Rusted Nail

A couple of weeks back – the 6^th of October to be precise – I went out to buy a pair of sneakers. And to clarify things, it was for moi. The plan was to go for regular casual shoes type of sneakers and not necessarily the types used for needs that generally involve straining of body muscles. As usual, I dragged Raghu along, since it was also a long time since we had visited our original “kadamai” spot – Spencer’s Plaza.

While waiting at Raghu’s house, I opted to first go to the ATM and get some cash. So I stepped out of his main door and reached for the latch in his gate and in the next instant I cried out in pain, accompanied by muted expressions of profanity. If you wonder why the mute button was On, it was because Raghu’s wife Madhu was around and I still had to maintain some decorum. 

But you the reader may be more piqued as to why I shouted out in pain in the first place and that is what the rest of this narrative is dedicated to. It has been a practice of mine to blog about many of the trivial things that go on in my life and off late, I have passed on that honour to Facebook. But there are still some trivial things that I blog about and hence this narrative. So where was I? Ah the crying in pain after reaching for the latch in a gate at Raghu’s house.

Before I get into the details of why I was in pain, I must also elaborate on what caused me that pain. It was the gate. The gate is probably older than even Raghu and by that, I am only implying that it was created in a day and age when gates were sturdier than those that are created today. And again, by virtue of being that old, it was also rusting and some parts of the gate did bear signs of having seen a coat of paint in the past decade or two.

So, when I was reaching out to move the latch from its seated position, a flake of paint or probably a piece of the gate itself (in the form of a piece of rust of course) pierced the gap between the nail and skin of my middle finger. For the first 15 seconds or so, I only felt some pain in the nail-skin region and I was more engrossed in shouting and muting, than checking what really happened. It was only after that 15 second period, that I looked closely at the finger and saw something dark protruding from that nail-skin area. 

I was able to pull out the part that was outside of the nail and only after doing so, did I realise that the piece had wedged itself even deeper. It was then time for more action to unfold, when Raghu, Madhu and I decided then debated the next course of action. Wash it. Pull it. Cut it. All sorts of ideas were floating around. We finally decided to do all of them in that order. A piece of soap was brought and lathering of the nail was done in the hopes of dislodging that piece stuck inside the nail. After some 10 minutes, all the continuous watering ensured that my dry skin became drier than usual and wrinkled like anything.

I then suggested using a drop or two of some oil to help lubricate the piece out of its current residence and also help my skin expand. But no, that didn’t help either. Madhu then brought out her makeup kit and when she opened the box to show the assortment of blades and files, I just couldn’t but help remember Dexter’s kit! Anyways, we selected one instrument that seemed to be the right one for the job and it helped a little.

Meanwhile, we also used a nail cutter to cut some more of the outer nail and so these other instruments were able to make some inroads in the removal process. But there sure was some part still deeply embedded inside the regular nail. It was then the turn of Raghu’s mother to try her luck with her instrument of choice – the choice of my mother in general and I am not speculating when I say that it is the choice for most maamis – the proverbial “ooku” a.k.a Safety Pin. She did manage to poke some more part of it and then suggested that we let that piece grow itself out of my body. That seemed to be a logical thing and so we finally put an end to the festivities!

The next morning, I opted to get an Anti Tetatnus Serum injected in me, lest that piece of paint or rust cause some kind of infection. I went over to the Doctor’s office in my Office campus and told the Nurse that I wanted a shot. She told me to first consult the Doctor, checked inside to see if there was any other patient being consulted and then told me that I could go in since there was nobody inside.

When I entered the consulting room I found that the Nurse was being very true. There indeed was nobody inside; including the Doctor! The Doctor then came from a cleaning room on the side and took stock of my position vis-à-vis the metal in my nail. She suggested that I consult a Surgeon since she was not equipped to try and dislodge the piece and may end up pushing it deeper. However, she did write a note to get the shot of ATS.

