My exams got over today. And all that orgy of midnight cuppas and slogging round the clock for weeks has left me in quite a bad shape.

The tension builds before the exam, chews the head slowly during the exams and then, in the final stages, it intersects and permeates normal life. Bloody hell!

Even people alien to the kitchen could tell when the onions have sautéed enough. So you expect a student with a year’s cooking experience, such as myself, to know the timeline of the change from raw white-green to the mild initial levels of sauté brown. Unfortunately for the onions and later my tongue, I wasn’t sure of those initial levels. Brown enough? Not yet..a little more,…probably now, but oops, isn’t that a tinge of black? Charred ‘em a bit! Blame the exams.

The only thing I was looking forward to before the exams was to fly home to good ol’ Madras once the exams were done and eat all the pongal vada chutney sambhar, chaat and vada pav. Food was the only thought practical to a tongue that hadn’t greeted any spice for many weeks. It should be. Now I was contemplating if I’d fallen prey to lust and desire (stop thinking of the bed, I’m still in the kitchen) and if I should get wiser after compensating many addictions of my tongue. It’s the exams.

It isn’t necessarily an awkward moment when you hopelessly choose the same beer as your mate in the next chair when the barman looks at you. But it sure is when you start thinking why you couldn’t home in on one, instead of enjoying the beer being sipped. ‘I’ll go with a Guinness as well’..now what could’ve possibly made me say that?

I mentally skip past the images of the ones I’d classified not worthy of drinking to enjoy. Most big labels come under that. Becks and Carlsberg are probably reserved for supporting the football and racing teams they support, too commercial to taste good otherwise. Heineken, …well, it’s are just everywhere, on the flight and even in the worst pubs..that again proves it’s too commercial to taste good. Cobra doesn’t taste any special. Castle Lager, Kingfisher and Stella Artois are the only of the actually good big tags but the pub hasn’t got them. They have Fosters, VB and Tooheys instead, which follow the same track as Heineken and Carlsberg.

And all that while sipping the Guinness which I’d ordered impulsively triggered by my neighbour. It’s the exams.

The only thing I was looking forward to before the exams was to fly home to good ol’ Madras once the exams were done and eat all the pongal vada chutney sambhar, chaat and vada pav. Food was the only thought practical to a tongue that hadn’t greeted any spice for many weeks. It should be. Now I was contemplating if I’d fallen prey to lust and desire (stop thinking of the bed, I’m still in the kitchen) and if I should get wiser after compensating many addictions of my tongue. It’s the exams.

About that Pongal Vadai, when Facebook offered profile name choices, four of my friends thought Pongal Vada Iyer would be the most apt anonymous name. I didn’t like being anonymous though!

This might sound sacrilegious but enjoying Kingfisher is more of Nationalistic pride these days. Not that it isn’t any good, it actually is..but there are better and I hope I have not let my India down with that more than United Breweries.

and for all those people in India and Europe who feel Fosters is ‘Australian for Beer’, please liquidate such ideas. If you do come down here for a holiday and wish to taste famous Aussie beer, I’d reckon you go in for Coopers’ Sparkling Ale or Little Creatures Pilsener.

and apologies if you’re not much of a beer person for this post might have been too dry to gulp!

and apologies also if I’d been irregular in dropping by to my regular readers’ pages for the past two weeks. It’s the exams. Will drop by first thing in the morning!

back to India on Sunday, beloved Madras beckons. See you tweeps and bloggers there!

My interest in weather patterns made me add the satellite imagery widget on my iGoogle page yesterday. What caught my eye is that there are hardly any clouds above or approaching Kerala from the Arabian Sea. I mean, isn’t it already a week into the South West Monsoon season? From how it appears, there is a patch of clouds east of the African Coast above Madagascar. Now, that’s either likely to lose intensity or would take ages before it gets to our coastline. So what is it then, a failure of monsoons yet again?

This might sound preposterous and out of the box here, but imagine the impact of such a failure, had it happened a few centuries before Christ. These were the winds responsible for the arrival of Roman traders. These winds were also called Hippalus, after the Greek navigator who found them aiding navigation towards India from the Red Sea.

