A call to civility.

Well it’s the first time I’ve ever tried it and I must say it is painful…. Whew never knew that a needle prick could cause so much pain!!!

Yeowww….

The preparation to the whole process although a bit slow I must say was effective enough to hide thr gory truth. The intention although good enough and healthy I am told, the pain unbearable. Well since its my first time trying a hand at all this who am I to be a judge of events.

I know that you may not have realised or rather comprehended the topic I am writing about, well it is blood donation. The actual process of blood donation although noble in words and action is no way near the suffering one goes through whilst doing it… hardly one to comment on it as the process I did was platelet donation. I am told blood donation is far more easier and less painful.

From the time the news actually came for the donation I really don’t know how I got into the whole affair. Whew reaching the hospital I did have second thought about going along with the whole scene or act. Well I think it is the attitude of never give in instilled I me from a very young age(the motto of a rival school) that made me stick around and also a sense of civic duty. The frustrating part of the whole day I think is the form filling part which I think in todays world is and absolute joke.

Come to think of it we are forever yapping about the fact that we need to take the next step towards an electronic world blah blah blah….. and here we are even today with all the technology at our fingertips, filling forms. The irony of the situation is that a preson is lying just a few floors above waiting for us to donate so that he can live.

We are done with al the formalities and a long wait later we are escorted to the test lab. One look at my report and a glance at thedoctors gleeful face I knew for certain that a scapegoat was indeed identified. I was again given a form to fill in something authorsing the blood bank the rights to poke me with needles and extract my life fluids. The machine itself looked like a spacecraft that has just landed.. out of this world design… in a word WEIRD.

Got myself stabbed with a needful, one that went really deep, deep enough to actually inflict pain, excruciating as it may be to the onlooker it is but and innocent prick. The hour and a half I had to lie down infact did teach me a few things….
a. Being aware that O+ve is a universal donor - actually is not
b. Platelet transfusion is one pain in the wrong place
c. People with my blood composition is pretty rare.

After the whole thing was over and the needle pulled off your arm,It really is a relief. This I must say is not an experience that I am looking forward to in a very long time…. Very long time!!

Bringing in a cheeky thought to it – the applauds to the action really take you to cloud nine but would have rather, it had not happened. Cheerio!!!

A little mite with great might.

Like i was pondering and pillaging though the dustbin of my memory trying to chronologise my thought in he right order i think this is another one that i thnk is worth metioning.

my previous article, quite evident my dear waston, i did mention about an amazing bug. Well here it is and coincidently as it may seem i just finshed reading an article on the use of insecticides to destroy this bug. Well the bug in itself is so tiny it is rather difficult to actually spot the little bugger.... An apt useage would be little sucker... Not that it gives me pleasure in wanting to be too offensive, it is the nature of the bug! too small to be easily visible to the human eye but the effects of which is not only visible to the human eye but devastating to a plantation. Honestly speaking i have no clue to its biological name, genre, cadre, origin and cycles.

This little fella lives within the branches of the coffee plant and makes a meal fo the xylem and phylem of the plant. As a result of this the whole branch turns brown ie; dead. the feast does not end there. the bug actually makes its way through the branch and finally into the coffee bean and eats up the seed. the deceased coffe bean looks almost similiar to a ripe one but the difference is easily noticable.

After a few days of witnessing this i happen to read an article on how now-a-days coffee is better with the nose and not the mouth. the article even had a good tag line to it. It went something like this "have you ever wondered why they say wake up and smell the coffee and not drink it!!!

I would not really be a favoured reader of the article but it did have one reference to the amazing bug we are on right now. apparently the indian armer uses a pestcide called Lindane to get rid of this insect borers, a chmical banned in 55 countries across the world! wow that was an interesting insight and also as you kow th article kept going on and on and on on the harmful effects chemicals and the reasons it is bad for humans.....

Well like i began this is one little mite that is in possession of great might.
postamble();

Quite Evident Dear Watson....

Every time we walk past a tree or a bush have you ever wondered "it just a simple bush". Well then consider yourself just like a million of us normal people who are just too busy to take into consideration the living world around us. A few days back i was in coorg, know for its coffee estates and vst expanses of greenery. On the surface everything looked just mundane and normal. My brother and I after an hour of driving halt at the edge of our estate and decide lets jut walk for a while. Taking a dip in the river Cauvery, famous for the unresolved conflict between two states, i guess it refreshed us to continue walking. As we go though the thick foilage offered by the coffee plants and the shade of the uniform Silver oak we were pretty much amazed by how much everyone of us is missing in terms of interacting with nature. Every plant that we stopped at, some to inspect some to pose and some to learn, nature always had a changing plot going on.

