Tag: News

Walking on Water

You know how it is when you are growing up and folks (mostly parents, aunts and uncles) are always telling you about how life in their day was stern and earnest. The ‘You-youngsters-have-it-easy’ theme was an all-time favorite. They would gas on about how education was something they loved and why we should not be complaining about how easily education is served on a platter to us. How in their day, they had to walk across the town and then catch a bus that had no seats or fuel(sometimes): all to get to a school, that did not have teachers or roofs?

I always envied their stories. Because the most I could tell my children was that I had a wonderful childhood. It was true that it rained 10 months a year, but that was not nearly as bad as it sounds. When young, splashing in the rain and singing songs while walking up and down the hills was really not tragic. (I’ve tried the martyr theme with this and it fell flat, because I could not keep the glee of the good-old-days from my voice)

Which is why I am almost jealous of this class of students. Imagine this:

Septuagenarian Great Uncle: Youngsters these days! Pah! In our day ….
Kid: Huh? Telling me something grandpa? (unplugging music from ear)
Septua. Great Uncle: Grunt! Humph! You youngsters have no idea about the kind of lives we led. The perils we had to face in order to procure an education. There we would be waiting for the bus to come to the village. There would be a bus only once every 2 hours. So, if we missed it, we had to walk to school over 1.37 miles away. How long to stand for the bus?
A sound like a whistle of steam escaping a tea-pot draws the attention to the wistful sigh that the uncle just let go.
Kid: But you told us you whiled away time playing marbles at the bus-stop.
S.G.U.: Well…yes! But only while waiting for the bus. And when the bus did come, do you think we could waltz in and sit on the seats?
Kid: Why would anyone waltz into a bus, unless you are performing the bus-boarding-scene in a Broadway show?
S.G.U: *Completely ignoring the smart observation regarding buses and waltzes* Then…we had to study really hard. The homework we had was meant to make us think. Not like you – having free time to listen to music and not studying.
Kids: Really?! So you had to play with marbles while you waited and had a bit of homework, but did you have to walk on water for your homework?
That is our assignment you know?
S.G.U: What?
Kid: Our assignment: Walk on Water.

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/weird-news/weird-news-fla-students-walk-on-water-for-class-assignment/article_bc80890c-29ed-11e2-9c5d-001a4bcf887a.html

 

walking-on-water

Ha! I could pay to capture the expression .. Sigh!

Some Precious Spittle for Diwali?!

Our family loves Diwali. The light seeps into our hearts and our inner self glows with all the mellow happiness of good food and excess sweets. President Obama makes sure that he wishes folks a happy diwali too and I loved his message urging us all to remember our less fortunate brethen as we celebrate this wonderful festival. I tried to beat the greeters, but by the time I went online and blogged about a Diwali, folks were already losing the mellow looks that ghee and sweets bring on.

In fact, they seem to have gone a step further and are vying with each other to act nasty. Like this open challenge and I quote:
"A local religious leader has announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh for anyone, who spits on lawyer and BJP MP Ram Jethmalani’s face for describing Lord Ram as a bad husband."

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-11-13/india/35087443_1_bjp-mp-ram-jethmalani-lord-ram-seer

Hardly the spirit of a wonderful holiday to pay good money for spitting at folks. Yet there it is: religious leaders are the ones apparently loaded with money enough to squander Rs 5 lakhs for some precious spittle. Ugh.

This seer went on to proclaim that "A threat presupposes violence and spitting is a harmless non-violent act." I doubt whether his stance would be the same if he were at the receiving end for some reason.

PS: I am not going into the the whole Ram-is-a-bad-husband argument for obvious reasons.

Will Macedonian Job Listing Interest Korean Elephant?

