Category: The World

24 * 7 = 24 + 1

I confess to being a bit dim-witted especially when people add and subtract hours from my life at random. I have complained (often) that I don’t have enough time. I have wished for my day to magically incorporate 48 hours instead of 24, but I want that so that I would be able to do things that have to be done and get cracking on things I enjoy most like staring idly at the waters on the lake with a book in hand (you know…give myself the illusion of satiating my mind), or watching that bird befriend that cow. I don’t want an hour tagged on and then several hours worth of work tagged on because of that extra hour.

Somehow, it seems to me that the daylight savings phenomena can be explained away with these equations:
24 hrs = x work units
Adding 1 to both sides
=> 24 + 1 = x+1
But what really happens is this
24+1 = 24 * 7
I am no Mathematician, but that doesn’t sound right to me. And I’ll tell you why. Systems that run automatically at a given time are all suddenly confused. One spends the next few days soothing them and cajoling them while they whimper.

In the good old days of yore, one started work in the fields when the sun rose and stopped again when the sun set. In the current days, one starts work before the sun rises and stops again after the sun sets. The goal here is to see as little of the merry sunshine that encourages the flitting of monarch butterflies as possible. So, why bother with this daylight change? All systems run time-based. I know several people who only eat by looking at the clock – “Ah! 8 o’clock, time to breakfast”, they say and hunger or no hunger will sit again in front of a full-ish looking meal at half past noon. Why upset these systems?

As usual, I have no real say in the matter, which should technically stop me from saying anything. But you know how I am…

I have to be up all week-end trying to explain to large systems, small systems, weepy systems and whiny systems that this is how it is. One hour set back for all of you.

“Why?” they ask and I say “No Idea…”

Mystery of the Missing Heel in the Universe

Recently, the brain has been quite busy wrapping itself around the book ‘Life, The Universe and Everything’ by Douglas Adams. When I say wrapping itself around, that is a loose word, since the bulk of my reading is conducted in sporadic bursts in the noisiest of places with thousands of people milling around, gently prodding me in the ribs to move on, while somebody looks apologetically as they squeeze their shoes on my feet.

“Sorrreeee!” they smile as they park the foot on mine.

“It’s okaaayyyy!” I respond with a smile struggling through the grimace of pain, and hang on with great resolve in the crowded public transit.

Douglas Adam’s SEP doctrine is interesting. SEP is Somebody Else’s Problem, and we being the self centered goons that we are, anything that is somebody else’s problem we safely ignore, so long as it does not provide one with fodder for thought or comment. We simply go on believing it does not exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_Else’s_Problem

However, today I can proclaim : Thine eyes have seen the glory of SEP. I was determined to see for myself, and when the mind is made up, it sees the SEP.

I was treated to a 180-pounder tender a shrill “Sorreee” as she pinned her pin-point apology on me in this morning. I was tottering along, after the onslaught, musing on masochistic footwear and how otherwise sunny people willingly jam their feet like sausages into the narrow confines of their footwear, when I was rewarded with a sight I would otherwise have missed.

There was a girl in front of me. She was walking as though no problem existed. Only a problem existed. Yes it did. I saw it. I spotted it. You see one of her shoes had heels like this

The other had heels like this.

Chipped. Broken. Gone. Yet, she artificially pumped her broken heel leg up so she could give the illusion of not having a broken heel. I know how hard it must be walking like that, given that I have solid years of practice to back me up in my claims. Credit: Those vast hours of our youth that we spent on noble pursuits (including walking like air-hostesses, which meant walking around on imaginary heels). I don’t know why in our girlish minds, air hostesses were credited with high heels always, but those were the days of the far away dreams of flight – the unattainable for the average middle class Indian. High heels being equally unattainable, the combination must have been the ultimate fodder for our imagination.

I had an inclination to tap the girl on her shoulder and helpfully tell her that her heel was broken. It would have been priceless to see the look on her face, like she did not know.  Start the ‘Mystery of the Missing Heel in the Universe’ series what?

