In just a few days, Anno Domini 2011 will give rise to Anno Domini 2012.
And I would have gone a whole year without saying anything in this space.
I have always imagined that this space was an essential part of my Alzheimer's collection, a carefully curated collection of stuff with the somewhat lofty goal of jolting me to lucidity, should I ever suffer from Alzheimer's (of course, I expect that there will be effective, affordable, non-hair-loss-inducing, wrinkle and dark spot erasing medication by then. But meanwhile, the collection idea is appealing both for dramatic intent and well as realistic purposes.) It appears then, that I've had nothing to say in 2011 - a year which quite easily ranks as a Janani breaking-making-and-defining year. The real breaking-making-and-defining year was 1994. But there was no internet then. When someone finally invents that time machine they keep tempting me with, I promise to go back and make an entry for 1994.
Every year, since 2004, I have come here to vent, to pour out my thoughts, to slip quietly into the alley behind the universe, to warm myself in the blanket of anonymity, to assume alter egos, to be, as you may already suspect, a drama queen, to test out alternate career options, to just be creative. But never, apparently, to just be me. And in 2011, a year that I spent a good deal of time, being just myself, it seems, I wasn't compelled to come out here and hide. The thought is both comforting and disturbing.
Comforting, because perhaps I'm getting more comfortable in my own skin. No! I had a pretty normal childhood (except for the not-watching-enough cartoon network bit), and I have so far not been diagnosed with any kind of clinical or pop-culture-defined neurosis or psychosis. Some people simply find it a tad bit difficult to just be themselves - like remembering names, or being prompt with email correspondence, or not losing their pens and/or umbrellas. And so, in 2011, I got a lot better with just being myself.
Disturbing because, "Reflections" has been wonderful for me over the years. It feels wrong to abandon it for so long. It feels wronger still, that I did not feel like sharing something so good and wonderful. While I was experiencing all the ups and downs of new decisions, drastic changes, facing all the dilemmas of what would happen, and waiting forever for the change to happen, and then remembering with gratitude that there had been much,much more good times than bad in the times that had just passed, what a sad pity that I did not write it all down.
And now, dear future Alzheimer's ridden self, who will tell you about Anno Domini 2011?
There is always facebook. You can find out there. I can only hope that you've told someone your username and your ridiculous password. I can only wish that you have managed to find someone that you can trust enough to do that.
You can always hope your friends will be there around to help you. Because, dear sweet future Alzheimer's ridden self… in 2011, you had a great many friends who stood by you and kept you sane the whole time.
I can only hope that you still remember the amount of time you spent going all hippie, eating and cooking organic food. For a brief time, you contemplated becoming a food critic. And then you thought about becoming a journalist (its strange that during that contemplation you didn't bother to write as much). But you dabbled with both on the internet. Maybe Google (if it still exists) can help you dig out stuff from this year.
Or perhaps you will remember the monkeys. Juno. Malloc. Opie. Emo. Gosh! I hope the names sound familiar. The darling monkeys. Who taught you more about what it is to be human than any actual human you've ever met. Juno - stubborn, penguin shaped, fat, smart, cute little girl. You'd tell anyone who listened how Juno would sit in her chair in her very funny and endearing way. And she had large expressive eyes. And Malloc - fussy, grape peeling, orange scooping, frail, hard working girl. You spent so much time with her trying to get her to eat. It set off that cooking craze. Opie. Big ol grandpa with wisdom in every gray monkey fur he had. And Emo. Crazy old Emo. Who danced when nobody was watching and who couldn't stand bananas. You remember them don't you? For a time, every human you saw reminded you of one of these monkeys. Every baby you saw reminded you of their antics. You had a marvelous time and oh, by the way, you did some science.
And your advisor - she was simply the most generous person you ever saw.
And your parents. You said this about them in your acknowledgment and you teared up when you wrote it.
"Last, but not the least, I would like to thank my parents. I thank the forces that be, for not giving me a choice in the parents I have. Had I been given one, I doubt I would have made such a good choice. I have spared them no hardship. In turn, they have reciprocated by sparing me no comfort. Every step of the way, they have stood by me and I cannot thank them enough."
and you well up every time you think about it.
Dear sweet, wrinkly old Alzheimer's ridden self. 2011 was a great year.
You started afresh towards the end of the year. You worked with disadvantaged children, whose optimism, grit and courage and desire to make the world a better place made you feel so much more humble. And a lot less self defeatist. That was important.
And sure, you weren't working there motivated entirely by the lure of a social cause. You were there because you wanted to learn a lot about a broad range of things.
And at least towards the end of 2011, you were learning a lot. So it worked out quite well.
Dear old mental case,
I haven't done a great job summarizing. Because I'm just rushing to add something to the blog so that I won't miss a gap. It feels wrong that there's nothing for 2011.
But make no mistake. It wasn't because 2011 was a boring year. It was because 2011 was a year worth living. And especially since the only valuable store of all that is your damn head, I find it completely unacceptable that all those memories are wasting away in random nodules in your brain.
So wake up already.
And get on that time machine, and come tell me what's going to happen to me in the next couple of years.
Perhaps in December 2012, we can we can write this note together ?
Eternally yours.
Janani
Showing posts with label being me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label being me. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Monday, August 16, 2010
Makeover
Don't go away.
I'm still writing the same ol stuff.
Am trying to give my blog a makeover it truly needs.
I have great dreams for my new template ( a whole day of surfing the net didn't really get me anywhere I might add).
So... my dream has now changed.
I do not promise astonishing results or better user friendliness or anything like that. Think of it as one of those haircuts you simply must get, because its been long, way too long since you had your last one.
Which reminds me, I also need a haircut. But fear not, I shall not blog about it.
I'm still writing the same ol stuff.
Am trying to give my blog a makeover it truly needs.
I have great dreams for my new template ( a whole day of surfing the net didn't really get me anywhere I might add).
So... my dream has now changed.
I do not promise astonishing results or better user friendliness or anything like that. Think of it as one of those haircuts you simply must get, because its been long, way too long since you had your last one.
Which reminds me, I also need a haircut. But fear not, I shall not blog about it.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Good night and good luck
Have you ever seen a cat as it prepares to go to sleep? Most cats deem the "self" as the only thing worth any respect, and with jolly good reason.
After stretching forwards and backwards fully, she will drop herself onto the napping area with a "plonk" of exquisite precision. If you have any experience with plonking, and I have plenty- with varying degrees of failure, you will know that the act consists of paying no heed to your weight and dropping your body to the ground. At the very last moment, when the ground is seemingly waiting to prevent you from falling off through the other end of the planet, and of course, while that very ground is readying itself to induce a great deal of pain in order to cure you of your insanity, you must make the ground's task easier, by suddenly taking charge of yourself and landing perfectly. You must not waver. You must show no sign of instability. You must not be shocked. It must be as if you had planned it all, till that very last minute. And in order to win a cat's respect, or in fact any acknowledgment of your presence at all, you must do it without exertion and demonstrate a callous grace. It so happens, that it is humanly impossible to "plonk". And that simply settles the matter for all cats.
After having successfully plonked, a cat will proceed to retract all her limbs. She will draw back her paws underneath her belly. And in a splendidly fluid motion will twirl her tail and tuck it in. And in a final flourish, will droop her ear-lobes. The bundle of fur, the cat, having without a doubt earned a good nap and a great deal of vanity will go to sleep.
Of all those moves and frills, it is the drooping of the ears that I envy the most. I have always wondered what people do with their ears when they sleep at night. Unfortunately, I have never been able to ask this question. I cannot imagine any dinner conversation, any idle chatter, where the question "by the way, what happens to your ear lobes at night?", will appear as a seamless part of the rest of the conversation. As a result, this question continues to remain unasked and unanswered and I am left to deal with my ears. For starters, let me disqualify all those people that sleep flat on their backs from offering any suggestion. I do not understand the point in sleeping, if you're not going to bundle up as much as you can. Because, the creators, the followers and the modifiers of the English language all seem to think that the flat-back-sleepers aren't worth spending too much time on, no one has bothered creating a separate word or a separate category for that alternate and unpleasant form of sleeping. My question is directed to what I would call the "true" sleepers- those that try in vain, to bundle up and generally fold themselves up.
What do you do with your earlobes ?
Here's what happens to me. The ear lobe is this strangely convoluted flap that is very good at directing vibrating air into your ear so that you may make sense of all that sound around you. What it is despicably bad at is getting out of the way, when it is not at all required. At night, therefore, when I place my head onto the pillow, my ear-lobes are annoyingly stuck in between. Often, they will fold further, so that, when I get up in the morning, they're really hurting. At the place where they've folded, I will often find a largish red zone. I have tried several cures. For instance, I have tried the obvious- not to lay my head in such a way that them lobes fold. But between my conscious act of lying down to the unconscious act of sleep, clearly, my ear-lobes are managing to dance to the tunes of absolutely nothing, folding and meandering through the depths of darkness, through the silence of the night. So you will not be surprised when I admire, with much pain and heartbreak, the look at a cat, perfectly happy with its drooped ears, and the drooped ears perfectly happy with the way they have gotten themselves out of the way.