I’ve read through a fair share of job listings. I remember looking in the Indian newspapers as a girl, hoping to find some hidden gems of novelty, and was almost always rewarded. If nothing else came up, there was at least the seedy lawyer asking for someone to be employed in some capacity and almost always had a combination of the words: prosecuting, witness, clerk, short-hand, typing etc. in legalese. (Lawyer offices are incapable, by design, of simple sentences and take pride in complicating things.)

However, I must say this Macedonian minister takes the cake. He wants to employ certified genii as assistants. He would not settle for any IQ scores below a 140 it seems. Apparently, the intelligent minister has not stopped to ponder about why a person endowed with an IQ of more than 140 would want to work as his assistant.

http://www.modbee.com/2012/11/08/2447578/macedonian-minister-looking-for.html

Maybe, somebody would be kind enough to send him Koshik’s resume for the position if Koshik is interested.

 

macedonian minister

Who is Koshik? Well, he is an elephant in a Korean zoo.

http://news.yahoo.com/elephant-south-korean-zoo-imitates-human-speech-080222456.html

Koshik is astounding scientists there with his intelligence. Koshik can utter more than a few words in Korean, and is evidently picking up human speech patterns.

The question, of course, is whether the Macedonian Minister will he have the IQ enough to understand what the elephant is telling him?

The Power of a Sorry

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was visiting her grandmother in the village. The village was a beautiful place and she had many friends. There was only problem that reared its head every so often: she hated to apologize. Having to admit she was sorry for what she had done was so dour to her existence that her grandmother decided on out-of-the-box techniques to make things easier for her. When she stalked off with her nose in the clouds and a pout big enough to scare the cat, her grandmother told her, “You don’t have to say ‘Sorry’, just tell me what your mother is wearing.”

Ha! But the little girl was too smart for that, she answered resolutely in Tamil, “PODAVAI! You think I will say ‘SAREE’? ”

Looks like my grandmother’s trick would not have worked on Scott Forstall either. He was ousted from Apple after refusing to sign a apology or taking responsibility for the poor quality of the maps on iOS.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57542297-37/apples-scott-forstall-ousted-over-maps-apology-wsj/

It looks like Mr Forstall learned from his company though:

http://www.examiner.com/article/uk-court-rejects-apple-s-apology-to-samsung-orders-apple-to-do-it-over

The UK court rejected Apple’s apology to Samsung as ‘not an apology’. Ha!

PS: For all those smart people out there, who think they know the little girl; I am not the little girl in the story above (Just saying)

Handler in trouble?

The world is agog with the fact that His Royal Highness Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_harry) otherwise known as Prince Harry .. er .. erred.

I have no problems with Prince Harry making a public spectacle of himself. If that is what he wants, so be it. The man is 27 years old and if he chooses to dance naked in front of some girls in Las Vegas when they have their cell-phones out for clicking pictures in the middle of the night, so be it.

My problem is that his ‘handlers’ are in trouble for this indiscretion. Does a 27 year old need a ‘handler’ to tell him that imitating inebriated babboons is not a good idea.

http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/royals_furious_over_prince_harry_ZxI4elJOFPQJV41P0A89sI

Even a prince should get that. Right?

Olympic Jazz

Olympic Jazz

The general boasting of nations in the Olympic arena was too much for me. Not to mention that every single interview underlines the age. ‘Only 16 and so poised’
‘Barely 17 and already making the world sit up’

What’s the point of all this? Makes me feel like an aging rhinoceres whose rampage is slowing and hair is graying.

So, I turned to Music – I have been listening to Jazz on the radio. I am no Music Maestro (Apart from my performing on All India Radio a couple of times: https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2006/10/16/background-music/) I have no credentials in the Music department. Yet, the Jazz spurred me to heights I hadn’t imagined. I would listen to a random song played by a Brazilian or a Spanish artist I hadn’t heard of earlier and words would leap into my mouth. There I was singing of Love and Life and Heartbreak with perfectly fitting words.

