Spotless Mind

We cannot learn without making mistakes. Can we? Sometimes we try very hard to avoid them, but as Murphy’s Law states, “whatever can go wrong, will go wrong”. However, through mistakes, the aviation industry has learned and progressed. If you want to know when the first fatal aviation accident took place, you have to go back to the 18th century. The first untethered human lighter-than-air flight was designed by the Montgolfier brothers on November 21, 1783. This was an eye-opener to many scientists back then. Many experiments were carried out with balloons, and these led to the discovery of different types of balloons such as hot air balloons and gas balloons in the same century. However, it was not considered safe for humans to  board these balloons, and, therefore, the first crew onboard these balloons were a cockerel, a duck, and a sheep. The flight lasted for more than eight minutes and it landed safely. As years went by, people started using these balloons to c...

Can a project take more than a century to be completed? Well, some projects do take a century to get over. Sagrada Familia is one of those projects that has taken more than centuries to be completed. It is one of the best-known structure of Catalan Modernisme, attracting over three million visitors annually to Barcelona, Spain. Antoni Gaudi, an architect who is also called by the name "The God's Architect" started the project in 1882. Gaudi was a very religious person, and all his works were infused with a sense of spirituality that reflected the natural world and the God. Sagrada Familia was Antoni Gaudi's most significant work, with this project he was able to take spirituality to a new level. He worked on this project until his death in 1926. This project came to a stop soon after his death. He was not fortunate enough to complete what he had started. Surprisingly, Gaudi knew this truth. He knew that he wouldn't be able to complete this project during his lifet...

Cleanliness Is a good habit but why don’t we follow it. It should be everyone’s dream to keep the earth clean and green. The story starts in early 1960s. During this period Singapore was considered to be one of the world’s filthiest cities and disease prone. Singapore was overcrowded, they had poor infrastructure, high rate of unemployment, limited industries, lack of housing, slums were increasing day by day. They didn’t become the Singapore that is today in just one night, they have tired for many years to reach where they are right now. It was former President Lee who drove the place to cleanliness, he showed the people of Singapore how it feels to be clean and have good sanitation. When the citizens of Singapore started seeing the advantages of keeping our surrounding and city clean, it became their habit. Their journey began by caring for the nature we inhabit. One of the earliest campaign was the launch of the Garden City, it was a vision by the former Prime Minster Lee Kuan Yew ...

A Thirty Minute Journey It is really hard for me to say this truth but It is a must that I should. Someone should speak up and make everyone aware of this addiction. 9.00 AM Weekends are something which I look forward to every week. It gives me a break from everything and refreshes my mind. I usually take the metro from Mysore road too MG at nine in the morning.  It takes thirty minutes to reach MG from Mysore road. I have been making this journey ever since I moved to Bangalore. It helps me understand the world around me in a better way. All I see and feel when I look at the people around me is isolation. They are too busy making their Instagram and Facebook feed.  It is not a bad thing to have a good online profile, but when these social networks get in between relationships it could create a lot of problems. From six to ninety-year-olds, this has become an addiction.  They often tend to stare at their phones when they are pushed into a crow...

Chapter 1 When things go south you will feel devastated, lost and scared. It was winter, when I found out that my neighbor Jennifer is never coming back. She died a few months back. The last time I saw her we talked about the recipe of blueberry cake. She used to be a good friend, a good mentor. After I graduated from college, I got placed in a small firm that would help me earn enough to make my living. I moved to the city and got a place near my office. My grandpa used to say that it was very easy to isolate yourself in a city, so I thought I would find some friends I could hangout with. Jennifer was one of them. She was smart, charming and nature loving. I used to work from nine till five and come back home very tired. Jennifer used to live next door and she used to bring me cookies and coffee every evening. The coffee used to be best coffee in that city. She was a neuroscientist who graduated from MIT. Her work seemed pretty complicated and exciting. Jennifer’s dream was to unlo...

I would like to start with a quote by ‘Ralph Ellison’ “I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” Some of you might wonder why I quoted this line, well it’s this quote that has made me realise that there are so many people in this world who are not sees, not even noticed by a single soul. When you travel in bus or in metro do you observe what is happening around you or who's sitting next to you? Well most of us spend our time listening to music or sleeping or checking their Facebook. One day while I was travelling in the bus I saw this man who doesn’t have a leg but still standing up straight to cross the road and next to them there is this couple who are holding their hands and crossing the road. He was not sees or helped by anyone next to him, I felt bad for that man. When we all travel all we think about is ourselves, about ...

We live in a world where people care less for each other, and greed has made them its slaves. It is not easy to come out of this sort of trait, but what we can do is not to give up and try for a better future. Every evening I go to Berg's Metro and sit there for quite some time to enjoy the vitality of the city. Berg's Metro is a small station which has not been renewed since 1990. I don't know who built this; maybe the guy named Berg. Anyway going there every evening after my work has made me think how lucky and happy I am in life compared with others. I used to watch this old man play his small keyboard and guitar to entertain everyone who passed him. The music he played was unique and it had some kind of magic. I found his music beautiful and relaxing. I wish everyone felt the same. He was invisible to others; people barely noticed him because everyone was busy with their own lives. He starts playing his music from five thirty in the evening till midnight, by taking a...

Sometimes I think that the world will become a better place if we all knew how to forgive and forget those who hurt us. But it is not possible. Because we are humans, we are one of the most dangerous creatures on earth. We were taught to hunt and kill from the beginning of our existence. We killed and destroyed everything we thought that was not important. There was a time when humans lived in harmony with mother nature, but that time has gone now. We used our technology and manpower to take down the forest and animals for building castles and towers. Changes has to be made. We have been promising ourselves that we will soon stop global warming, but we have not done anything till now. Before we run out of time, we need to stop global warming so that our coming generation will live a better healtier life. Try to make this world a better place. It will be worth it.