Awesome fusion of abinayam and moon walk

Recently I watched a video clip of Boogie Woogie dance by Sayaani Saumya, 11 years old from Ranchi (thanks to blogger, Sowmya of ennaparimaanangal ). Its simply awesome. She has so eloquently fused the western style with Bharathanattiyam in her dance which is a real treat to watch. I believe one of the highlights of the dance is her dance moves wherein she fuses bharathanattiya abinayam with Michael Jackson fame moonwalk (note when only 1.57 min left).



Surprisingly the music is a Tamil remix song, seems to be made by dj Venthan, which is also interesting to watch (you can view it below!).

Is Athletic sports a fair competition?

I came across a post expressing an unusual perspective on doping issue in Sports, wherein it is perceived that nothing essentially wrong with taking performance-enhancing drugs. Hmm... this unusually different perspective motivated me to write a post on this! I believe most of the individual level sports in a sense is an unfair competition. Let me express why it is? Assuming all the competitors from different parts of the world have equal opportunity to have high quality nourishment and best training facilities for a particular sport, then the only denominator/edge left with to compete is one's genetic potential. This is becoming more obvious from gradual predominance of African Americans/Africans, who seem to have better genetic advantages in many of the sports. Reminds me of the sheer physical power used by Williams sisters to dominate in Tennis arena and the height advantage (genetic) in basket ball, etc. I do appreciate for the efforts of the players in sharpening their skills where mental strategy is involved, say like tennis, but I don't see much of any mental role involved in athletic competitions.

Now talking of the possibility to permit performance enhancing drugs (presuming it works), do we want to allow all participants to use those drugs at either equal or unequal doses and see how best they can outperform each other and award the winner? which I believe as a testing and trying out to pick up the best interaction effect between the drug and individuals with unique body physiology (as expressed by their genes, assuming that nourishment and training were equal at its best). It also leads me to think, assume if I own a billion dollar company and using a single sportsman to promote my products with a deal worth of millions of dollars with him. I can throw some more bucks to carry out exclusive research to develop new drugs for performance enhancement and use it to my advantage. I can even manipulate which sportsman I want to be the winner. I might choose a sportsman with Tom Cruise like appearance over a naturally good sportsman with less appealing face for my purpose. And one can come up with many more possibilities of even to the level of genetic engineering the person to tailor him to the needs of the sport.

Let us wait and watch how things evolve in sports world to work around human limits!

Analemma - How I wonder what you are!

If you take picture of sun in the sky at the same time of the day, from same place in regular intervals over one earth year and combine the position of the sun in the sky you will get this figure 8 curve (pic credits: Anthony Ayiomamitis). This is called Analemma, caused by two totally independent factors.

1. Earth is tilted on its axis by 23.5° in relation to the plane of its orbit around the sun.
2. Earth does not orbit the sun in a circle, but in an ellipse.

You can try working out how Analemma would look like in Mars sky!

(an imaginary dialogue in Tamil language between earth and sun...)

Earth : Hey Soorya edhuku vaanathula 8 podra?

Sun : Tamilnatula motorbike ottanumnu aasai adhaan license vaangarathuku RTO office edhirla 8 podraen...

Earth : license vaangrathuku ettu potta mattum pathaathu konjam thuttayum podanum oi... adhuku pesama... ikkada ra... ra ra raamaya... ettukula ulagam iruku raamayanu... rajini styla paaditu pora vazhiya paru.

Hitech savaari

(Space shuttle Atlantis landed in California gets back to Florida for its next launch, with a ride offered by a customized NASA's Boeing 747)

(a piece of conversation between them... in Tamil language)

Atlantis shuttle : uyara uyara paranthalum oor kuruvi parunthagathu, likewise Boeing 747 can't become space shuttle! purinjutha?

Boeing 747 : nee enna thaan uyara uyara paranthalum maganey marupadiyum uyara parakrathuku California to Florida poganumna ennanda thaan savaariku vanthaganum theriumla?

Atlantis : sari sari na amuki vasikaraen, pathirama Floridala erakividu ba.

Boeing 747 : cockpit meter mela pottu tharaleyna chennai auto standla eraki vituttu poyiduvaen aama.

