Quotable quotes for doomsday

As 21-12-2012 is just 8 hours away, I felt I should shoot off my mouth before tsunami fills it with sea water. I have a few of my own quotables for all, doomsday conspirators or otherwise:

• A belief isn't worth keeping when you shit your pants for it!
• A pessimist will be happy, if he’s proved right this once. An optimist is always happy.
• If you don't fear death, why do you care? If you fear death, you've probably never lived anyway! Since, you're already dead, why do you care?
• Somewhere else, it’s already tomorrow!
• Nature probably decided we’re the new dinosaurs, going by the fact that our sizes (waists, ego, population and greed) have outgrown our brains!
• You’re so lost with 21-12-2012; 20-12-2012 slipped your notice (sic).
• The ways of nature are like a democracy. If you don’t thrive by nature, of(f) nature or for nature, what makes you think you’re any better than the politician you just voted out?

Got something? Shoot ‘em off!

The Housewife

An unearthly five a.m. buzzes

Exhausted, but eager, she rises

Toys and the TV remote adorn the floor

She picks and preens till the sun begins to soar

A quick brush here, a small shower there

She chops teary onions with potatoes to pare

A half hour later when the kitchen’s chores are done

With kisses and caresses, she wakes her little son

She bathes, scrubs and dresses her baby with adulation

Feeds him, packs his lunch and sees him to the bus station

Her once gentle and silky hands, launder the pile of dirty clothes

In all this rush, her kindness intact, she feeds some grains to the crows

At 8:30, with the rising heat, she watches her lordly husband rise

No greetings or hugs, he gulps his coffee and eats his curry and rice

He bickers and complains about her laxity and nitpicks her culinary skills

She knows he loved the meal nevertheless, when he burps as his belly fills

While he rushes to the office, she hovers near him, for his small or big commands

She finds his sock, polishes his shoes, irons his shirt even without his demands

Scolding and cursing, he leaves for office, driving away in his car

She heaves a sigh of relief at last, and waves to him till he’s far

It is but for a brief moment, that she recalls her own, once flourishing career

She had quit without complaint, on her husband’s order, as her family she held very dear

With the chores all done, she eats the leftovers and allows herself a small nap

It seems like just a few minutes have passed, when she hears her front door rap

Newspaper man, vegetable vendor and the neighbour start pouring in

Worn and tired, she handles it all; she slogs till her head takes a spin

It’s late afternoon when she picks up her child and carries him all the way home

Then she heads to the market, buys the groceries and her husband’s shaving foam

Back home at last, without a moment’s rest, she goes off to help her little one

His homework aplenty, they finish together, his bags are all packed and done

It’s 8:30 p.m. and she’s back at the kitchen, cooking the family’s supper

Her husband walks in, flops on the sofa, with his work pressure he goes hyper

She takes it in all, like an obedient wife, while her family eats their dinner plentiful

She eats at last, what is left, clears the dining table, scrubs the dishes in the sink full

She reads to her baby till his soft snores resound like a melody in her tired ears

She bathes and changes, and her husband beckons, at night she to him endears

Weak but yielding, she submits herself to his throes of passion

He moves back and dozes off, after he spends all his carnal possession

Her body is worn, her mind all sleepy but only tears come to her eyes

She’s unaware when she slept off, it’s 5 a.m. now, yet again she has to rise

One may think how and why, one chooses to inspire, one’s poetry with a mere housewife

Seldom we know, never we acknowledge, her numerous battles throughout her strife

How one gentle person can put up with so much, and stay strong, living at the tip of a knife

Because she’s a woman, a mother, a wife, a daughter and more, this is how stirring is her life

Let off some steam!

