Climbing onto a weighing scale

It happened yesterday. I was at a friend’s house. I was buzzing with the excitement of the Indo Pak semi final. Much stimulants had been consumed. Much loud cheering had happened. The atmosphere was electric. It was the perfect moment to go do something stupid. And true to form I did. I sauntered into the children’s room to check if the collective offspring, who had been deposited there were killing each other, or being civilised and sharing toys when the eye caught a speck of red peeping out in front of the bed. It was too brilliant a flash of red to ignore and I bent down to investigate it further.
Twas a weighing scale. A digital one. And true to form, and also the reason why I dont keep one of the species at home, is how I promptly sucked in the stomach and lumbered onto said pristine surface, ordering the spawn of my womb to check the numbers which would appear on the display and held my breath.

He spoke. An obscene number that was past the weight I was at full term. Heh, I said, son, you don’t know how to read numbers and looked down confident he had got the order reversed. What he had read out confronted me. I screamed out loud. Friends rushed in from the living room where they were positioned in front of the television screen watching Sachin getting dropped for the umpteenth time. ‘What, what, what?” they gasped, checking all the pintsizes for evidence of blood or injury or swelling. “No” I wailed “It’s me. I’m beyond fat. I’m obese now.”

They flung themselves around on the floor hyuck hyucking in the most unsupportive fashion. I imagined the tissues would be offered, and a glass of cold water called for and much “Sit here, drink this water, breathe, don’t panic” Not this disdain. I could only put down this uncharacteristic lack of emotional support to the fact that watching the match had addled their brains and they were behaving in a stereotypically masculine style right now and would proceed to rib me about my fat deposits. I informed said friend whose residence we were invading that her weighing scale was off by a few kilos and she needed to get it checked, to which she calmly replied that the scale was fine and it had been recently calibrated and had me sink my head into my arms in despair and begin wailing in loud manner. This, after months of giving up sugar and fried foods and walking my knee joints off every single day. At almost the same weight I was when I was full term with the child in the womb. I needed to fling myself off the nearest cliff, and stab myself to ensure no chance of survival. I would go on a starvation diet immediately I reassured myself and sauntered off to the living room, picking up a random corn and cheese pakoda and nibbling on it to kickstart the blood sugar levels which had dropped appallingly low from the fright. Tomorrow, I assured myself. Tomorrow is another day. I would start a new, more rigorous diet from tomorrow. And yes, the daily Chocolate Cornetto post lunch would have to go too. I also needed to ensure that the daily walk was one hour of brisk no conversational walking, not random strolling around discussing menus and shopping and people we didn’t like and such like. I swore to myself that I would knock off the excess kilos even if I had to take a carving knife to myself and attack the cellulite deposits. Today is the first day of the new improved regimen.

Damn, I think she really needs to get that weighing scale checked.

Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month-April 2011

It was a casual discussion on the road trip back from Lavasa, with Monika that had the germ of this idea crop up. Children were getting abused all around us, by folks know to the families, by unknown people, by older children, it seemed that nothing had changed since the time we were children and had ALL gone through our own personal demons, laid them to rest, and got on with our lives. Something needed to be done. Parents needed to be made more aware, more likely to teach their children how to be on their guard, more likely to confront their children’s abusers rather than sweep it under the carpet as we had been used to all through our childhood when the non confrontational route was adopted by parents, where we were made to feel in some way, that it was all our fault, leading to, at least in my case, an eating disorder and a life long battle with weight issues and a distrust of the male species, which thankfully the spouse managed to break through.

This is what we decided to do for April, to spread the word, make parents aware, and help them teach their children to be empowered, to know, to say NO and to come tell them.
Across the month of April 2011, over 40 bloggers in the blogosphere will come together to post on various aspects of Child Sexual Abuse in a bid to create awareness about an issue which affects over 50 per cent of children. This, the Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month April 2011, will run across their blogs as well as the CSA blog, which is here.
In addition to these posts, the CSAAM blog will feature survivor stories, posts by experts and NGOs working in these fields. Through this concerted effort we hope to bring Child Sexual Abuse out of the closet and teach parents how to educate their children about predators, preventing their children from being abused and knowing how to deal with such a situation should it occur. Our children deserve a safe and happy childhood.

