Book Post # 1

LinkedIn, a professional networking site where I spend some of my spare time, has an interesting option called "Reading List", which allows you to  select a book and post a comment on it. I found that a great new way to suggest books to people, so I thought I would transfer some of those "teaser" reviews to this blog. A word of warning, though - I have very different tastes, so I pick all sorts of books......read on !

1. Beyond Desire by Pierre La Mure
Perhaps the saddest part about the writings of this brilliant biographer-novelist is that you can't find his books anywhere: they're either out of print, or they're not in stock - which is a tragedy indeed, because few narrators have managed to bring the past of great people to life the way he has. This novel is about Felix Mendelssohn's relentless search for that definitive Bach composition, the Passion of Our Lord According to Saint Mathew, and his efforts to make it available to the world. A gripping narrative, told with infinite skill, that will make you yearn to read it again, just after you've turned the last page.

2. The Chosen One by Sam Bourne

Gone are the days when the President of the United States was a hallowed figure, making a guest apppearance at the tail end of the book - these days, he has been brought down to the level of a mere mortal, and occupies a large chunk of the book. In this taut thriller, Sam Bourne, a gifted writer who is just about four books old, takes us through the innards of the Presidency and its frailness. A compelling read.

3. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

The world waited a long time to get another Jules Verne, and couldn't cope with the one that arrived. Had it not been for Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton might have sunk without a trace - which would have been a tragedy of enormous proportions......concepts such as those described in "The Andromeda Strain", "Westworld", "Sphere", "The Terminal Man" and, of course, "Jurassic Park" will not be seen again as the output of a single mind. The films, although brilliantly made (some of them directed by Crichton himself), capture only a small part of the complexity of the original. Read this book first, but if you don't like dinosaurs, choose from the array of subjects available from Crichton's collection.

4. Twisted Tales from Shakespeare by Richard Willard Armour

Richard Armour takes humour to a new level altogether - and for those who have read Shakespeare (even if it is only for the school final exam), this is a classic revisitation of his plays. The style is very different - each play is summarised in a few pages, with piquant illustrations; and the summary ends with a series of rhetorical questions that are more hilarious than the summary itself. Richard Armour has written a slew of such books - other memorable ones include "It All Started with Eve", "It All Started with Columbus" and "The Classics Reclassified". Long out of print, these books are almost impossible to find at a retail outlet - I had to get them in the second-hand mail-order market in the US. Richard Armour is a must-read for all those who thought that P.G. Wodehouse was the last word in humour and sarcastic takes.

5. Shout at the Devil by Wilbur Smith

You haven't really understood what the word "elemental" means until you've read Wilbur Smith - he makes the earth, the sea, the sky, the wind rear up and slap you so hard in the face that you're still recovering from the shock, years later. A compelling storyteller who builds an epic in 500 pages, combining the complexity of human depravity, the starkness of an Africa squeezed bloodless by war, and the intricate web of human interrelationships, in a collection of words that leaves you breathless with wonder, pain and longing. This is one of his better books - other masterpieces are "Hungry as the Sea", "Eagle in the Sky", "Gold Mine", and "The Diamond Hunters". But to experience the definitive Wilbur Smith, read his Sean Courtney Trilogy - "When the Lion Feeds" / "The Sound of Thunder" / "A Sparrow Falls"

Do I hear agentle snore or two ? Right, then - I'll leave the other reviews for later !

Tobackoff! #5 : Dissuasion

THIS ISN'T A CRUSADE !
For the brief period of time that "Tobackoff!" was a page on Facebook, I got a lot of flak for the putative "crusade" that I was conducting. I was genuinely amused. I understand why some people feel this way - but I need to correct the impression, it's important.

If you smoke, it will eventually kill you: believe that. The only way in which it can NOT kill you, is if something else (or someONE else ...:-p) kills you first.

So if you're going to do something deliberately in spite of knowing that it is likely to cut your life short, the least I can do for you is to inundate you with reminiscences so that you can take an informed decision. And I'm not playing sides, either: if you want to quit, there's stuff here telling you about what it's like; if you want to smoke, there's stuff here telling you about what THAT is like, too.

Choice is a wonderful thing - and choice is what you have a right to exercise, every day of your life. My objective is simply to point that out to you.

