Week day Musings....!

All days have 24 hours, but holidays have only twelve hours, no? Perhaps, not. But to a usual working guy, it would seem to be. The morning itself opens up at nine o' clock and matures to be noon after the holy mass in a matter of two hours. After lunch, if you have friends, you lose your after noon nap and the evening dinner is soon to be at seven and then you have to be ready for the Monday morning..!

Monday mornings will hurt you only until you have started the day in office and had the first cup of tea. Once on the high way of the week, you do not remember which day it is, but go by the dates and programs. All days alike the news paper is a big solace in the morning! Once it is day break, there the over zealous little boys comes running with the paper and at the thud of the paper at the door one feels like getting up. At times the boys have to absent, getting up gets difficult. More difficult are the morning ablutions for want of the paper.

Once the paper in hand, one has all the interest in life and proceeds to the bathroom for ablutions. During the ablutions, the mind if busy noting the happenings of the day before and the statements oand arguments various leaders made and the criticisms offered by matching opposite thinking people. Mind becomes full of criticisms and other ways how things would have been done in a better way. A few decisions are taken to send a letter to the editor, to form a new political party, to join an existing one, to begin with a new start up and giving life a new try different from the one which one is used to so far.

After a clean shave and bath all those things are sent away with the bath water and a clean fellow comes out ready to take the day's burden extactly as it was being done so far and preparing the neck to carry for burden like an obedient bullock under the yoke. On the break fast table, one more last look at the day's paper gives a feeling of goodness and one feels like taking to the advertisements for various items offered.

The paper starts with the new android phones with its various facilities offered including the camera in front and at the back, the various applications available on it and its detailed specifications which normally one do not understand. The words, qualcom, snapdragon and octa-core etc. flow like water and the only thing I have heard is the chinese dragon. The words I could not understand are big enough for me to lift and I think the more troublesome the word, it may have something great in it. Quick recharging and huge number of MP in its cameras and all head start to turn which make me drag to the next advertisement about all the gold in the world. Since South India is the new E;-Dorado, all the gold in the world is here, so it would seem from the advertisements. People advertise all types of gold ornaments and challenge us to buy them if we are the greatest, which we would always presume to think. Even if we did not think ourselves as the kings, at least one can think of being a rich land owner for the matter of buying all sorts of gold offered.

When it comes to the Gold Supermarkets, we pass on to the auto motive advertisements which has been told to be the hark and hit of the times. An automotive jumps through a wall and claims to be the greatest with mettle and muscle! Another one says it has owned all the roads, yet another challenge one to make roads where there isn't any! Once your eyes are fixed on one of them, below there are small letters saying a few accounts as of cc..s, torque, Nm meaning Newtonmeter and what not. The head now really starts turning. If it is an old car, the company will put up the advertisement stating their new version with some 'FREE' stuffs like a Fog Lamp, or 'Shining Glitter on the Wiper Blade, a small steel bit some where else or yet again, a new feeling in the seats or a little LED light on the mirror etc. Which normally do not make any difference to the contraption which has to pull you! But then, they have to sell their wares. The old town cryers are not there to drup up and tell the public that such and such stuff are being offered.

That is time about to go to office, and I have to throw out the paper to the near by old paper stack and I am leaving for office. See you. That is it for today...!

The bi-cycle 'Bike'

The Bike called 'the bicycle'

No body speeks of bicycles these days. But it was not so thirty - forty years ago. This was when the Maruti cars were not born and the roads were ruled by the Ambassador cars and Fiats.

In the old time Delhi (exactly the New Delhi of 1976), a friend of mine told me he used to go to his college and other places on his bike and when I demanded to see it, he took me to an old bicycle (which my friends in Kerala used to call a piece of thorn hedge). I was not surprised, though it was half joke and half simple vanity of intelligent folk. This was the order of the day among the simple people, who worked either in a government office or a factory or private office where the take home salary was meager and ends were to be met and children were satisfied with what ever was available.

The bicycle had appeared in the market as a new invention far back but the buying capacity was meagre and even if one had the capacity, one had to be careful of the caste and social positions before one attempted this extreme event. Since New Delhi was a newly built cosmopolitan city where very many people from all States assembled, the caste stuff was not much in prevalence and hence, one could easily buy a desired transport, which was the bicycle. The other modes available were the 'tanga', the famous horse cart, a horse itself, if one could ride, the bullock cart, and of course the super rich could possess a motor car and the motor cycle. Other wise, buses were the convenient mode of transport which people embraced with great zest.

But the bicycle became the heart throb of many and one felt elated to be with one and possess one. In that respect, my friend youngster was right and I was thrilled by his expression of the 'bike'. That time New Delhi (not Old Delhi-which is a city apart from New Delhi even though both the cities are side by side places complimenting each other) was a place of peace and tranquility, a well laid out city with different sectors with its own housing units and parks and places of worship. From sector to sector one had to walk a few kilometres and a bicycle was a really helpful equipment then. Each sector had a sector market. Different sector markets had different shops which specialised in some item or the other and when one needed to to vsit such special shops is the need of the bike.

My young friends bike is a rusty bicycle with a stick for a pedal on one side and at the other a full pedal where the rubber supports were loose and hanging making a sound every time one pushed down the pedal. Somehow the guy used it with great expertise and took advantage of possession of the same. I had seen that kind of a bicycle with my uncle in Kerala who also used to use it with great love and affection. He had corns in his feet and walking was difficult for him. Hence, the use of the hedge was really a boon for him.

He used to come to see me every time I came down to Kerala from Delhi. Kerala soil had lot of little sharp stones in it making walking bare foot difficult for those who did so. This was interspersed with a few sharp thorns too which was available from the bamboos on the side hedges of the roads and by lanes in those days.