Logic wins!

He cured me. A little boy of four or five.
Ask me how.


My daughter and I always argue about one habit of mine.  I do not bother to lock the door of our apartment every time I leave the house, as we live in a secure gated community.

"You didn't lock up after you? Scary!" - my daughter
"Why should I? No one's going to try and open that door." - me
"What if someone gets in, hides under the bed and attacks you?"
" No one thinks I am rich enough to risk that. Then there are the dogs."
"I don't believe you are doing this...

And on and on we argue till it turns into a quarrel.

Fast forward to last Monday. I had taken my dogs for a walk around the lake nearby. I entered the gate and had come to an open area near the swimming pool and children's play area, when three boys (7, 5 and 4 years old)came up to me on their bikes.
One of them said, "Do you know that your door is unlocked?"
I said, "Well, it is. Did you open it?"
He said, "Yes."
I said, "Did you close it?"
He said, "Yes."
I said," Thank you.But this is a secret. Don't tell anyone that I leave my door unlocked."

The five year old, Tuka, (nickname) started to yell.
LISTEN EVERYBODY! SHE LEAVES HER DOOR UNLOCKED!
He started moving around in his bike calling to groups of people and pointing to me, and said

"She leaves her door unlocked!" repeatedly. To cap it all, he cycled to the other end of the compound, called the security personnel and told them, "The lady from door no: xxx leaves her door unlocked."

Now, logically speaking, do I have an option ? I lock my door every single time I leave home.

The magic of being inspired

Who knows from when and from where we get inspiration?

Was reading about how Christmas is being portrayed in 'A Christmas Carol' by Dickens, along with a student.

So, it seems Dickens inspired a whole generation to embrace carol singing, family dinners and dances and the concept of sharing during Christmas.

Although i had read about Dickens socialist tendencies and his intent to educate the public, in college, it has taken me this many years of ageing to actually comprehend that a writer or a creative artist can wield so great an influence on the minds and actions of a society.

Children in the west are better off today, than their orphaned counter parts in other parts of the world. Dickens' conscious attempts to point out to the misery of the poor, can be viewed as a game changer in making the west a pioneer in social welfare.

No society is flawless. The capitalist west has, however, definitely a frame work to its credit, through which a poor child finds food, clothing and shelter.

How many others can make such claims? This question is not a challenge. I ask it because I don't know the answer and can only guess that not many have welfare solutions for the poor.
Getting back to the topic, Dickens! I feel so inspired by you.

No magic at all...

Soul sucking things that can happen to someone on an ordinary work day:

Friends plan for a day out : Lunch at a new place and movie afterwards, but someone cannot go because of obsession with work.

Then, someone goes to office thinking of all the fun her friends have.

Then the work to be done turns out to be dreary.

Then someone remembers that she might have to do something similarly boring late that night too.

Oh no....

Even this post turned out to be so dumb.

Just watched Bahubali the second.
The ultimate romance, made possible by a superb team, the director, story writer and editor, who stood behind and created the regal personas, Prabhas and Anushka.
The first half is all romantic, the chemistry between the lead pair keeping us all in awe of the happenings on screen. They pull it off easily, looking elegant, perfect and well built.

I loved the way their perfect lives unravel, gradually and logically to doom and death. The original couple, (even though it is the same actor) from the first film seem to pale in significance in the face of this magnificent duo.

What was silly were some of the stunt concepts, and what was a little unbelievable was the attribution of physics skills to Prabhas and his portrayal of the protagonist as a machine inventing labourer and a war machine inventing warrior.
Of course, since this is part two which is partly a flashback, we know that Bahubali is going to be killed just as his mother would be betrayed. This lends a certain tension to the most leisurely narrated romantic portions.
Loved it.
Well done.
The good people of the Tamil speaking world are rightly jealous that Bahubali happened in Andhra, and not in their own state.

Psycho logic and impotent curses

There is a character named 'Anniyan' from a Tamil movie of the same name. This guy is a psycho who becomes bestially strong.  He reads a supposedly authentic Sanskrit text and picks up a variety of cruel punishments for them.
(Not a very genuine idea, basically he's just like psychos in English films who give terrible punishments to those who offend them. But it was novel to the people from the Tamil speaking world, and to be fair to the director and main actor, a very well taken film.)

No there's an asura who is traipsing along in the gated community I live in. A mild rakshasa , who found that the route to quick fame (read cheap) was to become the protector of residents who fear dogs.
He has laid a number or 'rules' to torment dog owners and has instructed the security personnel to harrass any dog owner or beat up or throw stones at any stray dog to the best of their ability. The very dog- friendly society that we came to live in, quickly turned into something alien.

The recent achievement of this monster is to break the water pots kept outside the society for strays and birds.
So, if Anniyan came across this creature, how would he punish him? This picture is not that of the offending guy in our society, but represents him. TEEHEE!!

Now for the judgement : The anniyan inside me says, "May he get lost in a desert without water and suffer excruciating thirst for 24 hours."

Logic of life

What makes for a good life?
Plenty of activity and plenty of rest.
I think this is a very local point of view, because people in small towns arrange lots of activities, family based celebrations, outings and feasts. They also allot a lot of time for sleep and siesta.
But as I am on the threshold of my fifties, I can't but agree that this is definitely the healthiest way to live.
Whenever I was active all day and took plenty of rest as well, I lost weight without trying to. I actually ate my fill too, on such days and did no exercise.
The thing is, my introversion wants a lot of alone time, and lots of activity also includes interacting with loads of people which makes me feeling dissatisfied.
Secondly, this love of stories and writing ties one down to a chair in front of a laptop or a desk top.
Logically speaking,  I am not sure if I am a candidate for a good life.

Hey spammers!

was unable to blog and was shocked to find my blog taken over by spammers. And someone actually commented on it too.
Strangely...
Glad to be back and writing again.
Spammers ...who are you fooling by posting on my blog?