No use whatsoever putting your life s little pleasures on hold. In the end those will be your only good memories. Not the Nobel you won nor your promotion to CEO nor the million dollars in your Swiss account. Nor the bereavements, the divorces, the sicknesses. Nothing will remain save a couple of inane family insider jokes, fading echoes of seventy year old songs and some very rare mental snapshots of real friends.
Yes, life sucks.
Yes, it happens.
Yes, when it happens, you don t want to do anything.
But there never really will be that perfect moment to do things, unmarred by tragedies and/or inconveniences and/or deficiency of time.
My blog, irregular, imperfect, is still my blog. It s real. It s on my list of little pleasures that are not little. And it continues.
Heyy, Beautifuls!! Do you sometimes get this song going round and round in your head and you just can't stop humming it, or playing it again and again on Youtube? I've got a serious case of Umbrellitis Rihannosus :) ella.. ella.. ay.. ay..
So while she struts her stuff in that almost illegal outfit, I type away in air conditioned comfort waiting for my face mask to dry off. It is such a comfort to not have an alarm screaming in my ears at the crack of dawn, force down some calories (I'm not a morning person, as you might have guessed), slap on all that gooey gunky sunscreen and dash for the office.
I have a big day coming up tomorrow. A major function, a lot of social and professional acquaintances to confront, and I want to look as good as I possibly can. Now some of you would just pick up the phone and dial up an appointment with the nearest VLCC. Not me. Congenital cheapskate that I am, I do all my spa-ing at home. I did my own wedding makeup, for goodness sake! Wherever there's a buck to be saved, I'm right there in the forefront doing my bit. I have some cautionary tales too, all personal experience, of parlor jobs gone bad. The day I post those photos, you'll all swear off going to the parlor for life.
Coming back to the point (I always do, eventually :P) The first step is to douse your hair in oil. No hot mask, no cream, no mousse, just oil, preferably coconut. It's proven to be absorbed right into the hair shafts, making your hair soft and strong. The Beauty Brains blog has some pretty informative posts on coconut oil for hair. I couldn't find my Vatika bottle. We've moved recently, and haven't unpacked fully yet. So I had to compromise with this Bajaj Almond drops hair oil. To tell the truth, its 300% more vitamin E claims sound a bit far fetched, because they never did tell me 300% of how much, for example, if other oils used for comparison had no vitamin E, then just a little bit of elementary Mathematics will do full Bhaanda Phod of this oil too!! :)
Next step, wash the face. I do this after applying my hair oil, because whatever grease has leaked down onto my forehead will get washed off leaving a clean slate for my mask. I like to use Garnier skin naturals gentle face wash with fruit AHAs, because it really is very gentle, and won't cause that feeling of tightness after use. My face is anyway bound for quite an ordeal, and I don't want something harsh right at the first step.
For the face mask, I have quite a few options currently in circulation in my stash of products. For today, I took up with Hesh Natur-Riche skin tone up powder. Mixed with Dabur Gulabari rose water and dabbed on thickly (especially on the nose), it dries up within 15 minutes and should be washed off soon after because you don't want something that tight to be clinging on to your skin for too long.
Now the deviation from the norm: I don't use a facial scrub. Most scrubs based on walnut or apricot, have particles too large and too rough for delicate facial skin. A mud pack on the other hand, is effective enough to remove dead skin and dirt without hurting the skin precisely because its particles are so fine and tiny. Multani Mitti, which you'll find in most face masks, is particularly suited to the job. Those of us who've used it are familiar with its smooth, almost slippery texture; no roughness at all. However, it is grainy on a microscopic level, and it will exfoliate like a charm. The Hesh pack is inclined to be somewhat gritty because of the other ingredients (Masoor dal most likely), so once it dries, I splash on some water to wash off the larger pieces and scrub very gently for a minute or so with what's left. The resultant rosiness amazes me every time.
(Dunno why I look so grumpy!)
