Summer End - Ramblings and Rumblings

Heavy Rains
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When sky was thirsty and drank from the lake,
Bloated and black is how it became!
Its face was pale - dull and sick,
Yet flashing lights like a magical trick!
Its murmers were loud - they gave a good fright,
To the young and the old in its plainsight!
Then came its cry, intense yet slow,
with passing of time, getting more bold!

Learning Tango
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Slow. Slow. Quick quick, slow,
Go the basics of a Tango,
Two steps on the side, pointing hands to the floor,
A pointe is made with four marches to go!
Two steps to the right - get back at your floor,
Try a courte for a second and hold!
Hitting the corners seldom gets old,
A promenade turn is what you need I am told!

(this one is dedicated as a thanks to my trainers at the Fred Astaire Dance Studios at London, ON, Canada www.fredastaire.ca)

Spring Poetry!

Its not usual that I tend to write really short poems. With spring, some of this has also sprung back to me as a surprise!

Spring Picture
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Amidst the grass on the ground you see,
Little flowers that open up to thee,
Yellow in hue with a bloom so bright,
It would catch the bees even at night,
Look up - Oh, so many trees!
Buds in their branches pouring pollen with glee!

***

Selling A Car
-----------------
Up to the mountains, down to the shores,
Plains and meadows, through all did we go!
Virginia to Hampshire, you had seem them all,
Missing Vermont and Maine - but that's none of your fault!

Seating for five that's spacious to go,
All your four engines just revved and roared,
60000 miles is all I can say,
When I decided you will have your own way!

***

Spring Ice Storm
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It is spring and yet its old,
Icy storms refuse to go!
They came in and deftly froze those buds,
Whose blossoming brings out their inner best!

But the battle is on - there is more light,
With hopes of heat and warmer nights!
Until then all we can do,
Is to adore Nature and its varied hues!

***

Morning Fog
----------------
It seems you just came to earth,
To kiss the trees, grass and birds!
They all have been barren in the cold,
for a long too while as you'd know!

Of what thickness is your veil today?
It feels like a blanket is all I can say!
You have challenged the might sun at his core,
I am seeing him struggle to get the least of his own!
Oh you are such a wonder is all I say -
for in your presence, people stand and gaze!

***

April Wind
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The little buds are swaying saying "Nay",
trees are clinging to their roots with faith,
The clouds are moving as slow as snail,
though wind is strong to power their sail!

A big roar here and a big roar there,
pushing itself against things everywhere!
Sweeping all heat on the ground from the Sun,
making things as cold as it can become!

Love can be blind but not foolish plus other mumbo jumbo!

Just when the winter is freezing things up, it appears that some thoughts in my brain decided to thaw itself in here! For those that follow my blogs, a warm welcome back!

***

It was certainly some fall cleaning at my office desk and I proceed to find out there is something packed in a nice neat cover and labeled as if it were a gift. Not the one that has been a recipient of many wrapped gifts, I knew something was not right. But nonetheless, as always, curiosity (s)kills the cat you see!

So - there I go, with my decision to quickly peel off what looked like a gift wrap from the outside. And viola! It was not one, not two, but THREE packs of Lindt Lindor truffles!!! Was I in heaven?! I don't know! When it is chocolates, everything else has to come later! I swiftly open up the pack and before the wink of an eye, one milk truffle is already down my throat. There were still 12 more pieces to go in just this box. But this is the blue box. There was a red one too! Variety, they say, is the spice of life - or in my case, the chocolate of life! 

With a gleeful grin from side to side on my face and thanking the fact that there is visibly none that were around at that hour to share this with as well, I decide to open the red box. And when doing so, I accidentally flipped it to the wrong side and what did i see? Absolute fun! This box clearly indicated "Best by Jun 2017". And it was clearly dark and bold faced marking that cannot escape one's eye!

Yikes! I immediately look at the other box I opened up and noticed that one was supposedly good until Mar 2017! :D Anyway, I was just plain happy that my alimentary canal didn't particularly despise me for this and I escaped unhurt.  That was some learning for sure - love can be blind but not foolish! 

***

It appears that somewhere down the road with the advent of social media, the discourse across the globe with access to the media is also getting extremely digitized (I would hate using the term polarized, though that's what it is precisely getting to be!) You find swathes of people who are in need of identifying themselves and also out to mark others into an all or nothing bucket! I mean, you are either a right wing or a liberal. You are either communist or a capitalist! 

