Inspired to blog

Timepass meme while I wait for a real idea...

2009-07-09T10:59:00.002+01:00

A

- Available: Nope
- Age: Twice twenty
- Annoyance: Noisy music
- Animal: as in favourite? Dog.

B

- Beer: No, thanks.
- Birthday/Birthplace: March 1/Baroda
- Body Part on opposite sex: Smile
- Best feeling in the world: The last day of work.
- Blind or Deaf: Deaf, if I must make a choice.
- Best weather: Warm, but not hot, with a gentle breeze
- Been in Love: Constantly.
- Been on stage?: 2-3 times *shudder*
- Believe in yourself?: Yeah – for good and bad.
- Believe in life on other planets: Don’t I have to believe in other planets first?
- Believe in miracles: Godly ones, no.
- Believe in Magic: Hell yes.
- Believe in God: Yes – too bad it’s the kind of God I don’t want for a God.

C

- Car: Mitsubishi Shogun
- Candy: Dark chocolate.
- Color: Orange.
- Cried in school: In public? Yes, as a kid, I’m sure.
- Chocolate/Vanilla: Vanilla frosting on chocolate cake.
- Country to visit: Can’t limit myself to just one.

D

- Day or Night: Day.
- Danced: Never.
- Dance in the rain?: Prance, yes. Dance, no.
- Do the splits?: Never

E

- Eggs: Plain omelette, made by expert omelette chef in restaurants.
- Eyes: Mine? Small. Ideal? Anne Hathaway’s (“The Devil Wears Prada” actress)
- Everyone has: Something to whine about.

F

- First crush: Hahaha. A LONG while ago
- First thoughts waking up: Jeez, is it getting up time already?
- Food: Vegetarian.
- Greatest Fear: Losing my loved ones.
- Giver or taker: Changes according to mood.
- Goals: Yes. One or two.
- Get along with your parent(s)?: Yep.

H

- Hair Colour: Brownish reddish black (and some white).
- Height: 5’8”
- Happy: Mostly.
- How do you want to die: Peacefully and painlessly.
- Health freak?: Would like to be.
- Hate: Religious fanaticism.

I

- Ice Cream: Strawberry with real strawberry pieces in it. Or vanilla made with real vanilla beans.
- Instrument: Favourite to listen to – flute.

J

- Jewelry: Preferably not.
- Job: Would like one that pays better with less work. Any offers?

K

- Kids: No thanks.
- Kickboxing or karate: Don’t know don’t care.
- Keep a journal?: Used to.

L
- Love: All that’s mine.
- Laughed so hard you cried: Yep.
- Love at first sight: Living proof.

M

- Mooned anyone?: Nope.
- Marriage: Only if you can be faithful.
- Motion sickness?: Never, and I’m so pleased about it!

N

- Number of Siblings: 2
- Number of Piercings: 2

O

- One wish: That religion didn’t exist. Would save human beings a lot of trouble.

P

- Place you'd like to live: On my own island (with all possible amenities available, natch).
- Perfect Pizza: Don’t much like pizza.
- Pepsi/Coke: Coke.

Q

- Questionnaires: Love ‘em, especially this kind. Not official ones, though.

R

- Reason to cry: *sigh*
- Reality T.V: Call it reality? Hahahaha!
- Roll your tongue in a circle: No.

S

- Song: current favorite – As long as we’re clear that it’s MY current favourite, not on the charts… Sunidhi Chauhan’s “Kaisi Paheli Zindagani” from the movie Parineeta; and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”.
- Shoe size: 7
- Slept outside: Often as a kid.
- Seen a dead body? A few, unfortunately.
- Smoked?: A few puffs as a teenager.
- Skinny dipped?: Nope.
- Shower daily?: Yep. For the hair if nothing else.
- Sing well?: Nope.
- In the shower?: Occasionally
- Swear?: Swear that I sing in the shower? Or swear in the shower?
- Stuffed Animals?: Yes please.
- Single/Group dates: Party for two.
- Strawberries/Blueberries: Strawberries.
- Scientists need to invent: A personal time-adjusting machine – “Slow” setting for good times and “speed up” for bad times.

T

- Time for bed: When I’m sleepy.
- Thunderstorms: Time for samosas.
- TV: Scrubs, Law & Order (all of them), Friends, and many more.
- Touch your tongue to your nose: Nope.

U

- Unpredictable: How do I predict that?

V

- Vegetable you hate: Aubergine/brinjal/eggplant
- Vegetable you love: Potato (but there are many others too, honest!)
- Vacation spot: Ever-changing.

W

- Weakness: Food.
- When you grow up: Hope never to.
- Worst feeling: Losing my dad.
- Wanted to be a model?: No.
- Where do we go when we die: To your favourite childhood place.
- Worst weather: Wintry sleet and icy winds.

X

-X-Rays: Yep, had ‘em done a couple of times.

Y

-Year it is now: 2009
- Yellow: Greedy fellow :D

Z

- Zoo animal: Platypus (not that I’ve seen one)
- Zodiac sign: Pisces

I dont get it

2009-07-06T08:32:00.001+01:00

There are plenty of things that get my goat, but none so quickly as the “marked down” items in supermarkets – the “reduced for quick sale” shelves, which display items that are past their sell-by dates. That wouldn’t be so bad in itself, except that when it comes to fresh (!) produce, the fruits and vegetables there are not just past their sell-by dates, they’re well past the use-bys too. Sometimes the only thing they’re fit for is the rubbish bin (or compost bin, for the greener type of folk) because honestly, the fruits or veg are literally decaying, putrefying under the plastic wrap.

