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

The Art of Subjugation: A Case Study

Two Pulaya women, 1926 [Courtesy Mathrubhumi ] The Pulaya and Paraya communities were the original landowners in Kerala until the Brahmins arrived from the North with their religion and gods. They did not own the land individually; the lands belonged to the tribes. Then in the 8 th – 10 th centuries CE, the Brahmins known as Namboothiris in Kerala arrived and deceived the Pulayas and Parayas lock, stock, and barrel. With the help of religion. The Namboothiris proclaimed themselves the custodians of all wealth by divine mandate. They possessed the Vedic and Sanskrit mantras and tantras to prove their claims. The aboriginal people of Kerala couldn’t make head or tail of concepts such as Brahmadeya (land donated to Brahmins becoming sacred land) or Manu’s injunctions such as: “Land given to a Brahmin should never be taken back” [8.410] or “A king who confiscates land from Brahmins incurs sin” [8.394]. The Brahmins came, claimed certain powers given by the gods, and started exploi...

The music of an ageing man

Having entered the latter half of my sixties, I view each day as a bonus. People much younger become obituaries these days around me. That awareness helps me to sober down in spite of the youthful rush of blood in my indignant veins. Age hasn’t withered my indignation against injustice, fraudulence, and blatant human folly, much as I would like to withdraw from the ringside and watch the pugilism from a balcony seat with mellowed amusement. But my genes rage against my will. The one who warned me in my folly-ridden youth to be wary of my (anyone’s, for that matter) destiny-shaping character was farsighted. I failed to subdue the rages of my veins. I still fail. That’s how some people are, I console myself. So, at the crossroads of my sixties, I confess to a dismal lack of emotional maturity that should rightfully belong to my age. The problem is that the sociopolitical reality around me doesn’t help anyway to soothe my nerves. On the contrary, that reality is almost entirely re...

Mahatma Ayyankali’s Relevance Today

About a year before he left for Chicago (1893), Swami Vivekananda visited Kerala and described the state (then Travancore-Cochin-Malabar princely states) as a “lunatic asylum.” The spiritual philosopher was shocked by the brutality of the caste system that was in practice in the region. The peasant caste of Pulayas , for example, had to keep a distance of 90 feet from Brahmins and 64 feet from Nairs. The low caste people were denied most human rights. They could not access education, enter temple premises, or buy essentials from markets. They were not even considered as humans. Ayyankali (1863-1941) was a Pulaya leader who emerged to confront the situation. I just finished reading a biography of his in Malayalam and was highly impressed by the contributions of the great man who came to be known in Kerala as the Mahatma of the Dalits . What prompted me to order a copy of the biography was an article I read in a Malayalam periodical last week. The article described how Ayyankali...

Duryodhana Returns

Duryodhana was bored of his centuries-long exile in Mythland and decided to return to his former kingdom. Arnab Gau-Swami had declared Bihar the new Kurukshetra and so Duryodhana chose Bihar for his adventure. And Bihar did entertain him with its modern enactment of the Mahabharata. Alliances broke, cousins pulled down each other, kings switched sides without shame, and advisers looked like modern-day Shakunis with laptops. Duryodhana’s curiosity was more than piqued. There’s more masala here than in the old Hastinapura. He decided to make a deep study of this politics so that he could conclusively prove that he was not a villain but a misunderstood statesman ahead of his time. The first lesson he learns is that everyone should claim that they are the Pandavas, and portray everyone else as the Kauravas. Every party claims they stand for dharma, the people, and justice. And then plot to topple someone, eliminate someone else, distort history, fabricate expedient truths, manipulate...