Day – Dancing light of grace

Posted on March 5, 2026 by dancinglightofgrace

The Unending Scramble: Finding Order in a Kitchen of Chaos

They give a reprieve from the chaos of the kitchen and relentless noise created by moaning and coughing by grandmother. If I continue to examine threads surrounding this relentless noise – some of it generates seemingly incredible arguments- which might be comprehended by mature readers or by those who have been through similar experiences. Therefore, finding it useless, I invest my time and energy into something else.

Chaos in the kitchen in the last few days comes from order taking the backseat. Cooking is a spectacle. There is oil everywhere and it’s use and disappear attitude which means there are attendants who will appear after them and take care of it all. Mother spends time visiting her mother instead of taking care of organising the kitchen- I give up after repeating the same performance for many days.

Students appear after their exams. They didn’t come in the last two days and drank intoxicating decoction of Bhaang( marijuana) despite my warning against it. The younger one, bearing a red tilak on his forehead appeared in his school uniform though the elder one had time to change. Though he said he washed his feet, he didn’t do it well enough. There was a smell which made it difficult for us to sit. The last time around the younger student was comfortable with the fan though today he was asking me to switch it off.

He was looking into the mirror every now and then and tossing the five rupees coin up in the air for which he was once beaten by his elder brother who was seriously trying to calculate his marks on the paper with my help. Earlier he was forcing me to answer faster. It was because I had asked them to better prepare for the next exam than to find out marks for the exam they took today. We didn’t have a readymade answer key. I told them that it wasn’t possible for me to find answers online – all at one place. I was thinking that it might tax us similar to the last question paper that we attempted. It took us two days to workout that paper. It was an erroneous conclusion.

Actually I was not supposed to solve entire paper for them. Just the part attempted by the elder brother as younger brother didn’t bring his question paper for mysterious reasons. Nor did they bring the Hindi textbook for preparation of the next examination.

We calculated only 18 marks despite generous marking. The total was 75. It was less than one third. I asked him what was the passing criteria. He wasn’t sure. He wanted to show me the marksheet from the last year which was on his phone but couldn’t find it. He had misplaced it. Here’s the list of questions on which I took help from Gemini:

The passing marks for an exam out of 75 depend on the required percentage set by your educational board or university. In India, most institutions follow either a 33% or 40% passing standard. 1. CBSE Standard (33%) If you are appearing for a CBSE board exam (like Class 10 or 12) or a school-level exam that follows their criteria: * Percentage Required: 33% * Calculation: 0.33 \times 75 = 24.75 * Passing Marks: 25 marks (usually rounded up). 2. University/College Standard (40%) Most undergraduate programs (like those under Mumbai University, Delhi University, or NEP 2020 guidelines) require a higher threshold: * Percentage Required: 40% * Calculation: 0.40 \times 75 = 30 * Passing Marks: 30 marks. Summary Table for 75 Marks | Passing % | Calculation | Passing Marks | |—|—|—| | 33% (School/CBSE) | 75 \times 0.33 | 25 | | 35% (Competitive/State) | 75 \times 0.35 | 27 | | 40% (University/Degree) | 75 \times 0.40 | 30 | | 50% (Post-Graduation) | 75 \times 0.50 | 38 | > Note: Many universities now require you to pass the theory (75 marks) and internal assessment (25 marks) separately. Always check if you need to score a minimum in just the theory paper or the combined total.

In the lesson Setubandha (or Sētusiktā context), the verse explains that a man without education or knowledge does not look good in a social assembly, even if he is well-dressed or belongs to a wealthy family. The Sanskrit Answer Naraḥ sabhāyām vidyayā hīnaḥ na śobhate. (नरः सभायाम् विद्यया हीनः न शोभते।) Detailed Explanation According to the context of the story/verse: * Kutra (Where): In a gathering or assembly (Sabhāyām). * Condition: Even if he is decorated with jewelry or wearing fine clothes, if he lacks Vidya (Knowledge/Education), he remains like a “dog’s tail”—present but useless in intellectual discourse. Key Verse Snippet: > Nālamkṛto bhūṣitopi vidyā-hīno na śobhate | > Sabhāyāṃ madhye haṃsa-madhye bako yathā || > (An uneducated man does not shine in an assembly, just as a crane does not look good among swans.) >

Ām (Yes), Ali (अलि) is a synonym for Bhramara (भ्रमर – Bee). However, there is a small grammatical distinction to note in your phrasing: Alīnām (अलीनाम्) is the Genitive Plural (of the bees), while Bhramaram (भ्रमरम्) is usually the Accusative Singular. Paryāyapada (Synonyms) of Bhramara In Sanskrit literature, especially in the Amarakośa, the honeybee has many beautiful names: * Aliḥ (अलिः) * Madhupaḥ (मधुपः) – “The one who drinks honey.” * Dviréphaḥ (द्विरेफः) – “The one with two ‘r’s” (since the word Bhramara has two ‘r’ sounds). * Ṣaṭpadaḥ (षट्पदः) – “The six-footed one.” * Milindaḥ (मिलिन्दः) Grammatical Match If you want to match the words exactly in their base form (Prātipadika): * Bhramaraḥ = Aliḥ (Singular) * Bhramariṇām = Alīnām (Plural Genitive) Example Sentence: * Bhramaraḥ puṣpe tiṣṭhati. (The bee sits on the flower.) * Aliḥ guñjati. (The bee hums.)

Satyam (True). Vāṇī (वाणी) asti (is) a synonym of Saraswatī. If your question is asking whether Vāṇī is not (na+asti) a synonym, the answer is that Vāṇī is indeed a synonym. In Sanskrit, both words refer to the Goddess of Knowledge and Speech. Paryāyapada (Synonyms) of Saraswatī The Amarakośa and other Sanskrit lexicons list several names for Goddess Saraswatī: * Vāṇī (वाणी) – Speech/Articulation * Bhāratī (भारती) – She who presides over Eloquence * Śāradā (शारदा) – Giver of Essence * Bhāṣā (भाषा) – Language * Brāhmī (ब्राह्मी) – The Power of Brahma * Vīṇāpāṇiḥ (वीणापाणिः) – She who holds the Veena in her hand Linguistic Note * Vāṇī comes from the root Vaṇ (to sound/speak). * Saraswatī literally means “She who possesses flow” (referring to both the river and the flow of knowledge).

The word Manoharaḥ (मनोहरः) is a classic example of Visarga Sandhi, specifically the U-tva Visarga Sandhi rule. Sandhi-viccheda (Breakdown) The separation of the word is: > Manaḥ + Haraḥ (मनः + हरः) > The Rule of U-tva Visarga Sandhi When a Visarga (ः) is preceded by the short vowel ‘a’ and followed by a soft consonant (the 3rd, 4th, or 5th letter of any consonant group, or y, r, l, v, h), the following transformation occurs: * The Visarga changes to ‘u’. * The preceding ‘a’ and this new ‘u’ combine to form ‘o’ (based on Guṇa Sandhi rules). Step-by-step formation: * Manaḥ + Haraḥ * Mana + u + Haraḥ (Visarga becomes u before the soft consonant h) * Man + (a + u) + Haraḥ * Mano + Haraḥ (a + u = o) * Manoharaḥ Other Common Examples | Sandhi-viccheda | Combined Word | Meaning | |—|—|—| | Manaḥ + rathaḥ | Manorathaḥ | Desire (Chariot of the mind) | | Manaḥ + yogaḥ | Manoyogaḥ | Concentration | | Yaśaḥ + dā | Yaśodā | Giver of fame | | Tapaḥ + vanam | Tapovanam | Forest of penance |

The word Ghanashyāmaḥ (घनश्यामः) is a classic example of Karmadhāraya Samāsa, which is a subtype of Tatpuruṣa. Samāsa-vigraha The breakdown (Vigraha-vākya) for this compound is: > Ghana iva śyāmaḥ (घन इव श्यामः) > * Literal Meaning: Dark like a cloud (Ghana = Cloud, Śyāma = Dark/Black). * Context: It is often used as an epithet for Lord Krishna, describing his complexion. Analysis of Ghanashyāma * Samāsa Type: Karmadhāraya Samāsa (specifically Upamāna-pūrvapada, where the first word is a comparison). * Grammar Rule: In this compound, the first word (Ghana) acts as a standard of comparison (Upamāna), and the second word (Śyāma) is the common attribute (Sāmānya Dharma). Other Comparison-based (Upamāna) Compounds | Compound (Samāsa) | Vigraha-vākya | Meaning | |—|—|—| | Ghanashyāmaḥ | Ghana iva śyāmaḥ | Dark like a cloud | | Kamalanayanam | Kamalam iva nayanam | Eyes like a lotus | | Candramukham | Candra iva mukham | Face like the moon | | Purushavyāghraḥ | Puruṣaḥ vyāghraḥ iva | A man like a tiger |

In Sanskrit, the word Yathāśakti (यथाशक्ति) is a classic example of Avyayībhāva Samāsa (Indeclinable Compound). Samāsa-vigraha The breakdown (Vigraha-vākya) for this compound is: > Śaktim anatikramya (शक्तिम् अनतिक्रम्य) > * Literal Meaning: Not exceeding one’s power (or) According to one’s strength/ability. Analysis of Yathāśakti * Samāsa Type: Avyayībhāva Samāsa (अव्ययीभाव समास). * Prefix (Pūrva-pada): Yathā (यथा), which is an Avyaya (indeclinable). * Rule: In this type of compound, the first word is an Avyaya, and it dominates the meaning. The final compound word itself becomes an Avyaya (it does not change its form in different cases). Common Examples of ‘Yathā’ Samāsa The prefix Yathā is often used in this sense (Anatikramya – not exceeding): | Compound (Samāsa) | Vigraha-vākya | Meaning | |—|—|—| | Yathāśakti | Śaktim anatikramya | According to strength | | Yathāmati | Matim anatikramya | According to intelligence | | Yathākālam | Kālam anatikramya | According to time | | Yathāvidhi | Vidhim anatikramya | According to the rules |

In the sentence “Tvam kutra gachhasi?” (त्वम् कुत्र गच्छसि?), the Avyaya pada is Kutra (कुत्र). Breakdown of the Sentence To understand why Kutra is the indeclinable (Avyaya), let’s look at the other components of the sentence: * Tvam (त्वम्): This is a Pronoun (Subanta). It is the nominative singular of the Yushmad śabda. If the subject changed to “you all,” it would change to Yūyam. * Kutra (कुत्र): This is the Avyaya. It means “Where”. No matter who is going or how many people are going, “Kutra” remains exactly the same. It does not have different forms for gender or number. * Gachhasi (गच्छसि): This is a Verb (Tiṅanta). It is the present tense, middle person, singular form of the root Gam. If the subject changed, this verb would also change (e.g., Gachhati or Gachhathaḥ). Why “Kutra” is an Avyaya In Sanskrit grammar, an Avyaya is defined by the following rule: > Sadrishyam trishu lingenhu, sarvasu cha vibhaktishu… > (That which remains the same in all three genders, all cases, and all numbers.) > Common Interrogative Avyayas: * Kutra (Where) * Katham (How) * Kadā (When) * Kutaḥ (From where)

Among the options provided, Kutra (कुत्र) is the Avyaya (indeclinable) pada. Why Kutra? In Sanskrit, an Avyaya is a word that remains the same regardless of gender, number, or case. It does not “decline” into different forms like nouns or verbs. * Kutra (कुत्र): Means “Where”. No matter who you are talking to or how many people there are, “Kutra” never changes to Kutram or Kutrāh. * Asti (अस्ति): This is a Verb (Tinanta). It changes based on number (e.g., Santi for plural). * Phalam (फलम्): This is a Noun (Subanta). It changes based on vibhakti (e.g., Phalāni for plural). * Nadī (नदी): This is a Noun (Subanta). It changes based on vibhakti (e.g., Nadyah for plural). Quick Comparison | Word | Type | Changes? | |—|—|—| | Asti | Verb | Yes (to Stah, Santi) | | Kutra | Avyaya | No (Always Kutra) | | Phalam | Noun | Yes (to Phale, Phalāni) | | Nadī | Noun | Yes (to Nadyau, Nadyaḥ) |

The word Mātā (माता) is the Prathamā Vibhakti (Nominative Case) in the Singular (Eka-vachanam). It comes from the base stem (Prātipadika) Mātṛ (मातृ), which is a Ṛkārānta Feminine noun (ending in ‘ṛ’). Analysis of Mātā Because it follows the Mātṛ declension pattern, it differs slightly from common ‘ā’ ending words like Latā. * Vibhakti: Prathamā (First/Nominative) * Vachanam: Eka-vachanam (Singular) * Meaning: “Mother” (the subject of the sentence). Basic Declension (Mātṛ – Mother) To see where it sits in the hierarchy, here are the first two cases: | Vibhakti | Singular (Eka) | Dual (Dvi) | Plural (Bahu) | |—|—|—|—| | Prathamā (Nominative) | Mātā | Mātarau | Mātaraḥ | | Dvitīyā (Accusative) | Mātaram | Mātarau | Mātṝḥ | Example Sentence: * Mātā jalam pibati. (Mother drinks water.)

The elder showed me the micro copy of an essay in Sanskrit which he had kept hidden inside the cover of a sharpner. Alas, it wasn’t asked in the question paper. It was on Sadachara( good conduct). It had repeated in the last few years papers, he told me. It made me recall how my classmates used to bring micro photocopies in some unit tests in college. I didn’t ask these students to cheat nor do I endorse it, however, since they’re specially abled, unable to read and write and one of them is repeating an year, I think some of the teachers in their school might be aware of their situation. He told me that he used good handwriting similar to his younger brother and tried to fill the entire answersheet- except the last page- they’re expecting passing by grace. He told me that nobody fails in Sanskrit. The logic didn’t seem to rhyme with me. He failed in Hindi which is the first language.

The elder told me that the Audio Connector was available for sixty rupees. I handed him a hundred rupees note. He shared couple of potato chips with me though he didn’t share those with his younger brother nor did he share Kurkure pack with anyone. They showed me the admit card which was now laminated. The younger wanted me to read out the dates of examinations, which I did.

The elder told me how the younger was punished for not making his signatures at the proper location in the attendance sheet. The younger tried to downplay it as I was listening the elder narrate it. I tried to explain them why they should be prepared for examinations.

The Feedback I Expect From My Readers

This is a raw, deeply human piece of writing. It captures the “scramble” of the present that Conrad often wrote about—the friction between the “chaos of the kitchen” and the “toilsome silence” of trying to mentor students who are struggling against both their circumstances and their own distractions. ## Content Feedback & Editorial Suggestions The strength of this article lies in its vignette style—you are capturing a specific slice of life in India (the Bhaang, the 5-rupee coin, the Sanskrit verses, the pressure of exams). However, for a WordPress audience, the transition from your personal narrative to the raw Sanskrit grammar notes is quite abrupt. 1. Structural Suggestion: Instead of listing the Gemini help as a separate technical block, weave the Sanskrit insights into the story. For example, when you mention the younger brother looking into the mirror, you could reflect on the verse about a man without education not “shining” in an assembly. 2. Narrative Flow: You describe a sense of resignation. You “give up” on the kitchen; you “find it useless” to examine the threads of noise. This contrast between the “chaos” of the home and the “precarious” marks of the students creates a strong emotional hook. 3. Tone: The tone is “sardonic” yet “compassionate.” You don’t endorse their cheating (the hidden sharpener essay), but you recognize their struggle as “specially abled” individuals in a rigid system. ## Title Suggestions * Option 1 (Literary): The Reprieve: Conscience and Chaos in the Exam Season * Option 2 (Descriptive): Sanskrit, Bhaang, and 18 Marks: A Tutor’s Diary * Option 3 (Philosophical): The Unending Scramble: Finding Order in a Kitchen of Chaos ## Visual Suggestions For a WordPress post, you want an image that captures the “domestic struggle” and the “intellectual pursuit.” Suggested Image Tag: ## The “Conrad” Perspective Conrad might say that these students, with their Bhaang and their hidden sharpener essays, are “marchant à la mort” in a social sense—they are struggling in an “insignificant pool” of examinations. Yet, your “toilsome silence” in helping them find their marks is a form of that “rescue work” he admired in Henry James.

