Dog Talks and Banker’s Dream

Dog Talks and Banker’s Dream

This story was long overdue.

This I extracted from a dog banker or more or less from a banker’s dog.

I went to ask for an overdraft facility to pay my Telephone, Electricity and Water bills for the month of December from a commercial bank.

It was a Friday and I went very early, even before the bank was open.

You know, in spite of many banks and many facilities one has to wait in the queue to get your own money.

But, if one has to get money from the bank, one has to wait longer in the queue.

Then the questions they ask before extending whatever the facility they release you on bail like procedure, I wish I am dead and on a different planet.

Because I was early, I had nothing else but to watch the procedure of opening the bank diligently.

There was a big.

There was a big security guard wearing a big beard.

The officer of a lower rank who comes was not there yet.

When I entered, dog had a little sniff at me and ignored me as nothing of worth and he knew at a glance I was not a bank thief.

Mind you these dogs are trained to detect thieves and rich people only.

I did fall into neither.

The dog look tired a bit restless, profusely salivating and the security guard looked obviously in a panic mode.

The officer of a lower rank did come and immediately followed by the manager of the bank.

Anyway, I knew the manager very well and he promptly extended the credit facility and I was off on the street in a flash having exchanged Christmas and New Year greetings.

He even told me that bank officers are the only ones who never get greeting cards or chocolates.

But my scientific observation even though brief was the reason for the discovery of this story I am going to tell you.

During our industrial action I developed a little gadget using Raspberry Pi, the latest IT gadget on ARM base (not Microsoft fortunately) on the market ,one can modify to one’s own taste from media centre to a server utility.

I decided to record dogs’ dreams and their talks.

Since, the ARM is open source, I have decided not to apply for any industry award as the creation of this century.

Reason being if we record all what dogs talk about bankers, economic experts and politicians, I will be executed by a special decree.

You will get a rare glimpse of only a randomly random but aberrant sample of it.

This gadget works only a short wireless distance but a considerable distance over frequencies what dogs can detect but humans cannot.

If I had used wireless distance, I had to go behind dogs and no dog will relate any story privy to them, if I follow them on street talks, fearing their extinction from this planet.

Dogs talks are honest and their dreams are very simple unlike our politicians, fortunately.

I set up a big antenna covering my sphere of activity and the few banks around me.

I had to scan over about a week to get a proper story, since there were much mundane stories from Paraya dogs talking about their meagre supply in dustbins and there were only a few Bank Dogs.

Finally, I got hold over the dog who belonged to this particular bank strangely on street with another Paraya dog.

It was an illuminating story.

The Paraya started the dog talk.

Are you on holiday?

Nope.

You will be sacked from your job know?

I will be, if I do not find my girl friend.

Why?

I put her as my replacement or decoy and she did not turn up today.

That is why I am on the street, can the help me?

NO PROBLEM.

Can you describe the one, I have many girl friends which I have lost count of.

How many you have.

One regular and only a few others since I cannot get leave from duty to roam about.

Then, he said I know this particular one, she is not  a Paraya variety anyway but cross between pedigree and Paraya.

I will take you to her but what is around your neck?

It does not look like dog collar or a belt abut a necklace.

I do not see bankers wearing artificial metal except gold nowadays with gold prices sky high!

No it is not a necklace but security keys of the bank.

I am taking them to my girl friend and she delivers it to the guard and both of are safe then.

It is very naughty know, the bank is at risk know?

No as long as the keys are with dogs.

It is the humans one cannot trust.

I am also sure that he will not sleep in his post till he finds the keys.

When I am there. he sleeps and I am doing a service to my master, the bank by this method.

She goes there first and get half of my meal and I immediately follow after his anger towards me had disappeared.

You are very brainy know?

That is what I am a Bank Dog.

I must tell you I have edited a lot of this story since getting a scanned story is difficult since the dogs are always on the move and they go through various routes with many obstacles including magnetic devices installed.

It is not like reading a Sunday paper where from editorial to news to features are doctored.

Then I have to convert the frequencies in them to analogue and word form and many traces are lost and lot of pauses.

Unlike human dogs do not keep on talking and they do other things in between which we are familiar with.

I will detour here and few lines on bankers dreams which are retold by dogs while listening to their conversations after heavy drinks.

The dream are not like my dreams and no need to send them to Maha for interpretations.

They are very simple and only a very few.

One dream is becoming a director of a bank and not a bank officer when one does not have to work.

Other is getting a post in a foreign bank.

They are so real they cannot be categorized as real dreams.

Now I will give a summary form the way a bank security guard works from data analysed from Raspberry Pi modified.

1. They are very good sleeping on  duty hours like most of our security guards on duty.

2. They feed the dog half the quota due for the dog.
The better half he eats. Their food is no better than dog food anyway.

3. He buys liqueur from the saved money since their pay is no better.

4. Then he goes to sleep while the dog half hungry does his part of the job.

5. That is why they devised a plot to get out of the boredom but make sure that the friend dog stays on guard till the official dog returns after roaming.