And yet the supermarkets have the gall, the absolute effrontery to sell these nasty worm-food items with stickers that say “half price”! Is there nothing they wouldn’t try to make quick buck (or quid) off? I can’t believe people would pay for these things. It takes the concept of “basics” to disgusting depths and my dearest dream is to package the rotting items for special delivery to the multi-billionaire Lord Whosits and Sir Whatsits who own these behemoth supermarkets. Preferably personal delivery, thrown with accuracy and care at their fat-cat smirking faces.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next, fashion – women’s fashion, to be precise. Form-fitting clothes are the norm, with t-shirts and tops outlining the female shape, sometimes cut low in the front to display cleavage. But if there is any hint of nipples in that outline, watch out - that is a fashion no-no. I don’t get it. And which fashion expert decided that it was unacceptable, anyway?

Why is it acceptable for the shape of the breast to be outlined, but not the nipples? I’m talking about visibility through the cloth – not skin displays! What’s the big deal about nipples, anyway? They’re part of the breasts. Everybody knows that. Everybody has them (excepting the rare anomalies for whatever reason). So why do the same women who wear fitted or tight clothes go to such efforts to disguise the presence of their nipples at the same time?

“They attract men’s attention” doesn’t cut it as a reason – that’s what the tops/tees do in the first place.

Any rational explanations, folks?

Sunday Scribblings - "Toys"

2009-07-01T08:30:00.000+01:00

I don’t think I had many toys when I was growing up, mainly because I begged for books instead. I do remember having one doll – with long golden hair - which mostly lived in the cupboard because I didn’t play with it much. For a while the doll remained in the original packaging as my parents didn’t want the doll to get dirty. But the packaging was eventually discarded.

The doll had a comb for its hair, but that idea didn’t work very well because the nylon hair had a tendency to get terribly tangled. I didn’t have the patience to untangle it - which is perhaps the reason for the mysterious hairstyle change that the doll underwent one day.

I honestly don’t remember how it happened, but the doll’s hair became short in the back, with uneven bangs over the forehead. I admit to having had a fascination with the “Sadhana cut” and with Zeenat Aman’s hairstyle in the movie Qurbani, and I remember my dad’s amused remark that I had probably played hairdresser to the doll – but I protested my innocence then and I maintain to date that I have no recollection of any such events... if the deed was indeed mine, so to speak.

In any case, the doll’s appearance was not improved by its shorter hair. In fact, it became sort of bald, revealing the little holes in its cranium which had once held the golden strands. The doll remained shut away from everyday life thereafter, although it dutifully traveled with us wherever my dad was transferred. I don’t recall what happened to the doll in the end – I think perhaps that a younger cousin took possession of it, bald head and all.

The one type of toy that I did play with were cardboard dolls. I had received a couple of books as birthday presents, which had dolls made of cardboard with dresses and hats made of paper, that I could cut out and attach to the dolls by means of little foldable tabs. There were only a few dresses, and I soon got bored with their limitations. That was when I began drawing and colouring my own dresses for the dolls.

When the original cardboard dolls eventually lost their heads and hands, I began drawing my own version of the dolls – very basic, with their arms and legs ending in bland curves, with no hands or feet.

But soon I evolved a thumb for the hands (but no fingers) and a foot shape for the legs (but no toes) because it was difficult to draw gloves or boots for bland curves, and even more difficult to attach them to the cardboard doll.

At first I painstakingly cut out the clothes that I’d drawn and coloured, fitting them to my basic dolls to check if the designs (!) looked nice on them. Fairly soon this grew to be a painfully boring process – especially if I forgot to draw or cut out the tabs, which made it impossible for my dolls to model the clothes – and I stuck to merely drawing and colouring the various dresses, gowns, swim suits, hats, boots, shoes and other accessories on plain sheets of paper. In the end it wasn’t the dolls that interested me, it was the artwork involved. I enjoyed doing this for a while, especially when a friend of my mother admired my “creativity”, remarking that I could be a fashion designer.

Unfortunately, though, books turned out to be consistently much more interesting, and the few thoughts I’d had about fashion fizzled out completely, replaced by a strong desire to become a journalist (helped along by the fact that my best subject in school was English composition).

And so the loss to the world of fashion design came about... although I can't really claim that the world of journalism gained anything either.

Oh well.

PS. Please forgive the extreme amateurishness of the illustrations. I can't draw with a mouse!

Omigodomigodomigodomigodomigod

2009-06-11T20:59:00.003+01:00

OmiGOD (*please imagine your best Rachel-from-F.R.I.E.N.D.S accent here*)! I'm growing blueberries! I mean, my blueberry PLANT is growing blueberries! I have a blueberry plant which apparently didn't die over the winter, which I didnt glance at over the spring, and which I didn't bother watering in the summer, because I simply didnt even imagine it was a blueberry plant, even when amma asked me if it was a blueberry plant growing in the pot (what I said to her was "No way, ma, it's growing too sturdily, it's just a weed" - but blessed be, I didnt rip the plant out by the root and discard it... I just let it flourish away) - and now it IS a blueberry plant, which had flowers, and the flowers are now growing into actual blueberries! I have a blueberry plant, folks! I'm the original Accidental Gardener - with more accidents in the garden (not personal ones, just gardening ones) than accidental gardens, but who cares, I'm going to have a dozen blueberries from my own plant, soon!

Here are a few pics:

Don't look now, but you're being followed

2009-06-01T12:16:00.007+01:00

And by that I mean me - I'm all of a twitter because I'M being followed.

(Wasn't that just the bestest hint ever, ever, of what this post is about? I'm so pleased with the subtlety of it!)

Yes, I speak of Twitter, where I registered a few months ago. I haven't done anything with it since because I'm not quite sure what to DO with it. I know what it's meant to be - a way to update people on what I'm doing in 141 characters or less. But I really, really, REALLY don't think anyone would be interested in any updates I have, because there just isn't anything of interest to anyone. Not that I'm aware of, at any rate.

"I sneezed 5 times in succession just now" isn't about to make anyone feel they want to know more, is it?

("The tissue I used is sodden so I now have a fresh one" - on the off chance that anybody might want an update on the previous.)

So, this being the case, why do I keep getting messages in my inbox saying that "so and so is now following you on Twitter"? Why? It's not even as if most of them are people I know, because they arent. I dont know Joselyn Hsiu (my latest follower), for instance, and I'm certain she doesnt know me - and yet she's following me. I might understand this if I was an active Twit(ter? Twitterer?) but I'm not. So why are people following me?

