Ramana's Musings

My regular readers will be familiar with a frequent commentator Mitch whose blog is one of those that I regularly visit and comment on.

His weekly Sunday Question posts inevitably challege one to think and respond and the last one “What Happened To Modesty?” was no different.

A great debate among Mitch, Rose and Sire is going on there to which I too have contributed a few words. Please do visit Mitch’s post and perhaps join the debate.

And if you do visit Rose’s blog, do not miss a beaut from her called “A Bizarre Fragrance” It took me a while to recover my breath after reading that. I would be interested in your reaction too.

Tags: Brazenness, Generation Gap, Provocative Dressing, Youth

“Smiling Faces Do Not Mean That There Is Absence Of Sorrow!
But It Means That They Have The Ability To Deal With It”
- Anonymous.

The above two smiling faces featured in my post “Brothers”. It was suggested there that one of them was a criminal and the other a police officer and the readers were asked which one was the former and which the other.

I reproduce below some responses which may not have been read by many of my readers of that post.

Cheerful Monk – “…who is the criminal and who is the police officer in this very unlikely story?” The fellow who needed hip replacements because he jumped out the second story window, of course. ”

Nick – “The two of you do look very similar. Clearly the dapper, well-groomed individual on the right is the upstanding police boss, while the dissolute old rogue on the left is obviously the local Mafia boss trying to conceal his latest highly lucrative drugs shipment.”

Darlene – “I think you are both plotting a lucrative crime. You are too much alike to be a policeman and a criminal.”

Melody – “Forget the cop/criminal films, I think your life story would be a blockbuster movie here in the U.S.”

Ashok, do I need to say anything more?

I hope that you enjoyed reading another post of the Friday Loose Bloggers’ Consortium when eleven of us post on the same topic chosen by one of us. Today’s topic has been chosen by Ashok the lawyer in the making.

Please do visit Ashok, Conrad, Grannymar, Magpie11, Maria, Gaelikaa, Helen, Judy, Anu and Ginger to see ten other views on the same topic. Some of these bloggers may be preoccupied with vacations, examinations, family problems and/or romance, so be a little indulgent in case they do not post or post late.

Tags: Blogging, Criminals

My blogger friend Sire, in his blog has requested all his readers not to let him down and post about something unique about where they live.

Unable to refuse such an earnest request, here is something unique about Pune, India, where I live.

It is a meditation center that was built when Osho the mystic was still alive, in his ashram. The place has now become a meditation resort, but this post is exclusively about the meditation center.

Sire, not as glamorous as the rocking horse, but unique in its own way, don’t you think?

Tags: Meditation, Osho, Pune, Pyramid, Sire

My regular readers will be familiar with my preferred dress at home, the lungi. In fact, off blog and on blog, enough comments and responses have been exchanged on the subject, including one regular reader/commentator speculating whether I wore something under the lungi or not, for me to elaborate. For those who have not read my posts, you can read about my lungi habit here and here.

The following, highly amusing piece of writing has been sent to me by a bemused sister who is likely to be quite surprised at my posting about it again. Just some explanations for the uninitiated; Mallu is for Malayali, a resident of the state of Kerala, in the South West of our country. Bandh days are those days when various political parties of Kerala call for total closure of all shops, establishments, institutions and life more or less comes to standstill on. Bandh is also called Hartal in some other parts of our glorious country, particularly Bengal, which shares the honour with Kerala of maximum number of Bandh and Hartal days per year. I have always wondered if these two states are prone to such action because both relish rice and fish dishes besides the ubiquitous coconuts.

Here is a pictorial depiction of two gentlemen of Kerala wearing the white equivalent of the lungi, called Mundu in Kerala.

Onam is a harvest festival of Kerala.

A toddy shop is a drinking establishment common in parts of India (particularly Kerala) where palm toddy, a mildly alcoholic beverage made from the sap of palm trees, is served along with food.

“The Legendary Lungi.

Just as the national bird of Kerala is Mosquito, her national dress is ‘Lungi’. Pronounced as ‘Lu’ as in loo and ‘ngi ‘ as in ‘mongey’, a lungi can be identified by its floral or window-curtain pattern. ‘Mundu’ is the white variation of lungi and is worn on special occasions like hartal or bandh days, weddings and Onam.

