Lemony Snicket's and the Fighting Irish

Last week was mostly spent at a conference at the University of Notre Dame. This University is in a place called South Bend in Indiana and the best way to reach it is to fly to Chicago and drive 2 hours from there on three or four different freeways. 

My first stumble was with United Airlines. They were 45 mintues late. Apparently they were waiting for the incoming aircraft. No sorry. No apologies. 5 minutes before boarding time, they pushed it out 45 minutes.

My plan was to drive from O'Hare airport to my sister who lives 20 minutes from the airport, get some rest and start driving first thing in the morning. The flight which is supposed to land at 10:15 in the night, lands at 10:50 and the pilot announces "There seems to be a traffic jam at the gate with three planes stuck in our area. So this will be a few minutes". After doing three rounds around terminal C, he finally gets us in. It is 11:10! Traffic jam in an airport?! Experiencing this for the first time after so many years of flying. 

Raced out of the gate to find the Budget Car rental, only to realize the one has to catch a Budget bus that takes you offsite and then you get your car. The Budget bus guy circled the airport twice to fill up the bus before deciding to exit and there is a jam at the airport! It takes him 20 minutes just to get to the office outside the airport somewhere.

Then the fun begins. I am 15th in line and there are a whole bunch of simply frustrated people standing in line in this middle of nowhere place. The guy in front of me says he has already been in line for 35 mintues. Apparently the new cars that were being returned were not automatically showing up on the computer. So after doing paperwork, the guys at the counter were manually going out to the lot, assigning a car to the contract and sending the customer on their way, a process that took 10-12 mintues per customer. 

There was no sorry, no apologies from the counter folks. "If you want a car you can wait for however long it takes. Your other option is to call corporate and get a refund." is what this guy told a very frustrated lady with two small toddlers.

I watched helplessly, as a few other angry folks in the line moved over to Avis, which was the only other counter in that area. To their credit, they were in and out in 15 minutes.  Before you know it, the Avis line was full and by now I had already waited an hour!

My sister has almost given up on seeing me that night and she texts me to say "just call us when you get to the parking lot". Finally got a car assigned to me at 12:55 AM after a sudden improvement in the counter speed for the last four customers in front of me. Made it to my sisters place at 1:20 in the night. We chatted for a few minutes and my sister said "I will get up in the morning and make you some breakfast!". I almost teared up. It was already 1:45 in the morning. 

So set the alarm for 5:30 and my sister is already up making me idli's for the on road breakfast (and lunch) and she has packed me some stuff for dinner and the next days breakfast given my allergy history. In short enough to cover me till the return trip through her house to O'hare!

Gladly took all the food and started driving over to Indiana. Then came sequel to Lemony..

Google maps put the time at 1 hour 55 minutes and gave me nice directions. So given that, and the fact that it was raining like crazy to the point that using the windshield viper at max was still useless, drove at a steady pace. Just 10 minutes before I got to the exit for Notre Dame, got a rude shock! The time jumped an hour from Central to Eastern time! Almost cried. Why would any state have some counties on different time zones?! Why?!

Unlike flight timings where they tell you the arrival time with the local time in mind, Google Maps is not smart enough to tell you that when you arrive at your destination you will lose an extra hour.  Luckily there was enough time for me to go do the formalities there. 

There was a short break from all this angst when spending time on the campus. What a beautiful campus! Apparently, it was the day they showed all the new kids a tour of the football stadium. Thousands of kids all wearing green "Fighting Irish" T-shirts crossed the roads as the few conference goers waited patiently to find their parking lots.

Checked in later that evening into the Inn at Saint Mary's. Given that this place is in the middle of nowhere, this hotel was awesome! The best room I have had a chance to stay in to date on any business trip. For 100 bucks (with a discount for being part of the conference) I got a room with a Jacuzzi! 

When it was time to come back stopped by my sister's place again. My Chai buddy who still lives in Fermi Lab after all these years showed up and we caught up. It is amazing how you can catch up on 3 years in 30 minutes with friends.

When it was time to leave, United did it again. Boarded early morning in Chicago and they pushed the time of the flight by 40 mintues, shortly after boarding. The announcement was brief :

"There is fog in San Francisco and that is causing delays in air traffic control. So the flight is delayed, ONLY by 40 minutes. We might make up some time in the air. Thank you". 

No apologies. No sorry. Nothing. The old lady next to me said "ONLY by 40 minutes. See, they know we all cooped up here like rats and we got nowhere else to go! That it why she takes that tone".

