Long fast | February 2024
I have set myself a long water fast challenge. Let’s see how that goes…
I have done long fasting upto 120 hours earlier. Had black coffee, lemon water etc. But this one, I am aiming for only water.
Goals:
- Body reset
- Lower sugars
- Experiment with mental, physiological impact
- Challenge self discipline
- Get in tune with core feeling
Last meal:
February 25, Sunday 8pm
2 poached eggs, herbed cream cheese, home made Keto, sugar free cake slice, rice & yougurt
HOUR 12
February 26, woke up at 8am
Drank water
Went to Lagoon. 20min walk, meditation & pranayama
Felt pretty energised
Showered & went out with daughter. She bought groceries & coffee & cupcakes! I have resisted all temptations far 🙂
HOUR 16
Met the new neighbors. White folks. Pretty friendly. The older man Henry has lived in Ranchi.
Cooking a heirloom lunch now for the grown up kids.
Keerai kootu, rasam & rice. Daughter making potato roast…
The delicious aromas are not tempting me!
So far only water… about 2 litres.
Feeling
Sleepy
Light headed
Mind is clear
No clutter or worry
Had an hour long nap. It’s a strange extremely relaxed feeling.
HOUR 20
Did an hour long strength training session with my coach. It was awesome. Those quads are pretty worked. Didn’t feel tired at all…
Made rawa Kesari for daughter. She was craving it… I am not at all tempted. In fact, thanks to fasting, I haven’t been tasting cook work in progress!
HOUR 24
Holding on fast, literally. So far no major issues. Occasional hunger pangs and a growl in the stomach. Let my body feed on the excesses of the past!
February 27
HOUR 38.5
Slept well… fasting sleep is at another level. Pleasant dreams. Light heartedness. No niggling nightly thoughts. The daughter & son in law were in and out of the house trying to buy, exchange & install a floor lamp. And I drifted in and out of consciousness through it all…
Day started with some strenuous garage cleaning which involved collapsing cartons we used to move in and taking them to the recycling centre.
Of course we have to go grocery shopping. So we went to Yogiji’s an Indian store. They have some Indian stuff we don’t find even in Chennai, like a peanut & chilli powder (Telugu cuisine). I was surrounded by ladoos & jalebis!
Feeling:
Energetic
Some hiccups right now
A mild headache & the left eye is tired
Made lunch for the dot. Beetroot poriyal, thogyal… her favourites. She is having it with leftover rice & rasam.
Me? Will have lunch water now 😉
HOUR 42
Feeling a bit headachy so treating myself to a strong black!
HOUR 45
Broke my fast as per my health coach’s advise with a delicious cup of homemade tomato basil soup. Planning to fast again on my 21 hr flight back home.
Fasting bsl: 81
12000ft and down
The Roopkund fever had gripped me nearly a year ago. It all started with a reading of the book ‘Living with the Great Himalayan Masters’ and an intense desire to visit the Himalayas. On searching the internet I came across a really impressive group from Bangalore ‘India Hikes’. On a trip to Blore I met up with Arjun Majumdar of IH and decided that Roopkund was the trek I wanted to do. With an interesting topography and dreamy pictures seen on their website, I became obsessed. I took a break from regular work, started my fitness routine and shopping for trekking gear, mainly the right kind of shoes. My sister in law Hazel, from ooty, decided to join in too and not one day passed by without us talking Roopkund!
My father’s illness and other circumstances forced me to postpone the June 2010 trek to September 2010. The day of travel arrived on Sept 19 and Hazel and I boarded the plane to Delhi. On the way from Delhi airport to Faridabad where we were to spend the day at a friend’s place till the night train to Kathgodam left, we got a call from India Hikes that because of a landslide near Roopkund our trek route had changed to Hampta Pass above Manali. Though hugely disappointed, we decided to go ahead with this trek. Having already met another trek member Sangeeta at the airport, we three left by bus to Manali that evening. Delhi was buzzing with preparations for the Commonwealth games.
After the break
Gosh! It’s been 5 years and I have the audacity to continue this post. It will be interesting to reflect on how much I remember, how much I have changed and how much the story has changed.
So Hazel (who has since become a compulsive trekker – Everest base camp, no less!) and Sangeeta and I boarded a late night bus from Delhi to Manali. Wait I don’t remember S to be on the bus, where did she go?
