Tag: writing

Fractals of Thought

Who remembers the scene in Big Bang Theory where Sheldon breaks cutlery and breaks out of a rut? This one.

Sheldon Breaks Cutlery

Well, it was a bit like that. I tottered down the stairs with a pile of books, an iPad, a phone, and a cup perched on top. How is there always a cargo load being carried up and down the stairs in a home like ours? 

The Bird’s Eye

There is something marvelous about taking in a room as you gingerly step down the stairs. The bird’s eye view. The critical eye – is that a cobweb in the corner? Oh – that’s a bird’s nest on the porch – how marvelous! This time, I noticed my elephant ear plant sagging somewhat and went to investigate with the fragile pile in my hands. It was only meant to be a second, and before I knew it, the glass cup perched on top my tottering pile fell.

I know people talk of moments slowing down. Moments when the feeling of being in a bubble is broken, and all that. What I am trying to say is that the moment the glass cup shattered was one such. It slipped and I saw it crash. Not exactly slow motion but it felt like one. I couldn’t catch it on the way down could I? I’ve broken my fair share of things in the past. No one can claim to be that perfect as to not have broken a few things, and Yours Truly is certainly a flibberty-gibbet with enough enthusiasm and speed issues to have broken a few things – bones included.

So, it really shouldn’t be a blog-worthy event. Except it was fascinating to watch.

Kintsugi

What is that they say? Kintsugi – the beauty of broken things and so on. Trust the Japanese to have a philosophical term for something like this.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by joining pieces back together and filling cracks with lacquer dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, thereby highlighting the flaws in the mended object.

The gold strain that can brings broken things back together? Well, there was no possibility of kintsugi in this case. The largest fragment was the size of a quinoa grain. I have never seen a single coffee cup made of glass crash and shatter so evenly. I wish I had had the presence of mind to take a picture. As it was, I was too pulled into the moment for philosophical musings. I bellowed to the household to ‘not come near’ for I could see the shards would have splattered to faraway spots. Then for a blissful moment thereafter, I just stood there frozen, barefooted, and rooted in the present.

One does not drift near shards of glass. One plots the next move. One analyses. One considers and then one cleans. All in the present. All earthy, practical tasks. Nothing spectacular, and yet intensely so. Every shard was beautiful. Each catching a little ray of sunshine streaming in through the windows. Each beautiful shimmer showing us how it is the little moments that make up a whole and so on.

Superstitious Much?

As I finished cleaning up, the superstitious part of me piped up: Should this be a sign? I mean it is a broken cup – shouldn’t it mean something? I felt all the doomsayers of my youth clamoring to get their voices heard. Something is about to happen. Duh. Maybe. But, said another part of my brain – the broken glass is so beautiful! Not being able to recreate the exact same thing you just lost has a beauty in transition, no?

Sometimes, not being able to kintsugi your way out means you have to learn to let go, isn’t it?

Tempered Glass

Afterwards, I checked the glass – it was tempered glass. Apparently designed to break exactly like it did. Gemini goes on to explain things like the compression layer, tension core etc, which by itself is a fascinating topic. The glass has fallen once or twice from a similar height on a similar surface before, but nothing had happened. However, yesterday, it seemed to have hit the ground at a particular angle to release the stored tension. Like a tightly coiled spring. 

Science is fascinating, but so are the fractals of thought around something as mundane as breaking glass isn’t it? No wonder Sheldon had a moment of epiphany – I can’t lay claim to an epiphany, but I can claim a stay-in-the-present present.

I was finishing the cleaning up when a friend knocked on the door with some chocolate donuts. Say what you will about that – it felt like a good omen, not a bad one 🙂

Exploring America’s Artistic Evolution Through History

The History of the United States

I just finished listening to a Great Courses Lecture Series on American History. I loved the chapters where the American History audiobook lectures cross-referenced the historical narrative with developments in Art History. After all, art is a reflection of life, and life is an inspiration for art. 

I am sure there are books and reams of material dealing with all of which I am about to write about. If you know of any good books or podcasts along these lines, please drop me a comment.

Romanticism (Early 1800’s) 

Romanticism in the early 1800’s from authors and poets like Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson made their way into the American psyche with their hopeful and nature-oriented philosophy. The call for nature as a spiritual healer, a gentle reminder that life on Earth is bountiful even if sometimes hard. This was the time America was settling into itself as a fledgling nation – idealistic, ambitious, and prosperous.

