Health – Page 41 – Nourish-n-Cherish

The Dosa God’s Warning

It was a lovely afternoon as we sniffed the fresh rain-scented air mingling with the Eucalyptus tree’s heady smells. We were headed to a regional park about an hour’s drive away from where we lived for a birthday party. Our friends, had wisely selected a Regional Park Reserve for the party, so there would be plenty of fresh air and nature while enjoying each other’s company. I could only admire their choice, for the day was beautiful and this park was one we had never been to. Lush green forests rose on all sides, and every time we peeked out a curve, we could see the glistening blue waters of the bay in the distance.

Now, every year, when January rolls in with the fog, rain and murky resolutions, we tell ourselves that we must spend more time outdoors on hikes and trips. The reason we don’t keep that up diligently all year-long is so that we can use that as a resolution when January rolls along again. I am sure it will be a tad tiring to have to look for new resolutions every year, wouldn’t you agree?

As the car climbed the hills, I stuck my head out wistfully and sighed, saying the things that nature taps me into saying each time: How I love fresh air, lucky that we live so close to mountains and forests, blessed with the ability to enjoy these things in cheer and spirit etc. I went a step further this time and said a bit critically, maybe, that we really should stop sitting home and eating dosas and get out more often. I should have known that one does not insult a perfect dosa without having one’s nose broken. The Dosa Gods are benevolent, but they will not let you go scot-free would they?

The daughter, meanwhile, was bristling with the injustice of it all. “We didn’t have dosa! You made me eat carrots.”

“Which I see you did not.” I added smartly, and she chuckled to herself.

We spent some time looking for the right area, because the park was large, and cellphone reception was spotty. It was the daughter who spotted it first. On the side of the road, by some yellow fox flowers, and dark green ferns, was a gleaming van. “Amma look! You need not stay home and eat dosa. There is a dosa van right here!”

I felt my broken nose where it was snubbed and it felt raw. You could have knocked me out with a feather. There was a dosa van indeed. What’s more? It was for my friend’s party. If that was not a Dosa God’s warning, I don’t know what is. But the Dosa Gods are good: we were in time to enjoy some excellent varieties of Dosa with good people. The simple dosa rose in reverence in my eyes.

The Dosa God’s Warning

As we took a walk back to our car, what do you think I saw? Wild carrots growing on the path. I stopped to show them to the daughter. She was as excited as I was. I had never shown her carrot plants before and I glowed with her as we admired the beautiful carrot leaves. We saw loads of ants attacking the wild carrots. Never one to waste an opp. when I see one, I told her about all the excellent properties of carrots. A mellow cheese dosa in her stomach made her receptive to the unsung carrot I guess, for she was an attentive audience.

I thought sagely said that the day was indeed one of sobering food thoughts. Dosas for me and carrots for her.

The Cal-Oh-Rie Boss

I remember feeling as a child waiting to grow up and see what I will do. (I knew it was great fun being a kid, but I was curious about the future). Naturally, I asked the daughter what she thought about life as an adult. She said that our lives were cool. Among other things that make our lives cool, was a point mentioning that we got to boss our kids around. That was news to me. I felt like the bossee more than the boss so often.

While having this riveting conversation, we walked past a pastry shop that sported all things cream and sugar in those sparkling windows and the daughter wondered whether we may stop in for a snack. Really, all that cream and sugar could not bode well for the body. So, I used my skills of persuasion and said we want to go for something healthy and moved towards a Starbucks (I know! But it was the only one in sight that had a semblance of a trail mix pack in there) instead.

I walked in to the coffee store in my usual state, you know? Calm and collected. The moment I walked in, I knew I was fighting a losing battle. There, gleaming from the confectionary box were those blasted cake pops looking like dynamite balloons. I was trying to convince the daughter not to go for those, but everybody knows by now that she only wanted cake pops. I was wondering whether to belt out my healthy-eating-talk or not, and decided against it. We had stepped out for a Holiday afternoon after all. I caught the billing clerk’s eye and she saw my moment of resignation and was there a smirk to her face? Or was she simply smiling at me? I wasn’t sure, and I wanted to be the mom-in-charge and the cool mom all at once to impress Lydia (I think that’s what her name tag said, but it could have been Lysha)

So, I tried again with the daughter, “This is nothing but sugar, do you want to try something a bit more healthy?”

The daughter looks at me and says, “Amma. You said to look for cal-oh-ries too right? See all the things with healthy stuff in them like this pumpkin slice or this apple slice all have more than 400 cal-oh-ries, but the cake pop is only 150 cal-oh-ries. So, it may be all sugar, but it is less sugar.”

