Is Abandonment the End of Life for a Woman?

I almost mistook her for a seventy year old ailing old lady, as she laboriously made her way towards the swimming pool, limping, her hair white as silver, bent to one side, her hip dis-aligned and crooked. Climbing each step with palpable pain. She had gained more weight since I last saw her, and her hair had completely whitened within the past two years. Her face permanently contorted with pain. I decided not to bother her and to just let her be.

I made acquaintance with Kalpana just by chance, and I learnt from her that she was struggling with a knee problem that left her bed ridden most often. There was this one day when I had ringed her bell and she took inordinately long to open the door. When she opened the door, she was on her knees. She had walked on her knees to open the door. Embarrassed and jolted at seeing her that way, I composed myself with some effort and expressed concern. I tried to help but she brushed me aside. I walked away shaken and helplessly concerned. 

I did not know her real age. Judging by the age of her kids, she could not be more than five or six years my senior. But we looked twenty years apart even then. 

After that encounter, I met her once or twice on my morning walks, but soon I had forgotten all about her. So when I saw her after almost a gap of two years, I was surprised how quickly she had added a decade and a half to her age. 

Kalpana was living alone with her two girls, one 15 and the other 7. Her husband had abandoned them, but was sending maintenance. I learnt this from another neighbour. She was pining over the pain and making herself sicker and sicker. And so a lot of her sickness was from a mistaken sense of failure. She was just not accepting the truth. She was holding on to the regret and pain so dearly that there was little space for anything else in her life. 

And I cannot help thinking, if a woman was to abandon a man in the same state, and there are several such examples, do men also drain themselves out in pain? Or is the society sending signals to women to pine over the loss and therefore they comply?

There is a lot of truth in it. In fact when a woman is abandoned she is considered doomed. People feel free to sympathise but the society does not come out and support the woman to stand up for herself. What would it have been for Kalpana? Did she break down the day her husband left? Did she fall on the floor on that moment and did not get up for hours? Did she call someone and share her pain? What did they tell her when she was looking for solace? Did they blame her for the incident and did they ask her to keep trying to get him back in her life? 

She failed to notice that she was the only adult in her children's lives, yet so far from being an example for them. Nor did she notice that she was propagating palpable pain inside the four walls of her house, I had felt it when I went to her house. She was lying to her neighbours, telling them that her husband would be back soon! Not making any serious efforts to get on her feet. It appears that she was hoping that her sickness would bring the man back in her life. 

Why couldn't she understand that people do not leave to come back, definitely not when one weakens by that person's absence. Blaming her husband does not make sense to me. It is a broken marriage, what broke it is not for others to judge. I wish Kalpana would know the responsibility that she was left with, I wish she would rise to the occasion and let her daughters learn the skill of being a self respecting individuals. I wish so many things for Kalpana, but she seems to have stopped wishing. She seems to have lost the battle even before it began. 

She is not an exception, she is most ordinary in her seemingly extraordinary pain. Even her pain is not extraordinary. Marriages fail and some more miserably than the others. Some people are less trustworthy than the others. People will be people, civility is learnt by some while others find it hard to inculcate. We tend to judge them by their gender, but inability to keep a relationship is gender neutral, just as much as the willingness to keep a relationship going, is gender neutral. 

What's More Important For My Kid Rather Than Catching the School Bus?

Early mornings are a little tricky, even if you are really good at math, you will be surprised that things don't really add up in the mornings. From the time my kid wakes up to the time she is delivered to the school bus for her day in school, I don't know with what logic we work. But I have learnt one thing for sure, morning-sickness during pregnancy is God's way of preparing the mother for the morning-frenzy that follows once the kid comes to be!

So when I tell my eight year old to get up, it takes her exactly 10 minutes to get up, by then her time to be at the bus stop is just 40 minutes away. She then goes for the short-trip to toilet and forgets to get up, 5 minutes goes there. It takes her a good 10 minutes to brush her teeth, and then she has her milk in another 5, by now there are only 20 minutes before she has to be dropped to the bus stop. 10 minutes is for her long-trip to the loo. Then she gets into the shower, and gets into her elaborate school uniform, has a quick snack and I tie her two ponies and she is ready to get to the bus stop: in 15 minutes. A total of 25 minutes! But didn't we have just 20 to begin with? Still she caught the bus!!! What happened to my math????  

