Flight Fascination

 I am fascinated by flights. Sure they include flights of fancy. In this blog, they refer basically though to travelling on aeroplanes. Why so? Well, multiple are the reasons. For one thing, aeroplanes prove that the sky is indeed not the limit! In addition, even when all of us are now used to saying that any place on the earth is  just a skype away, there is no real alternative to a flight away, right? That is the real zoom, right?

The view from an aeroplane can make a poet out of the most prosaic person. The Liliput towns below, the mighty oceans looking like a great lake or a grand river tops, the sun appearing right next door, or rather the window, everything about a flight is absolutely fabulous. Truly a flight gives wings to your fancy!

Why, I find the plane taking off and landing down simply superb. Sure, when the plane starts taxying down the runaway, there is that "giant wheel" feel for a few seconds. That slight sensation soon disappears, and then you start enjoying the announcements by the pilot, the artificial smiles of the air-hostess, why, even the funny uppity arrogance of most travellers!

You realize thus how the world is indeed a small place because most passengers are not moved by this unbelievable miracle made possible by the human spirit, by the creative use of human brain and imagination. Most continue to be as banal and boring as they are in their earth-y avatar. Personally though, I feel that while flying, we are touched by divinity! Flying indeed is a fabulous fantasy that literally is in seventh heaven!

Pratima@Given my fascination for flights, it is no wonder that I totally agree with Henry Ford who stated," when everything goes against you, remember an airplane takes off against the wind, not with it."

Soil is soiled

 The world today is environmentally aware, indeed very conscious, at least theoretically, if not in practice. Multiple debates happen on multiple fora. The usual suspects, industry, vehicles, the self-obsessed consumerism, all such usual culprits, get their share of the much deserved blame. Debates happen, discussions continue.

One major factor of the natural cycle, however, gets less focussed attention. That is the soil. Crop failures are literally rooted in the soil issue. Due to excessive use of chemical fertilizers, due to soil erosion given the cutting down of the green cover, due to erratic monsoon patterns and floods that add to this problem, the health of soil is suffering hugely. In fact, it is inching fast and surely towards a certain death. 

Soil is indeed soiled. Sure, efforts to make it bounce back to health are afoot, too. The 'Save the Soil' day gets celebrated the world over. High profile movements by the government are encouraged. Famous guru's with a huge fan following jazz it up. Farmers are urged repeatedly to use organic fertilisers. Instead of burning the butts and the dead leaves, farmers are getting trained to turn these in to organic manure.

All such efforts should be more and more concerted and concentrated. True, today is the era of designer waterfalls, artificial rain, vertical farming, and the GM, or the genetically modified, crops. These, too, have their own problems. Instead, it is safer and better to follow Mother Nature who lovingly nurtured the soil cover over centuries and millennia. In brief, save soil to save ourselves!

Pratima@"Earth we are and to Earth we return," say all the religious texts. Why not take care of birthplace ( and the final resting place according to all the Abrahamic religions) of not only human-beings, but of the very natural cycle?

Wondrous

 This evening, after the Spanish lecture got over and since I did not have to conduct the French lecture, I could watch the fabulous demo's by the Indian Navy. Superb as usual they were, especially when in tandem with the air force. Some of the formations were literally spell-binding, absolutely breathtaking.

Yet much more fascinating was the sea itself. I think the allure of the sea is as deep and as wide as the sea itself. Sure this statement holds good when we are safely near the shore, yet somehow the sea appeals to our imagination.  May be, because we do not know much about it! In fact, we know more about the moon and the space than the seas! 

More than a dozen men have walked on the surface of the moon. As  yet nobody has managed to walk on the slushy surface of the Mariana trench, the deepest point of the deepest ocean, the Pacific, or its nearby sibling, the Challenger Deep. Anyways, only six people have managed to descend down there in a submersible, and as early as 1960's. In other words, our ignorance of the seas and oceans that surround us everywhere is as vast and as deep as the oceans themselves. 

