News – Nourish-n-Cherish

Write an ode to my wife, my life

“So, will I be getting my romantic poem then?!” I teased the husband who was looking sheepish. I giggled at his obvious discomfort. He is the sort of fellow who relishes the sentiment behind P G Wodehouse’s statement:

I once stayed at the residence of a newly-married pal of mine, and his bride had had carved in large letters over the fireplace in the drawing-room the legend: ‘Two Lovers Built This Nest’, and I can still recall the look of dumb anguish in the other half of the sketch’s eyes, every time he came in and saw it.

P G Wodehouse

We had been gurgling on about some rom-com movie, a rather touching spot of sentimentality that clinched the deal between the love-birds and all the rest of it. Which led to me to ask for my romantic poem. It is an old joke between us: we both know he is no poet, I am no queen, and so it goes.

I needn’t have worried though. If ever the man is discomfited, it is but a fleeting sensation. For he leaps into problem solving mode almost instantly. A few minutes later, the cocky fellow strode into the room looking pleased with himself.

“Check your WhatsApp messages!”, he said.

I did, and burst out laughing. He had done it. He had sent me a horrendous poem full of lines from 1980’s Hallmark cards, all culled together.

“Oh my goodness! Did you search up the first “romantic poem for my wife” and send it? I asked. I was laughing now, and he disappeared again looking even more pleased, and a sentence thrown to the winds, “The poem doesn’t speak of your particular gifts you are right. One minute.”

Then. A few minutes of deep thinking could be heard – the brain whirring probably and he said: “Check now!”

I must say it was much more than I expected. After seeing the previous attempt, I braced for a cheesy omelet.

My love, my life, my wife,

You are a woman of many talents

You are funny and witty.

And your writing is wonderful

The “poem “ went on in this vein for 3 more paragraphs.“Really?! You wrote this? I didn’t quite slot you as a loquacious poet, but good job! “ I said. The husband puffed out his chest and looked proud of himself. Too proud in fact, and that gave me pause. I narrowed my eyes x-raying the man’s soul and saw all. The twitching of the smile that gave it away, the hearty thanks, and I said incredulous, “Oh my goodness! Did you use ChatGPT for these?”

He nodded looking so proud of himself that I clutched my sides laughing barely able to breathe.

“Pretty good right? I asked it to write a poem for a loving wife who is also a funny writer.”, he said.

I beamed at the problem solver. I suppose all poetically challenged lovers can now relax. They can get help.

We had been talking about the ways in which this new technology can change things for us. Just as with every new piece of technology, there are pros and cons. I had been reading two books simultaneously :

Excerpt from Impromptu:

“Mintz immediately integrated the new tool into his decades-old teaching methods. Within months of ChatGPT becoming public, Mintz started requiring his seminar students to write their essays collaboratively with the new tool. As homework, they bring the ChatGPT prompts they tried and the responses they received for class discussion. They must turn in their final papers with a log of changes to the machine’s output.

As a great teacher, Mintz chose to use ChatGPT not as a source of answers and authority, nor as a replacement of his or his students’ work, but as a tool to help his students learn individually and together.”

ChatGPT: Threat or Menace?: By Prof Steven Mintz

Steven Mintz is professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin.

The book goes on to compare the use of calculators in Mathematics teaching a few decades ago:

“In 1970, the typical calculator was too pricey for wide- spread use in schools, but they hit a tipping point in the mid- 1970s. Many parents and teachers were alarmed at the influx of new tools; they worried that math skills would atrophy and students would simply cheat.

By 1980, however, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics recommended that “mathematics programs [should] take full advantage of calculators . . . at all grade levels.” Today, most math instructors consider calculators to be a critical part of math instruction, and many states mandate calculator use with certain tests. “

It is curious to see how human intellect is ever ready to thrive and adapt and hopefully stay abreast of these. There are now jobs being created for Prompters for those who can get the ChatGPT/ OpenAI platforms to coax the AI platform into answering particular queries.

There are cautionary stances to be taken and our laws may not always evolve fast enough to keep abreast of technology. The buzz of AI is the most fascinating challenge thus far, and I am rooting for our species to master its use as humanely as is possible. Use it for the good of the world – climate, healthcare (physical and mental), food production, education and so much more.