Shocking

Shocking I tell you – Shocking.

This time, it is real.

Mankind is pursuing a macabre race, and is shamelessly analysing TV shows where people are instructed to zap contestants with voltage – shocks for every wrong answer. So, what answers cause death?

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/17/a-modern-twist-to-milgrims-shocking-experiment/

Here is an excerpt:

Would you shock someone with potentially lethal amounts of electricity simply because you were told to do it? That’s exactly what the subjects in Stanley Milgrim’s experiments did in the early 1960s. His objective was to test obedience to authority, and the world was surprised to see the results. A majority of ordinary citizens in the test chose to shock an innocent person when they were ordered to by the scientist leading the experiment. The individuals on the receiving end of the powerful shocks were actually actors pretending to suffer, but the subjects believed they were causing the actors real pain throughout the study.

French Television went a step further and aired the show on TV. Of course, they made sure they announced afterward that the contestants were actors and were just acting as though voltage coursed through them. I did not actually see the show, but I’d like to imagine how wrong this show could go

Quiz Master: What is 12345679 * 8?

Contestant: 98765432

ZAP! A shocking voltage shock rips through the contestant’s body, who stabilizes himself after the shock wears off and swears.

“Mad Math Phobiacal Moth eating Mobs! Curse you all into worm-eating oblivion. That is the right answer! Why don’t these guffoons have a calculator before making the decision to hose my life?!”

So it goes…

Why didn’t the Chinese think of it?

Chopsticks have always intrigued me. They look disconcertingly similar to knitting needles. Now you knit up in your mind the old wizened lady lovingly using both her hands, sitting in a rocking chair by the fire and knitting a warm sweater. I hate to dish it to the old lady like this, but you only can use only one hand, use both needles and knit the same beautiful sweater OL. Go on old lady. Try. Try like the dickens. How does that sound?

That is exactly what eating with chopsticks seems to me. You are given two condiments, you have two hands. Simple? Not simple. The technique is simple, any child brought up on Chinese food in a Chinese setting will tell you how easy it is to use chopsticks. All you have to do is grasp the sticks like this.

Then, move finger number two by using finger number one as the lever/rudder. (When you are trying to keep the sticks afloat in a bowl of watery soup, you are allowed to use the word rudder). Let’s get back to technique now that the use of rudder has been explained.

During the entire process, finger number three is jammed between the sticks, and is expected to move in the same angle maintaining a level of parallelism with finger number two. Never mind that finger number 3 is screaming for respite by now. That demand cannot be met. Ignore finger number 3. It can start acting up midway through the process, and you will be stuck with a finger-chiropractor, soothing function back to it. Don’t worry, it is a part of life. I realise there is no such profession as a finger-chiropractor, so if you would kindly tell me the name of one such specialist, I will gladly update the post.

The trick is to be firm with finger number 3. Show it fingers number 4 & 5 as a method of consolation. Fingers 4 and 5 are in a worse state. They can’t move remember?

Also remember that while one is fiddling with these sticks in the soup, the soup is turning cold. Not to mention the odd contours on the face as lines of worry and concentration contort it into a horrible frown. One would think, that not being able to function with chopsticks will have sent the author home hungry and dejected, with a new sense of purpose – learning to use the sticks before the next soup stop.

Not so…not so! Mere technicalities like chopsticks don’t deter me. I creased out the lines of concentration, ironed out the frown and put on a smile. I then attacked the soup like this.

People were looking at me with awe. Pretty soon, I could see folks cast me the envious look. Their eyes screamed the obvious “Why didn’t the Chinese think of it?”

I refused to wipe the smug smile of my stupid face, and went on eating like this, till a waiter who was charging about the vicinity like a racing bull, stopped in his tracks. You know how these cars screech when they sudden brake? Something like that.

