One Oddly Addictive Song...and one other.

Very unlikely Pop-stars
Been playing this song and humming and/or singing it all morning while walking all around the house in between typing stuff and dancing in my chair - I don't think I've made a thousand miles as yet. And I know I'm not a man - but still.


I can keep listening to the same song for days together but it's a harmless (as long as no other human is being subject to the ordeal and my cats don't seem to mind at all) and a not uncommon practice. I think I may be doing the same with this song for the better part of the day. So I'm sharing the song with those who most likely haven't heard it. Some young people might just like the song....


Wonder what it is about the song. There is that lovely Scot accent ('ewe'? 'eoou'? 'eeooeue'? 'goooes'? 'looonely'?). There is that upbeat music which makes me want to break into a sprint (or a dance?). And there are the crazy lyrics. Hmm...walk 500 miles, and 500 more. So that's a 1000 miles and it's some 5000 miles by the end of it. Not too bad. I've often wondered how far I can walk if I just keep going.


Some other day I'll share some other songs. Not today. Hmm. Maybe I'll share just one other one, which I'm reminded of. It was one of my favourites some 20 years ago (and I would sing it, too, and lustily). It's the '500 miles away from home' song. Very different from the first one. And this reminds me of ---- but let that be for now.


P.S: Sorry about that previous post which doesn't turn up. I'm wondering how much of it to put up...it will be up again soon, I guess, minus the 'haver-ing'.

The Flower

A memory from the past while looking through some National Geographic photo-spread of flowers, which I'd forgotten but now makes me smile and sort of chuckle, fluttered in this morning.

We were in Class VIII. I can't say I was in love with flowers back then. I liked them enough. Drooped lazily here and there. Some growing underfoot. Others nodding on the trees, and I also liked watching fat cows eating them. Every now and again we had these 'flower decoration' deals for the Creativity exam. I had one set decoration. A 'basket-case'. A wicker basket, in which I'd otherwise store pencils, erasers, pens, pins, an old compass, an old scratched ruler, loose paint tubes, and everything else which I didn't know what to do with but didn't throw out, would be brought out into which I'd drop a bunch of straggly flowers and leaves. Every time we had a flower decoration - that would be my masterpiece, and then I'd be yawning or reading something or dreaming while staring out of the window or into outer space while fiddling with and flinging some beads of water onto the fast drooping and limp flowers.

And then for a Bio class one day, a friend of mine brought in this ravishing dahlia. Of all the flowers that I'd seen, I'd bonded with dahlias the least. But this one was something-else. A wine-red so deep and liquid drenched it and the starkest white limpid spots flecked the petals of that gorgeous beauty. I was staring. There were oohs and aahs all around. And for the whole while I was staring at the flower. My friend and I would share a desk every now and again, and so for that entire day - there I was staring dreamily at this beautiful thing. Bio class was over at some point. I'd gone out for a little walk and came back to see my flower gone.

"Where is it? Where is it?"

"What?"

"The - . The -!" I said pointing frantically to where the beauty had been.

"Oh, I gave it to so-and-so."

"What?...Why?"

"She wanted it."

"You gave it to her because she wanted it? But I'd ..."

"She asked me whether she could have it. I gave it to her."

"But I had - I had wanted it too." Out of me before I could take it back.

With the smile in in her eyes I knew so well she said,"But you didn't ask for it, Shilpi."

"But I didn't even think you'd give it...to anyone."

And with the smile now playing around her lips she said, "You should have asked...."

What I did some seconds later (which I'd also forgotten but it sauntered in now and none-too-clearly for the memory is a fickle item rather) as I went stomping off while fuming is something I'll keep to myself.

Do have some of the best memories from times spent with that friend - through school, high-school, and through some good, bad, and ugly college years...

Any bandwagon will do!

It's this post that I've been wondering about off and on while going about my daily days, and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't writing a comment, for it is a practice among others that I genuinely admire...I was simply feeling reluctant.

Two points: 1, Not all of my musings are directly connected to that original highlighted post although it got me articulating my thoughts. And 2, I very strongly believe in cultivating good habits.

So without poo-poohing biking, using public transport, or simply walking, and adopting other good habits, about which I will write soon but on another day, I would like to muse from the other side.

Why does decent, sensible, and sustainable behaviour have to be promoted as 'cool' or be battered into people's heads with senseless slogans? Why does making sensible life-style choices have to be promoted with a slogan "Be Cool. Go green."? And if that's the way they have to be battered in - is this something that can last?

I’ve noticed different sorts of people.

I know there are many elderly/old folk who have cycled in and out - fair weather foul weather and for more than half their lives. And I respect them as I respect the young people who cycle to work every day (or walk) without making a big song and dance about it or about any other life-style choices that they engage in, which simply are a part of who-they-are.