The guard who is drunk and doped could not say who is his dog or who the Paraya dog except when he/she is awake.

This is the way both Paraya dogs and pedigree dogs coexist on this small state where money is everything and duty is not.

Do Dogs Dream = D.D.D?

Do Dogs Dream = D.D.D?

The next question is, if they do, can you detect when your dog dreams?

I am convinced that my dog dreams as well as me when on holidays.

In my case I dream on working days not on holidays.

If I dream on a holiday I consider myself sick or going to be sick.

So make sure that you do not dream on holidays otherwise it will make your next day of holiday a misery.

In actual fact, on holidays we sleep less, do more things (as far as I am concerned) and enjoy life more.

We do not have to dream lies for the working when on is on holidays make better use of your holiday.

In any case holiday is dream come true so act on your instinct.

I have cut paste the probable answer/s to above but let me tell my story.

Our prolong strike (please note, I made a resolution not to write anything to amuse the readers who were quite a number then, during this period-you are getting small sample that would have come if I was working) made me to observe my dog and it was welcome company to me who was bored to death.

To begin with we synchronized our sleep’

My dreams became less and less.

I was sleeping a lot and started getting up at bizarre times when my dog was fast sleep.

Fearing I disturb his sleep, I stealthily get out of my bed and do something mundane, like sorting out my books or files or photographs.

Then I quickly lost interested in them and one day, started watching my dog who was well into its sleep.

This became a habit.

He gets into postures which were its puppy days and happy days and in complete meditative relaxation.

He does not get up at these times and enjoy them.

I am convinced he dreams well when I am on holiday without any E.E.G. records.

So if you are bored try watching your dog and try to identify the times he or she dreams.

I believe dogs to need a good dose of happy dreams.

Well there another question to wind this up.

What is the single most common dream in Sri-Lanka?

My survey results says, every Sri-Lankan dreams of becoming the president of the country.

Then he gets up happy but when he realises that it was a dream he is frightened to death.

He knows only one can become a president and that is also indefinitely and he does not have a fighting chance even in a dream.

He/She does not tell dream even to the respective spouse.

Please do not tell this to the president.

If you do so, I am sure it will be gazetted soon “dreaming is prohibited”.

Read the article below if you have time.

Do Dogs Dream?

Dogs dream like humans and about similar things.

Published on October 28, 2010 by Stanley Coren, Ph.D., F.R.S.C. in Canine Corner

Many people believe that dogs do dream. Most dog owners have noticed that at various times during their sleep, some dogs may quiver, make leg twitches or may even growl or snap at some sleep-created phantom, giving the impression that they are dreaming about something. At the structural level, the brains of dogs are similar to those of humans. Also, during sleep the brain wave patterns of dogs are similar that of people, and go through the same stages of electrical activity observed in humans, all of which is consistent with the idea that dogs are dreaming.

Actually if dogs didn't dream this would be a much greater surprise given that recent evidence suggests that animals that are simpler and less intelligent than dogs seem to dream. Matthew Wilson and Kenway Louie of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have evidence that the brains of sleeping rats are functioning in a way that irresistibly suggests dreaming. Much of the dreaming that you do at night is associated with the activities that you engaged in that day. The same seems to be the case in rats. Thus if a rat ran a complex maze during the day he might be expected to dream about it at night. While a rat was awake and learning the maze, electrical recordings were taken from its hippocampus (an area of the brain associated with memory formation and storage). Researchers found that some of these electrical patterns were quite specific and identifiable depending upon what the rat was doing. Later, when the rats were asleep and their brain waves indicated that they had entered the stage where humans normally dream, these same patterns of brain waves appeared. In fact the patterns were so clear and specific that the researchers were able to tell where in the maze the rat would be if it were awake, and whether it would be moving or standing still. Wilson cautiously described the results, saying, "The animal is certainly recalling memories of those events as they occurred during the awake state, and it is doing so during dream sleep and that's just what people do when they dream."

Find a Therapist

Since a dog's brain is more complex and shows the same electrical sequences, it is reasonable to assume that dogs are dreaming, as well. There is also evidence that they dream about common dog activities. This kind of research takes advantage of the fact that there is a special structure in the brainstem (the pons) that keeps all of us from acting out our dreams. When scientists removed or inactivated the part of the brain that suppresses acting out of dreams in dogs, they observed that they began to move around, despite the fact that electrical recordings of their brains indicated that the dogs were still fast asleep. The dogs only started to move when the brain entered that stage of sleep associated with dreaming. During the course of a dream episode these dogs actually began to execute the actions that they were performing in their dreams. Thus researchers found that a dreaming pointer may immediately start searching for game and may even go on point, a sleeping Springer Spaniel may flush an imaginary bird in his dreams, while a dreaming Doberman pincher may pick a fight with a dream burglar.

