Paduka

Colors Appeal speaks for itself and if its miniature, then we go..'Oh, so cute..'. This is at a temple ,some cutesy girl's...
Recently,I was reminded of a story I read as a kid 'The paper Palace' by Paul Biegel. I got to read 3 pages of it from print.google.com but I didnt get to the last page. What I wanted to know was if the last piece about the paper dolls coming to life has an illustration or its imagination.

Grow a Tree in a Day

Yesterday, I bared the heat to walk down to a corner where lay huge palm trees. Whats to be noted about them was that they were in a thick slab of mud. When I was introduced to this concept of trees grown at one place and planted elsewhere, it was new to me. I told this to my new friend from Texas and now every tree she looks at brings out a question "so you think, this is not grown insitu?" I look at the tree, and if it looks too manicured, then I say "No".
The night before when I saw these palm trees lying out like that, waiting to be planted, I wanted to take a picture of those and show it to my friend, but ah well, things happen so on time, that by the next evening they were planted.

PS: After an year, I am listening to the current affairs over the radio. As the world is getting high-tech, I am going retro. The 'any news' I heard this last year was all through word-of-mouth and now I am using a radio.

Whats in store

Ok. So you think putting thin fine samiya in a cup of milk and some sugar just a little around the allowed calorie from a teaspoon of it and 5 minutes in the microwave will have the delicious,craved sweet ready. Well, no and no.

Why cant I have tea this way in a cup with still both tea and powder intatc in the cup while my friend can mix coffee powder and have her coffee ready in like 2 minutes?

I thought my double disappointmnet days are over with the transfer of this big secret from a senior of 'making tea in the microwave' in a wide-mouthed bowl.

Initially when I was a novice at making 'tea in a microwave' I had to do it the traditional way of .. oh well, there's a twist here too..While the traditional way is to boil the powder in water and then add milk.. laziness gets better of me each time.. and I just mix all the contents.. and wait till its done.. This takes time,effort,talent and what else ... The current situation is.. my friend scrapped my tea recipe as there is no water in it..

So with the know-how from the divulged secret,it now takes me 5 min in a microwave to make tea, so still savings there...

Anyways.. adding to the list of what women ( the lady in 'The Umbrella Man' by Roald Dahl thinks so) should be suspicious of is strange men, boiled eggs and a beeping microwave.

Havent you heard of 'Irrigation'?

As I write this, the tide has ebbed down and the floor is no longer sky or its reflection.
Two years ago, if such a thing happened, I would run to the place I detect as the source of problem and start turning some huge valve in this and that direction till I made sure that the water flow has stopped. I had done this twice. Infelt good and great, a little less heroic than Hans Brinker, the Dutch kid who stopped the water flow through the hole of a dyke with his finger.

The third time this happened, I couldnt stop the valve from cutting off the supply, so I just called the apartment office and the old lady there says 'havent you heard of irrigation?' This took a while to get through due to the accent and I hate the smell in her office, I am told its some Gardenia scent. Now I stay away from this. Last year when I got to see a Gardenia plant, I just appreciated it from a distance. Well, you cant do that much if you dont smell a flower close, but still.. and so even if Bath and Body goes to the extent of selling a Gardenia splash for $3, no I will not buy it.

Where the First Violinist sits

A friend of mine once mailed me saying that he plays 'first violin' . This did not strike anything different to me until I saw the positions of various instrumentalists in an orchestra in 'The Creating Brain' by Nancy. C. Andreasen

Closing time

What is the word for something that you see happening that you have just learnt of..
I had read a line 'you don't have to go home but you can't stay here' in a blog I had bookmarked a year ago and an hour later, when my roomate wnated some music to go along with cleaning, this line from this song 'Closing time' stood out, fresh in my memory. The last time such a thing happened was then

Not a fighter, not a luxury hotel

A Mirage

The mystery of an unattended fish

Yesterday when we were taking a walk on the beach park, my friends eyes fell on a fish lying dead. We wondered how this happened? Also fishing is not allowed here.But I have seen people fish couple of times at this lake.
The park is closed after 12.00. But we were ofcourse solving the mystery of this fish, and now the case is oficially closed cause we now know how the fish landed up there.
More about rules. I have walked by the lake a little less than zillion times, until I found the 'gymhouse' more lucrative with all its indicators of burnt calories. There's an interesting essay 'Against Exercise' by Mark Greif in 'The Best American Essays 2005'. It touches on our current attitude to exercise. Interestingly, a reviewer thought this was the most dull and unreadable essay, while its the only essay I remember from that lot due to its relevance and context.

Back to rules. In the last almost two years, I never noticed this board with the park timings. And in the recent past, this 'timing' thing got too much attention. We were like anyway whats 'closed' for an all-out-in-the-open park?

This reminds me how all these instructions in different places just keep your mind busy, with 'dont do this' or 'this not allowed'.. I wonder how much of it is processed seriously.

PS: My friend felt that the lake was still like a mirror. I thought that was a great way to put it.

Eating carrots...

'steam the carrots till tender, then bake till dry and puree it with honey..'
This is a recipe from a poem 'eating carrots with Charlie' from 'Weighing Light' by Geoffrey Brock.
My roomate was more than enthued when she herad the recipe, came up with alternate ways of making this happen.....

Egg Drop activity

At the orientation, we were divided into 12 groups each of 9.
We were given 10 straws, 11 toothpicks and a little tape to make the egg holder.
Only towards the end did we realise that the holder will be thrown with the egg. so we soon tried to convert out basket design into an encloser. The egg cracked from the fall. Sorry Humty Dumpty!!!

Keep the Change

Today when my friend and I were waiting for a bus, she was telling me the story of 'terminal' and how Tom hanks limited vocabulary ha d'Keep the Change' nd how he used it each time he read out the address he intended to visit in US and as a reply to the cab driver.
As we were entering the MVD office, a guy out there handed a brochure of VISA which says 'Keep the Change'.

Infinite queue

Yesterday, after dinner, when we started out for a walk, as we approached a junction, we spotted a chair in a shoop on the left. As we kept getting closer, another chair revealed itself and then another and then another till we were in front of the shop and the chairs reached the other end of the wall. this was in a barber's shop. To all those who have studied queuing theory, you would have read of the server, queue terms. Well, this seemed like an infinite queue..