IS AUSTRALIA GOING TO BE THE WORLD'S FIRST SMOKE-FREE COUNTRY ?

Oh, it just might happen. Australia has already enacted legislations to ban smoking to the point of practically outlawing it. The government runs a quit-smoking website and a slew of helplines and rehab centres.

And as if that's not enough, here's what is going to happen in just a couple of months:

1. Smoking ANYwhere in public wil...l be completely banned - you can't even smoke on the road. If you want to light up, you'll need to do it in your own back yard - if, that is, your neighbour allows you to.

2. Cigarettes will no longer be packaged according to the specs of the manufacturer: all smokes will be sold in a dirty green pack, with the name of the brand / manufacturer written in one corner, almost the way you address an envelope.

Australia, long viewed by the Third World as a land of plenty, has clearly decided to permanently remove tobacco from its plenitude !

What do you think - will any other country go as close ?

CIRCLE OF NICOTINE

Much more than the stained teeth, the morning cough, the yellow fingers or the loss of stamina, I think what first got me thinking about quitting smoking was a very simple demo that a fellow smoker gave me. You can try it yourself, it’s simple but very effective:

1. Have a clean white handkerchief at hand

2. Light up a cigarette

3. Take a drag – do NOT inhale, keep the smoke in your mouth

4. Hold the handkerchief to your mouth, open and expel the smoke through the kerchief

5. Take a look at what is left on the kerchief – a muddy-coloured circle of nicotine

6. Now repeat the process in other clean areas of the kerchief

7. Try rinsing the kerchief under running water…….the stains won’t come off

8. Give a thought to the effect of doing this ten times a day, every day, with the same kerchief

Remember, that’s just ONE cigarette. And that’s just a FEW drags. Through a FILTERED cigarette.

And the stuff doesn’t come off the lungs that easily, people. Have you tried to take the oil off the exhaust fan in your kitchen ? The problem is very similar.

It’s just not worth it.

Tobackoff! 2A : Handling Withdrawal

One possible solution : pre-empt it !

Except for a brief period of two months in 2002 (which wouldn't even pass as a dress rehearsal), the truth is that I never really made a serious attempt to quit smoking. And the reason was simply this - that the putative withdrawal symptoms were so intimidating that I didn't think I'd be able to do it. So, when I finally decided that I WAS going to quit, no matter what, it was clear that I had to find a way around the problem.

A few weeks ago, I hinted at the solution, I'm not sure how many of you caught on to that ? Smoking was so difficult to shed because it was so comprehensively associative. So the ticket was to cut out all the associations. In other words, I decided that I needed to introduce the withdrawal symptoms BEFORE I actually gave up smoking !

After looking inwards for a couple of weeks, I developed a pain in the neck, and the following touchpoints :

Part 1 : The Classic Morning Cigarette (aka - Boss, if I don't do this, I Can't GO !)

Part 2 : The Social Cigarette (aka - Hey chief, join me for a smoke ?)

Part 3 : The Liquid Diet Cigarette, "puff when you quaff" (aka - I smoke only when I drink; but have I mentioned that I drink ALL the Time ?)

Part 4. : The Neuro Cigarette (aka - dude, I'm stressed, I NEED this !)

Part 5. : The Hot Beverage Cigi (aka - I don't know why, but a Cigarette tastes so much better with tea and coffee !

Over three months, I simply laid siege to all of the above. Made like there was no association. Refused to light up DURING, kept myself going with the knowledge that I could light up AFTER. And so I endured a week of constipation; several weeks when my rum n coke tasted like mud; left my tea and coffee half-finished; attacked my fingernails instead of my Classic Milds when I got stressed; and got ridiculed when I refused to join my friends.

But it was well worth it. It worked. You see, I had been through it all before - so when I actually stopped smoking, all the usual symptoms were already old hat. It really was as easy as that !

I'd be lying if I were to say that I felt nothing. My hands felt empty all the time, so I got myself a jar of Pond's cold cream and kept massaging 'em - I was the slipperiest-fingered guy on the planet in those days !!! I got mild headaches, nothing debilitating, just a general feeling of dullness - so I listened to music, trawled the Net, did stuff that didn't need concentration - I let my pleasure centres take over and tell my brain when all systems were go. I even pretended that the inhalers my doctor prescribed were my daily fixes of nicotine ! No smoker ever took a drag with th kind of pleasure that I inhaled from the business end of my Zerostat VT Spacer !

