Cost of a smile - story

Cost of a smile – story.
When I went for a walk last evening I was reminded by my niece to buy some guavas; I said I would buy on my way back home.
Since I am living near Ragavendra Kalyana Mandapam in Rangarajapuram Main Road, I started walking and reached Arcot Road, after crossing all the big fruit stalls and on turning left I had seen four vendors, standing near their four wheeler push carts selling various eatables, one selling plantains,other selling roasted corns,and another selling guavas and fruits.
Showing honour to the seller of fruits I did not bargain and even asked him to select the fruits for me and gave him the money he asked for ,and standing for the one rupee back from him.
Vendor said ‘ a bit more than the half kg sir’ with a broad smile.
‘okay’ I said.
I walked back thinking, why people don’t patronise these small vendors like him and instead of big stalls selling fruits and vegetables with glaring lights and shining boards.All snobs. Everyone must help the fellow human beings in a humane way possible. People should stop and think before do anything…………….. in the same line of thought ……… walking.
Roads are busy with traffic and vehicles run with ferocity……. vehicles or the people who drive these machines, why this auto fellow is so closely coming when he has enough space to drive away from me. Policemen as usaual very busy in vehicle-check, trying to find out the adolescent teanagers among the two wheeler crowd, so that they could have the ‘collection’ from the young drivers for not having license.The aroma of 'vadai' and 'bajji' hot from the boiling oil taken out afresh,tingling the taste buds……….but controlled myself ……. my Doctor repeatedly warned me of anything fried in oil ……..cholesterol.Why I am warned of cholesterol despite being a vegetarian, when my maternal grandfather was a non-vegetarian and lived happily till he was 90 yrs, and he was taking 'nonveg' food all along and a good smoker of cigar.What medical science sirs,one is having cholestrol another is a diabetic and another hypertensive……Have we all swerved from the path of 'Dharma' for long and so these kind of impediments and health problems.
I was nearing my home .
I handed over the carry bag with guavas to my niece.
After having a look at the contents of the bag she shot back saying ‘where from you bought this’
‘From a road side vendor’
‘ Go give back this stuff and get back the money ‘
‘But why’
‘Not even one is in eatable condition……. you got cheated’
I took the bag and went to the one of the big shops with flashy name boards,throwing the bag into the corporation dustbin ……… I dont want to see that fellow again.
The bloody cost of his smile is very costly,my God.
The lady who brings fruits in my native little town carrying in a basket on her head gives best fruits when i ask her to select herself, although we bargain for long for fixing the price.She never cheats the way this slimy creature standing and selling in city roads.The little town fellows are honourable gentlemen.
A villager like me never fits in this atmosphere of cheat and get cheated.
After my brief stay here I am going back to my little town , where people smile and greet calling ‘annaa’ [elder brother ] although man addressing me older than me.Honourable gentlemen.
City’s smile is very costly sir…….. unaffordable for a villager like me.
After a week’s time I am going back to my little town sir,since the money I spent on the cheat could have been used for a week on a news paper like "The Times of India’ , that I can't buy in my little town.

Drinking Alcohol and Cognitive Impairment

 In people with mild cognitive impairment, up to one drink of alcohol a day may slow their progression to dementia, according to a recent article.  Mild cognitive impairment is a transitional stage between normal aging and dementia that is used to classify people with mild memory or cognitive problems and no significant disability.

The study found people with mild cognitive impairment who had up to one drink of alcohol a day, mostly wine, developed dementia at an 85 percent slower rate than people with mild cognitive impairment who never drank alcohol.Researchers evaluated alcohol consumption and the incidence of mild cognitive impairment in 1,445 people. They then followed 121 people with mild cognitive impairment and their progression to dementia. The participants, age 65 to 84, were part of the Italian Longitudinal Study on Aging and were followed for three-and-a-half years.

"While many studies have assessed alcohol consumption and cognitive function in the elderly, this is the first study to look at how alcohol consumption affects the rate of progression of mild cognitive impairment to dementia," said study authors Vincenzo Solfrizzi, MD, PhD, and Francesco Panza, MD, PhD, with the Department of Geriatrics at the University of Bari, in Bari, Italy. "The mechanism responsible for why low alcohol consumption appears to protect against the progression to dementia isn't known. However, it is possible that the arrangement of blood vessels in the brain may play a role in why alcohol consumption appears to protect against dementia. This would support other observations that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol may protect the brain from stroke and vascular dementia."

The study did not find any association between higher levels of drinking, more than one drink per day, and the rate of progression to dementia in people with mild cognitive impairment compared to non-drinkers.

The research is published in the May 22, 2007, issue of Neurology®, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. It was supported by the Italian Longitudinal Study on Aging and by AFORIGE, an Italian association for aging research.

