News – Page 12 – Nourish-n-Cherish

What Keeps You Up – Part 1

I still remember how I felt the first time I read a novel by Leon Uris. I was 12 or 13. Mine was a sheltered life. A safe, small community where everybody knew everybody else and my parents were respected enough. So, we freely roamed the hillsides, nibbling on berries and swinging on trees. With the advent of Television, some gruesome images had penetrated my mind, it is true, but most of my knowledge of worldly-bad and evil came from the spirited conversations we had with family, teachers, friends, and from the daily newspapers. So, it was probably right to say that I had no clue or exposure to the horrific depths to which humanity could sink.

Our history textbook gave us statistical information about unrest, wars and the number of lives claimed etc, and I had been properly horrified then. But, there is something about reading a Novel, that brings home the truth to you in a manner that no amount of statistics can. These are people you begin to know through the narrative and to even care about. To see them thrown in the throes of the Second World War is just shocking.

http://mic.com/articles/104702/science-shows-something-surprising-about-people-who-love-reading-fiction

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/28/president-obama-says-novels-taught-him-citizen-marilynne-robinson

I still remember shaking with fury in the night. The temperature outside was sub-zero, and it was raining noisily, but I was hot, helpless and angry. I finished reading at 1 a.m. and when at 3 a.m. my mother came to see why my lights were still on, she found me weeping incoherently and writing furiously at my desk. I had filled papers and papers with my rant and my heart felt hollow, my eyes swollen.

My poor mother. I had school holidays, but she still had to go to work the next day. I am sure she wanted to just get back in bed and snuggle into her sheets. Who wants to have their sleep disturbed by teenagers reading novels? But she listened to me and in her matter of fact way, told me to think of how in the end Good triumphed over Evil and to say the 3 slokas she taught me when I was 5, over and over again so I could fall asleep. “But there is no God! If something like this can be allowed to happen, there is no God!” I said.
“That may be so. But saying these slokas over and over again, will make you concentrate on something else and let you sleep.” she said.

I must have fallen asleep at some point that night for when I woke the sun had managed to rise without my knowledge, and was peeking through the clouds whenever it could, to turn a watery sun upon us. I am sure she told my father about it, for when I got up the next day, there was a quizzical gleam in his eyes as he surveyed me, like his little daughter had suddenly grown up.

Ever since, every time I read anything about the World Wars, I blanch and brace myself for impact. Which is why, I was angry at myself for clicking on that link the day I had taken off to enjoy Diwali with the children at home. My heart lurched and the food I had eaten 3 hours ago threatened to leave if I continued reading it.

I clamped the laptop shut and resolved to celebrate Diwali. After all, wasn’t the point of Diwali to signify that Love triumphs over Evil? That light always triumphs over darkness.

“Happiness can be found even in the darkest times if one only remembers to turn on the light. ” Albus Dumbledore in Prisoner of Azkaban

That evening, as we drew a crooked rangoli in front of the house, colored it in, and set tiny tea lamps on them, I managed to fill my heart with hope that things will be okay. That in the bleakest of times, there is always light, if we dip deep into ourselves for hope.

There are always terrors anew in this world. Terror attacks, refugee crisis, civil unrest, wars. The same sword that kills also protects – humanity has that which is loathsome and hopeful in them. There is love and hope in this world, and that alone will help us face Evil.

For the Love of ( Halloween & the Environment) – Part 1

Usually, when Halloween rolls around, I am left out. What I mean is that I am the butler, the enabler, the inefficient decorator, the bad make-up doer, the scrambler, the chef, the doler of chocolates. But I am rarely one of the featuring stars in the evening’s show. When I say these things, I don’t want you running off with the idea of a pestilential sulker dulling Halloween. Far from it. I may decorate like a wet cracker, but there is one thing I bring to the evening – enthusiasm. One of my friends once said after witnessing a football game played by kindergartners that there was more enthusiasm than skill in the game. Exactly how I like to slot myself in the Halloween throng of emotions.

When I smile after hoisting a ghastly costume on folks, I smile widely, deeply and with affection. It gives the wearer confidence as they head out into the Halloween night. I like Halloween, for it is the one night when it is okay for serious minded adults who think of worldly problems to go out and publicly quack like ducks. It is often an illuminating experience to see that people give more attention to one’s quacks as a duck, than their most reasoned and logical arguments. It is all good – imagine if the Hippoceres lightened up.

What?! Don't listen to me now! I am just Quacking! — What?! Don’t listen to me now! I am just Quacking!

