Journey to the Light and back

I came across this fascinating near death experience (NDE) story recently. I’ve read many NDE stories, been hearing about them since my childhood, but this story goes beyond the typical Christian allegories one finds in NDE parables. There’s no angels, bugles, family members.
An NDE occurs on those rare occasions when a person medically dies, comes [...]

Poem for the week

One of my favourites, although the author, Sheenagh Pugh, is as sick of it as John Lennon was with Yesterday.

Sometimes
Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.
A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an [...]

A step closer to deciphering the Indus Valley script

Many controversies have raged about whether the script on the Indus Valley seals was a language, or just symbols. The Hindu has an article on a statistical study that gives evidence that the script is indeed a language. This is an important break through the thicket of murky conjecture and debate around the [...]

Dancing in Antwerpen’s Centraal Station, Belgium

Natural Wonders of the world

Although it wasn’t intended as such, but Earth Day on April 22 makes this posting a happy coincidence.
I came across a link, Fantastic Wonders of Nature , on my monthly pronoia (yes, it is the opposite of paranoia) newsletter. It’s a link to a blog that contains photos of some pretty fascinating occurrences [...]

A poem to start the week: A Slip of Comet

I was recently gifted a collection of poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, a british poet of the 19th century. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford, worked in various posts all over England, and lived the last 5 years of his life as a professor of Greek and Latin literature at the recently formed Catholic University [...]

Satyajit Ray’s Parash Pathar – A review

If you think that Ray’s funny movies are limited to Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne and its sequel Hirok Rajar Deshe, then, to quote Meatloaf, “STOP RIGHT THERE!”
Turn around, find yourself a good DVD store or a city running the First Light festival of Satyajit Ray movies, and watch Parash Pathar.
Ray made [...]

Economics from a thermodynamics point of view

The Week In Review section of the sunday New York Times had an article about considering an economy as a machine, and hence applying the laws of thermodynamics as one would to any machine.
The concept was pioneered by Nobel Laureate Frederick Soddy.
He offered a perspective on economics rooted in physics — the laws of thermodynamics, [...]

An American name generator for Asian-Americans

There’s rarely an immigrant, or for that matter anyone with a non-Christian name, that hasn’t heard his or her name mangled by Americans in ways that would make a Cossack flinch, or a blue whale do a 3 point U-turn. Recently, Texas Republican Betty Brown said that Asian Americans should simplify their names for Americans.
[...]

Bleed India: The multi anti “get the vote out” website

Why take tension? Don’t vote in election.
With this catchy slogan, some innovative “get the vote out” campaigners have designed a funny satirical website called Bleed India. Bleed India showcases the model Indian politician, Pappu Raj.
The website is, at times, very funny. Check out all the links, especially Party Time, Ringtones and the ECards. For example, [...]