Have you ever tried talking when you are with a group of women? It’s like waiting for a customer care executive to attend to your call. They’ll keep telling you how important your call is but make you wait till you’ve achieved the impossible, like grown a beard.

So I did the obvious—I started scribbling my thoughts, safe in the knowledge that the middle of my sentence will not be interrupting the beginning of someone else’s. I was convinced of my mediocrity and took refuge in self-deprecating humour, the best defence tactic. It’s a lot like predictive input—before someone else can even start making fun of you, you jump in and do it on their behalf.

These days I have graduated to making fun of others and often get made fun of instead. Like when I write about our childlike love for cows or the government’s passion for bans, I get suggestions for alternative employment like soliciting for customers on streets of disrepute or I am asked to relocate to Pakistan.

Why they think I am a moron

I write because it gives me a sense of purpose. But, in India, when you try to tell your friends and relatives that you’d rather pursue your passion than engage yourself in the futile pursuit of earning money in a nine-to-five job, you’re treated like a moron.

What do you do for a living?

Oh, I blog.

Scenario 1—If, by some stroke of luck, they do happen to know what a blog is

They: Hehehe… Isn’t blogging just graffiti with punctuation?

Me: [Trying to smile with clenched teeth]

They: Does it pay? How much?

Me: [Oh god; are they now going to ask how many bedrooms my apartment has!]

They: You must be recently unemployed. If I had so much time I’d be blogging too.

Me: [Still trying to smile with clenched teeth.]

Scenario 2—They have no idea what a blog is, which is almost always the case

They: [deafening silence], [brows furrowed in confusion], [an awkward laugh], [shuffling of feet], [tentative “wow!”]

Me: I think I’ll go and die.

Then there are those who read your blog.

Thankfully, there exists a populace that reads your blog. You readily believe them when they say you are the best thing to have happened since butter chicken. Sadly, they will also insist that you’re wasting your talent on a blog and ask you to waste it on a magazine or a newspaper instead! [Now you know why I am writing for Complete Wellbeing]

Writing a book is considered a natural extension to a blogger’s life. Three popular posts later, you get tired of saying “no” to all your well-wishers eagerly waiting for you to write a best-seller. It’s a lot like what a Mom to a single child faces. She wastes all her fertile life telling the world and its aunt that she has no interest in siring another child!

Fan “males” and fan base

Once your blog gains some readership and a reasonable amount of popularity, you see a sudden spurt of newly formed blogs on your Facebook newsfeed. You realise your writing has managed to inspire your friends and relatives in a “if she can write, I can write too” way. You start getting fan mails, a few of them from love struck males. They usually gather momentum after you’ve written about busts and butts and the Bengali woman’s love for sleeveless blouses. Men are such simple creatures. When a woman writes about the female anatomy, they promptly imagine hers.

Peculiarly, your friends start claiming that they have met your fans who swear by your writing. For some strange reason, you’ve yet to meet any such fan. A few years later, you’ve won a couple of awards. You have thousands of followers on Twitter. You’ve become so famous that your opinions, your style of writing, your feminist leanings get trashed regularly. You start fancying yourself as a celebrity, eagerly waiting to be mobbed by your fans every time you visit a mall or a popular restaurant. You even think of buying a pair of binoculars so you don’t miss the frantic waving of hands that your myopic eyes are missing out. Once I even did the impossible—went up the escalator going down, because I thought I had spotted a flicker of recollection in a lady’s eyes. Alas, you just keep waiting!

I finally did get my fan moment, though, and that too in the distant land of Brisbane. While I was crossing the road, an Indian man stopped me to ask if I was Purba Ray. I looked at him with gratitude-filled eyes and shook his hands furiously in relief, unmindful of honking cars. When I posted about this great achievement on Facebook, my heartless friends insisted he was a stalker.

We want to know that we matter too

The thing is, we all have an overwhelming desire to be relevant. We seek it through our jobs, relationships or interests we pursue. We hope that in some insignificant way we are making a difference in someone’s life—whether it’s a Mom who slaves for hours to fix that perfect meal for her family, a photographer who traverses miles and risks her life to click that perfect shot or a novice completing a cross-country marathon. Just an acknowledgement that my passion for what I do, in some way, may have ignited somebody else’s desire to do something significant, eggs me on to work harder. I guess this is the reason we have Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day or even Boss’ Day—when we finally get to hear how much we are cherished and appreciated [conspiracy theorists dissing it as commercialisation of love be damned!]

So, the next time you spot an eager looking woman moving her head clockwise and anti-clockwise desperate to be recognised, go up to her and exclaim: Are you Purba? I love reading your articles in Complete Wellbeing! Trust me, she’ll hug you so hard, your tonsils might get ejected to outer space!

The post Things people say when you tell them you are a blogger appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Once you go to a government office or a public sector bank and see employees working hard whenever they get time from having endless tea, cigarette, lunch and snack breaks, you realise why so many of our brethren are dying to be labelled backward. If Amroha Nagar Palika received 19,000 applications and that too mostly from BA, BSc, MA, BTech and MBA candidates for 114 posts of safai karamchari [sweepers], you can imagine how scary it is out there.

Conquering the final frontier

It is a huge achievement when you finally get an interview call. So what if it’s after 5,874 rejections, heartbreaks, and ‘how-dare-they-think-I-am not good-enough’ rants! Now that you have reached the final frontier, you transform into a marketeer about to sell a ghastly tasting tea as a weight reducing miracle beverage. Not everyone is your Mom who thinks you are the best thing to have happened to mankind after Darjeeling tea.

I’m not suggesting everyone lies to get a job. But then even Yudhishthira ‘misspoke’ the truth to put an end to a bloody war that lasted 18 days. Thankfully, a typical interview lasts anything between 20 and 30 minutes within which you have to convince a bunch of grim looking strangers that you are the harbinger of their achhe din! This is the time when you get to unleash the power-hungry politician in you and make promises you have no intention of keeping. It does help if you package yourself well and try to look and sound intelligent. After all, not many take Rahul Gandhi seriously despite his impressive lineage.

