A very happy end to 2014

Ah! A new year is here

To rejoice the end of a year

Miseries of hope unrealized

Resolutions unceremoniously dropped

Relationships distancing a little more

Promises gone sour

Come to an end, I hope

Should I say a very happy new year?

Might be just words, I fear.

Rider with a storm

The drive was taking longer than I expected.  I plan to be in the office by 10 but office was still 30 KMs away.  I had reached the outskirts of the city and with the increase in traffic the speed had reduced considerably.  I estimated that the remaining distance would take more than an hour.  The journey that started pleasantly as I had thought it would had by then turned grim.  Early morning sparse traffic and the smooth highway ensured that my speeds were in the three figure mark most of the time.  The loud music screaming out of the speakers enhanced the experience.  Many would not have termed the situation as pleasant but for me it was good enough to scream out a few lyrics.  

The traffic increased considerably when I was about 70 KMs from the destination.  It is at around this time that my abdomen informed me that the fluid pressure was building up.  It had not gone above the danger mark but it was something I need to take notice of.  I thought of getting out of the highway and letting go in proper Indian style.  But I had long passed the bushes and fields part of the highway.  Now it was all factories and offices that preceded the city.  I could not possibly let it out on a factory wall; the security might kick my butt.  There were a few ideal vacant spots but by the time their existence registered in my head I was a good 500 metres away from them.

My head requested the abdomen to hold on for an hour and ordered the body not to generate fluid for the same amount of time. Though the abdomen responded positively the remaining part of the body turned down the request summarily by letting me know that it was all my fault. "You did not take heed of our order to avoid washing down 500 ml of coke over and above the unaccountable ml of water" was their charge.  All this liquid cannot be assimilated by the already flushed up cells and had to go someplace, which was outside.  So the pressure continued to build up.  The road took my attention off this build up.  I ran into a traffic jam, right at the entrance of the city.  I cursed and craned my neck attempting to see something.  I could only see the tops of many stationary cars.  I cursed and fell back.  That is when the realization of the unbearable pressure build up hit me.  I was in the center of the road and there was no spot for me to relieve myself.  I cursed again.

From then on thing became hazy.  I could only remember a few things between that time and the time I reached the office.  Every time a vehicle ahead of me slowed down, I cursed every ancestor of all the persons in that vehicle.  Every time a police man stopped my car to let some pedestrians cross, the ancestors of the policeman and the pedestrians were affected in a similar manner.  Every time I remembered the existence of my abdomen, I felt like the Mulaiperiyar dam in monsoon.  One time I parked the vehicle on the side of the road, picked up the empty bottle of coke and considered using it.  But I was not sure, if the contents I planned to pass into it would be less than 500 ml.  I threw the bottle away, cursed my ancestors, pulled the car back on to the road violently and in the process nearly ran over a pedestrian who cursed all my ancestors too.  I continued on and with every passing KM tightened the muscles in my pelvic region.  I am sure that region must have reduced in size considerably due to all the tightening.

Finally, the office was in sight; just one signal to get through.  I had to cross my legs while waiting the signal to turn green.  My control seemed to slip away now that the destination was so close.  I rubbed my eyes and looked again to ensure that this was no mirage.  Nope, the office remained there.  I started off with a "come on" and made up a sentence with many combinations of the F-word - the intent of the sentence when you removed all those words was "Why is the signal taking so long?",  God, I guess, responded by turning it green and soon I was pulling into the parking lot when the bloody watchman put up his hand and stopped me.

"ID card please"
"Aye, move away.  I need to go urgently."
"ID card please"
"Bloody hell! Where the hell is it?  Ah, here it is.  Are you happy?  You bloody fool."

The actual words used were not as innocent as the "Bloody hell" and "Bloody fool" but for the sake of readability I choose not to put those precise words.  I guess this reduces the authenticity of this write-up and I have to probably put a rider "based on real life events".  To cut short story short, I reached the restroom.  Contrary to my expectation, I found the restroom unoccupied, ran into it, opened the zippers and LET GO.  An amazing amount of liquid started flowing out at an even more amazing speed.  Its landing was so noisy that the Niagara falls would have hung its head in shame.  I am not sure how long the flow continued but it was long enough to flood the area around the office, that evening.  Of course, the rains that day might have helped but I carry the guilt that I am the major contributor.

Shabbaaaa ABBAaaaaa

The meeting did not turn out the way we thought it would.  We thought the customers would jump out of their seats with a pen in hand and demand a place to sign the deal.  They had shown a lot of interest and enthusiasm during the presentation and ensuing discussions.  But at the end of the show, they requested, very enthusiastically, another meeting to discuss the details.  Except for our boss all of us were disappointed.  He thought the meeting went exceptionally well.  The customer had expressed interest and that was good enough for him.  He had a smile on his lips and as we went down the elevator, a whistle started blowing out of it.

