Ramana's Musings

A friend of mine and I had an occasion recently to discuss the possibility of my standing for election to the Indian parliament. My friend was of the opinion that someone with my sense of humour should be able to bring some semblance of sanity to that hallowed institution. How hallowed it is can be seen from this video which is what triggered off the original idea of my contesting the election.

Lest my readers think that I have lost my marbles, let me assure them that I have not. I don’t belong there among those elected representatives from our great nation. Incidentally, the most violent of them come from the most violent part of our nation, still mired in poverty, ignorance and feudalism. I certainly do not belong there, nor can I ever hope to get elected from those parts. If I contest, it will be from a constituency that elects a different class of MPs.

The purpose of this post however is to take my readers into another dimension of our elections. Our contestants fight elections using election symbols.One of the biggest problems for many voters in India, where a large part of the population is still illiterate, is how to identify their chosen candidates on the ballots. The Election Commission, thus, has the laborious task of allocating separate election symbols for each party and the innumerable independent candidates.

So, in our discussions, my friend suggested that I shoud have a symbol that would clearly indicate that I was of a different caliber  than the run of the mill, garden variety politico. We discussed a number of options and I finally suggested that it should be this.

Yes, a clown.

My friend, a very wise man felt that the election commission would not allow this to be allocated as it would be unfair to the regular politicos who all desperately try to project this image in their actions.  I said that I should at least try and pointed out some other cases of impossible symbols being askded for by contestants and produced this one as an example.  My friend strongly believes that it was a simple case of spelling mistake that has got blown out of proportion.  He maintains that it was not an election symbol that was being sought but….

My friend is not hopeful. What do you think?

Tags: Clown, Condom, Election symbols, Member of Parliament

I was woken up from my siesta by a visiting friend from Mumbai. He was waiting for me in the drawing room when I came down yawning. Seeing me he said something very funny. He said, “I don’t swing that way!” I asked him what on earth he was talking about and he produced a news item from this morning’s local newspaper which he had been reading while waiting for me. I am unable to scan and reproduce it in its entirety as it is too big, but on googling for the same headlines I found the gist of it here.

We laughed at it and he went away after tea. I subsequently got around to reading the newspapers which I had not been able to as I had a house guest in the morning who had to be given breakfast and sent off. As I was reading the paper another news item caught my eyes.

I just wonder if she ever yawned!

Tags: Longevity, viriginity, Yawn

I hope that you enjoy 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 Magpie11 who has just been discharged from hospital after recovering from an illness. Here is wishing him speedy and full recovery and a quick welcome back to the LBC.

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.

Please turn on the speakers and listen to my first ever conscious exposure to bottles.

Yes, for those who wonder, my late mother had indeed told me categorically, that this bottle never touched my lips ever.

On the other hand, my father, ever the WOG (Westernised Oriental Gentleman) of those pre-independence days, has often proudly proclaimed to the world that in honour of his first born, he bought a brand new car from an English Army Officer who was going away to fight the wars, and brought it to the nursing home straight from the Bombay docks to fetch his son and heir home. Along with the car came this bottle and yours truly, all of seven days old, was welcomed home with some diluted JW from the proud father’s fingers.

Many types of bottles of all kinds of shapes, contents and sizes later, I settled down to this one.

After many years of such fine romances with the bottles, the most common bottle that I now drink from is

Life has been good.

Tags: Antacid, Bottles, Feeding bottles, Whisky

I hope that you enjoy 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 Conrad.

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.

What is a lie, what is truth and what is a half truth? Humanity has struggled with these questions since time immemorial and even the blog world is full of posts on the subject.

Indians however are very clever people. They have role models and even Gods to come to their help in getting rid of guilt. Let me give you a classic case of deception that is part of India’s greatest epic, The Mahabharatha, which with about one hundred thousand verses, long prose passages, or about 1.8 million words in total, is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey combined.

Yudhishtira is the eldest of the Pandavas, the good guys. Yudhishtira is famous for his honesty and uprightness. Drona is the opposition’s greatest hit man. In fact, Drona was the teacher for both sides of the divide. Krishna, the God in human form is the charioteer for Arjuna the hero of the good guys.

In the war, the Kuru commander Drona was killing thousands of Pandava warriors. Krishna hatched a plan to tell Drona that his son Ashwathama had died, so that the invincible and destructive Kuru commander would give up his arms and thus could be killed.

The plan was set in motion when Bhima killed an elephant named Ashwathama, and loudly proclaimed that Ashwathama was dead. Drona, knowing that only Yudhisthira, with his firm adherence to the truth, could tell him for sure if his son had died, approached Yudhisthira for confirmation. Yudhisthira told him: “Ashwathama has died”. Yudhisthira, who could not make himself tell a lie, despite the fact that if Drona continued to fight, the Pandavas and the cause of dharma itself would have been lost, then added: “Praha kunjara ha”, which means he is not sure whether elephant named Ashwathama or the man Ashwathama had died.