I got the injection done on my hand – I always get my shots on the arm and never on the bum – and for the next two weeks, I watched my nail grow. It is a very difficult thing to watch how fast your nail grows and we generally get to gauge it when the Election officer marks the indelible ink on our finger. I had a similar thing going on for two weeks, courtesy this piece of metal and last weekend, I was able to cut it off the nail. 

But I still have a lingering feeling that some part of that piece could still be inside my system because, I do have a magnetic personality, right? 

The elevator that traps my family

Last Saturday – the 29^th of January – my mother had a rather severe bout of food poisoning. I took her to the nearby clinic for treatment and the Doctors advised that she be admitted for observation immediately. The primary reason was a fall in the BP level and also because of the severe dehydration, they wanted to administer fluids (and medicines) by IV means.

An hour or so after the IV administration started, the staff said that I should get her something bland to eat. I called up my father and asked him to prepare some curd rice. Since the clinic was barely 3 minutes from home, I gave some time for my father to get things ready and I then started from the room where my mother was admitted.

The room was in the third floor and the clinic was having some kind of renovation work going on. So, I opted to take the elevator/lift in lieu of walking through debris. It was an old elevator and had the collapsing diamond iron gate and not the closed door type. I got inside the elevator, closed both the gates

Cataract # 2 on the right eye

I am at least 10 days late in posting this, but the fact of the matter is that the last 10 days have been quite hectic both at home and at work. Ten days back, on 22nd September to be precise, my mother had her second cataract surgery. Second as in, she had one 2 years back on her left eye and this time, it was on her right eye.

The surgery went well and she has been recovering quite well. I was out of action at work last week and returned only this week. And I have been having quite a busy week because of some personnel issues in my team at the customer's location.

Coming back to the surgery, it was done at the same place she had it done last time - Rajan Eye Care Clinic. At many levels, the whole procedure was pretty much a replay of what happened 2 years back, though there were of course subtle differences. Like for instance, the "Live Relay" of the surgery. Last time around, we were asked to be seated in a common waiting room kind of place where there was one TV showing the surgery. This time around, there was a TV in the waiting room allotted to us and so, I was able to capture the surgery from the TV on to my phone!

The other big difference, was of course in the way I settled the fees for the procedure. I actually don't remember how I did it last time, but it sure wasn't cash. This time around, it was cash. And it was cash, because of reasons beyond my control.

In a long story short narration, here is what happened:
- the clinic did not accept credit card
- they accepted debit cards albeit with a 1.35% service charge!
- but there is a limit on how much can be swiped on a debit card
- the nearest Canara Bank did not seem particularly inclined to cater to my bank's card
- the same attitude was extended to my father's card
- the nearest bank of my branch had closed the ATM to refill the cash
- the bank employees asked me to check the nearest SBI ATM to get cash
- SBI ATM was friendly to the request from my father's card
- SBI ATM preferred to hold a different view with my card
- my bank employees, after my "demanding pleas" accepted to process a special cheq book request
- by then their ATM was up and running
- this ATM had no qualms in dispensing cash for a card of its own family

I have left out many points around my driving to different ATMs, the challenges in parking, the actual interactions with my bank employees and the overall tension I was under, for almost an hour.

It is still a pity that most businesses (Such Clinics are as business oriented as a regular Corporate or a Retail Store) still have some reservations in accepting credit cards. Some of them demand an additional 2% charge (in case you didn't know, the credit card banks pay only around 98% of the transaction amount to the merchant), but in some places like this Clinic, they just don't want to give their customers, such options.

Anyways, coming back to my mother, she's been taking rest for the last 10 days. She is under strict orders not to cook, walk, lift heavy objects etc. and keep wearing dark glasses while awake. While she is allowed to watch TV and even read, the dark glasses don't really compensate the eye power and hence she gets too bored quickly. She is an active person and is getting restless by the day. And that is one feeling that I am never going to experience - being restless because of taking too much rest. Added to this, is the fact that this clinic prescribes some eye drops to be administered every 2 hours!