But now, I am going to savor the husband’s poem. After all, it did say:

Thank you for being you.
You make the world a better place.

Professor Mintz would’ve been proud of the poem 🙄

Photo by Matheus Bertelli on Pexels.com

Photo by Andrew Neel on Pexels.com

We, The People; On This, Our Earth

One evening, the son and I were milling around the kitchen making dinner. It was one of those rare evenings for no reason. Like a short pause between tides. The winter months fading and yawning before waking into energetic spring. The son was working on a school project on Egypt on the dining table while I pottered around with the onions and spices chattering of this and that.

These are some of my favorite times.

Finally, the curry simmering on the stove, I went and sat by him at the dining table peering into his notes for the project.

He had done a sincere job, researching diligently and writing more notes than was required. That made me proud of him and I said so. He smiled and then it turned into a grin, and asked, “Shall we watch TV today then? Just today – you know as a gift?” The little rascal!

I threw my head back and laughed, almost ready to yield. What else was there to do? It was rainy and dark outside. School work done, just the two of us at home. But I caught myself in time. Somehow, it did not feel like a good time to zone out in front of the Television. This rare, quixotic feeling of solitude in each other’s company. So, I shook my head and said no. I saw the twinge of disappointment in his face anticipating indulgence just a moment ago, and said, “How about we read something interesting and funny out to each other?” I said pointing to The Thrifty Guide to Medieval Times – A Handbook for Time Travelers – By Jonathan W Stokes.

He agreed enthusiastically – and I loved him for it. A petulant fuss would’ve ruined the evening. This carefree acceptance of an alternate plan was amazing.

I started reading about Doctors in Medieval Europe and we both shuddered a bit. The book was written in a manner that was just enough gruesome and just enough brevity to stave off utter misery, and a good deal of humor where you least expect it. So, we had a good time rotating dismay, shock, horror and laughter in turns.

On our recent trip to Europe, there was many a time when the mind wandered back a few centuries to Medieval Europe. While we stood there admiring the relics and artifacts saved from those truly Dark Ages, I remember thinking how we were able to passively look at the best of the Dark Ages through a museum visitor’s lens. Setting aside the utter misery of the times. Art truly did pull humankind through those times if only by a shred.

I remember a passionate History teacher from our school days who told us about the Dark Ages, Crusades, the endless years of disease and religious warfare. As children these were disturbing. But they were also distant echoes from the past in a geography barely imaginable by school children in the South of India at the time. Many of us had never traveled past our own country or state.

But as life went on, I understood more and more of the horrifying acts of evil that humankind is capable of: the Dark Ages become a euphemism for unspeakable things. We had heard of witch hunting but when one finds out that Pope Innocent was responsible for making it a bloody sport and sent 1000’s of innocent women to their shrieking deaths, what excuse is there really for religion or piety or righteousness?

A Handbook for Time Travelers – By Jonathan W Stokes

medieval_times

Over the next few evenings, we followed a similar routine. We read about

Jeanne de Clisson – the French pirate nicknamed the Lioness of Brittany, who you definitely want to steer clear of, if invited to dinner at her place.
The brutality of Genghis Khan – there truly are no words, though there are thousands of words written about him.
Marco Polo and his explorations that gave many people a breath of fresh adventure and unheard of places – a little bit of magic in their otherwise terrible lives.
The ferocity of Attila the Hun
The deadly female fighters of the Middle Ages

- Blance of Castile, Queen of France
- Countess Pertonilla of Leicester
- Nicola de la Haye
- Empress Matilda
- Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem
- The Order of the Hatchet

It sometimes takes books such as these to journey to another horrible time and space in order to appreciate what we have now. I was grateful for that.

It also reminded me of the children’s book, Meanwhile Back on Earth . . .: Finding Our Place Through Time and Space

back_on_earth_cover

1000 years ago – when there was a conflict between x and y
500 years ago – war between rats and zebras
100 years ago – war between everyone

The history of our planet in conflict. It makes for sobering reading, but along with Oliver Jeffers’ artwork, a required reading too.

back_on_earth_2

“Nice to see what all we did in spite of all the fighting huh?” , said the son, pointing to his project on Egypt, and pulling me back from my thoughts. He had written about the culture, ways of life and the many achievements of the ancient Egyptian civilization, and I nodded. We truly are a species worth studying. The sheer potential for good. The very qualities of good fanning our bad: ambition for instance.

