A Special Day

 Our blog reaches truly late today, Dear Regular Readers.  Well, the day was a little hectic, but most relaxing at the same time! How can such diametrically opposite possibilities jell in? Is that your question? Let me see if i can make myself understood a little, and, yes, better.

It is June 7 today, the day of the 'mriga nakshtra'. My day hence began with a spoonful of asafoetida mixed with the cow ghee, a practice my parents followed during our childhood. It is an excellent cleanser and moisturizer of the stomach and its inner linings. It kills all the parasites, and softens the tissues of the intestines. I follow this annual ritual rather religiously. 

As I was preparing the special pav-bhaji for this unique day, my brother's birthday, lovely fragrance wafting around, teasing the nostrils, while I packed 'dabbas' full, piping hot, ready to be served, it was pouring like mad which derailed the day's planning. But it was okay as I could spend some time with my brother and his family on his birthday.

My younger brother's family includes a cute little beagle who was in a lovely sporty mood today. Had a great day playing with him as he chased the ball all over the place. If such are the results, the huge distances and the crazy traffic, given the potholes full of muddy water do not matter because the home is where the heart is!

Pratima@ Earlier schools used to re-open on June 7, which used to be the onset of the monsoon as well. This year, the monsoon opened its innings with sixers in all directions, and quite in advance!

The "get to know your personality" tests

 Sorry, the blog today reaches late, Dear Regular Readers. Was a little busy the whole day. But better late than never, right? Let us today talk of the "to know your real (inner at that) self" tests that the internet abounds with. 

If you do not take them seriously, they are great fun. Generally they go like this. "Look at this picture. What do you see first?" In a way, it is a psychologically valid point, too. Our perceptions do indicate in a way the inner core of the personality. 

Yet there are a lot of points that are curious and problematic about these tests. To begin with, they are the "yes/no" variety which is a huge problem because our selves never are/have such mutually exclusive patterns. There is always a lot of fluidity, especially given the contexts, and the people we are dealing with. If we are with people who we know (through vast experience with/due to them) do not at all mean well by us, we would be on the defensive, and such tests do not map such ambivalences.

Another huge problem with such tests is that they are absolutely West-oriented. One test, for example, asks you if the image you see is that of a tree covered in frost. Now, if someone does not know what a frost is, the image would never click with him/her! Obviously, the conclusions can never be correct.

Still funnier is the fact that such tests can interpret you differently if you choose, just for the fun or the heck of it, different answers. One of my research students once was a little insistent that I take one such test. Just to humour her, I did, and proved to her that different answers can be given each time, and individuals can thus be interpreted differently, as if they suffer from multiple personality disorder!

In brief, the basic problem with these tests is that they are objective tests with multiple choice questions/answers. Such neat compartments can never capture the complex amorphous fluidity called human personality, which is context-dependent, moreover!

Pratima@The best way to know yourself is constant self-reflexivity! Thus canst thou 'know thyself'!

New Measures on a Special Day

 The Internet, especially the Wapp groups,  is green today. Oh, no, it has nothing to do with the "green monster" that Shakespeare's arch villain, Iago, castigated in one of the Bard's greatest plays, "Othello". No, no, it has surely nothing to do with the colour many indians love to hate. Let us not, however, forget that the green, the colour of fertility, is centrally important in many of our rituals, right?

Well, the Wapp groups are green today because it is the World Enviornment Day today. Surely you must have read the extremely bleak comments about the  appearance of the oar fish or the 'doom's day fish' which apparently is seen when earthquakes and/or tsunamis are imminent. Must be a coincidence, too. 

With the Mount Etna alive, with the 'ring of fire' afire, with the raging solar storms aplenty, and the appearance of the oar fish, is Mother Nature issuing warnings galore? In this context, the high relevance of the day today. 

Yes, we must reduce our interference in the natural cycle. Indeed, such is the human intrusion that the flora and fauna must have loved the COVID days. As the streets were free of human beings then,  wild animals could roam free. As the exhaust pipes did not spew the climate vitiating gases, such was the visibility that the Himalayas could be seen from Chandigarh!

Indeed, nature needs our help to continue to help us. So how about a few new measures? In Pune, for instance, today is flagged off the first ever Tree Ambulance in Maharashtra! Let many such novel experiments flourish!  In the meanwhile, how about re-charging a few ole one's such as the rain water harvesting, especially because the monsoons seem to have decided this year that the most rain deficient parts of the country would be water excessive! How about creating our own seed bombs which we can throw freely as we travel by such water bodies, right?

This special day should remind us that existence of all, mankind, flora, fauna, is inter-dependent. The entire life cycle matters.  Hence let us be kind to all aspects of nature. Let our cities observe a 'no emission day' each month wherein all citizens would use only public vehicles to commute. How about "the no electricity hour" once a month whereby everybody switches off all electrical appliances for an hour every week. Not only would it be a huge detox away from guzzling the social media, it would bring families together, the best measure for better 'enviornment', right? Let us at least begin such initiatives in our own small ways! Happy June 5, the World Enviornment Day!

Pratima@ My family donated a tree in the loving memory of my father to the Pune Shantivan as early as 1999. When my brother stayed in Woodland, without fail, I used to go check on it during each one of my Kothrud visits.

I am proud of the fact that my brother refused to accept any bouquets or gifts on a major landmark day in his life. Instead, he requested all the guests to donate generously to an NGO working for the betterment of the forest cover. 

The Bicycle Motif

 Have you watched a 1948 film by de Sica? It is one of the greatest in the history of the world movie industry. Directed by de Sica in the neo-realist mode, the film is one of the most humane comments on poverty that cannot wipe out the familial love, especially the love of a son for his struggling father. Enacted by non-filmy actors and shot on real time locations,  the film is a truly touching documentation of post-war realities in Europe, especially in Italy. 

