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The novel called Horse, the Wheel, and Language by David Anthony talks about language and culture and of course linguistics!

Did you know that the average horse which is an amazingly majestic animal was actually a source of food!

In fact the domestication of the horse was a pivotal technological and social innovation that enabled the rapid mobility and expansion of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) speakers from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, thereby spreading their language and transforming ancient civilizations!

Anthony’s work focuses heavily on archaeological evidence, particularly in horses’ teeth, to date and trace the origins of horseback riding and its societal impact.

Even in the Ithihasa Mahabharata; it has been told that Horse riding is a pivotal strength! Among the pandavas; Nakula was considered an expert in horse breeding and training, and during the Pandavas’ thirteenth year of incognito exile, he disguised himself as a horse trainer and stable hand named Granthika in the kingdom of Virata. His skill was so great that it was rumored he could ride a horse at full speed through a rain shower without a single drop of water touching him!

This increased Domestication of the horse greatly increased the mobility of steppe herding societies, allowing them to manage larger herds and cover vast distances!

This increased mobility, combined with the invention of the wheeled vehicle (ox wagon and later the warrior’s chariot), provided a significant advantage in both resource gathering and warfare. It facilitated the movement of people and ideas, turning the steppes into a major corridor for trade and cultural exchange!

The horse was also a status of wealth (even now it is!). This form of “mobile wealth,” led to new social structures and hierarchies, including patron-client relationships and increased potential for conflict over grazing land!

Ultimately, the horse was not just a tool but a catalyst for the profound cultural and linguistic changes that shaped much of the modern world!

So if you want to be known as both modern and tough ‘man’; horse riding is a requisite! But my trainer at our horse riding club in Secunderabad though used to make me ride a mule most of the time and one fine day decided it is time to get on a real horse! He thought it was best to quit horsing around and get ‘evolved’!


Evolved also are singers! Like Udit Narayan!

Shubh ratri…

The Midnight Lock is a novel written by one of my favorite authors; Jeffery Deaver (Not Archer!; though I actually bought my first Jeff Deaver novel called The Blue Nowhere thinking it was written by Archer! which turned out to a pleasant mistake!)

So do you know what are Tension wrench, Hook Pick, Ball Pick and Rake pick to name a few!

Or do you know who is a Locksmith? Or what is a Locksport?

Well just like you have ethical Hackers (yes! they Hack for ethical reasons!); there are a group of people who break locks internally or pick locks officially or ethically also! That profession is called Locksmithing!

In the novel though, the Locksmith was not ‘ethical’!

So Lock picking of course is the practice of unlocking a lock by manipulating the components of the lock device without the original key.

Although lock-picking is usually associated with criminal intent, it is an essential skill for the legitimate profession of locksmithing, and is also pursued by law-abiding citizens as a useful skill to learn, or simply as a hobby (locksport!).

In fact there are competitions held where complicated locks are presented to the professional Lock Pickers and they are timed! Like any sports, you are allowed to use your equipment or tools and points are awarded if you use as minimum tools as possible though most points are for the time!

In some countries, such as Japan, lock-picking tools are illegal for most people to possess, but in many others, they are available and legal to own as long as there is no intent to use them for criminal purposes.

One of the cool tools which I used to love to listen was the skeleton key!

Now like everyone else, I used to think that it was made up of the bones of a skeleton which could change the shape according to the lock!

In reality though, the warded pick, also known as a skeleton key, is used for opening warded locks. It is generally made to conform to a generalized key shape relatively simpler than the actual key used to open the lock; this simpler shape allows for internal manipulations!

The history of lock development, particularly modern locks, is largely one of an arms race between lock pickers and lock inventors. Just like the war between the creators of a Virus and the anti virus!

Today’s anti-picking methods in standard pin tumbler locks include the use of sideward which obstruct the keyway and “security pins” or “carnival pins”.

These are shaped like a spool, mushroom, or barrel, with the effect that they feel as though they have set when in fact they have not.
Security pins can also have the effect of resetting other pins when adjusted.

For any Lock Picker though the challenge is to pick the most secure locks in the world which include Fort Knox!

