Category: Rumblings

Germophobia

~ Pied Piper ~ 1 Comment

COVID -19, a word which has become household, now. In a day, it is uttered at least once, in every house.

The COVID -19 Situation, across the globe, is like milk to a person who is lactose intolerant. Unless you drink it, the chances of diarrhoea are minimal. Although, unlike diarrhoea, this is transmittable. And, There will always be an idiot who insists on drinking it and degrade the air quality around him.

This fear of transmission, has perhaps made me paranoid. I am sure I am not the only one who has suddenly found himself/herself to be a germophobe.

I went for grocery shopping after almost 3 weeks inside. I have been cut off from the world from all physical contact in these 3 weeks.

The feeling was horrifying.

I have started seeing germs everywhere. Well, not literally. But I see them as I see the air. I feel it.

Everywhere I go , anything i touch, i think it is full of germs. I touch a plastic container, and i have the urge of washing my hands. I touch the milk bottle, and i use a wet tissue to clean the hands. I used so much sanitiser that my hands got dry by the time I came home.

But the nightmare did not stop just yet. As soon as i came home, I took a shower using Dettol. I changed the cloths and felt that finally i was clean.

Then the though struck me . Now, I need to arrange the groceries. The same groceries that I was un willing to touch.

Oh the Horror.

A similar predicament was faced by one of my wife’s friends. She got around this, by washing everything in Dettol. Green leafy Vegies, pulses, nuts, everything. But, I think that will be too extreme.

All in All, I can now relate with the good Detective, MONK, immortalised by Tony Shalhoub,

For now, I am stying put.

Stay Alone, Stay Safe.

I am back…

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

Yes. I am back.

One of the many things for which the COVID-19 is responsible for, is that the “(hope)-to-be” writers like me, want to spend some time expressing my thoughts.

And “forget” to shave.

And work from home in shorts and Ts.

And attempt cooking.

And can get up late.

And as soon as I get up, sit in front of the laptop and start working.

Yes… I can get used to it, but the thought itself is scary (not because of the acute shortage of toilet paper). It has been almost a month now, where we, the IT people, are working from home. I am sure this will not be healthy in the long run.

I wish this lockdown would end, sooner rather than later.

 

Stay indoors, stay safe.

 

I am too old for this Sh*t

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

I still remember the day when the favourite pastime of the fairer sex, was visiting the salons.

The ladies used to spend hours and thousands to look young.

The amount of makeup it took to make a 40 year old look like a 20 year old was astonishing. Personally, I am not against beauty, but I hate the idea of looking something which you are not. It is unnatural.

Well, times have changed.

I just found the internet full of people posting pictures of an old version of themselves.

Is this progress ?

Definitely.

This is the first step for Nirvana — Acceptance of the truth.

Or maybe, as Roger Murtaugh says, I am too old for this Sh*t.

I can’t understand how a 40 year old, wears makeup to look like a 20 year old, who then uses an app to look how she will look like a 40 year old, 60 year old and 80 year old.

You don’t need an app for this, just a bucket of water.

Slumber uncertainity

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

The human instintcs of Trust and Distrust are so easy to be descibed in a single situation. A situation as simple as sleep, can help as an example. A real life example.

A friend of mine has a hard time to wake up in the morning, even harder to get out of the bed and go to work.

People can be so distrustful when it comes to sleep. We have a driver who picks us up every morning. Now, it so happens that the driver is so untrusting that he will call my friend 30 mins prior to the pickup time. It was all good, till he realized that my friend received the call and yet after the call, went back to sleep. This happened a few times and the driver soon realised how unfruitful it was.

Our driver is a smart guy. He now asks for a photograph which can show a reflection of my friend in the bathroom mirror, brush in the mouth and will not disconnec the call before he gets such a photo.

This is what I call dedication to work and helps my friend be on time at his office.

Keep Stress at bay

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

 

We all get those annoying emails from insurance companies.

They claim that we can keep the Stress and Worry at bay for just Rs. 12/-

That’s the cost of 1 cigarette.

So, the message to all is, since the world is overcrowded, the best way to to avail this offer is to apply it in our lives.

A cigarette a day might just help you make friends with your local doctor. This will create more employment opportunities in the tobacco industry as well as reduce your “stress” level from all the nocotine induced euphoria.

So, instead that insurance, go for the pack of cigarettes. Who cares about your loved ones.

