A Wooden Spoon For You!!

Sometimes small anecdotes startle and shake a person beyond one’s imagination and leave such an everlasting impression and a lesson that even if one tries to forget, one simply cannot. 

The anecdote that I read goes something like this. Once there lived an old man with his son, wife and grandson. The old man was too old and would often drop a spoon or a glass or even could not hold peas in the spoon and spill them over the table and the floor. His son’s wife became disgusted one day and arranged a table and a chair in thee corner for the old man so that her husband and son could eat in peace. He was given food in a wooden bowl and a wooden spoon to eat so to avoid wrangling sounds and to avoid breakage of cutlery and crockery. The old man continued to eat with the same disarray, but now with tears of hurt in his eyes as well.

One day the father found his little son trying to make something with the wood. He asked him, “Son, what are you doing?” The son innocently replied, “Daddy, I am making a wooden spoon for you and Mama so that you could eat with it when you grow old.”

Startled? I know you would be. I don’t have to tell you that from that day onwards, the old man was brought back to the table to eat the way he did before. 

I am sharing this with my readers, specially those who have their old parents living with them or dependent on them. Take good care of the old, as you would grow old too one day and beware of the fact that your children are watching you. Don’t let them make a wooden spoon for you and your spouse.

Mustangs

I first met them in Lahore Defence, beautifully placed on the road coming from the Cavalry and meeting the road leading to Lahore Defence and Walton. The light and shade made them look very impressive.

I found them again in front of Military Hospital (MH) Rawalpindi. They stood frozen in the ornamental lights near their hooves – making them look like ghosts. I could not resist taking a shot (and this composition of mine was selected on Explore) and posted it to my Flickr account (Jalalspages). 

Such monuments while add to the beauty of the cities, speak volumes of those with aesthetics who make them. 

And let me add, if we are impressed with these statues, do we ever ponder over the beautiful nature laid out for us so beautifully by the Nature? We need to explore nature more by going out, seeing and appreciating the One who created all this – only for us

Myths about Full Moon

 

Full moon is always fascinating. Its rising is majestic. Slowly and gradually the brightness of the disc intensifies and when it is at its peak, it shines like millions of bulbs lit together. On October the 26th, 2006, I myself witnessed ( and shot ) a much brighter moon than the normal (pictured above) due to its closeness to the earth. The moon was 14 per cent wider and 30 per cent brighter than lesser full moons we see otherwise throughout the year. 

While we enjoy a full moon, its brightness making us see the countryside more beautiful and romantic, its rays falling on the snow capped mountain peaks create an aura and stuns the onlookers, there are many a people who choose not to stare at the full moon as there are many myths and legends related to the full moon. So I decided to look for those myths and legends and am listing some herein under for the information only (as these have been never proven or any scientific relationship established by the scientists despite centuries of research and studies).

1) One of the myth relates to the women. It says a woman must be very careful who she invites to dinner if she had baked a cake when the Moon is full. It seems that some believe that the person who eats the first piece other than members of one’s own family will become her husband.

2) In some parts of the world, it is unlucky to point at the Moon. Misfortune will follow.

3) Sleeping under the light of a full Moon will make a woman pregnant. Some say she will give birth to a monster.

4) Never sleep exposed to the rays of the Moon because lunacy will follow.

5) Two full Moons in the same month will cause severe weather in the following month.

6) It is said that wild life behavior is linked to full moon. Scientists are trying to figure out this link. Does full moon cause erratic behavior in human beings? These and other cases are being discussed.

7) And then beware when the moon is full. People will party. Dogs will bite. Robbers will steal. Murderers will kill.

8) Witches are said to ride during the Full Moon.

9) It is said that if a young girl holds a silk hankie at the face of the full moon, desiring to know when she will be married, the number of moons appearing, will indicate the number of years she shall wait.

10) Good news for people who marry during the Full Moon, they will have good luck and good fortune.

11) And finally a word of caution!! Don’t try to commit a robbery on the third day of the full moon. You will fail.

Let me fly you in a Mercedez

Stretch your imagination to its wildest limits - you will be surprised at your abilities

Photo courtesy : Jalalspages

 

MPXTUTTY9UPF

Mobile Phone Mania

My friend SAJ Shirazi is not happy the way I write. He says my blogs are too serious and “people” generally don’t read the stuff I write. So I sat back to find a subject that should interest the majority. Clueless from where to begin, I started surfing through my photo library to find a new topic - and suddenly the photo above ( that I shot while traveling in train ) struck me – “Mobile Phones” since everyone is after this small device day and night – whether on foot, bicycle, motorcycle, car or a truck, busy in digging into it as if oil will finally be discovered from within this magic thing.

I often see people talking for hours on this device as if no bills are to follow. Once I was sitting in the airport lounge and the Young man sitting next to me spoke with someone for good about 45 minutes and I could tell that in those 45 minutes, there wasn’t a single thing that merited such a long call. A recent survey shows that most of the users are from low income group, who spend a sizeable portion of their earnings on mobile phone cards.

Then I thought, that there must be something interesting in possessing this magical device, so I also bought one (courtesy my son who has all the knowledge about it). But buying the mobile wasn’t easy as my son (and my mentor on mobile technology) asked me hundreds of questions, most of which I did not understand. For instance which OS should the mobile possess – Windows based or Symbian technology.  Now how would an aging man know what’s the difference between the two. Then should it be 2G or 3G? GPS or WiFi or WLAN? And then as enough wasn’t enough. The next question was its memory status, choice of colours, screen size, conformity with MP3/MP4 and God knows how many formats. And not finally, what about the video capture and camera? And yet another: should it be touch screen or keypad operative.

Well this shows the amount of technology that has poured into our younger generation and how much digital have they become. So while I struggle to handle my new mobile phone, technology keeps on adding new features into these tiny yet very effective devices. And this just reminds me that how dependent we have actually become on our mobile phones as we no longer need to remember phone numbers of our near and dear ones by heart ( as we did in good old days when few people had phone and so was it easy to remember their numbers). Now even my Meat/Beef seller tells me to phone him before going to his shop, and so does my plumber, sweeper, vegetable shop wala and others ask me to get information about their whereabouts before looking for them.

More so, the mobile phone also has a camera, so no need to carry an additional load when attending marriages, conferences or going on vacation. It also acts as my timepiece to wake me up in the morning, serve as a calculator, or as a currency converter. And one last thing: I can send the SMS to anyone I feel like (on my phone list) and tell him anything I LIKE (whether he likes it or not – after all these are times of Freedom of Speech). 

So I enjoy its usefulness and nuisance fully now – I am digital too.

Can One Wait?

I recently came across a small but very meaningful and eye opening anecdote. A teacher asked her class, "Who can tell me how much money the great Rockefeller left behind him?" The children made wild guesses; Ten million? Fifty million? One billion dollars perhaps? After all, they were talking about the fortunes of one of the world's richest men! Only one child had a different answer to give, "Rockefeller left every penny behind!"

And how very true. We amass bank balances, make vast properties, but seldom have time to spend it. We just want to be rich – tagged as ___ th richest man in the world. We don’t want to ease up the sufferings of so many needy around us by sharing a part of our possessions. And one day our demise hit the newspapers and then by and by we fade away in the history. No more___th wealthiest man of the world. And those we leave behind, are more worried about how to grab the cache rather than remembering the one who left it.

Ever pondered over it?