There was no point: I gave in and slumped my shoulders a bit.

Then I remembered that I recently saw an article in which the speaker asks us to ooze confidence and fresh from the reading, I oozed. I acted like the totally-in-control-of-daughters-diet mom and said “Hi. I would like a cake pop please.”

“Good job Amma. Maybe you should get yourself something healthy too.” said the daughter smiling in that sly fashion.

So I bought two cake-pops.

“Is that all?” Lydia (or Lysha or Lyma) asks.

“Yes.” I said meekly and then ‘Yes!”, a little stronger.

We stepped out smartly before any more judgments could be passed by Ly-dash, and picked up the threads of the conversation where we’d left off.

Cake Pops Are Dynamite
Don’t Mess with Dynamite

“Like I was saying, it must be totally cool to boss your kids around and do whatever you like. Like you just walked into Starbucks now instead of that pastry shop.” said the daughter.

Having exhausted my conversational brilliance, I agreed and bit into my cake pop like an obedient mother.

Lord Love a Glove : CIM Relay 2013

The toasting weeks of the summer are just giving way to the crisp days of autumn, when we say, “Maybe we should sign up for the California International Marathon Relay. “ (Henceforth referred to as the CIM Relay folks)

There is little (if any) resistance to the suggestion: after all, what greater joy than going for a run in the cool morning air and getting to be part of the relay?

No points given to guessing who came up with our team name: Rainbow Dashers.

The misgivings start later, much later. It is when the trees are barren, having shivered all their leaves off in the cold, when the winds are vindictively fierce and the nose feels like it has just visited a dreary corner of the freezer in the refrigerator that one begins to doubt the wisdom of undertaking a run in these conditions. A run, not only threatened by abysmally low temperatures, but also requiring the exchange of a toddler between the runners.

When we headed out to Sacramento for the CIM Relay, I remember thinking that we must be nuts to do this. However, that feeling has never stopped us from doing things. Even so, the temperature forecast was showing a bleak 24 degree fahrenheit, and the winds whipping around us the previous evening were not friendly. The next morning, we headed out to start the car with a very sleepy toddler weighing thrice what he normally does because of the layers he was wearing and sat in the car for a good ten minutes before the defrost button could do its work and show us the path ahead.

By the time I started my run, the sun was out. I took the chip from the husband and handed the toddler over to run. (There was a deja vu moment here when we realized we had switched the daughter as a toddler at the same point before) The deceptively bright day meant there was ice on the road and that made running slippery. Hmm.

Then something amazing happened: There was little chance of my slowing down because if I slowed, I would freeze. So I ran, and then I felt a soaring happiness in my heart, a certain nimbleness to my being. My soul leaped and my mind took in the people, the signboards, the cop cars, the fruit trees, the beautiful houses along the way. I ran along listening to people chat to each other while running. Crowds energize me more than I realize and I increased my pace. I batted the cold away and in this elated state, senselessly took off my gloves. Within minutes, my fingers were numb and I could not use my hands to put them back on. What an idiot I must be? I worked up quite the sweat before I got feeling to creep back to my fingers, and then resolved to take in the beauty of the surroundings with the gloves on. Lord love a glove.

All too soon, I rounded a bend and saw that my turn was over and I had to hand the chip over to the last runner in the group. All I knew was that I could have just gone on. The Rainbow Dashers put up an impressive show both at the relay and the buffet afterward.

Go Rainbow Dashers! (Not doing this -> So doing this -> What was I thinking? -> Just do it! -> Gotta do this again: the CIM 2013 )

I am waiting to do it again. Thank you Rainbow Dashers Team (Viv, Sri, Sur & Self).

Rainbow Dash

I was waiting to break into my new running shoes. Like a child waiting to play in the rain, I cast loving looks at the shoes every now and then and vowed to get up early the next morning and go for a run. Maybe my excitement rubbed off on my toddler son, but he was up before the lark and waiting for me by the shoes before my run. “Amma. Thum Amma Thum. Thunning Amma Thunning. Shoos thunning.”

(Lexicon: Thum: Come, Thun: Run, Shoos: Shoes)

My shoulders sagged a bit, but he had an enthusiastic-puppy-look about him and so off we went. The pair of us running with a stroller in hand. It was my plan to bundle him into the stroller a little way in and then run. But the fellow had plans of his own. He ran with his little steps by my side. I could walk, but he insisted I thun with him. So, I than. For this pace of running I needed no running shoes, but it was wonderful. He kept running, then squealed and stopped to see a passing truck. We ran again. A few feet on, there was a pile of dry leaves. We both jumped in there, squashing the leaves and listening to the crackle under our feet. This run was not going to be measured in terms of distance, that much was certain. We crushed the leaves underfoot till a yeti couldn’t have gotten a crackle out of it anymore. We ran some more and spotted a children’s park nearby and made for it. We chased birds, played in the swing and walked back – the toddler a spent force, but still refusing to sit in his stroller.

