Children

Children are like insects. They are essential to the ecosystem; they are needed to make the world complete. Their hustle and bustle can sometimes even be a desirable add-on effect to the natural surroundings. It is like when you go on a picnic in the meadows, you need the insects to complete the scene and make for an authentic and pleasurable outdoor event. You like them from afar but you do not want to be personally close to any of them. You make sacrifices to secure their survival; you fight passionately to protect their collective existence, but you do not hold personal endearment to their individuals. You do not want them in your kitchen; you do not welcome their intrusion into your personal space.

Red Chinese Laterns in the midst

Quite suddenly I have too much time on hands. Two French films, one Indian mantra in my head and 17 pacing up-and-down the corridor to my bedroom later, I am famished for a G & T. I have an old man's need for an old man's drink. Lime they say! God forbid NOT lemon! should accompany the snobbish drink of gentlemen. The citrusy greenness from the tropics is the perfect suitor to the handsome perfume of juniper. A perfect marriage of east and west!

Why am I writing in a language foreign to my roots, singing in the tongue of an adopted culture and thinking in a voice incomprehensible to my ancestors? What blood runs in these veins, what soul hides behind these eyes?

Kill the lights they hurt my eyes! No! turn them all on they feed my sight! I see red Chinese laterns in the midst.

Peek-a-Boo

The first of January is a practical date: a date for a new financial year, a date for contract renewals, a date for easy recall (History would be a much easier subject to study if all important events happened only on the first of January).

The first of January is the ideal reference date to mark the beginning of any plan, any pledge, any Change.


I never dare commit myself to new year resolutions as they sound too much like promises I can't keep. But in general, making better use of my time is something worth working on this year and putting this in writing would serve as a good reminder to myself. Apart from that, perhaps the personal life Priority List too may benefit from some rearrangement.