Live Sessions

✍🏻 Post 17 | 30 September '26 💭 Topic — Science ──────────── 🧠 How does the brain understand language? We hear language… but in the background, the brain is doing a lot more than we realize! 👂 When someone speaks, their voice first reaches the ear. The ear converts sound into neural signals, and these signals travel to the auditory areas of the brain. There, the brain starts recognizing patterns in the sound. 🔤 After that, the brain links these sounds to the smallest units of language, called phonemes (sound-units). Then it connects these phonemes to familiar words and their meanings. This is not the job of just one part, but of a whole network of interconnected regions in the brain. 🧩 For example, if someone says, “Close the door.” the brain doesn’t just recognize separate words like “door” and “close.” It puts the entire sentence together and understands its meaning. Understanding language involves the temporal, frontal, and other brain regions working together. ⚡ What’s even more interesting is that the brain doesn’t just create meaning after hearing something; it also predicts what might come next. Research shows that while we are understanding language, our brain can predict incoming information based on the context and our past linguistic experience. 🔬 So if someone begins a sentence with, “Today the weather is very…”, your brain has already started preparing possible next words. When the next word is different from what was expected, a change can be seen in the brain’s electrical activity. To study this, scientists look at signals such as the N400. 🧠 Two major pathways in the brain are also discussed in relation to language understanding. The ventral stream is crucial for linking sound to meaning, while the dorsal stream helps connect sound with the movements involved in speaking. 📖 In other words, we don’t understand a language just by memorizing words. Our brain combines sound, words, context, past linguistic experience, and prediction to construct meaning. 💭 And this is where a deeper question arises from within science itself. We hear what someone says—but do we really understand it exactly as it is? Or do our past experiences, our beliefs, and our expectations also take part in constructing that meaning? ❓ So next time someone says something, ask yourself: Did I truly listen to what they said, or did I interpret it according to my old understanding? 1️⃣ What did I hear? 2️⃣ What meaning did I give it? 3️⃣ Were the two really the same? Source: "Nature Reviews Psychology — Prediction in Language Comprehension" https://reference-url-citation.invalid/5

26–27 September | Goa Live Session 🌿 I had the opportunity to attend the live session held in Goa on 26th and 27th September. From the morning activities through the entire session, it felt as if, along with doing things on the outside, a lot was opening up within. The biggest thing was that we got a chance to really see our ego and catch it in action. Some experiences were such that it’s hard to put them fully into words; I can only say it felt as if many inner layers just kept unfolding. 🪞 In one of the activities on the second day, our group was the last one in the sequence. All other groups had already discussed different news items and topics from the newspapers, and practically every issue had been covered. Immediately a thought arose within us: “When everyone else has already said everything, what is the need for us to present now?” The mind had quickly found a way to possibly escape. 😄 Then it was announced that all remaining groups would have to give their presentations. Again we thought, “It’s already quite late now, maybe our turn won’t come… we might be spared.” But even here, another trick of the ego became very clear, it finds ways to protect itself in every situation. From the outside it looked like a very small matter, but when we looked within, we saw how subtly this desire to escape keeps operating. Throughout the session, the same realization kept recurring: the ego is not some distant thing; it appears right in our little thoughts, our attempts to avoid, our craving for comfort, and our ways of slipping out of situations. And perhaps this is the greatest beauty of a live session, you are not just there to listen; you are there to watch yourself unfold right in front of you. ❤️ I’ve learned a lot from online sessions, but the experience of a live session is of a completely different order. The collective energy of the people sitting together, your own responses during the activities, and your hidden tricks suddenly coming to the surface, you get to see all of this as it is actually happening. To those who haven’t yet attended a live session, I would only like to say this: do step forward at least once, come and sit in front of Acharya Ji in a live session. 🙏 What you hear there is important, but even more important is what you get to see within yourself. It is difficult to explain this in words; it can only be truly known by living it yourself. ❤️ For me, it wasn’t just a two-day event. It was an opportunity to see my own ego a little more clearly, to catch my own tricks, and to watch many inner layers opening up. What opened up and what was seen in the live session cannot really be contained in mere words. All I can say is: don’t just hear about this experience, live it once for yourself. 🌸🙏

