Caricature & Design: RK Bellur / Rambling with Bellur
Click on the image to enlarge
” I know you Westerners say BKS stands for beat, kick and slap. By learn it means Beauty, Knowledge, Serenity!!” – BKS Iyengar, who was known to “beat, kick, slap” students who had trouble conforming.
I thought it stood for “Both Knees Straight”!
Cartoon: RK
Another cartoon related to Swine Flu:
Also visit the Cartoon page on RwB.
Cartoon: RK
Also visit the Cartoon page on RwB.
Pot belly. I used to always feel jealous of most of my uncles as they had such wonderful paunches. Until a couple of years after marriage, I had no Hotte (it was as flat as Rajkumar’s). But since last year, it resembles Ambareesh’s.
It’s been a decade since I started riding motor-driven vehicles. Until then, it used to be my favourite Atlas Rebel that I used to ride. My uncle in Poona presented it to me after I passed 10th. Bought it on a Sunday morning in 1992 from a shop on SP Road for Rs.1300. Friends admired the new fella saying “Super tyres, Chindhi look, maga!”
Drove from anywhere to anywhere on my Rebel until I finished college. A year later, bought a Third-hand TVS-50 XL moped. Enjoyed it for a couple of years, and then bought my first bike – Bajaj Boxer AT – days after ‘Shabdhavedhi’ was released. My girlfriend (now, my wife) used to love the long rides. Five years after I bought it, started getting a lot of back-ache. On the first day of 2007, went for one of those exchange offers and got Bajaj-Platina. Till date, I find it very comfortable and absolutely no back pain. Decent mileage.
Last fortnight, just to get out of the monotonous driving mode, came to office for a week by BMTC. The frequency of buses is very good. Buses are not too crowded, and conductors seemed very calm and patient. There is hardly anyone who buys tickets. Everyone says ‘Pass’. Remembered the bus scenes during my college days (I always travelled on footboard, of course to show-off) – people would get suffocated inside – and the conductor would keep yelling (at those inside) ‘Mundhe banni’ (come front), ‘Chillare kodi’ (give change) and stuff. People never did both. Coming to the present, I hardly see guys on footboard, ‘coz there’s enough space for everyone inside. Also, the doors are closed once the bus starts moving. Anyway, footboard travel is bad.
After Bus-aata, now its Cycle-aata. Since last week, have started cycling to office (Malleswaram to Jayanagar). The drive is damn exciting, and I feel fresh throughout the day. I have started enjoying every bit of the ride on my favourite ‘Rebel’. Had acquired my paunch after many years with great difficulty. But offlate, used to hate when everyone started giving more attention to it, rather than its owner. And during these inflationary times, didn’t want my tummy to get inflated more.
Coming to office has become more exciting. What more, my boss is kicked up seeing my ‘Rebel’! And wants to start cycling again. Also, now my son prefers the ’rounds’ on the cycle, than the motor-bike. So after cycling home, have to take my son ‘doubles’ for a few minutes in and around Malleswaram. And he hates when I say – OK Boss, let’s go home!
Just for the record, the very first vehicle that I ever rode was a slim red-tricycle, in the year when Rajkumar’s ‘Operation Diamond Racket’ (remember ‘Eef you come today’?) was released.
Related link: Cycling is good
by Latha Vidyaranya
We often come across people after speaking to whom we feel so drained of our energy! Perhaps we can call them ‘energy-vampires’! They keep talking to us endlessly about themselves and their woes and constantly complaining on somebody or something that they seldom allow us to talk in between and make a contribution to the talk. It becomes a monologue rather than a dialogue. In spite of getting bored and irritated with such people, we continue to give them our precious time thinking that we are in some way obliged to listen to them. S/he may be our friend, our sibling or our own parent, especially mothers, who go on talking about their past difficulties or their present poor relationship with another child or in-law or about anything else that least interests us. But we simply surrender to them and continue to give them our time.
STOP! We are in no way obliged to listen to them always! It is fine to give our ear to somebody who may badly want to share his/her difficulty to lighten their emotional burden. We are doing a good job by helping them to relieve themselves of some life problem that they had been suppressing all these days. In fact at the end of the session they feel so grateful to us that we were patient enough to listen to their woes and perhaps even gave a few valuable suggestions to overcome those troubles. It is perfectly laudable.
But not so laudable is lending our time to listen to the same old stories of our own kith and kin day in and day out! We have every right to withdraw ourselves from such people because we are ending up as victims ourselves! This surely is an abuse on our time! Please understand that as adults we all have our own priorities set and we need time and energy to reach these goals. We can not let someone eat up all our time and constantly weep on our shoulders. We have an obligation to help them realize that it can not go on and on and that we will not be available to them henceforth to discuss things that may not have any solutions and that we are all obliged to cope with certain of these difficulties that have no visible end. In fact we are doing a disservice to them by developing a kind of dependency in them upon us.
Once this is stated matter-of-factly the ‘energy-vampire’ realizes that each one of us adults is responsible for our own upliftment or digging our own graves! We all have to draw energy from our own inner resources and help ourselves out of difficulties or learn some coping strategies. They need to very clearly see that their continuous outpours everyday with us is creating distances in our own relationship with other family members. Others (our spouse, our kids) have an equal right to demand our time, all of which is currently being drained by this particular person. You can not let other relationships get damaged because of your misplaced priorities on this person’s woes. Please wake up now and keep people at right distances and allow yourself the precious time and space that is very much required for your own growth.
Latha Vidyaranya’s articles featured on RwB:
(Latha Vidyaranya is a Special Educator and Counsellor and has founded ‘Empower Counselling Centre’ in Malleswaram, Bangalore.)
Cartoon: RK
Also visit the Cartoon page on RwB.
