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leemotionalwreck · 4 years ago

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Of Black Chats and Fallen Angels (chapter 3)

Read it here on AO3!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | You Are Here | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 *********************************************

His eyes opened at the same time Nathalie opened his bedroom door.

“Adrien.”

“Hmm,” he grumbled.

“School in ninety minutes,” Nathalie gave the form under the covers a once-over with a disgusted look on her face. “And please, take a shower.”

He hummed from under the covers. “I’ll think about it.”

Adrien swore he could hear her rolling her eyes.

She huffed. “Shower. Now.”

Throwing the covers off of his face with a groan, he stared groggily at the ceiling. Despite reassuring Ladybug last night, Adrien had been terrified. Since when was Hawkmoth able to give his victims that much power? The akuma itself hadn’t been much of an issue. What had ended up taking them well over an hour to defeat was the citizens-- people everywhere were running wild.

He hadn’t been able to sleep-- tossing and turning. Trying his best to force the images of burning buildings and dead bodies from his mind to no avail. There had been too many times that night when he’d had to step away from a structure close to collapse; oftentimes with people still inside. Of course, everyone knew that the miraculous ladybugs would fix everything in the end--

But it didn’t change the fact that the screams of Paris as the city burned had followed him into his dreams.

*********

Stepping out of the shower, Adrien noted the lack of noise as he tried his best to rub the sleep out of his eyes. Plagg was usually blabbering on about something or noisily shoving cheese down his throat on his holders’ bed before being stuffed into Adrien’s jacket.

This time, as Adrien crossed his room to his dresser, he was met to complete silence.

“Plagg,” he called out, hoping Nathalie was far away enough for him to not be heard. “Plagg, where are you?”

Being answered in silence again, Adrien searched his entire room about three more times before finally hearing a voice from behind him.

“Do you ever miss it?”

Adrien turned from where he had been searching his desk to see his Kwami had been sitting on the windowsill, gazing at the sun. He sighed before answering. “I mean, yeah. Who wouldn’t?”

Because, truly, who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t want to return to a place of complete freedom? A place more beautiful than anything anyone could ever imagine. Paris seemed like a junkyard compared to where he had come from.

Plagg turned to face his Chosen, a heart-wrenching sadness in his cat-like eyes. “Then why did we have to leave?”

Adrien stood in silence. He’d been asking himself that question a lot lately.

*********

He stepped out of his car, waving Gorilla goodbye as the model trudged towards the school entrance. Lack of sleep had caught up to him, and it didn’t help that it was finals week.

“I’m sure there’s no point in telling you this, but you look like shit, dude,” Nino said as he caught up with Adrien.

“And in other news,” he snarled in response. ”The damn sky is blue.”

Nino snorted. “Good morning to you too, princess.”

“Yeah, yeah I know,” Adrien sighed as he rubbed a hand down his face. “It’s just, we’ve got finals. Not to mention the fact that I’m booked for four days this week. It’s not the most I’ve had to do but last night’s attack didn’t help anything.”

“I don’t blame you,” Nino looked down to avoid tripping on his way up the steps, his bright orange headphones almost falling off of his neck. “The city looked like hell. My parents we at work and Alya got stuck at my place-- would’ve been great if Chris hadn’t begged to sleep in my room.”

Adrien’s mind wandered as Nino retold the story of how Chris ruined what would have been a great night for him and Alya, longing for the extent of his troubles to be annoying younger siblings and lack of alone time with his girlfriend.

He walked towards the classroom in a dazed state, finally snapping back to reality when Nino pointed out there was a new girl sitting in their seat. Mme. Bustier must have noticed the confusion in his face because she explained it right away.

“Good morning to both of you,” she beamed as they waved.

What was she always so happy about?

Both boys responded at the same time. “Good morning Mme. Bustier.”

“I’m sure you must be wondering who this is and why she’s sitting here,” they nodded. The teacher turned to the girl. “Mlle. Rossi, would you like to introduce yourself to them and the rest of the class?”

The new girl stood slowly, her gaze constantly flickering to Adrien’s. “Hello everyone! My name is Lila Rossi, and I’m Italian,” He could have sworn she winked at him as she said that. “I’m sure many of you are wondering why I’m just now attending school, and it’s actually because I’ve just returned from my trip around the world! I’ve been everywhere with my mother; Beijing, New York, San Francisco, New Delhi, Achu, Rome, and now we’re here!”

“Really?” said Alix skeptically from the other side of the classroom.

“Oh, of course!” Lila said. “I’m extremely close to Prince Ali. We’re like this,” at that, Lila twisted her middle and pointer finger, making them intertwined.

The new girl frowned at Alix’s skeptical expression. “I figured people wouldn’t believe me when I told them this, so here’s a picture of us in his throne room.”

The class oohed and ahhed as Lila flashed a picture of her and the Prince exactly where she said they’d be.

“I’ve also met Jagged Stone,“ she said, putting her phone in her messenger bag. ”He wrote a song about me, but never released it to avoid making his fans jealous.”

Max sniffed. “Excuse me, but why would Jagged Stone compose a song about an underage girl?”

Lila rolled her eyes dramatically. “Not like that, silly. It was just his way of thanking me for returning Fang after an incident.” A troubled look came over her face while she continued. “The pilot had been taking off and Jagged hadn’t realized that Fang wasn’t on the plane. We’d been having our weekly dinner and I was heading home when I saw poor Fang sitting there looking so scared.”

“I’m so sorry Lila,” Mme. Bustier spoke softly, but firm. “But could you please explain to them why you’re in Nino and Adrien’s usual spot?”

Lila sniffed and wiped away a few tears before continuing. “Of course, Mme. Bustier. I’m so sorry, it’s just-- I get so emotional thinking about the situation. What if I hadn’t been there to help? Fang would have been separated from Jagged for who knows how long!?” She fanned her face in an attempt to lessen the steady flow of tears from her face but continued to cry. “Ugh, I didn’t mean to cause such a scene on my first day back-- perhaps it would have been better had I just stayed with my mother back home in Italy--”

“Oh no,” their teacher interrupted. “Lila we’re so happy to have you here. Please, take as long as you need to calm yourself.”

As the new girl walked quickly out of the classroom, the faces of nearly everyone in the room were full of sympathy. Adrien shifted awkwardly next to Nino in the doorway as his teacher turned to face him.

“Adrien, you have some of the best grades in the class, I figured it would be best to have you help her catch up on any missing work she has to do. As far as the new seating; while helping Fang, Lila suffered serious damage to her right ear and has hearing trouble. I hope you don’t mind helping her.”

Adrien turned to glance at Nino, who shrugged. “Uhm, sure. I guess I don’t mind.”

“Excellent!” Mme. Bustier clasped her hands together, a bright smile still on her face.

Seriously, what was she always so happy about?

“Nino, if you don’t mind, you’ll be sitting in the back for the time being.”

A slight frown crossed Nino’s face but brightened when Adrien promised to let him copy his notes while he dozed off in class.

*********

Eventually, Lila opened the door and slid right next to Adrien in the front row. Somehow, there were still a good six minutes before class began. He started to put his head down to get a quick nap in when a voice next to him began speaking.

“Oh. My. Goodness,” said Lila-- her olive-green eyes impossibly wide.

Adrien looked up to see Lila staring directly at him. “Uh, is there an issue?” he asked tentatively.

“Are you the Adrien Agreste?” she gushed. Adrien noted the way her ”As in, son of fashion designer Gabriel Agreste?”

He chuckled awkwardly. “Yeah, that’s me I guess.”

“How did I not realize that earlier? I’m such a big fan of your work! You looked amazing in the latest edition of Mensuel magazine. Your father’s designs for the fall line was ingenious. ”

“Uhm, thank you?” Stealing a glance behind him, Adrien saw a confused Alya and an amused Marinette.