✍🏻 Post 19 | 29 September ’26 💭 Topic — Geography ──────── ⚖️ Why does a person’s weight become a bit lighter at the equator? Suppose your weight is 70 kilos. But if you were picked up from the pole and made to stand on the equator, would your weight remain exactly the same? 🤔 No. There you would be about 350 grams lighter. Why does your weight change just by changing your location on Earth? 🌍 There are two reasons behind this. First: Earth’s rotation. The Earth is constantly rotating on its axis. At the equator, the surface of the Earth is moving at a speed of about 1,670 km/h. Because of this rotation, an outward effect is produced, which slightly reduces the effect of gravity. At the poles, the rotational speed is almost zero, so this effect is practically negligible there. Second: The Earth is not a perfect sphere. 🌍 The Earth bulges slightly at the equator and is slightly flattened at the poles. So a person standing at the equator is about 21 km farther from the center of the Earth than a person standing at the pole. And gravity decreases as distance increases. ⚖️ In other words, at the equator two effects work in the same direction: 🔄 The Earth’s rotation slightly reduces the effect of gravity. 📏 Being farther from the Earth’s center also makes gravity a bit weaker. 🚀 This rotational speed is also useful in rocket launches. When a rocket is launched from near the equator, it gets extra initial speed from the Earth’s rotation. 🪞 But there is one more subtle point here that is worth noticing. What we consider the most our own, what we hold with the strongest sense of “me,” is our body. And notice this: even the state of the body is not fixed. 🌍 The place changed, and the weight changed. That means the condition of what we call “mine” also depends on the condition of nature. Change your location on Earth, and the weight of the body changes. So then, where is the body separate from nature? 🌍 The Earth is not separate. The body is not separate. Nature is not separate. But what does the ego do? It draws a dividing line: “This is me.” “And this is nature.” It takes the body to be its own and then sees nature as something other than itself. But this small observation shows us something else. The very body we cling to the most as “I” is changing along with nature. When nature’s location changes, the body’s condition changes. Its weight changes. 🌍 Which means we are not some separate entity standing apart from nature. What is the deepest insight that emerges from this whole example? A. The body is an independent unit, separate from nature B. The state of the body is influenced by nature’s conditions C. The body depends only on Earth’s gravity D. Changing place brings no real change in the body E. The body and nature are not separate; the dividing line belongs to the ego. Source: https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/why-dont-we-weigh-more-at-the-poles-than-we-do-at-the-equator

✍🏻 Post 16 | 1 October '26 💭 Theme — Polity and Administration ──────────── 🏛️ 100 years of UPSC: Just an exam, or something far more? We usually know UPSC as an extremely difficult examination. But the Constitution did not create it merely to conduct an exam. 📜 Today UPSC completes 100 years. On 1 October 1926, India’s first Public Service Commission was established. Today, Article 315 of the Constitution provides for Public Service Commissions for the Union and the States. ⚖️ Along with conducting examinations for recruitment, UPSC also gives advice on appointments, promotions, and certain disciplinary matters. The Constitution also has special provisions about the tenure and removal of its members, so that the recruitment process for public services can remain at a sufficient distance from the direct control of the political executive. In other words, democracy does not run only on the hope of getting good officers. It also creates institutions that make the system less dependent on the wishes of any one individual or government. Every year, approximately 1 million (10 lakh) candidates apply for the UPSC Civil Services Examination, out of which around 1,000 candidates are finally selected. Consequently, the final success rate of the exam stands at about 0.1%. Due to such a low success rate, questions and doubts regarding the aspirants of this examination have surfaced from time to time. 🧑‍💼 After all, those who are selected into these services bear major responsibilities such as implementing policies on the ground, managing public resources, and making decisions in difficult situations. 🪞 But for a position for which selection is done with such care, why is it that we want that position? Is the attraction in that responsibility, where you must invest your time and abilities in public interest? Or in the power, prestige, and identity that come along with the post? Wanting the power of a position and wanting the responsibility of that position are not the same thing. The higher the post, the more necessary it becomes to ask whether we are drawn to its work itself, or to the elevated image of ourselves that it gives us. This question is not limited only to UPSC. We do want leadership and authority, but do we, with the same eagerness, want the accountability, tough decisions, and burden of service that come with them? ❓ If a responsibility came with no prestige at all, would you still choose it with the same enthusiasm? 🔗 Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/education/upsc-turns-100-commission-pushes-exam-reforms-to-assess-reasoning-spontaneous-thinking-10901853/