To me, this seems to be losing a remarkable sense of balance that a human mind is capable of! And strange though as it seems, the levels of education seems to have no bearing on this kind of thought processes whatsoever. Ah, but do I care? I would probably just continue reading both sides of the world as I always do and carry on :D

***

I am no movie buff. And unless someone drags me by the collar into one, I am kind of unlikely to get talked into watching full blown movies for even a complete 2 hours. But there was one day when it all had to be completely different - and this one, was post a nice round of cycling that I had with my group of friends at the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. 

Having done with a lot of physical exercise, it was time for some rest and relaxation. And one of us in the group decided it was best to do so watching a movie in the theaters. And given the physical condition of myself at that hour, it was decided that nothing other than a recliner seating would be deemed acceptable! Thus we wound up in the UA Oxford Valley @ Langhorne, watching the Bladerunner 2049! 

I wouldn't discredit the movie so much for the first half hour or so! It was fairly tolerable. But then came a point where one decided to completely turn in and sleep in the recliner chair, another was leaning up and trying level best not to snore (that's yours truly!), another one tried taking a break despite a knee injury from the bicycle ride in the afternoon - only to return and find the scene hadn't pretty much moved at all and literally the same two people were on the screen from the point of break to the point of return and probably stating the same dialogue as well. And the person who recommended the movie to the group? Oh well.. the poor chap was trying to bite his fingers and move himself to the edge of the seat and stay attentive and tuned while getting visibly sucked into the boredom of what Bladerunner landed up to be!

Now, there was suddenly something that I realized... the movie name, in hindsight, had its fair share of warning I must say! After all, it had "blade" in it :D

***

The case to "digest" the "Digest"

I still do not recall when exactly was the first time I laid my hands on the monthly magazine running for closer to about a one hundred pages (or even lesser that it at times), measuring roughly the size of an average adult palm and having a richly illustrated "half front" cover being published out of several countries in English language.  If you hadn't managed to get the name by now, I am alluding to the "The Reader's Digest".

The Readers' Digest is a one of its kind publication in that most of the contribution to the magazine comes from the most valuable source – its readers! That’s like you or I writing about literally anything – the mundane, the exclusive trip that you might have had to the geographic poles, scientific facts that you know about climatic changes and marking down what you see and interpret from it – what not!

So, I had the worst experience with using a particular call centre line. I just decide to just write up a foul one pager and send it out to the editors and see if they would be supporting the tirade against it – NO. That’s not what its contents are meant to be either.  Its honestly a very tough job in keeping the balance on what gets to be shunned and what gets to be retained for a publication – specially if you have your readers and not the journalists being your major contributors for the content.

How is this handled? I do not know an answer to that honestly. But I am able to kind of decipher some pattern based on the continuous reading I have done – mostly during my travel because this is a light hearted, light weight book that can be fit in neatly just about anywhere you like – in your shirt pockets too if you are adventurous enough!

Here are a few things I have managed to observe with the setup of the magazine itself – the first section is some kind of a quiz section (normally a word power one) whose answers are available elsewhere down the road in another page.  There is a definitely a section for the humor in uniform. And of course, there is always the general humor section too. The key thing being the same trademark of the content as well – they are all reader contributions! There are of course, the iconic caricatures / cartoons. Usually, there is one article that is an adventure. Another one would be scientific. Yet another involving travel. All hold the same rule – contribution from the readers is the primary piece. Political writing is something I have often observed, is more of a passing reference than mainstream content.  

School Musings - Ida Scudder - II

It was a late morning hour. Mrs.Prema was trying to teach us a word or two in English. The catch was, for most words, she had to draw the respective object on the blackboard using a white chalk piece. Chalk pieces were the most prized possessions of the teachers and students equally back then. I still remember the sawdust packed boxes in which they used to arrive

Alright, so - what's the big deal? Well, the word she used for the letter "c" was "crow"! Now, talk of drawing a crow using a white chalk on a blackboard and explaining to kids like myself as to why the white lines are there on a crow that is supposed to be "black"! :)

We indeed gave her some tough time! But one of the things that all the students asked from the subsequent teachers who came to teach was to leave the crow intact on the board as-is! Mrs.Prema came later in time for another session only to find how much her class had actually liked the crow on the board!

*******

I am notorious for being late to school. Definitely had to be late by a minimum of 5 minutes or so. I could have any explanation for that - from a puncture on my cycle tyre to my sister walking slower than myself..!

Enter Mrs.Sophy's Moral Science class in my III grade. And right during the 1st period. I am trying to stand at the door, being late by at least a good 15 minutes. Give it another 15 minutes and the class would've almost been over.  Not the one with a richest vocabulary for that age within the class, I faced this puzzling question as she asked me "Why aren't you punctual?"

