Stranger

You touched a chord in my mellowed heart
Music came alive and rejoice in the hearth
Where were you when I intended to silence my voice?
Or were you always there to dampen the other voice?

Were you my companion in boredom?
Were you the one who plastered a smile over my misery?
Were you the one who walked with me so I wouldn’t fall
Were you the one who loved and hugged my all

You seem an old acquaintance, yet I don’t remember seeing you ever
We’d probably just brush our arms in the crowd
We’d probably acknowledge each other in the elevator
Yet I wouldn’t know who you were, but this is what I have to say

I never want leave you thankless
I never want the sun to come down on your face
You bring cheer, joy and light that precious candle
The light of hope that brings with it the zeal of life

Good-bye ol’d dear stranger
Whose identity was never revealed
All I saw were the footprints in the sand
Yet I am as far from the ocean as can be

Blind Vision

I set out with a vision bright

My head held high, legs rapidly astride

Nothing escaped me, nothing failed to cheer

The green foliage, the wet earth, the cool breeze

Sending me a reminder that the universe was with me

That I was a part of them and they were a part of me

That I would survive and prosper just like

An old ancestor of theirs did.

Along the way, I saw many faces

Some gay, some tired, some anxious, some excited

Some of the faces joined in my smiles

We paced ourselves together animatedly

A journey we called friendship

But then sometimes we would have to split

So that we could meet again at another turn

And what a surprise it would be,

To meet them where the twain roads met!

I kept walking, I wanted to explore

I was curious, how could one tiny cell

Bring so much beauty to the world?

It could rule a body, a mind, a soul

And it was just a nucleus and some fluid walling it off

I didn’t mind come rain, come shine

I would keep walking alone or together

Until the end of time

I kept walking until the landscape changed

I had never looked back until I came here

And now when I did, I found myself

In a vast endless desert

Far removed from where, I could

Reach out to someone

Isolated, tired, in desolation

I trudged along with trepidation

In the hope that I would find an oasis

I was petrified of that scorpion sting

The heat of the sun was scorching

The sand was angry, hostile to me

And then all I remember is a feeling of bile and

A black vision in front of my eyes

I had set out with a vision so bright

That wouldn’t dim in the light

But I cheated myself

For I shouldn’t have dreamt

Of seeing the world

When I knew

I was blind.

Sex and the City: The movie original soundtrack

I've never really been a SATC fan. Could never keep awake for the 11 p.m show on HBO when it was telecast in India. The movie released around a time that I was ready to pull out my hair in angst and boredom. Moreover, my cousin, an avid fan of SATC (a fall-out of the in-flight entertainment aboard Continental Airlines flying from Newark to Delhi) was persistent in her efforts to drag me to PVR Cinemas to watch the movie - and she won.

So there we were, on a Thursday morning at 10 a.m. for a show that was unbelievably priced at Rs. 70 (considering PVR is a fabulous cinema hall, with lush purple cushions and a cozy ambience and the tickets are never less than Rs 150). So that was paisa vasool no. 1.

The movie itself was cool - it wasn't just about sex and the city, actually it hardly spoke of either. It was more about relationships, friendships, misunderstandings and letting go / forgiveness. I really took to the last lesson - it was portrayed subtly without being preachy, without the melodramatic dialogues, without any fuss. I have my gang of girls who I love to hang out with, talk to, confide, confess. We're a closely knit group without being glued to each other. The friendship that the girls share in the movie could have been a depiction of what I share with Meera, Anita, Namrata, Poorti, Mano,  Bhu, LP, Ashlesha, Chan... I can write a whole blog dedicated to just us, but I'll save that for another day. The camaraderie that Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda share (without breathing down each other's necks) is probably the story of a million girlfriends in the world. So the storyline and script and the acting in the movie - was paisa vasool no. 2

And now finally, the subject of today's post. The Music - paisa vasool no. 3. The first song that caught my attention was a catchy foot-stomping number that had me remembering it even days after I saw the movie. I later discovered it to be Labels or Love by Fergie. (The only song by Fergie that I'd heard was Clumsy - it's a favorite for my niece). I was thrilled when I discovered it on youtube and it left me wanting more. Courtesy Ruckus (a music player that is exclusively available to college students in the US for free), I downloaded the entire soundtrack.

And I loved all the songs. Each and everyone of them. Each song has its own mood, a life of its own. There's Nina Simone, Jennifer Hudson, India Arie - yes, of course it has a more feminine touch to it. Don't expect rock or anything loud. It's pleasant to the ear and it grows on you. It really does. My personal favorites are Kissing and Labels or Love. But I really like each one of them.

I would really recommend that you listen to these songs. It's a superb ensemble - and you'll have one for every mood.

Even if you're PMSing!!! :)

Change

Cancerians are supposed to be hoarders - of antiques, nostalgia, memories, general clutter. They cling to the familiar, are home-bodies, love their nest. I am all of that, but then, every once in a while, we humans need something that stretches our comfort zone beyond the comfort line. It's a good thing, to want to experience something new, to learn a new art, to meet new people, to see a new place. But for me, I've never really wanted all of that. I've always been happy with where I am, where I was.