It is really quite easy to determine when your dog is dreaming without resorting to brain surgery or electrical recordings. All that you have to do is to watch him from the time he starts to doze off. As the dog's sleep becomes deeper his breathing will become more regular. After a period of about 20 minutes for an average-sized dog his first dream should start. You will recognize the change because his breathing will become shallow and irregular. There may be odd muscle twitches, and you can even see the dog's eyes moving behind its closed lids if you look closely enough. The eyes are moving because the dog is actually looking at the dream images as if they were real images of the world. These eye movements are most characteristic of dreaming sleep. When human beings are awakened during this rapid eye movement or REM sleep phase, they virtually always report that they were dreaming.

I recently received a letter from Joseph Baker, which seems to confirm the idea of dogs having dreams about their everyday activities. I have taken the liberty of reproducing part of it here.

   "I have an anecdote that you may find interesting, however it requires some back story. About three years ago I heard a story on the radio about a cognitive scientist who was trying to understand sleep and dreams. He had a hypothesis describing how sensory memories replay themselves during early REM sleep. The study he published had subjects play Tetris [a computer game where you try to line up falling blocks of various colors] and then report whether or not they saw the little Tetris bricks in their dreams. This stuck with me because the previous night I had very vivid dreams involving a hike I had been on earlier. I could feel the snow and smell the air as though it were real.

   "This brings me to my dog. Goober is a basenji, and like many basenjis he hates water and being bathed. As soon as my wife finishes bathing him he bolts out of the bathroom door, finds me, and tries to hide behind me or under me. So one day Goober was forced to be cleaned and underwent his ritual of hiding behind me. Later that night he was sleep running. He awoke with a start, and then bolted to my location to hide under my legs. This was very awkward as I was sitting on the toilet at the time. I believe that he was dreaming, and I believe that he was dreaming about having a bath. I believe this because he only engages in this behavior when a bath is involved."

Well Joe, I believe that there are at least two psychologists at MIT who would agree with you.

Dream 29 and its interpretation

It is a new Dream

It is fortunately a public holiday, I woke up very, very late.

In fact, it was after three attempts by my dog telling me, it is pretty late in the day, as far as he was concerned.

Why don’t you wake up?

That was his message.

He has got used to a good routine with me all because of our prolong industrial action, he knows all my routines by heart.

He never put his front feet on the bed but he did it toady to see whether I was really late but not dead on my sleep.

I had a nice long dream too.

Thanks to his interruptions I can remember it very well to relate it here.

I have to take a little detour this time round, not sending it to Maha Brahma first and come back with an interpretations.

In fact, I have not had any communication with him for a long time.

He will have a very long list of questions and a prolong interview (internet chat wise and not a direct contact with him-for those of you who do not know my modus operandum) and I should have quick answers and with the Sri-Lankan Telecom as slow as it is, to respond to his celestial contacts, not having a satellite of it own.

It is a big toll.

I do not want the readers to stay for another day.

The interpretation and the long internet chat I will have with him, I should pen down later.

For a change, I want you to interpret it, in your own ways in the mean time.

The Dream

The dream goes backs to about 50 years.

It was in the Peradeniya Campus.

It was in the evening and I was doing my own jog around the campus.

I was on the side of our physiology don’s house, who was a burgher gentleman.

I climbed a little soil mound and peeped over the window to see whether  the madam was in to tease her. 

To my horror she got into a panic mode and loudly said,

“Leela, the thief has come, catch him”.

Leela is the wife of another don in the Faculty of Arts.

She got hold of a broomstick (that is the recognized weapon and no T-56 then) and moved sideways and I followed her instinct for a few steps and quickly took a about turn and ran behind her house and the neighbour’s house, knowing well if I enter her front compound I could be caught, perhaps with a broomstick in her hand too.

I took a detour and came round by another route to see Mrs. Leela was coming down across another alleyway with a big pole in her hand.

I took to my feet swiftly like a horse and was down a steep hill that lead to a small paddy (yes we had a little paddy filed inside the campus then) field.

When I approached there well away from my attackers, I decided to have a pause to catch my breath and little peace in my mind.

I was in a pensive mood when an middle age woman approached me clad in muddy cloth with some kind of grass in her hand.

I thought she was cutting grass for the cow she had (yes we had cows in the campus then).

She asked me whether I was a undergraduate.

I said, Yes.

Then she asked me whether I know the Vice Chancellor personally.

I did not know what to say.

Those days the VC is such a big stature, we undergraduates have no contact with him, unless we have done something very nasty and grave that we get  a resound warning without any inquiry or criminal court.

I did not want to accept my predicament but said to her I knew him very well.

She said,  “Aiyyoh Mahathaya Ahenum Baridha Ahanna Thawa Kananayakata Wapuranna Denna Kiyala”.

Could you please ask him whether she can have another season of paddy cultivation instead of the special grass she was asked to grow.

I asked her what is this all about.

