Cough

I hate cough. I despise it in all its forms. Even its spelling! It sounds like cow-ugghh! I am just coming out of a terrible coughing bout and it was as bad as it always is whenever my body catches onto this virus or bacteria or whatever it is that causes cough. Bottom line is when I start coughing, I keep coughing. And I so want to get rid of it!

It all began with a mild sore throat which I knew was not really mild. I could sense its fury right then. So, to nip it in the bud, I started with salt water gargling. There are times when it does get nipped and the world is a happy place. But I was not so lucky this time around.

The next day, sure enough, the sore throat had led to mild cough accompanied by running nose. Sometimes, it runs its course through a common cold with dripping nose (no cough) and then the cold too goes away and again the world is a happy place. But this time, the cough persisted while the cold took control of my body. As always, with running nose comes irritation and fatigue – BECAUSE IT NEVER STOPS. It is like having a reservoir inside your nose!! I am sleeping, and at 3 am in the night, I can feel the watery leakage inside my nose. It right down tickles you out of your sleep. This happens despite the Vicks Vaporub rubbed generously over the throat, neck, chest, feet, back and wherever the population has applied and found it working wonders.  Even inhaled from steaming water. And despite all this, watery leakage continues. Whats more annoying is that this leakage accompanies a mild fever that kind of makes you lethargic.

Ok, so I now had to quickly get rid of this Tickly Leakage along with the ensuing Flu. From the nearby pharmacy store, I got hold of a Tylenol For Multi Symptom Cold. In fine print, it was written that it was effective for cough too! Wow, this seemed a wonder drug surely – killing flu, cold and cough all in one shot! I started with once-in-4 hours 20 ml dosage. There was surely some improvement. The leaking stopped and gave way to solid mucus that now started coming out in great chunks.

Solid mucus surely is the sign of The End being near! A few drops of Saline Solution and all will be well. Six drops in each nostril. But alas, it only led to some sniffing but nothing else. A colleague took one look at me sniffing away to glory and said I was short on Vitamin C. Apparently a body rich with Vitamin C will produce enough antibodies to kill whatever it is that causes common cold and cough. So she gave me a box of Berry-flavored Emergen-C powder pouches that had to be mixed with water. I kindly refused her offer, bought a bigger box of my own and from that day onwards started with one pouch a day in the morning. Now that wasn’t too hard.

Ok, so now this Mr Solid Snot started secreting by gazillions - thereby making me visit the restroom almost twice in an hour to blow out my nose completely – an activity that used to take almost 10 minutes each time - only to come back to cubicle finding it full again! I did some research to see why my body was producing so much snot. I was shocked to find two things. Apparently, almost a liter of mucus is produced daily – so I might as well forget about getting rid of all that snot by blowing my nose – and mucus was good for the body! Anyways, now it was blocking my nasal airways thereby forcing me to breathe through my throat.

Remember this throat itself is not that great in shape. There was this constant coughing. So my throat now had to take this additional responsibility of supplying oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. Fallout of this is that the throat starts getting dried up very fast because there is lack of saliva movement and whatever is present for the general lubrication is getting evaporated fast. Outcome? More cough! For cough to be kept in bay, the throat has to be kept moist and wetty so that the dryness will not cause the cough reflex. Not only that, this solid snot was getting clogged in the airway too which was like adding fuel to cough. So I had to think of something else to destroy the new enemy Mr Solid Snot along with this cough that kept increasing by the day. As a temporary solution though, I got myself a flask of hot water which I started sipping regularly. Apparently, being hydrated is one of the first steps when having cold and cough. I even got a bag of Halls chewable tablets to keep the throat hydrated and reduce the cough reflex.

Then I did some more research to understand if I was taking the right syrup or if I should be taking something else. Apparently expectorants was what I needed since it had the exact task of draining mucus by thinning mucus and lubricating the respiratory tract. A key ingredient of an expectorant syrup is guaifenesin. The Tylenol syrup that I was taking did not have this ingredient. No wonder nothing was happening. Off I went to pharmacy store again and this time I got a Mucus Relief syrup which had 400 mg of guaifenesin. Surely this ought to drain out Mr Solid Snot!

A couple of shots of this new syrup and all hell broke loose, which I knew would happen anyways. Good thing about it was that I knew I was at the peak stage, and the only way now was to go down. Like being at Logan Pass on Going-to-the-Sun road! Mr Solid Snot got broken down to a million shrapnel and if the cough was one per one Solid, it was now one per shrapnel!

More colleagues came to help. Many gave advises but one gave a small box of cut ginger, and asked me to keep biting one at a time until I got better. I started doing that and boy, was it spicy!! Back at home, I smashed ginger, poured honey and put turmeric into boiling water and had it in huge gulps multiple times. My mother-in-law went a step further and mixed garlic and jaggery by hand and asked me to eat it raw. It was like eating fire!

Then my mom suggested boiling garlic in water. Alrighty! Here we go – drank that stinking “garlicized” water and ate that stinking garlic. All to no gain. It was as if I had not done anything. Cough continued like before and shrapnel continue with same frequency.

Tired of what “outside pharmacy stores” offered, I then looked into the home medicine cabinet. Well, there was this Kid’s Benadryl. Why not?! Two spoonfuls. Honey! Sure. Two spoonfuls every two hours! After all nothing can go wrong with more honey in the body. Remember reading so much goodness about honey!

Frantic searching in the tablet box led me to Cofday tablet which I had got from India – thinking then about the inevitable. Gulped one without even thinking twice. In a short span of time, I had about a dozen things acting against that virus or bacteria in my throat and nose. Come to think of it, it was like Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Surely there was no way that cough can hold up against so many guns shooting at it. I even had visions of going to that fantasy black man in The Green Mile who could just hold my throat, feel my pain and spit out all my evil worms from his mouth thereby relieving me from my troublesome cough!! Or, something as mechanically simple as replacing my throat and nose with brand new defect-free parts with warranty!

