My Uncle

If people say that there is no such thing as The Indian Dream, my uncle and my father proved them wrong.

The ‘good old days’ were far from good - at least in India. They were the days when the poor stayed poor and the rich got richer. It was rare to scale the oppressing wall of poverty and make it to the side of the ‘haves’. It was rarer to imagine that a boy could leave his village with eight annas in his pocket and within a few decades entertain the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and Gregory Peck.

That boy was my uncle, Ambalal Jhaverbhai Patel (aka A.J.), born in the obscure village of Ode, Taluka Anand, in the Kaira district of Bombay State (now Gujarat). Now here’s a village that had not seen the light of the 21st century, nor the 20th, and not even the 19th for that matter. Reputed to have the deepest wells, there was a little ditty putting a curse on any father that married his daughter to a man from Ode. If a girl had to rely on getting her water from a well, it would only be the beginning of all her problems. Its redeeming value, and possibly the only one, was the fact that it was a member of the Panch Gaam group of villages.

A.J., or Motakaka as we called him, was not one to follow his father’s profession. My grandfather, Dada, the son of a humble farmer, educated himself and became a primary schoolmaster, earning the equivalent of eleven rupees a month. With this paltry amount, he was able to support a wife and four children, my father being the third child.

Ambalal was a boy of vision, but not one to study. His grades at school clearly demonstrated that he would not graduate. One fortuitous day, a visiting photographer showed his camera to the young boy, whose fate and future was forever sealed. Determined to do something with photography, he landed a series of jobs, the first being an usher in a cinema theater. This led further to stints in a photo studio and a job in East Africa. By now he was experienced enough to return to the film capital Bombay, popularly known as Bollywood today.

In 1932 he opened a small camera shop in Bombay with a capital of five hundred rupees and called it the Central Camera Company. It was at this time that he brought his family from the village. My fifteen-year old father, at first delighted to leave the village, soon realized it came at a price. His brother insisted on him pursuing higher studies. Enrolling himself in school, however, he found that he nevertheless spent most of the time working at Central Camera and not before long, dropped the idea of school altogether.

By 1937, Motakaka and my dad were pretty involved in the photographic industry. MGM contacted him and asked him to do some research for their movie “Kim”, which was to be shot in India and later 20th Century Fox did the same for the movie “When the Rains Came”. Together the two brothers made great strides in making Educational Short Films and later also Indian Movietone News during the partition of India and Pakistan.

My father remembers the tough times. Whenever the film clips depicted Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru, the Muslims tore the screen. Every clip of Jinnah incensed the Hindus and they did the same.

In 1946 Motakaka started Film Center, a film processing laboratory, which initially only processed black and white films. By 1950 he had installed color film processing equipment.

He hosted lavish parties and invited many a foreign dignitary: Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock, Caesar Romero, Stewart Granger, and Otto Preminger were among the notables, signing his guestbook. Indian film stars such as Raj Kapoor, Nargis, Dilip Kumar and others were also habitual guests.

One of the most famous stories of Motakaka is how he shanghaied Gregory Peck. Upon hearing that the famous American actor was coming to Bombay, he told his daughter Indira to go with his good friend Sabu (the actor famously known as The Elephant Boy) to the airport. Together they went onto the tarmac and right up to the plane, this being the pre-‘Take your shoes off and put your liquids in a Ziploc bag’ days. Armed with a smile, a namaste and a traditional marigold garland to greet him, Sabu and Indira then brought Gregory Peck back home to White House for dinner.

My uncle was a real family man. We spent most of our free time hanging out at White House. Almost every Sunday, he would organize outings and we would pack the picnic staple of puri-and-batata-nu-shaak. On Republic Day, he used to rent a truck and we sat on thick gadlas and munched on methi-na-dhebra, while admiring the buildings, which were decorated and lit up for the occasion.

Motakaka could be quite feisty. When a teacher at his daughter’s school sent a note home complaining that Geeta was not studying, he fired back a reply, saying that it was his duty to feed and clothe his daughter, and it was theirs to teach her, which is why he was sending her to Walsingham in the first place. Apparently, he wrote, I am doing my job, whereas you are not doing yours.

