Foot-age

u cannot shoe it away anymore. throwing a shoe as a form of protest has dug its heels in. it all started with the former american president bush and the recent victim was the former australian premier kevin rudd. in between of course our own minister chidambaram faced it. the rash of these incidents is keeping the policemen on their toes. u cannot insist on people coming barefoot as it violates a cultural code of conduct - we cannot imagine to stand on our feet without them.

It will soon become fashion. if one is not thrown at you, your stock goes down that much. in fact u can sponsor it - as they do garlands - and pardon your foot soldiers to gain mileage or rather "foot" age. if it is lotto or some branded one, your stock goes up that much. though u would foot the bill, u should not pay him upfront lest he should take to his heels with the money. but train him enough so that it only passes by but actually does not hit u. in any case u better give him new ones so that even if it hits u won't lose your face! if it someoneelse's the disgrace is worse after all.
but not even a minute should u think that the other man will reboot his policies. while some people thickskinned as they are will say - my foot (i beg your pardon) and go ahead their unabashed ways, some others will be put on their backfoot only for sometime. they may in fact dismiss u a "loafer". whatever it is, the footrule is not to get slippered.
On the brighter side, this shows that the economy is not in recession - that they are not on shoe-string budget and can afford to throw them away!
not all are caught on flat foot when a shoe is thrown at them. Take the example of Madan Mohan Malaviya. when he wanted to start the Benares Hindu University, he approached the Nizam of hyderabad (then reputedly the richest man in the world). an incensed nizam threw a shoe at him. instead of taking offence, he cashed on it as history would tell us.
The City of Marikina is known as the Shoe Capital of the Philippines. no wonder its former First Lady imelda marcos fell head over heels over footwear. she gave a freekick to those who criticised her for indulging on foot fetish amid stinking poverty.
not all people buy shoes to wear them. ask those regions in china. the moment a model is released - lotto or vuitton or some such thing - they buy them only to rip it off, take a close look and prodcue lookalikes!!
well i have dragged my feet enough on this issue. before my readers become "slippery". let me post this.

sticky wicket

for many rain is welcome . the smell of earth after the first few drops is scintillating. rain is quite egalitarian - the rich and the poor are equally effected/benefited by it.
Egalitarian. nearly so. ask the pedestrians whose dress is spoilt by the speeding swanky cars.
that brings us to the roads. somehow, civic bodies time laying roads with the onset of monsoon. it's really an obstacle course. whole stretches are often washed away. at many places, manholes are opened to drain the water. good samaritans keep a flagstaff to warn of the danger. somtimes mischief-mongers remove it to cause well mischief.
beyond roads, the subways are motorists'nightmare. people nearby make a fast buck in pushing the vehicles out.
children splash in poodles much to the consternation of moms. many children throw away their raincoat hat - the coat itself if they can help - and make a dash for the pitterpatter. not children alone. but the young - those who don't dye of course - enjoy the rain - very often u see their pix in newspapers. why photographers pick only girls enjoying the showers is quite comprehensible. colorful umbrellas are out. the plight of those whose button sticks and the umb does not open is pitiable. esp in places like mumbai where the second btw rain and opening umb is very crucial as the drops pick up momentum in no time. (Umb are also money minting source. when asked why they spent so much on them for Commonwealth Games, the organisers said they are waterproof umbs!!!!) not all of course have duckbacks. polythene covers for rickshawpullers and for some others broken plastic buckets would do.
as rain falls, so do temperatures and tempers. but is no dampner on stomach. it in fact spurs tastebuds - demand for hot pakodas, samosas and bhelpuri would be high. if it's a holiday, the housewife has to put up with demands of tea - it really (d)rains her.
the plants rejoice even before it rains. in fact they herald them. afterall, rain water is to them what mother's milk is to the baby.
It always does not rain water - there are instances of raining crocodiles and frogs. the best of course was when it rained coins. the worst of course is the acid rain. the icebergs - very tasty and this writer and his sisters had great fun in collecting them.
rain per se is welcome but the thunder activity is not esp during nights - the spl effects render many sleepless. but if there is no rain ther's no rainbow.

rain also has its share of jokes. esp weathermen are often on a sticky wicket. Another is a bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask it back when it begins to rain.

