'I've lost my voice', I whispered hoarsely for the tenth time in the past hour. The coffee girl behind the counter laughed. A few hours ago, I would have laughed with her. However, pulling out my little notebook, I quickly jotted down my order and showed it to her. As I walked away, I had a distinct feeling that the whole thing was taking on the air of something quite unpleasant.
Earlier, at the pharmacy, a note about my condition made the pharmacist exclaim - 'There is NOTHING that can bring your voice back!' I'd given him a thumbs up and walked out.
I'm not usually very talkative. Unless I'm surrounded by people who are lower down on the talkative scale than I am, which leads me to talk 2-3 times more than I normally would to keep the silence and awkwardness at bay.
The flu seemed harmless at first. Modern, easily accessible medicine kept the symptoms under cover, and I functioned normally. Towards the end of the week, a tadpole in my throat was born, and quickly grew to take on its role as a full fledged working-frog. Alistair MacLean described this condition succinctly in one of his books, when the hero sounded like a toad or a frog with bronchitis.
Even though the prospect of taking flash cards to work on Monday seemed amusing at first, I don't think I can do it anymore.
What makes things less amusing? Fear. Fear of what? Death. What brings on fear? Old age.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
The Idle-llic Life
With the last grad school application over, and parents away, I have had too much free time, and too much free energy to boot. While singing to annoy my sister, throwing sheep, cows, and elephants at friends on facebook, and catching up with movies were fun initially, I soon made a remarkable discovery.
The idle life's not really for me.
Something stronger than superego starts eating away at my innards when I'm sitting and doing nothing. The energy I'm not using acts like a super-excited state of matter, pulsing and throwing itself at all my organs and limbs, willing them to move.
Reading helps. A little. The 3 books I'm reading right now are 'Ignited Minds' by A.P.J. Kalam, '1001 Arabian Nights' translated by Richard Burton, and 'The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night Time' by Mark Haddon. All excellent. Even though my neurons are sweating and panting their dendrons off, there was a slight problem with this activity: the sitting still part.
I decided to try something new. Something so unique that most people my age wouldn't even begin to think of it. Something that would allow me unleash my creativity and burned calories as a side effect. Finally, I hit upon the best kind of indoor exercise - cleaning.
The switch boards and switches and ceiling fans came first. Then the doors. Followed by the 50 odd bunches of artificial flowers around the house (I counted). My sister and I attacked the storeroom together. We sorted through suitcases full of clothes and papers and single, divorced socks, and bags full of bags, and random objects prized by parents for no apparent reason. We categorized items and reorganized them: Mum's clothes went in one bag, craft supplies in another, old broken electronics in yet another, and so on. I made another bag for myself - and put all the orphaned items in it. These included - a pirate patch, a set of fake nails, an old used order-form-less 3-D camera with Pepsi's baby pictures trapped in it - and my favorite... a live-mosquito trap "For the Novice Trapper. Catch them live and make your own mosquito-fur coat!".
I think we need to donate half our house to Goodwill.
The idle life's not really for me.
Something stronger than superego starts eating away at my innards when I'm sitting and doing nothing. The energy I'm not using acts like a super-excited state of matter, pulsing and throwing itself at all my organs and limbs, willing them to move.
Reading helps. A little. The 3 books I'm reading right now are 'Ignited Minds' by A.P.J. Kalam, '1001 Arabian Nights' translated by Richard Burton, and 'The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night Time' by Mark Haddon. All excellent. Even though my neurons are sweating and panting their dendrons off, there was a slight problem with this activity: the sitting still part.
I decided to try something new. Something so unique that most people my age wouldn't even begin to think of it. Something that would allow me unleash my creativity and burned calories as a side effect. Finally, I hit upon the best kind of indoor exercise - cleaning.
The switch boards and switches and ceiling fans came first. Then the doors. Followed by the 50 odd bunches of artificial flowers around the house (I counted). My sister and I attacked the storeroom together. We sorted through suitcases full of clothes and papers and single, divorced socks, and bags full of bags, and random objects prized by parents for no apparent reason. We categorized items and reorganized them: Mum's clothes went in one bag, craft supplies in another, old broken electronics in yet another, and so on. I made another bag for myself - and put all the orphaned items in it. These included - a pirate patch, a set of fake nails, an old used order-form-less 3-D camera with Pepsi's baby pictures trapped in it - and my favorite... a live-mosquito trap "For the Novice Trapper. Catch them live and make your own mosquito-fur coat!".
I think we need to donate half our house to Goodwill.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Home
Wow - it's 2009.
