Hello, Outdoors! (BH:D125)

December 6, 2011

While I was pacing gingerly, ever-so-carefully, this morning after breakfast, a lizard jumped off the door frame and ran across the floor grazing my left big toe. In an instant, I forgot all about my extra-heedful convalescing phase and jumped. Luckily, no shriek! 

The lizard-induced temporary levitation taught me that my muscles have healed more than I have been assuming.

After I was done with the showering and the recommended daily post-surgical cream applications, when I walked into the main hall of the house, a butterfly floated in through the front door. It had a pair of bright orange trapezoid patterns framed in brilliant black on each wing. It glittered up to the porcelain statue of Meera Bai that we have on a niche (and needs some dusting soon) before realizing that it was in the wrong territory. It left as lively as it came in, all within half a minute.

The lizard and butterfly enticed me to go outdoors today after almost a month. Achan played the proud tour-guide for the flourishing backyard. He had every reason to be proud. 

There were flowers on several nodes of the Nithya Vazhuthana (brinjal variety) that had managed to creep up its support rope all the way to the standing stump of cut-down coconut tree. 

Two of the three black pepper saplings showed signs of new life. 

The pumpkins were spreading. 

Tomatoes were healthy. 

Banana saplings had new leaves. 

Curry leaf plants fresh green. 

And the tapioca plants tall. 

But the show stoppers were the red spinach plants in the roughly 5 ft by 6ft patch near the fire-pit. Almost all the plants were half foot tall with wide, juicy leaves. Second mini-harvest due tomorrow. I hope to post photos soon. 

Achan also showed me the respectable burial spot of the digger rat that was poisoned last week. Surprisingly it hadn't been digging near the tapiocas. May be it was a city-bred one unfamiliar with tubers.

Parts of the city have been experiencing severe 'attack of the snails'. Some of them as big as a coconut shell. Ever since I was initiated to the cult of oyster eating, I have lost the disgust that most folks seem to have at the sight of these snails. Salt is the weapon against them. Not Angelina Jolie. The whiter one that Gandhi walked for. Sprinkle some and in a couple of minutes only the shocked shell will be left

I wonder if the cooler weather is keeping the sun-birds away. A spotted koel was munching on the red Ixora berries this afternoon. Heavy bird, with beautiful feathers, it was rather noisy and clumsy negotiating its way around the creepers and small branches. It was utterly oblivious of me and Achan watching it from the verandah or the ironing guy working on his cart parked on the street, a few feet away, outside the wall. It didn't care about the deeply disturbing discussion we were having on credit default swaps. Only red berries mattered.

We were discussing such unholy things because I have an upcoming lecture to deliver on the global financial crisis. I must admit that this is a much more comfortable territory for me than Aerospace Engineering. Engineering, I was taught; Finance, I learnt. There is a difference! 

While researching for the lecture, I found a wonderful analogy from Dr. Gary Gorton. Four years into the crisis, now it is accepted that the US housing market collapse and subprime crisis, though significant triggers for the crash, did not justify the massive credit crunch that followed after a few months of the loans going bad. Dr. Gorton draws a comparison to E.coli outbreaks. When there is a suspicion of E.Coli, the FDA is forced to recall entire beef supply of regions. The subprime related securitization was the E.coli that scared the money out of the parallel or shadow banking system leading to collapse or near collapse of the banks and bond prices.

Talking of E.Coli outbreaks, may be it is a good thing that India survives somehow on non-centralized, inefficient supply chains! 

The city has been cracking down on garbage criminals! These are the respectable-by-day gentlemen and women who fling their garbage, tied up in plastic bags, out threw their car windows or from their scooters under the cover of the night. The city police has been onto them since last week. Around 50 have been fined so far. 

The "Kudumbashree" society that collects garbage from the homes of our colony every morning, has gone to a minimal plastic policy. Now we can keep our bins outside the house, they will dump it to their collector directly after removing any plastic we might have disposed off. Earlier, all homes would keep their daily waste tied up plastic covers to be collected. Now on, all the plastic waste will be picked up only on a stipulated day of the week. Commendable efforts. Though irreversible damage has already been done to environment, any and all brakes applied to further destruction must be appreciated. 

Jaya Bachchan, the wife of Big B, grandmother of littlest B, is in town. Manorama newspaper reprinted a photograph from their archives of her releasing the first copy of Balarama Amar Chitra Katha in 1991. She can be seen wearing two wrist watches in that photo. I remember the photo and discussion about the two watches from that year. In the press conference, she had said that one of them shows Swiss time (though watch wasn't) which she used to call up her kids who were studying in Switzerland. It was good to be reminded that film stars do try to provide an education for their kids though their career choice is default.

Tavernier continues to surprise me with details about the Mughal dynasty. Story of incest! Incredible! That too involving the man who erected the world's greatest symbol of spousal love!

125 days into writing these daily notes, I have started posting them from the start on a public blog (http://arunbackhome.blogspot.com/). Most of the notes can be made public without serious editing but in some I have to shorten the names to simply initials and take care of possible privacy concerns. Content-wise, no matter how hard I try, I am sure some will always get offended.There will always be those who argue that I shouldn't have followed the paragraph above about the Big B family with a mention of incest. 

We live in touchy times. But I will try anyways.