Lonely boy and his scribbles

വിശ്വവിഖ്യാതമായൊരു ക്രിസ്തുമസ്!  അങ്ങനെ ആ ചരിത്രനിമിഷം എത്തിച്ചേർന്നു! അന്നുവരെയും കവിജന്യ പ്രേമലാസ്യങ്ങളുടെ പ്രേക്ഷകനായും, ഇതിഹാസങ്ങളിലെ പരോക്ഷ കഥാപാത്രമായും, മതഗ്രന്ഥങ്ങളിലെ മായാഗോളമായും നിലകൊണ്ടിരുന്ന അമ്പിളിമാമനെ മനുഷ്യൻ തന്റെ കൈവെള്ളയിൽ കൊണ്ടുവരാൻ പോകുന്നു. അപോളോ 8-ലെ യാത്രികർ CSM ഉപയോഗിച്ച് ചന്ദ്രനെ വലംവയ്ക്കാൻ തയ്യാറെടുത്തു.  പക്ഷെ ആ മനോഹാരിതയും സാങ്കേതിക പ്രശ്നങ്ങൾക്കതീതമായിരുന്നില്ല. താപ-സന്തുലിത ഉപകരണങ്ങളുടെ പ്രവർത്തനക്ഷമത ഉറപ്പാക്കാൻ പലതരത്തിലുള്ള ക്രിയാത്മക സൂത്രങ്ങളും ക്രൂവിന് പ്രയോഗിക്കേണ്ടിവന്നു. ഉറക്കം മറ്റൊരു പ്രധാന പ്രശ്നമായിരുന്നു. "മൂന്നിൽ ഒരാൾക്ക് ഒരുസമയം ഉറങ്ങാം" എന്നതായിരുന്നു തുടക്കത്തിലെ പദ്ധതി. എന്നാൽ നക്ഷത്രക്കൂട്ടങ്ങളുടെ കൺചിമ്മലുകൾ ഒപ്പിയെടുക്കാൻ അനാവശ്യമായി സമയം ചിലവാക്കിയതിന്റെ ഫലമായി മൂന്നുപേരും ഉറക്കത്തിന് ശ്രദ്ധ നൽകിയില്ല. അതിന്റെ ഏറ്റവും വലിയ പ്രത്യാഘാതം അനുഭവിച്ചത് ബോർമാൻ ആയിരുന്നു. തന്റെ ശാരീരിക അസ്വസ്ഥത മറച്ചുവച്ച അദ്ദേഹം മോഡ്യൂളിനുള്ളിൽ ഛർദിക്കുകയും, യാത്ര ദുഷ്കരമാക്കുകയും ചെയ്തു. ഇത് സീറോ ഗ്രാവിറ്റിയിൽ ആണ് സംഭവിക്കുന്നത് എന്നോർത്താൽ അതി...

 The most talked about and perhaps the most important question to answer is regarding the imperial continuity of Tibet from the Yuan dynasty onwards. It is an interesting turn of events, albeit often used dishonestly, to assert the idea that Tibet has been a part of China for at least seven centuries. However, things were not as straightforward as they may seem from the outside. It is true that the first genuine political integration of Tibet into a wider imperial order associated with China did not come from the Chinese themselves. It came from the Mongols. But In the 13th century, as Genghis Khan’s descendants carved their empire, Tibet was not conquered in the manner of most of Asia. It was drawn in through diplomacy, religious patronage, and a mutual recognition of power. When the Sakya lama, Drogön Chögyal Phagpa , was invited by Kublai Khan to serve as his spiritual preceptor , it marked not the subjugation of Tibet, but its co-option into the imperial architecture of the ...

 Tibet did not enter Chinese history by right. It was written into it, layered over centuries of silence with the ink of imperial anxiety and nationalist necessity. For two thousand years of Chinese historiography, from the Bronze inscriptions of the Shang to the bureaucratic annals of the Han , from the mythic kings of Zhou to the census-led court of Tang,  Tibet was not China . It was not seen, not counted, not ruled. The foundational texts of the ancient Chinese world, Shiji and Hanshu, meticulously documented the tributary systems, mapped prefectures, catalogued barbarians and vassals. Yet Tibet remained unnamed. Not even as a province to be claimed or a frontier to be pacified. It simply did not exist in the imperial imagination. This is not to say the plateau was uninhabited or unknowable. The people of the Yarlung Valley , the high grasslands of Amdo , the eastern passes of Kham , were forging a world of their own. Long before the rise of a unified Tibetan Empire, pro...

 Empires rarely move alone. They turn in constellations, drawn together by a mix of proximity, ideology, and ambition. The early modern Islamic world was shaped by such a triad, the Ottomans of Anatolia, the Safavids of Iran, and the Mughals of India , empires whose survival often depended less on conquest than on how they defined faith, negotiated identity, and measured one another in the shadow of God. Between them ran not just trade and ambassadors, but rivers of blood and belief, most enduringly, the sectarian fault line between Sunni and Shi‘i Islam , a wound carved into statecraft as much as theology. The Ottomans , emerging from the ruins of Byzantium and the fracturing Dar al-Islam, established themselves not only as temporal rulers but as the   Imperial guardians of the Sunni world. With the conquest of the Mamluk heartlands in 1517, Selim I assumed the symbolic authority of the caliphate. Ottoman legitimacy henceforth drew from both the sword and the minbar, present...

  Once, during the Kushana age, a ring of Indo-Iranian and Central Asian control looped around the Himalayas, allowing Buddhist monks, merchants, and ideas to flow freely. The Kushanas ruled from Mathura to Khotan and patronized Gandharan art and Buddhist expansion. They were the hinge between Rome, Parthia, India, and Han China. But by the 4th century, that hinge had rusted. The Steppe once again gave birth to new horselords. Kingdoms fell, and Kingdoms rose. The ones that stood strong did so because they looked inward in search of stability while fortifying their cores against the battle cries looming on their horizons. The Han Empire was the first to fall, and it didn’t take long before the “Golden Age” of India crumbled under its own might, pushing both behemoths into an era of chaos.  However, even amidst this vicious cycle of instability, nothing was impossible for those whose visions transcended geographical barriers. The Pushyabhuti dynasty of India and the Tang Empir...