Humour – Page 69 – Nourish-n-Cherish

Is it hot yet?

Given that I live in the Bay area, I have grown used to the fact that waiters at restaurants ask you whether you want ‘Water With No Ice’ a term that is so jarring in its construct, that the first few times I laughed every time I heard it. You ask for ‘water without ice’ or you ask for ‘water-@-room-temp’. How do you make water with no ice. Is ‘no-ice’ a thing that you plop into the water? But ‘no-ice’ is nice and like so many other lovable quirks in the USA, I have embraced this one over the years.

Water-with-no-ice however brings me to a question that I am sure has occupied the mind of every attentive waiter in the Bay area at least once. Why are folks who hail from a hot country like India not going in for a cold drink? I’ve wondered this quite often myself. Why are we this obsessed with hot food, hot tea and hot milk, not to mention the piping hot coffee?

Given how much we enjoy the hot food, imagine my chagrin then when the microwave danced out on us.

On a side note, I wonder whether you notice a trend here. The dryer showed us what it is capable of, the oven hasn’t been on talking terms with us the past year and now, the microwave. (I don’t wish to offend the dishwasher by not dedicating a few blogs to it. It has been begging me to do so with its recent behavior and I have been holding firm thus far, but I may just have to write it up too) All very wearying and worrying and all that. Sigh! Where was I? Yes. The Microwave.

So, one hot evening I walked into the kitchen to make myself a hot cup of tea. The microwave started humming, rotating slowly and the dull lights inside showed me it was working on it. A full minute later, I picked up the cup gingerly expecting it to exude warmth, but it was stone cold. I mean porcelain-cold. It hadn’t done its duty. I gaped at it, and tried again. (Did you expect different behavior when you try the same thing? I see your censorious question and say, “Yes. “ Maybe the heating coil was taking a breather and the gentle nudge that I gave on the bottom of the microwave may have spurred it to act again) However, gentle nudge or ferocious roar, the microwave had retired. As unobtrusively as it seeped into our lives, it retired.

I have lived without a microwave in a very cold place for two decades and I can assure you it is possible. Yet, it is only when it isn’t there that you realize how kindly and painlessly this device helps you lead your life. You put in a cup of milk and a minute later, there you have it: a cup of hot milk for whatever use you have for it. Every morning now, there was definite hungama over the coffee:

The milk took its time to boil.

The water took its time to boil

The coffee took it time to drip.

Then the coffee and milk together, was not hot enough.

Ask any proud South Indian coffee drinker and he will tell you that directly heating the coffee dilutes its flavor. (For the record, I see no difference.)

More than any of that, the microwave knew to stop heating the milk in 30 seconds. The stovetop didn’t. The entire three minutes that I stood watching the milk, nothing happened and the moment I turned to pick a spoon, a loud sizzle told me that the milk had boiled over. Morning coffees were a milk-bath. They were becoming long-drawn affairs in molly-cuddling the milk, comforting the coffee and soothing the drinkers. One morning, the mother-in-law, a sturdy lady who has taken life by its horns, could be seen sitting with her hands on her head with the morning coffee routine. Needless to say, the milk boiled over at that very instant and all hands great and small gathered around to help clean the mess.

That was how the husband and I went shopping for a microwave without a penny on us, and still managed to bring a gleaming microwave into the house. (We both forgot our purses at home – coffee-less people do that apparently)

Serendipitous Ukiah

We were planning a short week-end trip into the woods to enjoy some greenery: away from the punishing effect of not having the shade of a tree fall on you while you walk through the rain-parched and barren hills around our area. What we craved for, was the green of a forest so thick that you find some places where the sun’s rays have not hit the ground. We went away for a week-end to the Avenue of the Giants redwood forest area. Not wanting to do the 5 hour drive on Saturday morning, we randomly zoomed down on an area that looked about midway through and settled on Ukiah. There was a comfortable enough hotel (with free breakfast), willing to put us up for the night and off we went, fully expecting it to be no more than a stop-over town.

