The Human Whatever Virus…

Humanity has always been ravaged by viruses of one sort or the other. Well it had to be! Even other animals, plants and bacteria are. Natural forces do have to regulate populations of all species right? I agree that viruses have nearly halved the human gene pool on several instances but that does not mean we go barmy every time a new virus is brought to the public’s notice! Why the fuss? What’s wrong with the Fourth Estate?

In recent history, we had the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, more popular as HIV that hit off the trend of media-induced phobia and continues to be a rage all over the planet. Every ‘celebrity’ who has any little thing to their credit or has had even the most minuscule space in the entertainment industry jumps on to the bandwagon to prevent the ‘AIDS epidemic’. Well, commendable intentions here but HIV is one of the best dangerous viruses known to mankind. Unlike most other viruses, it does nothing to spread! It is largely dependent on the host to be promiscuous to spread on to other victims! There have been multiple instances of iatrogenic infections but the medical and paramedical community knows how to deal with such cases.

The other crazy thing we had on our hands was the SARS because of some corona virus around 2003-04. That thing just fizzled out thanks to the concerned government authorities, especially the Chinese taking prompt measures to prevent its spread. Nevertheless, they did delay the mandatory information of the outbreak to the WHO and the international community. The next thing in line was the Avian Influenza. The hysteria surrounding it was implausible. We were studying agriculture with Animal Husbandry as an integral part of our studies. Regular poultry farm visits never stopped. Everyone was unperturbed but the media just went bonkers! How often do most people play around with or come in contact with birds? City dwellers have the most minimal contact often limited to pets or cooked chicken. Despite assurance from doctors that cooking kills the virus, chicken consumption fell drastically. The animal lovers’ tribe with PETA as their leader went around town happily telling everyone that chicken lives were being saved. The media scared everybody with reports of an imminent avian flu pandemic which never happened thanks to the systematic genocide of poultry birds that we humans inflicted.

The latest scare has been due to the Swine Flu which is caused by the H1N1 virus (Haemagglutinin 1 Neraminidase 1, try not forgetting this one!). I agree that more than 10,000 victims have been claimed by the virus in the US alone. But that does not justify the fear-mongering by the members of the press. Some friends and my mother almost suffered panic attacks that loved ones and they would fall seriously sick. Governments across the world rightfully wanted the media to tone down the reports but the media did not relent. After all, what can you expect from a pig but grunt? The WHO estimates that the Spanish Flu (also a strain of the H1N1) of 1918 killed nearly 40-50 million people worldwide, the Asian flu (H2N2 virus) of 1957 exterminated about 2 million humans and the Hong Kong flu of 1968 (H3N2 virus) claimed nearly 1 million lives. In fact, these viruses are now the cause of the seasonal common colds that we suffer! That means all of us have probably suffered from the Swine and the Avian influenza at one point or the other.

Thankfully, the swine flu frenzy is dying down. Authorities are minding their business well and doing the needful. In the meanwhile, some pharmaceutical company is trying to bring another virus into fashion i.e. in the media spotlight to sell a vaccine. Ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about the Human Papilloma Virus. Depending upon your gender, it can cause cancers of the anus and/or penis or cancers of the vulva, vagina, anus and cervix. Page long ads in the papers are trying to convince women to protect themselves against cervical cancer with this vaccine. Well commendable intentions again but there is no need! One of my acquaintances immunized herself against the HPV and asked me to do the same. I refused. To begin with, people who don’t have access to clean toilets and those who have multiple sexual partners are the ones at risk of a HPV infection. I don’t fall in any of these categories. I don’t need the vaccine. Thank you very much. She looked cross and tried to tell me that cervical cancer claims more Indian women than breast cancer annually. I replied that it was obvious. Child marriage is still rampant in the interiors and teenage mothers have the highest risk. The point is that unless you are in any of the high risk groups you don’t need the HPV vaccine. If you do, you also need to be inoculated against Hepatitis B.

The reach of the electronic and traditional media helps a great deal about informing people about new disease outbreaks. I am thankful for being told about the symptoms. Nonetheless, everyone will be better off if the death toll is kept to page 2 and 3 or even beyond that if possible. Any viral infection can cause death. Even the most common and well-known viruses continue to kill so many around the year and so do bacterial infections like Tuberculosis. But no one writes about that and people have definitely not stopped spitting! The next time a new virus pops up and the media decides to be the cock of the walk and tells us that Doomsday is coming, relax; we can’t be wiped off that easily.

How French Blogging temporarily put me off English Blogging

Hi, I am back. I had to start blogging again and chose to start with the auspicious Yuletide season. I was taken aback by people who wrote in to ask why I had stopped but that gave me the necessary to push to be here again. I literally had to say ‘Adieu English blogs’ five months ago because I was pursuing my last level of French (Level C1). My professor, Mr. Bhushan Thapliyal, got us also blogging in French, keeping contemporary trends in mind. Wow, I never imagined that blogging would be homework someday!!! Anyway, our professor Bhushan, trained us for the writing section of the DALF C1 exam by making us blog our brains out. This is because he is pursuing his Ph.D. on the use of blogs as a pedagogical tool. Cool! Who could have thought about that?

