The Story of a Baby Bird

2nd June was my 2nd vax day. After all the confusions, frustrations and endless waiting that we were collectively going through --- was no mean achievement, this one. It did not start very well though. The hospital in which my appointment was at 9 am and where we reached at 8:45 made us wait for about 45 minutes to tell us the vaccines have not arrived yet. In the meantime, a crowd started forming on the footpath in front of the hospital, where the hospital staff threw in like 5 or 6 chairs. Almost like a habit, a queue started forming -- a long one, there was no question of maintaining the any kind of distance. Queuing and crowing to get a  vaccine to prevent the most infectious disease in our history is such an amazingly paradoxical thing to do! And this is one of the fun things that you get to witness in this new world. Do check my little video made with the clippings that I made earlier on.

 

 

Anyway, not being particularly fond of standing in a crowded line for anything, leave alone for this vaccine in the middle of a pandemic, I decided to quit. Just thought of giving a check whether any other vaccine Centers are available nearby. And there was one. This one went relatively smoothly. Though there was some mismanagement there was no crowding .

 

But this blog is not the story of my triumphant vaccination. This one is about a little bird. An Indian Myna. Not the more common one with broad yellow eyeliner, but the one with a little headgear on top of their beak. They are called Jungle Myna, I think. In any case, early in the morning, when the queue was yet to form in front of the first hospital, when the chairs were enough, as no more than five/ six people were waiting for the vaccine (henceforth vaxiniaries) at that time, a Jungle Myna, a baby one, landed on a lady's head.  The lady, being considerably perturbed, offered the chair to the Mayna and decided to take a walk. The bird was either too young to understand that we are a danger to her or had a freeze reaction to danger. It just sat there staring blankly at the make-shift pandal that was set up for the vaxiniaries. A couple of other fully grown Mynas, presumably the parents, started raising a ruckus in the trees nearby. But the baby bird paid no attention to them, sat still on the chair. We vaxiniaries all got interested. I stroked its head a little. An elderly gentleman sitting next to it tried to get the bird to sit on his forefinger. A young girl noticed that a couple of crows that looked suspiciously curious. A small team formed to shoo the crows away. a few minutes passed after which the baby bird finally left the chair to sit on that gentleman's forefinger. Everybody hurriedly started giving opinions about where it should be released. but before a consensus could be formed the baby bird flew to the tree where the parents were.

 

That was the story. It was worth being written about, wasn't it? It is not too small,  too mundane. right? In the time where a terrifying disease is destroying the world we knew, when death and devastation is everyday news, where fear has a firm grip on our collective mind, a set of worried people, with their faces hidden behind layers of clothing, got together to save a bird. Somewhere else in the same city,  young people were risking their lives to arrange oxygen and medication for a sick person who they are going to meet for the first time. In another house, some others were making arrangements for delivering homemade food to some unknown people who are too sick and weak to do it themselves. a child was writing "get well soon" on the food packets. Doctors who caught the virus were fighting hard to stand back on their feet so that they can go straight back to doing what they were doing before they fell sick. These are not trivial events. This is the history of our time in the making. Maybe a change is coming. Maybe this crisis is awakening the natural kindness hidden deep inside of us, maybe it is teaching us about the strength of solidarity, maybe it is making us aware of the deep connection every little being on earth has with each other, making us instinctively want to protect the other who was a stranger to us. 

 

 

Life is thrown off gear a little bit. But that is nothing new. That is the way life is, it gets thrown off gear once in a while. The new thing now is that it has happened to all of us at the same time. We now understand and feel the stranger's pain a lot better, because we are going through it ourselves. Maybe that is what will make us want to broaden our little circles enough to include the whole world in them. Maybe we will, at last, engrave the value of  Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam in the core of our hearts instead of on buildings.  Maybe this will make us want to wish that every little bird survives and be able to fly back to the trees and we do what we can to ensure that it does.

 

 

A Pete Seeger song is stuck in my head for the last few days.

