Ramesh’s blog This is Me!!

Uropoty

A recent visit to the in laws after almost a year was different in that between father in law and I, we found ourselves talking about illnesses. It started off with my enquiring after one of his colleagues who had recently undergone a Kidney transplant and was recovering. He mentioned that doctors had advised extreme care to ensure no infection was contracted in these early stages with an alien kidney. "There was a wound on his toe that has still not healed" said my father in law owing to his diabetic condition. I immediately told him that could be dangerous recounting how a distant cousin of mine ,who was well into the third month of recovery after a kidney transplant, suddenly contracted some infection and died at 43 years of age.

As I discussed further, my mind drifted back to an incident during my training days when an operation due to be performed on my batch mate kept getting delayed because a wound on his toe took a long time to heal. Finally he met someone who suggested urinating on it and sure enough he tried it and it healed in no time. Remembering that incident I wondered if this man in hospital had tried any of that. More recently in 2004 when I had been to Indonesia, I visited an old Chinese family friend of our (from the time we spent there in the early 80s). She looked much older and frail. If my mother were alive she would be her age ' touching late 60s. Whilst I sat there waiting for her to serve me some lung fung soup and Ayam Goren and other exotic dishes we caught up on news from the years gone by. It was then she hesitatingly let me in on a recent development ' She had taken to urine therapy. She said in the two years she had been practicing it, she seemed to have rid herself of her frequent colds, flu and even asthmatic conditions. I was really interested in finding out more.

Some more research online and I found that Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.) supposedly was the first in the Western world to record and teach the practice of uropoty (the drinking of urine). The theory of urine therapy states: In the excreted urine all the body’s experiences — physical and psychological — are collected. Reintroducing the urine to the body forces the body’s immune system to confront the same experiences a second time, which gives it a second incentive to deal with the problem.

Reading up a little more, I realised there was sense in the argument that urine worked in the same way on our immune system as a vaccination did helping to strengthen its functioning. While one will have to make an effort to get over the natural mental blocks one has regarding its odour, about it being a waste product, about it containing germs and virus etc.

Having a discussion with my well read father in law, he was quick to recite four lines in Sanskrit on the subject. That's when I decided to ask him to slow down a bit to let me take it down. I have reproduced what he told me (supposedly from writings about the Gandamarda Yogis) with a translation that follows.

Pitolbanatwad Vihitadhya Dharaam

Nisarya Varjida Madhya Dharaam

Nishevide Sheetala Madhya Dharaam

Kabaligo Gandamado Amaroli

As the first portion contains excess Bile discard it

The last portion has no vital ingredients therefore discard it too

The middle portion is the useful portion and can be consumed

This the Gandamarda Yogis used to call "Amaroli"

Well scientific proof suggests that the method works, my elderly Chineese lady family friend vouches by it and I am tempted to try it. However between temptations to tasting surely there may be many a slip twixt the cup and the lip I am sure.

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Medi Life Crisis

"Its called Mid Life Crisis" I remember my lanky 6'2" cousin telling me some years ago - when I was much younger - when I asked him why he did not drive around the country side sightseeing and going places in his new car. I used to think I would have driven around a lot more and done things differently. Those were the days when I had barely touched the 30s and in my opinion I was a bundle of abundant energy and a real tough task master at work.

Nearly ten years have rolled by and although I hate to think I am old ' more so since my 81 year old father is still busy in the forests of Indonesia clearing the dense vegetation to set up a coal mine- I can no longer deny the sense of lethargy that has crept into me or for that matter the inch of fat that has accumulated over what once used to be my rock hard abs. (Yeh Shah Rukh you had to see it to believe it). My dad on the other hand has harder abs even at this stage and manages a head-stand regularly each morning. Though I still frequent the gym and take my sons swimming, the biological slowing down, I know, has started.

