One who has wet his feet and sandals on a sandy beach most likely remembers the exasperating experience of trying to rid them of sand. The less experienced are easily fooled into attempting to wash their feet against the next wave, only to find that the wave replaces any sand it removes with a fresh […]
Alcoholism – A Social Evil Sustained by Greed
Some time back, I was involved in a discussion regarding the right of individuals to chose their destiny. My general view is that people can do with their lives whatever they wish as long as it does not infringe upon a similar right of another. This is why I supported the right to drive without […]
Futility of Amassing Wealth – Timeless Wisdom from a Young Prince
There was recently news about a political leader of India, who has most likely amassed great wealth through questionable means (to say the least) and wields the highest level of power in this country, being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. At least at such times, it is good to remember a story from our own […]
A New Generation Mahabharata – Conversation with a Teenager
Yesterday, I had an interesting discussion with a young teenager. After drifting through topics involving movies and television on which his knowledge was impressive, we arrived on the subject of Mahabharata when the curtain raiser of a new television series based on the epic caught our attention. This is when I was introduced to the new […]
Don’t Make Best an Enemy of the Better
Anybody who has ever taken a challenging new year resolution will likely be aware of the psychological ploys employed by the mental weakness that we’re resolved to overcome. One of the most cunning schemes among these is to use our own sense of good against ourselves – by pitting the best against the better. Let’s […]
Should We be Proud of Our Culture?
The first year in college was the first time in life when we were allowed to use a calculator in class and even during exams. Each of us were happy with our own calculator, but also wanted to test its power against those owned by others. Most of these devices were capable of evaluating finite […]
Creating Channels for Right Thought and Action
Among the unusual hobbies that I had as a kid was racing drops of waters against each other on a vertical surface. One of the observations from this activity was that if a drop could follow a path traced out by a predecessor, it did so in most cases except when it was massive enough […]
Sethubandhanam on Kazhakkuttam-Menamkulam Road
Having studied geography at school, it is not difficult for me to appreciate that where there is a mountain today could once have been under the sea, and may again go under water. But I did not expect such changes to happen so close to my home, or over so small time frames as a […]
Magic Squares With Katapayadi
The Katapayadi system of representing numbers that we introduced in a previous post opens up the possibility of numerous tricks and techniques to memorize numbers and patterns of numbers that are useful, or otherwise interesting. An example of this is an easy technique involving this number system to create ultimate magic squares with perfect symmetry. […]
The Unconstitutional Anti-Superstition Bill of Maharashtra
The so called “anti-superstition” bill of Maharashtra which as been pushed through as an ordinance, short-circuiting the formal process of discussion and voting, because a champion of this law was shot dead by some criminals, is very much in line with the pseudo-secular policies that many self-styled intellectuals seem to be in favour of. I […]