Bangalore....winter saturday afternoon......blue cloudless skies......lemonade......sitting on the lawn....LIFE!!!

The Infamous Gum trick

This trick was initially Vaibhav's brilliant idea. He successfully carried it out on two subjects-Aditya and Pooja.

The trick- Chew gum, take it out and throw it to someone and shout "catch", not expecting it to be gum the person catches it.

POOJA- It was during the Junior annual day. Vaibhav plays the trick on Pooja. She catches it not knowing it was gum. She looks in her hand realises what it is but does not throw it down. When I asked her why she replied, "The kids' parents walk this way, I don't want to dirty the place".

ADITYA- Aditya is playing table tennis and Vaibhav throws him the gum. He catches it and drops it down without taking a close look at it. Seeing all the laughter it generated he picks it up, takes a close look, realises what it is, drops it down, whipes his hand on his trousers and continues with table tennis.

1. There is something to learn from everything.
2. Most things are neither right nor wrong.
3. Completion of what you start, makes what you started a ‘right’ thing.

A Typical Chemistry class(12th standard)

Some of the best memories I have of school are of the events that unfolded in our chemistry periods. Our teacher was Mr. M, not one bit strict and not one bit capable of handling a class of 30.

We were pretty well behaved and under control when he was a new teacher, but once we got used to him, there was no leniency.

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So, Mr. M walks in, we stand up to greet him(here is where it starts;-))and we remain standing. After spending some time convincing us to sit and after we finally sit, he starts "teaching".

The well behaved girls take out there novels and horoscope books. Few back benchers are eating.

Then someone coughs(but isn't that contagious) and sure enough the entire class is coughing, at the same time!!!! Mr. M says nothing much(perhaps he was too amazed). The coughing gives way to some quiet, he continues.

Vaibhav, my benchmate say "Aaj bhi kal waale kapade hei pehan ke aaya hey". We are in the second bench. Hemachandra and Shiva in the first bench. Right on their desk, Resnik & Halliday(a huge encyclopedia of physics) and R.D Sharma(a big book of math) right under Mr. M's nose, but he prefers not to notice.

Suddenly we hear noises from the back, Nivin is at work. He is making the kind of sounds that you would hear at the finish line of an F1 race. yeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooowwwwwww........

Anirban is absent, he has called Vaibhav on his cell. Vaibhav uses his huge palm to hide the cell(not his mouth) and is happily talking. I am chewing gum.

Then the back benchers decide to sing a song together. The Hutch song is selected. At the count of a three, a hum is heard-"You and I...in this.........". Mr. M stops "teaching". The song stops.

Time passes by quickly. It is five mins to the bell. I can't chew gum in the next period, so I have to spit it out. I pack it in a small piece of paper. On it I write "Open with a smile :-)", throw it to Puneeta and have the last laugh.

Happiness in Insignificance

All worries are due to the importance we attach to them. Imagine a life so insignificant that you had absolutely nothing to worry about.

Imagine you were a tiny bug, living on a leaf high up in a roadside tree. Your leaf(your home) being lit, at night, by a romantic yellow hue from the flickering streetlight right above you.

Your food----> A bite off the leaf

Your drink---> A little juice from the leaf

Your companion is another tiny bug, of the opposite gender, your mate. All you have to do is make sure you survive and make love, so as to lay eggs and reproduce. Whats more, you don't even have too care for the young. As soon as the eggs hatch they are off on their own.

Summers and winters come and go. All you deal with is your leaf, the seasons and your mate. Your inability to suffer is your happiness.

A Dream

I came to consciousness in a big house, lying on the floor, many other people were in the house. The roof had a big hole in it. From the fear prevalent in my surroundings I gauged that we all wanted to run somewhere but we had nowhere to hide. We were stuck in a battlefield, in the middle of a war.The war was with the USA. Reason for the war I do not know. From what I remember we were being bombed by around 7 to 9 US fighter jets. They were black in colour, powerful, advanced. The bombing was happening late in the evening. I clearly remember seeing through the hole in the roof, the sky drenched in a dark blue colour, every now and then a US fighter jet would whizz past. A thunderous sound would be unleashed followed by an explosion somewhere close by.We the people stuck on the ground, had nowhere to go and nothing to do other than stay still and hope. Hope for a miracle. We all knew the US was more powerful, but we hoped that our government would be able to defend us, that something would save us.Most of us had our eyes were fixed to the sky, like as though the help would come from the sky. Slowly for some reason more and more people concentrated on the sky. Something was happening. Something was changing. A different noise could be heard, different from what we had been hearing all the while.We continued staring at the sky. Then we could see it, they had arrived, the Indian fighters, they were more in number, they were smaller, faster, the LCAs had arrived. My eyes were wet with tears. A smile appeared on our faces as we watched them.They were a lot more scattered than the Americans, the bombing stopped immediately. We saw as the Indian fighters zoomed around like a big flock of small birds chasing away the bigger intruders. A sense of pride filled us, patriotism was the word running through our minds. The danger was thwarted.We were saved.