Inspired by Art

Went to the Melbourne Art festival yesterday. Saw some amazing paintings in oil + acrylic, and also  interesting mixed media creations. Some interesting artwork were car paint on aluminium, traditional paintings on rice paper - the japanese style uses a lot of warm colours and golden colours. Other artforms like glass menagerie, which we liked a lot because the glass fish had coloured patterns inside it! There were several arty jewellery tents too - one had glass jewellery backed with silver which reflected light and made the jewellery real shiny. Another had jewellery made from small hand painted silk screens

One guy used things like strings, pulleys in a stacked art form. For instance, one that I liked a lot was a stack of 4 canvasses. The top canvas placed horizontally was the hands of an artist holding puppet strings. Just beneath that, on  a vertical canvas was a smoky image of a human - as if it is a spirit, the adjoining vertical canvases had pieces of real string coming out from the top canvas placed artistically. The other one I liked was the Nokia-type image, the human hand touching divine hand image.. the divine hand was backlit through vibrant colours - and guess what! a piece of electric wires :)

But what inspired me the most was the photography section. I take a lot of photographs myself, and I could take it up. As my mom says: स्वान्त सुखाय । 

Peter Pan and Wendy the mom

I am a great fan of Enid Blyton, but that doesnt mean that I loved all her characters. Inspite of being a woman author, she stuck to the gender roles. There was atleast one character in all her series which was a typical girly girl, and she would play mom to the other kids. But Wendy in Peter Pan takes this mothering role to an entirely new level.

Peter Pan is seeking a girl so that she can be  a mother to the Lost Boys. In other words, someone who will tell them not to fall for poisoned cakes, someone who will tuck them to bed, tell them bedtime stories- if Grimm bros could compile a fairy tale collection, i am sure boys can tell stories too, and, wait for it, someone who will darn their stockings. Eww! I agree that the character is created in 1912, when lets face it, most women were housewives. But wasnt 1912 also the year of Amelia Earhart?

Recently, my colleague and his wife have a baby. He was telling us how it needs to be fed every 3 hours. And each feeding session is around an hour long. So he was stressing how motherhood is a triple duty full-time job. But at what point in the evolution chain did women become solely child-bearers and child/home-rearers and just gave up doing anything else?

Funnily enough, Peter Pan's author portrays boys as completely devoid of any common sense too. For instance, when Peter Pan wants his shadow back, he doesnt look around for a gluestick, but tries to stick it with a SOAP for god's sake. This otherwise lame Wendy stands up to Peter Pan in their first meeting saying he is not the captain in her house, and so he should behave himself.

What strikes me odd is that the Darling kids forget all about their parents. Only Wendy has a hope in her heart that her mom will never forget them and will always have a window open for them to fly back in. Personally, that scene was the cutest in the book, the real "awwww" scene Vs all of Wendy's irritating motherliness.

In one of the scenes Wendy points out that she thinks Peter is the "father" of the Lost Boys and she the mom, and a hint of romantic feelings towards Peter. How Peter returns it is immaterial, when Peter asks that Wendy should visit him once in a while, its Wendy's mom who says that Wendy will come and do Spring Cleaning for Peter. And not just Wendy, Peter ends up taking all of Wendy's female descendents to do spring cleaning for him. Gulliver's travels made me realize that what we read as children's stories could actually be allegory/ political satire. If this is not some sort of a bonded slavery then please explain what it is!

Dear children's authors, it is bad enough that girl kids are given dolls and boys Lego kits, but please dont reinforce the notions through stories too. I am no "feminist" in the political sense of the word, but I know girls can make excellent engineers too. Dear adolescent book authors, you dont have to tone down Nancy Drew's sarcasm to make her "acceptable" to readers, if we can love Chandler Bing surely we can learn to appreciate Nancy Drew?   And dear Adult book authors, there is so much more to a woman's life than being a beautiful blonde and attracting the man of her dreams. 