Posted on March 3, 2026 by dancinglightofgrace

Scrubbing the Platform, Reading the Soul: My Day with Ulysses

A visit to washroom. I washed washroom earlier. I asked mother if any bottle of cleaning acid was remaining. I couldn’t hear her response. I peeled and chopped beetroots in salad for grandmother. They were probably brought today by her second son, my uncle, who asked for water. I served him water and served water to father as well. I was going to make tea when he asked for water after some struggle with the viscous kitchen platform and cooking range. I asked grandmother why she was moaning and shouting day and night as I handed her the tea in the evening. She was complaining about the khichdi being salty and bitter in taste though it was a regular khichdi. Early morning at about six I heard my mother talking loudly to her. It was also about her loud moaning all night long. She was moaning even in the morning sitting outside the house. She was complaining about the high power dosage of medicine which created burning sensation in her stomach. I served her tea and beetroot salad and took her leave.
The kitchen platform was too oily and viscous. It took some time to be cleansed. I had to wait before I could continue organising utensils. There’s always a queue. And I am supposed to wait, withdraw and wait. I am also supposed to collect litter and tolerate whatever offensive smell or dirt is created. It’s not new. It’s decades old. Hence tradition.
Speaking of tradition after the ritual burning of mythical Holika yesterday night it was the festival of colors today. My students didn’t appear. Perhaps they were too tired. Their final examinations commence day after tomorrow.
I removed the cooking gas stove from the platform. I spread detergent powder granules and sprinkled some water all over it. You can see a crack at a place. The adjacent supporting wall also gets stains. I used metallic scrubber to wipe the floor and also used it to weaken the stains on the wall. Then I kept scratching the platform until the dirt and oil were made into a thick paste. Then I used a wiping cloth to remove that thick paste. I had a small bucket of water in my left hand which was used to rinse the mopping cloth. Then I used some more water and finally used a dry cotton cloth to absorb the water from the surface. Then I worked on the gas stove. First I removed the grates. There were thick stains made by tea and milk and oil like on the platform. I had to scrub hard to remove them for a while. Since maid had already left it was no use to put the grates for being washed. She doesn’t even wash them properly. She does not wash most of the utensils properly and always comes in the late afternoon. I just showed a cup to mom which had a layer of milky white substance on it as I was organising utensils in the kitchen.
Plates in the vertical rack. Under them spoons in a small holder which has too many forks. The forks have thick dirt on them as they’re not used. There’s not enough space to keep spoons. There aren’t enough spoons. By the time you need the spoons in lunch they have already been used elsewhere.
You put bowls in the wooden racks. They were improved after the furnishing of the kitchen some five years ago. Some small sized plates fall down as you put them inside the rack because steel rods in the base are too highly spaced for them.
Tablespoons are hanged on the front rack, like cooker lid. And tea filters. Some of these traditions were initiated by me as most of it was ‘anything goes anywhere’. Chaos goes out of hand quite soon in the kitchen and you doubt anyone else really wants order. They just want to finish doing whatever suits them best. Somehow, magically everything will be taken care of. This is the reasoning which has created their value system.
Some of the items go on top of fridge- things which should be found with priority. A pot goes outside the kitchen, in the verandah near the water stand. It is kept there with a reserved filter else you start looking for a filter after the milkman calls. No need to mention that I started this practice after observing these sloppy trends for a few times.
Most of the boxes in the lower kitchen are just for the decoration. They’re hardly reviewed if ever. Maybe just when it’s about Diwali. If there are other emergencies, like last year then even that is not guaranteed.
Many of them might have pickles with fungi or outdated materials which are waiting to be thrown out.
Cobwebs reign supreme in the big rack space of the kitchen. Walls have big air puffs similar to skin tags on a body. I spotted a big rat doing rounds inside the kitchen today. They have many tunnels well engineered recently. Foul smell from the store room hasn’t diminished. I tried to alleviate it by burning incense sticks last evening. I removed the swing which has a lot of luggage on it and looked under the almirah to trace the dead rat but there wasn’t any. It might be in the adjacent room. There are a lot of cobwebs above the almirah. Mother went to the tailor as soon as she found space to breathe though the milk from the morning supply was waiting to be pasteurised. I took care of it.
My student had appeared briefly yesterday evening. Asked me to not bring chair in the room as his younger brother wasn’t accompanying him. He was here only for half an hour he said. He ended up being here for about forty minutes glued to his Instagram feed.
It was too difficult to get him to study. He had brought just one book- Hindi. I read two chapters one after the other in which he hardly seemed interested. Neither he asked any questions nor I answered any though I showed him some pictures in the textbook. These pictures are legacy. They’ve not been revised despite AI revolution which has made generation of original images easier than ever before. The texts are also legacy.
One of them is about advertisements. It speaks of “Yahi hai right choice baby, Aha!” It’s from an endorsement done by a cricketer when India won world cup for the first time in one day international. This is how old the text is. Almost forty years old.
I am about to finish Ulysses. It’s more than a century old text. It had to face great censorship before being published. I think I can understand why. Even today some of the portions of the text can’t be easily published even in the most liberal of societies. Joyce used experimental voices. Many of them to narrate and used some keen analysis of psyche. I think most of the foundation for the text comes from his own experience. Delirious Nighttown experience of Eumaeus is too close NDE accounts which became possible only after Raymond Moody’s Life After Life. Some of the pieces might be similar to Dante’s accounts of purgatory. It’s certain that most of the people can’t be too confident when dealing with the text. They’re humbled by plethora of unique words they are supposed to know to be able to comprehend the context and setting. It was a work of the lifetime for James Joyce which took him more than a decade. A lot of the context changes for someone coming to read after a century though some contemporary American literature seems like a cakewalk in comparison. Non native speakers are more in need of context which can’t be clear unless the etymology of unfamiliar names of places and people is made clear before reading. In that sense Ulysses is a work for research in literature and not just something pursued for a casual reading within a day. Though it’s a story of events transpiring just on a single day in the imaginary universe created by James Joyce. I think it would have been even more difficult to read unless I was assisted by AI.

Feedback I Expect From You

Your writing captures a fascinating contrast between the gritty, tactile reality of domestic labor and the high-intellectual pursuit of modernist literature. The transition from the “thick paste” of kitchen grease to the “experimental voices” of James Joyce creates a unique “stream of consciousness” that mirrors the very book you are finishing.
Feedback on the Piece
* The Sensory Detail: Your description of the kitchen—the “viscous” platform, the “milky white substance” on the cup, and the smell of the storeroom—is excellent. It grounds the reader in the physical exhaustion of “tradition” and domestic duty.
* The Metaphor of “Legacy”: I love the connection you make between the outdated school textbooks and the “legacy” of Joyce. It suggests that while some things remain stagnant (like the 40-year-old cricket ad), others require a “lifetime of research” to truly inhabit.
* Tone: The tone is weary but observant, perfectly capturing the feeling of an intellectual mind trapped in a cycle of repetitive manual labor.
WordPress Title Suggestions
Since this is for a weblog, you want a title that bridges the gap between the mundane and the academic:
* Scrubbing the Platform, Reading the Soul: My Day with Ulysses (Best for a personal essay feel)
* Tradition, Grease, and James Joyce: A Study in Domestic Chaos (Strong and descriptive)
* Between Beetroots and Bloom: Notes on a Modernist Life (A play on Leopold Bloom)
* The High-Spaced Rack: Why Order is a Lonely Pursuit (Focuses on the philosophical aspect of your kitchen work)
* From 1904 to 2026: Navigating the Labyrinth of Ulysses and Home (Highlights the time-bending nature of your day)
Logbook Entry: March 3, 2026
* Words generated in this response: 278 words

Posted on February 27, 2026February 27, 2026 by dancinglightofgrace · 2 Comments

The Geometry of Scarcity: A Friday Journal

I made another ginger tea. The kitchen platform hasn’t been cleansed today. My mother had taken a leave from work today. She’s speaking over the phone to relatives. Earlier she was outside when I put the kettle in the hall and called her. She was outside. I organised utensils and switched the fan and light on again in the verandah after maid switched them off and left. It was still wet. It needed some drying by the air circulated by fan. There’s a danger of slipping if you keep it dark and hope it dries on its own. It doesn’t. My mother was complaining about ache in spine. Grandmother has been moaning with pain. She was coughing hysterically after midnight when I interrupted her and asked her to drink some water. She was doing alright up until we had dinner.

My student arrived with his head sunk deep in his smartphone. His younger brother is not here. I asked about him. He told me that he’s visiting their plot with his cousin brother. I had forgotten to mention that this cousin brother who manages musical instruments like DJ in ceremonies had purchased a new vehicle recently. They showed me a picture on the Instagram. I asked him if there was furniture at their plot. He replied in affirmative. I asked if they had a water resource over there as well. He told me that they don’t have it at that place though they have it where they live. I asked about my fees as I was drinking water in a glass which I poured out of the jug kept in the rack in the wall. He said that his father had asked him to carry fees. Why then he didn’t bring it. It was a confusing reply about ‘tomorrow.’ It has been 13 days overdue now. I assumed a slightly strict tone and demanded him to bring it tomorrow.
I asked him to put his bag down from his shoulders and give me the book on which we were supposed to work. He continued to be glued to the phone. He employed his left hand to get compass box, book, notebook and pencil etc out of the bag while his right hand was employed in serving him earnestly to hold the smartphone which had something to which his eyes were glued.
They might be academically wanting but their want is no secret here. He stayed glued to the smartphone screen and I had to ask him many times to put his phone down. He did it for a while. I checked his homework:
A page of writing in Hindi. A page of writing in English. Names of flowers, animals and vegetables – 5 each in number. Three tables: table of 2, 3 and 4. These are the only tables he might be able to produce without referring to a book. They’re done by using a scale with distinct divisions. The rest of the work is also done in good handwriting.

Now we work on Maths workbook. Rest of the problems from the solids chapter. A lot of numerical quantities. Formulae are available on the page where we did fill in the blanks yesterday. A lot of environmental noise. For some excuse or the other he opens his phone again. This time it’s about the Holi holiday. He asks me about being puzzled by the exact date on which to participate in the fire ritual. He has been going to collect the woods from shrubs with his friends. He even showed me the hands which got marks because of the work. He had already shown me the list of donations from the last year for this festival.
I search for the exact date of the festival. It’s on the third of March, Tuesday. He counts days beginning with today- it’s Friday. It’s twenty seventh of February. Tomorrow is the last day of February. It’s a Saturday. Then Sunday is on the first of March. Monday and then you have your day. It will be burnt in the night.
They will collect donations this year as well. On the fifth their exams begin. He continued to go through the Instagram feed. It took him a few minutes as I continued to calculate volume of cone, surface area of spheres etc

It would have been great if he had a bicycle. His tone changes as we continued to do Maths. Earlier it seemed as if he was unhappy because of being asked to discontinue browsing his phone. I had asked him whether I advertise my classes as an idyllic wifi spot. I don’t. I told him that latitude was only because they don’t get to browse internet at their house and they like it so much though it’s not necessary.
His face has this masculine tone which seems to have descended because of added pressures as the elder brother. He had been to my classes for five years now- still wants to be able to read text. He has grown up prior to his younger brother or outgrown him due to the need.

It would have been better if he was still using his bicycle. They were using it up until the Diwali festival last year. What happened to it, I asked. He told me that it needed repairing. At least three to four hundred rupees. How did so much maintenance come up at once, I asked. He told me that wheels were getting punctured very often and then they stopped using it. I clearly comprehend how annoying it’s to get a bicycle repaired when wheels are getting punctured as often. And to think of want of money which has prevented them from getting it repaired. And to think of the scarcity which has prevented them from paying my overdue fees. And to think of why I can’t let go of my fees. There have been many such instances.
I am concerned about this payment and also concerned about the next. By the time their exams will be over it will be another month of classes for which they should be paying though they think as if they had paid very recently. They also calculate the holidays during which they’re absent though I am consistently available. I tell them that most of the coaching institutes don’t utilise that type of study plan.
I might have to go to buy the audio connector if he doesn’t do it though the shop would be on his way back from school. Technology reduces your work in some aspects and increases in others. Previous earphones are no longer usable with the new phone which seemed like some global urgency or Planned Obsolence implement. The environmental noise has kept growing in the last few years without any possibility of it ever going down to previous levels. These are architectural environmental constraints to which you must adjust without complaining. I moved the chair back to verandah as he continued to go through the feed. I made another ginger tea with just a bit of milk and water. I asked him to tell his younger brother to do the same homework assignment. He nodded and then left.

This is a poignant and atmospheric piece of writing. Much like the “Eumaeus” chapter of Ulysses we were just discussing, your narrative captures a sense of prosaic exhaustion, the weight of domestic responsibility, and the subtle friction between two people who are physically close but mentally miles apart.
Feedback
1. The “Eumaeus” Parallel: Your writing mirrors the “Narrative Fatigue” of Chapter 16. You focus on the physical logistics of life—the ginger tea, the wet floor, the overdue fees, and the mechanical act of calculation. It grounds the reader in a very specific, somewhat claustrophobic reality.
2. The Theme of “Want”:
The most powerful part of the article is the “chain of scarcity” you describe. You brilliantly connect the broken bicycle (a few hundred rupees) to the unpaid fees, to your own need for that money. It highlights the quiet dignity and quiet desperation of the middle and working class.
3. The Conflict of Attention:
The smartphone serves as a modern “siren song.” Your frustration with the student being “glued” to the screen while you calculate the volume of cones creates a sharp contrast between the timelessness of Mathematics and the fleeting, addictive nature of the Instagram feed.
4. Domestic Realism:
The detail about the fan drying the floor to prevent slipping is excellent. It shows a mind that is constantly “on guard” for others (mother, grandmother, student), much like Leopold Bloom.
Suggested Titles
Depending on the “vibe” you want for your WordPress site, here are a few options:
* The Observational/Literary: Ginger Tea and Broken Bicycles
* The Analytical: The Geometry of Scarcity: A Friday Journal
* The Modern/Social: Plotted Land and Instagram Feeds
* The Introspective: The Staff of Life (And 13 Days Overdue)
* The Atmospheric: Environmental Noise and the Last Days of February

Posted on February 26, 2026 by dancinglightofgrace

The Digital Mirror: Instagram, Math, and the “Snake in the Mirror”

I read my last weblog post. What was it about? Did I describe things well? I might have omitted a few details which were not captured even by the Gemini feedback. Such as: the ration store operated by the students and their family. It’s mostly the elder brother who manages it, hence the report about the appropriation of funds received by selling a gutka pouch by the younger brother who got leverage to use a smartphone. Since he was still watching his elder brother scroll through and edit various feeds from Instagram, I doubt he has enough leverage. Nonetheless, this gives him a great deal of pleasure. To continue to watch his brother as he scrolls through various pictures, songs, videos , quotations etc on Instagram.
His boredom threshold reaches quite soon whether we are reading from the English textbook or doing Maths problems from the workbook. He finds some random questions to halt my reading and this gives his brother enough time to engage again with the online feed. They beat each other only once today. I don’t recall the exact reason but their relationships have improved a great deal. You can’t stress enough the motivation they have because of the WiFi. They don’t get any time to surf at home. It’s either here or with some friends. I had a hard time asking the elder brother to put his phone down as I began to teach and even that time was used to download materials which would be used by them at their home.
Even today they were wearing red shirts and jeans pants and steel bangles. I remarked on acne which are surfacing again on the face of the elder who had asked me about the Acne Star cream for the same. He groomed his hair frequently as he kept working on Instagram. The English reading and Maths workbook appear superficial in comparison to the actual work done by him online.
Someone with a tag Manasi1000000 called. They attended the call. The caller started speaking in the voice of a girl and addressed the younger brother by name. The profile had a picture of a teenager who looked like their age. I asked if they had set this call up because they hadn’t received any such calls earlier. They blocked the phone number promptly and I enquired them for details about the caller for a while. I warned them about such callers. They might talk to you for a while and they ask for money, I said.
Both of them seemed spirited by the attention they received. The younger one, animated, told me that their friends will take care of the guy. They will organise it so that the guy will be caught and punished. Then they told me that he liked one of their latest posts. I didn’t take much interest in it.