The Crush…

~ ddgaikwad ~ Leave a comment

For all these years all the guys and gals that I had met and talked with, all they have these encounters fresh in their memories… these are the encounters that they always talk about with the same amount of enthusiasm, as they would have on the day one itself! These encounters I am the ones that they would never forget, even till they leave this planet for a better place… So special and warm are these encounters … and you might be thinking what these encounters …actually are?
These encounters are nothing else but, the memories of their first crush!! (And yeah this has nothing to do with the film from 1993…)

It all started with some subject or an object or a location that one might be looking at and then out of blue, without any warning, all those memories start gushing through the mind like a flash flood, filling up all the each and every corner with emotions… to such an extent that eyes show the effect intensity to the crush’s memory!

The first sighting of the one, and you fall heads over heels for that one! The first sight, that face, that hair, that smile, and that time of the day… Some even tend to remember, the direction of the sun, the speed of the wind (that too in nautical miles)… I bet some might have even memorized the star map! And then lost in that world of fantasy… most of the times an external jolt is needed to snap back to reality…

The first time our crush is seen, the game begins to get noticed or to notice the crush. During the college days, just to get a glimpse of our crush, we get up early and get dressed and head to the bus stop, just to travel alongside with our crush. Then even when we do not have any classes during crush classes, we will sit or loiter around the campus just to get that small peek of our crush…
And if you are lucky and if the crush lives nearby, then you would find a hundred reasons just to pass by crush’s home. You would also agree to do all those chores (there would be times you would ask your mother for any chores to take care off…) that you do not like, so that you can pass by crush home and get a peek, if they are in the lobby or on the balcony or all these antics just to get noticed…

When our crush does notice us, the first “Hi” is always the difficult ones… the butterflies that we feel, the words that are there at the tip of the tongue but, it gets difficult to speak those words, the building pressure of NOT blurting out something non-sense, which might put off our crush and the mounting pressure of blowing up this only once in a lifetime chance to talk to the crush… It feels as if after this there will be no tomorrow and you will be alone for the rest of your life… thus you get that the first “Hi” which gets stamped in our memory forever…
And every time we recall it, it’s like we go through all those emotions once again, the same feeling that same magic… and sometimes the same pressure as well… no wonder…

And with the passage of time and some external efforts from our friends, we start to converse with our crush, which had been a dream about, and oh boy! Well, the first “Hi…” does feel like a long-awaited conversation though. The feeling is like, an out of the world experience… the talk, the walk together towards our homes, the wait for each other at the bus stops, the catching and reserving seats in for each other… all these things happening without uttering a single word… and the time seems to be flying with twice the speed when we are with our crush, all the feelings are magical, something that just out of a Bollywood romance movie…

But, the happiness is short lived and before you could take any of those imaginary actions, crush bounds to depart away from us… the reasons could be anything, maybe a change in the city, maybe a new job opportunity, maybe family moving away… and even marriage… how heart-wrenching!! Whatever it could be, we just stand there witnessing that our crush is moving away from us, far away, never to be seen… all that remains, are the one-sided memories and the pain of departure and things that you could have accomplished, if and only if, you two would have been together for the rest of your lives…

With pain your heart and confusion in your mind, you accept it, ALAS! A crush will always remain a crush no matter what…

Time machine…

~ ddgaikwad ~ Leave a comment

Ever wondered if we had a time machine? What could have been its implications on the history as we know it? Yes, there has been a lot of discussion in a lot of literature already… but, what if?

It is a technological concept which has always intrigued me… It is something that has always caught my imagination! It makes me think about a lot of possibilities and even a lot more events that one individual, could have an impact on…

Having such a machine would be no less than having a superpower of some sort. One can always go back in time for, a few minutes, a few days or even years and change that one particular event… That one particular nagging thing or that one mistake or an history in its entirety? It’s just endless things which could be accomplished, it’s as vast as one’s imagination could get…

With such a super-power and is almost God like ability, what are the events that one would be motivated to modify? Could it be moving to the future and getting the future tech here to get a head start? Or moving to the past and altering that one event, which will have an impact on the history of the entire planet? Or what if a person is motivated by personal motives and greed, and then move back in the past or in the future, just for his personal gains and in turn changing the entire timeline of the world as we know it? It’s just a matter of, who gets his hands on the machine first?