He built a bridge at Chowpatty in 1953, which he named after his father. Always building, planning and dreaming big, he bought property on Walkeshwar Road and called the complex White House, where his family still lives today. At one time, he had even built an open-air theatre, where his tenant the United States Information Service showed films free of charge.

Film Center soon became the largest color processing center, handling the majority of all Hindi films. Few times a week they would run a film check for quality control. Unbeknownst to dad, we would sneak in and watch the previews. Whenever, one of our favorite songs came on, we would beg the projectionist to replay it a couple of times.

There were times the producer or the director sat in as well, and I was gently cautioned to keep my caustic and sarcastic remarks to myself. You would think they would appreciate genuine critique from the audience, but apparently, I do not represent the average Bollywood movie-goer.

It was unfortunate that A.J. died at the age of 54. At the inauguration of Film Center, S.K. Patil had said of him: “Ambalal is a dreamer of great calibre and with rare determination and will to accomplish ever greater things. I wish India had a few more people like him.”

It was a pity he didn’t live long enough to fulfill those dreams.

Don’t Judge an Italian by his Kurta

A short while after taking off, the plane carrying my father on a business trip developed engine trouble and headed back to Madras for maintenance. While waiting in the airport lounge, he noticed a little commotion going on with some foreigners.

Apparently one of them had decided, come hell or high-water, she was not getting on that plane, even after they had fixed the problem. The others were trying to placate her that it would be alright and tried to allay her fear of flying. It was imperative for them to get back to Bombay that night.

My father, being my father, went over to help. Convincing them that things would be alright,  he would help and even put in an intercessory prayer to all the million Indian Gods, he managed to help the lady emplane. Once aboard the flight, he went to request special help from the flight attendant and got some seats blocked off for her, so Donatella could stretch out. He organized a couple of cars to meet them at the airport upon arrival and take them to the Taj Hotel, where they had reservations.

Back in Bombay the next morning, at the breakfast table, I was informed that he had met some Italian 'hippies' and to please entertain them.

I had long ceased to argue with my father or ask questions. He was forever making friends all over the world and giving them a Mi Casa es Su Casa card. Once it was a Japanese group who I rescued from a cramped Buddhist temple in Worli and brought back home. Except the group turned out to be fourteen young kids. With huge backpacks. And bicycles. They were on a biking tour through India. The tour leader Moriwakisan was so grateful and the ensuing friendship went so deep, that he named his vacation home Pateru House after my dad. Another time, it was Bo, a Swedish gentleman who organized concerts. The moment I found out he had once organized a tour for the Rolling Stones, I was more compliant to give him a royal tour and show him the sights of Bombay (hoping to wangle a free ticket in the future of course). Had he organized a Barry Manilow concert, it would have gotten him a viewing of the best slums.

For four days, I showed the Italian hippies around. They had the whole ‘kurta and beads’ vibe going on, this being the 70s and all. We walked around Chowpatty Beach, restraining them from eating anything from the beach stalls, no matter how appetizing or appealing they looked or smelled. We compensated by serving them hot bhajias, or ‘bombolini fritti’ as they called them and then wined and dined them. They saw a Bollywood movie at Film Center, the family’s color film laboratory. And then we said Ciao and back to Florence they went.

A few weeks later, we received a book in the mail: Villas and Palaces of Tuscany. Little cards were paper-clipped throughout. The cards read “Conte e Contessa Giovanni Guicciardini Corsi Salviati”, highlighting their summer homes and winter homes, their city homes and their country homes, and their family estates. I almost dropped the book, risking amputating a toe. A few years later, while studying Italian in Florence, I found out that they are one of the most influential families, with a Lungarno Guicciardini and part of the Pitti Palace, because as it turns out, the original Signor Guicciardini was a scribe to the Medicis.

Still friends after all these years, my sisters and I spent a wonderful afternoon with Donatella and Beppe in her country home in April.