The ‘blogging for school’ brainwave came to Bhushan about three years ago when he was teaching school kids in the 12-15 age groups in France. French kids these days don’t write correct French and have made argot, verlan and the SMS lingo their standard language, even in exam answer sheets! This new way of writing and talking French is equivalent to babble for their parents, teachers and the French society at large. The purists are of the opinion that this phenomenon is an unprecedented crisis for the French language. Bhushan wanted to get his students to write correctly. It was only a question of how. The students refuse to fall in line. Now most of these innovative, stubborn scholars are internet junkies who have lost even the most miniscule interest in TV. Bhushan decided to encroach on the virtual space to fix things.

With the assistance of Université Stendhal Grenoble III, he introduced blogging into the curriculum. School essays on various issues were to be written and posted on the blogs of students which they created specifically for class. Students responded in the most astonishing manner. People actually started writing correct, traditional French with all the accents, grammar and vocabulary right. Students were not being adamant about using argot on blogs. You see, the whole world has access to blogs and hence these students wanted to keep their blogs comprehensible and coherent so that everyone and anyone who understands French can read them. Argot wouldn’t work. Mission accomplished.

Bhushan decided to duplicate his experiment in India. He came to the Alliance Française de Bombay. eHere, blogging was a newxperience for roughly everyone in class. I was in his second batch of guinea pigs for the C1 level. He even got the other teachers ofAlliance to unleash the blogging wave on their classes. We would discuss French current affairs in class with the help of 3 news articles related to each theme. That took care of our reading and speaking skills. We would then scrutinize and reorganize the ideas in these articles to write argumentative essays or to write a synthesis or summary with the maximum word limit of 250 words. That exercise greatly helped to improve my French writing skills and also my ability to simultaneously use articles about the same subject from different sources.

I received the result for our DALF C1 last week. I passed. That’s what counted. I was fairly satisfied with my performance. The French blogging did help a lot for the writing section because we had to respect the time and word limit for that essay. We thoroughly enjoyed our coursework. Introducing blooging in studies helps make people tech-savvy and it is surely fun ‘When blogging enters the curriculum’. It is high time that MS Word adds 'blogging', 'blog' and 'blogger' to its dictionary. Blogs are here to stay.

One Culture. Agriculture.

What do you do in agriculture? What is the point in pursuing it? These are stupid questions that I face incessantly from people. They simply don't find it fit for study or they just can't imagine what one does in it. Ignorant, uninformed fools! The food we eat comes from agriculture. The fabrics, cotton, wool, silk, jute, we wear come from agriculture. The medicines we take have many ingredients of an agricultural origin. Our homes require timber for construction and also the furniture that is made of wood. The paper we write on comes from wood and hence is a forestry product. Sanitary pads and diapers are also made from wood. But this irritates people.

Sometime ago, I got the precise answer to this question. This answer gets people interested and it also earns me respect. Plus, they find agriculture really, really cool. Now whenever some asks me why I took up agriculture, I simply say that people will give up everything but not alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. Alcohol comes from sugarcane. Cigarettes come from tobacco and Drugs especially ones like marihuana and cocaine come from poppy. All of these are thus agricultural products. In fact, India is the leading producer and exporter of tobacco in the world. Overall tobacco production in India is about 700 million kilograms yearly. Rich and diverse Indian geographic and agro-climatic circumstances promote dependable availability of extensive array of tobaccos for export throughout the year. As a matter of fact, no matter how much tobacco addicts deny it, tobacco does lead to cancer and heart disease. Most tobacco users (or abusers?) being extremely careless about their health only diagnose their health problems very late, especially cancer. Those last stages of cancer are so painful that the only thing that relieves their pain is medical cannabis or medical marihuana as conventional pain killers simply don’t work; so most tobacco users are potential marihuana customers in the future. (That is, if their doctors are bold and fearless enough to prescribe medical marihuana). India and Turkey produce opium for medicinal purposes, making poppy-based drugs, such as morphine or codeine, for domestic use or exporting raw poppy materials to other countries. The United States buys 80 percent of its medicinal opium from these two countries. In the USA, California's highest grossing cash crop is poppy, with annual sales reaching $14 billion. Vegetables, the state's second highest grossing agricultural produce, win a measly $5.7 billion. The celebrated Californian grapes rake in only $2.6 billion. Such is the demand for marihuana. To talk about the contribution of the alcohol industry to India, let’s just say that alcohol is a noteworthy provider to government revenues in numerous states. In most states this accounts for more than 10 per cent of total state tax revenues, whereas in the Punjab this goes to more than one third.

I declare with utmost confidence to anyone who asks me the point of studying agriculture that I want to work either with a cigarette company or with an alcoholic beverages manufacturer. (Well I am not really sure if I would like to work with the highly bureaucratic poppy business guys. It is very difficult in India. The licences are never ending) People find that seriously cool. Even non-smokers, teetotallers and non-drug abusers (if that is a term) look up in awe.

