Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 01/23/2021

Do you know?

Multiverse is mentioned in several of Hindu Scriptures.

In 1927 came a theory named 'Big Bang' which was a scientific effort to provide some explanation about how our Universe came into existence. It suggested that Universe started as a tiny, hot and dense...

...something that expanded rapidly from the singularity with a big explosion or Big Bang from which formed the galaxies, stars and the rest of the Universe.
However, the science in our Vedas explained these concepts since millennia. Rig Veda mentions Hiranyagarbha and Brahmanda..

...Visphotak which talks about a similar theory.
The concept of Parallel universes may be novel to the modern scientists but it rests very comfortably in ancient Hindu Cosmology. The Puranas are replete with descriptions of many worlds whose inhabitants are ruled by kings in...

...the human plane and Gods in a higher plane. The many Gods in turn belong to many different worlds and planes of existence. At the highest level of hierarchy are the trinity namely Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesha, ruling the divine Kingdoms. Brahma is the creator who dreams...

...the Universe into being, which is maintained by Vishnu. What Humans perceive as reality is in fact the dream of Brahma, misled by matter. Brahman( not to be confused with Brahma) is the ground of all reality & existence. Brahman is uncreated,external, infinite & all-embracing.

Remembering Colonel Anil Kaul, VrC (Retd) on his 3rd Death Anniversary.

“It was October 12, 1987, exactly 5:55 pm as I was… coming out of the cupola of my T-72 tank on a steamy evening in an unknown place called Kokkuvil in the Jaffna district of Northern Sri Lanka.+

I froze in that confined space at what I saw. An LTTE militant stood at 60 meters aiming his rocket-propelled gun at my tank.

In a flash he fired. Probably having lost his nerve he aimed too low. The projectile hit the left mudguard of the tank, but for some inexplicable reason+

did not explode. It then hit the side of the main gun and then exploded on top of the turret, all in a fraction of a second. Before I knew, it seemed I had received a straight right punch so to say to my chin. I saw some blood appear on my left hand and there was a sharp drop in+

my eyesight.

Lt Colonel (now Lt Gen) Dalbir Singh, then Commanding Officer of 10 Para Commando, who was standing on the engine deck said to me, “Yaar what a close shave.”

He suddenly saw me and the look on his face told me that something was very very wrong with me. In that+

fraction of a second, as if it was a rewind of my entire life, thoughts raced through my life as to how and when I had landed myself in such a situation…

I asked my gunner to pull out a first field dressing (FFD) which is standard equipment in a first aid box carried in each+

So I was talking to @gewt about Job: A Comedy of Justice and I came up with a theory that I think explains why Heinlein's late-period work is so kinda-terrible and why I still enjoy it so much

So Heinlein had always been very interesting in the short parts of his novels, like the little snippets inside chapters. He had a very fun writing style, and wrote some fun dialogue with fun characters, right?>
It probably comes from how much of his early stuff was short fiction

And I think what happened with a lot of his longer works is that he'd just start writing fun bits and hope it would end up going somewhere or having a bigger plot by the end. like eventually he'd figure out where this was going, then go back and rewrite it into a cohesive whole

and I'm sure he had editors that'd help this process. No editor would let you publish something as rambly and changing-gears-every-other-chapter as The Number Of The Beast, for example... unless you were God-King Of Science Fiction 1980s Robert Heinlein.

so basically I think what happened is that by the 80s (when he was in his seventies!!) he lost the drive to go back and rewrite and he was too Untouchable for editors to make him.

This day was inevitable. Indian Muslims always lived in La La Land. They bad mouthed real well wishers & slept with the enemy who never considered them as part of them. In Gulf, Indian Muslims were busy with Javed Akhtar & Sonu Nigam. Never interacted with South Asian diaspora

Now when Indian Muslims are thrown to wolves it’s Pakistani & Bangladeshi Muslims with whom they kept distance are the only ones feeling their pain. None of the people who they invited for Eid Milan. Qawali & Mushaira are there for them. Such people invoke wrath upon themselves

Indian Muslims never spoke for Kashmiri Muslims. Distancing from separatist was understandable but we never even bothered to highlight their human rights violation & rapes carried out by forces. We could have sent them humanitarian help we didn’t. Our silence made us complicit.

When Sania Mirza married Shoaib Malik it was something legal. A Muslim married another Muslim. Entire Hindutva media went after her. They launched a witch-hunt for months. No Indian Muslim stood by her. All were silent. Now days come when Muslims are arrested for marrying a Hindu

Indian Muslims particularly the elite downplayed communalism in India by saying it will pass or Hindu majority is good. Fringe are bad. They misguiding others. Muslims were always others. Indians were happy to see Muslims sing & dance & eat their food but never considered as own

(An extract from Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, Soldiering with Dignity)

The man eventually destined to be free India's first Field Marshal was born on 3rd April 1914 at Amritsar. How did a Parsi couple settle for the holy city of the Sikhs? I once asked him and was told that in+

1899, his father recently qualified as a doctor and just married, could make no professional headway in Bombay, and was advised to try his luck at Lahore in the Punjab. With his young wife, he set off by train for Lahore. The long dusty and hot journey took five days and by the+

end of it, his young wife, who had never left the comforts and civilization of Bombay, was in hysterics and cried to go back. Poor Dr Manekshaw did all he could to comfort her, but as the train steamed into Amritsar, with her first sight of the Sikhs the young bride screamed her+

lungs out and refused to go any further. So they left the train at Amritsar, and there they stayed for forty-five years.

The Manekshaws had six children, four boys and two girls, and Sam was the fifth child. Sam had his schooling at Nainital's Sherwood College.+

After completing his schooling, he should have gone to England to pursue higher studies; this was the promise made to him by his father but, fortunately for the Indian Army, Dr Manekshaw felt that this particular son was far too young to be on his own in a foreign country, even+