First Aid

Growing up with a doctor mom, I took medicine for granted.Since the last couple of years since I have been on my own and the recipient of daily/weekly/monthly small or big injuries (phew..not yet hourly), so when an opportunity to take a two-day first aid certification course came along I pounced at it (and didn’t trip).It was a course set up exclusively for my work place, we were taught all about CPR, bandaging wounds, what to do if you’re hit by lightning, and field surgery. I think my expectations were a little high, especially around the surgery part, because we were only being certified as Level C “first aiders” and not actual medical doctors (I DID learn about being hit by lightning. If it happens, you’re probably toast). I had (and still have) a wicked case of laryngitis, so the introductory part of the session, where we all had to say our names and our first aid background was even more awkward for me than normal. I sounded like a cell phone that was dropping out—luckily, I was sitting with some very nice colleagues who filled in the gaps for me. The instructor—let’s call him Abi— was a very interesting and well-experienced former fire captain, who had some amazing stories to tell about traumatic situations and injuries, the vast majority of which seemed to have happened to his him or his own family and friends. I think my favorite story was how he stabbed a butcher knife completely through his palm getting it out of the dishwasher. Abi had serious bad injury karma, and I was convinced that at least one of our group was NOT going to make it to the weekend. Nevertheless, I took copious notes.At the end of the course we were supposed to administer Heimlich maneuver to a dummy whom I called chuck (any resemblance to Netflix is purely coincidental ) to gain the certificate of “achievement”.I can totally picture this in my head. Imagine, how cool would it be to raise my hand when during my daily commute, the red double deck bus driver asks the question over the intercom "Is there a doctor onboard ?

ooops can’t do it, (8 years of med school vs. 2 half days of first aid course)

OK, Scene 2 : How cool would it be when this question is popped and there is no doctor and the victim’s buddy has a turned into a shade of desperate and I can raise my hand and slow walk (only in my head, I would rush in real life.”Pinky swear”.) from the upper deck as “Heimlich girl”.
So armed with this certificate, I travel everyday keeping the streets of Brighton and Hove safe from me tripping over someone/something.
It’s my turn to give back to society (not just by seeding the torrents)

:)

Snack for a coyote

My knack for being the data whisperer is sadly not preventing the fat cells in my fingers from multiplying. I know this when I fat finger all my texts and am left at the mercy of auto correct. We all know that has led to only clear communication (yeh right!). In fact I tried to draw Zentangles to practice my dexterity but the results are so creative that a 2 year holds a better chance of beating me at them. So perhaps running? This fine Sunday morning,  I chose to run at roadrunner park where we have  demographics ranging from one year taking their first steps to little league to Senior citizens walking to keep themselves in shape.  It’s a big park. The board near the parking lot boasts of covering 14 acres with ponds, baseball fields, tennis courts and just trails for hiking.

I started my pedometer and waded through the sidewalks. I took a couple of rounds around the pond and the ducks in the pond are pretty supportive. They only come in your way when you want to take a break (thank you!!). I crossed an old lady on the walker a couple of times, counted my steps, thought about big bang (the show not the origin of the universe) and weighted for Ryan gosling encouraging voice on my Nike app. Suddenly I got a tap on my shoulder, I turned around to a petite bespectacled 5 ft slightly bent figure who was using a walker to complete her walk. She complimented me on the length of my hair, I smiled in gratitude and then she said something very interesting,
“Every time you ran past me in this hour, all I wanted to do was pull your hair. It’s very tempting.” Duh! Hmmm.

That’s newJ. I took the hint (what if she was not joking??) and decided to change my course. I moved to less populated trail of the park to complete my run. It was just me on the trail as far as I could see. After running for a few minutes I soon realized how wrong my assumption was about solititude. I saw a pair of gleaming eyes in the distance, I assumed it was a dog on a leash with the owner close by, but as I approached closer my worst nightmares were soon coming to realization. A big brown and grey coyote was standing 150 feet away. I paused and thought will I be snack to this coyote? Dibs on oxygen to my brain cells, I immediately took out my phone to call 911. A patented mix of fear and fat fingers lead to me clicking on the flashlight app instead. The flashlight from my phone deterred the coyote. It traced a few steps back. Encouraged, I shone the lights directly in his eyes. The coyote turned around and walked away.

Ha ..Fat fingers to the rescue.

Adrenalin filled; I did not know what to do?

Should I runback which might reduce the fat in my fingers that’s what I started for but then it was the fat fingers that saved me. Decisions..Decisions..Guess being a klutz has its own perks. I ran back to the park entrance and realized this was destiny. After all this was the roadrunner park, I was bound to run into the coyote. Finally they caught up.

