Bajaj---India's own !

Today me , dad and mom went to see a malayalam film "rasathanthram"---meaning chemistry. It was very unusual in the sense, it has been years since we went for a movie together. If I am in Ireland, mom and dad go together for a movie, in their 1980 model Bajaj Chetak(scooter)...may be to revive their young good old days of marriage. Even today while in car amma was asking dad that he should service our 1980 model "khataraa". She must be missing its youth !

 

I was 3 yrs old when dad bought that scooter. So he (or she?) is 25,now. Prime age for a man. But not so "prime" period for a scooter. I think Bajaj company even stopped its production of scooters. He may be the only specimen left now. When he was first brought home, his color was light-green (that was my moms favorite color...). By now I think, 3 times, dad made it re-painted.

 

When it first came home, I was so excited about it. My place was in the front, standing, with my head almost touching dad's chin. Later when my head grew taller than dad's chin level, my place was transferred to back seat, squeezed between mom and dad. I was sandwiched there, for nearly next 10yrs. Everywhere we went like that. Luckily (mostly due to sympathy) police didn't catch us, even for once, for taking overload!!

 

Its license number is KET 5277. Now, the license numbers in Kerala start with KL. We have never faced an accident with this sweetheart of a scooter (touchwood!). After these successful 25 yrs, he has never given dad, even a starting trouble. In early days, it was a ritual for me and dad to wash it, every alternate day. I was made to wash the tyres, as only my hand could go inside the narrow space b/w tyre and mud-guard! (I was 4 then). Now I think the only times he feels water is when there is a drizzle. (poor thing, so much for 25 yrs of faithfulness!)

 

Now its color is a form of grey(actually, I am not so sure, as the color blends with the atmosphere, so that it makes it difficult to identify it). Now when I travel in it, and when we hit the humps in roads and of course pot holes, I find myself  in a bone-rattling situation. (shock absorber is almost nil!).

 

There was once a time, when I played with it for hrs, when dad put it in the stand. (at that time, it could bear my weight, even while in stand). And one day it made me aware that I was overgrown to play with it, by falling side ways on my leg! Boy! That was really a hell load of a weight. My leg was in cast for weeks.

 

 

It saw me grow..it saw us change houses and now its with us in our own house...(still, he doesn't have his own shed or even a shack !). Amma loves him and dad trusts him, more than himself. Now we don't take over load in it. Its either dad and me / dad or mom.

 

But sometimes I think, if he could speak, he must have told whole family history. Of a girl of 3 yrs whom he carried for a whole damn 25 yrs ; who loved him at the beginning and conveniently forgot his existence (along with so many other things!) , in the process of growing up.

Gving Florence Nightingale, a bad name....

As some of you may know, my mom was admitted in one of the famous hi-fi hospitals in Trivandrum. (oh! we see its ads in all local malayalam channels and newspapers!). Now, as my (one and only) maternal cousin works there, I had a chance to get a peek into the insides of "how hospital staff works", on those days.

 

Amma was in hospital for 3 days and 3 nights, and my cousin was in night duty, that whole week(btw, she is in reception). I sat with her till 2am, in the reception, and was able to mingle with other night duty staff like nurses, x-ray technicians, lab technician, security, and the duty doc in casualty(ER).

 

First I was scared of the probability of seeing accident cases in ER(I am a very weak hearted person, to say!). First day, nothing happened. Second day, the other staff became sleepy and started watching TV. My cousin cant watch as she had to connect emergency calls from ICU, CCU, labor-room, to respective docs on call. Suddenly an ambulance came with the lights flashing. And before I could understand what was going on, the first thing I heard was these nurses, Xray  staff, and lab tech cursing unanimously at the patient who came, who destroyed their peaceful TV view!!!. I was dumb struck. They were cursing so loudly and running towards the ER. I was frozen. I didn't expect such filthy curse from the "Florence Nightingales" at an Emergency patient, whom I expected to be a victim of road accident.