How do we constantly remind ourselves that we are remarkable in our creative quests, and not use it for anything destructive? But don’t they go hand-in-hand? I peered at the dancing Nataraja statue in the home symbolizing just that, and felt very humble indeed. Nothing new. We are all just discovering and learning. Just figuring out how to belong on our Earth.

Communication Ponniyin Selvan Style

In this busy world that chases productivity with a zest, our productivity tools often encourage speed. I’ve written about The Art of the Considered Response before (here it is)

The Navarathri season was an excellent reminder of the times we live in. After 2 years of muted celebrations, all the goddesses decided to awaken the true shakthi in all golu organizers, and golu hoppers who missed their share of the festive foods honed their appetites. Navarathri golu invites came via WhatsApp, Evite, email, messages, and social media messenger apps.

Navarathri: 9-day festival primarily celebrating the feminine energy and the different days honor different goddesses (the goddesses of mountains, wealth, wisdom, power, cosmic creation and so on)

Golu: From Wikipedia: In Tamil Nadu, people set up steps and place idols on them. This is known as golu. Photos of typical golu displayed in Tamil Nadu style can be found here.In the evening women in the neighborhood invite each other to visit their homes to view Golu displays, they exchange gifts and sweets.

When one is so lovingly invited to people’s homes to view their creative decorations and bliss of music and divinity, it is hard to refuse. So, in the most efficient manner possible, I had drawn up the following schedule without realizing:

Accepted invites to be in San Ramon the same day and time as I was expected in San Jose. While I do live mid-way between the two places – one is nor-nor-east-east, and the other is sou-sou-west-west.
Also accepted 3 days of continuous invites to the same geographic location 20 miles from where we live.
As if none of this were enough there were often live updates to the actual invites in all of these platforms.

The husband can be relied upon in times of crises like these to make things better or worse. He chauffeured, accompanied, ate the yummies at various places, and sometimes, sent me off with a heave of relief.

He also contributed by insisting on going to the Ponniyin Selvan movie that had released that week-end. When one friend asked him why he was late in arriving, he said his mouth full of sundal that he was disappointed she kept her golu on the opening week of Ponniyin Selvan. Couldn’t she have moved the golu? This drew a collective gasp from the older generation of aunts gathered around the golu. (If it had been me saying something like that, the aunties would have awakened their inner Goddess Kali to say a thing or two, but as it was an honorary son-in-law honoring Kalki (Writer of Ponniyin Selvan) if you will, they had a gasp followed by a weak giggle.) Even the husband knew what that meant and retreated to a safe place by the buffet afterward.

Ponniyin Selvan – the movie based on the historical fiction written by Kalki 50 years ago and is somewhat of a cultural icon in Tamil Nadu

In an era where tweets sub in for official diplomatic (or otherwise) communication channels, and all these frantic modes of communication make things harder and harder to comprehend, it was fun indeed to sit back and watch a historical fiction drama set in the 11th century.

Where 3 tweets would have done the trick, here was a 3 hour movie based on information traveling from one corner of the kingdom to the other. What’s more? Networking protocols and streaming services may have been working full-time to make sure that the theatrical experience of the most modern kind worked as a time-traveling tool, but no networking protocols were used in this story of information gathering and delivery. For that, a suave and charming friend sent as a messengers on horseback did the trick!

In the good old days, even the goddesses seemed to take their time visiting people’s homes on Navarathri and the nine days of singing and visiting homes had a gentle lull to the routine of life, not the hectic hustling that one has come to associate with every aspect of life, including divinity.

Maybe we do need more movies set far in the past like Ponniyin Selvan or in fictional realms with human limits to communication and speed such as the Lord of the Rings. That would remind us that we do not need to react to every Digital byte sent our way, but choose to respond in a more collected fashion. I’ve always wanted to invite folks home using the fashionable mode of dipping a pen in ink, writing a loving note on scroll, and delivering it by hand to our friends.