Although there seemed to be signs of relief, I was not convinced. This time, the cough was even more during night time. I lie down and I used to cough. So I stopped lying down. I was sitting upright till 2 am in the night just so that I didn’t have to cough. I knew that I had to take something with more of dextromethorphan since that would suppress the cough. Almost all syrups and cough tablets had this ingredient. I took the Tylenol syrup again which had a good amount of this suppressant. Then I messaged by cousin who is a doctor and she told me to take ibuprofen as a starter and an antibiotic if it persisted. Ibuprofen worked like a charm and I slept like a log. I followed the same steps as highlighted above for one more day and this time the coughing spell was reducing. However, this entire cough spell was now causing ache in the ribs and jaws! So I contemplated taking an antibiotic – Levobact, which I consider as a magic cough pill for me since it is very powerful and almost always works. But I only want to take it when it is too much to handle (like just before going to the doc) and this time, I felt it was almost nearing the end. So I saved it for the next time.

My wife hates cough too but she hates medicine even more. So she relies entirely on her own immune system to tackle and kill the evil aliens in her body. Usually she succeeds within a few days. But me on the other hand, rely entirely on allopathy, homeopathy, apathy, empathy, sympathy, whatever-pathy! It is more of a belief thing more than anything else. Like looking at a piece of paper bearing God’s photo and believing He is the Almighty. It is all in my mind that if I take something, it is going to solve the problem. And this medley of medicine-taking with its multitude of side-effects usually ends up in a battle one against the other and causes the ailment to prolong for over a week. I know that it is a brick wall but yet I keep going and banging my head against it.

Finally, after almost 10 days of non-stop medication, one fine day I stopped taking medicine and relied on the antibodies inside my body to get me back to normalcy. Couple more days of short bouts of cough and finally, lo and behold, there were Blue Skies all around.

Life like this, breathing with the nostrils effortlessly and mouth not barking like a dog incessantly, was unimaginable a week ago. Ah! What a joy it is! The joy of Simple Breathing…!!

The Addictions

It was a beautiful day. The time was about 7 in the evening. The breeze was soothing and gentle. The whiff of the air was relaxing. The Sun had not set still and there was sufficient light for us to see from our 3^rd floor apartment balcony the ducks and a dozen ducklings wading through the pleasant community stream. The ducks and ducklings gave tremendous joy each evening. It was now a family ritual to take in an eyeful of them each evening while we sat on the balcony for a few minutes. It was astonishing – and in a way disappointing - to see how fast the ducklings grew.

To enjoy this serene beauty, my wife and I called out to our 3 year-old daughter who was slumped on the couch with the iPad. I remembered that conversation I had overheard about someone’s grandson teaching his wife about how to use Kindle and how apprehensive I myself was then about Tontu not being able to do that because she didn't even have access to the gadgets. Well, she was now quite an expert with iPad and would have taught my mom quite a lot indeed! But alas, my call-out went unheeded. The game on that hand-held digital device was much more addictive to her than the natural beauty surrounding us in the balcony.

Now, who is to blame – if indeed someone needs to be blamed. Is it us parents, who have made these digital devices handy in the living room or is it her who has submitted her senses wholeheartedly to the digital world?

The iPad in our house is the most sought-after device. Sometimes I have felt like having 3 of them so that each of us in the house could use it at the same time! There was this one time when it fell down from about 3 feet and the screen went all black. It was like a full stop in the ease of access to the digital world! But when I googled, I came across this link and boy, were we grateful. A few pats on the back, and lo and behold, it was back in action. Then a few weeks later, on a hot day on our birthday we had visited a nearby attraction and kept the iPad inside the parked car and when we came back, it was all black again! I then read this article and was shocked to hear at the Genius Bar that I needed to spend $250 to get it replaced! I remember how we mourned for the loss of all those great pics still in the iPad gallery which were not backed up. The loss was unbearable. It just showed how attached we had become to it in less than 30 months. In 2012 we didn't even own it and life was still beautiful. So, just when we thought all was over, I came across this seemingly brilliant thread and again, lo and behold, after a few kneeling sessions on the iPad, it was back in action! So much for the “Genius Bar”!

Anyways. Back to our discussion in the balcony. It just got my thinking back to our own childhood lives and how we used to handle the outburst of technology. In the mid-90s, the Cable TV had started booming. I was in my High School and my brother was just getting into college. I must really appreciate my parents for being bold enough to go with the Cable TV plunge despite us just getting to the turning point of our academic life. I mean, it would have been a big decision for them at that point of time. Us being kids would not have thought much but now that I am a parent I am sure what must have gone through them then. They would have thought of spending that Rs 200 more every month and at the same time, it was more like a candy for the children than anything for themselves. After all, it was more Star TV with English soaps then than the regional ones that we have now. And at the same time, it was such an addiction that could have seriously hampered our education. And yet they went ahead and got it installed, with great confidence in us.

Even now I remember that day in April 1998 when SachinTendulkar was going ballistic against the Australians in Sharjah and I was sitting for my Board exams – an important turning point exam of my life. I could hardly concentrate on the studies when I knew such an important match was going right in the living room TV. And it was just not that instance. There were these Steffi Graf Tennis matches, umpteen just-released movies, MTV, WWF, Fashion TV and what not! My parents could have so easily got the Cable TV cut-off just so as to ensure I could not be distracted, just the way many of our relatives had done.

Many of our relatives had gone the off-air route for years now just so that their children can be rid off the TV addiction. What a great sacrifice from parents’ perspective! This was in mid-2000s and at this time there were great many really interesting regional episodes, something which used to make the then parents themselves addicted and yet, they had gone ahead and switched off the TV for good, for the sake of their children’s education.

So, which route is better?

As a parent, keep the ‘addictions’ near your kids and have enough confidence on your children so as to make them good judges themselves to know when to stop and when to use

OR

Keep the house completely devoid of ‘addictions’ whatsoever without even wanting to test if the children can exercise a good control on themselves.

I guess the answer becomes evident when the question is taken to the next level: When house is the world and ‘addictions’ are anything in this world to which a man can get addicted to…

The Lost Half Hour

Nowadays I usually wake up at 7.10 AM. But there was this one day when I had lots of work, and hence wanted to reach office early to get most of the work done before the usual grind started. So, I woke up at 6.40 AM which was a clear 30 minutes early. Very happy that the first, most crucial step (forced getting up) was accomplished successfully, I went about the morning routine in the usual gusto but with a slightly relaxed attitude since I was way early.

By the time I was done with breakfast, read the daily news, checked mails, and left home, it was 7.59 AM. Usually I leave home at 8.22 AM, so I was still 23 minutes ahead. I reached the BART station and waited for my train. The first train was so full that there were no seats to sit. I was so dependent on a seated onward journey, giving me just that wee bit of time for a short nap enabling me to be afresh for rest of the day that I skipped that train and waited for the next one. By the time, the next train came, I noticed with dismay that the time was 8.17 AM, just 10 minutes short of my usual train departure.

