December 2013 – Page 2 – Ramana's Musings

Ten Questions.

Nickhereandnow had these ten questions with his answers up on his post which intrigued me enough to try and answer them for myself.

1. If there’s one chocolate left in the box, do you have to eat it, or can you leave it sitting there?

I will eat it and flatten the box to be added to the kabadiwallah pile.

2. What do you want to remember most of all, if you survive to be very old?

I hope that I don’t, but if I do, the many journeys that my late wife, my son and I took together.

3. Would you enjoy being a very rich and famous celebrity?

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

4. What piece of music do you personally find most emotionally moving?

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi‘s Bhajans.

5. How do you deal with depression, anxiety and bad times?

I rarely get depressed or anxious and if I do, I naturally snap out of it in a few moments. I have no bad or good times. I have times.

6. What do you love doing that bores everyone else stiff?

Solve crossword puzzles.

7. Did you ever encounter an inanimate object that seemed to have a will of its own?

My stationary exercycle.

8. What is your very favourite hotel or restaurant?

The Gownder Mess in Tirupur.

9. Do you think prisoners who have committed particularly vile crimes should be segregated in jail for their own safety?

No.

10. What do you wish you had known when you were 18?

I wish I’d known more about Indian spiritual traditions.

Shut Down.

Cheerful Monk had this post on the US Government’s shut down.

I had commented there as follows:

“Our Central Government, the equivalent of your Federal Government has been shut down for the past four years. We have managed very well without their governance! We call it Ram Bharosey meaning Trust in Lord Ram.”

We have some intrepid souls in India who express our ideas much better graphically.

Finally, the electorate of three States and one Union Territory decided that they had had enough of a non performing political party and showed them the door. The most significant send off was in the Union Territory Delhi where the showing was pathetic. The saving grace was one state in our North East, which returned the Indian National Congress to power but that went almost unnoticed.

Now our own GOP has finally started to be decisive in its own way by testing the waters as it were by indirectly announcing that one more Nehru/Gandhi scion will lead the party in the general elections next year.

I have no doubts in my mind at least, and I am joined by many other well wishing Indians that the INC will finally shut down after that.

Chutki.

This is my son Ranjan and the latest addition to our family, Chutki. Chutki means ‘little girl’ and also a snap of the fingers.

Since I wrote about our Sunday outing, some comments and also some personal mails that I have received have enquired about Chutki and this post is set the record straight.

Ranjan and his bride Manjiree are deeply involved with animal welfare activities and are active with rescue work as part of a wide net work of volunteers who rescue stray animals and abandoned pets in distress till some solution is found. They liaise closely with some privately run animal shelters, the Blue Cross facility and the Municipal animal shelter. They often receive phone calls at all times of the day and night and rush to bring some help to animals in pain. Manjiree’s two sisters and a niece are also in this voluntary work.

Over a month ago, Manjiree’s sister Anjali found that a stray pup that she had treated for mange in her neighbourhood was in deep distress after a motorist had hit her. Manjiri and Ranjan brought her to our home to provide with a veterinary surgeon’s attention and it was found that she had suffered a shattered hip on her right hind leg and a clean fracture on her left hind leg, Since then, the pup has been with us and about a week ago, Manjiree quietly came and asked if we could keep her permanently with us and I did not have the heart to say no.

The plaster has now come off and calcification in the hip has taken place and though she finds it impossible to climb steps, she is pain free and mobile but has to be carried upstairs or downstairs which Ranjan and Manjiree do frequently to take her to the garden. She is a cheerful and intelligent pup and I am sure that with time she will develop into to a fine specimen.

When she was brought first to our home, she was being called Pinka which was the name that Anjali had given her but since that name is rather special, I have insisted that we change it to Chutki to avoid embarrassments like I had on a couple of earlier occasions.

I hope that this explains the sudden addition to everyone’s satisfaction.

Sunday Outing.

The Pune Rajgopauls took a drive up the Sahayadri Range to Lavasa to acclimatise the latest addition to the family, Chutki to long car drives.

The photograph is courtesy a waiter who obliged us while we were tucking into some delicious lunch. You can click on the photograph to enlarge it.

This photograph was taken by Manjiree.

It was a bright and sunny day and coming as it did following the coldest night yet this winter, it was a great outing.

Is Global Peace Possible?

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 me. 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!

My answer to my own question is no.

There is just too much investment in the arms and ammunition industry, for peace to ever visit our planet. The military, industrial, political interconnectedness will ensure that we will always have strife of some sort in many parts of the world.

In my own backyard, I do not foresee peace in my life time, and for that matter, in my son’s life time either. I am not cynical. I am just being realistic.

Four Miles To Freedom.

For the first time ever, I attended a book launch yesterday, because the hero of the book is Dilip Parulkar who is an acquaintance and a close friend of a very dear friend.

That Dilip was and is a remarkable man was obvious from the number of ex armed forces officers assembled for the occasion and became more obvious when some of them shared some other information about him from their own recollections of the 1965 and 1971 wars.

My friend, a Retired Artillery Officer had come down from Delhi specially to attend the function and just could not stop talking about Dilip. The two of them were school mates before they met again at the National Defense Academy and with such strong bonds formed during boyhood, there was quite a bit of hero worship.

I was among the very few civilians at the function but thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and camaraderie and to get back to driving in heavy traffic was a hard come down.

Here is an article from the author of the book Faith Johnston that will give you some idea about the book. It was a pleasure to meet her too at the launch beside two other officers who had escaped from the Pakistani prison in 1972. Incidentally, yesterday was the 42 anniversary of the day of escape.