Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2012-14

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IN THIS ISSUE

VOL. XVIII, NO. 14, APRIL 7, 2012

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Kate Brookfield arrives in Delhi, city of contrasts
• Pat Moore enjoys Kate´s story about Russia
• Anne Rahamut vents her frustration over a sock problem
• Bruce Galway celebrates the spring with a golf joke
• Tony Lewis forwards a story about Monopoly
• Catherine Nesbitt sends a story about unanswered prayers
• Pat Moore clears up confusion about computer terminology
• Tom Telfer tells the real story about the three bears
• Sites are suggested by Carol Hansen, Catherine Nesbitt, and Pat Moore

Kate Brookfield and her family finally reach

INDIA

India is such a vast and variable country that is impossible to give a true picture in a few sentences. In many ways, it is a country of contrasts. When we visited in 1984, I was told that the richest man in the world was Indian. His name, Bata, was seen on almost every piece of metal from trucks to park benches. Yet at that time, India was generally known for its problem with poverty and homelessness. Outside the grand buildings, the pavements are strewn with beggars displaying maimed bodies, holding up almost naked babies covered in flies. In the flood plains and outside the walls of tourist attractions, such as the Red Fort, are acres of roughly-constructed temporary shelters made of caked mud, sometimes sheets of plywood, or cardboard, with sheets of plastic, or corrugated metal for a roof.

Great wealth and oppressive poverty exist side by side. In the major cities there are elaborate buildings like palaces, with marble floors and pillars, intricately-carved wood furniture, luxurious deep piled carpets, with uniformed staff outside and inside doing all the mundane tasks that in other countries people do for themselves, or have been automated by technology. Doors are opened, luggage is carried, shoes are cleaned, food is delivered, letters are written and delivered by a sea of servants. Inside, the floors are swept by people using besoms with no handles, so the user must crawl over the floor that is being cleaned.

Beautiful floral gardens with long stretches of lawn are maintained by men working with simple, almost medieval tools. In other words, many people make the life of a few comfortable and easy. In spite of all this, the claim of India as the largest democracy in the world is spoken with pride by rich and poor alike.

On first arriving in Delhi, we experienced the opulence of India for about a week. Because of the political situation in the Punjab, our destination, Michael thought it best to check in with the Canadian Embassy to make our destination and plans known. So for convenience, we checked in at a hotel near the embassies. From our hotel room window, I could see, beyond the bougainvillea strewn walls of the hotel complex, a tent city on the flood plain. The monsoon was due and soon that plain would be a river and those people would have to retreat to find some other place to "live". I felt uncomfortable living in the opulent surroundings of the hotel and seeing such poverty and the struggle to survive under my nose, so to speak.

But my sorrow for others was short lived as I was soon feeling sorry for myself. I was stepping out of the shower, which was really a deep bathtub, when I slipped on the tiled floor with one leg in the tub and the other on the other side. I did a ricochet from tiled wall to floor and fell heavily on my arm. I thought it was broken. Immediately, help was summoned and the next thing I knew a doctor had arrived in the hotel room. His business card showed that he was the physician for the President of India!

He inspected my arm and sent me for an x-ray. The health clinic was an experience in itself. My arm has a peculiar double joint and the doctor came back with my x-ray, asking me if I had broken my arm before. I had not. So they had to x-ray the other arm to check that it was my peculiar arm. It was decided that I had not broken it, so I was left on a bed with an infra red lamp with a frayed cord set on the bed.

It was a long time before I got the full strength back in my arm, which made washing clothes and floors by hand difficult when we finally got to Chandigarh. I had been resolved to do everything for myself and not have servants to work for me. But ... more of that later.

During our week in New Delhi, Michael spent most of the time trying to get sense out of the embassy staff. In between visits to the embassy, we did the usual Delhi tours, such as the Red Fort in old Delhi, and memorials for Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. I am a member of the Baha´i faith and at that time the Baha´i Temple in Delhi was under construction. I took a rickshaw to the site and had a conducted tour of the building site and was shown a model of the finished temple. It was interesting to see scaffolding for such a large structure made of cane and materials being lifted to the heights in what looked like rush baskets. During construction, the temple site had the reputation in India for one of the few places with no accidents.

