here we go ... as purple as phantom's body suit! I guess he hadn't heard of camouflage dressing ... or perhaps, it was easier for the cartoonist to show him clearly against a jungle background and make sure no one missed who the hero of the comic was ...
thanks folk's ... some of you thought i was gonna stop blogging .. that aint happening yet ... though the back problem did stop me for a while ... and i am taking time off (from work and the internet) for the next 3 weeks .. so wont be posting till mid october again.
this morning, as I was bouncing along in the rick towards office, I noticed an auto on the other side with the banner "Infant Jesus". Which reminded me that I have seen that on quite a few vehicles of late, and made me wonder whether it has anything to do with our country's fascination with having a male child. After all, the name of Jesus generally conjures up the image of a young man with a flourishing beard and rather lovely eyes as depicted in most pictures that I have seen so far ... why the obsession with his infant avataar?
Which got me wondering that though almost all the names from the bible are in common use even today, the most important one is never used .. or atleast I have not come across anyone named Jesus ... there are Johns and Jacobs, Mathews and Marys ... but no Jesus ... and I wonder why?
Would it be blasphemous to name a kid after the prophet? That goes against our traditional concepts of naming ... the names of almost every other prophet that I know of are in common use even today. In fact, hindus even name their kids after their gods ... one reason being that every time you call out the name, you are also calling out to god ... and that is good for your health in the afterlife.
One other possible reason, I deliberated, might be the way it all ended ... while most of the other prophets had a rather peaceful ascension, this was rather painful ... and perhaps parents are reluctant to name their kids after him out of fear that their progeny may meet a similar end?
That reminded me that the name of Judas is also not used ... which reminded me of Bivhishan closer home ... and then I thought given an option, of being in another Ramayan, would I rather be an Indrajeet or a Bivhishan .. and I settled on indrajeet (this might have something to do with the fact that the Indrajeet on our national telivision's version of ramayan looked quite a bit more rocking than poor Bivhishan with his paunch and bad skin etc.)
Around this time, the auto finally rattled to the front gate of my office ... with the meter reading at about 4 bucks more than what it should for 3 kilometers ... which after some quick calculation I realized meant that the meter was running at 30 paise more per kilometer than what the govenment recommends ... and there began my day ... with my version of the battle of kurukshetra :)
Thoughts fleeting by... slipping and sliding into one another ... as though they were all slithering on ....
yes ...
turpentine ...
Friday, September 22, 2006
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
off blogging for a while
My back is still kinda killin me...
Dunno how many ppl actually read this space (apart from my conceited self) ... however, thought i'd let ppl know ...
should be back by next week hopefully ... else it'll be mid october (after durga pooja)!
lots to write about though ... darn@!%#
Dunno how many ppl actually read this space (apart from my conceited self) ... however, thought i'd let ppl know ...
should be back by next week hopefully ... else it'll be mid october (after durga pooja)!
lots to write about though ... darn@!%#
Monday, September 11, 2006
whatz with monday mornings?
woke up with a neck so stiff that breakfast had to be milk with painkillers ...
struggled downstairs and sat on the couch in front of the TV, after having unlocked the gate and brought in the newspaper. A rather beautiful morning but for the fact that I was struggling to hold the newspaper while the maid came in late and tinkered around the house in the pretense of cleaning it. Finally draped a towel around my neck and shoulders and tried some vague stretches ... that probably just worsened the condition.
Eventually managed to get up, take a shower, and crawl to the auto stand. Autos don't have good shock absorbers, and auto rides are bumpy. Two axioms as it were, but I realized just how true they are for the first time today ... with every jolt, my neck would go into a spasm of some kind.
Reached office, tumbled down to the cafe, grabbed breakfast and was just beginning to feel better when I happened to feel a small bump on the left side of my temple ... now there is a whole bloody line of them, stretching all the way from my receding hairline to my relatively dense eyebrows. What is interesting is that the ones higher up are bigger than the ones lower down .. like air bubbles in a swimming pool. Now I don't know whether this is an allergy to the pain killers or some creepy crawly got me good!
Just another bloody monday morning! Good morning folks!
struggled downstairs and sat on the couch in front of the TV, after having unlocked the gate and brought in the newspaper. A rather beautiful morning but for the fact that I was struggling to hold the newspaper while the maid came in late and tinkered around the house in the pretense of cleaning it. Finally draped a towel around my neck and shoulders and tried some vague stretches ... that probably just worsened the condition.
Eventually managed to get up, take a shower, and crawl to the auto stand. Autos don't have good shock absorbers, and auto rides are bumpy. Two axioms as it were, but I realized just how true they are for the first time today ... with every jolt, my neck would go into a spasm of some kind.
Reached office, tumbled down to the cafe, grabbed breakfast and was just beginning to feel better when I happened to feel a small bump on the left side of my temple ... now there is a whole bloody line of them, stretching all the way from my receding hairline to my relatively dense eyebrows. What is interesting is that the ones higher up are bigger than the ones lower down .. like air bubbles in a swimming pool. Now I don't know whether this is an allergy to the pain killers or some creepy crawly got me good!
Just another bloody monday morning! Good morning folks!
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Finally it didn't take a Darth Vader ...
to destroy a planet.
very conveniently, innocuously, discreetly seated in some squat white washed building with glass doors and the AC humming as it spews out CFCs, someone quietly destroyed a planet.
Lo! And Behold! Pluto is no more ....
My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nine Planets!
That is how we remembered the planets and the order of their occurrence back in school.
Now, our kids will have to conjure up the image of a mother with some debilitating illness perhaps, that has claimed one of her fingers, very enthusiastically bringing up both her hands to give a high nine! sigh ..
So for all those who think star wars is hog wash, as a race, we have destroyed one planet and are well on the way to quite literally destroying the one we happen to be sitting on as well.