If you like Halloween so much, why is it you don’t make more of an effort to dress up yourself? You ask. My answer drips in selfless service. There is usually a gaggle of folk around me needing attention – the costumes have to be just so and the food needs to be just so-so, the parents or parents-in-law have to be convinced to loosen up for Halloween and there it is. By the time the vampires, fairies and super-heroes come laden with plastic pumpkins, I have barely had time to lay the dinner on the table and grab a devil-hairband bought years ago, and smile (I have been accused of being the friendliest devil known to mankind, thereby failing spectacularly in even the simplest of costumes.)

This time, Halloween was on a Saturday and I had more time and energy on my hands. I started planning a whole two hours ahead that I wanted to be something too. Not just that. I was the decisive force: I wanted my costume to be Environment Themed. In what I thought was a brilliant teachable moment, I said that if we don’t save the environment, we won’t need Halloween Decorations at all, since the macabre stuff we see as Halloween Decorations, would be the sorry state of Earth.

Look at the sorry state of Earth here:

http://usuncut.com/climate/10-terrifying-before-and-after-photos-will-silence-global-warming-deniers/

The husband gave me a shocked, dismal look. The meaning of that look needs a much stronger pen than my own to record. I realized that far from a Teaching Moment, it could well become a Traumatic Moment, and swiftly swerved the conv. towards suggestions.

That did the trick. Ask us to talk and give suggestions, we trip over one another. There was a lot of shouting and a few good suggestions.

We need Water, Save Water, Less Plastic, More running water: (rivers, brooks), Recycle better, Anti Deforestation, More Trees, Drop of Water, Become a Cloud, No Toys (The toddler son came up with this and said proudly that he did not want to play with his toys anymore, and that I could give them all away, and not buy anymore. The pride on his face I tell you! It would have been a lot more virtuous if he had remembered that at the Lego Store the next day). The daughter said that I should crusade against oil spills since they harm animals, why not a Clean Ocean-Reef? Or Be a Farm.

The Wind in the Reefs — An Ocean Reef – How in the name of Willow’s Marina Reefs can this be made into a Halloween Costume in an hour?

I wonder if you notice a theme here: viz: Dashed hard to pull off. No dropping into a store and plucking a costume from the Shelf here. It would have to be made. I have already written about the complete lack of skills in areas like that.

The daughter said I needed to keep an open mind and try, or I’ll never know. I heeded her advice. How hard could it be?

Coming up Next: Part 2

How to watch a Lunar Eclipse

There was a lunar eclipse and a red moon a few weeks ago. The world watched the rare phenomenon and so did we. I remember seeing the Halley’s Comet about three decades ago, using the School telescope. The telescope was set up in our neighbor’s garden. There is a secret excitement and a strange lesson in mortality when looking at a comet that comes once in 75-76 years. That, by itself, was sensational enough for us to brave the cold nights to see the comet. The newspapers had been our source of knowledge and I think the news on state television made a statement too, but that was all. The rest of the buzz we created. I remember a lot of intent gazing and saying “Watdidocee?Isthatit?WOW!”

Now, I am tripping all over the internet over viewing pieces of it remnants : The Orionid Meteor Shower: Leftovers of Halley’s Comet

http://www.space.com/23219-orionids-meteor-shower.html?cmpid=514630_20151019_54178516&adbid=10153118312361466&adbpl=fb&adbpr=17610706465

I can’t but help compare and contrast how we would have viewed it today’s times. Just as spottily is my guess, though we would have the pleasure of seeing the recording taken by somebody immensely more skilled at these things than myself.

Take for instance our viewing of the recent red-moon and lunar eclipse episode:

We set about viewing the eclipse in our customary fashion. That is to say, we made a complete muck of things: hashed a pig or two in the duck pen and squashed a rat.

The husband stood at the kitchen island, with a serious and urgent expression on his face. The daughter strolled in and said, “Oh – he must be playing chess!”

The affronted husband puffed out his chest and told her not to say trivial things like that. “I am, in fact, checking out a very important scientific phenomena that we can see in the skies today. “

The daughter, suitably chastened, went near him and cried, “He is on Facebook!”

I laughed.

“Yes, but checking to see whether the lunar eclipse started, not, you know, just face-booking.” he finished somewhat lamely.

The toddler son, flying his toy plane, and attempting a lunar landing, then explained the lunar eclipse to us: Moons can be red, blue or white (Is it American? No Everyone can see the moon when it is blue, red or white) and hide in the sun (Won’t it burn? No. Because Shadows are not hot.)

“So, why can’t you go out and check if the lunar eclipse started?” I asked. “After all, if people were saying so on Facebook, they must have done the same thing.”

This struck the children as sound logic, and they ran outside to see what was going on. They caught glimpses of a red moon and they charged in with the sensational news. The son ran into the house, taking his bass decibel levels to an excited high and the daughter came, tripping over her shoes as she took them off. I was, as is usual, in the evening, flopping about the kitchen looking efficient and determined. The urgent appeals from the whole family made me set dinner aside for the moment:

Just switch off the dinner. We can come back and eat.