 

There's a time to laugh but there's a time to weep
A time to make a big change
Wake up, you bum, the time has come
To arrange and rearrange and rearrange

 

 

 

silchar revisited

while two unfinished posts are lying there in my blog dashbord (on allergies and laziness, how apt!) ... here am I starting another one,

I know this is not a good sign

unfinished projects....disorganisation...impatience ... messyness... all these signals some kind of psychosomatic disorder ... or something of the sort, I read somewhere ... or was it just some grandma's superstitious saying to make children work hard?

of course i don't remember ... forgetfulness is another of my many flaws

anyway, I must write a blog about my February visit to Silchar

the place which, among other things, inspired some of my initial blogs

like this one, this one and this one

(I cannot believe I used to bulk mail these postings, and to people I am not in touch with right now, embarrassing!)

anyway, this time it was a seminar -- of course it has to be a seminar, I feel guilty about travelling for just for the sake of it-- the stay was for five days only--could not be expanded as i was doing some seminar hopping during that period, -- and it was on Indigenous and Endangered Languages, something that has been on my mind for the last five years -- something that - again- was inspired by Silchar, and my stint at Assam University, during my interaction with the colourful, multilingual, multiracial student community.

 But I was also excited about just being there after five years... of course there are a number of reasons to feel like this... but in this blog I will not analyse... and not analyse why I will not analyse.

The plane landed and I immediately liked the sight of that small airport, of the ridiculously security less lounge and the slow pace of everything around it, of the amiable relaxed police-men, of my friends coming to pick me up

one of the changes that happened since I left is that everybody's driving---almost everyone --- and most showing off brand new cars-- but more importantly they were driving -- in that dangerous hilly terrain uneven dusty road with slopes where its impossible to see where you are going before you actually start going down and bends that act similarly and ditches here and steep mountains there— and to add to all that some of them refuse to give gaddas their due respect.Does not bother slowing down.

And the second change is that a baby boom happened—every where I go, there is an army of three to thirty six months olds out to kill you with deadly cuteness­.

And silchar also noticed a few changes in me – namely the 12+ kgs that I have acquired. Recognition of it went from a subtle ‘ you look a little different’ to a more honest “madam khub mota hoisen”. Well, who’s to blame? I don’t need to huff and puff and go on a trek for reaching one department to another anymore. It’s pretty much home-taxi-university-taxi-home routine now. Besides as Einstein said “The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat.” link to petpujo

The university also changed a bit, the auditorium where the conference was held, was not there. The gate that was being built when I left, is now complete. Many departments have moved to the new buildings at the extreme end of the campus, which seemed like the end of earth – its such a big campus!

But what was surprising is that in spite of it all the changes, it seemed like it was yesterday, not five years since I was there. It still felt a little bit like I belong there. This is not to romanticize. I do remember it was not the easy being there. it was difficult academically. Young library. Very small department. Frequent power-cut. Scarce net connectivity. Most of all, it was very very different from everything that I was used to. But I am proud that I made it all my own.

Silchar taught me that you have to like a place on its own terms … or suffer it

stranger in a strange land

it is first of all it is strange that that i have no blog entries for three months
... strange the last entry was written by pete seeger
... a couple of entries before that, the translations, were plucked from my book on translation
...the three linguistics related posts before that are actually reproduction of writings by different authors


SO I HAVE NOT ACTUALLY POSTED ANYTHING FOR ABOUT TWO YEARS!!!!


of course i can say

1. i have been busy ... teaching .. research ...family and social life...(brag brag)
2. i still dont have that super slim super light super small computer with super fast net connection (grunt grunt)
3. nobody reads these posts any way (sigh sigh)

however, the real reason is the same as that for which i dont exercise, go crazy trying finish papers on time, haven't yet finished so many of those great books i collected and dont even meet friends as often

... laziness...

if i can really get over this .. i will probably write about laziness (ironically there is a draft on the topic lying there for 5 months)
but this one is about my trip to China


