Navaratri

On my (nearly) blogoversary post, Tanya, who writes Teen Autism, which is an excellent blog well worth a visit by the way, asked what my favourite holiday is?

[...] Here's a question for you - what's your favorite
holiday and why? (I just realized that holiday is like "vacation," right? I was
meaning a special day, like a Hindu celebration or your birthday, or something
along those lines. Hope that makes sense!) [...]

My immediate thought was:

'I enjoy all holidays, oo Hindu celebration? Well, navaratri is fun'

Followed very quickly by

'So what is my favourite holiday then, and I've written about that one before'

then by

'Seeing as that was my instinctive answer it must be my favourite'.

Yes, I had an entire conversation with myself. Don't worry, I've long accepted my madness!

So I'll write about it again - I've not read my previous post on it, I don't want to influence what I write now, nine months after it happened, so some of it will be repetition for people who've read that post, and hopefully some of it will be new information.
Navaratri

Its a nine-day festival, taking place mainly in the evenings in Britain; not really sure what happens in India where there would be more significance placed on it.

The nine days are dedicated to the worship of the Shakti (female) form of God.

Three nights are dedicated to Durga, the goddess of power and strength, three nights to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and three nights to Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge.

There is a fantastic tale surrounding the festival, which I will share in a subsequent post!

How we celebrate

Different people celebrate Navaratri in different ways. We celebrate it by donning our Indian clothes and flocking to school halls in the evening to dance the night away.

There is garba, which involves dancing around in large concentric circles, clapping away to the music. There is dandia, which involves dancing in long lines facing each other, using sticks.
There are other types of dance, the names of which I don't even know.

I've done a shockingly poor job describing the dancing. All I can say is adopt a Hindu friend and get them to take you! It is so much fun, and honestly very accessible for newcomers. I'm not good at dancing at all, but you become one of the masses and it doesn't matter. I took some of my friends one year, and now they're as hooked as I am, and don't even normally like dancing!

Why I enjoy it

The story, one I like to recall every year, is fun. The religious aspect of the festival is interesting, and brings a sense of peace and tranquility. Shodding the blacks and greys of autumn for wonderfully colourful Indian dresses, sandals and bangles for a few hours is nice (if somewhat impractical for the climate and the activity). The social aspect; seeing your friends and family and saying hello to those familiar faces you only really see once a year is cool.

But what I really enjoy about it is the dancing. There is always a live band, with amazing singers and traditional Indian instruments such as the harmonium and tabla, and some non-traditional instruments like the electronic keyboard. Unfortunately I have no idea what the words they are singing mean, but it doesn't matter. The feeling they convey, as you dance, is enough.

It starts off slowly, encouragingly, coaxing you to the dance floor, warming you up, giving people new to the dance (or, indeed old to the dance but as ungraceful and forgetful as me) to learn the moves again. You wander over and join a circle, follow their lead. Most are fairly simple to pick up quickly, you can just avoid the ones that aren't. All consist of 3-7 steps which are repeated continuously as you go round. As the dancing gets going the music increases in tempo, and you get faster and faster, until the beat is too fast for any singing. You can walk in or out at any point, but if you can you keep going, the music helping you push yourself through the tiredness for the last few beats.

As the song ends all the dancers stop, glowing (as opposed to sweating), walking off the exercise, grabbing bottles of water, cooling down.

I find there is something extra fun about dancing (and I use the term dancing loosely) to music. It pushes me further than I would normally go, it uplifts me, its great exercise without feeling like a lot of effort.

Nine nights of it? How can it not be my favourite holiday!?

Cassettes

You know when you've well and truly moved up a generation when you read about people who never had the opportunity to find out how to work cassettes.

You know, those things that came before CDs were invented...

I've still got about 10 completely blank cassettes which I'm guessing I bought intending to tape my favourite songs off the radio. Yep, we managed to cheat ourselves a collection of songs even before the days of the Internet. I'm not entirely sure what to do with them now.

I've even got some tapes full of songs I did steal off the radio. I'm going to have a listen when I get home, I'm curious what songs my 10-13 year old self would have avidly waited by the radio for.

I remember the radio station would always play their slogan towards the end of the song to stop you doing just that. There would be a sort of rush to hit stop so you didn't catch the '95.8 capital fm' reminder at the end.

Or when you were copying from CD to tape (the days before there was readily available software to burn your own) and there was a sort of madly complicated caculation to work out how you're going to fit everything on without having to cut a song off half-way.

Ah, the days of cassettes eh? It wasn't even that long ago, and that article made it sound like a whole other era!

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Disclaimer: In the event that any of the activity recorded above is an infringment of copyright laws, which it probably is, please note that this blog post is *ahem* purely fictional. I never recorded songs off the radio or copied CDs onto cassettes, honest...

Procrastination explained in pictures...

I found the following picture on graphjam.com

It is so, incedibly scarily true!

Now today is friday, so lets get stuck in the red so we can all enjoy the weekend!

understanding what the heck Skipping Down the Lane is about

'What a curious time to have a post explaining your blog' I hear you say.

