Sole, sole, burning bright !

Thousands of moons ago, when I first set up house, there was this big urge to make pickles at home. So I once ended up cutting 1 kilogram of some very hot green chillies, Indian style, on a traditional cutter or Villi as it is called, where the chillies , held by you, move and the blade remains stationary.  I have never forgotten the subsequent burning of the fingers.

Why do I suddenly mention this ?  Because for the last 6 months or so, both my soles (of my feet) , in a particular position, simply burn as if they are slathered with 1 kg of ground chillies each. 

After lots of experiments like soaking them in cold water, rubbing them with cooling stuff/oil/lotions, upping my intake of Vitamin B, checking other values in blood tests etc,  rectifying situations where warranted , the situation marginally changed, but continued in full blown fashion.  There were no problems standing up/walking etc. The burning began when my lower limbs were horizontal, like when I slept or when one sat with the feet up.

For a non engineer, non doctor, with too much imagination, I decided that it had something to do with flow of stuff in the foot/ankles when the toes were perpendicular to the ground. I had been taking Ecospirin, as many my age do , that thins the blood and this burning business started , roughly after that. Maybe stuff was flowing down too easily away from my toes, leaving the nerves there bereft and screaming for attention.  I even stopped Ecospirin, and that had absolutely no effect.

There was a general consensus that one should consult a Pain Clinic.  A very posh hospital , where one had an earlier good experience for some other stuff, had such a clinic, and one managed an appointment.  There was an expectation that they would have methods of quantifying something about the conduction amidst  nerves and muscles in the lower limbs. Maybe they would do a physical exam, and some qualitative  and quantitative tests that would indicate a singularity somewhere. 

The visit began. I had summarized my medical background history on a printed page. The doctor pulled a scribbling pad and started writing down things while talking to me. I have had swellings on my ankles for donkey's years, which go when i put the feet up. They pass the 40 seconds test and are not a pitting edema, and so there is nothing cardiac about that. (I hope this confused you. Ask your doc....  :-)   ).

There was no physical examination of the ankle, no twisting and turning of it by the doc, to generate and check assorted pains, no poking with needles to check if I felt a sensation. No hammering lightly with hammers etc. Just a question asking if I sometimes got a sensation of the foot "going to sleep".  How a foot that is burning can go to sleep really boggles the mind. Never mind.

Then there was  some hurried writing. Two meds that I need to take for 15 days. Appointments with endocrinologists. Mentions of MRI's.  The whole thing was worrying me. I had tried the usual pain reliever stuff .  This was some thing new with a dicey name like Pregabalin.

I dashed over to my family doctor/friend's clinic, and showed her the prescription sheet. She has known my system for the last 30 years. I was already taking a Vitamin D supplement thing which he had written down. She advised me that Pregabalin, the other med, was something to stay away from.  She felt I didn't need that. It had some really strong side effects, least of which was drowsiness.  Since she knows that I will checkout the info, she showed me the information from the standard drug reference MIMS. The side effects were enough to put me into a dead faint. I came home and checked out the drug on Google.

Read about its adverse reactions here .   And take your time recovering ......

Then this appeared in the paper a few days later. A guy got so smitten with Pregabalin and its pain relieving properties, that he routinely overdosed, and ended up having unbearable abdominal pain, which turned out to be stomach ulcers of the worst kind. 

And I now wonder, what happened to the earlier style of doctors where they reached conclusions from watching your gait, the way you sat, the way you got up, your pulse,  the type of edema  investigated with poking, your breathing, pulse,  stethoscope checks , blood-flow sounds in the legs , Xrays and so on.  Other doctors one has been to over the years, for oneself and the children, even have you lie down, and then twist and turn limbs to ascertain the exact pain point or reason.
 

 I have now researched on the Net, and found some exercises meant for folks with burning soles of the feet. These do not need fancy tunnel type contraptions, or electric heat , magnets or swinging upside down on ropes etc. You can do them by yourself .  on a thin mattress, or mat.  And they actually explain there why you can get such a pain, and the gradual way to reduce that pain, with knowledge of anatomy.  

You can read about them here. I have downloaded all the videos and have started on them. Some very small changes. But they are happening.

But it makes me wonder. Is the modern age medicine so machine oriented that hands have lost the ability to glean information ?   Is modern medicine a function of the fact that patients are so well off that fancy recommended checks like MRI are done at the drop of a hat ?  Is there something to the school of thought that says, working in a vast government hospital, perhaps in large cities and even mofussil areas, gives you an unparalleled experience regarding  ailments and their treatment by examining the patient with touch  before throwing the switch on machines ? Are extremely strong medicines being advised unnecessarily , and sometimes without informing the patient ?

My household help, "S", suffers from high BP  and takes a daily pill.  She recently had a set of giddy sensations, loss of energy, extreme fatigue and headache, and some doctor gave her two injections (she does not know of what), told her,  her BP was low, but continued her  BP  reducing pills !  He forgot to tell her to stop those pills for a few days till the diagnosis was complete. She then went to my doc , who checked her out, BP, sugar and all, and diagnosed a spondylitic pain which was causing the trouble. The doc taught her some therapeutic neck exercises, 15 days of wearing a neck collar from my vast collection of ankle/knee/wrist/rib/back belts, and all her troubles have gone. 

S and I. Two different scenarios.

We have both undergone  checks recommended for older ladies, that are available today, so things like the Big C etc can be detected early and treated.  These things are useful.  One discusses these reports with one's trusted family doctor and confirms findings.  

What worries me , is what if it had been S in my place, and the doc blithely advised this strong medicine ?  How would she know about it ? That med would have debilitated her and kept her at home, destroying her livelihood. 

I am sure the particular medication I avoided, may be used for some specific traumatic situation or condition. It was not an ordinary pain reliever.  It was neuropathic.

I just wish we question more things and try and understand them before blindly accepting them.   

Here Comes The Sun !

You want to know How I met The Sun ?   

Well , in my time , it was all CMP.  Cleanse , Moisturize, Protect. You cleansed as soon as you woke up, moisturized hugely with all the sweat as you did your compulsory 30 surya namaskars,  and then you protected yourself with a decent bath and some sensible clothes.

It is still CMP.  Of a different kind, and suryanamaskars have given way to the Bollywood Style Harlem Shake. While clothes and skin fight over who gets seen more and so on.  Read on .... 

At the cost of sounding redundant, let me just say that the weather, the Sun, the distance from the Earth, the various revolutions and rotations, have remained basically unchanged over the last half century or so. And summer, to me,  has always been about looking for shades, cottons, swimming, tanning, aam-pannha, nimbu-paani and ice.

This was true 50 years ago and remains so even today. (Am one of the few folks who are qualified to say that....  :-)  )

If you have a daughter in her twenties,  you soon realize that  in addition to the above, it is now all about protecting the skin , by means of various lotions, which actually smell quite nice. If that daughter also actively swims, then  you also, learn about sunscreens. None of these existed in my childhood, which was really concerned with ambehaldi, cream and  milk  being slathered on the face at bath time, all year round, and you never ever cribbed about summer, as the mangoes added to the Sunny Gold.