If by any chance, you want to break into Fort Knox, you need to pass through several obstacles and not just locks! It is like a hacker’s challenge to break into a goverment site! Your expertise is to break without being caught apparently to show your ‘skill’! Of course all of these are illegal!

You can of course learn Lock Picking to ‘pick’ a lock in emergencies with proper permission and more importantly ‘good intent’ though!

Good intent and content is also songs by Vani Jairam…

Shubh ratri…

In Robert Sapolsky’s book Behave; he has tried to explain why we behave the way we do!

One interesting observation is that when you are brave then you are truthful!

There is a famous joke on this!

One man saw another man drowning and the next moment he jumped in to save him!

After pulling him ashore that man who had saved ran to the crowd and started searching! Everyone was congratulating him and all he said was, “That is all ok! I just want to know who pushed me!”

This is very true! Apparently in many cases where you see such acts of bravery is performed; when you ask them, they would in all honesty say that they were not thinking at all! They just did it!

Bravery makes you truthful! Your filters are lost for a while and you simply become both Humane and human immeditely after an act of bravery!

Which is probably why you love superheroes! They are not only brave, they are also truthful!

The book delves into the complex question of why humans do the things they do, exploring the myriad factors that influence our actions, from biology and genetics to culture and environment, across various timescales!

Sapolsky dissects how different brain regions, hormones, and biological processes influence behavior, from a second before an action to thousands of years of evolution.

The book actually examines the roots of goodness, cooperation, empathy, and altruism.

Sapolsky discusses instances of extraordinary bravery and compassion that defy simple explanation. He tells us how an interplay of different regions of the brain make you what you are! In that he tells about the Pre frontal cortex which is probably our emotional accelerator or brake according to situation.

In the instance of bravery, there are times you do not think! You just do! You may even later realize that what you did was highly risky and may not have been your plan! Plus the brain removes all filters immediately after the act so that you can be as truthful as possible!

Of course some people are really brave and truthful always! Like Sandeep Unnikrishnan…
We are proud of you…


Shubh ratri…

Do you know what is ‘the buzz’?  or how about ‘the backslide’?

It is not a technical term or a new ride in the Disney world!

Actually both of these are dance moves!

In fact you will know the moves since it was popularized and is now firmly associated with one performer!

Suspense of the dance move is a ‘thriller’!

Yes! The performer is Michael Jackson and the dance move is now known as the Moonwalk!

Now while he did perfect and make it more popular, he actually did not invent it!

He learned it from street dancers and perfected it for his iconic 1983 performance at the Motown 25 television special!

The move, originally known as “the backslide” or “the buzz,” existed long before Michael Jackson performed it!

In fact in the 1930s, Jazz bandleader Cab Calloway performed similar sliding steps and called it “The Buzz”!

Later on in 1955; Tap dancer Bill Bailey performed a version of the move on film while exiting a stage!

Even later on The “backslide” was a common move among street dancers and performers on shows like Soul Train in the 1980s!

Finally Jackson was introduced to the move by dancers and singers, with sources citing Jeffrey Daniel of the R&B group Shalamar and street dancers Geron “Caszper” Canidate and Cooley as his teachers!

Jackson never claimed to have invented the move, stating in a 1993 that he learned it from “these beautiful children, these black kids who live in the ghetto” and that he simply “enhanced the dance”.

He of course refined the move into the smooth, seemingly effortless illusion of walking backward that the world now recognizes!

His debut of the move during “Billie Jean” at Motown 25 brought it to a massive global audience, making it his signature and one of pop culture’s most iconic dance steps! It takes practice and a good deal of footwork to get it done! I would recommend socks and a clean floor!

Music and dance can go amazing with cool lyrics and deep poetry!
The prototype of such poetry is Harivansh Rai Bachchan…

Shubh ratri…

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is maybe one of the top novels for many ardent readers! The theme of racism and the court scenes still gives you goosebumps!

After his argument when Atticus comes out of the court, all those who were watching get up as a mark of extreme respect! Nothing is told and no words are spoken but even if you are watching the movie or reading the novel you may feel like getting up and giving him a big salute!

Now there are so many such incidents which are notable in the novel but my favorite one is how an innocent girls innocent and true remarks dispels a mob! There was a video circulated recently which may or may not be true where a Robber goes to rob a store and take the money after hitting the owner! Then the owner’s daughter innocently gives him her candy! The thief then suddenly changes into a human being! Returns the money and leaves!