The next day after a lovely breakfast, the husband went over to the lady at the reception and asked her whether there was any place worth visiting near by. She said no. Never one to give up, the husband needled on, ‘There must be some place that locals like to go to, it doesn’t have to be a fancy place.”

“Well, I do like going to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas’ said the lady.

That is how we found ourselves in a Buddhist monastery surrounded by peacocks, peahens, squirrels and buddha statues. The temple inside has Buddha statues of all sizes on the walls, ceiling, pedestals, everywhere. As you enter, there is a feeling of peace that permeates the surroundings. This was also how we found ourselves surrounded by peacocks spreading their feathers beautifully and dancing. A dance so graceful I have only heard about it in poems and then you realize that nothing prepares you for the real thing. It is everything all the writers and poets say: Beautiful, charming, graceful, but it also fills your heart with joy. It makes you want to shake your neck too and dance. It makes you smile as you look into its eyes. Never mind that other folks looking at you shaking your necks think you are cuckoo. You think you are peacock, and that is what matters. A peahen on the premise stopped to gape at us for a few seconds. Distractions must be a menace for the peacock, although I could have assured the peahen that the peacock was a worthier companion for her. In any case, thanks to that distracted peahen, the peacock put up a splendid, long performance.

By the time we left for the forests, I felt like I had stepped back in time to a place where cell-phones and laptops were not intruding into my every experience, where nature taps you on the shoulder and takes you for a spin. Feeling the presence of it all. It makes you want to dance. Dance like no one is watching. And sing: sing like no one is listening.

That is Serendipity, and it set the tone for the rest of the glorious weekend.

The Doodling Circle

The son walked into his new preschool talking like a man in control of his emotions. He yapped and clacked nervously telling us all what he can do in the school. His doting elder sister had told him of all the fun things that a school provides – friends, play areas, play doh, blocks, story time, circle time, the works. There was no denying the fact that he was excited. The poor fellow asked us repeatedly whether we will be coming to school with him. I assured him that on the first day, we would. We will walk him to his chair and then say ‘Bye’ and leave. He was not very happy with that, but I told him that the school was only for children and therefore, we would leave. His face fell a bit, but not much. I swelled with pride that my little boy was being a brave boy after all. He chatted happily as we made our way into the school classroom, we settled him in and turned to leave. It was only then that he realized that his sister was not going to be with him in class either, and she would leave too. He started to cry: silent, heaving sobs clinging on to his sister’s hands. He thought that when I said school was for children I meant his sister and he could stay.

Long story short, the fellow started preschool this week, and brought home his first piece of “work”. The work is (un)helpfully labelled ‘I can draw a Circle’. In my opinion, they need not have done that. Because they said ‘Circle’ I was forced to look for one in the doodle that my son produced, and it was a daunting task.

A word about his lineage might be appropriate here. The son is the grandson of two Maths teachers, and when asked to draw a circle, he sees whether can he draw two and two square and two cube circles. He experiments with Venn diagrams. He experiments with non-linear curves without curvature. He tests the hyperbolic strength of a loosely held pencil. Or he just doesn’t know what a circle is and produces the hapless picture above.

The d.sister took it and stuck it up on the wall proudly as his first art work. All fine so far. That is what a family does. They save the embarrassing first works of Art to show it to them when they unleash their creative works on you later in life as adults and show them the long path they have traversed and then smile proudly. What I was not prepared for was this.

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/childhood-drawings-may-indicate-intelligence-teenagers#wfpJDDkqfsksqPlK.99

Apparently, this study studies the first art work of children and then produces a moderate correlation to their abilities as teens. Luckily the article is as vague and under-researched and steers off clarity as a lot of articles on the Internet, and I am assured that the first piece of Art is nothing more than that. A Doodle.

Doodling does have its uses:

http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/13/first-female-to-win-maths-top-prize-describes-her-2-brainstorming-strategies/

Happy Schooling and Doodling Dear Son.

