Mosquito Menace in Madras

Yesterday was a day, no, a night I would remember for many days to come. It was like any another day at office and I was returning home. When I was nearer I could feel insects hitting my face. It was like riding in the rain. There was a distinct drop in the presence of mosquitoes a couple of days back. It seems like it was just a silence before the storm. There was so many that I wanted to bathe after the ride back home. I thank the person who invented the “Mosquito Net”. Without that it would have been very difficult yesterday. In the night it seemed as though the mosquitoes were trying to attach us. We could see them lined up in all sides, so densely. The picture is only a part of the mosquitoes that were out there. They were the deadones found on top of the net. I forgot to take my camera with me to bed. Or else I could have given a battalion of mosquitoes lined up for attacking.

On the work front

I have always been a “believer” of sorts of the Murphy’s Laws. But there aren’t many that one can experience when studying. We tend to lie low during those days with not much happening except to be studying more and more books. It is only when beginning to work that we see it all coming back and wonder what great genius he is. I have a screen utility that dishes out maxims from Murphy’s Laws on Work and the one that triggered me to write this is

“There is never enough time to do it right the first time,
but there is always enough time to do it over.”

There are so many examples that I can site from my experience in this position. Any report that is asked is urgent and in most cases I get the communiqué only after the fixed deadline. People are so living in the past and we do yesterday’s job most of the time. We tend to get the figures wrong in the hurry but not to worry, there is always a reply stating that whatever we did was wrong and do it again. This time we would get a couple of days to get it right. Why can’t they give us that time in the first place? I guess I’ll find out when I reach the top.

PS.

(I don’t know if my organisation has a blogging policy. But have I gone overboard with anything?)

This bird never flu. err... flew.

The recent bird flu caused by "H5N1 bird-flu virus" has been in news for quite some time. A google search on bird flu India returns results about dead chicken and how farmers and governments are clearing them. But do you know what I think about it. There is no harm eating chicken. After all this bird never flu. err... flew.

If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway

It is just the way it is. Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary. Yes, tomorrow and we willl discuss that later. But now what am I doing in the office? I'’m stuck here because we have a lot of unfinished job now. You might say that I'’m grudging for wrong reasons or even worse no reason at all. But it is no’t so. I have been free on so many days. You should know my work nature for that. I work in the section where cash is handled. We collect money from customers 6 days a week. Of these there days when due dates arrive for different kind of customers and those days are spread over the month. There are seven such due dates. I'’ll be busy in the first week, what ever happens. Same is true for the last week too. But look at today. It is neither a due date or any where near it no first / last week. So I was thinking '“anything just cannot go wrong'”, and '“it did anyway'”. There was a spurt of customers making payments and they having been counting money for more than two hours now. That brings me to another conclusion.

No matter how perfect things are made to appear,

Murphy's law will take effect and screw it up.

GM Diet - Day 7 [BROWN RICE, FRUIT JUICES & VEGETABLES] [10-02-2006 FRIDAY]

What is brown rice? I have seen the Kerala variety of rice but it is more towards red than brown. Anyway that was what I had for the day. But how do you eat rice? So add to it some rasam. This is the difficulty in following the diet formulated elsewhere than the homeland. India for its variety in culture and practices cannot do with one diet plan for the whole nation. That being the case to follow a western formula is difficult. (I have seen the vegetarian substitute for this diet somewhere in the net for Indians, but however I chose to follow the original as far as possible. Grape juice during breakfast and orange juice for supper were the juicy supplements. I took just vegetables for supper, not rice. So there it ended, seven days of a different experience. Tomorrow holds the promise of Tandoori chicken. Shouldn’t there be a celebration?

GM Diet – Day 6 [BEEF & VEGETABLES] [09-02-2006 THURSDAY]

Today was pretty much the same as yesterday. The beef was prepared in the same fashion as yesterday, except that we added a little onion to it. And after two meals I quit, not from the diet but from eating beef. Supper included cabbage leaves, carrots, cucumber and guava.