So it came to pass that we found ourselves at the Indiblogger-Neutrogena Blogger meet at the Marriot. As if the noonday Sun was not enough, there was a surfeit of yellow, in the banners, the drapes, the tees being worn by some official types, and even the small Chinese umbrellas on which  you wrote your name as part of a blogger pool. To add to it, one of the catering chaps walked in with huge glass jars with oranges which presumably were part of the decor.

Times have changed. Girls today know a lot about cosmetics and stuff. To my eternal amusement, every one almost looks like they have stepped out from a magazine.   Compared to my time, that is.

I must say, that the organizers very thoughtfully  also distributed Freshner Wet Tissues, and moisture wet masks, with cutouts for eyes, nose and lips. Naturally, the older folks (like me and a friend)  immediately tested those, and other folks rushed to take photos.  And no, Ms Rai, Ms Kaif and Ms Kapoor  have nothing to fear from us.



And then we  avidly listened to who I called a Neutrogena Rajkanya, as she emerged  on the stage, in a brilliant yellow bejewelled gown to compere the proceedings amidst a whole bunch of yellow umbrellas   framing a photo of the lovely Prachi Desai , whose face stared down at us amidst Ultrasheer Sunblocks, Bodymists and  Ultrasheer Moisture.



After a session of blogger familiarization where the Chinese umbrellas played a major part in getting rank unknowns to meet each other and win prizes (headphones), an effort by the organizers to  hark back to their school days and school teachers, by making us sit away from our friends ,  and some introductory stuff from the manufacturers, Tara Sharma of the Tara Sharma Show appeared, again in a sunny yellow dress to address folks about how the products work for her, and her show about bringing up her kids. A very charming articulate lady,  unbelievable as a mother of 2 kids,  with an amazingly brilliant  skin quality, she ended up giving  prizes to some smart folks dressed in, what else, yellow !

Every person coming to talk about Neutrogena had this great smooth and silky skin, right from a special lady from Thailand , to the Rajkanya, to Tara Sharma Saluja. Very impressive.

You took care of your skin using the mantra of Cleanse, Moisturize and Protect.  One learnt that protection from the sun was all about protecting our skin from Ultraviolet radiation of two types.  One, UVA, that aged the skin by penetrating way inside, and the other, UVB,  that disturbed it on the surface  and burned  the skin, discoloring it. Most sunscreens simply tackle UVB. Helioplex, was the result of tweaking the  technology that introduced a skin protective agent against the UVA , and was the  speciality of Neutrogena.

Just in case the chemicals got us confused, the Neutrogena Rajkanya introduced groups to the umbrella and ball game.

One group stood around with yellow umbrellas with holes, and another group stood at a distance , simulating the sun, and tried to chuck UVA and UVB balls through the holes. The umbrellas represented various sun protection creams  A great way of teaching about UVA , UVB, whole lets them through, and who bars the way.

A great tea break later,  things got serious, and we had doctor types doing experiments to demonstrate the Neutrogena product versus some other product, in their capacities to protect.  Many questions, even more answers with technical details, research findings  and so on.

There were Indiblogger tees, prizes , and hampers from Neutrogena for everyone. 

The meet kind of culminated in folks doing the Harlem shake  on stage, where the huge model of the Ultrasheer SPF 50 Sunblock tube , was really pushed around.

Some folks were doing a fairly hyper version of the whole thing, and later , some sportingly climbed on stage to do a more "wilambit"  (slow action replay) version.

Being fairly slower than "wilambit",  and out of great concern for the structural stability of the stage yours truly watched all the fun from a distance.  

Which brings me to something.

We can be very hyper about all this. Keep slathering stuff on our faces and bodies, in an effort to keep the skin away from the Sun.  We can religiously calculate minutes and do repeat applications of stuff, and perform a countdown before emerging into the Sun. There are mists, and sprays, and almost invisible lotions.

Or we can be at a  comfortable pace,  judiciously choosing to use these products, along with drinking lots of water, chhaas, citrus fruits,  eating light but nutritious  and allowing our skin to also feel good from inside.

The application of the mists and sunblock, might probably avoid your getting too tanned.  That is probably important in a country where getting tanned is equivalent to being incredibly stupid.
 
I hope Neutrogena does not succumb to the "Fair is Lovely" stuff in their ads. I hope they highlight how wonderful healthy dusky and brown skins can look and be.  I hope they emphasize the importance of hydration and good diet too.

A lot of our young people go overboard and mess up with excessive chemicals being absorbed by their skin.  Affecting Vit D3 levels in our bodies, leading to many health problems, typical of today. 

In ancient days, Egyptians were known to use Jasmine, lupine and  rice bran extracts as sunscreens and sunblocks. Organic stuff, more body friendly, but I can't see today's folks-in-a-hurry  doing this. Maybe chemicals from these substances are now extracted and present in the lotions.  I don't know.

So learn, educate yourself, use the various products judiciously.

The Sun, has been here longer than all of us.

He watches, and performs. And is probably as delighted to see a lovely, healthy, smooth, well-hydrated skin as all of us.    




Submitted  as an entry for the Neutrogena and Indiblogger contest on "How I met the Sun" ,  subsequent to the Meet on 7-4-2013.

On the ramp with Edna ......

The world appears to be greatly concerned about my hair.

I am being inundated with shampoo .  And conditioners. Claiming to perform all kinds of miracles . Straightening the hair. Curling the hair.  Bonding the split ends. Moisturizng the hair. Shining the hair.  I wait with baited breath for shampoos that automatically trim, cut and comb my hair too. 

The latest is that they want to know my take on ramp-ready hair.  ( I cannot stress enough that I never played marbles in my childhood with Tarun Tahiliani,  never went to the same school as Ritu Kumar, and was never on backslapping terms with parents of folks like Masaba, Vikram, Rocky, Nachiket or Swapnil...and yet they ask...?).

Ramp ready hair ?   

You don't know what that is?  Neither did I .

Ramps and I go back a long way .  Mostly, it has been a huge plank of wood which connected Mother Earth with something like a loading area of a truck, or a landing, where walking up  steps was not possible.  I've walked several ramps, when we moved houses 4 times till now, and twice for my late parents.  Then during my years in the US as a grad student, ramps were always on ramps or off ramps, and there was a technique of speeding or decelerating on the ramp, as you drove your car on to and off a freeway. 

Some ramps called life ramps,  really go a long way back. And one has always walked these ramps, in different styles of hair.

Like this shampoo called Tresemmé, launched by Ms Edna Emmé in 1947, which is almost as old as me.

Like my Life Ramp. And it has been an entertaining exercise, looking back and walking that ramp, with special reference to hair and shampoos. 

At the beginning of the ramp.....The best hair one probably had. Shining, soft, wet, curly, with wisps that needed no conditioning. You didn't really need a shampoo or a conditioner at that point.

