The man who invented slow motion.

Have you ever seen a person move so slow that he appears stationary? This is the story of such a person. His name is Shashi (fake name). He has this ability to ride his bicycle so slow that even old people would walk past him.
But I am going to speak of his other ability, one that is so unique to him. He is a living magnet of the cricket ball. He could attract any cricket ball going in some other direction to divert and hit him on his chest. For a guy with such dangerous quality, his house is in the worst possible location, at the end of a cricket ground. Given his unique ability to attract balls, there are some pretty amazing stories of the ball finding its target in the most unusual ways.
Once he was reading newspaper inside the comfort of his house. The cricket ball went through the open window of his house to crash into his chest making a hole in the newspaper. Once he was playing cards under the shade of a tree at a corner of the ground. The cricket ball went straight to the tree hitting the branch and finding its target. This time it hit his head from behind. The force was so strong that he practically fell face down into the deck of cards and came up with a card in his mouth.
And many times, the ball would fly high only to land on his chest while he is on his bike with precision timing. Of all these stories, one story stands out as the best that I could remember.
It was a very close match between our cricket team and our rival team. It was the last over and our rival team needed 5 runs to win. The match was so interesting that there were many spectators gathered to watch of which one was our Shashi. When the last over was being bowled, our fielders were on their toes stopping every attempt for runs. In the 4^th delivery of the over, the batsman hit the ball and it was racing towards the boundary. Our youngest and strongest fielder stopped the ball before it could reach the boundary. While he was collecting the ball in his hands, he noticed that the batsman was looking to run again. The fielder did not think then, he aimed at the wicket keeper and threw the ball with all his might.
Only that the ball slipped from his hands and went straight towards Shashi’s chest who was smoking a cigar. The ball landed on his chest with a thundering sound and threw his cigar away in the force of the impact. The whole cricket ground went silent. We were expecting Shashi to yell at us for what we have done, instead he turned and walked. We thought that it is nothing serious since he is not complaining. But the truth was worse. He walked away for he was out of breath. He was not able to breathe in because of the impact to his chest. There was cigar smoke coming out of his nose like mist as he walked in circles.
After a couple of minutes, he could breathe again and the started shouting at us in all the possible ways. He used words that I haven’t heard of, in different ways I haven’t thought of. After half an hour of yelling, he sat down. People who were gathered around asked us to take him to the hospital and so we did.
In the hospital, the doctor asked us to take an X-ray of his chest. When the doctor examined the results, and analysed the extend of different injuries to his chest, the doctor asked, “Did you boys throw stones at the poor man?”

The task of a critic.

Every walk of life is filled with critics judging everything that they have seen or not. The task of a critic is easy in many ways. There is nothing to lose and they command a position over those who offer their dreams, their labour and sometimes their life to our judgement. It’s even more fun to tease and to hear someone tease. But the reality is that any average work or attempt is far beyond the value of our criticism.

When was the last time we presented ourselves to the judgement of others and risked it all? It’s hard for a new talent to come on the arena and present us with something different. We must have the patience to appreciate the attempt and understand the thought and work that has gone behind to present us and capture our attention. Not everyone is talented but we must appreciate when we see an attempt because talent can come from anyone.

Who am I ?

In the lonely dark night, I stare at the sky and see the spectacle unravel in front of me. I drift down to deep thoughts and ask the question that each and every man asks himself once in his lifetime, Who am I?
As I stare deep into the clear night sky with the absence of the moon making way to see the countless stars in the Milky Way, I try to comprehend the scale of things in space, their age, their beauty, the all-powerful gravity, the raw energy as I begin to inhale knowledge. Looking at our galaxy from the inside, trying to grasp what it is, how grand it is, how old it is, can we even begin to comprehend what it is, what are we compared to the awesome spectacle in front of us. But with the little science that we understand, we can say proudly, I am you.
The small light that I see from a star far far away, the photon that touches the nerves in my eyes, the burst of energy that turn into electrical signals that help me see the twinkle of the stars, came from stars that started their journey even before this earth came into existence. We may never live to touch it but something from that star has come to touch us, travelling through the void that lay between us. I feel that connection between the stars yet completely knowing that each and every element in my body was created in a star which has long lived, shined and died, leaving behind matter that has made me. I was born in a super nova explosion and so are you and everyone and everything around us. Even the latest new-born in my life is as old as the cosmos, which is 13.7 billion years old, only that he is in a new unique form. So what am I rather who am I?
I am nature.

Karale in Kerala

In almost all the languages that we know of, we refer our lover with one organ that we hold dear, the HEART.
In English: my sweet heart, my heartthrob.
In Hindi, मेरा दिलरुबा (meri dilruda)
In tamil: என் அன்பே (en anpe)
But in Malayalam: എന്റെ കരളേ (ente karale) which means "my liver" !!!
May be that’s the reason why Kerala has a love affair with alcohol

The sports champ.