Over my attempt to get 40 winks, I heard over the PA that due to some mechanical issue, all trains towards SFO was delayed. When I finally got down at Montgomery and started walking towards my office, I saw the digital time hosted on Chase Bank office as 9.10 AM. Everyday, I would see it as 9.12 AM. By the time I reached my desk and saw the time on the phone, as I usually do, the difference between my usual arrival time and that day was so minute that it was, well, just a minute! [Now, that was too tempting a sentence to pass up!]

So much for waking up a full 30 minutes before!!

A Birthday Present

Once upon a time, there was a king called Bhu. He was like a dictator in the small town that he lived. Everyone in the town feared him. He had three wives. Undoubtedly married off against their own wishes by their fathers who preferred giving away their daughters to the King from whom they might have presumably taken huge, non-repayable loans.

The last of the wives could not endure and enjoy her life as a wife to this dictator, although she bore him 4 children – 3 sons and 1 daughter. And thus, one fine day, she chose an ill-advised 'different' path. Her daughter was then just 9 months old. Thinking what evils may befall on this female child without her protection, the wife decided to take this female child too along with her. Just when she picked up the infant and started, one of the older sons told the mother that he will take care of the female child while she finished ‘her business’ in the house backyard, not really knowing what his mother was up to. Something made the mother give the daughter to her son. 

This act of giving involuntarily symbolized the son to be the protector of his sister. That son did indeed take good care of his sister and she grew up to be a fine young princess. She got married to another fine young King called Vij and the two of them bore 3 children – 2 princes and 1 princess.

The princess differed from her parents in thought and principles. While the parents always thought (like Socrates) ‘Others first; Us next’, the princess always thought ‘Us first; Others next’. Yet, even with this basic difference in thought, the parents doted on the princess because, well, she was their only princess! And with this plethora of love & freedom showered on her, the princess grew up to be a very competitive young teenager. She particularly excelled in sports and had the traits of a 'Fighting Warrior'.

Specially notable was this last year in her college when she aimed for top 3 awards that the college bestows upon its graduation students each year: The ‘NCC Trophy’ for participating in NCC; The ‘Championship Trophy’ for indoor and outdoor sports; The ‘Best Girl’ who tops in all categories – academics, sports, cultural events, NCC, NSS, etc..  

To achieve this, she planned meticulously. She checked with her mentors about how many points she can get for what activities. And she depended even on others since there were games where she had to play ‘Doubles’ and even ‘Mixed Doubles’ to get points. So she enquired around and chose her partners carefully so that they were skillful enough to win each game she played. This was especially true to win the 'Triple Crown' award which is given only for First Place winners in any game in all 3 categories - Solo, Doubles, Mixed Doubles. The pure challenge of winning this award made her adrenaline pumping and hungry for success!

And to get the ‘Best Girl’ award, she had to not only win the Championship award but also participate in almost all extracurricular activities such as cultural activities, NCC, etc. She had confidence in winning in sports and singing and dancing, but she hadn’t enrolled herself in NSS and NCC. So she got enrolled into those too, and learnt the basics of knotting and using rifles – just sufficient to get a certificate. She was good enough to get the NCC Trophy for one of the categories.

The heat was on now for the Championship Trophy. She had won in almost all the games and the competition was almost feverish. Every day and every night, the tension was palpable! Each night she would sit and calculate the points, and plan for next day’s victories. During the last few games, she knew she had enough to get her through but still she fought till the end victoriously to ensure her closest competitor was sufficiently some points away. And thus, she got her second aim fulfilled – The coveted Championship Trophy!

Alas! Despite being in the top charts for all categories considered for the Best Girl, she was not chosen as the Best Girl. She was heartbroken. But she later came to know that, in the past, this award was always politically biased. She, actually, was never even in contention! And hence, the girl who was chosen for Best Girl ended up being good only in academics but with not much contribution in sports or other extracurricular activities.

Albeit this loss, the Princess who dreamed high and almost reached the stars ended up being the Girl with the most awards – with her name being called as the winner, one game after the other, over and over again during the College Day Awards Ceremony with resounding applause. To highlight her achievements in brief, she had won 3^rd prize for Group Folks Dance, 3^rd prize for Group Patriotic Song Competition, NCC award, Inter-collegiate Table Tennis Runner-up award, Indoor Games Champion award, Triple Crown award (for Table Tennis), 10 Second Prize awards and 9 First Prize awards in various competitions and finally even the Grand Championship Trophy award!

And thus, the walls are adorned with so many trophies that it occupies an entire unit! She might have been unlucky not to get the Best Girl award then, but she remains an exemplary achiever and a True Champion! So what if she didn’t get the Best Girl award then, she gets my ‘Best Girl’ award hands-down!! In retrospect, if King Bhu's daughter had not been saved by his son, the world would never have seen this champion nor would this story have been scripted. And nor would I have found my 'Best Girl'! 

For this Champion, who created history in JG College Hubli between the years 2004 and 2005, who persevered against all odds and came out with shining glory, I dedicate this (hopefully immortal) blog post as a humble birthday present, so that the epic success story can always be remembered with the same feverish joy which she felt when she received all those awards!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR!!

The Morning Blues

It is with great irritation that I get up every working day. As if blaming Nature as to why it became Morning so soon, why did Time run through the Night so fast, why did Man create the concept of 'Working Hours'. 

It is a great nuisance to see the alarm shouting. In fact 'nuisance' is putting it too lightly. 'Loathsome' is more like it. And this repulsiveness makes the body clock wary of the alarm clock, resulting in the body waking up just minutes before the alarm sounds, as if to declare its victory over the alarm clock and reduce the alarm clock's worthiness of living to mere nothingness. This situation of an 'automatic getting up' before even the alarm sounds is even more annoying. Like pulling out one's hair. Every working morning. Five days a week.

Then I thought maybe this is because I sleep late in the night. Perhaps if I had my seven to eight hours of night sleep, the morning blues will go away. So I slept early and slept fitfully all through the night. And yet, in the morning, the same feeling when I had to force myself to become awake. The same irksomeness while drowsily making my way to the bathroom. 

