I suffer a disability of cognition. I cannot remember directions. In past when I commuted in city buses, I spent many frustrating moments on a road trying to figure out the direction of the place I was heading to. Bus number 72 plied in both the directions. I would often board the wrong bus and learn the error only when the bus halted at its last stop. Today, if a traffic jam or any obstacle forces me to take a new route, I cannot reach home without getting lost in the maze of crisscrossing streets. Recently, on a foggy winter day, I was forced on to an unfamiliar street as I pulled my cycle with a  punctured tyre. The new route might be shorter, I reasoned. A right turn here and a left there and I was lost. I spotted a lonely walker and stopped him to ask the way to my apartment. He seemed dazed and stared hard at me for a few seconds, as if I had asked him the solution to the Fermat’s Last Theorem. He repeated the name of my apartment building slowly. Had he heard me cor...

The Moon and Sixpence – W. Somerset Maugham The Mind of an Artist Genius is defined as a very great ability or skill in a particular subject or activity. It is tempting to speculate that a talent that is exceedingly rare must be inborn. This lends an ethereal remoteness to the facility and enhances its appeal. An ability that can be improved by diligence appears too worldly to be called extraordinary. A closer look at the acclaimed geniuses reveals the truth of the cliched adage that genius is more hard work, i.e., perspiration, and only a little gift, i.e., inspiration. Michaelangelo, Newton, Beethoven and innumerable others, all undisputed prodigies in their fields, practiced their metier for decades to sharpen their skills. World saw the finished goods and marvelled at the unworldly nature of its beauty. Word genius immediately conjures image of Einstein in our minds. His theory of General Relativity is celebrated as one of the most elegant conceptions in modern science. Ein...

For long psychologists denied human nature. Human behaviour, they believed, is the result of nurture, i.e., conditioned response to environmental stimuli. Pecking pigeons of Skinner and salivating dogs of Pavlov held the clue to the riddle of human behaviour, they opined. Growth of evolutionary psychology brought a tectonic shift in this understanding. Behaviour of an individual is a manifestation of their biology. Biology is shaped by evolution and endows a species with nature. Behaviour, the expression of this nature, emerges from interaction of nature with nurture, i.e., environment of the individual. We Homo Sapiens, the modern humans, evolved about two hundred thousand years ago. We have been hunter-gatherers for most of our history. Agriculture was invented only about ten thousand years back. With it came settled lifestyle. For 95% of our time on earth we were wanderers. I often wonder. Is our wanderlust rooted in our genes? Akin to the fear of our species for heights and lov...

Time burnishes memory of cherished moments.    I met Devi in the summer of 2011. I saw an young officer being wheeled in the operation theatre daily, for the dressing of his foot. He would wish me, smiling diffidently. Perhaps he is embarrassed to be moved around hospital in a wheelchair, I thought. The procedure did not demand anaesthesia and my presence was not needed. I did not try to learn the cause of his malady. 2011 is etched in my memory as the year I went on Kailash-Mansarovar trek. Though the trek was only four-week’s long, I spent months in preparation. I had been smitten by the idea of this Himalayan journey for a few years. I had no experience of mountain trekking then. I was looking for seasoned trekkers who could advise me on preparation for the trek. I contacted our Adventure cell. ‘One of the best climbers of the Air Force is in your hospital. Take his advice.’ Thus, I learnt that Devi was an accomplished mountaineer. He had sustained frost-bite in his...