet landing strip outlined for their landing!

So this ultraviolet (UV) landing strip refers to hidden markings on flower petals that are invisible to humans but brightly visible to pollinators like bees and butterflies. These creatures see a wider spectrum of light, allowing them to follow these specialized UV coloration in flowers targets directly to nectar and pollen!

While humans see a uniform color (like solid yellow), pollinators see a distinct bullseye or runway pattern. The outer edges of the petals reflect UV light, while the center absorbs it, creating a high-contrast guide leading to the reproductive core of the flower!

Flowers create these landing strips using internal pigments called flavonoids. These chemicals absorb UV light in the center while the outer edges reflect it, acting like a natural billboard!

This setup saves energy for both species. Bees find food faster without wasting energy searching blindly, and flowers get efficiently pollinated!

Common Flower Examples are

The ‘landing strip’ in Dandelions appear solid yellow to us, but feature a stark, dark UV absorption center for insects while in the sunflowers the center glows dark and concentrated, acting as a massive target zone while the evening Primrose displays sharp, radial guidelines pointing directly to its nectar!

And these flowers always provide just enough nectar so that the insect goes to another flower to pollinate! Very less and it will not stay and too much nectar means it will not go! Just enough! A balance in nature is all its about!

While we marvel at the human technology and one shot the whole HUMAN LANDING STRIP gets closed! While these millions of Landing Strips go one without any issues unless the average HUMAN starts interfering with them!

So let the BEE be! And do not try to destroy their LANDING STRIP too!

Too complicated!? Leave it! Just like how Kirron Kher says! Chaddo!

Now try ‘Landing’ on your bed!

Shubh ratri…

The book 48 laws of power by Robert Greene talks about how you must maintain composure when someone is angry!

Words spoken in anger are like the misaimed arrows shot without a thought! They can never come back and if they hit something or someone, that is a bane for life!

Then again have you heard of Talleyrand?

I got to know that his philosophy is the the ultimate blueprint for Machiavellian political pragmatism!

Talleyrand worked at the highest levels of successive French governments, and his career spanned the regimes of Louis XVI, the years of the French Revolution, Napoleon, Louis XVIII, and Louis-Philippe.

Those Talleyrand served often distrusted him but, like Napoleon, found him extremely useful. The name “Talleyrand” has become a byword for crafty, cynical diplomacy!

One time Napoleon vented out his anger on Talleyrand in front of the whole palace but Talleyrand kept his cool!

In the end just by maintaining his composure and dignity Napoleon was shown his place and that was the beginning of his fall from grace!

Operating across six wildly different regimes, his approach boiled down to a single core allegiance: France’s survival and dominance, unclouded by ideology, sentiment, or rigid loyalty!

His most famous argument is that treason is only a matter of dates! He abandoned kings for the Revolution, backed Napoleon Bonaparte to secure order, and then helped restore the Bourbons when Napoleon became a threat to the balance of power. To Talleyrand, regime loyalty was folly; national continuity was everything!

In diplomacy, he championed moderation and balance. His most famous directive to subordinates was “Above all, not too much zeal”. He believed that emotional attachment and rigid enthusiasm blinded politicians to the realities of a situation!

He viewed words as tools to navigate power dynamics, summarizing his cynical, realist worldview with the maxim: “Words were invented to conceal thought.”

The story and thoughts are so similar to our own Kautilya! Politics is a LONG game! People who play POLITICS have no SHAME!

Which is why POLITICS or more accurately POLI’TRICKS’ is not for everyone!

Then again acting like its a routine thing is not for everyone especially if you are an actor like Ashok Saraf!

Now stop DOING POLITICS and sleep!…(I was talking to myself there!)

SHubh ratri!

Sunbathing is good

Of course in controlled amounts!

The Ultraviolet B (UVB) rays trigger your skin to produce Vitamin D, also exposure to bright morning sunlight regulates your circadian rhythm and Sunlight prompts the brain to release serotonin, which boosts mood and helps counter depression!

You of course knew all this! But do you know what is advantage of MOON BATH!

Nothing absolutely of course! But there was a ‘Doctor’ who used to sell the MOON! In fact he was known as the MOON DOCTOR!

“Doctor” Weisleder, as he called himself, was a one-time sockmaker who worked out of a dark and dirty tavern in Germany.

It was in the 19th-century and in Germany and the medical charlatan was known as the “Moon Doctor of Berlin”!

“Doctor” Weisleder was his name by the way!

Of course he was not a real medical doctor; he was a former sockmaker (or hosier) and heoperated his wildly popular practice out of a dingy tavern in Berlin!

Weisleder claimed he could cure absolutely any incurable disease using lunar rays (moonlight).

Then again; the treatment was ‘successful’ because it was SIMPLE!

Patients would gather by the hundreds at his tavern clinic. Then Weisleder would instruct them to expose and extend their affected body part (e.g., an aching arm, leg, or joint) toward the moon!

He claimed the lunar light would pull the disease out of the body!

Despite the unscientific nature of his work, his boozy tavern clinic drew massive, desperate crowds who were eager to enjoy a beer while waiting for a “miracle” cure!

In any case the patients who used to visit him had lots of faith in his ability and many times that works wonders! He would take the patient to a room window and expose the part to the moonlight while chanting something which only he could hear!

Amazed!? Well there is more!

Funnily his wife would do the same to the women from another window on the opposite side of the house!
No one stopped once to think how two opposite windows can both get moonlight at the same time!

That’s the power of faith and maybe Placebo!

Then again if you have real talent like metro man E Sreedharan then you don’t need any placebo!

Now stop Moonbathing and sleep!

Shubh ratri…

Quiz time was one of the best times in school! You would learn so much and when someone tells it out loud, you normally do not forget!

If you attend a lot of quiz shows then by matter of experience itself your knowledge will improve! At least that is the idea!

Then again when you are not participating in the quiz you answer the questions very well from the audience while you get into the stage, the answer completely disappears from the memory!

Some classic questions were that everyone knew the answer and the competition was to actually get the answer first!

Like who invented the electric bulb everyone would scream Edison though if you practically see, he simply modified it! This is the issue with many such FACTS which we would have learnt when we were young!

Like who invented the steam engine? Avid quiz enthusiasts would scream James Watt right about now! But!…

The steam engine was not invented by a single person, but rather evolved over centuries.
James Watt is most famous for perfecting it, though Thomas Newcomen built the first practical engine, and Thomas Savery created the earliest commercial device fifty years before Newcomen!

So way back in 1698 Thomas Savery invented the “Miner’s Friend,” a steam-powered water pump. It was the first commercially used steam device, though it had limitations and was prone to explosions!

Then in 1712 Thomas Newcomen, built the first true atmospheric steam engine. Newcomen’s design was successfully used to pump water out of deep coal mines in England but consumed massive amounts of coal! That was not the goal!

Finally in the period of 1765–1769; James Watt while repairing a Newcomen model, noticed it wasted a massive amount of steam. He revolutionized the technology by adding a separate condenser, which vastly improved efficiency and paved the way for industrial machinery!
So basically he made the engine more practical and more importantly more PROFITABLE!

Later Innovations were equally innovative and profitable like in  1804 (Richard Trevithick): Built the world’s first high-pressure, full-scale steam railway locomotive.
1814 (George Stephenson): Built the first successful steam locomotive to pull a load on a public railway!

So even if you invent something useful, make sure it is profitable! Only then people will scream your name on the stage!

From believing everything to not believing anything we have come a full circle! If someone asks who is the inventor of a particular thing we would first Google and then only answer!

Of course that reminds me of Sundar Pichai…

Shubh ratri…