A Haloween Story

"I wouldn't go to the hospital myself" I protested. Nothing of that sort even flies close to my mum, she didn't even budge. "Here, the food is packed" she said arranging the food in the wire basket. I could see a steel lunch box, a flask full of warm milk and some oranges and Bananas. "I will drop this food and comeback, I wont stay there for the night" It was whine now, trying to pluck some sympathy strings in her. "Would you leave your Granny alone?" my mum asked using the same technique at me. "You are not a kid anymore, you are fifteen year old MAN" she stressed the word man, trying to make me feel stronger.

My grand mother was diagnosed with some heart ailment and was admitted to the hospital three days ago. She was in a critical state, we almost lost hopes, she fought back and is now recovering. My dad and mum were there for last three days sleeping on the bench outside in the corridor of ICU. My dad was very happy when he announced to all our relief that granny is released from the ICU and now in the observation room. And it's now my duty to go and sleep in the hospital and keep my granny company. I hate going to hospitals; they spook me even in the day time; I cant even imagine sleeping in one for the whole night.

I started cycling towards the hospital singing a cheesy bollywood song, trying to chase away the scary thoughts with my horrible voice. The hospital was a good 15 mins bike ride; I could see the hospital now, evev the silhouette sacres me, I wanted to turn back and go home. The fear of my father and love of my grandmother made me to park my bike and walk up to the ward.

The staircase was dark, I couldn't even see the steps clearly, the crickets were creaking and the bulb was flickering. Holding my heart in my hand I started slowly climbing up the stairs, suddenly i felt warm breath on my shoulder, I almost dropped the basket in my hand and stopped the scream in my mouth and slowly turned around. There was none around. I looked around, I saw nothing, I noticed something white under the stairs, I leaned on the railings for a close look. I was scared shitless, its was dead body covered in white cloth lying on a stretcher. I ran blindly up the stairs as bumping into many walls and almost breaking the flask.

My uncle was sitting besides my granny's bed. He was trying to talk with her. My granny's eyes lit up seeing me; she beckoned me towards her and held my hands. Tears swelled up in my eyes and started rolling down my cheeks. My uncle quickly fed my granny the food i brought. "You can sleep here" he pointed an empty bed by my granny's bed. There were four beds in that room and all were empty. I nodded my head. A burly nurse came in a glass of water and some tablets. She adjusted my grannies bed and made her swallow the tablets. "My nephew will sleep here" my uncle told the nurse. She brusquely nodded, her face set stiff, I guess for the lack of laughter.

My uncle left leaving me alone with my Granny, I sat besides her holding her hand until she drifted into sleep. I slowly freed my hand, cover her with a sheet and tiptoed to the only window in that room. The ceiling fan was making a constant rhythmic creaking noise, I could hear the crickets in the staircase, as soon as I thought of staircase, i remembered of the dead body lying under it. My heart started beating faster and I started sweating. I wanted to get under the my bed sheet in my room. The room started feeling more and more creepier.

I reluctantly switched off the big light and switched on the night bulb. I then went slowly sat on the bed besides my granny's bed. I could hear her rhythmic breathing, which sounded very reassuring. I slowly closed my eyes and the corpse under the white sheet was before my eyes, startled I opened my eyes. "Who are you" I almost screamed. I saw a lady trying to sleep on a bed on the other side of my grandmothers bed. "This is my bed" she said softly "whats wrong with you " she asked me "you look very young" she sighed with pain. "I am her grandson" I pointed at my grandmother "I am spending this night here" I said.

She was quite for a while. "Come and sit here" she patted on her bed, "I am not able to see you clearly". I went closer, her age was around the age of my grandmother and she looked much paler and eyes were very dull. "Come sit" she said patting the bed again. "I have a grand son too" she said holding my hand. A sudden shill ran through my hand; her hand was very cold. "He is in America, he doesn't have time to see his grandmother" she sighed again. "Are you in pain?" I asked her. "No not anymore" she said smiling. "Whats wrong with you?" an other question. "My heart enlarged" she said making a sign by moving away her arms away from chest. "You should sleep" I said. she smiled in return.

I was getting nervous and my hand stated quivering. "Are you scared, son" she asked by patting my hair. "Yes" I said. "Come lets go to you bed, I will tuck you in", she said. I walked to my bed and she tucked me in. She then sat by my side and slowly stoked my hair. She then started singing a hymn to lord Ganesha in a melodious voice. I don't know when I drifted to sleep.

