My annual report from wordpress.com

Dear friends,

wordpress.com has published my annual report. You can go through it when you find time.

http://vimalaramu.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?yib=2013

vimala

A DAY IN DELHI WINTER

Here is a blog prompted by the season.

http://vramu.in/a-day-in-delhi-winter/

Personalised service and sweet American peas

Induswomanwriting has published my following blog in their PERSPECTIVE Dec 2013

http://www.induswomanwriting.com/personalised-service-and-sweet-american-peas.html

Ah, those lovely tresses

Hi, Sunday Herald has published my article today.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/370591/hair-raising-situation.html
You can see unedited version at
http://vramu.in/ah_those_lovely_tresses/

My Platinum Day Of Love

Hi,

Here is my entry for 'Platinum day of love' contest by indiblogger.in among 326 entries. (results not yet out)

 

http://vimalaramu.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/my-platinum-day-of-love/

vimala

Interview-DD style

Vimala Ramu

For those who are interested in old stuff from my book RAINSONG,
http://vramu.in/interview-dd-style/
vimala ramu

My green sisters-in law

Hi, here is a tribute to my sisters in law. You may read it if it interests you.
http://www.induswomanwriting.com/my-green-sistersinlaw.html

Dreams

Dear friends,
Interested in some gen on dreams? Go to

http://www.vramu.in/dreams/

vimala

Two ghost stories.

 <a href="http://www.blogadda.com" title="Visit BlogAdda.com to discover Indian blogs"> <img src="http://www.blogadda.com/images/blogadda.png" width="80" height="15" border="0" alt="Visit BlogAdda.com to discover Indian blogs" /></a>

http://www.induswomanwriting.com/two-ghost-stories.html

Dotting the i's and crossing the t's

Dear friends,
if you want to see some unadwanted advice, here it is.
http://www.induswomanwriting.com/dotting-the-is-and-crossing-the-ts.html
vimala.

The Sartorial Quotient

Dear friends,
Thank you very much for the wonderful reception you gave to vramu.in- more than 100 hits in a fortnight. Here is my second offering;
http://vramu.in/the-sartorial-quotient/
Hope you enjoy it
Vimala Ramu

Humming Bee In The Bonnet

Hi, for those who have not read my book RAINSONG,here is a blog from it_Humming bee in the bonnet.

Read it at:-
http://www.vimalaramu.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/humming-bee-in-the-bonnet/

Old wine in new bottle

Hi dear friends,

I am very happy to share the information with you all that my blogs will now be appearing in a new blogsite, jointly owned by me and my grandson-in law Arjun. Fortuitously the blogsite

http://www.vramu.in has been inaugurated on Ganesh Chaturthi day. With the new bottle I hope the old wine gets a new fizz and becomes more bubbly than before. I am sure you will all show the same interest in my blogs and continue to read them as before. The inaugural offering has three blogs.

http://www.vramu.in/mirror-mirror-on-the-window

http://www.vramu.in/the-fb-etiquette

http://www.vramu.in/the-week-after

Thanks,

Vimala Ramu

A few random thoughts published in Iww. Sept issue. http://www.induswomanwriting.com/two-ghost-stories.html

My Dental Implants-composite

You can now see a color illustrated version of all 3 parts of 'My Dental Implant' together at the following URLs.
vimalaramu.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/my-dental-implant-part I
vimalaramu.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/my-dental-implants-part II
vimalaramu.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/dental-implant-concluding

My Dental Implant-concluding

PROSTHESIS- The concluding part

After an interval of 10 days, I reoirted to the prosthodontist for further work.

First sitting:-

As the time stipulated for the healing of the sutures had elapsed, the prosthodontist removed the sutures first after numbing the site with a spray of aerosol.

He smeared the metal tray with puttee and clapped it on to my gums and took the impression.

Since I was seeing him for the first time, I had to pay his consultation fee. A certain amount was charged towards the laboratory charges to make them prepare the model in such a way as to prevent occlusion (clogging of the pores). I was asked to come after 4 days for the second sitting.

