THE Punch

 A punch is always important. It exists everywhere, from a joke to a script to a harsh, hard game like boxing.   No wonder, a punch is always the talk of the town. 

The punch we are talking about right now is different though. Punch is a baby macaque. Hardly seven months old. The baby monkey was abandoned by its mother. Nor was the clan kind. True to their group titles such as 'barrel', 'troop', and what not, they bullied him!

The game changer was a plushie. Monkeys are a community oriented species. Punch hence needed to jell in. He

The Satan Within

 Ever heard of Marina Abramovic? In Naples, Italy, she performed an experiment in 1974. It lasted for six hours. This "Rhythm O" experiment consisted of Marina standing next to a notice board and a table. On the table were seventy-two objects beginning with roses, feathers to whips, knives, scissors and a pistol  

On the notice board was written "You can use any of these props on me. I alone would be responsible for the result." Initially, the response was gentle. She was caressed with a rose or the feather. 

Very soon when the spectators realised that she is indeed not resisting at all, the reactions started getting violent. They tore her clothes with scissors. They cut her skin with knives. Such wicked violence continued till a man almost tried to shoot her. When she left the installation venue, all were ashamed of the darkness residing within so-called human beings! 

As the dark shadow residing in human minds thus became apparent, the experiment is also known as the "shadow" experiment. What does the experiment prove? Scratch just a little below appearances to witness the ugly brutality and viciousness residing there!

The experiment proved a few more darknesses residing in the so-called human minds. People can be cruelty personified if one does not react to their viciousness. If one does not have any nuisance value, the others would be Satan personified. Most importantly, one should  never ever allow anyone to objectify oneself!

Despite all that empty talk of empathy, sensitivity, responsibility,et al, most people are much worse than wild animals, is the most disturbing reality this experiment established. Hence the need forever to guard self and those one cares for!

Pratima@ Freud's tripartite model of the mind has the volatile "id" full of all possible negativities. The release to these through dreams may be a purgation. If such a catharsis does not happen adequately, there are psychosis of various types and, much worse revealing  human depravities! Beware, in brief, of the trust deficit! 

Quote of the day:                                                         "The part that always shocked me was the inter-community violence among the chimps: the patrols and the vicious attacks on strangers that lead to death. It's an unfortunate parallel to human behavior - they have a dark side just as we do. We have less excuse, because we can deliberate, so I believe only we are capable of true calculated evil," laments  Jane Goodall. 

Word of the day:                                                          Narcissism= obsessive self love.                          Sadism= finding joy in others' conscious ill-treatment and harassment.                                  Masochism=funding fulfilment  in being troubled/ill-treated! 

N.B.: Do watch: https://youtu.be/hxcvG5oVjIE?si=XrMjBpP9-Hx_cgsT

Cleanliness

 As on February 23 falls the birth anniversary of Sant Gadge Maharaj, the apostle of cleanliness, this theme for our blog! This topic matters a lot as cleanliness currently is a major thrust area in the public sphere since the Prime Minister gave it a philip on October 2, 2014 on the occasion of the one hundred and forty-fifth anniversary of Gandhiji. 

Sure, cleanliness first and foremost does refer to the physical surroundings. Sant Gadge Baba used to himself clean up spaces, whereas the Swacch Bharat campaign has tried to curb open defecation in the public areas. Of course, old habits die hard. Even in metro cities today, majority spit anywhere and everywhere, while any and every wall continues to be a urinal!

Sure, there is no denying that currently cleanliness is more observed, that is, followed, and is noteworthy by its quite obvious presence. Minor issues such as the 'ghanta gadi' collecting garbage in the morning  hours when working women are in a tearing hurry, or making accessible proper modes of composting which are not easy targets for rats and bandicoots, or the municipal agencies helping with the cutting down of wild trees (that grow accidentally without their seeds being consciously planted), and without charging astronomical sums to help their contractor friends! 

Yes, cleanliness matters because it is closely related to environmental cost! Let me give you an example. These days, people have made the Kedarnath temple in to a touristy holiday destination! As it is not the holiest of holies for such visitors, everywhere there are hillocks of garbage and plastic, and  this fact does not hurt anyone! Nobody bothers to remove the eyesore left-overs of the road construction or other such building materials, et al. Anyways, these are hardly selfie points tourists love, right?!!?

In other words, cleanliness need not be only physical. Basically, it is a vision, it is a mindset. If you are (for the sake of sick fun and time pass, not to mention cheap pocket money thus 'made') eternally gossiping, harassing, ganging up against innocent victims who have nothing to do with you, neither your designer clothes nor your posh interiors are going to give you a clean look or a clean feel. Cleanliness is a h(e)aven that resides in a clean mind! Clean is as it clean thinks, behaves, treats!

Pratima@Dirty minds is where the devil resides!

