Its no disease that, its one of those nice sounding medical terms that is a recent entrant into the fashion world. Remember Anorexia Nervosa & Anorexia Bulimia they were doing the rounds on the fashion circuit for some time too.
The inspiration to write this piece were my dentures, every morning over the years as I brush my teeth, I cannot fail but notice my gap tooth and many a times sleepily pondered over ways to get them closed, probably a gold filling a la M N Nambiar, or a neatly cut Swarovski planted there, or at the very least simply fill the gap with some plaster from paris!!!
Picking up the day’s newspaper with coffee in hand and my tongue stuck between my famous dentures, I read an article which screamed Gap-tooth in vogue! It’s the new fashion statement!!! Viola!! In the hope that some part of my body was close to attaining designer status I continued reading the rest of the story and with each paragraph I was desperately trying to widen the gap with my tongue out of frustration. Unfortunately the male version of the gap tooth did not make it to the in-vogue status.
Until recently I was suffering from a phenomenon called midline diastema sharing my misfortune were singer Elton John, model Jessica Hart, stateswoman Condoleca Rice and porn star Belladona, already an impressive company to be in, I thought. Overnight the women from the group were catapulted into the league of aspiring super models and many are now trying to desperately widen the gap between their teeth. Guess you will soon get to hear more tongue in tooth replies replacing the tongue in cheek ones at beauty pageants and page 3 interviews…
Waiting for the day when receding hairlines and some extra fat around the waist instead of gelled / spiked hairdos and six packs will be in VOGUE too!!! Going by the new world order it might just happen sooner than we expect. Got to start really working on it!
Friday, October 22, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Caned to be able.
Corporal punishment is what they call it these days…and they have banned it too. An unfortunate incident brought out of the closet this instrument of discipline.
I grew up at a time when the cane was part of the monthly grocery list and played a prominent part among the shopping list which included books and stationary at the beginning of an academic year. This was a ritual followed in most of the households of the time. Along with new textbooks, notebooks, pens, erasers and good old yellow coloured wooden scales you brought home a brand new cane which had a multicoloured plastic loop at one end to hang it on the wall.
But back home the cane had a very strategic location; it was placed right behind the portrait of Jesus Christ, the instrument of discipline placed behind the image of forgiveness. When I was up to any wrong doing I ended up looking at the image of Christ and my dad looked beyond or rather behind him to discipline me.
At school I also had some teachers who resorted to the so called corporal punishments and I distinctly remember one who followed the ritual of slowly pulling us back and forth using both our earlobes all the while explaining the ill effects of our wrong doings and at the same time looking for remorse in our eyes, and if we showed none, the back & forth movement ended in a slap on both the cheeks releasing the grip on our earlobes almost simultaneously, an act that needed excellent hand eye coordination and perfect timing. Let me tell you though we felt a little humiliated we did not nurture any hatred towards the teacher for long. The humiliation or the hatred element lasted only a few hours but the lessons we learnt stayed with us for the rest of our lives. We knew very well it was part of our grooming, a step in shaping us to face the world ahead.
Caning, impositions, kneeling, rap on the knuckles with the edge of a wooden scale were all common modes of punishment, corporal was a word we didn’t know then...These were just modes of punishments used to correct us, not abused to warrant a complaint.
I’m now a reasonably respectable citizen of the world thanks to my dad & teachers for having used the cane, sparingly though, to make me what I am today.
I’m happy I was caned to be able in the life ahead…
I grew up at a time when the cane was part of the monthly grocery list and played a prominent part among the shopping list which included books and stationary at the beginning of an academic year. This was a ritual followed in most of the households of the time. Along with new textbooks, notebooks, pens, erasers and good old yellow coloured wooden scales you brought home a brand new cane which had a multicoloured plastic loop at one end to hang it on the wall.
But back home the cane had a very strategic location; it was placed right behind the portrait of Jesus Christ, the instrument of discipline placed behind the image of forgiveness. When I was up to any wrong doing I ended up looking at the image of Christ and my dad looked beyond or rather behind him to discipline me.