I still remember throwing a puzzled look at her. I just didn't know what that word meant. Then, the moral science class, of course, took a shift to become a very brief session in English. Mudassar Mallick, my classmate, managed to pull off an answer and responded - "Its being on time"!

*******

விடை  தருக - meaning, give answers. This is how the question paper used to be for our தமிழ் examinations. So, in the III grade - and probably even before that, one of the things that was marked out to us was to ensure the section names, number and headers on our answer sheets match up with the ones on the question papers as well. Usually, our teachers were pretty kind and lenient with us jumbling the answering sequence. This meant more often than not, I would've answered question 1 followed by question 3 followed by question 7 etc. 

Alright, so what's the deal with a language paper of all things? Well... just that in lieu of marking up விடை தருக, I have marked up several times as "வடை தருக". Mrs.Dixcy Rani would, while distributing the answer sheets in the class, jocularly quip at me (and several other students too) asking if she was running a canteen to give us all a வடை - which is a popular south indian snack :)

********

So, this happened when we were listening to our Geography teacher Mrs.Nirmala Natarajan... She was explaining about the uses of the alternate sources of energy and as to how it can be leveraged to reduce the impact of the greenhouse effect and global warming - YES, we did have those sessions back in the 90s as well - more as serious sessions in a classroom discussion than debates in television as it is today. 

The concept of "gobar" gas was being explained. And she was talking through how cow dung can be used to prepare this gas and then kind of get funneled to homes. When this was being spoken, I threw a very surprised face and as if reacting to someone that had just farted, pulled myself back in the seat as well. Seeing my reaction obviously because the cow dung was mentioned, she quipped, "Ravi, the gas is what makes it to your home eventually. Not the dung!"

*********

This was during my 6th grade. The very first period was "FREE". And wow! What a way to begin the day - or so we thought until one of the substitution teachers came in and said, "With the upcoming sports day, we need to clean up the school ground. Therefore, the class should head to the ground to help with this activity". As always, a bunch of folks preferred to play in the field. Another bunch choosing to walk around. Another bunch sincerely proceeding with the de-weeding activities.

There are some weeds that we have always been warned about. And the clear cut instruction was not to go near them. However, as always, curiosity was to take the better of us and many of us decided to go and check out every other plant that was around. Result? Itching sensation in the skin for many of the kids. If you forward this to the current scenario, even in an Indian context, I wouldn't know what could this be resulting in!

We enter the next class / session. It was a science class to be handled by Mrs.Yashodara Jeyapaul. With several of us getting an itching in our hands from handling of the weeds, there was a visible commotion that slowly started to set in. Seeing this happen even before any of us could be up and running with our notebooks / textbooks, she quietly enquired us all - "What did you folks do?" We answered to her about the exercise in de-weeding. Promptly, she sent the class representative to the school canteen and asked him to get some common salt. She then put the pack in her desk. Asked everyone that felt extremely itchy to come and take some salt and gently rub it up in the affected area. And voila! It WORKED! 

Of course, all this didn't happen without a good 30 minutes of her period having to pass away. She was left with the last 10 minutes. Not being enough time to handle a regular science class, she told - "Children, your lesson in science for the day is uses of salt!" We all cheered - partly amused, partly astonished. 

******************

School Musings - Ida Scudder Series - I

This would be the first on a series of posts about junior and senior school time

************

I should admit that it was fun waiting for the roughly half an hour ride back home in the bus from my school. And this was during my preschool days (more popular as kinder garden). Most of us wanted a seat by the window while some just cared about being around with friends who reside in the same locality.

The preschoolers had a preferential access / early boarding to the bus - and every time I had traveled business class in one of the flights, I always think about this :D We get to form a line and march towards the bus well ahead of the 3:30 PM when the school used to end for the rest of the junior school folks (Grades 1 through 5). And I could be wrong with this time since this goes back almost a good 29 years back, though I do recall we were first to board and usually way ahead of the slated departing time as well.

Invariably, our class teachers used to assist us at times with the trip to the bus. And also spend some time with all of us - before she got down herself and moved on - since she (Ms.Anna) actually lives nearby and didn't have to take a bus to the school.

And there was this one time, when my classmate decided to ask our teacher, "Is the sun only so much big?" No prizes for guessing who was the kid most excited by the question that walked out to the center of the bus, literally yelling - "Don't you know? The sun is a HUGE ball of fire sitting up in the sky! It just appears small to us!", with arms stretched out as much as possible to signify the monstrosity of the size of the sun!! 

