The Covid mask looks like a single cup bra

The Covid mask looks like a single cup bra

The face mask that has become an essential part of the attire when we step out of our houses makes me think it is a single cup bra. It looks so when I see Television advertisements for bra. If you don’t believe me watch this video where police are teasing an adult for not wearing the mask, and finally give him a mask to wear.

 While bras are gender specific, masks are neutral. When Bra is worn it looks as if it is sucked in by vacuum as it is meant for tight or close fit. Face mask by design is meant for lose fit allowing breathing easily. Bra enhances the beauty of the wearer but a mask hides the face, making I difficult to recognize the person, like when a person gets down from a two-wheeler you cannot recognize him until he removes his helmet.  Gone are the days when only dacoits used face masks to avoid being recognised. Coming to think of it, I don’t understand why people wear masks even when they are participating in a video conference from their homes, as if they are afraid that some friend might drop in un-announced.

 I had a friend much younger than I, he was my boss too, whose advice I cannot forget: People wear masks for different reasons. We need to be sensitive about it and not go about tearing it down.  We should allow them to save their faces and be sensitive and sensible. He was indeed talking of masks in a figurative way.

 Thanks to Covid-19 for suggesting a topic for blogging. However, it is time I end this bra-mask ‘puranam’,  lest I sound unsound of mind in my late seventies.

Thousandth Blog Post in Kaaranam Ketkade

 Thousandth (10^3) Blog Post in Kaaranam Ketkade

 This is my thousandth post in this blog – Kaaranam Ketkade.  If I title this post as “One Thousandth Blog Post”, it may mean ‘thousandth (ordinal) post’ or 1 in 1000 posts – Both are true. The blog was started on Seventh of June in 2007 with my first post explaining why I have christened my blog as such. To recapitulate, most of my blog posts are written without a serious reason, [the title of the blog in Tamil says: Don’t ask me why (I write)],  just for the fun of penning some punny thoughts that cross my mind.

 Some statistics, arising out of thirteen years of blogging journey, I desire to share. The blog has seen an all-time total of (approx.) 3,55,200 pageviews.  Last month, July 2020, it was 2095 views. There were 196K visitors and they were from the USA; next 56.6K came from India. Rest came from France, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Australia etc. Keywords of searchers used to reach me used: Elder abuse, NISD, Lantern Poems, generic medicines, dementia etc. Following chart shows views over years of my blog:

  I was pleasantly surprised to be reminded of a post on Hansika Motwani, as she sponsored setting up an old age home in Mumbai in 2012. Her name was among few of the most searched words resulting in my blog post being shown to searchers. Here is that link:

 https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4197788180975233074/9008322649348770685

 A bit of technical data: Windows, Linux, Mackintosh, Android, Iphone, IPad – in that order – were the Operating Systems most used to browse my blog. Among browsers used, top ones are: Chrome, Firefox, MSIE, Firebird, Safari and Opera in that order. Google.com, google.co.in, Facebook are the websites that helped me most as referrers. I have 32 (yes merely 32) followers, 360 comments and 1000 blog posts – nothing to boast in any means.

This poor performance is bound to be so when I write to please myself. Even I have not read my posts again after publishing – proof reading excepted!

 How to give up smoking was my first substantial post on 29^th December 2008 – it converted a minimum of three persons to become non-smokers. On the whole I have made about USD 155 through Advertisements shown on my blogsite. That’s It, in a nutshell, all the bragging I can do at this important milestone of blogging experience. I maintain several other blogs – I will talk about them later.

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Counting my blessings ....

 Counting my Blessings ….

 

I have been writing a series of blog posts and articles, all bordering on negativity. To shake myself out of this filthy mood I thought I should reverse my thinking process and contemplate on positive things that are blessings in their own way. Here I commence by listing a few:

 1.      For a number of years, I was complaining that we are not lucky to have Karapak (Curry leaves) tree in our garden. We have one now, growing along with Daffodils creeper, yielding plenty of leaves.

