I of all “Is”

I, Teach
I,
Not 
The I,
Of Selfish, Self
But
The I of

Injury,

Inflammation,

Infection and

Immunity to

Analyze
Interpret
The Interconnection and Integrations
Implied in pathological concepts
With
Interest and
Intensity
That my students will
Never forget
I of all “Is”

15. Do elephants dream?

 This is a sample of the Elephant Riddles, in my book Elephant talks, that would be out soon at Amazon's.

15. Do elephants dream?

Yes, only baby elephants.
Elephants babies are very naughty and mothers do not have time to sleep. 
So no dreams for them.

16. Elephant mum (nursing a baby) gives you a call and say that she is coming to your home for a little nap (break).

What would do?
Empty the bedroom.
Close the front door.
Leave a message on the front door.
You may push the button.
Mum resting.
No babies please.
Quickly, exit from the back door.

17. You come back in one hour.

What would you find?
 
Front wall collapsed.
Back wall collapsed.
Bedroom intact but baby elephants having a round table conference in the dining room.

18. What happened to the elephant mum?
She has gone to your neighbor’s house.

19. What did you see when you went to your neighbor’s house.
 
Front wall collapsed.
Double bed standing erect in the front with a message hung.
 
I am still resting.
Keep the babies at your house.
 
I will come there soon.

20. Where did you find your friend?

Under the belly of the mum elephant unconscious (fallen flat due to fear but not due to injury).

21. What did you do?

Leave a note on the bedroom.

I am busy babysitting baby elephants.
You look after the mum, please.

Take a very old Elephant in captivity, What are the most likely dreams?

Take a very old Elephant in captivity.
What are the most likely dreams?

The dream would go like this,

I was born free
In the Jungle
I wanted
To be free

I wanted
My friends 
To be free
BUT
I could not
The chains were nasty
The work was nasty
That is why I drank
The wrong spirits
With my mahout

Now the time has come
Let me go
Please do not bring
Those nasty guys
Garbed in white coats

They do not realize
That I hate
 
Pain 
Even it is
From a tiny syringe

Oh, let me go
Before his arrival!

I wish
I should not be
Born Again
An elephant
With tusks

I have done my part
Why don’t you do your part?
 
Let all those
That are already there
FREE
If not,
I wish 
I should not be
Born again
In this 
Island Paradise!

Baby Elephant’s Dream

Baby Elephant’s Dream

I was born free
In the Jungle
To roam about
As any other
Jungle being

Soon it was not to be
My mum was shot at
She was mortally wounded
I was in tears
I wanted my mum
Back again

Not a foster mum?

Yes my aunties
And the rest of the gang
Were of towering help
In my grief
Till it was declared
An “Amnesty” for
My mum’s exterminators

I too was shot at
I felt numb and
I  wished and thought
About my death

But it was a dream!

When I was woken up
I was out of the jungle
In another plane
And another place
With strange people
Around me
Holding something
I had never seen before

There was something
Which looked
White inside
But tasted awful
But I preferred
A little bit of water

Then I was rounded up
Put in a moving object
I felt dizzy
All the same
On this unguided tour
Which I hated

I was taken
To a place where
Many of my kind
Was incarcerated
With very little
Rebellion!
To my surprise
 
Soon I was declared
An orphan
The name of the place
I heard was Pinnawala
 
I wished
And wanted to be dead
Never to be born
Again
In this Paradise Island

Human Equivalent of Elephant Age in Captivity

This is a preview of a chapter in my next book "Elephant Talks" which will be out soon.

Human Equivalent of Elephant Age in Captivity

I sometime get some bizarre ideas.
This is one of them.
I wonder if we equate the age of an elephant to human age where does it stand.
It is not an easy answer since we do not have vocal language parameter to go by.
They certainly can understand our language but but they cannot talk back.
We have to derive some other ploy.
Before I delve into that I will try to age a dog in human terms.
Then, I will use that age to judge the elephant.
The question is who is smarter.
The dog or the elephant?
    We are very close to the canines, it is relatively easy to age a dog in human terms.