Just goes to show, never judge an Italian by his kurta!

My Mother

I was told that my mother had cried when I was born.

They were not tears of pain from having pushed the proverbial equivalent of a camel through the eye of a needle.

They were not tears of joy, such as when I delivered my own children several decades later.

They were tears of disappointment.

She already had two girls and was hoping to give my father what every parent in India wanted – a son, an heir, an occasion to distribute peda to the whole world.

When the childless nurse in the hospital saw her crying, she offered to take me off my mother’s hands. It was fortunate that she refused, or I would now be manjo-ing bartan in a chawl somewhere, whilst one sister would be choosing jewelry at Bulgari and the other choosing which country to visit next.

It was tragic that she died only a couple of years later, so there is no way of knowing whether she got over the disappointment or not. In any case, if I had been that sick and having difficulty breathing, I wouldn’t have cared if I had a third daughter or a third cow.

Nina and Varsha inherited, sadly, her asthmatic genes. I inherited her physique and metabolism. She looks tall and thin in the few pictures I have of her. She never put on weight and lost even more when she fell ill. I can eat a tub of ghee and not gain an ounce...not that I would try it, or Dr. Ramirez would even let me. Sounds pretty gross anyway.

My cousin Dineshbhai stayed with us for a couple of years and he and Shardaben, his sister, still talk fondly of my mother, who was their mami. She had a natural elegance, and was kind as well as extremely generous and ready to feed and help anyone even remotely needing food or shelter. Sigh, where have all those genes gone?

Since I was only two when she died, I have no memories of her at all. I must have been pretty thick, because it was not until I was almost ten, that I suddenly had a thought. It was one of those ‘What were you doing when you heard Kennedy was shot?’ kind of moment. My cousin Mickey and I were playing with dolls in the garden, during a holiday in Matheran and she was talking about her mother. I remember stopping and thinking: What the heck? Where is my mother? This admission is embarrassing on two counts...one is admitting that I played with dolls in fifth grade and the second is being ten when I first realized I was the only one who didn’t have a mother.

Not that there were any shining examples of motherhood around, for me to wish upon a star for one of my own. There was of course Madrasfoi, the sweetest, most kind-hearted person in the world, who we met often. She treated us with the same love and affection she doled out to her own five children. But since I called her Foi, I assumed she was a Foi to her own children as well. This assumption should come as no surprise: proof of how dense I was has already been established as a precedent.

We didn’t interact much with adults anyway...even those related to us. We were more familiar with everyone’s bais, rather than everyone’s mothers...Sheilabai and Chandrabai and Rukhmanibai and Mickey’s old, diminutive, sodabottle-thick spectacled bai, who made the best vatana-nu-shaak and who shadowed her everywhere.

Between Ba and the bais, all the relatives and all the servants, I guess we turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

It still would have been nice to buy a Mother’s Day Card.

Incredible Effing FRRO!

The Government of India has a slogan for tourism called Incredible India! In light of their new visa policies - which change with the regularity of someone taking Metamucil - they may want to change it to Incredulous India!

Of all the bureaucratic, paper-pushing, red-tape, graft-taking countries in world, I had to make the mistake of entering India twice within the space of a few days. Well, helllooo, give me some credit here! Of course, I had a multiple-entry visa. I am not dumb enough to make the same mistake twice. I had been kicked out of Italy in 1977, made to fly to Switzerland, and fly back...being a blockhead, who tried to re-enter the country with a single-entry visa.

Now in the past, I have not had much experience with Indian bureaucracy. I do, however, remember my father lugging a suitcase to the capital, an important suitcase he was very careful not to let out of his sight, a heavy suitcase that ensured the smooth running of his agency with East Germany, a miracle suitcase that bought licenses to conduct his business.

So maybe the Government of India Tourism Board was not making enough money - what with the recession and all - and called for a meeting.

I would have loved to be a fly on that wall.