I can only conclude - unless someone can provide a better explanation - that even when I'm saying and doing nothing, I'm still interesting as all heck.

So there.

Waiter, there aren't enough slugs in my salad

2009-05-29T11:04:00.006+01:00

"And what about the slugs, you wonder? They’re not so very different, anatomically, and they come shell-free. In the Hebrides they used to chop up the big black ones, salt them and store them for use in the hungry days of the winter."

I can't believe I actually read the article in its entirety, but if that particular paragraph had appeared at the beginning rather than at the end, I would probably have been too busy yarking up breakfast to finish reading the article. As it is, I'm feeling very queasy, and the banana and pear I ate a couple of hours ago are uneasily close to making a reappearance from the same orifice as they went in - not the normal state of affairs, I assure you.

Bad enough to think of people eating snails... but slugs? Slugs!!! Urgh!

If snails and slugs were quite the delicacies that the author of the article suggests they are, wouldn't there be a lot less of them in gardens everywhere? Wouldn't people be pouncing on them for a snack, or at least with the intention of selling them in farmers markets or exotic food outlets?

Instead of being boiled alive in the kitchens of gourmets, these slimy, disgusting little beasts are rife in my garden, nibbling at the tender leaves of things I'm trying to grow and ignoring all the weeds (which, for information, I am trying NOT to grow!)

I'm going to go out on a limb and bet that these abominations of creations originated from God's nose pickings, probably during a time when He had a really phlegmy cold. No religious tome of any of the world's religions is going to mention this, though... because you can't reveal such things to the faithful without compromising God's Omniscience and All-Powerfulness - not to mention His Dignity.

Sunday Scribblings - "Worry"

2009-05-22T15:01:00.001+01:00

Can your earlobes get detached and if they do, will they flap in the wind?

What if my plants arent growing because I don’t talk to them?

What if my plants aren’t growing because I DO talk to them and they’re so bored they’re trying to become seeds again?

What if there’s an alien living in the ATM I use?

What if the alien inside the ATM I use has tentacles?

What if the alien inside the ATM I use decides to slide a tentacle out and nab my finger when I try to collect my money?

What if my trouser leg gets stuck between the teeth of an escalator and my trousers are ripped off?

What if Britney Spears shaves her head again?

What if I’ve already done a post about my worries and don’t remember? What if these aren’t even new worries?

What if some hacker creates a virus that erases the internet?

What if I’m too funny for people to understand?

What if my blog gets a huge readership and I can’t cope with the pressure of fame or stop playing to the gallery all the time?

What if the worst thing that can happen ISNT the worst thing that can happen?

What if I don’t have enough to worry about?

How will I know if I’m worrying enough about my worries?

Sunday Scribblings - "Disconnected"

2009-05-21T16:00:00.002+01:00

People who live their lives through their Blackberry (or whatever other equivalent) are completely mystifying, their pride in being “connected” to everything somewhat bizarre. Now, I’ve no idea of all the things that a Blackberry can do that make it so indispensable that some people own and use more than one - at the same time! So, say that you can call people, listen to music, watch a video, read a book, send/receive email, make appointments, book tickets, take photographs or videos, watch live TV programmes and everything else on your Blackberry that makes it a multifunctional item. Brilliant. Very cool. Very clever.

Does it mean that you simplify your life by getting rid of your ipod, TV, video/DVD player, music system, phone, camera, videocam, computer, books and possibly your secretary? No. So if you’re still going to have all those things anyway, what’s the point of a Blackberry?

Phones that play music, ipods that function as phones – what’s with that? I would be happy for my ipod to just play music and do nothing else. I don’t need my ipod to be a diary, an alarm clock, a radio, a DVD player, a TV, computer or anything else. I have all those things separately, and they all work just fine.

I have a nice large-screen TV on which I enjoy watching TV programmes and movies. I have never been overcome by an irresistible urge to watch a movie on a 3” screen anywhere, no matter how little else I have to do. Even on long-haul flights, when I could conceivably be expected to be bored and require entertainment, I don’t bother with the 3” screens on the back of the seat in front of me.

I don’t think I’m a Luddite when it comes to technology. I just don’t feel the necessity to be connected all the time to an electronic leash, everywhere I go. Technology is a utilitarian thing, as far as I'm concerned - if it does what I need, that will do. When an item that's meant to make your life simpler turns out to need training to operate, because it's complicated by the sheer number of things it does, those technological "advances" defeat the original purpose - simplicity.

I wonder what they would do, those very important, very tech-savvy people who are addicted to their Blackberrys, if they were disconnected from the electronic world. How would they survive the lack of entertainment at the touch of a dinky little button on a dinky little screen?

Me, I’d read a book – just your normal, printed book, which wouldn’t tell you the time, remind you of an appointment, play music, make a phone call, receive an email, take a photograph or do anything other than be something to read. The kind of book that would have pages made from paper that you could touch, smell and feel, the kind of book that wouldn’t need batteries, mains power or recharging. That kind of retro book.

Making a clean breast of things

2009-05-19T12:33:00.002+01:00

Came across this news item today, and couldn’t help laughing – I mean, how ridiculous is it to say that the woman breached food and drink rules? (Actually she breached both rules simultaneously – hahahaha! Sorry, cant help it, I just think it’s really funny.)

Seriously, though, it’s not like she was going to litter the poolside with empty bottles or cans or sandwich wrappers! She would certainly not be leaving anything behind for someone else to clear up as the container(s) would go home with her. That really was a ridiculous enforcement of an otherwise reasonable rule and the pool management definitely owed her an apology at the very least.

Anyway, as expected, the woman protested that she was doing “the most natural thing in the world”. And that's where my irritation kicked in. I have a problem with that description as applied to breastfeeding... it is NOT the most natural thing. Or rather, it’s one of many “most natural” functions, including crapping. Obviously most normal people wouldn’t crap in public, given a choice of doing it more discreetly and comfortably away from the eyes of onlookers. (Men who pee/crap in public, by the way, are normal too – it’s just that they should be classified as animal, rather than human.)