Beep bEEp.

Go FIGure

South Mountain is a peaceful spot that has many beautiful peaceful hiking trails and the best part is that it is just couple of minutes away from Tova’s house. Tova or Tovazzie as spelled on her pendant is my window to the Native Indian culture .She lives with her elsi (grandmom) a kind-hearted warm soul. Tova can write many a haiku about her handmade eye arresting silver jewelry ..ohh..so am so J.
As the house is at the base of south mountain, it is also the residence of  a lot of non rent paying occupants that look good only in biology books and nowhere else. Yesterday as we sat on her porch after the hike trying to bring our heart rate down, we  spotted two caterpillars on her porch which reminded me of this one time with my Nanaji (Mother's dad). I am always pushed to do more things by him . His only regret with this philosophy he admits is when I want to talk about those things AND he has to listen about it .With grades in my report card  tipping in the lower scale of Biology, a subject which I never enjoyed ( I am so glad Ma you are the doctor in the family and not me..Biology..Euugghh.), he came up a indigenous plan.He spotted caterpillars in the park  and started asking me all sorts of questions about butterflies (basically let the goblins in my head think that it was my idea to raise a butterfly ). I fell into the trap and picked up the caterpillar carefully on a mango leaf and brought it home.I fed it with spinach leaves  (My driving licence would have stated my height as 5' 7 inches tall had the caterpillar not eaten my share of the spinach).
After 21 days of feeding ,staring,petting,singing,cajoling and lot of praying  and waiting and waiting and waiting for the cocoon to break and a beautiful butterfly to unfold instead  the cocoon yielded a
Black grotesque bug with 11 tentacles and 4 eyes.
My beautiful caterpillar had turned into a monster (I blame spinach)
Some anthropoid’s DNA is just sequenced wrong and they never learn from their mistakes  so when I spotted the caterpillar at Tova’s house I was still tempted to pick and see if this one turned into a butterfly. The goblins in my head resurfaced and I reached for the caterpillar. Before I could begin my journey of discovery, Elsi with her kindest warm heart stepped out and looked at the object of our captive attention . She brushed the caterpillars off the ledge with an air of complete nonchalance.
Tova and I echoed  “What did you do ?”
She shrugged and chimed “Dinner”.
Exasperated we sit on the dinner table. I am pretty sure that if we had housed this caterpillar this would have turned into an amazing butterfly, a rare species whose wings could be used to cure the Ebola virus.
Ah well ! We will never know now. This one’s Elsi’s fault..So close to a breakthrough..
2 min later..Bannock melts in my mouth..all is forgiven!
After all the pharmaceutical industry needs few viruses to make a living.
Live and let die!

Why do I blog?

I love to blog though ironically the frequency of blog posts on this site is may not be the best indicator of my passion. Let me share with you a little secret, I may be pretending to listen to you as I nod and my eyes glaze but if you throw in few buzz words like “Blog”, you have my attention. The word blog makes me focus the lens of my DSLR brain in manual settings and waits patiently to capture what you are saying.  Being on the listening side of the phone for tooooooooo long my sister finally asked me yesterday why do I blog? Hmm… To answer that I need to write a blog. The answer my friends and readers lies wrapped in the following paragraph.
Twenty years and few months back when I was 8 years old and my sister who has seen 365x4 years less of sunlight than me on this planet were tucked blissfully in our room. My sister Sakshi has a different version of the story but since this is my blog let me tell you what “really happened” that afternoon.
We were playing superheroes. We had the bed sheets tied to our necks as capes and we towered high above our bunk beds looking down at the neatly lined teddies and dolls on the floor of our bedroom waiting to be rescued from the evils clutches of the Invisible force.
I wanted to be the first when I saw that a bullet was coming Sakshi’s way and I pushed her only to save her life a heroic act for which I am yet to be thanked. The push resulted in Sakshi flying down from the bunk bed on the floor on all her four’s.
I nervously peered down, her overactive tear glands were ready to open the dam gates in her eyes, her face was a shade of fuchsia and her lips threatened to wake my parents. My parents who had lied down for a nap after a very long week and the only thing they had asked me to do was to take care of my sister and keep her safe. Well that did not go very well. Then at that exact moment my “creative” mind had dibs on the blood flow and I turned to Sakshi and said “Did you see that? You landed as Tinkerbelle. Only Tinkerbelle lands on all fours”. My poor sister had emotions conflicting on her face where she was in a dilemma of whether she should cry wolf which would ultimately lead to some kind of medication (eeyuckkhh) or be proud that she was Tinkerbelle, There was nothing more than Sakshi wanted to be in the world than to be Tinkerbelle. So Sakshi hobbled up with all the grace of Tinkerbelle but with a broken arm and climbed back on bed.

