Phone-exchange!!

 

 Driving back  home early morning at 6, after having dropped hubby at the  railway station  a very  different kind of  ring  tone  greeted  my ears. It definitely  wasn’t  my  phone’s … so  what & where  was it coming  from I was thinking  as  I searched frantically in  my  purse, the  sourceof the sound  & Lo!  The  big  daddy of  surrogate  father’s had happened. No  no this isn’t about  Aamirs & Shahrukhs fathering children  from  surrogate mothers.  I only  meant,  the  biggest Faux pas(surrogate father)  happened, me  and  hubby  had  exchanged our phones  accidently in the  hurried early morning  departure of  his…..

What  followed was a  string  of  funny, amusing  and  minorly irritating episodes! Unlike the  idea  cellular advertisement,  we  do not  need to discover  each other’s tough  days. It  seemed quite  a herculean  task to inform  each  and  everyone of our  friends about this  exchange, so we let it be known only  to our  parents and  siblings. The rest would  discover and  not  mind speaking  to the spouse, we  have a  huge set of common friends as it is*.

Around  mid morning my friend called up on my  phone to find my hubby at the other end. She was  expecting  trouble shooting  help from me  about the  cake  that she’d  baked that wasn’t rising! Ater some well intended leg pulling  from my hubby,  she  called me, chided me for having  taken the idea advertisement seriously and after she got her  fresh tips for baking she  hung  up. Another friend of mine  gave  my  husband  a  detailed critique of  my blog post!

Next, I get this call  from my  husband’s colleague, so his customary greeting  led me  to believe, as he introduced himself on the  phone  and  before  he  could  launch into a tirade, I  put the  disclaimer forth loud  &  clear, phones  exchanged I declared, please replace the  last number with an 8 and  you will reach him. Not  withstanding,  he said  he  wanted to talk to me about the kids school. He  had just come into town and his son  was apparently in my son’s  class. Glad  to help I waited for his  queries only to realize there  seemed to be some  mismatch of  school or  class. “Excuse me,  are you  sure  it’s me  you  want to speak with? I’m Ms.N” I told  him.

“Oh No!I’m really  sorry ma’am I thought I  was  speaking with mrs.S!Oh, this is Mr.N’s phone! I thought I had dialled Mr.S!” 

 Now who the  hell is this  Mrs.S  who answered my  husband’s phone, I thought!!  Much to the  caller’s consternation he  had to explain Mr.& Mrs. S’s  identities. Thankfully for  my husband, I knew the S’s.  Apparently my  husband  had been  on an assignment  where he and  Mr.S had shared my huisband’s  phone number, so the  confusion. Again a  slew of  calls  from hubby’s work placeleft me exhausted.

My husband  on the other hand found  himself talking to many  ladies since that day.Whatsapp was another  source of entertainmet  for him and me  alike. All the ‘ boys’-jokes  and  girly fun were  reaching the unintended destination but was enjoyable  I must  admit.  My hubby had  a whale of  a time teasing  me  about  why my haircut was the  topic  of  discussion, or  how  my  friend had called JLT,’just like that’. I  wanted to tell him JLT= hottest  gossip in town, but  restrained myself  from letting  this code of girlie language be  known to him. I immediately  launched a   counter attack of  how  sexist and anti-feminine all the  typical boys-jokes exchanged by him & his gang of  friends were.

Me & hubby went through this  ordeal of having to exchange essential numbers. Me asking  for numbers of the dhobi, software vendor amongst others and  he asking for numbers of his  colleagues  at work, travel agents etc.

 Most people attribute this exchange to my mischevious  son. I tried  explaining  callers initially but just gave up later on and resigned to the  fate that my  son has earned another tag to his kitty of naughty pranks!!

Hubby  will be back this  weekend  and  weapons  restored to their respective owners. Until then take  a  breather   Gals, once I’m back on circuit there won’t be any respite on thelocal gossip scene.

·         Me and  hubby  solemnly pledged to not make a mention of content send by a person on theonly- boys/ only- girls groups on  whatsapp to anybody even their  spouse.

·          (only I’m allowed to reveal all once ina  while ;P)

 

 

 

VIBGYOR: Just trash it!!!