The lift journey lasted for ever.  The boss' elevated mood further depressed our already depressed feelings.  The whistles and hums in that small space racked our tender nerves.  To stop this joyful outburst I put forth my disappointment about the meeting.  Boss looked at me amused and said "did you expect him to sign on the dotted line by the end of the first meeting itself?"  "That's what you said prior to the meeting" I retorted.  "Yes, but I said that to keep you guys motivated" boss retorted back. "You should be happy; he asked us to come back right?  Show they are interested."  "So when will he sign?" asked I naively.  "Next meeting definitely" was the response.  "You say that to keep me motivated, right?" was my exasperated response.  "No, no my dear.  I got the vibes today.  Next meeting is the one, we go to Leela for dinner after that.  Its party time my boy" came the comforting response.

I hated it when the bugger tried to humor me with "dear"s and "my boy"s.  Unfortunately, he is my boss and I have to put up with this nonsense.  A few minutes later, we were in the car and my dear boss was revving up the engine as though he was at the start line of a race.  I had chosen the back seat to keep my distance from him.  Also, I did not like to wear the seat belts and so I thought the back seat fit my bill.  But when I heard the engine rev up I changed my mind about avoiding seat belt .  I had just about enough time to buckle it on; the car literally jumped out of the parking spot and sped towards to the spiral ramp.  We hit the ramp at about 40 Kph, I think.  I was pushed to the door and was stuck there as we went up the ramp - round and round and round.  I prayed hard and promised a visit to Tirupathi if I got out of this car alive.  Finally, we reached the ground level alive.  Three floor of spiraling hell came to an end with a hard hitting of the brake. Thanks to the seat belt I did not fly our of the wind shield.

I prayed to God again and requested him to put some sense into my boss - "Please let him not drive recklessly through the roads.".  But my prayers went unheeded.  His trademark style of driving continued.  The road was teeming with people and vehicle but our car bull dozed on.  It was like one of the scenes from the comics wherein cyclists, hens, dogs and cows jump out of the way as a car zips by with the driver peeping out of the window waving his hands wildly at the people and the animals.  I had a good mind to ask him if he thought the accelerator pedal had dual functionality.  The first press accelerates the vehicle and the second press brakes it.  Someone had to tell this guy that it accelerates more when pressed the second time.  But that cannot be me - he does not like to be corrected by his subordinates and so I kept praying.  By the time, we covered two kilometres, I had promised visits to most temples in the state of AP.  I could not afford further promises and so decided to distract myself.

"Sir, don't you have any music."

"Oh yes! A large music collection.  I love music.  Do you want to listen to something?"  As he was saying this he dove to his left to get out his CD pack.  Along with him the car turned sharply to the left.  I did not dare to look out but I heard a lot of noise and commotion from that side.  Boss straightened, threw back the CD pack and continued driving as though nothing had happened.  "Go on, select something" he said.  I opened the pack and found the pack had about 10 CDs.  All the CDs had ABBA written on top and the numerals 1 to 10 written underneath.

"I love ABBA.  Select the CD that you want from the pack." he insisted.
"I don't listen to ABBA." was my response.
He turned around, looked at my face and exclaimed "What!".  I am not quite sure what happened to the car in those few second (or minutes or hours, I am not sure which).  But we seem to have again left behind a chaotic scene.
"Pick up CD four or five, whichever you like best.  Both of them are good." he said.

I had no idea which songs they contained and as such I did not know anything about ABBA.  I have always preferred the number five over four and so I picked it up and handed it over.  Soon our vehicle was filled with the soothing sound of the ABBAs.  I am not sure why I had not listened to them but now they seemed to be the best sounds I have heard in my whole life.  I closed my eues and let my body rock to the crazy rhythms of the car as the beautiful music filled my ears and head.

Where is the ice bucket?

Wash away with ice
With glee lights a face
Supporting a suffering
Inflicted are feeling
Giving away money
While pictures come out funny
Making all aware
How much I care
Something I know not
Little more than naught

Book Tales

So i am going to tell you 10 book writers and name of the book and here they are:
THE NUMBER DEVIL  HANS MAGNUS ENZENSBERGER,
CONNECT THE DOTS RASHMI BANSAL,
 THE  OATH OF THE VAYUPUTRAS AMISH,
 ROOTS ALEX HALEY,
 ASHOKA CHARLES ALLEN,
 BLINK MALCOLM GLADWELL,
THE TELL - TALE BRAIN V.S. RAMACHANDRAN,
 THE WORLD OF MALGUDI R.K. NARAYAN,
 THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL ANNE FRANK,
SCENES FROM A WRITERS LIFE RUSKIN BONDS






BY DWARAK KRISHNA

Anvil's made out of metal

My Facebook was filled with entries from the night.  Many from one of the community pages I like - 80's The Golden Ages Of Metal.  Usually it was filled with YouTube links to songs by groups like Poison and Warrant.  These were not my favorite groups and I usually browsed on.  For the past few days, the administrators of the group were throwing in songs by some of the lesser known groups of the 80s.  That morning, I ran into an entry on a song by "one of the lesser and most under-rated metal groups of the early 80s".  The group was called Anvil and the song "Metal on metal".  The thumbnail of the song showed the face of the lead singer singing into the microphone.  His expression had an interesting combination of mean and mischief.  It reminded me of Eddie Vedder's expression in the video of "Ten" - A bit of mischief with an overwhelming dose of meanness.  

