When Life Gives You Lemons……

I don’t know whether life gives us lemons or not, but one thing for sure, all these consumer product companies are leaving no stone unturned in providing us with the yellow citrus fruit – that too, not in one or two or in dozen, but in thousands. Probably they are worried that some unfortunate soul may miss out, in case if life does not provide him/her with lemons. So they make sure that everyone gets it in ample, from all possible sources. What a noble thought! Bless them!

Journey – From Thoughts To Words.

WOW: 30 Minutes Timer To Just Write

(How much time do you take to write a blogpost? Sometimes the words just flow while sometime it remains in the draft for a long time in the quest for perfection. This weekend, how about setting a timer for 30 minutes and just write.)

 

This business of writing is an altogether different ball game. Yes what is said here is true: When you are least ready to write, ideas, words and what not – everything rushes in at a whirl-wind speed. And when you have all the peace, quiet and time in the world – Blank!

#Names.

What the great Bard said is true, the rose by any other name would smell as sweet. However, if the quote is turned around or applied to human beings, would it prove equally true? I mean, is it necessary that a person by the name Rose would display a rosy disposition? In reality, it could be more thorny than anything else!

Mothers of the Other World!

I am in absolute awe of these ‘mothers’ of the ‘other’ world. By other world, I mean the Ad world. One thing common about these mothers shown in the Ad world is, — they all are great, simply great!

I truly envy the tooth-paste ad mom, who worries about the cavities caused by chocolates. No, nothing wrong in worrying about cavities. The ‘wonderful’ thing is the way she can afford to just sit pretty with a box of chocolates next to her, waiting for the stars of her life to come home with stars on their report-cards. How a mother of two kids can coolly sit with not a single crease on her face or on her clothes – with absolutely nothing to do, but only wait with a box of chocolates! At least, I have never come across any such mum in real life. (Here I’m talking about the commonly found common mothers and not the rare specimens adorning the rarefied atmosphere!)

Image Source

Then there is another tooth-paste mom with a long list of ‘Ayurvedic’ ingredients in her tooth paste. Her entire family clamors around her appreciatively, as if she has concocted ‘THE’ recipe of the year. But then, it probably is a ‘complete meal’ recipe. Because, with soooooo many ingredients (and that too, all healthy ones), even if you eat just that tooth-paste, it would be more than a filling meal. (And if you like some fruit after your meal, just gulp a spoonful or two of any available shampoo – nowadays they all are so full of fruits! But that’s beside the point)

There is no dearth of Super-mums in this world – the extra-protein mom, the-I’ll-also-fall-with-you mom, jam-n-ketch up tiffin moms, clean-shiny clothes moms, shoo-the-small-hunger-mom, the list is endless—-

Another set of ‘wonder’ mums are the ‘antiseptic soap’ mothers! Here the key word is ‘confidence’. After playing in the rain, mud-pools etc., the kids gleefully announce their dripping, drenched arrival – fully confident that their mother would not shout at them, not even get a little cross at their antics. And they are right! The mother so happily plays ‘catch the soap’ with the kids – because, she is completely confident that the antiseptic soap would prevent any and all the ailments caused by the ‘water sports’. All? Really? A soap stops all the diseases! Then what the doctors and pharma companies are for? Please pardon my lack of faith. Probably the buried and hidden microbiologist in me is responsible for this scepticism.

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Another mom advocating the same product has a grown-up son and just because the mother says ‘Yo’ she is certified (in sunny boy’s eyes) as ‘cool’ and then the otherwise lazy, supposed to be dirty son immediately obeys his mom. Has to! Well, is it that easy to get the-we-have-a-mind-of-our-own teenagers to obey just by the virtue of a soap?

All in all, I thank my stars that no such ads were there on the horizon (rather, television) back during my child-rearing years (or else I would have had to answer some tough questions about me and my actions viz a viz these ads). Thank God, my parenting years were over before the advent of these super ad-moms!

The Deluge (II)

Hello once again! So, we were talking about the ‘Whatsapp forwards’ (I am not sure about you all, but at least I was). The variety available here is simply mind-boggling, to say the least! And the speed with which they proliferate! If you read one message or a video in one group, within a few minutes the same thing pops out of multiple other groups!

The Deluge (I)

You start your day and the first thing you do in the morning is to check your phone. (Who says I am addicted to social media or the phone? No please, …..it is only to check my mails, you see). And what do you find in your phone? Many many colourful flowers (or babies or puppies or kittens or….some such cutie cutie things) popping out of each ‘group’ to wish you a happy day. 

Poor, Poor Monday Tuesday

After the weekend, generally people are neither in a mood nor in any hurry to start the new week’s work. So, in my experience, new work assignments are not initiated before Tuesdays; earliest could be the second half of Monday.

Having nothing much to do, is a rare thing and most of the female brigade would agree with me here. Didn’t require much time to finish reading newspaper — and then I realised, the copy of the daily newspaper was so very thin. Hardly any material to read. 

imMobile (Part II)

So, carrying forward the saga of the Great Mobile, here is what happens at a super-mart.

