Monday 28 April 2014

She loves you yeah yeah yeah


This is my man circa 1966. The picture was taken in his school during a performance of the school rock group aptly named the Logarythms and a self confessed clone of the Beatles. He was George. The band was a huge success, so I am told, with the boys but also with the girls of their sister school. Those were the good old jam session days, remember? When this picture was taken I must have been in Algiers all of 14. Had I been in the sister school I guess I would have been of the hysterical fan followers. In those days in India, I guess boys were a rare treat and one had to lap up every occasion. But I was thousands of miles away. The only thing we had in common, my man and I, was our love for the Beatles. 66 was Rubber Soul. I presume their repertoire included songs from Please, Please Me, With the Beatles, A hard Day's Night and so on.

Of all the Beatles, my favourite, and this is no joke, was George Harrison. I had all their records and listened to them on my turntable day in and day out. later I would go on to the Doors but 1966 Beatles it was.

Ranjan is a born musician. Even this morning he was practising his flute and now that his guitar has new strings, he plays both piano and guitar when in the mood. These re stolen moments and blessed ones.

He wanted to be a musician and would have if he had beeb born today when parents are more understanding and open. But in those days every parent wanted his son to be a doctor or an engineer. Ranjan wanted neither so the middle path was an MBA.

I wish Ranjan had lived his dream as he would have made a mean musician and who knows become famous. I can see the little boy's dream even today in his eyes when he is in the mood and picks up his guitar. But had he lived his dream, I guess we would have never met. He would have had to go to the UK or the US and I needed to sink my roots. And anyway in those days no boy from a 'good' family became a musician. I wonder what my parents would have said if I had brought a rock star home!

But the dream never left and Ranjan is and will always be a musician at heart. God bless him!


Saturday 26 April 2014

To me, you will be unique in all the world.


In my last post, I tried to the best of my ability to pen down what the house I live in -  C 15   Enclave -  means to me. The picture you see was taken a minute ago and to me this is the most beautiful place on the planet. Pictures lie a little, we all know that. The paint is peeling off and there are cracks in the walls but these are all battle scars my house bears proudly as it has survived these battles with dignity and courage and never crumbled. Every year Mother Nature is as bountiful as ever and the plants and flowers hide the ungainly scars better than the best face job! Come to think of it, it is these very bits of crumbling plaster and peeling paint that make this brick and mortar structure into a living home replete with stories and memories.

I just realised one more reason why the story of St Exupery's Little Prince has resonated in my heart and soul at every step of my life. Just life the Little Prince, I too have longed for my planet and my rose. You see they tamed me and in the words the Fox tells the Little prince: if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world. My house is unique to me. And that is not all as the Fox reveals: You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose. I am responsible for my planet and cannot leave it uncared and unloved.

I want to quote what the Little Prince tells all the roses about his rose, the one he tamed and who tamed him: You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.

That is what my house means to me, more so after the death of my parents. Yes I could die for it. I know there have been times when the innumerable problems of plumbing and leaking and creaking have made me go ballistic and I have heard myself say let us break it down and build flats, more so as it would also fill the far too rapidly  emptying pockets, but it was reason speaking. Somehow it is Ranjan who spoke from the heart and resisted such an aberration.

Breaking this house, even if it makes financial sense, would be as traumatic as the moment a child aged 4, 7, 12 etc was told to sort her toys and books as one was moving to the other end of the world. The agony of deciding which doll would have to be sacrificed was agonising. In my own way I had to mourn a lost child far too early in life. Dolls became books and clothes and the beat went on. True along the way, just like the Little Prince I too met my share of weirdos but also saw the world and met people who I may not be in touch with, but who have remained in my heart. Thank God for memories!

When I had to face the daunting task of making an empty shell home again after its true progenitors left, it was these very memories that helped me turn it into a safe haven again. Memories and the lessons learnt along the way, the biggest one being to see with your heart. So I set out the task scouring reminiscences of days gone by carefully and patiently so that nothing is forgotten forever. Some stories were happy, others poignant and yet others infuriating, but with the passing of time a certain mellowness enters your life and you learn to view things in a softer light. And then you also have the wisdom gathered along your life that colours the way you see things.

