Potter's End

Posted on 8/5/2007 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Yes, it is over. No more wandering about the dark corridors of Hogwarts to the inevitable encounter with "˜You Know Who’. No more being flushed down girls’ toilets and running into creepy snakes in the basement. Now we have to return to our ordinary lives in the muggle world and it is time to take stock of the situation.

 

Why is it that Pottermania strikes children and adults alike? It cannot simply be explained away as clever marketing tricks or people wanting to escape into a fantasy world. The main reason, I think, is that these books appeal to people at different levels. You can read it as a simple story of good winning over evil, a schoolboy’s adventure series, a fairy tale with elements of contemporary commercialization or as a morality tale propagating certain enduring values.

 

In the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" JKR regains some of her magic of the early three volumes. The sense of forbidding returns and for most part, it remains touch and go in the match between Potter and Voldemort.

 

As we turn the pages, Harry grows in stature and Voldemort and his cronies, despite their increase in power, gets substantially reduced in the encounter. The same set of values that helped Harry gain the upper hand in his earlier adventures come into play here. These are essentially the power of love, friendship and overcoming ego, very much like Krishna’s advice to Arujna in the "Bhagavad Gita".

 

Without giving away the climax for those of you yet to read the book, it is only when Harry takes the decision to forgo all his attachments including his own self that he is able to overcome fear and succeed in his mission. It is indeed the fear of the unknown that keeps many of us from doing what ought to be done long ago, anything from learning to drive or simply crossing the street.

 

Enough of the serious stuff. I don’t know why Rowling maintains her fascination for the toilet as even in this book she makes her characters undertake a flushing down entry. Of course, it could be because she wants to depict the place in question as quite in the pits, I suppose. Anyway, the children will be fascinated by the idea of taking a trip down the pot, I think. It would be advisable to warn them not to attempt it at home considering the condition of

plumbing in muggle homes.   

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

What's cooking in my kitchen?

Posted on 7/3/2007 - 2 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Well, it’s that time of the year when one finds oneself minus the wife and two hungry mouths to feed (ok, make it three, I forgot to include myself). The better half entitled to a better life, once in a while we let her spend an extra few days at her home town.

 

Now the time has come to march into the kitchen, to the tune of "you picked a fine time to leave me Lucille, four hungry children and a crop in the field" immortalised by Kenny Rogers. Apparently this song has quite a few misheard lyrics and I like the one in which the four hungry children become 400 and worse still, crap in the field. Oh, what a stink it would have created. We could have had a lot of headlines in the papers like "Mayor calls for inquiry into crap", "Opposition calls the inquiry a lot of crap" and the like.

 

Sorry for the digression. Now the time has come to make that momentous decision. What to cook? I know that this particular question is quite capable of reducing many a formidable cook into a blob of jelly. Of course, it helps if you know only one particular concoction like the Sambar.

 

So onward to making of fine sambar. Take one potato and boil it along with "parippu" (lentils) in the pressure cooker. Now comes the delicate art of skinning the potato without getting your fingers burnt. The achieved, we have to look for some cutting edge technology to, what else but cut it into small pieces. Easier said than done. Our entire collection of knives seem to be rather blunt, in keeping with the general pacifist philosophy. The most wicked looking knives had come along free with boxes of mosquito repellents. These had of course turned quite rusty and were of little use. Anyway, a search of the kitchen drawers turned up something better and the battle was resumed.

 

It was soon realised that the docile looking vegetables in the cooked form tend to be rather formidable in the raw. Take the cabbage, for example. It has got so many layers making it quite a job to shred. The cutting part over, water was set to boil and the various cut vegetables put in along with the lentils and liberal doses of turmeric and red chilly powder and salt to taste. Then came a spoonful of ready-made sambar powder. The end product certainly looked like sambar and tasted much the same.

 

The children were polite enough not to comment. At one time, I made a simple "parippu thekathu", a preparation with just a dash of turmeric and onion and Chandu said it was quite ok and tasteless. So the next time I put sambar powder and voila, he loved it.

 

I managed to prepare some authentic "Pinapple Pachadi’ with the recipe downloaded from the "˜net. This of course involved breaking of the coconut. The ancient cutlass that we have is the chosen implement. For a while, I was in a dilemma. To use the blunt edge or the other side. Both were risky and if there is a miss, what will happen. So I tried both ways and managed to break it. The rest, as they say, is history. Moral of the story is that even if I do not make it to Michelin guide in a hurry, I will be able to feed quite a few of my guests.