She placed a hand on his thigh and frowned when he pushed it off. “You know, I’d love to get the chance to model with you someday. It would give us a great chance to get to know each other.”

Marinette sighed from behind them and Lila turned to face her.

“Hello,” her smile seemed to stretch across her entire face-- any trace of her earlier meltdown completely gone. “I’m not sure we’ve met yet. Lila Rossi.” She stuck out her hand at Marinette.

The designer smiled back sweetly, a hint of exhaustion and something else in her eyes that Adrien couldn’t quite place. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng. It’s nice to meet you, Lila.”

“You seem like a really great person,” Lila beamed. “I’d love for us to become closer friends, if that’s okay with you, of course.”

“I wouldn’t mind that at all,” Marinette grinned. “In fact, Alya, Nino, and I were all going to head to Andre’s after school-- you could tag along if you’d like.”

“I’d love that!” turning to Adrien, Lila grabbed his arm and smiled. “What about you Adrien? You’re not busy this afternoon, are you?”

Adrien eyed Marinette for any sign of annoyance. Once he decided he was in the clear, he agreed.

“Yeah sure,” he said. “I’m always down for ice cream-- especially Andre’s.”

Mme. Bustier clapped her hands together, smiling once again, as the bell rang. “Alright everyone, please open your books to chapter eight for review.”

Besides, it was just ice cream. What’s the worst that could happen?

#ml #miraculous ladybug #of black chats and fallen angels

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alienoriana · 5 years ago

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Why Lonely Road is about John

1st Disclaimer: Approaching a Paul song is trickier than a John song IMO. Mainly because Paul seems to enjoy and embrace more the weirdness, the serendipity, the subconscious that can break in and subvert the creative process. John himself described Paul’s lyrics as surreal (maybe in oposition to his own lyrics, which are “real” real. For more insights about it, read this great post from @thecoleopterawithana). This is important because Paul usually prefer to highlight that aspect when he’s talking about one of his songs. That tendency may create the impression that he is more detached from his lyrics, when in fact he is trying to focus on that dimension that he considers to be an indispensable part of his identity as a songwriter. Sometimes its a dream, sometimes its a catchy line, sometimes its a mistake that works, sometimes its a minor event or a random person (or animal), or all these elements together. And thats what Paul will tell us later when ask about the song: that little thing that made the tune go and grow.

But when one tries to understand a song (emotional) motives, this tendency gets in the way -and probably that’s how Paul prefers it: just keep guessing, and more importantly, keep listening to the songs-.

2nd Disclaimer: As much as I believe that John and Paul were (are) soulmates, Im aware of the equal (and different) intensity of the bond they had with their spouses. The fact that I focus on J/P relationship, doesn't mean that I like to place their relationship over the others, as more important than the others. In this case (this song) in particular, I say this in relation to Paul and Linda's relationship. Even if I try to show why I think John's presence is strong in a song, it does not mean that I deny the possibility that Paul actually is alluding to Linda, or even both, sequentially or at the same time. Because the heart is that messy and complex, and big.

I feel that I tried to cover myself too much before I even started, but both issues are usually present almost always in my reflections about his (their) songs (my favorite McLennon topic), and I think this post is a good opportunity to express it.

And now, to the song... [finally, right?]

Lonely Road was included as opening track in the album “Driving Rain”, published in november 2001. The main themes of the album are influenced by the mixed feelings of grief over the recent death of his longtime partner, and of excitement over a new relationship. There’s longing and thankfulness, but also the wish to let go to be able to go on.

Some of the songs were written during a holiday in India, in early 2001, where Paul had not returned since the events of 1968 (!). I think this little fact is esential to read this song. We can ask ourselves: Could Paul have remained indifferent to that place so associated with John and The Beatles, and to the memories it could have awakened?

The lyrics...

I tried to get over you I tried to find something new But all I could ever do Was fill, my time With thoughts, of you

I tried to go somewhere old To search for my pot of gold But all I could ever hold Inside, my mind Were thoughts, of you

I hear your music And it's driving me wild Familiar rhythms In a different style I hear your music And it's driving me wild again

Don't want to let you take me down Don't want to get hurt second time around Don't want to walk that lonely road again

I hear your music And it's driving me wild Familiar rhythms In a different style I hear your music And it's driving me wild again

Don't want to let you take me down Don't want to get hurt second time around Don't want to walk that lonely road again

The analysis of the one who does not want to be analyzed...

When asked about this particular song, Paul was as usual nonchalant about its meaning.

In 2001, he was saying this:

‘Lonely Road’ was also written in Goa, where I was enjoying the beach and the sea and generally chilling out in the new century. Again, I had a few moments in the afternoon, which is always a good time for me, a quiet spell when it’s always cool for me to go off and fondle my guitar. The songs basically wrote itself in about an hour. It is what it is, this song, you can make of it what you want to make of it. To me it’s not particularly about anything other than not wanting to be brought down. It’s a sort of anti-being brought down song, which is for anyone and everyone. It’s ‘don’t want to get brought down again, don’t want to walk that lonely road’, it’s symbolic for anyone who’s been through any sort of problems. It’s a defiant song against loneliness, written in a hotel room in Goa. - Driving Rain Interview, 2001.

“It’s a defiant song against loneliness”, thats a fantastic little definition, which goes well with not only this song but many of Paul’s tunes.

In another quote, published much later, Paul speaks a little about the simple motivation for a certain rhyme:

‘Lonely Road’ was written in India, and that’s a bit… I don’t really know what I’m doing, just blues longing. I say I tried to go somewhere ‘old’, that’s India. ‘To search for my pot of gold’, well I wasn’t, I was on holiday. So it’s half imagination, half reality. If I’m looking for a rhyme for old, and pot of gold comes into my mind, then I don’t resist. ‘I try to go somewhere old cos I no longer need a pot of gold?’ Fuck that. Let’s go somewhere old to search for a pot of gold seems more like a song. - "Conversations With McCartney", by Paul Du Noyer, 2015.

In both quotes, its like he’s saying: “It’s nothing, it’s just this song I made up on a holiday, I didnt want to get brought down, ‘old’ just goes well with ‘gold’, the usual things in a songwriter life. Don’t pay that much attention to it, don’t think too much about it, I certainly didn’t”.

Interestingly, he makes reference in the 2001 interview to another song of the same album, and he once again tries to make it clear that the sources of inspiration were deeply rooted in free asociation.

‘About You’ was written in India, in Goa. We had such a relaxing start to an Indian holiday which was at the beginning of 2001. It was exciting, I hadn’t been back to India since the Mararishi days, which was 25 years or so ago. It was great to look around a bit more; I’d only seen Rishikesh, north of Delhi, before. We started off in Goa, relaxed beach time, and one afternoon I wrote ‘About You’ on a little travel guitar I’ve got which has it’s own amp in it. I picked some words out for the song after seeing a copy of The India Times which was lying around. - Driving Rain Interview, 2001.

“I read the news today, oh boy" kind of feeling... Hmmm... (I wonder what that newspaper was about)

IMO, every time Paul strives to asociate a certain song to something inexplicable, casual and without intermediation, he actually suggests that the motivation is very intimate and subconscious. At the same time, he refuses to analyse it. He wont talk about it, because he cant answer for himself at that moment, that place and time. And he probably believes that if he tries to grasp its meaning and set it in stone, sort to speak, he would kill the song. In this case, I think he tries to say there is no clear intention, but its also a strong feeling he can’t help to express.

And when he alludes to the specific lyrics, he carefully avoids the “middle eight” of the song: “I hear your music and it's driving me wild / Familiar rhythms in a different style / I hear your music and it's driving me wild again”.

“I hear your music"... Whose music?