"How, how, howww...", the Marketing Director was bellowing, spraying paan spittle and pounding his fist on the table, "how can we raise more money and harass the tourist at the same time?" He cautioned his minions: "Bear in mind, our acronym of Foreign Relations Rip-off Office."

Brown-noser, sycophantic hands went up.

Let’s keep only two people at Immigration...and not inform them about the rules, said one.
Let’s pretend we are doing this because of the terrorists, said another.
Let’s not tell the FRRO clerks what it is all about.
(Laughter)
More importantly, let’s not tell the tourists.
(High-fives and hysterical laughter)

And so they devised a plan, so devious, so cunning, a plan that would make Machiavelli proud, a plan to extract (more) money from the tourists, fill the government coffers and at the same time ensure their employees an interminable supply of bribes, their pathetic salaries barely covering their bus-fare home.

The Director twirled his mustache, slurped a little more tea from his saucer, belched and boomed: "Shabaash! Let’s have another meeting tomorrow and change all the rules again!"

The plan was that a foreigner/NRI would need special permission to re-enter the country within two months, the logic being that, were he a terrorist and made to wait for two months, he would change his mind. That, or he and his buddies could easily just come across the Pakistan border by car or by boat, like they have been doing in the past.

Their plan worked like a charm. We were not told anything when we left the country for my sister’s weekend (umm...50th...) birthday bash. We did find out about the No Objection Certificate for Clearance to Return to India, thanks to my friend Farah. It pays to have a friend who is on the ball. We got our passports stamped by the Indian High Commissioner himself at Dubai. It pays to have a brother-in-law with friends in high places.

End of story, right? Wrong.

Upon re-entering India, we were told at the Immigration that we needed another stamp and to please report within 14 days to the FRRO Office. That it wouldn’t take more than half an hour. That it opened at 10 am. Wrong on both counts.

Deciding to go early and be one of the first in line, we got there at 9.30am. It had already opened at 9 am and people were streaming in like they were going to a Metallica concert. First, the havaldar told us to sign a ledger with detailed information on what color underwear we were wearing. Ok, so not the color, but close. Then we were directed to the third floor. Four clerks had set up shop on the landing across the lift and true to their sinecurist jobs were shuffling papers, looking busy, and giving everyone a hard time. People sweating, people shouting, people pushing...angry people, smelly people, cursing people. Are you getting the picture? Good.

The line was long as Rapunzel’s hair. When our turn came, a lady took our information and then told us we needed copies of a guarantor’s passport, a utility bill, signatures, an Undertaking Form and passport pictures. We raced across town - from St. Xavier’s College to Breach Candy, counting our blessings that my sister was in town to stand as the guarantor. We returned with everything, only to find out that we now needed to enter all the information on a computer, print it out and take a seat.

Take a seat? Take a seat??? People have sat in a government office and gone gray, gone comatose, and gone straight to the cremation ground. Our ordeal was only made bearable, because misery loves company and Farah and her husband Khushroo were going through the same torturous routine. Horror stories abounded in that miserable, crowded room. An Australian had returned four days in a row. A German said they had lost his passport. An NRI said they made him retake his picture four times with the photographer standing in the corner, each time finding something wrong with it and then charging him anew. In another corner, they had set up a copy machine, and the man was raking in a fortune making meaningless copies...and yes! charging for them.

Living in America has spoiled us. It has also made us dense. It took us four hours to realize that all she wanted was a bribe. Duh! My husband (or ‘Uncle’ as she called him) finally twigged on and slipped a five-hundred rupee note inside a passport. Enough practice with sleight of hand and when she handed the passport back, the note was gone.

We finally got done after five and a half hours, about $ 50, 32 copies, including 8 copies of my sister’s electric bill, 12 passport pictures, 16 signatures, and I cannot even count how many forms. Some pastiwala is going to be making a lot of money.