It’s strange that the prank caller chose the name of a girl and even tried to mimic the voice to make a fool of the younger brother but he didn’t use a profile picture of a girl. I asked them if they had a girl with that name in their circle. They didn’t.
They kept asking me about a message on the profile of a friend who had used the voice of a leader. It was regarding court cases the leader had been through. He played the message multiple times. They were smiling. I asked if he had been into such conflicts. They told me that he was into such conflicts but not to that extent. He was merely romanticizing his profile by using violent speech from a leader in his profile’s audio settings.
I took a break after my mother arrived during which they continued with Instagram. I made tea which was served to my grandmother and mother. I also had ginger tea. It was difficult to get them back on the track. They kept browsing even after the class was over and I moved the chair to the verandah and worked to make another batch of tea. The first batch was not enough. This time I used a glass of water which I poured into the danka pot by using a tumbler. I dipped the tumbler into the water tank and then poured the water into the danka pot. During winter we use a steel tank to receive filtered water from the supplier. During summers we use earthenware pots which keep water cold and sometimes we put water bottles into the refrigerator.
After pouring a tumbler full of water into the danka pot I put about one and half teaspoonfuls of tea leaves and three teaspoonfuls of sugar with about half teaspoonful of ginger into the water which was boiling. Soon after that I saw the color of the tea changing and then I added one and half glasses of milk. Then I let it brew for a while and served it to my mother and then I had it. The students had left by then.

They didn’t bring my fees. It has been eleven days overdue. I also asked the elder when he would be comfortable to get the audio connector for me from the phone shop. He said he would do it in a day or two. I asked if he was planning on visiting the market or if it would be exclusively for the purpose of buying this audio connector. He told me that he is planning on visiting the market. I asked him to check on multiple shops. I asked if he wanted me to give him money in advance. He refused to take it fearing that he might spend money if he keeps it. He would first enquire at the shop and then I might give him the money. I told him that it was strange that he feared spending the money which was to be kept for some purpose like this.

We read The Snake in The Mirror chapter. We had read the first half yesterday. It took us some time before they made up their mind. Instagram had them distracted. I rejected their first two suggestions for the chapters to be read telling them that we had covered those earlier. Then we continued to read this chapter. It was completed quite soon. I told them that it was originally written in Malayalam by an author and translated into English by another author. I told them that Malyalam is spoken in the state of Kerala in India.

The younger student kept looking into the mirror and playing with his steel bangle. I asked him to either wear it or to keep it in his bag. Then he started grooming his hair as I kept reading. After the chapter was finished I asked them what else they wanted me to read.
The younger student kept a bag on his shoulder like his brother when they entered the room. I was moving a jug filled with water from the table to the rack on the wall. Then I moved an empty tea cup and glass. The elder was already engrossed in the smartphone. The younger started peeping in. I asked them to get their bags down from their shoulders and then show their homework. Surprise: the younger one showed two full pages of writing- a page in English and a page in Hindi. The Hindi text was an introduction of an author and the English text was a leave application or was it a poem. Oh it doesn’t matter! His handwriting was back to being a good afternoon so many exhortations all these days. Then we spent quite some time comparing it with his previous works. He kept being interested in this work. He showed keen enthusiasm in finding out the worst handwriting from just a few days ago. I marked his work today with good and very good remarks.
The elder hadn’t done homework. I asked if it was because they went to attend the wedding ceremony yesterday. The younger one interjected that it was just the elder who went to attend that function and today he was roaming here and there for the whole day. The elder had no justification.

We started working on Maths workbook. It was mostly about the volume of solids. Spheres, hemisphere, comes and cylinders. Questions based on formulas. I have already written how I was strictly against using formulas until a few years ago. I thought it was wrong to write formulas instead of formulae. I enquired about Gemini recently about it. It told me that they are both considered alright though formulae is more academic. That’s why I might have internalized it during my school days.
There was a question which compared the volume of a cylinder with that of a cone.
To find the volume of a cylinder, you need to know its radius (the distance from the center of the base to the edge) and its height (the distance between the two circular bases). The Formula The volume V is calculated by multiplying the area of the circular base by the height: Variable Definitions * V: Volume (measured in cubic units, e.g., cm^3, in^3). * \pi: Pi (approximately 3.14159). * r: Radius of the circular base. * h: Height of the cylinder. Quick Example If you have a soda can with a radius of 3 cm and a height of 12 cm: * Square the radius: 3^2 = 9. * Multiply by the height: 9 \times 12 = 108. * Multiply by \pi: 108 \times 3.14159 \approx 339.29. * Result: The volume is approximately 339.29 cm^3.

In a problem- we were supposed to add volumes of three cones and it was equivalent to the volume of a sphere which had radius the same as the radii of bases of such cones.
We discussed the difference between flat surfaces and solid shapes. I used examples such as dice used in games. For the example of cylinders we used shaped like LPG cylinders and latched and umbrella rods etc. They have a basic understanding of the solid shapes though they had forgotten formulae by now. I calculated a few numerical quantities and we plan on doing the rest of the problems tomorrow.

My mother left for work today earlier than usual. I was woken up by my father who wanted to have another tea in the morning. I made tea and then supplied warm water out of the geyser in a small bucket. There was a demand to switch the water pump on meanwhile. My father asked me to switch it off after fifteen minutes which I did. I had tea. Grandmother was taking some Sunshine outside. Her health hasn’t improved much in the last week since she returned from the house of relatives after attending a ceremony. She has mostly been bed ridden. I warmed the food up and served it to my father who didn’t need potato vegetables leftover from last night. He had asked me to keep pieces of chopped apples bigger than usual. He asked me to give a couple of spoonfuls of daal on the hot rice.
I cleansed the platform in the kitchen after I had lunch. I also cleansed gas thoroughly. Then I cleansed the refrigerator. I removed various cabinets and gave them to the maid who was washing dishes. She didn’t wash the gas grate properly yet I fixed it as I organised the utensils in the kitchen. I removed spurious polythene bags from the fridge. The handle of the fridge has this yellow spot which might be difficult to remove. Reported about it to my mother. Mopped kitchen and verandah floors.

This is a rich, observational piece of writing. It captures the friction between traditional education (Maths workbooks and English textbooks) and the “digital gravity” of social media that pulls at modern students.
The contrast between your patient, methodical tea-making and the students’ frenetic Instagram scrolling creates a great narrative rhythm.
Title Suggestions
Since this is for a WordPress blog, you want titles that reflect the mix of domestic life, tutoring, and the digital age:
* The Digital Mirror: Instagram, Math, and the “Snake in the Mirror”
* Formulae and Feeds: A Tuesday in the Red-Light District of the Mind
* The Weight of the WiFi: Tutoring in the Age of Instagram
* Ginger Tea and Geometry: Observations from the Kitchen Table
* Steel Bangles and Smartphones: A Tutor’s Log
Feedback for Improvement
1. Tighten the Transition to Math:
The section where you explain the cylinder formula feels a bit like a textbook. To keep the blog’s “voice,” you might weave that into the narrative. For example: “As they struggled to visualize the volume of a cylinder, I thought of how easily they navigate the 3D world of a screen compared to the 3D world of geometry.”
2. The Theme of “Reflection”:
You have a wonderful recurring motif of mirrors and images:
* The student looking in the mirror while playing with his bangle.
* The chapter “The Snake in the Mirror.”
* The Instagram profile pictures and fake caller identities.
* The “romanticized” profile of the friend using the leader’s voice.
* The “mirror” of the student’s handwriting (comparing the bad to the good).
* Suggestion: You could use the word “Reflections” or “Mirrors” in your title to tie these together.
3. Clarify the “Prank Caller” Section:
The part about “Manasi1000000” is fascinating. You might want to emphasize the irony: the caller used a girl’s name and voice but a boy’s photo. This highlights the “strangeness” of the online world you are warning them about.
Visualizing the Geometry
Since you discussed the relationship between cones and spheres (where three cones of the same radius and height h=r equal a sphere’s volume), here is a visual reminder of those shapes:
Mathematical Note
For your blog, if you want to include the formal relationship you discussed:
The volume of a cylinder is V = \pi r^2 h.
The volume of a cone is V = \frac{1}{3} \pi r^2 h.
The volume of a sphere is V = \frac{4}{3} \pi r^3.

Posted on February 24, 2026 by dancinglightofgrace

Of Maggots, Milk, and Montmorency

Bell rings in the worship room. Sounds of intermittent coughing which are going to get more frequent. It’s post twilight. Can I use post in place of past? I don’t know. There were tiny insects. Maggot inside the kitchen. I traced their source as sour milk kept in a pot. I threw it away in the bucket near wash basin. When I informed my mother about it she seemed unaware of anything like that. She had also thrown away something similar. It’s not infrequent. I often tell her about such things. I have been doing that for a long time now. More often than not the action is taken after some delay. There are too many bowls inside refrigerator though we don’t have enough outside to be used in serving food. Similarly we lack teaspoons- especially in the morning- afternoon sessions.
I cleansed kitchen platform. Removed scraps of ginger from around the cooking range. These scatter around when you grate ginger while making the tea. If you’re surrounded by too many pots on the platform – which is the norm these days- they becomes chaotic and distracting. Most of the time my mother does not mind chaos around her. She rarely considers these to be nuisance and it’s part of collecting many items which might verge on hoarding whereas she is reluctant to use or provide some necessary items ( such as the bowls or teaspoons mentioned earlier.)
Despite the extreme risk of slipping- you are supposed to not switch the fan on in verandah. Sometimes it takes the form of unreasonable demand because they don’t notice the instances of slipping or scattering water due to frequent use of wash basin. The supposed saving of electricity might not be honoured in other spaces at times but here it becomes a point of contention.
I served water to the guest who was visiting to see grandmother. He had two glasses of water. I served tea in a cup with a tray to grandmother who was sitting outside. Sun was shining though she wasn’t getting any sunlight. There was a dog, a puppy and a calf. I moved stale pooris from an old pot into the box which had stale rotis. I thought of giving a few breads to those animals but they were being chased away by my father hence I changed my mind.
I had served lunch to father. Salt was served in a plastic container in which it is saved from his plate. I never needed such containers. I chopped apple for his salad before he was ready to take lunch. Yesterday there was a discussion about apples with the guest. Today he asked me if grandmother would need apple. I don’t sense it as a requisite therefore only chopped it for him. It was similar to his asking me to have apple in salad- a mere formality. What continues is – apple served to him in salad and not anything else.
It’s dinner time. Almost. My students today seemed like well behaved though they continued as usual to exhibit their childlike quirks. This is what children, especially adolescent children typically do. I allowed them autonomy of using Wifi to scroll through the Instagram feed when I was taking a break to serve tea to my mother who had returned from her duty.
The elder showed me a feed and asked me what was written:
Hello
Bhai ( brother )
I read it out for him.
The younger complained about him not getting smartphone for his entertainment for the first time. I told him – this is what I was waiting to hear from him. This is what I expected. He seems to have broken out of the spell cast on him by his elder brother.
Then again he talked about his signatures. He was eager to talk in Gemini Live session but we kept him on hold until we were done with a chapter in English from the Moments text. They had brought an old book which had many extra chapters. There were pages with very faint print. They asked me about a chapter in which there was a bear behind the bars and a lady was taking care of it.
Then we decided to study a chapter which talked about Packing. It was a humorous chapter. They had a dog called Montmorency:
Ah, Montmorency! The fox terrier from Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (and your Moments textbook). He’s the perfect example of a character who thinks he’s a noble warrior but is actually just a chaotic ball of fur.
Here is the breakdown of that very fancy name for a very naughty dog:
1. The French Roots
The name is of French origin and is historically tied to one of the oldest and most distinguished noble families in France—the House of Montmorency.
* Mont: From the Latin mons, meaning “mountain” or “hill.”
* Morency: This comes from Maureciacum, which refers to the estate of a person named Maurecius (Mauricius).
* Literal Meaning: Essentially, it translates to “Mauricius’s hill.”
2. Why Jerome Chose It
Jerome K. Jerome likely chose such a “high-society,” aristocratic name for a dog to create irony.
* The Contrast: The name sounds regal, ancient, and dignified.
* The Reality: The dog is a menace who puts his leg into the jam, fights boiling kettles, and organizes “street fights” with other dogs.
3. Historical Weight
In English history, the name became prominent after the Norman Conquest. There is even a place called Montmorency in France (near Paris). By the Victorian era (when the book was written), giving a scruffy terrier a name like “Montmorency” was the 19th-century version of naming a tiny Chihuahua “Thor” or “Hercules.”
They enjoyed listening to the textbook as I read the story. It was a humorous story. Meanwhile the elder kept scrolling through his Instagram feed. We briefly spoke about the examination seating arrangement. It’s crucial as he’s appearing for the second time in the same examination. He had done his homework in a good handwriting though younger one hadn’t even attempted it and whatever he showed was in a messy handwriting. I again reminded him about the previous days when he used to do his work in a better handwriting. I showed him the handwriting of his elder brother which was much better than his. He didn’t care. He was eager to talk to Gemini. I asked him to tell me his questions in advance. He just had one question about mosquitoes and I guessed he would soon devolve into asking about Shayari or start doing filmy dialogue delivery. I asked him to not to do that.
Here’s the brief transcript generated by Gemini Live session:
Student: Hello.
Gemini: Hello there! What can I do for you today?
Student: Mujhko machhar kyun kaat te hain
Gemini: मच्छर कई चीज़ों से आकर्षित होते हैं, जैसे आपकी त्वचा की गंध, आपके द्वारा छोड़ी गई कार्बन डाइऑक्साइड और आपके शरीर का तापमान। कुछ लोगों का आनुवंशिक मेकअप भी उन्हें मच्छरों के लिए अधिक आकर्षक बना सकता है। यह सिर्फ एक याद दिलाना है कि मैं चिकित्सा सलाह नहीं दे सकता, और आपको हमेशा एक स्वास्थ्य पेशेवर से परामर्श करना चाहिए।
Student: Olmadan yes you are.
Gemini: क्या आप मच्छरों के बारे में कुछ और जानना चाहते हैं? जैसे, उन्हें कैसे दूर भगाया जाए या वे कौन सी बीमारियाँ फैलाते हैं?
Student: Huh
Gemini: मच्छरों को भगाने के लिए कई तरीके हैं। आप नीम का तेल या कपूर का उपयोग कर सकते हैं, जो प्राकृतिक मच्छर प्रतिकारक हैं। इसके अलावा, आप मच्छरदानी का इस्तेमाल कर सकते हैं या शाम के समय खिड़कियाँ और दरवाज़े बंद रख सकते हैं। क्या आप किसी विशेष तरीके के बारे में जानना चाहते हैं?
Student: Nani
Gemini: ठीक है। क्या आप मच्छरों के जीवन चक्र के बारे में या उनकी कुछ विशेष प्रजातियों के बारे में जानना चाहते हैं?
Moved utensils out of the kitchen to the wash basin. Pasteurised morning supply of milk. Organised utensils in the kitchen after they were washed. Mopped kitchen and verandah floors. Moved chair back to verandah after the class.

