Back to School

"Leave me alone".

The voice felt stronger in the deep silence that followed. It created ripples and echoed from the walls before it vanished into the streets behind the windows.

I stood there red-faced. Where did that come from?

I am not reading the magazines where Britney, Angelina, Tom or a possible soul of princess Diana screaming that there are more important issues in this world than their private life.

Also not watching a movie where the heroine is angry at her boyfriend for being late (usually it is the other way around, but fearing opposition I am making a small change in the script) or not remembering (right on target and it happens all the time, I admit) her birthday.

Can't be from the workplace where that stressed coworker is pleading others to concentrate more on their work and family than attendance and salary details of others.

Certainly not from the outside world, where millions of issues with possible simple solutions are getting complicated day by day, as I am standing inside my apartment, a world where I have created rules to avoid chaos. Rules I am comfortable with.

It came from a fourty month old little girl. Who did not know a piece of English ten months back. Who failed to talk a full sentence twenty months back. Who couldn't walk on her own thirty months back. And who was not even in this world another ten more months before. My daughter.

Waking up from the shock, I asked: "Why?". I was only telling her that she was putting the wrong leg on the right shoe.

Starting with a "because" she learned recently, she told, with all the innocence in this world, that it is the wrong shoe on the right leg.

The shock gave way to a smile. Of the three important women in my life, mother, wife and daughter, she teaches me most lessons these days.

I looked at her shoes again. To see whether I could get into those. And realized with regret that I would not.

101 Effective ways of using a Treadmill

Getting rid of the reservation manthra that is going on, I sat to give a thought to my health. (After all I was happy that left front was going in favour of applying the creamy layer and giving reservation to economically backward in the forward castes).

It is not that there is some serious problem. A bit of cholestrol, low pressure, overweight, a nice tummy to compete with Lord Venkateswara, constant back pain in the lower back. My doctor still told me that I am perfect and does not want to see me in the next 6 months. But a little exercise will help including a bit of control on the diet. Diet control is not a new thing. I have tried it many times and, of course, failed miserably. Control on meat and egg can be naturally taken care of, thanks to a vegetarian wife. Ice cream can be avoided if I start eating it in front of my little daughter. Nuts I won't get to eat as my wife does that job while I drive. Not many burgers or potato fries as I bring food from home. One pound of fried rice and some curry with a banana to top it. So diet control is not a problem.

What to do for exercise? After coming in US, I am forced to walk to catch the bus/train. In the evening, I have to walk again to get my kid from the preschool. That is not enough. Whom to ask? Google is my best buddy these days and after a good research and one or two phone calls to some of my friends, I decided to buy a treadmill. Treadmill doctors available on the net made me crazy and I got confused on how much to spend on it. So I asked my friends about the price they had spent. One of them told me that he thought that he would not be using it and instead decided to join a nearby gym. In the last 6 months he had been there 4 times. Well done!

I asked friend A that on an average how often he uses it in a week. He said that he had kept the treadmill in the basement so that he won't get to see it quite often. He advised that foldable treadmills can save space in the basement.

Friend B and family was innovative. They were happy to get a place to hang their clothes.

An advertisement of a gym on the subway car showed the master allowing his dog to use the treadmill while he was watching TV with a brown bag full of popcorn next to him. I was inspired.

So today I sat to watch a movie, of course with the happiness of saving some money on the gym and treadmill. There was a change in the scene. Just to escape from copyright acts, I had replaced the popcorn bag with a glass of wine.

PS: I am planning to write a book on 101 effective ways of using a treadmill. Your comments are appreciated.

Heads or Tails

As expected, as the right front had fared in the past election and expected to do in the next with fair probability, left has swept to power in God's own country. Congratulations to all Keralites and wish you (including me) all better luck this time.

Every five years, we try our luck with the toss of a coin perfectly knowing on which face it is going to land. We get bored even before the five years and that will reflect in elections other than to the assembly seats. Unfortunately or fortunately, the coin has only two sides which will leave us with only two choices. So what happened to the coin which Jai tosses in the movie "SHOLAY"? That was recovered in West Bengal!

A search in google told me this: Studies have proved that coin tossing is inherently biased: A coin is more likely to land on the same face it started out on.