 

After the first shock, I recovered. Luckily, he was not a road accident victim (sight of blood acts like chloroform for me!). A person with some chest pain (not a major heart attack). But the staff couldn't  resume their favorite TV show, and was completely pissed off. And there fell my highly held expectations on nurses and other hospital staff, at ER.

 

But I was entirely wrong if I thot, my unexpected encounters and surprises ended there. No, I was to be witnessed more chilling stuff......

 

When my mom got discharged, while I was paying bill, the nurses handed my dad, her discharge sheet. (the discharge sheet held the diagnosis and the past and the present treatment given to her, with the medicines she need to take in future).We knew she had acute gastritis and hypothyroidism, for past 5 yrs. The "sweet talk nurse" asked my dad to buy all the 13 tablets wrote in the discharge sheet, which was verified and cross checked by my amma's nurse-on-duty and counter signed by the duty doctor available.(NOT her doc!).

 

My dad, as he was literate in English and as he cared for what was written in the discharge sheet, started reading the document. And he was not prepared for the shock of his life. Amma was diagnosed with "a severe block in coronary artery"!!!!!!!!!!!! Eeeeeeek...........now I will speak in dad's active voice:

 

"I was shocked. She had serious heart disease (13 tablets!!!, no wonder!). And the doctor hid it from me. He should have told me. I am her husband, at least. Why did he did this to us? If he didn't want her to know, it was ok. Oh! My God, and I was always told she had acute gastritis. Why did they hide this?

Wait...wait....wait....now these are not the medicines she is taking now. After 5 yrs, I am so familiar with her medicines...these are not the ones...what happened to all of them? Why did they stop them, so suddenly? Ok, I will check with the nurses, discreetly, before letting my child know about this. Oh! She wont bear this. What will I do, now?"

 

He ran to nurses station and asked them to re check............

And .................

It turned  out that, the one who typed the discharge sheet, used my mom's personal details, along with a heart patients discharge sheet data. After that the nurses verified (????) it and after the main nurse cross checked (???) it, and the duty doctor countersigned(???) it, it was given to dad, by my mom's NURSE! And they didn't even apologized for this mistake. They just said "oh! We will replace it". I cant imagine, the situation if it was handed to me, and the shock of me seeing ammas diagnosis as artery-blockage! I am sorry for my dad, who for whole 15 minutes, had the worst shock in his life, who was  forced to imagine all the worst conditions that could arise, and had the utter pain of passing a "shocking" news to his wife and daughter.

 

If my dad was an English illiterate and my mom  had taken all the wrong medicines as per the wrong discharge sheet, I cant imagine further.....

 

I was so enraged that I wanted to complain about it to the MD of that hospital , personally.(My parents asked me NOT to go behind that!) As he wasn't present at that moment, we went home. Later I wrote a written complaint to him. I am NOT sure, whether the complaint reached him, as his staff handled his letters. Now what I am going to do is, this Saturday, I am going to meet him personally and complain this to him, even telling that the letter I wrote to him was also conveniently misplaced, by the staff!

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NOTE: Me and my mom had seen nurses exactly like F.Nightingale, in small hospitals, whose touch and words amma would say soothes all her pain. And there was this another humane nurse who took charge of the situation completely, while I was rolling and screaming in ER,when a cockroach went inside my ear.When the junior doc was too stunned to do something, the nurse quickly acted. She poured saline water into my ear, which killed the gnawing roach instantly, relieving my pain.Later they took it out and found a very badly infected ear drum, behind! It was the nurse's experience that saved me rather than the docs bookish knowledge.

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Glimpses from my paternal home--Part 2

"Thidambu Ezhunnaallippu" from our temple.

 

Thidambu Ezhinnallathu---another view

 

View from top---from my room, at early morning (can u see mist?)..;-)

 

"Kavadiyaattam"---a derived from Tamil temple culture.

