The Thought Addict

Sandy:  I've bought some of the best kachoris in town, just for you. Simply indulge! Mandy: Arre yaar, my stomach is no feel good today. It is sick. Sandy: What happened? Mandy: Last night, we were at a party and I gorged myself on some spicy stuff. Samosa, laddoo, batura, pulao...they all endlessly came in front of my eyes and I couldn't resist. Sandy: Are you so starved? Mandy: Shshhhhh!! Talk a little soft...my mom in the other room. Already getting scoldings from her. Sandy: !!! Mandy: Now getting heartburn... the diaphragm, the separation in the abdomen moving up and bringing the bile to the forefront...and the digestive juices regurgitating... Sandy: Oh my god, you have so much knowledge about heartburn. I thought it happens only when a girl hurts you, and you burn your heart??!! Mandy: No, No. You not understand. This is big problem. Heartburn can cause damage to your stomach! And you may have to undergo appendix operation to make it alrig

Reading is good for the mind, and the heart. This is not about the bookworms. Nor is this connected to any literature. The 'reading' here is about reading someone's mind and understanding their emotions.  Listening to a person in emotional trauma may seem trivial but it does a lot of good when you listen them out. Most people are hesitant to open up but when they do so, it means they place complete trust in you, the listener. Unless you place yourself in the position of the affected, it is impossible to understand what that person is going through.  Once the listening is done, it is not over.  The second phase is to console. Anything that is said or done during this vulnerable moment can have a big impact on the person undergoing trauma.  The consequences can be beneficial or harmful.  One inappropriate word said, and the incidents that follow can be disastrous.  The next time you find someone in emotional trouble or trauma, help him/her overcome it. Who knows,

Bold -- If you are a medical student or a doctor, this word will immediately bring to your mind Blood-Oxygen-Level Dependent imaging. On the other hand, if you are a dumbo like me you will see that the word is already in boldface. So why am I emphasising the word? And why is it associated with blood? I'm not getting into any of the mundane definitions, explanations or mnemonics. Until I read about the rare 'Bombay blood' this morning in the newspaper, I was not aware of it. Less than 190 Indians are known to have this blood type in which the basic protein H antigen is missing, according to the report.  It is heartening to note that three samaritans with this rare blood group came forward to save a life. But the need of the hour is something different. We need 'bold' people who are willing to donate blood on a regular basis to save lives.  Today, though there is an awareness, people seem to be too busy to spare time for this noble act. Until there is an un

For an hour or so, I was forced to sit idle because there was no power at home. Only then did I realise that I had become a television addict, of late. No, I'm not the mega serial lover or the movie buff, but one who likes to watch anything that comes straight out of real life or everyday happenings.  I'm not a news addict either, but something connected to crime, law and punishment makes me sit glued to my chair, in front of the TV for hours. Sometimes, I switch channels only when I feel it is an overdose of crime. We have enough crime happening in real life these days. Will watching these real stories, picturised straight out of police diaries, make others alert and cautious? Will it make an impact on the society and bring about a change? These questions flood my thoughts every time I watch an episode, and often the answer is summarised into a big NO. Crime headlines make people sit up and think. There's a follow-up for a couple of days more, and then we tend to f

I've read somewhere, or maybe someone told me that for every person, there are seven other identical individuals in the world. What is there in a person's identity that sets him apart from others? We like to think that we are all unique in our own way. We are all built differently, with individual features unique enough to make face recognition software, fingerprint identification and the like effective. We are born with different temperaments, thought processes that are our very own, a very personal set of memories, emotions that carry the stamp of individuality. In other words, no two people are exactly alike, not even identical twins, who are known to carry identical sets of genes. But let's just step a little back from the trees, and lo and behold! It's actually a forest! Some of the trees are short and stunted, some tall, some with leaves in different hues or with colourful blossoms, but all of them are, finally, trees. Agreed that we do find shrubs,

It so happened that my maternal uncle visited us in Bombay (not Mumbai) and stayed with us for about a week. Suddenly, there was a death in the family and he had to rush to his hometown, Erode, in Tamil Nadu. Train tickets would mean more than 12 hours of journey and he would anyway be late for the rituals. So my father suggested that he take a flight to Coimbatore and then go to Erode by bus or train. Flight tickets were booked, and he was contented that he could finally reach his native place on time. But there was a small hitch. The ticket was not confirmed and had the wait list tag attached. However, the only solace was that it was WL-1, which meant his tickets would get confirmed if even one person cancelled his/her ticket. But was he too optimistic?  I was too young at that time and picked up an argument as to what he would do if the ticket did not get confirmed. I thought I was just being a wee bit practical. My uncle was too sure and did not think of any other alternati