No other news has been this funny offlate

I started writing this post on a totally different topic while cnn page was opening in another window updating me with some current news. I got distracted and went on to read the news which left me laughing till I guess I started turning red and scared my co-worker. The news is on the front page of CNN about a toddler who fell in a 45 feet well. The 2 year old girl spent 27 hours trapped inside the well. So here is the entire article and what went through my mind:

AGRA, India (CNN) -- A two-year-old girl was rescued Wednesday after spending 27 hours trapped inside a narrow well outside the Indian capital of New Delhi. Don’t we have better news that this one which could have been reported as a front page article. And does Agra need any more popularity then it already has due to Taj.

Two-year-old Vandana was trapped in a well near New Delhi for more than a day.
She fell 45 feet into the uncovered well while playing Tuesday night in a village near Agra, a northern Indian city outside New Delhi. Was she playing with her invisible friend? Was no one around? And which kind of games is played near an uncovered bore well.

The girl was taken by ambulance to a hospital to be checked out, according to District Magistrate Mukesh Kumar Meshram. Checked out? What does that mean?
"The girl is normal, according to the doctors, and there is a possibility (she is) suffering from dehydration," Meshram said. At first I thought the well actually had some water, so this statement got me confused since it says she dehydrated. So I went huh? Geez duh! She survived the fall? She has wings or something?

CNN's partner network CNN-IBN reported Vandana's parents were by her side at the hospital. What else does one expect? She is a miracle child now, who wants to lose out on that kind of popularity.

Her mother was kept away from the well because of rescuers feared she would become emotional and upset the child, but her father was constantly talking to her to keep her conscious, authorities said. The video actually states that her mother was praying. I wonder, didn’t her father’s voice echo in the well. So it would sound like…Stay awake…aaaaaaaaawake…aaaaaaawaaaaake. How did he talk to her? And what does one mean by mother becoming emotional, would she jump in the well as well.

India's army was called in to help, and rescuers dug a parallel well to tunnel into where Vandana was trapped. Now does the Indian army do this kinda stuff too. Who is guarding our borders in that case? And parallel well to rescue the toddler. Whose idea is this whole thing?

Officials said the girl frequently asked for fruits and sweets, which was sent to her with the help of a rope. Woah!! I am sure the girl must be like wow my only chance to get all that I want. So every now and then she would be like, throw candies, throw cake, throw mango. I wonder what I would do if I were in that well. I would be like how about a laptop and a cell phone. Don’t they have wireless connection down here? How about a McDonalds burger this time. No no just get me a burrito. What you guys would rescue me in an hour. Nooooooooooooooo!

Oxygen was also pumped inside the well through tubes to prevent any suffocation, CNN-IBN reported. It was the sixth time a child had fallen into an open pit or uncovered well in India over the past two years. Wow we actually going to make a record in this one.

And if all this hasn’t made you laugh go watch the video, the little girl is swarmed by army guys, do we need to crowd so much. Would the sky fall down if 10 of those people don’t appear in the video? Finally, what a news!!!

Notorious Squirrel On The Block

Spring seems to be knocking at the door. Even 2 out of my 4 dying pet pots seem to have made it through the winter. I feel sad for the other 2 who couldn’t make it through the winter and still keep hoping that somehow they will bounce back to life. I still am feeding them with plant food and water. What really annoys me is the mischievous squirrel who is digging all my pots. Earlier last week I returned from work, to find mud all over my doorstep. I scrutinized the area and found weird step marks leading to a broken branch, which seemed to have acted like a stairway to the huge tree. I looked up the tree, nahh nothing there. Two days ago I reached home to find the same crime scene. But this time around I could catch the glimpse of a bushy tail on the branch and the notorious squirrel nibbling on something. I keenly looked at her and she was peering back at me. This same squirrel can be noted in our backyard and can be heard pounding on our chimney. You can ask me how do I know it’s the same squirrel? I have noted 3 distinct marks on her forehead, and each time I look at her annoyed she bows her head to show me those marks reconfirming my belief. I have thought about trapping her, scarring her even poisoning her. No I am not against cute animals. But this one has got on my nerves due to her continuous mischief’s. Digging around the backyard, digging pots, spreading mud all around our doorstep brrrr. On another note, I was thinking of ways and methods of controlling temper. You would ask, why am I thinking on these lines. Naturally like any other normal human there are days and times when I lose it. I often find myself evaluating the means and methods of bringing the red color of my ears (due to anger) back to normal. So here are some proven remedies:

I would give 10 points to knitting: Be I in a happy, annoyed, sad or jubilant mood, knitting seems to be an activity which demands 100% of my attention. I started knitting a sweater a few months back. Once I moved here, though I brought the half woven sweater with me, I completely forgot that it existed and that I still have to finish it. Now with some guidance, I have restarted the sweater making. Believe me, its one of the good old tricks to manage temper. The more complicated the design, the more focus it needs resulting in making you forget everything else. Well this is the first sweater I am knitting and so far its coming along well :)

I avoid cooking or cleaning or reading during bad mood phases. Cooking itself is quite challenging skill which I feel I have only partially acquired and am still learning. Hence cooking in an annoyed mood for me results in spoiling the dish, which in effect builds up the rotten mood. Cleaning makes me feel quite depressed. Washing dishes on the other hand is a pretty good stress buster. So a 9 points to dish washing, only if you don’t use a dishwasher. Reading makes me feel depressed, I try to associate everything bad that’s happening in the book with me. Silly isn’t it?