It’s quite amazing how nature puts India on the international trading map. In June, the South-West monsoon, SW, blew from the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea into India. As much of an aid it was in speeding up the travel from Africa to India, the violent seas often proved dangerous. It demanded a ship large and strong enough to withstand the violent tides and reach Muziris, the now lost city, in Kerala. The Romans engineers overcame this hazard by introducing a unique way of ship building where the outer skin of the ship would be built first and then the body would be put it. This still remains the way boats are now made in Kerala.

map: http://static.newworldencyclopedia.org/, with customised SW and NE illustrations

Interestingly enough, we have the North East monsoons, NE, which blow from the subcontinent into the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. These late October-November winds would then guide these Roman Traders back into the Red Sea. Imagining what it might have been if these winds would have failed back then is a threat to all the riches the trade brought home.

There are quite a good number of quotes that have been found describing the trade at Muziris, one of them mentioning that the Roman vessels came loaded with Gold in exchange for the Black Gold(pepper) found in India. Roman Wine, apparently, is another major import. On a lighter note, I think this reference could be one of the reasons Liquor stores in the South are called Wine Shops, despite Wine being the least consumed commodity among other spirits.

There is also a chance that Christianity might have not reached or spread across India as early as that, had these winds failed in the first century A.D. Apostle Thomas, or Doubting Thomas popularly, is said to have landed in Muziris first.

It really is amazing how you can associate almost everything in India with history, Ancient, Medieval and Modern!

Note about References: Facts mentioned here are the ones I have read over the past few years. I apologise for not remembering the sources and for not referencing them here.

Note 2: I have been wondering for quite some time now on why the CBSE history books in India either have been biased to the Kingdoms of the North in including only the history of the Mauryas, Maharaja Kanishka and the Moghuls. It even includes the French Revolution and the American struggle for Independence. Why not the History of South India then? Why not the Cholas? There are chapters dedicated to the attacking of the Somnath temple by Mohammed Ghazni in 1024 A.D but hardly any to the buliding of the Tanjore temple by Raja Raja Chola in 1010A.D (they remained that way until I completed school, close to half a decade back) Why?

Note 3: My exams are really making it tough for me to respond to comments or check the feeds and drop by into your pages. Very sorry about that. Will try to catch up with all that I miss when I find time in between the exams or on the 16th cos that’s when the exams get over. Sorry again and Cheers.

There have been firsts. And then there were the firsts that were too popular to not be replicated. And then the concept of originality dies a resounding death in the world where you’re more likely to say ‘Oh! I knew this would happen some day’ or ‘Yea, I’ve seen similar events’.

The idea of pastiche seems to have permeated our heads to an extent, the not-so-stereotypical news is bigger than the actual surprise. I guess the idea of a Manchester United win was the stereotype in most minds that when they lost last night, a massive number of people went berserk on popular social networking sites, with their messages portraying Barca, the Champions as some kind of villains who shocked popular fixations.

I’m bored with stereotypes at the moment. Sania Mirza bows out of Roland Garros and people actually bother to talk about it. One mixed doubles victory and there’s a preconceived idea that she’d reach the quarters at Paris and probably win at Wimbledon.

We’ve all been witness to what riches from ad campaigns have done to sporting talents. Now that’s another stereotype she fits into, apart from the one that her game has become.

I quite liked the IPL this season. It had variety. With balanced teams and more balanced pitches, there were no constructs up the heads of the audience. With a totally different set of teams emerging successful compared to last year, there’s the element of surprise going into the next edition. See, that’s what made it different from the rest of the typecast Federer or Nadal wins or the Americans and Australians dominating Olympic swimming arenas.

And then, I found Shilpa Shetty’s weblog, living up to all the typecast expectations as she goes on talk more about hot-air ballooning in South Africa and how she wasn’t attacked by the lion cubs while playing with them there. What’s more predictable than all this was the line where she congratulates Vijay Mallya and calls him a dear friend. Diplomatic ties ahead of next season? Thanking him for the Romanov Vodka endorsement? Whatever!

The only thing that wouldn’t fit the idea here is the ongoing Formula One season with Ross Brawn giving the Mclarens and the Ferraris a run for their money. And the French Open might, if my favourites Federer might finally breaks Nadal’s run on clay and even more so if Andy Murray claims the silverware.

Wish to wake up and read something entirely new? A slumdog winning the lottery has better odds.  

You know those t-shirt messages that say “I think, therefore I’m single”. Seems to have struck a bit of a chord lately with its popularity reflecting in profile notes on Facebook and Orkut. What if it’s the other way around? I’m single, therefore I think.