May be, that is why the oceans, infinite as they appear as one stands by the shore watching the blue of the water merge with the blue of the skies as the very horizon seems to disappear in to eternity, hold the psyche in thrall.

Oceans are forever. Life began there. If human beings do not pay any heed to the rising water levels due to human interference in the environment, life would end there, too! 

I love the ocean as a symbol, too. Oceans may rage wildly. Yes, I have watched videos of storms, and they are terror itself. Oceans have ebbs and tides. Yet they never ever cross the bounds. Even a tsunami is the after-effect of a deep water earthquake. By itself, forget the sea, even the ocean, never goes off its limits. 

Like a genuine human being, who however much harassed, ill-treated, never leaves his/her own innate qualities, however much angered, right? So roll on, the deep oceans, ancient than the human history itself!

Pratima@ Oceans are mystic, majestic and magnetically mesmerizing! One of the reasons why I hold Raju in high esteem is his close acquaintance with these giants in all their moods!

Pollution

 Recently was celebrated the pollution control day. Yes, in the environmentally conscious world today, pollution is indeed a big challenge. We indeed need to check it, control it ASAP.

Pollution, every school child can tell us, is of multiple varieties, be it air, water, sound, and so on. Personally I think though that the real pollution is that of  human greed. Let me give a few examples to clarify why I think so.

Look at Delhi, for example. Most winters, the Delhi air is beyond breathing. That is undoubtedly because of the exhaust gases. Equally responsible is the farming practice of burning the remains of the earlier produce so that the farmland grows fertile for the next seeding cycle.

Even in Maharashtra, every summer, there are forest fires. Most often, that calamity is because of such farming practices. Well, there are very many alternative organic methods of making the farmland ready for the next planting pattern. In other words, most pollution problems emerge out of human interventions.

Let me give another example. The Amazon forest, full of the rarest of the rare flora and fauna, is being burnt. My e-mail box gets daily at least two such messages regarding such environmental disasters, and appeals to help out. I try whatever I can manage regarding the saving of ambience.

Yet the real pollution in my opinion is that of the thought process, the mindset.  This pollution vitiates truly. Be it human greed, jealousy, viciousness, such impurities  create the real problems which are manifested in multiple ways.

Hence I liked the idea the P.M. floated this evening in his victory speech. He stated very clearly that the only four castes are women, youth, farmers, and the poor. In an ambience vitiated by irritatingly strident,  often most ignorant, and absolutely self-centric casteist debates, this thought in the welfare mould/mode cuts across all sorts of narrow boundaries, right? 

Hopefully, the thought pollution would somehow get controlled. The moment that happens, children would not be hostages as in the Gaza Strip. Nor would the Russia-Ukraine war go on endlessly to suit the war industry or egos across the world, Putin to the U.S. senate using this godsend to downsize him! Such  'vision'ary pollution check would not only use alternative energy like the sunshine, but it would also guarantee forever that no Hiroshima happens again!

Pratima@ Sant Dnyaneshwar writes, "the darknesses of the vicious vanish must." The moment such an insight is revered and realised, all pollutions of all sorts sure would end!

Finding Patterns

 Do you find patterns and designs in clouds? For sure, I do. It need not even be a particularly lazy day. A cursory look at the sky even on the busiest day,  and I can trace all sorts of patterns and pics there.

Indeed clouds, even liquids,  do form such patterns. On one of the groups, there is this lovely forward. Instead of its usual vertical stand-up position, there is this cup that has fallen, not broken really though. May be, the person, who drank the  tea, was in a hurry. The remaining dregs are spread nearby the tilted cup. Looked at carefully, in the horizontal position, the dripping  dregs have spread in such a way that we can see a sketch of the old time Parvati, without the zopadpatti, of course. 

What would this ability to see patterns mean? Sure, being imaginative and fanciful  for one thing. It would mean, moreover, that the visual, the kinetic and the kinaesthetic abilities are sharper as well. Multiple  aspects of intelligence are active, so to say. May be, eternal positivity and optimism as well?

