A collection of random thoughts

Penning down some thoughts which occurred to me over the last week…

1. Policing drunk drivers. Over the last few months the police has stepped up vigilance on drunk driving, with frequent checks near pubs/major suburban roads /highways etc and penal action for drivers above the drinking limit has included a night in jail/suspension of license etc. I applaud this effort and it has had a direct positive influence in my life in two ways. Firstly the hubby has stopped drinking and driving now. Earlier he used to be drunk and still insist on driving (his claim was that he drives better while drunk). While I could still insist on driving if I was with him, in case of office parties/drinking after office this was not possible. This insistence to drive was ridiculous especially since he had a very narrow escape with a truck when he was driving drunk once, when the truck swerved into the car and smashed the windscreen. Luckily he and the two passengers escaped unscathed, but I think they did not take a lift with him again. After that incident which happened 4 years back, for a while the hubby would avoid drinking and driving. But memories fade with time …. Then the policing began, and we started seeing articles of pub going office people getting caught and being put behind bars and miraculously this bad habit stopped. Now either the driver has to wait and bring him back home, or it’s the yellow and black cab to the rescue. And this phenomenon has spread to all his colleagues as well- either they restrict their drinking, or else call a cab. For me also this has been a positive thing- last week I attended an alumni party and had to drive back. Usually I get quite sloshed at these parties (and behave quite stupidly-ranging from dancing in circles with an equally sloshed friend and causing all others to abandon the dance floor, or sleeping on the bathroom floor and refusing to leave), but this time since I knew I was driving back, I limited my drink to just one and am glad to report behaved properly at the party!

2. Attacks on students: As I write this we have witnessed a week of horrific attacks on Indian students in Australia. While these incidents may happen from time to time (and in some cases the victims have said its just being in the wrong place at the wrong time) it can’t be possible that 6-7 attacks on the same community, in the same district, would happen in a spate of a week. And what is the police doing- either they claim that its not a racist attack and just an opportunistic crime (well that it no excuse, why should there be such a large incidence of opportunistic crimes), or else they beat up people who have organized a rally to protest the attacks- http://www.breakingnewsonline.net/2009/06/australia-police-use-force-on-indian.html. Agree that the media may be overplaying the incidents, but I strongly feel that the Australian Government and police should take steps to contain these attacks and provide a sense of security to Indian students other than having the prime minister call up the Indian prime minister to apologize (how will this help the Indian students studying there) or a television speech by the Deputy Prime Minister. Having lived and studied abroad I can understand how some of the students would be feeling like foreigners in a country and culture quite alien to theirs- having people look at you like an alien/pass comments on your culture/sense of dressing/accent/food habits can be disconcerting to say the least. If in addition the Government cannot ensure a safe environment, then maybe you have to seriously consider if you want to stay in that country or not. I read somewhere that the education industry is the third largest revenue earner for Australia and with > 100,000 Indian students we are indeed a cash cow. The time may have come to consider other countries –New Zealand has already put out an article distancing itself from Australia (titled “ We are not like them”) and showcasing its universities. Its not that Indian students are exploiting the resources of developed countries (I read a blog which says these attacks are justified since these Indians stick together in groups and exploit the resources of developed countries)- the tuition fee paid by foreigners is often a high multiple of the fees paid be residents and mass movement by Indian students to other universities would probably be a good wake up call for the Australian Government. Or another alternative could be to send some of our MPs to Australian universities for a degree course- particularly the 150 of them with criminal cases against them. That would effectively kill two birds with one stone!

3. Criminals in Politics: This weeks’s HT had a very interesting article on the criminals in politics- http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=6c8d6f9d-8c70-47bc-888b-22d4d9b75a4e

I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves. I wonder if such a study has been done in other countries to see how many of their politicians have such a distinguished history. Another interesting exercise would be to see the number of film stars in politics- while the South would win by a large margin (the film stars actually become chief ministers in some of the States) the trend seems to be catching on in other parts of the country as well. Off hand I can remember MGR, Jayalalitha in TN; NT Rama Rao, Chiranjeevi in AP; Govinda in Mumbai; Jaya Prada, Jaya Bhaduri, Vinod Khanna, Shatrugan Sinha …amongst others.