Breastfeeding discreetly in public is ok by me, and even indiscreetly done it doesn’t really bother me, as obviously it doesn’t bother the woman doing it. What I find odd, though - if displaying one's breasts all the time is unacceptable despite their being natural (forget about surgically enhanced for the moment), why is it acceptable to display them while breastfeeding? Yeah yeah, I know, boobs are for feeding babies, yada yada. But call breastfeeding the “most natural thing” all you want, protest as much as you like that she’s a mother providing nourishment to her infant, the undeniable fact is that the woman has her boobs out in public. It's not something women do in the normal course of things, is it?

I don't mean those who do it discreetly. I assume that those who don't make a big deal of breastfeeding their babies openly are those who do not have the exhibitionist gene in their make-up. Single women who were comfortable with putting their assets on display probably continue that way as mothers – but with the added approbation of doing the “most natural thing”, this time as a more or less socially-acceptable form of exhibitionism.

Or maybe I’ve got it all wrong, and the call of motherhood is stronger than any inhibitions that might be caused by modesty. I wouldn’t know that personally and don’t care to find out.

Still, if boobs must be whipped out in public, at least done to feed a baby, it’s in a good cause. I’m all for good causes.

Allah’s revenge

2009-05-07T11:05:00.003+01:00

or, How Non-Believers Are At Fault For Everything

Convenient explanation, isn’t it? The tsunami in 2004 was Allah’s punishment on those people who had fun by the beachside. And now the swine flu (oh WHAT a godsend for the True Believers... SWINE flu!) which, because of its perceived piggy origins, has most certainly everything to do with the infidels who aren’t Muslim and who eat pork, and with those fallen Muslims who, defying the Godly ban on the ingestion of swine, bravely eat pork anyway. (Question: Should we be calling this the Revenge of The Pork, much as the mad cow disease was probably Bovine Retribution?)

Logic, of course, has sod all to do with this explanation. I wonder if the righteous proponents of Allah’s Heavenly Persecution have taken into account those of their fellow righteous brethren who died in the tsunami along with all the sinners, or those of them who have contracted swine flu and may be dying even now, this minute, as I write. Or are the innocent part of the – what’s the term now ... oh yes, the collateral damage which occurs when retribution, whether divine or human, is sweeping rather than specific? Or maybe the collaterally and terminally damaged go directly to Heaven even as the rest go to Hell.

Oh, and how would the righteous explain away those sinners – Muslim and non – who survived the tsunami and who will, inevitably, also survive the swine flu? I’d love to hear it.

This article says a lot more about the prescience of Islam when it comes to natural disasters. So do read it.

I would like to add that my blanket condemnation would apply equally as much to any Hindus or Christians or believers of any other denomination who come up with religious explanations for non-religious occurrences. Being agnostic/atheist has its plus points in that you can be equally scathing of all religious head-cases (and, of course, its minus points too, in that you might attract the wrath of the "true" followers of Ram, Christ AND Allah). But the bottomline is, it’s religious fanatics that I’m against, not any religion in particular.

YIKES!

2009-05-07T09:20:00.004+01:00

INVASION OF GIANT POISONOUS BIRD-EATING SPIDERS! AUSSIES IN MORTAL FEAR!

(Just doing my bit for the tabloid world.)

But seriously, spiders that size? Aaack!

Sunday Scribblings - "Confession"

2009-05-05T16:05:00.002+01:00

A couple of confessions, in no particular order of importance because they’re not terribly important. The really interesting ones get to remain unconfessed and I shall carry the guilt (or the secret joy) of those unconfessions to the grave (or the crematorium) with me. Sorry, folks.

Confession No 1:

When I was 10 years old or thereabouts, I accompanied my parents to their friends’ home. There were two boys there, the older one about 12 years old and the younger a couple of years younger than me. Younger one evidently worshipped older one, and older one showed off freely and quite unashamedly, encouraged to greater “feats” by the presence of an extra onlooker (me). At one point he opened an atlas and challenged me to match his hand span at full stretch, thumb on Australia and tip of middle finger touching India (or something like that).

I did it fairly easily (the older one hadn’t observed this, probably busy trying to think of the next “challenge”) but then saw the look on the younger boy’s face – total shock/disappointment/disbelief at the perceived fall of his hero, beaten by a mere girl… and oh dear, a few incipient tears. So I asked the older one to show me again exactly where he’d placed his thumb and middle finger, and then - oh, how I cringe at this confession - I pretended that I couldn’t match his “manly” hand span!
Yes, I ensured that the younger one’s hero didn’t fall off his pedestal and protected the reputation of the older one… but oh, at what price this impulsive defence of a young blowhard! What a letdown of my gender, of all the women who fought for emancipation, who fought for the vote, who fought for equality, who fought to be seen as equal to or even better than men! It is a difficult, difficult thing to confess, and I may never live this down...

Confession No 2:

Actually, come to think of it, this next confession may actually matter – but never mind, I shall come clear no matter at what further cost to my reputation.

I’ve always made fun of people who cried at emotional scenes in movies, pointing out perfectly logical and perfectly true things like “It’s not real, they’re only acting”, and shaking my head in disbelief when I caught anyone blubbing – which was pretty often. But what they didn’t know, because I was at great pains to hide from everybody (friends and family both), is that I cried at every single melodramatic scene I came across. Since everybody would be watching the movie and not me, and because the cinema halls were always dimly lit, I got away with it every time (I’m pretty sure of this). And by the time the credits got over and the lights came on, I would have collected myself, ready to mock those who didn’t have a problem with being openly “emotional” or being labeled “sensitive”.

There. That’s about as much as I’m willing to lay bare.

