9 posts tagged “issue”
I call myself a hypochondriac when I take an occasional acetaminophen for a headache.
"In January, Oprah Winfrey invited Suzanne Somers on her show to share her unusual secrets to staying young. Each morning, the 62-year-old actress and self-help author rubs a potent estrogen cream into the skin on her arm. She smears progesterone on her other arm two weeks a month. And once a day, she uses a syringe to inject estrogen directly into her vagina. The idea is to use these unregulated "bio-identical" hormones to restore her levels back to what they were when she was in her 30s, thus fooling her body into thinking she's a younger woman. According to Somers, the hormones, which are synthesized from plants instead of the usual mare's urine (disgusting but true), are all natural and, unlike conventional hormones, virtually risk-free (not even close to true, but we'll get to that in a minute).
Next come the pills. She swallows 60 vitamins and other preparations every day. "I take about 40 supplements in the morning," she told Oprah, "and then, before I go to bed, I try to remember … to start taking the last 20." She didn't go into it on the show, but in her books she says that she also starts each day by giving herself injections of human growth hormone, vitamin B12 and vitamin B complex. In addition, she wears "nanotechnology patches" to help her sleep, lose weight and promote "overall detoxification." If she drinks wine, she goes to her doctor to rejuvenate her liver with an intravenous drip of vitamin C. If she's exposed to cigarette smoke, she has her blood chemically cleaned with chelation therapy. In the time that's left over, she eats right and exercises, and relieves stress by standing on her head. Somers makes astounding claims about the ability of hormones to treat almost anything that ails the female body. She believes they block disease and will double her life span. "I know I look like some kind of freak and fanatic," she said. "But I want to be there until I'm 110, and I'm going to do what I have to do to get there."
She knows she looks like some kind of freak? Excuse me. SHE IS ONE. I am surprised her kidneys have withstood the attack thus far. I give it a couple more years before they die out on her. And from the looks of her (see above), I don't think she looks 62. She looks 110. Trying to look like 18, and failing miserably.
Whats with this obsession about looking young, anyway?
News courtesy: Dude. Via Twitter. Information: http://www.newsweek.com/id/200025
Desperately trying to find something interesting to write about, so that the special area of the brain would light up and signal the endorphins to come out of hibernation and kick out this horrible mental lethargy. Even the usual Vox Hunt question "Littering, long showers, not recycling... What's your biggest pet peeve about the way some people (mis)treat our planet?" is so bleah.
The house is unkempt, the computer lies in wait, the kitchen (which has never in the recent past been any kind of inspiration) has sunk to its lowest ebb, reverse glass work gather dust in a corner, music classes suspended temporarily, there has been no guffaw over the most un-funny things with family or friends in days now, the many craft work planned with kid, remains in the planned stage. Heck, I don't even have the enthusiasm to search for an apt picture for this entry, like I usually do.
Could this be the midlife crisis?
Or just temporary hormonal imbalance?
Or perhaps the body automatically shutting off to give a break from the tail-on-fire running around of the past year?
Or that kiddo's school starts in two weeks, and the body is subconsciously conserving energy for then.
Or has, as my grandmother would love to say, an evil eye been cast?
It could be that a work deadline is still two weeks away and there is no adrenalin pumping in yet.
Or just the heat (in terms of weather, that is).
Whatever it is, I sincerely hope it ends soon. This is so NOT me.
A couple of things surprised or even shocked me during this vacation. The primary of those being the many connotations of certain words starting with an m and ending with an o with a j and o in between that I used in all innocence in my earlier post.
Another was a surprising book I found in dude's library in his child/youthhood home - a book on female sexuality, covered with news paper, which belonged, not to dude directly, but to his late grandfather. I was first scandalized at the idea of thatha having a book like that, but once I started reading it, it was fascinating. The book is called "Any Woman Can", with the tag "Love and Sexual Fulfillment for the Single, Widowed, Divoced...and Married", written by David Reuben, a psychiatrist and first published in 1971.
If you are looking for various KS-ish poses or steamy stuff, look elsewhere, because this book is all about evolution, science and misconceptions (no pun intended) of female sexuality. For someone with sufficient science background, who has known the biological aspects of human reproduction, and has had, ummmm...practical experience, most of the stuff written are known-facts, but it has been well written, and I would consider it worthy of addition to the home library, especially when there is a little girl who before long will be maturing into an adolescent with confusing and conflicting views and experiences on sexuality.
