Bye-o-phobia!

There are just 2 types of people- one who know how to gracefully end a phone call conversation and the one who don’t.  There is no overlap between the two, just an awful lot of failed attempts by the latter to come in the former group. But, for all practical purposes, the barrier separating the 2 categories is insurmountable.

I am writing this out of my personal experiences. To begin with, I am not a phone person. Though I am a proud owner of a Blackberry and a Galaxy Note (!) but I don’t use them to make calls. I so don’t.

On a typical day, my phone logs would show you that I hardly call up anyone.  However, if people call me up and if I choose to talk to them, I can’t put the phone down primarily because I don’t know how to. They think that I enjoy talking to them (which sort of works for me!) but I swear I don’t know how to end up the conversation.

As geeky as it sounds, I prefer the digital world where typing a “brb” is so less intimidating. It just conveys so much in so few letters..it is almost surreal! May be, that’s the reason it is called a virtual world. In real world, it is not so simple.

In my head, I have practiced so many times to say “Bye, I will call you back”, “Bye, Nice talking to you” etc. etc. but in reality, my tongue fails me every single time.  Now, don’t get me wrong! I am not a timid little girl who can’t put her thoughts across. I am actually the opposite of that. I truly consider myself very straightforward.  Having said that, I am highly ill at ease at ending up the phone conversation. For some weird reasons, I find it too abrupt, too barbaric, and too rude to say bye on phone.

Even if my cell battery is conking off, I am actually in a tunnel or someone else is continuously calling me up on the other line, I still won’t hang up. I would wait perpetually for the other person to end the call. And, then I am amazed at how easily they do that. It really doesn’t take them more than a second to say bye! It is indeed simple and only right.

While I can’t find the reason behind this bye-o-phobia of mine, I am learning to include this word in my phone conversation.  For instance, I have started telling people (a lot reluctantly and in an apologetic tone though) that I would hang up as I have to pee.

So, at the risk of defaming my bladder, I am doing my bit!

Bowel Movements!

Of all the movements, the single most critically touching (quite literally!) and (b)utterly important to mankind is that of the bowels. If it is too fast, it results in loose “stuff”; if it is too slow, the result is opposite – both ‘poop-ingly’ taxing. It has to be just right, every day, every time.

While Indian gurus have emphasized a  lot on the importance of this shitty (again literally) topic, but an average Indian still thinks his crap is a-product-of-Uranus and is not very comfortable talking about it. Either we joke about it or we find it gross, but we don’t talk about it as a matter of fact.  Personally, I belong to the former category. Even after so many years into liberalization, we still don’t own up the farts which we release!

Believe it or not, 2 gastroenterology fellows in Yale have published a book on “What’s Your Poo Telling You?” The book comes with a serious message about the importance of preventing colon cancer, the second deadliest cancer in the United States; but that is beyond the scope of this blog entry.

I have chosen to write on this topic because I have just recovered from 2 diarrhea attacks followed by something which my doctor suspects could be piles!! I have gone through the whole cycle of denial to weakness to pain and finally, acceptance.

Every day’s morning activity has become an ordeal, the rightly named “Hell’s candy” refuses to come out of my body without giving me ample pain. I just have to endure and endure I will, but not silently. Apart from taking regular medicines, applying ointments (during office hours) at you know which places and drinking lots of fluids, I have devised some ways of bargaining with it:

• I have stopped making any jokes on it whatsoever.
• I have stopped calling it by its Hindi name.
• I have started keeping my bathroom spic and span, which may entice it to come faster!
• I have taken it out once (albeit in a small wrapped box) so that it could see the outer world.

I am doing my bit so that it becomes all healthy again, enabling me to flush it every morning without grimace!