NATIONALITY

I was watching a very close cricket match between India and Bangladesh. Both sides had almost equal winning chances. When an Indian player hit a four or a six I had the wish to jump up and down like many young Indian fans in the ground. And when an Indian wicket fell I felt despondent and looked nervously towards the score sheet. Just the opposite happened among the rival fans. Bangladeshi supporters looked depressed when a four was scored by an Indian player and found their voices and legs to celebrate the fall of every Indian wicket. Eventually India won the match and I felt happy and went to sleep with a contented mind. Bangladeshi fans looked morose.

The point is I was feeling one with the Indian team. The team did not include a single Bengali player and I supported them wholeheartedly. I did not care about the difference in so many things between the players who were playing for India and myself. The Bangladesh team consisted solely of Bengali players. I am a Bengali and did not feel empathy towards all those Bengalis because they were of another nationality although in language and culture I was far closer to them. And even now I feel quite right about that. I am and will be a supporter of Indian team whenever it plays against Bangladesh or any other cricketing nation.

Only a thought sprung to my mind. What if I was born a hundred miles or less towards the east in Pabna or some other district of Bangladesh? The whole scenario would have been opposite. I would have been jumping up and down with every Bangladesh victory and dispirited at every loss. Most probably I would have been a Muslim by religion because although it is not a religion one gets by virtue of being born in a Muslim family (as in the case of a Hindu) I would have got indoctrinated into becoming a Muslim by the family in quite a young age. Not many Muslims are Muslims because they judge for themselves whether it is best or not but gets along with the family traditions. Very few change their religion in their adult life taking their own judgemental decision. Yet as a born Hindu I feel sometimes antagonistic towards or superior to Muslims or even Christian or Jews because accidentally I was born Hindu at Howrah district of West Bengal within India. Yes accident! I could be born in Bangladesh or in Philippines or in Zimbabwe or in some other planet. Everything would have been different then. I mean I did not choose to be born in India. The atoms of my body were born in imploding supernovae many thousands or millions light years away from earth. They floated for millions of years in cosmos and somehow coagulated in to my DNAs in my genes. And I was given birth eventually by my parents in Earth (instead of some other unknown planet). Had my parents were accidentally in Pakistan I would have, most probably, a different view towards Kashmir issue or many other issues for that matter. I would have been a staunch supporter of Pakistan team no matter whatever the difference between me and the players. I would have even cheered for a Hindu if he were in Pakistan team (like one leg spinner whose name I cannot remember now) and did well against India. Had I been born in some African nation I would have found most of them acceptable looking instead of ugly as I find them now.

Our nationalities are accidental. Yet we all feel terribly patriotic so much so that we can even kill or do worse to people of other nations without batting an eyelid if we feel they are antagonistic towards our nation (this statement is valid for all nationalities). If I am an American I will drop two atomic bombs in Japan and kill thousands of innocent children at one go. If I am German I will kill Slavs and Jews in gas chambers.  Not only nationality. Nationalities in many occasions are bound with religion. So if I am a Sunni I will not only kill Hindus and Christians but also Shias or Ahmadias. I will not consider that  I am actually accidentally born Sunni and not a Shia or a Hindu or an Ahmadia. But this is true for a Shia or a Hindu or an Ahmadia also. Hatred is intricately bound with nationality and organised religion.

Patriotism makes us so blind that we do most hateful things without any moral hiccups. We can kill other innocent people by committing suicide and making a bomb blast. We do not think our nationalities are totally accidental and my right may be wrong for the other.

A point to ponder upon.

I

Who is this ‘I’? Or a more pertinent question should be who is the owner of ‘I’? The very obvious answer to this question should be “I am the owner of I”. But let us examine it a bit more closely. Is the ‘I’ we think of is the controller of function of our kidney? Or liver, heart, blood flow in our arteries and veins? Well not the conscious I. We are not owner or controller of the I that controls every movement of our bodies. Now how much different is our mind from our liver? The mind is nothing but a function of our brain. And the brain is just another organ like kidbney but much more complex. This mind or brain is just some chemical reactions and electrical impulses of brain which we do not control. Therefore we are not owners of our conscious mind or the so called I also. Our minds which are nothing but series of thoughts are not controlled by our ‘I’. The source of thoughts is that I which controls our kidneys and livers and so on.  Who is that ‘guy’...the real ‘I’? Atheists would call it nature. Others would call it God; source of all ‘I’ s. And that I or the essence is everywhere. I mean are we not just bunches of atoms (or more fundamental particles if you like) examining other or the same atoms. Which or who is the Examiner within these atoms? And examining Whom?

Immortality

Einstein met Rabindranath in 1930 at Einstein's home near Berlin. Among other things they had a remarkable conversation about nature of Universe. To Einstein universe was objective..that is, it exists independent of whether I or you or anybody exists in it. This is simple to conceive. After all universe was there before my birth and will remain after my death. Tagore's view, on the other hand, was that universe is subjective, Let us think about Tagore's view. The universe I know or feel is only within my consciousness. Without my conscious experience of the universe there is no other universe. This universe exists only within my consciousness ( so does your's). So universe is subjective. It is there because of our conscious experience of it. There is no universe without our consciousness. So both Einstein and Tagore were correct, isn’t it? Now if we take a little help of simple algebra, like a=b, we must admit that objective universe= subjective universe. That is, outside=inside. Therefore everything is One. That is what Upanishads say. You are the universe and the One. Not your body,but the eternal consciousness that dwells inside you. That is unborn and deathless. Since everything is One, it is independent of time and space because time and space means separation. If there is only One there is no time and space in it. It is eternal and deathless, So the big 'I' inside you and I are one and this is unborn and immortal.

DO WOMEN WANT LESS SEX?

Women want less sex than men in general. It is self evident. There are enormously more incidents of males forcing women to sex than the other way round. Men watch porn almost twice as much than women. There are far more number of female prostitutes making money pandering to male desire than male prostitutes making livelihood by catering sex to women. There are always far more number of men in chat rooms (which is highly sexualised) than women. Most men have to “win” a woman in romance. Of course there are women who “win” their men, but generally they are for permanent relationships than for winning sexual favour. Of course there are reasons like men having more money, opportunity and domination etc for this. However it does not really explain the big difference.

I always was intrigued by this fact. Why would it be like this? In every other normal physical action men and women operate equally. One cannot say that women have less hunger for food than men. Normal physical activities like sleeping, eating, bowel movements, and emotions like anger etc are equal among both men and women. Also we see there is a great law governing this universe. That is to arrive at a stable condition all the forces must equate to zero. This is a law of mechanics but applicable to everything. We see that everything is divided into two and equally charged. Without the electrical charges being the same electricity cannot flow. All matter is composed of same number of oppositely charged fundamental particles (if it is not, it is not in stable condition). Human beings and in fact all living beings are just matters composed and organised in a certain way. So by nature the positive and negative should be same. And on top of that by nature both the male and female want perpetuate their genes. So both sexes equally want equally to procreate. Men and women equally want to be father and mother respectively. Sexual urge is an expression of wanting to be a father or mother. So why would women have less sexual urge than men?

The matter of fact is that equality between men and women are maintained in a complicated way. Nature has endowed men with more physical power but women have more physical beauty. Men have more mathematical intelligence but women have more “emotional” intelligence. So although women are weaker and shorter than men they maintain a superior sexual power (namely beauty) to balance out the inequality. Sexual equality is maintained in a very complex manner. Testosterone, the male hormone (which gives men the maleness) enhances sexual urge in human beings. It is also responsible for aggression and it starts to flow in men in great proportion when they reach puberty. Women also have testosterone in their body but the amount is much less than in men. The female sex hormone oestrogen is more geared to make the appearance of women and giving women the power to mothering and bearing a child. Oestrogen is present in males in far less quantity. So men have more urge for natural chemical reasons.