Dentist - 2

Tuesday 23rd April: A month after I knocked out my fillings, it is hurting just a bit.
Trip to Christie Dental for a 2nd opinion. 39$ new patient exam, sans x-ray because I have quite a recent one. What I liked about Christie is that they gave me a sheet detailing what is wrong with each tooth + their estimate for it. Now stupid me mixed up rights and lefts.. hell i am an engineer and was exposed to this numbering few days ago. Now the thing is I have lost fillings in the 6th tooth on L + R from centre in the lower jaw (numbered 19 and 30, and 30 is the one which is aching + the one Aspen lady said could grow to a root canal + the filling is from back surface and so I cannot see how bad it is = paranoia).  Thanks to the mixup, i got appointment to fix 19, which means I am spending 300$ more to cover something which isnt so serious.

Friday 26th April:
Step 1: Dentist's assistant dabs a pre-number on a big earbud-like thing and i am to hold it for 5 mins. I gag on it in the first minute. The lady replaces it with a smaller earbud. Few mins later, doc walks in with a machine that will give me the "shot" of the "real" anaesthetic. Wait for a long time for numbing to kick in.

Step 2: drilling ..the scariest thing for me
Step 3: Doc cleans the cavity with "hypochloride". I see the instrument which he uses. This is my 1st indication that the cavity is not a teeny weeny cavity that it originally was but a gaping hole by now.
Step 4: Filling in , light cure, test bite and I am out.

Step 5: I ask to see a mirror. Shock Shock Shock, for a little cavity, I have lost a large part of my tooth. The filling now covers not only a teeny weeny 2 mm max hole but covers half my tooth. No wonder the bite feels off.
The bite is meant to interlock the triangular serration of tooth with ridges in the opposite tooth. The filling is not a ridgy topography but a flat/ straight one. That's how my bite is off. Like my upper jaw is hanging on a single tooth instead of the 16 teeth that usually support it.

Step 6: I go back in and ask to be fixed. It still doesnt feel perfect, but I am too numb.
Takes about 4-5 hours for the numbness to wear off. I eat a burger for lunch. Bite is definitely off. Thanks to the elevated filling thing, my biting surface is reduced to only 2 teeth instead of the 6 sets of molars. Call the office for another appointment to refix my teeth.

Conclusions:
1. Indian dentist can accurately fill a 2mm cavity with 2 mm filling.
2. I now realize what that "crown" was all about. The US crown is not what an Indian dentist will put after a root canal, a US crown is a filling that covers your teeth and basically renders it useless unless it is going to be fixed in the next appointment.

Invisible scars of bullying

The hurt from some comments stayed with me for years. Hey, I am not someone who holds grudges or anything. Then why! Because it was not a healthy criticism, though I did not realize it at that time, it was blatant bullying.

Your desk was behind mine in 6th. Once I felt a weird touch. Hey it is disgusting enough to be touched by a guy here and there in your adolescence, but having the size of my waist being measured is a bit too much dont you think? And then to have my "measurements" broadcasted to your sneering gang of super-rich snobs is even worse. It had taken our class teacher to quell my discomfort, of course you wont remember her words. You were the so-called handsomest dude in the class, you didnt care whom you hurt and whom you didnt.

You are my best friend, surely you knew me enough to know what would hurt me and what wouldnt? Hey you dont look too perfect either, so no one gave you a right to comment on whether my vital assets are like "godrej chi safe".
And back to you, my super-rich snobby classmates, how does it matter to you whether or not my neck is longer than yours?

I know it will give you immense pleasure to know how low esteem I had about my body for most of my growing up years. And thank God I stumbled across an article on Giselle Bundchen - how swanlike her graceful neck is. It took even longer to realize that my cheeks that look so hollow and emaciated to you, are actually called having high cheek bones, and is one of the most sought after beauty features.

You are family. You criticized my "bhurkul kes" simply because they dont fit your era's standard of black-as-raven = beautiful hair.

One of the guys in your super-rich gang is an amazing artist, can play n number of musical instruments with ease, and is now a renowned music director. But just because he was so good, that didnt make my harmonium playing any bad. But that didnt stop you from taunting me in front of the entire music group did it? 

And you Miss. I think you knew more Medicine than my doctor parents when you told them that I should get my thyroid checked because I didnt start my girl stuff as early as you? Guess you dont know that doctors are more concerned about the trend of things starting early, but of course you had to tell tales.