It's amazing how much happened since the toenail incident. Jumping off a bridge. The Great Waltz. The GRE. The FE. JPL. Raytheon. Lockheed. The drivers license test. Twice. Berkeley. And 5 other graduate schools. Las Vegas. Packing. Moving. A million times.
65 hours to reach home. And almost not making it. The luggage not making it at all.
I'm home now. And none of that matters anymore.
It's amazing how much happened since the toenail incident. Jumping off a bridge. The Great Waltz. The GRE. The FE. JPL. Raytheon. Lockheed. The drivers license test. Twice. Berkeley. And 5 other graduate schools. Las Vegas. Packing. Moving. A million times.
65 hours to reach home. And almost not making it. The luggage not making it at all.
I'm home now. And none of that matters anymore.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Waltzing with Band-Aids
It was past midnight on Saturday when I called the nurse help-line.
'What's the problem?' a british voice finally asked me after getting the history of my illnesses from the beginning of time.
'I injured my toe-nail'.
There was a very deliberate pause.
The voice found itself at last. 'How did it happen?
It was my turn to pause. 'I stepped on myself.'
Yes, I felt silly. Silly because I was calling up the nurse on-call about a toenail. Silly because I couldn't even blame anyone, or anything (not even alcohol), for hurting myself to the extent that I couldn't even walk properly, and had a very significant limp.
I was surprised to find that toenails can wreck havoc in one's normal life. If broken, they usually get infected, or have to be surgically removed.
Fortunately, mine didn't. I was told to keep it covered with a band-aid at all times and shut up. My toenail's a fighter, and by Wednesday, I half-forgot about my limp. When my partner in my waltz class stepped on my toe (the toe) yesterday, and started apologizing profusely, I laughed it off, saying I was more in danger of inflicting damage on myself by stepping on my toes than he ever could.
I did rediscover the principle of the conservation of pain. The minute the pain in my toenails left me, my knees went on a strike. And when that ended, I mysteriously cut my thumb.
I think I'm going to single-handedly revitalize the failing US economy with my neverending band-aid purchases.
'What's the problem?' a british voice finally asked me after getting the history of my illnesses from the beginning of time.
'I injured my toe-nail'.
There was a very deliberate pause.
The voice found itself at last. 'How did it happen?
It was my turn to pause. 'I stepped on myself.'
Yes, I felt silly. Silly because I was calling up the nurse on-call about a toenail. Silly because I couldn't even blame anyone, or anything (not even alcohol), for hurting myself to the extent that I couldn't even walk properly, and had a very significant limp.
I was surprised to find that toenails can wreck havoc in one's normal life. If broken, they usually get infected, or have to be surgically removed.
Fortunately, mine didn't. I was told to keep it covered with a band-aid at all times and shut up. My toenail's a fighter, and by Wednesday, I half-forgot about my limp. When my partner in my waltz class stepped on my toe (the toe) yesterday, and started apologizing profusely, I laughed it off, saying I was more in danger of inflicting damage on myself by stepping on my toes than he ever could.
I did rediscover the principle of the conservation of pain. The minute the pain in my toenails left me, my knees went on a strike. And when that ended, I mysteriously cut my thumb.
I think I'm going to single-handedly revitalize the failing US economy with my neverending band-aid purchases.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Fighting demons and dragons
So - another 5 days and I'll be done with my second stint at NASA this summer. But the next few days will be far from dull - I have to write two papers, participate in a JPL-Team-X-like mission design exercise, make a final presentation, write a couple of articles, and worst of all - pack.
Is it weird that all this feels normal? Probably not - seven semesters at school have prepared me well for something like this. I complain and whine out of habit - one of my friends, after listening to my tirade said, 'So - what's new?' Another one claimed that I always made my life sound like I was fighting demons and dragons.
I think it's natural to want some drama in one's life.
Is it weird that all this feels normal? Probably not - seven semesters at school have prepared me well for something like this. I complain and whine out of habit - one of my friends, after listening to my tirade said, 'So - what's new?' Another one claimed that I always made my life sound like I was fighting demons and dragons.
I think it's natural to want some drama in one's life.
Monday, August 11, 2008
City-trotter
I'd never understood what falling in love with a city meant.
Lucknow was a harsh, hot city, with too many cars on the roads, too much dust in the air, not enough trees to hide the the murkiness and poverty all around, too many eyes that I learned to pretend to ignore while taking the buses to and from school. I loved it because in the sea of dirt and dust and sweat, I could usually spot a familiar face from my childhood, or have the best ice-cream for two rupees, or just think about the people I cared for most who were not very far away.