2.      Beautiful Daffodil flowers add colour to our frontage

3.      There were days when I had to climb down six steps to collect drinking water. In those days of water scarcity, the supply was meagre, low pressure, odd hours, and no guarantees. Now good amount of water comes with pressure such that I can collect it in Kitchen tap – almost 12 ft difference! Once in three days regular supply.

4.      The garbage collector comes even on Sundays, so clearing rubbish without accumulation is practical nowadays.

5.      “Mosquito fogging” is carried out in our colony twice a week as against once every Sunday earlier. Less mosquitoes, better sleep.

6.      There is a Dhobi – laundry man - who has set up his shop in a garage just opposite my house. Now I need not walk much to get my clothes ironed.

7.      I buy herbal and Ayurvedic medicines from deChane – century old pharma company – right from our father’s days. I found out an employee over there who lives near my house and he helps me buying medicines I need by delivering at my doorstep on his way back home.    

 NOW my mood has changed for the better. Writing helps. Your reading thus far helps farther. Shall we continue our separate journeys together?

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Obituary Advertisements in Deccan Chronicle

 

Obituary Advertisements in Deccan Chronicle

 It would be interesting to go through obituary advertisements as long as you are not figuring there. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev says: “Whoever you meet, speak to them like it is the last time you may have that opportunity. It will transform your life.” Who knows when my turn would come to appear in these columns?

 I first look through all the photos to see if anyone I know is not there anymore. I might use the info to send a condolence message or inform my friends about it. I feel a sigh of relief if have no such follow up work to do.

 

I often find that photographs are of odd sizes, leaving a lot of white space around. DC offers standard size for obit Ads, while advertisers use images of odd sizes, not optimized it for the size of the column. When some popular person dies, many individuals place Ads for the same dead person forcing you peer at same photo many times. I made a suggestion to Deccan Chronicle to consolidate all such Ads into one big single Ad benefiting all concerned. This appeal for respecting the dead, has not made any headway.

 

The photographs in obituary Ads compete in quality only with photos in passport or Aadhar. The photos themselves tell a lot – just look at the spects, uniform, mush, drooping eyes, mouth etc. Some look so young that makes it mandatory to check DOB and DOD.  I cannot find any reason for this laxity, except that family members of the dead person may be hard up for time or are too confused. Most relatives might have been predicting the D-day to be far off but were caught unawares.

 

On the contents, I may comment that more Christians than others use it best. By studying the text, one may learn different practices of various communities. Anniversary and remembrance Ads are intriguing – how long should one be remembered?  Sometimes birthday Ads show up along with Obit Ads creating confusion.   

 

The number of people joining to condole the death is amazing. It is one thing to help the reader know WHO is dead but it is another thing to let us know all his relatives. In order to maximise space utilization, some people stuff the entry with so much text that even reading TOI matrimonial Classified Ad on a Sunday will be much easier.

 

I wonder what comments YOU might be having when that ‘once-in-a- lifetime-event’ in my case is advertised!

 

 

 

Point-of-Action Memory Failure (POAMF)

 Point-of-Action Memory Failure (POAMF)

 Many senior citizens suffer from memory problems as they age. Forgetting events, faces, names, facts or simply words is common. While greying brain (the physical part, I mean) adds its part to increase the pain of memory loss, there are other reasons / causes.  Not being interested, hearing only partially thus registering wrong info / facts, mis interpreting a scene due to poor or impaired vision, reading something amidst disturbances etc could pave way to later failure in memory recall.

 I want to talk specifically about one type of memory issue, not being discussed much elsewhere.  I want to term it: POAMF = “Point of Action memory failure”.  Here are some examples:

 ·       I prepare some nice curry for lunch; but forget to take it during eating. I realize this only while clearing the kitchen slab after lunch. It was just lying there untouched!

 

·       I go for shopping with a carefully prepared shopping list and even plan mentally the route to take so that I can cover all items in a systematic way avoiding retracting my steps. But, coming home, after shopping, I see that I had missed out buying some item on the list though I had crossed the shop where it is available. Recall at appropriate moment failed.

 

·       I write on my kitchen black board reminding myself to order Coffee Powder. Despite visiting the kitchen many times and reminding myself about the pending task, I will forget about it after leaving the kitchen!

