Category: Wikipedia

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.

Daily Routine.

A fellow blogger and  well-wisher,  Jean mailed me to ask if all was well with me as I had not been writing blog posts since early October. I had responded with:

“I am hale and hearty and enjoying being a couch potato.

I have not come up with anything to write about recently. I read your posts every day.

Thank you for asking.

Regards.”

Since then I had seriously been considering coming up with some ideas every now and then to blog more regularly and a golden opportunity presented itself with two running holidays for our newspapers following our five day long Deepavali festival.

As my readers know, my morning routine includes reading five newspapers and solving seven crossword puzzles. I was totally lost during the two days when the newspapers did not arrive and was quite frustrated trying to occupy myself with something else. It is a wonder that I survived.

The delivery of daily newspapers recommenced this morning and I am back on even keel. So much so that I indulged myself with a pedicure/foot massage and a hair cut/beard trim/ head massage as I was lucky to find a noon slot with the pedicurist.

I am feeling great with that indulgence and will now give serious thought to finding things to write about more often.

Invasion!

Among the many things that I enjoy in the mornings when I sit with my mug of tea in our veranda, the sound of the koel calling inevitable brings back memories of an old Hindi song.

Two pairs of Bulbuls have nested in our home. One in the hedge bordering our garden and one on top of a window in our kitchen. You can see the latter below.
The one below is a google image of a nest with an egg, very similar to the one in our garden hedge.
I have been witness to the shenanigans of a pair of Koels who have hijacked the nest in the garden to dump koel eggs in it as they do either in these or crow’s nests. The hapless Bulbuls keep trying to chase the koels away with little success as the latter are much bigger and simply ignore the former.

Fascinating sight of one of nature’s phenomena. I have only heard / read about koels dumping their eggs in the nests of other birds as they do not build nests of their own, and this morning ballet is simply too interesting to ignore. It takes the allure of my morning dose of news papers to drag me away.

Lottery And Regrets.

I was quietly sitting on my recliner and reading a book last evening. My DIL was lounging on the sofa and catching up with her messages on her phone.

She must have read about this lottery winner which has been doing the rounds in all our media here the last couple of days.

She suddenly asked me “What will you do if you won a lottery like the auto driver did?”

I reflected for a while and said, “I will put the money in the bank and spend some of it in sprucing up our home and leave the rest for the two of you.”

DIL – “No going to see all the grand children in the family and of friends all over the world, no vacationing in exotic places?”

I – “No dear. My travelling days are over as you well know. I have seen my share of exotic places and modern mass media enables me to be in touch with everyone all over the world. I am now in my comfort zone and am quite content.

I don’t think that she expected that answer and the chat ended there.

This little chat however reminded me of a book that I had read some time ago. While reading the book I could well relate to the dying regrets that the author writes about and even at that time I had placed myself in their position and wondered whether I would have the same regrets and had come to the conclusion that I would not.

The five regrets are:

1.”I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

I believe that I did.

“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

I never had to work hard anyway! And I am not being facetious. Things were different during my working years.

“I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”

While I did not, till about my late teens, I changed when I started regular salaried employment and performance linked incentives, and was able to express my feelings without being afraid of the outcome or the reaction of others.

“I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”

I have, and continue to do so. The longest lasting friendship that I have is with my Primary-School-mate who lives now in Mumbai and many others from my high school and business school days as well as others who came into my life due to my career, travelling and blogging.

“I wish that I had let myself be happier.”

I have been very fortunate that apart from the sorrow of the death of family, friends and pets, I have not had many occasions to be unhappy. I have been and continue to be quite happy, perhaps even to the bemusement to some others.

How would you rate yourself on these five parameters dear reader?

Flood Alert.

Monsoon should have withdrawn normally last week after our Anantha Chaturdasi.

My regular readers will remember my writing two years ago about our local river being in spate. You can re-read it here.. Due to my current health issues, I have not ventured out to see the river as I normally do every year but, have been receiving news about it being in spate from others.

Yesterday’s local newspapers came out with flood alerts in all the rivers running through Pune.

Today, I have been receiving videos of some parts of the city under flood water and here is one of them.


I will keep my readers posted of further developments.

Anantha Chaturdashi.

Today is Anantha Chaturdashi. Like every year, the sun has come out of the clouds to mark the end of the monsoon and it is lovely to see bright sunlight outside.  I can hear the drum beats of processions taking Ganesha for immersion.  Such processions will go on till late tonight as many communities will be going to various immersion points in the city.

Today marks the end of our festival Ganesh Chaturthi.

From tomorrow, rivers which have been in spate due to the rains will revert to normal flows and the monsoon’s rough seas will also calm down enabling sea fishing to recommence.

Our ancients were closer to nature and its inevitable time tables than we are today!  They saw these phenomena and evolved our festivals around such days of seasonal significance, like harvest festivals, onset of warm weather after the winters, religious festivals and days of fasting during idle agricultural times, etc.

I am always in awe whenever these special days arrive and I share the significance with youngsters.