Blog or Blah..g

Blogging, I just sort of admire the word, it’s somewhat sounding action packed to me... like jogging. But when you say Blog it sounds like ‘blah’g… I don’t want to be doing that… but for all I know you might enjoy it if I do that.

According to Wikipedia, a blog is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order.

It also says that Blog may refer to:
Blog 27, a Polish musical group fronted by Tola Szlagowska
Alcohol, in science-fiction-fandom slang
BladeLogic, a software company with stock ticker BLOG
B.L.O.G., a 2009 album by rhythm and blues singer, Kandi Burruss

The fact is I know nothing about these last mentioned four things (I hear my wife murmuring that I know nothing at all about anything.) But I can check them out on the internet and probably write one blog each about them!

I don’t consider myself a blogger in the true sense of the word because my writing tends to fall out of the popular definitions of what a blog is. I don’t write tech news or reviews, I am not extravagantly enthusiastic on politics or celebrity gossip. I don't post videos from youtube. I don't write briefly. One paragraph would be serious and then the next one will make you roar with laughter.

Everyone writes for their own reasons... to share, to dare, to enlighten or just be noticed... for me writing is about learning more about myself. For me writing is a journey, to look deep within self. To entertain new thoughts that otherwise I never dare think.

For those who are unable to read the third panel I am giving below the content:

"Because they provide their frustrated creator with the delusional outlet of being a published author. Sort of like how the prison warden lets the psychotic inmate scribble 'poetry' on the cell wall so he doesn't beat his bunk mate with a toilet seat"

Over the last few years I would occasionally write some bit of nonsense and email it to friends. You know, like those jokes that are forwarded to a gazillion people.

Now in the blogs, I write mostly about my insights into life and definitely they are not short ones, at least not by Internet standards where 200 words are considered to be detailed; it’s all these little glimpses into my life and other people’s lives or their perceived lives… my thoughts tend to log in sometimes at the 800 word mark and mostly 600. You can’t read one in a coffee break in your office… after you read it takes a minute or two to digest, which is not the same with most other blogs (my humility prevents me from saying that mine are ‘thought provoking’.)

The problem with being a blogger is that you need a constant supply of topics, and then of course you need a fresh perspective on them. Then of course there are the days that you have zero inspiration or good ideas. Now let me explain this fresh perspective thing a bit. I used the word blogger in the first sentence of this paragraph. Why can’t 'blogger' be replaced by a 'bloggist' like essayist or artist??? Somehow blogger sounds like robber and beggar put together!

When I started a month and a half back to blog I demurred. I didn't really see the point. It would be time-consuming, non-paying (any publishers out there reading this? Let's talk money about publishing my blog entries as a book) and deadlines (even if they are only self-imposed ones) are as annoying as gnats… and the word deadline also sounds very ominous, boding evil. But now, after some 50 days, I realize that the self-imposed, gnat-like deadline has been good for me too. It's kept me writing, instead of what I truly excel at: procrastinating.

Genuine offbeat articles appeal to me; you got to be passionate about something outside the mainstream but manage to keep yourself mostly tethered to the “here and now.” The risk, of course, is what I consider offbeat could be really boring to the bloggees (mmm… I have coined the term for the reader of blogs… why not... like employer and employee or assignor and assignee). But, as a general rule, no one wants to be trapped at a party with a guy whose sole interest in life is collecting lampshades. So I write on anything that comes to my mind and encourage my readers also to be endowed a little with ‘out of the box’ thinking. I’ve found that folks who live at least a little “outside the box" and with offbeat thinking are more at peace with themselves and tolerant of others. Like ME!

This reminds me. Love of money is not the root of all evil, intolerance is. And people who don’t share my opinion are just plain wrong. And I don’t have to listen to them or respect them and they’ll never go to heaven when they die.

The bee's knees

When I look in the mirror each day, what do I see? I see every physical flaw (I can hear you saying ‘oh… not another blog on aging’ and let me assure you it’s not). I have crow’s feet around my eyes when I smile. I had a cowlick on the back of my head which made my hair stick out in the wrong place. I had hair that looked funny on the back of my neck causing the layering pieces to look like I had a ducktail.

Why it is that most of these problems are named after animals? Do crows have a problem of ‘Human Feet’ or cows have ‘Ducklick’ and ducks a ‘Man’s Tail’?

