THE WHITE TEMPLE OF THAILAND

Wat Rong Khun

     At first glance, Wat Rong Khun in Chiang Rai, Thailand looks like an ethereal palace straight out of Arabian Nights. The milky white edifice inlaid with millions of tiny pieces of mirrored glass is a unique modern Buddhist temple. The temple complex is under construction, but it has already become a national landmark.

     The project began in 1997 with the construction of the ubosot (assembly hall). Its white colour symbolises Lord Buddha’s purity while the mirrors reflect his wisdom which radiates through the universe.

     The temple’s exterior is full of ornamental sculptures. The bridge leading to the temple represents crossing over from the human world of rebirth to the house of Lord Buddha. It is built over a ‘pit of hell’ depicting hundreds of sculpted hands reaching out for succour. Beautiful gilded murals adorn its interior. If you look closely, you will also find images of Superman and spaceships in the paintings!

     Chalermchai Kositpipat, an eminent Thai artist is the creative force behind the temple design. He has dedicated his life to the complex which will have nine buildings when complete. 

THE SAINT WHO LOVED

 Mother Teresa

"Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love."

-----Mother Teresa

     Saint Mother Teresa (1910-1997) lived a life so filled with purpose that it transformed the dreary lives of those she served. The actions of this Nobel Prize winner and Angel of the Poor continue to inspire people across the globe. The incident that follows is certain to touch your heart today.

     Even observing Saint Mother Teresa going about her routine was enough to strike awe in one’s heart. She gave constantly – a warm smile here, a caring touch there. One might imagine that casual onlookers would scarcely believe what they were seeing – for it was nothing short of love in action.

     An American journalist witnessed a sick man in her care. He had ulcers that smelt rather foul, yet Mother Teresa attended to him. The story goes that the journalist called out in disgust, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars!”

     The Saint replied, “Yes, for a million dollars, I wouldn’t do it either.” 

     It is not surprising; money cannot always motivate us to do things that repulse us. But love can. And Mother Teresa was in love; she was loving – she did it for Lord Jesus Christ. 

BRAIN EXERCISES

 Neurobics 

     Most people would have heard of aerobic exercises for cardiovascular conditioning using breathing techniques. But did you know there is a different type of exercise designed specifically for your brain? This is called Neurobics. And is used to describe the science behind brain exercise. Neurobic brain exercises are designed to decrease memory loss and increase taking in and using new information. For your brain to be healthy and sharp, it needs to practice and get better and constantly get better at a variety of skills. 

     Regular physical exercises will reduce fat,  increase muscle power, improve breathing, and make you vibrant. Physical exercises will help body parts to improve. Similarly, neurobic exercises give the different parts of your brain to practice and improve. Neurobic exercises are different from regular brain exercises, puzzles, maths, etc. Neurobic exercises will strengthen the brain and will make new connections and create new pathways. For example, neurobic exercises will disrupt your routine. When people do something out of routine, their brains will not work as hard. For example, you may go to school on the same road every day. On some days you may not even remember how you got there because your brain was accustomed to that routine. But if you take a different road your brain has become alert to the new surroundings and will have to start paying attention and work harder. 

     Your brain has different parts, all designed to do different functions. But not all parts are used regularly and so they become inactive and slowly deteriorate like our legs becoming weak if we don’t walk regularly. This is because we get accustomed to routines and don’t learn or do things differently periodically. But if you learn something new every day all parts of the brain get activated. 

     So, learning new things is crucial to your brain health. Learning anything new is a neurobic brain activity. When your brain takes in new information, it starts making new connections to interpret and retain that new information. Here are a bunch of neurobic exercises you can try to activate the unused parts of your brain.

Close your eyes - Do regular activities with your eyes closed. For example, try taking a bath, washing your hair, getting dressed for school, opening the doors and cupboards, finding your things, bags etc., with your eyes closed. Don’t do anything that could put you or others in danger. Such activities will force your brain to use new neural pathways.

Read books aloud – The brain uses different areas for each activity. When you read aloud or listen to others reading, you will use different brain circuits than when you read silently to yourself. Brain imaging studies have shown three distinct brain regions lighting up when the same word was read, spoken, or heard. So, reading quietly is different from reading loudly to the brain.

New routes - Take a new route to school. Traveling exposes the senses to new surroundings. As you see new places and buildings your brain starts documenting them. 