Ok, Paul, you chose “gold” to rhyme with “old” (and I will not try to relate the “pot of gold” line with the famous twin dreams that John and Paul had after meeting for the first time). Fine.

But who is the person he is talking to throughout the song? Whose memory is the one “taking him down” there in India, in a supposedly happy holiday?

Yes, it can be Linda, but if so, wouldn't Paul say "our music"?. Im inclined to believe that this music he’s hearing (and its driving him “wild”... wild as “young and rebellious”? wild as “angry and mad”?) belongs or relates to someone different.

He sings: “Don't want to let you take me down / Don't want to get hurt second time around / Don't want to walk that lonely road again”.

Oh, this part I love. The reference to “second time” and “again” speak of a first time he was brought down and hurt, of a first time he walked “that lonely road”. Can this have to do only with his recent mourning, to which he’s saying in a way he’s done suffering? Or has to do with another, more distant, first departure, first great hurt? And even more, does this “first time” have something to do with India? (I remember now that Paul has another beautiful song that belongs to this period, maybe a little later, thats simply called “India”).

Why John, then?

The song transpires clearly a youthful rebellious spirit (”Fuck that”), expressing the need to shake off melancholy and nostalgia. And I think that in this way he suggests that he is more guarded in front of a process he already is familiar with. HE’S BEEN THERE. Because he has already gone through that lonely road, and it took him a long time to recover. This time, he feels the urge to recover faster (we'll know later that maybe it was too fast).

I dont know if the first mourning refers to his break-up with John or to John’s passing. Perhaps the proximity to India reinforces the first possibility.

Another thing to take into account is the fact that in the album Paul includes a song directly and explicitly related to Linda, Magic. On the contrary, in the case of Lonely Road, Paul decides to leave it orphan: it´s about noone, and nothing.

Lonely Road comes straight from the subconscious. It has a close, immediate trigger: probably another song that he hears and it makes him wild, and it brings him down, and it reminds him of another time when he was left alone.

And I think that song is a John’s song.

P.S.: Oh, not really related, but you definitely should watch the Lonely Road video.

#i formally submit this to the mclennon symposium #lonely road #i wanted to write about this song for a long time #paul mccartney #mclennon #john lennon #x

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ontheanvil · 3 years ago

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(day 2/30) things that make me happy

I wish I could show you what goes on in my head. It's so beautiful in here.

The last time I wrote about my personality, I talked a lot about the thinks I love. I can't help but notice and say it again- we are what we love, the things we love make us who we are.

Things that make me happy are largely figments of my imagination. I have very active imagination. It is so fundamental yet so baffling - how your mind could take you to places you've never been to, how it can make you see things that you never saw. It is dangerous to acknowledge that nothing is unattainable in the world of imagination. It's a drug and I'm quite high.

I never realized or acknowledged that active imagination is such a huge part of who I am. It is almost all of me, consumes me, fills me up with a world, with a sea of something indescribable.

As I type this, I listen to classical music. It is beautiful and it makes me happy. People with dreams and hope make me happy. Early morning walk to the park near my old home made me happy. Street vendors having sales made me happy. The old lady in salwar and sports shoes walking briskly made me happy. The toddlers running around mindlessly made me happy.

Remember the old man in the park? He probably comes from a far off place selling peanuts and snackables. He came every evening trying to sell in the park. His was a shrunk frame, there was only bone and hanging muscle. I looked at him and I looked at my palms, I couldn't help but think how different we were- Me, with my full healthy body and him - shrunken and starved. Yet, I felt happy when he perched to have conversation with two middle aged men who bought his snacks. I wondered what tales he brought from a far off place and what these completely different men, of different ages, of different health and of different kind had to exchange. It made me happy.

Imagining a boy saying I'm excited to see the moon and a girl in some separate frame thinking to herself, I'm excited to feel the sun.

I was walking around Connaught Place and saw this old woman, elegantly dressed in plain white salwar with all the glory of that smartly kept silver grey hair walk into an old book shop. The book shop is older than a hundred years. Couldn't help but think, the lady must have been frequenting the same old book store since very young. Oh how the city, her and the book store grew old together. That made me happy.

When women who are homemakers spend the lazy dizzying afternoons in their clam, dark, curtain bound homes reading books like "tongue in cheek" and laugh as light cracks in through every narrow nook and sides of the curtains, that makes me happy.

Remember in Chennai? when you take a bus early in the morning and return in the evening. All the people you see- old and young, dreaming and striving. That made me happy. Looking from the window of the bus - the old man who cycled in flair among a sea of motorized vehicles, his brahmin outfit, his naamam - my heart was screaming and cheering fashion, audacity, style, wtf!

It was my third time at White Rose London Supermarket, Mylapore. Eking out a living in a strange city for the sake of an internship and living off mineral water bottles. It was for mineral water I went. The smile and the greetings of the old door keeper, that sense of familiarity. It made me happy.

Deciding on eyeliner and ending up with dark chocolate. The awareness of inadequacy, knowing that all cannot be attained but be looked at and admired and longed for through glass windows. A soft happy kind of feeling that is.

Growing old alone, in the hills, tiptoeing to classical music. Being a healthy old woman, having lovely wrinkles, wearing cotton frocks. That is the taste of happiness to me.

To all the monuments that made me feel small, to all the people who just live their own way in flair, to all the souls that carry stories from places so far off. To my lovely home of the past, to Sunderayya Park, to Chennai and to Delhi. Thank You! 2021 has been a hell of a year.

While I won't ask my Alexa to stop playing classical music, I wish you all the happiness in the world.

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newstfionline · 7 years ago

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A Simple Way to Improve a Billion Lives: Eyeglasses

By Andrew Jacobs, NY Times, May 5, 2018

PANIPAT, India--Shivam Kumar’s failing eyesight was manageable at first. To better see the chalkboard, the 12-year-old moved to the front of the classroom, but in time, the indignities piled up.

Increasingly blurry vision forced him to give up flying kites and then cricket, after he was repeatedly whacked by balls he could no longer see. The constant squinting gave him headaches, and he came to dread walking home from school.

“Sometimes I don’t see a motorbike until it’s almost in my face,” he said.

As his grades flagged, so did his dreams of becoming a pilot. “You can’t fly a plane if you’re blind,” he noted glumly.

The fix for Shivam’s declining vision, it turns out, was remarkably simple.

He needed glasses.

More than a billion people around the world need eyeglasses but don’t have them, researchers say, an affliction long overlooked on lists of public health priorities. Some estimates put that figure closer to 2.5 billion people. They include thousands of nearsighted Nigerian truck drivers who strain to see pedestrians darting across the road and middle-aged coffee farmers in Bolivia whose inability to see objects up close makes it hard to spot ripe beans for harvest.

Then there are the tens of millions of children like Shivam across the world whose families cannot afford an eye exam or the prescription eyeglasses that would help them excel in school.

“Many of these kids are classified as poor learners or just dumb and therefore don’t progress at school,” said Kovin Naidoo, global director of Our Children’s Vision, an organization that provides free or inexpensive eyeglasses across Africa. “That just adds another hurdle to countries struggling to break the cycle of poverty.”

In an era when millions of people still perish from preventable or treatable illness, many major donors devote their largess to combating killers like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. In 2015, only $37 million was spent on delivering eyeglasses to people in the developing world, less than one percent of resources devoted to global health issues, according to EYElliance, a nonprofit group trying to raise money and bring attention to the problem of uncorrected vision.

So far, the group’s own fund-raising has yielded only a few million dollars, according to its organizers. It has enlisted Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the former Liberian president, Elaine L. Chao, the transportation secretary for the United States and Paul Polman, the chief executive of Unilever, among others, in an attempt to catapult the issue onto global development wish lists. They contend that an investment in improving sight would pay off. The World Health Organization has estimated the problem costs the global economy more than $200 billion annually in lost productivity.

