Hyperbole

Finally managed to make my own breakfast today of boiled eggs, peanut butter sandwich and coffee after much trial and tribulations.  The tough part being the evasive electricity and that being my only way to cook (on a electric heater) or make coffee (in an electric kettle). I started the boiling the eggs day before at 6pm and finally managed to boil them by 11pm! I had infact forgotten all about them through the multiple power shut downs during the course of evening. Was reminded about them by the incessant banging of the eggs on the steel utensil once the water had fully boiled.  Bottom line being I am totally dependent upon electricity. Will have to make arrangements for a gas connection and an inverter if I have to stay long. Aisae kaise chalega! Danced a mini jig after the successful completion of breakfast in the morning today. Even an inane task like this seems like such a Herculean effort over here!

So I have this record which I am rather fond of. I have never lost a friend, as in I am not talking about death, but never lost contact. I have tracked down people who had settled abroad, had changed their surnames and that too before Facebook and Google, after a gap of around 2 decades. There was hardly anyone I couldn't track, and I did track down quite a few and the rest I never lost sight of. Except one. The irony of that was she was in my hometown, so technically she should have been the easiest to track. But I never could. She wasn't there on any social media. The hospital where we both had worked had shut down. We had no common acquaintance. Our one common friend was now semi-hostile. Plus with my bad memory for names I could not recollect of anyone else who had worked in the hospital. In short I had no leads to follow on, so was practically screwed! But I never gave up hope.  I used to regularly scan the social media platforms in case she turns up somewhere, but with no

Had a first hand experience of "breaking news" in the department at GMC today.  Some media person with a microphone and a guy holding a cell phone recording the event broke into the dental department today.  They caught hold of an attendant named Zia not wearing a mask and asked him where his mask was. He not knowing who the guys were asked where is your mask? When they revealed their identity Zia pushed them out of the OPD and locked the doors.  Then all hell broke loose! Incidentally the Principal was in our department getting his dental treatment done at that time. So it was all the more absurd and more of a real life drama.

I woke up at around 3am, fully awake, not the drowsy awake kind. I couldn't figure out why. I was neither cold nor under any pain or discomfort. Finally managed to drift back into sleep after an hour or so. That's when I saw this lucide dream. "We were in the botanical/science institute in Jammu, but in my dream it was in Lucknow, on a Sunday. Walking towards the main building there were pretty weird kind of plants and I was telling Jai about the fruits of one of them. Ayush wanted her pics clicked near the statues places at the entrance of the closed building. There was an another person with us but I can't remember who.  I started walking back when I saw there was some cultural program going on in the baradari like open structure in the lawns. As I approached it to check it out I could see a couple of yound women turning and looking towards me and talking. On coming closer I saw it was Vandana who was giving me a sheepish smile. I was so surprised to see her! The fir

Started my cacti collection in Jammu too. Had got the one in the beer mug along with me in the plane and a few cuttings of the one in green Buddha and now they are multiplying.  For some reason cactus have bad press, people only have bad things to say about the poor thing. But for some reason they resonate with me, I seem to understand them, or maybe they are just too easy to grow. Have to get another Buddha, maybe a brown or a black one. They should be in odd numbers. Hinduism as it is has a fascination for odd numbers.

 I am back. Back to the room where I was back in 1974! Took me around 46-47 years to complete the full circle before coming back to where it all started from. I am in a state of limbo. Jobless. And almost penniless. But I am at peace with myself. Secure and relatively stable. Ah! The travesties and uncertainties of life. My agyatvas, my hibernation.  Amongst all this gave a presentation on history taking in a CDE organised by KGMU too. This pic is just to remind me later on in my life of these times. A speaker without a college to represent. Like a vagabond or a freelancer.  The song "Sochna hai kya, jo hona hai hoga, janae kya hoga Rama re, janae kya hoga humara re?" is what all my life is about now.

Saskun is the word used by the nomads in Yarkand, China, for an illusion, where you feel you can see your destination on the horizon, you can feel it, almost touch it, and will be there soon, but in reality you are still far, far away..... This is the story of my Saskun..........but in reverse. The year is 1853. I am standing in the middle of the afternoon, around 2-3pm, on a single lane, black tarred road. All around, the land is barren, dry with scattered patches of brown grass. Something pretty similar to Khajurao or Jhansi. Semi desert landscape. And it's all hot and dusty due to summer time. The sky is clear and has a whitish haze due to the heat. The road goes straight and right ahead is a white rectangular pillar around 2 feet wide and 6 feet high on the left side of the road. There is a small square platform on top and then a round white structure on top. There is a white boundary wall on the left, but on the right side of the road there is neither a post or a bou