The themes of art and literature spanned mystic nature, emotion, imagination, individuality, and inspiration.

American Renaissance (Late 1800’s – Post Civil War) 

Then, in the mid-1800’s – after the Civil War and many losses on both sides, art and literature turned towards the American Renaissance. Nature was not the benign soother of souls anymore. It was the vast, terrifying force that could destroy. The darkness within. The ghost of reality underlying the dreams of the bright and hopeful. The likes of Edgar Allan Poe.

I thought to myself on a walk one day that maybe this was the growth that was necessary like the human teenage psyche needing to grow, deepen and mature. Knowing, becoming aware of the darkness, so we may shape our morality with knowledge. The post civil war was the Reconstruction Era. It was also a time of intense growth with populations migrating towards cities, industrialization replacing agricultural jobs etc.

Harlem Renaissance (~1920’s) 

This period was followed by the Harlem Renaissance in Art where the reality shaped by experiences of people took hold. Art and literature tried to take what was life and reclaim our meaning and dignity through our shared and lived realities. Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald served as a cornerstone for what greed could like, while Harlem authors like Zora Neal Hurston gave us glimpses into the lives of Black communities in the rural South.

The early 1920’s also gave rise to the Jazz Age and changes from the classical art forms from the past.

Surrealism (Post WW II – 1950’s) 

After the intense periods of the two World Wars with a depression sandwiched in between, the populace seemed to be in need for some hope, and an escaping-reality kind of theme developed. Artists like Salvador Dali & Frido Kahlo dipped into the realm of dreams inspired by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis.  They gave to the public a taste of what it was like to bypass reason, and exist in a world of possibilities.

I thought it was one of those ways in which art could inspire life to be forward looking. After all, dreaming up what can be is just as crucial as depicting what-is, isn’t it?

The Journeys of Art & Humans

In some small way, it was like the progression of humans itself. We start off innocent, hopeful, trusting, and then become wary, cynical. From these experiences, is shaped a reality that is a sum of our experiences; and it either takes a determined person to evolve into the next version of themselves, or to fester in a pale imitation of what-was.

It is fascinating that Art itself can provide answers to our anthropological progression, isn’t it?

Please let me know what you think: Is the evolution of art as essential as evolution of life itself?

Once again, any pointers to books/podcasts/articles along these lines would be much appreciated.

Coming up soon: Art in the digital age – how do you think it will be classified and transformed?

Literary Inspirations from Nature

Amazonian Strength

It was a somewhat tumultuous setting to wake up to. I had just crossed the Amazon river on a bike. Did you know pedaling through water looks easier than it feels? Especially, when the waters are flowing west-east, and you’re biking north-south. 

But still, it was beautiful to bike across a wide, deep river. Water is so soothing, isn’t it? Feels like floating – only every now and then, your ankles get wet. I think I rather enjoyed the ride after a full 3 days of council meetings with the Queen. Have you been to any of these? Turns out, they aren’t as fun and impressive as they seem. But that is corporate err… royal life for you I suppose. The nitty-gritty – the treaties, the documents and the hundred disagreements that arise between 35 council members is truly draining. While I was happy to say my good-byes and head across the river, I wasn’t quite ready for what lay for me on the other side.  

Scene cut. 

Retake River-biking scene.

The aerial view of my biking across the Amazon river is cool. Was Wonder Woman an Amazonian woman? 

Cut. Cut. Cut.

“You’ll be late – time to get up!”

I moaned into my pillow displaying the kind of weakness for sleep that Amazonian strong women most certainly did not according to the myths. I got out of the bed though as a good citizen must.  

Still, I felt a little unsettled – aerial surveys, biking across rivers, social council meetings and strange amazonian men pointing me to a different boat (That was the last part of the dream – not important) – can do that. I decided a short walk around the neighborhood was all the time I had before my day started. 

The Heron on the Roof

So I legged it. Trying to listen to the grounding sound of chirping birds, and taking in huge gulps of the fresh morning air. Did I tell you how bright it was for a February morning? Well, it was.

Anyway, I was tripping along, when I saw the strangest sight. A blue heron: perched on a rooftop in the middle of our housing community. I love watching herons and cranes as regular readers of my blog know. Watching them seems to settle a certain restlessness in my soul. 