Along with us came the estate writer, who patiently answered any of our queries and ocassionaly had a private boast. Well i guess he must have often wondered to himself, "hmmm, here's two city clowns squatting, climbing and inspecting things that are mundane here". Fortunately he held his thoughts to himself, a lesson in self preservation...

As i was walking past an arecanut tree i chanced upon this light brown insect holding on to the bark of the tree. on closer inspection i was actually amazed at the fact that it was only a shell and the actual insec had crawled out. A point pointed out to me by my brother. So there we were two ordinary blokes who had no knowledge discoverng a discarded body suit of some insect.

We take the shell along with us and on our way back to the farmhouse we think up situations or i'd rather say concote stories with the shell. We were like the shell would contain a dna of the insect which by mistake would get injected to the body and i would turn into a viscious looking insect and take wings. I would then swoop down on the nearest human suck him dry and then wear his skin to walk among teh human race undetected satsfying my hunger with the odd unsuspecting commoner. Well for the films buffs around it would not be too difficult to figure out a movie with a similiar script. ha ha ha i guess i must be getting better with my PJ's as my friends would like to concur....

As we go on further ahead we are met by our writer who says that the shell we are holding so protectively is actually the shell of the cricket.... and insect that goes creep creep to attract its mate.... a lovely soothing sound so lost in todays concrete jungles. He then actually goes ahead and catches a live cricket with such effortless ease, an ease a city dweller would in a supermarket, demonstrating the very source of the mating call of the cricket. i must say that although it is a pretty soothing sound at the begining it tends to get irritating after you have heard it or a coule of minutes at close quarters. whew!!! i must confess tht i'd never have thought that a cricket was so huge an insect, as i had always pictures it to have the build of a grasshopper. Speaking of grasshoppers, although i pity the males, the next incident involved them

A few footsteps ahead, the carpeted green pathway, was the scene of a gruelling murder of a grasshopper. Quite cleverly camfoulaged blending with the blades of grass sat the lazy grasshopper (Like in the ant and the grasshopper, really dont know why the grassopper is called lazy never could figure that part out), unaware of the predator hovering just a few feet above it. A wasp with its wings rotating at about thousand flutters a second yet seemingly quite and patient, waiting for that one instant of unawareness. It was not too long before it swooped down and stung the grosshopper to death.

KAAACHAAAK!!!! KAAACHAAAk!!! KAACHAAAK!!

The grasshopper went numb in second and the wasp went on with the gruelling task of carrying its victim to it rightful place. The dining table!!! the scene would have been," so its grasshopper BBQ for dinner eh? Jeeves?".

With all this happening he curious devil in me was aroused and I kept investigating all the surrounding for every minute detail as to discover more nature. Got to see a horned butterfly and another amazing bug. This in itself is another topic and will ponder more on it in the next topic.

Isn't it true that we tend to ignore the best and free thngs in life things that are quite evidently happening in front of our eyes and things that we disregard not beause we chose to but simply because we are too busy to stop and take notice. Like Sherlock holmes would say its quite evidet my dear watson the the world is becoming too hectic that the simple pleasures in life is often overlooked....

