FIRST LOVE- I

“They say, when you are eighteen, you have to fall in love with someone. She never thought it would ever happen to her. But still, there was something about that dude that was bothering her. He was not among the most charming guys in the gang. He was not even suave or funny. In fact he was kind of broody and Heathcliff like. Maybe it was his frankness and casual attitude that attracted her – she didn’t know for sure. There was one thing that sent electric shock across her body – his smile. Edison didn’t invent any formulae to calculate how much this version of electricity could affect people!

This wasn't a silly crush. She was a grownup now. This was love. True love. She had known him for a year or two and had a crush on him at one point early on. She had spoken with him a couple of times but each time,she found out to her dismay that of all the words available in the English language, she could recollect only ten or fifteen words! All grammatical rules broke down when she looked into his eyes. She didn’t have the courage to go and talk to him about her feelings. She knew he would never go for her. She was plain , pudgy and dorky. To her he was perfection. Time passed by. They became good friends.

They were travelling by bus. Looking out the window, she realized her head was beginning to ache. It was ridiculous really, she thought. Why was this so difficult? She thought she was over it. Over him. She glanced down at his hand. Would he ever hold her hand in his? He could so easily reach out and touch her hand right now.

Things had changed between them, hadn’t they? He didn’t treat her like that kid he used to hang out with. He was lost in thought. She was different. He knew she had a crush on him when she was a kid. But now things had changed, he was certain of that. But he was uncertain of exactly what those changes meant. He knew she was just as happy as him to have him as her friend. But did he want them to be something more?

They walked home from the bus stop both lost in thoughts. He realized how much he depended on her. They reached his apartment. She gave him the slow half smile that was so much a part of her. The smile that accelerated his heartbeat. Without thinking he said “ I don’t know what I would do without you.” She turned to him and said “I think I’ve had feelings for you, for a really longtime.” He edged back mumbled something and disappeared into the house without a word.

It was her birthday. She didn’t really want to celebrate. He hadn’t called. Why would he? She had decided to avoid him. It seemed like the longest day she ever had to live through. All she wanted was a book to curl up with in bed. Then he called asked if they could meet. She was nervous.

They met at the beach. He laid his hand on her arm, and she was compelled to look back at him. "Are you unhappy?"
"No," she said immediately, truthfully.
He continued to scan her face as his hand slid down to her wrist. "Are you happy?"
She opened her mouth, prepared to answer, then closed it again on a quick sound of frustration.

Why must those eyes be on hers, so direct, demanding perfect honesty? They wouldn't accept platitudes or pat answers. "Shouldn't I be?" she countered. His fingers tightened on her wrist as she started to rise. She had no choice but to face him again.

"Are we friends?" he asked.

She fumbled for an answer. A simple yes hardly covered the complexities of her feelings for him or the uneven range of their relationship. "Sometimes," she answered cautiously. "Sometimes I don’t know what we are."

“Me too” he thought silently. Hadnt he come here wanting to make things right! He couldn’t bear not talking to her. He entwined his fingers with hers, deep in thought.

He turned to him and said, “I like you, I really do. I wish we lived in an universe where all that mattered were the feelings of two people. But it wont work out. This is not right. You are too young to understand. I want you to forget this evening. I don’t want to see you or meet you for sometime. Now, Go home."

She blinked at him, confused. "What?"
"Go home," he repeated in the same frigid tone.
Her eyes were suddenly round and eloquent. "Oh, no, I—"
"I said go." His words fell like an axe. "I don't want you here."
Even as she stared at him, she paled from the hurt. There was nothing, nothing he could have done to wound her more deeply than to send her away. She felt both a rush of angry words and a rush of tears back up in her throat.

His words had been the last thing she had thought of before she fell into an exhausted sleep and the first to play in her mind when she awoke. She had been wrong. He didn’t like her.

"Why do I like him so much?" she asked herself. "What is it about him that attracts
me?" Her brows lowered and she stared into the distance. "Is it his voice, that is musical, and appealingly? Is it his intelligence? His wonderful sense of dry wit? Or is it the way he moves, with such fluidly controlled grace?”