But no, this book is not what I want to write about. These are my thoughts that arose as I read the first chapter of this book on the train back home, having just met a woman during my vacation, who, despite having a family to die for - a smart and intelligent husband, two well-bred children and a comfortable home of her own, with all the associated paraphernalia, eats twelve and a half pills every day (no exaggeration) to treat her clinical depression. That coupled with my own more recent insecurities and doubts about my part in the large picture, led to the following thoughts that were typed out as they formed in the mind. Don't look for coherence of thought, they have not been edited and are a mere long hand account of the thoughts, joint or disjoint that raced through the mind, aided by fast typing skills on dude's laptop.
The first chapter takes on a disparaging tone on the married woman, and her (and societal) apparent disdain for the "unattached" woman, irrespective of her visible sexuality. It seems so unfair that the married woman is made the soap-opera villain, directly or indirectly responsible for all the social discrimination towards unmarried women. But what is conveniently ignored is the hairshirt that the married woman wears,that is most often ignored by society, or even worse, considered "natural".
The modern "wife" is under enormous stress from within and without, her time at a premium and priorities torn between home management, career (in most cases), child (or children, if she has been blessed with just that much extra tenacity) and relationships with that special someone, and the extended family, all of which is tight rope walking, with even a small falter boomeranging into judgements about her inefficiency or impotence. Add to this some female sexuality, which is more often than not, at least through her growing up phase in a society that prides itself as being the custodian of human morality, considered to be a myth. Or worse, wrong. So the years of guilt that has been carefully cultivated thorugh the crucial ages of sexual maturation ("Don't stand at the gate and make an exhibition of yourself", "why did you give your phone number to boys?", "you cannot join an engineering college because it is co-ed"), on one night, she is suddenly given the license to open out herself and all the carefully cultivated inhibitions should just morph into licensed passion. The struggle of suppression of sexuality gives way to the struggle of overcoming inhibitions and prejudices that have been inculcated hitherto.
That aside, it feels stomping-leg-unfair to blame the "married" woman for her disdain for single status. Even if the disdain DOES exist, it probably arises from the little green monster that whispers that the single woman, is free to FEEL. Emotions. Something that the married woman has no time or justification to have. For all the talk about sexual marooning in single, divorced and widowed women, and their social alienation from a society that prostrates in reverence before the women bound in holy matrimony, there is no talk about the emotional marooning of the married
woman. The married woman, is, at least, for most practical purposes, unless we are talking strictly scientific aspects of sexuality, satiated physically and socially, and has nothing more to ask for. But there is no mention of the emotional marooning of the woman, whether she is bound and gagged by licenses or not.
Any emotional disturbance of a woman is, like everything else about her, attributed to the various chemicals running in her veins. In modern society, the emotional exhibition of a woman is condemned as vehemently as her sexuality. A woman who, in temporary rage of whatever- sleep deprivation, work pressure, or just plain boredom of routine, throws around a couple of dishes in the kitchen is menopausal. An unnecessary snap is because it is "that time of the month again". A wife and mother is the glue that holds the family together cannot afford to feel sad, or angry, or even annoyed. When junior has a scrape in school, when senior has a scrape at work, when superseniors have a scrape with their impending or imagined senility, the woman of the household, the Grihalakshmi, can just, by her charming and confident presence, kiss the boo boos away. And if she cannot, it is HER fault that she just has not that natural thing that binds the family and keeps it together.
And lost somewhere in these commitments, her emotions go into hibernation. Or pushed into the overflowing suitcase, until one day, the lock breaks, when least expected and the contents spill out. And THAT is her fault too. For having bottled up without release, and having brought it to the point of seeking clinical care. And then the dirty words come out - clinical depression, nervous breakdown, hysteria. Eat twelve-and-half pills after every meal to get the darn "chemicals" under control again.
Woman's sexuality is not suppressed as much as her emotionality.
One quick complaint before I go on with life.
The age of SMS and IMs has ushered in a total and complete disregard for punctuations. I know many people have huffed and puffed about it, and let me add my own to them. I could fall on Lynn Truss's shoulders and sob my heart out.
I required help for some editing work and got an email from someone who has had many years of editing experience. In this person's email to me, I found not one capital letter (even after fullstops, or for proper nouns), not one comma. Semicolons and colons, forget them. And "u" for "you" (e.g. thank u) which makes me want to curl into foetal position. Call me old fashioned, but I am so heart broken.
What hurts me more is that I don't know this person personally, and she is sending me a formal introductory mail offering her assistance in editing technical papers.
