The Ant - lessons from the tiny one...

One morning I wasted nearly an hour watching a tiny ant carry a huge feather across my back terrace. Several times it was confronted by obstacles in its path and after a momentary pause it would make the necessary detour.

At one point the ant had to negotiate a crack in the concrete about 10mm wide. After brief contemplation the ant laid the feather over the crack, walked across it and picked up the feather on the other side then continued on its way. I was fascinated by the ingenuity of this ant, one of God's smallest creatures. It served to reinforce the miracle of creation. Here was a minute insect, lacking in size yet equipped with a brain to reason, explore, discover and overcome. But this ant, like the two-legged co-residents of this planet, also share human failings.

After some time the ant finally reached its destination - a flower bed at the end of the terrace and a small hole that was the entrance to its underground home. And it was here that the ant finally met its match.

How could that large feather possibly fit down small hole?
Of course it couldn't. so the ant, after all this trouble and execrising great ingenuity, overcoming problems all along the way, just abandoned the feather and went home.

The ant had not thought the problem through before it began its epic journey and in the end the feather was nothing more than a burden. Isn't life like that!

We worry about our family, we worry about money or the lack of it, we worry about work, about where we live, about all sorts of things. These are all burdens - the things we pick up along life's path and lug them around the obstacles and over the crevasses that life will bring, only to find that at the destination they are useless and we can't take them with us...............

Globalisation.... ?

Question: What is Globalization?????
Answer: Princess Diana's death!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend Crashes in a French tunnel, driving a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian Who was high on Scottish whiskey, followed closely by Italian Paparazzi, on Japanese motorcycles, treated by an American doctor, using Brazilian medicines!

And

This message is sent to you by an Indian, using American (Bill Gates) technology which he stole from the Japanese. And you are probably reading this on one of the IBM clones that use Taiwanese-made chips, and Korean made monitors, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant, transported by lorries driven by Pakistanis, hijacked by Indonesians and finally sold to you by Chinese!

Globalization !!!!!

....sent by Marina Rasquinha as a 'forward': 26 July 2005

Muddy Musical Glastonbury!