What you really mean

Remember the time you wooed that hottie online? You told her you were a six feet something who loved surfing and stays up all night reading Plato and Plath with the book placed on his six pack abs. How quickly she fell for you! It helped that she lived
in Nicaragua and would never find that you’d never been near the ocean or the gym and you spend all night watching porn.

Likewise, an interview is an opportunity to be as creative as possible with the truth. If you’ve ever doubted your talents, here’s a concise list of your misspoken truths and what they actually mean.

When you say – I pride myself as a team player and have never had disagreements with my colleagues. I’m patient, understanding and kind to every single person at the office. Even those I don’t get along with.

What you really mean – I work well only with those who agree with me. The ones who have problems with my style of working are either jealous of me or too stupid to recognise my genius.

When you say – I just love what you’re wearing!

What you’re thinking – I hope my desperation to get this job is not showing!

When you say – I have always wanted to work for an organisation with mission, vision and values. It would be a dream-come-true to work here.

What you really mean – I don’t even know what these words mean! But they sound pompous and idealistic; besides, they make me sound good.

When you say – I resigned from my previous job because it did not help me reach my true potential. Of course, the management refused to accept my resignation but I was adamant. Everyone cried at my farewell party.

What you really mean – I just need a new job to hate. When I finally put in my papers, everyone at my office cried with relief. I just hope they all die and to make sure they do, I shall fast for 56 consecutive Mondays.

When you say – I always give my 100 per cent to the organisation.

What you really mean – The decimal that comes right after 1 is only visible to me. Hehehehe!

When you say – If there’s anything I do not like about me is my quest for perfectionism. I don’t mind the extra hours I have to put in to deliver the perfect package.

What you really mean – I have never met a deadline in my entire lifetime and my last boss had a nervous breakdown waiting for me to complete the job assigned to me. Last heard he had relocated to an ashram in Rishikesh where he scours utensils in the kitchen.

When you say – I have never shied from taking a tough call. If you don’t drive accountability, you’d have happy employees but a bankrupt company.

What you really mean – I once caught one of the team members spitting in my tea. Last Diwali someone put a live ‘phataka’ [firecracker] under my seat. It’s a miracle I did not die of heart failure.

When you say – I am an avid reader, traveller, wildlife photographer

What you really mean – Lol, are you kidding me? The only wildlife I have photographed is my wife! I am an avid reader of Facebook posts. And commuting two hours each way to reach my workplace is travel, right?

When you say – Five years from now I see myself as a valuable employee of your esteemed organisation mentoring juniors and helping them realise their true potential.

What you really mean – Five years from now I’ll have your job. When I sit on your side of the table, I’ll make sure nobody gets the job the way I did. By faking it.

Such glib talking will ensure that these fools will fall for you hook, line and sinker. You can now look forward to a match made in heaven. Of course, most relationships are made in China [they rarely last forever], especially the ones based on lies. But while you’re still a couple, you can keep pretending your boss dearest is the best thing to have happened to you in public, and bitch about her in private. Thankfully you won’t have to wait seven years to get the ‘seven year itch’.  At the first signs of restlessness, you can start sailing the ocean in search of a juicier new catch and prepare a new set of lies to net that big fish.

The post The lies we speak in a job interview [and what we actually mean] appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Yeah, me neither. I would have never let something like that happen to me last year with my friends promptly posting it on social media. Because that would be embarrassing. Especially if they took another picture of you watching yourself on YouTube and you’re not comprehending the fact that you still have toilet paper hanging off of you as you watch the video of yourself with toilet paper hanging off of you.

However, if it had happened to me, and I’m not saying it did, but if it did, why didn’t anyone tell me before the citizen paparazzi went crazy? If it were my friend walking around with a tissue tail I would have said something right away, and I’m sure you would have, too. Which is why I like you so much, but these other weirdos, have they no compassion? Does their desire for a viral yet ephemeral YouTube video trump saving their friend from a lifetime of digital humiliation?

I strongly believe that this world would be a better place if more people spoke up

Powdered doughnuts? Never again!

And then there was the incident that also may or may not have happened to me when I returned to work after a two-week vacation. I walked into the conference room for our daily staff meeting with my huge cup of coffee and noticed no one was talking. The room was thick with hanging heads in business suits and I blurted out through a mouthful of powdered doughnut, perhaps a little louder [and powderier] than necessary, “Hey, who died?”

How much would it have cost someone to send me a text or email about a colleague’s freak circus accident prior to my return? Again, I can neither confirm nor deny that it actually happened to me personally, because again, that would be humiliating, but really, people! Is one lousy heads-up message too much to ask? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to work with a cubicle mate who isn’t speaking to you any more? Do you know I can barely eat my morning ritualistic powdered doughnut without choking on it?

And all because people don’t speak up when they should.

My friendly neighbour

Helga is my next-door neighbour. She wears long robes and keeps a big kettle of boiling stuff on the stove all the time, stirring it occasionally. I can see right into her living room from my kitchen window. She’s a nice lady, has never spoken ill of anyone and has always been kind to me. She also has a pet raven named Edgar Allen Poe.

Periodically, a nosy neighbour will try to report Helga to the authorities as a witch. She never confirms or denies it because she doesn’t think it’s anyone’s business what she does in the privacy of her own home.

Periodically, a nosy neighbour will try to report Helga to the authorities as a witch

I happen to know she’s not a witch, but she asked me not to comment to anyone one way or the other because they don’t deserve to have their accusations dignified with denials. “It’s the principle of the thing,” she says. “It’s none of their business what I do.”

