News – Page 16 – Nourish-n-Cherish

Happy Science Days!

There are some mechanics whose work I admire. They have an orderliness about them. They take out things packed in 30 mm space, spread it out over 100 sq metres and put them back in 30 mm with minimum fuss and mess. I have always admired such souls of toil. So, when the father and daughter were pandering upstairs with a laptop lying open on the desk, I went up a couple of times partly out of curiosity and partly to keep the toddler son away from the table. (The son thinks he is helping out on the task and gets sorely disappointed when told that he can’t place his toy cars on that convenient hole inside the laptop where the hard disk used to reside. ) Halfway through the task, I saw the pair of them chattering about something and come downstairs. “Commencing after lunch!” said the mechanics. “But you just had coffee and chocolate milk!” said I. This was received with a chuckle and no retort. A moment later, the pair of them switched on the Television.

“Going to watch Television? “ I asked in that tone that mildly encourages one to finish up the laptop work. Among other things I was worried that a small thing will go astray and I will be called upon to get down on all fours and search.

“TV Amma. Not television. Television sounds so formal and then you don’t feel like relaxing with it.”

“Well, what happened to the laptop?” I asked.

“We watched a you-tube video on how to do it Amma. Relax. So, I know everything. We just could not do it because Appa wants to take another backup of the disk now.”

I launched into what I call my Science Teacher mode. “You can learn more by doing than by watching you-tube videos. “ I went on in this vein for a few sentences, and then let the thing rest.

A few days later, I caught her again and told her about the Science experiments that the President lauded, and how these children had taken simple problems and solved them.

http://www.indiawest.com/news/global_indian/article_5de64612-f01a-11e3-afbe-001a4bcf887a.html

It was a lovely afternoon chat, and I asked her what I could do to help her along in her ambition to become a biologist.

“You can buy me a pet!” said she before I had completed my sentence.

“WHAT?!”

“What amma? You just said that I will learn more by doing than by reading books or watching documentaries. So, in order for me to become a biologist, I think a pet would help me nicely. Maybe a dog, or a duck or a parrot.”

“I like snake.” said the toddler son playing with his toy cars.

“Or how about some fish?”

“I want bumblebee Amma” said the son.

Pets : Bumblebee, Butterfly, Parrot, Dog, Duck, Snake?

I want respite.

Happy Science Days to all of you.

Release Your Inner Cupid

I wonder what is being said about us in the animal world newsletters this month. We have articles on animal behaviors don’t we? This article on the various techniques adopted by animals is an interesting one. Some techniques are funny, some scary and some for which I can’t think of the right adjectives.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/13/weird-animal-courtship-displays_n_4761381.html

Life is full of interesting tidbits of information. For example: The efforts of Sir George Archibald who loved the ways of the whooping crane. I quote:

When whooping crane populations dropped to fewer than 100 individuals in the 20th century, ornithologist George Archibald stepped in to try to get one whooping crane in captivity, Tex, to mate. To initiate ovulation, Archibald danced with her, and after several attempts, she successfully hatched a chick in 1982, according to Audubon Magazine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Archibald_(ornithologist)

I was glad to have read this. Now, I know not to judge a person acting like a babbling baboon or an aggressive tiger harshly. We don’t know what their journey is about.

Like Jane Austen says, “There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.”

I wonder why we exemplify Valentine’s Day to be a Lovers Day only. Let it be a day of showing love. Bring out your inner whooping crane or wake your dormant flamingo and have fun.

Solvitur Ambulando – It is solved by Walking

We all know that exercising has all round benefits and yet, it is good every now and then for an article to bump us into action, or merely to reinforce the importance of an active lifestyle.

This article talks about what the author wants her daughter to know about working out:

http://wellfesto.com/2013/11/19/10-things-i-want-my-daughter-to-know-about-working-out/

There have been times when I have come into the house after a stroll in the neighborhood at night, breathless with cold, a slight sweat from the swift pace I have tried to keep, only to bundle my daughter up and take her out so she can enjoy the enormous moon or listen to the leaves rustling or watch the stars on a clear night. I know the moon is a beautiful object for her, and she shares a liking with the husband for the night sky. I want her tales of imagination to leap from it and they do, often surpassing my expectations.