Anyone who enters my house will be welcomed by a large trophy showcase. It is filled with trophies of various sports events over a long period of time. Since my father is abroad and my sister is a complete bookworm of medicine, it only natural that everyone assumes I am the proud owner of the trophies. But the truth is; all of them belong to my mother. My mother has been a sports champion all her life. She has even won the medals from former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for the outstanding performance in National Cadet Corps (NCC). Even when I was in college, she would go to competitions and sweep all the trophies in the competitions she could participate. Her specialty was shot put, javelin throw and discus throws.
Once in a competition, she was against the sponsor’s sister in shot put. When the competition started, the judges were seen training the girl. When the competition started, the girl threw the shot put and it slipped from her hands in the first try. The judges immediately said that it was a trial and asked her to retry the first attempt. She threw it again which landed at a fair distance. She looked proud of her achievement and looked straight to our sports club members. The judges went to her to encourage and appreciated her.
Next turn was my mother’s representing our sports club, who just went and picked the shot put and said to the judges that this is not a trial. She then threw the shot put ‘miles’ ahead of the other girl. I could see the judges and the other opponents open their mouth. My mother then said; if anyone crosses that, please inform me, I will do my second attempt. As she was allowed to participate in only 3 items, she won all three with gold medals and a bonus best athlete trophy.
Everyone assembled there would look at me saying, if the mother is that good, what all could her son do? I was around half an inch short of six feet and fairly athletic in appearance at that time. But the similarities end there. My friends would tease me asking me to learn from my mother. I was fed up with these jokes and thought of trying my skills; after all I have the same genes of my mother. The event with the least number of opponents was javelin throw and I selected that for a better chance for gold.
I put on my club jersey and began to warm up before the throw. All the people began to gather around to watch the son of the sports champ in action. This is going to be great. When the event started some of the opponents were hesitant to throw at first looking at my warm-up exercises. When my number was called, I picked up a javelin and started my run-up. I pointed a fair 45 degrees and threw it over my head. Everyone looked towards the horizon to see the javelin disappear, but what they saw was beyond their expectations.
When I threw the javelin over my head, the rear end of the javelin stick hit the back of my head. It was so hard that I landed nose first on the ground. The javelin was lying beside me. The judges picked me up and threw all the water I brought in the bottle on my face. I opened my eyes and could see everyone around me staring in disbelief.
The judge said; Never in his life has he come across such a performance.

Immortality

Everything that is born has an end. We are born with our shadow. We live, breathe, eat, drink and sleep with this shadow. And one day we will unite with in forever. Yes, death is the one thing that we are sure of, the full stop to our life making us all mere mortals.
Since time immemorial, man has been obsessed with his death. We have all our life woven around this single instance making it the ultimate destination. But over time, the ignorance of man couldn’t comprehend the thought of death as an end and culminated the belief of afterlife. This made death another pause in the stream of life and giving hope to a greater journey.
But man still fears death due to the uncertainty of the afterlife and hence started the ultimate goal of immortality, the holy grail of mankind, the pursuit for the fountain of youth.
If there was only a single truth, then that would be death. Then how do we live forever? If anything is born then it must have a death. Then how do we overcome that? All these while we were looking at mortal objects for an extension of our life, but what if we look at the immortal objects? The solution is as simple as ditching the mortal in exchange for immortal objects. That removes our dependency of the life span on other things. Immortal objects, how do we find them? Well look around, they are all around you. Yes I am talking about things that make us human.
Then what makes us, us? I am typing with my hand, I am reading with my eyes. It’s no different than I am reading from my laptop or eating with my spoon. These are just an extension of me. Then where am I? Yes my body is here, But it’s my body, where am I?
I believe, we are the sum of my actions, thoughts, character, personality and feelings. This is where we live and this is immortal. It is pure energy. It can only be transformed from one form to another. Currently it resides in our brain, which is another mortal extension. What if we could transfer this into an immortal space? Just like this blog, what if we could live inside endless memory? After all, our brain is just a network of neurons, passing electric signals. All we have to do is replicate this network and the grid of electric signals will pass though.
I am sure at least some of you might have thought this as science fiction, but todays concept is tomorrows reality.

Silence is acceptance…

What a beautiful thought when talking to a lady. You ask her if she loves you. She doesn’t have the power to look up, she is overcome with love, the love that flow from within. She doesn’t have words to respond to show how much she has love inside towards you. She maintains her silence. Yes this is the silence of acceptance.
If you think that this applies to only love, you are wrong. If you see injustice and decided to walk away and do nothing about it, it’s the silence of acceptance. If you see any idiot preach wrong to our children, you respond, may be not directly to him, but spread awareness against him. There are people with secret rotting agenda in mind. Stop them from polluting the minds of the innocent. Spread love and not hate.


Learn from our past, it tells a lot about our future.


“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” --Edmund Burke


"When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out."
--Pastor Martin Niemöller