✍🏻 Post 1 | 1 October '26 💭 Topic — Indian Current Affairs ────────── 💍 Do Low Divorce Rates Really Mean Stronger Relationships? 🏛️ Recently, the Allahabad High Court granted protection to a couple who, after getting divorced by mutual consent, had married each other again. They now have two children as well. During the hearing of this case, the court remarked that marriage should not be taken lightly. ❓ But this raises another question: Do fewer divorces by themselves prove that marriages and families are stronger? 🇮🇳 In India, the low divorce rate is often linked to the supposed strength of the family. On the other hand, in England and Wales, 1,05,002 divorces were recorded in 2025, and among opposite-sex married people, the divorce rate was 8.4 per 1,000. However, direct comparison of statistics from different countries must be done cautiously, and the very basis of marriage is certainly open to doubt. 🔎 The real question is not just how many marriages broke, but also: on what basis have the marriages that survived actually continued? ⚠️ Violence within marriage is a harsh reality in India. According to the National Family Health Survey-5, among ever-married women aged 18–49, about 29% reported having experienced physical or sexual violence by their husbands at some point. Among rural women this was about 31%, and among urban women 25%. 🏠 Inequality within marriage is not limited to violence alone. According to the Time Use Survey 2024, 83.1% of women aged 15–59 participated in domestic services on a typical day, while among men this figure was 26.4%. 📚 A 2026 study examined gender discrimination, attitudes towards marriage, and perceived freedom in decision-making among 514 unmarried Indian women aged 18–30. It found that gender discrimination was negatively associated with better life conditions, whereas perceived freedom in decision-making and awareness were positively associated. 📌 So, fewer divorces do not mean that every marriage is successful. Divorce is a visible legal statistic; the pain, inequality, or pressure going on within a relationship cannot be measured simply by the number of divorces. 🪞 The question is not just whether the marriage stayed intact or broke. The question is: on what basis is the marriage being sustained? 🤝 If two people are together only because of society, children, economic dependence, social status, or fear, can the mere continuity of such a relationship really be called success? 🗣️ Wherever there is a problem, it should first be understood, discussed, and sincerely addressed. But if improvement is not possible, then hiding ongoing suffering under the blanket of the idea that “the marriage must not break” is not a solution. 🌱 The true measure of a woman’s freedom is not simply whether she is married or divorced. The real question is: Can she, without fear or pressure, make decisions about her life, education, work, marriage, and relationships? 📚 Sources: TOI https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/marriage-should-notbe-taken-lightly-hc/articleshow/134573515.cms https://www.mospi.gov.in/uploads/publications_reports/publications_reports1780040415321_0624fb13-fb47-40bc-b470-7c7e9635c3ef_PLFS_2025_F_REV_29052026.pdf

Today is a bit special for me, because since February, whatever I was trying to understand by listening to Acharya Ji is no longer limited to just hearing or thinking about it—I’ve started to actually feel it in my life. Acharya Ji, I’ve understood something very deeply: a woman’s empowerment is not just in outer achievements, but in being honest towards the truth, in understanding herself, and in continuously working on herself. Maybe that’s why going to the gym today didn’t feel like just a workout. It felt like a small part of that same journey of working not only on my body, but also on my mind and my life. Change doesn’t come all of a sudden, but when your way of thinking begins to shift and you start to see its effect within yourself, that feeling truly becomes very special.

✍🏻 Post 13 | 1 October '26 💭 Topic — Technology / AI ──────────── 🤖 America creates a new command for war... will machines fight the battles now? On 30 September 2026, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the creation of the Autonomous Warfare Command (AUTOWARCOM). This will be a four-star military command, with the authority to develop and deploy AI, drone, and robotic warfare systems on a large scale across different branches of the US military. The target is to have it established by 1 October 2027. 🛩️ Its focus will be: 🤖 AI-based military systems 🛩️ Drones and unmanned aircraft 🐝 Large numbers of low-cost drones and drone swarms 🚙 Autonomous ground and robotic systems 🎯 Systems that help in finding, tracking, and attacking targets ❓ Why did America feel the need to create such a separate command? The war in Ukraine has shown that relatively cheap drones can challenge expensive weapons and conventional military systems on the battlefield. That is why the US military is now moving away from relying only on a small number of extremely expensive weapons, and towards deploying large numbers of low-cost, autonomous systems along with high-capability weapons. Hegseth framed this as the need for both “quality and quantity.” Here the real question moves away from technology and comes back to war itself. ⚔️ Weapons of war change, ways of fighting change, but do we ever look at why war is “needed” in the first place? On one hand, human beings struggle to protect their existence, identity, and interests. On the other hand, that very struggle creates more destruction, fear, and insecurity. The basic tendency of the ego is self- preservation. When that ego grows beyond the individual and becomes the identity of a nation, an ideology, or a power structure, then its self-protection takes the shape of war. 🤖 Technology does not end this tendency. It only places new and more powerful tools in its hands. Today the question should not only be how autonomously machines can fight a war. The question must also be: why is the human being carrying within herself that inner conflict for which she has to keep inventing new weapons? Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/pentagon-creates-autowarcom-expand-ai-drone-capabilities-2026-09-30/