six months have passed, and i have already forgotten quite a bit
but it does not matter .. its not about minute descriptions ...
it is about feeling like a stranger... in a .. well may be not that strange a land
the part of china i visited was not that different from kolkata
tall buildings, shopping malls, flyovers...
except that it all seemed a lot cleaner... lot lot bigger and there are fewer people
what really struck as strange, as is often the case, people...
and its not how they look... but how they are
and it so happened here that i struck as strange to them
and its not how i am .. its how i look
this is the first time i felt so conscious of my brownness
it, mixed with language barrier, made some people bluntly ignore me when i am asking for help and at other times made complete stranger come up and chat with me.
most people i met across street outside the campus, and i did manage to make quite a few walks outside, would give look at me be startled or raise their eyebrows, whisper among themselves and even giggle. one lady, cycling a rickshaw actually gave me a surprised stare, and laughed out loud.
i was really impressed by these rickshaw pulling, bus driving ladies
they looked tough and comfortable in their skin.
seen some of them put their feet up, and fold their arms behind their head and relax in their vehicle while waiting for the passengers.
one of the Chinese delegates, who said that i am the only indian she ever met, told me that we indians look like the whites, except that we are black...'you have big eyes and big nose' she explained with a sigh.
and they are such beautiful people, babies are the cutest, students at the university looked like they are straight out of some fashion magazines, dressed to perfection
they were tall with glowing spotless skin and shining hair.
a visit to the supermarket with friends explained why they look the way they do
they can tell what each and every food do to your body
'this is good for hair, this one improves iron in your body, this improves vision..,'
we bengalis usually point to our food and say ' this tastes good, this one is even better....'
and also i stopped bragging about varieties of bengali food after my china trip
i have learned that you can pickle anything, make dry food of any thing
and oh those flower teas ...
and ye we all know of the chinese passion for fresh food.. aquariums in restaurants to make sure that the fish you are eating, died less that 10 mins ago.
the delegate i was talking about also told me that she finds my accent difficult, adding that she has no problem in understanding delegates from Europe and US.
language landed me a in great deal of trouble when i landed i the airport at 2 in the morning.
none of the staff seemed to know the word 'taxi stand', and i learned after half an hour or so, i have no future as a mime artist. i was wondering whether i will end up living in the airport for the rest of my life, when a total stranger offered to help.
and after only a few days, when i was leaving, a colleague commented it is strange how fast one can get used to a new place. she was right, i completely got used to the land. i also got used to being a stranger too, language already did not matter.
i returned with loads of good experience... great food ... great people.. ( the conf was good too, but that's not what i will write about in this blog)
the most priceless experience was of course that of being a stranger in a strange land
[due acknowlegement to Robert A. Heinlein for the title of the post]

NIM - the victim of linguistics

my lazy self is continually copy-pasting rather writing a blog
but i often wondered what happened to the chimp who were to prove a point
I recently came across his story, which i give below
the chimp proved a point alright
he proved that human being is the most egotistic species on earth and that they will exploit other species (and members of their own species) in more ways than one.... some times under the illusion of doing 'important stuffs'.


from http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0311/p13s01-bogn.html?page=1

What 'Nim Chimpsky' taught them all
Nim Chimpsky was raised by humans, but couldn't help being a chimp.
By Marjorie Kehe
from the March 11, 2008 edition