She told me that she was asked to lay the special type of grass on her paddy field instead of cultivating rice.

I asked, Why?

“Ane Maha Ragina Enawane”.

Queen is visiting the country.

I told her I would try and had a few seconds pause to gather my composure and make good the fundamental error of “Peeping Tom” behaviour.

I walked back the long route I had taken back to the house of our don.

On my way, I found the long pole ,Leela had dropped and I wanted to return it back in case she needs it.

As I was walking up with the pole in hand, I saw VC coming down the lane.

There was no way of avoiding him.

I raised the pole as I was carrying a flag on top of it.

I walked toward him bravely and the second running to escape him was not in my mind.

He came down slowly with a majestic imposing posture.

He was wearing a British hat.

He paused having come down to where I was.

I had become stationary by that time with the pole erect on my hand.

As he approached me I lowered it as if I was a pole vault jumper.

Are you practising how to carry a flag on a pole.

I said, No.

I was practising pole vault, I said.

I ordered a new one from England.

It is very heavy and of British standard, I told him.

This is of the correct weight for me.

Then he said, I see about your need anyway.

Thank you, Sir.

Where are you taking it?

I said  “to whom it belongs”.

He said Good Old Boy.

By now I knew, I was in a good working relationship with the VC, I took the courage to ask the question that poor lady could not ask from him.

Sir, May, I may, make a request for somebody.

Who is that somebody?

He was very attentive and inquisitive.

I said I met that woman and she wanted another season for rice cultivation.

That cannot be done he said abruptly.

Then, I looked at him very politely and said rice takes only three and half months to maturity and the grass only half that time  and the Queen is coming one year from now and there is enough time to do all that.

Is that so?

You seem to know quite a lot, “are you an agriculture student”.

No Sir, I am  a Medical Student and put a little substance to my pole carrying adventure.

Then he said go and tell her she can have even two seasons but by the time Queen is here there should be a posh growth of green grass over there.

Then he went onto say if I see you carrying poles instead of looking after patients, I will make you a pole bearer of the university and not in the parliament. 

That is the type of environment we had when we were in the University.

It is quite different now.

I walked up to the house and met the lady and handed over the pole.

She was puzzled.

She had seen me in a bit of a long conversation with VC and she did not know what to say.

Then I went to the house of our burgher don and talked to the lady as nothing improper has happened.

She invited me for a cup of tea with cookies, which was my original intention which was interrupted by her panic and commotion that followed.

I cannot remember how many lies I told her over the cup of tea.

That was a survival need as a young undergraduate, otherwise we would have been expelled within the first term of our academic year, if everybody knew what we did off academic hours.

The lady was a typical Victorian type.

I told her, if I was her, I would not invite the VC for a cup of tea if my teacher was not at home.

She did not ask why?

Then, I said, VC was trying to enter the neighbour house’s from back door and he detoured having seen me with the pole.

Is that so?

Yes, I said loudly.

Mind you that was the biggest lie on that day.

By that time, I have begun to hate Leela for carrying a big pole to hit me instead of a broomstick.

Everybody, knew VC was a ladies man and there were enough in the Art Faculty to prey at that time but not in the Medical Faculty.

We exchanged pleasantries and I was a regular visitor and she was like real aunt to me.

She is no more but probably in heaven.

Now this one is for you.

How many lies in total.

Unlike politicians who lie for a living in broad day light I am entitled to lies in my dreams.

If you can help me to count them.

I have lost count of them.

Dream is a good recipe for people like me and we have this satisfaction of lying in our deep sleep mode.

That is why dream are for us and not for politicians.

I am told that the politicians see their lies in their own sleep get terrified and wake up ever so often not knowing how to coin the next lie.

I will come back with Maha interpretation of this dream very soon.

Maha Brahma’s Interpretation

As I promised I sent the above dream by email to Maha just after my very late light dinner.

He promptly replied.

We had a long interrogation.

It went on like this and some bits and pieces are edited and summarized to make it shorter.

He wanted an explanation for me not sending any dream for over one year for interpretation.

I said it is a very short space in his timing but it was a horrible year for me.

He was taken aback with my reply.

I said I did not want to send some boring and mundane facts.

1. The world was supposed to end by December.

Did you believe it?

I said, NO,

Then why?

All the others believed it.

2. Then we had a long industrial action.

Did you want to get a salary increase before the end of the world?

Yes and No.

Yes, some of our young union guys believed that it is better to enjoy a salary increase before the end of the world.

The vagabonds like me never believed that they will increase anything and also predicted that it is a long drawn out affair and painful too.

Did you get a substantial increase.

NOPE!

3. I did not want to share my intellectual property, that included my dreams during that period.

It is improper to share the intellect when one is on strike.

It is a bane in academic circles.

You thought I will leak the dreams to the media?

No, no, nothing like that.

I trust you.

It is my memory and email habits.

