Mail Etiquettes

In the tech savvy world that we live, long forgotten and gone are those days when we wrote letters in those yellow or green post cards! Dear or Respected Sir/Madam and Yours Faithfully are buried deep down in the core of the earth. 'The postman always rings twice' - happens to be a film and probably happens only in the films. The garish red post box has become a piece of rarity.

But along with these are also gone those etiquettes of letter writing? Are there no prescripts for the electronic mails? Or should we ever care or follow one, if it existed in the first place? Well, let’s take an example. There was this lady who had some issue with her newly bought Digi Cam and had e-mailed her young cousin whose cognizance in the field of electronics is - shall we say the 'Any problem solver'? So this cousin of hers mailed back the reason for her issue as well as the solution ending his emails with HTH and then With Love.

Our lady with the issue who was no short than intelligent herself understood the underlying cause for her problem as well as the solution and fixed her Digi Cam - however she had that nagging abbreviation HTH lingering in her mind - so nagging that she mailed her cousin especially to know what is HTH! Well - Hope that Helps was not helpful after all for our lady! Current day conversations, chats and less formal emails have become more like short hand - making them more and more cryptic.

In all likelihood email etiquettes are needed only when the desired parties are so nit picky about it. The rest of the world can live with cousins and the lady with issues by communicating with HTH, BRB, B4 or NE1. And if you are not way too eager to live behind the bars, probably you should be the cyber law abiding email writer too!

I still remember some of the very last letters that I had written, when I was in college and email was not that popular. I had written to my first cousin who was in the US of A - I think about 3 to 4 full pages of the function of her parent’s 25th wedding anniversary which took place at Chennai. I had written her every single conversation that we had had that day - despite the fact that the news reached her by phone the same day, I took all the effort to put it in black and white and mailed her. Well it just made me a happy man. Etiquettes or not, writing long mails/emails have always been my cup of tea!

With More Thoughts...

E For Extreme

Watching Animal Planet has become almost an established custom in the house at BentWood Apartment, just like my dinner at half past eight. Being a newbie to the animal planet, my roommate suggested few programs which I started to watch with him rather with some reluctance. Very soon reluctance transformed into predilection that was so strong that I happened to watch this program regularly - even when I was home alone!

The program that I watch is the one which is all about the extreme nature of animals - extreme animals are discussed in the top 10 countdown vogue. The top 10 noise makers, fashion disasters, transformers and a whole variety of topic makes this program a worthy past time! 'Extreme Animals' emphatically keeps us guessing the top spot animals and in the event of which we learn a lot about them.

The most recent episode aired was the top 10 transformers where animals that transform itself into various shapes and forms during their life cycle were discussed. As any young science student could tell the butterflies' presence in such a countdown (From eggs to caterpillars to pupas and finally the fly!), the top spot was a totally mind-blowing parasite which takes about 5 to 6 various forms from its birth to death! Now who could have ever known about that!

The most intriguing part of these programs is how did people ever come to learn about them in the first place? The 30 minutes is filled with innumerable information and makes you wonder in awe at the work of these researchers! Besides these researchers there are people who understand the animals themselves and thereby provide invaluable information – people like Steve Irwin – the crocodile man for example who was considered to be the walking epitome for empathizing animals, no wonder was loved by the whole world.

With More Thoughts...

Pasta It Is

The currently rather ill famed Lindsey Lohan starred in this wonderful movie when she was young. The advertisement to this movie would have this line - 'What's better than one Lindsey Lohan? Two Lindsey Lohans!' - Well atleast in this movie's perspective it was damn true as the ebullient twins try to reunite their divorced parents by switching their places. So what's the movie 'Parent Trap' got to do with Pasta? 'Pasta It Is' - is my much loved line in this movie when Dennis Quaid utters to his wife when he meets her after a long time. What an introduction to Pasta!

I had always wanted to eat good pasta, however never had that chance - until recently. It was during our road trip to the City of Angels that I happened to devour this food item. We were in Marie Callenders’ and I was as usual frantically searching for a vegan food in the menu card that my waitress gave me. After pondering and deliberating for quite a long time (and with hunger in the corner it seemed eternity), I found that there was nothing in the menu card that I could order. So I decided to get the help of my waitress to choose the food for me and she was kind enough to suggest the vegetarian pasta! And I heard myself saying out loud - 'Pasta it is...'