Regardless of whether it stood up, stuck to your scalp, curled  or stayed limp, it was a wonder. Someone simply had to ruffle your hair  and everything was OK.

Further up the ramp, mess was the word they used when they didn't want to deal with the tangles. Fine , thick, curly hair, nourished by a shampoo, falling in rings all around.   Wet hair, sneezes, refusal to dry, and folks scrubbing it. And one tried to avoid folks who wanted to tie it in bows. Though I must say gajras and clips were OK....

The danger years. When you observed everything someone else did. With brushes. Combs. Clips.  Dryers. Your curls kind of gave up and began to straighten out. You surreptitiously experimented with tubes and lotions, and sometimes high heels were tried for effect.

Then someone would shout at you as you looked through some falling bangs, and tell you that your eyes would get spoilt and you would get glasses.

 In the preteens,  some great oiling of hair, and a braiding . Two tight braids, the requirement at school. Black ribbons with bows. Done just so.

The experimental hair science became a bit more exact. Regular hair washes, proper drying, combing out and detangling.  Washed hair, when wet, was never ever braided. Brushes were never used, and were never in fashion. Mothers looked at the combs after combing and shook their heads. Sometimes these braids were turned up. But never in high school.

Teenage was the golden age of hair. You poured over magazines with friends, quietly snipped away some locks, to create , what you thought was a brilliant set of bangs.

You oiled and washed and conditioned your hair several times a week. You did all kinds of tight rubber-banding to get a frizzy effect, and other times, combed out your hair is natural curls about your face. Tying up hair was a no-no.

Those of us who had frizzy hair hankered after straight, and vice versa.  Mothers never agreed to fiddling around with the God-given quality of your hair. And all this hair was always left open, and you constantly fiddled with it  for style.

College days, outings, celebrations, saw glossy hair, curled for the occasions, cascading on both shoulders. There were special cuts, layers, and an obsession with split ends, which caused a lot of cribbing. You mastered the art of making your curls bounce around your face as you walked. On a hot day, you casually twisted it up ensuring a few tendrils kind of cascaded down your cheeks.

The campus queen had arrived.

College annual days, friends weddings, family weddings, and you excelled , with a bit of help from your friends, in twisting your hair up, into a chignon.  Freshly conditioned, combed, hair, gracefully wrapping up one side, adorned with delicate flowers and jewellery, and pinned firmly into a bun. Some called it a knot.

The name is unimportant. What matters , is that this was the ramp ready style for the D-days then.

Then there were the traditional festive  family days. An early morning wash of hair, wearing of just washed clothes, and a family prayer get together.  You wore traditional clothes, and traditional jewellery, and your hair was up in a no nonsense khopa style. So ramp ready for the festival of lights and the new year, and you adorned it with jasmine and mogras under the keen eyes of your aunts.

Striding along the life ramp, swishing your now more than waist length hair.  There were folks in the house, and many more at the Tresemme Youtube Videos  marveling at, guiding and helping you take care of your hair. helping you with special shampoos, oils and conditioners.

You sat in front of the dressing table , as someone combed out the tresses, jet black, smooth, and shining. Mothers urged you to braid it, or pile it up. But it was more fun, tying it at the neck, and walking with a swish of the huge pony tail.

Have you seen the haughty looks which are standard on the ramp ? Well the life ramp has them too.

Hair greatly shampooed, conditioned, and blow dried straight. Combed up and knotted and clipped, with it all cascading down gracefully, across a back, secretly tattooed, without your maters knowledge. Smart clothes, confidence,  and greeting  everyone with a smile, and a shake of the mane, as it falls forward, and enraptures folks with its grace.

Some days are special on the ramp. Some days, friends join you on your ramp walk. Its is all about smooth, well set hair, piled high up, as you walk, head held high, on heels.  Not that you need the elevation, since you are already flying high with the imminent life changes. But the hair pulled up, highlights you eyes, and the shine within...  

Some stages on the ramp are formal. You wear formals, greet people formally in the company of a formal companion, carefully move around, smile a lot, and enjoy being the cynosure of all eyes, with the beautiful jewellery, hair adornments, and a great sense of clean comfort. The only way to proceed now is to the top . You look back, smile at those who've been part of it all, shared your tensions and cribs, you push back an escapist tendril, and turn to leave.

And so there are special ramps and day to day ramps.  You need to step from the former on to the latter.  It is all about coming home. Letting your hair loose, sitting with a cup of tea, tired feet up.  Energised, you get up, decide to have a bath,  wash your hair with Edna Emmé's shampoo, slather on conditioner, and wait. Thinking about how great the ramp walk has been . The experience. The applause. The appreciation.  You emerge, dry your hair, gently comb it, and twist it into a homely bun at the nape of your neck.

A few strands of hair escape, and curl down the sides of your face. You push them back, and notice a tinge of grey happening.  You smile, pick up a cup, and sip the remaining tea.

Edna Emmé , in 1947, decided to call her shampoo Tresemmé in honour of her own tresses.  I am almost as old as Edna's shampoo, and now it is  a Tresemmé life...

 I like to think, that had she been around today, her hair might have resembled mine.

Grey, in streaks, with some dark ones defiantly holding on.

She might have approved of the ramp walk. And then again, she and I might have done a senior citizen ramp walk together, reached the end, and smiled our thank you's before turning back.....


(All pictures courtesy Google images)

Submitted as an entry for the Indiblogger "TRESemmé Ramp Ready Hair" contest.

Living in Mumbai....

Mumbai has been my Janmabhoomi. My Karmabhoomi. And now my Vanaprasthashrambhoomi.  I do not know if the last word exists. But I just coined it.

 This is a city, where sitting in a public bus taking my daughter to school, I was hit in the eye, with a liquid-filled plastic pouch, by a random person, situated in the evacuated slums, on the bus route. The pouch hit me and then spilled over across my shoulder on to the knees of the person sitting behind.

But then , this is also a city, where a total stranger found my ID card on the road  in a posh locality near where I live in much more ordinary surroundings, called me up, and asked me (or my husband)  to come to our colony gate, so he could hand it over to me, as he proceeded to his workplace.

Yes, this is a city, where you may get jostled and purposefully touched in a very bad way in a crowded bus, and this is also a Mumbai, where  passersby suddenly mobilize to thrash someone after you shout at someone who has been causing you grief.   

The same city where you emerge with heavy bags from a supermarket, step unknowingly into a disguised pothole, and fall straight in front of a three wheeler, only to have the driver brake with  jerk, rush out to help you, with his passenger ladies, offering you a drink of water from their bottles.

 And sometimes, you lie stunned, experiencing the Bystander Effect, as some Honda guy whizzes past through red lights , in closed tinted glasses, ear to the phone, unaware that a human has been touched and pushed to the ground.

