Body image

When I came to Great Yarmouth and saw these duck like pigeons waddling in my backyard I thought they had, like their human counterparts in this sleepy seaside town, grown fat on fish and chips. But then a "wildlife in Britain" handbook enlightened me that the wood pigeon was actually a different species.

I wonder if the wood pigeons ever look enviously at their slim and gorgeous cousins, the ring doves, and whether they suffer from poor body image and spend their time looking at their reflections in the water, considering breast reduction, liposuction or a different feather colour for that matter. I wonder if they know that a healthy diet of grains is better than chips.

Human celebrities, who are paid to look good, leave no stone unturned to do so and a candid Pamela Anderson has even referred to her breasts as a different entity from herself, appreciating them for what they had done for her career.


Yet, Hello and OK magazines like being unkind to celebrities and run features on bad dresses, bad hair days or even a computer generated photo feature on how hot glamorous models/actresses will look when they are sixty. I wonder if it is important to see bad images of others to improve your self worth.

Another recent feature in these mindless magazines, which are I will admit a good "time pass" when I am tired and feeling brainless while on call, in the hospital, is cosmetic surgery gone wrong, i.e pictures and interviews of people who have been on the wrong edge of the knife.

But even so, most of the cosmetic surgery is now being done on ordinary people. It seems people earning less than 20,000 dollars a year account for half of the cosmetic surgery procedures in the USA. Botox and liposuction are household words in India's metros and hair transplants and tummy tucks are happening even in small towns of India.

When I read patient notes before I call women into my consultation room, I guess I subconsciously generate a picture in my mind. Because I often come across women who surprise me by looking 10 years younger (enough to confuse me about their reproductive potential) without any surgery and minimum effort.

However, I did come across a woman who was 75 years old, but wore rolled up jeans and high heeled pump shoes. While taking a history I learnt that she had had a face lift and a nose job. Yet she was not happy with the way she looked and she ended by saying-"But I do know I can look good if I want to." I did not know how to react. She was an ordinary woman with numerous financial issues. She desperately needed a dose of happiness, which I think works better than cosmetic surgery in making people look good and young.

Just when Dhoni was being touted as the Gen next's iconic role model, who was not just a young and talented guy from a small town, but was also admired for his positive energy and cool headedness on and off the field, Team India was humiliatingly ousted from the T20 World cup, which came soon after the media's disenchantment with him. Now he is being written off by statements like..."Dhoni's honeymoon is over"

But even worse than the fact that India was ousted by losing to England (a team which lost to amateur Netherlands), is the fact that the World Cup was brought home by somebody so close to home. A formidable and God fearing team, they deserve the cup and the celebration that it has brought to a country in troubled times. The crowd which wanted to really rub it in, when confronted with an Indian media person was endearing to watch on TV.

Is it success which really crawls up to people's brains to cause debacles like these or the various pressures which come with being successful? One of them is trying to keep your place in the spotlight, I guess. The pressure of being the defending champions...

Very much the reason why kids should never be pressurized. They make such expressive drawings when they are young, a complete reflection of the world around them. My daughter made a drawing for her gharonda during Diwali, when she was four.It had everybody and everything, namely mummy, little brother, maid, cars, ants and when asked where Papa was, she said without blinking an eye-"He is in the hospital(working)" So true then, in India!

But as she grew older and was taught how things were supposed to be drawn, she stopped making these expressive drawings and kept churning out the age old two mountains with the sun rising from between them.

It is a challenge indeed to ensure that children feel free to express themselves without feeling the pressure to do things which look good and are what the world expects them to do. There is obviously a thin line between liberty and indiscipline, but then that is the reason Tony Blair had said that, being a Prime Minister is easier than being a parent.

There are the free spirits who get beaten up by the police in the middle of the night at the city centre, but maybe even they are there because they succumbed to pressures of a different kind- peer pressure. The kind which used to make pretty girls without boyfriends feel less pretty, even in my college days which is an age ago, so one cannot even begin to fathom the pressures for our kids. Parental pressure, peer pressure....