“Next time – fork okay? I give fork okay?” he said.

I shrugged – I’d already mastered chopsticks now, who cares for forks?

Rain, rivers and glaciers

California found itself in the eye of a storm. The storm has been pounding the daylight out of the state with no restraint. When I say daylight out of the state, I mean it. A quick walk at noon requires flashlights, raincoats and squashy boots.

Umbrellas that hitherto held their spokes up high now cower under the wrath of the skies.

A helpful illustration to drive home the point

This is the second umbrella of mine to suffer this fate. Umbrella sales have been brisk. Stores did not have time to run new price tags raising the price, and resorted to sticking ridiculous prices using scrap paper and licking the back of it for glue.

The rain water has become fast rivers and paper boats meet terrible fates. One tends to stop and muse about fast flowing rivers and slow flowing rivers and hardly flowing rivers. So, what does the world give to innocent ponderings such as this. The kind that could someday change the premise of the World? This.

The world has been mistakenly led to believe that all the glaciers in the Himalayas would melt by 2035.

Himalayan Glaciers Vanish
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece

Bopa Uncle and Kreeta Aunty were enjoying the morning sun-rise from their porch house in Darjeeling. Bopa uncle always wanted to impress Kreeta Aunty and randomly pulled studies from his imagination with numbers that appealed to him. He went a bit overboard with the sun glinting and blurted out a bit dramatically perhaps, “By 2035, you take my word, by 2035, all the glaciers in the Himalayas will be gone.”

Kreeta Aunty did what was expected of her and gasped. Little did Bopa Uncle know that his jaunty boast would make it to the Times. So, while the angry skies have been trashing umbrellas and swaying trees, the world finds out that the whole thing about glaciers in the Himalayas was a fib all along.

Sigh!

Jesus Christ or Toast?

Happy New Year folks. 

Those of you who would like to jog your creativity a little bit, please head on to this link.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/popup?id=2729440

There are a number of bizarre photographs where people see Michael Jacksons and overwhelmingly Jesus Christ.  I called upon your reserves of creativity to spot the Jesus Christ or the Michael Jackson in the pictures. Going by the news item, any bearded face with a sallow look, would qualify as Jesus Christ!

Me? I just see pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches. What can I say? It is lunch time.

What’s a Bloke to do for some Peace?

I try to slumber through without a post. But the tantalizing world just wouldn’t allow me to go on about the important task of twiddling and spinning my pen on the desk. I mean the Dorothys** of the world have to call and discuss something. Forget the Dorothys, I say. I have discovered the joys of spinning a pen, and nothing is going to distract me from my noble pursuit today.

 

See how it spins?!

pen

Then, there is the important twitter about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. What is that all about? Let the man breathe, let him take his dog for a spin. You can’t straddle a fellow with responsibility like this. Now, he has to go about talking to Taslama Bin Laddoo Boondi about peace, because he won the Peace Prize! I mean, when can he do his job as a President?

 

The man, for better or for worse, I can’t say which, proved to be an excellent orator. Now, grocers want him making speeches on organic produce, islands want him making a discourse on the prudent use of tidal waves. Add to that the strain of making the Peace speeches, what’s the speech writer to do?

I like to imagine that in the past, there were drawings to see the most strenuous jobs in the White House. The chef competed with the Chief Gardener, who competed with the Building Security. In this draw, I would have to vote for Speech Writer. He is already nose down into writing the finest speeches, and now, he is clobbered with peace?

Ah well…spin the pens on your desk for inspiration I say. It is a tough world with tough demands. Mental faculties have to be preserved.  I mean: What’s a Bloke to do for some Peace? Win the Nobel Peace Prize of course.

Let there be Peace!