It was really bright when I woke up; a new nurse was talking to my grandmother. I smiled at both of them. I went near my granny and held her hand. "Did you sleep well?" my granny asked me softly. "Yes" I said and suddenly I remembered about the elderly lady who put me to sleep. "She put me to sleep" I said pointing to that lady's bed. "Who" both my granny and nurse asked looking around the room. "The lady who was on that bed" I pointed to that bed again. The colour drained out of nurse's face. "Are you joking?" she asked. "No" I said, "She is about my grandmother's age and her heart is enlarged" I tried to help her memory. Both of them were staring at me as if they are looking at some strange creature. "She even told me that her grandson in America doesn't have time to visit her". The nurse beacame paler, she walked away from the room silently and my grandma started crying.

My dad and mum came along with my sister. "The lady who was in this bed, who died yesterday morning, her family just came from America." My dad sighed and I saw tears rolling down his eyes. "Apparently they didn't know which hospital she was admitted and were searching all the hospitals it seems, poor lady, died a loner" he said with a loud sigh.

My knees felt weak and I collapsed on the floor.

Deepavali Reminisces

Every child born and brought up in India has very fond memories of Deepavali or atleast s/he must remember the time s/he spent in the burn ward. Fortunately for me and my mum, I never even had a small burn, I came pretty close though to burning down the house.

For myself and my little sister Deepavali used to start a couple of weeks earlier than the actual festival. We used to use our pocket money to buy the 'fire crackers' and use to light them before our house with a lighted incense stick. My sister was sorta Tomboy, while all other girls would stand back and let the boys do the dirty work, my sister would fight with me, and snatch my share of crackers too.

My dad used take both of us to his friend's grocery shop in the bazaar in Nellore; its no more a grocery shop during the Diwali season, its a fireworks shop and huge one. There were thousands of 'hand-itching' fireworks on display. Its a boy's fantasy come true; "10 lakh Chain" on big box screamed at me, "Double Decker Bombs" another box wanted my attention. The king of all the crackers were "Lakshmi Firecrackers". Literally they packed a punch and only Men of strong heart would light them. My dad became a instant hero to not only to me but to all my friends when he lighted these "Lakshmi crackers" holding this cracker with one hand and lighted with another. The fuse was very short and would burn real fast. Whenever I would light them, I would run real fast after seeing the fuse alight. My dad would wait till the last moment, i.e. when the spark reaches the main body of the bomb. He then with a flourish would throw it in the air and it would explode in mid air, with so much glory, that it can only witnessed and enjoyed.
Lakshmi crackers

Coming to our Diwali shopping, We would fill our baskets trying to optimize our budgets. We wanted to maximise the time spent outside bursting the crackers, if we buy only crackers we would finish in no time at all, so we would fill our baskets with varieties of fireworks like a flower pot, vishnu chakram and such. Then comes the ritual of drying the fireworks in the sun to make them crisp and devoid of any moisture, an age old wisdom passed in the children's world to eliminate duds.

The festivities start a day early, on the day before Deepavali known as Naraka Chaturdasi. My father would wakes up at 4:30 am and would make us brush our teeth, that's one of his pet peeves, he cant stand an un washed mouth in the morning. By the time we finished brushing out teeth, we would realize that its the time to light up our 10% of our cache. We would finish our quota in no time and would have tough time, keeping our hands off from the main cache. Mum would make us take us an elaborate shower with soap nuts, with its acrid juice going and burning our eyes. We would wear our new clothes and would hit the streets looking and inspecting our friends' caches. We would treated with lots of sweats where ever we go.

I hate long posts and this getting too long, time to end it, In a few word: We used to have lots of fun!

Beauty

Ponder these questions for a minute:

• What exactly is beauty?
  
• Why are everyone so hung up on being beautiful?
  
• Why are women turned in objects of appreciation in those "beauty contests"? and
  
• Why is Beauty multi billion $ industry?
  

I don't know the answers for all the above questions but I know one thing, we humans, I don't know about the other animal take beauty very seriously, but the question why stands there for someone to shed light on her.
Why is Maduri Dixit looks beautiful? where as someone else is ugly? Can we quantify beauty? I remember when we were adolescents we used to assign percentages to girls depending on how good they look, the high scorers and low scorers were sheer walk ins. The problem was the girls who fell in 60-80% category. We fought many battles trying to increase our picks scores. Beauty is so subjective.

"Beauty lies in the eyes of beholder" people have been screaming this on rooftops and top of their lungs from the time immemorial. Lets start a thought experiment, suppose, Tarzan hasn't met Jane at all, and walks out into civilization after 20 years of isolation. If Tarzan is made to sit on the Miss world judging panel, who would he chose? Depends on whether concept of beauty is genetically coded or is a matter of TV teaching us to identify beautiful people. I am sure some one must have done this study.

