Guldasta

A bouquet of flowers picked along the way ….

Kick it On! February 29, 2008

Filed under: Children,fiction+fact cocktail,friends,India,nostalgia — gurdas @ :
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The year was 1985 and I was in the middle of my first crush. On a certain Ms. Rashmi, my 3rd grade Science teacher.

Sometime during those wonder years, we got our first television set. The brand, Televista, now dead for more than a decade, was a household name then. With a 20inch screen, Black&White capabilities, a blue tinted add-on screen to give some colour, and only one channel (state run Doordarshan), this marvel of technology made my home the evening watering hole for the neighbourhood.

8pm on Wednesdays were specially packed. That was when the great Indian song show “Chitrahar” was on air. Supriya, Sujata, Bantu, Pupoon, Guddi, Jhumri and just about everyone between 4 and 14 years and within 50meters of my house would assemble into a small 11feet by 11feet room. Limbs got crushed, clothes lost their shape and nobody cared who sat next to them. On days when Mom was feeling particularly happy, she would pass around those crispy crackers that slipped over a finger like a pipe. Each kid got exactly four, so that all fingers on an arm (except the thumb) got dressed in blue, green, yellow and red.

And there was one person in the room whose job was to kick hard. That person was me.

Now this TV of ours, Televista, developed a syndrome of blanking out without warning. Pop!, completely blank it went every once in a while. After it happened a few times, we discovered that kicking the legs of the table (which it sat upon) would invariably bring it back to life. The longer the duration since the last blank, the more kicks it needed. A thumb rule of 1 kick for every 10 minutes. So, if it blanked after 30 minutes of OK performance, all you needed to do was kick it hard 3 times in quick succession.

What a donkey it made of me. Standing there beside it, ready to kick whenever the screen blanked.

But as with all things children, the routine became a game. In the darkness one could hear shouts of “2 kicks!”,  “no only 1”. This put me under tremendous pressure. To salvage my honour I had to ensure I got the TV alive within the guestimated number of kicks. Over the first few weeks, the room developed a palpable tension from waiting for the next blankout. The TV grabbed as much mindspace as the programmes it displayed.

The game grew. Some of my friends started demanding for the “right to kick”. I acquiesced, reluctantly. I am sure that TV of ours gave back more than its value. It provided exercise, healthy competition, better footballers and real fun.

In all the fun, nobody gave a thought to the table. I am informed that the table stood the acid test of being kicked for about 2 years. After which we replaced the Televista.

Where is that table? I must say “thank you” to it.

 

Saying NO to plastic bags January 29, 2008

Filed under: Ethics and Values,nature — gurdas @ :
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That’s it. No more plastic bags for me.

For the last few months I have practised saying “no bags please” at the checkout counter. That usually produces raised eyebrows and amused smiles. On one occasion the missing plastic bag raised more than an eyebrow. The security got alarmed as I walked out, my hands full of stuff I had purchased. I was stopped and asked to produce my purchase bills. Clearly, for the security, the plastic bag was a symbol of legitimate purchase  🙂

But on a few occasions I have been guilty of bringing home a plastic bag. So, starting today, I am going completely off the circuit. Come what may, I am not participating in the plastic bag menace that is choking our drains, killing our cows and slowly murdering our planet.

And I am not buying the argument that the problem is with people because they do not recycle the bags. First, in my country the recycle machinery does not exist. Second, anything that needs more than a 1000 years to decompose has no place in our lives. I wish I could remove plastic totally from my life. But that is impractical as of now because for some things there is no viable alternative. But the least I can do is get rid of the plastic that exists as shopping bags.

So, how am I going to bring home all that stuff from the market? I will carry durable cloth bags every time I go shopping. Certainly, this will result in uncomfortable situations. I might forget the bag and realise this only at the counter. Or maybe the shop will not allow me to bring in my own bags. But that is not going to stop me from sticking to my promise.

And also, I am not rushing to throw out the existing plastic bags in my house. Since I have been shy of dumping them in the waste without sufficient reuse, I have quite a stack in a drawer. I am going to REUSE each of them to the very last and only then discard them.

Maybe it is time they changed the warning on the bags from “keep away from children” to “keep away from the planet”.

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– – – Further reading – – –

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1974750.stm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0902_030902_plasticbags.html

 

I took a walk… January 5, 2008

Filed under: life — gurdas @ :
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… and found a world.

Right in my neighbourhood.

Today, just after dusk I had an urge for a cuppa tea and that took me out of my house on foot. Usually, at this hour I am at the office or doing something which ruled out leisure walks. But today was different. I was at home.

The first realisation that sunk in was that I had not walked on my own street for quite some time. And neither had I noticed those huge glass and steel buildings which seem to have sprouted out of nowhere. And whose house was that? Nice girl! Nicer dog!! Children playing ball. I can’t see the ball; they can. Look at that old man’s beard. And those bright plastic balls on sale.

 The tea was refreshing and it felt nice to be walking around my neighbourhood. Or should I say my world?

 

Knowledge River December 19, 2007

Filed under: Inspiration — gurdas @ :
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I am awed by the breadth and depth of knowledge which humankind has accumulated in these past few thousand years, and specially in the last few centuries.

And I am inspired by the ingenuous methods we have devised to spread this knowledge. Imagine a world without books, and schools. The latest great knowledge platform is the Internet. With each passing day, than ever before, I turn more to the Net for answers. I had a tough time keeping track of well packaged, new, or interesting knowledge. Not anymore. I no longer need to keep that magazine article on particle research at CERN or discoveries above primate social behaviour. The Net will serve me the information, when I need it and where I need it.

I term the Internet as a River of Knowledge that flows across national boundaries, and serves you irrespective of whether you are young or old, black or white, man or woman, Asian or European, smart or dumb, good or bad, and even human or machine!

So today, as a token of appreciation, I donated to two of my favourite “knowledge distributors” – Wikimedia and MIT OCW.

Thank you Wikipedia, MIT and countless others for letting me drink from the Knowledge River.

 

Mother Hen! December 4, 2007

Filed under: Ethics and Values,family,life,women — gurdas @ :

Right now, there are women squabbling in the street outside my house.

And I simply cannot distinguish the sounds they are making from what I witnessed once at a hen coup.

So much for evolution.