We saw beautiful Durga Puja Pandals during our visits, as well as images of them in social media posts.
One such Pandal is captured below:
It's Google's birthday today, and, Google says, 'Thank you for searching with us throughout the years.'
https://share.google/WFG4gzk0TxzC2h6fW
So, I asked Google, 'Together, did we find it, Google?'
Tomorrow is 25/09/25, a squared date: 5²/3²/5² in dd/mm/yy format. It is also a squared date in mm/dd/yy format: 3²/5²/5².
The next squared date will be on 1²/1²/6², or, 1/1/36. In this case, it is same for both dd/mm/yy and mm/dd/yy formats.
However, the next cubed date is nearer. It is on 1³/1³/3³, or, 01/01/27.
It is festival time. Please buy and read my sci-fi book that deals on going forward and backward in dates. In Amazon India buy it here:
https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0FFGKR6RC
In Amazon US you can buy it here:
And, in Amazon UK you can buy it here:
This is the way of love:
Neither can you stop me from loving,
Nor can I ask you to love,
Love happens, unhappens.
What is 1906?
No, it is not only a year. It is not only the year after Einstein espoused his Special Theory of Relativity. It is also a toll free number in India.
We called 1906 yesterday when we suspected a gas leak as we plugged a newly filled gas cylinder with our gas stove.
1906 is an emergency number to attend to cooking gas leak issues. This help is provided irrespective of whichever Gas company one is a client of, and without charge. The gentleman at the other end of the phone assured us that our problem will be fixed by our Gas Agency within the next two hours. In the meantime, he told us to take precautionary measures like disengaging the gas cylinder from the stove, opening all windows, and placing the errant cylinder outside the house.
Help arrived within thirty minutes of our call, and the problem was fixed. It was truly immediate and extraordinary service.
We forget to acknowledge the small ways in which our country is marching forward. It is truly remarkable. Only a few years ago, realistically, we would have to wait for two to three days before such a problem could be fixed. But imagine, in the meanwhile, how would a home with such a gas leakage problem cook its meal?
My country is changing, and for the better.
Someone sent me this image, almost as if as a rejoinder to my post below:
https://hunterfiftyfour.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-we-know-shadows-pain.html
:
I got this leaflet as a Social Media forward:
Is there a shadow of the shadow?
Can there be a moon eclipse?
When there is a new moon?
We know all the science reasons,
We know about crossing of ecliptic plane,
But do we know the shadow's pain?
Leave a sigh in the wind,
When I'm away from you.
Leave a sign, my love.
And, when we meet on the road,
Leave a heart torn asunder.
Leave a sign, my love.
The moon was only half full,
The eyes were half full too,
Chrysalis over heart was half formed,
And the memory went bust.
I only remember
The shower of the stardust,
Don't remember
The shower of rust.
They look at where I search,
They look at where I perch,
They look at where you search,
They look at where you perch.
They help me with my search,
They tell me where to perch,
They help you with your search,
They tell you where to perch.
Till all searches are the same,
All purchases are the same,
Till you and I have no peculiarity,
Till you and I reach singularity.
Then all the searches will be over,
For all the keywords will be the same,
All the adjectives will be the same,
And no adverbs will remain.
With apologies to Sahir Ludhianvi:
Kabhi, kabhi mere dil me khayal aataa hai,
Tu hoti toh aisa hota,
Tu hoti toh waisa hota,
Tu es bat pe ladti,
Tu us bat pe zid karti,
Kabhi tu zid karti,
'Mujhe bazaar tak chhor aa,'
Kabhi banawati gusse mein kahte mujhe,
'Bus itna he hai raakhi ka gift?'
Aur, kabhi kaftee, 'Main Ma ko mana lungi,
'Tu ja NDA ki taiyari kar, bhaiya.'
Agle janam mein, O ma,
Mujhe ek bahan zarur dena.
Raakhi bandhwaunga.