Second sitting:-

1^st stage :- 4 days later I reported to the prosthodontist. The wax model of my gums had been just delivered by the laboratory. The doctor put it on my gums and kept on trying and shaving it with a knife heated on a spirit lamp till it fitted without a gap. But what scared me was the smoking knife brought near my mouth for the final, finer shaping.  Thank God, I did not get scalded or singed! This synthetic gum had been prepared to give the laboratory people an estimation of the height and not to cover my real gums.

2^nd Stage:-In the next stage he removed the healing caps and fitted screws of different diameters into the holes in the implant. He smeared a transparent blue gel on the puttee on the metal jaw and took the impression of my upper jaw with the screws and let it solidfy slightly. It was then removed from my mouth. Next, he removed the screws one by one from my mouth and fitted them in to the abutment and stuck them where the implant was located in the plaster model. This process had to be repeated as one of the abutments would not fit into the implant analog.

The process was repeated for the lower jaw without much problem. Though the process did not entail any cutting or suturing, tolerating all that hardware for nearly two hours without a strong local anesthesia was a bit tiring. Moreover, the prosthodontist’s weapon (sorry, instrument, in this case it was a screw driver) would sometimes impinge on my soft skin making me burst into small involuntary groans. The small screws also would sometimes slip from his gloved hands and land-sometimes inside my mouth and sometimes on my sterile apron. Fortunately I did not swallow any of the expensive hardware.

Finally after getting a satisfactory impression, the screws were removed and replaced with the healing caps. Incidentally the healing caps were like mushrooms and had long stems which would go into the titanium implant preventing them from slipping off.

The impression was sent to the laboratory for fabrication and I was asked to come four days later.

3^rd sitting:- The third sitting four days later was an anticlimax in that it hardly took any time. The doctor had come all the way just to mark the line of symmetry on the plastic model of my upper gum. Unfortunately he had to consider the line from my forehead as my nose was not located dead centre of the face due to a deviated septum. He however asked me to come two days later when he promised (threatened!) that I would have a longer session.

4^th sitting:- After  a week and what seemed to be a long wait for me, the metal prosthesis was delivered to my clinic from the laboratory in Kerala and I was summoned to the clinic on the same evening to meet the prosthodontist.

While the doctors, located locally, were ever prompt and punctual, the prosthesis was forever in arriving. The German specialist technicians working in the laboratory at Kerala being sticklers to precision would rather take more time than deliver an imperfect product.

However, the doctor first removed the healing caps and put in the screws. The prosthesis was fitted on the upper jaw  and tested. Then the prosthesis was clamped on the lower jaw. Later both were fixed together and tested. Every time the gadget was prized off my gums, I would experience great pain. This was in addition to the pain caused by the screws impinging on the soft tissue. On the whole, it was quite a groany(!) session of 45 minutes, to put it mildly. One of the abutments was drilled inside my mouth.

Once the doctor was satisfied with all the bite tests, impressions on a thin waxy sheet were taken of the front teeth bite and of rear teeth blte.

Then the doctor removed the prosthesis and the screws. The healing caps were screwed back in place. The color of the enamel was chosen to match my complexion.

I was then sent home on the promise that my next session would indeed be the final one. As three quarters of fabrication had already been done and as such only the metal  had to be covered with ceramic enamel, it was expected to take not more than 3 days.

5^th sitting:-

The denture had been delivered after 4 days. The next day, the prosthodontist removed the healing caps, screwed on the abutments and fitted the denture on the upper jaw. Being a fixed jaw, the denture was in one unit. Since my gum had receded at one place, the technicians had added an extra bit above the implant and behind the denture so as to make the arch look perfect from the front. Bite tests were taken. Some of the teeth on the right side had to be trimmed to match the left teeth. Similarly the lower jaw, which was movable had to be in 3 units. After fitting them on  the mandible, the bite tests were taken.

Then both the jaws were tested together .

In the final stage cotton bits were kept in the abutments, the denture was smeared with permanent cement and clamped on.

Hey, Presto, I had my lovely white, Pearly set of teeth and a good smile.