It is ironical how talking about food, clothing and shelter, which are indispensable for keeping our body and soul together are frowned upon whilst alcohol, cigarettes and drugs that degenerate the mind and body are venerated.


P.S.: I got interested in the alcohol, tobacco and poppy trade after a family member’s death at a young age due to cancer last year. He was a chain smoker.

Reality Meets Career Dreamz Unlimited

As a child, a question that all of us incessantly face goes something like this, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I call it the ‘which carier’ question. (A lot of people spell and pronounce career as ‘carier’!) Most kids give stereotypical answers like ‘I want to be an engineer’ or ‘I will become a doctor’. Their parents chase the horizon prospecting the best advice of ‘career counselors’. (What on earth do you need those guys for?) I had also fallen into that ‘I want to be a doctor’ trap but managed to pull myself out of it. I had decided against becoming an engineer the very first time I had heard the word because I had assumed that engineers built engines of trains and that I couldn’t see the point behind that. That extremely juvenile assumption is only condonable for a nine year old. When I consider all of the things that I ever wanted to be, I marvel at the way my dreams changed from toddlerhood to adulthood. (‘Toddlerhood’ is a word in ‘Nataliaish’, not English). The TV, whom many accuse of being an idiot box, gave me fantastic direction all the way.

When I was 5, my answer would be that I wanted to be an air-hostess. That was probably because I was a frequent flier between Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Bombay, India. The air-hostesses seemed exceptionally interesting then. In the following years, probably when I was 8 or 9, joining the Air Force had become my ambition after reading about the stories of the 1971 Indo-Pak war martyrs. Around the same time, I had also seen a TV show about the procedure for entering the Indian Air Force. My dreams were grounded when we found out that I was suffering from moderate degree myopia at that young age. My flat feet further ensured that my dreams of being airborne stayed firmly on Terra Firma. Around the age of 11 or 12, I started yapping about becoming a doctor, probably because half the world (read: schoolmates) said the same. I had definitely decided that I would study science, but had no clue regarding which branch of science.

My first serious answer to that “which carier?” question, was only at the age of 13, when I was in class 8. I wanted to be a dinosaur paleontologist. This had nothing to do with Ross from Friends. I had once killed time by watching a 3 hour long documentary on the National Geographic channel about the mass extinction of dinosaurs. (I had had the privilege of being alone for 4 hours at home). Most of the dudes who spoke on the show had their designations displayed on screen as ‘Dinosaur paleontologist, University of @#$%^^&*’. I was convinced that the purpose of my life was to be a dinosaur paleontologist. That left my father frantically reading up on the web regarding the subject and I was left explaining to everyone who would ask me the ‘which carier’ question about dinosaurs and their dead bodies. It would feel fantastic to explain things to adults looking dumb with question marks on their faces. You are the smarter one in that situation! My fascination for becoming a dinosaur paleontologist lasted about 10 months, but that has set off an interest in the ‘terrible reptiles’ that is going to last me a lifetime.

Later, I juggled with the ideas of being a professional basketball player (I was on the school team), being Miss Universe (well that started with Sushmita Sen’s victory in 1994 but my height didn’t increase sufficiently), starting a music band (inspiration Spice Girls) and landing on the moon i.e. being an astronaut. I had even wanted to be a cartoon film animator after I had watched the making of the Disney movie ‘Dinosaur’ on Discovery Kids. None of those plans lasted more than a month or 2 at the most but the changes were quite interesting. I even had phases of being without a career plan. But then I got addicted to another show on Discovery Channel. This time I had my father worried sick.

The Discovery guys aired this fantastic TV series every afternoon called ‘Medical Detectives’. Most of the dudes and dudettes (female dudes) on this show were labeled as ‘Forensic Psychiatrist’ or ‘Forensic Pathologist’. Their use of science and technology to crack crimes and screw up culprits had me hooked, totally. Watching endless re-runs of this show had a firm place in my list of pastimes. Most kids my age knew the dialogues of Friends by heart. I knew this show by heart. (Don’t dare to label me a geek.) I told my Dad that I wanted to be a ‘Forensic Psychiatrist or a Forensic Pathologist’. He was astonished and he asked me, “But you wanted to do something about dinosaurs, right?” I replied that my plans had changed. His expression turned to something that suggested that he had been force fed castor oil. He never digested my idea of becoming a ‘forensic psychiatrist’. Anyway, his behavior only affirmed the fact that he is mentally and psychologically stable as no sane father would jump for joy if his daughter declared that she wanted to see delinquents everyday or spend her lifetime working in a morgue. From the age 14 to 16, much to the mortification of my dad, I declared with certitude to anyone who asked me about my career plans that I wanted to be forensic psychiatrist. I even appeared for the entrance tests for the admission to M.B.B.S. Having stubbornly stated that if I would ever be a doctor, my qualifications would have to stand as Dr. Natalia Hule M.B.B.S., M.D. (Forensics), my father staunchly told me to not be a doctor at all. He tried to convince me to be a dentist but I didn’t see the point examining jaws all my life. This was said with due respect to the 4 dentists who have examined and treated my jaws for 6 excruciatingly long years. But what’s the fun? My mother was left scandalized. I told them that I may consider being a forensic dentist (I had seen one talk on Medical detectives). My father had looked as if he wanted someone to tell him that he was hallucinating. My parents ultimately won and managed to get the forensic bug out of my head.