The design of the temple was attracting much international interest from architects and engineers. One of its features is the unique cooling system that works by natural currents and a small fan in the roof that pulls air over large pools of water outside the temple. The water cools the air as it is drawn into the temple, which is faced with marble. Another feature is the design, shaped like a lotus leaf, an important symbol in India, representing beauty rising out of the mud. Many Indian gods are illustrated sitting in lotus leaves. (In the south of India, we even saw a poster showing a Communist candidate for the elections sitting in a lotus leaf.)

This temple is a gift to the people of India from the Baha´is of the world. There are nine paths leading to the doors, representing the different approaches to God. Scriptures from all religions are read in the temple every day. The building, now over 25 years old, is now part of tourist itineraries and has millions of visitors a year. But in 1984 it was unknown, except to members of the Baha´i faith, so I felt particularly privileged to have seen it under construction.

Neither the Canadian nor the British Embassies were much help to us. A member of the Canadian Embassy told us that they had no idea what was going on the Punjab. They had been told, unofficially, that no foreigners were allowed in the Punjab. Certainly, no foreign visitors were allowed in Amristar, the city where the Golden Temple is located. She went on to say that it would be "interesting" if we got there, as we could let them know what was happening!

Briefly, this was the situation, but please, I do not wish to be taken to task for not representing the problem exactly. I am not really into high politics. In June, 1984, Mrs. Gandhi´s government, of the Congress Party, had stormed the Sikhs´ most sacred temple, the Golden Temple, and found it was being used as an arsenal. The Sikh population in the Punjab State of northern India was discontented. They were seeking separation from India and wanting to establish their own country, with Chandigarh as the capital city.

In general, the Sikhs are hard working and disciplined and they went in for professions such as military service, the police force, and most of the engineering industries. Northern India is better off than other parts of India, as it has a better climate and rich agricultural land. Obviously, the loss of this region would have a devastating economic effect on the rest of the country. On the other hand, Sikhs, mainly living in the north, felt they would never overcome the vast problems troubling India with the demands made on them by the overpopulated and poorer South Indian provinces. Mrs. Gandhi and her government were pushing slogans such as "Unity in Diversity" and they had a mammoth task of uniting such a vast and diversified country.

During our year´s stay, we made friends of Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims and found them all to be very reasonable and loving people. Naturally, most of our contacts were at the university with educated professionals. We heard all sides of the political situation and could empathize with the different points of view. From our perspective, the troubles in India at the time were not as widespread as the media would have us believe. The sectarian violence seemed to be confined to small pockets of discontent and family feuds in Punjab villages. On the whole, life in Chandigarh was unaffected by all the political stress.

After a week of trying to get some intelligent information from the embassies, Michael decided we had wasted enough time and more than enough money in New Delhi. Before we knew it, we were packed up and experiencing a nightmare taxi ride to the bus station. We had finally hatched out of the protective shell that had been sheltering us and were rushed headlong into the hurly-burly real life of India. That taxi drive made us realize that life is a risk, and if you are going to get anywhere, you have to take a few risks.

To be continued.

ED. NOTE: To see pictures of the places in Delhi that Kate mentions, click on

CORRESPONDENCE

Pat Moore writes: I enjoyed reading about the passport troubles in Russia on Kate Brookfield´s way to India, and it reminded me our our cancelled trip to Russia. I was always sorry that we had missed that trip, but after hearing a number of travel stories, I think maybe it was just as well. The scientific fellow who was going to go with us was still wanted by the Russian police for escaping from the army, and was still on their "wanted" list, so we cancelled the whole trip. Who knows what kind of trouble we might have run into!

Anne Rahamut wrote this article for the reason she gives at the end of it. And then she thought maybe it would entertain the newsletter readers:

ANNE´S RANT ON SOCK TOES

I´ve had it. Up to Here! Actually, I really mean Down to There! And to clarify the location, I mean my feet! I´ve got functioning feet and I´d like to keep them that way.

So, I was out shopping one day for socks and found an attractive cheap pair in the dollar store. Now, socks don´t just go on feet - well, around the house I have been known to spend the day footed only in warm fat wool socks - but in general, socks are the buffer between foot and shoe. So that´s where I placed my new dollar store socks. And I wore them with my old comfy shoes all one day´s worth of walking.