 

·       While checking email in the morning I would mark a few messages for later action by starring it or adding it to task list or marking it unread etc. During the next visit to Gmail I may miss out acting on a  couple of them.

 

Do you also suffer from POAMF? Any ideas as how to handle this issue? What to do if you fail to recall something “at-the-nick-of-the-moment-when-it-is needed” ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fractal Reading by Michael Simmons

This short video talks of fractal reading that I have been practicing without giving a name to this type of reading. Librarians read many books, some for their own consumption but many for the sake of their readers / customers / patrons of the library. I call them 'about' readers:  reading about the book rather than the book itself. Librarians' purpose is just to know enough to place them properly in the scheme of book classification they employ or to inform the readers something interesting or teasing enough to goad them to read the book. The technique essentially lies in reading meta data - abstracts, summaries, reviews, TOC, 'about the author' etc If you practice fractal reading you can increase the speed of reading and also cover greater number of books.

In Simmons video I learnt WHY fractal reading is important - my propose is different - and about Blinkist as a source for summaries; but Blinkist is a priced resource, I can not afford in retired life.. Also I like his HA Hack comprising of Highlighting and Asking. We may highlight an important point while reading as also ask ourselves as how to use that info / idea. If you use an idea / word / tip it sticks to you. My father was an English Language teacher. During school days he used to introduce new words in the lesson, explain its meaning, pronunciation etc and insist that we use the new word learnt in sentences of our own. That practice continues with me in other areas also.

Of course, after quick reading, if the title is worthy of reading in full then apply deep reading - read slowly, take notes, read it again or make summaries. Deep reading may be needed only in small percentage of books.l 

Now on to Fractal Learning in Simmons own voice - watch the video 

Curbing the Craving to be recognised

                                                  Curbing the Craving to be recognised

Many of my friends, who are senior citizens, always crave for something or the other. Most importantly, on the top of the list, is their craving to be recognised. To be recognised in a crowd of participants in a meeting; recognised for their meager contributions of work or money; recognised for donations they make; recognised on their birthdays; recognised for what they were in the past and so on. The list is endless.

A friend that I know, highly educated and respected as a scientist, now in his eighties, recently created a big furor over some organisation missing to greet him on his birthday. He raised the issue thrice within two months. He issued several blatantly contradicting statements about his intentions, hurt, disappointment, anger, remorse on his own reactions and so on.

I realised I am no great exception when this caving is concerned. Having Observed others:

• ·       How this craving cheapens them;
• ·       how they become vulnerable in others’ eyes;
• ·       how much pain this non-recognition gives them;
• ·       how they grow their expectations in thin air leading to disappointments etc

I have decided to end this craving in myself or at least reduce it to the barest minimum.

I intend to achieve this goal by:

•       Realising the futility of the habit in the long run
• ·       Realising that everyone is interested only in himself primarily and interest in others or you is only incidental and secondary
• ·       Realising that others will notice and remember you only if there is something in it for them (paying back some good deed done by you or favors you are likely to show later)
• ·       Reminding myself constantly to be in the present moment by asking myself the arresting Question: “Hey, what the hell are you up to?”
• ·       Observing this trait in others and not criticize them but to empathize with them

 WILL I SUCCEED? ONLY TIME and YOU CAN TELL !!

 

Merchant, camel and Diamonds

Here is a short story forwarded as it has twists and lessons to share!

===

A Merchant wanted to purchase a gorgeous camel in the market and after spotting one began to setlle for it with the seller!

There was a long bargain between the merchant and the camel seller, and finally the merchant bought the camel and took it home!

On reaching home, the merchant called his servant to take out the camel's kajava (saddle) ..!

Under the Kajave, the servant found a small velvet bag which upon opening revealed him to be full of precious diamond gems ..!

The servant shouted, "Boss, you bought a camel, but look what came with it for free!"

The Merchant was also surprised, he saw diamonds in his servant's hands which were shining and twinkling even more in the sunlight!

The Merchant said: "I have bought a camel and not the diamonds, I should return it immediately!"

The servant was thinking in his mind "how stupid my boss is ...!"