The same thing happens in the novel!

The young girl, Scout Finch, protects her father, Atticus, and Tom Robinson from a lynch mob through her innocent conversation and personal connection with one of the men, Walter Cunningham.

Unaware of the gravity of the situation, Scout runs into the middle of the tense semi-circle of men surrounding her father outside the jailhouse! In fact if you read the novel or watch the movie, you will be definitely on edge!

The whole sequence of mob dispersal is like a sequence which could be used to dispel a mob sometimes!

It starts with recognizing a Familiar Face! Scout searches the unfamiliar faces in the mob and recognizes Mr. Walter Cunningham Sr., the father of her classmate!

She then engages in Innocent conversation! Scout strikes up a friendly, one-sided conversation with Mr. Cunningham about his legal “entailment” and his son, Walter. She mentions that she goes to school with his son and asks him to “say hey” to Walter for her!

This whole scene then Humanizes the Situation!

This personal interaction forces Mr. Cunningham to see Atticus and the situation not as an anonymous conflict, but within the context of their shared community and personal relationships. Her innocence reminds him of his own family and responsibilities as a father!


By addressing Mr. Cunningham as an individual rather than a faceless member of a hostile group, Scout breaks the mob’s collective anonymity and hostility. This breaks the Mob Mentality!

In fact when confronted by a guileless child, Mr. Cunningham becomes embarrassed and ashamed of his violent intentions. He eventually tells the other men to leave, and the entire mob disperses peacefully.

Scout’s actions demonstrate the power of empathy and how seeing others as individuals can defuse even the most volatile situation!

Of course it may not work all the time!

Atticus also tells that it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird because they are harmless and only bring good things to the world by singing. He explains that while they can shoot other birds like blue jays (I do not agree with this also though but different time period so let it go!), they should protect mockingbirds since they do not harm anyone, and their only purpose is to make music!

Those statements now have become legendary! A true Legend also was shri
Hemant Kamlakar Karkare…

Your bravery will inspire many!

Shubh ratri…

Do you know who were the anti tank dogs?

Of course the description is in the name but they were more famous as the dogs you know! The Pavlov’s dogs!

Everyone knows or would have at least heard about the Pavlov’s dogs!

The experiment is a classic one in the field of classic conditioning!

The Pavlov’s dog and bell experiment involved conditioning dogs to associate the sound of a bell with food, causing them to salivate at the sound alone.

This process, known as classical conditioning, demonstrated that a neutral stimulus (the bell) could become a conditioned stimulus after being repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus (food). The experiment showed how behaviors can be learned through association!

But the research did not end there! They were planned for military!

The Soviet military, faced with a shortage of anti-tank weaponry, devised a program to turn dogs into mobile mines!

The dogs were intentionally kept hungry and then trained to associate the underside of a tank with food. Their food bowls were placed under stationary tanks.

Over time, the training was made more realistic by having the tanks’ engines running and adding battle-related distractions like sporadic gunfire, conditioning the dogs to run under the vehicles even in chaotic environments!

The goal was to create a conditioned response where a dog would instinctively run under any enemy tank it encountered on the battlefield in search of food!

Once deployed, each dog was fitted with a harness carrying explosives and a wooden lever that would trigger the detonation upon contact with the tank’s underbelly. This made the mission a one-way, suicide operation for the dog!

It was a dog’s life indeed!

Luckily for them the program was a big failure!

The dogs were trained in sterile conditions and often panicked under actual battlefield fire!

The dogs could not differentiate between friend and enemy tanks!
The Soviet forces primarily used diesel-powered tanks for training, while the German tanks they encountered in battle were mainly petrol-driven. The dogs’ sensitive noses often led them back to friendly Soviet tanks, where the explosives detonated, causing casualties among their own side!

Also the German troops quickly learned of the tactic and issued orders to shoot any dog on the battlefield, further reducing the program’s effectiveness!

Now you know why dogs bark when they hear any bell!

Of course that means they are alert always! Alert also was the legendary police Tukaram Omble AC who gave his life but got the terrorist…

You will always be a hero sir…

Shubh ratri…

When we were kids the easiest things to learn were the ones which are clear!

