RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Golden Road - How Ancient India Transformed the World (2024) Author: William Dalrymple The author is quite unapologetic that his book would sound like an episode from the famous British desi sitcom, 'Goodness Gracious Me'. In fact, Sanjay Bhaskar, the main character in the above sitcom, was the invited guest to launch Dalrymple's latest book on Indian history. This book is a joy to read. Packed with information from cover to cover, extensive research must have been conducted into the world of the Indosphere before waves of invaders destroyed it and rewrote its history. Its cultural influence spread beyond its borders. Indian advanced navigational skills, using the seasonal monsoon winds to bring goods, knowledge, and culture to adjacent regions, were assets for mankind. India was a big brother figure to the Southeast Asian region, as far as the present Indochina region and even to China. As early as the first century CE, the trade imbalance was so great, favouring India...

Back in medical school, we had the honour of having the first-hand experience of listening to a learned man of stature croak cockamamie. The deputy director of Health then officiated some function. The gist of the speech that left an everlasting impression on me was his stand on allocations of funds for research. From the podcast: Bigger than Bacon, Radiolab. He lamented the idea of students complaining about the lack of grants for research. He insisted that of one is genuinely interested in doing research, he can even do it under the coconut tree! I am sure many findings can be cooked up under the tree - with the help of coconut oil, coconut milk and coconut toddy! Somehow, this thought came to me when I was listening to a podcast recently.  Apparently, the first thing they teach you in underwater surveillance studies is to identify a crackling sound which is not the noise of a advancing naval fleet but a particular type of shrimps. These single clawed crusta...