The sociology experiment called book crossing

Came accross Book Crossing the website through a friend a few days back.Truly a sociology experiment, and I guess statistics could say a lot about the concerned geographical regions.

India, Members : 6262, books released in the past 30 days : 4, all controlled releases.Now for the regions, Two from West Bengal, one in Delhi & one in Uttarakhand (UK :D).

As against 

USA : 7192 books in the same time from 327140 members (who says Americans don't read!)

 Switzerland : 789 books from 6459 members

It worries me, do we not read? do we not believe in giving? Are we not internet savvy? Are we not in touch with new Ideas & philosophies? Do they not work for us? Are we too busy making a living? Are we too poor to think of giving? Are they (giving & poverty in the real sense) connected at all? Is the reason amongst the above list...or are all the above reasons

'NEW DELHI/GURGAON: A day after TOI reported the story of a Gurgaon scrap dealer who restored an eight-yearold boy to his parents after a two-year search, the 'saviour' has landed in trouble, with the Child Welfare Committee seeking an explanation from him for not informing the local police about the boy. '
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Wish we had more faith in the goodness in people, even in a place like Delhi where it is not something you encounter commonly.why is it so difficult for us to believe that an old scrap dealer had goodness enough in him to bring up a child he found on the street as his own for two whole years, till he was able to trace his family & return the boy.

I believe that faith multiplies things (no not Faith, my friend, the lovely girl from S'pore). When you believe things happen, they happen & happen & happen more often, well at least more so than if you did not at all. Thereby lack of  faith is probably the greatest of destroyers.slow but steady & sure.Stop believing in the goodness that people might be capable of & it might disappear... for good.

lost in ADS

Today while surfing through names for perfumes for work I found this site with highlights on the sentencelet '"A good name is better than fine perfume,....'. For a second I was worried, the whole success of the poor guy's perfume brand depended on the lovely name I was to provide him. Obviously packaging is more important than content today!....


Till I read the link. http://www.scripturestudies.com/vol7/g2/wis.html. Scripture studies! And there I read the rest of the sentence ' Solomon begins: "A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart"

The scent of sun

Sometimes, out of the blue I smell starched, sun dried clothes & I wonder if it has something to do with my grandmother, if she around.

I wonder if anybody reads what I write...I doubt it.

Canon in summer

Bought the camera I have been wanting to buy for the longest time.Not that I am a great photographer, but I do think I have an understanding of composition & color.I love animals too.The cam is a Canon 1100D, think would work for me.Only wish it was not as hot as it is here, would have got out & clicked a few pics.

As it is me zeal for photography seems to be much wanting in the face of the intense Delhi summers.My mom in law says it will be a good two months more,a month till july 17th the hottest day of the season & a month from then.Hope it rains a bit in between or what with the heat & dust I will just shrivel up & die.

Planning on visiting the Delhi Blue Pottery place for some time.It is some where near CP,not too far, specially by the air conditioned metro. Its that time of the year when I am willing to do anything for air conditioning

Rain..

It is amazing how much weather dictates who you are, or how you behave when taken out of your native weather, if you have one that is. I have one.Dark clouds, soaking rain with thunder & lightening, punctuated with sharp sunshine that makes the water all sparkly. the perpetual weather back home.

That's probably why the Delhi heat saps my strength, leaves me in a perpetual daze, rest is a deadman's sleep with abrupt beginnings & ends, filled with strange dreams that run like cinema.The winters are a bit better, though dried up & cold there still remains the will to go out & look at things.But nothing compares to rains.Water saturates the air & glistening on the leaves, the whole world washed clean of dust, the dusty roads suddenly dark & wet .There truly is nothing like the rain in the whole world.

When it rains I feel at home..more or less, as fresh as a newborn... my senses are sharp, I feel like writing.

My mother thinks I can write, but then I guess mothers always feel their kids are better than they actually are.She's been telling me stories of neighnours & relations,some funny some sensational.Come to think of it there is indeed data enough for a couple of books in there.The question is can I write?

