AFTER MALCOLM WAS BORN, MY DOCTOR TOLD ME I HAD IRON-POOR BLOOD

I'm starting to think that Billy Corgan did the same bad things I did in a past life and hence we were rewarded with not dissimilar childhoods.* Except that he somehow went on to have a fabulous career and lose his hair, etc. and I, um, well, at least I lead an interesting life.

To wit: Today after practicing yoga and teaching a class and forgoing chai I donated blood and did not feel faint like last time but just utterly exhausted. It seems that the older I get the more of a toll it takes. Or maybe it was giving up the caffeine until afterwards (because drinking it beforehand inevitably causes me to fail the iron test; one's hemoglobin level, whatever that is, must be 12.5 or higher in order to give blood. And I'm one of those boring, borderline anemic holier-than-thou vegetarians).

I don't know much about Mr. Corgan's iron levels, but the hue of his luminous pate suggests they too hover somewhere around 12.5. I do know that he has not blogged since June 2005, which according to my research was a red-letter year for starting the things (his began earlier that year). Two thousand ought six, on the other hand, is the year for quitting. Some have not only stopped writing but have taken everything down as well. Unfortunately the latter group includes the excellent writer, Canadia-born soprano Erin Wall, who until she quit seemed to live a very interesting life indeed. Others just seem to have stopped writing. Apparently the blogosphere (oh how I hate that term) is no longer an edgy neighborhood but a vast boring suburb full of white folks in Gap clothes.

Indeed: While researching a story today I found out that my instincts were correct; many writers and artists of various sorts have started the things for one reason only -- because their marketing person told them to. I wonder if they'll be rewarded with book deals anyway.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Cowboy Bill and I also shared similar young adulthoods, if you count the fact that we both used to be regulars at Jim's Grill back when he lived in a house on Greenview and I was in an illegal firetrap basement apartment a block away on Bosworth.

NO MYSORE NO CRY

Gridlife's miles finally posted to my account.

Too little, too late -- all the Chicago-Bangalore flights from May to September are gone, gone gone.

And to buy the thing would cost $2376.

I don't think so.

WHAT THE HELL

I just learnt that a man is planning to alter my Yoga Chicago article about the upcoming Lookingglass, et al. performance of Sita Ram and post it on some website. Apparently he also plans to add his name to it and publish it in The Indian Reporter.

Over my dead body.

PUNK NOT DEAD

Apparently the following graph is too violent* for my otherwise Erma Bombeck-y treatise on why March is by far the longest and most hateful month of the year:

"Is it any coincidence that the month inspired the terms Mad as a March Hare and March Madness? That last term isn’t about basketball -- it’s about losing it during a winter that never ends. Like Brian Nichols, who killed three people outside an Atlanta courthouse on March 12. The next day Terry Ratzmann opened fire at Living Church of God in suburban Milwaukee, killing seven. On March 21, Red Lake High School student Jeff Weise killed ten people, including himself. Two days later a man opened fire at a plumbing store in Arlington Heights (he missed). And on the 24th, Rockford’s Michael W. Mitchell brandished a box cutter and tried to steal a gun from a store in Florida, so he could “take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo.” "


Something tells me they won't like this replacement much, either, since I've removed the local references *and* mention the dreaded W-word:

"Is it any coincidence that the month inspired the terms Mad as a March Hare and March Madness? That last term isn’t about basketball -- it’s about losing it during a winter that never ends. Last year there was a record number of domestic shootings in March, in places as diverse as an Atlanta courthouse, a suburban Milwaukee church and a Red Lake, Minnesota high school.

"In fact the name March is derived from Mars, the god of death and war, and in Roman times it was considered an auspicous time to do battle. (Apparently it still is -- considering that the US invaded Iraq in March three years ago, and this March the country appears to be on the brink of civil war)."

It's enough to make me want to take up arms.....

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course it's all the violence that's violent, not the paragraph.

WORD OF THE DAY

Blogroach

noun. A reader who infests the comment section of a weblog, disagreeing with everything posted in the most obnoxious manner possible. Sample usage: "Her brother is such a blogroach."

(coined by Stacy Tabb)

From Samizdata.net




NOT-SO-NEW WORD

Blagojevich ("Bluh-GOY-a-vich")

proper noun. An Illinois governor and former Golden Gloves boxer with a good head of hair who invests in the future by implementing a state-subsidized health insurance plan that covers every child in the state.* In 2004 Blago issued a controversial executive order requiring all Illinois pharmacists to dispense emergency birth control medication even if they object on moral or religious grounds (the last provided fodder for a recent Daily Show segment, which ended with the all-too-relevant tag, "The question remains: Who will control the woman's body - her governor or her pharmacist?" See a blurry copy of the video here or search the Daily Show website).



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


*Apparently adults under 65 can still go f--k themselves when it comes to health insurance.

**In related news, Wal-Mart announced a few days ago that its pharmacies will start carrying the morning after pill. Not that they'll actually dispense it in a timely manner when time is of the utmost essence;*** the company also said that individual pharmacists who are "uncomfortable" filling the 'scrip can send customers to another pharmacy -- where they may very well receive the same treatment. Of course you never hear about pharmacists declining to hand out Viagra -- or insurance companies unwilling to cover it. Wonder why that is....

***Spread the word: Women who find themselves in this situation can take two to five regular birth control pills and achieve the same results.****

****All this does is inhibit or delay ovulation to prevent pregnancy. It does not kill the fetus because there is no fetus to kill.

OOPS! SPOKE TOO SOON

The venue for the first week of Pattabhi Jois' NYC workshop has been changed from the ballroom of the historic Puck Building to some place called Midtown Loft (267 Fifth Avenue at 29th) which looks like it has a ballroom and a view but is in some unknown (to me) neighborhood and several F-stops further than the old place from the Hex's Park Slope digs.

Top photo of the pre-dawn Puck Ballroom with lunging Satya courtesy of Katstan. Photo at left is of Midtown Loft

WOMAN PLANS, INDIA LAUGHS

Sharath is indeed taking off May-July and won't be teaching at the AYRI in Mysore. Word is that the shala will close in August while Guruji, et al again go on tour.

Unfortunately Certain Bloggers were planning to go to Mysore June-August and had even obtained work OK and enough miles for an award ticket and are now quite flummoxed indeed.

Fortunately there are still plans to see them in NYC at the end of the month. At least there's that.

Photo of Guruji and Sharath at the old shala by Satya Cacananda @2002

SATYA C'S MINI FAT TUESDAY INDEX

4.5 - Total Paczki consumed so far.

60 - Number of students taught on Sunday.

16 - Number of classes to be taught this week.

0 - Number of naps taken today.

1 - Number of classes left to teach before watching The Shield.

11 - Number of minutes left to finish this entry.

5:31 PM CST - The moment when Satya looked up from locking her bike and saw a woman get out of a cab and run (not walk) into the annoying theme bar Blue Bayou.

1 - The number of masterful Jean Renoir films playing at the Music Box Theatre, which combine three of our favorite things -- Excellent writing, excellent filmmaking and lovely India. Renoir is the son of the famous painter and auteur of Rules of the Game, and The River is his other masterpiece. It's from a book by Rumer Godden (who also penned Black Narcissus) and was his first color film, made after he moved to Hollywood and done on a shoestring. Suffice to say it's so incredible that Martin Scorsese Himself watches it three or four times a year. (This brings to mind the time I watched The Hex shush Spike Lee not once but twice at a nearly-empty NYC screening of Raging Bull). Anyone who lives in Chicago should run (not walk) out and see The River before it closes on Thursday. Timings are here. It's in English, by the way, made in 1951 although it depicts events that take place just after WWII and just before Independence and the ensuing nightmare called Partition.

Some River trivia from IMDB:

Esmond Knight, who plays the one-eyed Father, lost his eye during the battle to sink the Bismark. He served on the Prince of Wales, and later starred as the Captain of the Prince of Wales in the 1960 film Sink the Bismarck.


When Kenneth McEldowney, a successful florist and real estate agent in Los Angeles, complained to his wife, an MGM publicist, about one of her studio's films, she dared him to do better. So he sold their home and floral shops, and from 1947 to 1951 worked to produce this film. It opened in New York to a record 34-week run at reserved-seat prices and was on several ten-best movie lists in 1951. McEldowney then returned to real estate and never made another movie.

HOW MANY PACZKI TIL SATYA C. CAN NO LONGER BIND IN MARICHYASANA D?