A Special Post to Celebrate Syzygy

“You’d better make it a special post!”, said the son. He is the one who is ardently fanning me in on, and keeping tabs on whether I am writing enough these days. His natural state of calculating kicks in, and he says “So, if you write another post in the next 36 hours then…”, and I have to remind him that it is not like that. One does not have to follow a punishing rigorous schedule for a hobby. That I will write and when I do, it feels joyous and good. Not laborious and like finishing up an arduous task for the sake of doing so.

There must have been a natural syzygy (aligning of the stars) when I started my blog seventeen years ago. The time it takes for a wizard to come of age in the magical world. I must say, the blog has given me an excellent magical education. I may not have graduated from Hogwarts in this time, but I certainly have learnt a thing or two on the magic of persistence, the seer of light in a dark universe, or any number of things.

Herbology: My specimens may still not be thriving, but as a chronicler of the natural world, I think Professor Sprout would gladly have me in her graduating class.

“Science has taught me that everything is more complicated than we first assume, and that being able to derive happiness from discovery is a recipe for a beautiful life. It has also convinced me that carefully writing everything down is the only real defense we have against forgetting something important that once was and is no more,”
Hope Jahren, Lab Girl

Read: A Celebration of 🌎

Astronomy: Professors Carl Sagan and his many many friends have been amazing companions in the starship of the night. Comets, moon cycles and changing constellations not withstanding, there have also been the amazing journeys through space on light ships designed and envisioned by Johannes Kepler.

Ancient Runes: Professor Vector has opened thine eyes to many wonders of the Mathematical world and how they help us find a structure to our days. A way to find the incontrovertible truth if you will.

“Changing Mathematics from a computational discipline into a beautiful, abstract philosophy.”
Pythagoras of Samos (580-500 BCE) who continued the philosophy of:

Transfiguration: How else does a serious minded member of the software engineering firms of the world transform into a magic seeking writer who will arduously work out a sentence structure sometimes tens of times to get that laugh?

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2020/06/27/💦-🌳-earth-🌏-magicians-💥❄%EF%B8%8F/

Potions: Professor Snape, Dr Oliver Sacks, Paul Nurse, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Ed Yong, and so many more professors have taken me under their wing and spent many enjoyable hours explaining the joy behind reactions.

Care of Magical Creatures: Hagrid, Gerald Durrell, Sy Montgomery and numerous other writers of the natural world have introduced and opened my experiences to the world of creatures around us. Snail tales, pelican and duck friends, and so many instances of the world around us.

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2021/08/29/donkey-days/

Writing & reading have sustained and enthralled me every step of the way, and it has proved to me how remarkable life’s moments are – even in a seemingly unremarkable life such as mine.

Like Sy Montgomery says in her book, How to be a good creature:

Thurber taught me this: “You never know even when life looks hopeless, what might happen next. It could be something wonderful is right around the corner.”
Sy Montgomery – How to be a good creature

It usually is in the form of a new book, or a new idea that magically transforms an ordinary day into an extraordinary one. The power of fleeting thoughts that can take flame, grow and sustain in a wholly positive way, weaving magical moments and learnings. What can be better than that?

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
George R R Martin in A Dance with Dragons

Here is to more years of fruitful occupation, magical meanderings and posts that entertain and hopefully enlighten. This is my 1000th post.

Thank you, my readers, for being with me on this magical journey. Of course, the blog owes its very existence To My Family & Other Animals – who are frequent and oft quoted celebrities on this blog.

World Peace

The first part of this article was published in The Hindu titled Collective Effort dated 10th April 2022

I am in India on a short trip. Most evenings, I take a short walk around the apartment complex the parents live in. The community is a middle class community with children playing outside every evening. Regular readers know how much I enjoy seeing children playing outside everyday. One day as I was walking past the play area, I stopped to see what the commotion was all about. Slippers were being thrown as high as little hands could reach, and all the little children were standing around giving instructions. It was then I noticed the two badminton rackets lodged up in the tree branches above (probably a dare since there were two rackets lodged firmly.)

The little band of racket-throwers were now trying to retrieve them from the trees, It is amusing to be a silent spectator to problem solving such as this. Several suggestions were being given by all gathered (Some enthusiastic, but clearly not grounded in laws of Physics. Others, theoretically brilliant but lacking the practical aspects such as the presence of a long 7 ft stick to dislodge the rackets). When it looked like there were close to dislodging the racket by themselves, I carried on, only to come back a few minutes later on my rounds to see that several attempts had yielded nothing. A general despondency had set in, and some gloomy faces stared at the unyielding tree with its branches so ridiculously high above.

