CHRISTMAS HUMOR 2011

GUPPIES in MOUNT ABU

The small brightly hued fresh water fish GUPPY - poecilia reticuleta- originating in Northern South America and the adjacent islands of West Indies was first supplied to the British Museum by R.J.L. Guppy, 19th century clergyman of Trinidad. The miniature ornamental fish, having come a long way and now gracing aquariums all over the world, are being reared by one of the Brothers in St. Mary's High School. My youngest grandson, Jatin now studying in my old alma mater and interested in aquaculture , recently brought home a couple of guppies for rearing. This led to Google search for the specie. The video is the result of the engrossing search . Interestingly, unlike the other fish, Guppy females give birth to its young. Thus the bounties of Nature, indeed amazing, are intriguing.

Suddenly, its GOD all the way

12 Things God Wants You To Remember

God is for you.
God loves you.
God will guide you.
God will not fail you.
God will be with you.
God will provide for you.
God will bless you.
God will give you rest.
God will strengthen you.
God will answer you.
God will uphold you.
God will keep you.

To live with joy is to see God's goodness

For Longevity

JUST TO REMIND YOU TO BE MORE CAREFUL

Answer the phone by LEFT ear

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Do not drink coffee TWICE a day

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Do not take pills with COOL water

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Do not have HUGE meals after 5pm

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Reduce the amount of TEA you consume

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Reduce the amount of OILY food you consume

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Drink more WATER

in the morning, less at night

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Keep your distance from hand phone

CHARGERS

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Do not use headphones/earphone for

LONG period of time

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Best sleeping time is from 10pm at night to 6am in the morning

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Do not lie down immediately after taking

medicine before sleeping

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When battery is down to the LAST grid/bar,

do not answer the phone as the radiation is 1000 times

HAEMOPHILIA- The Royal Disease

Haemophilia is an inherited blood clotting deficiency as old as civilization and is legendary, having come down through centuries, tied with the dark thread of hereditary curse. The disease affects males but is transmitted by females, characterizing excess and mostly spontaneous bleeding caused by cuts and falls. Painful and permanent crippling effects come from bleeding into the confined space of the joints that pressurize the nerves resulting in nightmarish pain and ultimate disability. Exceptions, however, are internal haemorrhages in the mouth or nose , though painless can cause death. Thus haemophilia is a fickle disease.

Queen Victoria, the tiny indomitable woman who ruled England for sixty four years and was ' Granny' to most of Europe's Royalty, was unknowingly at her marriage a haemophiliac carrier. The youngest of her four sons Prince Leopold, Prince of Albany had haemophilia. Two of her five daughters Princess Alice and Princess Beatrice were haemophilic carriers and later when their daughters married into royal houses of Russia and Spain, the heirs to those two thrones were born with haemophilia. Thus Alexandra, Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt was surrounded by haemophilic relatives before she married Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and unknowingly gave birth to a haemophilic child on August 12,1904. Tsarevich Alexis, heir to the Russian throne was accorded tumultuous welcome with a three hundred cannons salute, church bells and waving of flags and became the most famous and pitiable haemophiliac in history. His sufferings were excruciatingly painful and cause of anguish to Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra who in despair sought spiritual and miraculous help and cure from Gregory Rasputin. Termed as the ' Mad Monk' , Rasputin was an illiterate and satanic peasant,a rapist and sex maniac and wielded clout to the extent that whenever the Tsarevich recovered, both Nicholas and Alexandra blindly attributed the recovery to Rasputin's Power of Prayer. Thus the relationship of the Tsar and intimacy of the lovely Tsarina with the holy evil were frowned upon by the Russians, specially the elite rebels. This hastened the end of monarchy in Russia.

Soon,the entire royal family was imprisoned and humiliated in the bitter cold of Siberia and finally on July 16, 1918,pushed mercilessly into a dungeon, shot at point blank, the bodies mutilated with bayonets, faces disfigured with acid and consigned to flames to wipe out traces of their very existence. So the curse of haemophilia took its toll and ended the largest monarchy of the world. The love story of Nicholas and Alexandra, their rule of Russia with deep concern for the heir apparent, the infatuation for Rasputin and the realm they lost has been vividly portrayed by Robert K. Massie, an American journalist and author in his so apocalyptic and bizzare book " Nicholas and Alexandra". The work has been inspired by his only son who is or was a haemophiliac.

Incidentally, Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa were rumored haemophiliacs but the ailment in no way hampered their vision to survive, accomplish and serve suffering humanity.

ROBIN- Redbreasted Harbinger of Spring

The warmth of the spring heralds nest building by sparrows. For this purpose the tiny birds prefer interiors of houses having suitable receptacles. A couple of sparrows decided to nest in my old tin roofed house as they found an upturned cone used to cover the hook of the ceiling fan. With deep interest, every day I observed the nimble birds flying to and fro with twigs, grass and strings incessantly. However, most of the laboriously brought materials fell down, much to the chagrin of my daughter who had to sweep away the litter every now and then. As the craftsmanship progressed and was about to be finished , as if on cue, a pair of Robins appeared suddenly and chasing away the little birds settled down in the nest cooing merrily. They were indeed intruders, encroaching upon nests built by smaller birds.

Known as Harbingers of Spring, the Indian Robins sport a coat of brown-black, are red breasted with quizzical eyes and pointed beaks and fly or hop about always on the lookout for insects. Incidentally, the male and female are dissimilar but reserve an impish demeanor.