I know of elderly professors – kind and gentle and very matter-of-fact human beings – who say with a twinkle in their eyes, ‘It’s surprising how much of your grocery shopping, including a six-pack beer, you can fit onto a bicycle' (and this was definitely before the time that cycling was being promoted as being the new-thing-in-town).

I know of men who habitually recycle, compost (instead of using that wonderful garbage disposal that’s fitted to modern kitchen sinks which sucks up any sort of organic residue and sucks it down into its sewagey depths), walk as much as they can, eat non-factory produced meat, buy vegetables from the local farmers’ market and yet are not rabid nor dogmatic nor fundamentalist about their beliefs or their actions, and will even listen carefully when I express annoyance regarding people who do not put their shopping carts back into their proper places but leave them strewn around the car park outside grocery stores.

Then there are the other groups. Anything that’s doing the rounds – anything that is coolly radical, is seen as being coolly hip they will take on to with a gusto that is somewhat tiring if not sickening. Be that smoking or non-smoking, smoking pot or not smoking pot, getting a tattoo or not getting a tattoo, exercising or not-exercising, doing yoga or not-doing yoga, eating healthy or not eating healthy, being thin or being fat, being spiritual or not being spiritual, being religious or not being religious, having sex or not having sex, being a leftist or being another-wise-ist, wearing designer clothes or buying used clothes, driving cool cars or zooming around on trendy motorbikes or using a cycle or two-feet, supporting women’s rights or not supporting women’s rights (or whatever the new group is in town), supporting homosexuality or bisexuality or whatever-sexuality humans suddenly decide to label some years down the line as though it were a matter of life and death or not supporting you-name-it-sexuality, supporting a war or not supporting a war….it doesn’t matter what the issue is. Jump. Jump. Leap. Leap. Tear your shirts off. Wear arm bracelets. Wear T-shirts proclaiming your stance, slap on them bumper stickers and woo-hoo. Shout. Yell. Scream. And then lose your steam because you don’t really know what you’re blabbing about anyway or keep screaming about the same thing till you're 90 years old and have forgotten what it is that you’re screaming about. (Or else write academic papers that nobody can understand while some say ‘hmm, interesting’ while you read their incomprehensible papers and say ‘hmm, insightful.’)

When it comes to long-term, everyday habits (and more about these some other day) I will be suspicious and sceptical about the people who seem to leap and dance about and are all gung-ho about 'cycle to work day' and hand out flyers and are in-your-face and cycle 70 miles or more and then two days down the line you see them whizzing by in their humongous gas guzzling vans or else you spot them going into a coffee shop to get their morning coffee while leaving the engines on their stylish hybrid cars running . Otherwise you get the freaks who will not have a shower for a week (and, please remember, they use only toilet paper after shitting, as the author of the blogs on the right so eloquently put it) because they are ‘saving’ water or they will pee in the alleyway because they are saving ‘toilet paper’, or else you may get the 'whoever said that it was only men who can pee in alleyways' response. Or you might have the misguided and cruel animal lovers who go and release all the animals (who are being experimented upon in hideous and cruel ways and for many-a-times for making useless products too) from a science lab because they want the animals to ‘have their freedom’. Otherwise you come across very, very fat and not entirely non-nice people who are adamant about saving the environment (what about yourselves?)….plenty of other tales but these can do the rounds for now.

I am reminded, and it's not a disconnected thought, of what Gopal, and not non-humorously, muses in Anurag Mathur's The Inscrutable Americans, 'Certainly there was great merit in seat belts*. But typically the Yanks had made such a fetish out of it, that it annoyed every thinking person. It was like cigarettes. Gopal, who smoked very rarely, found himself defiantly lighting up in rebellion against the implicit national demand that he not smoke in public. It had come to a point now where he only smoked in public; he felt it was a democratic protest against the forces of fascism.'

(*There is great merit. I agree.)

And true enough after contemplating on these different aspects, sure, I agree that different sorts of people jump on different band-wagons - and more about that maybe some other day – but it’s still the same story.

I’ll write a post one day maybe about people I do admire and those who, I think, make a positive difference. For now as I keep wondering and saying over and over again: this muddled world of ours keeps ticking away simply because there are pockets of people and some lone individuals more like it – and some not famous by any worldly definition of the term – who are soldiering along and carrying the rest along no matter where the immediate winds blow.

It's a fine thing (probably) if some smart, brainy, clever, and directed individuals can foster good habits and/or practices by promoting some things in a mega way. And I’m sure there are some sensible people who are able to adopt practices in a balanced way after being told because they are able to view a habit/practice in a particular way, which is helpful, useful, beneficial, or good – to self and to others. Countries are different in some ways (and terribly similar too in other ways). People in countries – not so much but what irks one specifically is what one is exposed to every day or every other day, and it’s this violent, in-your-face extremism that’s been getting to me. My rising grouch is that very many times (in the U.S at least) some practices either become nothing but short-term fads or some sort of a one-day wonder or is drilled into the minds of people with some do-this-or-die hyper-mania or else when other idiotic practices too are promoted as being 'cool' or ‘not cool’ – different bunches of non-discerning people will jump onto it and go neighing around about town.

