Random ramblings

Does this happen only with me? Have anyone of you experienced this stupid behavior or witnessed it any time? A pizza joint, a burger shop, a food court in a mall when its generally crowded; people walking with food trays in search of an empty table. You and your friend have found a table for two and have begun eating. Your friend has ordered another dish and goes to fetch either that or maybe a glass of water - leaving the chair vacant. Someone just comes by, drags the chair and walks away....................What will you do? I gape in awe, dragging away an occupied chair without even having a courtesy to ask if it can be fetched away. I feel like giving two tight slaps and bringing them back to their common senses. Common sense is so uncommon among people nowadays. A senior executive at my work place did the same in my office cafeteria. After committing this 'humane' act, he was staring at the group from where he flicked the chair repeatedly to see if they noticed. It was awkward.

A new trend has started here since quite sometime. Beggars stand at the traffic signal and literally harass commuters to cough up some money. a rupee or two is accepted with a smirk, a 5 Rs is acceptable. Beggars are choosers!! Yeah, not to leave out the trans genders. They target young men, well dressed hurrying to go on their job, to office. If the men don't part with some money, they grope them which embarrasses these men and thus are forced to part with the money. Few women beggars flaunt their heavy pregnant belly by wearing their skirt much below their navel and a super short shirt. They assume that a pregnant distressed figure would gain sympathy. Few others put up a super cool act of being under some deadly disease - struggling even to walk properly. But when the signals turn green, their struggle vanishes and one can see them run swiftly like a road runner away from the vehicles. Its disgusting to see such scenes on the road. The cops do nothing. Why would they? They beg from these beggars!!

The story is somewhat similar in temples. I went to a temple in Chennai. Its a famous temple. We were at the sanctum sanctorum when a priest distributed holy water. A second priest came with aarthi. Apparently, the second priest jumped the gun in distributing the aarthi thereby getting dhakshina from a couple of people. The other priest got irritated by this and he left what he was doing and came to where we stood to get the dhakshina, by then we had already left it in the aarthi plate. He did not even bother about the devotees present, but picked up a fight with the other priest reminding him that it was his turn this time to take the dhakshina. It was a nasty scene to witness both of them argue. I left the place still trying to digest what I witnessed.

One can find little kids selling bunch of roses on a posh street in Bangalore where the crowd is ready is spend money. The streets are full most times with young crowds. These kids are super MBAs - they know whom to target their sales, one's got to learn business tactics from them. They pursue young couple; coax the guy to buy roses for the lady. The guy would definitely want to impress the lady, and is ready to buy them. Ask the kid for the price of 2 roses and lo!! they quote 50-100 Rs. The guy is in a fix. If he says no, what impression would he create in front of the girl!! So he ends up buying them with a broad smile and a heavy heart. Mission accomplished!

I was loitering in a serene place - a cemetery actually. I had my camera with me as usual, I liked the archway entrance and snapped it.


On the main walkway broad enough to allow vehicles in; is where I was loitering. As I was standing, taking in the serenity and calmness, I saw an ant crawling across the road. An auto rickshaw passed by me, the ant was still crawling to go to the other side. The front wheel of the auto was well away from the ant and I was keenly observing and wishing that the ant is safe. But the rear wheel on the left crushed the ant. It was still for a couple of seconds, later it struggled hard to to get up, to crawl..it struggled for a a few seconds and then gave up :-(

This is the ant :-| :-(

PS : A calf swishing its tail, while walking with its head swaying up and down as its earnest gleaming eyes looks for the way is the most cutest thing I have recently seen.