Do we get what we deserve?

Isn't that a very interesting topic to debate on? Do we get what we deserve? Or is it just fate that some people are born blessed and some aren't? Or maybe, there is no such thing as fate or deserving-fate, and instead maybe the luck favours the brave and the capable make their own destiny? Which one of it is it, I wonder.

My son and I read extensively, story books, comics, predominantly mythology, encyclopaedias (his age appropriate) children magazines. And one panchatantra story we read, left me thinking. I'm going to briefly outline it here for you guys to help your line of thought.

There once lived a king who had a son with a strange disease. He had a snake living inside him. And that made him real weak. The king used his influence and invited physicians from all over the world. But in vain. No one had a cure for this strange disease the prince carried. After a period of time, not able to withstand the amount of pain caused by the snake, the prince decides to resign from the palace and decides to go spend the rest of his life in a temple, passing off his days in devotion. Now, he didn't want prying eyes and people dropping on and off to give him advice while he was in the temple, so he left to a random country where no one has heard of him or his stature or his disease, and settled in one of its temples.

Now, the scene shifts, and we see the king of this new country with his two daughters. One daughter is always praising her father, always throwing compliments at him just to please him and be on his good books. The other daughter however, is very right and just and says, "May you get what you deserve father, like everyone else". This enrages the king, and he sends this second daughter away and orders his ministers to get her married to a beggar found in the nearby temple. And the beggar turns out to be our very own snake-troubled-prince. The prince warns her about his ailment, however, she tells herself that she will get what she deserved, and agrees to marry him. They lived in a hut.

Now, very interestingly, one day, when the princess was returning from the temple, she saw her hubby lying down on a rock and sleeping and that there were two snakes next to him. One, the one from his stomach , and two, one from a nearby anthill. And that both of them were conversing. The anthill snake scolds the stomach snake for hurting this innocent-God-praying man and tells him that he knows the secret of how to kill him (he furnishes some recipe) and the stomach snake in turn leaks out the anthill snakes secret that killing him would give the killer pots and pots of Gold. The princess thanks God for giving her a way out of all the trouble, immediately prepares that secret recipe and gives it to her hubby, instantly killing the snake. And then both of them hand in hand, kill the anthill snake and get the pots of gold and live happily ever after. The story ends thus, saying, the princess and the prince got their happily ever after which was what they had deserved.

I totally understand. This story was meant to give children the faith in God, and that no matter how hard the times be, we need to cling on to faith and hope, and that there is a happily ever after after all. And I think that's what my son took from the story too. However, my mind began to wander
Slowly, one by one, came the questions. What is the right time to decide when people get what they deserved. What happens to whatever happens to them before that? Well, this story had a happy ending. But not all stories have one. Why is that? What or who determines that?

Some people say, it's your karma or your doing that affects what happens to you towards the end of your life. If that were true, all people who did good, would be leading happy lives. Some yes, but not all. Some say, God decides your fate. So, as soon as one is born on the earth, God decides the timeline of this person and then for the rest of his life, things go the way 'He' orchestrated. As it is something we cannot change, people called it fate. Some questioned, on what basis does God decide on who gets to live well and who gets to suffer. And that, if the basis were just a random throw of a dice, it would be really unfair. Then came the concept of last birth and that a soul takes many births before taking refuge in God himself. So according to what the person did in his previous birth, he gets what he deserved in his next birth.

Hold that thought. I read a very interesting book : The shiva Trilogy, by Amish. He brings in a new concept. In his book, according to the storyline,  people on whom misfortune falls are categorised as the ill fated  and are considered cursed and are supposed to lead a life of a recluse, in the fear that they might pass on their ill luck to someone else. And they are lead to believe that they are cursed coz of some misdoings in their past life. And also that they have to willingly embrace this life and which is the only way they could wash themselves of the sin. The author then tells us ( through a character in the story ) that though these rules seem very unfair, the ruler came up with them to hold together the discipline and the order of the city. That is, these unfortunate if not lead to believe that they suffer because of their misdoings in the past, tend to be angry and upset with the universe for punishing them unjustly. And hence, such troubled souls turn out to be robbers, terrorists, murderers, and prove to be dangerous to the society as a whole.

Meaning, the stories of bad 'karma' of the past may turn out to be just stories to help you resign to your fate. I'm not saying that it true, all I'm saying is, that it is a good line of thought, anything that helps you sleep peacefully at night , anything that helps you from breaking down given your adverse circumstances. Interesting... But given that, do we really need to resign to our fate? Can we change it altogether?

