Vegas cockroach trap

There is a very plain, household method of trapping cockroaches. Vegas Cockroach Trap . Wiki explains the method :-
"An inexpensive roach trap can easily be made from a deep smooth-walled jar with some roach food inside, placed with the top of the jar touching a wall or with sticks leading up to the top, so that the roaches can reach the opening. Once inside, they cannot climb back out. An inch or so of water or stale beer (by itself a roach attractant) will ensure they drown. The method works well with the American cockroach but less so with the German cockroach. A bit of Vaseline can be smeared on the inside of the jar to enhance slipperiness. The method is sometimes called the "Vegas roach trap" after it was popularised by a Las Vegas-based TV station. This version of the trap uses coffee grounds and water"

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A's soul met B's soul on doors of another world transport station (readers are allowed to have their share of imagination here). They were queued alongwith fellow souls to be allotted a place in hell or heaven.  A and B entered a into a friendly chit chat (you are allowed to debate on social skills of soul, here..). The only norms that I have followed here, is keeping souls free of gender discrimination and form/shape differences.

Intending to start a conversation, A asked B "So.. How did you get here??" B, although in no mood of talking, yet felt obliged to answer the question , good manners you see... "Oh nothing, really.. I used to live on that tiny planet down there.. you see that one.. the one covered with grey clouds.. part them.. yeah you see some brown land, some black water.. that is it.. It is called Earth there.. I was born there.. One day from distance, I saw a place which appeared to have some better food, a glamorous location, some free beer, saw several others spending their lifetime there. So I left all that I had with me, and moved to the place. When I reached there, I realized I was a fool to fall in the trap. It was no better than the place I used to live in, infact worse, and others had not spent their lifetime in that place.. They had been killed while trying to rescue themselves, just the way I was killed"

A exclaimed "Hola Amigo!!! Even I died the same way..Wow.. we ARE soul mates!! Its a pity I did not come across you on Earth. Hope to see you in next life! "

As the queue advanced, and many more joined in, A got engaged in conversations with other souls. Meanwhile B brooded over his condition. Probably he was still left with a dash of  moh-maya sprinkled on his soul, which was to be purified in the next decisive step, of hell or heaven. A rebuked him "Hey, you are no longer online now.. You should RELAX! Come join me for a song ". And it was no longer than a minute, when A had gathered a mob, and they began chanting " Sadda haq.. aetthe rakh.. mann se jeena ya marr jaana..aaaaa....".

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 We are back on earth. Ground realities. Laxman's wife was beating her chest, at the suicide of her husband " arey kuchh batate bhi to nahi thhe.. bass apne mein hi pareshaan rehte thhe.. kuchh bola hota kabhi.. arey kuchh bol kar to jaate.." She wailed , and other women of neighborhood, stuffed cloth in their mouths sobbing in an inconsolabe fashion. Every body thought.. "poor poor widow.. and how will she get money.. oh yess she has rich brothers. "
Men thought "She is young and beautiful, what a waste!" Women thought " Oh I better stop my husband from visiting this house frequently now".
And Laxman's wife thought " I was better off back in our small town.. So many men drooling after me.. and father married me to this SOFTWARE ENGINEER. It was when I came to city I realised that he owned a cyber cafe.. He never loved me..  was busy chasing his dreams.. Earning money , taking loans, burdening himself with EMIs,and thinking ways to earn more money. Did not even let me have children.. His father had such good shop back in town, and he thought it to be a bad business, only to come and own a cyber cafe here!! What is the use.. Why should I lead a love-less life??Why???? And now this house will be sold, and all my jewels. Any ways I never asked for jewels, or palatial house.. Maybe I would get some peace when I go back to my brother's house.. Will take up some job there.."

Two blocks away, a maid swept off dead cockroaches from the trap-jar (Vegas Cockroach Trap) which her malkin had set to get rid of cockroaches.


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God's assitance sat on the door of hell/heaven.

Assistance to A - "Laxman, you have had your share of miseries and hardships and tensions. You will go to heaven".

Assistance to B - "You stupid cockroach,you were given a peaceful life, but you killed yourself out of  greed. Now you will take birth on earth again as a human, and become a preacher, teaching the world about malefic greed, suffer hardships of being a human-being, will get involved in a sex-scandals, as most preachers do, and die. Come back to us then, will decide your fate."