You would have noticed that I used the past tense for the last two problems pertaining to my hair. The reason is I could find an easy solution for them. It is called tonsuring. It provided solution to many other problems as well… baldness, graying etc. But let me hasten to say that it’s not a symbol of my renunciation of worldly attachments and esteem as the old scriptures dictate. I am not old enough for that!

Crow's feet are fine lines and wrinkles radiating from the eyes. I would call crow's feet "laugh lines" or "character lines," but these slightly more flattering terms or euphemistic way of saying still refer to the same, inevitable sign of aging: the wrinkles that begin to form at the outside corners of ones eyes when you hit your mid-forties. Anyway I have decided to call them happy feet. I am happy and many references say that the ‘crow’s feet’ appear more on people who laugh a lot.

Cowlicks appear when the growth direction of the hair forms a spiral pattern. The term "cowlick" originates from the domestic bovine's habit of licking its young, which results in a swirling pattern in the hair. Everyone has one such swirl at the back of their head. In Tamil it is called ‘Suzhi’… incidentally I have never come across an English word with the phonetic ‘zhi’ as in ‘kuzhi’, ‘chozhi’ etc.

I am digressing.

It is believed that the number of these ‘suzhis’ decide the number of wives you will have. One wife for each ‘suzhi’. My wife initially was worried. Then I annulled her fears by saying I never do the same mistake twice.

Now let me come to the ducktail part. It is a haircut style that was popular during the 1950s… the same time when ‘poodle skirts’ were fashion amongst young women (later being replaced by ‘flamingo skirts’ - again note that the names are after a canine and a bird!) Even after tonsuring my hair this problem continues as it is in the neck nape. Maybe I should look at growing a tuft – a ‘kudumi’ – to get rid of this problem! But this again is not to be construed as any renunciation.

Athlete’s foot is another problem I seem to have got after the recent rains. At least I am proud that it is an athlete that my problem name has taken after rather than a bovine or canine. And now for the title of this blog - ‘The Bee’s Knees’… It has nothing to do with any knee problem and it is just an expression or idiom for ‘Excellent - the highest quality.’ I just thought that it sounds appropriate with the content I had taken, though not connected. Humility prevents me from saying that my blog is in that category and yes there is a connection!

All these blabbering are meant to tickle your funny bone but don’t ask me where that bone is!

A MINOR problem!

Of late I have been reading about new words that are being included in the dictionary. Recently it was ‘UNFRIEND’ – the opposite of befriending someone. It’s the act of removing someone from your friends list in the social networking site. When you unfriend your friend, I believe the individual doesn’t turn into your enemy, but you temporarily shun him or her. NOAD has named it the word of the year. There are so many of us who would be wishing that some similar word would be there in a marital relationship – UNWIFE or UNHUSBAND. Instead of divorce one can look at a short while separation. A hiatus. A reprieve or respite.

Years back they replaced the word DISABLED with DIFFERENTLY ABLED. Similarly the term "MENTAL RETARDATION" acquired pejorative and shameful connotations over the last two decades and euphemisms such as "mentally challenged" / "intellectual disability” / "developmental disability" / "developmental delay" replaced it. So between the times I got married (25 years ago) and now, I have gained some respectability when my wife describes me to others.

In 1999 I underwent, according to the medical fraternity, a "minor surgery". I have to say I was deceived beforehand (yah… very appropriate to use this word since the ‘minor surgery’ pertained to my right hand!). No, I wasn't tricked by my doctor. He was great and told me exactly what it would be like. But I guess I didn't believe it would be that bad because it was just "minor surgery."

None of the medical people ever uses the word "pain." They always say, "discomfort." I learned that in medical terminology, discomfort is somebody else's pain. Similarly, "minor surgery" is surgery on somebody other than the doctor talking about it. And for sure I was a major by age then.

Here's my point: this stuff hurts. Minor surgery or Adult surgery. For the person having it done, there's no such thing as "minor surgery." So next time, be nice when your employee wants an extra day off after having his ‘wisdom teeth’ removed (probably we should find an alternate term for these teeth as well… it seems that the person is deprived of wisdom when they are removed!). Have a little compassion for your wife with the broken toe (I hope Nataraj is reading this). Don't laugh at the guy wearing the neck collar even if he looks like ‘Quick Gun Murugan.’

I'm urging everyone to stop using the term "minor surgery." I want it removed from all dictionaries and medical texts.

If it's so minor, why did they knock me unconscious with an anesthesia?