An award/tag from Umm Oviya, and my duty is done

2009-05-05T10:35:00.004+01:00

Okay, this is a tag started by Umm Oviya of Quite Qatar, and although it's also an award she's instituted, I prefer to think of it as a way to discover new blogs, hopefully at least some of which will be very readable. There are probably thousands of well-written, funny blogs out there which need outing and propagating, and this is my bit towards that end.

I got to this site by blog hopping, and unfortunately have no idea which one led me there. It's not always the journey which matters, anyway, so here is the link to journey's end:

Scary Duck

I've no idea if Mr Scary Duck (who is neither scary nor a duck, apparently) will continue this tag... mainly because unless he follows linkbacks, he's not likely to know that he's received a newly instituted award. I hope he will do all of the above, though, if and when he ever finds out.

Sunday Scribblings - "Follow"

2009-04-28T12:00:00.002+01:00

Anyone who reads more than just their own blog will have noticed the trend among bloggers to present each other with “awards” - “Nicest Person”, “Droolworthy”, “To Encourage You”, “Uber Amazing Blog”, “Friendly blog”, and so on. Once an award is on a blog, they quickly spread, like viruses, to others in groups of 3, 5, 7 or even more... mainly because each awardee is meant to pass each award on to at least 3 others, as a minimum. And I must say that most of the awardees are very good about following instructions.

I don’t know, of course, whether the awarder really thinks the awardees’ blogs worth the accolade – but then again, there’s no requirement for sincerity and it sure doesn’t cost any money. All it takes is a bit of time to think of the requisite number of people and list them, possibly a bit more time for the more sincere ones to provide links to each listed awardee... and the most conscientious of them (also the most relentless self-campaigners) go to each awardee's blog and leave a comment saying “You’ve been given an award, come and look at my blog for details”. That, of course, brings about yet more awards and traffic.

I also am not too sure about the actual value of such awards. Not just because they’re as common as... well, as blogs, but because they’re such subjective things. Who’s the final arbiter in labelling one blog interesting and another droolworthy, and why should anybody consider that the final decision anyway? There are as many opinions as there are people, after all. There are blogs which I think are all-round absolute rubbish, and others that I think are all-round absolutely fantastic... but both kinds of blogs receive the same awards. Sometimes the rubbish blogs get lots more comments (admittedly of the inane “nice recipe, thanks for posting” kind) than the good ones, probably because the good ones don’t make enough effort to get noticed. That doesn’t seem right to me… although the clichéd old saying probably holds good here – “The emptiest vessels make the most noise”. Why does advertising always triumph over genuine talent?

I have, admittedly, posted one or two “awards” that I received re my blog and “passed them on” to others, too - but that was before I realised that everybody got the darn things, so they really didn't mean much in the end. There are a couple more that I haven’t advertised or propagated... for more than one reason. One, I don’t wish to follow the blogsphere trends for no good reason. Two, I don’t wish to award anyone anything if I don’t really, really, REALLY like their blog and anyway, I’d rather just leave a comment or write an email (makes it a lot more personal than copy-pasting some inane logo). And three, I’m usually too lazy to list, link and/or leave comments about the list/link.

I have to say that I wondered at one point why I didn’t receive more awards than I did... but could that possibly, possibly have anything to do with cynical, unfriendly, unwelcoming (and unwelcome - heh) posts like this? Tut tut, the very thought...!

Rant

2009-04-24T09:15:00.004+01:00

Some people need to learn the difference between saying “little” and “a little” or "few" and "a few" (eg, “I planted few vegetables this year” versus “I planted A few vegetables this year”, or "little skill is needed" versus "a little skill is needed") - because, and this is really important, they mean the Exact. Bloody. Opposite!

If those people would take the trouble to correct themselves, things would be a lot less confusing on their bloody blog posts, especially when they're recipe instructions!

Yeah, I'm in a bad ~~bood~~ ~~modd~~ mood. And?

Sunday Scribblings - "Language"

2009-04-23T15:54:00.002+01:00

When I was younger, I used to wonder how the British and the Americans managed with only one language – English. My family has always been multilingual from being scattered all over India. Most of us speak a minimum of three languages – Tamil, English and Hindi – and a good few of my relatives have a few more Indian languages under their belt, not counting foreign languages. Most of my friends tend to be polyglots too.

Whenever we cousins got together (summer holidays, marriages, family functions etc), our conversations would invariably be in a random mixture of at least three languages, switching from one to the other depending on what needed saying and how forcefully it needed to be said, or how perfectly described. There are expressions in every language that defy exact translation, so it was just as well that we never needed to translate since all of us could understand the original anyway.

It helped to speak Hindi if we were among non-Hindi speakers and needed to keep the conversation private (like while discussing prices or taxi fares), and speaking Tamil up north is pretty much guaranteed to be unintelligible to non-Tamil folks. But there is never a guarantee, no matter where you are in India, that English will not be understood. It’s almost more the national language than Hindi, the official national language.

Anyway, the first time Pete attended one of our family gatherings in Madras, he was bewildered by our mode of communication – amused, annoyed, frustrated and impressed all at once because he could follow some of most conversations, but not all of any conversation unless it was aimed specifically at him and therefore entirely and only in English. Otherwise it was the usual hotch-potch of everybody being very vocal polyglots at the same time and yet managing to hear and be heard. I guess it’s an Indian family get-together thing which seemed extra-strange for someone from a very small, quiet family!

Now that I live in the UK, I still wonder how so many people here manage with just one language – English, their mother-tongue. Yes, they learn other European languages in school (I think it's compulsory, just as a second and even a third language are required in the Indian curriculum) but it’s not the same as the entire family being fluent in it and being able to converse freely. What I find even more surprising is how badly so many people mangle the one and only language they do know - getting the grammar wrong, unable to spell correctly, or write coherently. Obviously, I don’t mean that all of them are in the same boat – but there are enough numbers to make that boat pretty crowded.

I do not mean that all native speakers of English should be expected to speak English fluently and read and write perfectly in that language, merely because it’s their mother tongue. If it were the case that everybody should speak their mother-tongue perfectly, I’d be the first to fall by the wayside... my Tamil skills are not exactly top-notch, due to a combination of circumstances and – let it be said – personal preferences.