She had her second review today and the cute Ophthalmologist who checked her, informed us that her eyes are getting better and they would work on her power test in 2 weeks' time. The frequency of administering the eye drops have also reduced, though we still have to continue it for another 4 weeks. My mother now doesn't have to wear the dark glasses and she can even take small walks around the house. And promptly this evening, she went to the kitchen and made some rasam and cabbage kari, during a 30 minute window when my father had stepped out of the house and I was busy in my room upstairs!

Anyways, I know what my next two posts are going to be. One, is about the traffic violation ticket I got on 30th September and the other is on Endhiran movie, that I am going to watch on the 3rd at 8 AM at Vetri theatre, Chrompet.

The mini pilgrimage in March 2010 – Day 0

After a lot of pleading, hinting, cajoling, guiding, recommending, suggesting, nudging etc., I finally relented and agreed to make the long pending visit to Thirumanachery. To those of you who are not aware about the significance of this town, please be advised that a visit to the Shivan kovil in this town and doing the special poojai there, will help in ending the “single” marital status of an indvidual.

I had been asked to go to this place by countless people and now that I think about it, I don't think any of them actually got married after going through the routine that they advise me. But, I finally decided to take their suggestion in good faith and a trip was finally planned. We were to visit that temple of the 4th of March and return by the morning of March 6th, since I had a project party to partake in. 

The tour almost didnt happen, because of the health of my parents. My father was having another bout of amoebiasis and my mother had a small kitchen accident which caused a 3" diameter burn mark near her right elbow. But both of them were quite particular that this trip not be delayed, because they didn't want to bow down to any obstacle to a trip being planned with the main purpose of removing obstacles! 

So there we were opposite the Thiruvanmiyur bus stand at 10:40 PM on the 3rd of March, waiting for the Rathimeena bus scheduled to arrive at 11:05 PM. My dear friend Raghu had dropped us at the bus stand. Thankfully, we didnt make him wait, because the bus finally showed up a few minutes before midnight. 

This was the first time I was travelling on this bus and I must admit that it was good. I had opted for a semi-sleeper AC bus for this trip, though my lack of knowledge in this area meant that I didnt book their full-sleeper bus. The seats were quite comfortable, the AC was in full swing, we were given fresh blankets and there was also a supply of packaged water. 

The bus left the Thiruvanmiyur area a few minutes after midnight. Despite the relatively comfortable environment, I did have trouble falling asleep. It was primarily because I am not that used to sleeping in a bus unless I am really really tired. I was having a broken sleep and when the bus started slowing down at a place which I found out to be a petrol bunk in Pondichery, we took the usual toilet break. The time by then was 2 AM. 

The journey resumed in around 15 minutes and after more rounds of broken sleep, I finally heard some announce that the bus was in Mayavaram. When I checked the clock it was 5:00 AM. So the entire elapsed time was around 5 hours, with an actual travel time of just 4 hours 45 minutes. That, by Indian standards was quite fast! 

Day 1 updates in the next post.

O2 - Me too

I hereby formally announce that I have joined a gym - 02. I paid the money on Wednesday - 6th Jan. Yesterday - 8th Jan - was my first day at the gym, but it was spent evaluating my present fitness levels and collating all necessary data to prepare my workout schedule.

As part of this evaluation, they first measured my height and weight. Between these two measurements, they asked me to sit on the floor with my legs stretched out against some equipment. They asked me to raise my hands up and then bend down. There was a scale on that equipment and I was asked to touch it. Apparently, the farther you touch the scale, the fitter you are. No guesses on where i was marked on this scale.

Then, they put me on the treadmill test. Started it walking at 5.6 Kms/hr (3.5 miles/hr) for 2 minutes on zero degree inclination. Then next 2 minutes were @ 6.4 Kmph. From the fifth minute the inclination was increased gradually. I failed to notice how much it went to, but the whole thing stopped after the 8th minute.