I once tried to persuade her otherwise, but then a weird tingling sensation shot through my brain. When I got off her kitchen floor, and a concerned Helga asked me if I was okay, I felt nothing but a soft compassion for her and couldn’t believe I was trying to talk her into betraying her own principles.

The neighbour kids throw eggs at her house. They ring her doorbell and run away. They taunt her when she is outside tending to the fragrant herbs on her dilapidated front porch. They make fun of her gardening attire and go around town talking about the tall, black and pointy thing on her head. But those kids are wrong. Helga’s gardening hat is more of a dark navy blue.

She says they leave nasty gifts on her doorstep. Last week I saw her unwrap a package while we were in her kitchen and when she saw me looking, she quickly stuffed it away.

“Was that an eye of newt?” I asked.

“Can you believe what they leave on my porch?” She shook her head and laughed, but I could tell those kids had hurt her feelings because she sneaked a look in my direction, to see if I could see her eyes turning red, as if about to cry.

“Where does one get an eye of newt?” I asked.

She just shrugged her shoulders and slipped the box into a cupboard. “You can get anything on the internet these days,” she said. “Would you like some tea?”

Helga won’t speak up to deny all the accusations or prove them wrong, and I’m sure she’s suffering because of it. I see her from my kitchen window pacing back and forth in her living room at 3am, reading a huge ancient book that looks too heavy for her to carry. Probably a bible, and how many witches do you know that read a bible, huh? Exactly.

I can see her mumbling as she paces, no doubt because of persecution anxiety, the poor thing. If Helga would just talk to the neighbours, I’m sure everyone would realise that it’s all a misunderstanding.

Speaking up is good

What I’m trying to say is, I strongly believe that this world would be a better place if more people spoke up.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I promised Helga I’d teach her how to brush her unruly hair. Then she wants me to help her when Mr. Jasmine shows up this evening to appraise her exotic broom collection. I bet it’s worth a lot. Some of those sticks are over 500 years old.

The post Should I speak up or stay silent? appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against fat people… as long as I don’t have to share a seat with them. They are usually a jolly good species and can devour buckets full of fried chicken minus the guilt pangs. An extra inch or two blends in harmoniously with their wide girth. The truth is, I secretly envy them. It’s me I have a problem with. You see, I was born with a manufacturing defect. I have wrists so thin that bangles slide down my arms like an avalanche in a hurry. Europe doesn’t make shoes my size. My dainty frame allows me no concession for extra kilos. And, to make it worse, that stupid gulab jamun I sometimes succumb to makes its way to my cheeks!

Imagine your embarrassment when a more than well-endowed aunt of yours sizes you up and says, “Aahh, P has become fat!” Secretly you are sputtering with rage and dying to bellow, “How dare you call me fat! When was the last time you checked yourself in the mirror, you stupid Cow!” With your appetite buried deep underground, you barely touch anything at the party, while your dear aunt’s face is strategically hidden behind the mountain of Biryani she’s gobbling.

I wrote these lines to justify my passionate love affair with fitness: Why my life seems incomplete if I don’t get to run on the treadmill; why everything seems pointless if I don’t raise my toes to the ceiling; why I think I might die if I miss even one day of my fitness regime. I have tumbled down the stairs and still gone for my morning walk. A bleeding knee, an aching back, a neck that scarcely moves—nothing discourages me from huffing and puffing.

My family insists that even if our house is on fire I will rush to the gym murmuring, “Darlings I will be back in 45, I’m sure you can manage till then!”

A bleeding knee, an aching back, a neck that scarcely moves—nothing discourages me from huffing and puffing

I wasn’t always a fitness fiend

Twenty years back, had someone gazed at the crystal ball and predicted that I will be a fitness fiend, I would have laughed at her face. Physical exercise and I could never see eye to eye. In school I made sure I bunked all my physical education classes. I played badminton just to shut my sports freak dad up. I was more into activities that did not disturb the rhythm of my assorted body parts—reading, music, yakking with friends. My brother would take care of my cardio. All I had to do was crack a joke at his expense and he would make me run all around the house. My mum’s eardrums would reverberate with my loud shrieks.

That girl who could demolish a box of chocolates in one sitting, the woman who had to have ice cream everyday during her pregnancy, is a stranger to me now.

Do I curse myself for favouring a healthier lifestyle? Not really, in fact I am quite proud of it. And it’s not as if I munch on carrots and seeds all through day and barf at the sight of ice creams. I still can’t live without my daily dark chocolate fix and binge on weekends.

Twenty years back, had someone gazed at the crystal ball and predicted that I will be a fitness fiend, I would have laughed at her face

I’m OK, you’re OK

What irks me is, when your close ones, who are well aware of your aversion to oil drenched delicacies, will still insist on plying you with it. Myths are woven around your so-called diet and you are projected as a fat-hating ninja. Dear God, now that you’ve had a pastry, will you be running for an hour on the treadmill! You smile even as you are trying to shove that sickeningly sweet cream in your mouth. Be damned if you do, be damned if you don’t.

And what I don’t understand is why certain people project their cholesterol loving and exercise shirking ways as an act of bravado. I am glad you can devour half a dozen bhature with chole for breakfast and still be alive and kicking. It’s great that exercise bores you and your idea of cardio is walking to the fridge to get yourself a beer. But don’t tch tch when I tell you I prefer yoghurt with fruits for breakfast and sigh in sympathy at my yoga-loving ways. I am old enough to decide what’s right for me and don’t need your unsolicited advice.

I fail to understand why most of us are so eager to project ourselves as the coolest and insist our way is the right way. Should your self-esteem always be at the cost of someone else’s sense of self-worth?

Yes, I suffer from guilt pangs when I reach out for another slice of brownie. I can’t remember the last time I had a samosa but I don’t miss it. But at least I don’t crib about my extra kilos as I tuck in yet another helping of aloo kachori. And don’t you worry, I will be the last one to call you fat. I don’t have the need to make you look bad to feel good about myself.

