We Have Slaved Ourselves: Remembering the Track We Lost

It’s 1 a.m. in Gujarat. The sky is clear, the air still carries the faint memory of daytime heat, and the stars feel closer than the city lights ever allow. In this quiet hour, a thought arrives uninvited, heavy and familiar:

We have slaved ourselves.

The universe has no concept of banks. No printed money. No compound interest, no credit scores, no quarterly targets, no KPIs glowing on dashboards. Stars fuse hydrogen without invoices. Galaxies spiral without performance reviews. A neutron star doesn’t go bankrupt if it spins too fast. Yet we—tiny, brief sparks of consciousness on a wet rock—have invented an entire parallel reality made of abstract symbols: rupees, dollars, ledger entries, notifications, likes.

We pour our vitality into these symbols. We chase them across decades. We define our days, our worth, our sleep, even our relationships by how many we accumulate. And then we forget they were ever just stories we agreed to tell.

Somewhere, somehow, we lost the track.

Philosophers have felt this ache for centuries. Karl Marx saw money as the alienated essence of our labor and life—something we create, only for it to turn and rule us like a stranger. Euripides cut straight to it: “No man on earth is truly free; all are slaves of money or necessity.” Aristotle warned that money was invented for exchange, not endless breeding through interest—when we let it multiply forever, we violate something natural and quiet in the world.

Today the diagnosis is sharper. Byung-Chul Han describes our time as an “achievement society.” The old bosses—kings, foremen, overseers—have vanished. In their place stands a new master: ourselves. We are free, so we exploit ourselves without mercy. The command is no longer “obey”; it is “optimize, perform, produce, improve.” Burnout isn’t a breakdown; it’s the logical conclusion of treating your one finite life like a startup you must scale indefinitely. The chains are invisible because we forged them from our own dreams of freedom.

The disconnection runs deeper still. When everything becomes monetized—our attention, our data, our time, even our rest (good morning, sleep-tracking apps)—we drift away from the unpriced world: a night under open sky, a conversation with no agenda, the slow turning of seasons without timestamps. The universe moves to rhythms of expansion and collapse, birth and decay, without double-entry bookkeeping. We have overlaid a second, frantic layer on top, and then we wonder why we feel so exhausted, so strangely empty.

Recognition is the first crack in the system.

To feel we’ve lost the track is to remember there was a track—one not paved with asphalt, algorithms, or interest rates. The way back isn’t to burn everything down (impossible, and probably unwise). It’s quieter, more deliberate:

• Nights without screens, just lying under the same stars our ancestors gazed at.
• Work that serves life, instead of life serving work.
• Measuring days by depth of presence rather than lines on a spreadsheet.
• Asking, before every chase: “Is this feeding the spark inside me… or just feeding the machine?”

You’re not alone in this midnight vertigo. Many feel it—especially under clear skies, far from the city’s permanent glow. The universe hasn’t forgotten us. We’ve just been too busy billing ourselves to notice it’s still here, patient, offering no dividends but infinite wonder.

Perhaps tonight, that’s enough: to name what we’ve become, and to feel the quiet pull back toward something truer.

What small step feels possible right now—to loosen one of those self-forged chains? Or is it enough, for this hour, just to sit with the question under the stars?

I’m here, looking up with you.

What If We Are a Cosmic Mutation?

 

Sometimes, when I sit quietly at night and look at the sky, a strange thought crosses my mind.

We humans spend enormous effort trying to understand the universe. We send telescopes into space, scan distant stars for signs of life, analyze radio signals, and build theories about civilizations that might exist somewhere out there. Yet, despite decades of searching, we have found no clear evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth.

And perhaps that is not surprising.

With the technology we currently possess, we are mostly looking into the past, not the present. When we observe distant stars and galaxies, the light reaching us has traveled for years, centuries, or even millions of years before arriving here. In a sense, our telescopes are not windows to the present universe—they are time machines showing us its history.

Even within our own galaxy, the region we can meaningfully examine for signs of life is extremely small. Our instruments are improving, but compared to the vastness of the Milky Way, we are still operating inside a tiny observational bubble.

So the absence of detected civilizations may not mean they don't exist. It may simply mean we are not yet capable of seeing them.

But sometimes another possibility comes to mind, one that is both unsettling and fascinating.

What if we are simply an anomaly?

