Month: August 2022

Extension Personality.

We had a lovely young lady visiting us at home earlier today. She had driven some fifteen kms from her home to a Beauty Salon near our home which she claimed was the best in Pune.

While she and my DIL were chatting about things that ladies chat about, I overheard a bit that puzzled me. The young lady said, and I quote her, “I am not the extension personality”.

I was puzzled as during my younger days, an “extension personality” was someone in an office, who, due to the nature of his/her work was given an extension phone without a dial which could only receive calls or make outside calls through the central telephone exchange board. It was considered to be a status symbol to be given such an instrument.

I decided to investigate what it meant in today’s context and discovered that the lady was talking about finger nail extensions.

I had to google for finger nail extensions to find what exactly the term meant! I wonder if such an extension would not cause problems for the wearer as well as others nearby!

Did you know about this beauty enhancement device?

What’s In A Name? Post 3.

The phone has not stopped ringing since yesterday. People who had not been in touch with me for long suddenly remembered that there is someone called Ramana that they know who lives in Pune and have been calling me to check if I am alive or not. Quite natural to wonder at my age and also theirs!

This is because a Rock Star like figure, The Chief Justice of India Shri N V Ramana retired and has been in the news since the last few days. Here is an article which will give you some idea. I doubt very much that there could be a news paper anywhere in India which would not have covered this important event.

People reading this remembered that there is another Ramana in their lives and so the sudden burst of phone calls and WhatsApp messages.

One “collateral benefit” of sharing the name with a celebrity.

Has anything like this happened to you dear reader?

International Dogs Day.

My day started with a message from a friend greeting me for International Dogs Day with this image included.

Till then, I did not even know that there was something like this in existence despite having been a dog lover all my life.

My friend did not know about my recent loss and I had to send him a link to my post on Chutki.

I am yet to get over the loss and that message and a few more later only made me more maudlin. I miss her terribly.

I Am Alive And Kicking.

I just thought that I should make my presence felt before some friends start missing me.

I am very much alive and having fun and have fully recovered from the excesses of out 75th Independence anniversary celebrations as well as Janmashtami.

I haven’t just had the inspiration to write blog posts. I will try and generate some enthusiasm the coming week which promises to be quite unusual from two days down the line with a gang of old reprobates landing up for lunch at my place.

In the meanwhile, Hello Sandeep!

Chutki Is No More.

Chutki came into our home nine years ago. I had written in detail about her in my post in December 2013 and you can read that post here.

She has been a cheerful part of our family all these years and was also popular among many visitors to our home as well as in our neighbours.

She has been ailing for the past few weeks and slowly deteriorating. She even had to be hospitalised for a few days but, was so unhappy there that we brought her home.

She started to moan and groan this morning and was taken to the vet who diagnosed liquid in her lungs and suggested that we let her go. We did.

She was cremated with due honours just over ah hour ago.

Satgathi Praaptirastu. Om Shanti.

Ageing, Humour And A New Expression.

My friend and ex colleague Balu, whom I have had the privilege of knowing for the past almost half a century, recently sent an interesting article on the brains of ageing persons in our WhatsApp group. For those interested, the article can be read here.

After reading that, I couldn’t resist a response – “Balu, it is all very well for people with brains. Totally useless for someone like me without a brain.”

Balu, being Balu and not one to leave matters hanging in the air, responded – “It is four much.”

That frankly stumped me for a while. Since I have already claimed that I don’t have a brain, and in reality, one that works like a tubelight, it dawned on me that it is a double superlative of “too much”. On further enquiry, I find that it is quite common but, something that came for the first time to me.

I doffed my topi to Balu and responded with this quote.


Can you?