In that faded half-sleep, half-awake state it dawned upon me that sleep had nothing to do with morning wake-up part after all, if that wake-up was forced. It was actually unrelated to an extent. Forced waking up part was just plain irritating boneheaded feeling that will always stay irrespective of the quantity & quality of the preceding sleeping hours. Every working morning. Five days a week.

Maybe I should get into a job (or become my own boss!!) wherein I can go to office only when I want to go. 
So that I can wake up only when I feel like waking up. 
A world without alarm clocks. 

:-)

Evolution of "The Good Night Ritual"

About 12 months ago.

Me: "Good Night, Tontu!"
Tontu: "Good Night."
Me: "Sweet Dreams, Tontu!"
Tontu: "Sweet Dreams."
Me: "Sleep well, Tontu!"
Tontu: "Sleep well."
Me: "Don't get up in the night."
Tontu: "Don't get up in the night."
Me: "Get up late in the morning."
Tontu: "Get up late in the morning."
Me: "Ok, Tontu?"
Tontu: "Ok."
Me: "Good Night!"
Tontu: "Good Night."
Me: "Sweet Dreams!"
Tontu: "Sweet Dreams."
Me: "See you tomorrow!"
Tontu: "See you tomorrow."
Me: "I love you."
Tontu: "I love you."
Me: "You love me, Tontu?"
Tontu: "You love me."

Tontu was two years old & she was repeating my Good Night "ritual". Perhaps because she couldn't understand back then, she thought this was a tradition that needed to be followed before sleeping...

***

About 8 months ago. Sometimes.

Tontu ( addressing to me): "Good Night, Tontu. Sweet Dreams, Tontu. Sleep well, Tontu. Don't get up in the night. Get up late in the morning. Good Night. Sweet Dreams. See you tomorrow. I love you. You love me, Tontu? Hmm? Hmm? Ok!"

She had memorized the ritual and wanted to get it done with it in one shot!

***

About 4 months ago.

Me: "Good Night, Tontu!"
Tontu: "Good Night, Papa."
Me: "Sweet Dreams, Tontu!"
Tontu: "Sweet Dreams, Papa."
Me: "Sleep well, Tontu!"
Tontu: "Sleep well, Papa."
Me: "Don't get up in the night."
Tontu: "Ok."
Me: "Get up late in the morning."
Tontu: "Ok."
Me: "Ok, Tontu?"
Tontu: "Ok."
Me: "Good Night!"
Tontu: "Good Night."
Me: "Sweet Dreams!"
Tontu: "Sweet Dreams."
Me: "See you tomorrow!"
Tontu: "See you tomorrow."
Me: "I love you."
Tontu: "I love you too."
Me: "You love me, Tontu?"
Tontu: "I love you too."

She could understand what I was saying and she was actually responding back to me. Notice that my sixth and the last statements have now become superfluous.

***

Now. Sometimes.

Me: "Good Night, Tontu!"
Tontu (hearing me but looking at her mom): "Good Night, Mama!" Accompanied by a hee-hee!
Me: "Sweet Dreams, Tontu!"
Tontu (hearing me but looking at her mom): "Sweet Dreams, Mama!" Accompanied by a hee-hee!
Me: "Sleep well, Tontu!"
Tontu (hearing me but looking at her mom): "Sleep well, Mama!" Accompanied by a hee-hee!
Me: "Don't get up in the night."
Tontu (hearing me but looking at her mom): "Ok, Mama!" Accompanied by a hee-hee!
Me: "Get up late in the morning."
Tontu (hearing me but looking at her mom): "Ok, Mama!" Accompanied by a hee-hee!
Me: "Ok, Tontu?"
Tontu (hearing me but looking at her mom): "Ok, Mama!" Accompanied by a hee-hee!
Me: "Good Night!"
Tontu (hearing me but looking at her mom): "Good Night, Mama!" Accompanied by a hee-hee!
Me: "Sweet Dreams!"
Tontu (hearing me but looking at her mom): "Sweet Dreams, Mama!" Accompanied by a hee-hee!
Me: "See you tomorrow!"
Tontu (hearing me but looking at her mom): "See you tomorrow, Mama!" Accompanied by a hee-hee!
Me: "I love you."
Tontu (hearing me but looking at her mom): "I love you, Mama!" Accompanied by a hee-hee!
Me: "You love me, Tontu?"
Tontu (hearing me but looking at her mom): "I love Mama!" Accompanied by a hee-hee!

Now she was responding but instead of responding to me, she was playfully improvising her responses as if she was responding to her mother, just to irk me and getting humor out of it!

***

It is this development of brain which is so fascinating to see in a growing child on a day-to-day basis! Makes one's life worth living!!

The Power of Music

What is it in music that causes an ‘awakening’ of strange feelings? After all it is just a bunch of sound waves of different frequencies and different wavelengths – if I may put it lightly in a scientific way. And this ‘First principle’ of sound (that it is just a vibration) was jarred upon me when a family friend of us mentioned it matter-of-factly when we were watching a Carnatic classical music vocal concert.

A full fledged Carnatic classical vocal musical concert – as you may know – contains one or more of accompaniments such as violin, Mridungam, Ghatam, Flute, Veena, etc. in addition to the main artist’s vocal ability. When you break it down, it is all mere sound waves. And these mix of different sound waves (with differing frequency and wavelengths) bearing down in each of audience ears – when each artist gives out the best in him or her - evokes these strange ‘wow’ effects, these ‘shabash’ pat-on-the-back gestures, these goosebumps (check out the video in this link and the reaction by live audience) that finally culminates in an applause by one and all which is truly amazing!

And if it is not just about the ‘complimenting’ effect of the sound waves. Dr Kunnakudi had carried out a musical program to bring forth rain by the natural power of music. There was also an article I had read about how music was played to save a person from a fatal disease. With such powers within these ‘magical, mystical sound waves’, it is hardly surprising to note how easily one gets transported to a different era just by listening to songs of some movies – the ambience which would have etched into one’s memories.

