Withdrawals? Ha! When you can't breathe, nothing else matters!

There is a sense of achievement in what I have done, and I am not boasting. I have stayed quit (smoking) for 10 days; and however few the days may seem, for a man who couldn't quit for three decades, it's quite a bit to have been able to keep the nicotine stick away for so long -- and that too without a craving for it. I know the habit's gone for good!
But while that withdrawal (the craving for a cigarette) never haunted me, a slew of others are even as I write here.
I had heard about appetite improving post kicking the habit.  Oops! "Improving" is too gentle a word. In my case, I often end up having two or more lunches and innumerable snacking opportunities through the day, which I don't fail to exploit. Friends and colleagues who have been this way, warn me of a sudden paunch blooming because of overeating. Now that's a scare for me.
I don't know why appetite increases when you stop smoking. There are different reasons attributed to the phenomenon. One says that the brain wants the mouth to remain active, and one way is for the hands to keep pumping in morsels of food into the buccal cavity before the chewing and the swallowing happens. But I know there is a more metabolic reason to it than just a mechanical one, and that the draining out of drug nicotine from the blood has something to do with the hunger burst.
Now, the absence of nicotine has also got me in another spot. If I sit too long doing nothing, I easily slip into a doze mode. And if I don't doze off then there are two other problems -- the dizziness and the incapability to focus or concentrate on the job on hand.
These were evident since the day after I quit cigarettes. I initially wondered whether there was something wrong with my overall health parameters. Until, of course, a little search on the Net led me to assuring explanations by Canada's The Lung Association, which has a line under its mast that says: "When you can't breathe, nothing else matters." (http://www.lung.ca)
It explained that dizziness is because the airways inside the lung are getting cleared of the tar and muck left behind by the residual action of inhaling cigarette smoke. The result is that more oxygen is being inhaled than before and the brain is getting more of it causing you a buzz. The feeling is much like taking in too many deep breaths and feeling that buzz in which you ears start mildly ringing and everything starts appearing brighter than normal, and of course, the swoon. That has been happening now and then to me and I have to be extra careful on the bike while riding.
Well, the sleepiness and the lack of concentration is because nicotine, the stimulant, is no longer in my bloodstream, and there is nothing to replace that drug in my body to keep me as awake as I used to be when I smoked. "Nicotine is a stimulant. it keeps your body and brain alert. Your body is now learning how to stay alert without nicotine," it said, and gave me 2-4 weeks' time for me to get over these withdrawal symptoms.
And I had become irritable too. My colleagues and family were taking the brunt of it when I decided I had to do something about it. I actually could do nothing much except read it up; and that again pointed to my body's craving for nicotine. Although I could resist temptations to smoke, my brain and body were secretly acting otherwise which culminated in shorter tempers and mood swings.
Wow! I never realised that a drug kept me alert and that I was so dependent on it that the lack of it was now making me angry. I never realised it even when I criticised heroin addicts and those dependent on psychotropic drugs. I never realised how hypocritical I had been in the ignorance about my own predicament. I was just as hooked as they were. And I had absolutely no moral authority to comment/criticise their habits when I mindlessly continued with mine.
Many years ago, when I started smoking in college in Bombay (mid-1980s) at a time when college students were falling victims to drug and chemical substance abuse in the megalopolis, I had no idea that a much less threatening habit like smoking cigarettes could end me up with withdrawals if I quit down the line.
I had seen at least two of my very close friends being victimised by drug abuse -- one died of overdose at her residence in her bathroom; the other survived, although after a long and painful rehab stint (he's up and fine now). I wish the one who didn't survive saw it coming early and had taken evasive action, as did the other one. But she like thousands of others fell for it. I am glad I didn't; so, I am sure, is the other friend who survived.
Wisdom often comes too late. My decision to quit smoking was borne out of that impulsive late emergent wisdom, no matter what the withdrawals. I take strength from that drug abuse survivor friend in Bombay (Mumbai) who suffered such horrendous withdrawals that mine, due to quitting cigarettes, are not even a patch on his.
Now, as I cruise through my withdrawals (some good, like I get to eat more), I know I will end up a much fitter, happier individual than what I had been for three decades. Three decades! What a waste! Why didn't I realise then that the apparently simple act of breathing clean is the essential seed to healthy living. Why didn't I realise then that when you can't breathe proper, nothing else matters. If you gotta quit, you gotta quit!
Here's one arena where quitters are heroes. And I feel like one albeit a bit too late in life after sending 30 precious years of my life up in smoke.