Well I was beginning to get the feeling that newer readers (and indeed older readers) might be finding it a little bit confusing to understand what it is I do. I know the logical place to have that kind of information would be at the beginning, but having read my first post I didn't really give much away. Also having read the first post, I just realised that my blogoversary is only a week away! If I was being sensible I'd save publication till then, but I think one thing we all know is that is one thing I'm not!* This can be an early celebration. Skipping Down the Lane is one year old (rounded to the nearest whole number).

So why are you thrown with posts about studying, work, medical-related stuff, teaching, religion, family, dinners, school and so on and so forth in a random fashion, and how does it all fit together?

I work in pensions

I'm training to be an actuary. To sum it up in a nutshell, actuaries analyse future financial risk. I work for a company providing financial consulting services to other companies, in the pensions department. Which is why you'll get posts talking about finance type stuff. Occasionally.

I am sitting exams

To be an actuary, you have to do 15 exams. You get some time off work to study, but essentially you're working full time whilst studying. Which is why you'll get posts with me moaning about studying and exams.

I did maths at uni

And eventually I got round to finding it interesting. So I'll talk about maths, sometimes.

I volunteer for St John Ambulance

At the risk of sounding like I'm plugging the organisation, St John Ambulance is a charity with about 45,000 volunteers who offer first aid training and first aid cover at hundreds of events across the country. It exists in a lot of the other commonwealth countries too, I'd check their website if you'd like details.

What I do is quite varied. We have weekly meetings where I begin the night by training the cadets, move on to either being trained or providing training for adults and end by fun and games with my friends. We have training courses to enhance our knowledge, get certificates and allow us to do more on duty. We have events we provide first aid cover at, ranging from school summer fairs or local league sports to huge music festivals or international league sports. I'm not fussy about what I first aid at, and to be honest sticking my hand up and volunteering for anything I have time for has helped me expand my horizons massively. Although I've only been doing it for a few years, the general concept of medical work is very much a part of me, and one day if I find SJA stops hitting the spot I might even take up nursing or ambulance work.

For now, I've got some exams to finish.

I teach at a religious school on Saturday mornings

I used to go to the school as a child, and that's where I got interested in learning about religion. The bottom line of what we're taught is basically that all paths lead up the same mountain, and I love that teaching. We teach what good morals are, through both non-religious and religious examples (all major world religions are covered), always with the same bottom message. I like the lack of preaching. My mind shuts off if someone preaches at me; about anything.

The school was started by a sect of Hinduism, and 90% of people attending are Hindu, so there is therefore a more emphasis on Hindu teachings and culture. The focus here is to educated the kids about what their religion is about. I'm from a Hindu family, and I found what I learnt about my religion through the school invaluable for the future - all too often a lot of the meaning of why we do things and what they mean are never explained, and interest in the religion is lost.

Which is why you'll find posts about lesson planning, students, assemblies or teaching.

I'm Hindu

And interested in why we do things. I'm also interested in the philosophies of other religions. I don't feel being interested in religion necessarily makes you religious so I'm not sure whether to define myself as religious or not. But anyway, that is why you'll find posts containing Hindu myths and legends, information about festivals, general discussions about religion, and so on, here.

I am British Indian, and have a large extended Indian family

This brings in itself a huge amount to post about. Language, culture, gatherings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews (or are they second cousins)? Births, weddings, funerals...you get the picture.

It also brings some issues with it too. Indian families are a little bit...stricter..than my generation of British kids would like. You also get the traditional family feuds, tense relationships, bickering and so on.

I blog about the former - my family has an interesting history, the Indian culture has a lot to offer, hanging out with family is fun, and with so many kids popping up I get to babysit loads. I try not to blog about the latter because I attempt to just keep out of the way of it all, but I won't hide the fact that it all either upsets me hugely or makes me very angry when people deliberately make each other's lives more difficult by essentially judging them by a random set of morals they can't (or won't) explain.

Apart from all that, I do normal stuff too!

Yeah I like to keep myself busy, and I think you've read enough about what I do regularly without me throwing in more.

I also hang out with friends and family, date, go out with work, go to the gym, play badminton, go to restaurants and bars and concerts, watch movies, go to the theatre, go on holiday, and so on.

I take the tube, I drive, I read the Metro, I watch TV, I read books.

I sometimes write fiction, which is occasionally partially, or wholly, based on fact.

How do I fit it all in? To be honest writing it all out like I've just done makes it sound a lot more than it is in practice. I reckon fellow-bloggers sound just as busy as I feel. Having said that it does get quite hard sometimes and I'm a lot worse at time management than I used to be, so it can be struggle! Wishing for a catch-up day happens a lot!

Phew! I think I'm done now. Huh, what a self-centred blogoversary...all about me, me, me! Having spent all this time writing it I don't want to delete it now, but I prefer this celebratory post 6 months ago about a hundred times more.

I hope that makes navigating this random collection of posts a bit easier. I'm quite grateful you managed to get through an entirely boring post about my life, so am feeling quite generous... while you've got the chance feel free to throw any question you like at me!

