Fighting Polysistic Ovaries

From the time i was a kid myself i would like to cuddle & play with smiling babbies for hours together but the moment they would start crying or throwing stuff i would dislike being with them. I somehow had decided that having kids was a big problem..afterall how could one manage a human being who was smiling one instant & crying out the very next

I got married 3 years ago after completing my MTech at the age of 26 years. We had planned to start thinking about the baby in a year or so but guess fate had its own plans as the recession hit the world just 3 months after the wedding sending the world into a downward tizzy. If that was not all last year i got diagonosed with polysistic ovaries( which many beleive to be the first sign of possible PCOD ).

The polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is one of the most common disorders affecting women. It has been estimated that 20% of women have polycystic ovaries as detected by ultrasonography and that 10% of all women experience asymptom of PCOS

Imagine trying to have a baby for a few months & having no periods for 2 months & just when you expect the home pregnancy test to show a positive it shows a negative repeatedly with all signs pointing towards some problem in the horizon

For those of you who are not familiar with this term Polycystic ovary syndrome is a condition in which there is an imbalance of a woman’s female sex hormones. This hormone imbalance may cause changes in the menstrual cycle, skin changes, small cysts in the ovaries, trouble getting pregnant, and other problems I still rember my reaction when my doctor told me that the Trans Vaginal Ultrasound confirmed polysistic ovaries. I felt the ground slip from under my feet.

My doctor advised me to start Yasmin; an oral contraceptive to give the ovaries some rest  for about 5-6 months after which she wanted to do another ultrasound to see if the ovaries had healed or not. She found me to be of normal weight & said being just 28 the fertility window for me was large enough & everything would be just fine

Life to me seemed to be at a stand still. In a foreign land where you neither have your family nor your friends to talk to, sitting at home jobless after having peaked in your academic career with a possible first sign of PCOD seemed like the end of the road to me. Reading about polysistic ovaries or PCOD further preplexed me as the chances of conception with PCOD where bleak. I would cry endlessly & think of what life had to offer to me know. I would look at pregnant women & babies around me & would sigh at the thought of ever becoming a mom myself some day.

I felt like down in the dumps; overweight by about 6 kgs,jobless,hopeless & lifeless. I was in a state of complete denial behaving as if nothing was wrong with me.That is when my darling husband advised me to not give up on life. He researched for 2 full days online & found that Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is a condition characterised by multiples cysts in the ovaries, &  the best diet, generally speaking, was one based on low glycaemic index (low GI) foods .The obvious logic being  that women with PCOS tend to be insulin resistant. So, if insulin isn’t working too well, it makes sense to avoid eating foods that cause spikes in blood sugar.

We came across the site http://www.the-gi-diet.org/lowgifoods/ in which the foods where listed based on their GI values. From there my hubby charted out my diet plan specifying what i had to eat for breakfast,lunch & dinner. In short my regime started a fortnite after my diaganosis. Now for anyone on diet, life isnt a bed of roses initially.There are many temptations on the way-food which you wouldnt taste before seems all the more luring once you are on diet.But you look at yourself & you decide not to slip.

My breakfast would include chickpea bowl, wholewheat bread slice with peanut butter. I would drink apple juice with Hobnob digestive biscuits for lunch & dinner would consist of rice & vegetables without any curds. Mangoes, Bananas,Potatoes, Watermelon,Melon etc where out of question. Slowly i began monitoring my weight which started to decrease from 58.5 kg in july to 52.5 kg in november. In September i decided to fly home alone. I needed to be with my parents to get the much needed motivation. I stayed there till November & got an Ultrasound done. The results made me overjoyed

Both my ovaries where now completely healed. Thats when my mother( who is a gynaecologist herself) advised me to stop taking the OC. I returned back to my darling husband & we started trying for the baby now that everything appeared completely normal. 3 months passed without any result. Thats when my mother advised me to start taking Metformin.

Metformin is effective in reducing testosterone levels and in making the menstrual cycle more regular. While Metformin starts to improve the prospects for fertility .Women can find weight loss easier when taking Metformin even though it is not a traditional weight reducing agent. Mom had treated many PCOD patients with this & most of them had conceived within 3-6 months.

So on my mothers advise i started Metformin knowing fully well that if i did not conceive in 6 months( by august that is) i had to visist the infertility clinic in Dubai. In February i got a job in the government university as Adjunct Instructor in CAD.It seemed like a blessing in disguise for me & i put my heart & soul into the job. It so happened that in June when i least expected; the home pregnancy test came positive . It was the perfect end to the tumultous year that we had seen.