World's largest cigar

Juan Panesso has had a lot of strange requests over the years he's managed his online cigar store-- but a 20-foot long stogie with a $200,000 price tag was easily the strangest. And the most stressful.
'We try to cater to premium high end sm0kers,' Mr Panesso tells the Daily Mail. 'But we've never had something like this. It's really odd, and stressful and exciting at the same time.'
'We thought it was a case of fraud,' he said. 'I mean, we didn't believe it. It was not just an odd request, it was also a large amount of money. We wouldn't just take a credit card on that order.' Mr Panesso, who manages the Florida-based CigarsDirect.com,  got a call from a customer two weeks ago with a laundry list of expensive requests. 'It was like he had just read the ratings and was picking the best cigars.'
 The customer, who Mr Penesso said is a private collector who lives outside the United States, asked about a very rare, high-end cigar that costs $750. The man ordered 100. 'At that point I didn't believe him at all,' Mr Panesso said. 'It's like buying a 100 Ferraris. In my years here I have never sold one of these cigars.'
Then came the big request: find the world's biggest cigar.

The B'lore torpedo gave them their D-Day, exactly 69 years ago

The simple tube devised in Bangalore in 1912 helped Allied forces penetrate the Nazi formations on Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944, and the days following that

US troops carry the Bangalore Torpedo after breaking through the German defences at Omaha Beach, Normandy (France) in this June 1944 picture.

Two US soldiers put the Bangalore Torpedo to test in trying to blast a German anti-personnel mine at Omaha Beach in June 1944. Observe the deadly pipe penetrating way beyond the fence wires to reach the spot, a distance away, which needs to be blasted. 

Exactly 69 years ago, to the moment as you are reading this article, Allied forces were blasting their way through the beaches of Normandy (France), in what has historically come to be known as the D-Day (June 6, 1944) -- the day when World War-II started tilting in favour of the Allies. And what helped them significantly in this historical endeavour was a seemingly ordinary-looking long metal tube with Trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosives which could blast anti-personnel mines and enemy bunkers without posing any risk to the soldier using this. This defensive weapon was the Bangalore Torpedo -- so called, because it was devised here in Bangalore by a British Army officer Captain McClintock of the Madras Sappers and Miners (Madras Engineering Group or MEG) in 1912.

The 15-metre-long jointed torpedo was invented primarily as means to explode booby traps and blast away barricades which had been left over by the Boer War and Russo-Japanese War. But it found its way into World War-I, and then proved to be of of immense help to the Allied troops to clear mines and bunkers on the Normandy beaches. In the days and weeks following June 6, 1944, the Nazis were caught unawares by one of the most aggressive and well-planned invasions which was timed in such a manner that the Germans never expected the Allies to carry out an counter-invasion as big as this due to the prevailing poor weather conditions. 

The events of the D-Day Normandy beach landings are well featured in the black-and-white multi-starrer film, Longest Day, which also shows the Bangalore Torpedo in action.

MEG officials have said the weapon was used not only to blast anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, but was innovatively used to blast away hill-based enemy bunkers on the beaches of Normandy from where they sniped on the Allied soldiers with deadly effect.

Using the Bangalore Torpedo ensured the safety of the personnel using it even as it effectively neutralised enemy position to allow the Allied troops to advance to capture the higher German positions on the beaches of Normandy.

The MEG officials said the Bangalore Torpedo is a weapon in which a Trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosive charge is placed within one or several connected tubes and the explosive exploded using a long fuse for delayed effect to ensure the user soldier's safety. It is mainly used by combat engineers to clear obstacles and enemy positions without coming under enemy fire. The weapon is also colloquially referred to as a 'Bangalore mine', 'bangers' or simply 'Bangalore'.

“It is a matter of great pride for us (at MEG) that the Bangalore Torpedo was invented here. The Bangalore Torpedo is still being used by Indian Army and many others world over,” Brigadier MN Devaya, commandant of Madras Engineer Group and Centre said, adding that the weapon still had its relevance in modern warfare.

“The fact that it is still being used by the armies and that there has been no better replacement speaks volumes about the capability of the weapon," he said.

Bangalore Torpedoes are even today being manufactured by Mondial Defence Systems of Poole, in UK, for the UK and US armed forces, while Indian Army continues manufacturing its own in Bangalore.

The weak, idiotic citizen

What do you do when there is a problem that is staring you in your face, and you step forward to solve it, but you are met with stiff resistance from those who allow that problem to fester? One such case was experienced recently wherein huge amounts of water continued to gush out of one of the main pipes in a neighbouring building in Malleswaram, Bangalore.

