The Chicken Coop Winter Party

The bells jingle, winter lights gleam
The cold sets in, hot chocolates steam
We chickens love this time of year
Of fun, joy, happiness and cheer.

We peek in the yard, happy children run
Christmas tree arrives, how very fun
“It’s all nice and dandy.” Oreo says
“But how do we celebrate these festive days?”

Oreo’s words make Paisley mope
Christmas fun seems beyond our scope
“Fear not!” Lazy Laurie cries
A wild look crosses her keen eyes.

“We’ll have a party!” Lazy declares
“With lights and feast, peels and pears.
Invite the human girls!” she states
“We’ll decorate and use our very best plates!”

Crazy Cookie sighs, Paisley shivers
Such bold plans stress out our livers
But Oreo thinks this is a grand plan
She gets out a pen from her personal can.

Finding a paper, Lazy Laurie writes
“You are invited after two nights
Come, dear girls, to celebrate
Christmas with us, behind the crate.”

“We appreciate all you do for us
You take care of us without a fuss
We would now like to return the favor.
Together we party, yummy food we savor.”

The next morning Leena gets a surprise
What’s this note? She can’t believe her eyes
“Tanya!” she yells, running to the house
Her wild cries stun the birds and the mouse.

“What’s going on?” asks Tanya, very confused
“Can you stop yelling? My ears feel bruised.”
Wordlessly Leena hands her the note
As Tanya reads, she drops her tote.

“We knew they could talk. But this is nuts
These crazy chickens have a lot of guts!”
Nods Leena, “I guess it’s time to party”
Let’s hope they serve a meal that’s hearty!”

The party is today, the chickens work hard
They decorate their coop with stuff from the yard
Berries and pine needles, yummy delights
Lazy Laurie even pulls out a stash of lights.

Evening comes near, Paisley lays the plates
With peels and cheese and bits of dates
The coop looks festive as the girls arrive
They look surprised! The chickens high-five.

The girls sit on the rocks, while the chickens serve
Their beautiful plates with enthusiasm and verve
The girls look worried, as they politely eat
A piece of bread, topped with a peel of beet.

Leena has a plan. From her pocket she sneaks
A cookie. Taking a bite she fills her cheeks
The move does not escape the chicken eye
Lazy Laurie squawks, making Oreo fly.

A peck on her knee catches Leena unawares
She yells, drops the cookie, now its theirs
Before Leena can move, Oreo responds
Picking up the cookie, she rapidly absconds.

Next thing, we chickens fall in a pile
Lazy Laurie lands a kick, Kungfu style
Taking charge, she then bellows
To drive some sense in her chicken fellows.

Moving the chickens, the cookie she picks
Carefully she breaks it into equal parts of six.
As the girls gawk, she carefully picks each part
And serves it to everyone. Now isn’t she smart?

For winter is a time for love and sharing
“Time for us to show we can be caring!”
Her sisters nod. The human girls smile
They dig in their pockets in great style.

Out comes a bag of treats galore.
Fruits and pies, melons and more
We chickens stare, together we thank
Our lovely girls whom we must never prank.

And thus we eat, drink and share
We cuddle the girls to show we care
The night descends, the dog arrives
The party ends, it was a time of our lives.

The girls say good night, we give a hug
Paisley gives Tanya’s sleeve a tug
As she gives them a present, our favorite rock
With many thanks, our coop they lock.

Well, my sisters, have a very good night
Sleep well. Together we cuddle tight
As we watch the happy girls go home
“That’s the spirit!” shouts the garden gnome.

Kylo Ren, the supreme leader, awakens

Kylo Ren the dog: Woof! Howdy? My mom has been keeping the computer away from me. I haven’t been able to blog at all. Hmph. So, this afternoon, I lay on my back with my paws hanging mid air, playing dead, or at least, fast asleep. My people thought I was oh, so cute. They got groggy looking at me, lying there. Soon, mom passed out on the couch, as I watched from the corner of my half closed eye.

The snore was my cue. I was up in a thrice, sneaking over to the computer. Mom stirred a bit, so I pulled the blanket over her and gave her a fuzzy nuzzle. There, there. I even tucked a little stuffie in the blanket. Satisfied, mom resumed snoring while I crept over to the computer.

My last post was back in November about kickboxing. I am getting some serious FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). So, here I am, writing about my life story since the past few months.