If it's so minor, why did my wife have to fill out more forms than when we bought our house?

If it's so minor, why did my wife have to sign something saying that I wouldn't sue anybody in case they accidentally killed me?

If it's so minor, why did they make me wear one of those gowns that you have to be DIFFERENTLY ABLED to close? (and after closing it with difficulty one finds something that's hanging behind DIFFERENTLY)

If it's so minor, why was a sneeze by me a major event in the surgery hall?

So, I hope you'll join me in getting rid of the word "minor" from the medical vocabulary. If you're not convinced by all of the above reasons, I think you'll come aboard when I tell you about the bill I received. After all, there was nothing "minor" about the bill. If it was so minor, why did I have to pay Rs 50,000?

The Saving Grace of India!

One of the reasons why our country has staved of any recessional crisis and remains unshackled is we have good reserve of bullion – 558 tons. Burying past shame of 1991, when India had to pledge 67 tons of Gold to Bank of England and Union Bank of Switzerland to supplement a poor Foreign Exchange Reserve of $1.2 billion, India recently purchased 200 tons of gold from IMF at a price of $6.8 billion, to augur its present foreign exchange reserve of $285 billion.

If you look at our country as a whole, I would say that our people have many habits but only one passion – SAVING. It has become a cult as well. Other people save too. But none like the Indians. We save as the Americans spend money based on their future income; as the Chinese cycle on streets; as the English queue up; as the Japanese work and as the Spaniards watch bull-fight. It is simply a passion.

The dream of an average Indian is to long for a lifestyle that’s unaffordable and then when they have the affordability, to starve. Not to be able to buy a car or build a nice home is frustrating. But to be able to afford it and yet save the money instead seems to be every Indian’s summit of ambition and climax of earthly pleasure.

Notional (mind you... it's not NATIONAL) enjoyment is the pinnacle of happiness. “You know what… I can buy an apartment costing Rs 75 lakhs and still afford an Audi car.” Being able to afford is as enjoyable as owning. Not only saving is a thrilling and exciting pastime, but also the ultimate goal in life. Indians would sooner forego their means to live than their means to save. An Indian looks forward to a retirement with huge savings as the final aim of his working life. He works in order to be able to stop working. He works hard throughout his life time to die with a huge bank balance.

And women out beat men in this game of saving. I and my wife agreed a couple of decades back that out of the family’s total earnings we will save 25%. Now with our earnings having increased some twenty fold (from a meager Rs 5,000/- pm to Rs 1,00,000/- pm), she magnanimously says, “we were earlier spending Rs 3,750/- pm, and now with inflation of last 20 years taken into account let us spend Rs 25,000/.” Indirectly she has increased our savings to 75% and decreased spending to 25%. If I question her prudence in foregoing little pleasures of life like travelling abroad, buying the latest gadgets for home or frequenting exotic restaurants for gourmet cuisine, the reply would be “...and now we're down to our last Rs Thirty Seven Lakh Forty Thousand Three Hundred Twenty One. We can't afford” (Ok... Ok... It's not rupees, it's paisa... I don't want my blog readers looking for a loan from me!)

As Andreas Capellanus said, “Even if the whole earth and sea were turned to gold, they could hardly satisfy the avarice of a woman... You can more easily scratch a diamond with your fingernail than you can by any human ingenuity get a woman to consent to giving any of her savings.”

For me I take the cue from P. J. O'Rourke who said “It is better to spend money like there's no tomorrow than to spend tonight like there's no money.” I also like what Colonel Sanders said… “There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there.”

The Art of Conversation (or do I call it The Art of Silence?)

My wife hates it when I use examples of our life in my writing. This makes writing a bit difficult since the majority of my life is spent in her company and things that I want to write about happen in her presence. Occasionally I’ll write about it anyway and think, “to hell with her grumbling!” But these days I carefully edit out any reference to her existence. But it’s awkward at best.

Not this time though. I’m not going to back down from writing what is on my mind at the moment. Perhaps my defiance is simply the residue of yesterday’s anger…but I think not. It’s probably just an apology…but in a more comfortable format J

My day had been relatively uneventful and therefore, I was in a pretty darn good mood when I started writing a blog. I cleaned up a bit in the kitchen, made myself a cup of coffee, some porridge of oats and then turned on the computer. In other words…my typical routine. As I was pouring myself a fresh cup of coffee a bit later on, rolling ideas around in my head for what I was writing, my beloved mate arrived home. A bit distracted with my own thoughts, I greeted her and began walking back to the computer.

