Pink is a gender neutral color

The color pink is associated with girls.  This is a universal concept. Men don't wear pink, and are generally reluctant to have any accouterments that are even remotely pinkish in color. Girls, on the other hand, from a very tender age, are drawn to this color. My five year old daughter is literally living a pink life - pink clothes, pink room, pink bed, pink bedcover, pink pillow, pink comforter ... you get the idea. She started playing soccer today, and it is not hard to guess the color of her cleats, socks, and shin guards. Yes, they are all pink. 

The question is - Why is pink associated with girls? The association of pink with femininity is a rather recent concept, and an Occidental one at that. It only became noticeable in the 1940s, and there are no definite or documented origins for this association. It is one of those things that just happened slowly. It has been said that it was brought about in the USA by President Eisenhower's wife's pink inaugural gown. It has also been claimed that Barbie might have played a significant role. When I was growing up in India a lifetime ago, before television and Internet had invaded our lives, pink was not a girl's color at all. Many males, including yours truly, comfortably sported pink shirts at the very least. In fact, traditional male Indian garbs and headgear from several parts of the country still have pink hues.  

So do Occidental men hate the color? Is that why this association happened? I think I can categorically say - NO. If they did, girls would have stopped wearing pink once they got to an age where they discovered boys and quickly realized that wearing pink is a definite deterrent to attracting male attention. The very fact that girls and women of all ages don copious amounts of pink indicates very clearly that men actually love the color, at least on the fairer sex. So, is the reason then that pink suits girls much better than they suit boys? This is not even a point worth arguing. The color has nothing to do with anatomical differences between sexes, since the color is not limited to garments. It is everywhere, from shoes to cellphone colors to cars. It cannot be based on looks because pretty and ugly are purely subjective concepts. Babies look pretty in any color, regardless of sex. 

So, what is it then? I believe, at this point, it is simply peer pressure and a demonstration of the control exerted by society over man. Men don't wear pink simply because other men laugh at them if they do. Their wives and girlfriends refuse to go with them, and their children innocently state, "Dad, you are weird!" We are social animals, and for the most part our lives are governed and dictated by social trends. And this association of pink with femininity is simple a very strong demonstration of that. We have seen many brave men, men who have dared to defy the social norms of their times. Men Like King, Gandhi, and Mandela fought and emerged victorious against racial discrimination, caste system, and apartheid respectively. They were able to move huge masses with their words and actions, and convince them to support their cause and fight and die for it. 

But the world is still waiting for that brave man who will be able to come out and declare that pink is a gender neutral color, will have the guts to have a wardrobe dominated by pink, drive a pink car, have a pink cellphone cover and wear pink shoes. And, by the looks of it, this is going to be a long wait. A really, really long one.

Spasmodically Social

Being social comes easily to some people. They are the social type. They become socialites, or politicians, or start cults or revolutions. To some others, it is an extremely arduous task at the very least. These people are the unsocial type, usually recluses, and become authors, or scientists, or hackers. However, both these sections of society form a minority, even when combined together. The remaining population hovers somewhere in between these two extremities. These are the somewhat social people. They can be very social within some groups, and not social at all in another. The groups they can open up to become their friends, lovers and allies. The group they cannot associate with comprise of their enemies, and nemeses. 

However, I think that there is a fourth, hitherto formally unidentified, group when it comes to social behavior. This group comprises of people whose ability to be social is governed by the calendar. This is not entirely an unknown phenomenon. It, in current parlance, is identified by the phrase - "woke up on the wrong side of the bed". Some days we wake up and feel social. On those days, we can be social rock-stars. Some days, I surprise even myself with my ability to be social. I am the cynosure of all eyes, the beacon of a gathering. However, I should mention that those days are few and far between. But they happen, and they tell me that I know how to be social. Most of the other days, I wake up and feel like my more familiar usual self - extremely unsocial or at best socially awkward. On those days, I spend most of my time staring at my toes. I hate mankind, and even some animals if they nuzzle up to me. I brood at gatherings, and sullenly mutter curses under my breath. 