Aging a dog in human terms

Below is the relevant information posted in one of my blogposts about chronological age of a dog in relation to human age.

Old Dog Haven and Senior Dogs

There are lot of myths about dogs but here I want to illustrate few human facts that I should communicate with Maha Brahma who was a yesteryear dog exterminated to make room for Perahara Pilgrims that visit the holy city of Kandy. Most of Sri-Lankan end up in hell whereas the Maha Brahma's dog and present assistant of Maha Brahma were dogs from this country.
By clever design they ended up there and for my luck I happen to know the Present Maha Brahma’s Assistant as a Paraya dog in Kandy and I am fortunate enough to communicate with him by virtual email.
First the bad news.
Lot of paraya dogs were cleared up recently in preparation for Perehara and I want a place reserved for them in hell (for the municipality exterminators not the exterminated paraya dogs).
In some countries when they are old they are sent to Old Dogs Haven.
I want the Maha to take them to heaven moment they are exterminated but make a short list of the exterminators and send that list to Apaya (Hell) Server.
I have designed a full proof program to catch dog killers and that is working nicely in Apaya Server currently but the problem is these dog killers live longer  than the dog by many a mile due to cardiac surgery performed.

Senior Citizens                                              Senior Dogs

1. They have homes for the elderly       1. Haven is practically hell for the dogs
2. Some senior citizens by that time     2. There is only extermination decree    become mayors of the holy city
3.They never give way to juniors          3.Junior dogs take charge of the brood

I have another plea.
 
If one wants to age with the dog please do the following.
1. Take care of a young dog at the age of 43 (when nobody seems to want you including your wife and the kids) years.

2. When you are 50 your dog is 7 years old and equal to 50 years of human age.


3. In another three (3) years when your dog is 10 he is equivalent to 60 human years and you will be 53 years.
You are younger by 7 years.

4. In another two years dog (at 12 years) will be 70 and you will be only 55 years.

You are younger by 15 years.

43=0

50=7=50 ( only at 50 one can be at the level of the dog age and enjoy with your contemporary to your heart's content and his company prevents you from getting a heart attack, if you delay the dog will get a heart attack).

53=10=60

55=12=70 (This is the time you get a bypass operation and  the dog gets a heart attack).

5. Now that you have become the mayor at 55 after retiring from service would you be kind to this dog  who is 70 years human equivalent (12 years  of our time) or sent for the Municipality Exterminator.

6. They are just old senior dogs / citizens they do not have a parliament to go but only the streets but unlike you they look after our streets even at night when young, is it reasonable to put them to death.

7. How come if I say all the senior citizens who were ex-parliamentarians and drawing a fat pension and to save money for development they should be exterminated.
 
Will you pass a bill and vote yes  in parliament?
 
Are we reasonable human beings?
 
What I am referring here is not the chronological age but the mental age which is different from the age in years in children’s growth.

It is easy to assess the mental age of a dog unlike an elephant since they live close to us and adopt to our way of life easily.
 
But there is big variation while I believe depends on the pedigree and their upbringing.

Paraya dogs seem to get arrested at mental age of three (3) of human equivalent if they leave the care giver early and were neglected in there upbringing.
That I call the streetwise age which is quite adequate for their survival.
They live in fear and insecurity which a child will inherit if he/she is abandoned by parents and live in a children’s home.
The fear and insecurity give them all essential survival skills.
If the dog is a pedigree dog depending on the type and upbringing the mental age of human equivalent may go up to five.
My dog ranks about seven and he is clever enough to twist my arm t every opportunity without arousing my suspicion and anger.
He is a clever manipulator of the skills of seven year old child.
He always beats me and is very smart.
Enough of dogs this book is about elephants and how we age an elephant in human mental age?
That is a difficult task.
Elephants are with us not by their choice but due to human manipulations.
They are prisoners without a choice.
In this context their mental age is arrested to suit to adopt and live with us.

Aging an Elephant in human terms

My gut felling is that the Elephant age is more than seven as compared to a dog.
It is more likely ten (10) than seven years of age.
I want to raise it to teens, more of 13 or 14 than 16 years of age where in humans concepts develop.
For example we human can develop few concepts call elephants in captivity concepts.