My wife had assumed because I was standing in the kitchen at the time of her entrance, that I was available to listen to her speak. She is a multi-tasker… I am not. A part of me did hear the words and then stored them for processing at a later date, because I can give you the gist of it even if I can’t remember the particular names of the persons involved. It had to do with a friend she hadn’t seen for eons and who had suddenly died.

The tale seemed to conclude around the same time I sat back down in front of my computer. At least, my wife concluded that it did since she retreated into a sullen but oddly palpable silence. Ironically, this silence did to me what her previous words did not. It got my attention. To give the devil its due, I should say that she attentively grabs every word of utterance however drab it may be. I do not boast of that talent. There are really only two occasions when conversation was frowned upon by my wife. One was when the television was on and the other when she was reading a book. Other than that…you were fair game.

Even on the phone…she could talk to virtually anyone. In fact she did once. I remember one afternoon she hung up the phone laughing and told me she’d just had 10 minute conversation with a woman she didn’t know. They were enjoying the conversation so much that it had taken them both that long to realize she had dialed the wrong number.

According to her, it was rude of me to walk away in the middle of a conversation yesterday. At the time, I was far too angry to see things from her point of view…but I can see how if you assume we were having a conversation, my behavior could absolutely be considered rude. However, I don’t believe we were having a conversation…which started me thinking…

While I can’t claim to be an expert on conversation, relying on others to philosophize on its roots and its effect on society as a whole, I’ve participated in quite a few. To be fair, our conversation always used to be a debate than… mmm… a conversation! My wife is very skillful at maneuvering me into unwittingly taking the opposition in any discussion, so it was always a lively affair.

According to some experts, the art of conversation has been dying for a long time. The Victorians blame it on the lack of reading habits by the younger generation. I should agree with that when I consider my son. Any question to him again comes back to you as a question.

“What happened today at the college?”

“What do you expect to happen?”

“Did you have a good time?”

“In colleges do you have a good time?”

“Did you meet Michael and discuss about his New Zealand trip?”

“Was I supposed to?”

“You mean both of you travelled by the same bus and you didn’t check out?”

“What is there to check about?”

“Will you change your uniform and watch TV?”

“Now it’s just 5 in the evening. Can’t I do it after dinner?”

I would blame it on radios and televisions also for obvious reasons. And as if these were not enough to entertain us, we now have the computer, cell phones, Ipods, Blackberries, Wii and Xbox. So many distractions but still only the same twenty four hour period in each day to make use of them.

Something had to suffer. CONVERSATIONS.

What a different world we live in today than even a forty years ago. Some of my most treasured memories are of times spent with my friends in open grounds after the college or in the kitchen with my mother. To me…that is the heart of conversation…an intimacy between two or more people that no amount of texting can accomplish.

So are we in danger of losing the art of conversation? I don’t think so...it’s changing, but it’s still there. Countless chat rooms have been created just so people can connect verbally in a textual format. There are talk radios and talk shows. My ex-colleague Manisha used to spend a lot of time bantering back and forth with her friends on a pink Sony Ericson. Everyone still has something to say judging by the trend to blog or write on innumerable subjects.

What I believe we are in danger of losing is the human element in conversation…the intimacy of it. There’s so little time to communicate face to face…that when we do get the opportunity there’s a tendency to forget that a conversation requires both a speaker and a listener equally exchanging ideas. In the case of my wife, this simply wasn’t true. It was just that I was preoccupied.

What do you say Lakshmi… do we curl up on the couch and talk about it?

The Child is Father of the Man

This blog is about my son - Prashanth. Wordsworth in a poem said “The Child is Father of the Man”. There are different meanings attributed to this sentence. I think he meant that even as an adult, there are many lessons we could learn from a child. It means a child teaches the father with its own innocence and its intelligence (and also probably thru’ its stupidity!). Throughout my life, this quote from Wordsworth revisits my mind at unexpected times to remind me about the weight of that poetic insight.

This morning just before he left for the College, he was frantically searching for something. This is nothing unusual since he is accustomed to misplacing things and searching for them endlessly. My wife, with the intention of helping him, asked what is that he is looking for. His ego didn’t allow him to admit that he has misplaced something. So the answer was ‘Nothing’. Again when my wife was persistent in her query, there was an irritated and emphatic ‘NOTHING’. My wife decided to assist him by joining him in his search. By then he was so furious, he glared at her (like Shiva opening the third eye) and said “I am looking for NOTHING” and left for the College.

