Eve Bead

Since childhood I confess to have always been fascinated by gaudy stuff - stones of different hues which would catch light at different angles and reflect them in the most dramatic fashion. My sister would start me off on my exploration- demanding that I bring back some specific pieces of trash. I would wander around in the neighbourhood, keeping an eye out for any interesting twig, leaf, flower, chip of mica, buttons, odd shaped pieces of broken glass, a thread of unusually coloured wool, a brightly printed vivid cloth - anything at all which we could recycle! My offerings would be gone through perfuntorily, most would be discarded summarily and yet some pieces (with possibilities!) would be treasured.

We would tax our imagination (hers more than mine) to come up with innovative uses for the junk. Most often it would be fashioned, by means of wires and threads and vines and twines, into sorry but very unique looking jewellery.

Then growing up happened and one got a lot more self-conscious about trawling around looking for and picking up road-side junk. There was also the phase of absolutely no jewellery- junk or otherwise.

College was this first all-female institution I found myself in. And it did bring out the best in creative stuff. There were matching jingle-jangle bangles and all other trappings that came with it. Not that I was ever the most jingly-jangly Jane around but I did stretch mine own limits of being jazzed up. It was by its very nature self-limiting and I found myself reverting to non-matching stuff as soon as I stepped out of the college gates.

Now after all these years, I discover that I am truly fond of glass, wooden, stone, shell and any which coloured beads. Wish I had hoarded those shiny pieces of shell, wood and stone which I had picked up from fishing village off Dwarka or the loads of shiny smooth beads I got from tiny weekly shandies in Garhwal or pebbles and rough stones from Jhansi or other places tucked away in heart of central India. I could do with all those now as I regularly change my accessories even if I remain to my solitaire friends.

Inspired by this.

Resistance- rather futile

Met deepfried recently at bitch's post-doc blog.

But given that her recent discussions and debates may attract the attention of the office firewall (Beware all you who bloghop at work!), and bring in the sysad and other sad characters at work to peer eagerly down over your shoulders, all the while tut-tutting about how they always knew what a pervert you are, I am giving a direct link to the zogg here.

Hope you find yourself closer to discovering the sublime metaphysical truth!

Symmetry?

In the course of a year long courtship, dh wooed me with all the typical things- flowers, chocolates and such stuff that typify a budding relationship which is to blossom into matrimony. But also, all manner of books- from the practical and prosaic GRE study material to this. It was my first exposure to Desmond Morris. Something I read recently had me click a few links and get to this digit index theory about gender typing and got me thinking about the larger issue of visual aesthetics.

There is, in the begining of all this, the sacred geometry which is incorporated into all religions, folk or tribal or classic. While some people have even developed templates for human facial beauty, especially in respect of the female of the species, others merely worship symmetry, everywhere it is visible and reproducable. The very thread of life is alleged to conform to the beautiful symmetry of proportions. One could follow these links and enjoy the richness of the history of this concept of divine symmetry or just go with your own assessment of what appeals.

The learned researchers who try and determine the subtle differences between natural asymmetry and abnormal asymmetry do seem to be closer to the point that perfect symmetry may not always be so perfectly beautiful!

Boxed in again!

And just when I thought I was a lab, I get labelled as a Boxer!

You Are a Boxer Puppy

Energetic, playful and good with kids. You've also got a wild spirit that can't be trained or tamed.

What Breed of Puppy Are You?

Flutter-by baby

There is something about butterflies which seem to make them appear as magical, charmed and fascinating creatures. Is it merely their beauty or something about how a caterpillar is transformed dramatically into a butterfly? Becky says it so well about her little butterfly that there is little else I can add but give a link to her post.

Hope I can provide the right kind of cocoon to my butterflies before they flutter by.

Bloody business

The puppies are gone- and have left quite a void around here.

Among the memories they leave me with is that of other days and ages with the bloody nose theme, which was recalled while tending to the bloodied nose of one of the puppies after it was knocked down. Mammalian noses certainly contain an amazing network of blood vessles with each carrying dizzying amounts of blood!