If I posted those dreams by internet, I won’t have any to share with my fellow beings at the end of the strike.

I am losing my memory a bit and I even momentarily forgot my emails passwords.

How come?

I have never had such a long time away from work, really not working, I started enjoying life, in spite of no money in my pocket.

With this loose habit I started forgetting and was sleeping a lot.

Do you record my dreams.

No my dear.

Do you have good memory.

No my dear.

There you are, that justify my position.

But then, I have no fun in between, Know? 

Did you dream a lot?

To tell you the truth not a lot.

Why?

When somebody is off work he or she gets a good sleep without dreams.

So you dream a lot when you work.

Yes, that is why I am coming back to you.

It is long time after the settlement, you would have had some dreams.

4. Yes I stored them in summary form for year 2013.

That is naughty of you.

No, no there were other reasons.

In history when they reflect on humans on year 2012, there will be lot of the theories to record and my dream won’t have any currency.

That is a very good point.

Have you got enough for a book?

Yes but not until I get your interpretation.

I will be posting at least one a month from now onward.

THANK YOU.

5. Then we had this CJ affair.

What is it all about.

I do not understand Sir.

They call the law is an ASS or ARSxxxxxx.

Is it TRUE.

Yes as far as Sri-Lanka is concerned.

The dreams during this period was all political dreams.

Nothing worth recording.

It is not realistic to talk about those dreams.

Why?

I. On the one hand, it is the breach of trust and contempt of court.

One can go to prison.

II. Then on the other hand one is breaking the parliamentary privileges.

One will go to hell on earth if one breaches the parliamentary privileges.

III. Then there is the constitution to interpret.

If the dream is not according to the constitutional requirements one is not able to publish it in a proper intellectual forum.

It is very complicated know?

It is not like that.

We make simple things like fair play a complicated issue.

Then we make complicated issue like sacking somebody for no reason with academic credentials but no prudence what we need is a simple majority and a simple signature.

How did you digest all these.

I cannot.

That is why I am not a lawyer but a simple doctor who knows pain, suffering, anguish and loss of face and faith of ordinary people.

How is your dog?

That was very unexpected diversion.

He knew that I was not happy discussing the issues at hand.

6. My Dog.

He had whale of a time with our strike.

I must thank him for this dream.

If not for him, I would have forgotten the dream.

He woke me up three times today but I continued to go to sleep mode.

He was checking whether I was dead or not I believe.

Well you do not need a dog to keep you occupied but your doctor friends would have kept you interested in your habits, including financial affairs.

I am ashamed to say none of them sent me even an email, never mind a phone call to see my well being.

They were busy doing private practice and were really undermining it, expecting to pluck some benefits from the private medical school.

Was it that bad?

YES.

But some of my doctor friends and other friends even visited me from abroad knowing I was at home all the time.

How did you survive?

I used credit cards and they were very generous since the interest is very attractive to the bank and not to me.

I am still trying to make good the outstanding payments.

It is not rosy then.

That is why I told you it was a horrible year.

Interpretation

Then I wanted an interpretation of the dream.

Do you really want it?

Bloody well yes.

He was hesitating.

Then, is it a good year, 2013?

It is not that bad year altogether but future of the university is not going to be good.

Your dream is all about the University which you were a part for long time.

Is it that bad?

YES.

I will put that in a few steps.

STEP 1

It becomes almost like a police academy.

We are already in that framework with lot of imported security officers and guards.

I do not find it that threatening.

It is not like that you will be monitored as suspicious elements in every day of your life.

Even when I go to the loo.

Yes.

Why?

That is they way.

Unless the VC gives all these information to the minister he will be thrown out.

STEP 2

Then it becomes like a academy of army cadets.

In this stage one does not need any academic qualification but only the rank.

STEP 3

Reorganization of all academic activities and is called curriculum reform stage.

In this sage 90% of the departments will closed stating they have no national contribution.

The physical structures and even the land belonging to the university will be sold or vested to outside elements for reorganization purposes.

STEP 4

Recruitment phase

They will now introduce the Entrance Examination conducted by the University itself as was in the past.

It is good know?

Wait till I finish.

Over 90% will be reserved for the University staff holding higher offices, the rest from the minor staff.

It will like the Medial College and Law College of the colonial time.

STEP 5

It is the most interesting phase.

It is called “NO FREE EDUCATION”

Now the officers will sell their allocation for a price like duty free cars for the highest bidder.

Will they get any education of any worth.

No but they get a certificate of competence after one year, to enter into a foreign (university) country with a proper education system.

How fast will it be, this change?

It will be faster than the way they had the impeachment motion dealt with.

OH, NO.

That is what you call progress.

Then he disappeared in a flash saying see you with the next dream.

He did not give any room for cross examination of the details.

I have to believe that this will happen in my life time.

I thought for myself.

It is time for me to leave it anyway.

It is a new Dream

It is a new Dream

It is fortunately a public holiday, I woke up very, very late.

