RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Elvis Presley was not born rich; he came from a poor Mississippi family. But, he enriched music, like no other singer — before, or after him. Presley showed a rare gift for musical talent, at a very early age. In the process, he absorbed all the styles related to a host of genres, […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Sir Jack Hobbs was a purists’ purist. He brought to batting a new dimension, a rare canvas of perfection: something that is as yet unmatched. Hobbs’ art was full of profound expression, a fount of wisdom. Of subtle refinement and classical definition — a celebration of cricket syntax and grammar. Hobbs [December 16, […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR The mind is akin to your TV monitor flashing images and information in the background as you do your work-out. If you are observant, you will notice what it adds to your understanding of what is actually happening as you go through your exercise routine. The mind gives clues for you to not […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR The expanding realm of neuroscience has spurred a luminous surge — scientists have turned their compass and radar to brain activity that represents our emotional ‘flow.’ So, what in more ways than one, did not so much engage our ancients has, thus, undergone a huge sea-change. As neurologists define emotions as a brain […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Neuroscientists are probing our brain’s workings like never before, thanks to advanced scientific techniques. They have, in so doing, unravelled the long-hidden mysteries of brain physiology, including what happens during stress. Their new insights suggest that a predominance of stress hormones inhibits new brain cell growth, just as exact regions of the brain […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR It was a rainbow synthesis of words that made Ernest Paul Lehman’s genius an integral part of his artful dexterity — more so, because his cinematic chemistry mirrored his silky-smooth and built-in delightful ability to entertain multiple pairs of seemingly opposite ideas simultaneously. In other words, of seeing the whole picture, while integrating […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Nelson Mandela remains a brilliant subject — a subject that is every biographer’s dream-come-true. His long life spanned the tribal rituals of rural Africa, the Anglicised tenets of the 1940s, the Gandhian ‘formula’ of anti-apartheid battles, a short guerrilla resistance, long imprisonment and, finally, power — power that brought majority rule to South […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Sir Ian Botham. The name’s the high-maiden of cricket — an epiphenomenon of classicism and the abstract. Of varied alternatives for every situation. Botham’s identity was such that it always shone, what with the great man’s several zones of potentialities. It also filled in the slots between what was done; at others, of […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR When we think of awareness, or conscious receptiveness, most of us go through a state of perplexity. As we become attentive to our emotions, we also think as if we are subject to a plethora of warped emotive feelings. It takes time to understand such feelings — more so, to figure out what […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Abraham Maslow, the noted psychologist and celebrated visionary, once wrote, “Life is moving far more rapidly now than ever before… in the rate of growth of facts, knowledge, techniques, and inventions.” He also added, “We need a different kind of human being, able to live in a world which changes perpetually, who has […]