SORRY SAM, WE INDIANS NEED TO HANG OUR HEADS IN SHAME

The passing away of the only Indian to be appointed Field Marshal when in active service has been remarkable for the warmth of the ordinary men and women, who queued up to say meebeenamet to the adorable dikra who put his life on the line for them.It has also been remarkable for the complete lack of grace and gratitude, civility and courtesy, decency and decorum on the part of the bold-faced names rapaciously grazing the lawns of power in Delhi and elsewhere, for the brain behind India's only decisive military victory.Sam, the Bahadur, had been unwell for a while now. From about 1000 hours on June 26, reports of his being 'critically ill' had appeared in the media. Yet, when the 'expected tocsin' sounded at 0030 hours till the guns were fired in salute around 1500 hours on June 27, 'civil society' chose to show its incivility.
Pratibha Patil, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces with all the time in the world: Absent
Hamid Ansari: Vice-president releasing books and writing reviews of books by fellow-travellers: Absent
Manmohan Singh, the prime minister who could do with a bit of the field marshal's charisma and heroism: Absent
Sonia Gandhi: daughter-in-law of the woman the field marshal called 'sweetie': Absent
L K Advani: prime minister in waiting of the party which would like to do to Pakistan what Manekshaw did: Absent
M Karunanidhi and Surjit Singh Barnala: chief minister and governor of the state which Manekshaw had made his home for 35 years: Absent
Politicians may have their reasons. They always do. Maybe, there are issues like protocol. Maybe, this is one way in which 'civil India' shows the armed forces its place. Maybe, this is why we are not as militaristic as Pakistan. Maybe, the knees are just too old to climb the hills.But what about the armed forces itself?
A K Antony: the defence minister 'now behaving like the chairman of the confederation of the armed forces' trade unions: absent 'due to prior political engagements'.
The chief of army staff: absent (away in Russia)
The chief of navy staff: absent
The chief of air staff (incidentally, a Parsi): absent
The fact that the defence minister was represented by his deputy Pallam Raju, the fact that the navy and air staff sent two-star general rank officers, shows that however high or mighty, however rich or powerful, civilian or military, if you should die as you must, you should do so somewhere in the vicinity of New Delhi -- or Bombay. Or else, they must have some use for you.Or else, too bad.As he rightly surmised once: 'I wonder whether those of our political masters who have been put in charge of the defence of the country can distinguish a mortar from a motor; a gun from a howitzer; a guerrilla from a gorilla -- although a great many of them in the past have resembled the latter.'
The contrast couldn't be starker:
When Amitabh Bachchan was ill after being socked in the stomach during the shooting of Coolie, Indira Gandhi flew down to Bombay to show her concern.
When Dhirubhai Ambani died, L K Advani cut short his Gujarat tour to pay his respects to an 'embodiment of initiative, enterprise and determination'.
When Pramod Mahajan was shot dead by his brother, Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekawat had the time to attend the funeral.
Our VIPs and VVIPs have time for dead and dying celebrities, charlatans, fixers. Not for a field marshal?In his biography, K M Cariappa, the only other field marshal India has had (and who too died at age 94), writes of his father's cremation in May 1993:'Honouring him in death as they did in life were Field Marshal Manekshaw, the three service chiefs all of whom belonged to the same course and at whose passing out parade from the joint services wing father had presided, the gracious chief minister M Veerappa Moily and C K Jaffer Sharief, Minister for Railways representing the President as the supreme commanded of the armed forces.'
Somebody should have told the geniuses in Delhi that Sam, the Bahadur, passed away in Wellington, Ooty, not Wellington, New Zealand. The nearest civil airport is Coimbatore, just 80 km away.If this is how we say goodbye to Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, any wonder why Rang de Basanti could successfully tap into the angst of an entire generation?

Sent by my father to me... really ought to rethink on how and who we should pay our respects to...

An engagement a lesson in eugenics

The outside looked all plane like every other snobby hotel in this weird city, been here over a year now yet fail to comprehend the true class behind the social values placed….

Deviating too much out is gonna get boring. After parking myself under the shady canopy of an old tamarind tree I walk to the arena of the engagement. A couple of cars pass by each filled with relatives I’ve failed to catch up with the last year past. Each one a delight to speak too and each one with their own queries and words of advice. Varied, weird and sometimes helpful but above all isn’t this, what family is all about.

Walking through, acknowledging everyone and enquiring as to their health and affairs does take time and I finally accompany an uncle to the hall booked for the occasion. Grand it is and so was the ceremony. We were welcome by the groom’s father who made himself scant thereafter. (Well no idea if that was the right word but just wanted to say that he was too difficult to spot thereafter). The ceremony was too short by normal Kerala standards but the grandeur was the same.

After several polite hand shakes and acknowledgements I finally get into this conversation with an uncle and a cousin related to me from both sides of my family. The conversation leans to this topic on Eugenics.

Well for those of you like me who have little or no knowledge of the term;

Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. Throughout history, eugenics has been regarded by its various advocates as a social responsibility, an altruistic stance of a society, meant to create healthier and more intelligent people, to save resources, and lessen human suffering.
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With the very little knowledge I had of the term there I was grabbing every word being spoken of on the subject trying to comprehend and catalogue what was trying to be conveyed or discussed. It all started with an uncle of mine trying to tell the cousin of mine how another uncle was related to us and not stopping there he goes a step further to explain the similarities that one can notice within the family.