When it was obvious that the little folk could not dislodge the rackets, a small dip in their collective can-do attitude was apparent. Sensing this, the older children playing a little distance away, gathered to help. On my walk as a spectator, this was such a heart warming scene, for I could see the future of humanity secure in this simple act. When one of us suffers a setback, the others came to help willingly without even being asked. The older children had height on their side, and the tallest one lifted a younger child, who then dislodged the racket with a stick lying around.

The cheers erupted all around. One might’ve assumed that a World Series match was just finished. But this jubilation was a different one altogether and play resumed.

I wish children played outside on the streets more especially in the United States. I couldn’t help thinking that that motley bunch of children could have a future CEO reimagining the world, a diplomat helping out in times of humanitarian crises, scientists solving problems as deftly and quickly as humanity creates them, artists and writers who dare to dream and imagine a different world, etc.

Which brings to this excellent book I was reading earlier, World Peace and Other 4th Grade Achievements. I always think highly of children’s perspectives and potential, so naturally I was attracted to this book. In the book, a fourth grade teacher, John Hunter designed a game to restore World Peace in a mythical world of his creation bearing enormous resemblance to our own. Climate change, wars, humanitarian crises, economic bankruptcies are all problems to be solved in this world.

World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements by [John Hunter]

There are Prime Ministers of countries, nominated by the teacher. There is a World Bank, a weather goddess who controls things like freak climatic disasters, the stock market etc, a United Nations council all ably run by the children in the classroom. There is even a secret saboteur whose main job is to spread lies and sow discord between factions. So they learn to trust but verify, be wary but condone etc.

He has a 3-D model depicting their world in which the oceans, the lands and the skies above us need governance and international cooperation to achieve World Peace. They are given 50 problems that must all be solved, and the net worth of the countries needs to be higher than when the game started for the game to be won.

He has perfected the game over several years in his classroom, and the results are indeed stunning in some cases as he writes in his book. In most years, the children did manage to solve World Peace in spite of the overwhelming odds stacked against them. Like in the little anecdote above, the children mostly hit upon a solution only after they are that close to giving up altogether. The failure, dejection all slowly yields to a new mode of thinking. One that is difficult to think of before, and this invariably leads the teams to collaborate and help each other better. (As J K Rowling says in her Harvard Commencement Speech – The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination )

TED Talk by John Hunter – 4th Grade Teacher

Truly, what we learn in Elementary School is priceless. The camaraderie accompanying solving problems truly makes the heart lighter. When in the right company, no problem is insurmountable. More importantly, there is hope for this world despite what we have done.

The Potent Combination

2022 started off with a sprig of the fantastical. The first book of the year was The Ickabog by J K Rowling. Regular readers know that I am a fan of her work for children (Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts, The Ickabog etc, but not as much of her works for adults such as the Robert Galbraith ones or other adult books) .

In any case, I was grateful for the first book of the year being one so classically told, and imagined. Her story is relevant to every dictatorship, and every place where power holds sway. One can see the influences of her work at the Amnesty International in the story. She shares some of these experiences in her graduation day speech at Harvard (Benefits of Failure & Importance of Imagination).

As the car made its ways past the hills wearing their green robes after the recent rains, I asked the occupants if they would be interested in a spot of Cornucopian story-telling. One nodded enthusiastically, the other reluctantly, and the third did not deign to indulge me with an answer. No special points for guessing the nod intensities with the personalities. But it is was nice to be able to read aloud to the folks in the car – enough to get them hooked anyway. Like I wrote in an earlier post, the best way to read out your favorite literature is in a locked vehicle.

The Ickabog is a fearful beast that Cornucopian children are frightened with. (The equivalent of the South Indian Poochandi). However, after an unfortunate accident – the cunning lords of King Fred convince him that the Ickabog is indeed real. They see it as a way of fear-mongering, and stifling transparency. As the improbable tale of the Ickabog was spread by the conniving Lords Spittleworth & Flapoon, the population was led astray into believing lies upon lies, and soon, very few had the capacity to unravel the web of lies, or had the motivation to do so. Their King Fred was a mild sort – cowardly, but also thoroughly lacking in critical thinking & administrative prowess.

