Category: Humor

The Walking Stick.

My readers know that I had been using a walking stick since the past four decades due to both hips having been replaced and revised. Since the past six months or so, I have had to move up to using elbow crutches with which I am more stable and confident of moving about.

I am not the man in the picture but I have inserted the image to show what elbow crutches are.

Many people who have known me for long however, do not know that I have upgraded to elbow crutches and must be under the impression that I still use a walking stick. This must be the only reason for me having been flooded since morning with this video clip in my WhatsApp application.

I have been responding with the following message.

“I admire you for your memory remembering me with a walking stick. I however assure you that I am not capable of the acrobatics shown in this video.”

You can imagine the responses that I have been getting for that comment.

What would your reaction be to my response?

Crazy!


I will start this post with a bit of humour and end it on a very serious note. Both to drive home the thrust of this post.

I am a member of a number of WhatsApp groups and one of the problems of being so is the repetitions that one has to face every day. Some posts go viral so fast that I not only get to see them on various groups but, also through individual messages from contacts.

One such recent video is about a Super Senior gent who is past ninety and still going strong with daily physical exercises, marathon running, proper diet etc, etc, etc. In the clip he is asked about his longevity and he  advices on how to be fit irrespective of one’s age.

Good for him but, my funny bones decided to have a bit of humour with this post as, the gent shares the same surname, xxxxxx as mine. So, on many such posts I commented : “xxxxxxs are crazy. I am one.”

The responses to my comment amazed me. 43% wrote that they totally agreed, or indicated their agreement via thumbs-up emojis or simply by a grinning image.

33% responded with frowning emojis. Need I also add that bar just a few, all shared the surname xxxxxx.  I suppose that these indicated that all xxxxxxs are not crazy.

The balance 23% simply enjoyed the quip and indicated it via smile or grin emojis.

Innumerable contacts decided that discretion is the better part of valour and simply kept quiet.

I have concluded that most people in the world that I occupy consider me as crazy. So be it.

Now coming to the serious part of this post; Please visit Webwisewoman’s blog post I Was Never Old Before.

I hope that you will understand my response in the comments to that post – “No matter what one learns from others about ageing, one has to face up to realities of one’s own situation. In my case, my health issues prevent me from leading the kind of lives that many of my friends and relatives of about my age live. I have accepted this and have modelled mine to give me a contented life. And yes, blogging has been a great outlet for the creative part of me to operate.”

And just as I started to write this post, I received another message from a very dear friend who too is an xxxxxx and like me, a couch potato.

Nastik in Sanskrit means a Non Believer.

Now, you tell me whether I am crazy or not. Thank you.

Growth!


A friend of mine has undergone some unpleasant experience recently and while communicating the details to me concluded with – “Sometimes, we gotta shut up, swallow our pride and accept that we are wrong. It is not giving up, it is growing up.”

I could well sympathise her as this is an experience that all of us undergo at some time or the other in our lives. Perhaps even more than just once.

I however decided to cheer him up and offered my two bits as follows:

“The problem is that I cannot grow up any more! I seem to be able to grow only sideways.”

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?

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?