As we walked back that beautiful day, the sun burst forth with a few well chosen sprinkles of rain and we walked home under a glorious rainbow that the child said was ‘Ennow Tash’ (‘Rainbow Dash’ is the name of a pony princess or some such thing that he is forced to watch with his older sister. This famous Rainbow Dash has a wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Dash#Rainbow_Dash) I am sure this will become a problem later, but for now he is proud he knows about Rainbow Dash, the pony princess.

When I read this article about an artist collaborating with her 4 year old son, the story warmed my heart. It reminded me of that run that became a rainbow dash and how what I planned turned into something far more meaningful just because I was willing to let go. Maybe, if we relinquish control more often, we will find joy in different ways.

http://busymockingbird.com/2013/08/27/collaborating-with-a-4-year-old/

The Story behind the Menu

I am going to go out on a limb and say that things could be better. On the other hand er.. leg, it could be a lot worse. So, on the whole, I have decided to not put my foot down and complain about the state of things.

I could not resist the above paragraph folks. So, thanks for letting me get away with that. The truth is that I have a hairline fracture on my ankle and am hoisted up on one foot for weeks. At first, the daughter remained in denial. She kept telling me that she can barely notice the limp in my stride, about how the foot would not pain if I don’t think about the pain etc. It was only later I found that her hidden agenda was making me believe I was perfectly fine. Fine enough to go to Disneyland for the Thanksgiving break. Well, we put a stopper to her Disneyland dreams when she saw me hobbling into the house on crutches. Even she knew that no amount of psychological counseling can get me to Disneyland at this point. So, she buckled down to a week-end at home and teamed up with the husband to "take care" of me.

The pair of them made a sufficient noise about getting me to rest over the week-end and said I was to remain upstairs while they cooked up a Thanksgiving lunch for me.
Very gallant of them of course, but I have to say, I have whipped up many a meal in my life, but rarely have I made such a noise about it. I mean neighbours heard pans clanging and music blaring. Not to mention questionable noises and smells. After about an hour of this cacophony, I asked them what the menu was, and I got the following:

Pan-seared vegetables:
What that means is that the duo had cut up vegetables in haphazard shapes and let them burn. My longish nose picked up a smell like burning rubber and I asked them in a slightly alarmed voice whether everything was under control.
"Oh no….!" moaned the chef
"APPA! You said not to cover it. If we had covered it, amma would not have smelled the vegetables burning!" the sous chef’s accusatory tone rang out. I must say I would have preferred it if she did not burn it at all in the first place.

Potatoes with a hint of Cumin:
I distinctly heard the husband say "OOOPS! The lid just fell inside and it plopped all over."
The daughter rang out, "What is that appa? You said chilli powder, but isn’t chilli powder red? This one is brown or is it green?" I decided I did not want to let my imagination explore what the powder might be, but a few seconds is all it took for me to realise that the "Oops" was the Cumin bottle.
I heard them splashing water on the pan. They must have washed the cumin off because by the time I ate it, they were boiled potatoes.

Lentils with the freshness of roma tomatoes:
The dal was fine – only in the last moment, the sous chef decided that she did not like tomatoes and the Roma t’s retained their freshness.

I groaned as I hopped into the kitchen. Every single spice bottle was on the counter and every inch of counter space was full. I must’ve looked a sight because the husband said he was going to clean up and that I had come too early. The daughter said that if they had aprons, things might have been better

And so it goes … never a dull moment in the nourishncherish world.

PS: My friends and neighbours have been wonderful they’ve sent food across, so the kitchen is holding up after the last bout of cleaning. Thanks all 🙂

The Bill of Health

Have I told you about the husband’s visit to the doctor a few years ago?

When asked to take up a physical exam, the husband will run a marathon or at least a half marathon. I think he just likes to tone his muscles and present himself as the ‘Man with the glowing physique’ to the physician. As soon as enters the Doctor’s office, he also makes it a point to bring the topics of conv. around to running and subtly inserts hints about his long distance running and running shoes. The psychological advantage being that the doctor with his glasses as he scans the lab reports cannot be too harsh on numbers that don’t look good. You can’t bombast a guy for his triglycerides and make him kneel down for seeing him at Saravana Bhavan with an oily dosa at hand and an oilier vada in his mouth if he has just run a marathon what?

