DreamingAway

 It looks like I have to repeat my previous year’s post. Well, perhaps everyone feels the same - 2021 is an unusual year. It is a really unusual year for me in a different sense. I didn’t read books, especially after the January 2021. I didn’t do my regular exercises throughout the year. I spent less than 300 mins (avg. less than a minute per day) in the sun. All three is rare. In fact, this could be the first time since I started them. And the worse, there was no reason for why I didn’t do in year 2021. So obviously, I am going to work on these three in year 2022. The best part of 2021 is the amount of the time I got to spend with the pet animals - Pug, Rabbit, Parrot, and Pigeons. My dad took care of all the cleaning work and made things easy for me. My Pug dog is my all-time favourite and the Rabbits are this year’s favourite. It is really fun playing with them. Despite the lack of physical activities, my weight stayed in 70-74 range, my favourite. I honestly don’t know how. Sta...

 It was a dream to own a bicycle when I was in the elementary school. My dad gifted one only after my tenth exams, when I needed to go to my new school, about 5 kms from my home. I had learned a few things about the bicycle during this period. The primary instruction my dad gave me was to check the tyre, bell and brake before I take the bicycle. My first job was to lubricate the parts like chain, spokes hub, brakes, etc., every week. It wasn’t a tough job, but when I wanted to maximise the time at the playground, getting the willingness to do it was challenging. My dad recommended not to install light kit in my bicycle as I wouldn’t require it all. Two of my friends had it, and so I was adamant and installed it and urged him that it would be useful during nights. I removed it later when it became loose and often made contact with the rim and slowed down the speed. Actually, apart from a few occasions, I never needed the light. Just removing this light kit helped me to reduce the cl...

 “ MP woman googles how to commit murder, kills husband with lover’s help ” - an article title in the newspaper page. Without taking the newspaper from the tea-table, I read it aloud enough for my friend to hear it while we both were sitting on the sofa for our evening cup of tea. “How could a heart full of love kill someone?”, I asked. He smiled. “She killed her husband and not the one she loves”, and he continued, “I think you are attaching divinity to love and hence your question.” A little pause and my perplexed face let him continue. “Love is a tool. It is just another emotional weapon like fear, like humility. There is no rule that dictates the way it must be used. Politicians use it. Religious leaders use it. Nations use it. Your neighbours use it. Your own family members use it. You may be aware a few and might not know about a few. That is the nature of it. In fact, love is one of the oldest weapons that stays unchanged for this long and possibly forever. You can use it fo...

 “I am a left-handed” - one of our new teammates introduced herself during our new joiners meet. “Which hand do you use to code?” - someone joked. Why can’t we use both hands well? By the stats, right now, 13 million Indian can do that.  Actually, our hands (legs, ears…) are equally strong, and it is our practice and the mind that brings this difference. Though you may find it difficult to lift dumbbells in one of your hands when you are new to the gym and you will eventually get it fixed. Of course, we are not going to fix the north-south magnetic field lines, nor we are going to stop the plant bending towards the sun. How do you stop a mother loving her child? That love can inadvertently cause unfairness to some other kid outside the home. I always feel it is inhumane to lock the birds in a cage. You love the bird and wish to provide everything it needs. But your love is absolutely unfair to its life. What happens when you support a particular friend when you got another fri...

 My friend is such a nice person and so it was a big surprise for me. I couldn’t believe when he told me that his brother was not on good terms with him. I heard this when they met after several years when his brother visited the hospital to see their mother who was in the ICU. It was a non-emotional discussion as if nothing had happened between them. Even their mother’s state could bring no attachment. I didn’t ask him the reason. His brother later came to his home when their mother was discharged and spent some time with my friend’s kids. I was wondering whether the kids would love their uncle at any part of their lives. It depends! One of the gifts of having old people at home is the stories we hear from them. Family stories travel generation after generations. They are extraordinarily powerful and influential. My dad used to tell about his grandfather and I believed those and felt that I should become like him. In fact, I am following a few even now. I always feel like meeting ...

Who are the teachers? You can find so many people who hate a certain subject just because they hate the teacher who took that subject. This is where the internet is helping us a lot. We are getting access to top quality learning materials — written materials, images, animated tutorials, lectures and so on. In fact, school and college education are merely becoming a formality to obtain marks and grades. New generations might have an educational system far different from the one we had. Transition in any system is quite natural. Somasunda r am was our Tamil ‘sir’ in my high schooldays. He was very tall and always wore traditional white & white veshti shirt. His face reminded me of Kamarajar . He was one of my favourite teachers. I started liking Thirukkural because of him. And the reason? Strangely, I don’t find anything. Though he took classes for us three consecutive years and we had Kural in every year, he never mandated that everyone should have a liking for Thiru...

 I even wonder whether a new born feels his mother as a friend or truly as a mother. Do you agree friendship is independent of age? We met when we were in the 4th standard, and we were like enemies when we reached the 6th standard. We were in different class section every year. That was how they split the class, so that studious and not-so-studies students were split equally between sections. Our marks were compared in all the exams. Don’t you think comparison is one of the enemies of friendship? Friendship enjoys if the friends have some common interest. He went home for lunch, and I took lunch to school. I used to play run-and-catch during my lunchtime. He preferred to talk with others if he could come early after lunch. I used to play cricket, and he used to play football in the evenings. He took part in all school competitions, and I kept away from those. We never could find anything in common. Hence, we rarely spoke to each other. Which is getting stronger when two people are ...