“Lack of access to eye care prevents billions of people around the world from achieving their potential, and is a major barrier to economic and human progress,” said Madeleine K. Albright, the former secretary of state who is also involved in the group.

Hubert Sagnieres, the chief executive of Essilor, a French eyeglass company and a partner in the fund-raising campaign, said he often confronts ambivalence when pitching the cause to big-name philanthropists.

In an interview, he recalled a recent conversation with Bill Gates, whose foundation has spent tens of billions of dollars battling infectious diseases in the developing world. He said he reminded Mr. Gates of his own childhood nearsightedness, noting that without glasses, he might have faltered in school and perhaps never gone on to start Microsoft. Mr. Gates, he said, politely demurred, saying he had other priorities. A spokeswoman for the Gates Foundation declined to comment.

The initiative’s backers point out that responding to the world’s vision crisis does not require the invention of new drugs or solving nettlesome issues like distributing refrigerated vaccines in countries with poor infrastructure. Factories in Thailand, China and the Philippines can manufacture so-called readers for less than 50 cents a pair; prescription glasses that correct nearsightedness can be produced for $1.50.

But money alone won’t easily solve systemic challenges faced by countries like Uganda, which has just 45 eye doctors for a nation of 41 million. In rural India, glasses are seen as a sign of infirmity, and in many places, a hindrance for young women seeking to get married. Until last year, Liberia did not have a single eye clinic.

“People in rural areas have never even seen a child wearing glasses,” said Ms. Sirleaf, who was president of Liberia from 2006 to this year. “Drivers don’t even know they have a deficiency. They just drive the best they can.”

On a recent afternoon, hundreds of children in powder-blue uniforms giddily jostled one another in the dusty courtyard of a high school in Panipat, two hours north of New Delhi. The students, all from poor families, were having their eyesight checked by VisionSpring, a nonprofit group started by Jordan Kassalow, a New York optometrist who helped set up EYElliance, that works with local governments to distribute subsidized eyeglasses in Asia and Africa.

For most, it was the first time anyone had checked their eyesight. The students were both excited and terrified. Roughly 12 percent were flagged as having weak vision and sent to an adjacent classroom where workers using refractor lenses conducted more tests.

Shivam, the boy who dreamed of being a pilot, walked away with a pair of purple-framed spectacles donated by Warby Parker, the American eyewear company, which also paid for the screenings.

“Everything is so clear,” Shivam exclaimed as he looked with wonder around the classroom.

Anshu Taneja, VisonSpring’s India director, said that providing that first pair of glasses is pivotal; people who have experienced the benefits of corrected vision will often buy a second pair if their prescription changes or they lose the glasses they have come to depend on.

Ratan Singh, 45, a sharecropper who recently got his first pair of reading glasses, said he could not imagine living without them now. Standing in a field of ripening wheat, he said his inability to see tiny pests on the stalks of his crop had led to decreasing yields. He sheepishly recalled the time he sprayed the wrong insecticide because he couldn’t read the label. “I was always asking other people to help me read but I was becoming a burden,” he said.

Last month, after he accidentally broke his glasses, Mr. Singh, who supports his wife and six daughters, did not hesitate to fork out the 60 rupees, roughly 90 cents, for a new pair.

Most adults over 50 need reading glasses--more than a billion people in the developing world, according to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness--though the vast majority simply accept their creeping disability.

That’s what happened to D. Periyanayakam, 56, a power company employee whose job requires him to read electrical meters. His failing eyesight also made it hard to drive or respond to text messages from customers and co-workers.

“I figured it was a only matter of time before they suspended me,” he said during a visit to a mobile eye clinic run by Aravind Eye Hospital, a nonprofit institution that screened his vision and told him he would soon need cataract surgery.

Mr. Periyanayakam returned to work that day with a $2 pair of glasses. He was among 400 people who showed up at a daylong clinic in a high school run by ophthalmologists, lens grinders and vision screeners.

Aravind dispenses 600,000 pairs of glasses each year in India and has expanded its efforts to Nepal, Bangladesh and countries in Africa through local partners.

The hospital trains its own vision screeners, most of them young women; a separate program trains primary schoolteachers to test their students’ sight using eye charts.

Then there is the matter of road safety. Surveys show that a worrisome number of drivers on the road in developing countries have uncorrected vision. Traffic fatality rates are far higher in low-income countries; in Africa, for example, the rate is nearly triple that of Europe, according to the W.H.O.

Experts say a significant number of India’s roughly 200,000 traffic deaths each year are tied to poor vision. In a country with a huge number of drivers, among them nine million truckers, the government agencies that administer licenses are ill-equipped to deal with the problem of declining vision, critics say.

Sightsavers, a British nonprofit that has been treating cataract-related blindness in India since the 1960s, has spent the past two years trying to get glasses to commercial drivers. It operates mobile eye-screening camps at truck stops and tollbooths in 16 cities. A driver who has his eyes examined at a clinic in north India can pick up his glasses 10 days later at a clinic in the far south.

“These men are always on the move and they are pressed for time, so we try to make it as easy as possible for them,” said Ameen, a Sightsaver employee who uses a single name.

#eyesight #eyeglasses #vision problems #poor vision #India

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nicolamalfi · 8 years ago

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“The Long Road Home: A Survival Story”

// After three years, here is the thorough 3,889 word summary of my magnum opus story. Parts I - III are completed and can be found here: I, II, III. I feel that this definitely isn’t the same quality as the actual story, but at least it conveys everything! There is a TL;DR at the very bottom.

Part I: Survival

After throwing himself between a dear friend and the blade of an enemy, Nicol is presumed dead and the broken Blitz is left half-submerged off an island near Orb, fodder for scavengers. Three brothers under the guise of a fishing crew find the mobile suit a few days later. They eagerly cut into the cockpit—the Blue Cosmos chapter in the Equatorial Union capital of New Delhi offers a fine reward for any ranking ZAFT soldiers taken alive—and attempt to strip the mobile suit of whatever materials they can.

They cut open the hatch and find Nicol alive but barely conscious. He's up to his waist in water and pinned in where the cockpit has crushed inward around his right leg. They're not sure what a red suit means but it's out of the ordinary, so after a brief moment’s consideration they use the same power saw to cut through his leg, just above the knee, and pull him free.

Nicol survives the journey west and is taken to the brothers’ home in the Equatorial Union. There he is allowed to begin recovering under the pretence that the brothers had rescued him from the goodness of their hearts. The eldest, Bayani, is the only one who ever speaks to him. Nicol doesn’t remember their first encounter, but he still doesn’t trust these strangers.

His suspicions are confirmed one afternoon when the brothers take him to a beach to supposedly practice walking with a new crutch. Their behavior becomes increasingly erratic until, at the sound of an approaching boat, they admit their true motives. Nicol manages to escape before the boat arrives to take him away, killing Bayani and wounding the other two in the process. He retreats into a jungle and begins walking south, towards the PLANT-aligned Oceania Union.

Nicol stows away aboard ships heading south. He lives on produce swiped from markets and the donations of curious children who see him as a poor young vagabond. Despite keeping the hood of a stolen jacket drawn up at almost all times, Nicol decides that it’s best to cut his obvious Coordinator hair short.

A captain named Isko spots Nicol in Luwuk and offers him a small cabin and passage as far south as Dili, in the state of East Timor. Nicol is suspicious, but he accepts the offer. He later realises that the captain and his wife are simply good-hearted people and regrets his initial wariness.

Alone in his cabin, Nicol faces a mirror and feels disconnected from the unfamiliar reflection. Gaunt, deeply tanned, hair cut short…When he looks down to inspect his healing leg, the physical and emotional toll of the past few weeks causes him to black out and fall into the shower. He strikes the shower lever on the way down, and the water that hits his unconscious body inspires dreams of dark waves and dead faces.