We discussed in bullet points, how:

- SFO being two hours behind will almost always have a pre dawn fog

- by the time our flight gets to SFO 4 hours later, the fog should be gone

- what a pathetic excuse etc. etc. 

Somehow the talking moves to how often I travel and we get to "how is traveling in India"!

I told her about an India trip two years ago, when our flight got cancelled and we were offered seats on a competitor airlines flight to the same destination at no charge. She went "What?!" and I said "Yes. There is competition now in India and customer service is getting better because they know if they do that, the folks will remember what they did and come back!" and now we have gone from "We are extremely sorry that the flight is delayed by 10 minutes" just a decade ago to "It is ONLY 40 minutes delay".  

We both agreed that we live in interesting times. 

Finally made it back home to kids who rushed into my arms. Lemony Sicket's was over!

Both United and Budget car rental want feedback on my user experience as of yesterday. It should be fun giving them radio button answers on a scale of 1 to 10, not that I think it will make a difference!

Life is an adventure. Get to go to new places, meet a lot of new people, experience different things that improve  understanding of the surroundings and open my eyes to the world and if I am lucky enough to keep traveling, see changes and patterns. 

This was one interesting trip!

Growing up and Growing old

On a cheeky note, we all grow older at the rate of one year per annum but we grow up at different rates...

Case in point, the 25 something crowd of more than 20 guys who happened to be in the theater last night for a show of "Mayakkam Enna". Had gone to watch the evening show with Balaji last night and it was a full house.

Mayakkam Enna (you can watch trailer here) is a movie by Selvaraghavan with his brother Dhanush as the hero. If you thought this was some feel good, masala romance movie that targets the twenty something youth, you may be mistaken.

It is a visceral movie about a group of friends growing up and growing old based on the circumstances they face in life. Some deal with the hand they are dealt with courage and conviction while others simply struggle to pick up the pieces. Selvaraghavan does a fantastic job of creating vivid images of the characters with all their idiosyncrasies and Dhanush stands out as an actor. The heroine steals the show throughout the movie. A first timer to Tamil movies, this girl can act.

It is a treat to watch a heroine in a Tamil movie get a chance to show her acting skills as opposed to just showing herself for a change.

Went to the movie without knowing anything about the movie. Had not heard about the storyline, the cast, nothing. Just that Sangeetha watched it the previous night and said "you will like this movie because there is a lot of good photography in the movie".

Came out loving it. Sad part was that the crowd of guys totally spoiled the movie going experience. They simply could not handle the serious scenes and would start making loud ridiculous comments to the whole theater which was not much different from little kids who act out to crave attention.

Was telling Balaji that one needs to be a husband and or a parent to understand "the growing up" aspect of life and clearly this crowd was not ready for it.

This movie was 80% tragedy, 20% happy go lucky and another bonus 10% if you managed to connect the dots between the two.

A must watch for a mature audience!

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Focusing your mind - Bikram Yoga followup

This is a followup to the previous post which described physical changes after starting Bikram Yoga.

Before trying to describe the Behavioral changes over the last 6 weeks (Yes, it has been 6 weeks and so far we have made it to 40/43 days!), there are a few important physical changes that were left out in the previous post.

- Softening and shinier skin. With all that sweating your skin becomes extremely soft like a baby's skin. It also starts reflecting light. Your nose, forehead etc. reflect flash when photographed. The front part of your leg where the skin stretches over the bone also starts to get shiny.

- Hair loss (if you can call it that) in select areas of the body. Inner thighs, the inside of your arms near the elbows, the calf area, the few hairs on your chest all gone. There are a lot of guys who show up to class who are as hairy as they get, but just letting you know that for someone who did not have much body hair to start with this is was a good thing... and yes, your chest reflects a lot more light than before when flash photographed.

- Phenomenal ability to shut your ears from the inside. Well, guess all married men acquire this ability to filter out select sounds from the wife, kids, MIL over time, but this is like magic. You can stop listening to things without ear plugs! Like a switch. Needless to say the four women in the house are all upset with Daddy's new found skill.

There was also one day when I slowed down in class after the first 20 minutes when the towel turned a bright yellow where my sweat pooled on it. Having been through Jaundice in 5th grade was worried about having done something to my liver and started doing one set instead of two throughout the rest of the class. The teacher told me that it is normal for some folks to sweat yellow and to drink more water. Later internet searching showed that this is a reaction to the urea from the sweat (same urea from urine gets out through sweat) to some of the new bio-degradable laundry detergents. As it so happened we brought a new "eco" detergent from Costco two days back and it is not a concern anymore.

Now that we have all that documented for other people who might look for information, here is the part about the mind.