Now of course, I have entertained the possibility that we humans have found a way around this. In fact, that big piece of flesh that we call the brain, is right between the ears. They ought to communicate rather well about these kinds of imminent problems. Except, I don't know, and for the aforementioned reasons, cannot ask and not be thought of as a thoroughbred lunatic.
And so, if you please, you can tell me the answer right here.
And perhaps relieve me of my miseries.
After stretching forwards and backwards fully, she will drop herself onto the napping area with a "plonk" of exquisite precision. If you have any experience with plonking, and I have plenty- with varying degrees of failure, you will know that the act consists of paying no heed to your weight and dropping your body to the ground. At the very last moment, when the ground is seemingly waiting to prevent you from falling off through the other end of the planet, and of course, while that very ground is readying itself to induce a great deal of pain in order to cure you of your insanity, you must make the ground's task easier, by suddenly taking charge of yourself and landing perfectly. You must not waver. You must show no sign of instability. You must not be shocked. It must be as if you had planned it all, till that very last minute. And in order to win a cat's respect, or in fact any acknowledgment of your presence at all, you must do it without exertion and demonstrate a callous grace. It so happens, that it is humanly impossible to "plonk". And that simply settles the matter for all cats.
After having successfully plonked, a cat will proceed to retract all her limbs. She will draw back her paws underneath her belly. And in a splendidly fluid motion will twirl her tail and tuck it in. And in a final flourish, will droop her ear-lobes. The bundle of fur, the cat, having without a doubt earned a good nap and a great deal of vanity will go to sleep.
Of all those moves and frills, it is the drooping of the ears that I envy the most. I have always wondered what people do with their ears when they sleep at night. Unfortunately, I have never been able to ask this question. I cannot imagine any dinner conversation, any idle chatter, where the question "by the way, what happens to your ear lobes at night?", will appear as a seamless part of the rest of the conversation. As a result, this question continues to remain unasked and unanswered and I am left to deal with my ears. For starters, let me disqualify all those people that sleep flat on their backs from offering any suggestion. I do not understand the point in sleeping, if you're not going to bundle up as much as you can. Because, the creators, the followers and the modifiers of the English language all seem to think that the flat-back-sleepers aren't worth spending too much time on, no one has bothered creating a separate word or a separate category for that alternate and unpleasant form of sleeping. My question is directed to what I would call the "true" sleepers- those that try in vain, to bundle up and generally fold themselves up.
What do you do with your earlobes ?
Here's what happens to me. The ear lobe is this strangely convoluted flap that is very good at directing vibrating air into your ear so that you may make sense of all that sound around you. What it is despicably bad at is getting out of the way, when it is not at all required. At night, therefore, when I place my head onto the pillow, my ear-lobes are annoyingly stuck in between. Often, they will fold further, so that, when I get up in the morning, they're really hurting. At the place where they've folded, I will often find a largish red zone. I have tried several cures. For instance, I have tried the obvious- not to lay my head in such a way that them lobes fold. But between my conscious act of lying down to the unconscious act of sleep, clearly, my ear-lobes are managing to dance to the tunes of absolutely nothing, folding and meandering through the depths of darkness, through the silence of the night. So you will not be surprised when I admire, with much pain and heartbreak, the look at a cat, perfectly happy with its drooped ears, and the drooped ears perfectly happy with the way they have gotten themselves out of the way.
Now of course, I have entertained the possibility that we humans have found a way around this. In fact, that big piece of flesh that we call the brain, is right between the ears. They ought to communicate rather well about these kinds of imminent problems. Except, I don't know, and for the aforementioned reasons, cannot ask and not be thought of as a thoroughbred lunatic.
And so, if you please, you can tell me the answer right here.
And perhaps relieve me of my miseries.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Google Care
I slipped and twisted my ankle recently. In 24 years, I’ve never twisted my ankle. I’ve wantonly inserted my ankle into the spokes of my mom’s kinetic Honda once (I was just curious to know what would happen!!!), but never have I ever twisted my ankle. I should have realized the day I started training for the marathon, that an ankle twist was not too far away. As it turns out, I was trying to catch the bus. There was way too much snow everywhere. In my bag, I carried a gallon of milk, some instant coffee powder and a mug. I was going to take all of this, in an ever-continuing attempt to make myself feel at home in my lab, to beat the need to leave the lab when the clock strikes 5 (regardless of how much work I’d gotten done). In my hands, I also had a package that I needed to return. I’m one of those people who orders several things online and returns most of them. I am also one of the few people, whose packages get lost in snow blizzards in Utah, while I’m away in India vacationing in Lakshadweep at a resort with no internet (and therefore cannot track my package). When the bus came, I ran for life, slipped fell, and it hurt like hell. But I will not write about my love-hate relationship with the dead Mr Murphy. Nor do I think I need to groan about the effects of gravity and how it makes you fall down and twist your ankle instead of flying away like a bird and busting no-more than a few feathers. What I do need to groan about is health care.
Getting to a doctor is rather easy in India. There’s usually a nursing home, a clinic or two and several pharmacies every 2 lanes in India. And you could tell by the look of the place whether you should go there to get some cold medicine, some fever medication, to get your sprain looked at or something even more serious. The point is, you could always get to one. There would typically be a pharmacy next door to the clinic and the chap at the pharmacy always has the unique talent of being able to read the doctor’s indecipherable handwriting ( I am told that doctors have bad handwriting because they have to write a lot during the several exams they take at med-school). He will also explain what each medicine is for in layman's terms. A doctor will use obscure terminology to prove to their clients that he in fact did study hard to spell terms at the cost of beautiful penmanship. Such was the luxury that I was accustomed to in my developing, snake-charming, country.
A few months after I moved to Pittsburgh I got blisters on my skin. They’d erupt overnight and itch like hell in the morning. I didn’t know what to do. I did know though, that getting a doctor would not be easy. I did not know who my primary-care-physician was. And I knew that that drug-stores had aisles of medication for all sorts of ailments, almost all of which will contain moisturizers. I do not understand the obsession with moisturizers but I will not be surprised if breakfast cereal came with moisturizers so as to not scratch your tongue. So I went to google images, searched for blisters, and spotted images that looked like mine. Quickly enough, I realized they were bed bug bites. And a few hours later, I knew what bed bugs looked like, what you should and should not do and also that doctors will typically not confirm that it was bed-bug bites unless you could find evidence of bed-bugs. I also learnt that finding bed-bugs was not easy. I was adviced to use anti-histamines to reduce the itching, and wash all your clothes and sheets with really hot water.
Due to what I suspect as being a paranoia-induced-suppression-of-mental-ability, I made my way through the health care system. I made phone call after phone call to primary care physicians whose calendars were blocked for months; to dermatologists who only saw new patients on Fridays and weren’t free for 3 months and to those that only specialized in skin-cancer related blisters, and one that even asked me if the following wednesday would suit me for a skin graft; to family physicians that do not accept new patients, until finally, someone was willing to see me. Right away, I distrusted them because if they were good then they too should’ve been booked. But I had to go see a doctor. On the day of my appointment, I was asked to strip and weigh myself, my temperature was taken, my blood pressure was taken, and I sat there clueless not knowing how any of this related to my “skin condition”. When the doctor did come, he told me nothing conclusive and confirmed nothing. He generally seemed to think that I was right to have applied anti-histamines. Almost the only thing he was sure of was that I should come back if symptoms persisted. I never went back. Google told me everything I needed to know. It charged me no fee, and I am now happily blister- free.
Now fate’s doing a do-over with my ankle. And again, people are asking me if I went to see the doc. I tell them that I won’t see a doc because I doubt he updates his brain as often as google worms and creepy crawls the web. I doubt the doc will tell me anything that google hasn’t already told me. And I have neither the time, the inclination, the energy, or a life threatening skin condition that will convince me to make a million phone calls again only to be told that I can see the orthopaedist sometime after the third coming of Christ.
I hear tell of a rumble in DC about what to do about health-care. I say, let google handle it. They did things in china that DC would have scarce considered. They’re not mired deep in a fiscal deficit. And they, if anyone, know how to organize databases. And while DC has a constitution that no one can understand anymore, Google has a simple credo that everyone does. “Don’t be evil”. Google wants a new business model? I, for one, wouldn’t mind paying a penny or two for every medical page. Maybe the government should simple cure heart disease and HIV. I’d be happy to let google look at my sprain.
Care for google-care anyone ?
Getting to a doctor is rather easy in India. There’s usually a nursing home, a clinic or two and several pharmacies every 2 lanes in India. And you could tell by the look of the place whether you should go there to get some cold medicine, some fever medication, to get your sprain looked at or something even more serious. The point is, you could always get to one. There would typically be a pharmacy next door to the clinic and the chap at the pharmacy always has the unique talent of being able to read the doctor’s indecipherable handwriting ( I am told that doctors have bad handwriting because they have to write a lot during the several exams they take at med-school). He will also explain what each medicine is for in layman's terms. A doctor will use obscure terminology to prove to their clients that he in fact did study hard to spell terms at the cost of beautiful penmanship. Such was the luxury that I was accustomed to in my developing, snake-charming, country.
