Shri Rama Jayam!
A little bit of this and a little bit of that
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Some guidelines for first time voters
Some guidelines for FIRST TIME VOTERS:
If you have registered yourself as a voter
(being more than 18 years of age at the time of enrolling as per Election
Commission of India guidelines), you have the right to exercise your franchise
during the forthcoming elections to the Lok Sabha.
1.
Check that your name is listed in your constituency. You can
verify this in the electoral rolls displayed in your Ward Office. You can also
access the Election Commission of India website eci.nic.in and verify that your name is included.
2.
Also read the Guide published by the Press Information Bureau,
Govt. of India on their website: http://pib.nic.in/archieve/others/2014/apr/d2014040203.pdf
3.
Carry a proof of your identity (any of the documents prescribed by
the Election Commission and listed in the above Guide) when you go to cast your
vote.
4.
At the Polling Station, one of the polling officers will verify
your ID and tick off your name in the Voter’s List available there, ink the
FOREFINGER OF YOUR LEFT HAND and take your signature on the Register of Voters
(in Form 17A) before directing you to the polling booth to cast your vote.
5.
If the voter does not have a left forefinger, the next finger on
the Left hand will be inked. If he does not have any fingers on his left hand,
the forefinger of his Right Hand will be inked. The rules laid down by the
Election Commission in this regard are strictly followed and the Polling
Officer will explain this to you if required.
6.
If the Left Forefinger is already inked (if you have voted in
Municipal elections or any other elections held in your constituency recently
and the ink mark is still present), your Right Forefinger will be inked.
7.
After inking your finger, the officer will direct you to a vacant
voting booth to cast your vote.
8.
Please remember that the voting is through secret ballot. You will
be allowed to vote in secrecy and nobody can compel you to reveal which
candidate or which party you voted for.
9.
Electronic voting machines are being used for voting. The machine
will display the names and election symbols of the contesting candidates. There
is a blue button against each name. When you depress the blue button against the
name of the candidate you choose, a red light will glow along with a “beep”
sound, indicating that your vote has been registered.
10. You may also
use the “None Of The Above” option by pressing the NOTA (None Of The Above)
button, which is the last button on the machine, to indicate that you do not
wish to vote for any of the candidates in the list.
AS A CITIZEN
OF INDIA IT IS YOUR DUTY TO PARTICIPATE IN THE ELECTION PROCESS BY CASTING YOUR
VOTE.
(Compiled by Shiva Kumar)
Thursday, April 3, 2014
The Cat and the Beanstalk
The Cat and the Beanstalk
This is actually a mystery, as you will find out
sooner or later.
Once upon a time there was a forest. Well, the forest might have been there all along, we don’t know. What we do know from reliable, if anonymous sources is that at the time this story took place this forest was there. We do not know the details of which forest and where it was since the sources omitted to divulge those details. In any case, they are irrelevant. Suffice it to say that there was a time and there was a forest.
In this forest then, lived many creatures like lions, tigers, elephants, snakes, ladders, adders, subtractors, monkeys, duplicate keys, chimps and xyzees, 22/7thons (big snakes which swallowed small animals) and many more. As well, there were birds like parrots, eagles, sparrows, kites, vultures, peacocks and other types which flew in and out of the forest. Last of all, there were insects like grasshoppers, praying mantises, dragonflies, ants and crickets. Of course, before this storyteller forgets, there were also many trees and creepers and bushes in the forest (storyteller pauses, checks record to see if it’s set straight and continues with narrative).
All the above mentioned animals, birds and insects went quietly about the business of living peacefully (or not) amongst themselves. So did the ant and the cricket, who are the main protagonists of this story. The ant, being an ant, went about his business of collecting food and storing it away in his anthill. The cricket, being a cricket, went (not so quietly) about his business of cricketing. Cricketing is a pastime of crickets whereby they go “cric...ket, cric...ket”, in full voice, all the time hopping from one place to another. They do it especially in summer (one reason why summer is known as the cricket season), while the ants are collecting food.
(Going off the main story for a moment, you may be wondering why there is a cricket season but no ant season. You see, it doesn’t help if you go about your business quietly; on the other hand, it certainly is worthwhile going around making a noise, even if it is about nothing in particular.)
To resume, many of the animals and birds and other insects passing by now and then, stopped to ask the ant why he was collecting food and the cricket why he was cricking and ketting all the time. The ant replied that, it being summer, food was available in plenty and that is why he was collecting it. The cricket replied that, it being summer and food being available in plenty, the ant was collecting it so why should he bother? Therefore he was singing away.