The winter was largely dull, other than some brief excitement in December when I couldn’t stop pooping and ended up in the hospital. My dad wanted to come in the examination room, but the hospital staff insisted on taking me without my humans. So I got some fun out of that, terrorizing the poor staff members. My fun was finally over when they put me under to do tests on me. I was sleepy for two days after that. Tanya told me later that all they did at the hospital was to put water in my body using a needle. Wow! $1000 for that?! I could have drunk that much water instead and bought treats with the $1000. My humans are sweet, but easily duped.

Christmas came around. I ate as much as I could beg my masters out of. Gingerbread houses, cookies, treats wrapped in wrapping paper, the wrapping paper itself, you name it!

Unfortunately our year ended badly with dad falling off a ladder and ripping his shoulder. He had to go to the hospital after that, and unlike in the dog world, in the human world, it is the doctor who terrorizes the patient. Dad should have taken me along, like I begged him to, but no one listens to me around here. Hmph.

Winter was very cold. The chickens were freezing their butts outside. Leena took to leaving boiling hot water in their coops. If it was up to me, I would have boiled the chicken in the water and had a nice warm soup, but no one listens to me around here (did I mention that before?)

Just when I thought I would die from boredom, Paisley, the screamy chicken, added some excitement by almost getting eaten by a predator. I will let her tell her story, but she spent about ten days in the house, giving me something to sniff and poke at, while I tried to pass the time.

And then, just like that, my luck changed. Suddenly two new people appeared in the house who I could terrorize! Woah! I couldn’t believe my luck. These people smelt and looked a bit strange, so I wasn’t sure about my attack tactic. I heard that they were from a far off place called India. What’s more, they were mom’s parents. Ok, interesting. I tried to get up close and personal, but my family played spoilsport as usual and kept me away.

When the new people did not leave after seeing me, my attitude slowly shifted from seeing them as a threat, to a potential expansion of the pack. The urge to include them in the pack became greater when I noticed some very positive traits of the new arrivals. They tended to give me a last bite of whatever meal they were having. Wow! My beggar instinct came fully alive as I started following the new people. Tanya and Leena called them Nana and Nani. If it is good enough for them, it is good enough for me. So, Nana and Nani they are.

I love Nani. Absolutely. I like Nana too, but Nani cooks. She makes these flat breads called roti, and guess what?! She always makes one for me. When I get this butter covered delight I am in seventh heaven.

Now, being a supreme leader, my natural instinct is to ignore people when they call me. But I never ignore Nana and Nani if they call me. Because I know, treats await. I go, I sit, I drool, I beg, and I chomp. Can’t complain. Life’s good.

You and you

How often do you hear people (or yourself) say such phrases – No one cares about me. No one loves me.

I am here to tell you that this is untrue. There’s always someone who cares about you, even when the whole world seems against you. That person is you. Allow me to elaborate.

Question: What is you?

As it turns out, at any given point of time there are two forms of you. The first form is the sum total of your life experiences, your values, your work and whatever makes you the unique person that you are. This is the steady state you.

The second form of you is the mental state that you are in at this moment. You may be in panic at this moment as you are about to lose your job, or sad because your pet is sick, or thrilled because your favorite soccer team won. While this is also you, it does not represent the actual you. This is a transient you. It is your state of mind only today and now, but does not represent the steady state you.

The steady state you is the actual you. The transient you feels more real, but in a few days, or even as early as tomorrow or later today, it will change to a different state. Even if the transient you takes months to get out of this current issue, it is still transient in the overall timeline of your life.

The mistake we make is that we think that the transient us is the real us. This is not true.

So why is this a useful bit of information?

First: Because understanding that the transient you is not alone and not all powerful will bring you peace. Understand that any momentary feeling that you are experiencing today is a teeny tiny bit of information that has been added to the steady state you. It is likely going to make no change to the overall steady state you.

Second: If you understand this truth, by logic, you have found a friend. The steady state you. Keeping the steady state you in mind makes you realize that the transient you is not alone.

Let me give you a small proof that the steady state you is indeed your friend. When you said “No one cares about me,” you have actually exhibited care for yourself. You cared enough to articulate this idea, right? So, care has already happened. You have nurtured yourself. The only issue is that you failed to recognize this fact. You did not notice that you had already exhibited self care and self love. Recognize this. One way to organize your thought would be to think that the steady state you exhibited care to the current, agitated, transient you.

Recognizing yourself as your friend is an all powerful thought. If you start drawing strength from yourself, you stand tall. You are able to calmly shut down criticism to your self. Allow the steady state you come to the defense of the transient you. Do not allow the transient you to defend yourself. This is because the transient you is agitated and can’t think straight.