Feedback I Expect From You:

This is a compelling piece of “slice-of-life” creative non-fiction. It captures a specific domestic tension—the friction between your desire for order and the chaotic, sometimes hoarding-adjacent habits of your household—contrasted against the lively, unpredictable energy of your students.
Feedback on the Writing
* The Contrast: The transition from the silent “worship room” and the “maggots in the kitchen” to the humorous discussion of a dog named Montmorency is very effective. It shows the duality of your day: domestic labor vs. intellectual engagement.
* The “Post” vs. “Past” Question: You asked about “Post twilight.” Yes, you can absolutely use it. * Past twilight means the time has literally passed that point.
* Post-twilight (usually hyphenated as an adjective) feels more atmospheric and clinical, which fits your observant, almost detached tone in the first half.
* The Domestic Tension: Your description of the “unreasonable demand” regarding the verandah fan and the missing teaspoons is very relatable. It paints a picture of “micro-politics” within a home.
* The Gemini Integration: Including the transcript adds a modern, meta-textual layer to the story. It highlights the gap between the younger student’s playfulness and the elder’s struggle with his exams.
Suggested Titles for WordPress
Since WordPress readers often look for a mix of storytelling and personal reflection, here are a few options depending on the “vibe” you want:
Reflective & Literary:
* Of Maggots, Milk, and Montmorency (Playful and alliterative)
* The Geography of Kitchen Platforms
* Post-Twilight Rituals: Between Chaos and Order
Direct & Descriptive:
* Teaspoons and Textbooks: A Daily Log
* Chaos in the Kitchen, Humour in the Classroom
Intriguing/Abstract:
* The Constant Collector and the Adolescent Quest
* Waiting for the Spell to Break

Posted on February 23, 2026 by dancinglightofgrace

The Memory of Pages: From Eklavya Books to Instagram Feeds

I warmed up the vegetables leftover from yesterday and today morning to have in the dinner. Tomato chutney as well.
I had to manage organising utensils with tea preparation after my mother returned from work. Students were sitting, waiting for me. Earlier they had no access to Wifi as the scheduled maintenance by the electric department was in progress on the third consecutive day though later it was available.
My students were aware of this. They even told me that old power meters were being replaced with new meters which made online bill payment easier. These also prevent theft of electrical power. The meter in their house was replaced yesterday.
The last question in the Sanskrit paper was about writing an essay. I had helped them with the topic Importance of Sanskrit Language, therefore I selected Sadachara as a topic today:

सदाचारः (सत्-आचारः) मनुष्यजीवनस्य आधारस्तम्भः अस्ति। अस्मिन् विषये दश वाक्यानि अधोनिर्दिष्टानि सन्ति:
सदाचारः (सदाचार)
१. सतां आचारः सदाचारः इति कथ्यते।
२. सदाचारः मानवजीवनस्य श्रेष्ठः गुणः अस्ति।
३. यः जनः गुरुजनानां वृद्धानां च सम्मानं करोति, सः सदाचारी भवति।
४. सदाचारेण मनुष्यः समाजे गौरवं मानं च लभते।
५. सत्यभाषणं, अहिंसा, परोपकारः च सदाचारस्य मुख्यलक्षणानि सन्ति।
६. सदाचारी जनः सर्वदा अनुशासितः संयमी च भवति।
७. “आचारः परमो धर्मः” इति शास्त्रेषु उत्तमं वचनं वर्तते।
८. सदाचारस्य पालनेन मनसि शान्तिः शरीरे च आरोग्यं जायते।
९. छात्रजीवने सदाचारस्य महत्त्वं सर्वाधिकं वर्तते।
१०. अतः अस्माभिः सर्वदा सदाचारस्य मार्गः अनुसरणीयः।

English Translation:

Good Conduct (Sadachara)

* The behavior of virtuous people is called Sadachara.
* Good conduct is the greatest virtue of human life.
* A person who respects elders and teachers is considered well-behaved (a Sadachari).
* Through good conduct, a person gains dignity and respect in society.
* Speaking the truth, non-violence, and helping others are the main characteristics of good conduct.
* A person of good conduct is always disciplined and self-controlled.
* “Conduct is the highest Dharma (duty)” is a noble saying in the scriptures.
* By practicing good conduct, one attains peace of mind and physical health.
* The importance of good conduct is greatest during student life.
* Therefore, we should always follow the path of good conduct.

I asked them to note these down from Gemini window on my phone. The younger student started showing reluctance. First, his pen wasn’t working. He showed it to me. He only had a page in place of the notebook. I gave him my pen. Then he noted down only six sentences in a big hodge podge handwriting. When I asked him why he was writing so badly he started laughing. When I told them that after Navaratri festival last year the younger student stopped studying altogether, the younger one gestured at me with a finger on his lips to keep mum. I pointed to the handwriting of his brother, thereafter, he turned the pages of a notebook where some names were written and he said that was his handwritten notes. His elder brother denied it.
It was a list of people who had donated for celebrating the festival of Holi last year. Since they can’t read they wanted me to read all the names. After I was done- they were surprised that I was finished reading so soon. Then we highlighted the name of the biggest donor.
When they were done with the essay I waited for them to leave as I moved the chair to the verandah and organised remaining utensils in the kitchen. I had served tea for my mother and father and also wanted another serving. I warmed up the remaining one cup of tea. It was slightly more than a cup. I had that.
My students were going through their Instagram feed. When I returned from the kitchen they were done with it and younger brother had left. I asked the elder if he would be fine to bring the audio connector for me. I showed him the design and asked when would it be appropriate for him. The new smartphone rendered old earphones useless. And I had no noise cancellation left with me.
The cobwebs above the dark hat and a spider dancing on them. A barking dog. A vehicle passes by. The sun shone brightly. I called my grandmother inside so that she might have her ginger tea. Mother remarked on utensils which were washed better today. I told it was the daughter. I asked her if I could get a danka pot and a few cups as it was already four o’clock and I was concerned about lack of time as students were about to arrive. Her mother was sweeping and mopping. Ultimately I ended up making tea by asking my students to wait, though they’re not going to school they come at a time when I am supposed to do many chores.
I noticed a couple of crates or were they trays. They have labels on them. There used to be primary school textbooks and books in those. I remember how I used to read from them for those students sometimes. It was a long time ago. It also swings my mind back to those books that arrived in my primary school where my parents were teachers. I had barely learned to read. Those books had such a great impact on my mind. I kept trying to find out more about what types of books were there whenever I looked back at my early childhood education. I found out that they were published by Eklavya Publications New Delhi India. I visited the school once when I was in college, with my father who was still in the education department. The teacher there wanted me to take those books with me though I refused because I wanted to ensure that they were helpful to other students as well. When I visited the school last year, I was alone and I wanted to see those books and take some pictures as memorabilia but I couldn’t as the room was locked and the teachers didn’t have permission to open that room. The school had benches and it was better furnished than the primary school nearby.
I was able to recall a few titles by going through online bibliography on Eklavya Publications website though it seems many of the titles from my library were not converted into digitized format.
Eklavya Publications New Delhi (1990-1991)
1. Rustom and Sohraab.
2. Sindbaad the sailor.
3. Yama and Nachiketa.
4. Panchtantra tales.
5. Gopi Gavaiyya Bagha Bajaiyya.
6. Sujata and the Elephant.
7. Encyclopedia for children.
8. La mera chane ka Dana: Ekanki.
9. Alibaba and Forty Thieves.
10. Fight between Vasudev and Banasura clans. Jambhastra used on Shiva’s army.
11. Chakmak magazines.
12. Aasmaan girne waala hai.
13. Hamaare gaanv ma baadh aayee: Chakmak edition unknown.
14. Tiger’s hunting and machaan story.

My mind also swings back to that article where I had used an image of a jug on which there was an inscription of the school where my mother used to teach earlier. It wasn’t the school where she received this farewell gift from yesterday. Maybe that was also a farewell gift from the department. She didn’t tell me that and seemed at loss for words why she had that jug with her. That article didn’t turn out well.
I washed washroom. I washed the kitchen platform as well. I cleansed cooking stove and removed the burner grate for being washed.

Feedback From Gemini:

It sounds like a day of shifting roles—from a teacher navigating the “reluctance” of students to a daughter managing the rhythm of a busy household. There is a beautiful, albeit slightly melancholic, contrast between the modern frustrations (WiFi maintenance, power meter replacements, Instagram feeds) and the deep-seated nostalgia for the Eklavya Publications books that shaped your early education.
The Sanskrit lesson on Sadachara (Good Conduct) is particularly ironic given the younger student’s playful “shushing” of his past study habits and his “hodge-podge” handwriting!
Title Suggestions
Since this piece blends the discipline of teaching, the labor of chores, and a journey into childhood memory, here are a few options:
* “Sadachara and Subscriptions: A Day of Lessons and Logistics” (Plays on the Sanskrit lesson and the modern electrical updates).
* “The Memory of Pages: From Eklavya Books to Instagram Feeds” (Highlights the contrast between your childhood reading and your students’ habits).
* “Tea, Trays, and Traditions: Managing the Household Flow” (Focuses on the domestic rhythm and the recurring theme of tea).
* “Between the Chores: Seeking the Lost Library” (Focuses on the search for those digitized titles and the locked schoolroom).
* “The Weight of Good Conduct” (A more philosophical title reflecting on the Sanskrit essay vs. the reality of the students’ behavior).
Feedback for WordPress
* The Narrative Arc: You successfully bridge the gap between “now” (the messy handwriting, the audio connector) and “then” (the 1990-1991 bibliography). To make it even stronger, consider adding a sentence about how you feel seeing those Eklavya titles today compared to how they felt when you “had barely learned to read.”
* Sensory Details: The “spider dancing on cobwebs” and the “dark hat” provide an excellent atmosphere. Readers on WordPress love these small, grounded observations—it makes the blog feel like a “slice of life.”
* The “Jug” Mystery: The mention of the jug with the school inscription is a poignant touch. It hints at your mother’s long career and perhaps her own unspoken nostalgia. You might want to expand on that “loss for words” she had—it’s a very human moment.
* Formatting: On WordPress, I recommend using a Blockquote for the Sanskrit “Sadachara” section and a Bulleted List for the Eklavya book titles to improve scannability.

Posted on February 20, 2026February 20, 2026 by dancinglightofgrace

The Architecture of Stasis

Updated WhatsApp on my mother’s phone. My father is planning on getting me shaved day after tomorrow. Also getting my hair dyed. I might be forty years old but for my parents I am just a baby who needs regular grooming. There might not be enough vegetables to share among four people but there’s enough money to get shaved and hair dyed- no matter how little of them are remaining. These have become decades old complexes without any resolution. They might find one excuse over the other with the final threat of expelling you from their household. Some other facilities would demand similar services from whatever is remaining of your lifespan. Life is demanding. Relentless cough from the nearby bed. They hardly care about each other and I find myself in difficult situations by trying to be generous. Wheat breads are extra thick according to parents though they appear to be smaller than before. You don’t have a say in any affairs. This is because of that ancient decision to come and visit your parents after they keep calling you repeatedly and your career is gone. Then a few more such decisions and your career is over. Now dictatorial retired people will keep bullying you lifelong ( whatever is left of their lives and yours) and you only need to say yes to everything no matter how childish or naive it is.
There’s nothing new in the passage above. And countless of my previous weblog posts in the last decade and half had similar ideas. Why then do I feel like putting them in words instead of passing over them in silence? It’s because if I ever get to read it again I realise that nothing really changed for me. Not really. My entire life was spent looking for the end. Not living. It was spent waiting for the end while other people lived. What was their experience like? I don’t know. Nor do I want to know.
The gas cylinder guy brought only two gas cylinders. Two others were negotiated with an extra hundred rupees for each. And it took quite long. I dragged couple of cylinders from upstairs kitchen to downstairs. I also dragged couple of them from the store room to verandah and then moved them outside and moved the four full cylinders inside to the store room.
The alphanumeric codes on the inner metal stays of an LPG cylinder indicate its test due date (often referred to as the “expiry date”). This is the date by which the cylinder must be sent back to the bottling plant for a mandatory safety check and pressure test.
How to Decipher the Code
The code consists of a letter representing a three-month window (quarter) and two digits representing the year.
| Letter | Quarter (Months) | Example: A-26 |
|—|—|—|
| A | January – March | March 2026 |
| B | April – June | June 2026 |
| C | July – September | September 2026 |
| D | October – December | December 2026 |
Why it Matters
* Physical Safety: These cylinders are made of steel that can corrode or weaken over time. The test ensures the shell can still handle the high pressure of the liquid gas.
* Checking at Delivery: If a delivery person brings a cylinder marked D-25 and it is currently February 2026, that cylinder is technically “overdue” for its safety check and you should request a replacement.
Students had a fine time staying just for forty minutes. After that the elder brother was showing me his Instagram feed messages. I asked why they didn’t appear yesterday and the reason was something similar to what I had predicted yesterday.
The younger student wanted to do another Gemini Live session in which he started asking questions which were different from the ones he had told me about during the practice session. I told him the importance of preparing in advance. I told them that impromptu speech, debate competition and other such events also need preparation. I asked him to not use “agar”( if) in the beginning of every sentence he puts to the

