Putting A Diaper

Place an underpad. And then the diaper as shown below. The head will be to the left and feet to the right.

Placing the patient on the diaper is the difficult step. Put the pillow below the diaper to move the person to the left (or right) as needed.

 

The portion below the hips is folded up and the portion to the left is placed on top and stuck. See the two stickers below. 

Then the piece on the right is stuck on top of the left piece.

Self Destructive Behavior (SDB)

SDB is not just about cutting yourself up. Indulgence in extreme sports, indulgence in narcotics, indulgence in fatty and spicy food also constitute SDB, in the sense that what you crave isn't good for you.

Extreme generosity, like what Karna had, is also an example of SDB. When we are generous way beyond our means or when we love to take high amounts of stress which we know our body cannot manage we are indulging in SDB.

When we are addicted to behavioral patterns that would ultimately ruin us we can say that we have SDB.

When a very touchy person, who hates to be disrespected, acts as a simpleton and hence subconsciously encourages people to disrespect him - he is also indulging in a weird, inexplicable SDB behavior. SDB comes in various flavors.

How healthy or productive can our life be when half the time what we do is something that hurts US? It's like swimming upstream. 

Even sensible people indulge in such SDB. I guess our reward seeking system or hormones in some of us is so strong that we look at immediate thrill without looking at the long term hurt that we cause ourselves.

How do we stop this? How does it feel when a near and dear person indulges in such behaviour? 

Tracking And Estimating Covid-19 Cases In India

I created this spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mrcYiTOuwGjqUomO9vsUQLuY-5DwlgPs7nY8RhmyuPw/edit?usp=drivesdk

I tracked total CUMULATIVE cases and deaths in India from Apr 21, 2020. The numbers were fairly low on this date - about 20,000 cases and 600 deaths total. 

The cases and deaths data for each date have been taken taken from 

https://www.covid19india.org/

As of Jul 29, 2020 there are about 1.5 million cases (including recovered cases and deaths) and 34,000 deaths.

The cases are currently doubling in 20 days while deaths are doubling at a slower pace: at 28 days.

The cases are increasing at about 3.5%/day while deaths are increasing at 2.4% / day. At the current rate, India will have about 41 million cases and 323,000 deaths by end of October 2020.

Note:

1. I have assumed that cases and deaths increase at the SAME rate to October as they are now.
2. Data till current date are actuals, while data for future dates (colored rows) are estimates.

Kashmir Belongs To?

https://www.dawn.com/news/1567717

"The iconic tiger should come to Pakistan, which, being the Muslim successor state after colonial India, should have a right to it."

The said tiger was taken from Srirangapatnam in Karnataka, more than 2000km away in South India. The author believes it belongs to Pak because Tipu Sultan was Muslim. No wonder Pak believes Kashmir belongs to Pak.

God help me if my wife was Muslim. These people will claim my wife too because of her religion.

The author of the article, as per Dawn, is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

Is this what they taught her in constitutional law?

Did she ever read property law? A stuff doesn't become yours just because the previous owner belonged to the same religion as you.

Factors Important For Our Well Being

1. Resilience : ability to bounce back after a (severe) fall
2. Stress taking: Ability to handle severe stress with grace
3. Smartness: Ability to avoid situations which likely are "losers" meaning situations that are not beneficial to us.

It's A Man's World

We have awards like Field's medal or Nobel prize or Olympic medal for achievement or excellence in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths), sports etc. 

How come we don't have an award or recognition for exceptional stress felt? 

Many people recognise emotions as the currency for achievement. These are the people who focus on how you felt or how I felt or how he made her feel as the primary way to evaluate human beings and not what you or I or she achieved in various fields.

How come we haven't yet gotten around to formally recognizing  emotions or advances in emotions? 
For example, there may be a new Princess who couldn't breath because of a pea in her bed. Or consider my friend who was flummoxed because her husband tested covid-19 positive when her daughter's birthday was around the corner. And the friend was torn apart by having to address the needs of both her husband and her daughter. Who recognised the turmoil she went through?

The well known awards such as Nobel or Olympics focus on a result. These results are a result of emotions such as desire, perseverance, drive / ambition. Without these emotions, results are unlikely to be achieved. Where is the formal acknowledgement of the richness of emotions that a person feels? 

How come, then, we focus our attention on an end result than on the lead indicator, aka emotions?

How come no one has taken up cudgels on behalf of emotions? 

Pregnant Chennai

Today I went out for a walk in the afternoon. It was cloudy and breezy. The city was glowing, positively looking beautiful. The lockdown added to the beauty. Everything was serene, hardly any traffic. 

In Tamil there is a saying that when a girl looks glowing and beautiful, she must be pregnant.

No, no. I think it goes like this. A girl, when she is pregnant, glows and looks beautiful. Yes that's it.