He Said: "Nobody will know who the owner is!" However, the merchant did not listen to him and immediately reached the market and returned the velvet bag to the shopkeeper.

The camel seller was very happy, said, "I had forgotten that I had hidden my precious stones under the Kajave!

Now you choose any one diamond as a reward!

The Merchant said, "I have paid the right price for the camel so I do not need any gift and prizes!"

The more the merchant was refusing, the more the camel seller was insisting!

Finally, the merchant smiled and said: In fact, when I decided to bring back the bag, I had already kept two of the most precious diamonds with me!

After this confession, the camel seller was infuriated and he quickly emptied the bag and began to count his diamond gems!

But after his counted with a heavy sigh of relief, he said "These are all my diamonds, so what were the two most precious ones that you kept?"

 

The Merchant said: ... "My honesty and my self-respect."

The seller was dumb-struck!

We have to look within ourselves to find out if we possess any of these 2 diamonds.

Anyone who has these 2 diamonds, HONESTY AND SELF-RESPECT, is the richest person in the world.

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Brooke Bond Red Label Natural Care Tea

               

                    Brooke Bond Red Label Natural Care Tea

Watch this video promoting Brooke Bond Red Label Natural Care Tea.

The boy ferrets out coins fallen here and there, makes up Rs ten, buys a packet of this

Specific product. The ten-rupee sachet is given the security watchman as a gift,

explaining the goodness of Red Label tea. Mother joins him by helping him recall Adhimathuram

as one of the special ingredients.  When a cup of good tea is available for Rs 5 to 6,

will a security guard buy a scahet at Rs ten? What an anomaly!

I doubt the intelligence of people behind this Advertisement. If they had shown

an affluent lady, caring to improve her heath, as the one listening, then

 this advertisement  might be meaningful.

Each unto his own madness

 Each unto his own madness

I find a good number of our friends engaging themselves with passions and notions of their own. They would not give it up at any cost. Nor will they bother if no one listens to them, or if others care too hoots about such pet topics / peeving.  Their ideas are one-sided and they refuse to look into alternate ways of thinking. The world according to them should exist the way they imagine what is right and what is wrong. Any other way is unacceptable and unwelcome or indigestible or a permanent irritation in their way. Why are some people so inflexible, dogmatic, one sided, single minded and immersed in their own madness?

 I dare not name them nor identify them with their pet topics for the “sake of decency” or because of the benefits of “self-blackmailing”!

 Coming to think of it, upon introspection, I am beginning to doubt, rather seriously, whether I am also slowly slipping into that category. At times, I keep writing blog posts without specific target audience in mind. Keep pushing the pen for no further goal than just satisfy my writing itch. Whether people read or not, whether those who read benefit by it or not does not seem to be important to me. Realizing this part of me, decades ago, I have named my blog “Kaaranam Ketkadhe” which in Tamil means: “Do not ask me why”

 Sadhguru says: “There is no use to life. We value life for its beauty, exuberance, profoundness, and intensity, not for its usefulness.”  Are such teachings impacting me?

Should we continue to do whatever pleases us, unmindful of any result. Doing for doing sake – does this fetch far greater inner satisfaction? Should such ‘satisfaction’ be desired?

 Let me stop blabbering lest we go mad and get back to mundane things like cooking and eating what I relish – Bye For Now. And I end with: Each unto his own madness!!

  

                                                                ==============

A morning walk and a folk song

                             A morning walk and a folk song*

 Once I was taking a morning walk in the serene and unpolluted environs of a village.

A little farther away, a lonely farmer was watering his paddy field by drawing water from a well using age-old manual method. Perhaps to avoid boredom, loneliness and fatigue or simply to keep himself entertained, he was singing aloud.  The song was in Tamil. He was repeatedly saying the same two lines:

 

On the tender bamboo leaf,

Asleep are a few dew drops

 

Then he took a break to have his breakfast – kanji. I was listening to the song. I was eager to know further lines of the folk song. I patiently waited for the farmer to come back. He came back and sang the two lines followed by the third line thus:

 

On the tender bamboo leaf,

Asleep are a few dew drops

Only to be devoured by the rising Sun!