In hindsight that was a good thing, because there was something that was always lingering in the confines of my mind that would get me dreaming of the infinite possibilities of waste management, rural development, water shed management and pesticide-free food production for a better environment and to thwart global warming. Captain Planet and his Planeteers on Cartoon Network had triggered that off for a change. I had learnt pretty late that these things were called organic farming and sustainable agriculture. I was perpetually oscillating between the choices of doing an M.B.B.S. or B.Sc. Agriculture ever since I was 15, although I didn't speak too much about agriculture to everyone. I finally decided to pursue Agribusiness. Thank God for that! Not only did it help me study my interests further, it also educated me about the two countries I live in – India and Bharat.

The verbose here may convince the reader that the writer currently works for some agricultural products company or is probably toiling away with a NGO for watershed development. She is not. Here is the anticlimax. The author, compelled by personal misfortune partly brought about by her own gullible streak, and the economic tribulations of our time, currently works (just for the GOOD money) as a receptionist and hopefully will shift to the post of a French language translator in multinational defense company, much to the chagrin of her mind and heart, making a mockery of everything that she has ever dreamt of.

Beautifully refreshed! - Courtesy Vodafone

This Vodafone ‘Beauty Alerts’ ad refreshed some comical memories. Those Zoozoo kiddies are reminiscent of my sister and me as pre-schoolers. I remembered a similar episode that took place when I was 6 years old and my sister 3. My sister and I had cried buckets that day because we had been scared out of our wits! I remember it clearly despite my young age. Mom had put on a face pack that had turned white on drying up. She looked nothing less than a phantom! My sister and I had fled the house and had taken refuge in our neighbour’s home. All efforts to calm us had to be aborted due to our singular refusal to stop howling and see reason. Even my grandmother failed. We had agreed to step into our house again only when mom had washed her face clean and seemed to be mom again.

Good job Vodafone!

My Elections Story - 2

Popat! That is what happened to me! Not just me, but also my sister and my best friend. Outrageous! Preposterous! Scandalous! Our names did not turn up on the electoral rolls! We registered for voting but we simply did not figure on the lists! Shame on you Election Commission! You deprived young voters like me of our right to exercise our franchise! Shame! Shame! It would have been the first time that we would have joined the dance of democracy but we were deprived of the privilege! Even some elders in our housing society found their names missing from the rolls! Horrendous! Despicable! Contemptible! Better work next time EC! I DO NOT intend to miss out on the Maharashtra Assembly Elections.

P.S.: Please do not turn the next elections into a long weekend also. That was largely responsible for the low voter turnout in Mumbai.

Unreligiously Yours

Friend: Hi Natalia.

Me: Hi! Howz life?

Friend: Good. What’s up?

Me: Head, hair and ceiling.

Friend: Bad joke.

Me: That wasn’t a joke. I stated a fact.

Friend: (irritated) Let it be. Hey tell me, what are you?

Me: (I was confused. What can one possibly present as an answer to that question?)I am a specimen of the Homo sapiens.

Friend: Now why do you have to get biology involved in this?

Me: What do you mean?

Friend: I mean like what are you?

Me: Well in accordance with human obsession and fascination for borders, I carry an Indian passport so that makes me Indian.

Friend: No, I mean what religion are you?

Me: How can a person be a religion?

Friend: Alright! What religion do you follow?

Me: Ah that makes more sense. Hee hee! Haa Haa! My name confuses you doesn't it? Natalia Hule does not give you a clue as to about whether I ma a Christian or a Hindu. My looks baffle you more because you can't associate me with a particular region of India and the fact that I speak Marathi, Hindi and English equally well worsens your case further. Haa haa, stay confused. I won' t help you... Well I follow ‘Nataliaism’

Friend: What?

Me: It is a very recent religion. It started the day I was born. This religion has only one Goddess, she is called Natalia. The Goddess has only one devotee, her name is Natalia. The religion has only one prophet, her name is also Natalia. The principles of this religion are whatever Natalia finds right. This religion prohibits conversion. The Goddess Natalia explicitly states that there shall never be any reincarnation or resurrection whatsoever. The Goddess Natalia does not promise any Land, Water or Air. By the way this Goddess, her devotee and the Prophet is all me, and not some other Natalia. In this manner, I shall remain in peace with everyone and anyone around me and also prevent any possibility of war and riots after I am gone, hence ensuring peace even after my demise.

Friend: Hey this idea is great. (I was slightly taken aback to hear this) Everyone should create their own religions and not bother others. What do you think?

Me: I think I’ll complete the assignment for French class.

Diabetes Demystified - Unraveling the mystery of diabetes mellitus for the layman

As unpredictable as earthquakes, conversations can get us talking or explaining anything in the universe at any given point of time. My memory falls short of recollecting exactly what led us to discuss diabetes that day but I managed to straighten the my friend’s comprehension of diabetes.