I feel the need of exploring myself afresh, to look at the past & present in the light of life lived for 33 years,.to explore & understand myself fully.plan to look at two mediums photography & writing for this ...lets see what comes of it....hope something good does

The duckdream

Dreamt of a duck today, am getting better & better at it, dreaming up a full sequence of events in HD carity & a logical sequence of events.
In my dream I lived with my mother in an apartment in a dusty city, probably Chennai may be even Bombay (can't think of another city where they might let you keep ducks in apartments.).it was summertime, weather hot  the non landscaped apartment compound mud brown with a few scraggly trees here & there.The duck , my pet by the look of it, followed me around in my apartment & balcony(which looked very close to my current balcony).At times looking down the protective grilles to the compound below.
Then out of nowhere she took flight, more like a jump with flappy wings & landed in someone elses house.I ran down the stairs to fetch her back, but could not locate her, I walked around looking for her, asking people if they had seen a duck, that I had lost mine.
Nobody had. I had to give up my search in a few hours, I did not know where to find her.I was almost sure she would not come back, birds seldom do.on my way back up I walked into the wrong door & there I was in a large luxurious home, strangely, it totally did not belong in the otherwise middle class background.The spaces were large though a bit drab due to lack of any furniture.The huge terrace at a lower level overlooked a beach with the sun setting into the sea.A few molded plastic chairs were lined up along the metal grille that lined the terrace, the whole space was empty, I realised I had walked into someone elses place. I quickly walked out closing the unlocked door behind me wondering how I missed the fact that the apartment had a sea facing side.

As I walked up the stairs I saw the couple who lived there(I seem to have known they lived there) sitting by on park benches down below.The woman looked up saw me & waved.As I was muttering my apologies for barging into their home, she called out that my place was beautifully done up.Almost a query into if I could do it for her.I run up thinking there indeed was scope to do something there, wondering if there was money in it, wondering when & how she saw my place & my mother calls,
 She's found the duck, it is among the other colony ducks (Colony Ducks??) lined up on a metal railing.Cosily wedged between two others.Among all the others its almost difficult to distinguish her.But she seemed to have found home.So we decide to let her be, amongst her new friends.

I have never had a duck, defenitely not in an apartment, apartment compounds dont usually have ducks, dogs may be , cats even, but ducks defenitely not.Ducks do not sit on railings, their feet are webbed.But then it was just a dream.....a duckdream  

lost in translation :)

It is a pity I cannot write in my own language, mother tongue if you will. After all the ability to write a list of groceries does not count as writing.The more I try to write I realize there are way too many things in life you would express more accurately in your own tongue.There are things & customs & expressions unique to languages & people who speak them, those that other languages do not have words for.Even if one attempts to do so clumsily with makeshift words it some how does not suffice, The picture that they bring to mind are often not the same or as clear.

For example the word 'smoke' spoken in English leaves open too many possibilities.it could be cigarette smoke, industrial smoke, smoke from the vehicles on the streets, smoke from old fashioned wood fires, fire places, pipes, an electrical malfunction....the possibilities are endless.It does not call accurately to the mind the smell of a fire of burning coconut shells & dry leaves, for cooking or heating water or to just burn the rubbish in the yard, as does the malayalam word 'Poka'....well more or less.Of course there are loop holes & possibilities there too but the field is not as wide as in the first case.

It possibly has to do with the cultures these words belong to.It is difficult to imagine an English man (or woman for that matter), burning coconut shells & dry palm leaves to heat water on an open fire in his tailored clothes.Though it is the commonest sight back home, though these days it is more often to dispose off dry waste.

When I talk or sometimes sit down to write things down I often feel the need for these words I cannot use.Words that can paint an accurate picture.And all because I am not using the language I feel in.I think it is important, to be able write in the language one experiences one's world in. It holds more than what meets the eye. It holds the past, the present & the future of these cultures it belongs to.It holds the knowledge of the past that can transcend time & be part of its people's future.Knowledge generated by generations that have lived well, in tune with nature.Knowledge that would be essential to live well in these places at present & in future .

PS: just read Sarah Joseph