The biggest point is the sperm count in men gets back to sufficient level within 24 hours to make reproduction possible another time. So a normal fit man is capable of producing babies every day. Women however produce a single egg in almost a month. So they can be mother only once in a month and once they get pregnant there are no more eggs in her body for almost a year. So her want and need is naturally curbed. So this is a clear reason for her to want less sex than men.

However nature does not like inequality. It seems that when women are fertile and want to be mothers (that is during the ovulation), their sexual urge increases and intensifies to match that of men. And it seems it gets even stronger than men during peak time. They feel the hunger so much that many women fantasize of sex forced upon them and having multiple male partners at once. They are also physically endowed to have multiple male partners. The word “gangbang” particularly suggests a single female with multiple males. The opposite of this is not commonly heard of. The reason is a single female has enough physical desire to meet desires of multiple males. This in a way reduces the paucity of available women with sexual desire and creates equilibrium between sexes. Also a man having sex with one partner cannot perform a second time for a while. Whereas a female is capable of having sex continually so that she is able to mate with multiple male within a very short period of time.

So to summarize although female have less sexual appetite more of the time, at her peak can have more desire than men to balance everything.

The Easiest Way to God

God is infinite and there are infinite ways of getting Him, but perhaps the easiest way is to surrender oneself completely to Him and then do whatever comes to mind without thinking of past or future knowing that whatever happened in past was His making and He will take care of whatever happens in future.
All that have happened in past has made one come to the point of surrender and once surrendered God takes away all the burden from him and life becomes very light.

TIME TRAVEL AND “IT”

In a recent experiment Australian scientists made time travel possible. They sent a “photon” back to past. This experiment is very recent and created much curiosity throughout the world as it was published in world’s premier scientific journal; Nature.

The experiment is compatible to Einstein’s concept of a wormhole. According to Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity space and time are interconnected and can be called a space-time curve. A skew in this curvature can cause a hole through which one can go back to the past .And General Theory of Relativity has been proved beyond doubt.

But here comes the very pragmatic and simple argument called grandfather question against the notion of possibility of going back to the past. The argument says if it is possible for you to go in to the past you will be able to stop your grandparents to meet (like killing your grandfather!), thereby stopping your birth itself. So logically it is impossible to go in to the past.

Then how do we come to terms with these two conflicting scenarios which are both true!

Let me tell you that a photon although is a particle is actually the smallest “packet of energy”. As everyone knows mass and energy are interchangeable and from the famous equation of special theory of relativity of Einstein, E= mc,² where E stands for energy and m stands for mass and c stands for the speed of light (which is a constant). The mass of a photon is equal to zero at rest is actually also a wave.

Photons and also other extremely small particles are dealt in quantum mechanics where things act in a very queer fashion, to say the least. The shape, size and momentum etc. are not very determinable as we are used to in daily life. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle says that we cannot measure the position and momentum of a quantum particle simultaneously with precision. In the very complex and strange world of quantum mechanics whatever knowledge we gain from daily life of physical world begins to falter.

In almost similar fashion Einstein’s theory of relativity makes us lose our usual way in the macro world of gigantic dimensions like the intergalactic space, mammoth black holes and speeds nearing that of light. With greater speed time becomes slower than when at usual speed we encounter. Black holes are enigmatic objects which do not emit light yet are at core of the galaxies creating sources of vast energies.

Also problematically Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and quantum mechanics do not go well with each other fundamentally. Only very recently scientists have been able to come to a little bit of rapprochement between the two but not at all totally. Sending photons to “past” through worm holes is one such effort towards the rapprochement.

So it is possible to go back to the past yet it is impossible!

Where does this leave us then? The conclusion is that, the more we delve deeper and deeper in to something and know more we begin to know that we know nothing. There is something unknowable which will elude our grasp however we or the scientists may try now or in any time in future. New questions and new mysteries will always engulf us (like the case of dark matter and dark energy that scientists are grappling to solve these days).

There is something in Upanishads which says Brahman is not describable.

“IT” is the only knowledge yet ever unknown.

THE DRESS CODE

As I was watching a BBC program I came across a piece of news that American school girls were unhappy with their dress code. They have started a movement through social media like twitter to wear dress in school as they wanted to. In US school uniforms are not in vogue but girls are prohibited to wear skirts too short or backless or cleavage showing dresses. They are punished if the dress code is breached, like they are sent back to their homes or wear a long shirt on top of their dress in the school. These girls are objecting saying what they wear is their matter. They are objecting to the proposition that what they wear may “disturb” some boys. They are saying that boys have the responsibility to have control over their emotions and instincts. Some girls showed themselves in the TV show wearing shorts and cleavage revealing clothes and said that these are not allowed in the school and if they wear it they will be punished. More so if the girl is amply endowed in chest and hip.

In 1930s when England’s first women’s cricket team visited Australia the regulation dress was a skirt which had to be not more than four inches from the heel. These days some women play tennis wearing skirts which are “babies of skirts” as my wife described them. And nobody seems to bother.

So what should be the dress code or should there be a dress code at all. The question is serious as it is a fundamental question which even ignites wars in places like Afghanistan and other Muslim dominated countries. There the proper dress code does not even allow women to reveal their faces. Many women are unhappy that this should be such and the social unrest among women and who support them have caused wars between more liberal and conservative sections of people. But the problem among women of Afghanistan and US school girls is not of fundamental difference but of degree. The main problem is whether women should wear whatever they like regardless of what men or even other women think that these may cause problem and help to kindle uncontrollable passions among men. The argument for the women is that it is not there matter that men are troubled by such and who misbehave in response to any kind of dress is their problem. In Islamic states the burden of societal responsibility in these matters are put squarely on the shoulders of women so much so that women are called evil. In other societies the response varies in degrees. In India (my city Kolkata) 20 years back heads would have turned if a woman wore tight jeans. Even now it is considered obscene (even by women) in most parts of India if a woman wears mini skirt in a city street. I think women are to a great degree justified in the argument of their right to choose whatever dress they want but is there a limit to it? Suppose some women come out in streets wearing nothing at all or wearing bikinis? Where should we stand then? Not every male or female are same and their degree of excitement and their control on that excitement is not same. Even within a single person degree of excitement changes at different times. I have found out that in some days when I am too busy with my occupations and problems that even an attractive naked woman would not have my attention whereas at other times a hint of cleavage would spur animal instincts in my mind. Not everyone is Sri Ramakrishna who could control his instincts to the degree such that even when an amply endowed young woman sat on his lap stark naked his mind did not budge from God! And the question does not encompass women only. I, in a moment of madness, posted a picture of mine eating my lunch with my upper half of the body without any clothing in Orkut profile and a woman told me that it was horrible because it showed my thick chest hair. She also said there is a place for everything. If I wore this dress in a beach nobody would have objected to but in a public place it was objectionable. I also read a report that in middle east people found it objectionable that south Indian men wore lungis in such a way that it was folded up to their knees. They found it obscene and some laws were created to ban it.

So clearly not every dress is acceptable everywhere. But what is the boundary line and who would set it? As I have said earlier it varies to extreme degrees between cultures and places and time. I would imagine the amazement and pique of a person from Europe from middle ages if he happens to see dresses worn by modern day men and women even in Asia.