Somewhere in this city, the population has soared ahead of the infrastructure, global brands salivate at a population that seeks them with stars in their sometimes misguided eyes, and magazines which were once avidly read for their thoughtful content now fill ninety percent of their pages with ads, showing facetious expensive stuff that you could possibly buy only in lieu of your next house EMI.  

Large clutches of  greedy eaters, salivating for the same piece of the pie, whether  it is the land pie, or the power pie, or sometimes the consumer pie.  In the complex system of claiming your pound of flesh by those who make things available to us, , women have become the worst sufferers. Outlandish prices for homes,  the need for both parents to work to pay EMI's,  schools that actually follow profit oriented business practices,  the weird shape of the city, and the  disobedient traffic, that makes commuting a time consuming  affair.

Women in Mumbai have always borne the brunt.  My generation (I am 63), has been the sandwich generation, that emerged breaking the old shackles , to work, only to find that mindsets take time to change, and we are neither here nor there.  Today's young, Mumbai's Generation Next,  have rushed headlong into a lifestyle where everything is ready to use and is lapped up thoughtlessly, unaware of the pitfalls to our bodies and our homes.

And so , we have studies being done of incidences of various cancers in Mumbai, the risk factors, the warning signs, the sociological distributions, the lifestyle aspects of it all. Girls are reaching puberty earlier than before, television has eaten into recreation time outside the house, and the latest is that young women show tendencies leading to Poly Cystic Ovarian  Disease.  The chaos outside their life, in transport, food, work, and education, is, reflected in the hormonal chaos within their bodies.

As if this was not enough, there is an overall behavioural desperation shown sometimes by a certain type of a male Mumbai citizen,  whose role model is the Bollywood villain.  Rules are to be broken. He troubles women on the road,  he threatens folks into joining him in something he thinks is a pastime, but is actually a crime;  he forsakes education for acquiring status enhancing things under false pretences.

Unless you are one of those who thinks Mumbai ends at Bandra, or who has always travelled in AC Chauffeur driven cars, or who never knows the current price of a dhaniya bunch, or who thinks smart phones are phones that match smart clothes,  this is not a good time to be a Mumbai woman.

And so a bunch of bloggers gathered recently , for an Indiblogger meet , "Mumbai For Women " at the 175 year old TOI offices opposite the Old Lady of Boribundar.  The paper folks have been doing a set of articles and write ups regarding  aspects of women's lives in Mumbai, based on some surveys that were carried out.  It was nice to see that the staff involved appeared to be someone just like us . I mean they worked, and took trains home late at night, and were not the type that worried about what to wear for a soiree that evening at the Taj.

The idea was to see what things were workable for women.

 One of them being the pan-railway helpline, valid across all the 3 , Central Railway, Western Railway, and  Harbour line branches. A call to this number,  9833331111,  elicited action within the hour, lost things were found, troublesome folks evicted from compartments.  We heard personal stories about using this. Great news.

The health surveys have highlighted danger signs to look out for for what are today   lifestyle diseases, as well as  the big C warning signs. There is information about preventive checkups that women may get done with a suggested frequency. There is information about diet and mental health, and the interconnection.

Education surveys have indicated a mismatch in those doing well in college, and then sticking on and doing well at work; mostly due to the aforementioned sandwich generation problems, mindsets, and  unhelpful city infrastructure.

Crime against women is very much there; in spades.  The trouble is , those that are commissioned to handle that problem, namely our police, do not exist in the required quantities for common folks, appointed as they are to provide special security for politically powerful folks.    

Sometimes I wonder if Mumbai women have a "tolerant" gene.  

To travel day after day, climbing into trains that allow 15 seconds for 50 women to climb in, and then stand, moulding your body to any available space , standing, getting shoved,poked, and glared at.

To work in places, that think providing decent toilets for women, is of lowest priority, and allocate no money for the maintenance of the toilet, in case it exists.

To climb, on the run, into a lurching bus, and get a foothold on the second last step, and stand in the wind for ten minutes supported by strange hands,  else you miss your connecting train.    

To be pushed, and overtaken by fellows running to catch trains, up and down ill maintained railway staircases,  as you struggle with a small child, or a basket of stuff you bought at the wholesale market.

One of the reasons Mumbai works, is that someone ends up seeing the humor in all this.

Yes, Humor.

I was once travelling  Southwards into the city on Western Railway, by the second class ladies compartment, at what might be called, the height of rush hour.  Some ladies got in with baskets of fish along with me, and kind of defined a place on the floor for themselves. It was a motley crowd , of students in convenient outfits, working housewife types , in uncrushable practical sarees, small kids in their uniforms going to their schools, and a bunch of girls, who looked alarmingly untouched by all the wind and the chaos. (Our trains have permanently open wide doors) . They stood on pencil heels, dressed like models, with exemplary poses, not a hair out of place, and occasionally pursed their lips as if to adjust their lipstick , in what appeared to be a superior posture. They tried to ignore everyone around them and their mediocrity, and daintily wiped their mascara-ed eyes ensuring that the false eyelashes didn't fall out.

The trouble was they stood right in the middle of the exit-entry passage . Various people squeezed around them and got on and off the train, and at one point the fish ladies got up. They thought the beautiful ones would notice. They didn't.

 Then in a ringing voice, that the whole compartment could here, they called out saying ," ओय   पद्मिनी , जरा  हालचाल कर कि ….  माश्याच्या टोपल्या बाहेर जायच्या आहेत ,  चाल बाजूला हो , नाहीतर सगळा सेंट माश्याचाच  होईल हो   (~ Oye Padmini, come on, MOVE lady ! Move aside to let the fish baskets  go out, else your perfume will be of fish....).

The entire scene of  western haughty model types being called Padmini  (named after a beautiful queen in our history), the no-nonsense practical ringing tone of the fish ladies, mobilising to disembark in their very practical no nonsense Koli sarees, and the Koli ladies' sneaking suspicion that this Padmini might be in the beauty business , had everyone is splits.

There could have been the usual wordy duel.  There wasn't.  because folks had a sense of humor.

Even Padmini smiled. ....

Here is a lovely video produced by the Times of india Folks as part of their Mumbai for Women campaign .  Enjoy !

Mumbai For Women
  

Wonders of the Ordinary.......

Food and drink reviews are a comparatively recent phenomena.

Earlier, you quietly ate whatever appeared on your plate,  drank whatever was there, and got on with your activities. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that going out to eat was not an frequent activity, for the simple reason that there weren't so many places around you could go to, and advertising was almost nonexistent.

Today, reviewing food is a job. International food has sneaked its way into the country, smitten the young, they are totally spoilt for choice where contents of glasses are concerned,  and the papers are full of visuals and descriptions, and special deals to celebrate special days. Like someone recently highlighted National Breakfast Day. I guess next will be National Brush-your-teeth day.  Never mind.