I love telling her stories from my childhood as we take walks. She knows it is the best time to ask me for one, because I am so willing then, not trying to do a dozen different things all at once. I am there enjoying my time with her walking and swapping stories. I grew up in a place almost magical to describe. There were heavily wooded Eucalyptus groves, tea estates in the horizon not to mention the crisp mountain air. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that I love a good walk that can heighten the senses and sharpen one’s thinking.

The article describes a good workout, and I have mostly written about walking because it is my favorite form of exercise. Another one of those gifts from my father who enjoys his 3-5 miles almost everyday. I find it to be a stress reliever, a soother, a pacifier, an exhilarator, an ideator and a mediator of internal conflict.

Many greats before us have extolled the virtues of a good walk:

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130829191440-143695135-hemingway-thoreau-jefferson-and-the-virtues-of-a-good-long-walk

I quote: Solvitur ambulando — “it is solved by walking.” Words by the Greek philosopher Diogenes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvitur_ambulando

I am extremely thankful also to have family, friends and colleagues who will take a walk with me every now and then.(You all know who you are :))

Dining At Home Discounts Maybe?

“Maybe we should go out and have dinner tonight.” says the husband clearly intending to help. In any other family, a simple statement like that will either be met with a simple acceptance or a refusal. I am sure no more would have been said about it. Of course, in our family, a statement like that wrenches the spanner into the corner of the brain where the horrors of restaurant eating reside and ply it open.

“Do you remember what happened at that Italian restaurant?” I ask. “I mean do you still want to go and press our company on restaurants. I say we take the broad minded view of ‘Live and let live.’ ”

The husband looks at me like I have a point and agrees. What happened was this: We found an occasion to dine out, and took polls to see what kind of cuisine was most voted for. It did not help that the toddler in the house thought it was a game and stuck both his arms up for everything. A vote was taken, numbers counted, tallied and thrown out the window. We settled for Italian which had one vote (the daughter’s). So, off we went looking for an Italian restaurant. Just before we entered, I checked their hair and told them to behave. It was one of those places that I’ve heard people gush about. What I had not expected, was for us to enter one of those snooty, high eyebrow places with a touch of hospitality, not overdone and a spot of hauteur, quite overdone.

I wanted to scramble and flee, but summoned the warrior spirit and pressed on. The maitre-de came up with a gleaming suit, coattails and all, looked us up and down and asked us how he may help us. I have never understood this. Would I be standing there in the luxurious lobby of a restaurant wanting to be helped with goading a herd of sheep into a waiting truck? No. I want to be seated for a meal. Thank you.

There was some brow lifting and all this while, the toddler is sitting quietly in his chair and not saying a word. The daughter is playing with him, and the two of them present a picture of a serene advertisement to entice more humans to procreate. The maitre-de, in the meanwhile, decides that he does not really need to spoil the atmosphere of a good dining experience for his patrons and comes out wearing a thin look (He may have been trying the apologetic expression, but thin is what I thought at the time). The toddler smiled at him and said, “Tar?” and showed him a toy car.

No reaction.

“I am extremely sorry Sir and Ma’am. But there is a half an hour wait for tables at the moment. Would you like to be kept waiting?”

The choice of words really! What a clever man he was too. Not wanting to take the good behavior picture, but not wanting to let us in and find out either. Could be a diplomat that man.

We said we don’t like to be kept waiting and turned our back on the man in a dignified silence. “Come children!” I said and they came. We stepped out the door and then expressed all of our relief and anxiety at once. What if they had seated us? Maybe this is for the best. Let’s go for a family friendly place. Nothing fancy.

We proceeded to a familiar restaurant. The cashier there smiled at us and welcomed us. He has seen us there often and still manages to smile when he sees us. That is the kind of place I like. The fine dining can wait for a decade. I breathed freely in there, sat down and looked at the husband and asked “Where is the boy who behaved so well?”

The husband points under the table and there he is: playing with his toy car. Things may have been quiet for possibly 3 minutes or maybe 4 after the food arrived. We never make it to a full 5 minutes. There was mayhem. The toddler had put his hands into the spicy curry, and I sent the water cascading over the table while pulling the napkin underneath to wipe off the toddler’s hands before he rubbed his eyes with it. He did not like that, One would think his life’s dream was to dip his hands in spicy curry and rubbing his eyes with it, and I, the evil mother, stepped in and squashed his dreams. He screwed up his face and turned a valve that let loose a torrent of very loud tears.