There are two factors that differentiate us from the somewhat social group. First, our ability to be social is not determined by our company. We can be completely social and completely unsocial with the same group of people on different days of the month. The other factor is that there is no middle ground between our two extremes of social behavior. There is never a day when we feel somewhat social. Ergo I believe that it is time to formally recognize us and give us the social status we deserve. We are the socially spasmodic. Or maybe we are the spasmodically social? We will be extremely happy or utterly disgusted with either coinage depending on the day of the month.

Why the world needs more gay men

Let's start with a joke. A SPANISH Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

"House" for instance, is feminine: "la casa."

"Pencil," however, is masculine: "el lapiz."

A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun.

Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computadora"), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval;
 and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your pay check on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ("el computador"), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE  the problem;
and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

There can be no better example of difference of opinions. What does difference in opinions lead to? Conflicts. Arguments. Wars. But, men and women have never engaged in wars in the modern era. Not like the ones fought in 1914, 1939, 1990. Why? Because the difference in opinions is negated and nullified by something else - mutual carnal attraction. All differences and egos are overpowered by that. And results in coexistence and peace.

That's why the world needs more gay men. For world peace.

Conflict Resolution - The shoelaces fight

This past weekend I learnt a huge lesson in conflict resolution - never tell a guy he is wrong when he is mad, especially if you know that the best result of the conflict is a resolution and not justice or decision.

People close to me tell me that I am one who is always ready to pick a fight, and one who will go to a significant extent to justify that he is right. Well, maybe that is true. Maybe at some subconscious level, it is basic human nature. No one likes to admit they are wrong when they are convinced that they are not, and only the most level-headed people can see the big picture when they are in the middle of a conflict.

Well, this time, I didn't pick a fight. I was not right, nor wrong, and I did not justify my stand. However, I was in a position to resolve the conflict because that was the best possible outcome. And I failed there, because instead of appeasing the warring parties, I pointed out that one of them were wrong. All then everything went haywire. It doesn't matter, in retrospect, that one party was wrong. The ultimate victims of this conflict did not deserve to be the victims – innocent seven and eight year olds trying to play a soccer game. The whole thing seems so comical and silly now, that probably all the involved parties, as well as the spectators, are as guilt-ridden about the outcome as I am.

Here is how the drama unfolded. It was the 3rd quarter of a U-8 boys soccer game, middle of third quarter, my son's team - The Terminators - trailing by 4 goals to The Scorpions, one more quarter to go after this. I was the referee for this quarter, and was trying my best to be neutral. We got a goal kick, and one of the kids kicked off. Just before that goal kick, when the ball was still out of bounds, I noticed that one of the Scorpions had their laces undone. I walked up to him and told him to do his laces. I didn't look back to see if he did or not. As it turned out later, he didn't. The goal kick was taken and the play was on, the kids scrapping for the ball. About 30 seconds into the play, I hear the coaches of the two teams yelling at each other, from the opposite sidelines across the field, the Terminators' coach telling the Scorpions' to relax and enjoy the game and not make it a battle, or something to that effect. And then the Scorpions' coach blew a whistle from the sidelines and the game stopped. The kids on the ground are coached to respond to the whistle (Pavlovian as it may sound) but they are not rule-savvy enough to know whose whistle they should respond to. So everyone stopped playing. The Terminators coach was pointing out heatedly that the Scorpion's coach should wait for the play to be over, and should not interrupt the game or yell at the referee, which apparently they were doing. The Scorpions, in turn, explained to me that they were trying to get my attention so that the Scorpions player could do his laces, hence the yelling, and then the whistle.

I was focused on getting the game going as quickly as possible. So I let the Scorpions' player do his laces, with the help of a helpful parent, and then asked for the play to be started at the goal kick. With that out of the way, I asked the players to restart the play at the goal kick. I still cannot fathom what the problem with that decision was, since I was sacrificing at least 15 yards advantage for the Terminators and restarting the play at their goal, but my decision provoked the Scorpions' coach enough to out to the Terminators' coach saying that the referee's decision was a clear sign of frustration and that he should tell the referee to relax a bit. The Terminator's coach responded with something I did not hear clearly and cannot reconstruct now.

