Healing fast ?

It has been a week since I burned my hand with steam from the kettle. Over the last week, I have made it to the Hot Yoga room at BYSJ five times. Had to take a break twice because the boil broke and there was just intense pain anytime I tried to stretch my hand for a day and two days ago the scab came off right in the middle of the class. So I had to take a break the next day.

(that is day7, day 5, day 3, day 2 from left to right.. it was flat on day 1 and nothing was noticeable)

Contrary to advice from folks near and dear to me that going to the hot room may not be an open idea with an exposure like that, it seems to be going fine. Not sure what the normal time is for something like this to heal. It has been a long time since I had a burn injury, so not sure. So far it does not seem to be infected although I let sweat run all over it in yoga class. It stings a lot during class and I have to make a real concerted effort in some poses and I have skipped doing the Volleyball position for the half locust pose. (give my teacher a heads up so they know ahead of time that I am going to watch others during that pose). 

It has been okay so far. My teachers did not have anything to say about this one way or another. They said "if you can do it, go for it" or "make sure you always clean it nicely after class". 

In case you are wondering if it is okay to go do Hot Yoga with a burn.. there is one data point for you on the internet.. It was okay for me. 

Bad designs

Electric kettles seem to have one fundamental flaw! The cords are too short. Be it the one in the Chinese hotel or the ones you get at the local Target here, they all seem to have a cord that is at the most 18 inches long. 

This means the kettle has to be practically close to the wall or the thing doesn't sit on the base well. That also means that if someone has recently used it or if you are trying to unplug it before removing the vessel, the probability of getting burnt by the hot vessel or steam puffs still coming out every now and then is high!

My MIL has already gone through heat boils many times.. for me this is happening after a long time. 

This happened bright and early yesterday morning. So I skipped Yoga yesterday. Thought I would give it a shot today and by the time the class ended, the thing went from being flat and wrinkly to almost popping. Think by tomorrow's class it will pop and will get this over with. 

The body is amazing in the way it directs the recovery crew to a specific site and the hot room accelerates the process is my guess. 

and on a side note, given my recent realization that my bald spot is no longer a spot but more like a bald field, went for a new look. All the ladies in the house unanimously hate it. Have never managed to unite them like this on anything before! 

Life is full of little quirks.. for now I am happy to be blogging again! If any of you know why these kettles have such short power cords, let me know! 

Enna Vechchu comedy kemedy pannaliye ?! (Not making me a comedy piece right?!)

That is a popular punch line of Tamil comedian Vadivelu (one of my favorites).  That seems to have already happened to me.. have become a comedy piece, literally!

Many of my friends and family who watch Vijay TV, have told me that they have a program called Comedy Starz where they used my picture as a "prop".. 

Got the whole thing on video here..

There is some good and lot of bad in this.

Good : Yoga gets some more popularity

Bad : Yoga is still seen as some kind of magic, illusion or rope trick (you see the way the compere ends it? that is the way illusions and rope tricks are presented by street performers).

Also, there is a way to get in and out of a yoga pose. When Jim Kallet was at BYSJ to teach a special class he told the teachers "never get into the pose in the beginner class using an advanced way. I saw this teacher do it in the front row. A football player was behind her in the second row. He was new. He copied her and we literally heard his knees go pop .. pop. He permanently damaged his knee. You can mess with the gods, but you can never mess with your knees".  People do things the wrong way and Yoga gets a bad name. 

Someday will post a video of doing this toe stand, or if BYSJ has one, will link it here. 

There is another bad side to this. Everytime a photo from the blog gets used somewhere (remember 80 feet cut outs of Junior bursting fire crackers in Chennai?), the family is up in arms and wants to shut down all my social media accounts from Facebook, to the blog to twitter, etc. Some will comment and say "get some money out of those guys" to which my response is "the day Indian media companies actually pay anything to take stuff.. that day will never come". Others just go to all out fear mongering "now every terrorist knows about you and your family" to which my reponse is "so the terrorists are all going to start doing yoga? That would actually be a good thing because there won't be any terrorism after they start yoga and do it for a few months!".

If anything, Yoga helps you let go and move on.. so AaaaaUuuuuuuuMmmmmmmmm ! 

This too shall pass!