Lets hope they are strong enough to break free from all the pressures of modern day living, breathe the fresh air, enjoy life, identify their true vocations in life and make a concerted bid for them!

Long weekend

Had a relaxing bank holiday weekend with friends and kid's friends, lots of wine, food, sunshine and new activities like rowing and table tennis. Another new experience was a very noisy falling off, of the car's silencer pipe, while driving to the mechanic. The hollow pipe was thankfully picked up by hubby dear, from the road, before it caused a health and safety hazard.

But small hitches like these, were soon forgotten in the glorious sunshine emanating from the sun and four very happy children's faces, who were so happy to be together that even small time separations like sitting in different boats made them sulk unless we made the rowing competitive enough to generate excitement or bad enough to make them wonder if they were ever going to get back on to land at all. Navigating differently abled parents too, kept them busy.

The men were helpful and in good cheer, thanks to the share market in India, which seems to have taken off like a rocket into unexplored territory. Well, the credit goes definitely to the unassuming and reluctant king- the Singh who won the hearts of majority Indians (Manmohan).

One can't disregard the dimpled goodlooking half Italian who suddenly seems to be a darling of the media, whereas earlier he would only be in the news for his faux pas. Men are still voting for Priyanka as the future, whereas the women are definitely for the most eleigible bachelor in the country. Sigh! Women are also quick to rubbish any speculation about his heterosexual status. Come on, whats wrong with being 39 and single?

I overheard my senior colleague and a senior manager, both middle aged women gloating over England's test win against South Africa and they reminded me politely that-"IPL was just about hitting the ball as hard and as fast as possible...it lacks finesse. Test cricket should stay." I preferred to keep quiet. It made me think whether this was a generational shift, with the obviously more impatient younger people wanting immediate results in work, love and entertainment, NOW! as opposed to tomorrow.

Politicians are definitely the flavor of the month. Here in UK, newspapers carrying reports about how many of our parliamentarians' homes, swimming pools, gardens, home theatres, carpets and curtains have been paid for by taxpayers, have been making headlines.

But I wonder if anybody can put a hand on their heart and say that, if they had been in the MP's places and were told that it was all within rules- would they have questioned their conscience and not claimed for what is looking so bad, now that it is in the spotlight?

Don't all business people, go to great lengths to evade tax? Only the salaried class is the donkey with the country's tax burden...a donkey who is penalized for working because as Nandan Nilekani puts it- we are neither good for note nor vote!

Yeh mera India....

It was so nice to be in Delhi, to be able to witness the spring season's final act. The heat of the unrelenting sun began to pour down in the last few days but it did not prevent us from admiring the flamboyant bougenvillas spraying magenta in the dusty landscape, blood red hibiscuses, the towering peepul trees, the soothing shade of the neem and other members of the flora and fauna, I had a chance to get reacquainted with.

I spent a huge amount of time on the Delhi roads, commuting to and from Greater Noida and wondered just how the Common Wealth games can be held next year in this city of unfinished flyovers and overhead Metro tracks, traffic snarls, hasty road repairs, swarms of pedestrians taking to busy roads (simply because nobody thought of them when all the flyovers were built) and sights as incongruous as a bullock cart labouring up the wrong side of the flyover. The Akshardham complex looks beautiful and all the toll paid for the various expressways seems paisa vasool, yet...one has to have faith! in God and Shiela Dikshit.


We were invited to come and witness our neighbour's ten year old daughter's dance performance in the newly built Ansal Plaza, where a dance competition was being held. It feels like all of young India is boogie woogying nowadays, a hugely competitive sport. Looking at those pretty young things dancing solo or doing the tango with a romeo, while a huge crowd of mostly students stood around, left me scandalized.

I wondered how my dad would have reacted, had my daughter been one of the participants. I then tried to tell myself that the crowd used to be much more and more unruly in all those college festivals when I went on stage...but then, I couldnt see my audience and they were supposed students, while this was a shopping area, where anybody and everybody could come and stare.

Nevertheless, I shouldnt have worried, young India has matured, there was genuine applause for good performances and no seetis, or inappropriate behaviour...even with a couple trying a miserable tango, none for bare midriffs, none for the uninhibited jhatkas....I felt old, ancient, a bit dinosaurish and sorry for reacting in such a old fashioned way.


