Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
P for Paranthas
All this salad munching makes me feel like a super-retarted cow chewing cud!
Right now my hungry neurons are hallucinating a pile of Aloo-parantha's (Hmmm.. scratch that, make it, ANY paranthas!) and Gurdware waala "Kada Prasad".
Knock Knock..Reality check:
You stupid female! Unless you want to spend the better part of your night cleaning the drool off your laptop, close your mouth!!
AND stop browsing the pictures of "paranthas"...right now!!
Right now my hungry neurons are hallucinating a pile of Aloo-parantha's (Hmmm.. scratch that, make it, ANY paranthas!) and Gurdware waala "Kada Prasad".
Knock Knock..Reality check:
You stupid female! Unless you want to spend the better part of your night cleaning the drool off your laptop, close your mouth!!
AND stop browsing the pictures of "paranthas"...right now!!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
When the going gets tough, the tough gets going :)
Beware! You may or rather will encounter some scientific terms during the length of the post. If you are not interested or you don’t get it, simply pass off as blah..blah..blah :)
I didn’t know how bad it was getting.
Until a few days ago Luis imitated me or better, my limping gate.
(Someone he finds otherwise impossible to impersonate.
AND uno momento dude, NO dal for you in future !!!)
The abiding memories of sitting in the doctor’s clinic, alone, waiting to be examined, and finally with no improvement, has left me sadly scarred. So I don’t fancy myself doing it anymore, even if I have to painfully cry myself to sleep.
Lately there was a long lasting feud between "The pain" vs. “Me”. And “Me” finally gave in today.
I went to the doctor.
As usual, it was kind of odd for the old grannies and grandpas in the clinic to find company with me, as much as it was for me to place myself with people who had weathered far beyond years. But I found some happy faces, and it was good.
Now, there’s good news and a bad news. Let me hurl the bad one later.
The good news is that the doctor was uber nice. (Yeayyyyy…finally!) And she could speak English (Double yeayyyyyyyy!! )
Her hands were so warm and comforting that the moment she started the physiotherapy, I had tears in my eyes. Call me nuts, if you wish to...its okieeee. Because I know, its indiscernible for others what a healing touch does to you, when you have forgot how it feels without waking up with pain and sleeping without it.
For instance, people esp. my colleagues; often tell me that I “look” almost fine. Ta-daaaaaaaaaa, I look because I want to. All these years it has taken a lot of patient questioning on my part, to accept the inescapable and remind myself that Iam not unloved by God.
And really rough days are tamed with what I call the kill-pills. They kill the pain as well as your tummy. Nonetheless, they are good enough to camouflage the red-eyed silence.
Now, the bad news.
Firstly, the doctor said that I was as stiff as a stick, (and initially I thought she was talking about my head!) But I was enlightened soon enough. Personally, she thought that the harmony between my bones and the back muscles was as good as some crazy pebbles loosely stuffed inside a sac!
Secondly, to circumvent the arthritic pain in my sacroiliac joint (The joint between the base of the spine and the pelvis) while walking, sitting, sleeping etc, I am giving way to an absurd S shaped spinal curvature (at an angle which helps me in gliding / dragging myself in way that hurts least). Consequently, I am progressing in to something called Adult Idiopathic Scoliosis.
I thought she was talking all Greek, until she asked if I suffered from debilitating musculoskeletal pain and nerve impingement in my upper extremities in addition to my lower body. The answer was a big fat YES. (And come to think of it, I always cracked up thinking, it was “Scientist’s-Chronic-Fatigue- -Syndrome” !!hahahahahaha)
The ‘problem” if not attended well in time, which means taking a few days off (Doc…are you kidding??) and avoid lifting heavy stuff (People who have lifted JA-10 Beckman centrifuge rotors know exactly what I am talking about), going easy on work (I have started with the 3rd year of my PhD and there is surely NO escape. I want my degree.) , I might suffer from associated degenerative disorders (Well..I have been stoned with the facts long ago, when I visited my first doctor. And I know :))
In principle, I think the doctor knows what’s wrong and what’s getting worse each passing day. But unfortunately what she doesn’t know is that I cannot let go of what I am doing right now. She doesn’t know what I am here for. She doesn’t know what all this it means to me. And it’s just not another degree.
Lance Armstrong faced less than 50 % survival chances once. While battling against metastasis, where the cancer spread to almost every other organ of his body, he said that “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”
And I am not quitting. Even if I am limping. Even if it hurts. Period.