At night, disrobing, I was shocked to see my feet. No, not discoloured from leaky dyes, but right across the knuckles of my toes was an angry red line. And it matched the line that everyone knows to exist, where the knitter has to link the sole of the sock to the vamp. And if you´re not sure what I mean, go pick up a sock and see that line. Put on the sock and verify for yourself how it crosses your toes. Consider for yourself how your own toes never emerge from the daily sock with an angry red line just there. But mine did.

Of course I blamed the sock. But being a cautious researcher, I needed proof, and so I shoved my hand down into the sock and got all the proof I needed. Sure enough, there was the line linking sole to vamp, but I was appalled at how it was constructed. Not smoothly knitted, but bound in a tidy roll, all across the sock. I could feel the lumpy line. Who would make a sock like that!

Today, and this is months later, I went out to buy socks in a large department store with a dozen display cabinets of ladies´ footwear. I put each sock I selected through the toe test. And I was shocked once more. Almost every sock had this same lumpy line across the toes. And I´m talking about high repute sock makers. A very few socks were traditional, and their manufacturers´ awareness of the lumpy line as a problem was as clear as a bell. As if they were flogging some brand- new concept, their labels read "smooth toes." They knew - they knew!

I cannot blame the Chinese factories - I blame the machinery the western manufacturer sets up for them. I remember reading how car makers consider the saving of five cents cost per car by some re- designed part as significant for them. So if the lumpy line maker is a cheaper machine than the "smooth toe" maker, I can see a manufacturer´s decision to go that way. And besides, who on earth but me stands in front of a sock display checking out sock toes - apparently not the buyers for stores.

The dictionary says that the verb "vent" can mean "allowing contained matter to escape. It doesn´t imply a useful outcome, but I do feel better. I don´t think a parade down Yonge street is going to happen. Well, perhaps it could if corn plaster sellers are on the sidewalk. Maybe the problem could be twittered into a nationwide awareness; or warning signs in public transit - there are the commuters, with their suffering feet, reading all about the harmful effects of poor sock toe design. How about Rick Mercer as a popular spokesperson?

Ah, yes, I do feel better.

Bruce Galway is obviously feeling the call of the green because he forwards

THE BEST GOLF JOKE IN A WHILE

A golfer is walking down the road carrying his clubs when he sees an Arab being held up at gunpoint.

He pulls out a wedge and smashes it over the back of the robber´s head, knocking him unconscious.

"You probably saved my life," says the grateful Arab. "I am a member of the Saudi royal family and I have the power and money to give you anything you desire as a reward."

The golfer glances at his golf bag.

"Some new golf clubs would be nice," he says.

Two weeks later, the Sheikh´s secretary calls him up.

"We´ve got your golf clubs," she says, "but the Sheikh would like to apologize to you in advance: only three of them have swimming pools."

Tony Lewis believes you will never look at this game in the same way again:

MONOPOLY

Starting in 1941, an increasing number of British Airmen found themselves the involuntary guests of the Third Reich (as POWs), and the Crown was casting about for ways and means to facilitate their escape.

Now obviously, the most helpful aids to that end are a useful and accurate map, a compass, and currency of the country in which they were captured.

Paper maps have some real drawbacks - they make a lot of noise when opened and folded, they wear out rapidly, and if they get wet, they turn into mush.

Someone in MI-5 got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It´s durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads, can be unfolded as many times as needed, and makes no noise whatsoever.

At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology of printing on silk and that was John Waddington, Ltd. When approached by the government, the firm was only too happy to do its bit for the war effort.

By pure coincidence, Waddington was also the UK licensee for the popular American board game, Monopoly. As it happened, "games and pastimes" was a category of item qualified for insertion into CARE packages, dispatched by private, often fictitious, organizations to prisoners-of-war.

Under the strictest of secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington´s, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass-producing escape maps, keyed to each region of Germany or Italy where Allied POW camps were regional system. When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece.

As long as they were at it, the clever workmen at Waddington´s also managed to add a playing token containing a small magnetic compass; a two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together; and useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian, and French currency, hidden within the piles of Monopoly money!

British and American air crews were advised, before taking off on their first mission, how to identify a "rigged" Monopoly set - by means of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the "Free Parking" square.

The number of POWs who were actually aided by the rigged sets is unknown.

It´s always nice when you can play that "Get Out of Jail Free" card!