At the bus stop, I meet her friend's mom, she too wonders with priceless expressions and gestures in accompaniment: how she ever got her daughter to the bus stop at all. We are at loss, someone has to tell us where these extra minutes came from! It’s probably the Tooth Fairy, Tinker Bell, Santa Clause, Harry Potter, Casper-the-friendly-ghost, all of them together, or one per day in a round robin fashion, granting their wishes in vast abundance and bringing this miracle about! I don't know, but I am glad for this daily miracle. 

Let’s do a slow motion review of the morning tizzy, I know it’s hard to slow it down while your blood pressure rises even as you think of the early morning ritual. Hmmmph, but an action replay may reveal something of interest, you see I learnt it from the ingenious ‘Dangal’, it works:

Morning Tizzy 1- Now as I count the moments, the kid is counting the sketch pens, meticulously arranging her pencil box, which she should have done last evening and did not. Surely this is really important for her!! The order of her sketch pen in her pencil box is more important than getting ready to get to the school bus!

Morning Tizzy 2- As she has her milk, I look at the watch and then turn to something I was doing, packing her lunch or getting her uniform in place etc. and then I realise that she is lazily yawning and stretching after her milk, surely that is more important than catching the bus!

Morning Tizzy 3- When I ask her to get up from the loo and get on with other things, she ignores it and continues to be there. And of-course it is after-all the beginning of her day and this is important. What's the big deal with the bus and all?

Morning Tizzy 4- when she gets in the shower, she just stays there till I shout at her. Ooer! Why spoil the early morning bath for something as boring as a bus? 

Morning Tizzy 5- When she sits down to wear her shoes, she makes sure every crease in her socks is carefully removed. Her feet should touch the far end of her shoes in the right angle, or else it has to be done all over again. This one is certainly not to be compromised to catch a teensy-weensy school bus

Morning Tizzy 6- When she eats her early morning laddoo- I give her a-laddoo-a-day every morning, don't ask me why not an-apple-a-day, that too, it goes in her breakfast box. She picks on her laddoo at a caterpillar's pace and refuses to eat it as she walks to the bus stop. So she has to finish it at home, and she has to take her time doing it. Now eating her early morning treat at leisure: that far out-shines running to catch the school bus.

Morning Tizzy 7- And when she is all ready and getting out of the house FINALLY!!! She freezes still, in the middle of the room and shouts from right there, mind you, NOT as she walks out of the house, "Mamma look the doggy peed right here!!!" Now why is this not more important than running in a crazy frenzy to catch the school bus?

I wrote another piece some time back '5 Things To Do To Help Your Kid To Hurry Up and Get Ready'. Mothers have a way of believing they know how to manage their kiddos, poor dear me! Well, I am still completely out-shone by my little devil. As we parents panic around over meaningless motives, they want to just BE. We keep trying to put them in a mould, and they keep striving for that space where they can be totally themselves. While I wish she wins in this daily tug-of-war and not me, I also hope she is ready and at the bus stop in time every day! Are these goals contradictory? Oh don't start it all over again...

The Boy Who Did Not Know Sadness

This is the story of Sumit. A five year old who did not know sadness. He had never eaten, tasted, smelt, heard, seen or felt sadness. He had never even in all his life heard of sadness. Sumit went to school with many other five year olds who also did not know sadness. But one day something happened...

Shyam, Sumit's classmate said. 'I was sad last evening.' He simply announced it to whoever would listen. Sumit a very inquisitive boy who was in the lookout for novelty, asked Shyam, "What is sadness?" to that Shyam answered quite flatly, "you won't understand." and would have walked away from Sumit before it was too late... but it was too late because, Sumit sensing Shyam's intention, grabbed his hand and asked... "But you are Shyam.' and you say 'You were sad' how can you be two people at the same time, you can either be Shyam or you can be Sad! Did you change your name to Sad and then change it back to Shyam?"

"No no" Shyam replied quite relieved. He had decided to take this volley of questions one at a time. For he had no idea what sadness was either… but he would not admit it to Sumit. "You feel sadness," he answered.

