Gems of PSM

After my brain underwent liquefactive necrosis reading the eternal Park, I decided to take my revenge... Here it goes gems from Park, chosen from the very best...

1. Yaws is a shining example. (so is Park)
2. The vital layer is the "heart" of slow sand filter.
3. The "heart" of activated sludge process is the aeration tank.
4. Randomization is the "heart" of a trial. (there are other organs in the body, you know)
5. Many villagers in South India do not wear shoes. (And they wear alligator-skin boots in the North...eh?)
6. Stale fish should be condemned. (they have my sympathy)
7. Natons and civilizatons are linked together not only by ideas, but also by bread. (A good attempt at being thought-provoking)
8. Creation of public awareness is the sine qua non of a successful public health programme. (hey, look, I speak other languages just as badly)
9. A model is the abstraction of reality, not reality itself. (wtf)
10. There existed a civilization in the Indus Valley, known as the Indus valley civilization. (Ahhh, I get it now...)
11. A dependance producing drug is one that has the capacity to produce dependence. (if my i.q. was 15, I wouldn't be here in mbbs)
12. A physiologist got Noble prize for describing this substance. ( I mean, wtf, if you mention his name, nobody's suing you for copyright theft.)
13. Time is money, someone said. (who cares, if someone said it or not, i mean, WHO CARES...)
14. The Act makes the beginning of a new era in the history of vital Statistics registration in India. (yawwwnnnnn...)
15. Garfield has stressed the need to meet the demands of medical care by seperating screenees into well, asymptomatic-sick and sick groups. ( Kaun Garfield, the cat, or is he the elusive physiologist...?)
16. The voluntary Health agencies have been compared to motor trucks which can penetrate the by-ways, and the official agencies to Railway Trunk lines which must run on tracks established by the law. (Park can be compared to a park where I fall off the bench and fracture my cranium)
17. Length can be taken most accurately with an infantometer, with a fixed head piece on which the infant lies supine with its legs fully extended and the feet flexed at right angles to the lower legs. (lower legs.. lower legs???)

I ll keep adding to the list. This list like Park is limitless...

Kurti Kudi

This post is actually a continuation of the previous one of mine and the culmination of the self-indulgent behaviour that i am indulging in.(But seriously,when one is deprived of ideas to write on and extraneous forces compel, coax and cajole to write something for the sake of keeping up appearances of the blog, then where can one best turn to, if not the Self?) So for those who didn't like the previous post or follow the statement in parenthesis, I assure you to go no further than this fullstop because the rest of the blog is equally obscure.

Now, that I have made my point that I know nothing about fashion,I also do admit that I simply love Kurtas and Kurtis( which have, according to my cousin N, gone out of fashion. But, then, who really cares?). I wear kurtas everywhere, be it to college, outings or even parties!This is safely vouched by my ward robe which is literally overflowing with kurtas of all hues and prints. At last count, there were 33 kurtas and 21 Kurtis in all to grace my wardrobe and plans are obviously afoot for the acquisition of more. And these Kurtas are not really very different from one another nor can they be termed as landmarks in fashion. In fact, according to my friends, each one looks suspiciously like the other in the same earthen shades of reds, greens, mustards, dark blues, browns and blacks. (Mind you, no pinks and pastels and the colour of the season is mint. Oh well!)

So what makes me wear these kurtas day in and out and bore everyone trying to make them see the subtle differences in the textiles, the prints and the patterns and then generally getting put-off when friends, having failed to see what's so different about each Kurti and exclaim,
" Hey Ananya, tere sab kapde ek jaise hi dikhte hain" . And it is just not the girls, guys too. My batch-mates have been weaned off the novelty of seeing me in kurtas and now none of them take kindly to my friendly advice on how guys should not be wearing pastel and flowery prints shirts on birthdays. K once told me. " Ananya, tu hamesha aise kapde kyun pehenti hain?" Hello, I am just wearing Kurtis and not Kimonos was my affronted reply!

