DK Kapila The Oracle

  An Interesting Social Evolution Underway Me and my inclination to watch and listen. At this lovely upscale hotel, more like a resort, at Udaipur, in December 2023, well the wedding season is on. Relatives of the immediate two families going to be related by marriage are driving up. With the traditional drums and folk dancers welcoming each guest, even those not invited to the wedding are welcomed but then how can the staff make out. But imagine the befuddled looks of a couple or family just coming for sightseeing and getting a drummed up welcome. But the real show is somewhere else. The marriage is the show. First you see the grandmas and aunts, the older types. Heads covered, permanently it seems, waddling in due to old knees, socks and chappals on, sitting around. But the diamonds are shining and big. Then comes the mother and the younger aunts, heads covered ever so firmly, speaking some English, moving around giving off positive energy on footwear they may not be actually use...

  Poor Dinesh ! Poor Poor Dinesh !! No it’s about me. Just to be clear. It’s all about poor Dinesh at the New Delhi International Airport. I should have walked upto him and patted his shoulder in sympathy. I should have blessed him and wished him more stoicism. But I did not. Social conventions mandate discretion at times. I was standing in line at the Tea Counter. In December. Keeping a social distance due to some in the queue coughing. A sort of distance as in Covid times so to say. I had to, after all if the wife wants tea so do you. The perils of social distancing came into play suddenly. A young lady with a stroller and a rather grown up kid just bulldozed her way in. Swung the stroller around like a weapon and said excuse me Sir, step back. Taken aback at this new mode of warfare, a stroller with a kid included, moving across in a wide arc, pointedly at me, I stepped back. Immediately. The young lady after that said, Dinesh, take the stroller and watch Rajesh. I noticed a you...

 A ttitudes to Stray Dogs have evolved. We read today a lot about the rights of stray dogs. Street dogs if you will. They can only be vaccinated and sterilised but cannot be displaced from their locality or chased out. FiRs are registered against those people (human beings) who inflict any cruelty upon them, even if for some it’s a response to harassment or a bite to a loved one. The judges have thrown their weight behind animal rights, specially at the Supreme Court, but it’s led to a lot of conflicts within localities as residents find themselves on opposite camps. There are those who are indifferent, then those who were indifferent until attacked or harassed, then those fed up of the noise and littering caused by strays, then those who adopt a few strays and lastly the activists. It’s a tough call for each category after each episode by a stray dog. The littering caused by the packs of street dogs is another concern.. This is as it is the last decade or more so but it was not al...