The post Yes, I’m a fitness freak and I’m not ashamed to say it appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

I travelled a bit this week and had a few hours in Chicago O’Hare where I did some people watching. A woman with baby blue hair sat slumped in the seating area waiting for her plane. I thought, does she think that hair colour is attractive? She looked like a Smurf. I could understand this choice if she were a teen because teens make tons of bad decisions, but this woman was at least 60 years old. I wanted to tell her, if she waited a few years, her hair would turn blue on its own, but of course I didn’t. I was too busy astounded by a handsome young man walking toward me.

He was a goodlooking fellow, neat, clean—he looked smart in a green pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Then as he passed by. I got a look at his backside. His legs and arms were completely tattooed all the way down.  I don’t even know what the tattoo was supposed to be. It just looked like someone had taken a magic marker and scribbled all up and down the back of his limbs while he slept face down on the couch. Walking toward me his appearance said, I’m a great guy, I love my grandmother, and I play basketball with the guys on Saturday afternoon.  However, walking away it said, hold on to your purse lady, I’m a bad ass and you’re my target.

The hole truth

The look that absolutely makes me question the number of brain cells in some people is the gigantic hole they have in their earlobes. What is that? Is that where they hang a plant? Is it a place where they hook their keys at night? Does their mom run a scarf through there in case it gets cold later in the day? I don’t know, I really don’t!

Even more concerning are the people who put that type of hole in their chins just below the lip line. You can see the bottoms of their teeth and their gums. What would ever possess anyone to do that to their face? I’m just curious. How do you drink water from a bottle with that sort of thing on your chin?

The look that absolutely makes me question the number of brain cells in some people is the gigantic hole they have in their earlobes

Piercing looks

Recently I was at a business meeting and a young woman who worked for a bank stood up to tell us about what the bank offered. Honestly, I couldn’t look at her because she had a safety pin hooked through the tip of her nose. Her co-worker was a thirty-something man who had that business-upfront-and-party-in-the-back hairdo. I mean come on! Am I going to give you people my money?

A relatively nice looking woman was wearing a very revealing sundress the other day. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but she had a horribly hacked up boob job and the sundress hid nothing. It looked bad, but it was like a car wreck you couldn’t look away from. She weighed about 80 pounds and her boobs about 25 each. I kept expecting her to fall over.

So different and yet same

In a world where everyone is working so hard to look different, to have their own identity, to express themselves, they all look the same to me. Stupid.

As I sat disgusted with the way people have defaced their faces and mangled their bodies, a man about 5’9″ walked by. He was dressed in a chocolate brown suit and had a cream coloured shirt ironed to a crisp. His tie was a beautiful brown and blue paisley and was tied in a perfect windsor knot. His shoes were shined and his hair was cut with precision. I’m sure he smelled delicious. This is the man who really stood out. He was the one who was different. He got my full attention. If I were looking to hire anyone, he would have gotten the job. This man was dressed for success; the rest of them, I think, may have been carnival workers… not that there’s anything wrong with that.

To be honest, the people I saw may have very well been wonderful, kind, smart people. We are judged, sadly, by our appearance. First impressions actually do mean the difference between getting a job or not, between connecting with someone or not. We are human beings and we look at people and assume certain things about them based on what they look like and how they dress. I’m not saying that it’s right to do that, I’m just saying that is what happens.

In short, if you want me to shop at your shop, bank at your bank, support your cause or hire you to renovate my house, take the damn safety pin out of your nose.

The post Do you dress to kill [your chances]? appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Pre-vacation

Most of our vacations follow a predictable pattern and style, from the planning to the actual vacationing. The preparation phase of a vacation is exciting. It takes considerable creativity to imagine everything that might go wrong while travelling [snowfall in summer, food poisoning, sudden craving for theplas in Heidelberg] before deciding what to stuff in your suitcases. The day of departure is the most hectic: emptying the fridge, stuffing door-gaps with newspapers to keep the dust out of the house, making frantic calls to newspaper and milk delivery guys, triple checking if all the doors and windows are locked before rushing off to the airport or train station. When you are roughly halfway to your destination, you are suddenly seized with the nagging feeling that you might have forgotten to turn the gas cylinder off. You spend the remaining journey imagining a charred house that will greet you when you are back and a life thereafter spent in penury.

Nonetheless, in my experience, a vacation has four stages: when, where, I can’t believe I’m finally here, and phew! It’s good to be home.

Most of our vacations follow a predictable pattern and style, from the planning to the actual vacationing

When

Deciding when to take a break is governed by a lot of factors. If you have school and college-going kids who are still not embarrassed to be seen with their parents, you plan your getaway to coincide with their holidays. Nowadays, however, most children spend their vacations in coaching classes and other activities that are supposed to turn them into super-achieving clones. Regardless, family vacations do happen, and planning them can be a nightmarish experience.

Contrarily, if you are unattached, so to speak, planning when to take a trip is a relatively personal decision. You simply wait for the symptoms to show up. These include restlessness, driving your colleagues insane with ‘I-could-so-do-with-a-break’ whining, and extreme envy at your just-returned-from-Leh friend’s travel photos on Facebook.

Where

This is usually dictated by three things: ‘must-visit places’ listicles that you browse while pretending to work, vacation pictures shared on Facebook or Instagram by “friends” you’ve never met, and a long, hard look at your bank balance and all your outstanding bills. Gone are those days when people could throw darts on the world atlas to decide their next holiday destination. The passionately patriotic Indian these days keenly follows prime ministerial itineraries to draw inspiration for new destinations.

A vacation has four stages: when, where, I can’t believe I’m finally here, and phew! It’s good to be home.