Friend: I avoid eating sugar or sweets. They are known to cause diabetes.

Me: No, they do not cause diabetes.

Friend: How is that possible? Eating a lot of sugar causes the blood to go sweet and that condition is called diabetes.

Me: No it is not. You are mistaken. You believe the human body to be like a cup of coffee that will become sweeter as we go on adding sugar to it. It is not like that.

Friend: Then what is it genius?

Me: Well let me give you an example. But promise me that you won’t ask me questions while I explain. The example is far-fetched but you will understand what it is. But don’t ask questions, we won’t get anywhere.

Friend: But what if I have a doubt?

Me: No way! No questions! Try and believe for a little while that I am Lord Krishna and you are my devotee Arjun and we are on the brink of the commencement of the final battle of the Mahabharat! Lord Krishna had asked Arjun to not ask him questions while he spoke the Bhagvad Gita.

Friend: Oh my God! This is the height of exaggeration!

Me: I know but may I begin my explanation?

Friend: Go ahead.

Me: To live life fruitfully, we need money. We keep that money in a bank. When we need our money for use, we can only obtain it from the bank with the help of an ATM card. For the time being, we will forget the option of withdrawal slips, alright?

Friend: Fine. No problems, next?

Me: Now consider this situation. You have lost your ATM card. Will you be able to obtain your money from the bank?

Friend: No

Me: Situation no. 2. You have an ATM card but it is damaged beyond use. Will you be able to obtain your money from the bank?

Friend: No

Me: Now you are without money, i.e. liquid assets. Hence you start liquefying your other assets i.e. you sell your other assets like your vehicle, gold, etc. to obtain money to run your life smoothly. But the money in your bank will remain unaffected; in fact it will increase due to the interest.

Friend: Yes

Me: Now as we require money, the body requires glucose. The body puts this glucose into the blood like we put money in the bank. To obtain our money, we use the ATM card; the body uses ‘Insulin’ to obtain the glucose from the blood.

Friend: Oh, ok. (He looked liked he had heard the word ‘insulin’ for the first time)

Me: Now if the body does not have insulin, it will not be able to obtain glucose. If the insulin is damaged, i.e. of a bad quality, the body will still not be able to obtain glucose. Just like the case of the ATM card.

Friend: Oh, ok.

Me: Just like us, the body starts liquefying the other assets available. It first starts burning all fat available to produce energy. Therefore, diabetes patients become thin. Now the glucose in the blood remains unaffected; it in fact increases because we continue to eat food. This is why and how the blood turns sweet. Not because of sugar, but because of a lack of insulin. Is it clear?

Friend: Now I’ve understood what diabetes is. It’s good you asked me not to ask questions. I might never have understood your example. How do you think up such things?

Me: One may call me the epitome of immodesty as I self-assuredly state that I have a brilliant imagination and a fantastic ability to draw up incredulous but pertinent analogies.

Friend: There we go again.

And so we continued our blah, blah, blah… about everything under the sun.

P.S.: I was originally planning to title this post as ‘Diabetes For Dummies’ but decided against it because that might have amounted to copyright infringement!

My Quest for French Literacy

There was a time, during the level 2 of my French studies that I was convinced that I would never be able to read French. After about 3 or 4 sentences, my mind would just go on a vacation to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. I was persuaded to quit my pursuit of French proficiency. Then the money-minded element of my head told me that quitting would be equivalent to a waste of money! Now that was good motivation to continue. But it still did not solve my problem of having a slight headache while reading French; I just couldn’t read.

I then told myself that it would be advisable to concentrate on the Listening skills for a while. Since I reckoned that babies learn to talk due to prolonged auditory exposure to language, I subjected myself to a blitzkrieg of French songs and movies. It would also cause an annoyance. I plainly could not comprehend the sounds that the French people produced from their throats and mouths! Now I had to discipline myself. There was no way I was going to give up. So I started watching the French movies and cartoons along with the French sub-titles, hoping that I would understand the dialogues that way. So I discontinued French reading for a while. 2 weeks later, I read an article (not in French) in the Times of India. It changed my approach towards improving my reading skills.

This article was titled Power of subtitles and was written by Gurcharan Das. It spoke about the efforts of Dr. Brij Kothari and his work with DoorDarshan. This project is about subtitling of songs on DD shows like Rangoli, Chayageet and Chitrahaar. The viewer subconsciously associates the spoken word with the words displayed on screen, thus practicing reading in an unobtrusive and hassle-free manner. It involves no extra cost or time investment for the viewer. This method effectively increases literacy levels even with just 30 minutes of exposure to such programs every week. Thanks to Dr. Kothari’s mission, a Nielsen-ORG survey, conducted in 2002 and 2007 to measure the influence of subtitling, showed that only 25% school children could read a simple paragraph in Hindi after five years of education. However, this soared to 56% if they also watched subtitled songs for 30 minutes a week on Rangoli. Similarly remarkable outcomes were reported among adults.