Watching the grey heron on a grey house’s rooftop after a tumultuous morning, I felt a new respect for the bird that lives this reality with ease and calm. Aerial surveys – wasn’t that what it was doing just then? Wading through the river waters? They love it and they excel at it. Watching the waters sanguinely from near the shore – again, their specialty.

Literary Inspirations

As I watched the heron, an unrelated nugget of information rose – it has been a while since I had read Kelly Barnhill’s book, The Crane Husband. In an interview, she went on to say that the story had come to her one day  after seeing a crane sit still on a rooftop. 

We see plenty of birds perched anywhere and everywhere all the time. But there is something incongruous about a heron or a crane perched on a rooftop (not in the middle of some fields) , but in a suburban locality, that stirs the imagination. At that moment, I could understand the author’s inspiration for the book.

I stopped to take in the beautiful ringing sounds of a winter robin on a bare tree, and headed back feeling far more settled than when I set out. The heron had done it again. Patience, stillness, sun-bathing, rivers – all in a day’s game after all.

Bosco Ramos: The Dog Who Became a Mayor

The Stress & Strife of Political Life

Political life has never held much sway for me. Too many pitfalls, crests and troughs. I think there are far too many people wanting their own agendas taken care of, that makes it hard to sail straight. If everything someone does for you has an ulterior motive, it must endlessly exhausting for one wanting to live a quiet and straight sort of life.

Of course, there are those who enjoy navigating those very waters and are good at them too. More power to them. Then, there are those who do none of this and enjoy the arm-twisting and the power-trips. The more unscrupulous the better: for those this pursuit would probably be invigorating rather than draining.

What I am saying is this, and it is profound – the kind of thing that when given up as a truth from a crowd-wooing politician gets standing ovations: It takes all sorts to make up the world.

So, imagine my surprise, when I really wanted to meet the mayor, but could only take a picture with his statue.

Meet Bosco Ramos.

He served as the Mayor of Sunol for 13 years – from 1981 – 1994.

He won by a landslide raking in over 62% of the votes.

https://localnewsmatters.org/2020/12/14/how-a-dog-bosco-ramos-became-the-most-loved-mayor-of-sunol-in-the-80s/

If you had a bone to pick with him, he was there mingling among the residents in local pubs and restaurants almost every evening. For a political career to be scandal-free, it takes an enormous strength of character, which Bosco Ramos obviously had.

It is too bad that he died 13 years into his career.

Bosco Ramos in Calafia

I might’ve thought this was an article worthy of The Onion, but it’s true. One serendipitous day, we found ourselves meandering in the small town of Sunol, and there, right outside the Sunol Post Office is a statue of Mayor Bosco Ramos. He was a black labrador-rottweiler mix, and defeated two human-beings in the race for Mayor. 

You should’ve seen the son’s face when he found out more about this dog-mayor. His penchant for History is unsatiable: He is forever coming up to Yours Truly with fun-facts, and trivia such as: “Amma, did you know? California was named after a character called Calafia from the book written by <some long name>” (Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo) 

He transformed into an enthusiastic puppy himself, yipping and yapping to have his photograph taken with the former mayor.

Image Courtesy: By Pedro Xing – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24008072

An Ode to Roger

I’d like to read more about Bosco Ramos. Was he a good companion when one was out on a nature walk? Did he hurry things along when the conversation started to get belligerent, or was he quite ready to bark an order or two?

I was reminded of Gerald Durrell’s companion, Roger:

In those early days of exploration Roger was my constant companion. He was the perfect companion for an adventure, affectionate without exuberance, brave without being belligerent, intelligent and full of good humored tolerance for my eccentricities.

family_other_animals

He goes on to say about Roger – who sounds like the ideal companion anyone could wish for, that:
If I slipped when climbing a dew shiny bank, Roger appeared suddenly, gave a snort that sounded like suppressed laughter, a quick look over, a rapid lick of commiseration, shook herself, sneezed and gave me his lopsided grin. If I found something that interested me – an ant’s nest, a caterpillar on a leaf, a spider wrapping up a fly in swaddling clothes of silk – Roger sat down and waited until I had finished examining it.

Now – what is preventing similar miracles from happening on a larger scale? Why can we not aspire to having more loyal, loving, patient leaders in all the important places?