Come fast. Now.

It takes a long time to cook. You are always cooking dinner.

I likes dinner.

They hustled me out of the house and we stood outside in a sort of anti-climax. The clouds, usually welcomed in the Bay area skies, were having a tough time figuring out why people were standing outside and grimacing at them like that. Hadn’t these very people been pandering for rain, and putting up mugshots of what clouds look like to make sure the populace did not forget? Now when the clouds did come and flit across the evening sky, there was animosity. Did they think moons brought rains? No. Clouds did. Very confusing for the cloud-body.

By now, of course, the husband had to take matters in his hand. He sprinted out to the street and then said we’d get a better view from the end of our street, so off we went leaving the door ajar. The husband, looking like an Admiral General in shorts, was directing his troops to better viewing positions. The children dutifully ran after him. He turned to bellow out further instructions, only to find his faithful wife running in the opposite direction. It is enough to rattle any Admiral. One cannot determine strategic spots with the errant soldier retreating. He stopped and the children skidded into him and they all bellowed at the recalcitrant soldier.

The problem was, there had been a spate of robberies of late, and I was loathe to leaving the door open. So, I doubled back to lock up, while the rest of the family ran. Questions, explanations, eye-rolls and lectures on how-to-live-in-the-moment and not miss lunar eclipses were happening when the daughter yelled – ‘There! There is the moon.” The mutinous Admiral and the penitent trooper, both abandoned earthly worries for the moment and gazed sky-ward to see the moon disappear once again.

The husband tried to take a picture with the phone, “There are far better photographs that are going to be shared at the end of the eclipse, why bother now?”, I said, like it was going to make a difference.

We gazed again only to find a twig obstructing our view of the clouds. The husband charged homeward saying he’d bring us the car, so we could all pile in and get a clearer view. I tried telling him that a better view can only be had above the clouds, but he had gone. He ran and I ran after him with the house keys, and we met each other mid-street (In case you thought the children missed this piece of action, they did not. The toddler thought we were playing, and ran after me. The daughter, tasked with looking after her little brother, ran after him.) Within minutes of this rhino-charge, the car came, with the husband panting in the driver seat and we jumped in and headed out to a open parking lot.

I don’t know whether you have observed children playing in the park. They run up and then they run down, they run left and they right. All with no apparent purpose. So do the child-like. After about 15 minutes of running this way and that, there was some heavy breathing, more useless photographs, and a state of dejection.

If aliens used this time to observe life on earth, I am afraid to say the news they carry back to their homing civilization cannot be a promising one. A lot of pointless running, needless pointing later, we decided to just head back home.

We entered our community when the clouds cleared again. Swearing loudly, off we leaped from the car, and charged out to see the eclipse. We saw a knot of our neighbors standing to view the eclipse too. They had, in their usual wise manner, skipped the drama and simply came out of their homes and raised their eyes.

This was the picture the internet showed us the next day:

Excellent pictures by people more skilled at Photography than us obviously! — Taken from here: Google Images for Lunar Eclipse

Sigh! For those of you trying to view the Orionid Meteor Shower – I wish you a peaceful viewing. Let me know how it goes.

What is Time?

The toddler son has always been a little preoccupied with Time. He buzzes around asking me the time every so often. Initially, of course, I did the square thing and checked the watch and told him. Soon, I realized that I could check the refrigerator, count my tomatoes, and just blurt out an approximate time. Then, I realized that he did not need the approximate time either – he just needed a number. (I tried time-to-sleep, and time-to-eat, but he did not accept that answer. He did, however, accept 14 o’clock, 14:52 – but not 14.)

The little fellow, like most children, is a question-machine. He asks why there is no half sun, why the dinosaurs died, how he came back to life to spend the day with Danny, why the flowers dried, why his sister came to the World earlier than him. What is dish – (You can eat a dish and put mammum (food) in a dish?), how to see if water reached a particular spot in the water-hose, what is before zero, how do tree roots drink water (Thank goodness, my biology teacher was not there to hear my answer.)

Sometimes, I give him an answer that is in essence correct, but otherwise useless. Like the time he asked me how to make water. (You take two hydrogen atoms, combine it with an oxygen atom and you will get water.) He looked at me puzzled and drank his water. So, I am drinking three water, but there is only one water? I never learn I tell you. After that rash answer, I spent a few trying minutes laying bare my ignorance in Chemistry for all to see.

One time, at the end of a 16-hour long day, we lay there savoring a children’s book together. I told him that it was his sister’s favorite book when she was a baby and he lapped it up. At the end of it, we both sighed contentedly and I told him it was time to sleep. That was when he crinkled his brow, and asked me what is Time. I must have looked perplexed for he went on: “You rember when I was eating applejacks cereal in the morning, you said Time is going? I want to go yesterday.”