Now i am 15 weeks pregnant & so far everything looks bright. For all fo you who have polysistic ovaries dont give up on yourself; life is full of challenges–the point is how much can you handle 

Another Terror Attack In India

Today being a Wednesday was the heaviest day of court buisnessis & this day will go down in the annals of history as the day when a  common man waiting in line to procure a pass at Delhi High Court’s Gate No. 5 to enter the court premisis saw the naked dance of death & destruction right in front of his eyes. Unaware was everyone of the fact that neither was there any CCTV camera installed at the gate in this high security area nor where the metal detectors working properly.

Without going into the politics of the matter what i dont seem to understand is why after spending so much money & resources on intelligence agencies are we as a nation unable to gather enough information about the possible targets or better still stop the blasts from happening. Today’s blast occured at a site which is close to the Parliament, the Prime Minister’s Office and India Gate in the vicinity.

 11 people are confirmed dead & 70 injured.The question i ask is whywere not the high court gates installed with CCTV’s. This even after it had been the site of a smaller blast four months ago. Blasts do not come with a warning siren; they happen on the spot. Now there is no evidence on how & who carried out the blasts. This also means that the people behind the blasts knew the ground realities; they had done their homework well. Why is it that after a blasts all the NSG’s, sniffer dogs, commandos etc spring up into action. Cant the security be aided by technology ; would not that make life simpler.

Today all of whom dies, where mutalated,crippled,injured etc where common people; who had come to court to get their cases settled. They just where caught at the wrong place at the wrong time but is anyone safe in India.

Freedom & its various Interpretations

Sitting in her cosy room on the first floor of her palatial house in the posh colony of Hyderpora Jameela was brooding about how difficult things where in her life.  She was in 8th grade & having just finished with her unit tests she had come to know that the Mid Term exam was just in two weeks. Due to constant strikes in the vale the school management had to speed up the examination process. She looked around the room to see books lying everywhere. She longed for the day when she would finish her 10th grade & not be pressurised with exams & books. She looked towards the Bihari labourers who were painting the outhouse & listening to old Bollywood tunes on the radio. She envied them –after all they had no tensions, no studies, no exams, no books, no homework & they were earning bucks. When she would be able to work & forget studies, she thought to herself.

There was a knock on the door & after a slight pause Rohit entered. He was from Darjeeling; his father was from Bengal & his mother was from Bhutan. His father, a farmer was a hardworking man who supported a family five. Rohit was the youngest of four children all of whom where good in studies. He was an average student. Just a few years after his birth his mother ran away with their neighbour. After this incident their father took to drinking & within a few years passed away. Soon Rohit decided to leave his studies & go to Kashmir to work as a domestic help. That’s how he landed in this palatial house. He intended to save enough money to be able to return to his village & live a happy life. Seeing Jameela sitting in her room with just studies to worry about he was quite envious of her. How someone could get everything in life while some had to fight for survival, he thought

Away in the outhouse as Kamal, the painter was working on his brush he felt giddy. He had caught a bad cold & had fever but because he had to finish the paint job in two weeks he was forced to work in this humid weather. He looked at the palatial mansion & sighed- being a poor Bihari thinking of having one’s own house seemed to be a distant dream . Somehow he managed to forget his dingy house in Bihar , his poverty stricken family, his shabby apartment in Hawal which he shared with four other workers or the cold/fever which had become his constant companions since he had entered Srinagar. He looked towards the sky as if asking God when & how could this struggle for existence end

Just a few feet away lived Afroza, a half widow. Her husband, Kareem had been picked up by the security forces in an identification parade & that was the last time anyone had seen him. She had gone from pillar to post for the sake of finding out his whereabouts or getting a glimpse of his face but to no avail. She would sew the clothes of people from her locality to feed herself & her son Jamal who was born just a month after Kareem had been picked up. For her every dawn brought a new hope of seeing/locating Kareem & every dusk brought on disappointment. To her only death or meeting Kareem would free her heart, mind & soul

Outside on the street the army jawan was standing in rapt attention,  keeping a close eye on the Chowk that he was guarding. The past two years had seen a humoungous increase in anti India protests across the valley. He was not comfortable with the idea of shooting at innocent & unarmed civilians & thus he thought it best to scare them away before they could gather. He longed for this month to end so that he could finish his term in Kashmir & then go home for vacations. He just prayed to God to keep him safe for this one month . He would often contemplate how liberating it would be to set foot in his own state