This is where I committed by first mistake. I should have realized that the guy was clearly agitated, and was just trying to get into a verbal volley to justify his disruptive move and save face, or he just believed that he did the right thing by stopping the game for his player to do his laces. I should have ignored his jibe and concentrated on the game. What I did however was I told the Scorpions' coach that he was wrong in interrupting the game and that he should have either done it before the play started, or after that play was over and the ball was out of bounds. I did not get mad, I did not yell. I just did what I thought a referee should be explaining to coaches on the sidelines that disrupted the game. I did it in a clear, authoritative voice, like I have seen referees in international games do in such a situation. It felt right at that time, and was clearly proved wrong by the outcome. This was neither an international game, nor was I a qualified international referee. Nor was the coach an international coach, and neither he nor the team was required to adhere to any FIFA rules. So he called his team off, and decided not to play anymore.

This is where I committed by second mistake. I should have, in retrospect, walked to the Scorpions' coach and requested him to not withdraw from the game, because it was not about the ego of the grown-ups, it was about the kids who deserved the game, and the parents who adjust their busy schedules to bring the kids to the games. However, what I did was - nothing. I did nothing at all. Having seen my first interference in the conflict resulting in a disaster, I stayed quiet and let the events take their course. Everybody walked off, the parents and coach in our team telling their kids that it was not their fault, and they will have a great game next Saturday. I did not see what was going on in the Scorpions' camp, but I imagine it would have been a very similar scene.

Who suffered? The people involved in the verbal battle, for sure, are feeling guilty now, or will feel guilty as soon as their anger subsides. I am feeling and acting all guilty, at having been part of a charade that robbed small kids of a soccer game. The kids suffered the most, having seen their parents act like pouting toddlers and having to go home unsatisfied and unfulfilled and confused.

And so, the lesson I learned - if you want a quick resolution to a conflict, do not tell a guy he is wrong when he is mad, even if he is wrong. Let his anger play out, humor him, and he will see things more clearly when his anger subsides. I will try to keep this in mind for all conflict situations going forward, and maybe I will get to write another story where I succeed in resolving a conflict using this approach.

The Solitary Rose Part 1

The room had been ransacked. Every piece of furniture was upturned or broken. Picture frames were on the floor, the glass covers cracked like spider-webs. Window panes were broken, curtains ripped apart. It looked like someone had vented their anger and frustration on the contents of the room. Only one glass coffee table sat amid all the devastation, untouched and unharmed. And on the table was one solitary red rose. Her eyes fell on it and immediately she knew. She froze, then fell to her knees, as if she had lost all the strength and resolve she had mustered inside her over the last few months, the most difficult months of her young life so far. She knew she had lost her fight with destiny. Fate had defeated her. And the red rose was all the proof she needed. Tears came down her eyes, first in drops, then in torrents. She wept till she could not cry any more. She lay down on the floor, exhausted, and implored God to give her death. Life would never be the same again.

I died again .... last night

Over the last couple of years, I have had a recurring experience at night after going to bed. It has always been when I have been transitioning from the state of semi-consciousness to the state of slumber. Initially, I refused to acknowledge this as nothing more than a dream, maybe a nightmare at best. But as the frequency of this experience has increased, I have begun to wonder if it is just a dream or a premonition of something in my future, a not so distant future. 

Let me recount the sequence of events from the first time I had this experience. I had gone to bed, looking forward to a bright, sunny tomorrow. I don't know how long I had been sleeping or how deep my slumber was when someone shook me hard, like my kids do to wake me up when I sometimes out-sleep them on Saturday mornings. I woke up with a start and opened my eyes.  I saw that I was lying on my side, with my two hands crossed over my chest. I took in my surroundings, the bed, the furniture, the room, the darkness punctuated by streaks of light from street lamps coming in through the open windows. Everything was in place, exactly as they were when I went to bed. It was when I tried to move my hands to reach out for my phone that I started noticing the difference. I was unable to move. I could see; but I couldn't move my limbs to touch anything. I could speak, but no sound came out. My mind was fully functional; but only I knew that. There was an absolute silence engulfing me like a shroud. I felt like I was trapped in ice, sans the coldness, or in a vacuum-sealed room made of transparent glass. Or a coffin with a see-through top.

