Sunday ka Funda

"Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god."
— Aristotle

What happens if beast and human come together? When I saw this photograph, even before reading the article, I found immense beauty in it. Beauty, not courage, not adventure. We have seen divers, all dressed up and prepared to face sharks. In an older video, Christina gets real close, and the BBC commentary even talks about the sexual attraction, of mimicking a shark, of the shark being in a trance.

There are other questions that can be raised about interfering with nature, courting danger. And what happens were the shark to turn violent? Who is to blame? Would killing the shark that you have been embracing until now be deemed self-defence? Can it, if we rally extend the argument, be a crime of passion?

The article does not have answers. However, it describes the encounter:

At the 22-second mark, one man swims down and grabs the dorsal fin of the lemon shark. After riding it for several seconds, he does something truly shocking. He swings around to the bottom of the shark, gives it a bear hug and hangs on belly to belly. His head is precariously located just below the shark's mouth and he hangs on for several seconds before finally letting it go.

Before you watch this, let me ask Aristotle: Is it solitude when man and beast come together in what could be a spiritual (and a broad sense godly) experience?

Talk about being nuts for photos

When I first saw these in the inbox, I could feel myself there…there was such palpable tension.

This is a case of a photographer photographing another photographer. The identity of the subject in the photos is unknown.

The following pictures were taken by Hans van de Vorst from the Netherlands at the Grand Canyon, Arizona. Here is the account in his words…

I was simply stunned seeing this guy standing on this solitary rock in the Grand Canyon

The canyon's depth is 900 meters (3,000 " ) here.

The rock on the right is affixed to the edge of the canyon and perfectly safe.

Watching this guy in his rubber thong sandals, burdened with a camera and a tripod

I asked myself 3 questions:

1. How did he climb that rock?

2. Why not take that sunset picture from that rock on the right, which is perfectly safe?

3. How will he get back?

After the sun set behind the canyon's horizon he packed his things and prepared himself for the jump.

This took about 2 minutes.

At that point he definitely had the full attention of the crowd.

This is the point of no return.

After that, he jumped in his thong sandals & only having one hand free . . . The canyon's depth is 900 meters (3,000 feet) here.

You can see that the adjacent rock is quite a bit higher than where he is (and quite steep.)

He hopes to use his one free hand to grab on to the rock.

Look carefully at the photographer.

He is carrying a camera, a tripod and also a plastic bag - all on his shoulder or in his left hand.

He lands low on his flip flops ~ both his right hand and right foot slip away...

And at that moment I take this shot:

He pushes his body tight against the rock - waits for a few seconds, throws his stuff on top of the rock, then climbs up & walks away.

(Presumably to a bathroom to change his shorts!)

Why the yankees must stay away from India - huh?

So after terrorist attacks and epidemics, the United States of Xenophobia has found one more warning for its citizens visiting our shores.

This time around it’s the monsoon in Mumbai and the BMC’s handling of it that have got Uncle Sam worked up.

A warning issued on Monday and posted on the website of the US consulate in Mumbai tells its citizens that the “monsoon has arrived in western India and Mumbai is experiencing the season’s storms’’. They are also reminded of the 26/7 (2005) deluge and told that it had led to a “heavy loss of life’’.

Why don’t they just stay at home? Does any country issue warnings against visiting the US due to cyclones and earthquakes and the possibility of some Arab flying planes into its most famous sites?

They are talking about open manholes…crib, crib…

How many people die in car accidents in the US?

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And now we have the pretty Omar Abdullah suggesting that the government of India and the state government should work with some insurance companies to provide a cover to those foreign tourists who visit J&K.

What about Indian tourists? He mentions “some of the high-spending foreign tourists to return to Kashmir”. Not many are; most are backpackers. And Indian tourists have been travelling for some years now.

The government must indeed take care of the economy, but then it should see to it that the locals have jobs. Not everyone owns a shikara or weaves carpets.

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And while we are on Kashmir, this is what a friend from the media in Srinagar wrote to me about the Afzal Guru post below:

Wonderful piece! Am trying to gather courage to reproduce it. It may invite death sentence for me by likes of Geelani, but I will try to use.

This is a Kashmiri and he is afraid of writing about someone who thinks he will be a Kashmiri shaheed. And who is he afraid of? Another Kashmiri who thinks he is a potential shaheed. And lollypop Omar can only think about the goras and their dollahs. What a pathetic state.