I do not think whatever I wish I dress argument is justified. Apart from personal security the opinion of others matter when it is in public and when others are involved. You simply cannot ignore the emotions and opinion of others if you are to mix with them publicly, in any matter whatsoever.

So the right balance has to come out in context of a particular place, time and culture. You can go nude in some of the beaches but you have to be covered up to head if you are in Afghanistan or in Europe in times of inquisition. Also if I go out in a dhoti or with a pajama punjabi in streets of Los Angeles or Zurich there will be a few eyebrows raised.

So coming to the point I started with what should be the solution for the American school girls. To my mind the best solution is a school uniform although that might not be to the taste of a quite a lot of Americans. A school uniform with taking opinion of all concerned will stop punishments and grievances. It should be democratic for all concerned like the country itself.

IS TRUTH SUBJECTIVE

As everyone can understand, there is this puny you and unimaginably enormous cosmos around you. Whether you live or die matters little to this infinite universe. What difference it makes to galaxies thousands of light years away and the beings that may be there whether you are there or not. So one can say that universe is objective, your existence inside it matters little.

However from another angle this universe ceases to be once you are not there. The universe is there as long as there is perception of it within you. When the perception dies the universe ceases to exist. The sight, sound, smell and the perception itself that the universe is there is no more. Hence universe is subjective. With you the universe is born and with you universe dies.

Similarly whether one is doing right and wrong is both objective and subjective. Let us take the case of a most heinous crime, murder. Objectively any murder or killing is wrong and a crime. Nazis killed millions during Second World War particularly during Jewish holocaust (about 11million were killed). To the outer world it is a crime and murder. But to the Nazis it was rightful thing to do, a revenge for all the miseries heaped on them by the Jews throughout the ages. When the allied forces conquered Germany they killed 5.5 million Germans which are not perceived as murder but rightful killing.

What al Qaeda is doing today, killing innocent people is right to them because they believe they are doing it for the right cause whereas to the many of the rest of the world it is most heinous crime. If you kill somebody because he kills your husband may be right to you but not to the relatives of the killed person.

In our day to day life there is always an opposing point of view. What is right to you is completely wrong for someone else. Just like India and Pakistan both feel Kashmir is part of them. Since each has an own world view and a universe of his own, which as I said is subjective the truths are also subjective. So it is true for an atheist that there is no god as it is true for a believer that there is god. In a subjective universe both is true and there are many truths as opinions.

The Science of Sex Appeal (Face)

Why do we find certain person attractive? Is there any logic or science behind that?Well there is. Scientists have researched all the different aspects of sex appeal. And the conclusion is  very deeply fundamental to our very existence and our inherent desire to live forever by reproducing our genes in the form of children.We find those people attractive because we want to mate with them.And why  do we want to mate with them ?Because their features suggest to us that they are the fittest to produce good children,i.e,they have healthy genes inside.

Let us take the case of face first  because most of the times we look at the face of an individual first.

In the University of Aberdeen,Scotland psychologist Lisa Debruine  in her Face Research Lab has done some very revealing work on this.

In her research she has broken down the face into its different components, namely eyes,nose,mouth and skin. She has taken an average caucasian man and woman (by sampling from 60 males and females).The average woman has smaller jaw,thinner eyebrows ,men have more square jaws,thicker eyebrow and more square hairline.

Average caucasian woman and man . Courtesy Discovery Channel

Debruine has devised a way to make the face of a woman more feminine or masculine by making her eyes smaller or larger, jaw thinner or squarer,eyebrows more thinner (and raising it a bit) or flatter.She then placed the unchanged photo,the masculanised photo and the feminised photo to men.81 percent men preferred the more feminised woman. Similarly majority of females liked the more masculinised male.

    

               masculinised                                         unchanged                                      feminised

     

Now the question is why a face gets more masculine or feminine? During childhood both males and females look similar.As adolescence arrives  sex hormones begin to generate in both sexes.Testosterone in men and estrogen and progesterone in women.These hormones cause male features and female features to develop in case of men and women respectively.The more male hormone the more pronounced male features and more female hormones the more pronounced female features. The higher amount of sex hormones means a very healthy reproductive ability. This also generally indicate good health. Therefore mating with these individuals has more chances of producing healthy children.

So we find an individual attractive because his features indicate that mating with him or her will be profitable for having good children and useful in passing on our own genes to the future generation and thereby perpetuating them.

( Adapted from Discovery Channel video Science of Sex appeal)

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/science-of-sex-appeal-human-behavior/

SURE STEPS TO MAKE MONEY

The first and most important requirement to make money is a deep hunger for it. The more hunger you have for money more likely that you will make it. This law is applicable to all things. The more hunger you feel for something more likely you are to achieve it.

Since you are reading this article I assume that you have a reasonable appetite to make money.

You can make money with anything in this world because you get money for what is required in life. The point is everything is required in life to some extent, so if you are able to provide quality things in that particular field consistently and competitively you will make money.

Although you can make money with anything it is best to choose something which you like to do best. So if you like to write poetry try to not make selling breads your profession. Because you will make quality things only when you like your work consistently. And more you like a work more you will do it consistently. If you are happy with what you are doing professionally it surely will fetch you money.

Do not do one thing today and another thing tomorrow however more lucrative a thing may seem to you than what you are doing now because everything  has its own pitfalls and whatever you are doing has its own advantages.

Do not lose your time with brooding about your failures. Nothing is achievable at one go and failures are the best way to learn and improve your merchandise whatever it is.

To make money you have to concentrate at one way of doing it steadfastly and do it again and again and go on improving it till the end of your life and know more and more about it and then diversify it.

And when you make money you have to find a way to save it because if you spend all your money no money is earned. To do that if you have to judge by your instinct where you should spend and where you should not. So spend very prudently.

Help others in every way you can but in a balanced way, because unless you help others they will not help you and without other’s help you will not make money.

Do not crave for instant success. If you do your work persistently success will come slowly but surely.

Now I am coming to the most important point and key to success in any field in life. To do all the things above you have to control your mind. Because mind is generally very frivolous and make you do things which will result in losses. In fact controlling our minds is the ultimate and only real challenge of life. You must make your mind focus at the thing you like, in this case ways of making money. It is not easy and you have to practice it. Each day meditate on something for a certain length of time, starting with a very small time which you can manage and then go on increasing. As your control over mind increases your control over everything will increase including making money. You will find deep but easy ways to achieve your goal and you will react to emergencies better. Your capacity of decision making will be greater and greater.It will make you disciplined. It will even make you like a job you generally dislike. So if you are trapped in a profession you do not like this is the only way out.

And lastly do not forget to give your daily prayer to God. Remember whatever you do the factors in life are so innumerable that without the help of the Omnipotent you will not be achieve anything in life. If you are an atheist always try to do what your intuition and conscience tells you to do, because conscience is a form of God dwelling inside each of us. So give a part of income for benevolent causes. The more the better. It will come back to you tenfold in way of happiness and money.

ADVANTAGES OF BEING DRAUPADI

     Many in history have discussed about the pain of Draupadi  for being shared by five men at the unintentional directive of her mother in law Kunti. She had many misfortunes including being humiliated in the royal court of Kauravas and her five sons being killed in a single night by Ashwathama at the end of Kuruksekhtra battle. However if you get to think of it she enjoyed a few things which are unparalleled by any Indian woman or for that matter woman of any other country.