A few months after I moved to Pittsburgh I got blisters on my skin. They’d erupt overnight and itch like hell in the morning. I didn’t know what to do. I did know though, that getting a doctor would not be easy. I did not know who my primary-care-physician was. And I knew that that drug-stores had aisles of medication for all sorts of ailments, almost all of which will contain moisturizers. I do not understand the obsession with moisturizers but I will not be surprised if breakfast cereal came with moisturizers so as to not scratch your tongue. So I went to google images, searched for blisters, and spotted images that looked like mine. Quickly enough, I realized they were bed bug bites. And a few hours later, I knew what bed bugs looked like, what you should and should not do and also that doctors will typically not confirm that it was bed-bug bites unless you could find evidence of bed-bugs. I also learnt that finding bed-bugs was not easy. I was adviced to use anti-histamines to reduce the itching, and wash all your clothes and sheets with really hot water.
Due to what I suspect as being a paranoia-induced-suppression-of-mental-ability, I made my way through the health care system. I made phone call after phone call to primary care physicians whose calendars were blocked for months; to dermatologists who only saw new patients on Fridays and weren’t free for 3 months and to those that only specialized in skin-cancer related blisters, and one that even asked me if the following wednesday would suit me for a skin graft; to family physicians that do not accept new patients, until finally, someone was willing to see me. Right away, I distrusted them because if they were good then they too should’ve been booked. But I had to go see a doctor. On the day of my appointment, I was asked to strip and weigh myself, my temperature was taken, my blood pressure was taken, and I sat there clueless not knowing how any of this related to my “skin condition”. When the doctor did come, he told me nothing conclusive and confirmed nothing. He generally seemed to think that I was right to have applied anti-histamines. Almost the only thing he was sure of was that I should come back if symptoms persisted. I never went back. Google told me everything I needed to know. It charged me no fee, and I am now happily blister- free.
Now fate’s doing a do-over with my ankle. And again, people are asking me if I went to see the doc. I tell them that I won’t see a doc because I doubt he updates his brain as often as google worms and creepy crawls the web. I doubt the doc will tell me anything that google hasn’t already told me. And I have neither the time, the inclination, the energy, or a life threatening skin condition that will convince me to make a million phone calls again only to be told that I can see the orthopaedist sometime after the third coming of Christ.
I hear tell of a rumble in DC about what to do about health-care. I say, let google handle it. They did things in china that DC would have scarce considered. They’re not mired deep in a fiscal deficit. And they, if anyone, know how to organize databases. And while DC has a constitution that no one can understand anymore, Google has a simple credo that everyone does. “Don’t be evil”. Google wants a new business model? I, for one, wouldn’t mind paying a penny or two for every medical page. Maybe the government should simple cure heart disease and HIV. I’d be happy to let google look at my sprain.
Care for google-care anyone ?
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Love, eventually
To me, one of the memorable scenes of "fiddler and the roof" is when Tevye asks Golde if she loved him. Golde is astonished by the question. She seems never to have considered it before. She thinks about everything that the two of them have gone through together- giving "washing your clothes" and "sharing your bed" amusingly equal weightage (would I wash your clothes if I did not love you ? would I sleep with you if I did not love you ?) and finally admits that yes, she must love him. It's a simple logical and comforting conclusion- not an emotionally wrought one that most media would have us believe. We see the couple, stripped of glamour, stripped of the hot bloodedness of youth, stripped of lusty desires, stripped of song, dance, violins and flowery fields and flirtation (oh all that happens with the younger couples in the movie and we are never told if they lived together forever and forever). We see old Tevye and Golde as sturdy and one with each other, complimenting each other so well, that neither had ever wondered if they loved each other:- so completely beside the point when they were focussing all their energies on something much more valuable- to keep the other happy to the best of his/her abilities. "Fiddler on the roof" apart from it's central focus on a changing world and Tevye's dignity in being able to stretch himself in order to accept much more than he'd like has many love stories- each with it's own distinct flavour and each rather endearing. The one that's dealt with the most subtly is the one between Tevye and Golde. And it is the one I aspire to the most.
I've often wondered what my grandparents would be like. I have two grandmothers but no grandfathers and while they say you cannot miss what you never knew, I think I miss them. My grandmoms are strong, independent women and they've each lived an epic lifetime, one that ended up ensuring that when I was born, I'd be able to take a certain constancy for granted. Yet I've wondered what they would be like if my grandads were alive. Of all the mushy love stories I've come across, the ones among old couples leave me with the warmest, the fuzziest the most "awww" feeling. So many of these are uncles and aunts of my parents and I've heard them comment on how much each of them has changed over half a decade of being together. It takes a lifetime to achieve that balanced symphony- to be able to match each other in beat, rhythm, tune and harmony and I am amazed at the patience it must have taken, at the willingness not just to forgive and forget but often to simply ignore and discard. And while it may be true that they had no choice in the matter ever, that perhaps every one of these couples is an example of stockholm syndrome, I'm too much of a romantic to entirely believe that they felt imprisoned forever. I'm too much of a romantic to chop it down into neat tiny factors and write away that warmth. Of course, I'd like flaring passion. Who wouldn't. But I'd also like lasting compassion.
I see a tender care when each of them, slowly reaching senility takes great pains to remember not just their medication but also the other's. It's nice to watch them walk in a park, with their canes, sometimes holding each other, ever so fraily, after all those little frissures of excitement have gone and what remains is good old solid support.
Autumn spring( a foreign language film) portrays a playful old man, fond of scheming all sorts of plots to make a lot of money only to see them all fail yet going to great pains to give away what little money he has generously; and his wife who is concerned only about saving enough money for their funerals which she feels certain is near. And in that old age, their differences mar and she cannot put up with him any longer and files for divorce only to realize that regardless of how exasperating he has made life for her, she cannot imagine a life without him and takes back the divorce application. The old man, never having questioned his own love for his wife, feels compelled to change into a new leaf and spends all day at home helping his wife save money. And again his wife is angry because now her husband is a boring man. Where is all the excitement, and the anger and the hormones. Eventually, after each trying to do exactly as the other pleases, they're finally able to come to a gradual compromise- with the lady allowing the man some of his grand schemes and the man allowing the women to keep some of her hard earned savings. And their funeral is not far, but by that time, they'd have lived a life together not just by being together but by also learning to be with each other and for each other.
I live during times where I have the freedom to find and nest with someone I choose (and by definition reciprocates) and yet I wonder all the time, blessed as I might be, will I also be lucky and brave enough to slowly, calmly, gracefully fall in love eventually and then simply fade into an eternal blissful sleep.
I've often wondered what my grandparents would be like. I have two grandmothers but no grandfathers and while they say you cannot miss what you never knew, I think I miss them. My grandmoms are strong, independent women and they've each lived an epic lifetime, one that ended up ensuring that when I was born, I'd be able to take a certain constancy for granted. Yet I've wondered what they would be like if my grandads were alive. Of all the mushy love stories I've come across, the ones among old couples leave me with the warmest, the fuzziest the most "awww" feeling. So many of these are uncles and aunts of my parents and I've heard them comment on how much each of them has changed over half a decade of being together. It takes a lifetime to achieve that balanced symphony- to be able to match each other in beat, rhythm, tune and harmony and I am amazed at the patience it must have taken, at the willingness not just to forgive and forget but often to simply ignore and discard. And while it may be true that they had no choice in the matter ever, that perhaps every one of these couples is an example of stockholm syndrome, I'm too much of a romantic to entirely believe that they felt imprisoned forever. I'm too much of a romantic to chop it down into neat tiny factors and write away that warmth. Of course, I'd like flaring passion. Who wouldn't. But I'd also like lasting compassion.
I see a tender care when each of them, slowly reaching senility takes great pains to remember not just their medication but also the other's. It's nice to watch them walk in a park, with their canes, sometimes holding each other, ever so fraily, after all those little frissures of excitement have gone and what remains is good old solid support.
Autumn spring( a foreign language film) portrays a playful old man, fond of scheming all sorts of plots to make a lot of money only to see them all fail yet going to great pains to give away what little money he has generously; and his wife who is concerned only about saving enough money for their funerals which she feels certain is near. And in that old age, their differences mar and she cannot put up with him any longer and files for divorce only to realize that regardless of how exasperating he has made life for her, she cannot imagine a life without him and takes back the divorce application. The old man, never having questioned his own love for his wife, feels compelled to change into a new leaf and spends all day at home helping his wife save money. And again his wife is angry because now her husband is a boring man. Where is all the excitement, and the anger and the hormones. Eventually, after each trying to do exactly as the other pleases, they're finally able to come to a gradual compromise- with the lady allowing the man some of his grand schemes and the man allowing the women to keep some of her hard earned savings. And their funeral is not far, but by that time, they'd have lived a life together not just by being together but by also learning to be with each other and for each other.
I live during times where I have the freedom to find and nest with someone I choose (and by definition reciprocates) and yet I wonder all the time, blessed as I might be, will I also be lucky and brave enough to slowly, calmly, gracefully fall in love eventually and then simply fade into an eternal blissful sleep.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
A lifetime of darkness
I have fond memories of the days of the powercut. That's how I learnt my first swear word. "Damn it". That's what my dad would say when the power went off. I learnt it quickly. Subsequent power cuts would be greeted by me with an "ooph damn it". I didn't know then it was a bad word. By the time I realized it was inappropriate, I also knew it was cool, and so there was no warrant for not using that word.
