Tales Of fathers and children-Tell me a story

Ever since people began to communicate with each other, "Tell me a story" has been a request of both children and adults. For there is something absolutely fascinating about sitting around and listening to words which come out of someone else’s mouth and trying to put picture associations to those same words. Then finding oneself transported into a the fantasy land which might comprise anything as far removed as fairies, trolls and goblins to the more real adventures of Arabia, World War Two exploits or then the cold war and the numerous real and imaginary spy stories that it generated over the years. 

While listening to stories from almost anyone is good enough for a child whose mind is probably the most curious and absorbent thing in the whole wide world, there is a special charm in asking one’s own parents to tell a story. Like I always did, with my father and do so, right till today, when the two of us get a chance to spend some quality time together.

As children, almost every night for many, many years, whenever we could manage, my brother and myself would wait for him to tell us one of his enthralling tales. I don't know how he did it, but all his stories, whether based on real life incidents or a creation of his imagination, were very exciting, taking us into a whole new world, where we could actually almost see and experience all that he used to talk about. Which is exactly where I started from, that very great pleasure that a child gets when ‘visualising’ what is being told. It is also a matter of great credit to the storyteller for being able to generate such a response in a young and impressionable mind and this is something for which I’m able to give credit to my father only in retrospect.

Particularly memorable were his stories about Air Marshal Arjun Singh (who was obviously one of my dad's heroes)and some of his daredevil missions in the skies, of Naval submarines, particularly the INS Vikrant and all the exciting and adventurous things that things people did on board. Then there were the stories which taught us all about our history, culture, tradition, valour along with great things that people had done and achieved in this world. These were the stories about people like Guru Gobind Singh, Shivaji Maratha, Rani Laxmibai and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Helen Keller.

Then of course, there were the funny stories, which consisted of make believe characters and an extended storyline where the four of us as a family would get involved in their lives and adventures. The real beauty of these tales were that these were a never ending saga and could go on and on endlessly, taking right up from where it had been left off the last time around as there was no defined beginning or an end to these.

Keeping both of us enthralled for hours and hours on end, then after one got over, repeatedly begging him, "Pop, one more, just one more".

And  he would always, always, always oblige.

Tell me a story

Time passed and I became a mother. 

Of a very bright child with an equally hungry mind. 

One who demanded “Tell me a story” whenever she wanted to hear one. So that I learnt to delve into the inner recesses of my mind and pull out some of those I remembered my father telling me and when I ran out of those I learnt to improvise, just as I remembered him doing. Creating some characters with whom the family travelled together, went on adventurous trips with and did a whole lot of fun stuff. One of the characters who became an all time favourite with my daughter was a little monkey who I called ‘Pikoo’ and one who went wherever my mind decided to take him. Alternately, wherever my daughter wanted him to go and so began the next generation saga along with a new series of never ending tales.

Today, as I'm reminded of those days, I'd like to take this opportunity to say “Thank You Pop, for that's where I really learnt my love of storytelling and now that of writing stories. I loved your stories then and love them even more now.”

I close with a beautiful line by Melody Beattie, “Live from your heart, and share from your heart. And your story will touch and heal people’s souls.”

Reproduced from Muscat Daily- My Fortnightly column titled 'My Take'

Neha's Z Lasik Surgery and Life's Turning Points

There are some moments in time that will remain etched in our memories forever. In all likelihood, these are also the moments that had a major impact on our day to day lives and for ease of understanding, I’m going to term them as ‘turning points’.

It’s easy to recall some of my turning points, graduation day, followed by my marriage. Then the birth of my only child, a daughter called Neha, my first book launch and just last Wednesday, the day I watched Neha undergo ‘Z Lasik’ surgery.

                Image Source- The Irish Times

Having taken the decision to go in for ‘Z (Zeimer) Lasik surgery’ was only the first step to watching a whole new way of life and living unfold. Day 4 and we can already see it in operation, there’s no need for her to wear contacts or glasses and she can now read things from a distance that was unimaginable just days ago.

And from what were given to understand, this quality of vision is there to stay forever, the only caveat being that the few prescribed ‘dos and don’ts’ are accurately followed through.

So what is Z-Lasik? As recently as ten years ago, laser eye surgery routinely resulted in days of dull pain, sensitivity to light, potentially blurry night vision and the need to wear some protection by way of eye patches or something like that.

