Skip to main content

Are we going crazy?


Was Hanuman the first space traveller?  Did Ravana’s ten heads give him the intelligence and skills required to make an aeroplane?  Did Lord Ganesh receive his elephantine tusk through plastic surgery in an ancient All India Institute of Medical Science?

If you answer ‘yes’ to all such questions you are eligible to present a science paper in the 102nd Indian Science Congress being conducted by Mumbai University.  “One paper, co-authored by Captain Anand Bodas, retired head of a pilot training centre, and Ameya Jadhav, a teacher, claimed there was evidence of ancient aviation in the Rigveda,” says a Hindu report.  There were 200-foot planes that could fly forwards, backwards and sideways and even hover in mid-air during the Vedic age.  The Captain claimed that the planes, invented by a sage called Maharishi Bharadwaj over 7000 years ago, had up to 30 engines and were equipped for warfare.

The Head of the Sanskrit department of the University claimed that Pythagoras Theorem was actually discovered by Baudhayan in 800 BCE.  One wonders in the first place what a Sanskrit professor was doing in a science congress.  Another such ‘scientist’ claimed that cows could turn food into 24-carat gold using some bacteria in their bodies.  Well, the cow is getting holier!

One exhibitor, Kiran Naik, said that during the Mahabharata war, there was a chase in one of those Vedic planes from the earth to the moon and then to Mars, where a king attacked his rival, breaking his helmet.  More, he asserted that NASA found the helmet on Mars.


What is happening to India?  Are we becoming a nation of loonies burying our sanity under the ossified leaves of the past?

Comments

  1. There is no place for people who do not understand the ABC of scientific enquiry in a science conference. This has done the most severe harm to our reputation in global science community.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We are making asses of ourselves. Pseudo-science is masquerading as science and perverting the minds of the citizens.

      Delete
  2. You raised a valid question ...Mathical !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm scientific in my outlook, Alka, and hence am concerned about the latest antics of the Sangh people.

      Delete
  3. Next we know is nobody is going to this Indian Science congress as its rubbish.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sanskrit scholars and pandits will be presenting science papers :)

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. Indeed, DMR. When myths displace science in the rightful place of the latter, it is indeed unfortunate.

      Delete
  5. Its other form of slow move towards religious conspiracy of saying being sanskritisation..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And for what? What is anyone going to benefit through all this?

      Delete
  6. They are writing a fantasy of their own. Earlier it was religion and politics and now it's religion-science-maths-chemistry. Please bring some sanity in this country.

    ReplyDelete
  7. shame ... shame .... puppy shame...!
    Theee may be the signs Kalikaalam...!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Want to see more signs of kalikalam? See what one website has posted:

      Predictions 1. Politicus Bharatus Janatus Indicus tri pillarus est, Vajpayum, Advanum persistum est et Narendrum Modum. Vajpayum emergum est..." The BJP will have three pillars: AB Vajpayee, LK Advani and Narendra Modi. Eventually, Vajpayee will no longer have an active life, Advani will persist and Narendra Modi will be emerging. 2. Narendrum Modum supremus chefum, ironus manus est et economicum grandum est Narendra Modi will raise himself as a national figure, not only because he is an iron man, but also because he has made of his state a model of economic efficiency.

      Read more at: http://www.oneindia.com/feature/narendra-modi-india-super-power-2014-prophecy-french-seer-1451535.html

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Waiting for the Mahatma

Book Review I read this book purely by chance. R K Narayan is not a writer whom I would choose for any reason whatever. He is too simple, simplistic. I was at school on Saturday last and I suddenly found myself without anything to do though I was on duty. Some duties are like that: like a traffic policeman’s duty on a road without any traffic! So I went up to the school library and picked up a book which looked clean. It happened to be Waiting for the Mahatma by R K Narayan. A small book of 200 pages which I almost finished reading on the same day. The novel was originally published in 1955, written probably as a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and India’s struggle for independence. The edition that I read is a later reprint by Penguin Classics. Twenty-year-old Sriram is the protagonist though Gandhi towers above everybody else in the novel just as he did in India of the independence-struggle years. Sriram who lives with his grandmother inherits significant wealth when he turns 20. Hi...

The Lights of December

The crib of a nearby parish [a few years back] December was the happiest month of my childhood. Christmas was the ostensible reason, though I wasn’t any more religious than the boys of my neighbourhood. Christmas brought an air of festivity to our home which was otherwise as gloomy as an orthodox Catholic household could be in the late 1960s. We lived in a village whose nights were lit up only by kerosene lamps, until electricity arrived in 1972 or so. Darkness suffused the agrarian landscapes for most part of the nights. Frogs would croak in the sprawling paddy fields and crickets would chirp rather eerily in the bushes outside the bedroom which was shared by us four brothers. Owls whistled occasionally, and screeched more frequently, in the darkness that spread endlessly. December lit up the darkness, though infinitesimally, with a star or two outside homes. December was the light of my childhood. Christmas was the happiest festival of the period. As soon as school closed for the...

A Government that Spies on Citizens

Illustration by Copilot Designer India has officially decided to keep an eagle eye on its citizens. Modi government has asked all smartphone manufacturers to preinstall a government app, Sanchar Saathi , on every phone in such a way that no citizen can ever uninstall it. The firms have been also ordered to install the app on existing phones too using software-update technology. The stated objective is to strengthen cybersecurity and protect users from fraud. The question is why any government should go out of its way to impose “security” on its citizens. For over a month now, I have been receiving a message every single day from the Government of India’s Telecom Department to install the app on my phone. I wanted to block the sender, but there is no such option. Even that message is an imposition. I don’t trust any government that imposes benefits on me. “ Beneficent beasts of prey ,” Robert Frost would call such governments. When Modi government imposes security on me, I ha...

Schrödinger’s Cat and Carl Sagan’s God

Image by Gemini AI “Suppose a patriotic Indian claims, with the intention of proving the superiority of India, that water boils at 71 degrees Celsius in India, and the listener is a scientist. What will happen?” Grandpa was having his occasional discussion with his Gen Z grandson who was waiting for his admission to IIT Madras, his dream destination. “Scientist, you say?” Gen Z asked. “Hmm.” “Then no quarrel, no fight. There’d be a decent discussion.” Grandpa smiled. If someone makes some similar religious claim, there could be riots. The irony is that religions are meant to bring love among humans but they end up creating rift and fight. Scientists, on the other hand, keep questioning and disproving each other, and they appreciate each other for that. “The scientist might say,” Gen Z continued, “that the claim could be absolutely right on the Kanchenjunga Peak.” Grandpa had expected that answer. He was familiar with this Gen Z’s brain which wasn’t degenerated by Instag...