Besides serving our tasty buds pasta makes an excellent choice for healthy food as it is grain based. The beauty of pasta is that it comes in a variety of shapes from the simple string shaped ones to the decorative fancy shapes like Farfalle and Rotelle. My love for pasta infact started after my acquaintance with the television personalities 'Giada De Laurentiis' and 'Marie' of Everybody Loves Raymond. Giada's Italian Cookery shows and Marie's most popular dish in the soap - Lasagna (pronouced - La-san-ya), paved way for my love affair with pasta!

So the vegetarian pasta that my waitress served en route to Los Angeles, was indeed delicious. With a wonderful spread of lightly sautéed broccoli, baby carrots, tomatoes, the entire main course was just yummy. For a bill just under $10 for each person, the lunch was well its worth and having had my pasta, needless to say I was in cloud nine!

With More Thoughts...

Oryctolagus cuniculus And The Like

It looks like the hangover of Binomial Nomenclature still continues - No wonder the title of this blog is the biological name for a European Rabbit! Yes, yes, yes - this blog is all about our Animal Planet! Probably my wife would just love this blog, she being a fervent animal lover and supporter! Probably she is the apt candidate for taking up the role of the Head of SPCA!

Something out of normal happened at our office today. An aberration that I just loved. One of my friends had brought 2 leverets (well the young ones of rabbits are called so) - they were like 3 months old cuties. One was dark in color and the other a white one with streaks of brown! She had put them in a relatively big box in which these two guys were happily sitting. Rabbits are those gregarious mammals which are more active during dawn and dusk - Animal lovers would call it with one word - 'Crepuscular'.

My dear ex manager Jithesh forced me to part my baby carrot that I had got for lunch and well - definitely not with so much reluctance, I took it out and dropped it in the cardboard box. Much much to my happiness, the darker one started to gnaw it - Infact I thought it was hungry when I saw it gnawing the cardboard itself! So an act of philanthropy - er - directed to a rabbit though! It was quite an experience to touch them and to see them jumping in that little space. I had never been that close with a rabbit and it brought out the child (perhaps the animal lover?) in me.

So then while we were driving back home, we were having this discussion about pets and which pet would be easy to maintain, would live considerably longer and there were so many points that we went through. From fishes to dogs, parrots to love birds, there were a whole lot of options, but the thing is, one should really have the time and love to spare for these pets. In this hurried world that we live, its good to see some people who do care for animals. One of my friends mom used to say that more than two of her own daughters, she loved her dog and indeed the dog was treated royally in her house!

Well, its now supper time for me – Got to think about the menu!

With More Thoughts…

Pedaling to the Past

Cycling - A fitness instructor would tell how good an aerobics and cardio exercise it is. A pre-teen or teenager would tell how fun it is to do this with friends. The romantic couple in a hill station would think of going a round in it. Most of those beach side residents (Oh! lucky them!) would do this every morning diligently. It is also something that a person forgets about and gets nostalgic some day and ends up writing in a blog! Huh! - Pity that I fell into this last category.

So how did this door to the past suddenly opened today? I was as usual sitting on the back seat of the Toyota Corolla that my friend was driving and in this signal near our office, I saw this guy riding this cycle of his - in the hot sun ofcourse (Oh man Salt Lake is hot - literally hot. But my friends at Nevada might just choke me up for saying Salt Lake is hot - You should visit Vegas this time of the year - you will hate it for all the heat that the Sun gives this place). Well hot or not, it was rather a sight to see how happily that guy was riding his bike! It’s not such a rare scene here - I see them everyday as a matter of fact, but as I said suddenly it opened this door to my past and there I saw myself riding my cycle too.

The first cycling lesson that I got was in Mumbai with the help of my uncle in his spacious Ghatkopar West Apartment - And then I became cycle insane. Commuting to school was by my BSA SLR and oh I so much loved it. Loved what? The cycle, the ride, the school - all of them! The return journey from school was even more fun as a group of us would ride our bikes together in the small Arcot road - thereby blocking the whole traffic on one side. Oh! Were we that rustic? You bet!

