Father's Day: Of Ultracool & Old School

A meme in my newsfeed about those prickly old-school bike pedals sparked a precious memory. While most of the girls learned cycling on their pricey & dainty Ladybirds back in the day, Dinesh Bhagwat bought us sisters a boys' Avon model with those prickly pedals. It was a dauntingly tall bicycle, so much so that the ground was out of our toes' reach by straddling its high top tube, let alone the seat. So we had to learn to time it all by straddling over to one pedal, perching on the seat and finding purchase on the other pedal to set off, all in one breath to pin that delicate centre of gravity. Baba said it will be difficult to get a handle (more of a pedal) on it but it shall build good motor skills. Besides, he favoured the heavy, sturdy make of the Avon; in keeping with his preferred Bajaj Scooter over the new age Scooty.

It sure was a slog on that bicycle but our effort didn't hold a candle to this man's. Firstly, we siblings weighed quite a lot ourselves since we didn't learn this skill as young as they do now. With no balancing wheels whatsoever, it was just Baba bracing one of us at a time with that firm yet gentle one-handed grip on the fender of the bike to provide enough leeway for navigating around hurdles. He would run alongside with that delicate hold on our balance for hours, sweating it for miles for days on end in the sweltering summer holiday heat. Letting go on occasion and cheering us on through all the pitfalls, until we both found our own feet on that Amazonian bicycle and went flying.

On the other hand, Baba would effortlessly teach us the most boring parts of our curriculum with his own brand of dark, colourful humour. We'd chuckle through those exams reflecting all the way on his wisecracks. He also taught us to face failures head on and to cherish them as learning lessons in retrospect with a humbling dose of self-deprecating humour. In the times when most children would dread their parents' reaction to their failures, I'd seek Baba for solace like a homing pigeon. He held practical knowledge & good human beings in much higher regard than grades. Not to mention the legendary honesty he has always employed in practising medicine, right down to quoting the source of original ideas in personal life.

He'd discipline us with just a quelling look or at the most, he'd simply utter our name in an eerily low pitch to bring us to heel. No further words, no lecture, no raised voice or hand whatsoever - Aai donned that mantle to perfection (we are equally grateful for that too). But Baba had his own unconventional, non-confrontational ways of dealing with even the most rebellious children, in the most respectful manner to boot. Most flooring of all was his immediate acknowledgement and profuse apology to any child if he were in the wrong, which was quite uncharacteristic of a parent of those times.

With the notorious "Bhagya" (as fondly called by his batchmates) for a Dad along with that treasured honesty, our teenage selves could freely reach out to him for all the badass stuff right at home - first alcoholic drink, lexicon of cuss words, friendly chats about crushes laced with his conservative streak and so on.

Needless to say, he was ahead of his times as a Father, with an old school soul in all the right places. Here's to one of the coolest & friendliest Dads ever, who raised us with that firm, grounding yet gentle hand throughout.

And here's to all Dads, old & new. It might be a different world today with a different set of challenges but one day, you will make a whole new ultracool niche of old-school to be reminisced by your child/ren. ❤️

Pearls of Wisdom

Shervin got uncomfortable at dinner and claimed something's stuck in his nose. He wouldn't tell me what, so I figured it was just dried mucus and plowed on with his meal. After desperately picking his nose for a while, he sheepishly disclosed that there was a ball stuck inside. Sure enough, a "ball" was stuck in his nostril - a good-sized pearl that he must have snagged off the Diwali decor while I was cooking. 

When I asked him to blow his nose, a tug of war ensued between his exhales and the allergic reaction - the pearl would be inhaled right back in after every little headway.  Not to mention the sneezing fits. The pearl was barely visible and lodged snugly so nose-picking would have been a bad idea. A tweezer wouldn't find purchase, nor was Shervin sold on that idea.

I blocked his free nostril and asked him to bow down (hail gravity), to inhale largely through his mouth, snap it shut, then blow with all his might through the 'oysteril'. The pearl shot out in two blows.

Then off he went on a guilt-trip and claimed that the pearl got stuck to his finger and went in just like that. When I didn't buy that excuse, he offered another - the pearl suddenly jumped into his nose. The cheeky kid legit felt that he was casting that priceless pearl of an excuse before this swine. 

He finally admitted, vowed that he'd never do it again and would always listen to me from here on. Just when I was wondering how long that last pearl of wisdom would last, he added that there might have been 2 balls. Then he refuted this claim and on went the yo-yoing between 1 & 2 pearls. Nothing showed up in his nostrils for a good while so I figured that the other pearl (if any) might have favoured the nature's call over voicemail. Sid kept interrogating and finally spotted another one after 2 hours (hail gravity again). Shervin knew the drill now so he blew out this one in seconds. We made him repeat the drill a few more times for good measure, in case of other potentially buried treasure.

Anyway, the second time was such a breeze that I'd almost feel like a pearl-clutcher if he pulled the same prank. Almost. While the world can be his oyster, we hope his nose never is. 

Disclaimer: If your child lands in a similar situation, please seek professional advice. We could handle it on our own, secure in the knowledge that Dinesh Bhagwat was just a call away.

#Mentoo

Sarvjeet Singh lost his career & reputation and was subjected to a long, gruelling media trial because a female's allegations were taken at face value. So have many men, going by the remarkable number of false cases. 

Please note that this is not a competition about which gender suffers more, as in how many genuine cases go unreported - if anything, the false cases undermine them. It's about both the figures being remarkable enough on their own to warrant an unbiased, nuanced and informed judgement. That there are loads of Beta-males among spoiled Raja Betas and Paapi Parees among Papa ki Parees too. 

A significant portion of society takes a woman's word for gospel, going by the lopsided social media trials & verdicts. Our laws are tilted in women's favour too. For that reason alone, besides the moral one, we not only need to raise our sons right, but we also need to raise our daughters right, so that they don't misuse that unequivocal trust in their word, or abuse the laws at their disposal. Be it a son or a daughter, they need to be taught that respect is earned, not demanded on the basis of gender alone, and that it works both ways.

