Deep Adhya, PhD

“My father committed suicide because the morning newspapers depressed him.” – Boris Yellnikoff (Whatever Works, 2009) I usually don’t blog about these important things written in morning newspapers, focussing instead on the banal and trivial. It helps me to avoid having to think about our impending doom, and no one wants another fluff piece on political confectionary anyway. But sadly, the world has come/is coming to another crossroads. Human beings have started to realise that in our need to see everything and do everything, we are trying to evolve too fast. The conflict between the variedness of liberals and puritanism of conservatives has become so stark that the liberals are now viewed as an entirely new species by the conservatives. The conservatives have stopped trying to educate them in their beliefs and values and have gone on an outright war against them. The human race is in labour. The old are hurt and baffled as the new tries to break out of its grasp. The ...

The rains had stopped, the clouds had parted. I was walking on that wintry day, feeling good about the cold. The grass had turned green, the frost melting into morning dew. As I walked down Sidney Street, I noticed a musician, on an accordion playing a soulful tune. I contemplated the skill necessary to play the accordion. Like a piano, it is played with two hands, but more challenging as the two hand not only play different tunes but play keys of different types, also each hand playing in a different style. The accordion is a unique instrument. It sounds like more than one instrument. A guitar has one set of strings which can be manipulated using two hands. The violin is similar. The piano is also one set of strings which can be manipulated using two hands with keys that all obey the same rules. The accordion on the other hand has two sets of keys that look and work very differently from each other, and to produce the desired effect, one must play both sets, by learning their indivi...

It was a sunny afternoon, and almost autumn. It wasn’t warm, yet it wasn’t cold either. It was the weekend so I lay on my bed trying to blank out any thoughts in my mind, my eyes closed, the shades of the windows drawn, and all electronic devices unplugged. Paedophilia and sexual predatory has become quite a trendy topic of discussion on the internet, I thought. Everybody is talking about it, rationalising its existence and what can be done to bring an end to it. Women in general have lost faith in men, and trust levels are lower than the bare minimum that nature intended to maintain healthy relationships. Men on the other hand, are under so much scrutiny that they need to maintain the image of a catholic priest. All things considered, the media hopes to create awareness about such things so that if anyone finds their neighbour engaging in such activities, they report it instantly and spread the word of caution. And it probably works out well for society, the offender is ...

Everybody is concerned about the world economy. There are very rich people in the world, and there are very poor people. Economists are worried about this gulf in wealth distribution, and are trying various means to ‘bridge’ this gulf. But while the world argues about the inequality of wealth distribution, it is unaware of a certain other inequality which is being created very rapidly, and poses a danger to the evolution of the greatest thing that ever happened to the universe – the human brain. This gulf in the ability to think for oneself has never been equal, but while it used to be like the undulating plains of England, it is slowly growing into the dangerous mountains of the Himalayas, with colossal peaks and deep and dark valleys. But why is this happening? It is progress, the very driving force of human civilization and intellect, which is now bearing down upon us to make us more dependent on things other than our own brain, and although it is impolite to say that it i...

In India, it is difficult to find depression among people. Not that I am arguing that there is no prevalence of the disorder there, but in day to day life, it is difficult to encounter more than one or two who seem depressed. My one year in UK has shown me how depression is a lifestyle disorder to be reckoned with in the western world. I am not a traveller, and I will not be able to provide a holistic state of affairs, but the little time I have spent in Cambridge, thoroughly exploring every bit of the little town, I have found more morose people here in one year than I have experienced in India in my whole life! This is indeed staggering. Agreed that Cambridge is a student town, mostly inhabited by a melange of people from all over the world, everyone trying to find their little spot in their environment, to succeed in their work and achieve contentment in life. They are all brilliant people, and they succeed. It is part of their DNA. But are they content? That is a debatable mat...

We are human beings. We are a species of animals just like any other, with no particular goal in life. We have an enormous, yet useless brain which is prone to having grand ideas when left to itself. These grand ideas, once implemented have given us what we love to call progress and a pseudo-evolution of lifestyle. Over the past several hundred years, the human lifestyle has gone through such enormous change that we have forgotten that essentially we need to survive, and that even if we don’t, nothing in the universe will ever change. But the lifestyle changes have brought changes to our expectations from life and have successfully instilled in us a false sense of self-importance which is nothing but a sugar-coated device of certain kinds of humans with more greed, to enable them to keep living their luxurious lives. Thus, when the primitive side of us does occasionally rise up into our conscience, like a ghost, we simply deny its existence, scared to know what it mig...

In the movie ‘Full Metal Jacket’, the character of Joker is seen wearing a helmet with the words ‘Born to Kill’ and a vest with a peace button. He is a war journalist and believes in the duality of human nature.  How often have we seen nations going to war to preserve peace? Small nations declare war against large nations to leave them in peace. Large nations declare war against small nations to maintain peace within. Small nations declare war on their neighbours to prevent disruption of peace, and large nations declare war against large nations for the same reasons.  But, the willingness to go to war at the drop of a hat is just the end result of the natural indecision that each and every human being goes through.  Human beings love other human beings, but they also hate them. But this ability of one human being to show extreme love and extreme hate for another fellow being brings mutual respect between the two. Often, the fine balance between love and h...