P.S. Lately people are very very inquisitive regarding my medical condition for obvious reasons ( They ask me questions like aapko polio bachpan se tha?? Hahahahaha..To save time, I can just say read my blog. Pssss..psss.. that’s a smartass attempt to increase the all time dipping low readership of my blog ;) )
I didn’t know how bad it was getting.
Until a few days ago Luis imitated me or better, my limping gate.
(Someone he finds otherwise impossible to impersonate.
AND uno momento dude, NO dal for you in future !!!)
The abiding memories of sitting in the doctor’s clinic, alone, waiting to be examined, and finally with no improvement, has left me sadly scarred. So I don’t fancy myself doing it anymore, even if I have to painfully cry myself to sleep.
Lately there was a long lasting feud between "The pain" vs. “Me”. And “Me” finally gave in today.
I went to the doctor.
As usual, it was kind of odd for the old grannies and grandpas in the clinic to find company with me, as much as it was for me to place myself with people who had weathered far beyond years. But I found some happy faces, and it was good.
Now, there’s good news and a bad news. Let me hurl the bad one later.
The good news is that the doctor was uber nice. (Yeayyyyy…finally!) And she could speak English (Double yeayyyyyyyy!! )
Her hands were so warm and comforting that the moment she started the physiotherapy, I had tears in my eyes. Call me nuts, if you wish to...its okieeee. Because I know, its indiscernible for others what a healing touch does to you, when you have forgot how it feels without waking up with pain and sleeping without it.
For instance, people esp. my colleagues; often tell me that I “look” almost fine. Ta-daaaaaaaaaa, I look because I want to. All these years it has taken a lot of patient questioning on my part, to accept the inescapable and remind myself that Iam not unloved by God.
And really rough days are tamed with what I call the kill-pills. They kill the pain as well as your tummy. Nonetheless, they are good enough to camouflage the red-eyed silence.
Now, the bad news.
Firstly, the doctor said that I was as stiff as a stick, (and initially I thought she was talking about my head!) But I was enlightened soon enough. Personally, she thought that the harmony between my bones and the back muscles was as good as some crazy pebbles loosely stuffed inside a sac!
Secondly, to circumvent the arthritic pain in my sacroiliac joint (The joint between the base of the spine and the pelvis) while walking, sitting, sleeping etc, I am giving way to an absurd S shaped spinal curvature (at an angle which helps me in gliding / dragging myself in way that hurts least). Consequently, I am progressing in to something called Adult Idiopathic Scoliosis.
I thought she was talking all Greek, until she asked if I suffered from debilitating musculoskeletal pain and nerve impingement in my upper extremities in addition to my lower body. The answer was a big fat YES. (And come to think of it, I always cracked up thinking, it was “Scientist’s-Chronic-Fatigue- -Syndrome” !!hahahahahaha)
The ‘problem” if not attended well in time, which means taking a few days off (Doc…are you kidding??) and avoid lifting heavy stuff (People who have lifted JA-10 Beckman centrifuge rotors know exactly what I am talking about), going easy on work (I have started with the 3rd year of my PhD and there is surely NO escape. I want my degree.) , I might suffer from associated degenerative disorders (Well..I have been stoned with the facts long ago, when I visited my first doctor. And I know :))
In principle, I think the doctor knows what’s wrong and what’s getting worse each passing day. But unfortunately what she doesn’t know is that I cannot let go of what I am doing right now. She doesn’t know what I am here for. She doesn’t know what all this it means to me. And it’s just not another degree.
Lance Armstrong faced less than 50 % survival chances once. While battling against metastasis, where the cancer spread to almost every other organ of his body, he said that “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”
And I am not quitting. Even if I am limping. Even if it hurts. Period.
P.S. Lately people are very very inquisitive regarding my medical condition for obvious reasons ( They ask me questions like aapko polio bachpan se tha?? Hahahahaha..To save time, I can just say read my blog. Pssss..psss.. that’s a smartass attempt to increase the all time dipping low readership of my blog ;) )
Saturday, August 8, 2009
The "good" in a goodbye
I always saw myself saying “goodbyes” more often than “hellos”.Someone always left.
And sometimes it did get old answering the question “Did that hurt?” to myself. Because, it did.
August called for yet another string of adieu moments.
Ujala finished her doctoral thesis and went back to India for good. Anand shifted his base to UK. Annika, Holger and Steffi, who have been much more than just lab technicians to me, will be leaving soon too.