Now that I am going again to India, I am looking for an answer to see if my multiple-entry, ten-year visa, expiring in November 2011 is still valid. In every country in the world the answer would be a resounding Yes!! But, you’re damn right, I would be damn wrong. I went through the majority of the 1678 posts on the chat forum, which scrolls 112 pages (yes, I have nothing better to do with my time) and was still none the wiser. I went to the IATA site to look up the TIM and checked who was responsible for these dumbass laws...made up by Ministries - whether it was the Law Ministry , or the Ministry of External Affairs or the Ministry of Home Affairs. I looked up the official websites...each one more confusing that the other and in verbiage a Mensa couldn’t understand.

As an American, I guess I shouldn’t really complain. We are just as bad, if not worse, say the people trying to get into our country for a visit. They fill out lengthy forms (yes, they will ask you the color of your underwear), stand in long lines for hours, wait for several months, pay wads of money and then...then...the U.S. Consulate turns them down...and don’t refund the money. The United States ranks as one of the top ten countries Hardest to Get a Visa. Assuming of course, that someone actually wants to go there, our nearest competitors are North Korea and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Flat

Sorrento. Amalfi. Capri. Italy? Think again. Think buildings.

Buildings in Bombay all have names - some for exotic, faraway places, some descriptive (Sea Face Park, Samudra Mahal, Usha Kiran), others after their owners (Sunita, Suraj, Vimal Vihar).

Our building was called Rockside, because it abutted a sheer cliff of bedrock. From the dining room and the kitchen, you could get a good view of the rocky escarpment, which in the monsoons was covered with green moss and resembled the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Vishnu buried our first dog Sweetie somewhere in that rocky expanse and it took me a while to risk looking in that direction without thinking of him.

Buildings have flats (apartments for Americans) and ours was on the first floor (second for Americans), accessible by a rickety lift (elevator for Americans) that took Herculean effort to open and shut the metal grille doors. By the time one of us helped take Ba up, the others had not only taken the stairs, but were sitting at their desks with almost-completed homework.

No wide, marbled foyer and chandelier here, the front door opened to a long corridor, which led off to three rooms on the right. The first door to the right was the Diwankhana or the Living Room. Next, the Vachliroom or Middle Room because it was sandwiched between the Diwankhana and Dad’s room.

The Diwankhana was where we put on performances every time my Anand and Madras cousins came to town. That is also where my dad had his parties...at least once a week if not more often. The heady, repugnant smell of cigarette smoke coupled with the smell of whiskey persisted in the air-conditioned room long after the guests had left, and the freezing room was the reason why we would draw lots as to who would get to use the Diwankhana to study late at night. The luckiest one got to study in the Vachli Room at their own desk, and the other loser got the dining room, with the uncomfortably upright, grey vinyl, elephantine chairs, guaranteed to prevent you from falling asleep. Rote learning was the rule in good old Walsingham. We were made to memorize everything, leaving no place for imagination or creativity. Teachers would rather have had us drink hemlock than think of implementing the Socratic Method. Peripatetic was the way I learned everything - pacing up and down as I recited soliloquies from Macbeth (Is this a dagger I see before me, the handle towards my hand), to poems by Wordsworth (I wander’d lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o’er vales and hills), to multiplication tables (sevenonesareseven, seventwosarefourteen, seventhreesaretwentyone) to French verbs (je suis, tu es, il/elle est)...and more.

The Diwankhana had an old Grundig radio, which was about as big as a Smartcar. The wooden lid, propped open with a steel hinge on one side, sometimes buckled without warning and came crashing down. Only sheer luck and quick reflexes could save you from amputating an arm or guillotining a couple of fingers. From time to time, the needle would get stuck, in which case slamming a fist against the side worked - a little too much force would send the needle skipping maniacally to the end and then sway back and forth like a windshield-wiper out of control. There were more knobs on the thing than on the control deck of a submarine, most of which we had no clue what to do with. Dad would get records of Pat Boone (Love Letters in the Sand), Bobby Darin (Multiplication) and Paul Anka (Diana) and the latest tunes (Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie and Che Sera Sera) - 33rpms, 78s and 45s. We would huddle around the player listening to Greer Garson reciting fairy tales. Being of the ‘beekan saslu’ persuasion, my stomach would turn into a knot the moment she started on about a little girl in a red hood. The moment she started with “What big...you have” I would go haring out of the room. Years later, when I read the same story to my children, the fear still resonated. I would skip some pages, going directly to how she lived happily ever after with her Ba.