Romancing the Routemaster

Posted on 6/28/2007 - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

A picture of cricketer Saurav Ganguly standing on the rear platform of a routemaster double decker in Belfast set me thinking. The bus seemed to be an exact replica of the ones that plied in many of the Indian cities like Bombay and Trivandrum. Way back in 1967, I used to travel by public transport bus to school. Those days Trivandrum(now Thiruvananthapuram), capital of Kerala, had a couple of double deckers with call signs A 1, A 2 and so on.

 

These were British Leyland with the coachwork of the classic routemasters of London. A deep throated grunt announced their arrival and it was quite a sight to see them majestically swing past the round-about just before the bus-stop. The boarding platforms were wide and generous, unlike the narrow doors of many of  the present day city buses. A curved staircase led to the upper deck. It was quite a thrill to occupy the front seat on the upper deck as it gave the feeling that I was driving the bus. The rear seat with its single glass window was another attraction. The only problem was that this was one window that could not be opened.

 

The lower deck had long seats placed sideways over the rear wheel wells. This was not preferred accomodation as one could not see anything outside because of the seating position. Later on, in Delhi, I got to travel on articulated double deckers. These retained much of the characteristics of the routemasters except that the drivers cabin was separate and the bus body was half mounted on the truck chasis like platform. These buses also made their stately way across the broad streets of  New Delhi and one could travel on the top deck keeping a vary eye for the tree branches that drummed on the roof and could poke you in the eye, if you are not careful. Unfortunately, these buses had to make way as they were found to be too slow and had a carrying capacity of lesser number of passengers that the ordinary single deck buses. Thus, they also rode into the sunset, almost two decades before the famous London routemasters took their final bow.       

Unsafe at any speed

Posted on 6/27/2007 - 2 Comments - Post Comment - Link

A colleague of mine died in a road accident last night. The car he had hired in Aurangabad to visit some temples, collided head-on with a truck killing he driver on the spot while he passed away in hospital. The rest of the four-member family were injured. Accidents, of course, have been happening ever since the invention of the wheel and even before that. All it needs to bring a man down is a carelessly thrown banana peel and we must remember that smooth, marble floors of bathrooms account for most causalities among the elderly.

However, it is on the roads that a normally docile, law abiding citizen gets transformed into a speed fiend or a tad careless about concentrating on driving. The car manufacturers, on their part, have been making special efforts to increase the safety features with every succeeding model. Most of these vehicles are easy to drive and so smooth that one would not notice the speed. The brakes also do their job superbly. Most of the time it is the fault of the nut behind the wheel, who, in his air-conditioned cocoon, feels he could do 120 Kmph on roads built for barely 60 Kmph.

If the driver’s Karma prevents him from wearing the seat belt, you should see his alacrity

in putting up pictures of Gods on the dashboard or tying sanctified threads or cloth on the steering wheel or any other charm to ward off the evil eye. But when it comes to the crunch, it is his alertness that saves lives.

Refusal to take any safety precaution like seat belts is a trait peculiar to Indians. The seat belt is the only restraint that prevents people from flying out of the windshield in the event of a crash. At least, it gives some time to God to think if you are worth saving. The same goes for those idiots who cut lanes at will, try to take short cuts through contra-flow situations and other stupid acts.

Most of these stuff one could find in any primer for safety. But it is time that all of us woke up to reality and not try and meet our maker before our time is up.

Heaven on Earth

Posted on 1/4/2007 - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Everytime some disaster struck and innocents got killed, injured or maimed for life I used to wonder whether there was a really a God who would protect all the good people and punish the wicked. As such, the crooks seemed to be having a wonderful time everywhere while the good ones suffered.

 

The "Bhagavad Gita" seems to provide the answer.  This is no ordinary book. It forms part of the epic Mahabharata that narrates the story of how the five "Pandava" princes were divested of their kingdom by their "Kaurava"  cousins through cheating in a game of dice and exiled for 14 years. When they were refused their kingdom even after the exile was over, war remained the only option.

