(h)ear (h)ear

How does it feel when an insect decides to have a rendezvous with your ear canal and decides to end its life there? I was in splits at the misery of a fellow blogger who logged such an experience a few months back. I never imagined that I'd be aurally deficient for 2 days from my own doing which ended only after a visit to an ENT specialist.

My ear seems to be a gunk magnet and needs to be taken care of every now and then. In the process of one such twiddling operation with ear buds two days back, I messed up, causing some gunk to half-block one of my ears. From hearing in 2 channel stereo, I was reduced to a 1.5 channel stereo with one ear struggling to hear. My ear was reacting to it in a funny fashion. I take a finger close to my faulty ear and I could hear odd whoosh sounds inside. I take the finger away and the sound reduced and faded. The tuning fork experiments in the Physics labs of yore flashed back.

Me, being the eternal experimenter, for relief, tried pouring warm water (not hot water, mind it) into the ear, shook and slanted the head in an effort to cajole the gunk to come out, but it refused. After a few minutes, it almost became a single channel stereo, disorienting me with a perpetual whoosh sound and a 'goiiiiiinnn' sound (:-) there is a medical term for the ringing, buzzing, crackling and hissing sound, 'tinnitus'). In spite of careful prodding with Johnson's ear buds, it worsened and I was a verbal wreck, bugging Señora every now and then (நச்சரிப்பு) to see with a flashlight if she could see something inside. Fed up on my antics from the morning, she quipped "இப்போவே இப்படி, இன்னும் வயசானா என்னெல்லாம் படுத்துவியோ". (It is like this now itself, I dread it when you age older)

Drove with the mono-aural capability to an ENT specialist in the evening who 'irrigated' my ear with warm water and washed the gunk out restoring my stereo hearing to all glory, all in just around 3-5 minutes, the driving took 25 minutes each way and the waiting at the empty clinic, another 30 minutes.

Today morning 'el Niño' was in a bad mood and left a piece of dosai in his breakfast plate, and I told him not to waste food as half the world goes hungry every day and that he was wasting food and hence money. Came a quick-fire retort, "You wasted money yesterday at the doctor by not knowing how to clean your ears properly. I don't do that. Ok!!!". I was speechless.

Lessons learnt - Avoid using ear buds to clean your ear, they could push the wax further into the ear canal, causing you extreme discomfort. Do not advise kids when they are in a foul mood. You will get it right back where you expected it least. :-) :-)

A generation cloud and a lightning strike

Sometimes, you chug along on your life, unaware (or deliberately non-conscious) of the fact that you age every day, along with the world, and to the rest of it, until there is a moment of reckoning.

Was herding mine and brother's kids in a park near my parents' house weekend before last, as they were making a huge racket at home. The kids were roaming around and playing. This park (a vast one with hundreds of trees) is close to a few colleges around and frequented by those who need a timeout from their classes or a rendezvous point for young pairs to nestle in the relative obscurity of the boulders and trees. I was watching the kids, sitting on a bench and opposite me were a group of college girls (maybe doing their PUC) cackling away loudly and having a good time.

As I got up and started to walk back home past the chattering girls, one of them called out, "Uncle, can you please take a photo of us?". Uncle? Me? Ouch!!! I did the honours for them, smiling. It is not that I was not called an uncle before, or I felt anything wrong with that or offended, but it was probably never by a college student and that felt a bit strange. Kids (relatives / neighbors) call me by the various flavours of uncle (chiththappa (chikkappa), periyappa (doddappa), Ram mama, uncle etc), but they are 'kids' and I happily oblige them. Today's youth are so 'in your face'. :-) Reported to Señora on this and she had fun, taunting me. This was Newton's third law at work because of my mirth on a similar 'Aunty' episode earlier. :-)

I was just wondering how I may have requested someone in such a situation, in my past or even now. Maybe, I'd have started the conversation with an "Excuse me" and then requested for taking a photo without referring to any name, gender or a relationship, irrespective of their age. Or, could have used the words, "Sir" or "Ma'am" to start the conversation. In all probability, I think it would have been the first one and that is what I recollect of my trysts with strangers of all ages. A gender agnostic, non relation-referring, straight request for some activity to be performed.

An interesting behavior is reflected by 'la Niña', to an extreme, who refuses to call her aunt (my sister-in-law) as 'periyamma' in spite of cajoling by all, with goodies or even large monetary inducement (1000 rupees!), multiple times. No clue why she does that. If she wants (or has) to talk to her, it is a 'relation indifferent' conversation with no mention whatsoever of the term 'periyamma' and references to my sister-in-law to others would be as '[her cousins' name] Amma' (like "D's Amma"). This generation kids are stubborn, damn stubborn. :-) My nephew/niece calls us chiththappa/chiththi, a dozen times in a minute. :-)

Hmmm... Kids are kids to us (parents), even if they grow up tall.

Unworded - The new generation schooler's principle

I rebel and therefore I am                 (Snapped from my brother's kid's Tee-shirt)

 

 

Manga Attack

Who are all these? Take a guessing shot.

Kanzo Hattori, Ken'ichi, Yumiko-chan, Shinzo Hattori, Shishimaru, Kiyo, Kemumaki Kemuzou a.k.a. Amara, Doraemon, Nobita, Shizuka, Gian, Suneo, Kiteritsu, Korosuke, Miyoko, Buta Gorilla, Tongari, Benzo, Father, Mother, Mikan, Yuzuhiko, Perman, Mitsu, Booby, Sumire, Pokemon, Ash, Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander ...

Well, most of them sound Japanese, yep, you are right.

Go further ...

If you can figure it out, congrats!!!, you must be having school going kids in your house or regularly be exposed to them. Those are all characters out of different Japanese anime series (called Manga) that have flooded our kiddie TV channels. I blogged in one of my earlier posts about first impressions, but this category is an exception to my conclusion. After repeated exposure to some of these serials by either being at earshot distance and by watching random episodes with kids, I have figured out that some of these are not bad or kiddish at all. :-) You start to love them unconsciously. :-) Some of the animes (out of the deluge on TV) were obnoxious, but a lot of them are fun and good time-pass. Some of them have very catchy title songs and some real good voiceover translations in Hindi (sounds better than English).

Whenever you come across Ninja Hattori, Doraemon, Kiteritsu, Perman, Ata-Shin-Chi etc on any of our cartoon channels in the course of your "flipping channel" routine, pause and watch for some time.

Who knows, you may just ignore them as kiddie stuff and flip out or you may have some real fun!!!