The three of us shared the Vachliroom with Ba, who had her bed along one wall, as did Nina. Varsha and I had a bunk bed. A long table ran alongside one whole wall, which served as our desks. It was cleverly designed - drawers for our school supplies and together with numerous bookshelves, it made optimal use of the big room, leaving us lots of room in the middle to play HouseHouse or SchoolSchool. Leading to the balcony was a door and a window, half of which was permanently shut because of the air-condition. Pigeons would come to roost on the aluminum cover and strut to and fro, the scratchy noises and fluttering and cooing making it difficult to concentrate on anything. They would shit up a storm, which Vishnu would clean periodically, all the while threatening to make pigeon chutney.

The last room on the right was Dad’s room, and straight across was the dining room - always redolent of the agarbatti that my dad lit every morning in the corner mandir. A huge table, big enough to seat ten people comfortably, was where Varsha and I would set up for a game of table tennis. Correction: Varsha played...while I spent the majority of the time cowering on the floor. Her eyes gleamed with every high lob, the paddle went up and the ball came crashing down. I would duck before it took out an eye or even my frontal lobe. Never underestimate the power of a small celluloid spheroid. In spite of this, I came third in the Ping-Pong Tournament at school - a feat which unfortunately impressed no one in the house. Foiled in sports as well, because Varsha, the athlete, regularly brought home first-place silver cups on Sports Day.

One did not have to leave the flat to buy groceries. The doorbell rang constantly. If it wasn’t the dudhwala bringing milk, it was the shaakvali, standing at the door, waiting patiently for a servant to help take down the humongous basket of vegetables perched on her head. On principle, Ba would object to the flaccid baingan with no discernible purple color and the wilted dhaniya with no discernible green color, and toss them back in the basket. The next day, the shaakvali would make it a point to ring our doorbell first with the freshest greens, before climbing up the rest of the floors, where doubtless the same spiel would be played out.

The dudhwala came twice a day. Again, the wait till he was aided in unloading the big aluminum can from his head. He would measure out liters of buffalo milk into our steel tapeli. The milk would then go into the kitchen to be boiled and cooled, the fat skimmed off the top, to be made later into ghee. The amount of fat was directly proportionate to how much water the dudhwala had used to augment and adulterate the milk. Store-bought yogurt being unobtainable, extra milk was bought to be made into curds.

Another knock on the door was the khari-biscuitwala, her dabba filled with delicate, flaky, puff-pastry treats. A pity we were not allowed tea in those days, as dunking them in tea and having them is a pleasure not even remotely close to the pleasure of dunking biscotti in espresso. (This will probably ruffle a few Italian feathers, but what the hell, it’s true.)

All day long you heard the cries of hawkers touting their wares: the jharipuranawala, who exchanged old clothes for brand-new steel vasans. How did that work? You don’t need an business degree to tell you there’s a reason you don’t see those anymore. The bhistee, who carried water in sacks made from the cured hides of animals. It probably had as much, if not more bacteria than the Bisleri bottles of today. When the gaiwali passed by, we were to alert Ba, and she would give us char anna to run down and feed the cow.

Scarier than a fairytale was the orange-clad sadhu, a copper vessel and rudraksha mala in one hand, and tapping a cane with the other, his cries of Alakh Niranjan echoing up and down the length of Walkeshwar Road. Recalling a scary story by my cousin Binduben, we ducked down, lest he see us and cast his evil eye our way or worse throw some ash.

Dad’s room and the Vachli room led out to a balcony, where we would stand and watch the world go by....or... in my sisters' case, the two handsome boys who lived across the street in the Afghan Consulate. The balcony faced the Governor’s Gate, from which emerged several visiting dignitaries in flashy motorcades. If we were lucky, we would get a glimpse of somebody noteworthy, like Indira Gandhi, but this paled in comparison to the Apollo 11 crew and we got to see them up really close and personal.