Eventually he wakes and finds that he is still on the ship.

Part II: The Twins

Captain Isko drops Nicol off in Dili with a few kind words and a bag of food. It has been roughly one month since the battle, and Nicol feels almost peaceful as he eats his warm lunch in a shady spot across from a beach dotted with happy families. The war doesn’t seem to exist in this place.

A group of locals walk past, but a young man a few years older than Nicol pauses and catches his gaze. Nicol quickly prepares to leave, but the stranger has already hopped into the street and offered assistance. The cheerful man takes Nicol’s silence as an invitation to keep talking. His ready smile and memories of Captain Isko’s kindness convince Nicol to go against his instinct to run.

The stranger introduces himself as Alan. He leads Nicol to a dirt car park where his twin sister Ain is waiting in an old truck. The twins banter for a bit before they set off for their house. The radio is broken, so they talk to pass the time. About the island, the earth, themselves.

Nicol tells his story for the first time. The twins are surprisingly unbothered by his past as a soldier, and a ZAFT one at that. They’re mostly curious about life in space, and as Equatorial Union citizens they provide additional context for the actions of Bayani and his brothers.

They arrive at a white house set between two green hills. There are signs of disrepair and neglect; Ain later reveals that their mother has passed away and their father is away caring for family on another island. The twins insist that Nicol should receive some medical attention, but because the local clinic has already closed for the day they make do with what they have at the house.

Ain takes care of checking on Nicol’s leg and gives him some of Alan’s clothes to wear. She then starts preparing some chicken soup, but Alan keeps making innocent jokes about Coordinators so she throws a chunk of raw chicken that hits him square in the mouth. Nicol retreats to the back yard as they begin to fight, though he soon hears the tension dissolve into laughter.

After a while, Ain pokes her head out the back door and announces that dinner is ready. The table is set, the food is hot. Nicol is struck by how ordinary it all looks, and how deprived he has felt of such simple things. Alan misinterprets Nicol’s expression as one of judgement, because surely someone from space is used to fancier displays. Suddenly embarrassed by their home, Alan quietly asks if it isn’t too bad. Nicol smiles and tells him that it’s perfect.

Part III: Firelight

Four months have now passed since the battle. The trio spends an afternoon at the beach, and as the sun sets they build a fire to cook some dinner. Ain has to return to the truck for supplies, leaving the boys alone for a while. Alan is a bit unnerved when he sees Nicol looking up at the sky, as he fears that Nicol is unhappy or wants to leave them. Over the past three months the twins—and their community—have come to see the erstwhile soldier as part of the family.

Nicol says that he's not sure why he looks up anymore, since the PLANTs (he doesn't say “home”) feel farther away each day.

Ain returns with a plate stacked with foil-wrapped sweet potatoes. She asks if everything is alright, to which Alan responds with a snort and a string of Portuguese. This doesn’t fool Nicol anymore. After three months in Dili he is nearly fluent in Portuguese and has working knowledge of Tetun-Prasa. There are other languages on the island as well, especially after the creation of the Equatorial Union, so he also knows a word of Tetun-Terik here and Indonesian there, and enough Galoli to order breakfast.

They talk a bit more, but Alan is soon distracted by a seagull that alights nearby. He scrambles up and chases it down the beach. With Alan gone, Ain gives Nicol a stern yet maternal glare until he admits what’s really bothering him. He reveals his fear of no longer hurting enough at the separation, of becoming complacent and losing touch with his past self.

“I can’t give up on everyone, but short of rowing myself to Carpentaria, which is impossible, I can’t think of what to do. And I think about it every day.” He paused. “Or at least I used to. It’s so easy to live like the war doesn’t even exist here. And that’s what scares me. Am I…” He looked back up to Ain as his voice tightened. “Am I giving up on everyone?”

“You can’t live torn in two,” she tells him. Maybe what he feels is a sense of closure, growing slowly and tenderly like scar tissue across a wound. If his life has led him to Dili, then maybe he should accept that. “And if the people in our pasts truly loved us, they would want us to be happy and continue on. Even if it’s without them.”

He can’t help but feel that she’s right. Everyone he knew must be coming to terms with his absence, so maybe he should accept theirs and continue along his new path. For so long it felt more like a dark river, pushing him along and under until he suddenly found solid ground on a small island. That was when Alan appeared, there under the blazing blue sky, hand outstretched.

Ain gives Nicol’s hands a squeeze to draw him back from his thoughts as Alan returns. The sky has fallen into night by now, and their small campfire is the only light between them and the constellations. The three friends laugh and eat and talk long into the night. The waves come and go in the darkness, eroding and rebuilding.

Part IV: Event Horizon

The trio spends one Saturday morning working for a local farm by making deliveries to restaurants and an outdoor market. When they reach the market square Ain runs ahead to get them breakfast, leaving the boys to do the heavy lifting. By now Nicol has a 3D printed prosthesis (with custom decorations by Alan) and putting it on is beginning to feel as normal as dressing in his ZAFT uniform once did. They pass familiar faces in the crowded market, though the appearance of an old friend of the twins throws the day into disarray. Alan is ecstatic; Ain is furious.

Later that evening, the twins’ friend Yasir appears at the door bearing a peace offering: brownies, Ain’s favourite dessert. It doesn’t go over well, but he is eventually allowed in the door. Alan properly introduces him to Nicol while Ain putters around angrily in the next room. Yasir is the tallest of them, with a gentle demeanour and a habit of gesturing as he speaks. Nicol learns that he used to live nearby, but he left at the start of the war to join a water rescue group called the Cormorants.

The group originally saved fishermen and boaters, but with the onset of war they began plucking soldiers from ships, planes, and mobile suits downed in the waters around the Equatorial Union. They are non-aligned, with Coordinators working alongside Naturals to save lives. Yasir reveals that he himself is a Coordinator.

Nicol retells his story, which comes more easily now. After a moment of silence Yasir offhandedly states that the Cormorants would have been able to get him into the Oceania Union with little difficulty. The conversation quickly moves on to other topics, but Nicol remains silent, confused at how deeply Yasir’s words struck him. He’s happy here. These are his friends—truer than the members of the Le Creuset Team ever were. This place feels like home. So what is the painful flicker of hope in his chest?

As Yasir leaves, Nicol catches him at the door and quietly asks what he meant about getting into the Oceania Union. Unfortunately, that is no longer an option, as the Cormorant leadership recently underwent a shakeup and their contacts are gone. The revelation that crossing into the Oceania Union was once possible eats at Nicol for days, and his mind once again turns to thoughts of reaching Carpentaria.

Alan and Ain notice that he has become distracted and seems burdened, despite the cheerful face he wears for them. They confront Yasir to find out what he told Nicol that night.

On September 20, Nicol comes home from his part-time job at a restaurant and finds Alan, Ain, and Yasir sitting at the kitchen table waiting for him. As he sits, Ain confidently says that they’re going to get him home. They can tell that he’s in pain, and as his adopted earth family it’s their duty to do what’s best for him, even if it means that their paths will diverge.

Yasir explains how he was able to re-establish contact with one of their contacts in the Oceania Union—a member of the Junk Guild. But there’s a catch: their window of opportunity is in four days. He also shares news that the ZAFT base of Carpentaria fell to the Earth Alliance more than a month earlier.

The plan is for them to travel on a boat operated by Yasir’s Cormorant team and meet up with their contact at the border. From there Nicol will be taken into the Oceania Union and dropped off at a PLANT embassy.

Nicol immediately refuses.

The twins ignore him. They will stick together and see the mission through. The fact that they casually call it a ‘mission’ makes Nicol stand and leave the table. It could be dangerous. They aren’t soldiers. But Alan insists that they’re family, and there’s nothing he can do to stop them. Yasir says that he’s against it, but the crossing is calm at the moment so it shouldn’t be too dangerous.