This convinced me that I was on the right track and my methodology was perfectly sound. From that day onwards, I watched 2 French movies or animated films, along with the French subtitles weekly. That amounted to nearly 5 to 6 hours of French audio and visual exposure per week. I did that for 4 months. My efforts paid of in January 2008; I managed to read the French novel, L’Africain of J.M.G. Le Clezio in 10 days! I had become perfectly literate in French. J’ai devenu francophone! I wrote about this to Dr. Brij Kothari on his website http://www.planetread.org/home.php. He wrote back saying that my experience mirrored his own while he was learning Spanish. That was seriously cool. According to AC Nielsen’s ORG-Center for Social Research, there are nearly 312 million early-literates and 444 million non-literates in India. This estimated number of non-literates is significantly higher than the official figure of 296.2 million. I wish all channels start sub-titling their shows. Everyone stands to win. Channels get better TRPs. Higher literacy levels means better levels of income that translates into higher sales for advertisers. That is fantastic motivation to speed up India’s conquest of 100% literacy and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

My Elections Story - I

Being the socially aware, India-loving Indian that I am, I wanted to make sure I vote this time; I missed out during the last general elections as I was a few months short of 18. I was heartbroken. It may seem that my favourite figure of speech is the hyperbole but the fact that I was not eligible to vote made it look as if I was a lesser citizen. At least in my head! But anyway, I did manage to register myself in my constituency in the nick of time. I say nick of time because JaagoRe.com took me for a ride! Now someone would ask me how? Well those Vote do! Vote do! Guys went around promising everyone that they would make he registration process hassle-free, claiming that their website generated form would mention the nearest Election Registration Office (ERO) of the aspiring voter’s area. I thought this was cool and fill up my form on their site. Those bozos did not mention my ERO. Damn! Now why would I waste my time on a website just to get a filled form that I could have filled myself! I searched http://google.com/ for the ERO of Thane city. I found the number. The voice on the other said that I was calling the Customs office! This happened too many times. I gave up. I then inquired around my neighbourhood if someone had any clue as to whom to approach with regards to exercising my franchise. Here I was a victim of rumours. The registration it seems was going on at two places – Dadoji Kondev Stadium ad Saraswati School. Both places had stopped accepting forms they told me. I nearly went ballistic. I was going to be left out once again. I landed a job shortly and my outrage took a backseat. But it did not die out. Then I read a wonderful report in Hindutan Times. It told me that forms would be accepted till April fool’s Day, 2009 that the office of the ERO could be found on http://ceo.maharashtra.gov.in/ . There was a ray of light; it brought light to my gloomy chamber of electoral despair. It was like finding an oasis in a bone dry desert. I was in 7th heaven. I got my act together. I found the ERO of Thane city and spoke to an official there. They told me that forms were being accepted at DADOJI KONDEV STADIUM! The same place where work had supposedly ended. Mon submitted my sister’s and my form over there. We are told that we won’t get our Voter ID card but will be able to vote if we have other identity proofs. Mission accomplished.

I am finally going to vote.
Three cheers for the world's largest democracy! Hip Hip Hurray!

P.S.:
1. I have no clue as to whom am I going to vote for. I think I’ll just do an “Inky Pinky Ponky, Daddy had a donkey” in the voting booth and decide!
2. To its credit, Jaago Re campaign has done commendable work to spread awareness amongst the 18 to 30 age group.

Prank

I once had casually called up my best friend, but I received a shock when I reached the wrong number. At that point of time, I believed that cross connections were not possible on mobile networks. This is how the affair took place.

I dialled 9820098200.

Me: Hello Tejaswini.

Voice at the other end: Tejaswini? This is Manoj Tiwari’s number.

Stunned, I apologized and hung up.

I dialled the number again.

Me: Hello Tejaswini?

Voice at the other end: Wrong number this is Anush Parekh’s number.

Now I was feeling jittery. I was sure I had dialed the correct number. I made a third attempt.

Me: Hello Tejaswini?

Voice at the other end: No. This is Rohan Dasgupta.

I hung up, nearly convinced that the world had gone mad. Sense dwelled upon me in a few seconds and I had the saner thought that the Dolphin network might have gone barmy.

I was slightly on the edge. I simply couldn’t fathom the fact that I was unable to reach my best friend’s cell number. I called up her boyfriend.

Me: Hello Arvind?

Arvind: Hi Natalia. Bolo, how are you?

Me: Arre, what is Tejaswini’s mobile number?

Arvind: (in a tone that expressed surprise and the obviousness of the answer) 9820098200. Are you ok? What happened?

Me: I have been dialling this number but a man is answering the call.

Arvind: No way! I am the only man in her life!

Me: Thanks for clarifying your status in her life but I don’t know what’s happening!

Arvind: Hey chill, she is at a friend’s place for some project work. Someone must be fooling around with her cell.

Me: Oh ok. Thanks I’ll try again. Bye.

Arvind: Bye.

This time I had got smarter. I dialled her number again but from my Mom’s cell.

Me: Hello, May I speak to Kumodini Agrawal?

Voice at the other end: This is Tejaswini’s number.

