Bewitched; and Spider’s Milk
Over the past weeks we’ve been bewitched by stunning visuals of the World’s now Tallest Statue — Unity, built taller than Liberty; and the Celebrity Weddings of Deepika Padukone — Ranveer Singh, and Priyanka Chopra — Nick Jones. While the Indian-made couple chose to wed across foreign shores — in Italy, the foreign-going Baywatch and Quantico star nicked precious space in India. The Wedding dresses ensemble put together over tens of thousands of man-hours could dress-up more than Lady Liberty and Sardar Unity (Lord Ram — when he does arrive on the scene in Ayodhya — doesn’t need them at all). Here’s wishing that the Stars stay united for years to come, else they are at liberty to request the services of Sardar Patel — again, coming down from his statue, to stay united.
Talking about Statues, I quote a recent Twitter tweet from Harsh Goenka, Chairman of RPG Enterprises, that I liked, “ Indians when in Paris: Look at Eiffel Tower. Why can’t we build such structures? Indians when in New York: Look at the Empire State Building. Why can’t we build such structures? Indians when in India: Look at Patel’s Statue. Why can’t we build a hospital or school instead! ” We cannot level everything in this World with one big scale, can we? I read an article where someone argued, ‘Can we eat statues?’. Well, we can’t eat Movies, Music, Wedding Dresses…yet, they have a purpose, I’m sure!
Event before these Stars started throwing their light, we were enthralled by NASA’s robotic InSight carefully landing on the Red Planet and settling down to a live-in relationship with Mars, at least for the next two years. InSight was dressed for the occasion and it was a delight to see it spread its solar panel ‘train of wings’ and soak in the energy of the Sun. We are still waiting for the Official Wedding Album to be released. Will there be many Receptions (Mumbai, Delhi)? Many eight-minutes of Time Distance will tell!
Romance — in every dimension, is definitely in the air despite Nature blowing cold through Cyclones and Hurricanes.
While the star and moon-struck kind succeeded in their missions, an American who was bewitched by Jesus and Christianity took it all too seriously, stripping down to the bare essentials to try to hook one of the World’s most enigmatic, particularly vulnerable Tribes — the Andaman Sentinelese, to the Bible. They took him down with their primitive bow & arrow and left him dead on the beach — Jesus calling. The Sentinelese have lived isolated from the outside World for almost 60,000 years living the ancient hunter-gatherer life and have strongly resisted all attempts to bring them in to the mainstream of our kind of civilization. India has decided to let them be; and it’s a line no one is allowed to cross, which ought to be respected.
Meanwhile, in India, Ornithologists reported sighting the rare, shy Ortolan Bunting — a pale-yellow throated Bird — whose breeding range stretches from Spain to Mongolia, and migrates to Africa (Ethiopia and Uganda) via the Middle East, for the winter. It is a monogamous (the newly-married Stars should look here) bird laying and incubating eggs in a ground level nest built jointly with its partner, who stands guard over the nest. The migration of birds is a fascinating subject and maybe our Stars are also doing their own bit of migration — to warmer nests, across continents, to lay their eggs and propagate the Human species. That’s evolution happening right in front of our eyes!
Our eyes are having the sight of our lives, with so much to see; and girls may finally rest theirs on British heart-throb Actor Idris Elba — being voted the Sexiest Man alive. He is a celebrated Deejay, Producer, Songwriter, Rapper, Percussionist, and Vocalist, besides being awfully handsome. We may know him from his portrayal of Norse God and Asgardian Gatekeeper Heimdall in Marvel’s (Comics) Thor franchise. He has a 16-year old daughter and a 4-year old son — from previous marriages — and is now in a relationship with a Model to whom he proposed in February this year. That’s another sexy Wedding coming up, for sure!
While we near the end of the year, this December 2018, we think about cozying up in our woolens, around some fire-place, and curling around loved ones at home, to ruminate the year gone by and think plans for the year ahead. Reminds me of a species of Spiders that suckles its young and takes care of them so well that the young fellas just do not want to leave home. The mother spider deposits a milk-like fluid around the nest for the hatchlings to drink until they are about 40 days old, after which she suckles them directly; and we thought that only mammals breast-feed their young! Scientists have discovered that this milk contains four times the proteins found in cow’s milk. I’m all for drinking spider’s milk in the year(s) ahead.
I’ve not finished with the Spider story, yet: when the Spiderlings become sexually active adult spiders, they return home for more milk (the taste lingers on and is a big draw, I guess) from Mom, but are driven out as Mom is onto the next round of production and is careful to segregate brothers from sisters. Brothers and sisters cannot marry, even in Spider World. Wonder, whether Stan Lee thought about all this when he passed away to the Heavens above leaving us with Spider-Man, Iron-Man… and the kind, to marvel about! May be, he spinned the web of his stories on the secret strength of Spider’s Milk. Let’s drink to that!
Have a wonderful end-of-the-year time! Life can be bewitching!