Atlantis : Ayyoda... athuku nee intha Atlantisa Atlantic kadalla thallivitutu poiyidalaam...

Indian Hindu religious astronomers ahead of Galileo?

Jupiter and Dakshinamurti in Hindu religion!

What I have proposed here doesn't have any references or sources. I believe that I may be proposing this for the first time, from what I wondered long back while moving around, inside a Shiva temple (if someone else has proposed this earlier please do let me know about it).

In most of the typical Shiva temple one can come across the statue of Lord Dakshinamurti which is lord Shiva portrayed as Jupiter,, one of the Navagraha. Careful observation around the foot of Lord Dakshnamoorthy will reveal four rishis, two on either sides. I used to wonder why these four rishis are portrayed only with Jupiter, that is Dakshnamoorthy and not with other planetary god forms?! One story which I came across to explain this portrayal goes like this...

"the four sons, of Brahma, namely, Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanaatana and Sanat kumaara did austere tapas and analysis, but they were unclear of the supreme truth. They finally decided to come to Lord Shiva to get the knowledge of the truth. The Lord sat under the banyan tree, and the four sages also sat down around him. Lord stayed in the yoga posture without saying a single word. The four sages got all their doubts cleared just by that posture."

This is a mythological explanation, but then I wondered is there anything realistic in portrayal of Jupiter in this way. Later in a public library, I remembered of this observation while grazing through the astronomy section of an encyclopedia. I noticed that Jupiter although had 63 natural satellites/moons, only four of them were massive with diameter greater than 3000 km (Io - 3643km, Europa - 3122km, Ganeymede - 5262km, Callisto - 4821km). Also later I came across a piece of information (unfortunately I could not remember or trace back that source now!) which reported, in astronomical observations, on special occasions these four moons of Jupiter, while orbiting outside the rim of visible sphere of Jupiter (not in foreground or in back of the planet) it becomes visible to the naked eye with sharp vision.

Jupiter and four moons

Now as per the scientific reports these four massive moons were discovered by Galileo in 1610 A.D. It is not clear since when the portrayal of Dakshnamurti with four Rishis started to appear in temples. It could be before Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's four moons (1610 A.D.) or may be later on. If one can come up with evidence for dating this portrayal far before 1610 A.D., it would be possible to claim the discovery of the four moons of Jupiter was achieved prior to Galileo. In case if it is not possible, still it doesn't rule out the possibility of claims of independent discovery by Asian astronomer/astrologer with religious orientation.

Tail piece: Lord Shani Bhagavan or Saneesvaran, portrayal of Saturn, has a single crow with him. Surprisingly Saturn has only one massive moon out of at least 62 moons, the Titan (diameter 5150 km). Seems to be more than a coincidence!


Saturn with its moon Titan on top left corner as a white pixel (credits: Cassini)

I suggest the readers to discuss this possibility with people who might offer more light on this proposition. To get wide feedback and spread of this proposition, one can email the following link of this post and request views from interested people.
http://thiruspot.blogspot.com/2007/07/indian-hindu-religious-astronomers.html
Also if preferred, one can provide the link of this post (given above) for a short period in their blog. Leave your views in the comments link below.

Email this to a friend.

Godmen business

Hmm... I try to keep myself away from this issue, the God stuff, but then Sri has drawn me to it. Godmen - ungodly business, a blog post from Ankur is followed by discussion in its comment section, which is marching in the direction of whether all tomatoes (godmen) are rotten or whether some good juicy tomato exist (again godmen only... please don't pickup your vegetable bag, to shop!). I am not sure of whether those who commented are atheist or theist or agnostic, assuming its a mixture of all three, let me express my thoughts on it over here.

Only a small minority are either atheist or agnostic, while the vast majority are theist, who believe in god in one form or other via a religion passed on from their parents. To my knowledge religion is used practically and predominantly on two occasions, one is to celebrate happy occasions, and second, to live through the undesirable moments in life, and one can come up with 'n' number of other reasons for the need of a God and let it be. Of course the happy occasions can still be celebrated even without a religion or god with it. But to handle and live through the struggling part of the life, majority of people in the world are still in need of that belief in so called almighty who is considered to monitor and take care of their well being. And everyone is not equally strong enough to holding onto that belief on their own to face their life positively and here comes the role of godmen, who can layout guidelines and strengthen your belief so that one may cope up with the life situations.