1.She had five handsome virile men whom she could enjoy according to her mood. She could “ do” with her devars ( brother-in-law) and bhasurji which is a secret wish of many Indian women . And nobody had the right to call her any bad name for that , instead people sympathized her for it. She could compare the abilities of these great guys in bed and say it to the other guy if she was not satisfied. She had the man she loved but had an additional bonus of four more exceptional men at her disposal for her any need.

2.She had a different man for different needs. If she had any physical ailments she could go to Nakula or Sahadeva who were doctors. If she had something to do which was physically challenging she could and did go to Bhima. Like smashing the bones of somebody who mistreated her or anybody she disliked, or get a flower from heaven which was not available in earth. She could go shopping with a guy her mood fitted with.

3 For romantic trysts and husbandly transactions she could go to Arjuna . She had the prize honor of having the greatest hero as her husband of whom she could boast of to anybody she liked.

          

4.For spiritual and philosophical tete-a tete she could go to Yudhistira. Also if she had a bad mood she used him as a punching bag which she did quite often. She was fortunate enough to have someone to spit away about all her misfortunes.

5.She had God Himself , Lord Krishna, as her personal friend and savior were she in any trouble. Which other woman in the world had such unparalleled advantage.

In the annals of Mahabharata Draupadi has been painted as one of the most unfortunate women and somebody you wanted to sympathize. However if you think quietly all her wishes were fulfilled. She was a queen of a great prince and possessed all the wealth she wanted at the end. Her greatest humiliation in life, the attempt of disrobing of her at the royal court was fully avenged with the death of all the Kauravas including the chief miscreant Duhsashana the way she liked , she washed her hair with blood from his chest.

In fact she is the central female in Mahabharata and the battle of Kurukhsetra happened to a great extent for her and she won in the end.

FREEDOM

The REAL FREEDOM is freedom from DESIRE.
We are slaves of others because we are slaves of our desires. When the desire is gone we are free from every slavery. However one need just a little bit of desire to live. Without any desire a man ceases to exist. So the ultimate freedom is death.

THE NAZI WHO SENT MAN TO MOON

Wernher Von Braun was born in born in Wirsitz,Germany (now in Poland) on 23 rd March ,1912.He had aristocratic ancestry from both his father and mother’s side.During his childhood his mother had given him a telescope and he developed passion for astronomy.The family moved to Berlin after world war 1 when wirsitz was transferred to Poland.He also learnt to play and cello and became an accomplished musician who could play Bach and Beethoven from memory. In fact during his early life he aimed at being a musician. Braun attended a school near weimar where he did not do very well in mathematics and physics.In 1928 his parents moved him to Hermann-Lietz-Internat on the East Frisian island of Spiekeroog. There he acquired a copy of Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (1929) (By Rocket into Interplanetary Space) (in German) by rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth. Space travel had always fascinated von Braun, and from then on he applied himself to physics and mathematics to pursue his interest in rocket engineering.

In 1930 he attended the Technical University of Berlin, where he joined the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR, the "Spaceflight Society") and assisted Willy Ley in his liquid-fueled rocket motor tests in conjunction with Hermann Oberth. He also studied at ETH Zurich. Although he worked mainly on military rockets in his later years there, space travel remained his primary interest. The following episode from the early 1930s is telling in this respect. At this time von Braun attended a presentation given by Auguste Piccard. After the talk the young student approached the famous pioneer of high-altitude balloon flight, and stated to him: "You know, I plan on travelling to the Moon at some time."

Von Braun was working on his creative doctorate when Nazis came to power in Germany.He completed his doctorate  in physics from University of Berlin .Only part of his doctoral thesis because The full thesis contained many secrets of rocketry and was published only in 1960.Braun was influenced by the father of rocketry,the american Robert H Goddard. An artillary captain Domberger arranged for grants from ordnance department.

Civilian rocket tests were forbidden by the new Nazi regime. Only military development was allowed and to this end, a larger facility was erected at the village of Peenemunde in northern Germany on the Baltic Sea. Dornberger became the military commander at Peenemunde, with von Braun as technical director. In collaboration with the Luftwaffe, the Peenemünde group developed liquid-fuel rocket engines for aircraft and jet-assisted takeoffs. They also developed the long-range A-4 ballistic missile and the supersonic Wasserfall anti-aircraft missile.
In November 1937 (other sources: December 1, 1932), von Braun joined the National Socialist German Workers Party. An Office of Military Government, United States document dated April 23, 1947, states that von Braun joined the Waffen-SS (Schutzstaffel) horseback riding school in 1933, then the National Socialist Party on May 1, 1937, and became an officer in the Waffen-SS from May 1940 until the end of the war.
According to Von Braun’s own version he joined  Nazi party and SS under pressure because he had no other option and ordered by SS chief Heinrich Himmler to do so.His version was disputed by many others. There is a picture which shows Braun in uniform with Himmler.Many said he wore the uniform regularly although Braun claimed he wore it only once.He was thrice promoted by Himmler although he claimed the promotions were technical ones

VON BRAUN WITH HIMMLER

In 1943 Adolf Hitler became very enthusiastic about rocket weapon signed the order approving the production of the A-4 as a "vengeance weapon" and the group developed it to target London. Hitler was so enthusiastic that he personally made von Braun a professor shortly thereafter. In Germany at this time, this was an exceptional promotion for an engineer who was only 31 years old.

DIAGRAM OF V2 ROCKET

British and Soviets were aware of Hitler’s rocket programme and Braun and bombed Peenemunde heavily on 17 -18^th august, 1943.Although many people died Braun’s group and facilities remained largely intact.

SS General Hans Kammler who as an engineer had constructed several concentration camps including Auschwitz, had a reputation for brutality and had originated the idea of using concentration camp prisoners as slave laborers in the rocket program. Arthur Rudolph, chief engineer of the V-2 rocket factory at Peenemünde, endorsed this idea in April 1943 when a labor shortage developed. More people died building the V-2 rockets than were killed by it as a weapon. Von Braun admitted visiting the plant at Mittelwerk on many occasions, and called conditions at the plant "repulsive", but claimed never to have witnessed any deaths or beatings, although it had become clear to him by 1944 that deaths had occurred. He denied ever having visited the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp itself, where 20,000 died from illness, beatings, hangings and intolerable working conditions. A friend quotes von Braun speaking of a visit to Mittelwerk:

“It is hellish. My spontaneous reaction was to talk to one of the SS guards, only to be told with unmistakable harshness that I should mind my own business, or find myself in the same striped fatigues!... I realized that any attempt of reasoning on humane grounds would be utterly futile.”