On the bus, I discovered my great skill of going to sleep anywhere, anyhow. A beautiful, serene sleep descended on me on that rattling bus ride. Sometime close to midnight, we stopped somewhere in the hinterland of Punjab for dinner. The jazzy, brightly lit eatery also selling all manners of merchandise looked surreal to my sleep addled mind. Something to eat and a quick su su break, we were back on the bus. After what seemed a very short while later (hello RipVanWinkle!) I was very irritated to be woken for the morning tea at a roadside dhaba. The tea went down with a couple of steaming aloo parathas with butter, yum… So now sleep is all gone and I am wide awake to enjoy the scenic beauty of Himachal with a babbling brook, soon to turn into my nemesis, flowing by. Memory brings back smells of diesel puked out by badly maintained vehicles on NH something.
Let’s quickly get to Manali and what happened thereafter, shall we? In Manali, we are taken to a small lodge in the middle of a crowded market place. Going up the narrow stairway to the rooms, I wrinkle my snooty nose at the lowly accomodation. Little did I know then this would would be my haven, my heaven in a few days.
More audacity to continue this post 5 years later…
Memories blurred. Intense headaches, exhaustion, can’t catch up with Hazel who has the muscle memory of a mountain goat.
Decide to descend with a motley bunch of co-quitters. Have to descend 2 days worth of ascent in 8 hours or so before darkness prevails. Just one guide to spare and 4 of us…
Slipping into the rapids, being pulled out by the poor young guide. Somehow reaching the heavenly lodge, passing out for 10 hours, waiting for a day more and the rest of the trekkers including Hazel to return.
A memorable experience indeed. And I did again 6 years later. A tale for another post.
Adios
Reunion
I knew a woman.
She was my friend.
I lost sight of her.
And met her again.
These days
She is always by side
I am never alone
Lonely no more.
On my morning runs
In an unfamiliar woodland
By my kitchen sink
As I wash the pots & pans.
Each year I have a goal
This year of fifty and seven
I said I only want peace
A stress free life
No obligations
No social pressure
Not in person, not online.
Aye she said
I hear you
And I want that too.
Sometimes we argue.
When there is a quarrel next door.
Should I step in
Should I say
Young ones,
Let it go.
My friend, she says
You don’t know everything
You may have lived
Thirty years or more
Yet,
Not in their shoes
Nor in their lane
Let them be
They will find
Their own way.
When I look in the mirror
I see her
Looking weary
Looking fiery
Looking put down
Looking triumphant
As I take a selfie
I see her
With new hair
Looking different
Looking the same
Looking old
Looking quite young.
Oh yes.
She is my friend.
My constant.
Always by my side.
Thank you friend.
Nice to meet you again.
Generative AI
I am trying to ‘imagine’ with Mid Journey. It’s fun!
Poetry in verse
Here is the series:
Body shaming
This body. This vessel.
Which carries my dreams,
my desires.
Dented, bloated, torn,
Crushed, twisted, welded,
Burnt, repaired, imperfect.
This body. This vessel.
Of my thoughts, my philosophy.
A symbol of the test of time
My soul has endured.
A sign of my evolution
From the days I mark
In this world,
In this vessel
My body.
Art: Charu Digga
Languages
I want to speak the language of my true self.
What I say is a babble of my perception.
Of myself, of you and my world.
Art: Student
Colour Connect
Micro and macrocosm. Inner and outer selves.
Tenuous yet strong connections.
This is real and this is also Maya.
Art: Manav Patel
Our earth
Who gave you authority?
To lord over our earth.
Which deluge will wash?
The sin of your destruction.
Have we not all
Tread the same path of life
Amoebic to mammoth.
Then who gave you permission
To consume all that belongs
To our earth.
Art: Student
Chakras
My purpose is to rise
From nadir to zenith
From banal to sublime.
Therefore
I am
I feel
I do
I love
I talk
I seek
I understand
Art: Grishma
Kodaikanal ceramic bowl
Life, nature, universe
Explain themselves
Through whorls and swirls
Fibonacci sequences.
