Hi Folks,
This article on finding alternate habitats in the galaxy compliments my earlier post - Men are from Mars.
well not actually, but the gist is that yes, we need to go ahead and seek virgin habitats once we have made our planet earth unhabitable..in other words polluted it beyond compare..what a shame indeed !
We need to find alternate habitat in the galaxy: Kalam - Yahoo! India News
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Is Man really a Social Animal ?
Hi Folks,
I was discussing this topic in a different context with one of my colleague. I had always carried this thought in my mind, which I call it as one of my many theories (aka Gyanopdesh's)
The theory is a bit poetic and not really well framed (grammatically...but who cares)
"Man vies for a social life and in a group tries to be unique or different from the rest"
True, Dont you feel the same ?
Ok, take your time and close your eyes. try to recollect the guy/babe you hate the most and the one whom you can associate with words like - snob, show-off, et all
Thats right, there are many folks around us. and we are also one of them.
we live in a society which recognises what appears superficial, successful, glaringly bold, unconventional and all those weird things which we were taught in our school as not being right.
so what do we do, we do our best everyday to be noticed. dress up the best way, we strive to be cool (sometimes we are so cold that we have frozen expressions!)
we try to be indifferent to emotions, nostalgia, others around us. thats being cool right ?
I had heard about an experiment conducted by an psychologist studying human behaviour.
Luckily the psychologist did not use anyone but himself as the guniea pig.
He stayed away in isolation (siberia, alaska..i'm not sure where though) for few months. He had taken all the rations that would help him survive and basic needs to protect him from extreme weather.
He made it very clear that anything he carried need not have any labels on them, no markings, nothing which he can read. He had no communication device, nothing which can connect him to the rest of the world !
He had planned to stay in such condition for 6 months, but had told his friend to check on him in 3 months.
when his friend as promised went to see him. he could not believe his eyes.
The psychologist had aged more than a decade. he was worn out and unfit.
He begged his friend to abandon the experiment before he kills himself.
The psychologist had kept notes, daily log which he had updated to the tiniest detail. his observations were and are research material for experts in fields like Wild Life, Ice, Seasons, you name it.
When the psychologist came back to the civilized world, He was welcomed, honoured and praised for his will power, perseverance and determination. He was the guest of honour, speaker, & chair for many conferences and felicitations.
He continued adding to his notes/log, and later after few years He was back to normal.
He called few of his colleagues and asked them to use his notes to infer the changes he had been through.
The observations were made and the desicion was un-biased and unanimous.
1) In Solitude, the psychologist had explored beyond his interests, field of study. Each daily log had an unwritten claim and angst to be back into the society.
2) Back in Society, the psychologist had initially being happy to be loved and recognised. He carried this further when the felicitation had dried up, He became rude, commanding, demanding and proved he was an step ahead of all those experts around him.
well, I am not sure if this is a real experiment as this story was narrated to me as a kid. I dont have citations nor was i successful in finding any material on it on the internet.
The other incident which I want to share (confess) is really something which had embarassed me. but I was enlightened by a stranger on one of the IRC chat rooms where I boasted of being in the Deep Purple show in Banglore, India. which infact I never had been to, offcourse I used do listen to other classic rock bands and had nearly negligible knowledge of the legends.
when we were chatting about the show, the guy figured out i was faking and he said something which embarrased me but was really cool, I would love to quote it here.
"The Higher the monkey climbs the tree, the more of its butt can you see !"
well, you know who was the monkey now !
hope you enjoyed this post, do drop your comments and let me know if you think we are really social animals or just animals..grrr...!
I was discussing this topic in a different context with one of my colleague. I had always carried this thought in my mind, which I call it as one of my many theories (aka Gyanopdesh's)
The theory is a bit poetic and not really well framed (grammatically...but who cares)
"Man vies for a social life and in a group tries to be unique or different from the rest"
True, Dont you feel the same ?
Ok, take your time and close your eyes. try to recollect the guy/babe you hate the most and the one whom you can associate with words like - snob, show-off, et all
Thats right, there are many folks around us. and we are also one of them.
we live in a society which recognises what appears superficial, successful, glaringly bold, unconventional and all those weird things which we were taught in our school as not being right.
so what do we do, we do our best everyday to be noticed. dress up the best way, we strive to be cool (sometimes we are so cold that we have frozen expressions!)
we try to be indifferent to emotions, nostalgia, others around us. thats being cool right ?