VON BRAUN WITH SS COLLEAGUES IN 1941

Others claim von Braun engaged in brutal treatment or approved of it. Guy Morand, a French resistance fighter who was a prisoner in Dora, testified in 1995 that after an apparent sabotage attempt:
Without even listening to my explanations, [von Braun] ordered the Meister to have me given 25 strokes...Then, judging that the strokes weren't sufficiently hard, he ordered I be flogged more vigorously...von Braun made me translate that I deserved much more, that in fact I deserved to be hanged...I would say his cruelty, of which I was personally a victim, are, I would say, an eloquent testimony to his Nazi fanaticism.
Robert Cazabonne, another French prisoner, testified that von Braun stood by and watched as prisoners were hung by chains from hoists. Von Braun claimed he "never saw any kind of abuse or killing" and only "heard rumors...that some prisoners had been hanged in the underground galleries".
Von Braun was arrested by Gestapo because of his “defeatist” attitude on war on March 14 ,1944 but released soon because german leadership understood the importance of Braun working on rocketry.
On May 2, 1945 almost at the end of the war Braun,his brother and almosst the whole Peenemunde team surrendered to Americans in Bavarian Alps.
The americans were very much aware of the importance of the catch.He was detained and interrogated by americans thoroughly and detained him in germany for a short time. On June 20, 1945, the U.S. Secretary of State approved the transfer of von Braun and his specialists to America; however this was not announced to the public until October 1, 1945. Von Braun was among those scientists for whom the U.S. Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency created false employment histories and expunged Nazi Party memberships and regime affiliations from the public record. Once “bleached” of their Nazism, the US Government granted the scientists security clearance to work in the United States. "Paperclip," the project’s operational name, derived from the paperclips used to attach the scientists’ new political personæ to their “US Government Scientist” personnel files.
Braun  and his remaining Peenemunde staff  were transferred to their new home at Fort Bliss, Texas, a large Army installation just north of El PasoThere he remained largely as a “prisoner of peace” and unused although . While there, they trained military, industrial and university personnel in the intricacies of rockets and guided missiles. As part of the Hermes project they helped to refurbish, assemble and launch a number of V-2s that had been shipped from Germany to the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico
On March 1, 1947 Braun married his first cousin Maria in a trip back to Germany.
. In 1950, at the start of the Korean War von Braun and his team were transferred to Huntsville, Alabama his home for the next 20 years. Between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile tests conducted by the United States.
As director of the Development Operations Division of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), von Braun, with his team, then developed the Jupiter-C, a modified Redstone rocket. The Jupiter-C successfully launched the West's first satellite, Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958. This event signaled the birth of America's space program.
Despite the work on the Redstone rocket, the twelve years from 1945 to 1957 were probably some of the most frustrating for von Braun and his colleagues. In the Soviet Union, Sergei Korolev and his team of scientists and engineers plowed ahead with several new rocket designs and the Sputnik program, while the American government was not very interested in von Braun's work or views and only embarked on a very modest rocket-building program. In the meantime, the press tended to dwell on von Braun's past as a member of the SS and the slave labor used to build his V-2 rockets.
To end his frustration Braun chose to go to public and popularize his vision of men landing on moon through articles,tv talks and journals. The May 14, 1950 headline of The Huntsville Times ("Dr. von Braun Says Rocket Flights Possible to Moon") might have marked the beginning of these efforts. These disclosures rode a moonflight publicity wave that was created by the two 1950 U.S. science fiction films, Destination Moon and Rocketship X-M. At this time von Braun also worked out preliminary concepts for a manned Mars mission that used the space station as a staging point
The U.S. Navy had been tasked with building a rocket to lift satellites into orbit, but the resulting Vanguard rocket launch system was unreliable. In 1957, with the launch of Sputnik 1, there was a growing belief within the United States that America lagged behind the Soviet Union in the emerging Space Race. American authorities then chose to utilize von Braun and his German team's experience with missiles to create an orbital launch vehicle, something von Braun had originally proposed in 1954 but had been denied.

WALT DISNEY & VON BRAUN IN 1954

NASA was established by law on July 29, 1958. One day later, the 50th Redstone rocket was successfully launched from Johnston Atoll in the south Pacific as part of Operation Hardtack I. Two years later, NASA opened the Marshall Space Flight Center at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, and the ABMA development team led by von Braun was transferred to NASA. In a face-to-face meeting with Herb York at the Pentagon, von Braun made it clear he would go to NASA only if development of the Saturn was allowed to continue.Presiding from July 1960 to February 1970, von Braun became the center's first Director.
The Marshall Center's first major program was the development of Saturn rockets to carry heavy payloads into and beyond Earth orbit. From this, the Apollo program for manned moon flights was developed. Wernher von Braun initially pushed for a flight engineering concept that called for an Earth orbit rendezvous technique (the approach he had argued for building his space station), but in 1962 he converted to the more risky lunar orbit rendezvous concept that was subsequently realized.During Apollo, he worked closely with former Peenemünde teammate, Kurt H. Debus, the first director of the Kennedy Space Center. His dream to help mankind set foot on the Moon became a reality on July 16, 1969 when a Marshall-developed Saturn V rocket launched the crew of Apollo 11 on its historic eight-day mission. Over the course of the program, Saturn V rockets enabled six teams of astronauts to reach the surface of the Moon.

WITH PRESIDENT JOHN KENNEDY

SATURN ROCKET

During the late 1960s, von Braun was instrumental in the development of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville. The desk from which he guided America's entry in the Space Race remains on display there.
However, on March 1, 1970, von Braun and his family relocated to Washington, D.C., when he was assigned the post of NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Planning at NASA Headquarters. After a series of conflicts associated with the truncation of the Apollo program, and facing severe budget constraints, von Braun retired from NASA on May 26, 1972.

APOLLO 11 LAUNCH

BRAUN WITH COLLEAGUES FROM NASA AFTER APOLLO 11 SUCCESSFUL  MOON LANDING

MAN ON THE MOON

BRAUN IN HIS OFFICE AT NASA HEADQUARTERS, 1970

WIFE MARIA

In 1973 a routine health check revealed kidney cancer, which during the following years could not be controlled by surgery. Von Braun continued his work to the extent possible, which included accepting invitations to speak at colleges and universities as he was eager to cultivate interest in human spaceflight and rocketry, particularly with students and a new generation of engineers.
Von Braun helped establish and promote the National Space Institute, a precursor of the present-day National Space Society, in 1975, and became its first president and chairman. In 1976, he became scientific consultant to Lutz Kayser, the CEO of OTRAG, and a member of the Daimler-Benz board of directors. However, his deteriorating health forced him to retire from Fairchild on December 31, 1976. When the 1975 National Medal of Science was awarded to him in early 1977 he was hospitalized, and unable to attend the White House ceremony.

On June 16, 1977, Wernher von Braun died of pancreatic cancer in Alexandria, Virginia, at the age of 65. He was buried at the Ivy Hill Cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia..

(This article is largely adapted from Wikipedia article On Von Braun)

My Wife and Sleepless in Seattle

Why am I writing this?

Who would read a review of a movie which has released 20 years back and although a few people still watch it in DVDs and internet people in general are not very much aware of it right now.

However people do things which sometimes defy reasons. Or there is a more ulterior subtle reason which even the person who is doing it cannot fathom.

Sleepless in Seattle was movie made in 1993 starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and IMDb  rates it a bit above average (6..7). It is a story well told (writer Jeff Arch) and it revolves around the theme l “love”. Particularly love of a bereaved husband for his deceased wife. The light had gone out of his life until in a quirk of fate he meets a woman because his eight year old son answers a radio talk show. The love he once thought impossible again (as dearly he loved his wife) lights up his life once more.

After the movie ends you feel a quiet satisfaction.  The movie captures the intangible thing called “love” in a compelling way. Particularly the love which means care, companionship and the inner nearness. The love which a husband/wife feels for his wife/husband with whom he is in love. For which he/she can forgive thousand folly of the other one and can do almost anything for the other. He /she can bear physical distress, humiliation and sometime even die. It is not the wild kind of love which craves for wild physical intimacy but a gentle hug which embraces all life. Because with this particular kind of love the hinge pin of life is the other person. Whatever you do, your goals and striving for success is permanently locked with this person in life. The stars, the cosmos is meaningless without the other. In one of the most touching scenes the man tells his son with excruciating care and love how his (the son’s)mother could peel an apple at one go, which was one of the million other things he loved about his wife.

And here I got involved with the movie. It is an enjoyable movie and quite a hit (it was made with $21 million and grossed more than 10 times the money in box office). But it meant a lot more than any other good movie to me. Because it involves the central point why I continue to live.