If I wasn’t lying down, I would have gone. I am guilty of hustling the fellow when he is relishing his ‘applejacks cereals’ over breakfast, but mornings are a bit rushed in the household and my train won’t wait.

He looked serious and a bit frustrated to see that I had not grasped his simple question. “I want to go yesterday!” he repeated slowly and a bit louder than before. I know that on his timeline things that happened a decade ago qualify as yesterday, so I asked him why he wanted to go to Yesterday.

His answer to that was simple enough. He wanted to see his sister as a baby. I had to dash the fellow’s hopes. There were photographs I could show him, stories I could tell him of her babyhood, but no, he could not go back in time.

Then, he asked me why time only goes forwards and not backwards.

This is when you see me mop my brow. I tell you, I am no physicist. His questions are steadily chipping at whatever Science I have managed to grasp over the years, despite my teachers’ best intentions.

I barely understand time now. It is ethereal, and deceptive. I feel like I am spending enough time during the day enjoying the present, yet, here we are already confusing the Fall season with the sunshine that is Summer’s trademark. I seem to remember helping the fellow take his first steps and now here he is asking me for explanations that are dubious at best. If every day does not seem to fleet past, why do the years flit by?

How come I forget the name of the person I met yesterday, but remember the names of my friends from when I was 5 years old?

It is all most intriguing I tell you.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/09/22/the-quantum-and-the-lotus-riccard-david-bohm-reality/

Where To Go During The Third World War?

We had been to attend The Physics Show a few weeks ago. Living in an area housing the world’s most frightful technologists does that to you. One scientist tells his neighbor, who tells his friend, an engineer, who tells his friend, a Biochemist, and from there it passes on from one to another, all bound together by the loose brackets of a parent. Before long, there is a list of folks beating it up the hill to The Physics Show. If you peered closely at that hill, you would have seen me there with the daughter and some friends. I can’t fool the public into believing that the Opera and Broadway are competitors, but the general populace was surging to the show.

The Auditorium was atop a steep hill, and the populace was huffing and puffing like Po the Panda stopping for water breaks every now and then. I felt like I was on a strange padayatra (Journey by Foot) to see a Gingko Tree, growing amidst a grove of Japanese Cherry Blossoms, atop the Great Wall of China. The holy path only required one to sprinkle a few drops of the holy Ganga-jal along the way, to make the ritual complete.

Pada Yatra to see Gingko Tree amidst Grove of Japanese Cherry blossoms on the Great Wall of China

The populace making their way up the hill were mostly enthusiastic folks of Asian descent: Parents of Chinese, Japanese & Indian descent with their reluctant progeny.

The show by itself was reasonably good. The scientists did their best to enthuse the children. “If you can’t have fun doing Physics, you can’t be having much fun doing anything!” they boomed on stage. All the parents laughed heartily and clapped at this, while the 5 year old boy sitting in front of me turned and stared at me as if asking, “Really?! You can laugh at this, but not at the Tom & Jerry show I was uprooted from for this lark?”. It looked to me like he was having a lot more fun ogling at these specimens who laughed for that joke, than anything else. I detected a judgmental gleam in his eye, and did my best to cope with it by ignoring him and enjoying the atmosphere instead.

I scanned the crowd to see the number of children in the 5-7 age group. There were even a few 4 year olds and I hoped they were taking one for the sibling and not because parents hoped that training started early.

The scientists talked about Electricity, Temperature and Atmospheric Pressure. But the best attempts to educate drew the biggest engagement when the team on the stage fried themselves deliberately or made their hair stand up. It was hilarious to see the hopeful expressions on the faces of the well-intentioned parents, while the children enjoyed the parts of the show that looked like circus performers out at tea-time.

A few days later, the daughter and I were out and about sauntering around the neighborhood. The waning summer had few butterflies and we made them proud by flitting from one topic to the next. We were talking about progress, science, the European refugee crisis, the recent fires, dodo bird extinctions and so on. The gentle Dodos helped me steer our conversation onto humans and humanity’s path and how our Scientific progress always has a good and a bad fallout. I told her about what Albert Einstein said, “The Fourth World War will be fought with sticks and stones!”.
I went on to tie the plight of the Syrian refugees to explain how civil unrest, war etc always lead to horrifying effects on people.

“So, Albert Einstein said that the Third World War will wipe out everything as we know it right? So, then we are okay isn’t it?” she asked, her face crinkled with worry.
“Alas! Even if it is a big bang annihilating life in the end, the hurtle towards that instant itself is a long and difficult journey involving much heartbreak and agony. It will be a long drawn out affair with millions of people losing their loved ones, suffering with injuries and wretched atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and anxiety.” I said. .