But Bangalore used to be rife with powercuts. Sometimes there would be a loud burst of a tranformer, sometimes terrible rain that cut off some cord somewhere, sometimes there would be nothing to tell you why it happened. I never used to bother. It used to be a good excuse to make a call to a friend anyway. Those were the days when there was just one phone, one corded phone attached to the wall, often sitting atop the telephone dictionaries. The ones that had holes into which you had to insert your stubby fingers and dial 7 whole digits. Those were the days of 7 digit phone. The was no such thing as a redial button. There was no caller ID. You simply had to dial again. and again and again until you got through. And I remember vividly how I had this one popular friend. Everyone would call her the moment the power went off (me included), and of course if you didn't get to your telephone quickly enough you'd be greeted with a "ee phone number samayadalli nirikshisavaagidhe, swalpa samayadanantara prayathnisi; this phone number is busy, please try after sometime, (oh and something in Hindi that I cannot seem to recollect). " The length of my "sometime" was as long as it took for me to put the phone back on the hook and get my finger back on to dialing. My fingers have ached and blistered, but I showed impressive will power. A will power that wasn't quite upto the mark when it came to finishing homework in the candle light. I channeled my parents' chiding of "Janani, don't read in such dim light, have the tubelight face your book, don't let the shadow of your head fall on it, you'll ruin your eyes". I channeled it into meaning that doing homework in dim candlelight would mean blinding myself and suddenly I valued my eyes a lot. And thus I would wait till the power came back on, throw a quick tantrum about needing to do my homework, postpone everyone's dinner until I was done (because I used to do the homework on the dining table and there'd be no place for food and utensils until I cleared up) and then and only then would there be any semblance of peace at home.
As I grew older, phones got fancier. Soon cordless telephones (imported of course) were making their way into everyone's homes. I might add that I am referring to middle class bangalore. I have no rosy eyed picture of India that as cordless phones were making their foray people were getting lifted above the poverty line. Nonetheless no one can disagree that our country has made a lot of progress over the years. Such progress of course didn't necessarily include continuous power supply. Mr erratic transformer was forever conspicuous only by his absence. Cordless phones may be cool enough, but every house would still have at least phone that didn't need a power supply and could get connected directly to the phone unit. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge bsnl continues to supply only that variety of phone when it grants a new phone connection. We got mildly fancier though. Our corded phone units now had buttons instead of "dial-me-ups". And so I continued to have phone calls with the same girl (her popularity never faded- ever, not until today when all of us have sprouted wings and are making some awkward attempts at flying independently) in the middle of the hall, loudly talking about some other girl who did something foolish.
It was sometime at this point that I was reaching adolescence, when my first pimples were erupting and my first sense of privacy was making its presence. It was downright ridiculous to hold a phone conversation in front of your parents. The moment the phone got handed to you (that thankful cordless device), you had to shut yourself behind the door and speak for the longest time. Thankfully it was around the sametime that KEB (karnataka electricity board) woke up to the idea of scheduled powercuts, which to me meant, I could schedule these private conversations. No more having to cut conversations when the power went off because the only place to you could talk was in the hall where everyone would be listening. Neither my mom or my dad are eavesdroppers or the type that insist on tracking their daughter's every movement. Having lived with powercuts long enough, all of us had a routine about what to do when the power went off. Some would nap. My mom managed to continue doing something in the kitched. If my aunt and uncle were around everyone would sit about and talk. I don't think the important happenings in my life such as "why x made a face when y mentioned z in class" mattered to them. Yet of course, I had to pretend that way for the sake of my ego. Just to underscore my dumbness, I used to have huge arguments with my dad about how stupid KEB was to schedule a powercut when everyone needed the power the most. Why not do it between noon and 2 pm I would argue. No one needed it then and it wouldn't be such a hassle (and I would still be at school) too. Of course my dad would say "they're trying to save the power that would get spent, there's no saving of power when you're not gonna spend it in the first place". I scoffed at that logic and went powering through with my idiocies.
And then there was the advent of the emergency light. These emergency lights were a miracle. Initially they too were "imported"; from "abroad" and from "foreign". Either US, or Dubai, or Singapore or one of those grand places. Every house would now have one of these. Every household identified a strategic location in the house such that most places got a hint of illumination. Some emergencies would even be tilted by cleverly placed piled up books so that the light would fall at the right angle. Once such strategic placement was found, they wouldn't be altered. These things also came with half-on buttons ; they would be off when connected to power supply. The moment the power went off, they'd come on. What magic! (It need be mentioned that there was a marked decrease in the swearing component at my house). And then these things got bulkier and all bling. The latest ones used to come with the standard 2 emergency lamps, a headlight, a siren, a radio and a clock. I never understood why anyone needed a siren. And the radio was pretty useless because we were still a few years away from privatizing FM radio. You couldn't read the clock unless you shone a candle on it (getting away from the candles were what we were trying to achieve with the emergency light!) And we were still a few years away from admitting that India was slightly shining. To not listen to AIR class India's way of civil disobedience. And then as we became more comfortable in our luxuries many households opted for two emergency lights. One that would stay in that carefully callibrated strategic position. One that could move around. And in all this we muddled through.
And then we had the UPS. Uninterrupted power supplies. That was when PC's started appearing in every home. Sales people quickly realized that no one would by them because they were worried such an expensive device would get ruined due to unexpected power cuts. Soon there were offers with PC's sold with free UPS with 2 hour backup. The 2 hour backup was a farce. Unless you weren't using the computer or doing these funny DOS operations (DOS was what computer class summer schools would teach scores of aspiring children; more correctly, the kids of scores of aspiring parents) such as chdir or mkdir it wouldn't last 2 hours. I used to play three games on the computer tetris and minesweeper on a windows 3.1 (oh what pixellated grayscale heaven that used to be) and prince and pacman on DOS mode. I know that I could never play too long with the UPS. And of course right after the power cut, the UPS would blare the loudest, most horrendous beep that almost made the siren from the good friend- the emergency light such a lovely melody. Soon enough UPS's were getting grander. There were those that would support a computer one lightbulb and one fan. And as we got better and better at our IT skills and got better and better at buying cars and scooters and complaining about roads and infrastructure and marking our movements with huge potholes behind us (a sort of Bangalore walk of fame like the one imitating the Hollywood walk of fame at LA for instance), huge UPs's would come and power up the entire home. It was now left to the poor lightposts to tell people that the area had a powercut.
And so we've emerged from darkness. Powercuts too have gotten rarer. I wonder if emergency light makers have shut shop because one no longer sees hordes of them making their way into homes. And I wonder what happened to those hideous kerosene driven generators that would stink up the whole of jayanagar's 4th block complexes. And I wonder what happened to those tiny burners at the vegetable shops inside the complex. No activity would stop in Bangalore when there was a powercut. Life simply went on as though nothing had happened. And I remember the one year I was in Singapore. An eventless year with uninterrupted power and no excitement. I'd write to my friends back in India that life is very boring if things always went like clockwork. Perhaps being enamored by power cuts is a distant relative of the Stockholm syndrome. Perhaps its what makes life colourful. I've forever been preoccupied with wondering what stories to tell my grandchildren. And surely, I'll tell them about all my antics during a power cut. But I wonder now whether my grandchildren will have interesting stories to tell their grandchildren. AndI think fondly of my grandmom's stories about the cinema guy that would come into the village and screen movies on white linen and wonder how boring a life she must think I lead. And I guess, grandmoms will always have stories to tell their grandchildren. And for that, I am thankful.
But Bangalore used to be rife with powercuts. Sometimes there would be a loud burst of a tranformer, sometimes terrible rain that cut off some cord somewhere, sometimes there would be nothing to tell you why it happened. I never used to bother. It used to be a good excuse to make a call to a friend anyway. Those were the days when there was just one phone, one corded phone attached to the wall, often sitting atop the telephone dictionaries. The ones that had holes into which you had to insert your stubby fingers and dial 7 whole digits. Those were the days of 7 digit phone. The was no such thing as a redial button. There was no caller ID. You simply had to dial again. and again and again until you got through. And I remember vividly how I had this one popular friend. Everyone would call her the moment the power went off (me included), and of course if you didn't get to your telephone quickly enough you'd be greeted with a "ee phone number samayadalli nirikshisavaagidhe, swalpa samayadanantara prayathnisi; this phone number is busy, please try after sometime, (oh and something in Hindi that I cannot seem to recollect). " The length of my "sometime" was as long as it took for me to put the phone back on the hook and get my finger back on to dialing. My fingers have ached and blistered, but I showed impressive will power. A will power that wasn't quite upto the mark when it came to finishing homework in the candle light. I channeled my parents' chiding of "Janani, don't read in such dim light, have the tubelight face your book, don't let the shadow of your head fall on it, you'll ruin your eyes". I channeled it into meaning that doing homework in dim candlelight would mean blinding myself and suddenly I valued my eyes a lot. And thus I would wait till the power came back on, throw a quick tantrum about needing to do my homework, postpone everyone's dinner until I was done (because I used to do the homework on the dining table and there'd be no place for food and utensils until I cleared up) and then and only then would there be any semblance of peace at home.