During a visit to the beauty parlour; one among my innumerable beauty sessions before my wedding, nostalgia burped in my face, bringing up bitter memories of my grandma chasing me down to a bucket of boiling hot water, ducking me into the steam and covering me up with a blanket to suffocate, all for a minor sneeze of mine that she could hear from even a mile away! All I had asked the beautician was for a facial and her immediate reaction was towards the whiteheads, blackheads and pimples dotting my face like a starry night on a clear sky. While I let her steam my face, I could picture granny smirking at me with sadistic satisfaction.
Though the “clean-up facial” was long, torturous and agonizing, the effect was completely worth it. Steaming helped open up clogged pores on the skin, thus facilitating the removal of whiteheads and blackheads. The result was a perfectly smooth, soft skin sans pimples. It was literally a magical moment, seeing all the wretchedness from my adolescence days get washed away in a jiffy (a jiffy compared to the long pimply years I endured). I decided to let go and finally acknowledge publicly the benefits of steaming.
Steaming causes the blood vessels in the face to expand, or more scientifically, dilate due to heat, a principle termed as vasodilation. This enhances blood circulation to the face, which is beneficial for the skin as well as any respiratory problems. Remember that the inner lining of the nose, mouth and the windpipe are skin too (mucosa), and wherever the steam goes, heat follows. This is primarily why it is an efficient healer of common cold, sinusitis, asthma, bronchitis and a host of other respiratory problems. Steaming to cure these ailments is particularly effective if you add a drop or two of eucalyptus oil to the water while you inhale.
The heat in steam kills most bacteria and pathogenic microorganisms. The same principle of steaming is used in microbiology laboratories to sterilize equipment and materials- autoclaving, which is very similar to pressure cooking food. The temperature in an autoclave is high, that is about 180 degrees with a pressure of about 15 atmospheres, so that all the microbes are killed and the equipment is rendered completely sterile for laboratory use. However, the temperature of normal steam inhalation being much lower is enough to deactivate most common microorganisms; therefore, it is effective in preventing and curbing common ailments.
While compromising on your ego clash with poor old grandma, you may mildly rejoice that you don’t have to go steaming the old fashioned way anymore. Facial sauna and steamers with fittings for localized steaming required in facials are now available in the market at affordable rates. Get one, let it steam; add more colour to your cheeks and fresh air to your breath.

Apologetically vegetarian

This caption read from a fast food stall at Sarojini market Delhi. When people thrive on tandoori chicken, beef, steak and any other variety of meat as if there were no other food in existence, this polite but snide remark against non-vegetarianism was a subtle reminder that no matter what, "ghaas-phoos" rules in its own right.

Are writing assessments a good way to measure writers' skills?

We all have passed through that phase in school when we used to wonder why one could score a centum in Mathematics, Science or Economics but it was a mandate that no student could score one in the languages papers. Thus, it would even make one ponder why there was a maximum score of hundred at all. Could words stringed into eloquent sentences, disregarding factual merit, ever be translated into a numerical value?

What then could be the rationality behind writing assessments? All writing should strictly adhere to the rules of grammar, prose or standard protocols for whatever category of work they fall into, which by the way, evolve more rapidly than we know. For instance, mobile phone text messages and social networking sites hardly adhere to this scaffold but are more widely read, “liked” and circulated than Shakespeare ever would have. This trend exists almost everywhere, except for pure literary work. Evaluation of a piece of writing on this basis serves as an excellent screening method, but here and there, its popularity may surpass its grammatical value, which, therefore, is an obvious hiccup in even this time tested procedure.

Nevertheless, once this framework is established, the work essentially has to be creative. It is important to lend some colour to a collection of words with “a”, “an” and “the” at just the right places. A good piece of writing is not just understandable, but necessarily doesn’t elicit a yawn. But that alone, may not suffice as a good assessment parameter. Litterateurs may swear by Elliot and Dickens but the average teenager is more likely to find them plain boring. Creativity is established from different perspectives. Just like one may adore a Michelangelo at sight but rather progress only gradually from disgust to acquired understanding of Picasso’s “Dora-maar”, writing is a multi-culinary recipe. One just has to lend the right taste at the right time. A writer, no matter how skilled, may not qualify the assessor’s examination if their style is not quite to the examiner’s liking.

The art of writing is not tangible to be evaluated. Conventional writing assessments do not justify the latitude that literature offers to writers. Moreover, rigid evaluations create the risk of a literary homogeneity, which is a bane for any culture or language. However, if writing is assessed disregarding personal tastes and in as unbiased a manner as humanly possible, it may fairly reflect a writer’s skills. Beyond that stage, the best possible system in today’s scenario is peer- review of work. People with similar styles, tastes and sensibility form a panel of examiners may assess only that particular type of writing, therefore, allowing heterogeneity to flourish. A method of assessment should be constructed, that could possibly offer some scope for eccentricity; which is a must for anything in nature to evolve and survive. 

Are you going?

About Forgiveness

They once said, “To err is human, but to forgive is divine.”

So this seemingly smart ever-so-pleasing girl remains a friend to your face, so much so, that when she finally openly bitches about you big time, you’re simply caught unawares. It is a good deal of defamation she has caused you. Nobody believes you, and those who do, know that it simply wasn’t your fault at all in any way. You never even asked for it. But then, you simply forgive her, even when she feels the least guilty about it, let alone apologize to you. Reality check, you’d be a “doormat” for your philanthropy.