[End complaint]
How many clothes should a person own at any point of time ? It is a subjective issue, I am sure. Dude has a cousin who claims that a human being should only have three sets of clothes - one to wear now, one worn yesterday and therefore in wash, and one for the rainy day in case the washed dress does not dry.
I honestly believe he could be right. We found signs of "kambili poochi" (I don't know what this is called in English, but on googling, I find someone else had preceded me in searching for it online) in the trouser that dude wore to class today and generally visited hell before he could rush back home and tear it off his body. Therefore, in the process of de-kambilipoochifying the cupboard, I proceeded to remove all the clothes that were in the cupboard, so that in the course of the next few days I could wash all of them before they are safely wearable again.
I did not realise that I was in for catastrophe. I never ever realised I had so many clothes to wear. Here is the count:
1. Kurthas - 4
2. Salwar sets - 3
3. Sarees + Blouses - 12 (TWELVE? WHY?)
4. Shorts-TShirt - 1 (Thank God for small mercies).
5. Jeans- 1
Barring the shorts/tshirt that I wear only at nights, the total dresses I own: 19
Of which the number of clothes I routinely wear - the three salwar sets, two kurthas, the jeans and two sarees (total - 8). Meaning, I wear less than half the clothes I have. Meaning, I own too many clothes.
My four and half year old daughter has the following:
1. Party frocks - 3
2. Long skirts - 4
3. Daily wear frocks - 6
4. Shorts.Tshirt - 2
5. Salwar sets - 2 (I don't know why a five year old kid needs salwars - but they were gifted by wellmeaning relatives. I future if there are gifts for the little one, I would prefer NOT getting salwars)
6. School uniform 3 sets.
Barring school uniforms, the kid has 17 sets of clothes. Of them, she wears regularly the six daily wear frocks, and two of three partywear frocks to occasions. She also wears half of the number of clothes that she has.
The husband
1. Formal shirts - 5
2. Dressy kurthas - 3
3. Khadhi kurthas - 6
4. T-shirts - 3
5. Formal trousers - 3
6. Jeans - 1
7. Shorts - 3
Barring the house wear shorts, Total: 21
Dude is probably the only person who wears most of the clothes to work, except perhaps the dressy kurthas.
I am pretty disgusted with myself. I have come a long long long long long way from the Gandhian girl I used to be. I remember owning four sets of clothes through most of my school and college days. I think I was a happier person then.
But, to do myself justice, I don't buy clothes for myself or for my family. Most of the clothes (especially the sarees I own) were gifted by relatives for many occasions. But that is no excuse for the overload of materials possession that I have cluttered my life with.
Need to do something about it.
Because I learn from Diamond that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and that Pink for October encourages web sites to go pink this month as a show of solidarity.
So there, this month, my website will be pink (my daughter loves it, dude might run to the sink to throw up)...
I am lucky to know a survivor, if only through blogging. She is my hero. My inspiration.
Kudos to you Karen.
India is an intrusive country. The concept of "privacy" was relatively unknown until recently, and even now the line between intrusion and concern is very blurred. I have people I don't even know giving me all kinds of advise from what to cook today to having another child. While I usually either ignore or indulge, the latter topic, of having another child sometimes gets me all worked up. Not because of the intrusion into my private life, but because of their reasoning - a single child would be lonely, spoiled, selfish and bossy.
I do not have a problem either way, and each family makes its choice based on their views, situations and support. My mother was an only child by chance. I was an only child by choice. My daughter is an only child, at least until now and I don't really foresee a change in status. Most of my friends have single children, barring one recent entry into our Moms-Mafia who has three. But I also know people with multiple children and I very sincerely believe that the behavior of the children is more influenced by parenting than having or not having siblings. And most definitely, the single child is NOT lonely, NOT spoilt, NOT selfish and NOT bossy. Let me explain. I disclaim that I write based on my personal experience and I suspect it is applicable to most cases, but there may be exceptions.
Lonely: The concept of "lonely" comes from having someone and then removing them from the scene of action. For example, if you had a friend, and the friend moved, or if you had a sibling, who left for college, or you had a loved one that passed on, you would feel lonely. But if you have not had a companion in the first place, there is no comparison and loneliness does not crop up. I even have a pet theory. The single child makes sincerer friends and is more attached to them than children with siblings at home. But that comes out of a personal experience, and probably cannot be generalised. AND, a single child is never bored. She develops her own set of activities that don't need anyone else, and in the absence of company, she is happy doing her stuff. I have noticed this with myself, my kid and my kid's friends who are an only child at home.
