It had been another usual hectic day at work.  I happened to finish early thanks to the help of my colleagues who couldn’t bear to hear me sniffling because of the cold I had caught.

As I got off the bus, I remembered the second hand book shop just behind the bus stop and so I went there to pick up a couple of titles at a good price.

Where reading is concerned, I have different moods; depending on my mood, I pick up titles. Today I was in the mood for reading a mushy romance and so I deliberately went to the M & B section and picked a couple of titles.

Just as I was about to pay, my eyes fell on a couple of Enid Blyton Famous Five series. Without a moment’s hesitation I picked both the books and at some corner of my mind I was very happy that I could get those books. I got a couple of strange looks from others at the shop but I chose to ignore them.

I loved those books when I was a kid and they had this magical quality of transporting me into a different world altogether. It was like those kids were ideal children and had all the qualities one could possibly want but did not have.

Is it necessary that we stop reading such books as we get old? I’d like to hear from u guys.

My colleagues and I had to attend a wedding reception last evening, and the venue was opposite a famous park in Bangalore.

Since we were earlier than the wedding party itself, we decided to spend time in the park. We made use of the opportunity to explore the park and went inside hoping to get some fresh air and exercise our jaded minds and work weary bodies. It was more than what we bargained for, and we enjoyed a stroll in the park, and also found that there were a couple of swings, and so had a royal time on the swing and one of my colleagues also played the roundabout.

It had been ages since we had had so much fun, and the whole trip unloaded us of all the stress baggage we had been carrying for the past week, what with severe pressure at work.

B had been a teacher before he switched jobs remembered this poem “The Rainbow” by William Wordsworth and said that the visit unleashed the child in him.

So here it is for memory’s sake.

The Rainbow

My heart leaps up when I behold
A Rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the man;
And I wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

William Wordsworth

“Aishwarya and Abhishek get engaged”

 This was the headline in most newspapers yesterday.

At the risk of sounding cynical, does our media not have anything else of importance to project as “headlines”?

 Why is it that these people are not treated like common janta of the country?

Maybe even in countries still ruled by monarchy, such issues do not make headlines.

As they say, “It happens only in India”.

Was chatting with my friend BRU today, and we were discussing what we could do if we decided to retire today.

Few of the options that came up were:

– Open a Library
– Join a Gardening Course
– Grow our own vegetables
– Learn Tailoring (Can’t sew a button!)
– Learn Ikebana
– Learn a martial art like judo or karate
– Take a holiday in Egypt
– Visit the Sahara Desert
– Take a River Rafting Course
– Climb the Steep Rock face of YaaNa in Karwar
– Go for a trek in the Himalayas
– See the Sunrise and Sunset on Indira Point, the tip of India

Many more on the list, but guess by the time I get round to completing this, I will be in my second incarnation.

‘I come from Alabama
With my banjo on my knee
I’m going to Louisiana,
My true love for to see

Oh, Susanna,
Oh don’t you cry for me
For I come from Alabama

With my banjo on my knee”

 I was passing by a school this afternoon on my post lunch stroll.I heard the music teacher teaching the little kids this song.  Immediately I went back to my school days.   We had a grand old piano in school, which was kept in the auditorium. My music teacher, MS JP, who was the most weirdly, dressed person we knew, came on a two-wheeler called “Suvega” every Wednesday. We used to have music classes every Wednesday in the last hour, and this was one of the many songs we sang. This song was composed in 1847 by Stephen Foster.

If there is anything I have a really hateful feeling about, it is Soap Operas.

Sopa Operas were originally concieved in the west. They were melodramas, meant to entertain the homemakers of the 70s, and were sponsored by soap companies, and hence the name “Soaps”.

 The first Soaps I got to know were in the early 90’s, which came with the advent of Cable TV and Foreign Channels in India. Those days, the “in-thing”was to be updated about what was going on in “The Bold and The Beautiful”, “Dynasty” , “Santa Barbara” etc. I was in high school at the time, and did not understand head or tail of the show, but was conversant with the names of all the characters, and being a teenager, was constantly having a “one-minute crush” on one or the other male character.

If you did not know about these shows, you were unpopular and were literally ostracized because of your ignorance. Such was the hold of these shows.

 But, even today, I fail to fathom the complex relationships the characters share. Suppose there is a family of 4, with Parents, son and daughter-in-law (DIL), for 6 months, son and DIL stay together. Father divorces mother and son divorces wife. Then DIL marries Father in Law. Then they both divorce. Then mother remarries father. Daughter-in-law marries someone else, divorces him and gets back with the son. Then the same cycle repeats. Gosh! Why make life so complicated?

