Tag: Childhood Favourites

Nita has tagged all those bloggers whose names start with certain letters, on the topic “Childhood Favourites”. She has an interesting list herself. This is always an interesting topic for me to write about.

The tag is:

And the question is: What are the 7 favourite things you enjoyed doing as a child? I wonder if many bloggers will find out many similarities? Is a childhood everywhere the same, or is it much coloured by the cultural/social background?

My answer is:

1. I loved to play with my magnifying lens and use it to project still pictures from Films, on a Screen made out of Dad’s dhoti. Read about this in my old post here.

2. Street Cricket. You have to agree that it is not the same thing now. We used to play cricket in the street with plastic balls (or sometimes with anything that is round in shape) and Wooden bars as bat. Those were fun moments. Our stumps usually pointed in 3 different directions with varying heights and Creases were not straight lines but curves.

3. Vending machine project. I used to make a candy vending machine out of cardboard with help from my dad. There will be two slides facing opposite directions and a stick in the center holding the candy in a small box pasted to the stick. You drop the coin on the stick, the stick vibrates and the candy slides off to a small receiving box, where you can collect your candy. The Coin slides on the opposite side and reaches you. I loved to do it every summer and it was fun selling candies that way to my friends and neighbourhood kids.

4. Counting Fight scenes in Movies. I loved fight sequences as a child. It is fascinating to see the hero jump around and kick some baddie’s rear. So whenever I went to watch a movie, I used to count the number of fight sequences using my fingers (and sometimes toes) and that is how I used to rate the movie. So more fights, better the movie is.

5. Kids Magazines: Siruvar Malar (a Supplement that comes with a Tamil daily Dina Malar, every Friday). I go to my neighbours house and borrow Siruvar Malar and never fail to read the comics. My favourites being – Pala muga mannan Joe (The Multi faced Joe) and Pei Palli (Haunted School). I also used to love reading Poonthalir, Gokulam (Kid’s Magazines) and Young World (Supplement from The Hindu every Saturday).

6. Horse Carriage rides: Madurai used to have Horse Carriages as one of the modes of transport. This was early 80′s. I always loved a ride in one of them and the best place for me was to sit by the driver and watch the horse trott it’s way wagging its tail.

7. Visiting Meenakshi Amman Temple. I love the paintings and statue in this grand temple in Madurai. There was one particular painting that I really loved – The snakes curled up. I used to visit the temple and long for it, keep pestering my dad when was this painting going to come.This painting used to be on the floor and now it is replaced with something else.

If you would love to write about interesting things in your childhood, you can take this up as a tag and write it in your blog.

Thanks Nita for reminding me of those days.

Magazines se Ethanol Tak

So I go through the usual ritual of a routine haircut at the salon the other day. I was asked to wait a few minutes for my turn and so I was sitting at the lounge area waiting. A bunch of magazines on the table were inviting me to take a peek and this is what I thought about them.

Men’s Health: Hmm… I have got a good biceps and decent triceps. Hey I even have small mountain like muscle right around my belly, so I must be in good shape. I don’t need this. Besides, it is too insulting to put a couple of Shirtless men with waxed Torso on the cover who have 6 pack abs. Why can’t they put normal men like me? This looks like some sort of Women entertainment magazine, I am skipping this.

Women’s Health: Now that is a normal looking woman. See, this is how they should project it in the cover, will bring up the reader’s self esteem. No more comments, I am skipping this.

Golf Magazine: I stand on the field and hit the ball several yards, walk all the way to get the ball and all I do is hit it again? This is what Robin Williams thought and I think the same. To me, Golf is too boring. Besides, I would rather fight for using the land for cultivating wheat and feed the hungry in Africa.

Parenting Magazine: Now this is outrageous. Do they think I am a terrible parent that I need a magazine to improve my parenting skills. Sure I may have allowed some stunts but still I am good father! I am going to burn effigies of scissors and trimmers, I will burn the magazines, heck I will burn old tyres if can’t burn anything. Well, I wasn’t in India so I can’t do all these. Breathe in … Breathe out … Skipping this.

Car Magazine: Ah! finally they got me. I love cars, I am a formula 1 fan. Finally something I like and so I picked it up. Turn the pages, and my eyes fall right on an article on Ethanol. “To feed the hungry in Africa, you need to blow away your SUV” says the title. “800 Million people in US need fuel, while 800 million in Africa are deprived off their food” it said something like that, I can’t remember the exact sentence.

Ethanol is considered a blunder in alternative fuel by Environmentalist as too many farmlands are converted for cultivating Corn which is the source of Ethanol. This leads to the decrease in production of food crops causing inflation and price rise of crops like Rice, Wheat. The end result is someone who cannot afford high prices, going hungry. Of course the other side of the group which supports Ethanol, thinks that the world level inflation and rise in food prices is uneffected by ethanol, and is actually due to other reasons. I had already written a small article on Going Green vs Going Hungry. You can also read the Food vs Fuel debate in detail over here – Wikipedia: Food vs Fuel.

At any cost, we shouldn’t sacrifice our fuel for the body over fuel for our locomotion. This is my opinion. We can’t drive if we don’t exist, can we? So obviously my stand is to oppose the use of Ethanol (and may be those gas guzzling SUVs, but no leave the F1 Cars alone). But as an Individual, we can make a difference by choosing what we need. If we pick the right thing then the market will automatically respond to it. If we use lesser fuel, cut down our commutes, make simple choices in life things will fall in place. Our actions can influence the environment around us.

It is time for my hair cut, and the barber cuts the first bits of my hair and I thought:

“An experience of a great looking hairstyle, starts from the first cut”