It has, however come to my attention, that it is all in the marketing and description of food and drink.  And I must confess, that the inspiration has come from a friend who went into raptures imbibing  Black Dog alcohol with terms that you wouldn't associate with drinks, but more with, say a grandmother's lap.  ( mellow / woody / complex yet delicate / harmony of delight / the old world charm and leisure /fruity sweetness / spreads cheer and warmth in all circumstances / deep, golden / round and mellow ....)

I often wonder if we could market healthy stuff  using the same word attitude.

Some possibilities  occur .

Chinch-gulaachi Amti : Madame Toor, whistled at under pressure, getting her act together, as she waits to meet the spice of her life.  Hot oil, complete with mustard crackles, asafoetidish comments, and flaming chiilies with kadhipatta .  A bit of soaked tamarind pulp, and  a stubborn jaggery piece, salt, goda-masala , all boiling in excitement as the coconut and dhaniya leaves fall in.   Enjoy the earthy rich aroma and taste with plain rice  (and ghee), on a cool afternoon, with the papad and pickle-in-waiting standing by, as the old fan gently turns whirs, a sudden chilly crunch, a savouring of textures , and a warm flow down your hungry throat.


Sol Kadhi :  Or is it Soul Kadhi ?  Soup for the Amphibian Soul ?  Sipping pleasure for a thirsty mind ?  Like the woman of today, a mixture of wholesome coconut milk, the sharp kokum, the zing of garlic and green chilly, adorned with coriander greens, amidst secrets of clever cumin . Pretend to be on a Kokan beach eyeing the fish catch, as you delight in the myriad flavors bursting on your tongue, as you sip in style. Or hark back to your childhood, as you slurp it with steaming rice.  Age no bar, it is also an after dinner aperitif....  a delight for the sol or is it soul ?  P. S.  NO SUGAR !

 
Mango Panha :   Like a popular queen, she is everything to everyone.  A  sophisticated  sipping for those enamoured of glasses with narrow stem bases, in places with twinkling 5 stars,  and a wow-I am-thirsty seasonal delight for those coming in from the unyielding non-AC summer  Sun. Allow the mango blossoms to flower in your mind, as you swish around your mouth, the yummy concoction of cooked  raw mango mush, with sugar, water , ice, a dash of cardamom, and  trick of roasted cumin and rocksalt, with a hint of leafy mint, as you wander in a mind-aamrai on a hot summer afternoon, suddenly coming down to earth , as you  come across the floating saffron strands tickling your tongue.  A simply non-nonsense drink , like your Mom,  adding the saffron not because it looks good, but because ayurveda says  this is ideally cooling for hot summer days....   

 
Kadhi :  Like a great Indian leader, (the likes of which  we don't seem to see these days),  this buttermilk preparation is pan-Indian, and loved by all. Main coalition partners being buttermlk and besan,  the rest of the stuff is based on which region we are talking about. Slightly thinner south of the Vindhyas. A bit spicy with strictly crackling mustard seeds and turmeric in the Kokan. Much sweeter, and sometimes a bit less yellow, and thicker in Gujarat.  Lashed with tadkas of cumin, cloves ,kadhipatta, and tough looking red chillies.  North of the Vindhyas, like in Delhi , the capital , this is thicker, and often studded with pakodas that sit inside slowly getting drunk on all that kadhi power. Punjab with its Lassi might simply smirk at the southern thin kadhis.  The southern folks have a pakoda variety too, but the kadhi is thinner. The all time comfort food,  to be imbibed with rice, and sometimes, even drunk by the bowlful, tangling with a troublesome kadhipatta. To be had, in a great big lunch with family and friends, just before a lazy afternoon nap , on a Sunday afternoon.     

There is always more, like cutting and non-cutting chai, filter kaapi and simulations of Girasappa falls as the kaapi hurtles across several feet between two steel containers, the original espresso method.  I am not sure serving it in posh containers helps.  

Alcohols,  like short term avaricious governments,  change your perception for a short time.  You are always aware of the pitfalls, but alcohol makes you close the mind. Aur ek drink. Chalta hai .  ....

Give me the above any day.  Sometimes sweet, sometimes bitingly spicy, sometimes slurpingly eye-shutting pungent,  sometimes like the touch an old maternal  comfortable soft saree covering you as you sleep , and sometimes,  like a good friend, with whom you laugh , backslap, fight and make up.  

Yes, and none of these are named after Dogs.  And colors. 

Just saying ......

 

Mammary Tales.....

 The Times of India recently had a full page report on the incidence of female cancers. In Mumbai. There were statistics,  warning signs, and opinions by leading doctors.  There  was information on preventive checkups that you could do. Every year, or every two years.

Sometimes knowledge frightens.  Up to a point, knowledge looks useful. Then it alarms.  What you feel about all this knowledge is also a function of your life stage.

The last time I went for one of these checkups was 11 years ago. Mumbai's leading cancer hospital had then offered complimentary checkups for Mumbai's women as part of their Women's Day initiative. A group of us had gone. Learned about the warning signs, the required checkups. The visit to the hospital was an eye opener.

Some of the checkups were known to me. Some like mammography, were new. There was this small room with this huge black machine inside. Almost floor to ceiling. You stood on one side of the machine, shorn of all your (upper abdominal) modesty. The male technicians, very matter of factly, requested you to stand in various postures, a few with one hand stretched upward, while you pressed on some metal stuff. The images were captured on what looked like cassettes , like you used in VCR's.  My friends went through their stuff, and it was my turn. After one side images were captured, something happened to the cassette , and I ended up standing in a filmy raised-hand pose, in solitary splendor, while the technician went off to get another cassette, till one of my friends came to check the delay, and a sympathetic nurse had me give up the pose , and relax, nicely covered , in a corner.

By and by, the ordeal over, we waited with baited breath while the doctor examined the film. There would be sonography , in case the doctor had a doubt.   I didnt need the sonography,  and a few hours later, one got the all-clear.

Advancing age, assorted pains,niggles, and worries, and the aforementioned  article had me alarmed, as I had let 11 years go by . In between life stages  had changed. One's physiology had got a bit modified. You were supposed to do these checkups every year.  I consulted my doctor, and was advised that it would be a good idea.

 Things had changed. There were now many hospitals you could go to. There was a leading hospital close by , which didn't exist 11 years ago. I got myself an appointment.  The hospital had a web page. With diagrams and pictures. Telling you what to expect and how to prepare for the mammography test. No DEO, no lotions, no talcum powder.

In these 11  years, the Internet had copious amounts of people writing their experiences about this. I spent some time going through all  of them. Looked at pictures of machines that bore no resemblance to 11 years ago. Some people cribbed about the pain. Some said they hated doing the mammography. And then waiting in suspense for days, till the reports came.

I landed up on the appointed day and time. A waiting room surrounded  by all kinds of chambers on all sides. X-rays, MRI, CT-Scans, Ultrasonography, Mammography, OPG's . The works. Folks in uniform manning counters, TV's overhead, blaring some asinine serial with a tough looking mother-in-law saying her piece,  folks sitting on chairs, imbibing from bottles of water in a bored fashion. (I had done the water thing before, and was thrilled to bits that I didn't have to do it again).