I was mulling over this ‘Nothing’ incident and it struck me that probably every one of us in our life is chasing and looking for this ‘Nothing’. I remembered the ‘Chidambara Ragasiyam’ (for those who are non-Hindus and who do not know Tamil, it is ‘The Chidambaram Secret’ meant to reveal the meaning of life in the famous Nataraja Temple in the city of Chidambaram in Tamilnadu). It is an empty space you see in the temple and this ‘nothingness’ is supposed to be the secret or meaning of life.

Similarly during my father’s death ceremony, seeing and hearing about the various rituals, which were to our convenience (and also to an extent to the purohits’) truncated or diluted or modified – Prashanth said, “Daddy our Hindu rituals are like the open-ended Linux Operating System where the source code is free and we can modify it to suit our convenience and comfort”. To ensure the passage of the soul during its voyage to the Otherworld, an eleven-day ritual called shraddha is performed. The moot question (Moot? or Mute?) is whether shraddha (dedication) is there from all quarters concerned?

Another incident to exemplify the prophetic poetry line happened 15 years ago. I bought an apartment in Nungambakkam and the builder was carrying out some final embellishment work in the kitchen. A few granite and marble chips were lying around and Prashanth picked up a few for playing. One day my wife while in the mood of cleaning spree (it’s occasional that she gets into such moods!) bid farewell to those stones and chips. Prashanth, being a 4-year-old then, threw tantrums that evening. My wife, unable to control him, shouted that they were just sand and stones and his attachment to them is meaningless. Something struck me then. Are we, the grown-ups, any different? Having attachment to the material things in this world including the house constructed of sand and stones…

You can't come and go at will. But at least you can laugh at will!

After my dad’s demise I was thinking about my next 21 years. Why 21? I had asked for a Life Insurance Policy a few months ago. After checking out my health condition, habits and some questions on parents’ health, the agent deduced my life expectancy and gave me 21 years. I should believe him since he is literally betting money on it – selling me an insurance policy.

But sometime back when I came across a self-testing quiz with a title that made it impossible to ignore – “How long will you live?” – I found that, according to the test, I died a year ago. This was after checking out many personal facts and lifestyle status. Longevity of my grand parents / parents, health of my parents, how much I smoked, drank, slept, exercised, weighed etc.. etc. When I shared this info with my friend he said, “Nonsense. Only the good die young.”

Anyway I do not believe in these quizzes and ignore them mostly. They are mostly titled “How happy are you?” or “Are you prone to heart attack?” or “Will you succeed in your love life?” When you add up the points based on the answers and look at the result, it will say something like “You are a very sad person and you will soon head towards the railway tracks to end your life” or “You will not only have a heart attack but also paralysis, stroke and hemorrhage”

So let me go by what the insurance fellow said… 21 years. Also the prediction in my 'Naadi' (the palm leaf script written by rishis and saints) corroborates this - I will live up to 75. Ok. Now I have to gear myself up to face this excruciating, painful 21 years. Why excruciating and painful? Because I'm graying, getting overweight (in spite of walking / jogging for an hour everyday and doing yoga for more than 15 mins) and almost 55. Because I'm slowing down, and time is speeding up. Because aches and pains aren't much fun. Because getting wrinkles along with a bigger belly (in spite of blah… blah… blah…) isn't much of a laugh either. Because I make a shopping list knowing that I can't trust my memory. And because, those mirrors are getting downright vicious everyday!

Consider this birthday card I received 4 years ago with the message: “Don't worry, 50 is just a number...and the Titanic was just a boat...and World War II was just a misunderstanding.” A subtle way of reminding me that I am going down the hill. And surprisingly I laughed rather than worrying.

So other than avoiding mirrors and carrying the grocery list in my pocket, I decided that the best way to cope with the aging dilemma is to retain my sense of humour. So I started collecting some funny quotes on aging.