By Maxwell Pereira
mfjpkamath@gmail.com

Getting away from the heat for a summer vacation has become part of life. For those who can afford, our own local hills and other resorts; exotic haunts of Europe for the super rich. “Come summer,” my daughter’s unabashed refrain: “Oxford Street in London is like Karol Bagh, with more Indians crawling than locals”. For those culturally minded, Europe’s musical scene is an attraction too.
Now that circumstances permit, I myself took off for a southern sojourn in Bangalore, the poor-man’s-Ooty Saklespur in the Western Ghats, then Mangalore, and the ayurvedic resorts in the vast expanse of backwaters in Kerala. For a fish eater, seafood lover, and one who is ecstatic about soothing body care, nothing could be more exotic.
My son in England and his bride too took off around the same time for a weekend break. In their life style they do it ever so often, and so do not make much of these indulgences. Neither are they gushingly eloquent to write home about such. This time though, I was surprised to get a long mail about their holiday. They had been to an Event of Performing Arts and musical extravaganza – the Glastonbury Festival.
Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts – one of the largest music festivals in the world and known to be the mother of all festivals in the UK, is run by Somerset farmer Michael Eavis at Worthy Farm, Pilton - near Glastonbury - since 1970. Normally on the last full weekend of June, with an occasional miss to give both the land (a working farm) and the locals a chance to recover.
My son found the Festival ‘amazing’. The setting on 700 acres in a beautiful valley, the site huge – about a mile and a half across with a perimeter fence about 8 1/2 miles. Everything within the fence – camping and entertainment, with no arena to queue up for and enter each day. Several stages for the music, theatre, circus, cabaret, and acts of performing artistes – a three day festival at which everyone camped in tents. “We got there on Thursday morning, a few friends arriving earlier to cordon off an area for us. We had 10 tents in total around a gazebo, like a little commune!”
What was special? “The festival started on Friday afternoon, but before that there was this biggest thunderstorm in history. It started at around 3 in the morning while we were still in our tents. There was so much lightning that the ground was shaking and the whole tent would light up. Apparently some dipstick decided to go to the toilet in the middle of the whole thing and got struck by lightning, and got thrown three tents away! Also a couple of the festival tents got struck and split in half.”
That was just the start. Most of the 152,000 crowd – over 100000 paid ticket holders, 35000 staff and performers, and in tow the ‘Kidz Field Crew’ – all left covered in mud. 292 people lost their tents when over two inches of rain thrashed the site from 3am to about noon causing heavy floods. “A river of mud and water flowing down the hill sweeping away everything in its way, including people sleeping in tents, the toilet blocks, a parked ice cream truck etc. 100s of people had to be evacuated to a different part of the valley, a lot of them lost everything. We were lucky and were pitched on a slight hill, away from the flood, and were spared the consequences.”
More than 3m litres of water were pumped off the site by the fire service after the torrential thunderstorm left some tents submerged in 8ft of water. Specialist fire service rescue teams checking submerged tents for occupants, found no-one was seriously hurt by the floods – which caused power failures and delayed the start of the programme. Renowned though for the variety and energy-sapping quality of its mud, Glastonbury will remember 2005 as the year of the great flood.
But despite nature playing dirty, the flash floods gave way to brilliant sunshine and Glastonbury danced itself into the muddy ground. “In spite of the chaos, damage and confusion, the festival continued, the people’s mood not dampened. It was so crazy, having to wade through knee deep mud at times trying to get from one place to another, as the flooding had made the valley of farmland just one huge swamp/mud flat. The previous week had been really hot and sunny, so no one had brought Wellingtons. Which meant everyone went down the market area to buy boots and socks. 100,000+ people trying to do this caused everything to sell out in minutes, causing queues that stretched literally for miles. Apparently 33k wellies were sold, just on that Friday!”
“The music was amazing and many fantastic performances. Some of the bands I listened to were: Coldplay, Keane, The Killers, Kaiser Chiefs, Jools Holland, Van Morisson, White Stripes. There were others too, but I can’t remember!”
Information on ways to improve one’s life and the world around, shopping in the vast markets of over 700 stalls with their fantastic variety of clothes, crafts and food; the enlightenment, the mime artists cutting the grass with nail scissors, the mad butler with his tray of drinks, the tea ladies on tour..... just added their bit to make Glastonbury Festival the place to spend the best time of one’s life!
“All were unanimous in their verdict: The secret of Glastonbury’s success… the people! The weekend went really quickly, with BBQs and beers and cider, walking through whacky areas of the festival, with naked people, circus tents and cabaret performances including poetry recitals! All in all it was awesome!”
900 words
04.07.2005: Copyright © Maxwell Pereira:
For interaction: mfjpkamath@gmail.com & http:/www.planetindia.net.maxwell

