Chamber of Horrors

It’s a lifetstyle choice I guess….gymming I mean…but then what on earth is face-firming? Whatever it is, when the VLCC gym tells you that you have earned yourself a free session of face bloody toning thanks to your sweating it out at their gym, you feel happy, you smile…you don’t think about what exactly it is as long as it is free….

That’s what I did too….

These rooms where they work, they are carefully designed to create an enigmatic atmosphere – soft music, dim lights, tasteful pictures, mysterious oils, the works…so I popped in merry & bright, happy and eager for my free “face-toning” session…

A regular facial accompanied by a 15 minute lecture on benefits of face toning, a patronizing speech on why VLCC is so much better than the others and a super-aggressive sales talk with a fast and furious promo on their products…..well, cant really blame them, I was captive audience after all, right?

So far so good….

The lady then casually announces in her rehearsed tone that she’s going to switch on the “battery current”… “It may sting a bit but its only for a while”, she says…

Problem - “Sting a bit” turns out to be a feeling as if someone is turning your face inside out and setting your nerves on fire…worse still, it gives you a tour of the neural network on your face…literally!!!…a forceful, wrenching tug tells you what is connected to what in your face with vivid clarity, all thanks to the harmless “battery current”…it pulls on your jawbone, and you can feel the unbearable tug right from the nerve on your temple and you realize – hey!!! THIS is how my face is wired….it pulls like a stinging wasp on your chin and you can feel it from the base of your throat and you begin to realize that there are actually many nerves connecting these two spots….its pulls on your forehead and it dawns on you that your forehead is kinda the center and everything is connected to it, since you can feel the horrible yanking from all around your face….and the VERY WORST is when the nerves that connect your teeth and your face come alive, blazing painfully…..kinda makes you long to tear your face out and throw it outta the window…ANYTHING to stop that pain….

I am ashamed to say that I couldn’t sit through my “free session”, enjoyable as it was... I ran out within 15 mins as if a million mad dogs were chasing me, much to the disapproval of the lady….

Now you may ask, why this blogpost??? Well, it just made me think of all those who have to bear the “shock treatment” in psychiatric hospitals or torture-chambers or wherever…if the “harmless battery current” makes my nerves this raw and red and beg for mercy, I cant even begin to imagine what they must go through….

Sometimes, I wonder why man invents these things.

Is everything ok?

On a sleepy sunday afternoon last weekend, as I lay reading, I decided to ....you wont believe it...meditate...

Now call it wishful thinking or whatever, but I did...and heres where it took me....

As I closed my eyes, I became aware of the noise of the traffic, a TV blaring in someone's house and the  peaceful breathing of my Grandma, who was also sleeping in the room...

Me: Oh no, how can you meditate in all this noise?

Me: Hey it is ok, soon it wont bother you, you wont even hear it...

Me: Thats rubbish... noise is not ok because with it, you'll never get to the stage where you cant hear it...

Me: You dope, don't make excuses, you know its ok...

Me: Oh? Anything is ok is it?

Me: Everything is ok

Me: Everything is ok?

Me: Everything is ok....

Me: Everything is ok....

Me: Is "Everything is ok" ok?

Me: Is "Is "everything is ok" ok" ok?

Yes, because everything is ok, remember? Alert readers will spot that although the second question is not answered, the argument is totally circular and it gets bigger and bigger. If you code this line of  thought into a C program or something, you will get a sort of an increasing spiral......try it and see...some meditation it was!!!

Takes you to dizzy heights before you snap out of it.....

Oh..and the noise...totally forgotten....

Eat Pray Love

 

"Bought in Landmark Bookstore in an impulsive self-destructive moment" is what I had written on the cover when I bought my copy of the above book last week. I bought it telling myself I shouldnt buy it, that I am not ready to read something like this...it will definitely bring back various memories that Ive stashed away in a corner of my mind, that I dont want to ever encounter....well, as you sometimes willingly walk into something you know is not good for you, I too opened this book....

Except that it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me in the recent past....this book, I tell you...is it...really it is...especially if you are lost and single and trying not to be lost and single...yeah, now dont think its not for you if you are not...because its not a book on relationships or self-help or anything remotely so....and its definitely not a book for women, like many tend to think...