Lungi is simple and ‘down to earth’ like the mallu wearing it. Lungi
is the beginning and the end of evolution in its category. Wearing
something on the top half of your body is optional when you are
wearing a lungi. Lungi is a strategic dress. It’s like a one-size-fits-all bottoms for Keralites.

The technique of wearing a lungi/mundu is passed on from generation to generation through word of mouth like the British Constitution. If you think it is an easy task wearing it, just try it once! It requires
techniques like breath control and yoga that is a notch higher than
sudarshan kriya of AOL. A lungi/mundu when perfectly worn won’t come off even in a quake of 8 on the richter scale. A lungi is not attached to the waist using duct tape, staple, rope or velcro. It’s a bit of
mallu magic whose formula is a closely guarded secret like the Coca
Cola chemicals.

A lungi can be worn ‘Full Mast’ or ‘Half Mast’ like a national flag. A
‘Full Mast’ lungi is when you are showing respect to an elderly or the
dead. Wearing it at full mast has lots of disadvantages. A major
disadvantage is when a dog runs after you. When you are wearing a
lungi/mundu at full mast, the advantage is mainly for the female
onlookers who are spared the ordeal of swooning at the sight of hairy
legs.

Wearing a lungi ‘Half Mast’ is when you wear it exposing yourself like
those C grade movie starlets. A mallu can play cricket, football or
simply run when the lungi is worn at half mast. A mallu can even climb
a coconut tree wearing lungi in half mast. ”It’s not good manners,
especially for ladies from decent families, to look up at a mallu
climbing a coconut tree”- Confucius (or is it Abdul Kalam?)

Most mallus do the traditional dance kudiyattam. Kudi means drinking
alcohol and yattam, spelled as aattam, means random movement of the
male body. Note that ‘y’ is silent. When you are drinking, you drink,
there is no ‘y’. Any alcohol related “festival” can be enjoyed to the
maximum when you are topless with lungi and a towel tied around the
head. ”Half mast lungi makes it easy to dance and shake legs” says
Candelaria Amaranto, a Salsa teacher from Spain after watching
‘kudiyaattam’ .

The ‘Lungi Wearing Mallu Union’ [LUWMU, pronounced LOVE MU], an NGO (Non Government Organisation) which works towards the ‘upliftment’ of the lungi, strongly disapproves of the GenNext tendency of wearing Bermudas under the lungi. Bermudas under the lungi is a conspiracy by the CIA. It’s a disgrace to see a person wearing burmuda with corporate logos under his lungi. What they don’t know is how much these corporates are limiting their freedom of movement and expression.

A mallu wears lungi round the year, all weather, all season. A mallu
celebrates winter by wearing a colourful lungi with a floral pattern.
Lungi provides good ventilation and brings down the heat between legs. A mallu is scared of global warming more than anyone else in the
world.

A lungi/mundu can be worn any time of the day/night. It doubles as
blanket at night. It also doubles up as a swing, swimwear, sleeping
bag, parachute, facemask while entering/exiting toddy shops, shopping basket and water filter while fishing in ponds and rivers. It also has recreational uses like in ’Lungi/mundu pulling’, a pastime in households having more than one male member. Lungi pulling competitions are held outside toddyshops all over Kerala during Onam and Vishu. When these lungis are decommissioned from service, they become table cloths. Thus the humble lungi is a cradle to grave appendage.”

(An anonymous piece)

It is a pity that this wonderful piece has come to me as having been written by someone who wishes to be anonymous. I salute the person for a highly entertaining piece of writing.

Tags: Bandh, Hartal, Kerala, lungi, Malayali, Mallu, Mundu, Onam, Toddy

Conrad came up with this brilliant idea that we would get three of our common friends to write a paragraph each on any subject that they can think of, and also individually get two of our individual non blogging friends to write similar paragraphs and see what we can do with such disparate writings to turn into a coherent whole,

Grannymar, Conrad, Maria and I have accepted the task, though it is more of a challenge than just a hack’s job. The three common non blogging friends who wrote are Deb, Margaret and Maynard. In my case, I requested Simon and Anil to write and they have also kindly obliged.