I tend to sleep longer into Sunday mornings and I am not so particular about all those things as I once used to be. In fact, my wife mocks me often repeating the words I used to say years ago "24 hours in a day is not enough ..there is so much to do in a life time and so little time blah blah blah ". And if that is not bad enough, compared to the distance I clocked in the first three months with my new Santro 8 years ago, I have not managed to clock a third of it now despite having bought a new car recently. "Is it Mid Life Crisis?" I ask my self as those words echo so loudly in my head.

If there is more of one thing that I have been more tuned to in these last ten years than in the ten years preceding them, it is to news of deaths and sicknesses because I have seen a number of  deaths in the family due to old age. I guess the news of a 43 year old relative who died after prolonged dialysis and the story of a friend's 14 year old son having been diagnosed with bone cancer have had an effect on my mind. Suddenly so unlike me I have found myself looking up the Internet to do a detailed comparative study on Medical Insurance Policies. Unfortunately there are not many web sites that give you enough reviews on the available Insurance Policies in India.

Mouthshut.com was one site that provided me with some info on Mediclaim and ICICI's own health insurance. But there is not a great deal of information on there. Any more inputs made available at this stage, I think, will be well worth it not just only for me but also for other bloggers who may be entering a similar phase in their lives as well.

Eagerly waiting for the comments / inputs on this blog J Meanwhile my wife has that smirk and I can hear her say "The hare just turned into a tortoise". Well all I can say to that is I will eventually win the race (I hope).

"Now the years are rolling by me .they are rocking evenly

I am older than I once was and younger than I will be ..thats not unusual."

                                                                     From a Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel  Album

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No Waste Disposal for us We are Indians

I am not aware how effective the waste management system is in the nations abroad but I know for a fact that as far as one can see most advanced nations have a system in place. In most parts of India on the other hand, I am certain it could be more effective. I stay in a high rise building here in Kochi ' the queen of the Arabian Sea ' and sadly I find waste management practices followed here is abysmal to say the least. Even in the apartment where I live, most of the residents are well to do businessmen and educated office going people. But when it comes to civic awareness some are all indifferent and perhaps even  ignorant.

My building's association is quite pro active and vibrant. Despite having a garbage disposal chute to clear wastes, our association  banned that practice and introduced the concept of segregating wastes into GREEN and YELLOW Buckets ' Green for the Bio degradable and Yellow for the not so environmentally friendly stuff. It was with great enthusiasm that the association got the Kerala Builders Forum to invite speakers to educate us on this new practice we were to put into place. Something went wrong somewhere or people never got the message clearly for a few days after the FREE buckets were distributed, some were found storing cereals in it while others were using it to wash their cars.

Sadly five months down the line we are thinking of scrapping the whole project and going back to the same old practice of letting Veluswamy ' a retired corporation worker - come and take it away only to dump it somewhere out of sight when night falls. If any this old practice surely a case of Robbing Peter to pay Paul or is it Cleaning Peter's backyard to dirty Paul's? In fact some months ago there was a crisis in Kochi when the corporation didn't know what to do with the waste that was piling up daily. The problem was compounded when some trucks that were smuggling loads of waste into a neighbouring state (to dump it there) were caught at the state border and confiscated.

Now this is the case of just one building being discussed. Imagine the case of a million people living in a city practicing the exact same things. What a mess it would be and more than anything else we are sitting on a TIME BOMB waiting to go. Sixty years after our independence, if there is anything our country so badly lacks ' its basic infrastructure. We don't have adequate roads, power supply, water supply or even the most basic requirement ' waste disposal. It difficult to lay the blame on any one person or organisation and frankly it has gotten to a stage where only the combined efforts of us one and all will help solve the situation.

Any one who has travelled abroad would have noticed the Do Not Litter Signs displayed prominently at various places and trash cans would also have been provided at regular intervals along the roads.  I once came across a black T shirt which had the words SINGAPORE IS A FINE CITY on it. Need I say more on what might happen if you littered there? Is there any penalty that we can impose on someone littering on the roads? No way . not in India. Here in Kochi on the other hand the roads are perpetually filthy and dusty and vehicle pollution is the smaller of the problems. Kochi ,incidentally, is one of the cleaner places in India  by the way.

