2 Wheeled Fun

I finally got my bicycle repaired. The repair was basically fixing the brake for the rear wheel and refilling the air in both the tyres. Now, the tyre offers very less resistance - for obvious reasons. And it took some time to adapt to the fact that the rear brake of the cycle is functional again. I misjugded  the strength of the brake once and almost tipped over, using the rear brakes!

Another funny incident that I recently learnt about me - my mother told me not long ago.
When I was about 2 to 3 years old, I wanted a toy and a friend's mother parked her motorised 2 wheeler - a scooter - between it and me. I wanted my toy, and naturally I was angry. My pleading with the other mom brought no fruit. Finally I, aged about 2, asked her, "Where are the brakes?"
[Obviously in Marathi - local language and mothertongue]
She pointed out the brakes.
"Where is the 'peep-peep'?"
[That obviously means 'horn']
She pointed out the horn.
"Where is the kick?"
She kick-started the scooter, and I said,
"Now go!"

A Long Vacation Uncalled For

Dear readers, sorry for the long break. The title of this post sort of explains that. It was also partially due to such a vacation.
From the 12th to the 14th of November, I was out of Pune, in a pet-friendly resort, during Diwali. I may have earlier written (or rather, typed) about how much the concept of Diwali has changed.
The local mythological reasson is that the King of Ayodhya returned after defeating the Emperor of Lanka and to celebrate that, there are lights and snacks - known as PharaaL - both of which I am not fond of.
We left after the Laxmi Puja - worship of the goddess of wealth. Yes, I hated that too! I am an Atheist! And my mother makes me participate in these 'festivities'.
And the trip out of Pune was not all bad - the only good thing being the ability to stay away from Pune in Diwali, or rather, from any town or city.
The trip, well, backfired, and I was demotivated from then on. That is one of the reasons I could not get myself to write.

General Observations - 6

Where I sit to study, I saw a centipede. It was a small one. It was caught and eaten by a spider.

On another one of the boring days when I'm not bored, I prepared another slide, but this time, I observed the dehydration of the slide under magnification. Yes, that means that I observed that water-air interface move.

I made turmeric paper at home, which is basically turmeric powder in water, poured on a tissue paper, and then dried. It changes colour from yellow to red (as you may know) in a strongly basic medium, i.e. a weakly basic medium is not enough to cause the change.

An observation about DBZ - why do 'Super Saiyans' have blond hair and blue eyes? Isn't that racist? (If you know what I mean).

Also, 'Outbreak' by Robin Cook is a great read.

Gold

Gold is a very valuable metal, as everyone knows. I don't really know why that is so. I know that gold is essential for the electronics industry, as there is no other metal with such a balance of conductivity (electrical) and ductility.
The other part - gold is golden (obviously) and people seem to like wearing it. Now, I really don't understand what difference it makes. That is also why I can see things a bit differently.
In India, gold has now become a controversial issue. Of course, in ancient times, India was the largest producer of gold and gold coins used as currency, but today, the saying that the balance has shifted would be an understatement.
Gold has been of religious and spiritual importance (I can't understand why), and people find it difficult to part from it, possibly due to its market price. That also makes little sense as the gold prices a couple of years back were as high as 30,000 rupees per 10g.
There are people in India, even temples, which, quite literally, hoarde gold. Most is probably donated by people (again, I don't understand how parting with a potentially valuable material just to give it to an organisation which already has tons of it helps). In the parantheses, I said 'tons'. I wish that were false - it's not. I feel it's because of these hoarders that the Indian rupee suffers. All that gold has better use in the World Bank, than stored secretly in temples.