Except for the fact that I have to get used to the clackety clack of the ceramic impact, I am sure I would gradually come to think of the hardware in my mouth as much part of myself as my specs.

                                                                                  ****        THE END   *****

A GOOD SPREAD

A GOOD SPREAD

From times immemorial, a ‘good spread’ in English language means a lavishly laid out dining table. Cooks would make exotic dishes, good in quality and quantity and offer them to the epicureans and gourmets.

But with modern gadgets and with the quality of grocery one gets these days, I got to find out that a ‘good spread’ may mean a totally different thing.

Our mother used to cook rice in bronze vessel on the clay stove with charcoal as fuel. The food would remain in the vessel till it was served on to the plate to be consumed. But once I bought a pressure cooker (of a famous company).I put rice and water in it for cooking and kept the cooker on the lighted gas stove only to find my half cooked rice splattered all over the ceiling!

Analysing the situation, I found that, if the steam vent was clogged, the safety valve would get punctured and blow off sending forth a geyser of rice and water towards the ceiling. If the safety valve was stuck for some reason, the ‘weight’ on the steam vent would pop out with a big thud and hide itself in some remote corner of the kitchen and the rice geyser along with steam would merrily spew forth upwards with a great force. Result? Food on the ceiling! The geyser would not stop till the last grain of rice left the cooker and stuck itself on the ceiling.

It must have taken quite a bit of research and experimentation for the manufacturers to come out with the safe (comparatively safer) models that we know now. Anyway, probably it was this sort of a situation that was responsible for a new phrase to be coined, “A pressure cooker situation” by journalists.

Well, if the gadgets are responsible for the ‘spread’, the provisions we get in the market are also culprits sometimes.

A certain lady of my acquaintance used to justifiably pride herself on her excellent ‘thenkol’ (a crisp spaghetti like savoury made out of rice and urd dal flours). She used to carry her own press for the purpose and used to treat her relatives to the tasty snack when she stayed with them.

Once she offered to make it for her granddaughter and her fellow grandparent. The old gentleman was a widower who was missing his wife’s tasty preparations. Gratified by the lady’s offer, he bought her 2 kgs of pure ghee at exorbitant price and asked her to fry the thenkol in ghee.

Our lady was used to making it in refined oil. She would first fry a piece of tamarind in the hot oil to remove the impurities before putting in the first thenkol. But when asked to fry in pure ghee, she was mighty impressed. Getting all the ingredients ready, she made the dough into balls ready to be pressed. She heated the ghee. When the first perfectly shaped  thenkol was slowly eased into the hot ghee, hell broke loose. The ghee started frothing like champagne and rose out of the hot frying pan and spilt on to the stove, the counter and the floor while the lady was watching helplessly.

Seeing all the effervescent ‘pure ghee’ bubbling out like lava , she switched off the stove in sheer disgust and walked out of the kitchen asking the maid to do the ‘mop-up’ operation. 

 The thenkol dough was later converted to dosa batter and used.

So, a ‘good spread’ need not mean only the one on the table. It could also mean the one on the ceiling, stove, counter and kitchen floor!

The Outdated Bill

 THE OUTDATED BILL

Hailing from a country notorious for small swindling as well as super scams, certain experiences I had abroad have left an indelible print on me.

After a pleasant, long stay at our son’s place at Maui, Hawaii, we were home bound. Since it was our third visit and also as our onward journey had been booked by Korean Air, our son was confident that we would find our way and so did not accompany us to Honolulu, the international hub. We took the small 19 seater Aloha Airlines aircraft from Maui and landed in Honolulu airport half an hour later.

Loading our humongous items of luggage on to a groaning trolley, we proceeded towards the Korean Air counter. There we were told that the pilots of the said airlines were on a strike and so they were trying to put us on alternative airlines.

After quite a bit of running up and down tensely hampered as we were by our overloaded trolley, we were told that we would be put on Japan Airlines flight which in fact would would take off earlier than Korean Air schedule.

