News recycled

 

The force of habit

 

It's a habit that I have:

Wait for the moon to rise,

And wait with you,

For the moon to glide.

The force of habit

Carries on,

Even when it's a new moon,

And, even when I'm all alone.

Mood of the colour blind

 

It is blue, not black,

The colour in the mind's eye,

Of the colour blind.

*This is in Haiku format

यह ज्ञान मिल भी जाए तो क्या है?

 

कभी ज्ञान बाँटता हूँ, 

कभी ज्ञान लेता हूँ,

जीवन ऐसे ही कटता है,

पर,

यह ज्ञान मिल भी जाए

तो क्या है?

अगले जन्म तो न ले जाऊँ

मैं यह ज्ञान |

Let's ride the moon that's parked outside

 

I stopped the world

To get you off.

Now, let's ride the moon

That's parked outside.

(The moon stops too,

When the earth stops.)

Let's do Parikrama of *Dharti Ma

Seven times over.

(For that will suffice to do

Mount Kailash's Parikrama.)

Indeed,

Let's democratise Parikrama,

Why should only satellites

Have the privilege

To do Parikrama of *Dharti Ma?

*Dharti Ma: Mother Earth

Numbers are just numbers, rest is Maya

 

I received this beautiful presentation of numbers:

But when I looked closely, I found that it was just the fraction 111/3 that was being multiplied both at the numerator and denominator by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

Numbers are just numbers, rest is Maya. Now think of the date today:

18 + 7 = 25

Now if we apply the commutative law of addition, we get the American date format:

7 + 18 = 25

So, I say, 'Numbers are just numbers, rest is Maya.'

Some blood goes the usual way

 

Love never dies

Without a trace.

You will find traces,

In the withered flowers

Of borrowed library books,

Or, in the lingering scents

In the gardens of eden,

Or, in the silver lines

Of a waning moonlit night.

Not all blood rushes

Through the bypassed heart,

Some still goes the usual way.

An ode to superannuation

 

You did your bit

To turn the world,

You did your bit

To earn the world.

Someone else will

Turn it now,

Put their shoulder

To the plow.

How much younger did Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla become after his sojourn in Space?

 

Some of you may have read my book 'Yo-yoing in Time'. The construct of the stories in the book(available in Amazon India ; in Amazon US  ; in Amazon Europe ) is based on the following 'de-aging' (for want of a better word) paradigm , and Simultaneity of Relativity.

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How much has Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla 'de‑aged' during his 18‑day Axiom‑4 mission aboard the ISS?

Here is a calculation:

Mission Duration & Orbit

Launch: 25 June 2025

Docked: June 26

Return (undock/splashdown): July 14–15

Total time in orbit: 18 days

Time Dilation Effects in Lower Earth Orbit(LEO)

a. Special Relativity (due to orbital speed)

ISS orbital speed ≈ 7.66 km/s

Daily loss ≈ 28.1 μs/day

(μs represents microseconds, a unit of time equal to one millionth of a second.)

Over 18 days:

28.1 μs/day × 18 ≈ 505.8 μs (≈ 0.5058 ms)

b. General Relativity (due to weaker gravity)

Clocks tick slightly faster in weaker gravity — about +5 μs/day 

Over 18 days:

5 μs/day × 18 ≈ 90 μs (0.09 ms)

Net Effect:

505.8 μs (slower) – 90 μs (faster) = 415.8 μs total lost (0.4158 milliseconds)

So, Group Captain  S Shukla returned 0.0004158 seconds younger than if he’d stayed on Earth.

Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla returned from an 18-day ISS stay about 0.0004158 seconds younger, the change imperceptible in daily life, though clearly measurable with atomic clocks.

How is Group Captain Shukla growing Moong Dal in ISS without sunlight?

 

Have you wondered how Group Captain Shukla is growing Moong dal without sunlight in the International Space Station (ISS)? Is there some artificial way to create sunlight for photosynthesis? Or does he let in sunlight from the spaceship's porthole?

It turns out astronauts use LED grow lights, which are specially tuned to provide the wavelengths of light that plants need—mainly blue and red light. These lights mimic the solar spectrum required for photosynthesis without needing to use actual sunlight. This is how plants are successfully grown in space, including on the International Space Station (ISS).

Red light (around 660 nm) promotes flowering and fruiting.

Blue light (around 450 nm) helps with leafy growth.

Sometimes, green or white light is added so astronauts can visually assess the plants.

Why not just use sunlight through a porthole?

While sunlight does reach spacecraft in orbit, letting it in through windows is not reliable or controlled. The spacecraft is constantly orbiting Earth (~90 minutes per orbit), leading to alternating periods of daylight and darkness. The intensity of sunlight in space is very strong and not easily adjustable. Direct sunlight can also cause overheating or UV damage.

So, it's far more efficient and controlled to use artificial lighting in a self-contained growth chamber.

If an Indian astronaut (say, on board the Gaganyaan mission or an ISRO experiment) is growing moong dal, s/he is likely using a sealed plant growth chamber, LED arrays mimicking sunlight, controlled temperature, humidity, and CO₂ levels.

