The extinction of good manners

I frequent a departmental store which has one swinging door to enter and exit through – you know the type you push from either side to open? Around this store you have two five-star hospitals, three or four offices of MNCs, and one of the top management schools of the country. Why are these details important? So that you know the type of clients that visit this store.
You’d expect a minimum level of courtesy, manners and sensitivity from such people? Wrong.
Every time I go there people are walking in and out of the swinging doors never once holding it open ever so slightly for another person to enter or exit but letting that door swing back rapidly right on their face if they are not careful! If they have to exit, it does not matter who is on the other side – senior citizen, child, pregnant lady or a someone carrying a child – it is the same. Push the door and let it swing back without even looking back.

When I mentioned this to a young person he laughed and said “chivalry is dead and the feminists killed it.” Chivalry, who said anything about Chivalry? True there are fewer damsels in distress today needing knights in shining armours to protect them. They are quite capable of taking care of themselves, thank you. But what has that got to do with simple courtesies and good manners from either sex - why throw the baby out with the bath water? Holding doors open may have been part of chivalrous behaviour but it is as much simple manners and good behaviour. I expect that in women as well as men. Are those dead too? That would indeed be a sad day for humanity. If anything they are needed much more today than ever in human history.

One smartie even told me that it is a cultural thing . We don't do such things in this country. Men always walked in first and women came behind. Yes they did but it was in those days when danger lurked everywhere and men went first so their women and children were not exposed to it. How do you argue with someone who doesn't even know this? There may be hundred arguments in favour of bad behaviour but good behaviour needs no justification - it is just the right thing to do, period.

To be ‘considerate and caring’ – is it only for the girl scouts? Not for the rest of us? At school one of the first things we were taught was to let others pass and not rush. Older girls always ensured that the teachers and children got out before them and the younger ones picked up the habit soon. It seems to me that nobody teaches them these things today. In fact I have seen some parents telling their children to rush and push out of international flights in order to get to the immigration counters first – they show them how to do it by their own example. Getting up even before the flight has come to a complete halt, opening overhead storages, blocking walkways – name it. And it is n’t just the labourers coming back home who block the area around the luggage carousel making it impossible for others even to look if their boxes are there – many of them work in MNCs and have impressive degrees. After a long haul flight everyone is eager to go home but elbowing, pushing and blocking are not the best of solutions to expedite matters. Granted that the facilities and services at the airports are pathetic but we make it worse for ourselves with our behaviour. Put a seemingly gentle and soft spoken Indian in a situation like this and see his worst come out – ‘it is “me” against the rest and I am getting it whatever it takes’ seems to be the attitude.

This generation is highly competitive and they want to be ahead of every one everywhere. Try waiting at any pedestrian crossing without an automated signal or a policeman and see how many vehicles slow down to let you pass by – even if it is a school-going child or a senior citizen trying to cross the road - not just the buses and autos driven by the choicest boors but the plush ones driven by uniformed drivers and by smartly dressed yuppies of both gender. We are all in a hurry and there is no time for meaningless delays - meaningless as they are not going to help us get ahead in our career or finances. It is no excuse that others are like that and you'd be a fool or (the even more descriptive) "loser" to try to be different. I don't know. I'd rather be rated a 'loser' than lose my manners and be a winner.

While I can at least understand ( not accept) this behaviour in the above situation, I cannot understand it at a super market or a multiplex cinema hall. Here there is no hurry to get out but simple apathy and lack of manners. Funnily the doors of the auditoriums in this cinema hall in Bangalore has no stoppers. So invariably the door keeps swinging back and people push it and get out and let it swing back in your face. I always hold it for the next one to pass but the next one just walks through and then I am left holding it forever or until someone observant comes along . Young college girls and boys, yuppy men, older gentlemen, middle aged ladies – no distinction. No one thinks of the next person in line. It is I, me and myself only.