My friend LoTus turned me on to the delightful seasonal treat called Paczki last year. This was just before she and her husband and their exquisite daughter Sunny moved to LA. We consumed them at the very old-school (since 1922) Dinkel's Bakery, about an hour before I recorded my first public radio essay. I brought a box of Paczki to the radio station, which is probably why they let me keep coming back.

The Dinkel's website describes them thus:

Paczki is not just another jelly donut. It's a premium sweet good that is super rich, filled, yeast raised pastry. It is a Polish tradition and is traditionally the item eaten to mark Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras. It is the last blow-out before the fasting period of Lent.

I'm not Catholic, but that's OK. Pretty much every day is a fat day for me.

Paczki is pronounced "POONCH-key", but I like to call them Ed Paschke's.

Like LoTus, Paschke was a painter from Chicago. Like Paczki, he was Polish. Chicago likes to claim it has the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw*.

We're also one of the fattest cities. And have the worst traffic. Not to mention the massive artist-drain to the coasts....

But I digress.

At Dinkel's, the Paczki come in the following flavas:

Apricot
Custard
Cheese
Raspberry
Blueberry
Prune
Lemon
Chocolate
Apple
Cherry
Fresh Strawberry
Custard & Chocolate (mixed)

My favorites are the Custard-and-Chocolate and the Prune (yes, I'm getting old).

So far today I've had three.

I was hoping they'd ease the pain of Tuesday's $550 mechanic bill for a new distributor and today's no-show class at 10 and the $50 parking ticket I found stuck to my car this morning (apparently it's now legal to tape a white, barely-visible "no parking from 7AM to 2PM" sign to a tree and put a handwritten "please move or you will be towed tomorrow" note under the windshield wiper of a legally parked car the night before you move and the police will enforce it. Yet upon closer inspection I learned that A) Enforcement is selective, since the car behind me didn't get a ticket and B) The affluent, well-connected whatchamacallits had also commandeered the alley, where another large moving van was piled high with their stuff. But they certainly got a fright when they saw me taking pictures of it all [to boost my defense when I contest the ticket]).

But I digress.

I gave two blueberry Paczki to Dorian Black, who took them home and exclaimed, "They're especially good if you suck out the blueberry filling and put a brownie inside."

Ack! I just read that Paczki are deep fried!

I'm still standing.

For now.

But Dinkel's has them til Tuesday.

Ut-oh.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


*Chicago is also considered to be the second-largest Serbian city in the world after Belgrade (which has a population of two million). I know this is true because I went on a date with one of 'em. The brilliant Chicago-based writer Aleksander Hemon is a Bosnian who came here from Sarajevo in 1992. Dorian Black is Italo-Croatian.

WRONG-O, MARY LOU

Marcia Froelke Coburn’s excellent interview of "This American Life" creator and host Ira Glass in the March issue of Chicago magazine opens with an intro that really rankles -- because it's total BS: “Ten years ago, in the first interview of his career, Ira Glass, a producer and on-air reporter for National Public Radio’s idiosyncratic news and features program "All Things Considered," sat down and told me about the idea he had for a new kind of radio program. It was going to concentrate on everyday life, with fiction or poems sandwiched between strangely ordinary people telling strange stories. Glass wanted to apply novelistic techniques to radio reporting.”

Actually, Glass’s first professional interview dates back to at least November of 1993, when I, Satya Cacananda, interviewed him for my first Illinois Entertainer media column. It was a piece on the WBEZ program "The Wild Room", a then-new kind of radio program that he co-hosted with NPR producer Gary Covino. “I like to think of it as the only show on public radio other than ‘Car Talk’ that both [NPR news analyst] Daniel Schorr and Kurt Cobain could listen to,” Glass told me. He added, “I think it’s appropriate that the show [which aired on Friday evenings] is on a station that most people don’t listen to at a time when most people won’t hear it. And the fact that public radio never puts a new show on the air or takes any off is definitely to our advantage.”

The latter is no longer true and Kurt Cobain is long dead. But the interviews went so well I became a guest – Gary’s guest – on the show several times. And I found the apartment where I still live through Ira – who last year loaned his own pad to The New Orleans Evacugees for a few months. And now he's moving to NYC (to which Covino fled before fleeing to Massachusetts), making Chicago yet again fall short of its pathetic, longstanding boast of being a world class city.







------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sadly, the above photo is what you get when you do a Google image search for "Wild Room."

WOMAN IS STILL THE NIGGER OF THE WORLD

Lads Gone Mad: A followup to last week's Tribune piece about the alleged relaxed sex standards in India. Gawd forbid you're a famous South Indian actress and say it's OK to have premarital sex as long as it's safe, and that men probably shouldn't expect to marry a virgin -- you'll be attacked by everyone from other women to Dalits (formerly known as Harijans or the Untouchable caste) to British boys' magazines.

If yr in a hurry the juicy bits are in boldface.....

BAD, BAD MAXIM:
From the 1/28 Observer (UK)

The actress, the virgins and the lads' mag in India

Wealthy young Indian men are being targeted by a 'culturally tweaked' British publication

Amelia Gentleman in New Delhi
Sunday January 29, 2006
The Observer


In the new basement offices of Maxim, the British lads' magazine launched in India this month, Sunil Mehra, the editor, sets out his policy. 'We don't do breasts. We don't do nipples. We do cleavage - that's our cultural template,' he said.

Studying proofs of the magazine's second edition, Mehra is navigating new terrain, trying to identify the boundaries of sexual acceptability in an increasingly permissive India. For the first issue he erred on the side of lewdness, superimposing the head of a famous actress on the body of a woman wearing transparent knickers, and ended up fighting off legal proceedings. Now he is veering towards caution. February's cover girl is Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor and the strapline promises 'Eye-frying pics: More Kareena - Less Clothes'. On the cover Kapoor displays maybe an inch of midriff, but otherwise looks as if she could be on the way to meet her grandmother. Inside, pictures show her draped across a sofa, wearing a sensible T-shirt and a skirt which is only a tiny bit short. Readers' eyes will remain unfried.

Gentle titillation appears to be a winning formula. 'I have to walk a razor- fine line,' Mehra said. 'This is India, after all. I don't think Indian men are comfortable with total nudity.'

Maxim's arrival is the first attempt to export lad culture to India, but publishers of other men's titles have also expressed interest in targeting its growing population of rich young male consumers. The rival Condé Nast group is looking at bringing GQ to India and Playboy's chief executive, Christie Hefner, daughter of the magazine's founder, Hugh, said her company was aiming at a launch, though its magazine 'would not have nudity and I don't think it would be called Playboy'

Most media analysts agree India has no lad culture of the sort that fuelled Maxim's success when it launched in Britain in 1995, but 80,000 copies of the first Indian edition sold out in 10 days. 'This is just the beginning; others will follow,' Suhel Seth, a Delhi-based advertising executive said. 'There have always been flesh magazines in India, but until recently you wouldn't want to be seen carrying them, so they were sold in paper bags. That paper bag culture has been dispensed with.'

Vasanti Rao, director of the Centre for Media Studies in Delhi, said there would be a market for lads' mags among a new generation of young men, living alone for the first time. 'In the countryside people live with extended families. You would not want to sit with your sisters reading this. Changing lifestyles in urban India have given people a new privacy.'

International women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan have been pushing the boundaries of sexual openness in India for about a decade, but the men's market has not previously been targeted by foreign publishers. Among the domestic English-language titles available, Indian men could choose from Man's World, offering gardening and interior decoration tips, or Debonair, showing skimpily dressed girls headlined 'nubile nymphets'. Pornography is illegal, but available under the counter.

Attitudes towards sex are changing swiftly in India, but puritanism and permissiveness still coexist. Many Bollywood films still use such euphemisms as thunder or butterflies kissing to denote sex, and there is a long way to go before the nation readopts the relaxed mindset which inspired the Kama Sutra. Beyond the capital, displays of conservatism can be extreme. This month TV images were broadcast across the country of police in the northern town of Meerut beating young couples sitting in a park as part of a drive to eliminate 'indecent displays' of affection between unmarried couples.

When the actress Khushboo, who goes by one name, said last year that men should not expect their brides to be virgins, arguing that premarital sex was fine as long as it was safe, she was pelted with tomatoes, old shoes and rotten eggs by conservative groups and taken to court.