Before I got married, I used to work, Software engineer. One day, when we (a couple of friends) were heading out for lunch as a team, we saw an astrologer (, a palmist to be more precise) on the way. One of the friends suddenly stopped and said, "Hey, let's have fun.. Let's see what future has in store for us". And just to break from our usual routine, all of us took turns to learn about our glorious future. However, one friend plainly refused. He said, "Hey, I make my own lines." As if to say, he doesn't want to tread on the path that has been laid out for him and wants to make his own which he believes is better in every way. We all envied his spirit. That's heights of positive thinking and positive energy. Isn't it? In a good way I mean.

You know, people believe in God for a reason. It's gives them a sense of peace, it helps them shut out the unwanted negative thoughts, it gives them hope at even the direst of situations. To believe in the omnipresent gives you a sense of security, that a person with supernatural powers is watching over you and will protect you when the need be, and also help you achieve the impossible. It works for them. Some people however, do not believe in God, but believe in themselves, their capabilities and go on to achieve great things. That works for them. Some people believe in conscience or the inner voice and believe that is God, and do just their duty and don't expect anything in return. That's what works for them. So ultimately, what works for you depends on what kind of a person you are. So, you can believe in God and achieve great things, you can believe in yourself and still achieve great things, and you can believe that God is not a superpower but is your conscience and lives in you ( that is, a blend of the first two beliefs) and still achieve great things. Right?

Simillarly, 'Do we get what we deserve' is a very tricky question. If you believe you are going through troubled times and that you deserve better and that God has reserved a happily ever after waiting for you, so it is. If you believe in past life karma, and think, things how they are now are because of your past doings and if you accept it and believe that if you do good in this birth, a good life will await you next birth, so it will. If you, like my high spirited friend, want to orchestrate your life and make it better and make it turn out the way you think you deserve it to be, so will it turn out to be.

Belief and Faith, one makes you who you are and the other really does move mountains. Never let go of both of them. Ever. I'm out to move my mountain, I'm sure you've figured out what works for you too.

How well do you know your desserts?

Yummm... Isn't that mouth watering! Well, if you are thinking how the title could be a thought provoking question, you are on the right track. It isn't thought provoking at all. I didn't want to give away the essence of this post in the title itself. However, I assure you it has got to do something with a dessert.

Phew! This suspense building technique is not quite working out well for me. Let me do it the usual way. Today, In this post, you going to learn something new, and learn in it a fascinating kind of a way. It's something about desserts and a bullet !!! Yeah, that's right, I did say bullet. What could possibly connect a dessert and a bullet? Read on.

Let's perform (or rather watch) an interesting experiment. I'm going to place before you 4 kind of desserts : Whipped cream,  ice cream (vanilla flavour), chocolate sauce and english pudding. Each of these desserts are sandwiched between plastic sheets and are left on a table each. That is, imagine a box, plastic on front and back and wood on the sides, containing each of these desserts left on a table of its own. Now, we bring a shooter, a guy with a gun. We place a watermelon behind each one of these boxes  and ask the guy to shoot at the boxes one by one. How do you think each one of them would react to the gun shot? That is, can any of them stop the bullet and save the watermelon from blowing up gloriously? Take a moment to think and get ready with your answer and explanation and then watch this video from natgeo.

Amazing isn't it? I happened to accidentally come across this episode on the television, and the results left me wide eyed. Wow, a dessert that behaves bullet proof. How cool is that! I told this to my son (4 year old) and he asks me "Maa.. isn't that great. Now all that the soldiers have to do is to eat that english pudding before going to war. Nobody needs get hurt"!! I immediately hugged my cute little empathetic son and applauded him for his thinking.

However, imagine a bulletproof vest made from custard like fluid. How revolutionary would that be? ( This could be your debate topic with your kids today. The pros and cons of such a jacket )

Non newtonian fluid, did you guys know that there was something like that? Well, I didn't seem to remember that there was a category called newtonian fluid, leave alone the non-newtonian. So, we learn, non newtonian fluids are the ones that do not behave. So what is the expected behaviour of fluids or the newtonian fluids. Fluids include liquids and gasses. And what do both of them do normally? They flow. Now the resistance to flow is called viscosity. And what would the flow/viscosity depend on? Usually temperature. That is, if you freeze water (say), its flow reduces and it becomes a solid right?

Now imagine, you have a big tub of water and you hit it with a huge hammer in a sudden movement. Observe the water. It's still water. No big deal right? That's a normal liquid or a newtonian liquid. Now, Instead of water, we have a big tub of custard (say) and we hit it with a hammer. We see that when we hit it, it was like we hit a wall. Now we observe the custard. We dip our finger into it and see the custard dripping off our finger. So what just happened? It changed its behaviour with stress and got back to its original state when the stress was removed. Fascinating isn't it? That's exactly what happened to the custard during the gunshot. While hit with a bullet, the custard acted like a wall and protected the melon, however, the very next second, the custard oozed out of the hole the bullet had created on the plastic container. Did you notice that? That's the behaviour of a non newtonian fluid.