BUT – if your mother tongue, whatever that be, was the only language you knew, the only language you were likely to speak/read/write/learn, wouldn’t you want to be very, very good at it? Simply because there would be no fallback, no recourse to anything else for a phrase, a description, a word, a meaning, an expression...?

Of pens and pins...

2009-04-22T11:54:00.003+01:00

Do ALL pens and pencils grow little legs and scurry away to hide just when you need one desperately (a pen/pencil, that is. Not a leg) to take notes while someone gabbles vital information on the phone?

I understand this sudden-appendage-growth theory is based more on Enid Blyton than anything more specificially scientific, but since I believe there is no scientific explanation, I’m going with Enid Blyton.

(Also, you understand, I haven’t actually seen pens and pencils grow legs, but I have it on authority based on extensive and exhaustive readings over the years of Ms Blyton’s works that such things either:

1. Happen when you’re not looking.

2. Happen even when you are looking but you can’t see it because you’re not a child, as the various magical activities of faerieland are not open to grown-up scrutiny.)

And to end this on a completely unPC note, what wouldn't I give for a paraplegic pen right this moment...

Sunday Scribblings - "Scary"

2009-04-16T12:13:00.003+01:00

Missed a few weeks of Sunday Scribblings... but I'm back, for the moment. With a whimper, as prompted.

So here's some of what I find scary:

- ThatI might not feel like writing again… ever.
- That my writing isn’t as good as I think it is.
- That others might not consider my writing as good as I think it is.
- Being admired by people who dont impress me.
- Being considered boring/stupid by people I deeply admire for not being boring or stupid.
- Being outed as less interesting than I pretend I am.
- Calculators, because I never get a consistent outcome for any calculation, so how would I recognise the correct answer?
- Maths (see previous, starting with "because")

Inspiration

2009-04-15T16:39:00.001+01:00

appears to have passed me by.

*sighhhhhhhh*

The economics of discipline

2009-03-27T12:53:00.002Z

Perhaps it’s easy to be disciplined and orderly when you know that you will definitely get whatever it is you’re waiting for; when you know for certain that you won’t lose out by giving way to someone, or waiting till those ahead of you are done. Maybe that’s why there’s such a mad scramble for everything in poorer countries – because people know that supply (of anything) is much, much less than the constant demand, and it’s always a case of first-come-first-served, every man for himself and the others be damned.

If you want to see Third World-style discourtesy and selfishness in the hallowed West, try shopping at Next just after Christmas. Or at Ikea, when there’s a sale on. Or heck, for some really vicious “me first even if I have to trample over you” behaviour, head for Harrods during their traditional New Year sale, where the Haves exhibit the sort of aggressive grabbiness that the Have-Nots couldn't even begin to match.

Discipline only exists where supply exceeds demand. That’s a law of human nature, whether you’re White and First World, or Brown and Third World.

Reading and writhing

2009-03-24T15:15:00.004Z

I think it was in the first week of college that one of our lecturers gathered together all the first-year students (not just the English Literature students) for some forthcoming in-house “culturals”. She then asked for volunteers to read aloud a short poem by Robert Frost (incidentally, one of my all-time favourite poets because his poems are so deceptively simple, beautifully descriptive and easy to understand), so that she could choose the best among us for whatever programme she had in mind for the culturals.

Now I’ve always suffered from an extreme reluctance to be the centre of attention for any reason – in other words, terrible stage fright – but for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to volunteer to read aloud to a giggling gaggle of total strangers. No, actually I DO remember the reason – I really wanted a different persona, to be seen as someone who was gregarious, fun, spontaneous, maybe even a leader of – erm, women, I suppose… and I thought that I could be whoever I wanted to be, as none of the girls there knew me, or what I was like, at all.

What I discovered that day was that it’s really very difficult to get over who you are (especially if you’re like me - reserved to a fault, difficult to get on with and borderline unfriendly unless there is a “vibe”) to be the person you want to be, even if you have a blank canvas of an audience to work with. So let’s just say that it was not exactly a scintillating reading that I did – I was trembling, my hands were icy cold in contrast to my face which felt red-hot (that was one of the times that I really blessed my dark complexion, because a fair skin would have shown me up as beet-red), and my voice was nearly inaudible. And what was audible shook like Talat Mehmood’s singing on a really good day, except mine was not deliberate.

I clearly remember how impatient the lecturer was when I finished. She grabbed the book from me, saying (extra loudly, I thought as I squirmed in embarrassment): “That was absolutely terrible! This is a beautiful poem meant to be read softly, with emotion, not rattled off without pause or expression! Here, I’ll read it out and you can see the difference!” (Those were pretty much her exact words, by the way. You don't easily forget those occasions of self-induced embarrassment.)

That was the last time I volunteered to read anything in public. I’m glad to say, though, that my written work revised the lecturer’s (very probable) opinion of me as a poetry-mangling literature-loathing lump of a first-year Eng Lit student. Perhaps I couldn’t read, but I certainly could write.

Which is why this article I came across in the Times Online website was intriguing. I don’t know how good I would be at reading aloud – but I think I could manage with an audience of one or two people. I know absolutely that I have no trouble reading aloud to kids, or telling them stories with the appropriate voice approximations (squeaky for mouse, growly for lion and so on) - and for proof I have a once-little-and-now-20-years-of-age cousin who still remembers the story of "Cheeko and Rajah", a monkey and an elephant respectively. (Hell, she couldn't not remember it, because it was her favourite story and I must have narrated it to her, on request, about a zillion times. It's definitely branded into MY brain, and I'm pretty sure that not even Alzheimer's could make me forget that story!)

What a nice job it would be, though, to read aloud to people in a posh hotel room - and get paid for it. I've read aloud to Pete before, but now I must do so again with the intention of being evaluated for clarity, ability to hold interest and such other qualities as are necessary for a professional read-alouder. (Is there a technical term for this job post, I wonder, and does one have to be trained at a drama academy to qualify?)