I can’t believe I’m finally here

So you’ve finally arrived at your dream destination. You congratulate yourself on booking the ‘romantique suite’ at the so-called heritage hotel after weeks of sifting through listings on travel websites and burning midnight oil extracting the essence from conflicting reviews. And it turns out to be a matchbox in a rundown building with a sewer-side view [your room with a view]. Not the type to waste time on heartbreaks, a DSLR camera slung around your neck, you set out immediately clutching maps and lists of must-dos [usually in multiples of 10] that you downloaded from someone’s blog.

You risk being disowned by the Worldwide Association of Hyper Tourists till you record the most ‘out-of-the-world’ experiences in a day and get herded around like cattle in tour buses. When you get time from watching the sunrise from the top of a volcano and the sunset from behind shrubs filled with rare snakes, you pose and preen in front of monuments, fountains and the Armani store, hoping one of them turns out to be a superb profile picture that fetches you hundreds of likes on Facebook.

It’s not a vacation well-spent till you exclaim “Oh god! I’ve put on so much weight” every few hours. It’s not fun till you feel guilty of having too much fun. Within a few days of hectic vacationing and plying yourself with meals so exotic that you can’t even pronounce their names, you start craving ghar ka khaana and the comfort of your own bed.

It’s not a vacation well-spent till you exclaim “Oh god! I’ve put on so much weight” every few hours

Phew! It’s good to be home

Vacations may be cruel reminders of how boring our regular life is. But when you finally walk into your living room—nursing bunions, lower back pain and a tan that makes you look like a roasted aubergine—you inhale the stale air and exclaim, “It’s so good to be home!” That’s the cruel irony of our lives: we long to escape our mundane lives and when we finally do, we start missing our boring yet comforting routine.

Then you commit the biggest mistake of weighing yourself. After you’ve managed to scream the daylights out of your neighbours and the pigeons on your balcony, you Google “how to lose weight in 10 days” and put yourself on a punishing diet. Within days of washing kilos of unwashed laundry, restoring the house back to its shining glory, eating 20 grams of carrots and 6 raisins for all your meals, going through zillions of unread spam and emails, and putting extra hours at the office to finish all your pending work, your vacation euphoria becomes a distant memory.

You are completely drained. You flop on your chair and exclaim, “Damn, I am so tired, I could certainly do with a vacation!” And the cycle begins all over again.

A version of this was first published in the December 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

The post The four stages of a “perfect” vacation appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

I took a deep breath and tried to figure out what I had done wrong. I thought I had inserted the correct PIN number into the machine, even taking care to cover the keypad so as to hide the number. While I was pondering over my possible error, the girl at the counter shoved the card reader towards me again. Her irritation was clear on her face as well as in her voice.

“Could something be wrong with your machine?” I asked, smiling sweetly.

She probably wanted to say, “Perhaps with your memory, you fossil”. Instead, she shot back, “Please, insert the correct PIN.”

I could sense the fidgeting of the people impatiently standing in the queue behind me. Not wanting to prolong my embarrassment, I said, rather fibbed, loudly, “Ah, I see, I’m using the blue card. Unfortunately, the PIN I entered was for my other card, the green one, you see.” All the while I wracked my brains to try and recall that elusive four-digit number.

“What senior moment?” I said, panting a little. “I have brain cells in a thousand shades of grey, young man.”

Finally, the PIN number hit me like a bright light. I was so excited at my triumph that I mistakenly shouted out the number. “I got it! It’s 1464,” I exclaimed. The girl at the counter didn’t share my elation, choosing to roll her eyes instead.

Relieved to be done with the ordeal, I was waddling across the car park with my grocery bags when a young man came up to me.

“It’s alright Aunty, you were just having a senior moment,” he said smiling, obviously trying to make me feel less uncomfortable about what had happened inside.

“What senior moment?” I said, panting a little. “I have brain cells in a thousand shades of grey, young man.”

“Sure,” he said, still smiling. “But after announcing your PIN to the whole store, you might want to consider changing it,” he added and hurried off. Good thing he reminded me, for the thought had not even crossed my mind.

Forgetfulness is not equal to ageing

Although most people associate forgetfulness with ageing, it is not necessarily a “senior problem”. It is not that older people forget things. We just take a little longer to remember, that’s all. My son once said to me, “Mum, admit it, your memory is getting weaker. It happens to all old people.”

So I explained my point using an analogy that his generation would understand.

“What happens to a computer when the hard disc is almost full?” I asked trying to sound as erudite as a computer expert, though I was more in the league of a cat trying to pose as a tiger.

“It slows down,” my son said patiently, knowing full well the extent of my knowledge of computers.

“Exactly,” I said, happy I’d elicited the answer I wanted. “That’s exactly what happens with older people. We’ve got so much knowledge stashed away in every nook and cranny of our brains that, naturally, we take a little longer to find information when we need it.”

It is not that older people forget things. We just take a little longer to remember, that’s all

In fact, gerontologists, who study various aspects of ageing, state that it’s normal for people’s brains to work slower as they age. That struggling to remember stuff doesn’t mean we’re developing a mental disorder.

Calling memory lapses ‘senior moments’ is ageist

It is a common misconception to equate memory lapses with ageing. Anyone, at any point in their life, can experience moments of forgetfulness. It is ageist to think that only older people forget things.

Labelling an incident when someone has a hard time remembering something as a “senior moment” is therefore incorrect. If you ask me, it would be more appropriate to equate moments when people display a more mature understanding of people or events, or share their wisdom with others as ”senior moments.”

While I concede that not all seniors are wise, I refuse to accept the common belief that ageing is the transformation of capable people with sharp brains into morons who can’t remember simple things. I believe that there are many positive changes that come with growing old.

The Golden Years: the pleasures of old age

With age, comes the ability to make more sense of the world and to better appreciate life and all that it offers. Also, once your days of being a spring chicken are far behind you, you sensibly begin giving importance only to the things that matter.

