Sunita Williams visits India

Indian American astronaut Sunita L. Williams (Captain, US Navy), who holds the world record for the longest spaceflight by a female astronaut, started her India trip on April 1 from the national capital.

Sunita Williams begins India visit !!
Sunita Williams holds a world record for the longest space flight by a woman but as a child the Indian American astronaut had never thought about voyaging into space ever. "I never envisioned to be an astronaut and had many failures, but ultimately I reached here," said Williams while interacting with students at the National Science Centre here. 

We realised we are all citizens of the universe, says Sunita Williams
..“My space expedition has changed my perspective towards people. Looking down at the Earth, we could not see borders or people with different nationalities. It was then that realisation dawned on us that all of us are a group of human beings and citizens of the universe,” said NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, during an event at the National Science Centre here on Monday morning.

Sharing details about her space explorations with school students, Ms. Williams said her fingernails and hair grew during her journey in space.

“As the spinal cord increases it makes you taller. However, after landing on the Earth you shrink a bit. What was worrisome was that some of the wrinkles, which had disappeared there, came back. During our journey, we did weight lifting, squats and dead lifts to regenerate the bone density. Luckily, my muscle mass and bone density did not alter. Our workout was so rigorous. We followed new diets. After two weeks, we were back to normal.”

Sunita Williams wants to be a science school teacher !!

Asked if it gets lonely out there in space, Sunita Williams said: "No, it doesn't get lonely. There is enough connection to Earth that you don't really feel all alone. You can make phone calls to friends and family."

Sunita Williams looks at the National Emblem, which was presented to her at the Working Women's Hostel. (PTI)

Sunita Effect: Jhulasan has more kids pursuing science !!

“I love being Indian. Am happy to be a Gujarati,” said Sunita.
Jhulasan (Mehsana): The otherwise sleepy hamlet of Jhulasan was floating with enthusiasm on Thursday, almost as literally as its most famous astronaut daughter did aboard her spaceship. Dressed in its Sunday best, the whole village congregated at the Dola Mata temple where Sunita Williams arrived, flanked by her father, and Jagruti Pandya, wife of her cousin and slain BJP leader Haren Pandya.

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AHMEDABAD: "When I saw the aurora from space, I understood that there is something bigger and stronger than us in the universe," said Sunita Williams, the US astronaut of Indian origin.

Astronaut Sunita L. Williams, Expedition 14 flight engineer, participates in the mission's third planned session of extravehicular activity (EVA).

The space girl said spirituality is not different from science.

Remembering Margaret Thatcher by her words

Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher died April 8, 2013, following a stroke at the age of 87.

Thatcher was a powerful and often divisive figure in world politics and in her time, made many memorable statements. Here, we remember a few.

"Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend."

In this photo from October 1975, Prime Minister Thatcher speaks at a Conservative Party Conference

"If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at anytime, and you would achieve nothing."

Photo: Thatcher taking over from Edward Heath as the new leader of the Conservative Party in 1975.

"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left."

Shown here: The Prime Minister speaking in the early 1980s.

"Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country."

India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visits Margaret Thatcher in London in this 1980s photo.

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

Shown here: Lady Thatcher was the youngest candidate of the Conservative Party during her election compaign in Dartford in 1950

"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money."

Shown here: Lady Thatcher with her friend and ideological ally, U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

"Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth."

Lady Thatcher is seen here in the 1970s alongside Conservative Party Chairman William Whitelaw.

"I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together."

Photo: Prime Minister Thatcher sits for a picture with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the Kremlin on March 30, 1987.

"There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty."

Shown here: Lady Thatcher waves to gathered press at here home in November 2010.

#share courtesy: discovery.com

India remembers Margaret Thatcher

"Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. 

Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. 

And where there is despair, may we bring hope."

Margaret Thatcher

Britain's first woman Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, known as the Iron Lady, passed away on April 8 following a stroke at the age 87.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was an admirer of ex-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. On a visit to India, Mrs Thatcher had once said, "We both felt the loneliness of high office and it was good to be able to talk to someone who understood." In this picture, Mrs Thatcher meets Indira Gandhi at her residence in New Delhi in 1983 before the start of the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting).

© AP

The then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wears a garland and a tilak, vermillion on the forehead, at an award ceremony in 1983. She was in India to attend the meeting of CHOGM. Mrs Thatcher was credited with putting Britain back among the leading industrial nations of the world.

© AP

In this file picture, Mrs Thatcher, head bowed down, leaves the Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi in 1984. She was there to attend the funeral ceremony of assassinated Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Mrs Thatcher, the "Iron Lady" of British politics, had struck up close rapport with Mrs Gandhi.

© AP

In this file picture, Mrs Thatcher is greeted by the then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on her arrival in Delhi in 1985.

© AP

The then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Japanese Prime Minister Sosuke Uno are seen speaking to the then India's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his wife Sonia in Paris in this 1989 picture. Two years later, when Mr Gandhi was blown up by a suicide bomber in Tamil Nadu, Mrs Thatcher had said she felt equally personally aggrieved.

© AP

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is seen meeting the then Indian External Affair Minister Pranab Mukherjee at South Block in New Delhi in 1995. During a visit to India, Mrs Thatcher had hailed former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's vision for India's economic liberalisation, which was "boldly initiated" by the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh.

© PTI

Powerful imprints on the sand of time..

*picture share courtesy: ndtv.com and guardian.com

Holi: Color in the air

Holi is also called the Spring Festival - as it marks the arrival of spring[1], the season of hope and joy. 

