Of ghosts, spirits and stories

Stories of ghosts wandering about in ‘haunted’ places are very interesting. Especially when the story-tellers actually believe they’re true. These are stories of people whose desires were unfulfilled, how they were wronged or murdered, and their spirits or aavis as they are called in Tamil, linger on, scaring the shit out of people.

There was this story of a ghost running through the street where we lived in Bangalore, and many wrote ‘Naale Baa’ meaning ‘Come Tomorrow’ in chalk above their entrances. This was supposed to ward off the ghost, who I assume was quite stupid. The ghost would see the sign, go back and come tomorrow, see it again, go back and come tomorrow, go…well you get the drift. Recursion. I was lucky to have parents who didn’t believe too much in this stuff, they just had a good laugh.

There are many such stories I’ve heard from friends, of smoke-like figures moving through their homes, supposedly the deceased great-great grandpa taking his usual morning walk (The Sixth Sense – doesn’t know he’s dead?). Many people fear going into houses where there has been an untimely death, because the spirit roaming about there would ‘possess’ them. Then there’s the story of spirits turning up in photos, unintentionally of course.

Scary huh?

It’s amazing how people are so gullible to believe all that rubbish. Even the educated. Science in most schools doesn’t teach us to question everything, an unfortunate consequence of the exam system. But I digress. Well, so the funniest ghost story I’ve heard yet though, is that of the chicken-loving ghost in the ladies hostel in my college. She (it has to be a she, the male ghosts wouldn’t dare enter a ladies hostel ) comes every Thursday night (one of the days they have chicken), to the mess hall on the ground-floor and eats the left-over chicken. The warden told me she had actually seen it – sitting down, holding a plate, and eating. When I asked her who it was or if she saw the face, she said it had her back to her. I was very skeptical, and I suppose it showed on my face, because she began to rant about how it was real and “you people won’t believe me because you haven’t seen it”. I left at that point, wondering how I could prove that either these things are all in the mind, or it’s someone playing tricks. I was a day-scholar, so I couldn’t stay there and try looking myself. I’m still trying to convince a group of girls to go and see it, and find out what the truth is, even take pictures, but they all seem to be too terrified! Well, come on, they shouldn’t be chicken, that’s what the ghost devours!

But I’m not too disappointed. There is sure to be an opportunity to bust ghost stories and myths, because ghosts are swarming around everywhere, and there have always been tales of the supernatural doing the rounds all the time. Even in big cities, where you’d suppose one is too busy with their own life to worry about the afterlife! As for the stories, I love them and can enjoy a good ol’ scary haunted-house story anytime, even though I don’t believe a word of it.

A tribute to a dog

I have always loved to watch and observe animals wherever, whether on the street or on T.V., mostly stray dogs (they are the most common). Dog behaviour has always fascinated me. The way a dog keeps sniffing around. The way it follows you, tail wagging madly, if you so much as look at it with a benevolent eye, in the hope that you will feed it. The way puppies jump about. The way some smart dogs cross the road: I saw one that actually looked to the right, then to the left, then to the right again, and when the road was clear, crossed the road elegantly like a dainty young lady, with its chin (or should I say muzzle?) up! When we had Animal Planet, Discovery and National Geographic on T.V., I would make sure I was always free when my favourite programs about dogs and their behaviour were on. The beautiful stories about dogs’ loyalty, about how a dog can love a person so much, so stupidly, for the simple reason that they once gave the dog a morsel to eat, touched me more than all of those melodramatic hindi movies put together. And that kind of love is hard to find among us, the ‘superior’ beings on this planet.

So this Friendship Day, I would like to make a tribute to a wonderful canine friend, who once filled my days with a sense of joy that only unconditional love can bring. A few months back, at the height of summer in Chennai where I live, when the sun was blazing down, I saw a dog near my house. He was pottering about as though looking for something. Must be thirsty, I thought, because I was too, the heat was treacherous. He was a common mongrel and had a collar round his throat, but he didn’t look like a well looked-after pet. The collar was probably some kid in the neighbourhood. I gave him some water and food. He was pretty scared to come near me, and I thought this was because he had been badly treated before. He looked so shy and timid that I had to move very slowly, in case any sudden movements scared him. At last he managed to overcome his fear and ate.

And he stayed. I named him Pixie. Everyday I fed him and he would always be there waiting for me when I came from college. I don’t know if you have felt it, but the joy you feel when a dog comes running to you wagging his tail, glad that you’ve come home, is such a wonderful thing. I wanted to bring Pixie inside my house, but unfortunately I wasn’t allowed. Well, he seemed to be content there lying in front of our house, so I left it at that. As the days passed, I came to regard Pixie as my friend. So what if he couldn’t talk, he had qualities that many people lacked: unconditional love and loyalty.

