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March 28, 2009
The Failing Body Waits for No One
Last Tuesday, this paper's lead by Vikas Hotwani was about a banker who developed tinnitus (ringing in the ears) after going to a disco/pub. Actually, the only unusual thing I found about the episode was the banker's relatively young age.
A couple of years ago, my niece and her husband, who are in their late 20s and live in London, were visiting Mumbai. They wanted to experience our city's nightlife, so we first had dinner at Seijo and then went down to Poison, a discotheque in the same premises.
The music was essentially some kind of trance music, which went "dhad dhad dhad" for the entire time that we were there. I found it quite boring after the first half hour, but since my cousins were having a great time, we stuck on. When we left, two hours later, I had a ringing in my ears, which I often used to get in my younger days after rock concerts or disco visits but would usually disappear in a few minutes. This time, the ringing didn't go away and persisted till noon the next day. When I checked with the ENT, she said that this was because the loud music had killed a few of my inner ear cells and she warned me that this would only get worse with each exposure to loud music. I haven't been to a disco since then.
When I was younger, there were only three ways to listen to Zep, Sabbath and Purple. Loud. Louder. Loudest. I was obviously damaging the inner ear cells even then (my wife insists I am deaf since I need the volume to be really loud when I am watching television), but it didn't matter then. Now, in my mid-40s, it makes a big difference. I'm not getting any younger and those dead cells won't regenerate and I want to be able to preserve my hearing as much as possible.
Heart attacks, stroke and cancer are the big life-changing experiences, which usually bring us face-to-face with our mortality. But in our 40s, these still happen to a small minority. What becomes evident gradually though, is the slow but definite and inevitable deterioration of various parts of our bodies. We can't pull in all-nighters the way we could when we were in our 20s; we need to sleep more than before; we can't run as fast as we could earlier; we can't hold down our alcohol as well; our joints start creaking; vague aches and pains start troubling us without notice...I'm sure you can add to this list.
Most of us live in some form of denial, until some incident occurs that makes us face the truth of our failing bodies. For me, this was brought home when I found one fine day that to read the newspaper, I had to place it farther away than usual or I had to remove my myopia-correcting spectacles. There is even a saying in Gujarati for this, "chaalis pachi betaara" (after forty, you see double). Hypermetropia, the medical term for this condition, invariably affects most people once they enter their 40s, leading to the need for reading glasses or bifocals or progressive lenses.
A few days ago, one of our dailies had a front-page feature on how our mental capabilities start going down after the age of 27. I presume that this applies even to our physical capabilities. So, if you're older than 27...welcome to our "over-the-hill" world. And morbid as this sounds, remember that it will only get worse.
Posted by bhavinj at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2009
The 'Foot-in-Mouth' Syndrome
In medical terminology, this is a syndrome that describes the art of saying the inappropriate thing at the inappropriate time.
I was struck by this disease earlier this week, during my cousin sister’s pre-wedding “sangeet”, when I was introduced to one of the groom’s relatives. I suddenly remembered being told a couple of weeks ago that this person was soon going to get married. I immediately congratulated him, only to see the “congrats” being accepted quite grudgingly. My cousin quietly took me to one side and told me that this person’s marriage had been called off just a few days ago. I discovered later that everyone in the family had known about this, but somehow this fact had fallen through the cracks where I was concerned. The embarrassment was considerable, and I landed up being both, a foot-in-mouth victim and a foot-in-mouth perpetrator.
Weddings and parties are common breeding grounds. A few years ago, I was at the wedding reception of one of the people who work in my office. We had just finished dinner and were going towards the exit when we ran into the groom’s father. There had been no dessert in the dining room and thinking that perhaps there was a separate room for the sweet-dishes, without thinking, I immediately asked him where the ice-cream was. Apparently they had decided not to keep any ice-cream during the reception and everyone was suitably red-faced. My wife actually kicked me from behind in an attempt to make me stop from making a further ass of myself.
One of my favorite foot-in-mouth quotes is this statement that earned Naomi Campbell, the British supermodel, a “Foot-in-Mouth” Annual Award. “I love England, especially the food. There's nothing I like more than a lovely bowl of pasta.”