Now the question is whether these people (so called godmen) who are playing the above mentioned role in the society are performing their chosen (either self or by a group) duty genuinely or are they manipulating and cheating those followers, who put their faith on their leading godmen. Here I talk only about the new age gurus (and not on religious heads like popes and sankracharya, but still it holds true for them as well) and I don't wish to point fingers, but I would like to talk on two sets of godmen. One set of godmen start with the wrong foot, right from the beginning, with cheating and manipulation and eventually at some point of time they were revealed, while some others could sustain and run the business by covering up with some good social activities and political power. A second set of godmen start with the genuine aim to assist people, but overtime get corrupted with the accumulation of wealth and power. By then it becomes like running a business serving the consumers with franchises. One can identify any godmen in one of this two sets in various stages of their career(!!)

I see the role played by a godmen is similar to the service rendered by a counselor/psychiatrist/psychologist/psychotherapist. These experts can help people by dealing individually, but can't create a cult in the society. But whereas godmen do start with a cult and end up in where they are right now...... as you can see for yourself!

Just wish to end up with one thirukkural in tamil.

Epporul Yar Yar Vai Ketpinum Apporul
Meiporul Kanpathu Arivu

translation:

Whatever said, whomsoever says, pursue the ultimate truth in it (or pursuit of truth is intelligence).
(this is my translation and so it may have some variation from others!)

8 facts for a tag

I was tagged by Sree (and later warned!), who blogs at srisviews to write 8 facts about myself. Do I like getting tagged? I don't know, but I am sure of one thing. Whoever tags me next time will get tagged (nailed) in a cross right next to Jesus Christ! ofcourse they can talk to Jesus about his interesting romantic life (oops! Dan Brown might tag me next, to write The Davincy code II) or his boring prophet life! (no offense intended!).

No thanks and a Grrrr... to Sree for tagging me and with a reminder of caution to her as stated above, I list here 8 facts of me, chosen randomly.

So here it goes...

1. I like little kids very much. Used to admire the world they perceive and live in. They do really live in (Alice's) wonderland. Also love to watch little babies moving their tender body parts, hands and legs in a funny incoherent manner (like bringing their toes into their mouth and tasting it - do they expect milk there, just wondering! lol) and responding to the environmental cues.

2. Love discussions on various topics. Especially when there is lot of disagreements but willingness and patience to hear the validity of other side of the arguments.

3. Love my family members, with sea of differences in ...... what not! but does it matter?!

4. Connect well with selective close friends, who are gems in my life.

5. I like reading books and am yet to get satiated on what I search for (and btw wondering what I search for?!). Every new knowledge thrown to me poses new questions which fuels my quest.

6. Science and technology interests me a LOT. Admire the beauty and complexity of the brain/human mind and the cosmos.

7. In entertainment: I enjoy music (mostly Tamil), movies (more of Hollywood and less of others) and some selected science fiction serials in English, my favorite pick is "Babylon 5". I enjoy movies of various kinds. Especially those touching the basics of human values. Just wish to quote one movie, the CASTAWAY, wherein one can feel how easily we take things for granted, from simple things such as making fire, sheer joy in the company of others.... to the ultimate pleasure of being with the loved one. And just one more, recently enjoyed movie.... "Love actually".

8. wish to make a difference...... (in what? will not be described here!)

I am supposed to tag 8 more people. Even in nuclear fission reaction a neutron hits an atom and releases 2 or 3 neutrons which inturn hits another 2 or 3 atoms eventually sustaining the chain reaction and resulting in explosion of atom bomb. But this tagging stuff theoretically appears to be 3 to 4 times more powerful than chain reaction, if sustained. So here I end that chain reaction at my end. Just wondering whether to create a rule, just like this tags 4th rule, whoever tags, within 8 hours their blog will disappear from the web! lol.

Have a nice day... All of You.

Thanks sri.