Ephemeral Reflections

I revisited origami During lockdown. And initially..... I went berserk. When you have got no work to do, You have to have something to keep your hands (but more importantly, mind) busy... and especially if you are one of those people whose mind keep flitting from one thing to other and you get bored rather easily, After 2-3 movies series down... I was left with the same existential question again, Who do I do?   So, I again turned to origami. I guess this is one of those hobbies which you can pick up whenever you want and wherever you have left it. And the fact that you only need a paper to begin with (later on, you can down the rabbit hole of exquisite papers, sizes, designs, textures, etc.) It's the perfect way to get going when you are in total lockdown to no access to any non-essential supplies, whatsoever.   I find this particularly suitable for me since its an art which doesn’t require you have an excellent freehand. Here having a rigid hand helps (in many branches of or...

We always have some unexpected connections to the things ( and the people ) we have loved and lost over a period of time. Years ago, I was big fan of this Japanese paper folding art 'Origami'. But, I have this bad habit of losing interest over (simply because they are not exciting anymore ....  a bored mind is a very dangerous one). So, this love of mine was lost in time. But some time ago I started watching a TV series called 'Heroes'. In this, Hiro Nakamura convinces Charlie Andrews of his power of time travelling by instantly creating a thousand paper cranes around her. (on a side note: thousand paper cranes have cultural significance in Japan... the legend says this brings luck. Cranes are sacred creatures who are said to live for thousand year. so, one crane for each year. they are also symbolizes fidelity. And they bring luck. So, if you have the patience to fold a thousand cranes ... you will be granted a wish. Also, you can find the story of Sadako and thousan...

I wonder how surfing internet sometimes become like falling down a rabbit hole. I was once looking up something for a friend during when I came across the 'standard essential patents'. This somehow lead me to gene patents. This term revived a distant memory. When I was in B.Sc., one of my friend told me that  the biotech industry stocks suffered a huge loss in single day when president Bill Clinton declared human genome sequences should be available freely ( see  Clinton - Blair Statement ). Of course, this was quite far from the day when their supreme court declared genes are not patent-able after long legal tussle (this I learned now, not then). So I have decided to simply collect the status of gene patents in India and abroad. I present a summary of what I learned and thoughts over here.  A little bit of history for the most famous gene patent litigation. BRCA1 and 2 are quite infamous genes. These genes are involved in DNA double stran...

 Now a union minister states ( in All India vaidic sammelan, no less) that Darwin's theory of evolution is wrong because none of historic texts mention sightings of ape turning into man.  ‎The idiocracy.  Okay, everybody is entitled to have their own view but not on the cost of playing with facts. Do our ancient texts mention dinosaurs and woolly mammoths ? But they sure did exist. Look at frozen carcass of woolly mammoths dug out from Siberia or partial dinosaur skeleton in our own India (Rajasaurus narmadensis) . Hey, but those are not mentioned in our ancient texts. So , here they go out of windows. Texts do not mention them as they were written by humans. Humans ( Homo sapiens , to be specific) date back to 195,000 years at max, while those poor chaps existed in completed different era (230-65 million years). Woolly mammoth went extinct 9-5000 years ago.   Prima facie , it appears that he has not studied the very theory he is advocating to remove  from...

C ontrary to the title here, I am referring to the spring. After Makar Sankranti, spring is officially here. For some deciduous trees, spring time equals to fall and with that comes the magical journeys of leaves.It’s nothing out of ordinary. But still always has a spellbinding effect on me and brings a smile in mind. From top to the bottom…. Sometimes just hanging in there and Swaying gently in the wind rest of the time. When these leaves fall, I get mesmerized by their subtle play of glimmer…in the golden sunshine or in those haunting lamp lights. They have the same effect on me as do fireflies.  Nowadays specially, I get to see it abundance. When I walk in the evening on the main BARC road, a light breeze sweeps away the dead ones into numerous eddies. And all the way till end, leaves keep their random dates with me. These late evening walks remind me of my times in Delhi.  Those boulevards and the pleasantness of walking on those wide roads lined those shady green tr...