The daughter was quiet and somber. A rare occurrence.I did not relish this Doomsday Scenario either. We walked in silence for a minute.
“Well then the only way out is for people to go to Oregon then.” said she after a few moments in a final sort of voice..
“Eh?! You mean the state of Oregon?”
“Yes” she said. “Oregon – above California.”

God knows I have braved enough conversations, but this still had me stumped. “Why Oregon?”
“Well. Only there you can kill yourself legally, and put an end to misery right?” said the daughter.

Enlightenment dawned. A few days before this, we had been discussing the case of Brittany Maynard (http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/opinion/maynard-assisted-suicide-cancer-dignity/) and we told her about Euthanasia and how it was legally allowed in the state of Oregon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_in_the_United_States

So, if ever there is a Third World War and a lot of people are suffering, you know where to go.

Glad to have that straightened out.

Wildfires, Droughts & Other Things

A visit to the grand old trees of the West is always a humbling experience. Last week, it was the turn of the Sequoias. Most folks check climatic conditions, pull up traffic conditions and ensure that the travel route is free of terrors, man-made or otherwise. I like efficient folks like them. We are just not one of them.

So, obviously, there we were, entering the beautiful forest park only to have the ranger look us strangely in the eye and ask whether we knew we would not be allowed into most of the park.
“Why is that?” I asked
His eyebrow twitched a bit showing us that his base, unchecked instinct was to utter an irritated tut, but his excellent training made him stamp down firmly on that instinct and instead answered with a civil nod.
“Well, Ma’am. There is a forest fire on the Kings Canyon side, so you may not go.” he said
“Will we be allowed tomorrow?” I said swiftly updating plans for the next day to see if we could do a shabby run of Sequoia and Kings Canyon the next day. The ranger sized me mentally to be one of those tick-it-all-from-the-list types and gave me a pleading look. He said that the park had been closed for the past month and the only grove we could visit was Grant Grove, for the fire was burning relentlessly on the King’s Canyon side.

All the way up to the parks, I had been in a feeling of sinking unease. The river beds along the 3 hour drive had all but dried up. The lands lay caked and what respite greenery could have provided was all but missing in the urban factory areas spewing out dense smoke. I remembered our last drive up to the same national park and I remember exclaiming at nature’s bounty every few miles. I also distinctly remember leaving the car windows open so I could hear the river crashing down below in the canyon. There was nothing of the sort this time. Just an eerie quiet. I had never seen California this dry. I found myself worrying whether the Sequoia trees would survive the massive drought that lay upon us when the husband reminded me that these trees have been through it all, and are far better equipped to handle nature’s adversities than we are. It was true. Our entire generation is but a blip in the forest’s existence.

I looked around to see folks clicking photographs relentlessly on their phone and cameras. Hundreds of photos every minute. Some of these photographs will be liked, some of them may not even have the privilege of being edited/uploaded, but they existed all the same. I thought to myself, not for the first time that to the grand old trees of the West, we are like those pictures. Mere blips on the timeline. Some of us may achieve more notice from those around them than others, but that does not mean we weren’t there.

As we walked around the tall, squat Sequoia trees in the grove, I succumbed to that beautiful feeling of peace. We watched the chipmunks chattering away and our attempts to imitate them got us a chipmunk-shelling in time. We listened to bird calls and wondered why there were so few. We squealed at sighting an occasional mule deer. Most mule deer might have been startled out of their own grove, but this hardy fellow turned and gave us a pose.

It was all so serene, it was hard to believe the fire was raging just a few miles away. It was a sage thought. The wildfire has now spread to the Grove where we loitered around a week ago and my heart skips a beat thinking of the teeming life we had seen there and how it all suffers.

http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_current

How much of this agony we inflict upon our environment and how much of it is part of the natural cycle that Earth follows?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/09/15/the-summer-of-2015-was-earths-hottest-on-record-nasa-data-show/

Can A Bark Spark The Media River?

How many of you have barked in your lives? If you haven’t ever. Try it now. Bow Wow. Good.

Now imagine one time you came off sounding (to a dog) like you need to get your act together, for you sounded like a sheep trying to talk pig. Not just that, the word spread in the dog community that bark they heard from you on that day was a menace to dogs in general, and decided to hunt you down. Relentlessly. They get all the stray dogs in town, get the domesticated ones to break their leash and come after you. All because that day when you barked, it sounded like a sheep-ish pig snorting.

You could try to leave, but world over, canines are incensed that a person who barked like a pig is allowed to live at all. There are dogs in every part of the world, and no matter where you turn, you are besieged by angry dogs.

They do not know whether you are a person who loves dogs in general or not so much. They have no idea whether you are for or against animal cruelty, or if you care about the environment, whether you are friendly, loyal, caring or warm. From that moment on, there is a canine war against you – for you have been singled out.