I went on my own quest to find out the definition of beauty. For a face to be beautiful it has to qualify these two criteria

• The facial features should be proportional to the Golden ratio and
  
• The face should be symmetrical
  

Golden Ratio

Wikepedia defines golden ratio as

The golden ratio is an irrational number, approximately 1.61803..., that possesses many interesting properties. Shapes defined by the golden ratio have long been considered aesthetically pleasing in Western cultures, reflecting nature's balance between symmetry and asymmetry and the ancient Pythagorean belief that reality is a numerical reality, except that numbers were not units as we define them today, but were expressions of ratios. The golden ratio is still used frequently in art and design. The golden ratio is also referred to as the golden mean, golden section, golden number, divine proportion or sectio divina.

Symmetry

Observe this close up picture of Aishwarya Rai, supposedly the most beautiful woen in the world, her left and right halves are mirror images of each other. Look closely and tell me whether I am wrong or not.

I have no idea, whether these notions of beauty are culture related or evolutionary trait, where we tend to equalize beauty to be a sexually fertile and healthy partner? Jared Diamond thinks so, he says that the notion of beauty in the animals is to advertise how healthy and fertile they are.

Now this question, Can people buy beauty? begs attention, according to my definition, one is born beautiful, and there is no way one can buy beauty. Then why is this beauty industry so powerful? No idea, may be the corporations have convinced us that buy using dove some we somehow turn in to those beautiful people who eat chocolates for lunch and blow kisses day and night. If we wont buy they wont sell, as simple as that.

What do you guys think?

My take on Faith

My last blog generated quite a ruckus (Couple of comments for me is a busy day in the fish market by the sea ).The central question raised was about faith and its help in keeping ones mooring steady. Sorry folks, I wont buy those kind of fish any more, for me faith is the root cause of everything (i typed evil, but resisted plucking the low hanging fruit). Let me illustrate with an example, I have faith in my teacher and believe that my teacher would be 'fair' (again a very subjective word, lets quantify it as a acceptable behaviour in the present day society, by doing which you are not killing any kittens and puppies) and she ends up giving me a bad mark just cause I giggled with her niece. Is my faith misplaced? Should I even have faith in her? Would I have been better by reasoning out that Giggling with teacher's niece would annoy her and she would punish me? Dragging this analogy along, would it better in putting faith in the Lord and riding out the storm or packing and leaving to a better place? This analogy Sucks, but oh well, one has to live with what one has got.

Belief and faith according to me and a recent Guardian article are strong evolutionary traits. Humans while evolving started believing in the big sky daddy who would watch over them, send in the locusts, throw a few lighting bolts and many such things at his children because he is upset over his shaving water being 54 deg rather than 52 deg. This faith in this imaginary deity helped them in time of crisis, praying helped sooth the frayed nerves and this imaginary deity grew in strength, he became GOD of all things.

I never said that I believed in monetary rewards for my prayers and prayed for the winnig Lotto 649 numbers. I said that if there were the power to that prayer, I would have become richer, smarter and prettier just because my mum prays day in day out. Belief and faith in something powerful than us may be good thing, heck it even helped us evolve in to this position, where we are thinking of even time travel. For me, I would pass on Faith, and I would have some more reason.

This is How I feel about Religion

Well said! A 'Cartoon' is truly worth thounds of hours of discussion.

Over and out, Captain.

If only God were there!!

I lost my 'faith' sometime in late 2002 and early 2003. I found Dr.Reason and Lady logic more enlightening than Ganesha and Jesus. It has been not so rough sailing since then. I knew my moral bearings, I steered my ship off the obvious disasters which gets attributed to "'disbelievers" likes us.

Yesterday something happened, which may be is probably nothing, made me yearn for the presence of God. As I said earlier, I was a strong believer in a fair God and thought that the world He created is fair. I also believed that I wouldn't not be cheated and if somebody shortchanges me s/he will face 'the payback' some other time. If I were 'good' I will be rewarded by the this just God not only after death but during life time. Now as I have lost faith in this 'God' I feel lost, "is there any hope for being good?" I ended up crying into the empty skies where no flying pink unicorn or a an Elephant god mounted on a mouse were listening.

If only God were there,

• Babies wouldn't have died under the rubble of falling buildings


• Hitler and Osama Bin Laden wouldn't have existed


• I would have got a undue advantage of all the praying, which, my family 'religiously' performs.


• My streak of bad luck would have ended long ago


• Ganesha would have jumped down from his mouse and would have made my miserable life a bit better

Alas! if only God existed. I so much want God to exist, I so much want a Divine plan to exist, I so much want a master planner sitting up there and making the moves up there.

If anyone else, who by chance, would read this tell me what they think?

A python ate an alligator!