Ann Arbor was nice. When I think back though, there is little of the city that I remember - other than the trips between school and home, home and school, my first memorable snowfall, halloween, hunting for gypsy moths, puberty, the pretzels at briarwood mall, and the 'oh-hell' card game I learned.
Austin...was not the north-east. Perhaps I had dreams of the east coast with its magnificent old architecture, the smart-looking people, the cool weather - when I first came to Austin, having seen little else in all my time in the country before. I liked the little neighborhoods, but the buildings on campus were awful, and I the absence of snow and boots and heavy jackets was disappointing. It took a while - to appreciate the oddity of the place, the live music, the lethargy, the sunny weather - a nice escape from the sub-zero temperatures maintained indoors.
Cleveland was one of those cities that I wondered about - I wondered why people would decide to live here all their lives. People over 65 probably made up the bulk of the population, the city was old and windy, rated one of the poorest cities in the United States, and also one of the coldest - because of the lake effect, and no Sun for 4-5 months.
People complain too much. I remember this animal crackers comic strip - the gnu had just had a brainwave - he declared that he knew why the grass was greener on the other side - because they dyed it!
Cleveland's awesome. A visit downtown is like walking into a movie-rental place - there so much to see, all around. A string of parks surrounds the city - known as the emerald necklace. A river runs through it, called the Cuyahoga (which literally means crooked river) - which caught on fire several times in the last few decades. There are several old houses with secret quarters where sympathetic owners hid slaves prior to the civil war. The Cleveland Clinic is really an art museum or classical music paradise.
And when I go back to Austin now, I can smile while wearing summer clothes in January, enjoy the local artists performing in coffee shops, smile when a random stranger passes a compliment on the street corner.
Lucknow's become exquisite too - with the parts of it that are changing, and the parts that remain endearingly the same - the driveway, the garden, the campus gate.
Likewise, Delhi, Manipal, Allahabad, Cincinnati, Philadelphia have some special spots. They all are the same under all the layers of an onion - places that some people decided to call home, and where civilization took over.
The secret to loving anything is the impermanence of it. The secret to loving anyplace is to go away - and keep coming back.
Lucknow was a harsh, hot city, with too many cars on the roads, too much dust in the air, not enough trees to hide the the murkiness and poverty all around, too many eyes that I learned to pretend to ignore while taking the buses to and from school. I loved it because in the sea of dirt and dust and sweat, I could usually spot a familiar face from my childhood, or have the best ice-cream for two rupees, or just think about the people I cared for most who were not very far away.
Ann Arbor was nice. When I think back though, there is little of the city that I remember - other than the trips between school and home, home and school, my first memorable snowfall, halloween, hunting for gypsy moths, puberty, the pretzels at briarwood mall, and the 'oh-hell' card game I learned.
Austin...was not the north-east. Perhaps I had dreams of the east coast with its magnificent old architecture, the smart-looking people, the cool weather - when I first came to Austin, having seen little else in all my time in the country before. I liked the little neighborhoods, but the buildings on campus were awful, and I the absence of snow and boots and heavy jackets was disappointing. It took a while - to appreciate the oddity of the place, the live music, the lethargy, the sunny weather - a nice escape from the sub-zero temperatures maintained indoors.
Cleveland was one of those cities that I wondered about - I wondered why people would decide to live here all their lives. People over 65 probably made up the bulk of the population, the city was old and windy, rated one of the poorest cities in the United States, and also one of the coldest - because of the lake effect, and no Sun for 4-5 months.
People complain too much. I remember this animal crackers comic strip - the gnu had just had a brainwave - he declared that he knew why the grass was greener on the other side - because they dyed it!
Cleveland's awesome. A visit downtown is like walking into a movie-rental place - there so much to see, all around. A string of parks surrounds the city - known as the emerald necklace. A river runs through it, called the Cuyahoga (which literally means crooked river) - which caught on fire several times in the last few decades. There are several old houses with secret quarters where sympathetic owners hid slaves prior to the civil war. The Cleveland Clinic is really an art museum or classical music paradise.
And when I go back to Austin now, I can smile while wearing summer clothes in January, enjoy the local artists performing in coffee shops, smile when a random stranger passes a compliment on the street corner.
Lucknow's become exquisite too - with the parts of it that are changing, and the parts that remain endearingly the same - the driveway, the garden, the campus gate.