Fist Bump

Our little fellow is methodical. For example, if you find that he has done something good, like putting away his toys (read: moving his cars from high foot traffic area to under the sofa), we sometimes give him a high-five. Then, his sister taught him low-five. So, his ritual became high-five, low-five. A few days later, the ritual included a high-five, low-five and a fist bump. Even if you only wanted to give a high-five, you had to do that high-five, low-five, fist bump routine or not at all.

Well, recently, that schedule has increased some more to include a high-five, low-five, fist bump and ting-ting-ting (that is a spot on either cheek with the middle-ting being for the nose).

Even the ting-ting-ting seemed okay till I heard that the fist bump is fast replacing the handshake as it is cleaner.

http://www.webmd.com/news/20140728/fist-bump-may-beat-handshake-for-cleanliness

The fist bump has evolved Darwinian style – going from being perceived as an aggressive gesture to a acceptable, even sweet one

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/18/fist-bumps-natgeo-psychology-video_n_5688725.html

What if the ting-ting-ting becomes a thing too? I am not sure I am up to having random people ting me on my nose. It is precious to me.

Oh well.

I am a Bison with a Daisy

I was wearing a flowery top as I walked down the hallway. A black one with petite white flowers on it. In a few minutes, I was hailed by a person I recognized. A serious looking man with keen powers of observation, a booming voice, and when he decided to bestow his smile on you, a warm one it was. Obviously, I stopped to say hello. He looked into the cornea of my eyes after a minute or two. I felt like the monster in the deep waiting and waiting for the fog horn to give a call. It did. “So, you look like a Daisy. Are you one?” he bellowed. Teacups a few furlongs away shook with the impact.

I must say I was taken aback a little. I have been called a lot of things, but a Daisy is not one of them. I wracked the brain a bit. It didn’t take long. The truth dawned on me. “Oh! Are these flowers daisies? They are rather nice looking flowers, especially on this top isn’t it?” I said by way of clarification. His large, round face looked puzzled and a little alarmed. Maybe I was off my rocker. He looked concerned and said in what he thought was a low voice. Teacups a furlong away shook, but those two furlongs away stood their ground. “No, no. I am not talking about that. I meant you are a Daisy right? You look like a Daisy.”

I have seen daisies. I have seen myself. I don’t look like them.

“Maybe you have my accent wrong. I always say Shalom to Daisies.” he continued with that look of utmost sincerity.

I swear I had no idea what he was talking about. The conv. went on in this vein for a couple of minutes. It hovered over the Middle East and landed in Iran.

Daisies in a desert area, but in beautiful Iran with Shaloms. That should be enough even for me to figure out. I did. He meant ‘Desis’ (people of Indian origin) and he meant ‘Salaam’. I taught him to say ‘Namaste’ instead and saved a generation of Indian Americans flower-isms and cackled my way back thinking of poor Mr Mishra and his Bison Center.

Mr Mishra was a Hindi teacher in our school nestled in the hills of South India where the dialects of Hindi are scarce. He liked my father and kept telling him that he must visit North India and when he does, he must let him know, for the father’s abysmal Hindi was a thing of local legend. And so, it was that having learned that my father was planning a trip to Allahabad for the Winter, Mr. Mishra walked a mile up a steep hill to congratulate us on the upcoming trip and offer his help when we arrived at Allahabad. “You know Sir? Elahabad is a big city.” (He said waving his arms about – Hindi teachers from North India somehow did this even when they spoke to my father in English. I suppose they had it so deeply ingrained in their blood that this man was not going to understand Hindi, that they made it a habit.)

“Elahabad has good things to see, good food also.” (He was now rubbing his belly and looking content at the thought.) I was a silent spectator in this room till this point, but at this, I started giggling. Mr Mishra bestowed a benign smile on me, pointed at me and then said, “Sir, Elahabad is the Bison Center of India, did you know that?”

“Bisons in Allahabad? You mean buffaloes?” said the father, always quick on the uptake.

“No sir. Bisons. Like your daughter likes Bisons.”

