Forgot your pencil?

Remember the time at school when you forgot your pencils back home? So scared the teacher will yell at you, weren't you?

``Teacher Teacher....4got my pennsilll''...you had to pout your lips for an innocent look exuding apology and pray she'd let you off a little light.

Or begged your bench-mate, often your competitor or enemy of life in school!

It's true that children move on to pens from pencils at flying speed these days. But what about, if the morning rush made you leave behind that homework pencil on the table rather than tuck into your pen-pencil box or pouch?

Here's a super solution that left me zapped. It was when I went to an elementary on some work near home recently.

Am already singing in my head, ``Pencil bekaamma, Penciluuu!'' (Want pencils?)

A pencil vending machine! Wow! It's time cities in India decided to use these large scale! I wasn't sure if this is the in-thing though. I am still not.

``Do you know this is the only such machine I have seen my entire life?'' remarked the official at the school office that evening. She did not know much about it either.

It works similar to the coin-operated washing machine that I used at my earlier apartment laundry room.

Push a 25 cents coin or a quarter of a dollar on to one of the slots and push the flexible piece below the slots in. I haven't tried it myself, but the structure is similar.

No idea what the brand of these pencils is, but I loved it anyway.

Image flash: our petti-kadai stationery stores. Natraj pencils. And the like. Am imagining if in future, we'll have vending machines for erasers, rulers and papers too in schools.

Traversing cities here, I find umpteen vending machines for Coke n Pepsi kind of soft drinks, snacks - mainly fried chips and wafers, machines to sell detergents, coin vending machines (you insert a note and get coins in return) and even machines that vend tampons and sanitary napkins at Women's Restrooms (read toilets).

But pencils? First time. It's out-of-box cerebral cells at whacky work here.


Pictures: Radhika M B

Cost of a Ganesha

Just how would you react if you walked a mela by the riverside of a foreign shore, and found among all the stashes of locally made goods and colours, a slice of your own desi wares?

Ditto the way they were displayed at our craft fairs and village santhes I mean.

I found the brass danglers that make up for our desi wind-chimes or doorway decor and got pulled towards them like to a magnet. This was at the Bear Mountain State Park's Fall fest. Or Oktober Fest.

This Sun God doorway hanging, with the Om hanging, make up for a lovely grab in our craft fairs and decor stores! What a welcome sight! To see home out here! Bandni dupattas getting converted into table cloth! And even Evil Eye charms (though I doubt they have an Indian origin).

Curious, my friends and I check out the price - in the range of $ 20, which is, if you calculate `multiplied by 50', about Rs 1,000 for Sun God chime alone. Ouch. I guess the would have been in the range of Rs 200 or Rs 300 back home.

We do not check out the price of Rudraksha mala or chain. But the little figurines of Ganesha, Buddha and the agarbatti or incense stick stands, are so so inviting!

Tough luck. Ganesha (the blue green one) here costs $ 34 which is Rs 1,700 or more! Agreed that even in our cities, we've such statues that cost sky high. But the size here simply does not justify that cost! The incense stick stands, are at $ 20 each. Everything else that I ventured to check about was in a similar price range.

The man at the stall looked every bit like he had gone to India for a holiday and decided to put up whatever he picked up as a souvenir hunter, on a yard sale! Isn't that a super business opportunity?

Travel to the place you like, pick up the stuff, not as a businessperson, but a tourist, and sell them away anyways!

I've seen Pashmina shawls acquiring the fancy name of Cashmere that I bought at Rs 100 or Rs 150 at Delhi's Janpath Market go here in malls, for $25. At times, even $50.

This bit leaves me in a dilemma. Shall I feel happy for the fact that our culture tingles the interest of people in other countries, or sad that they profit so much from it?

Or is it simply an H4 wife ranting because she is not allowed to sell? And earn money for herself?

Picture Courtesy: Radhika MB
If you need pics without watermark, write to: radiscribe@gmail.com

See related posts: Writing on Sand

Yawn: It's Women's Day

Sunday: At one of the three big malls in this utterly butterly conservative city of Chennai, we - D and me, were surprised to find something finally `happening' in the middle of world cup chaos. Some Women's Day special. Whew!

Hope it includes all of us women, and offers something tolerable. My half hope was short lived. Welcome Women's Day! A fashion show for the `cause' of women's day! And eager men lining up along the runway meant for dry runs, that too for an event due only after two days! Sigh!

At another store upstairs, another women's day offer - `buy stuff worth Rs 2,000' and avail discounts! What a slap! Look at the several disappointing stereotypes this one besides the fashion show charade throws up! It assumes that women, who have always been consumers of the brand, suddenly need a misleading banner to walk in. If the mall's idea of a day of this sort was to sashay skinny girls (read models) instead of reaching out to the real women of different sizes who visit it, and end up giving it its moolah, the stores were no less, trying colour the woman thing pink - a la valentines day.

My morning newspaper had a supplement - with its page one filled in half by a saree store ad. Oh Yeah, its Women's Day. So forget the pain that we have to live through, all days of the year, the newspaper assumes our interests lie in buying sarees in the name of a day  like this, not discuss the happenings around us.


How to insult a woman on her `day'? Yahoo had this amazing 10 things lister about what? Things men `don't' like in women. My guess is, some thankless son of a helpless mother who toiled away for his food wrote it with sheer vengeance, and Yahoo plastered it all over the Net. What a pity! Men love to throw their insecurities in with such shamelessness!

It's 10 minutes to 12 am. Besides wishing my woman pals and feeling generally happy, nothing dramatic happened (TV too was so down with tokenism of the day). Yawn! The day flit by. The most desperate revellers were of course sellers of women's goods, hoping more of their wares got sold.

Ahimsa, Satyagraha...KCR style

A blog post by Rajdeep Sardesai resonates what was gnawing my head ever since KCR began his fast unto death for Telangana.

Who is great? An Irom Sharmila stuck away in the hinterland of Manipur who has no political affliliations whatsoever, who the ruling government has been force-feeding through a tube under perennial arrest, or a politician who was afraid of losing foothold in Andhra politics, who the Centre showed every sign of yielding to?

Sharmila has sought a specific action by the government. Repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

KCR's goal - a superhero status with the division of Andhra Pradesh.

Did he really care how many lives he inconvenienced? And when after nine horrible years, Irom Sharmila continues to starve in jail, does her Manipur Congress government or the Centre led by a `respected' Prime Minister care?

Few words about the two words

Two words say it all, speak volumes off my head. This is a head cleaning exercise. And I take you along when I do it.

I spare no one or nothing out here. A far cry from my other blogs, this one is about being witty, whacky and at times, wise too.

Join me as I move along. Jai Ho.