Perfect patterns and layers
That dazzle the senses
Beauty and discovery
Serendipitous
True meaning lies in the cervices
The dark depths
Art: Manav Patel
Clutter
Eager to
slather,shave,cut
blitz out imperfections
Somehow make sense
of the chaos
masquerading as order
Perhaps reveal a bright world
behind the curtain of
gritty duo tone.
Art: Snehansh
Scream
I revealed the cosmos
as Krishna to Yashodha
This silent scream
A portal
to the inner worlds
Of one, of many
In despair of Kalyug
Art: Vishnu
Untitled
Lost in the big bad world
A little cookie dough cat
Dwarfed by the looming cityscape
Exposed and fragile
Ready to crumble at mere touch.
What fate awaits
Washed into a sludge
By a thunderstorm
Blown away by a
Gust of strong wind
Art: Student
Many shades of the mind
Mental health issues are receiving due attention these days. The spectrum of issues are vast. Each one of us has some imbalance or the other which we try to cope with. When it spins out of control it is recognised as an issue.
This post is a response to a play I saw yesterday – Aurangzeb written by respected Tamizh writer Indira Parthasarathi and directed by V Balakrishnan of Theatre Nisha. This powerful play places Shahjahan and Aurangzeb at two ends of the mental illness spectrum. What happens when leaders with mental illness are chosen to rule?
Shahjahan is shown as delusional in his sunset years leading to dementia after he is incarcerated by Aurangzeb. He is Emperor Nemo playing his pipe as Rome burns down. He can only talk about building a lavish granite edifice opposite the banks of the Yamuna, so he can commune with beloved Mumtaz in Taj Mahal for all eternity. All around him Hindustan is crumbling under the threat of being taken over by Aurangzeb. Yet he wants to sacrifice the basic needs of his people to his monumental delusion. Here is the story of a leader who respects all religions and beliefs, who loves art and music, yet suffers from such megalomania that he is blind to the destruction of the very fabric of society that can ever sustain his dreams.
His children are polarised over those who share his idealogies (secularism, aesthetics etc) especially Jahanara and Dhara , over Aurangzeb’s brand of ideology espousing extreme austerity and intolerance.
Aurangzeb’s retinue comprises one staunch supporter, his sister Roshanara and all others who appear to be fair weather friends are at best disillusioned by Shah Jahan’s recklessness… Aurangzeb is the bad child of history. In this play his intentions ( austerity, economic equality) are good but his methods crazy. Using extreme measures to implement his ideology of Hindustan as one nation with one faith, one language he loses credibility and eventually finds himself as a lonely and morally defeated old man, his own children having turned against him. Was he suffering from paranoia, anxiety disorder, and also megalomania?
Both ‘Badshah’s’ are ordinary men wielding extraordinary power that turns them into mental wrecks. Celebrated, insteaded of being treated for mental illness, such leaders cause bloodshed and havoc in the lives of the very people who chose them.
Shahjahan and Aurangzeb belonged to an era where autocracy was the norm and mental health issues belonged only to the powerless (condemned to languish in chains) . In today’s era, when there is so much awareness and humane help available for mental health issues, let us not be ruled by the Shahjahan s and Aurangzebs of the modern world.
A tribute to my father
As a fitting example of his profound writings in simple words here is a poem published in the August 1969 edition of Kanaiyazhi with an English translation done by me (hope I have captured the essence)
Here is the original Tamizh version:
Translation:
Dancing with Data
One thing I really love about my job is that I get to learn about different domains even if is just an understanding of it, but not in the ‘deep get- your- hands- dirty sense’.
As a graphic designer doubling up often as the writer, I have to really understand the domain I work with and present it in a way that is palatable to the intended ‘presentee’.
In the 90s it was all printed, as in cards, brochures, newspaper ads and the domains were retail, merchandise, education, social engagements… our presentees here were target audiences who already knew the subject. One had to be creative for our work to stand out from the others, for our client to get noticed.
The industrial projects were more challenging. I had to spend hours with the client, at the manufacturing units learning about chemicals, polymers, oil and gas and whatnot. It was fun learning something new beyond my scope of education.
In between fell the service organisations like financial, educational, management consultancies where I had to capture ideas, ideologies and processes. A lot of food for the brain that had to translate into interesting images and very few words.