                                                                                  

                                                                                                       

What's your status

There are a few, who would want to answer this question... The others might be just too humble, or too secretive, or too frustrated to answer the question..
My status??
Relationship status :- single
Social status          :- middle class
education status     :- Graduate
mental staus          :- mostly insane
health status           :-.....

Needless to say we keep adding several dimensions to our STATUS QUO as per the process of evolution, day by day and year by year. But there was a Sultan I knew whose status remained pretty much stable, during the span of two years that I got to know him.

Sultan had and still has a big brother Kaptaan, and had an elder sister Sonia. When Sonia died in mishap two years back, playing in a local park, and her mother was beating her chest at her death (while the entire community was being decorated to celebrate Shabbe raat), a local guy-father of five, standing near me, passed a remark "arey roz wo kooda bin kar iske liye 50-60 rs kamaa kar le aati thhi, tabhi maatam manaa rahi hai.." . And something  stopped me from blurting out, "Oh, is this why you have five children? "          (  There ARE times when I wonder if poverty changes the way a mother loves her child, but my sane minds advises me to experience motherhood, before irrationally thinking on how a mother should behave, in any circumstance) . Sultan's dad had a bad habit of drinking ( so predictable), and enjoyed excercising his hands and feet on his wife every night ( this was also predictibly on its way), and the family survived on rags.

Sultan was assigned to me. (I took extra curricular sorts class lectures for younger children at AID-Noida) . And I have always been proud about my deftness at handling children and their complicated behaviour. But he was the simplest one. I knew his reaction to any stimuli- it had to be pure physical violence! He had a tiny limber sun baked brown body, a face always smudged, cheeks had permanent tear stains, mostly wore an oversized white shirt, which hung on his shoulders like a cloak. And he was the most predictable of all. I knew , if Sultan was sitting with any other child, somebody would shout from that end (could be Sultan or other child) complaining that the other one was hitting, and even before I was able to turn my head, two of them would have entered into a scuffle. And maximum times it was NOT Sultan who started the fight. But most of the community kids did not really like him. And end result, Sultan used to shoot out of the classroom wailing. I had a soft corner for him in the beginning, but that lasted for very short period of time, only till the time he did not hit ME out of anger. He was angry most of the time. The soft corner was reduced, but I still took him as a challenge.
Now I tried my wits to their end, to make Sultan enjoy the class. There were days when I was glad that he managed to sit through twenty minutes, and other days he ran out of the class, stomping his foot, and looking for his elder brother to protect him from a child who attacked him. I tried to read his personality, if he was fascinated by colors, or by stories, liked to draw, or watch some animated movie, or experimenting with cutting paper, or clay modelling. His attention span was too short. He was a boy with a very simple taste. And his only distraction or attraction was entering into a fight with some or the other classmate. After 2 months or so, I gave up on him. And obviously he had no trust on my capabilities from the very beginning. From then on Sultan was happy not to be tortured to attend any class. Whenever he saw me in the community, he grinned at me, or happily slapped my back. And I could never zero down on my ways to react. (especially when he slapped me. One part of me liked it, that he liked me somehow, and acknowledged my prescence, and the other was too conservative to let a student barbariously slap a teacher!)
There was this hot day, days after I stopped going to AID-noida community center (and took to my real passion zealously), that I was standing on the corner of a road, when somebody slapped me on my back. And I knew it was not some guy ;) . I turned and encountered Sultan.I was soooooo happy to find my ex-student, and happier that he recognized me. But then there was an addition to his outfit. He carried a white bag, full of some tit-bits-pieces collected from roadside. His grin and enthusiasm was ever-same. Only my heart-beat was dampend. Only if I had not given up on him!

alBUM'ed LIFE!

If anything, our generation has learnt is how to pose "beautifully" "gorgeously" "picture perfect" and "amazing" way in front of the lens. Starkly different from the stiff , overdressed, and slightly embarassed at the PDA, older generation, our generation has come to believe that the best way to showcase your love is posting pictures on facebook.. (and here goes the bitch again with her usual bigmouth, ranting ill-effects of social media..) No.. No.. wait I want you to read on.. I mean it... read on... and I swear I wont kill you with boredom. This is NOT about facebook, there is a whole movie out there dedicated to this addiction, why would I waste my wits on some already explored subject!

