The Ice Bucket or the Rice Bucket

The last week has been strange hasn’t it?  First off, the ALS Ice Bucket challenge.  The upside was all celebrities dunking themselves with ice to raise awareness for the disease.   Well thank goodness they were just pouring the water on themselves, not hitting themselves with the ice bucket

Even the live in help wanted to know what ALS was.  He asked me, “Aunty ye ALS WayLS kya hai?”

I congratulated myself on my foresight.  I had googled it using the free-for-me office net, so I explained it to him.  I however do not think he understood the concept of muscles atrophying.  And then I noticed that he added extra desi ghee tempering to the vegetable he was serving to the boys.

“Not that much desi ghee” I protested.

“But Aunty, they need strength,” he said.

And it sank into my thick head.  One of my offsprings name-withheld-for-valid-reasons loves to bathe with ice cold water in summers, he even keeps a large saucepan filled with tap water in the freezer to put into his bath water.  I hate it, there is hardly any space for ice cream or ice for lemonade in the fridge.  The help thought, quite naturally that lazy muscles needed ghee.

I could have told him a kick in the posterior would serve the purpose better.

Now celebrities raising awareness makes sense.  Bush has water dunked on him and we google ALS.  Bush also asks Clinton to do the same.  Wow!

What we do not realize is that these guys make a substantial donation too.  Us jumping on the bandwagon, in a country where clean water is scarce makes no sense.  We could make a donation, it would be better.

Just a thought.

Or take the rice bucket challenge …  It is much simpler.  Just take a bucket of rice and donate it to someone needy.

Agreed that this August is warm, what with rains being scarce.  But my nerves won’t take kindly to a dumping of cold water on my head.  Giving away a bucket of rice gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.  I can give one away every month, in the name of ALS or which ever health condition we may chose to highlight.

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That is if people from rice eating states do not smell a controversy in the act or accuse us of creating some kind of shortage.