Child's play...these days!!!!!

Aman was hunched over the newspaper with his morning cuppa at one side on the coffee table in front of him. He gave a yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwnnnn and mumbled to no one in particular, “there positively must be a better way to start the day than to wake up!!” “Oh sure there is”, said Mira as she splashed a handful of cold water into his eyes. “To be woken up” ,she cried!!!!!! “What did you do that for????”, asked Aman incredulously, when a cry from the neighbouring room truncated their conversation. It was Sia, the apple of their eye. She had just woken up and both husband and wife half ran into the room, vying to be the first to greet her, hold her in their arms, give her a morning kiss and take full advantage of her playful morning mood. She was smiling at them from her crib; barely two years of age and talkative as a parakeet, with pink cheeks and black hair that curled at the edges, she might have been a doll!

“Gumoning, momma”, she said cheerily, “ And papa”. “Did you sleep well, sweetheart???” asked Mira as she lifted the little bundle into her arms, holding her by her side with her two legs sitting on her waist. “Ma, doggy biting shia”, she said describing her dream, “but shia run away, faaaaaaaaaaaaaast to pa.” “Pa beat doggy”, she continued “and then you know, doggy become kitty and look to me and say meeeeeeeeeooooow”, she cried contorting her baby face and making the sound of a cat! Mira and Aman smiled. This was the case everyday; Sia at her talkative best early in the morning, bluffing away to gloryland and giving her parents their daily dose of the pure bliss of childish innocence.

It was a Sunday and Mira quickly took to tending to her baby, giving her a bath and clothing her up. Very soon there pervaded a smell of Johnson and Johnson’s baby products all over the house and Sia was ready to play. Aman had just begun playing with Sia when he received a call on his mobile. There was some matter that made him very angry and he spoke quite animatedly. Sia very much enjoyed looking at her dad turning red with rage and then suddenly, without warning, he yelled, “How dare you talk to me like that?? I am not your servant alright??” Saying so he hung up and switched off his cell phone to ward off further disturbance that would ruin his weekend. One look at the bubbly countenance of his little ball of sunshine, and he found all his anger melting away. “Let’s play, baby”, he said. And they played with her dolls, her bricks and her ball.

Soon, it was time for lunch. Mira carried Sia away and seated her on her high chair with a plate of mashed vegetables and a bowl of soup in front of her. Now eating had always been a problem with Sia. She was extremely choosy about her food and vegetables figured nowhere in her list of likes. “Shia not like thish. Shia wanting chock-let”!!! Mira sighed and tried to wash some soup down the girl’s stomach but try as she might, she could not get her to touch the vegetables. Finally, “You must eat your veggies NOW”, said Mira sternly, out of pure exasperation to which Sia replied with pride brimming on her cheeks and filling her round, bulging eyes, “How dare you talk to me like that? I am not your servant alright!!” It was all Mira could do to stay rooted to the spot without fainting! She gave Aman a threatening look that said “watch your words, man”!!!! After that, with the slightest coaxing, she was able to make Sia finish off the veggies on her plate. It was almost as if she had purposely avoided eating the stuff to be able to put to use, her new found knowledge of some words that made her sound like big girl!!!!

That afternoon when Sia was taking her nap and Aman and Mira were lounging on the sofa, they had a quick discussion as to how the girl was picking up words that she must absolutely not, that she will be starting school in a few weeks and if they’re not careful, she might give the impression of being a spoilt brat which she was really not. They resolved to be more careful while talking within her earshot.

But the same evening, Mira got into a fierce argument with the vegetable vendor at the end of which, she slammed the door in his face and said loudly, “Useless fellow”!!!! And then suddenly realizing what she had done, she scoured the room for any sight of Sia only to find her lost in the midst of her dolls and teddies. She heaved a sigh of relief to think that her daughter had not overheard her, but oh…how wrong she was, as she was soon to find out! She gave her husband a reassuring smile and got back on the couch with him to watch a movie.

Now you may be in a position to control your tongue but how can you control what comes on TV or what other people say. The shrewd guy in the film that they were watching suddenly abused very loudly which made the couple frantically reach for the remote and change the channel. At dinnertime, Sia casually asked her parents amidst mouthfuls of mashed rice, “what is a b******??” Mira dropped her fork and brought her hand to her mouth and Aman coughed in his plate. Mira gained composure faster than Aman and told Sia, “You will NEVER use that word again, okay darling??” “NEVER”, she said again with an emphasis she didn’t know her voice could lay. And Aman gave her such a glare down that the poor creature got frightened and started sobbing. They comforted the little one and her meal that night went into the bin!