It was the early 1970s, an era of experimentation. Minds were open and
grants were plentiful at the moment that scientists latched onto the
idea of raising baby chimpanzees as humans and teaching them sign
language. After all, if they succeeded they might penetrate the
mysteries of the animal mind. And if not, what was the harm?
Plenty, as journalist Elizabeth Hess demonstrates in Nim Chimpsky: The
Chimp Who Would Be Human, her nonfiction account of the most famous of
several chimps raised by human families for scientific purposes.
Nim did learn to use 150 characters of American Sign Language (ASL)
and to the end of his days he was apt to contritely sign "sorry" if he
bit or hurt someone. (And in his last years he became a tutor,
teaching basic signs to fellow chimps and cagemates.)
But if scientists hoped to deepen interspecies understanding, then
most of what they learned from Nim was how much they didn't know. As a
result, they grossly underestimated the difficulties of working with a
chimp and, tragically, entirely failed to grasp the depth of his
emotional needs.
"Nim Chimpsky" is about as poignant an animal story as you can get.
The neglect Nim suffered (most of which was inadvertent) is
heartbreaking. And yet in many ways reading about him remains a joyous
experience. Nim was an unforgettable character - affectionate,
mischievous, empathetic, and utterly charming. People who knew him
could never stop loving him.
"I thought about him every day," says his human "sister" 30 years
after parting from him. "I still do." Nim was born in 1973 in a
research facility in Norman, Okla. Ten days later he was taken from
his mother and given to the LaFarges, a wealthy family living in a
brownstone in New York City. There, Nim was a happy fellow, frolicking
with the LaFarge children in his tiny overalls, developing a taste for
ice cream and pizza, and bonding deeply with his people.
His "mother," Stephanie, recalled years later that if she cried in his
presence he would bring her a tissue. She remembered his eyes as
"large and wide" with "a gravitas and depth that were haunting."
But Nim had work to do. His sponsor was a Columbia University
professor to whose lab he commuted daily. There, he was expected to
sit at a desk and memorize ASL signs. (Nim's name was a defiant sneer
at linguist Noam Chomsky, who believed the use of language was unique
to humans. The whole point of Project Nim was to prove Chomsky
wrong.)
But Nim was not always successful or cooperative. When the LaFarges
decided they couldn't keep him any longer, it was just the first in a
series of abandonments for Nim. Unfortunately, while busy bonding Nim
to humans, no one had stopped to think of how hard it might be to
someday undo those attachments.
Nim was not the only chimp to experience such loss. Hess tells the
stories of other chimps placed with human families at the same time
Nim was. Many sickened and one even died when separated from their
human "parents."
In "Nim Chimpsky" Hess does a good job of rolling any number of
stories into one. She vividly recreates the key animals and people in
Nim's life. While readers interested only in Nim may occasionally get
impatient, for the most part these narrative detours are fascinating,
and together they bring to life a world that kept shifting around
Nim.
Divorce, academic disgrace, and infighting had nothing to do with him
yet all these contributed to the erosion of his quality of life.
Eventually, he became too difficult to maintain outside a cage, even
as he failed to decisively disprove Chomsky. Nim, who had been tucked
into his own bed each night by loving humans was now sleeping on a
cement floor with other chimps.
But the worst was yet to come. When grant money ran dry, Nim was
shipped to a medical lab, useful now only as a test subject for
vaccines - until his high-profile rescue by animal-loving celebrity
Cleveland Amory.
Hess has written about animals and their advocates before ("Lost and
Found: Dogs, Cats, and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter.")
She is clearly an animal lover, yet (with a few exceptions) she
resists the temptation to demonize the humans in Nim's life.
Nim was gregarious. He relished human companionship all his life. In
his last decade (spent caged in a sanctuary) he also bonded with
fellow chimps. He died in 2000 at age 26, about 20 years earlier than
would be normal for a chimp.
At Nim's memorial service, the sanctuary caretaker spoke of the
profound affection his whole staff had for Nim - how he would play
jokes on them, draw pictures for them, sign to them, or steal their
shoes (his particular fetish).
It's only too easy to imagine how deeply all the humans touched by him
must have missed him. And readers, too, will find that Nim haunts them
long after they close the pages of this book.
[Editor's note: The original version identified Nim as a monkey
instead of a chimp. (Chimps are apes, not monkeys.)]
* Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor's book editor.

summer

and

i think

to myself

what a wonderful world

Pete Seeger to SELL stuffs?

I am absolutely outraged at the new advertisement for Zen car

they are using Pete Seeger's 'little boxes' to sell stuffs?

that is totally unacceptable, I dont know how this has happened

i am looking for ways to protest against this.

if anybody has any idea please comment.

I remember michael jackson doing a similar blunder trying to sell Beatles lyrics (revolution) to sell shoes. he faced stern opposition and Nike had to take the ad off air.

NOT EVRYTHING'S FOR SALE

little boxes -- lyrics

Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky

Little boxes

Little boxes

Little boxes all the same

There's a green one and a pink one

And a blue one and a yellow one

And they're all made out of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same