At school I also had some teachers who resorted to the so called corporal punishments and I distinctly remember one who followed the ritual of slowly pulling us back and forth using both our earlobes all the while explaining the ill effects of our wrong doings and at the same time looking for remorse in our eyes, and if we showed none, the back & forth movement ended in a slap on both the cheeks releasing the grip on our earlobes almost simultaneously, an act that needed excellent hand eye coordination and perfect timing. Let me tell you though we felt a little humiliated we did not nurture any hatred towards the teacher for long. The humiliation or the hatred element lasted only a few hours but the lessons we learnt stayed with us for the rest of our lives. We knew very well it was part of our grooming, a step in shaping us to face the world ahead.
Caning, impositions, kneeling, rap on the knuckles with the edge of a wooden scale were all common modes of punishment, corporal was a word we didn’t know then...These were just modes of punishments used to correct us, not abused to warrant a complaint.
I’m now a reasonably respectable citizen of the world thanks to my dad & teachers for having used the cane, sparingly though, to make me what I am today.
I’m happy I was caned to be able in the life ahead…
Thursday, February 25, 2010
No prose can describe the poetic double ton.
Cricket and prose has a long tradition, from Nevile Cardus to Peter Roebuck and there are moments in the game of cricket that bring out cricketing / writing quacks like yours truly to try and do a Peter Roebuck or a Nirmal Shekar. These moments just don’t happen always but are inspired by spectacular performances, sometimes performances of a life time, (or is it yet to come) by none other than Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.
The man played like he was suffering from an acute case of multiple personality disorder. Playing to a stage where the audience where as vociferous as the ones in a Roman colosseum witnessing a gladiatorial show, here was a gladiator with a willow in hand hunting down a 6 ounce leathered spherical object hurled at him at different projectiles and velocities. He was playing like a man possessed, moving around like a ballerina, displaying monk like calmness, all at the same time. Can you visualise that??? No you can’t? You had to see him in action, and I’m fortunate I did.
No amount of adjectives, no amount of prose not even the best of writers can express what they have seen and hence my ranting are also not to be taken seriously since as I began no prose can do poetic justice to the innings that we saw. Thank you Sachin!!!
The man played like he was suffering from an acute case of multiple personality disorder. Playing to a stage where the audience where as vociferous as the ones in a Roman colosseum witnessing a gladiatorial show, here was a gladiator with a willow in hand hunting down a 6 ounce leathered spherical object hurled at him at different projectiles and velocities. He was playing like a man possessed, moving around like a ballerina, displaying monk like calmness, all at the same time. Can you visualise that??? No you can’t? You had to see him in action, and I’m fortunate I did.
No amount of adjectives, no amount of prose not even the best of writers can express what they have seen and hence my ranting are also not to be taken seriously since as I began no prose can do poetic justice to the innings that we saw. Thank you Sachin!!!
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The ‘I’ obsession!
The 90’s was the decade of the e’s Email, E Commerce, E Banking and I had written once earlier that even emotion was reduced to an E in motion. The following decade saw the mother of all I’s, the one from the internet giving birth to many many more.
The decade of the ‘I’s was born and even before we knew we had a world of ‘I’s to confront.
I Mates, I Pods, I Tunes, and I Spots (here though a closer alphabet (G) still retains its rightful place in… the society should I say) followed by I Phones , I blogs and more recently the I Pads and the ‘I’m not padded’ are stealing the limelight. Majority of which thanks to a man named Steve Jobs whose middle name should have been ‘I’.
Incidentally the only I’s I grew up with were the Iyers and the Iyengars at a time when an I Store in down town Mylapore sold vathals, vadams and filter coffee powder. The tambrams were an insightful lot they got themselves an I each, centuries ago well before Mr. Steve ‘I’ Jobs.
But hey, wait a minute the I effect on the society hasn’t been the best. Aren’t we all getting a lil carried away by the I’s around us that we are not able to see I to I anymore as in his I phone is 64 GB while mine is 32 GB… Jokes apart we are in fact seeing more I’s than the eyes can take. We are transforming into an egoistic society. We are all so self centred listening to our I pods or on I phones or I blogging on our I Pads. We are not any more a pluralistic society and we don’t live in ‘our’ world anymore instead, each of us has created our secluded and selfish ‘I’ lands. Sharing has lost its meaning.