So I still do this stationary cycling some times in the gym - though it brings me no such excitement as the past. I was infact thinking as to why should I not buy a bicycle and go a couple of rounds in it when I get back in Chennai! Well crazy it may sound - but it’s actually something that would be good. Riding slowly in the night with the wife in the calm streets when the cool breezy air moves your hair away from your forehead! Well - so much imagination!

Here is a little tasty piece of information that I garnered from Google - A Danish study in 2000 concluded that cycling to work was linked to a 40% reduction in mortality rate; this included all causes of death, including road deaths! How good it is? Is cycling discussion ever complete without the mention of Tour De France and Lance Armstrong – the winner of the most prestigious cycling race for seven consecutive times and that he achieved this feat after being treated for testicular cancer? Well – now the discussion is complete!

With More Thoughts...

When Sex Is No Longer The Taboo Word

Since when was sex discussed like any other normal topic and was not just a topic of discussion between the lovers or the spouses? Or when did sex become a topic to discuss not just as a matter of salacious interest but as part of life, combining with its associated health, progeny and necessity? Even to this date is sex talk, the topic friends reserve to discuss about their escapades, their imagination, their philandery and a plenty of other things? So when did sex talk jumped out of the verboten arena?

Atleast to me it was post my marriage or rather near my marriage time, this talk escaped from all its boundaries and became a topic of normal discussion. When I heard the discussions about other people talking about sexual health, the good frequency of sex a couple should have, the dos and don’ts during and after sex for hygiene, happiness and a wonderful feeling of intimacy, the family planning techniques - I felt this is a must to discuss topic and it is a critical topic to know atleast when you are ready for marriage. I agree teens today know a lot about sex and sexual health - however when it comes to the phase where you are lawfully eligible to have sex, it is with utmost dedication that you need to remember and follow those things that you know.

To my surprise the little gyan that I had indeed came to enlighten one of my friends a little. How much ever you know about it, there is this difference that you feel and that better perspective that you get when discussing a topic with a person who has had an experience in it. The urge to know about sex more clearly and to get an advice is probably the factor that made sex a topic to discuss without embarrassment. When the embarrassment is shredded out, taboo is no longer in vicinity.

Parents have started realizing that sex education is equally important as is the knowledge that their child should know about drugs, alcohol or smoking. Well atleast you got to talk if you want to avoid sexual abuse or teenage pregnancies or for that matter of fact to prevent STDs. Taboo or not they would educate a person the right and the wrong and the implications of doing the wrong. Well - Sex is no longer the taboo word...

With More Thoughts...

The Binomial Nomenclature

Would it have been easier had we been a non - human being and been just an animal or a plant? One thing that might cause less worry if we were would have been the decision to name one's child! Well its not that complicated or anything like that - it is just that a whole lot people are to be satisfied with a name. Well er - Hmmm - probably satisfying people is complicated after all! After reconsidering and thinking more, complexity is rather an understatement. Well here is why it is.

There is this so called custom in some families where the grand kids name (atleast part of one of its name) has to be the name of the grand father / grand mother. In some families it has to be the traditional family name. It will be common for all the males of that family. And there are rules for the male child even when you name him and I don’t know if its fortunate or not, some of these rules are not so applicable for the female child - well a concept that may bring high blood pressure in feminists!

To add more to the naming options, there are Nameology, Numerology and so many ologies to tell you which letter should the name start with, how many charaters should the name contain, how many e’s and how many a’s. And then the combination of how the first and last name would look like is yet another matter to consider. Does the combination sound too weird or too good? Will my mom’s second cousin’s aunt who lives in Far East approve the name? Complexity – as I said is an understatement.

Ok - so what is in a name? It is something that belongs to me and I do not use it so often but every other person who knows me, uses it - eh! An irony - for something that I own, which neither I use it that often nor given a chance for me to choose. I wonder how many of us have had a discussion of why we were named like this and got the reason behind it! If I plan for a good name for my child (it better be good!) let me also put on my thinking caps as to why I decided to keep that name - After all my child should be happy with the name that I give him!

Well as a tail piece and now being the Harry Potter season, here is one info that might interest us. Before publishing the first Harry Potter series, the publishers requested Joanne Rowling to just use her initials rather than to reveal her first name - so that the target audience of young boys would not be hesitant to buy a book written by a female author! Well, so here we have J K Rowling - probably if you knew you could become a billionaire and your name played quite a role in it, there may be many of us who might reconsider a name change!