 

But Arjuna, the finest warrior among the Pandavas could not bear the thought of killing his own cousins. He is then counselled by Krishna, incarnation of  Lord Vishnu to perform his duty  as a fighter for a just cause. This took the form of  the Bhagavad Gita in which Krishna provides the answers to God's relationship with all lving beings and how to free oneself from the shackles of pleasure, pain  and attachment to realise God.

 

Krishna at one place says as God, he is not attached to his devotees or want to wreck revenge against those who hate him. But then, what is the use of having faith in God? If you wholeheartedly believe in him, you will find that he is within you, all the time. When God is within us, we would not be doing evil and ultimately would be at peace with the world at all times.

 

One does not have to be a great believer to follow this simple prescription. It does not enjoin on you to propitiate God with offerings, pilgrimages or various ways of self mortification. On the contrary, it is enough if you do everything in the right spirit, without causing offence or inconvenience to others, to attain salvation.    

Terror Tuesday

Posted on 7/12/2006 - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Once again I return to the topic of terrorism. It is a nightmare that visits us ever so often. Finding it next to impossible or highly risky to target politicians or security installations, these anarchists choose to target the innocent and the defenceless.

 

As many as eight tourists, including women, were killed in grenade attacks in Srinagar, capital of the troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir. Just when tourism, the mainstay of the state's economy, was looking up, they had to strike. The message is clear. They  want  to deprive the people of their livelihood so that disgruntled elements could be recruited into their suicide squads.

 

And what happens to the causes they so fierecly  espouse? Every action of terror is met with increased determination of the authorities not to yield even an inch of ground. They also ailenate their own people who get tired of having to bear the repurcussions of  their actions.

 

Then the terrorists move into new areas, preferably big cities and indulge in low risk operations like placing explosives in trains or at public places. But once again they fail in their purpose as the people, picking up the pieces treat it as yet another accident and move on.

 

At best, all they can hope for is that a particular community becomes identified with them and the country slips into a communal conflagaration. But they forget that such things do not happen in mature democracies.     

I am back in a new avtar

Posted on 7/11/2006 - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Feels nice to be back. This would be a brief entry just to test if my new avtar gets displayed. Usually, avtars belong to the realm of Gods, who, from time to time, assume the human form to destroy forces of evil in the form of demons.

 

As far as my present avatar is concerned, I do not have spiky brown hair. It is black, turning grey. I do wear glasses, not the snazzy aviator goggles. But all said and done, better to have some sort of pictorial presence, thanks to yahoo than none at all.  

     

More on Water

Posted on 4/19/2006 - 2 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Water, so precious, yet so devalued. We think nothing of it going waste. So much is flushed down the toilet, so much from leaky taps, so much from garden hoses till faced with a situation of acute shortage.

I remember this aspect when I perform the daily "Sandhya Vandanam" after bath in the morning and evening. The "mantras" (prayers) recited while doing "Tarpana" (pouring out water from cupped hands) are invocation to God to make water available, as ever, today also to the entire humanity.

The point to be noted in this particular ritual, dating back some 5000 years to the early Vedic age, is that nothing is asked for oneself. It is for all that constitute the world""Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu" (Let the world be happy and at peace). Also, the fact that I feel connected to all my forefathers who may have performed this ritual through the centuries makes me happy.

I find that I have digressed a little bit, somewhat like a river that changes her course once in a while. Returning to the main topic, water holds significance for every major religion. Christians are baptised with water, Muslims have to wash their face and feet before prayers and there are various rituals where the idols in Hindu temples are bathed in the elaborate ritual "Abhishekam".

Coming to the present day, I think the Israelis deserve credit for developing drip irrigation and changing the face of the desert. It seems to be quite a miracle to think that little droplets of water could achieve so much.

WATER WORKS

Posted on 4/5/2006 - 3 Comments - Post Comment - Link

From time immemorial, paens of praise have been sung on water. Being one of the basic essentials of life, this particular element has been held in great reverence by all civilisations.

Even now, the water channel like markings on the surface of Mars, revealed by photos beamed by a space probe, have set scientists and lay persons thinking about the possibility of the planet having supported life forms.

In India, we have revered our great rivers for centuries. The prayer recited by Hindus before taking bath in any of the water bodies or even with a bucket of water goes thus:

"Ganga Cha Yamune Chaiva

Godavari Saraswati

Narmade Sindhu Kaveri

Jale Asmin Sannidhim Kuru"

This is an invocation to the seven holy rivers of India -- the Ganga (anglicised by the British as Ganges), Yamuna, Godavari, Saraswati, Narmada, Sindhu and Kaveri -- to sanctify the water.

