The trek to Valley of Flowers

Take a break, have a life!

Every now and then, you got to take a break. Get away from this dull, structured life – taste the freedom of having nothing to do and nothing to worry about for long stretches of time. Not food, not work, not family and not even yourself should intrude into this precious time – no sir, no– this should be pure survival and shouldn’t be mixed with the ‘idea of survival’ as given by civilization. Difficult of course, given that even the remotest corners of this world have been ‘civilized’ along with your brain! But try you can – to forget about that self-improvement goal, forget those gnawing hunger hours etched into memory from sitting before dumb machines and forget to think about returning back to that crazy life……and simply live!

That’s exactly what I tried to do or rather how it turned out to be! And as I said, it was difficult, very difficult and since I hadn’t planned it to be that way, it was even more so! But those ten days out of this ordinary life was……..well, no words would suffice simply because I refuse to define it in the brackets given by my ‘civilized’ brain! Maybe I would like to repeat it sometime in the future – not maybe but definitely – with a slight change, it would be for a longer period and if I could leave myself to, then sometime, maybe….never to return!

What I’m talking about is my trek to the Valley of Flowers and the Garhwal range of Central Himalayas that I came back from some one week ago. Though the trek started out as a pure “Valley of Flowers” trek, we decided to rename it to Garhwal Himalayas trek after an arduous time in that part of the country! A detailed blog with photos shall come up soon…..

The melody of harmonious creation

The forms of snowflakes and faces of flowers may take on their shape because they are responding to some sound in nature. Likewise, it is possible that crystals, plants, and human beings may be, in some way, music that has taken on visible form
- Cathie E. Guzetta

I now know why your beauty reminds of the finest tunes on the violin
And the caress of your hands on my brows, the sweet singing of a bird
I look up to see the sun, and I know I see music
I touch you to feel your form, and I know I am feeling magic
I am blessed to be a miracle in this beautiful world
For when I close my eyes, I see creation

- Vaijayanthi KM :)

Quote unquote

The wind drops, but the petals keep falling
The bird calls, and the mountain becomes more mysterious

The Ethics of Ambiguity

Man knows and thinks this tragic ambivalence which the animal and the plant merely undergo. A new paradox is thereby introduced into his destiny. “Rational animal,” “thinking reed,” he escapes from his natural condition without, however, freeing himself from it. He is still a part of this world of which he is a consciousness. He asserts himself as a pure internality against which no external power can take hold, and he also experiences himself as a thing crushed by the dark weight of other things. At every moment he can grasp the non-temporal truth of his existence. But between the past which no longer is and the future which is not yet, this moment when he exists is nothing. This privilege, which he alone possesses, of being a sovereign and unique subject amidst a universe of objects, is what he shares with all his fellow-men. In turn an object for others, he is nothing more than an individual in the collectivity on which he depends.

- by Simone de Beauvoir, 1947

Read the free online book here

Butterflies reveal secret!

Protest against Nature's Evolutionary Mechanism called!

The latest research on Butterflies by the Harvard University biologists have found the reason for 'speciation' (how new species are formed from old existing species)! The research found one particluar type of butterflies developing distinct wing color patterns different from their closely related family, possibly setting them apart as a new species over time, offering clues to this much talked about evolution subject.

Quoting BBC, with all due copyrights recognized,

"The Harvard team made the discovery while studying the butterfly genus Agrodiaetus, which has a wide ranging habitat in Asia. The females are brown while the males exhibit a variety of wing colours ranging from silver and blue to brown. Dr Kandul and his colleagues found that if closely related species of Agrodiaetus are geographically separate, they tend to look quite similar. That is to say, they do not display a distinctive "team strip". But if similarly closely related species are living side-by-side, the researchers noticed, they frequently look strikingly different - their "teams" are clearly advertised. This has the effect of discouraging inter-species mating, thus encouraging genetic isolation and species divergence."

"For me, this is a big discovery just because the system is very beautiful" says Dr Nikolai Kandul of Harvard.

Hmm, beautiful indeed. But what I just can't accept is how did the process get reversed when it came to humans? Well, am not talking about speciation and stopping interbreeding but this male female color thing! If you notice, in other animals, it is the males of the species that is more colorful -It preens, sturts and what not to attract the attention of the females. Take Peacock, Lions, Sparrows or any of the million others creatures, save for humans!

How did the human females alone end up being expected to be more colorful? Hmm, evolution has been unfair to the human female, I say! This simply cannot happen. I call a meeting of the feminist community to conduct a protest meeting. ...... :))