In the Y2K era it was all web based. So I had to quickly adapt my working tools from pen to stylus combined with a bit of playing around with rudimentary code using Microsoft frontpage + tweaking the code a bit when the alignments were off! I designed and hosted a website for an NRI tech start up entirely in this method. That my cheque was intercepted in North India, smuggled to Pakistan and deposited in a fake account of a fake Rangashree in Gujranwala is an entirely different post !
As UI got better and better, creativity got wings. However the challenge of learning about things beyond one’s imagination and putting it across interestingly still remained.
And then the most mind boggling of them all happened – AI that really challenged my NI! My job was to create presentations with plenty of infographics on neural networks, graph network analytics and other brilliant, proprietary algorithms I am not allowed to talk about. Truly mind boggling but a challenge I had to take! I had a breakthrough when I had to repeatedly explain to my forgetful mother what I did. I began to breakdown the concept of AI into relatable bits…
AI is teaching a computer to think and learn like a human brain.
A child learns in one or two instances but a machine needs to be fed humungous amounts of clean data to learn the same thing.
Once the machine has ‘learnt’ it can do superhuman tasks in predictive analysis and provide accurate insights to businesses.
Today, I have an interesting role. Apart from ‘picsplaining’ AI to CEOs in America, I run a unit that cleans and trains datasets by labeling. The 8 bright young ladies from very low income families in Chennai engaged in this job are contributing significantly to the growth of a great new global development which is AI. I would love them to upskill to Data Science in the future.
This would be the new workforce in the AI revolution.
Rebel India… A dream
My father the Late K Kasturi Rangan a Gandhian and veteran journalist drafted this concept Rebel India about the people running a parallel government ultimately resulting in partyless democracy.
REBEL INDIA
By Swachid K Rangan
India that is Bharat, reconstituted into a Gandhian republic based on his concept of “gram swaraj” or Village Self government, is Rebel India, free of corruption, hunger, ignorance and disease.
Mahatma Gandhi was the foremost rebel in the world. All his life he rebelled against untruth, injustice, oppression and discrimination. In South Africa, he led an Indian civil rights uprising against the racist authorities. It was nothing short of a rebellion. Similarly, the Indian Freedom Movement was also a massive rebellion guided by him.
The word ‘Rebel’ is usually associated with violence. But Gandhi doused it with his non-violence principle and turned it as a potent weapon of defiance. He called it Satyagraha. Now it has become a means of protest all over the world against the authorities. The Rebel India Movement will campaign for the alternate political, economic , educational and social setup that prevails in the country. Serious flaws are pointed out by many people in the system and drastic changes are called for to ensure food security, water, housing, quality education and health care for all.
To accomplish this task, the Rebel India movement has an action plan.
Polity
1. Change over to partyless Presidential form of government instead of the present multiparty parliamentary democracy where unprincipled and opportunistic political parties rule the roost.
2. Each of the 535 districts of India will be declared as a sovereign republic as in Switzerland which is a confederation of sovereign independent Cantons.
3. The district councils will elect a president who will nominate a suitable person to the national parliament. The parliament will elect a president for a 5 year term and he will have absolute authority without the pulls and pressures of political parties or coalition partners as there will be no political parties.
4. Elections will be held every 5 years only to the panchayats of the villages and towns. The Gram sabha or the Nagar Sabha will elect a president and a 7 member panchayat. [Where there are more than two contestants, the majority will be decided by preferential voting.]
5. The president will also serve as a councillor of the district council.
Economy
6. The country’s economy is widely seen as the most mismanaged and devised to benefit only the privileged class of people, big industrialists and foreign investors. People are kept in poverty forever. A vast majority of people live in thatched hutments and hovels in the cities. They are forever forced to depend on government doles for their food and other means of livelihood. The agriculture economy is ruined by the expansion of industries and encroachment of urban complexes.
7. The divide between the super rich and poor is growing with extremists stepping into the gap. The economic policy of Rebel India will seek to narrow down this gap by raising the minimum wages to at least Rs 1 Lakh a year or Rs 300 a day and siphoning of surplus funds from the rich to be used for development projects. Those having income beyond Rs 10 Lakhs will be required to deposit the amount in a lifetime savings plan called “Public Investment and Deposit Insurance Corporation” [PIDIC] which will be wholly owned by the Union Government.