...

As a kid I used to have the occasional nose bleeds when the then semi-arid Delhi temperatures would routinely soar over 45 degrees Celsius and the hot dust-laden westerly winds would blow in from the Thar desert. The heat without would induce the build-up of heat within too which would eventually burst out of teh body through the nasal blood vessels or manifest as boils on the body. A damp kerchief with a hint of eau-de-cologne would help cooling down as one lay the head down on some masive soft pillows (to prevent the drip within). But these were, for all the attendant fuss, very benign and manageable as the bleeding would stop soon.

Bloodier were the bleeds caused by injury. The first time I was exposed to this was when I was forced into a fisticuff with a frisky kid half my size in the back of the school bus. It was a pesky brat who insisted that he was big enough to scrap with an older (goody-goody) girl. Just to be done with the business briskly and in a no-nonsense fashion, I thought I'd give him a biff on the nose to get rid of the pest. I connected and the kid crumpled. Thankfully, I hadn't put much into the punch and soon the clod had a clot. He, and through him others, learnt from this bloody mess not to mess with me and I developed a sudden respect for the nose. I thought I might try this trick next if I was up (down?) against someone my size. (Hmm, I have never had to employ that trick, wonder why!)

...

I confess to having a pathological urge to gag- I gag at nearly most things. If I am like this now, I was far worse earlier when nearly most things could trigger my gagging! One such was the travel in the hills in those horrible metal contraptions which used to rush up the inclines and hurtle down the slopes fuelled by the alloyed mix surfeit of adrenaline, bravado and suspect and spurious diesel. While going downhill was definately worse, even the up-hill journeys on an empty stomach early in the morning was a torture. Yet my weekend marriage made it quite mandatory for me to travel in those run-down night buses atleast 2 or 3 times a month, first from Delhi to Mussoorie and then from Delhi to Shimla. So whenever I had the luxury of doing the Kalka-Shimla leg of the journey by train I would gladly sacrifice the extra three hours, over the road trip for the comfort and thrill of rail travel on that picturesque and evergreen stretch. Keeping my peculiar consideration in mind, I implored dh to come up by train when he came for me for the last time to Shimla to help me wind up my scattered and priceless effects at the end of my two year stint there.

I went to the picture-postcard-pretty railway station well in time to flag in the train which came chugging in after about 5 hours of journey on tunnel filled track. I scanned each compartment of the toy train. There was no sign of dh. Yet I knew he was to come and ran back to Yarrows to wait for word from him. It was an age of no cellular phones or GMS technology. The RAX exchanges were storming the Indian countryside but they were scattered few and far between. It was only at 2.30 in the afternoon that I received a message (third or fourth hand) that there had been a call from Dharampur district hospital about a nasty road accident on the Kalka-Shimla road and that dh was one among the injured. No more details were available. I was despatched immediately by car to wind my way down to Dharampur. I was, I realise now, worried sick, which added to my general travel sickness which the downhill journey always evoked. By the time I reached the hospital (or an apology thereof) at Dharampur, the shadows were lenghtening and a chill was fast coming up upon me. I scanned the vast bare hall and room after room of the hospital. There were quite a few casualities and there were many beds with people lying on them with a white sheet covering their faces. Not the most reassuring of scenes!

After spending about 30 minutes in this depressingly morbid environment something within me snapped. I knew dh couldn't be lying there among those faceless bodies. Imagine then how I felt when I stepped out and saw him sitting on a filthy chair in a pool of blood outside the the hospital premises, calmly sipping tea. I was so delighted to see him there that I nearly disregarded the fount of blood gushing out of the middle his face, where his nose was. When I hugged him violently, I think I probably ended up having more of his gurgling blood on me than he did. It took a long time to fix that bloody business!

Another age, indeed.

Puppy heaven

It starts as usual with fertility issues yet again...

