De-ttol Story

We sometimes get idle and think stray thoughts…

What if the sun didn’t rise from the east? What if pigs could fly? How about animals to manage our homes? The Tall Story indeed!!!

Cats and dogs are our friends, but animals from the wild???

Let’s take a peek at our Wide (err Wild) World and particularly at some of Mowgli’s (of Jungle Book Fame) best and most feared friends….. Lets get imaginative and see how they fit into our lives…

Pampers or Huggies

Panthers with their large, powerful, soft padded paws walk silently to catch their prey. Ideal for walking our little babies to sleep!
Or would you prefer a tight hug from our bear friend Baloo, whose soft fur can replace even the most comfortable pillows? Mother Bears are known to hibernate soundly all through the winter, while the babies grow and sleep with them.
And when the kids need to be bathed, just call the elephant to give a gentle shower! What is more, the elephant can even swing its trunk in gentle reprimand if necessary…

A varied choice of baby-sitters for our working moms…
Nanny Uncanny?!

Tiger Balm
Did you know that a tiger’s saliva has antiseptic qualities which can effectively heal wounds?
And unlike your canine pets, he doesn’t even need to be fed everyday. Feed a tiger about 6kgs of meat once a week and he is a happy animal!! Dispel all worries of procuring daily groceries.

PCI (Panther Controls Infestation)
The panther is adaptable to all habitats and devours all types of animals, be it mammals, birds or reptiles. Think Bagheera, Mowgli’s panther friend who we think would rid our homes and gardens of cockroaches, rodents, lizards, pigeons and ahem, “Unwanted Guests” too!!!

How Ezee!!
Add the orangutan and the vulture to the list and voila! You have the complete homecare solution!

Vultures are natural scavengers, feeding mostly on carcasses of dead animals. They will keep the entire locality disease free by disposing off the garbage and wastes.

The Orangutan, with its long limbs can help us to clear the house of cobwebs where no human hands can reach! So it can be depended upon to keep the house shipshape and safe even when you are away!

The Orangutan is a highly intelligent animal and in fact
has 97% of the human DNA.

Hence, they can be depended upon to keep your work
also going…. While you are on vacation???

Wolf-back, err pack
Wolves have a tarnished reputation as cruel and mean beasts. But legends have been kind to them: Mowgli was reared by the wolf family of Rama, as were Romulus and Remus, the twin brothers and sons of the God Mars. So understandably, we have a soft corner in our hearts for them.

Were you also aware that the wolves are the longest distance travelling terrestrial mammals?

So, just hop on to their back to get around the world! No need to burn up fossil fuels…

Travel the environment-friendly way!!!

Stoles to steal your Heart!
Scared of the snake? (Ha!! Of Kaa!!) You don’t need to be, as most of the snakes in the world are non-poisonous and we bet you didn’t know this one … Snake venom is 90% protein and is actually used today as a cosmetic ingredient for face massages!

A bite a day keeps the wrinkles away!!

Hidesign
 

Snakes also shed their skin every 15 days, which means
a new skin each time to make your varied collection of
stoles and bags! Was there ever a better bargain?

Green Revolution
Ever wondered why the mountains and forests you vacation in are so green and brimming with the best
fruits, nuts and veggies? Did you know, bears eat acorns and berries and expels the seeds, which germinate into new healthy plants?

And elephants can store up to 2.5 gallons of water in their trunks 

– enough to irrigate the entire land.

Baloo and Colonel Hathi help restore our Green Cover!!!

Once the gardens flourish, the monkeys can be
depended upon to pluck the choicest produce for us
each and every day! Did you know, monkeys never
catch cold, so forget sick leave and enjoy uninterrupted
service! Through the hot summers and even the snowy
winters!!

Book the Jungle??
So indeed, all of Mowgli’s friends and even his enemies, can be of use to Man. But here
is the catch: we may want them, but would they want to be with us??? Hmm, ponder
that…

The Infallible Indians

The autumn months in the northern hemisphere are called Fall.

Why? Do things actually fall?