Reading the five pieces of writing, I just could not find anything common that could make the whole lot put together to form a coherent whole post. The youngest, Simon came up with something that is troubling him from the outside. The oldest, Anil went deep inside into his memory pool to dig up something that became a turning point in his and his family’s life.

The three others, all of the same age and falling in between these two extremes in terms of age, came up with two introspective writings and one, Maynard typically decided to play Falstaff and came up with a puzzle.

I have decided that the only way I can make any sense of a post on these writings is to become the Grand Old Man, which title has been very generously bestowed on me by three of the writers and two of the bloggers. I have decided to use my considerable research ability to comment on each person’s paragraph and leave them as well as the readers to come to a conclusion about what sense they can make of my comments. My comments are not original, as I am not very creative, and I have simply given quotes which I think are appropriate to the topic covered in each paragraph. I expect that better sense can be obtained when my readers comment on the post and further discussions can take place.

Read on.

Simon’s angst:

“The Economist recently published an article stating that women are now over half of the workforce. Although I have not been able to read the article I am aware of some of the issues it has raised. Most of my female friends are intelligent, driven women who have graduated and obtained high earning jobs in the corporate world. However they have now reached the age where they wish to downscale their work life and have children. Due to the norm of dual income couples, house prices and the cost of living have increased and make it hard to survive on one income, and the corporate world does not often let mothers have an easy or flexible part time role. Will both the corporate world and the role of mothers suffer?”

My contribution to that outpouring:

“…there is always inequity in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It’s very hard in the military or personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.” Press conference, 3/21/62. – John F Kennedy

Deb’s sorrow:

You all have probably seen pics of my Sheltie dogs. I have had Bubba, the male dog, for almost 13 years!
Yesterday, he got up from a long nap on the ceramic floor, shook himself and fell flat and could not get back up. I was immediately sick to my stomach because I know he has reached the expensive stage of his life. I also know that I won’t have him much longer and that makes me even sicker to my stomach. He and I have a lot of history together and that will leave a huge hole in my heart. I guess all I can hope for is that he goes quietly and doesn’t suffer. If he does suffer, I wonder who I can bribe to take him to be euthanised because I know that is something I won’t be able to do! I start to cry just thinking about how much I will miss my best friend.

My contribution to that outpouring:

“Near this spot are deposited the remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, and all the Virtues of Man, without his Vices. This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery if inscribed over human ashes, is but a just tribute to the Memory of Boatswain, a Dog.”
- George Gordon, Lord Byron, “Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog”

Margaret’s wistfulness:

My contribution before I reproduce her:

“Awake, my little one! Before life’s liquor in its cup be dry!” – “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”:

This morning, around the time of my second cup of strong coffee, realized that I did not dream again last night. This has me wondering if I’m not dreaming at all or if I’m just not remembering my dreams. I miss them. Have always dreamed vividly, lots of thrashing around, talking out loud, waking up any house guests, and about the strangest things. Some have been down right scary, waking up with a jolt of adrenalin and thinking WOW!! But for the most part, my dreams have just been entertainment for me, fun to rethink and try to make sense of. I’ve decided to take action in the form of supreme pizza right before bedtime. Sure hope it works!

My contribution to enable her to have perhaps better experiences:

“May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!” – Shakespeare in Hamlet.

Now for the enigma Maynard’s contribution:

My enigmatic response to that:

“All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.”
- Alex Haley

Anil, another Grand Old Man who, I hope, will start blogging soon, has this anecdote from his childhood:

“Coming from an orthodox Hindu family, my siblings and I grew up with a host of dos and don’ts. We had to learn about many defilements, external or internal. These were matters of principles which were purely matters of convenience depending upon work, time and place and had no logic to them in most cases. Most defilements were principally around food and beverages. Milk was hawked by people who couldn’t be touched but the milk they sold was acceptable! I suspect liquor was a “NO” anytime but in retrospect, I wonder why men often spent weekends out of town. One day on return of my father from one of his trips, my brother, then seven, challenged these customs and flung his food and anything he could get hold of, around the house. My father, a soft-spoken timid man, joined him and soon we were all flinging things around. Finally, a shocked grandmother tearfully decided only she would follow her customs and rules and we could do as we pleased. We’ve never looked back since.”