You try telling them that you really do things well in life. You run, mew, walk, sing, read, say “Down boy!” with aplomb, walk-like-a-penguin, spend time with your friends, family and other animals, are loyal, forgiving, funny, easy, curious; but that bark that insulted dogs removed every other aspect of your personality.

This to me, is what the mutating self-righteous internet-user base has become. We all watched with horror about how the world went after the dentist who killed Cecil the Lion, we know what happened to Foy.

Was this how the world always was, or have your tolerance levels waned, I asked myself as I sat quietly with a notepad in my hand admiring the view of the lake before me and idly jotting down bits and pieces of conversation I heard as people ran, jogged or walked around the lake. There were so many seemingly innocuous statements I overheard that could cause a storm when taken out of context. Like this one for instance:
It all comes down to what your mother has fed you over the years.

This simple sentence could go viral within minutes in a hundred different dimensions.
Feminist groups going: Why should moms be held responsible for the feeding?
Indignant moms going: The mother always knows best!
Disgruntled fathers going: Hey! We know a thing or two about nutrition too!
Young folks going: Please! Stop. We know how to feed ourselves.

But what this misses is context, tone of voice, reaction of those involved, an explanation. This is what I overheard from a family of three walking together briskly. That sentence could have been advice doled to the teenaged-son on good nutrition and exercise, or an offhand compliment to the mother in that family, or the father’s own story about how he associated certain memories with what he ate at his mother’s kitchen, or the line from the latest Hindi movie they watched.

It was not always like this. Somehow, with shorter message contents competing for our attention, our attention spans seem to be becoming directly proportional to our tolerance and our ability to assume the best in people.

Maybe next time we stop and make an effort to think that maybe not all is as bad as it sounds. (Well….except in Donald Trump’s case in which case, you may quack before you bark.)

Can We Fight The Media River?

I called and spoke to my parents the other day.

It is always a pleasure to chew the fat with the old father. We were talking of this and that – me trying desperately to get a word in edgeways. Grandfather and grandson talk like they are releasing cannon balls from the top of the fort, and that they must somehow made it heard to the populace 1000’s of metres below about the cannon balls before releasing them. People with voices, even like mine, sound like bleaters on the side. Finally, Dusty Crophopper, that wonderful firefighter who is also a racing world champion and works as a crop-duster (if a plane can be that useful, why can’t we?), needed to tend to a fire rescue operation and flew off with his owner and I was allowed to carry on talking to my father.

Dusty Crophopper - The Useful plane: Firefighter, World class racer, crop duster, best friend & model citizen — Dusty Crophopper – That Useful Plane! Firefighter, world-class-racer, crop-duster, best friend & model citizen

We spoke of this and that and the father took to criticizing the evening leeches who sucked blood and happiness from his being, namely evening Tamil soap operas.

“Well…nobody is asking you to watch them.” I said fairly. “You have so many channels, you can always watch National Geographic.” I said.

To which the mother quipped, “Given a choice he has the news going on in endless loops, and all day long there is apa-sagunam(bad omens). Somebody murdering somebody – all on Friday evening. Who wants that? ”

I wonder if it is okay on other days for bad omens, but know better than to ask her that. The mother has a special place in her heart for Fridays. She has complex algorithmic suggestions that would do well with some refactoring. The lot of us are constantly flouting these rules, with or without knowledge, and getting in trouble. I try to classify them simply.

“Well..you could watch the financial news then.” I said. I never learn I tell you, I must be as dim-witted as a drunk banana slug. There is no point in providing suggestions, for people are going to do exactly as they please, but I blunder on happily every time.

Anyway, there was a small scuffle at the other end of the phone about financial news and stock markets during which time I was called on an emergency rescue operation of Dusty Crophopper who flew so fast, he crash landed behind the sofa with the owner in close pursuit.

By the time I was back to the conversation, the father was in a melancholy mood. “Wasting time is so easy these days”, he said. I agreed. He continued on, “It is increasingly sad to expect the younger generation to overcome monumental demands on their time to waste it and use it towards something constructive. When you were young, there was only a television to grapple with.”
I disagreed.
The television was nothing to grapple with when I was young. There was no grappling there. Anyone who has spent even an hour watching “Vayalum Vazhvum” at 6 p.m. will provide ready testimony to the fact that it was phenomenally more rewarding to pretend to study. The benefits were multi-fold. You could drool and day dream all you wanted, you had your room to your own devices and authority figures off your back, for weren’t you studying? Also, when you came out refreshed, you sat yourself down to a wonderful dinner where nobody told anybody about the benefits of hard work, because the poor child has just been working really hard. It was marvelous.