As we made our way around the Getty Museum, we trundled around the French Art and there, on display, were the artifacts probably obtained after the French Revolution, when a number of these things made it to the wider world markets. Reading up a little on King Louis XVI there, the daughter described the king. ‘Wasn’t much of a King – he wasn’t particularly harmful or anything…’ and went on to narrate what she had read about him and the times. To my mind, he sounded remarkably like King Fred in The Ickabog (If you’d like to read the first chapter).

The old father & I have been watching the news for the past few days ( a bad habit that I need to snap out of), and it is disheartening to watch the same struggles for power continue in different settings. Tanks piling up in fits over Ukraine, power battles raging on in Afghanistan, Syria and the Middle East region. How many people involved on all sides to call the shots, plan the power grabs, use guile and flattery to achieve their aims?

Power, fame and flattery are a potent combination that can poison the best of minds. Mankind’s history should be good enough teachers, even if our stories and fables are not, but it isn’t. Every dictator in the history of the Earth was impaled upon swords dipped in this mixture, and yet, time marches on claiming its victims.

What was it that Einstein said of a peaceful, purposeful life?

“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”
Albert Einstein

For the love of libraries – 2

The nourish-n-cherish household love for books and libraries is well known. On our recent trip to Boston for instance, we made an afternoon of the Boston Public Library and spent several evenings at the local bookstores. By the time, New York and Boston were done, we had bought between ourselves 10 large books that needed to be packed on a flight. Flights, as you know, would, if they could, weigh the sandwich you were eating to see if they priced tickets right (Boops: 3 layered sandwiches – $50 extra please. )

When we moved our nest a couple of months ago, the whole family squealed at the sight of a little yellow lending library in the neighborhood. There it sat on the lawn of one of our neighbors, and is a sight that always has me smiling. The generosity of the owners, the marvelous gift of books for everyone, not withstanding, I also see that they do a fine job of rotating children’s books, picture books, fiction and non-fiction books. It is an inevitable stop on a walk, if just to peek at the collections set forth for the week.

Obviously, then I was attracted to the book, Digging For Words – Jose Alberto Gutierrez and the Library He Built, Written by Angela Burke Kunkel Illustrated by Paola Escobar

In the city of Bogota, Colombia, live in two Joses. One is a little boy who dreams and waits patiently for Saturdays when he gets to visit a special place. The other, a garbage collector, who has over the course of 20 years of garbage collecting, created a library of the books picked from garbage piles, to share with the rest of the city. His library opens on Saturdays.

The story by itself is a heart warming one based on the true life of Jose Alberto Gutierrez, However what makes a wonderful story completely captivating is the beautiful illustrations. The unexpected joy of seeing the Little Prince in the last page, leaves one with a fuzzy feeling after reading a tale of warmth, perseverance and possibilities of doing good in our world.

Jose Alberto Gutierrez, is known as the Lord of the Books (what a marvelous, marvelous title?)

Excerpt from the Author’s Note:

In addition to running his library, Gutierrez directs the foundation he established, La Fuerza de las Palabras (The Strength of Words) which provides reading material to schools, organizations, and libraries across Colombia.
Author’s Note from Digging For Words – Jose Alberto Gutierrez and the Library He Built

What are your favorite libraries and bookstores?

Donkey Days

It isn’t everyday that one gets to meet the inspiration behind a star.

Not just any star, but an internationally loved one, with no scandals or gossip magazines thrusting their weight of circulation and readership behind them. Where do such stars exist? you ask thinking of all the gossip columns, and the entire magazine staff making their monthly rent (and amenities) writing and analyzing their lives.

Well, such a star could only be a much admired animated character, and therefore the joy is doubly special.

It was a hot day, and the earth was baking lightly when I announced my intention to go walking with my friends in Palo Alto. The smog from forest fires nearby was almost unbearable: birds drooped and took refuge in the trees, plants smacked their lips and dug deeper for some water.

“You’re nuts you know that? Who goes for a walk on a day like this?” , said the daughter.

I beamed in return, and said it mattered not one whit that it felt like a summer stroll on Venus, for I had very cool friends to walk with!

