LIFE AFTER DEATH

From the very onset of life, a fundamental question baffles the wisest of minds on this planet. We are unable to define or understand what essentially is that which constitutes Life. Does a boundary exist at the point of birth, and at the point of death? If it exists, what constitute the moments beyond these two points?  Are we conscious when we reach and pass through the process of death? And can we still feel and see the material and physical existence, after we have crossed through the process that we define as Death?  Do we actually possess within each of us a Soul of our own?  And if it exists, when does it enter into the tiny body of each of us when we were in the peace and serenity of our mother’s womb?

Medical world around us has advanced much in the last century than all the time of the existence taken together. But even today, a medical doctor gives us a very simple definition of death: cessation of heart beat, or complete stoppage of electrical activity in the brain. But human curiosity is such that, it fails to accept boundaries. Naturally, we want to know what happens beyond the thin point of that definition, we want to know what is AFTERLIFE.

There is something beyond our body and mind, which we refer to as our Soul. At the point of our death, our body and physical mind still exists, then why do we actually die? That proves there is a thin source of energy that drives this amazing system, wherein at the point that it leaves the system, our system comes to an immediate standstill! Amid all the technological advancements in electronics, computer and the engineering world, the fact still remains that this internal body system is still the most sophisticated system on the planet. We know electronics, we know computers, we know tablets and laptops, we know how to send a spacecraft to another planet, but we still haven’t decoded how this most sophisticated system works, to the point that we even don’t know how it begins or ends!

This body is an accumulation of all that we consume. It is actually like a debt that we take from the bank. But here, the bank is the Nature. Naturally a debt has to be repaid sometime. At our death, we repay that loan to the nature as our body. Our body is taken back into the soil of our planet and our debt is repaid. In complete awareness there is no mortality. It is just a change of clothes. Our soul has a certain energy associated with it. When the energy reaches a point which our physical body cannot comprehend, that source of life departs our body. It can be due to old age, due to an accident, a suicide, a murder wherein the physical body is damaged and cannot withstand the energy of our soul. It has to naturally depart. Each soul of ours enters this planet with a particular task at hand. The liberated soul soon enters into another womb, in an ambience where that unfinished task from its previous birth can be completed in this reincarnation. This cycle goes on till that eventual task gets completed and that particular soul reaches salvation. There is no universal salvation without individual salvation. The soul is devoid of physical mind and body, as it leaves behind both of these when it leaves the previous body. So naturally at birth and beyond, we do not know who we were in our previous birth. That explains why we do not remember anything about our past incarnations. The basic human nature is such that, we assume there do not exist such a thing, that we cannot experience. But then we do not even experience the several litres of blood that is pumped through the very veins of our body. Does that mean that we believe there exists no blood within each of us?  

Death then is essentially like changing our clothes, from one dimension to another. Our mind and body changes, and this mind and body is not actually us. It is actually driven by that source of existence within each of us.  And we are here on this planet to fulfill an immense possibility. And immense possibilities do not happen in a lifetime, it requires many of them together. That explains why each one of us cannot go to the moon, why each one of us cannot play the violin like some extremely talented 5 year olds, why each one of us cannot make a substantial impact to the world that we live in. But it somehow eventually will, for each of us are here for a destined purpose, and we will reach that destined purpose, for even Neil Armstrong would have incarnated  several times to achieve the feat of walking on the soil of moon 3.8 Lac Kilometres away from home. And even he do not know that it wasn't a struggle of one lifetime, but of several lifetimes together!

MY ENCOUNTER WITH SURGEONS: A TREMENDOUS EXPERIENCE

My first visit to a multispeciality hospital in Mumbai paints a vivid series of memories. I was 10 years old and was very small, but I felt an amazing energy that surrounded me there. Each step I took into the confines of this hospital, I realised that it was a vast new world to be explored.

What caught my immediate attention was the surgeons with their green surgical robes and masks on. They were surrounded by an unmatched aura even though their faces reflected tiredness, probably due to the continues stretches of long operations. I looked up at them out of respect, although they never noticed the protruding eyes of a small little boy.

When I grew up, I always held a special respect for these surgeons. Indeed, their work is noble and unparalleled by any other profession. Isn't it amazing that a person can drill right through the skull into the brain and work on it? Or work on the premises of an alive and beating heart, around the veins and the arteries surrounded by oozing blood? And all of these when the patient is alive and breathing, when the heart is beating and pumping several liters of blood!