If you would like to add to the discussion or know somebody else who would, please note that we welcome entries

* mailed to csa.awareness.april@gmail.com OR
* posted as FB notes and linked to Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month Page OR
* posted on your own blog with the badge and linked to the main blog OR
* linked or posted on Twitter tagged twitter.com/CSAAwareness OR

The list of topics is available here. Anonymous contributions are accepted and requests for anonymity will of course be honoured.

Guest posts are welcome at the CSAAM blog.

Please remember to send in a mail with all necessary links or just your input to csa.awareness.april@gmail.com so that we can track your contribution and make sure that it is not inadvertently lost or something.

You can also support it simply by adding our the logo of the initiative in your blog’s sidebar. Grab the below code to do so

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Come join us. Keep your children safe.

All about loitering.

Disclaimer: I haven’t read the book yet, but when I read about the book the concept intrigued me because it was something I identified so strongly with, as I guess most women living in the city would.

We don’t loiter as women. We rush through the city with our destination firmly in mind, our eyes glazed and distant, wary of making eye contact unwittingly, our stances defensive and protective of our body space being invaded by unwanted brushings, touchings, gropings. We don’t dare loiter for being mistaken to be what we are not, for fear of seeming approachable, available.
Why Loiter? Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets has been co-authored by an ex-colleague from my TOI days, Sameera Khan. Yes, that was way back in the distant past. Another co-author is Shilpa Phadke, someone I have not met personally but is the wife of an old college pal and a good friend. Ergo, the curiousity about the book when the release came to me.
The premise stung. It was something one had always known at the back of one’s mind but had never quite articulated. That one hated waiting in public, for anyone or anything. One would rather push through into overcrowded trains rather than wait at railway station platforms and let trains go by until one that was comfortably empty came our way.
One still hesitates to wait at street corners for friends, one would rather sit at a coffee shop and order a cappuccino to kill time if one is early. One would rather not be early and have to wait. I would have assumed that things had changed since I was a young girl, and today’s young woman is brave and fearless and had no compunctions about waiting in public spaces but apparently, things haven’t changed that much in almost two decades.
The authors researched this book for three years, and according to the release, Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade argue that though women’s access to urban public space has increased, they still do not have an equal claim to public space in the city. And they raise the question: can women’s access to public space be viewed in isolation from that of other marginal groups?
What about you? Do you loiter in your city, or would you rather not? The bottomline I guess is how safe one feels in one’s city. And despite the proclamations of Mumbai being the supposedly safest amongst cities in the country, women in Mumbai still dare not loiter.

Want to check into the Hotel K?