It is strange how objects I had barely looked at, and even some I had never liked, suddenly became real and talked to me. Each in its own place in my house and its own story to tell and each story is a stroll down memory lane. But it is not only the objects or the pieces of furniture that are precious. These could be packed away in boxes and carried to a new place. What about the walls and the doors and the floor the ones who have been a mute witness to the story of my life. Each one whispers words of comfort when I need it and gives the strength of their half a century tenacity. Some are walls that hear me cry or watched me bang my heads against them. They shared my happiness, my frustration, my pain and my hurts. Can I ever watch them be broken down. No, never. Just like me, this house has a story to tell: mine! I can never pack it in a box, however large, and walk away.

Tuesday 22 April 2014

Home is the place you come for safety

Danger lies outside; home is the place you come for safety. This quote is mine, if quote it is. Home for me began with just two other humans: Ram and Kamala, my parents. Home was were they lived as the 'where' changed more often than I would have liked. And we each 'home' came new people: the staff at home, the friends at school but R and K remained as constant as the North star. So no matter what the hurt as hurts also change as you grow and assume new personas, home and therefore safety was were my parents were. Prague, Peking, Paris,  Rabat, Saigon, Algiers, Ankara and finally Delhi where they built a home that belonged to us. Nomadic days were over, we had come home to safety. And when Kamala left, Ram took on both the roles and I knew I could run to him and feel safe. Then he too left and call it Fate for want of a better word, I had to close my home and move to Paris. But this time Paris was never home as 'they' were not with me so I had many trips back to the empty house I still call home. I think it was when I was in Paris in the throes of an everlasting mourning period that I decided that once we were back in India, I would set roots and never move again.

Today I feel the need to write these words because the pressure on me to 'take' a holiday is mounting and becoming past bearing. My explanations seem weak and tenuous. The fear of flying excuse does not hold ground anymore. And frankly there are times when even I ask myself why I have this terrifying phobia of leaving home. It was time that I analysed the situation and hence this post.

It is many a times that an off the cuff remark triggers a ripple effect in your mind and that is what happened when I was once again trying to slide out of the very warm invitation to visit Paris from two charming friends. I do not know why but I found myself saying: I cannot put why whole life in a suitcase again! And that was it, not the fear of flying or any shallow excuse, my fear was to have to leave home and never find it again!

Earlier it was easy to fly off the coop for a while as home was lovingly kept warm by Pa and Ma, but now leaving it, even for a short time, could bring about its annihilation. Home is no more the building in any part of the planet. It is the empty shell that has taken me years to make home again, in spite of the fact that my parents are no more there to hug me and make everything all right.

Coming back from Paris for good was traumatic to say the least. The house felt empty and desolate. For a while I would not allow anyone to move a thing even an inch as I wanted to keep everything as it was when 'they' were there. I wandered in the house lost and disconsolate trying to make them come alive by some miracle. I can never thank my best friend who one day told me to stop making the house into a museum in the memory of my parents but to make it mine. Thank God better sense prevailed, - it rarely does - and I took her advise and remodelled the house in a radical way: to give you and example Ma's bedroom become the kitchen and I carved out my hobbit hole out of the drawing room assigning myself the space Papa use to spend most time in. Things were better, but it was still not home. Home needed some permanence, some continued presence and surreptitiously and insidiously the fact that it could only remain home if I never left it till my last breath. So here you are this is why any offer, however loving, generous and heartfelt cannot be accepted as the price to pay may be fatal.

You are right in wondering what was the suitcase all about as it seems I have explained it all. Not quite because it is the suitcase that made it home. The suitcase I talk about is a imaginary one. It is actually the sum of everything that has been part of my life from April 4th 1952 and is scattered all over the house: from the ugly ceramic cat I created when I was 4, to the painting of an eminent artist; from the pictures that trace my life from babyhood to grand motherhood; from Papa's beautifully bound law books dating from the Xviii century onwards that are carefully dusted to the book I bough yesterday! Little objects and bigger ones, each choking with memories that only live in my head but that are revived each time my eyes settle on one or the other. You may say and rightly say why all the fuss, you will become back and still find everything there. You are wrong. You see I cannot be me without each and every of these things and cannot pack them in a suitcase.

I hope my loved ones would read these lines and understand what I mean.

