A Few Views and Generalisations for the Week

Well, another Sunday and some points of views and some generalisations to sum up the week that was. All gyan, which transmogrified into chan when it went to China and zen when it landed on Japanese shores.

Sarah wrote this comment on my post on Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer,"

This was my favorite book when I was 16. I understood that you needed to know all of the best spots to piss in Paris outdoors... even if you were becoming a lady and they were all knocked down and destroyed. The sound! who else would talk about how glorious it could sound to piss on aluminium. Man lived with all senses out, but, ah, sadly cannot read him in the same way any longer.

Thanks Sarah. Yeah, Miller did turn around the way novels were perceived. I am glad he got his due before his death though "Tropic of Cancer" was banned in the U.S. for many years.

I don't understand all this talk about if they want an airport to come up in New Bombay near where I live. Either have it with adequate protection of the environment or don't. Pray, why keep it hanging thus. Irony is there are two airports coming up near the places I have homes in: One is Belapur in New Bombay the other in Kidangannoor in Kerala where they are building an international airport near where I have a home. Double blessing or double trouble, I don't know. Let fate decide. One thing is certain a journey that took three days when I was a boy would take three hours five years down the line.

Call it progress or whatever, the traffic situation in Bombay isn't improving. The authorities took several taxis off the roads because of roadworthiness and mundane stuff like that, but traffic is still choking the hell out of the city. It takes too long to get from point A to point B. Last week when it rained I stood for half-an-hour in the rain for a taxi outside the bustling V.T. station. Imagine me with my Hush Puppy shoes full of water standing under a flimsy umbrella. Get the picture? Oh, forget it.

Ronnie returned from the market without bananas one night last week. He said the luscious fruit isn't anywhere in the market though he searched for it in every subzi-mandi (meaning, market) in Belapur. I hear that fruits and vegetables are rotting in villages in the interiors. What is callous if this isn't? Grain is rotting, fruits and vegetables are rotting and what's the honourable minister for agriculture doing? Playing the violin?

God please give me the serenity to accept this rain though I can't keep it from falling. It's been too hard and fast and furious. Such rain makes me think of apocalypse and I am not yet ready for that.

Rehearsed for the TEDxMEC talk in Cochin. The talk comes to a little more than 18 minutes which is their standard talk time. Will have to prune it.