Such being the case, it was quite nice to read about columnist Renuka Nararyan’s experience at Jordan river. She says standing on the banks of the river, it suddenly struck her that she should do what devout Hindus back home always does -- wash her feet and face in the water. While she performed the act, she found some elderly European tourists watching her, a trifle curious. Then she sprinkled some water on them, much like the priests do at our temples, as an act of benediction, received with equal reverence by the tourists.

I love this act of reaching out. It seems like a mingling of civilisations, cutting across the boundaries.

at times of illness and good health

Posted on 3/3/2006 - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

I have just emerged from some trying times. My 15-year-old son contracted jaundice just a week before his 10th std. board exams. Fortunately, we were able to detect it early enough. The doctor advised hospitalisation for two days so that he would be able to recover enough to write the exam. Being of a stoic nature, he did not seem to be much perturbed by his situation. He patiently bore with the jabbing of needles, being put on glucose drip for two days and the stay in the hospital. We were also able to get some Ayurvedic herb "Keezharnelli" which when crushed and consumend on an empty stomach in the morning brings down bilirubin levels. This herb,in a powdered form, was provided by a man who refused payment saying that it was an offering to god. Yet another person brought a huge bunch, still rooted to the soil, all the way to Bombay from Kerala and from there, a cousin in Indian Airlines managed to find someone, who herself had jaundice while appearing for her 12th std. boards and who was thus willing to help. This also reached us without much delay. All the time, there were innumerable phone calls from friends. The point I am trying to make is 1. grace of god is essential 2. one must have friends who help out in such situations.    

IN THE NAME OF GOD

Posted on 12/15/2005 - 2 Comments - Post Comment - Link

In these enlightened times, when the internet has made it possible for ideas to be freely exchanged all over the world, the portals of knowledge are wide open for all seekers, there are people who would have us believe that their God is the only true one and whatever evil that is perpetrated, quite often on innocents, has divine sanction.

 

They cannot be more wrong. Religion is not exactly about a God, who, for want of anything better to do, created the world, peopled it with humans and assorted animals, set up enough obstacles to made a peaceful life impossible and then sent down a couple of characters to preach peace and brotherhood.

 

Religion was born out of the need of human beings to feel secure. All of us want to free ourselves from the fear of the unknown, that haunts us from the day of creation. None of us know what tomorrow would bring, or even the next few minutes. Thus it is essential to have an all powerful God at hand to take care of things while we are busy at work or asleep.

 

Of course, God took care of things rather well. Apart from sending a prophet, son of God or avatars, he got some to write the scriptures on how to live an ideal life without causing much harm to fellow beings or the environment. He was also careful to place dire warnings against transgressing any of the edicts. So far, so good.

 

Trouble started when some men chose to break every rule in the book and got away. They also started to fight among themselves and claim that their faith was the only true one. None of these people realise that religion encapsulates the sum total of mankind´s efforts at building great civilisations. It is a pity that ill informed people are trying to mould the teachings of various religions to fit into their short term goals and leaving the entire humanity at risk of extermination at the hands of some misguided fanatics.

Hannibal, a cannibal's delight

Posted on 11/28/2005 - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Hannibal by Thomas Harris is thankfully a work of fiction. Not exactly recommended for the faint of heart, vegetarians or Peta (Promotion of Ethical Treatment of Animals) activists. It is about a serial killer on the loose (actually a sequel to "The Silence of the Lambs"), a doctor with a taste for fine things in life, good wine and food, including a spare rib or two from other human beings.

    Fortunately, the reader is spared of much of the cannibalistic stuff, except for an elaborate cooking class towards the close of the book on some brainy matters. There is Clarice Starling, an FBI agent, whose single-minded pursuit of killers and successful captures fail to exactly endear herself to some of her superiors and hence is in disgrace.

   However, she is the one who manages to track down the killer and ends up as his companion. So far so good. The main problem with the novel is that it leaves several things unexplained. There is this oh so clever serial killer who seem to have got access to all the riches in the world. May be he chose his victims carefully, killing only those loaded with wealth.

   Then again, in between bumping off all and sundry who happen to cross his path, the good doctor Hannibal Lecter (yes, that´s his name) finds time to delve deep into arts, history and what not. In fact, we meet him for the first time as curator of a museum in Florence, a position which he gets by simply killing his predecessor.