Taking a warm water bath definitely deserves if not 9 at least 8 points. Though I would ponder on the topic at hand for a while in the shower, soon the combined effect of steam, fragrance of soap and shampoo plus warm water works well on soothing the spoilt mood. In no time a hundred topics such as the extravagant dress of some lady I saw in the mall today or neighbors garden or the shoe stand comes to my mind.

And the last one is exercising, for me its thread-mill while listening to Ipod. Else walking about 1.2 miles outside. Since walking out doesn’t happen frequently due to the cold wind blowing I opt for walking on the thread mill. Initially I find myself working my temper on the thread-mill and soon as the sweat trickles down I realize I actually am enjoying the exercise and the music. A definite 10 points for this one.

Any more tips on shrugging off a bad day? Soothing the one ticking nerve in the brain? What do you do when you are simply annoyed?

Desktop background and mood swings

Every week I change my desktop background, most of the pictures I set as background are animal's pictures like dogs, puppies, cats etc. I just changed my desktop background a minute back and started wondering what goes into the decision making of choosing the picture. For last two weeks it had been a little kitten , sitting in a room with not too much light, kinda grayish and looking at the floor, or rather looking at a little ant by her foot. She looked as if she was pondering, thinking attentively, focusing. When I look back at those 2 weeks with respect to work, that was exactly the state I was in. Focusing, pondering to find solutions and thinking. Before that it was another kitten (cute this one) lying on her back, eyes closed, paws by her face. It seemed as if she just wanted to keep her eyes shut and act ignorant. I wonder if that was the state of my mind then. Just keep my eyes shut tight and say this will pass too :). Ok I know I don't discuss work issues here but doesn't mean I can't. Everyone loves work place gossips, don't you all agree. So those of you, who don't agree, act real and listen. Back to the desktop background, before the 'act dead' cat it was a stupid faced dog. One which has hair all over its face, golden colored, so much hair that you can hardly see his eyes or nose or mouth. This one had like a small pony on its head so one could see his eyes. But this made the dog look extremely silly. Moreover it was a face close-up picture hehe. All in all, the dog looked grumpy and seemed to be starring at whoever looked at him. Was I in a grumpy mood then? And before the dog it was a lion, sitting across my screen and looking at my telephone. That was probably when I had just joined the job. I guess I was trying to be brave. Each time I looked at the lion I guess somewhere I felt brave. Soon the lion turned to a rabbit and guess that reflected me too. I was totally scared being in a new industry, a new country and a new career. Now when I look back at the order of the pictures, I can’t stop smiling. Something’s do reflect our moods, knowingly or unknowingly. Do you know of any such things you associate with your mood swings?

Pipal tree near my home

There is this huge old tree near our house. Its one of those where you have to bend your neck right back so much that it hurts and that's when you are able to see the huge branches and shimmering leaves. When I stand beneath it and look up, I can see streaks of sunrays filtering through its thick leaves, as if only the purest of the rays are showering on me. The trunk of this tree is so huge that I probably will not be able to catch my fingers if I put my hands around it. I don’t intend to either. Though I am totally mesmerized by the hugeness of this tree, I find it creepy. There are these weeds, thick fat weeds growing around the huge trunk of the tree. And worst, its not just the base, the weeds go right up to the sky. And these weeds maintain their shape and weight right up to the top. And well that not that, there are leaves growing too. At least ¼ th of the trunk is covered by these heart shaped leaves. I wonder whether how does this old huge tree tolerate this. Doesn’t it feel like shrugging off these weeds and leaves. Or do these weeds and leaves act as a blanket, protecting it from the fierce cold. Which means they are dwelling in some sort of symbiotic relationship. You protect me and I feed you. But each time I pass this tree I think of the good old story of a Pipal Tree. The one which hosts ghosts, my mum always told me these scary stories and convinced me so much that I still seem to believe them sometimes. Errr okie many times. So a pipal tree is a dwelling of ghosts and according to my mum they hang upside down from the branches of this tree. Well these are different from bats, so don’t even try mentioning something like that to my mum. Anyways, these ghosts live there as one big happy family. Mum said its not good to stand under this ghost dwelling tree, because some how these ghosts find the neck and shoulder of every human attractive, so they jump on to the neck and follow home. How ? Don’t ask me :) I don’t remember a single horror movie of Ramsay which didn’t feature the famous pipal tree. In fact, to make it look real there would be this white smoke surrounding the tree and some sort of light thrown from behind the tree. But what makes me smile when I see this tree, is its evergreen nature. Its not an evergreen tree but due to the green weeds and ever more darker green leaves over its body, it looks alive. So while during winter all other trees are playing dead, this giant is enjoying looking green. Since observing this I have a renewed interest in this humongous tree. I don’t miss looking at it even once when I pass it and the weeds don’t seem to bother me anymore..