Having witnessed, endured, and experienced many different life situations, seniors are in a position to mentor younger folk and act as their guides in life. Therefore, the world needs to look at us as the old brooms who know all the dusty corners and not as burned out old fogeys who belong in the past.

I believe that there are many positive changes that come with growing old

It’s frustrating to me when my children worry that because I’m a senior citizen, I need to be looked after by other, younger people. They have no idea of how resourceful I can be when caught in a difficult situation. For instance, the other day I was again facing a potentially embarrassing situation at a supermarket. I was at the checkout counter, waiting to pay my bill, when I suddenly remembered I had not memorised the PIN of my new debit card.

I had no option but to think on my feet, even if it meant coming up with a lame excuse.

I gave the girl at the counter my sweetest “helpless old bat” smile, wrung my hands, and said, “My dear, I just remembered that when I switched handbags this morning, I forgot to transfer my debit card into this bag.”

Although the girl at the counter scowled at me, she cancelled the bill. I quietly slunk out of the market, cool as a cucumber. I slipped into a nearby store, bought just essential items with the cash I had on me and went home, pleased as hell for wriggling out of an awkward situation.

While forgetfulness is often wrongfully labelled as a “senior problem,” it sure comes in handy in some situations. When you’re an oldie and spin a yarn about forgetting, they really believe you forgot.

Don’t panic

Forgetting things or taking longer to remember is not the same as suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s. So don’t press the panic button if you find yourself struggling to put a name to a face or find the exact word to express yourself or if you go to the fridge and forget why you went there. However, if you fail to recognise the fridge as yours, then that would be a matter of concern.

This was first published in the August 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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Well, he put his foot in his mouth all right; however, I am not too sure about a distant elderly uncle of mine whom I ran into at a wedding recently. I sought him out and greeted him in typical Coorg style by touching his feet three times. He gave me a levelled look as he smoked his pipe. He then exhaled a cloud of smoke from the corner of his mouth and said: “I remember the name, but forget the face!” I am still trying to figure out if it was a case of slip-of-the-tongue or a deliberate attempt at being downright nasty.

The chief who ‘delivered’ his speech

Talking of goof-ups, the oft-repeated is the one about an absent-minded professor hunting for his reading glasses while wearing them. That was until we heard another story of a hysterical mother who frantically went around asking the whereabouts of her youngest child while carrying the baby on her hip!

One of the classic faux pas of the action kind is the joke about a busy executive who, in typical ‘Dagwood’ style, while rushing to catch the morning carpool to office, kissed the door and slammed the wife.

But, one of the best mix-ups, which happened about five decades ago, involved a tribal chief of a remote island colony of the British. The chief was to make a speech on the occasion of the visit to the island by no less a person than the then-young Queen of England, accompanied by her royal consort, the Duke of Edinburgh.

All the dignitaries were seated on the dais, and the chief proudly wore his traditional costume, which was the bare minimum, consisting of a few beads and feathers. He had carefully written down his speech on a piece of paper, which he placed on the chair and sat on it since his attire had no possibilities for pockets. His favourite wife sat next to him, again wearing bare essentials.

When it was the chief’s turn to make the speech, he stood up and tried to pick up the piece of paper. But the paper had got stuck to his bare bottom! Unwittingly, the chief turned around and stooped over the chair searching for the slip of paper, unaware that it was wedged on to his rear. Photographers were quick to shoot the scene with the chief bending over the chair, and the audience getting a full view of the piece of paper stuck to his backside appropriately in level with the mike. A bemused queen and other dignitaries had to keep a straight face. One of the tabloids published the candid visuals the following day with an apt caption—“The Chief delivering his speech!”

Have you hissed all my mystery lectures?

Talking of foot-and-mouth disease, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, describes himself as suffering from Dontopedalogy—the tendency of opening one’s mouth and putting a foot in it. His faux pas are often intentional and are meant as put-downs.

One of them aimed at women was: “When a man opens the car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.” A deliberate diplomatic gaffe by the prince was directed at the visiting president of Nigeria, who was wearing traditional robes: “You look like you’re ready for bed!” During an official visit to Papua New Guinea in 1998, the prince had this to say to a British student who was trekking there: “You managed not to get eaten, then?”

Amongst the celebrated personalities afflicted by Dontopedalogy, it is hard to surpass Reverend William Archibald Spooner and Hollywood movie-mogul Samuel Goldwyn of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer fame.

Reverend Spooner’s howlers such as, “Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?”, “Kinquering Kongs their titles take”, “You have hissed all my mystery lectures and in fact you have tasted the whole worm and must leave by the first town drain” are all without a doubt inscrutable. The Reverend, who taught at Oxford, was so prolific with his unfathomable slips of the tongue that a word has been coined in his name—Spoonerism—which means the tendency to mix-up words beyond comprehension.

It is Samuel Goldwyn whose lapsus linguae are indubitably the most amusing. His famous “Include me out” is a classic, and the most profound. The more one ponders on “Include me out” the more philosophical it gets.

Goldwyn’s other timeless nuggets are: “Elevate those guns a little lower”, “I’ll tell you in two words: im-possible”, “We have all passed a lot of water since those days”, and: “A verbal contract is not worth the paper it is written on” are all-time greats. Once, Samuel Goldwyn raised a toast to Field Marshal Montgomery as ‘Marshal Field Montgomery’. His speech-errors are now famously known as Goldwynism, and the word has gone into the dictionary along with Spoonerism.

Lords or lumps?

Another hilarious case of the lapsus linguae occurred when a rather nervous novice nun, after pouring tea for a senior bishop, asked most reverentially, holding a bowl of sugar cubes: “How many lords, my lump?”