In fact, it was after three attempts by my dog telling me, it is pretty late in the day, as far as he was concerned.

Why don’t you wake up?

That was his message.

He has got used to a good routine with me all because of our prolong industrial action, he knows all my routines by heart. 

He never put his front feet on the bed but he did it toady to see whether I was really late but not dead on my sleep.

I had a nice long dream too.

Thanks to his interruptions I can remember it very well to relate it here.

I have take a little detour this time round, not sending it to Maha Brahma first and come back with an interpretations.

In fact, I have not had any communication with him for a long time.

He will have a very long list of questions and a prolong interview (internet chat wise and not a direct contact with him-for those of you who do not my modus operandum) and I should have quick answers and with the Sri-Lankan Telecom as slow as it is, to respond to his celestial contacts, not having a satellite of it own, I do not want the readers to stay for another day.

The interpretation and the long internet chat I will have with him, I should pen down later.

For a change, I want you to interpret it, in your own ways in the mean time.

The Dream

The dream goes backs to about 50 years.

It was in the Peradeniya Campus.

It was in the evening and I was doing my own jog around the campus.

I was on the side of our physiology don’s house, who was a burgher gentleman.

I climbed a little soil mound and peeped over the window to see whether  the madam was in to tease her. 

To my horror she got into a panic mode and loudly said,

“Leela, the thief has come, catch him”

Leela is the wife of another don in the Faculty of Arts.

She got hold of a broomstick (that the recognized weapon and no T-56 then) and moved sideways and I followed her instinct for a few steps and quickly took a about turn and ran behind her house and the neighbour’s house, knowing well if I enter her front compound I could be caught, perhaps with a broomstick in her hand too.

I took a detour and came round by another route to see Mrs. Leela was coming down across another alleyway with a big pole in her hand.

I took to my feet swiftly like a horse and was down a steep hill that lead to a small paddy (yes we had a little paddy filed inside the campus then) field.

When I approached there well away from my attackers, I decided to have a pause to catch my breath and little peace in my mind.

I was in a pensive mood when an middle age woman approach me clad in muddy cloth with some kind of grass in her hand.

I thought she was cutting grass for the cow she had (yes we had cows in the campus then).

She asked me whether I was a undergraduate.

I said, Yes.

Then she asked me whether I know the Vice Chancellor personally.

I did not know what to say.

Those days the VC is such a big stature, we undergraduates have no contact with him, unless we have done something very nasty and grave that we get a resound warning without any inquiry or criminal court.

I did not want to accept my predicament but said to her I knew him very well.

She said,  “Aiyyoh Mahathaya Ahenum Baridaha Ahanna Thawa Kananayakata Wapuranna Denna Kiyaya”.

Could you please ask him whether she can have another season of paddy cultivation instead of the special grass she was asked to grow.

I asked her what is this all about.

She told me that she was asked to lay the special type of grass on her paddy field instead of cultivating rice.

I asked, Why?

“Ane Maha Ragina Enawane”

Queen is visiting the country.

I told her I would try and had a few seconds pause to gather my composure and make good the fundamental error of “Peeping Tom” behaviour.

I walked back the long route I had taken back to the house of our don.

On my way, I found the long pole Leela had dropped and I wanted to return it back in case she needs it.

As I was walking up with the pole in hand, I saw VC coming down the lane.

There was no way of avoiding him.

I raised the pole as I was carrying a flag on top of it.

I walked toward him bravely and the second running to escape was not in my mind.

He came down slowly with a majestic imposing posture.

He was wearing a British hat.

He paused having come down to where I was.

I had become stationary by that time with the pole erect on my hand.

As he approached me I lowered it as if I was a pole vault jumper.

Are you practising how to carry a flag on a pole.

I said, No.

I was practising pole vault, I said.

I ordered a new one from England.

It is very heavy and of British standard, I told him.

this is of the correct weight for me.

Then he said, I see about your need anyway.

Thank you, Sir.

Where are taking it.

I said  “to whom it belongs”.

He said Good Old Boy.

By now I knew I was in a good working relationship with the VC, I took the courage to ask the question that poor lady could not ask from him.

Sir, May I may I make a request for somebody.

Who is that somebody?

He was very attentive and inquisitive.

I said I met that woman and she wanted another season for rice cultivation.

That cannot be done he said abruptly.

Then, I looked at him very politely and said rice takes only three and half months to maturity and the grass only half that time  and the Queen is coming one year from now and there is enough time to do all that.

Is that so?

You seem to know quite a lot, “are you an agriculture student”.

No Sir, I am Medical Student and put a little substance to my pole carrying adventure.

Then he said go and tell her she can have even two seasons but by the time Queen is here there should be a posh growth of green grass over there.

Then he went onto say if I see you carrying poles instead of looking after patients, I will make you a pole bearer of the university and not in the parliament. 

That is the type of environment we had when we were in the University.

It is quite different now.