As in the 32 syllable Valmiki’s Ramayana, the Truth had again defeated evil. The truth that I love my sister (and myself) over the evil of being reprimanded for my actions at that moment had won. So I blog so that I can share the beads of wisdom that I have gathered and hopefully inspire you to be evil to your siblings.

PS: Sakshi still secretly adores Tinkerbelle and was overjoyed to see her at Disneyworld Florida, She might not admit to it but that was the only time during the Disney parade when she did not focus on the Turkey Leg in her hand.

Hello Kitty

“Grrr—chrrr-grrr"

Chainsaw searing through the bush below my window woke me up on Saturday, not the lullaby one hopes for in the wee hours. A sound that disproved my bed sheet theory. A theory that states that

“One in state of rest or unrest cannot just get up from the 3600 thread count Egyptian cotton bed set, you have to peel yourself like a really old stubborn sticker that only comes out in tattered parts stuck on your favorite table”.

I sprung up to figure what the ruckus was about. A tiny kitten had got stuck on the Paolo Verde tree which stands next to my balcony and a fire truck was here to its rescue.

An interesting scene unfolded in front my now alert eyes. The owner of the misplaced kitten was standing in a corner ready to break into sobs any moment. Three unruffled 6ft fireman stood next took her and took little notice and continued to look at the fourth fireman who was trying to trim the hedges so that he could place his ladder to reach the kitten.

I am not a fan of kittens but this one was particularly ugly. It had no fur on its body and was pink and skinny, to me it looked like a skinny pink rotisserie chicken with beady eyes and pointy ears.

Eucck.

I was ready to step back in my room when I heard someone shout “Watch out”. 

I turned around and found that the fireman was near my balcony and had spooked the kitten. The horrendous creature was now leaping (read flying at 35 mph) towards me. I was in a dilemma, should I deflect it like a volleyball or try to catch it in mid air ?

 I did neither, I dropped it.

Letting go of all her inhibitions, the owner shrieked, am sure now waking people around the block. The cat lay still near my feet not moving. The tables had now turned. I was suddenly the evil one responsible for the cat’s unfortunate situation.

The fireman leaning on my balcony witnessed the sea of horror emotions on my face and grinned.

I stood frozen as the fireman stepped on my balcony and lifted the cat up, he rubbed the ears and pressed on the kitten’s chest, the kitten opened its eyes. Thank god for 9 lives of the cat. I am sure this one was 9/9.

I wasn’t sure who was more relived the owner of the kitten on finding the kitten back in her arms or me that I was not witness to a cat kill.

Alas somebody did climb my balcony, not my Romeo with flowers but a bulky stranger holding a near dead cat.

Back to my bed. Happy thoughts. 

Only Happy thoughts.  

whether Weather

Suddenly it's summer. Just the other day we were sitting shivering indoors, bundled up in sweaters, room heaters blazing, wondering if it mightn't be warmer if we crammed ourselves into the fridge.

And now, before you can say 'heatstroke', the mercury is rising, the woollies have been packed away, and the AC’s are in full swing. And everyone is moaning and groaning about how hot the days already are and how much hotter they're going to get, and how they just can't stand the heat, and how winters are so much better when it's nice and cool.
These are the same people — and i include myself — who till a few days ago were whining and cribbing about how cold and horrid it was, and all you felt like doing was staying huddled in bed under a nice warm quilt, and couldn't wait for it to get warmer.
And as summer advances and it gets hotter and hotter, and then hotter still, so that you sit indoors with a glass of cold cucumber water by your side, dripping sweat and wondering if it mightn't be cooler if you were to switch on the oven and shove yourself into it, you ask yourself when , oh when, will the blessed monsoon come and the rain cool things down a bit, or will El Nino — whoever the heck he is — play spoilsport and leave us gasping and panting in this dreadful heat.
And finally the monsoon will come — yah boo to El Nino —and the rain will come pouring down, and streets will get flooded as they do every year, and there'll be endless traffic jams, and no one will be able to get to work, or to school, or to anywhere on time, and everyone will say when, oh when, will this awful rain stop which is ruining crops all over the country.
What would we do if we didn't have weather to talk about? How hot it is, how cold it is, how wet it is, how dry it is, and so on and on and on?
In an age of increasingly sharp political, social and cultural differences, the weather remains just about the only safe subject to talk about without getting into a heated argument — or worse — with someone or the other who takes a point of view diametrically opposed to yours.
As a subject for polite conversation, politics has become a distinct no-no. Because while you might be an ardent democrat , or a supporter of Seahawks , the person you're talking to could turn out to be a Osho admirer and the next thing you know is that the fur and fists start flying.
The same thing goes for that other grand passion of Indians — cricket, particularly of the IPL variety. Was that last match fixed or not fixed? Is such-and-such in cahoots with bookies or isn't he? Nope, cricket has become an explosive minefield where not only angels but even fools fear to tread.
Movies ? What about movies as a safe topic of conversation? You never know. The movie you say you loved might be one that some group or other is up in arms about and wants banned for hurting religious/community/cultural sentiments and before you know what's what, you find yourself being punched in the face.
No one's going to punch you in the face for saying how hot it is when it's hot. Or how cold it is when it's cold. Or how rainy when it's raining. Thank God for weather. For without it we'd literally be at a loss for words and have nothing to converse about. Or, in this case, to write about. =)