Please don't interpret according to your drinking habits.Body has the systemic capacity to adjust and adapt to any  impairment unless provoked by the habits we pick up during our life time.

Jyothi Basu ,a gentleman!!!!!!!!!!!

Indian tradition is to talk only good about one who passes away, that too, he or she happens to be a leader of sort to any community,caste,religion and most importantly a political party.
So for almost a week everyone would talk very highly of the departed leader Sri.Jyothi Basu and we have to bow our head like sacrificial goat listening all the harangue , that too when told by Left leaders .
This man is oldest till today morning as leader in Indian Politics and he had been the Chief Minister of Bengal almost 25 years and before that Deputy Chief Minister who systematically in the name of ideology battered Bengal and thank him for having closed the mills,shuttered factories ,rendered average bangali family as a family of jobless people.Bengali people is one of the most intelligent people of India who despite the intelligence could not live in Bengal ,all left for other states and abroad for want of livelihood.
This gentleman I hope is the richest comrade in their party who would fly to London for taking rest since his son lives there and son is known to have cheated the Tax departments and so his father could have taken rest in London and poor bengalis can read the news papers , hoping one day a change will come to their life which is not to be ,reason,no opposition party can win in Bengal since Government is an extension of the party cadre.
Soft spoken gentlemen of Bengal could not do anything despite their intelligence owing this honorable gentleman who rendered Bengal as good for nothing state in India.
We all know what happened to Congress at the center during the last term, thank God , now Congress need not have the support of the left , so they can do as per their planning, otherwise very systematically the Jyothi basu culture would have spread to other parts of India and we would be building a Somalia with books ofRed ink in our hands and reading that we all can die peacefully ,singing requiem also with our fisted hands.
Only state that has been competing with Bengal is Kerala and so keralites are known for going every where for jobs and now living throughout the world.
Even for ordinary collegiate degree in arts and science boys and girls are sent to neighboring States like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.You know why, running a college is so difficult in Kerala,neither Govt opens new colleges nor allows any one to run a college saying it is like business.These govts never know or wanting to know the reality that in the globalised atmosphere, education is paid for, no longer free anywhere in the world.So an ordinary Malayalee family ,even if they want to spend something more for their children's education ,this govt is a stumbling block.But rich Malayalees fly anywhere in the world for studies in universities, sufferers being middle and poor Malayalees.So obvious result they can still talk communism driving a wedge between haves and have nots and making have nots more poorer and less educated so ,these poor people go and work in menial jobs in the middle east and send money home.Shamelessly this so called politicians shout from the roof tops that Kerala gets foreign cash flow, for how much the poor malayalee sheds his sweat,blood and energy ,leaving behind his family in this ruthless state.
Only industry which runs profitably in both the states of Kerala and Bengal is POLITICS .And only comfortable people are politicians in both the states.
Ghero as a word gained Oxford Dictionary's recognition owing to this gentleman's politics.All Indians are equal in India except Bengalis and Keralities - thank the politicians of the so called ideology in both the states.Only option if at all either a malayalee or bengali wants to prove his or her mettle ,they have to migrate anywhere except their home states.I have Malayalee friends who were born and brought up in Tamil Nadu  excelled in whatever the field they selected , thanks to the great ideology of the respective govts.

Poet Devadevan's Poem / Your Sun

Poet Devadevan is one of the poets , one of the Tamil poems is published by Writer Jeyamohan in his website and the translation is given below.Those who would like to read the original tamil poem can visit the website at the end of this page

Your sun

What gives you the Happiness
Is your sun.
For example
A food packet
A papaya fruit
A friend's face
A tumbler of water
A mirror
Poems not packed in paper
Likewise we can keep on
Saying.
If a packet of food
does not give the instant
Satisfaction,
If a papaya does not make
a pleasant day,
A friend's face
does not light up your face,
A tumbler of water
does not satiate the thirsty,
If you could not smile before
A mirror,
If your life is not visible like poems
Unpacked in a paper,
Understand
Where ever you are
that place " A sunset zone"

Tamil poem of Devadevan can be accessed at the following site of Writer Jeyamohan
Link/ www.jeyamohan.in/?p=6276

Hymn on Sun / translation by writer Jeyamohan inTamil

This hymn of sun is from Rigveda ,Book 10,37th song.
Translation by Mr.Ralph T.H. Griffith, [1896]