It was too good to be true. And then I realised what was going on. Everytime I had one of those flashes, some brilliant music director in India had already whacked the tune. All the old brain was doing was retrieving the cached data from the rusted corners and belting them out again. For some shining moments, I had envisioned my creative side flowing and A.R.Rahman coming to me for lyrics and tips. Sigh…

So, in the absence of seeing myself as the shining beacon to the music world, I have decided to devote my talents to analyzing our recent performance in the Olympics.

Some folks have come up analysis such as Medals per billion people, Medals ranked by GDP etc.

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/07/summer-olympics-medal-gdp-charts (the bubbles at the bottom of the chart represent India)

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2012/08/10/the-us-olympic-medal-count-isnt-as-impressive-as-it-looks?google_editors_picks=true

Gapminder.org is a pretty interesting place to while away your time with stats and graphs by the way.

But nobody sees the bucking pace that India is setting.
This is US’s performance in the Olympics over the past 20 years:

THIS is India’s:

Look at that graph and wipe the Usain Bolts and Michael Phelpses from your mind and tell me India is going the right way. (0-4 in 20 years, but nobody can deny that that trend is what we are looking for)

Help! Hindu God of Olympics!

I know why India does not win the Olympics. Hinduism, for all its openness and boasting of having over 3000 gods does not have a Major God for Sports. A random page says The God of Sports is Lord Subrahmanya.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_is_Hindu_god_of_sports
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murugan

A Mythology refresher: Subrahmanya is the one who was challenged to a race around the world thrice against his brother.(http://hinduism.about.com/od/lordganesha/a/Ganesha-Tales.htm)

Subrahmanya had a peacock and flew off, while his pot-bellied elephant brother had a mouse to run around the world. Long story short, Subrahmanya and his peacock lost the race to the elephant brother and skulked off to brood at a hilltop in Tamil Nadu. (I don’t know why Wiki answers proclaims him to be the God of Sports) Anyway, I thought the Lord Subrahmanya was only famous in Tamil Nadu, which is famous for idlis, filter coffee and curd rice (none of which are exactly high up on an Olympic sportsman’s diet you will agree).

In other news, Karnataka is in drought and Rs. 17 crores have been set aside for drought relief. When it comes to drought relief, what are the measures you can take to alleviate the water problem? Illogical solutions to this question will not be tolerated easily.

Think.

Right answer: 17 crore rupees is being set aside for performing pujas at temples across the state to entice the rain god to perform in the State. Nobody is gullible enough to spend all that money on one temple: 34000 temples across the state will perform the same puja on the same day and rain will come.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/south/karnataka-temples-to-hold-prayers-for-rain-today-bill-will-be-17-crores-248142

Now you see why we need a famous God of Sports having at least 34000 temples? If we had set aside an Olympic Coaching Fund and organised a prayer to appease the Sports God at the same time, while feeding our athletes curd rice and idlis, we might have won the Olympics. Alas! Hinduism in 5000 years did nothing towards this end and we are forced to pray to Gods who have to cut themselves free of their main task and take on Sports overtime.

Olympian Diet
Olympian Diet

What’s an Indian Olympic Athlete to do against these enormous odds?

Am I a busybody or am I busy?

Everyone loves being busy. My son, for example, spends many hours being busy. For one so young( a year old); one would wonder why he is this busy. All one has to do is walk into our home when we are loading the dishwasher to see the domestic chores he has to handle. (Try constantly climbing onto the dishwasher lid when the relentless mother is pulling you away from it, or face the frustration of having his unloading efforts thwarted at every stage) He has the additional responsibility of identifying objects of a questionable nature and then tinkering with them. Working on finding questionable items of high impact require several skills at once. Tinkering with the empty battery charger, for instance, is a low-medium voltage exclamation mark from the parent, opening the vaseline bottle and looking like a shimmering idol in the evensong after liberal application a medium exclamation – the real crowd pullers are the remote and the phone.

The point is: he is busy.