This suddenly translates to a very interesting course one that goes winding through the family tree of some of the known family trees and the different characteristics brought together with the institution of marriage. This infact got me thinking whew if you look at it unknowingly quite a lot of benefit has in fact been reflected in a wide scope within the family and we have indeed ignored to actually take notice of the whole thing unwrapping itself right in front of our eyes. Be it our negligence or a busy schedule we sure are missing a lot of awfully evident stuff happening right under our noses…..

Sir – Respectable or Demeaning?

Well the other night I was having a discussion over the dinner table with my brother which soon turned out to a debate on the usage of the term ‘sir’. Well the very term in itself points the Dictionary as:

Sir is an honorific used as a title (see Knight) and in several other modern contexts. It was once used (without the person's name) as a courtesy title among equals, but in common usage it is now usually reserved for one of superior rank or status, such as an educator or commanding officer, or in age (especially by a minor); as a form of address from a merchant to a customer; in formal correspondence (Dear Sir, Right Reverend Sir); or to a stranger (Sir, you've dropped your hat).The equivalent for a woman when used as a term of address is "madam" or "ma'am".

What we were discussing was whether the term sir is still used to address a stranger or has it come to a stage where, when you use the term it actually demotes your social standing in the conversation.
It is worth a thought cause when we start to ape the west in several customs and manners, each good in its own way to the betterment of globalisation. But is it applicable in our society namely the south where the surname is usually the fathers name and calling someone by their surname will only get you a raised eyebrow or sometimes a curt reply, “I think he is sitting at home, my name is XYZ”. This would only bring down any hope of actually being in friendly terms with the other person.
Taking the situation to the hospitality industry it ought to be even more complicated don’t you think so?
The varied spectrum of people from all walks of life. People who have been brought up with a silver spoon, opportunists, freeloaders and officials. Each with their own thought and ideas… to too varied to actually satisfy. Now here is it appropriate to use the term sir? How would you actually justify the use of the term sir in addressing a person or individual. Each person or organisation has their own justification of the term but reaching an actual consensus on the use-age is never actually agreed upon.

Cruel - Sympathy

A dozen meetings in a day...
A few loving pats...
A few hasty retreats...
They are your best friends...
They are your worst enemies...
Loving, Warm, Cuddly, Cute...
Just a few words used to describe them.

Well not wanting to actually write too much on the same style i am breaking the suspense and i'm sure some would have already guessed it by now. Yes they are our four legged buddy’s. DOGS . Growing up and having them always around I was one never with a lack of unhindered love from these gentle yet true friends. They never say no to playtime. They never say no to relaxation. They never complaint when you dump their plates with excess food. They never say no to a good cuddle.

I am pretty sure everyone of us has in some point of time actually had a loving time with them. At the same time I am sure that there are the bad times too.

Well enough with this moving on to why I am writing.

Two incidents that are in total opposite to what each other making you actually see the point I am making.

One evening well it was pretty late and in spite of being warned not once but several times to go slow near dogs I travel, tearing across the tarmac. True to dogs, a couple of ‘em come charging. Being in the mood to fight I actually stop and try charging back at the dogs. This I think should be one of the worst follies of this world. Well that said and done I run towards the dog trying to chase it away. This pleases me greatly to see the dog run the opposite direction. The instant I turn my back to it, it charges back. Call it sixth sense or whatever lucky I turned back just in time to avoid its powerful jaws. The routine repeats and I charge it again only to be stopped by a couple of people advise me to go on. I get on my bike and just start when I actually realize that the crazy bugger actually managed to call in all the neighbouring dogs to his aide. Wow this really makes you realize what wonderful co-ordination, the usually territory conscious dogs actually forget their boundaries and come to aide another in his cause which is of relevance to them.
Now it is time for the attacker to retreat with his tail between his legs. The only thing I could do to actually avoid being mauled by a dozen canine canines is to get back on my bike and speed away.
Times like these actually get you to hate these creatures to the core. Funny part is you hate them only at night!

The second situation occours in a similar setting. Late one evening… out on an evening walk I happen to come to a point where right in front is a couple of strays standing some distance from another all with their watchful eyes to one point. Another stray choking on a bone or whatever. The sight is so pitiful you cant do anything but stand there watching the whole scene coloured by sympathetic undertones. Wanting to help but helpless to do so is not a situation that one looks forward to.