Fishy Mangalore

By Maxwell Pereira
mfjpkamath@gmail.com

As I am writing this one, I am in Mangalore – the town in which I grew up, went to school and spent my childhood. Most of that period of memory a fifty years in the past, in a family home in Karangalpady-Kodiyalbail when parents were still living in Mangalore, and some more in the boarding at St. Aloysius’ when they moved out bag and baggage to cooler climes in the western ghats and Bangalore. Now on a visit here yet again, I find Mangalore not changed in many ways. One of them, its delightful fish eating ways.
As children, the afternoon meal consisted of a fish menu and the evening one had meat. Staple rice and curry for the mid-day meal. Curry meant fish curry, and fish meant mostly seafood, not from the abounding rivers, rivulets and ponds (a fare not completely ignored either). Each day a different variety of fish, depending on the season and the catch available in the market: Tharle (sardines), Bangude (mackerels), Iswonn (seer), Rounce (Indian salmon), Ssanctter (catfish), Kaane (ladyfish), Sscannakki (kingclip), Yerlio (whitings – some called these silverfish too), Shevto with its gaantt and peri, Sondalle, Pampletan (pomfret), Sungtaan (prawns), Kurlio (crabs), Khube (clams) and a plethora of shell-fish…. Whatever! The variety, unlimited.
And if at the evening table too there had to be fish, then it’d be fried fare – gorgeously fried on a flat pan in shallow oil for a well massala’d crusty cover, with the still soft fibrously brittle and breakable flesh inside moistily dry, and not oily or leathery. How they managed that… well, ask the Managaloreans! Only they manage such incredible fish cuisine feats! And fish it invariably was, when the evening table stuck to staple congee. Chapattis on the menu, then a meat dish inevitably thrown in. Believe me, Mangaloreans were, and are, great meat eaters too!
But what was staple then for most homes was congee in the mornings – at the breakfast table too. Which meant different varieties of fish fare for the day’s first meal – Mangaloreans believed in three square meals a day – whatever else be there or not, in the form of a variety of chutneys for nishthen or side-dish. And to match the sharpness of the chutneys, in fish it had to be attailly-kadi which the Goans called kalchi-kadi – the previous day’s left over fish curry cooked dry to a paste in smoked earthenware handis; and/or kharen (dried shark and a variety of salt-fish) fried. Fresh clam cooked in its own soup thel-piao style was among favourites too, and the occasional fresh garden vegetable cooked in similar thel-piao as a not-too-boring but sobering and stabilizing break now and again.
For so much fishy fare for a whole population of the city and its neighbourhood, fish had to be in plenty. More importantly, one needed to be well versed in the art of buying fish too. Early in life one learnt to sniff and haggle – to develop a sharp sense of smell, and to bargain with fisherwomen who formed the bulk of fish vendors. Or else end up with not just a lighter purse, but also inedible fish gone high in the humid tropical heat.
Unique to Mangalore, perhaps in other coastal markets too, is the system of selling fish by ‘quantities’ and not by weight (by the kg) as elsewhere. By tradition and practice, both the fisherwomen and the consuming public along the coastal belt have developed a keen sense of fixing the rate by merely looking a the ‘lot’ of fish, pre-arranged by size and/or in numbers, the rate variable depending on the fish catch of the day and its quantum availability at a given point in time. So one took no chances. It was only the most experienced and not the novice, to venture a hand at buying fish!
But experience came by education. And education on this came to me as would have to any child in my town, much before we stepped into our age of a double figure. When elders and others more adept in the art were busy perhaps with unavoidable and more important pre-occupations, and it fell to my lot to secure from the market something to make the family table interesting, yours truly used to be packed off with a four-anna or a six-annna jingle in the pocket to the fish market, to return with enough that would not only gladden the family stomachs for the day but also carry over to the next.
Many are the times I have faltered, stumbled, and failed, to face the wrath of those around the table for a lousy job done, for being rooked and cheated into paying more for a measly small lot, or for carrying home stale fish, or the thorny-bony pedi instead of the like looking tharle….At times also the occasional well-earned kudos for an excellent buy that soared the contented family’s feelings high.
I learnt quick, for that was the only opportunity I got to hire a cycle clandestinely, something that faced parental sanctions and taboo for reasons of a youngster’s safety on the road, understandably though the craze of any kid at that age. Not only did I have to return with a bounty that satisfied the family palates and raised no eyebrows on account of quality, quantity of fish or the amount paid, but also with the need to save the half-anna it then cost to hire the junior cycle for the half-hour marketing stint involved. So the need to hone my fish-buying skills, and be good at it!
The family then had puzzled through it all: how did I manage it all in such super fast speed. That remained my secret till now!
900 words
27.06.2005: Copyright © Maxwell Pereira: 3725 Sector-23 HUDA, Gurgaon-122001
Available at: 0124-5111025 /026 /027: at http://www. maxwellpereira.com and mfjpkamath@gmail.com

Monsoon Facts….