   The reader keeps meeting one revolting character after another. There is Mason Verger, a rich scoundrel who gets pleasure from torturing orphans, his dyke sister and ultimately we find that the only decent characters are Starling and Dr. Lecter.

   I loved the part where Dr Lecter overcomes the pain of torture by "going into his mental palace", quite a Yogic feat that one.

   I think the book should have ended with the killing of Mason. The next 40 pages or so seem so unnecessary. But then, this is one of the few works where evil sort of triumphs over evil, may be that is the way it is with the real world. None of us are exactly innocent, are we?

Delhi blasts

Posted on 11/3/2005 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Terrorists set of explosions at three busy marketplaces in India´s capital New Delhi, crowded with shoppers, on October 29 evening. As of date the toll is 63. Entire families, making purchases for Diwali, the festival of lights (celebrated by Hindus on November 1 this year or for Eid which marks the end of the holy Ramzan month for Muslims.) got wiped out, or worse still, ended up in hospital with severe burns and wounds.

The incident once again marks the callous attitude of those faceless ruffians who make your "friendly neighbourhood mugger" look like an angel in comparison. As can be seen, these fellows never succeed in their aim of creating terror. After the blasts, shopkeepers did not hesitate to give bed sheets or whatever cloth that was available in their partially destroyed shops to women whose clothes were torn away. The cycle rickhaw pullers took the wounded to hospitals. The brave driver of a city bus managed to throw out a bag of explosives and save his passengers. However, he sustained severe injuries and may lose his eyesight and hearing.

The very next day most of the shops in these spots were up and running. Customers came, though not in that large numbers. The terrorists failed in creating panic, communal riots, war against Pakistan or ill will against the government. Makes me proud of the country and civilisation that believes in assimilation and democracy.

The culprits are yet to be caught and they may never be apprehended. The war against terror is far from over. In the meantime, spare a thought for the victims, all those who lost their family members, those making the rounds of morgues trying to identify bodies and all those involved in rescue efforts including the doctors, nurses and other hospital staff, who continue to work round-the-clock to provide succour.

I think people across the world should decide to fight against terrorism by guarding against inequities in whatever form, try to open up closed minds and make the world a better place to live in.

earth quake

Posted on 10/11/2005 - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Earth quakes are something very difficult to escape. In any other kind of  disaster, one could run to safety. In the case of floods or, seek higher ground, or evacuate to safer places. But when the entire ground shakes or opens up in fissures, where do we run? In any case, where's the time. Whole towns get flattened within seconds of a quake.

   Thus, when the quake hit New Delhi last week, I did not feel any need to run out from my second floor apartment. It was only a gentle rocking we got here, but the poor souls in Kashmir had not time to run. Entire habitations were flattened and at least 50,000 people may have died in remote areas. In the meantime, the inexorable drift of the continents continue and the "big one" is yet to come.

   Anyway, the quake set me thinking. In Hindu mythology, earth is portrayed as a goddess, "Bhumi Devi". It seems when the number of  evil people increase, she shakes them off. Of course, there is quite a bit of "collateral damage" as a lot of innocents also get killed in the process. But in any case, if you are innocent and good, you could go to heaven and spend a while there till your next rebirth.

   Yet another version is that the earth is supported by eight elephants. Four for east, west, north and south and others to hold up the areas in between. When one of  these pachyderms shurgs after standing and bearing the load for such a long time, earthquakes occur.   

     

waking up with kids

Posted on 10/1/2005 - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

This is actually a comment I posted on fellow blogger Kay's entry "Wakey Wakey" about her travails while recovering from illness. Just as she nods off, a little voice pipes up wakey, wakey.

Reminds me of the time when my second son (now a strapping lad of 15) was about 2 years old. It was quite a task to make him sleep at night. The procedure followed was to rock him asleep by laying him down on my outstretched legs with his head resting on a pillow. Once he nods off comes the delicate operation of shifting him to the bed. This called for a great degree of finesse as any inadvertant motion was likely to wake up the little tyke and then the entire operation has to be repeated. Just as one slips of to sleep after laying him down on the bed and stroking his rump till the arms ached, a little voice pipes up "kottu" (Malayalam for stroking). Net result is that neither me nor my wife had a good night's sleep for quite some years. But will the kids remember any of this once they grow up and fly the coop? Or for that matter, how many of us remember all that our parents suffered while bringing us up.

