The details

OK, so after the last bombshell, I guess I should flesh out the announcement a bit. I had been feeling mildly discontented in my current job, mostly because now that I had stopped having palpitations and sleepless nights before every OT, I had started feeling a little restless. Also it has been more than two years since I moved to Delhi, so a bit of dreariness there too. We have been seriously contemplating starting our own ophthalmic clinic but (a) that needs truckloads of money (b) that sounds serious ass grownup, right up there with preparing for your kids school interview ( yeah, thats going to happen soon enough )
So, I came up with a ridiculous plan to move to Africa, then I dressed it up in practical, sensible terms to convince Vishal ( Our salary will be tax free! We won't need to take a loan! We can start Vihaans college fund ! ) As luck would have it, we immediately got a good offer and after some intense negotiations and inept bargaining we have decided to move to Addis Ababa. I am not going to tire of saying that for a while. Sometimes I wake up grinning in the middle of the night.

Addis Ababa !!!

When you start writing a blog, this is the kind of thing you hope you will be able to post about one day. In short - I resigned my job today
- I am moving to Addis Ababa with my family

Details to follow. But till then, Addis Ababa !!!

Yes, thats me. Really.

I always thought that the first time I saw my name in print it would be on a magazine article, a newspaper piece, a slice of life column, something that would reflect my literary soul. The reality however is this.

I was careless enough to let them mis-spell my name!

A cop out? Hardly. It still represents days of research and nights tapping at my laptop while shooting envious glances at my sleeping family. I am most pleased with the illustrations which were adapted from my hand drawn diagrams and the photos of my own patients. Makes me feel like one big fat serious ass eye doctor. Whoo-hoo.

I am seriously grateful to Dr. Zia Choudhuri and Dr. Vanathi for giving me this oppurtunity and in awe of all the hard work they have put into making this book so great. Also, a big thanks to Dr.Sumita Agarkar for recommending my name in the first place. I would have loved to have had such a lucid, exam oriented text when I was a post grad. Order your copy at  www.jaypeebrothers.com  

Those roads not on the CWG radar

This is a post  I wrote last year but never published because I was too lazy to take photos of the road in question, but it reveals the depths of loathing and helplessness I feel each time I traverse across it.

A sea of potholes 

I don’t want to add to the million whining voices complaining about the state of Delhi roads or Delhi traffic. But guys,the situation is really bad. The road in front of my house is a chaotic mess of potholes and rubble. You have extended stretches of potholes and craters of variable width and depth interspersed with a few intact feet of tarmacadam. Each time you travel over it feels like an extended dune bashing session. The last time I remember being tossed around so violently in a car was when Appa took us on a Brahmaputra boat ride about five years back. We had to drive over the river bed in order to reach the make shift jetty and much violent shaking and tossing was enjoyed by all. That jeep ride is still a point of reference in my family. Yesterday, Appa came for a visit and compared the road to the approach road to the Masai Mara game park in Kenya. My parents went to Kenya last month and Appa is still wandering around with a back brace as a result.Thus, we have established that the deplorable state of our roads and the sheer horror of our potholes compare with the worst in India and abroad. Dilli tayyar hai! ( That was the motto of the CWG plastered all over Delhi last year)

Normally I would just use this as ammunition for my next “I hate Delhi” tirade but my current pregnant status has kind of coloured the situation. I was advised rest for a couple of weeks in July as my gyneacologist thought I was having premature contractions, along with a weekly  infusion of Progesterone into my gluteus maximi ( that sounds like the plural form). This has made me moderately paranoid about going into premature labour and delivering a rat-baby. So each time my car passes over our road, I get into a really foul temper and take each bump and shake as a personal assault.Vishal has devised a technique to minimize the trauma which consists ofalternately crawling over the potholes at 2 km/hr and speeding over the intact stretcehes – the Ninja ! ( No, it doesn’t work ) I have visions of my baby hanging on to his umblical cord for dear life like a miniature mountaineer buffetted by a snow storm screaming Wheeeeeeee !

So, now that the background is clear, the sheer ginormity of this news is apparent. A new concrete road is being made. Hallelujah! The work has been ongoing for more than a month now and is about 75% complete. The road was partitioned in half and one half was constructed at a time. So you can imagine the traffic chaos when the previous potholed ribbon excuse for a road was made half of itself. We’ve been taking an alternative diversion this past month which adds an extra 10 minutes of driving time but all for a good cause. However, please don’t think that a gleaming four lane superhighway is emerging from these efforts. The road is being created in so many sections that the joints are uneven , not to mention the contribution of our civic minded brethren who take delight in leaving tyre tracks in the wet concrete each night making sure that the memories of the erstwhile potholes shall persist. But it will be better, much better than it was.



Half done

The entrance to the road which is an elevated - depressed mess 

Thats the best we can hope for

Footprint in the concrete of time

Now, I can proceed to start praying for running water. Thats a whine for another day.