I think not. Despite the fact that this hotel is located in the paradisical beach resort of Bali, the name Hotel K is actually a sarcastic take on the tourist culture that governs Bali, and this place is in reality a notorious jail, the Kerobahkan Jail, located in Bali, which gained notoriety when Schapelle Corby, a 27 year old beauty school student from Australia was arrested for possession of contraband and sentenced to 20 years in Hotel K. The author began her visits to Hotel K to co-write with Shapelle her book, “My Story”, and the story of Hotel K began to emerge through the visits to the prison, it being, like any prison in a third world country full of prisoners crammed into cells beyond their capacity, deplorable living conditions.
The author tells us the back stories of some of the more interesting inmates, the crimes that got them the sentences which had them here in Hotel K and their role in the prison ecosystem which is governed by a blend of those with power, notoriety or money. We see how inmates with money have access to all the material comforts possible, with drug trades being conducted from the premises, prostitutes available for the inmates who can pay, and a narration of a daring jail break, organised by a few inmates. What is amazing is that the author had access to so many inmates, and got so many stories and in such amazing detail. The microcosm of the jail environment is detailed so terrifyingly that reading it would put anyone off visiting the tourist destination based on the mere what if. People caught with recreational drugs incarcerated with serial killers, contract killers, paedophiles, terrorists who masterminded the Bali bombings, drug runners, crime lords and worse.
This is clearly a book that is meant to shock, and so it does, without additional embellishment, just with the sheer drama going on within the prison. The ultimate irony, for all the strict drug laws which got many of the tourists in Hotel K in the first place, drugs are rampantly available in Hotel K and drug networks are run out of Hotel K. An explosive book, with photographs to show the reader the faces behind the stories.
Having heard the stories and seen the pictures though, if it wasn’t for the back stories, I would say Hotel K seems visually a million times better than the jails we are familiar with here. If Bonella wants to experience real hell holes, maybe she needs to see some more jails. Hotel K, from the pictures though, seemed just like its nickname. A hotel. A down market, cheap, squalid hotel albeit, but not a place that inspires any kind of terror.
As for me, I’m never going to Bali if I can help it. And if I do, I’m carrying handluggage no one can slip stuff into.

Hotel K
The Shocking Inside Story of Bali’s Most Notorious Jail
By Kathryn Bonella
Quercus Non Fiction
Rs 499
(Distributed in India by Penguin)

Standing in never ending lines-Jottings

It is rare that one needs to stand in lines these days, but the few times that one does is enough to make one’s temper broil and the fumes start emanating from one’s nostrils, and the forehead start to glow a violent red, and by the time I actually reach the counter I have probably got into a couple of slanging matches, one of which might degenerate into an all out fist fight, especially if it involves people cutting into the line by the multiples having left one token specimen to mark space in said line.
Ergo, I decided that there must be certain rules nailed up to walls by the sides of all such spots which decry that we stand in line, and wait our turn to be served.
Rule 1] Thou shalt not cut into line before me. Or before anyone for that matter, no matter how grave your emergency, and never mind if you smile with the most hangdog, poor puppy me expression.
Rule 2} Rule 1 is not valid for the George Clooney, Richard Gere and Daniel Craig.
Rule 3] Further consideration can be granted to lookalikes of the above mentioned three divine creatures.
Rule 4] Thou shalt not stand in line as proxy person for an entire small conclave of your extended family, if more than two people come into the line using you as the missing link, you will be drawn and quartered on the spot, no questions asked.
Rule 5] Thou shalt not have long, animated and very audible conversations right next to my ear about situations regarding personal bodily functions to a concerned individual at the other end of your cellphone. This includes not detailing the results of your medical reports, down to the last platelet counts, nor explaining in graphic details your latest surgery for fistula correction.
Rule 6] You are allowed to leave your spot in the line, for urgent matters like the call of nature which cannot be held onto anymore for fear of internal herniation due to the pressure, or the need to get some vital nutrients into your system which you swear on your mother’s grave to share with the one who will risk life and limb to guard and preserve your spot in the line. Sauntering off without a bye your leave and re-emerging, fed and sated, while we collapse from starvation and dehydration is behaviour that deserves solitary confinement. With only steroid fed rats for company.
Rule 7] Do not use pieces of luggage to prod me further down the line by pushing them into the backs of my knees unless you have a death wish, or wish me to bring down said piece of luggage on your cranium.
Rule 8] Grumbling incessantly about how the line isn’t moving a smidgeon is not going to help it move. Constantly going upto the window and doing a little frothing at the mouth war dance of exasperation at the person manning said counter might get you a raised eyebrow as reaction, not any manner of increased speed in processing.
Rule 9] For the love of all that is holy, use your interminable time in the line to ensure your form is filled out accurately, you have all your documents in place and exact amounts of whatever dosh it is you need to hand over to the person of authority at the end of the counter. Don’t start diving into your handbag and fishing out spare change when you get asked for it.
Rule 10] Finally. Use a good, effective deo if it seems like a long, long wait. And given that we’re into a bitch of a summer, wear cotton. Or bring along some clothes clips to distribute to those in the near vicinity to clip their nostrils shut.