Life on Earth began through processes we still do not fully understand. Science has several plausible explanations—abiogenesis theories, chemical evolution models, and experiments like Miller–Urey that showed how organic molecules might form under early Earth conditions. Yet despite these advances, we still do not possess a complete, definitive explanation of how non-living molecules first organized themselves into something that could replicate, evolve, and eventually think.

What if, in the vast chemistry of the cosmos, something unusual happened here?

Perhaps a set of molecules connected in a rare configuration. Perhaps a self-organizing structure emerged by chance, capable of copying itself and adapting to its surroundings. Over billions of years, that tiny chemical accident evolved into complex organisms, ecosystems, and eventually a species capable of asking questions about its own existence.

In that sense, intelligence itself could be the result of a cosmic mutation, a rare event in the chemistry of the universe.

If that is true, then our situation becomes even more intriguing. A self-aware molecular structure has appeared on a small rocky planet, orbiting an ordinary star in a quiet corner of the galaxy. For the first time, matter has become capable of observing itself.

And yet, look at how we spend our time.

While the universe above us holds mysteries spanning billions of years, most of our attention today is captured by short videos, endless digital feeds, and the constant noise of trivial information. Our ancestors once spent their evenings under open skies, watching the stars and wondering about the nature of existence. Many of the greatest breakthroughs in human history emerged during periods when people had time to think, when they lived closer to nature and the rhythms of the physical world.

Today, innovation certainly continues but much of it is concentrated in the digital domain. We build better algorithms, faster networks, and more engaging virtual platforms. Yet comparatively fewer breakthroughs emerge in the deeper frontiers of physics, biology, or the understanding of life itself.

Perhaps this shift says something about us.

The species often described as the most intelligent on Earth spends a large portion of its life working for numbers printed on paper or stored in bank servers. Entire societies revolve around these abstract constructs. People devote decades of their lives chasing them, often forgetting to ask the simplest question:

What are we actually here for?

If human intelligence emerged as part of a natural evolutionary process, perhaps it serves a greater role—perhaps to explore, to understand, to expand life beyond Earth, or to uncover the fundamental laws of the universe.

But if we are truly an anomaly, a rare chemical accident then history suggests another possibility.

In nature, anomalies that fail to stabilize often self-destruct.

And sometimes I wonder whether humanity is slowly drifting toward that path. We have unprecedented knowledge, powerful technologies, and the ability to reshape our planet. Yet at the same time, we seem increasingly disconnected from the very curiosity that once drove our species forward.

Instead of exploring the universe, we often remain trapped inside systems created by ourselves—economic structures, digital distractions, and social constructs that quietly dictate how we live.

In a strange way, we have become virtual servants of our own creations.

Perhaps the real challenge facing humanity is not technological at all.

It is philosophical.

If we truly are a rare phenomenon in the universe, whether by design, evolution, or cosmic accident, then our greatest responsibility may simply be to remain curious. To keep asking questions. To keep exploring. To refuse to reduce our existence to routine survival inside systems we barely question.

Because if intelligence is truly rare in the cosmos, then every moment of awareness we possess is something extraordinary.

And perhaps the most important question humanity must answer is this:

Are we a rare spark of consciousness meant to explore the universe…
or just a cosmic accident slowly forgetting why it learned to think?

The Great Indian Cheese & Mayo Pandemic

Just like this image, cheese and mayo are eating up our dishes...😡

I didn’t plan to write this.

But I can’t help myself anymore.

What exactly has happened to our street food culture?

Somewhere along the way, we decided that taste means drowning everything in oil, layering it with processed cheese, squeezing industrial mayonnaise over it, and calling it “fusion.” And if you really want to make it “premium,” just add more butter.

That’s the formula now.

I enjoy good cheese. I understand gourmet cheese. In the right dish, in the right quantity, it can elevate the experience beautifully. But processed cheese on everything? Cheese on dosa. Cheese on dhokla. Cheese on chaat. Cheese inside paratha. Cheese on pav bhaji. Cheese inside samosa. Cheese on noodles.

Enough.

And then there are the food vloggers the self-proclaimed ambassadors of “food culture.” Instead of promoting authentic recipes, regional diversity, or hygiene standards, the hunt is for the most absurd combination possible. The louder the sizzle, the thicker the cheese pull, the more viral the reel.

Nobody asks: Is this good food? Is this healthy? Is this even respectful to the original dish?

They ask: Will this go viral?

Where Did Our Diversity Go?