Today’s life is on the fast lane and we all seem to be hurrying from one thing to the next all the time. But it is sad if consideration, courtesy and good manners are the casualties in this race. Life may be short but not so short that there is no time for simple courteous behaviour towards one another. Meantime I will still stand holding doors while people nonchalantly walk past. After all , as the wise one said:
The test of good manners is to be patient with bad ones.

Meme: Table Talk

I am continuing this meme at the behest of Shefaly and really loved doing this one. Thank you Shefaly.

What’s your favourite table?
Actually it is not a table but the courtyard at my grandma’s place where about 15 of us sat down to eat together , laughing, bantering and sharing. It was not about the food at all which was mostly simple home - cooked stuff; but it was about the feeling of togetherness, belonging, love and security.
Otherwise it would have to be the one at the Taj resort Laguna Maldives – for the food, the wine, the service, the ambience. It was in part due to the Bangaldeshi waiter who would decorate my table with flowers that he gathered from around the island – made me feel like a queen.

What would you have for your last supper?
I eat every meal with such avidity and relish that you may suspect that it is my last supper. Hehe.
mmm...I think it would not be so much about ‘What” I’d have as it would be about “who” I’d like to have the last super with. I’d like the last meal to be with all my loved ones and all those I need to make peace with. (Of course I’d pay with my credit card so numbers should not matter!)
There’d certainly be wine, lots of it. There would be cheese. All types of salads and the most sinful desserts. I don’t care much for the Entrées or the piece de resistance – can be pasta or bisi bele baat (anyway I am not eating it!)
And there would certainly be a last cup of TEA!

What’s your poison?
Tea of course.

Name your three desert island ingredients.
Pepper to season the fresh berries I might find to eat. ( as well as to spray on attackers)
Tea ( to kick start my brain so I can think up ways to get out of the place)
Honey – to add to my tea ( oh we like to do it in style even on a desert island), to eat and to use as sunblock and medicine against insect bites.

What would you put in Room 101?
Sambar, I guess! ( doesn’t need elaboration if you have checked out my previous post)
And perhaps elephant yam ( such a pain to cut)

Which book gets you cooking?
Tarla Dalal’s recipe books especially the photos.

What’s your dream dinner party line-up?
Great conversationalists, not fussy about food and people with whom I can relax and enjoy.
If it was a group of bloggers, I’d like to invite The RationalFool , The Doc , Shefaly, Maami and Paul. People who’d satisfy all my criteria and how I’d love the brilliant arguments and discussions that would be guaranteed. Of course with the doc and maami around there would be enough of laughter too. And Paul,it would be on the porch of a house by the riverside. :)Please get your favourite drink along or name it.

What was your childhood teatime treat?
Might have been some kind of bourbon biscuit but my favorite was bun with butter and jam.

What was your most memorable meal?
A dinner party at Schloss Leopoldskron in 1990 during the Salzburg Seminar. Husband was a participant in the seminar and family was invited to this dinner. This was the house of the Von Trapp family in the film "sound of music'. The place defined the meaning of “awesome” to me, food was good and company was excellent, from all over the world.
Another was with a very dear friend at an Indian restaurant in Henley-on- Thames. It was one of my happiest meals.

What was your biggest food disaster?
Every time I try baking a cake, it is a huger flop show than the previous time.

What’s the worst meal you’ve ever had?
It must have been some of those early meals cooked by me when I was still learning. Although none so bad that I can remember the details.

Who’s your food hero/food villain?
There used to be an American television show called ‘Yan can cook’ – used to love the show and the way the host talked, chopped, stir fried and cooked. He made it all seem such fun.
Food villain – May be Mother in law? for having set such tough standards? ;)

Nigella or Delia?
Neither. Haven’t watched/ read either.

Vegetarians: genius or madness?
Neither. Purely chance and circumstance. And whether one feels the need to change it. May be it requires a bit of madness to do that.

Fast food or fresh food?
Fast food when hungry and desperate . Otherwise fresh food, any day.

Who would you most like to cook for?
Certainly not husband or siblings ( for reasons see the previous post). Perhaps for Manuel , the portuguese friend I referred to in this post who gave me an entirely new perspective on how to approach food – be it while cooking or while consuming it.