But as I said: it worked. So that made it all worthwhile. It also proved that all you need is determination - "willpower" is a word that has been given way too much importance in connection with this habit.

If you want to do it, you can. And you can believe me,because you know I've been there.

Tobackoff ! # 0 : One Bad Habit

HOW DID I START ?

Irrelevant,right ? I thought so, too. But it was pointed out to me by smokers, ex-smokers and parents of smokers that the reasons are important. Because, you see, it isn't always the result of peer pressure.

Take my case. I was an anti-smoker - a pretty rabid one, too - and that was a tough act to maintain, considering that both my folks were smokers for a while ! Graduated from Mumbai (purportedly a den of iniquity) after living in a hostel through my three years of college. Landed in Cal in the summer of '84, still a non-smoker, largely a non-drinker.

Got largely undone by the miasma of Bong parochialism that was all around me. I was lambasted for not knowing Bengali, for solving cryptic crosswords, for reading Hugh Prather. Also for walking my dog in shorts (me, not the dog !). And then I joined the hail-fellow-well-met firm of Lovelock & Lewes to do my articleship, and was sent to ITC to do their audit.

Three months and ninety complimentary packets of "made for each other" Wills Filter Kings later, I suddenly thought that it might be an idea to act as my father's "food"-taster,as it was.

So I smoked the ninety-first packet. It was Rebel Without A Cause, all over again. Coughed, hacked and cried my way through ten sticks of tobacco, telling myself that, when in Turkey, you prolly need to do like the turkeys do !!

Except that. I'd grown up on a diet of Oscar Wilde. And the man had mantras. The relevant one here was "nothing succeeds like excess".

I took less than six months for me to scale up to 60 sticks a day. Thanks to ITC, it didn't cost me anything. But I paid the price in terms of Pulmonary EMIs, over the next quarter of a century.

Tobackoff! #4 : The Aftermath

ONE YEAR ON

I celebrated my first no-smoking anniversay on November 26, 2011. Quite spectacularly, as it happens - a ceremonial destruction of the 13 cigarettes I had left the day I quit smoking - 13 cigarettes which I carried about with me for a year, to remind myself that a relapse was just an arm's length away.

Once that was done and dusted, I carefully put away the cigarette case that had been my faithful companion through thick and thin, for three long smoky years, and took stock.

This is what I found:

The Downside

1.       For the first time since 1992, my trousers didn’t fit. I was in denial about this for a while, but I finally got myself some new clothes .

2.       The bottom half of my tie doesn’t fall straight down any more, it rests gently against the swell of a large pot belly.

3.       My silhouette has changed from that of a matchstick to that of a large bowling pin in a children’s bowling alley.

4.       I still huff and puff, but the reasons are a combination of ill-treated lungs and excess weight, rather than merely the former

The Upside

1.       I don’t let loose blood-curdling, deathly hollow coughs any more

2.       I can laugh without fear of paroxysms…..in fact, I need to get a new laugh, the old one was customised to pamper my throat !

3.       My teeth don’t feel as though they’re coated with Scotch Guard !

4.       Fingers used to be yellow, they're not jaundiced any more !

5.       Skin looks clearer, though that’s probably just an optical illusion

6.       Shirt pocket bottoms are no longer lined with tobacco flakes

Tobackoff! #3 : The Fallout

THE BUTT-KICKER’S HANDBOOK

1.       Just before you decide to quit smoking, go get a Lung Function Test (PFT) done. You’ll need to do PFT’s every 3 months thereafter; and the dramatic improvement in the readings is just about the only thing that will ensure that you never touch the sticks again !

2.       From the time you quit, your lung degeneration rate will slow down to the same level as a non-smoker’s. Amazing, huh ? But that’s not enough: you have to do what’s known as Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PRH) – which means a long repair job. I’ll write about this separately, it can fill up a booklet all by itself.

3.       Quitting smoking is only the first of a long series of disciplinary measures you’ll have to initiate to make sure you revert (as close as possible) to the non-toxic being you used to be. After a while, you’ll realize that quitting smoking was actually the easy part – everything else is a whole lot tougher !