not all are down if it rains cats and dogs. in fact oxymoron as it is a depression lifts the farmers' spirits. rain is very essential to a still predominantly agrarian society like us. in fact the first thing people talk is weather and veg rates. the next concern is the reservoirs' position. instead of augmenting the water position by strengthening and enlarging reservoirs and store it against a rainy day, they overflow, water is discharged into sea and a little later there is water crisis. weather sats have been launched to predict the direction and quantum of rain. but after the first showers people make heavy weather of it - what with flees, flies and muddy roads.
When i was child it's quite sunny if it remained cloudy for a longtime. there was an elderly woman near our house who would not eat without sighting sun. a very hot time for her. after a couple of days she would be too tired to come out and peek every other minute. so she would offer payasam to whoever breaks the news first that the sun broke out. really it was a sweet time!!!

hiatus

well started as ususual and like many with enthu but developed cold feet after a few posts. not that i hit what they called the writer's block - megalomania. can blame it on domestic preoccupations - but plain laziness. i took myself to task for that and would like to take the task earnestly. seriously many say but my take is sincerely. anyhow it cannot be serious since it goes against the very grain of this blog. with these few remarks to my - mostly imagination - readers, i remain.

intestinal fortitude

Well, nobody has the stomach to admit that he has, well, a stomach.
Stomach. The first person you remember is Lord Ganesh. His worshippers say the big stomach represents that of the Society - worshipping it is respect for the other man's - all men and women - hunger and needs.
But not all people's belly is that altrustic - for eg, lalu's provides us with fodder for thought!
There are some who reduce theirs to a dumping yard. Whenever, whatever they lay their hands on will see its way down the oesephagus. There are some who are simply arrested at the sight/smell of boiling oil - be it jilebi or pakoda. They believe in Jonathan Swift who said, "Better belly burst than good liquor be lost." You will be tongue-tied when you watch them gorge on. The safari shirt struggles to meet the hem of the trousers. If he wears a vest we are saved. Otherwise..the belly button stares at you.
(Belly button - exposure of which sexually revolutionised Indian cinema. Remember Helen gyrating with a chamki in it!).

On the other hand are the actresses who refuse to eat lest their pencil figure should get erased. One woman actor famously said she would spread the desserts on the table and only enjoys watching them. In some it assumes epidemic proportions (Lady Diana, peace be on her soul, was supposedly one) and leads to hospitalisation.
Many women lose their figure after wedding/pregnancies and also develop scars on tummies. They wistfully recall their halcyon days and squarely blame their husbands for the distended tummy though they are also partners in the game. But read this: I have a little bit of a belly, a tiny bit of pooch. It's the one thing I don't want to lose. I just like having some softness. If I lose that, then Tom might leave me. - Nicole Kidman.
With health awareness growing, people fall flat for tips on well a flat stomach. And there are a dime a dozen who proffer them. Many say a morning brisk walk will melt the fats and there is nothing to beat it. Yet many people cannot walk the talk for the simple reason of being too lazy to get up early. They simply don't have the fire in their belly to burn the fats. But push-ups have a leg up over morning walk, some aver. On the other hand are those who strive for six-pack abs with a killer instinct. Their gut feeling is now or never.
There are those who cannot digest the fact that they should avoid ice-creams. Their resolve simple melts away at the first whiff of the parlour. You are what you do not eat. Many villagers tell their doctors that they cannot avoid eating thick curd to round off their meals despite their sugar levels. Yet some cannot avoid red meat ignoring doctor's red signal.
Excess fat is bad not only for humans. Banks go belly up with the fat of debt and NPAs.

While some suffer from a convex belly, many people go empty stomach. Well i think we have intestinal fortitude for only this much, I think. I sign off.