The build-up to this post starts with the time on the bus, where you’re not really sure if you should read a book, or listen to the same old songs. What did I do? Well, what could I do? Unlike the ‘I’m taken’ community, I’m not waiting, in desperation, for any phone call overdue for as long as five whole minutes. Nor am I planning the wine I must buy on Friday or the restaurant choice and reservation for dinner on Saturday or the lunch on Sunday. So, what did I do? I thought, about God knows what.

It’s been quite a while since my membership to the community expired and prior to that, I know I did all that I’d just mentioned. Only on a different scale perhaps. If you chose to disagree, I apologise, I’ve been out of the league for long enough that they’ve probably changed it.

And there’s a reason for all this fretting here. The winter’s starting here, which means it’s the last of those bright orange sunsets. And that means a few of us are thinking of the effective usage of those final phases and click a few outstanding summer snaps. The phone then chirps, affecting my concentration in composing a shot and also marking the start of my worries. One of the old friends, also of the same age, twenty-one, is getting married. This was nearly eight weeks back.

My ears have amplified nearly four other similar conversations into quakes that have rocked my head since then. See if you can spot a trend here – ‘oh, I met him last year, you know. Sorry we decided to keep a low profile until recently.’ No worries, love, you probably shouldn’t have mentioned it now either . ‘You know I’ve been going around with this guy I met?..the sister-in-law’s cousin,.. met him when we finished school, remember? We feel it’s time we made it official.’ FYI – we finished school nearly half a decade back, almost. Could you spot a trend? 

They all got committed at least a year or more back – the times when I was moving out of the bond. There’s nothing wrong with that. Absolutely nothing. In fact, it’s quite a healthy trend that they’ve experimented with being together. It’s in my mind that a couple should spend at least a year in each others’ company before tying the knot. My worry now is that, I’m not anywhere close to finding the person I might wish to be with, mostly because the interest I’ve taken in my studies ties me down indoors with heaps of work. Seriously, I’m struggling to recollect the last time I was amidst friends.

Plus, the number of girls single at 21 is already a dwindling number, probably smaller than the most endangered tigers. Oh! I’m probably not likely to find anyone in the next five years. And I don’t even seem worried. I can tell you this as the worry only surfaces every now and then. A relationship is not the be all and end all of my life now. There’s a BMW M3 and photographic trip to Masai Mara and Machu Picchu above that. Seriously. When the person I’m waiting for has got to be really special, I think it’s worth waiting a little longer. Or is it?

Disclaimer1: might not appeal to everyone. Apologies. 

Disclaimer2:not written in any sensitive context concerning those friends. I wish them all the happiness in life.

Post is probably a bastard love child of the growing worry and overt consumerism involved in the M3 ambitions, and a Range Rover Sport as well, sorry..forgot to mention earlier.

Would appreciate it if  my confusion is taken light. Laugh your arse off! 

 

 

 

My friends on Facebook might have seen that pencil sketched image of mine in recent times, there’s now a comic-ised version of me! Vectorised rather!

copyrights Archana.M

Archana.M, the artist, deserves all the credits for the amazing job that demands extremely high levels of patience, which I have no idea about!

Considering the level of difficulty and the amount of time it might have consumed, it really is hats off to Archana! Thanks a ton!

You know that toon about Twitter celebs doing rounds on YouTube? If you don’t I’d insist that you watch it here, even if you’re not on the network.

Watched? Liked it? Now read on.. I maintain that social networking teaches you what you wouldn’t get in a classroom. That’s probably because the real essence of my Tweeting is staying updated with the news, with those Hindu and Times of India Tweets, and to kill boredom with some humour. Probably to organise Tweet-ups too but that again is either to kill time or with some motive.

Wait, I shouldn’t have said ‘motive’.. The problem now is that the motive that plagued Facebook and Orkut and Myspace seems to have bit Twitter as well. The feeling inside the millions of adolescents and the not-so-grown-up-at-thirty could probably be best described as, the want of a diplomatic approach to happiness, if that could ever be put gently. In other words, the endless desire to shag more than one could actually handle!

You’re probably only wondering what spawns these things. Why not profile picture for a start? A pretty face is considered a passport for a relationship and it’s likewise on the internet? Maybe.