My name was called. A cheerful young female technician led me into the room. Turns out that this hospital had  a  female crew handling mammographies.  I marvelled at the irony. There had been male technicians, 11 years ago,  when I was uncomfortable about things. Now that I couldn't care less, they had an all woman crew. Never mind.

She had me put on some hospital gown.  The machine itself was a grey white contraption almost half the length and breadth of the earlier one . Next to it was a huge monitor and a  patient bed. All spick and span and smelling of antiseptic stuff.  She had me stand in poses, with the hospital gown partially off. In another location, I might have even qualified for the Lakme India Fashion Week, with this off-the-shoulder attitude.  This time, there was no hand raised high. But another filmy pose, with the hand bent, and me bending towards it as I held on to a railing; like you would, if you were waving out to someone from the open door of a Mumbai suburban train.  A few buzzes, a few changes of posture, and she had me sitting in the waiting room till she developed/created  the film.

I watched folks moving around, arriving in wheelchairs, a pregnant lady with a worried look, a young girl who spent at least 30 minutes, talking to someone on her cell, as she walked up and down the length of the hall.  I had brought a book to read.  Half an hour had passed, and I had no word. I tried to look for the lady technician. I was told she was inside. 

Fifteen minutes later, I was told that they would now do a sonography.   For a minute , I almost missed a beat. I remembered, how 11 years ago, a sonography requirement meant that the doctor had seen something, they wanted to check more.     

Once again  new hospital gown, but I lay on the bed waiting for footsteps. The doctor arrived with a shutting off of the room lights. A friendly lady , she asked the usual questions, and then asked if I was, what, 43 ?  Maybe she was fooling, maybe she wanted to lighten the tension before telling the bad news, and I told her she was wrong by 20 years. We went through all the steps with lotions being slathered and probes being moved around , armpits being checked and so on. Everything completed, she smiled, looked at me and said . " Everything looks OK . "

The technician/sister came in and told me I was done, and to collect the report the next day.  I asked her why they did the sonography.  And was aghast to hear that they did the sonography for everyone, regardless of what the mammogram showed !

And here I was , worried because they had decided to a sonography, based on my logic from 11 years ago.

 So while technology has become smarter and smarter, we are also doing redundant stuff.  It was  just an unnecessary extra, that had put me in tension .

And I honestly wondered what people did 50 years ago.  There were, then,  more doctors who treated you life long, knew your entire family history, learnt more from physical examination, palpating things, checking pulses, and lung-congestion.  The only machines I would see then were BP machines and stethoscopes. And sometimes X-rays.I didn't know a single person of my mother's generation who had cancer. Mostly, people died of a ripe old age. There wasn't much discussion about warning signs of cancer , and stuff, but there as a non-nonsense  aspect to their lifestyles. 

Were there no cancers then ? Maybe, there were, but we didn't know them, or they ran their course quietly.  Were you happier because you didn't know something ? I don't know.

There is a quest of knowledge. There is also a need to know what it means.

I am yet to get my report.  I think I do not need to worry.

Yet ....

Sometimes I do get a feeling, that there can be something like too much knowledge.     

   

Seedhi Baatein ......

This is  a great time to be a manufacturer of shampoo tubes and bottles. A wide range of colors, names,  and dedicated ways in which various shampoos can serve humankind. And you can be run off your feet keeping track of orders and meeting deadlines, while you slog and become a Hair Saviour.  

There are companies, falling all over themselves, coming out with shampoos of every persuasion. Shampoos for strength (you can pull stalled cars with your hair), shampoos for killing the dandruff and getting back to wearing little black dresses (without white sprays), shampoos for fooling folks into believing that your hair has more volume than it does, and shampoos that detangle your hair. I mean even babies  have their own shampoos, despite a noticeable sole wisp of hair standing up in solitary protest.

I've never understood this. Back in the ancient days when Sundays were about someone washing your hair with a Shikekai solution in a no nonsense manner, and you secretly pining for the lone Tata Oil Shampoo that suddenly appeared at the chemists, it was all about accepting the hair you were born with. Plaits were the order of the day,  you dried you hair, as a bunch of two small side tiny control plaits, met at the back, keeping the entire open expanse under check.

You never questioned all this as you were surrounded by folks , who then, even in their late 70's and 80's sported silky black , albeit thinned hair, having followed the same wash and dry routine. Leaving your long hair combed wide open, and attending social do's never happened. I remember someone being called Seeta-from-AshokVan, when she did that.

Today, you comb, backcomb, turn, twist, color and  clip your hair in myriads of ways. Leaving it all open is also a hairstyle. Sometimes you even do something to your hair to make it look as if it is permanently wet.  Some folks, particularly men, think, having a forest of hair strands standing up straight  on top of your head, makes you irresistible.

Shoulder length curly wavy hair in the summer is not a good idea. Any attempt to tie it up to feel cool never succeeds, because so many strands and curls escape. And I have always secretly envied folks who could cleanly tie their hair together without the filmy tendrils.

And so it was with a sense of relief that I noticed the Sunsilk folks coming up with a shampoo that would leave my hair straight after a wash. Very recently, a  sample appeared in the mail thanks to Indiblogger, who I must say , has been supremely concerned about blogger hair, in the recent months.

Just read the instructions to ensure I didn't miss out on something. Fairly simple. I used the shampoo and the conditioner as mentioned, and emerged, with the hair wrapped, warrior style.  It had already come to my attention that quantities of shampoo and conditioner had dramatically receded before I got there. That's what happens when you have a straight hair obsessed daughter in the house.

She rushed in , convinced as she is about my amazing ignorance about "modern hair". Kind of dabbed at  my hair with the towel, and then sort of moved her fingers around in the hair, to loosen lumps and disentangle stuff a bit. Got one of the large toothed combs she uses, and did a gentle wandering through the hair.

She seemed to be observing and thinking.  Possibly how to keep the rest of the shampoo stuff from me, so she could use it herself.

"Ya, looks a bit straightened, doesn't it ?  But hey , I've never see these white strands before ! How come they are here ? ...."  this from someone who keeps pointing out appearances of grey in my hair, as if it is the worst thing to befall me.

What she hasn't realized is that the natural curls and waves  often played a stellar role in falling over certain areas out of sheer habit.  These areas were those with , what I call wise hair.  :-)    You straighten out everything, and everything is open to the world, including previously invisible grey and white patches of hair. It's OK .....

Yes, there is a bit of straightening towards the lower ends, which normally show waves and curls.  The straightening lasted for a couple of days.   Maybe it would have lasted longer had I obsessively bothered about my hair in all that time. Like   combing through it frequently. Lightly and delicately brushing it every now and then. Covering it in the Sun and polluted Mumbai air.  NOT shoving it back with flour on my hands.  NOT giving it a vigorous brush after coming in on a hot sweaty afternoon, and then haphazardly pinning it up.