** For you sticklers, Dorothy is a figment of my imagination, with whom I have interacted in my dreams, if ever.

Birth and Talent

Rahul Gandhi is quoted as being open minded about caste. Laudable and all that. But given the opportunities the man had, if he HAD placed importance on caste – shame on Education! (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahul_Gandhi)

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/I-dont-believe-in-caste-Rahul/articleshow/5099167.cms

If you breeze over the comments, you will find folks asking for reservations to be removed too. The point is not that, comments such as “In the future, when you become Prime Minister” concern me. It is not “In the future, if you become Prime Minister”, it is “when you become Prime Minister” like a royal passage of right.

People have to work hard to get to their state of being, in order to be responsible to themselves and to society. This sort of entitlement in a democracy is trying; because we are still stating that birth is better than talent.

Blog Action Day – Climatic Change

Good Morning to you all. *Bows*

Blog Action Day is coming soon (Blogactionday.org)

The topic for the day is Climatic Change. I am here to talk to you all about the sweeping changes the climate has caused in our ecosystem.

Pardon me, but somehow ‘Climatic change’ brings the speechmaker persona in me to the fore. I can see the army of faces looking up at me in School as I rattle in the School Assembly about climate change. That’s just the nature of it. Which brings me to a rather interesting topic. Do schools have assemblies these days?

Anyway, just thought I will reference my link on Al Gore’s documentary: An Inconvenient Truth https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2006/12/26/an-inconvenient-truth/

Be good and nice to Bhooma Devi and all that while I siddle off to do something. I don’t want to come here and find that an icecap fell off the shelves of Antartica before I take the little one there to show her the Penguins.

The beauty of questioning

I spend a lot of time vacillating between an agnostic secular person and a religious person, who doesn’t believe 80% of what my religion has become over the ages. Suffice it to say that the days I spend in my former state far outnumber the days I spend in the latter.

Here is my problem: I like to believe in the power of hope and if belief is what brings hope, I am all for it. On the other hand, over the ages, I can categorically state that religion has done more damage to mankind than good. The moment religion ceases to be a personal experience, I can see it wreaking havoc.

I quite like the idea of finding yourself. Easily, that is the path taken by all the “founders” of religion – be it Buddha or the Sufi saints of Islam or the Bhagavad Gita. But how does one explain “finding oneself” to the masses? That is where the problem begins. So, the explanation became finding one’s moral conscience – still good. But a few centuries later, moral conscience evolves into a set of rules written by the elitist community of the religion. Slowly, the congregation becomes more of a unifying force, one to forge your identity with, than to use as a tool to better yourself.

At my wedding, the priest was a person who was my grandfather’s friend. My grandfather was a kind-hearted, generous, loving, able teacher, caring husband/father and he was a pious man. But somehow, whenever people described him, they put his piety ahead of his other virtues. This priest came to my wedding and said he would do all it takes in his power to make sure that great man’s grand-daughter lived a fantastic life, and put us through the most grueling wedding ceremony in recent times. I didn’t understand more than a few words of what was said – there was no need for me to elongate the proceedings by asking for clarifications in between on a hot day in front of the fire, with no food in my stomach. The ceremony lasted a good 9 hours of listening to things I didn’t understand. Everyone who came to congratulate me, said the priest was excellent, he hadn’t missed a single thing – who would understand how my intestines were reacting at the time? Which religion?

What I am trying to say is, some people are ritualistic by nature – to them, rituals become religion – this isn’t orthodoxy, this is just an interpretation of their own religion. It is also show-case worthy.

I have spent my growing years chanting some prayers that my mother taught me on the way to the school in the morning, as we ran for the train. That is all I know today, and probably that is all I will ever know – who knows? Every now and then, I think that just because I am part-agnostic, I should not deny the experience of a religion to my daughter. So, I take her to the local temple. She asks a million questions along the way as usual. We are in the temple, and she looks at the statues and asks – “If Ummachi (God) made everything and gave us everything, how come he isn’t even moving?”

I savoured the question – the beauty of questioning always delights me. I am sorry that when it comes to religion so few people still have the power of questioning left in them.