The last thing that remains, who knows? If the time travelers or time agents are already within us… Making those minute adjustments to the timelines as it suits their own future may be? Would these adjustments be same as we make them on our timekeeping devices? a little minute here, an hour there?

Who knows, how many times the history might have changed, changing the future along with it?

Who knows, when you get nightmares, they are because of the minute adjustments already made by the time agents? Or its just because you have entered a new timeline of your own… Who knows…?

The Indian Monsoon…

~ ddgaikwad ~ Leave a comment

In India its the time of the year start from mid-June to mid-october.
This is a season that all of us are craving for, from the start of the summer, generally, summer starts from April to and lasts till June.
It is a season of great joy, well at least in the first few weeks of course.

In the first few weeks, we all love the smell of the rain, when it hits the already scorched land… the aroma is sweet and tantalizing…
It even kicks a few of us back to our good old childhood of carefree days… that amazing it is…
The first few weeks is the time when the hills and mountains start shedding away their brown and dead covers with the soft green and slowly lush green covers…
The air firstly becomes, cool, then cleaner, no dust, then moist, you can almost like smell the monsoon inside it… It feels as if, it has given you a new set of lungs altogether!!

The rains are nice and sporadic in the first few weeks, it feels as if you have been transferred to the heaven on earth
All the rainy trips and picnics and trek are organized during this first few weeks only…

As we progress further into the month, the drizzle is converted to downpour…
Sporadic rains replaced by continuous showers…
The city roads once having small streams flowing, now are submerged underwater…
The rivers are roaring and are in their most powerful state, scary!

In a few days of time, the oohs and ahhs of the rain are replaced with pleading to make it stop!
And with this, we slowly stride towards the end of the Monsoon season, and even before its ending, we start waiting for the winter season to come and rescue us from the rain gods…

The Cubicle…

~ ddgaikwad ~ Leave a comment
There is an individual who works for about 9 hours a day. Commutes the same route. Parks at the same spot. Enters the workplace from the same door. And then sits in a square called a cubicle, where he will be spending rest of his days, months and the years to come, just to make his ends meet.
Sometimes I feel, what an irony are these cubicles, we, the most of the crowd, spend so many months and years just so that one we could break out of those four walls. And then explore the world that is very different from those four walls of the cubicle?
Its like we are stuck there with our own will, we have trapped ourselves in those four walls, just so that slogging inside them will one day give us the freedom that we need. But, then after some years, we are all become complacent of those four walls and never want to leave them again.
Many swear by those four walls and become afraid of actually exploring the real world out there… That is when you enlighten what power the cubicle hold over you… It just becomes a second home for you, you spend about 9 hours out waking hours in that small confined space…
Cubicle, a place where most of our years are spent and these years just fleet by you… that is when you wonder, what if I had tried something different? Or is this where I will be for the rest of my life?

The impatience…

~ ddgaikwad ~ 1 Comment

Recently there have been a lot of mental ramblings about the right partner to choose. As here in India, if you pass above the age of 30 and if you are single then your family gets really impatient envisioning about your future without a life partner…! And all the hardships that one might have to go through…

Thus, the search for the right bride or groom begins with full throttle, and support is enlisted forth from the close friends, neighbors, and from relatives from a far far away land…

The suggestions start pouring in, first one then two and then a few more and a few more… Every weekend is a fest of playing the game of matchmaking, comparing the stats, the incomes, the skin colour, the education, the family background, the place of birth and the most important of all, (sigh) matching the horoscopes (I mean really! In this day and age you are going to blame some planets and stars millions and billions of kilometers away for what happens in your life? Really?)… Oh well, since its the tradition have to bear it…

Then the day comes in when you have to visit the bride/groom’s home meet her/his parents (most of the times it’s the groom that visits the bride’s home)… Pleasantries are exchanged, a few jokes are thrown around and same questions are asked (even when the entire bio-data along with all the stats was forwarded earlier to them) Oh well…

Then the time comes when everyone is staring at the girl and the boy, urging them to ask questions to each other… In the gaze of those 100 eyes, they are barely able to speak… With a few generic questions and answers, the meeting finally ends…

Everyone is delighted with the breakfast or the little snacks that are served… another round of loud jokes is passed, with some more generic discussion of where each family tree has started and where it ended, and with wide smiles, we depart, not sure if gonna meet again or not…

And midst of all this chaos you are standing there trying to grasp and summarise the situation… wondering if you really had proposed that girl you really liked from the college long long back then…? Would you have been spared these weekly meets and greets?