How strange it is that though when we talk of freedom we tend to equate it to forced occupation of land wheareas it is much more than that to myraids of people.Think about it

Kashmir–My Memoirs

Having been born just nearly eight days before the death of Sheikh Mohamed Abdullah I was born in Kashmir at a time when peace & prosperity was a common sight. Though I don’t remember much of the initial years from 1983-1988 but I have a faint recollection of seeing tourist throng the Boulevard, shop at the handicraft outlets along the Boulevard or Polo view; in my school there where students from all religions; everyone was happy & content—satisfied to be living in the heaven on earth

 

But in 1989 something changed. It started with whisperings of how some Kashmiri had displayed a gun in a protest march. Soon the term “Tehreek” became a word I used to hear frequently. At the tender age of 7 when kids are engrossed with Barbie dolls or video games I started to hear terms like bullet, gun, killed, shot, army, protest, grenade , bomb. We had many neighbours from the Hindu as well as from the Pandit/ Dogra community living with us in the hostel. Just at the start of the “Tehreek” they disappeared in the dark of the night. We never knew where they had gone but the news of non-muslim’s being killed on the suspicioun of being Indian agents had caused panic in their hearts & they where forced to leave. We where too caught up in the current happening to give it a serious thought. The idea of AZADI intoxicated our hearts & minds.

At the age of 8 years I saw the first procession walk past our house. Thousands of Kashmiri men chanting anti-India/ anti-Jagmohan slogans & burning the effigies of the latter alongwith shouting pro azadi slogans where marching towards the Police station. All of us kids had been playing in the common garden but after seeing the protest marching upto the police station we immediately ran indoors . That is when I first encountered the fera of death. How paradoxical it is indeed to be afraid of death when one hasn’t even begun to see life.

Then on 30th March 1990 at the age of 8 years I came to know what Shaheed( martyr) meant. Actually some Mujahids (freedom fighters/militants:) attacked a BSF camp near Hawal in the old city. A 25 year old fighter Ashfaq Majeed who leading the attack was hit by two bullets when he was about to hurl a powerful grenade on that camp. As he fell down the grenade exploded blowing off his right  arm. I remember on hearing about his tragic death i cried myself to sleep. How could someone just die at such a ripe age?

Slowly people began displaying flags of militant outfits on all major landmarks. People, even women began stopping vehicles & asking for contributions for the flag while chanting slogans of Azadi. Everyone seemed to believe that Azadi was just round the corner. Though Kashmiris where crossing the border to get trained in POK but it would amuse me to see  Pakistan stating at International levels that it was only povoding “moral support” to the Kashmri movement. Paradox if not paradoxical enough.

Slowly whispers began to circulate amongst the local Kashmiris of how foreign mercenaries had infiltrated the border & how efficient they where in fighting the army. People who had seen the Kabali raids of 1947 equated this situation to post 1947 imagining that this time it would be a success( cause Pakistan must have learnt a lesson from its past mistakes). Slowly the idea of Azadi seemed like just a step away. People would join processions, indulge in sloganeering & what not. The walls would be covered with graffiti all symbolising the desire to be free. The desire to be independant seemed to be in the air. The protests would continue till late night & the spirit of brotherhood was clearly visible.

That was when the “dein” phenomena surfaced. Those where surely the scariest days of my life

What would happen was that s very scary face would show up on the window of your room either with a knock or just staring at you. Its shoes where supposed to have springs in them so that it could jump or run fast. Many people I knew suffered shock /minor heart attacks on looking up towards the window at night & seeing a scary face starting at them. I rember the whole experience was so scary that I would avoid looking at the window even during the day for the fear of seing the DEIN.

The Kashmiris found a way to deal with this menace too. They would scream & start striking plates in their houses to inform the neighbours that the DEIN was in the area & all the people would rush to the house to catch & beat the Dein. Many times the DEIN was caught but just when the people where about to unmask it, the lights would go off & after a few minutes when the lights would be switched on again the Dein would have disaapeared; but not without the villagers seeing a army jeep silently move out of the area

Then began the time when militants would start knocking on our doors for party donations. The rates where fixed & they would come without fail at the end of every month; give us a receipt & leave. The people where locals & they would come with their pistols . At times people from another group would come & ask for donations, we would tell them that we are already paying one group & after giving us many threats they would leave with no money.