To all the good men who go unacknowledged for their unspoken, loving, caring, rock solid support,

To all the good men in our lives whom we wouldn't lump together with and punish for others' misdeeds; who we wouldn't want to fall prey to scheming & false accusations either, 

Happy Men's day!

Social snake pits

As a teenager, I'd often hear many women making snide remarks about the career- oriented women who "ignored" their household duties. About their husbands being "sissy" for shouldering most of those household duties. I silently judged those couples for a while too, just by hearsay. Until I saw the wrong in it and hoped that this judgemental attitude would phase out with the previous generation. Was I in for more disappointment! Today, a man or a woman is judged for being an absolute homemaker or being absolutely career-oriented or being single or anywhere in between, and over how they run their households too.

It doesn't matter how hard all of them work on their chosen fronts. These snakes look down their noses at the homemakers. They rip apart a working couple/parent for "foisting" their kid/s on the grandparents. They make digs at any woman who employs a cook. I've come across a liar too, who enjoys loads of home-cooked (from scratch) delicacies as a guest and then viciously lies about how her host cooks from ready-to-eat packs.

Well, should this even be a criterion for character assassination? So what if we are served a meal cooked by a househelp or a husband or if it's from a restaurant or an instant mix? It might be that individual's or that couple's mutually-decided way of life, and we aren't the ones spending the rest of our lives with them. If food has been brought to our table, why not just appreciate the gesture?

We all have been snakes at some point in our lives. Because we often get hoodwinked into judging another person, instead of seeing these petty topics for what they are. And we let them reduce our vision to a snake's as well; we fail to see the big picture - how does that family/couple/individual work as a unit? If they look happy, they must be juggling their lives brilliantly & seamlessly together, regardless of who shoulders what responsibilities. Some are ambitious, some are not. Some like housekeeping, some don't. Some like a little bit of everything. Some can't afford to stay at home with their kids even if they wish to. And if they get to choose a life that, or a partner/family who, complements their preferences, who are we to judge?

If we broaden our vision further, we'd get to see an eclectic mix of couples, families and individuals leading blissful lives today and contributing their unique ways to the social dynamics. We'd get to learn what makes them tick. They're often the most sorted units and often the most judged. We could recognise the snakes who wouldn't change their stripes and focus on these ladders instead.

-Signs of social snakes-

Some are capable of spitting venom to the moon and back. Defence is the last thing on their mind when they bite, behind one's back, of course. Some constrict the living hell out of one's character with their fat egos & narrow-minds. Some keep rattling off until they're rattled into slithering side-ways when their target shows up. Some jealous ones skin the better ones down, instead of shedding their own thick skin and scaling up. Some have that inconsistent, two-pronged tongue. Some gang up (like that famous Iguana vs Snakes chase). Some do the mamba, err, mambo over others' misfortunes. There is the non-venomous variety too, which means well, but immaturely airs the concerns to all but the party in question. I do admire the type that hisses and disses right in its target's face, especially if the advice is solicited.

When these snakes turn up at our door, they are and will always be welcomed with as much respect as any guest of ours is accorded. At the end of the day, they make us introspect and grow as a person. Besides, I regard it as just another Nagpanchami.

*Slithers away*

The little Go-gator

I'm rearing a 15-month old crocodile these days.
It swamps you with poop.
Takes you on the death roll through every diaper change.
Lurks beneath any given surface.
Doesn't retreat with its tail between its legs however much you want it to.
Sheds the proverbial tears occasionally.
Hangs around with its mouth open, then bites the very hand that feeds it.

-Little go-gator's mamagator

The Slimy Rhymes

As a kid, I'd sing the nursery rhymes without rhyme or (knowing the underlying) reason. On revisiting them as an adult, I discovered that a lot of them beat Shin-chan by a landslide. You just can't miss those with the naughty or downright sinister undertones. So much so that I believe that they would make mighty good background scores for your run-of-the-mill horror movies. Their spookfest begins with the kids anyway. Imagine the following with a haunting twist, more so for their savage/insidious lyrics:
1. Old father long legs
2. Rock-a-bye baby
3. Mary, Mary, quite contrary
4. Ring around the rosie (the black death reference is questionable but why not put the creepy version to good use?)
5. Jack and Jill

It's hard to trace the origins and the most authentic versions of many of these rhymes. Harder yet to figure out whether they were composed in all innocence and twisted around later to match turbulent historical events, or if they really were cryptic works of oppressed minds to begin with. Either way, it has been a wild goose chase so far, with nary a solid clue to the identity of Mother Goose, the (imaginary?) author of many nursery rhymes and fairy tales.

While the savagery in most of Mother Goose's collection has been watered down through the centuries, it still gives you goosebumps. I guess Shin-chan received flak over his few repetitive mischiefs for being so blatant. While the good old nursery rhymes got away with much more for surreptiously catering to several mindsets - the playful & the innocent, the dirty minds, the history buffs and those with a penchant for dark humour. I sure am enjoying reciting them to my kid; my evil laughter mingling with his innocent, unsuspecting giggles. These rhymes are the mother of all geese indeed, because what's good for a little Goose is as good for a dirty old Geezer.

Cheers,
A badly enlightened mother goose

The Roots that count

-The Roots that Count-

As a kid, I'd be fascinated by the pictures of the spick-&-span streets and everything to do with the "foreign lands" as I called them. Upon landing on that foreign soil as an adult, the glossy picture I painted as a kid held true when it came to the transport system, infrastructure & the technology abroad. Life was rosy indeed on the streets but the thorny bit at home balanced it out.

It was a hard yet a very humbling realization that I was to be my own housekeeper & cook. More so, during my days on the student campus where I had to juggle studies, assignments, lectures, cooking, cleaning, dishes & laundry and the 9 hour commute to and fro from London every weekend to be with my husband. That's when the Mumbaikar in me kicked in, thanks to the daily struggle to keep up with the rat-race.

