Reaching There

India as an ancient maritime power is a theme I was not aware of until I read the book 'The Ocean of Churn' by Sanjeev Sanyal. India has over 7000 kilometers of the maritime border that it shares with Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and the Maldives. If you look at these countries at the history of these modern countries you can see the impact of inter-trade of Southeast Asia that was connected through trade routes. The Ocean of Churn The book brings to light the history of India that's largely ignored by norther Indian readers. And it's not because of a made-up Aryan-Dravidian divide (by the way the whole Aryan Invasion/Migration or origination of pastoral activities from Steppes have been proven incorrect in 2019!) but because our history books never talked about Nandivarman, Kharavela, Kaundinya and others who ruled over various parts of India during different time periods and also confronted the foreign invaders from the w...

As a kid, I was fascinated by the section on Indus Valley Civilization in my history book at school. To imagine an ancient India where the cities were laid out in a Manhattan-like grid, with an upper and a lower city, an advanced drainage system, and ports from where traders traveled as far as ancient Sumeria or Egypt. It's just a captivating part of our country's ancient history. I let my imagination run far with some help from the pictures of Mohenjo-daro, Harappa or Dholavira but I'm unable to relate to these ancient ancestors that traversed the same land where I was born thousands of millennia later. Seal from Indus Valley Civilization Living Modern History And then I have the modern history of India when the entire concept of India was formed from scratch. It was in the time of Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale,  Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Motilal Nehru, Mahatama Gandhi and other leaders of modern India spent decades of their lives to build th...

Too often we find ourselves feeling bored or simply too overwhelmed by the day to day challenges. And too often we take these situations or the circumstances as an excuse to push us in the corner. We let the circumstances that are generally temporary to stay with our mind for longer than what's a healthy dose! How can something that is debilitating be healthy? Adaptability - Remove your mind from the attack In Bruce Lee's martial art, Jeet Kun Do, one of the underlying philosophies is "adaptability". Street fight like life is unpredictable. There are times when you have to "remove the target" i.e. your mind, that is being continuously hit by this barrage of emotions; feeling of boredom, stagnation, negativity, sadness or overwhelming life challenges. Parrying - Spend time in self-development Other times you've to intercept these challenges. You've to push through the tough times through tools of self-control, courage, learning, and self-dev...

Ancient India is a vast topic, it has an almost miscible concoction of mysticism, spiritualism, and antiquity. One of the facets of ancient India which to this day remains shrouded in an utmost mystery and yet has a profound impact on our country's identity is Indus Valley Civilization. With thousands of sites spread across India and Pakistan, its historicity is exemplified by discoveries of first planned cities, long distance trades (as far as ancient Sumeria), hous es with wells & bathrooms, weights & seals for trading, water reservoirs, toys, jewelry and much more. As Archaeological Survey of India uncovers the glory of past (motto of ASI states 'प्रत्नकीर्तिमपावृणु') we will perhaps understand more about this ancient civilization. On a side note, the script found at archaeological sites still remains undeciphered. You can read more about it from books of Indian archaeologists like B.B. Lal, R.S. Bisht and other books by scholars. Here is a link about o...

If you're a non-resident Indian in need of a police clearance certificate for a visa, education or any other purpose from an Indian consulate abroad, you're in luck. I recently (October 2018) did this from the Indian consulate in New York. And it was surprisingly troublefree and very convenient.  I went through the documentation list provided here . I applied in person so I didn't have to go through the anxiety of mailing my passport. I had the following readily available: 1.  Miscellaneous Application form  - as the document is in MS Word format, I added some extra lines to fit my rather long residential address in India. 2.  Nationality Verification Form - although it says 'applicant may fill' this form, I had it ready anyway. I typed the whole thing in a Word document to give me extra space for addresses etc. 3. Passport - I had the copies of passport ready, exactly the way described in the website. Although if you're missing copies you can ...

I'm trying to learn Python this year (2018). The reasons are to explore its uses in data science, which is a skill that's becoming increasingly important since last 4-5 years. A disclaimer first - I'm not a programmer by profession and have taken some programming courses in college. But as saying goes these days - everybody's a programmer, either by choice or just have to pick up the skill. And it's a good skill to have! That's my motivation for learning Python. One of the first things I realized is that I need some online classes and a local environment to practice. The best resource for the online material is Python classes by Google, which you can access here . And the best version to learn (at least if you're reading this in 2018) is 2.7.x. If you want to try your hand at later versions, you can go ahead. You can download it here . Once you've installed it on Windows (I don't have a mac!) you would want to execute Python code from Window...

We will talk about recycling in this post. However before we begin talking about practical methods let's go through a couple of concepts, one is a philosophical topic from the vast sea of the Vedic literature and the other is a concept, first raised by two British environmental economists, which has been adopted by European Union, UK and few private companies in the USA as well. #1 What is a Prarabdha Karma ? According to Vedic philosophy, every action will result in a reaction; i.e. every effort we make has a reaction on our destiny (by the way destiny here simply implies a future state, not fate) during an appropriate time. We as humans beings are making choices every moment that affects our now as well as future(s).  And all of these actions (Karma) impact our circumstances, preferences, tendencies etc. And by the way, Karma is not to be confused with fate. We always have the free will to act on our choices. However, we must bear fruit to all our actions;...