The father cracked. All this was too much for him. He had heard folks referring to me and several animals in the same vein: rabbits, deer, peacocks, kangaroos even, but never a bison. He looked at me closely and said, “Bison eh?”

“Yes. Nobody believes me. But Elahabad is the biggest Bison center in India. “ he said and pointed at me again. There was only so much I could take, I excused myself. I mean, I am sure there are very nice Bisons in the forests and I have nothing against them, but I did not like this repeated reference to myself and bisons. The father was looking at me queerly and thinking, “Well. Well. Well. I would have never thought of a bison for this sprightly child. I must find out the characteristics of bisons and see how they match her character.” Then he said out loud to Mr Mishra, “There is so much to learn isn’t there Mr. Mishra? I never knew that Bisons were to be found in Allahabad. Is there a good wildlife sanctuary nearby?”

I ducked into the next room with a dignified face, or as dignified a face as bisons could muster, only to find my brother doubling over in laughter. Watching him there made me laugh too, but he sobered me up saying Bisons did not laugh, only hyenas did. I could have gored him.

Mr Mishra, in the meanwhile, was carrying on, “No Sir. Elahabad is a city. A big city. No forests there. Only bisons. Girls – pretty girls. Even Bombay learns its bisons from Elahabad. Many shops with beautiful bisons.”

I understood and went to spare my father further trauma. “Oh sir, you mean fashions? Allahabad is the Fashion Center of India?”

“Yes. Yes! That is it. Very good girl your daughter.” said Mr. Mishra beaming at me.

I am a Bison with a Daisy. I’d like to see anyone trump that title.

#Direnkahkaha

Getting the folks in our family to laugh is easy. Most times, a lame joke about three-men-in-a-boat type of joke is enough, and there we are, rolling on the floor. But the occasion demanded something sterner, that is the reason three generations of women were seen tickling each other on the street after a hearty meal and laughing hard, while an amused son looked on trying to figure out what was going on. Tickle parties are fun and tickle parties are necessary he seemed to say earnestly.

A Turkish minister has a protest on his hands that has people laughing their heads off, after a remark at his Ramadan speech. He said, “A woman should be chaste. She should know the difference between public and private. She should not laugh in public.” He says that his remarks were taken out of context, but if it gives people a moment to stop in their day and laugh, why not?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/turkish-women-defy-deputy-pm-laughter

The Harry Potter star and newly named Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women is just one of thousands of women who have been protesting the politician’s remarks and even included the hashtag #direnkahkaha, which translates to “resist laughter.” Thousands of women have posted pictures of themselves cracking up with laughter.

http://time.com/3069703/emma-watson-turkey/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/11005428/Emma-Watson-joins-protest-against-Turkish-politicians-claim-women-should-not-laugh-out-loud.html

Enough people have joined in on the backlash against Arinc’s remarks that both the hashtags ‎#direnkahkaha and #direnkadin (“resist woman”) have become trending topics on Twitter.

Laugh on folks!

The Headache Machine

We all know that the use to which a particular technology can be put is only in your hands till such time that it becomes public. I wanted to find some weird uses of technology. This is what I love about the internet I tell you. Every time I want to find some weird examples, somebody has already helpfully written an article on it, leaving me to twiddle my thumbs and stand around. I love the one where the egg is fried on a hot laptop.

http://www.zdnet.com/weird-tech-12-geeky-uses-for-technology_p12-7000010007/#photo

Anyway, the product I am about to touch upon today is the Fitbit. Fitbit might have modeled its products for a range of uses such as measuring activity, promoting a healthy lifestyle or a move to encourage active living. I don’t think they saw it as a Headache Machine.

A friend of mine who works with preschool and elementary school children on a regular basis got herself a Fitbit. All day long, the curious children wanted to know what it was, why it was used and were thrilled with the fact that every time they pressed the button, a number bigger than before came up. In a few hours, the situation was encompassing a wide spectrum of emotions such as :

* Competitiveness (It must be 500 more. Nope: she was not walking while drinking that cup of water. Want to bet? )

* Entitlement (She will show it to me whenever I ask. I am a good boy.)