I had heard about an experiment conducted by an psychologist studying human behaviour.
Luckily the psychologist did not use anyone but himself as the guniea pig.
He stayed away in isolation (siberia, alaska..i'm not sure where though) for few months. He had taken all the rations that would help him survive and basic needs to protect him from extreme weather.
He made it very clear that anything he carried need not have any labels on them, no markings, nothing which he can read. He had no communication device, nothing which can connect him to the rest of the world !
He had planned to stay in such condition for 6 months, but had told his friend to check on him in 3 months.
when his friend as promised went to see him. he could not believe his eyes.
The psychologist had aged more than a decade. he was worn out and unfit.
He begged his friend to abandon the experiment before he kills himself.
The psychologist had kept notes, daily log which he had updated to the tiniest detail. his observations were and are research material for experts in fields like Wild Life, Ice, Seasons, you name it.
When the psychologist came back to the civilized world, He was welcomed, honoured and praised for his will power, perseverance and determination. He was the guest of honour, speaker, & chair for many conferences and felicitations.
He continued adding to his notes/log, and later after few years He was back to normal.
He called few of his colleagues and asked them to use his notes to infer the changes he had been through.
The observations were made and the desicion was un-biased and unanimous.
1) In Solitude, the psychologist had explored beyond his interests, field of study. Each daily log had an unwritten claim and angst to be back into the society.
2) Back in Society, the psychologist had initially being happy to be loved and recognised. He carried this further when the felicitation had dried up, He became rude, commanding, demanding and proved he was an step ahead of all those experts around him.
well, I am not sure if this is a real experiment as this story was narrated to me as a kid. I dont have citations nor was i successful in finding any material on it on the internet.
The other incident which I want to share (confess) is really something which had embarassed me. but I was enlightened by a stranger on one of the IRC chat rooms where I boasted of being in the Deep Purple show in Banglore, India. which infact I never had been to, offcourse I used do listen to other classic rock bands and had nearly negligible knowledge of the legends.
when we were chatting about the show, the guy figured out i was faking and he said something which embarrased me but was really cool, I would love to quote it here.
"The Higher the monkey climbs the tree, the more of its butt can you see !"
well, you know who was the monkey now !
hope you enjoyed this post, do drop your comments and let me know if you think we are really social animals or just animals..grrr...!
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Varna's aka Vedic Caste System
Hi Folks,
Sharing a short story which I had read during my school.It is a letter being written by an old man to his grandson, demystifying why do we need to earn money and make profits.
I have to put in a disclaimer - this is my personal view, not meant to be read as an output from research nor based on any facts.
The old man explains in his letter about an mystic village in the pre-historic age.
where the population of the village is a one hundered human beings, who all do the same things over and over again.
he explains this by narrating their daily routine.
The villagers wake up every morning and start their daily chores by gathering food and water for the day's consumption.
Each family of villagers does this. So to fetch water from a brook which lies on the other side of the valley where the village lies. everyone lines up with a vessel and crosses the mountain seperating the village and the brook. this daily activity takes them almost half a day.
but human as they were who could not survive without the basic needs. they had no choice but to undergo this painful task.
one of the villagers - the dreamer as they would call him, starts thinking about a way to minimise this daunting task. He observes the mountain highs and lows, steep curves and bends. He makes note of his observation and starts digging a channel from the brook to the village. The channel gets filled with water and ends into a pond near his hutment.
this channel has costed him few extra hours daily, he would digg before he reached the brook, so in a way he worked backwards from destination to source.
And when the villagers started noticing him lazing and dreaming with abundant water at his disposal they started to envy him.
one of the villagers approached the dreamer and asked him if he could fetch water from his pond instead.
The dreamer allows him to do so but with a condition that, he should spare 5 minutes of his time to work for the dreamer everyday.
The happy villager readily accepts the offer, he has just profited from half-a-day's toil.