The one thing which warmed my heart, was watching the go getting youngsters in India. They were everywhere, in banks, in offices, in malls, on bikes, in cars...The young people in banks were dressed in Western office wear, speaking Queen's English with customers, but not hesitating to sport the full 4 dozens of newly wed's bangles. They were comfortable in their trousers and happily speaking and joking amongst each other in Hindi, even in the UK visa office. The real estate developers are going through a downturn and the girl there told us that salaries have been static for two years now, therefore, the mood there, was a bit sombre. Another disturbing trend, which I gathered from mums of guys and girls, earning fat paycheques, is that they are refusing to get married- too much hassle.

Strangely enough, when I got back to England and got into the train which would take me home to Norwich, I overheard a familiar Asian accent and saw a young Indian man speaking on the phone. It was a long conversation which flitted between English, Marathi and Hindi and it did not take me long to figure out that this software Engineer from Pune was being asked to extend his stay in England and he was trying to get out of it. He reminded me of my nephew, a soft ware Engineer in Bangalore, who has been enjoying gaadi, baadi (car, flat) and foreign trips, but is health conscious or may be traffic conscioius enough to bike to work.

Later talking to this young man on the train, he said he had too many things on his mind as in two weeks, he had a product launch. He did not have time to talk to me or accept any sweets I could offer. He was busy ringing the Pune office, getting somebody to text him phone numbers of people he needed to speak to, here in England, then would proceed to speak to them. He was speaking in all three languages, harassed and hassled, with no self consciousness, whatsoever. For global citizens like him, it did not matter which part of the world he was operating from...Bangalore, Pune, London or Ipswich? Welcome to the flat world...which is becoming hot and crowded. We carried lots of books from India, amongst them Thomas Friedman's next and am reading the entertaining Shobha De's "Superstar India"

More next time- Be good and be happy!

Hop on the train!

Train journeys are perfect to introspect, let your mind wander aimlessly and generally, unwind. They are so much more preferable, than driving out of the city to find a plane to fly in. All the paranoia surrounding flights, makes the security check a nightmare. Baggage size, weight and shape rules are as unpredictable as the English weather. More importantly, who wants to be touched all over, with what I believe is a metal detector, have one's clothes and toiletries checked for anything suspicious, like more than 100ml of foot cream.... my foot!

On the train, the blossoms on the trees, pansies on the railway platforms and daffodils in the countryside were announcing the much awaited arrival of spring. Most of the trees were still leafless, their bare profiles silhouetted against the horizon. The rolling green fields dotted with fluffy sheep and giant rolls of hay, whizzing past my window was refreshing to watch. Horses, ponies and cows, all leisurely grazing in the afternoon sun made me almost envious.

The waterways had ducks, geese and swans cruising along in various directions. I saw a field full of semicircular metal pig homes and lots of pigs and piglets gallivanting around, outside. Rabbits, the little brown furry creaturs sometimes sitting still meditatively or hopping away, are a pleasant sight. Some farms had colourful pheasants on an inspection round.

While I was busy appreciating all this, most of my co passengers were on their mobile phones, talking to friends and relatives. One Chinese woman beside me was talking constantly for more than an hour, but the irritating thing was that she would say some crucial things in English and leave me wishing I could understand the whole conversation, like, "I don't want to be a housewife" or some such interesting tit bit and I would start guessing what her occupation was, who she was talking to etc etc.

Then there was the woman who was admonishing her ex-husband for not having made an effort to get her kids to talk to her on mother's day. She then asked to speak to her older eight year old and proceeded to explain to him that even if she gets in after his bed time, she will get him home and,..and then, she would hopefully get a Mother's day card. I found myself feeling sorry for the boy, who had, I hope, for his own sake got the hint, and had started looking for a card.

I was nearly falling off to sleep when this young man's conversation woke me up simply because it sounded so alarming. Something about going down at 45 degrees and keeping on turning in spite of a burning sensation or did I hear wrong? Thank God, I remembered that I had heard him ask the person he was talking to about skydiving. I was definitely put off skydiving, not that I was ever interested.