Instead of celebrating her stance, Maxim's inaugural edition had a mocked-up photograph of Khushboo half naked beneath a slogan declaring: 'Of course, I am a virgin if you don't count from the behind.' Khushboo threatened to sue and Maxim was forced last week to make a public apology.

'A lawsuit is the best thing for sales,' said Shobhaa De, a novelist who writes forthrightly about relationships.

Media experts say the magazine must remain sensitive to local tastes to survive. About a third of India's Maxim is heavily rewritten material from the magazine's 30 other international editions, including an article promising to reveal '100 things you never knew about women'. 'It is a different market,' said editor Mehra. 'The magazine is culturally tweaked. I don't think you have to be pornographic to address the erotic.'




Khushboo's still suing. Here's the latest
from the 2-15-06 BBC news:
Khushboo gives ultimatum to Maxim
By L R Jagadheesan
BBC News, Madras



Khushboo will not accept an apology (Photo: RS Kumar)
Indian film star Khushboo has given Maxim magazine three weeks to pay compensation for publishing a faked photograph of her in a bikini.
The actress, who has been in more than 100 films, is seeking compensation of 30m Indian rupees ($680,000).

She said she was not willing to accept an apology and would sue if the magazine did not pay up.

Khushboo, who is popular in southern India, said the article had caused her "irreparable damage".

Her lawyer Karthikeyan said she was also planning to sue for defamation: "Irreversible damage has been done to her. An apology will not be sufficient."

The 35-year-old actress already filed a police complaint against the magazine following which the police in Madras (Chennai) seized several copies of the magazine from the newsstands.

The police also registered a criminal complaint against the publisher of the magazine under the "Indecent Representation of Women Act".


Khushboo is known for her outspokenness

The magazine had published the picture in its new Indian edition as part of a feature called "Women you will never see in Maxim - 100% fake".

The magazine subsequently apologised but failed to placate Khushboo, who is known for her outspokenness in a film world where conservatism still rules.

She faced a storm of protests last year after speaking out in favour of safe premarital sex and advising men not to insist on their brides being virgins.

Some political parties launched violent protests across Tamil Nadu state and filed several cases against her accusing her of hurting what they called Tamil sentiments.

Courts intervention stopped violent protests, but the cases against her are still pending before various courts in the state.





And here's a piece about the comments that sparked the whole thing (a few days after this appeared the Dalits protested in the streets and demanded an apology and requested that Khushboo, who hails from Maharashtra [Bombay area], be deported from Tamil Nadu). Rarely do women take to the streets like that.
From the Hindustan Times:

For prudes, Khushboo’s views on sex stink

GC Shekhar

Chennai, September 26, 2005

Tamil film and TV star Khushboo has kicked up a storm with her interview to a magazine where she said there was nothing wrong in premarital sex. Women's groups have hit out at her for “insulting Tamil womanhood”.

The actor told the Tamil edition of India Today that society should free itself from “outdated thinking that a woman has to be a virgin at the time of her marriage”.

“They should know to protect themselves from pregnancy and AIDS if they chose to have sex before marriage. Educated men these days do not expect their spouses to be virgins at the time of marriage,” she had said. The interview was part of a survey on sex and the single woman.

On Sunday, women members of the Dalit Panthers of India (DPI), armed with brooms and chappals [flip-flops], protested in front of the South Indian Artistes Association at T. Nagar. They demanded the actor leave the state and return to Mumbai. At least 60 activists were arrested.

Many suspect the DPI was getting back at Khushboo for spearheading a protest by female actors against director Thangabachan, a Dalit, after he had compared actresses to prostitutes in an interview recently. The director had to apologise even though the DPI had rallied behind him. Meanwhile, the Sun TV group’s new tabloid Tamil Murasu has tried to cash in on the debate and sought public opinion on Khushboo's — the star anchor of Jaya TV — remarks.

The actress and her director husband Sundar C. are currently in Singapore and are expected on October 5.







Oh, yeah -- In other news,the bird flu hit India today.

...AN ACQUIRED TASTE...



Ever notice that

Tasty

and

Nasty


are almost one and the same?

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BANGALORE ASTROLGER....

According to Munkin the news that Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan may wed was even carried by the Chicago Sun-Times.

For the record, Bachchan-the-younger gives me gas (Old Man Amitabh, on the other hand, is a whole 'nother story)....
We do love it though that a bit of extra deli belly is not a federal crime in India.

Yet.



A link to the extended play version of the story is here.


FROM THE GULF DAILY NEWS:

'Aishwarya may marry Abhishek'
NEW DELHI: Their horoscopes match and a wedding could be on the cards says a Hindu priest in southern India, sparking off media reports that beauty queen Aishwarya Rai and Bollywood's rising star Abhishek Bachchan could be tying the knot soon.

Chandrashekar Swami, a Hindu priest and astrologer in Bangalore, said he had examined the horoscopes of both stars and found they "matched perfectly," the Times of India said in a report yesterday.

A former Miss World, Rai is a superstar in India. She has made more than 30 movies, served on the Cannes Film Festival jury and features in international ad campaigns for leading jewellery, cosmetic and cola companies.

The Rai-Bachchan wedding buzz began when a television channel reported last week that Abhishek's uncle, Ajitabh, had met Swami to seek his views about a Aishwarya-Abhishek match.

VALENTINE'S DAY SCENE



FADE IN


INT: LARGE LIVING ROOM STREWN WITH BOXES

SATYA, a slim woman in her late 30's, reclines in an orange and chrome chair, clutching a fuzzy orange pillow, her legs covered with a plaid wool throw. She stares intently at the TV, which is playing "The Shield." To her left DORIAN BLACK, a slim man in his late 40's, hangs upside-down from an inversion table. His head is inches from the floor; his feet are near the ceiling, held in place by black metal cuffs. He too is watching the TV.

SATYA
(glancing over)
I thought they got rid of Forest
Whitaker last week.

DORIAN
Me too. I hate that guy.

SATYA
You know he's Johnny Whitaker's
brother.

DORIAN
The first gay man on TV.

SATYA
He wasn't gay. He went on to
do "Sigmund and the Sea
Monsters."

DORIAN
(folding his arms)
Man my back hurts.



FADE OUT

YODA V. YOGA





YODA : "Do, or do not. There is no try."



YOGA*: "At least try to do."






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*This gem was sweetly delivered by Sharath Rangaswamy to The Hex, who had a torn meniscus and was standing up (vs. folding forward) in Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana at Guruji's 1999 NYC intensive. It worked; he did do.

SEX(Y) IN THE (INDIAN) CITY

This would not go over in Mysore....

From Today's Chicago Tribune:

CULTURAL SHIFT
Some say India displays new openness about sex.
Others aren't so sure.

By Kim Barker
Tribune foreign correspondent

February 8 2006

NEW DELHI -- The two hosts wear shiny suits and advise men how to juggle more than one chick. They joke about test-driving women and perhaps choosing one "with bigger airbags." Babes in leather suggestively caress the latest mobile phones.

This is "The Man's World Show," a TV production that made its debut in mid-January. In the West, the show would be dismissed as a lame rip-off of testosterone TV. But in India, "The Man's World Show" is part of a revolution in the way Indians approach the topic of sex -- or at least, in the way the urban elite talk about sex.

What is happening now, at least for India's moneyed younger class, is a cultural shift akin to what happened in the 1950s and the 1960s in the United States. The topic of sex is coming out from behind closed doors and drawn shades.

Proclaiming "Hello boys!" and "Sizzling!," the first Indian edition of British laddie-mag Maxim hit the stands in late December -- the same week that Viagra arrived in the public marketplace. Not to be outdone, Playboy is planning to come to India, though its pin-up girls will have to be strategically draped to conform to the country's obscenity laws.

Even the most mainstream newspapers and magazines seem crowded with references to sex -- from advice on one-night stands to the latest shocking pornographic video clip sent instantly from mobile phone to mobile phone.

"Sex is no longer a taboo," says Shray Kamboj, 18, a law student in New Delhi. "People feel free to talk about their fantasies."

Granted, this revolution is happening for only a small number of Indians -- young go-getters in cities. Their parents are not included; neither are the millions of India's villagers mired in poverty. The result is a growing gap between affluent, urban young people who embrace the idea of sexuality and a prevailing society that still idealizes virgins; between a country struggling with an AIDS epidemic and the refusal by many men to even contemplate the use of condoms.

Even 10 years ago, couples would not scandalize society by holding hands in public.