Quote of the day:                                                        Pristine clean, makes everything shine, be it the home, the surroundings, and importantly, the mindset.

Word of the day: pristine                                            'Pristine' means unsullied, unspoilt, in its original condition; hence, clean and spotless as if forever new!

The Address of Heaven

 (Where) does the heaven really exist? Science would dismiss such an idea as either a poetic fancy or a religious belief, right? Well, as reported, in an opinion essay published in late January 2026, Michael Guillén, PhD, a former Harvard physics lecturer and science communicator, took the internet by storm with a provocative claim; namely, paradise might have a physical address!

I could elaborate Guillen's argument in quite some detail. Well, instead I am going to look at Milton's famous quote. In 'Paradise Lost', Book I, as a punishment for a rebellion, born out of jealousy and spite, Satan and his co(-)horts are hurled in to hell which is dark and hot. As part of the pep talk to energise his followers, and himself, Satan delivers a fiery speech. 

The most quoted line therefrom is "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, and hell of heaven." In other words, the address of heaven, or hell for that matter, is the "self". The address of heaven is, in other words, not possibly a few galaxies away as the Guillen's of the scientific wor(l)ds would like us to believe. 

Milton's quote provides us with an optimism that we can change every situation for the better. It suggests that it is the perspective that shapes heaven/hell/realities. Since it so prioritises the subjective, it gives us the power of agency. 

Now let us confront the realities. The AI summit may be over. Yet its echoes are reverberating everywhere. Even at its rather nascent stage, this new fangled technology is re-writing most everything. Even if we forget for the time being the accrued environmental cost and/or the other central ethical issues, we would have to accept that the heaven is where the AI locates it! What say? 

Pratima@ Let me give you a concrete example. A brilliant teacher explaining most interestingly a subject is a student's heaven. Now she need not go to any classroom to attain that heavenly feel. The ChatGPT literally hands over such a heaven at home in her palm holding the mobile. The agency soon would be completely 'agentive'!

Quote of the day:                                                         "Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven" argued Shakespeare. The ramifications of the quote are aplenty  now!

Word of the day: objective                                      Objective refers to understanding not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts, and thus verified commonly, by anyone.                         The fun currently is that objectively born technology is making reality subjective, thereby making the address of heaven quite inaccessible! 

In celebration of Languages

 Happy World Mother Tongue Day!  मातृभाषा विशिष्यते। जागतिक मातृभाषा दिनकी हार्दिक शुभकामनाएं। मातृभाषा दिनाच्या अनेकानेक शुभेच्छा!  Joyeuse journée mondiale de la langue maternelle! Feliz día mundial de la lengua materna! Alles Gute zum Welttag der Muttersprache!    Kokusai bogo dē omedetō gozaimasu! 

Thus, in the eight languages that I manage rather well, I would like to wish you on the World Mother Tongue Day. Why this unique celebration every February 21? Behind it lies a sad story, in fact, a tragic hidden history not much known in the world today sold on the STEM subjects! 

It is a narrative, however, that shows the love for one's mother tongue, literally till death doth (de)part. In the erstwhile East Pakistan, Bangladesh since 1971, Urdu was imposed as the national language. The former East Bengalis loved their mother tongue, Bengali, and asserted its relevance. In 1952, there was a huge demonstration on February 21. The police opened fire on the peaceful professors and students from Dhaka University. Many died, were injured in the violence. 

In 1999, the UN decided to celebrate February 21 as a day dedicated to the languages. The motive was to honour the linguistic and cultural diversity so abundantly available in the world. 

Each mother tongue, whether of the developed countries or of countries from the erstwhile colonised global South, is important, relevant, valid, and teaches something unique about the whole mankind, and hence the message of the day is that every language, each culture deserves celebration. Long live the World Mother Tongue Day!

Pratima@In our country, there are many who most pitifully use any and every opportunity to attack, often most irrelevantly, and quite indirectly, the relevance of Sanskrit, Saraswati, and the foundational Indian culture.                                     Or they would hit horribly at the standard language. Yes, why dialects, actually sociolects, even idiolects, too, matter! Sad, however, is the shallow attempt to politicise every event! All languages, including the standard version, too, are always fluid.                                                      Unfortunately, out of total ignorance and politicking emerge, and are stoked/fanned virulent narratives. Oh, Lord, hope you would be able to forgive such hate mongers. They know exactly very well what they are doing!

Quote of the day:                                                        "Knowledge of languages is the door to wisdom," asserted Bacon.

Word of the day: bigotry                                         Bigotry is a mindset that has and expresses strong, unreasonable beliefs, and hates other people who have different beliefs or a different way of life:

How (not) to protest?

THE Sam Altman, when asked about the possible loss of jobs in the AI era, quipped answer finally, "But we are sure to find something to do." Indeed! Human beings are always creative in small to big, simple to subtle ways. 