In India there are very few places where I have seen trash cans along the road. Not even in tourist spots do we find sufficient number of trash cans. The little things we do every day make a difference in building our civic awareness. Had it been for this higher level of awareness and civic discipline, we probably wouldn't find people stuffing sanitary napkins and diapers or used condoms into the toilet bowls hoping it will get flushed out. "Hoping" because it does not and it causes greater problems for the apartment at large.

So what alternative solutions where do we look for while we revert to the time tested and irresponsible practice of letting Veluswamy dump our filthy waste in someone else's backyard? Land Fills, Incinerators or the Plasma Gun? Each of these have their pros and cons and severe cost implications as well. Are we ready for it?

While Landfills can begin to affect (pollute) the ground water table and cause long term problems if not done properly, Incinerators have problems associated with exhaust fume delivery and pollution issues. The Plasma Gun does not differentiate between YELLOW or GREEN bucket stuff it just vapourises them all '  making it look like its straight out of Sci Fi movie. This by far is the best method of getting rid of our wastes albeit expensive BUT  we can derive energy  and building materials out of it.

I feel its time the state and central governments and we as citizens use some of that money we are making out of our BOOMING economy and did something right and get used to making ourselves believe that this CHALTHAI ATTITUDE of ours NAHI CHALTHA.

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Time Travel

Often I have wondered what it would be like to be able to travel BACKWARDS in time say even by 50 years. I have wondered, imagined and dreamed of how I would probably show off with all those Gizmos of today ' the calculators, the IPods, the Discmans and what have you ' in a time and age when none of these were invented. Its an interesting thought no doubt so much so I have found myself revisiting this fantasy one time too many.

What would be the kind of treatment I would receive I am not sure? Will they take me for some guy from another time zone or will I be isolated? Will I find it easy to get along with their ways and life style and will they believe me when I paint a picture of the future? 50 years ago if someone told my parents that we would one day have cell phones would they have believed it? Considering those were the days when in India ordinary landlines were far and few and one had to wait to get a trunk call through .I doubt it.

Similarly would they have bought it someone told them that Colour television would be a reality? In times when televisions were not around and the most sophisticated piece of equipment that any household had was probably a valve radio they would probably turn to you and ask you WHAT IS A TELEVISION? Yeah a bit like from the movie Back to the Future right? RIGHT!!

Zoom back to the present. Now imagine a man from 2057 coming to us and saying that in his time and age there are flying cars that are powered on solar cells. What if he said that the entire eastern coast of the erstwhile USA and Shanghai and India all got submerged in 2022? What if he said Arnold Schwarzenegger's son Patrick Schwarzenegger is the president of the American Federation? What if he said that China and India are the super powers and most of the Northern Hemispheres have become unbearably hot? Would we buy it? I don't know. But considering the human psyche which insists on seeing to believe we may not.

Unfortunately we have no time machines yet except in movies and the famous novel by HG Wells and we are not likely to see anyone from fifty years from now come to us and appraise us of what the future looks like. However, we have others the likes of Al Gore and several other teams who have through scientific study and evidence tried to spread a message to the whole world to do things right now to save our Earth. There is much reluctance and politicians couldn't care less as many of them selfishly know that it's unlikely to affect their lifetime. There are a whole lot of younger OTHERS who simply don't believe either because the message is not loud enough or are simply ignorant. It is in times like these I would like to turn to religion and remind you of what Jesus is believed to have said

"Blessed are those who see and believe but blessed more are those who don't see and yet believe." So lets act now lest it gets too late for our kids to enjoy even a fraction of what we have.

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What is all the fuss about Global Warming?