4.       For a while, you won’t know what to do with your hands. Find your own solution, but avoid replacement therapy like the plague ! It’s easy to pick up an amber glass instead of a white stick; easier, even, to pick up a convenient item of junk food. Strictly a no-no. You’ll be replacing one addiction with another, and the fallout won’t be nice – after all, if you smoke, you die faster, but you might still look good in your last hours J; but if you booze excessively or engorge on junk food, you’ll look like crap for years before your body finally gives up !

5.       Visit the dentist. You can finally remove stuff that won’t come back any more – all those nicotine deposits; if you want to add to the feel-good factor, talk to your dentist about stain removal. You deserve it – after all, your lips are never going to return to their original colour; your smoking fingers are still going to be piebald-yellow when compared with the other hand; so you might as well fix what you can !

6.       Put all your ashtrays in a showcase. Once in a while, look at them the way you would eye a dinosaur exhibit at the Natural History Museum.

7.       While at an airport, visit the smoking room – you’ll be gratified by how disgusted you are.

8.       Don’t kill yourself trying to avoid smokers or smoke-filled areas: the more you are reminded of how you used to be, the more your resolve will harden. Don’t forget that smoking is a chronic relapsing habit……like Mark Twain said, “It’s easy to quit smoking, I’ve done it scores of times !”

GET A LIFE !

You know you’re an ex-smoker when they start talking to you about lifestyle changes. Good Lord. Believe me, quitting smoking was REALLY the easy part.

There’s a horrible laundry list, customised to the individual. Just so that you get a flavour of what’s in store for you, here’s mine !!    :

1.       You need to walk. Every day. Try 10 steps on day one, work yourself up to 2 kilometres by day 15. It’s not difficult.

2.       Tea and coffee at work ? Cut out the sugar, laddie !

3.       Halve the quantity of food you eat. Hmmm. OK, halve it again !

4.       Breakfast is compulsory. You skip it, you’re dead.

5.       Sleep whenever you like. Just make sure you ate at least two hours ago.

6.       Extra sex does NOT assist weight loss.

7.       Do you think you can NOT drink ? I mean, like, other than water ? And no, Diet Coke will not work.

8.       Keep yourself clean-shaven, so that you can whittle down your moonface to a mitochondrion

9.       Blubber is sexy ONLY on whales.

10.   Here’s a serving spoon.  No matter what’s for breakfast, lunch or dinner, you’re allowed to populate the surface area of this spoon just ONCE, as deep as you like.

Hare-brained, you think ? Believe me, it works ! GO TRY IT !!

Tobackoff! #2 : The Process

WHY SHOULD YOU STOP ?

While I was waiting to see my chest physician, there was another patient waiting along with me, a lady who looked to be in her late 30’s, and was obviously very fit – so fit that I found myself wondering what she was there for ! My doctor later told me that she was a very heavy smoker, whose tests always came up with good results; so, she invariably came up with the question, “Why should I quit, Doc ? It’s clearly not harming me !”

Similar sentiments have been expressed by equally fit and very sensible people whom I have known. I once had a boss who had enviable control on the starts and stops – so he would go for days without a cigarette, or would smoke a whole pack in a day if the mood called for it. Naturally, he felt he wasn’t addicted, and he was right.

You do know, don’t you, that when you’re driving, the speed doesn’t significantly matter when it comes to an accident ? If it’s not your lucky day, you can get just as dead at 40 kmph, as you can at 100. Smoking’s a bit like that……the frequency and the number are just contributory factors – every bit of carcinogen each cigarette drops into your respiratory tract, simply clings on for dear life until it has enough brothers around to make up a party.

If you’re smoking, you should stop. Not because of sidestream smoke, global warming, the rest of the world and all that bunk – but because you owe it to yourself to give your body a chance to die of natural causes. And in the process, you set a great example.

WHAT IS THE WAY FORWARD  ? 

Hey ! This may sound silly…..but it’s a fact that, once the decision’s made, the hard part is over ! You see, most smokers don’t quit because they don’t WANT to quit.  So it’s more a case of WON’Tpower rather than WILLpower.

But once you’ve decided that “I don’t need this s**t”, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is, people.