 I felt immensely happy on hearing the last line; immersed in immeasurable happiness on the beautiful poetry, music and the atmosphere and fully satisfied, I walked back to my residence.

 Here is the Tamil Poem for those interested:

 

மூங்கில் இலை மேலே 

தூங்கும் பனி நீரை 

வாங்கும் கதிரோனே 

 

 

*Based on an old story I read in my primary class. Replaced the listener with myself, for a change!!

 

Email availability and usage among the Elderly in SCAs

 Email availability and usage among the Elderly

 I am a member of three Senior Citizens Associations viz: Association of Senior Citizens of Hyderabad (Lions Bhavan), Senior Citizens Forum, Secunderabad (Centenary High School) and LOLA7817SCA (Jyothi Colony).  Email availability among members in these three SCAs is shown below:

 

SCA  -à	SCF	AOSC	LOLA
ESTD	Jan 1993	Jan 2001	Sep 2014
Total # of members	405	250	55
# having Email	108	74	38
percentage	26	30	69

 It may be noted that the earliest one to be established and also the largest membership– SCF has 26% - minimum percentage of members - having Email. And the most recent one to start and having minimum number of members - LOLA has largest percentage of members having email.  This is understandable from many angles. Those who joined oldest association early did not have email as that was not popular or easy to get. Email penetration is increasing over decades and if we start an SCA now, almost everyone is likely to fill Email column with some Email address in the application form.

 Apart from the above, my observation is that though several senior citizens apparently have email Ids those using them actively is abysmally small. Use of technology still daunts them. For instance, if I send a message asking for some action to all in AOSC – 74 people I get replies from just three or four. Same is the case with SCF:  some four people are active SENDING messages, rest of them among 108 don’t even reply. As the saying goes in Tamil, it is a stone thrown into the well!

 Availability of Smartphones and WhatsApp accounts indicate that may have Internet on their phones. But when I call for an official meeting -  zoom or Google Meet Video conferencing, less than twenty turn up as participants. This is strange as I guess that most seniors, out of necessity to be in touch with their kith and kin, will be using video conferencing tools.

 Are there ways motivate the elderly to use and benefit from Email? Are they happy with WhatsApp? I can not guess. Any clues?

                                       

Pricy Purchases and Overlooked features

Pricy Purchases and Overlooked features

In the recent past I made a few purchases like HP Laptop, Preethi Zodiac 20 Food Processor, LeTV Mobile.

The HP Laptop was impressive with speed, colour, screen size, good speaker volume, good camera, reliable battery etc. The Windows 10 + and the MS Edge Browser are lousy. The latter is obscenely intrusive, almost preventing me to over to chrome browser. There is only a combo jack for headphone and microphone, necessitating me to buy a new headset with combo cords / jack.

The Preethi Food Processor can do many things like wet grinding, dry grinding, atta kneeding, chopping vegetables etc- sort of all in one. It even stops automatically when chutney grinding is done. But there is no whipper blade for making butter out of cream.

The LeTV mobile has large screen, good speakers, powerful Android software, clarity in images or video shows, powerful front and back cameras what not. A treasure I thought until I discovered that a single micro USB port is used both for charging and ear phones.

All the purchases were made after screening several brands and I was happy over my selection before placing the order. How come we miss out on some important features and find it lacking only after buying? Is there a name for this phenomenon? There should be, as the experience is not special only to me.

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How did you get introduced to an SCA?

How did you get introduced to an SCA? 

SCAs or Senior Citizens Associations are also called Senior Citizens Clubs or Forums, society etc. A conglomeration of locally functioning associations is a federation while the same extended to a very large geographic area, say (southern) region or the country might be a confederation. I shall use SCA as an umbrella term to mean any such organisation meant for the welfare of the elderly, preferably educated, worked in private or govt and retired. More particularly I am talking of neighborhood groups.