So in an effort to revive the joy of sharing in this era of wireless dependance and since most of the above gadgets are Wireless Enabled why not rechristen / reprefix all of them with WE instead of the I’s.
Atleast the world would sound a better place with WE prefixed stuff around us than the ones with the I’s.
The decade of the ‘I’s was born and even before we knew we had a world of ‘I’s to confront.
I Mates, I Pods, I Tunes, and I Spots (here though a closer alphabet (G) still retains its rightful place in… the society should I say) followed by I Phones , I blogs and more recently the I Pads and the ‘I’m not padded’ are stealing the limelight. Majority of which thanks to a man named Steve Jobs whose middle name should have been ‘I’.
Incidentally the only I’s I grew up with were the Iyers and the Iyengars at a time when an I Store in down town Mylapore sold vathals, vadams and filter coffee powder. The tambrams were an insightful lot they got themselves an I each, centuries ago well before Mr. Steve ‘I’ Jobs.
But hey, wait a minute the I effect on the society hasn’t been the best. Aren’t we all getting a lil carried away by the I’s around us that we are not able to see I to I anymore as in his I phone is 64 GB while mine is 32 GB… Jokes apart we are in fact seeing more I’s than the eyes can take. We are transforming into an egoistic society. We are all so self centred listening to our I pods or on I phones or I blogging on our I Pads. We are not any more a pluralistic society and we don’t live in ‘our’ world anymore instead, each of us has created our secluded and selfish ‘I’ lands. Sharing has lost its meaning.
So in an effort to revive the joy of sharing in this era of wireless dependance and since most of the above gadgets are Wireless Enabled why not rechristen / reprefix all of them with WE instead of the I’s.
Atleast the world would sound a better place with WE prefixed stuff around us than the ones with the I’s.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
The fourth dimension to Avatar.
Became one of the contributors to the billion dollars that Avatar grossed when I watched the movie with a school boyish enthusiasm in the company of my 8 yr old daughter in an IMAX. To be honest I spent almost an amount equivalent to my first pay check in India on tickets for the family and exceeded my post probation salary when I bought 3 cups of popcorn and 2 Cokes. That was the fourth dimension to Avatar which I saw – The Movie of the decade they called it, unfortunately it shot into limelight in the first year of the new decade or did they just call it that because it arrived in the last month of the previous decade, whatever!! but by 2019 a lot many movies would have outshone and out grossed it.
A few days later I was surprised to see a program on a regional (Malayalam) channel, an interview with the father of 3D in India, Navodya Appachan of the 'My Dear Kuttychathan' fame. Pardon me for bringing in the Malayalee connection once again. We Malayalees keep doing it…
In fact the channel was commemorating the Silver Jubilee of the making of My Dear Kuttychathan. They revisited the sets, and interviewed the octogenarian producer of the film. A movie I saw when I was 12, and my daughter saw her first 3D when she was 8. Both used special spectacles just that this time I needed 2, one just to get to see the 'D' and the other to triple the 'D', while she just needed one.
A few days later I was surprised to see a program on a regional (Malayalam) channel, an interview with the father of 3D in India, Navodya Appachan of the 'My Dear Kuttychathan' fame. Pardon me for bringing in the Malayalee connection once again. We Malayalees keep doing it…
In fact the channel was commemorating the Silver Jubilee of the making of My Dear Kuttychathan. They revisited the sets, and interviewed the octogenarian producer of the film. A movie I saw when I was 12, and my daughter saw her first 3D when she was 8. Both used special spectacles just that this time I needed 2, one just to get to see the 'D' and the other to triple the 'D', while she just needed one.
Lazy Lever!!!
I was recently in the market for a tricycle for my almost 2 year old daughter and was surprised I could not find a conventional tricycle and all I could find was a tricycle with what I call a ‘Lazy lever’ attachment. A lever which enables an entire generation of lazy toddlers to be moved around by an equally lazy generation of parents like me in all comfort. No pedalling for the toddlers and no bending for the parents…what a lazy innovation… A Tricycle with a lazy lever!!!
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