More than Skin Deep

Ever wonder what happened to that glow on your face, the time when you could just splash some water on your face and charge out of the house without the now mandatory regimen on foundation/Lacto/SPF base and compact, and then the slathering on of gloss or kohl to keep from looking like something that the dog chewed up and spit on the carpet? I do. I remember with yearning the days of my youth when the skin was so luminous it could light up a room. And now, when I catch a glimpse of myself bleary eyed and panda dark circled and patchy skinned the first thing in the morning, I jump back in alarm and threaten to disown me.

Ergo, I read Skin Deep by Dr Aparna Santhanam with great interest. For one, I have interacted with Dr Santhanam over the years for the various articles I’ve done on skin care for assorted publications, given she has been associated with Kaya Skin Clinic since its inception. And the premise of this book interested me. While we all know about the various treatments that can be done on the surface of the skin to make it look better, the fact remains that well nourished skin from the inside is much healthier, smoother and clearer than anything you could do to your skin from the outside. Which is why the mater always insisted I eat my fruits and veggies, which of course, I never followed resulting in thus pathetic state of skin.
The good doctor starts the book by speaking, a bit and not too much scientific detail thankfully, about the skin and what helps it chug along and shed its cells at a regular interval. She not only prescribes the skin care regimen required for each skin type but also puts down the ideal diet for each kind of skin, with its specific problems, but, thankfully for a kitchenophiliac like me, also details the recipes of each dish she writes about at the end of the book.
Tips? Vitamin A helps in controlling oily skin, ergo eat red and orange fruits and veggies to control your oily skin. Green tea has antioxidants that help maintain oil balance. For dry skin, up your intake of nuts and beans and add olive oil to your food. Avoid simple sugars for both your waist and your skin. Simple cards like pure sugar cause ageing and wrinkling, did you know that, I didn’t and now I swear I will run a mile from them. My waistline would thank me for that too, I think. Thankfully, she gives us carb-a-holics a list of the complex carbs which are good for the skin. And protein, which we learn the lack of causes puffy bags under ones eyes, in the morning, as well as thin, brittle nails and weaker hair. Ergo, throw that cottage cheese, Sprout salad, eggs, tofu or animal protein down your gullet if you want to see your hair and nails stronger and your eyes pack away their bags. And fat, much maligned, but essential as the good doc tells us. Low levels of fat can result in low vitamin D and bone thinning, to transport the vitamins vital for skin beauty and for proper nerve function. Scary. Go on a low or zero fat diet, and not only will your bones thin away, but your nerves will stop functioning as they should and your skin will wrinkle away to parchment. Good fats come from nuts, pistachios, almonds, walnuts, fatty fish like Salmon, flaxseed, soyabean, pumpkin, olives and include these in your diet to make sure you get the benefits for your skin. she also speaks about antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, the benefits of plants, and what is best, she does an A to Z of foods that are good for skin health, speaking about each food, its benefits and how it can be consumed. I also like the AM PM skin care plan she has included which speaks of the basic skin care routine we should follow, but generally never end up doing due to lack of time, or laziness or a couldn’t be bothered attitude. For me, it is only after I crossed 35 that I realised the need to incorporate skin care into my daily routine, and rue my stupidity for not taking skin care seriously earlier and letting the skin reach such terrible levels of pigmentation and patchiness.
The best part of the book for me, the list of super skin friendly recipes at the end of the book. Am I going to try any? I sure will. Would I recommend you read this book? If you’re serious about getting your skin in ship shape, and will follow the advice given within, I’d say go ahead, buy it. If you have no time for your skin, don’t bother.

