Gypsy in the woods!

Old fellow was still there, lying like an old skeleton! I carefully lifted him from wooden base; spider webs had run out of all imaginations while decorating his almost empty stomach all these years.   A wry smile, that’s what I could give to defunct Radio cum Cassette player; which was once like a close friend to me.   I found him in our old house few days back while searching for something. Years spent there with all those sounds with which this place was once buzzing; all flashed in front of me..! It was early 2000’s. A world was slowly opening for school going teenager. Every day was new experience. People still used to gather around street side shops to get glimpses of young Tendulkar’s batting, Kumar Sanu and Nadeem-Shravan were still appearing on stack of cassettes put out for sale in stalls and young kids like me were still used to gather on grounds after school to win a 2 Rupees prize Cricket matches! This fella was already quite old when my Uncle b...

घर में पानी का सैलाब और पेट में भूख का बच्चों को नींद सपने दिखाती तो भी कैसे रात बारिश बन कर रोती रही माँ की आँखों में आंसू देखकर उधार में ख़रीदे हुए बर्तन और मुफ्त में मिली छत से टपकती बूँदें दोनों का झगडा घर की नींद खरीद ले गया रात भर के लिए मिटटी के तेल की फरफराती हुई रौशनी और गठड़ी का तल चूमता अनाज बस था उनका सूरज बेबसी का असीम अँधेरा बाकी सारे ख्वाब कब का ले गया था ओझल करके दिनभर लोगों के मकान बनाने के लिए पत्थर उठाने वाले माँ के थके हाथ रात भर पानी से भरे बर्तन उठाते रहे अपना खुद का घर बचाने के लिए ना उनको आराम का मौका मिला ना बच्चों के बाल सुलझाने का पत्थरों ने उनके नसीब की रेखाएं अपने बदन पे सालो पहले ही खिंच ली थी सुबह होने तक बारिश रुक गयी लेकिन वादा दे गयी कल-परसों फिरसे लौट आने का उतने वक़्त में कुछ और मकान बने, मिटटी के तेल की रौशनी और अनाज के गठड़ी की गहराई और थोड़ी कम हुई रात बारिश बन कर रोती रही बच्चों के आँखों में अँधेरा देखकर..

Although I might have been bit late in coming to it, but its never to late to praise a good stuff, rather its epic stuff here! I took almost two years to come to conclusion of this epic story of ordinary person’s journey of becoming god, journey of Shiva to Lord Shiva.. its epic in every sense! The way Amish Tripathi has created his own ancient India and mixed it with mythology is stuff of genius! Take a bow man! The references, the philosophy, description of ancient cities, battles, people and the way it repres ents the ancient Indian culture at 360• is just mind blowing. A little more inclusive climax that I only can ask more from Amish, as some major characters which were integral throughout all three books were suddenly look thrown into oblivion without giving them ample space to conclude themselves. But nevertheless that doesn’t hampers much the essence of epic saga that Amish has crafted carefully. There are some common pillars on which all timeless literature...

KIC 8462852 (Tabby’s star), located in constellation Cygnus, approximately 1480 light years away from Earth could have been just another one of those billions of glittering stars spread in enormous vastness of universe, if it didn’t blink at us crazily! Kepler space telescope observes dipping in brightness of stars, caused by passing  of objects like extra-solar planets in front of them. Observations of Kepler found that brightness of KIC 8462852 is dipping on period of roughly 750 days, but by whopping 15 to 22%! Yes, something is out there that is blocking almost quarter of starlight! On 5 March 2011 KIC 8462852 faded by 15% and on 28 February 2013 by 22%.  This is huge! To cause such enormous amount of blockage, any planet in our convention is insufficient in size and pattern of dipping is itself irregular, ruling out planet hypothesis in first place. Possibility of giant gas cloud lurking around is also considered, and ruled out. Generally disks of gas an...