Feast for Thought

Ahead of Deepavali, our group housing society had completed a round of whitewashing of the stilt-parking area, and the internal faces of the peripheral walls. This had hidden all the randomly-designed paan -spit marks, accumulated over a few years. Residents must have hoped that the walls stay white for a good while, before a paan -chewer decides that enough is enough, and inaugurates a new round of auspicious-coloured designs on invitingly white walls. Aren’t you heartily sick of seeing your ‘brothers and sisters’ spit here, piss there, jump queues and signals, throw garbage, pluck flowers, jaywalk on the road, drive on footpaths, tease small creatures, shout news on TV? Are you entitled to speed up just because your car is more powerful? Is your time more important than the person awaiting medical care in an ambulance? Is it mere colour-coded artwork that the police have painted on roads and at traffic junctions? Article 44 of the Directive Principl

The friendly neighbourhood cobbler, tailor, knife-sharpener, plumber, electrician and all other valuable roadside service providers are an endangered lot. We the conspicuous consumers are least concerned. When a household item needs to be fixed, we ought to give more than a fair chance to all these sustainable livelihoods – and ourselves – and avoid creating additional trash, a practice in which we have become amazing pros. The mixer-grinder jar’s lid comes with a smaller removable top, which is used to add water while grinding. When we went looking for the small part to replace a broken one, we found that we had to buy the whole lid. I’m glad we decided against buying the entire lid, because back home, we found two things that could do the job. One was the lid of an empty bottle of Eno, and the other a similar lid of a small asafoetida box. So now i have an endless supply of these lids, enough to start a small-parts business, and can compete with the original parts

Have you sat in a chair and felt - "Wow, this is comfortable!"?  Of late, we are spoiled for choice. We can sink into luxurious sofas, and lose ourselves in blissful sleep. You can plonk yourself down in luxury, and be counted among the couch potatoes. You can relax and sit back, looking around pleasantly as you await your turn in all sorts of foyers and lounges.  But if your knees have aged before you have, they put up all kinds of protests when it comes to getting off the chair. All those waiting-room chairs 'receive' you whole-heartedly, but seem to turn the other way when the time comes to 'return' you on your feet. You just can't get up from them gracefully; they are awful for older / weaker-kneed people. We invariably do not think twice about the chairs we see and use everyday, do we. For several months now, I've been looking for suitable seating that responds to a few simple specifications. - Sturdy enough for a senior citizen with