4. How safe are contacts: I’ve been wearing contact lenses for the last 10 odd years and am a strong proponent of them. They are comfortable, easy to wear and you don’t have to worry about them slipping off while you are doing any sport etc. I do know that high usage of contact lenses can lead to wear and tear of the eye and in addition to taking precautions such as frequent cleaning, proper storage, frequent replacement, the recommended usage is not more than 8-10 hours a day. I had got an eye problem about 2 years back where my left eye would continuously water. I tried various medications, got eye tests done and finally at the advise of the doctor switched to glasses only for a month. The watering stopped and I resolved to wear glasses at least twice a week. Then I became lax and recently have been wearing lenses everyday, 12-14 hours a day, and though they are monthly disposable am usually too lazy to change them as often. However recently one of my colleagues had a very bad experience with her lenses- she started wearing them only about a month back and one night her eye became very red. She kept rubbing it and the next morning when she woke up her eye was swollen and the vision from that eye was lost. As per the doctor a dirt particle had snuck between her contact lens and retina and when she rubbed the eye with the contact lens still in it the particle scraped against the retina and she ended up with an ulcer on the retina. Her vision was gone for about a day, came back about 50% during the next week, and not after 2 weeks it back to 90% (touchwood). In addition to the fear of losing vision its pretty boring to sit at home unable to read, watch TV or go out for even short bursts of time. I still cannot give up the comfort of wearing lenses, but I have now resolved to wearing glasses at least twice a week and trying to not wear lenses for more than 12 hours at a stretch.

5. And finally I’m still recovering from the busy weekend. Saturday morning was spent shopping, in the evening we went to a friend’s place for cards and Taboo, and after that to another friend’s place for a housewarming party- can you beat that- we rarely go visiting people’s houses often and we end up with two invites on the same day. The housewarming party went on till 1:00 in the night- S was awake till about 11:30 – there was another girl about 5 months older to S and much of the party went in both of them fighting for the same toys. The other girl had reached the party earlier and was playing with some cuddly animals in the house, and then S saw them and wanted to hold all of them at once. Initially the other girl was distracted by something else but when she saw S carrying away the cuddly toys she started screaming loudly. I tried to convince S to take only one toy at a time, but she wanted all of them. Finally the other girl’s father took her away to another room to distract her- while S got her way. I know am a lazy mother, I should have insisted on S sharing the toys.. but I took shelter in my wine glass and in the (misguide?) notion that the other girl was older and if there was a kid younger than S I would not have allowed her to get away with this. Anyway Sunday was another hectic day- in the evening we went over to a friend’s place –just to drop off a birthday gift and then the plan was to take S to the park but she enjoyed herself there, playing with all the toys (my friend has a kid older than S), eating the snacks and generally running from one room to the other that we stayed for some time there and ditched the park idea. Then my brother came over for dinner and we went out to a restaurant- its our favourite and S loves the fishes there. We’ve also started skyping our siblings (families) in the States every weekend- now that S had met her cousins and her aunty we want her to be in regular touch with them and even though she can’t grow up with them (I am very close to my cousin whom I used to meet for 2 months in the summer every year while growing up and I wish S also had such close relations) at least this would help her be in touch with them so that every time they meet, even if its only for a week every 2 years they would have some common ground. One of her cousins entertained her with a card trick last weekend and she was quite thrilled!! Coming back to the busy weekend and recovery therefrom- still not happened and its Thursday- S has started sleeping only for about 8 –81/2hours in the night (which includes getting up at least twice) and I’ve started this bad habit of watching TV for about an hour after she sleeps (supposedly to catch up on whats happening in the French Open but actually browsing through some random music and movie channels) so I end up with only about 6-6/12 hours of sleep at night. To top it all one of the baby maids didn’t show up yesterday and the maid cannot manage S along the whole day, so I had to rush from office in the afternoon, feed S and then rush back, finish my work and then rush back early in the evening. Hopefully this weekend would be more restful (I still have that Twilight sequel to read though and once I start reading those books I cant put them down which means no afternoon naps and very less night sleep!)