Earlier, my journey was confined; now Acharya Ji has given me a limitless journey. In this openness there is freedom, liberation, and an impartial vision, one that teaches me to see clearly, not through someone else’s eyes, but to see for myself. Now living itself is a meeting with my own Self. All this has happened because of Acharya Ji. It is Acharya Ji who has given us that vision which has opened up a vast sky before us. Acharya Ji, even though our journey with you is full of struggle, it is this very struggle that gives us something real, something that is truly our own, pure and authentic; not borrowed from anyone, not a second-hand vision given by someone else. This struggle too is full of joy. When there is struggle, it feels like there is life, that we are truly living. Otherwise, without struggle, we are dying every moment. Where there is struggle, there is life. Where there is no struggle, it is as if there is no life at all. It is this very struggle that keeps us alive from within. This very open journey is what leads us back to ourselves. 🙌🙌🪔🙌🙌

✍🏻 Post 14 | 30 September '26 💭 Topic — Human Excellence ────────── 📚 Toru Dutt: the young woman who created her literary world between two cultures We often let age, language, and circumstances define the limits of our abilities. But the life of a young Indian woman from the 19th century gives us a chance to look at these limits in a new way. 📖 Toru Dutt was born in 1856 in Calcutta, into an educated Bengali family. While being educated at home, she learned Bengali, English, and French, and later went on to study Sanskrit. At just 13, she went to Europe with her family. In France, she learned French, and in England she became acquainted with the world of English literature and academia. 🇫🇷 She translated French poems into English. In 1876, her book A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields was published, containing 165 poems. At first it did not receive much attention, but later it was noticed in literary circles and went through several editions. 🪶 Alongside this, she remained oriented toward Indian literature and Sanskrit narratives. In her book Hindustan Ki Prachin Gathayen Aur Kinvadantiyan, she presented Indian stories such as Savitri, Sita, Lakshman, Dhruv, and Prahlad through English poetry. This collection was published posthumously in 1882. 📚 She was not limited to being just a poet and translator. She wrote a novel in French titled Arvers Ki Yuvati Ki Diary and was working in English on Bianca Ya Yuva Spani Yuvati, which remained unfinished. 🕯️ She passed away on 30 August 1877 at only 21 years of age. During her lifetime, just one of her books was published; many of her important works came to light only after her death. 🌱 In such a short life, she brought French literature into English, rendered Indian narratives into English verse, and wrote in multiple languages herself. Her life was brief, but the direction of her literary journey was anything but narrow. ⚡ And this is where her story touches our own lives. We often say, “This isn’t my language,” “This field is not for me,” “I’m not old enough yet.” Gradually, these lines become our identity, and we begin to restrict our possibilities based on them. This is exactly where the ego, in defending the identity it has constructed, draws boundaries around us. 🌱 But Toru Dutt’s life shows that instead of turning identity into a boundary, we can turn it into a medium for learning. By embracing different languages and cultures, she expanded the scope of her own possibilities. ❓ In your life, which limits have truly been imposed by circumstances, and which limits have you accepted simply because of some fixed notion you hold about yourself? 🔗 Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toru_Dutt https://hindi.feminisminindia.com/2021/12/13/toru-dutt-translator-and-writer-profile-hindi/