One enthusiastic letter-writer to the editor put his foot in his mouth when he wrote, “Since crime is the number one problem in our country, we should make the death sentence more severe.”

In the same vein, former Vice-president Dan Quayle had this profundity: “If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.”

Years ago I heard a well-known newscaster on the All India Radio’s evening news bulletin announce: “A new breed of chicken has been developed which has very low morality.” He realised his slip, and quickly corrected himself by substituting ‘morality’ with ‘mortality’.

At home, we keep teasing my wife about her propensity for writing letters, and very often not mailing them. She outdid herself a few years ago when snail-mail was still in vogue by mailing a letter without writing it! The aerogramme addressed to our friends in Canada without a word written inside was promptly sent back by them with the comment, “Reading your letter was like listening to the sound of silence.”

A Rotarian husband wrote a speech for his nervous wife and told her, “Nothing to worry dear, all you need to do is simply shut your eyes and read it.”  That reminds me of my mother chiding us when we were young: “Just shut your mouth and eat what’s on your plate.”

Whenever I come across a case of malapropism, I remember a teacher from my school days who used to make light of a faux pas committed by him, by saying: “Sorry boys, for the tongue-of-the-slip!”

Excerpted with permission from Tongue of the Slip by C P Belliappa, published by Rupa Publications.

This was first published in the July 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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How can you go on working with these people who drive you batty on a daily basis? Luckily for you, I have all the answers to help you regain your sanity and leave the anxiety for the significantly smaller irritants in life. Like commuter traffic.

The Loud Talker

This is the guy who can’t keep his voice down whether he yaks on the phone with his proctologist or blows your hair back from point-blank range as he blusters on about his weekend at the lake on his friend’s gold-plated yacht. The solution to this one is easy. Bring a gong to office. Every time that hot airbag opens his mouth, bang that gong until he goes away.

Okay seriously, headphones should do the trick. For you, not him. [If you gave that guy headphones, his decibel level would hit the red zone.]

The Cougher

This also goes for the hummer, the whistler, the throat clearer, the sniffler, the mumbler, the heavy sigher, the tongue clicker and the coffee slurper. The first time the offender offends, scream, “OMG! You scared me!” The second time it happens, yell out and slap a hammer down hard on your desk. Say, “Holy Moly, that startled me!” Keep this up until the offender stops or asks to be moved elsewhere. Or, you could try headphones again, it’s purely up to you.

The Fish Monger

Nothing stinks up the kitchen and the office like a reheated seafood buffet. Should any clueless coworker [like the aforementioned Bipasha] have the audacity to bring in such a noxious lunch, say something like, “Holy Mackerel! Who farted? Did someone fart?” Trust me, you’ll be the hero of the office for simply expressing what everyone else is thinking but doesn’t have the nerve to say.

The Non-replacer

This is the lazy woman, probably the freckled sandal-wearer in Human Resources, who leaves one square of toilet paper on the roll instead of replacing it. She is the same person who leaves two sips of coffee in the pot and doesn’t make more. She undoubtedly does this at home. Therefore, the answer to this problem is to call her husband and inquire as to what he does to put a stop to such selfish behaviour.

The Chronic Farter or Burper

So, Ratish is a nice guy and all, but he’s really let himself go in his later years and he really lets “it” go in the office. All day long. It’s a daily thunderstorm that stinks so bad it keeps the bugs away, which might be a good thing, but if you can’t see your own computer screen through the tears and the fog, how are you expected to get any work done? Well, let me just save you a lot of time right now.

Recent studies show that men fart way more than women in the office. It would behoove you to surround yourself with women when you are first assigned your desk. If you didn’t think of this and you are stuck sitting next to Ratish and his storm-clouded cubicle, try screaming, “Holy Gaspipe! Did someone cook fish? Is someone cooking fish? Bipasha, is that you?”

The truth is, your proximity to Ratish is your own fault, and unless you’re willing to take him to the doctor for a prescription or get the guy to lay off wada pav and chole bhature for a while, get a desk fan.

The Clipper

This is the guy [why am I picking on guys so much? Because they are gross when it comes to hygiene]… anyway, this is the guy who pulls off his shoes and socks, and clips his toenails right there at his desk. [See? I told you they were gross.] You’re having a pleasant day at work so far, only to be interrupted by the high-pitched clipping of human talons, which are most likely flying across the aisle onto your desk and landing like rice grains on your resignation letter to the boss.

Don’t let this nasty man drive you out of a job. Fight back. Bring in one of those air guns they have at sporting events where they shoot T-shirts into the crowd. Start with shooting a handful of worms in his direction and go from there. Build up in size and grossness until you find something that gets his attention. It might take all day, but it will be worth it.

The Flosser

What is it with people ejecting or flicking small bits from their body onto your desk or in your hair? I’m even willing to assign this example to a woman because, gender equality. Now, if Tanya flosses at her desk, I have two words for you: mosquito netting.

However, if Tanya flosses over your shoulder—which has happened to someone I know, and the offender was a guy—actually, now that I think of it, the same two words apply.

Now for the real solution to the above problems

In all due seriousness, let’s consider the fact that many governments don’t have the resources to feed and shelter these mentally ill people; they are left in the cruel harsh world to fend for themselves and they are trying, God bless ‘em, at least they have jobs.

For your own sanity and wellbeing, you must find a way to relieve your stress over the toenail clipper and the coffee sipper and the let-it-ripper. Especially if it’s the same person. Campaign with your boss to move desks. Campaign to work from home. Get your boss to sympathise by campaigning to switch desks with him or her personally. This will put your boss in your shoes for a second, maybe enough so that he will try to help you, after a quick gag reflex because he has his own issues with tooth crevice jam.

So take a deep breath and remember that your annoying coworkers are not as evolved or self-aware as you are. Have some compassion for our less fortunate brethren [and sistren] who can’t help themselves.