You know, what's more fascinating is that, this isn't all. There are types of non newtonian fluids. One kind behave like the pudding, that is, become solid or rigid when exposed to sudden stress. Type two, does just the opposite. Under stress, it becomes more liquidy. Now where have we seen that? Have you ever wondered why you had to shake the ketchup bottle with sudden jerks to get the ketchup 'flow' out of the bottle. Well, because, its another example of non newtonian fluid! Sudden stress, makes it flow-y. And a lot flowy at that. We almost always end up with excess ketchup on our plates. Isn't it? Have you ever wondered why??

Well, imagine the ketchup bottle was made of some metal and wasn't hollow. Had solid metal inside. Now try inverting it. Does the metal ooze out ? No. That's

metal's property, or rather property of a solid. It doesn't flow. On the other hand, fill the bottle with water. And invert it. What happens? All of it flows out. Thats liquid property. Mr/Ms ketchup has some soul searching to do and hasn't yet figured out if it wants to be a solid or a liquid. It doesn't behave. Apparently what happens is, when we hit the bottle hard, theketchup particles get squeezed and are able to move about freely. Once the effect of the pressure dies, they regain original shape and become non flowy again. Do watch the lovely TedEd video from this page.

The third type, continual stress makes this kinda liquid more flow-y or more liquid-y.. Can you think of examples of the same? Honey it is. Keep stirring honey and you will realise that after a while you find it easy to stir. Type 4 is the opposite of that. Keep stirring or keep applying some stress and this gets non flow-y. Example, whipped cream of course !

Exciting isn't it. Normal household items, that we see on an everyday basis at home, custard, honey, ketchup and whipped cream, all of them have been exhibiting different unruly behaviour and we didn't even notice and didn't think to ever question why ! Hmmm .. well there's the thought provoking question !

Some of you parents out there would've heard about this new fine motor aiding toy, the kinetic sand. Incase you haven't please watch this video. Kinetic sand is also a non newtonian fluid. Under pressure (when pressed into a mould), it behaves like a solid, however when you touch it slowly, it could flow like a fluid. It looks fun isn't it? Science is fun!

How about silly putty? Apparently, it was a very famous revolutionary toy for the kids in the 80's - 90's. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, please watch this youtube video ( for those hard pressed on time, watch the segment between 1:15 and  2:20 ). Again, the same thing. It shows non newtonian behaviour. When you stretch it slowly, it stretches like rubber, however, when you stretch it fast, it snaps. And it bounces like a ball! Cool isn't it?

How wonderful is science isn't it? The next time you try and squeeze ketchup out of the bottle, the next time you make custard at home, the next time you see a honey bottle, the next time you are whipping whipped cream at home, remember to tell your kids about non newtonian fluids, or at the least, help them understand that this liquid is misbehaving. Expand their horizon. Encourage them to ask thought provoking questions. The next time you chat with your friends over french fries and ketchup, ask them if they know why you have to hit the bottle to get the ketchup out.

Hey, I almost forgot Quicksand, the gooey otherwise innocent looking mud that is capable of swallowing you whole!! Elders might have told you, shouldn't struggle in a quicksand. Ever wondered why? Its a non newtonian fluid too. It behaves as a liquid under stress, and like a solid otherwise. So the more you struggle, the faster you drown! And did you know, the quicksand being denser than the human body, cannot drown you completely I read (As opposed to the many movies we've seen where the hero so sympathetically had lost his first love to the quicksand ) In order to escape the quicksand, we need to keep and stay calm, (to prevent further sinking) , take deep breaths (apparently to increase your buoyancy) , and slowly try to wiggle your legs towards the surface and monkey crawl on the quicksand to safety. So (God forbid) when in a quicksand, keep calm and remember me (I mean, this article) (Do read the many reference links below to get a good idea about quicksand)

So, science is fun (as seen in silly putty and kinetic sand), science is yummy (as seen is custards), science protects ( as with the promising future on liquid body armour and quicksand), science also lets you brag to your friends about how you know how to get out of a quicksand. Now, how cool is that! I love cool stuff. I love science. What about you?


References and links to some interesting videos you might want to see :
1. battling out of quicksand video 
2. https://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2012/pmpd1207.htm
3. http://sciencelearn.org.nz/Science-Stories/Strange-Liquids/Non-Newtonian-fluids
4. http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/quicksand2.htm
5. make your quick sand at home
6. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-physics-of-quicksand/
7. http://laughingsquid.com/an-explanation-why-ketchup-and-other-non-newtownian-fluids-are-so-hard-to-pour/

Disclaimer : This post and the linked videos are not meant as an advertisement to the products. Please don't consider this a recommendation. It was just to illustrate the concept of non newtonian fluids from the very objects/things/toys already available in the market.