Rediscovering me!

Wow, what a fabulous 30 years I have lived.  No regrets whatsoever.  There is something in me that started asking a lot of questions, not that I never asked to myself before.  In the last few years, I have been chasing a new target for life, a new reason, a new beginning.  It is always disputable as to what the heck have I done so far, if I have to begin something today.  I am going to keep it simple, no past, only today and futuristic visions from now on.

I have been a person, living the moment, all along and I will continue to be.  It was initial days in college (Vellore engineering college 2002 pass-out batch). We used to have students segregated in batches irrespective of their course they have opted.  I belonged to the "F batch"; there were totally seven batches named A to F, all valid for the first year only.  The batch concept was good, getting to know more friends than your course-mates; in fact most turned out to be long term.  Also, in the first year, it was all common subjects ranging from Physics, Maths, Chemistry, English, etc.,.

It was one of the English sessions.  Folks were called randomly to talk on the stage; the classroom was setup in such a way that the professor's desk was placed in an elevated platform (like a stage) primarily for visibility of the whole classroom.  I volunteered and started talking; topic being general stuff (anything).  I do not remember a whole lot of crap of what I had talked, but I do remember one thing.  I jumped into social consciousness and talked about how each individual should live only until 30 years and should prove worthy within that time frame; my vivid picture was to kill oneself beyond that time to let others live.  The thought still lingers in my mind; when I crossed my birthday, the plot thickened.  I have not realized myself the deepness in the thought I had glimpsed at that time, until recently.

The motive of that thought was to let everyone live.  The deep philosophy behind that was to give food, clothing and shelter to the next generation and move-on (die).  Why should one do that?  Because there is scarcity of all those basic items and humans were exploiting them already.  So what is the rediscovery? It merely cannot be attributed to life and death; it is about increasing efficiency for the duration of an individual's life.  This thought is the soul of "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.  But objectivism is not all true, only the reason is powerful in it, is my thought.

So what next?  Frankly, the rediscovery is going to happen all my life.  To where I stand, I am equipping myself for better learning by learning basic stuff like driving, flying, diving so I can travel to learn what I want to and to do stuff.  Do what stuff?  I find my interests in rectifying social calamities such as water, food and electricity - so a need for "Energy".  Renewable or more efficient, either way, should get it done.  One of the things I have learnt hard is self-dependency and trying to work that logic into everything that I need to run my day to day life.  What is my day to day life?  All I need for survival is water, food (for body), shelter, clothing and food for thought (software development).  It is plain selfishness, one might say, but I am pretty confident that only when my needs are satisfied, can I stretch it to others.  By the way, by being a software architect, I feel when I search for my needs, I will find them in a way that sets an example for others as well, to find on their own.

For instance, when you have your own farm, you can have your own vegetables, rice and spices.  Grow cotton for clothes. You can dig up for water or take it from rain or ocean, purify and use it.  Set up a solar panel on top of your house for power.  Does any of this need any help from anyone once they are setup, I do not think so.  This was the most primitive way a human was living (self-sustained).  I do not need fashionable articles from Paris, rather I will make it myself when I need it.  I will trade for an item but only when it is in my reach, only when my basics are right. Just expand this thought to a village, we have a self-sustaining village. Expand this thought to a country, we have a "sustaining economy".  I think, it is the need of the hour in every place, for every person.  As Michael Jackson sung it, lets make this world a better place!

ஹரிச்சந்திரா திரைப்படத்தில் சிவாஜியின் இறுதி உரை!

வீரமே உருவான கரமே

சோகமே கொண்டு ஏன் நடுங்குகிறாய்,

அபயம் பலருக்கு அளித்த கரம்,

அன்பு காட்டி ஆதரித்த கரம்,

ஆசையோடு அணைத்த கரமே

வெட்ட துணிவதா என எடுத்துக்காட்டி

என் இதயத்தையும் நடுங்க வைக்க பார்கிறாயா?

இதயமே, ஏன் பதறுகிறாய்

நான் படு பாதகத்துக்கு துணிந்துவிட்டேன்,

நீயும் உணர்ச்சி அற்ற கல்லாகிவிடு.

ஏய் பாசமே, இறக்கமற்ற என்னிடத்தில்,

இன்னும் ஏன் இருக்கிறாய்,

அன்பு ததும்பும் வெறு உள்ளங்களை தேடிக்கொள்.

துக்கமே, உலர்ந்து போன உள்ளத்திலே

இனி உனக்கு இடம் இல்லை

ஆசா பாசம் அற்று ஜடப்பொருளாக

என்னை விட்டு செல்லுங்கள்

சூரிய வம்சம் இன்றோடு அழிந்து போகட்டும்!

Honk was the blow of the conch!