Following his usual tactics, he ran a marathon, set up a physical exam and started bragging about his running minutes into entering the Doctor’s presence. But, he had recently changed doctors and this one was not to be fooled by marathoners. There is something about spectacle positioning that can make grown men feel like school children. It is neither too low down the nose, nor perched perfectly – the eye penetration factor to severe spectacle ratio is perfected by some causing folks so spill their guts with a mere ‘Hello’. This doctor held a doctorate on spectacle positioning and frowned upon learning that he was a runner.
“Hmm….Marathon running eh?”
“Yes..” *Gulp*
“I know you marathoners. You will run and then say,’I ran so much, so let me eat’ and you will eat.”
“No Sir…sorry, no Doctor.”
“Yes…Yes…I know you people. You will eat way more than necessary. Has your weight reduced because of the running?”
“Ehh..no, but that was not my goal.”
“Then muscle toning eh?”

There was a laugh in the muscle toning that told him that no matter what his answer, he was not going to be happy with the Doctor’s take on it, so he kept glum. (which is saying something)

Fast forward a few hours and imagine my shock when I saw a haggard looking husband droop into the house and recoil at the food I had put on the table? A little gentle probing revealed all. Apparently the doctor in his enthusiasm to drive a point told him that, “Last month….a young man – running, busy job etc came. This month dead.”
I mean…what the? What?

Obviously shaken to the core, he veered off food for a few days, and ran a half marathon after the check-up as well.

The same thing happened to me a few days ago. There I was, sitting and browsing about this and that when I read this article that said my job is killing me. A sedantary job does that apparently.

http://mashable.com/2012/03/02/work-death-infographic/

So, here is a call to all workers, please put in your quota of exercise and eat right. I myself sacrificed a bag of fries yesterday. Which reminds me – it has been a while since the husband ran a half marathon, I should ask the Doctor’s office to remind him about his annual physical exam.

Tea anyone?

Is there a TA group? Sometimes, I find myself in remission, and other times I have a furious re-lapse. For those of you who already know me, it is no surprise, but for others, it’s time for a confession.

I am a teaholic. Anytime, you put a cup in front of me, I can do justice to it. I can drink out of the cheap tea-glasses in tea-shops on the roadside with the same fervour and enthusiasm I accord to petite cups fit for Princesses. I can sound like a camel thirstily slopping water at an oasis or slide the life-saving noiselessly into the opening. Sometimes, I can drink tea soon after I’ve polished a cup of icecream, and still walk and talk normally.

I grew up amidst tea estates and had access to the finest teas! I am proud to admit that I took advantage of all these opportunities. I am not so proud to admit manipulating the brother when he was gullible enough to make tea for me endlessly for a little bit of praise.

“Wow – you know the best tea? It is what you make dear brother!”

The effect was phenomenal: he would swell with pride, and his eyes would pop. He would run and bustle about making a cup of tea for me. Sometimes, in my praise, if I went overboard, the brother would go overboard too, and bring in biscuits on a tray with the tea. Even when his tennis or football, or whatever bally game it was he was playing at the time beckoned him, the man would deliver. Of course those times, the tea did look too much like ditch water for comfort, but if you closed your eyes and drank it, it was fine. I am a trifle sad that he has since grown up, and my polished gestures of appreciation are not greeted with the same enthusiasm of his youth! Passage of time does that to one. Sigh.

While critics have criticised me for the obsession, I wish to throw this study out at them, and tell them that I have only been keeping diabetes at bay all this while.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/DiabetesNews/tea-coffee-protect-diabetes/story?id=9339312

This story has lightened my heart. Now, I am off for a hot cuppa in this cold and hostile weather. I am looking over my shoulder as I say this

“You know the best tea in the world ..?” (Well, it is the holiday season, I tried it to see if my little brother would come in with tea and biscuits! But sad luck, I’m on my own!)

On Healthcare

When it comes to Healthcare, I’ve a little experiment to suggest. You can take the combined brain mass of the intellectuals around the world, and defy them to come up with a mess. I’ll bet the feather on my hat that they could not come up with a solution that matches the large scale bungling that capitalism has produced.

There are certain things that Doctors have to do to survive, and there are certain things that Insurance companies have to do to survive. What’s the wrong with that? Nothing *shrugs shoulders* Everyone could sing and admire sunrises, but for the minor blemish on the horizon: The things that Insurance companies and Doctors have to do to be healthy financially don’t always intersect with the fact that the patient has to healthy.