Who is in ISS?

 

What do you make of this write-up? Who is in ISS? Gp Capt Shukla or his family?

Why are weekdays in all types of Calendars in sync?

 

Have you wondered why weekdays in various Calendars are always in sync. For example:

Gregorian: says today is 10 July 2025 (Thursday).

Bengali: says today is ২৬ আষাঢ় ১৪৩২ (বৃহস্পতিবার). That would be 26 Ashadha, 1432 (Brahaspatibar, or, Thursday)

Vikram Samvat: might say Ashadha Krishna 11, 2082 VS (also Thursday).

Why would it be like that? The first day of the Calendars started on different dates: the day, month, years are out of sync, yet the weekdays are always in snyc. For example, why would it not be like this (say)?

Gregorian calendar says 10 July 2025 is Thursday
But Vikram Samvat says Ashadha Krishna 11, 2082 is a Wednesday

It is because the 7-day week is not linked to any astronomical feature (like a lunar month or solar year) but through consensus. The only thing keeping Wednesday as Wednesday everywhere is a global agreement, a human rhythm we’ve refused to let break.

It's purely a human convention, not a law of nature.

• The 7-day week has no astronomical basis like the day (Earth’s rotation), month (Moon’s orbit), or year (Earth’s revolution).
• The only reason Gregorian Thursday, Vikram Somvār, or Bangla Brihaspativar fall on the same day is because:
• Once the 7-day cycle was adopted in each system, it was never interrupted.
• Calendars were mapped carefully to real-world dates, not just floated freely.

Had any culture decided to reset or insert a weekday somewhere in history—just once—their system would have gone out of sync forever.

The shared weekdays across calendars are a historical accident of continued consensus, not a necessity of nature.

However, there were times when societies tried to break away from the seven-day week. Let's look at real historical attempts where societies tried to break away from the 7-day week—and what happened when they did.

French Revolutionary Calendar (1793–1805)

What Changed?

• Introduced after the French Revolution to de-Christianize timekeeping.
• Year divided into 12 months of 30 days each.
• Each month divided into 3 “décades” (10-day weeks), with days named:
• Primidi, Duodi, ..., Décadi
• The 5 or 6 leftover days were year-end festivals.

Consequences:

• The traditional 7-day rhythm was disrupted.
• Workers lost their weekly rest day (Sunday).
• Productivity and morale plummeted.
• People resisted, especially in rural and religious communities.

Outcome:

• Napoleon abolished it in 1805.
• France reverted to the Gregorian calendar and 7-day week.

Soviet Union’s “Continuous Work Week” (1929–1940)

What Changed?

• Introduced to maximize industrial output and undermine religious observance.
• Replaced the 7-day week with:
• 5-day week (nepreryvka, “continuous work week”) in 1929.
• Later modified to a 6-day week in 1931.
• Workers were assigned different days off, so factories never stopped.

Consequences:

• Families and friends often had different rest days—social life broke down.
• Machinery maintenance suffered due to no universal rest day.
• Religion (especially Orthodox Christianity) was targeted, but resistance grew.

Outcome:

• By 1940, the 7-day week was reinstated.
• The Soviet experiment with time had failed.

The Sabbath tradition, and the later dominance of Christianity, played a pivotal role in globalizing and entrenching the 7-day week.

Just think about it: Even when 11 days were gobbled up from the Julian Calendar to make it into the Gregorian Calendar, the weekday sequence was retained:

The old Julian calendar, established by Julius Caesar in 45 BCE, had too many leap years—it drifted by about 11 minutes per year. Over centuries, this drift misaligned the calendar with the equinox, and hence with Church festivals like Easter.

The Reform:

• In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar to fix this.
• The adjustment:

Thursday, October 4, 1582, was followed by
Friday, October 15, 1582
(10 days were “gobbled up”)

But the 7-Day Week Was Not Broken

• Importantly, the day of the week sequence was preserved.
• October 4, 1582: Thursday
• October 15, 1582: Friday

Even though 10 calendar dates were removed, the weekly cycle was uninterrupted.

The Church and civic authorities made a conscious choice to keep the 7-day rhythm intact.

England’s Turn (Much Later)

• England (and its colonies) didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752.
• By then, the drift required skipping 11 days instead of 10.

Wednesday, September 2, 1752 was followed by Thursday, September 14, 1752

Again, Wednesday → Thursday: the weekday sequence continued unbroken.

And that, my friends, is the reason why the weekdays of all Calendars are in sync.

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No shore will love you more

 

Why weigh anchor

And move away

From this lotus field?

This fog that envelops you,

Is just Love.

There is no shore,

That will love you more.

How we start, and how we end

 

A friend sent this beautiful message:

RA VAN 👺

RA M 🏹 

Everyone has the same start, but the end is decided by one's Karma.

I reflected on this, and had this thought:

Sometimes the end is the same in this birth, but we carry different things to our next:

Lalit Modi

Narendra Modi.

Happy birthday, US of A

 

America Woke up to receive best wishes on her birthday.

Happy birthday, US of A. Wishing you the best.

"Your perspective on life comes from the cage you were held captive in."