Have you ever had this fear of losing something immensely valuable? I think almost everyone has. And although you have not lost it your mind is aggrieved because you think that one day you will lose it and feel that it is already lost. My wife is, many would say an ordinary woman whose face is perhaps beautiful, walks rather painfully slowly, does not have a figure worth any attention, but to me she is more valuable than my own life. Although she is very near me most of the time I feel like I have not got enough of her. I fear losing her and sometimes feel as if I have lost her. So many times I ponder what life would be without her. It will be like I will be blinded and maimed for the rest of my life or even worse.

We do not have much physical intimacy. I have forgotten when I last had sex with her (I am 55 now). And we have fights, sometimes stormy, about little things of life. We do finger point each for not doing this and that and she and I shout at each other at the top of our voice. Yet when I snuggle beside her and she tells me that she had seen an orange colored cat which even said “meow” when she approached him the world melts within me. The dog “Nyaota” comes up in the conversation. He looks imploringly for biscuits and when my wife gives a few to him he crawls up her sari with his two legs to say his love to her. He also makes a squeaky sound with his voice to show his joy when he encounters her. My wife tells all these to me and I feel that only things in universe that matters are the cat and Nyaota. I also tell her a few stories of my own, like the cat in the street that seemed worried and busy and careworn with life. She giggles at this and asks me to tell more.

My wife also is a poet. And I think she is a great poet. Although world may not know her name now we dream someday whole world would know it. When she writes something which she thinks good she come up and tells me “hey listen to what I have written”. I cannot always hear her immediately because I may be busy with some other things but I always feel those words crawled in the note book someday will make her and me proud.

When I think of myself I feel I am both a great and small person. I have cheated my wife whom I love so much a few times in net (physical want takes form you do not want it to) and not earn enough to support her. I got a good education and became a bachelor of engineer. But I became a failed engineer and spent most of 20 years of life in confusion. It is very recently I am doing what I really like to do but unfortunately that is not enough to earn me a livelihood . And my cheated wife trudges slowly her way to office which she hates just  to support us. Sometimes  I feel pathetic and once again go to job sites and seek for an immediate job and go back to office life. Yes, money. That will save everything. But I know that will stop me doing what I like most and kill me inwardly but let me have perhaps a decent life financially and my wife will not have to go to office. On the other hand I think of things I like to do and do easily. Like writing on everything that moves me emotionally. I feel someday someone will notice my obscure articles somewhere and give me money for these. Because these are works of love. And when I do things I like to do I feel great. I think my life is of worth something in this world because I have done something which came from deep within myself…they are original…completely mine.

Love is the most selling thing in the world. As I told you the movie was a hit and grossed ten times the amount it was made with, telling about love. As my wife calls to come to her chest sometimes when she feels lonely and I smother my face in her bosom I feel like it has value beyond money and is eternal. As I wish I could melt inside her chest that this love even can bring something we dearly need, namely money. I wrote this article about love because perhaps it will bring me little money someday.

The man in the movie lost his wife and found a new woman. I fear that. I do not want a new woman in life ever. I just want that my wife become healthy and happy and fit ,a successful person in life without ever having to do the things she does not like.

The new woman in my life would be She.

KASHMIR ISSUE

What is the solution of Kashmir issue? Two countries, India and Pakistan have fought for this beautiful piece of  land from their inception. More than six decades have passed, three wars have been fought between these countries but no solution is still in sight. The hatred and animosity it has generated is still a big threat to the world peace.

Let me retrace the history as briefly as I can. The two countries found freedom from British rule in 1947 but with a price. One country was divided into two on the basis of religion .The lands with Hindu majority went to India and with Muslim majority went to Pakistan. There was a problem with states which were ruled by “princes” subordinate to the British. They were allowed to join either of the two states they liked.

Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of the state Jammu and Kashmir could not decide which state he wanted to join until forces from Pakistan (who thought the state was morally their property as the state had a Muslim majority) attacked it and captured some part of it. At this point Hari Singh (who was a Hindu) joined India.

India sent armed forces and after some fighting between Indian and Pakistani forces it came to a standstill. There was a status quo at what is commonly known as “Line of Control(LOC)” From then onwards the two portions of  Jammu and Kashmir on two sides of LOC has been ruled by India and Pakistan both of whom think that the land is rightfully theirs. After much debate a resolution was passed in United Nations in 1948 to hold a plebiscite under international observation at a future point of time and both countries agreed to it.

But after a later confrontation between the two countries in 1971 known as Bangladesh war (which India won) an agreement (called Simla Agreement) was arrived at by both countries in which both decided to resolve their issues bilaterally. East Pakistan became a separate country known as Bangladesh.

Although no war has been fought between these two countries after that (except a scuffle in Kargil region), the tension never ceased in Kashmir region. Hostilities took new dimension in international terrorism.

Let us check the propriety of the claims of the two nations on Jammu and Kashmir. India is a country of diverse languages, cultures and food habits. The only common thing that is a unifying force in the country is common faith in Hinduism which is again a very loose and tolerant combination of different spiritual views. However India is by constitution is a secular country and gives equal importance to every religion. India has also a large population of Muslim community. So India can  say as a secular country Kashmir is rightfully theirs.Also Kashmir joined India according to the agreement then prevailing,and thereby a very legal "property" of India.

Pakistan on the other hand is by constitution  a Muslim country although there is also many diversities among different states. However Islam has a far stricter spiritual view and is not very tolerant to other faiths. But as Jammu and Kashmir has a Muslim majority they feel it is morally theirs. Their claim is reinforced with the basic fact that at least some of the Muslim population feel uncomfortable living in a country of very largely Hindu population with which they have a traditional animosity.

So what is the solution? I believe as with every nation only the people of Kashmir have the right to decide this. As originally suggested in United Nation resolution there should be a plebiscite as to what people Jammu and Kashmir wants.

But the plebiscite should have three options a) to join India, b) to join Pakistan and c) Kashmir becomes a sovereign country.

I think the third option is the best for everybody. Because in this case both Indian and Pakistani people will have equal opportunity to go to that place without fear. Kashmir needs business from both India and Pakistan to survive and flourish. It will also throw the doors of international tourism in Kashmir wide open. The Hindu minority there also will not feel aggrieved.

It will also help both Indian and Pakistan to reduce cost substantially for defense and internal security .This substantial amount can be much more fruitfully used to reduce the abject poverty in both the countries.

In a sovereign Kashmir both Hindus and Muslims can roam freely without any fear so nobody loses anything except a bit of ego. Indian and Pakistanis are culturally and otherwise very similar to each other and Kashmir can be a happy rendezvous for both.

However to implement this idea both countries will need an exceptional leader who does not care for his life. The emotions run very deep in both the countries. Many sons of both the countries have lost their lives to defend and conquer this piece of land. To both the countries they are martyrs. Many will see it as an ultimate betrayal to these martyrs to “sell” the right over the land.

However it seems the only sane and rational solution.

The only thing that nags my mind is, if it so happen that Kashmir becomes a free nation and hostilities end between India and Pakistan what will happen to the very unity of both the countries. Because both countries are most united in their animosity against each other. Without the common enemy the internal differences may come to the forefront and there will be chances of farther fragmentation of both the countries.However, on the flip side, with a major worry out of the way ,both can be rejuvenated with a new hope and lasting peace ,united with a more clear conscience and work together unitedly to be a joint major power in the coming world.

MY MOTHER AND I

My mother created me in her lust.