In the recent past, a neurosurgeon from Southampton, UK attempted to complete a brain tumour removal surgery on a patient whilst he is awake and eyes open. The novelty of this surgery was that the doctor decided to telecast the surgery live to the world, so that medical students, enthusiasts and others can get a peek into the insides of a brain surgery. Out of curiosity, I ended up watching the complete 2 hour surgery and had a personally remarkable experience. The surgeon explained each and every step that he performed on microphone during the surgery. I never realised how time flew by and at the end, the surgeon completed a fully successful surgery amidst applause and standing ovation from people all around the world. I was impressed thoroughly by their precision hand-eye control on the minute and extremely small veins inside the brain. It was interesting to see how he passed electric currents thorough the brain whilst asking the patient to count numbers so that he can check if there is a speech arrest situation. The surgeon said that he was working in close proximity to the section of the brain that handles speech, so he was ensuring he did not damage the same. I learnt and left in complete awe of the surgery, especially the surgeon.

I once came across Dr. B K Mishra at Hinduja National Hosptial in Mumbai. Being a master neurosurgeon and one of the finest in the whole world in Gamma Knife surgery, his humility and modesty impressed me immensely. I learnt a lot by just looking at him. I always feel surgeons work in one of the most complex environments. He has to positively deal with the stress and tension of a patient before he enters into the surgery. At the very same time, he has to scrutinize and plan each and every step that he will perform during the operation. Sometimes, I was told that the cases pose surprisingly unseen problems and it is the child like enthusiasm of  these surgeons that renders a new ray of hope to a terminally ill patient.

Surgeons are blessed by the hand of God, for it is him who can lessen the sufferings of a person bogged down by the anxiety and fear that arises with any physical aliment. Life offers so much for us to learn, where some people are not just people, but are themselves an institution, of knowledge and humility, a strong and invincible combination.

POETRY: THE GREATEST LIE OF ALL?

    

Little drops of water splashed from the heavens,

Thumped my window in might.

My mind went on a quest;

A quest to find a lie,

The greatest of them all,       

Which mankind has ever managed to haul.

Is that when a poor man is denied justice,

By a lie from the dark powerful influence of money,

The greatest lie of all?

Is that when he cries in helplessness,

Due to a society ruled by sinister falsehood,

The greatest lie of all?

     

Is that when a patient is told a lie,

By the doctor who knows the truth,

In order to uplift his fallen morale and poise,

Before venturing into a deadly surgery,

The greatest lie of all?

Is that when a poor little son is pained by starvation,
Due to the hands without money of his mother,
Who asks him to eat food mixed with poison,
When tears flow down her cheek,
Without ever telling him the painful truth,
The greatest lie of all?

   

Is that when a clown laughs in ecstasy,
Trying to hide is painful inside,
So that his audience can experience joy,
The greatest lie of all?

   

The tarnished world of mistrust and suspicion,
Will only become equivalent to heavens;
When what is wrong be right,
When what is black be white,
When what is darkness be light,
When what is dim be bright,
When what is weakness be might.

   

Rain continued to drop from the heavens;
In rhythmic uniformity, rain upheld its promise,
To return each year, at the same time.
Then, my mind went on a quest,
A quest to find a lie,
The greatest of them all,
Which mankind has ever managed to haul.

-Vishnu Chandrasenan

BEAUTY OF AVIATION Part 2

I bring the second part of my series titled Beauty of Aviation. I invested some of my free time to collect some amazing photos from aviation enthusiast website airliners.net. Again, I have tried to provide my personal little comment on the pictures to keep you occupied. The result is as follows. 

Military planes perform a fly through in Russia. Really beautiful scene with the peculiar Russian architecture right below. Interesting to note the contrasting style of architecture: the old and the new. 

A Swiss Boeing 747 lands in heavy crosswinds. Such type of landings occur when wind blows laterally with respect to the runway. This requires extreme precision approach from the pilot. Nevertheless, a magnificent take! 

Beautiful scene indeed. Pilots enjoy a heavy right bank as the captain on the left, controls the throttle . Who says going to office is boring?

Heavy condensation of air, leaving a trail behind. Normally this is observed in excess of 30,000 feet altitude. Notice the dense layer of clouds at lower altitude.

Dangerous approach! Notice how the heavy flaps behind the wings had made the plane even more bulkier, thereby helping it stable quickly after the bank. 

Two planes flying together like a dad and a child walking along a roadside. This happens when two planes simultaneously arrive to land on two parallel runways. An interesting thing to note is how the heavier 747 is keeping pitch up configuration where as the lighter one is more relaxed owing to its quicker correction ability.

 

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Serene beauty....................