The daughter is busy too. Her priorities are different from the son’s, but she is busy nevertheless. She is busy playing with her friends, busy making her room a mess, busy making cards that her callous mother throws away.

Which brings me to the husband and I. We are busy too.

Being busy is exhilarating. Makes you feel wanted and keeps you occupied, which is why so many of us fall into the busy trap.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/

The article, like many others, made me stop and ponder about our lives. How much of what we do is necessary and how much of it is noise? How do we identify the chaff from the grain when we are busy running after the chaff and the grain in the whipping winds?

Future of Mankind: Sifrhippus or Wall-E routes?

The hedgehogs in the area are confused. They came out thinking it is Spring (apparently, hedgehogs peep out of their hibernating homes and if they see their shadow, they think it is time to get up and get busy for the Spring),and then a few days later, the skies clouded over again looking very much like Winter, and hiding the hedgehogs shadow. Just when they found their blankets and decided to snuggle up again, they found their shadows again. Quite trying for hedgehogs frankly. I don’t know what I would have done if I were one. Point is, no matter what the climate is like, one can always push out a study on Global warming to an audience waiting to lap it up. If it is cold, you say,’See this is a result of global warming. The extremities in temperature.’ Then dramatically shake your head.

Another sure shot research topic is Obesity. Watching Wall-E always fills me with an unnamed fear. What with obesity rising and our inherent entertainment choices becoming sedentary, there seems little we can do to avoid the inevitable. But there is this news item that had me soothe my frayed nerves somewhat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/science/sifrhippus-the-first-horse-got-even-tinier-as-the-planet-heated-up.html

Apparently, the Sifrhippus horse was a hulk (compared to what it is now I mean). But as a result of Global Warming, the horse has grown tinier over centuries. On the other hand, horses ran around then and horses run around now. I mean rarely does one find a Sifrhippus strapped up to his X-box and throwing his mane about involved in the game.

If a sifr had to run a mile for fodder then, he runs a mile for fodder now. So, his reduced bulk could be related to Global Warming.

Man, on the other hand, if he had to hunt a day for filling half his stomach then, he has to click a button for half a second now before it is delivered at his doorstep. For further explanation, I see a half-witted diagram is in order.

Do you think these two effects would balance each other out for a while.

Eureka! τατουάζ !

I don’t like needles. There have been times when I have shut my eyes so tight and balled up my fists so tightly while having my blood drawn for medical purposes, that nurses have gently drawn my eyelids apart some minutes later, telling me they finished with me some time ago in case I hadn’t noticed. One even said, she finished and was just watching me to see how long I’d sit like that. Well…I am always willing to give people their moments of fun! Those are the good nurses.

I’ve had ones that had me screaming in pain, only to be given the stern look and asked truthfully whether that really hurt that much. To which, I have to gulp a good-ish bit, put on my best school-girl-innocent-still look and bleat about hating needles.

So, you can imagine my horror when I read this news item.
http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/06/10009107-penis-tattoo-gives-guy-permanent-erection

Every one has their ‘Aaha’ moments. And not all of them have them while bathing naked in a tub. Thank heavens for that. I am not sure that what the world needs is a bunch of naked men and women running on the streets shouting ‘Eureka’ in any language that appeals to them. Having said that, I would like to know what gives some people their ideas.

Take this man for example: Not only did he have his penis tattooed, he had it tattooed with the first letter of his girlfriend’s last name. Bizarre as this sentence sounds and definitely not one I’d ever envisioned myself writing on my blog; but the world is a strange place and the best stories are not those of fiction.

Back to the penis story, I want to know why he chose the first letter of his girlfriend’s last name. I mean why not the first letter of her name? Did he think he was going to refer to her Ms.Madhatterson or Ms.Mc.Fearsome for all his love life?

“Oh my lovely Ms.Goodmundsen! ” or

“Don’t cry – I love you so Ms.Maudlin!”

The story ends on a note that doctors discourage penile tattooing lest this man trumps up some followers.