Our teacher took the time out to appreciate the answer. But also reminded how to ask softly for a turn to answer a question if desiring to do so!

*******

How do you explain to a group of 10 year olds, an answer to the question - "Why do you say the center of earth is hot?" And this question, was back in the early 90s in a small town far away from the large metro of Chennai, with the only prominent institution then as much as now, being the CMCH (Christian Medical College and Hospital)?

Well, it didn't seem so daunting for Ms.Eapen. All she did was to pose a question back to the class - "When you mom makes you some kheer and pours out the warm contents into your bowl, how do you start eating it? Do you have it slowly from the side and top portions or take a scoop right from the center of the bowl? And if you do take a scoop right from the center of the bowl, do you put it directly into your mouth or do you blow over it to cool it down?"

And then went an explanation of the earth's crust, the mantle, lava and magma..! 

********

திருக்குறள் is a famous piece of தமிழ் literature. ஒழுக்கமுடைமை is a section / portion (அதிகாரம்) on it. The class started in the same place that was given evacuation orders a while ago since there was a snake that crept into the classroom from the nearby fields in the school. I was later told it was probably a 5 month old one. I don't know if it was just plain curious to come and see how humans learn together in a school. 

Most students in our class knew reasonably well by then that not all snakes are really venomous. But considering our age, there was not much divulged about the ongoing operation itself and we were still waiting to ask a question about the type of the snake, its nature, color and what not (alright, at least some folks and not all, to be fair to the group that was content to be left playing their own games!)

When the class resumed, the first குறள் had to be read out. And it went as "ஒழுக்கம் விழுப்பம் தரலான்  ஒழுக்கம் உயிரினும் ஓம்ப படும்". Now, its the turn of explaining this couplet to the classroom still trying to mentally settle down from the evacuation and subsequent resumption of classes.  And Ms.Ramani definitely knew this better than anyone else! 

It was a session in language classroom. But she started off explaining from the incident a while ago. She asked the class a simple question - "Why do you think, all of us were scrambling to get out for what is just another living creature in this planet that probably came into our way accidentally?" The question of course, was in தமிழ். I just translated that out in the interest of keeping this blog readable for as many as possible.

The answer was prompt enough - "What if the snake was venomous? Just about any one of lives could've been under a threat?". Our teacher continued to explain the couplet and said - "திருவள்ளுவர் is trying to state the same thing about ஒழுக்கம். It is supposed to be protected and valued even greater than our lives!"

********

Donut! Donut! Donut!

For those that follow my sparse publications in the blogs, you must have hopefully read an earlier post I had about how I find fall season to be enchanting, always! This year, I had to sit and search for the choicest places for viewing a full scale fall foliage, never mind that when I move the blinds up my bedroom windows, I see the same sight in the maple tree lined avenue!

What can make a trip merrier than an ability to tag along a friend with you too? Thus go some of the the conversation!

"Hey, how about checking out upstate New York? Lake Placid? White Mountain area?"

"Umm.. Er. But wouldn't it take quite a lot of time Ravi? I have a pile load of office work and a conference where I have to present something in a fortnight or so"

"Alright, how about the Catskills then? One of Hudson's catchment area as well...?"

"Done deal. Come over to my place in New Jersey. We will drive up to Catskills and then return tonight"

All this was happening almost closer to noon time. This meant, by the time I get to my friend's place in New Jersey, it is already about 2:00 PM. And he was impatiently waiting for me. With everything already being in a delayed mode, there was no time to lose. Out we started... driving up the I-287 North. Lately, my mobile has been filled with a good deal of Tamizh literature lectures and I just choose to play some tracks from it while driving. Not that it was extremely fascinating choice for my co-passenger friend - but well, we are at least not falling asleep or quarreling over what should be playing on the speakers!!

The I-287 is one of those roads where I always find it a hard time to maintain a speed less than 70 mph - only because you might get either run over - literally, or keep getting some obnoxious honks - as if you were in violation of some unstated speed limits, which by the way, I suppose is at least closer to a 80 mph.

When I had watched the San Andreas movie in the theatre, I recall some of the opening scenes of the movie. A young girl decides to just listen into Taylor Swift and cruises in the highway - at least an empty one when she is stuck by a rockfall / stone hit and swerves and falls into deep valley. The only thing I was thinking to myself when I saw this scene back then was - Is this even possible in real life? I mean, a bird hit in an airplane - yes. A stone hit or an object hit for a cruising car on the road? Seems unlikely - and yes it did, until I found a flying bumper come in from nowhere right into my path at a good speed. It was too fast for any decision to brake or shift lanes (which was anyway not doable considering the parallel traffic was at an equally good speed). The flying object hit my front bumper. And before I even knew it, I was gone past the object and it was not visible any longer on the rear view or side mirrors.