Here, most high schools -- urban and rural -- do not teach sex education. An actress from southern Tamil Nadu state recently caused a huge controversy -- and was accused of insulting Tamil women's morals -- when she publicly advocated safe sex before marriage.

It has taken India centuries to get to this point. Ancient erotic sculptures and paintings depict multiarmed gods engaging in orgies, but India grew into a conservative, even repressed society.

Blame the Mughal emperors, blame the Victorian-era colonial English, blame tradition, blame conservative aunties. The result is this: Most marriages are arranged. Most men demand virgin brides. Obscenity laws outlaw nude pictures. Movie censors cut out anything resembling sex.

Even 10 years ago, couples would not scandalize society by holding hands in public. Bollywood movies showed sexy women, but they hesitated to show couples actually kissing. Instead, kisses were hinted at by bending flowers or flying birds.

But life in India has changed for the young elite, largely spurred by the economic liberalization policies of 1991 that led to an influx of Western companies, products and culture.

Satellite TV arrived, along with Indian MTV, and movies reflected the changing times. In 2003, the movie "Khwahish," or "Desire," grabbed headlines for its record-breaking 17 smooches sprinkled through a plotless storyline.

Now, Web sites rank Bollywood's hottest on-screen kisses -- although some movie stars vow never to hurt their images by engaging in such behavior.

Last year, India Today, a major news weekly, conducted a "Sex and the Single Woman" poll for its September issue, a bookend to the previous year's "What Men Want: Exploring the libido of the Indian male."

Propelled by the hot economy, young, educated Indians have found good jobs, moved out of their parents' homes and are experimenting with life on their own terms.

They flock to the bars and nightclubs that have multiplied in major cities and feature the pounding music of Bollywood hits, the Black Eyed Peas and inexplicably, Bryan Adams, particularly "Summer of '69." An increasing number of young people have postponed marriage -- but not sex. The India Today poll revealed one in four Indian women between 18 and 30 in 11 cities had sex before marriage. One in three women said she was open to having a sexual relationship even if she was not in love.

Young people are "breeding like rabbits, for God's sakes," says Sunil Mehra, the editor of the new Maxim in India.

Perhaps that's an exaggeration. Still, though it's certainly watered down by Western standards, Maxim's new India edition, Mehra says, is designed for men -- it is 20 percent about women and 80 percent about "what populates a man's universe."

But Indian society is a complicated world that has not come to terms with seemingly new openness about sex.

Saurabh Balwani, 18, a friend of Kamboj, says he is a virgin but he's open to the idea of having sex before marriage. His future wife should not be.

"It's just like that -- I prefer virgins," says Balwani over lunch at a McDonald's.

"It's so stupid," Kamboj responds. "You can't even tell who's a virgin."

Two tables away, a pair of female college students talk openly about sex.

Aparna Kapoor and Radhika Gupta, both 19, say they are no longer virgins, although Gupta says she won't introduce her boyfriends to her parents -- her elders are too conservative for that.

She also says she doesn't worry about the value Indian men traditionally place on choosing an untouched bride.

"Eventually, there won't be any virgins left," Gupta says.

----------

kbarker@tribune.com



Copyright © 2006, The Chicago Tribune

ENOUGH WITH THE CARTOON CONTROVERSY ALREADY*

The Allah / free speech foofaraw = the American flag-burning brouhaha, as pointed out most pointedly by the brilliant folks at Badmash.

Many other excellent cartoons are also there.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


*The damn things first appeared back in September. But that won't stop the cable news channels from flogging it to death.

THE OLDEN DAYS

A teacher from my early days at The Empty Shala came to my open class today and I was floored. I used to take his class nine years ago (and took over his Wednesday night class after he left-- and still teach it). That was before the shala was empty, and when I finally felt ready to take my first primary series class my main teacher situated my mat between his and that of my other teacher (the one who told me to be a teacher in the first place, and who went on to teach with Manju Jois). I remember watching both of them floating from arm balance into caturanga dandasana and thinking "no way," but they kept a compassionate eye on me and made sure I twisted the right way in Mari B and D. Seeing him was disconcerting, as was the fact that 12 people showed up to a class that usually has three to five. I'm not complaining -- energy and space-wise, 12 is the ideal class size. 'Twas a mix of newbies and very experienced folk but I led them through a sequence leading to Kapotasana anyway. However I was too freaked out to adjust my old teacher, except in savasana. Maybe next time.

JUSTIN MORGAN HAD A HORSE*


Barack Obama has a blog**


And Satya C got a brand-new ring.***






----------------------------




*While growing up just outside of McHenry in Johnsburg, Illinois (not unlike the Tom Waits song from Swordfishtrombones), my favorite author was Marguerite Henry (who was born in Milwaukee and lived in Chicago for awhile) and King of the Wind my favorite book -- far better than National Velvet if you ask me -- and I read it all the time, even though right outside we had 40 real, (mostly Appaloosa) horses -- one of which was mine. That is, until I decided to live below the poverty level with my mother... Then Buckwheat was immediately sold and my worldly possessions (toys, clothes, jewelry, etc) were gifted to the stempmotha's niece. Only after much lobbying was my mother grudgingly given $200 to replace the whole lot. I created an elaborate chart of what I wore to seventh grade each and every day so that no one knew I only had three outfits. But that's a whole 'nother story.

.... Justin Morgan and Samuel Adams -- separated at birth?

**If any of the five people reading this know of any Chicago luminaries / Windy City denizens who're prominent in their fields and keep blogs, let me know ASAP so I may further indulge my pathetic obsession.

....speaking of which -- apparently even local playwright/comedian/tritathlete Aaron Freeman, of Council Wars fame, shares my taste in templates. And we raced the same triathlon and attended the same after-party in 1991, and currently do those little essays on public radio. But as Gridlife points out, "He is: A Black Jew. You Are: A WASP-y nondenominational. He is: Non afraid to put his picture up. You Are: Oddly afraid to have any picture up." Plus he's older, gifted and black. I'm allegedly free, white and 41. Add your wry comment here: ______________________________________.



***The ring, a gift from Dorian Black, who is white, is not for 'roids but for a sore tailbone, the source of which seems to be the bucket seat in the new (1992) Honda-car, which I've been driving far too often of late.

OLD SCHOOL:
FIRST DAY AT GURUJI'S OLD SHALA IN MYSORE, 2002


I'm in the middle of beginning-of-the-month deadline hell -- too busy to take a busman's holiday -- so here's a journal entry from four years ago, almost to the day.


TUESDAY 29 JANUARY 2002

We finally got rooms at the Kauvery on Sunday evening. We'd spent that day buying mosquito nets, hanging out in a park, drinking coconut milk (they're greener and sweeter here than in Kovalam, and have more milk and less "meat."), and locating the yoga shala -- in short, doing everything but taking the naps we so desperately needed.

We arrived too late on Sunday to register for yoga, and Monday was moon day. A nice woman from Austrailia gave us Guruji's number, so we called Sharath and he told us to come on Tuesday at 6:30am (which is when all the new people are told to come. Turns out there are a ton of us here from Kovalam).

The rumor in Kovalam was that prices had been raised from $550 to $600. While we were waiting over an hour on the stairs (to get a spot in the studio, which holds 12), we learned that Guruji had raised it to $555. Who brings $5 bills to India, we wondered. We spent a good part of the afternoon finding someone who could break a $20 (turned out it was the American Express office, which was none too happy about it, either).

While we registered, Guruji asked us our mothers'' names and our ages, but nothing astrological. He's been wearing Ray Charles-like sunglasses, as he just had catarac surgery. Once we'd registered, we waited in line some more before getting a spot for our mats.

Guruji mostly sits on a stool and shouts out verbal adjustments (he's 86) while Sharath is more hands-on. They didn't stop me during the primary series (if they do you have to go upstairs and do the finisng sequence), which is a good sign. Also Sharath did drop-backs with me (helping one go from standing into backbend), also a good sign). Because Sharath is helping me, it means I will probably not be dropped on my head (but you never know). That is the other big rumor: Guruji will drop you on your head. So far he has not. Anyway practice here is very intense, as you want to do your best, to show them that you know what you're doing. Also because the other students add extra energy to the room. Guruji's been teaching here for, like, 40 years and so there's a lot of prana in the walls and carpet. He's building a big new studio, to open in June. I'm glad I got to see him in the olde one.

