A Time To Reflect

charukesi November 8th, 2005

How do people who have a full time job find time to read? Here I have been, hardly a month into my job and it feels like all reading has stopped. I try. Oh, I try very hard. I keep a book open on my way to work - 21 long kilometeres of car ride across Bombay. On my way back home of course, I can barely keep my eyes open. I try again after dinner. Prop my eyes open with the help of matchsticks placed under the lashes. I can tell you it does not work. The words dance in front of my eyes and soon I find that I am smiling stupidly at the page. The same page I have been reading for the last fifteen minutes. How do people do it?

All the books I have bought and not read. And then the books I have borrowed (gulp). Not to forget those work-related tomes on design and usability and field research that I stare at (not the pages, just at the covers) on a daily basis. And top on my guilt list, the books sent by Simon and Schuster to read and mention on the blog (here, I report honestly that I have finally started reading The Untouchables).

In all this, I have come to appreciate the concept of timepass reading. I have heard often enough that after a hard day’s work, the average movie goer (whoever that is) does not want to see “reality” on screen; therefore, the appeal of the masala movie.

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Likewise with books. I have discovered this genre I call multiplex books - light reading, appealing to a limited audience and requiring no thought before or after reading. I have come to love multiplex books - the latest I read was Jaideep Varma’s Local. Local has been reviewed enough and I am not attempting it here. But Local is the perfect multiplex book. (I now digress and picture here Rahul Bose as the confused copy-writer Akash, taking in the world around him as he struggles with his own, the slightly perplexed look in place. Of course, anything to think about Rahul Bose in the middle of the day.)

Now coming to a theatre near your home - Local : the 8.14 Virar Fast (in keeping with the hallowed new-wave Bollywood tradition of name : subtitle)

Local is a feeling that all of us experience some time in life; wanting “out”, drifting along as life takes you, either desperately wishing for or not even seeking control. Local is the way we live, finding space for ourselves in all the noise and commotion of the outside world, the others.

Local is an interesting glimpse into the underbelly of that “glamorous” career advertising - the aging insecure creative head (hey, he was my professor at my ad school - and I know I cannot remember him sober much of the time), the accounts guy who keeps a close watch on the amount of toilet tissue being consumed, er, used up every month (which is practically every finance person I know in corporate organizations), creatives stolen and remixed and presented by someone else in some other form… And Bibek..

Local is about the way Bombay works - the railway line right in the centre and life all around - the insightful vignettes of people flitting in and out of the city and in some way, Akash’s life.

Local is not an engrossing book, not a gripping plot, not masterful language. It is those moments during the reading that made me sit up and say “hey, I know this person he is talking about“. And these moments alone are enough to make me recommend the book here.

• On my bookshelf
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charukesi November 7th, 2005

I got this via email : sick of making minimum wage

You’ll thank me later… Start making money TODAY… not years from now.

The mail ended helpfully with a US phone number for me to call for further information, and finally with a pleasant, have a good day.

I did have a good day mulling over the letters to choose for behind my name. And about what will do when the loophole gets discovered and closed.

And above all, my heart bleeds for those poor sods who have multiple letters behind their names and still manage only minimum wages.

Have a good day. And as you go out, please notice that the post is filed under ‘education’.

• - Education
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charukesi November 2nd, 2005

Neha at desipundit points to this blog which airs the unheard voices of the HIV infected in India. Lives in focus is an excellent concept - Using video, audio and photographs, this website presents the voices of those who are rarely given space or time in traditional news media.

Their latest post has this startling fact : “Every minute of every day, a child dies because of AIDS.”

Also commendable is their effort to document the struggles of families in India struggling to buy anti-retrovial drugs, in order to keep a family member healthy, and maybe even alive. I had linked to a piece on the Science Blog which stated, the survival rate of HIV-infected patients in India has risen in response to a 20-fold drop in the price of antiretroviral therapy (ART). In sheer contrast, ‘lives in focus’ says this about their attempt- The baseline will also establish how they think they will manage as drug prices surge and any stockpiled drugs are depleted. I wonder if the Science Blog report was just too optimistic, or in case the prices have dropped, are the benefits not percolating down to the needy? I have written to Sandeep at ‘lives in focus’ - will post his reply here when he resopnds.

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The second remarkable blog is The Patient’s Doctor by Dr. Aniruddh Malpani. Dr. Malpani says this about himself on the blog - I am an IVF specialist who believes in information therapy. I first heard of Dr.Malpani through this post on Rajesh Jain’s blog - the making of Abhishek - a moving personal story of the Jains’ struggle to have a baby. I discovered his blog very recently but have been hooked ever since; I have been leafing through the archives starting from January this year.

As I wrote to him, I see him as a sane voice from “the other side”, and I say this as a person with a traumatic history of interaction with doctors (including a spine surgery that has left more than just physical scars).

And as a person who has recently heard a close friend describe her experience at a ‘fertility specialist’ in Bangalore as “They treat patients like cattle there. I feel so miserable but I don’t have a choice - I want a baby desperately“.

His first post says it best - I am an infertility specialist, but I prefer to think of myself as being a patient advocate. I believe patients should be at the center of the medical universe ( the “healthcare industry” ) and will write about what can be done - by patients and doctors - to achieve this.

• The World of Indsight
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charukesi November 2nd, 2005

We spent part of Diwali morning at a home for the aged. Fifty old women, all of whom have lost their husbands are living alone. As in, living together, all alone. When I called the trustee in the morning to ask if there was anything in particular they needed that we could take with us, she said, Oh, there are many things they need. But please don’t take sweets for them.

Surely enough, there were boxes and boxes of sweets at the home. Sent by loving children and relatives for their mothers on the festival. Boxes of sweets for old people, most of whom were diabetic or had other health problems. And could not eat them anyway. Boxes of sweets for the old people. And not a single visitor from any of the families.

The lady in-charge took us around and showed us the room of the “first resident” of the home, who had been there for many yearsdaughter from Switzerland. A tape recorder. The pretty nightie she was wearing, with now. Everything in this room has been sent by her small pink and purple flowers. Posters showing snow-covered alpine peaks. Does the old lady stare at it and remember her daughter each time the drab room with one single metal cot and two plastic chairs feels claustrophobic?

Surely, one’s parents are not use and throw as all other things have become…?

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I had written the tragedy of trust a long time ago (September 2003). Some of it here…

Do you remember this small news item on television last month during the Nasik Kumbh Mela. About how many sons and daughters were bringing their aged parents to the Kumbh Mela and abandoning them there ?

Picture this : unsuspecting, old parents happy to be at the Kumbh Mela, willing to be led by those they trust, their own children. To be forsaken.

There is a time in everyone’s life when the role reversal happens; the parents no longer are the protectors but the protected. How often, as adults, have you hidden something from your parents, not with the intention of ‘a deliberate lie’ but to ‘shelter’ them from the unpleasant truth ? Or seen them grow old, age in front of your eyes and only watched helplessly ?

As children, don’t we trust our parents blindly ? In turn, are they not entitled to trust in us ?

If old people cannot trust their own children, then whom do they trust ?

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Also read Home alone in America, a moving piece on the ‘abandoned parents brigade’.

• Indiawatch
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