That was one day. But day after day, Sia was proving to be extremely quick at picking up words and phrases that made Aman and Mira strongly suspect their upbringing and they had many discussions on where, possibly, had they gone wrong?? She was learning from the watchman, the TV, the people on the road and once she went so far as to call the neighbouring lady a “donkey”, and a beggar whom she saw from the rickshaw “useless fellow” to Mira’s great annoyance!!!!!!

Mira was at her wit’s end and yet she could not bring herself to ask anyone what she should do because she felt that if she told anyone that her daughter was picking up these words, they would think her to be a very bad mother. No, that would never do. So she kept the matter all hushed up. After all, children were angels of God and as she grew up, she would surely learn! So saying, she consoled herself and managed to convince Aman too.

Soon Sia was going to school, trotting with her index finger clasped in her mother’s hand, a tiny little saddle-like bag over her shoulder, two little pigtails swinging as she walked and a broad smile for every passer-by.

At school, she used to have jolly time and come home and recount her experience to her mom, most animatedly and with the same enthusiasm to her dad when he returned home in the evening. But to their utmost horror, they found that their daughter was not alone in her grasp and use of abusive language. Kids of today learnt too much too soon!!!! On talking about it to the teachers at an access session, this was a point of heated debate between parents of various kids and the teachers, each playing the blame game. Parents accused teachers of lack of guard at school while teachers retorted that if parents couldn’t look after one kid at home, how did they expect the teachers to keep an eye on 30 at a time!

And so the story ends!!!!!!!! What were you expecting??? A solution??? A happy ending saying how Sia transformed???? No I won’t give any of it because what we see around us today is precisely what I have said using Sia as a pawn. Where it all begins, how it gets engraved on the tender and gullible minds of little ones and how they pass it on!!!!!

True, as age and maturity comes, they learn to exercise some discretion in using the words, but that is hardly congratulatory!!!!! Nip it in the bud and we’ll have a more civil, genteel and decent youth in our time who have a strong sense of what should and should not be said, when, where and to whom! Think about it!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s all for now…….till next time, from slo it’s Tally-ho!!!

Money GROWS on TREES!!!

Yes, you read the title right…..and I promise I haven’t missed any word there!!! Whoever said that money doesn’t grow on trees, surely hadn’t heard about the IPL!!!

Cricket, an age-old game gathering its roots from the British who took their favourite game to all their colonies along with the iron hand that they used to rule them, our beloved India included!

Cricket, which has ever since been the pet sport of the nation, commanding precedence over and more importance than even our national sport of hockey; a matter which has long been a subject of heated debate and criticism.

Cricket which has evolved over time to increasingly convenient formats; from the original test-match which lasted 5 whole days to the more feasible and time-saving one-day format and more recently, it has given way to a format that almost eliminates all the drawbacks that were associated with it – that even at 50 overs a side, it was still far too long a sport demanding investment of a large chunk of the viewer’s precious time, that it was a slow game, that it lacked glamour, so on and so forth. Well, twenty-twenty, as the nomenclature suggests, has twenty overs per side packed with such an enormous punch that tables turn before you can say “whoa”!! It is the flavour of the season, that has the nation strongly in its grip and promises to retain its hold over wonderstruck viewers for some time to come. The investment of time in it has reduced from a day to a few hours, wrought with excitement and action. And whoever said cricket has no glamour can forego his lunch and dinner for a while for he has his words to chew!

If the heat of the summer was not enough, you have some -hot-bods adding all the oomph to the game and raising the glamour-quotient to giddying heights! The brightly coloured uniforms of the eight “premier” teams scream style! The almost war-like countenance upon the faces of the players who, until yesterday played with each other but suddenly find themselves on opposite sides, the responsibility on their sturdy shoulders weighed down by the money riding on them…..oh, the game has come of age!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And HOW???!!!!

But the point is not how fast the game has suddenly become so HUGE. Going by the far-reaching changes in every conceivable field, you don’t exactly need Einstein’s brains to deduce that a modernisation of the game was inevitable; it was always only a matter of time. The point in question is how the unimaginable, the unbelievable and the almost miraculous is now unfolding in front of our very eyes.

