My mother is a Dinosaur

This is an interesting episode which I feel like sharing with friends on my blog. Recently, I called up an old friend, Dolly, who stays in another city, to wish her on her birthday. She narrated an incident about her 6 year old daughter which was very entertaining, to say the least.

Her daughter, Siya, had been enrolled for Odissi classes (Indian classical dance form). It was her first day at the dance class and there were two other girls in her batch. The teacher asked each one of the three girls what their mothers did for a living. The first girl replied that her mother was a designer, the second girl said hers was a furniture dealer. It was Siya’s turn and she replied, “My mother is a DINOSAUR!”

The teacher was taken aback by the answer, and she asked Siya why she thought her mother was a dinosaur. Pat came the rely “Because she screams at me all day!”

Children sure are creative!

Simple thoughts-Desparate situation

This is an incident from my childhood when I was 7 years of age. It was one hot summer afternoon when I returned home crying. The reason was that I was slapped and beaten that day, by my neighbor and friend, Bobby, who was also of the same age, but was much shorter in height.

I expected sympathy from my parents for having been beaten and roughed up. I was in for a rude shock. My father could not take the fact that I was physically overpowered by a smaller boy. To add insult to injury, I was thrown out of the house with instructions from my father that I would be allowed to enter the house provided I go and thrash the boy who had beaten me. I was in a double-dilemma. Problem number one was how to beat Bobby, as he was stronger than me. The other problem was how to secure a passage back home if I was not to beat Bobby.

I found solace when I narrated my woes to our next door neighbor, a fine lady who offered me some fruits, and then took me back home. She spoke to my father, and convinced him not to put a small child through such a tight spot. My father agreed and I could heave a sigh of relief!

A few years later, when I was about 13 or 14, I took my revenge when I had a quarrel with the same boy, Bobby, which resulted in a fight, and I gave him a neat thrashing. Needless to say, I had my father in mind, when all hell broke loose on the poor guy.

A Murder or a Suicide?

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFS President Dr Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death.

Here is the Case:
On March 23, 1994 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head.
Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide. He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency. As he fell past the ninth floor his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the eighth floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.


"Ordinarily," Dr Mills continued, "A person, who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide." That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands.
In the room on the ninth floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun.
The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window striking Mr. Opus. When one intends to kill subject "A" but kills subject "B" in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject "B".
When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were both adamant and both said that they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man said it was a long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her.
Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, if the gun had been accidentally loaded. The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident.
It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of the murder even though he didn't actually pull the trigger. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed hat the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window. The son had actually murdered himself, so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

Bipin's misadventure

This is a story about my friend, Bipin, which I can never forget in my life. Bipin, a very handsome guy in his college days, was very popular with the girls. Good-looking and charming, he always used to be surrounded by girls. One of his girlfriends, whom he had met during New Year's eve at a party hosted by the Air Force, had grown very fond of him. Within a few weeks of their courtship, she had already started dreaming about settling down with him.

One day, she invited him at her place to introduce him to her parents. This guy was very nervous and shifty throughout the day. When it was finally time to go, he asked me to come along for moral support. He went on his bike and I followed him a short distance behind. When Bipin took the bend to her house, and I was a little behind him, the scene awaiting us was disastrous.

At his girlfriend's gate, there was a huge crowd waiting to greet him! There were her parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, nephews, friends, even her dog! I was watching the whole scene from a distance. I could sense how nervous Bipin must have got as he approached the gate of her bungalow.

I had no idea that I was in for a bigger surprise. Suddenly, Bipin gave full throttle to his bike and vrooooooom......he raced his bike and just fled from the scene. I watched in disbelief as Bipin and his bike disappeared from my sight. His girlfriend's whole family was waving, shouting, beckoning, calling him back, the dog was barking madly, but Bipin was too scared to go back! I laughed so hard...I almost fell off my bike....from that day on, Bipin made it a point never to visit any girlfriend's home.

An article by my father-In love with cricket

As a student I went to a school, which had plenty of sports facilities and a big enough playground of its own. It was a co-ed school but in those days in early sixties, boys and girls did not talk to each other. Socially it was not accepted. Of course, there were a few bold ones who defied the rule but they too talked furtively making sure teachers were not around.

Every year, after final exams, a cricket match was held between students and teachers. This occasion was looked forward to as girls and lady teachers remained present to watch the big match. And this was one day when students could take little liberties like girls congratulating good performance of a batsman or a bowler. The ladies’ presence made certain that boys played with vigour and received their cheers.

The captain of teachers’ team was our principal, a gentleman of such immense proportions and weight that nobody had ever seen him walk fast, let alone run, and having little knowledge of the game. Captainship was given as a mark of respect. While fielding, he was given a post at the boundary line with a lackey (usually a student) to run and field for him. While batting, he opened the innings and was given an underarm slow ball from half-pitch, which he tried to hit. He usually lasted for one over or thereabouts before being bowled or caught out. (No LBWs for him & he didn’t take singles). After his royal departure, serious action would start.

The teachers’ team had one Parsi gentleman known as ‘Parsi Sir’ as he was the only Parsi person in the school who was really a good and keen cricketer. He invited his son Jal to play for teachers though Jal was not in our school. Usually students won but for this father-son duo and occasionally a stray teacher who stood between students’ victory. Both teams wore flannel cream-white pant-shirts as cricket gear.

This particular year, students’ team had some good players including ‘yours truly’. The captain of the students’ team was one Suresh, very funny and full of mischief known as Suresh-sursurio as he could smoothly sneak away from any difficult or unpleasant situations, but a good fast bowler. Students had won the toss, had batted first and had made a reasonably good score. Now teachers were batting and students were finding it difficult to uproot the Parsi father-son duo. Balance was tilting slowly on teachers’ side. Suresh-sursurio was bowling furiously and desperately.

It happened suddenly. The stitches of Suresh’s trousers tore on the backside as he bowled furiously. The more he bowled, more stitches came apart. Now his V-shape blue underwear was clearly visible. Still, he continued bowling and the crowd; girls in particular, cheered, booed and went wild. In his next over Suresh took his tucked-in shirt out of his pants, continued bowling with his shirt flying as he took his long run. Imagine the scene and you can guess the howling and chaos it caused. When his over was finished, we advised him to stop bowling and to let someone else bowl. But the bull that he was, his mind was only on winning the game.

In his next over he took off his pants all together and bowled only in his underwear with his shirt flying high as he took his long run. The crowd of more than 800 students went wild. The scene, screaming, hooting, whistling, distracted the Parsi duo’s concentration and both were out one after another in a span of three overs. Thereafter, students’ victory was easy. Suresh was the shining star that day – the ultimate hero.

I suppose in today’s scenario, Suresh could have easily given Gangulis & Sreesanths a run for their money.