Leaving my husband with the luggage in the lounge, I snatched a single dollar bill from my purse and rushed to ring up my daughter-in law at Maui lest they hear about the strike and worry. There I found a long line of passengers waiting patiently for their turn at the telephone booth. I joined the line behind a fair young man whose nationality I could not fathom.

I was feeling nervous as I was not sure if I would be able to put forth my case in my Indian accent if I were to deal with an operator. The young gentleman saw me fidgeting nervously with the dollar note. He looked at the note and said, “The dollar bill you have is outdated. It will not be accepted by the phone.” I got panicky. Being an alien I could not make out an outdated dollar bill from a current one. I did not have any more one- dollar notes. I did not want to leave my place in the line to go back and change a higher denomination note.

Seeing me in distress, the young man offered to help me. He took my son’s telephone number from me. When his turn in the line came, he put in his own dollar bill (a crisp, current one), dialed the number, waited till my daughter- in law came on line and then handed the phone to me. I explained the situation to her and put the telephone back. By now the young man had finished his talk at the next cubicle. I thanked him profusely and went back to join my husband at the embarkation line at the Japan Airlines counter.

How often do we come across such good Samaritans in life! Such small acts of selflessness indeed make you feel that there is certainly a benevolent presence up there watching over you.

MY DENTAL IMPLANT-Part II

DENTAL IMPLANT-Part 1
‘Implant’ has been a word which has come into vogue more recently. Though nose implant, breast implant and tooth implant etc have been in use, dental implant (correct usage) is the most misunderstood term by the lay persons including yours truly. A case of the dental implant was said to have been  discovered in the cadaver of a woman in twenties from Mayan civilization with three tooth shaped shells placed in the sockets of missing teeth. What is more, the radiological study revealed that the bone had accepted the implant showing that the implantation had taken place when she was alive (ref Wikipedia).
Not withstanding this, the modern usage of the dental implants started in 1950’s. I was under the impression that implant meant our own decayed tooth would be cleaned and cleared and the empty shell put back. How wrong I was!
‘Dental implant’ is a screw made of Titanium which would be embedded in the jaw bone to which artificial denture or individual tooth or bridges could be screwed on. This relieves the wearer from removing the denture every time.
In my case, the whole dental set had to be screwed on to the implants.
It all started with the erosion of my teeth due to the prolonged effect of Rheumatoid Arthritis and its medications, in spite of regular visits to dentists and in spite of bridges, fillings and root canals carried out at regular intervals. Finally when the chewing teeth were gone, I started using the front teeth for the purpose which left them broken, worn out and altogether sinister looking. That’s the time I thought of implanted teeth. But I was shocked to hear that each implant cost Rs 25,000 and so gave up the idea.
I went back to the free dentist at our family welfare centre.
The dentist shook every tooth. Mournfully shaking his head, he decried the civilian dental work, “What has he been doing for your teeth apart from making you pay through your nose?” and gleefully removed 6 teeth on one day and 3 on the other and gave me a partial denture set costing Rs 54.
After about an year, finding myself not happy with the partial denture, lower one of which gave me ulcers and the upper one needed cleaning every time I snacked on some thing, I decided to go to an implantologist and risk the whole process.
Fortunately I found that a branch of the state of the art chain of dental clinics run by prestigious health care organization located very close to my house.
When I approached the dental surgeon, he had a look at my teeth (the absent ones), tut-tutted the work of the welfare centre dentist and explained the steep expenses involved in the implantation process, each implant now costing Rs30, 000. He promised to get a senior citizens’ discount and left me to decide. With the permission of the finance sanctioning authority aka the husband I decided to take the plunge.
The implantation was done in two phases. In the first phase, I was first asked to get an OPG ( ortho pantomograph), a two dimensional radiograph of the skull in the special place which caters for such special radiology and it was e mailed to the doctor. He saw it and fixed the date for the implantation of the upper jaw only. I was asked to get a fresh blood sugar report on the morning of surgery. The prosthetist met me the previous day and took the impression of my mouth for measurement.
On the scheduled day when the process began, the surgeon invited my husband into the operation theatre to witness the process which he kept explaining at every step.
When the numbing injections, six I presume, were given I felt only the first two and afterwards I was just an inert recipient of the whole thing, It was only my husband’s account later that told me what was done.
First of all one ‘mobile’ tooth in the upper jaw was extracted. For implanting, a slash was done in the gum and flap was held back by a retractor. In the recipient bone that was exposed, 6 holes were drilled following the OPG closely parallel to the direction of the teeth. Ice cold water was being sprayed continuously and suctioned off. Six implants were placed one in each of the holes.
The ‘implant’ was imported from Israel. It looked like the lead jutting out of the wooden part of the pencil. It was encased in a metal spring. After placing the implant in the hole, the spring was wound out. The flap on the gum was closed and sutures put which were removed 10 days later. A period of 4 months’ gap was given for the implant to  osseo-integrate at the end of which the ossification would have taken place and the implant would have merged with the main bone (which was possible only with titanium which for reasons unknown does not get rejected as foreign material). The swelling of the mouth was rather dramatic with all blue and red color making me look like monkey God for four days. No pain was felt during this period thanks to the painkillers and other medications.
After about a month,when I went to the doctor for the second phase, he sympathised with me, "If only you had come to us one year earlier, we could saved your teeth" and promptly extracted 7 teeth from the lower jaw and put the sutures , leaving me in a totally edentulous state except for two teeth one at each end of the upper jaw. 40 days were allowed for the healing of the extraction. Later one more OPG was taken, one more blood test was done fresh and the process of implantation was repeated for the lower jaw with 6 implants. The swelling for the lower jaw was not much. Ten days later the sutures were removed. A three months gap was allowed after which the denturing part would be done.
The intervals between the steps in the procedure are taken totally at the discretion of the implantologist.The payments are also taken in instalments.
So having lost the God given smile, I am waiting for the dentist given smile at 76 years of age.