"You can only be young once. But you can always be immature." Dave Barry (1947-) American humorist

"The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age." Lucille Ball (1911-1989) American actress

"By the time you're eighty years old you've learned everything. You only have to remember it." George Burns (1896-1996) American comedian and actor

"Old age is when you resent the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated because there are fewer articles to read." George Burns

"If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old." Edgar Watson Howe (1853-1937) American journalist

"He is so old that his blood type was discontinued." Bill Dana (1924- ) American comedian, actor and screenwriter

"I'm at the age where food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact, I've just had a mirror put over my kitchen table." Rodney Dangerfield (1921-2004) American comedian and actor

(If you are under eighteen, please skip the next two paragraphs)

Talking about old age sex, my friend Nataraj shared a joke this morning. An 80 year old man asks for Viagra and requests that be split into 4 pieces. The pharmacist hesitantly explains that the effect will be minimal for which the old man says “Otherwise when I pee it drips on my shoes.”

On similar lines I have this following joke to share. A 90-year-old man was getting a pre-marital check-up and told his doctor he was preparing for his marriage to a beautiful 19-year-old girl. After an extensive exam, the doctor shook his head and said to the man, "I'm not sure this is such a good idea. It could prove fatal," to which the man replied, "Well, if she dies, she dies."

After a few inspiring words from George Burns or Edgar Watson Howe, and after developing that sense of humour in life, even that old buzzard I see in the mirror is starting to look chirpier. So hurrah… I don’t have to avoid the vicious mirror anymore. Can anyone suggest a solution to the grocery list problem?

Requiem for My Dad

I lost my father last Saturday. I'd like to dedicate this blog by offering some personal THANK YOUs to my Dad, as if he was here, listening. I would have written a song or hymn about him but I realised that I lack that talent.

THANK YOU for being my Dad, and for putting up with me when I was obnoxious, as I surely must have been, as an immature child without understanding you (sometimes I feel that I didn’t understand you even in your last days).

THANK YOU for being my first rhyme teacher, my first writing teacher, and my first teacher in the art of living with passion (enjoying food, dressing etc. and leading a superb lifestyle).

THANK YOU for being a perfectionist and an experimenter – who can forget that you employed an architect way back in 1970 to build your bungalow or insisted on having a Bay window when the concept itself was unheard of or placing a hatch from the kitchen to the dining hall or putting up a sand pit for children to play.

THANK YOU for sharing your love of music and violin playing and for being instrumental in me learning this great art and for exposing me to western hobbies like gardening and mushroom cultivation.

THANK YOU for being the one in our family who didn't criticize or ridicule other family members behind their backs (in spite of having to shuttle between different homes at a very ripe age, I had never seen you complaining about the food others made or the way they treated you).

THANK YOU for teaching me to be myself by being yourself.

THANK YOU for your tenderness, your toughness, your brilliance, your gentleness, your wisdom, your outrageousness, your courage, your intensity, your contradictions, your humor, sometimes your unreasonableness (all these seasoned me in life) and your unquenchable sense of trying out new things.

THANK YOU for taking care of yourself, even though it sometimes was misconstrued for selfishness by me, because taking care of yourself is the best gift you could have ever given me.

And now on death. Someone said "A painless exit is an index of how moral and helpful your earthly life has been." If I go by that both my parents had led an exemplary life.

Death makes you dive deep into parts of your soul where you don’t tread much. My father must have intuited his death timing. Which is why, according to my sister, he was talking a lot (a day earlier to his death) about many happenings in his life.

In the years before this day, due to a razor sharp mind in a fragile body, he had often asked if there was any way we could help him to live longer. He often suffered other health problems as a side effect of Parkinson’s disease. However, he was a happy and friendly man, who still enjoyed life’s good moments, family events, parties etc. He lived life to the full. When he went to a party, he exhausted himself so much he often had to “pay” for days afterwards.

I am sure he at one time had feared the anticipation of this great last step in life, but he died in peace, happy and content and grateful.

I hope I will one day be able to die up to his and my mother’s standards, in dignity. I hope my family will remember me for a few good things I did to them. A good death is like the final chapter of a good book: it wraps up the story of ‘life’ with panache, is physically, emotionally and spiritually satisfying to the author (the deceased) and the reader (kith and kin), and leaves no loose ends to be explained in a sequel.

If I go by this analogy of life to a book, I would like to read the last chapter of my book now. I would like to know when and where the chapter ends (though it is my book, someone is writing it!) and probably what the readers think about the book… my life. I know that predicting when and where of my death is impossible. A couple of years back I read the following.

“We regret to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, the publication of The Astrological Magazine will cease with the December 2007 issue.”