FAQ

These are some of the questions, in no particular order that people ask me. So next time when we meet virtually or face to face and both of us are looking at our cellphones and thinking about the next thing to talk, you could take a pick from these questions. I have mastered most (99.99%) of the answers to these questions.So go ahead take your pick.

WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR DINNER?

HAVE YOU EVER CUT YOUR HAIR ?

WHAT TIME IS IT?

DOES MY ASS LOOK FAT IN THESE JEGGINGS?

DO YOU WORSHIP COWS ?

WILL YOU TAKE MY PICTURE ?

HOW DO YOU SAY YOUR LAST NAME ?

WHY IS IT 2 CENTS WHILE GIVING INFORMATION AND A PENNY FOR A THOUGHT. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH ALL THOSE SAVED PENNY'S ?

CAN I BUY A VOWEL?

ARE WE THERE YET?

IF TRAIN A LEAVES THE STATION GOING 60 MILES PER HOUR AND TRAIN B LEAVES ONE HOUR LATER GOING 85 MILES PER HOUR, HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TRAIN B TO CATCH UP WITH TRAIN A?

WHO?

WHERE DID YOU GO TO SCHOOL?

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW? 

Sample Taxonomy of Tax evaders

Wheeling-dealing politicians don’t generally have much time for literature, or even for popular pulp fiction which might be described as litter-ature. But it’s possible that today’s scamsters could take a page or two out of William Shakespeare’s book. Or, more specifically, his book of accounts regarding his commercial dealings.
According to a recent study conducted by a team of literary historians, the Bard of Avon was, measure for measure, one of the most adept tax evaders and blackmarketeers of his times. Describing the patron saint of English literature as a “ruthless businessman who did all he could to avoid taxes, maximize profits at others’ expense and exploit the vulnerable, while also writing plays about their plight to entertain them”, the study narrates how over a 15-year period the poet-playwright amassed a fortune by hoarding and selling food grains at “inflated prices to neighbors and local tradesmen”. Though once prosecuted for his illegal activities, he managed to get himself off the hook and went on to retire in 1613 as the “largest property owner in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon”.
The politicians whose pro-common man rhetoric often masks their underhand dealings might find an affinity with the dramatist who duped his audiences by deftly lightening their purses even as he held them spellbound by his verbal virtuosity that convinced everyone that everything was as you like it and that all’s well that ends well.
Indeed, inspired by the study which, unintentionally, draws a parallel between the Elizabethan playwright and those who script the political scenario of 21st century, academics could open up a new line of inquiry as to the real identity of the man known to posterity as William Shakespeare.
From time to time, various attempts have been made to prove that the poems and plays attributed to Shakespeare were actually penned by someone else altogether. The list of surrogate Shakespeares includes the philosopher Francis Bacon and the contemporary dramatist Christopher Marlowe. Bardolators – as Shakespeare fans are called – have pooh-poohed such claims as a tempest in a teacup, and a comedy of errors, if not a midsummer night’s dream
All this squealing but I still have to file my taxes. Sigh!!
Oh No ! Wait I have 4 more days .
Procrastination – Thy name is ....