It seems to me that this is as good a time to take a good look at what we inflict on ourselves in the name of fashion .  Constant unnatural hair color changes, streaks in the hair , metallic color,  piercing of the anatomy in weird places for displaying jewellery , excessive chemical treatments to lighten complexions, and finally, changing your God given features under the scalpel.  You may change the physique, and at some point it changes the psyche.

It is simpler to occasionally make reversible changes, and enjoy. Keeping your original self intact, inside and outside.  

Enjoy the Sun.  The flowing Silk of your hair. 

Its a good idea to straighten out.

Your lives.  As well as your hair.     




This post is a product review for the Sunsilk Perfect Straight Shampoo & Conditioner pack I received from  Indiblogger as part of the contest powered by Sunsilk Perfect Straight Hair initiative.
  

One Day at the Single Window....

Mid-March is a bad time to come here. An old  high-footfall branch of a nationalized bank, handling a huge amount of salary and pension accounts, not to mention all the other stuff that banks must do.  Just when you think the salary rush is subsiding, the last minute invest-before-March-end rush begins.

 They say the best time to go is just when it opens , or just when it is about to close. It isn't always possible and so one lands up just before noon.

And acquires a token number from an automated machine. A quick look at the currently processed token gives no respite. 40 more numbers to go.

Ever since this token number thing started, the place resembles a crowded waiting room. Except, in a waiting room, some folks are sprawled, some enjoy shut-eyes, and some are having a good crib and / or laugh about something. This actually resembles, sometimes, a wedding reception set-up, where the important types sit on stage, and the guests who are taking a breather before going up to greet the main folks, are sitting facing the stage, like in an auditorium; watching the going ons.  Like in a reception, the front row, has sofas, meant for important folks , mostly a euphemism for "the grooms side".  The other rows have slightly less value chairs. There are , of course, a large number of folks, wandering around, emerging from doors with intimidating notices and designations. Some with "Unauthorized Entry strictly prohibited".  Nothing is said about Exits.

An old lady , who could be in her late 80's sits in a row in front, with someone who looks to be her grandson, in his thirties or forties. Very thick glasses, a tough looking walking stick, and a piercing gaze.  They have been there since a long time. Occasionally, the grandson gets up, walks around, using his phone, checks something with a counter, looks at some papers in his bag, and returns.  Once in a while, the old lady will close her eyes, mutter something seriously by herself, possibly prayers. The sound of a token number change notification alerts her. Her grandson shakes his head. She waits. This goes on for an hour .

Up ahead, there are eight glass fronted counters, bearing the redundant words "Single window".  Except for a six inch by six inch opening, the rest of the window has glass.  Behind 6 out of the eight windows there is no one. There are some other windows with different signs. With some people behind them. The hierarchy of windows is complete.

A request to open more windows is deemed impossible. Everyone is  busy, no one to handle new counters, there is some excuse put forth about disks. Computer storage disks. In these terrabyte, fancy-networking  times,  it sounds a bit odd.   

Behind 2 windows who seem to be bearing the brunt of the waiting numbers , now exceeding 40, are two folks, busily doing their stuff.  To complicate things in a world of queues, these 2 windows bear large notices, saying, you can use your ATM card there, WITHOUT being in a queue.  It called the Green Channel . There is this small card swiping machine, and presumably , counter staff gives the money/accepts deposits on some kind of automatic notification.  The chanel may be Green for ATM types, but is clearly turning Red for those waiting in lines with tokens, to sit behind the two 6x6"  small windows   and do their business.

Finally, the lady's token number happens. The grandson  has mobilized himself and more importantly, his grandmother,  a couple numbers ago. She stands up with great difficulty, pressing on her walking stick, oscillates a bit, before stabilizing, and approaches the window with tiny steps; there is already a smart ATM type there doing his stuff, almost blocking the counter, and she and her grandson wait for some time, before a chair can be pulled out for her at the counter. Passbooks, and forms are passed in and out, signatures done, things are stamped, and she has been looking on, in full concentration, at the man inside, who is staring at a screen.

Five minutes later, she is done. The grandson moves on gesticulating to her. She stands up again, bends, straightens up, oscillates again, as the grandson rushes to help her stabilize in place. She is off, small steps, and the tapping stick, when she suddenly stops, and looks around. Suddenly finds what she is looking for.

Far away to one side, on a shelf, high above an empty desk, is a bunch of photos of  the Goddesses of Learning and Fortune. Garlanded with fragrant flowers. She has noticed these when she came in.

She stops, does a namaskar with a bent head in the general direction, touches her hand to her head, and laboriously turns around, smiling at her grandson who has reached the door.  The tiny steps, with the shaking stick, resume their journey.

 At the end of the day, she is probably happier,wiser and less stressed than so many educated, expert types.

Nothing has fazed her. She knows WHO is in charge.

Ending the Split !

Runners Up in the Dove-Indiblogger "Beautiful ends to your beautiful braids"  contest


There is something worrisome about "splits" and "ends", in general, unless of course you are "end"ing a meal with a banana "split", and/or, doing an amazing "split" at the "end" of a great exercise session . 

Maybe I moved in circles, where you kept opinions on your own hair and even someone else's hair, to yourself. Maybe I was never really bothered about my hair as a young girl.  I was possibly born in what might today be considered ancient times.  But honestly, I had not heard about the words "split ends"  with regard to hair, till I was twenty .

Childhood was about splits and bifurcations galore. In friendships, as well as hair.

Waist length hair, compulsory oiling  (chipchip style), freshly boiled shikekai hair wash, stuff burning the eyes, air and solar drying, not to mention the "whacky" style towel cleaning to get the shikekai out in particles,  and the most traumatic stage was when  the comb and the tangles fought.

School was all about hair gracefully bifurcated, then each side again trifurcated,  some no nonsense braids done with great care, a black ribbon woven in, and then the entire braid turned up and tied at the base of the braid, with a huge black bow. On each side above your ears. Prominently.

This was a school requirement, avidly complied with by most parents.  Single braids were simply not allowed at school, but were the style of choice when you did classical dances . As if splits and bifurcations were not enough, we also had a style of braiding that can only be called "quanti"fication or splitting into 5.  This was called braiding of the 5 parts you divided your hair into, and not everyone knew how to do that.  And I don't ever remember examining the ends of my braids.

In the daughter's world, things have been  different. 

 Scalp hugging jet black radial curls as a kid, then two ponytails in school, when the curls kind of grew and fell under their own weight. Endless haircuts and trimmings. Somewhere in middle school, wistful glances at ladies with waist length hair on TV, and the graceful swishing of their hair, as they looked at her cunningly from below the cascading tresses  and blinking lashes.

And then the onslaught on her hair.  The perils and tensions of pubertal thinking, the chlorine from an intense interest in swimming, the crushing sweat from travelling long distances in public transport in a polluted Mumbai, and the constant concern that the hair appear just so at all times. Eggs, lentils, papayas, curds, cream, olive oil, you name it, and they had had a visitation with the hair. Possibly only Shreekhand was missing. 