Most people's phones start ringing and most start calling others, at the approach of a station. Nobody likes to speak to the person sitting next to them, but there are plenty, who are happy to be discussing redundancies, house hunts, salaries, mortgages in nice normal voices which are crystal clear in the confines of a railway carriage, while on the phone to their dear ones. No wonder then, there are areas where the mobile phone is not allowed. I wonder if you pay more to get into that cabin.

Then suddenly,it began to get dark, the sun seemed to peep out like a beacon, from behind a band of dark cloud at the horizon and then, as it descended, the cloud acquired a golden lining. Soon, it was dark and the approach of a village or town was announced by a gathering of twinkling lights, in a distance. There were the usual lighted signs of Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Argos and the famous ToysRUs, which has the toys and us watch, as R looks in the mirror.

There is something very warm and inviting about stranger's homes, when you look into the interiors in the diffuse light of a lamp, from the impersonal comfort of a train. When we arrived into Birmingham, I felt like the country mouse who had been thrown into the city. Life is relative and so the multi storied buildings in Birmingham looked like skyscrapers, whereas in New York, one tended to look over anything lower than the big landmarks like the Empire State Building.

Its my life

Children were watching Hum aapke hain kaun with great interest today. It made me think about all the various so called middle class values, like living in big joint families, dressing, smiling and working while worrying about everybody's needs, thinking as a group, working with consensus, crushing your own individual likes , dislikes, joys, ..etc etc.

Today, we young shining Indians are a selfish lot. We are learning rapidly from the west all the things like pub culture, job hopping, living in sin etc etc in the name of "Its my life!"

Little do we realize, that the erosion of all these traditional values has destroyed communities and collapsed businesses in the west and that age old values of honesty, integrity and loyalty or namak halali was, is and always will be, the way to go.

It will be too late, when we realize that the power point presenting gadget flashing global MBA culture of looking after your own bonus while the company goes bankrupt, is not the way forward.


The other news which really made me despair, was the misuse of science and progress to bring into this world eight little babies at one time, who I wonder whether I should still say are blessings of God, or were they a result of a woman's indulgence and a doctor's unethical practice? Only in today's world can one achieve 14 children without a dad. Is that really progress? Should humans be trusted with making babies and now making designer babies?

The good news this season, not without its share of controversies, was Rahman and Pookutty's Oscars. After my blog on slum dog millionare threatened marital harmony, the oscars united us, both huge fans of Rahman.

Lets celebrate the fact that two most deserving people, from India received international recognition and have heralded an era where the famous Bollywood song and dance routine is being enjoyed by the whole world, which used to look condescendingly while we swayed and mouthed all the numbers, new and old.

It hasn't happened overnight, mind you, one of our friends who visited us while he was doing a fellowship in Germany told us how Germans love "Darde Disco.." and how it seems to be playing everywhere where he lived in Germany...now the new anthem I am sure is..Jai Ho!

Childhood- a generation ago

I remember my mother saying that the generation gap between her and me was much more than what she had felt between her dad and herself and that in turn was more than what her parents felt with her grandparents.

As the years go by this phenomenon becomes more pronounced and I remember looking at freshers, when we were in final year of Medical College and thinking that they seemed a generation apart, by the way they walked, talked, dressed….and their worldly wisdom, their knowledge about red or blue films, X or Y rating etc simply amazed us seniors.

Now I see my children growing up in this virtual world of computer, television and mobile screens and I wonder whether they will be prepared for the real world when they face it. My experiences from my childhood are so different and so real!

If I wanted to visit my classmate, Roopa, who stayed in another neighbourhood in Dhanbad, I had to be extra nice to my all powerful elder brother, who owned this vaahan or mode of transport- the bicycle. If I played my cards right, requested him, made nimbupani for him, pressed his feet and managed a court injunction from my parents, I would be lucky enough to sit in front of him on the rod connecting the seat to the handle of the cycle. I would be transported to play with my friend but only amidst countless comments on how heavy I was, giving rise to numerous nicknames, which included baby elephant, potato, football and the like.