(continuing my snake series)

And didn't survive to tell the story..."When I was in Florida, I saw this yummy alligator..."

Someone around here swallowed more than it can digest

Snakes and Me!

I am currently reading this very entertaining book, "The snakebite survivors club". No, I am not one of them. Bur, to be fair I have come very close to be a member of it.

Having grown up in India, I have some snake encounters up my sleeve (pun intended). Well I haven't seen an India who doesn't have a Cobra story or two, real or made-up.

When I was a little kid, One late evening I came home after playing cricket. "Don't even think of stepping into the Kitchen" My mum screamed from kitchen without turning to look at me. I am amazed at her power of sensing before hand what I am going to do, even before I think of it. "Go and take a bath first" she said stirring something. It smelled really good. We had our bathroom outside the house. It was a room constructed outside the house. Most of the older houses were constructed with bathrooms separated from the main house, as they were considered unclean.

I went into the bathroom. it was a damp and dark place. It had a small 40 watt bulb in it. I switched on the light. "I cant see anything in this hole" I muttered to myself. We had to fill a bucket of water from a slowly dripping faucet and then use the water to take a bath. "Where the hell is the bucket"? I asked aloud, as if the broom in the corner would answer my question.


I looked around, and I found it in a dark corner. I went and picked it up. I could never forget what happened next. My worst nightmare came true. I heard a hissing sound and saw something yellow under the bucket. That's it I My heart stopped beating! I threw the bucket on the yellow hissing thing and ran out of the washroom screaming.

Thankfully, both for the public and me, I was not totally in state of full undress. My dad then went into the washroom with a big stick and powerful flashlight. He didn't find the yellow hissing thing. He searched the whole damn bathroom for more than an hour. "You Must have dreamt about it" he teased me. He thinks that I am wussy. "Ya sure I was dreaming in that ****hole" I thought of answering him back, but the precedences urged me earnestly, "DON'T ANSWER BACK!!" I swallowed my pride and went back in to the wash room with that big flash light.

I think the snake in the washrom that day is the common tree sanke, which is very common in India.


The commmon Indian Tree snake

I have encountered snakes very closely in couple of instances. I will write about them later.

Reading the Tea leaves!

Yessir, I want to be a futurist. In the long list of my 'wannabees' this is the latest addition, just after the 'stand-up comedian' entry. I can see the inquisitive readers eyes scanning for the list, but sorry noble sirs/madams, that's a subject for another entry.

I was reading about this colourful character Ray kurzweil, who calls himself a futurist. If this term isn't self explanatory, I will try to break it up for you, futurist: One who tries to predict the future, see easy isn't it?

So what's the difference between the dude with a dirty beard sitting with a deck of cards and a clipped parrot in cage by the street corner and this Starbucks-sipping, Black-turtle-neck- wearing, Powerbook-donning intellectual? The dirty bearded guy with a parrot would try to predict whether you would be able to that 14 inch colour TV your wife always wanted, while, this powerbook flaunting Californian intellectual spawns such thoughts about whether the machine intelligence would overtakte the human intelligence? If yes, then When? Would that be a 'good' thing or a 'bad' thing?, and, such mundane topics.

Well if Ray can do it, Pavan could too. What do I see in future? *Ducks to pick up the crystal Ball, dusts it off with a dirty socks*. I am Sorry to rain on your parade gentlefolk. I dont see anything bright there. All I see is the replay of the movie "Day after Tommorow", with all the climax scenes from all the doomsday's movies thrown in.


That's what I see

I would be really surprised if we as a humanity sees the year 2100 AD. If a Global Hurricane doesn't blow us off, a deadly mutation of AIDS and common cold would get us. Why am I forgetting the giant asteroid lurking in the Asteroid belt? Wait a second wouldn't the earth be so warm to melt the polar caps and wipe out 60% of the population living on the coast? These are just some small stuff what our benevolent Mother Earth and Merciful Father nature would/could do. That's nothing compared what this monkey sitting on the top of food chain can do.

We did it once in 1942, made humans as fuel for furnaces, dropped couple of Nuclear bombs on cities to test whether they can really form mushroom clouds, released germs in the air to test whether then can really kill people . I am pretty sure that we will do that again. We have More number Nuclear weapons to annihilate earth 100 times over. We have also some really wonderful biological weapons to take care of the rest 50 times to kill the cockroaches left. Some really smelly chemical weapons just for a good measure if the above two fail to kill all the 100%.

I am sure the hatred we have for each other will be sufficient to ensure the dark future I have seen in my crsytal ball. We are doomed, my friendly monkeys, we are one the last few people to rape and pillage our mother earth.

Enough of death and doom for the day, I will now go back to be being an optimistic and to be a greeter at my local Wal-Mart.