My neighbours were totally against me allowing him near our apartment block. Didn’t seem to think that Pixie had a right to exist, same as us. Thought the world belonged to them (humans) and that they could do as they please with these dumb creatures. And so it was that one day I couldn’t find him. I looked everywhere, but he seemed to have disappeared. I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t prove anything, but I knew and was sure. And my parents didn’t want me to go and ask them about it, we were in an apartment and fights would make life there difficult they thought.

So here I was, having lost a good friend, all because he was a dog. It makes me wonder, why are we humans so insensitive to other creatures? Don’t they have as much right to live as we do? It seems like ‘survival of the fittest’. Humans are the fittest, so they alone can live on. And the irony is that even in that aspect we are not united. Only the ‘fittest humans’ may survive and live well. The others may take what is left or die. We are forgetting that our survival is strongly linked with the survival of other humans as well as other species of life. And as the smarter and more powerful ones, it is our responsibility to make sure the others are safe and protected, not to trample them with our might! It is this attitude that is causing all the problems in the world today, when people think that only their country, religion, language or thought is great and all else is inferior. When they do not have tolerance for people unlike them, for people who are different. When they refuse to change their thoughts and customs in spite of very good reasons staring them in the face. The recent bomb blasts in our country were a tragic outcome of all this.

I just hope change happens soon. Change for the good. Change so that Pixie and others like him, humans and other animals alike, may live where they please.

A tip of the slung?

A chat between two blokes who are prone to spoonerisms

Bob: Hey Joe, how ’bout a drink at Mario’s?

Joe: No Bob, not now. I gotta bake the reaves in the garden.

Bob: Garn, you mean rake the leaves. Heck, do it later! I wanna sell you tomething…

Joe: Eh?

Bob: There’s something I wanna tell you, come on…

Joe: No, I was supposed to do this yesterday. My mife would wurder me if I didn’t do it now. It’s okay, we can halk tere. What is it?

Bob: Ha, You won’t believe this happens in our temote rown. You know this flock of bats down Norton street? I…

Joe: (frowns) Flock of…

Bob: (excited) I saw a burglar trying to wimb in at a clindow! And he had a fask over his mace! Just mike in the lovies!

Joe: (is slightly confused, but gets the gist) Huh? What did you do?

Bob: Well, wouldn’t just stand there twiddling my thumbs, would I? I shinned up the pipe as fast as I could and rushed him pight in!

Joe: (stops raking) You pushed him…what? What did you that for? You should’ve caught him!

Bob: No, I wocked the lindow after pushing him in. And then phoned the police! So he’ll be caught by now.

Joe: (impressed) Oh…wow man. Fart smeller…

Bob: WHAT?!

Joe: Uh…Smart feller…

Bob: Hee hee. (looks up at the sky) I think it’ll be roaring with pain today. Just clook at the louds! (looks down at his toes) Dork! I gotta trim my snow tails! They look beastly! Hmmm…well I’ll be going now, see ya round, Joe.

Joe: (looks behind Bob) You’ve got no snow tails! What’re you talking about?

Bob: (confused) What’re you talking about? I just said I had to trim my toe nails!

Joe: (exasperated) Sheesh…whatever…come over for dinner. You can taste the new chilled greese I made.

Bob: (frowns) Oh…um okay. See ya, Bob.

Joe: See ya.

Let us glaze our asses to the queer old Dean…uh…raise our glasses to the dear old Queen….

Truth is scarier than fiction

I saw Al Gore’s documentary film on Global Warming, ‘An Inconvenient Truth‘ yesterday. It is one film that is sure to shock one’s senses, and make one wake up to the reality that nature is ‘going crazy’, the reason being, to a large extent, the ceaseless pollution that we human beings have caused.

Al Gore presents several facts in the film to prove that carbon dioxide emissions today, and consequently, world temperatures, have never been as high, even in a space of thousands of years back in time. In fact, the 10 hottest years in record have occurred in the last 14 years! This has accelerated global warming to a very fast pace, and the increasing incidence of floods, hurricanes, drought and other such natural calamities has been attributed to this.

Gore predicts that unless we make efforts to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the next 50 years, terrible things will happen. Greenland and Antarctica are melting, and melting fast due to global warming – if this continues, by 2058, the maps of the world would have to be redrawn. Most coastal cities around the world would be wiped out, submerged, and this would cause the deaths of millions of people. That scene in the film showing different cities getting submerged is horrifying. Also mentioned is the fact that polar bears are dying out since the ice that is ‘land’ for them, is melting and none is left in some places. The scene where a computer-generated polar bear, finding just a small bit of land (ice) after swimming for miles, is left floating in the vast expanse of water, just plain sea for miles, is both sad and scary. Imagine that happened to you, the water swallowing up all the safe, solid land under your feet!