8. After one year, the depositors will get 10% interest annually and after 30 years of maturity the entire amount will be paid back to them or to their nominees. There will be no direct taxes on personal income.
9. Those who are earning between Rs 1 Lakh and Rs 10 Lakh a year will be required to deposit a percentage of the income with the PIDIC. The advantage of this plan is that besides getting a regular amount every year as interest, at the time of old age, the depositors will get a substantial amount which will give them financial security.
Education
10. Rebel India will revamp the education system that will really be purposeful. Regular schools will be run for students from standard 6 onwards. Primary education will be provided by RISS in association with SWACHID Academy of Enhanced Education.
11. Children upto age of 10 will acquire at single teacher home schools writing and reading ability in three or four languages – Mother Tongue, English, Hindi and Sanskrit/Urdu.
12. Teachers and students will be enrolled in regular schools for the continuation of education from the 6 standard onwards. After the primary school the children will study in classrooms upto 8 standard where they will be prepared for public examination. And a middle school certificate will be issued to them. Most of the unskilled labor force will benefit from this middle school level learning and they can go in for vocational training in jobs like driving, plumbing, etc.
13. There will be public examination at the end of Standard 10 where the student will be given secondary school leaving certificate. Those who qualify will be eligible for jobs in the government and the private sector and also take training in various vocational jobs.
14. All the schools will be upgraded to college level after SSLC. Students will undergo a three or four year curriculum which will take them upto arts, commerce and science subjects. They will sit for the university exams and obtain bachelor’s degrees.
15. By this system, the university college complexes will be available for higher education in various professions and post graduate courses. This will put an end to the present system where the students have to run from pillar to post to seek admission in professional colleges. Education at all levels will be free.
Rebel India Security Services(RISS)
16. Rebel India will create a Rebel India Security Services which will be a non- governmental organization. They will recruit anyone who is seeking a job including the extremists. They will be given training in appropriate skills and put on regular wages.
17. The RISS will be made responsible for maintaining peace and protecting public property. The RISS cadre will not carry any weapons. They will work with local police force in maintaining law and order, and any activity disturbing public peace will be considered as a crime.
18. The Indian Penal Code will be replaced by a new punishment code where there will be only one verdict – that is 15 days to 15 years of hard tolabour in any of the RISS projects. The convicts will be paid daily wages with which they will have to buy their own food and support their families if necessary. Corruption will be considered as a heinous crime.
19. RISS will also oversee the maintenance of infrastructure such as roads,parks and other public utility services.
20. There will be no restriction for joining this movement, either by age or by learning, but the youth between the ages of 18 and 35 should be persuaded to get involved in this Rebel India movement as the future of the country is at stake for them.
21. RISS will undertake a massive housing project and build a network of canal system. The existing canals will be made navigable by widening and deepening. Every district will be ringed by a canal which should be linked to the nearest reservoir or water body so that there will always be enough water in the system. Besides recharging the underground water level, the canal will provide a cheap means of transport for the benefit of the rural people.
22. Alongside the canal, a housing complex will be built patterned after the railway coaches that can be upto a length of upto 1 km and 20 feet wide so that it can be divided into several apartments with good ventilation. It can accommodate atleast 100 families with educational, medical and other facilities for the people.
23. There will be two categories of RISS workers. One, voluntary and the other – fulltime paid. The voluntary workers will spend atleast one day a week with the RISS supervising the projects and engage themselves in public service.
24. RISS will be a buffer between public and the authorities. The public have many grievances but the authorities are mostly insensitive. The RISS will take up the grievances with the appropriate authorities and will ensure that the issues get redressal. Thus the direct confrontation between the public and the authorities will be avoided.
25. The RISS will derive its authority from President of India and the Presidents of the district-states. The government will use RISS as a conduit to reach the people with whatever benefits they are offering.
26. The RISS will follow our guideline ‘WHAT IS NOT RIGHT, WE WILL SET IT RIGHT’.
Shimmering Island
It glitters, it shines
This place
On the surface
Clean MRT, buses
All streamlined.
Even the waste.
Plastic covers for every little thing.
Nifty Disposables for every task.
Smoking prevails. Is the norm.
But nothing to be seen
On the surface.
All streamlined.
Where does it go?
Unseen, but endangering?
The cancer of everything.
Rashrei's Blog 
Recent Comments