in vacant or in pensive mood

I saw an Instagram post about time being interpreted differently in different languages. It was fascinating to know that in Mandarin, time is vertical concept when used in grammar (last month translated in Mandarin would roughly be Upper Month).  That small detail opened up a bigger idea: Time isn't perceived the same way across all cultures and from a linguistic point of view, cultures represent time as they experience it.  So for some, it is cyclical (as based on phases of sun, moon, seasons - almost agrarian). But also as a concept of time repeating itself from a philosophic sense too. For others, it is horizontal (past, present and future are in a spectrum). And for some cultures - time is vertical. Interestingly - there's a language for whom time as a concept is absolutely different. They view the past as forward (known) and the future as behind (unknown). They see things as materializing or materialized.  That's not all - if language has this kind of impact - where ...

I have played enough basketball and volleyball and rate myself 7/10 in both. I used to have a great jump/vertical and could almost touch the ring and easily cross the men's high net in volleyball too. But what I lacked in both were good coaches. Coaches who could correct my approach and jump. Since basketball interested me more, I learned a lot watching NBA. The best compliment I got in my college days was being called KOBE. I definitely had that MAMBA spirit (but more because I had a similar look that he had in his rookie years). Anyway, I had picked up a good jump shot for basketball and even had a decent ball release too.  But things weren't the same in volleyball. Although I could spike hard, my fundamentals were wrong and I never knew it. That is, until now - when I have become the volleyball coach for college students of my alma mater. As a coach now, I was observing the approach to a spike in volleyball more closely and observed that it is very different than a pull up j...

Gravitational waves are produced by moving, accelerating mass that are assymetrical and non-spherical. Every single piece of mass in the universe is producing gravitational waves - detecting them though, is where things get difficult. Which is why, most gravitational waves, or even the existence of that concept, was proved when they managed to detect two black holes collapsing into each other. It was a celestial dance that literally sent waves across the universe. Now imagine brands having such waves. Every brand is producing some sort of a wave. But the faster the motion and acceleration, the bigger the wave and easier to spot them. D2C brands or digital first brands think they are creating a lot of waves but fail to realize that they are in a field with some of the heaviest brands that have huge gravity and mass. They are brands that are in constant motion. They attract huge crowds and their waves are louder and more easily detectable. The waves of these smaller players usually get d...

Prahlad had, much to the disbelief of his father Hiranyakashipu, convinced that he sees God in everything. Even after repeated attempts to help him see the truth, the father chose blindness over faith.  The last nail in his coffin quite literally was him asking if God existed within the inanimate lifeless pillar, to which Prahlad obviously replied YES. Yet unable to believe, Hiranya ordered his men to break open the pillar only to come face to face with death. The story at that time seemed ‘kiddish’ but over time, one realizes that these fables are not to be taken literally. They all bear some deeper meaning, a philosophic or spiritual truth that one understands or experiences later. Being a student from the Aurobindo Ashram, I am quite aware of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy. It says that Matter must make itself aware of its dormant nature and use the physical body to help manifest the Divine Life upon earth. This philosophy makes one look at all objects not as just things composed of...

When one goes for a massage, the masseuse usually can sense the knot in the muscle and press down hard on it to release the much needed tension and provide a rewarding relief. And most often, somewhere during that painful process of him/her squeezing away that ball of pain, we hear him asking us to relax and not tighten our muscles further, thereby augmenting his already busy hands. It's quite tough actually - to be relaxed when one is weighing down on your already tight muscles. The simple act of what we thought would be a soothing massage with some nice Japanese music therapy is turned in to a fantastical fusion of orgasmic 'aah's with hurtful 'aaahs'.  But the act of kneading, although causing immense momentary pain, feels awfully wonderful later on.  It's in this dance of one's tightening and relaxing of the muscles during a massage that got me thinking of something quite strange. The idea of being straight and tall and erect needs some constriction of t...

Today, I began re-reading a book, and in the first sentence itself, a word arrested me. It's not a new word nor an unfamiliar one, but one that I've never paid attention to being used in that context before.  The word was culture. That's a word I know, or at least in the context of social, intellectual, artistic culture. But this time, it came after physical and that made all the difference.  Physical culture? What on earth is physical culture. And just like that, I entered a rabbit hole, going deeper into the meaning of the word, but also, dipping myself in the ocean of Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's writings. Because the word in that context isn't something new in their writing. It's just that I have never quite seen it, paid attention to it nor spent time interpreting it till now. The book I am reading is Sri Aurobindo and The Mother on Physical Education. Being a student of this education system, I have been taught and even learnt about why physical ed...