The word camera literally means dark chamber (now you know why black cameras are so fashionable!) Photography word when split, gives us two very direct words, photo meaning light, and graphy meaning drawing. Where a camera was probably invented in the times of Aristotle, the word photography itself came to origin in late 1800s. Perhaps photography grew in popularity because it could capture reality more accurately than a potrait, or a painting. Isnt it like when you see potraits of rajas and maharajas and emperors you think they existed in dreams or some other world, and a photo of say Maharani Gayatri Devi makes a queen's lifestyle more credible! Now I leave the reign of further technical explanations to Wikipidea. You can read more about this art and its development here and there.

Reverse gear, my generation, the photography fad, and photo mania. I have a black and white picture of my mom and uncles and aunts with naani, preserved by naana. Ofcourse I couldnt believe my eyes when I saw my 2 year old mom.. Apart from looking foolishly innocent (yeah she knows about this reaction), one could never imagine she would grow up to be looking exactly the same (please omit  'foolishly' from the reaction). Period. Naana has a few more pictures of older times, which have more of black and white than the faces and clothes, hence naana usually avoids displaying them . I wont have such a blissful life.My children or grandchildren would know exactly how dumb their mommy or naani looked when she was 2, dumber when she was 5, and there were no signs of improvement on her 15th birthday as well.. (Somehow I know the reason of extra respect I have for my older generations,why not, we have only seen them sober and controlled, with no wails or fuss! ). With SLRs growing cheaper, and every gadget coming with an attached camera, photography is becoming an art, and a fad, and a convenient method to blackmail. It is a growing belief that everything worth happening is worth clicking.Canon even asks us to click a bum, ! (in the latest advertisement with Anushka).  You go out with family, you click. You go out with friends, you have to click and display those pictures, to show hot dresses you wore, and prove you had fun. You eat, you click, you are happy you click, and blah blah. And the loners on facebook drool over your pics and assume you are having one riot life. A piece of advise for those loners. A photograph is a capturing just one of the million moments you breathe and camera is an excellent doctoring device, it allows you ample scope to mask your true self, and put up an excellent show of happiness. Blame the make belief happiness to the greed of getting clicked. Almost everybody who manages to buy and SLR, and shoot some sky, leaves and sun is a self proclaimed photographer. This is an era of enterpreneurship, and self promotion is a very humble ambition!

We humans are probably growing wiser in the art of fooling ourselves. And I admire that. We click our happier times,( probably the distraction around us has left us with a short term memory),look back at those times, and assume we were happy all along. And as long as somebody continues to value what he had, and preserves it, looks forward to life because of it, I dont blame it, how can I.. Memories fade, but happy pictures dont.. yaadho ke zakhm par puraani photo marham....

So.. Happy Clicking!

Sign off

What I want from Chai and Shaadi

Godfather once said.... Let those juices flow... Ok .. Ok.. It could have been God mistress as well... We can just let those juices flow ;)

What I want from chai and shaadi…

There is a nearly fatal addiction in masala chai. Before you realize, you have succumbed to its charms and delightful arousing flavor. I am a slave to this tropical beverage. And it’s imperative that I experiment continuously with new flavors. Yet, after so many experiments, I have come to realize that what I exactly want with my wholesome cup of pleasure hasn’t changed much over the period of time. There has been an addition of tanginess, and strength of the brew has increased over the period of time. That’s it, period.

No matter how much I relish this beverage, I wouldn’t want to be a tea taster. Not that I am not a sport enough, but the pleasure of sipping full cup is not the one to be relinquished for a small different sip here, and the other sip there. As the brew is put on the stove, the anticipation starts building. Anticipation of rejuvenating times that lay ahead. And it’s served hot. Now here is where the personal choice comes into picture. In my case, I know the exact amount of sugar, tea leaves and milk that I need to add. The spices added are also to my preference. There are friends of mine who would prefer organic or green cuppa.  Whatever the color might be, the experience is not worth to end in the first sip. The first sip, the hottest one, excites the taste buds in your already salivating mouth. And as it flows down in the system, it invigorates the tired body (I still remember the magical effect Lipton Taza has on the fatigued dancer!). Two-three sips down, the brew begins to cool. With the classic brown Indian chai, you can enjoy the taste of masala in milk. As you sip it, and roll it in your mouth, you can differentiate tastes of elaichi, adrak, tulsee, and kaali mirch (There are the ones who like the hint of chocolate in their drink!).  Your heart seems to like that tea-hour, and begins pounding faster out of all happiness.  And then by the time you have made your way to three fourth of the cup, you have rebuilt the energy to fight the big bad world, and a sense of happiness prevails. And the addiction of caffeine starts working its way. By the last sip you are left wanting for more, mentally stimulated and physically charged.

