Positive Overtones

The Night Train at Deoli  As narrated by the girl with the basket It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime incidents that one experiences over the course of their life. I used to stay at Deoli when this happened. I was an orphan who lost my parents in an attack by some wild animals, and so I lived with my middle-aged aunty. We had acres of bamboo plantation so we decided to use those canes to make baskets as my aunt was a good weaver. But, then the question arose: Who would buy our hand-made baskets? Deoli was a small town where handmade baskets were quite common. So, I decided to sell these baskets at the one-place I knew (or I thought I knew) people would buy: the solitary railway platform! I was a girl who just hit my adolescence phase so it was quite an experience to go daily to the platform to sell baskets. Before I tell you the things I noticed there, let me give you an introduction as to what comprised the Deoli railway station. There was a mango tree, perha...

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari (Book Reiew) Gliding on the success of his previous book, Sapiens , Yuval Noah Harari published yet another eye-opening best-seller entitled Homo Deus. Published in 2016, Harari attempts to reveal the expected future based on events of the past and present. He present the origin, effects and challenges of present day theories like humanism, modernism and liberalism and how it is changing the world we live in. Following the end of the prequel, Harari goes on to say that we are heading towards making our species extinct, just like we did to the other human species, while also paving the way for a new advanced species that could be termed as Homo Deus. At the time when there were many species, we managed to organize ourselves despite having smaller brains and thus we were able to overpower the other species which in truth were much stronger than us. With the dawn of each revolution it seemed like we were heading towards our doom, but we survived...

A 2014 Sunday Times best-seller, Sapiens tells the story of evolution in a brand new way. Adapted into a story cum report format, Harari presents his version of the history of humankind using results of scientific research and speculative theories. He thus divides the whole of human evolution into three main revolutions: The Cognitive Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution and the Scientific Revolution. At the time of the Homo Sapiens there lived five other human species: the Neanderthals, the Homo Erectus , the Homo ergaster , the Homo denisova and Homo rudolfensis . We, Homo Sapiens , lived together in Africa while the other species were scattered across the world. Our failure in the first attempt to invade Europe ignited the Cognitive Revolution. It leads us to become thinking people who could organize ourselves into large groups. Thus, we could form small societies that were united by belief and culture. Once we had accomplished organization, we were able to overthro...

Descartes belonged to the era of Modern Western Philosophy. Therefore, it was quite expected that he would retaliate to the pressuring Medieval philosophers and Ancient philosophers in the Western World. The Ancient and Medieval eras took sense knowledge as their source to develop their philosophy of knowledge. Descartes, the father of rationalism, rejected this method and developed his philosophy using the concept of ideas. He started by saying that we need to doubt everything. This is because the knowledge of the external world comes from our senses which can at times deceive us. Thus, knowledge from our senses need not necessarily be true. But, if we doubt our sense knowledge than where is the base of our knowledge? “Cogito ergo sum” [I think therefore I exist] is Descartes’ answer. When we doubt the existence of the outside world, our doubting is thinking, which in itself cannot be doubted. Thus, we can be certain of one thing: our thinking proves our existence. This is a s...

The sixth novel published by the Indian author Chetan Bhagat is titled ‘Half Girlfriend’ . It describes the romance between a Bihari ‘village prince’ named Madhav and the elite Delhi-based girl Riya. The story is divided into three acts and is viewed through the eyes of Madhav, who narrates it to the author while in Patna. The first act of the book gives the reader a view as to what happened when Madhav met Riya in college. Madhav gets admission in the high-class St. Stephen’s in Delhi through a sports quota. He is impressed with as she undergoes her trials and at that very moment falls in love with her. As they both get seats into the illustrious college, Madhav strikes a friendship with Riya and the two get on very well as basketball friends. However, Madhav wants more. He wants her to be his girlfriend. To compensate for it, Riya agrees to be his half-girlfriend. When Madhav finally tries to get physical with Riya, she breaks off the friendship and in the following month...

Beethoven’s 5 th Symphony As performed by Marcin Patrazalek Beethoven’s 5 th Symphony when played on the guitar may not actually feel as magical as the original but it is definitely enthralling. The version I have critiqued is a version presented by Marcin Patrazalek in a unique style called the fingerpicking style. Finger style or fingerpicking style is a technique in which the guitarist plays a rhythm along with a lead at the same time using all the five fingers of the dominant hand (right hand for right handed guitarists). The guitarist in this version fuses in a dual harmony of fingerpicking and string slapping. While listening, I paid attention to the feelings that the original composer (Beethoven) wanted to emote. The intro comes in with a bang and would definitely leave the audience ecstatic. It is followed by a quick succession of notes which is quite evident in most of Beethoven’s pieces like the Für Elise and Eine kleine Nachtmusik. It seems at first hearing...

Freedom from Violence: PEACE Shalom-God’s own peace God, humans and the striving for peace :   God is peace itself. The violence around us is a reminder for us that we are still sinners and that we need to seek God. A search for peace without a search for God is a fruitless search. Only God can grant us peace. All those who yearn for peace in the world are silently and maybe even unknowingly yearning for God himself. Jesus was the Messiah destined to be the “Prince of Peace”. By saving us from sin itself, he basically brought peace to us humans. But we humans have the option to accept God’s offer for reconciliation or to reject it. Once we accept it, we need to share this peace to others by spreading the Gospel message of peace. However the striving for peace needs to be sought after by all humans irrespective of whether one is Christian or not. The first step to universal peace is to understand the fact that all of us humans need to work for peace in the world. Peace n...