An interest in photography slipped into an obsession about hair, that had her clicking even the golden tresses of baby corn and blogging about it.

At one point the numerous braids sported by Venus Williams were a big attraction, and the entire box of rubber bands disappeared overnight, as they wove themselves into tiny braids , hundreds of them, painstakingly created while watching Fear Factor on TV, tightly standing , designed to get the curl out.  

But it allowed her to attend a blogmeet by the Dove folks, which included , as they say, "practicals'.  Folks slathered stuff called serums and masques, and combed out your hair, and you came out feeling like the lady on TV.  After massive discussions at home , cajoling, glaring et al, the actual straightening of hair happened.
 
Today, she goes around with straight shoulder length hair(and more), which kind of gracefully falls and tickles you, as she bends to type something on your keyboard. You also do not see a thing on your monitor screen through the hair screen cascading in front. Most free time is spent appearing with stuff slathered on to her hair after washing it. And then rinsing it off. To be followed , by bits and pieces of hair held between two warm plates,  and patted all across the length.  Occasionally , bangs and fringes happen, an errant set of strands is shown its place by a clip. Sometimes, she acts like she discovered braids, and the hair settles down into a single compliant braid.

Unlike folks in commercials that breeze through torrential winds and rains with unmoving hair, and sometimes in limousines, her life is more about careening around in buses and rickshaws, suffering puffs or diesel from aged bus engines  at eye level.  Then there is that occasional  secret foray getting streaks in the hair. All this, while worrying about an increasingly difficult life in this metro. It doesn't help that the open straight hair combed just so, never remains so at the end of the journey, tangled in its own worries. The trappings of modern life start showing their stuff, and most of her time, late at night , while checking mail, and fooling around on WhatsApp, is spent checking out the ends of the hair, showing them to me  and cribbing bitterly about split ends. 

I guess she will now embark on another treatment. I hope it is about eating curds, and papaya, and eggs, and lentils, and not messing around an applying it all to her hair.  She has heard of some Split Ends Rescue System from the Dove types, That reduces the split ends by a factor of four, and one such set has made its appearance in the house.

Once again, she will sit, wet hair slathered with this stuff, then washing it all, and combing it out.  She will then maybe bifurcate or trifurcate her hair, and braid it.  Unfortunately, they don't allow the mothers to braid it for them. Big black ribbon bows are passe.

Some fashionable folks who cannot braid their hair properly in the centre of the back, have now introduced a cheeky one sided braid, which sits to one side of your face , falling in front over your shoulder, and others are blindly following this.  

The real test will be when she once again bends over my keyboard, trying to type in something to show me a great page, and turns, swishing my face with smooth ends of hair at the end of her pigtails.

Or does a great fugdi performance  with friends, her braids flying out in wild abandon, fearless and smooth in the ends, as they whack someone passing dangerously near.

Or gets her hair put up , Khopa style, when she gets to wear her 9 yard saree that she is waiting to purchase, and has a lady exclaiming about her hair.

Me thinks the world has come full circle. Good no-nonsense hair care is back.

Except for mothers, and tying up the braids in cheerful black ribbons.

Okay, make them red.

We had mothers .

The daughter , apparently, has Dove.

Sigh.  



Submitted as an entry to the "Beautiful ends to your beautiful Braids"  contest  by  Indiblogger  and the Dove Split Ends Rescue System.

Budget tales....

I normally don't watch the Budget session in Parliament. Earlier, because I was a working person, and lately, because you get to hear a summary later, on any of the news channels.  Economic jargon is not my strong point, and even it is was,  the session is all about someone decreeing some new rules, without asking what I think.

This year, well into my retirement years,  I was waiting for folks to come home at lunchtime, and simply switched on the idiot box .  And something made me pay attention to what the speaker was saying while presenting the budget.  No, it wasn't about allocations for toilets in rural schools, or adult literacy amongst women workers or things like that.

Turns out that folks coming back from "abroad" and carrying purchases of jewelery, often cribbed about "harassment" from the customs people; so the budget had upped the limit of jewelery people could purchase and bring into the country, without paying duty. Up to  Rs 1 lakh for women and Rs 50,000 for men !

I was totally thunderstruck by the ministerial empathy, and the official response to the "harassment". 

Actually , I doubt if raising the allowance of dutiable gold was the answer to the harassment.

About 20 years ago, my late mother (she would have been 95 next month), went to the US on a family visit.  Unlike today, where people change jewellery to match their outfits, her generation, at 75, was all about wearing some standard typical traditional jewelery which was hardly ever removed. Many times, the jewellery had some family memories associated. Like her traditional diamond studs , which were given to her by her father, when she had her first child, way back in the forties. 

This was not her first visit abroad, and she was a bit surprised on her return, when someone in the Customs section  decided to ask her some questions. This was around the beginning of the Green Chanel days, and for someone , who had absolutely no interest in electronics, but enjoyed buying excellent vegetable peelers, cardigans with hoods,  and pyrex bowls, she was about to go through the Green channel.

The guy pointed to her earring studs, an asked about them. Indicated that it might be dutiable.

(Harassment was common, but not an "acceptable" noun then).  

The Customs guy got a withering look from her.

What he didn't realize, is that she knew all about diamonds, how to judge them for purity, the various cuts;  she knew how her earring stones  were cut, and she also knew , that the current modern cut prevalent in jewellery was different. Many younger ladies in the extended family often took her along when making wedding jewelery purchases and stuff.

He was told in no uncertain terms, the history of the acquisition of these earrings, the specific cut of the crystal then in the 40's , the name of the older cut, the occasion on which these earrings were presented. He was also told that the older cut was now replaced by a newer cut (she even knew the name), thanks to some newer technology. And all modern jewellery sported this.

He was  given a short lecture on what the current 'cut' prevalent on the diamonds was, and that is could be observed by an expert studying contemporary jewellery. 

She also indicated to him, that wearing these was a common feature with ladies her age, and these pieces of jewelery , like mangalsutras and nose rings, were not not subject to frequent removals.
    
 Watching a grandma level lady lecturing one of their own, got some other officers interested, and they all came by to listen.  At the end of it all, she admonished them saying, she was stickler for rules, would have herself declared  any jewelery ,  she might have purchased. And that she was ashamed that they intimated old ladies like this.

  (Never mind, that she thought Indian jewellery was amazing, the best  and that we had some very talented and clever karigars, and why would anyone want to by jewellery abroad? )

 And she requested them that they should upgrade their knowledge about diamonds before troubling folks and wasting their time.

I doubt if the current raising of allowances  on dutiable  jewellery will make a difference.  I wonder if it would help to train the customs folks better. Maybe they already have this training now, since  the profile of the international traveler has changed a lot. 

For harassment to reduce, we must be well informed.  Raising allowances will not work.

But I just remembered this story.

And the sense that it gives me, that "learning" is  really the gold standard in life.

Regardless of age.....