As I grew older, phones got fancier. Soon cordless telephones (imported of course) were making their way into everyone's homes. I might add that I am referring to middle class bangalore. I have no rosy eyed picture of India that as cordless phones were making their foray people were getting lifted above the poverty line. Nonetheless no one can disagree that our country has made a lot of progress over the years. Such progress of course didn't necessarily include continuous power supply. Mr erratic transformer was forever conspicuous only by his absence. Cordless phones may be cool enough, but every house would still have at least phone that didn't need a power supply and could get connected directly to the phone unit. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge bsnl continues to supply only that variety of phone when it grants a new phone connection. We got mildly fancier though. Our corded phone units now had buttons instead of "dial-me-ups". And so I continued to have phone calls with the same girl (her popularity never faded- ever, not until today when all of us have sprouted wings and are making some awkward attempts at flying independently) in the middle of the hall, loudly talking about some other girl who did something foolish.
It was sometime at this point that I was reaching adolescence, when my first pimples were erupting and my first sense of privacy was making its presence. It was downright ridiculous to hold a phone conversation in front of your parents. The moment the phone got handed to you (that thankful cordless device), you had to shut yourself behind the door and speak for the longest time. Thankfully it was around the sametime that KEB (karnataka electricity board) woke up to the idea of scheduled powercuts, which to me meant, I could schedule these private conversations. No more having to cut conversations when the power went off because the only place to you could talk was in the hall where everyone would be listening. Neither my mom or my dad are eavesdroppers or the type that insist on tracking their daughter's every movement. Having lived with powercuts long enough, all of us had a routine about what to do when the power went off. Some would nap. My mom managed to continue doing something in the kitched. If my aunt and uncle were around everyone would sit about and talk. I don't think the important happenings in my life such as "why x made a face when y mentioned z in class" mattered to them. Yet of course, I had to pretend that way for the sake of my ego. Just to underscore my dumbness, I used to have huge arguments with my dad about how stupid KEB was to schedule a powercut when everyone needed the power the most. Why not do it between noon and 2 pm I would argue. No one needed it then and it wouldn't be such a hassle (and I would still be at school) too. Of course my dad would say "they're trying to save the power that would get spent, there's no saving of power when you're not gonna spend it in the first place". I scoffed at that logic and went powering through with my idiocies.
And then there was the advent of the emergency light. These emergency lights were a miracle. Initially they too were "imported"; from "abroad" and from "foreign". Either US, or Dubai, or Singapore or one of those grand places. Every house would now have one of these. Every household identified a strategic location in the house such that most places got a hint of illumination. Some emergencies would even be tilted by cleverly placed piled up books so that the light would fall at the right angle. Once such strategic placement was found, they wouldn't be altered. These things also came with half-on buttons ; they would be off when connected to power supply. The moment the power went off, they'd come on. What magic! (It need be mentioned that there was a marked decrease in the swearing component at my house). And then these things got bulkier and all bling. The latest ones used to come with the standard 2 emergency lamps, a headlight, a siren, a radio and a clock. I never understood why anyone needed a siren. And the radio was pretty useless because we were still a few years away from privatizing FM radio. You couldn't read the clock unless you shone a candle on it (getting away from the candles were what we were trying to achieve with the emergency light!) And we were still a few years away from admitting that India was slightly shining. To not listen to AIR class India's way of civil disobedience. And then as we became more comfortable in our luxuries many households opted for two emergency lights. One that would stay in that carefully callibrated strategic position. One that could move around. And in all this we muddled through.
And then we had the UPS. Uninterrupted power supplies. That was when PC's started appearing in every home. Sales people quickly realized that no one would by them because they were worried such an expensive device would get ruined due to unexpected power cuts. Soon there were offers with PC's sold with free UPS with 2 hour backup. The 2 hour backup was a farce. Unless you weren't using the computer or doing these funny DOS operations (DOS was what computer class summer schools would teach scores of aspiring children; more correctly, the kids of scores of aspiring parents) such as chdir or mkdir it wouldn't last 2 hours. I used to play three games on the computer tetris and minesweeper on a windows 3.1 (oh what pixellated grayscale heaven that used to be) and prince and pacman on DOS mode. I know that I could never play too long with the UPS. And of course right after the power cut, the UPS would blare the loudest, most horrendous beep that almost made the siren from the good friend- the emergency light such a lovely melody. Soon enough UPS's were getting grander. There were those that would support a computer one lightbulb and one fan. And as we got better and better at our IT skills and got better and better at buying cars and scooters and complaining about roads and infrastructure and marking our movements with huge potholes behind us (a sort of Bangalore walk of fame like the one imitating the Hollywood walk of fame at LA for instance), huge UPs's would come and power up the entire home. It was now left to the poor lightposts to tell people that the area had a powercut.
And so we've emerged from darkness. Powercuts too have gotten rarer. I wonder if emergency light makers have shut shop because one no longer sees hordes of them making their way into homes. And I wonder what happened to those hideous kerosene driven generators that would stink up the whole of jayanagar's 4th block complexes. And I wonder what happened to those tiny burners at the vegetable shops inside the complex. No activity would stop in Bangalore when there was a powercut. Life simply went on as though nothing had happened. And I remember the one year I was in Singapore. An eventless year with uninterrupted power and no excitement. I'd write to my friends back in India that life is very boring if things always went like clockwork. Perhaps being enamored by power cuts is a distant relative of the Stockholm syndrome. Perhaps its what makes life colourful. I've forever been preoccupied with wondering what stories to tell my grandchildren. And surely, I'll tell them about all my antics during a power cut. But I wonder now whether my grandchildren will have interesting stories to tell their grandchildren. AndI think fondly of my grandmom's stories about the cinema guy that would come into the village and screen movies on white linen and wonder how boring a life she must think I lead. And I guess, grandmoms will always have stories to tell their grandchildren. And for that, I am thankful.
Monday, March 09, 2009
I do not solve Alzheimer's
Apparently 4 years of undergraduate Biotechnology and as many years of people asking me what I wanted to do after college has not trained me enough to come up with a proper response.
This is a typical conversation with a "genuine" stranger with a "borderline and passing" interest in what you are doing.
So you're doing biotechnology is it ?
Yes.
So you're going to become like Kiran Majumdar of Biocon ?
I don't think so. No.
It's extremely risky to say you don't want to be someone revered by everyone. They immediately assume that you are an unmotivated, uninterested person that does not even have the courage to dream, let alone the empowerment to achieve it. It was at this point I figured out a loophole. In retrospect it was more the truth than a way out through the loophole.
So here's version 1.2
So you're going to become like Kiran Majumdar of Biocon ?
No. Actually, I'm planning to study further.
I truly thought that would get me somewhere. Doing higher studies is not disrespectful to Mrs Majumdar Shaw, it portrays me as a motivated person. I was convinced that the strangers would cross me off their list of "to-be-watched" and mark me as "one of those people that is not going to ruin the glorious heritage our ancestors have left us". Obviously I was engaging in an extreme version of delusion. The conversation which should have a smile on their face and botox-insulting disappearence of my frown lines turned out to be this...
Oh you're going to cure cancer? Very good. Very good.
( In other versions, cancer can be replaced with AIDS. Conscientious news readers wondered if I was interested in stem cell research. But the gist is they all thought that I was very keen on making the world a better place.)
No. Actually I am not.
What was I thinking. I was now the unmotivated, uninterested person that was going to do no good to the world since I had the least interest in cancer.What sorta person was I if I couldn't be bothered to cure a disease. What sort of twisted, devious mind must I have if I did not only care, but could also unabashedly declare that.
Somehow when I decided to do cognitive neuroscience, I lamely assumed that the curse had been lifted. No more cancer, no more stem cell research, no more AIDS. Pure studies of the mind. Motivated by my sole interest to know how it all works. It had nothing to do with solving anything. It had everything to do with unraveling a puzzle that had already been solved.
And so on to version 2.1
So. What do you do ?
Oh. I am graduate student of neuroscience.
I see. So you're going to solve Alzheimer's ?
C'mon now. All of you saw that coming didn't you. I didn't. I don't know what I expected in reply, but it wasn't Alzheimer's. I see very clearly these days that someone who believes and wants to know somehow who can solve alzheimer's, parkinson's isn't going to be extremely pleased when I tell them that I study vision circuits in monkeys. All the excitement about working with big animals, and interesting anecdotes about dealing with monkeys notwithstanding, I still stand as a person that is doing no good to humankind what's so ever.
Maybe they even thought "wait a minute. I'm growing older. I might even be predispositioned to get alzheimer's. I must make sure every minute of my sane life talks. And here I am. Talking to someone that is not helping now, is clear that she ain't going to be help me ever. Gah. What a waste of 2 precious minutes"
And hey. That kinda logic doesn't get any better.
And so I've decided, in a bid to do some good to people who are going to die of all sorts of diseases that I am never going to be competent enough to do anything about, to tell them rightaway.
So. What do you do.
I do not solve Alzheimer's.
I'm gonna start with that.
Cut right to the chase.
Pull off the bandage with one nice quick rip.
Apparently that's the only thing that will work.