Arti: Okay this is the limit. I am one step away from going insane. Oh god! Where the hell are you?
God: hey waddup!
A: Who is it?
G: Its me God..
A: God? Where are you.. I cant really see you with all that bright light pointing towards me..
G: Oops. Sorry shifted to low watt environment friendly ones. Having trouble adjusting brightness. Just hold on will sms ya.Must be cheaper.Coverage at this time of the night should be good.
A: er.. I thought u created the universe and well isn’t light included in it??
G: Of course not, Woman have you forgotten elementary physics? Law of conservation of energy??
A: oho! Din know that. Then wats with the “Let there be light” propaganda?
G: That. I din come up with it.. The PR guys thought it would be good for my image.
A: oh okay. So why you here?
G: Didn’t you just summon me.
A: Okay that’s weird.. It was jus an expression. Sorry.
G: That’s cool np. I was bored anyway. Have been reading this. (points to a huge book)
A: Okay that’s huge. Is it a list of all that people want?
G: Not really.. Its Shashi Tharoor’s tweet updates. I wanted to know why he gets into trouble all the time. And one point of clarification, me being God and all am not allowed into hell.
A: Oh okay I kinda forgot.. it seems to be a verbal crutch these days.. By the way since ur here and all can I ask you something?
G: Fire away.
A: Who are you? Krishna? Buddha? Jesus? Allah?
G: The core of all religions is the same. And the core is me. Interpretations of me vary. But I am constant.
A: okay.. if that’s the case people go around fighting about you for what reason? Why don’t ya stop em?
G: That’s not how I roll.. I gave you all free will. I don’t have time to babysit each and everyone of you. And to be honest I get a lil bored up here. You guys are my tv you know..
A: that’s a little petty for god now isn’t it?
G: you shoulda seen how ive screwed over other planets?
A: other planets? Okay I don wana know. Is that why ur texting me instead of a vision?
G: How do you know this is not a vision?
A: Touché god.
G: Okay my balance is kinda out. So gtg. Ttyl.

stereotypes

My friend’s mother recently passes away. H didn’t take it very well. Did not want to work, talk to anyone. We begged, cajoled, threatened. After about a month, went off to work. Had a breakdown in front of the colleagues. But the whole thing was not looked upon kindly by the people at work. Why? As a man he is supposed to be stronger. He doesn’t fit the stereotype. From childhood, girls are allowed to cry and boys are forced not to cry. After a certain age the boy is told, “You are a big boy now. You shouldn’t cry.” Does it mean men aren’t allowed to express emotions? Everyone believes that he/she belongs to a stereotype and may be he/she should just follow that.

We as a species are all hypocrites. It’s just that our level of awareness about it differs from person to person. Not so long ago I made a harsh comment about men who cry and how unattractive it is. Now when I think about it I realize I was being as dumb as the people at H’s workplace.

Having said that, I am playing devil’s advocate. In today’s cognitive world, stereotypes are just generalizations, for better or worse, the product of everyone’s mind. For most people an essential feature of stereotypes is that they are negative and that is the one reason why they seem so offensive. People want to feel good about themselves and they would like to, more often than not, bolster their confidence by convincing themselves that they are doing much better than their cohorts.

Take gender stereotyping. Comments like “You throw like a girl” meant to insult a guy is looked on as a negative stereotype. It is well established that an average man would have better muscle power than an average woman. Does it mean guys who make comments like this are chauvinists? Not really. It’s a way for them to establish rapport.

Don’t you think we may have equal number of positive and negative generalizations about people? We tend to label those negative as stereotypes whereas the positive ones are labeled as mere generalizations. This is a reason why people seem to get offended when you tell them they belong to a stereotype. Isn’t it better to fit into a mold rather than not fit anywhere at all?

I think it is an innate tendency for the human mind to abstract. It’s easier to group people into different homogeneous segments, than to attempt understanding each one separately. These groups can be anything like "those who go for love marriages" , H1B category, north Indians calling all south Indians “madrasi”.. Yada. Yada. It is just one form of cognition according to me when you are trying to understand someone.. There are as always errors and but it still makes the effort easier for the mind right?

I don’t know if stereotyping is right/wrong, makes sense/doesn’t. I just hope people would have better perception of the concept. What do you think?

Izz all well?

Three idiots may or may not be a rip off to chetan bhagat’s original novel, it may have been a real fun to sit through those two and half hours but one line in the movie got me thinking.

In one of the scenes of 3 Idiots, Aamir Khan says, “kabhi aap log class main ye soch kar aaye ho ki aaj kuch naya sikhne ko milega, aaj maza aayega”.

I hope I got the hindi English typing right. When you think back to your college days, you have a lot of fond memories. You think of pulling pranks, failing tests, falling in love, getting drunk. But for once have you thought of a memorable class you sat through?

