Fruit for Thoughts

  The Bicycle in the Picture The picture is of a bicycle - Herrenrad Victoria with spring wheels, used by Germany Army in WW1. To be more precise this is actually 1905 – Herrenrad Victoria – Model 12, having frame measuring 24”, wheels measuring 28”, running on beaded edge tire and had a Lohmann saddle. Why springs were used? There are different claims in regard to the way the wheels were designed, some says it was designed in this way to make it a multi-terrine bike, it can be used in any terrine, without the hustle of maintaining the tiers. The other theory says springs were used as there was a shortage of rubber. Bicycles in Military Roles The history of bicycles and military can be traced back to 1870 when bicycles were used in the Franco – Prussian war. Later bicycles were used in the year 1894 and 1908 as well in different military campaigns.   During WW-1, Germans put every available bicycle in the country in military use i.e. to mobilize its large troops. Ger...

  Criticism – an act not liked by most of us when it’s done to us, but when we get an opportunity to do this – we not only love doing this, most of the time we blow this out of proportion as well. Why so? If this has to be expressed in a few words – one becomes the best advocate for his / her mistake and gets transformed into a top-notch judge when we are at fault. Criticism is very often done in a very narrow manner, thereby not only losing its real meaning & intent but also does more damage the doing anything constrictive. Almost all of us must have come across people claiming, “ I am open to criticism .” But are they really up for criticism, in most of the cases they really are not, most of us say this just for the sake of saying or posing ourselves as cool. Shall we not ask some questions to ourselves – shall we not take a pose and do an introspection & think are we really up for Criticism? How positively do we Take Criticism? How do we react if we are criticiz...

Jack was humming his favorite song while cleaning his lawn, 3 gunshots broke his concentration, leaving him aghast.   Anna doing dishes and gunshots scared her so much that two dishes, which were in her hands hit the floor and rest was history.   Kasey was busy with her online violin classes when gunshots shattered her rhythm.   Scott was identifying stocks to buy, on his laptop when he heard the shots.   All of them rushed out with countless questions on their faces.   Jack, “guys have you heard the gunshots?”   “Yes, I heard three of them and I guess they were fired at Charlie’s place,” said Anna.   Sobbing Kasey, “I am really worried, I hope my bandmate Sally is OK. Please, shall we go and check?”   “Yes, we must go and check, if everything is alright,” said Jack.   All of them rushed to house # 308 C, where Charlie stays with his wife Susana and daughter Sally. They rang the doorbell, knocked at the door called on their ...

Is there a war on cards between two Asian giants - India and China? Is the world going to witness WW-III in 2020? Are we sitting on a ticking time boom? Is history (of 1962) going to repeat itself? Will we see dragon and tiger locking their horns again? Answers to these questions are hidden under tides of time, which will be unveiled soon. In this blog, we will try and understand two aspects of Indo-Sino standoff. The First aspect is why China has switched gears and adopted so aggressive stance. Secondly how the dragon is trying to achieve its objectives? Quoted or unquoted there are 5 reasons why China is behaving so aggressively:   1. Its internal unrest and issues: due to COVID-19 and it’s after effects, China’s economic situation is not very good. Unemployment is causing unrest among the masses. Companies (foreign) are shutting down their operations and moving out of China, adding further fuel to fire. Drop-in exports post COVID-19 made the things grimmer. 2. I...