I have never become reconciled to the fact that my mother had lust, although she undoubtedly had as she was a human being. The only time I had a sneaking suspicion that she could have it when I heard her laugh and giggle with my maternal aunt about which I knew was an edition of Playboy magazine which my father brought home and I duly found out. I had no doubt that my father had lust because I frequently found pornographic books in hidden places which I had little difficulty in finding. But my mother seemed different. She always seemed the person who was rebuking about naughty thoughts and telling me subconsciously not to do “it”. I had enough confirmation of this one day when I was playing under a quilt with my little thing beside my sleeping mother when she suddenly got up and in a very stern voice told me not to do what I was doing.

She was a person who cared too much for me. And I hated this. She would not let me do any “ good” thing ( like going alone out of the house for some adventure in the afternoons when my mother took a nap). She was a “coward”. My father on the other hand was a brave man. He had crossed and came back swimming Hooghly River many times in his child hood at Srirampur. But he was a strict man, very cautious about money and my mother and he had frequent fights about how meager amount he let her spend. My mother also cried frequently and reminded my father umpteenth times that he did not “love” her. I believed her. Because my father was a very tactless man who told very rude things to people telling exactly what he thought. Also there was this “other woman” in his life who was very beautiful but vapid and empty whose family my father perhaps helped. But as days go by and I find so many similarities with my father in myself I doubt my mother’s words. Just like him I could not express my softer emotions in so many words and in gestures and when I think about those days I guess perhaps he was too shy to express his love.That my mother was a loving and soft woman I had no doubt. Particularly to me. As I got back from my school and sat to eat my meal she would make crow’s lump and crane’s lump (kager dola, boger dola in Bengali) with rice and daal and sabji and as I told her a completely fictitious story about how I caught a shoal fish in a drain in the monsoon floods she would just smile as if she believed all this and put those lumps in my unsuspecting mouth.

In the afternoon she would take a nap. I would jump around and play  in the empty house when my mother would get very irritated and  would tell me sternly to sleep quietly beside her. I, after vehement protests had to comply with her because force would be applied on me. I would lie quietly beside my mother facing her as she snoozed and fantasize of scoring centuries in cricket test matches and goals against East Bengal club in soccer. 

From the beginning of my conscious life I had one aim and that was to make my “unhappy” mother happy and proud for me. She was a very soft woman, loved me dearly and cried so much because of her quarrels with my father because father did not give her enough money and rebuked her if he himself lost something or told her bluntly that her cooking was not good if there was a little more chili in the food than his liking. Once there was a big confrontation between them and mother seriously threatened to leave the house and went quite a few paces towards the exit door. I was a little child then and I panicked and  put my two little arms around her waist tightly so that she would not go. She cried and desisted from what she was about to do.

I was a little better than average student in school and my yearly report cards were a bit better than average. My parents looked up to me and hoped this “ bright” boy would do something good in his life. I did somewhat good in my school leaving exam and got a chance in a good engineering college which was not so easy those days. My mother was proud of me. Although engineering was not what I liked (it was physics I liked most)  I joined engineering college so that I could earn a lot and make my mother happy (although not getting a chance in the physics department of the two most coveted colleges in Calcutta compounded the decision making). I did not want to be a student of B.Sc  in an ordinary college but a wealthy engineer son of a proud and happy mother and give her as much money she liked. The inner unhappiness of studying and doing something I really did not like was the main cause of my downturn much later in my life.

I passed engineering with “flying” colors and got a job even before the result was announced and without even an interview. Although I left that job pretty soon I got a chance in a very renowned company within a few days and began to get a handsome salary. I would get back from office every day , very unhappy inside but waited for the salary day. When the day came I would give all the money to my mother. My dream of making my mother “happy” was coming true.Soon mother became worried about my future bride. Actually she was worried about my future wife when I was a school kid because in her opinion I “needed” a very smart woman to “take care” of me because I was so “careless” about worldly matters. After I worked in office for certain years and outwardly established myself in the world I gave the nod to my parents for my marriage. There was the usual advertisement in newspapers for brides (just like most Indians) and quite a lot of pretty and educated girls’ photos came in. I went to see a few of them and liked a girl who was not only beautiful but very vivacious.

From my mother I learned to keep lust and women apart. To me women looked so innocent and were so “clean” that they could not be capable of such “bad’ thing as lust. My mother seemed to dislike sex. Once, when I knew all about it, I asked my mother how babies were born just to check what answer she would give. My mother was irritated and said “god sends them”.

As I got older I began to learn from books women were not so “clean” as one would imagine. I was a very shy boy who never dared to approach a girl and had no sisters (even all my cousins were boys) and therefore had no firsthand experience of a woman of my compatible age. With marriage I experienced for the first time the female lust. In the eventful first night my wife expertly guided me to previously “unfamiliar territories”. Although this was very pleasurable marriage was not bliss to me as I had expected. This woman was so different from my mother. Not only she had lust but she liked and disliked things my mother did not. She laughed and cried at things which were different from what my mother laughed and cried for. I had expected her to like my soft mother and dislike my rude father whereas the opposite happened. My wife and father took instant liking for each other and my mother and wife had a lot of things to complain about each other. Soon it became a war between my mother and wife. I was confused about what to do, which side to take, and was mentally agonized. After the hard days of labor at office as I came back home I faced music from both sides equally angry with each other and finally towards me because they both thought that I had sympathy with the “other” side. That my wife was so different emotionally from my mother did not help matters at all. Because I was prepared to cope with another “mother” but not this “wild” woman.

After one year of co existing with my parents we moved to a separate dwelling partly due to the lack of space in our apartment at the advent of my elder brother’s family and partly and more importantly I wanted to keep my wife and mother apart. Although this brought slight relief my life became an unhappy existence. I missed my mother’s caring comfort and my wife was new and inexperienced in family matters like cooking and housekeeping. She was an educated woman, wrote great poems but would begin to cry if the maid did not appear in the morning. On top of that she had quite a temper. I thought my married life would be very unlike my parents because I would never deny money to my wife and never say rude words to her for bad cooking. Unfortunately she wanted more than this. She expected me to be more careful about my clothes, did not find it her duty to neating up things I messed up in my daily life like leaving dirty clothes in the toilet. She told me in so many words that my mother did not educate me to be a “proper’ man. I was terribly wounded for her disrespect for my mother and we had regular and some time stormy fights. Once in a moment of mad rage I gave her a blow in her face which caused her teeth to be reset.

But my wife loved me more than I knew. By this time I was becoming very tired of engineering chores daily and deeply craved for relief. I would come home with my brain totally tired with my office duties and yet I would begin to study higher mathematics because inwardly I had a fantastic hope of winning a Nobel Prize in physics to make my mother “happy”. The unhappy and tired brain along with a tumultuous marriage made my life miserable. The pent up unhappiness was killing me. Fortunately I slowly began to realize that my boisterous wife was a sweet child at her heart. She would try to hug me and forget all the bad things which happened a few moments before and laughed and kissed me like nothing has happened. We began to have sleepless nights telling each other our erstwhile life stories, our little things and nothings and made love wildly. By this time my wife had got a little job in a government office. I slowly found the confidence to confide to her my greatest guarded secret. I told her I wanted to leave job and liked to follow what I liked most, physics and astronomy. I wanted to know if there was life anywhere else other than earth. She told me I could do whatever I liked and she would stand rock solid with me. To this day she had done that.
Also my mother and wife began to become friends gradually. My mother gave my wife household tips and she was grateful to mother for that. Also they had the common concern for the same man, that is, I. They would share their experience about the same person they both loved and slowly they became friends. Also I began to find many things common among the two women which I had not foreseen before. They had the same feminine intelligence and stupidity I never suspected. They had the same concern that why I was not more careful. I began to become angry with my wife for the same reasons I sometimes wished to further flatten my flat nosed mother with a juicy blow. My loyalty began to shift gradually from my mother to my wife.

