Growth issues

Every day, in the morning, the first thing I would do is to see my weight in the weighing scale. Well, the day when I think I have reduced my weight, the scale would show higher reading than expected! I wanted to reach below the 80 kgs mark. To achieve that, I started on a regime of fast walking and also bought an 'abs reduction' special exercise chair from a mall from Dubai.

Now, with a renewed confidence of controlling my weight at my will, I decided to do an experiment. I went for 45 minutes fast walking and, thereafter, I had a lighter dinner than usual, thinking that the next day I would reach below 80 kg mark. But to my utter disappointment, after all the exercises, the scale read 83 kg as against the previous reading of 81 kg!

Recently, I was going through the exchange rate of Indian Rupee against Dhiram. Strangely I found a correlation to my weight! I found 1000 rupees equaling 83dhs! I was biding time to see that Rupee value would become weaker against Dhiram, so that I can transfer some money. I kept a benchmark level of INR1000 to go below 80dhs, so that I can transfer some money back home. I waited and waited for this to happen, like I was craving for my weight reduction.

Believe me; both my weight as well as the exchange rate never met my expectations for the past several months.

Well, I am planning to have a sumptuous dinner tonight and to head for the bank tomorrow, skipping the weighing machine and ignoring the growth issues!

children wither childhood

Recent news report disturbed me a lot. A 13 year old boy climbing a tree to pluck a fruit or two was shot down by a trigger happy fellow inside an army compound. Gone are the days that children can freely emulate squirrels, parrots or even monkeys wandering at will by jumping from one tree to the other and tasting each and every fruit in sight.

My own memories traveled down the lane recalling my childhood. I remember my school days when I would sneak out from the class after finishing the lunch, even when the class was in progress, to join the street urchins to go hunting each and every house for mangoes,chicoos, gooseberries and pomegranates. Of course, we would try our luck during the post lunch period when, in every household, the members would have retired for a siesta. On many occasions, hearing the noise of our stone throwing or shaking the trees, somebody would yell out of window, calling names. We would all take flight to another safer target. Never missed a single day will we return without our share of the fruity-booty!

Once during summer vacation we three brothers went to our granny's house at the native place in Kerala. In the back yard I climbed one coconut tree, after ensuring that was the shortest of all, and attempted to pluck a tender coconut. Seeing this, our neighbor threatened us that he will report the matter to Granny, which made us abort the attempt and runaway!

We had heard stories of Land lords catching errant boys and tying them on to the trees for hours and letting them off after a dose of warning and extracting profuse apologies, but never heard of anyone fatally attacking the children. To prevent animals from grazing the farm field, there are instances of farmers putting up barbed wires. Some farmers started electrifying the barbed fences, which raised wide condemnation from the animal lovers and also became illegal.

I had made a comment to one of my contemporaries that today's children never go out to play games, and outdoor games are slowly fading out from the minds of children. This may be because many parents do not allow children to play out in the open without an active supervision of an adult member of the family.

Can we just take this story of 13 year old boy as a stray exception of a child paying for being in his childhood or should we worry for this changing trend wherein we observe children wither childhood?

After all it is better to be safe than be sorry!