"So you can touch it." concluded Sumit triumphantly. "Where is it. Do you have it in your bag? Can I touch it too?"

"No Sumit... you can’t touch it... you feel it in your heart." Shyam said, based on his minimum knowledge that he had gathered from overhearing his Parents conversation last evening.

"So you have put it in your heart. Where is your heart show me… Okay did you cut the body and then place it there and stitch it back like the doctors in TV do? Where is the stitch show me!" Sumit was yelling with excitement now. This was turning out to be a jackpot for him, first to find sadness and then to see stitched heart, all stuffed up with sadness.

"No Sumit, you can't see it, you can’t touch it, but you can feel it." Explained Shyam, getting better and better at this game.

"But shyam, can you atleast hear it? Can you play it for me?" Sumit asked hopefully, losing all hope of a visual display of sadness, he succumbed to accepting, it was something as subtle as music.

"No shyam you don't hear it either... you just feel it," Shyam offered, now getting more and more relieved as he sensed that this investigation was coming to an end.

"No but did you eat it? Can you at-least eat it. How does it taste?" Sumit asked, wondering why he did not think of this earlier.

"No... You feel it, you do not eat it either." Shyam said, realising that there was more coming.

"How do you feel it, what do you feel?" Asked Sumit in one last attempt to get this thing straight.

"I cannot explain, this is something you have to feel to know." Said Shyam, realising for the first time that he knew all that was needed to know about sadness, to be able to act like an authority among his friends, but also made a quick mental note never to repeat his parent's statement at earshot of his friends again. He was wise enough to realise he may not get that lucky every-time. 

Sumit was profoundly confused by now and literally could think of nothing more than this new unknown word, that had hit his silent ebullient life like lightening hits a tree. He went home in thought of it. Sitting impatiently at the corner of the chair, he hardly could nibble few bites of his lunch that mom served with great excitement. "Your favourite Sumit, pasta with white-sauce" only to find Sumit forlorn and preoccupied. Mom never bothered Sumit's thoughtful mood. He even had a 'Sumit's Thotful Spot'. Just like Poo Bear. 

After lunch, Sumit went straight to his room and sat at his Thotful Spot for quite some-time, but to no avail. Soon the phone rang, his friend was calling to play... "I don't want to play Mom," Cried Sumit, Instead of running anxiously to the phone to talk to his friend.

Mom realised something was not alright. She came to his room and saw Sumit in his most pensive, passive, unhappy mood ever. "Why are you so sad Sumit?" she asked.

"Sad?" Sumit cried, "Am I sad Mamma?" and he was now hopping with joy. "I am sad, yes I am sad, I am sad, I am sad." He kept singing.

Mom hated to break the news but it was required, "Not anymore Sumit, not anymore... Now you are jumping with joy, little darling." Mom hugged Sumit and cuddled him some more. Pooh bear would have loved the cuddle too!

Happy New Year, Is It Here Already?

Every year on the 31st of December, the old year leaves us gasping for more and the new-year commences upon us with no significant alterations. It’s just a date on the calendar, a time on the clock. We shake our heads and our bodies with dizzying fervour and spasmodic jerks on dance floors, hoping for it to wake us up from our slumber, so that we can kick start the new-year like never before. But all that kicking on the floor wears us out invariably. We wake up the next day with a hangover. So January 1 is officially when we take rest, worn out from the effort to usher in an all new beginning. 

Alternatively we could just sleep in the sheets and wake up the next day, without bothering whether last morning was any different from the morning of January 1. Go about with life just like a grasshopper, from a blade of grass to another, least bothered about the time of the day or the day of the year. 

Either way, January 1 is just another day. But one that the world welcomes and celebrates. Shoe bite or not, we cha-cha-cha, salsa, slither and shake on our stilettos and boots. Grace or no grace, we rock with the music- pale or groovy does not matter. But that is just community activity. I wonder why, at the last second of the year, we raise our hands up and yell Happy New Year. I was happy the previous moment too! This time around, I actually dazed out and became passive for a few seconds. I could not do the shouting. I did recover from the trance and wished new-year to many. But the paleness of my wish was unmistakable. I realise I am on a vehicle that has only just begun to hum and rev up... I could not really register the pause! I have only recently launched on a new path professionally, one of working with people and of writing. 