In my case, to note a few, the moment I hear any of Hum AapKe Hain Kaun? songs, I get transported to a distinguished (full-blown) AC theatre in Hyderabad where I saw the movie with my cousins. I can still remember us in that theatre seeing the movie counting the innumerable songs. The same happens when I hear Taal se Taal Mila – the movie which some of us college friends saw in Abhinav theatre in Bangalore. Then there is Veer Zaara song. This always evokes the scene of me driving back from Niagara Falls to Boston because we colleagues heard them over and over. And then the Dil Chahtha Hai song evoke the memory of me trekking on the Kudremukha Mountain with some of my school friends. This is because we kept singing this song repeatedly while climbing the steep mountain amidst pouring rain. Each of these instances denote a different era – and however far the year goes back, the memory is always as powerful.

This theory got another dimension added when I saw my daughter listening to a particular song and reacting in a unique way. In most cases, she listens to the songs that we put in the house – be it Bollywood or devotional or Carnatic classical – and some of them she likes a lot (and she wants us to keep repeating) and the rest she just doesn’t seem interested so much – so she just carries on without bothering to listen nor ask us to stop playing. But there is this one song from Aashiqui 2 movie which automatically makes her cry – and cry real bad – whenever it happens to come on the TV. And it is not what she sees in the video of the song but it is the ‘song’ song which itself makes her heart cry out each time she hears the song. And this is the only song that she wants us to stop immediately it starts.

Once, we even experimented. She was in this real jovial mood and happy and rolling over with laughter. So we told her that we will put this song and that it was no big deal and she can keep laughing since it was just a song. She agreed. With this, I even kept her occupied with funny faces and making her laugh out loud when the song started. She was still laughing looking at me when the song was 5 seconds old and for a strange reason, she started getting tears in her eyes. She was still laughing. So I thought perhaps it was the ‘laughter tears’. Then she stopped the laughing and asked me ‘Papa, why are there tears?’ The song was now perhaps 15 seconds old since inception. That’s all. Then, all of a sudden, the dam broke and there she was wailing and crying her heart out. She ran away to mom and asked the song to be switched off. Just like other days.

Now, she hardly understands Hindi. So she does not know what is being sung. So it is not the lyrics. The experiment proved that it is not the video either, since she was not seeing the video when she started crying. It is the music and/or the way the song is sung. She is 3 years old and anyways - this is a new movie that got recently released, so there cannot be any 'bad memory' associated to this song. That leaves me with the ‘other dimension’ thought:

Assuming there is weightage in ‘Rebirth’ theory, can music evoke emotions from a prior life?

Boink!!

Health, Money, Life, Death

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered, "Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."

Sigh.

Parts of Eye

I was showing Tontu parts of human eye, and she was repeating after me.

Me: "These are Eyes".
Tontu: "Eyes".

Me: "These are Eye-brows".
Tontu: "Eye-brows".

Me: "These are Eye-lashes".
Tontu: "Eye-lashes".

Me: "These are Eye-lids".
Tontu: "Eye-lids".

Me: "These are Eye-balls".
Tontu: "Eye-balls".

With nothing more to show, I remained silent.
Then, she asked, "What about Eye-Phone?"

ROFL :-)

Pareontology

Parenting is a unique experience; Being a parent is a unique experience too.

There is subtle difference between the two. ‘Experiencing Parenting’ is what parents do until children are on their own. ‘Experiencing being a Parent’ is from then on. Parenting is giving unconditional love; Being a parent is to be, well, for lack of better words, taken for granted.

Our toddler already gives us cheeky responses. Suddenly, after last few years of unconditional love, getting back cheeky responses kinda makes one feel – a popular mega-serial dialog - “After all these years of love, after all I have done to you, after all the sacrifices – this is what I get?”

But then I think about my own life. How easily I have taken my parents for granted. How easily I cut them off, in an important discussion – making my own viewpoint as supreme. They treated me as if I was a young prince when I was young and, lo and behold, here I was, acting as the King – reigning over them! And to think, they would have spent the same countless hours and days and months and years, providing me unconditional love just like how I have to my daughter.

My parents recently visited me in US. In a small way, they were actually conscious of what I think about their paraphernalia. “What will our sons think of us in these shoes, these suitcases?” It jolted me that they were now actually concerned about my opinions about them, their stuff.

And then I saw around me – figuratively. This was the same with my brother. He too towered over my parents. Yeah, there was an undercurrent of love but on the surface, it was always – Do As I Say. I saw my wife. She was the same too. It was as if the tables had completely turned. She was giving advice to her mother – guiding her to do this, telling her not to do that. Her mother was concerned about what she was doing and hence consulted her children to guide her the right way. Remember the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? In a way, we are all growing old to become the children that we were, but the movie depicts the case of Button in true physical sense.

During my recent visit to India, I noticed my father interacting with his parents, and alternately, my grand parents' outlook of my father. Frankly - I was taken aback. In fact, there was no change in the way he was treating them for years nor in the way they regarded him. But, since I had recently become a parent, I was seeing the world differently. From my grand parents’ view, and how they would have treated my father almost seven decades ago - to now, when things had changed so much.

But then it is not easy to show the same kind of affection that parents show to their young offspring when it comes to offspring showing love to the old parents. For one lighthearted reason, the recipient is no longer cute!! But on a serious note, we adults just lose the patience, and the love we have for our parents just stays as an undercurrent ebb. 

I tried to change myself too, to step back and think about the immense affection and love that was showered on me when I was a small boy (something which I could never have done if I hadn't become a parent myself), just before I start ranting against mom for some silly thing that she would have done or was about to do, but I just couldn't. For me – and I am sure, like for all of us – a mother is a mother, who is there for us to ‘blast at’, and yet she will always be there, with same affection and care towards us.

And this is all around us. My friends, cousins, relatives – irrespective of age and generation. This metaphysical feeling of us adults getting the upper hand over our own parents – and it is the same case each time that will go on forever: Parents sacrificed years together to give unconditional love and affection, only to become parents when they were taken for granted, and got their quota of advice and brickbats and anxiety from their own children. Such is this naturally unique and distorted cycle of a common man’s life.

It is fascinating, in a way, and depressing, in a way.

At this juncture, I can’t help but remember this excellent, excellent video which pretty much covers whatever I just penned.

Sachin Tendulkar & Me

Once in a lifetime comes a man like Sachin Tendulkar…

The whole country, if not the whole world, is either talking or writing or seeing something about Sachin, and it is hard not to indulge myself into the heat of the moment. Well, what can one say, after so much has been said already by so many people. But then what I am writing now is not for anyone to read or anyone to rate my article. It is more for myself, as an outlet to the pent-up emotions of seeing Sachin go.