The money…..yes…..that’s the most unbelievable part of this whole new drama. The sums that the rich and famous (read film stars and businessmen) are willing to stake in this venture borders on a mania that words will only serve to dilute. What we consequently witness is a marriage of business and entertainment; or cricket and bollywood, two staunchly followed religions of our country! Cricket is now serious business. “Buying” the players for astronomical sums was just the beginning of it, the amounts expended on the marketing and promotional aspects are figures having so many zeroes that if we counted them, we’d employ fingers of both our hands! And as far as the prize money goes, the less said about the proposed sum, the better (mainly coz we need to get on with our lives without fainting!)

But contrary to what you may be thinking, my article, at least when I started it, was not intended as a weapon to spit fire on the evolving nature of the game. By all means, I welcome the change, even appreciate it. I have only, for want of a better word, “used” the game as an example to my title.

Until recently, we were counting millionaires in the world and then we grew at a pace that would put Michael Schumacher to the gravest disgrace….before we knew it, we had quite a few billionaires pacing the planet and taking giant strides ahead. And then there was never time to look back. The fortunes of people grew and grew….and then grew some more! There was just one glitch in this picture which at first glance looks so merry and rosy that we’re scared to believe it for fear of bursting the bubble! And for good reason…..the glitch - the rich kept getting richer and richer and the poor continued to survive amidst the same squalid conditions, if not worse! And that is still the case. And the beauty of it is that the rich never need to spend!! They almost always travel free of cost in the charter flight of a fellow millionaire, receive expensive automobiles as gifts on trivial occasions and enjoy fully sponsored accommodation wherever they go (unless of course, they are on a private holiday). So essentially, they basically part with their earnings only to acquire personal stuff, like designer apparel, jewellery, gadgets and the like – basically their wants and never their needs (as an economics student must word it!).

I may seem to be a minimalist, an anti-progress sort of person. I’ll clarify that I’m far from it. My best wishes to those who can afford that sort of a lifestyle and my congratulations to those who can ENJOY the fruits of their labour; for, more often than not, that is the most difficult aspect of high income groups. Nevertheless, I really can’t help thinking on behalf of those who seek but a meagre fraction of the amount that the people-with-stuffed-coffers expend. In all probability, the daily spendings of the latter group would satisfy the former for a month. It is the sheer irony between the two extreme groups that so blatantly exposes itself in our country (and possibly in others too, but I’ll feign ignorance on that).

My article is not a backlash against the rich-and-famous. I am sure they are only spending their hard-earned money in way that catches their fancy. They are probably just giving vent to their latent entrepreneurial skills. And to give them the benefit of the doubt, I’ll assume that they pay their taxes in good time. But this is a blog and it’s just my way of commenting on the stark contrast between those who can splurge (and big time!!) and those who can’t. The scene would be a lot rosier if a small part of money spent on modernisation (of the country, of sports, of cinema or whatsoever) went to those who needed them rather than to those who simply employed them. Just so that…even if the poor still say that money doesn’t grow on trees, they get to see, for those whom it does, how the seeds are sown!!!! It would be a beginning, if nothing else and a few people would go to bed with fuller stomachs!

A little serious….the subject today, though it didn’t begin so……But I promise the next will be as much as in contrast as the two groups discussed herein above! Take care all of you.

Till next time, this is slo signing off! Tally-ho!!!!!

A Piece of my Puzzle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello again! Having apologised for my absence and kickstarted the second season of my tryst with blogging, I couldn't rest my fingers with just an "I am back". So here's a more fitting way of saying I'm back!

So what have I been doing this past one year????? Been in my final year at college and like all good things, that too has met its end. Its been a whirlwind year with so many things happening so soon, all one after the other…...youth festivals, college activities, CA exams in between and when time permits, a little bit of studies, and finally the TY exams, the grand finale that ended it all in a single blow!!!!

I have good reason to believe that more people have entered my life in the last year of college than the first two years put together, each in a unique way and for a unique purpose! And being the incurable thinker that I am, I can dig up philosophies where there are none! So "PEOPLE" it is…..my subject of choice to mark my return to the infinite world of blogging!

They say that there is a reason for everything and I believe it too. More so when it comes to people. Each time a person enters your life, it is always for a reason, a definite purpose........The only difference being that some people stay on long after their purpose has been served, to share a lifetime's worth of joys, trials and tribulations! Call them friends, call them angels, brothers/sisters, or whatever else you may fancy, but at the end of the day, it’s a relationship you forge with each person who enters your life, for, even in calling a stranger so, you have only served to give a name, a definition to the relationship you share with someone you don’t know! Like you say “he’s my brother” or “she’s my friend”, so you say “he’s, to me, a stranger”! Where there are people, there is always an interconnected network of relationships whereby each is related to every other!