Retracting landing gears immediately after take off from the concrete turf.

Enjoying the landscape of Britain...........Captain of a Boeing 737 Virgin Airways.

Called afterburners, it happens when engine overheats, not dangerous though. Look out of the window next time to see them if u r lucky.

Fluid Mechanics at work. A loop of air by the trailing emissions from the engine. Beautiful indeed.......

King of the air. Majestic bird Airbus A380 of the Emirates fleet.

The Airbus Beluga cargo plane, specifically made for airlifting heavy bulk cargo. Interestingly, it was voted one of the most ugly looking planes in an aviation poll.

Again, landing on parallel runways. It seems to be close but is a thousand feet away. Passengers would indeed have been terrified.

And that brings us to the end of this series. Never forget to drop in your feedback, comments and opinions below.   

Remember during all your adversities in life, an aircraft takes off against the wind; not with the wind, still managing to defeat it and soar effortlessly into the infinite limits of the cloud studded sky. 

-Vishnu Chandrasenan

BEAUTY OF AVIATION Part 1

Aviation has always enthused me to surreal levels of existence. It is amazing to see how man progressed to fly from a 12 second session in 1903 by Wright brothers to now point to point anywhere on the planet! In this series titled BEAUTY OF AVIATION, I present some of my favourite photos that I collected from aviation enthusiast website airliners.net. I have tried to present a brief comment on each photo. Here we go...............

Three planes cleared to land on the same runway at Kingsford Airport, Sydney, Australia. It is quite an amazing sight at busy airports when a pilot follows the front aircraft to land, not to forget to keep safe distances from the front aircraft, apart from the routine busy work that leads to a landing. Amazing??

Mid air refueling making an aircraft tactically double its range. This is one of the most sophisticated processes in aeronautics. Slightest of errors can cause mid-air fuel leak and uncontrollable damages or even destruction.

This photo of Sydney Airport, Australia is taken at a height of 35000 ft by a passenger travelling from New Zealand to Singapore. You can spot the terminal and some flights at the lower right corner. Amazing pic really......

Boeing 787 Dreamliner......the new addition to the long haul fleet by the Boeing....one of my favourite. The pic is taken at Poland, where its on a tour. One can see the burst of hot air ejections from the engine while take off, the temperature of which is around 1200 deg celsius.

Seriously low over while approaching into Los Angeles, USA. Deflections in the left aileron and elevator can be noticed in the right side of the aircraft. 

Pilot maneuvering too low during Toronto Air Show. Notice the left ailerons on the wings which is bent upwards, showing that the pilot is trying to escape out of this situation immediately. 

Cessna being followed by a Boeing 747.................................... Elephant following an ant :-)

Atlantis soars for its final mission into space. Notice the tremendous exhaust. The spacecraft reaches an escape velocity of 40320 km/hr or in order to understand better, it can be approximated to around 11.2km per second!!! 

Runway lights and cockpit panel lights make for a beautiful combination prior to take off...........

Good office to work at, isn't it?

Gentle touchdown at DXB(Dubai Intl).......at the backdrop of sunrise................

Endeavour poised to soar the day after, on the launchpad. A nervous time for engineers and crew alike.

Another touchdown...............

One more, this time a slight crosswind one.....

A380 climbing at Paris Air Show. Majestic!!! 

Great to see the room from which the whole flight is controlled along with a few hundred lives.....

Captain and co-pilot on the front seats.......flight engineer and navigation and radio controller on the back row..........

Great example of team spirit at work........

Condensation-clouds, fogged-in engines and wingtip vortexes, lighted runway below..... what else do we need ?

Mind your heads...........at Princess Juliana Airport in the Caribbean......

Jet Airways and Cargolux cross each other with both trailing condensed air behind them. Minimum vertical separation of just 1000 feet.

Photo taken a split second after a military collision at an Air base........Note the cockpit as it breaks... 

The best pic................a mission surveillance aircraft catches space shuttle endeavor blast off to space. It is hard to imagine that 6 people are seated in that shuttle even as it breaks the sound barrier and approaches escape velocity. Sun, horizon, nature, aviation, technology all in one shot!!!!

My salute to all the fantastic photographers. Don't forget to comment your opinions. I value your reply the most.

-Vishnu Chandrasenan

PARALLEL UNIVERSE: A FICTIONAL THRILLER

(Please note: Following is a mixture of the same account from different points in time, written in parallel)

It was the smell of blood; I felt it. My right eyebrow bled profusely. I opened my eyes to see the wreckage of my car. Oh God! I managed to escape.