An uncanny feeling of desperation and helplessness crept over me. My brain was telling me to scream out for help; it was telling me that if someone gave me a push, I would get out of my frozen state and this nightmare will be over. I started calling my wife with all my might. I called her name and asked her to shake me hard. Over and over again. In different languages that I knew she understood, out of desperation. She didn't respond; she was oblivious to my trauma. After a few attempts, I finally realized that no sound was coming out of my mouth. My wife couldn't hear me. She was right there, but she couldn't hear me!

At that moment, as I was succumbing to despair, as the fight was slowly leaving me, I finally realized that I was dead. That could be the only logical explanation of what was happening. I had died, and I had not been prepared for it. It was over; I was moving on, whether I wanted it or not. I - the real me, the soul - had left my body. Panic started setting in. I tried to struggle in vain. A plethora of uncoordinated thoughts raced through my mind - thoughts of unfinished actions, unspoken words, incomplete amends, and unfulfilled promises. There was sadness, there were regrets, there was fear, and rage brought out by helplessness. There was also an understanding that was seeping in. And then there was this blinding light - very bright, but very soothing, like an ugly deception that was transforming into a welcome reality. 

And then very suddenly, someone reached out and shook me really hard, bringing me out of my reverie. It was over. The noises came back, loud like the climactic crescendo of the Bolero - the chirping of crickets, the humming of cars on the highway, the rhythmic breathing of my sleeping wife. I moved my limbs again and again to confirm that I was able to move; I made a loud, guttural noise to confirm that I could hear myself; I sat up and grinned like a fool, beads of sweat on my forehead, my heart pounding like a drum, relief gushing over me and making me shiver uncontrollably. I was not dead.

That was then, two years ago. Since then I have had this episode several times. But now I am wiser. And more resigned. Now when I get into that state of death, I don't struggle and fight. I just wait to see if this is the end, or something or someone will jolt me back to life. I am convinced now that what I have been experiencing has been a sneak peek into the process of dying - what a person experiences and feels when he is transitioning from the mortal world to the afterlife. It is pretty scary, especially if one is not ready to die when death comes calling. 

Maybe I am getting closer to the end, and this is nature's way of preparing me for death, for the ultimate act of letting go of my most precious material possession - my body. I don't think I am ready yet, but at least now I know what it will be like. Death is like a scary horror movie, and my experience is like a very well-packaged trailer. I hate horror movies. I do.

High school reunion - my worst nightmare

With Whatsapp, the world has suddenly become a smaller place. I would like to thank Brian Acton for coming up with this, and  Mark Zuckerberg for recognizing its potential.

Needless to say, my classmates from high school have come together and formed a group. And the chatter and banter flow as if we were never apart. We are racking up over a thousand messages a day, and I have been contributing significantly to that. However, as soon as the pleasantries were done with, and adequate amazement had been expressed on hearing from each other over a two-decade hiatus, a collective desire was expressed to plan a reunion. And that's where I started getting cold feet.

No, I am not callous, nor am I unsocial or antisocial to any significant degree. I am scared, plain and simple. Scared of meeting old schoolmates, the bosom buddies of childhood and adolescence, the very people who were my life for nearly two decades, and who have definitely shaped up my personality to a large extent, and whom I have remembered every single day of my life after the separation. Yes, scared. Terrified.

Let's recollect our school days. There were friends, the ones that are for life. There was camaraderie, fun and frolic, gaiety, happiness, tears, competition, jealousy, animosity, hostility, make-ups and breakups, even a few affairs. After several years of separation, all that remains is nostalgia, memory of the good times, and the heartbreak of separation. And the realization that they were the best. Nothing can top or replace the bonds formed during school. However, there was something then that everyone has lost after living the conundrum called life for so many years. Innocence. And along with that have been lost, its companions, simplicity and and the adolescent ability to not judge people. And that is the cause of my fear.

We will go into that reunion all naive and excited, hoping it will be exactly like the good old days in the school canteen and at the school picnics. But a few hours into the event, we will realize that things are not exactly as we imagined. We will judge our friends with our world-weary minds and hearts and we will discover things that we don't like. And in that one moment, these friends will suddenly look ordinary. They will seem exactly like the people we call friends and acquaintances in our present daily life. The charm will wear off; the special feeling will be replaced by disappointment, and discontent.

