It’s all about the Genes..

he said. THis thought provoking statement by a friend made me think, not only twice but surely twice as much. Now, sometimes I wonder is it the genes that are dictating my life. Is it this inherited factor the cause of many a things I do? Or all the things I do?

Am I writing for the love of writing or my genes are making me do it? Am I or am I because of my genes? Do I have a wicked sense of humor? Or do you think am a spoil sport? Or I have fear for heights?Do I just blame it on my genes?

So, genes not only control the character but the human being as well. The selfish gene was the one behind all this – the this thing called life. This factor called gene is what is making me sleep so much? Making me the sloppy dancer that I am?

So, they say it’s the genology. Does it mean that the curly locks of my great grandfather, mixed with the luscious hair of my grandmother, together with the brown tan of my paternal grandfather with the straight hair of my maternal grandmother’s hair and the money and care from my parents .. I am bald. Oh genes.

Playboy

The essence of a word is in the way we use it. The said word or the pictorial representation of it greatly adds sheen and attaches importance to a word. India, and its hypocritical social environment is so openly secretive about the taboo topics of physical intimacy and its acts. The state’s dictatorial demeanor of entertainment viewship is in no way inversely proportional to the related crime. Forcing a social façade by heralding ethical morality is not creating any ancient generation. The façade only satiates a generation and the self proclaimed moral policing fanatics.

Getting back to the word….Am amused by the abuse of the word, image and use of ‘Playboy’ in India. Yes, in India. As I make my way through the traffic ridden Bangalore lanes, there goes no day without the playboy bunny image. Be it stickers on vehicles, clothes, jackets ..they are there everywhere. Call it ignorance or the intentional use in the land of kamasutra, Mr. Heffner your orgasmic entity has lost its flutter. No one would twitch or raise an eyebrow in India on seeing the bunny. We have moved on. We are more worried about Big Boss house and Rakhi Sawanth.

Gratitude to a master craftsman

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine


And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they


Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie


In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

- William Wordsworth

wonder how they put such wonderful thoughts into words. It might not be the host of golder daffodils; but the vistas of nature, the wonderfull dreamy things. so true, "what a wealth these show to me had brought..... They flash upon the inward eye which is the bliss of solitude..."

In gratitude to a master craftsman.

My other chattels

Working to keep stride with the visibly floating population, I often wonder about my possessions. Possessions in terms of the old world furniture, the crockery, the umpteen number of upholstery sets and the small knick-knacks. Moving houses has always been the permanent change in my life. From my childhood to my days as a student in the US and now as a working professional, I have lived with certain things that I know not the reason for.

The value of these physical objects is recognized by the grazing look it gets as we tread past. The dust piled in the crevices, in those unreachable cleaning spots, describes its antiquity. The days we ogle at its long forgotten beauty is when we proudly present its presence to a guest. The other hundreds of days, it’s an object for cleaning. The physical weight and space occupied and the emotional weight and space occupied take precedence based on the mood of the day. The broken objects that stick on in the small places available in the bottom racks are only there because of the emotional weight that we cannot shake off. We wonder how we can NOT keep these things that have been with us for …hmmm, let me see… don’t know how many years. What happens if we just discard (the word throw is emotionally hurting) them. Will someone with lesser opportunities in life find it and make it a useable object in their life?

The money invested in visual temptation result in accruing physical object stack. The bonding will be created unconsciously by the money spent on it. This makes it unmovable and after a couple of years, unfashionable. It is neither an object of envy or one for Christie’s. The small ceramic figurines and plaques with happy b’day on it, the number of candle stands, the small idols of god; all gifts from ..ah..guess friends from school or belongs to my brother or ..the or’s could include all family members. The gifts from oblivion are in the stack too. These can be used by the archeological department to pick dust from fissures and practice their carbon dating techniques. The ancient gramophone cum radio is pretty sturdy and is now a stand in some relatives home.

The bags with upholstery sets remain enclosed as a prized possession. They remain wrapped in clean covers. Have seen the expensive silk ones powder after years of safe keeping in the hidden darkness of those totes. Not to mention my skirt from my kindergarten days, shoes that I loved, socks that are pretty, the cute container (so small that it sits prettily in my desk), the boxes of some curios, the beautiful plastic bags. If we remove the adjectives from these objects, it will possible be the reason of anguish.

The heirlooms are part of our tradition. The royalty of ancient years owned them to display power and culture, the lesser mortals then heralded it for some obvious public acknowledgement of association to power and now we keep it for emotional reasons we don’t question. We are just preserving our culture where we never discard useful things or rather things we inherit. No matter how often we use them or how many of them we have, or even if it’s broken.

I am not an ungrateful kid or grandkid that I don’t understand the value of possessions. But then…

Toe-ma-toe or Toe-may-toe? Po-taa-to or Po-tae-to?

Whatever. I prefer, or rather have been used to saying Toe-may-toes. My Cambridge educated English teacher in primary schooling days has instilled strong pro-nun-ciation in most of the English words I use. Then, I did not fancy my English classes when my English teach made us make weird sounds to practice pronouncing words; like saying…wooo making a round ‘O’ with your lips to pronounce the word woman or making a small ‘o’ for the word police. Hearing her say ‘phonetics’ in school made me feel like Calvin when the planes go way above your head and one wonder what is happening there. Could not make much sense of much of the words she used. The Oxford English pocket dictionary that we had to compulsorily tag along to the English class, did not help. Two reasons, the spelling was wrong because of my misconstrued imitation of the word or the second – that my imagination took over and with time my laziness caught up too and did not open the small book in class.

Albuquerque, would surely have been Albuquer-queue if not for my teacher. E-co-noh-mic would be echo-nomic. The examples are ample. From my school days of wanting to skip the English class to being thankful for the wonderful strong basics. Thank you ma’am. Yes, many, if not all of them have remained in my head.


... and Anandh, this is for you ;)

Regionalism takes over

Color, food, climate, animals, plants are few things that I could associate with regions. But thinking on another level, being amongst the educated, I have noticed the recreation of the wheel.

In my growing-up days, I noticed how my neighbors were pleased to get new tenants who belonged to their state, or the store keeper was thrilled to sell a more fresher bunch of sprigs to someone who spoke the same language as he.

Switching a couple of decades later, after good amount of years educating myself the tried and tested way and pocketing a few degrees and landing a job in the IT industry, I feel somethings don’t go away. They just come back. I still see the happiness and excitement in the teammate who welcomes a member with more glee as he is from the state as him. I see the enthusiasm in a group when they find new members who speak the same language. I see the wave of change in company elite as the new member takes over. They seems to display their fondness or liking in selecting their counterparts - consciously or unconsciously or subconsciously. Are sentiments of regionalism so etched in our system that we cannot think out of it? We are animals after all…territorialism is our defense, attack, offense and growth mechanism.

Wonder why

The beautiful flowers are gone by the time I want to enjoy the sight
I have constants in my laws of attraction
The weekend is the shortest when I want to relax
People assume
Rudeness exists
There is a race to earn more
Death is not a happy ending
People live in pretence
Dictionary is considered a gospel
There are no theories or formulae for emotions
I have expectation from human beings
I have so many questions
I like some and hate some things
I wonder….