Monsoon Facts….
By Maxwell Pereira
mfjpkamath@gmail.com

The ‘mon-soon’ this year is ‘mon-late’… screamed a headline the other day, describing what’s foremost on the minds of most people ‘midst this blistering season of heat in Delhi and most other parts of north India around this time. As the heat wave sweeps across the land with its mercy-less broom, everyone is waiting in anticipation for the rains to come and cool down the climes, to relieve all from the furnacy climate that makes life a living hell, miserable and scorching.
To escape the rigours of the blistering summer, a minimissal few who can afford head to hill-stations or lands across the seas or mountains. While those who cannot, just suffer and wilt away even while hoping for the desert-ly loo bearing dusty winds to change to moisture laden rain bearing ones, for relief and succour to fauna, flora and the human stock alike.
In actual fact, the much awaited ‘monsoon’ hardly touches Delhi and surrounding parts of north India – unlike it does most of south India or north-eastern India that experience its real impact. For some of us who grew up in the South, monsoon meant the rains and the rainy season, there being only three seasons in a year – the summer, rainy and the winter, to contend with.
Even so, the very term ‘monsoon’ owes its origin, we are told, to the Arabic mausin or mausem which means season (…or the season of winds) - most often applied to the seasonal reversals of the wind direction along the shores of the Indian Ocean, and especially in the Arabian Sea, that blow from the southwest during one half of the year and from the northeast during the other.
Traditionally, the legendary Greek sailor Hippalus was credited to have been the first to use the monsoon to speed across the Indian Ocean, and so the ancient name for the monsoon was also called Hippalus. But perhaps he was simply the first Greek to master the monsoon, since Yemeni sailors were known to be trading with India long before his time.
A monsoon seasonal change is characterized by a variety of physical mechanisms which produce strong seasonal winds, a wet summer and a dry winter. All monsoons share three basic physical mechanisms: differential heating between the land and oceans; Coriolis forces due to the rotation of the Earth; and the role of water which stores and releases energy as it changes from liquid to vapour and back. The combined effect of these three mechanisms produces the monsoon's characteristic reversals of high winds and precipitation.
Scientists have described two key ingredients needed to make a monsoon – a hot land mass and a cooler ocean. Monsoons occur when land heats up and cools down quicker than water. In summer, the land reaches a higher temperature than the ocean, making the air over it to rise – thereby causing an area of low pressure to make winds from areas of high pressure to blow over areas of low pressure. The constant moisture laden wind thus blowing from the ocean causes rainfall when it rises up and gets cooled. Conversely, in winter since the land cools down quickly, the ocean is warmer. Air then rises, causing a low over the ocean. The wind then blows back out over the ocean. Since the temperature difference between the ocean and land is less than in summer, this wind is not as constant.
Along this basic principle, the land mass of the Indian sub-continent absorbs heat faster from the sun than the surrounding Indian Ocean does. Consequently as the air rises, a cooler, moistier, and heavier air from over the ocean replaces it. This damp, cool layer over India is estimated to be up to three miles thick. As the cool air arrives, the winds also shift. During dry season, the winds blow offshore, from land to sea. Then, as the monsoon begins, the winds blow onshore, from sea to land. In the case of the Indian Ocean Monsoon the first and third mechanisms produce more intense effects than in any other place in the world.
Monsoons do occur in other parts of the world too, like in Australia and in the southwest portions of the United States. As monsoons have gradually been understood better, the term has now been broadened to include almost all phenomena associated with the annual weather cycle within the tropical and subtropical continents of Asia, Australia and Africa, and the adjacent seas, and to indicate climatic systems anywhere in which the moisture increases dramatically in the warm season. The Asian monsoon, which affects the Indian subcontinent and southeast part of the Asia, is the most noted of the monsoons.
The more popular south-western summer monsoons occur from June to September. Intense low pressure developed over central Asia, makes the jet stream of south-eastern winds to blow over this area, passing over south-east Asia, which experiences large amounts of rainfall in this period. Meanwhile, the south-west monsoon is drawn towards the Himalayas, creating winds blowing rain clouds towards India, which receive up to 400 or more inches of rain in some areas.
The north-eastern winter monsoons take place from December to early March – when temperatures over central Asia are lower, creating a zone of high pressure there. The resultant jet stream directing north-easterly winds to blow across south Asia create dry air streams that produce clear skies over India from the months of November to May. Meanwhile, a low pressure system develops over northern Australia and winds are directed towards Australia. During the NE winter monsoon, apart from north-eastern India, south-east Asia and Australia too receive large amounts of rainfall.
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copyright © Maxwell Pereira
Available at mfjpkamath@gmail.com ; or +0124-5111025 /…026/…027
Website: www.maxwellpereira.com