Let us see…. what does fall – leaves fall, in some parts of the world rains fall, kids fall, in nursery rhymes characters fall and in India, multiple things fall! 

Lets examine some “falls” in our all-time favourite nursery rhymes….

London bridge is falling down…. No no…
    “The Commonwealth Games Bridge has Fallen Down,
         Fallen down, Fallen Down,
          It is all so shady”!!!                                           

A few days before its October inauguration, an overhead bridge at the Games village came crashing down. Rapidly, the participation of athletes started falling. And our reputation too took a hard fall.
London Bridge too fell many times – It was broken and reconstructed, each time with different materials, and hence the rhyme.
Was Delhi indeed a worthy successor to London??
After all, the Commonwealth of Nations was founded on the fall of the British empire!

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall??
     “Men in saffron sat on a Mosque,
      Men in saffron made the Mosque fall!”

If you remember, after Humpty Dumpty had his great fall, no one could put him back together, not the King’s horses, not his men.

This could very well be the case with the Babri dispute too. Not all the judgements in the world we think will heal the long-festering wound, especially after 17 years. Someone said this marks the fall of the judiciary!

Rightly said, even terrorist Kasab has not fallen to the hangman’s noose… yet.
 




"Folly”wood?

While a lot of our movies are filmed around such hard hitting realities, the lead actors always manage to fall into a dreamy sequence right after an intense scene…

Lets take a cue and drift from realities into the world of Windfalls, Waterfalls, Rainfall, Snowfall, Falling Star and the most desired, Falling in Love!

And some facts on these “Falls” that make us really happy…

• Angel Falls in Venezeula is the World’s Highest Waterfall. But Niagara Falls, on the border of the US and Canada is the most popular. It attracts more than 14 million visitors every year!
• Cherrapunji & Mawsyngram, both in Meghalaya, India, record the highest rainfall in the world . But did you know that these places also face severe water shortage in the non-monsoon months!
• Every snowfall is unique, in fact, each snow flake is made up of snow crystals and each crystal is different except in one thing – it is six-sided.
• Fall River is not a river at all! It is a city in Massachusetts, USA.

 Falling Stars are tiny bits of dust and rock called meteoroids that fall into the earth’s atmosphere. The short-lived trail of light these burning meteoroids produce is called a meteor or a Shooting Star. Many people believe making a wish in its presence comes true!

And if you are crying over your Hairfall, this one is for you. Upto 200 a day is normal!
Hope you don’t pull out 200 while you rack your brains…..

Guess the “fall” that falls into place:

1. A raptor that can live in mountains, deserts, forests, sea cliffs and cities.
2. Residual radiation of radioactive dust from a nuclear explosion
3. Capital of Manipur
4. Migrating birds blown off course by the autumn winds while in flight.
5. Set of meteors moving through the earth’s atmosphere.
6. Flowing water rapidly dropping in elevation as it flows over a steep region used to generate hydroelectric power.

Identify the fall-o-ing rhymes

 

Leaving you with a little thought…
“If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again.” – Falvia Weedn

Answers :
1. Falcon  2. Nuclear Fallout   3. Imphal   4. Bird Fallout   5. Meterorite Falls  6. Waterfall
Jack & Jill    b) Rock-a-bye-baby   c) Ring-a Ring-a roses  d) Five little monkeys jumping on the bed

Jams Bond 007

Jams Bond 007

Come September… a month of JAMS and BONDS all the way. 

No, NOT delicious fruity jams, but the tiring traffic jams,
      bonding people of all re(lig)ions through 007 festivals!  


Googled?
The popular, crowd-pulling, traffic stopper God Ganesha would surely prefer a virtual avatar to reach the sea ?

Well… Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak did start public celebration of Ganesha festival so people of various communities could bond!!!


Toned or Tondh (Paunch)? 

Imagine the plight of the ‘haelthy foodie’ Ganesha. He is offered only modaks for his birthday (Ganesha Chaturthi), while the svelte, well-toned Krishna is offered chappan bhog (56 dishes) on his birthday (Krishna Janmashtami).