✍🏻 Post 23 | 30 September '26 💭 Topic — Science ─────── 💊 Why do antibiotics start becoming ineffective again and again? 🦠 When there is a bacterial illness, we are given an antibiotic. The first time, it works. But after some time, the same medicine, or another similar one, doesn’t work as well. It’s as if the disease has “recognized” the medicine. Does this really happen? 🔬 In any large population of bacteria, even without any particular reason, there are already some bacteria on which a particular drug has very little effect. When that medicine is given, it kills the drug-sensitive bacteria (the ones that are affected by the medicine), but the resistant bacteria, now without any competition, begin to multiply rapidly. So, mainly, the drug does not make the bacteria resistant, it selects those which were already resistant. (Some bacteria can indeed become resistant under drug pressure, through new mutations or by exchanging genes with each other, but selection is still the primary mechanism.) ⚠️ This is called antimicrobial resistance (AMR). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), taking antibiotics when they are not needed, or taking the wrong kind of antibiotic, is a major cause of this. In other words, the problem lies not only in the bacteria, but also in the way we use medicines. 📊 According to WHO, in 2023, one in every six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections worldwide was already resistant to commonly used antibiotics, and this figure is increasing every year. If this trend continues, by 2035 it is estimated that around 412 billion dollars a year will be spent just on treating resistant infections, and an additional 443 billion dollars a year will be lost in productivity. 🔎 That means the bacteria that are most widespread today have spread so much because we kept repeating the same situation taking medicines even when there was no real need, or taking the wrong medicine, which kept wiping out the drug-sensitive part of the population, while the resistant part kept growing unchecked. 🪞 You can see this same habit directly in your own life. We get a fever, a slight sore throat, or feel a bit weak in the body and very often we immediately take a pill, without even knowing what the real cause is. Sleep is incomplete, diet is disturbed, fatigue has piled up, or the body simply needs some rest, pausing to look at all this feels slow and uncomfortable. Medicine gives quick relief, so there seems to be no need to go into the cause. 🧩 The ego wants to remove discomfort immediately; it does not want to understand the cause. If any symptom shows up, quickly suppressing it is a relief for the ego, because for that duration it avoids both the discomfort and the need to look at why something keeps going wrong again and again in the body or in life. ❓ Whenever something goes wrong again and again in the body or the mind, do you want to go to the root cause, or do you just want to get rid of it as quickly as possible? 🔗 Source: Antimicrobial resistance https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance

✍🏻 Post 1 | 30 September ‘26 💭 Topic — Indian Current Affairs ────────── 🌍 Maharashtra’s drought — is the crisis only about lack of rain? 🌾 When the rains stop, it’s not just the fields that dry up. Seeds, crops, the farmer’s income, debt, and the entire family’s economy are affected. This year in Maharashtra, that’s exactly the story. The Maharashtra government has declared 265 out of the state’s 358 talukas, that is, about 74% of talukas, as drought-affected. By 18 September, the state had received 18.8% less rainfall than normal. 📉 Against the normal monsoon rainfall of around 932.3 mm, the state received about 755.9 mm. But the issue is not just the total amount of rainfall. Uneven distribution of rain and long dry spells further increase the risks for agriculture. 🚜 After the drought, the administration has ordered assessments of crop loss. The damage will be recorded through panchnamas, photographs, and GPS coordinates. Further assistance will be decided on this basis. 💧 Relief measures include restructuring of agricultural loans, relief in loan recovery, waiver of land revenue, concessions on electricity for agricultural pumps, provision of water tankers as needed, and arrangements for food grains and cattle fodder. Rules under the employment guarantee scheme have also been relaxed. 🙏 These steps are necessary. A farmer trapped in crisis must receive immediate relief. But this is exactly where a bigger question arises. Is it enough to give relief after people are affected, or do we also need to understand the growing vulnerability that keeps making such crises more serious again and again? 🌍 There has always been natural variability in the climate. Ocean conditions, atmospheric processes, and other natural factors can influence the monsoon and drought in any given year. But can the rise in extreme weather events in recent years be explained only through natural variability? 📊 According to the IPCC, human-induced greenhouse gas emissions have increased global temperatures and affected the risk and intensity of many extreme weather events. In some regions, human-induced climate change has also increased the likelihood or severity of agricultural and ecological droughts. So the question is not just “natural changes or human activities?” The question is also: when we already know the role of human-induced climate change, why do our activities keep increasing this risk further? 🧠 Why does behaviour not change even when information is available? Here, looking only at outer systems is not enough. 🎭 The basic movement of the ego is: “I am not complete yet, I need something more.” When the ‘I’ links its completeness to objects, comforts, and achievements, consumption no longer remains just a means to meet needs. It becomes a tool to complete that incomplete ‘I’. ♻️ Then a whole cycle is formed: incompleteness → greater desire → greater consumption → greater production → greater energy use → greater emissions → changing climate → increasing insecurity. And in the face of insecurity, we again want more resources. ❓ So are post-drought relief and improvements in administration enough? Or do we also need to look, at the individual level, at that movement of “I need more” which constantly drives our collective lifestyle? 🔗 Sources: The Hindu https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/maharashtra/why-has-maharashtra-declared-drought-in-265-talukas-and-what-do-farmers-get-explained/article71522489.ece 📚 IPCC - AR6 Synthesis Report https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/longer-report