There’s a forum where we recently discussed if women have more readers to their pages than men and, no offense, but I feel discussing this is equivalent to asking if men wish to be on their backs or otherwise. The profile picture sure is a passport – for the success of the page, for the popularity among their web surfers, or a jackpot if stuck on a resume in real life, regardless of gender.

All I wish to ask is that, for a few people of the other gender with activities that mirror their desirability, please don’t classify everyone alike. Not one or two but four of my friends online got mistaken for such twats and got horrifying statements at places where there should have been a review. As for the people who induce this arrogance in the otherwise friendly web people, please, for fuck’s sake, don’t.

As for the people who’ve been affected and are reflecting the hatred, please don’t classify stalking as a term synonymous with desire driven shit heads. To stalk is also to follow, like your friends are on Twitter. I proudly stalk a guy in similar professional fields, who’s now a friend, just so I could be inspired by his work. I stalk a girl, also a friend now, as I like the way she stuffs her words that they drip with reality. Doesn’t mean there are unnecessary intentions. So they next time someone’s following you, they are most likely to like your work or art rather than be spoilt. Think! 

Have a Twitterific day!

There are times.

There are two parts to this good-for-nothing, hopelessly written post. My presentation at Uni today! I’m trying to recollect how I could forget about such a major presentation that was slotted in for thirty percent of the total marks in that subject. As in, I did remember it by Saturday night but my classmates had already done enough work to put them only a few hours away from finishing!

There’s a point to this. We guys, from the Indian subcontinent, are put through a pattern of study where our parents guide us through us our first years in school, sitting right next to us and feeding the lessons. Then comes the middle school phase when they’re still with us but not right next to us.

See the problem with this in the world’s largest democracy is that these parents come back late from work. So home work due on a particular day would start being done in the last few hours the previous night. Ideally after Chiththi , if you were in the south or Kyunki.. if you were in the north.  

That leaves us too used to last minute preparations that we hardly panic until it literally is the last minute before the submission. I’d proudly relate this to today’s presentation of mine. I spent one whole sleepless night where I’d rate my level of completion as a little more than half-way. But the presentation was at one this afternoon and I seemed to have finished the rest in under four hours this morning. See my classmates from other countries seem to give up quite easily. Only half way through until the previous evening is very disappointing for them, sucks their morale and spits it out for miles that the whole class comes to know of it.

Anyways, I’ve done my country proud.

The second part to this is about the travel to the Uni or school or other concerned institutions. We Indians have a knack of missing the usual bus and taking the one that would get us there with only a couple of mins to spare and to piss!

I take the bus which leaves the bus station closest to my house at every thirtieth minute of the hour. It stops right inside the university campus and reaching class would be a minute’s walk. Today though, despite best plans, I missed it. Did I panic? Not a chance. If I did, I wouldn’t bask in nationalistic pride. The only alternative route is the bus that’d take me to the other end of the campus. The distance to class from there would be close to half a kilometre – with only 5 minutes to spare. Did I run to class? Fellow countrymen would have rolled on the floor and laughed, quite literally, if that had happened.

There’s actually another part to this – about how thoughts cross the mind that’s raping through the twenty page pdf at a pace faster than Michael Schumacher would’ve driven through Eau Rouge. The unnecessary thoughts – like how the lizards have always irritated you or how badly you’d feel like vomiting the next time your friend takes his shoe off at your place. In my case, it was about yesterday. It marked the tenth anniversary of my poonal (the holy thread Brahmins in India wear). Full Stop. No further questions here please. Lmao!

We find nationalism even in everyday routine. Probably, when the Indian kids of the future generations start flipping the bird at four and try boom at twelve, we’d probably say, there were times.

The search for key ingredients or chemicals in Soma, the ancient Indian drink, reveals many contenders but of them all, I found Ephedra being one of the most repeated in several pages. Ephedrine is a chemical that was used by many ancient apothecaries to cure common cold and Asthma. Ephedrine, apparently also has the properties of a stimulant.

 

“Enricher, Healer of disease, Wealth-finder,

Soma, Be a good friend to us.”

(Rig Veda – Book 1 Hymn XCI 12 translated by T.H.Griffith, [1896] retrieved from http://www.sacred-texts.com)

 

The description of ‘Healer of disease’ might be quite evident from that verse of the Rig-Veda after reading about the drink’s chemical composition but what’s worth taking note is the properties of a Stimulant. Caffeine is one of the world’s most commonly consumed stimulants and as we all know it, it keeps us up all night – or improves the alertness in us. I think it is this feature of the drink that was described as the Enricher of the senses.