When I was sixteen, we moved from Rockside further down the road to a huge, duplex apartment with a spectacular view of the bay and the Queen’s Necklace. Strangely, it is always Rockside that appears in my dreams. Apparently, if you dream about revisiting an old house from childhood, it signifies dealing with the same old fears and these issues need to be looked at, analyzed and healed.

Time to burn the Grimm Brother’s Fairy Tale book.

Ignorance is Bliss

I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I shouldn’t have gone to see him. Much as I love the man and have been seeing him for over eighteen years, I had a hunch this relationship was on its way out the door.

But sure as the sun goes up every morning (at least in California), I couldn’t resist and went back to see him this year. Definitely against my better judgement.

“Help! Dr. Ramirezzzz!” I whined. “My body is falling apart.”

Well versed with my theatrics, he didn’t bat an eyelid. “You look fine to me, young lady”, he responded, but checked just to make sure I had not left a trail of decrepit body parts on my way in from the waiting room. And oh, that’s another reason I go...it’s makes a nice change to hear the words ‘young lady’ instead of the ‘old bag’ I am generally accustomed to.

My chart, on the other hand, did not look ‘fine’. He studied the blood report, looked over at me reprovingly and paused. I hate people who pause. The suspense alone is kills me. My husband knows better than to say: You know what? Then an interminable pause, followed by: Never mind. I’ll tell you later. The desire to reach out and squeeze the news out of his throat like a tube of toothpaste is always overpowering. Spit it out already, Doc! The C word? The MS word? Am I dying? How long have I got? What? Whaaat?

Apparently not. I stopped clutching my throat and wiped the sweat from my forehead. It was something to do with my triglycerides. They were high and my thyroid was out of control. What the heck are triglycerides anyway and what the hell are they doing in my body? And what the eff is TSH? Is it missing a vowel? Look, I am sitting on it. Nope, TSH as in Thyroid Stimulus Hormone.

It didn’t end there.

Your blood pressure is also quite high, he continued, wagging his finger at me, the way I do at my Special Ed kids. What’s the big deal? I asked him. The big deal is that you have to lay off the Lays, he scolded, that’s the big deal.

I knew it! I thought again, I should never have come. No news is good news, what I don’t know can’t hurt me, ignorance is bliss, yada, yada, yada. The bliss was turning into a nightmare and the future looked bleak, as I was informed in no uncertain terms that if I did not take care, I could pop a blood vessel … or… have a stroke... or... a CAD, ACS, HF or RF ... or ... I ceased listening as he went into his acronymic medical terminology, which made as much sense to me as E = mc2 . Ok, so I admit I am not a science junkie and have no idea why the equivalence of mass and energy should send people into raptures. And while I am at airing my mental incapacities, I may as well admit I don’t give a rat’s ass about the Gallilean and Newtonian concepts as well. The only reason I try to fathom these convoluted theories is in the event they show up on Jeopardy one day.

Dr. Ramirez (unfortunately) knows me extremely well and he keeps good records – some of them electronic, most of them in his head, especially my confession about the potato chip and the chocolate addictions. Ages ago, I had professed to Doc that ‘Chocolate is my Religion’ and he had said, ‘Go ahead and pray then!’

A decade ago, I had no misgivings about going for my check-up. It would end with a clean bill of health, a pat on the back and even a (sugarless) lollipop on my way out the door. But that was years ago. This is now. And now we were not happy. Now I was being reprimanded as if I had been caught with my hand in the chocolate jar. And pouring salt from the shaker. And eating pasta with alfredo sauce. And bread from the oven.


In the end I left with a little note to my pharmacist about my thyroid and a warning to curtail the chocolates, cheese, pasta, bread and salt... or else ... or else ...aaarrgghh!! he was going to put me on something I feared more than a root canal, something I hated more than coconut ...something I would rather not ingest at any costs...and that is medicine. A bit difficult to admit this to someone in the medical profession, so I nodded meekly and left with only one prescription and a warning.