Anyways, are not there such patterns everywhere? In literature, in music, in film making, and in painting? Why, I would even say that there are patterns in/to people's behaviours as well, right? And, oh, yes, there is a pattern to life, too. It adds a sense of order to existence. So long as such discipline does not get reduced in to regimentation, I suppose, all is well!

Pratima@ Well, both Isiah Berlín and Fritjof Capra seem to share my opinions because both believe that understanding itself begins with perception of patterns!

The Moral of the Number Game

 Fun it was. On one of the  WhatsApp groups, there was this message that 2023 was a unique year indeed because everybody would have a birthday every day this year. Quite exciting the news appeared, right? At least it did appeal to me.

Let me give you a few concrete examples. India was born in 1947, as we became independent in 1947. So the equation was,  add your age to the year of birth, and it  would be 2023. Like India is now 76 +1947 =2023. The Indian Constitution was born in 1950. So its age  is 73. 73+1950= 2023.

Let us look at a few more examples. Your kid is born in 1998. So his/her age is 25. 25+1998 = 2023. Your mom was born in 1940. So her age is 83. 83+ 1940= 2023! Your dad was born in 1937. So his age is 86. 86+ 1737 = 2023!

It appeared hyper exciting at the first glance. Believe me, for everybody! Fast fell the likes and the thumbs-up's. Yes, of course, I, too, was taken up with the idea that apparently was doing the rounds of very many groups.

After some time, on the first group where I first read this message, there was this terse and wry message that a similar post was doing the rounds last year. By that time, at least for me, the excitement and the fun feel mattered no more. Then the University Topper Mathematics student in me woke up. I realised then that it was nothing but a mere number game, a simple addition process wherein the sum total naturally would be the particular year!

Sure I felt a little sheepish, and quite silly. That, however, yet again ascertained my strong belief that one should never forward anything, unless one has checked and counter-checked it at least from some three knowledgeable sources.

It is like using the Wikipedia, a great open source of information. You have to, however, to take all the facts therein with a pinch of salt as this open access portal is open to constant and uninformed editing by most anyone!

Now that we are in the thick, rather than the thin, of the AI era, such total precaution is absolutely necessary as parallel realities can now be actually constructed. It would, moreover, be tough to check the veracity of any bit/byte of data. Now it is so very clear why the Oxford Dictionary chose 'authentic' as the word of the year!

Pratima@ Authenticity, as Janet C. Stephenson states, is (a little) vulnerability (or naivete), (total) transparency, and (complete) integrity, right?                                            N.B.: The bracketed additions are mine!

The beginning of the end

 It is December 1 already! Never realised that the end of 2023 has begun already. It is now hardly thirty days away. How time flies fast!

Yes, I do know that our Indian new year, as traditionally our calendar counts time the lunar way, is yet some three and half months away. Well, for all practical purposes though, we do follow the Gregorian calendar, right? 

How would be 2024? Yes, in India, there is going to be a decisive election in 2024. Yes, in Paris will be held the Olympics, and exactly a century later. Would the AI affect the Olympic games? Undoubtedly, given the pace it is running at.

Yet life will go on. Just as normally as the sun rises and the moon sets, lives will continue, too. Hope there would not be any new scare the Corona way, though some time back, there were news n rumours of some outbreak of a lung disease amongst the paediatric patients in China. Sure it appears to be mild. Let us cross fingers though.

At the personal level, I have chalked out (m)any number of plans. Sure would work well, and sincerely and efficiently, to effectively realise them. It is this hope and optimism that life would be (still) better that helps us continue to live, and quite happily. No harassment, no ill-treatment can then dampen our enthusiasm, right? So here is hoping all would be well, as it reasonably was this year. So let us enjoy the remaining part, the tail end of 2023! Anyways, 'what will be, will be', right?

Pratima@ Remember the "Que Sera, Sera" song? Doris Day made it the anthem of the "lead life as it comes your way" feel. My brother, Parag, recently sent me the song which is a joy to hear, given the simple acceptance lighting up each line in it.