Preparation for Chemo # 4 and Hinglish

Preparation for Chemo # 4 and Hinglish

Bina is doing very well. She says, “ Everyday I feel happier and stronger, my thinking is clear and I want to enjoy my second life.” She asks for specific foods, enjoys the chocolate Anupam brought from San Francisco and sleeps well. The blood test and ECG were done today, few hours ago. The technicians prepared the waveforms and sent them to the Cardiologist.  Unfortunately, even to my engineering eye the waves do not look very good. My nephew doctor from Indore (Gaurav) is worried and so we are all shaken up. It may be nothing to be alarmed about, we will show it to Dr. Gokhale( the cardiologist ) today and then the “ to do or not to do Chemo “ will be decided. The issue is this: “ If the heart is weak and if they do not do chemo, how long will it take for cancer to spread again?”  If we do Chemo, will the heart take it?”.

There is a new damage to the heart, we do not know how much.  

It seems like just when we were beginning to relax and start making plans for work, going back and vacation etc, life is telling us that it may have a different plan for us. It is making me realize that I need to be even more fluid and groundless than I am right now. There is no solid ground and there is no permanence.  I am trying to not think about it too much and try to live in the moment. Bina is sleeping next to me. She is peaceful and pain free and is happy about her life right now. We all need to take a deep breath and accept this for what it is: A gift from the unknown. Enjoy the moment and take life as it comes. No One really knows what next moment going to be, so why worry about it ? Why not just enjoy here and now and leave the rest? I guess the human condition is such that we need to have plan for options A, B and C. If we do not think about the future how would we have the plans in place? So, the wise thing to do is think through the options, have the plans ready and then not worry about things that are not in our control. (most of the times the future is not in our control).

Rhea enjoying home made Indian food

On the fun side of things: Kids are back from holidays and there is lot of excitement in the air. Most Indians ( who can afford it) are on holidays during the month of May. Lot of them go to Europe and less well to do ones go to the “hills stations in the Himalayas” My grandniece Rhea was gone to Denmark for ten days (in a school exchange program) and my other Nephew Amit and his family were in London for ten days. All of them came back last night and first thing they did is to eat Indian food at 2am. Every Indian I know comes back from Europe (or America or China or anywhere in the world) and complains about how horrible the food was.  I love food of all cultures and nations, so this is something hard for me to understand. (even though I ate vegetarian Indian food exclusively till I went to Berkeley)  May be it takes a while to acquire the taste for “other” foods.

Hinglish: 

Just for fun, try to read and understand these  billboards. Over 90% of the billboards in Mumbai are written in this language.  I  feel the one of the ways to get the pulse of a city or a culture is to pay attention to the billboards and advertisements. There is lot to learn from these( I will talk about that later) but just trying to read and understand these is  revealing. For me and I suspect for most of the Indians these are just normal advertisements, no big deal. But, take a break and try to understand it from a language point of view  If you know only English, you can read these but they do not make any sense at all (you cannot understand a word of what you just read) .  

And if you know only Hindi (which is the national language of India) you cannot even read theses because the script is in English ;) I just realized that this is an Evolution of a new language…Hinglish…100 years from now when the Hindi script is lost and put away in museum achieves, this will be the language of a common person in India ;) …An interesting  perspective on how languages change and evolve

It has been a very tiring day. No time for a walk is not a good thing either. I will try to make up tomorrow...Good night