Cold Blooded reactions

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

Lizard

Lizards, the cold blooded reptiles are often keeping you company in your house. Most of the time you know about it, some of the time you choose to ignore about knowing it and a few times, you actually don’t know about it. The interesting fact that these mini crocodiles can clean away the pests in your house is most often, ignored. However these creatures do incite some funny reactions from those who hate them.

Some people, on spotting a lizard, innocently basking on the wall, trying to look nonchalant – will immediately start screaming on top of their voices. This leads to the neighbours to think of filing a restraining order against the husband/boyfriend/better half for domestic abuse. However, the accompanying sound of a stick banging on the wall and the male voice making “shooing” noises, calms them a bit while they revisit the memory lanes and envision themselves in a similar situation. This role is sometimes reversed, as it is not just the fairer sex who is always afraid of the lizards.

There are some husband, that I know, who have an ingenious way of dealing with this problem. It can happen that in a house, both , the husband and wife are afraid of the mini crocodiles. The usual process would go in this way.

On spotting the nonchalant Lizard, the wife will let out a shrill tune, sounding a mix between an opera singer and a Nazgul. The husband identifies this war cry and prepares himself.

He shall put on the helmet, to save himself from any injury to head due to an unscheduled fall arising from unexpected jump from the lizard. He will then pick up the “Lizard repellent”, the HIT lizard spray. The chemicals in this spray should dull the lizard, which should make it loose it grip on the wall. It will eventually fall on the ground, dazed from all the spraying it received. Now comes in the broom. A skilful use of the broom will relocate the lizard from the ground, onto a long piece of paper. The lizard will then be forcefully escorted to the outside by the husband, keeping the paper as far from his body as possible. Once outside, it will be unceremoniously dumped in a bush,  the paper will be discarded and the gladiator will return home to his loving wife.

Sometimes the shrill noise is also accompanied by the person running to a chair , and then onto a table. The logic behind this is non-explainable. If a creature can crawl on the walls, it can definitely crawl up the legs of the table.

All in all, the mini crocodile definitely suffers a lot when it is just hunting for food. the matters are not helped when people keep their houses clean and start killing the cockroaches on their own, robbing the poor lizard of its food.

Shame on such people, shame.

No Child’s Play

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

We cannot always build a future for our youth, but we can always build our youth for the future.  – Franklin D Roosevelt

The news on the TV shows a child with a firearm. The title just says that he is a child soldier.

The kid, who should be playing catch with a ball, is now playing suicide with bombs.

What has the world come to, when such kids are being targeted via hate chat boards. This an improper using of chat and message boards and overall social media. Though, social media is not supposed to be at blame. it was meant to bring people together and build relations and thus spread love.

The youth/ teanagers are rebelious. They always have been, throughout the history of mankind. But when did this rebellious youth turn from running out and smoking a cigarette, to becoming a child soldier ?

It is a sad day indeed, when kids are being brought into the wars of men.

Power outage testing

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

I was watching a TV series when a thought came into my mind.

Why do the characters go out and check their electric meters when the lights go out ? check if the entire area is out of electricity supply.It is not as if your previous 10 generations were electricians and your is the 11th generation.

Now, you may be wondering why this came up, so let me give you a sneak peek into my thought process.

In Pune (India), where I live, electricity cuts are very rare (contrary to popular belief). Which means, whenever there is a power outage, it is usually announced well in advanced. The possible causes are mostly maintenance, power cuts across the national grid or first drop of rain (don’t know why,but it always is the case).

Now, whenever I face such an outage, I first peep out of the window to check if the apartment next to mine has also gone dark. If it is day time, there is usually a house wife who is talking on a phone explaining to the other house wife that there is an outage at the other end.

Once confirmed that there is an outage, then I proceed to call the electricity board to lodge a complain and find out when the power will be restored.

If, however, the surrounding apartments show no such signs of outage, then I do not proceed to check my power meter.

Long exposures to such TV series / Films have taught me that there is always a killer in waiting. I proceed to call the electrician and have him look into the matter, albeit for a nominal fee.

So, Beware …

 

* This article was sponsored by “Flash Electricians”.

Their tag line :

“Afraid of getting Zapped ? Worry no more, we will help you.”

