Category Archives: experiences

Bhrahmaand

Ravi and Bhaskar, two teenagers who have keen interest in space, go on a school trip to a Planetarium. While they learn about space and the Solar System, we as audience learn with them. And with that we take a deep dive into the nostalgic TV program Brahmaand of late 1980s and early 1990s.

It is always fun to go back to watch old TV shows which you would have seen when you were really young. But even some episodes which you never saw again, their impact is so big that the scenes gets etched into the memories and the intro jingle gets hardwired into the grey matter.

I was watching Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics produced Brahmaand on YouTube lately. It was made to generate interest in youngsters about Science and Space. Professor Jayant Narlikar of IUCAA himself stars in it and calls the students and explains the mysteries of Space. Searching further, I also found out his interview taken just a few days back from some people who might have got inspired by such shows.

Funnily, when the show was being shot Jupiter had only 14 known satellites and Saturn had just 10. Now in 2021, we have found out that Jupiter has around 79 moons and Saturn has 82. In 30 odd years, a lot more has been known. The cgi has become indistinguishable from reality. But the charm of those Doordarshan days is still sweet.

Things change

I have always been interested in being able to take good photographs. The process of capturing scenes, the moment, the landscape. And the process of editing, ah what fun.

When I started and bought by own camera, Flickr was in vogue. Later 500px was buzzing. Then to a certain extent Instagram became the go to place.

Now Instagram has become a mish mash of all the things internet can offer. There are some great photographers there but to find them is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Probably when things change, one should move on and start looking for new avenues. That’s how things are.

Sweet Spot

You know when the ball hits the Cricket bat at the sweet spot, it makes that crackling of sound and the ball just rushes towards the boundary. That knocking sound and the power generated from that Sweet Spot is one of the most majestic things in Cricket to a player as well as the viewer (except the bowler). But not every batsman is that elegant. For example, it is rare to see something equivalent to the sweet spot of Sachin Tendulkar Straight Drive.

In work and in life, the flow is a somewhat similar concept. We expect to hit the sweet spot daily but it doesn’t hit often. It is either an edge, or a bouncer, or an unexpected beamer. Sometimes life is a lofted ball so slow that even if it hits the sweet spot, goes straight to a fielder.

Working from home, studying, delivering speeches in Toastmasters, and handling the nitty-gritty of life have been some major struggles in the past year. The sweet spot has been hit but only a handful of times. The rest of the time, it has just been hits and misses.

Today I completed my Level 5 of Toastmasters Pathways. But I didn’t do any justice, to at least the second half of the Path. I got the same comments which I got in my first speech 4 years ago. The form was there but off late, the sweet spot has not been met.

There are numerous excuses but they don’t matter. What matters is sharpening the axe, and working even harder for the tasks ahead.

I am hopeful that next time, the sound would be sweeter, and the impact would be stronger.

My profession is Better than Yours?

In any office cafeteria in today’s day and age, there would be flocks of people coming in and going out during lunchtime. They would come in groups or alone, sit at some tables, have their lunch, and go back. There’s nothing unusual in this. But there would be a bunch of folks who would clean up the table after a set of people are done with their lunch before the next set comes in. Normally, it should be the people themselves who should clean up after they have done eating but that might be too hoity-toity for many of us privileged junta.

Continue reading “My profession is Better than Yours?”

Irregular Weekend Programming Halted

As this is not a competition, I am going to not write a daily blog on Weekends from now on. Not that I can’t, but I want to let the brain take a back seat on weekends and indulge in other skills I might want to improve on.

Not that someone is complaining, but I just wanted to make it concrete by jotting it down.

Nobody’s going to believe you if…

I was recently listening to a podcast by Sanjay Dixit called ‘The Jaipur Dialogues’ in which he had invited Shiv Sastry. Dr. Sastry is a retired Surgeon and is apparently the son of the founder of the famous Mysore Sandal Soap. The podcast mainly dealt with him talking about his new book about the myth of ‘Aryan Invasion Theory’. I am not going into much detail about the myth or the theory but Dr. Sastry said one thing which caught my mind’s attention. When people asked him in Q and A about what he thought about how can we educate people about the prevalent myths and Indian history in general as most of the stuff we have is from a perspective of Western Lens. Basically, how to think originally by doing research and how not to get swayed and be submissive to ideas from others (West)?

He said that one can stop seeking other’s approval if one’s truth is true only when one believes it is true.

The last sentence is pretty confusing. But what it insinuates is that we can be confident about our beliefs only when we don’t feel guilty about them. If our knowledge and research are solid, we don’t have to seek everyone’s approval because the evidence would speak of itself. Nobody is going to believe you if you don’t believe in yourself first.