A Hippie Paradise A narrow uphill lane of concrete, called Jogibari Road happens to be the main causeway of Mcleodganj. Though it is steep, it does not discourage the unquenchable human spirit from scaling it. An unending stream of cars is always plying up the hill making life miserable for the innocent inhabitants of this hilly town. On both sides of the road lie the main hotels and restaurants of Mcleodganj. There are also a number of curio shops, the occasional bar and some unique meeting places for cross-cultural gatherings to discuss the present and future of Tibet. Mcleodganj is called little Lhasa and the Dalai Lama stays in exile here at his famous monastery. Sadly though, Mcleodganj is replete with foreigners and it is difficult to understand their business here. India has always been the ‘exotic’ land, the place where different forces are always at war amongst each other. But here, philosophers and preachers have always emphasized on finding peace in the middle of grea...

The unruly chaos of the Indian political scenario is in stark contrast to the stringent conformation to rules practiced in Western countries such as the US and the UK. The social scenario though is quite a different story, and the indomitable structure of the Indian society is far vigilant than the disorderly mess seen in the temperate climes of the Western world. The net entropy may seem to have been maintained. But, where from does such irregularity stem, considering the fact that both the systems are highly successful in their own way? For an individual ignorant of sociological theories, it is a wonderful riddle to be pondered upon while sipping a cup of tea in the evening. There is no doubt that the argumentative Indian will eventually stumble upon a solution, or at least bring it to a rational conclusion. In India, while the vegetarians wrap the myelin sheaths of their nerves with pure ghee, the fish-eating populations revel in the nutritional benefits of polyuns...

It has been more that forty years since the first mission on moon. Since then, moon has been invaded many times, by man or unman. But all of these missions have needed rigorous planning and plenty of Government money. And, now Richard Branson aims at sending tourists to space and someday even to the moon.  But all that is besides the point. Mandi House is a seven-point crossing at the heart of New Delhi. It is located close to the famous Connaught Place and it is the cultural hub of the city. Other than the National School of Drama, it is home to several auditoriums and museums. But what is its relationship with Manesar?  Manesar is a little village in Haryana about 50km away from Mandi House. Other than the silly village folk who live here, it is home to the headquarters of the National Security Guard or the NSG. NSG serves the obvious purpose of protecting our vulnerable nation against evil-doers. It is also a seat of national intelligence (or so run the rumor m...

He sat in the corner, not able to decide what to do in his free time. Each day after he finished his assignments and came back home, he was faced with this unique problem. He was a cartoonist, and he was experienced in drawing caricatures of men. But that was at night. At day time, he worked in a lab.  When he was at home, there were so many people around, known or unknown. Just looking at them gave him weird ideas on how to turn them into cartoons. Often he went back home, put pencil on paper, then for a couple hours was transported to an imaginary world of facial elements floating, which through his willpower he harnessed and put together into a living form on paper. There was nothing dull about such days however trying the work might have been. He was satisfied with his life, happy with the little that he did.  On some days, he went to the theatre, watching whatever went on, getting ideas from individual performances. He rarely ever cared about the story, and even...

There is no point in writing a discourse on the facebook blues. Let us imagine hypothetical conversations from mundane day to day life, something that facebook seeks to spice up through their services. Photos How an average couple would spend their honeymoon before February 2004 : Romeo – Darling, stand in front of the fountain, while I take a photograph. Pretend that you are the poet in the statue behind you, thinking deeply about the next line in your poem. Juliet – Why, you embarrass me. I cannot be a poet. Romeo – Do it for our kids … Juliet – Ok. But make sure you get the best cellophane to wrap it in, so that even after both of us die, our memories will forever live on. Romeo – Honey, you say the most romantic things sometimes. [Click] How an average couple would spend their honeymoon after February 2012 : Rom – Hey Jul, you know how fortunate we are to be visiting Paris for our honeymoon? Would you please stand in front of that f...

Most people in the scientific field will know what happens when the going gets tough. It is not as if you are physically drained of all energy and all your bones are stiff. It is the mind that cannot take it anymore, and is at the brink of a breakdown. What happens then? What do you do? Nothing. There really is nothing that you can do except go back to your assigned room and weep about it for a while. The situation as I describe is more or less what happens in NBRC, at the end of the world. On the banks of the road that turns out from the institute lies a watering hole in a tin shack. The tin of the shack is often noisy from the apes who dance on it, the banking from naked apes chattering. The clean forest air seems like the perfect buffer to absorb the anger and resentment of everyday disappointments. Sadbir Singh is the owner of a little shop just outside the gates of the National Brain Research Centre. His son is called by the name Manu (in Hindu tradition it refers to the ver...