Its a book on...well...life....thats the word that comes closest in my vocabulary, anyway....

Small things you never thought anyone else will think about....things that make you go hey !!!! ive been there too.... like hell I have ...things that make you nod vigorously in agreement...things that bring back memories  - good bad ugly alike...things that youve been thinking about but didnt know whom to talk to...things that make you stop and think - is that what it really was??????...things so intense and true that you cant believe someone else is actually saying it...,,,things that you cant believe someone else feels the same way about ....things that you thought were unique to you....its all there, trust me....

In every page you encounter happiness....and it just spreads to every molecule of you...like she says :)

And mind you, the best part of the book is that it is really...how shall I put it????...all-encompassing? complete?... whatever....I urge you to read it and decide......it is a very intelligent, high-level perspective of our lives..

Not one single word in the book do I  wish should be changed....and with every page, all that I could think of was that I must share this book with everyone I know...which is exactly what I am doing now :).

The die has been cast

The weather is perfect - its pouring with rain, and theres not much to do in office, where the Internet  and electricity have walked out on us. No time like the present for a cup of coffee, watching the rain outside. Perfect !!!

Well, almost perfect...since I saw a very disturbing scene unfolding in the building in front of my office. Take a look at this pic with the old man in blue on the stairs and the dog in front of the gate below. Its not  very clear due to the rain .

Looks like any regular pic right??

Wrong....

While I watched in disbelief,  this man dragged the dog out of the house in the heavy rain and tied it to the gate and left it there...he then goes back upstairs and stands watching it get soaked....through its pitiful whines which were getting louder than life by the minute for all to hear....

For a few minutes, I thought I had imagined this...I HAD to have...there surely was some other explanation? ...no one could bring themselves to do something like this right???

Wrong again....

The man studiously and steadfastly continued to watch the dog suffer, glancing surreptitiously around once in a while to see if anyone was looking.....and no amount of my indignant waving could get his attention...So,  my boss Shreyas and I started calling out to him but our shouts were drowned in the rain...

We finally we managed to get his attention...upon which, he suddenly  sprang to life, took one horrified look at his dog and proceeded to fall over himself to put it out of its misery....Oh HOW I wish I had been able to video this....would've most certainly made it to the Oscars for the brilliant acting with no questions asked (among other things!!!)...

For once in my life, I am at a loss for words...I am unable to formulate  any sentences to express  the hideousness we witnessed....

Ah well, as the title says.....alea iacta est...the die has been cast....for the highway to Hell!!!

The objective craze

Ok, maybe this is totally crazy, but I think that we are all slaves of objectivity in one sense or the other. Oh, and I  also believe that subjective is NOT the "opposite" of objective - merely the absence of one does not mean the other. Now what does objective mean? In layman's terms, it refers to being able to put a value to or measure or assess something  in concrete terms and will take the same value irrespective of who is estimating (the extent of)  it. In philosophical terms, it is mind-independent.

Well all this is fine (the scientific method and all), but I have begun to believe that we need numbers (the most popular manifestation of objectivity) to believe something. To give an example, "hot" does not  really mean anything without how hot. The same applies to almost all things - global warming, traffic, wildlife, light, sound, colors  intelligence, emotions (EQ and what not), even success - and we have defined indicators to measure processes like evolution - hey, we even have a Happiness Index now :) We are well on our way to putting a value on most things.

Some things are however left untouched fortunately - for instance, we still believe that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder - we havent yet formed a standard for how beautiful something or someone is. But we're slowly getting there, even though its fragmented by tastes (stuff like the stupid "fairness meter" that we see these days).

I am not sure what the dangers are in this system of thought, since we live by and take most decisions by it. We do know and acknowledge that the world is not ruled by numbers in all cases - the simplest example being that often simple geometry can capture things that numbers cannot. 

The point I am making is not about numbers actually. It is about neatly classifying everything into boxes and gradients. Thinking "out of the box" also ends up being back in some other box, since its only about box within boxes :)

Swine flu - It could happen to you

Consider this - A person (lets call him X) whose friend's brother dies of swine flu  in a few hours, 2 of his colleagues feel feverish during work, sit in a different room since they find the AC too cold and die in their seats, another colleague who feels feverish and leaves home early from work dies in the cab on the way home.....