The Pursuit of Peace

Californian Winters

The January cold was nothing like the icy swell sweeping the rest of the country. In fact, it was almost anti-climatic. I had stepped out for a walk, and while I admired the sunset, I also took in the stirrings of spring all around me. 

Californian winters are mild.

Trees in Bloom

The first white cherry blossoms – the ones to bloom earlier and earlier every year were already beginning to bloom. I swished along, looking for the other signs of winter leaving and spring taking tentative peeps into our neighborhood. The narcissi were growing, and some precocious ones were beginning to bloom. The snowdrops too – little drops of spring tucked in their white and green attire. 

The trees were still bare, and I tilted my head upwards towards the moon. I really do love the waxing moon season – the gibbous moon against the early sunset makes me think of tides in the sea, turtles on beaches, deer in meadows, pelicans in lakes and any number of beautiful things. All things intended to fill your heart. 

I made my way towards the magnificent magnolia tree in bloom now. They truly are astounding to behold. I stood there peeking at the moon through the blooms, taking a picture that I was sure to delete soon, and then laughed at my own folly. I have yet to take a good picture of the moon with my phone, but the optimism with which I whip it out every time is truly remarkable. 

I stood there waxing poetic (Get it? Get it?) – with a yearning to set the roiling news of the world against the peace of the winter evening. 

The Pursuit of Peace

A little wish to capture magic in a bubble.
A January wish to capture peace in the world.
A wish. A hope. A thought. 

Maybe.

It will make people appreciate peace
It will make magic permeate the bubble and spread to the world.
An intention. A manifestation. A yearning.

January started off with turmoil on all fronts in the world. The pursuit of peace seems more and more elusive in the current situation. But nature always shows us hope.

Shopping with Richard & Petunia

You get to do the strangest things on trips. Like shopping with Richard and Petunia.

Petunia had a bored look. If her nonchalance was studied, it was not apparent. Well done. The attention Richard got was ridiculous if you asked her, and she wasn’t going to indulge him any more than was necessary.

Richard, though, was preening. Young as he was, he was still learning the ways of people. He was incredibly good-looking and that department helped him in getting what he wanted.

If it bothered Petunia, she didn’t show it. She seemed happy enough to be ignored. Besides, Petunia’s doctor had advised her to go easy on her diet. She was clearly one of those queens who enjoyed being served luxurious portions at regular intervals without having to ask for it.

Petunia liked to think of herself as well-proportioned, but Richard liked to think of her as fat.

It really did not bode well for their relationship.

So, it really was no one’s fault.

Richard asked for food. Joanna gave it to him. She let him peck it straight from her hand, and those in the store looked on with awe. Richard really was handsome. His eyes and feathers shone: he was quite the bored aristocrat when I walked in. He came over and gave me a once-over and then strutted over to Joanna. She held out her hand with his food, and Richard pecked at it, making sure that we had our eyes on him – giving him the sort of adoring look he was used to.

I suppose after the fifteenth time that day, Petunia snapped. She still could not bring herself to exert herself and show her disapproval, but she did sort of snort. Richard understood, and pecked hard enough for the food to splash and roll out onto the floor from my outstretched hand.  Richard ate it all up and then stalked off into rain outside. Just so.

Petunia gave him a scowl that said, “Good! Get a good soak then!”, and went back to snoozing on the billing counter. Bird food was nowhere as good as cat food anyway. Petunia knew that.

Oh well!

How often does one get to shop with a peacock and a cat?

Books That Shaped My Inner World in 2025

Mind-blowing

I come to one of my favorite things to do as the year winds down. Which is to see all the different ways in which my mind has been kept occupied and shaped by writers who tirelessly work and put out the good stuff for people like us to just sit back, relax, and read. What was it that Carl Sagan said, “Books really are the best inventions of mankind” or something like that, and was he right?

“What an astonishing thing a book is. … one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

[Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)]”

― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

I saw this beautiful hotel building on a recent trip to Hawaii, and every front-facing wall had some sort of cuneiform inscriptions on them. Very becoming. Some were stick figures – some assorted sea creature shapes. They probably told a story, but I couldn’t stop to find it all out because I was being dragged across the street and being yanked up by my forearm to keep from tripping and falling (again).  What I am trying to say with this rather meandering and pointless story is that the Hawaiian hotel may well have had the legend of Humuhumunukunukuapua’a there, and there was no way I would get to read it. (Humuhumunukunukuapua’a is a reef triggerfish and Hawaii’s official state fish)

Books, on the other hand, I got my dose of humor, facts, science, fantasy and history. I romped through the annals of British aristocracy, World History, US History, types of flora and how marvelous their cell walls are, all without stepping out of the comfort of my own bedroom. What can be better?