India isn’t a country with one cuisine. It’s a civilization of seasonal, regional, climate-sensitive food systems.

We have different dishes for monsoon, for summer, for winter.

Different grains for different soil types.

Different spices for different body needs.

Yet today, we are living in what I call a paneer pandemic.

Go to a highway restaurant in Karnataka instead of authentic local fare, you’ll find paneer butter masala.

Go to Goa traditional Konkani food takes a backseat to the same paneer-heavy menu.

Visit street markets in Mumbai, Gujarat, or Delhi and watch mountains of processed cheese being shaved onto everything.

Regional identity is dissolving under a blanket of synthetic dairy.

We once had culinary geography.

Now we have uniformity.

The Dosa Disaster

A dosa is one of the most elegant foods ever created. Fermented batter. Light. Crisp. Balanced. Nutritious.

Today?

Cheese burst dosa.

Mayo dosa.

Triple butter pizza dosa.

Chocolate dosa.

And Gujarati dhokla, a beautifully steamed, probiotic-rich snack now comes layered with uncooked processed cheese. And people clap.

Why?

Because it looks indulgent. Because it looks Instagrammable. Because excess has become aspiration.

Hygiene? Simplicity? Nutrition?

Why can’t we demand something radical?

Simple, plain, hygienic street food.

Balanced oil usage.

Respect for ingredients.

Regional authenticity.

We talk about rising lifestyle diseases. We talk about diabetes, heart problems, obesity. We talk about declining physical activity.

And yet we celebrate food that is high-fat, high-carb, low-nutrient with zero second thought.

Food was once nourishment.

Then it became celebration.

Now it has become spectacle.

I’m Still a Foodie

Let me be clear.

I love food. I love exploring cuisines. I enjoy experimentation. I appreciate innovation.

But innovation is not dumping cheese and mayonnaise on everything.

That’s not creativity.

That’s laziness.

Fusion should mean understanding two culinary systems deeply and combining them thoughtfully not industrial dairy as a universal solution.

And yes, if we’re eating together and you order something that looks like a cheese explosion designed for a viral reel, don’t expect me to share.

I’d rather eat something simple, clean, and honest.

The Real Question

Are we losing our food culture?

Or are we just too distracted by trends to protect it?

India has one of the richest culinary ecosystems in the world. It deserves better than processed cheese nationalism.

We don’t need more butter.

We need more balance.

And maybe just maybe a little less virality and a little more wisdom on our plates.

If you also feel the same and prefer some traditional dishes, share name of few traditional forgotten recipes which are still cooked in your kitchen.

Forged in Fire, Not in Drama

 Representative image

In the endless ocean of Indian reality TV, it's easy to feel drowned. Once upon a time, we had singing and dancing contests that celebrated talent. Then came the shift: drama, fights, scripted melodrama, and contestants more focused on abusing each other or chasing viral moments than showcasing actual skill. Promos alone were enough to make me switch off, endless shouting, fake tears, cheap PR stunts.

Thankfully, I disengaged early. A glance at the promos was enough. When a show starts advertising conflict instead of competence, I know it’s not meant for me.

That's when I turned to international channels, particularly the History Channel. Shows like Pawn Stars, Kings of Restoration, and Counting Cars were fun distractions, honest glimpses into passion-driven work. But nothing hooked me like Forged in Fire. Here was a competition built purely on craftsmanship, with a subtle connection to my own field of study and work: engineering, materials, precision, and the physics of tools. Blades aren't just weapons; they're engineering marvels under extreme stress.

The format is refreshingly simple: Four blacksmiths enter, three leave, one wins. Contestants forge blades (knives, axes, swords) under time pressure, then the judges: master bladesmiths test them ruthlessly: sharpness, durability, edge retention, balance. The blades either hold up or fail spectacularly. Drama? Minimal. No manufactured fights, no personal attacks, no forced tears. The tension comes from the forge itself, the heat, the hammer strikes, the risk of ruining hours of work in seconds. It's high on skill demonstration and low on manufactured conflict. For once, the spotlight stays on expertise.

What truly elevates the show for me is the final challenge: recreating a historical weapon. As a history buff, this is pure dopamine. Seeing contestants tackle Viking axes, Roman gladii, Japanese katanas, or more thrilling for me, the Indian blades like the Kataar, Vajramushti, Khanda, Khukri and many more gives me goosebumps. The judges explain the historical context, the metallurgy, the cultural significance. It reminds us that these weren't just tools of war; they were symbols of craftsmanship, defense, and identity.

