Hey riddle diddle

What nonsense! "No, it makes sense, I am seriously searching nonsense."

The authors of The Tenth Rasa - An Anthology of Indian Nonsense probably had this conversation N-times as they travelled across India to collect its multi-hued nonsense. But what fun! And everyone is accomplice, from Tagore to Vaikom Basheer to Gulzar to Tenali Ramalinga who leaves me in splits with his Meka tokaa? meka toka meka (Goat ta-tail go-goat goat tail).
Naturally we all love the foodie ones best:
Idli-Pom
Idli lost its fiddli
Dosa lost its crown
Wada lost its wiolin
And let the whol band down,

Explained
Idiyappam keeps yapping
Puttu plays golf
Uthappam's my girlfriend
Mutthu's real name is Rolf.

Frankie
I love Frankie, you love Frankie
Obviously, there is some hanky-panky.
Frankie's not a little boy
who lives down the lane.
He's a fat and juicy roll
with a kebab for a brain.

Then there is the bathing hymn:
Sounds just like my mum on a sunday morning
Om havum bathum namaha
On the body applyum oilum namaha
Scrubscrubum namaha rubrubum namaha

This like me
Glugglugum namaha blugblugum namaha

And this like my brother
Om niceum cleanum namaha
Bring out sum snacksum namaha!

The book is a soofer treasure. It has nonsense picked from hindi cinema (wait, that doesnt make any sense), urdu poetry, folk tales and rhymes. Then there are the absolutely hilarious takes on Ramaswamys and a take on the tamil "marma naavals". I am not upto any semiotics at the moment, but for more details, here and there.

haia, haha, heengheengheeng,
none of these mean anything.

The fringe benefits of failure, and the importance of imagination
- Joanna Keane Rowling's address to Harvard graduates.

I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters. - read more.

Whirligigs by Paul Fleischman

A simple, slim, poignant, heart-warming, high-school story. Whirligigs meanders self-discovery pretty well, except for one part on a street sweeper, which seems unconvincing enough. As the book evolves and comes to a fitting end, I made up my mind to pass the book on as Brent, the hero, does with the exchange bookshelf (not so easy for me, gifted by a favourite cousin) to someone who needs it.

In the true spirit of whirligigs, which passes a smile onto someone. A warm read.

PDF converter
For people like me at the laggard end of Roger's bell curve, this PDF converter, must save a lot of time battling to make documents. Thanks to Madhu.

Short Story

And Madhulika Liddle's 'A suitor for Saraswati' is a delightful light read. Also by her 'The Morning Swim'.

I am not a Pink, but I like this Red

I have not discovered my political thought yet. I do work for a Left-inclined magazine but cant even be called a Pink. Why such a disclaimer? Because in post-lib India, I dont want to be defending anything to a high-end mnc/techie pal.

I just like some and then dont like many in a quaint way. My thoughts change depending on my mood to Vandana Shiva, calvin and hobbes, street food, SEWA, M17 bus, Tehelka, kalamkari paintings, Wikipedia, detesting chennai autowallahs, Pudiyador, udipi sambar, BBC, early morning marina visits, BSNL, bhavra mann, Khadi bhavans, rip van winkl-esque sleeping to Suzlon.

Though not in that pedestal, I also like Rossana Rossanda's 'Comrade from Milan', some wonderfully penned memories of war time and how it felt to be 15 and 21 in 1939 and 1945. Some of her other writings like this and that, have impressive co-authors. I love this piece sent by Mekhala ages ago. Some day if I visit Italy and she is still alive, I want to look her up.

On a lighter note

Red Signal:
Stuck in a train reading a heavy tome on globalisation for eight hours....it isnt exactly Asok Bhattacharya's preferred mode of travel. But the CPI(M) leader was forced a taste of his party's own medicine in a bandh-derailed train. Feel good article.

What's showing in your city today?
Google lists with a simple enter key all the flicks playing in your city. Aint this cool?? (Oh well, maybe I am just discovering it late.)

State of fear

Weird things happen in Chennai (I dont know about other metros).

Why did that guy leave me his number at Pizza hut, while the others in his gang stared me like that?

Now, who sent this guy to hit hard on my hand and bum when the harmless me was walking on the road and he on his bike?

I remember my roommate visibly scared running towards the house we stayed at around 11 in the night saying that a guy on his bicyle tried to sexually harass her. And the very next week she was followed by a group of four people in a car till our house....

Some days later when we thought the place we stayed was not safe and decided to move to another other place, we happened to come late to the house once after a late night food festival assignment, and one guy followed us begging to spend some time with him.....we felt the insecurity, which was far terrible than the thought that we are helpless.

Hating Chennai was not the solution, we knew....but what was the solution, we didnt know. But initially I felt unsafe only in the place I stayed. But the present area, the places I go for reporting and even the most familiar place to me in Chennai - my cousins place where I stayed for more than three years - everywhere seems unsafe for me now just for being a woman.

Its shameful for all of us if a girl has to walks on the road holding her hands against her breast to protect herself from the sex-starved bastards...

- renitha is a journalist based in chennai. She plans to work as an activist in gender and children-related issues - CSA and empowerment.

Update: I have seen that Tulir does some amazing work on CSA-related issues and there is the blank noise project, one of the few places where you get to hear the dissonances. Tulir has a great quote from Einstein: "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don't do anything about it."