choli ke piche

At a convocation ceremony in Bhopal, Minister Jairam Ramesh threw the dress down. Was it an instantaneous decision or he gave a dress rehearsal at home before giving the gown a dressing down? But he should be given credit for ad'dressing' the issue threadbare.
Dress of course has always been an emotive issue. Jairam is not the first one to throw out the foreign yoke. Much before him in a poltical statement - the Mahatma called for throwing away foreign clothes. and made a bon fire of it too.
And in Europe, the scarf is creating a storm as many governments want to ban it. Many organisations are unleashing "veiled" threats over the ban for many the scarf is not just a religious symbol but a question of identity. Or an assertion against state authority - a revolutionary gesture. A girl who decides to wear scarf in Orhan Pamuk's Snow says: "...what i was doing was worthwhile not as a defence of Islam but as defiance of the state.'
identity yes. in fact some dresses are identified with some people and if u see them u will remember the personality - the Mahatma's loincloth, Sri Radhakrishnan's turban, Zinna's suit.
Dress is not merely cloth. By the way one attires him/herself, you can tell which community they belong to, which region they hail from. While there are those Indians who cover their bodies with a sari - which is often said reveals as much as it hides - the westerns have a bare all approach. But the government could not bear this and banned the ftv. And if u follow someone else's mode, u would have some trouble - like the girls who cannot lift their hand in sleeveless gowns or blouses.
How to dress is a fast-changing dynamic. The joke was in Paris a woman was running home from a tailor shop. When asked the reason, she said by the time i go and wear this dress, it may become outdated. So fickle it could be. Did not Oscar Wilde say, “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”
Not only the dress, but the undergarments too undergo change. While men (at least in South India) no longer wear trunks (loose shorts with a safety pocket - very odd when they shuffle the dhoti to remove money or bidis from it), gone were the stifling corsets. A frenzy of speculation ensues before Oscars or Filmfare awards - what the dolls wear - how much or how less. The Presidents' and Premiers' wives are constantly exposed to media glare. It's ok to guess/discuss what they wear, but wondering or speculating what's inside could be controversial - the song cholikepiche kya hai has raised such a storm.
Not all people are very particular of their dress. There is this character in a Hollywood film, where Unrsulla Andress sheds her dress so often- at the least "provocation" - that i wondered if she should be called ursulla undress.
Clothing also tells where people stand. U may strut in duckback, but many people make do with polythene covers to save their heads from rain. While some wear designer dresses, for some life has not altered much - they wear shirts and trousers of their fathers/uncles/brothers altered to their size.
Dress is a fashion statement - but parents know they should skirt the issue of selection when their issues grow up. The younger ones know what is in vogue and decide for themselves. Parents better pay and look the other way.
But principals of many Chennai engineering colleges may not agree with this. They wrapped up the issue long back - no t-shirts or jeans allowed and gals - only chudidhar. Violators may not be defrocked. But they are not only fined but their paretns have to go and stand before the managements with their heads down.

a sure shot

Guardian report: Ever since cowboys first swaggered onto the silver screen, scientists have been struggling to solve a conundrum. Why do the bad guys always get shot in a gunfight when they're the ones who reached for their guns first?

The Nobel laureate and quantum physicist Niels Bohr was so intrigued with the puzzle he came up with a theory: the one who draws second moves faster because he reacts without thinking.
******************
well does it need such a vast amount of research? it can be understood in simpler terms. the one who draws the gun first will have some compunction - for a second at least - because we have been wired to not kill (split infinitive, grammarians pl indulge me) fellow human beings. that moral ambivalence will give that much time for the defendent to hit back. in the case of the latter, it's a question of survival and again we have been wired to save ourselves come what may.
luckily, pathological killers - those with obsessive mental disorder to kill - are so very rare. they may go for the kill. most others are hired ones - ideologically or for money or for both. the others waver for a little time and get eliminated.

instead of this, it's a service to humankind had the research focussed on why anyone indulges in killing at all.

it's the same case with people who shoot their mouths off. the one that does so will be left feeling that he shot himself in his foot when the other man comes up with a repartee. see this from twitterature: i am propagating maoist agenda through my websie, an angry young man flares. oh so u r a dot commie, says the cool recipient.
not all people who have the gun will succeed in having their way. there was sri T. Prakasam Pantulu, first andhra pradesh chief minister, who bared his chest to the British guns and earned the title andhrakesari (tiger from andhra). the Mahatma instilled sobriety by his famous quote, "An eye for eye leaves the whole world blind."
so the culture of gun triggers mayhem (naxals r u hearing?) the best shot, as the Mahatma proved, is dialogue.

the lumpen elements called Naxalites kill policemen. policemen are quite egalitarian in this respect - kill men, women and children. they don't differentiate. shoot first, ask later.
man is many times an anti-social animal. the quest to achieve leads to violence. it's not pacificsm. but the principles of accommodation are forgotten. impatience has better of reason and hence bloodshed. sometimes murders take place over a pot of water.is it worth it? states fight between themselves for river water. india, pakistan fight over baglihar. let's remember live and let live will. peace is the offshoot of this attitude.