They allowed me to take some water after this and the therapist took me to another trainer. He then asked him to spot me do some push ups. I managed less than a handful and he then asked me to do a variation of the same, by resting on my knees. I barely managed a handful even then. I was no expert in push ups earlier, but ever since I developed the carpal tunnel problem, I have been very afraid to try it at home. So I was not surprised with my inability to do a decent number of push ups.

I was then asked to do some basic sit ups and managed more than 15. I guess I wasnt doing it rightly, coz the trainer said that I was stressing my neck a lot. And my neck couldnt agree more to what he said.

After this was done, the physiotherapist gave me an instrument that looked like this, basically to find my BMI and my body fat percentage. It was to held with both hands and the thumbs had to press some sensor at the top of the grip.

The physiotherapist said that, according to my BMI score, I was only a few 100 grams away from being labeled Obese. And that I could achieve it with that night's dinner. After hearing this scientific confirmation of a visible fact, I felt very proud of my growth, especially in the last 2-2.5 years.

He then checked how often I could come to the gym. Taking into consideration my daily travel to work, I decided that 4 days in a week would be the best I could do and that too mainly because of the weekend. And he asked what my goal was going to be. I clearly told him that it was tummy reduction and overall fitness. I also told him about my carpal issues and he said he'd suggest some exercises for that as well.

He then asked me to have a 20 minute walk on the treadmill in the 5.6-6.4 Kmph range. Once that was done, he asked me to spend another 20 minutes on an elliptical trainer. I did that as well.

The guy then told me that he'd be preparing my chart when I come the next day. I will be heading to the gym after publishing this post and hopefully the chart is really ready by then. Also, there is a meeting pending with the dietitian.

I have signed up for an annual package at this gym and I hope that this latest fitness endeavor of mine lasts forever!

A brief history of the events in my life in the last 3-4 weeks

* Picked up a neck sprain in the first week of October. Self-medication with pain relieving gels and ointments didn't work. An Ortho' prescribed tablets, but to no avail. Registered 5 days of leave in October alone. Second opinion took me to a scan centre for an MRI. After the wallet became thinner by Rs.5,500 an obvious fact was documented - I am fat! Doing some basic stretch exercise which have definitely alleviated the pain. I am better.
Root cause - posture while operating the computer and while traveling.

* MRI scan is a 15 minute torture on the ears. The noise that the machine makes is very loud and quite irritating. And while I was inside the chute, I somehow felt nervous.

* Have been going more often to the office closer home to avoid the long distance commute.

* Had a rather quiet birthday. Some friends and team-members did organise a cake-cutting event in the evening and I had a tough time convincing them to stick to my principles of not wasting cake by smearing it on the face.

* Celebrated a very quiet Deepavali, though the officials seemed to hold a different opinion. Either I became deaf or my town has been moved out of Chennai!

* Seeing many resignations in the company at all levels. 2 in my team have quite in Sep-Oct. I have a feeling that a couple of more are due.

* I cleared all the exams mandated at work for a promotion and have been given strong indications that there are no slots for my band of employees! If it is available, I am not eligible. If I am eligible, it is not available!

* Learnt that murungaikkai is used in an oorugaai.

* Attended an awesome spectacle called Annaabhishekham at the Ratnagirishwarar temple near home. Refer pictures here.





* The rainy season finally started in Chennai last week. Pretty heavy rain. Saturday was non-stop. Memories of last year, when we witnessed a similar incessant downpour, came up.

* Nothing else of any significance. Hope to resume blogging with earlier frequency at the earliest. Have been staying away just to avoid spending long hours in front of the computer.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

I don't know about Jack, but as someone who shares the first two letters of Jack's first name, I think all work and no play is making me dull. And sick too.

I see a clear increase in the quantum of work that has started coming my way, in the office. This is especially because my boss was out sick for the last two weeks and was out on personal reasons a couple of weeks earlier.