The yoga students are OK. A bunch of us arrived at the same time, which means we're all more or less equal (so there's a bit less attitude than in Kovalam) and everyone's just a bit more open and friendly. They all seem to be taking Sanskrit lessons or hanging out at the pool or taking cooking classes. I would do well to try the latter, as I only know how to prepare food. We'll see. There's a yoga sutra class that seems like it'd be most relevant to what I'm trying to accomplish. Also the writing.

At around 4:30 each afternoon Guruji holds satsang. After a late lunch at the Mandala, a restaurant-cum-yoga studio-cum-cultural center started by westerners, for westerners, we went to the shala. A small group had gathered by the time Guruji arrived, wearing sunglasses, a dhoti and a sleeveless Yoga Moves shirt, and proceeded to read the paper (in Kannada).

For the next 45 minutes we watched him read and look up and say "Yes, yes hello!" any time someone new arrived and touched his feet. Then Sharath rode up, dashing in all-black, on a shiny motorcycle. He changed into yoga clothes, sat adjacent to Guruji and began opening mail. We looked at them, looked at each other, and looked at the kids riding bikes outside. Occasionaly someone asked a question. When Guruji went upstairs to register new students, some students took the opportunity to flee. By the time he returned, Sharath was teaching his Indian students (who are charged Indian prices). A package arrived, and two senior stduents from New York City read the contents of the accompanying letter from a kowtowing London publisher who wanted him to recommend someone to write a(nother) ashtanga book. At 6 he looked at his watched and we all got to leave.

People staying at the Kauvery all seem to be looking for a different place to live. A lot of students live with families or share (luxury) apartments near the shala. After class Alan LIttle, a Brit whose online Mysore Diary was instrumental in helping me decide to come here, invited us up for tea and answered all of our questionsw about Guruji and ashtanga and Mysore Life (in effect holding a far more effective satsang than the official one). During our chat the lights went out, of course, and the walk home was treacherous. We ended up eating thalis at a nearby veg place called Iyengar's, where the towels are folded neatly (of course) and there are signs on the wall that say "DO NOT WASH YOUR HANDS IN PLATES."

That same day, earlier, I found a new place to live, But now I'm not sure I want it; so far I'm quite happy at the Kauvery, which is like a dorm w/ private bathrooms. My room and bathroom are bright and clean, and there's my new pink mosquito net. . There's even a phone, where I can get incoming calls! (The Hex has called twice so far, which makes me far less homesick). My room's on the top floor and only steps from the roof; I'm also near the palace and a major shopping area. The guys at the desk are very helpful. But everyone seems to want to get out of the hotel.

I found the place after running into Jennifer (yoga mat benefactor from Kovalam) on the street. The fancy house where she lives is in a more residential neigborhood, across from the Mandala and really close to the yoga studio. She and three other yoga students live in dingy little rooms on the roof (were they meant to be servants' quarters?). For rp 125 / day (vs the Kauvery's 205) they receive one meal plus laundry and hot water and room-cleaning (they have servants).

But now I am having second thoughts. On the one hand, it's a good idea for me not to cross too many busy streets, as I'm always looking the wrong way and stepping into the paths of various rickshaws / motorcycles / trucks / tongas. It'd probably be a more "authentic" experience, though there wouldn't be much interaction w/ the family, who are rumored to be descendants of the maharaja. There are the other students, and implements for boiling water. At the same time, it's far from Internet and there's no phone and it's kind of a dump (dark mattress on floor, icky walls and bathroom. And my room is supposed to be the "luxury" accommodation).

So I'm trying to figure out what to do.... I gave a small deposit and am supposed to move in Saturday. But I'm not sure if I will (I'm mostly worried that depressing surroundings = depression, which is, thankfully, remaining more or less at bay at the moment). In the meantime I'm trying to make friends w/ other women at the Kauvery and find out how long they plan to stay.



Photo of Author in Laxmipuram shala (c) 2002 by Kike (pronounced "KEE-kay")

A VINDICATION OF SORTS


Apparently last Tuesday wasn't just trying for me but for many....


Jan. 24 called worst day of the year:
British psychologist calculates ‘most depressing day’

By Jennifer Carlile
Reporter , MSNBC
Updated: 1:51 a.m. ET Jan. 24, 2005

LONDON - Is the midwinter weather wearing you down? Are you sinking in debt after the holidays? Angry with yourself for already breaking your New Year's resolutions? Wish you could crawl back under the covers and not have to face another day of rain, sleet, snow and paperwork? Probably. After all, it's Jan. 24, the “most depressing day of the year,” according to a U.K. psychologist.

Dr. Cliff Arnall's calculations show that misery peaks [Tuesday].

Arnall, who specializes in seasonal disorders at the University of Cardiff, Wales, created a formula that takes into account numerous feelings to devise peoples' lowest point.

The model is: [W + (D-d)] x TQ
----------------
M x NA

The equation is broken down into seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action.

‘Reality starts to kick in’
Arnall found that, while days technically get longer after Dec. 21, cyclonic weather systems take hold in January, bringing low, dark clouds to Britain. Meanwhile, the majority of people break their healthy resolutions six to seven days into the new year, and even the hangers-on have fallen off the wagon, torn off the nicotine patches and eaten the fridge empty by the third week. Any residual dregs of holiday cheer and family fun have kicked the bucket by Jan. 24.

“Following the initial thrill of New Year's celebrations and changing over a new leaf, reality starts to sink in,” Arnall said. “The realization coincides with the dark clouds rolling in and the obligation to pay off Christmas credit card bills.”

The formula was devised to help a travel company “analyze when people book holidays and holiday trends,” said Alex Kennedy, spokesperson for Porter Novelli, a London-based PR agency.

It seems that people are most likely to buy a ticket to paradise when they feel like hell.

“People feel bleak when they have nothing planned, but once they book a holiday they have a goal, they work toward having time off and a relaxing period,” Kennedy said.

“When you imagine yourself on the beach it makes you feel positive. You will save money, go to the gym and come back to the optimism you had at the end of 2004,” she said.

In U.K., up to a third get SAD
Research shows an escape to the sun can have real health benefits.

Up to a third of the population, in Britain at least, suffers from seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, also known as winter depression, according to MIND, a leading mental health charity in England and Wales. Furthermore, nine out of 10 people report sleeping and eating more during the darker months.

While most cases of the winter blues are not severe, 2 percent to 5 percent of those with SAD cannot function without continuous treatment.

However, it's extremely rare to find anyone with the disorder within 30 degrees of the equator, where days are long and the sky is bright year-round, according to MIND.


© 2006 MSNBC Interactive


*****************************

SATYA RESPONDS...

All well and good, except I suffer from reverse SADD (ie; the sun makes me feel even worse).

Also they use the word "depressing." Methinks vexing would be more appropriate.

And we're in Chicago, not Britain.

Plus the formula neglects to take into account {pesky career issues + chronic ailments}* x 10 to the nth degree.


On the other hand..... if I'd known about this malarky beforehand perhaps it all would have been a bit easier to take. You know, because I would have expected the worst.

Plus today I learnt that my jump-start savior** was waiting for me inside the store where my car was stranded the entire time -- only I didn't even know it (the savior) existed.

Yet another Yoga 101 lesson, thinly disguised.***



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


*Enduring shoulder and neck issues have meant that I've been modifying my practice and only going up to Navasana for the past two months. Perhaps we should add {- exercise + 5 extra lbs} to the mix.


***That savior would be Target's = Start-It Compact Elite Jump-Start System
• 12 Volt portable jump starter for your car
• Built-in jumper cables
• $29.99


***Methinks the lack of a meltdown means I must have passed the test.

WOULD MARRY FOR INSURANCE

(to hear the radio version of this essay, click here)


I call it "the look."

It happens every time I tell the receptionist I don't have health insurance. Everyone within hearing distance turns and looks at me with a mixture of pity, contempt and fear -- like I'm going to give them bird flu or something.

I had health insurance once, thorugh my union, and I visited the doctor every year for a checkup and whenever I got sick -- just like a normal person.

I laughed aloud when I learned that my co- pay for my expensive monthly prescription was only $10. I even had dental coverage.

But it didn't last. Our insurer went bankrupt, and no one else would take us -- apparently there are a lot of sick writers out there. And as a self-employed person, all I could afford was catastrophic health insurance with a massive deductible.