I walked up to the house and met the lady and handed over the pole.

She was puzzled.

She had seen me in a bit of a long conversation with VC and she did what to say.

Then I went to the house of our burgher don and talked to the lady as nothing improper has happened.

She invited me for cup of tea with cookies, which was my original intention which was interrupted by her panic and commotion that followed.

I cannot remember how many lies I told her over the cup of tea.

That was a survival need as a young undergraduate, otherwise we would have been expelled within the first term of our academic year, if everybody knew what we did off academic hours.

The lady was a typical Victorian type.

I told her, if I was her, I would not invite the VC for a cup of tea if my teacher was not at home.

She did not ask why?

Then, I said, VC was trying to enter the neighbour house’s from back door and he detoured having seen me with the pole.

Is that so?

Yes, I said loudly.

Mind you that was the biggest lie on that day

By that time, I have begun to hate Leela for carrying a big pole to hit me instead of a broomstick.

Everybody, knew VC was a ladies man and there were enough in the Art Faculty to prey at that time but not in the Medical Faculty.

We exchanged pleasantries and I was a regular visitor and she was like real aunt to me.

She is no more but probably in heaven.

Now this one is for you.

How many lies in total.

Unlike politicians who lie for a living in broad day light I am entitled to lies in my dreams.

If you can help me to count them.

I have lost count of them.

Dream is a good recipe for people like me and we have this satisfaction of lying in our deep sleep mode.

That is why dream are for us and not for politicians

I am told that the politicians see their lies in their own sleep get terrified and wake up ever so often not knowing how to coin the next lie.

I will come back with Maha interpretation of this dream very soon.

Using the laptop to keep me warm

Using the laptop to keep me warm

It is freezing cold at night.

I could not drop to sleep.

I pulled the laptop from its cooler stand.

Outcome, is this blog piece.

few months age without no rain, I would have never foretasted this eventuality.

Even daytime the temperature is below 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

At 2 a.m it is hovering round 70 with my room door open.

It is kept open for my dog to come in, in case he needs a warmer place.

He is under my bed and fast asleep but would get up with any movement that may be a warning signal.

There will be few topics this year how to make successful cuttings from a vanilla plant.

When it was slightly warmer I attended to it with sun over my head.

But real reporting here is about me pulling out over 250 of my web writing which was at a site defunct due to some surveillance activity.

I found it running again and started pulling them out one by one.

I could not retrieve any of them for over a year.

I have left only the articles relating to Linux, Environment, Philosophy and perhaps some humour (not satire).

With the way how cyber-freedom is developing, I see no valid currency in them and also making the servers space available for young blood.

In any case they will be preserved and itemized in some way digitally.

The sad truth is what was expected from these writing were not heeded by those responsive.

I have a catalogue of unfulfilled but socially important issues.

If one has a ear but do not listen it is a serious handicap.

To add to that when mass apathy and selfishness rule the day content and context are out of place and out of time.

None of this deter mine writing or writing skills but I made valid but political choice of my own and there are many media making money that should pause and make a valid contribution.

In another few years, paper media will cease to make any impact anyway except advertisements and web will rule all aspects of human exchange.

One cannot put a plug on it.

It will finds its way somehow.

Flight from Otago, New Zealand to Buenos Aries in Argentina and Falklands

Flight from Otago, New Zealand to Buenos Aries in Argentina and Falklands

For New Year this is my first dream and the dream flight I accomplished.

I had a dream.

Myself and one of my friends decided to fly from New Zealand, Otago to Falkland through Buenos Aries.

Flying from West to East was not interesting and only 14 hours of flying.

Only one airline on show.

We decided to fly from East to West through Ceylon.

We did not have any direct flights to Katunayake and had to detour from Singapore to Colombo.

The cost was beyond our imagination and we decided to charter flight our own plane.

We decided to train as pilots and mapped our route and also where to refuel.

We started from Otago but before we could land on Christchurch, I was woken up by the mosquitoes.

It was a very sweet dream and we did not have any hitches on our plan and the dream hours were very short compared to the boring one stop flights with no leg space to stretch.

Thank god, they have hipped the air fares, if I had this dream when I was younger I would have actually spend all my money to accomplish it.

Below is some information with the Airlines that fly from various airports from Buenos Aires to various destinations.

Think twice before flying any ware with various pit stops since no airline in the world is capable of covering the globe.

They have their own routes to dominate but cannot fly outside the targeted zone.

It is far better to take a rocket plane (when available for commercial flights) and finish the flying in 6 hours.

Note there are no American Airlines in the list.