When you have practiced the skill of defending yourself through thoughtless criticisms, you will find people getting attracted toward you. Take their new found admiration with a pinch of salt, just as you take their criticism. Do not let it affect you or get complacent. This will disturb the steady state you, and make you less able to take care of the transient you in times of trouble.

One last thing: The way that the transient you deals with life’s challenges will determine how powerful the steady state you will be. A steady state you that has been built out of falsehoods cannot support you adequately. If you want a strong friend in the steady state you, you must work through each challenge that the transient you faces with truth, courage and a fight. If you do this, you will have a powerful ally that will guide you through life.

Ladies, Do humankind a favor. Stop being perfect!

Why do women always try to show a perfect house, perfect yard, a perfect husband and family, perfect kids? You get the idea. Women are fixated at the idea of showing that their lives are perfect. They will go to any lengths to hide the glaring imperfections in their life and to only show the carefully edited, perfect world with pained, but smoothened, happy smiles. Why do we do this? Let’s do a pros vs cons list of this to analyze if showing or pretending that we have perfect lives is a good idea or not.

Before I am taken apart for aiming this at the ladies, men do it too. However, men do a lot of strange things and I am less involved and interested in their reasoning. I don’t have the energy to figure them out.

Pro 1: We make our friends jealous! Oh yeah. That bully who always tried to put me down. Well, here’s my perfect life right back at you! Let me rub that in your face. Take that, miss. Look at my perfect husband, y’all. And my beautiful car, my picture perfect vacations. Ah, that felt nice. Revenge is sweet, isn’t it?

Except for one tiny thing. That bully is still living in your head. She still has power over you that makes you lie about your life. Wouldn’t it be much better to shake her off?

“Hey”, you say. It’s not just for the bully. I am showing off to all my friends.

If we are talking about friends, or in other words, people we like, Guess what?! Basic human nature 101 dictates that you will actually never show off to people you like, if they are inferior to you. You would be compassionate and try to downplay your fortunes to make your unfortunate friend feel better. In other words, you are only showing off to people you consider are more fortunate than you. You may be jealous of them, and are competing with them to create an illusion of your life that is not true. So if we do need to create this illusion, are our so called friends actually our friends? Or, are we being nice to our less fortunate friends?

Pro 2: We make our neighbors or any random stranger who happens to see us either in the real world or on social media jealous. Why would we want to do that? Why put in all this effort and live a lie to make unknown people jealous? All we achieved from our hard work is to make other people feel bad about their life and existence. And to do this, we had to spend time, energy and resources. What can possibly be good about such a situation.?

Allow me to list the cons.

Con 1: It is not real. Everyone’s life is very challenging. We are only wasting our time and energy showing a perfect life. We know it is not true. Such a lie will drain you and make you feel empty. The praises are meaningless, you know it. Now, we don’t have to share our misfortunes with anyone and everyone, but we can choose to be silent, rather than sharing a lie. It’s also exhausting to keep up with a lie.

Con 2: It is a waste of our resources. We could spend that time doing something useful. We can learn a new skill, pursue our hobbies, read a book, watch a movie. Learning a new skill or pursuing a hobby might actually lead to a better life thereby making your artificially perfect world actually achievable.

Con 3: Such showing off is bad for the larger society, the world, our planet. We might be wasting money buying useless stuff to show off our shiny homes. We might be buying brand names, or indulging in travel, or other wasteful practices. This is bad for the environment. There is no positive, and plenty of actual, tangible negative in this scenario.

Con 4: You open yourself to being exploited and conned by advertisers. They target this exact urge to show off to push you to buy a new this or that, thereby further deteriorating our environment. This means, you are playing with the future of your kids by indulging in such practices.

Con 5: You are pushing other women to do similar things. Women are already overworked. They are already expected to show perfect behavior. Do not be a part of this toxic culture. Let women be themselves, pursue their interests and make a place for themselves in the world. Do not derail others by your show of perfection that others will then pursue. This chain reaction is bad for everyone, and especially for women.

For the good of humanity, and especially for your sisters, stop pretending that you are perfect and have a perfect life. It is ultimately the imperfections that spice our lives up. A mediocre, perfect life is boring and uninspired. To aspire for it is a death sentence to your personal growth and aspirations. Let us be ourselves, show ourselves as we are (or keep it private), and strive to be better people, rather than show ourselves as an artificial, fake person.

September in India and Elfland

September brought it’s share of excitement for me. Once the kids were in school, I took a two week trip to India. I had figured that it was a good time to take off while weather in State College was still ok.

