Dictionary defines travel as: to go from one place to another, especially over a long distance. This is travel in space. We travel not only in space, but also in time. Einstein unequivocally equated time with space, making it the fourth dimension of the Space-Time matrix. But time and space have always been used interchangeably in language: Past is behind us while future lies ahead, opportunity passes-us by, and a deadline approaches insidiously. We intuitively speak of life as a journey through the landscape of time , as one is born, grows old, and dies. Unlike travel in space, travel in time is involuntary and inescapable. Other than space and time, humans travel in another dimension in their lives. This is travel in relations with other human beings. Each one of us is veritably a different landscape; Each has a distinctive personality shaped by their unique experiences in lives. Knowing a variety of individuals, interacting with them, and nurturing relations with some, enriches ...

  Chasing A Mirage or A Misguided Quest   Do we have to painstakingly cultivate happiness? Or is it one of the many, naturally occurring state of mind like fear, anger, love, affection, empathy, and anxiety? Literature on none of these, if at all there is some, is as huge as on happiness. Happiness has overwhelmingly occupied the minds of thinkers in every age. A new-born knows what makes it happy: mother’s soft breast brushing against its cheeks and a soft warm cradle for uninterrupted sleep. A toddler knows that candies and presence of parents bring him unbridled happiness. A child learns without being taught that a day spent away from school and at play is the happiest day. Adults intuitively seek happiness in security of a well-paying job, a loving partner, and a secure environment at home and work. Urge to seek happiness is as natural as the desire to quench a parched throat. It is no less strong than life’s craving for air. Happiness evolved to motivate our anc...

Worldly author’s unworldly tale of renunciation   ‘The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to passover Thus the wise say the path to salvation is hard’ Katha-Upanishad This epigraph opens the book Razor’s Edge , twentieth century English novelist, W. Somerset Maugham’s most successful novel. The edge of a razor symbolises the path to enlightenment, which is as painful and narrow.   Maugham was fascinated by the character who renounces worldly pleasures for a spiritual life of deep joys and lasting contentment. This theme recurs in his writings. Fall of Edward Barnard is one such fabulous tale of another American youth. In Of Human Bondage , his most acclaimed novel, protagonist Philip Carey is forever entangled in search of truth that will reveal to him the true nature of the world. In Moon and Six Pence , Charles Strickland, forswears life of a successful stockbroker and comfortable marriage, to follow his passion of painting. Maugham was taken by the idea of renu...

  What is it in a piece of verse that makes your heart go pit-a-pat? In an anthology of essays on great equations in modern science, editor compared these equations to a beautiful poem. I sat back, closed my eyes, and effortlessly slipped into a pleasant reverie of one constant love in my readerly world. Words, lines, stanzas, and occasionally a complete poem floated in my consciousness. Poetry is regarded as the pinnacle of human creativity, the most beautiful of literary arts, the purest representation of man’s aesthetic sense. Outstanding achievements of human mind are called poetic, be they in: science, architecture, music, painting, or even prose. Einstein placed high value on beauty in science. According to his elder son Hans, for Einstein, ‘the highest praise for a good theory or a good piece of work was not that it was exact but that it was beautiful.’ He once said, ‘the only physical theories that we are willing to accept are the beautiful ones.’ Paul Dirac, perhaps ...