It is a general idea that there are other hymns in the Rig-Veda that restrict the usage of Soma with warnings of nausea or vertigo on over-consumption but there are also mentions of the drink sharpening the senses when taken in appropriate amounts. It is this effect that was probably made use of by the poets of that period while composing their descriptive two-liners.

The moon, I learnt from endless searches, was considered to be the cup in which the Gods drank Soma and the increase or decrease in the quantity would explain the waxing and the waning of the moon.

Astrology today holds the moon responsible for a person’s emotional well-being. The air-ions, being positive and negative, are considered to have an effect on the mental state of a person. A full-moon supposedly increases the positive ions in the air and is thus an explanation for all the mishaps that happen on a full-moon night due to violent mood swings.

It all seems connected to me – the moon influencing the mind in the pages of Astrology and science, the moon being called Soma by the ancient Indians, due to the drink’s effects on the mind.

I really wonder, were the ancient Indians scientifically mature enough to know the moon’s effect on the air-ions? That leads to another question – did they know about ions? The Rig Veda speaks of ‘appropriate quantities’ of the drink that was also considered to be an aphrodisiac. We have beer cans and Scotch bottles today that contain numbers that indicate the ’standard drink’ level for the purpose of road rules but now is a time of technology far superior from the ones in the ancient age! How did the ancient Indians calculate the appropriate standards then?

I’m desperate to read on further but I’m afraid there’s not much available except explanations of the verses and a few other references to the past. I’m amazed by the naming of the moon as Soma.  Was it meant to mirror similar effects of the moon and the drink on human minds? 

Okay the now famous “The 25” list needs no preface! I once thought I’d never do one such list but I just can’t believe I have read five such lists in the past 4 days! The lists that made me change my mind were this, this and this.

So, without any further delay, here’s mine:  (sometimes on the lines of Clarkson’s popular description of The Stig)

1. I wonder  – when people describe themselves as lazy, why is it always a goose? Geese aren’t lazy, at least not as much as human beings are!
2. Some say… my beard is the nucleus of my power and without it, I’d be as helpless as a duck.
3. During my school days, it’s said that I wasn’t allowed, by school rules, within ten yards of a new entrant girl…no wonder my popularity declined during year 12 for there were no newcomers after year 11.
4. Some say…that burp of mine on board that Airbus A340 caused seismic disturbances down in the Indian Ocean and had I drunk more beer, there might have been another tsunami.
5. Among the very few things my dad has failed to reform me in are: bunking classes and raping that Krishna Sweets or Grand Sweets box of Jangiris the moment he gets it home.
6. Some say…on watching one of our ex-Prime Ministers sleep on duty, I remained awake for an entire week and that after the event, I got dumped for the first time for looking like a zombie.
7. I’m a crash helmet and Alpinestar racing overalls short of being The Stig’s Iyer aathu(Tambrahm) cousin.
8. Some say…that I’m the only person capable of stuffing a toothpaste tube with all the paste that has been squeezed out and that the day I decide to do it, the Sensex would rip the 20000 mark again.
9. Every time the razor cuts my neck after a stroke, I remember the Salaam Namaste scene! See how deep my observation skills are and also the places where I’m capable of dreaming.
10. 10.  Some say.. if even given a choice between a box of jangiris, an Aston Martin DB9 and lunch with Anushka Shetty,….I’d prefer the lunch over my actual favourites as if she gets angry, she’d take a maru piravi (re-birth) to destroy my appetite!

Okay! Kidding. Most of it was for the heck of doing a list and some humour that’s never seen on my page. Here’s the actual one, which I’ll limit to 15 so that it keeps up with the Blogospheric standards of a total 25 and it is said that upon violation of these standards you too might have to say “every blog has its day, mine did”

11.  I’m quite short-tempered and it has cost me quite a bit which I don’t regret.

12.  I’m the only kid in the family. My dad’s been my role model and he’s the only person I have ever relied on after I lost my mom when I was eleven.

13.  My dad is the only person I argue most with – during Arsenal’s matches, during Formula One races, during breakfast(asking him to make it a little more exciting) and when the internet goes down!

14.  Oh yea, on that previous note, I’m a huge fan of the Arsenal Football club in London and I hate it when people with hardly any knowledge of the game support Manchester United by default.