I clicked on the link and the song came up.  Crunching guitar, pounding drums and a mean voice - the perfect combination of heavy metal cliché.  The song was loud and heavy with a lot of chunka-chunka guitaring.  The singer sounded like a cross between Scorpian's Klaus Maine and AC/DC's Brian Scott.  It sounded like a classic thrash metal song from the mid-80's.  But this song was from the early 80's before the big four of thrash came by but this group was hardly heard of.  So I opened the Wikipedia and searched the group.  Anvil is a group from Canada formed in the late 70's and sure enough they influenced the big thrash groups of the 80's - Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax and Metallica.

Anvil with "Metal on metal"

The site also mentioned that there exists a  documentary film, Anvil! The Story of Anvil, about their career.  I have been a sucker for movies on music bands for some time now - Woodstock, Doors, The last waltz, Rush.  Fascinating movies that described the route a set of people took to reach the pinnacle of rock's Mt.Everest.  So I got this movie and watched it.  It turned out to be more than fascinating.  The movie starts off with the statements "In the summer of 1984", "Some of the biggest rock bands in the world toured Japan together", "Scorpians", "Whitesnake", "Bon Jovi", "All these bands went on to sell millions of records", "Except one", "Anvil" and then band comes on stage to sing "Metal on metal" .  The movie goes on to tell the struggles that the lead singer and drummer goes through to keep the group kicking.  Rockers in their 50's trying to make that one record that will take the world by storm while driving trucks for Children's Choice Catering.  

A very emotional movie on the sufferings that the group had to undergo touring Europe, making an album and trying to sell it Music executive.  There are a lot of arguments and tears in the movie.  All seemed genuine and did not seemed staged.  A brilliant movie that brings out the passion these two people have towards their group and music.  A passion that started almost four decades back and continues till date.  I am so glad I came across Anvil and will be their fan through my life.

A possessed house possesses

Those were the days of house hunting - for rent that is.  We wanted to move into a good place not too far from the beach.  The search started with us walking around the area looking out for "Tolet" boards.  We also tried to identify uninhabited houses - Windows closed, no curtains, balcony doors closed, cobwebs in balcony and such obviously identifiable marks.  We approached apartment watchmen, random people staying in some house or other and iron-wallahs seeking information.  Some shooed us away, others gave an apologetic no but a few were good enough to give us a phone number or two.  These invariably turned out to be brokers with whom we did not want to deal - the charge of one month's rent for their minimal service (as minimal as "that is the house; now go and talk to the owner and fix it up") seemed to steep for our shallow pockets.  

Next we scanned through the "house for rent" columns in some of the local papers.  We marked the advertisements that fit our requirement and started calling the numbers provided.  Most times the call was received by a voice that said "Allooo".  Soon we realized that this was the Hello of a broker.  The first day we ended up calling 8 to 10 brokers and no owners.  We decided to ignore them and continued to walk around the neighborhood.  The walks continued to be pointless.  We covered a big area and hardly found any house potential.  The few that came our way were controlled by the brokers.  So now our only hope was the newspaper.  The next weekend, the papers had the same result as the previous one.  So we sat for an emergency session and passed a resolution to include brokered houses in our search.  

The resolution filled up our afternoon with houses to be seen - one every 30 minutes .  By the evening our heads were spinning with the words spacious, well lit, airy and the feelings with dark, dingy, suffocating.  Nothing seemed satisfactory; every one of the houses promised a lot but gave little.  Every owner behaved like a king doing us a favor by letting us set our feet in their palace.  A near messy situation also cropped up when we ran into a broker with whom we had a fight a few years ago.  We kept our shades on as long as that idiot was with us.  Fortunately he did not identify us; unfortunately, we bruised ourselves by running into a few walls.  We reached back home defeated at around 7 and plopped onto our beds.

In a few minutes the phone started ringing.  It was a broker who claimed he had found something cool overlooking the beach.  We were too tired for this and really did not want to get out of the house.  But the broker was extremely persuasive and soon we were on the road following the broker on his bike.  The road ran by the beach with some very beautiful houses onto our right.  Whenever we saw an unlit house we started imagining living in it but the damned broker did not stop.  In a few minutes, the houses thinned away and the place was lit by our headlight and the moonlight.

The broker's bike finally stopped in front a lonely house.  Though we could see a few houses around, this one found itself in a lonely stretch.  In the moonlight that small house with a 40W bulb lighting the porch seemed eerie.  We switched off our bikes and walked towards the dimly lit porch.  The sea was roaring behind our backs. It seemed to threaten us with dire consequences for hanging around in its territory.  We felt very uneasy and did not want to proceed further.  I tapped on the broker's shoulder.  The tap startled him enough to let out a snarl that sounded like a "WHAT?".  I informed him that we were not interested in this house.  The anger held on to his face for a moment.  Slowly but forcefully his face eased and a smile ran across his smoked lips . He asked "Why sar! Such a beautiful place.  So quiet; only you and sea.  You should see in morning; very beautiful.  Peaceful, no disturbance and very safe".  I looked around the lonely place in an attempt to take in the beauty, peacefulness and safety of the place. When my sight reached back to the spot where the broker was, I found it empty.  The guy had reached the porch and we had no choice but to follow him.