✍🏻 Post 7 | 29 September '26 💭 Topic — Movies/Songs/Books/Art ──────────── 🏹 What is called victory? ⚔️ A battle is on. On one side there is the noise of triumph, on the other, wounds on the body. 🌍 The world will probably call the one a victor who is holding the flag of victory at the end. But is victory always what appears on the outside? 📖 In Rashmirathi by Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’, the same question stands before Karna. Even when circumstances have turned against him, he does not see defeat merely in terms of the final outcome. 📝 “Vijay, kya janiye, basti kahaan hai?” For Karna, victory is not just about winning the war. He also sees victory in that struggle where a person stands for a higher purpose, even if the outer world considers him defeated. 🪞 The poem holds up a mirror to us. ❓ In our own lives, what do we call victory? 💰 Having enough means for enjoyment, 🏠 getting our life ‘settled’, 📈 everything running smoothly, home going fine, business going well… But if, to obtain these, we mortgage our own discretion, if we suppress the voice of our understanding, then outer success can also become an inner defeat. 🏆 The ego demands victory. The ego asks, ❝Do people see me as a winner or not?❞ 🧭 But the question of consciousness is something else: ❝The life I am winning, is it really worth living?❞ ⚔️ The purpose of every struggle is not to defeat others. Sometimes we have to struggle so that we can defeat the slavery within ourselves. Then an outer defeat can also become an inner victory. 🏹 The question of victory is not: who remained standing in the end. ❓ The question is: while you remained standing, what did you become? 🗳️ Based on the post, what can truly be called real victory? A. When the whole world accepts us as a winner. B. When we defeat others in every struggle. C. When we do not compromise our discretion for outer success. D. When no struggle is left in life at all. Source: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/thodee-jaan-dikhaao-kabhee-lalakaar-lagaao-1_b956ba0

One year ago today, my dream of seeing Acharya Ji live came true. ❤️ My home was about 200 km away from Hyderabad, so I arrived early by train and reached the venue around 4:00 PM. The session was scheduled to start at 7:00 PM. I was there with my cousin, and he told me, “Let’s go to a hotel, freshen up, and come back later.” But I didn’t want to leave the venue because I thought that if Acharya Ji arrived early, I might miss the chance to see him from close. So, I stood there alone outside the venue for three hours, hoping that I could see Acharya Ji up close. And, in the end, my wish came true. 😄❤️ A memory I’ll always cherish.

✍🏻 Post 3 | 30 September '26 💭 Topic — Movies/Songs/Books/Art ──────────── 🎬 Ek Doctor Ki Maut: When your very achievement turns against you! Tapan Sinha’s 1990 film Ek Doctor Ki Maut is the story of Dr. Dipankar Roy. He works as a doctor in a government hospital, but his real passion lies in the research he carries out in his small private laboratory. 🧪 For years he works on developing a vaccine for leprosy. Days in the hospital job, nights in the lab. Relentless experiments. Failures. Then more experiments. 🔬 The price he pays for this work is not just his sleep. His wife Seema is also troubled by the way he lives. Dipankar becomes so absorbed in his research that even his marriage begins to suffer. Yet, slowly, Seema starts to understand the importance of his work and stands by him. At last, after years of effort, Dipankar succeeds in his research. 📰 News of his discovery comes out. The name of a doctor who had so far remained largely unknown suddenly comes into the spotlight. The media picks up the story, and Dipankar begins to receive international attention. But from here, the other face of the story appears. 😞 The very achievement for which he should have received support and encouragement starts becoming a source of trouble for him. Health Department officials demand answers from him. He is scolded for letting the news reach the press and is ordered to report to senior authorities. 👨🏻‍⚕️ Some of his colleagues, instead of standing with him, begin to question his achievement. On one side there are people like Dr. Kundu and his wife who support him, but on the other side, the pressure from the department keeps mounting. An important letter that arrives from abroad is even suppressed, and Dipankar is transferred to a far-off village. And then the story hits him with yet another blow. Two American scientists start getting credit for the same kind of discovery. The discovery for which Dipankar has poured out his life now seems to be slipping away from his hands. At this point, the film is no longer just the story of one scientist. It turns into a question: When a person’s achievement challenges the established system’s identity, position, and prestige, what does that system do with him? And then the real question comes to the surface… ❓ What is a “system” actually made of? The person who wants position, who wants to protect his own authority, who wants credit, who is afraid of losing his prestige, when that very person becomes part of a mechanism, does his individual identity not itself turn into the form of that mechanism? ❓ Have you too ever seen someone else move ahead and felt within yourself the same unease that we see inside the system in this film? Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ek_Doctor_Ki_Maut