And that special place that we fall back upon when we are melancholic or depressed or tired of fighting this disease called life - the memories of our glorious school days in the company of our best friends - that place which helps us recuperate and gives us the strength to stand up and fight some more - that will be lost. Violated for ever. I can draw a parallel here. If you go to your parents house and find your favorite toy in the attic, one that you firmly believed was your best toy ever, it will not seem so special anymore. You will be shocked to realize that this rag doll, or wooden toy car was the center of your universe for a few years, and has been embedded in your memory as something special for so many years.

And just for a few hours of fleeting joy, I am not willing to lose so much. Those memories and their warmth, as implanted in my mind - the source of my strength and the reason for my willingness to carry on - are priceless, and I am not mentally strong enough to let them go. Not at any cost. And so, I dread the day when this inevitable reunion will take place, and I dread the moment when I have to face my past, a past that I like the way I remember it.

iDiseases

I know that I have had  iOCD for a while now. It was tough at first, but I gradually learned to live with it. It was becoming easier each day to handle this ailment, when suddenly I realized I have come down with appOCD.

appOCD is of two kinds.

1. alphappOCD, a milder, not so rare, variety that inflicts a lot of smartphone users, but is too mild to bring about significant changes in lifestyles. This form of appOCD is caused by exposure to/knowledge of new apps being created for iOS and the desire to try them out on one's smartphone. People suffering from this disease download umpteen apps from the Apple Store and then spend umpteen hours trying these apps out and attempting to convince themselves that the app they are fiddling with right now is absolutely necessary for their lives to continue normally. 

2. ultrappOCD, the more rare and intense form of this disease that I am suffering from. This disease is brought about by an aggravated form of the alpha version combined with the desire to keep an app once it has been downloaded, coupled with the need to organize these apps in a single screen on the phone to maximize accessibility and minimize clutter.

Suffering from ultrappOCD is not fun. I have to habitually perform a whole series of actions daily which add nothing of value to my day or my life, and for the time invested in these rituals, I detest myself every night.

1. Every morning, after I wake up, I have to read several different Tech news and Tech gadget sites and skim through several hundred tweets to find the coolest new apps that have sprung up while I was sleeping.

2. Once I have my list of apps for the day, I now have to go to the App store and find and download these apps. Some days there are no new apps to download. These are the worst days because I have to now perform this action several times a day in the hope that a new app will show up for me to download. Some days the amount of money spent in procuring apps is more than the total expense on food for that day.

3. I then have to organize these downloaded apps on my phone into one screen so that I can remember where the app is, and how I can access it. Initially, I was just downloading the apps, without any attempt at classifying and categorizing them. But when my phone became about 15 screens wide, finding any app became increasingly hard. So I had to resort to categorization of apps. I tried several different classification and grouping approaches until I settled down on a process that works for me. Till iOS7 came along, keeping all the apps on one screen was impossible even with the most efficient classification schema because only a dozen apps were allowed per category. with iOS7, this constraint has been relaxed and that has made my disease much more bearable. So now I can have unlimited number of apps in 16 app groups, which is the maximum number of groups that I can fit into one screen.

4. I have to make sure that the app groups are named correctly and consistently - with a one-word noun in sentence case identifying the need for that group of apps, e.g., Productivity, or Movies.

5. then I have to check how much physical memory I still have on the phone, and if need be, delete something else to make room for the apps. On the worst possible days, I either have to delete songs from my iTunes playlist to make way for the new apps which is not good for my iOCD, or have to delete some older apps, which is not good for my ultrappOCD.

6. I have to now try out these apps to gain some proficiency in using them and assessing their merits and demerits.

7. Based on my experience with using each app, I have to now go and review them or critique them and rate them.

8. Finally, I have to write a summary of every new app with its merits and demerits in a journal of reviewed apps using a document-writing app.

With smartphones becoming more and more prevalent and affordable, I forecast that not so far in the future we will have a whole set of idiseases, and a brand new area of medicine will be created in response. There will be iDoctors armed with iMD and iMBBS degrees, with a plethora of iMedicines at their disposal treating iDiseases at iClinics and iHospitals. And my name will be often mentioned in those iesteemed circles with reverence as the first person to contract an idisease named appOCD.