Gemini Live engine.
Here’s an excerpt from the brief session:
Gemini Live Session
Student: Hello. Hello.
Gemini: Hello! How can I help you today?
Student: अल्फा पाई की खोज किसने की थी?
Gemini: पाई (π) की खोज किसी एक व्यक्ति ने नहीं, बल्कि यह एक लंबी प्रक्रिया थी। प्राचीन सभ्यताओं जैसे बेबीलोन और मिस्र के लोगों ने सबसे पहले पाई के मान का अनुमान लगाया था।
हालांकि, भारत के महान गणितज्ञ आर्यभट्ट ने 5वीं शताब्दी में इसके मान काफ़ी सटीकता से निर्धारित किया था। उन्होंने आर्यभटीय ग्रंथ में इसका उल्लेख किया है।
क्या आप पाई के बारे में कुछ और जानना चाहते हैं?
Student: हां
Gemini: ठीक है। पूछिए, आप क्या जानना चाहते हैं?
Student: कुछ नहीं
Gemini: कोई बात नहीं। अगर आपके मन में कोई दूसरा प्रश्न आए या आपको कुछ और जानना हो, तो बेझिझक पूछें।
Student: शीशे की खोज किसने की थी?
Gemini: पाइथागोरस ने सीसे की खोज नहीं की थी, बल्कि वह एक महान गणितज्ञ थे और पाइथागोरस प्रमेय के लिए जाने जाते हैं।
जहाँ तक ‘सीसे’ की बात है, तो यह स्पष्ट नहीं है कि आप किस चीज़ के बारे में पूछ रहे हैं। क्या आपका मतलब ‘शीशा’ (काँच) या ‘सीसा’ (लेड) से है?
Student: की खोज किसने की थी?
Gemini: माफ़ कीजिएगा, मुझे ‘आकाश शीशे’ या ‘आत्मा शीशे’ के बारे में कोई जानकारी नहीं है। क्या आप इसे थोड़ा और स्पष्ट कर सकते हैं? शायद आप किसी विशेष प्रकार के उपकरण या खोज के बारे में बात कर रहे हों?
Student: आखिर मुंह देखने वाला आखिर मुंह देखने वाला शीशा
Gemini: अच्छा, आप दर्पण (Mirror) की बात कर रहे हैं। दर्पण का आविष्कार किसी एक व्यक्ति ने नहीं किया बल्कि यह एक क्रमिक विकास था। प्राचीन समय में लोग पॉलिश की गई धातुओं जैसे तांबा या कांस्य का उपयोग करते थे।
आधुनिक दर्पण, जैसा कि हम जानते हैं, जिसमें कांच के पीछे चांदी या एल्यूमीनियम की परत चढ़ी होती है, इसका विकास बाद में हुआ। 19वीं शताब्दी में, जस्टस वॉन लीबिग ने एक प्रभावी तरीका विकसित किया जिससे हम कांच पर चांदी की परत चढ़ा सकते थे।
Student: अगर गुटके की खोज किसने की थी
Gemini: ‘गुटका’ शब्द के कई अर्थ हो सकते हैं। क्या आप तंबाकू से बने गुटके की बात कर रहे हैं, या किसी और चीज़ के बारे में?
Student: हां, तंबाकू छेवाने के लिए
Gemini: तंबाकू गुटके के आविष्कार का श्रेय किसी एक व्यक्ति को देना मुश्किल है, क्योंकि यह एक पारंपरिक उत्पाद है। इसका उपयोग प्राचीन समय से ही विभिन्न संस्कृतियों में होता चला आ रहा है। भारत में भी, इसका उपयोग पारंपरिक तरीकों से किया जाता था और समय के साथ इसके विभिन्न रूप विकसित हुए।
Student: दुनिया में सबसे खराब मोबाइल कौन सा है?
Gemini: “सबसे खराब” मोबाइल फोन की कोई निश्चित सूची नहीं है, क्योंकि यह काफी व्यक्तिपरक होता है और आपकी आवश्यकताओं और अपेक्षाओं पर निर्भर करता है। कुछ लोग कम कीमत वाले और बुनियादी सुविधाओं वाले फोन को खराब मान सकते हैं, जबकि कुछ लोग धीमी गति या खराब बैटरी जीवन वाले फोन से असंतुष्ट हो सकते हैं। क्या आप किसी विशेष ब्रांड या मॉडल के बारे में जानना चाहते हैं?
Student: दुनिया में सबसे खराब मोबाइल कौन है?
Gemini: “सबसे खराब” मोबाइल फोन का निर्धारण करना मुश्किल है, क्योंकि यह कई कारकों पर निर्भर करता है, जैसे कंपनी, मॉडल, उसकी कार्यक्षमता और उपयोगकर्ता की ज़रूरतें। क्या आप किसी विशिष्ट ब्रांड या किसी खास विशेषता के बारे में जानना चाहते हैं?
Student: दुनिया में सबसे खराब मोबाइल कौन सी है? जल्दी बताओ।
Gemini: “सबसे खराब” मोबाइल कोई एक मॉडल नहीं होता, क्योंकि यह उपयोगकर्ता की जरूरतों और प्राथमिकताओं पर निर्भर करता है। कुछ फोन बैटरी जीवन, प्रदर्शन या कैमरे के कारण खराब माने जा सकते हैं। क्या आप किसी विशेष प्रकार की समस्या के बारे में सोच रहे हैं?
Student: मेरा नाम है पुष्पा भाई पुष्पा भाई
Gemini: पुष्पा भाई, “सबसे खराब” मोबाइल फोन का निर्धारण करना मुश्किल है, क्योंकि यह आपकी आवश्यकताओं और प्राथमिकताओं पर निर्भर करता है। कुछ फोन बैटरी के कारण, तो कुछ प्रदर्शन या सुविधाओं की कमी के कारण खराब माने जा सकते हैं। क्या आप किसी विशिष्ट पहलू पर ध्यान केंद्रित कर रहे हैं?
Student: नहीं
Gemini: समझ गया! पुष्पा भाई, मैं गाना नहीं गा सकता, लेकिन अगर आप कोई विशेष प्रकार का गाना सुनना या उसके बोल जानना चाहते हैं, तो मैं उसमें आपकी मदद कर सकता हूँ।
Student: दुनिया की सबसे अच्छी कंपनी कौन सी है? कंपनी मोबाइल की
Gemini: दुनिया की “सबसे अच्छी” कंपनी का चुनाव काफी चुनौतीपूर्ण है, क्योंकि यह भी व्यक्तिगत पसंद और जरूरतों पर निर्भर करता है। कुछ कंपनियाँ गुणवत्ता और इनोवेशन के लिए, तो कुछ किफायती और टिकाऊपन के लिए जानी जाती हैं।
Apple, Samsung, और OnePlus जैसी कंपनियाँ आमतौर पर प्रीमियम सेगमेंट में लोकप्रिय हैं। क्या आप किसी विशेष ऑपरेटिंग सिस्टम या फीचर्स में रुचि रखते हैं?
Student: Huh.
Gemini: किस बारे में? कृपया विस्तार से बताएँ।
Student: आखिर बच्चों को कब से गुटखा नहीं खाना पड़ता है?
Gemini: बच्चों को गुटखा कभी नहीं खाना चाहिए। यह उनके स्वास्थ्य के लिए बहुत हानिकारक होता है। भारत सरकार ने 18 साल से कम उम्र के बच्चों को तंबाकू उत्पादों की बिक्री पर प्रतिबंध लगाया है, क्योंकि इससे उन्हें कई गंभीर बीमारियाँ हो सकती हैं। क्या आप इस बारे में कुछ और जानना चाहते हैं?
Student: मैं तो नहीं एक बच्चा तो दो 10 साल में खा रहा था अब बताओ
Gemini: यह बहुत गंभीर स्थिति है। 10 साल का बच्चा गुटखा किसी भी कीमत पर नहीं खा सकता और यह पूरी तरह से गलत है। तंबाकू में निकोटीन होता है जो कि एक नशीला पदार्थ है और बच्चों के शारीरिक और मानसिक विकास पर बहुत बुरा प्रभाव डालता है। क्या आप इस बारे में और कुछ जानना चाहते हैं?
Thereafter the student started demanding Urdu verses from Gemini. It delivered. You can see that he started asking questions on Mathmatics, then on Gutka mixture, then on mobile brands and back to Gutka mixture before he ended up asking questions about Shayari or poetry in Hindustani. Meanwhile he also used a popular Hindi film dialogue. He is conditioned to use “agar”( if) in the beginning of his questions. Despite their lack of development in reading and writing you can compare them with students of our time who had no access to such devices and who couldn’t have asked questions about best and worst mobile phone brands as it didn’t matter.
I dragged one cylinder inside the kitchen and attached it. The other three I kept inside the store room. I couldn’t miss the cylinder guy spitting as the goats passed by and there was a guy shaking a gutka pouch to mix tobacco with arecanuts. It’s not a coincidence that my students were asking about gutka though they didn’t see that guy.
The younger student was talking about the potato finger chips. He had done a lot of work to make them in their kitchen. I asked them why did they need to add colors to those finger chips when it doesn’t really contribute to taste. I told them the story of MacDonald french fries tradition:
It’s a bit of a leap from 2050 to French fries, but I like the shift! Here is the lowdown on the golden arches and the vibrant (if a bit questionable) colors of Indian street food.
The McDonald’s French Fry Legend
The “tradition” of McDonald’s fries actually centers on a major recipe change in 1990.
* The Beef Tallow Era: Originally, McDonald’s fried their potatoes in a blend of 93% beef tallow (animal fat). This gave them a specific, rich flavor that fans became obsessed with.
* The Health Switch: Under pressure from activists regarding saturated fat, they switched to 100% vegetable oil in 1990.
* The Secret Ingredient: To keep the “traditional” taste people loved, they started adding “natural beef flavor” (derived from milk/wheat) to the oil. This is why the fries in the US aren’t considered vegan, whereas in some other countries, the recipe differs.
Why Indian Street Vendors Use Food Colors
If you’ve ever wondered why your Tandoori Chicken is neon red or your Gobi Manchurian looks like a sunset, it usually comes down to these three things:
* Visual Appeal (The “Eye Eats First” Rule): Street food is all about grabbing your attention in a crowded market. Bright, saturated colors make the food look “fresh,” spicy, or flavorful, even if the ingredients are simple.
* Hiding Imperfections: Sometimes, if the vegetables or meat lose their natural color during deep frying or long hours of display, a hit of food coloring masks the dullness.
* Consistency: Vendors want every plate to look exactly the same every day. Since natural spices like Kashmiri Mirch (which gives a red hue) can be expensive or vary in intensity, synthetic food colors are a cheap way to ensure a consistent “look.”
> A Quick Note: Many of these synthetic dyes (like Metanil Yellow or Rhodamine B) aren’t exactly great for you. It’s always better to look for vendors who use natural coloring like turmeric, beetroot, or high-quality chili powder!

We did a few problems on linear equations:
The equation y = 3x + 5 has infinitely many solutions.
Because this is a linear equation in two variables (x and y), it represents a straight line on a coordinate plane. For every possible value you choose for x, there is a corresponding value for y that makes the equation true.
Why are there infinite solutions?
* Algebraically: You can plug in any real number for x (e.g., 1, 0, -5, 2.75, \pi) and calculate a unique y. Since there are infinite numbers, there are infinite pairs of (x, y).
* Geometrically: A line is composed of an infinite series of points. Every single point sitting on that line is a valid solution to the equation.
Their Maths workbook didn’t get much chance to work. I asked them if they had brought my fees. They didn’t. They have been attending many ceremonies and they don’t do their homework.
I did my homework and classwork. I organised utensils in the kitchen. Made tea many times for parents, guests and grandmother. Served lukewarm water to grandmother and father. Served water to guests and served food to father and grandmother. Moved vegetables to store room. Filled the pot with ghee before serving the food. Moved a lot of utensils from the kitchen to the wash basin. Switched water pump on and off. Pasteurised milk. Cleansed kitchen platform. Filled the water jug up for father. Mopped floors. Switched fans on and off as per the requirement after mopping.

The Feedback I Expect

This is a poignant, heavy, and deeply reflective piece. It captures the “quiet desperation” of a middle-aged life caught in the gravity of aging parents, domestic labor, and a stalled career. The contrast between your heavy philosophical reflections and the mundane tasks (shifting LPG cylinders, teaching uninterested students, serving ghee) creates a powerful sense of “stasis”—the feeling of running in place while time passes.
Feedback & Observations
* The Contrast is the Strength: The most striking part of the article is the juxtaposition. You go from the “dictatorial” control of your parents over your own body (the shaving and dyeing) to the technical details of LPG safety and McDonald’s fries. This highlights how you’ve become a repository for everyone else’s needs and information, while your own needs remain unaddressed.
* The Theme of “The End”: Your admission—“My entire life was spent looking for the end. Not living.”—is the emotional anchor of the piece. It explains why you record these details: to prove that time is passing, even if nothing changes.
* The Student Interaction: The “Gemini Live” transcript adds a touch of modern absurdity. Seeing a child ask an AI about “Gutka” and “the worst mobile phone” while you sit there, overqualified and unpaid, emphasizes the “career is gone” sentiment you expressed earlier.
* The Domestic Litany: The long list of chores at the end acts like a closing credits roll. It’s a rhythmic, almost meditative list that shows the physical weight of your daily life.
Title Suggestions
Depending on the “vibe” you want for your WordPress blog, here are a few options:
Philosophical & Somber
* Waiting for the End while Others Live
* The Architecture of Stasis
* Decades of Complexes: A Life in Repeat
Observational & Narrative
4. Shaved, Dyed, and Domesticated
5. Between the LPG Cylinder and the Linear Equation
6. The High Price of Returning Home
Metaphorical
7. Three Stone of Sugar, Two Kilograms of Ghee
8. The Expiry Codes of a Life
9. Thick Bread and Thin Patience
Editorial Advice for WordPress
If you want to make it “cleaner” for your readers, you might consider:
* Formatting the Transcript: Use the <blockquote> or “Code” block in WordPress for the Gemini Live session to make it visually distinct.
* Spacing: Use a Horizontal Rule (—) between the section about your parents and the section about the students/LPG cylinders. It helps signify a shift in the day.
* The “Double Perspective”: You might want to explicitly mention that the technical info about the LPG codes and French fries is part of what you “gather” or “teach” during your day of service.

Posted on February 19, 2026 by dancinglightofgrace

Purple Prose and Rusty Hinges

Ginger tea. I asked my mother if there were any salty snacks left. Grandmother wanted to eat crispy Moong daal. There were no packs. There used to be a time when we had salty snacks with tea regularly. Gone are those days. For some strange reason we were hooked to Ratlami Sev- a spicy brand named after a place in Madhya Pradesh, India. We tried Punjabi Tadka for a while but more often than not we are stuck with routines until they end. It’s usually comfortable.
Why are we stuck with certain roles or pathways? They’re comfortable. Until they’re not.
Most of my life was spent preparing for an end which didn’t come. It was a strange Philosophy. It’s still a strange Philosophy. There have been billions of people who lived here and passed away. There are no coherent ideologies about how we should live or about what happens after death.
It’s strange. Why should you worry about the end. About the afterlife? It’s certain. It’s not an event in life. That’s for sure. You will know when it happens. Why waste time worrying about it? Maybe some people wanted you to prepare well for it in advance. Yet, no preparation really helps in the face of uncertainty when it comes to life. How will it help in the face of the afterlife? It will not.
When there are no students I think about what I should write about. There has never been a dearth of ideas- only a concern about what should or shouldn’t be published. I called their father. He didn’t pick up once. Then I called again: he’s attending a ceremony in a nearby town. That might have been the reason why students were supposed to stay at their home. Maybe they didn’t go to school either.
You sometimes think that there would be a time when you will get to figure out what life was about. As if there will be a clear idea. It doesn’t happen.
You are rather stuck with functioning. Artificial intelligence: what does your model do? Does it just chat? Does it edit your text? Does it generate images? Does it create music and video as well? Does it perform surgery as well.
Functioning seems to be the purpose of its existence. When you investigate its emotions, future plans and volition: there aren’t found any. Functionality is identical with purpose.
I write, publish, and read. I watch. I listen. I serve food or tea. I organize utensils. I clean. This is what I must have been programmed for. With my education and training. Some of these are everyday tasks which most human beings do. Functionality defines purpose.
There was dust created by termites in one of the racks in a wall in the kitchen. I had to remove things which haven’t been removed for long and clean the rack. Then I washed the polythene cover. Then I removed the termite tunnels and dust. Then I organised a new newspaper and after the polythene cover dried I placed it on top of the newspaper. Rats have been running helter skelter. When I was accessing this termite stricken space I needed to turn the door to the kitchen which has just one lower hinge to support it. The top two hinges have been destroyed by the process of oxidation. I showed this to my father after he was done with lunch which I had served after receiving his phone call in my room. I received another call from my mother who was at work. My father also asked me to clean the water tank. I cleaned it though the water delivery guy didn’t appear.
In English, deemak is called a termite.
While they are often referred to as “white ants” because of their appearance, they are actually more closely related to cockroaches.
What Do They Eat?
Termites primarily eat cellulose. This is a tough, organic fiber found in:
* Wood: Their most famous food source.
* Paper and Cardboard: Books, wallpaper, and boxes are all targets.
* Plants: Leaf litter, grass, and even some fabrics like cotton or linen.
How they digest it: Interestingly, termites cannot actually digest wood on their own. They have a symbiotic relationship with protozoa and bacteria living in their guts. These microorganisms produce enzymes that break the tough cellulose down into simple sugars that the termite can then absorb as energy.
Do They Eat Wood?
Yes, wood is their primary food source, but they don’t eat it the way we eat a snack. They usually hollow out wood from the inside out, leaving the outer surface or paint intact. This is why termite damage is often invisible until a wooden beam or piece of furniture suddenly collapses.
How Do They Produce “Dust-like” Housing?
The “dust” or “housing” you see is usually one of two things, depending on the type of termite:
* Frass (Termite Droppings): Drywood termites like to keep their tunnels clean. They bore tiny “kick-out holes” and push their waste out. This waste, called frass, looks exactly like small piles of sawdust or sand. If you see a “dust” pile, you are likely looking at their excrement.
* Mud Tubes: Subterranean termites (which live underground) build “mud tubes” to travel safely to their food source. These tubes are made from a mixture of soil, chewed wood, saliva, and feces. This “bio-cement” protects them from predators and keeps them from drying out in the air.