Next in the list is a rather dicey thing, which I guess I used today simply for its gimmick value :) The product in question (questionable product :P) is Everyuth's golden glow peel off home facial. It's a gluey, gummy mess with little specks of mica glitter which you apply thickly on the face, and pull off when it's dry. Probably works on the same principle as those blackhead nose strips, but all said and done, I'd rather NOT use it again. Applying and drying and admiring the glitter is all okay, but it hurts too much to pull it off, and I'm not sure that something so painful could be good for my skin. Besides, I don't like worthless additions and doubtful claims. The gold glitter is just mica, it won't remain on your skin or do anything in the way of providing a glow, and I have my face highlighters to do that job anyway.
The end approacheth, thankfully. I soothe, moisturize and de-oil (is that even a word?) all at once with - what else - the almighty Lacto Calamine, and we're done! The face, that is.
By now the hair oil has been here long enough to have done its job and next up is a nice, luxurious shower with your wash-time favorites followed by my body spa cum lawnmowing process. The shave comes after the shower because it's easier to get rid of fur that's all waterlogged and softened up, and you don't want to wash off the moisturizer.
This is my routine prep for big days, works well enough for me. I'm always willing to tweak it this way or that, though, so if you have your own pet tricks for looking great before a special occasion, do tell me in the comments!
Hello, my long-suffering friends. This is a broadcast coming to you straight from Mumbai, the best (and currently sweatiest) city in the world. I'm here enjoying my earned leave, and earning every moment of it being the laziest bum in creation. I thought I'd post something new, but I happened to glance through my unpublished drafts and found this diamond in the rough dating back to my ranting doctor days. This blog, believe it or not, is four years old, which in blogging parlance is as ancient as Methuselah. Still, I won't really claim any laurels, knowing that quite a chunk of that was spent hibernating. Anyway, for old time's sake, here goes:
I am very angry. I had no plan at all of writing this one now or anytime in the near future. I've a thesis to complete, for heaven's sake! However, since Blogger beta is determined not to let me republish my settings changes and has thus vanished the status button from my window, I'm forced to use this means. Hopefully when I republish to get this posting online, my settings will get republished too....
Now no one get the wrong idea, I have the extremely privileged position of Resident Doctor at a top-class medical school in the best city in the world. Still as the song goes -
Fine for philosophical posturing, but some wishes are best left unfulfilled...
I walk through my lush green colony's roads on my way home everyday, exhausted, sweaty, cursing my fate and my salary. I see these street dogs luxuriously stretched out in the exact center of the road... sheer indifference to traffic embodied in every grubby hair.
I also see them sprawled all over my hospital campus. There's one who's earless, and seems to have made a permanent resting (and peeing) place out of the recess under the ground floor staircase. Come to think of it, I haven't seen him around in a while. Then there's the uncrowned king of the canteen entrance, a great favorite of the gynaec crowd. Saw what looked like the newest of the breed a couple of days ago. He'd have been quite cute if he wasn't the embodiment of canine Kwashiorkor. Come to think of it, since they all sport the inverted V tattoo of BMC sterilisation, this regular arrival of young blood makes me wonder what those vets are really doing. Population explosion aside, they're really quite amiable little fellows, much nicer anyway than certain humans of my acquaintance. I'll miss 'em. Look at me, getting sentimental about stray dogs! Where's a shrink when you need him?
So, the point I was trying to make, and I was sure I'd meander more or less to it some time in this century, is, there are two kinds of Residents in my hospital. Resident docs, and Resident dogs. Actually, I'm rather convinced that we should do away entirely with the first nomenclature and stick uniformly to the second, seeing as we both enjoy pretty much the same status.
There are three kinds of freedom that my doggy friends enjoy, and I don't, that have specifically caught my attention.
They sleep in the corridors, on the benches, and on top of cars in the car park. I'd be grateful if I could just get some sleep, never mind where.
They enjoy unrestricted lavatorial rights over each and every passageway in the building. A bright yellow pool of piddle is quite a refreshing sight first thing in the morning, but you know me, I like a change of scenery once in a while. I just wish I was bold enough to make do with an open space (especially that time in the rural Primary Health Center when I had diarrhoea and the only available toilet had no water and no door).
They... em, you know, socialize... quite freely, with their lady friends, preferably with at least 27 doctors, patients, ward boys and nurses in attendance. What I'd do with such freedom - err...lets change the subject, shall we?
