Random Ramblings

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The other day I wrote:

"No amount of globalization is going to change the climate of India...sunny and warm...typifying the nature of Indians"

Recall Don Bradman's quip on Indian fans:

"No Australian or English boy could possibly have written that letter. You don't need to see his signature---it is quite obvious he was from India"

Listen to our Autocrat on the subject:


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http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/751/pg751.txt

- Hospitality is a good deal a matter of latitude, I suspect.
The shade of a palm-tree serves an African for a hut;
his dwelling is all door and no walls; everybody can come in.
To make a morning call on an Esquimaux acquaintance,
one must creep through a long tunnel; his house is all walls and no door,
except such a one as an apple with a worm-hole has.
One might, very probably, trace a regular gradation between
these two extremes.  In cities where the evenings are generally hot,
the people have porches at their doors, where they sit, and this is,
of course, a provocative to the interchange of civilities.  A good deal,
which in colder regions is ascribed to mean dispositions, belongs
really to mean temperature.

Once in a while, even in our Northern cities, at noon, in a very
hot summer's day, one may realize, by a sudden extension in
his sphere of consciousness, how closely he is shut up for
the most part.--Do you not remember something like this?
July, between 1 and 2, P. M., Fahrenheit 96 degrees, or thereabout.
Windows all gaping, like the mouths of panting dogs.  Long, stinging
cry of a locust comes in from a tree, half a mile off; had forgotten there
was such a tree.  Baby's screams from a house several blocks distant;
--never knew there were any babies in the neighborhood before.
Tinman pounding something that clatters dreadfully,
--very distinct, but don't remember any tinman's shop near by.
Horses stamping on pavement to get off flies.  When you hear
these four sounds, you may set it down as a warm day.
Then it is that one would like to imitate the mode of life of the
native at Sierra Leone, as somebody has described it:  stroll into
the market in natural costume,--buy a water-melon for a halfpenny,
--split it, and scoop out the middle,--sit down in one half of the empty
rind, clap the other on one's head, and feast upon the pulp. 

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Of late I have been the recipient of several 'voices from the past'

They all start saying something like:

"I happened to be (randomly) browsing the web when this blog came up on the google results to my delight"

I just can't figure out how 'randomly' surfing the net or browsing the web or vice versa can bring up a particular obscure blog from the 181 million blogs (latest count) of which a majority are by women in general and moms in particular.

I once asked Aniket and he said he doesn't know...it calls for guts these days to say, "I don't know" (except in grand vivas)

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I was just thinking about the buzz words: 'hard power and soft power' (as usually applied to the Dragon and the Elephant)

And was ruminating about the hard and soft of various things I came across in my life.

First there was this chapter in our First Year Inorganic Chemistry by P C Ray (premonition of things Bengali to enter into my life...or is it the other way round?):

Hard water vs Soft water...the last sentence of that chapter is a comforting declaration: "Hard water is not bad for health"

Then Colgate came up in the 1950s with their 'Hard and Soft' toothbrushes.

When I reached KGP, I heard of 'hard cover' and 'soft cover' books

And then the hard disk and soft diskette

And hard porn and soft porn

And hard drugs and soft drugs (?)

Before that, hard drinks and soft drinks

Many many such hard and soft thoughts...and stools made of wood or pulp...they call it 'roughage'...what a lousy word...sounding like 'garbage'!!!

The other day my son, who once in a while enters the kitchen and inspects things, told me he bought a new and better micro-compatible bowl for me (in which I daily heat the delicious stew of leftovers at around 4 in the morning).

I asked him what was wrong with the earlier one I have been happily using for over four years.

He told me that he threw it away since it had become fibrous by overuse.

And I wasn't one for missing the chance of repartee:

"They say fiber is good for my g. i. canal"


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