Phew! My response to that unearthing of a long buried memory:

“Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds; they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.”

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, “Notebook O,” The Crack-Up

Tags: Hotchpotch writing.

Anselme Noumbiwa.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sixth-attempt-to-deport-african-prince-who-fled-tribal-torture-1949597.html

In the first place, I would not have run away from being crowned with all those delicious perks. If I had, I would have and continued to enjoy the attention that the British tender hearts lavish on me and hopefully get naturalized too.

Way to go Anselme!

Before I forget, I hope that you enjoyed reading another post of the Friday Loose Bloggers’ Consortium when eleven of us post on the same topic chosen by one of us. Today’s topic has been chosen by Judy.

Please do visit Ashok, Conrad, Grannymar, Magpie11, Maria, Gaelikaa, Helen, Judy, Anu and Ginger to see ten other views on the same topic. Some of these bloggers may be preoccupied with vacations, examinations, family problems and/or romance, so be a little indulgent in case they do not post or post late.

Tags: Anselme Noumbiwa, Assylum, Camaroon, Deportation, Prince

Ranjan finally located the malware/virus which had infected my blog. It was from Russia and was loaded via a plug in.

It has now been removed and my readers should not have any problems accessing my posts for commenting as some have reported.

Thanks for being patient with me while this problem was sorted out.

Tags: Malware, Plug in, Virus

As some of my readers and Darlene know, I have been having an ongoing battle with my dentist and an uncooperative partial denture. It now appears that my brother Barath has been having his share of adventures as well.

Since his narrative is totally readable and does not need my editorial skills, I have decided to treat his mail to me as a guest post and leave it to my readers to come to their own conclusions about the Rajgopaul family. You have already read a couple of guest posts from our sister Padmini, and this should help you get a handle on this slightly cracked family. Over to Barath.

“I have had a couple of days of unexpected hassles and managed to cope with equanimity and as you are an avid blogger, I thought that telling you of the problems would make you think of various angles of the story and be able to write about them all.

I have had trouble with my teeth from time to time and about a year and half ago, I had a painful molar which needed attention and was recommended by a friend to see a dentist in St.Johns Wood. He certainly sorted the problem out but carried out a root canal operation and ended up charging me a serious sum of money for the work carried out (£1800.00!!!).

Since then, I decided that I would go to Edinburgh to my old dentist as the cost was much more reasonable and the dental work was equally efficient if not even better than the worthy in St.Johns Wood. The rail cost of going there from London, provided you book the ticket in advance is only about £70 and the dental BILL is usually 1/3 of the London costs so there are serious savings available).

Anyway, this week, I had meetings in Manchester and so on Tuesday morning I left on the 6.17 AM train from London Euston to Manchester, attended the meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, and went to Manchester Piccadilly station to catch the 16.16 train to Edinburgh, but changing train at York. The e-mail instructions had informed me to collect the ticket at Manchester station by using a pre-paid ticket reference number from a fast ticket machine there, which I duly did.

Lo and behold, there was no train on the departure board leaving at 16.16, there was, however, a train going to York at 16.12 which was  a trans Pennine train and I went to the information desk to check as to whether the cheap pre-paid ticket (£17.80) would be valid on a different train time as usually they do not allow use of pre-paid tickets on any other train other than the one mentioned in the ticket.

The lady at the desk checked my train ticket references on the computer and duly informed me that I will need to go to Platform 13 and catch the 16.12 to York, which I duly did. During the journey, the ticket collector came and inspected my ticket and announced that the ticket was not valid as this was the 16.12 train and I said that I had checked the validity at the desk, but he would hear none of it, and charged me £70.00 for a new ticket, which I paid up with good grace as I knew that the tickets were not valid on any other train, ad it was my own fault that I had got on the wrong train, and completed the journey. I in fact, arrived in Edinburgh half an hour later than I had intended as the earlier departing train From Manchester to York in fact arrived in York after the 16.16 arrived there and the connecting train had departed!! Again, it was my own fault so I took my medicine like a good man and enjoyed a good dinner in Edinburgh in Richard Muir’s (Mary’s husband) restaurant Café Fish in Edinburgh.

