Month: December 2013

Will Tea Lose The Battle?

As I write this post, I am enjoying my mid morning mug of excellent coffee brewed in an Italian machine. I however still prefer my wake up beverage to be tea which I have first thing in the morning and after my siesta.

India is a country of tea drinkers. Ginger tea, masala tea, cardamom tea, Irani tea, plain tea, cutting tea and so on and so forth. In the Southern parts, coffee is holding its position despite onslaught from the ubiquitous Malyali chaya kadai attached to a bakery. In the Northern parts the Coffee Board had to set up Coffee Houses to popularise the beverage and succeeded in many places to make them meeting places for the intelligentsia.

Recently however, coffee is making a big splash all over India, a trend started off by Cafe Coffee Day followed by Barista and now Starbucks have also moved in sensing a big shift. These Cafes are ideal places for trysts of all kinds and I have enjoyed visiting a few of them in Pune.

The fun of having tea of tea shops however is irreplaceable and I doubt that tea will ever lose its place as the prime choice of beverage for most Indians.

In this context this article in the Guardian does not come as a surprise to me at all. Brewing tea is a cumbersome process compared to making coffee and our life styles have changed so much from those old days of leisurely afternoon teas and morning elevenses that coffee is making major inroads into one niche, even in England.

Broken.

I hope that you enjoy reading this post on the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where six of us write on the same topic. Today’s topic was chosen by Will who is on a sabatical and is unlikely to participate today. The five other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, gaelikaa, Maxi, Paul, Shackman, and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too!

I hope that what I share here with you which came to my mind the first thing when I saw the topic, does not get duplicated by that other music lover and LBC Blogger Shackman.

This was a big hit here when it first came out in 1980. A very loving friend gifted me this on an EP as a tribute to my condition and would sing it aloud replacing Lady with Rummy. I had just developed severe immobility due to an as yet undiagnosed bilateral hip joint problem and it was decided by that friend that my hip joints were broken and they could not be mended. That friend is reading this post and will recollect the evening in early 1981 when both of us got quite sozzled and maudlin listening to and singing this song, convinced that I will never be mended.

But another great friend, an orthopedic surgeon mended me alright though I had to wait for five years more for the first hip joint and seven for the second. I have been pain free since then and like the potter mended the vase, two surgeons on five different occasions mended me and have enabled me to live a reasonably normal life.

I was broken, but mended too.

I now have a broken lady at home. She is also waiting to be mended.
ChutkiThis is Chutki. You can see that her left hind leg which was in plaster is completely healed and she is very frisky. She is so frisky that this is the best photograph that I could take of her for this post.

You can see that she has her right hind leg up. The shattered hip is mending but is not completely healed. Once that is completely healed, say in another couple of weeks, she will be even more frisky. She too was broken and will soon be mended.

The “What Have I Done So Far” List.

Trophy Winner

My blogger friend Square Peg On A Round World has come up with a very interesting post on what he has done so far.

My response to his post was one of total amazement. I then decided to take his permission and share his post with all my readers.

One of these days, I will sit down and write a similar post. May be my readers will too. In the meanwhile do see what an amazing and versatile man Square Peg is.

Crossword Puzzles And Celebrity Status

In my post on ten questions one question and answer was:
3. Would you enjoy being a very rich and famous celebrity?

No. I am already a celebrity of sorts without being rich!

That caused some merriment to some friends, one of who wanted to know what makes me think that I am already a celebrity of sorts.

Here is my answer Ramesh.

That fabulous looking lady in the article is my sister and fellow crossword puzzle addict Padmini who my readers will know as Padmum.

Determination.

I hope that you enjoy reading this post on the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where six of us write on the same topic. Today’s topic was chosen by Maria the gaelikaa. The five other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, gaelikaa, Maxi, Paul, Shackman, and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too!

I first have to determine whether Maria meant the topic in the way that I am using it in this sentence or to indicate firmness of purpose. Knowing Maria at a personal level too, I suspect that it is the latter as she is one determined lady who will not let anything come in her way once she is determined to do something.

Secondly, I am glad that Grannymar will not be writing for the LBC as she is likely to suggest that I eat dictionaries for breakfast. Not that it will stop her from commenting on this post but I hope that she will spare me that whipping and use the term in the third sense of deciding of the nature or outcome of something.

Are you surprised that I am rather lost at this point of time? The English language is enough to drive one crazy is it not?

I am however determined to write in the sense that Maria hopefully intended.

When I picture most people in association with the word determination, I cannot help add an adjective to the word. Now, doesn’t grim determination sound better? And that is why I have never been a great fan of being a man with grim determination to achieve something. I have been more of the type who sets out to achieve things with gay abandon. Now, I use the word gay in the old fashioned, my generation meaning and wonder if that usage gets some determined do-gooders from going after me. You see the problem with the English language?