Cherie's kiss

Posted on 9/30/2005 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

For once, Cherie Blair, who, it seems, had flunked in her geography lessons, (see news item below) got her directions absolutely on the dot. She has correctly identified the bridge under which she was kissed for the first time by a boy. Proves that the chemistry of a kiss has aided the learning process, not to talk of enhancing memory. After all, the happy event took place 40 years ago.

So now I understand the exact meaning of the phrase "kiss and make up".

For those of you who missed the news, it is reproduced below:

 

The first boy to kiss Cherie Blair has told of their romantic encounter.

 

And Stephen Smerdon admitted: "This has been under the closet for 30-odd years and for some stupid reason it has resurfaced now because of her saying this."

 

The Prime Minister's wife, who was born in Bury, revealed their secret while she toured stands at Labour's conference in Brighton yesterday.

 

Viewing a computer mapping system on the Ordnance Survey stall, she asked to see a map of the Liverpool street she moved to from Bury.

 

Pointing out the local park on the map, she said: "That's the first time I was kissed, at the age of seven, by a boy called Stephen Smerdon under the railway bridge."

 

Mr Smerdon, who now runs a pub called the Bull Inn, in Whitwell, Hertfordshire, told the M.E.N.: "We were together from birth near enough.

 

"I used to live at 4 Ferndale Road, Waterloo, and Cherie used to live at number 13 or 15 and she had a famous father.

 

"Basically I fell in love with her but it didn't come to anything. She lived in the same street as me until I left when I was 17. I had better not go any further."

 

Yesterday Mr Smerdon, 50, was very happy to kiss wife Claire, 40, at the pub they have run for four years. Claire said they had been married for 13 years.

 

Cherie's famous father was actor Tony Booth who starred in Till Death Do Us Part and was later married to Coronation Street actress Pat Phoenix.

 

Mr Smerdon's sister Sally Anne confirmed that her brother had been responsible for Cherie's first kiss.

 

She said: "Steve often talks about it. Cherie was so pretty, all the boys liked her."

 

The Smerdons' father Denis taught her at primary school in Waterloo. Last year, Cherie nominated the late teacher, who died in 2001, for a project to recognise the achievements of people in Merseyside.

 

The families have remained in contact over the years.

 

Cherie failed a geography test at Manchester Airport's Brighton stall, placing Humberside Airport in south Lincolnshire and Bournemouth Airport in Sussex.

attics on my mind

Posted on 9/28/2005 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Ages ago, as a child, attics used to be a favourite place for me. At a cousin´s house, it was, in fact, a small, well-lit room with two or three long open shelves

spilling over with books.

 

I used to sit on the polished brick floor and get a feeling of being prepared for a good meal. Time used to fly as the different characters in the books fought off demons, or just spend the day like the rest of us children, running about trying to catch dragon flies and making them lift small pebbles, jumping into village ponds for a swim, raiding the neighbour's mango orchard or trying to escape angry watchmen  or snarling dogs.    

 

Some other attics used to be straight out of horror stories. Since scary movies were relatively few and sequels were unheard of, we used to get our thrills from ghost stories, recounted with great authenticity as far as the facial expressions (upturned eyelids, tongue hanging out) were concerned and appropriate sound effects.

 

Getting back to the attics, these were usually festooned with cobwebs and dust all over the place. Broken furniture with torn cushions and upturned stools with their legs casting scary looking shadows completed the picture. Of course, even in these places, we were lucky enough to come across old copies of magazines like "Sports & Pastime" or the Reader´s Digest. These treasures had to be retrieved carefully, dusted and taken downstairs for a leisurely read.

 

Yet other attics were practically inaccessible. These were usually populated by polecats, a mysterious creature that remained out of sight. Its presence was felt mostly in the night with a creaking of the wooden slats, as if someone was ambling across. It always seemed to be ghosts and we had to cover ourselves with the bed sheet and close our eyes tightly to escape all those things that go bump in the night.