Ratel- The Unsung Honey Badger

Little is known about this extremely interesting creature, to the fact that nine out of ten Wild Life Conservators have never heard of it. I came to know about this animal during my quest for the Pangolin, in the jungle of Abu, from a Bhil tribal who, having only a vague idea, had mentioned having seen at night what he called Kabar Biju- A Grave Digger, reputed to exhume corpses of children buried in shallow graves and eat the remains.

At this time, one night my hen house was raided by a nocturnal animal. Only the stability of the pen saved my birds from slaughter. Now I decided to trap the animal. The hen house had two compartments partitioned by sturdy wire meshing. The next evening I shifted the birds to one section and left ajar the door of the other. Around early morning the animal once again struck and tried to get to the birds through the mesh. It was bedlam as the birds shrieked while the animal undauntedly attacked the meshing. I reached well in time to latch the door with the creature safely inside. At daybreak after letting the hens out from the other side I had a peek at the interloper. It was really a mini bear sporting a black and silvery fur coat that accorded me a defiant look. He seemed clearly a persistent poultry predator. Bewildered, I let the animal alone but later sought the help of the book "Jungle in Sunlight and Shadow". According to the author, F.W. Champion, the intriguing animal was a Ratel, referred to as a Biju by the tribals and described ecstatically by him at length, as the 'Hero of the Jungle'.

The India Ratel, many a time called the Honey Badger is very much at home in the Indian plains but being evasive, is rarely seen or noticed and is by no means uncommon. Ratels are more like small bears in gait and appearance with peculiar coloring of silver grey & black, stirring out of their burrows mostly at night and are omnivorous, eating rodents, birds,insects, honey and almost every thing that is edible. For Honey, the Badger has a connection with a little brown bird who with its vigorous chirping and fluttering from bush to bush leads the floundering animal to a hive of wild bees. On reaching the hive, the Badger rushes in and protected by fur coat against the furious bees, makes an excellent meal of the luscious honey. The Honey Guide's share of the feast consists of grubs that are scattered all around during the gluttonous onslaught. This is indeed a marvelous compatibility of the bird and the beast for mutual benefit.

Now my curiosity more than sated, I released the magnificent specimen from captivity.

The Real Hero of India - Vivekananda

LOHRI and Makar Sankranti

The festival hearkens as the cold peaks.

Popular conventional belief marks Makar Sankranti
as the time when the winter cold begins to lose its bite

A popular Punjabi saying goes
"Magh tilo til wadhe, tan Phaggan goda kadde"

From the month of Magh (marked by Makar sankranti on
14th January every year (This year on 15th)), the days begin
to lengthen in the measure of a til (sesame seed), while
by the time the next month (Phagun) arrives mid february,
the days begin to acquire lengthening by the measure of a knee length.

Its a Punjabi rhetoric way of putting things.
Don't bother yourself over trying to make sense of it
We Punjabis are like that only

Lohri is the festival, dedicated to the Fire God Agni,
that precedes this Month of Magh by a day and generally
is taken to fall on 13th January every year (this year too).

Festivals all over the world, also serve to mark the passage of time
and seasons, in addition to the celebration of Life in all its colours.

Lohri has the theme of providing succour and bringing joy and cheer
in winter, to offset the proverbial discontent that sets in places that
experience it in extreme.

Whether myths are based in facts or an attempt to preserve sanity,
Lohri also has a romantic angle to it aka Robin Hoodesque of its
main character Dhulla Bhatti, a notorious dacoit,
who had the proverbial heart of gold that beat
for the downtrodden and the weak.

Having rescued girls from the clutches of zamindars
and other "Nobles"
He adopted them as his daughters and found suitable grooms
for them all when non would have them as they considered them
as sullied by lusts of the rich.

Impromptu were the celebrations and the marriage
that was conducted even as no priest would conduct the ceremony,
Dhulla Bhatti played the role of priest and married off the girls
himself to suitable grooms.

The song that emerged from this impromptu celebration
is now sung all over Punjab when the young men go from house
to house to collect donations for lighting the bonfire and
distributing sweets made of sesame seeds and jaggery
(revdi, gachak) etc, while singing Dhulla Bhatti's song.



The celebrations acquire much more intensiy and gusto
if there has been a marriage celebration in the house
within the preceding year.



Here's the song that is sung

I wish all Yahoogroup members the very best in their Life for 2011.
May the fires of Lohri burn away your flaws and
illuminate your Life
with the Blessings of the Divine Goodness

The DEADLY MALAISE- Poverty becomes History

Poverty, the dreaded scourge sadly endured by Humans, mankind has miserably failed to eradicate. Over 20 millenniums, civilizations have flourished, romances blossomed and ended mostly tragically, kingdoms overthrown, technology has triumphed but Alas! Nature, Godmen and human beings can hardly account for doing away with stark poverty for good.

So, having Reverence for Life and being a champion of Humanness in Humans and with the desire to do my bit to ease the curse of Poverty, humbly I have launched the voluntary activity of feeding the poor children in Mount Abu. With no dearth of a multitude of beggars passing by my gate every day, I have chosen the mangy urchins, progeny of rag pickers camping all over, for succor. Every morning, a group of starving disheveled kids vociferously gather at the gate and my daughter-in-law, Anisha, herself a mother of two handsome boys, smilingly doles out a sustenance pertaining to our resources, to each child and not hesitating to discipline and humor the miscreants with tips to be more presentable the next morning. Believe me, the pursuit has worked wonders.

And finally, it is our sacred duty to stretch out our hands and say " In spite of what separates us and what we have in common is Humanity", and thus the least we can do for the needy and hungry is to Bless, Love and Protect them.