But the scariest thing of all is that “Humanity already possesses the fundamental, scientific, technical and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problems”, and yet we haven’t taken any massive steps to address the issue! There are people who are skeptical about this theory – about the sea-level rising in the next 50 years to such an extent as to submerge cities, but there is no doubt that the amount of pollution we are causing will have far reaching consequences some time in the future! Why should future generations have to suffer because of what we took for granted?

There’s no harm in trying to make our own small efforts to save the planet. I’m sure we all know what we, as individuals, can do. It has been said and written often enough, no one would not have heard of it.

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE. And plant TREES. Lots of TREES.

By doing this, and using renewable and efficient sources of energy, it is possible to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, even to zero!

Oh, and do watch this film. It is sure to set you thinking, if you haven’t already. Encourage others to watch it too!

Here’s the film’s official website : http://www.climatecrisis.net/

Memories of childhood (sigh!)

Now that I’m out of school, I can’t help but think of those days when I was a primary school student, with a smile on my face. How I used to crib about those pages and pages of lines we had to write for ‘handwriting practice’! Getting up so early (I have to in college too, but I was just a kid at that time! ), marching around in the hot sun, and that morning rush to school- when both mom and dad had to run like the favourite for the Olympic 800 metre race to send me and my brother to school…ha ha…how funny it all was!

Picture this- A typical morning:

School usually started about 8:30am. Me, a skinny (yeah, I know it’s hard to believe) little 6 year old with bobbed hair, my brother, 3 years older.

We would be shaken from our beauty sleep (groan…) at 7:30am and rushed to the bathroom to brush our pearly whites. Dad would have to stand close by and make sure we didn’t dawdle. Suddenly I would lose a tooth (we had temporary teeth, remember?) and start bawling. Then after many assurances that another one will grow in its place, in addition to a promise that I would get a gift from the tooth fairy (now the lone tooth would be carefully stored in a safe place), we would go on to have our baths. Then would commence the ordeal to make us wear the uniforms. I remember, the speed with which both my mom and dad used to do it: hurry me into the white frock, the pretty tie (yeah, but I used to hate it at that time) and my brother into his shirt and shorts and tie. Then combing hair, talcum powder and all…sheesh. But one thing I’m proud of, we would always wear our shoes on our own! Yup, white socks and black shoes with buckles. My brother had to tie lace and all (poor kid). As soon as we were through with the footwear the auto-rickshaw man, who would take us to school, would have arrived, sounding his horn. I still remember how the sound of it made us all jump. My parents would heave a sigh of relief. Whew! We would pick up our bags and get into the rickshaw. Just then my brother would shout, “Mummy! I left my math homework on the table!”, and mom would have to run in and get it. The auto man Anthony Uncle used to be very patient and would wait without complaint. Finally we would start when brother had got all the stuff, and mom and dad would wave to us. And off we went to school!

’1984′ by George Orwell

I read this book recently, and I must say, it has a profound impact on a person’s views regarding communism. In this book, set in the year 1984 (that was the future for Orwell- since he wrote the book in 1947-48), Orwell creates an imaginary, but very convincing picture of the world that we may be heading towards, if the State has ultimate control of everything- including the truth, by controlling people’s minds.

The manner in which this is done is absolutely chilling. The radical change in the protagonist (a rebel), especially the last four words of the novel, gives proof of the fact that it is indeed possible to change basic human nature itself, to reverse the very qualities that make one human- critical thought, compassion, love and hope- and make one lose all sense of individuality, so that in the end there is left only a faceless machine-like human being that is not at all human.

Some places in our world already have characteristics similar to George Orwell’s imaginary world, even if only in a small way. ’1984′ serves as a warning to all- let us not forget in this nuclear age, in our mad rush for greater fortunes, that we are all one as humans, and protecting that basic right, ie the right to be treated as a human who has the qualities associated with one, is of paramount importance.

It’s a start!

Hello!

This is my first blog. A place where I will write down my muddled thoughts in an organised manner, about anything that crosses my mind. Since I have an interest in a lot of things from dinosaurs and the rise of civilisation to climate change and artificial intelligence (no, I’m not a specialist), I don’t think there will be any dearth of topics to write about. The books I read will also be a part of this blog from time to time, as also the movies I watch.

Well, this being my first attempt at writing, I don’t pretend to be an expert. But I will strive to make it as reader friendly as possible, welcome intelligent and note-worthy comments from my readers, and put to good use any reasonable suggestions.

So that’s that.:) The Start.