Slowly everyone realises that they can save time and energy. everyone approaches the dreamer and offer their five minutes. The dreamer welcomes all and is happy that he has got literally nothing to do. He carried on dreaming and worked on inventing few more things which would help not only him but all of his fellow villagers. He became powerful and his booty was abundantly filled. The village profited from each other and everyone led a happy and prosperous life.
wow ! what a tale.
This was explained by the narrator, our old man to his grandson in his letter.
Now to the other angle to this story. I interpret this story as the very begining of community and caste system - Varna in Sanskrit in ancient India.
The dreamer is the Brahmin who focusses on invention, remedies, medicine, science and discovery.
He employs various skilled craftsment who are sub divided into Shudra's.
The intial belief was all Shudra's are artisans and craftsmen beyond compare. their alienation and decline in social strata is the degeneration history of the caste system. I would not delve into that now.
The accountants and traders were the Vaishya's. who would classify, maintain, log and distribute the benefits amongst everyone fairly.
When the bounty, crop or wealth whatever you call it was abundant. There was a need to protect, secure and save the bounty from man, animal and nature.
The protectors were the Kshatriya's. Their strength and valor was counted for.
In this distribution each individual contributed to the well being of the system and the equation worked well for one and all.
I am sure that you might feel I am crazy but this is a hypothesis and I want to believe in the noble cause which might have helped design the Varna in Hindu system.
I want to believe that there is a much better reason for being a Brahmin because I am born as one. I want to believe that I am what I am not by birth but by pure virtue alone.
Pls let me know your comments on my thoughts.
Sharing a short story which I had read during my school.It is a letter being written by an old man to his grandson, demystifying why do we need to earn money and make profits.
I have to put in a disclaimer - this is my personal view, not meant to be read as an output from research nor based on any facts.
The old man explains in his letter about an mystic village in the pre-historic age.
where the population of the village is a one hundered human beings, who all do the same things over and over again.
he explains this by narrating their daily routine.
The villagers wake up every morning and start their daily chores by gathering food and water for the day's consumption.
Each family of villagers does this. So to fetch water from a brook which lies on the other side of the valley where the village lies. everyone lines up with a vessel and crosses the mountain seperating the village and the brook. this daily activity takes them almost half a day.
but human as they were who could not survive without the basic needs. they had no choice but to undergo this painful task.
one of the villagers - the dreamer as they would call him, starts thinking about a way to minimise this daunting task. He observes the mountain highs and lows, steep curves and bends. He makes note of his observation and starts digging a channel from the brook to the village. The channel gets filled with water and ends into a pond near his hutment.
this channel has costed him few extra hours daily, he would digg before he reached the brook, so in a way he worked backwards from destination to source.
And when the villagers started noticing him lazing and dreaming with abundant water at his disposal they started to envy him.
one of the villagers approached the dreamer and asked him if he could fetch water from his pond instead.
The dreamer allows him to do so but with a condition that, he should spare 5 minutes of his time to work for the dreamer everyday.
The happy villager readily accepts the offer, he has just profited from half-a-day's toil.
Slowly everyone realises that they can save time and energy. everyone approaches the dreamer and offer their five minutes. The dreamer welcomes all and is happy that he has got literally nothing to do. He carried on dreaming and worked on inventing few more things which would help not only him but all of his fellow villagers. He became powerful and his booty was abundantly filled. The village profited from each other and everyone led a happy and prosperous life.
wow ! what a tale.
This was explained by the narrator, our old man to his grandson in his letter.
Now to the other angle to this story. I interpret this story as the very begining of community and caste system - Varna in Sanskrit in ancient India.
The dreamer is the Brahmin who focusses on invention, remedies, medicine, science and discovery.
He employs various skilled craftsment who are sub divided into Shudra's.
The intial belief was all Shudra's are artisans and craftsmen beyond compare. their alienation and decline in social strata is the degeneration history of the caste system. I would not delve into that now.
The accountants and traders were the Vaishya's. who would classify, maintain, log and distribute the benefits amongst everyone fairly.
When the bounty, crop or wealth whatever you call it was abundant. There was a need to protect, secure and save the bounty from man, animal and nature.
The protectors were the Kshatriya's. Their strength and valor was counted for.
In this distribution each individual contributed to the well being of the system and the equation worked well for one and all.
I am sure that you might feel I am crazy but this is a hypothesis and I want to believe in the noble cause which might have helped design the Varna in Hindu system.
