LO PHIR BASANT AAE...

Basant

We have been brain washed into giving importance to Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Mother-in-Law’s Day etc. In the process we are beginning to loose the importance of our own festivals. Today being Basant Panchami, I decided to note down all that I know about this festival. I am sorry to say not much. Even the Wikipedia was of limited help.

Well, Basant Panchami is celebrated on the fifth day of Shukla Paksha of Magh month. So this year, the festival is being celebrated on 28 January 2012. This festival is a harbinger of spring. It is also said to be the birth day of Goddess Saraswati, the Goddess of Learning and speech. Yellow is the colour celeberated on Basant day- ladies wear yellow coloured clothes and yellow sweets are prepared.

In Panjab the common phrase used is ayee basant paala urrunt meaning that with the coming of Basant, cold disappears. In the Guru Granth Sahib, there are a total of 31 raga compositions and raga Vasant is the twenty-fifth to appear in the ragmala. The Ragmala calls Basant as a putra (son) of Hindol, which too is a spring raga.

This day is also special for kite lovers as kites are specially flown. What is the connection- I dont really know!

Please do add all that I have missed out on....

Castrate the offender

"A young girl from Manipur was raped in New Delhi four days back" ....News.

One hopes that the offender is caught at once and punished as per law.
In fact just imprisonment as punishment is not enough.

Why shouldnt such offenders be castrated? Let the Indian Penal Code be
suitably amended.

Lets forget about cricket (or outsource the team)

With the Tendulkars, Dravids and Laxmans proving that the ruthless process of aging does not spare any one, let us think of the alternatives.....Firstly we must thank these senior players for their past perormances and wish them happy retired lives.

Now to the alternatives....

When the Americans outsource their work to India, we feel that there is nothing wrong in outsourcing. So let us be consistent and outsource our cricket team, to, say the West Indies....

In fact as a first step, we should latch up the gracious offer of Chris Gayle to play in our team....

"Gram sabhas above Parliament"... Hazare

This man is really amazing... ...

Google doodle ... ...

I bet the Election Commission of India is going to find the elephants in today's Google doodle to be insufficiently covered ... ...

Greetings Telegram 19

When I was young, and it was a long, long time ago, one used to send greeting messages by telegrams. You do remember telegrams, dont you? There used to be a list of standard phrases for the greeting telegrams, each given a code or a number. For example the code for the message "A Happy New Year to You" was '4'. So instead of sending the message which consisted of 6 words one could send the same message by writing '4' as the message and specifying the category of telegram as 'Greetings'. This way one was charged only for one word, of course the words for the adressee and the sender being extra.

Comiing to today- the Republic Day, the standard message was "Sincere greetings for the Republic Day. Long live the Republic" and its code was '19'.

So may I say Greetings telegram-19 to you all!

PS....Though I have used the past tense in the narrative, I understand that this facility is still available accross tthe post offices in the country, albeit rearely used.

Gandhian Anna Hazare will give a slap on the face....

Dont you vote for a corrupt person, or else...

Or else, what?

'Gandhian' Anna Hazare will give you a slap on the face...

Poor postal services

Postal authorities would do well to improve the basic daak services rather than rely on advertisements on the TV...A letter posted in Shimla on 6.1.2012 (with the clear post and date mark) reached me in Panchkula today on 20th January....

Wake up...wake up Postal Department....

The Tribune - 130 & going strong...

The Tribune newspaper published from Chandigarh has foxed me....I have heard of 25 years, 50 years, 75 years and 100 years of an event/organisation being celeberated, but it is the first time that I have come across an organisation celeberating 130 years of its existence with so much fanfare!

What is so special about 130, if I may ask? Or is it just seeking some publicity?

Mr. Modi's fast

'Mr. Narendra Modi has gone on a one day fast at Godhra'...News

Which one of the following, in your view, describes it best:

(a) Sadbhavana fast
(b) Prayshchit fast
(c) Just a publicity stunt

Oprah Winfrey's visit

What an embarrassing brouhaha over Oprah Winfrey's visit...Come on, let us grow up...