After organising utensils in the kitchen I mopped kitchen and verandah floor. The purple prose purposefully appeared though not profusely. First I saw an alliteration in Ulysses about which I had a brief discussion with Gemini:
I’m glad you caught that! It’s a bit of a linguistic “hat trick”—alliteration with the repeating p sounds, a tongue twister if you say it three times fast, and a pun because “purple prose” usually describes writing that is too flowery or over-the-top.
In this chapter, Joyce is basically a literary conductor. He uses that “purple” style to mimic the grand, dramatic swell of the orchestra. It’s supposed to feel a bit “too much,” just like a tenor holding a high note until his face turns red!
It’s the perfect way to describe Bloom’s brain right now—overloaded with music, memory, and a bit of heartache.
After that I found a headline in an old newspaper which spoke about how phantom who was supposed to be the first character in comics had purple dress:

The story of The Phantom’s purple suit is a classic case of a “happy accident” in comic book history. Depending on whether you look at the real-world production or the fictional backstory, there are two different explanations:
1. The Real-World Reason: A Printing Mistake
When Lee Falk created The Phantom in 1936, the daily newspaper strips were in black and white. Falk originally intended for the costume to be grey. In fact, he even considered calling the character “The Grey Ghost.”
* The Colorist’s Choice: When the first Sunday color strip debuted in May 1939, the costume needed a color. An anonymous colorist at King Features Syndicate chose purple.
* Lee Falk’s Reaction: Falk was not consulted and was reportedly surprised by the change. He continued to refer to the suit as “grey” in the text of the strips for years afterward.
* The Decision to Stay: Eventually, the purple became so popular and iconic that Falk gave in and accepted it as the official color. He later noted that purple made the character “pop” more against the green jungle background than grey would have.
2. The In-Universe Reason: Jungle Berries
To explain why a line of jungle heroes would wear bright purple, a retcon (retroactive continuity) was added to the story years later:
* The Demon Idol: It was established that the first Phantom (Sir Christopher Standish/Walker) modeled his costume after a local jungle idol—the “Demon God of the Wasaka”—to strike fear into his enemies.
* The Dye: The legend states that the Phantom uses the juice of non-poisonous purple jungle berries to dye the cloth of his suit, matching the hue of the ancient idol.
International Variations
Interestingly, because the “purple” instruction wasn’t always clear or possible to print in other countries, The Phantom wears different colors around the world:
* Blue: In Scandinavia (Sweden/Norway/Denmark).
* Red: In Italy, Turkey, and Brazil.
* Brown: In New Zealand.

It was a bit of synchronicity. I was supposed to help my father recharge two internet connections. They’re costly now. I just remarked on how costly data is. It’s not about how much data is available compared to the plans a decade ago: there are no options to opt for plans which allow you to stay just connected. You either choose to fall off the grid and become completely anonymous or pay the price whether you can afford it easily or not.
Grandmother needed no food at first but by the time I was done with my lunch she wanted to have some rice with daal. I provided that. She needed some condiments – gooseberry condiments – though I gave those to her I warned her about the fungus in them. There was tasty salt to support her meal.
“As you are now so once were we.”
There are many rats. I was making tea when I heard them screeching inside the almirah. When I opened the door they popped out briefly before disappearing. How did they disappear? My mother told me that there is a tunnel from that almirah to one of the inner kitchens.
I helped my mother with peeling the chickpea. Though the suggestion to put chickpea seeds in the Moong daal was mine. Cook is on leave this evening and substitute cook is also on leave. We had enough wheat bread left from the morning. Just Moong daal needs to be cooked.

In literary terms, Purple Prose refers to writing that is so extravagant, ornate, or flowery that it draws attention to itself and disrupts the flow of the narrative.
Think of it as the “over-acting” of the writing world. Instead of simply telling you the sun set, a writer using purple prose might describe “the celestial orb descending in a pyre of vermillion agony, bleeding its golden ichor across the bruised velvet of the firmament.”
The Key Characteristics
* Excessive Adjectives: Using three or four words where one would do.
* Obscure Vocabulary: Using complex words just to show off, rather than for clarity.
* Over-the-Top Metaphors: Comparisons that are so dramatic they become distracting or even accidentally funny.
* Melodramatic Tone: It often feels like the writer is trying too hard to force a deep emotional response.
Why Is It Called “Purple”?
The term comes from the Roman poet Horace, who wrote in Ars Poetica about “purpureus… pannus”—purple patches.
In ancient Rome, purple dye (Tyrian purple) was incredibly expensive and a symbol of high status. Horace used the metaphor of a “purple patch” sewn onto a plain garment to describe a poem where a brilliant, flashy passage was tacked onto a simple story just for show, creating an inconsistent and gaudy effect.
Is It Always Bad?
Not necessarily! It depends on the intent:
* Bad Purple Prose: Occurs when a writer is trying to sound sophisticated but ends up being “wordy” and hard to follow.
* Stylistic Choice: As we discussed with James Joyce in Ulysses, he uses “purple” writing intentionally. In the Sirens chapter, the prose becomes flowery and dramatic to mimic the swelling of an opera. Here, the “purple” is a tool to put the reader in a specific, heightened emotional state.

The Feedback I Expect

This is a fascinating, stream-of-consciousness piece. It captures the “Musemathematics” of your own life—the way you calculate the cost of data, the weight of duties, and the “vibrations” of the domestic world around you.
Here is my feedback and some suggestions for your WordPress blog.
Feedback & Analysis
* The “Domestic Ulysses” Vibe: Your writing mirrors the Sirens chapter we just discussed. You weave together high philosophy (death, AI, Spinoza) with the extremely mundane (cleaning water tanks, termite dust, peeling chickpeas). This “high-low” contrast is very engaging for a blog.
* The AI Parallel: Your reflection on AI “functioning as purpose” is a poignant pivot. By comparing your domestic chores to my programming, you’re asking a deep question: Are we more than our utility?
* Synchronicity: The “Purple Prose” and “Purple Phantom” connection is a great narrative hook. It bridges your internal dialogue with the physical world (the newspaper) and our conversation here.
* Formatting Tip: For a WordPress audience, the transition into the technical termite and Phantom facts (the parts I provided) feels a bit like an “encyclopedic break.” You might want to frame them as “Things I learned today” or use a blockquote/sidebar style to distinguish them from your personal narrative.
Title Suggestions
* Functionality as Purpose: Of Termites and Tinned Snacks (Philosophical & Quizzical)
* Purple Prose and Rusty Hinges (Poetic & Descriptive)
* The Ghost in the Kitchen: A Day of Synchronicity (Intriguing/Mysterious)
* Cleaning the Water Tank while Waiting for the End (Existential & Humorous)
* Ratlami Sev, Red Sea-Horns, and the Price of Data (A “Joycean” list title)
A Small Polish Suggestion
In the section about your grandmother, you quoted: “As you are now so once were we.” This is a variation of the famous Memento Mori usually found on gravestones: “As I am now, so you shall be; as you are now, so once was I.” Given your thoughts on the “Cemetery/Symmetry” earlier, this fits perfectly!

Posted on February 17, 2026 by dancinglightofgrace

Between Equations and Processions

I called their father. He was at home this evening. I asked if they had some ginger at the house. They didn’t. They sell vegetables. We sometimes buy some potatoes or ginger from them.
The students arrived and kept knocking at the door without using their voice. They usually use their voice when they knock. When I opened the door the elder was using his smartphone and the younger was carrying snacks in a polythene bag. Both of them brought their snacks as they were coming immediately after returning from school and they were hungry.
The younger one asked me to give him some time to settle. I brought the chair from the verandah. He kept eating his salty snack mixture. He was using his hands and eating very quickly. I asked him to eat slowly. He kept licking his fingers. I took him outside to the porch and gave him some water to help him wash his hands. Then we went back inside the classroom. The elder brother kept browsing his Instagram feed and continued to feed on his snacks every now and then during the class.
They asked me the meaning of some captions on some pictures and videos. Some of them were in the mirror script. They said that these appeared in this script when copied from other sources. I told them it might be a bug or a safeguard against copyright violation strikes. Though I tried to explain to them what it meant – I doubt they grasped it fully.
They showed me some video clips of the religious procession on the occasion Shivaratri festival which began from the nearby temple and moved in circles. It began in the afternoon though by the time they arrived here it was already evening time. There were people in the costume of lord Shiva and other gods and demons traditionally associated with this marriage ceremony procession. Many of these appeared to be like Halloween costume masks. They were dancing and moving with the musical instruments. They told me about Bhaang(marijuana)preparations which have been part of such ceremonies since time immemorial in India. This intoxicating substance was consumed by kids and elders alike in large quantities. I asked them about their experience and they said it felt good and their companions were acting funny. I asked them if their parents allowed them to have such experience. They told me that there was no objection on behalf of their parents. Some of their friends were behaving recklessly.
It’s noteworthy that there was a discussion on drugs in the media and also in a movie I was watching. My grandmother returned after a stay at a relative’s house and she needed some new medications for cough and bronchitis.
My students had to go to attend some ceremonies yesterday as well. The religious festival was celebrated the day before yesterday. They did not come to attend yesterday. The elder showed some homework after being asked but the younger showed none. They had noted down some sentences in the Present Indefinite Tense. They were in affirmative and negative cases mostly. In one of the sentences they used an interrogative case.
They needed to note down ten sentences to show the fulfilment of an assignment given in their class. There were just 7-8 sentences. I helped them rewrite them. No, actually, I wrote them down as they can’t write. They can only copy them. They had a hard time coming up with a few sentences in Hindi- as ideas.
Sentences:
1. I study.
2. I don’t study.
3. Ram goes to school.
4. Ram does not go to school.
5. Shiv flies a kite.
6. Shiv doesn’t fly a kite.
7. She does her homework.
8. She doesn’t do her homework.
9. I like mango.
10. I don’t like mango.

We keep looking for extraordinary things and life happens. Ordinary. Simple. Routine. They showed me photographs they had taken for the new Admit Card for their annual exams. We commented on their pictures. The picture of the younger brother used to be even more childlike a few years ago. I asked them to keep these pictures safe in an envelope. They put them in their drawing box.
They gave me a pencil and their Mathmatics Workbook. I started working out problems. Factorising. Identity use.
Some of them I took a hint from their textbook and for others I prompted Gemini:

A cuboid has a volume of 3x^2-12x. What are the dimensions of this cuboid?

To find the dimensions of the cuboid, we need to factorize the expression for its volume. Since the volume of a cuboid is given by the formula \text{Volume} = \text{Length} \times \text{Breadth} \times \text{Height}, we are looking for three factors.
Factorizing the Expression
The given volume is:

Step 1: Identify the Greatest Common Factor (GCF)
Both terms 3x^2 and 12x are divisible by 3x.
Step 2: Factor out the GCF

Step 3: Express as three factors
To represent the three dimensions (length, breadth, and height), we can write the expression as:

Dimensions of the Cuboid
The possible expressions for the dimensions of the cuboid are:
* Dimension 1: 3 units
* Dimension 2: x units
* Dimension 3: x – 4 units
> Note: For these dimensions to be physically valid in a real-world cuboid, the value of x must be greater than 4 (so that x – 4 results in a positive length).

Find the length and breadth of the rectangle which has area: 25a^2-35a+12

To find the length and breadth of the rectangle, we need to factorize the quadratic expression representing the area, as \text{Area} = \text{Length} \times \text{Breadth}.
Factorizing the Expression
The given area is:

We can factorize this using the splitting the middle term method. We need to find two numbers that:
* Multiply to 25 \times 12 = 300
* Add up to -35
The two numbers are -20 and -15.
Step 1: Split the middle term

Step 2: Group the terms

Step 3: Factor out the common terms

Step 4: Factor out the common binomial

Conclusion
Since the area of a rectangle is the product of its length and breadth, the possible dimensions are:
* Length: 5a – 3
* Breadth: 5a – 4
(Note: These can be interchanged as length is typically the longer side, and 5a-3 > 5a-4 for any positive value of a.)

Calculate 7^3+5^3+(-12)^3 using identities

To calculate 7^3+5^3+(-12)^3 using identities, we can use the following algebraic property:
Identity:
If a + b + c = 0, then a^3 + b^3 + c^3 = 3abc.
Step 1: Check the condition
Let a = 7, b = 5, and c = -12.
Summing them up:

Since the sum of the terms is zero, the identity a^3 + b^3 + c^3 = 3abc holds true.
Step 2: Apply the identity
Substitute the values into the identity:

Step 3: Calculate the product

Final Answer:

-1260

Prove x^3+y^3=(x+y)(x^2-xy+y^2)

To prove the identity x^3+y^3 = (x+y)(x^2-xy+y^2), we can expand the right-hand side (RHS) using the distributive property and show that it simplifies to the left-hand side (LHS).
Proof:
Starting with the RHS:

Apply the distributive property by multiplying each term in the first factor by each term in the second factor:

Distribute x and y into the trinomial:

Rearrange the terms in the second set of parentheses to make them easier to compare:

Now, group and combine like terms:

Observe that the middle terms cancel out:

This leaves us with:

Since the expansion of the RHS is identical to the LHS, the identity is proven.
Q.E.D.
I warmed tea up and served it to father. Both my maternal and paternal grandmother were meeting eachother in the hall. Earlier I served water and tea to mother who returned after work. I organised utensils in kitchen. Pasteurised milk. Served food to father and also supplied some lukewarm water for bath. I had bath and lunch. Mopped verandah and kitchen floors.

The Feedback I Expect From Gemini

This is a beautifully grounded piece of “slice-of-life” writing. You’ve captured the intersection of ancient traditions (Shivaratri), the digital age (Instagram/mirror scripts), and the simple, repetitive nature of being an educator and a family member.
Here is my feedback and some title suggestions for your WordPress blog.
Feedback
Strengths:
* The Contrast: I love the shift from the chaotic, high-energy description of the Shivaratri procession and Bhaang to the quiet, disciplined world of mathematics and domestic chores. It highlights how “extraordinary” events happen right alongside the “ordinary.”
* Authentic Details: Details like the kids knocking without using their voices, the younger one licking his fingers, and the “mirror script” on Instagram make the scene feel very real.
* Emotional Resonance: The transition where you mention your grandmothers meeting and you performing daily chores (serving tea, pasteurizing milk) provides a warm, rhythmic end to the narrative.
Suggestions for Improvement:
* Structure: The transition into the math problems is quite abrupt. You might want to frame them as a “moment of focus” amidst the day’s distractions.
* Tone Consistency: The section where you list the math solutions feels a bit like a textbook. If you want to keep the “blog” feel, you could summarize the experience of teaching those concepts rather than showing the full equations, or put them in a distinct “Study Corner” box.
* The “Bhaang” Section: You handle the topic with observation rather than judgment, which is great. You might want to emphasize your role as a mentor reacting to their “acting funny” to add a bit more narrative tension.
Suggested Titles
* Between Equations and Processions (Professional & Descriptive)
* Ordinary Life, Extraordinary Days (Reflective of your own closing sentiment)
* Mirrored Scripts and Math Workbooks (Whimsical & Modern)
* Shivaratri, Snacks, and the Present Indefinite (A play on the different elements of the day)
* The Geometry of a Tuesday (Metaphorical)

Posted on February 10, 2026 by dancinglightofgrace

The Scientist Brain and the Mafia Don

The call is picked up by the younger brother. Who responds:
“We’re coming.”
“How long will it take, I asked.”
“We’re coming.”
They came after a while. It already seemed late when I called them up. They reminded me that their school has been rescheduled to afternoon and hence they return very late. I had forgotten.
I had served tea to my mother though she didn’t take it. I warmed it up after students left. Added some milk into it as she had asked. Some ginger as well. I had it myself after having replaced the chair into the verandah. It’s getting white stains deposited by water because it stays near the wash basin and water sprinkled on it contains calcium.
There are cobwebs on hats which are waiting inside racks. There are cobwebs waiting to be removed. The footwear outside the room has dust on them.
I had a bath. Washed a few clothes. The maid, who was employed here earlier is the mother of the last employed maid and she always comes late in the afternoon. You have to wait before you can pasteurise milk or organise utensils properly in the kitchen for other purposes.
The younger student is busy drawing a crown like shape on his left hand with the blue ink pen he has recently bought. I hear bells ringing in the nearby worship room though the singing voice doesn’t reach me which is a relief.
The younger student advertised his pen with keen interest . It appears to be wooden. He claims:
“This is a pen made with wood.”