I want to believe that there is a much better reason for being a Brahmin because I am born as one. I want to believe that I am what I am not by birth but by pure virtue alone.
Pls let me know your comments on my thoughts.
The 4 Ashramas (stages) of Vedic Indian Life
The four Ashramas of Vedic Indian Life
The life span in vedic India was divided in 4 parts, each of 25 years. These were called Ashrams.
For Hindus the whole life is a Yagya(penance) and that is what this denotes.
These ashrams were named following:
Brahmcharya Ashram - Celebacy, Education
Grihasth Ashram - Matrimony
Vanprastha Ashrama - Social
Sanyas Ashrama - Meditation
1)Brahmcharya Ashram (Upnanyan Sanskaar-25 years)
After Upnayan Sanskar (Thread Ceremony) the person will go to Gurukul(School).
Under the guidanace of reverred guru (Teacher), he or she will study Vedas. The vedas have different parts or Angas. Vedas have knowlege of Adhyatm (Brahm), material and life...They will study and practise those till the age of 25. During this time they will live away from parents. During this they could not marry they had to maintain celebacy. The name Brahmcharya means the practice(of Yoga) on Brahm or actions carrying towards Brahm. Since in this Ashram celebacy was required so Brahmcharya also referes to celebacy. Not only Brahm Gyan was the focus, pupils also learnt various skills (Aayurveda, Shastra Vidya..) during this period.
read more on the importance of Celebacy at - http://www.yoga-age.com/modern/brahma.html
2)Grihastha Ashram (25 years - 50 Years)
After the age of 25 years people will get married and do work according to their skill set. They will have children and they will make sure that their children get Vidya (education). There is a shloka which means "that mother is an enemy and the father is an ill-wisher who do not send their child for education".
3)Vaanprastha Ashram (50 years - 75 Years)
In this Ashram people will still live in society and with family (spouse and children and grandchildren) but they will maintain celebacy and live with Niyama.
4)Sanyaas Ashram (75 years - 100 Years)
At this age person will leave general society and live with Rishis(Hermits) in some forests and fully meditate upon Brahm(GOD).
The beauty of this kind of division of the human life according to the Vedas was in its simplicity.
these stages or Ashrama's were also meant for all castes (denominations) in Hinduism
Now I need to gear up to write more on the denominations in ancient Vedic Hindu culture. keep watching this blog.
With due acknowledgements to Sarvesh Dipal - http://www.geocities.com/dipalsarvesh/
One more lovely post worth reading is available at - http://mysticsaint.blogspot.com/2006/03/hinduism-in-holy-nutshell.html
regards,
Ganesh
The life span in vedic India was divided in 4 parts, each of 25 years. These were called Ashrams.
For Hindus the whole life is a Yagya(penance) and that is what this denotes.
These ashrams were named following:
1)Brahmcharya Ashram (Upnanyan Sanskaar-25 years)
After Upnayan Sanskar (Thread Ceremony) the person will go to Gurukul(School).
Under the guidanace of reverred guru (Teacher), he or she will study Vedas. The vedas have different parts or Angas. Vedas have knowlege of Adhyatm (Brahm), material and life...They will study and practise those till the age of 25. During this time they will live away from parents. During this they could not marry they had to maintain celebacy. The name Brahmcharya means the practice(of Yoga) on Brahm or actions carrying towards Brahm. Since in this Ashram celebacy was required so Brahmcharya also referes to celebacy. Not only Brahm Gyan was the focus, pupils also learnt various skills (Aayurveda, Shastra Vidya..) during this period.
read more on the importance of Celebacy at - http://www.yoga-age.com/modern/brahma.html
2)Grihastha Ashram (25 years - 50 Years)
After the age of 25 years people will get married and do work according to their skill set. They will have children and they will make sure that their children get Vidya (education). There is a shloka which means "that mother is an enemy and the father is an ill-wisher who do not send their child for education".
3)Vaanprastha Ashram (50 years - 75 Years)
In this Ashram people will still live in society and with family (spouse and children and grandchildren) but they will maintain celebacy and live with Niyama.