Skin Deep
An Inside Out Approach to Looking Good, Naturally!
By Aparna Santhanam
Collins
Rs 199

And am mentioned here…

….be still my nerves.

http://tranquebarindia.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/the-literary-glass-ceiling-fact-or-fiction/

So is it Happy Women’s Day today?

It is. Women’s Day has finally morphed from being a day where women announced their equality with man after aeons of being considered the second and therefore inferior sex to a Hallmark card day.

I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

Especially when I have some well meaning folks come up, grab me by the palm, shake said hand vigorously and wish me “Happy Women’s Day”.

Excuse me while I find a corner to barf uninhibitedly into.

I’m not even going to start on about how women in India have little to be happy about given the rate of sexual violence against women in India is amongst the highest in the world.

I’m not even going to mention how, in Haryana, bride price has skewed the gender equation completely after years of female infanticide and foeticide.

I’m just glossing over the fact that folks are flying abroad to have sex determination tests and MTPs to avoid having girls.

I’m putting the fact that except for the banking sector, I see very few professional women at the seniormost levels at major corporations at the back of my mind.

I’m taking for granted that every rural girl child has to struggle twice as hard to prove to her family that she along with her brother, deserves an education.

I’m thinking about her mother who spends her entire day collecting water for her family, working the fields, cooking meals over wooden stoves that line her lungs with soot, and who looks twice her age and puts herself last on the needs list of the family.

I’m thinking about all the women who get bashed up by the men in their lives and hold themselves together and stay back in the relationship because theyre too terrified to step out into the world without the suraksha kavach of the man in their lives.

And then I think about the woman pilot who lives in my building, and who is dapper and confident in her uniform much to the wide eyed open mouthed amazement of my seven year old.

I think about women like Chanda Kochchar, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Indra Nooyi, who have proved to women striving in the professional world that yes, there is a glass ceiling, but it can be broken.

I think about the women who have adopted baby girls, despite being able to have their own biological children and salute them and the men in their lives who have had the courage to support them.

And I think about the women who have climbed every mountain, whether it is my maid bringing up her family on the money she earns scrubbing and sweeping or the woman who juggles family and home while she gives cracking presentations in conference rooms.

This isn’t Happy Womens Day. This is More Power to Women Day. And this should be our everyday.

I see the discounts on jewellery, the luncheons to treat the ‘woman in your life’, the special women’s day offers and wonder whether I got it wrong. Maybe I did. Not that I can ever complain about discounts and free lunches.

Anyway, I’m going to celebrate the day this evening. How? With my gang of girls of course.

Of woman power

This would have to be for my mother.

She has had the kind of life which has been the kind that novels are written about. I still have to gather the courage to write about her.

She lost her mother when she was just three. And her brother two. Her father married again. To a woman who treated her like the proverbial stepmothers do, like the maid servant of the house. Her stepmother went on to have her own brood of children.

My mother studied, did the housework, grew up. Trained as a teacher. Her father passed away, she took on the mantle of supporting her brothers and sisters. Married when she was in her thirties to my father. It wasn’t a very happy marriage. Enough said. She wouldn’t like me to say more. My father died when she was 42. She had no home, no money and nowhere to go. And me to support. She picked herself up and began taking tuitions to make ends meet. She got a job on compassionate grounds at the bank my father worked at and staff quarters. I grew up. I got married. I moved out. She bought herself a little flat and lives there alone now. She’s 73. Cheerful. Busy. Runs her home on her own. Without even a top servant for the vessels or the sweeping swabbing.

Everytime I see her, I am humbled. And grateful that I was born to a woman like her who might not be famous, or well to do, but has such indomitable strength of spirit that I have no choice but to walk in her footsteps and bolster my own.

Edited to add: And this post won me a mug. Maybe I’ll give it to mom.

And more on Lavasa…

It took me an encounter with an intravenous injection and a rather amused doctor at the spic and span Apollo Hospital before I resumed partying. (A big thank you to Monika and Biswajeet here, for ensuring I got quick medical care).