Shopping – Take item list from your mother and go to buy things at different shops or supermarkets. This way the brain will register new shelves, new faces, new methods, new roads, and new products.

Relocate items - Reposition the location of familiar items in your house. For example, in your room, rearrange the furniture, change the order of the clothes in your closet, put your watch to the other wrist, rearrange your books, home furniture, desktop etc. Now your brain will have to find out where the items are.

Switch Hands - If you are right-handed, try using your left hand to do things like brushing teeth, eating food, combing hair, writing, or using your computer mouse. Using your non-dominant hand will increase brain activity. This can be difficult at first but after a few days, you will be pleasantly surprised. 

     Similarly, try breaking the routine for the various activities you used. Slowly, your brain will start activating the portions that had become inactive. This will create new healthy brain cells and make your mind and brain vibrant. 

THE STORY OF DIVINE FRIENDSHIP

 Shri Krishna and Sudama

     Sudama was Shri Krishna’s friend and  devotee. He belonged to a poor Brahmin family. As they grew up, Shri Krishna got married to Rukmini and became the king of Dwarka. On the other hand, Sudama married a simple Brahmin girl and led a simple life. He had two children, but due to his austere living, he remained a poor man. 

    One day Sudama’s wife asked him to seek help from Shri Krishna but Sudama felt ashamed but decided to go to meet his friend Krishna. Sudama decided to carry along a handful of poha (flatened rice) for Shri Krishna as he didn't want to go empty handed.

    As soon as Sudama reached the palace, Shri Krishna received him with warmth and respect and made Sudama sit on His throne and washed his tired feet with sandalwood and warm water to relax him. They recalled the time spent at the Sandipani Ashram in childhood. Seeing the splendour, Sudama felt embarrassed to take out the gift. Shri Krishna immediately understood how Sudama was feeling. Seeing a small bag in Sudama’s hand, Shri Krishna asked him  what he was carrying. Sudama hesitated and moved forward the bag, which contained a handful of poha. Shri Krishna went forward and consumed a part of the poha saying that was the best thing He ever had.

     Shri Krishna thanked him for the gift and requested Sudama to have a meal with him. As both of them sat to have their meal, which was served in exquisite gold plates. Sudama felt sad as he remembered his hungry children at home. He stayed at the palace for two days but could not ask Shri Krishna for any personal favours. On the third day, he was ready to leave back home. While leaving Shri Krishna embraced Sudama and asked him to visit again.

     Touched by His love and hospitality, Sudama thanked Him. While going back to his family Sudama wondered "What shall I say when my wife asks me what I've brought back?"

     As Sudama reached back home, he was troubled seeing that there was no hut. Instead of his old hut, he saw a magnificent palace being built at the same place. As he walked towards the palace, he saw his wife coming out elegantly dressed in beautiful clothes.

     She told Sudama that Shri Krishna had helped them to get rid of the poverty and miseries. Thinking about Krishna’s love and concern, Sudama's heart filled with gratitude and tears of joy rolled down his eyes as he realised that friendship doesn’t believe in rich and poor, it only seeks love and respect.

DO YOU KNOW

 What is the difference between weather and climate?

     The air surrounding the earth is known as atmosphere. Its physical conditions keep changing from time to time. Sometimes it is very hot; sometimes it is cold; sometimes it rains. These changing conditions of the atmosphere form the weather. Weather can be defined as ‘the day-to-day atmospheric conditions of a place’. The weather conditions over a large area for a long time determine the climate of that area. 

     In other words, the kind of weather that a place generally has, year after year, is known as the climate of that place. We find different types of climate in different parts of the world. Some lands are quite cold all the year round, while some are warm throughout the year. The climate of a place is determined by many factors such as its distance from the equator, the direction of the winds, its distance from the sea and height above sea level.

WHAT IF THERE WAS NO GRAVITY?