✍🏻 Post 27 | 28 September '26 💭 Topic — Geography ────────── ⛰️ Why do landslides occur, and where is the biggest risk in India? 🌧️ In July 2026, a landslide occurred on the Himkoti route in the Trikuta hills of Reasi district, Jammu & Kashmir, after heavy rainfall. Debris came down on the track and the battery-car service had to be suspended for some time. 👉 This incident shows how quickly rain and slope instability can turn into a problem in hilly regions. 🌍 A landslide occurs when soil, rock, or debris on a slope begins to move downward under the force of gravity. Heavy rainfall is a major trigger. Water seeps into the soil, increases its weight, and in many situations weakens its grip. Erosion at the base of a slope by a river or stream can also make it unstable. 🏔️ The Himalayas are particularly vulnerable to this hazard. They are a young and geologically active mountain system. The collision between the Indian and Eurasian plates is still ongoing. As a result, many slopes here are geologically unstable. Events like heavy rainfall and earthquakes can further weaken such slopes. 📍 In India, around 4.2 lakh sq km of area, that is, about 12.6% of the land (excluding snow-covered regions), is considered prone to landslides. This includes the northeastern Himalayas, northwestern Himalayas, the Western Ghats and the Konkan hills, as well as the Araku region. 🛣️ The threat is not only natural. Cutting into mountains for road construction, mining, unplanned buildings, removal of trees and vegetation, and altering natural drainage patterns can all affect slope stability. 📊 In 2026, the central government too identified both climate change and human activities as key factors behind the increasing risks of extreme rainfall, landslides, and floods in Himalayan regions. 🌳 Trees are not a magical protective shield, but the roots of vegetation help bind the soil and reduce surface erosion. That is why simply cutting the mountain and then planting a few trees is not an adequate solution. The slope, water, vegetation, and construction all four have to be understood together. 🛰️ ISRO’s Landslide Atlas has compiled a database of about 80,000 landslides in India between 1998 and 2022, covering vulnerable regions across 17 states and 2 union territories in the Himalayas and the Western Ghats. 🪞 The ego considers its own desire sufficient justification. The more it gets, the more it wants. For it, nature is no longer life, but an object of consumption. Forests, mountains, rivers, land all become means to feed its ever-growing appetite. 🌱 Before talking about saving nature, we must look at our own consumption. Because the problem is not only in the external systems. When the craving within is limitless, resources outside, no matter how abundant, keep falling short. And when a human being begins to truly look at their own desire, only then does this question arise: how much do I actually need? ❓ From the mountains, forests, and land from which I am drawing my comforts, have I ever seen who is paying the price for them? 🔗 source https://gsi.gov.in/landslide-hazard/ https://www.isro.gov.in/Landslide_Atlas_India.html

❤️ Seven weeks, 15 sessions, HIDP activities, volunteering, meeting new people and making new friends. 🏍️ While doing volunteering work these days, I reached lanes in Goa where I might never have gone otherwise, and discovered new paths as well. 😋 After many years, I also enjoyed ice cream (vegan). 😢 Finally, on Sunday, the Goa sessions came to a close, and when Acharya Ji was about to leave, not just my eyes but the eyes of many volunteers filled with tears. 🚶The Goa sessions may be on pause for a while, but this journey continues. (चरैवेति-चरैवेति)