It also dawned on me that as compared to living abroad, I led a similar middle-class routine yet a lot more luxurious life at home in India. Just like me, the British students held their own rosy image of the homelife in India. Househelp is a very foreign & fascinating concept to them and we Indians were often called "lucky buggers" for having been brought up so comfortably, for not being "kicked out" at 18 and asked to earn our own tuition & upkeep. That's when I realized how truly blessed I've been to have such dynamic roots of a secured, comfortable homelife, my ever-loving folks and a fighting spirit honed by the twists thrown my way by the ever-bustling streets of Mumbai, day in, day out.

Then I came across this amusing Desi lot, and I'm exclusively referring to the ones who have been brought up & educated throughout in India. They'd start speaking Hindi & Marathi in British/American accent; some of them would stop speaking their mothertongue altogether within an year of staying abroad. It goes without saying that views change with age & experience but what I mostly see in case of NRIs is a biased take on this matter. They'd criticize everything about the life or system back home but none of them would speak of the countless job rejections they faced abroad, about how they had to jump through the hoops of the system and pay through their noses to hold onto their American or British visas by the skin of their teeth. It's really quite sad to see them criticize their own roots all the time with no room for any praise. Because hey, when the London underground or the Manhattan subway collapses, it's my Bambaiyya instincts that click in place to find the fastest alternative routes. The life back home is so deeply ingrained that I still anticipate, rush and beat people to a queue at any kiosk or a ticket counter. When a crisis strikes, I have my instincts and my folks back home to count on.

Think before you present a half-painted, glamorous picture to your friends back home, just for the sake of showing how your life abroad has an edge over theirs. They deserve to know that their life back home offers much better things than yours does as well- the luxuries at home, the cheap laundry service, a lively society, food/grocery options around every corner, the closely knit family who has their backs and what not. Besides, you never know when a natural or political crisis might strike. Think before you feel embarrassed of your own roots, because mind you, when a disaster uproots your world, it's your roots that count.

Unboxing the Idiot Box

Have you ever thought of throwing your phone (the new age idiot box) and yourself off the grid for a while? After having tried it for a while, here goes the liberating yet vicious cycle:

When the world becomes a small place but you don't let it shrink to the point of developing a tunnel vision.

When the information at your fingertips isn't as enriching as the knowledge earned through exploring.

When your bucket list runs deeper than a checklist.

When the surroundings hold more gravity than 4G.

When you'd rather check it out than check-in.

When your senses capture more than your camera lens.

When a sight stays whole & vivid in your mind despite the filters.

When the experience makes you more eloquent or more speechless than hash-tags.

When you tap your fingers more to the rhythm of the world than on the screen.

When a paperback adds more dimensions to the reading experience, literally & figuratively.

When laughing isn't as passively mute & short as its acronyms.

When the scope of 'thinking out of the box' is not reduced to the one attached to your hand.

When you don't feel handicapped without that extra "limb".

When that "limb" gone malfunctioning doesn't throw your world into chaos.

When the very thought of its absence during a crisis makes you question your smartness for leaving behind the idiot box in this big, bad world.

And that's when you revert to the small world.

Cheers,
An enslaved hypocrite who just expressed it all through that very idiot box

Animals on Social Media (Part-3)

-The protesters-

Animals at the zoos wish that they had more restricted profile views & privacy settings because they don't want humans stumbling across their profiles and "reporting abuse" anymore.

The wild cat family is outraged that while being an endangered lot, they are multiplying by the dozen on snapchat.

The social butterflies wish the facebook memory feature could accommodate their short life and function in terms of days & months.

-The wanderers-

Bat: Damn GPS and check-ins. Never thought humans would catch on with our tracking ability with such 'sound' features.

Cheetah: I disable my location services on a hunt. Wouldn't want to give myself away to my prey because of a stupid check-in!

Bear: And those humans talk big about going into hibernation. Ask me!

Eagle updated his travel blog.
Snail: Recommend some places within a yard damn it!
Eagle: Why don't you just get onto your device, switch off the internet and slide along the map? You'd at least make it that way.

Dog: To hell with wireless & GPS! First I lose my trees, and now my poles & signposts.

Birds: We feel it more pal. Try being grounded in the cities.

-The selfie brigade-

Octopus: I'm the selfie king. Multiple angles, multiple devices, you name it.

Elephant: My options are quite 'truncated' as compared to you.

Frog: Talk about being literally tongue-tied while taking a selfie.

Tyrannosaurus rex: Thank goodness for selfie sticks!

Chameleon: And photoshop too! At last, I can make myself stand out.

Panda & Zebra: Amen to that & Prisma!

Snake: Damn you all!

Anaconda: Stop throwing a 'hissy' fit and try cover photos mate. I can finally flaunt my long, dark & handsome self, cheers to panoramas!

Cobra: Thanks for the recommendation buddy! Just uploaded a cover pic of mine with my hood poised over a mongoose as my profile pic. Makes me look so savage!

Owl: Who needs those 360* photo apps when I can work that with my head?

Duck: Speak for yourself; I'm on a sabbatical from selfies. The duck-face is so cliché.

-The online shoppers & reviewers-

Coyote's review for Acme products:
Not worth a star! 100% guarantee of trapping the roadrunner?! Yeah, right. Would have given a good rating if I were a masochist.

The Grasshopper: Hail Amazon prime. Why toil like those ants when winter's stock is just a click away?
Ants: You'd understand only if you looked up fitness apps & trackers, lazybum!

The chicken finally found the purpose behind crossing the road and the answer to the chicken-&-egg problem on Quora & Fauna.

-The workaholics-

Ant: Our enterprise rocks at team-work. Not to mention the connections on linkedin.