I had always realized that the difficulty of quitting smoking lay primarily in the fact that it was ASSOCIATIVE.

Yes, smoking associates with almost everything you do. Your early morning wake-up high. The additional sugar in your tea. Your morning dump. Your strong reaction to the excesses of  Sonia Gandhi / Sarah Palin / Che Guevara’s ghost. Your boss. The hot bod in the next cubicle who ignores your pheromonal signals. The celebratory drinks you have with ex-colleagues at the neighbourhood pub. Your Happy Hour favourite restaurant waiter. Your spouse’s “Not tonight, my dear, I have a headache” vibe…….and a whole host of other things.

So it’s actually childishly simple. Cut out the associations.

SHOULD THE TURKEY BE COLD ?Welcome to the debate !

It is one that smokers never tire of : The Great Theoretical Discussion – what’s the best way to quit smoking ? Over a 12-year period, I discovered that most arguments centre around these four permutations:

Cold Turkey – stop dead, just like that. No squawks allowed !

Hot Turkey: TRIAD (Tomorrow Really Is Another Day !) – keep deferring the next cigarette, until you actually stop.

Warm Turkey : TAS (The Accountants’ Solution) – the reducing balance method ! Smoke less today than you did yesterday. Revel  in the power of ONE ! So you smoke one less per diem, and work your way down to zero. Feels like forever !!

Lukewarm Turkey: (Aka Lucky Ali) – I smoke what I want, when I want, where I want ! Good grief, I smoke barely 2-3 a day ! Quitting is not a problem ! (*Snicker* you think ? why, then, are you always smoking ??)

I’ve been privy to all the discussions, ladies and gents.

And believe me, the turkey HAS to be cold !

The only way you can give up smoking is by coming to a dead halt. NOTHING else will work.

Tobackoff ! #1 : The Beginning

When I gave up smoking overnight after more than a quarter of a century of huffing and puffing (without blowing the house down), there was a howl of disbelief in the friends-and-family circles. Clearly, the story needed to be told, with all the trademark Guhan melodrama; and so it was that I created, first a group on Facebook, and later a page.....only to find that the maintenance was getting me down. That's when I thought of transferring it all into a blog.

                                                                          *    *    *

WHY DID I STOP ?

The seeds were sown - indeed, were germinated - in Switzerland in May 2010. A fabulous trip that was, the best  holiday I’ve ever had ! Interlaken,  Jungfrau, Montreux, Chillon,  Zurich, Geneva, Pilatus, Titlis…….a pack and a half of Classic Milds per location : puff, puff, puff, puff !

And then, towards the end of the trip, it happened.

There was this incredible waterfall inside a mountain, Trummelbach Falls……..reached by using every conceivable form of transport: a train to the nearest railhead; a bus to the mountain;  a large square elevator  that lumbered vertically up a very wet rock face for more than 500 metres; and finally, our own legs : a large, bluff male personification of Swiss tourism advised us to proceed with caution for “only 200 steps to the waterfall, ladies and gentlemen !”

Well, 200 steps ? A mere bagatelle, especially for a 45+ smoker past his prime. And so I cantered up the first 50……lumbered up the next 50…….gasped up the third 50……..and staggered blindly up the last 50 – to a late realisation that I might have made a very serious mistake.

An incredible waterfall it was, indeed, my friends: I could see it; I could hear it; I could practically feel it, because it was rushing down in this incredible iridescent roaring cascade, several hundred metres down the mountain into some esoteric underground river…….yes, it was surreal - but you see, I couldn’t enjoy it, because I was too busy feeling other things.

I was feeling a cold hard hand clamp itself around my chest; I was feeling a light, inexorable collar around my throat, making it difficult for me to breathe; I was seeing some fascinating coruscating lights in front of my eyes; I was feeling a warm rush of air in my brain; and, above all, I was feeling that I was dying.

Believe me – delusion or not, THAT is NOT a good feeling. And I realized (no significant brainwork there) that it was because of the 500,000 cigarettes I had put away over the last 25 years. And I said to myself – “Laddie, this isn’t exactly what we signed up for, was it ?”

At that moment, I decided that I was going to quit. I knew that it was probably impossible, but I was naïve: I believed everything I read, and some litterateur of a bygone era had written, and I had read, thus:

“The impossible just takes a little longer !”