Thy name

On 8th March, 2013, I became a proud “bua“/Aunt (my cousin gave birth to a really pretty angel) .I popped the question in high pitched excited tone the day she was born “What do we call her  ?" I was asked for suggestions and I did my homework and here are my 2 cents (Rs 4 in INR) :

When Juliet said “What's in a name ? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." Shakespeare was definitely deluded!!
As I dig through Wikipedia entries, I realize increasingly, parents are giving their children unconventional, made-up names which are not linked to any specific language or cultural tradition and could belong to any part of a cosmopolitan planet. Saddle a little kid with a name like Subharnarekha and likely as not she'll grow up and emigrate to Antarctica, or Adelaide, or Kotakinabalu, where everyone, starting with herself, will call her Subs for short, and also for long.
No, made-up names, which sound good and are easy to pronounce in any language you like, including Esperanto, are definitely a yes-yes, as distinct from a no-no. The name that identifies you should be like your fingerprint: exclusively yours and yours alone, as individualistic and un-interchangeable as you know yourself to be.
A made-up name doesn't carry unnecessary and sometimes inconvenient baggage. A child named after a well-known politician, say, might well be embarrassed in later life to be the namesake of a politician caught out in a major scam or scandal, as well-known politicians seem increasingly likely to be.
History has a way of turning heroes into villains. Unlike an Adolf, or a Stalin, or a Mao, made-up names don't run the risk of one day turning out to be politically incorrect. Free of the burden of history, made-to-order names — or designer names, if you prefer — are not about the past, but about a future which will be as independent and creative as the out-of-the-box-named individual chooses it to be.
Indeed, this business of unusual name-calling could well turn out to be just that: a mega-business, like iPhones or Twitter. Future jobs could include that of the professional name-caller, whom people would consult to devise an original name for them, much like people go to event managers today to devise original theme parties for them.
Lawyers and patent attorneys would also benefit, what with people registering their names under the Copyright and Trade Marks Act. After all, little use going to a name-designer, and paying the person a lot of money, if a couple of weeks later you discover that the person next door has pinched the name you've chosen so that there are now not one but two Ulianilonias, or Zingaloos, or whatever, on the block, whereas by all intellectual property rights there should only be one, your Ulianilonia, or your Zingaloo, or your whatever.
Numerologists will ensure that the name you chose is not only one-of-a-kind but also numerically calculated to bring good fortune to the person who is called by it. However, as in all things, moderation has to be exercised in name-calling. For instance, while Zyxwrut, or Aeiou, might be even uniquer than an Aadhaar number/SSN, as well as being numerologically sound, that they require a contortionist's tongue to pronounce should rule them out.

Some names are just too bizarre to be for real.
For example, what weirdo would end up being called Swati?

Duh!

Out for Launch

Poems-It takes talent and I believe a different wiring in your head to write and appreciate them.I can never make the words falls so perfectly in sequence that would evoke a emotion in the readers head.My sister Sakshi on the other hand has several one them to her credit published in journals. What is my contribution to this feet you ask ? I can proudly tell you that I am the sole source of "countless nuisance moments" in her life which inspire her to write .(a.k.a vent it all out).
 Her latest penmanship made me think that perhaps she should bundle her writings and publish her own book. (After all my grandfather had several under his belt.They are out of print now but you can still request order them here Amazon Link1, Amazon Link 2)
We should celebrate her publication in style.Let me do a book launch for her book (Hopefully not like the one I attended in 08).
All I need is :
Invitations: I looked up my list of Facebook friends to invite.
I pinged a few and soon realized that the book-reading habit is not just dead but buried, with a stake through its heart so that unlike Dracula it can't rise from its grave.
Nobody reads books any more, not even on Kindle which was devised as a fashion accessory - like Gucci earplugs or Armani hernia trusses .Medical science has yet to establish that the reading of books can cause cancer and make hair grow on the palms of your hands. However, it is generally accepted that books are injurious to mental health in that they distract from watching Bigg Boss/Bachelor, playing angry birds, and catching up on the latest tweet that's doing the rounds .No worries, it would be a small cozy group.
Guest of Honor:
Undeterred, next on the agenda is finding someone to launch it. It had to be launched by a Celebrity, who should be a Big Name. It could be a politician or a show biz personality or perhaps another author. But the preferred kind of Big Name is the Big Name which doesn't fit into any particular slot and is known only to be famous for being famous. Like Kim Kardashian or Charlie Sheen.
{Coin Toss}
Heads. Charlie Sheen it is.I hope he reads my mail when he is sober i don't want my invitation to be swept under the carpet in his drunken stupor.
Cause:
It’s in vogue , to associate part of your earning to a charity. My mom does enough pro bono activities to support education, girl rights,unemployment and what not.So now its my responsibility to stand up for what i believe is a lost cause and needs attention.
Shoes.
I can already see the electronic scroll in font size 12 ,color neon ,font -Helvetica on the website “In aid of buying new shoes relief fund”.This should evoke enough empathy and drive sales.Yayy.
Website : 
I need a place to display the cause, share pictures  and get RSVP's.
Summary:To summarize ,the checklist for a successful launch are: guests, chief guest, cause, website and oh yeh the book maybe..just maybe.
Sorry need to go now, I need to update my out of office message to “Out for launch”.