Aerolineas Argentinas  Auckland To $desLocName  AKL To EZE  $1043  13h 40m

South African  Johannesburg to Buenos Aires  JNB To EZE  $926  10h 25m

Emirates Johannesburg to London Heathrow Airport (LHR)1-stop (Dubai Airport )

Singapore Airlines Singapore Changi International Airport to Joburg (SIN to JNB)

non-stop (10h50m)

South African Airways Singapore Changi International Airport to Joburg (SIN to JNB)

non-stop (10h50m)

Johannesburg To Singapore  JNB To SIN  $2015  10h 48m

Singapore Air  Singapore To Auckland  SIN to AKL  $5439 

British Airways  Singapore to Auckland  SIN To AKL  $1508  13h 15m 

South African  London To Johannesburg  LHR To JNB  $941  11h 15m 

Emirates  London To Johannesburg  LHR To JNB  $916  19h 19m

Air France  London To Johannesburg  LHR To JNB  $903  14h 3m

Kiwi Linux

Kiwi Linux

I have been formatting and reorganizing all my computers from netbook to my old IBM Server, it is time for me to give some good advice to young and old guys who are bombarded with wrong information to get rid of the out of fashion old stuff with lot of changes coming in the computer world.

I will deal with old stuff.

1. First of all I still have the computer with 4 MiB on board graphic.

That I keep to test Tiny Linux which does not need lot of RAM and graphic but want to do some scripts in command line (I do not do it any more now).

I have found better short cuts and utilities like net booting now.

2. Then I have an old Toshiba Laptop which packed up it's CD ROM device.

With lot of difficulty I found a CD ROM of a different model which juts out of is casing but still runs making a big noise when read and right heads touches the rotating platters.

I managed to install Knoppix and Peppermint on the hard disk which is less than 20 GiB.

I had forgotten (this is my son’s who is now not interested in computers) the password and was looking for a CD distribution in my armory and I could not find one.

All the recent distributions are DVD size and above 800 including Linux Mint.

I was more than annoyed but found KiWi Linux 12.04 LTS as a a very healthy companion.

It took hours of installing with not so perfect (It reported that the CD Rom has reading difficulty and went down to slower rotating speed) CD/RW ROM.

It got me on my nerves with the rickety, rack-arty noise (I was listening to light music and dosing in between) but eventually I got the KiWi Linux beautifully running and I was connected to the Internet in a flash and wanted to post this piece of writing but was only woken up by our domestic aid at 12.00 p.m. today.

I had gone to sleep with my dog under the bed.

He also had a good night sleep, I believe but he is mortally scarred of the fire crackers and that is why he was under my bed.

I quickly posted verse on Tony Graig which included my resolution not to promote fire crackers for New Year celebrations.

There was nothing for me and my dog to eat, I told the domestic aid to do some cooking and rushed to town to buy some cookies.

So sorry KiWi Linux for my holiday lapses.

It is a beautiful outfit and thank a lot for your wonderful work and keeping it within 700 MiB and the latest software and Chromium.

All other CD distributions except Peppermint go back to 2009 and won’t let one updates and repositories are no longer supporting some software.

3. Then my Server, I have dismantled it with all its parts, 

I could not find RAM, more than 256 memory for it.

Mind you, servers do not need much RAM or graphic capabilities.

I was looking for replacement RAM for over 9 months and I could not find one.

I sorted out all the DDR 1 RAMs I had, just a few days ago and tried one by one and found one with 400 speed and 512 Memory at last.

Now the time to summarize the problems, one encounters if one is using old computers.

1. Graphic capability (on board or cards capability).

2. RAM

3. CD instead of DVD

4. Size and the type of hard disks (IDE, SATA instead of Solid State without mechanical parts)

5. Transformer.

6. Battery Life.

One has to consider all the above apart from the weight of the laptop and the accessory gadgets.

7. Is there blue tooth?

That is vital if one is using the device for mobile work.

8. One should see whether it is bootable with a  USB device (DVD for example) or Pendrive.

For me Pendrive is the only device I need but now I have few laptop hard disks that fits in my front pocket with few images stored in for quick action, on the fly, on the spot and no more downloading.

If one is buying secondhand those are the problems but if you buy new one you are going into unknown territory.

I hate Japanese laptops including Toshiba and I will stop at that.

There are many reasons, including hardware compatibility with Linux.

9. I will be brief with new laptops.

Only look for the battery life even if it is on the heavy side. 

Like ASUS transformer, if you have two for one device it is wonderful, if your backpack is large enough to accommodate.

10. All the other gimmicks that (salesman/woman) chaps tell you are blah-blahs unless you are serious graphic artist or a gamer. 

Even a media person can be happy with a minimum of resources.

11. Solid state hard disk is what one needs if you are a chap like me who will jump to sea bed with backpack on my back.

So be wise in your choices but cheap does not mean one cannot get one’s work done on a daily basis.

12. One more advice,

One has to use the computer 24/7 schedule like me.

If not do not buy one but borrow one for the work and have your hands free on vacation or better still get another donkey to do the work and enjoy one’s life like, there is no tomorrow.

Warning 

With the Tablets about to hit the market and take it by storm, the work floor guys are going to DUMP old hardware on your back and part with your hard earned money,too.

Beware business gimmicks.