What would you cook to impress a date?
I better not cook if I want to impress anyone. :)

Make a wish.
I wish to have a meal prepared by Anatole in company of Bertie Wooster and Uncle Fred . Of course while Jeeves is still in Bertie’s service. There would be lot of trouble with Bertie, me and Uncle Fred. Without Jeeves, who is to get us out of all the mess?

I’d like to pass on this delicious meme to anyone who would take it up but specifically to
Doc – who I know is a foodie and will give a delicious twist to all the responses.
Jane Turley – who is not particularly fond of the kitchen, if I may put it mildly. So she is bound to come up with some preposterously humorous responses.
Nandita – who has such a mouthwatering food blog and hence an appropriate target.
Souvik - who loves to experiment with food.

Thanks souvik for taking up the tag so promptly and for a wonderful post.

Doc dissects it here.

Nandita's post here.

It's mother's day at every meal

When I was growing up, meals at home entirely consisted of Tambrahm home food. For lunch (eaten around 9 a.mon working days and around 10 a.m on holidays) we had rice, sambar, vegetable and buttermilk; Dosas, idlis, upmas and adais were for evening tiffin and dinner menu was sambar or rasam with rice and curd rice. Variation was only in the vegetable and the type of Sambar. The menu varied on festival days with special dishes to mark the respective occasions. Chapatis were still not accepted as a substitute for rice and bread was only eaten if you were ill. This was the 1960s and 70s. Chaat counters were available in a few restaurants which also served north Indian food that tasted suspiciously like South Indian sambar and kootu disguised under North Indian Spices.

After marriage I moved to Calcutta and as a new bride, I was invited to meals by many of husband's friends and colleagues where I was introduced to dishes with fancy names like Alu mattar, Channa masala, Bhaingan Bhurtha,Palak paneer etc and the food at the Chinese reataurants of Calcutta. My sambar-ravaged taste buds woke up to hitherto unknown pleasures while tasting spices other than chilli and pepper. I loved them and craved them and began to eagerly wait for dinner invitations! Once they started dwindling, I armed myself with a few Tarla Dalal recipe books and quickly learnt to make a few of my favourites and decided to surprise the husband and the father-in-law with a lunch menu comprising entirely of these divinely delicious dishes.
Come lunch time and I made a production of it. I waited till they were seated at the table to unveil the dishes expecting a few audible signs of excitement and delight. All I got was a puzzled expression as the duo inspected the spread. And then the husband blurted out: "Looks very nice. but where is the food?"
"What, What do these look like -clay models of food?"
"No, I mean our food, like sambar, rice and all that."
I could have killed them with just a bit of poison in the Sambar next time but I resisted and simply said:
"Sambar does not go with this menu and yes, there is rice in the pulao and some plain rice."
There was ominous silence and the normally hearty eaters pecked politely at the food and fell with passion on the rice and curd.
The barbarians, philistines, Food fascists, Culinary Chauvinists - I could have gone on a la Captain Haddock but I was a new bride remember and rather young, and it was two against one. So I endured it all with a smile.
Anyway I lived on left over food for the next two days while cooking (no prizes for guessing) Sambar , Rasam and vegetables for the rest of the family.

I decided that the family I married into are culinary cowards who refuse to eat anything that their mothers did not recognise as food. But over a period of time, I have come to realise that almost everyone of my relatives brought up in Tamilnadu prefers the sambar, rasam, vegetable menu day after day after day without ever tiring of it. They actually think that it is the best kind of food in its taste, variety and nutrition! Last year I went on a holiday to the U.S to a cousin's place hoping to finally get away from the tyranny of sambar and rasam as this cousin has lived in the U.S. for over 20 years. I was secretly hoping to try out American and Mexican and whatever-else kind of food but imagine my dismay when my cousin assured us that we would get "our food" every single day. Her kitchen looked like a replica of her mother's in Bengaluru, well stocked with all the ingredients and when we went out to eat, we went to places serving Dosas and Puris! When my son comes back from his trips abroad, relatives of my generation are usually concerned about what he did for "food". I am tempted to tell them about the existence of "food" other than sambar, rasam, kootu, curry but then I do not want to offend their sensibilities so I tell them about the availability of our "food" almost everywhere in the world these days.