And Chennai looked positively pregnant today.

I imagined sitting on the coconut branch leaf without letting the man know so he could pull me also.

The following outstanding photos were taken today by a friend of mine. I don't reveal any name but she is an ardent devotee of Lord Vishnu.

Wowowow.

Is Corona Serious?

I was discussing with a friend how little control I have now over things compared to say a year back - all because of Corona. 

She strongly disagreed with me. She said my belief that I had control earlier over my life was just an illusion. That I could just as well had met with an accident last year and lost my life. 

That all the data of probability of losing one's life last year being negligible would make no sense to the person who did lose their life last year. 

This was, hmm, quite a different way of looking at things. And I wasn't comfortable with her way of putting things. 

I couldn't exactly tell her that she was talking through her hat because she is well educated, has a sweet voice, a very pleasant accent, very touchy and anyways doesn't wear a hat. 

That didn't stop me from brooding on what she said. So I consulted the death statistics in India from 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India

The death rate is 7.3 per thousand population which is less than 1% of the population. 

And assuming India's population to be 130 crores (1300 million), the deaths in India in 4 months would be 1300*(4/12)*(7.3/1000) = 3 million  approx.

As of today, Corona deaths have amounted to 16,000 which is half a percent of the usual number of deaths in 4 months (Mar, Apr, May, Jun 29, 2020) in India. [3 million above]]

Less than half a percent. So, what are we really afraid of? Yeah, sure we may lose many 3 times that or 5 times that in the next 4 months. That's still 2 to 3% of the usual number of deaths. 

Was my friend right, after all? She can't be. She can barely count beyond single digits. Damn..

The Lizard Of Oz

A friend of mine works in a call center. One night she was doing the graveyard shift (8PM to 8AM next morning). And it so happened that she was alone in her wing, not another soul in sight. 

When she wasn't attending to a customer she was in the habit of studying for her exam. Midway through the night she needed a cup of tea. She had all the ingredients, she just needed to microwave. 

And THERE was the problem. The room where the microwave was kept was also home to a huge, wild, plump, almost bordering on obese, juicy lizard weighing an obscene 120gm and almost 6inches long.

My friend, let no man ever accuse her of cowardice, was not at her best confronting even a tiny starving lizard. 

The lizard that was domiciled in that room came from a family of healthy eaters that wasn't used to dieting or any form of exercise. 

My friend had to have that cup of tea. And in order to have it she had to get to the microwave and she had to risk getting near the monster. 

In tears at 12:05 AM she rang me up long distance. And between her whimpers she explained her predicament. 

She has known of my heroics. https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/10/me-and-trains.html

She told me she didn't want me to do anything but just be with her while she dealt with her nemesis.

I said fine. 

She got the tea, sugar, cup etc out and had the sugar washed, then she realized that it was the cup, not sugar, that needed washing. 

With trembing hands she washed the cup and poured 200ml milk, water and sugar into the cup and then mopped 100ml of the mixture on the floor that had spilled because she couldn't hold the cup steady. Her teeth were chattering so loudly she couldn't hear herself talk. 

With my encouraging words, she tiptoed to the door gently opened the door an inch and said softly "HELLO, ARE YOU THERE? I AM COMING OUT. I PROMISE NOT TO HARM YOU IF YOU PROMISE TO DO LIKEWISE. PLEASE GO AWAY FOR 5  MINUTES" 

It took me a few seconds to realize that she was negotiating with the lizard which she thought would hear what she was saying and rightly interpret it as a white flag and be gentleman enough to treat my friend as an esteemed guest.

And so it did. In 2 minutes, my friend was back with a hot cup while i watched in amazement. 

If any of you is in any doubt as to why Kashmir is not yet Azad, I think you would have understood by now.

It's Character, Stupid

A friend of mine has a very cute 2 year old son. She would tell me gleefully a little too often that the boy has taken after her. 

Recently I got to know her schedule and how she spends most of her time at her mom's place and very little time at her own (in-laws') place with her husband. Further discreet inquiries revealed that her husband is a normal sort of guy - meaning he would rarely be found at her mom's place.

With this information, I went on the attack. I asked her point blank who the father of her child was since she rarely stays with her husband.

She said it was her husband of course. I countered by saying that she hardly spent anytime with her husband. So how could he...

She then played her ace and told me that her son bore a strong resemblance to her husband.

Well I had to accept that. As males we hardly understand resemblance the way females do. So I had to concede that point to my friend. I was feeling sick. 

Then I trumped her ace. She had always been saying that her son was cute just like SHE was cute. So, I told her, if the boy actually resembled his father, which my friend conceded to me in order to escape from the question of doubtful paternity, then where is the proof that SHE is cute?

She conceded defeat. She would much rather have good character than good looks.