The atoms…

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

This is an interesting thought…

ballet of words

Recently, I was reading an article from one of the science magazines. It was an article that I came across, relating to the research being conducted using LHC or the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. The worlds most complex and advanced machine.
This article provided the details about how the scientists are trying to unravel the mysteries of the Universe and its inner workings on a level that one cannot even grasp! And they are trying to unravel the workings by smashing atom together, so that it could decay into its smaller constituents… Which could be further studied…
It got me thinking, we as humans, who are trying to understand what makes up the Universe, what are the basic components? How they came into existence? Why they are the way they are? This is something which really tips the scales of awesomeness to the MAX!!
If you think of it in this way, we…

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Writer’s block and cockroaches

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

I have been suffering from a writer’s block for some time now. Which means, I don’t have any topics to write an article.

I had heard that most writers get a writer’s block and get inspired by seemly random events. This type of inspired writing wins them awards.

So when I entered my bathroom and saw three identical but small cockroaches, the first thing that popes in my mind was,

” I should start killing these cockroaches before they become a menace”

And… then some thoughts about how the three brothers ran from a giant monster who chased them, all the while narrowly escaping the projectiles that were thrown at them.

But then, it would have been a kids’ short story and definitely wouldn’t fetch me any awards.

 

P.S

In case you are wondering, I did not manage to kill any of them. Now going out to by some “Hit cockroach spray”.

 

Bad telephone line

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

That time ,

When you place a call for some official work,

and the other person does not have an answer to your questions,

But instead of actually saying the customary “I will get back to you on this”,

this person tries to sound as if the telephone line is breaking up…

 

But you can clearly hear the guy sitting next to this person, talking loudly and more importantly, clearly on his phone…

Hilarious situation.

Home , away from Home

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

So, I just came back to Doha. This is not my first visit, of course, which gave me a new insight into the term “homesickness”.

The funny thing about my home sickness, is that it can’t even decide my actual home.

I keep missing being away from India, till the time I am in India.

I keep missing India when I am away from India.

Such a Dilemma … which is my home ? India or Qatar ?

 

Treating kids

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

I visited my bank today.

As per my habit, I was observing the people around me while waiting for my turn.

I saw a mother, with her kid, approximately 5 to 7 years of age.

The kid was standing quietly by the side of her mother, staring at people around her.

I like such well behaved kids.

After a few minutes, the mother fed the kid a cashew with a hand.

For some reason, the whole picture looked very similar to that of a dog and his trainer.

Kids and the pressure cooker.

~ Pied Piper ~ 2 Comments

You know in the old days, (wow… I feel very old now) i.e. 10 years back kids used to play outside and used to beg for  more mins before coming home. I know I did. Life was simpler back then. You play for two hours everyday except Sundays and vacations, then study for a few hours and sleep soundly till you reach the high school. Then you pass the exam, select a good college and try to keep yourself afloat long enough to graduate and look for a job. That’s when you can start to stress yourself out.Well this is what I did.

Now I see kids sitting on benches, playing on their ipads and various other tabs while the ground is mostly used by people out for a jog, or at-least what is more like brisk walking.

I am sure you are aware how much time, money, paper and blogs are filled with articles on the topic of ” Kids these days are more engrossed in their smartphone than the ground”. I am confident you might have chuckled at the article and remembered the “good old days”. I did this myself today. Which prompted me to write this article.

I saw my little sister, who is not even 14 yet, fuss about the points she got in her class tests. Now, let me tell you, in India thee is only one exam that matters and the marks of only that exam are considered while selecting a good high school. (we select the high school first then we can select the college , after two years in high school). This kid is scoring a perfect score in all her exams and still she fusses about her marks. She is stressed that she might loose a point in one exam and loose the top spot. Though admirable quality, winning, not for a 14 year old.

Now, parents are always blamed for pushing their kids. But not in this case. Both the parents try to convince her to take a “chill pill” once in a while, but to no avail. I can’t seem to understand when she will enjoy life ? when will she just take a break once in a while to sit still and do nothing, just breathe ?

I guess this madness will stop only when people stop associating intelligence with the grades or marks scored in an exam, but till then, it will continue to be a rat race.

 

2015 in review : A vote of Thanks

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

A vote of Thanks from the Piper to all my readers.

 

I hope to entertain you more in the coming year.

 

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 670 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 11 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.