The husband tore out of the room carrying the toddler and stood outside in the cold for a good 3 minutes before bringing him back again. We gobbled the dinner as fast as we could and came back, shaken a bit by the smile the cashier gave us. Maybe he needs time before we pay him another visit.

The next day, the fates decide to show this news item to me. Apparently, there are restaurants that offer well-behaved-children discounts.

http://moms.popsugar.com/Restaurant-Offers-Well-Behaved-Children-Discount-27335732

I think I would like to be kept waiting on that discount. I am not sure I am strong enough to try them just yet. Dining-at-home discounts maybe?

The Flight to Paraguay

I am amazed at the things people will throw their time and effort into. Look at this person. He is obviously smart: he sold tickets on his site, he had two agencies and he created a whole ecosystem to support his airline. He even had advertising on the radio promoting his airline. He only forgot one small thing: The actual airplanes.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/10/25/fraudster-fools-folks-with-fake-flights/

When you start a restaurant, do you first get the food ready or prepare the food based on how many people get there? Maybe that was the problem that stumped him with the airline business. Nevertheless, here is a person who has product management, brand management and marketing skills doing the wrong things. People I tell you.

I wonder what happened to the Paraguayans who came to the airport lock, stock and barrel. What a lot of bother for them.

PS: Sounds like a nice title for a short story. Any weird ideas occur to you around this theme, please let me know. I would love to read them.

The Affectionate Amby

I suppose this always happens in the world of fashion. You look at skinny models in high heels tottering with the confidence of a skyscraper on skates, and you see the perfect lines, and flatbeds where ordinary people settle for curves. Then you stop to wonder what the competition is about. Sometimes, you pause enough to look down at your own feet and the sensible footwear below the matter-of-fact trousers with extra pockets for carrying the cellphone. Then you think, why isn’t there glamour in practicality?

Why aren’t the world’s most stunning personalities cased in things that the everyday man and woman wear while they go about their lives?

I often think that way in the world of cars too. I remember the first time I showed my mother a Ferrari on the streets of USA. “Where else in the World, other than California, would you find a Ferrari parked on the street between a BMW and a Mercedes Benz?” I asked her, clearly excited to be showing her the sights.

In her typical fashion, she looked critically at the car, and said, “Looks like an expensive car.”

“Of course ma! Do you know how much it costs?”

“Doesn’t matter what it costs! It looks like we can’t fit our groceries in the trunk. So, what is the point?”

Sigh: There is a reason, I find glamour in practicality. It is called ‘instilled values’ folks.

Anyway, applying practicality to cars, it looks like the show Top Gear finally sees sense in my argument. Those who have traveled in an ambassador car in India would be thrilled to note the humble car mentioned. For what else is a car by looks, a horse by power, a bus by capacity, an optimist in attitude and a dog in loyalty?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/top-gear/10157181/Top-Gear-series-20-episode-2-BBC-Two-review.html

The Hindustan Ambassador is the King among Taxis. The only car where restaurant signs can be reused in a car: Seating Capacity: 30

The Car, that in most families, is known affectionately as the ‘Amby’.

I have a story about the time my grandmother came to my sister’s wedding in an ambassador car, but I will save it for another day. That is an entertaining read for sure.

P.S: I have since seen the video clip of the Amby winning that race and it seems to be because all the others crashed into something or into one another. Nevertheless, the Amby it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbP-GhH5Ci4

Rainbow Dash

I was waiting to break into my new running shoes. Like a child waiting to play in the rain, I cast loving looks at the shoes every now and then and vowed to get up early the next morning and go for a run. Maybe my excitement rubbed off on my toddler son, but he was up before the lark and waiting for me by the shoes before my run. “Amma. Thum Amma Thum. Thunning Amma Thunning. Shoos thunning.”

(Lexicon: Thum: Come, Thun: Run, Shoos: Shoes)

My shoulders sagged a bit, but he had an enthusiastic-puppy-look about him and so off we went. The pair of us running with a stroller in hand. It was my plan to bundle him into the stroller a little way in and then run. But the fellow had plans of his own. He ran with his little steps by my side. I could walk, but he insisted I thun with him. So, I than. For this pace of running I needed no running shoes, but it was wonderful. He kept running, then squealed and stopped to see a passing truck. We ran again. A few feet on, there was a pile of dry leaves. We both jumped in there, squashing the leaves and listening to the crackle under our feet. This run was not going to be measured in terms of distance, that much was certain. We crushed the leaves underfoot till a yeti couldn’t have gotten a crackle out of it anymore. We ran some more and spotted a children’s park nearby and made for it. We chased birds, played in the swing and walked back – the toddler a spent force, but still refusing to sit in his stroller.