So, let’s see shall we? Every year, my classifications and categories of the books I read over the year changes, and that is just as it should be, for I don’t follow a particular pattern. Sometimes, the libraries make the choice for me and I am grateful. There are simply too many authors with too many interesting things to say.

Still there is a sort of quiet happiness – the cave of quietude as Keats so elegantly puts it, a rather meditative sort of space where the soul expands. It is truly astonishing. Then, you read something that not only expanded the writer’s soul, but now the readers’ too, and before you know it, you are thoroughly entranced. Books have managed to work their magic through ‘the shackles of time’ as Carl Sagan so niftly put it.

Anyway, all this to say that I did my spot of reading in 2025 and now, I get to look back on them and make sense of the lists.

Let’s go, shall we?

Banish ennui: Children’s books

Facts are Facts!

Good old stories

  • The Place in Us – Fatima Farheen Mirza 
  • Remarkably Bright Creatures – Shelby Van Pelt
  • In the Time of Five Pumpkins – No ! Ladies Detective Agency – By Alexander McCall Smith
  • Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
  • Katabasis – R K Kuang

Science Fiction

Under The Sea

  • A Whale’s World – By Ian MacAllister & Nicholas Read
  • The Dumbo Octopus – A graphic guide to cephalopods by Annie Lambert
  • Narwhal – The Arctic Unicorn – By Justin Anderson Illustrated by Jo Weaver – Candlewick Press
  • From Shore to Ocean Floor – The Human Journey to the Deep – By Gill Arbuthnott Illustrated by Christopher Nielsen
  • Do Penguins Have Emotions – World Book answers your questions about the oceans and whats in them
  • In my tsundoku shelf: Playground – By Richard Powers, How Sound Travels,  Life in the Oceans – By David Attenborough

Call it brain fog or a lack of forethought – but there were a few books that I had only a vague recollection of. I didn’t write little witty notes against their name, and I now have a bit of difficulty remembering the good bits. I suppose it happens – but I am happy that I read them all the same. I usually am.

Please share your lists of recommended books for the year. As you can see – there are loads to be written about, but I suppose I shall just have to chip at them as best as I can. 

Here is to a marvelous year of reading for all of you in the coming year! May the force be with you!

Word of the Year

AI Slop

I understand why AI slop is such a big deal.

Who said the e-revolution killed reading? Now we get to read all about how Kate Winslet once refused to wear eye shadow for a shot’s retake, and took a stand for all females the world over. Character matters more than looks girls. Remember that. Remember Kate Winslet took on all of Hollywood with her courage that day and redefined the industry. I think Julia Roberts might’ve done it too. Or was it Meryl Streep? I forget.

If you want to change the way you say something, go for it, Emma Thompson changed the way the industry thinks by saying what she thought one day. Even Audrey Hepburn proved she was more than a pretty face by saying something, You’ve got this.

We just need you to become famous, and then AI will make a courageous princess of you. 

3 paragraphs or 300 words about it. Then, thousands of likes and shares, and you are well on your way. 

We also know that Paul McCartney may have said good-night to his grandchildren when they stayed over with him. Now, what a wonderful human-being? If only, we all learned that the smallest words have the largest impact. Keanu Reeves also said something the other day. I am not entirely sure. But it all goes to prove that AI is watching and learning.

So, I have been saying goodnight to all things bright and beautiful, all things big and small ever since. I may have frightened the deer in the meadows one night, but – I learn from the best. Saying goodnight to fellow beings is a form of compassion.

All day everyday in our scrolling for your amusement and entertainment. The AI slop is generating, regurgitating, and filling our spaces. As someone who lamented the increasingly short ways in which we communicate, the AI slop seems to be doing the writing for us. Now, all we need is a chip to read it all, let us know what to think and just program it in seamlessly. The human experience bypassing the human. 

It isn’t just about the words either. The other day an old lady took on a tiger. It went viral.