We know the city is on the brink of a major water shortage, and here we had thousands of litres just spilling into a massive cascade that went on from Saturday until  Friday -- a good six days without anyone even as much as bothering to stem the flow.

First we thought someone had forgotten to close the tap before leaving town. But that was not the case, as we found out a few days later. The problem was that the repair work on one of the valves of the main pipe of that residential building had gone awfully wrong. The workers, not knowing how to deal with the problem, had apparently abandoned work. The result was the huge wastage of water.

When the building's committee was approached along with one of the candidates who is supposed to run in the forthcoming assembly elections, we were met by one resident of that building. And he was livid. He was rude. And in his expressions there was a strong flavour of guilt at not being able to fix the problem emanating from his building and having had to be reminded by residents of a neighbouring building; and the frustration at not being able to get the workers back to rectify the messed up works.

He said: "Do you think I am not a good citizen, that's why I am allowing this water to run to waste? You live in a different building. It's none of your business to interfere with ours! Please just mind your own business!And let us do our work!" 

The word "please" stood out as a sore thumb in that rudeness. But there was no point arguing with an idiot.

I wondered what he would do if a LPG cylinder leak caused an explosion leading to a major fire in our building merely. Would he have just sat twiddling his thumbs? Or would he have stepped out to offer help?

That water was not from the borewell, but from the water pipeline from Cauvery river. It was not just his or their water. It was our water! Every one's water!

We talk about civic consciousness. We talk about standing up together as one to make our city better with better and safer amenities. We talk about making living in Bangalore better.

Where then does that leave space for people like this man, who by all appearances could be defined as an elder, but with a child's brain? It's none of your business??!!

The interaction -- or rather the one-sided verbal 'skirmish' -- with this 'gentleman' happened on that week's Wednesday, which was four days since the water had been gushing out.

For all that man's rude assurances about "We will fix our own problems", solving the problem took another two days.

As we speak reams about correcting several gone-wrong systems in our civic setup, I am shocked to see that these kind of people in our lovely Bangalore are not an exception, but apparently a rule. They are everywhere! They are on the roads, the one who spit back fire when told they are in the wrong lane; they are on the footpaths, the ones who glare back when pointed out they are urinating in the wrong place; they in the balconies of homes, who make an aggressive gesture when asked why a they throw garbage down on the streets. They are everywhere!
How does one hope to improve this city, in that case? There are too many who don not want to allow that to happen...
Damn sad! 

A little boy's tale of what he lost and how!

(The following is a narrative by an unknown person)

I was walking around in a big bazaar store shopping, when I saw a cashier talking to a boy who couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old.
The cashier said, "I'm sorry, but you don't have enough money to buy this doll. Then the little boy turned to the cashier and asked: are you sure I don't have enough money?''
The cashier counted his cash once again and replied: ''You know that you don't have enough money to buy the doll, my dear.''
The little boy was still holding the doll in his hand.
Finally, I walked toward him and I asked him who he wished to give this doll to. "It's the doll that my sister loved most and wanted so much . I wanted to gift it to her for her birthday. I have to give the doll to my mommy so that she can give it to my sister when she goes there.'
And then he said: "My Sister has gone to be with God. Daddy says that Mommy is going to see God very soon too, so I thought that she could take the doll with her to give it to my sister...''
My heart nearly stopped. The little boy looked up at me and said: "I told Daddy to tell Mommy not to go yet. I need her to wait until I come back from the mall."
Then he showed me a very nice photo of him where he was laughing. He then told me "I want Mommy to take my picture with her so my sister won't forget me. I love my Mommy and I wish she doesn't have to leave me, but Daddy says that she has to go to be with my little sister."
Then he looked again at the doll with sad eyes, very quietly....
I quickly reached for my wallet and said to the boy, "Suppose we check again, just in case you do have enough money for the doll?''
"OK," he said. "I hope I do have enough.'
I added some of my money to his without him seeing it and we started to count the money. There was enough for the doll and even some spare money.
The little boy said: "Thank you God for giving me enough money!"
Then he looked at me and added, "I asked last night before I went to sleep for God to make sure I had enough money to buy this doll, so that Mommy could give It to my sister. He heard me! I also wanted to have enough money to buy a white rose for my Mommy, but I didn't dare to ask God for too much. But He gave me enough to buy the doll and a white rose. My mommy loves white roses."
I finished my shopping in a totally different state of mind from when I started. I couldn't get the little boy out of my mind.
Then I remembered a local news paper article two days ago, which mentioned a drunk man in a truck, who hit a car occupied by a young woman and a little girl. The little girl had died right away, and the mother was left in a critical state. The family had to decide whether to pull the plug on the life-sustaining machine, because the young woman would not be able to recover from the coma. Was this the family of the little boy?
Two days after this encounter with the little boy, I read in the newspaper that the young woman had passed away. I couldn't stop myself as I bought a bunch of white roses and I went to the funeral home where the body of the young woman was kept for people to see and make last wishes before her burial.
She was there, in her coffin, holding a beautiful white rose in her hand with the photo of the little boy and the doll placed over her chest. I left the place, teary-eyed, feeling that my life had been changed for ever...
The love that the little boy had for his mother and his sister is still, to this day, hard to imagine.
And in a fraction of a second, a drunk driver had taken all this away from him....!