But whatever it be, wishing new-year is an officially appropriate activity during the month of January. Last year sometime in June, missing the fanfare of January, I wished a few people a happy new month and they smiled and wished me back the same, condescendingly. But I am always in celebration mood. Why waste the time, when there is a happy new day every day? 

Here's what went well in the last year:

- I became more positive and assertive,

- I began writing regularly. A passion long ignored,

- I became more grounded as a person, more self-assured,

- My friendships strengthened,

- My family bonding strengthened.

And just when I was beginning to think it couldn't get better, we adopted our pet pup Penny, on the Christmas day. 

It is probably my nature. When I sit to summarise any period of time, I never find a reason to complain. Number one reason why, during my appraisals, when I was working in the traditional set up, I never had valid complaints to bother my Managers with. I am positive to the extent of being uncivilised! Civility is in finding many flaws and trying to correct them all life-long. If you don't see mistakes how will you correct them! But I see possibility in everything. 

Resolutions? Oh I went into the previous year without one, and I am glad I did. Because, how is it possible for us to know on 1st January, how the next 365 days must be spent? This absence of resolution helped me later in the year, in setting up expectations for myself, for things that did not even exist in my life in January last year! 

And am I even past the last year? Oh it is always hard for me to wish Happy New Year. I feel like passing it off for long enough so people forget all about it. I have no desire to summarise the lagging, heart breaks and failures that went along with the successes and happy moments. 

New Year is just an excuse to tell everyone I remembered you all year long. Or else it is just another day in our lives, just another brick on the wall, just another coin in the well and just another gyration of the globe. January 1 is here and it’s a bright sunny morning, yesterday was bright and sunny too.

40 Minutes of Hell, 8 Steps to Saving a Life. #A true Story

It was 5 minutes to 10 when I checked the clock. Wow! I exclaimed to myself, I have the whole morning still in front of me to work! I work from home and on my dining table. Don't laugh at me, because from there I can preside over my house help, make sure my Mother goes to the hospital for the 3 times a week dialysis and also take care of the couriers and sundry other visitors. I give instructions for what will be cooked and at times walk into the kitchen to make sure the recipe is accurately being followed. In short, I am a work at home, home maker cum working mom. And I am skilled in many other home tasks. I have scoured, plastered and painted a room, cleaned spark plugs in a car, repaired a wall that had lost all its plaster-of-paris coating, I am quite tom boyish and would take on any task absolutely. My husband is blessed in short, to have such an uncomplaining wife. Smile! Smile! But I never knew that saving life was to be added in my list of odd jobs.

Getting back to where I began. At 10:00 a.m. I had just made a call that had not been picked up. I was planning to leave a message so the person would call me back. My mother's care giver shouted from the balcony, "Aunty, Aunty!" Her voice getting louder and more anxious. We ran! My full time maid, the cleaning maid and I. I reached first, to find my mother having a seizure, her mouth open on one side, crooked, her face hardened, she had no consciousness, her body stiffening. I thought it was a heart attack. We immediately put her flat on the floor. Just last evening I was in an exhibition and a girl had fainted, my colleague, a Retired Navy commander had done exactly that to revive her, serendipity! My mother’s tongue rolled out and she bit it, blood trickled out of the tongue. I opened her mouth and pushed the tongue in. Her eyes were wide open and rolled up. Her lips blue. The maids began to cry. I took courage and remembered the Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation process (CPR). Heave, heave heave, at the chest and blow in through the mouth. I had forgotten the exact method, but I kept pressing the chest and blowing into her mouth. 

Call the Ambulance! I thought. I could not operate the smart phone, my hands were wet and shaky. I had 3 house helps at home, all 3 had no idea what to do. I sent one to get a neighbour, who would take charge of the phone. The sun shone down at us at the balcony, where my mother lay unconscious. I prayed, as I resuscitated her, that she may not die like this. Two of the maids rubbed her hands and legs frantically. I had no hope, there was no pulse that I could detect. There was just a limp body which we kept resuscitating and massaging hopelessly. I finally called the ambulance, the first number, I was put on hold. The next number, I had luck, the ambulance started from the hospital. I calculated 45 minutes in rush hour traffic. I realised I was not making any progress with my mother. I called a Doctor friend from another city and took his help to learn the right technique to resuscitate. I called my husband, but he would take time to come. A neighbour was still needed. One of them had shut her door in some sort of urban fear of death and dying!