15.  I’m quite brand conscious and the only brands I currently prefer are Adidas (always my favourite), Lacoste, Louis Phillipe and Dolce&Gabbana and I’m also a big buyer of the kurtas at Fab India.

16.  I love the Aston Martin DB9 and the Range Rover Sport. Must confess, I was caught being mistaken for ogling at a lovely girl dressed very elegantly when I was actually looking at the Aston, happened a few weeks back. The girl laughed her way out of her embarrassment and ever since, I have been trying to trace her to apologise and if Mani Ratnam or Priyadarshan could make this a movie, I’d be honoured!

17.  I’d prefer three sugars in my tea and when they notice this in cafes and ask if I’m Indian, I get pissed and reply that extra sugar could suit any nationality.

18.  Okay, this point should’ve been at the top but – I can’t do without Pongal and coconut chutney in the mornings when I’m in my Madras. The best I have ever had though is at a small Iyer aathu restaurant in Coimbatore.

19.  Although I’m right handed in all the cases I can ever think of, including batting and bowling and writing, I break eggs with my left and I seem to use my left more to type than the right.

20.  If you would get me off the bed in the morning without ever hearing anything offensive, you are either my dad or my best friend who now lives in the United States.

21.  At the moment, I feel more lonely than I have ever felt. Sure there are people around, but the ones who make me feel like I belong at that place are all in America and my time zone is 12 hours ahead of theirs.

22.  I’m addicted to history and with it I’m a bit of an expert in Geography. I could name all the capitals when I was five and I could locate all the Indian states from their shapes at the same age. The last time I checked, I could describe the location of more than 150 cities around the world without looking at the map.

23.  I can identify most nationalities hearing the surnames and the way they are pronounced. Also, I can pronounce it the same way, most of the times with exceptions being traditional Chinese and certain names from some of the republics that broke off from the USSR.

24.  I hate it when people say they didn’t have the time to call back. They had the time to butter up an extra bread but not for this? I like to keep things straight – If I don’t wish to talk, I’d rather say it than wrapping it up with shit loads of crap.

25.  My friends and my father think the only thing I wish to earn now is a Nikon D300 (my dream camera) but I wish to buy my dad a Tag Heuer before that. It sure is tough as a student but Pa, if you are reading this, don’t stop me with the ‘focus on your hobbies and get the Nikon’ modest line! Lol.

 

Personal thanks to Vyas for the nudge and to the authors of the other two lists I’d linked above to have created some interest in me towards this. My lengthiest post. If you didn’t like this, please come back to my page. I promise I’ll stick on to my old habit of restricting my posts to under 400 words. 

 

My interest in human history has driven me in the quest of many books and media texts in the past two years. But if I look back at it, I realise almost nothing’s come of it except knowledge of various historical events that have all contributed in the way we have lived over the ages. Nothing productive there as I would often leap from one topic to another with the excuse of exploring the topics in depth. Depth always spawned new interests, you know.

Visitors to this page who’ve read all my posts might know of all that patriotism in me going into the words here. Most of the posts here describe what is a politically driven geographic divide  in the Indian Subcontinent but I have now decided to go beyond borders and nationalities like my idol historian Michael Wood did.

Like it has been my nature to read on further than what’s been presented by an author, ‘Soma’ caught my eye in one the texts. Soma is a drink that supposedly gave ancient people an amazing power from within. These are the people from Central Asia who were the first settlers in the Indian subcontinent, Aryans.

Being made out of from plants found exclusively in Central Asia, the cradle of Hinduism and Zoroastrianism, the term Soma is ubiquitous in the scriptures of these religions. There are dedicated hymns in the Rig Veda and the Avesta to this herb. This was considered the drink of Indra, the King of Gods. A drink of such historical and religious importance, I felt, shouldn’t be ignored and should be read about in detail.

Now, this sudden idea about this research hit me from the current day political tensions. By Central Asia, I meant the border between the modern day Pakistan and Afghanistan – the zone of tension currently: the Swat Valley.

Over the next few days, I intend to read the translations of the Rig Veda, the Avesta and improvise from my previous knowledge of certain historical events. I’m not really sure as to what I’m looking for but I’m quite optimistic that it’d give me details that I consider invaluable.

It all ultimately comes down to my love for history and anyone else interested is most welcome to join.