stay away...you'll catch my life
Are lives contagious?
Do the lives of people around affect yours? Are success and failure, joy and sadness contagious malaises. Do greed, anger, loyalty and faith fall under this category of infectious ailments.
More physical occurrences, like laughter and yawning, have been researched to death and are, more or less, certified 'communicable'.
I have been quietly researching this phenomenon for a while now. And while some of my earlier observations were largely inconclusive, I have, in the recent past, been inclined to believe in the probability of contagious lives.
I have more than just a hunch in the matter. There's enough evidence for me to turn believer.
I assume the movements of celestial objects and/or the karmic cycle, have a part to play in this arrangement, my belief included.
My study on this subject is far from complete and the evidence obtained is still weak, but I'm convinced that I'm on to something.
Penguin, Random House, Longman, McGraw-Hill, single line please, no jostling. May the best bidder win.
la lune
i love the moon
on the night i was born, there was no moon in the sky
the moon is a natural satellite
man-made satellites orbit the earth at a distance of 35,790 kms above sea level
waves and currents in the sea are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon
the gravitational pull of the moon is 1/6th of the earth's g-force
dogs behave differently on full moon nights
dog has sixth sense*
humans have five, we rarely use more than 2 at a time
common sense is not so common
lunar eclipses are more common than the solar variety
in the Song Dynasty in China, when a lunar eclipse occurred, they believed that a heavenly dog was eating the moon
traditional Chinese, Mayan, Neopagans and Celtics made their calenders based on the phases of the moon
so did the Hindus, Hebrews, Muslims and Buddhists
i hate the way people perceive religion these days
hate a strong word
i'm trying really hard to erase it from my vocabulary
the vocabulary of an average person consists of 5000 to 6000 words
'average' is such a random concept, since most people are above or below the statistical average
statistics is an exact science
so is astronomy, not so much astrology
both talk extensively about the moon
quite a few people, including most conspiracy theorists, believe the landing on the moon was staged in a television studio set in california
i like to believe their version
i like to think of the moon as ethereal and unreachable
according to ancient physics, the upper regions of space were filled with a medium called ether
ancient physics is a lot more romantic than its modern-day avtar
i don't know any romantic who doesn't love the moon.
the moon is love
(* mithun chakraborty, an indian movie star, in some random movie, comes across this information in some book on occult, and reads it out to the audience. i have quoted him verbatim)
ch.ch.ch changes
I can't believe its been 5 months since i wrote. Anything. is been such a crazy 5 months, i will probably need a week just to think about all that's happened in this time. Following the move to delhi, my life's taken a 180 degree turn, and pretty much all good.I just noticed that everybody seems to be in the 'change' mode. Friends moving, blogspaces changing, some hating and alternately loving their new life, and some simply enjoying the bevy of surprises that their not-so-recently-adopted city throws their way. Way to go!
pills r us
I've always preferred the alternative over the ordinary. Be it art, or movies, or music or books. And now, this preference extends to medicine. I have discovered the joy of Homeopathy.
I have been suffering from a mild chronic illness for a couple of years now. It hasn't been alarm-raising. But the frequent resurgence has led to terrible irritation for me. And I've tried too many practitioners of conventional medicine. I have found myself agreeing with the American medical Association in dissing Homeopathy. What improvement could you expect if the medic dilutes his medicines in alcohol?
Indians are a little more open to alternative medicine. Agreed, Ayurved and Yunani medicine originated here. But how can you explain the wide acclaim of a branch of medicine that some 18th century German Doctor came up with. Quite a few Indian medics recommend alternative medicine for chronic ailments.
After speaking to my sister at length, I decided to give Homeopathy a shot. My sister's a dentist. She should know, right. Being from the fraternity, and all. While talking to her, I also went back to every instance of a relapse, and they all seemed to be stress-triggered. "I need a shrink more that I need a doctor", I joked.
I went with an open mind. The best part, as my sister claimed, was the doctor's demeanor. He was a kind man with a pleasant face. A great listener with a constant smile. He asked me if I'd ever tried Homeopathy before. When i said no, he went on to explain the science in lay-man terms. I got it. More importantly, I enjoyed my visit so much. I have never been as comfortable or as honest in any other doctor's office.
I am now a believer. And what is more, I've found my doc and shrink in one person. Most docs in India have what i like to call 'God-syndrome'. It probably arises from dealing with too many uneducated/uninformed patients. This makes them queasy if you ask them one too many questions about your illness. They also prefer not to go into detail while explaining your problem and the approach to the cure. I find that unacceptable. Which is why I've changed doctors more frequently than I have girlfriends. (O.k. Bad comparison. But it caught your eye, didn't it. After all the ranting about medicine.)
I'm in my first week of the treatment and I already feel better. It may be psychological, but do i care? I give a damn if all the doc gave me in those plastic bottles were placebos. I'll take feel-good peppermint balls over blockbuster pills any day.
Homeopathic Viagra, anyone?
another city, another life
So much has been happening in my life. There's the move to Delhi from Bombay. Separation from your hometown normally causes instability and some level of grief. But in my case, I feel the need to be outside Bombay, for a bit, to really crave the madness of the city. All through my adult life, I've had various stints outside the city and I've always felt my heart beat harder for the city after I've been out for a year or two. Any more, and I miss it too much.