And as we returned back to the promenade, the very aroma of the Shawarmas from the stall we passed which almost made me retch on the way to the hospital, actually had me craving some. Food, on the waterfront promenade is plentiful. You are spoilt for options.There’s oriental, a Subway, an All American Diner complete with red rexine booths and vintage posters on the wall, a patisserie, a pub, stalls galore and the divine Chor Bizarre which I think, was the highlight of my culinary experience at Lavasa. Here’s the waterfront promenade. 

While I had been moaning and groaning and writing out my last will and testimony in my room, my blogger friends (Ideasmithy, Anushankarn, Lemonicks, Pushpz, Monika and ShaaqT) had had an interesting encounter with an Oriental Octopus. The encounter was so interesting that it was universally agreed that another restaurant should be tried for dinner.The pub, alas, was shut much to the horror of those of us who would have wanted to be fortified with some spirits. Of the liquid kind.

Ergo, washed, spit cleaned and made up, I emerged to the fully lit waterfront promenade eager to get fork and knife to victuals. Chor Bizarre, it was decided, it would be. Who was I to debate, I was hungry, I had had only only medu vada sambar enter my digestive organs since the morn and that too had emerged the wrong way out.

Chor Bizarre is the most deliciously done up restaurant I have visited in my life. And that is a compliment.  Decorated with lovingly sourced antiques and artefacts, the restaurant is a charming hodge podge of mismatched chairs and antique carved tables, samovars and cut glass stained mirrors. The piece de resistance, an antique four poster bed, converted into a table for six.

A charming waitress, slight in her oversized uniform ( I regret I didn’t get her name because she was the only cheerful waitress we encountered, the All American Diner had some belligerent sorts who yelled us down, but more on them later) took our orders down efficiently, and served us with elan. Palak Chat was the starter we ordered, which unfortunately had a slightly soggy base of not so crisp palak smothered under a curd and chatni mix. Fortunately, this was the only item that didn’t make the grade. The Chettinaad Chicken and Malabar Parothas that Monika and I shared were both airdropped from heaven. And the platter that Lemonicks ordered was sin plated to a T. In the most inelegant fashion we scrounged a bit off everyone’s orders to taste each item, and found everything superlative.

With solid nourishment in my belly, I was a happier person. As is evident from the photo above. We retired early because the rest of the team planned to do some early morning (read 5.45 am) nature trailing. I opted out. My everydays are made of 5.45 am alarms. And I was on holiday. Wild elephants threatening to stampede through my room would have been the only things that would have got me to rise before daybreak. And of course, Monika and I who were sharing the room, did the girly thing of chatting till the wee hours until we firmly decided that we had to go to sleep. Or risk waking like the living dead the next morning.

They nature trailed at a lovely retreat called Ekant which they all came back raving from. Next on the agenda, given we were a band of hungry women, was breakfast. We opted for the All American Diner which had a buffet on, with no sausages or cold cuts and a very belligerent waiter who almost yelled at Monika when she just mentioned at our table that it was strange that an All American Diner didnt have the mentioned items. We had another taste of the belligerency of the waiters at this place, later, at lunch (Which was again at the same restaurant), when a waiter insisted very aggressively that a slice of chocolate cake was the chocolate mousse I had ordered.

A quick drive around Lavasa, and to a centre where they had villagers make bamboo crafts, followed by a quicker lunch and we returned back to the fumes of city life where nostrils need to be drilled periodically to unclog them from the pollution that settles in.

My take away from the weekend, a lovely place. Visually. Perfect if you are the sort who wants a relaxed away from it all kind of break.  There are, we were told, watersports and adventure sports like rapelling and such like for those keen. Me, being not keen on them watersports or adventure sport, and with no option for shopping (being the kind of sport I prefer) was happy just with the company and the clean fresh air. Getting back to the fumes of the city and breathing through clogged nostrils took some acclimatisation when I returned.