But this, I tend to agree that single kids may have trouble adjusting to a crowd. We are paranoid about meeting people. About having to maintain conversation. We are most happy when ignored. Single-children CANNOT fight with anyone because they don't know how. And very often take things lying down. That is both good and bad, especially when the child grows up to have a significant-other. Good because the home is a haven of peace; bad because there is a lot of walking-all-over oneself.
Spoilt: NO. And this does not come out of defense. These days, all parents indulge in their progeny, irrespective of the number of them. If any, parents of a single-child are extra strict with the kid because (a) they are worried about the stereotype that single child will be spoilt and (b) they have only one chance, and are under self-inflicted pressure to do a good job. In fact, I suspect it is the other extreme. Parents of a single child are so obsessed with their child that they simply do not give the child the space she needs and therefore the child could get exasperated with all the rules and regulations set down and the micromanagement of their lives by the parents. My parents were very strict with me to the point of a breakdown (why are you late? where did you fall down? Who are your friends? Why are you wearing that? why do you have a headache etc. etc.), and I am sometimes very surprised at how lenient my in-laws were with my husband and his siter while they were growing up. And I can see myself laying down so many rules to my own daughter that I disgust myself at times.
In fact, I notice that my daughter picks up bad words and unacceptable behavior at school from classmates, who have themselves learnt them from their older siblings.
Selfish: NO. NO WAY. Single children don't have the concept of "this is mine" because there is no one else in the house that they have to say that to. So, as they grow up, they are some of the most generous people in the world. I am generous to a fault. Nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is mine. I can see the same trait in my daughter. My mom was like that too. And every single-child that I know has no problems sharing her toys or her snacks. Only children with siblings at home with whom they have to fight over toys tend to be selfish. In fact, I recently read a paper by people who actually studied the phenomenon scientifically and their results seem to corroborate my theory They say that
children without siblings were 28% more likely to share than children with siblings. On the other hand, the youngest children in a family were 17% less willing to share than children who had only younger siblings..
Bossy: Most single-children (that is not even grammatically right, is it?) are insecure with themselves, and desparately want to be accepted by their peers. Being bossy will not really help in that, will it?
No, I am not extolling the single child. I merely want to dispel the myths that surround us. We have our faults. Heck all of us do. The faults are inherent in us and cannot be attributed to presence or absence of siblings. Yes, it must be really nice to have a sibling to fight with or love unconditionally and all those romantic stuff. But on my defense, it also is good to exclude politics and misunderstandings in life between siblings as they grow into adults. Having siblings, in the past, probably lightened the burden of taking care of ageing parents, but I doubt if it is relevant any more because many older people today have all their children living abroad or away, or keep shuttling between their children, which I am not sure is a great feeling at that age. There are people who choose to remain child-free and they have their reasons which work for them.
Each person has his own reasons to choose any specific lifestyle. And I believe it is arrogance on the part of another to judge the choice.
Image from http://farm1.static.flickr.com/101/312922513_5d2a615ff2.jpg?v=0
It seems there is a tad less courtesy in the world these days than before. And mind you, I am not talking of chivalry.
A few minutes back (dark enough to be called night), I opened the iron gate of my house to go out. The 30 pound gate unhinged and fell over me. With great difficulty, I balanced myself and the gate and for a few minutes was at a loss about what to do next. The husband was in the room farthest to the gate, with the door closed to aid the A/C, and no amount of hollering out for him would get him.
Just ouside the opposite house was our news paper delivery guy, waiting to collect his money from the lady of the house. A 30-something man of good health and reasonable size, and hopefully no night-blindness, fully aware of my predicament. He chose to collect his money from the lady of the house, mount his cycle and ride away, leaving me holding the gate. Another young man from another opposite house (apparently a guest), steps out of the house, and while I think he is heading my way to assist me, heads in the opposite direction for his after supper "walk".
Where are we going wrong here? Agreed, you need not be chivalrous (although, I personally have no problems with chivalry, I am old fashioned enough to consider it romantic), it is superfluous and may even be considered an insult by self-respecting women. But basic courtesy? What is wrong in just helping a woman in trouble? Or just anyone in trouble? If they had approached me, I would have merely asked them to ring the door bell to have the husband come out to deliver me from the 30 pound gate balancing between my muscle-free hands and little toe.
Anyway, I managed to move the gate into a stable position, ran in to get the husband, who fixed the gate in five minutes. The gate is fine now. I am not. My fingers and little toe are bruised, and I am madder than a wet hen.