And if you're quasi interested in a tiny tiny zone in the brain that I study every single day, let me know and I can tell you more. I promise it will make an interesting story. Does it improve your quality of life ? I can't assure that. But it certainly does improve mine.
PS :
No offence intended to those that do study cancer, AIDS, stem cells, and Alzheimer's.It is a crazy world of molecules gone wrong out there. And I have the utmost respect for those that still manage to tease them apart. I just am not one of them.
This is a typical conversation with a "genuine" stranger with a "borderline and passing" interest in what you are doing.
So you're doing biotechnology is it ?
Yes.
So you're going to become like Kiran Majumdar of Biocon ?
I don't think so. No.
It's extremely risky to say you don't want to be someone revered by everyone. They immediately assume that you are an unmotivated, uninterested person that does not even have the courage to dream, let alone the empowerment to achieve it. It was at this point I figured out a loophole. In retrospect it was more the truth than a way out through the loophole.
So here's version 1.2
So you're going to become like Kiran Majumdar of Biocon ?
No. Actually, I'm planning to study further.
I truly thought that would get me somewhere. Doing higher studies is not disrespectful to Mrs Majumdar Shaw, it portrays me as a motivated person. I was convinced that the strangers would cross me off their list of "to-be-watched" and mark me as "one of those people that is not going to ruin the glorious heritage our ancestors have left us". Obviously I was engaging in an extreme version of delusion. The conversation which should have a smile on their face and botox-insulting disappearence of my frown lines turned out to be this...
Oh you're going to cure cancer? Very good. Very good.
( In other versions, cancer can be replaced with AIDS. Conscientious news readers wondered if I was interested in stem cell research. But the gist is they all thought that I was very keen on making the world a better place.)
No. Actually I am not.
What was I thinking. I was now the unmotivated, uninterested person that was going to do no good to the world since I had the least interest in cancer.What sorta person was I if I couldn't be bothered to cure a disease. What sort of twisted, devious mind must I have if I did not only care, but could also unabashedly declare that.
Somehow when I decided to do cognitive neuroscience, I lamely assumed that the curse had been lifted. No more cancer, no more stem cell research, no more AIDS. Pure studies of the mind. Motivated by my sole interest to know how it all works. It had nothing to do with solving anything. It had everything to do with unraveling a puzzle that had already been solved.
And so on to version 2.1
So. What do you do ?
Oh. I am graduate student of neuroscience.
I see. So you're going to solve Alzheimer's ?
C'mon now. All of you saw that coming didn't you. I didn't. I don't know what I expected in reply, but it wasn't Alzheimer's. I see very clearly these days that someone who believes and wants to know somehow who can solve alzheimer's, parkinson's isn't going to be extremely pleased when I tell them that I study vision circuits in monkeys. All the excitement about working with big animals, and interesting anecdotes about dealing with monkeys notwithstanding, I still stand as a person that is doing no good to humankind what's so ever.
Maybe they even thought "wait a minute. I'm growing older. I might even be predispositioned to get alzheimer's. I must make sure every minute of my sane life talks. And here I am. Talking to someone that is not helping now, is clear that she ain't going to be help me ever. Gah. What a waste of 2 precious minutes"
And hey. That kinda logic doesn't get any better.
And so I've decided, in a bid to do some good to people who are going to die of all sorts of diseases that I am never going to be competent enough to do anything about, to tell them rightaway.
So. What do you do.
I do not solve Alzheimer's.
I'm gonna start with that.
Cut right to the chase.
Pull off the bandage with one nice quick rip.
Apparently that's the only thing that will work.
And if you're quasi interested in a tiny tiny zone in the brain that I study every single day, let me know and I can tell you more. I promise it will make an interesting story. Does it improve your quality of life ? I can't assure that. But it certainly does improve mine.
PS :
No offence intended to those that do study cancer, AIDS, stem cells, and Alzheimer's.It is a crazy world of molecules gone wrong out there. And I have the utmost respect for those that still manage to tease them apart. I just am not one of them.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Insomnia
>> This was on Aug 30 2004, at another website. Funny. And it seems to like I haven't changed all that much in the past few years. I'm saying, thinking and feeling the same things and in the exact same way<<
Not a lot of things make me lose my sleep. If I’ve had a productive day, and I feel tired enough, a long uninterrupted slumber is inevitable. But there are those days when try as I might I cannot get myself to sleep.
I try and think of something that will hopefully engage me until sleep encompasses. Counting sheep never works. I have a very bad imagination when it comes to picturing sheep in my head. I can at the most picture one sheep. I am reasonable at counting numbers in order. It doesn’t take me long to get to one, and its never been enough to validate a speech bubble over a drooling face that says zzz zzz. I’ve always had a problem with my position. When I was a baby and used to be rocked to sleep in those cradles made out of a cotton sari, hanging from a hook in the ceiling, my mom used to shake the cradle wildly so that I’d be forced into a new hopefully sleep encouraging position. When I finally stopped sucking my thumb and got rid of my security blanket, the question of where to keep my hands became unanswerable.
There are about a trillion positions for my hands, each as uncomfortable as the next. There’s exactly one position that my hands will find acceptable. The odds of my finding that one position is distressingly low.My legs are fine. One knee over the pillow, the foot under it, the other leg pretty much anyway anywhere ( nope, its not a prosthetic limb, anywhere within the realm of being attached to my hip) and I’m set. My hands aren’t too easy to please. But I have gotten better at it over the years, and I’m making tremendous progress in hypnotizing them to do exactly what I want. Hypnotizing of course requires tremendous concentration. Just when I think that I’m there, that I’m finally going to be eased into a dreamland where nothing makes sense, there’s a phone call that requires my hand to be projected from its current very stable hypnotized position and phut, my hands go back to their tantrum throwing selves again.
Afternoon naps are another thing that I’m incapable of. When I was a toddler I’d spend afternoons wreaking havoc in the kitchen, breaking pots and pans, slipping in water and my parents would sleep blissfully through everything, only to find the kitchen in an utter mess. When there’s the odd free afternoon I can only manage a half hour, even that at the risk of unmanageable hands at night. I’m sensitive to a rustling leaf, a dog barking, and a phone ringing about three houses away, and those irritating tunes cars play while on reverse gear. Sometimes I hallucinate a noise and awaken. My family is blessed with people who can sleep anytime anywhere anyhow. It used to be one of the reasons that convinced me that I was adopted. I’m not apparently. The one time I truly slept in the afternoon was when I went on a self-designed diet. All I drank was water for one and a half days, and I ended up falling flat on the bad, completely oblivious to phone calls, doorbells ringing in which time my mom almost went to the police. She could see my footwear and bags inside the house through the window, but couldn’t get me to open the door. 2 hours after she came home and found that she couldn’t enter, I woke up and opened the door vaguely hearing banging. I opened the door with a knife behind my back, because I’ve never known my mom to bang, just as she had never known me to sleep through the sound of a doorbell.
I use my sleeplessness as radars. Unlike those blessed people who can sleep regardless of what happened in the preceding day, my day affects my sleep to the extent of depriving me of it. When I find that my hands are behaving as though they belonged to someone else, its always one of two things. Either I’ve had an exceedingly unproductive day, a day during which I did nothing and spent most of it doing something very similar to staring aimlessly at a white unblemished wall. Or I’ve done something that I ought to feel guilty about, taken a decision that wasn’t completely thought through, rash, irrational, and in a wild passion to please/infuriate someone else. Somehow the signboard that says “exit to a good night’s sleep” always evades me and I end up taking a U turn a long time later. It may be staring at me right in the face, but what use is that to someone whose eyes are shut. More often than not, I end up reversing my stand the next morning, all red eyed and gloomy faced, causing a lot of people to believe that this new decision is even more hurried, anxiously taken and unreasonable than the first one. I’m asked various forms of the question “why”- from “how can you”, to saying my name repeatedly, to comical looks, to “huh”. Hell, I’ve just got to have a peaceful night’s sleep, because plainly put I cannot count sheep.Thursday, December 18, 2008
wii
I've never been much of a gamer. Is that a regret ? Read on
Back in the days when I was vulnerable and "impressionable", the games pretty much sucked; at least the ones that I came to know of. They were the days when parents would ambitiously send their children to summer workshops and computer classes. MS Dos and LOGO were cool to know. Advanced classes would teach you microsoft office- editing and copy pasting. Such was my exposure. The summer workshops were more fun. They'd teach you calligraphy ( not just the arabic style). My personal favourite used to be the cloud font. I can only describe it as a font whose letters looked like they were etched from the clouds. It made me dreamy. It made me fantasize. I don't remember what about ? In all likelihood I was simply fantasizing about more clouds.
The gaming fairy simply bypassed me. Perhaps if I had an older, freaky, moody brother, I'd have at least come to know of its existence. But of course, my parents decided to shower all the love they could ever muster on me and me alone, and that came with a large helping of gaming ignorence. It is fair to ask the question : what happened to aunts and uncles who could've bought you computer games for your birthday? Fair question. The gaming fairy simply didn't notice my entire clan. Never got close enough for us to even get a whiff of the adrenalin induced mindboggling stupor. I am one of those kids who didn't grow up with mario. I grew up with marie biscuits ( it was unfortified and way better those days) and milk bikis. But never mario. It's a rare affliction. So rare that it hits one in all the population in the second largest country in the world. That one is me. Me!