 

"Pushpaka Vimanam", where you can see SriRam(blue color), Sita & Lakshman also. (the makers of this have put their advt board on it LOL!)

 

 

"Kettukuthira"---(dont know its significance!)

 

Float of "Sree Durga".

Me and My Mama!

 Usually I don’t write my personal problems here. That’s because, after a while, I may adapt to problems and find out my own solutions or problems just vanish without me doing anything. (God always does his part well). But this seems to be something that hangs on to my conscience and not to my brain.

During my mentally growing up days (15-25), the relationship between my mom and me was always a strained one. We never got together well. I always quarreled with her(24 hrs a day!). I wanted freedom, and she wanted me to be protected always. As I didn’t have any siblings, I always craved to have the freedom of a boy. I didn’t know, what all is allowed for a girl and what not. In fact I didn’t know, where to draw the line. So my amma was always worried about my safety. And her over protectiveness irritated me to the core, sometimes pushing me even to a sort of violent behavior. For eg: if I wanted to go to the next post office, she MUST know, why!! I was never allowed to go to any of my friends’ houses and if they came to my house, my mom kept a watch over them, which made me REALLY maaaaaaaad!!! Also I had 2 ugly relationships, which broke my heart and made my mom very insecure about me. She didn’t trust me to land in another healthy relation.

 I have not so very warm relationship with my relatives, both my mom’s side and dad’s side and not to mention my hubby’s side. But I handle it tactfully, so that I keep away from very difficult ones and just smile and act-good with not so difficult ones. Problems started when I was 15, when I happened to hear my moms very close relatives and my dads very close relatives started bitching about my mom, in front of me. They actually pitied me, that I was “her” daughter. First few years, I didn’t understand what was going on, and considered my mom as my worst enemy, cos for me; she was the cause to hear all those nasty things from my “close” aunts.

But as years went by, and after I grew up,(after 12 yrs to be exact!! ) I came to know about the politics behind all those bitching and backstabbing and of course imaginative gossiping. (At that time, my dad was of little help to her!!!).

 I don’t know, in those days, how my mom stood alone in the sea of whole backstabbers both in my moms family and dads, considering even I was giving her a very bad time.  Now when I see sometimes, my mom getting insulted, I want to give that person, a piece of my mind, and there were lots of instances, when my mom pulled me back, saying that I must not spoil the relationship. Then I tell her, “amma, 13-14 yrs ago, I have heard those ppl telling things about you, that a child should never have heard. I cant forget it, till I am dead!”, and she says “its ok…leave it!”.

Now I can never ever forgive those ppl, (one character has even passed away, now), for what they did to my amma. So, what I do is non-co operation, in whatever ways I can. I just pull out myself, from any get together in family. Surprisingly, my mom drags me, saying, “Relationships are important”. I say “only, u, dad and my hubby” are my earthly relations. I don’t care about others, and she says its not like that. 

My amma is very ill for past 2-3 yrs, (result of 2 consecutive major surgeries!). When I am around I take her to hospital. I have taken her to hospital even at midnights, alone, in my car. She gets admitted to hospital almost once in every 2-3 months. Last month, while she was admitted, dad wanted to go home. Amma was given IV and I had to let the nurse know if she shivers (she has that probm). I dropped dad at home and came back .I was shuttling b/w hospital and home at 11 pm, 12 am, I am. Everybody in the hospital was wondering as me, a girl was driving at midnight thru the town, which is very bad at that hour. I sat near her bed and at 3:30am, when the IV bottle finished, I rang for the nurse. After that I went to the open parking lot, and lay down inside my car. (The ward didn’t have extra bed). I lay there looking at the open sky thru the car window, and wondered why I am not scared!

Next day when my mom woke up, her ward mates told her that she was lucky to have a daughter like me, who is almost a son. I was there, hearing it and my mom smiled. And then I thought  “nothing would compensate for the things that my mom did for me, on those dark days of our life. I was the worst daughter any mom could imagine, and will these minor things I do now, will compensate for all hose horrible things I did to her?”

