Is this a social experiment or a self-experiment? I am not really sure. Maybe I will function under the pretence that it is a social one, so that I can live with myself. But deep down, I know I am mortified of doing this. In fact, my fingers are trembling nervously as I type, betraying…
I still find it hard (read impossible) to look at myself in the mirror in presence of another person. A part of me feels too ashamed to indulge in “self-admiration” (as if looking in a mirror meant that I was Narcissus himself). A more critical part of me has this convoluted idea that if I…
This article comes to you from ward 2A of Lok Nayak Hospital, as I sit idly at the nursing station, having ticked off all the tasks I needed to complete in the ward- the umpteen samples drawn and reports entered and foley’s catheters inserted. Earlier today, I was listening to one very interesting podcast episode…
Are you conscious? Is an ant? Is a grain of salt? Why does it matter what consciousness is? Well, for me, it is so fundamental to my existence that I feel I cannot know myself without first having thought about what consciousness is- and where does it come from, and why does it exist, and…
Before my ankle broke earlier this week, I had gotten into a pretty decent routine of getting up at 4:30 AM in the morning and going to the gym. It was by far one of the most fulfilling things I did in the day, and naturally I was super proud of myself. I possibly cannot…
(T- 57 mins) As I type this, 4 astronauts are preparing to be launched into space (if interested, look up the NASA SpaceX Crew-5 Mission). Times like these, you wonder at the beauty that is science. I’ve spent my life being fascinated by stuff like this, but that is not what I want to talk…
Your body can encode about 25,ooo genes. But there’s another 5 million genes that are produced by the bacteria that live in your gut. That’s more than 99% of the total genetic material of your body! (1) The gut is very commonly referred to as the ‘second brain’ of our body, and for very…
I have sometimes wondered if making new music is possible anymore. Consider this- Spotify, according to recent data, maintains a database of 82 million songs. To put that into perspective, if I assume that every song is on average 2.5 mins long, I would need 390 years of non-stop listening to get through all the…
You might have heard Brad Pitt talk about how he has difficulty differentiating and remembering faces. He probably suffers from something termed ‘prosopagnosia‘ (don’t sweat trying to read it, it’s proso-pag-nosia), essentially ‘face blindness’. When Brad Pitt sees 2 different people, he might be able to recognize them by their voice, body language, gestures etc,…
I am a firm believer of the notion that all of humanity is one. At least that is what my conscious mind believes. But then this morning, on my way to celebrate Independence Day and choosing what to wear, I felt uncomfortable wearing a white suit with green dupatta, because it felt symbolic of Pakistan…