Staying Alive

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1141193.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articlelist/-2128669051.cms

Times of India: EDITORIAL
BRIEF CASE:
Staying Alive
By MAXWELL PEREIRA

TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2005
They say with advancement and development in society, life expectancy is getting longer. Even so, in this day and age it is rare to come across a centenarian, and rarer still is a super-centenarian who has crossed 110. Unlike the time when I grew up, there were many among us Mangaloreans who could then boast of more than one member in the family who had crossed a hundred. Documented in history are around 800 super-centenarians, doubtless a fraction of the number who have really lived, but the majority of claims to this age do not normally have sufficient documentary support to be regarded as valid. Three different types of documentation are used to verify age — birth or baptismal certificate, marriage certificate and census data.
Even though there may have been many more who lived beyond, it is widely believed that Jeanne-Louise Calment was the oldest human being having lived till the age of 122 years and 164 days and died in 1997. The oldest living man recognised by the Guinness Book is Shigechiyo Izumi who lived between 1865 to 1986. And the oldest human alive today is Hendrikie van Andel of Netherlands who was born on June 29, 1890. A social visit to Sterling, Scotland for my son Prashanth has assumed special significance on learning that his great-grand-aunt Lucy D' Abreu lives there. She just happens to be the oldest living human being today in the UK, who turned 113 on May 24. Of ethnic Indian origin and a Mangalorean born in India in 1892, we know of her in the community as the widow of Abundius. And Prashanth's maternal grandmother Joyce who lives in Morpeth, Northumberland is Lucy's niece, her late mother Josephine being Lucy's first cousin. Lucy's age has been authenticated by the Guinness Book of World Records. There are only 11 other people around the world older to her, as per the records maintained by the Gerontology Research Group, affiliated with the UCLA School of Medicine, of the oldest people alive.
The writer is a retired police officer.

Grande Dame Lucy

Grande Dame Lucy
By Maxwell Pereira
maxpk@vsnl.com

They say with the advancement and development in society, the life expectancy of us homo sapiens has generally been getting longer. Even so, in this day and age it is rarely that one comes across a centenarian, and more rare is a supercentenarian who has crossed 110. Unlike the time when we grew up, for I remember, there were many among us Mangaloreans who could then boast of more than one member in the family who had crossed a hundred.
Documented in history are around eight hundred supercentenarians, doubtless a fraction of the number who have really lived, but the majority of claims to this age do not normally have sufficient documentary support to be regarded as validated. This is now changing as those born after birth registration was standardized in more countries and parts of countries attain supercentenarian age. Three different types of documentation are used to verify ages – birth or baptismal certificates, marriage certificates and census data.
Even though there may have been many more who lived beyond, we are told the oldest fully authenticated age to which any human has lived is the 122 years and 164 days of Frenchwoman Jeanne-Louise Calment, who died in 1997. The oldest living man recognized by the Guinness Book is Shigechiyo Izumi who lived between 1865 to 1986. And living today the oldest human is Hendrikje van Andel of Netherlands who was born on 29 June 1890.
Now for my son Prashanth, a social visit to Sterling, Scotland has assumed special significance, on learning that his great grand aunt Lucy D’Abreu lives there. She just happens to be the oldest living human being today in the UK, who will turn 113 on May 24. Of ethnic Indian origin and a Mangalorean born in India in 1892, we know of her in the community as the widow of Abundius. And Prashanth’s maternal grandmother Joyce who lives in Morpeth, Northumberland is Lucy’s niece, her late mother Josephine being Lucy’s first cousin.
Lucy’s age has been authenticated by the Guinness Book of world records. There are as on date only 11 other people around the world older to her, per records maintained by the Gerontology Research Group, affiliated with the UCLA School of Medicine, of the oldest people alive.
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19.05.2005: Copyright © Maxwell Pereira: 23718822; 60 Ashoka Road, New Delhi-110001
Available at mfjpkamath@gmail.com or maxpk@vsnl.com & http:/www.planetindia.net.maxwell
Published in the editorial page of The Times of India...