At The Edge

Sue Lawley interviewed Stephen Hawkings on Christmas Day 1992 for the BBC radio show Desert Island Discs. Desert Island Discs is a long-running BBC Radio 4 programme. It was first broadcast on January 29, 1942 and is said by the Guinness Book of Records to be the longest-running music programme in the history of radio. Guests are invited to imagine themselves as castaways on a desert island, and asked to choose the eight pieces of music they would take with them; discussion of their choices permits a review of their life. Aside from the music they select, they are also permitted to take one book, excluding the Bible or other religious work and the complete works of Shakespeare, which are deemed to be already present on the island (probably to force castaways to make more interesting choices). They also choose one luxury item which must be inanimate and of no survival value, though "endless supplies of champagne" seem to be allowed. Stephen Hawking choose the following ...

When, soon after his enlightenment, he set off for Benares, which lay several arduous days on foot away, the Buddha was only thirty-five years old. He had been a householder, a sramana and an ascentic. He had known sexual love, political power, the homelessness of a sramana, the trances of a yogi and the self-mortification of an ascetic. And now after this range of human experience he had known what he thought was true wisdom. A naked sramana, one of the Ajivikas who were extreme determinists, met him on his way to Benares, and was clearly struck by his confident mood. He asked the Buddha who was his teacher. The Buddha declared that he was the enlightened one, had no teacher and was a teacher himself. Instead of falling at his feet, the sramana merely said, ‘it may be so, brother,’ and walked away. Pankaj Mishra, An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World – p. 188 quoting Majjhima Nikaya, trans. as The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, by Bhikkhu Nanamoli, pp263-4.

There was an interesting write up in today’s Hindustan Time (pg 10). It’s a response from Balram Misra to Sitaram Yechury’s article Lotus in the mud (DEC 28, 06) The article quotes an interview of Golwalkar done in 1962 and later used in an 1980 essay of Panchajana to prove that Golwalkar did not believe in the book We,or Our Nationhood Defined. Here’s how the interview goes: The interviewer asked Golwalkar, “Country, race, language, religion and culture are said to be five syndromes of a nation. If all these elements are found together on their full bloom, shall we say that nationhood has been attained?” Golwalkar shot back,”[This] concept of nationhood…belonged to the 19th century. Now it is obsolete. It is not necessary that all these five elements be available together at a given point of time to indicate the group consciousness of nationalism.” Interviewer asked, “ Doesn’t your book…interpret nationalism onn the basis of these five elements?” Golwalkar replied, “ forget ...

When Google came up with CSE (custom search engine), I knew this was a big thing. So, I promptly joined in the party. I started thinking about how I can use this cool tool. First about the things that CSE can do- * Place a search box and search results on your website. * Specify or prioritize the sites you want to include in searches. * Customize the look and feel to match your website. * Invite your community to contribute to the search engine. It’s the fourth feature that really got me going. Every time I typed Kashmir in the Google search box, the top results were like this: info on Danish Rock band, news about 2005 earthquake, views of the whole world about Kashmir conflict, tourism site, government site, many useless sites and nothing about Kashmiri Pandits; no news about us. It actually bothered me. I wanted that when I type Kashmir, I should get results about my community. It enables you to make your own CSE (custom search engine).Instead of searching the whole net,...

A few weeks ago I saw the movie The Man Who Would Be King . The movie based on a story by Rudyard Kipling. It is a pure delight and a complete entertainer.Sean Connery perhaps in his best performance, completely over shadows Michael Caine. More about the movie and my cyber search for Kafiristan later. Also, I won’t talk about The White Man's Burden and all the other stuff. The movie took me back to the classic by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book . Here is a gem that appears in The Jungle Book, it's the poem: The Law of the Jungle. Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back -- For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never too deep; And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not t...

A few weeks ago I was browsing my P2P for some traditional Kashmiri Songs . So I typed the words ‘Kashmiri Song’ into the search field. What I found was truly surprising. I got a song curiously titled. Rudolph Valentino - Kashmiri Song 1923 Brunswick Later, I found another version of the same song by Maggie Teyte - Kashmiri Song 1920 Edison Cylindar. I was intrigued. I heard the song and it surely wasn’t traditional Kashmiri music . No Roef, Chhakri, Wanawon etc. What I heard seemed like some person singing in some foreign language. Reminded me of the song " Tues es Partout ” from the movie ‘ Saving Private Ryan ’. The song is playing while Corporal Upham translates the lyrics and Private Reiben relates his experiences with Mrs. Troubowtiz (" C'etait Une Histoire D'Amour " is playing while Private Ryan tells Captain Miller about his brothers just before the German attack begins). I couldn’t understand why was some foreign song inaptly named Kashmi...

I was in Sixth standard and blissfully unaware of the conspiracies spinning around my world and shaping my world. Then one day my Hindi teacher decided to give us a crash course in real history. She was a young woman who had joined the teaching profession only recently. And then she decided to really educate us. She claimed Taj Mahal is a Hindu Temple; it has Hindu motifs like lotus all around it. Then she talked about Islamic invasion and stuff like that. I must say I was intrigued. Why weren’t we being taught this kind of stuff? This was lot easier stuff to remember than the dates and all that crap in our history textbooks (which as time passed, I realized were lying too). What was the source of her profound knowledge? Years later, still in school, I came across the RSS material-The underground knowledge, that nobody teaches us. So, this was the treasure chest of the real knowledge. Somehow, I didn’t like them and I stuck to reading The National Geographic Magazine (well, actually j...