Read the above para again and again before you answer this question...."If you were X and you  had high fever,  would you be scared?" 

No...no...the answer apparently is not a universal "Duh! Yeah"....because there exist retards like X in this world who DONTTTTTTT....

I met one of them today and I am angrier than I ever have been.....I hear mainly 3 reasons why people dont take something like this seriously

1. The these things only happen to other people syndrome...unfortunately, you are "other people" to other people, so for Petes' sake get a grip...

2. If it has to happen it will happen  or better still Nothing will happen...

3. The swab test costs like 2500 bucks, why pay that much?

Well, since a variety of people are likely to read this blog, I am refraining from publishing my acid comments on the above kind of intelligent beings....

The scene out there is bad, people....and the sooner we accept we have a problem, the better....when you hesitate to shake hands, doctors are going on "long vacations", kids are being withdrawn from schools by the truckloads and people you know are dying...what more do we need to see to acknowledge the possibility that the worst can happen inspite of the best of precautions???....so do read up on swine flu and brace yourself and everyone you know...heres a good site...

Makes me wonder...when a disease like this that is curable makes us feel so helpless, what must it have been like during the period of Black Death which was in the 13th century in Europe...when you feel there is NOTHING you can do...shows us how fragile our existence is...

Its all about money, honey

"Why is India able to survive the recession? Because most of the economy runs on black money."

"The Sales Tax officials always tell us that if everyone starts paying taxes, the Government will not know what to do with all the money. So they say give the money to us instead." 

Pearls of wisdom from a 22-year old granite quarry owner I met yesterday on the train. True, he was managing his family business, but he clearly knew the ropes. I was literally hanging on to his every word while he described what its like to start and run a business in India.

"I paid a bribe of five lac rupees to the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board to start my business in Mysore" he says matter-of-factly.

Wow, that is a lot of money, I mused...

"Well, its not all that much", he shrugs. "My uncle pays a bribe of one crore a year to the Congress Account. That way they keep the sales tax officials off his back"

Why not just pay the sales tax instead, I ask.

"No way !!! Its so much easier to just bribe people. My uncle mines in an area called Thanti in MP. Actually, mining there is illegal and it is full of Naxals. We bribe the Congress to escape tax, get police protection, keep us off the firing range, get our export licenses, a host of things. If anything goes wrong, all we need to do it make one phone call to them and remind them of our bribe".

Wow...grim scheme of things there. Why are you in Bangalore, I ask.

"I came to meet the Karnataka Land Revenue Department. They were asking me for a bribe of 50,000 rupees for one signature, but I paid only 7,000", he grins.

Good work, I say sarcastically.

"Oh come on, you live by the books. Look at you, you look as if you come from a very protected background. Have you ever seen a village?"

I decided to pass that question, theres no point, moreover I was eager to hear more.

"My turnover is around 3 crores a year, on paper I show only 1 crore. My land is worth 70 lacs today, but the records show 7 lacs".

Even better.

"Do you know, my friend arranged for special courtesies and special "private secretaries" for Lungi when he went abroad last month supposedly for a conference on the Economy?

Ok, I leave it to you to figure out who he meant.  I must say, I really was disappointed, because 'Lungi' was one gentleman I really looked up to and always thought he was too well-bred for such things :(

There was more, it wasnt over.

"You know, the Chinese dig our quarries because it is cheap raw material for them. To win our co-operation, they send only women laborers. It really makes things a lot more nicer for our laborers. That is their way of bribing us to get discounts".

Ok, Ive had enough, I tell him. He gives me his number since I mentioned we are building a house in Mysore.  

"I'll get you great discounts for your flooring.  In case I  cant recall when you call, just say that you are the girl who taught me what micro finance was", he laughs.

Whatever !!!

"You just cant get ahead in life without bribes. Take that from me".

FINE... As an acknowledgment of that, I save you as "Briber Abhishek" on my phone.

"Haha, you are very innocent. You may be the only exception to my rule".

Pray, what rule is that?

"Aadmi jitna sherif dhiktha hai, uthna badmaash hota hai...aur jitna badmaash diktha hai, uthna hi sherif hota hai".

Thanks for the heads up... Good night!!!