THE Toilet Seat Rodin's Blog

Ramu was surprised to see his wife at the door. She had gone to her parents home just a week ago and had been supposed to stay there a week more. Her going home was always a prickly affair between them. He was so attached to her, and was so used to having her around that he could not envisage her not being around when he came home from work. Even after five years of marriage, they had not been able to have a child and though he did commiserate with Savithri (his wife) about it, in some corner of his heart he was happy also. He was not sure if he could share her, her affections and time with anyone else, even if the person in question happened to be their own child. Although her parents lived in the next village, less than five miles away, this was only the second time that Savithri had gone to her parents. The only time before that had been when she had gone for a few days soon after their marriage for the customary visit. Ramu was an orphan, who had spent his childhood in the villag...

I do not remember much detail about the 'Stockholm Syndrome' but what I do remember is the psychology behind the principle. Evidently, in a bank robbery in Stockholm, the robbers took hostages which they kept in captivity over a period of 4-5 day. At the end of the 'ordeal', the hostages had gotten emotionally attached to their captors and even defended them/ their actions. Evidently, the emotions in a hostage- captor relationship start out with hatred, perhaps revulsion, loathing and maybe, in extreme cases, even a desire to kill the captor. However, in a vast majority of cases, the loathing turns to loving, the animosity turns to adoration and adulation. Now, without trying to do a Freud act and attempt to reason why, lets talk about a modern day variation of the Stockholm Syndrome. The biggest difference in the new syndrome is that it does not start out with hatred. Almost in a reverse chronological order,  it starts out as covetousness, and following captivation b...

(Picture Source: sainiashwani.blogspot.com/ ) The smiling guy, turning and looking at the camera was, is Maj. Atul Ghildiyal of the 3 Dogra regiment of the Indian army. One of the coolest, most laid back guys I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. His voice also had that lazy drawl that personified everything that Atul was. I met Atul when he was still a bachelor and was posted at Jalandhar. I'll never forget the crazy nights of drinking rum with warm water sitting out in the lawn on bitterly cold winter evenings at the 3 Dogra Officer's Mess. Had the pleasure of meeting his wife, Urmila (Urmi as we all call her) soon after their marriage. They made a perfect couple, both very warm hearted, open and chilled out. I lost touch with Atul when his unit moved out and came to know of his martyrdom much, much after Atul had left us all. It has been over seven years now but the pain is still as fresh, as raw as ever. They say, time is a great healer- well, it is not. Try telling ...

(Image source: www.newsjunkiepost.com) To your left is probably one of the most poignant pictures ever taken. There is something about seeing a child dead that shakes the very core of the being of all of us. A similar picture of the dead body of a small child being pulled out of the recent Maoist train sabotage made national headlines and revolted all of us. Coming back to the point, more than 15,000 people died in the infamous Bhopal gas tragedy on the intervening night of 2nd and 3rd December 1984. Not everyone died a relatively quick though painful death. Many died slow, agonizing, lingering deaths stretched over months and years thanks to the complications arising from the poisoning. The Indian government initially filed a compensation claim for $ 3.3 billion against Union Carbide but later settled for a niggardly sum of $ 470 million in an out of court settlement. If we go by the official figures of deaths that took place, the compensation per person was less than Rs.  one l...

(Image sourced from  thebsreport.wordpress.com) In a recent lecture, Dr. Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University and   author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, has unveiled evidence for his prediction that   global cooling is coming   soon. What is more surprising than the news itself is the fact that the postulation of Dr. Don is no t raising as many eyebrows as perhaps it should have. In an age w hen we’re getting used to hearing and reading horror stories of global warming affecting everything from sea levels to food cycles, and are just getting used to the idea of increased air-conditioning bills, along comes a yahoo who says that the earth is getting cooler and that for the next few decades, it will continue to get cooler. In a similar dissertation, a leading periodical ha d come down heavily a few months back on Dr. R.K. Pachauri’s assertion that the melting of Himalayan glaciers is accelerating. The magazine...

  (Image sourced from  steadyhealth.com)  Mr. Sharan did not look well, life had dealt him a double blow in the last year and it showed. First, he lost his wife to cancer and then he lost a very highly respected job. Lonely and unemployed at a time when his children were growing up, he had lost the will to fight. Once an energetic and aggressive man, now he was a mere shadow of his old self. He had stopped taking care of his appearance and frequently did not take a bath for days together, his clothes were dirty and unkept and his hair had grown quite long. For someone seeing him for the first time since his wife’s death, his physical appearance was a huge shock. From a very vain and self aware person his appearance had degenerated to nearly that of a homeless person, only the rich fabric of his dirty clothes and his very intelligent features gave lie to the persona. His family and friends were aghast at the transformation and thought that he had succumbed to depressio...

Picture sourced from (www.gollner.ca) Are human beings the only species in the universe capable of forming and voicing opinions? Possibly yes and also possibly not. The ability of human beings’ ability to think and voice to their thoughts is one of the things that sets us apart from other species and races that we currently know of. This ability to think independently and form opinions gives us our individuality. Conflicting ideologies also make for some very interesting and lively conversations, intense debates, furious arguments , and fights, battles and wars of varying magnitude. Religion , politics, whether money is the root of all evil, right to abortion, stem cell research, cloning, genetic modification of foods, climate change etc are a few topics that make for very strongly polarized viewpoints. What makes this fight of ideologies even more interesting for a behavior analyst is the reaction of protagonists when confronted with diametrically opposing viewpoints. People som...

Photo sourced from ' The Hindu' . Sometimes, a writer's style of writing is so opposed to the virtue of simplicity that you wonder whether you are reading a book at leisure or appearing for GRE or GMAT exam. Simple, easily understandable language is sacrificed at the altar of sophistication and the vain urge to 'wow' the audience. Arudhati Roy is one such writer, her analogies are a pain and a half, and descriptions are so prosaic that you end up shaking your head as if a heavy weight boxer has hit you bang on the nose. If Arundhati's misadventures had been limited to her books alone, no one would have a problem with it. After all, no one is forcing you or me to read her book, we pick it up of our own accord or are gifted one by a pseudo-intellectual. The problem is when Ms. Arundhati Roy climbs on to national centrestage and starts glorifying all that her beloved Maoists are doing with not even a hint of empathy for the recent victims of their recent terrorist...

Made in India , made in India- a song crooned by Alisha Chinoy in 1996 made her a household name in India- the object of her approbation in the song. If the song were to be renamed and re -written today, the best possible name would be ‘Maid in India ’. When the various peccadilloes of neighborhood have been discussed to death with exaggerated gestures and rolling eyes on the part of the narrator and popping eyes on the part of the listeners, the recent developments in the plethora of tear jerker T.V. serials are analyzed down to sheer bone with passionate empathy with the ‘poor’ victim and heartfelt ‘invitation of heaven’s wrath’ on the perpetrators of injustices on the idiot box , after which the comparatively better off neighbors’ r ecent material acquisitions are lampooned and criticized for exhibitionism and blatant showmanship and then comes the discussion which hits the nerve with every Indian woman- the fickle nature, the unreliability and the sheer thick-headedness of the...