VIBGYOR: Just trash it!!!: Waste generated by the burgeoning human population of the Earth and its ever increasing energy consumption have made the endeavour of fin...

Just trash it!!!

Waste generated by the burgeoning human population of the Earth and its ever increasing energy consumption have made the endeavour of finding another inhabitable planetary neighbour for humans, gather momentum.

 When tragedies like the recent Himalayan  tsunami in  Uttarakhand  occur we are dazed,  we  marvel at  & curse natuer’s fury in the  same breath. We then  immediately start a  blame game, making a scape goat out of authorities and  years of neglect.

 Conservation of Energy and reduction of waste are the need of the hour. Unfortunately, we continue ignoring these. Focus should be on minimizing wastage and optimizing the energy sources available.

 Innumerable methods of effective garbage disposal  are  available  at hand, be it landfill methods, incineration, biological reprocessing, enery recovery, wate recovery, recycling, waste minimization.   The main entity unavailable is our  lack of will and  implementation to  do the  needful. Barring  a  few metropolitan cities,we the  educated  masses are clueless about waste segregation.

 Trash and muck  dumped on  roadsides or any empty plot of land is such a common sight everywhere and not even a flutter of  eyelids from us humans  around. So many people unabashedly quote civilizations of the ancient past to justify or take  pride in spitting and squatting publically,  while conveniently forgetting the eco friendly  ways of  living that our  ancestors  followed.

Cities  are bursting at their  seams with an ever increasing population to sustain, resulting in indiscriminate infrastuctre development. We all know these facts, we contribute to  them.

 A recent survey by the  Reader’s digest shows how the most exotic of  locales  like Mt.Everest and  Bahamas are also being littered by mankind with all sorts of  garbage! What is truly appalling is the  fact that nearly 13,000 miles surrounding Earth are crowded with garbage. In addition to large objects such as inactive satellites and parts of launch vehicles, scientists estimate that millions of smaller bits of trash—flecks of paint, fragments of metal, even a lost glove and camera whiz around our planet at up to 22,000 mph. The bits regularly fall toward earth, but they burn up in the atmosphere before making landfall. Space trash can be dangerous, though—NASA frequently replaces space  shuttle windowsafter unfortunate collisions with the tiny garbage. 

Our attempts at damge control or environmental recovery are marginal. Afforestation for example, cannot be relentless tree plantation of  a species that do not naturally occur in a place.

In reference to the Uttarakhand Tsunami, what came to light was a  fact that environmentalists have  been  crying foul about  since long. The naturally occurring ‘Banj’(Himalayan Oak) has been allowed to be replaced by the ‘Chil’(pine tree) of the  Southern slopes of  Uttaranchal over the years. While ‘Chil’ provides resin and timber, thereby increasing  revenue, it damages the  ecology extensively. The  pine needles that fall, do not  sustain any undergrowth and land becomes barren as a result it is unable to stop soil erosion during floods. The naturally occurring and fast depleting  ‘Banj’ on the other hand is extremely beneficial. The fallen  leaves  of the ‘banj’ become  mouldy catalyzing  under undergrowth which holds soil and  allows  rain water to percolate slowly into the Nothern  plains(the granaries of India). The ‘Banj’ also  makes good fodder for the animals but  doesn’t yield anything substantial for the coffers like  resins or timber. This being  a small point in the  case of environmental  neglect has had colossal repercussionsthat we endrued recently. 

Development  and  maintenance of  ecological balance  can go hand in hand though may not form an ideal money making  situation always. Tourism in our hill states  has  rapidly increased. We choose to build  cement jungles to meet this  ever growing  demand. In ignoring  wood  and stone as building options, we make the environment warmer as cement generates  heat increasing the  ambient  temperature of the  localized area. We eat into river beds, not only do we build along them , we  dump construction debris in the river bed. The river left with very little  room to flow engulfs the population on its edges.

Pristine and lush green carpeted mountains as tough peeping through their

 

curly locks of clouds and  mist greeted me at Kasauli. I  was experiencing bliss wrapped in nature’s embrace when a glance  at the garbage in the valley  below made me cringe!

 Through with our careless and energy inefficient ways of living, we might just end up turning the new planetary habitat we find into another unliveable garbage dump. This option is a few centuries away and hopefully we would have mended our ways by then, making migration to another planet unnecessary; just a sightseeing trip there should be fine.