There is yet another aspect that is unique about this film. It has an inanimate object as its central motif, as  the center of its thematics, as almost a character in this unique narration. Yes, you have guessed it right. It is a bicycle.

A bicycle is by definition most inclusive, right? It is easily available, and cost wise as well. You can rent it comfortably, too. It can be easily repaired. A dirt road or the tar road, nothing is anathema to this peoples' vehicle. The poor may use it as a means of commuting, the rich as a mode of exercise. 

We, the Puneites, are sure to vouch for each of these, and many more other, benefits of a cycle. Pune was once known as the city of cycles, and not so very long ago. A cycle was as central in the Pune lore, as it was in Hindi romantic films or in Marathi fiction of all types.

No longer used much, except by the rich and the trendy I/T wallah's, this health inducing vehicle took care of both, your legs and your lungs. The least polluting of all vehicles, its maintainance was minimal, too. Unlike the swanky cars, that require a driver, a fitter in a company workshop, and yet another stooge to keep it clean and sparkling, a cycle is user-friendly, purse-friendly, and most importantly, enviornment-friendly! Long live bicycles! Happy world bicycle day!

Pratima@Pedal pushers are the best. They cause neither noise pollution (gentle and musical is the bicycle tring-tring) nor air pollution through exhaust pipe fumes. But they can race with the wind, and as lightly as a feather! Long live bicycles that require not wealth, but develop health! 

Injurious to Health!

 Yes, smoking is indeed injurious to health! Want proof? Yes, now it is from the Mother Earth herself. Why, the Mount Etna is spewing fumes and fire again, an event with the molten lava, absolutely dangerous not only to Italy which currently seems to be engulfed by a ring of fire hidden inside the terra firma which seems to be erupting volcanically in at least three places in Italy and Sicily!

In fact, as scholars in the fields of geology and ecology put it, the earth is behaving erratically. May be, it is the tectonic shifts. Could be that the mantle of the earth is awry. It could even be the solar activity affecting the earth. Across the world, there are earthquakes of differing intensities on the richter scale. The earth is indeed spewing fire and ash! 

Unlike this natural phenomenon currently manifest in various places in different modes across the globe, human beings are adding insult to injury by vitiating the 'atmosphere' more, and further. Cigarette smoking, for instance, is injurious not only to the lungs of the smoker. It indeed vitiates the 'climate', especially for passive smokers! 

Yet why smoke? It is the ad blitz that releases a life style that is smart, appealing, trendy, 'modern', helps you be 'in', 'cool'! Remember the Marlboro ad? The rugged cow boy appeal, the daredevilry of adventure, the macho masculinity it oozed made a cigarette not just a style statement, but a logo of an upper class life choice with a special swag!

Advertisers and tobacco companies traded in rich dividends. Generations of stupid ordinary creeps, including even lactating mothers, got hooked to the habit, just a step away from doing drugs in the eternal search for a newer high, a quest that recedes further and faster than the horizon.

Does a cigarette relax? Why, in interior Andhra, workers, including women, smoke the 'bidi' with the burning end in the mouth which leads to impossible cancers. Yet the justification is that smoking releases tension. Well, does it really? In my opinion, it creates new tensions, what with the inevitable addiction, health hazards, not to forget the expenditure! Instead, better to avoid a habit injurious to health!

Pratima@May 31 is celebrated the world over as the anti-tobacco, 'no smoke' day. See,  this sane advice even Mother Nature, however upset with the wicked ways of the world, listened to on May 31 this year. No rains, no tremors, no thunder, no lightening. Instead, a great evening we enjoyed, full of music and celebrations, marking a major milestone in our family.

June is already here!

 What does June 1 tell us? Yes, first and foremost, we realise that the monsoon is soon going to be here. Actually, this year, the unseasonal rains have already given us the rain drenched feel, and both quite in advance and in abundance. In that sense, the monsoon need not terrorise us much too much this time.

Of what else does June bring the tidings? Oh, yes, the answer to this question is indeed very easy. On the social media, too, these days, schools and colleges have "entrance" announcements, which, given the multi-media, are quite smart these days, what with the video effects and animation, and what have you.

June is the month of the summer solstice, too. These days on June 21, we have the International Yoga Day, some victory of India's unmistakable soft power, right? In addition to this ritual accepted world wide, June 21 reminds us of the eternal cycle of nature, whose regularity is the backdrop of all the unique occasions as well as the humdrum routine.

More than that, the onset of June is a surefire reminder that almost half the current year is over. May be, time hence to tighten the seat belts, and work steadily and precisely to attain the set goals for this year so that the roller-coaster ride called life continues to be both fun and excitement, right?

Pratima@ Dreamy days begin and nights naturally end/Morning in and evening out, life let's leery mend!

Parents!

 Two is a great number, right? Just look at our own bodies. Two eyes, two ears, two hands, two legs; why, even two parts to a heart. Yet these details cannot sum up why it is an interesting double(d) digit, right? Okay, let the cat be out of the bag.

In this whole world, there are two people for whom we mean the world. They can manage any impossible feat for our success and happiness. They give, give and continue to give, everything beginning with life itself, and throughout that life. In return, they demand nothing, absolutely NOTHING.

No guessing necessary, right? Yes, I am referring to parents . It is the World Parents Day today. Here is wishing my parents, forever present in my soul, assuring them of my utmost respect which would manifest itself in many an activities sure to make them happy and proud, wherever/wherever an opportunity emerges!

Pratima@Happy Parents Day!!🙏