Global Warming…..yeah that seems to be the In Subject these days. More newspapers are carrying articles on this subject than ever before. I have written an article or two on my blog as well and I have watched the “Inconvenient Truth” - the movie that has now become the yard stick to measure any other movie on the same subject by. But in another way when I let my mind roam and stretch things a bit to the limits and I begin to wonder about this whole Global Warming thing….I often end up asking myself “After all what's the worst that can happen?“

Scientifically we know it's the green house gases that are causing all this warming. Some of it like a family owning two or three cars can probably be sized down and significantly reduce some of these emissions. But what happens to stuff that you cannot or have not any control over. Say for instance the need to keep yourselves warm in winter. Is anyone going to turn down their fossil fuelled burner - that keeps him cosy at minus 20 degrees - a few notches down because his act is going to affect the state of global affairs tomorrow? Honestly, I would not.

You will still need to run as many water heaters and geysers and air coolers and air conditioners in various parts of the world to make our immediate present as comfortable as possible. Yes I know I sound selfish but I also am sounding realistic. So how are we going to convince the whole of China to stop emitting so much of CO2 or how are we going to ensure each Indian busses and trucks on the roads don't spew out so much thick sulphur laden CO2 and CO?? Would you spend 20000 rupees converting your vehicle to LPG or CNG when there are no time bound instructions to that effect? Would you sell your old car and buy a less polluting Reva (Electric Car) paying close to 3.5 lakhs to do your bit to slow Global Warming? I doubt it. Any timely solutions? I think not - not unless we give up our democratic way of life and accept a Dictator ' and a sensible one at that!

So what happens if things continue the way they do? At worst the entire polar ice caps will be history. But, what then? Temperatures around these areas will continue to rise - Quite predictably too. Hopefully it will get to a stage when the Siberian or the Canadian winters are not so harsh any more. A rise in temperature by 10 to 12 degrees is what is predicted in these latitudes. Is that so bad? It will be a bit like the tropics of today.

I can't see that far into the future and I am no Nostradamus. But I am certain we are in a mess and we have to all be ready to enjoy today and pay later. If not us our future generations certainly will. More forest fires, flash floods and storms and more deaths are surely going to be the order of the future. We will kill so many species of animals by our own doings. Newer vector borne diseases and epidemics will surface. There is going to be a shortage for drinking water. Perhaps all of this is known to anyone who has been following the developments in the recent past.

This is the Kali Yuga after all (going by Hindu Mythology). In all of Vishnu's incarnations - all ten of them - each time there was chaos and mayhem, Lord Vishnu supposedly took some form and came to earth to restore peace. Peace was restored after total destruction, be it in the form of a deluge or whatever. Without an exception one yuga followed another.

Why is it that after the Kali Yuga there are no more Yugas? Did God foresee him accepting defeat to man’s doings after all - on finding himself unable to reverse the things man did?

Interestingly if one looked back into history, every Yuga supposedly ended when the known nine planets aligned themselves in a straight row - (or so some educated people have informed me).  An ice age was also synchronous with each of these ends. Will we have yet another ice age soon? Is our end near?  I don’t have the answers. I leave that for you to ponder about and comment on it.

Here is one comment I got and I decided to put it on here to clarify my point.

budhoose kanjoose said…	8:19 PM | 23/Nov/07 | |
I think you are too selfish to say that if we do not enjoy this time, the future generation will. We have a moral responsibility to keep some of our earth’’s resources for the coming generations too. when one says that we should not use too much energy it is not as if you should not heat your home, but heat it a bit less and use a blanket and use only renewable sources. you do not have to be in bed stark naked. more over we have to stop using the automobiles or we will be forced to do so by nature. there has to be alternatives. are we not intelligent enough to find out something?