*i.e. having decided to save it for a week, I accidentally clicked publish instead of preview halfway through the which means anyone using feeds will have already read this...

on google spies and facebook spies

Google Spies

I'd commented on Frank Chalk's post on how Nightjack, a police blogger was forced to reveal his identity. (A ruling which, by the way, I am definitely not a fan of). Follow up comments were being very usefully emailed to me.

Well spaces in the URL have been removed, and I must caveat this by saying I have not clicked on the link as:

a) I don't have anyone to whistleblow
b) if google is spying on me work probably is to
c) I'm not sure how much I trust those ads not to suddenly produce a myriad of spyware or spam

But Google's advert in response to this?

Whistleblower - www. whistleblowers . uk . com - Sell your story, stay
anonymous Keep 100% of your fee

This happens quite often to me. I could be on gchat typing away about badminton, and up pops an ad about rackets. I know its nothing new that google 'reads' your emails and gives you 'useful links' and it's how they pay for their wonderful services, but its creepy. Especially when I get an advert that reads 'How to kiss a girl and make her melt'.

I mean, what could I have been emailing about there!?

Facebook Spies

Does anyone else get annoyed by the 'friends you may know' functionality on Facebook?

For anyone unaware of the phenomenon, ever keen to help people expand their online social network, Facebook suggests new friends to you - people it thinks you may know, presumably based on how many mutual friends you have, whether you live, study or work at the same place, and so on. Again, I find it slightly creepy.

I acknowledge that it sounds like a neat idea, a good way to find those long lost pals, but it doesn't seem to work very well. I don't think I've ever been suggested anyone I actually know, just people who happen to go to the same university as I used to.

Apart from once, yesterday. A student I used to teach last year. We don't have any mutual friends, we don't have a mutual network, a mutual school, college, university or place of work (considering he's not even a teenager yet that would be impossible). I don't understand how the heck Facebook knows we know each other.

When I made a Facebook page, the only people allowed to have an account were university students. It seemed like a good way to keep in touch procrastinate at the time. Now, a strange myriad of people can see your Facebook page. Friends, family, people you met once or twice somewhere, people you were at school, college or university with but no longer keep in touch with, colleagues. Freakanomics once asked what Facebook will do for friend turnover. I think it will be almost the same as it has always been, but your Facebook friend numbers will keep expanding as you move through life and meet new people in different jobs and so on. I mean, you're hardly going to go through and de-friend people you haven't seen in a while, are you? All these people can see anything you want to share with (what might as well be) the world - what you message your friends about, what they message you about, what events you might be going to, any photos of you uploaded and so on. Its odd, people don't even have to keep in touch with you, or talk to you, to keep tabs on you, and with 'news feed' informing them anytime anything happens, they don't even have to be trying very hard.

I'm not sure I like the idea of ex or present students seeing my Facebook page. I've nothing to hide, but find it weird all the same. I'll be ignoring that suggestion for now.

Should adultery be illegal?

I refer to this article in the Metro.

"A British man and woman, living in Dubai, were each jailed for two months for committing adultery. [...]"

Why did it make the news I hear you ask? Well, in Dubai, adultery is illegal, and therefore an offence for which you can be arrested, jailed and taken to court. In UK, on the other hand, it is not. Had the woman be living in the UK, on being caught she would possibly be faced with a messy divorce, but would more than likely still have custody of her children, and certainly wouldn't be in jail.

" [...] Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said: "Sally and Mark should not be in jail right now and should never have been facing criminal charges in the first place.
"Quite simply, the sex lives of consenting adults shouldn't be a criminal matter. Sally and Mark should be released, immediately and unconditionally." "

My question is, why shouldn't adultery be illegal? I'm sure that cheating on a partner causes them as much pain, possibly more, than for example, the murder of a close family member. And that's without taking the kids, whose lives are suddenly a series of arguments, court dates, custody battles and weekend visits, into account. I don't understand why there shouldn't be consequences to those actions, just as there are for killing or theft.

Taking the emotions out of the picture for a second, have you not signed and sworn to the state that you will be faithful to the person you are marrying? (Perhaps not, I'm not clued up on marriage law...)

Besides all that, in Sally and Mark's case, if you live in another country you should be bound by the laws of that country. We'd convict someone in England whether or not their country of birth regarded the crime illegal or not; we shouldn't expect different laws for our citizens abroad.

to be vegetarian or not to be vegetarian - part 2

Those of you who read this blog regularly will remember that a while back I mentioned a debate on vegetarianism I was going to have. Very sorry for the lack of communication following the debate. I didn't forget to report back, just didn't get a chance!

It went pretty well - we won a few hands despite the fact we were talking to a room full of vegetarians, and the head teacher was on the opposing team!

The arguments our side used were the ones outlined in the previous post. Being a religious school, religious arguments were also thrown in. Rather controversially, our side said that having done good deeds in our past lives, we were now top of the food chain, and therefore have a right to eat animals. I'm not sure it went down very well, not even sure I agree, but I guess that's what debate is all about!

Thank you all so much for your help :-)