Sunday 20 April 2014

Only the mountain and I.


All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other -
Only the mountain and I.
Li Po

Ranjan always dreamt of owning a piece of land on the mountains. He wanted his own top the world. He wanted his eyes to indulge unabashedly on the infinite immensity of the eternal snow. He got is dream and now possesses a tiny parcel of the roof of the world. He drove to see it yesterday and came back tired but gratifies. My man has a poetic side few know of. 


After feeding his soul, he needed to feed his body with the homemade food I had remembered to pack.

Saturday 19 April 2014

Running is for yourself

I cannot remember when I started writing but what I do know is that it was very early in life: poems that no one read, innumerable diaries that began in earnest and then stopped of their own accord. What I know is that writing was a always a form of catharsis and always came when things were not, let us say, on track. Letters too were part of my fire fighting arsenal, some written to real people, and some to the array of imaginary friends only children often conjure. Putting things on paper always made me feel better.

Some years back when thins were so bad that even my imagined creativity had taken a blow, I began writing quotes from books and songs I liked and pasting them in a scrap book. A strange pastime for an adult but nevertheless critical to me as putting pen on a sheet of paper beat all anti-depressants in the world. Whereas all my early 'writings' got lost along the journey of my life, two scrap books still remain on my shelf and I sometimes leaf through them and like figuring out why I chose that particular line from a book or a song. Sometimes, and that is somewhat uncanny, I remember having written something relevant to the present and then go looking for the quote. This what happened recently.

However before I get to the quote, I need to explain the situation. As I had written in my last blog, I have been hounded by all those who love me and have shared the past year with me in thoughts and love to take a break and do something for myself. Travelling is what most suggested but as I always say I am an armchair freak and cannot think of putting my life in a suitcase. However I guess there is someone up there who makes things right or is it just synchronicity, I recently viewed the stunning video of an 80 year old contestant of a reality show who danced the most acrobatic salsa ever, a dance dorm she learnt in her twilight days and felt motivated to do something totally out of the box. I decided to train for a 5K run! As soon as the thought entered my mind, I recalled in a flash having pasted a quote in one of my scrapbooks about running though I could not for the life of me remember what it was. I rushed to my work space and found the dusty book and located the quote: Running is singular. Running is for yourself. The number on the back is yours. The only one that look at is you. No matter what your family does you can run. No matter where they set roots you can run! I forget who the quote is by. Must try and find out.

What is funny though is that when I wrote down this quote I have the laziest couch potato in the world having never liked any form of sporting activity. I wonder what attracted me enough to these words to have taken the pain to write them down. Maybe it was some intuitive power at work. In those days I did not even own a pair of sneakers.

Today when I read these words I realise how running is probably what fits best in my reclusive and anchoritic world. Running is singular! That is what endears me. Of course the running I do will be on my treadmill, but with my iPod and its songs that pan across decades I will be travelling too.

The shoes are bought. The Internet has been scoured keeping age, knees etc in mind and I have zeroed on a Couch to 5K programme whose app has been duly downloaded on my phone. So tomorrow I hit the road. The programme is a nine week one. Let me see if I can make it!

Monday 14 April 2014

Armchair living

Many of my friends and well wishers and most of all the husband have been almost hounding me to take a holiday. Friends have suggested exotic locations where some have swanky homes, the husband has suggested umpteen options including cruises and diners in starred restaurants, the family wants me to come and 'rest' in my father's birth island - Mauritius - where we even have a home next to the sea where you can lull yourself to sleep to the sound of the waves, my grandson wants me to come to St Louis, I have homes waiting in France, Germany, the US, New Zealand and many other countries. I am overwhelmed by the love and generosity of every one and even feel it is somewhat undeserved. True the last months have been tough and trying, but I was simply doing what anyone would for the one you love. I do not deserve any kudos at all and I feel terrible not accepting all these wonderful biddings. But to tell you the truth I am beatifically content within the four walls of my crumbling home. And in this blog I will try and explain how hard I have worked to find my holy grail.