One of the things I learnt especially after my broken jaw surgery was "silence". "Patience" obviously was the other aspect I learnt.  I used to be a kid who would never give up a reward coming your way - I will shout to get it when it gets wrongly announced.  On the same manner, I used to always point fingers at someone when there is a problem.  Clearly not a team person - probably that aspect taught me to live alone and self-dependent but  it obviously destroyed the socializing behavior in me.  Of age, destroying "ego" has now become a habit and is still an art being learnt.  The joy is always in the learning.

Giving an advice, I thought was always valuable.  Of course, it makes sense only when asked for - "silence is golden" otherwise.  So here goes the incident.  For a person who does not even bother to snooze, I woke up today to a phone call.  Having skipped the dinner yesterday, I felt hungry and hurried to preparing some breads after the phone call.  I beat my roommate today in waking up but could not beat him for the bath.  Usually my roomie leaves to office at 9am and today was no difference.  Even though I hurried to the bath just after him so I could carpool with him, he had plans of going earlier than usual.  So I thought I can take a cab to office, but unfortunately he left something in the bathroom for which he had to wait for me to finish my bath.  This frustrated my roommate I guess but being the gentleman he is, offered the ride and thus we started off together.

En route to office, there was this signal, where we take left.  There were two left turning lanes and we were on the leftmost one.  So here is the advice - "stick to your lane while taking turns".  I had told this to my friend many times in the past but I kept getting a "thats okay" and "it is legal" kind of responses.  This time though, I kept quiet.  So my friend as usual while taking the left turn goes into the right lane and there was it, the honk from the car to the right of us.  The interesting part this time though was we changed not just one lane to our right, but three lanes.  The honk was so gentle, it was light and only for a fraction-second - I like that from the Americans, a nice warning gesture.  But this honk to me sounded like the blow of the conch just before the war, a signal for death.  Happy it was only a honk rather than a kiss - hopefully my friend had learnt a lesson there.  I would have warned him, but would have only resulted in an even more aggressive behavior from my friend.  I know for sure, he will learn from my silence, as I had learnt many a lesson the same way.

And just coincidence, I read today and learn - "When you are right, keep quiet, and when are you wrong, admit it", this to maintain the relationships.  Not sure if I agree to this completely but for the incident I described, cent per cent.

A diet program that nobody wants! - Part 2

When you cannot eat, the only thing that is left to you is to drink.  My survival confidence when I agreed to the doctor immediately for the treatment was "water".  I never found the meaning of "elixir of life" so apt until the treatment, ever in my life.  I used to always think one would get bored of water and might prefer to die rather than to live.  But the survival tactics taught me better - to survive, boredom was nothing. In fact, monotonic behavior was something I hated all my life and still.  It was a time, I battled my adaptability traits to keep the monotonic behavior at bay.

Necessity is the mother of invention.  Truly, to beat the monotonous eating habits (sorry drinking habits), I had tried several things.  Water was always the fallback.  Only taking protein shakes had side effects especially constipation.  Thus, had to limit their intake, which happened to open my creativity box.  The first thing I did was to get a blender / mixer.  Anything I wanted to eat, I grind them, made it a liquid (even mustard cannot be taken), and then drank it.  So I started preparing proper South Indian food (sambar & rasam) and had them in liquid form.  Juices were another option, but after a while they got bland, but experimented a whole combination of those - coconut was fantastic, a natural coolant.  Shopping was interesting, never been so picky - especially after having learnt to adapt for all the travel I had done.  The best were rasam, congee and curd rice.  Congee (rice porridge) was fantastic as it completely removed my constipation effects.

Eating outside had lessened, and Pho noodles was the only place I could go.  Vietnamese restaurants were a plenty and thus was able to add such a variety.  In general soups were good, because it allowed some nutrition in the form of chicken broths.  One item that largely was missed was fish - never tried to beat them to pulp and have them - Subway tuna's were an option but I stuck to only soups and had everything else at home.

It was a good four weeks in all, reduced about 15-20 pounds and got myself to the right BMI.  This BMI balance, I had been trying for almost 4 years now but all carelessly.  When it was forced upon like this treatment, it was interesting and most welcome.  But it was not the diet program and the weight loss that I liked and learnt in the end.  It was food discipline that I had learnt.  The best diet program I would recommend everyone would be "food discipline".  Even though I knew this all my life, I was probably careless to attempt and understand the benefits of it.

So the day had come when finally my braces / wires were to be removed.  When I had gone for the visit, I had learnt from the doctor that this indeed had been a "diet control program" in Americas about 2 decades ago.  One of the reasons this program had to flop, was that people inadvertently reverted to over heating after the program which defeated the whole exercise and brought back their weight.  Well, all fails definitely when discipline fails!

