Nostalgic chain-mail

I got this from a cousin in Minnesota....chain mail
that I actually took the time to read :

I got this from Canada, it is long but cute.
Print a copy and read it at lunchtime. Not all of this was
in my time, but I can relate, can you? A little bit of nostalgia....
you might want to pass on to everyone who is eligible and
also those who are not!

To the wonderful kids who were born in India and
survived the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's.......

First, we survived being born to mothers, some, whose
husbands smoked and /or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate whatever food was put on the table,
and didn't get tested for diabetes. They were mothers who
did not check their blood pressure every few minutes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs and bassinets were
covered with bright coloured lead-based paints. We were put
in prams and sent out with ayahs (maids) to meet other children
with ayahs, whilst our parents were busy. We cried, were
picked up and cuddled by the ayahs" ( maids) and were quiet
again. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or
cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets,
not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking or going out on
our own. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts
or airbags. We sat on each other's laps for God's sake.
Riding in the back of a truck or jeep on a warm day was always
a special treat.

We drank water from outdoor taps and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle,
and NO ONE actually died from this.
We would share a dosa, dip a chapatti into someone else's plate
of curry without batting an eyelid. We ate jam sandwiches or
pickle on bread and butter, raw mangoes with salt that set our
teeth on edge, and drank orange squash with sugar and water
in it. We ate at roadside stalls, drank water from tender coconuts,
ate everything that was bad for us from mumfalees to Bhel Puri
to bhajias, puckhas and samosas, but we weren't overweight
because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! There was
never a child - not one single child -who was obese!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day during the
holidays, we were never ever bored, and we were allowed freedom
all day as long as we were back when the streetlights came on, or
when our parents told us to do so. No one was able to reach us all
day by mobile phone or phone. And we were O.K. We would spend
hours making paper kites, building things out of scraps with old
pram wheels or cycle rims, inventing our own games, playing
traditional games called hide and seek, kick the can and rounders,
ride old cycles and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot
the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to
solve the problem. We swam with an inflated tube which we got from
somebody who was replacing their car tyres, in creeks and rivers.
We ran barefoot without thinking about it, if we got cut we used iodine
which made us jump. We did not wash our hands ten times a day.
And we were OK. Our parents trusted us to go on picnics with
everyone and anyone, a friend of a friend would be OK and we survived.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at
all, no tv, no videos, no surround sound, no mobile phones,
no personal computers, no I-Pods, no internet or internet chat rooms,
BUT WE ALWAYS HAD MUSIC!!

We did not have parents who said things like "what would you like for
breakfast, lunch or dinner". We ate what was put in front of us and best
of all , there were never any leftovers. We polished the lot.
WE HAD FRIENDS, great friends, whose parents we called Uncle and Aunty,
and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees numerous times, got cut, broke bones and teeth
and there were no compensation claims from these accidents.
We ate fruit lying on the ground that we shook down from the tree
above. And we never washed fruit.

We had a bath using a bucket and mug and used Lifebuoy soap.
We did not know what conditioners meant. We made up games with
sticks and tennis balls. We rode bicycles everywhere and someone sat on
the carrier or across the bar to school or the pictures not cinema, or you
walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell,
or just walked in and talked to them!

Not everyone made it into the teams we wanted to. Those who didn't had
to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent
bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of - they actually sided with
the law! This generation of ours has produced some of the best risk-takers,
problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an
explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success
and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If you want to, pass this on to others who have had the luck and good
fortune to grow up as kids in India, before the lawyers and the government
regulated our lives ostensibly for our own good, who changed what was
good into bad and what was bad into worse.

Those were the days, my friend !!

3D Psychedelic Mish-Mash

I'm tripping out for awhile....so to speak.
Moving to new digs tomorrow and so I'll be
offline until a new connection is established
to the 'net. Hopefully, this Blog's return will
be bigger and better.

In the meantime here's a Psychedelic hash
of images in a slideshow format that should
make your eyes pop and your vision blurry if
it isn't already. Oh, and BTW - try not to make
sense of all the rambling text portions, they'll
probably drive you nuts ! *

http://www.3datelier.com/psychedelics.htm

* "Continue with a clean clear mind melting into
the heart!"