You were my teacher. Whether or not I while away my time outside of school hours, how is it justified that you give me your B.Ed notes to copy them down for you, plus give me a deadline of how soon the task should be done? Sure, I did homework of my friend in school, but I did that because I wanted to, not because she forced me to, plus gave me a deadline.

I thought all this shit was a thing of past, but you guys never grew up did you? You had to pursue me till US and spread tales about me back home. Just because I grew up with my granny didnt mean my parents didnt care for me. Hey when someone comes for the 1st time to the US, very few have a laptop. Just because I used yours to let my parents know that I have reached safely, you thought I was clinging to your resources? What's worse you relayed that info. to your parents back home? And when my parents called you to ask a simple thing like through which courier your sister sent you rakhi, your parents and grandparents refused to even speak to my parents because you told them to stay away from my parents who have left me on streets uncared for? By the way..me and my parents had a good laugh over it. Know what, it reflects not only how immature you are, but it reflects a great deal about your parents too.

Whatever shit you threw at me, over time I learnt to ignore it. Sure the old scars still are there, but once I recognized that the problem was YOU, the scars dont bother me any more. You failed bullies.. you massively failed.

Extempore स्वप्नी

I had a dream yesterday - Since I cant see myself in the dream, I don't know how old I was in the dream. But the premise of the dream was that I participated in an extempore about "which virtues do I think are most important in contemporary life" or something of that sort.

नेतृत्त्व आणि नेतृत्त्वासोबतच दुसऱ्याचे सुयोग्य नेत्तृत्व खुल्या दिलाने स्वीकारायचं मोठेपण - आत्ता माझ्या डोक्यात सरदार पटेल आणि नेहरू यांचं उदाहरण आहे, पण भर सभेत असं उदाहरण देणं "politically incorrect" आहे, त्याहीपेक्षा असं उदाहरण द्यायची मला भीती वाटते.

म्हणूनच जीवनातला दुसरा अतिशय महत्त्वाचा गुण म्हणजे निर्भयता. ब्रिटीशांच्या अन्यायाविरुद्ध आवाज उठवायची निडरता आपल्यात नसती तर कदाचित आपण अजूनही पारतंत्र्यात खितपत पडलो असतो. आज आपल्यावर स्वराज्यातसुद्धा  पाउलोपावली अन्याय होतो, आपल्याला वाचवायला कोणीही मसीहा येणार नाहीये आणि म्हणूनच आपल्यात  निर्भयता हवी.

पण नुसतं एक माणूस निर्भय असून जगात काहीच घडणार नहिये. 1857 च्या संग्रामात लोक शूर नव्हते किंवा नेतृत्त्व कुठे कमी पडलं असं नव्हतं, पण "short term gains" साठी आपल्याच लोकांनी आपल्या विरुद्ध फितुरी केली. आजही असे पाठीत खंजीर खुपसणारे महाभाग कमी नाहीत. "एकमेकांचे पाय खेचू" मनोवृत्ति टाळण्यासाठी आणि एकमेका सहाय्य करू अवघे धरू सुपंथ घडण्यासाठी "team spirit" महत्त्वाची अहे.

Now as everyone knows, as soon as you wake up one snaps out of the dream. So this is all that I remember from the dream.

The internet handyman

Washer stopped working in spin cycle. Had to draw out water using a foam cup, and then mop dry the rest. Called the company's customer service. She asked to unplug cord, switch off circuit breaker for a minute and then try again. Did not work. This month has been so full of stupid expenses that I nearly broke down. After I was done wringing all clothes, mopping the last drops of water from the washer, asked good old google for help. Yahoo answers rock!! Someone 6 years ago had replied that there is a lid switch. Bend down and see if its working. Haha.. problem source identified. Thank you Yahoo answers :)


Remember one of my 1st electronics practicals 7 years ago.. we used a and gate chip etc etc to create a compound gate. The question was what do you think is more reliable..the breadboard circuit or an integrated circuit. The irreverent answer not to be answered in the lab report was : discrete circuit because if any wire fails at least I can replace the wire myself :P

Ooh 7 years ago! I already feel old!!!! :( :(