I read other blogs and people talk about experimenting with cuisine from all over the world and wonder how they got so adventurous. In my family people go to five star hotels and order Dosa from the menu (and that is what we have at home for breakfast about 3 days in a week.) They can claim to have eaten Dosa in Dubai, London, New York and San Francisco! Ask them about the local cuisine- they never tried it but mostly lived on salads and yoghurt and by the time they come back they exhibit serious symptoms of sambar withdrawal!

I sometimes think that to my family, food is not just a thing to tickle our tastebuds, satisfy our hunger and provide nutrition. It is much more than that - it is a relationship that links them to their roots and more specifically to their mothers. It reminds them of their mothers and childhood and gives them a sense of comfort and belonging.That is why it is important for them to be able to see it, feel it and taste it in a certain form so they can finally feel that they have come home. When I was newly married I noticed that even though the dishes were similar between ours and my in-laws', there were minor variations to the recipe and I was urged to follow them strictly. Being a bit of a rebel I once made Morkozhambu the way my mother makes it and was politely but firmly told that it tasted good but they preferred it the way my mother in law and her mother in law made it.
In the west they have one day to celebrate their mothers but for generations, men of our family have celebrated and honoured their mothers at every mealtime by recognising as "food" only what their mothers fed them. Everything else is just decoration on the table.

Happy mother's day!

That Crazy 50 year old

My age has never been a source of discomfort to me; so it amuses me when people hurry to assure me that fifty is the new forty whenever my next birthday comes up in the conversation. I want to say, “Easy folks, it isn’t as though I was shortchanged and cheated of a few years that I arrived at 50 a lot sooner than I ought to. I had my full quota in seconds, minutes and hours and I have no problem being 50.”

I guess they mean to be supportive assuring me that I shouldn’t feel a day older than forty as I step into my fifties. And that I can continue to do everything I have been doing for the past 10 years and not feel that any doors are closed. But the question is, do I even want to?
Let me see what I was like in my 40s and what I have become closer to 50 :
• At 40, I still thought I was going places and running about like a headless chicken, At 50, I know I am not going anywhere and calmly accept it.
• At 40, I thought it was possible to fight wrinkles, grey hair and gravity. At 50, I don’t even notice them. I am quite comfortable in my body. I don’t expect Richard Gere to ask me out on a date and if he did, this is what he sees!
• At 40 it comes as a shock when a 25 year old calls you “aunty”; at 50 nothing affects you – not even when the 40 year old neighbour calls you aunty.
• People’s expectations from you are a lot less when you are fifty than when you are forty. I can forget birthdays, names of people and excuse myself from functions and parties without appearing rude. I can be that crazy but harmless 50 year old.
• And I can look at those grappling with their forties – career, ambition, goals, competition, success etc - from my comfortable deck on the other side!
• Forties all over again? Are you joking? I have just been through a few harrowing years of pre menopausal problems. Who wants to repeat it?

No Thank you. I am happy to be fifty which is what I will be tomorrow morning.

After all, today’s fifty year olds have better health facilities, are financially more comfortable and have a more positive attitude to old age than the previous generation. They do not feel old nor close to death yet. Retirement is still a few years away and some of them actually look forward to retirement and the leisure opportunities than dread it as the end of their lives. So when people say “fifty is the new forty” they probably mean that through the fifties you can continue to “feel” like you are in your forties, whatever that means.

Let us pause for a moment and see who are the people saying this:
1. People in beauty business and cosmetic surgery etc. (may we have a copy of the hidden agenda please!)
2. people who want to sell you something – holidays, insurance, pension. (Read the fine print and you might notice that the risk is considered higher when you are 50 than when you are 40. Wonder why?)
3. People who like to say nice things even when it is a white lie.
4. and people who are fifty who like to believe and behave like they are 40.