In full disclosure, the checklist above is not going to get you very far with your book launch but I highly recommend Guy Kawasaki’s latest publication.

Bully

I have walked more than two decades on this planet.I have met my share of bullies. Some intimidate you with their physical appearance and others by their sharp remarks, whatever be their style the one thing that holds them together is the common mission in life to generate secretions of your Lacrimal gland (a.k.a make you cry).
Now that the thermometer on my patio wall does not threaten to burst, I decided to go camping with my pals. We reached early morning and hiked before the sunscreen started to wear off .After the hike, we sat under the shade of a tree which showed gradual sign of the coming fall. The leaves had started taking hues of red and orange. We all sat exhausted sharing a bottle of Gatorade when I felt a slight buzzing near my ear; I moved my hand to shoo off whatever it was. The shooing did not deter the sound maker, exhausted and not wanting to move a muscle ..i tilted my head to see the source of sound .It was a brown and yellow ugly hornet.
Yuck.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAaa” the hornet stung my friend Priya, she winced in pain.
Ah the bully.
I ran behind the hornet to shoo it off. I had forgotten the terrain and fell on the boulders. I scrapped my knees and the tips of my fingers were gone (Aha ..time to commit Crime) I was in pain. The bully just flapped its wings more fervently circled around me in mockery and flew away.
I had it.
I might have been brought down on my knees once by the bully but that does not mean I accept defeat. After being rushed to urgent care, I visited the closet Walmart and bee lined for –Pest control section. On the top most shelf laid a can with my mortal enemies face on it. I could not reach it and had to use the back of the handle of a rake kept in the gardening section to make it fall down. I paid for my weapon and luckily the cashier put it in bag ,as I did not want to even touch anything which had my mortals enemies face on it.
The next morning while we sleeping in our tent, I woke up with buzzing again. My senses perked up and I reached for the can SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Priya mumbled “You missed it “,No I did not .
I could already visualize it stuffed and mounted on my dining room.
The taste of victory is so sweet.
I proudly stepped out to see the carcass of the bully. I did not find anything.
Hmmmm.
Ahh I know, the ants must have carried it away and the entire ant colony would feast on it.
So my dear readers…..if you plan to bully me ….remember I might find that can in walmart and spray you dead.
Beware.
Grr.

Call NOW !! 1-800-CHEAT-ME/1-800-BELIEF

CONGRATULATIONS! Your mobile phone number has won GBP 7,500,000! SMS your full bank account details immediately to Mr 420 to receive the money!
Yep.
It's another 'pesky' message. And the peskiest part of it is that it assumes that the recipients of message - you and I - must be idiots to believe in what is so obviously a scam. Who on earth would be so dumb as to send off their bank details to some totally unknown person who, having promised them the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, will clean out the entire contents of their bank accounts? And of course the answer to that question - who on the earth would be so dumb etc? - is:
Plenty of people.
And no, they're not necessarily dumb. They suffer from - or should that be that they are gifted with? - something common to us all, and without which day-to-day life would be impossible:
Hope. All of us live in hope.
 Which is another way of saying that we make ourselves believe what we want to believe. What are the things we want to believe? As children we want to believe in magical kingdoms where the trees are made of chocolate and the rivers of lemonade. As students we want to believe that, after all those hours of study, we'll top our class in the exams. When we get our first jobs, we want to believe that we'll end up being the CEO of the company. We want to believe that our friends like us, that the new diet will help us lose weight, that if we brush our teeth religiously every night we won't have to go to the dentist for root canal treatment. We want to believe in so many things. Most of all we want to believe in belief itself. We want to believe in hope. We don't have much choice. Because if we didn't believe in hope we'd have to believe in its opposite thing; we'd have to believe in despair. And if that happened - if we believed in despair - then life literally wouldn't be worth living.
So, from childhood, we train ourselves to believe in hope, to believe in what we want to believe. That there are indeed fairy godmothers who will make all our dreams come true. That hard work must inevitably lead to success. That in the book we are reading, or the movie we're watching, everything will turn out all right in the end, and that the hero and the heroine will finally be united and live happily ever after. It's called the willing suspension of disbelief . And this is what con men, and crooked brokers, and racketeers of all descriptions, rely on when they take us for a ride (Congratulations! You have won ten gazillion dollars...!) They're not cashing in on our stupidity. They're cashing in on our hopefulness, the human ability to keep on believing what one wants to believe, repeated disappointments and letdowns notwithstanding.
Call it foolish gullibility or the sucker syndrome.
(beep.. beep)
Wait, I just got a text
"Invest today and double your money in three months.
Send your bank account number in a text to 1-800-CHEAT-ME or 1-800-BELIEF."