But my mother of feet-in-mouths happened a couple of years ago in Berlin. I have a German friend called Claus von…... Though he lives elsewhere, he knows Berlin quite well and he offered to drive me around the city to show me some of the interesting sites. We then settled down for a white asparagus dinner watered down initially by beer and then by some lovely white wine. As we got more spirited, he started talking about the life that his grand and great-grandparents used to lead, as aristocrats in Germany in the early 1900s. The conversation then continued onto World War II. Suitably emboldened by the beer and wine, I finally asked him "Why is it that none of you aristocrats ever stood up to Hitler?"
Of all the millions of people in Germany, he was the last person I should have ever asked this question to. He laughed…and he laughed…and he laughed. Finally, he asked me to tell him again what his last name was. I said “von Stauffenberg, why?” I consider myself quite smart, but this must have been one of my densest moments in living memory. As depicted by Tom Cruise, von Stauffenberg was the key driver in Operation Valkyrie, which was the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. This “von Stauffenberg” was Claus’ grand-father. Anyway, when finally my tubelight flickered on, I just gaped, trying to suck in some air to prevent drowning in the glass of water in front of me. As we say in Hindi, “mujhe chulloo bhar pani mein doob jana chahiye tha.”
Posted by bhavinj at 07:41 AM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2009
Even Our Airlines Can Surprise You...Pleasantly At Times
Last week, in a brand development meeting, the executives pitching to us used one of the popular airlines in India as an example of great customer service. I differed in my opinion and thought that the competitive airline was much better. We all came up with our favorite examples. Mine are listed below; let’s see if you can find the clues that identify this airline.
About 2 years ago, I had to go to Nagpur on a Sunday morning to lecture to a crowd of 300 people. I went to sleep only at 2.00AM, after a late-night show of Parineeta (Ms. Vidya Balan’s to blame for this). The alarm went off at 4.30AM, but I put it off, thinking I would wake up in another 10 minutes. The next thing I knew, it was 6.30AM and the flight was at 7.00AM. I threw some clothes into my laptop bag, put on my previous night's clothes, got my wife into the car, and then drove like a mad man to the airport. My wife managed to get through to a supervisor at 6.37AM and explained the whole predicament. At 6.45AM I was at the airport and was pleasantly surprised to find a supervisor waiting at the counter with my boarding pass. He then also took the trouble to accompany me right through security and though disheveled and unshaven, I made it to Nagpur.
A few months ago, at around 2.00PM, on my way from Mysore to the new Bangalore airport, my SUV taxi hit a woman and fractured her ankle. When I got off to see what was happening, the driver gave me my precious blue and yellow laptop bag and ran away. It took another hour for a new taxi to come from Mysore. I was in touch with the airline supervisor all the way; she rescheduled the 5.30PM to 6.30PM and then to the 8.30PM flight. At 8.00PM, we were still half an hour away, but the taxi driver put everything he had into the car and got me there at 8.25PM. Like Aamir from Dil, I vaulted over the fence, cut through the line at the entrance and reached the counters to find the supervisor waiting with the boarding pass; she accompanied me right upto the boarding gates and I went through just in time. I made it, and I didn’t have to go red in the face to do so.
Last week, I had to go to Trivandrum for a lecture. Another airline’s flight that took off in the pre-sunrise, orange-tinged sky at 5.30AM landed only at 11.45AM, delayed by 2 ˝ hours. My return was by the 1.30PM flight of my regular airline. I had to go to the venue, which was a good 20 minutes away, deliver a 45 minutes lecture and then get back in time. Before I got out of the airport, I contacted the supervisor, who assured me that if I got back till 1.25PM, she would make sure that I would get on. I was in constant touch with her and luckily made it back by 1.15PM. I made it back to Mumbai.
I believe that there is only one airline in India today that can make this possible and supervisors and managers like Aakruti in Mumbai and Vrinda in Trivandrum make all the difference. Of course, the brand executives did not agree, but then that was a meeting where we had all agreed to disagree anyway.
Posted by bhavinj at 06:59 PM | Comments (0)