Leaving State College without the girls turned out to be not the easiest thing. The idea of going so far away bore down on me as I drove in the middle of night to Washington DC to catch my flight. Putting my worries aside, I boarded the flight for an 18 hour trip to India via Doha (Qatar airways). Qatar airways was adequate with super short layovers, although this caused some stress on my way back since the flight from Hyderabad to Doha was delayed.

Sis, mom and dad picked me up at the Hyderabad airport. We went to mom’s place. Ganesh puja festival was going on in India. There were statues of Lord Ganesh everywhere. My parents’ apartment complex had one, with cultural events every evening.

My hope was to get some stuff organized for parents so that they would be more comfortable there. I must say I was happy with all the things I was able to do towards that goal in the two weeks. It was a packed schedule with shopping for clothes for mom (and some for the girls to take back with me), buying appliances, managing their paperwork and even getting them to buy tickets to visit us in April next year. I was very pleased with how things went.

Once home, I was thrilled to see all the progress made at home. Leena’s room was finished and painted, which is quite an achievement, since you could see insulation when I had left home. Johan finished insulating, and he and Wayne did drywalling and painting. Amazing. Johan and the girls had also worked hard at cleaning up stuff in various parts of the house and the end result was great! Tanya has an arm band now in kickboxing which means she is ahead of me in class! She seems quite pleased about that!

I have been moving along since back home, trying to get the house organized and my first children’s book going. It should see the light of day next year. Excited about my progress!

Kylo Ren the dog: Hmph! Despite the fact that I am very smart, no one ever asks for my opinion. Did mom ask if I was okay with her leaving and travelling off to some far off place? No! Luckily for Leena I didn’t starve. But let me tell you, my care was less than premium, and I could definitely feel the lowered standards. Once mom was back, I let her know exactly what I thought of her disappearance. A few bites did the trick. With mom, it’s easy. All I have to do is to place my cold and wet nose anywhere on her bare skin. She shrieks and I immediately get the pleasure of exacting my revenge.

Lately I have been getting in trouble for no reason whatsoever. My family says I am too pushy with my snout. But all I do is show love, when it is absolutely necessary. Like the times when Tanya leaves me for two whole minutes. When she comes back, I feel that it is my duty to tell her how much I missed her. But when I try, she gets all mad. Not fair. I bet other dogs aren’t left alone for such long periods of time. Ohh, here comes the Queen bee, Grandma Rosie!

Rosie the dog: What?!! Grandma?! Don’t you forget that you are my husband. That would make you grandpa. Hehe. Actually that makes sense. I am still sassier than you even at the ripe age of 15. Grandpa!

While I have been a happy go lucky 15 year old, lately my family has developed a strange and annoying habit. They like to pick me up in the air. They pick up my entire body and hold me. This is because I have lost a lot of weight, so now they treat me like a stuffed toy or something. But after being suspended in air for a couple of minutes, I remind them that I am no stuffed bunny. I bare my teeth most menacingly and snap and bark viciously. They get alarmed and put me down. I like being down. In fact my favorite position these days is to be as far down as possible, sleeping 22 hours a day outside in the sun. The last two hours are spent eating and barking at random people to incite Kylo into barking.

Oreo the chicken: Hello Rosie. May I have the keyboard? Oh! She is asleep. My turn! Hello, dear readers. I am here to make my debut into the world of blogging. The older hens have been bragging about the wonderful blogs they have written, and the wonderful places that they have visited. Paisley and I turn green with envy, but thankfully, since a lot of our feathers are black in color, the envious green stays hidden. It won’t do to show envy. Our pecking order stats can take a hit!

Let me tell you the story of Paisley and I. We were born and raised in the Bald Eagle area. We are one year old. Although we lived out in the boonies and can be considered to have had an idyllic childhood, reality is far from imagination. We lived with a few other chickens and a couple of nasty roosters. Every day was war. As a result, we have some trust issues. Our owner got some new peeps. One day we heard her talking with her husband that they want to downsize our brood. The hubby looked appetized and we smelt danger! One fine day our owner caught Paisley and me and put us in a dog crate. “This is it”, I thought. We are soup! But life had other plans for us. Soon people came by and took us in plastic containers to a new backyard that had three other chickens. These people named us Paisley and Oreo and wisely kept us separated from those scary older birds. They would try to socialize us by getting us together in the yard. The older hens made several planned attacks on us. However, they were foiled by the humans who sprayed them with a water gun! I am happy to say that I am now well assimilated into the group and am also getting warm and comfortable with the humans. Paisley is a whole different story!