Checked by snopes http://www.snopes.com/military/monopoly.asp

Catherine Nesbitt forwards this story about

THE WISDOM OF THE AGED

A CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time.

So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he was, walking slowly up to the holy site.

She watched him pray, and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane and moving very slowly, she approached him for an interview.

"Pardon me, sir, I´m Rebecca Smith from CNN. What´s your name?"

"Morris Feinberg," he replied.

"Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?"

"For about 60 years."

"Sixty years! That´s amazing! What do you pray for?"

"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews, and the Muslims.

"I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop.

"I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults and to love their fellow man.

"I pray that politicians tell us the truth and put the interests of the people ahead of their own interests."

"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"

"Like I´m talking to a f-ing wall."

Pat Moore forwards these definitions of

COMPUTER TERMINOLOGY

State-of-the-art: Any computer you can´t afford.

Obsolete: Any computer you own.

Microsecond: The time it takes for your state-of-the-art computer to become obsolete.

G4: Apple´s new Macs that make you say, "Gee, it´s four times faster than the computer I bought for the same price a microsecond ago."

Syntax Error: Walking into a computer store and saying, "Hi, I want to buy a computer and money is no object."

Hard Drive: The sales technique employed by computer salesmen, especially after a Syntax Error.

GUI (pronounced "gooey"): What your computer becomes after spilling your coffee on it.

Keyboard: The standard way to generate computer errors.

Mouse: An advanced input device to make computer errors easier to generate.

Floppy: The state of your wallet after purchasing a computer.

Laptop: A device invented to force businessmen to work at home, on vacation, and on business trips.

Disk Crash: A typical computer response to any critical deadline.

System Update: A quick method of trashing ALL of your software.

Tom Telfer sends the truth about

THE THREE BEARS

It´s a sunny morning in the Big Forest, and the Bear family is just waking up. Baby Bear goes downstairs and sits in his small chair at the table. He looks into his small bowl. It is empty.

"Who´s been eating my porridge?" he squeaks.

Papa Bear arrives at the big table and sits in his big chair. He looks into his big bowl and it is also empty. "Who´s been eating my porridge?" he roars.

Momma Bear puts her head through the serving hatch from the kitchen and yells, "For Heaven´s sake, how many times do we have to go through this?

"It was Momma Bear who got up first. It was Momma Bear who woke up everyone in the house. It was Momma Bear who made the coffee. It was Momma Bear who unloaded the dishwasher from last night, and put everything away.

It was Momma Bear who went out in the cold early morning air to fetch the newspaper. It was Momma Bear who set the table. It was Momma Bear who put the cat out, cleaned the litter box, and filled the cat´s water and food dish.

"And now that you´ve decided to drag your sorry butts downstairs and grace Momma Bear´s kitchen with your grumpy presence, listen good, ´cause I´m only going to say this one more time ...

"I HAVEN´T MADE THE DARNED PORRIDGE YET!"

SUGGESTED SITES

Carol Hansen sends the URL for Retro Gifts, which finds things from your gift recipient´s childhood. For someone born in 1970, you´ll pull up Fraggle Rock DVDs, a Malibu Barbie, and Sea Monkeys, and then links you to shops that sell those items. It´s part time machine, part shopping centre. Enter your own birth year and see what memories you rekindle:

Carol also sends a link to a video of a Russian flash mob in Moscow. These people know how to have fun, even in the snow:

Catherine Nesbitt forwards this link to a video of an 86-year-old gymnast:

Catherine also suggests this site for an example of why you should never judge a book by its cover:

Click on this link sent by Pat Moore for a handy guide to the shelf life of foods:

At a time when many are disillusioned with big banks and big business, the economic crisis and growing inequality in our country, employee ownership offers a real solution for workers and communities. Shift Change: Putting Democracy to Work is a new documentary (to be released in July, 2012) that highlights worker- owned enterprises in North America and in Mondragon, Spain. The film couldn´t be more timely, as 2012 has been declared by the U.N. as the "International Year of the Cooperative."

What does a bill like PIPA/SOPA mean to our shareable world? Clay Shirky delivers a proper manifesto - a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume. He believes that new technologies enabling loose collaboration and taking advantage of "spare" brainpower will change the way society works:

To check out the features of the "freedictionary", which changes daily, go to