Me: Very good. Give her the phone!



P.S.: The mobile number used here is that of the Vodafone India helpline to prevent any trouble Bye!

Gluttony and the Laws of Economics

I am a food-lover. So is my friend a gourmet. Our love for good food goes to such heights that we don’t care a toss about customs and traditions when it comes to our gustatory preferences. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are all fine for devouring all types of foodstuff inclusive of non-vegetarian fare. Every morsel of food is religiously chewed 32 times to enjoy the taste and nutritional benefits to the hilt. Fasting is a vice in our book. Prolonged dialogues on the pleasures of food, especially chocolates are a ritual. I can eat chocolates non-stop . CadburyFlake and Ferrero Rocher top my list. In my opinion, 1920 was the most important and eventful year of the 20th century as that was the year Cadbury launched Cadburyflake.

We have another friend who shares this trait of ours. Regrettably, this friend is a glutton. This guy shows absolutely no interest whatsoever in taking pleasure in the finer aspects of food, savouring the different flavours of the spices that linger on your tongue and enjoying the immense psychological delights that food provides us. All he seems to understand is wolfing down gargantuan portions of food and assumes that being a connoisseur of good food is equivalent gobbling down larger and larger quantities of food and drinks. It completely beats the point of culinary pursuits. He eats like a pig, stuffing his face on every edible thing in sight ; he eats humongous quantities of fast food , has an unquenchable thirst for soft drinks and commits the cardinal sin of likening junk food with delicious delights. That he is a dipsomaniac does not deserver special mention. He boasts that no amounts of alcohol can have any effect on the ability of his cerebrum and cerebellum to work in tandem with each other. Policemen around the planet will undeniably disagree with him and medical practitioners may consider this claim as a subject worth researching. I am willing to bet insane sums of money on his liver being as greasy as that of a duck destined to descend on our dishes as Foie gras. Well, to put it simply he celebrates the New Year 365 days of the year!

We had once collectively tried to drill sense into that part of his central nervous system that includes all his higher nervous centres; enclosed within the skull; continuous with the spinal cord i.e. his head. My friend attempted to bring about a change of the locus of feelings and intuitions i.e. heart. The timing was wrong. We were having a golgappa munching session. She first sought the support of scientific statements. She commenced her sermon by elucidating how his excessive food consumption could lead to hypertension, diabetes, cardiac complications, stomach ulcers, arteriosclerosis and every possible lifestyle disease that she had committed to memory. He rubbished her monologue retorting that he was convinced that scientists publish such gobbledygook simply because they do not have better alternatives for disposing off their research grants and doctors uphold these claims because they derive sadistic satisfaction by scaring all souls in sight. Result = zilch. It was now his turn to launch into a discourse about why and how he would never quit eating and drinking the way he does as he believed that he wanted to die a happy man, happy because he ate and drank to his heart’s content.

My objection to his elephantine consumption was more on the basis of economics. I told my friend to leave him in peace. My friend and I have studied economics. The gluttonous creature has not.

Me: Forget it. He won’t understand. Let’s wait till the marginal utility of all that he consumes hits zero and then becomes negative. It has to.

Friend: Yup you are right. The marginal utility has to hit zero, then it will become negative and finally he will suffer from something!

Gluttonous friend: What do you mean? (Chomping on golgappas)

Me: I think it’s not his fault. The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility does not work in his case!

Me and Friend:

Gluttonous Friend:


I had, economically speaking, proved him abnormal.

Suicidally curious

We are told that curiosity killed the cat. Well I don’t know which cat but a few years ago, my little brother was well on his way to join that cat. As an eight year old, he was very cute, sweet and always enormously curious to know what his elder sisters were up to. I was in class ten at that point of time. Often, he would join me while I was studying; snuggle into my arms while I would read my textbooks. He would always be intent on reading my texts. He never managed to sustain his enthusiasm beyond two paragraphs at the most but I guess he would get a kick by reading out of a 10^th standard textbook while he was himself in class 3.

On fine day, he joined me while I was reading up the Science 1 (Physics and Chemistry) texts. He started reading as usual. That paragraph enumerated the precautions to be taken while handing electronic equipment. He had learnt for the first time that handling electronic equipments with wet hands can cause a shock; that we must wear rubber slippers or gloves while using such machines and especially electric sockets, etc. he asked if all that was true. I replied in the affirmative. He wanted to know what a shock was. I told him that it can cause a seizure (I faked one to explain what it may look like), burns and a heart attack which means that our heart stops working abruptly. He nodded seriously and went off to play as usual.

Three days later, in the morning, after he had had his bath, he was madly calling out my name from the bathroom. I thought he had forgotten his towel. When I went to look, this little devil already had a towel wrapped around him. I asked him what the matter was. The conversation that followed went something like this.

Brother: I am going to tell Mom to take you out of school. There is no need for you to go to school. They teach you nonsense in class 10.

I was stunned to witness my education being questioned.

Me: Why? What happened?

Brother: Come in. (Pointing to the bathroom)

Before I could even understand what was happening, he splashed handful water on the switchboard and turned on and switched off the switch for the geyser.