Finally a neighbour called, we had plans to meet that day, she was just checking if I was available, I asked her to come, and she came almost instantly. It was she who took charge of the phone from that moment on, coordinating with the ambulance, my husband, the maids and my doctor friend's instructions. She also tried to find a doctor in the apartment. With her around, many thanks to her presence, I put my entire attention to my mother's resuscitation.

Nobody can give or take a life. God made it such that only he knows when a person will cross the threshold of life into death. We are just mediums. And on that day I was going to be his medium to save my mother. I saw a faint twitch of an eyelid and I knew she was alive. Then a finger just barely moved and I knew she was trying to get back, and then slowly, laboriously, she became more and more present and I knew it was working. Heave! heave! heave! blow in, I kept doing it till she got up. And then the doctor friend called again, he kept calling me to check the progress, bless the good soul, he advised for us to get some sugar syrup, she might be hypoglycaemic (extremely low blood sugar level, it is really dangerous for diabetics). We made half a cup of sugar syrup and started spooning it into my mother’s mouth. By this time the ambulance arrived. 40 minutes after the ordeal began. She drank half of the syrup by the time the paramedics were in my house. 

The 40 minutes of hell had ended, I got up from the balcony exhausted, my knees would give way but I kept standing, I had yet more to do. I was walking in a trance. A state of shock I could not easily snap out of. I just kept up with the task at hand. I realised I had just brought back my Mother to life. A person who was ailing for almost 3 years now. Someone who was praying to God to not live. Who am I to take that decision on behalf of God? I feared relapse, I feared the worse. I went in the ambulance holding my mother's hand all the while, giving her hope. She hung by a thin line, hope mixed with fear and exhaustion. At the hospital Emergency Unit, the doctors took her over, informed me their course of action, a routine procedure, and handed me the slip to get my mother admitted to the ICU. I just held the slip and sat outside the emergency ward, waiting for my husband to come. I knew everything could wait for now. I could depend on him now. My husband arrived surprisingly quickly and took charge of her admission process. As we sat down to have tea after the admission I realised I had an unsteady gait, I could not hold myself together anymore. We rested long enough so I could be back on my feet.

19 years ago at the midnight of 6th December, 1997, my dad had succumbed to a heart attack. I have no idea if I could have revived him, I was asleep when he passed away. I have carried a guilt since that time. As my mother lay limp, I begged God to not do it again. 

Here are a few tips you need to know when a person is having a seizure:

- Do not get nervous, you are the only life saver at that moment. Doctors and paramedics come in later.

- Make the person lie down flat on the floor and lift the mouth upward, lift up the legs by putting pillows under the legs. Do not use a pillow below the head under any circumstances. You have to open up the trachea (the wind pipe, connecting to the lung), if the head is raised the trachea gets blocked.

- Don't let the tongue roll out. Put a spoon in the mouth so the tongue stays in the mouth. I kept opening and pushing the tongue back in place.

- With your palms, one on top of the other, push the sternum (Chest), at the middle, hard. I feared I might damage the rib, the doctors say that even if you did, the person would still be saved, but I would suggest to be mindful of the pressure. 

- Press the chest three times and then open the mouth and blow in air covering the patient’s mouth fully in yours. Blow in hard.

- Under no circumstances make the person sit or attempt to take her to hospital in your car. Those minutes can be used successfully by administering CPR.

- Remember it is important that oxygen is being supplied to the patient, else the patient may end up getting paralysed. Therefore the blowing in of air mouth to mouth is done. 

- Once the patient is conscious enough, administer sugar syrup to the patient, 3 spoons of sugar and a pinch of salt in half a cup of water. 

CPR is an exhausting process, sweat dripped from my forehead, my arms buckled. As for the patient, CPR leaves her in immense pain. There are excruciating muscle pains on the chest area, which last as long as three months. Recovery is a painful process. CPR cannot be administered very frequently to a person. 