Paisley the chicken: I yell! Yes, that’s my specialty. I let out such a shriek that humans get temporarily disoriented and confused. While they are figuring out what just happened, I use all my evasive and maneuvering skills to get away from the humans.

That said, I do get close to the humans. I am curious about them, but like to play it safe. I am slim and beautiful. I have been told that I have beautiful eyes (ahem). However, my slender build has placed me lowest in the pecking order. Sigh! If not for Oreo, I don’t know if I would ever get any food. Oreo is big. She almost looks like a turkey. Oh I am so glad she is my friend and protector!

January at the Elf land

January is already behind us. It has been a whirlwind month. We got back from India on the 2nd and got into the swing of things very quickly. It felt like a cold month after the warm and sunny India.

Johan and I have been out and about quite a bit. We went to the camp for a long hike. We have also been going to the Corner room for breakfasts every Friday. It’s not as fun as our Zeno’s nights, but it will do.

Both Tanya and I got our ears pierced. So there was some painful excitement to make up for the cold weather. January is also a big birthday month for us. Leena had her 12th birthday with her friends at a trampoline park named Get Air, followed by lunch. Then I had my birthday. Johan and I went to Webster’s to hang out and eat lunch and in the evening we all went out for dinner at India Pavilion.

Of course, the most fun part about our birthdays are always the mornings when we sing happy birthday and the dogs howl! We had our traditional ceremonies for both the birthdays.

Johan bought a huge coal hauling truck from the junkyard and it was quite exciting to bring it to our place. The truck had sat unused for many years and there was no telling how it would perform. We pumped up the tires and put some hydraulic oil. Then Johan drove it while I followed him back. It was a bit of a hair-raising experience.

Kylo Ren the dog: A bit?! C’mon mom. It was a downright horror show. Here I thought I was the lucky one going on a car ride with my mom and dad. We ended up in the junkyard. I thought it was going to be a date with my girlfriend. Instead, dad started working on this monster truck and mom started helping him. I was on leash behind the truck.

Now there’s one thing you may not know about me. It’s a blip in my otherwise flawless character. I am really scared of the idea of getting left behind. So if there is a family car around, I want to be in that car. All of my being gets consumed with the idea of getting inside the said car. If I am not in the car, I am stressed. And when I am stressed, I throw all kinds of tantrums. These include, and are not limited to, whining, barking, crying, jumping, pacing, drooling. You get the picture.

I proceeded to do all of the above and more after I was tied to that monster truck. My mean mom and dad ignored me. When they were finally ready to leave, I jumped in the car! But my nightmare was far from over. Dad did not join me in the car. He went in the yellow monster truck. I was upset.

You may recall that I am really smart. My mom got another taste of my smarts that day. She noticed that I look at all the side roads for oncoming traffic. I even look up and down a train track to check if there is an oncoming train.

All my efforts and excitement got me very tired that afternoon. I was happy to get home and stretch in my crate. Here comes my dear wife Rosie. Over to her.

Rosie the dog: I am the heart and soul of birthdays at my household. As soon as the humans start the birthday song, I join in with gusto. I howl out my well rehearsed birthday song much to the delight of the birthday girl or boy. Even at my age, I rock the birthday celebrations much more than Kylo Ren. Also, thanks to me, we dogs got birthday presents wrapped in gift wrappers. They were mostly treats but Kylo Ren also got his old, chewed up toy wrapped up in a bit of paper. My silly husband Kylo Ren thought that the wrapper was the gift. He tore the wrapper apart, dropped his toy, and ran to his crate with the wrapper hanging from his mouth. Gawd.

Crazy Cookie the chicken: I am pleased with Leena. She has been giving us hot water every morning. Our coop is unheated. Mom insisted on not heating the coop for the fear that they may come to feed us one morning and find chicken barbaque (over done) from the accidental fires that coop heaters sometimes create. I am happy. I don’t fancy becoming chicken barbaque. But absent a heated coop, the daily servings of hot water are very welcome.

Oh yes, a baby Cooper Hawk has been hanging out in the pine tree in the backyard. I think he is after the sparrow or Blue Jay. At first we were wary of the hawk. But we soon realized that it was scared of us! So if it ever comes near, we flap our wings violently and the hawk quickly retreats in a far corner. Oh, time for bed. Good night!