GM Diet - Day 5 [BEEF & TOMATOES] [08-02-2006 WEDNESDAY]

YUCK. That’s what I felt when I saw this. What kind of combination is this? Beats the milk-banana-soup combination fair and square. Add to this my lack of knowledge how beef is prepared in west. We use so much of masala in our food that without the knowledge of western recipes all I could think of is to cook beef and tomatoes together, add a little pepper to it. YUCK again. I know, but paathi kinaru thandiaachchu ( completed half of it) so let me carry on with it. Once again office makes things easier. Especially mine has an uncanny way of keeping me busy in things I’ve already done or things I would never do if given an option. But three meals with the same dishes (like this) is definitely hell. But I have passed this test also. Tomorrow is a new day and I can eat beef and vegetables in unlimited quantities, to my hearts content. Enakku periya manasu thaan, aanaalum beef in unlimited quantities. Paakalaam…

GM Diet - Day 4 [MILK, BANANAS & SOUP] [07-02-2006 TUESDAY]

This might sound like a weird combination, but claimed by those who formulated the diet to be scientific, another claim being us not to complete the allowed 8 bananas. Clear this for me. What is a banana? It comes in various sizes and how am I to find out what is the banana he is talking about. I would not be able to eat even one red banana but can go on for a while with mountain bananas. Anyway I got some bananas usually sold by street side vendors and tried hard to stay within the limit. Soup was fine but not as good as Jose did when he went on this diet. But the day was comfortably completed. Tomorrow I can have beef.

GM Diet – Day 3 [FRUITS & VEGETABLES] [06-02-2006 MONDAY]

I am happy that I came this far, as the last time I went on a diet it was a disaster ending on second night. Back to office and things became easier. A mixture of fruits & vegetables gives a variety to the bored taste buds. The lit included watermelon (again a huge part), grapes, carrot, radish and cucumber. There was some headache but was manageable. Tomorrow seems to be a difficult day. You will know when you see the title.

GM Diet – Day 2 [VEGETABLES] [05-02-2006 SUNDAY]

Stuff yourself with vegetables was the slogan for the day. I was at home and had a lot of free time to think about what I was doing and that was the problem. Soon I developed a splitting headache. I had cucumber (once again a watery vegetable), carrot and radish (long, red ones). I wanted to add cabbage to the list but could not find time to include it, as there was no definite liking to eat anything at all. But all that matters is that I survived that day.

GM Diet – Day 1 [FRUITS] [04-02-2006 SATURDAY]

All said, now lets see what I did. I bought some watermelons (some!). As said in the diet chart the chances of losing up to 3 lbs are good if I went on an all melon diet. So I did and certainly felt lighter. But I like watermelon a lot but I think I have developed some dislike towards it now. This day was not much of a problem and I had done this before. I had to go to office and there was not much time to think about it. This was the best time since the first week of the month is the busiest. The only problem being how to eat watermelon for lunch. Usually I take my lunch at office. But for this I went home in afternoon to have this. Tomorrow could be worse lets see.

GM Diet – Day 0 [03-02-2006 FRIDAY]

I wanted to go on a GM Diet ever since I knew about it. Why? Because no matter how I looked I’ve always been described as the fat boy/man in my class. It goes like this as in the “Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” song.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth;
oh never mind;
You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you
and how fabulous you really looked….
You’re not as fat as you imagine.

In my case I was not as fat as they imagined. But still I was always a little overweight, crossing the limit by a couple of kilograms. So (see line 1), and I almost did it once.

We were then in Thanjavur. I had a good start enjoying ripe mangoes (it was the summer of 2003) for the first day and carrots and cucumbers for day two. But my plan crash-landed when relatives visited us. We were serving them with delicious food that my mother makes. Virunthombal Thamizhar panpadallava! There was crispy chicken fry and spicy gravy. It broke me down and I surrendered to my taste buds.

Now here I am wiser by the success stories of my friends (Arun and “Thanjavur” Prem) and my brother-in-law Jose. They managed to complete it and Arun does it any time he wants to do it. And I’m going on it now.