What snack would you eat right now?
Right now I would like a Dahi Wada . Currently the temperature is 20*C, which is winter in Dubai where I’m now in, but hot as I’ve just come from Glasgow where the temperature is -3*C.
Dahi Wada is an Indian snack.
This is a fried lentil dumpling fritter floating in sweet yogurt . It is very cooling and also makes a good option for a snack or at the end of an Indian meal.
Why don’t you try it ?
We know about multiple choices which leave us wondering, which to choose.
Here I’m writing about only two choices. Either to be positive or negative in my thinking.
I have a choice to either rejoice for each day as a gift from God or be forgetful and think of only the negative things .
These days I’ve experienced a gradual decline in health and being negative in my thinking . Is that ok ? Surely not!
Each day when I wake up I need to thank God for another day of life. Everyone is born with an expiry date which is unknown .
How then do I live ?
If I realize he walks with me and talks with me , provided I am silent and listen .
There is so much to thank him for .
A roof over my head, food on the table , finances to live and manage my expenses , and a family….
My loving wife , children all grown up settled and grandchildren too .
I am at peace despite ongoing trouble in the world .
Therefore I need to thank God for these blessings and rejoice . The Lord knows everything. He grants our hearts desires but also refrains from granting some if he knows it’s not good for me
What about my sufferings . I have neuralgia , dystonia , and digestive problems.
At the same time he has healed my cancer , gout and lung problem.
I can share these with Jesus on the cross and pray for others with similar ailments or pray for the departed souls and even for world peace and leaders of nations ,
I have a choice to make ; either to rejoice at this moment even if things go wrong knowing God can even make saplings sprout in the desert .
The reverse would be to drown in sorrow .
Do I believe , trust , and obey our loving God ?
Am I repentant for sinning and going the wrong way ?
Then I ask for forgiveness and move on with hope for the new day
Some good people die unfulfilled; others find length of days to be more of a punishment than a privilege.
Do you really think that when a good person dies young his life was unfulfilled. What about those who live a long life ?
Is that a punishment?
Old people are faced with many types of illnesses . There are persons who fail to recognise , or physically disabled . .
But yet there are elders who are blessed with wisdom and rise to be leaders. Some are blessed with an astuteness for politics. Others can be famous writers, musicians, actors and painters wherein age is not a barrier.
Some examples are :
Jimmy Carter
Jawaharlal Nehru
Mahatma Gandhi
Nelson Mandela
Gandalf from Lord of the Rings
Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter
Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars
Will a young person be considered unfulfilled if he dies young?
There are many young people who have died young and have been successful.
Percy Shelley (poet)at 29 years
John Keats(poet) at 25 years
Ramanujam (mathematician)at 32 years
The essence of this is that the call can come at an any age . Are we ready to face our Heavenly Father.
Jesus Christ died at the age of 33 yrs. As Christian we believe that he fulfilled his mission of saving man from sin, by his death and resurrection and an outpouring of his Holy Spirit. At the right hand of God our Father he is our final judge according to the life we live, whether good or bad .
It does not matter that when a man dies young, we think he is unfulfilled, or if he dies when old it’s a punishment. Rather he can make his contribution to those around him at any age and importantly the life that he has lived
Many years ago we had the biscuit man calling out his wares near our home while on his rounds. Oooooo biscuuit wala.
He would ring our door bell and this announced his presence.
Most often he came at about 4 pm .
He then opened his Aluminium trunk ….’Peti’ in Hindi, which had several compartments. In each was a different variety of biscuits:
There were
Khari biscuits ….. flaky pastry
Ginger biscuits
Almond and cashew biscuits
Pistachio
Jeera
Nankatai
Tea toast
I loved the almond, Khari biscuits & Tea Toast.
In the evening, I would dip these biscuits while sipping my tea .
Oh this was so delicious .
I think of my biscuit man often.
With the passage of time the biscuit man has disappeared.
Today biscuits are available in shops and well packaged.
Even if I want the earlier variety of biscuits , they are not easily available.
Other vendors still come like the fish ( Machiwalla) and bread man ( Paowala) .
We do miss our biscuit man .
At Dalmally on my second trip, I met a few others who were also having a quiet stay at the Lodge. Among them , Jim’s sense of humour was very interesting. In relating a joke, he would appear to be serious.
He was immersed in painting sceneries with an array of water colours .
My curiosity led me to peek into his work .
“Jim your paintings are wonderful. ” said I, thinking it was his hobby . This was more than that.
His talent in art progressed from high school to his work life.
Even though he was in an engineering company he joined night classes in art, 6 days a week.
At this stage, he could draw faces from memory.
He met Jean who worked in the company office and eventually married her.
Their interest in drama and singing, led them to join a drama and dancing club. Soon they participated in public performances.
He later joined the railways .
With the arrival of their son Mark they moved from Glasgow to Arbroath . He honed his skill, specially in drawing profiles and was greatly encouraged by a renowned artist.
Since there was less time for art and drama he moved to Elgin. Here he began painting sceneries.
The time of Covid was a blessing in disguise. He began an art class called
Cant,draw,want to draw .
Currently he has 29 students.
An interesting part of his life is his spiritual life .
“Jim you are a hard wire” said his pastor meaning his closeness to God through knowledge of the bible.
He was a regular church goer. He drew pictures of the children’s Bible when young.
He always thought God was too busy.
But his life changed when he heard the Word from Isaiah 49:13
‘ I have carved you in the palm of my hand’
at a charismatic prayer group on invitation from his catholic wife. He thus became Catholic from being a Protestant.