With More Thoughts...

An Affair To Remember

Very recently I happened to read this article in internet - It was all about how expensive American weddings have become. It looks like the average American wedding costs upto a whooping 28,000 - yes all US Dollars! And its all for a 1 day event. Marriage has become a costly affair and wedding planners, I can see, are becoming richer and richer.

Not just they are costlier, they also tend to build a huge pressure for all organizers - financially, in planning and co-ordination and almost everything. I recently received a mail from an American friend of mine, who had been back from her 'vacation'. I presumed it was a vacation as I did not get back any replies from her for about a week and I asked her how her vacation was. She replied back stating that it was sort of a vacation and that she had been out visiting Vancouver for a family wedding. So it was not the type of 'vacation' to relax by any means! Very aptly said - marriages are no more a relaxing function.

I do agree that the grandeur, the number of events, the potpourri of dishes are all directly proportional to money. But does a marriage always have to be grand to be the best? And does marriages have to be the best in the first place? And what do people gain by having best marriages? Well - people differ and some would love to have such diamond and star studded marriage showing ostentatiously their money and power. They consider marriage an opportunity to show the success in their life. I think it just finally boils down to one purpose - 'Pretentious'.

Marriages are becoming equally unaffordable in India. An upper middle class marriage on a grand scale (thank goodness not an average scale!) costs about 22.5 K US dollars - Atleast few Indian marriages are 2 - 3 day events - but that's no excuse to spend 22.5 K! Well the reason again for all these grandeur remains the same - be it India or the US of A.

But there are few factors which I always consider, would make a marriage touching, lovable and more meaningful. In fact these factors give a feeling of fullness and satisfaction that a pricey marriage could not. Factors like contributions to the poor and needy on the day of the marriage. Be it dresses or food, they go to people who need it and you have the money spent in a philanthropic activity. An activity that would make your heart feel so light and peaceful. In fact the couple can personally visit the orphanage or the temple where free food/clothes can be distributed by the couple themselves.

Probably there are more to write about marriages - One more that I can think of now is 'Gifting In Marriages!' But I will save that for another blog...

With More Thoughts...

A Dream For Tahiti

A young lady in the office - In her cubicle, starts to remove her shoes and pulls out the bottom most drawer of her cabinet. The draw is filled with beach sand and is strewed with pebbles and shells - the look and feel of the beach environment. She then places her legs inside this draw and closes and eyes and thinks - rather imagines that she is in Tahiti - the place she is yearning to go and the vacation for which she is saving every single penny!

Now there are so many instances when we imagine too - and quite often in the recent past I have been into tasty food imagination! Though I prefer having my side dishes as salads for their affluence in vitamins, I do imagine they are those rich creamy, butter clad side dishes! Well – what’s the harm in it? I get my healthy food and the taste of the rich side dishes - although said easily here in this blog, I do admit that someday I do yearn for those rich side dishes - just like the dream for Tahiti.

I am pretty confident that this lady, who saves all her money for her Tahitian trip, would be all the more excited and thrilled when her dream comes true. There is definitely an added excitement when you save for something and then spend it for that special something when you get to that financial comfort level. Probably you might loose all that thrill if you had had all the things that you yearn for comes to you with no effort! When you get to that point where you have achieved your goal - be it your trip to Tahiti - just because of all your hard work and judicious finance, there is this sense of pride that comes as a bonus along with the feeling with joy, wonder and excitement.

So where is this lady? The lady who dreamt of Tahiti and who imagined she was in Tahiti in her office cubicle with just a load of sand and sea shells? This happens to be an advertisement for Wells Fargo Bank - a pretty imaginative and interesting advertisement. Well, I think it is time for me to open some accounts in it - I too am dreaming of Tahiti... Someday Tahiti...

Well it would be too unfair to name a blog as Tahiti and not providing single information about it. Tahiti is the largest island of French Polynesia - Hmmm - if that's too much geography - probably this would help – It’s in the Pacific Ocean somewhere in between Australia and South America. Tahiti's major industry is Tourism and its one of the top places for vacations - be it honeymoon, a break from office work or a family affair!

With more thoughts...