* Pessimism (Maybe it is only 2000 steps now – she sat for sometime, so it should have reduced steps said the algorithmic expert)

* Altruism (I am tired but I can walk with it for you to increase your step count)

One particularly persistent child asked to see the device about 7 times every 15 minutes. It was at the end of this long day that she told them all that it was a headache machine. The children looked at it in awe and shushed themselves. Reminds me of this article I read a while ago on the Fitbit.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/06/30/140630fa_fact_sedaris?currentPage=all

Sounds about right. A headache machine it is. Ever since I acquired one, I hold 10,000 steps as a holy grail. I don’t want to run because it records less strides for the same distance. I would rather sidle up to the daughter to get her to bring me the Fitbit from upstairs or invent a huge contraception to get me the Fitbit when I no longer have it, than to waste those steps in going to get it. Do unrecorded steps help in your statistics? No, they don’t! Yoga? Swimming? Cross-Fit? Don’t bother mentioning those forms of exercise that don’t count towards my step goals. The worst is when I am really tired and hit the bed and see 13689 on my fitbit. Just 311 steps more to make it a round 14000? Come on! I tell myself and off I go.

There are ways I could help myself I suppose, like not taking Fitbit with me, but what if I want to use it the next day? My weekly average numbers would take a toss.

What would really help is the calorie counter. The Fitbit helpfully counts the steps I take to forklift a load of <insert healthy or unhealthy snack here>, but does not tell me how much I ate? What it needs to do is detect the chomp rate and prorate the step counter accordingly. A headache for the company maybe ….

Piscine Urges

When one walks into the home, one encounters, among other things, a large empty glass tank. Surrounding this monstrosity are objects of inane value, pens of dubious quality, forlorn candy wrappers missing their inhabitants and much more depending upon my energy levels at the end of the day for cleaning up. I like to think of the glass tank as the diverting pivotal point. With that on the center table as soon as you enter, there is no need to clean up around it, since it looks out-of-proportion and ugly anyway.

But, I am assured by the husband and daughter, that all that is about to change. That ugly glass tank will beg me to reconsider my opinion of it, for it is to be teeming with beautiful life soon. “When you look into the tank, everything will be so nice and quiet, you will love it there.” (I asked them why the household cannot be nice and quiet now, but I was told that I talk too much.)

Pursuant to the budding marine biologist’s fervent requests, a fish tank made its way home one night and has been sitting there on the center table ever since. It occupied the dining table for some time, but one day, we needed the table to sit down and eat, can you believe it? So, now, it sits on the center table.

I tell you, life in the nourish-and-cherish household! If ever it shows signs of quietening down, we buckle down and take immediate action to rectify the matter. Friends with fish-tanks have been contacted to find out the best kind of fish we need to have, research has been done on having peaceful vs semi-aggressive fish tanks. The daughter can now talk smoothly about Molly fish and polyps, the number of gallons of water per fish, and water cleaning techniques.

Her maternal Grandfather has taught her well. You see, her grandfather, before making any purchase first makes it a point to fill the house with brochures on whatever-it-is he intends to buy. Then his wife(my mother) loses it and says she is going to throw everything out. It at this point in time that he goes and buys something for which he forgot to pick up a brochure. It is a process. If you peek into our car, you will find brochures telling you how best to set up your fish tank. These brochures are not only there in the car, but also on the kitchen counter, in the mailbox and on the center table. You may even find one in the refrigerator like I did. I suppose there is a section about maintaining the right temperature somewhere.

It has been 2 weeks since the tank came home.We are already cracking on the gravel. I will keep my readers posted on when the fish can come.

P.S.: The nourishncherish-fishtank process is not a true reflection of the energy in the house.

Let Children Play Outside

Please indulge me once more as I meander down the memory lane. After all, The business of life is the acquisition of memories.

