Friday Babble

The internet medical sites have produced a group of self taught medical experts with little knowledge that is a dangerous thing for their spouses forced to bear the brunt of that faulty education creating a deep divide in society between the hypochondriacs and the others driven to near insanity by the well meant incomplete information.

American Political Football

Ya, ya, I know it is called soccer here. For the life of me, I do not know why. A game where the ball meets the foot just for a brief moment and stays ninety nine percent of the time in the hands of players, is called football? Then why the game where the ball is kicked around all the time by feet is not called handball? I am digressing. Not here to discuss about the origins of football, soccer or handball. 

Wednesday, sorry Write Anything Wednesday

It’s that day of the week again that I had signed up earlier, to “Write Anything”.As I said last week, I had written nothing and sometimes I had written something, but never anything. So last week I had to look for anything to write. I think I found anything at last. After looking far and wide, deep inside me and outside, I have finally decided on Anything. For next one year, starting February 3, 2016, every Wednesday, I will write a poem the first word of which will start with the letter “W”. Why? Oh, even why starts with a “W”. For the simple reason that Wednesday starts with the letter W, wonderful starts with the letter “W”, world starts with the letter “W”. Shall I go on with my ramblings? Even WordPress starts with the letter “W”. Is it a coincidence? I do not think so. I have the first word for the first and the last poem in mind but now I have to start my journey to look for the other fifty words starting with the “W” that I can write a poem with. I hope I am up to the challenge. One thing I can promise you, the poems may be wonderful, wise, wacky, whimsical or wicked but will not be boring. See, there is no “W” in boring.  I will try not to write anything political so that I don’t have to write about Dubya.  Oh, I am OK to write political because Dubya’s name does not start with a W.  Phew, that was a scare!

Enough of Anything for one Wednesday. Now it is time for me to wander in this wonderful wide world.

 

WRITERISH RAMBLINGS, Write Anything Wednesday,https://dailypost.wordpress.com/events/write-anything-wednesday/

” Write a poem on dogs…pleaseee!”

I had never written a poem to keep a request.  So when our blogmate nerdsakhi requested me in one of her comments to another of my poem ( I can’t speak up for myself, Will You?) to write a poem about dogs( “ Write a poem on dogs…pleaseee!“), I had to put my thinking cap on. When I start thinking, my writing does a vanishing trick.  I can not think and write. Ah, I know! I am not a great thinker. I just write. I write from my heart, with feelings and passion.  As you all well know, “when the heart is full, the words are few”.  My heart is full with love for my dog Skooby. We got him from the humane society when he was barely one year old, just a week away from being euthanized.  That’s another story for another rainy day.  Yes, it is raining here today, so I can not go out for my walk with Skooby. He is sleeping peacefully by my side, quite oblivious to what his crazy human is doing.  Writing this poem was a labor of love for me but every line I was writing filled my heart with a deep pain. I do not know what a dog thinks but I do not think any dog will like to be a stray.  Stories of inhumane treatment to any animals are painful to me.  So writing this poem was not easy. I hope the poem ( Tragedy of a Stray: Why can’t I have my own Human) will be able to make you think and act, if you can, about adopting a dog ( or for that matter any animal you love) from animal shelters or humane societies before they are euthanized instead of buying from the puppy mills.

Money

I was waiting for assignment 5 for Blogging 101 to arrive and then I suddenly realized, if Time is money, I am wasting my money.  I became sad and depressed.  A small voice inside me started chirping.  Must be the effect of wasting all those minutes looking at the beautiful blog post of the visiting birds by our fellow bloggmate, Randall Krzak.  The small voice was saying, time is money but money can’t buy you happiness.  Yes, happiness.  Immediately I became happy again.  Then I became thinking about money again.  What is about money that makes us slave to it?  I think money is the lubricant that keeps our life moving smoothly.  Like an automobile to run smoothly, we need oil (lubricant).  Without that the car engine will break down midway through the drive.  But where is the oil?  Out of sight and out of mind.  Most essential but not being flaunted outside.  Oil does not make the auto look beautiful.  There are many other components that must mesh well to produce the beauty that is a eye candy to behold and becomes the ultimate driving machine.  In life also, we need money to keep running our life smoothly.  But it can not be everything. We need other things in life to make us happy, including spending time with our bloggmates in cyberspace sometimes.

That does not mean winning the record powerball lotto on Saturday will not make me happy, the thought of winning itself is making me salivate.  If I win I will hire somebody to type for me.