Treat your work relationships like a marriage, where you are stuck with these nose-picking, space-invading people for the unforeseeable future. Find ways to cope, whether it’s wearing headphones or purging on Facebook.

You can’t control the behaviour of your coworkers, but you can choose how you respond to it. Writing it down can heal your pain or at least get it off your chest and make you feel better. Why does all this stuff get on your last nerve, anyway? It’s not like you’re so flawless either, you know. Maybe you’re the one with the problem, complaining all the time, did you ever think of that?

This was first published in the April 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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The first thing I did this morning was check Facebook. Why? Because, as embarrassed as I am to admit, for better or worse, it’s become a part of my life. That’s sort of like admitting you enjoy watching the parliamentary proceedings for fun, or that you really like sticking your tongue into spinning fans. How did this happen? I’m not really sure. I think some of it is addiction, like a rat getting a food pellet every time he presses a button. So each ‘like’ is a little imaginary food pellet that feeds my sense of… something. Self-worth? I don’t think that’s it. Peer approval? Maybe.

Also, I get to peep into the lives of, and interact with, a lot of different people from my past and future with the click of a mouse. I think the bigger reason I check Facebook multiple times a day is because it’s become a source of entertainment for me—it has replaced the newspaper, reading fiction [except for the obvious fiction of people’s Facebook lives and most political posts] and watching too much TV.

Is it better than all or any of these things? I doubt it. It’s mostly time-wasting trash. Having said that, I’ll admit that I read it before work, during my lunch break, after work, and at night before I go to sleep. I even read it when I’m sitting on the toilet, [don’t judge me, I know you all do it too, and that’s why I will never ask to borrow your cell phone] and whenever else the mood strikes me. In short, I am on Facebook way too much, and it needs to stop. Starting tomorrow. Or the next day. Next week at the latest.

What would happen if you woke up tomorrow morning, and Facebook was down?

So is Facebook your friend or your enemy?

I’m pretty sure Facebook has become that friend you run into in the market and at first you’re glad to see them—then they start following you around the store, incessantly talking about themselves until you’re contemplating faking an epileptic seizure just to get them to stop showing you pictures of every meal they ate on their trip to Italy.

How Facebook helps me… I’m still wondering

All that got me thinking—what would happen if I woke up tomorrow morning, and Facebook was down? I don’t mean down for an hour, or down for a day—I mean down for good. What would I do? For that matter, what would the one billion-plus other users do? Well, for starters, we’d have a lot more free time to work on things like world hunger and global warming. Too grandiose? Fine! We’d have more time to do laundry so we didn’t have to sniff socks in the hamper and pick the freshest pair for work on Monday. And who knows? Maybe with all that extra time, an ordinary person would do something extraordinary. Here’s an example: Yesterday, I spent three minutes of my life watching a video of a pug walking around on his front legs and peeing in the air for a solid minute and a half. Number one, that was a lot of pee, and number two, yes, you’re correct. I watched it twice. Again, don’t judge me.

What would I have done with that extra time? Honestly, probably not much, but when you really think about it, it adds up. If I could have back every minute of my life I’ve wasted on Facebook, I probably would have already written another book. Probably two, if I’m honest with myself. Would I have solved world hunger or brokered peace in the Middle East? No, but on the other hand I would have wasted a few less brain cells.

The top excuse to be on Facebook—finding lost friends

I have friends who aren’t on Facebook, and older relatives who don’t even know what Facebook is. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that they’re better off for it. Yes, I’ve gotten back in touch with some old classmates, but generally, those conversations go like this:

Old classmate you forgot about sends you a friend request. You accept and then…

You:  “Hi, how are you? Wow, hard to believe it’s been 20 years already!  What have you been up to?”

Them: {Insert highly-embellished life story here}

You: “That’s so great! Congratulations! It was really good to touch base after all these years. Keep in touch. We must get together!”

Them: “You too! Talk to you soon!”

Then you never hear from them again.

That’s the best-case scenario. The worst case scenario is one in which they invade your Facebook timeline and do one or more of the following:

1. Post non-stop pictures of their children, beginning at age two and continuing chronologically until they’ve graduated from college, moved out, gotten married, gotten divorced and then moved back home.
2. Invite you to play 1,243 different games that involve things like words, candy, jewels or various farm animals. Or sometimes even all of them together. [What? You’ve never played Words with Jewelled Candy Cows Saga before? You have no idea what you’re missing.]
3. Send you links to conspiracy theory articles or articles containing questionable political content that a first grader could refute without putting down his or her Xbox controller.

It’s generally a waste of time for both of you and it makes you realise why you never kept in touch with that person to begin with.

I have friends who aren’t on Facebook, and older relatives who don’t even know what Facebook is

If Facebook didn’t exist, you’d just have to get used to thinking things like:

“I wonder how that one guy from high school is doing these days? Hmm, I guess I’ll never know.” Or, “I haven’t seen a funny cat video in a long time. I might have to go to YouTube and watch a few.”

Then later in the day you could think, “Guess it’s time to go stalk that girl who broke up with me six years ago. No wait, I don’t have time for that right now. Maybe on the weekend, when I have a couple of extra hours to drive around her building over and over until I see her leave for her hair appointment.” OK, I took it to a dark place there for a minute, but you get what I mean.

My advice to you is this: Take a break from Facebook. Read a newspaper, or a magazine or even a novel. Call someone you haven’t talked to in a while and ask them to lunch. Granted, when you call them they’ll probably be busy watering their imaginary crops, crushing candy or watching a video of a pug peeing while walking on his front paws, but try yelling “OMG! LOL!” That usually gets their attention. Ironically, social media is anything but social. Only you and 1.4 billion other users can change that. The next time you find yourself floating aimlessly on Facebook, ask yourself “If Facebook didn’t exist what would I be doing now?” And then go do that.

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