I am 33 now. One amongst the millions of Indians born in the 80’s to have experienced Sachin. 24 out of my 33 years have been embellished due to Sachin and it is immensely disheartening to see him go. My earliest memory of him, I guess like most others, is of that Pakistan match in Peshawar where he hit 4 sixers in an over of the famed Abdul Qadir.

During the early 90s, more often than not, India used to lose the match. India, although having had a World Cup victory in 1983, was still an underdog team and not as competitive as Australia or many other countries. And it was sad to see so many losses, consequently. And at this juncture came this 5’5'' man who challenged the monotony and tried to give hope to billions of Indians for an Indian victory in every match he played. And because of this, he became famous. I am not sure if he would have become as famous as how he is now if he had made debut now, when India is on a high and every player is a match winner. But this fact that when he stood alone when all around him wickets were falling down is what made him as unique as ever. In many cases, his score alone would be more than half of the entire team’s total.

Sachin, I came to know, wanted to be a fast bowler but was turned down, and he then took to batting. Despite his innumerous success with the bat, he even had the country rooting for him in 1993 when he took responsibility of bowling the last over to South Africa in Hero Cup Semi Final in Calcutta when the opposition needed only 5 runs to win. It was stunning to see him get India through to victory from the jaws of defeat even when he was not batting.

When he started, he used to come to bat at the death of the innings and he quickly became known for the extraordinary hitting, which was very much needed to win the match, considering the asking run rate to be hovering over or above 6.  So, one day in 1994 when I got up early in the morning to see India’s match against New Zealand, I saw Sachin batting and I feared the worst – that India was already 6 or 7 wickets down and it was still very early in the match. But I saw that we weren’t really so many wickets down and it took me sometime to understand what had happened – Sachin had opened the innings! And what a spell-bound innings that was! This was a brilliant game plan which I had never imagined could occur, but once I realized it, it made so much sense – especially with the 15 hour field restriction in place. If only he had started his career as an opener, he would have had so many more centuries under his belt.

And Sachin continued to cement his place in the playing eleven, for many years. By mid 90s, he was the pillar of the Indian cricket team. He stood constantly while the entire team changed year after year. The selectors only had to select the playing 10 since Sachin by default held his post with his consistency. Every match was seen because of Sachin. If Sachin was not in the game, the interest was halved.

As Sachin amassed century after century, a ‘Sachin century’ became the focal point. An automatic expectation came along with his entry every time to the pitch - a century was the least ask from him. In fact he became so consistent in his knocks that I started tracking his runs in every innings in a small piece of paper, to analyze it better. This was in 1998 and it was by far his greatest year since he amassed over 1800 runs in that year alone. And what I deduced from that small piece of paper stunned me. He was getting a century in every 3^rd innings in test match and 7^th innings in an ODI, and it kept getting better every match! So each time he came to bat, I was fervently praying for a century. He was easily breaking all records and I was eager to see him get to the top at the earliest.

1998 was a tough year for me since I was sitting for my 12^th grade board exams. Everyone knows what happened between India-Australia in Sharjah 1998. There was this semi-final on 22^nd April when Australia made 284 and India had to get a certain amount of runs to qualify for finals against Australia. With intense concentration and focus, Sachin ensured that India were past that score but a victory was quite improbable and even superfluous. And yet, Sachin continued to toy the bowlers and there was this amazing hit by him when Tony Greg, the commentator gasped “Sachin Tendulkar wants to win this match!” which sent goosebumps across the country. I can never forget that powerful statement. After this mind-numbing semi-final came the final on his birthday where again, he single-handedly guided India to a victory against a team that had not lost 6 straight matches in the tournament, and again with a brilliant century. These 2 consecutive centuries were the greatest ever I have seen. Added to this tension were the summer power-cuts at crucial junctures, the exam preparation. Boy, life was hard those days!!

The small piece of paper then became a full-fledged ledger where I started to track all his scores – both ODI and Test matches. Another thing I noticed was how well he used to play in the World Cups. His consistency (average) in the World Cups was unbelievable. When I noticed, he was already amongst the top 5 batsmen. So I started tracking this too in the ledger. I continued this for a long time until cricinfo took over! After the golden year of 1998, came some lull in the life as he encountered injuries, he took over captaincy and could not deliver much, etc. But the passion remained same, the expectation remained same. There never was a doubt that he will stop being part of the team.

1999 too was another eventful year. His father passed away when he was playing in the World Cup tournament. Despite this, he returned back to the team and made a wonderful 100 against Kenya. He also got his the then highest ODI score of 186 against New Zealand which was so good to see. In the same year, there was this brilliant 136 Vs Pakistan in Chennai which he fought so hard single-handedly to win the match but finally lost. This century was very poignant because he was in intense pain with his body and yet managed to get India so close to victory.

The same year saw Shoaib Akthar get Sachin out for a first ball duck in Eden Garden, Kolkatta. It was sensational stuff. But even in that instant, what stood out to me was not how he got out but how he acknowledged that good delivery by a slight nod of his head, an appreciation of what was plainly good cricket bowling. This would make the viewers want more of Sachin-Shoaib. Sachin finally got the better of Shoaib in subsequent matches. Individual competitions continued with old great bowlers and new ones boomed. With Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Muttiah Muralitharan and other great bowlers, it was a pure pleasure to see the battle, to see the game embellished by these legends of cricket.

And slowly, things changed, India changed, the team started winning more and more games, I got into college and then got into a job and then travelled abroad, but whenever there was a cricket match, I always looked forward to see Sachin and his score. This never changed for over 2 decades. It never needed to change. His dream of securing a World Cup victory finally occurred under the leadership of Dhoni (whom he had nominated to BCCI for captaincy) in 2011. Thankfully I was in India that year and followed all the games closely. In the same year, he hit a double century in ODI (first-ever by any batsman). A Sachin retirement was something I never thought about because it just didn’t seem necessary. As he neared 40, there were talks everywhere – media, office, press, etc – and it irked me as to why we were pushing the icon to think about it.

It is said that he has groomed so many cricketers who shared the dressing room with him which has made them better players. There was this interview with Aamir Khan where Aamir revealed how Sachin used to predict the bowler’s next ball. Boy, such insight would help any batsman in the team immensely. And this surely has made India a better team now. Scoring over 300 runs in an ODI was only possible if Sachin did 80% of the batting but now this is no longer necessary. If Sachin gets out early, it doesn’t matter much now but back in the 90s, most television sets will be turned off and few people would have even ended their lives if Sachin got out in a pressure situation in a tense match.

