On A Loose End

Come wednesday and the biggest ever tax increase on tobacco products takes place. The tax in the US has been increased from 39 cents to $1.01 for cigarettes and from 19.5 cents per pound to 50 cents for chewing tobacco. Dubbed as a public health move one can see through the effort as being the only soul saver in the dwindling economy. The retail sales in other industries have gone down substantially in the last one year and consequently so has the tax collection. Therefore the government has targeted the ever reliable, 'smokin' hot' industry for increasing the tax collections so as to fund the bailouts. Even though the anti-smoking advocates say that increasing the prices of cigarettes reduces consumption, not many people have quit smoking solely because of the price of the cigarettes. If the government was really bothered about the public health they would have shut down the tobacco industry long time back. The fact that they don't says a lot about the motives. Sometim...

Many people feel that giving up is failure. One can blame King Robert the Bruce of Scotland for this behavior. Fortunately for them, both the spider as well as the King Robert the Bruce of Scotland succeeded in their seventh attempt. Unfortunately for all of us, King Robert the Bruce of Scotland, the loudmouth that he was, told the story to everyone who cared to listen. It wasn’t long before the story became folklore, notwithstanding the possibility that maybe the spider was just having a nice swing in the cave and King Robert the Bruce of Scotland thought that he was trying to go to the other side of the cave to spin a web. The spider saw this man staring at him and was probably pissed off at the intrusion into its privacy and decided to go to work. Right from childhood people are being taught that they ought to try, try and try again. Don’t give up, they say. But everyone conveniently forgets to teach people about judging the necessity of the task as also to understand their own lim...

Pope Benedict XVI kick-started his tour of Africa with a controversy. He made a statement indicating that distribution of condoms are not a solution to Africa's HIV epidemic. He went on to add that on the contrary it increases the problem. Maybe he was only furthering the philosophy of his predecessor who often said that sexual abstinence was the best way to prevent the spread of the disease. Or maybe he was just furthering the catholic church's agenda of rejecting anything to do with artificial contraception. Either way, the Pope may have just popped the cat out of the bag. With 22 million people having HIV in Africa, any kind of means to reduce the incidence of transmission should be welcomed, even if it does not conform to the religious teachings. Education campaigns promoting abstinence have not really worked in the past even in developed nations, the nature's call overpowering the sensibilities time and time again. Who do you educate? The ones having the HIV? They coul...

I remember saying that the first time about twenty five years back and that first time is still clearly etched into my memory. It was when I was in my twelfth grade. It was a funny combination of students. There were eight boys and sixteen girls. Boy, were we boys lucky? Sixteen sweet girls of sixteen. Anyway, it was at the Biology lab. That day it was raining outside because of which the weather was kind of chilly. Everyone else had left and there were only two of us left. There was a lot of formalin, chloroform and I don't know what else, in the air and it had an intoxicating effect on us. The door to the lab was closed and so were all the windows. I held her hand in mine. It was warm to touch and I could feel a slight trembling of her fingers because of anticipation. I pulled her hand slowly towards myself. I was very sure that if she didn't do it by herself, I was going to force her this time. We had been there for long and we were running out of time. She also seemed read...

Let me admit, I am not good at this and I do not even have any experience. It’s not that I never had the itch. Many times, but my partner faithfully kept scratching every time she noticed me getting the itch. She was so good at noticing it that at times she scratched even before the preliminary chemical initiation of the itch had started. And she made it be known to me that she had noticed. However, the itch never gives up and one has to be careful. Now it is 14 Years of marriage. It means the seven year itch back with a vengeance in double the strength and some. More so, if one resisted the temptation in the seventh year. My research on why men cheat has thrown up some interesting stuff. First a folklore: A man was convinced that his destiny was to one day catch a rainbow. The man spent his lifetime chasing rainbows. He was committed and dedicated to his purpose, even though he was miserable most of his life. In the end, he did not succeed, in catching the rainbow, that is. He dies wi...

Ever wonder about why people are not content with what they have and whether it is possible at all to be content and therefore happy? My answer is a resounding yes. Resounding because I heard it again as soon as I said yes. Maybe it was my alter ego, maybe God himself or maybe my son playing tricks with me, again. Well, the research, if you can call it that, gave me the biggest reason for discontentment; ‘The Grass is Greener on the Other Side’. The single most cause of many of man’s miseries has been looking at the other side, whether it was money, men/women or power, someone always had more and/or better and one's own satisfaction was trivialized / overpowered by some other persons achievements and the poor chap does not even know it. Happy people, where are they; In the 60’s, during the hippy movement, everyone was happy and high. I was not there but whatever little I have read, they knew Grass to be something entirely different from the grass I am talking about. For them there ...