Regular readers of my blog know that I grew up in a beautiful hill station surrounded by hills, forests, springs and tea estates. Obviously, I spent a good part of this time enjoying my life. I’ve tasted berries whose name I know not, played in the rain, walked through the fog not knowing whether I am heading for a cliff, I have walked and run so far away from home, but nature always guided me back to my home (well, mostly, folks who worked in my parents’ school and realized I was lost), drank water from fresh water springs, cycled on ‘bridges’ made of slender logs, ran helter-skelter after spotting wild boars hiding in bushes.

Maybe, I could have died in a hundred different ways, but I also lived in a thousand beautifully different ways.

Which is why modern parenting makes me stop and think. Do we structure our childrens’ time too much too soon to remove the true benefits of unstructured time? Are we over-protective? So many of the things this article spoke about resonated with me.

http://time.com/3005611/helicopter-parenting-chilhood-obesity/

I quote from the article:

But today, to keep our kids “safe,” we drive them back and forth to school. “Arrival” and “dismissal” have morphed into “drop-off” and “pick-up.” Kids are delivered like FedEx packages. About 1 in 10 use their legs to get to school.

Do we really need 599 cars dropping off 599 children in a school less than 5 miles from home every morning? What happened to biking, walking or taking a school bus to school? It is no wonder that obesity rates are spiking.

The fact that I don’t see residential neighborhoods filled with children playing on the street saddens me. The only way to change that is to open those doors and step outside. Let children play.

The Unaccustomed Ears

The grandparents have arrived and ever since the children have been clamoring over them leaving me high and dry. They sometimes look at me and give me fleeting, commiserating hugs as if to assure me that they have not forgotten me, and then fly back like butterflies attracted to nectar filled flowers. The grandparents, are of course, thrilled with this reception. The son thinks goes a step farther in making them both feel equally loved and addresses them together at all times: Grandfather-Grandmother. As in :

“Grandpa-Grandma, see this car!”

“Grandpa-Grandma, I will show you my toys.”

“Grandpa-Grandma, I am going to pee.”

I saw all of this and did what any normal parent would do. I sneaked off for a longish hike with the husband one early Saturday morning leaving the butterflies, nectar etc. with Gpa-Gma. Got to make hay while the sun shines, what? Which seems to be a lot by the way. The hills near our place are dry and make for a brown water-starved eyesore. It usually is this way at this time of the year. Apparently, these hills made for some excellent cow-grazing pastures for the cattle years ago and all the forests were, well, deforested. As far as shortsighted planning goes, I think this is the classiest. For now: there is no cattle grazing up there. It is empty, parched grasslands eh hay lands with walking trails taking an insane amount of foot traffic for those wanting to burn off a few calories before that week-end sumptuous tuck-in after the week-long exercise-less tuck-ins that is. The Earth looks strangely unaccustomed to the onslaughts we continue upon it daily.

There is another thing one has to note in the nature of conv. between the h and self. If there is one word that truly describes it, it is FRAG.<Hey! No pouring water inside the bus!>.MEN.<Do you really want to fill up on chocolates now? Put them away – not on that sofa. Chocolate melts.>.TED. <What were you saying? Sorry, I got distracted>.

So, give us a few minutes in which complete sentences can be exchanged and we are like apes thrown in water. It is a skill lost. I suppose we can talk to other people without shouting out crazy things in between. The point is, after sometime we got our tongues rolling (mostly I got my tongue rolling.) The h. was strangely quiet and nodding. After a particularly longish sermon of about 23 minutes on deforestation and water-conservation etc, I looked at the husband smiling at me. I was pleased with the results of my talk. I asked him what he thought, and he said, “I think it may be because of the headphones I wear. I can’t hear anything. I think my ears are blocked again. I suppose I should get them cleaned. Couldn’t hear much of what you said.”

I suppose that is what most environmentalists must feel like. Or Unaccustomed Ears. Sigh!

P.S. A friend of mine had used the phrase ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ in a rather beautiful status update, and I have been stuck with the phrase in my head ever since.

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