Bee: Good for you. The humans have made us go through so many mergers & acquisitions. They even use the connection to the Queen left, right & centre. Talk about twisted nepotism!

Lion: More than connections, it's raining endorsements from the hyenas for my hunting skills. What a sly pack!

Kangaroo: I just offered them the deliveroo services- our pockets at their disposal.

Crow: Mine is the most underrated profile on linkedin. So much for doing my bit for the environment! No connections, no endorsements or recommendations whatsoever, that too after being such a great nanny to those selfish cuckoos!

Meanwhile, the fish upgraded to linkedin premium to stay ahead of the corporate sharks in the bigger ponds.

-The serial daters-

Why limit the mating to a season when there's Tinder?

Cheers,
Just another social animal

To all the Haughty Grammar Nazis & the Proud Engineers

I'm quite ashamed to say that as a judgemental brat, I took to looking down on non-scientific fields because of being into engineering and going grammar nazi on people for a while there. Thanks to several people & incidents over the years, I went from questioning that arrogant attitude, through cringing at its recollection, to sighing at the sight of many teenagers and adults alike rampantly shaming someone's intellect based on their English grammar, scoresheets or domain.

The rude awakening began one fine day when I was cribbing about the fat engineering text books I had to go through (while being secretly proud about it) and saw a medical student silently juggling a couple of gargantuan books in a corner, with no time to even be smug about it. Suffice it to say that going by my low grades during that year, had I been into medicine, I would've had an year drop for sure.

Then came along peers who couldn't string a proper statement together in English, which remarkably affected their scores as well. When I finally got the hang of their lingo, they blew my perception right out of the water. Not to mention that some of these brilliant minds were fluent in more than 5 languages. If at all, it was them who had more right than anyone else to look down their linguistic noses at people who knew barely a couple of languages besides English. But then they were rational enough to not treat their own language as the be all and end all.

Mingling with people of different nationalities was an eye-opening experience where I got to learn about fields beyond the glorified Indian educational quartet of engineering, medicine, CA & architecture. More than that, it was humbling to witness their genuine interest in, and most of all, respect for all fields alike.

There's nothing wrong with taking pride in your grades, domain or language, but think before looking down on someone through your gradient, field-distorted, grammar-tinted glasses. There are panoramic personalities out there that you wouldn't want to slip past your thumbnail of a vision.

Disclaimer: The Grammar Nazi bit is solely for the arrogant lot, not the well-meaning ones.

iHad it all!

iHad it all!

I came across this old animated film aired on Doordarshan and it brought back a flood of wonderful memories associated with it! Like how my mom would painstakingly record these cartoons for us. Then dad would spend a remarkable amount of time setting up the sprawling jumble of wires and we would wait with bated breaths for the VCR to function. We went through that routine every time we had a cartoon session with cousins & friends. We wore those video cassettes out to the extent that my parents patiently dislodged & revived the jammed tape for us, n number of times!

And how we would enjoy listening to the radio every dawn when mom would simultaneously tune both the antenna and my head while braiding my hair for school. Or listening to records on dad's gramophone with relish, entranced by the inward slide of the stylus on the disc! I ought to appreciate these old devices as well, for so openly offering insight into their functioning, stirring up curiosity in our young minds and satisfying it as effortlessly. Unlike the modern gadgets, rather contraptions under a compact & deceivingly simple exterior, that if something goes wrong with their functioning, kids are robbed of bonding over let's-figure-out-&-fix-it sessions with their fathers. Touch-screens on the outside, yet losing touch with what's going on on the inside!

It definitely is a lot more convenient for kids to catch this stuff on tablets & phones today and I do appreciate that. But my parents' ever enthusiastic involvement & efforts along with these curiosity-inducing old devices made the experience wholesome and way sweeter for me. So what if we didn't have touch-screens back then? What I had as a kid was the REAL touch. iHad it all..

A wholesome song

I recalled one of Kishore Kumar's tipsy songs today and before I knew it, I was captivated and ended up replaying 'Main sharab pee raha hoon' over and over. I guess that when I watched it about a decade ago, I was too young to appreciate the nuances of this song.

There are billions of happy melodies, millions of sad & touching tunes, many unconventional numbers, but what this one made me realize is that there are very few 'wholesome' songs. For a song to be wholesome, the tune need not be catchy, the lyrics need not be brilliant, the singer need not flaunt his classical prowess by stressing on the higher notes, the actor need not take it entirely upon himself to deliver the message & the dancer need not do some outrageous & difficult moves.

A song earns wholesomeness when all these aspects, regardless of whether they are perfect or not, flow in naturally to create a magical audio-visual treat. Magical enough to make you feel that it really is the actor who's singing, the dancer is grooving to it of her own accord, and last but not the least, even if the language were alien to you, you understand the gist & the mood of the song barely from the tune & how the singer puts the emotions across.

In this perspective, I felt that 'main sharaab pee raha hoon' is a wholesome song. A very well-blended cocktail of simple lyrics, unusual tune, Kishore Kumar's soothing voice & variations stepping snugly into Dev Anand's shoes, Dev Anand letting it kick in with equal ease and lastly, Bindu's subtle & simple yet killer moves. A sharaab so fine that it just flows in wonderfully as a whole package, making you lose yourself in it and forget bothering about what it's made up of.

Animals on facebook (Part-2)

Lion: Roarrrrrrrrr!
Like. Comment

Lioness: I lost my Roar! :(
Likes. 943 Comments.
Animal1: Awww :(
Animal2: Awwwwwwwwww :(
Animal3: Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww :(
...
...
Lion: I'm the King! It's not fair that you get such a whopping response while I don't.
Lioness: This is facebook, honey! Welcome to the world of (drama) Queens. ;)

Crow: Damn those Cuckoos! Leaving their babies in my care, how could they love 'Spring' more than their 'Off-spring'?!