Krishna, knowing that Yudhisthira would be unable to lie, had all the warriors beat war-drums and cymbals to make as much noise as possible at the critical moment. The words “Praha kunjara ha” were lost in the tumult and the ruse worked. Drona was disheartened, and laid down his weapons. He was then killed by Dhristadyumna, another hit man from the good guys.

If God could arrange for such deceptions, who are we, mere mortals to shun half truths or whatever else you want to call them? I refuse to be guilty whenever I have to speak half truths. Why, I often tell full lies, like Nick gives examples of. When the food is awful in my host’s home, I shall not feel guilty if I praise the food and manage to eat enough to back up that lie. And I am not God, I am just human.

Tags: Arjuna, Ashwathama, Dhrishtadumnya, Drona, Krishna, Mahabharatha, Yudhishtra

This comment is too good not to be shared with my readers. Akismet caught it but the sheer gall of the commentator made me laugh, as I am sure my readers will too.

“I just installed an in-wall computer in my bathroom with a pull out keyboard tray and, with all do respect, this is the first blog I read while taking a number 2. This is getting bookmarked because it will always have a place in my heart, and bathroom. Thanks for the great read.”

S/He may well have installed something like this!

Tags: Computer in the toilet, Spammer

I hope that you enjoy 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 Ginger.

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.

Media, is plural for Medium.

Dictionary calls a Medium as “a person through whom the spirits of the dead are alleged to be able to contact the living.” So, I would need the help of Media when I need to contact the dead.

Not a very pleasant idea that. To start with, why would I want to contact any dead? There is no one that I can think of that I can accuse of not including me in her last will and testimony. Nor anyone who can point out to me where some burried treasure lies in our ancestral estate. There has never been even a whisper of this idea anywhere.

Other than these two possibilities, the dead of interest to me, I am sure will not be very interested in contacting me. Why would they? I cannot do anything for them here or wherever they are. Now, my brother Barath has different ideas about the matter. In a comment on my post “Shopping” he had left this delightful comment. “I remember my ex wife once asking me ‘How would you like to talk to my mother?’, whilst holding the phone away from her ear to which my reply was ‘preferably through a medium’.”

I think that I shall leave the quest for media to him and be content with communicating with the living.

Tags: Media, Medium

This is one of Bollywood’s top stars, John Abraham. From his modeling days, he was Urmeela’s favourite actor.

His cultivated image is one of a macho biker.

I therefore could not believe my eyes when I read this news item about this macho actor of Bollywood.

What is the provocation I wonder?

Conrad, did you by any chance promise to do to him what you threatened me with?

Tags: Biker, Bollywood, John Abraham, Macho

The most used abbreviation for the Indian Rupee has been Rs. or for international purposes, INR. India has not had a symbol for its currency like $ for dollar, and this has now been corrected.

Like most Indians I am very happy that this has happened. I am trying to get the symbol incorporated in my keyboard so that I can start using it in my communications.

India is also blessed with some remarkable cartoonists who portray India at its best. One of them is Morparia.
He has come up with his own version of the symbol and I doff my topi to him for this brilliant cartoon.

Tags: Hemant Morparia, Indian Rupee

“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

This is an article in The Independent, under “Green Living”, that needs to be read by all my regular readers. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I did.

Curry and spices are eaten by the entire South Asian sub continent. That is nearly a billion and a half people! I think that these scientists must come and satisfy themselves that these people do not leave any flatulent impact in the atmosphere before they proceed any further with their studies. I guarantee that if they do, they will change their views.

In fact, they may not need to. I am told that curry and spices have been hijacked by the British as their own national food. They even have a National curry week! The regular British curry consumers need to be studied. Don’t they need to be “burped”? That is all.

A few years ago, all of us came to know of the “Mad Cow Disease.” How do cattle develop BSE, which is the element in cattle meat, that caused the disease? Feed is the major route for transmission among cattle, according to veterinary medicine experts at Iowa State University. When ranchers and farmers feed cattle with products made from other cattle or sheep, such as ruminant feed, they are recycling diseased animal protein in feed containing meat and bone meal, thus causing the disease in cattle. Please see here.

When you feed cattle and sheep what nature did not intend them to eat, so that you can develop better meat for sale, you will have unintended consequences. I am sure that if you feed cattle curry and spice, we will have further unintended consequences. Don’t these scientists read books like ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ and ‘In Defense Of Food’ by Michael Pollan?

God help the cattle and sheep.

Tags: Cattle and sheep, Curry and Spices, Flatulence, Polluting the air, South Asia