However, the Z-Lasik technique can deliver a correction with relatively few side effects, once the first couple of hours of pain can be tolerated and the patient has had the opportunity to get a few hours of sleep and rest for a day in a dimly lit, cool and comfortable room.

A sophisticated procedure which has been hailed as the most advanced innovation in ‘bladeless surgery’, it involves the use of a high-frequency laser to correct a variety of refractive eye problems, including myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism and presbyopia among other eye diseases.

After a thorough investigation, the patient is carefully chosen for the surgery which usually takes 60 to 90 minutes.

As explained by a renowned eye surgeon in simple language, “When you’re short-sighted, the light gets bent inwards too much by your cornea. So the treatment aims to reduce the curve of the cornea by flattening it.

"Quite simply, we polish the top off. With every pulse, lasers can remove one quarter of a millionth of a metre of tissue, pain-free.”

Before the corrective lasering can begin, the surgeon must create a window in the eye. Better still, with the Ziemer, a so-called ‘blade-free’ laser which has the added advantage of cutting a thinner flap, patients with only a mild prescription can be treated with greater precision.

I was allowed to watch the surgery as well as click photographs through a glass partition and will try and describe what I saw as accurately as possible. A clamp designed to keep Neha’s eyes open during the operation was lowered on to her face, and I’m sure that it couldn’t have been easy for her to deal with.

Despite the fact that she was given anesthesia before the surgery, there was a distinct element of pain felt during the procedure. The actual laser part of the surgery was something that I focused on as closely as I could and must honestly say that it was very difficult with the thunderous sound of my heartbeats threatening to deafen me!

The surgical team inside seemed to be completely in command and in fact, one of the assistants pointed out a television screen towards the top of the room from where I could watch the entire procedure that was magnified. One eye over, the second eye was done shortly after.

Immediately after the surgery, a specially designed pair of goggles was put onto her eyes and we went home. All through the drive (just 15 minutes) I was very aware of the fact that Neha was in pain and could not bear any kind of light at all, lying back with her eyes completely closed.

Fortunately, a pain killer had been provided to her for just such a possibility and with that inside her, followed by an afternoon’s rest, things seemed so much better. What I particularly liked was the fact that on the third day, she could actually read lines from an A4 sized sheet of paper from almost 6-7 feet away.

If anything could sound better than that, it’s the qualitative difference that has come about in her day to day life. There’s no need to hunt for and put on that daily set of contacts, and certainly no likelihood of spectacles hereafter.

As for me, I will close by coming back to where I began. “There are some tuning points in life....”

NB- This piece was originally written by me for my column My Take in Muscat Daily

Laughter the best medicine

Audrey Hepburn once famously said, " I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most- to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. Its probably the most important thing in a person," and I couldn't agree more.

( Pic sourced from the net)

I genuinely believe that a day in which I haven’t laughed out aloud is a day really wasted- Gone, never to come back again. Like me, many of you probably tend to feel the same way, which is why I wonder why laughter seems to have declined in ‘real’ life?

Mind you, here I’m not referring to the sitcoms and TV shows that sometimes tend to use canned laughter in order to induce viewers to somehow manage to summon up a laugh - I’m talking of the real good old-fashioned hearty peals of laughter that we all remember our grandparents, as well as our parents, indulging in.

Dr Michael Titze, a German psychologist, tells us that in the 1950s people used to laugh 18 minutes a day, but today we laugh not more than six minutes a day, despite the huge rise in the standard of living.

Children can laugh up to 300-400 times a day, but when we grow up to be adults this frequency comes down to less than 15 times a day, if at all.

The answers are not really difficult. Topping the list would be the day to day stress of living in a world which seems to have gone all wrong and where financial crisis is a bitter reality for so many people.

In addition, while there are many plus points of having instant access to worldwide news at the touch of a button, the downside is the heightened anxiety and fear at the very prospect of something that might go wrong.

Here, I’m obliged to point out the recent  Eurozone crisis with the euro facing an uncertain future - just for a moment, try and step into the shoes of all those who have invested heavily in that currency, or worse, the governments that have staunchly defended it till date, and you will begin to get an idea of what I mean.

Top that with long working hours, congested transport and overcrowded cities, and it's not surprising that divorce and family break-ups are higher than ever before.