1. The elephants are created by gods for our work.

2. They should be deprived of their place in the jungle hierarchy.

3. They can be trained like dogs.

4. One should use pain as a mode of taming them.

5. They should be chained.

6. They should be used for religious activity.

7. They should be called orphans.

8. They should be a state symbol of the wealthy merchants.

9. There should not be any political freedom for them.

10. They should be governed by human laws and regulations.

11. Then develop the myth that carrying the Tooth Relic of the Maligawa is the highest order that a tusker will attain in this life.

12. In next life he/she will be invariably in heaven.

The list can go up to 100, the pain points under its pachyderm which are used by the mahout to cause pain to this gentle giant so that he/she is subservient to human denigration.
 
I listed them to show how fallacious all of them are.
 
The elephant by being a beast cannot conceptualize that captivity is wrong and I should go back to the jungle.
They become attached to the human bondage and live a life of prisoners of conscience.
That is why I put them to 13 and 14 age of mental age where our teenagers are not acquired full freedom but have to be engaged in a prolonged period of so called education at the end of it have no job security but a minimum wage band which is twice the poverty line.
 
The plight of the teenager is no different from the elephant in captivity.
Unfortunately we cannot send the elephant to higher education in the university but the teenager can aspire it.
Failing which he becomes a downcast or a terrorist.

Orchids and Dedication

This is a note (email) send to a orchid lover
Orchids and Dedication
I hope you will keep your interest on Orchids to my age.
One of my young (he was older) friends who could not go above grade 10 in Education could keep an orchid my father gave him for over 60 years.
My father taught him how to care for it.

It is called the Wesak Orchid.
 
He is almost blind and when I visited him with a little gift, I collected a few of the saplings (is it the correct word) or buds for my rooftop garden.
They are growing nicely.
My friend was an expert on making kites.
I learned how to make a kite and balance it (it is a science) aerodynamically.

He did not understand the physics (which I could) of it and I graduated to become a scientific thinker (prefer to become a scientific philosopher), but he remained a faithful envronmentalist.

I think we need lot of his kind of dedication and less of my kind probing.

Giving the Kitchen a Holiday

Giving the Kitchen a Holiday
 
1. I hate Kitchens.

2. I love Food especially if they are made delicious.

3. I hate sweet foods and cakes.

4. I acquired these habits from my mother certainly not from my father.

5. My father was an Ace in eating Junk Foods.

I acquired both Good and Bad habits inadvertently.

If I eat a Parippu or dhal wade it has to be high in quality and size.

There are two varieties, one small in size for pariahs (they ruin the city in one or two visits-good example is the Perehara) who visit the city and the other relatively large in size (say it in other words, a mouthful) for the noble men (there aren’t any left in the city now) who happen to bypass it like Prince Charles.
 
When it started getting ever smaller with the Mahinda Chintanaya in full swing, I called it a Revert Wade (the guy who makes the wade is paid a meager salary he is so annoyed, he reverts the wade when making, not with the inspired knowledge of the Big Mudhalali, the owner) and that would have heralded the metamorphosis of this age old Jaffna Delicacy.
 
Unfortunately, this has reached the Egg Rotti and Patties (pastry).

One used to get one egg, a Rotti an year ago but it became half, quarter and currently it has metamorphosed to a touch of egg/s (either touch of white or touch of yellow) with the blessings of the Maha Sangha (they say a bit-just like alcohol, of it is good for their/your health, a lot of it is bad, contrary to my own beliefs).
I was listening to a Dhamma Desana from Mahamevna tradition (while I was waiting for a bus and the loud speaker in full throttle relaying it all over the city, more than 30 decibels in magnitude) and preacher was telling one should ascend the ladder through one heaven to the next till one reaches the Thawthisa Bavan, where the next Buddha is having a respite to be born eons from now.

He almost said if one comes to Polgahawela, he could even give a cut rate ticket to heaven.