The daughter, being the daughter, giggled and patted my hair patronizingly.

The son, being the son, rattled off some statistics basically letting me know that Venus is far worse. But you, dear reader, I am sure you get the gist without knowing the exact megatons of carbon dioxide in Venus’ atmosphere. (For those of you still curious, please watch this video from Kurzgesagt : Terraforming Venus) This is a popular topic with the son and I have another post to write on a walk in which we discussed these seemingly impossible things.

I meander like a drying up river losing its senses along the way on a hot summer day. Where was I? Yes – meeting a celebrity. Anyway, there we were in Palo Alto – my c.friends and I, walking down a wooded path trying to shake off the oppressive heat, and being marvelously uplifted by the conversation.

At journey’s end, we stood there humbled by the stars of the day. Our friend had taken us to Barron Park, where the local family had maintained donkeys, and they had become a local attraction.

One of the donkeys in front of our eyes was the inspiration behind the donkey in Shrek – that gullible, loquacious, annoying donkey. These donkeys, Perry and Buddy, though were remarkably quiet, enjoying their pasture, and gazing serenely about their surroundings.

Perry – The inspiration behind Shrek’s Donkey

Standing there and looking on these sturdy marvelous gentle animals made me think of all the loving donkeys in literature. The ones who appeared in Panchatantra stories, the fables of Aesop, Sally who is Gerald Durrell’s pet donkey, the beautiful days of life with sultan the donkey, and of course the loving term I use to sometimes refer to the children, “Kazhudhai”(meaning baby donkey in Tamil).

I headed back home with glee, and called out lovingly to the children, “Hey kutti kazhudhais. Guess who I saw today?” And out blurted the whole tale of the darling donkeys in Barron Park, and the daughter amidst her giggles said, “Oh! I thought when you called me kazhudhai, it was an insult, but it is a loving insult huh?”

I laughed. “Well, yes, I called out to Buddy and Perry, and they gave me the exact reaction that you give me. “

“What is that?”

“Acting as though they did not hear and kept on grazing happily in their little pasture.”

Her laugh would have made Donkey in Shrek proud.

I loved the donkeys of literature, the endearing “donkeys” in my life, and the gentle, sturdy, hardworking, peaceful animals that inspired the world starting from the days of Aesop, through the mangers of Nazareth, to Shrek’s donkey.

School Days

It was the first day of school – back to school in-person after a year and a half of remote learning for the Elementary school goer in the home.

There we stood – the husband and I- masked, behind a line holding a throng of anxious parents at bay. The children were coming out to the school environs after such a prolonged time in front of their screens. The nervous energy, chatter and activity, muted through masks as it was, was enough to uplift the senses.

As Miss Read says in her chronicles of life as a school teacher in a village school: The first day of school has a life and energy all its own. Even if the preceding days have been somewhat dreary, she says, the first day manages to be bright and sunny. We live in California, so our summers are not dreary. If anything, they are all too glorious with the sun beating down on us, wildflowers hanging fully on every bush and tree. Even so, the energy and bright first day of school was marvelous.

It was only as we standing there with the others that I realized how much I missed this particular experience. I used to enjoy those precious little moments in the morning looking at the children enjoying their play. (Read: Recess as the basis of culture)

The arrival of the pandemic was like an unexpected blizzard that enveloped the whole Earth in its swirl. While the swirl continues, lessening at times, picking up pace at other times, there are times when post-vaccination, we can hope to remember our normal.

Great Red Spot - Wikipedia — Great Red Spot on Jupiter

I stood there taking in the morning energy from all the young scholars gathered in each other’s physical presence after a year and a half, and smiled to myself. The mask has its advantages. I could observe the teary young parents of kindergarteners as they embarked on this great adventure, the weary parents of the older children who were happy enough to see their children out in their school, interacting with other children again.

I glanced at the son who’d finally found his classmates and was amused by what met my eyes. One fella had learnt how to tie his shoelaces a different way, and he stooped and showed the admiring knot of his friends not once but three times, while they watched patiently, a light shining in their eyes at this new learning.

I couldn’t help smiling.

A few minutes later, I noticed another young fellow, good samaritan that he was, double out of line, and race towards the field, and throw a football that was slowly rolling away from them to the center of the field. He came running back and nicked back into line just as their teacher came out to summon them in, and he was met with huge roars of appreciation for his citizenship.