In the same interview, Aamir mentions how each of us felt happy when Sachin hit a four or a six. If Sachin hit a century, we felt as happy as if we hit a century. This is so true. When he struggled with pain, the country suffered with him. When he cried (which was so rare), the nation cried with him. And when he lifted his bat after each century and looked up at the sky, the nation gave him a bow.

He has hit a 100 hundreds. Although I am blessed to have been born in the same era as him, I have been very unfortunate not to have witnessed even one of those hundreds live in the stadium. The couple of occasions I did have the chance to shout ‘Sachin, Sachin’ in the midst of thousands of people in Bangalore stadium, he got out poorly. I don't blame him but my own fate.

His retirement from ODI last year was a mild blow and without much fanfare. It seemed the country was prepared for it for a long time and with so many mini-Sachins now, he wouldn’t really be missed. But these last few days, when the public knows they are seeing him for the last time in the international arena, everybody has gone overboard to make the farewell special for the greatest sport-star son of India. His own farewell speech [and the lap of honor (as well as his last walk to the pitch to pay respects)] was extremely touching when he thanked all those behind-the-scenes people who gave us the Sachin a billion Indians wanted.

I used to collect a lot of articles written on Sachin. We used to subscribe for Deccan Herald in the 1990s and DH always had great photos of Sachin hitting great shots, and those clips adorned my cupboard. Wherever I saw a great article written on Sachin, I used to cut it and put it in a file folder. Soon the digital world grew and there was internet full of amazing articles on Sachin, stunning clips of his shots and even videos of his great games. So I stopped collecting. But deep within, he was always near me. Like an extended family.

I may never get to meet him personally, he may never get to know me personally. For him, I will be just another fan like billions others and there are far better fans for him than me - like those who have fasted for him when he was batting, who have flown countries to see his batting live, etc. And today, when I watched him bid adieu to the game, my soul ripped. There was this huge lump in the throat. I was controlling, yes, and there were no tears but it just hurt. Just plain hurt to see him go, and to not see him again playing, to not see his name on the Indian scorecard. It isn’t the life that I am used to. I have never seen it before, and never wanted to. His retirement, although inevitable, has caused listlessness. I keep staring blankly as if life has come to a stop. His presence in the team made us all look forward to life, to his enchanting, invincible and impeccable batting. It kept us asking for more, hungry for more. His hunger for runs kept us hungry and increased our expectation on him. And now, there is nothing. A huge void.

Tomorrow, life goes on, as usual. People go to office, children go to school, doctors go to hospital. Sachin Tendulkar, for the first time will not be in the next playing eleven, he will be out of sight, and out of sight is out of mind - soon he will fade away into the past. But what he has given us in his capacity as an entertainer has surpassed all expectations and will forever be etched in our memory. Sachin Tendulkar has made our lives special – with us just being spectators, seeing him, the Master, like a Maestro, in action.

Once in a lifetime comes a man like Sachin Tendulkar…and the pleasure was all mine. 

From the bottom of my heart - a big salutation to the greatest batsman of my time. 

Amen.

Sigh...

I have never written about Sachin although had the urge to write about him so many times - like millions who have already done so. I was satisfied to collect all the writings about him but today, as I watched him walk back to the pavilion a few minutes ago, I could not stop myself.

Perhaps I will write in detail later about 24 years of emotional roller coaster but now there is only a sense of emptiness that can never be explained, a void which can never be filled.

Sigh...

Wishing on a Birthday

Since a long time now, it gives me immense pleasure to wish a person on his or her birthday. There was a time when I used to take great pains in maintaining important contacts’ birthdays. In high school, I started maintaining my friends’ birthdays in a self-created, calendar-sorted ledger. I kept updating this ledger for many years. I still have this ledger and it has about 500 odd entries although I do not update it any more.

It used to be fun checking this ledger for the next few days and reminding myself to wish the birthday folks. Since I kept doing this fairly regularly for a long time, some of the birthdays got etched into my memory, and I no longer needed a ledger to remind me whose birthday fell on which day. I could automatically wake up on any given day, check the date on the calendar and remember the person who had the birthday on that day. It was as easy as getting up on 6^th April and knowing that it was my mom's birthday.

Over the period of my life, when I moved out of high school to PU college to Engineering college to my first company and then to the second company, and then within that company started hopping from one project to the other, this list of folks whom I knew and whom I liked and whom I liked to maintain contact grew and grew. Yet I tried my best to keep abreast on the growing list of birthdays and wish people as best as I could.

In some cases, the only day I ever spoke to someone – like past friends such as high school pals, etc. - was only on their birthday, and this once-in-a-year remembrance, that too on their special day, made them extremely happy and surprised and truly gave them joy. And on other cases, especially the older relatives, people realized it was their birthday only when I called them up and wished! And in other cases, there were instances when the person knew it was his or her birthday but their near and dear ones – like their own children or those who stayed with them under the same roof - never wished them. So hearing wishes from a distant person gave them this inner warmth – and I loved giving this joy, loved making the person “wanted” on the special day.

Some people were so overwhelmed - some “are”, even now – that they used to ask me how I remembered, what technology I used to keep myself “informed”, etc. All I had then was a simple notebook where I had stored their birthdays. But since the notebook was becoming difficult to refer to every other day, I started to use the basic technology – such as using a Microsoft outlook reminder, mainly because I knew I would always open this one software almost every single day. I had the birthdays linked to my home outlook client which was configured to my personal email id.

Thanks to gmail, which gladly took an imported version of any outlook stored reminders onto its server, and correspondingly to me starting to own an android version of a smart phone, the reminders now pop up automatically on my cell phone.

Technology is great.

So, now to wish the person, the only way for me is to login to Facebook since I don’t have the email id or the phone number. It is so easy to accept friends’ invitation on Facebook thereby the person is just a click away, anyway. So I login to Facebook and go to that person’s profile. I see hundreds of birthday wishes. My wish, I know, no longer gives joy or that ‘personal touch’ it once used to. The birthday gal or guy will wait until the day is over and give a one-liner comment informing how special the day was with the countless wishes. I miss that joy I used to get when I used to wish and I used to be the only person to wish or one of the rare few to remember the special day. I miss the ‘personal touch’. I feel sad for my ‘birthday wishes’ to suddenly become so ‘tiny’ amongst hundreds of other well-worded wishes. I suddenly feel like how a retired person feels when he is sacked because a machine can do his job better.

