OH MY DARLING CLEMENTINE

My grandfather (a very old man (relatively) - fast approaching the 90s) was in the Boy Scouts, and he used to be a good singer in those days, it seems. He sings a line or two even now, though quite out of tune! Here's a favourite song of his, he learnt it in 1933. Took a lot of nagging though, to get him to write it down. (The other one being "My Bonny lies o'er the ocean")

Oh my darling, Oh my darling, Oh my darling Clementine,
Thou art lost and gone for ever, dreadful sorrows, Clementine!!!

Drove she ducklings, to the water,
Every morning just at nine,
slipped her foot against a splinter, and
fell into the foaming mine!!!

Oh my darling, Oh my darling, Oh my darling Clementine,
Thou art lost and gone for ever, dreadful sorrows, Clementine!!!

1st moral of the story: Do not drive ducklings to the water, especially at nine in the morning. Otherwise you shall be lost to the sea for ever!
2nd moral of the story: Always remember the songs you sang in your life. Might come in handy, for entertaining your grandchildren.

ZERO DEGREES KELVIN

"Everything is relative in this world. Nothing is absolute, except maybe zero degrees kelvin." This is what I said in the class today, and then I realised how true it is.
One might feel one is very fat, but then one is bound to find someone fatter than oneself. And then one will be called thin! We always feel our life is full of miseries, but then there's always someone who has reason to be sadder than us. And do you remember that story about Birbal and Akbar, the one about two lines? How drawing a bigger line next to it made a big line small?
So never say you are smart, intelligent, and good. You'll definitely meet someone smarter, more intelligent and better than you. And also don't say you are very bad and wicked. You'll always find someone more wicked and worse compared to you.
So never lose heart. And if everything is relative, what do you measure yourself against? Well, do everything in comparison with yourself. We have to compete with ourselves! And beat ourselves!
So, everything is relative, including time, except -273` C!

RAKSHASTAGDI BHUTACHI WADI

This is a game that I invented along with 3 of my friends when I was in the 5th std. I'll tell you what its name means. Rakshastagdi is the name of a place somewhere in South India. And Bhutachi wadi can be translated as "a ghost's residence". Rakshastagdi is used just because it rhymes with Bhutachi wadi.

There was this special classroom we had where we would attend lectures held specially for 4 of us. It used to be very dark inside, and we would close the door and draw all the curtains to make it darker. Then we would arrange all the benches and chairs haphazardly. Then the game would start. One of us would be blindfolded, and she would have to go across the room for say 3-4 times, crossing all the hurdles, (chairs) and the rest of us would try to scare her. We would shout "rakshastagdi..... bhutachi wadi......." and make ghost sounds. This was supposed to a really scary game. But of course, brave little Dan was never scared. :D

Maybe others in our school were, on hearing screams of "rakshastagdi..... bhutachi wadi......" coming from that classroom.

DAN'S SCHOOL DAYS

Scarlett O'Hara says, "Never look back. It's no use looking back." But Dan says, "Why not, if it's gonna make you laugh?" These are some wierd and funny things I used to do in school, and it makes me laugh even just remembering them now. You've got to believe that I've actually done all this:

1. Dance with a friend on the steps, when nobody's around.
2. Hide in cupboards to get an off lecture - we used to be just 4 students for some special lectures, and whenever one of us would be absent, two of us would hide thus, the remaining one would tell the teacher to go away!
3. Drop 'sambar' on boys playing below, from an overlooking balcony.
4. Deliberately lock a boy in the laboratory - don't worry, just for 5 mins.
5. Knock down a peon by bumping into him while looking behind and walking.
6. Tell lies to make a teacher race up 96 steps!
7. Send a boy to our class so that my fellow female classmates could get to see him and laugh at him.
8. Witness chalk powder and ink fights.
9. Ask classmates to open their mouths and throw chalk pieces at them. (I had a pretty good aim)
10. Invent new games and play them - one of them being "rakshastagdi bhutachi wadi".
11. Melt solder metal in a petri dish and pour it onto different locks - and say that we are working on our project on 'locks'!
12. Pull dresses, throw water from ventilators - our classrooms had ventilators near the floor.
13. Enact self-written-directed plays during off lectures.
14. Sit on the benches and imagine that one is sitting in a boat and start rowing.
15. Write letters in self created code language.
16. Speak to a friend in another created code language.
17. Sleep in the class sitting on the first bench.
18. Check other students' homework and maintain the record in a register - I was officially appointed to do that! So everybody in the class would flock around me as soon as I would enter, to get their homework checked.
19. Sit in the study room and write short stories, and pass them around for others to read.
20. Sing (or howl) at the top of my voice, in the classroom, at 9.00 pm.

I'll tell you more next time, if I can remember what else I used to do. But this is for sure, everybody has fun (and must have fun), while in school.

POETESS DANESHIA

Here's a poem I wrote in the classroom, during I-don't-know-which lecture. My source of inspiration was my friend Kathak, and this poem is also meant for her. I am sure she remembers it:

Kathak with her tongue so red,
It looks redder when she sleeps in bed!
She has taught it to be obedient and good,
She uses it to eat her food,
Her tongue also helps her when she talks,
But not when on her teeth it knocks.
When she uses it too much on some days,
"Kathak, lemme rest", it prays!

Most of my poems have some story behind them. I had just finished writing a poem with Kathak, and felt like writing another one to satisfy my creative urge. What better subject could I think of, than Kathak's tongue! :P

MANGO MASTANI, GUAVAS, KURKURE, ETC.

This is all that I ate yesterday:
Coffee and three rice chaklis - before having my bath, in the morning.
Lunch - around 12 noon
This was followed by a guava.
Orange juice - around 3 pm
Chutney sandwiches - around 5.30 pm
Mango Mastani :P - at 6 pm (This is a big glassful of mango milkshake topped with mango ice cream - tastes good, but gives you an extremely full feeling.)
Was supposed to eat another guava, but just couldn't!
Dinner - around 9.30 pm.

And this is all that I've eaten today:
Milk with ragi powder - at 7.30 am
Mini lunch - at 7.45 am
Tiffin - at 12.00 pm
Bread Pattice - at 12.15 pm
Tea - at 4.15 pm
2 Samosas with tamarind chutney - 6 pm
And now I'll have my dinner at 9.00 pm : )

Hey have u ever tried eating kurkure in the classroom? They taste wonderful! Hey Kathak, tomorrow's another wonderful day for kurkure :P

DAN'S MEMORY ORGANISATION

Writing after a long time!
Studying for a class test. The syllabus being virtual, cache and interleaved memory organisations!!! I guess by the end of tomorrow, my own memory is going to be thoroughly disorganised! :D I'm as bored as one could be. :(
What else? Been reading a few interesting blogs. Got so engrossed, forgot my own. Have some interesting things to tell you all, but u'll have to wait - got to go back to mem organisations . . .
Hey I tasted my first mastani today! Not bad.

ANOTHER ONE: THE CKISS

So after the telekiss, comes the "ckiss" - or the Classroom Kiss, to be specific, it's a kiss given by classmates to each other in the classroom, when they are too bored. This time too, the two parties involved can be at a dist, but they need to view each other. And the other difference is that the other classmates too get to see this kiss. And there's no imagination involved. You can also make faces along with the ckiss.
And before you are surprised, let me tell you, this kiss is already in practice in my classroom, tho' I don't use it.

Precaution: The lecturer should not get to see this ckiss, otherwise it won't remain funny.