Just trash it!!!

Waste generated by the burgeoning human population of the Earth and its ever increasing energy consumption have made the endeavour of finding another inhabitable planetary neighbour for humans, gather momentum.

 When tragedies like the recent Himalayan  tsunami in  Uttarakhand  occur we are dazed,  we  marvel at  & curse natuer’s fury in the  same breath. We then  immediately start a  blame game, making a scape goat out of authorities and  years of neglect.

 Conservation of Energy and reduction of waste are the need of the hour. Unfortunately, we continue ignoring these. Focus should be on minimizing wastage and optimizing the energy sources available.

 Innumerable methods of effective garbage disposal  are  available  at hand, be it landfill methods, incineration, biological reprocessing, enery recovery, wate recovery, recycling, waste minimization.   The main entity unavailable is our  lack of will and  implementation to  do the  needful. Barring  a  few metropolitan cities,we the  educated  masses are clueless about waste segregation.

 Trash and muck  dumped on  roadsides or any empty plot of land is such a common sight everywhere and not even a flutter of  eyelids from us humans  around. So many people unabashedly quote civilizations of the ancient past to justify or take  pride in spitting and squatting publically,  while conveniently forgetting the eco friendly  ways of  living that our  ancestors  followed.

Cities  are bursting at their  seams with an ever increasing population to sustain, resulting in indiscriminate infrastuctre development. We all know these facts, we contribute to  them.

 A recent survey by the  Reader’s digest shows how the most exotic of  locales  like Mt.Everest and  Bahamas are also being littered by mankind with all sorts of  garbage! What is truly appalling is the  fact that nearly 13,000 miles surrounding Earth are crowded with garbage. In addition to large objects such as inactive satellites and parts of launch vehicles, scientists estimate that millions of smaller bits of trash—flecks of paint, fragments of metal, even a lost glove and camera whiz around our planet at up to 22,000 mph. The bits regularly fall toward earth, but they burn up in the atmosphere before making landfall. Space trash can be dangerous, though—NASA frequently replaces space  shuttle windowsafter unfortunate collisions with the tiny garbage. 

Our attempts at damge control or environmental recovery are marginal. Afforestation for example, cannot be relentless tree plantation of  a species that do not naturally occur in a place.

In reference to the Uttarakhand Tsunami, what came to light was a  fact that environmentalists have  been  crying foul about  since long. The naturally occurring ‘Banj’(Himalayan Oak) has been allowed to be replaced by the ‘Chil’(pine tree) of the  Southern slopes of  Uttaranchal over the years. While ‘Chil’ provides resin and timber, thereby increasing  revenue, it damages the  ecology extensively. The  pine needles that fall, do not  sustain any undergrowth and land becomes barren as a result it is unable to stop soil erosion during floods. The naturally occurring and fast depleting  ‘Banj’ on the other hand is extremely beneficial. The fallen  leaves  of the ‘banj’ become  mouldy catalyzing  under undergrowth which holds soil and  allows  rain water to percolate slowly into the Nothern  plains(the granaries of India). The ‘Banj’ also  makes good fodder for the animals but  doesn’t yield anything substantial for the coffers like  resins or timber. This being  a small point in the  case of environmental  neglect has had colossal repercussionsthat we endrued recently. 

Development  and  maintenance of  ecological balance  can go hand in hand though may not form an ideal money making  situation always. Tourism in our hill states  has  rapidly increased. We choose to build  cement jungles to meet this  ever growing  demand. In ignoring  wood  and stone as building options, we make the environment warmer as cement generates  heat increasing the  ambient  temperature of the  localized area. We eat into river beds, not only do we build along them , we  dump construction debris in the river bed. The river left with very little  room to flow engulfs the population on its edges.

Pristine and lush green carpeted mountains as tough peeping through their

 

curly locks of clouds and  mist greeted me at Kasauli. I  was experiencing bliss wrapped in nature’s embrace when a glance  at the garbage in the valley  below made me cringe!

 Through with our careless and energy inefficient ways of living, we might just end up turning the new planetary habitat we find into another unliveable garbage dump. This option is a few centuries away and hopefully we would have mended our ways by then, making migration to another planet unnecessary; just a sightseeing trip there should be fine.