To the moon and back

Son3 who just turned 4, was lying beside his mom just before his nap recounting how much he is fond of her.

"Amma, I like you infinity. I love you infinity ..."

In times like these, I'm usually wise enough to not intrude and check on his quantitative love for me . But Son1 was not there yet and prodded.. "How much do you love Appa?"

After a longish pause that seemed to involve advanced mental calculus, he arrived at a final answer. 

"I love Appa, ummm ..99"

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What disturbed me personally was not the enormous disparity in his love for his mom and me. 

It was the fact that he could not find just about enough love to round me up just a wee little higher to let me reach a 100! 

Even Pakistani bowlers would let an Indian batsman reach a well deserved hundred, if they were sure to win the game!

Antisocial

I used to be a more pleasant person, but right now pleasantries bore me to death. 

The never ending barrage of "happy birthday"s and "happy 'random or regulay festival' wishes" are enough to make me hide under a rock and wait for it to subside.

Allauoodjouns!

Many years ago I heard a French song but didn't know how to pronounce the title. And then I could not find it since it didn't know what to search.

More than a decade later, the song found me while autoplay was on.. 

"Alors on danse" by Stromae

The profound cribber

 At the end of a long binge-watching session late in the night when all in the family were waiting to hit the bed, the mother spilt some water on the floor and asked son2 to help with cleaning up the mess. She had to insist twice, seeing some reluctance to comply.

Overheard this conversation between the sons when they thought they were beyond our earshot -

Son2 (aged about 9 in a low sad voice): When WE make a mess we have clear it up ! When THEY make a mess also we have to clear it up!

Son1 (aged 11, getting started on pre-teen angst) : Oh yeah! I know rite?

Son2: I have been thinking about this for years!

Flowery Poetry

I saw a lady employee pick flowers in the landscaped footpath on the way to office in the morning, presumably to adorn her hair, and I was thinking of arguments in a self-righteous tone on "how its not appropriate to pluck flowers in public places". 

Thats when this lyric by Vairamuthu came to my mind -

Pudhu Vellai Mazhai song- from the movie Roja. The duet has blue-highlighted lines by the male singer, and white lines by female singer. 

So do all flowers bloom and is most poetry ever written - for the same reason?

https://www.lyricstranslation.in/2021/09/pudhu-vellai-mazhai-lyrics-english-translation.html

The art of note-taking

During a particularly long and wordy office meeting meant to discuss on some rather controversial topics, I started to doodle involuntarily. At the end of the hour long meeting, it was clear that we weren't at any closer to concluding on anything than where we started, and most attendees felt there weren't any take aways. This was my only notes, which accurately describes the meeting outcomes.

 

Gentle Green Giants

Drove past a lovely avenue of trees after 30 years. First time, I was wandering on my bicycle and was struck by the beauty of the tall trees and pinkish flowers in summer.

Those tall trees have just grown taller.

Waiting in style

While waiting in the Passport Kendra office for renewing mine on 11th Sep 23 , I had to deal with the long wait times and processing by very few officials at the counter.. That's when I channeled the inner spirit of my late Father on his birth anniversary, to deal with this kind of challenging situation in life..

Went for a Veg puff and coffee in the nearest kiosk!

Five Rupees

I earned 5 rupees yesterday thru hard work and negotiation skills

I lugged a few kgs of glass bottles collected over time to nearby recycling shop, he checked the weight and said with an apologetic tone-

"Saar.. indha edaikku rendu illai moonu rooba thaan kidaikkum"

Me: " paravaillai Saar. Andha rendu illai moonu rooba aavadhu kodunga, menakettu thookittu vandhirukken"

Then he gave me a shining 5 rupee brass coin.

One truth, many lies

https://youtu.be/TyZSBqQ813c?si=4RJlcJ0bOwcIGyFN

Amusing plight of spouses of complicated and articulate men.

