· stillpoint ·

Audio version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oE6odCqKtZaKsiUcxrPc1sgO7kRFTLZB/view?usp=drivesdk In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Lewis and Clarke to find a waterway to the Pacific coast.   They were to find the source of the Mississippi and then portage their canoes over the watershed and sail down a westward flowing stream all the way to the Pacific Ocean.   After many struggles and setbacks they did indeed find the source of the Mississippi.    Merriweather Lewis then climbed up the Limbhi pass eager to see what lay beyond and hopefully a passageway to the Pacific.   .Instead ahead of him for hundreds of miles and high into the sky lay the snowcapped peaks of the Rockie mountains.    With that inimitable early pioneering attitude he wrote in his journal ‘And so we proceeded on’. They were now travelling off the map, the information they had was hopelessly inadequate and bore little resemblance to what actually was in fr...

Ballpark Audio version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q7jb6aoaWFTHCoXAZ4rfD23BAEZq-Pr3/view?usp=drivesdk One of the recurring themes in the various Star Trek manifestations has been situations where the   crew come in contact with a more primitive civilisation..   In such a scenario it is imperative that the crew do nothing that will distort the existing paradigm and interfere with the natural process of development (or otherwise ) of the culture.    The view of the world that they have is based on their experience and does not take into account technology and worlds that they do not know exist.    Back to the infamous, ‘they don’t know what they don’t know’.     The sudden imposition of overwhelming technology, knowledge, information of other species on other planets etc could be a violation of their view of reality and hence their social fabric.   The have developed rules, intricate social games, stories, language and...

The Anchor and the kite Audio version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ay0oSxDTucBIPtgXIUohSuaHtw6zD_h0/view?usp=drivesdk The late afternoon breeze brought a much needed coolness to where we lived not far from the edge of the Thar desert in NW India.   The remaining heat in the air had a scent, almost as if the baking of the air was now complete and you could smell it was well done.    The sand was warm but no longer hot and my four year old feet could run bare on its’ surface released until nightfall.    It was a magical time, people sitting on their doorsteps, the line of smoke from cooking fires - a timeless feature from Afghanistan to Burma-, father’s returning tired from the field and the cattle being brought in.    It was also the time for kite flying and one of my earliest memories is of the crispy, crackling texture of a small kite made of purple crepe paper tied onto four twigs, with a long piece of twine.    My friends...