Verncacular Channels did not stay far behind and cooked up their own stories. Since India is still having a few values, people did not dare to copy the story line directly. But they found something better- Mother-In-Law Versus Daughter-In-Law. They wear heavy make-up, decked up in Sarees, loaded with jewellery and are always talking about “Sanskaar”, “Adarsh Naari”, “Maryaada” etc.

 One among these is a evil lady, conspicous by garroulous make-up, different mannerisms and a scheming evil smile.She enters the family with the sole aim of putting the others on the streets. And each  soap is based on a “Super Rich” family, where people only speak of 500 crores or 600 crores and nothing less.

Worse, these soaps run for more than 10 years, with more than 5000 episodes. According to the story, each person must be having a lifespan of not less than 200 years, and though the characters are quite old, the people portraying them look 35 or 40 at the most. 

And they run almost 24 hours. Worse still, some channels have started airing reruns of their soaps.

Can not the discerning viewer do without them? Lets hope that in 2007 at least, restrict the entry of new soaps and end atleast a couple of the old ones.

Guess people will have to think twice about sending their kids to school. According to a news item in the TOI Bangalore yesterday, School Fees is just one of the several expenditures that may be taxed from the next fiscal.

Or is it a ploy of the government to “encourage” people to send their children to Government Schools?

Other expenditures likely to come under the tax net are hiring a lawyer, eating out, catering services, beauty parlor visits, transport services etc.

No more of those get-togethers and house parties, I guess.

I remember the time we went to school. It was such an uncomplicated affair.
Curriculum was most important, and the extra curricular activities were limited. There was impetus on games, each of us were on one team or the other.

We had regular tests and exams, but none of them ever, the life-threatening variety. We carried a minimum amount of books to school. Our bags were never heavy. I remember carrying a peacock feather for luck, a scented eraser along with my usual one and toffees to eat during break time.

We never knew about project work. Information technology was something our elder siblings and cousins were studying, and occasionally one would hear of a friend’s brother or cousin flying to the USA for studies in this field. Those were the times when that person would strut around school with his / her nose in the air and others would look at that person with an air of respect and awe.

I see today that life has changed, and there is inordinate amount of pressure on children to cope up with the fast paced teaching system.

I saw my little cousin G today, struggling early in the morning to complete her mound of holiday homework, which has to be submitted today at school, failing which, she will be punished. G, for all her struggles, is still studying Senior KG.

I immediately went back to the sketchy memory of what I did during the same age. We were still taught Upper Case and Lower Case Letters, and homework was unheard of.

When I see G’s books, I can take a look into the future. Probably G will be taught Calculus in Standard V, and Theory of Relativity in Standard VII. Is this pace really a necessity or are we making our children chew more than what they can swallow?

WP is a colorless to yellow translucent wax-like substance with a pungent, garlic-like smell. The form used by the military is highly energetic (active) and ignites once it is exposed to oxygen. White phosphorus is a pyrophoric material, that is, it is spontaneously flammable).

 When exposed to air, it spontaneously ignites and is oxidized rapidly to phosphorus pent oxide. Such heat is produced by this reaction that the element bursts into a yellow flame and produces a dense white smoke. Phosphorus also becomes luminous in the dark, and this property is conveyed to “tracer bullets.” This chemical reaction continues until either all the material is consumed or the element is deprived of oxygen. Up to 15 percent of the WP remains within the charred wedge and can re ignite if the felt is crushed and the unburned WP is exposed to the atmosphere.  

Phosphorus is an element, the name derived from the Greek “phosphoros” or light bearing, the ancient name for the planet Venus when appearing before sunrise. Brand discovered phosphorus in 1669 by preparing it from urine. Phosphorus exists in four or more allotropic forms: white (or yellow), red, and black (or violet). Ordinary phosphorus is a waxy white solid; when pure it is colorless and transparent. White phosphorus has two modifications: alpha and beta with a transition temperature at -3.8°C. It is insoluble in water, but soluble in carbon disulfide.

Never found free in nature, Phosphorus is widely distributed in combination with minerals. Phosphate rock, which contains the mineral apatite, an impure tri-calcium phosphate, is an important source of the element.

 White phosphorus may be made by several methods. By one process, tri-calcium phosphate, the essential ingredient of phosphate rock, is heated in the presence of carbon and silica in an electric furnace or fuel-fired furnace. Elementary phosphorus is liberated as vapor and may be collected under phosphoric acid, an important compound in making super-phosphate fertilizers.  

 P S: What inspired me to name this blog “White Phosphorous”? White, Symbolizing Peace, and “Phosphoros” from Greek, meaning light bearing.