Some folks still google, but now I GeePeeTee. First, because, I get more comprehensive answers; second, because I'm more artificially intelligent than most.
For example, when I googled for the authenticity of a Nikola Tesla quote as below, I got just snippets after googling, and a more comprehensive and detailed answer from GeePeeTee.
Is Nikola Tesla's quote: 'Einstein's relativity work is a magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors' actual or apocryphal?
Googling:
The quote is indeed attributed to Nikola Tesla and is generally considered authentic, though it is a paraphrase rather than a direct quote. Tesla did criticize Einstein's theory of relativity, and the sentiment expressed in the quote accurately reflects his views. He believed the theory was mathematically complex but flawed, a "magnificent mathematical garb" concealing fundamental errors.
GeePeeTeeing
When I asked the same question to GeePeeTee, I got the following comprehensive answer:
Below is the full excerpt from the New York Times on July 11, 1935, where Nikola Tesla was interviewed on the occasion of his 79th birthday. The interview includes the full phrasing in question:
“The theory of relativity is a mass of error and deceptive ideas violently opposed to the teachings of great men of science of the past and even to common sense. The theory wraps all these errors and fallacies and clothes them in magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king. Its exponents are very brilliant men, but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists. Not a single one of the relativity propositions has been proved.”
Context & Analysis
Authenticity: The quote is genuine. Tesla's remarks were published in a New York Times interview dated July 11, 1935, when he was 79 years old .
Exact phrasing: The version you shared is word-for-word accurate—no major paraphrasing is necessary.
Why Tesla said this: Tesla strongly rejected modern physics—especially Einstein’s relativity—because he continued to believe in classical concepts like the ether and intuitive notions of space and causality. He saw relativity as overly abstract math, divorced from physical reality and common sense.
Bottom Line
The quote you asked about is authentic, coming straight from Tesla's own words in the New York Times in 1935, and accurately reflects his deep skepticism of Einstein's theory of relativity.
GeePeeTee could even speculate what Tesla would have thought of Hawking, were he a contemporary of Hawking:
I asked:
What can we speculate what Tesla would have said of Hawking's ideas?
Speculating on what Nikola Tesla would have thought of Stephen Hawking’s ideas—especially regarding black holes, singularities, and quantum gravity—is an exercise in educated imagination, but we can make some thoughtful inferences based on:
1. Tesla's known views and philosophical commitments
2. The nature of Hawking’s ideas
Tesla’s Core Scientific Worldview
Tesla was:
Deeply committed to classical physics and determinism.
Anti-relativistic: He rejected Einstein’s relativity as abstract and flawed.
Dismissive of quantum mechanics, calling it a beautiful dream but not reality.
A believer in a luminiferous ether and vibrational field-based models of the universe.
Skeptical of mathematical abstraction divorced from experiment.
Hawking’s Key Ideas
Black holes: Gravitational singularities predicted by general relativity.
Hawking radiation: A quantum effect near the event horizon—black holes emit radiation and can evaporate.
No-boundary proposal: The universe has no beginning in time, as in a boundary-less sphere.
Unification of relativity and quantum theory: A key lifelong pursuit of Hawking.
What Might Tesla Have Thought?
On Black Holes:
Tesla might have outright rejected the existence of black holes, calling them “mathematical fictions.”
In 1934, Tesla claimed he had developed a mechanical oscillator that could "cause the Earth to shake" and dismissed notions of collapsed stars or infinite density as absurdities.
He likely would have said something like:
“Nature does not permit such singularities. These are inventions of minds too far removed from the reality of the ether.”
On Hawking Radiation:
Tesla would have doubted the quantum underpinnings of the idea.
Since he rejected quantum randomness and relativity, a quantum relativistic effect like Hawking radiation would likely appear to him as mathematically elegant but physically meaningless.
He might say:
“To claim that a body can vanish into nothingness through quantum trickery is to misunderstand the permanence of energy. Radiation is vibration, not probabilistic illusion.”
