Clothes Make the Woman

I'm writing this post wearing my favourite polo shirt that I  bought eight years ago. It is no longer in the shape so that I can wear it outside and can only be worn inside the house disregarding the wife's exasperation at the holes on the sides. Though, the colour of which is grey, I'm more enamoured by the stitches and by my own reckoning its fit  worthiness to my rolling gait. But the purpose of the post is not to discuss feeling comfortable in my second skin.

I have always struggled to find clothes that I felt comfortable wearing. Now the problem is compounded from the fact that I need to buy clothes for my daughter. And I find most female clothes are sexist. Or to be precise, in my view, feminine clothes are sexist in general.

Let me explain my position very clearly. It is actually very simple and straightforward. A man's body is basic and woman's body is deviation. Generally, male clothes don't have penis pouch thus all clothes made for man are unisex clothes or there is no masculine clothes. Therefore, if a female wears male clothes, she is just conforming to her basic human body standards. But vice versa is not true. A man wearing feminine clothes basically endorses the sexist tradition that came up with the idea of feminine clothes. So, theoretically, females wearing feminine clothes are unacceptable but that is even more true for males.

With this background, when I shop clothes for my daughter, I feel nauseated seeing miniaturized versions of feminine clothes designed for deviated females. Evidently, I  prefer to buy unisex clothes (sometimes marketed as boys' clothes) for her. I should say that I make absolutely no error in judgement with regards to sexism. In fact, my opening of this post is a supporting point in that direction.

As I said, my favourite was a polo shirt. For the last seven years I'm searching for a similar shirt without any success. I discuss with my colleagues that I'm searching for a polo shirt with V-neck, hands stitched with angle cut, texture is machine knitted but little coarse,and with vertical stripes. But one of my female colleagues goes like, "I never thought that males think so much about clothes; that's a female domain". A male colleague pitches in, "V-neck is only for females". Those words give credibility to my thoughts in a way endorsing that they are naturally anti-sexist. I believe we should ban feminine clothes.

Malayali Classification

I think Malayalis can be broadly classified into two categories based on their pronunciation. Majority use voiced labiodental fricative (v) instead of voiced bilabial plosive (b). Also, majority use retroflex approximant (zh) instead of palatal approximant (y). Considering the different paths trodden by these two groups, the former can be labelled as 'vazhi' Malayalis and the latter 'bayi' Malayalis. Or 'vazhi's and 'bayi's.

Daughter's language acquisition

Few things I observed about my daughter's language acquisition
- She picked up velars and labials ahead of others
- She barely utters palatals
- Retroflexs are nowhere in the picture. I guess quintessential Dravidian identifiers are rather late developments
- Even though I'm the only 'ba' Malayalam speaker at home dominated by 'va' Malayalis, her initial words start with 'ba'. However, she is slowly making a transition to 'va', may be under the influence of zealous Malayalis at home.
- When words contain velars and labials, invariably, labial over-rides velar whatever may be the position
  eg. kApi (Coffee) -> pApi
       pArk -> pyApi
- Many words end with -i- instead of -a-
 eg. Ani (elephant) instead of Ana
- Malayali tendency to change the first short 'a' to 'e' is already visible (Maybe influenced)
   eg. banana -> benana

No Fasting is Better for Cholesterol Test

There was a study that found fasting is not a requirement for cholesterol testing. They observed "measurements are at least as good - and probably somewhat better - when made without fasting." But an old-patient in India has found that the fasting cholesterol testing in fact gives wrong results and Indians should always go for non-fasting cholesterol testing.

The old-patient, a compulsive cholesterol testee, has consistently observed that the measurements are 50 units lower for LDL without fasting than with fasting. The all season "famine driven cholesterol" hypothesis gives a very good explanation of this phenomenon.

The thrifty genes in Indian bodies go overdrive in conserving fat when they sense lack of food. This leads to abnormal increase in the cholesterol levels at the time of lipid profile testing.

Since Indian clinics allow only fasting cholesterol testing, the old-patient advises fellow citizens to read LDL number by deducting 50 units from it.

Growing Up

My height has always been 171cms. Few years ago when one of my friends met me after a gap of few years, he exclaimed that I had grown taller. I spent half a day measuring my height and the miracle didn't happen and I turned out be unmoved 171cms.

It's a bad number, if you ask me. I can't say I'm 5'8" and I don't want to say I'm 5'7". In other words, I neither wanted to have an inflated ego nor effacing.

Not that I have any issues with my height. In fact, when I was younger, a measurement chart that my parents came across predicted my adult height at 5'4". I have always taken pride in the fact that I exceeded my potential as an adult.

But every time when my height was measured at the hospitals, I was invariably 172 cms. Now I have a doubt whether I'm undercutting myself. So, I have decided to declare my height as 5'8" in any future communications.

Keeping a Woman Slave

Son-in-law:

Nearly thirty five years ago, an old man was talking to his new daughter-in-law. He was showing her his collection of old days. Among them there was a letter from his son-in-law. It was a five years old letter. He gave it to her without any emotion and asked her to read it. The letter was addressed to the old man.

“You have ruined my life. I married your daughter because she was your daughter. How can I explain the disappointment I faced? You have given me a mute miracle. How can the light that shone brightly for outsiders couldn’t drive out the darkness at home? Why doesn’t she have the love of languages? Why can’t she talk about politics authoritatively? Why is her knowledge of great literary works almost non-existent? Why doesn’t she have any radical views? Is she also fearless enough to sacrifice everything fighting for truth or does she even understand it? How can I live the rest of my life with her? But it is you and only you who is responsible for my hopeless future. Why didn’t you teach her? Why didn’t you make her like you?”

Old Man:

Forty years ago, an old man was walking slowly to a temple where he would daily meet his friends. Unlike other days, he didn’t have to bother about the distance he had to cover alone as there were enough thoughts in his mind to give him company. He had received a letter from his son-in-law where he vented his anger that his daughter was dumb.

The old man just couldn’t understand what went wrong. His children received the similar upbringing that he had for himself. Probably, even better as they grew up in a more egalitarian society. He only studied upto fourth standard and all his children bettered him on that front. Whatever he did later he did because he either loved it or went along with his friends. Nobody taught him anything. He didn’t think much about his short lived “success” in public life as the price he paid for it was too huge and he could barely recover from it. The romantic persona of his that some of his caste people developed had no meaning for him. He never thought much about himself.

Daughter:
About thirty years ago, having just been returned to her husband's house after the reconciliation efforts by the elders of the community she set out tidying up the house. She had been admired by everyone for her cleanliness. Her illiterate mother had taught her that discipline and etiquette were marks of the true class and she was very proud that she could measure upto that expectation. Her work was occasionally disturbed by few thoughts that appeared from nowhere.

"I would have studied hard and completed the tenth standard had father insisted on it. Nobody was really bothered when I failed."

"Father was never into gods but he would burst crackers during Deepavali as we looked on."

She longed for class.