Run

I want to run
As fast as I can
As far as I can
to a place
Where love is in its'
                  eternal blossom
where tears are only
                 a trace of a memory
where after-life is
                 eternal salvation
and, where I may escape & disappear
                 into the void of nothingness.

When it's difficult to breathe..

Everyone's been in some situation where they found it difficult to breathe. The sight of something excessively beautiful. Hearing unexpected news. The sight of the love of your life, to name a few.

Have you however, ever found yourself finding it difficult to breathe for entirely different reasons? Let me tell you a little story.

About two years ago I was spending a weekend with my mother way way out of Colombo. We were just passing a "handiya" when I got this irresistible craving for a kottu. After many "I do't know what they put in it putha, & it's not good for you putha" my ever so indulgent mother bought me a kottu. When we got home, I remember that it was tasty but that's all I registered because I finished it up in the blink of eye (Ok, maybe a little longer than a blink of en eye)

Half an hour later my mother asked me "putha, are you wheezing?". Only then I realised that I really was making an unconscious effort to breathe. A few minutes later I found my chest tight, taking shallow breaths that led to coughing. Shortness of breath in turn led to panic. I knew what was in store for me. Asthma attack. This time puffs from my trusty inhaler didn't work. Lying in bed propped up on pillows didn't calm me. My loving mother stroking my head & back didn't work. I had to be rushed to the hospital, was nebulized & injected bronchodilators.

What I just described might have happened to you as well, if you're suffering from Asthma. The things & substances that can trigger an asthma attack are many & varied. In my case above, guess what it was. The doctor guessed it to be a flavour enhancer in the kottu I ate, such as Ajinomoto, containing MSG (Monosodium Glutamate).

All my life I have been suffering from breathing difficulties,respiratory problems & asthma.  So I know how it feels like. Because there is no proper cure & only a control exists it is vital that we find out what causes asthma attacks & take measures to prevent it from happening.The Following video I found explains asthma attacks concisely.



The following video covers COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Desease) as well & details the kinds of medicine given for both Asthma & COPD. It's done by some pharmaceutical company that I swear I'm no part of. :)

Apart from these I've lately found out that practising breathing exercises helps. If you feel like you're about to get an asthma attack, try breathing from your tummy. Using your stomach muscles.  When you breathe in put (expand) your stomach out (check mechanics of breathing) & when you breathe out pull in (constrict) your stomach. Try to lengthen the duration of each breathing cycle & concentrate on your stomach movements.




To all like me, hope this helps.. :) Take care of yourselves..

The Eldest

Those who are not the eldest have no idea how hard it is to be one. The constant weight of being the first born on your shoulder or head (depending on where you choose to carry it). The heartaches, the burns, the tears that you never shed. It is not a walk in the park.

I guess one could say that, as anything being the eldest has its pros & cons (Oh, how I hate that phrase, so cliche). But then again it does.

Being the eldest gives you the chance of loving, petting, bullying into your bidding, your younger siblings. You can buy them gifts. Take care of them. Make them a cup of tea when they come home tired. Make them a plateful of chicken fried rice when they're hungry. Hold them when they're cold. Hold their hands when they're sad. Smile with them. Laugh with them. Tell stupid jokes at which they stare at you with their mouths open, silently saying "shut up & end our agony"

But along the ride, you also cry when they cry. Smile when they smile. Feel every pain they feel, only a hundred fold. Feel jubilant at their joy. Their success is your success. Their mistakes, yours.

When my little brother was born, I was six. I remember telling one of my grade one friends while waiting for the school van to pick us up after school that I have a new brother. Tiny as a teeny squiggly worm. But beautiful. My mother made me wash his baby poo napkins and I was only too happy to do so.

When he started preschool, I was ten years. Those were the days that he'd never let go of my hand. I used to go to his Montessori school with him, with him on my lap in the school van & watch him inside the classroom till school was over & bring him back home.

Where ever we went, he used to sit in my lap in the car. He used to fall asleep in my arms.

Until he grew up all gangly & tall I used to tidy up his school uniform shirt after he tucked into his uniform trousers in the morning.

I miss that.

I'm writing this because I remember how tiny he used to be. How he liked to be petted by me. I will have to do another post on my sister later.

Right now, I'm in agony. This is the pain of being the eldest. Did I make the right choices in my life so that my siblings can follow in my footsteps? Do I want them to follow in my footsteps or make their own path way? Have I done enough for them? Have I shown them the way?

My dad always used to tell me that you can only lead a horse to the water but you can't make it drink it. I wonder if I've led them properly. And what do I do with the compulsion I get to metaphorically speaking, to open the horse's mouth & pour the water in. (Drink you! This water is good for you.)

When I do something that think is right, or don't do something that I think is wrong, is it wrong for me to hope that they'll take me as an example and do as I do? And when they don't do as I do, how do I get them to see that my hopefulness is not a judgment. It's just hopefulness. If all they see is a big softie when they see me, maybe I haven't done my duty by them. Maybe I lack the kind of timbre that a good eldest need to inherently have.

I wonder if they know that every mark they miss, I bleed. That every stone they slip from (in the white waters that they need to gingerly find their way through) I fall down a million times.  And wonder if I have failed. Wonder if my grip on their hands is strong enough.