 

Nowadays, of course, much of the traditional houses with their graceful tiled roofs and roomy attics in Kerala have given way to concrete dwellings with no attics and alcoves. Cable TV and video games take up most of the time of the children and the ghosts seem to have vanished.

read on

Posted on 9/24/2005 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Ages ago, as a child, it used to be my greatest pleasure to race up to the attic room of a cousin's house whenever we visited Thrissur and bury myself among a fantastic collection of books. I still remember some of  them, especially one in which a small boy took a ride atop a butterfly to learn about the life of butterflies and another one in which two children suddenly found themselves transformed into ants and thus able to explore the secrets of an ant-hill.

   Then, there were those sets of 12 volumes, brought out every year by the now defunct Sahitya Pravarthaka Sahakarana Sangham, the first writers cooperative to be formed, I think, in the world or if not, at least in Kerala.

   These volumes offered a variety of topics including poetry, of course in Malayalam, my mothertongue. In one of  those, a little boy gets an interactive session, through dreams, with different organs of the body.

   I graduated into English with Enid Blyton. Despite all allegations of racist bias in her books, which I came to know only much later, I enjoyed the mysteries and adventures. Then of course, becoming interested in aviation, became a fan of Biggles.

   Having got access to good libraries at school, college as well as at the American Center and British council, a new world of books opened up. I even read English books at Max Mueller Bhavan where one could get accounts of the second world war from German writers. One fantastic book was a journalist's account of life on board a U-boat with rather irreverent observations about Hitler. There were also books by one Hans Haas, who started out by harpooning fish underwater in the sea and ended up becoming one of the pioneering underwater photographers. Thus managed to get authentic information about behaviour of sharks much much before "Jaws".

   Nothing like a good read for me, anytime, any place.         

reservations on reservations

Posted on 9/23/2005 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

In India, the Government seems to be under the impression that for solving any problem, all it needs is a bit of reservation, that is setting aside a certain number of seats, vacancies for those sections who had got a bad deal through the centuries. Thus, after independence, it decided to uplift the downtrodden dalit castes and offered them reservation in educational institutions and jobs. This was supposed to continue only for a certain number of  years, but when the politicial parties found that continuing with the concessions would earn them votes, it sort of  became a permanent feature. Now they even want to extend it to the private sector. 

   I have no quarrel with anyone trying to bring these disadvantaged sections at par with the more fortunate ones but why should it be on the basis of caste, community or religion? Why can't it be on economic grounds?

   The latest hairbrained idea is to offer free education to "only" girl child. If she has any brother or even another sister, the offer remains invalid. As a father of two sons, I protest as bringing up children, whether male or female involves expenses. This is apparently aimed at making the girl child acceptable as several communities have been in the habit of  commiting female infanticide. Now the reverse may take place and menfolk may soon become endangered.      

creating the creator

Posted on 8/17/2005 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

In the beginning nature reigned supreme. Human beings were only bit
players in the vast open air theatre, easily intimidated by thunder,
lightning, swirling, dark and deep rivers and storms unleashed by
powerful winds. Going to work, namely hunting or gathering a couple
of fruits and tubers, was a major hassle as no one was quite sure of
how to avoid ending up as dinner for the numerous wild animals that
roamed about.
   Man being man, must have consulted his woman, in the dark
confines of his cave and then, announced to his cronies that he has,
on his own, discovered God, who else, but Nature herself. Thus,
the Sun, that provided life-giving light and warmth, came to occupy a
very high place, the Wind came to be revered for power, water for its
sustenance and the earth became a Goddess. This particular form of
religion continued for a couple of centuries when civilization
turned cave dwellers into members of large socities who were able to
clear the forests and start cultivation. Improved weapons were able
to kill or drive away the wild animals. Nature was finally conquered
and God assumed human form and traits.
   This transformation is quite clear in Hinduism. The Vedic Aryans
worshipped "Mitra" (Sun) and "Agni" (Fire) among a host of
nature-related Gods. In the later Vedic age, however, Gods with Human
form like Vishnu, Shiva and female deities like the various
manifestations of Shakti (literally means power--so now you know who
wields the real power) became popular. The icons of nature like the
Sun and others gradually got relegated as minor deities.
   However, nature still reigns supreme. She is able to send
earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons and tidal waves as the occasion
demands and there is nothing much that man or God could do about
such phenomenon.
   But then, why do we need a God? It is quite comforting to know
that some all powerful being is generally looking after us. May not
exactly save us from a major calamity but all religions do show a
path of living life according to a certain norms and become an
integral part of civilisation.