Monica, Fogla, Eff, Alvita

My friends must have noticed that I have kind of isolated myself from my extended world as a whole and my immediate world on a need basis for almost 4 years. My phone numbers changed a couple of years back, my social networking has been reduced to a bare minimum as has my socializing in general for the sole purpose of avoiding the question 'how are you?'

It is not as stupid as it sounds. This is a question for which I have no definite answer. It is a question to which people expect you to say, 'I am fine, thank you.' Being an honest person, this answer would be a lie. The truthful answer would have to describe the symptoms felt at that point of time which did 2 things:
1. Made the other people feel I complain too much and have become a sympathy seeker.
2. Remind me of my condition again and again and further depress me.

But although I am off visible networking, like all normal females I do have the nagging need to know about what is going on in other people's lives. I sneak into facebook every now and then, keeping myself invisible and log out on a high.

Monica Goswami, pathologist, one year junior to me, now in the USA posts a picture of her one year old self and her breathtakingly beautiful mom, a black and white memory of the 70's and I think, 'what an amazing photographer!' For a moment my muddled mind struggles to remember when Monica had such long hair. And I surge with motherly love at the little child in her arms, so adorable, not looking at the camera, and her tiny hands holding on to her mother's pallu, a little possessively.

Then I see a comment posted by someone of the beautiful aunty and I realize that the mum in the photograph is not Monica, but her mom.

Andrew Helm, Effie's partner, has a brewery in Leeds. 'The Revolutions Brewery.' I have had the good luck to sample all his varieties of beer. It was an education imparted in an English pub that sold his beers. Different beers have distinct flavors and when you ask for a Revolutions beer, you confuse the bartender. You have to ask for a certain flavor. Andy's brewery produces some 5-6 different flavors, each flavor is packed aesthetically with a different label. Andy also has a passion for music and DJs sometimes. 'Revolutions' refers to the revolution of a music disc, musical passion transferred to beer. I might have missed something here. If he reads this blog, he could put corrections in the comments section.

Effie is in Brizzle and I can see the beautiful place it is. It has a lovely railway station, is scenically beautiful and Eff looks better and better with every passing day. Beer is not wine, but Andy's better half is getting more and more like old wine.

I go into the 'GMC batch of '87' group but there activity has stopped. Santanu Deb, my paediatrician classmate and the 'mover' of this group's activity has put up some photos from the Kaziranga get together, but now all these busy '87 batch doctors are back to the routine grind; work and family.

Rajesh Fogla, hotshot brilliant cornea specialist from Apollo, Chennai and an '87 doctor, gives faculty and invited guest speaker lectures in developed countries and we bask in reflected glory. He posts very interesting photos of his visits on Facebook, each of which has a story to tell and needs to be studied well. No wonder he is such a sought after speaker.

Alvita Fernandes keeps the St Anne's site active. She once researched and wrote the meanings of all the names of our school batchmates and apologized as she could not find out the meaning of Juri. On googling, Juri is described as a male Russian name and a variation of the better known Yuri. It probably foxed her and she must have tactfully decided not to post that on FB.

No, my parents did not make a faux pas when naming me. In the Assamese language, Juri is a girl's name, too common in Assam, and means a stream. I have been baffled in the middle of busy schedules by threat calls of boyfriends of other Juri Kalita's who were mistakenly given my mobile number. I make it a point to state my full name with the Dr prefixed when making phone calls to people in Assam to make sure that I am correctly identified in the first instance itself. Alvita leads an interesting life, shuttling between countries, and I like following her whereabouts.

When I log out of facebook, I return from a world trip. It is refreshing.