So I 'm back to doing things the old way - going to the dentist once a year, filling my prescriptions in Canada, and getting physicals and eye exams every couple of years. I go to the Chicago Women's Health Center, where at the end of your appointment you put what you can pay in a plain envelope - no questions asked. When I get sick, I consult the Doctors Book of Home Remedies and the homeopathic medicine guide.

If I don't get better, I go to the sympathetic doctor at the bare-bones clinic down the street, who always seems to have plenty of free samples for me.

Shortly after my insurance ran out, my right knee swelled up like a baseball. I saw a specialist who spent 10 minutes with me, took some unneccesary X-rays and wrote a prescription for some useless anti-inflammatory medication. When the bill came a few weeks later I almost fell over.

By then I knew that insurance companies never pay the sticker price. So I called the billing department and pleaded my case - and got my bill reduced by half. I felt like I'd won a million dollars.

I went to an even more special specialist, and negotiatied a 25 percent discount for paying right away. During the exam I explained my insurance problem, and the doctor drained my knee for free. I felt like I'd won two million dollars. Until my knee
blew up again.

It was finally cured by some exercises that Judith Lasater showed me.*

I still have crappy insurance, which is a constant source of stress, which leads to illness that in turn leads to trips to the doctor that I cannot afford. I can't wait for the day when the Healthy Illinois initiative become reality, and health insurance is affordable.

In the meantime, I've found a new dentist. It's a woman who calls me honey and charges a fraction of what my old one did. She cleans my teeth herself -- and no one bats an eye when I say I don't have an insurance card.







-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


*The exercises are from Peter Egoscue's book Pain Free, which also contains simple cures for just about every malady imaginable.

JUST ANOTHER TURDY TUESDAY
and it's only half over....

4 AM - Wake up to sensation of cat rubbing butt in face. Feed cat. Check E-mail. Nothing. Return to bedroom and close door tight.

4:30 - Bless-ed slumber.

7 AM - Hit snooze alarm.

7:06 - Hit snooze alarm again.

7:12 - And again.

7:18 - And again.

7:24 - And again.

7:30 - And again

7:36 - Wrench wretched self out of bed.

7:37 - Urinate. Notice that urine is too yellow. Drink water. Notice wrinkles on face.

7:43 - Step on brown cat-turd skidmark on kitchen floor. Disinfect foot. Clean skid and search fruitlessly for its source (ie; the fresh turd that got stuck to Kirby's butt, and which is hiding somewhere in the house).

7:44 - Wash hands.

7:46 - Close bedroom door so the cat can't defile the bed.

7:47 - Wash hands again. Begin peeling tangerines for fresh juice.

7:47 - Wash hands. Make juice.

7:48 - Drink juice and check e-mail. Click to feed an animal in need. Visit Ladyfriend Zine and overstay welcome.

8AM - Wash juicer and pop two slices of Ezekiel Bread in toaster oven. Sort laundry. Decide it's too late to practice at YogaNow.

8:10 Peel linens from bed. Wonder about mysterious brown mark on bottom sheet.

8:20 - Do toilette. Forget to moisturize.

8:25 - Spend some time deciding which thong to wear and finally get dressed.

8:35 - Don hat and jacket, shlep laundry downstairs and ponder whether the high volume warrants three loads. Decide two will do and start washing machine.

8:45 - Go around to front of apartment building and note that no one has stolen the newspaper yet. Collect papers and return to apartment.

8:50 - Smear peanut butter and honey on Ezekiel toast. Drink a cup of nondairy chai that's thisclose to going bad, and peruse The Chicago Sun-Times. Read about the testimony of the former governor's gambling moocher alcoholic son-in-law, Michael Fairman, an oxymoron if there ever was one, and also learn that Jude and what's-her-name are splitsville again.

9 AM - Start yoga practice on terra cotta-colored Jade Harmony II rubber mat, which collects every piece of dirt in the room (including skin) but has yet to start shredding.

9:20 - Inadvertently locate the missing turd while doing Uttitha Hasta Padangusthasana (standing side stretch) with one heel on the fireplace mantle. Fetch a disinfectant wipe and clean the mantle; wash hands long enough to sing "Happy Birthday."

9:22 - Continue yoga practice

9:30 - Ignore the ringing phone. Unknown caller hangs up when machine answers.

9:31 - Resume yoga practice.

10 AM - Heat chai and pour into travel mug.

10:02 - Eat toast while practicing reading aloud a new essay about health insurance.

10:05 - Dress for success in outfit not unlike one's own informal high school uniform; black cords, grey-and-black turtleneck, black hiking boots.

10:07 - Get in new (1992) Hondacar.

10:10 - Head down Lake Shore Drive. Neglect to look at Lake Michigan.

10:30 - Arrive at the bloated obscenity that is Navy Pier and make way to Chicago Public Radio reception area.

10:35 - Get ushered into studio; chat with producer.

10:40 - Get chided for neglecting to silence cell phone.

10:45 - Begin recording essay. Alternate awkwardly between dull monotone, fakey happy yoga teacher voice and cracking, confessional, pseudo-sincere cadence common to contributors to a Certain Famous Radio Show that records down the hall but is poised to pull up stakes and defect to NYC.

10:46 - Discover that spilt honey from breakfast causes script pages to stick together and make noise.



10:48 - Learn that one has been exhaling loudly through the nose, in such a way that "would be difficult to edit out." Picture self as Brenda Vaccaro. Kick self for being too afraid to use the netti pot purchased after recent illness -- and for not using the even scarier chemical-laden Walgreen's brand saline nasal spray recently gifted by Dorian Black

10:55 - Find out that the essay will air tomorrow (Tuesday) between 9 and 10 AM on WBEZ-FM (91.5).

10:56 - Search for creator of Famous Radio show to thank him for giving his apartment to the Evacugees last fall. Learn that his TV show has been picked up by Showtime and that he's not in the office today anyway.

11 - Return to reception area. Realize mitten is missing while covering self in winter burka. Fail to notice stunning view of Lake Michigan during frantic search.

11:01 - Beg receptionist to ring producer and enlist his aid.

11:02 - Find mitten hiding under a chair.

11:03 - Wave producer away. Feel sheepish.

11:05 - Return to parking garage and realize that urinating before leaving would be prudent.

11:06 - Enter Navy Pier complex and search fruitlessly for bathroom. Wind up in the not-so-fresh hell that is the Stained Glass Museum.

11:07 - Give up and return to car.

11:08 - Sit in car. Call home for messages. Learn that client has cancelled the evening's private lesson. Realize that peeing is the most important thing in the world.

11:09 - Resume search for restroom. Notice a sign announcing that restrooms are both to one's left and one's right. Fail to find restrooms but manage to locate Stained Glass Museum. Zero in on a store selling Bears merchandise and other ill-fitting, badly-designed, Chicago-related gift items that will wind up in landfill. Awaken clerk from her Sun-Times coma and learn that one has walked right past the restroom several times. Recall that tantrum five years ago at that Vegas casino, when it took OVER AN HOUR to find one's room at the sense-organ nightmare known as the Luxor Hotel.

11:10 - Relieve self. Sigh. Urine is still too yellow.

11:11 - Wash hands and refill water bottle. Drink half.

11:12 - Return to car.

11:13 - Plug in earpiece and call Dorian Black while heading to Targhetto.

11:20 - Congratulate self for successfully using tricky-to-access access road as shortcut from expressway to store.

11:22 - Target Therapy. Sigh.

11:45 - Return to car. Turn key. Nothing. Not even a click.

11:46 - Realize that someone left lights on after leaving the parking garage -- and never turned them off. Oops.

11:47 - Curse self for being too cheap (poor) to get Triple A. Start making calls

11:55 - Learn that everyone one knows is either not home, not available, not picking up or out of town.

11:56 - Feel sorry for self.

11:57 - Turn key. Car makes halfhearted attempt to turn over but fails.

11:58 - Feel sorry for self. Consider waiting 15 minutes and trying key again. Look at cell phone and wish it would ring.

11:59 - Consider leaving car in lot and going home.

Noon - Consider going to service desk and begging for help. Put $5 in pocket, and mentally prepare.

12:05 - Turn key. Ignition chugs but fails to turn over.

12:05 - Notice middle-aged African American man getting into the GM car parked two spaces down.

12:06 - Jump out and approach man, who is putting shopping bags into a trunk as messy as one's own. "Hey mister! Are you in a hurry?" He is not. "Can you jump my car? I have cables if you don't."

