BETTER HALF

MY  BETTER  HALF -- Seat belts, Rats & Monkeys

God, save me for posting the following 2 in 1 picture on the FACEBOOK !  --  T. Rama Prasad

Who is the BOSS  ?  Who are in this picture
from head to feet  ?

MEN EMPOWERMENT

               In our dreams, we, “worse halves” (husbands) may garner courage to have the temerity to call our "better halves" ‘Home Dictators’ or ‘Home Hitlers’ !   Whoever introduced the expression “better half ” (for wife) must be a bachelor !  Of course, the better half would quote from our ancient texts: “Grihini graham ucyate” – meaning ‘The homemaker makes home’.  It may be politically correct to say 'Home Minister', ‘Home Maker’ or rather ‘Domestic Engineer’ instead of ‘housewife’.

          And lo, the physiognomy of my better half.  Rajyalakshmi is on her toes and retorted deadpan shouting that I am a misogynist in making this cartoon go viral.

HAPPY DRIVING WITH THE MOUTH OF THE CHATTERBOX SEALED.

With apologies to ladies,  (Laughter is the best medicine, to you, ladies too.)

T. Rama Prasad,
Perundurai

    Don’t mistake. She was only adjusting her spectacles,  not a voluntary shut up !  Unintentionally taken photo on Pongal Day in 2016 at our home which suited this subject unexpectedly.

Somebody cautioned me against using the word ‘housewife’, lest I may get the same response as one gets for using the word ‘Negro’ in America!  I learnt that  ‘Negroes’ should be referred to as ‘Black Americans’ in the US.  Though the dictionary meaning of ‘Negro’ is “a black member of a dark-skinned group of peoples originally native to Africa south of the Sahara,”  you may be lashed if you call them ‘Negroes’ !

MONKEYS  … July 5, 2018

This morning (05.07.18),  I & my better half (MBH) were in Udamalpet to attend Priya’s marriage ceremony.  Somebody suggested that we may visit the nearby Thirumurthy Hills.  When we drove up we landed at a temple.   The presence of a swarm of monkeys all over the temple premises prompted me to think it was a temple of ‘Hanuman’.   There were more monkeys than the visitors … plenty of them inside the temple of ‘triogods’ … The MBH got scared and refused to go inside … reluctantly and nervously she stepped in, after being assured by the priest that they cause no harm.  

I got a brilliant idea.  Why not we take a small one home as a pet monkey … I thought that our ‘simian relatives’can be trained more easily than dogs as they are at a higher evolutionary scale.  I always wondered why monkey couldn’t become the‘man’s best friend’to replace dogs.  So I wanted to take one home.  The MBH retorted saying “If so, I shall go away to Singapore and stay with Nirmala … I shall return only when there are no monkeys at home.  I played 2 cards – 1. Scientific card: Monkey is evolutionarily nearer to man, so more understanding than a dog;  2. Religious card:  Monkey is ‘Hanuman’, one should always welcome god.  The logic didn’t work.  And as though to put a full stop to my proposal, one of the monkeys snatched away a packet from a visitor and ran away.  Now, I am wondering why she used the plural noun “monkeys” while I was talking about only one monkey !

           

In Udamalpet on July 5, 2018

White City of MONKEY  GOD

        There has been a strong belief that there was a "White City of Monkey God" in Central America (Honduras forests).  It is dangerous and formidable to attempt to reach that area deep in the jungles.   Surveys were conducted through low flying planes with ultra modern scanning equipments.  White rubble was found which could be the remnants of temples built thousands of years ago.  And there seems to be some evidence that the legendary "White City / Lost City of ciudad Blanca" was existent in the deep Mosquito forest area of Honduras.  The area is believed to be full of ivory temples loaded with gold which exceeds the riches of Mexico !  Even the 'National Geographic' went to the extent of exploring the zone with most modern scanning systems in collaboration with a university.

Aerial shot taken by 'National Geographic' showing the possible location where the 'City of Monkey God' once thrived

          According to the folktales,  this 'CentralAmerican Monkey God of the White City' kidnapped three women and generated a crossbreed.  Culturally different god !  

MONKEYS  and  JUNK  FOOD

There was an interesting news (The Hindu, Aug. 31, 2011) about junk food and monkeys. It was reported that animal lovers and the Salem Citizens Forum urged imposition of a ban to feed monkeys with junk food by the tourists travelling on the Salem-Yercaud (tourist hill station) Ghat road,  as the junk food would spoil the health of the monkeys !  So, the junk food which is our fad is not fit for consumption even by animals ! It looks that man is worse than beast, even in food habits! 

Sitting in the QUEUE !!!   Waiting for  'darshan' !

This is the photo of a real flower from 'Monkey Flower' plant

THE  RAT   and  RAJYALAKSHMI

     Stress is an enigma.  What is trivial to one may be stressful to another.  Stress is often woman-made … err …sorry…man-made. And lo, my better half, Rajyalakshmi is on her toes and retorted deadpan shouting that I am a misogynist!  That was a slip of the tongue;  I am not an upstart to have the temerity to make such a blasphemous utterance !  She gets panicked over the sight of a lizard or a cockroach or a rat and throws everybody into severe stress.  Evidence (even indirect evidence like a nibbled carrot) of the presence of a rat in the kitchen would create an emergency scene.  All culinary chores would be suspended, war declared  and she would let all the hell loose.

