Nursery Rhymes

Lot of miles , they say , has flown past by my car’s wheels. What used to be an immensely enjoyable drive to Calicut has been reduced to a slightly bitter experience due to the condition of roads in Kerala.

But that is not the point I am trying to make. I was listening to my wife sing some nursery rhymes with my daughter and I am startled how violent some of these are !!

Take Goosey Goosey Gander

Goosey goosey gander,
Whither shall I wander?
Upstairs and downstairs
And in my lady's chamber.
There I met an old man
Who wouldn't say his prayers,
So I took him by his left leg
And threw him down the stairs

And of course there is poor old Humpty Dumpty who seems to have met a rather violent end

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again

Now there can’t be a problem with Jack and Jill, can there ? Multiple fractures at the bare minimum, the following lines would suggest ..

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.

What about the three little blind mice ? Listen to this ghastly tail chopping tale ….

Three blind mice. Three blind mice.
See how they run. See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a sight in your life,
As three blind mice

Hmmmmm, looks like we should be more worried about the nursery rhymes than about violence on TV :-)) Now I know why I always had a soft spot for Twinkle Twinkle little star :-)

The robot

Finally watched my first ever Rajni movie, Endhiran . I sort of liked it !! :-) The first half is very watchable, the second half becomes a bit too much of special effects and action.

What else , apart from that ?

Well, we recently celebrated our little one’s 6th birthday back home in Calicut. Her school has closed for Puja holidays here , so she is back home with my parents now. She was overjoyed to be back in the surroundings in which she grew up for the past 4 years.

I guess one of the good things about the 4 years I spent separated from my family is that my daughter has formed very close bonds with both sets of grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. That can only be good.

6 years, time does fly !!

It simply does not add up

Incident-1: One of the all under one roof home furnishing stores.

The conversation goes something like this

I like this chair, I will take it , how much is it ?
940 sir
Here you are, I have a Rs.1000 note
Sir can you pay me 60 more ? I can then return 100 to you 
Errr …. Why do you say you want 60 ? Are you planning to pay me back 120 ?
No, sir I will give you back 100. See the chair is 940, you paid me 1000, so if you give me 60 more, i can give you 100
If I give you 40, you need to pay me back 100. If I give you 60, you need to give me back 120 !!

Total confusion, 2-3 minutes of patient explaining on how addition works, finally she gets my point. Well it is late in the evening and she must be getting tired, I think

Incident-2: A famous retail store

How much is the total bill ?
309 Sir
Here is 1000
Do you have 9 Rs change ?
Nope, but here is a 10
Here is your balance, 601
601 ??? Haven’t you missed a hundred ????
No sir it is correct. The bill is for 309, I gave you 601
And if you add the two what will you get ?

System crash. Cashier just froze. She calls her manager to figure out this tough math problem. Manager thankfully is an older guy who can still add 2 numbers in his head, so I get my 100 without too much hassle.
Surely this must be a coincidence, I think. Our math skills have not gone so bad, have they ?

 Incident-3: Yet another famous retail store

Your bill is 240 sir
Ok cool, take this 500 note
Your change sir, 160
What the …., aren’t you making a mistake, I should get back 260 !!

Again 2 minutes of confusion, but finally I get my additional 100. Man , surely something is stinking, and this time it has got nothing to do with the food in my refrigerator !!
------------------------------------------------------------------Common trend between all three stores
(a) The cashiers did not enter the amount I paid to their billing machine and did the math on their own.
(b) All cashiers are kids in the 18-21 age group

Question I have is this. Has the proliferation of Cell-phone calculators and computers affected our basic math skills so much ??? 

One thing is for sure, gone are days when I used to take my change and blindly shove into the purse without counting !! I am counting every note from now on !!