Got the Winter Sniffles

The winter weather has got to me and I am sniffling and my mouth feels like it is stuffed with straw and the lips are dry and needs constant care. I had escaped the chills till now but the winter has got to me, a bit late though. So took the day off to relax at home, saw at least five movies back to back courtesy of Kuku who offered us a set-top box for free and a DTH connection at Rs 50 per month. The picture clarity is amazing, the reception clear, and to think that I was going to pay Rs 3000 for a set-top box. I will restrict this post to some things I have noticed during the day:

MTV Roadies latest episode is about the participants cleaning some dusty back of nowhere by picking up human execreta, yes, you read right, h-u-m-a-n e-x-c-r-e-t-a, and they were swearing at each other so badly after it that I had to switch channels. I know how humiliating it can be picking up another person’s excreta… yetch… I am retching. At least this should dissuade hopeful from dying to be in the reality show.

Saw a Maruti Swift car in the morning painted with Warli tribal paintings and it looked so out of the ordinary it pleased me greatly. I tried to photograph it for this blog but the driver overtook me and disappeared.

I had written a laborious “one letter” to Obama which I wanted to post here but it got deleted and I will have to do it again I guess. It’s a custom of mine: I write to every democratic president of the US after they are inaugurated. I did it when Carter was inaugurated and ditto when Clinton was inaugurated. I don’t want to break this tradition, so watch this space.

A bird is building a nest on the airconditioner of the flat opposite mine. I can see it but the residents of the building cannot and I marvel at their ingenuity, putting together twig after twig, and weaving them so artfully.

The cashier of a medical store in the locality said, “People give Rs 100 when all they have to pay is Rs 10,” rather sarcastically, as I pulled out a Rs 100 note to pay him. I didn’t want a fight at the end of the day so I pretended I hadn’t heard. Sometimes it is good to “walk away from trouble if you can” as Kenny Rogers sang in his song “The Gambler.”