From the above conversations of the ant and the cricket with the passers-by, the readers may have divined that it is summer.
In any case, summer being a season that comes before winter, soon passed and was followed by winter. Winter being cold made the entire forest cold and wintry. It became so cold that the water vapour froze and turned into ice and snow. Snowflakes carpeted the ground with white and gradually hardened and turned into ice. Icicles hung from every leaf and limb of every tree; there were icicles hanging from the tails of the animals. The snow fell on the monkeys’ eyelids and hardened, and they couldn’t even blink. They just closed their eyes and tried to sleep. The snow fell on the elephants and hardened to ice and when they tried to flap their ears and sway to and fro in unison, as elephants are wont to do, the breaking ice made such a loud creaking noise that it frightened all the other animals. They threatened to complain to higher authorities unless the elephants stopped the racket. So the elephants stopped moving and stood still, reminiscing about happier times and warmer climes while they waited for the winter to pass.
Soon the whole forest fell silent and went into sleep mode. It was an incredible sight, everything still and white. One animal who couldn’t pronounce his ‘L’s properly, was heard to sleepily remark, “how incredibry beautifur everything rooks”. The other animals sleepily agreed and by general consensus used the acronym “h-i-b-e-r” to call their forest the Hiber Nation.
Much later, the state of doing nothing but just staying still during the cold winters came to be called “hibernation” and this
activity, or lack of it, became very popular with certain animals like bears
and with certain departments in the government.
From the preceding description, the reader might have gathered that it is winter, the whole forest is covered with snow and ice and the animals are hibernating.
Most of the birds flew away to warmer places. The trees couldn’t flee, so they remained there, cold and stiff. The ant didn’t flee because, firstly, he was much too busy to think about fleeing. Secondly, having stored all the food he had collected during summer in his anthill why would he go anywhere? So he stayed.
The cricket too stayed because no one had told him that he should flee and he had forgotten that winters can be cold.
(This fact that crickets have short memory-spans was not generally known until a revered scientist accidentally discovered it while working on the theory of reverse swing of a cricket ball. This storyteller, who however, is of a different mettle, was aware of it all along.)
So there they were, the ant and the cricket, in the cold forest in the thick of winter. The ant busied himself in his anthill cataloguing the food and marking the use-by date on each lot. The cricket had started off by trying to “cric...ket” in his usual strong baritone but, as winter progressed, soon found that he couldn’t sing because his troath (apparently, that is what crickets’ throats are called) had gone dry. He was also feeling cold and hungry. Desperate for something to drink and eat, he went in search of the nearest store only to find it closed. So he came back and tried to sleep under a leaf, but the leaf kept shaking in the wind (or perhaps it was trembling in the extreme cold) and disturbed him. He couldn’t fly because his wings had frozen (this is a regular problem with crickets during winters; scientists working on a cure have so far come up with a couple of remedies, one of which is to go away to Florida or Chennai or some such sunny place during the winters; the other, part of a top secret project for the army, is under wraps) and so he sat there, feeling miserable and wondering how to extricate himself out of this tricky situation.
Finally, after some deep thinking and deep breathing, the cricket crawled up to the ant’s hill and, using his last ounce of energy, called out to his friend before passing out. The ant, busy with his cataloguing, thought he heard something and came out to investigate. Seeing the cricket sprawled near his gate, he promptly hauled him in and dumped him in the lot containing cabbages and greens, to be catalogued. In time, the cricket thawed out and was able to get back a semblance of his voice. And so, spying the ant reclining in his favourite armchair munching on a bitten-off bit of a mushroom, the cricket sidled up to him and asked him for a spot of something, appealing to his patriotic sense and throwing in a pitch about benefits in the afterlife, for good measure. The ant didn’t think he belonged to any country, so patriotism meant nothing to him. Nor did he ever think about death, so the afterlife held no charms for him. He was not impressed. He gave the cricket some lofty homily about neither a borrower nor a lender being. He also told the cricket that since he had sung his way through summer, he could dance away the winter.
The poor cricket wobbled away, sad, cold and hungry, in search of the nearest cricket club with a clubhouse attached where he could hope to get a decent meal.
Moral of the story: If you are not trained in dancing, don’t sing.
And you will have noticed that there is absolutely no mention of either the cat or the beanstalk. Therein lies the mystery!
Disclaimer and note of caution: This story was concocted out of the thin air of a winter evening by the storyteller. It is based on neither fact nor fable and was written purely for fun. The reader is well advised to laugh it off.
©Shiva Kumar
2012
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
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