Enlightened ... There are no special effects.

Like any other upper middle class 8-year old, my son is becoming a TV, Computer addict. I’m having a tough time making him pick up reading habits and I’m getting nowhere. He wanted a Harry Potter video game and not the more popular book. I checked the price and was about to buy it for him, but thought of setting him some goals in reading before he gets his hands on the CD. The conversation went as follows. Me: I’ll order the CD after you finish reading the comic book. Son : (No answer) Me: You got to read more that will help in your imagination. Son: (No answer) [I badly wanted him to accept a goal, any goal for reading.] Me: I don’t get time to read books now. You got plenty of time, don’t waste it in TV and computer games. This is the time to read books and learn more. Me: I tell you bed-time stories. From where do you think I got them all? I read books. Son: (No response) Me: Don’t you want to tell stories to your kid when you gro...

Recently I changed jobs. My 4 minute walk to office changed to at least half hour drive to office. In the 4 minute walk all I could see were, maniac students speeding on narrow streets in their CBZs and Pulsars. There were just a couple of non-fatal crashes, in all the 4 intersections in the last two years. The statistics isn't bad even for bullock carts infested village roads. Everything changed with my new commute. I got to see a new dimension of maniac driving in the rush hour traffic in Anna Salai. I can't believe so many people are so desparately suicidal in Chennai. I don't know how fast these people go as I watch them from a relatively slow moving auto-rickshaw that has a speedometer that I can't see and that stopped working long ago. I have to think up new idioms and parallals to describe how scared I'm to be in a small vehicle in Anna Salai. Have you seen scared dogs during Diwali? I'm close. Everyone seems to be happy driving in such unsafe condition j...