Sigh!

Dr Ramirez, I think this is the end of a beautiful relationship. I won’t be seeing you again.

Email forward: You know doctors can be so frustrating! You wait a month and a half for an appointment, and then he says, “I wish you had come to me sooner”.

Challenging the Inner Buddhist

There are times in my life when my Buddhist Persona is relegated to a back burner, while my Inner Bitch comes to the fore, causing my blood-pressure to spike and spew profanities like Linda Blair in the Exorcist.

This is no more indisputable than when I am driving. One minute I am on a road to Nirvana, and the next on a road to the supermarket.

At this point I am about as Buddhist as Cheney is a Liberal.

Can you turn off your blinker, you blinking idiot?


Your license plate says Alumni - Harvard, but your Yugo says Loser! Btw, it should be Alumnus, or are there two of you congenital cretins in the car?


Why don’t I take a nap while you decide whether you want to go left or right?

It gets progressively worse when the Californian clouds overhead drop their annual five drops of rain. Slowpokes drive even slower. Windshield wipers go faster. Brake lights go on every five seconds. Everywhere I go, the comment: Would ya even look at the rain!! Nope, I mutter. Sorry, it evaporated before it even touched my head.

When I go shopping, it is as if they let the retards out at the same time.

There is a lady in front of me at the check-out, rifling through her purse the size of a small cave, wearing extraterrestrial sunglasses, which, for rummaging purposes, means that she is legally blind. She is revealing the evening’s plan in excruciating detail, loud enough for the whole store...and the county to hear. Is it really necessary to tell everyone the story of your life and who is coming for dinner, and what you are going to cook? We do not care if you are going to serve an enema. Be sure to take two yourself.

It is now my turn. The clerk at the check-out counter has braces and a faux-hawk, two plugs the size of manholes in his ears and a grotesque tattoo on his neck to successfully complete the bizarro look he was aiming for. Is it really necessary to use a calculator to decide how much change to give me back from a dollar?

I wonder how he got through second grade.

When I go to Italy, the word ‘sciopero’ strikes terror in my heart – note clever use of pun. What kind of people can strike and bring chaos and confusion to an already chaotic and confused nation? The answer is those who are directly involved with your vacation plans. The chances of any mode of transportation going on a wildcat strike is directly proportionate to how important it is for you to get from one place to another. Would you believe that they have a national website with a calendar of upcoming strikes? The reader is advised to learn how to shrug like the Italians, include a few hand gestures (obscene ones obligatory in this case) and say “Ci arrangiamo” like they do, and go and have a macchiato.

When I go to India, my Inner Bitch is on steroids and pms-ing at the same time. Why don’t Indians have a sense of personal space? Is it really necessary for you to come and stand so close that I can tell what you had for lunch (garlic papad) and also which deodorant you are NOT wearing? Is it really necessary to come and sit right next to me, when there are a hundred empty seats in the lounge/waiting room/movie theater? And let’s talk about their sense of punctuality...or lack thereof. Indian Standard Time runs not on a different clock, but on a different calendar. Maybe our forefathers had something there with the Second Amendment. The right to bear an AK47 looked pretty tempting last time I was in India and spent five hours in the FRRO office for one stamp in my passport. Long story. Another blog.

Did I drink the Hatorade? my kids ask me. My husband tells me to chill, to cut it out, to calm down, to take a deeeep breath. But they don’t understand. I have things to do and places to go and people to feed and bills to pay and calls to make and clothes to wash (and Jeopardy to watch)... and everyone is in my way and I am running out of time...and patience. Out of my way!!!

The thought of going postal is imminent and taking everyone out with me. So I will not be going up to to Nirvana...more likely taking the elevator straight down to Hell. I take a deep breath and think of all what Thich Nhat Hanh taught me. Be in the here. Be in the now. But that is exactly where I am, and I want out!