P.S: I'll be the first to admit that there are certain things that I too am absolutely picky and finicky about and there are some things I'm undecided about, some things about which I wish I were an extremist, and some others that I don't know much about. I absolutely admit to all that. At 35, I am an extremist and a fairly rigid person when it comes to certain habits and certain practices but they are not a woo-hoo bit of a mindless or thoughtless (no matter how intense) passing fancy.

Trifles, Tales, Tubes, and Manners

P.S: Beth, my professor friend, sent me a link for this story otherwise I may never have gotten around to reading it.

There was a quirky piece in the BBC magazine section yester'. I don't know whether anyone wants to read the whole thing but it was about the dilemma that folks have been facing in the tube: whether to offer their seat to the standing woman...yet is she pregnant or is she just fat or is she wearing baggy clothes?

The article is an amusing read and ends off with some tips for the uninitiated but the funniest bits were made up of some of the comments that came in.

One man had once offered his seat to a woman who wasn't pregnant, had offered a seat to a woman who was but she wanted to stand, and didn't offer it (didn't see her standing) to a woman who was and wanted it and got 'tssk-d'.

One man , unable to decide got off at the next station.

A woman who at an aerobics class while sitting next to a fully bellied woman asked her when fully-bellied woman was due. Full-bellied woman gave her an icy stare and said that happened six months ago, thank you very much. The commentator says that she never returned to the aerobics class.

One man pondered on the advantages of being plump. If he were a plump woman he says he wouldn't be offended. He'd just take the seat and keep rubbing his belly for good measure while saying 'aaah'.

One woman who wonders why a perfectly normal exchange, "Would you like to sit down?" "No thank you I'm fine" or "Yes, thank you so much" makes grown-up men and women shrink in fear and cringe with embarrassment. If someone seems to need it - she says - offer it. If they don't take it - she says - it's their loss.

A woman who overheard a man telling a girl, "If you're pregnant you can have my seat. If you're fat - just stand." The girl quickly took the seat and replied, "I'm a good liar and I can sit. You're a *******, and so you can stand.

A man narrates how he cherishes a response he overheard. A girl gave a commuter a mouthful because he offered her his seat (not knowing whether she was pregnant or fat). The man replied, "Madam, I do not offer you my seat because you are a lady. I offer it because I am a gentleman."

A Country?

I don't know of any country which can take glowing pride in that it -

has no unemployment;

has very decent minimum wage;

has no more than an optimum population;

is honest, quiet, clean, safe, protected;

harps on progress not in just economic terms alone;

emphasizes that acquisition of material goods does not lead to greater measures of happiness;

respects private affairs as long as they do not violate individual rights;

acknowledges and accepts the fact that all human beings cannot and will not be equal - no matter what the opportunities, and realizes that human beings differ greatly in terms of talent, natural aptitude, and interests (apart from certain other attributes) - that these differences neither mean that some human beings can be used or abused or disregarded nor that some human beings who possess qualitatively higher attributes should suffer;

fosters a system of education which allows children to learn and master the basics while teaching them the value of reading, thinking, questioning, introspecting, understanding, retaining, connecting while also teaching them the value of ultimately being able to make their own choices;

'cultivates the Good, True, and Beautiful' in humanity' (Albert Einstein);

sees science as a means of knowledge building and uses technology to make life easier - less cumbersome, more reliable (when that’s possible) while delegating more and more unpleasant tasks to machines (cleaning sewage systems, disposing garbage, working near furnaces, building or fixing of roads in extreme weather conditions are some) - yet also full-well knows that science, medicine, and technology can never fix everything;

respects the arts and the sciences and is able to see the genuine value in both;

has strict laws for the maintenance of peace, security, cleanliness, and civil behaviour;

fosters communication and engages in communication for what it is meant and not for purposes of obfuscation;

never uses violence but as the very last alternative;

understands that the environment while it needs to be protected at a material level also needs to be protected and preserved because of reasons that defy material and even purely aesthetic reasons alone;

protects animals, and as many as it can, because they exist...;

appreciates the merit of humour and music;

acknowledges that there are matters of the mind and heart which must be dealt with as a society but that some parts must be left well-alone for they are private and personal and individual;

recognises that there are matters of the spirit, which we, the common people, can only sense sometimes in fleeting bits or as a continuous yet unnamable presence, and can articulate very little of, yet also realizes that these aspects make them no less real…..