Yasir gives them one day to decide. After many tears and hours spent sitting on the bench where Nicol and Alan first met months before, they agree to attempt it. The next two days are spent preparing and saying goodbye to the island. As the morning of the fourth day arrives, Nicol feels ill as they hurry out the door. His life is still neatly organised in the spare bedroom, as if he’ll return to it that afternoon.

Part V: Dark Water

The boat is manned by two additional Cormorant members who cheerfully greet the trio and assure them that the route is calm. It’s just another day of work for them. One attempts to make conversation by asking Nicol if he’s heard about what happened at Boaz the day before. The ZAFT base was destroyed, and the prevailing rumour is that the attack was nuclear.

After a few uneventful hours, one of the Cormorants spots an EA plane coming from the east. Its presence is troubling; the crew talk amongst themselves while their passengers stare up at the sky. It’s decided that they should stop at an uninhabited atoll known as Bedwell Island until the scout returns to the captured Carpentaria base. The Cormorants are generally allowed to travel unmolested, but they don’t want to risk being caught in anything.

They wait on the island for an hour then set out again. Words are lost and nerves are taut as their destination takes shape on the horizon. Then from the west, with the sunset spilling red behind it, appears an Oceania Union flotilla accompanied by at least one Vosgulov-class submarine that slips below the water before Nicol can be sure he truly saw it.

OMNI ships begin to take shape off to the east.

There is nowhere to go but forward. The Cormorants’ small boat speeds across water limned in vivid sunset orange, racing towards the coastline and out of the line of fire. Suddenly the ocean in front of them erupts as the Vosgulov-class launches an aerial mobile suit with a roar that sends everyone to their knees. Stinging sea spray rains down and agitated waves push the boat back towards the impending conflict.

The Cormorants fight for control, but they are caught in the battle and capsized by the wake of an Oceania Union warship. As the last light fades, Nicol sees Alan go under. Ain is clinging to hull and shouting something. Yasir is swimming towards her. Where are the other Cormorants—they don’t matter, he has to find Alan. The deafening cannonade continues. Another DINN swoops low overhead and the gale drags Nicol farther away. He swims. He swims. The wake of another warship sends more dark water crashing down, and from beneath its surface he can see the flash of violent lights in the sky.

A lifetime ago dark water crept into the Blitz’s cockpit, cold and inescapable, and from there it swept into his dreams. But his friends burned that darkness away. Now they are gone and the waves are back. Nicol can’t move, can’t fight the ocean.

Part VI: Gravity

He’s moving, but no longer weightless in the water. Before he can think, the sensation of being dragged triggers some deeply guarded memory and he panics, flailing at the hands that grip his shoulders. The stranger, a woman, drops him roughly and delivers a hard slap to his face. Nicol goes still and attempts to gather his wits. While hurrying him to a nearby car, she impatiently confirms that her name is Ellis and she’s a friend of Yasir’s from the Junk Guild.

As she begins to drive away from the shore Nicol demands that they go back and look for everyone else. Ellis nonchalantly says that the Cormorants will take care of them, and that everything they did was to get him there, so to go back and miss his opportunity would make it all in vain. They had a deadline. It was a small miracle that he had drifted somewhat close to their meeting point. Nicol stares out the window as it begins to rain.

Ellis explains that they first thought of going to the PLANT embassy, but after recent events in Carpentaria they decided to take him to the Giga-Float mass driver, which is only nearby for another day. She passes him off to another contact in the town of Carnarvon, but before she leaves she softens for a moment to say that she’ll contact Yasir to make sure that they’re alright, though she can’t guarantee anything. In a moment of desperation Nicol gives her his aunt’s contact information in Quintilis Two. Hopefully she won’t connect Ciana Amalfi to his father on the Supreme Council.

The new Junk Guild member is much friendlier and buys them both sandwiches before they grab a quick RIB to the Giga Float. He escorts Nicol onto the mass driver, introducing him to staff as a nephew going to visit family in Copernicus.

Nicol has never been on a mass driver before. There are rows of sturdy seats with seven-point harnesses and small windows; it’s thoroughly utilitarian, more reminiscent of something military than civilian. He takes a seat and stares out a window, feeling hollow and beyond tired.

He seems to hallucinate a journey back to the house in Dili, where he finds Ain alone. He follows her as she walks to a room that he never saw opened—it belonged to her parents. Alan is nowhere to be seen, and it slowly dawns upon Nicol that Alan didn’t make it back from the crossing. Ain can’t hear Nicol as he calls out to her, can’t feel him as he tries to grab her arm when she lifts a canister of gasoline. She lights a match and Nicol is thrown back into his body as the vehicle hurtles along the length of the electromagnetic catapult.

Copernicus is neutral, so he seeks out a representative office and frankly states who he is and how he came to be there. They don’t believe him at first, but his biometric identifiers match their records. This earns him a quick shuttle to Aprilius One, which is cancelled due to the outbreak of the Second Battle of Jachin Due on September 26th. He’s stranded in Copernicus as the war reaches its climax. He attempts to contact his parents but no one answers and he fears the worst. Eventually the messages are checked by his mother, who immediately goes to where Yuri is at the Supreme Council and tells him.

Part VII: Endings and Beginnings

Due to the recent cessation of hostilities, it takes a few days before they can arrange a shuttle. He doesn’t know how to feel—space no longer feels like home in his heart. He betrayed his friends to get there. What if they died for his selfish wish? His parents usher him into a car and go straight to their home, though after a few days it’s decided that their estate on Maius Three would be a more restorative setting.

Doctors come and go. They diagnose him with PTSD and quickly get to work using biological 3D printing technology to generate a new limb without even asking if he wants the procedure. Nicol goes through with it, more to make his parents happy than for himself. Days pass slowly until he gets a call from his aunt on Quintilis Two about a message. He’s suddenly full of energy and begs to be allowed on a shuttle to visit his aunt. His parents agree hesitantly, though they contact his aunt Ciana to let her know their interpretations of what he’s been through.

After he arrives, Ciana leaves him alone in her living room to watch the video message from earth. Already aware of the video’s content, she returns a short while later with a pair of mugs filled with hot chocolate and finds Nicol kneeling on the floor, bent close to his legs with his arms drawn in, trying to disappear and shaking softly.

She sets the tray down on the floor and sits down a safe distance away. After a period of silence, she begins to talk wistfully about what she misses most about earth: the sky. You never see the same clouds, the same colours. Does he remember when she taught him about the different types of clouds? There is a faint nod. Does he remember her favourite kind? He clears his throat and answers, “the night ones,” his voice tight.

She nods and shifts closer. “That’s right,” she says while gently stroking his shoulders. “Noctilucent clouds, some of the rarest and highest there are, and also the most beautiful. But they’re brief, and you can only see them after the sun sets. Sometimes that’s how life is—when things turn dark, something bright and beautiful appears. But they’re fleeting and not meant for us to hold on to. I don’t know where you went, what you experienced, but you found your light in the dark and now that it’s gone-”

Nicol interrupts her to miserably point out that his friends weren’t clouds. His aunt chuckles softly and pats his head; at least he was talking now. He ends up staying with her for several weeks. At one point he is finally required to submit a statement to ZAFT officials about his whereabouts for the six months between his presumed death and sudden return. The story feels like a physical thing unfurling from his chest, too large for the room.

He returns home in December, emotionally sore but well on his way to healing. The light given by his friends had never disappeared, it was there glowing warmly in his heart, illuminating a new path.

He re-establishes contact with remaining members of the Le Creuset Team, though he carries himself with more confidence than before. In CE 73 he works as a liaison between the Equatorial Union and the PLANT Supreme Council and promotes an improved relationship between the two.