Any comment on this is really superfluous.

But I would welcome some Epitaphs from the readers of my book. It would be great to know what people think of you when you die, when you are living!! If this sounds outrageous to you, that's okay. It is outrageous, especially when you consider our culture's pervasive denial of death.

Life is outrageous, and death is part of life. So some Epitaphs please!

GDP - Gross Domestic PROBLEM

A week back the paper said that Gross Domestic Product is under control and rising. Also there was a mention of GDP crossing 6 points in 2010. It said that last month's CPI(UNME) for all items, less food and energy, was up. I was ecstatic, even though I had no clue what CPI(UNME) meant. It sounded like some pill that I have to take for my HDL and LDL/ VLDL ratio control. (If you are wondering what this gibberish is, please refer to my earlier blog titled Medi‘SIN’.) In any case, I later found out that CPI(UNME) meant Consumer Price Index for Urban Non-Manual Employees.

What do all these mean? It means that the economy is back on rails. But that worries my wife. She would always buy only stuff that was on sale. When recession was showing its ugly teeth, only one soul was jumping in joy. That’s my wife. She saw the doors swing open to a discounted world. Everywhere the sale was happening. The speed with which she accumulated things (I would term them crap or trash) was amazing. Did you know there's a Plantain Fruit peeler that was available just for Rs 100? And would you believe that it's easy to find something like that on sale?

During recession every shop was putting up a sale. Buy ONE. Get FIVE… Buy a pressure cooker and get a HOUSE free! (yah… why not? With all the accumulation of junk, you sure require a separate house!)… Buy FOUR tyres and the CAR is free! … Buy a car and the petrol is free for lifetime!

One such deal that my wife couldn't pass up was FREE tickets for a Consumer Exhibition that was happening some 50 kms away from the city one weekend. So we woke up early on Saturday and drove down to the exhibition. Of course, a ticket normally costs Rs 50 per head. And after saving our Rs 100 in tickets, we spent Rs 3,000 on what I call junk and probably Rs 500 on petrol. And now you know where that Plantain Fruit Peeler came from. I do not know what a Veg-Gratero-Choppero-Scrapero is, but I am relatively certain we did not need it… that too when it costs 400 rupees. She even actually got to buy a cream at a 90% discount that can set a man’s hair to give that fashionable wet look. She bought it for me. She still owns that product, with the vague hope of me growing my hair back. (Incidentally people who know me well know that I sport a clean tonsured head for the last 3 years!)

But with the receding recession, the Off Sales are off. Durable-goods discounted sales are off (but now tell me what constitutes a durable good? And is a durable good the opposite of a perishable evil?) O.k... O.k.… I am digressing. The fact of the matter is that all products henceforth will be available without offers… at their normal undiscounted prices. SN(FWF). But GN(FMF)... Sad News (For Women Folk)… But...

Now I know that Economic Uncertainty (polished word for recession) is the equivalent of existential angst for men folk like me! But after the lessons I have learnt this time I will refuse to be UNCERTAIN next time my wife calls me to accompany her for a sale. :)

Medi'SIN'

I just remembered an old Tamil movie in which Thengai Srinivasan says that we gobble up medicines like CroCIN, TerramyCIN, AnaCIN and GlycoCIN only because we have committed so many SINS in our life. If I agree, I am probably the worst SINNER in this world… or should I say that I am the best (don’t you think that in the sinner category the worst is the best or best is the worst?).

About a month back when I took the most advanced, latest HbA1C test to check my Diabetes level it showed NORMAL. I went to see my doc with glee but he insisted on me taking the regular Fasting sugar level and Postprandial Hyperglycemia. In that report there was some little skewing of those numbers. Now it was the Doc’s turn to be in glee. He is one of those who belong to the old school of thought in the medicine world. Phoo phooing the modern techniques he declared with triumph that I am a ‘Border Case’ diabetic… neither here nor there types. But nine years back I was a confirmed diabetic and thru’ regular exercises and strict diet I had managed to keep the disease at bay. But now the medico is saying I don’t belong anywhere. I am upset because I want to belong to one category. I don’t want to be like a member of the third gender… hijra… when it comes to diabetes. I’m sure that I don’t want to be abnormal.

