This world which runs on money...
I've had a cavity in my tooth since like forever.
The previous filling fell out sometime in the midst of 2005 and I ignored it thinking that I will get myself to a dentist soon, I will, I will, I will.
I didn't.
While there is an important lesson about procrastination in this story, that's not my immediate concern. Procrastination is a chronic syndrome I'm unfortunately afflicted it and I've accepted it as a part of my life and it is of no importance whatsoever here.
In the face of an unexpected holiday, I finally decided to get my act together and get myself to the dentist. And I, like an idiot, landed up at HOSMAT. While Hosmat is well known for sports medicine and orthopeidics, I figured, that since it was closest to home and since it has a dentistry department, that's where I went.
I ran through reams of beaurocracy, filled in forms, paid the consultation fees, blah blah blah. And finally I went through to the doctor.
She poked and prodded at my mouth and then looked at me seriously.
"I think you need to go for a root canal."
I stiffened. My mind shut down, remembering the horror stories I've heard about root canals. I asked her if it was necessary, she said yes. She then took an x-ray of my tooth and sent me on my way.
The thing is, I've always been a little skeptical of HOSMAT. They've got a terrifyingly good reputation but I've also read about them being a little money oriented. They will prescribe unnecessary treatments for you to get money out of you. They will diagnose wrong treatments for the same reason. And when I asked a neighbour of mine, she told me that both her daughters AND her husband had been told to do a root canal by that same doctor.
This suspicion led me to another dentist. He looked into my mouth and said this:
"The cavity is deep so I'll take an X-ray just to make sure that it hasn't gone down to the roots."
The X-ray was taken. He looked at it carefully.
"You're very lucky. A week later and you would have had to do a root canal. We'll fill the cavity."
I returned home with cement in my tooth and a triumph at outsmarting the HOSMAT people.
Spotting Trains
It took me a month but yesterday I finally finished Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh.
And I have to say that though I've read some fairly disturbing books in my life, this one takes the cake!
It has graphic details of druggies and junkies, with the underlying sense of desperation which outlines most of our lives. It's entirely and completely gross, especially that famous scene where the Rent Boy digs through his own feces for the opium suppositories he has deposited in his rectum, and when Kelly squeezes her menstrual blood from a tampon into the soup of a disgusting lecherous prick and at times I would squeeze my eyes shut and vow not to go any further but barely half an hour would pass before I would return fanatically to it, some sort of self-defeating, uncontrollable need governing my desire to read the book in its entirety.
And it was worth it. Because, we, like the characters in the book, are all really searching and searching for some sort of identity, some sort of reason for which we would actually
want to live for. Some reason, besides the everyday humdrum, why we should continue to live until the end of our lives, instead of taking it into our own hands and ending it then and there. And even as Rents flounders through his life, picking at it desultarily, bringing about his own doom, I felt compassion for him, pride as he finally cleaned up, and disappointment when he succumbs again. And life is like that. We flounder through it unhappily, watching as we bring about our own self-destruction and we realize it and 'clean-up' but that's only for some time before we relapse into the morally depraved world we've built for ourselves.
Is everything really worth it?
Rang deeee....
Today I watched Rang De Basanti.
It was...good.
I hesitate to praise it to the sky because there were some aspects of it that just struck me as stupid!
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Firstly, which policeman is going to get away with beating an old woman into coma?
Which defense minister is going to walk unguarded (well, relatively, at least) on the street, open to assassination attempts from all sides?
And what sort of fools are the black-cats to literally shoot down five defenseless men in the face of public criticism?
We all want to change the world. Hell, I know I do. But there are ways to go about it. Ways which don't involve killing or murder or lathi charges. If I were to change the world, here's how I would do it:
1) Distinguish myself in a particular field, mostly Human Rights, Journalism, or Social Work.
2) Find equally motivated people such as me who wouldn't succumb to the temptations of money.
3) Band together and form a political party, which shall then win the affections of the janta.
4) Win majority seats in parliament.
5) Make sure that the laws are fair and impartial, and more than that, actually enforced.
6) Find youth who are of similar temperament and opinions and make them continue our legacy.
7) Retire at fifty, leaving the government in the hands of the youth.
Rather idealistic, and almost impossible since I really can't speak a word of hindi but there's my ten year plan for you.
Conversations with pati
I had an interesting conversation with my grandmother the other day.
It ranged from the time-honoured classic that is 'Baby's Day Out' to a friend who miraculously escaped being run over by a train.
And in the span of that entire conversation, one thing struck me rather hard.
'It was so lucky he escaped,' she said. 'He had three girls to marry off, you know?'
Now, I love my granny and she is incredibly cute but that sentence completely threw me, completely chilled me. And yet, it and its various layers of meaning still reverberate continuously throughout middle-class Tamil society, to which I rather unfortunately belong.
The fact that a man's duty by his daughter ends completely with her marriage hurts and bewilders me. I would like to believe that my dad sees more in me than that! And through out this all, I can't shake the feeling that women are still treated as brood mares, that the duty of a woman begins and ends with bearing a child, and preferable a male one at that.
And what is marriage in today's world anyways? Why should the only goal of a woman be marriage? I
can see changes around me, in attitudes and women do seem have more of a say in their own lives (it took long enough!). And yet, my grannies throw around statements like that, my own mother believes that no woman should wait beyond the age of 24 to marry and I sit there, trying to take all this through one ear and let it out the other but it's difficult and scary and sometimes I feel helpless and frightened and I can't wait to get out of this house, away from my family to follow my dreams, to achieve my goals, to live my own life.
I love my family but things have got to change!
[X] posted at
Ilampoon
What a beginning!
I dream of being a journalist.
I hear of women being raped, little children plotting murder, war and killing and strife and famine and I want to change all of this, I want everyone to feel as safe as I've always felt and here's where I shall vent, here's where I shall throw my opinions, my views onto this world for better or for worse.
Welcome to unprettiful.
For my personal blog, head over to my
livejournal. My non-existent design skills are on display
here. The rest...well, is there a rest?
Beware, for there is dangerous ground ahead.