Mr Bain:Is Rain–boon or bane ?

Of the 15 days I was in Seattle, it rained for 13. Dark clouds gloomier than an economists forecast covered the skies. The locals hated the cold and the wet. Sakshi and I loved it. The locals thought we were mad to prefer rain over shine. Either that or we were high on Starbucks Chai latte (from the first Starbucks store ever ), a surfeit of which might well have hallucinogenic effects.
Our preference for cloudy skies over clear had nothing to do with insanity or Starbucks. It had to do with the grass being greener on the other side. In Scottsdale, we crave for raindrops to hit our car windshield, even though that might spell into multiple unplanned car washes. Seattle on the other hand, is a peacock heaven,the locals wait for shooting stars and wish for sunny days,the slightest glimpse of the sun makes the locals rush in hordes to hard, pebbly beaches where they take off their clothes and turn themselves into human barbecues in a tribal ritual called sunbathing.
Having left phoenix when it was a sweltering 115 F, Sakshi and I didn't miss the sun at all. And we welcomed the rain clouds that kept it away, ensuring that the mercury never went beyond a maximum of a very pleasant  60 F .
Sakshi and I love walking. Equipped with umbrellas which we'd had the foresight to pack in our luggage and thick-soled, puddle-resistant shoes.We walked along the banks of the river for three and half miles where tourists fed bread crumbs to a quackle of ducks. We stumbled upon Anglers, a picturesque café with tables outside .We played scrabble as we munched on our salad .Sakshi was leading the game .All my pleas that “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” is a real word were coolly gulped with lemonade.
With nothing left in my artillery I resorted to the last arrow in my quiver of whimsies .I decided to distract her with cute street dogs that bounced on the street .Ahh well it made her smile but not happy enough to be bad at the game.
Sheesh. I continued to struggle to make triple word scores when the gentle man sitting on the next table spilled his drink .The helpful staff was immediately trying to clean the mess and replace his drink but in the commotion we didn't realize that it had started to rain again and we had to abandon our game (I knew my faith in almighty will pay off some day).
So Seattle with your green grasses ,unplanned showers and yummy lunches, you made me realize , It's not just about walking, or rain, or sunshine. It's about how all of us yearn for that which we don't have. Those who are brown-skinned use Fair & Lovely to whiten their complexions, and those who are white-skinned spend fortunes getting themselves fashionably suntanned. The paparazzi-pursued celebrity seeks the protective cloak of anonymity, while the anonymous hunger for the limelight of fame.
Yes, the grass is always greener on the other side. The credit for greenery goes to rain .Phoenix eat your heart out.
=)

Meeting woes/Me eating s ‘mores

I spent all of last week trying to get hold of a person i needed to speak to about something that needed doing. But no matter what i tried - mobile , landline, email, facebook, twitter - i just couldn't seem to get through to him. By now i was desperate. What should i try next? Courier pigeons? Telepathy? Then, by sheer chance, i bumped into the person, in the mall. Where in the world have you been, i've been desperately trying to get in touch with you, i said. And he replied: Sorry, but i've been frightfully tied up; all these business meetings i've been having to go to, you know.
Arghhh..
Business meetings are what people who are very important in the corporate and professional world go to. And the more such meetings that they have to go to, the more important they become. I'm not sure which came first. Did important people become important as a result of having had to attend all those meetings? Or were they important to begin with, and so had no choice but to go to all those meetings because they were important, and meetings have to have important people in order to be meetings?
It's a chicken-and-egg situation, trying to figure out which came first.
And people who are not just important but very, very important, like Mayawati, for instance, have so many meetings to go to, all at the same time, that they build statues of themselves so that they can be at several meetings simultaneously in moorti avatar.
The other thing about meetings was that they had to be as far away from wherever it was that you normally were. The farther off the meeting you had to attend, the greater was the importance given to it and to you for having to go to it. For instance, if you lived in phoenix and you said you had to go to a meeting in, say, Scottsdale, Tempe, no one in the audience was likely to ask you for a date but drop a hint that the meeting you were going to was in Amsterdam ,Dubai or New Zealand and everyone present would know that you were a big toots and no mistake.
Every time I book a room for a meeting or have to move between building to reach the meeting room I always think why can’t we book beaches or campgrounds where we would all gather around the campfire and make some s ’mores.
Just some more s ’mory food for thought..