3rd grade astronomy classes aside, this also shows how short sighted we can be with respect to what we perceive reality to really be. I often hear people say that there is something wrong with Hindu astrology because 2 of the planets there in, do not correspond to any of the nine planets in our solar system. I am not taking a stance on astrology here but isn't it obvious now how we can have 2 planets in an ancient system that disappear in the next only to be replaced by some other planet with a name like XC12345%$^&*!
Another important thing to remember at this point, is that all classifications are made just so we can comprehend reality. Our classification of reality is NOT the reality itself. (refer to Quality and I - my second post). Irrespective of whether you call Pluto a planet or a dwarf planet or forget its very existence, nothing short of a genuine Darth Vader can stop the little runt - held together by gravity and goo - from hurtling at thousands of miles per seconds, cutting across the orderly orbits of the other planets like an Indian motorist, from doing just that ... as it always has! So, someone has gone and changed its classification, and someone wants to organize the folks to give it back its planetary status ... hah!!! (arms wide palms extended outwards, eyes staring at the ceiling)
A good time to think of what Don Shimoda had to say about negative attachments too ... when Richard is practicing cloud vaporization, and trying to hit out at the cloud with all his lasers and stuff, Don wonders how the cloud actually vanishes despite all the negative attachment (attachment being the keyword here). Don explains how to make a cloud vanish, you just need to remove it from your thoughts! Well, for the unbelievers, how did it feel one morning to wake up in a solar system that was one planet short ... darn it disappeared while you were ... ahem .. anyways.
Somehow we never ever thought that USSR would ever become just R, and well, the solar system, it was here to stay. It began way before our times, and it would stay long after we were gone ... till Sun became a red giant and gobbled up Mercury and Venus and singed our mother planet before shrinking back and finally going out ... not even massive enough to be a black hole ... and there in some dark corner of a spiral arm of the milkyway galaxy, to revolve forever around a dark center ... constant ... and damn that changes too.
On the bright side, perhaps this will open up the possibility of more things getting included in the solar system ... what was it? The Krupier belt I think ... a few more objects on the periphery of our perception ... and perhaps we will be better equipped or prepared mentally to cope with the even bigger changes that are yet to come ... in things as fundamental as how we govern ourselves ...
So, on an otherwise pleasant September morning, I raise a toast for the dear departed ... Pluto ... that it may be happy wherever it is. And should it be re-incarnated or resurrected, we shall be here to raise another toast to it ... (wonderful isn't it ... this whole raising the toast thing ... I think I'll raise one more to the ingenuity of the folks who created this whole toasting tradition ... hic!)
very conveniently, innocuously, discreetly seated in some squat white washed building with glass doors and the AC humming as it spews out CFCs, someone quietly destroyed a planet.
Lo! And Behold! Pluto is no more ....
My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nine Planets!
That is how we remembered the planets and the order of their occurrence back in school.
Now, our kids will have to conjure up the image of a mother with some debilitating illness perhaps, that has claimed one of her fingers, very enthusiastically bringing up both her hands to give a high nine! sigh ..
So for all those who think star wars is hog wash, as a race, we have destroyed one planet and are well on the way to quite literally destroying the one we happen to be sitting on as well.
3rd grade astronomy classes aside, this also shows how short sighted we can be with respect to what we perceive reality to really be. I often hear people say that there is something wrong with Hindu astrology because 2 of the planets there in, do not correspond to any of the nine planets in our solar system. I am not taking a stance on astrology here but isn't it obvious now how we can have 2 planets in an ancient system that disappear in the next only to be replaced by some other planet with a name like XC12345%$^&*!
Another important thing to remember at this point, is that all classifications are made just so we can comprehend reality. Our classification of reality is NOT the reality itself. (refer to Quality and I - my second post). Irrespective of whether you call Pluto a planet or a dwarf planet or forget its very existence, nothing short of a genuine Darth Vader can stop the little runt - held together by gravity and goo - from hurtling at thousands of miles per seconds, cutting across the orderly orbits of the other planets like an Indian motorist, from doing just that ... as it always has! So, someone has gone and changed its classification, and someone wants to organize the folks to give it back its planetary status ... hah!!! (arms wide palms extended outwards, eyes staring at the ceiling)
A good time to think of what Don Shimoda had to say about negative attachments too ... when Richard is practicing cloud vaporization, and trying to hit out at the cloud with all his lasers and stuff, Don wonders how the cloud actually vanishes despite all the negative attachment (attachment being the keyword here). Don explains how to make a cloud vanish, you just need to remove it from your thoughts! Well, for the unbelievers, how did it feel one morning to wake up in a solar system that was one planet short ... darn it disappeared while you were ... ahem .. anyways.
Somehow we never ever thought that USSR would ever become just R, and well, the solar system, it was here to stay. It began way before our times, and it would stay long after we were gone ... till Sun became a red giant and gobbled up Mercury and Venus and singed our mother planet before shrinking back and finally going out ... not even massive enough to be a black hole ... and there in some dark corner of a spiral arm of the milkyway galaxy, to revolve forever around a dark center ... constant ... and damn that changes too.
On the bright side, perhaps this will open up the possibility of more things getting included in the solar system ... what was it? The Krupier belt I think ... a few more objects on the periphery of our perception ... and perhaps we will be better equipped or prepared mentally to cope with the even bigger changes that are yet to come ... in things as fundamental as how we govern ourselves ...
So, on an otherwise pleasant September morning, I raise a toast for the dear departed ... Pluto ... that it may be happy wherever it is. And should it be re-incarnated or resurrected, we shall be here to raise another toast to it ... (wonderful isn't it ... this whole raising the toast thing ... I think I'll raise one more to the ingenuity of the folks who created this whole toasting tradition ... hic!)
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