As a major publicist of Positive Psychology, Dr Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania says engagement and meaning are particularly important. Other researchers have pointed to bonding with friends, family and loved ones as a major contributor.

So if we look at laughter as one manifestation of happiness, it turns out it’s not something we tend to do alone. “It is a tool of communication,” said Robert Provine of the University of Maryland.

Laughter is also infectious. Once one person starts, others quickly follow. As a natural consequence, when we laugh with others, we feel more connected to them - it’s part of our bonding and that makes us feel happier.

So how do we go back to the good old days when we all really did let our hair down and genuinely laugh? There is still hope, and as a result of research in both East and West, people are increasingly realising that laughter is something that can be ‘spontaneously created’ and need not be dependent on anything.

In fact, you can laugh for no reason at all.

Remember the walk in the park where you saw a group of people who at that point may have seemed quite mad to you, simply because they were all laughing? And that too, for no perceptible reason at all?

Well, that is actually called ‘laughter therapy’ and is deliberately designed to teach you how to laugh - in fact in many different styles at that.

We once visited my aunt and uncle in Chandigarh and she proudly showed us two prizes she had won at her local laughter club. After we had admired them and returned them to her she proceeded to demonstrate the prize-winning laughs.

Was that a revelation - it truly showed the extent to which a laugh can actually be created. It started off with some element of sheepishness on our part, but believe me, at the end of that period, we found ourselves joining in, and those laughs came from somewhere within us, of their very own volition!

To conclude, some people might have lost the knack of being able to laugh, but it is perfectly possible to help them get it back. People can be taught to laugh for no reason, to discover their innate capacity to experience their own wellspring of laughter and joy.

After all, 'What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul!' (an old proverb).

N B- This piece was originally written for 'My Take,' my column in Muscat Daily

Pause and think

This is a piece I wrote for my column ‘My Take’ in the Muscat Daily, on 8/8/ 2011. Looking at it again, reminded me of so much that is common to this point in time, so I've  decided to share it  with you.

Ramadan nights in the Gulf

One week into Ramadan and life is so very different for all of us living in the Gulf. The days seem shorter and the nights longer, but it’s really all in the mind, and one knows that things can look different from one perspective, and then again, completely different from the other.

But one of the greatest benefits of this period (apart from so many others) and one that should really be capitalized on, is for those people who have seriously considered the idea of quitting smoking, but for one reason or another, not been able to kick off the habit during ‘normal’ days.

We might like to think of it as an excuse, but for smokers, it just might be really difficult to resist the urge when everybody around them is puffing away and the smoke weaves its insidious spell and claims yet another reluctant smoker. So this Ramadan, make up your mind and go for it!

And if you are able to stay on course, it just might be the break that you have been looking for. Take that first step and stub out that cigarette, for thirty days is a long enough period for withdrawal symptoms, (if any) to completely go away.

Matrah Souq, a perennial favorite

Sometimes I think about why sleep is at the bottom of our priority list. A day has twenty four hours, and each of those hours can be used in many ways, for instance, study/work/leisure. Yet what we tend to do, more often than not is to extend those waking hours to way more than what can be 'naturally managed'. For a while we might like to believe that sleep will just come to us, it really doesn’t work that way.

The reality of things today is that if we are not watching TV, then we can always remain online, and of course, all our friends worldwide live in different time zones, so it seems to make complete sense. And so it goes on, day after day, month after month, year after year while we continue to get more and more sleep deprived, or then as someone recently said, 'leaner and meaner' (in sleep terms).

Yet, there is always a breaking point, and one which might come later rather than sooner, but it certainly will. Let's just pray that we are in a position to do some course correction before it is too late.

Here are some of my random musings:

    What if everyone could live to be a hundred years old? Would the ageing process then be at the same rate, or would we see some startling differences in the way that things unfold?

·         What if everyone (particularly all 40-plus women) were thin? What if they could eat all they liked, and still stay that way?

·         What if everyone actually loved animals and took care of them the way they really ought to?

·         What if the roads didn't develop huge bumps during, and, well, after the monsoons?

·         What if babies never woke up parents, or ever cried at night?

·         What if people stopped using plastic bags, and that too, for good? 

What if AIDS could be cured, as also so many, many other irreversible diseases?

         Take a moment, pause and think over one or all of these, and I’m sure you’d agree with me – wouldn't the world be such a different place?