Most regrettably, students never feel that way. Attending the class is rather an ordeal which they have to face in their quest to get a degree. This is the reason why students loath to attend the classes and the only ‘weapon’ that’s capable enough to shove them into the class is the “Terror of attendance”.

In most of the classes students are welcomed with the horror of the powerpoint slides; extremely monotonous, verbose and theoretical. Lecturers and professors just copy paste from e copys of books and just read out in class. There is a saying “example is better than precept”. Until and unless we don’t know how a particular funda is being applied in the lab or in the industry, why the hell should we care to understand it?

I teach a cell biology 101 class. In our college 101 classes are those which deal with the basics. In order to make students understand the models of the plasma membrane I likened the structure to a subway sandwich. Believe it or not when the question was asked in the exam paper every single student got it right.. Sure some of them included the analogy, but what matters is most of them got the concept rather than just commit it to memory.

Another thing that really bothers me is the focus on campus interviews. Don’t get me wrong am all for 100% placement and all that. But what matters seems to be the final salary p.a rather than the job the person gets. People ask me why I teach. Even my own profs “you are top of your class. You shouldn’t be teaching. Yada yada. ” . The first thing people ask me when I tell them I teach is how much do you earn? That really drives me crazy. Why should it matter to you? My uncle advised me” If today you join a biotech or a pharma firm, in three years you may be earning 3 to 5 times of what you would earn as a lecturer” Thank you Einstein I didn’t know that. I do what I do coz its fun. It’s a challenge everyday.

I hope the Indian education system will one day change so that students can learn what they like rather than what others think is good for them. I believe in looking for excellence rather than success. If one is excellent at what one does success is definite to follow. Success should not be because of serendipity but because of conscious and calculated efforts.

Private health sector

Private hospitals are supposed to be better than government hospitals.. Or so goes the myth. my latest experience with them seemed like something out of a bad horror movie.
About ten days back my grandmother fell sick.. She just wouldn’t wake up one morning and we had to take her to a hospital.. The first hassle was to find one which would admit her.. Most of them replied saying they din have a bed or that the patient had to be admitted by one of their doctors..Then I called my friend’s mom who is a doctor, explained the situation and Mami went out of her way to help us out..

Once the call came from her , the hospital was very accommodating. Wherever my grandmother was taken she was first denied care and later admitted because she was related to someone they know. . So the first lesson I learnt, unless I know someone in the hospital you are not going to admit me..

The way the duty doctors and nurses treat the family is ludicrous.. When my father asked one of the doctors what was the situation he gave a bunch of medical terms. Being the only person with a life science background, my family often turns to me when doctors talk “their language”. But when I approached them I was told I wouldn’t understand. Isn’t it your job to make me understand?

One would expect the chief doctor to be even more arrogant than the rest of them. But I was pleasantly surprised. He was very down to earth and approachable. He explained things very clearly and gave it to us straight that her chances of survival are not very high. He was very somber and seemed to be the first person who was able to understand our difficulty. The problem was he comes to the ward one hour a day.. The other 23 hrs we have to deal with the duty doctors.. During shift change its hell.. Once doctors suggests a treatment course while the next one denies any knowledge of it..

The agony continues even after the person has passed away. She was declared dead at 8.20 p.m. Till 10 00 p.m. we were not given any information. When we went up to the desk we were informed that we cannot take her home until all bill settlements were made and the person who was in charge of billing had gone home!! I was also politely informed by a nurse that there were more tragic deaths happening around me.. Does that mean the pain we feel is less?

It’s been almost ten days now and still we haven’t received the death summary which we require to claim the medical insurance. Private medical services in India are supposed to be coming of age. Administrative systems and customer services are even worse than the medical care.

Its not something we can avoid. Getting sick and going to the hospital is something I might have face again. But with such horrible administrative system, unsympathetic nurses and doctors who don’t want to take the time to explain their treatment process, I worry if it would help heal a patient or add more stress to it.


Oh don’t take me wrong, I respect doctors, infact I have some very close friends who are doctors. I understand their need to be emotionally detached but being in the noblest profession of all shouldn’t people in the health care sector have more empathy?

SEX!

Ah that made most of you sit up right: P! It is probably the most controversial topic that one can talk about. Since we are the “life sciences dept” the responsibility of taking sex education for more than 200 students falls on our department. And unfortunately I was put in charge. Most people do not take this job seriously. They are either embarrassed or fear repercussions. I on the other hand got into the organizing of the series of lectures very enthusiastically. I figured as long we are doing it, let us do it right. I arranged some guest speakers – an OB-GYN, a sexologist and a NGO social worker. I was covering all my bases.