Food for thought, eh?
So is Ganesha full of fats & cholestrol????
Maybe Ganesha would like a makeover.          

Ban the Plaster from (of) Paris.

And encourage the small, clay idols with vegetable or organic dyes that easily dissolve in a water body, leaving no toxic trace. That was the traditional way anyway, wasn’t it?

To be the Tall, Dark & Handsome Krishna (that’s what his name literally means) should be an inspiration for all.

No wonder they clamber up to break the pot of curd like he did….
Or are they thinking of the Rs.25 lakhs (last heard highest figure sponsored) that winning entails….

And to think Krishna discourses in the Bhagavat Gita to not worry about the results and just do your duty….

Protection or infiltration

Rakshabandhan has evolved from a sister’s plea to her brother to “protect her”, to the more clever use of it by women of tying a rakhi to “get saved from a never-to-be relationship”! Not that the idea’s new… Alexander’s wife Roxana sent one to Porus around 300 BC, in a bid to save her husband.

And today, canny retailers are enticing the bhais to take their sisters jewellery shopping or indulge them in beauty packages or electronic goods made in China.  Mere token gifts will not do now… no wonder there is a craze for bhais…!

Did you know, in the absence of bhais, sisters tie lumba rakhis to each other or to their sisters in law?

Way to go!
 
On the Fast Track …
Time to fast?
How about observing
Ramzan with Muslims,
Paryushan with Jains
or the Shravan month with the Hindus…    

Or time to eat fast?
How about celebrating Navroze with Parsis,
Feast of Mount Mary with Christians and
Ganesha Chaturthi, Krishna Janmashtami and Rakshabandhan with the Hindus???

 The only definite beneficiary of this festival season is the non-vegetarian Indian! With many meat eaters fasting this season, the price of meats and sea products have headed southward…what a bonanza for the ‘animal-lovers’!

By the way, did you know each of the above community follows a different calendar?

Times Of India

Consequently, this September, Ramzan moved forward by another 11 days and we saw Ganeshas being brought home along the same roads where the Muslims were breaking their fast! Incredible India!!!

Piggy Ban?

Eat like a pig but DON’T Sneeze like one!!!

AATCHOOOOOO!!!

A sneeze can send us running for cover. Reason? The swine flu, of course!

The often-fatal swine flu, has been traced to pig farms of Veracruz, Mexico. It is a potent cocktail of flu viruses that occur in pigs in North America, Europe and Asia, and also in birds and humans. In its current avatar, it is capable of infecting humans. And so it did, leading to the global epidemic. And panic!

Mind your Language!

You SWINE!!!                   We litter our speech with unkind references to the pig.
What a HOG!!!                  We behave like gluttons and look who’s being blamed!
Sweating like a pig??         Pigs don’t even have functional sweat glands!
“Sow”bhagyavati               Elders’ blessings or …… 
Welllllll, the pig does generate extreme reactions.

The Dirty Swine

For many, it is food they love passionately. As Roald Dahl’s The Pig exclaims, “They want my bacon slice by slice, to sell at a tremendous price”.

Some religions forbid the consumption of pigs. This in fact, partly triggered India’s first mutiny against the British in 1857. The British had introduced paper cartridges for the rifles, using a mix of beef tallow and pig fat to seal the cartridges. Since the soldiers had to bite off this part, Indian sepoys revolted against it.
Kudos to the pigs (and cows) for unifying Hindus and Muslims.

So is there anyone out there who loves the pig?

Children love to take piggyback rides and are taught early to save money in a ‘piggy bank’.



Did you know that the origin of ‘piggy bank’ had nothing to do with the pig? The ‘pygg’ referred to a type of clay used for making kitchen utensils, where people often saved their money.
Nursery stories abound with tales of the winsome ‘Three Little Pigs’ and the adventures of the Piglet in the company of Winnie the Pooh. And who hasn’t heard of Porky Pig of Loony Tunes? Three cheers to them!
The beleaguered pig has found dignity, and love at least in the world of children.