There are those people whose life is filled with excitement, adventure and fun –hot and happening as they say. For these, fifties may be a source of dismay and disappointment at the prospect of having to slow down and settle for less exciting lives and to finally make peace with the fact of growing old, wrinkles and all. I am sure these are the people who love to hear that fifties are the new forties so they may continue to act and feel young.

And then there are those whose life is organised around playing various roles and fulfilling various responsibilities. These people actually look forward to being fifty - to finally see their children grown up and taking care of themselves, to have less responsibilities to others and more time for themselves , in order to finally do the things that one did not hitherto have the time or money for. They look forward to spending time with their grandchildren in a way they could not relate with their own children by virtue of having been younger and less experienced and more anxious about doing the best for them. It is my guess that these people are not about to trade off being fifty for anything younger.

And then there are people who belong to neither of the above but carry on with their lives like it is a job to be done and if possible done as well as possible. Perhaps this is where, I’d like to believe, I belong. Get on with your life believing age is just a number, something that does not matter unless you are cheese. Do everything that you want to, everything that makes you happy and do it only because you want to – it finally does not matter what others think. And if you do not feel like doing anything, that is fine too. Being fifty gives you that privilege too – of resting on the bench and watching the world go by.
Sashi Taroor wrote an article in the Hindu
when he turned 50 in which he said:

But I'm pleased that, if in reaching 50 I have shed a few illusions along the way, I have not acquired the world-weary cynicism that plagues so many of those who believe they have seen it all already. I am conscious of how much there still is to learn, and how much there remains to do. I have reached 50 still convinced that the world can be made a better place, that human beings can improve themselves and others, that life still offers much to look forward to each morning. That, in short, I may have many of the answers but have still not run out of questions. I hope I'll still feel that way at 60.

I hope so too.

R A M bles

There is a new TV serial of the Ramayan. While channel surfing I arrived to watch it during a moment of intense drama and stopped. It was the moment when Bharath had come with about half the population of Ayodhya to request Ram to return and take charge of the kingdom. Ram looked extremely intrigued and fascinated by everything - you know the kind of expression that firangs have when you bring them to an Indian wedding? Somewhat lost but aware that the proceedings have enormous significance to others and not knowing how to react? I seriously think he is hearing the story of the Ramayan for the first time or he still cannot believe that he got the hero's role. Lakshman - now this guy reminded me of this cricketer, the brat Sreesanth, alternating between anger and tears! Bharath has a great hairstyle and Shatrugan is really good looking.

At this point, my son walked in and said "As if Ram looks like that!"
I turned to him and asked if he had seen Ram and he replied "No, I grew up watching Arun Govil as Rama. And this actor is so different."
I remembered then that I grew up thinking that Krishna looked like N.T.Rama Rao. This actor (who later became the CM of Andhra Pradesh), played the role of Krishna in every mythological film in Tamil. Apparently he played various other Gods too in Telugu films with the result that everyone began to think of him as a living God. In the mornings, we used to find a lot of buses full of shaved heads around T.Nagar club - people who came for a Darshan of NTR garu immediately after visiting Tirupathi. Such was their belief.

So it required a major adjustment for me when handsome and young Nitish Bharadwaj played Krishna in BR Chopra's TV Serial of the Mahabharatha. Initially it seemed like blasphemy and imposture but he looked so much better that I decided that Krishna, my favorite mythological character, is more likely to have looked like him than NTR.

We are so used to imagining our Hindu Gods in ways that artists envisioned them and gave life to them in their art that if Ganesha were to come down with a normal face, we might ask for an identity - preferably a ration card. It might be rather disappointing if any of the Goddesses looked less beautiful than Aishwarya Rai right? And the bluish black Krishna and Greenish blue Ram might get eliminated in the first round of audition for their roles and might lose out to someone who looks like N.T.Rama Rao.

