Passing on some of our childhood memories

Saturday evenings make for great parties, movie plans or catching up with friends.
But this Saturday before catching up with friends I accompanied my sister and niece to the swimming pool at the National Sports Club of India (NSCI) for an early evening swim.

While my sister was busy teaching my niece the basics of swimming, I couldn't help but notice that for every adult in the pool there must have been at least 4 adolescents.

And it got me wondering, what kind of water games does this Generation Y (or Z, or whatever we are calling them now) play in the pool?
They've moved from lagori (7 tiles) to tablets, pakda pakdi (catch catch) to whatsapp messaging and cricket and football under the mid day sun to cricket and football under the air conditioner on the XBox/PS3.

So I listened and watched.

A group of 4-5 twelve year olds formed a straight line on the diving board and jumped one after the other into the pool screaming out incoherent war cries.

A girl tossed a shiny 2 rupee coin into the deep end of the pool as her brother dived in and swam to the bottom to retrieve it.

While in the shallow end 3 six year old girls were paddling after each other in their version of pakda pakdi.

"Mamu!!" - my niece's voice reminded me of my uncle duties and as I swam up to her I was glad to know that while the times have changed, at least some of the games that my sister and me grew up playing in the swimming pool would be handed down to my niece to enjoy too.

Remembering JFK on his 100th Birthday

Hello & welcome to another edition of the GK Nugget. This weekend we’re talking about one of my favourite politicians (yes, there are some likeable ones too), who passed away too young. He was the leader of one of the superpowers of the world and 29 th May 2017 was his 100 th birth anniversary. I’m talking about John Fitzgerald Kennedy , famously known as JFK . JFK was the 35 th President of the USA from January 1961 up until 22 nd November 1963 , when he was assassinated. He was the youngest president of the country and also the youngest to die . JFK’s inaugural address had him reach out to all Americans – “ Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country ” – a line that is till date quoted in essays written by school and college going children. JFK led the US at the height of the Arms Race with Russia and also during the critical Cuban missile crisis . (In October 1962, U.S. spy planes discovered that Soviet missile bases had ...

Why is Pluto a "Dwarf Planet" & other Celestial trivia

The week gone by saw the world celebrate the 25 th birthday of the internet on 23 rd August. On this day in 1991 , the public gained access for the first time to the World Wide Web, which had been designed & deployed by computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in Switzerland. But today’s GK Nugget is about something else. On 24 th Aug 2006 the International Astronomical Union clarified the definition of a “ planet ”. It said that a celestial body must meet the following criteria in order to qualify as a planet: 1) It must be round. 2) It must orbit the sun. 3) It must have “cleared the neighbourhood" of its orbit. This means that as a planet travels, its gravity sweeps and clears the space around it of other objects. Unfortunately, Pluto (which was discovered on Feb 18 th , 1930 ) doesn’t meet criteria #3 & therefore it was classified as a Dwarf Planet . For the common man, this was a shock, but amongst the circle of astronomers it wasn’t so surprisin...

daily musings 16 Apr 2023

Meditation Vs long distance running Many people have spoken about the benefits of meditation, scientific journals have published findings and daily rituals of the most accomplished men and women mostly have meditation as one of the common things they do. But I genuinely believe that long distance running is a kind of meditation in itself. But wait, I don't mean the kind of running when you have earphones plugged in listening to music, podcast, or audio books or the kind of run when you're constantly chatting with other runners as you complete the kilometres. (Hats off to that btw; how do you have the stamina to run and talk at the same time?) I mean the kind of run where the run is lost in the world inside his or herself, the kind where all you're focused on is the sound of your feet hitting the road and your breathing. That utter concentration, that focus on making yourself continue to put one foot ahead of the other as your get to your running goal - that's also a me...

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