Blue Peepal

  The news of queen’s demise erupted a lot of emotions, from loss to loathing the symbol of British colonialism.  Emotions aside, the sheer length of Queen Elizabeth’s reign made her imagery in public memory as immortal. My loyal following of BBC News over last two decades fed me regular doses of Westminster updates and of it’s occupants as a subsidiary interest.  That aside, news about the Royal family could run a social media platform by itself.  So what does the Queen and the Royal family mean to the world?   To start with, British monarchy has interchangeably acted as an institution and as a family, or you may agree that as an individual on the throne.  Together with long heritage, history and being integral part of UK’s political influence it has adapted and shaped it’s relevance. A mature global relations office has cultivated a direct line with major heads of state. That works as a soft power. It is also keenly conscious of it’s ‘Royal’ or above-than...

If jokes on Bangalore traffic were to be sequentially arranged, they could touch the moon and come back. People graduate from frustration to acceptance, almost like it is an organ inside their body. I have moved a step further. First, I was philosophical that there are powers beyond me that control the universe, and Bangalore traffic. Then the James Webb Telescope hit me, physics-cally . The famed telescope replacing Hubble travelled 1.6 million kms distance from earth over a six-month journey and was on schedule with its complex deployment sequence. My journey to office over a 11.5 kms distance has even Google Maps’ hard-tested algorithms apologizing for their ‘estimated’ time of arrival. And the quest began. Defying Newton Imagine Newton sitting under the apple tree and is hit by an apple. My personal view, it was perhaps not the first apple that made him discover the theory of gravity. There must have been few hitting him over a period of time, and he would theor...