Mosquito: Blood is thicker than water and I know that better than humans. B-)

Cow: I always thought how awesome it was to have such a flexible jaw, and then Jim Carrey trampled on my pride. :(

Bitch: People don't bother to browse through my profile. :( May be my name says it all.
Like. 1 Comment.
Wolf: Ditto! Females ignore my friendship requests. :(

Bat: My hearing sense is (ultra)sound enough to locate & snatch a prey before it 'bats' an eye. B-)

214564367 Birds joined the Group "We are NOT ANGRY!"

Fish: Dear Fishermen, stop playing with those hooks and 'play hooky' from your job for once!

Pig: Humans are the worst hypocrites! The very same beings who regard "pig" as a cuss word, treat us with honour on the table as "Ham", "Bacon", "Chorizo" and what not. X-(

Black Mamba edited his Work Profile:
Employed as a DJ at 'Under the Hard Rock' cafe.
Like. 3 Comments.
Green Mamba: I envy you but I can't get greener than this!
Black Mamba: Join me mate! Let's groove to "Mamba no.5". B-)
Green Mamba: That era's gone, my friend! I'd rather wiggle wiggle wiggle to "Sexy & I know it".

Centipede: I get goosebumps whenever I listen to "Pug ghungroo". :|
Like. 1 Comment.
Goose: *bump* :P

Cockroach: My expeditions are either 'hit' or 'flop'. It's a hit if I flop around well. It's a flop if I get hit.

Eagle: I can't help smirking over the "sky-diving" hoopla created by those humans.
Like. 2 Comments.
Fish: The same applies to those scuba diving freaks, but, my bad, you won't understand. :P
Eagle: Well, you will never know "where eagles dare" either. :P

Bulldog: It's funny that "Bulldogs" and "Botox" sound similar.

Elephant: How do I accommodate my whole picture on this timeline?!
Like. 1 Comment.
Ant: Hahaha, timeline doesn't suit us. You "loom" while I "zoom". :P

Ugly duckling: I might be hideous, but my profile pictures are always Swan-tastic! ;)


Hare and Tortoise attended the Event- "Let's race once again".
Event Wall.
Hare: I won! I won!
5 minutes ago near "x" place.
Like. 2 Comments.
Tortoise: I can see that you posted from "x" place, but the winning post is located at "y" place. Hard luck pal, I won!
Hare: Damn! What ruined my first race was a nap, and now, it's an apple map! :(

Snail: Ask me what "an eye for an eye" means! B-)

Horse1 edited his Work Profile:
Worked as an intern at a horse-riding ranch.
Employed as a racehorse at Derby.
Promoted to Polo. B-)
Like. 1 Comment.
Horse2: Wow, I'm still stuck as a ride at weddings! :|

Zebra: We always come through with flying colours, literally! ;)

Ant1: Making hay while the sun shines. :) -with Ant2, Ant3, Ant4.....
Like. 5 Comments.
Grasshopper: Hitting the hay with food and wine. :P
Ant1: When the hay turns cold, you'd better not whine. :P
Grasshopper: Then why are you "making hay" on facebook?!
Ant1: Come on, I'm just "checking-in" with my friends.
Grasshopper: Show-offs.

-Rati Bhagwat

Born Geniuses

“Everybody is born a genius”. I started believing in this quote through several phenomena that have always been a riddle to me. We, as adults, take more time to learn a new language and attain fluency, than that taken by a baby to pick up a couple of absolutely new languages with no other reference besides body language. Even when you are half asleep, you can recite the entire length of any song which you memorised as a kid; also the long-forgotten ones play involuntarily on the tip of your tongue if you give them a try. Whereas the songs you come across as an adult, don’t stay as etched into your mind as the nursery rhymes do. While pondering as usual over mundane things in life, I came up with a couple of possible explanations behind this puzzle.

First, a new born baby’s condition is similar to a person just done with practising genuine meditation. Meditation involves maintaining a blank state of mind and focusing all your concentration on a single point; as simple as it may sound, I believe it is the toughest mental exercise that only few people could possibly pull off. Every baby in this world, is born after a whopping nine months’ worth of meditation! Just like the enlightened Rishis who achieved this feat inside secluded caves in the past, similarly, in the dead of the mother’s womb, the inexperienced baby has no thoughts to interrupt its natural state of meditation. It is as if the baby is at equilibrium with the world, both being oblivious to each other’s presence. That is why I believe that any human is at his sharpest at birth, ready to explore the world with an unbiased frame of mind. The equilibrium is disrupted as he is gradually exposed to the world and the intellectual downhill begins from then on.

The keyword here is ‘inexperienced’. Although it is true that you learn from experience, it also brings in a set of ethics, values, principles and biases, which might cloud your thought process, making you unable to absorb new things as open-mindedly as you did before. In this sense, experience acts as a double edged sword in shaping an individual’s intellect over his lifetime. Everybody is born a genius with respect to one talent or the other, but later on, it depends on how each person wields his double edged sword called ‘experience’! However, the following last point illustrates how experience is still an indispensable part of our life (in any case, it's unavoidable even if you stay idle!).

I came up with another explanation recently while humming “Tujhse naaraz nahi Zindagi” from Masoom. I must have been barely 4 years old when I listened to it for the first time. Despite not understanding a word at that age, the tune had quite an impact on me. I found it intriguing because although it sounded soothing and melodious, I felt it had a tinge of sadness in it. I kept on humming it till I was old enough to understand the lyrics and yet, I still couldn’t fathom what situation made this man sing such twisted words, despite watching Masoom several times. As an ‘enlightened’ teenager, when I understood the plot of Masoom, I could finally comprehend the song’s profoundness. I suddenly realized that this is very similar to how I would sometimes craftily back-calculate from the ‘desired solution’ in laboratory to obtain ‘favourable’ experimental readings (Dear Professors, kindly ignore this part :P). The song was the ‘desired solution’ in my hand as a kid and ironically, as life progressed, I ‘back-calculated’ using my experience and worked out it’s ‘readings’. After several years of mulling over something which is beyond your grasp as a child, you build it into an ‘experiment’ you thoroughly grasp, something you understand better than the things which you learn newly as an adult. You can apply Pythagoras theorem or Trigonometry that you learned as a kid, to ‘n’ number of real life situations, as you understand them increasingly well over the years. But that is not the case with the calculus that you learn as an adult.