If you are an Indian, you may not like it, but still...

Reflections on India By Sean Paul Kelley
    
Sean Paul Kelley is a travel writer, former radio host, and before that an asset manager for a Wall Street investment bank that is still (barely) alive. He recently left a fantastic job in Singapore working for Solar Winds, a software company based out of Austin to travel around the world for a year (or two). He founded The Agonist, in 2002, which is still considered the top international affairs, culture and news destination for progressives. He is also the Global Correspondent for The Young Turks, on satellite radio and Air America .
    
     If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who’s being honest with you and wants nothing from you. 
    These criticisms apply  to all of India except Kerala and the places I didn’t visit, except that I have a feeling it applies to all of India , except as I mentioned before, Kerala. 
    Lastly, before anyone accuses me of Western Cultural Imperialism, let me say this: if this is what India and Indians want, then hey, who am I to tell them differently. Take what you like and leave the rest. In the end it doesn’t really matter, as I get the sense that Indians, at least many upper class Indians, don’t seem to care and the lower classes just don’t know any better, what with Indian culture being so intense and pervasive on the sub-continent. But here goes, nonetheless. 
    India is a mess. It’s that simple, but it’s also quite complicated. I’ll start with what I think are India ’s four major problems–the four most preventing India from becoming a developing nation–and then move to some of the ancillary ones. 
    First, pollution. In my opinion, the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians. I don’t know how cultural the filth is, but it’s really beyond anything I have ever encountered.  At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump. 
    Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul, as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi , Bangalore and Chennai, to a lesser degree, were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all too common experience in India . Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter, was common on the streets. In major tourist areas, filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight. 
    Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality. Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be, how dangerous the air is for one’s health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads.
    The only two cities that could be considered sanitary in my journey were Trivandrum –the capital of Kerala–and Calicut . I don’t know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India’s productivity, if it already hasn’t. The pollution will hobble India ’s growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small ‘c’ sense.)
    The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: roads, rails and ports and the electrical grid. The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India . Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for. With out regular electricity, productivity, again, falls. 
    The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like. Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand , much less Western Europe or America . And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit. 
    There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three. A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old, if not older. 
    Everyone in India , or who travels in India, raves about the railway system. Rubbish. It’s awful. now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004, it was decent. But in the last five years, the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now, takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses. 
    At least fifty million people use the trains a day in India . 50 million people! Not surprising that waitlists of 500 or more people are common now. The rails are affordable and comprehensive, but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram, the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the overutilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit. 
    Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia , Israel and the US, I guess. 
    The last major problem in India is an old problem and can be divided into two parts that’ve
    been two sides of the same coin since government was invented: bureaucracy and corruption. 
    It take triplicates to register into a hotel. To get a SIM card for one’s phone is like wading into a jungle of red-tape and photocopies one is not likely to emerge from in a good mood, much less satisfied with customer service. 
    Getting train tickets is a terrible ordeal, first you have to find the train number, which takes 30 minutes, then you have to fill in the form, which is far from easy, then you have to wait in line to try and make a reservation, which takes 30 minutes at least and if you made a single mistake on the form back you go to the end of the queue, or what passes for a queue in India. 
    The government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners, too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way shape or form. Take the trash for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don’t have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job. 
    Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead. 
    I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don’t think anyone in India really cares. And that, to me, is the biggest problem. India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way. 
    Mumbai, India ’s financial capital is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam , or Indonesia –and being more polluted than Medan, in Sumatra is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan! 
    One would expect a certain amount of, yes, I am going to use this word, backwardness, in a country that hasn’t produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, imminent economists and entrepreneurs. But India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them? Nothing. 
   The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in stasis. It’s a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I’m far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime. 
   Now, have at it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that.  But remember, I’ve been there. I’ve done it. And I’ve seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia , have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does. 
   And the bottom line is, I don’t think India really cares. Too complacent and too conservative.