As such, supermarkets are places infested with harried shoppers,  the long grocery lists in their hands or phones, even more longer check-out queues and the shopping carts which invariably create traffic jams.

imMobile (part I)

Lot many people must have already written about this and I am sure, by now there are tomes and tomes describing this great quality of the new technology. However, I can’t resist this urge to scribble whatever I see around me.

Looking at these happenings, I get pretty convinced that this thing called Mobile phone has some magical powers that mesmerise the users and make them forget the world.

Teach them not to hate, Please!

Quote: The greatness of a nation and its morale progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. — Mahatma Gandhi.

Thank God! I’m not mad ——- or at least there are others like me on this earth.
Last Month I came across an article in the newspaper (10th March 2016, DNA, From Editor’s Desk) – and I heaved a huge sigh of relief. So after all, whatever people might say, I am not the only one.

The article stated how the writer (Editor of that daily, Ms. Sarita Tanvar) jumped out of a vehicle and yelled at a man who was strangulating a stray dog. This saved the life of the mutt. Bravo! We need more such people around on this planet, more people who realise and believe that we solely do not own this planet, it also belongs to other living beings and they too have full right to live here — as much as we do.

Many a times I suspect that around the place where I live, I’m known as ‘Mad Aunty’ (Of course, behind my back). Reason? I can not stand cruelty to helpless stray animals and I never hesitate in yelling, shouting, fighting if I ever see any human torturing a dumb animal.

I try to visualise this through the eyes of the hapless animals. The various large groups of kids-n-moms waiting for their respective school buses, are a major source of nuisance. Just to catch up with their daily dose of gossip, the ladies drag their  children hours before the bus time. For some unknown reason, the entrance of our housing society is the unofficial, unwritten stop for buses of all the schools of neighbouring two suburbs.

So as soon as the females get their heads together, they conveniently forget all about their wards. Once the kids are inside the gate and society garden, mothers are assured that they are safe and no need to keep a watch over them.
Then, if the gang of kids notices(which is quite often) any stray dog, cat, kittens or puppies, suddenly the spirits of our warrior ancestors take over them and the whole unruly bunch of 8 – 10 children gives out loud war-cry and runs after the tiny kittens or puppies. Scared , if the kittens/puppies hide beneath a parked car, the kids bend down and throw stones, sticks, any handy ‘weapon’ at them.

Imagine! Tiny, one month old kittens, just learning to bounce on their fours — and chased  or assaulted by human forms that are physically fifty to hundred times larger than them — all shouting at the top of their voices,  wielding sticks as swords and throwing stones.

Tiny, sleepy, stray kittens Often I try to make the kids understand, (that is, if I ever meet them face to face and if they are in a receptive mood), imagine yourself in their place, imagine some demons hundred times bigger than you are running after you with big swords in their hand. How would you feel? No use! Futile exercise! I know they must be laughing behind my back. The attacks continue. If I see this (which is almost daily), I can’t contain my anguish any more and then I shout from my balcony. Nowadays the kids are smart, they know that I cannot actually do anything — not from third floor. So they just ignore me and continue ambushing the ‘enemy’ (Ohh, poor, poor kittens) That leaves me no other option but to call out to their mothers, so engrossed in their exchange, break into their precious gossip session and ask them to pay some attention to their children and control them. They coolly turn around and tell their kids to stop, or else ‘Aunty would scold’. They don’t tell them to stop because what they are doing is wrong. That is the sad part. The culture of a nation is defined by how it treats its animals. (And all that our parents do is, teach their children to throw stones at a stray, even if the dog is quietly sleeping on one side). Why do the adults pass on this legacy of hatred to the next generation, when the children are basically fearless, very receptive and open to whatever they are taught. Recently Google posted this picture of a baby elephant in Thailand. Isn’t it simply adorable? All animal babies are cute, no doubt. What is more important here is the way human babies are affectionate towards that baby elephant. Those children are taught to love animals and not to hate them. In the newspaper article that I mentioned above, Editor Ms. Tanvar quotes the study reports that state that cruelty to animals in childhood can indicate criminal murderous tendencies of adulthood. I completely agree with it. While working in Tokyo, my son once noticed a group of young, school-going children gathered around someone or something on the footpath. Fearing that some child might have got hurt, he walked over there. The apple-cheeked Japanese kids looked up, grinned and pointed to a chubby cat on the pavement, basking in all the petting and affection of the kids. The animal cafe is a well-known concept there — people pay to love the four legged ones. Wow! The small children visiting the famous deer park of Nara are not afraid of the deer and they actually run after the deer to hold them. The kids call the deer ‘san’ (Japanese word for deer + san). While addressing someone with respect, the Japanese use ‘San’. For example, Fuji Yama means Mount Fuji, but they call it ‘Fuji San’. For the children the deer also are ‘san’. This speaks a lot about the nation’s culture. It is not easy to suddenly change the mindset and start loving animals. But the least the parents can do is, to teach their children not to hate or harm helpless animals. So, here is hoping for a better, safer future for animals, where the ‘warriors’ are not taking out their battle-fury on someone who cannot speak or defend themselves. Image courtesy: Google + —————————————————————————————-