Maybe the point of this post is that I miss those days. The days that my brother walked holding my hand. The days that my sister I rode bicycles around the village & climbed the trees in our garden.

Or maybe, I just want them to know that whatever they do, where ever they go, I'm still here. In my eyes they can never do or go wrong. (Maybe a little :) ) In my heart, they're still and always be my little brother & sister.

p.s
I can just see my brother rolling his eyes after reading this & my sister telling me not to make a big deal out of nothing. :)

Cross Roads

Cross roads. That's where I am right now. Different avenues leading in different directions & not knowing which one to choose.

After lazing at home for months (and being a pain to everyone in my life) I still haven't figured what exactly I want to do. When I quit my previous job, I made a list of this that I want to do. (One or two of them).

1. Start my own business
2. Study further
3. Join another company & join the workforce again.
4. Learn new things

Starting my own thing obviously didn't work. Purely because I wanted to do so many things. I wanted to start catering, a cloth shop,  a craft shop, an accessory shop, a book shop (I honestly have no idea how to go about the last one) etc etc.. So as you can see I wanted to so many things and ended up doing nothing.

While I'm writing this self lamenting piece I'm talking to my sister's friend who's across the oceans & I'm sure has never tasted a cake I made & she thinks I should start up a cake shop. A cakery she calls it. See what I mean. One more to my list..

Studying further has been a bit fruitful  I think. At least I'm starting that next month or so. I'm enrolled and everything.

On a side note, I just opened a fortune cookie on FB & my fortune was " Your judgement is a little off at this time". Heh!! you bet!

Anyway, talking about studying & my judgement being off I went for an interview at a leading university in Col & didn't get through because I might have said "All that jazz" in the interview. Whoops! It's funny now. But then how I sighed...

Joining the workforce again  has been a flop from the start. I don't even want to talk about it.

I do want to learn a lot of new things. To cook like a pro chef. To bake like a Micheline starred pastry chef. To learn to make shoes (sigh... sigh..) To learn fashion design.. To learn new hand crafts. Most importantly (And this I WANT to do) to learn wood work (Anyone knows a person who can teach me?)

There, writing that was definitely good for me.

I'm going to get a job, juggle two kinds of studies & start one of the things in the list above.

And hopefully, will finish the book that I've been trying to write the first chapter of, for months.

Him

so, this is going to be a rather mushy blog post. This is something that I should have done eons ago. At least I'm attempting now.. :)

Where do I start?


About 4 years ago, I was working at this particular "company". That fateful day both a staff member & the superior in the section next to ours were absent (Now when I think about it "YEA!") and I was having the most stressful day ever, having to cover for missing staff. Then somewhere in the middle of the day I got a mail from an unseen colleague down the stairs requesting a transaction. (To tell the truth at that time every time my mails went "blink" I was sure I was aging fast one mail at a time & was inwardly whining at a rate!)

The sender of this "mail" I had just received had such a lovely uncommon name I had to peep over the partition separating me & my superior and ask her if she knew who this was. Of course she, giving one of her  mysterious smiles said "ah, he said he's coming up, wait & see" Of course I put this incident completely out my mind as my PC went "blink" again with another troublesome mail.

I'm not quite sure how long a time passed before I heard an "excuse me" from behind me. I turned, to find the most dazzling smile I have ever seen, (And the whitest of teeth) & there he was & I was hooked for life.

A simple question

Here's a question. Why did God create both males & females? Both men & women? What was the need I ask you. I wonder when HE said " Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." if he knew that he was just paving the way for war, for heartache, for hurt & pain along with all other things beautiful.

I mean, I 'm not at all complaining. I'm glad HUMANs were created. Otherwise I wouldn't be here & all humans might have ended up as liverworts or something. I'm just saying that HE didn't have to create 2 of each. A couple. That's what I'm saying.

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

There are many creatures on earth who can very easily be fruitful & multiply without needing a partner. There are single cell organisms, Planaria & even certain plants. Why were we created in TWOs?

I don't believe in God being a Buddhist. But as we have no way of knowing if there's a higher power or not I guess I will to retreat to Science. Right now, at this particular moment, I'm not very happy with evolution either. Why does progress always mean complication. Simple example. Friendships lead to romance- a few notches higher in the complication scale. Romance leads to marriage-much higher in the scale.

Always the same.

A single cell organism, has no needs like we do. It just lives, divides itself into a million other single cells or so & disappears. We on the other hand, are driven by the constant need of falling in love & maintaining that love. Because of course, any kind of love needs proper & timely maintenance. There is also the constant battle to keep the Significant Other happy at which I think I'm failing badly.

So all I'm saying is that if God created us all as algae & if there was no evolution where all creatures would be equally simple, I wouldn't be feeling as miserable as I'm feeling right now.

Booger being

What do you do when you have nothing to do. When in the middle of an economic recession you had decided to quit your well paying job, whose fault is it that you're depressed?
Is it yours, or is it the everyone else's who seem think that you're a good for nothing booger being?
I like to think it's everyone else's. I'm completely sane. (So said the mad man)