In this process I've managed to make second homes of other cities. Pune, Columbia(S.C), Philly. I wonder how its going to be with Delhi. I've always thought of Delhi as a city I would never fit in. And this, despite being born there. Now, I find myself at this juncture where work forces me to move there. At least spend half my time in that city. Half my time would still be in Bombay. This is an ideal plan for me to feel the pulse of the city, which has so much more to offer than Bombay, as far as arts, culture and intelligentsia go. Its true!
In the past couple of months I have spent considerable time in the city and i realised its not as bad the un-hype. That's the weird structure of Indian metro cities. People from Bombay get along very easily with people from Bangalore or Chennai or Calcutta. It takes a little longer to let your guard down with a person from Delhi. I find this very misguided. I have been guilty of this to some extent, despite my gregarious nature.
"Beautiful city, crappy people", is the standard response I got, when I told people in B'bay that I was moving to Delhi. Not true. I have met a lot of very nice people, many of whom took their time to drop guard with B'bay people. "So, the feeling is mutual", I surmised. All very lovely people, i learned; in due course. And some very uninhibited free souls. Something I used to think was a B'bay/B'lore phenomenon. Now they're almost impossible to find in B'bay. I wonder how B'lore still manages to give birth to such gems. Must be the air, or the water, or the raagi.
There's this comment I've heard comparing B'bay to Del.
It goes:" Delhi makes everyone its own, But nobody makes Delhi their own. Bombay, on the other hand, resists everyone, but everyone wants to make Bombay their own."(Some of the punch may have been lost in translation. I apologise)
So, here I am, Dilli. Make me your own. I promise to try my hardest to return the favour.
anthem to anathema
"Indians are overly patriotic. More than necessary for their own good." That's from an international survey of patriotism. To use that, and tug at the Indian heartstrings for cheap commercial use is positively appalling. I'm talking of the latest series of adverts by mobile network giant Airtel http://www.airtel.in/jayahe/ .I hated it when they decided to precede every movie-screening in mumbai with the national song. Forced appreciation of the national anthem was never a good idea for me. I think the American national song has been grossly devalued ever since it has been rendered before every sporting event. All that pales in comparison to the Airtel campaign. I can't think of standing up to the anthem at every single commercial break. I've been guilty of changing the channel or hitting mute, to avoid the unnessary exercise. Shouldn't the Advertising agencies association of India be doing something about it?
best buddy's gal
I just came up with a hypothetical situation (a by-product of a near-lethal combination of weed and vodka)I'm doing dinner 'n drinks with a childhood buddy of mine and the girl he's started seeing/doing. See fusses over my eating and serves me super-size portions all evening. After about an hour of this I turn to my friend and ask "Is she this fake with you, as well?"There're 2 reactions I'm ok with.Reaction 1: My friend goes, " You have no idea......" and we laugh about it all evening.Reaction 2: Polite smiles/chuckles all around. After a while, the girl brings up my statement, pretends to take offense to it, and we go through a make-up routine, all in good cheer.Any other reaction, and I'd probably stop meeting that friend..I'm like this only. Mind it!
from cycling to other races
Everybody's a racist. O.K. Maybe racist is a strong word. Race-conscious is more appropriate. Its an inherent character trait of being human. I'm not going to shy away from it anymore. In India its more about caste/religion/language consciousness. But those are merely sub-sects of race-consciousness. Hey! maybe i should start an international cult called RACECON, like the much-maligned ISKCON(for the uninitiated - International Society for Krishna Consciousness..the hare-krsna guys). I think I'm on to something here.I grew up in a well-protected environment in Chembur, a quiet suburb of Bombay. My closest friends were 2 maharashtrian kids. I'm a south-indian. our immediate circle of friends had two Himachalis, one Christian, one Mangalori, one Gujarati, and a few Tamil kids(yeah, it was a south-indian dominated suburb). Me and my 2 maharashtrian buddies practically spent all our childhood in each other's homes. It didn't matter that our fore-fathers were from different parts of India. Yeah, we spoke different languages with our folks. But that was just some household thing. Different people speak different languages. Thats was just that.I was told that a Haryanvi Jat is all brawn and no brains. 'Never do business with a Punjabi, and most certainly, not with a Sindhi', they said.'They'll con you'. That Biharis are slime-bags. And Parsis are crazy. That Malyalis were horny. And Gujaratis lacked taste. And Bengalis would kill for fish and communism. That Tamilians are number-crunching geeks. That women from the north-east were easy to bed. It didnt matter if they were from Manipur, Meghalaya, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Nagaland, Tripura or Mizoram. 'Its all the same', they said. All untrue.But my race-consciousness was awakened.Then i went to the U.S. Now, my race-education was getting truly global. I was an East-Indian. There were the Native-Indians( we always knew of them as red-indians in India. I was disappointed i didn't see any tepees, though). I could successfully tell an Irish-American from an Italian-American. Then, there were hispanics and African-American. I could tell Jews from Baptists. And seventh-day-adventist. And Evangelists.All these factions just within America. It would take me a lifetime to talk about my education about the Greeks and Sicilians. And the Koreans and Taiwanese. And the Arabs. And the Japanese. And the Germans. And the French. Oh my god!I got back to India, and i see more people of international-origin than I've ever seen here. So now we have the Dutch, Brazilians, Poles, the French and Americans, right here in Bombay. And we know one from the other. And they know one from the other. So what's the deal with race. We created the nomenclature. We identify them. We like some more than the others. What's stopping you from joining RACECON. Join now for special early-bird incentives**conditions apply