There were strict rules though. “Mummy please tell her that as soon as I suggest it is time to go home, it is. I don’t want to stand foolishly and listen to pleas for more time from her friend. Otherwise, I am never ever, and I mean it, going to take her around….” Well, little sisters will know that big brothers are like khuda- vahi hota jo manzoore khuda hota hai.

Life was simple, going to school, reading and exchanging comics, Tintins, Enid Blytons and watching my brothers come home from school to find a reason to fight like they would kill each other. Evenings were spent playing home or teacher teacher with my friend and then as darkness descended and the street lights came on, our journeys back and forth started. I would first offer to walk Jona (my friend) to her house, then she would offer to come halfway to mine and then this would go on until somebody shouted a warning from one of our homes and we would run in different directions, painfully separated everyday.

Then there was homework to be done. Electricity was elusive and inverters and generators were luxuries only few people could afford. We managed very well with candles. The senior most i.e big brother was allowed a kerosene lamp, which did not go off with a gust of wind. A storm and the presence of electricity in the house were mutually exclusive. As soon as the thunder clapped, wind velocity increased, clouds darkened, the lights would go off. I was told, it was to prevent short circuits.

Coming back to the all important status symbol, the lamp, the flame could be reduced to allow it burn throughout the evening. Wow! The naked flame of the candle was crude in comparison, getting the candle to stand upright on the candle stand was such a struggle and carrying it around was sure to get hot wax on your fingers.

The humid heat and pouring sweat were the least of our worries; the biting pests who hid under furniture, mosquitoes were our worst enemies. If you closed the windows, you nearly died of heat and suffocation and if you opened them they attacked with a distinctive war cry as they closed in, near your ears. I can never get rid of that musical sound from my head for as long as I live. Closing of the windows had to coincide with the dawn and dusk, which is the time for a community song and dance routine for the mosquitoes who all seem to be in Brownian motion at the time.

It was in the winter holidays, that one of our memorable projects, Project Badminton was undertaken. Encyclopaedias were consulted, blueprints were drawn and taut ropes were used to dig out straight lines of the badminton court. Holes were dug and poles were positioned to hang up the net. The challenge, however, was to be able to play in the late evening, because the days were short in winter and by 6PM it was dark.

One of the dads, the encouraging and resourceful Dutta uncle provided the wooden boards, wiring and bulb holders and they were used by our industrious brothers to create a lighted badminton court. I wonder if I have ever felt so proud and good to be out in the crisp winter watching people in hand knitted sweaters play badminton as they shouted in joy or disappointment, threw rackets, examined feathers, all in the yellow artificial light.

Similar creativity was shown on the days preceding Saraswati Puja at Dutta uncle’s house. There were cutouts for decoration, coloured paper banners and saris as backdrops but then there had to be a lamp with a rotating cut out cardboard on which different coloured cellophane paper was stuck to create what was, a primitive set of disco lights. We felt great pride in doing what we could, to make our Saraswatiji the best in the neighbourhood.

All of us pitched in to get dry sticks and dried paddy stems for the bonfire on Holika. One of us would make a doll to signify Holika, who would burn in the bonfire. There was always a slight struggle to get the fire going but when it did, we pranced around and sang in Bangla- “Ajke holo nadapoda, kalke hobe dol, poornima te chand uthechhe, bolo hori bol” i.e. Today is the bonfire and tomorrow will be the festival of colours, the full moon has risen, praise the Lord.

Holi or the festival of colours meant looking like black, silver, green and pink monsters with shining white teeth. Armed with coloured water and lots of gulal (coloured powders) we would accompany the elders as they knocked on each door, all religions included and dragged everybody out to play Holi. The procession became bigger as the neighbourhood was combed for any defaulters and then we all met at the boss’s house. Drinking herbal intoxicants, dunking people in tanks and tearing clothes continued followed by a tasty lunch, eaten with dirty hands while drying ourselves in the sun.

Thank you God for such a wonderful childhood, hope my children remember theirs with the same fondness!