What kind of a topic heading is that ?
Well, I don’t know what kind – except that it is what came to mind, with a fresh cup of hot instant coffee Sunday Morning, after having mopped the kitchen table. I do not feel too good this weekend because I did not go outdoors and walk about in the reeds, and did not train my binocular on far off mountains. It does not feel nice if household chores take precedence over nature. But then, nature can survive without me. In fact, nature does survive pretty well without human interference. But the kitchen table had dried stains of old coffee, specks of marmalade, dried butter, crumbs of bread, and other associated tidbits. It needed cleaning. The trouble is, whenever I engage in some household chores, my lower back starts aching after a while. Somehow, when I am carting a heavy lens on a big camera, mounted on a heavier tripod, across uneven grounds and through bushes, for hours on end with very little respite – that same back seems not to be bothering me at all. I wonder if the welfare of my lower vertebrates are somehow linked to the subconscious wishes of my brain. I am not even sure which half of the brain is involved in encouraging me to spend time outdoors with my camera.
Anyhow, mopping done, I started another household chore – converting old DVDs into digital files in hard drives, so the physical disk and its plastic jacket can be retired out of my study and hopefully out of the house. It takes up space and its no more convenient to run a  dvd player to see movies.
Anyone heard of iTunes store and netflix ?
But that’s not a proper chore – you click a few buttons and then the computer does its thing without needing further help from you. You are free to do some more mopping, or finding those dirty trousers that are tucked in this or that corner, and take them downstairs to the laundry bag. Well, I do not take clothes downstairs per se. I toss them from upstairs into the air, and curvature of space does the rest. This curvature is not seen easily, but felt – in the form of gravitational pull between two objects that have mass. The earth pulls my dirty trouser down towards the centre of the planet, and my trouser tries to pull the planet up to meet it in mid air. But since the relative mass of the planet is a tad more than that of the trouser, the earth manages to pull the trouser proportionately more down. The tiny amount of upward motion of the planet, is so small, that folks standing on its surface, and moving up and down with it, do not notice. Folks do notice heavier unplanned motions of the planet, but usually recognize them as earth-quakes or being attacked by enemy bombers and such – most unpleasant turn of events that have little to do with my dirty trousers.
So, the trouser lands on the carpet on the ground floor near the entrance door. I descend through the stairs – because I cannot do what the trouser can, i.e. Meeting planet earth in mid air, without the selfsame lower back vertebrae and other parts of the body facing some serious damage.
I usually pick the dirty clothing off the carpet and move sideways about four meters into the passage where we have the washer and the dryer. We do not share it with our basement tenant – they have their own.
But the point is – the lower spine gives an indirect indication that I should consider sitting down at the dining table with a hot cup of coffee and do something less strenuous and more stimulating, for a short while at least.
And thats when I thought about how to arrange a telephone talk event with Debal Deb, the social activist that I am just beginning to fully appreciate, as I read more about his activity in India, as well as read his book. I should cover those issues properly on future blogs, perhaps. Meanwhile, I was looking for an opportunity to speak with him. I wanted Madhusree Mukherjee to sort of co-ordinate it on the phone, she in Germany, me in Canada and Debal in India.
But, man proposes, woman disposes. Madhusree is on her way to India for a vacation. Debal has been silent on this issue.
And so, here I am, dirty trouser tucked away in the laundry bag, a large cup of hot instant coffee next to me, sitting at the dining table with the mac pro notebook open, writing yet another blog, where the subject heading has only circumstantial reference in an otherwise strange blog.

Tonu