I know that many find traveling a way of escaping the day-to-day grind and recharging sagging batteries. Some need to take a break after a gruelling time such as the one I experienced. But not me. Even as a child whose parents were over the top enthusiastic explorers and lived in many exciting countries, I hated having to accompany them particularly once I had discovered the magical world of books. Perhaps if there had been iPods or the likes of them in those days, I may have relented a bit, but having to leave my room and the imaginary world only an only child can conjure, my books, my music in a word my life was nothing short of traumatic. I realise today that perhaps it was an instinctive coping strategy for a little girl who had much older parents with overflowing social calendars and a smothering love for their only progeny which resulted in very limited forays into the outside world. Hence the need to create mine. It was my comfort zone.

Rebel I did. More than anyone else and there was a time when I left my lone wolf life to try and imbibe as much as I could with or without the consent of my parents. I went wilder and wilder as I sought more and more. In hindsight now understand that I was seeking the comfort I enjoyed in my world on the outside and that could not be because in my space I could time travel, be anything I wanted and enjoy experiences that could not happen in the real world.

After the rebel came the wife, the mother etc, each with their responsibilities and commitments that had to be fulfilled as best one could. Then the blow of losing my parents and the despair that ensued as what had made my imaginary world possible was above all their caring presence. I was lost, completely lost. Only kids with nomadic lives do not have life long school friends or family ties. They just have the parents that they have to follow across the seas. When parents pass on, the boat rocks and loses its moorings till you create them again. The day I lost my father, a year after my mother the first thing that came to my mind was the fact that I would never bang a door again as there would be no one to hear my cry and knock at it murmuring words of love.

Part of my the huge hole that was dug in an instant in my heart after papa went took a long time to fill. Where do you find the kind of love parents give you, a love that asks nothing in return? You have to look hard and think outside the box. It took years of depression to find my way to what would become project why. It was the love of these children that filled the immense sense of loss I carried like a stone around my neck in the form of  a stiff collar I wore for years.

I thought project why had filled up the life of this only old kid forever and that I had come home. But not quite as I would soon realise. Ranjan's illness forced me to remain indoors and at home for a long time and what should have been a difficult if not painful experience was strangely joyful. Surreptitiously I found life coming full circle. I had crawled back to my cave and claimed my lone wolf  status again, the one where is was fully happy.

I call it my armchair living and I love it. I tuck myself in my tiny office and write to my hearts content. I lose myself in not one but several books at the same time. I travel to whatever land I want and can fly through time and space at my pace with abandon. The thought of having to tuck my life in a suitcase to go and see some exotic land is anathema to me. Actually it is impossible.

But how do I explain this to those who love me. 

Sunday 13 April 2014

Because you deserve peace

Peking 1954
Forgive others. Not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace wrote Jonathan Lockwood Huie. Had I heard these words in early days, when life still seems full of promises and innumerable morrows, when a tinge of hubris is part of every individual and you feel you can conquer all, I would have brushed them aside with the easy contempt of youth or the misplaced confidence of an adult. But these words have reached me in my twilight years when bucket lists are being hastily completed as one looks back upon the years gone by with certain sadness and wonders if one did go wrong. But time moves only in one direction and the past cannot be reversed. In your twilight years all you can do is tie up loose ends and above all avoid further hurt.

The little girl in the picture had never been hurt. How could she. She was smothered in so much love by parents who wanted to shield her from all that was bad and tried their best to do so. I know that my papa would have plucked the moon from the sky and brought it into my space had I so desired and were it possible. But life is not a bed of roses and the thorns start appearing sooner than one thinks. Some are easily removed and barely leave a scar, others fester for far longer than you would want and leave ugly scars that even time does not heal.

Then one fine morning when things seem almost unbearable and unending, you suddenly realise that it is you who holds the key to your release as all you actually seek is peace, even if it means to forgive those who have hurt your most. Forgive them in your heart and walk on without looking back and above all ever allowing them to enter your space.

To some it may seem cowardly as if one was running away from reality. Not at all. It is simply not allowing something that had taken all the breathing space in your life to cast even the smallest shadow on your twilight years when you have finally earned the right to peace.