When you grow old, you revert back to being a child, albeit a foolish one, who is not that hungry for knowledge anymore. And yet, you have all the wisdom you gathered through experience, to hold you up till the end.

Life is about being born an inexperienced genius and dying an experienced, wise fool.

-Rati Bhagwat

Change the constants and constant the change

I agree that human beings rule because of their superior intellect but what really intrigues me is the relative rapidness in our evolution. The key lies in our awareness about how efficiently we process whatever nature offers to us, but we have been as ignorant (or may be not so clever?) about how nature has been processing us all these years.

Look closely at the other living beings and you will see that the most docile creatures have undergone minimal evolution. In fact, we are indirectly resposible for their morphosis by constantly changing their habitat. Rate at which the nature changes us is directly proportional to the rate at which we change the nature's constants! Just imagine nature in the shoes of a producer and ourselves as the raw materials.

Don't you think we are stuck in the phase of ''Product development'', a slow but a continuous one? The mutations inflicted on our DNA by free radicals present in highly processed foods/polluted air is the best of all the countless examples. It affects and alters the most vital base (DNA) of a man as a raw material! Whereas as we spend sleepless nights racking our brains to find that very nerve in natural products! I can simply summarise all the natural catastrophes or the survival-of-the-fittest-situations nature puts us through as nothing but a ''Quality Control'' step.

Man-made plant lay-outs are more or less the same for a particular product- depending on area, water, electricity. We change the lay-out to suit the product. Our world processes us in varying and versatile lay-outs and we are altered to suit its lay-out as well. Our processing steps are properly compartmentalised but we need a plant shut-down frequently. With us as raw materials, all these steps overlap and still, nature has never announced a shut-down (20/12/2012 calling?).

The constantly changing weather (again because we changed the constants) alters our ''processing (living) conditions'' accordingly. It may sound a little silly but it also demands a constant change in ''packaging'' (clothing) ;). Last but not the least, compare these two scenarios: billions of human beings are working on altering say a lakh of things by trying zillions of methods and processes. And nature is single-handedly tackling the processing of 2 million unsuspecting species with a few finite and specific methods. I need not even comment on who's more brilliant out of the two :). Think before messing with nature's constants or you will be processed at a rate with which you won't be able to catch up anymore!

-Rati Bhagwat

Animal Fish-ponds

I enjoyed writing the Animals-on-Facebook blog tremendously and couldn't help keying in another one. What if the animals start playing the good old game or get caught up in bollywood melodrama? Here goes:

Glow worm: Cham cham karta hai yeh nashila badan...

Bat: Aaj main upar asmaa neeche, aaj main aage zamana hai pichhe :)

Tiger: Logo naa maaro ise, yehi to mera dildar hai :(

Giraffe's romantic song: Unchi hai building, lift teri band hai, kaise main aau? dil razamand hai...

Ant: Ichuk daana pichuk daana daane upar daana ichuk daana

Turtle: Parde mein rehne do, parda naa uthao, parda jo uth gaya to khel khul jayega :(

Penguin: Thande thande paani se nahana chahiye, gaana aaye ya na aaye, nahana chahiye

Monkey: Idhar chala main udhar chala, jaane kaha main kidhar chala, fisal gayaaaaa....

Pig: Khaane ka peene ka marne ka jeene ka, chalne ka phirne ka uthne ka girne ka, tension nahi lene ka bhai se poochne ka, Kasa kai bara hai I am Bum-bhai

*And the snake story continues*
*Female snake seduces male snake*
Female snake: Leherake leherake, balkhake balkhake, dilo ko jala ke, aag laga ke, karu main ishaaaraaa, sharara sharara...main hu ek sharararara...
Male snake: Aao twist karein, jaag utha mausam, aao twist karein, zindagi hai yehi!
*Brother Cobra intervenes and scares away the snake with his fearsome personality*
Cobra: 'Hood' 'hood' dabangg dabangg dabangg dabangg, 'hood' 'hood' dabangg dabangg dabangg dabangg...

Cow: Main gori chhori hun gopala, tune tirchi nazariya se kyo mara...gopala gopala bolo pyare gopala, aage bhi gopala, peechhe bhi gopala, bas gaya dil mein gopala...

Bull: Yeh laal rang kab mujhe chhodega :(...mera gham kab talak mera dil todega :(

Rat: Mere angnein mein tumhara kya kaam hai? X-(

Chameleon: Mujhe rang de, mujhe rang de, mujhe rang de rang de, mujhe rang de...Haan rang de, haan rang de, mujhe apne preet vich rang de...

Fish: Kyu jhoomein hai gagan? Kyu chalti hai pavan? Naa tum jaano naa hum :(

Fox: Jo soche jo chahe woh kar ke dikha de, hum woh hai jo do aur do paanch bana de ;)

Frog: kiss me kiss me kiss me, zara zara kiss me kiss me kiss me...

Snail: Intehaaa ho gayi intezar ki...aayi naa kuch khabar mere yaar ki :(

Hen: Aao sikhau tumhe ande ka funda, yeh nahi pyare koi mamoli banda...

Cat: Purr purr purr purr har pal har pal, kaise katega purr har pal har pal...

Owl: Yeh raat, jaali ki chipkali raat, yeh raat, Naa ugli hi jaye, naa nigli hi jaaye, yeh kaali zehreeli raat...

Wolf: Chanda re chanda re, kabhi to zameen par aaaa, baithenge baatein karenge...

Butterfly: Main albeli ghumoon akeli, koi paheli hun main, pagli hawayein mujhe jahan bhi le jaye in hawaon ki saheli hun main...

