Paradise Regained

Dare I say it? Happy days are here again!

Temperature levels have regained their sanity and are now cruising comfortably in the lower twenties, while night-time rains keep you deliciously cool when you are asleep. And mornings are such a treat to wake up to!

I am in love with the weather :o)

Hot, Humid, Hell on Earth

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather" said John Ruskin.

What an ass.

Average tempratures in these parts have been flirting with the forties, and this city is one of the few where the humitidy does not hit you in the face like a solid wall of misery.

I have just spent the last week traveling around the country, and the weather story just gets worse. Hot. Humid. Hell on Earth.

And when the Sun tires of baking and broiling you, Master Hail hails you from afar, tossing pellets of ice that come at you out of gale-force winds. The rain doesn't even have time to hit the ground before its swept away.

In the spirit of total understatement, all I can do is echo Jane Austen: "What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance."

Tenor of Human Thinking and the Horse's Rear End

This is a brilliant piece that came to me through a set of email forwards, the kind where you can never quite figure out who the original source or author is. So here's to that anonymous soul who managed to beat down his or her normal human tendencies, to bring us that much closer to the horse's ass! Read on...

"Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring a bell?

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you are thinking on the right lines, because the Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horse horses.

Now the twist to the story: When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass."

Parallel Possessions

It was that all-time winner of magic words; the one that quickens the step and turns a sparkle in the eye to an anticipatory gleam. At least for all women.

SALE! ("50% Discounts" and "Stock Clearance" come in a very close 2nd and 3rd, in this race to win a woman's heart...and pocketbook!)

There is was, one of the first multi-brand shopping complexes this city has seen, clearing its stock prior to moving to a new location. So, of course we had to go pay homage to its long and much-loved life. The Rooftop Duo, out on a shopping spree, the best adrenalin rush one can get in the middle of a working week!

Much time passed, spent in happy activity, punctuated by many "Wow!"s and "Will you look at the color!" and "Do you have this in a size 36?"s and "I HAVE to have this"s and ''Hey, I saw that first!"s....the grammar & vocabulary of the Women's Sale, a language foreign to any creature male. Finally, exhausted from a few hours of zipping between racks, laden by many pieces of clothing and shoes and whathaveyous, we turned up at the billing counters like a pair of drained dynamos. Smiled at each other and shared our total thrill at having picked up so many steals. What joy! What fun!.......What RUBBISH I SAY?!

AAARGH! It was the worst thing that could ever happen ! No...Worse-er!

Every piece of clothing and every pair of shoes we had just bought and bagged...was identical. Completely. Totally. In color, design, style, though maybe not size... Calamity! We were going to be in blooming uniform! And the sale had a no-return policy!

We managed to make our way home, and there we realised that we had done this before. With lots of other stuff! Tapes, cds, books, curtains, you name it! Post its even! Ok, maybe that one was a bit much....but you see what I'm getting at. We just seemed to have the same taste in almost everything. Almost.

Anyways after we calmed down, we figured maybe it wasn't all that bad. After all, we didn't work in the same company, had different friends, and hung out at different places. So maybe we could get away with it.

This remains to be seen though, but Hope Springs Eternal! And for now, we are just going to check what the other is wearing before stepping out for the day!

Biting the Hand that Feeds

Oh boy, do I know that one! Not because I have ever done that to anyone, but because I have had it done to me. And not just the hand, mind you...feet even! And boy, can it be painful! (well, maybe not as painful as lisening to a song called 'Hand That Feeds' by some band called 'Nine Inch Nails', but pretty close. Drive those nine inch nails through my head, why don't you! In fact, I started thinking about this when the darn song started its 'biting' this morning, when I was working to the sounds of LaunchCast)

What am I talking about? Well, m'dear, if it ain't evident by now, I guess I'm-a just gonna have to spell it out for you. Charlie. And Bruno. My Dogs. My honest-to-goodness pedigree Great Indian Street Dogs.

Sweetest, funniest, friendliest dogs you ever played tickley-tummy with! The kind that pull long faces and teary eyes when you are not in town, and greet you with great big grins and a tongue-full-of-drool face slather the minute you hove into sight. The kind that howl 'Good Morning!' and curl up on your feet when its time to go goodnight. The kind that will chase their own tails around the bend, and look extremely hurt when they actually manage to catch up.

But come mealtimes, you better have a darn good reason for hanging around the food bowl! That's when the porki-kanthri-naayee surfaces and drowns out the powder-puff you were playing ball-toss with an hour ago. It starts with the tail swishing low, and the eyes looking up at you from under the brows. If by then you haven't got it into that lump you call a head that you should be atleast a couple feet away, if not in the next room, then you will probably try something totally imbecilic like reaching down, scratching the ears and saying 'Goo' boy! goo' baby! eatcha food!'. And 'goo baby' will promptly attach to whichever appendage happens to be closest (we, girls, definitely have it safer where this is concerned! OUCH!).