If I would have to sum up, after discussions with numerous happily and unhappily married couples, I would sum up a marriage as enjoying a big, good cup of tea throughout life.  Probably this is the reason I would want to settle down. After all sipping tea is one of the happiest moments in my entire day.  If I like the company of my man in the” mad bull charged in the china shop years”, I would also want to see how he mellows with the wisdom of old age. I remember my father as a slightly distant figure in younger years, but he seems to be getting more assertive and talkative with age. And this holds true for all individuals. Therefore I have come to believe that concept of getting bored in a marital alimony is fictitious. Every individual gets adulterated with experiences of life, grows and evolves. Yet there is an awareness of the fact, that basically deep down the individual is the same, like my cup of tea, with milk and sugar and water, and of course tea leaves of my choice, the merging spices might vary from day to day. It could be that there are days when I want no spices at all!

At times my cook prepares a good tea for me, the other times it’s not palatable for me. My mother seems to have completely different taste from mine! And then to my surprise there are days when the local chaiwallah prepares an exquisite cup.  The methods to get that perfect cup of golden brown liquid might vary, but preferences of the type of liquid doesn’t change at all. The intent is, how I meet him could be under very different and surprising circumstances, but what I want from him is not altered the similar way my taste for chai differs from my mother’s.

I know I wouldn’t enjoy my chai unless I am not really (and here really means really from the core) craving for it. There are days when overdose causes acidity, and under dose leaves me dizzy. There have been days that I have burnt my mouth, and days when it turned cold in the cup, while I was busy attending issue of the moment. But the love affair has continued…

 So here we raise a toast of that liquor (my mother actually terms my preparation as liquor, owing to its extra strength and she has some good words for its extra sweetness), toast for our lives!

Development of a personality

Being in child education has often given me valuable insights into the development of any human personality (btw analysing charachters is my full day job... I like the feel that I am reading a book all day, which has MORE number of characters than Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace! I sure live in one lala dream land) . I have observed that children take to the act of pleasing their teacher/mentor very quickly. They observe you very keenly, what you do, how you wear.. what you eat.. what makes you laugh, how you smell, how your hair feel like... they notice EVERYTHING.. and then take to the act of pleasing you.. they might begin with it, because they like you.... and you are their teacher... they might not be aiming of benifiting from this.... but once they realize that pleasing their mentor at times gives them some extra advantages over other classmates, this habit gets ingrained... These children grow up to be adults.. with grumbling colleagues, about their habit of buttering their bosses...
Now this attitude is not found in all children. It is found in a few, but it infects others in the class gradually. I dont know how many other teachers/mentors concur with me, but I think that nursery, kindergarten and primary school teachers have a lasting impact on lives of people. Like till date when I eat mouthfull and try to speak, immediately an image of my KG teacher flashes in front of me... "Anvita dont you eat like a buffalo.. shut your mouth!!"..
Sometime down the line I want to take up teaching seriously.. but to think of it.. what would I teach.. (my friends would echo "Shit" as a response to this).. this fizzles out my excitement to teach....
Coming back to development of character...
There is this another aspect I'd like to talk about.. The act of discarding or rejecting the weakest. Like during one of my activity classes there was a a weak , tired and nervous child.. I prompted her to act in one of my short skits, just because I wanted her to get more vocal and interactive, and wanted to see what lies beneath.. I gave her one of the simplest lines to act.. She did very well in front of me.. but later on the day of the event, she froze on the stage... it was half stage fright, and half the fear which other children had instilled in her, by constantly nagging her on forgetting her lines.. strangely, she never forgot lines in front of me. But after the day of the event, children came up to me and told me .. that I shouldnt have taken that girl in show at all... I told them in a very dramatic way, that we cant leave the weak ones behind, because we dont know, she might not be good in singing or acting, but she could be good in running etc. Then I gave an assignment to my children to find out qualities about their fellow classmates. This was just an excercise to make them learn the uniqueness of every individual.
I have to rack my brains all the time to keep up to fast pace of learning of these little ones.. but surely it makes me realize in what skewed and distorted ways an adult personality is formed.

Lazy bum begins blogging...

Ok... This one is for you Sandeep.. to push me to publish my own writeups! And yess.... Thank You google for this blogger thingy... where everybody can be ahem... publisher, writer... yada yada yada..... Thank You MS word for checking my spellings all the time.... and yess... Thank you "Innernet"... its because of you that I am sure to be famous... some day... some day....

sign off....