LT COL NOEL ELLIS 13/X/2024 Festive season has started in earnest. Eight days of fasting ended with Dussehra celebrations’, a relief for many who were missing their ‘chota-chota’ and ‘leg pieces’. Finally, good prevailed over evil. We all witnessed Evil burn to cinders and moved home to do just the opposite of the gyan we had gathered before ‘swa-haing’ Ravan. In our country people are too creative and can see the good or evil in anything and everything. Similarly, Ravan could be imagined in electric poles and meters too. Have you ever seen Ravan being evacuated to hospital? I have. Probably, in the battle of Lanka, after his grievous injuries, some ‘va-nars’ decided to take him to the hospital in an ambulance. Ravan did not realise that that would still be his last journey. Hospitals are known for that. I am not sure who would have paid for Ravans medical expenses, unless he had a good Mediclaim policy or was part of RGHS or ECHS. Poor chap would ha
LT COL NOEL ELLIS 12/X/2024 There are times when a gardener tries to thoroughly water his plants but the next day it appears that it was never watered. The surface feels dry as stone. This is a hint that things are not well. You try and thrust your finger in to check, but it doesn’t go through. You try shoving a weed remover or a screw driver, it is still very difficult to shove it in. There is definitely something wrong. This happens when you leave a plant unattended and just keep watering it. Its foliage is green and healthy but what is happening inside the pot is neither visible nor there is any way to peep in. The only way to understand is to extract the plant from its pot and check. Chances are that the plant has become “root bound”; means it has consumed all the soil & manure needed for it to thrive. The pot does not hold water anymore. The bottom hole gets blocked as roots start to emerge out of that hole looking for food. If left long eno