The impossible actually took me six months. But that is another tale.

Salad # 0 : Futility

Cynicism set in early - very early indeed. Take, for instance, this bit of free verse I wrote in 1984, on relationships: appropriately enough, I named it "Futility":

The burnt child sits

once again by the fire.

He sees her smile.

His heart leaps, thudding painfully against
the bars of its calcium cage.
And then it happens
all over again.

Tentative advances.Wisps of banal

conversation. More smiles. Cunning
compliments. And then the foundation
is laid. It moves on.
Hours of endless squawking
on the telephone. A throbbing hand

grips the belaboured instrument pressed

to a tortured ear.
There is, after all, little
better to do.
Whispered bittersweet nothings. Sincerity
is clearly on holiday: the obvious
needs never to be stated
even though
it is pleasing to hear.
In time, physical
overtures. Diffident at first, then
assertive. Soon, demanding.
Weeks pass. Four figures
in a savings account dribble
away into nothingness
showing little in return.
Boredom
sets in. Only two chameleons
may entertain each other
indefinitely.
Attentions wander. Jealousy

is let in through

a side door. On its heels

runs a hairline fracture

that spreads

the way you see thin ice cracking.

The pain is to come

later. It was good

while it lasted. But for now

it is done.

And the child retreats to

lick its wounds

and await, like

the moth

the coming of another

flame.

Salad : On Con Men

Starting today, I intend to put up a series of writings I churned out a quarter of a century ago. Those were indeed the salad days, so that seems to be the most appropriate name for this section of the blog.

This is an extract from some stuff I wrote in 1987 - it was called "Conatus - to Con or not to Con  "  


What makes a con man's "yes", "no" and "maybe" unique is that they are interchangeable.

A con man's soul is the mirror of his eyes.

Thanks to George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty Four" was the International Year of the Con.

A con man's victim is torn, not frayed.

The only time you can afford to believe a con man is when he is asleep.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their cons.

The classic epitaph for the con artist: "Here Lies".

The only reason why conning can be described as an art is that it requires craft......

A con man learns from the mistakes of other con men.

A con man never asks a question unless he already knows the answer.

A con man does not let his left hand know what his left hand is doing.

A con man's motto is "Con With The Wind" - the trouble is, you can never tell which way he'll blow....

The beauty of the con job is that it is always successful - when all else fails, a con man will invariably con himself.

Thomas Edison and every con artist have one thing in common: inventions.

The word 'con', in practice, operates as noun plural - each major con incorporates a number of lesser cons.

Among humans, the perfect con can only be pulled off by women; among animals - by dogs !

If you're deaf, you can't be conned.......

When one con artist writes about another, what do you think is happening ?

Preamble to this Blog

For you, the reader of this blog

Welcome ! I've been around for a while, but I started this blog only in July 2012. I wasn't feeling very original, so I had to take Lewis Carroll's help for the title....." The time has come, the Walrus said, to speak of many things, of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings..."

I really have no idea what to do with a blog, so I'll take the line of least resistance: I'll treat it like a sheet of paper, and I'll follow the advice of Epictetus: "If you wish to be a write, write."

This blog will showcase samples of the stuff I've written over the past thirty years; rest assured that I shall try and mix them with care, so that the resulting cocktails are palatable ! I've classified these writings into various buckets  - "Salad" is the group of writings relating to my salad days; "Tobackoff !" highlights my experiences with giving up smoking; "Wanderlust" is a travel blog with a difference; "Festiwitti" contains articles written on festive occasions, strictly tongue-in-cheek; "Book Post" is a series of very brief book reviews; and "Dressing" describes the real-life experiences of others, as narrated to me.

There aren't any rules for you, except that you might be entertained by an occasional visit. And on the way out, in case you're tempted to take something with you, do stop to consider that the writings are copyrighted, and many of the pictures are from my personal collection. It also helps that I work with a bunch of lawyers, so legal defence actually comes free :-)

Feel free to leave comments, but I hope you will keep them as polite as possible, since I can't PG-rate them selectively. If something you read irks you, do remember that Mark Twain suggested that you should count to four before you get angry......I'd like to add that before you finish counting, you could try another site !

Cheers and Happy Reading !