I can’t speak up for myself, will YOU

In the dead of night

Came death

Came silently

But finished the work

With loud bangs

Took my mother

Away from me

She tried to save me

With all her might

She fought

But was no match

For their weapons

Her only weapon

Of defense

Mercilessly they cut

From her still warm body

What good it is for them

Mercy

They did not leave me alone

Before they left

The scene of

Their heinous crime

I was finished off

With a loud sound

We were peaceful

Docile

Just wanted to roam

In a little corner of the world

We called home

Their greed

Left us dead and mutilated

Now

I can’t speak up for myself

Will YOU?

Note:  All photos of dead rhinos from the

post http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2896446/Second-one-horned-rhino-space-month-butchered-poachers-Indian-national-park.html

Blogging 101: Today’s Assignment

Assignment 2: Title and Tag line

The assignment looked very simple.  I thought I will breeze through it.  Little did I know, after leaving my homework days so deep in my past, that I would spend next few hours trying to perfect my tag line. I am happy that I was happy with my title, otherwise who knows how many more hours I would have spent trying to “perfect” my “title”.  Looking at the blog posts from my fellow blogmates ( can I copyright “blogmates”), I am sure that I would have spent several more hours.  But what a wonderful few hours those were.  So many friends in the cloud came up with valuable suggestions.  I also got the inspiration for a poem (Strange World of Internet) that I posted in my blog.  Learning, having fun, meeting new friends, albeit virtually, what more can any one ask for.  Now back to the real world till next assignment. So far so good.

Strange World of Internet

Pressed for time

Days pass by

We don’t talk

We don’t call

All the time

Our fingers fly

They now do

All the talking

Eyes fixed on

The screen upfront

We make friends

All over the world

Anonymous

Hidden in the cloud

Our circle grows

Thrive for Likes

Wait for comments

With bated breath

Words of encouragement

Make our day

We pour our hearts

To unseen friends

Parallel universe we live in

Existence defined by

User names and tag lines

What we post

On our screens

One day fingers

Will be tired

Our posts will

Become infrequent

Till they fall silent

Our unseen friends

Will wonder

Traffic will diminish

Then stop

On screen identity

Still alive

But we are gone

What a strange

World of Internet

We live in

Getting Out of Our Comfort Zones

What are we afraid of normally?  In life, many a time we take one step forward and two steps backward.  What pulls us back?  What is our hesitation to embrace the unknown?  We will like to ask something but words will fail us.  We will like to write something but the pen will not move ( or our fingers will froze on the keyboard or touch screen).  Is it our fear of failure or fear of rejection?  In this journey of life, there is only one absolute truth.  Once we are born, one day all of us will have to leave.  Beyond that is unknown.  So what are we afraid of?  Why not to live in the moment and enjoy this journey of life to the fullest?  Why to be chained or constrained?  Caterpillars go into the cocoons, get liquefied and comes out as beautiful butterflies.  It seems that we go into the cocoons of our comfort zones, get comfortable and refuse to come out.  Like pigs, comfortable in their pigsties wallowing in the mud, we get comfortable in our comfort zones, however miserable those zones may be, and refuse to come out.

If we fail, so what?  At least we have tried.  If we are rejected, so what?  At least we have asked.

Hope in this new year, all of us who are afraid to fly will come out of our comfort zones and soar high.

Christmas Musing

Christmas Musing

It was a bright, beautiful, cool, sunny Christmas morning in my hometown.  In essence, it was a gorgeous day.  My inbox and social media, whatever little I use of it, was full with Christmas, Holiday and early New Year’s greetings.  Made me think.

I am not a Christian nor any member of my immediate family is Christian, so none of us practice the religious side of Christmas but I think many of us take part in some way in the festive side. But among my family members, I did not see any hesitation from any corner in wishing Merry Christmas (or the secular greeting of Happy Holidays in some case) to each other.  I have seen many of my friends wishing  Eid Mubarak or Happy Hanukkah or Happy Diwali to my Muslim or Jewish or Hindu friends and I do it regularly myself without thinking anything about it. But I will be hard pressed to find one single occasion when I may have greeted any of my family members with Eid Mubarak or Happy Hanukkah greetings.  Though I do not have any data to prove it, I do not think I will be amiss if that’s the case with my friend circle also.  So what makes it easy to greet non Christians with Merry Christmas in the season?  Is it that rampant commercialization ( and Santa Claus ) has made Christmas, at least the festive part of it, more secular and acceptable to people of other faith.  If that is so, more strength to commercialization.

I do hope that a day will come when all of us will be able to greet any of us, irrespective of our religious affiliation, with the religious greeting of the season without feeling out of place ( or shall I say out of religion).  Till that day comes, peace be upon all of us.  Live and let live ( in peace).