As the broker inserted the key into the lock, the light went out and we were immersed in darkness.  It took us some time to get used to moonlight, which showed us undecipherable forms moving around us.  We were getting to understand the phrase "gripped with terror".  As the forms closed in on us, the light came on and we were blinded by the brightness.  The forms had disappeared by the time our sights got back to normalcy.  We turned to see the door wide open but there was no sign of the broker.  We tentatively walked into the house and called the broker's name.  No response; we called out his name again; no response.  By this time, our eyes settled into the darkness and our attention was captured by an object swaying in front of us.  Now it was the turn for us to understand that other phrase - "a chill ran down his spine".  The lights came on suddenly.A lady with big terrifying eyes underneath a even bigger bindi stared down at us.  "You are inside is it?" said a voice from behind.  We are not quite sure how we reacted but the thing we remember now is holding the broker by shirt collar while shouting obscenities at him.  The broker was letting out a bleak "What happened?"
"Where the hell were you?"
"The fuse tripped and I went to back to put it on sar."
"Could you not have informed us?"
"Why?"
"What the hell is that object?"
"That is a dupatta."
"Oh! Ah! And why is a dupatta hanging down from the fan?"
"The last tenant left it there"
"But why is it hanging from the fan?"
"I don't know sar.  Maybe they left it there after cleaning"

We asked the broker if the house occupied still.  He said no.

"Then what the hell is that photograph doing there?"
"The last tenant left it sar."
"Why did they leave the photo?"
"Maybe they don't have time."
"Yeah right! Let's get out of here."
"But sar, the bedrooms."
"To hell with the bedrooms and toilets; this place is giving the creeps."

As we started to go out, the lights went out and a gust of wind whooshed in through the open door.  The wind rattled the window panes and the all other rattl-able objects in the house.  Our pace hastened to a run by the time we crossed the porch.  By the time we sped away all those undecipherable forms that come out when the lights went out had started chewing our soles.

Memory improves during sleep while languages disappear with cultures but the size of space is a question

Scientists have discovered what happens to memory during sleep.  Apparently, new neuron connections occur during sleep and this enables memory.  This was experimented in mice and discovered.  The article goes on to say that sleep deprivation leads to a lot of issues and on the other hand sleeping is actually good for our head.  The article ends with the recommendation to students to learn and go to sleep early rather than sit into the night and learn.  The former ensures that the stuff learnt are imprinted in the memory.  Now if only someone could inform the sun to come up later, we could actually sleep more.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27695144

Languages also convey unique cultures. Cherokee, for example, has no word for goodbye, only “I will see you again”. Likewise, no phrase exists for “I’m sorry”. On the other hand, it has special expressions all its own. One word – oo-kah-huh-sdee –represents the mouth-watering, cheek-pinching delight experienced when seeing an adorable baby or a kitten. “All of these things convey a culture, a way of interpreting human behaviour and emotion that’s not conveyed the same way as in the English language,” Belt says. Without the language, the culture itself might teeter, or even disappear. “If we are to survive, to continue on and to exist as a people with a distinct and unique culture,” he continues, “then we have to have a language.”
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140606-why-we-must-save-dying-languages


How big is space?  Find it here.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140305-interactive-infographic-of-space

43

I did not have an opinion about the number 43.  I knew it lived between 42 and 44 but beyond that it really did not have anything to catch my attention.  I suddenly thought maybe 7 was affectionate enough to make it divisible but soon realized that 7's affections are with 42 and not 43.  That's when it struck me that 43 is probably a prime number.  I was obviously not going to find it out the hard way.  So I searched Google and the first result from Wikipedia told me that it is the 14th smallest prime number.  The 13th smallest number is 41 and the 15th smallest number is 47.  So 43 is not even located in a "prime" island.  It seems to be a lost case for 43 - all others 40 numbers has some personality but not 43.  40 has a zero at its end.  41 is one after 40 and 1941 is a movie made by Spielberg.  42 is nice and even with 2 times 2 making 4 and all such stuff.  Also, the history books from school make it impossible to forget the Quit India movement of 1942.  44 looks nice and cure with two 4s.  45 has a five stuck in its rear end and that always make a number attractive.  46 is a well rounded even number.  47 is the 15th prime (bravo!) and for over a billion people on this planet 1947 is a very important year.  48 is another of rounded number which forms a vital part of that sad year named 1948.  49 - is 7 squared, which means it can magically transform into a cool 7 under a square root.  Clearly, 43 is a miserable number.  Now to check one last time about the happenings in the year 1943.  Interesting!   The world was stuck in the thick of world war 2 and a number of interesting personalities took birth.