Now let me come to the Cholesterol Test. The cholesterol ratio is normal… as per the report “accurately quantifying the HDL and LDL/ VLDL in 20uL serum in 96-well plate the HDL and LDL/VLDL assay, is in the normal range – less than 0.3.” Again the doc started with ‘BUT’. “But your individual HDL level – GOOD Cholesterol is low and it is a cause for concern.” I didn’t know what to say. Never knew that even cholesterol is categorized as GOOD and BAD just like human beings. Probably they also SIN to various levels to be classified like this.

As Martha Bolton said “you know you are getting old when… you start buying Geritol by the six-pack”. In my case it is GlycoSIN and AtorvastaSIN : )

Coffee, Tea, Me

It is 6.00 in the evening and I am having my fourth cup of coffee. Coffee as coffee. The reason why I am saying coffee as coffee is that it has become a much abused drink these days. Most of the parlours give you so called exotic varieties in coffee - espresso, cappuccino, mocha and so on. As Denis Leary said you can get every other flavour except coffee-flavoured coffee! For instance do you know the difference between a "Flat White and a Caffe Latte?" Honestly I don’t… even after drinking them :)

There are consumers who are always ordering mutant coffees with names like "mocha-almond-honey-vinaigrette latte-espressacino"... beverages that must be made one at a time via a lengthy and complex process involving approximately one coffee bean, three quarts of dairy products prepared from what appears to be a small nuclear reactor.

The reason why I need coffee is that it contains caffeine, which makes me alert. Of course it is very important to remember that caffeine is a drug, and, like any drug, it is a lot of fun. Bob Irwin said "Decaffeinated coffee is kind of like kissing your sister." I agree and if it’s decaffeinated, I would settle for some other drug – opium, heroin…

I can do nothing useful before I've had several cups of this magic brew. (I can't do anything useful afterward, either; that's why I'm writing this blog.) The Kumbakonam (City of Temples in Tamilnadu) Degree Coffee is the best. That too when it is served in Pithalai (Brass) Tumbler and Davaraa (saucer like). Some time back in one of the MNC offices I got my coffee from a vending machine that also sold hot chocolate and noodle soup; all three liquids squirted out of a single tube, and when I tried them individually they tasted pretty much the same. Abraham Lincoln is credited to have remarked “If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee”.

This specialty-coffee craze has gone too far. I say this in light of a news item I read that there is an expensive coffee by the name Kopi Luwak. It states that this coffee is named for the luwak, a "member of the weasel family" that lives on the Island of Java and eats coffee berries; as the berries pass through the luwak, a "natural fermentation" takes place, and the berry seeds -- the coffee beans -- come out of the luwak intact. The beans are then gathered, washed, roasted and sold to coffee connoisseurs. I will be the last person on this planet who would like to pay a lot of money for coffee that has passed all the way through an animal's digestive tract. In case any one of you readers have tasted this excreta coffee… ney… exotic coffee Luwak, please enlighten me about it!

Upgradeitism – Spreading new epidemic

Chikun Gunya, Swine Flu etc look pale compared to this new disease. The reason why I am writing about it is my son has recently caught this dreaded disease. The symptom is a burning need to spend money on a perceived better product and it is usually accompanied by feelings of emptiness and dissatisfaction until this is achieved. Disappointment or dissatisfaction with ones current equipment coupled with envy over the new equipment of someone else is the reason for this epidemic. If treatment is delayed the results can be serious, often your brain ceases to work. Also sufferers sometimes subconsciously damage their existing gadget… they don't realize they are doing it… but the "well it's broken so I need another (better) one", often seems a plausible excuse. The only remedy to this disease is a medicine called Ostrichet – It requires that you keep your eyes closed when TV ads are on… that you don't read any ads in mags or paper… you don’t visit your friends or relatives who often seem to be catching this malady!

M‘AD’ WORLD

A few days earlier I started feeling a bit guilty about being in the ad industry for over 24 years now after seeing a blooper. Today I'm fully fledged. This is incredible. So called big agencies are big blundering. The first goof up was the Domex Toilet Cleaner TV Commercial. The sign off said something like “Kills all known germs dead”. I wasn’t clear whether they were making things doubly sure. My brother quipped that the agency was committing suicide by killing themselves! President Bush is quoted as saying, "I'd like to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave, with all five fingers, for their hospitality." Compared to the Domex ad sign off, Bush sounds very intelligent. Today I saw the Saint Juice TV Commercial. Again the sign off baffled me. ‘Juice - the way God wanted it to be’... I thought God intended only fruits to be there in this world!