How Can We Matter

Who knew I'd be sharing this unexpected health hurdle with a Bollywood celebrity? Looks like even Bollywood stars face similar challenges sometimes. Here's to hoping we both get through this soon! Photo Credit: Instagram What is the rare sensorineural deafness that singer Alka Yagnik has been diagnosed with? Alka Yagnik is a prominent Indian playback singer of 90s era Bollywood. She has received several accolades, including two National Film Awards , two Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards and a record seven Filmfare Awards for Best Female Playback Singer from a record of thirty-six nominations. My Encounter About 4.5 months back I too had encountered a similar sudden hearing loss. My experience along with the line of treatment is recounted here:  Hearing Only What You Want to Hear! After completing the steroid treatment of two weeks, I got an MRI scan of my brain on 21-02-2024 with contrast dye used. On the whole the scanning took about an hour. The contrast dye w...

Ishaara Restaurant Yesterday, we went to a unique restaurant by name Ishaara in Phoenix Marketcity, Bangalore. In order to understand what is exclusive about the restaurant you need to know the meaning of its name. Ishaara, a name steeped in Hindi heritage, means "signaling", "signs", and "symbols". Ishaara can also mean "hint", "clue", or "gesture" in Sanskrit. The Ishaara Menu From the outside, Ishaara appeared to be a fine-dining restaurant with elegant and alluring decor. When we sat down, we were presented with menu sheets of 11" x 17" size. At first glance it was a typical à la carte menu with separate prices for each item; an extensive list comprising dishes from across several regions of India. Ishaara Menu Initially I was concentrating on the different categories of food, several items under each category, their descriptions, and prices - in order to get a general idea about the value and quality of the off...

We have all seen countless sunrises and moonrises in our life and their beauty continues to enthrall us. These celestial spectacles have captivated poets for ages, their verses overflowing with the allure of the unknown and the whispers of the divine. One such acclaimed poet was Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, popularly known as just Rumi. He was a poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic, born on September 30, 1207. Almost 1200 years ago, Rumi observed moonrise and composed the fascinating poem, "At the Twilight", that transcends the physical realm, offering a glimpse of a mystical union. Pardon me for rephrasing Rumi's poem by interchanging the words 'moon' for 'earth', and vice versa, in the following lines:  "At the twilight, an earth appeared in the sky; Then it landed on moon to look at me. Like a hawk stealing a bird at the time of prey; That earth stole me and rushed back into the sky. I looked at myself, I did not see me anymore...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has many uses and potential misuses. This post presents some examples of how AI can be used, misused, and abused and its potential consequences. Seeing the World Through Our Lens It all started when my imagination was triggered by a cloud formation of an image in the azure sky that looked like a giant face peeking out from behind a building. Immediately I captured that image with my mobile phone camera on 31 May 2024 at 18:21hrs. It goes without saying that what we observe in the sky depends on the way the image is visualized, conceived, and interpreted by us. This in turn is shaped by our background and life experiences.  That is, our ability to see, hear, and become aware of the image, through the limits of human senses, creates different perceptions on different people. AI: A Creative Tool Inspired by what I visualized in the photo, I used an AI tool (Google Gemini) to generate ideas for a poem. Of course, the poem is not a verbatim reproduction of w...