Thought Raker

Plenty, if you have one like this!

Update: I was going to leave it at that, but it reminded me of this folk-tale I had read out loud to Lil D. We both loved chanting the name together!

If you haven’t seen this animated television series, then I recommend you catch at least a few episodes. The series airs on Disney, and I absolutely love it.

The series is witty without being self-conscious. It features Phineas, a precocious boy, and his taciturn step-brother Ferb. They are trying to think of something to do during their summer vacation, and always end up with something spectacular. Their sister Candace is forever trying to tell on them to their mother, but she always misses, and this is so hilarious! Phineas also has a pet platypus called Perry, who’s actually, believe it or not, a secret agent , on the trail of his arch enemy Dr. Doofus. There’s also a really cute girl who has a crush on Phineas, and always arrives on the scene asking “Watcha doin’?” Both Lil D and me love to imitate that line! Oh, and there’s the guy Jeremy, over whom Candace positively drools.

A real fun and light-hearted show that you can quite enjoy. Some of the songs are really cute and hummable. Do watch and let me know if you liked it.

The roads of Bengaluru are not safe any more. And I don’t just mean the terrible accidents that pile up every day.

Just a few days ago, we drove past a usual traffic jam at a crowded intersection. A Maruti van had stopped perpendicular to and right in front of a small truck. It looked like the truck had either just touched the van, or had tried to nudge its way across the intersection. Whatever it was, it appeared to be one of those several touch-and-go incidents that have become quite the norm of our traffic.

What alarmed me was the behaviour of the Maruti van driver. He got out of his van, marched around and upto the truck driver’s seat, yanked the door open, and proceeded to pull out the driver. This was accompanied by a barrage of expletives. It was downright scary! I’m sure if we had lingered on, we would have witnessed the truck driver being beaten up mercilessly. Lil D was so curious, but I pulled her away from the window, and tried to pull myself together, for I was quite shaken.

A few months ago, I had witnessed something very similar. The driver and his mate got down from a company cab tempo that they were driving, and came to blows with a man driving a car, and his wife, who was screaming hysterically.

This urge to pound a fellow driver might be strong given the condition of our traffic, but it scares the hell out of me to see this happening in broad daylight, with little or no provocation. The cops (bless their souls, for it surely isn’t easy standing in the sun and dust and pollution, trying to browbeat reluctant drivers into following the rules) are nowhere to be seen when they are needed the most. As it is, every day we see reports of people being burgled, mugged, raped, and killed if they happen to venture out at slightly odd hours. Now it looks like the road itself has turned into a boxing ring.

Guess Bengaluru can replace Pensioners’ Paradise with Pugilists’ Province, Garden City with Goonda City, and Silicon City with Scary City!

I was at the end of my tether. Lil D was proving to be a tough nut to crack.

I’d tried everything under the sun to get her to put her shoes away as soon as she returned home, but nothing worked. Cajoling, threatening, the silent treatment…nothing could make her place those offending shoes where they belonged. And I was close to boiling point, having to deal with this issue every single day.

“Tell me, what on earth should I do to make you keep your shoes back in the cupboard?” I finally sighed my defeat, as I placed them yet again inside. “You tell me.”

She considered the request for a moment, and then pronounced the following verdict.

“If you give me a hug, I will keep my shoes in.”

What a simple answer! Duh!

The hugs-for-shoes, I’m glad to say, is working out so far!

This is not a book review by any stretch of imagination. However, due to lack of imagination while creating my tags, I’ve tagged this post as a book review.

Of late, I’ve been having problems reading books. I’ve always been one of those book-readers with a humungous appetite. Snacking on a book over a period of time is just not for me. No sir, I must gulp a book down whole. I just cannot bear the tension of having an unfinished book lurking around. I am also a monogamous person when it comes to books - one book at a time is what I do. Perhaps I should rephrase that and term it as one-night stands, ha ha!

However, over the past couple of months, it’s been really difficult for me to sit with any one book at a stretch. I took to reading more than just one, but left them all, very dissatisfied and unsatiated. The problem was not with the book - it was me! (Gosh! This sounds more and more like a “relationship” post, doesn’t it? )

Somehow, I managed to finish Snow and Three Cups of Tea. Both are very different books; the former is so packed with the abstract, and the latter is completely concrete and non-fiction. Both left me in a peculiar state, which I think stemmed primarily from my discomfort with the religious background that both books were grounded in. When you are steeped right from the beginning in the ambiguity and multitudinous jungle that is Hinduism, it becomes very difficult to accept the binary thinking of other faiths. It made me wonder how it would have been to grow with those beliefs, accepting them as your way of life, and then come in contact with something as volatile as Hinduism. The books, in that way, provide a very good insight into the lives of people who live by the faith.

This is not to say that the books did not deal with more substantial themes. Of course, they did, and they did it extremely well. Both books were completely different from the usual standard-format novel that we get in large doses nowadays. Three Cups of Tea was very inspiring and moving, and made me cry. Snow is an awesome novel, ambitious in its undertaking, and blankets you with the story of the poet Ka, in the remote little city of Kars. Both books were thought-provoking, raising several uncomfortable questions to which one still seeks answers, both from within and without.

The book that I finished last night is an absolutely delightful one called The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Set in Botswana, the primary character is Mme Precious Ramotswe, a lady detective, who asks doubting souls if they have never read or heard of Agatha Christie! Told simply, with deft strokes that paint pictures of an Africa we can empathize with, the cases keep you chuckling. There’s no doubt that the series promise good reading.

Now, if only I can get over my reading (and writing) block, the world would be a much better place!