What brought us to Craig Lodge ?
It is the peace and quiet; a time of prayer and just to have a break from the busy city life.
For Jim , the opportunity to paint sceneries was an added bonus .
At the end I saw him paint the Kilchurn castle, which he had visited during this time.
The biggest surprise was when I was told that
‘Jim is an amazing cartoonist’
Here are some of his past works. You will understand why I liked his sense of humour
Have you noticed people walking past you on the street, looking at their mobiles.
I’ve had the experience of nearly hitting against a pole on the pavement while following the google map.
Even when one is in conversation with friends, the moment there is a tinkle on the phone, the person will actually attend to it.
Young people experience cyber bullying.
This is a new type of addiction which is very difficult to control.
Less time is devoted to things that really matter. But we will not go into the benefits of the use of mobiles here. I only recommend keeping the mobile away for a day in the week.
You’ll be surprised as to the change happening. There is better communication between family members. Discussions happen without being interrupted by the ring of a mobile.
Just try it !
What would you change about modern society?
This was a time when I went for babysitting, or should I say , little boy sitting .
Daniel is young boy of 5years waiting to reach 6years. He got me to play a board game , which he did not know the rules. As instructions were lost , neither did I know the game. So we innovated our type of game with it . We had two men on the board and cards on the side. You rolled the dice which was coloured in different sides and you moved the man to the colour shown . Cards were on the side . As each one took a card you had to act it out.
On another occasion , he was in the midst of drawing randomly .
I asked him to draw my face . I was amazed at the result . It seemed to resemble me a bit. On his own he then drew my wife’s face from memory which also looked good . They were like caricatures of us .
He is very fond of us , his grandparents, specially his ‘Avo’ his grandmother.
On his visits to our place , he has literally adopted one of the couches . He loves jumping on it like a trampoline. When his parents and siblings join us , he makes quite a fuss if others sit on this couch .
His favourite snacks are biscuits , homemade chocolate buns and Chappaties. Other than that he gives a lot of trouble to eat anything else.
He is very fond of football and loves to score goals with his left foot. He supports Celtic like his father and Liverpool because of me.
I’ve grown to love him a lot . I often wonder how his relationship will be when he grows up. Surely it will change.
Daniel loves watching ‘Mario’ episodes and star wars on tv
However, I will always treasure these memories of my’ Daniel boy’.
What countries do you want to visit?
This is a promise, I had made to my wife rather a dream, before we were married. Till date it has not been fulfilled.
After we married we travelled to many other countries, but I still tease her about Perth.
A Silver wedding has gone by, where we chose to tour Spain and Portugal.
Now I hope before Silver turns to Gold we can visit Gold Coast.
Its Gold beaches stretch a long way. Besides the name being attractive it seems a famous tourist spot.
But what about Perth ?
To match that, in the ensuing years, we had the birth of 4 lovely children who have now grown and have families of their own .
We are now in Glasgow, and can visit London and Dubai, thanks to our children.
So whatabout Perth ?
I just checked to see its attractions. There are beautiful natural parks, wild Dolphins and reefs off the coast. Then wineries and restaurants with gourmet food, and cultural events.
Frankly, I did not know much about Perth until now, when I read a little about it.
I thought of Perth, when planning for our honeymoon only as a wild thought as I teased my beloved, knowing at that point of time it was beyond our means.
Eventually where was our honeymoon?
It was in Mussorie; which is a beautiful hill station in India.
Jermaine Shand
Jermaine hails from Jamaica.
He was an athlete until university.
His forte was sprints and he excelled in100m and 200m
In due time he was spotted by his coach who saw a potential talent of coaching in him
So he introduced him to learn coaching.
Then Jermaine moved into coaching a school team and then joined the national coaching team in Jamaica.
A few young athletes from India travelled to Jamaica to improve their style of running their specific event. There they met Jermaine and invited him to continue training them in India.
Subsequently he travelled to India and is now coaching budding athletes.
One of his pupils, Aryana Kadam, is a national gold medalist of India in the 200m
I was watching Aryana Kadam during the training of his athletes
They had multiple excercises for building up their bodies for athletics besides actual running
He says “it’s not only running , but also looking after and development of the bodies . In a week I give them two days only for the excercises, and remaining days for running .”
His athletes have a good style for running . They specialise in the sprints .
I asked him “why do only a few Indian athletes win at the International level ?”
“It’s because they train only to win medals initially without an overall development as I recommend . As a result they fade away when it really matters . It’s not only training to win against other international athletes but to strive to do even better every time, against stronger and faster athletes .
He has been training Aryana from the age of 12 years . He has now grown up to be a strong athletes. He has competed at an international meet in France .
He recommends “ as youngsters being trained for athletics, they need to be nurtured until they grow up and continue to develop.”
Sponsorship for such athletes goes a long way .
Let’s hope there are more coaches like Jermaine to take our young athletes to the next level.
At the break of day
As the sun rises
It gives hope and courage
And as it sets
Can it be the same
Or , is there a difference.
with the sunset you see ;
If sunrise offers renewal
Then sunset offers rest
Both needed for life
The sky with shades of grey
graduates into a range of colours
While it peeps at dawn
and in golden hues
dips at sunset
Oh life , what would you be
If brother sun is absent
Have I counted the
Reveilles and Retreats,
And taps at the end of day
How little I heed
sun’s rise and fall
On travels by train or plane
On holidays by the sea
Or just on a drive
Until I suddenly see your beauty
and try to hold it still in a picture !
viewvin 