Like opposites for example! Give a word and we would give you the opposite!

Cold/warm; Good/bad; up/down! You get the gist!

Then again when you grow up, you realize that the world is not so clear cut! That is a blog for another day though!

Today’s blog is to ask you this!

What is the opposite of LOVE?

In all probability you would have told, Hate! That is not the answer by the way! 

There are two chief sources which tell the actual opposite of LOVE!

The first is a novel called Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky, which prominently features the quote and concept that “the opposite of love is not hate!”

The book is a scientific exploration of human behavior, examining the biological and cultural factors that shape morality, violence, and kindness. Sapolsky dissects behavior by looking at what happens in the brain a second before an action, expanding backward in time to include the roles of hormones, genetics, culture, and evolution!

Now as said in the book, Love and hate are actually identical and not opposites!
The brain regions involved in strong love and hate are similar in some ways; so the true opposite should represent an absence of this emotional engagement altogether!

The quote is also popular since it was by a Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, which suggests that a lack of feeling or care is a more complete opposite to love than hatred, which is still a strong emotion!


Both the above perspective implies that while hate involves a powerful connection, the opposite must signify a total absence of concern, empathy, and emotional investment.

It is often used to highlight the dangers of apathy, as it allows suffering and injustice to continue unchecked. Even hatred is an intense emotion that, in its own way, still shows that a person or subject matters to you.

The opposite thus must be the complete void of any feeling, which is seen as a more profound opposite to love!

As a Holocaust survivor, Wiesel’s words were rooted in his experiences with extreme violence and a loss of faith. He argued that the lack of empathy of the world was what allowed such atrocities to happen!

The idea has been adopted by many, including psychotherapists and writers, who extend the concept to personal relationships and the human conditions!

Now do not love or hate me if I am not telling you the answer yet!
The opposite of love or hate is what we all suffer from many times; It is INDIFFERENCE…

Then again you can never be indifferent to Dharam paji! He was not only a super man but also a great actor!

He will be missed…

Heartfelt condolences…

Om namah shanthi…

Way back in 1843 a Scottish woodturner tried to kill the British Prime minister!  That is not the shocking part! He missed him and shot his private secretary!

It is still not shocking!

He was not prosecuted for homicide!

Now do not lose your sanity since that was the plea!

In 1843, an unstable Scottish woodturner named Daniel M’Naghten believed that the British prime minister Robert Peel and his Tories were following and persecuting him!

One fine day he saw Peel walking along a London street and shot him in the back of the head, killing him!

Unluckily (you think!) he got the wrong man! His victim was Edward Drummond, Peel’s private secretary and longtime civil servant!

At his trial for murder, both sides agreed that M’Naghten suffered from delusions and other mental problems.

The Daniel M’Naghten case was a pivotal murder trial in England that resulted in the creation of the M’Naghten Rules, the first legal test for criminal insanity.

He was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and his acquittal led to the development of the new legal standard.

The defense argued that he was insane at the time of the act and had a mental delusion that made him unable to understand that his actions were wrong!

The jury acquitted M’Naghten of murder on the grounds of insanity, and he was committed to a mental institution for the rest of his life.

The public’s dissatisfaction with the verdict prompted the creation of the M’Naghten Rules, which established that an individual is not criminally responsible if they are suffering from a “defect of reason, from a disease of the mind, so as not to know the nature and quality of the act they were doing; or, if they did know it, that they did not know that what they were doing was wrong!

The rules specially states that to establish an insanity defense, it must be clearly proven that, at the time of the act, the accused was laboring under a “defect of reason, from disease of the mind,” such that they did not know the nature and quality of the act they were doing, or if they did know it, they did not know they were doing what was wrong.

Even if a person is under a partial delusion, they are to be judged as if the facts they believed were real. For example, if a person kills another believing they were acting in self-defense against an attacker (a valid delusion for an excuse), they may be exempt; but if they kill someone in revenge for a perceived character injury (not a valid excuse), they are punishable.

Of course the plea must be proven without a doubt and also note that even if you are prosecuted; you still would be held and treated for life; not exactly freedom!

So don’t even try to act insane! Acting is best left to stalwarts like Vikram Gokhale!