The first few days of Yoga was spent in coping with the body changes. It also came with guilt for not having treated the body nicely all this time since the accident, for abusing it with a lot of 14-18 hour work days, bad food choices etc. etc. Then there were thoughts of "why didn't I do this before. This place is so close to home" and some internal justification that it was not meant to be then and it is meant to be now.

After the first week, there was a total sense of detachment with "high decibel noise". When the kids or wife spoke, daddy listened. When they raised their voice, it was filtered out. Same thing at work in meetings where folks got all hyper. Invariably, you realize that when it gets to that point at work or home, filtering out does not change anything. The people who scream don't accomplish anything anyways and only when they calm down themselves do we get to a solution. The only times in the last six weeks this control was not exercisable was when someone lied and my face and ears turned red because blood rushed to my face. Most of this may be commonsense and things regular people do all the time, but it is a new experience for me.

For a person who was always "hyperactive" and quick to get excited over technical things, this is a big change. In other words my signal to noise has gone up by orders of magnitude. This is perceived by people around me as "operating at a higher level", "separating the wheat from the chaff" etc. etc.

Right now, the reaction to anything that is touted as a major problem is "okay, think. what next". There is a deep breath that is being taken before making any serious decision or before opening ones mouth in meetings or at home. Sometimes it is better to leave things unsaid and when you take that breath you realize it and stop yourself.

Controlling your anger is more difficult when you start yoga. The first week was tough. It was like you became a women and were going through PMS. There was a lot of frustration, anger, and happiness. Was really emotional. This went away after the first week.

This change might be perceived by some as a "he doesn't care anymore" or "is he going to quit?" or sometimes your kids might make statements to your wife like "daddy doesn't listen to me anymore" and your wife might think you are going to leave the house and go to the mountains. You walk away from situations where you would have stood and fought and the other person just goes "what happened? you don't want a fight?", "you not man enough?"..

Have realized that this aloofness is not a good thing right now at this stage of life, especially in light of the man enough part, and have corrected it in places.

Now for a sensitive topic. Internet sites, "Bikram quotes" from people who are writing negative articles about him, say that your drive to do things in bed is supposed to increase with yoga and this is something to brag about. On the contrary, the first two weeks after doing yoga, that was the last thing on my mind. All those pretty people you see in the studio and nothing stirs inside you. You go to Santa Cruz and there are good looking women frolicking in the beach and you don't get excited in any way.

Skimpy clad women are not new to me, even from ballroom dancing days. There it was all about blocking out that from your mind and focusing on the dancing. Here the issue seems to be that there is nothing to block. You expect your brain to work on blocking out a thought but it is like the thought didn't arise in the first place. Again, this is a personal experience and maybe something is different with me. If you tried yoga and went through the same or similar experience, please do drop a note in the comment box. There is not much out there in terms of experience from a guy's perspective. Probably guys are not outspoken when it comes to this topic and guess most guys would not want to talk about this, leave alone blog about this.

Have to admit that I have tried to think about this a little too long. Was this a reflection of how doing things in bed were in the past some way to feel alive or feel good about yourself and now that Yoga makes you feel good, you are okay with all that taking a backseat? Or is it the fact that sleeping earlier and focusing on your breathing taking priority over everything else? It is likely that the sleeping hours before the wife comes to bed and leaving hours before she gets up is the root cause and not some mind thing. Hence the request for others to share their comments. You might be perceived as self centered and selfish by your family if you went through similar things. Guys don't play "hard to get", girls do. So when a guy is perceived that way, something has definitely changed.

One theory (self analysis of course) is that even for a guy, there is a lot of hormone changes possibly going on what with compressing parts of the body and extending them and having blood flow to parts that have not seen such flows in ages. Maybe a side effect of those hormone changes? If you are touching your own forearm and go "wow.. this is smoother than my wife's hand" then maybe you have an issue. Even had a weird dream of me becoming like Lord Shiva in his ArdhaNarishvara form (half of his body is man and the other half is Parvathi).

Internet searches tell me that yoga by default reduces chemicals produced by body in stress situations (cortisol). It also stimulates all the glands in the body. From day 10 to day 30, could not care less about anything. Over the last ten days with some experimenting and self analysis, have come to the conclusion that :

- nothing wrong with me physically
- nothing wrong psychologically with respect to being turned on either but you have to willingly turn on a switch in your head and make it say you want it
- somehow the default setting for sensuality is turned off and you have to turn it on at will

So there again, if you feel your drive is gone and you don't seem be bothered by it, it may not be gone. It is very much there if you chose to go for it.