Oh, and for those interested to know which poem by Robert Frost we were asked to read aloud, it's this one:

The Pasture

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.

I’m going out to fetch the little calf
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.

Not a baddie, but not all Goody either

2009-03-23T10:56:00.004Z

I hope I am not the only person who’s really tired of the overblown praise being heaped upon the late Jade Goody by people who ought to have other, far more important things to do – like Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for starters. Yes, it was tragic that she died so young, leaving behind two young children. But that sort of tragedy happens all the time, and – pardon me for saying this – to people who were doing a great deal more every single day in the way of helping other people, or making the world a better place, or indeed raising the profile of deadly diseases, than Jade Goody ever did voluntarily in her entire 27 years of existence! The fact that such people die unnoticed and uneulogised and, in many cases, unable to provide for their loved ones left behind, is one of the more unfair things this world has to offer.

Jade Goody was a celebrity – and an accidental one at that. She did nothing to make the thinking person see her as someone to be admired for her achievements, because other than making money by selling her life, she achieved nothing. All she did was make her life a reality show. That there were people who avidly watched her every move says nothing about Jade - other than the fact that her ridiculous antics sold tabloids and improved cheap TV ratings – and everything about the morbid prurience of her watchers. Sure, there are plenty of young people who see her as a role model merely because she managed to rise above her not-quite-ideal upbringing and become rich. While that is admirable in a shallow sort of way, the fact remains that, for most of her public life, she was best known for her stupidity than for any particular talent or ability or intelligence.

The tabloids are full of people who say that Jade should be praised for doing so much to raise the profile of cervical cancer among women and for helping save the lives of thousands of women who would otherwise not have had the smear test. I agree that she helped make the dangers of cervical cancer better known. But was it because she made the effort of campaigning for it, or raising money for research, or even donating money to cancer charities while she was healthy and normal? No way. It was through sheer bad luck (for her) that she managed this, basically by getting that particular form of cancer. If anybody should be thanked for raising the profile of cervical cancer, it should be the tabloids and TV channels, for giving her every hospital visit and every setback such unstinting and constant publicity!

Yes, I am glad that she thought about providing for her sons after her death. That is what a good mother would do. She was very lucky to be able to profit from her life and dying days, and leave the boys at least a good monetary legacy if nothing else. That is an opportunity that very few people have.

But a good mother would also have tried to provide a good role model for her children in the form of a decent father – which Jade’s husband, that appalling lout of a Jack Tweedy, is most certainly not and most likely never will be. I don’t know what their natural father, Jeff Brazier, does for a living and what sort of person he is (isn't it odd that he isnt having HIS every living moment documented by the tabloids! How are we ever to know more about him?), but I hope he’s a better human being than weedy Tweedy.

I sincerely hope that Jade's kids will grow up to be decent, good, well-adjusted human beings... but only time will tell if they can outgrow the abnormal lifestyle they’ve been used to from birth – that is to say, living in the constant glare of publicity with a mother who didn’t exactly shy away from having their every move telecast and/or published.

I have nothing against Jade Goody, honestly - she was no "baddie" while being a "Goody" if only in name. I thought she was a very pretty woman, actually. While she lived the high-profile life of a healthy, mindless celebrity, she didn’t really bother me – all I had to do to keep her out of my life was to ignore her reality TV shows... and that is what I did. I’m sorry that she had to die so young, sorry that her kids don’t have a mother now. It’s just that the fact that she’s suddenly being touted as the perfect mother and angelic do-gooder that rankles with me. There are far more deserving people who deserve to be commended thus.

It's all Polish to me

2009-03-19T14:11:00.003Z

How about that, then?

I haven’t come across any exclusively Polish shops in Shrewsbury, so I don’t know if that sort of behaviour is limited to just that particular shop in East Yorkshire by just that particular owner. For that matter, I don’t know if his antagonism was directed at the English exclusively, or if people from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were also included for exclusion ("included for exclusion" – heh. Sometimes my turn of phrase is so astonishingly brilliant, even I’m left surprised). I also have no idea if people from other countries – meaning, for instance, me, from India – would be asked to get out as well. It just seems so rude... not to mention, extremely racist! Very very uncool, pretty much on par with British Muslims who taunt British soldiers with being murderers for doing their job, or people from other nations who have settled here by their own choice and yet militate (is that a word?) against the very country that has provided them asylum.

Getting back to the subject (of Polish groceries), I have noticed imported Polish foodstuffs being thoughtfully sold at the big Tesco in Shrewsbury, and also in a wholesale meat market in Telford. They may well be sold by other supermarkets in other places too, but I do not talk of things unwitnessed by my own four eyes.

So, anyway, there’s a whole shelf of Polish-labelled food (the freezer section also has its own shelf full of frozen Polish products), next to a shelf of Indian things and another of Jamaican things. It’s nice to see secularism and tolerance among food stuffs, and I would like to be secular in buying products from all these shelves. Unfortunately I end up only buying from the Indian and Jamaican ones.

It’s not because I’m intolerant of Polish food. My selection is not racially or nationality-wise discriminatory. My problem is, simply, that I don’t speak, read, write or understand, in any format whatsoever, the Polish language. And all the food from Poland is described and labeled exclusively in Polish. Some of them are obviously biscuits or cakes... and others in transparent bottles just as obviously seafood, etc. But there are plenty of other items to completely baffle the non-Polish reader and would-be consumer.

Now I understand that these products were likely meant for Polish consumption within Poland, and I think it’s reasonable enough for the manufacturers not to translate the names and/or contents into English. Why bother, if it’s meant for the Poles, right?

But when these products are imported into the UK, and sold not just in local Pole-run shops (where I would expect the shop owner to provide at least a verbal translation if required), but in mainstream supermarkets, you’d expect that everybody would be able to know what they are and what’s in them. Right?