1. Janis Joplin

2. Joe Pesci

3. George Harrison

4. Bobby Fischer

5. Keith Relf

6. John Major

7. Vangelis

8. Christopher Walken

9. Illayaraja

10. Christine McVie

11. Mick Jagger

12. Richard Wright

13. Pervez Musharraf

14. Robert De Niro

15. Roger Waters

16.  Lech Wałęsa

17. Chevy Chase

18. Mohammad Khatami

19. John Kerry

20. Keith Richards

21. John Denver

22. Ben Kingsley

Quite an impressive list - It has half of Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones in it.  43 holds some hope!  Maybe this is the number to sow seeds for the future.  Maybe this is the number to break the mirror reflecting the past and look at the future.

A small accident

The car was speeding away from a small temple town in North Kerala.  The name of the town is a tongue twister even for a few of the native speakers.  When written in English it starts with a "P", from there it travels to a "Sh" and finally settles down in a "U" (which is not quite pronounced a "U" but more a combination of "A" and "E").  The town houses an unorthodox temple for a tribal god who has over the years been brought into the fold of Hinduism.  The temple is crowded, at most times, with people requesting their deliverance to happiness (or other's deliverance to misery).

We got out of the temple town at around dinner time.  The driver was engrossed in reciting the legends associated with the temple, its deity and the town.  Soon, the car reached a fork with the left of the fork curving away and another going straight ahead.  The driver did not notice the road to the left and continued towards the road ahead.  He did not notice the bike coming from the left either.  In a few seconds, the bike was right in front of the car.  We were jerked off our seats as the brakes were hit.  The squealing of the tyres coincided with the noise of the car hitting the bike.  The bike and the rider disappeared and the car came to a halt.

The driver gave out a "Oh my Guruvayurappa" and got out.  I sat in the car and could not force myself to get out.  I looked around and saw a few people running out of the few shops in the area and crowding around the car.  To my relief I soon saw the bike guy getting up.  He seemed to be in a reasonable shape and I could not see any obvious damage on him.  By then, a bus from behind started honking.  The driver got into the car and moved it to the side.  He was invoking Guruvayurappan's mercy non-stop.  He apologized for the inconvenience before getting out to deal with the situation.

Soon, a drunkard came by and started asking questions.  I thought this to be an appropriate time to get out and be with the group.  As I walked towards the group, I could hear a lot of talking but no shouting.  The discussion seemed reasonably calm.  I saw the bike standing besides the crowd.  It had a couple of scratches and a broken mirror.  The guy who was on the bike stood in the center of the crowd holding a wound in his hand.  In the middle of the road, food lay scattered from a torn plastic cover.  The discussion was on how unfortunate it was for the accident to have taken place but everyone seemed glad that nothing much had gone wrong.  They blamed the government for not having put up warning signs and not taking care of the lights on the road.  My heart skipped a beat when someone mentioned on how the guy in the car had directed the driver not to take a turn in the last minute and that it was not the driver's fault.  Fortunately, that comment went unnoticed. 

I walked back to the car and stood in a shade to be out of sight of any drunkard.  A few minutes later, the driver came back, got into the car and mentioned that the bike guy is being taken to a hospital to ensure he had no internal injury.  Just as he started the car a face peered in from the driver's window.  The faced apologized profusely to me for the inconvenience caused by this event.  He said I will be taken to a restaurant and while I had my dinner they would visit the hospital.  I had not expected an apology and this unexpected blow made me incoherent.  I answered with something that sounded like "eh ah no bobem".  By then a crowd had gathered in front of the car and they were all trying to determine how to fix the broken bumper.  The driver cursed and got out.  He had a brief and patient discussion with the others.  They brought in a rope, tied a bit here and a bit there.  Then they looked at the bumper and discussed some more.  Another piece of rope came out of someplace and some more tying up took place.  They then looked at their achievement with a satisfied expression on the their face.  As the driver got into the car, the drunkard came by and started questioning the driver.  Fortunately, someone from the crowd came by and took away the drunkard.  The driver now started the car but saw the way ahead blocked by some remnant of the bumper fixers.  He called out to Guruvayurappan in exasperation and backed his car.

Soon I was dropped outside a good looking restaurant in a 3-star hotel.  The driver asked me for a thousand Rupees for the hospital expenses.  My mind gave out an "Oh no!" before parting with the said amount.  All through my not-as-good-as-the-look-of-the-restaurant food, I was thinking of how much more money should I shell out.  I came out of the restaurant after paying the not-as-expensive-as-the-look-of-the-restaurant-but-still-expensive-for-the-way-the-food-tasted bill and stood on the road a bit before the car arrived.  The driver informed me that all was well and that I had to part with another 500 Rupees.  Some more "Oh no!"s went through my mind.  A little later, we were zipping through the road towards home.  From time to time, we heard scrapping noises from the front and the driver stopped to check.  Every time he came back with a no problem smile.  He continued with his amusing legends right through the journey, which by god's grace took place with no further incidents.  But the nagging thought of "1500 already but how much more" in my head made the journey seem tiresome.

