Ruminations - 1

Perhaps we should take a moment, a minute silence to mull over the inevitability and finality of our own deaths.
Regardless of what you have, who and what you are; rich, poor, wise, silly, circumspect or giddy...... You are going to die!!
Even if you were to live in a sealed tank with filtered air and just the right amounts of food, drink and light, death creeps up in its season.
But just for kicks, many die in means and way less bland, and mostly unintended. It's how life keeps it's sense of humour, the myriad of ways its truncated.
To fear death but, would be to fear the unknown. For when death comes to either one of us, who fairs better? The one who lives or the one who dies.
Only God knows!

My Proverbial Auntyji

Every one must have one.

The expert on assorted subjects; international teacher of Indian philosophy, Master of Yoga, Wardrobe consultant, Moral guardian, etiquette educator, social swami. All rolled in one.



She looks her part. Short and rotund, she dress in the most vibrant colours of nature. Her face is white as snow barring the big mole on her left cheek and the strategically placed big red bindi which she claims is in line with her pituitary gland.



Every time we meet, she surveys me up and down. As if she were buying the leg of a lamb. Then wistfully says, "Shus chhak gumutz!!". Roughly translated, this would mean, " You look life less !!" I dig my nails into into my flesh, smile and try to look moved; instead of hysterical.



This one time, Auntyji-the-decorator decided to give my room a makeover. Everyone has their style, she for one worships symmetry. So, she organizes everything in the room; books , CD's, toiletries in order of size...the second classification being colour and consistency. She is almost obsessed about aligning the cushions diagonally and everything must always be equidistant from each other.



I specially avoid being in her vicinity when she is venturing out in the market. For her any purchase, tomatoes and turnips to tuba's and televisions, must include a round on bang-on bargaining. Each discussion is almost as profound as a nuclear arms deal.



Cooking is her passion. Specially the 37 types of mutton. If she is serving you a helping, to refuse would be a major faux-pas, akin to blowing snot on her face. The minute you pause for a breath, Auntyji will fill your load and insist you eat more. A sluggish eating performance is seen as a personal affront.



For someone as animated, spirited and industrious as her life never stands still. Barring ofcourse her favourite daily soap, " Mother-in-laws were Daughters-in-laws too one day" is on air. This moving epic of family drama makes her shed tears to make up for the saline enough to rehydrate a dozen thirsty famine struck Ethiopians.

Auntyji loves entertaining. Worthy of mention are her singing and dancing skills. The dance moves consist a lot of head wobbles, shoulder shimmies and the best of all, the punjabi move which involves a manoeuvre akin to changing a light bulb. She sings old hindi songs with a penchant. Almost incomprehensible when screeched in her strong Kashmiri accent at a double decibel.
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Auntyji isn't outrageously funny, but has this capacity to tell endless deprecating jokes. Sometimes I think she is Lucille Ball trapped in an Indian body. She loves good food, good gossip and good controversy. Not necessarily in that order. If she were to be the last one on earth she'd probably fight the wind.

Auntyji has her tales on bravery and valour too. She actually survived a seven day stand-off at the IC-814 hijacked plane from Kathamandu to Kandahar. She claims reminiscently to have given the gun totting terrorists a lesson or two on the Gandhian philosophy of peace and non violence, that too in impeccable Kashmiri.

At times, she is too cliche'd, too melodramatic, too movie....But mostly, Auntyji is beyond definition, beyond statement. For anything you say, the opposite could be true. She defies understanding, and for once, that's okay with me.

Everyone must have one.
An Auntyji.

Its a (wo)Man's world!!

Exit the Male.....The battle of the sexes has moved to a petri-dish.

If one were to go with the much hyped claims of human cloning, I am starting to believe that men are becoming redundant in the reproductive scheme of things.

The algebra of genetic make up is such that while women can be replicated, men can't be similarly xeroxed. This is becaouse it is the ova which is at the crucible of creation. Women with their XX chromosome, can create more females. On the other hand, men with their XY chromosome can't simply do without the X chromosome in the female ova. So, men are disadavantaged at the cloning game.

Even after fertilization, the nascent embryo is implanted into a womb to await it's birth. Here too, it's the female who is indispensable to the process, not the male.

Could it be this impending threat of redundancy the real reason for the outcry against the breakthrough's in cloning?

The real problem in our male dominated society is not that such techniques would one day allow man to be god, but---ultimate blasphemy-- that they could enable woman to play god !
Such male fears are older than history, but currently reached crisis point. Many pagan and animistic traditions when subsumed under christianity, were robbed of their original meaning. )(Dan Brown rings a bell)

Paradoxically, Mary , mother of Jesus was herself an "immaculate conception" and gave birth to her son similarly without any human male intervention.

According to one theory, men are nothing more than " accidental" women created through random genetic mutation. So, far from being heaven born priviledged sons of a patriarichal god..men may be nothing more than a chance throw of the evolutionary dice.

Hinduism just corroborates this concept. The " Ardhanareshwor" or the Shiv-Shakti combine symbolised the seamless union of male female principle, the yin and yang of seeming opposites to make a larger whole, greater than the sum of it's individual parts.

There is no getting away from it. In the pre christian and pre brahminc traditions, the woman was very much on TOP. And contemporary science will soon ensure that she resumes that position.

Goodbye guys, It hasn't been particularlry nice knowing you!!

p.s. Life's joy lies in its diversity. To loose the male sex..why would women want to loose the joy of the ridiculous.

थे immunology song

Chuhe ki chatni main chhipkali ke baal
Ball par lachakte hue Bacteria ki chal
Lipopolysaccharide se bani bacteria ki khal
Us par pyar se chade C3b ke opsonization ka kamaal

In Submission to death

Conversations with Mr. A. P. 55 /M .
Annexe II Bed 609 A
Diagnosis: Advanced Adenocarcinoma of Lung

I was one of those who claimed not to be afraid of death in my days of health and yore, never knowing what it really meant. Yet now when I am engulfed in its shadow, I see death in a new light.
Death, a simple human truth. Nature's most cruel joke, or perhaps its wisest stroke. One thing can be said, it's highly educational. For I am learning each day..learning to suffer until i finally see it in the eye. All the dramatic climaxes till I reach my final frontier.
For now, I'll tell you this, dying can be highly degrading. I lie in bed all day, tubes coming in and out of each possible orifice. Wires cover my body like a sinister web, counting each heartbeat, each breath I take. Sometimes, I hold my breath, just to see the monitor buzz off its alarms. I am starting to feel like a high school science experiment. Left in place by doctors until the bed can be used for "something better". One day they'll pull the plug.
The paradox about dying is this, time can be so still, it goes so slowly, yet it so less.
The highlights of my day are the visits the doctors make with their entourage. They call it "the Grand Rounds". And aren't they grand, full of subservience, hierarchies, submissive rivalries. I once read books, now i am being read like one.
They speak a language of their own, as though, trying to deceive me. They are wedded to these medicalisms which insulate them from the storms in my eyes, which they can't confront or don't want to . They use their words as tools to fight my fears. Perhaps, some of their own too.
Another day passes, yet death has not come. They say my days are numbered, yet the wait seems endless. Here , lies my pilgrimage's last point, my span's last inch. Here is where voracious death will unjoin my body and soul.