Let peace prevail

 How do world leaders who are directly responsible for starting wars

 sleep at night?

 Leave alone sleep.

How do they rest, eat or go about their daily lives?

Do these despicable people pray?

They can't be normal - can they? 

No twinge of pity?

No remorse or guilt?

No feeling of sadness?

No sorrow or pain?

Are they liable to feel stress?

Do they really have hearts, minds, and souls like all of us? 

Or are these selfish, despicable monsters, so devoid of all human emotion,

 that they smile and go about their depraved lives

 without a care in the world?

What sickens me is their condescending arrogance 

Their disdainful swagger 

Their deplorable treachery  

Their repulsive, unscrupulous behavior.

Are they family men?

Wives, mothers, sisters, kids? 

Are their friends as evil as them?

Do they not see the killing – the bloodshed of innocents? 

Babies, children, women, and men are literally being slaughtered by the second

And not an iota of mercy? 

Are these not heinous crimes

That sickens one to the core?  

Do they not perceive the ruination of houses, hospitals, schools, museums, and the like? 

Cities that have taken decades to build are being bombed and bulldozed to smithereens

 and reduced to rubble in the blink of an eye.

Families are being torn asunder and some will never meet again.

 

For how long will this insidious campaign continue?

For how long will these political perverts, persist with their preposterous plans?

How long till the guns are silenced? 

Our world is bleeding 

Let peace prevail

War is not the answer

 War is NOT the answer - it never was 

Who does a war benefit?

Who stands to gain?

Who instigated who and pitted one against the other?

Definitely not the citizens of the countries involved

Definitely not the soldiers who pull the triggers

Certainly not the pilots who drop those bombs 

Nor the fathers and sons who are forced 

To abandon their weeping families 

And fight a war, they know precious little about.

Then who? 

Right now

Friends, families and neighbors

Besides being torn asunder 

Are destroying each other’s property 

Across a supposedly - neighborly border 

And killing one another mercilessly 

To placate the desires 

Of leaders they inwardly despise 

And appease the egos of despots who rule them

With iron fists and velvet gloves.  

Who actually benefits?

Who will win this war? 

Businessmen? Bureaucrats? Presidents? Politicians? 

Soldiers and Generals? 

This is no petty skirmish

No stealth attack at dawn 

No brief incursion 

No battle for a hillock

It’s not about swords, shields and guns 

Crossbows, daggers and spears 

Bugles, or a call to battle.

 

This is about mouse holing and collateral damage 

A ‘shock and awe’ offensive and rapid dominance 

This is unadulterated genocide

In broad daylight and publicized with defiance.

A disaster of unimaginable proportions.

A holocaust in the making. 

 

Now hundreds and thousands of innocent victims 

Are being pulverized into the dust 

For no fault of their own.

This is a massacre of the innocents 

Involving vacuum bombs, missiles and lasers 

Autonomies weapons and hypersonic aircraft.

 

And this world will pay the price 

Pay we will, and a heavy price it will be 

Literally and figuratively speaking. 

Unquestionably, everyone will pay 

If we are alive to do so. 

Bloodbath, Recession, destabilization 

Are the new buzzwords

Not just in one or two countries 

But the world over.

 

This is a spectacle of immense proportions 

A pandemic of a very different kind 

With no cure or quick fix vaccination in sight

And for a while even the dreaded ‘Covid’

Has been forced to take a back seat

And look on at the unfolding drama

The horrifying clips on the news channels 

Make one’s blood boil.

You don’t need to be a geopolitical expert 

To figure out the grizzly details.

BUT WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER

IT NEVER WAS 

IT NEVER SHOULD BE 

mg

I wish...

 What's on my mind ? 

I wish I knew how to draw

Even just a cat !

I wish I knew how to paint

But I'm colour blind !

I can float a bit

But can hardly swim

Definitely not enough to save my life

But I displace water nevertheless.

I wish I was not so claustrophobic 

That enclosed places didn't suffocate me

In my mind!

I wish I was taller 

5 feet seven isn't much to boast about

I wish I were slimmer

A paunch is definitely not appealing 

I wish I was like those handy guys

Fixing switches and intricate electrical connections

Those bulging muscles..

Sawing wood to size 

And producing tables and stools and shelves with ease and dexterity. 

With drills , tools and a few screws .

Have often wished I were smarter 

Not an Einstein or a Zuckerberg 

But just a little cleverer 

Maybe in Math ,science, and things 

That matter. 

But then again 

I am who I am

I am unique in my own quirky , silly way 

And for that, I am proud.

I am me!

Disaster unfolding

 Ego, greed, and bullying tactics. 