The Elevator Effect

In the first-world, elevators are everywhere. And have been for the past half-century at least. Even 3-year old kids are at ease with them; they don't feel scared of getting into a tiny vault-like box that transports them vertically, sometimes towards gravity, and sometimes against. Even they know what to do when they get inside an elevator. Regardless of such intimate familiarity with this inanimate piece of machinery, something strange happens to most people when they are in the proximity of elevators. It almost feels like an elevator has a mysterious personality of its own, and has the ability to affect seemingly normal human beings in various idiosyncratic ways.

The most obvious effect is a dramatic change in a person's velocity when they are around an elevator. Some people get into a zombie mode. They might have walked at average human walking speeds to an elevator, pressed a button to summon the thing and waited for it. They would have checked the time every second and complained about how slow and inefficient the elevators in this building ar. However, when the elevator finally appears, they will slow down to such an extent that you, standing inside the elevator waiting for them to step in, would be likely to think that they have gone into a trance. They will take short, measured steps at a snail-like speed towards the elevator, step in ever so gingerly as if they were expecting the floor to be at boiling-point temperatures, and then take about 90 seconds to decide where they want to go, and another 270 to press the button to their destination. And, more often than not, you will encounter such people when you are inside the elevator and in a hurry to get to your own destination.

Other people become spasmodic and jittery. First they slow down to the above-mentioned zombie mode, and then suddenly snap out of it almost when the elevator doors are about to close. Then they will thrust a body-part through the closing doors, usually an arm or a leg, half-expecting the doors to open up again, half-expecting the door to close shut and entrap the body-part they put at risk. The doors obviously have been built by engineers who expect such reactions from people, and they invariably open up to let the person with the endangered body part in, but it costs you, the one inside and in a hurry, a precious 3 extra minutes, and causes most elevators to blurt out some ridiculous warning in the most annoying, high-pitched feminine voice that can permanently hurt your ear-drums.

Other effects on people are less pronounced but equally frequent and annoying. If more than five people get into an elevator at the same time, one or more of the following things are bound to happen - 

1. Someone will be doused with the strongest-smelling perfume you can imagine, and your nostrils will curl up in protest;

2. Someone will have strong BO (and if you are particularly unlucky, the above two things will sometimes happen together and leave you nauseated and giddy);

3. Someone will hold the door open for people who are still about half-a-mile away and have no inclination of getting in;

4. Someone will have a large object to carry with them, most commonly bicycles, and they will cramp you up for room;

5. Someone will stand so close to you that you can see the pores in their skin;

6. Someone will press the wrong button and make you stop at one extra floor;

7. Someone hale and hearty might be going only one floor up or down but would take the elevator instead of the stairs; and

8. The elevator will stop at least one floor where someone had summoned the elevator and then realized that they were not ready to step in yet.

And then, of course, there is elevator talk. Some people tend to become increasingly chatty when they get into an elevator, and the more the people in the elevator, the more is their desire to talk over their heads in loud voices, and mostly about some inane and insignificant topic. And if you are transporting yourself more than three floors in either direction, you will bump into at least one person who would be narrating a harrowing experience about how they once got stuck in an elevator. 

If only we had no elevators, people would be more physically fit, and you wouldn't have had to read this blog!

Pill-popping - An Art

One of the most common daily activities that first-world homo-sapiens indulge in is pill-popping. Some need to; some just have to; and most just like to. Whatever be the cause - medication, recreation, or precaution - there is no denying the fact that pill-popping is an art. It is also a precise exercise that consists of a finite number of sequential operations which have to be performed more or less in the same sequence.

How do you take a pill out of its bottle? Some people carelessly shake the bottle expecting one to fall onto their palms. Usually more than one hurtle along, and then all the others except the 'chosen one' are poured back into the bottle. Others do the same thing, but instead of the palm, they pour onto the cap of the bottle, carefully pick one up while trying not to touch the others, and put the rest back; and some others use another receptacle like a small container. Some hygiene-conscious folks use tiny forceps to pull one pill out of the bottle; and some hygiene-obsessed people use sterilized gloves along with the forceps. 

