Twenty- five Seven

Thoughts on a Monday Morning

May 30, 2022

So the merry month of May is coming to an end.

And with it the famed Alphonso mango will bid farewell. As will the flaming red Gulmohars and glorious yellow cousin the Rusty Shield bearer .

Alas this year, the blooms have been fewer and the heat hotter. Can heat be anything but hot ? Yes it can be less hot than what it is now.

Day breaks at 5 and the darkness dissipates slowly so that by 6 when the sun is up, the Koel has already started its wake-up call.

It’s been quite a while since I woke up before the sun. Almost a month to the day when I woke up to catch an early morning train for Pune.

The air is still and the fan whirs slowly. I wonder if I should get into a Yoga stretch or go back to bed till noon!

Well, I did wake up and spend the day in a pretty amazing way. A singing workshop for kids took me to the end of town in the middle of the day.

A sign of the times : if this was the distance we were meant to keep, there wouldn’t be any workshop would there ?

Though the place was air conditioned it was a ridiculous time for a kids’ activity – right at lunch time. Obviously it was planned by either a Britisher ( mad dogs and Englishmen) or by a childless anorexic.

This was followed by a light lunch or TUNCH ( if a meal between breakfast and lunch is brunch , the meal between TEA and lunch is TUNCH)!

At 3.50, it was hard to keep my eyes open so I had to take a 10 minute nap before the swim class to cool down after yet another hot day .

How was your Monday? Busy? Restful? Happy?

Take care and ciao.
Why shoot the kids ?

May 27, 2022

“If you don’t stop that RIGHT NOW, I’ll kill you!” is a refrain many of us have heard while growing up or even used as parents under extreme stress.

But we all know how hollow those words ring. None of us would dare kill a child, let alone one’s own. And then again, this extreme threat is uttered under frustration, after repeated attempts and requests to stop doing an activity that is irritating, annoying or even downright bad.

How then can school children be gunned down, time and again in remote towns in the USA? Isn’t that the land of milk and honey where the government looks out for its people, has welfare schemes to ensure that each person gets a fair chance, sends soldiers into foreign lands to bring back one of their own?

I can’t for the life of me, imagine how a country that is so advanced in medical science is a champion of the underdog ( so it proclaims ) can allow their young ones to be exposed to random shooters .

The recent shoot out at Ulvade Texas is a case in point.

I refuse to follow this case as I stubbornly refuse to follow all such killings because the motive for the killings doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, some trigger happy maniac has had the pleasure of going into a school and shooting at innocent children.

Isn’t this a form of terrorism? And what can possibly justify the killing of children? They are the least involved in any kind of political activity.

Is this what freedom of expression means? Does this justify the right to own firearms?

I doubt it!

An increase in violence

While killing has always been part of man’s DNA, is the constant barrage of news of killings, wars, murders etc, playing some kind of earworm in our heads? Or is the genre of video games where winning demands getting rid of the opponents?

I wonder if there is an increased exposure to violence in general with unmitigated supply of content that is violent whether it is audio ( music that is discordant,loud and disturbing), or visual (movies and books that are dystopic).

Or is it the change of traditional family structures that cause insecurities and deviant behaviour?

Whatever the reason, I do hope the next killer doesn’t target school children but go after someone who can defend himself.

Ciao
Flogging an old Blog

May 26, 2022

For the past several months I have neglected this blog. No particular reason. I just didn’t feel up to it .

I had made several starts and then stopped mid-sentence or mid-blog completely convinced that blogging was like flogging a dead horse.

I tried reading the AtoZ blog entries but couldn’t get past the first blog. My apologies to you dear bloggers, it has nothing to do with your content. It was all to do with my head. Something kept me from doing everything except eating and sleeping. And the effects are now beginning to show.

Finally, I decided to take up my mobile again and begin flogging my blog – even if it was paralysed into what seems like an irretrievable coma.

Fee Fie Fo Fum

So what brought this about?

A strange smell in Prima Donna’s bathroom. A smell that was unmistakably foul – the smell of vomit.

A thorough search under the cabinet, behind the water closet and even the gap between the wall and the mirror yielded nothing.

Then I spotted a ziplock bag filled with a pale blue substance that was neither solid nor liquid. I held it close to my nose and almost gagged.

Then I remembered. It was something called OOBLECK– a non Newtonian fluid (whatever that means).

I always thought that OOBLECK was a word to describe something akin to playdoh in the twiblings’ fantasy world of DEDARA.

My two grandchildren born six weeks apart are neither siblings no twins but TWIBLINGS a word coined by the family to describe their relationship. Bonded as they are by their almost twin mothers, they share a common language called Dedo or Pinkemoon ( depending on the mood ) so I imagined OOBLECK was a substance in their imaginary world .

“No Aji, “ protested Ma Papaya repeatedly when I insisted that there was no such thing as a substance that is neither solid nor liquid. After all, I had studied science till pre-Med level and had never heard of such a thing when we learnt about Matter .

“I heard about it in EPIC ,” she insisted, citing an Internet source that was sanctioned, nay, encouraged by the school.

I still had my doubts ( being the all-knowing Adult in this situation) and it was only today that I actually checked and found out what it was all about .

Now I have to find out what. Non-Newtonian liquid is all about! Why didn’t Isaac just eat the apple quietly instead of wondering what made it fall on his head !!!!!!

Ciao

With schools breaking up for the holidays you could easily try this activity to keep the little ones busy. But : Remember to keep a watch for a strange smell after a few days !