India trip: Part 4. Musings

This trip to India has been a rollercoaster of emotions for me. Due to various reasons, Corona Virus being the biggest, I was in India after a long gap of four years. I found that a lot of my parents’ way of living was unchanged. It was like I had never left. But there were also big, noticeable differences in how Indians live their lives which were interesting but also very unsettling.

Due to various reasons, my lifestyle back in the USA is overly simple. For one, we have never used a TV. When I was a kid, my parents refused to have a cable connection so that we would concentrate on our studies and not get distracted. I hated having no TV as a kid, but liked the idea as a grown up. TV is distracting, but it’s the advertisements that are a bigger bane. One thing that I have noticed is that due to lack of our exposure to ads and Television series, our family is living in a bubble while the world has moved to a different place. This, combined with our general disinterest in shopping, made this trip a funny, eye opening experience. I must also mention, countries such as India and the UAE have been prioritizing glamor a lot more than the USA. This is an opposite world from 25 years ago.

During our flight to Dubai we were bombarded with glamorous ads of Dubai. The Dubai airport is also an over the top show of goods and glamour. There were shops after shops full of perfumes, liquor, chocolate and expensive jewelry. We had our first cultural shock right there. The all pervasive smell of perfume was overwhelming to our underutilized noses and we quickly retrieved to a resting space. They space had lounge chairs arranged in various formations with people resting on them! It hilariously reminded me of a scene from a typical science fiction movie, or a Robin Cook book! However, the chairs looked comfortable and were just what we needed to stretch our tired selves and so we proceeded to join the scifi cast!

Getting to India, on a first glance, things look the same. Ladies in sarees, the strays, and an occasional cow on the street. But I soon realized that the wad of cash that I was given to spend by my dad wasn’t going to help me much. Unless I was happy to leave obscene amounts of change with every purchase.

India has become cashless, and most people pay by scanning a QR code that all stores display. Urban India is also into extreme shopping, which seemed to be a disturbing trend. Amazon is everywhere, and they also have a company named “Swiggy”, which delivers anything people want in 10 minutes to an hour. People will sometimes use Swiggy three to four times a day to order anything as per their immediate whim and fancy. Swiggy is akin to Aladdin’s genie. It produces whatever you desire in very little time, with a few clicks and without moving from your house. This creates an endless opportunity for instant gratification, which, of course, ultimately creates dissatisfaction and prevents people from being grounded. Not even to speak about the pollution from all the drivers moving about, the plastic packaging waste and money wastage. So this was undoubtedly the worst trend that I saw.

On the upside, the elderly and disabled can benefit immensely from this system, since you can get things on your doorstep. This is particularly useful since the traffic is a nightmare. But if you think further, the nightmare traffic is created partially by the goods movement by Amazon and Swiggy. We patronize them, thereby supporting the bad traffic. As a result of this traffic, now we sit at home and patronize them further. We still lose out by not getting an opportunity to step outside, thereby using our bodies lesser, and pushing our minds into a rut. This results in more disability, which gives even more business to these companies. What a vicious cycle.

My rants may suggest that I didn’t like being in Hyderabad, but it actually had the opposite effect. I wished from all my heart that I lived there and would be a part of the craziness that is India. It would have been gratifying to be a part of the solution in a country that gets an impressive number of things done, when compared with the meagre amount of resources that they have access to. Despite the Western world squeezing every last bit of resource out of India, pushing regulations that make India poorer, pushing waste that make India dirtier, pushing their GMO seeds to compromise India’s agricultural capacity, and making regulations that they have no recourse against, India functions remarkably. But there’s a lot wrong with the mentality of the population there (as in any other place). A change is desperately needed.

Getting to my parents, their world seems almost unchanged for the most part. There is a nice rhythm to their daily routine. We had a nice, easygoing time there, with us spending a lot of time with cups of tea, sitting around and chit chatting. The kids got a chance to connect with them. Tanya is amazingly in tune with them and their ways. Leena is too, but she is mostly busy either reading a book, or crocheting, or doing some other activity. Tanya would join in the family discussions. Leena, on the other hand, only talked about this animal or that bird! The other topic that Leena would endlessly talk about was general trivia. She is full of trivia and keeps doling them out. Sometimes we stared jaw dropped, or sometimes we laughed, but it would get a little much after a while. Regardless, we all had a great time chit chatting our days away. It was the biggest highlight of our trip.

We came back refreshed and with a lot of material for me to work on this year as I move further into writing. Hoping for, and wishing you, a great year ahead.

elfhut

The latest activities and experiments of our elf land

life