A diet program that nobody wants! - Part 1

Once we get to mid 20s, it has become normal to worry about diets.  We do not play any outdoor games and we tend to have the same eating habit we had during our teenage - obviously causing obesity.  So first we start workouts, then games, and then lack of friends and interests get us away from the gym.  So diet then becomes the only option.  Atleast all this has been true to me.  But just that I never bothered about going into any diet simply it was spoiling the fun I was having - travel does play a huge role in that.  Was always the fan of the GM diet, never went past the third day of the seven day diet program.  Always wondered whether I carried the right motivation for a diet program.

With a double fractured jaw, getting to know that from doctor was not a surprise to handle.  I thought it was one of the common things that could happen but when I learnt that the healing time could be 6 months to a year, that was a surprise.  With so much advances to medicine and technology, our wait times have still not reduced. My doctor explains that it is not about wait time, but it is about side effects and the years left for my jaw and teeth to withstand the current treatment.

Well, then my grand-father's medicinal expertise could still be handy, I wonder, in taking poison out of body.  Treating ligament tear and bone fractures was an art in itself in my grand parents years, just that my father and I have not carried over the tradition.  Its too late now to think of those as all those journal are either lost or sold.  Those that are sold are clearly neither traceable nor found.

It was a Friday evening around 3pm.  The maxillo-facial surgeon after explaining the treatment procedure also starts explaining the precautions I had to follow after the treatment.  The doctor gave me an option to get it done at that time or on the following Monday as I had to follow the precautions for a month.  Anyone who hears the procedure and precautions would have preferred probably not to even have the "Closed reduction" done.  Being the playful me, I agreed to get it done immediately.  I was happy I was not going to have any flesh-tearing, but little did I realize the kind of trouble the procedure and precautions could get me into.  


The "Closed reduction" procedure was to have dental braces running from end to end on all teeth - one for the upper teeth set and other for the bottom teeth set.  The upper and bottom teeth were made to bite and then there were wires tying the upper braces with the bottom braces.  There was no way I could open the mouth.


Once the mouth could not be open, the precautions were "Not to eat", simple!  The doctor went on to suggest the "diet" for me, gave me the diet pamphlet and brand-ambassador's the protein shakes.  The pamphlet I thought could be my life savior.  And I wondered of myself slowly becoming the brand-ambassador of the protein shakes at the end of the "program".

Who is my doctor?

Getting to know my doctor and the treatment was no easy task.  First off, I felt no pain until my friend touched my cheek.  I hardly even realized I had my face swollen until that touch or poke.  Looking later at the mirror, I was looking like a 'kumbakarnan' or a 'hulk'.  The pain was indeed severe on poking and that is the reason we rushed to the hospital.  Wait, hold on, which hospital do we go?  Do I see a general physician or a dentist?  Since I felt my teeth were loose, I chose a dentist.  But which dentist, general, ortho, perio?  Being in US, getting to an emergency ward could be easy, but least does one know the cost expenses incurred of that.  But being in bed, one would be able to get the specialized doctor in a few minutes - that's the emergency ward.  In actuality, an emergency ward should not be misused for that, especially not for our ignorance.  

Anyways, I was not in any emergency as I was able to withstand the pain and the only discomfort I had was hunger.  So I looked up the possible dentist - who was closest to me (for obvious reasons) under by insurance coverage.  I located a few and we rushed in search of the closest.  Being a software professional I could guess that 'a few' here was always going to be helpful and thus I was able to find only the third closest - the first and second had either shut down, moved or simply have not updated their address to this insurance provider.

The dentist I visited was a practitioner of periodontics.  The dentist took an x-ray of the teeth and he could not find anything in the teeth.  But he found the broken jaw in the x-ray.  He then refers me to a maxillo-facial surgeon and also explains the jaw needs to be fixed so he can check and treat on the teeth. The dentist calls the surgeon office and passes on the x-ray to them, also briefing on my immediate visit there.  And thus I ended up at the surgeon office.

The surgeon examines me and tries to understand the x-ray.  The email from the dentist had not arrived - anyways that was not the first time I had beaten an email, so the surgeon had to take the x-rays again.  After taking the x-ray for about three times (as it was inconclusive the first two times), the doctor explains that the jaw is broken at two places.  The jaw portion exactly below the right bottom wisdom tooth and the other portion on the extreme left end.  It so happens, I hear, that that is the most common kind of fracture in the jaw.

The surgeon starts explaining the treatment procedure.  As the fracture was not so complicated, the doctor decided  "Closed reduction" procedure.  The other procedure "Open reduction" results in tearing the flesh and placing plates for the jaw to not move.  "Closed reduction" on the other hand, doesnt result in any tearing and is achieved with means of braces / wires.