On one hand, pride seeing our martial heritage acknowledged on a global platform. On the other, sadness. Watching modern contestants revive techniques our ancestors mastered centuries ago makes me sad. India has an incredible legacy of blade smithing, Wootz steel (the original Damascus), the flexible talwars that bent without breaking, the intricate Katars. These weapons helped defend kingdoms and cultures. But we've largely forgotten them. Today, they're museum pieces or props in films, not living skills. We have outsourced our own history to footnotes while foreign shows remind us of what our ancestors mastered with bare hands, fire, and instinct. Forged in Fire quietly honors that heritage in a way Indian media rarely does.

Indian TV has copied countless international formats; singing, dancing, survival, cooking but somehow, skill-focused shows like this remain absent from our mainstream. Instead, we're flooded with more nonsense: shouting matches, staged rivalries, and "reality" that's anything but real. Why not adapt something like Forged in Fire? A desi version could feature traditional weapons (talwar vs. khanda challenges), local blacksmiths from villages and rural India gets to show their skills in blade smithing, giving much needed push that skills are supreme not drama. It could revive dying crafts while entertaining without degrading anyone.

As for when India might get mature, logical, skill-focused content like this on mainstream TV? Honestly, not soon. Our channels prioritize TRPs through sensationalism, and audiences (sadly) reward it. We've seen thoughtful shows like Panchayat or skill-ish formats on international channels here. In coming 5–10 years, as younger viewers demand substance and OTT budgets grow, we might see Indian adaptations of craft-based competitions.

When that shift happens, formats like Forged in Fire won’t feel “niche” anymore, they’ll feel overdue. Until then, some of us will keep searching quietly, away from the noise for stories forged not in drama, but in skill.

What about you? Have you watched Forged in Fire? Which historical blade challenge was your favorite?

Do remember, 'When skill disappears from our screens, it eventually disappears from our society.'

Drop your thoughts below!

Are we too slow for the Universe?

When I’m sitting alone at night, looking at the sky, a familiar thought returns.

Those distant stars… those other worlds;
are we ever really going to get a closer look at them?

They feel impossibly far. Too far for a human lifetime. Too far to reach. And yet, almost immediately, another question follows me just as strongly:

Are they truly that far?
Or is that distance only a limitation of how we live and move, rather than a fixed property of the universe itself?

Physics gives a surprisingly calm answer.

It says that if someone could travel very close to the speed of light, time would slow down for them. Distance would shrink. A journey that takes thousands of years from Earth’s point of view could pass quietly almost without being felt by the traveler.

The universe doesn’t rearrange itself.
Only the experience of it does.

That idea stays with me.

It suggests that “far” and “near” might not belong to the universe at all; but to our current way of existing inside it.

If speed alone can change how time and distance behave, then how many other limits do we accept simply because we’ve never lived differently?

What if some things feel unreachable not because they are distant, but because we are slow?
What if the universe isn’t closed, just scaled beyond the way we experience it today?

While thinking about this, a line from the Isha Upanishad surfaced again in my mind:

तदेजति तन्नैजति
तद्दूरे तद्वन्तिके

“It moves, yet it moves not.
It is far, yet it is near.”

As if someone long ago noticed that reality doesn’t behave the way it appears at first glance, that distance and closeness, motion and stillness, can exist together depending on how you stand within the whole.

Modern physics tells us space and time depend on the observer. Ancient thought hints that reality itself may be layered, and that what we experience is only a fragment.

Maybe other dimensions are not hidden.
Maybe they’re simply unreachable to the way we currently live and move.

Like standing at a window and mistaking the view for the entire sky.

Even Adi Shankaracharya stated:

ब्रह्म सत्यं जगन्मिथ्या
जीवो ब्रह्मैव नापरः

“Brahma alone is real.
The world is an appearance.
The individual self is not different from Brahma.”

I may never travel near the speed of light.
I may never experience another dimension.

But knowing that distance can shrink and time can bend changes how I look at the universe and at myself.

It makes reality feel less rigid, less final.
More subtle. More negotiable.

Maybe the universe isn’t impossibly far, maybe we’re just moving through it very slowly.

What about you? When you look up at the stars, do they feel distant… or just waiting? Share your thoughts in the comments below.