In my case, that turned out to be my hand. Once, when Bruno was a puppy. And another time it was my foot, when I didn't realise that the idiot was under the table and eyeing a slice of bread that some homicidal maniac had dropped on the floor. I know my brother got nipped somewhere on his calf, atleast a couple times. And the maid got a headstart on the next year's marathon, once!

Funny thing though, was that neither dog ever seemed to realise that they actually bit someone. Right after breakfast/lunch/dinner, or whichever meal you happened to season, you were sure to get a lick and a cuddle. Duh? What was this?! Tough Love?! Good Dog, Bad Dog?!

Whatever it was, Bruno lived a fairly long, happy and well-seasoned life. And Charlie, who came after, has grown out of meal-time biting. Now he just nibbles whenever he can, and its always done while he is gazing soulfully up at you. Sort of like doggie-style Anaesthesia....the dopey look to make sure the teeth don't hurt. Don't we wish!

And so Life goes on...with Charlie biting not just the hand, but the foot (especially the toes and the heel!), the ear, the nose, and then migrating onwards to the slippers, the carpet, the rocking chair, the doorstop....

You get the picture.

Soul-1, Wimp-0

It's that time of year again, when Flora and Fauna are popping up to greet the Sun, when the Summer Ozone is fairly crackling with the pent-up energy of the Winter past, and when Souls are stirring all across the firmament. And when my own Soul decides that it's time to come out of hibernation and greet the First Buds of Spring (my Soul operates on Time from another Dimension - Quantum Time, if you will!). It's time to try something new and stir both mind and body. It's time to give in to the Quest.

What Quest? you ask. Well, the Quest for something I haven't had the time, energy, spine or sense to try before. Or perhaps, lack of sense. In the past it's been bunjee jumping in Bangalore, white-water rafting at Dandeli, trekking in the hills around Edukumeri, Spanish Language Classes and Chinese Cuisine. Whether or not I actually go through with the Quest, though, is a matter for another day and discussion!

This year, however, the Soul has been more decisive than I would normally like. And, for me, debating the Quest, with something so deep inside me that I cannot even grab its nose and give it a good tweak, is no mean feat. And as my Soul is as stubborn and pig-headed as I am, suffice it to say I beat me at my own game. And the end result, of these last few confusing comments, is that I am now trying to sign up for Tai Chi classes half-way across town.

Wimp. I can hear you thinking it! Of all the things I could have quested for (is that word right?) Tai Chi has to be on a plane that even my Soul's dimension does not normally drop down to. Why could I not have just signed up for High-impact Aerobics, or Hammer tossing, or something that actually sounds like people below the age of 50 will go for. Don't ask. I gave up asking myself this right back there when my Soul was wiping the ground with my face.

And now that I have had time to get used to the idea, that I am actually going to go after this, Tai Chi doesn't look all that bad. Ofcourse, I have only made the acquaintance of the Tai Chi Theory thus far, but I am sure I am going to like it.

Yeah Right. No, seriously! Next to the Vanilla Single Scoop of Aerobic Dancing, Tai Chi has to be the Double Glazed Chocolate Sundae of physical activity. Or Marial Arts. Or Old Folks Fitness.

Ah, I give up. So, I'm a wimp. Atleast I will be a wimp without impact injuries to my knees and brain! There's a thought!

"I'm Back, Baby!!.."

...in the immortal words of Joey Tribbiani! Back, after a stint in the freezer and extensive rewiring to the brain - hopefully this baby will now go from 0 to 120 in 2 seconds, without shooting the engine to hell, or worse!

I am still teeming with ideas and grappling for the words I need, to pin them down, but there's no more panic seasoning the process. Have been ploughing my way through a lot of Terry 'Cor! He's Good' Pratchett, Agatha Christie, Mark Tully, Louis L'amour and David Eddings in the hope that they will help with the fusebox. And I think I may just have found the inspiration to do some serious writing.

That's not say that I am going to go and rip out a hugely fantastic piece of prose, and thereby find the meaning of my Life. I don't intend to go from desk-bound pen-pusher to energy-crackling-around-me-waiting-to-be-released the-world-is-my-backyard key-pounder. But then again, maybe I will mildly wiggle my fingers in that direction...

And till I reach that point, when I quit my job and head for the hills so that I have peace and quiet and NO HORNS PLEASE, am going to keep painting these little pictures of thoughts that keep running through my head and occasionally stop to show off complex skateboard stunts. Don't be surprised if I actually learn to skateboard, in the process.

So, here's to impending insanity and the rush of the ride!