Going back to people who “enter” your life……….People have been "sent" to you at a time when you may have, unknown to yourself, asked for a companion. They come to fill that void you feel in times of solitude. Sometimes you throw up your hands in despair when in the thick of trouble and pray for divine intervention.....it comes, almost always, in the most humane form, unrecognisable but in response to that silent prayer, to bail you out or to make you see the proverbial "light at the end of the tunnel".

Sometimes, people are in your life "JUST BECAUSE"!!!! You can never find out why they came, how they came and when they came for it doesn’t really matter……you feel as if they’ve always been around like the sun and the stars, like you've known them even before you were born. But truth is, there is a reason. They came because of either of two reasons – either you needed them or they needed you! More often than not, it is a combination of the two. A sort of ‘amalgamation’ (Yeah…..I’m proving that I’m on my way to becoming a BCOM graduate once the results are declared)……..between people who come together because they need each other. It’s not the kind of need that says “I can’t live without you”….rather the sort that believes “life is so much more pleasant with you being a part of it”!!!!!!

So why is it that you click with some people and not with others???? Why do you find it so easy to pour yourself out to some people but are completely walled up when it comes to some others??? How is it that it takes but a few moments to “know” some people and a lifetime in the case of certain others???? Surely these are all questions that arise when you talk of people and more importantly, relationships.

Time, as commonly believed, is really not a factor that determines closeness or attachment or any sort of understanding in a relationship in my opinion. It’s the “connection”, as I call it. That man is a social animal is a fact that has been hammered into our head since kindergarten, and that we need people around us who can partake our pie of life is obviously undisputable! Why then, do we have this connection with only SOME people???

Bless the Lord that the mechanism is so, I say! Imagine having a unique connection with every other soul on the planet or, on a more practical ground, with every other person you interact, you’d find your head swirling with entangled cobwebs of the umpteen number of connections…..leading in end to cross-connections and misconnections and network breakdowns!!

Jokes apart, the connection is not related to any scientific theory like “opposites attract”, nor is it by any logical deduction that you “decide” to connect with someone. It’s a more unconscious process. Something that happens by itself when you first meet/get to know someone.

Picture this, you have this sack of puzzle pieces in front of you with no picture to guide you as to its final look. All you have is a single piece to start your puzzle with. How would you go about putting it together (assuming you have ample time and no better job to do of course ;-)!!!!!!!!!) The way is only one….you take out puzzle pieces from the sack, one at a time and see if it fits. If it does, it stays and you can now look for pieces that fit compositely. If it doesn’t, you fling it back into the sack for you know it is one of the pieces that completes the puzzle, only where it fits is the question!

No, I’m not meandering. This is very much part of what I was earlier describing. Our life is the puzzle and each of us is the single piece in our own puzzle, with which we begin putting the whole picture together. All the other people who are, at some point of time or the other, destined to be a part of our life, are the puzzle pieces in the sack. As each one comes into view, the connection is either established instantly as the puzzle piece fits, or cast aside for a time when it will eventually fit in somewhere. I guess you will agree that in a puzzle, some pieces are almost always more important than others initially as they serve to give a clearer picture and help in identifying more connected pieces. For example, if the starting piece has three protruding nodes, then three puzzle pieces are required to fit directly with the original piece making the whole connection appear as a single piece. So also with people…….some connect faster and become one with the original piece, and then the interconnections become easier and quicker. Ultimately the picture is completed and each piece is in its rightful place , as close to the first piece as its position allows.

So our life is a puzzle that keeps nearing completion with every additional piece that fits in! Which brings us back to the very first point of each person coming into our life for a reason……the reason is, in totality, just ONE – people enter our life to complete our puzzle for us! A BIG thanks to ALLLLLLLLLLLL the people who’ve till date entered my life and become an inseparable piece of my very own puzzle…..my life!

That’s all for now but rest assured that the articles will come in think and fast now that the starting problem is solved and the oiling and greasing done with!!!!!!!!

Take care folks……till next time, from slo it’s Tally-ho!

Back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello everybody.................if ever there'd be an award for the greatest understatement, my saying that "I haven't blogged in a while" would surely take the cake!!!!!!!!!!!! I must admit it's something I've missed sorely but owing to a lot of diverse reasons, laziness being primary, blogging had taken a backseat. But now that I'm back, I'm back for good and hopefully the literary exploits will offer as much, if not more, sugar and spice as they supposedly did in the past!!!!!!

Lots coming up......watch this space!

Tally-ho!