Let’s consider a chest congestion. If the same ailment were to befall me in my hometown in India a few years ago, I would walk up to the clinic across the street. Not in the mood for a clinic? No problem, I’ll settle for the pharmacy and refer lovingly to the “brother” who runs the store as “Anna”, and say I have a cough. If I could cough for him grossly, with the ringing sound of phlegm, he would prescribe me an anti-biotic in a jiffy. Two days later, I can breeze along the streets of Broadway and perform as the lead singer at the Italian Opera without anybody being any the wiser.

Not so here – uh uh! Nope! I have to get a minimum for 3 appointments before the anti-biotic, charging my insurance company I know not how much, and charging me my “co-pay” each time. Let’s say, the co-pay is $20. $60 and 10 days later, I am still no closer to getting a cure than a baboon coughing up phelgm without any access to health care in the Congo basin.(I don’t know whether baboons cough, but let’s assume they do) Then, it is prudent to have a meltdown in the Doctor office, at which point a nurse would stir in your direction, and touch you with her sympathy. By the time, the anti-biotics come along, the lung that’s been wheezing along fine thus far looks pneumonic, and a chest x-ray is in order, the bronchial tract that was hitherto clear has constricted making you whistle everytime you breathe. In short, you can forget the opera, and the coughing baboon in Congo is better off, because it did not lose $60.

I am not saying that walking to a pharmacy and having an anti-biotic prescribed has merits. But you must accept, it has ease and works for 80% of the minor ailments that befall a middle aged person.

Now, we come to Pricing. You can get the medications from an approved pharmacy for $160, whereas the same thing in Walmart costs something the common man can afford(like $10). It has happened to me, I got something for $4 in Walmart, while the same medication cost $100 in Walgreens after the co-pay of $20!

What is frightening is, where does this rip off stop?

Does it make older people feign health as long as they can possibly help it rather than get entangled in the quagmire of health care?

As if, the medical healthcare industry has not caused enough heart-ache, they are now becoming creative. Case in point: this lady’s depression treatment was denied because she put up photographs of herself in a bar on her birthday on Facebook!

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20091123/ap_on_hi_te/cn_canada_facebook_insurance

(which incidentally lends credence to my previous post on Facebook)

Where does this long road lead?

The beauty of questioning

I spend a lot of time vacillating between an agnostic secular person and a religious person, who doesn’t believe 80% of what my religion has become over the ages. Suffice it to say that the days I spend in my former state far outnumber the days I spend in the latter.

Here is my problem: I like to believe in the power of hope and if belief is what brings hope, I am all for it. On the other hand, over the ages, I can categorically state that religion has done more damage to mankind than good. The moment religion ceases to be a personal experience, I can see it wreaking havoc.

I quite like the idea of finding yourself. Easily, that is the path taken by all the “founders” of religion – be it Buddha or the Sufi saints of Islam or the Bhagavad Gita. But how does one explain “finding oneself” to the masses? That is where the problem begins. So, the explanation became finding one’s moral conscience – still good. But a few centuries later, moral conscience evolves into a set of rules written by the elitist community of the religion. Slowly, the congregation becomes more of a unifying force, one to forge your identity with, than to use as a tool to better yourself.

At my wedding, the priest was a person who was my grandfather’s friend. My grandfather was a kind-hearted, generous, loving, able teacher, caring husband/father and he was a pious man. But somehow, whenever people described him, they put his piety ahead of his other virtues. This priest came to my wedding and said he would do all it takes in his power to make sure that great man’s grand-daughter lived a fantastic life, and put us through the most grueling wedding ceremony in recent times. I didn’t understand more than a few words of what was said – there was no need for me to elongate the proceedings by asking for clarifications in between on a hot day in front of the fire, with no food in my stomach. The ceremony lasted a good 9 hours of listening to things I didn’t understand. Everyone who came to congratulate me, said the priest was excellent, he hadn’t missed a single thing – who would understand how my intestines were reacting at the time? Which religion?

What I am trying to say is, some people are ritualistic by nature – to them, rituals become religion – this isn’t orthodoxy, this is just an interpretation of their own religion. It is also show-case worthy.

I have spent my growing years chanting some prayers that my mother taught me on the way to the school in the morning, as we ran for the train. That is all I know today, and probably that is all I will ever know – who knows? Every now and then, I think that just because I am part-agnostic, I should not deny the experience of a religion to my daughter. So, I take her to the local temple. She asks a million questions along the way as usual. We are in the temple, and she looks at the statues and asks – “If Ummachi (God) made everything and gave us everything, how come he isn’t even moving?”

I savoured the question – the beauty of questioning always delights me. I am sorry that when it comes to religion so few people still have the power of questioning left in them.

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