Inspired by her, an old lady in a rural village ran after her cat and is now recovering from a hip fracture. AI claims to have no part in it.

Cynical? Yes. 

6-7

Come on! We can do better than that. We can give ourselves maybe a 6-7 on effort can’t we?

I cannot help but think how marvelous it would be to have AI bots as your students in a classroom. “That is not good. Try again. “

Voila!

“You are right!” It says. So mature, so humble, and so willing to try again. Over and over till the teacher tires of it. Such hardworking bot-kids.

I have seen children whine their way through a single sheet of paper for an entire hour.

That is what the human psyche is capable of. What’s wrong with 6-7-ing our way through life? We were doing perfectly just that till AI slop decided to come along and make us more productive. So, you want us to 8-9 our way through life now? What gives?

Rage-baiting

All you have to do is make a reference to a certain prime number in the 60’s. Eye rolls and exasperation follows – but I could see this leading to rage-baiting too.

Stop rage-baiting the hardly working children, AI Slop!

Parasocial

One word that reminds me of simpler times when we laughed at the bigger effort jokes. I remember the pater laughing well before he found the YouTube clip for me – he laughed through it all explaining every sentence the comedian spoke in that clip.

The build up to the comedic punch-line is as funny as the joke itself. “Do you really think you can arrest me for an expired driver’s license?” the comedian says on the screen. “Shall I make a call to Inspector General of Police?”

The traffic policeman freezes. “Do you know him?” He says.

“Yes – but he doesn’t know me!” says the c, and the audience collapses laughing.

I must check the number of times that snippet was played and replayed on YouTube for laughs.

Must we have a word for the kind of anticipatory laugh that comes from that long-ish sentiment?

Yes. Snaps fingers. Efficiency. Have you forgotten? Get with the times.

Now, the comedian needs to be stopped by the policeman demanding to see his expired driver’s license and he says, “Parasocial IG”.

Parasocial means: Having a one-sided relationship with a famous person. 

Vivek did not redefine the industry with that 6-7-ish attempt at comedy did he? No, he worked through 6-7 retakes of that shot before they got it right on cinema. He rage-baited that traffic cop for a laugh.

Sigh! So what have all these words got in common? You ask.

They are all winners of the Word of the Year title.

  • Merriam Webster – Slop
  • Oxford University Press – rage-bait
  • Dictionary.com – 67
  • Cambridge dictionary – Parasocial

When Engineers Attempt Roofs

The Kind of Engineer Who

“I shall put up some tarpaulin on the roof, and this will stem the water flow from the rains till we find someone to fix it.” the husband declared. 

We had a leaking roof.

You know – how in the novels they tell you that you must show what happened, not tell you? I’ll just tell you and you will see. I slipped on the water pooled by the bucket by my feet. The rains were in and out of the house. Literally. There was a steady drip that was meant to drip into the bucket, but had managed to splatter outside the bucket. When the man announced his intentions of putting up the tarpaulin on the roof, I was attempting to clean the mess on the floor, and slipped. I barely managed to take hold of the stairs, thus saving myself from breaking my own neck. I might possibly have also saved my teeth from shattering. I count them all as wins.

Marriage makes you robust. 

Now. We have many talents in the house, but fixing leaking roofs, plumbing, electrical wiring, aren’t even remotely in the vicinity of talents we boast about. In fact, we barely manage to put up an assortment of holiday lights every year. But still, the husband has this undeniable faith in his capabilities on all these fronts. With a smile, he embarks – a few dashes to the hardware store, a few YouTube videos, and a hearty dose of laughter infused with optimism, and you will find the man attempting to do everything. 

One of our neighbors is retired and likes tinkering. He asked us what the husband was doing on the roof with a mild look of concern on his face. “Is he an engineer?” 

“Err…Software Engineer.” I said. To which the husband piped up from the roof, “Though many years ago, I also studied Electronics and Communications Engineering!” 

The neighbor still looked concerned. “So, not a mechanical or civil engineer then!” he asked. Sometimes, society is too polite. What he meant to say is, “So you are the kind of engineer who calls a mechanic or electrician to actually fix things, right?” 

Several neighbors came through the course of the day with concerned looks on their faces. Some laced it with humor, others with alarm. It was an illuminating experience.