On one such occasion, her voice dropped an octave and a battalion of servants and our inexorable dogs, were pressed into service on a war-footing. Everybody scampered and leapfrogged into the kitchen tout de suite, craning necks ahead and casting lynx-eyed looks at every nook and corner. At the end of the marauding “Operation Rat”,  just as Uncle Sam   (US government) couldn’t find any WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) in Iraq after rummaging the hapless nation, the indomitable rodent could not be traced.  She agrees with Uncle Sam who uttered the infamous remark: “Absence of evidence is no evidence of absence of WMD.” 

What is the next step ?  No trophies for guessing what she did next.  A retinue of advisers came into play.  In the midst of all the brouhaha, someone suggested to call the Wildlife Warden,  but the idea was shot down as that would appear too over the top.  Finally, a rat-trap was laid.  But the rat decided to follow the ‘Commandment’: “Thou shalt not be tempted by the food inside the  trap! ”  The rat was inside the kitchen, but not inside the trap. This was the height of stress for her fragile mind.  The episode was not yet over.  She bade me to follow up the case.  I was posted to be on ‘night duty’ to scout around all the rooms to locate the elusive “Vinaayakar’s Vaahanam”!

James Bond will be proud !

 

    As could be seen from the rat episode, Rajyalakshmi, who was on the Faculty of Botany of Vellalar College for Women, Thindal, Erode, is oversensitive as well as over-reactive.  Her stress spiked up when a diplomacy-deficient neophyte unwittingly commented (in around 2005) that her house was small, cluttered and full of cobwebs, and that I was mostly unknown in the place where I practised medicine for around half-a-century, and that we were at the fag end of our life !  As an assertive person with good analytical skills, she rarely concedes a point.  She has been gifted, among other virtues, with the quality of being brutally frank, outspoken and decisive.  The flip side of this virtue of candidness is that she is sometimes misunderstood and unappreciated because of her unpolished comments which may sound caustic.  She disdains status conscious snobs and the vain who condescend in their approach and deliver polished sophistry with an air of conceit.

Our kitchen rat reminds me of two more kinds of rats – ‘killer rats’ and ‘sacred rats’.

KILLER  RATS

        There was a cartoon of a full-term pregnant lady going for admission into a hospital carrying a bag with a cat in it ! The cartoon followed an alleged death of a newborn baby, in August 2015, due to eating away parts of the body by rats in a government hospital in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. There were numerous reports in the past of dogs and rats causing harm to infants in Indian hospitals. To read about this shocking story, go to ;   
Thttp://www.inquisitr.com/2370619/newborn-baby-eaten-alive-by-rats-in-hospital-d+octors-have-a-horrifying-response-to-grieving-parents/ & http://www.deccanchronicle.com/150827/nation-current-affairs/article/baby-dies-after-rat-bites-icu-guntur-government-general).

https://www.inquisitr.com/2370619/newborn-baby-eaten-alive-by-rats-in-hospital-doctors-have-a-horrifying-response-to-grieving-parents/

    Rats ate away the fingers of right hand and an eye of a few days old baby in an incubator in Hyderabad.

                       

Sacred rats in the rat temple

Infant bitten by rats

          

                                                                                           
                    

A letter to the editor of a newspaper :

            We are more worried about "CSK sliding" than rats riding in ICUs of medical college hospitals (The Hindu, October 21, page 4, Coimbate edition).  There were numerous reports of rats and dogs harming infants in Indian hospitals.  In August 2015, an infant died due to rats biting away parts of the body while in a government hospital in Guntur, AP.  There was a cartoon of a full-term pregnant woman carrying a bag with a cat in it while going into a hospital for delivery ! Shambolic systems !

Dr. T. Rama Prasad,

Perundurai.

              SACRED  RATS 

        It may be interesting to know that rats are worshiped at a rat temple (Karni Mata) in Rajasthan where thousands of rats scurry around. The rats are venerated as the holy descendants of Karni Mata, an incarnation of goddess Durga. If the visitors at the temple accidentally trample on a rat and cause its death, it is to be replaced with a rat made of solid gold !

MY  SCRIBBLINGS  and  MY  BETTER  HALF

           While she reads a lot of novels,  none of my scribbles attracted her attention.  Perhaps, mine are like 'idli' without 'saambaar' ;  'roti' without 'dal'.   Occasionally when I show a piece of my published writing to my better half, she hurriedly scans through it most disinterestedly with twisted brows and looks askance as though saying:    “What’s new in this ?”,  let alone appreciating the humour, sarcasm, satire, style of writing, nuance, etc.  Seemingly cursing that my intrusion had taken more time than the ad break in the TV, she at once gets back to watching the TV serial, ‘Thendral’ / ‘Chellame’ / ‘Madhubala’  / Kumkum Bhagya / Iru malargal which my piece of nonsensical writing interrupted !