Gravity: The fundamental force

 Gravity is the fundamental force that controls the way things move on earth and throughout the universe. Gravity is something we all take for granted. It’s the force that holds us to the surface of the Earth and what makes things fall. But it’s much more than that, too. It’s what holds Earth together and gives the planet its roughly spherical form. It’s what keeps Earth moving in its orbit around the Sun, ensuring that we always have the heat and light we need to live. In fact, gravity is one of the most fundamental things in the universe – the force that holds everything from asteroids to galaxies together.
     Gravity is one of four fundamental forces, alongside electromagnetism and the two types of nuclear force. On very small scales it’s by far the weakest of these forces, but it comes into its own at large distances. That’s because the nuclear forces have a very limited range, while electromagnetic forces tend to get cancelled out because electric charge can be either positive or negative. Gravity, on the other hand, always acts in the same direction – it’s a force of attraction, which means there’s no limit to its range. And it’s a very democratic force, operating with equal effect between any two objects having mass. For these reasons, it’s far and away the most important force governing the universe on large scales.
     Gravity also played a key role in the formation of the universe by causing matter to clump together and form atoms, stars and galaxies. If gravity never existed, then the universe would have remained completely featureless and the same everywhere. You might worry what would happen if gravity was suddenly ‘switched off’, but this is something that our best theory of gravity – the one put together by Albert Einstein – says is impossible. There are, however, alternative theories that allow for a variable strength of gravity. Under these theories, if the force of gravity was suddenly reduced to zero, then the principle of inertia would take over. This explains that when the force acting on an object is suddenly switched off, it will continue to move in a straight line at whatever speed it was going at. In the case of gravity, this means that people would start to drift off the surface of the planet, satellites would fly tangentially out of their orbits and stars and galaxies would gradually disintegrate.
Scientists sometimes speculate what might have happened if the universe was created with a slightly stronger or weaker force of gravity. It turns out that if gravity was a little weaker, the Sun’s core would never have become hot and dense enough to trigger the nuclear reactions that produce sunlight, whereas if it were a little stronger the Sun would have burned out billions of years ago. Needless to say, either of those situations would have been disastrous for any possibility of life on Earth.
     Although all objects exert a gravitational pull on all other objects, the only thing that’s close enough and massive enough for us to be aware of it is the Earth itself. The main effect of Earth’s gravity is to give weight to objects. This isn’t the same as the object’s mass, which is simply a measure of the amount of matter it contains, typically expressed in kilograms. An object’s mass remains the same wherever it is in the universe, and determines how strongly it resists any force that’s applied to it. In contrast, an object’s weight is the amount of force that a gravitational field exerts on it. Strictly speaking, weight should be measured in units of force, such as newtons, but because it’s always proportional to mass when we’re on Earth’s surface, we usually measure it in kilograms instead. But on a smaller planet an object’s weight would be lower, even though its mass remains the same. For example, a person weighing 50 kilograms on Earth would only weigh around 18 kilograms on Mars.
Although the strength of Earth’s gravity decreases with increasing distance, it still has a perceptible effect way out in space. It’s what keeps satellites and the Moon in orbit around the planet. In fact, the Moon is large enough for its gravity to have a reciprocal effect on the Earth, which we see in the form of ocean tides.
These are caused by the difference in the strength of the Moon’s gravitational pull on the water on opposite sides of the planet, causing the seas to bulge outwards slightly. 
     In the wider universe, gravity can produce some spectacular effects. It’s the force that holds galaxies together, and the primary cause of the intricate spiral patterns that many of them display. It’s also responsible for binding multiple galaxies together into large groups and clusters. And gravity is crucial to the formation and behaviour of black holes, too. When a large star runs out of nuclear fuel, it’s because it’s unable to withstand the pull of its own gravity, so it collapses all the way down to a black hole. And the most dreaded effect of all that can befall an object venturing too close to a black hole – spaghettification, or being pulled apart into long, thin strands – happens as a result of the incredibly strong tidal effects of the black hole’s gravitational field.
HOW DO SATELLITES STAY IN ORBIT?
Many people find it confusing that a satellite can stay in orbit without expending any power – particularly when they’re told that this is due to gravity. Surely gravity would just pull the satellite down to Earth? This would be true if it simply remained stationary at an altitude of, say, 200 miles, where gravity is almost as strong as it is down here on the surface of the planet. But the fact is that satellites aren’t stationary – they’re moving at high speed parallel to the surface of Earth. To understand how this works, it helps to consider what would happen in the absence of gravity. Since there’s very little air resistance at that altitude, the satellite would just whiz along in a straight line at constant speed. But because gravity is constantly pulling it towards the centre of Earth, it’s bent round in a big circle instead.
WHO DISCOVERED GRAVITY?
The ancient Greeks believed that gravity was simply a natural tendency of earthly objects to fall towards the ground, whereas celestial objects such as planets obeyed a completely different principle that caused them to move in circles. A proper scientific study of gravity had to wait until the 17th century. Galileo Galilei was the first person to record systematic experiments on the subject, but a few decades later, Isaac Newton went even further. He produced what has become known as his law of universal gravitation, which was a remarkable achievement for two reasons. Firstly, it encapsulated the effects of gravity in the form of a mathematical equation – something that hadn’t been done before for a ‘force of nature’. Secondly, his formula not only explained everyday gravity here on Earth, but the orbits of astronomical bodies such as the Moon and planets as well.
GALILEO’S GRAVITY EXPERIMENT
Galileo is reputed to have used the Leaning Tower of Pisa for this dramatic demonstration 
1 GALILEO
He climbed to the top of the tower, which is roughly 50 metres above the ground.
2 TWO CANNONBALLS
He simultaneously dropped two cannonballs made of different materials, hence having different weights.
3 THE EFFECT OF GRAVITY
Gravity accelerates all objects at exactly the same rate, regardless of their mass.
4 OUTCOME
The balls hit the ground almost simultaneously, which Galileo expected, unlike most people at the time.
GRAVITY ACCORDING TO EINSTEIN
Although Newton’s theory of gravity proved good at explaining the vast majority of astronomical observations, it had a major weakness. In 1905, Einstein produced his theory of special relativity, which says that nothing can travel through space faster than the speed of light. In Newton’s theory, however, gravity is seen as a force between two objects that is transmitted instantaneously over any distance. For this reason, Einstein realised that a new theory of gravity had to be found that was consistent with his universal speed limit.
One of the revolutionary concepts Einstein had introduced in special relativity was the idea that space and time are woven together into a single fabric, which he called spacetime. He used this concept as the basis for his new theory of gravity, which he called general relativity. In this theory, gravity isn’t a force that a massive object exerts on another object in the way that Newton imagined. Instead it’s a distortion, or ‘curvature’, of space-time that occurs in the vicinity of a massive object. Any other object moving through this distorted space-time then behaves – in most cases – exactly as it would if a Newtonian-style force was acting on it.
     When Einstein published his theory in 1915, there was – believe it or not – just one single astronomical observation that Newton’s theory couldn’t explain. This related to the orbit of the planet Mercury around the Sun – and Einstein’s theory was able to explain the discrepancy perfectly. He was, he said, beside himself with excitement when he realised he had finally solved the mystery of Mercury’s orbit.