Do i regret it ? Probably.
But as H.W Longfellow says...
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
(footnote : personally, i think rain is a great thing. Rain makes me happier than the sun ever will. But I'm speaking of the indian rain that comes bringing with it the life supporting nectar. Indians can do quite well with less of the sun and more of the rain. But that will require so much moving around of the tectonic plates, that only sci-fi ambition could ever make it possible. So here, we stick to longfellow's interpretation of the very dreary english rain)
So then came the wii.
If anybody has seen sound of music..... ( I watched sound of music while others were playing mario, and that bit I do not ever regret. I love rodgers and hammerstein. If I ever have kids and they do not like these musicals, I am ashamed to say that the thoughts of giving them up for adoption will cross my mind. They don't make 'em like that these days.)
Those that have seen sound of music will remember Liesl yelling wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii when the handsome blonde boy ( while I never did find that boy in the least bit handsome, but the casting authorities sure did) grabs her and kisses her. In that one moment, she abandons all her feminity, all her poise, all her austrian aristocratic elan and especially the grace with which she jumps from bench to bench while dancing with the boy. She abandons all that for a glorifying "wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" that makes every single one of us want that blonde boy (unhandsome as he may be).
What made the masters at nintendo think of calling their gaming console "wii", i know not. But they got it bang on. I have sold my soul to the devil and wish for more souls, simply so I can sell them again to the devil. While hard core gaming purists ( its funny how easy it is to throw about the word "purist". What, for instance, is a reality tv show purist ?) may find the present installation of wii a mere curiosity, and will not find it tempting to change allegiance from the neuropathy inducing first person point and shoot games, I know too that wii will eventually get them. Such is what my soul is worth thank you very much.
So when I went to California for thanksgiving my uncle and aunt introduced me to their wii. (It seems like the gaming fairies that had been ignoring us thus far were finally taking note of my clan). It was only mildly amusing when I was creating the mii with the magic wand. But then play started and the devil swooped and swallowed my soul in one exhilarating gulp and I was done in. Here I was, with a wand! Here I was playing tennis. Moving my hands. Backhand. Forehand. Simply amateur- there's-no-term-for-what-you-just-did-with-your-bat-hand. And then here I was playing bowling. Strike. Strike. Oh ouch... gutterball. And then boxing. Was boxing fun. My uncle and I were working up such a sweat it was hilarious. And then out came the towels and the wet soaks. Before long, we were regular boxers, sweating and panting and loving every bit of it.
And then back to tennis. By now, I was gone. While I didn't really have to move around the court (ahem, the carpeted area in the living room), I couldn't help myself. I hit my index finger on the armchair, with a swing that was so hard that there was such a disgusting clot. The pain. The pain was madness. I was laughing hysterically. The pain was real. Not imaginary real. But real, bang yourself on a teak armchair real. And then at some point I yelled wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. Like liesl of sound of music. It had come full circle. I had finally become this person who could reconcile her love for sound of music and her new found minor attaction for gaming (?).
Long live nintendo!
Back in the days when I was vulnerable and "impressionable", the games pretty much sucked; at least the ones that I came to know of. They were the days when parents would ambitiously send their children to summer workshops and computer classes. MS Dos and LOGO were cool to know. Advanced classes would teach you microsoft office- editing and copy pasting. Such was my exposure. The summer workshops were more fun. They'd teach you calligraphy ( not just the arabic style). My personal favourite used to be the cloud font. I can only describe it as a font whose letters looked like they were etched from the clouds. It made me dreamy. It made me fantasize. I don't remember what about ? In all likelihood I was simply fantasizing about more clouds.
The gaming fairy simply bypassed me. Perhaps if I had an older, freaky, moody brother, I'd have at least come to know of its existence. But of course, my parents decided to shower all the love they could ever muster on me and me alone, and that came with a large helping of gaming ignorence. It is fair to ask the question : what happened to aunts and uncles who could've bought you computer games for your birthday? Fair question. The gaming fairy simply didn't notice my entire clan. Never got close enough for us to even get a whiff of the adrenalin induced mindboggling stupor. I am one of those kids who didn't grow up with mario. I grew up with marie biscuits ( it was unfortified and way better those days) and milk bikis. But never mario. It's a rare affliction. So rare that it hits one in all the population in the second largest country in the world. That one is me. Me!
Do i regret it ? Probably.
But as H.W Longfellow says...
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
(footnote : personally, i think rain is a great thing. Rain makes me happier than the sun ever will. But I'm speaking of the indian rain that comes bringing with it the life supporting nectar. Indians can do quite well with less of the sun and more of the rain. But that will require so much moving around of the tectonic plates, that only sci-fi ambition could ever make it possible. So here, we stick to longfellow's interpretation of the very dreary english rain)
So then came the wii.
If anybody has seen sound of music..... ( I watched sound of music while others were playing mario, and that bit I do not ever regret. I love rodgers and hammerstein. If I ever have kids and they do not like these musicals, I am ashamed to say that the thoughts of giving them up for adoption will cross my mind. They don't make 'em like that these days.)
Those that have seen sound of music will remember Liesl yelling wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii when the handsome blonde boy ( while I never did find that boy in the least bit handsome, but the casting authorities sure did) grabs her and kisses her. In that one moment, she abandons all her feminity, all her poise, all her austrian aristocratic elan and especially the grace with which she jumps from bench to bench while dancing with the boy. She abandons all that for a glorifying "wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" that makes every single one of us want that blonde boy (unhandsome as he may be).
What made the masters at nintendo think of calling their gaming console "wii", i know not. But they got it bang on. I have sold my soul to the devil and wish for more souls, simply so I can sell them again to the devil. While hard core gaming purists ( its funny how easy it is to throw about the word "purist". What, for instance, is a reality tv show purist ?) may find the present installation of wii a mere curiosity, and will not find it tempting to change allegiance from the neuropathy inducing first person point and shoot games, I know too that wii will eventually get them. Such is what my soul is worth thank you very much.
So when I went to California for thanksgiving my uncle and aunt introduced me to their wii. (It seems like the gaming fairies that had been ignoring us thus far were finally taking note of my clan). It was only mildly amusing when I was creating the mii with the magic wand. But then play started and the devil swooped and swallowed my soul in one exhilarating gulp and I was done in. Here I was, with a wand! Here I was playing tennis. Moving my hands. Backhand. Forehand. Simply amateur- there's-no-term-for-what-you-just-did-with-your-bat-hand. And then here I was playing bowling. Strike. Strike. Oh ouch... gutterball. And then boxing. Was boxing fun. My uncle and I were working up such a sweat it was hilarious. And then out came the towels and the wet soaks. Before long, we were regular boxers, sweating and panting and loving every bit of it.
And then back to tennis. By now, I was gone. While I didn't really have to move around the court (ahem, the carpeted area in the living room), I couldn't help myself. I hit my index finger on the armchair, with a swing that was so hard that there was such a disgusting clot. The pain. The pain was madness. I was laughing hysterically. The pain was real. Not imaginary real. But real, bang yourself on a teak armchair real. And then at some point I yelled wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. Like liesl of sound of music. It had come full circle. I had finally become this person who could reconcile her love for sound of music and her new found minor attaction for gaming (?).
Long live nintendo!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
these are a few of my ominous things....
- When someone begins a sentence with "there is a choice you can make here".
They don't approve of it.
They also know that their approval is somewhat important to you, at least as a vote of confidence, and by offering you a choice, they're trying to change your decision.
However disheartening it is going to be to change your decision, its going to be much worse when you cannot hold "someone" responsible.
Because... it was a choice that YOU made. They didn't make it for you. And oh yeah, they would've been happy for you either way.
- You get up deciding to have a snack at favourite restaurant x on your way back from classes on the way to work.
In effect you neither get ur snack or savour the pleasures of being let off class earlier than usual.
At this point, I usually go to a store and get myself a granola bar, nibble at the granola bar and ruminate on the humour of it all.
- You slept early so you can get up in time.
And you think maybe if
- You slept late, you can get up in time.
- You spot a guy who looks ok, can talk well but not so much that your head is filled with white noise, who listens, who seems to know why he is the way he is, lets others around him be whoever they want to be, and generally seems to have a higher level of maturity and you think maybe...
Well, if the above are the only sucky things happening now, I must say that life can get so much worse (and this list can get much, much longer).
And so...
When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling bad
I simply remember these ominous things
And then I do feel pretty glad!
