Birds and Rishis and Different Varieties of Chaos

We were playing badminton yesterday, when the garden was invaded by a flock of small, shrill, twittery birds which are called Seven Rishis. I don't know why, except that they travel in groups - and not really in sevens. They are fluffy, greyish-brown with paler brown heads, and look very endearing. Whereas the Rishis of mythology were ill-termpered men who would as soon curse you as look at you - and I mean really curse you, to inferior rebirths, or to dying if you have sex...

I looked for something about Durvasa, the most difficult of all rishis, and found this brief look at some of his curses and blessings. And as a bonus, a proverb that I had never heard before:

Durvasa and his disciples went to the river. There is a saying, ''Buffaloes, Brahmins and spinach, have only to see water to be delighted!'' And so Durvasa and his disciples bathed for a long time....

(In Hindu mythology, the Big Dipper is also called Saptarshi, or the Seven Rishis. And of the Seven Rishis, six divorced their wives, who became the Krttika, the Pleiades.)

Joel of Pax Nortona is photographing chaos - and such a beautiful peaceful chaos it is, compared to the images in my head: in addition to the daily chaos of life here -- traffic, disorganisation, small stuff -- there were the two bomb-blasts in Bombay on Monday - pictures in the news of blood-splattered, twisted metal, blending in my mind with so many other such pictures, in more and more parts of the world.