Book talk

Dear bloggers / friends,

Having dinner at a friend's place today, talk centered around books and Indian culture. 

So I would like to broach the same topics here,and see how may responses I get.

First Topic: book by author Arthur Hailey.  The Money changers. A nice topic of discussion, at this time,when banks are failing, due to bad investments. A nice intriguing read, as I have read the book at least 5-6 times in my college days. 

I invite those who have read the book to share their views on it. 

Second topic: Indian culture: Your opinions on :

1. Is Diversity in India really helping India's progress? Or are we further deteriorating due to lack of a unified identity? We rarely identify ourselves as Indians, to any other Indian. its always punjabi, gujrati, tamilian, telugu, malayalee, etc. 
2. Cultural Domination by school textbooks: Until class 8th, I hardly knew anything about south Indian history..Chera's, cholas , pandyas, the literary poets, authors, their works,  Our history books mostly concentrated on Mughals, the slave dynasty, etc...in short, all about north India, rather than south. I grew up in Delhi, and later shifted back to Chennai. In fact, I am myself a witness to, how in the south, we learn about Indian history as a whole, not just north, or only south. 
   

My question: Is it because of the authors of history textbooks in the north? Or is it just that they feel that students in the north should know more about how their ancestors came about? 

Does this propagate the feeling of superiority among north Indians, compared to south Indians? Just because they have fairer skin, and look down upon anyone who cannot speak Hindi fluently?

I am quite ashamed to say that even in my school days, there were comments of "you madrasis" targeting all south Indians. whether you are a kannadiga, Andhrite, Tamilian, or Malayalee, everyone was , "you madrasis". 

What can we do to stem this problem to some extent? 

1. Review textbooks and make sure there is no prejudice against south Indian history, which was equally intriguing and beautifully developed culturally, while people in the north were still fighting invaders.  ?
2. Start telling students to identify themselves as Indian, rather than by state or language? 
   

I would really like to know what others think. So please do respond. 

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My cat has a new friend

 We, the ever cautious , guardians of Lego, have recently discovered that she has a new friend, a black cat, with a bushy tail. They try to have a rendezvous every night, while we , scatter brained humans, sleep. 

Once night fell, Lego used to run around the house like she had to catch a flight. Or more precisely, like  a cat on wheels. She would jump up on one window sill, then dining table, look out the windows in the hall, then run straight to the bedroom window and look out again. Moreover, all she wanted to do was sleep during the day, and go outside at night. We were concerned about letting her out, since it has been so cold at nights. She has managed to escape once o twice, albeit with her collar on, and we would hear her go" ching ching ching"....

Our cat just wouldn't listen, when we tried to keep her in. One day, my husband, discovered the reason for this "Night Rider-ism". There was a black cat, with a bushy tail, sitting outside our hall window, among the bushes. He / she was looking up at Lego, who was perched on the window sill, inside the home. And she was looking down outside at the cat. 

So that's why she has been acting crazy. We asked our neighbour, who has a black male cat, if her cat was let out at nights. She replied in the negative. so we assume its one of the stray cats that regularly find their way into our community jumping  across the wall. 

Once Lego was out, she would tease us by coming just till the gate,and running off before we grab her. She will be out all night,and then meow herself out in the mornings, wanting to get in, because she is hungry. 

I once had Frisky find her,chase her out from underneath the bush she was hiding. She crossed me swiftly,and before I could realize what had happened, she was atop the thick branch of a tree near me. It was not that high, but just out of reach for me. 

I immediately called Madhu, told him to come out, and look for himself. Was this the same cat we thought was too scared to climb a tree? Oh, that's another story altogether, about how we started teaching her to go up trees, after having been a house cat for one year. She simply amazed me that night, looking down at me from that lofty limb, swishing her tail, as if saying, " You can't catch me now". 

The end part of the story is, that Lego is acting like a truant teenager these days. She wants to meet the other cat. Its spring time, and love is in the air. She wants to go out at nights, and won't come back even if we call her 10 dozen times. If we don't let her go, she protests so loudly, as of she is being held captive by something and wants to escape. Her claws come out like a Swiss army knife, and she digs them into my t-shirt, and holds on.  

The wild horses of my imagination shudder to think what would have been our state of mind if she had been a human teenage girl. Thank God for small mercies, huh????

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