Having had no training as a doctor or a yogi and not having much data go with from the internet, this is the best I could do to summarize the last part. Yoga is supposed to make you realize that the "you" or "my" is not worth it. Guess you get there through a process where you first realize what the "you" is all about.

Recently the body and mind seem to have reached a steady state and the changes are not drastic. They are all gradual changes in strength, flexibility and the ability to focus or defocus on things and ideas. There is no more weight loss either. It has plateaued out.

Not going to add more posts on Yoga. If anything, will update these two posts or add things to the comment section. The real goal was to put these things out so that other folks looking for info. will at least see one persons perspective and add more data to their decision making process on continuing with Hot Yoga.

Life, just got interesting!

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What to expect when you are .. Bikram Yoga -ing

Have had many requests from friends to document why the first four days of going to Bikram Yoga is a make or break and what to expect.

There are many websites and personal chronicles you can find out there thanks to Google. Actually one such link (passed on by San) is what made me go back.

As most of you know there was a viral infection that pretty much took me down the second week of February. It also left my eyes, nose, throat and inner ear in a bad shape to the point that the local doctors told me that my inner ear canal could have been affected by the virus. Was having a little dizziness to start with occasionally and ended up wearing glasses shortly after our trip to St. Louis and back.

So when we decided to go check out the Yoga, the studio gave us a Pamphlet and a guideline of sorts. This was good.. It said "no eating anything 2-3 hours before the class, drink lots of water the previous day" etc. etc.

So we did drink water, but the word "lots" is relative. For a 38 year old guy who drinks maybe 2 cups of water during a work day and another 2 glasses of water at home.. an extra 2 cups is "lots". That is not enough by a long shot, but you don't realize that at that point in time.

So off we went and did the first class. Both of us tried to do the postures sincerely but our goal (after the first 10 minutes of the class and after the very first aasana) was to simply stay in the hot room for 90 minutes. We met the goal and we came out happy.

The rest of the day was a daze.

1. There was a lot of nausea which faded away after 4-5 hours of the class for the first few days.

2. There was dizziness. Every now and then you feel like everything around you is doing a spin. This also fades away after the first two classes. The key is to drink enough water and keep going pee pee on a regular basis the first four days. That helps you flush out everything that has been stagnant in your body..

3. A purging of sorts of your bowels.. (lots of farting, your stomach exploding in the bathroom and you feeling "where did all that come from?") Trust me, it is good because after the second day my bathroom time has been cut to two minutes max. You wake up in the morning, brush your teeth, drink a big glass of water and two minutes later you can empty out your stomach and be on your way to Class. You also think that you have achieved some way to control your bowel at will (this is a feeling I get, but not sure if there is any real control or it is just me learning to squeeze muscles in the stomach area.. muscles that I did not know I had)

4. Hunger and thirst. Walk around with a water bottle if you have to. Currently I drink 3 liters of water during the day and possibly another 2 liters of water after class and in the night (easily). The 500 ml water bottle gets filled around 10 times a day. You also crave healthy food. I am not making this up. Eat two bananas a day. The bananas were always there in front of me in the kitchen table next to the Grand sweets deep fried Boondhi and my hand will always go for the Boondhi and ignore the Banana.. now it is the other way around. There is a realization that this body is valuable and we should not feed it junk. Do not over eat. Did that the first two days. Then everyone we spoke to said "try to avoid over eating the first few days". Drink water, gatorade, electrolyte solutions, fruits etc. Don't go overboard on rice/naan.

5. Tingling sensation in hands and legs and back part of head. This was my personal experience. MIL did not have this or the hunger. Guess she always controlled her diet. There was a sudden rush of blood to parts of the body which have not experienced this feeling. So the Yogis tell me this is also normal.

6. Bad smell on the first two days. Felt constantly like I was standing next to a public restroom in Chennai on a hot summer day a few times during the afternoon on day 1,2 and 3. My kids who are super sensitive said they did not smell it on me, but it was in my nose. Somehow was constantly smelling a urine smell in my nose and head. This went away in three four days and was replaced by a very sweet smell. Now that smell is also gone. However the kids say daddy smells real nice now after a shower.

7. Bad breath on day 1. Then completely gone. Kids actually verified that daddy does not have bad breath even before going to bed. That is nice.

Fortunately we did not overdo any of the poses in the first few days. We both stretched as far as we could and stopped. So there was no pain, strains etc. Did get over ambitious two weeks ago and tried to touch my head to my ankle, kneeling down on the floor and bending my back. Lucked out on that one. Last week, had my legs too far apart while doing the "awkward pose" and strained my hamstrings and knees. That was taken care of by going back into the heat (thanks to advice from the Bikram web site and book). If you are trying to make a sword of steel and you heat it and bang it into shape and if you have a small blemish, you do not try to beat it when it is cold to reshape it. You have to make it pliable again before fixing it. So, took that advice, went back into the room the next day and "problem gone"!

