27/12/08 [SMS]

Among our co-passengers in this compartment of this coach is a man who has a hunched back. I mean hunched as in a physical deformity. Or physiological deformity. Or physiognomic deformity?
Like several more people sitting on the floor, the man was sitting on his haunches. My rough estimate is that his back was towards one corner of a corridor-facing side of one seat in that compartment of our's. More clearly put, the man was sitting in the corridor. Behind him was a woman: holding her infant child; sitting on the other corner of the seat I mentioned. During the only stretch of time that I looked at the man, the mother pulled or unzipped a sweater off her infant. Part of the sweater ended on top of the man's hunchback. On seeing this I easily made myself feel sorry about his plight:- 'here is he, unable to remove this intrusion/encroachment; here he is, too tired to...; here he is, hesitant/afraid to...; here is he, too tired+afraid to...! Such a bad feeling it must be to have a hunchback!' Probably that is why I recall seeing the man's hunchback as outlined by the shawl. Me making me feel sorry for him is what the above quote probably arose from. In which case the stream of thoughts/feelings contained by the quote is a creation of my writing. It is an exact recollection of my then stream of thoughts/feelings.

27/12/08 [SMS]

Back aches are stages in/of any day of/in a healthy person's life. For what is the back if not muscles and bones? And what are tendons and ligaments if not muscles (two sorts out of several)? Rudyard Kipling's Kim walked over and around many hills to reach the 'Chini valley' of his 'Hindustan', reaping much pain and ache. But the payoff was great! All the 'fat and sugar suet melted off his legs, to be replaced by various muscles'. Sure, both existing and newly extant muscles pained, ached, or ached-and-pained. Also sure that all were moving, working materials.

3/5/09 [SMS]

Kung Fu, a/the Chinese martial art, possesses an emphasis on qi (simply, 'energy'). Living beings have qi, the dead have none. But then -some possibly shall wonder or have wondered- how does flesh impart qi to its devourer. That the animal being eaten may be dying rather than dead is beside the point. The life of every blood cell swallowed ends. Coagulation is, by the way, another end. The unchanged nutrients are what really matter. If any nutrients are harvested from blood cells, some or all of them shall contribute to creation of qi. Generally speaking, nutrients create qi. [Of course, the energy created through nuclear fissile processes can be equated with qi.] Living beings utilize qi, restrict/shape qi. Claws on paws are a result of these processes. Smelling for quelling attacks is another result. Life is full of examples. I am not asking humans to semi-emulate tigers. Increasing the strength of our fingers, thumbs, wrists, etc. and altering our nails into sharp, thick, strong claws. Such usages and restrictions of qi are obviously not what I mean by the word examples. But, yeah, life is full of examples. The formulation and refinement of martial arts is a slightly different set of examples. Martial arts are human. They are a showcase not of biological evolution, but of their own evolution. Humans have used them against other humans..for 3 purposes- attack, defense, counterattack. The 'self-defense' that we talk of usually involves counterattacks, I guess.

27/7/09 'Greco-Roman' world

In the Mediterranean( and parts of Europe beyond), corn was the generic term for cereals that grew there. Those most produced and most consumed, of course- varieties of wheat and barley, not the maize ubiquitous in Mexico!! These bearers of the name corn, and olives and wine, were the three major agricultural produces in the Mediterranean.
Olives grew in groves or orchards, grapes -the source of wine- in vineyards, and corn in fields.....and so they do now.
Olives hung from branches of living wood, grapes from spineless plants( so tall they required manufactured support. Several grapevines could traverse a single wall.....and still can, I guess; but individual climbs around wood sticks or metal rods are the visible norm. Moving our eye further through the present, we can confidently say that corn has always perched on stalks of grass, and olives have always hung from trees.