Likewise, Delhi, Manipal, Allahabad, Cincinnati, Philadelphia have some special spots. They all are the same under all the layers of an onion - places that some people decided to call home, and where civilization took over.
The secret to loving anything is the impermanence of it. The secret to loving anyplace is to go away - and keep coming back.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Adventures Unlimited ...
It all started with my decision of visiting friends over the 4th of July weekend. Excited that I found a cheap-ish ticket, I booked it right away, informed co-workers I would be taking a day off, and told my friends to expect my intrusion in a couple of weeks.
And I prompty forgot about it all until the day I had to leave.
Looking down from the plane, which was supposed to land in Newark, I saw a lot of tall buildings. Hmm, I thought. This place looks a lot like New York City. I saw something that looked suspiciously like the Empire State Building, and shook my head at the apparent imitation-trend engulfing the nation.
Once I landed, I called Aditi, telling her I was here. Aditi told me she was almost there to pick me up.
It took both of us some time to realize that 'here' was not exactly equal to 'there'. 'There' was what it should have been, the Newark International Airport. In my carelessness/excitement, I had booked the wrong ticket, and landed at the Laguardia Airport.
Things could have been worse than having to take a shuttle to the Newark Airport and meeting my friend and reaching her place 4 hours later (which included a back-tracking trip to locate her lost debit card). On the shuttle between NYC and Newark, I met two strangers, both from Texas, who shared random characteristics with me, and one another, and remarked on the amazement of life the whole way.
I thought the entire situation was absurdly funny. My dad, who had been keeping tabs on my travel, didn't share my views.
Philadelphia is awesome. My fourth time here was still as exciting as any other - the city is littered with astounding architectural marvels and an eclectic collection of oddities. The accidental (and entirely untentional) patriotism I displayed while spending Independence Day in the First American Capital culminated in watching the Franklin Parkway Parade, waiting in the rain for the fireworks, and eventually watching them from Aditi's enviable bay window.
Today was Atlantic City Day. We went to the beach,
wrote
our names in the sand, collected shells, fed the sea-gulls Cheetos, walked in and out of Casinos, did some spontaneous shopping, and had our palms read. We also had a mini-celebration of our birthdays (just a day apart) with a no-nonsense chocolate cake (which we decorated ourselves).
And we also ran down 10 blocks to catch the train back.
------------------------------------------------------------
The new issue of Nazar came out today - My humble contributions:
Not Every Dog has its Day
All's Fair in Love and...
With every issue, I continue to be amazed at the talent and dedication that a group of then-freshmen showed, and continue to maintain over time.
And I prompty forgot about it all until the day I had to leave.
Looking down from the plane, which was supposed to land in Newark, I saw a lot of tall buildings. Hmm, I thought. This place looks a lot like New York City. I saw something that looked suspiciously like the Empire State Building, and shook my head at the apparent imitation-trend engulfing the nation.
Once I landed, I called Aditi, telling her I was here. Aditi told me she was almost there to pick me up.
It took both of us some time to realize that 'here' was not exactly equal to 'there'. 'There' was what it should have been, the Newark International Airport. In my carelessness/excitement, I had booked the wrong ticket, and landed at the Laguardia Airport.
Things could have been worse than having to take a shuttle to the Newark Airport and meeting my friend and reaching her place 4 hours later (which included a back-tracking trip to locate her lost debit card). On the shuttle between NYC and Newark, I met two strangers, both from Texas, who shared random characteristics with me, and one another, and remarked on the amazement of life the whole way.
I thought the entire situation was absurdly funny. My dad, who had been keeping tabs on my travel, didn't share my views.
Philadelphia is awesome. My fourth time here was still as exciting as any other - the city is littered with astounding architectural marvels and an eclectic collection of oddities. The accidental (and entirely untentional) patriotism I displayed while spending Independence Day in the First American Capital culminated in watching the Franklin Parkway Parade, waiting in the rain for the fireworks, and eventually watching them from Aditi's enviable bay window.
Today was Atlantic City Day. We went to the beach,
wroteour names in the sand, collected shells, fed the sea-gulls Cheetos, walked in and out of Casinos, did some spontaneous shopping, and had our palms read. We also had a mini-celebration of our birthdays (just a day apart) with a no-nonsense chocolate cake (which we decorated ourselves).
And we also ran down 10 blocks to catch the train back.
------------------------------------------------------------
The new issue of Nazar came out today - My humble contributions:
Not Every Dog has its Day
All's Fair in Love and...
With every issue, I continue to be amazed at the talent and dedication that a group of then-freshmen showed, and continue to maintain over time.
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