Cockroach: Naa jaane kaha se aaya hai, naa jaane kaha ko jayega, deewana kise banayega yeh banda...badi apsos ki hai baat, badi chhoti hai mulaqat; kisi ke haath naa ayega yeh banda..

Mosquito: Raat akeli hai, bujh gaye diye, aake mere paas, kaano mein mere, jo bhi chahe kahiye, jo bhi chahe kahiye....zzzzzzzzz

Firefly: Shola jo bhadke, dil mera tadpe, dard jawani ka sataye badh badh ke...

Bee: Main pal mein sadiyan jee aaya, saari madhushala pi aaya. main pi aaya, main pi aaya....

Pigeon: Dil hoon hoon kare, ghabrayein :(

*Octopus's message to FIFA board*
Octopus: Aanewala 'paul' jaanewala hai, ho sake to isme zindagi beeta do, 'paul' jo yeh jaane wala hai :(

A Mathematical Twist to Relationships

A weird twist, isn't it? Maths gradually unfolds it's complexity to us from Kindergarten to Higher education and so do relationships, as they grow deeper by the years. Let us start with a basis to establish the similarity between the two and see how they proceed from basic level to calculus.

You enter a new class and there are so many students to interact with; as simple as counting Natural Numbers. After a month, some of them give negative vibes, some enter our positive books; hello to integers! Groups of like-minded people form just like sub-sets or Matrices. And then comes the quest for your crushes which marks the beginning of higher levels. You have your share of link-ups, 'Probabilities' of successfully wooing your heart-throb and not to mention the several cross-connections and on-off relationships happening within your class . And if you think that these 'Permutations and Combinations' are enough to make your heads spin, you are mistaken!

You are unsuspectingly dragged into an even crazier world. When you are friends with your crush, it is a simple 'a+b' situation. You start going around and in come the variables-ax+by, where x and y are likes of a and b respectively. But it is very simple to draw optimum solution at this point where there is a willingness from both a and b to 'çonstantly' showcase only the positives of their personalities and adjust the 'x and y's. When you get engaged, your negative aspects subtly start showing up in the form of 'cw+dz'...c and d being negative characters and w and z being dislikes. Still, they are simple enough to solve.

Marriage bombards you with endless polynomials, where the variables cropping up exhaust all the 26 alphabets, the symbols and the likes! It starts with where to settle, who cleans what blah blah blah...And so many angles from two families come into play that trigonometry blows out of proportion. The Linear Programming that was once resorted to in times of disagreements is utterly neglected.

Calculus ushers in, with the birth of your children where there is no 'Limit' for differences and 'Continuity' of bad habits within the family. Our behaviour affects their behaviour in a good/bad way; that is, an increment in 'x' brings about an increment in 'y'...Quite a 'Derivative' situation! And more the number of children we have, the more their behaviour is affected by us and their siblings...That brings in differential equations of first, second (and so on) order! We rack our brains to reach a solution for these uncontrollable series of differentials, just like Lagrange, Fourier and all did in their times.

Sometimes we let the equations run wild, sometimes we come up with a solution. And, this is how relationships throw us in a loop of derivatives and integration, forever!

Cheers!
Rati!

THE PARADOX CALLED ''SUICIDE''

The rampant suicides, especially among the students these days, made me delve into their mentality and pen my thoughts on this dark topic. A wise man had once defined suicide as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It certainly ''becomes'' permanent once the distressed resorts to the irreversible act. But what about the other temporary solutions that might have flitted across his/her mind?

No mental state can be as paradoxical as that of the one on the verge of doing the unthinkable. Taking one's life is the strongest resolve one could ever make. Just because he/she is not strong enough to face his hopeless situation, he becomes unbelievably strong to face his death...He loses the courage to withstand the worst but musters the courage to end his life. Due to the unbearable fear of consequences, he rids himself of the fear of mortality. To avoid crying over mishaps, he smiles in the face of death.

Why doesn't he choose the strength to cope with the stress, over the strength to deal with death? Why doesn't he divert his courage towards battling the worst? Why doesn't he overcome the fear of putting up with bad results? When the doer can't control his life any more, he takes the ultimate control over it! A psychological state full of ironies! A matter of choices...

I can't even figure out if it is planned consciously or done on the spur of the moment. The most intriguing and disturbing part about many cases is that the person was said to have looked absolutely happy and unruffled, moments before committing suicide. How can a seemingly normal person go beyond extreme abnormality within no time? Is it the overwhelming sinusoidal pattern of thoughts beneath the nonchalant exterior that coaxes him to end his thought process once and for all?

A suicidal situation is like a coin with two sides...You either ''head'' in the right direction or proceed towards the ''tail''-end of your life. And it is out of our bounds to comprehend the paranormal state in between.

Rati

Mind-Over-Colour

Be it any language, it has phrases linking different moods/emotions/feelings with colours. And recently, I realized that these phrases are not mere musings of an idle ancestral mind. They have a rather unfathomable significance on the physical world!

The profoundness of this mind-colour-matter association hit me while hanging out at Mocha when I saw my reflection in the mirror illuminated by red light (Mochas' trademark). Flawless skin, sharp features- I thought I was staring at a stranger! Red is touted as the colour of ''confidence'' and at that moment I couldn't agree more! It subtly camouflages your acne, highlights your features, giving you a very beautiful aura. It explains the dominant use of red lighting on theatre stages, probably to accentuate the facial expressions of the actors, and why the red-light-areas are called so. There is more to this insecurity-buster than just wearing a red out-fit.

Jealousy makes your facial veins jut out and you become ''green'' with envy. You appear pale and ''yellow'' when sick, thanks to the existence of a (yellow yellow) ''dirty fellow'' in your body. I don't feel the need to mention excreta ;)...When you bump into something and feel excruciating pain to the core, the surrounding skin turns blue. That's why you feel ''blue'' even when someone hurts you verbally.