How do you swallow the pill? This is actually a composite step which includes putting the pill into the mouth, putting in a liquid, and swallowing the pill. This is the step where one sees the most variations, ranging from clumsy to classical. Some people first put the pill in their mouth and then wash it up with a liquid. These people usually swing their arms in a classical arc and send the pill hurtling into the mouth as close to the throat as possible, then grimace as the bitter taste of the pill starts filling their mouth, and then frantically reach for the water and take a large gulp to minimize the amount of time the pill has to sit on their tongues. After swallowing the pill, they also slosh around another gulp of water in their mouth making the most obnoxious sounds, in an effort to wash out the bitter taste from their mouth. There are several aspects of this process which need precision and perfection. The velocity with which the pill is ushered into the mouth has to be precise; a little slower and it lands on the front of the tongue, and the bitter taste overwhelms you; a little faster and you run the risk of shoving the pill half-way down your throat where it sticks like a lump and hurts you like tonsils. The angle of the arm swing also needs to be carefully controlled; a little sideways and the pill misses your mouth altogether; a little higher and the pill hits the roof of the mouth and is most unpleasant. Also, the amount of water you gulp in while grimacing needs to be measured; a little more and you can choke and cough and spit the pill out; a little less, and the obstinate pill sticks to your tongue even after you swallow. In the latter case, you have to grimace some more and repeat the last step till the pill budges and slides down your food-pipe.

Other people first fill their mouth up with liquid and then place the pill in. These people, with the daintiness of a potter or bead-worker, lift their hand till it is parallel to their water-filled mouth, holding the pill between the thumb and forefinger, and very delicately place it on top of the water. They let the pill sink for a moment, and then swallow in one smooth motion nanoseconds before the pill actually hits the tongue. When done correctly, in this process one doesn’t need to taste the pill at all. Needless to say, here the timing of the swallowing motion is of essence. You also have to be precise about the amount of water you have in your mouth and the speed with which you swallow. Too much water and/or a rather rapid swallowing motion can cause you to spray out water on unsuspecting targets, or at the very least cause a very unsightly trickle of water down the chin.

The third group of people comprises of those who can just pop a pill without any liquid to aid the swallowing. People who can do this are either lucky to have a larger opening to their food-pipe which enables them to just slide the pill in, or are very lazy. The lazy ones just accumulate enough saliva in their mouth to form a large spitball, and then use that as a substitute for water.

So what kind of pill-popper are you? Or are you the one who uses a mortar and pestle to first grind the pill into powder, stir it in liquid and then drink it? Please share with me if you want.

Why I Write - Version 1

I don't write that often. There are a million excuses that I can put out there for not being more diligent and consistent about it. But in spite of all those reasons, I keep coming back, to write some more. Why do I write? I write because I love to put my thoughts into words. I feel contented by putting out a few words that can potentially immortalize the modus operandi of my quirky, idiosyncratic, cantankerous brain.

I have always loved words, ever since I can remember. My earliest recollection of remembering words is from a news article called - 'The Rape of Lebanon'. The only two words from that title whose meanings I knew were 'the' and 'of'. I was 4. I have always admired the miracle that can be created by stringing words together, how a bunch of seemingly unrelated strings of letters, in the hands of a canny raconteur, can paint a picture as vivid as a photograph, or create an indelible memory. 

Needless to say, I have always loved to read, mostly fiction. Facts, no matter how poignant, relevant, or exhilarating, have never appealed to me much, maybe because, in my mind they are analogous to taking the Mona Lisa and trying to paint it a little differently, or even a little better. No matter how well it turns out, you still started with a master piece. Fiction, on the other hand, is analogous to creation. You start with a germ of a plot, you nourish it and nurture it in your brain, feed it with tidbits of information, marinade it with nuggets of your own experience and personality, fortify it with additional sub-plots, embellish it with fictional characters that you have created yourself, and then put it on paper using your limited vocabulary. (I say limited, because no matter how many words you know, you still know only a very small percent of all the words that exist!). Then you rewrite it over and over again, to make it more succinct and coherent, to smooth the rough edges. And finally, if you are lucky, you have a story, an original piece of work, something that hasn't been told before and will never be told again in the exact same way. 