Isn't this in a strange way a reflection of the nature of Faith itself? We make up our own mental version of a God and we begin to believe in it and depend on it so much that we are unwilling to let anyone give a different version, even if it is better and more true and hence more beautiful. At some point our belief becomes more important than Truth itself. I guess that is when it stops being Faith and becomes Fanaticism.

Meantime on the screen Bharath is walking away with Rama's sandals on his head and Rama has the same bewildered expression - It appears as though he is wondering where he is going to get another pair of sandals in the forest and whether he can manage barefoot for 14 years.

We do not make Love, this is India

In a discussion on sex education in schools hosted by a television channel, an ex- M.P. and a prominent leader of a political party was explaining what he found objectionable in the material supplied to schools to aid the program. He objected to the words “making love”. According to him this may mislead the child into thinking that if he/she loved someone he/she was free to indulge in the act. Nonsense, you say? Remember I already said that this came from a politician. What else do you expect?
The second objection he had was a sentence which said that this could be an 'enjoyable' experience. He thought this would lead children to experiment seeking pleasure.
What does he want the teacher to say? That it is an activity to be indulged in strictly for procreation which involved no pleasure whatsoever? Apparently his years in politics makes him think that you can lie forever and get away with it.
No sir, not with children. And certainly not with children who are 14/15 years of age whose bodies are already undergoing changes and whose hormones are already teaching them a couple of things about physical attraction between sexes.

Experimentation has existed since the time of Adam and Eve. Our mythology has instances of children out of wedlock under the guise of children born with divine intervention. There is nothing that is going to stop a young boy or girl who decides to experiment. If anything a well defined sex education program can tell them about the pitfalls and consequences of indulging in indiscriminate and unprotected sex. It can tell them about unwanted pregnancy, about sexually transmitted diseases and about AIDS.

Let us not pretend that people did not know about sex in this country when they were 13 and 14. My grandmother was 11 when she conceived my mother and it was not through divine intervention. And I am positive she did not find any pleasure in the act. She was probably totally terrified when it happened to her, only submitting to her older and half-informed husband as she had been told that it was the thing to do. She must have gone through it , time after time, as a ritual necessary to procreate believeing that was the sacred purpose for which God made her into a woman!
Is that what we want the children to think of sex? That it is a domination of a man over a woman so she can produce children at the end of it? What is wrong if it was spoken of as “making love” and a pleasurable experience? This will only teach them that they do not “have to” do it with anyone other than a person with whom they want to, only out of love and not out of compulsion or coercion or force. It will teach them to say “no” to people in their own family and outside who try to molest them.
Why are we worried about empowering them this way?
Sure, this will teach the girls that they can expect sex to be pleasurable for them too rather than being a passive companion – and why is it such a bad thing?

Why at school, why not learn about it at home from parents?
A lot of parents would feel comfortable if the children learnt about it at school from counsellors in a structured program. Not because they shy away from talking about sex to their children but because of the inhibition that a child may have about asking questions to their parents which may be easier with a professional like a doctor or a counsellor. I am sure most mothers tell their daughters about biological changes and personal hygiene at the time of puberty. It is necessary to supplement it at school with a professionally designed program which demystifies Sex to them rather than the knowledge they gain on the street or in pornographic sites or the innuendos and suggestive dialogues and gestures in our films.

Paul at Cafe-philos, speaking about the same issue in the American context, states it beautifully when he says:

So far as I can see, there is nothing necessarily wrong with adolescents having sex, but there is indeed something wrong with anyone — adolescent or not — having irresponsible or unhealthy sex. I think the focus of sexuality education in the United States should be on preparing adolescents to have healthy and responsible sex lives. In other words, rather than focus on teaching sexual abstinence, I would prefer we focused on teaching sexual sanity.