Imagine all your emotions placed on a rotating disc. When they careen out of control, they are replaced by a single emotion- fear. Or you can say that when you are gripped by extreme fear, your confidence, stability and all other feelings whirl into oblivion inside your mind. Isn't it analogous to a rotating disc divided into different hues uniformly showing a white colour when swerved wildly? You turn ''white'' with fear!

White is also associated with purity of mind, which is inherent in a very very few people. Compare it with the R-G-B model that we learned in school. When the three basic colours (emotions) of accurate shades (intensities) are mixed, they give a pure white shade. A slight deviation in any one of the shades (emotional intensities) gives a greyish outcome...And that explains the existence of people with different grey shades. I am sure many of you must have shallowly correlated grey shades as a combination of black (dark thoughts) and white (ideal thoughts). But these age-old ideologies run deeper than that.

When you achieve something by imbibing virtuous qualities and overcoming all the negative ones, you are said to ''come out with flying colours''. Just as the perfect combination of rain (gloomy days) and sun (bright moments) develops into an enchanting rainbow. Although most of us are cynical about the lucky stones the astrologers advise to wear, they may have more of scientific than spiritual bearings-an unexplored aspect. Mind over matter, mind over colour. You'd better mind over what colour colours your mind and, what colour your mind colours ;)...

Ciao!
Rati

IF ANIMALS WERE ON FACEBOOK...

Internet is obviously a medium for one and only one species- man...Countless new profiles pop up every now and then on social networking sites. Imagine the pandemonium if all other creatures gain access to Facebook...

DOG Who took away my pole? X-(...Pee-king around for a new one...
KAMINA KUTTA likes this. Comment.
DOG1: Don’t worry! Every man has his day...
DOG2: ‘’Dislike’’...why doesn’t FB provide a ‘’shit’’ option?!
KAMINA KUTTA: kkth*...(kutton ki tarah hasna)

DOG1>DOG2 Where r u dude? Don’t see u around these days...
Comment. Like. See Wall to Wall.
DOG2: The dog van’s frequently patrolling my area...had to go underground :(
DOG1: Je baat! Become a fan of the Maneka Gandhi page, they won’t lay a finger on you...

DOG3 Yippeee! Mating season’s here!!
10,77,391 BITCHES like this.

COWS, SHEEP, HORSES and GOATS joined the group- WHAT THE **** ARE WE DOING IN FARMVILLE?!
Join. Like.

UGLY DUCKLING took the test ‘’Are you born to be a Swan?’’
See More.

LADY FROG>PRINCESS You boyfriend-kisser, give my frog back X-(...

2,97, 854 FISH became a fan of THE NEW WATERPROOF APPLE iPAD

4, 56, 788 BIRDS joined the group- MAKE AN APPEAL TO STEVE JOBS TO INVENT FLi-PAD

CHAMELEON FB is so inconvenient! No colour theme settings :(...
Comment. Like.
CHAMELEON1: Yeah, Couldn’t change my colour in ages! Feeling blue :(...

PORCUPINE joined the group Kaanta Lagaaaa
Join. Like.

EARTHWORM changed it’s Orientation to Bisexual
Comment. Like.


FEMALE SNAKE, you have 1 friendship request from
MALE SNAKE- 1 mutual friend
‘’Zeher hai ke pyar hai tera chumma? Will you be my friend?’’
Confirm. Ignore.

FEMALE SNAKE and MALE SNAKE are now friends.
Comment. Like.

FEMALE SNAKE>MALE SNAKE Let’s Hissss and make up....
Comment. Like.

SPIDER This web is even more confusing than mine!
Comment. Like.


SNAIL1>SNAIL2 Oh no, not again! I will wait till you connect the internet router and return. C u soon :)
April 22 at 1:53pm. Comment. Like.
SNAIL2: Done! See, I am quicker than your dial-up connection :P...
June 3 at 8:43 am. Delete.

MOUSE is in a Relationship
Comment. Like.
MOUSE1: Your updates are always so ‘’cheesy’’! How I wish I had such a love story to boast of!
MOUSE: Then why don’t you make a ‘’Squeakquel’’?

COCKROACH1, ROACH2, ROACH3.....were tagged in 112 billion photos
View. Comment. Like.

LIZARD1, LIZARD2....were tagged in 90, 567, 878 photos
View. Comment. Like

TIGER1 and TIGER2 were tagged in two photos
View. Comment. Like
TIGER1: Extinction alert!


BAT1 Can someone tell me how to change settings on FB so that the updates appear in ascending chronological order?...The banes of hanging upside down...Arrrrgh...
Comment. Like.
BAT2: Abbey dhakkan make ur screen upside down :P...


9, 768, 324 CROWS are attending the event PREMIERE OF MOVIE PHOONK
Comment. Like.


ELEPHANT Fie on size zero! 3600-2400-3600 trend is back in vogue!
Comment. Like.

CAMEL THAR me kiska SAHARA lu?
Comment. Like.

BABY BLACK BUCK :)))))))))))))))))))))))
Comment. Like.
MOM BLACK BUCK: Beta so jao nahi to Salman Khan aa jayega...

CAT gave purrrfect answers; the interviewer was so Purrrplexed by her Purrrspectives that he recruited her at Purrrrcept motion picture...

ROOSTER took the test AM I A GOOD EMPLOYEE?
Result: You are the most loyal employee. Blame it on the Cell phones, Morning calls and Alarm Clocks. People will understand your worth some day, when these gadgets let them down.

PIG had an indulgent Sunday! A scintillating slushy mud bath, followed by a sumptuous meal of rotten insects and fresh worms...

CROCODILE1>CROCODILE2 Don’t shed Lalit Modi tears...
1323 crocodiles like this. Comment.
Crocodile3: Thanks to that man, we have been freed from the curse!

RATI says she can go on and on...She is leaving the rest to your imagination...

Cheers!