Again, I’m not expecting the manufacturers at the point of origin to bother with translating their products. However, I DO hold it against Tesco and other British-run establishments for not providing translations. It’s not user friendly in general, not at all friendly to vegetarians who might want to try authentic tinned Polish food but can’t because they don’t know the contents, and definitely not conducive to food secularity!

Yes, I have a *beef against Tesco and I want them to know it.

*I’d have used a vegetarian-friendly term, but I couldn't think of anything that would have a similar impact. “I have a (non-specific) vegetable against Tesco” just doesn’t sound right, does it?

The true punishment isn't death

2009-03-19T11:44:00.000Z

I may well have said this before, but I don’t believe in the death penalty for any criminals, no matter how heinous their crime. Now, I’m no mushy-hearted advocate of human rights for cold-blooded rapists and murderers – I firmly believe that if someone takes the life of another person without extreme provocation (like being physically or mentally tortured for years, or abused, or violently attacked, etc), they automatically forfeit all rights to a life that has any sort of comfort or entertainment or human contact. If their victim cannot ever have these rights, their murderer certainly shouldn’t either. Also, going by that same reasoning, a quick death would be too good for such criminals. They should live their entire life locked away with only the basic minimum to sustain life, and no amount of convenient repentance should bring any respite.

(The other reason that I don’t believe in the death penalty is that in case there has been a miscarriage of justice and someone has been wrongly imprisoned, at least they will be alive to be released when the mistake comes to light. A posthumous pardon and release would do no good whatsoever, would it?)

Anyway, when I started this post, I had in mind Josef Fritzl, who has declared himself guilty of incest, rape and murder and accepted that he treated his daughter with the utmost cruelty for a good quarter of a century. He is 73 years old and I personally would like him to spend the rest of his natural life shut away from humanity, preferably in a dank underground cellar with no natural light and no access in any way – through radio, TV, newspapers, etc - to the outside world. That should be fitting punishment for Fritzl’s inhuman behaviour to his own daughter. Any human rights campaigners who feel sorry for Fritzl can keep him company there if they feel strongly enough about it.

Granted that no amount of punishment for Fritzl is going to mitigate the suffering his daughter underwent; nothing will turn back time, nothing will change the horrible truth of the circumstances of their conception for his 6 grandchildren who are also, in the most awful way possible, his own children. But putting him to death will mean that while their suffering goes on, he will have escaped the consequences of his actions. No, the best thing would be to keep Fritzl alive – in prison, though, not in a psychiatric hospital. The rest of his life spent in prison will give him, hopefully, plenty of time to think over his past. No amount of repentance is enough.

That said, there are plenty of Fritzl-like human beings in this world - not just in Austria. Maybe not all of them have imprisoned their own daughter in a nightmare cellar in their own home, but there are enough ongoing victims of incest and abuse whose nightmare hasn’t ended and probably will never even come to light, and whose abusers will never be punished.

Some of my favourite Hindi love songs...

2009-03-17T16:09:00.001Z

I havent seen the movie Aandhi but the song Tere bina zindagi se koi shikva to nahin, sung by Kishore Kumar, is absolutely beautiful to listen to - the melody, Kishore's voice, the moving lyrics (with no rubbish English words or banal rhymes thrown in, I might add)... how could anybody who loves, or has ever loved, not be moved by the opening stanza which translates to "I have no grievance against a life without you; but without you, life isn't even a life" (Tere bina zindagi se koi shikva to nahin; tere bina zindagi bhi lekin zindagi to nahin )? Such beautiful lyrics by Gulzar, such beautiful music by R D Burman.

Another Kishore song is Phoolon ke rang se from the movie Prem Pujari (which movie also I haven't seen) and music by S D Burman - the even more illustrious father of the illustrious son from the previous song! Lyrics by Neeraj, and again, no crap wording at all, just beautiful, beautiful sentiments... "Whether it's a short trip or a long one, whether I'm on a lonely road or at a fair, when I think of you, I become lonely even in a crowd" (Chhota safar ho, lamba safar ho, sooni dagar ho ya mela; yaad tu aaye, mann ho jaaye bheed mein bhi akela). Okay, my translations leave a lot to be desired in terms of poetry, but believe me, in the original Hindi the lyrics are so very much more evocative and beautiful!

Mukesh, although a little too nasal for some people, has some truly beautiful songs to his credit. One of them, which I tend to think is underrated as a love song, is from the movie Andaz (yet again, one I haven't seen), with music by Naushad and lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri. Tu kahe agar has beautiful lyrics - "I am a song and you are the musical notes, continue supporting me, I am the tune and you are the melody" (Main saaz hoon tu sargam hai, deti jaa sahare mujhko, main raag hoon to beena hai). It's not a sad song, for a change, given that it's Mukesh singing, but it's a beautifuly melodious one.

One really old movie from the 1950s that I have seen over and over is Baiju Bawra. The first time I saw it was when I was 8 or 9 years old... it must have made a huge impression on me despite the major difference in our ages - mine and the movie's - because for years after, I could still remember key scenes from it. I didnt get to see it again till I was well into my 20s, and it was just as engrossing as I remembered it. Yes, Bharat Bhushan's OTT acting in places made me giggle, but on the whole I loved the movie, especially for the music.

I would say that practically every song from Baiju Bawra is a gem - but how could they not be, with music by Naushad and lyrics by Shakeel Badayuni, and sung mostly by Mohd Rafi? Listening to Rafi sing "O Duniya ke rakhwale" always sends shivers down my back and brings tears to my eyes... the purity of his voice, the sheer emotion he conveys, is just amazing. And the lyrics - "(Like) the crazed sun searching for the moon, dawn searching for dusk, I too search for the love who could not be mine" (Chand ko dhoonde pagal sooraj, shaam ko dhoond savera, main bhi dhoondhoon uss preetam ko, ho na sakaa jo mera) - the combination of Rafi-Naushad in this song could melt the proverbial stone... and in the movie, it made a stone idol cry. I totally get the idol. It couldn't have stayed unaffected.