I have been working slightly extended hours anyways and the peak really started from the 18th. On the weekdays between the 18th and 24th, I have clocked around 12 hours on an average. I have also had two night-outs - Friday and Monday - till dawn of the next morning.

All this has taken a toll on my health. I haven't gone to office from Tuesday to the rest of the week. At first, it was the RSI related pain in my right wrist. I took a day off to rest the hand. But I have been carrying a cold for quite some time and that too flared up.

At the outset, it does look like I am taking 4 days of leave just because I "worked" for a week. But I think the last week was probably just the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back.

I clearly have to work better or smarter and more importantly, take better care of my health. Hiding away from exercise under the excuse of mental exhaustion does get many a nod of approval, but I have to stop using that excuse. It is really time for me to wake up!

Krishna Mukunda Murraray

Since I am returning to blogging after a small gap, I thought I'd resume duties with a post on how Krishna Jayanthi was celebrated at home this year.

We had a really low key celebration this time, mainly because we didn't want my mother to exert herself into the laborious chores involved in the whole pujai. She has recovered well after the cataract surgery on her left eye earlier in the month, but the Doctor has advised her not to do too much of labor intensive tasks.

So much so, that she herself dragged me out of my TV-trance state in the sofa and made me draw the "communist kolam". And I must admit that I created quite a good kolam. This was it:


You may wonder as to why there was a big deviation in the path taken by 'Kuzhandhai Krishnan'. I didn't want to create any illusion that the Lord walked around in a 'thathaka bithaka' fashion like a baby. It was just a case of me choosing a wrong destination and then being reminded that I had to continue the walk to a different place.

But anyways, I went one step ahead (sic) and traced the path of the Lord right from the main door at the ground floor, through the stairs, joined them to the set that my mother had drawn from the first floor entrance till the puja room and then continued from the puja room till the puja spot!







This work earned me a lot of brownie points and totally negated the battle of Kurkshetra that my mother and I had earlier in the day. :)

Jawaman returns... shortly

I have been trying to reduce the usage of my laptop at home, since there is a minor relapse of my Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. And a bit of back pain as well. All this because of some excess official workload in June, that spilled over into my time at home as well. In fact, I took 4 different days off work in July!

And as my handful of readers would have noticed, I haven't posted anything for almost 6 weeks now. I hope to resume my posting habit anytime soon. Many blog-worthy events have happened after the last time I blogged and I will be catching up on them as much as possible.

Watch this space.....

The real thing is different from the look-alike

I got a refresher course in this lesson on Saturday evening.

Saturday afternoon saw my parents come out with their guns blazing questioning my laziness, being waisty and spending a lot of time at the malls. Yet, I had to honor my commitment of going to City Center with Raghu and headed to his house. Once I reached his place, I suddenly remembered all the discussions the 2 of us had about setting up a basketball board/hoop in my house, so that we could play.

That discussion had then veered off towards playing basketball in the school where we studied because (1) it had a proper basketball court and (2) proximity to his house. And it has actually been sleeping at that stage for a few months now. But after the mini-tirade I received at home, I finally convinced him to proceed with our plan and so we bought a Spartan brand basketball, from a shop nearby. We came back home and after leaving behind all our valuables - wallet, keys and mobile - we walked up to the school and started playing basketball.

When I mean "playing" I obviously don't mean playing in the true sense of the word, especially when you consider that we were "playing" basketball. We tried running around trying to steal the ball off one another but then our gasping lead us to stop that attempt after merely 2 minutes.

We then just decided to just shoot free throws. Raghu then refreshed his memory from schooldays and said that we could play "ZEROES". This is quite simply a case where the player has to go to 6 designated and marked spaces around the basket and shoot the ball.