When I reached home, I asked the driver about my dues.  He calculated an amount and subtracted from it the 1500 rupees I had paid for the incident.  To my mind this seemed like indecent behavior; he should have asked for more money instead of reducing it from his tariff.  I did not expect him to take the complete responsibility of everything that happened.  I thought he will hand it over to me and ask for more money.  That thought had been with me all through the journey.  Now, he was making me feel ashamed and I tried to fight my tendency to fall into it.  I took out my purse singing in mind "I shall overcome right now".  But my mind caved in just as I was taking out my money and I said "No, its alright.  I will pay the whole amount."

Child's play

Kittu was sitting on a stool in the kitchen watching his mother cook.  This was one of his favorite activities of the day.  He thought of her as an incarnation of God in converting vegetables and spices into delicious food.  Her knowledge of what needs to be done when and how amazed him.  The process seemed too complex with the cutting of vegetables, placing vessels on fire, heating of oil, spices and other ingredients falling into the hot oil, slowly the aroma picking up and finally the smell and sight of the piping hot food.  But she seemed to go through the whole process without stopping a moment to think.  He wanted to cook like her.  Kittu's mother was thrilled to see his son's interest and eagerly answered all his queries.  But she was very disappointed to observe the total lack of interest he had in consuming the food.  It took her an hour to feed a small plate of the same food that he had watched being cooked with such great interest.

One morning, when Kittu craned his neck to look at the vegetable cooking, something spluttered from within the vessel.  Kittu moved back to avoid it and in the process lost balance.  His head hit the floor and he started wailing.  His mother picked him up and saw blood flowing from the back of his head.  She ran out with the child in her arms and called out to their neighbor.  Soon, they were zipping to the neighborhood doctor in a car.  Kittu had a towel wrapped around his head.  The part of the towel covering the back of his head was drenched in blood.  Kittu was sobbing more due to panic than pain.  His mother too had tears in her eyes but said words of comfort to the child.  Soon they reached at the doctors and ran into his chamber much to the annoyance of the patients waiting outside.

The doctor had a look at the wound and let them know that it was not serious - A few stitches on the back of Kittu's head should do the job.  A few wailing minutes later, Kittu walked out of the doctor's chamber with a bandage round his head. The tear tracks glistened down his cheeks but he wore a look of pride in his eyes and a proud smile on his lips.  He looked around at the faces of waiting patients who looked at him with a mix of sympathy, amusement and annoyance.  He sat alone in the back seat of the car on the way back home.  He felt like a king with the crown of bandage on his head and did his best to make it visible to the people passing by.

Kittu was tucked into bed as soon as he got home, the TV was set to the cartoon network channel and a plate of biscuits was placed on his side.  He spent a blissful hour in this manner and then spent a ghastly hour having his lunch.  After lunch, he asked his mother if she had informed the neighbors about his accident.  When she gave an affirmation, he gave out a sigh that smelled of disappointment.  He asked her to get the mobile, call each of them and hand him over the phone to him.  Kittu only had one line to tell each of them "You know I am hurt and have not even bothered to visit me.  Shame on you".  He did not wait to hear the response.

An hour later, the neighbors filled Kittu's room.  He looked at each of them with a smile, picked up the remote and switched on the TV.  He then asked everyone to leave the room as he had to watch his favorite cartoon.

A Nano obstruction in my way

I turned my car the road that takes me to my office.  My car was right behind a tanker, which slowed down as soon as it turned into the road.  It came to a standstill within a few metres.  I stopped and waited a few seconds before impatience set in.  I started cranking my head to the right through the window to see what happened.  I could see the nose of a car in front of the tanker.  It was not moving and seemed to have broke down in the middle of the road.  It was not clear if the tanker had rammed into the car.  I did not see any crowding around the scene and so assumed that was not the case.  I sat there and waited for a few more seconds nothing happened.  I looked out of the window again; everything remained the same - the car's nose was seen ahead of the tanker.  My frustration was building.  I took out my phone and looked at the set of applications on it.  I had looked through almost everything of interest that morning.  My finger moved towards the "Temple run 2" application but en route it stopped on top of CNN and pressed it.  The application opened and I saw the top news "Teen survives flight to Hawaii in jet's landing gear".  "Ah! The American sensationalism" thought my mind.  I looked down at the other news, which consisted of a mish-mash of the sunken Korean ship, the Ukraine problem and MH370 search.  These had been going on for so long now that my mind had started ignoring them.  I looked out of window again to check the status - The tanker's driver was shouting something at the car and its occupant(s).  I opened the news on the teen's escapade and glanced through it.  A teenager had run away from his home in California; he jumped over the fence at the San Jose airport and roamed around for a few hours before climbing into the landing gear of an aircraft.  As soon as the aircraft took off guy passed out.  When he woke up, the aircraft had already landed.  He got off the landing gear and gave the ground personnel at the Hawaii airport the shock of their lives.  He had survived a 38000 feet travel at sub zero temperature with no oxygen.  Apparently, he was not the first one to try - since 1947, 105 people have attempted to fly inside the landing gears on 94 flights worldwide with a success rate of around 24%, said the article.