Until, one day, I realized, I needed something new - a change.

So, I decided to digress from my career path, make a bold decision (and a heavily-priced one at that) and move away from all that was familial and familiar before they translated into contempt. I took a leap, flew across the great oceans and came to a new land. New land, new people, a new me? It was all amazing at first - the freedom, the opportunity to be answerable only to myself, the different way of life. My friends around me loved it. I did it too. Atleast, I pretended to - and then I ran back home.

I couldn't take it being away from what I knew as mine. And yet, now that I was back home, I didn't like it anymore. I had taken a large bite of my enticing apple - that first gagged me, but the sweetness remained and I lusted for more.

So I decided to try it again. Start over. I came back to the new land. No wait, it wasn't new anymore this time round. I knew it. I knew the shuttle stops, the groceries, the bookstores, the cafes. I knew the people and they knew me. They recognized me even after all these months. That felt comfortable. Warm. I felt like I belonged.

So, I am happily cocooned in my comfort zone in a new place. I created it last time round and this time I'm enjoying it fully. See, I love the familiar, the old, the memories. I like to relive my life over and over again.

And yet, everything seems new. The way I see things around me, my outlook on life, my perspectives on socializing, everything is new. I have left a large part of ME back home and another significant part of my life left me.

So like Harry Potter in the last book, I have actually been able to see parts of my life leave me piece by piece or would it be peace by peace? Parts and people, I thought were indispensable - and I am just discovering the fallacy of my blind beliefs.

This time, things are the same old, but I am a new person. So new, that I am excited about discovering myself, little by little. I am going to take it slow. This time I don't need others to put challenging things in front of me, I am going to challenge myself. Small tricks here and there. I am on my own, but I do have my Hermione and Ron around.

This time, I am going to create magic. For myself. By myself.

Change is good. Every now and then, I think I am going to need it.

For now I am just fine.

Impacted Wisdom - II

It all started with a poky sensation in the right lower corner of the inside of my mouth. It came in spurts initially trying desperately to grab my attention, and when I refused, it decidedly took the upperhand and became a constant nagging pain in my neck (ear and mouth).

A sudden change of travel plans forced me to consider a visit to the dentist - something I shuddered at for the last time I went there for one complaint, I ended up with 3 painful root-canal treatments. Actually this incident was the preamble to the final showdown. Apparently there are three nerve roots for each tooth which need to be anaesthesized during a root canal treatment. But me being me, I apparently had 5 nerve roots in one tooth, which my veteran dentist could not locate. So I had to bear pains throughout the procedure while she shoved, dug, poked and pulled.

So after the initial shock of seeing me back in her clinic after many years (read - 2 years), Dr. Dentist peered into the hollowness of my mouth, did her customary hmms, shook her head and said "your wisdom teeth, all four of them, have got impacted into the bone. They're half out and don't have any place to maneuver and they're beginning to show signs of decay. (saving grace - she said my brush wouldn't reach the wisdom teeth and that's why there were beginning to decay). Let's remove them. Come tomorrow and I'll remove all four!"

Me: "all four? At the same time?" (Now, I am brave even in the face of Goliath, but removing four teeth at the same time?)

DD: "Of course. It's a small procedure. Each one will take just a couple of minutes. Plus, your school friend SA who is apprenticing with me also got hers removed last week. And she did the procedure on another patient this morning".

Me: "Oh SA, it will be so good to see her. (Then on second thoughts), But I hope you'll be doing the procedure on me".

DD: "Of course. Here take this prescription for antibiotics and gargles and I'll see you tomorrow".

D-Day

SA: Gives me a bear hug. "So great to see you. blah blah blah. ... she got married.... blah blah blah.... im getting married... blah blah blah... when're u getting married?"

The nurse hands me the consent form. I take a cursory glance and then as an afterthought I look at it horrified as it warns me about severe swelling, other teeth getting dislodged, pain throughout and after the procedure, failure of the procedure and worse a temporomandibular joint (jaw joint) dislocation. Ouch! I don't why and DD wonders why I asked her, "what is the worst complication of this procedure that you've come across?". Portent intuition?

DD: "Relax, it's a routine thing"

So I slip into the large chair, swivel my feet up, gargle, laugh away nervously, and look up to see capped-masked-gowned-gloved DD and SA with syringe-needles and retractors and other scary looking things in their hands.

DD starts poking me with the needle to numb me. And my tissues swell. She takes the scalpel, I reflexly close my eyes and before I know it, she has taken a plier-like instrument and drawn out my first decadent wisdom tooth.

DD: "See. I told you so. But it's a large tooth"

Feeling better and more confident now, I let her take a sharp jab at both corners of my hard palate and lo behold, 2 more wayward teeth were out!

And then the battle began. What seemed as an innocuous tooth removal resulted in a 2 hour ordeal with naked vision, x-ray vision, imagined vision about the orientation, angulation and curvature of my 'large' wisdom tooth. Needless to say, it was disoriented compared to the normal way and so accessing the root was getting difficult. Moreover, each tooth has two roots so that they could be sectioned through the crown of the tooth and each half removed easily - but not mine! My wise tooth had decidedly fused the two roots into one and so it couldn't be extracted by divisive methods.