When it comes to protest, however, there seems to be a huge deficit of creativity. Look at Altman himself. He and Dario Amodei of Anthropic gave quite a demo which established that Altman may not be as open as the AI, while Amodei proved  that human beings, unlike their inventions, can be misanthropic! 

Well, the hand-raising that thus turned hair-raising is a typically Western way of showing camaraderie, right? A common feature it is even in indian classrooms, not to forget the winning moment of a football/baseball game, right? In brief, the fist raising on both sides proved that, unlike the modern technologies, their makers may still harbour primitive proclivities. Some competitive protest!

Yet the worst example of how not to protest was the shi(r)t-y protest at  the Bharat Mandapam! Absolutely lacked imagination, forget integrity or inclination for the honour of the motherland! Why, with such futuristic n gorgeous stuff from all over the world on show, who at all would bother to look at such shi(r)t-y lack? Some imagination! 

Anyways, since 2014, 'protest-itis' is a new dis-ease rampant in India, right? People often hate for the heck of hating! The favourites are the much quoted but least read Manusmriti, the much maligned Veer Savarkar, and, of course, the much misunderstood Modi, our Prime Minister!

 Of course, some students of such 'school' have recently graduated in to protesting anti poor Bhagat Singh of all the people, not to forget Lala Lajpat Rai! How (not) to protest is a skill that needs no reservation, rather lots of talent, in brief! 

Has the Tiananmen Square gone so bare in the name of the much hyped Gen Z        'profess-ions'? Here is my protest against such belittling of the un-civil liberti(ne)s in the public space! 

Pratima@ Any responsible protest has to open up major important central issues. It cannot be a wink wink of the kiddish spit-n-scoot variety. Private gall cannot vitiate the public sphere! 

Quote of the day:                                                         "I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept," asserts Angela Davis. B the change you wanna C, to use the Gen Z kinda slang! 

Word of the day: Profess                                           'profess' means to claim that one has (a quality or feeling), especially when actually it is not so at all. The word can also mean to affirm one's faith in or allegiance to a set of beliefs. Without such sincerity, empty 'professions' are merely 'professional' protest!!! 

Maharaj

 'Hail, His Highness' should be the ideal translation, the perfect title for a piece on Shivaji Maharaj on this day of his birth anniversary. Would it capture the regard one feels for him was my worry. I decided hence to go for 'Maharaj'. 

Much has been penned on/about Maharaj. Politically correct it is. Want some proof? Hereabouts in Maharashtra, they celebrate the birth anniversary twice, but not exactly out of affection. Rather, it is the convenient political affliction.

In the charged atmosphere today when 'Brahminwad/Brahmanwad' (it stopped being 'bramhnywad' long time back!) is the fulcrum, better not to  dare n write anything at all, would be the strategy, I suppose. Given the echo chambers dominant n pervasive these days, there is no way knowing who would interpret what how, especially because, given my surname, I should be in Eurasia!

No worries though! I am going to write about a cute folk story about Maharaj. The 'hero' of this story is a kid, too. Absolutely apt it is hence for the occasion. 

Savlya, our young hero, is a guard at some border. Anonymous it is luckily as far as I know. No regional identities involved hence! Savlya, like most of us, adores Maharaj. His orders are Savlya's absolute diktats even when Savlya has never seen/met him in person. 

Savlya sees a horse rider trying to ride past the border, and without any formal permission. Furious, he stops the rider, and threatens him. The amused rider tries to test his commitment. Satisfied with the kid's innocent dedication to duty, he reveals his identity. The rider is none other than Maharaj himself, mighty satisfied with the feel of  responsibility of every common citizen.

Why do I still like this folk tale which I read as a textbook title, may be, in the seventh or eighth standard? In my opinion, a king/ ruler who can create effortlessly such devotion for himself and the cause in the mind of a lad has to be a great n good king, right? 

Incidentally, this folk tale which in my opinion truly shows Maharaj's grandeur is a poem by Wa. Ba. Pathak, written in 1922. Right now I do not have any references to assess the effect it had on the Independence struggle which, I think, it must have had.

True, 'his-story' should always be authenticated. Otherwise, dangerous falsehoods, convenient to interest groups, may float around. No harm though, I suppose, in thus idealising an idol, right? Sure it cannot, and does not, have any ideological undercurrents that make stories, rather 'narratives',  in to opinionated traps. Instead, it proves the Wordsworthian axiom; namely, "the child is father of the man"! 

Quote of the day:                                                        "Kindness and faithfulness keep a king safe. Through kindness, his throne is made secure" is King Solomon's wise saying. 

Word of the day: fealty.                                            Fealty may sound archaic. It means intense, sworn loyalty and allegiance, and implies a solemn promise of dedicated support.