I think abstinence- only sexuality education is as absurd in the Indian context too today. We might as well shed our hypocrisy and accept the situation like it is and have a sensible program of sex education in schools which teaches them about the dangers of irresponsible and unhealthy sex. ( Wait a minute, isn't this what actress Khushboo was trying to say and was threatened for! Should I ask for police protection before I publish this?)
Looking around us and reading about the sex crimes that happen in this country day after day, it seems that most of the adults in this country could do with a program that teaches them the right approach to sex without either condemning it as a deadly sin or being obsessed with it.

Makeover magicians

"April is the cruellest month" wrote T.S.Eliot and I couldn't have agreed more with him than this month although for vastly different reasons. It has been a month of coping with aches and pains in different parts of the body, in muscles and bones which, until now, I didn't even know were parts of me. It all started with the maid-in-law and the second maid going AWOL - one because of a bereavement and another because of a minor accident. And since then all my waking hours have become an unending loop of wash, sweep, mop, cook, wash, sweep, mop. I suspect that there were nights when I sleepwalked and sleep-washed although husband claims it was he who had washed the vessels after I had gone to sleep. As you can infer, it has been traumatic to say the least. I could go on and on about my saga of struggle but let me spare you the details and stick to the point as I am normally wont to.

In the midst of this maidlessness I had a few friends over for lunch. In exchange for the good food I had slaved over, they gave me free advice. Over starters, they commented on my miserable existence, the stress of which seemed to manifest visibly in my appearance and gait. Over soup, they thought that I lacked the stamina to cope with life as it was in the present. And over dessert, suggested that I enroll in a gym that has opened nearby with a fancy name, equipment and handsome trainers! Another mentioned a chain of skincare clinics which could do wonders to my lifeless skin. "You are worth it girl, go indulge" they chorused over coffee and left.

Empowered by their words, I went in search of the said gym housed in a large,modern building. As I browsed through their brochure I found a line which said: EMI facility available. EMI? As ex-banker I know what EMI meant and I also knew that the process followed a large outstanding. This did not seem like a gym fee but like an expenditure decision of a magnitude that needed board approval. So I politely told them that I would return in a while and hurried home as fast as my poor Santro could take me through the traffic of namma Bengaluru. What exactly do they charge in these places - Tens of thousands? I was too scared to ask. But it is my guess that with that kind of money I could buy a couple of those equipment and may be start my own Gym. I lost a few calories just sweating over my foolisheness in daring to enter such a place.

What was left now was the skin clinic. I took an appointment for a consultation on how to repair my facial skin. People whiten their face and streak their hair in colours but nature had done the reverse to me - whitened my hair and streaked my face with browns and blacks. So I went to this clinic and a sweet young girl welcomed me, gave me forms to fill along with a cool apple concoction to drink. The consultation would cost me Rs.500 but if I bought any products recommended by the doctor the fee would be waived. The doctor listened to my woes and then unnecessarily pointed out to all the blemishes on my skin (as if I already didn't know) and detailed a course of treatment. All was fine until this point and future really seemed bright and optimistic even for my sad skin. But then the alarm went off when the doctor mentioned that she would send a consultant to discuss the "costing". This meant I was going to get a proposal for a financial outlay rather than simple information on the treatment fee. I was right and the pretty young girl who came to 'help' me gave me the break-up of the costs involved for the procedures to be performed and the products and with a generous discount it came close to 35 K with a recurring expense of about 2.5 k per month on maintenance thereafter. They would be quite happy to start the treatment right away, she said. I thanked her and left saying I needed to think about it.

I have been thinking about it - about how expensive everything is, about the class of people who can afford these kind of things, and whether life has become better for us with the availability of these services. It was also interesting that the clients I saw in these places were mostly young - in their 20s and 30s. That they need it at this age and that they can afford it are both important statements of their lifestyles.

I can assure you it has become better for me after these experiences. I exercise more regularly, I eat healthier food, I follow the cleansing - moisturising routine and even use sunscreen to protect my face - conscious of every rupee I save by doing all these and not having to spend on all these specialised services. Now I know what people mean when they say that their life altered after one trip to this gym and this skin clinic - at least mine did!