It was a wonderful morning. I loved driving. My best friend and I were today going on our first cross country drive. We were elated!

My body had almost collapsed. I managed to lift my broken rib. I saw my friend; I am shocked! His mortal corpse lay in a pool of blood.

We were cruising along the highway. 160 kmph have me unmatched thrills. My friend was singing along the tunes of his favourite song.

I coughed blood. I can't bear its foul smell. My mind drifted into unconsciousness. God! Help me.

I pressed on the gas even further. We decelerated into a blind curve. Suddenly a blue car came out of nowhere. I screamed; my reaction was a fraction late. I heard a deafening crash of metals. My face became pale and traumatized. I was alive. I looked at my friend. He was too shocked to speak; but he was fine. I calmed my racing pulse. God! You had saved me.
My mind flickered. I woke up panting. Oh wait; was it a dream?

I woke up within an intensive care unit.  Yes it was a dream. I had lost my dear friend. My body pained. But wait; how did he escape alive in my dream? I am confused; what prompted a dream wherein my dear friend escaped alive.  But in my conscious reality, how is he no more?

I recovered from the trauma. I believe from that day that PARALLEL UNIVERSES do exist. Two simultaneous probabilities of an event occur, albeit in different universes. My psychiatrist says that my dream, in which I saw my friend escape, might have been a case where I transmigrated into a different possible scenario of the accident, in a different possible universe. I now believe he was true.

I now understand a frightening possibility of different scenarios of our lives, our beings, in different possible universes. Just as my body recovered from the stress trauma of the accident, I asked into eternity; is my dear friend still together with me in that Parallel Universe?

FEAR OF THE DARK: A PILOT'S FICTIONAL ACCOUNT OF THE LONGEWALA INDO-PAK WAR

It was the dreaded night of December 4, 1971. It was during the pitch darkness of 12.30am. I feared a war, not because the Indian Air Force wasn't prepared, but I hated to see drops of red. They say a true soldier waits for the day to fight in a war. Being a Wing Commander in the Indian Air Force, I always thought of that day, but it engulfed my mind with darkness. I had never told this to anybody; I feared. My eyes almost drifted into a sleep when our Commander sounded the war alarm hooter; Pakistan Army had launched an attack across the Longewala border along Rajasthan with 2800 soldiers. Indian Army, with only 120 soldiers along the line of control, sent an immediate call to the Air Force. I feared, my dream had come true. It was just like I thought; it was pitch darkness outside. We readied in our emergency response reconnaissance team in 15 minutes. My flying machine was a HAL-24 Marut; a bird I always loved right from my pilot training days.

We took off from the tarmac at Jaisalmer base, I could feel the machine vibrate at take off speed; my mind feared the worst. I remembered again that it was pitch darkness; I panicked, but we fighter pilots are taught to be in a controlled form of nervousness. We didn't have the benefit of night vision infrared; we never entered the battle region until permit was granted from the ground team. It followed some of my most feared moments of terror as a pilot; I never know if I cherish these or fear these today. We entered Longewala region after we received control clearance. My commander instructed the formation over the transmission line, I checked up on the horizon.

We were flying at 43 thousand feet, but descended at a steep angle experiencing high levels of acceleration, well enough to even stall our consciousness. I saw several tanks on the Pakistan side burning in red hot fire; we descended and launched an instant air strike along the border. My hand trembled on the fly-by-wire; our attack was too enormous and well planned to precision for the opposition. We killed 200 soldiers, 36 military tanks and destroyed over 100 military vehicles. We had mentally prepared for an aerial war with Pakistan Air Force, but our ground control sourced that they had retreated. So our tasks were a little simpler.

Sweat oozed inside my temperature resistant jacket, my helmet visor fogged up, I could hear cheers from the ground control tower as well as from my fellow flying commanders. I was happy that we won the battle, but I felt an incomplete void. I was informed that two Indian Army soldiers sacrificed their lives. I became part of the most successful mission of the Indian Air Force. We had landed back at our base. Touching down never felt so good. We were greeted with a thunderous applause which I will never forget.

Time flew and today, I always remember that mission when I see the dark open sky, I cherish those moments, but it left a tinkling fear inside me; the fear of the dark; I reconciled; God never gave anything without downsides. I remembered the day when I was on my bed before the war, it was dark, and I feared dark then; I fear dark today.