Life is beautiful. Inexplicable and complex. Painful yet addictive. I am addicted to life and so is everyone else. And that is one addiction we could live with!

Do you really know what you are breathing in? But you do care don't you?

My husband, in his college days stayed in a hostel that was in a historical building in Delhi. Weathered and time tested though it was, it also was damp and quite unequipped for the modern day pollutants. I am talking about the early nineties, the pre "Inconvenient Truth" days. When Al Gore had not yet proved to the world how we are killing ourselves by polluting the planet. The days when Euro I, II and III standards of pollution control were still novel ideas in India, finally adopted only in the year 2000; the days when avoiding air pollution was not even seen as anything even worth talking about on our country; the days when asthma and bronchitis were not incidental to urban lives. Those were the days when lung diseases were just beginning to show signs of visiting our young population. Constant sneezing was the way it came to me. And to my husband unfortunately, it came as a full blown bronchitis at a very young age. He took a toll on his health and had to be rescued from the hostel by his dad in one occasion, in very poor health. He recovered and returned to his hostel, rejuvenated after a month's rest. But risk of frequent bronchial attack became his constant companion and bronchial attacks a frequent visitor.

The air that we breathe in today's post "Inconvenient Truth" planet is quite significantly polluted and now we know it. The urban sky is red in the night, on the horizon. Stars look faint and far apart. We drive air-conditioned cars with the windows rolled up to avoid the fumes from vehicles that crowd the streets, cantankerously chasing and honking at each other with unknown urgency and unimaginable quest. Probably the only fresh air we can breathe are what we take in, in our short vacations into bucolic surroundings of far flung resorts, set within verdant forests, with sparkling streams and ponds. The rest of our days are spent in reminiscing those pristine experiences.

Someone might offer that their homes are the haven for clean air too! Are you sure about that? It has been proven that indoor air is just as much at risk of being polluted as the outdoors and at times even more. Some of the contributors of it are:

- Pesticides, and we all use some of it in our homes, to fight against cockroaches, ants and mosquitoes
- Tobacco Smoke, if someone smokes in the house
- Pollen and molds, sometimes they just accumulate themselves in the hard to reach areas
- Hazardous building material, such are asbestos, formaldehyde and lead
- Gases such as carbon monoxide and excess carbon dioxide

Homes are vulnerable to all of this. Besides, regardless of the quality of ventilation in the house, our bed rooms in winter nights can still become stuffy and suffocating, unsafe to breathe in. I remember waking up in the middle of many of those winter nights, when I  pulled open the french door of my bedroom because, I could not sleep in the stuffy air circulating inside the closed insulated room, my sleep disturbed and sometimes even completely interrupted.

I am familiar with indoor pollution because all of us in my family have some breathing related issue and I frequently vacuum the mattress and head board cushion in the bedrooms and sofa cushions in the living room, to get rid of dust mites. But my tryst with stuffy air has so far been unresolved with stuffy indoor air taking the better of both me and my lovely precious dreams. So I was quite relieved to hear that Eureka Forbes has come up with this interesting gadget called Dr. Aeroguard, which purifies the indoor air. I found this piece of news reassuring and a chance for me to get undisturbed sleep. It is worth a try!

And as I end this piece I find myself sniffing like the terrier dog for pollutants inside my house. Wait a minute, you can't smell them they are colourless, odourless and tasteless, just like the ordinary air we breathe.

Whatsapp, Facebook, Dopamine and Addiction

Off late there has been a disturbing change in my household. I find it almost impossible to keep my home clean to the standards I have myself set for my house. I thought I was probably a little stressed about the many things that are going on in my life, but when has life been without its occurrences? I wondered what has gone wrong with my housekeeping skills! Unnecessary things lie around in house, without being removed for days. Dumped items to be cleaned later, with no sign of 'later' at sight. I was really concerned about this change in me and I wondered how I was going to get myself back in order. 

And then I discovered the reason. Eureka! Unimaginable but true, the answer lay in what we consider our lifeline and a revolutionary means of instant communication! Yes, I am referring to Whatsapp and its older brother Facebook. Both siblings have a way of binding you to their allure and charm for hours, filling in the time you would otherwise use for productivity, creativity and mundane activity. Oh well later!