To err is inhuman, to say ‘sorry’ is somewhat human, to forgive is certainly human and to resist from punching in their nose is definitely, very humane. For the very act of “Being Human” nowadays is such a colossal effort, what with celebrities sporting T-shirts to that effect.

I understand that the aforementioned incident does not provoke such anger as would command one’s sizeable life force to be poured into a herculean endeavour of forgiveness. I also run the risk of being labelled a sissy schoolgirl or gather some lols and roflmaos on Facebook if I carry any “trauma” of this incident now.  However, consider this. Recently, in an episode of a famous radical TV programme dealing with social issues in India, the problem of child sexual abuse was being discussed, when a man who had been sexually abused for more than 9 years by a person whom he and his family knew closely, narrated his story. He had gone to his abuser, who was on his deathbed and had said just three simple words, “I forgive you.” That man was undoubtedly not a loser or a coward, let alone be a doormat. He is a successful textile designer today, and brave enough to echo his ordeal on national television. Why then, did he choose for such a heinous crime, a meek act of forgiveness instead?

Let’s break it up to make it simpler. The first phase of victimization is best exemplified by the self-question, “How can you forget what happened?” The very sensation, that your mental and physical defences weren’t strong enough to repel the onslaught, and that it is a shame for your ability to heal to be abnormally strong in the face of those feeble ramparts, is that of guilt. At this stage one ought to realise that one’s anger is not towards the crime or its perpetrator, but towards oneself, or those who were meant to protect us. It is akin to getting bruised and developing a scab on the wound, but you tear down the scab and the regenerating tissue again and again, producing fresh bleeding, saying- “No, I cannot simply forget what happened. How can things go on normally when I’m hurt?” The wound which would have healed cleanly otherwise, becomes septic, and more severe. The inability to forgive oneself first, is an amplifier for the original crime. The aftermath is that of a local wart metastasizing into a cancer of the body and mind, which was once healthy and thriving. Like cancer, once developed, this bitterness is practically untreatable.

Fine, you attended yoga classes regularly. You emulated a certain sage and exhaled out any sense of vengeance. Now you smile and go back as if everything were normal, and you’re walking down the corridor, lo and behold, the same horrid girl passes by you giggling amongst a bevy of pals, waves out a cheery “Good morning” to you or goes a step further and gives you an agonizing hug, while you detest the smell of her deodorant (which actually is the same brand you wear yourself!). You know that she knows and vice versa, so you carefully avoid any revealing eye contact at her outrageous audacity and you’re plunged into thought as she walks away…apparently…happy. Angry, sad, and tearful, all over again.

Yes, they don’t even seem to feel guilty about it. Contrary to the popular saying, crime actually pays very well, materialistically, double of what righteousness would. The trick is actually in knowing yourself and choosing one of two equally difficult struggles- to be righteous and get pitched against the immoral, or to be immoral and fight your self and also other immoral mortals, so, you cannot evaluate yourself as righteous or otherwise based on how many seemingly “immoral” people you repel. Scriptures recognize the “self” or the spirit as the sole truth of existence, the body being a temporary medium. If you do not find yourself at odds with your conscience, you’re closer to the truth and spiritually richer than your offender, something, which money and master card cannot buy.

“How can I forgive them?” You’re halfway there already when you let yourself go with the flow of time in the first phase. By now, you also know what category from the above two, you fall in. When you elevate yourself to the level of your spirit, their transgression upon your material person is similar to the dust gathered underneath the sole of the foot. You do not hit the dust back, but you continue to walk till you have to. When you reach your destination, you simply wash the filth off your feet.

Similarly, dust does, and will gather upon your feet in the journey of life. Sometimes the filth is a fine film of dust, sometimes it is knee deep sticky muck, sometimes they get blown away by a welcome gust of wind (remember your friends and family who stood you through), sometimes they dry and get shed off while you walk. But it exists nevertheless, unless you wear shoes of detachment. When death comes, it gushes unpredictably like water, washing away everything clean in its wake. For the traveller it is only another journey, but for the dust, it is in its fate to be washed away as silt, so choose wisely.

Forgive and forget. Now, that you’ve forgiven, delete that nasty creep from your friend list and block her on Facebook. God, she totally sucks!

The He and The She

Advance party!