The gloom of the winter goes away 
as Holi [2] promises of bright ..

earth-spring-equinox-from-spacepicture: LiveScience
21st March 2013

Perhaps 'Flame of the forest'  (Butea monosperma) 
are the tree who announce this change so vociferously 
in Indian sky onto their canopy cover 
and the rest of the flora follows..!!

pic courtesy: http://animikha.wordpress.com/

 This change in the air, perceived by plants, 
expressed through colors so vibrant 
that human too followed to isolate beautiful colors 
from Butea and sprinkle it all around  
to their human-fellows with the drum beat and songs!!

pic courtesy: http://www.gardenworld.in/cfd30327e_butea.html

With the first full moon of spring time, India lights its bonfires and pours on color..

Women praying at the bonfire on the eve of Holi festival

 pic courtesy: The Hindu, Photo: Mohammed. Yousuf

 Originally, powdered colors thrown were made from medicinal herbs to prevent viral colds during the changing of the seasons. Today, the color is a symbol, and participants at the festival smeared powder on one another, threw it in the air,

Indian myth and mythology 
is full of this 'color spirit in the air'  
and lot are the folklore of vivid characters  
still remembered all across it's huge boundaries.

Following are some human 
imaginative-expression immortalized 
by painters of different times .. 
 through color and brush; 
which are still live in the memories of Indians;

Dream

  National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
 Painter: M.A.R.Chughtai (1899-1975)

Hiraman Tota

  National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
Painter: M.A.R.Chughtai (1899-1975)

Holi

  National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
 Painter: M.A.R.Chughtai (1899-1975)

Laila

  National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
 Painter: M.A.R.Chughtai (1899-1975)

Omar Khayyam

  National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
 Painter: M.A.R.Chughtai (1899-1975)

Radhika

  National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
 Painter: M.A.R.Chughtai (1899-1975)

Son of Warrior

 National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi


 Painter: M.A.R.Chughtai (1899-1975)

A Prayer in Spring 

by Robert Frost

OH, give us pleasure in the flowers today;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard,

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,

To which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends he will,

But which it only needs that we fulfill.

****

# paintings thankfully shared from: indiapicks.com

Lotus Temple: Tabernacle of unity

Blessed is the spot, and the house, and the place, and the city, and the heart, and the mountain, and the refuge, and the cave, and the valley, and the land, and the sea, and the island, and the meadow where mention of God hath been made, and His praise glorified.

Entering into the tabernacle of Thy unity ..

O my friends !
Have ye forgotten that true and radiant morn, when in those hallowed and blessed surroundings ye were all gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life, which is planted in the all-glorious paradise ? Awe-struck ye listened as I gave utterance to ..

# all above quotes thankfully shared from Baha'i writings.

Indian marriages: exploring the psyche of rituals

Observing the rituals performed in traditional Indian marriages states clearly that age-old long past (3500 years at least) traditions of Vedic Civilization is perfectly followed up, where the 'nature' comes as primary worshiping object, including the sacred fire, which was a major deity and theme of the Vedic era [1] .

From the dawn of human civilization in Indian subcontinent, the Vedic Period, whose collected wisdom remained unwritten for three thousand years since 1500 BC.
If Incan [2] and  Mayan [3] civilizations are correlated with the Vedic civilization, we find much common points concerned with the nature and human attitude towards it, as our today's concept of 'Back to Basics', which is the need of the hour for us all equally.

These cultures are long past, thousands of 
years back in time with their strong sociology and tech, somehow suggests the possibility of some 'Common Axis' among these grand civilizations of the past [4] [5] . 

Like many other known past, this too came to exist not and new civilization (Aryan) and religion (Buddhism) sprouted on it's ruins.

But..yes..it's interesting to see those long forgotten past with their words, deities, rituals being observed by masses, just as if 'something' inspired them to do so, despite their 'present' of 2013,which is so different and so far away from 1500 BC.

The simple and logical explanation could be made for this flow of human mass that this also follows the Haeckel's Biogenetic Law (Theory of Recapitulation), i.e. Ontogeny repeats Phylogeny. (With different formulations, such ideas have been applied and extended to several fields and areas, including the origin of language, biology, cognition and mental activities, anthropology, education theory and developmental psychology.) 

Agni is the most sacred deity of the Vedic period. He occupies a prominent place only next to Indra. Two hundred hymns of the Rig-veda are devoted to him [6].

Gods are different phenomena of nature-fire, wind, sun, earth, moon etc. Natural phenomena personified as gods, were endowed with powers.

Why did Vedic seers call the phenomena of nature as gods?

The epithet देव (Dev) was originally applicable to sky, sun, moon, dawn, fire, lightning etc. and afterwards extended to earth, storm, rain, and even to the night. Yaska calls every object of worship or praise, a देवता (Devta).

Vedic books containing poetry, history, geography, archaeology, anthropology, anthropomorphism, palaeontology, genesis of the deities, science, phonetics, science of language, ethnology, mythology, theogony, jurisprudence, religion, vedanta, philosophy of people and places therein..

Famous Indologist F. Max Muller has said about: "You will find yourselves everywhere in India between an immense past and an immense future, with opportunities such as the old world could but seldom, if ever, offer you". 


#Pictures of this blog-post are under strict copyright laws.
#Thanks to Aniket Pandey for his consent to photograph his marriage event and use some pictures for this blog-post.
 #Some more links of the same author about Vedic phenomenon being observed are:[7] [8] [9] .