|| Swanta Sukhaya ||

Greetings! On one of my cycling rounds at the edge of city, I was greeted by a huge flock of sheep on the country road. There was another (even bigger) flock at distance. To me it looked like this one had wandered off from (the bigger) flock. There was no shepherd in sight and I stopped my bicycle in tracks and waited for these loitering sheep to make up their mind. This group took few minutes to wander but looked like hesitant to disperse. Perhaps these sheep were waiting for the sound of their shepherd even to explore the lush grass on the side of road. But there was no sound guiding them as the shepherd was not there.  I was curious now as to what would the sheep do? (Didn't have much else to do with sheep all around :-) ) Meanwhile the other flock had moved in a different direction but near enough for this flock to hear the tinkering sound of bells from the bigger flock. My flock... (by now I had formed a great connect, as the sheep were in all directions around my...

Greetings! Everyone knows that they are borne with genes from a father and mother. Every generation you go back this number doubles. 2 parents, 4 grand parents, 8 great-grand parents and 16 great-great-grand parents as shown in the pic below So in these 4 generations 16+8+4+2 = 30 folks have their genes in you in merely last 100 years (assuming 1 generation produces next in 25 years, or at least used to). Where does this lead to if we go say 20 generations (500 years) back, the number goes to approximately million! That is a million people's genes within you! These carry their nature, nurture as well as decisions they made as each of these had some effect on their XY chromosomes that made someone that made you. and each of these million had a million others if we go another 500 years back. That is 1 million X 1 million = 1 trillion people inside you... merely from last 1000 years! If we go further down 500 years it would a million-trillion and from the start of Calendar (A....

Greetings! Question is, "Is all that happens predestined? Or human beings have free will to chose?" A boy throws a stone. Does he chose to throw it or the strong thought to throw germinates due to a program in subconscious driven by nature, nurture and circumstances (including gut bacteria)? Most experiments say that the latter is true. The decision already happens and then the thought comes in to merely justify it. Read a very interesting compilation of such experiments Here . Imagine a magic(?) trick where cards written A, B, C are put in front of a person . They are face up. The person is told that she has free will to pick any. The person choses A. The magician says that your free will was already predetermined - he takes a sealed envelope from his coat pocket. She opens the envelope and it says 'You are predestined to chose option A '.... The person is shocked and awed to see that her free will choice was predestined!!! (Of course, if she chose B then ...

Greetings Mythological stories have always fascinated me. Not only do they shape a culture's world view but also give direction to individual if one looks closely. One such story is that of Sage Dadhichi who sacrificed his bones so that Gods can make weapons with those bones. For those who don't know the brave and kind sage - the short (and sweet version) of story Here  . Those with more curiosity can read the Wikipedia article  Here  .   Looking again at this ultimate sacrifice stirred me to write an ode in marathi त्यागाची ओढ असणारे, कष्टाची-फळाची पर्वा करत नाहित. हाडाचे दधिची , हाडाची पर्वा करत नाहित.  A lose transiliteration in English would be Hearts hooked to serving others, Give no damn to toils and prize. Driven like "Dadhichi" to their bones, They make no bones of ultimate sacrifice.   Sincerely Mine! Anand Kulkarni

Greetings! One Sunday afternoon. As i was just going into the blissful state where one does nothing, expects nothing and expresses only monosyllables... "Baba, tell me... tell me..." my 9 years old was tugging on ... "Huh?" I asked.  "What are negative numbers?" she at once grabbed the opportunity. "Any number less than zero is a negative number", i mustered a hasty answer. "What?" exclaimed the baffled child... "How can there be anything less than zero? If I don't have a chocolate means I have zero chocolate. Yes or No?"  "Yeah... you are right."  I was hoping to drift in nothingness by conceding beforehand "Yes... or... No... ?" She meant business. "Umm... yes i guess" I grudgingly pushed the sweet sleep back "Then what is a negative number?" She persisted. "It is on left side of number line from zero" I attempted, "I know that baba... w...

Greetings, After a sumptuous lunch, (as we were not allowed to fall into the sweet siesta slumbers, so ...) we friends were discussing the kind of questions that we tend to discuss when in such state - questions about God, Man and Men (as well as women or rather the Human type...). The one on the table was - "How can there be the same divine self experience across all the bodies. Every body (and even every leaf of a tree ...) is different from each other. What is the 'oneness' that these spiritual types talk about? How can you say God is one and the same across all, while I can't see anyone like any other!" The answer too came as smoothly as the dish of fruits that made its appearance on the coffee table (Perhaps the intention was that, we would stuff our mouths with fruits and hopefully stop giving heavy doses of philosophy to the 'free' audience. This intention did indeed succeed! But not before the answer...) So the answer that came was - ...

Greetings, There is a gruesome story that I had heard in my childhood. The story goes like this - A village household has been blessed with a baby boy. Apart from the proud father & mother there is a pet mongoose (arch rival of the cobra / snakes) which is a part of the family. One day, while the father is working on farm, mother has to go out for some household chore. She goes away with full confidence that, the mongoose would save her baby from any harm. But to her horror, she returns to see the mongoose sitting at the doorstep with blood stained mouth and claws. The first thought that crosses her mind is - mongoose has killed their only son! With this seeming breach of trust, the grief-struck mother kills the mongoose with a stone from the street. As she rushes in the house, she is shocked to see her dear son sleeping calmly and a venomous cobra lying dead nearby. She immediately understands her 'misunderstanding' but alas - the act can not be reversed. There is...

Greetings! As i was remembering my teacher from High School- one of his teachings in geometry sprung up suddenly and fit itself in the analogy for life. So what is life? The life is a triangle tangle. Life contains many triangles, the love triangle, the equality (equilateral) triangle, the right (as well as wrong) angled triangle and to top it off the trinity (Father Son & Holy Ghost / Brahma, Vishnu & Mahesh) triangle. Each incident that happens in our life cajoles, pushes, begs, shakes us up to make us think - 'how does it make sense?' As a hypothesis, in terms of geometry-of-life, lets say this translates to 'this will make sense - when i find such a pair of the 2 sides (another possibility) of this triangle (incident) whose sum is less than the third side (the side which i traversed just now as part of the incident).. Too heavy? Ok. Here is a step-by-step version. Problem in Geometry: Find the 2 sides of a triangle, whose sum is less than (short...

Greetings! Here are some thoughts on what they meant by ' forgive and forget ' when they started saying it. (And why it is better than 'give and get' and of course 'get and give' or 'get and get' .......) For-give = Give 'before' you get Means: Give love, compassion, trust etc before getting back (or irrespective of not getting) any love,compassion, trust in return. For-get = Get 'before' you get Means: After you really forgive , you get the "happiness released when you give" even before getting the love, compassion, trust, or a simple thank-you (or irrespective of not getting even a thanks). If you notice here, none of the 2 activities are really dependent on 'others' and hence can be done without giving any reasons (pointing fingers). It is very very simple, but for our bloated egos that we have to carry on our heads. Here is a recent conversation with a Rikshawallah ( RW ) which made me think. Let...