On the Big Bang and the No-Boundary Proposal:
Tesla believed in an eternal universe, powered by infinite energy present in the ether. Hawking’s proposal of a finite but boundary-less beginning may have seemed to Tesla like metaphysical poetry, not physics.
Possible Tesla-ism:
“The universe has neither beginning nor end, only rhythm. The idea that time curves back on itself is a metaphysical fancy, not a physical principle.”
On Hawking’s Fame
Tesla may have seen in Hawking what he saw in Einstein: a brilliant man elevated by an establishment that mistook mathematical beauty for physical truth.
He might have said:
“Once again, we are dazzled by abstractions while the truths of nature hum quietly beneath our feet.”
Final Speculation (Tesla-style summary):
Professor Hawking's work is clever and mathematically rich, but it errs where all such theories err—by turning away from the physical reality of fields and vibrations, and embracing the shadows of equations. Nature is not probabilistic; she is rhythmic and exact.”
Therefore, I would say GeePeeTeeing makes more sense than googling.
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.
It is blue, not black,
The colour in the mind's eye,
Of the colour blind.
*This is in Haiku format
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 |
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
I received this beautiful presentation of numbers:
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.
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.
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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.
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.
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?
Consequences:
Outcome:
Soviet Union’s “Continuous Work Week” (1929–1940)
What Changed?
Consequences:
Outcome:
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:
Thursday, October 4, 1582, was followed by
Friday, October 15, 1582
(10 days were “gobbled up”)
But the 7-Day Week Was Not Broken
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)
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.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A friend sent this beautiful message:
America Woke up to receive best wishes on her birthday.
Happy birthday, US of A. Wishing you the best.
Half the year is over,
Not half the fear has gone,
As slowly trudges the planet,
Won't bygone be bygone?
You didn't change your mind,
And get off the train.
Perhaps,
The train had gathered speed,
And, you couldn't get off.
Or perhaps,
I was just a speck now
On the platform -
One among many,
Jostling for space,
Awaiting the next train.
Please buy and read my sci-fi book from
https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0FFGKR6RC
I'm sure you will enjoy reading the two stories in the book.
तेरी दरिया दिली
एक तरफा है,
कि इधर बाढ़ है
और उधर सूखा,
इधर प्यार है,
उधर रूखा,
बाँध लगा दोस्त,
प्रेम का रूख बदल,
नहीं तो समुन्दर में
बह जाएगा तेरा
ढेड़ सारा प्यार।
What are the folks working at Fordow thinking?
What did they have for lunch?
Is it like being on the death row?
For a crime they never committed?
Is it not the crime of Uranium
For enriching itself, as if with usury?
They can't abandon ship:
That will be a National shame,
Even treachery.
Will the GBU-57 touch them?
Will a assassain's bullet touch them?
When they are back home on leave?
Will a missile vaporise them?
When they are having lunch?
What did they have for lunch?
What are the folks thinking?
I saw a video where a tornado crossed a rainbow. One image of that event is below:
Israel has taken out Nuclear scientists of Iran with impunity. She has also taken out military commanders as well. Earlier, US has taken out one military commander of Iran.
Our ISRO scientist Mr Nambi Narayan was clumsily put into jail by machinations of foreign powers which did not like to countenance our rapid march in Space exploration. And after that unfortunate and unlawful incarceration of Mr Nambi Narayan, India's space exploration went back many, many years.
But now subtle ways aren't employed anymore to remove scientists engaged in specialised work: such scientists as are almost irreplaceable. A missile just goes through their windows and vapourises them.
Can we afford to keep our scientists engaged in space and nuke research in plain sight? That the the enemy take them out with impunity? They must be withdrawn from public view as quickly as possible. Their social media profiles must be obliterated, their work profile must be made inaccessible to all except those who need to know. I have seen social media platforms where young scientists, in their naivete, boast that they are working in such and such critical project. Such mindset has to change.
We have to put a veil over the digital profiles of our scientists and and a hardened shield over their persona.