They say love and friendship is intensified by absence. But I haven’t matured enough in life until now, to assimilate how much of this thought holds true.
In fact, with time, the cluster of people I held on to became smaller and smaller. Some people got separated by physical distance, some by time and some by emotions.
It’s funny, but there were people with whom I played practically every single day but later didn’t see them for over a decade. And when I eventually did, we had grown so different from each other that ensuing friendship purely on mutual acceptance, without judging each other would have been difficult. Hence, we let go.
And some people just drifted apart, even in close proximity. So much so, that even if I tried picking up from where we left, eventually I had to recoil. For how long can one sustain a conversation with monologues?
But then I have friends with whom I have been together since I was one digit old. And I’m so glad that they are stupid enough to still put up with me ;)
Everyone who left lately was of some emotional significance to me. And as much as their presence made a difference in my life, so will their absence.
My partial progression from a highly volatile female to someone who has muted herself to the noise outside is all thanks to Ujala. Yes, I somewhat owe this to you. And Iam still trying my best to let go of the “Let me rip you” fleeting moment I face every now and then :)
Anand, I can’t thank you any less either. With all those honest exchange of opinions and heated arguments, you made me realize that there are umpteen ways of looking at life and not just me and my ways. To be candid, it was always hard to argue with someone who was so perfectly content with himself no matter what label you were to tape on his back :)
Both you guys pulled me out of my forced solitary confinement; a time when all my thoughts defied logic and consequently I was at my weirdest.
Annika, hugging you goodbye was painful. And so will be the case with Holger and Steffi. We clicked beyond colour, race, language and culture. Lab will never be the same without you all. And trust me; I will be always glad that I came to Germany and I met you guys, even if it was for a brief moment.
While closing this all I want to say is that the past gets subsided in some corner of your memory shelf. And may be something else even takes its place in due course of time.
People leave. And eventually the voices fade and the faces blur. There is no bailout.
But we always remember how we felt with them, at some point of time in our life.
And you all made me feel good.
Take care.
Love.
AB
"That" Feeling..
After watching a stupid-stupid movie until 3am and 5 hours of snoozing, I woke up to yet another Saturday.
So??
Nothing. I just wanted to maaro a grand crib that I really miss that “I’m home” feeling, especially on the weekends. And thought the prologue would make it sound a little less of a whine ;)
Well..It’s hard to explain it, but its been really long since I had“that” feeling. You know what I mean?
Something like dunking your face in to the heavenly Pav Bhaaji for breakfast while reading the cheap filmi section of the newspaper. I’m talking about that “Screw-the-deadlines-Duniya-gayi- bhand-main-Let-me-eat-my-Pav-Bhaaji-Thank you” type total bliss.
Being alone is a way of life and may be you are strong enough to live it. BUT once in a while it’s nice to be reminded that you may exploit the privilege of being a daughter, a child. Bole toh, take few things for granted.
I wonder if it's always the big things in life that’s worth the sweat. Sometimes it's the “small things” that's worth living for too.
And may be “Feeling Alive; Being Happy” is “The” feeling I’m talking about.
So??
Nothing. I just wanted to maaro a grand crib that I really miss that “I’m home” feeling, especially on the weekends. And thought the prologue would make it sound a little less of a whine ;)
Well..It’s hard to explain it, but its been really long since I had“that” feeling. You know what I mean?
Something like dunking your face in to the heavenly Pav Bhaaji for breakfast while reading the cheap filmi section of the newspaper. I’m talking about that “Screw-the-deadlines-Duniya-gayi- bhand-main-Let-me-eat-my-Pav-Bhaaji-Thank you” type total bliss.
Being alone is a way of life and may be you are strong enough to live it. BUT once in a while it’s nice to be reminded that you may exploit the privilege of being a daughter, a child. Bole toh, take few things for granted.
I wonder if it's always the big things in life that’s worth the sweat. Sometimes it's the “small things” that's worth living for too.
And may be “Feeling Alive; Being Happy” is “The” feeling I’m talking about.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Mote..Happy Birthday :)
If Mother Nature could jhelo you for 26 long years, I guess I have to forgive you for messing up with my head for the past 16 !I am so very glad that God bestowed you with 1 more year, so that you can continue to tolerate me calling you vile names, act dumb and snigger, just to make me feel good at the end of the day :)
Jerk, Happy Birthday!
Bless you.
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