Ripple Effects - a reply…

http://www.lakshmusings.com/musings/2008/05/01/ripple-effect/#comments

Hey Laksh….Replying to your post here instead of as a comment…

I was never asked to do the weekly enna kuliyal…though I loved the way amma used the sambrani, the smell…miss that actually (and loved it when amma used to make chutta appalam on the coal adupu after …yummy!!!)
To the hairstyling bit; again I was left to myself and my ideas as long as I did not cut my hair I did when I was in twelfth, and amma actually called my father to let him know I did that!!! An international call in those days just for this!! Huge hungamma, my dance teacher also flipped with a dance programme in the offing

Have definitely tried different lengths since then… Have my hair shoulder length right now; can let it loose; still put in a band because of the oppressive heat! Realised then, that maybe that is why letting hair loose is frowned upon apart from hair falling all over the place!

There sure is some wisdom behind all those rules most of the time which I am learning. May be some have lost their essence over time; like not using a needle after sun down…

Knock! Knock!!

Weird how my brain works!!!….Or is it not? I was just wondering how when I keep yourself busy in some way or the other….I don’t even think of the problems I am facing!! Give me just a minute of free time…and lo!! I start mulling over everything and going back on the path of depression.

I plan to keep myself busy all the time to never get on to that path come what may! Hope I can stick to this plan

Sometimes though the problem is my brain goes into multi-task mode! Then there runs a parallel thread or multiple threads even sometimes!! What do I do then?? How do I end those?? I wonder! Don’t know how or when, but there should come a time when I can really block out negative stuff and not bother about them at all…either the past, present or future. Time should only tell I suppose…Knock knock time!!

Scrabble and thought process!!!

Ok here goes…this is how bizarre my thought process is. Was playing Scrabble with my best friend (who happens to be really good at the game!) I started the game and my letters were UIBAALP…Was trying to put all the letters on…and the only word I could come up with was ‘ABULIA’. Now don’t really know how that hit my brain at that point of time…but this is what it means….”Loss or impairment of the ability to make decisions or act independently. ” Was telling my friend I probably suffer from it She answered I was delusional. I told her I was told that I suffer from another psychiatric disorder by another who had read quite a few books on the disorder. This led to my friend telling me she has read so many books on assassinations that does not make her an expert on the matter!

This led me thinking….how we sometimes tend to read some books , or watch TV on some disease and many a times, decide we suffer from the disease!!! Was told by a friend who is a doctor that when they were students, thought they suffered from each and every disease they were studying about! At the time I heard this, I found it ridiculous!!

Just thought how weird one’s thought process can lead to really bizarre and mostly stupid conclusions. One thing though… feel nobody is perfect…it is the degree that differs in each

Now another thought I had today was overwhelming. I am so pleased that I am grinning ear to ear since I saw that two of my friends have given this to me - A-kay & Laksh.

I thank them both for making my day. Give it right back to them. I also give this to Raaga, Swaminathan , Yogs, LG, Usha, Sangi, Gokul, Kurinji, Anand, GKa, Karthik, Nana, Prasanna,…quite a few non-bloggers (list is kinda long….but lately some of them have been really nice to me and some have been the nicest people ever since I got to know them!)

Thanks a lot for being in my life and being more than nice to me.

Madras …

Today’s The Hindu  Metro Plus carried two articles which captured my attention. One was on whether Madras is conservative? and another on kolams in the personality column titled L’Affaire Kolam.

Both articles are well written. Just enjoyed them both; hence this entry.

Since I cannot find the link to the Kolam article…will give a gist. It is about a French visual artist Severine Bourguignon whose views are written. She takes photographs of the kolams going in and around Chennai. She calls it a fragile art form with remnants definitely being washed off the next day.Artform without ego! She calls it and quotes how it reinforces Indian belief in the Gita - the detachment and peace that accompany doing things without pride or possessiveness about the deed or its fruit. The journalist says that Severine’s focus daws our gaze into our ingenuity of our ancestors who developed this practice - as combination of aesthetics, physical exercise, concentration, math concepts, communication, spirituality and detachment!

Well…after reading both articles I was more proud to call myself a Madrasi and one who knows the art of kolam to an extent In my mind, Madras is a bit conservative in its thoughts though it is progressing otherwise. I feel that the basic values form the core of the society. Madrasis would embrace modern stuff with elan; but when it comes to certain things, atleast when it comes to their personal life; they do get very conservative. I remember seeing a programme on TV about marriages and how everywhere else, it is the couple who decides entirely about the marriage and even pitch in to pay whereas in good old Madras; majority is where the parents do everything - including deciding the future daughter-in-law or son-in-law. Now do we call that conservatism or tradition?? Am confused as usual. I agree though with the journalist Madhurika Sankar that it piques me when someone says Madras is boring and have asked people what is it that they can do elsewhere that they cannot here?!

The kolam bit…I used to feel sad when the kolam I took sometimes hours to finish gets washed off by rain within minutes wishing it had stayed till the next day when we can work our brains all over again - I never thought of all the deep stuff that had been written; detachment, Gita and stuff. Guess I just did what our ancestors have been doing without giving any more thought to it. The article atleast has put some fodder to my idle brain

Numbers! :)

I remember writing about what my son used to say for eleven…onety!! Now he is a bit older and wiser? so he has learnt to say eleven. The reason for this post is…his numbers now go thus - eleven, twelve, three teen, fourteen, five teen and so on

It does gets you thinking that learning numbers might be easier like this…whoever thought of thirteen and fifteen??!!