And there is no time to lose. We don't know when our discoveries and explorations will reach such a critical mass as would persuade some foreign to strike.
This day, forty six years ago, we, of the 64th, were commissioned together. We had stars in our eyes, and one each on our shoulders. We changed into different berets and lanyards. Different from each other's, and different from the Academy's. Ready to take on the world in our new avatars. Nothing was impossible in our lexicon.
And, slowly the years passed. We went our ways. Some collected more stars on the shoulders, some shiny medals on the chest. Some lost their arms and limbs. Some just faded away.
How I would that we all got decommissioned together! Toss up our berets in the air on the other side. And hug each other.
The following link extols the wonder of Starlink:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONrMP6LWWAw
In view of some unauthorised users of Starlink who we recently found in Manipur, I wanted to find potentially how vulnerable our national security would be with the deployment of Starlink in our country. I did some open source research and found that Starlink indeed has security concerns for our nation.
First a diagram of how Starlinks becomes the pipe between the user and a website:
I saw his tears when we parted,
Heard his laughter when we started,
And many sighs in between.
When did it all stop?
The days of heart on rampage?
Nights of yearning and star gaze?
One day at a time, I guess,
One night at a time,
One rush hour at a time.
The heart hardens slowly,
The arc lights blind slowly,
Love dies slowly.
This is goodbye, I know,
And, I'll heal in time,
And this wound that festers now
I'll feel no pain in time.
Still, when the wind kisses my face,
I'll feel your tresses on my face,
When the moon floats in a different sky,
I'll find your phantom embrace.
I am ashamed to say that I didn't know where Tuvalu was. This blog got 7 hits from that country. I'm so delighted. It is so humbling:
When he fell from the bridge
That went to the other side,
He latched on to the shadow
Of the bridge
To cross over to the other side neatly.
But shadows being shadows,
They crumpled,
Only some ripples remained
On the water,
And, he and his shadow,
Disappeared without a trace.
Then the shadow of the bridge,
Settled down
To receive more falls.
Today I made a major discovery. The discovery was actually serendipitous. The discovery was on the scale of the Rontgen rays discovery. By mistake, I used my toothpaste instead of my shaving cream to foam my stubble of a day. (I know I'm getting old.) And what I discovered was that my shaving was none the worse for it, only better, if anything. It left behind a tingling feeling, and therefore I didn't need any after-shave lotion as well.
Now, think of how this will impact the world, especially the fauji world. A soldier would not have to put in his 08 pack a tube of shaving cream. (Ladies are, of course, in any case excused). That's almost a hundred grams less on his backpack. When you are on a Long Range Patrol (LRP), every gram adds to your fatigue factor. Out on camps in training institutions, cadets would have to carry an item less in their 08 packs. What would he not do for a few grams less!
Of course, this has to be scientifically tested for compatibility with the skin before becoming a military doctrine, and perhaps later, even a civilian doctrine.
In the article above, we have this admission, 'At the end of that segment, Figliuzzi said that FBI Director Kash Patel has been more visible at nightclubs than the FBI headquarters. This was a misstatement. We have not verified that claim.' So, what does 'misstatement' mean? It means a lie.
Some years ago, we heard Ms Hillary Clinton say, '...I misspoke...'. Misspoke means lying.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna23789011
Do you think there should be synonyms of 'lying'? Or, should it only have one antonym: Truth?
It is easy to have the delusion
That soft corners are forever,
But no corners are left behind,
Whether soft or hard,
In the final fire.
The Atman lags behind
As the mind races.
The gap keeps increasing,
Through lifetimes,
And lifetimes,
Sometimes the mind slows down,
When it is caught in Alzheimer's,
Or, when caught in the trembles
Of the Richter Scale,
And sits down to catch its breath,
Sits down to pray.
How many calamities
Will we need
Till the Atman catches up
With the mind?
Someone sent this beautiful message:
We are the earth,
We are the eclipse,
We come between our Love,
And Sun,
And cut off the Light.