* "Electrical sensations in the body, feelings of
magnetic force!"

* "Knocking On Forbidden Doors. Turn around
and you will see. Life is like a roundabout, a kind
of LSD. Turn around, have faith in all the changes.
Turn around and you will feel. No more age of
loneliness, you are a part of me."

...........WTF ? !!!**&&^%$&!!

Heads up to Anglo-Indians

The 2007 World-wide Anglo-Indian Reunion
will be held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from
Aug. 12-19 2007
This promises to be the biggest event ever,
since the Program is highlighted by a Symposium,
Workshop on Caring and Sharing with the less
fortunate, a Boat cruise, a Niagara Falls Tour,
Toronto Tour, Muti-cultural festival, all
culminating with a Grand Dinner Dance where an
old-school Dance-band shares the bill with
New-school DJs.

Anglo-Indians from all parts of the Globe will be
present to see and be seen and to ensure this
tradition persists in this rapidly-changing world.

Link to the official site
provided by Peter Lovery, Marketing and Sponsorship

Bush IS a 4-letter word

They're calling it the "sh*t that was heard
around the world"....

Bush was talking privately to British P.M.
Tony Blair during a lunch at the Group of Eight
summit in St Petersburg about an upsurge of
violence in the Middle East.

Neither immediately realised a microphone was
transmitting their candid thoughts on that and
other issues.

Bush : "I think Condi (Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice) is going to go (to the Middle East)
pretty soon"

Blair added: "See, if she goes out she's got to
succeed as it were, whereas I can just go out and talk."

Bush : "See, the irony is what they need to do is
get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit
and it's over."

Bush also said that when he next spoke to G8 leaders,
he would keep it brief. "I'm not going to talk too long
like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long.
Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight," he said.

As reported by CNN

Related BBC NEWS article

The Blank Noise Project

Finally an age-old threat, public nuisance and disgrace is
being tackled head-on, not by strongmen politicians
or such but by the victims themselves.....

"Eve Teasing, as the name suggests, is considered
a joke, a prank. Eve Teasing is street sexual harassment.
The project seeks to recognize eve teasing as a sexual
crime and establish the issue as something that may
be normal, but is unacceptable. The Blank Noise project
works both online and on the streets of Bangalore,
Mumbai , Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad.

We invite you to come along!"
- the publishers of the Blank Noise Blog

Related :
Currently most e-mailed story from Yahoo

Suggested reading : India Together

The following India Together article is being sent to you by one of our
readers. Your email address has not been added to any databases,
and is not being recorded. We hope you find this India Together article
useful.

http://www.indiatogether.org/2005/dec/wom-blank.htm

http://www.indiatogether.org/

[Boing Boing] Recommendation: Reactions on discovering that your book is pirated in Mumbai

frdmilltx@yahoo.com has sent you a link!

Title: Reactions on discovering that your book is pirated in Mumbai
Link: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/15/reactions_on_discove.html

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Christina Has Bombay Dreams

Not getting into the Bollywood/Gossip end of the
spectrum here. I'll let this picture of Christina Aguilera
shooting a Pepsi commercial do the talking. I thought it
might be interesting when compared to my recent posts
on women achievers*

Anyway, it's good to see yet another Bollywood mash-up...
so many wanna-be-s....

* Ramona Borthwick

* Safia Fatimi

Madooo - Le Grande Dooker

Click to enlarge

"I'm attaching a jpg I got from France with this week's list
of top 15 on that Beatle station. Both the songs they
programmed this month are in there, sandwiched between
Ray Charles and Jeff Beck.

Huge compliment for me and I feel very happy about it.

Later!"

- madhu 

Namaste Miss Universe

The 55th annual Miss Universe competition will
be held in Los Angeles on July 23, 2006.
Till then Yahoo has a slideshow for you if you
are slightly interested......

7/11 Mumbai Serial Blast

7/11 Mumbai Serial Blast
Originally uploaded by Soumik.