Shubh ratri …

The biggest issue of being a teacher is that you must know everything or at least appear to know everything!

Like if you want to be a coach then you must have been a great player! If you want to teach someone about finance then you must be adequately rich!

Even if you are giving the correct advice, if you are giving by appearing to be weak then no one will listen or follow you!

This is something mentioned by Plato ages ago in his famous work called the Allegory of the Cave!

I learnt about it when it was the clue for a NYT quick crossword! Knowledge can be found anywhere!

Allegory refers to a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a famous philosophical parable from Book VII of his work The Republic, illustrating the effect of education on the human soul and the journey from ignorance to knowledge.

The book itself is a dialogue between Socrates and Plato’s brother Glaucon, Socrates describes a group of people who have been imprisoned in a cave since childhood.

The prisoners are chained so they can only look at the wall in front of them. A fire burns behind them, and puppeteers on a raised walkway hold up objects, casting shadows on the wall. The prisoners, having never seen anything else, believe these shadows are the only reality and even assign prestige based on their ability to predict the movement of the shadows!

The change happens when a prisoner is freed and dragged out of the cave against his will. The light from the fire, and then the sunlight, is initially painful and disorienting. Slowly, his eyes adjust, and he begins to see the objects, their reflections, and eventually, the sun itself, realizing that the shadows were just illusions!


The enlightened prisoner feels a duty to return to the cave to share his newfound knowledge and free his fellow prisoners. However, back in the darkness, his eyes are once again blinded, making him clumsy and less adept at discerning the shadows than those who never left.

The remaining prisoners see his blindness and infer that the journey outside has harmed him, concluding that the outside world is a dangerous place not worth seeking.

If the freed prisoner were to try to unchain and guide them, they would mock him and, if able, kill him for his efforts! Again re confirming the fact that you cannot teach those who cannot be taught!

Of course it is an age old story where the cave represents ignorance and being cooped up in your own world! While the sun is Knowledge!

The Shadows symbolize the distorted, second-hand, or incomplete understanding of reality that most people accept as truth, based on mere appearances and sense perception!

Ironically even Plato’s mentor Socrates met with the same fate! He was executed by the Athenian democracy! That is the issue with a single thought process; any deviation is met with only death! Such regimes may not even tolerate art and artists! Like the super artist and singer Geeta Dutt! Even now her peppy songs will bring life and light in any darkness!

SHubh Ratri!

A son may not agree with his father which is routine! But this father son duo’s ‘disagreement of sorts’ made them both Nobel Laureates!

So JJ Thomson won a Nobel prize in physics in 1906 when he proved that electron was a particle! Then his own son thirty years later in 1937 George Thomson proved won the Nobel prize when he proved that electron was a wave!

JJ Thomson’s atomic model, also known as the plum pudding model, described the atom as a sphere of diffuse positive charge with negatively charged electrons embedded within it. The model was proposed after the discovery of the electron to account for the atom’s overall neutrality, with the positive and negative charges balancing each other out. The analogy compares the electrons to plums in a pudding or seeds in a watermelon! The crux here is that electrons are like particles!

For this he was awarded the Noble prize!

George Thomson’s theory, proven by his 1927 experiments, demonstrated that electrons have a wave-like nature by showing they could be diffracted through thin metal films, creating patterns similar to those of X-rays. This experimental evidence supported Louis de Broglie’s hypothesis of wave-particle duality and earned him a share of the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics. His work provided a key part of the foundation for quantum mechanics by proving that particles like electrons can also behave as waves!

So if you do not agree with your father, you may end up in a Nobel prize!

The current notion though is that depending on how you define “shape”, an electron either has no shape, or an electron can take on various wave shapes.  The reason for this is that an electron is not a solid little ball!
Rather, electrons are quantum objects. Along with all other quantum objects, an electron is partly a wave and partly a particle. To be more accurate it is instead a quantized fluctuating probability wavefunction!

Now the physics world is eagerly waiting for Thompson’s son to disprove George Thomson and win another Nobel!

For now here’s another son who can make anyone proud! Wing Commander Namansh Syal!  You are a true son of the soil…

A big salute for those defense personnel like him who constantly protect us with their lives every day…

Heartfelt condolences to this terrible loss

Jai hind…