Why does a senior citizen join an SCA? Rather how does he get introduced? We can think of a few reasons like:

· Some friend took you to an annual day of an SCA and you were tempted to join

· Some SCA invited you to give a talk to their members and you obliged becoming a member

· You took part in some picnic / travel / trip arranged by an SCA where you had a friend

· You visited the website of the SCA while surfing and got interested

· You wanted to start one SCA and wanted to learn how other SCAs function

· You came across a newsletter where the activities of the SCA were mentioned

· Some office bearer in the SCA approached you as a matter of his duty to enroll members

What was YOUR reason and how were you introduced by whom?

It will be interesting to learn and discuss that issue. Who will start the dialogue?

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Deficiencies in Gmail and Google Calendar Integration

 Deficiencies in Gmail and Calendar Integration

When you receive an email invite for an event like seminar, conference, meeting etc nowadays it is mostly online like webinar. The platform on which my associates conduct the meeting are CISCO, Zoom or Google Meet. The invites arrive in all formats comprising of text, images or pdf attachments. Some are sent well in advance requiring reminders. I am also involved in conducting such online events, playing the host on zoom and google meet. Such meetings are on behalf of Senior Citizens Associations where I am a member or office bearer.

 Earlier there was a good facility of creating a calendar event directly from the email. Gmail used to intelligently transfer data about the event to the calendar in suitable fields like title, time, venue, description etc. I find this missing now. There IS an option called create an event on the top menu in the Gmail. But it is highly truncated. It just opens a blank ‘create events’ window where you need to manually enter all the data.  If the invite has an image or pdf part then you are lost, almost. The event creation page does not recognize requirements of webinars, like URLs, password, Meeting ID etc.

 In the Calendar, when you create an event, you are the owner. There is a provision to change ownership to the person organizing it but that guy may not be a Google account holder. In fact, even if you create an event by yourself for an event owned by you, invite can not be seen by all as all may not be on google.

 If I want to enter details of forthcoming events that I come to know, just to make an entry like an entry in my diary for keeping track of them through automatic remainders this is not easy. You should remember not to email the invite to others. Making monthly calendar view – showing all dates in a month at a glance - as default, there seems to be no provision in Settings.

 Google is well known for withdrawing or simply stopping currently available facilities products and services.  For example, when you get a video attachment in an email, earlier, you could simply click on the attachment link to open and watch the video. Now in ‘New Gmail’ you have to download the video, save it in your disk and open it again to view it. Expecting a better integration is a far cry. I have not studied MS Edge / MS Mail / MS Calendar integration yet. But too many systems in use will spoil your efficiency. So, I dare not try a slew of MS products under Windows 10.

 Am I just to live with it? Let me wait and see.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why am I uncomfortable with buffet lunches or dinners?

 

Why am I uncomfortable with buffet lunches or dinners?

 

I am generally hesitant to participate when friends invite me to buffet lunches / dinners. Many reasons, I can mention. Suffice it to cite a few.

 When the dinner is connected with some celebration (birthday, marriage, congratulatory etc) the call “Dinner is Served and Ready” comes often very late. As far as the caterer is concerned, he is ready right on time, worrying about anything other than ice-cream getting cold. Never will that dinner part of the program, start on time as announced in the invitation. Worries about getting a bus or auto to go back or whom to ‘catch’ for return ‘savari’ etc start worrying you.

 In most places, special items like non-veg or sweets are kept at the starting point of the Table, where people tend to take more time to fill their plates. As a vegetarian and I am forced to wait.  

 As I am very uncomfortable in crowded places, where people tend to breath down my neck, as soon as I fill my plate, I move far away, say to the end of the hall near some wall or corner. This ensures that that I won’t trip and empty part of my plate onto others, vice versa. Moreover, I am one of those who are convinced that if you want to relish, cherish and digest what you eat there should be no disturbances or distractions. “Eat in Silence” admonishes my daughter, always. But this is not practical in such gatherings.  

 Sometimes, some friend with whom I had no contact for a long period may spot me and come over to where I am (virtually hiding) and start talking while we are eating. He will try to unfold everything that happened to him since we met last time, unmindful of the fact that I am already feeling sleepy. While talking, he will generously sprinkle saliva saturated foodstuff around making it next to impossible for me to proceed further with eating. Thankfully for me, he will have eagle eyes and super canine smelling capability to spot some fresh batch of Puris arriving at the table; he will excuse himself muttering “Let me fill my plate” and head straight to the table.

