Vesak - to be celebrated by Buddhists all over the world next Thursday - is the day in white. Devotees - young and old - clad in white trek to the temple early morning to observe 'ata sil' and spend the day there. White is the symbol of simplicity. It is a neutral colour. The devotees carry baskets of white flowers -'araliya', 'pichcha' or some other variety - to be offered to the Buddha at the image house, the bo tree and the 'chaitya'.

In our last edition we tried to explore our galaxy, the Milky Way. I say "tried to" because one page cannot do justice to the enormity and sheer vastness of our beautiful home galaxy. This time, let's forget all about that for a moment and dwell on a more ambiguous, yet intriguing topic: the possibility (or the impossibility) of time travel.