Eyjafjallajökull :: © 2010 tiffinbox

Eyjafjallajökull’s nearest active neighbours are Katla, to the northeast, and Eldfell, to the southwest. Hence they are considered the mom and the doctor in this representation of how when you are sick, and you try to speak while you puke, you can pretty much expect your name to be miss-spelt. Perhaps Eyjafjallajökull’s real name is Jake or Kaju or Jaku and while he spoke, he just spilt a few extra letters.

This is a somewhat delayed but humorous look at the Eyjafjallajökull eruptions that created some news. But, yeah, we are lazy.

Bizzare thought – Sriparna Ghosh    |    Illustration – Rohit Chaudhary

The above 2 dates are not separated by 16 days but infact the real count is 77. Moreover, not only are they not in the same month, they actually have an entire October in between. But whats common is that nowadays they are always mentioned in the same breath.

Not taking away the severity of the events on these days, or being petty while putting forth such an observation, my major problem is with the mis-informations that will be ensued. Or are being.

I am not an expert on the ISO 8601 but after reading this article I know for a fact that the format United States follows (the mm-dd-yyyy format) is not the international standard. Nor is the one India follows (dd-mm-yyyy). And truth is only a handful of a countries actually use the ISO 8601 (yyyy-mm-dd format), which I personally think is the most baseless. For me, the dd is most important, followed by the mm. And since the yyyy is mostly common for 365 days it should really be the least significant of all.

The confusion is not so blatant for people who have seen both incidents happen (in person or on tv), but for those who will come to learn of them 50 years later, and believing that the tags of 9/11 and 26/11 will still be there, there will be questions, and mix-ups. And assuming that by then there will be some/many more such dates added to the unfortunate tally, its not going to be an easy history lesson.

I dont have any solutions in mind, not that anyone has asked for one. But, maybe the dates can be underlined (like a 9 is underlined on a Bingo counter)?

I came across an interesting fact (on the same wikipedia article mentioned above) that since Germany follows the same format as India (dd-mm-yyyy) the date on which the Berlin Wall fell is also 9/11(9th November).

There can be only one conversation today: the Mumbai firings and blasts. But… on my way to work, I saw two traffic policemen flag down a motorbike (most probably to appropriate their share on account of a missing license or a pollution certificate), two college girls haggling with an auto-rickshaw. Even the papri-bhalla guy at 10am was there dot on time.

Life goes on.. for most. Is it sad? Or is it something to rejoice? That’s an interminable debate. But what I did think was (in a strange cynical way) that this country will move on. Even if the smiles are a shade muted. Or the morning a tad silent.