Thumbs down

American soldiers urinating on the dead bodies of Afghans and Jeremy Clarkson on BBC programme on India, both show boorishness and lack of sensitivity to feelings of others...

Thumbs down to both...

Surat hosts seminar on rescuing injured birds...News

Surat hosts seminar on rescuing injured birds says a news item....

May be some day a seminar on rescuing human beings injured in communal clashes....

Dhoni may retire from Test cricket in 2013....News

Oh No...Dhoni ji, please.....

Why take the trouble.....after the 'dhunaee' and 'dhulaee' that you and your team have got from the Australians today, you all have earned a sacking....

Go and do 'Go-Carting' (sounds like Bo-kata in Pajnabi!) with your team....

Wake up Postal Department...

There was a time when I used to be a great admirer of the reach and efficiency of Indian postal services. No longer so. I have been noticing since the last one year that the Postal Deptt has really become slow and sluggish. A letter posted on 13.12.2011 (with the post office stamp and date) in New Delhi was received by me on 11.01.2012 at Panchkula.

Speed Post from Panchkula to Delhi is taking a week and an ordinary letter from Mumbai to Panchkula over a month.

Come on, wake up Postal Department....

A fascinating new medical discovery

A fascinating new study has found that just touching the cow can stabilise one's blood pressure. (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/bjps-cow-dung-gems-stops-csec-nradiation/897891/)

So soon all the medical practitioners would be keeping cows in their clinics. The patients of high blood preassure would be asked to just touch it and pronto the BP would get stabilized.

Nobel Prize in Pure Sciences for India?

An Organisation in Madhya Pradesh has come out with some amazing findings about the properties of cow dung and cow's urine (see http://www.indianexpress.com/news/bjps-cow-dung-gems-stops-csec-nradiation/897891/http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif)

One feels that India would have a chance of bagging a Nobel Prize in Pure Sciences on the strength of such research. In the meantime this Organsiation may do well to get its findings patented lest any foreign country may lay claim to these.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Busy, very busy!

Himachal Government is busy trying to handle the rising monkey population of the state. It was reported in the press yesterday that the govenment has just finalised sites for 21 monkey sterilisation centres.


How very busy!

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120105/himachal.htm

Ah our batsmen!

Model Poonam Pandey has come out with a really hard hitting one: "Indian batsmen are like faithful husbands, they perform only at home'!

Razaee.com

If the weather forecast in the 'Mail Today', Chandigarh is to be believed, the temperatures in the Tricity during the weekend would be (in celsius):

Date Max Min
7.1.2012 Saturday 15 1

8.1.2012 Sunday 18 3

9.1.2012 Monday 18 3

Grandmasters of the world beware, here come the Indian school kids....

There are initiatives which do deserve to be taken note of for their ingenuity....Taking a cue from Gujarat, Tamil Nadu government has decided to make chess compulsory in schools in 7-17 age group.

Aaj apna ho naho, pur kul hamara hai......


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/After-Guj-TN-makes-chess-compulsory-in-schools/articleshow/11357522.cmshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Over rated, over feted and over paid Indian cricket team

yesterday I talked about the bursting of a 'hot air baloon' in Gujarat.....

today another hot air baloon burst......the over rated, over feted and over paid Indian cricket team has been shown its place...

And one talks about awarding the 'Bharat Ratna' to a member of this team...

Aging is a very merciless process, Mr. Sachin Tendulkar....time you considered retiring from cricket...

Hot air baloon bursts in Gujarat- news

Today's 'The Hindu' has reported that a hot air baloon burst in Gujarat (Kutch).....

2 news items about the USA

There are two news items about the USA in today's newspapers:

(1) "US signals major cut in military aid to Pakistan" (The Tribune, Chandigarh), and

(2) "Two Americans thrashed (in India) for kissing women" (The Times of India, New Delhi)