As we walked back that beautiful day, the sun burst forth with a few well chosen sprinkles of rain and we walked home under a glorious rainbow that the child said was ‘Ennow Tash’ (‘Rainbow Dash’ is the name of a pony princess or some such thing that he is forced to watch with his older sister. This famous Rainbow Dash has a wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Dash#Rainbow_Dash) I am sure this will become a problem later, but for now he is proud he knows about Rainbow Dash, the pony princess.

When I read this article about an artist collaborating with her 4 year old son, the story warmed my heart. It reminded me of that run that became a rainbow dash and how what I planned turned into something far more meaningful just because I was willing to let go. Maybe, if we relinquish control more often, we will find joy in different ways.

http://busymockingbird.com/2013/08/27/collaborating-with-a-4-year-old/

The Tongue-Tied Commenter

The father is an obsessive news watcher and every season sees a different upheaval. The news, for its share, never ceases to entertain him.

I remember, years ago, when he had his opinions typed out and sent to the newspaper. He beamed when they were published in the newspapers. He proudly showed the piece of paper on which he had typed it out using the pen-name he had given himself so people would believe him. I suppose it was something, given that the editors combed through hundreds of letters to the editor and posted a select few.

The advent of the Internet might be a blessing in many ways, but it has made this man’s life busier than ever. There is new content being posted all the time waiting for his review and approval. How many articles jostle for his comments and views? It is tiring work sometimes, but the septuagenarian keeps at it. He painstakingly lingers on the keyboard, his face screwed up with intense concentration, and uses his index fingers to type out his thoughts. As his comments rush out, his tongue peeps out of his mouth to see a bit of typing action. It means he is focused. Before long, one sees scathing remarks, where his dry wit shines through. It is a pity Literature students don’t comb the comments section on Indian newspaper sites. The prose there is littered with the profuse, the exaggerated, the new word that came through in the word-a-day email: it is all there and more. I have tried telling him that there being no limit to the real estate on the internet, all his comments will be published, but he shakes his head sanguinely and explains to the idiot child, “No. That cannot be true child. If that is the case, how come my comments don’t appear immediately? I get an email stating that the comment has been approved, which means that only valid points are being published.”

There is another change: he now boldly uses his own name, links to his Facebook profile (much to the mother’s chagrin, since they have one profile and it looks like she is typing the theses. “As if I have no work!” she says disapprovingly). A change that I am not exactly proud of, given that India’s tolerance seems to be dipping.

The last time he visited us, the 3G scam was the topic of conversation. This time, it is the sliding value of the Indian Rupee against the dollar.

The markets have been volatile as a result of which the Indian rupee lost about a third of its value. Inflation has been on the rise and Indian economists are clawing at arguments and counter-arguments to see what the solution is. The father, the commenter, has been writing furiously on varied sites about how the country came to be in such a sorry state with all the time he can spare. Sometimes, another octogenarian somewhere will ‘Like’ his comment, and that evening he is a pleased man. “I told you people read all the comments.” he says.

Even he had no comment to make to this posting however.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-09-02/news/41688915_1_rupee-madhya-pradesh-congress-appreciating-dollar

The Madhya Pradesh Unit of the Congress ( A leading political party in India) came up with the argument (pasted below) for the sliding rupee and was evidently so pleased with itself for thinking up something this brilliant, that it went and posted it on Facebook for all to see:

“The value of rupee is the same in India… Only the value of dollar has increased… The value of rupee has not fallen. How many of you people go to the market to buy dollars? How many of you come back with dollars? The value of dollar has increased only for those who buy dollars.”

A great philosophy that is not being given the credit it deserves. But such is life. I am sure that the father would have thought up something appropriate on the topic by the time I roll around in the evening, but till then, the article languishes without his comments. It seems a pity since it seems to be taking heat from a large number of people and there might have been a chance of someone reading his comments on the subject.

I saw this meme on my google plus feed and thought it most coincidental that it should appear the day I am writing a post on comments (I could not find the original author of this one to credit him or her, but I truly laughed at it….so, whoever you are, thank you.)

