Month: July 2014

Back Home.

10511366_10204106514481503_2785983657908674547_n

I returned to Pune yesterday to be greeted with delightful monsoon weather and rain with very comfortable cool air. Coming as I did from Chennai where it was hot, humid and muggy, it was a relief. I was greeted with the sight of our river Mulamutha in spate as you can see from the photograph taken by my friend Susan.

From the time I came till now as I write 24 hours later, it has not stopped raining. We are informed that the deficit that we experienced in June and early July has been wiped out and we will not have any water shortages for yet another year running. Truly a blessing. Our reservoirs are either full or rapidly getting there and since August also promises to be good as far as rainfall is concerned, it augurs well for the next twelve months.

Not everything around us is good news however. We have had a tragedy yesterday at a very scenic place due to a landslide. The price ignorant people pay for deforestation. There are likely to be more such stories from other parts of the state.

In our neighbouring state Gujarat, things have been very interesting indeed!

So like every monsoon, some bad news among generally good news and I for one am delighted to be back where I am most comfortable. So, with apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson let me conclude:

Here I am back where I long’d to be;
 
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
 
And the hunter home from the hill.
 
 

Corporal Punishment.

caning_LARGE

Corporal punishment in schools has been banned in India since 2010.

Despite the ban such punishment keeps taking place with tragic consequences which get reported in our press and there just does not seem to be any end to it. If anything the brutality seems to be increasing. Untrained teachers, money making schools more interested in quantity over quality catering to two income households who are only too happy to see the children being disciplined in schools and many other sociological factors play their respective roles in this mess. The latest instance to hit the headlines shows how totally unqualified persons become teachers for want of alternative sources of income,

My views on this subject have been very clearly and unambiguously brought out in my post Corporal Punishment And Mr. Kuruvilla jacob that I wrote around the time that the punishment was banned in India.

I have not changed my views but am pleased to see many young parents from among my friends and relatives approaching child rearing in a holistic manner where it is unlikely that their children will face tragic consequences of corporal punishment.

Ashok who has suggested this topic is a young socially conscious activist lawyer who is doing a lot of good work in this and other related areas and it is to be hoped that such initiatives from the non government sectors will bring about the massive holistic changes that will be needed in the total country. I doubt that merely legislating on the subject will bring about any meaningful change.

I hope that you enjoyed reading my take on this subject which was chosen by Ashok for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where five of us write on the same topic. The four other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order,  Ashok, gaelikaa, Maxi, and Shackman. 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!

The Lunch Date.

mea-culpa

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.

No, I am not a Roman Catholic.  Nor is my friend.   This is just me showing off to Grannymar that I have not forgotten my catechism lessons.

After my post I Am Devastated, it is only fair that I keep my readers informed on what happened to THE lunch date.

The lunch date was set for earlier today and both the parties involved were eagerly looking forward to it.   I had even located an exotic new place to go to but the Universe decided that we had to wait for some more time. I was dragged screaming and kicking into a domestic problem matter which could only be resolved through my good offices and so I had to beg off the date on the assurance that it will be set up again shortly.

I am however preoccupied with another family matter till the 30th of July and so it will have to be some time in August that it will now take place. I will keep my readers posted.

The preoccupation will also mean that I will be away from the blog world till the end of the month after I post this week’s LBC post tomorrow. Till then here is wishing all my readers a happy respite from my bombardments.

Children And The Ocean.

children and ocean

I love children. You will love them more than you already do when you read what was sent to me by an inveterate forwarder of mails.

A class of youngsters were asked to write about the ocean. By the time you finish reading this you should be able to ace a test on oceanography.

1. This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles. (Kelly, age 6)

2. Oysters’ balls are called pearls. (Jerry, age 6)

3. If you are surrounded by ocean, you are an island. If you don’t have ocean all round you, you are incontinent. (Mike, age 7)

4. Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson . She’s not my friend any more. (Kylie, age 6)

5. A dolphin breaths through an asshole on the top of its head. (Billy, age 8)

6. My uncle goes out in his boat with 2 other men and a woman and pots and comes back with crabs. (Millie, age 6)

7. When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes when the wind didn’t blow the sailors would whistle to make the wind come. My brother said they would have been better off eating beans. (William, age 7)

8. Mermaids live in the ocean. I like mermaids. They are beautiful and I like their shiny tails, but how on earth do mermaids get pregnant? Like, really? (Helen, age 6)

9. I’m not going to write about the ocean. My baby brother is always crying, my Dad keeps yelling at my Mom, and my big sister has just got pregnant, so I can’t think what to write. (Amy, age 6)

10. Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where they have to plug themselves in to chargers. (Christopher, age 7)

11. When you go swimming in the ocean, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small. (Kevin, age 6)

12. Divers have to be safe when they go under the water. Divers can’t go down alone, so they have to go down on each other. (Becky, age 8)

13. On vacation my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won’t do it again because water fired right up her big fat ass. (Julie, age 7)

14. The ocean is made up of water and fish. Why the fish don’t drown I don’t know. (Bobby, age 6)

15. My dad was a sailor on the ocean. He knows all about the ocean. What he doesn’t know is why he quit being a sailor and married my mom. (James, age 7)

The Leopard And The Tortoise.

leopard and tortoise

The leopard had been looking for the tortoise and hadn’t found him for a long time. On this day, on a lonely road, he suddenly chanced upon Tortoise, and so he said, “Aha! At last, I’ve caught you. Now get ready to die.”

Tortoise of course knew that the game was up and so he said, “Okay, but can I ask you a favor?” and Leopard said, “Well, why not?” Tortoise said, “Before you kill me, could you give me a few moments just to reflect on things?” Leopard thought about it – he wasn’t very bright – and he said, “Well, I don’t see anything wrong with that. You can have a little time.”

And so Tortoise, instead of standing still and thinking, began to do something very strange: he began to scratch the soil all around him and throw sand around in all directions.

Leopard was mystified by this. He said, “What are you doing? Why are you doing that?” Tortoise said: “I’m doing this because when I’m dead, I want anybody who passes by this place to stop and say, ‘Two people struggled here. A man met his match here.

~ African Fable.