This is how Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot and Howard Roark were created, characters that have withstood the test of time and become immortal, without ever being real. It would have been no different if these people had really lived and done the things their fictional equivalents did and the rest of the world had read about them from newspapers articles. Such is the power of good fiction. I too fantasize about someday having such a character of my own, a fictional character who will become real in the minds of millions of young, impressionable minds, a character well-defined enough to become the role model at least one human being, and heroic enough to inspire several others. I want to feel, for a fleeting moment, like God did when he created people like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or Martin Luther King or Farrokh Balsara. 

That's why I write!

First World Vs. Third World - Bananas

We all know that First world and Third world are different in almost all aspects, except geography maybe. Here is an example. Let’s discuss the uses of bananas and banana plants in the two worlds.

In the First world, bananas are used for two things –

1. Eating; and

2. Playing juvenile pranks on people who walk with their heads 'held high' - literally.

And banana plants are used for nothing.

In the Third world, bananas are also used for exactly the same reasons that they are used for in the First world. However, that is where the similarity ends. The differences in use of the banana plants can be used to demonstrate the difference between the two worlds.

Some uses of banana plants exclusive to the Third world are:

1. Bananas, when they are still raw, are used for making curries and soups;

2. The banana flower and the inside of the trunk are used to make curries; and

3. The banana leaves are used by the poor as plates for serving their everyday meals, and by the rich as plates on outdoor picnics.

Obviously, differences like these can help us see why first world and third world problems are different. First world problem - I am out of bananas. My breakfast smoothie will not be as tasty as always, because it will now have only strawberries, blueberries, milk, nuts, and 37 other things. Third world problem - I am out of banana trees. How will I serve food?

Million Dollar Eggplants

This year, I wanted to do a simple cost analysis - what I end up paying for each eggplant that grows in my backyard as opposed to how much it costs in the average supermarket (like Ralph's or Trader Joe's). Organic eggplants are about 2$ a pound in the supermarket. One pound of eggplants, on the average, means two big eggplants. So the price one pays to buy one organic eggplant is one dollar.

To calculate the cost I incur in growing one eggplant in my backyard, let's first quantify the yield. The eggplant saplings are planted in March. They take about 30 days to grow up and become ready to bear eggplants, and bear fruit till about mid-September. On an average, each eggplant plant bears between 15 - 25 edible eggplants. Let's set an average of 20 eggplants per eggplant plant. I planted eight plants, so we are looking at a total of 160 eggplants – i.e., 160$ at a supermarket.

Now let's consider all the parameters that add to the cost of growing eggplants in the backyard.

1.     Water for 4 months;

2.     Plants;

3.     Organic Fertilizer;

4.     Labor;

5.     Miscellaneous.

Labor consists of two components - the hired gardener's labor, and my labor. For simplicity, let's consider my charges for my back-breaking labor to be 0$ per hour. It is actually priceless, but if I apply the mathematical equivalent of that rate - which is infinity, the cost per eggplant will be infinity.

The plants themselves cost 2$ per plant, so that's 16$. Fertilizers cost about 15$, and the gardener's labor cost about 20$. Water, on the other hand, is a different beast altogether. Every month for these four months, my water bill goes up on the average by about 100$, but that includes watering my entire backyard. By a very rough estimate, the water required to keep these eight plants hale and hearty would be about 20$ a month. So that's another 80$. So to grow 160 eggplants, my net cost ends up being $131, or 0.82$ per eggplant. One other aspect of this is that the eggplants that grow in my backyard are at best half the size of the ones available in the supermarket. So about 4 of them would make a pound. So, going by this estimate, the cost of eggplants in my backyard is about 3.28$ a pound. 

And this number excludes

1.     My priceless labor,

2.     Miscellaneous expenses,

2.1  Gas (at exorbitant LA prices) for trips to the nursery,

2.2  Bribes to get my kids to help me,

2.3  Insecticides, and

2.4  The cost of the land itself, which could have been used otherwise for other priceless things like barbecues, Frisbee and throw downs.

So the reality is - it is much cheaper and simpler to buy organic eggplants from a high-end grocery store like Bristol Farms than it is to grow them in your backyard.