That is what most wars are all about, and this one is no exception. 

The common man- woman has been caught in the crossfire and forced to fight a war that he or she cares little about.

Thousands of innocent lives will be sacrificed to satisfy some politicians' sordid ambition. Families will be torn asunder and millions lost in concrete damages.

However, it takes two hands to clap, so let's not start blaming just one party. Nor is this a knee jerk reaction. 

Everyone saw it coming and predicted it right down to precise details. It was no covert operation, to say the least .

Now, the time for threats and counter threats is over, and the world is faced with another colossal catastrophe of unthinkable dimensions, and more misery, death and destruction are inevitable. 

What strikes me as a trifle odd is that one country is being bombed to smithereens, and besides some vague sanctions, no one has lifted a finger to help. 

Sending good wishes, prayers and hoping for a quick and diplomatic end to this war is all I am reading about. That is wishful thinking as things unfold today.

Am I missing something ? Isn't this horrifying?

Where is Nato? Where are those cowboys with their horses and guns? 

While politicians and diplomats smoke their gold tipped cigars and sip nectar from crystal goblets in their plush mansions, there is suffering of unimaginable proportions unfolding by the minute.

Then as they say,' this too shall pass' .

Pass it will, but when will this madness end 

Politics is indeed a dirty game played by scoundrels without a conscience - awfully appaling.

Early mornings

 Even on weekends, I am out of bed like a lark. No , not singing or anything so crazy but just up!

Lying in bed, when already awake, has never appealed to me . I find it boring and a waste of precious time. I love the weekends!

As a young boy in Allahabad, I woke early every day to hear Radio Ceylon , read the Northern India Patrika, and play with our dog before getting ready and cycling to school or work.

In Pune, it was the same - morning duty at Bishops or early morning tuition classes and I was never late. 

So here in Dubai it's the newspapers, tea and quiet contemplation. 

Oh yes ,the phone and the cat too. I check WhatsApp and FB while the tea water boils and I tickle her with my toes. It's called multi tasking! 

In fact she wakes me up, walks me down the steps, hangs around a bit, and then goes back up to sleep, at the foot of my bed.

Bright , sunny , cool , invigorating mornings in the UAE are not for sleeping.

I presume that as one gets older , one sleeps less ! 

Thankfully, we have less Covid news and the world seems to be healing . It's about time.

However , we do have the shenanigans of some world leaders to ponder over.

The untidy haired Mr J who partied during Covid, the shrewd Mr P who people say is waiting to invade , the sly Mr M and his grandiose plans and a few others.

Then, on an early morning news chanel , I was not surprised to see the joker blowing his own TRUMPet.

He did vow and say, 'I'll be back' , didn't he?

Am sorry for digressing .

It's a lovely morning and I have things to do,so have a wonderful day - stay positive and blessed.

Husband Appreciation day

 Ok girls & guys- ladies and gentlemen reading this .

 Here is some unsolicited, yet important information. You can call it trivia if you wish, but you probably don't know this unless you have spare time like me who wakes at 5 am even on a weekend!

 

This year, on April 16th, there is something big coming up . Excited to read on ?

It's something that occurs on the 3rd Saturday of April every year. Any guesses?

So giddy up my friends ...

It's HUSBAND APPRECIATION DAY.

So all you wives or partners out there - stop smirking, sniggering, laughing, tittering, giggling or whatever else you are doing after reading about this very special day and plan as to what YOU are going to do to show your appreciation for your man.

Don't plan to shoot the messenger as this is good news.

Here is your chance to appreciate, pamper and show more than normal appreciation.

This is no joke.

Husbands - you can let me have details later .

Having my books bound

 

Something that came to mind when I saw a torn book a short while ago …...

I am sure many Millennials, and all Gen Z, have never heard of the term, ‘Have your book bound’.

For the uninitiated, having books bound was something quite common back in the day. When a text book binding came lose, and there was imminent danger of losing pages, we did not discard the books- instead we took them and had them bound afresh, and they came back as good as new – at least that’s what we felt. I didn’t cost much either.

We did the same with story books which were far too precious to throw away. At times five or ten  thin comics were bound into just one book, and many a lazy afternoon were spent reading.

I vividly remember buying text books, second hand, before the start of the academic year in school – then taking the torn ones to a shop, and getting them bound. At times, the binding was a trifle too tight and one or two words at the start of every line were stitched in, but the main thing was we had a book to use.

The book was usually bound with dark blue or dark maroon binding and looked rather smart.

Do any of you older ones, who follow my posts, remember the ‘book binding’ process and did you or your parents ever tell you to get a book bound?

My friends from Allahabad would definitely be very familiar with having books bound.