Hulagu Khan and the Siege of Baghdad

Imagine this.You are playing 'Age of Empires' and have taken considerable time in building a big city with
farms,monuments,barracks,houses,libraries and other such standard buildings.You develop a civilised society and your city has a high standard of living.Everything seems fine.Now you decide to have some fun.You type in a cheat code.And a car that shoots missiles appears.You keep bringing in more till you have like ten of those cars.Now you use it to destroy the whole city.Within seconds your city is ruined.Reduced to rubbles.The transformation is quick and dramatic.
     Now imagine if something of this type happens in real life.It did happen.It happened when the Mongols decided that they had seen enough of the glory of Persians and their unrivalled city of Baghdad.Hulagu Khan attacked Baghdad and laid siege to it in 1258.He completely destroyed the city and reduced it to an abandoned ruin for years to come.Now if put I myself in the shoes or rather the footwear of Hulagu khan,the one one thing I would have done differently was this-Even if I wanted to conquer the city I would have gone ahead but I would have spared the people of the city and its glory.Baghdad at that time was the most magnificent city on Earth.It had excellent irrigation system,magnificent works of architecture ,and what do I say about the Grand Library of Baghdad.It had volumes and volumes of books in it.All of them destroyed.All the books thrown in the river Tigris.It was said that the river ran black for days because of all the ink it.So much knowledge of the ancient world was lost.In two weeks of looting and massacre,lakhs of people died,the whole city turned to shambles and was left in a situation that it has still not recovered completely from.It directly led to the end of the Golden Age of Islam and there was sharp decline in Arab Science.It was collectively a huge loss to all of humankind.So if given a chance to be Hulagu khan and rewrite history I would definitely spare the city of Baghdad.

This post has been written for 'IndiSpire' for Indiblogger.

Condition Serious hai

Seriousness is something that plaques us Indian society.Of the zillion people who have this condition I happen to have met two in my recent memory.I will list them out.I work at a Power Plant Project site in northern India.The other day I was working on the site commanding a group of workers when amongst them I spotted a telugu guy.We both started off in telugu .Just three sentences later he asks all seriously 'enta istunnaru?' meaning 'how much are you getting in hand' Here he was talking with a stranger and he had to ask this.Like the world would have burned down if he hadnt got to know my pay.On hearing his question I myself  became serious but then I remembered that joke about Satya Nadella and calmed down.For those of you who have been living under a moss covered,worm infested rock I will tell the joke.The first question Indians supposedly asked Satya Nadella when news broke out about his becoming the next CEO of Microsoft was this-'In Hand kitna ata hai?'
#2- Next incident-I have this colleague of mine who once saw me reading my mail.I have this habit of keeping lots of mail unread.He started deleting my mail.I told him to stop.But no he had a duty to this earth and universe to delete my mail and delete he will.I kept helplessly watching as he relieved my overburdened mail which otherwise would have utterly destroyed me.Inki condition to kuch zyada hi serious hai.
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Classical Migraine Attack

It starts off with a blur.A blur in the field of vision.This blur slowly transforms into a geometric pattern.At first its just a tiny formation.Its borders move and there is some kind of motion inside it.Then ever so slowly it grows.It starts spreading.It can go anywhere in the field of vision.To the extreme right or in the middle.Anywhere.All the while it grows, normal vision is blocked by it.As I have had many attacks before, as soon as I see this geometric pattern(technically called Aura) a sense of dread creeps into me.I know I am in for a very painful time for the next 4 or 5 hours.I drop whatever I am doing and rush to my room.The pattern slowly settles down in some area and continues to have that motion inside it.The last time the attack happened it settled down in the left side of my vision and blocked that area off completely.To me it looked like I was bleeding or crying from my left eye.As soon as I reach my room I change clothes and settle down on the bed.I know I wont be getting any sleep,only pain and uneasy restlessness for the next one hour.After exactly an hour I Vomit.I vomit with such intensity it feels as if my very life is being dragged out from the depths of my body.Standing up becomes a difficulty.I grab whatever is around me and go on with it.Whatever I eat in the last three or four hours comes out.Sometimes,If I am lucky it ends with one period of vomiting.But sometimes it takes three or even four.After this is over I feel somewhat relaxed.The worst part is over.Now remains the headache.It has no specific time frame.It may go on for hours or even days.It takes two or three days to completely relax.That is how a Classical Migraine Attack is and I had enough of those to tell you that it is very,very painful.
  I had my first attack back in my Intermediate days 6 years ago.From then on they happen every time some trigger acts up.Weakness is my main trigger.Every migraine sufferer has some triggers.Those should be identified and avoided.I wrote this post for the people who would like to know what exactly happens during a Classical migraine attack.This is it.