Quid Pro Quo With The Gods

On search engines

Many condemn that overloaded machine as the bane of our times. Socrates was against writing fearing that our brain would atrophy, Hieronimo Squarciafico vilified printing press stating that “Abundance of books makes men less studious”. In the modern times, Nicholas Carr sparked a controversy by attacking our She-Google in Is Google making us stupid.

Time and again, people were vexed with the technological progress that is unhinged. Look at our She-Google with 179 million results for online results. It is not gullibility but mockery of its maker. You should have tried “how many members in Indusladies” and it would have crunched for 5 minutes and returned you 100 billion.

 

On Shakespeare

I usually throw up my hands when Shakespeare is involved. Who was Shakespeare is a mystery that even Sherlock Holmes would find challenging. They say he is that, he is this, he never was, he never wrote. From his acts itself I can tell that he was unscrupulous because he would sign off his mortgage deeds as Shaksper, Shakespe, Shakespere, and Shakspeare. Who is the real Shakespeare in that litany of impostors?

There are six surviving signatures written by Shakespeare himself. These are all attached to legal documents.

The six signatures appear on four documents:

a deposition in the Bellott v. Mountjoy case, dated 11 May 1612
the purchase of a house in Blackfriars, London, dated 10 March 1613
the mortgage of the same house, dated 11 March 1613
his Last Will & Testament, which contains three signatures, one on each page, dated 25 March 1616


The signatures appear as follows:

Willm Shakp
William Shaksper
Wm Shakspe
William Shakspere
Willm Shakspere
By me William Shakspeare

More here. No wonder he composed his famous 'what's in a name' riff with this ingenuity.

 

Dear Iravati,
Sorry for the intrusion.
Those who are decrying the technological development are liars. Is there a single person in this world who can boast that he is not using any technology? Even for raising their voice vociferously against technological development they use technology directly or indirectly.

Even aboriginal people are using instruments developed by technology for their livelihood.

Aborigines today - The Aborigines From Different Countries Part I

The clothes we are wearing, the house we are living and the food we are eating are all because of the technological development only.

There is no doubt in a way technology is making people lazy and inept, but for that technology is not to be blamed, only the attitude of the people is to be blamed.

PS

 

Dear Pushpa,

Haha! Let me tell you something. Our writing is crooked which means we ramble more than discourse. We aren't serious about half the stuff we talk here. The other half is anyways nonsensical. Cheeniya and I are like those Two Ronnies just that we have reinvented ourselves as 'Two Ramblers'. Between us both, our senile IQ is half a neuron.

Cato the Elder always ended his speeches with Carthago delenda est, which means, "Carthage must be destroyed". Regardless of place or time, he would thunder with such vehemence. When Cheeniya and I thunder, it means he is rocking in his chair and I am watching TV with no intention to destroy anything for we will never have set foot on Carthage as we would have moved on with our grumble with the immigration problems in Carthage before our "delenda" picked up whatsoever force.

He is a Wol and I am a Gardhaba. The only thing we can be serious is seriousness of other people. Don't take our writing at face value. Picture our every line ending with a wink and that She-Google is the bete noire of these ramblers. Repeat after me: Google delenda est!

 

I was scratching my head on “Ambuli Mama”. Then I looked it up. Lo!

Chandamama was first published in Telugu and Tamil (as Ambulimama) in July 1947. Kannada edition first appeared in July 1949 followed by Hindi in August 1949. Marathi (as Chandoba) and Malayalam (as Ambili Ammavan) editions appeared in April 1952 followed by Gujarati in 1954, English in 1955, Oriya (as Jahnamamu) and Sindhi in 1956, Bengali in August 1972, Punjabi in 1975, Assamese in 1976, Sinhala in 1978, Sanskrit in April 1984 and Santali in 2004. The Punjabi, Sindhi and Sinhala editions were published only for a short period. No English editions were published from October 1957 to June 1970. The magazine ceased publication in 1998, owing to labour disputes. However, the magazine relaunched a year later. It was available in 12 Indian languages and English.

Yes! While growing up, I would have read that Mama magazine couple of times. I am not proficient in my native tongue so I read mostly English comics like Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha. But now and then, I would pick up a local magazine just to improve my reading speed. Last year when I was in India, it took me considerable time to get through the first page of local news edition. Unlike English, where I can recognize a word by mere slight, in my native tongue I have to read each syllable. I was bad, that’s it. Now, I am worse.

Against the whole world …

I shudder to think of the kids growing up now and the competition they are likely to chase. Our parents were happy when we scraped through the next year. A binge-watching cartoonish kid was the least of their worries. In today’s world, I would have been sent to therapy for my mediocre performance.

 

On Movies

I don't know how faithful the map is as I haven't watched all the films listed. Here it is, the iconic movies from every state in America.

 

On Mouse/Mounts

Not ‘just’ or ‘any’ thought but a kicking thought. Blimey me! Why haven’t I thought in that direction. It is possible that we have been misled by our strict pursuit in unraveling the mystery behind these unorthodox mounts. But if “donkey” is a Ford and “mouse” is a Chevrolet, that explains how Gods travelled at propulsion speeds between the two realms.

Just like the bonnet ornament on Rolls-Royce is The Spirit of Ecstasy, also called "Emily", "Silver Lady" or "Flying Lady", the “donkey” and “mouse” were emblems of the God’s temperament. BBC, the custodians of all silly documentaries, did one on Rolls-Royce, not just any Rolls-Royce but the car manufacturer’s craze amongst the Maharajas of the British Raj. The Maharajas would order these R-Rs for their royal motorcade. When they used to travel with their retinue in these cars, the public would identify a Maharaja’s car not from splashy color or squeaky make but from that bonnet ornament of a leaping lady. Possible, very much possible that in time the vehicle of the God was recognised and known solely from its jutting mascot while the rest of the imprint faded away.

 

On Nonsense

Atta! That pure nonsense manifests in its best form in our party games. Look at this one here. With such playful nonsense around, only fools would chase sense. I rest my case.

Mad Libs consist of a book that has a short story on each page with many key words replaced with blanks. Beneath each blank is specified a lexical or other category, such as "noun", "verb", "place", or "part of the body". One player asks the other players, in turn, to contribute some word for the specified type for each blank, but without revealing the context for that word. Finally, the completed story is read aloud. The result is usually comic, surreal and somewhat nonsensical.