12:07 - Man is noncommittal but does not seem to oppose the idea. "I just got the car and it doesn't make a noise when you leave the lights on, and this is the first time this has happened, and...."

12:08 - "....So, would you mind doing it?" Noncommital nod.

12:09 - Struggle to open and secure the unfamiliar car hood while man walks over with small black box attached to two jumper cables and looks at engine.



12:09 - "Is the jump in there?" (pointing to box). Noncommittal nod. "Wow! I've never seen anything like that!" Man nonchalantly puts cables on battery and says to try the ignition.

12:09 - Car coughs for a second and starts.

12:10 - Profuse thanks; possible gushing. "Where did you get that magic box? I think I need to get one." Sears. For $40. But you need a new battery first. "What??" Your battery is old. Oh.

12:11 - More profuse thanks, followed by exaggerated waving.

12:13 - Drive home. Realize that cell phone is missing.

12:14 - Pull over on very busy street, engage flashers and search fruitlessly for cell phone. Wish fruitlessly that it would ring. Ignore honking behind car.

12:15 - Think, just for a second, "Well, maybe that helpful man took my phone."

12:16 - Return to parking lot.

12:18 - Scan pavement for cell phone. Nothing.

12:25 - Re-search car and realize that the phone is definitely not there.

12:26 - Feel sorry for self.

12:27 - Scan pavement for cell phone.



12:28 - Start looking in a giant grey greasy pockmarked snowbank.

12:30 - Locate wet, dirty cell phone perched in middle of snowbank.

12:31 - Return to car and congratulate self. Disinfect phone.

12:32 - Decide it's best to return home straightaway, and resolve not leave again unless absolutely necessary.

12:33 - Plug in earpiece and call Gridlife to share jump-story. Leave out part about phone.

12:45 - Arrive home. Switch laundry. Go upstairs.

12:47 - Sit on toilet. Read Ask Amy. Wash hands.

12:51 - While checking e-mail, inhale half-bag of "whole grain" and "stone ground" corn chips that have all the fat but not enough salt.

1 PM - Think about napping

1:15 - Eat lunch of rice and garbanzos with chilled steamed vegetables.

1:30 - Think about napping

1:45 - Return e-mails.

2:15 - Think some more about napping. Wash dishes. Curse cat.

2:18 - Think about going downstairs and switching laundry. Decide against it.

2:20 - Drink old, cold coffee. Resolve to stay awake until 5:30 asthanga class.

2:30 - Leave phone message for Hedge Fund Lady, who unilaterally canceled last lesson with no notice and no pay. Beg her to call back and confirm tomorrow morning's private lesson -- which overlaps with radio show (9-10AM on 91.5-FM).

2:31 - Reconsider napping

2:32 - Make halfhearted stab at overdue deadlines.

2:44 - Feel sorry for self.

2:45 - Work on blog.




PART II: GOOD-BYE, POOPY TUESDAY



5:10 - Look up and notice time. Panic. Put on yoga pants under cords and head out door.

5:12 - Turn key hesitantly. Car starts! Drive recklessly to Habitrail health club.

5:25 - Park car. Turn off lights. Check that they are turned off. Lock door. Check lights again.

5:26 - Enter club

5:30 - Ask front desk to turn down lights

5:30 - Enter studio and peel off layers of winter burka. Look up at stilll-bright lights.

5:31 - Mention that class will start after speaking again to front desk about dimming lights. Nice Pilates instructor pipes up and offers to do it. Accept. Lights dim almost immediately.

5:32 - Poll the class; no injuries and no beginners. Everyone has done ashtanga or, quote, power yoga before. Except perhaps for the woman on the squishy shiny black Pilates mat, who apologizes, puts it back in the wrong place and switches to a sticky mat.

5:33 - Begin teaching a Level 3-4 Ashtanga Class.

5:44 - Pilates Lady interrupts someone else's downward dog adjustment to gesture and mutter something. WHAT? Stop adjusment and put ear near her mouth. She thought this was a half-hour yoga class -- isn't it? "No, it's an HOUR and a half." Well then she will have to leave early and it should not be taken personally. OK. Thanks.

5:55 - Woman in back row starts waving and gesturing during Utkatasana (zigzag pose) -- just before the most heart-pounding part of the series. She explains that her hands are shaking and she's hypoglycemic and doesn't feel well.....but she doesn't want to stop. Order her into child's pose.


6:00 - Return during Paschimattanasana (sitting forward bend) and ask how Hypo-lady is doing. She shows her hands -- still shaking. "Are you dehydrated? Maybe you should eat something." She is quite thin. But no, she does not want to leave. Insist that she must -- that it's not worth it to pass out in class, there is food at the little cantina outside and she should do savasana first if possible. She relucantly agrees. Pilates Teacher watches with concern. Perhaps procedure is not being followed.

6:02 - Finally release class from Paschimattanasa. They are good sports....

6:30 - So good in fact that they're led through the first few intermediate series poses.

6:59 - Ring brass bell and end class. Write what they did in notebook. Chat with nice Ukranian girlfriend of nice Italian bass player friend of The Vexx, who was not nice at all.

7:05 - Put winter burka back on.

7:07 - Sign timesheet. Pick up check and W-2 form.

7:09 - Wash hands

7:10 - Urinate

7:12 - Wash hands again. Head to parking lot.

7:15 - Turn key. Car starts! Plug in earpiece. Call Dorian Black. Drive home.

7:35 - Park car. End call.

7:36 - Switch laundry. Get mail.

7:37 - Take mail and laundry upstairs. Hang wet yoga outfits in bathroom. Pour sheets onto bed.

7:38 - Wash hands.

7:39 - Fix blog

8:15 - Look at mess on desk. Shrug.

8:20 - Check e-mail.

8:30 - Call friends and tell them about radio appearance. Wash dishes

9PM - Make halfhearted stabs at cleaning office area and kitchen.

9:20 - Wash hands. Make dinner (large, very fresh salad followed by plain yogurt with maple syrup).

9:45 - Begin making large batch of chai and even larger mess. Wash dishes.

9:55 - Flip mattress. Start putting clean sheets on bed.

10:05 - Turn on The Sheild.

10:20 - Finish putting sheets on bed. Fold clothes.

10:30 - Commerical break; put away clothes. Stir chai. Add black tea.

10:32 - Draw bath

11:05 - Realize that the last hour has been a near-total waste of time. Pour chai into pitcher.

11:06 - Take call from Dorian Black. Realize you both are so clever you should have your own radio show.

11:06 - Do toilette

11:10 - Sit on toilet.

11:15 - Wash hands.



11:15 - Take bath. Shave legs and armpits not once but twice.

11:25 - Moisturize. Put on PJ's

11:28 - Fill humidifiers. Turn off lights. Lock doors

11:45 - Read new New Yorker movie reviews and "Talk of the Town"

12:05 - Turn lights out. Pray for a better day tomorrow.

KARMA, SERENDIPITY, AND CARSON DALY

At a writers' weekend last July I had the good fortune to meet one of my favorite writers, Suketu Mehta. He's the brilliant author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, a heady combination of personal history and exhaustive investigative work that profiles one of the world's largest, most chaotic and complex cities. Although Suketu was one of the speakers at the event, he'd forgotten his copy of his book and read from mine. I was starstruck of course, but instead of hiding during the breaks (my usual behavior) I could not shut up about India India India, Mysore Mysore Mysore and yoga yoga yoga and my then-impending (and since nixed) book about Chicago. He recommended a book to me, Samskara*, by a famous Kannada writer that I'd never heard of, U.R. Anatha Murthy (I did know about Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan and even S.L. Bhyrappa). After the conference I dutifully wrote the title on my "books to get list" and promptly forgot about it.

On Tuesday I met my favorite editor for dosas and thali at Mysore Woodlands. She told me that she just painted her bedroom (yellow) and had shedded a lot of junk -- including books -- in the process. Then she reached into her purse and handed me a thin volume and said, "I don't know why I have this or when I got it but I thought you might like it." It was a mint condition 1978 translation of Samskara, which turns out to be a controversial novel about a decaying Brahmin colony in Karnataka (it's controversial in that it makes most of the Brahmins look like a bunch of hypocrites). It was first published in 1965 and made into an award-winning Kannada art film in 1970. I was pleased as punch and resolved to read the book ASAP and to continue stalking Suketu the next time I'm in Park Slope** -- since now I'll have something to discuss with him.