Waxed/Vexed mouse

My neighborhood library "Agave"  is my secret haven for the last couple of months.It is a small cozy place tucked in the corner behind a grove of mesquite trees.It symbolizes a place of comfort, solitude, free books and DVDs for me.
The librarian -Richard is a kind soul who is blessed with a balding head and a twinkle in is light grey eyes  which makes me always wonder whats buzzing underneath his graying temples. He has been at this very library for the last 8 years since his retirement. He takes great pride in sharing stories about how it rained cats and dogs the day the  foundation stone was laid and how in no time he had all kinds of people flocking in the corridors of the library .
Richard maybe happy about his visitors but since the last week there are a bunch of visitors that have been the reason he is popping aspirin as m n m's.
There is apparently a new mouse family in the library who get their nourishment from Shakespeare ballads and Newton’s theorem alike.So three days back when I went in to drop off the books I noticed the distraught look in Richard’s face. He shared his woes about the "brown" clan .I decided to jump in and figure a way out.
I went to the home depot and looked for all kinds of traps I couldn't bring myself to kill them . After looking the talents of many locals’ artists i decided to go with one that looked like an open book which had sticky pages.The idea is that the mice would get stuck on them and can be safely moved to their own sanctuaries.
Richard said he had notice 5 baby mice and 6 adult mice.so we placed the traps in different sections .I placed two in "romance”, one in "fiction" and a couple in children section.
We switched off all the lights and closed for the day .
In the morning we found a mouse stuck in the trap placed in the romance section and the rest of the traps remained untouched . I high-fived with Richard .The mouse was pretty calm his beady eyes looked unperturbed by our presence .We took the trap/books and placed them outside the library near the manhole waiting for it to run off.It just couldn't move .I went back to my car trunk and got my bachii (Taiko stick) and poked at the mouse nudging him to move but that didn't help either . Richard took over and poked harder with the stick and wallah.
We had a mouse with well waxed bottoms.
So much for all the Brazilian wax advertisements that flood radio stations.
Romance section seems to have been a hit so we planted another set the next day but caught none. In fact they all seem to have vanished.
My theories with Richard range from either the mice pride themselves in being the furry clan and didn't like our services or for all you know they might have gone to get the rest of their clan for the Brazilian wax .
We will see.
=)

Fitness SpREE

Our Fitness which art on treadmill,/ Hallowed be thy gym./ Thy aerobic come, thy work-out done,/ In Nike as it is in Reebok.

I remember a couple of years back when I was a self-professed atheist, i was nervous. For i was about to enter the temple of a new religion. The new religion – which according to some is the fastest-growing

faith system called Fitness.I’d heard of the religion of Fitness that was sweeping the nation, and of the temples dedicated to it called gyms that were popping up faster than pizza joints. But i remained not only an atheist but a gym-atheist, or a gym-nastik. Then one day the inevitable happened. A gym got set up in the housing society where i live. I hadn’t gone to the mountain of Fitness; the mountain had come to me.

There was no help for it. Along with all the other worshippers at the altar of Fitness, i queued up at the

door of the gym. But, as in the case of all places of worship, first i had to acquire the appropriate

investments, the ritual costume required for entry. In the case of the gym, this costume is called a kit,

the first and foremost component of which is something called cross-trainers. It turned out that cross-

trainers are not, as i would’ve thought, bad-tempered people who travel by trains. Cross-trainers are a

special type of footwear which you have to put on to get onto the treadmill, the holy of holies of the gym.

I went to buy cross-trainers. The shop was full of all kinds of cross-trainers, of bulbous shape and lurid

colours, like bullfrogs with strange skin diseases. They were all called REE-something, like REE-flex and

REE-play. I looked at the price tags and REE-coiled. Don’t you have anything called REE-jects which are a

bit cheaper?, i asked the sales assistant. He looked at me as though i were something REE-volting, if not REE-pulsive. In the end, i forked out what seemed to me a REE-markable sum of money which had me REE-ling for what in effect were nothing but what used to be called keds, except these were keds in fancy dress, and with a lot of zeroes added to their prices.

So in retrospect i got a fit because i wanted to be fit.

=)

PS/Words of wisdom:

The reason i skip the gym at times is not because am lazy (or i ran out of good excuses) ,it is because i

want to preserve my sports wear. Common, who does not want to be pinched ("New pinch") for old clothes .It has its merits. Try it.