It was a good 10 minutes since I had been stuck at that spot.  There were a number of vehicles behind me and a lot of honking filled the air.  A traffic police man was running towards the car in front of the tanker.  A few people had crowded around the scene by now.  Soon, the car started moving.  It was a Nano that had stalled in front of the tanker.  The occupants of the car were in no hurry to get out of the way.  The tanker driver's words hurt their ego and apparently an argument started.  The police came by and almost spanked the car's occupants.  The owner of the car (I assume) sat comfortably inside while the driver pushed the car towards the other side of the road with one hand while the other held the steering wheel.  The tanker started moving and I was on my way to the office.

Weed and the gallows

The year 1971, seems to be coming back into my life quite strongly over the past couple of days.  After the article about the two girls who disappeared on a special day in 1971, here is something about an incident that occurred in the year 1971.  The number 420 is a special code for Marijuana.  Apparently, in the year 1971, four teenagers met at 4:20PM to search for a piece of land that grew Marijuana.  They never found the plot but had a whale of a time smoking the weed.  Since then the number 420 stuck to Marijuana.  Seems silly but it has a reference to the year 1971.

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27039192

In Iran, a man was convicted to death for a killing 7 years ago.  The man was then 19 and had killed a 17 year old in a street fight.  The man was brought to the gallows; there were a number of people waiting and watching.  A few people started shouting "forgive him".  The man and his family were in tears as the noose went round his neck.  Suddenly, the victim's mother walked towards the man, slapped him and removed the noose.  Everyone were stunned and many, including the police, started crying.  Apparently, this was the finale of many rounds of negotiation.  Quite touching and once again brings back the question of "is capital punishment necessary?" 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27070087

Arbit coincidence

Many years ago...  Er, no!  Let me change that.  Some years ago two teen aged girls on their way to a party in South Dakota disappeared.  No body had a clue about what happened to them till last September when a car lying upside down appeared in a lake around the place the girls' intended destination.  They found the remains and some other objects belonging to the girls.  There was no alcohol or any clue of foul play.  It seems like an accident.  The date of disappearance of the two girls?  29 May 1971!!!
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/15/us/south-dakota-cold-case-missing-girls/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Watch a girl grow from 0 to 14 in 4 minutes.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/04/14/natpg-zero-to-fourteen-in-four-minutes.frans-hofmeester.html

I have just started growing a beard and here comes a news on beards being "so 2013" in BBC.  Even after so many years on planet Earth, I continue to defy the laws of fashion and attraction.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27023992

In BBC,
"Neurogastronomy is based on the realisation that everything we eat or drink is processed by our senses"
 "We see it, we hear it, we smell it, we taste it, we feel it. All those senses come together."
" idea of listening to the sounds of the seaside to enhance the flavours of a seafood dish."
"Those eating pink strawberry cake from the white plates rated the dessert as 10% sweeter than those who ate from the black plates."
"have shown that introducing a square or angular plate intensifies the difference, with roundness accentuating sweetness."
"It seems we associate higher notes, flutes and tinkling piano, with sweetness - deeper, more resonant tones evoke bitterness."
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26925249

IBM mainframe, Flying fish, Bush and fishy Pakistan

In Pakistan, infancy seems to have lost its innocence.  A nine month old has been booked on an attempted murder charge.  Apparently, the infant was around when his family threw bricks at the police and this, according to the police, amounted to attempted murder.  So the police took him in custody, fingerprinted him and brought him to the court.  A case of innocence lost in nonsense.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/05/world/asia/pakistani-baby-charged/index.html?hpt=hp_c5

"The IBM mainframe is celebrating its 50th anniversary.  The first System 360 mainframe was unveiled on 7 April 1964 and its arrival marked a break with all general purpose computers that came before."  The article in BBC goes on to say 

The machines have a legacy seen on many modern keyboards, he said. The "escape" was a common way to exit from a menu system on a mainframe and the "SysRq" key on some keyboards also dates from that era of monolithic computing. "If you were using a terminal-based system, 'System Request' let you interrupt what you were doing and run another job," he said. "But I'm not sure it's ever had a use in Windows."

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26886579

Former US president George Bush (the junior one) is opening an exhibition of his paintings.  From the few pictures that I have seen in the BBC site, they seem good and a few people have given their guarded appreciation.  Looking at the past, it seems unbelievable that Bush has done something that is being appreciated by others.  Apparently, there is a gem (not a very expensive one, but a gem anyway) in this rock too.  

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-26890910

I have seen flying fishes during some of my journeys on water.  They are definitely not an uncommon site and if you keep looking at the water from your vessel for a few minutes, you would definitely catch the sight of a couple of them.  A TV crew in Japan has captured footage of a fish flying for 45 seconds.  It was flying parallel to a ferry that was travelling at 30 Kmph.  The article says "There are some 40 species of "flying fish" in the family known as Exocoetidae. The animals are found worldwide in warmer waters".  

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7410421.stm

Eva Braun, Kurt Cobain and dog poop

I don't see this news in many of the bigger news sites but rediff with some other not necessarily-credible-news sites claim that Hitler's wife Eva Braun's ancestry was Jewish.  Apparently, the DNA analysis of a hair taken from her hairbrush gave that result.  The article says "In the 19th century, many Ashkenazi Jews in Germany converted to Catholicism" and that Eva was a part of that group.

