Bell Bottoms, Black Holes and a Flying Sikh

The Flying Sikh, Milkha Singh, the pride of India, died of Covid complications recently. I know that millions of folks like me, who have never met the man, felt a weird sense of loss. I guess, people feel that when another human is an internal and eternal emblem of hope.

Milkha was an athlete who was considered the favorite to win the 400m race at the 1960 Olympics. Even though he came in 4th, no Indian saw it that way. He was #1 in that race and in the long marathon Indian athletes have run since, knowing that with hard work and determination, they too can win on the world’s stage.

During that decade (1960s) the hippie movement started – what an interesting time – bell bottoms, beads, flowers, unkempt beards, the Hare Krishnas and the Volkswagen hippie bus! The Yippies (who followed the Hippies) nominated a 145lb pig called Pigasus J Pig for the position of President of the United States during the 1968 election.

In the ‘70s, I have to confess, I wore bell bottoms. I have seen some unburnt pictures that memorialize my utter lack of judgment. There isn’t a hole deep enough to crawl into when one sees those photos.

It appears that no fashion icon actually created this look. That’s just the way some pants were made by old time sea farers. And we town folks decided we were fishermen, oh they were so cool, and decided to wear what they wore. Never mind that I grew up in a land locked, hill station, and ate no fish!

Speaking of the twilight zone (bell bottoms), I have to make a mention of a documentary I saw on Netflix on Black Holes. It features many aliens who do math with notations that even someone like me, who has a decent engineering background, can’t recognize. Worse many of the aliens looked female. Imagine that – math and women! Well, here is the bad news – our ladies can do math better than us. I know this to be true because of my mom. Do research Sasha Haco and Katie Bouman, read one of their papers, and you may want to rethink what the other half of humanity can do if released from our vanity. I would just hand over the keys to them! Resistance is futile.

So, coming back to the math notation physicists use - it looks eerily like shorthand. Do any of you even remember this thing? Remember when you interviewed a secretary back in the day and asked, “Do you know shorthand?”

A Cambrian scholar, Timothie Bright, invented this. He was a doctor who then became a man of faith. I suspect he created shorthand script after figuring out two truths - doctors can’t read their own handwriting and their assistants can’t type as fast as these white-coast human fixers speak!

Having an assistant in this era is an anachronism. Unless you are some who is “big” and need a handler. I have not had one for years! Microsoft Outlook and my phone do a fairly good job and keeping me punctual and organized.?So, I guess assistants and stenographers were interchangeable with digital technologies unlike NFTs, the new buzzword.

Don’t you love it when someone comes up with an utterly ridiculous acronym – Non-Fungible Token. It is information stored in a digital ledger that is not “interchangeable”. So, if you buy a car and I put your name on the title, the ledger will always show that you were once an owner even if you sold it later.

NFTs are now being used to certify the authenticity of digital assets, which are being valued at astronomical levels.

Einstein’s handwritten letter in which he writes out his epic equation, E=MC2, fetched $1.2m in an auction yet Dorsey’s first Tweet which said, “just setting up my twttr” (suitably NFTed) fetched $2.9m.?Einstein vs Dorsey, “E=MC2” vs “just setting up my twttr". I would have valued old-crazy-hair-man’s masterpiece over a tweet but what do I know??I think I live in an alt-universe.

This month, somewhere in Florida, also an alt-universe to many of us, a city council inadvertently sold its water tower to a businessman! Reuters also reported that the great Ukrainian couple who were inseparable (they had handcuffed themselves to each other for 123 days) had finally split up. So, as you can see, this mad, mad world continues to gift us a precious day, one after the other. Enjoy the gift and make time to smell the grass, cuddle your dog or let your cat boss you around, eat ice cream and walk in the rain (I can confirm humans won’t melt or get sick).

At BORN, things are well. Our work with Mondelez (Oreo) win the company 4 Webby Awards. We hired more folks than we have ever done in our history while we brace for a big uptick in business with the slow but steady return to an almost “post” pandemic world.

I am proud of our parent, Tech Mahindra, who assembled teams to raise money to help Covid victims – we have joined the campaign to raise $50K to feed 5,000 families hit hard by the virus in rural India. Tech Mahindra Foundation has an extensive network to help households who have been worst affected - people who have lost jobs, families where the main bread earner has passed away, children who have lost a parent... We are hoping that the contributions we get will go a long way in providing succor to these families and keep them afloat in these tough times.

I have started talking aloud with my cat these days (ok the pandemic home imprisonment was tough!). I was telling Batu Boromir Daku Mandalay, my Burmese cat, about our mantra – Onwards. Upwards. and he said it was the same thing. Progress is progress and that onwards was upwards. I had to check on him with the great Sage – Dr Google Translate, and it appears he is correct.

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Aahtaatshoet, Aahtaatshoet.

Very Mandalorian – it is the way.

Your fearless Follower