I must advise the reader at this point at least, that I have never really played basketball before. Never in school and never in college. I am obviously excluding the one time I played it in Los Angeles at my client place, because that was for a total of say 5 minutes or so and when I tried defending a 6 footer, he reminded me that I was creating a record of committing the maximum number of fouls and violations in a single possession! And him a whole lot of others were actually laughing at the way I was playing, so I didn't make a second attempt there.

Anyways, coming back to Zeroes, the first two spots from where I had throw, were really close to the basket - practically at the "paint". I somehow managed to shoot those 2, though it did take me a few attempts. The 3rd spot was where it got tricky.

The third spot was right at the top of the 3 point line. I tried shooting the ball with the best of intent, but sadly that didn't help the ball go into the basket. Actually, for the first 10 or 15 attempts, I barely managed to hit the board, let alone touch the rim of the basket.

Seeing my plight, Raghu, who btw was miles ahead of me in the game by virtue of having played it in school, gave me tips about holding and releasing the ball. While I didn't follow it to a T, it at least helped me reach the board more consistently.

After many many attempts, I finally managed to shoot the trey and then went on to complete the set. He'd of course, finished much earlier and the second set we played was no different. I was again, stuck at the top of the trey and unable to shoot the ball into the hoop in the first couple of attempts. But I did manage to score after probably 6-7 attempts.

One thing I noticed was that while I didn't really score the treys, but whenever I scored, it was nothing but the net - no clanking of rim, no bounce back from the board, no lucky rolls etc. It was just plain net .Swoosh!

All along, I was comparing the way I was now shooting, with the way I shot the ball in the arcade at City Center. I used to dominate that game so much and found it so easy to play. Obviously having a net at 7 feet height and at a distance of 3 feet makes a BIG difference in getting the ball into the net! Probably, excessive playing time at the arcade has probably eroded my natural skills on a real basketball court.

Anyways, we wound up after an hour and then went on to do other stuff like going to an eatery for chaat items and then heading to a baby shop to buy a gift for Ramadurai's daughter, on the occasion of her ayush homam today (Sunday morning).

Today, I didn't have too much of body pain which in a way is actually unusual. Probably spending two successive Wednesdays on the cricket ground near the office returned some amount of sanity into my system. Of course, Raghu didn't seem to have that luck and till this evening, he said he was feeling like he had completed a heptathlon yesterday!

I hope we can sustain this momentum and continue to play basketball. As of now, the next "game" date is set for May 1st, but it will be in the morning time. Hope I am able to wake up Raghu, for the same.

Sick weekend

I finally consulted Dr.Shetty for my cough, on Thu evening and he diagnosed it as an allergic reaction. He has given me a cough syrup and some tablet and to cut a long story short, my mornings are groggier than usual, due to changed sleeping hours.

After the interviews yesterday, I had to go out with my father, hunting for the floor tiles and water closet for the bathroom that we are re-doing in the Besant Nagar house. I had to go out in the dust and polluted air of Adyar and Kutchery road and it hasn't really helped my health. On the usual digression note, the kothanaar never showed up today and informed us much later that he wouldn't be able to make it today!

I felt bad that I couldn't spend any quality time with Arvind, when he visited us this afternoon. Of course, he is also to be blamed for not letting me know about his presence in the country much earlier - my theory is that if he'd informed me about his impending visit to Desh, which would haven't been complete without a stop at my home, I would have consulted the Doctor last week itself in preparation for the same!

Anyways, though my coughing has subsided considerably today, ironically, I've got the "sore throat voice" only now!

Wake up call

A good friend of mine at work was admitted to a hospital last week, after he complained of pain in the left hand, chest and also general uneasiness, nausea etc. He has been diagnosed as having high BP, high cholesterol etc. He in fact spent a whole day in the ICU.

He is now back in the ward for the past 3 days. In fact, he was scheduled to be discharged from the hospital today. I hope he gets back home soon very soon.

While the incident may very well have been caused due to the excessive stress and physical strain caused due to the pressures and vagaries in his project, it is very clearly a manifestation of his general state of health.