One suggested therapy method was to compose music inspired by his experiences, and after two years he finally feels that it’s complete.

He finally has a proper concert.

Epilogue: Destiny

After the fall of Junius Seven, Nicol returns to earth as a member of the humanitarian envoy to the Equatorial Union. He remains there for the duration of the war.

TL;DR

Nicol is literally cut from the Blitz by human traffickers but he escapes and makes his way to East Timor, where he befriends two siblings and starts a new life. Five months later a new way home appears and the twins insist that he go for it. They try to help but they’re caught in a battle and separated. One twin is killed and the other is so distraught that she commits suicide. The Junk Guild helps Nicol get on a mass driver and return to space. Long emotional recovery. Gets better, has a proper concert, returns to earth to help after Junius Seven falls.

#headcanon #the long road home #nicol amalfi #gundam seed

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skitraveller · 8 years ago

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Leopards, elephants & moon beams....

Everyday I'm learning so very many new things.........some on totally different tangents to yoga......today I learnt that Rishikesh is home to wild Leopards & Elephants.....ok so I will admit I knew about the elephants as there's evidence everywhere along the roads of their nightly rummages, I'm yet to personally see one in the wild, not sure I want to either......well not here in Rishikesh anyway as there is no safari car within cooee....Now the leopards...that was a total revelation! I've been told stories of dogs & calves being regularly picked off by hungry felines of the larger than average variety. Hmmmm maybe my nightly prowls, pun intended, should be curtailed.....pfffft she says as she is out & about writing this post whilst drinking her cappuccino. Obituary....Death by leopard as it couldn't take out the elephant. Caution will be exercised going forward..... The days are all flowing into one, I had no clue it was Tuesday, wondering where the hell Monday went. Sunday started early, I was out on the streets by 8am, which is early for Rishikesh & for me given the workload I'm undertaking, I started with a wonderful breakfast in Zorba's on the Ganges, nice to have eggs again......it's the only form of animal protein I've been able to get & I've managed it twice now. I dedicated Sunday to a gift shopping day & thoroughly enjoyed the interaction with the shopkeepers & stall holders. Probably one of the very best buys is the pure cashmere shawls & blankets from Nepal they are all so beautiful, warm & very light weight. Clothing, particularly woman's clothing, is very cheap here.....think Tree of Life stores on steroids without the associated Aussie prices....I have aligned myself with two very important people ....a bookseller & a tailor who also has 'off the rack' items, asking around everyone confirmed they are both honest people to deal with, my gut tells me that also.....both will ship to Oz.........BINGO.....pay-dirt! As for books.....OMG......everything here is so cheap by comparison to Australia & Bali for that matter. I am very surprised by the prices....more than a couple of boxes will be heading home. Note to anyone considering coming to the very far north of India as in where I am, or Nepal, don't bring cash.....very difficult to exchange, bank ATM's are the best option. There is a State Bank of India ATM here in Rishikesh that is attached to a branch....this is what I have been using although one larger shop did take US$ as payment from me with a rate of 67 ~ 1....better than the 64 I got from the hotel in Delhi. I have been told cashing US$ in Delhi will be easier when I return at the end of my trip, either way I'm not concerned as I'm sure the Cubans will be eager for my $. Sunday afternoon I spent a few hours by the Ganges in a deeply resonating satsang with Swami Atma, satsang is a combined mantra chanting & spiritual talk given usually by a Swami although my teacher, Surinder, gives an amazing satsang however he doesn't see them as such. A Satsang can & usually does shake deep within to your soul, for me it's impossible not to be moved by them. Updating where I'm at in my course....we are now up to presentations & conducting a class. Presentations I'm ok with....done plenty of those during my career however the class is a different story......Friday afternoon I get to lead a class program for 35 mins....probably going to be the longest 35 mins I will experience whilst in India. I will be well prepared, that goes without saying however the execution of such will be a whole new ball game.....breatheeeeeeeee The presentations that I've been allocated are on Pranayama (breath) & Digestive system...hope my brain has absorbed all that is needed....right now I'm a tad tired so I'm questioning what has stuck in the brain cavity....tomorrow all will be good. Surinder suggested that we all do one of his daily public 'drop in' yoga classes that follow our 2 hour strenuous yoga class each morning.........I told him I would 'observe' during one but to back up another 1.5 hrs of yoga immediately after 2 hrs of yoga......Surinder, mate....I'm 56 years old....older than you....I told him he was dreaming.....the joke was lost in translation, I told him to hold that thought.....also lost in translation.....he eventually understood NO. A lovely comment was made to me earlier this evening by our Meditation teacher (& our fill-in for Philosophy), a beautiful spiritual Indian gentleman named Sukhmeet. He said he was so honoured to teach me, he has never had an older woman in any of his classes & the experience I have been giving him has been soulful. Soulful.....a beautiful word

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luckylq23-blog · 4 years ago

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Much of the first floor is devoted to food

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todaybharatnews · 6 years ago

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via Today Bharat Calling it injustice, Congress ticket aspirants allege that the powerful political leaders from Osmania University are being "suppressed", in the very Telangana that they fought for.Dissent is brewing within the Telangana unit of the Congress. This, as a section of former student leaders from Osmania University, who were the backbone of the agitation for a separate state, are being left out of the final list being prepared by the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC), due to be released on November 10. The Congress war room in New Delhi's Akbar Road is witnessing hectic activity as the party gets ready to release its list of candidates who will contest in the upcoming Telangana elections scheduled on December 7. For the past few days, aspirants have lined up after being summoned by the screening committee, which includes TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy and AICC state in-charge RC Khuntia, who have been participating in day-long consultations to hammer out their final list of candidates. Injustice to student leaders The Secunderabad Cantonment constituency in the heart of the state's capital is witnessing a unique battle as the dispute within the party has also extended to family. Krishank Manne, who was a prominent leader of the Osmania University Joint Action Committee (OUJAC) and worked his way to the ranks of TPCC spokesperson after joining the Congress when Telangana was formed, is the main dissident. He is facing off against ex-Union Minister Sarvey Satyanarayana, his own father-in-law. A senior leader in the Congress, Sarvey Sathyanarayana had bagged the Malkajgiri MP seat in 2009 but has faced two continuous defeats since - once in the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections and again in the Warangal Assembly bye-election held in 2015. Supporters of Krishank, who was also denied a ticket in 2014, accuse Sathyanarayana of stonewalling the student leader's attempts to get the candidacy. "There are more than a dozen people in Congress who dream of being Chief Minister in Telangana. Everyone knows that. Sarve Sathyanarayana is the latest addition to the list," a Congress leader remarks on the condition of anonymity. Both leaders were summoned to the war room earlier this week, but Sathyanarayana allegedly never turned up, despite several senior leaders asking him to forgo the seat, promising an MP seat in return. Despite Sathyanarayanarsquo;s no-show, Krishank believes his father-in-law may still get the Congress ticket as he is close to the party High Command. Speaking to TNM, Krishank says, "OU student leaders are being denied tickets despite the promise made by Rahul Gandhi at his residence in New Delhi and Hyderabad too. It is painful and many of us are upset. If I'm denied a ticket again, what is the guarantee that I'll get one in 2024? I'm also answerable to the voters with whom I've been spending time for all these years." "I will contest as an independent candidate if Congress doesn't change its stand and does not accommodate OU student leaders, as was promised," he added. A second major battle is shaking up the Congress in Jangaon, where Bala Lakshmi, a firebrand leader, who was with the OUJAC and was one of the few women leaders to emerge from the movement, is upset after the constituency was reportedly allotted to the Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) as part of the Mahakutami or grand alliance being forged in the state. Others who are part of the alliance include the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Communist Party of India (CPI). Speculation is strong that the TJS would field its party president and another key figure from the movement, Professor Kodandram himself, from the seat. Bala Lakshmi's followers argue that if the alliance wanted to go for someone who was prominent in the movement, then she would qualify as well. "I was from OU and fought during the movement. We even fought for a separate Jangaon district. I'm well qualified for the ticket and we have a strong cadre in the constituency as well. The party talks about bringing in more young candidates, especially women. I tick all the boxes that Rahul Gandhi talks about," Lakshmi tells TNM. Local party workers sympathetic to Lakshmi's cause also allege that attempts were being made to finalise Kodandaram from the seat, in an attempt to create a divide between two leaders of the movement, as Lakshmi's contender within the Congress is Ponnala Lakshmaiah. While Lakshmaiah is an ex-state minister, he suffered a big blow in 2014, losing the Jangaon seat although he was the then TPCC chief. Sensing trouble, senior leaders like Koppula Raju have also taken note and are working to douse the flames. "I'm also a leader of the movement. I worked on the ground and Kodandaram may have been the brains, but he could have been fielded anywhere," Lakshmi argues. Having been denied a ticket in 2014, Lakshmi warns that she is also willing to contest as an independent candidate if the need arises. "It is complete injustice. An attempt is being made as part of a political ploy, where the powerful political leaders from OU are being suppressed, so that they don't have a voice to question things in the very Telangana that they fought for," she says. Critics point out that the TRS has done a far better job while offering seats of power to student leaders who were part of the movement. While Balka Suman has already almost completed a term as an MP, he has been nominated as the TRS' MLA candidate for Chennur, replacing a 3-time sitting legislator. Even those leaders who lost were given posts in corporations and other organisations. "It is difficult because leaders get politically shaken. We work for five years on the ground, interacting with people and when we don't receive a ticket, we are almost lost about our future plan. There is no guarantee that we will get one in the next five years either," a student leader from the Congress who was associated with the movement states. Congress takes stock Durgam Bhaskar, another prominent leader and an aspirant for the Bellampalli (SC) seat, was the latest leader to be summoned to the war room on Friday afternoon. However, it is being widely speculated that the constituency may be one out of the three seats being offered to the CPI in the alliance. "KCR or Kodandaram didn't fight the movement alone. We were the backbone of the movement. We were the ones who worked without food or sleep, mobilising people around the clock. We are assuring party leaders that if they give us a seat, we will ensure that we emerge victorious," Bhaskar says. Congress leaders have taken stock of the situation and are reiterating to student leaders that the seats have not been finalised yet, even asking some not to approach the media. "We have taken note of the dissent. Their complaints are understandable and deliberations are ongoing. We have asked them to repose their faith in the party," a senior Congress leader in the know, said. "We are still hopeful and we are hoping that the Congress stands by Rahul Gandhi's promise of granting tickets to student leaders from the Telangana agitation," Bhaskar adds. nbsp; nbsp;