My reply to that was:

No BK I think you missed the point. While the example you chose of heating the home and wearing more layers of warm clothing is an easy one to adapt how many will change our fossil fuel cars for an Electric Reva just because it will assure our sons and daughters a better future? I am sure not many will take such extreme steps. I was just being honest enough to admit I will not take such a step cos I am not convinced that people like me will be part of the majority (not yet atleast) to reverse the ongoing trend. Call it being selfish if you may, I would like to think of it as being practical. Having said that I am aware that something needs to be done and that is why I got rid of my more polluting 2 stroke bike and got a less polluting 4 stroke bike. I also had a LPG kit fitted in my previous car but that doesn’t help combat CO2 production does it? You know as I drove to work this morning I had this thought in my mind and I think this is as appropriate a place as any to mention it.The drift went like this. Cutting down use of fossil fuel does not necessarily boil down to car pooling and turning down the heaters etc. Even if we were to abide by all those, there are some things we can do but may not want to do as it may amount to changing our way (not necessarily quality) of life. To illucidate my point people who pursue adventure sports like sky diving, flying, motor boat racing, car racing, motor bike racing or plain and simple mortoring around the country side will have to do away with such interests. Half of what is on the sports channels today will come to an end. Is that Good ? It sure is. Is that acceptable?? I doubt it. I hope you now see what I was driving at.

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An Inconvenient Truth

My friend Misty Bella had offered to send me a copy of the award winning movie featuring Al Gore titled "An Inconvenient Truth" but I declined the offer as the movie was to be screened in my apartment some days later. Today was that day. We had dinner from the Pay and Eat stalls followed by the movie which started at 2030 as planned.

Global Warming is my favourite topic to talk about in the recent times but I don't claim to be any authority on the subject. Deep within I know my concerns are real every time I look at the innocent faces of my sons and I wonder what a world we would leave behind for them and their contemporaries. If any watching that movie made me only realize how little I knew about the subject and more still about the facts in the rapidly changing world around us.

Rapidly disappearing Glaciers, abnormally high rise in ambient global temperatures (the ten hottest years in history of mankind has happened in the last 14 years) and a possible rise in sea levels the world over by 18 to 20 feet. And this is not as if it would take another 100 years to get there. Given today's medical advancements I may still be kept alive on some life support machine while my sons take a canoe to the hospital to visit me.

Ever watched the trailer of any very well taken science fiction movie from Hollywood? By God they make it look so real so believable. Well I guess that's the magic of Holly wood. After the movie I visited the web site of the team that made the movie and I watched the trailer on the site. If you didn't know the trailer was about Global Warming, you would be led to believe its that of yet another Blockbuster in the making especially that part where it says NOTHING IS SCARIER.

Let us all at least try to spread the awareness about Global warming to those around us*. Without this no measures taken by any government will be effective as we would be blinded by our ignorance to take any initiative in the right direction to combat it.

Finally the Trailer may or may not shake you to the core but the movie certainly will. So if not for your country and if not for your planet at least out of love for your family and their future, I would urge you all to see the movie. Global warming is for real and it is manifesting at a pace sooner than you can imagine and that is THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH

* Sadly off the 200 odd people who turned up for pay and Eat dinner only 30 to 40 remained to watch the movie. If this is the response of the educated masses (who have atleast heard about Global warming)….the government has a serious problem trying to educate the common man in the villages.

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Chhutkara

"He was a good man" I could hear them in whispers

Standing around the body wrapped all in white

"Its sad he had such an untimely death" say others

While the kith and kin sat down and cried

Surprised I was at the numbers that turned up

Many of whom I did not think I know

From far off places to show support in difficult times

And to express solidarity and their sorrow

Amusing I found it from where I was

To hear so many good things being said about the dead

Don't remember so much good being talked about

Almost every one of them is off their bloody head

The priests and the ceremonies all go by

The smoke from the agarbathis fills the room

Oil lamps in upturned coconut halves and coins 

Tulasi leaves, betel leaves, sandal, and flowers too

So many dakshina's and offerings

So many chants to supposedly set the soul free

Is there any sense in all that is happening?

Or is it all being done mechanically ?