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/india-and-love/

I told him so and he laughed heartily.

In today’s world, I’d be sorry to be a kid laden with homework, when there are more Television programs than people have the energy and time for.
Link here:
http://nextdraft.com/archives/n20150831/the-great-tv-overdose/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/business/fx-chief-ignites-soul-searching-about-the-boom-in-scripted-tv.html?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=website&_r=0
Quote: The number of new shows this year could, for the first time, surpass the 400 mark.

The laughs from comedy sitcoms are far more numerous than ones your own friends and family can come up with around the dinner table.

When Television gets boring, there is a wide variety of apps and games to amuse oneself for we live in a psychological bubble.
Link here: for tech bubble vs psychological bubble.
http://nextdraft.com/archives/n20150901/we-are-in-a-bubble/
I quote:
This time it’s not a financial bubble. It’s a psychological one. The psychological bubble makes you think that because you can code a photo app or design an algorithm to get me to the airport a little quicker, that also qualifies you as an expert on every other topic.

As if all this was not temptation enough, there is also the phenomenal lure of facebook, twitter, youtube, pinterest and instagram.

It is enough to make anyone feel helpless. I sometimes feel like a mute spectator to a torrential river devised to distract you from everything including distractions.

Which brings me neatly to the most entertaining hour of my social media simulation experiment. Coming up next – stay tuned.

The Art of the Considered Response

In our age of reminding us to breathe, here is a breath of fresh air!

This 15 year old girl came up with a solution to reducing online abuse: It is so simple; it is brilliant.

http://magazine.good.is/articles/how-a-15-year-old-tech-whiz-is-using-software-to-fight-internet-hate

On reading about a teenage girl who committed suicide after being at the receiving end of abuse, Trisha Prabhu, was shocked. That a girl who could have had a productive, love filled life chose to deprive herself and her family and friends of the opportunity was nothing short of devastating for her.

She spent hours researching the topic. She found out teenagers tended to be way more impulsive than adults. The efforts led her to Rethink. The problem is we are in such a rush, the heady feeling of sending that email response, that comment out the door, so we can get started on the next stimulus is draining. Something has to give and that something is the ability to stop & think. So, her solution is simple: Her algorithm detects abusive language and pops up a message that says, “You are about to say something that may hurt the other person. Are you sure you want to post this?”

The rate of abuse with this simple action was down by 93%. A whopping 93% of the time, all the brain needed was a second’s introspection.

We are rewarding behaviors requiring instant reactions.

For instance, I do not like it when somebody is notified that I have read a message, because the clock is then ticking. I am fairly certain some team danced their way to the bank after that feature was rolled out, but I cried. Now our brains go: They know I have read it, they are wondering why I have not responded. They now know I am thinking about it. How long can I think about it? Will they think I am thinking about it?

I read another article on the gentle art of letter writing and thought to myself that what I miss most in these days of frenzied communication is the space to ruminate and practice the Art of the Considered Response.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/27/lewis-carroll-letter-writing-email/

There are certain gems that Lewis Carroll says that are as relevant to the letter writing era as the social media era:

Don’t try to have the last word!

Don’t repeat yourself.

When you have written a letter that you feel may possibly irritate your friend, however necessary you may have felt it to so express yourself, put it aside till the next day.

This post could go a hundred different ways and indeed has been written and rewritten multiple times over the years and has not made it to the blog on each of these occasions because I was not satisfied with it. I still am not satisfied with this post, but I am rewarding my sense of instant sharing by publishing it now.

The Climax – Part 3

I had left folks off on a cliff hanger in the last post(The Lure of Fernweh & Veg..) We had arrived, with ample time left to eat a hearty evening snack, at the airport from which to fly towards Seattle. We were told by the crew, that forgot how to smile, that we had come to the wrong airport. Our flight, was to leave not from Oakland airport, but from San Jose at the same time, said one of the crew and the pair of them at the desk scowled.

I never knew what people meant when they said they were struck dumb. I now know.

On hot days, inside the brain, it feels like ice cream is melting and spilling over into the Broca’s area commonly known as the left frontal lobe.
Weather Forecast in Brain: Snow avalanche

The Broca’s area is the part of the brain that controls speech and having melted ice-cream over it renders cohesive speech delivery impossible. All that is manifest on the face is an advanced level of ogling, noisy gulping and impressive eyes opened in wide disbelief. Some people can then say, “Eh?”, but most like me, just continue with the ogling, g-ping and eye-strengthening exercises.

About a minute later, I found my voice. “What? I mean how? How could Alaskan Air send the flight notifications for Oakland then?”

The husband, was having a pretty tough time reigning in his Broca’s area too, but he coerced his left frontal lobe into speech. “I set up the alerting. I mean, we are flying back from Seattle to Oakland, so I must’ve gotten confused. The flights from San Jose and Oakland are at the same time remember?” he said.