It is so convenient to blame everything on your genes and I wouldn't be wrong if I admit that genesis of my kurti-kooching is my wonderful Mother, who is perennially dressed up in cottons and handlooms and who has been dragging me to all expos and exhibhitions ever-since I was knee -high. It is sheer delight to see her point the differnces between the fakes and the originals and to hear her expound on the ikats and the saptapars, the chikans and the kanthas, the chanderis and the kalamkaris... She has made me fall in love with the coarseness of the khadi, the magic of the mulmuls, the cottons of Orissa, the weaves of the North-east and the mugas of Assam. So now, I too can do a decent job of knowing the different cottons, the silks and the 'mixs' simply by sight and feel, though one can never really match up to a connoussier. I, too, can now identify which state a cloth has come from simply by a look. Now this is not what one would term as being fashionable but then each one to her own. At least by wearing these kurtas, I along with my Mom are getting a chance to indirectly help the silent, hidden weavers of India, the sole and the slowly dying-out guardians of India's rich heritage in textiles.

So now, I rest my case and the next time anybody complains as to why I am dressed up in an 'auntyji-type Kurta again, you know where I am going to direct that doubting dodo to!

P.S. I must admit that wearing Kurtas is not at all as hunky-dory as it seems... the high-maintenance and the innumerable starching and the ironing is really a pain...but then again I have my venerable Ma to do the honours!

The F-phenomenon

Those who know me will also know that I am definitely the most unqualified person to talk about this. However, because I am continuously bombarded by inputs on this F-thing all the time courtesy media (Mumbai Mirror to be more specific), cousins, family, friends (Not the BBC ones!) and acquaintances, the least I can do is to probably air my views or rather the lack of them on this topic.
Fashion is eponymous and synonymous with Mumbai. So much so that everyone, right from my maid to the sixties women in my building, keep themselves abreast and draped in the latest trends. And mind you, doing that is not really easy as one day you go to sleep affirming that grey is the dullest shade ever while the next day you wake up to find that ‘Grey is the latest black’. The coterie of fashion designers and the innumerable fashion weeks keeps the confusion alive. It is always fun to read the latest in colours, in cuts, in silhouettes and the stilettos and what-nots that the media keeps feeding to ignoramuses like me! And the terms are really creative too; cigarette pants, belly-busters, tanks, empire cuts and a whole jamboree of stuff like that.

Earlier I used to think that following fashion trends was for the classes and not for the masses. Sadly, it took my sprightly 10-year old cousin of mine to show me the way or rather let me flounder. For an entire year and a half, every time I would see her, she would be dressed in flaring wide skirts, awash with colour and bold prints. Every time I would refer to them as skirts, I would be patiently corrected, “These are not skirts, didi, and they are called gypsies”. Those skirts were so bright and seemed so conducive to hide my bulging adiposities in all the wrong places of my body that I gave way to temptation and brought two of them intending to wear them some day.

However, the next time I saw her after a long hiatus, gone were the skirts and she was dressed in what seemed to be coffee-colour slacks to my naïve eyes and brown tunic with frills and puffy sleeves and everything else that makes a woman feel good about her extra x-chromosome.
So as soon as she entered, I was like,
“Hey, N, what happened to your, er…um..haan...Gypsies”, glad that I had finally got the term right. “And why are you dressed in this frock with slacks below!”
“Oh, didi”, came her weary reply, “Gypsies have gone out of fashion a long time ago. These are called leggings and not slacks and this is not a frock, it is an empire-dress!
So what had she done with her entire wardrobe? And what was I to do with mine now?’ Did you give them to the gypsies? I lamely joked.
“No, didi, to an orphanage near my home. Give me yours too. I will give it to them!”

This was really an innovative solution. Not only do you get to follow all the latest trends in fashion and but you would also be helping someone out. But sadly, for an old ‘miser’able hoarder like me who still wears her 5- year old salwar-kurtas to college, this is a totally antagonistic. So here am I, still dressed in the kurtas and kurtis (another story) stitched by my local darzee and trapezing through life like a true behenji! Cheers!