I had booked myself on the 1950 flight from Edinburgh back to London on Thursday as my dental appointment to get a new tooth installed was at 1700. The Air ticket was again a cheap pre-booked ticket (£35.00) so I was very content with the whole arrangement. I was staying with a friend of mine called Bob Cleghorn ( he used to be my dentist but is now retired) . On the morning of Thursday (yesterday) he came down to the kitchen and told me that there had been a volcanic eruption in Iceland which is continuing to put an ash cloud in the atmosphere and that all flights in the UK have been canceled until 1800 so I had better rethink my travel arrangement.

I logged on to his computer and booked myself on a trans Pennine express from Edinburgh Haymarket to London (departing at 1812), and would need to change in Carlisle to get to London Euston at about 11 PM.  The only thing that went to plan was that I got my tooth installed at 5PM and came out of the dentist’s chair with numbed mouth.

Well, the fun began, as the trans Pennine express coming to Edinburgh to then depart back to Manchester airport arrived 45 minutes late, and there was a lot of hassle in changing platforms and waiting for the train etc, but eventually, the 19 10 the train left and of course we arrived in Carlisle an hour later than we should have and despite the conductor on the train reassuring me that there would be trains  going to London frequently from Carlisle, the attendants in Carlisle grimly informed us that the next train to London Euston would be the next morning and that the conductor on Trans Pennine should have taken us as far as Preston to catch the train to London. However, there were several of us on the platform including a couple of Chinese and the station master took pity on us, contacted Virgin Trains which was due to go past Carlisle at 21.09 without stopping, got the train to stop and pick us up and we arrived at Euston at 1.05 AM, so here I am able to send you an e-mail from the comfort of my home.

Now, the moral of the story is as follows:

Get your teeth done where you live, you may pay a bit more, but you will get home.

Do not use Trans Pennine Trains as they do not know their arses from their elbows.

When you try to get smart and use cheap tickets, the Good Lord sends a volcanic eruption to teach you a lesson.

Trying to get your teeth done on the cheap actually costs you £220 extra and serves you right.

Just when you think that nothing can get worse, some act of kindness comes along and rejuvenates your faith in Humans, I thank the station Master at Carlisle for being such a good man.”

Now for the icing on the cake.  Since writing the post, I came across this picture in a mail to me.  Apparently, these were found on a Dublin bus!  Gets one thinking does it not that someone loses his teeth in a Dublin bus! Can you guess who sent the mail to me?

Tags: Dental Problems, Trans Pennine Trains, Volcanic Erruptions

It surprised me no end to discover that I have posted five hundred posts in my blog and have already started the second millennium of posts.

It has been quite a journey notable for the innumerable friends that I have made and some remarkable comments and responses that my posts have generated.

I thank all my readers for having put up with me for all this while.

Tags: 500, Blog Posts, Half a millennium

When the Loose Bloggers Consortium wrote on ‘A Journey’, in November last year, Magpie’s post led me to two books on journeys that he used to read to his students. One was “I am David” by Ann Holm and the other, by separate correspondence with Magpie, “The Silver Sword”, by Ian Serralillier.

Both left deep impressions on me and I have given them to some young children of my acquaitance to read with very gratifying responses.

I was discussing these books and the impression that they left on me with a friend of mine as to how these stories, take the reader on journeys to new life and new beginnings. He promptly suggested that I read another book which too talks about a journey but which while not quite leading to new life and beginning as one would expect, is powerful nevertheless in a disturbing and very realistic way.

That book is “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy.

It is truly a powerfully moving book and for those of my readers who like such reading experiences, I strongly recommend it. I understand that a very impressive movie has been made of the book and I intend seeing it sooner than later, though I rarely see movies.

Magpie, thank you for starting this process off and I hope that you will read this book too.

Tags: Cormac McCarthy, I am David, Journeys, The Road, The Silver Sword