The Benevolent Roofer

The man in question, though was undeterred by public opinion – he sat there on the roof, polished off a whole thermos of steaming noodles like he was on a picnic, and waved to the people below. ‘Benevolent Roofer’ is the phrase that comes to mind. Folks on walks waved back. Dogs woofed. Cats meowed. Squirrels scampered. Butterflies flitted. 

He then went on to spend 3 painstaking hours placing tarpaulin on the leaking section in hopes to stem the steady leak from the rains. We clambered up and down the ladder giving him a tile or two at a time to place on the tarp. ‘They are heavy!’ he panted, and I sweetly refrained from mentioning that they were actually only as heavy as the weights in our living room – the weights he’d bought to do weight training 5 years ago. I picked the weights up everyday to clean under them, but he never did. 

The rains came that night. The tarpaulin held on the roof – meaning it did not fly away. But it somehow managed to find a way to pool more water into the weak spots. The next day, we found that where we had 1 leak before, now we had 3. 

But like the children said to me when I said it will all make for a hilarious blog post, “Amma! Now remember! He is allowed to say he made it worse, you are not!” 

Fascinating

We caved in with the leaking roof, and had a pair of competent roofers come and fix the roof. 

It was fascinating to watch them. It had taken the whole afternoon for the husband and his support crew to place the tarp on the roof. He called several friends who all gave varying levels of moral support, advice and company via cellphone throughout the day. The man had the look of an astronaut in touch with his NASA team in Houston the whole time. 

The roofers, on the other hand. They came. No fuss, no jibber-jabber: the pair of them removed all the offending tiles, replaced the leaking area and put new tiles on them in far less time. 

What’s worse? 

One stood in our garden and threw 7 tiles at a time, and they were all deftly caught by the man on the roof. 

It took us a few minutes to stop gaping at the scene. 

Never mind

That evening we stepped out. The sun was shining. The leaking roof had no husbands on it. The house inside had no buckets to catch the leak from the leaking roofs. The birds were chirping, the leaves were all showing off that they were as good as their east-coast-fall-color relatives. It was all marvelous.  

“You know? I still liked that I tried to put the tarp on the roof!” he said looking far too pleased with himself. 

“I quite like having my husband firmly rooted on the earth instead of on rooftops.” I said diplomatically.

The husband went back to his code, and the roofers went to their van. 

All was well.

Social Media Cringe Scales

Going… Going …

“What do you think I should put up today?” the son asked us one evening. The daughter was home for the Thanksgiving break too, and we were making more noise than was necessary while snacking and exchanging the news of the day. 

“How about this? Going …. Going …. “ I held up my phone, showing him some of my pictures of fall colors on the phone. When had he become this much taller than me? The beautiful fall colors glistened and sparkled, and I could feel my nerves dancing with the rays of the sun shining through them. 

“Amma! That’s – there’s no need to be all poetic and cringe.”

“What’s cringe about that? The fall colors are going…going… but not yet gone. Huh?! Get it? Not yet gone!” 

Scales of Cringe

He rolled his eyes. I swear his eyes roll more when his sister is around. I have statistical evidence. 

There are categories of social media posts apparently. They fall in scales of cringe, try-hards, to meh. One child who wished her father a happy birthday was in the try-hard category. I found that unfair. “Come on! So sweet of the child to wish her father. You know? That reminds me – where’s my post wishing me on my birthday huh?”

The pair of them exchanged looks that suggested I’d lost it, and giggled some more.

“So what if you have a few posts on the scale of 6-7?” I said, looking as smug as it was possible for me to look, while attempting the cool, nonchalant look.

“On my goodness! Did you just? I can’t – okay! That’s going to be my post. My mom just made a 6-7 joke!” he said clutching his stomach and laughing. 

My Mom!

I narrowed my eyes at the fellow. “There’s no need to say ‘my mom!’ in that tone of voice.”

He laughed some more, and the daughter ruffled his hair, looking proud.

“I am not sure I appreciate this your-mom thing being used as an insult.”

“I know your mom wouldn’t either!” the daughter said, cackling some more, and joining in.

I huffed and I puffed and drew myself to new heights. 

The daughter patted me patronizingly on the head, and said, “Now now Mother! There is no need to be all small and mighty!” 

I gave up. Newly minted high-schoolers and newly minted adults having ice creams with chocolate chips and melted brownies crushed up in them, cannot be expected to be sane. My mom would agree.