The drill of the bone grated my nerves, the flush of the suction tickling me but I kept my cool. And then suddenly,

DD: "H, I think I've drilled too close to the inferior alveolar neurovascular canal. I can't go further. Can you come with me to my mentor's place in Matunga. He's an expert in these cases and it would be over in a jiffy".

And in what seemed like after-a-whirlwind, an hour's drive later, my mom, DD and I were sitting Senior DD's clinic and a couple of minutes later, I was "lying on the operating table" (yes - like in the operating theater) and surrendered to the whims and expertise of SDD and DD. Another 10 mins later I was sitting in front of SDD chatting about my Johns Hopkins plans and we struck a deal that I'd pay him by being the conveyor of a gift to one of of his friends at JHH in lieu of Rs. 6000! Nice deal!

So 4 days later, I am sitting with my laptop in hand recounting my tale with a swollen face, toothache, bitten lips, cheilotic torn angles of the mouth hoping fervently that this be an end to my toothy saga - for life.

Amen.

Unwise wisdom

Too much of anything is bad. I guess that's what happens when one is too wise for one's own good. Wisdom gets concentrated, sedimented and nearly fossilized into the maxillary and mandibular bones (the upper and lower jaws for the layman) and then begins the great war!

I am sure with our evolutionary history, as homo erectus and homo sapiens, we needed 32 teeth to bite into flesh and leaves. But if you trace our monkeyed-heritage, you'll notice a distinct change in the size and the shape of our homo sapiens sapiens faces. Our faces have become daintier, foreheads have flattened, shapely eyes, sharper noses, less-pouting lips, smaller ears and finally a smaller jaw.

So when all our facial features have shown developmental regression, isn't it a natural progression that nature would start to modify our teeth accordingly? My theory is that 32 human teeth are actually inhuman - considering that the four wisdom teeth hidden away in the recesses of the mouth have for all purposes become vestigial. I mean we don't use them to chew or bite and our brushes don't even reach that far into the cave. They don't even contribute to aesthetics and cosmetics and finally more than half the world needs to get them out.

And in propounding this hypothesis, I am ably supported by my exhausted dentist who is minting money while pulleying and pulling out stubborn wisdom teeth and gracefully admits that "God made man and wisdom teeth, man improvised and made dentists and dentists make merry with wisdom teeth".

My teeth and I have been enigmatic nemeses. We reside in the same body, eat together, chew on thoughts, spruce up each other, even go to bed together. But, where I grew up readily and steadily and entered adolescence and adulthood with relative ease, my teeth were a bit redundant. So when my friends and peers would show up cheerfully with missing-teeth-smiles, I would rush to the bathroom and try to pull and push and shake and coerce my teeth to grow up and get uprooted.

Stubborn as they were, they would shake from their slumber, but refuse to get out of bed. So each time one of my milk teeth showed signs of falling, I'd get excited and wonder what to wish from the tooth fairy. So you can just imagine my annoyance at the regular visits to the dentist to get each and every obstinate milk tooth pulled out. Each and every time! Ice creams galore but no tooth fairy! My mom began to rue the fact that I was a milk-magnet as a baby. Anyway, that was a long time ago or so it seemed. For the second part of my epic struggle with my teeth was yet to begin.

contd...

Genetic Habits

Clumsiness and absent-mindedness, as I have earlier mentioned, are traits I have inherited from the maternal side of my family. I have 3 cousins and a grandparent and maybe an aunt who have preceded me as the yellow peas in this Mendelian family tree.

I also have this habit of rubbing my fingers against each other (much like Abhishek Bachhan in Sarkar) and an even older habit of rubbing my nose when I am in deep contemplation. The nose habit - is more like trying to remove the grease from my oily skin.... My friend Amol was the first to notice this peculiar habit and make me aware of it. Since then, whenever he catches me doing that, I know the sidey nickname of 'doggy' will not be far behind.

Curiously, I discovered that this habit is also hereditary and comes my maternal side again. This time from my grandma's family. She was here with us during the hot summer months to escape the cruel sweltering heat of Madras (Chennai I know is politically correct - but correctness be damned!).

So it one of those lazy May afternoons spent studying and figuring out how metabolic acidosis drives hyperkalemia as if I were trying to unearth one of the great mysteries of the world. Like I said, my fingers were subconsciously drawn to my nose (maybe I smelt a clue). I don't know for how long it was, but when I looked up, my patti was staring at me, wide-eyed with her hand on her cheek and head tilted in admiration.

Turns out that I reminded her of her brother (whom we affectionately call BM) and her father, my great-grandfather. Apparently, her father would sit in the same way when he was neck deep in work and in deep concentration. Tears welled in her eyes as I brought back memories of her beloved dad, leaving me a lil awkward.

Life works mysteriously. We think that death takes away our loved ones and all their reminders away. But that's not true. A part of our dead lives on with us and lives on with our children and theirs too. Mendel's laws are unshakeable. They work - All the time.