Sadly no mention about Nirvana, he implied one should delay Nirvana (podi joliyak dhala thamayh eahata yanna onne- one should enjoy the ascent as much as possible like a rocket science predictions).

Sorry for the diversion, I was requested by my family friends that if I make this a major article, I may disappear to Ravana Land by default with Bodu Balawegaya in full swing.

Coming back to my intended conviction that the kitchen should have a holiday, just like the digital holiday I am enjoying currently (but want to continue for little longer, god willing) and that is why my blog post is going low and my email is almost stationary.
 
I have few problems.

As long as my wife is at home, there is no holiday for the kitchen.
Fortunately my wife had to be in Colombo for few days and after 24 hours of cleaning up (servant woman did not turn up as usual) of the Kitchen and the Pantry, I call it a day almost defeated to see it was back to what it was (I won't state why with legal advice pending).
 
Today I had the courage to apply it rigidly for nearly 24 hours.

Presto.
 
Benefits.

1. No cockroaches (mind you cockroaches are my evolutionary friends and I hate to kill them).
 
2. No mice.
This is a discovery.
Even the mice in our kitchen has acquired my taste habits and did not touch the bin which I kept (Metta, Karuna and Mudhtha practiced to high heaven) open for liberal use like our politics now.
 
3. No cats (not the no mice no cat rule but no food no cats rule of evidence practiced by our courts of law interpreted as envisaged by our political old fox, J.R.J).
 
4. Birds in plenty (they visit the mulberry tree)
 
5. No dogs except our dog who has acquired a taste of higher order than me and refuse to eat junk food (devoid of eggs, cheese and taste) and turn his plate of food upside down (I have to clean the mess).

The message from my dog is clear, he is a food taster par excellence and tells me I am/you are cheated by the food vendors (there is no butter, no cheese or eggs or salmon or fish as stated in the display).

You have to do the cooking for me.
 
So if you give the kitchen a holiday, junk food is no alternative, if you have a pedigree dog.
 
Kill your pedigree dog for dog food and go for a real Paraya dog. (metaphorically and not literally) just like the British under Mrs. Thatcher did when Mad Cow Disease was in full swing but refused to acknowledge that it was due to cows fed on disease cows' meat mixed with fodder (this one is for the Commonwealth Guests, do not volunteer help when your own house is in a mess by harboring terrorists and their sympathizers).
 
So my recipe for giving the kitchen a holiday one has to kill the dog and starve.
 
Both of which I cannot recommend in real practice.
 
So eat the junk food.
 
Give the dog the royal food.

This is what will happen when the Commonwealth Conference is held in Colombo.

We will eat Junk Food but the visitors (ONLY) will have royal food.

Even our dogs will have junk food left over by the royal entourage.
Thank You for your visit.
Long Live (Aubovan in Sinhala)!

Aging gracefully or is it not?

Aging gracefully or is it not?

It is interesting to note that we Sri-Lankan are aging fast and adding to the neglected lot.
With each day of adding to the lifetime, the standard of living goes down not by a fraction but by about 50%.
So it is better to kick the bucket early without being a pest to your family unless of course one is a BIG politician with a big family to maintain.

Global Age Watch has published the figures for over 99 countries.

                                                            Rank         Value
Sri-Lanka
1. Global     Position                    36            57.3%

2. Income Security                       67           44.9%        


3. Health Status                           45           55.1%


4. Employment and Education      37           47.9%
5. Enabling Environment              24          74.6%     


It is interesting to note that it is below par in most of the Muslim countries where one believes the family values are the strongest.

Eg.
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Jordan
Bangladesh and India (which has a large population of Muslims).

Russia is as bad as India.
And China no better.

It is an interesting Study.  

Most of the Western countries fare very well.
For me New Zealand is one of the best to get older.
I know it by experince.
I used to care for 80 and 90 odds  (guys/girls who looked very robust).

I am at the moment doing some insightful research on how to become VERY young by almost 50% but when I discover it, I won't give the secrets to any Sri-Lankan politician, even if they offer me the post of Presidency.  

I am almost there please do not ask me how?
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