Soumik's latest Flickr set attempts to show the
horrible scenes of July 11 2006 in Mumbai.
As always, this young man is on the scene
reporting with his unique lensmanship.....

God bless the victims and their families.

Mumbai mourns

Ambica Kilawala, whose husband was missing after
the bomb blasts, waits outside the morgue of Bhaba
hospital in Bombay, India, Wednesday, July 12, 2006.
Eight explosions ripped through packed commuter
trains during rush hour Tuesday in India's commercial
capital, killing nearly 150 people and injuring another
439 in what officials said was a well-coordinated bomb
attack by terrorists. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Slideshow of the aftermath
-from Reuters via Yahoo

The spirit of Mumbai shines through
"The spirit of Mumbai' isn't just a pretty phrase —
it's a reality that comes to the fore every time
the city is struck by disaster. And it was out in
full force on 11/7."- Times of India

Sujata Sathe : Simply Super

'She lost her father when she was just ten-years-old.
Her mother and three sisters were left to fend for
themselves in a small house in Shaniwar Peth.....
...today, she has completed 34 years of service as a
special assistant in Bank of Maharashtra and her
story inspires one to live a life of respect and dignity.'

The previous post linked to some extraordinary women
and their achievements in the Western world. But this
story of a Puneite who is the same age as me hit home
more than I can say here and I'd like to share this link
to Sujata Sathe's story, neatly told by Avantika Bhuyan
at expressindia.com

Safia Fatimi : Cutting Edge

http://www.safiafatimi.com/index_flash.html

While researching links for this Virtual Poona Blog
I have found a vast array of talent displayed by
our very own Desi ladies. I have previously raved
about Ramona Borthwick and the Deccan Queen
as these women have reached uncanny heights
of performance and still maintain their innate
South Asian sensibilities.

The screenshot above belongs to the website of
photographer Safia Fatimi, the product of a Pakistani
Muslim father and a Nepali Hindu mother. Today she is
at the top of her game with a client list that includes
Sony Music, Babyface Records, Merrill Lynch, Adweek
and Rolling Stone mag to name a few. What really
got me was her online collaboration with designer
Alex Cho which resulted in an award-winning Flash site.
Breathtaking visuals combined with a simplicity bordering
on minimalism.

Related links :
http://tinyurl.com/hxt56
http://www.leitmotif.com/

Beatles live on in Vegas

Yoko at the Vegas opening

"Lucy swoops on a trapeze across a sky
twinkling with diamonds, Mr Kite presides
over a psychedelic circus of stiltwalkers
and acrobats, and the unmistakable voices of John,
Paul, George and Ringo fill the surround sound-equipped arena.

With a little help from a lot of friends, The Beatles are brought
back to life in a Cirque du Soleil spectacular that marks the
band's first agreement to collaborate on a stage show."

- By Jill Serjeant
Yahoo News, Sat Jul 1, 1:50 AM ET

Two-legged Asses

By LR Jagadheesan
BBC News, Madras

Campaigners in India's Tamil Nadu state say
the law is literally an ass after a judge
ordered the arrest of a donkey.

The animal was kept overnight in a police station
after being seized at a rally in which it was used
to highlight alleged failings of local officials.

Police said the donkey was evidence from the "scene
of a crime". They have been accused of animal cruelty.

The donkey's owners, meanwhile, say they are grateful
to get it back after its period of incarceration.

They say that while it is good to have it home again,
it is even more stubborn and bad-tempered than normal.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://tinyurl.com/lbpsk

Pity the poor penny!

It packs so little value that merry kids chuck
pennies into the fountain near the candy store,
just to watch them splash and sink.
Stray pennies turn up everywhere: in streets,
cars, sofas, beaches, even landfills with the
rest of the garbage.

A penny bought a loaf of bread in early America,
but it's a loafer of a coin in an age of inflation
and affluence, slowly sliding into monetary
obsolescence.

For the first time, the U.S. Mint has said pennies
are costing more than 1 cent to make this year,
thanks to higher metal prices. "The penny is
going to disappear soon unless something
changes in the economics of commodities,"
says Robert Hoge, an expert on North American
coins at The American Numismatic Society.

Read this article at Yahoo