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Overhauling the old biddy

This picture was taken as a lark on my 62nd! Gosh I almost look botoxed and caked with make up and believe me I do none of the above. Let us blame it the light, angle and other technical glitches. But the picture did its trick as I shrieked when I saw it and wondered what had gone wrong. It is true that over the past ALMOST 2 years now I had surrendered myself 100% to the choking embrace of Sir Hodgkin and rarely even looked at myself in the mirror or bothered about what I wore as long as it kept me warm/cool whatever. My exercise regimen was cathartic and varied with the intensity of my angst. I could spend an hour on the treadmill stomping my worries away or could simply find a million and one excuses not to set foot on it. And even for the past weeks when things have got better, I was not in the mood to start looking at myself and doing the needful. When my lovely yoga teacher came, I found myriads of excuses and often landed up treating myself to an acupressure session and some stretching at best and because I could not send the poor boy off. And each time I did it was with a promise that I would begin earnest tomorrow, a tomorrow that never dawned.

True there have been changes often triggered by new information gathered for Ranjan the latest being turning vegan, at least as far as one can. However this picture was an eye opened and brought to light the fact that extreme measures had to be taken. The quasi lymphatic state I had allowed to sink myself into as I shared Ranjan's lymphoma had to be bid farewell to now.

So I signed up for Pilates classes and I am off to my second one now.

Back from round 2 and survived it just by the skin of my teeth! Today was workout with the Swiss ball and I just managed to keep my balance. I only realised today how bad my balance it. I guess this is a true sign of ageing so more balance work for me in the coming days.

It is not vanity that is urging me to overhaul the body believe me. Far from that. This rather is emergency repair to avoid falls and other avoidable mishaps as with what I have learnt in the past months, there is one helluva of a lot you can do to avoid many if not most of the ailments that lurk in the corner. We do not need to have our ribcage sawn and our heart exposed - takes out all the romantic aura associated to this organ - to get some artery fixed. According to many doctors it is not the arteries that are the problem. If you have 90 minutes to 'spare' to learn more and hopefully make the needed change then I urge you to watch Forks over Knives. It may change your life but may also spare your children as you age gracefully and in good health and remain the support you have always been. We do not need toxic chemicals pumped into us with alacrity and impunity though one size fits all protocols made to keep you sick and your doctor rich. You do not need to swallow innumerable pills that your poor body has then to eliminate by making your liver and kidneys work overtime.

But there is one thing you HAVE to do and that is to make a commitment to yourself and ask yourself  whether you are worth it. If the question is yes then you are a winner all the way. Is it tough? Well nothing comes easy my darlings but let me remind you that habits are made in 66 days and that is all the time you need your willpower to stand by you. I guess one can do that at our age.

Wa have started, Ranjan and I, a plant based diet, nothing with a face to a mother, and are quite happy and feeling good. Actually we were almost vegan though there was the occasional egg or piece of fish  the first having a mother and the other a face. To me it is giving up two of my all time favourites: cheese and eggs but when I look at the equation, there is no option.

Joining classes means I have to go through the whole regimen as I cannot manipulate the teacher as I did in my one-on-one classes. Actually after two classes I am feeling good and tomorrow is treadmill day.

Now I will only take a picture of self when I feel I look like a human being!

Saturday 5 April 2014

You say its your birthday

Paris 4th April 1956
You say it's your birthday, It's my birthday too, yeah sang the Beatles many years ago. Birthdays are special no matter which way you celebrate them or even if you don't as they mark the time you have spent in this world and take you one year closer to the day you take your final bow. When I look back over the past six decades of my life, I see how birthdays play a role you only realise in your twilight days and how they are actually milestones in the journey called life. Though I have a vague memory of my second birthday in Peking, yes it was Peking then, the first real memory would be of my 4th birthday. In those early years birthday's were actually special days for your parents, or at least that was the case with me the only child. In 1956 we were in Paris and my mother had got it in her head to get me ringlets not an easy task for one with ramrod straight hair! So the day began with a long session at the hairdresser's and then one had to stop by the professional photographer's as there were no digital cameras then! The yearly flouncy frock had already been bought and would be the going out party dress for the whole year. This is my parents rule: one nice dress on your birthday and toys at Xmas. Of course the day would end with a party for my school friends. This was birthday pattern lasted till I my early teens. Only the city changed: Peking, Paris, Rabat, Tunis, Saigon and Algiers! Oops I forgot the cake. Mama use to order the most fabulous cakes imaginable, with multiple tiers and whirling objects. There were games and treasure hunts and lots of fun. In those days the time between one birthday and the other seemed endless.

