Life was beautiful

The 1980s in India were quiet times. This was before cable TV took over and much before the internet age. One had lots of spare time on hand as a kid then. Burning spiders in their webs was something one could do during summer vacations. Of course it always started with trying to find one nestling in its web.Not too much effort went into searching for one because it was simple. Three simple rules for finding a web - location,location,location ; nothing more nothing less. After that it was pretty straightforward. Spiders were malnourished back then and much unlike the behemoths shown in the movies ; Very reassuring indeed.

Dragonflies were another favorite target. Catching them and tying their tails to watch them fly was a great source of satisfaction.Black ants were not spared either . But there were rules here. Fat black ants were killed but the baby ants were spared because they were supposed to be agents of God. They carried sugar from the Ganesha idol in kitchen to their homes. After reading that they were saving for a rainy day , one made sure they could get all they wanted and even tracked down and delivered food to their homes.Butterflies were caught and sought to be preserved because they were colorful and beautiful. Preserving them meant putting them together in an air-tight plastic bag all night. By morning they were all dead.

So it goes...

Limerick

"Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were roaring drunk on petroleum"

-2006 AD Kurt Vonnegut

Bush and Cheney were roaring drunk on oil
Together they used the war on terror as a foil
Bush was a prick
Cheney was a dick
All they did was put a country in turmoil

So it goes.....

My favorite quote..

Porting this one from my older blog site..

My favorite quote is not actually a quote; it is a law. Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of motion which states that “For very action there is an equal and opposite reaction”, has been meaningful not only to me, but to every living being that has inhabited this planet ever since Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden apple in the Garden of Eden. In fact, I believe Newton missed a trick when he discovered just the law of gravity as a consequence of an apple falling from a tree in his own garden in Lincolnshire. Had the apple landed on his head rather than on the ground, and produced an equal and opposite swelling, he would probably have arrived at the third law much earlier than he did. Fishes swim and birds fly only because of Newton’s third law. When people say “what goes around comes around”, they do not realize they are stating the unscientific version of Newton’s third law. The law holds true even from a philosophical point of view, though not many people truly appreciate this fact. It is my strong belief that Newton’s’ third law is intrinsically tied to the law of Karma which is central to Hinduism and Buddhism. The karmic philosophy, “As you sow, so you reap”, comprises the entire cycle of cause and effect and hence lucidly reiterates the third law. Every being in the world is directly or indirectly involved in trying to prove Newton’s third law right. Even at this moment, as I am blissfully writing this essay, I realize that if I do not finish this right now, I will face the equal, opposite and the not so pleasant reaction of my wife. It is wise not to try and prove something that is being proved everyday. I have therefore decided to take a rain check on penning down any other thoughts that I may have about the meaningfulness of the third law.