CENSORSHIP OF ART: AN INTERESTING ANALOGY OF ART AND HUMAN EGO

It’s been 14 billion years after our planet begins to breathe the air of existence. Still, I am awestruck by the story of a primeval creature on it; a creature that we all more commonly acknowledge as 'man'. Needless to say, it’s been an amazing story of survival, of strife, of endurance, of grief, of optimism, that never ceases to appeal and enchant all of us. 

My mind traversed. I asked my being what is that feature of man that stands at the peak of all his abilities. An instant jolt hit me. The ability of man to express or portray himself and his feelings to the world, I felt, is the most gifted possession that we can have. The world recognizes this talent as "ART".

Isn't that soul the most blessed who can emit the same thoughts of his to the people at large? It may be through the variations of music, through the mystery of a portrait, through the charm of a sculpture or simply through the captivation of a book. Art is a magical force which we never realize. It is twice blessed, it blesses the one who creates it, and it blesses the one who reads it through his senses.

But in a pluralist society today, fear and repression have taken birth. Difference in philosophy, religion or politics should never have put us in turmoil, but unfortunately it did. We have reached a phase where we fear each other sometimes. The one who suffered was our freedom to express, man's perennial birthright.

Today we are under the deceit of corporal censorship of our expression. We live in a time where a poor roadside artist fears to paint a portrait that might consort extremism from some religious groups. We live in a time where a true artist fears to take up his career in his vocation fearing censorship and its repercussions. We live in a time where we are no more judged by our artistic aptitude, but sadly, by how much materialist knowledge we can imbibe through rote.

I firmly believe that the people who can make a little positive difference to other people's lives are the people of the highest order in existence. Art is a guide-way where this can be leveraged. A music seeker will find sheer joy to hear the improvisation of a raaga on a violin whereas materialist studies will one day refrain to induce interest. Hence I believe people like Da Vinci or Yesudas has done more to humanity and mankind than probably Newton or Einstein. It is for this very little reason that art should never be censored. Art has phenomenal healing, inspiring, motivating and life transforming powers. Censorship is a cold blooded murder of the same.

         

Censorship has to vanish into oblivion and I believe it one day will. Just like how a metal naturally corrodes back to its original oxidized state after man painstakingly purifies it, the law of nature always prevails at last. It was the nature's law that gifted man his expressiveness and art. So the role of nature will allow total freedom of speech to prevail over the freedom to curtail it. No mundane man has the authority to impose a filter on the works of an expressive soul.

The need for censorship never arises if all forms of art are seen in the context of true expression. If we all learn to respect each and every one's philosophy, religion and political beliefs, we would never have an ego which can get hurt merely by a piece of art. The moment when each and every human being learns to respect each other human being, at the highest rational plane, will be the moment when true progress is achieved. In such a world, there will never have to be a censor or a restriction because the purpose of art is itself precisely understood there.

I drifted back from my thoughtful little siesta. A daily newspaper page fluttered in front of me. The news struck me in coincidence: Religious outfit forces artist Eleena Banik to take the objectionable painting off exhibition at Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai".

A smile was all that I could respond to that news with. That newspaper page tenderly reminded me of a hard fact; the more the things seem to change, the more they remain the same!

-Vishnu Chandrasenan

AN EYE FOR AN EYE

Perched on my little balcony and looking at the infinite night sky, my mind wandered. I thought how small we are; probably a dot in the entire universe. But what perplexed me was the way our mental plane of existence behaves, forgetting the fact that we are a funny little living dot in this eternity. 

What saddens me is how we retaliate angrily at each and every little trigger that someone around us offer. Our mind, these days, is programmed to pounce back at anyone who does harm to us. And ridiculously, we want the same magnitude of harm to be offered back, be it in words or in action. 

Why have we lost the tender act of forgiveness? Why do we always retaliate in the same way as others do to us? Why do we always want to hurt a person who knowingly or unknowingly may have hurt us emotionally? 

Gandhiji once pointed that retaliation doesn't demand courage but it’s the act of forgiveness that demands courage. When we forgive the people that have hurt us, our hatred towards them decreases and love for them increases. When we forgive them again and again, our love towards them reaches a point that it can never be defeated by an action or word from them that will hurt or harm us in future. Thereafter the whole idea of revenge will cease to exist and will die a natural death! 

My mind resonated by the fact that how great a soul he was and how blessed we are to be from a land where this great man walked in flesh and blood. 

Just then a gust of cold night breeze hit my face, as if it agreed in response to what I thought. The infinite night sky beckoned, showing me how silly we were to always retaliate with ‘an eye for an eye, never realizing that one day it can make the whole world blind.’ I realized that nature was a great teacher; to behold the star studded night sky and then learn a lesson from it!