dew respect

dew respect

we are warming up to the thaw in the weather. as winter passes by, let us bid goodbye to it with dew respect. it's the lovliest season in chennai. with bountiful harvest and a plethora of festivals - christmas, new year, pongal, holi, the expression winter of discontent has no place here. the festivities ensure warmth and harness a sense of forgive and forget leading to a time of defreeze in relationships. well, well, the spurt in prices may chill us out, yet the ambience is of cheer and chin up. for many, winter solstice is an excellent time for spiritual connect. year after year, people gather at stonehenge and year after year come out with new theories on the structures.
the season is associated with grapes. but for some they are sour grapes. not ratewise. their constitution would not agree with the taste. but no need to crush them in cold-blood. they can give them a cold-shoulder and turn to apples - now u have desi as well as foreign ones - australian, washington et al. but remember not always is the axiom an apple a day keeps the doctor away. reports are rife that unscrupulous traders apply wax to impart shine to the fruit which upsets your health applecart. just scratch the surface (when the trader is not observing) and your fingernail waxes eloquently.
wonderful to watch children (and their young mothers!) going to school in colourful sweaters and monkey caps. the days being shorter, mothers will have some respite on the gastronomic front.
of course, there is the flip side. for eg, the sole cracks. many ointments to heal the heel. often u see people with legs in a bucket of warm dettol water to cleanse the soles. poor souls. if u happen to visit them during that vulnerable time, it may be a feat for them to jump to their feet to fete you. so don't stand on protocol. just blame it on their Achilles heel.

where r the bees?

hmm starting a blog is only battle started. how to attract audience is the major challenge every fledgling blogger faces. quite daunting. men/women are no bees to get attracted by the honey of a flower. but no writer worth his salt should give up or will give up. we are not chicken hearted though they may cock a snook at us.

first let me try with junior coleagues. ah. here is this boy who i should safely think owes me a little debt of gratidue. after all i have been quite considerate in granting him offs and leave. but how to nudge him? not so unabashed - as yet mark me - to directly cash my genorosity. yeah. here is the idea. how about asking a question or two on blogging per se? a good trap to lay. i patted myself and my breast swelled. not for me to put off action. i approched him. oh sir, i will read - enthusiasm writ large on his face - have u started a blog? oh let me see it.

huh i sat smugly. even before i could blink my eye, he closed the blog. what did he write? did he write at all anything? heart thumping, i opened the blog and found to my dismay a dry dreary "welcome sir."
next came a bonanza in the form of an univited blogger posting a comment - pl read it on the site - not going to reveal.

encouraged by this wiff of praise, i approached another junior colleague with better results. he really left a message which boosted my sagging spirits. again pl read it on the blog. He then asked me if i were writing a novel but writing on blog itself is novel for me ya.

but one swallow does not make a summer. and swallowing pride i will approach some more. not going to let my tilting prose wilt under indifference. i prod on.

blog and diary

well mulling over the difference between a blog and a diary.

a blog is a penultimate post of your thoughts. a diary is the ultimate. in a diary u can be naughty and haughty. u can express yourself without the fear of being laughed at, censured or simply given the cold shoulder, at least not in your lifetime. u can wash the dirty linen of your private thoughts, dry them, hang them on the page and well sit back and relax. but a blog is in public domain. u cannot fling your thoughts as u like. it's a carefully choreographed dance of thoughts.

but both give an outlet to let off the steam - creative and pro-active. one advantage in steaming off is it will leave u balanced. the choler gone the color is back on your cheeks.

blog is also staying connected. cross-pollination of ideas. u comment and commented upon. results in fecundity of mind. the cross-current of ideas electrify u, stimulate u.

entering blogosphere

hai i have entered this rarified realm. why now? why not now? let's not quibble over these mundane questions. thought for a longtime if i should have one - already the sphere is resplendent with stars, starlings, comets and meteors. well i think i too can leave a blaze of trail. no i am neither a mentor nor a tormentor. just skim my brain and share the cream. with that lemme sign off. expecting to be in touch. Sreeni