Who said education only happens in the classroom?

As I walked slowly back to the car hearing the receding chatter of the young and the studious, I hoped that they would have a normal-enough year. The vaccination isn’t here yet for younger children, and we would have to keep an eye on things as they proceed. Look out for each other, help keep one another safe, and navigate this together.

Enjoy the present has taken on a new meaning in Pandemic times. Senior Sunrise

To See The World

I remember the first excitement at seeing the bubble maps of population vs GDP for countries around the world, and how they changed across a span of a century. If one could have their mind blown, that chart was it. Then, a few years on, I saw the TED Talk by Hans Rosling in which he explained Large Families/Low GDP Vs Small Families/High GDP, and this time the wonder grew.

In the intervening years, the power of big data and visualization grew by leaps and bounds, and there never was a dearth of graphs, or data analysis. Causal analysis, correlations, search engine optimizations, ad targeting, and numerous other concepts entered the lingo of the normal person. As early as 2012, Target could predict when a woman was expecting a baby even before her family knew.

Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky changed our perceptions by introducing the world to a whole new world of Behavioral Economics.

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by [Michael Lewis]

So, when I picked up the book, How I Learned to Understand the World, I thought I would find about more interesting statistics about the world, but I was in for a pleasant surprise.

In the book, How I Learned to Understand the World, written by Hans Rosling and his daughter-in-law, Anna Rosling, it is Dr Hans Rosling’s journey that is written. The book isn’t written in the style of can’t-put-it-down. Instead of a compelling narrative that is keeping one’s interest, it is the genuine interest in the human being who was instrumental in changing the way we think of global health and economies. His journey to help humankind starts off with being a doctor in a impoverished nation, but moves on to much more than that. This is an inspiring sketch of what is possible when we think outside the box. That varied interests and knowledge-seeking is never wasted: they truly do come together in myriad ways.

The book starts as most biographies do, with a character sketch of the good doctor’s parents, grandparents, and his modest upbringing in Uppsala in Sweden.

He goes on to study medicine, and then travels to lesser developed countries hoping to do good work. His perception of developing countries such as India undergoes a transformation as he studies and travels there. It is here that he gets an appreciation for public health. The Indian Government at the time was battling one of the largest public health initiatives of the time ( possibly polio vaccinations – I forget). It is a humbling experience for him. He realizes, for instance, that medical facilities were not as backward as he assumed, medical knowledge was quite on par, or better, where it was available. The true problems were scale, population and outreach.

After his return to Uppsala in Sweden, he goes on to begin work as a doctor in Impala. Where is Impala? Nacala? The joy of studying a map for these places is half the joy.

Here, in the coastal region of Nacala, he settles into his work as a doctor with his wife and children. Faced with less than ideal facilities, low budgets, and even less trained people to work with, he slowly learns the areas in which he can make a difference. He learns the importance of cultural awareness, and his humility for people’s knowledge and way of living, helps him reach the people he is attempting to serve. Without this realization he might never have been able to understand the devastating Konzo (‘Konzo’ means tied leg referring to the paralytic symptoms) disease that was paralyzing children in rural areas.

His work in Nacala, and his researches around the paralytic disease, konzo, led him to a life in research after his medical practicing days. The cassava plant is a staple diet in these areas. The cassava root is treated to a long, and arduous process of preparation before being made fit for human consumption. For example, the cassava is dried in direct sunlight for more than 8 weeks, to remove bitterness coming from a cyanide like substance that causes partial paralysis in human-beings (The long process is usually sufficient to remove the amounts of cyanide, but during times of drought, the plant produces more of this chemical content). Dr Rosling was the person to identify this link between the food process and the paralysis in his patients, and it was because he made the effort to understand the way of life in these areas. In times of food crises, the cassava plants are the only source of nutrition, and the results are devastating for those affected: their disability spiraling them further into poverty.

His ability to reach dictators, elected officials, and private industry for the sake of public health is remarkable.

His book, Factfulness, is the next one on my list to be read. In this one, he outlines the state of the world in terms of actual numbers. Is our world as bad as we think it is, or are we progressing better than we give ourselves credit for? I am waiting to read this one.

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by [Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Ola Rosling]

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