Our street bitch has laid her latest litter a couple of weeks ago. Amazing how she manages to have so many litters at such regular frequency. Had me do some research on canine gestation. Should she be neutered? Or should nature be allowed to express life through her regardless of whether or not the poor mother can take it? This latest one is a full litter of six and given that it was not laid in our yard, I thought we could remain involved.

Blackie, as she is fondly called, put the puppies in the street gutter after being turned out of the house where she laid them, by the construction workers who were not so enamoured of the cutesy pups and their night long wails. But with the rain washing down on us and streaming into the gutters, she was forced to put them back on slightly drier grounds. Of course all the kids on the street would converge around the pups and try and encourage Blackie to care for and suckle them. She, so weary and depleted from so many litters, had little to offer to them and would usually try and abandon them so that Nature could do her bit and ensure and enforce rules such as the survival of the fittest etc. Her visits to them were getting shorter and more infrequent with the other street dogs begining to take a more active interest in the pups.

Over this weekend, one afternoon there was a major commotion. A pasing car had run over the pups! All the dogs of the street gave a vigorous chase to the offending vehicle and the chorus was joined in by the kids too! An examination revealed that not much damage had taken place. All the pups had had their first major fright and one little white one had a nasty bloody nose- but thats it. No fatalities, no broken bones. All I did was to hold the poor thing and pass on as much warmth and comfort to the terrified heaving wet bundle as possible. Eventually the bleeding stopped. The pups lay as close to each other as they could to derive some reassurance that the world wasn't such a bad place. Blackie, was not around! By the time things subsided, dh and the kids were keen to bring the pup into our yard. I didn't want to separate the poor terrified dear from its siblings. And so we got home six puppies!

The place is a smelly mess! There are tiny puddles and little heaps all over the place. We daren't park any car in the driveway for the fear of getting them underway. We can't step out of the house without tiny creatures getting underfoot. As many as 4 pairs of soft-sharp paws can be seen playing footsie with us each time we step out. The tickling of our toes by moist noses and wetter tongues has us in squeals. My nighty and sarees are special treats for the tiny teeth, it seems. So many frisky kids are constantly in and out of the gate that suddenly our house is the favourite haunt of the street.

But then this is unsustainable- all six cannot be here, I protested, weakly. Sure enough, the biggest pup in the litter, which was different from all its siblings (maybe a different sire?), was the first to go. Its been adopted by a family a few houses away- so glad to say, it'll remain on this street. Then the next to go was the runt of the lot- who made up for lack of size by having enormous wanderlust. Where it has gone, we know not. Hope it comes back soon! And so we are now left with four of those babies. A friend suggested ARF over the Blue Cross, where we had left similar litters in the past. But, hey, I am so busy- can't ever seem to find the time to make a call and go and leave the puppies there!!! :))

Disciplines

Professor Bose says Geography prevails over Sociology! He invokes anthropology and ecology and indicates that the data be taken up for women's studies! According to a cursory analysis of the 2001 Census data, there are places in India where women prevail - in terms of sheer numbers over men as Heads of Households. Apart from the usual suspects of hilly areas and districts with high percentage of males moving out in search of jobs, and lonely hill women being the HH, the surprising topper of the list is the Lakshadweep islands. On the islands he says, that regardless of the largely Muslim population, the ratio is skewed in favour of women, as the land cannot provide enough viable jobs for the males and so he feels geography prevails over sociology (primarily religion) in ensuring that women prevail as HH of Lakshdweep.

Learned prof. that he is, he should know what he speaks of.

Note:

1. Just a follow-up from an earlier demographic post where sociology and biology seemed to have caught up with and eventually triumph over societal mores (IF that be possible!)

2. Don't know why I'm posting this here, but then I am!

Love (sic)

Again I talk of that many splendoured thing. So whats with love? There are those who claim it makes the world go round. And others who define it their way- classic or corny or whatever!

This unfogged post started me seriously worrying how healthy this love stuff is. Do read this tale of love sickness - but beware, it isn't for the romantic at heart. Rather gruesome stuff! Do you sniff any love in the air? (DO follow the links, love!)