I made my mom discharge from hospital and reached home. I thot mom would be upset that dad went home, after admitting her. But she didn’t. Later I overheard my dad telling amma “yesterday I understood, how much ur daughter loves you. She will give her life for you”, and again my mom just smiled.

When I was in Ireland, again she fell ill. That was my most painful time. I cursed myself for the first time, for coming to Ireland, leaving amma. I cried thru phone and my dad promised me, he will take her to hospital. But by Gods grace, her condition was better soon.

This is me and my mom….2 women, finally getting to know each others soul, and finally understanding each other even w/o uttering a word.

note: the pic is of me and my mom on my wedding day! btw, i have never told my amma that i love her, as far as i can remember, though i tried alot...

My Strange Encounters !

I have a very strange habit, which can be termed as good or bad, based on the situation in which I am in. Others (my mom and hubby) say its really a dangerous habit which can make me land in troublesome situations and that if nothing of that sort happened till now, its just cos, they are lucky.(and not me!).

The thing is that, I can strike up very open and close conversions(at least from my side) with strangers during my long journeys. Let it be in bus or train or airplane. I get close with my fellow traveller, very fast. Nothing matters to me. Their age, sex, nationality or even language. Only once it had landed me in trouble, and that was in my own place, kerala, and with a woman. (it turned ugly, cos that woman turned out to be a prostitute and she forced me to travel with her, when other travellers interfered and helped me out!!! It was a really terrifying experience!!!)

 

When I first started travelling alone by plane,  with transit flights thru more than 3 difft countries, my mom told me only one thing and that to keep my mouth shut with strange co-traveller. I could do it only once. Transit flights made me wait in airports anywhere from 1 hour to 12 hours, and for me to keep my mouth shut for such a looooong time was impossible. If I couldn't get any one, I would go and chat with the duty-free shopkeepers!!!!

 

Once, on one such 3 hr wait, in Qatar, I had dinner with an Italian lady. The funny part was , she didn't speak English and I didn't speak Italian. But for whole 3 hrs we "chatted"...LOL....And that too non-stop. Then I knew the universal language by which animals speak(and we too..). We used actions (even during our dinner, using our hands) and was perfectly happy with the results. She was going to Nepal, to see her daughter and she told me that she travels very frequently to Asian countries and was very much interested in Buddhism. (at least that's what I understood from her sign language). I told her about our Sonia Gandhi (the only Italian whom I knew...LOL!).

 

This time, I had 12 hrs transit delay in Abu Dhabi, and was put in Airport Hotel, by Gulf Air. I walked thru the whole hotel lobby to find my "chat-prey"(poor me!). I found 2 ...both were Indians,(but US citizens) waiting for US transit flight. One was a young guy (could have chosen him!! Sigh!!). But I chose the other uncle, who had a 24 yr old daughter and 22 yr old son, back in Florida (may be, I felt more secure with him). Again, I had lunch and dinner with him and we chatted for 4-5 hrs. Finally he gave me his number and address in US and in India when I checked out.

 

When I came back to India , during my first flight to Bahrain, there was this Arab man near me (I don't know his nationality, cos he refused to talk to me!!). First he refused to sit near me, till the cabin crew coaxed him. I tried my best, to chat up with him,. But he just leaned away from me and began writing some thing in Arabic in tissue paper. I have a very strong feeling that it may be curses for me in Arabic. He spoke good English with stewardess, so I am sure, that he certainly wanted to avoid me....