Then one grew up and it was the sixties. Rebellious times had arrived. The frocks were the first to be discarded. What I wore or how I did my hair was my decision: we had mini skirts and then frayed jeans to the horror of my doting parents who I guess did not want their child to grow. There were bangs that hid the eyes and then one fine day the hair was shorn to a pixie as Twiggy had appeared. The games were replaced by music and dancing. Birthday were still celebration time and growing up time as one awaited the ones that were real milestones with undue haste: 16, 18 and 21! In those days if one believes in Bergson's theory of time, it moved at a snail's pace if not slower.

Then time changed its perceptible duration and slowed down. More important birthday's became part of one's life' as husband and children entered your space and eagerness is replaced by habit, and you celebrate your birthday with the family till the day comes when your kids celebrate organise your birthday. You reach your 30 and 40s and then wait for the big one the 50th. But that too passes and you realise that the 365 days that looked like eternity when you were a kid or a teenager now fly faster than light till the day you realise that time is short and there are still many things on your bucket list. The birthday become a scary reminder of the indubitable reality that the final hurrah of your life can happen any moment as friends started passing on and you try to rush madly, list in hand hoping to tick the boxes along the way but your body has aged even if your mind is still that of a spring chicken.

62 and counting is where I am at, and in my case it is not only the loose ends of my family that I have to tie but also those of the family I acquired when I decided to talk a walk along the other side: my project why family that depends on me 100%. Scary!

I needed a shot in the arm so on this birthday I visited all my centres and was greeted with so much love and presents that had been made by the children. There was no way I could let them down and the body had to be revived so I have just signed for Pilates classes and made a birthday resolution: exercise come what may and eat healthy by turning vegan with a caveat: some cheat days!

The little girl with the ringlets is now an old biddy whose time is short and who has to set her house in order before the last birthday!

So help me God!




Tuesday 1 April 2014

Anou from 8 to 8


Gosh I feel a little like the protagonist of Cloe from 5 to 7. In this beautiful and sensitive film of the sixties Cloe the 'heroine' of the film waits for the results of a critical medical test. Yesterday after a long hiatus of more than 66 days (remember 66 days is what it takes to create a habit), we got Ranjan's tests done. I had forgotten the process and I must admit got used to a new normal where the elephant in the room had somehow vanished. It was a shock to have him hog the place again!

The blood counts were done and 'normally' should have been uploaded on the site of the very efficient lab by 5pm. Between 5 and 8 pm I must have checked the site umpteen times. Type in the lab number they give you, type in your surname that is the password, type in the verification code that changes every time and click on GO! Normally a PDF file appears and you download it. This time all of got was: Sorry for the inconvenience, your report is not available at the moment. This carried on till 9 pm.

You may have have guessed right, sleep was not forthcoming and the night somewhat disturbed. The what ifs were unending and the questions alarming. When things do not happen as expected, we humans have a tendency to think the worst.

Come morning and a few futile attempts again. Finally I have just sent someone to the lab to get the results and the waiting is killing me.

I have said many a times during this journey that things happen for the best. So let me try and seek the silver lining to this unexpected cloud. The past months have seen Ranjan getting better and better and resuming his activities albeit gently: one week end golf game instead of two, occasional visits to his office; three trips to Calcutta and an upcoming three day trip to Manipur this Sunday. He is putting on weight and even feels he needs to lose some. He is following a strict and wise regimen that gets disturbed occasionally. Life seems normal.

I guess the silver lining of this inordinate delay in getting the blood counts is a gentle reminder that we are living a 'new' normal lest we forget it. And the 'new' in this case is not to forget that there are cancerous cells in his body that need to be kept in check. It also means that I must keep in my toes scouring the Internet and all other source of information for new things to help keep the cancer cells at bay. For us normal has to the a new normal no matter what and above all one has to keep all sources of negativity and emotional stress far far away. That is of the essence as that is what makes the body go haywire and out of control.

I just heard the gate. The results are in and they are good. The haemoglobin that had once dipped to 7 is now at 12.30.

I am thrilled beyond words! And I guess Ranjan has earned the right to an extra shot of Scottish water and a cigar.