#IFTTT #Today Bharat

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taohun · 3 years ago

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I Dream It Is Afternoon When I Return to Delhi is so special to me because I’ve been to every single place mentioned in it. Losing my mind about how art is everything to me etc.

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antiserious · 7 years ago

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I Dream It Is Afternoon When I Return To Delhi by Agha Shahid Ali @AghaShaahidAli pic.twitter.com/Gc3o70pM5F

— Antiserious (@antiserious) March 18, 2016

#IFTTT #Twitter

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deniscollins · 7 years ago

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A Simple Way to Improve a Billion Lives: Eyeglasses

Experts estimate 1 billion to 2.5 billion people worldwide need eyeglasses but don’t get eye exams or glasses, which can cost just $1.50, due to poverty conditions and lack of eye doctors. Experts say a significant number of India’s roughly 200,000 traffic deaths each year are tied to poor vision. If you were an executive for an eye industry association, what would you do, if anything, in response to this? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decisions?

Shivam Kumar’s failing eyesight was manageable at first. To better see the chalkboard, the 12-year-old moved to the front of the classroom, but in time, the indignities piled up.

“Sometimes I don’t see a motorbike until it’s almost in my face,” he said.

As his grades flagged, so did his dreams of becoming a pilot. “You can’t fly a plane if you’re blind,” he noted glumly.

The fix for Shivam’s declining vision, it turns out, was remarkably simple.

He needed glasses.

Then there are the tens of millions of children like Shivam across the world whose families cannot afford an eye exam or the prescription eyeglasses that would help them excel in school.

Shivam, the boy who dreamed of being a pilot, walked away with a pair of purple-framed spectacles donated by Warby Parker, the American eyewear company, which also paid for the screenings.

“Everything is so clear,” Shivam exclaimed as he looked with wonder around the classroom.

Last month, after he accidentally broke his glasses, Mr. Singh, who supports his wife and six daughters, did not hesitate to fork out the 60 rupees, roughly 90 cents, for a new pair.

Most adults over 50 need reading glasses — more than a billion people in the developing world, according to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness — though the vast majority simply accept their creeping disability.

Aravind dispenses 600,000 pairs of glasses each year in India and has expanded its efforts to Nepal, Bangladesh and countries in Africa through local partners.

The hospital trains its own vision screeners, most of them young women; a separate program trains primary schoolteachers to test their students’ sight using eye charts.

Experts say a significant number of India’s roughly 200,000 traffic deathseach year are tied to poor vision. In a country with a huge number of drivers, among them nine million truckers, the government agencies that administer licenses are ill-equipped to deal with the problem of declining vision, critics say.

Sightsavers, a British nonprofit that has been treating cataract-related blindness in India since the 1960s, has spent the past two years trying to get glasses to commercial drivers. It operates mobile eye-screening campsat truck stops and tollbooths in 16 cities. A driver who has his eyes examined at a clinic in north India can pick up his glasses 10 days later at a clinic in the far south.

“These men are always on the move and they are pressed for time, so we try to make it as easy as possible for them,” said Ameen, a Sightsaver employee who uses a single name.

On a recent morning, dozens of drivers, many wearing flip-flops and oil-stained trousers, lined up in front of an eye chart taped to the wall of a trucking company in the town of Chapraula. Asked why they had waited so long to have their vision checked, some shrugged. Others said they were too busy. A few cited fears they would be fired if an employer discovered that their vision was flawed.

About half the men, it turned out, needed glasses. They included Jagdish Prasad, 55, a father of nine with a deeply lined face who had never had his eyes tested.

“I haven’t had an accident in 35 years,” Mr. Prasad exclaimed — but then reluctantly admitted that he has lately been squinting to see whether a traffic light had changed.

Then he gestured to the cavalcade of honking vehicles behind him and told a story. Four days earlier, he said, a mentally ill man had been lying on the edge of the road, forcing drivers to swerve to avoid him. One of those vehicles, a truck not unlike his own, tried to avoid the man but ended up killing two students who were crossing the road on their way to school. The next day, the mentally ill man was also struck and killed, Mr. Prasad said.

He paused and then considered the piece of paper in his hand. It contained the prescription for his first pair of glasses. Mr. Prasad hesitated and then gently placed it in his pocket.

#Eyeglasses

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cleopatrarps · 7 years ago

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A Simple Way to Improve a Billion Lives: Eyeglasses

PANIPAT, India — Shivam Kumar’s failing eyesight was manageable at first. To better see the chalkboard, the 12-year-old moved to the front of the classroom, but in time, the indignities piled up.

“Sometimes I don’t see a motorbike until it’s almost in my face,” he said.

As his grades flagged, so did his dreams of becoming a pilot. “You can’t fly a plane if you’re blind,” he noted glumly.

The fix for Shivam’s declining vision, it turns out, was remarkably simple.

He needed glasses.

Then there the tens of millions of children like Shivam across the world whose families cannot afford an eye exam or the prescription eyeglasses that would help them excel in school.