On empty stomachs the kith and kin wait patiently

For the days rituals to get over before they can eat

Last respects done, they wrap up the body completely

And await the agency that will to the crematorium lead.  

Working to such high precision as if each second matters

They arrive to drape the body in a red banner of the agency

With such a population collecting the dead it seems is big business

No wonder even the Dead Space ,for advertisement, is used effectively

Moments tick by and the body goes up in flames

It will be sometime before the family gets over this horror

But for me from where I see the world, this is the end to good and bad

From happiness and misery this is finally my Chhutkara

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India Reloaded

I was interested in reading a piece of news article that appeared on the rediff news page ' something about the US finally recognising Indian Engineering Degrees.

While there were a huge number of responses the article evoked, I was led to believe that this whole recognition has come at a time when our economy has begun to do well and a number of Indians are preferring to leave the Greener pastures of Uncle Sams and head back home. Many Indians are heading back for nearly the same "Cushy Job" that pays them nearly the same with added comforts of a chauffer, a maid, a gardener all thrown in at much more affordable rates.

Personally I feel all these graduates who were labelled the cream of India had left our shores looking for greener pastures and they no doubt found it. But along with their dollars and clean wide roads and centrally air-conditioned houses they had to compromise for a tougher way of life mostly practicing DIY (Do It Yourself). Whats more the lack of a maid, a chauffer and a gardener (unless you were the likes of Sabeer Bhatia) only compounded the problems. Having to keep the house and their surroundings neat and tidy was a drain on one's energy or resources especially when they grew older. So life was tough but that was a choice they made.

The choice made by the so called Cream also made it tough for a young country like ours in its infancy ' at a time when it was crippled with over 70% of the population being under the poverty line and incredible debts from many foreign institutions. It surely hurt to watch "our cream" after having gone through highly subsidised training courses at one of our IITs or IIMs leave for the shores of any country. Painful it was, but we as a nation endured it.  Without doubt what ever progress this country made in these last 60 years of Independence was made thanks to the people who stayed back and toiled, sweated and bled for their motherland.

In this matter the common farmer who lacked the mechanisation, the housewives who walked miles to fetch water for the entire household and the village school master who taught the generations of today are the unsung heroes who helped weave India into what she is today. Without a doubt they as much share the centre stage with the likes of the Tatas, the Godrejs, the Ambanis, Narayan Murthy, Vijay Mallaya and some of our very good movie makers and singers who entertained us in our difficult years and definitely our ministers, who paved the way for economic reformation. These are the Heroes who shaped India into the one of the fastest growing economies of the world. These are the guys who helped India enter the trillion dollar club and these are the guys who put India on the world map and made it a country to reckon with.

Suddenly everyone wants to be pitching tents on Indian shores and marketing their product here in Mera Mahan Bharat. With the Indian Rupee gaining strength, without exception the Australians, the Europeans and the Americans all want to do with business with us. And our fellow NRIs who left us years ago like rats on a sinking ship and did no more than lip service to the improvement of this country want to come back suddenly to a land devoid of Gun culture or Drug abuse in schools and a land so rich in tradition, rich culture, and spiritual content.

I am reminded of a story that I read as a child of a little rabbit who went about asking other animals to help her plant the carrots. No one helped and so she had to fend for herself. Surprisingly, weeks later when the carrots were nice and orange and ready to be eaten, every one wanted a share. The story of these NRIs is no different. I dare ask should we let them in just because they cling on to an Indian Passport or have a dual Nationality. I really doubt it.

Is it a possibility that the numbers returning are so high that its amounting to an exodus of sorts and are the Americans genuinely affected by this sudden repatriation of Indians ' many of them the cream from our IITs and IIMs? So is that why the US has decided to make good the deficiency by recognising our Engineering degrees? So now a person from IIT and possibly Thadumal Engineering College will have the same weightage in the US job market.