Origami

I was not sure when I became a fan of Origami. As such many of us would have had our share of origami - atleast by making paper boats and playing in the stagnated rain water! Oh yeah - we would create the smallest of all the boats and then the biggest giant boats would come - Wow - way back in past such small activities were enough to create joyous moments.

The adult mind of mine rather yearns to have new hobbies - hobbies that I could continue religiously. But atleast in the process of searching for new hobbies, I land up coming across a plethora of ideas and I do also learn a little about some of the interesting hobbies. Origami was one such favorite option of hobby for me. Though I do not try out a lot nor follow it sacredly, I took time to learn few origamies and tried a couple of papers objects that fascinated me.

Though the end product of the Tulip that I tried never matched the jpeg image in the walkthru online guide, I appreciated myself with a smug glow of self-congratulations! Well had I used the proper one side colored origami paper, my tulip would have looked even more beautiful. Not bad at all for a beginner. Now enough of self-appreciation and boasting. Here are some wonderful things that comes associated with the umbrella of Origami.

Storigami - This concept was my favorite. A storigami as the word tells you is you end making up an origami product by telling a story. Each fold of the origami is associated with a portion of the story. The sequence of folds involved now becomes part of the story, manking it easier to remember and a fun way to do. The storigami is born from our imagination - meaning, you can invent your own storigami to the origami that you prepare - making you remember the steps even if you are woken up in the middle of the night.

Just like many learning process - origami learning can also be divided into simple, inter and the advanced origamies depending upon the complexity of the folds involved. Well let me finish the blog with some historical updates - I had often thought Origami originated in Japan - much to my surprise it was originated in China and was carried over to Japan. The Chinese name was Zhe Zhi, however the Japanese name - Origami (Oru meaning fold and kami meaning paper in Japanese) became the famous catch phrase and here we are still using it - and there I was thinking the Japanese invented it! Well who ever found this - its a pretty interesting hobby to pursue!

With more thoughts...

The ESPY Awards

It’s been quite some time I blogged and is it probably because I am running out of topic? Or is it sheer laziness to learn or find a topic itself? Whatever the case be, I found a topic worthy to blog. Most surprisingly this topic is regarding something that I never have interest. For people who know me well enough, they would have realized by this time that its going to be Sports!

And it so happened that on this late Sunday evening, when I was watching some 'had to see TV - else I have nothing to do' program! My roomie walked into the living room and he was browsing his favorite channels to see and suddenly this ESPY awards caught his eyes. ESPN - huh! that's one channel I never knew even existed - probably I would even call is YES-PEN instead of ESPN as 'Marie' would call in Everybody Loves Raymond.

ESPY awards is an award show that recognizes outstanding sports personalities - Best athlete, team, moment and so many other categories. Now I must tell you that - I am really a fan of watching award shows. So despite being an ESPN program, I sat straight, back all tall and lean. And I never thought I had watched an award show as good as this. There were 2 categories that touched my heart. One was the newly introduced award called Jimmy V award. Well this award went to a lady coach for her perseverance in sports - she was infact the person the whole team looked up as their role model. The reason - In her ongoing 65th year she had been identified for the 3rd time in her life for cancer and she fights the disease and makes the most of her life. Should I tell more for her perseverance?

Now if you asked who is this Jimmy V? He was yet another remarkable sports personality who died of cancer and founded the Jimmy V foundation for cancer research!

Now the other award was the Author Ashe award for 2 wonderful personalities who bring a change in people lives even today by teaching sports. Northern Ireland is a place notorious for the clashes between the Catholics and Protestants. Two men who were brought up in all this religious clashes found solace, safety and salvation in sports. They excelled every second they were playing - alas when they came out to the real world - they had to cope up with bloody wars. They both did not ask for much - they wanted their kith and kin to live in a world of peace - to walk in the road without the fear of being shot dead. This Catholic and Protestant did not engage themselves in such iniquitous activities - rather they came up with this brilliant idea of uniting fellow human beings disregard of their cast, creed, religion, color or race. And they chose sports as their medium of unification targeting the young generation hoping that playing together would also teach them to live together. Very aptly these 2 wonderful gentlemen were awarded the ESPY Author Ashe award.

So that was my tryst with ESPN channel and it proved to be an awesome evening indeed! From time to time I might even tune in YESPEN and see what’s interesting in it too!

With more thoughts...