We did feel a freshness even on day 2,3,4. These days I feel so fresh after the post Yoga shower that it is amazing. You can look forward to the rest of the day. It is like your batteries have been recharged fully!

One thing to note is that both MIL and me had very different experiences. She has done Hatha Yoga 10 years ago in Mumbai for a few months and is in general more flexible than me because she does a few minutes of stretching after we leave the house and walks every day in the evening. So the experiences vary from person to person and your past.

If you experienced any of the above, you are not alone. That is all you can take away from this post. . . and you know at least one guy who had these symptoms kept going and is now very happy.

Final note. I have large huge stretch marks on my tummy and thighs. The BMI on my weighing scale shows that my BMI has changed. That means the fat/protein balance in my body has been disrupted. What does this mean? Based on a lot of internet reading from other people who have done this Yoga here is a summary:

1. Your body is burning calories in the hot room. Unfortunately not all my muscles were in great shape when I started. So the body loses some muscles and fat.

2. The skin starts hanging off in some places (like triceps area, hips, front of tummy etc.) Hence no pictures of the six pack that is starting to show.. there is a seventh pack which resembles a deflated balloon at the bottom of the six pack! This also is normal for people losing 11 pounds in 29 days. Patience is being advised. The skin will shrink with time and with continued Yoga is expected to stretch and get in line with the muscles.

3. The sudden low fat diet that the body automatically adjusts to and the heavy liquid diet makes you lose muscle mass also. So there are recommendations out there for doing additional exercises to strengthen these areas. Most of the yoga students (especially pregnant women) tell you that nothing additional is required. Just regularly show up for class and things get better. Based on looking at some of the bodies in that class, one will have to agree.

The plate and screws in my right hand are still there and in spite of it, can do a whole bunch of aasanas that were originally thought to be impossible. Now the strength is back in the right hand and that alone makes up for everything.

Hope this information helps other folks who are starting Bikram Yoga and are planning to give up in the first 4 days. Please call your Yoga instructors instead of going to a regular doctor. The regular doctors don't understand that these are normal side effects for a body that has not exposed itself to this type of exercise of focus.

DRINK "LOTS" of water. You will know by day 2 what "LOTS" means.

Will post pictures soon.

Happy Yoga!

ps. There is no more dizziness. Can stand on one leg, bend my body like a T parallel to the floor, stretch one hand towards the front and other leg towards the back and hold the pose without falling off.. Inner canal damage?! Don't think so!

pps. This is what Yoga did to the body. What it did to the mind is another story. Won't be able to articulate it that easily. The mind wandered and wandered endlessly and has finally slowed down the last week or so. Will try to write about it tomorrow.

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A new genre?

After a long time, wife insisted I get out of the house and watch a movie on Friday night.

Guess the gray hair and visually obvious stress was a concern to everyone at home. So off they sent me to watch a new release Tamizh movie called "Sarvam". Did not understand even the title or the context, didn't know who was acting etc. etc.

Went to watch with the cousin and MIL. Before the movie started asked the cousin "so what is this movie about?" and the answer was "romantic thriller".

I was stumped. Romantic thriller? Did not know that there was a genre of movies like that.

In any case, the movie had a romance section in the front half and a disjoint supposed thriller section in the second half. It was a crying shame that the songs were done so well, with fantastic picturization and special effects, although in one or two places the locales and backdrops were so good that all the hero and heroine had to do was walk gracefully to carry the song and they screwed it up with some real bad dance moves. If you have seen the movie, you know exactly what I am talking about.

Sometimes you can give an architect the greatest of Italian Marble, Venetian stained glass, ocean floor sandstone, Burmese teak wood, etc. etc. but he could completely blotch it and make a freaking random heap of rubble out of the whole thing!

Sarvam brings to mind an old grandma adage "kurangu kayil poo maalai" (give a flower garland in the hands of a monkey). The monkey does not know how to appreciate the flower garland and will eventualy rip it to shreads. Someone gave this director a lot of beautiful elements to piece together or he did create a lot of beautiful pieces himself and he eventually......

made Sarvam out of it!

It was good that we went with no expectations. The first half of the movie was entertaining enough to compensate for the second half.

This movie is not just a romantic thriller, it also belongs to another genre, a nonthrilling thriller.

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