 

In the next transit flight. After 3 hrs wait in Bahrain, I was determined to chat with my fellow passenger, whoever he/she was (if he was NOT insanely drunk!!). Fortunately, he was a friendly keralite (again my dad's age!). I chatted non stop with him ,even mentioning about the Arabic man who refused to talk with me. He told me, that he hasn't seen any girl like me, who chatted like this so open and w/o any fear for strangers...somewhere deep inside me, a voice told me that this behavior of mine is not a very good one. But fortunately, he was a nice man, had a daughter who was 17 yrs of age. And when I landed in kerala, he also told me that he had a very non-boring journey with me...gave his address too...

 

NOTE: I havent given my address or phone number to any of my fellow passengers. Nobody asked too. But they all gave me theirs... May be, by sheer luck, they were all good people. But I know I am at risk, with this behavior of mine. Especially, when travelling long distance and have 2-3 transit flights in b/w. And my mom and hubby is completely unaware of these strange and would-have-been-not-so-good encounters of mine! May be God is with me...

 

Moments from our Athlone home!

The swans and geese in Shannon River, which is just 5 minutes walk from our home. We feed them stale bread at week ends and they flock together for it. Swans never eat, bread covered with moss, but geese eat them, like hell...that made me remeber an old saying that "swans always know the best "

 

Me, with geese...(btw, i dont belong to their family....LOL!)

 

Me and my hubbzzz...

A Yucky Horror!!

Do you guys remember the day when you saw an adult horror movie for the first time in ur life? For me, yesterday was that “great” day. You know I am always the “the Warner Brothers Company” or the “Walt Disney Corporation” type. I feel I am bound to give them (only them!!!) the profit. So, my husband always sleeps in the next seat, when I make profit to them.

 

Those were in the list included Nanny Mc Phee, Chicken Little, Finding Nemo, Shark Tale, Shrek(1,2), Ice Age2, Harry Potter Series etc. So this time, I thot I will be a considerate woman, and choose a movie that makes my husband awake, through out and decided on the film “HOSTEL”. (Has any one seen that movie?).

 

I really thot I was being very thoughtful and considerate. I didn’t read any reviews on it. I just knew it was for 18+ and it was a horror movie. I thot hmm…may be it will be a ghost story and I was so sure of handling it myself.

 

It started at 09:00pm. For the first half an hr, it was ok…some adult stuff (not horror) and my confidence increased. I thought, OK, I don’t want to be always the “chicken little” type. I am a BIGGGGG girl. I CAN handle other stuff too. I was fine, reclining, laughing at the rude jokes.

 

Things changed suddenly. Soon the story took a twist and I was seeing the most horrible scenes in my life. There was a “torture museum” where human beings are tortured and their bodies mutilated in the worst way. They actually showed it, mutilating human bodies. The story is supposed to happen in Slovakia. And for me, my peace came to an end. My jacket went over my head, and I lay low in the seat. And thru the side, I saw my hubby, wide awake, staring into the screen, even without blinking.  Once the torture scenes started, it felt as though, its not going to end at all…

 

Finally, I couldn’t take any more. I told my hubby that I want to go home. But he asked me to cover my head and ears with jacket and lay down in the seat(So that he can watch w/o hearing me gasping and moaning to go home!!!). I found that even while saying it he didn’t take his eyes off the “$#%$#” screen. His, medium popcorn and coke meal, was getting consumed very fast , while I felt like vomiting seeing the full “bloody and fleshy” film.  

 

I was so thankful that its not like our bollywood films, I had to cover my head for only 1 hr, and the film was over…..phewwwwwww…..

 

When I reached home, I dashed into the bed room, just got inside the duvet in my jeans and shoes. I slept within 10 mts. Didn’t even have dinner. Didn’t even go to any other room, too…

 

Anyway I realized one thing. I had taken so many stupid decisions and choices in my life and this, I would count as one of the worst I made. I spent almost 20euros, to get a worst, nightmarish, day in my life, whose effect will last in my mind for weeks…..

 

YUCK--------I hate adult horror movies……..next time, even if my hubby snores during Warner or Disney movies, I will always chose them only….Being considerate can be a pain in the neck (and ass!).