And as for the recognition for our own degrees by the US why do we need it so badly? If we have managed to live all these years without it, overcome the embargoes and the sanctions and denial of technology transfers to us and gone on to find not only a solution at the end of it all but to make it better than the original, we definitely don't need the certification from the US or anybody.  Speaking to a close friend the other day, he told me something which  may sound rather crude but under the circumstances I feel its very apt to so I will reproduce it here.

In chaste Malayalam he said "Namalude economic growth nokitu namal kushu vithallum saaip adinu vasne undu enne parayullo". Litereally translated it means "Looking at the kind of economic growth this country is poised for in the years to come, even if we were to fart in the air the developed nations would only say it smells good".

Yeah we are India Reloaded!!  

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No pain… No pleasure

Between my wife and I, we have a ritual that we try to keep up as far as possible. As I lie down to sleep my wife gently massages my feet and God!! She undoubtedly has the softest hands I have come across and the feeling of that gentle rub is nothing short of walking on velvet. "Heavenly" might I add. In no time I am dead to the world.

In return, come morning, I give her a nice foot massage and she enjoys it the most then when her body aches the most. She says I am a great masseur. Well even though I have not taken any formal course in massage therapy I have no doubt that there must be some truth in it, for as a child I remember my mother used to call me for a neck and head rub each time she had a bad headache. Truth be told my hands are not anywhere as soft as my wife's, but I enjoy giving a massage.

This morning was no different and as she lay enjoying my palms pressing into her hurting feet saying, "Mmmm Ooooh Heaven" and more of such Oooohs and Mmmmmms than usual. Then she said something truly philosophical "No pain No pleasure". And I sat thinking wondering what ever happened to that age old saying No Pain…No Gain for here she was gaining all pleasure from the pain she endured.

Sounds Sadomasochistic doesn't it? And what's more with the description of the Ooooohs and Mmmmmms in the background this narration can paint a very different picture . But before your imagination is thrown into top gear I’ll stop.

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FREE !!

"Buy me this packet of Cornflakes Acha" my elder son pestered me during our brief visit to a department store during our very short Pondicherry Trip. On asking why he wanted me to carry it 600kms back home all the way from Pondicherry when he could get it in Kochi he said "This one comes with a Kool torch the kind that can be clipped onto your ears" came the prompt reply. A closer look and I saw the words "FREE Space Age light" written on two sides of that extra large Packet. Now my son is no different from any boy his age. I remember I used to want such Gizmos too ' more so if it came FREE.

Personally I think FREE is such a powerful word and its amazing how those four letters can have such effects on our shopping decision making. It is a fact that if there are two similar products with one being priced slightly higher but with an accompanying FREE gift, chances are many would not mind putting in their hard earned money into buying something that don't necessarily need only because Its FREE. Ask yourself and you would realize you have fallen prey to this gimmick, quite unwittingly, more often than you realize. Bottom Line ' There are no FREE Lunches ever.

Good businessmen know how to use it well to ensure maximum sales of their products. Here in Kerala for instance Onam time is when there are so many fairs and exhibitions and one gets to see FREE banners hanging from practically every lamppost or tree trunk. Some years ago, a TV manufacturer had advertised a TV "Buy a 25 TV and gets a 21 TV Free". While it sounded too good to be true, few realized that it was in fact a gimmick to UP the sales that had dipped to a point that it threatened the very existence of that brand in business.

Any way coming back to our shopping in Pondy and I didn't get him what his little heart was longing for purely because I wanted to travel light. Besides children have such limited Concentration and Interest Span with new toys. They last only till they come across the next new toy.

Parents have a tough time convincing Teens on the dos and don't as they grow up. Teens see it as - Nagging while parents think they are giving sound advice. Some say the cheapest thing going around is FREE ADVICE. Is it then that the Teens don't heed to parental advice 'cos they don't see the words FREE as they are used to in a department store shelf? Then again I wonder are the parents always genuine with their FREE Advice or doesn't it come with ulterior motive too.

Frankly as a Parent and as a Son I'm confused. Any comments?

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