Brother: You see, your textbook is wrong, the switchboard was wet, my hands were wet, I am not wearing rubber slippers, I touched the switched board and I did not suffer a shock, neither did I die. I am still alive.

I rolled my eyes in disbelief. He actually checked whether he would be killed!

I understood my mistake and patiently explained what insulators were. It then seemed to dawn upon him why he was yet alive.

A Hairy Tale

Friend: Hi Natalia!

Me: Hi! Howz life?

Friend: Bad.

Me: What happened? Did you put up a few kilos? You seem to be in good shape.

Friend: No re! Stop kidding! I have a problem.

Me: Oh! If it is not weight, then it must be a boy.

Friend: Are you a mind reader or what?

Me: Nope. I am experienced. That expression on your face says that you are pining for your Prince Charming but you never told me that you have a guy.

Friend: That is because I don’t have one. I started liking one recently. But…

Me: He doesn’t notice you, doesn’t seem to be interested in you. Oh he doesn’t look at you!

Friend: (sarcastically) Thank you for completing my sentence. So what should I do now? How do I get him to at least look at me?

Me: Hey I am not a love guru nor am I an agony aunt.

Friend: Natalia help!

Me: (Sensing danger) Ok Ok. Let me think. Hey you have nice long hair.

Friend: Thank you for the compliment but how does that help me?

Me: Move around with your hair open when he is around. That will help you definitely.

Friend: How do you know? That advice sounds silly to me!

Me: You are a bad observer. Boys love girls with their hair open.

Friend: How do you know? Tell me that first!

Me: Haven’t you seen that Parachute Coconut Hair oil ad, with the jingle Gorgeous Hameshaa (Forever)?

Friend: So?

Me: That ad is from a man’s point of view. It’s a man singing about his favorite girl/ woman or maybe wife or girlfriend. It’s very different from other hair product ads which always extol the virtues of Shampoo X or Hair oil Y or Hair Colour Z! And those ads always have women talking about the benefits of the product. The Gorgeous Hameshaa campaign is different; it’s about a guy admiring his girl doing different things with her hair. Many of the women in that ad are with their hair open. That means that men prefer their women with their hair open. Women with long flowing hair excite men. I am sure!

Friend: You sure? Serious?

Me: Yup. I think open hair would work better than a low-cut T-shirt anyway!

Friend: Yuck. Stop joking! I am serious.

Me: Thousand apologies! (With folded hands, she was offended)

Friend: So tomorrow, while he will be hanging around the canteen during recess, I go there with my hair open, all prep and proper. He is generally there with his friends. I hope he notices me and likes me. We might even be able to get to the point of talking in a few weeks.

Me: Oh! (Sneakily) But let me warn you, even his friends will be excited if they see you like that. Open hair excites all men. By the way, excitement in such cases generally means an erection.

Friend: (Furiously) NATALIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At that point, I ran for my life.

It’s Raining Men, Hallelujah!

My friend: Tell me Natalia, have you ever seriously loved a guy?

Me: Yup. Next?

My friend: Just one guy?

Me: Hmm, nope, wait let me count them.

My friend: You're joking! Are you nuts?

Me: Nope, I seem to have a weird fortune with guys. Every time I like one I find out that he already likes or is dating someone else! Crazy isn’t it? But anyway, they were more like big crushes!

My friend: (Giggles) so tell me, how do you cope up in a situation like this? Can you just move on?

Me: Absolutely! Why should I create trouble for myself and the guy? It can get complicated. And besides, there is no harm if one guy doesn’t like you. India is full of men. Our predecessors have ensured that. They never wanted a situation where girls would have trouble finding dates!

My friend: Explain, explain! What do you mean by that?

Me: Well you see the sex ratio of India is 927 females per 1000 males. That means a surplus of 73 boys! So if I don’t get one guy, I know I still have 73 waiting in the line for me! Yipee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My friend: Natalia you seriously are weird! And what if you don’t find a match even amongst them?

Natalia: No, problems! I shall simply register myself on http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/ or http://www.shaadi.com/ . «Invited groom for tall, FAIR, educated girl, slim, whatever will be my age/ 5’4”, working from educated family, teetotaller, non-smoker, non-vegetarian. Caste no bar. » The moment people read the word 'fair', I shall be flooded with offers! No problems at all. I assure you, someone or the other will like me that way. But I pray to God that I don’t ever feel the need to register myself on those matrimonial sites! I am not an uninteresting character at all!

My friend: Hey of course you are not! We are just imagining some hypothetical situations. (Gleefully) It’s bad for the boys! I pity them. They don’t have as much as choice as we girls do.

Me: Oh no! Not at all! They can always go to Russia, Japan, and many other East European countries! All those places have more women than men! In fact the last time I read about it, there were 884 males per 1000 females in Russia and 1040 females per 1000 males in Japan! So boys need not worry at all. However, their families would! I wonder how most Indian families would react to their sons bringing home a European bahu (daughter-in-law)! The guy gets past caste, language and nationality barriers in one clean sweep! Globalisation at its best.