And that's why I said, that some wishes are best left unfulfilled :D
p.s.- Before making pawns out of doctors and banishing them to rural health centers, our bosses might consider building a couple of working order toilets in said centers.
p.p.s- In keeping with the spirit of nostalgia permeating this post, here's a pic from my resident days, it was taken at a municipal school in Dharavi. Educating. This is work I love.
p.p.p.s- My hand's in a cast. Radial styloiditis. I'll give you a chocolate bar if you can pronounce that. I'll give you two if you can teach me to pronounce it.
First off, my apologies for this blurry pic. My Canon's batteries conked out at the exact moment, so I had to use Hubby's Blackberry to snap this. It ought to have been a bit brighter.
Continuing the hair topic, I'd love to have hair on my head thick enough to make two fat plaits, but I seem to have landed with just enough to create a malnourished rat's tail. Considering I was born bald, I guess I ought to be grateful for small mercies. I'm blessed with a lot of hair where it isn't required, and not enough where it is. I was on the phone with my Mom this morning, telling her how I got nicked in the arm while lawnmowing. She suggested I just braid the strands and be done with it. Yeah right. I'm so hairy, even my mother makes fun of me.
I started using the razor to get rid of unwanted hair when I was about 15. Gosh I'm double that now!! So, hundreds of blunt blades and quite a few nicks and scars later, I have this to say:
Shaving is, hands down, THE most economical, safe, swift and convenient hair removal technique. I'll list out the disadvantages of other common methods, all of which are (not!!) applicable to shaving:
Waxing with hot wax causes a. burns, b. bruises (personal experience), c. hair follicle infections, d. ingrown hairs, e. embarrassing intervals of tolerating unsightly stubby growth until it's long enough to wax again and f. intense itching when the hair first starts growing back.
Waxing with cold wax causes all the above except a.
An epilator is safer than waxing, in that it doesn't cause burns and bruises and fewer infections (because the hair isn't yanked out that forcefully; less trauma, lower chance of infection), but it's a. An agonisingly slow process, b. Irritating to remove hairs that keep getting stuck between the pincers, c. You need a source to plug in, and d, e, f in common with waxing.
Chemical hair removers: a. NOT suitable for sensitive skin, b. Smell weird, c. Can cause caustic burns, d. Sometimes it's difficult to melt off coarse hairs.
Bleach: a. Smells weird, b. Has a distinct possibility of causing chemical burns if not mixed correctly, c. Can cause allergic breakouts, d. Irritates sensitive skin and the most obvious e. Hair's still there, so you can't just waltz out in a miniskirt.
Pumice stone rubbing: Gawd almighty, are folks still doing that to themselves??
Laser hair removal: a. Hair comes back (personal experience) b. It's quite costly, c. You can end up with burn scars that won't go away for upto a year, leading to d. You wasting a lot of time and concealer trying to cover up the dermatologist's fiasco. e. Did I mention that the hair comes back?
The beauty of a razor is, depending on your years of experience, you can have baby soft, ultra-smooth skin in a matter of minutes in the privacy and comfort of your own home. No money wasted on beauty parlours, no infections, no embarrassment. You don't even have to end up with washerwoman's fingers from excessive exposure to soap and water.
What I do is, I get my hands on the cheapest and biggest bottle of moisturiser in the market, slather up and razor away. Works like magic. I don't even need any water to wash it off. This is, in addition to hair removal, a very good body exfoliator too. I can actually see dead skin flakes clogging up the tiny gap in-between the twin blades. So at the end of it, I have smooth, soft, glowing and moisturised skin; just like a foo-foo spa, but without any fears of unwashed towels and unsterilised tools.
A razor's only drawback is that it can occasionally nick the skin. Even that won't happen after some practice, unless you're busy daydreaming like I was (see the bloody spot in the pic?). As for that commonest of myths, of shaved hair growing back thicker,
It does not happen, folks!!!
In fact, just the opposite. Years of repeated minuscule trauma to the follicles leads to hair growing thinner, even sparser. The same way that over-plucked eyebrows don't always grow back. Take me for example. After fifteen years, if those stories were true, I should have been top contender for "Yeti of the Year". Contrary to expectations, I'm not. I'm just a rather clumsy, lazy bum teaching doc trying to maintain regular blog posts.
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