The incident did jolt me a bit. What was this supposed to even be? A bad omen of sorts for the journey? Or karma deciding to give me a punishment for not heeding my dad's word in the morning not to head out anywhere but stay home and take rest? I wouldn't know the answers yet. But one thing was certain - intuitively, I wanted to cut my journey short and not be up at the Catskill as planned earlier. I had to settle on some other place. I am not going back home without having my share of trekking and walking either.

I glanced at the clock on the dashboard that I always keep to be a quarter hour fast on purpose. And I of course, know this too well that it probably doesn't make sense anymore than to have it running at the correct time! It was already around 3:15 PM now. We had another 100 miles left to hit Catskills area. And thus went another conversation series

"Hey, don't you think that the sun is kind of setting a little earlier these days than usual?"

"Yes Ravi, it indeed does!"

"So, what if we land up being at Catskills just around the sunset time? What do you think we might be able to see if a veil of darkness decides to descend earlier than usual?"

"Well, how about I check the weather app Ravi? Give me a second."

(Internally to myself) "Oh well... I am sure I don't want to be going far with what just happened..."

"Oh yes - but I think the weather app can be trusted only so much you see!!" 

(Lots of experience gets shared / quoted. Relevant. Irrelevant. Doesn't matter for now!)

"Hey... look at this signal on my dashboard. I am not sure I have seen this come on before in my car!"

"Ravi, will you stop freaking out and understand that its nothing more than stating one of your tyres have a low pressure? We can pull over at the nearest place where we can probably just fill up some air. I have done that several times. These are standardized systems"

"Alright, so be it. But tell me, don't you think, going back to the same topic, we might want to cut short the trip so that we can enjoy the foliage view in the sunshine?"

"Well.. it looks like you have quite made up your mind already to change the destination. So be it. Where are we going now?"

"Oh thanks a ton for the understanding. I am now taking the upcoming exit to I-80W. Let's hit the High Point Monument in New Jersey"

"Alright, whatever... I am game."

Nothing seemed out of turn for quite some time thankfully. We weren't able to spot a place for refilling air until we got quite deep into Sussex county area. 

"Hey, you just filled up the air, didn't you? Why am I STILL seeing this sign flashing on the dashboard?"

"Hold on Ravi. Sometimes, these indicators DO take some time to get reset. Just keep driving up for a little more time. We should probably be good in a while"

So, I kept driving up, up and away - into the long winding mountainous terrain. It was so much fun stopping over one place after another trying to figure a way to get to the parking lot nearest to the monument - until we eventually found there is one really close by to it. And WOW... this was worth every strain... Look at it from one side - complete view of NJ areas. Another side - NY. Yet another side - PA. It was a perfect junction of the states indeed..!

After tons of photography which both myself and my friend couldn't get enough of, we decided to head back home. Then begins the drama - of the same TPMS - Tyre Pressure Monitoring System. No matter what we did, the light would just refuse to shut out. We chugged slowly back into the same spot where we had filled air. All the while, my friend kept asking me - "Do you sense anything unusual steering?" I replied, "Nothing!"

When we parked ourselves into the spot for refilling air is when we noticed the air pressure was starting to drop drastically. It just was a little short of hissing. And I noticed it wasn't just the air pressure on the tyres that were dropping. With all the photographs that I was gleefully taking using my new 16 MP Moto 4G phone, the battery in my cellphone has dropped drastically too :D

"Its clearly a flat tyre on the front of the passenger side", my friend said. 

"Can you call the roadside assistance helpline?"

Fact is, I didn't note the number down anywhere to have it handy. I had to get onto my mobile's browser and pull it all up in a Google search. So far so good. We did wait about 45 minutes before we saw a gentleman from the toeing company walk up to the car with his toolkits. He took out the "spare tyre" in the boot of my car. And voila! That's the first time I learnt that the spare tyre is really not a proper spare like what I am accustomed to seeing back home in India. This one was supposedly a "donut" tyre. I had clear cut instructions not to drive above 50 mph and keep the drive to less than or equal to a 100 miles and get assistance with fixing the proper tyres before proceeding any further.

This was some totally new learning. And it followed up with a lot more. I was so exhausted by then from the trek, wait and everything. I literally wanted a donut - no, not for the car. But for myself - and on a plate :D :D