Deamon Haunted World

* Did anyone know which was the biggest trading market in the world? It’s the forex market. It trades on currencies, is a round the clock market with approx. daily trade of 5 Trillion USD.

* Did anyone know that Chicago Mercantile Exchange trades on weather futures i.e it trades bonds wherein returns are guarenteed if it rains in next 6 months.

We seem to get so involved what we do day in and day out that we completely ignore how things are moving around us. What new ideas have evolved, how people are thinking innovative ways to improve processes around us. Are we just concentrating on how to climb corporate ladder rather than THINK so 10-15 years down the line we look back and say - “hey, before I came they did this thing very badly”. Even if not in our professional life, but did we ever try to observe how our moms cook food and if there is something to be improved in kitchen to make things easier - location of utensils, placement of cupboards and drawers, or how best to use a pressure cooker and save on feul. Maybe we all have to…..think different.

I wonder if anyone has read Ruskin Bond. He writes stories, mostly about The Raj and mostly scary stories. His Omnibus II has quite a lot on ghosts, nightmares, and haunted houses. England as a country is known for it’s haunted mansions - magnificant manors haunted by previous owners. When the brits came to India, they seem to have found a perfect match with the sub continent having it’s own share of superstitions and myths. Considering that 19th century was not the bset of times for Indian folks as far as education is concerned, the brits had a lot of scary stories to write home about. Due to difficulties in authenticating them, we don’t know if they are really true of hold any good. But that surely must have been exciting time. The sub continent with no major cities, hot, dusty, sultry nights with local folklores and superstitions. The non availability of any modern facilities of light would have contributed to the whole effect. So, there you have - few officers of the british empire controlling number of villages under them, scores of people with own traditions and religion and these officers with there own ideas of haunted houses and strange incidents. Romance indeed !!!!!!

The title of this blog is taken from work of Carl Sagan - Demon-Haunted World. Sagan needs no introduction, being one of the foremost authors on popular science. The book aims at analyzing popular beliefs through history and cultures and get a scentific hold on many of them. I dare not say if he is right or wrong, or the premise that there is nothing except brute reasoning to everything. However, I have observed that even in the age we live in, we have not been able to develop an intrinsic ability to observe things with scientific temper. Most of us tend to be influenced by emotions and rhetoric, surrendering our ability to reason and argue. Our faith in a debate of reason and logic is the ultimate casualty. This I say due to sudden spurt of clash of nation in our present geo political environment and not just between nations within nations even in our city and community.

Are we missing something….somewhere ?

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