1. Do homage unto Varuṇa's and Mitra's Eye: offer this solemn worship to the Mighty God,
Who seeth far away, the Ensign, born of Gods. Sing praises unto Sūrya, to the Son of Dyaus.
2 May this my truthful speech guard me on every side wherever heaven and earth and days are spread abroad.
All else that is in motion finds a place of rest: the waters ever flow and ever mounts the Sun.
3 No godless man from time remotest draws thee down when thou art driving forth with winged dappled Steeds.
One lustre waits upon thee moving to the cast, and, Sūrya, thou arisest with a different light.
4 O Sūrya, with the light whereby thou scatterest gloom, and with thy ray impellest every moving thing,
Keep far from us all feeble, worthless sacrifice, and drive away disease and every evil dream.
5 Sent forth thou guardest well the Universe's law, and in thy wonted way arisest free from wrath.
When Sūrya, we address our prayers to thee to-day, may the Gods favour this our purpose and desire.
6 This invocation, these our words may Heaven and Earth, and Indra and the Waters and the Maruts hear.
Ne’er may we suffer want in presence of the Sun, and, living happy lives, may we attain old age.
7 Cheerful in spirit, evermore, and keen of sight, with store of children, free from sickness and from sin,
Long-living, may we look, O Sūrya, upon thee uprising day by day, thou great as Mitra is!
8 Sūrya, may we live long and look upon thee still, thee, O Far-seeing One, bringing the glorious light,
The radiant God, the spring of joy to every eye, as thou art mounting up o’er the high shining flood.
9 Thou by whose lustre all the world of life comes forth, and by thy beams again returns unto its rest,
O Sūrya with the golden hair, ascend for us day after day, still bringing purer innocence.
10 Bless us with shine, bless us with perfect daylight, bless us with cold, with fervent heat and lustre.
Bestow on us, O Sūrya, varied riches, to bless us in our home and when we travel.
11 Gods, to our living creatures of both kinds vouchsafe protection, both to bipeds and to quadrupeds,
That they may drink and eat invigorating food. So grant us health and strength and perfect innocence.
12 If by some grievous sin we have provoked the Gods, O Deities, with the tongue or thoughtlessness of heart,
That guilt, O Vasus, lay upon the Evil One, on him who ever leads us into deep distress.


The Tamil translation can be read in the following link.
http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=6276

My days in Palghat , Kerala

This remembrance of my days in Palghat is like going into the misty atmosphere of December and still be able to recollect the vivid pictures I had kept in my mind when I was hardly 4 or 5 years old.My paternal grandpa's house was in Palghat , I use 'was' since it no longer belongs to us which we sold around 70's and now I heard big buildings have come in that place and the old house with big garden around had been demolished along with the memories of the previous owners of the land.
That house so big ....well can be described as a bungalow with halls, bed rooms,pooja room,dining,kitchen ,garden around the building with coconut trees, mango trees,guava trees, flowering trees of many varieties,a big well and a nearby a big bathroom which was like a hall of present day.
From the bathroom there was a way connecting the Pooja room- without going into the house , could go to the pooja room directly.
Kitchen was separate and the dining hall was so big where around 40 or 50 people could dine.
For small boys like us this house was like a playground where my grandma or mother could not find out where we were unless our names were called for lunch .Hide and seek games could be played inside the house and the garden as well while doing so , we could pluck some fruits hanging low in the garden like guava or mango or 'seetha'
fruits which we never said we did to our elders since they could shout for eating them without washing.
Another escape from this house is , we could go into the next house which was our another grandfather's house [ my grand father's younger brother ]; to go into the house we did not need to go through the street.Between the two houses , the compound wall had a door which would always be open day and night though which we could go into the house and spend time , nobody would bother why we were there etc.,
If the grandpa happened to see us in that house , if ever we were seen, he would call and give sweets of those days , which were called 'orange mittais' in those days, I dont know whether that mittais are still available,that mittais were kept in a glass jar only for us since no young tiny tots were available in that house-- may be he would have used one or two mittais in those days.
My grandpa I have never seen since he passed away before we were born and we were told by my father he was in Railways and more than six footer and worked in various places. My another 'thatha'[ my grand father's brother] resigned from Railways to look after the properties and take care of the agriculture lands.
In one of the halls on the left side , I remember some musical instruments like tabla,harmonium , veena and violin were kept which we came to know latter days were played either by my uncle [ my father's younger brother] and one of my aunties.
Here I have to tell of my uncle , who is a master of many things; he was a photographer who developed his own photos in one corner of the building with his tables, cameras,developing room. He used to play many musical instruments and draw pictures of individuals in black and white either by seeing the photograph or asking them to sit in a chair and did.
My brother was admitted in the 1 std in a local school where one of my aunties was a teacher, since I was also adamant of going to school I was also taken to school by my aunt and I was sitting in school in a class.When everyone's name was called ,my name was never called in that school which I complained to my mum and aunt, so in the subsequent days the teacher used to call my name last and I was happy.I came to know when I grew up that I was not even admitted in the school since I was not eligible owing to my age, so my aunt asked the class teacher to call my name at last.
Then my father got a transfer to Tamil Nadu and I started my schooling ,well anyway my malayalam lessons were only one year although I see malayalam movies regularly , I dont know to read or write or speak, but understand completely.