While I overate, my editor and I discussed shedding, accumulation and the importance of buying something not because it's on sale, but because you need it or want it. She told me that many many days go by when she doesn't buy a thing! After lunch we went across the street to Taj Sari Palace, where she picked up some sheer (yellow) sari remnants ($10) to make into curtains for her bedroom. I lusted after scarves, dresses, bangles and kurtas but stopped myself, and instead went across the street for jaggery, Red Label tea, chickpeas, ghee, calamine lotion and a tongue scraper.*** Later that night I started reading Samskara -- which is so far well worth the wait -- and which I'm about to get back to right naow.


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*In this case the word refers to funeral rites. Samskara has also been called karma / conditioned existence. According to Hinduism Today, "For the Hindu, life is a sacred journey, and every step from birth to death is marked, and thus acknowledged, through traditional ceremony, called samskara. A samskara is an enduring impression etched into the malleable substance of a person's mind at a psychological point in life. During these Hindu rites of passage, a temple or home ceremony deeply influences the soul and directs life along the path of dharma. There are many types of samskaras, from the rite prior to conception to the funeral ceremony. Each one, properly observed, empowers spiritual life, preserves religious culture and establishes bonds with inner worlds as the soul consciously accepts each succeeding discovery and duty in the order of God's creation. Religious samskaras serve two purposes. First, they mark clearly within our minds the occasion of an important life transition. Second, they solicit special blessings from the devas and Deities, society and village, family and friends. These blessings and feelings of love have a markedly positive effect, stabilizing the mind so that the deeper meanings of life can unfold within us."

And from Yoga Journal:

"Although he is best known as the chronicler of the eight-limbed yoga path, Patanjali also presented a version of kriya yoga, the path of transmutative action (i.e., the act of changing into a higher form) in his Yoga Sutra. Kriya yoga can best be described as a form of internal karma yoga. That is, by perfecting the niyamas or self-disciplines of Patanjali's eight-limbed path, particularly tapas (austerity), svadhyaya (self-study), and isvara pranidhana (devotion to the Lord), a yogi erases samskara (subliminal activators) from his subconscious. Samskara are like karma scars that result from good or bad behavior. They are indelible memories, imprinted on the subconscious, that propel the conscious mind to act; they are what dictate a person's birth, life experiences, and death. These activators cause the constant chatter or fluctuations in the mind that separate a person from purusha and make it impossible for him to experience it. An individual has good kinds of samskara and bad kinds, according to the Yoga Sutra. The bad kind keep the conscious mind actively seeking experience outside itself, regardless of whether that experience is pleasurable or painful. The good kind stop the conscious mind from seeking and attaching itself to external objects and senses. The resultant cessation (nirodhah) of vritti (fluctuations) and samskara brings true liberation."

**I hope to be in NYC in late March, for Guruji's workshop


***The last two are gifts for Dorian Black, who is still ill. Go ahead and infer all you want....but he has been out of it for so long that I suspect he now looks like the scary hairy "other" man from last night's episode of Lost.

A NON-AFFAIR TO REMEMBER

As is my wont I found myself listening to "Selected Shorts" on the way to teach at the Fancy Health Club last Sunday. I didn't catch the title, but the story was read by Sex and the City carrot-top Cynthia Nixon, who did an amazing job of making this British town and its railway station, Boots chemist, movie theaters, restaurants and lively depot diner full of conformists from the nearby small towns seem interesting. The writing had a certain bite to it and the images she conjured were so vivid that I was sad to have to leave in the middle of it -- before she got to the actual plot -- and wished once again that I'd had the wherewithal to invent TiVo for RaDio.

Tonight I was watching some movie on Turner Classic Movies (as is my wont when I'm trying not to work) and was amazed to see a train station with a refreshment room that looked exactly like the one I'd imagined while listening to "Selected Shorts." The little town boasted a Boots with a lending library in back and a couple of cinemas where visitors from the nearby hamlets came to see "the pictures," just like in story, and I thought, "Wow, whoever wrote that piece Miranda read on the radio really knew about British towns and railway stations."

While describing on the phone these uncanny similarities to Dorian Black, who was home sick with whatever I had last week, I heard someone in the movie say "Milford." It sounded awfully familiar, so I did a Google Search (in the middle of watching the movie.....this quest for useless knowledge is becoming an awful sickness) and I learnt that the story I'd heard on Sunday was Robert Coover's "Milford Junction, 1939: A Brief Encounter." I at first assumed the story inspired the play (Noel Coward's Still Life) which inspired the film, A Brief Encounter

But the math became fuzzy once I realized that Coover was born in 1932 and the film, written by Coward and directed by David Lean, came out in 1945. More searching revealed that Coover's story was written well after the fact and is from his collection A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES Or, You Must Remember This. Apparently you can now write stories based on movie settings and a Famous Actress will read it on public radio. (According to the New York Times review, "'Milford Junction, 1939: A Brief Encounter' scrupulously sets the scene for a bittersweet Noel Coward love story - but then hilariously releases into this hushed milieu an eruption of animal and terribly un-British sexual desire." I guess I missed that last part.).

The film's plot concerns a couple of middle-aged, middle-class married folks who meet by chance at the refreshment room and fall in love but never get to consummate their affair -- because the bloke whose apartment the man is borrowing comes home early and surprises them before anything can happen. The cool thing is that it's told from the woman's point of view. Apparently it's one of the most popular British films of all time -- one review describes it as their Casablanca. Poor Brits.

A Brief Encounter inspired Billy Wilder to write one of my favorite movies of all time -- The Apartment (it focuses on the bloke who loans the apartment), which in turn informed Woody Allen's Manhattan.* Which is probably inspiring some toddler with an iPod camera at this very moment.


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*One Xmas the Hex and I watched The Apartment and Manhattan back-to-back and were floored by how liberally Allen borrowed from, er, paid homage to, Wilder's masterpiece.

YES, BUT THEY'LL BE DIVORCED IN FIVE YEARS....

From Newsweek, sent to me by Gridlife, who called it a must-read (for me anyway):

Dating: Positive Thinking

Jilly Wendell
Yes, Sir: Headley

Newsweek
Jan. 16, 2006 issue
Maria Dahvana Headley grew up listening to the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign of the 1980s. As a student at New York University in the late '90s, she applied that advice to her love life, turning down most men who asked her out and dating only intellectual, literary types. Frustrated by those guys, she reversed course, resolving to spend one year responding positively to all flirting and saying yes to literally anyone who asked her out. The ensuing 150 dates included a homeless man, several non-English speakers, 10 taxi drivers, two lesbians and a mime.

Headley's memoir of the experience, "The Year of Yes," is now in bookstores, and Hollywood's already calling. She urges other people to say yes more often, despite some horrible dates. (One guy took her to a bar that, it became clear, was a strip club—and that's a tame example.) "Lots of women are pretty set in what they think they have to have in order to be happy, but it doesn't hurt to date people who are not that," she says. It worked for her: during her dating spree, she met a playwright who was divorced and 25 years older and had two children—baggage that would have ordinarily nixed his chances. They married in 2003; now 28, Headley lives in Seattle with two teenage stepchildren. "It's something I never would have picked, but it's turned out to be this kind of amazing experience," she says.
—Daniel McGinn

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.


Yes, and I (Satya) have dated* the man-with-kids, the tortured artist man, the tortured blue collar man, the tortured professional man, the tortured unemployed man, the still-married man, the much-older man, the much-younger man, the much-dumber man, the foreign man, the felon man, the psoriasis man, the homeless man, and the mime.... And the Basque architect who smoked and the Brahmin architect who did not and the busboy and the Vietnam vet who played guitar and the Iraq vet who did not and the former drug addict men and the short man with the giant SUV and the 6'7" man who slept on a twin bed and the rock star ex-lawyer and the Blue Man ex-lawyer and the pro football player with the "Nobody Does it Better" sign above the bed and the just-fired man who argued using a sock puppet and the drug dealer man with the three-foot Graffix and the man whose apartment was entirely white and the man who lied about his age and couldn't get over the death of his dog and the man with the Barbie doll room and sidewinder and the 12-step man who wouldn't ask for the check and the radio producer man and the music producer men and the man from the produce aisle and even a couple of brothers. In other words, everyone but the muffin man.


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*Dating as in "gone on a date with."

**OK, OK -- a couple of these guys are one-and-the-same.... and I'm still dating one of 'em.***

***Guess which one and win a copy of my first book