And the people in the houses all go to the university

And they all get put in boxes, little boxes all the same

And there's doctors and there's lawyers

And business executives

And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same

And they all play on the golf course and drink their martini dry

And they all have pretty children and the children go to school

And the children go to summer campAnd then to the university

And they all get put in boxes, and they all come out the same

And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family

And they all get put in boxes, little boxes all the same

There's a green one, and a pink oneAnd a blue one and a yellow one

And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same

A NON-BELIEVER’S DATE WITH THE CELESTIAL

Ten odd pairs of eyes were looking at me… reflecting shock, disbelief, fear… What did I say? “earth is flat and sun goes round it” “I am a psychopath killer” “Iraq has weapon of mass destruction” … nah, none of those, said something far worse.. “I DO NOT NECESSARILY HAVE TO ENTER THE TEMPLE, I CAN STAND OUTSIDE AND WATCH OVER YOUR SHOES AND BAGS WHILE YOU PAY A VISIT” Understand the gravity of the situation now? No? let me elaborate.. Time: early morning Place: a boat on the river Ganges, Varanasi The Temple in question: do I have to mention? Once my co passenger’s shock started breaking into disgust, anger, pity, sympathy, indifference and various other emotions, I changed my mind. I have to see the place, got to feel the faith. So I started approaching the centre of earth – Needless to say, I was not alone, a few thousands went along As I was approaching the sacred zone down the slippery alley, jostling with hundreds to stop myself being separated from my friends, trying my best to keep myself from falling or being crushed or crushing someone else, marvelling at the monkeys who jumped on from the electric wires to the golden trisuls through the humongous bells and at the heavily armed policemen on the verge of losing it in an attempt to keep order ….I felt the presence of supernatural …this cannot be natural… tens of thousands regularly swarming through a lane that can hardly accommodate a single person queue and coming out without a broken bone !!!…no logic can explain this All pushing, shoving, elbowing, shouldering one another to beat the other, yet stopping just short of breaking into a fight … this is no ordinary phenomenon! I looked around … narrowest of lanes and largest crowd imaginable… people, rickshaws, autos, cars of all make, buffalos all bumping into each other as a normal routine … the only order is that of chaos… And those buffalos and cows… what to say of them… what glossy fur! What strong built! And they know exactly where to go through those maze of lanes! And they stop for no one! … why should they? Look at them and look at us ungraceful, feeble creatures! It is our duty to sense their presence beforehand and make way for them…as so we do… … had the good fortune to witness celebrations of an auspicious day …devdeepabali…witnessed the never-ending staircases lit up with millions of diyas, saw Ganges being jammed with 500odd boats… innumerable people filling up every centimetre of those eighty ghats ….

What colours! What magnanimity! What enormity! What grandeur! There is miracle happening everywhere! There is magic in every nook and corner ! There is divine in all over, (specially in those heavenly rabris and peras) The oldest living city! More vibrant than any city on earth! Beautiful, fascinating, celestial Varanasi!

SILCHAR JOURNAL III

Autumn is here!Mahalaya cassettes are replacing Hindi songs in odd shops!

And the weather is ….Well now hot! Now cool! now dry and dusty! Now wet and muddy!

That’s how the weather works here

By the way, I am still in Silchar...But I wont be for the next few weeks ...Puja vacation :)

Plan to spend it in a distant foreign land called home...Alias Kolkata

Last few days, well months have been sickeningly hectic (literally, I keep on falling sick these days)For some mysterious reasons of which I have no idea, I have apparently emerged as one of the cultural connoisseurs of the university,And come conferences, workshops vc’s meet Teachers association subcommittee And I am always there taking care of the cultural bit (there is always a bit of that bit) along with some colleagues..

I cannot say I don’t find it rewarding.Students here are amazingly talented. And they come from such diverse background, that they have so much to offer..The other day we had a northeast folk dance showcaseAnd it was dazzling !slow solemn Dimasa dance, vigorous Naga dance, rhythmic tea tribe dance in a melancholy tune, fun dance of dhamail…and they looked gorgeous in their traditional dresses..I felt privileged to be among them.

My colleagues… they are also from diverse backgroundfrom kanyakumari to Kashmir

From strict vegetarian to very strict non-vegetarian

From the rightest of right wings and leftest of lefts

From teetotaller to sworn boozers

But they have some things in common. They all, well most of them at least, seem bored and dissatisfied. Of course there is a good explanation. Intellectuals should always be dissatisfied …And teachers are such a boring lot, that they often end up boring themselvesas always,lookng forward to hear from you all

THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Hello all,
Its been a while here, have survived fire, earthquake, and thunderstorms to name a few and, sorry to disappoint Aritra, but things don’t appear so shocking anymore.
Remember the bridge?
First it started swaying dangerously when our bus used to be on it—Did not surprise me at all. Then it became so bad that the bus used to go at a speed of a snail when the crossed it— All in a day’s work.
After a few days it became too risky so it was decided that we would cross the bridge on foot, the bus will go empty and then we will board it on the other side — It happens.
Then it was too dangerous for the empty bus, so were getting down from the bus on this side of the bridge, and the university was sending another bus to pick us from the other — Mundane.
So, I am ok here, people say I look different these days. According to my uncle it is like Swank in Million Dollar Baby, but he is too kind.
It is more like Gollum in Lord of the Rings.
Anyway, let me share a few things that I have learned about life.
When your living alone in a third floor apartment, you will always be unsure about whether you have locked the window or turned the gas off when you have got down to the ground floor.
When your parents know about your memory dysfunction and makes a list on your door of things to take with you when you go out (like torch, umbrella, lunchbox etc) they should also include ‘purse’ in it.
When a lot of people work away from their home, they can be really innovative in their leave-taking techniques.
Your house help will come to work as and when they like.
You can actually synchronize your sleep with power cuts.
When you are expecting a career advancement, you can put James Bond to shame with your spying ability.
When every time you are introduced to a colleague, the third advice they give is ‘don’t trust anyone’ (the first two being always carry an umbrella and a torch) then you should take this advice seriously.
When you wake up in the morning all fatigued because of the noisy thunderstorm in the previous night, then if you look at the end of a dusty road and can see the hills with white clouds at the peak, then you suddenly feel an indescribable peace of mind.
Looking forward to hear about your lives

QUITE AN ADVENTURE!!!

Hello all, Hope you don’t mind this joint mail. But with having so much to tell and so limited net access, this is the best that can be. anasuyadi said that accepting this job would be like an adventure to me and her words were that of a prophet. A lot of people told me it is only a 1 hr flight from Kolkata to Silchar. But few told that I would have to take a two-hour journey through a long and winding road to reach the town and another one and half hour nausea inducing journey to reach the university. One of the professors in the economics department opined that the British people built these roads with vengeance to unsettle our poor Indian stomachs. Honestly, this journey is unbelievable. First you go through the city, which by the way is unbelievably dusty. Just to prove how dusty it is, people sigh and tell how "clean" Agartala and Kolkata (???!!!) is. The roads and in even more wretched condition : not a single road that is not broken,open drainage, no foot path and let’s not get into the condition of traffic. And people keep telling me with a wise smile "wait till you see the rainy season". Last year boat was the only means of transport for most of the time from March through October. Anyway, after going through the city, you enter the villages, then the paddy fields, forests, tea gardens, burning ghats and go through some unbelievably dangerous unfinished bridges on the way. In the meantime you are going up the hill often with stiff mountain on one side and sharp gorge on the other. For the first few days I just sneezed my way up and puked my way down and lost weight and hair rapidly. And my colleagues keep telling me that it was worse. Things have ‘drastically improved’ in the last year. Let me also enlighten you about the modes of transport (when it does not rain i.e.). You have choices between a bus that is so crowded that you will be crushed and a Sumo which will carry14 passengers inside and equal number on top. On the second day itself my Sumo stopped in front of the third of those bridges, there was some commotion. On coming down, I found out that the bridge is broken. The conductor sweetly asked me to go down up to the river (which would be about two-story building downwards) and cross the river and come up on the other side and there will be Sumos on the other side. I must have looked terribly puzzled, so he assured me that the "water is not even knee deep". "this was not in my job description" I thought, " that I will have to swim and trek my may to workplace". Just about that time I met one of my students he said that’s a reasonably regular occurrence. Nothing to worry about, just no classes today and the days to follow. Lets go into the University campus now. It is in a word "breath-taking", both literally and figuratively. Literally because, yes, it is the most beautiful university I have seen — red single storied structures for departments placed on hillocks and vales with one or two bigger buildings for library, administrative blocks etc. it has 100 acres of forest in its compound as well. (However, the university area could use more trees, I have heard they have cut down too many here.) The university is figuratively breath taking as going from one department to another, or from a department to the library and sometimes even to the loo would require climbing up and down uncountable steps and you will end up out of breath*. Among good things my department’s got a brand new computer, no net connection though. As for the rest, the registrar told me to prepare myself for "shocks" and all I can say is that the shock treatment is on. But I am holding on.Hope the rest of you are doing fine .