A VILLAGE LIKE NO OTHER

Malana 

     Tucked away amid snow capped mountains in the Parvati valley is Malana, a village like no other. If you happen to visit this village in the Himachal, make sure to stick to the paths told to you when you enter it. For this is a secretive village, full of taboos.

     No outsider is allowed to enter a village home or temple without prior permission. The temple houses the village deity, Jamlu, and is decorated with skulls and buffalo horns. Unlike the other idols of the region, Jamlu is not taken in procession to Kullu during the Dussehra festival.

     The local language is Kanashi, which an outsider is not allowed to learn or speak. An outsider cannot touch a Malani either. So, if you buy something from a shop, don’t hand over the money for your purchase directly to the shopkeeper but leave it on the counter. For, if you happen to accidentally touch the shopkeeper, he will have to immediately rush home to take a bath.

     It’s not that the villagers are unfriendly. They enjoy posing for photographs but don’t let you make videos. They believe they are the descendants of the Greeks who came with Alexander the Great. They are fair and have light eyes, and light brown hair. Some of their wooden houses have carvings of chariot wheels, animals and soldiers engaged in warfare. The villagers have their own parliament, administered by a council, comprising 11 members, whose decision is final. The police are not allowed to intervene. 

     Malanis are very protective of their forest environment. No one is allowed to fix nails on trees or burn wood inside the forest. One can take away only dry twigs and branches. The hunting of wild animals is strictly prohibited.

     The village appeared on the tourist map in the 1990s. In 2001, the government built the Malana Hydro Power Station. Now every house has television and the village is slowly coming out of isolation. However, the villagers are not much educated, and though there are schools, so far only few students have managed to complete their education.