The Intelligence Behind the Mattress

I recently checked out a mattress for a friend on my laptop. I mean I clicked on the links sent to me, saw the images and read the reviews. Here is my plea to all you companies out there that use my rich browsing history to guide me to the right path of retail therapy: Please stop. I am not planning to buy a mattress. Really. Believe me. My friend already bought a mattress, so I really am in no real need of even checking one out. Thank You.

I actually have a very funny story involving all the different mattresses in the home that I plan to buckle down and write in the next few months. Should I take pictures of all the mattresses in my home and post it on Facebook? You can then scrape the images most popularly posted and send that to advertising companies and they can in turn peddle sheets and pillow cases instead of mattresses on my Facebook feed. Wait. I remember seeing pictures of Sheets and Comforters too.

I appreciate all the help honestly. I think though that we may have a little of too much intelligence floating around the web. Which is why, i sometimes like to linger on the idiotic ones: trying to recreate the algorithms that figured that one out. It is a fun game and hugely entertaining not to mention gives us the luxury of wasting our time. Once, I was urged to send a friend of mine roses on her birthday. Freshly plucked they claimed to be too. All I could think of was this wonderful conversation we had in that friend’s garden when we were about eight or nine years old and she told me how much she hated to see flowers plucked from their plants.

So, I can’t say that I am not glad that Facebook decided to stop peddling physical gifts that no one wants.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57599947-93/facebook-stops-peddling-physical-gifts-no-one-wants/

You would be right in scratching your chin at that one. I don’t know what that sentence means: Will or won’t I miss the advertisements? I don’t know because the one about sending flowers made me smile thinking of us looking for lady bugs in the flower patch and talking of this and that, but it also detracts from whatever I am looking for. Which is nothing. So I suppose I won’t miss them.

Famous on Facebook?

It was a wonderful day. I was going about the joyous task of collecting garbage for the garbage truck the next day. I peeked into the kitchen trash and the fresh smells of carrot peels with coffee waste swirled up. I inhaled and exhaled with a rapidity that would have had a rabbit scuttling in fright. I then went for the lint removal in the washing machine dryer and added that non-smelling lot to the kitchen waste. It gave the gooey, soggy mess some texture. I grinned with an eye of a creative person and saw that what would really seal the deal was diapers. I charged for the diaper-genie in glee. To my dismay the diaper genie’s bag had burst and well, I shall spare the reading public some horrific images of the ensuing drama, but the important thing is to keep your positivity about you. I think the diapers added a new twist to the garbage scene. I had all the garbage collected – well all the garbage in the garbage cans collected, because there is garbage hiding all over the house, but that makes for another post on another day.

I suppose artists in the olden days used to get this sense of accomplishment when they saw beauty in the most mundane things and created entire worlds out of them. I felt a little like that, Of course, it was a harder path in the olden days for gratification was far from instant. You had to wait to be unearthed and then some before you could be liked. All that has changed.

With Instagram, stories were told through pictures. The golden era of ‘Being Liked’ was taken to a higher level. Suddenly people found that pictures of their feet in the sand was as wonderful as a sailboat badly framed in the distance when at the beach. They found that pictures of themselves in various poses was very welcoming indeed. The innate altruism in people kicked in and they strived to give their friends more and more of themselves. Just to give people what they liked, they uploaded more pictures. They were all consumed by a hungering public.

What if? What if? Creative people buzzed to see what they could do. Of course the common man had to fumble along trying to see what they could do in that regard. Voila! BinCam was born.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324503204578318462215991802.html

BinCam looks just like your average trash bin, but with a twist: Its upper lid is equipped with a smartphone that snaps a photo every time the lid is shut. The photo is then uploaded to Mechanical Turk, the Amazon-run service that lets freelancers perform laborious tasks for money. In this case, they analyze the photo and decide if your recycling habits conform with the gospel of green living. Eventually, the photo appears on your Facebook page.

The artist in me needed practice, but with folks like BinCam helping me out, I am sure I shall compete with the best in the industry. We could run student competitions with scrapbooks of trash can pictures and children will soon be yearning to take out the garbage so they could compare notes.

I wonder how our garbage compares to real celebrity garbage. There can be a competition and the true winner becomes Famous on Facebook.

The possibilities are immense.

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