The institution in which I work was determined to botch things up. See according to them sex is not something to be discussed about. They think and believe that students do not know anything and they prefer to keep it that way. The only reason they even arrange these seminars is because the university makes it compulsory.
They thought that a sexologist was too “controversial” who would corrupt young minds. They asked me to inform the doctor that she could only talk about the anatomy of the reproductive systems and not go into specifics. The social worker was asked to talk about AIDS and other STDs very carefully. The icing on the cake being the only methods of protection we were allowed to discuss was abstinence.

What bothered me more than anything is how people are so reluctant to talk about it. I was the only one amongst the staff who didn’t fidget or was embarrassed. I don’t get it. What is the point in having sex ed , if no one is actually going to talk about it. They figure “talking about it gives kids ideas”. I say the kids already have the idea from the television, cinema, books and what not. Even without all that , didn’t Adam and Eve or the cavemen in Neanderthal age “ do it” . Propagation of the species is a trait inbuilt in our DNA.

Im not one for pre marital sex or live in relationships but considering the fact that I was a student here for five years I know the different kinds of people who go to school here. Many of them have boyfriends, go away for weekends and I don’t think the institution has a right to judge them. It is their personal choice. Respect that. Teach them values, give them advice but if we don’t inform them about how they could protect themselves , they may end up with STDs or pregnant.

The basic problem here is sex is viewed as something which cannot be talked about or even thought of openly. How can teachers, professors or parents impart sex ed to their children or students when they cant talk about it themselves?

Universally, prevention is better than cure, but the question remains – is sex education a prevention, a cure or an experiment the result of which is not known .

Of LOLS and OMGS!!

‘Lol I think we must’ve missed each other lol’ Now is the second lol really necessary? When you think about it what about the first one? If you insist on ‘lol’ing surely with such a short sentence one lol would suffice? Or was the incident in which this sentence refers so side splittingly funny that the author burst in to laughter first at the thought of the incident and then upon the exclamation of the incident? And most importantly will lol eventually take over actual laughter in real life? I just have an image in my head of going to watch the latest movie starring Jim Carrey and the whole of the delusional audience exclaiming ‘lol!’ At the site of Carrey’s slap stick comedy.

I enjoy facebook. On the most part it has been an extremely useful way of getting in touch with old friends, taking generally useless tests to pass the vetti time between one class and another. It is also another way of giving my friends terrible banter in an attempt to embarrass them in front of people who aren’t ‘mutual friends’. I like the idea that it gives everyone a voice and encourage people to get involved with worthy causes, and I like the idea that it’s non-discriminating and promotes multiculturalism. What I don’t like is ‘lol’ing, ‘wtf’ing and ‘omg’ing. What pisses me off even more is the tryin to be subtle about insults like “ F*%K” . Isn’t it easier to jus say fudge, fish or why don’t you just say fuck out right??

Now, as was pointed out to me quite recently, ‘haha’ makes you sound like a dear old grandma (apparently) and ‘hehe’ing just makes you sound utterly ridiculous. You could write ‘that’s so funny’ but then people ask if you are patronizing them. ‘wtf’ should not be used because an exclamation of this magnitude does not warrant an abbreviation. Im not being a prude. I swear quite freely. But it is something that should be used in dire circumstances. There is no point in saying “ WTF he din score!”. Swearing seems to have become the latest “fab”.

If you’re having a bad day chances are at least 10 % of your face book ‘friends’ are having a bad day as well. The difference is they’re not telling everyone. If you’re having a bad day ring a friend, go for a cup of coffee or jus drink the night away with someone who genuinely cares. It is very unlikely that people are going to show sympathy, especially if you specify what’s wrong. If you change your status to ‘ got yelled at by my boss! Had a depressing day!’ the person who had probably had a day much much worse than you will throw his personal computer off a bridge out of sheer annoyance. Trust me, very few people care. The few that do are on the end of your mobile telephone.

No photo albums dedicated to new pets. I’m very happy that you’ve finally found love but I don’t need to see 103 photos of the mutt with comments such as ‘lol sooo cute’ underneath. It makes me want to repeatedly hit my head against a brick wall until I can no longer think or act for myself.

I could go on but you all know the other problems. To be fair you can do what you want with facebook. I’m just expressing what countless hundreds of other are thinking every time they see new photo albums called ‘My prince is here and makes me feel less shit about my life lol’. Don’t even get me started on twitter!