Whispering Shadow

Have you ever put in your heart and soul in something? Have you prayed that the means meet the end? Have you ever hoped that your hard work and efforts pay off? These are the first few expectations you have of a mega-event, for which your team and you put in more than 8 hours in a day, for almost a month. Focus '07 was all this and more and I can say with great pride that I was a part of it. The challenge was in the fact that the success of the event was not defined by the size of the audience who attend the event or whether the people were entertained. It was never meant to be that. We didn't want it to be the best symposium, we wanted it to be a class apart. "A Thought for the Lesser Tots", a discussion based on the theme of underprivileged children, was at the heart of Focus. The purpose was to spread a message and spread it right. People preach and often don't practise. You keep watching such discussions on TV, but they are forgotten as soon as the show reache...

In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Ronald Weasley made miraculous saves to help his house win the Quidditch finals. He was under the impression that he had taken a dose of the luck potion ‘Felix Felicis’. However, that wasn’t the case and Ron was under a mere illusion. He was made to ‘believe’ he had consumed the potion. It’s amazing what effect a person’s psychological state can have on his physical state. This was fiction but in the real world too, the power of the mind hasn’t gone unutilized. This phenomenon is called the Placebo Effect. It is defined as the psychological and/or physiological changes that result from the administration of a physiologically inert treatment. Placebos are most widely used in the field of medicine. It’s interesting to note that placebo in Latin stands for “I will please”. Whenever a placebo is requested in a medical prescription, it simply implies a statement by the prescribing doctor that “This patient has come to me pleading for treatment whic...

That is perhaps all I heard. I saw THE light that night. All this while I was walking back from a friend's place, with a bunch of four pals, fooling around and cracking jokes that matched the level of insanity of a drunk person, virtually! It had been a great evening and the transition to normality was bound to take more time. On the way to our destination we had to cross this two-way 4 lane highway. In everyday terms, it's no big deal, and it was not very different that night. With our senses on high alert, we began crossing the road. Lane 1, 2 and 3 passed smoothly. Jack crossed lane 4 too, without much of a hiccup, well almost! I followed him, at my own regal pace, assuming the car that was around 150 meters away to slow down a bit while I walk past. Sam was about to begin a while later. Iyer held his line. I was about to receive the shock of my life. The car never slowed down. The driver only flickered his lights in a frenzy. The blaring of the horn just grew louder as ever...