Sunday, September 07, 2008
world news
ya apparently all these things are happening in the world and i am very oblivious to it.
its one thing to be aware and not be affected.
which breeds too much tolerance, in turn giving all the "bad ppl" permission to do anything, coz ur going to get used to everything.
i suppose death is something we still arent used to even though its been happening for as long as anything's been alive.
i've always found that bit very strange.
we were never asked if we wanted to be born, kinda had no choice there. and somehow we're all ok with it.
yet we want to know how to prevent death and would actually very much liked to be asked (by chance and fate and acts of god as well) if we wanted to die. somehow we just dont think abt the singularity at the other end. or do we ?
i never have.
back to the point;
so its one thing to be aware but not affected.
its another thing to be unaware.
that's where i am.
i am clueless.
i dunno what's happening to the world around me.
that knowledge is a click away.
websites are waiting to tell me.
but i've been unaware for so long that i dunno where to start.
i must make reading the news a habit.
its a very sad thing to not know stuff (regardless of whether it'll affect u or not).
so
ya
when i finish studying stuff abt helicases and primases
(apparently i don't need to learn nucleotide structures for the exam. all thru undergrad i complained that there was no point learning them; but i'd learn them anyway, and now i'm being asked not to learn them for the exam and i don;t know how to prepare for an exam without learning these structures)
its a funny turn of events.
anyway... when i am done with all this (in the next hour or so i believe), i'm gonna do some newsreading.
along with my evening cup of masala chai
READYMADE
ciao
its one thing to be aware and not be affected.
which breeds too much tolerance, in turn giving all the "bad ppl" permission to do anything, coz ur going to get used to everything.
i suppose death is something we still arent used to even though its been happening for as long as anything's been alive.
i've always found that bit very strange.
we were never asked if we wanted to be born, kinda had no choice there. and somehow we're all ok with it.
yet we want to know how to prevent death and would actually very much liked to be asked (by chance and fate and acts of god as well) if we wanted to die. somehow we just dont think abt the singularity at the other end. or do we ?
i never have.
back to the point;
so its one thing to be aware but not affected.
its another thing to be unaware.
that's where i am.
i am clueless.
i dunno what's happening to the world around me.
that knowledge is a click away.
websites are waiting to tell me.
but i've been unaware for so long that i dunno where to start.
i must make reading the news a habit.
its a very sad thing to not know stuff (regardless of whether it'll affect u or not).
so
ya
when i finish studying stuff abt helicases and primases
(apparently i don't need to learn nucleotide structures for the exam. all thru undergrad i complained that there was no point learning them; but i'd learn them anyway, and now i'm being asked not to learn them for the exam and i don;t know how to prepare for an exam without learning these structures)
its a funny turn of events.
anyway... when i am done with all this (in the next hour or so i believe), i'm gonna do some newsreading.
along with my evening cup of masala chai
READYMADE
ciao
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Bistability
Before I say anything, I must mention that I have this new fancy for the phrase "baap re baap"
I think it's an equivalent to the "!" ? Anyway, so i've started going about just trying to use that word. Now I can't create a post specially for it, so I'm putting it here. Have you every been to the cinema and come out thinking that the trailers were the best part ? Get ready for deja vu. Oh and this is definitely one of those moments where I purposely get self effacing so that someone will drop me a compliment or two. Hey, at least I'm honest about it. It's one of my greatest virtues.
Anyway.
Bistability is this condition where an unstable equilibrium point is flanked by stable equlibrium points on either side.
*Somehow* and I've never understood this part properly (alternatively, I think of it as no one has ever been able to explain it properly) let's assume a body reaches unstable equilibrium. I dunno how that happens, but trust me, it happens. And if you shake it just a wee lil bit from the point of unstable equlibrium, it'll quickly go to one of the more stable points. However, if a body is shaken from the point of stable equilibrium, it'll manage to come back to that same equilibrium point every time you disturb it even a lil bit. That's the difference b/w stable and unstable equilibrium. And generally, if you give it enough energy, it can somehow manage to jump from the stable equilibrium and go into unstable equilibrium
I believe that laziness and productivity are two stable points. Have you seen lazy ppl ? They'll go on and on and on doing nothing and just that. And have you seen these ppl who are irritatingly productive ? They'll manage to do so many things in one day and still keep track of SRK's six pack and that ranbir kapur's free butt show. And you simple cannot stop them. These are lucky people. They've found their niche I think. And there's the majority of us who simply cannot make up our minds about which we like better. We get bored when we're lazy. And we get tired when we're busy. So we dont like either place and we want to strike a balance, and we think we're doing a super job by being in this unstable equilibrium point, except, excuse me, you cannot stay there for too long. I mean, smart guys don't just draw pretty curves and bored guys don't just upload them on the net. These curves are drawn based on actual data ( not cooked up- I know a coupla ppl who do that too) and they say that honey, you can't strike a balance, pick a side.
Right now, its so important that I am productive. I get up in the morning and tell myself, I'll do this and this and this and this, and by the time I come down the stairs, I;ve sorta given up. If I can just manage to give myself this nice really good shove, I'll reach the point of stability on the productive side and that'll be just fine for me you see. Right now though at least. Except, you know, sometimes even when there are these two stable points, the curve isn't exactly symmetric. One point is ever so slightly more stable than the other. And it simply doesn't bode well for me that its the lazy side.
Baap re Baap.
oh mission accomplished.
I think it's an equivalent to the "!" ? Anyway, so i've started going about just trying to use that word. Now I can't create a post specially for it, so I'm putting it here. Have you every been to the cinema and come out thinking that the trailers were the best part ? Get ready for deja vu. Oh and this is definitely one of those moments where I purposely get self effacing so that someone will drop me a compliment or two. Hey, at least I'm honest about it. It's one of my greatest virtues.
Anyway.
Bistability is this condition where an unstable equilibrium point is flanked by stable equlibrium points on either side.
*Somehow* and I've never understood this part properly (alternatively, I think of it as no one has ever been able to explain it properly) let's assume a body reaches unstable equilibrium. I dunno how that happens, but trust me, it happens. And if you shake it just a wee lil bit from the point of unstable equlibrium, it'll quickly go to one of the more stable points. However, if a body is shaken from the point of stable equilibrium, it'll manage to come back to that same equilibrium point every time you disturb it even a lil bit. That's the difference b/w stable and unstable equilibrium. And generally, if you give it enough energy, it can somehow manage to jump from the stable equilibrium and go into unstable equilibrium
I believe that laziness and productivity are two stable points. Have you seen lazy ppl ? They'll go on and on and on doing nothing and just that. And have you seen these ppl who are irritatingly productive ? They'll manage to do so many things in one day and still keep track of SRK's six pack and that ranbir kapur's free butt show. And you simple cannot stop them. These are lucky people. They've found their niche I think. And there's the majority of us who simply cannot make up our minds about which we like better. We get bored when we're lazy. And we get tired when we're busy. So we dont like either place and we want to strike a balance, and we think we're doing a super job by being in this unstable equilibrium point, except, excuse me, you cannot stay there for too long. I mean, smart guys don't just draw pretty curves and bored guys don't just upload them on the net. These curves are drawn based on actual data ( not cooked up- I know a coupla ppl who do that too) and they say that honey, you can't strike a balance, pick a side.
Right now, its so important that I am productive. I get up in the morning and tell myself, I'll do this and this and this and this, and by the time I come down the stairs, I;ve sorta given up. If I can just manage to give myself this nice really good shove, I'll reach the point of stability on the productive side and that'll be just fine for me you see. Right now though at least. Except, you know, sometimes even when there are these two stable points, the curve isn't exactly symmetric. One point is ever so slightly more stable than the other. And it simply doesn't bode well for me that its the lazy side.
Baap re Baap.
oh mission accomplished.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
hmm
I'm in one of those ponderous moods today. Not the kind that frustrates me, or the kind that comes with a deep insight into the inner workings of the universe, but a general "what have i learnt in my life" summarizing sort of mood.
Today I sort of realized that the things you want the most are things you have no control over. Weirdly enough you don't know it when you start wanting them. You think you're different, you're special, somehow you can figure it out where others have failed, you can crack the code, you can avoid making the mistakes. But guess what. You really cannot do anything to get what you want. You can sorta try very hard and make sure that if you're on the path to getting it, you dont do something crazy and undo it, but beyond that there's simply nothing you can do. It just has to happen. That's all. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.
I think that's what growing up is all about it. Realizing it and getting to the point where it's so obvious you needn't remind yourself about it or go into frequent fits of denial about it.
That's my today's thoughts anyway.
Am I happy that I know all this ? Does it make life better somehow ? I truly don't know. There's a tiny bit of me that hopes I am wrong, and there's another bit of me that tells me that if I'm wrong, I will have to continue to try cracking the code, and God forbid me from stopping to do that on a notion that perhaps I am right. So I suppose I'll continue to think I can control my destiny. Ironical, but there you go....
Older, but none the wiser,
- Me :)
Today I sort of realized that the things you want the most are things you have no control over. Weirdly enough you don't know it when you start wanting them. You think you're different, you're special, somehow you can figure it out where others have failed, you can crack the code, you can avoid making the mistakes. But guess what. You really cannot do anything to get what you want. You can sorta try very hard and make sure that if you're on the path to getting it, you dont do something crazy and undo it, but beyond that there's simply nothing you can do. It just has to happen. That's all. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.
I think that's what growing up is all about it. Realizing it and getting to the point where it's so obvious you needn't remind yourself about it or go into frequent fits of denial about it.
That's my today's thoughts anyway.
Am I happy that I know all this ? Does it make life better somehow ? I truly don't know. There's a tiny bit of me that hopes I am wrong, and there's another bit of me that tells me that if I'm wrong, I will have to continue to try cracking the code, and God forbid me from stopping to do that on a notion that perhaps I am right. So I suppose I'll continue to think I can control my destiny. Ironical, but there you go....
Older, but none the wiser,
- Me :)
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