 Another reason why I get far away, is that many people will hover around near the table as if they have been appointed to guard it. You must see how greedily they fill their plates, making you doubt if they had gone on hunger strike for some days.

 There are events like marriages where lunch is served on individual tables and the affair goes on irrespective of ‘muhurtam’. One can simply walk in, eat your lunch in peace and slip out without much fanfare. Of course, marking your attendance, handing over some gift and ensuring that a photo is taken when you meet the newly married couple is a must.

 Thanks to Covid-19 such lunch or dinner invites have become a thing of the past. The purpose of including a sentence on Covid-19 is that search Engines like Google will surely index and include this article under covid, increasing discover-ability of my write up.

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How to deposit a layer of carbon onto a Stainless steel vessel?

How to deposit a layer of carbon onto a Stainless steel vessel?

Did you ever wonder how to deposit a layer of pure carbon on to the surface of a Stainless Steel vessel? I achieved it easily but accidentally through a simple act of negligence, nay, forgetfulness: kept the vessel with half a litre of milk on the stove for boiling and forgot about it. Result: Nice perfect coating all through, making the vessel unrecognizable, unusable and irretrievable for ever.

Other accompaniments of this ‘accident’ are:

•    overflown milk on kitchen slab involving half an hour hard labor to clean it up;
•       pervading and persistent stench of burnt milk for an hour or so;
•       loss of milk necessitating purchase of fresh stock;
•       mental stress in thinking out how to hide this fact from my daughter
•       Going without second cup of coffee for the day
•       Overhearing talks among neighbors: “somebody’s kitchen is in flame

Have I learnt anything as how to avoid such mishaps from recurring? Here are some tips:

 

·       Make it a habit to stay, watch and switch off stove without chance for distraction
·       Set a timer for however little time it might be.
·       Use a bigger vessel so that milk won’t boil and overflow dirtying the kitchen slab
·       Apply a thin layer of glycerin around inner rim of the vessel to prevent overflowing
·       Use the erstwhile aluminum based ‘milk-boiler’ that gives a whistle when done
·       If you are away for any reason, don’t close the door lest you miss the smell of charring.

Only consoling factor in this unpleasant episode is that I realised that forgetfulness is a blessing in disguise once again. I could smell burnt milk and charring far away in my bedroom where I was immersed with laptop chores; this suggests  that I am unlikely to be a victim of COVID-19 as of now.

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Will there be a dip in childbirth in 2021

Will there be a dip in Child birth in 2021?

During intensive lockdown period due to Covid-19, one of the many precautions dinned into our ears is Social Distancing. Though this is generally meant for occasions involving public presence or participation, practicing it as a norm within the house was also envisaged. After all, preventing infection need not be restricted to outsiders! If the majority of Indians had followed this rule’ strictly, there is a likelihood of a significant dip in child births during last quarter of 2020 or first quarter of next year. The assumption is that couples in reproductive age group might have abstained from sex to conform to the norms of social distancing.

 We have heard of several ‘bold’ marriages having been solemnized during the ‘dark’ days, thanks to TV and print media. Do you think these newly wedded couples would have kept quiet? Anyhow the proof of the pudding is in the eating and we have wait for a few more months. However, we can get some predictive hints if we tap obstetricians, nursing homes, maternity homes, hospitals and the like to verify if couples coming for maternity check up has decreased in any good measure. Most visit such diagnostic clinics more to find out the gender of the future entrant, although this is against PNDTA

 

When I discussed this issue with a friend, he argued that bulk of the people – may be 80% of the population, did not have any worthwhile activity to do, confined to their houses all the time. That is all the reason why people might have tested their fecundity status on feeble minded partners. So child birth rate will increase, he surmised.

 

I have not done any big study but cursory google search confirms that there will be fewer births in coming months. On the other hand, the burden on the society from increasing older persons population is serious and real. How the mismatch between the aged who need more caregivers and reduction in available carers can be handled is to be watched.