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…