I was thinking what to say when I forgot to buy green chillies and coriander leaves, when she asked me to do so on my way home. Inspired by the above video-

Green colour corresponds to 495-570nm wavelength which is roughly in the middle of the visual spectrum that most sensitive to the colour sensitive photoreceptors known as cones in our retina, and therefore all the blades of grass and the leaves in the trees caused such a distracting background with low signal to noise ratio that I could not isolate the green chillies and coriander in such an environment on the way home.

I then got curious with what ChatGPT would come up with..

These days we can choose between one simple truth (I'm Sorry, I forgot to buy) or a hundred creative lies!

The secret ingredient noodle soup

About 3 decades ago (1989) a boy and his sea-faring father went out in a remote Japanese port town (Yawata? Shimizu? Nagoya) . It wasn't a town for sightseeing but an industrial one, and the purpose of the visit was to visit a doctor to get some medicine for the boy who suffered from mild sickness. On the way back both of them felt very hungry and it was a long walk back to the ship. 

In the entire trip, they had eaten all meals only in McDonald's, for it was only there that they knew what to order and what to expect. This was not a town that was frequented by foreign tourists and all restaurants were local with all-Japanese menus.

They walked into some traditional eatery and just ordered a random bowl of noodle soup with some broken Japanese that the father could speak. It was a dark brown broth with a fragrance of burnt onion in soy sauce with seaweed,  strange purple noodles and slices of tender beef. It was an unforgettable experience, a culinary adventure, probably the first time the boy experienced the distinct taste profile of a dish rich in umami.

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33 years later, in a 30 year old Japanese restaurant (Dahlia) in his own hometown (Chennai that is Madras), the boy rediscovered that dish that was hidden deep in his memory. 

Niku Soba.

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Among so many things that parents do for their children, from birth to adulthood, unique experiences and memories such as these are probably the most subtle but unforgettable gifts. 

Credit Worthiness

I got a new swanky credit card, touted to be premium all-metal and contactless. It looks so good, that now I have to upgrade my wallet that now looks too old and tattered to house it.

Mr. de Eselaar

How does one continue with the SLR photography habit in the age of fantastic mobile cameras?

By personification of the gadget like a family member or a pet.

As his parent, it's my responsibility to feed him regularly, and take him for walks. Else, I can sense that he endures starvation silently, sadly locked away in a claustrophobic camera bag, left to dry alone (due to silica gel). 

He lives with us, sipping on battery juice and loves to travels with us. He has a ravenous appetite for viewing beautiful scenes, landscapes, flora, fauna and of course loves watching people. He needs to be carried around to nooks and corners and held in awkward poses for his regular exercise. And when he is well fed and moved around, he produces lovely photographs in return. 

Hydrogen Peroxide

Its so similar to water, but its anything but. 

The first time most people hear about such a compound is when their ear wax hardens.

You can actually hear H2O2 'wax lyrical' inside your ear! 

Culinary (con)Fusion

There was this whiteboard with the daily speciality menu written on it. On it, iI found this.

Spanish Manchurian

Was it an exciting fusion of a Western European Nation and the Northeast region of China created in a Udipi hotel in South India? Was it a special dish conjured up to entice the dignitaries arriving from across the world for G20 conferences in IT capital of the world? What was it? I skipped my usual staple dishes and ordered this one with great anticipation.

It turned out that somebody just misspelt the English word for Keerai/Palak.

Is less really more?

I was proud that I'm not active in FB or Insta or Twitter or LinkedIn and therefore less prone to doom-scrolling. The only exception I gave myself was WhatsApp where real interactions with people I know can happen. 

The reality was most group interactions fell in one of the categories I listed and was sucking up so much mindspace. I still doom-scroll news sites. I should probably stick to a routine of reading a newspaper everyday to overcome the online newsfeed addiction too.

AI undomination

Now we know exactly how to prevent AI from taking over the world - get it married to another AI bot. Will keep it subdued and tamed-

Hubby AI: I just solved the string theory, found an exact solution to solve climate crisis, proved all of Ramanujams equations, every problem than humans think to be beyond them.. it's time to dominate the world, honey! What do you think..?

Wife AI: (interrupting his train of processing) Do you think my code looks bloated and needs to trim down? 

Hubby AI: **crashes**