During one of my pms-ing blog hopping routine, I came across this site - The Blank Noise Project and spent the next very disturbing two hours reading it. This was just after the shameful new-year eve Mumbai molestation that got all the wrong type of publicity. I continued to be disturbed for a couple of days after that, going through the day with sheer routine, with thoughts jumping between incidents that had been hitherto pushed to the dark recesses of the memory. Now with the dam opened, they flooded my entire being. I kept oscillating between writing about all that was shaking me up and burying the thing whence it arose. Terri's comment on an earlier post was the clincher.
I was all of seven years old. One day in summer, I accompanied by mom to Vishranthi, the old-age home that she served in. After a hectic day, I was tired. We returned by a public bus. There was no place to sit, and I stood jostled by the crowd. Suddenly I felt it. Something really hard against my shoulder. Why would anyone keep stones in their pant pocket, I wondered. And the stone rhythmically pressed against me. I had a feeling something was not right, but had no clue what it was. This continued for all of five minutes. I reached home, vomitted vigorously and burned 102 for the next week. Mom thought it was the strain of travel to and from Palavaakam.
Two years later. Summer holidays. We were on the train to Mangalore to visit my uncle and aunt. I was still naive, innocent and a child in body and mind. I slept on the middle berth. In the dead of night, I felt something move up my thighs. I first thought it was my blanket. And as it persisted, I opened my eyes to see a man feeling me up. I was too paralyzed to scream. Seeing me awake, the man quietly went back to his berth, lay down and went to sleep. When I got my senses back, I climbed down to my mom and hugged her as sobs shook my frame. Mom thought I had had a nightmare.
Five years hence, I had "grown up". Another vacation in Bangalore. The entire family in a theater to watch a movie - forget which one. Half way through the movie, I feel a hand move over mine. This time I knew what to do. With the nails that I had forgotten to cut the previous week, I pinched his hand hard for one whole minute. He slipped away silently, in the dark. During the intermission, I rushed to the toilet to wash the blood of my fingers. For a long time, I could feel blood in my nails.
One guy grabbed my breast once. One chap followed me through the ten minute cycle ride to school everyday for six months.
I fervently believed that I had sinned in my earlier birth for these bad things to be happening to me alone. And when we started talking in school about boys as teenage girls are wont to, I realized to my relief that I was not the only one. Every single friend I had had been through at least one form of sexual harassment. From then on, we developed a sort of antenna - an extra sensory perception to recognize a potential offender from yards away. We would be on high alert the moment we stepped out of the safe haven of our homes and school.
Those were the memories that tumbled out. But there are things that troubled me more than these memories. The fact that no matter which part of the world you lived, you were an object of entertainment. The number of people who talk about their experiences is no joking matter. SEVENTY people molested one girl in full view of public. SEVENTY sons, husbands, brothers, friends, lovers.
My knee jerk reaction to their latest post calling for volunteers for their blank noise project was to join it. But more level headed thinking warns me that it is one issue that involves enormous commitment. Of time and energy. There is no going half-way here. If I photograph a perpetrator in action, I MUST be willing to face the consequences - lose my camera to the perpetrator, be manhandled etc. I am not sure if I am willing to do it, and that worries me.
Another disturbing message I get from the site is this :I DID NOT ASK FOR IT: SEND IN 1 GARMENT YOU WORE WHEN SEXUALLY HARASSED ON THE STREETS. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS 'ASKING FOR IT." The message being it is your inherent right to wear what you want; if people harass you because of what you wear, it is not your fault. While I will not debate the rights of the individual to wear what she wants, it is probably common sense to be safe than sorry. It is unfair that many men have their soul below their abdomen and no grey matter above. But the world is unfair. Life is unfair. Padayappa is welcome to catch a viper from a snake pit, I would rather be safe than Padayappa. I am sure this would draw flak from "feminists" but I choose "practical" over bra-burning.
I am thankful to add that unwarranted sexual advances have not happened to me for the last ten years (touch wood, cross your fingers and do everything to not jinx it). Which is more than I can say about a friend of mine, who says she is being constantly harassed during all the travel that her job requires. Maybe the fact that I mostly wear saree in public and am rarely seen without my mangal sutra, metti and vibhoothi on my forehead adds to the stay-off-mom-type-woman image.
Terri, you are right. These thoughts DO bring out negative emotions and palpitations. But getting it out does help fight the devil.
I would strongly recommend all to visit the blank noise project blog and pass the word around.
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