My daughter began calling me 'Whatsapp Mamma' and my husband at times would get mercurial with my Whatsapp-centric-attention to him. But I was just not getting it! I was not getting it because, I have built a network of strong friendships and relationships owing specifically to Whatsappp. Facebook has not bothered me much, I don’t share a lot on FB. But Whatsapp just swept me off my feet. I would Whatsapp with multiple groups all the time. Some even professional groups. Some of these friends, whom I had not met in two decades, are my support system now. Some of my professional contacts have helped me immensely, merely because we are in touch, all thanks to Whatsapp. 

So I had a justification to immerse more and more into the Whatsapp world. I began developing attention deficit. My mind would always be divided. And therefore I began avoiding tasks. All sorts of tasks by the way: legal work, bank work, doctor’s visit, cooking something new, reading the book I bought last week, month or even year, cleaning the house, all of it! I was just putting them off, till they became a chronic problem! Owing to the objection from my daughter and husband, I curtailed too much use of Whatsapp in their presence. But all my 'me time' was still being absorbed with Whatsapp.

I never had time to catch up with pending work. I ignored things lying around in the house because, there was a world inside my phone that drew me into it, where physical world did not matter. If I had been breaking bit by bit into bytes, as I focussed on the phone all day long, by today, I would be just a few gigabytes, tucked away somewhere in the cyberspace, all my other possibilities dissolved in this self-effacing and self-glorifying activity all at once.

Self-effacing because, I preferred to be immersed in just a devise, rather than face real people. Self-glorifying because I was spending time getting appreciations and likes and smilies on my messages, posts and achievements, with increasing multitude of narcissism. Experts say that, this activity, of constantly seeking appreciation by way of likes and appreciations, secretes a hormone called Dopamine in our body. And can you tell me what other things cause the secretion of dopamine? Any guesses? Well let me tell you and brace yourself. Dopamine is secreted by excess use of drugs, alcohol and cigarette. “Oh my God,” I said to myself yesterday, “I have become a drunkard! A drug addict! A smoker! What have I done,” I said, as I watched this amazing you-tube video by Simon Sinek on 'Millennials in the Workspace' a must watch, take my word for it! 

So I began noticing my activities from last evening on. Here are some instances, does it sound familiar to you:

-         I look up at the house, say, "why is it dirty," go back to reading messages on Whatsapp. Can’t focus on Whatsapp either, I open the Facebook, check the updates, go back to Whatsapp.

-         I switch on a you-tube video but have too little inclination to listen intently, so I flip and read Whatsapp messages in-between.

-         I wake up in the morning and after brushing and before I fix tiffin for my daughter, I peek into the Whatsapp. After I get her ready, I drop her and while coming home, I catch up on Whatsapp.

-         I sit down for 30 minutes, just to catch up on Whatsapp in the morning.

-         I look for something in the house, I become impatient, but no worries, Whatsapp brings me back to inaction in no time.

Like the sloth, I lounge on one corner of the house, me and Whatsapp! The dopamine has got me and messed with me long enough, I vow today! I now need a plan to check Whatsapp without disruption. “I am no drug addict material, dopamine will not run my life” I remind myself as I clean my home today!

Some ideas to improve the phone usage habbit:

Simon Sinek suggests- 

- do not carry your phone when spending time with friends and family

- In a meeting never carry the phone. Chat with colleagues when waiting for a meeting to begin to build networks and associations, rather than being distracted by the phone. “It is very rude,” he says, “to have your phone on the table, face up or face down, when in a meeting!”

Some suggestions from me-

- When checking a message on phone, stick to the task at hand, do not open personal messages during work hours. 

- Overcome the need for checking smilies and likes on your posts. Spend that time in making another smiley-worthy-creation. 

Have your wine, but not too much lest you become a drunkard. Connect on Whatsapp but do watch out.

Whatsapp is irreplaceable, unavoidable and undeletable! It is, trust me. My school friend in Canada, is hosting a radio show in New York city and her friends, all of us, in India, are messaging song requests on Whatsapp, which she plays real-time and even announces the name of the requester. Long live Whatsapp!