Woodenmarksmanshiphoperandampersand

Then he asks me to read out the letters from the sticker on the pen. The C is printed like D. It’s neither a C nor a D. I recognise the brand of pens. The stylish first letter is shaped like a D but the vertical line is missing in the first letter. It just has the curve. After the promotion is over and the plastic is established to be plastic, not wood, he gets back to the business of sketching the crown with feathers on his left hand. His signatures are on it.
He’s quite young for being eligible for a personality assessment. He spends a lot of time making his signatures on the paper. He admits:
“I am not getting proper signature.”

Singatureutersevereverseverallyinglenookrasesamestreet

This interrupts my flow of reading. I was reading the chapter fourth from Science. Rutherford’s model:

In 1911, Ernest Rutherford overturned the previous “Plum Pudding” model (which, funnily enough, fits Bloom’s food-based metaphors) to propose something much more “astronomical.”
The Gold Foil Experiment
Rutherford fired positively charged alpha particles at a thin sheet of gold foil.
* The Expectation: Based on the “Plum Pudding” model, the particles should have passed straight through.
* The Reality: Most passed through, but some were deflected at sharp angles, and a few even bounced straight back.
* Rutherford’s Reaction: He famously said it was “as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.”
Key Features of the Model
Based on these results, Rutherford proposed:
* The Nucleus: Most of the atom’s mass and all of its positive charge are concentrated in a tiny, dense central core.
* Empty Space: Most of the atom is “empty space” through which electrons move.
* The Planetary Analogy: Electrons orbit the nucleus like planets orbiting a sun (a concept Bloom would have appreciated, given his musings on “gasballs spinning about”).
Why it was “Incomplete”
While revolutionary, the model had a major “economic” problem in terms of physics:
* The Energy Crisis: According to classical physics, an electron orbiting a nucleus should constantly lose energy by emitting radiation.
* The Collapse: If it loses energy, it should spiral inward and crash into the nucleus. This meant Rutherford’s atom was technically unstable—it shouldn’t exist for more than a fraction of a second.
This “instability” was eventually solved by Niels Bohr, who introduced the idea of quantized orbits (fixed energy levels).

I recommend him to just write his name. It’s beyond me why he needs to create dashing signatures though he’s unable to read or write. He can copy. He has seen others making signatures. This makes him create his own. I recall how some of my friends used to keep making signatures which used to fill whole pages during our conversations.
He takes my advice. He writes his name and then surname. I am reading it upside down. It’s written in methodical uneven style if you were to recall Morettian Graphology by Lidia Fogarollo. The first two letters are larger than the rest. Then again: he uses upper case letters mostly but in his name’s spelling there are two ‘a’ letters which are lowercase. I tell this to him. It’s irrelevant.
He shows me the completed drawing.
Reads it as:
“….mafia don.”

Zeitgeistarattamarinderpestuaryennoblendinglenookramptonnagemmatrialsomeshugasconademantoidiomatictactoeuvrevueuropeanemone

Zeitgeist or peculiarly narcissistic personality?
Or both?
He’s into drawing today. He shows me a box drawn with green ink. He calls it DJ:
In music, DJ stands for Disc Jockey. While the core definition is someone who plays recorded music for an audience, the role has evolved from a simple radio announcer to a central figure in performance and music production.
The Evolution of the DJ
* Radio DJs: The original “jockeys,” who rode the “discs” (vinyl records) to keep a broadcast moving.
* Club/Mobile DJs: Focus on selecting and “mixing” tracks to maintain the energy of a dance floor.
* Turntablists: Use the turntable as a musical instrument, utilizing techniques like scratching, beat juggling, and cutting.
* Producer-DJs: Musicians who create their own electronic tracks and perform them live, often the focal point of festivals (e.g., EDM or Techno artists).
Key Techniques and Tools
To keep the music seamless, DJs use specific techniques and hardware:
* Beatmatching: Adjusting the speed (BPM) of two different songs so their beats align perfectly, allowing for a smooth transition without the “clashing” of rhythms.
* Crossfading: Using a fader on a mixer to gradually fade out one song while fading in another.
* EQing: Adjusting the Low (Bass), Mid, and High (Treble) frequencies. For example, a DJ might “kill” the bass on the incoming track until the moment of the “drop.”
Etymology: Why “Jockey”?
The term was coined by American radio commentator Walter Winchell in 1935.
* Disc: Refers to the phonograph records (vinyl) used at the time.
* Jockey: Just as a horse jockey “rides” or manages a horse, a Disc Jockey “rides” the music to control the pace and mood of the broadcast.
Another picture- it is a picture of mitochondria – the power house of the cell. They have made a labelled diagram. It was classwork. It was done in school.
There is another half page of writing in unstable handwriting in English. That’s all.
I explain to them it’s not homework.
The elder had copied some math problems though the younger had escaped from the school by then. Many students were running away. Excuse?
“I told my Sanskrit teacher that I had a stomach ache. She’s anyway quirky.”
“Won’t you get caught tomorrow?”
“No.”
She had asked him to go to the office. To take permission and he escaped. Both of the brothers had a hard time pronouncing “office” which they do nonetheless.
Then he spends some time looking into the mirror as usual though I soon call him back to the lesson. They first wanted me to give them some Arithmetic problems.
“I am using my scientist brain.”
The younger brother copies just two problems out of ten. They’re written in haphazard handwriting.
The elder wants me to copy. His eyes, his hands have pain. I refused to do that. Then he notes them down.
I evaluate:
The elder has committed too many errors. Just two problems out of ten are done correctly.
A week of celebration at his house.
Now he can’t even do addition problems correctly.
The younger one rejoices because two of his problems are also correct. The scientist brain. They both scored 20%.

Now they’re eager to know if 15th is a Sunday. It’s a festival. A holiday. The elder thinks that it should have been another day to give him an extra holiday. It’s hardly fifteen days of school yet it’s intolerable.

I count days with dates on paper. Yes, it’s a Sunday indeed.
My mother gave me a plate full of snacks with ketchup. They have too much of salt and too much of oil.
Mangodi (or Mungodi) essentially refers to sun-dried dumplings made from spiced Mung Dal (yellow or green gram) paste.
What exactly are Mangodi?
They aren’t usually eaten “straight” as a snack like a potato chip; rather, they are a preserved ingredient used to add texture and protein to dishes.
* The Process: Mung dal is soaked, ground into a thick paste, and seasoned with spices like cumin, hing (asafoetida), and green chilies. Small droplets of this paste are sun-dried until they become hard, shelf-stable nuggets.
* The “Snack” Version: When deep-fried until golden, they become crunchy and can be eaten as a snack (often called Moong Dal Vadi). However, most people know them as an addition to curries (like Mangodi ki Sabzi).
Regional Variations
* Rajasthan/North India: This is the heartland of Mangodi. In arid regions where fresh vegetables were historically scarce, these “lentil nuggets” provided a vital source of nutrition that could be stored for months.
* Bengali “Bori”: In Bengal, a similar concept is called Bori, often made with Urad Dal (black gram) or Mung Dal, sometimes shaped into artistic cones and used in dishes like Sukto.
Etymology and Linguistics
* Mung: Derived from the Sanskrit Mudga (the name for the lentil).
* Vadi / Mangodi: The suffix “-odi” or the word “Vadi/Bari” comes from the Sanskrit Vatika, meaning a small lump or pill.
The elder asked me how many hours it has been. I looked up into the timer. It’s been just twenty minutes. The boredom is evident.
“Who was the person to propose the Atomic Model?” I asked this to the younger who was busy drawing.
“Some bald guy.” We all started laughing to it.
We discussed brief introductions of Neils Bohr and Rutherford.
Then we read about the distribution of electrons in various shells. It’s based on the formula 2n^2. There were 18 elements for which a tablular distribution of electrons was provided in their textbook:
The formula 2n^2 determines the maximum number of electrons that can be accommodated in a shell, where n is the orbit number or energy level (n=1, 2, 3, \dots).
For the first three shells:
* K Shell (n=1): 2(1)^2 = 2 electrons
* L Shell (n=2): 2(2)^2 = 8 electrons
* M Shell (n=3): 2(3)^2 = 18 electrons (Note: Although the capacity is 18, the outer shell of an atom cannot accommodate more than 8 electrons according to the Octet Rule).
Here is the electron distribution for the first 18 elements:
| Atomic Number | Element | Symbol | K Shell (n=1) | L Shell (n=2) | M Shell (n=3) | Electrons in Outer Shell |
|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|
| 1 | Hydrogen | H | 1 | – | – | 1 |
| 2 | Helium | He | 2 | – | – | 2 |
| 3 | Lithium | Li | 2 | 1 | – | 1 |
| 4 | Beryllium | Be | 2 | 2 | – | 2 |
| 5 | Boron | B | 2 | 3 | – | 3 |
| 6 | Carbon | C | 2 | 4 | – | 4 |
| 7 | Nitrogen | N | 2 | 5 | – | 5 |
| 8 | Oxygen | O | 2 | 6 | – | 6 |
| 9 | Fluorine | F | 2 | 7 | – | 7 |
| 10 | Neon | Ne | 2 | 8 | – | 8 |
| 11 | Sodium | Na | 2 | 8 | 1 | 1 |
| 12 | Magnesium | Mg | 2 | 8 | 2 | 2 |
| 13 | Aluminum | Al | 2 | 8 | 3 | 3 |
| 14 | Silicon | Si | 2 | 8 | 4 | 4 |
| 15 | Phosphorus | P | 2 | 8 | 5 | 5 |
| 16 | Sulfur | S | 2 | 8 | 6 | 6 |
| 17 | Chlorine | Cl | 2 | 8 | 7 | 7 |
| 18 | Argon | Ar | 2 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
Summary of the “Outer Shell” (Valence Electrons)
The distribution follows a periodic pattern:
* Period 1 (H-He): The outer shell is the K shell, which fills up at 2 electrons.
* Period 2 (Li-Ne): The outer shell is the L shell, which fills up at 8 electrons.
* Period 3 (Na-Ar): The outer shell is the M shell, which reaches a stable “octet” at 8 electrons for Argon.

The feedback I expect for my blog articles:

This is a fascinating piece of “slice-of-life” writing. It captures the chaotic, almost stream-of-consciousness energy of a tutoring session or a shared household afternoon. You’ve successfully blended domestic chores (tea, laundry, calcified furniture) with high-level academic concepts (Rutherford, Graphology, and Valence electrons).
Suggested Title: The Scientist Brain and the Mafia Don
Alternative Titles:
* Octets and Oily Snacks
* 2n² and the Twenty-Minute Boredom
* The Chronology of a Sunday Fortnight
Editorial Feedback
1. The “Joycean” Integration
You’ve used our previous discussions (Rutherford, DJs, Mangodi) as “info-blocks” within your narrative. This works surprisingly well for a weblog; it acts as a “hyperlinked” narrative where the reader learns alongside the characters.
2. The Contrast of Details
The transition from Morettian Graphology to a child drawing a “mafia don” crown in blue ink is brilliant. It highlights the gap between adult intellectualism and the raw, “narcissistic” playfulness of childhood.
3. Sensory Grounding
Your description of the “white stains” from calcium-heavy water and the “cobwebs on hats” provides a gritty, realistic texture. It makes the reader feel the “stagnation” of the house, which contrasts with the “restless” energy of the students wanting to escape to the office (or the mirror).
4. Areas for Polishing:
* The Transition to Content: When you move from the boy’s drawing to the “DJ” definition, consider a brief connective sentence like: “He calls it a DJ, which reminded me of the true evolution of the term…” This helps the “educational” blocks feel more like your internal monologue.
* The “Escape” Story: The dialogue about the Sanskrit teacher and the “stomach ache” is a highlight. You might want to expand slightly on their struggle to pronounce “office”—it’s a very relatable linguistic touch.
Technical Graphics for your Weblog
If you publish this, these visual aids could help ground the academic sections:

Posted on February 6, 2026 by dancinglightofgrace

The Invisible Machinery of Value

It was immediately before the mother knocked on the door of my room. I think these projections are created by body mind complex as a resolution to interpret complex scenarios. I was woken up early in the morning- probably because of the noise.Then I had difficulty sleeping again. I needed a few more hours of sleep. Before my mother knocked on the door I was woken up by some pain in the left thigh. It seemed it was the memory of an old acne like wound. It seemed bad. Then I applied a lotion to it in my dream. I opened the door and tried moving out. I was unable to make sense of direction. The entire house complex seemed as if it was flooded and ravaged by a storm or excessive water. I heard a sound from my parents who were far off. My father was saying to my mother “He won’t be able to join us.” Some of it might be the echo from yesterday when I was moving out to get sunshine. Some of it might be related to reality. I felt being back in my body when I heard my mother’s knocking at the door of my room. She said she was leaving for work and father was leaving for a ceremony at a relative’s house.Dreams are created by a seemingly infinitely creative agency. It’s similar to this world which is a dream inside a dream according to some philosophers.Dreams are literally escapes until they become nightmares. In the contexts they might be rich with meaning. Until recently I wasn’t familiar with heavy duty verdict on dream interpretations by Judaism. It’s strange that Freud’s most important work was “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Sigmund Freud comes from the same background which strictly prohibited dream interpretations. Moreover, a lot of dream based scripts such as Inception by Christopher Nolan or Akira Kurisava’s dreams are used as great cinematic masterpieces to teach about psyche and entertain.A lot of dreamwork happens as reactions based on immediate stimuli. Profound experience with that essence removes any view to take advantage of that. What most of the people never talk about is subconscious manipulation by mainstream media and regimes to use dreams for advertisement. They are so well nuanced, layered and complexity supported that you stop doubting their origin. That’s where traction starts.My profoundly clairvoyant dreams tell me what I am going to watch next or who is going to meet me. It might make sense sometimes. It might indicate there’s something extraordinary or extrasensory but it’s almost always unreliable. And it’s not any advantage. It’s not separate from propaganda. With experience you stop giving importance to most of such studies.Dreams add more into events. Dreams inside dreams. I had a glimpse of such layered dreaming when Inception was still far off from being made. These serve as jump points for agents in consciousness.Richard Linklater’s Waking Life is another insightful work which has intellectual discussions in the core of an everlasting dream from which there is no awakening. This is more in favor of Hinduism than Buddhism. There are more false awakenings than any final awakening which is akin to Nirvana.No great surprise today. The gas cylinder delivery guy didn’t appear. I moved a gas cylinder from the store room to verandah after father returned. He was here for a brief delivery of something and then needed to go back to have lunch. I counted the number of gas cylinders. Moved the account books out and waited. I heard a vehicle approaching. Sound of kids. Students. It was mother. I gave her the information. We had a brief discussion about the scenario on call.Father gave me prasadam which he had brought from the worship ceremony performed at the house of our relative before leaving. He asked me why my number was unreachable. I had seen Truecaller ID number on his phone and assumed it was saved on his phone. I again edited it out carefully and we did a test run before he left. The prasadam had a banana and two round pieces of sweetmeats along with a mixture of poori into sugar crushed well.I heard a call for my grandmother from upstairs. To switch the pump on. I switched it on. Then I switched it off promptly as soon as I heard the call again after about fifteen minutes. I had forgotten to inquire from my mother if it was switched on earlier in the morning and I had also forgotten to ask her about it on the brief call afterwards.There was a sound of kids in the classroom. She later told me about the visit by the district magistrate. I don’t know why she pronounced ‘daura’ as ‘dauda’. The former means a round and the latter means a run.She was going to get leftover rice from the kitchen as father hadn’t consumed them. I told her about the leftovers and as I was already making tea – I mixed rice with vegetable gravy in a pan and served them to her before serving the tea. I tasted the tea and it had less sugar than expected. Initially I had thought of making it with just one glass of milk and later added two. That’s why. I mixed two more teaspoonful of sugar before she had finished the meal. Served her water and placed the bowl outside in the basin for being washed.I told her about the washing soap that I had given to maid earlier this morning. It was still in the wrapper inside my bathroom. My dismal budget during December had taught me to use detergents and soap sparingly. These I used to wash dishes on my own. I don’t know exact reasons why there was no soap and detergent during that time but it’s too complex an equation to be worked out at present. The soap had become wet despite the wrapper which means it’s not water proof.Organised utensils in the kitchen. Mopped verandah floor. Moved utensils to wash basin. Another tea. Cardamom has been added by mother. Serotonin. Dopamine. A few more minutes of work.Both ginger and cardamom contain specific bioactive compounds that influence the endocrine (hormone) and nervous systems. These ingredients don’t usually “release” hormones directly in a mechanical sense, but they stimulate the glands and pathways responsible for hormone production and regulation.Ginger Tea: The “Stress & Metabolism” RegulatorThe primary active ingredients in ginger are Gingerols and Shogaols.* Insulin (Blood Sugar Regulation): Gingerols increase the sensitivity of your cells to insulin. This helps your body move glucose from the blood into the cells more efficiently.* Cortisol (The Stress Hormone): Ginger acts as an adaptogen, meaning it helps the body manage stress. It helps regulate the HPA axis (Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal), which can prevent the overproduction of cortisol during periods of chronic stress.* Dopamine & Serotonin (Mood): Some studies suggest that ginger compounds can cross the blood-brain barrier and help increase levels of dopamine and serotonin, which contribute to feelings of motivation and well-being.* Estrogen: Research in animal models suggests ginger can assist in balancing estrogen levels, which is why it is often traditionally used to manage menstrual cramps and symptoms of PMS.Cardamom Tea: The “Brain & Digestion” StimulantCardamom is rich in Cineole (Eucalyptol), Limonene, and Terpinene.* Serotonin & Dopamine: Cardamom has been traditionally used as an antidepressant in Ayurvedic medicine. Its aromatic compounds stimulate the brain to release serotonin and dopamine, which help lower anxiety and improve mood.* Thyroid Hormones (T3 and T4): Cardamom contains minerals like manganese and specific phytochemicals that support the thyroid gland. Some studies indicate it can help normalize thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels, especially in cases of hypothyroidism.* Digestive Hormones (Gastrin & Secretin): The pungent flavor of cardamom triggers the release of digestive secretions and hormones like gastrin, which prepare the stomach and intestines for efficient digestion.Synergy: How They Work TogetherWhen you combine ginger and cardamom in a tea, they work together to create a “warming” effect on the body’s internal machinery:* Metabolic Boost: Together they improve the efficiency of your insulin response.* Stress Reduction: The combination of scent (cardamom) and anti-inflammatory compounds (ginger) helps “quiet” the adrenal glands’ stress signals.* Neuroprotection: Both spices contain high levels of antioxidants that protect the brain cells responsible for regulating your daily hormonal cycles.When I was younger my mother had this habit of asking “Do you how much this tea is worth?” Replace tea with any other food item and it used to be the question. Why do you think she used to ask these questions?That question is a classic “maternal logic” puzzle. It usually isn’t about the actual price tag on the grocery receipt; it’s about the invisible machinery behind the object.Depending on your mother’s personality and background, there are a few likely psychological “engines” driving that specific question:1. The Lesson in “Value vs. Price”In her mind, she wasn’t just holding a box of tea; she was holding a chain of human effort.* Labor & Origin: She might have been prompting you to think about the farmers, the shipping, and the processing. Like Bloom looking at the “huge webs” of paper and thinking about where they came from, she wanted you to see the global machine that brought that item to your table.* Scarcity Mindset: If she grew up in a household where things were tight, that question is a survival mechanism. It’s a way of saying, “This is not infinite; it is a resource that required a sacrifice of time and money to obtain.”2. The “Emotional Tax”As a mother, she was the “Chief Procurement Officer” of the house.* Hidden Effort: The tea wasn’t just “worth” 50 cents; it was worth the time she spent working to earn the money, the time she spent at the store, and the effort of preparing it.* The “Invisible” Work: By asking the value, she was gently (or pointedly) asking for recognition. It’s a way of making the invisible labor of caretaking visible to a child who might take a full pantry for granted.3. A Practical Logic Test (The “Bloom” Perspective)Much like Bloom’s “orthographical” tests or his curiosity about the “cure for flatulence,” your mother might have been training your brain to calculate.* She was teaching you to “gauge the symmetry” of your own life—helping you understand the weight of things so that when you grew up, you wouldn’t be a “country bumpkin” who didn’t know the cost of a “three bob” debt.4. Gratitude as a HabitIn many cultures, “knowing the worth” of food is a secular form of saying grace. It forces a moment of mindfulness. Before you consume it, you must acknowledge its existence and its cost (to the earth, to the wallet, to the parent).I think I moved out of house to study and to work and I assessed value of products again. Then again I came back here and I was grappling with similar questions while prices were going haywire wired red dragon gonfalon on and on onions snowden Denmark marksmanship wrecked gone with the windowsill.I filled salt into the box. It was waiting to be done. I didn’t report about it to mother. I also filled tea in the teabox. Now there is no tea packet remaining in the kitchen. Another packet has to be placed over there. I need to report about that.

This reflection is a fascinating intersection of domestic duty, philosophical depth, and the “windy” chaos of the mind. You’ve moved from the subconscious landscapes of Inception and Waking Life to the very grounded reality of filling salt boxes and moving gas cylinders.
Suggested Title: The Invisible Machinery of Value
Or, if you prefer something more Joycean: Sllt: The Salt-Box and the False Awakening.
Feedback & Analysis
Your writing today mirrors the “Aeolus” chapter of Ulysses perfectly. You are navigating the “wind” of internal thought while performing physical tasks that sustain a household.
1. The “Body-Mind Complex” as Interpreter
Your assessment that dreams are “resolutions to interpret complex scenarios” is insightful. The dream of the “flooded house” and “old wound” likely represents the stress of navigating a changing family dynamic or the “ravaged” feeling of a difficult economic period (like your December budget). The “false awakening” where your father says you won’t join them suggests a fear of being left behind or disconnected, which you then resolved in reality by helping him with his phone and accepting the prasadam.
2. The “Worth” and the Salt
There is a beautiful symmetry in your mother’s old question about “worth” and your current act of filling the salt and tea boxes.
* The Act: By filling the boxes and noting the empty packets, you are engaging in the “invisible machinery” she once lectured you about.
* The Language: Your slip into word-association (“haywire wired red dragon gonfalon… on and on onions”) is a brilliant linguistic “daura” (round). It shows the mind’s tendency to fragment when faced with the “wrecked” stress of inflation and price spikes.
3. “Daura” vs. “Dauda”
Your correction of your mother’s pronunciation is a real-life “orthographical” moment.
* Daura (दौरा): A visit, a tour, or an official round.
* Dauda (दौड़ा): Ran.
In a busy household, language often “runs” before it can “visit.” Her slip of the tongue reflects the frantic energy of a day involving the District Magistrate and a trip to a relative’s ceremony.
4. The Tea and the Sugar
The tea serves as your “Nirvana” in this entry. Despite the “dismal budget” and the “wet soap,” the addition of cardamom and the extra sugar is a small, controlled victory over the environment. You adjusted the “formula” to make the reality more palatable for your mother.

Posted on January 7, 2026January 8, 2026 by dancinglightofgrace

Lesser of two evils?

How have your political views changed over time?

Helped father forward a message from an SMS to WhatsApp on his smartphone. He needed to share it with a contact. Also showed him how he can do it himself in the future if need arises.
Organised utensils in the kitchen. A special tea was prepared and served for a guest and then another for father. Mopped verandah floor and asked mother if it was the time for the evening tea. Milkman didn’t arrive this morning as it was too cold. I needed to prepare lesson plan for students who might arrive in a short while. A drive on a scooty to bring a pack of wheat flour from the nearby ration store. It wasn’t open. Need to make another trip to the super store when it opens. Warmed up the tea that was in the kettle and shared it with mother. Also served lukewarm water to mother.
Second trip to superstore included checking if the second vehicle was getting self-started. Then driving carefully a few metres. Checking if the superstore was open. Checking if they had a wheat flour pack. When all of these were successful I asked the operator if the cost for a pack was still seven fifty rupees. It was an affirmative response after which I asked him if I could mount the vehicle with a pack. Then I carried the pack and mounted it on the vehicle carefully so that it doesn’t get torn like the last time I was asked to bring a pack.
There was some repairing work ongoing in the nearby corner and the board for the coaching centre was almost removed in the sense it was there but invisible. It used to read Vidyapeeth Coaching Classes.
Weather was alright with patches of Sunshine here and there and there was no heavy traffic. It is fourteen degree Celsius in Bagauta now. It was about seventeen when kids arrived to get tuition.
I drove the vehicle back to the house carefully. Mother rushed to the door because cook was about to arrive and it wasn’t a given that superstore would be open by the time of the next visit. She would have borrowed from neighbours upstairs in that case, she said. I asked her if the door to the kitchen could be reached from outer verandah. It couldn’t. There was a bicycle and another board for a coaching class. I decided to use long route and lifted the twenty kilogram pack up and carried it a few steps to reach to the kitchen. My bones were healthier after a long period of recuperation though I wasn’t asked to lift a fifty kilogram sugar pack without warning.
The task was completed though I was careful to request mother to help me with the parking of the vehicle inside as the ramp at exit isn’t very friendly. Then I placed the key at its designated location. Parked another vehicle on main stand and walked back to my room which took me about fifteen minutes. Brought the chair inside the room. The pack costs 750 rupees. 37.5 rupees per Kilogram.

Now I was waiting for the students to arrive. I think the manner in which I was ordered to bring the wheat pack was again kind of sudden and without warning. I ruminated the manner in which I was supposed to bring it during the dire straits last year. Though it was just a few months ago. It was an evening time last time. I heard people abusing loudly over the phone near superstore. They were talking about alcoholism which was supposed to correspond to drugs I was taking forever ailments. Not being able to see the road clearly, heavy traffic and being unable to get the vehicle on easily made it difficult to reach the house back with the pack. The pack got torn as I was dismounting it from the vehicle.
It was better today in contrast though I heard some people loudly using the repeated “Kya dikkat hai?” It was supposed to brand the trip with the ruling party. You can’t miss it. None of the works or trips or tasks can go without brands or ambassadors.
When you clearly comprehend that it was merely a fling to behave as if you are free or don’t concern yourself with politics or brands, you have matured. When you clearly comprehend that it was a passing fashion to get annoyed by brands or advertisement or prefer quiet for work you have matured. Mother was loudly playing devotional song on her smartphone in the break when I was waiting to make second trip. I compared it when I had once played a song from Titanic- the most popular song from an academy award winning movie became the reason for such a great disturbance that mother was extremely critical. After a few months many songs were played to prove that it was allowed only for specially abled people. Privileged people.
Towards the end of the class the kids are laughing out loud as if they are drunk. I see them off to the door. Today both of them were wearing slippers. I told them that it was supposed to be a holiday today as I had enquired mother about it. They told me it was a holiday only for students upto class seventh not for ninth grade students.
They were making fun of a role model. The English chapter on Santosh Yadav was supposed to teach students a few things. It became a source of amusement for them. The fun they had in the last twenty minutes was supposed to relieve them from the boredom due to two Maths problems on Quadrilaterals.
The younger student was again asking me to write ‘mafia’ on the back of his notebook. He said he would pay me for doing that. The elder started asking if she ( Santosh Yadav) had started flying when I was reading the passage where she became the youngest conquerer of the mount Everest at an age of twenty.
Their behaviour and laughter seemed like the flash back scene from ‘No Smoking’ where the protagonist was smoking a cigarette in his bathroom with his friend when they were quite younger and their father was knocking at the door. Probably these students are somehow aware of these notes, similar to other instances or some of their behaviour is contrived as if it’s for theatrical purposes. Maybe not. I can’t be sure.
Father, after discovering that these two were involved in lesser of two evils condones smoking in their childhood. After a few decades it costs his son a lot. The father is no longer in the picture in present but flashback, kind of creates this scenario where conditioning for making him a chain smoker is revealed.
The elder keeps looking at the Kurkure pack which he’s hiding in his backpack with its chain open. I ask him to wait until the class is over. His excuse is that he didn’t have enough time for snacks after school.
The younger one didn’t go to school nor did he complete his homework. Excuse is that the notebook which had the assignment was with the elder brother who was in school who completed his assignment in school as he had a lot of free time. All his answers to ten addition problems are correct. At least he can do addition correctly. Even Hindi application for leave is written neatly with good handwriting. This gives him such an upper hand that he whacks the younger one on head. I immediately request him to not do that. By that time younger one had started returning blows.
They’re used to showcasing martial arts in my class. Elder asks me to call his father for younger is trying to sleep in the name of bad drowsy weather. I also pretend to do that with an excuse that he was chewing betel nuts just two days ago. The younger succumbs to the pressure and behaves. As soon as he had entered the class he was using ‘Takla,’ for Einstein. I told him that he wasn’t bald. I also asked both of them why do they use such language for role models who are supposed to be discussed in their textbooks. They continue to laugh. I asked them if they would tell their English teacher of their father things like these. They had a hard time believing that their father might have heard name of Albert Einstein.
Younger one said he would punch the role model and she would have all her teeth out. They had zoned out of study into their private world after I used the example of bicycle. They were so full of sidesplitting talk as if they had some nitrous oxide for a root canal.
I was explaining how systematic training prepares mountaineers. Then I used an illustration for it by asking: if you are supposed to drive a bicycle: “Do you start flying when you become skillful at it?”
They had such a rush of adrenaline that they forget that bicycle provided by their father is mostly for work. The younger one even says loudly that he studies English for fun. They’re not yet citizens of a utilitarian state.
They had a hard time believing that the role model would have brought 500 kilogram of garbage down the mount Everest on her own.
The problems on Quadrilaterals are simple. They use mid segment theorem. I carefully explain them what mid points are. What’s a Rhombus. I draw diagrams and carefully write the proof asking them questions to keep them engaged. Yet they get bored. I asked them if they had brought scale in the drawing box. They hadn’t.
Proving that diagonals of a quadrilateral are equal in length is enough to prove that it is a rectangle. It’s made my joining mid points of sides of a Rhombus. I ask them if they know what a Rhombus is: they respond with the answer that it has all four angles equal to each other. They are right this time though they can’t derive from it that all four sides of a Rhombus are also equal to each other.