Alas. Technology is great but it lacks the human touch.

There was a time earlier when I used to ask for contact's Birthday after I had become reasonably close to pop that question. Now, I don't bother. Not because I can obtain this information after the 'Friend request' is accepted in Facebook, but because - when I now get a reminder on the cell phone about someone’s birthday, I just hit the ‘Dismiss’ button and don't even bother wishing. 

So, for those of you who were used to it - after a decade of my wishes - if you don’t see any more from me, don't think I lost the steam - now you know the reason why.

Kapathaka and Thadigudi-Thadigudi

Kapathaka!

This is now her new byword for anything and everything. Did you finish your milk? Kapathaka. We laugh. She laughs. Later in the day - Do you want anything to eat. Kapathaka. We laugh. She laughs. She knows we will laugh, and hence she makes up these funny sounding words just so that we will laugh. She makes funny faces since she knows it makes us burst out laughing. She does something that she ought not to, and we scold her and she mimics the same back to us in her own funny way, which breaks down our singularly strict facial expression despite our great strength in holding the laughter back – and we all end up laughing on the floor. 

And so it goes on every day. There was a time once when I did not know the difference between baby, infant, toddler (and pre-schooler – this one I hadn’t even heard before!) So when someone once said that toddlers were fun to hear speak, it didn’t make much sense to me – mainly because my daughter was an infant then and it was fun to hear her speak (gibberish!) then too! Gradually I came to know the difference and I acknowledge this fact that toddlerhood is so much fun too. While being a baby gave its own share of joy, toddlerhood adds a flavor of its own - especially because at this age, kids tend to speak the way we adults do, and hence this “imitated adulthood” coming from a tiny tot – complete with mocked up facial expression and body-stance – causes an unmatched hilarity. 

Added to this, now that toddlers are exposed to the world and are able to grasp things around them, they can recognize patterns and come to conclusions without us telling them. Once, my little one aged 2 then, was able to see the McDonalds signpost far away while on a car-ride and said “Hi McD! Wait for me! I am coming!” And it didn’t end there, she then looked at Mommy and said “McD said ‘Ok, I will wait for you.’ Come, let’s go to McD.” [This reminds me of McD’s famous Baby Swing Ad] And then there was this one instance when I was wearing a suit to office and she looked at me and said ‘Papa, you look like Obama!’ So funny! 

Everyday has at least one such unique thought that is so genuinely funny. And I realized that this is just not my daughter. Every child at this stage of life is pretty much the same and exhibiting these innocent funny one-liners. I guess even we were all the same too at that age, except that now we are the audience! These constant humorous one-liners are so hard to track and record that we forget so much so soon. When I read her first birthday post, I realized I had forgotten so much of our life with her (like how she used to laugh when I yawned, etc.) And alas, this Kapathaka might also soon become a thing of the past. 

And if the sentences are not funny, the situation is. Like when I used to come home from office during lunch hour in the previous city, she used to see me at the parking lot from the balcony and shout out the news of the day at the top of her voice “Papa, I finished poop!!” ROFL!! 

Well, having kids is not always all fun and no fret. On the subject of poop, when we were trying to potty-train her and she was all nerve-racky about this drastic change in her lifestyle – from pooping in the diaper to pooping on the potty – she used to cry a lot and her voice had so much begging and desperation of not wanting to poop that we used to feel helpless. But then when there came a time when she no longer could control, she used to run – wanting to run away from parents, to run away from potty, to run wherever she could as long as she didn’t poop. But this never helped her, and I remember thinking ‘What do we do now – this baby we gave birth to has turned into a running shit-machine!!’ Thankfully this period didn’t last long, and she got used to the potty. 

The saddest point in our lives so far with respect to Tontu was when the surgeon took her into the OR to suture her fingers due to the unfortunate accident that she had had in February 2013. She was drugged so much that she was delirious and in her brimful state of falling into an anesthetic oblivion, she was saying “I love you papa, I love you mama” and waved bye to me and my wife while the surgeon carried her away in arms. No crying, no shouting. That scene was a knockout and punched us both hard in the heart and soul. It was a never-to-forget and hopefully never-again experience. 

Now, she is at that point in her life, where she knows what is hers and what is not. This is my ball. This is my pillow. When she was eating ice-cream, we told her "You have to share, right?" and got a spoonful from her. The next day when we were eating chips, she told us "You have to share, right?" and gave it right back to us! 

The “giving-it-back” in fact happened first when she was about 7 months old. She, being an infant, was playing with something that her mother took away. In a spurt of uncontrolled anger, she shouted at her mother, right on the face. This was the first time ever she had done that, and immediately my wife got tears in her eyes. All those months of love and suddenly this anger in return! It was a strange experience. 

Over the period of years, we got used to this attitude and it is supposedly normal behavior of all children – part of growing up. And yet, it hurts in the corner of the heart when she says "Papa, you go away. Only Mama should make me sleep". There I am lugging myself out of the room dejected, when my wife points out a baby center website link which shows the normal tendency at this age to favor one parent over the other for certain day-to-day actions. 

While papa is not needed to make her sleep, papa is needed to tell stories. It is to papa that every evening now, she comes running with outstretched hands on the station platform when papa returns home from office – much to the delight of onlookers – as if papa was coming home from an international flight after a month-long outing! And then the short walk home from the station constantly chattering "Thadigudi-Thadigudi" (another pair of strange sounds invented by Tontu) holding papa hands. This combination of “Kapathaka and Thadigudi-Thadigudi” gives as much joy to me as did the similar-sounding tales of “Chamataka and Doob-Doob” which I used to read over 2 decades ago! 

And for providing this constant fun and laughter for the last 1000+ days, here is another post dedicated to my dear Tontu as a ‘Birthday present’, wishing a very happy birthday and loads of fun and less of ‘Time-out’s! Today, October 11th, 2013 is a double whammy of a day for her – it is not only her 3rd year birthday but also the only day in her life when she is as old as the exact difference of her parents’ ages!! 

Thadigudi-Thadigudi!!