When I had enough confidence in my wife and my wife supported me to the hilt and the office became an unbearable hell I set a date in my diary for the “grand day”. The day I would resign from job. I had no clear idea what I would do next but in my confused mind I envisaged a grand career for my wife while I do something with physics.

After deliberating for almost a year finally the “grand day” came and I left my job after giving a very rude resignation letter saying that I hated civil engineering. With resigning came a release I never experienced before. It was like a ton of granite was lifted off my chest and I went into a state of feverish excitement. With that came a deep anxiety about how am I going to meet my expenses in future. The euphoria of release from a chain of slavery along with a very deep anxiety made me work and act in a feverish and frenzied manner and sometimes rather queerly. I went to all big newspaper for ads for job for my wife which looked rather like matrimonial ads. Also once I refused to talk with my relatives unless the servant boy was present in the conversation. My wife’s family and my family  decided to take me to the top psychiatrist in Calcutta at that time. Although I agreed to go to the psychiatrist because everybody wanted me to, I refused to take any drugs which the doctor prescribed because to my mind I was wholly sane.

Next thing I remember I was inside a mental home where all my co inhabitants were to some extent in a mentally demented state. My mother’s “bright boy” was in a mental sanatorium and all her hopes were crushed. I had quite a number of colorful friends there, one of whom thought he would never be able to get up from bed although he had no problems with his legs or anywhere else. Another would laugh and cry every other moment alternately for seemingly no reason. It was like a jail with all the doors closed, toilet doors without locks and we were allowed no contact with outside world except once in a week with our relatives. We were not allowed to watch television except once in a week for an hour to watch the serial Ramayana.

When the visitor’s day came I wept to my wife and mother to take me out of the jail house and give me freedom. They also wept and did not know what to say. The doctors would take me to a chamber and give me injections after which I would go unconscious. After the consciousness came back I would feel deep pain throughout my whole body and unable to move. A burly strong man would carry me above his shoulder to the upper story where I had my room. Later on I would know that I was subjected to electric shock therapy in these occasions and some of my memory was completely wiped out from my brain. The doctors would ask me whether I liked my job or not with a peculiar, narrow smile on their lips with injection in their hand and I would say “Yes, yes. I like my job immensely and I would like to go back to my office immediately”( I figured out that those were the only words that could release me from that jail). Soon afterwards I was released from the home diagnosing my problem as affective or bipolar disorder, the general meaning of which that the guy is either in a highly excited emotional state or in a depression.

Actually this sort of disease is somewhat hereditary and I had this streak from my father’s side (my paternal aunt was a mental patient and one uncle was also visited psychiatrist).The doctor advised me to not to tell anybody that I went to a psychiatrist which I ignored and told the rest of the world that I was slightly mad. Later on I found out that my little streak of insanity makes me create and do things which others would not dare to. It was at once a disadvantage and an advantage because somehow it brought out whatever was in my depths.

However mother was inconsolable. My father sent a letter to my previous office that I lost my head and let me join the work again. They kindly agreed and I joined my office again but sat silently during office hours reading translation of Tagore’s poems. After a few days I resigned again and after the third resignation my office did not take me back.

Time moved on. I had during my office days managed to gather substantial amount of money so I could buy an apartment for myself with a little help from my father in law. My wife was also earning a little money and my father had securities and fixed deposits in joint names which matured and became very handy at this time. I tried to start a business of making telescopes which brought me a good deal of financial loss because the telescopes were highly uncompetitive price wise although they were good and there are few people interested in India to dispense with a large sum of money for some exotic interest.

I, after some hibernation took jobs as civil engineer elsewhere, in fact in quite a few places with me resigning after short spells at these offices. However around the beginning of this millennium computer and internet entered in my life and gave a new impetus to it. I became interested in the logical and mathematical part of engineering and softwares and the complete disliking turned to a partial liking. Also internet gave a chance to flower socially ( I am a rather unsocial person who likes spend most of the time at home and visiting and chatting with others was foreign to me). However you could chat with people with varied personality and interest at the repose of your home through internet. Also internet brought “women” to my life. As I said earlier I was a very shy chap in real life but I found that I also could be liked and sometimes adored by women. And finally it brought me once again to confront female lust which “mother forbade”.

Although I was going down the drain financially at least my emotional and intellectual life was flowering. Once during these days I had the opportunity to visit Haridwar and Hrishikesh and it brought me some realizations which made a deep mark inside me. I had great sleeping problem (and still have to some extent) and I had to take plethora of drugs to just make myself sleep.  The visit to Hrishikesh and Haridwar somehow instilled in myself faith in God and released me from the deep anxiety which was the main enemy of sleep.

My father passed away in 2003 after the third heart attack. My mother was growing old. My mother’s complaints against my father vanished firstly because my father became a very mellowed and spiritual man in his later days and secondly my father left my mother enough money to live rest of life without worry. The thrift of my father for which my mother fought with him for such a long time resulted in a life for mother without financial worry after father’s death. She did not have to look forward to his “bright boy” for money, on the other hand my father’s left over money helped me for a long time.

My mother was also growing very old. In 2005 she had a silent stroke (which was not detected at that time) after which her health deteriorated quite dramatically. By this time the other woman, that is, my wife took over my life completely and I began to dream of making my wife “happy” instead of my mother.

In 2006 my mother had another stroke and she was hospitalized. After a few days she had to be put in ventilator for survival. My elder brother told me that it was useless because each day in ventilator was consuming a lot of money without any reasonable chance of my mother’s coming back to normalcy and life. Finally I agreed to get her out of ventilator. In the nursing home I was with my mother and all the other visiting relatives were gone. Nurse came and told the doctor that the patient was coughing. Doctor along with me went to my mother and tried suction to clear her throat. After a slight hiccup my mother’s body became still and the doctor nodded to me. My mother was gone.

The person for whom I dedicated most of life went away from earth. And I forgot her. My life was taking a new shape. I have begun to explore the cosmos with my newly bought telescope. Also I found that I could write a little.  I now began to give voice to whatever realization I had in the course of my life in my writings. Also I began to do some creative work in video editing.The person who mattered most now was my wife. She had completely replaced my mother in my life as the only person I cared for. I began to search a way to make my life financially worthwhile and help my wife who was earning the livelihood for us. I began to make engineering spreadsheets which is beginning to slowly earn some money for me. Although my financial woes are far from over I have got a direction in life at last and slowly making my way up.

The other day I was pondering over my life in the morning and suddenly my forgotten mother came back to me vividly. I was tired of my worries and woes and wanted to get back to my soft mother’s fold. As I remembered my childhood days and the softness and care of my mother my eyes became slightly wet. How worried she was even if I was a little uncomfortable about anything.  As I trudge my life’s path wearily alone I craved for my mother’s soft bosom. Then I realized my mother is always with me, in every cell of my body, experiencing every moment of grief and joy with me.

But the battle is not over. As I work and produce a little something everyday my hopes ignite again.

Perhaps someday, when death engulfs me I will be at ease with myself and say that “Yes, I made my mother happy.”My mother had conceived me in intense pleasure. When I return to her I hope my cosmic mother will come to me with same intense joy and tell me “You have made me proud, my bright boy.”