“Well, the airport is pretty empty, so the flights must be quite empty too, who not ask them if they can put us on the flight from here?” I asked simply. It was a reasonable request I thought, but the flight crew taking in our plight did not seem to think so.

“We cannot do that. Call the reservations number. There is a 1-800 number on the website.” she said petulantly, like we were badly behaved, very naughty children, making mischief for her by arriving at the wrong airport. I could have told her that playing games with her apparently absent sense of humor was not exactly my idea of a vacation. But something about her face and mine, made the husband step in. Using his omniscient diplomacy, he held my hand. He had sensed the loosening of my left frontal lobe and he knew, it would be quick in making up lost time. His hand held back that sharp rebuke hovering near the tongue. He then asked her, politely, if there was anything at all that could be done, and she said “No.” (I mean there wasn’t even the perfunctory ‘sorry’ that most crew members throw in without meaning it.)

The husband tried yet again, “If there is a change fee or something, I can pay it here. “
“No. Please call 1-800 line Sir.”
“You cannot do anything?”
“No.”
There was no denying it. Alaskan Air had missed a golden customer service opportunity. For, we are easily appeasable folks and would have gladly taken any help they could have given us.

We had flown Southwest Airlines before and though, this was a first when it came to airport bloomers, there have been many occasions when we have arrived early and had been delighted to find that Southwest could accommodate us on an earlier flight, or on a later flight if the security lines were horrendous, and we would have a mad rush getting to the gate on time. Every time, their proactive customer service was exemplary and better yet, unceremonious: It was handled by the crew checking or printing out your boarding pass.

Why then was this so difficult? Maybe, that is why Southwest was exemplary, because it was out of the ordinary.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/02/05/oliver-burkeman-antidote-plans-uncertainty/

But, of course, life is in the uncertainties and given that there was no help forthcoming from the airline staff, the husband called the 1-800 line and was listening to some music on their hold line. A thought struck me as I checked my watch: there were another 35 minutes in which to make it to San Jose if we caught a cab quick enough from here. The drive time at current traffic rates showed 40 minutes.

Time for a climax nourishncherish household! Time for a climax.

Say what you will, during moments like this, some people, like the flight crew above make you want to throw your hands up in despair; while some others make you want to congratulate their attitude and spirit. It just goes to prove that attitude is everything. Intelligence, rank, position and everything else seems secondary. The taxi driver arrived and within moments had the situ. surmised.

Here was a man who was determined, and sorry for us. He caught the high occupancy lane and concentrated rigorously enough to get us to the San Jose gate at 6:10 p.m. The flight was at 6:55 p.m. San Jose airport was empty too. We tumbled through security, raced past the terminals and ran into the aircraft. Then, we stood around choosing convenient spots in a half filled aircraft, and taking deep breaths, before giving ourselves congratulatory high-fives. The children were marvelous throughout the adventure and we made it. Just about.

Before switching off my phone for take-off, I checked Facebook. The results of the Vegetable Quiz were out. It turned out to be Cauliflower Paneer and Vegetable Biriyani with this helpful photograph to tide us over.

vegetable pulao — vegetable biryani with cauliflower pulao

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/science-hangry-or-why-some-people-get-grumpy-when-they-re-hungry

We are not angels. Neither are we yogis. I found myself irascible. We had not had time to buy food, we had barely time to catch the flight. This photograph was too much.

Weather Bulletin in Tummy: Strong thunder storm.

I weakly waited for water, while my stomach rumbled loudly and frequently. The flight crew handed me 36 ml to sprinkle into the thunderstorm.

“If we had stopped at their house on the way, we could have had that excellent biriyani and paneer!”, said the husband and I moaned.

Weather Bulletin in Tummy: Hailstones & mild rain
The tiny packets of airline honey roasted peanuts landed like hailstones and more water rained down.

We bought a cheese platter from the crew, and waited. In our hungry minds, the fruit & cheese platter grew in dimensions. There were water melons jostling with grapes, and blueberries were complaining about the lack of space. The oranges tried to mediate the fracas, but got hit by the cantaloupes. The cheese just tried to get in wherever it could. The platter came, and well….see for yourselves:

By the time we landed in Seattle, the hunger pangs had quietened down somewhat, apparently given up on the idea of anything substantial.

That is why our hosts at Seattle saw us demolish the food laid out on the table like that. I always enjoy my friends’ hospitality, and the meal was doubly enjoyable given the circumstances. There was only munching for the first 10 minutes. Then, we sighed contentedly and gave them the lowdown of our journey there and they were suitably impressed.

The after dinner fruit platter showed us what fruit platters should look like and we retired happily to start our short vacation in Seattle & Vancouver.

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