🏸 A Small Win That Meant Much More😁 A day before the inter-college badminton competition, I found out that our college was participating. Just a few days before that, I had taken a break because of health issues, and my doctor had advised me not to play for the time being. I also didn’t have much practice, and my racket had broken, so honestly, I didn’t feel prepared at all.🙃 When my coach asked me to fill out the form, my first reaction was, “Sir, mujhe toh abhi itna aata bhi nahi hai. Main kaise jeetungi?” But he told me to fill it anyway😶, so I did. When I reached the tournament, I saw players who had been playing for one, two, even three years🥲. They looked experienced and really good, and naturally, I became nervous. Somewhere in my mind, I had already decided that I probably wouldn’t win. But when my turn came, I told myself something very simple: “Pooja, khel. Bas khel. Jeetegi ya nahi, it doesn't matter.😤 Bas khelne ke liye khel.” When the competition actually started, I didn't even have my own racket, so I took my coach's racket and stepped onto the court. I was still very nervous, but I kept telling myself, “Pooja , khel. Jeetegi, nahi jeetegi, doesn't matter. Bas khel.” I even told myself, “Haar gayi toh kya? Koi nahi. Achhe se haarenge.” 😅😤 And then I played. And somehow, I won.🎉🎉 Not by one or two points, which had happened with me so many times before, but by eight points.😯 What made it even more special was that this was my first-ever sports competition. In these two months of playing badminton, I had played many matches but had never actually won one. I had often lost by just one or two points. And today, in my first competition, against someone in a proper tournament setting, I won by eight points. Later, when I thought about the whole match, I realised that the biggest victory wasn't really those eight points. The real victory was that I played despite already being afraid of losing. I had compared myself with players who had years of experience and almost convinced myself that I couldn't do it. But instead of using that comparison as an excuse to step back, I decided to participate anyway.😌 I may not have gone ahead to the later rounds, especially because the more experienced players were selected further, but that doesn't take away from what happened today.🙂 I showed up. I played. I won my first match. And most importantly, I didn't let the fear of losing decide whether I would play or not.😁 Sometimes, we don't need to enter something with the confidence that “I will definitely win.” Sometimes, we just need enough courage to say, “I don't know what will happen, but I'll play.” And maybe that is where some of our most unexpected victories begin.😅 🏸✨ Thank you Acharya Ji

✍🏻 Post 14 | 28 September '26 💭 Topic — Science ───────── 🧬 How much does your body change in 10 years? We usually think of the body as one fixed thing that has an age: “I am X years old.” But if you go inside the body, the story isn’t that straightforward. Inside us, cells are constantly dying and being replaced. According to scientific estimates, about 330 billion cells are renewed in our body every single day. Roughly 90% of these are blood cells. In other words, different parts of the body change at very different speeds. ⏳ Many cells of the inner lining of the intestine are replaced in about 3–5 days. Red blood cells live for about 120 days. Liver cells change at a much slower rate, and their average lifespan has been found to be less than a few years. 🦴 Even bones are not fixed. Old bone tissue is constantly being removed and new tissue laid down. In adults, almost the entire skeleton goes through a process of remodeling over about 10 years. Fat cells too show about 10% renewal every year, so their average age is estimated to be around 10 years. At the same time, some cells change so slowly that they can stay with us for decades. ⏳ So there isn’t just one clock ticking inside us. In some places things change in days, elsewhere in months, in some places in years, and in others over decades. Yet, putting all of this together, we still keep saying the same thing: “My body.” The body we had ten years ago is almost not the same body we have now. A lot has changed inside it. The old went, the new came. Then that changed, and something else came. The body’s form kept changing, but the way we claim it as “mine” did not. ♻️ The body kept changing. The “mine” remained. And this isn’t just about the body. What feels like ours today can change tomorrow. The thing changes, its form changes, but we usually have no great difficulty in continuing to call it “mine.” So the thing changes, its form changes, but the claim of “mine-ness” sticks to its new form as well. 🔒 The ego does not make things its own because they truly belong to it. It has to make things its own, because by definition it is dependent on something other than itself. The moment “mine” drops, the thing in front is no longer just a changing object; the “I” tied to it also comes into question. 🪞 So what deserves to be looked at is not just how much the body has changed. The point is also this: ❓If the body is changing all the time, then whose compulsion is it to keep calling every changing thing “mine”? 🌐 Sources: Sender & Milo (2021), “The distribution of cellular turnover in the human body” — Nature Medicine https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01182-9 “Cell Turnover and Aging” — NCBI https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3221273/ Spalding et al. (2008), “Dynamics of fat cell turnover in humans” — Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06902 Bone Remodeling — NIAMS https://www.niams.nih.gov/health-topics/osteoporosis