Twenty years ago on this day (Apr 5), Kurt Cobain said enough.

He

Went

As he was

As he could

As he wanted it to be

As in pain

As in pain

As an old enemy

Didn't take his time

Hurried up

This was his choice

Not to be late

For a rest

A news of interest from some days back "Dogs poop in alignment with Earth’s magnetic field, study finds" (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/dogs-poop-in-alignment-with-earths-magnetic-field-study-finds/).  Since then I have been observing dogs but those damned creatures don't seem to poop much.  Of the five or six cases that I have seen only one of the dogs bothered to find the magnetic field before pooping.  The rest of them pooped any which way they wanted to.  Must be a case of Indian dogs like Indian humans don't like to follow rules.

Placebos and lions

Two interesting articles today.

The first is in CNN.  It talks on placebos being effective in making our day better.   The article mentions " a 2010 survey of more than 400 docs found that a whopping 56% said they'd actually prescribed placebos to their patients".  In some manner or other the placebos seem to "solve" the patient's issues and makes him/her feel better.  What is interesting is that the placebo need not be in a medicinal form.  A study was conducted on two sets of students who were hooked onto equipment that the students thought measured the quality of sleep.  In reality, the machine did not measure the sleep quality.  In the morning, the researchers told one group of students that as per the equipment measured their quality of sleep was good.  The other group was informed the opposite.  The two group of students then went through a test.  Surprisingly, the group that thought they slept well performed better.  In this case, just the words "you slept well" were good enough and qualified as a placebo.  As the article states "Placebos seem to work in large part because they are given by authority figures".  The article then goes on to detail how we can trick ourselves and take advantage of the placebo effect.  The article is available at http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/01/health/placebo-effect/index.html?hpt=hp_mid

BBC talks about the origin of the modern lions.  One fact that is noticeable is that currently there are two groups of lions.  The first is found in Eastern and Southern Africa and other group is found in Central and West Africa, and in India.  The article goes on to detail how the two groups emerged and how one of the groups reached India.  Of course, there is sadness in the fact that many species of lions have gone extinct - "Fewer than 400 Asian lions (P. leo persica) survive, living on the Kathiawar Peninsula of India".  The article is available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/26736688

The Reader

Movies set in Germany seem to be a special pleasure to watch.  I saw one recently, which reminded me of another one I had seen some years ago.  Both these movies have poignant themes and build progressively towards a gently tearful ending.   They spend a lot of time showing activities of every day life and through this the dramatic points are driven in.  While one dealt with the life under communism in the erstwhile East Germany, the other deals with the effects of the occurrences in World War II on different people.  The former is the German movie called "The Lives of Others", which I had an opportunity to see earlier and the latter "The Reader", which I watched only recently.    

Many years ago, I had the good fortune to read the book "The Chamber" by John Grisham.  In general, I do not like Grisham's books.  I find them too fluffy and have not bothered reading any of his books for the past 15 odd years.  But "The Chamber" is very different from "The Firm" or other books of Grisham's that I am aware of.  It dealt with the topic of a man awaiting his turn at the gas chamber for a racist killing he had committed 25 years earlier.  In these 25 odd years, the man and his ideologies had changed.  One could feel that he has turned into a good person and is repenting for his past.  The way this is presented and built is very beautiful and really touched my heart.  It is a fine book on why capital punishment should not be given to anyone.  Though I really do not agree with that thought process, for a brief period my feelings turned to anti-capital punishment.  That, in my view, is a big success for the author; though the book itself was not very successful is what I understand.  The movie "The Reader" is another example wherein the viewers tend to sympathize with a wrong-doer.  Like the book, this movie brings out that it is not possible to categorize people as good or bad.  The world is full of grey and not black and white.

The movie takes place in the post world war II Germany, starting off a few years after the war and going on till the turn of the century.  It starts off with a relationship developing between a mid-teen boy and a middle aged woman.  It traverses the path followed by these two characters due to effects of the lady's past actions. To me, it brought out how a set of events have different effects on different individuals and how each of them have their reasons for their actions.  The right and wrong that someone has in judging others is not the same when judging self.  For me, it also said that we should probably think from the other person's point of view before judging him/her.  It at least gives us an idea of the other person's thinking and this might hone our own judgement.

The movie has Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes in it and that is good enough for me to watch it.  The younger version of Ralph Fiennes is acted by a young German actor called David Kross and he comes across very well too.  The film is constructed leisurely and the scenes flow into each other, which makes it like a watching a poetry.

The intent of the movie comes out from the statement that comes half way through the movie.
"Societies think they operate by something called morality but they don't.  They operate by something called law.  You are not guilty by merely working at Auschwitz; 8000 people worked there.  Precisely 19 have been convicted, 6 for murder.  To prove murder you have to prove intent.  That's the law.  The question is never was it wrong but was it legal.  And not by our laws, no - by the laws at the time."