There is another friend of mine at work. who is already under treatment for high BP and cholesterol. And I heard from another peer that he was having high cholesterol. Same was the case with one of my seniors.

It is very evident that my sedentary lifestyle, interspersed with eating binges bordering on gluttony, is not going to help me in the long run. Given the nature of my profession, it is high time that I put that treadmill to use. Also need to dust out the yoga books from last year!

Wardrobe malfunction - a la Janet Jackson

This morning started off on quite an interesting note.

I was a minute or so late for my bus and so was hurrying towards the bus stop. But by the time I reached the main road, the bus was already steaming towards the stop. Luckily (at that point in time) the driver noticed me and pulled over, so that I didn't have to run till the bus stop (the way I do almost once in 7 days or so).

I boarded the bus and headed towards my usual seat. Just before I reached that, I heard a noise, a loud one and it sounded like a big piece of velcro being opened. I started wondering as to what velcro i was carrying and looked down.

Lo! There was a big tear in my trouser. The front pocket on the right. Actually not the front pocket per se, but more like the material in front of it. L shaped tear. Easily 2-3 inches on each angle.


Since it was loud and since I have a fully functional larynx and also because I am quite expressive with my face during such situations, I was sure that all the 10 people already seated knew what happened.

I had no option but to get down, go home, change and go to office by car. So before the bus reached my stop, I told my friends about my decision and was about to get down. The driver asked me what happened and I showed him! He said he would wait. I said its ok and that I'd come by car. He insisted that he would wait for me. So I asked him for 2-3 minutes and started running back home.

The distance between home and bus stop is around 175-180 metres. I am not going to say that I covered it in 21 seconds, but I made decent time. Considering that I was running with the laptop bag still attached to my body, I think you will surely applaud my effort.

Of course, you might wonder why I ran with that bag and why I didn't leave it in the bus. You see, in such moments where your dignity is being put to test and that too in front of so many girls, your brain doesn't really process much logic.

Anyways, I came back home gasping for breath. Gave a quick update about the events. Rushed to my room and changed to another trouser. Then it was once again a dash back to the bus.

All in all, it must have taken close to 5 minutes and I really thank the driver for waiting even when I didn't want him to.

When I boarded the bus, I definitely felt that around 15 pairs of eyes were all focused on me. It may not have been the case, people do sometimes have better things to do. But I had the nagging feeling that people were watching me. And I know for sure that there were 2 people who definitely ensured that an eye contact was made with me. The reaction on their face was a combination of a smirk, pity and other disparate emotions.

Anyways, all this extensive running around with a 15 kg weight did take a toll on me ageing body. After I plonked myself in my seat, I quickly reached for my Polo packet and had 2 wholes with mint. But for the next 10 minutes or more, I was definitely feeling quite exhausted. This very clearly shows how bad a shape I am in.

High time I addressed the issue.

Not chikungunya, but one of its close relatives was in my house

Well I came down with high fever on Tuesday night - Oct 3. I started feeling bad at work itself, but kinda attributed it to a hard day's work (I had to prepare 3 formats for a single weekly status report) coupled with my Tuesday fasting. But when the thermometer at home recorded 102.9 as my body temperature, thats when I told me that this is something more.

I took some paracetamol tablets hoping for the fever to go away in the morning. But it didn't. And it turned out that my mother too was having fever and general symptoms like me on Wednesday morning. The doctor was summoned home and by 1 PM, we were officially diagnosed to have a viral infection. But he sure did rule out Chikungunya.

So after a 4 day struggle against fever, my mum and I are now out of the temperature anomaly. But we both have body pain. My mother though complains of joint pain. But I think its more due to her general complaint than the virus.

Anyway, I have just started coming back online and hopefully will blog better soon.

And oh BTW, I now have a Direct To Home TV Service from Tata Sky. Its ON from Saturday and so far, its absolutely fantastic. Amazing picture quality.