4)Sanyaas Ashram (75 years - 100 Years)
At this age person will leave general society and live with Rishis(Hermits) in some forests and fully meditate upon Brahm(GOD).
The beauty of this kind of division of the human life according to the Vedas was in its simplicity.
these stages or Ashrama's were also meant for all castes (denominations) in Hinduism
Now I need to gear up to write more on the denominations in ancient Vedic Hindu culture. keep watching this blog.
With due acknowledgements to Sarvesh Dipal - http://www.geocities.com/dipalsarvesh/
One more lovely post worth reading is available at - http://mysticsaint.blogspot.com/2006/03/hinduism-in-holy-nutshell.html
regards,
Ganesh
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Where no Internet connection has gone before !
Hi Folks,
I don't read news especially when Its obviously filled with politics, hypocrisy, terrorism and human annihilation stories.
But I do connect to few of my good friends over messengers
(I have the same id on all known social networking utilities). So today when i was trying to connect to yahoo, It flashed me the news dialog which i normally take half a second to close it. but something caught my eye..and that's where it all started. One of the headlines was Orrisa Villages go Wi-Fi, have an ePostman, This was fantastic news which I couldn't resist to ignore.I jumped into to finding more.
Ok, now to what this is all about.
The news article spoke about how Daknet is helping rural villages in Orrisa, a state in north-eastern part of India.
The company behind this cool initiative is United Villages, a great company which has cropped as an initiative by First Miles Solutions. This company has been growing with more Industry big-wigs aka the Few Good Men joining its board.
A good post worth reading about Daknet can be foundt here.
I wish this virus(in the good sense) catches up to all those sinful mortals who wish to have a glimpse of the pearly gates.
Lets make this world a better place to live...and off course liberate technology from the cities and make it reach the annals of the 3rd world villages.
Great work guys (all at United Village), we are proud of it.
I don't read news especially when Its obviously filled with politics, hypocrisy, terrorism and human annihilation stories.
But I do connect to few of my good friends over messengers
(I have the same id on all known social networking utilities). So today when i was trying to connect to yahoo, It flashed me the news dialog which i normally take half a second to close it. but something caught my eye..and that's where it all started. One of the headlines was Orrisa Villages go Wi-Fi, have an ePostman, This was fantastic news which I couldn't resist to ignore.I jumped into to finding more.
Ok, now to what this is all about.
The news article spoke about how Daknet is helping rural villages in Orrisa, a state in north-eastern part of India.
The company behind this cool initiative is United Villages, a great company which has cropped as an initiative by First Miles Solutions. This company has been growing with more Industry big-wigs aka the Few Good Men joining its board.
A good post worth reading about Daknet can be foundt here.
I wish this virus(in the good sense) catches up to all those sinful mortals who wish to have a glimpse of the pearly gates.
Lets make this world a better place to live...and off course liberate technology from the cities and make it reach the annals of the 3rd world villages.
Great work guys (all at United Village), we are proud of it.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Some cool videos
Epica Awards for best Ad in 2004
Animator vs Animation - Part 1
Animator vs Animation - Part 2
(This was shortlisted for Webby Awards)
More to come...pls leave a comment/suggestion if you want to contribute.
Animator vs Animation - Part 1
Animator vs Animation - Part 2
(This was shortlisted for Webby Awards)
More to come...pls leave a comment/suggestion if you want to contribute.
Most talented realistic painter - Iman Maleki
(Excerpt taken with permission)
Iman was born on 1976 in Tehran. He has been fascinated by the art of Painting since he was a child. At the age of 15, he started to learn painting under the mastery of his first and only teacher - Morteza Katouzian - who is the greatest realist painter of Iran. Meanwhile, he began to paint professionally. In 1999 he graduated in Graphic Design from the Art University of Tehran. Since 1998, he has participated in several exhibitions. In the year 2000, he got married and in the following year he established ARA Painting Studio and started to teach painting, considering classical and traditional values.
The most important exhibitions he has participated in, are: The Exhibition of Realist painters of Iran at Tehran Contemporary Museum of Art(1999) and The Group Exhibition of KARA Studio Painters at SABZ Gallery(1998) and at SA'AD ABAD Palace(2003). In 2005, Iman received the William Bouguereau award and the Chairman's Choice award in the second international ARC salon competition.
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