MY DENTAL IMPLANT-PART II

MY DENTAL IMPLANT-PART II

At last the day had arrived. It was 5 months to the date since the upper jaw had been implanted and 3 months since the lower jaw had been done. Ample time had been provided for the ossification of the titanium implants which were 6 in the upper jaw and 6 in the lower jaw. The latest OPG( Orthopantomagraph) had  revealed that the implants had fused well with the jaw bones and I was now ready for the next session of torture, I mean (with due apologies to my implantologist) the second phase of the project ‘dental implant’ namely capping the implants.

For this, the doctor had to expose the implants by removing the soft tissue covering them and then screw on the stainless steel caps on them. Stainless steel is used for this purpose as it is a very strong metal ideally suited for load bearing and also because it is bio compatible with titanium. As the process involved lot of incisions, the local anesthesia  had to be used. The lower jaw has a single nerve running through it and hence two injections one at each end were enough to obtain the required numbing. But the upper jaw had all the implant sites connected to different nerves and hence as many injections had to be given in series as there were implants. So, before the numbness set in, I could feel the impact of all the 8 jabs- the most painful part of the whole operation. This sent my heart beating superfast. But the doctor assured me that it would come down. A bit of relaxation learnt at ‘Art of living’ helped to restore my heart beat to the normal pace.

Since the tissues covering the implants in the upper jaw were thin, they could be punched out and the implants exposed. But the soft tissues covering the lower implants were quite thick and so the gum had to be cut open in the front to expose the implants and sutured later with simple sutures.

Once the implants were exposed, the stainless steel caps called healing caps were screwed on the threaded implants flush with the gums. The tightening of the screws was done manually, but one implant slightly deep in the mouth and not easily accessible had to be tightened with a cute spanner! The function of the caps is to see that no soft tissues grow on the implants while the rest of the jaws is healing.

Surprisingly, the blood loss was quite a bit during the process as compared to the first phase and so the blood had to be constantly suctioned out.

Once the steel caps were in place and the sutures put, the doctor prescribed the usual antibiotics and pain killers and asked me to come a week later when the prosthodontist would take over.

More of that later…..

Continuous use of cold packs brought the swelling down and I had my normal face by evening.