One day I rember I must have been in 3rd grade when two loacal boys came to meet my father. I was playing with in the garden & I heard them demand money. They where so shameless that instead of accepting whatever we would give them, the would ask for 500 Rs point blank. I rember mom refusing to give them anything to which on of the guys threatned to blow up our house. This we had heard many times now so it dint really scare us . What scared my parents was that the other guy started asking me my name & telling me I was a sweet kid. They where apprehensive that he would kidnap me & then ask for ransom. I was eyeing his grey coloured pistol which he had kept in his belt. It was a very tense situation but somehow he left without much trouble

Now when I think about it, had everyone been honest in their money dealings & organised the armed struggle could have survived for a long time indeed. The first memory I have post 1989 is carrying a picture of my parents with me to school. Many of my friends would do the same. I till now haven’t really understood why we did that. Maybe we wanted to feel protected, maybe we wanted them close if anything happened to us or maybe we where just trying to grab on to hope. .

In the 90’s there wasn’t much of school . we mostly studied at home & as kids we were not complaining. But as we started growing up we found the changed situations very eccentric. Slowly we heard stories of how militants where asking for shelter at nights, how some of them would misbehave with the owner of the house or the women, how when the army would at times raid & kill the militants plus burn the house, how after the raid the army would mistreat the family et al. Horrific stories of fear & terror. I remember  how after 6 pm no one would move out of their house, everyone would cuddle up in their homes & listen to the daily news ;which would be actually death count of the day.

We did not want to attract the attention of the militants so we would place opaque black sheets on the windows & then draw the curtains. By this the light from the room would not be seen from the outside. But it wasn’t so easy. At times they would climb the wall, hear us talking & then knock on the windows & doors.

I remember we where so scared of hearing the knock that even if a cat would be walking on the garden we would imagine it to be human footsteps. We would talk in whispers & TV was just obsolete. We had a car but the local commanders had asked us to hand it over to them “ for the tehreek”. So we had just disconnected the battery & whenever they tried to start it, it wouldn’t work.

Hearing cross firing between army & militants was a common occurance.  I had come to feel the difference between the bullets fired by the army & by the militants. Once, when I was in 6th grade the firing seemed very near & we where quite apprehensive as mom had not yet returned home form office. I was praying to Allah for her safety & thankfully she returned an hour after the firing stopped. We where just sitting around that evening reading the newspaper when a loud knock on the window broke the silence. We all turned pale. It meant that militants had somehow managed to find out the room in which we where sitting, they would most probably be the ones involved in the encounter  & they obviously would be having the army after them in hot pursuit. We kept quite & behaved as if we were not there. They started talking in Pashtoun to each other & by the voices we could make out atleast 10 people. We where wearing them out.We switched off all our cell phones & disconnected the land line.We had also started removing the battery of the door bell every evening so they couldn’t possibly irritate us any way. Then after 2 hours of pin drop silence from us we heard them leaving.

The next day we got a call from a neighbour asking us “If you have any guest tell them to leave ASAP. Army is about to raid your house”. The kashmiris had developed a code to talk about the militants(aka guests) on phone without being caught( ie if the phones where being tapped). We quickly washed our faces & within minutes two army men climbed our wall & started banging the door. My father opened & within minutes armymen surrounded our 4 kanal land , enetered each room & started the search. In 20 minutes the search was over. The informer was a Kashmiri who to salvage his pride even told us to open the underground fireplace but unfortunate for him , found nothing & left

After introducing himself the head of the search operation told us very categorically, pointing to the informant “ we kill these bastards after they reveal all that they know”.

As a female the army symbolised not only oppression & India’s forced subjugation of my land & people but also countless rapes starting from the  Kunanposhpora mass rape incident of February 1991 to the Shopian Rape case of 2009. Whenever I would see an army man, or a  bunker, or army patrolling on foot I would always be terrorized. These are from the illetrate , under privileged, poorer sections of India who especially in Kashmir are always drunk at night. The comments they have for any woman that crosses their path in Kashmir cant be reproduced. The men haven’t been left far behind. Identification parades of the locals by illetrate Bihari jawans is an irony of sorts. Shouldn’t we as owners of the land be asking their identity rather than the other way round—but in a land where POTA is prevelant we cant ask any questions to MAHABALI army!!

Nature

Arab World

The Arab Dream

A tribal Gujjar Woman, Kashmir

Age is more than just a number. Its about what life has taught you , what you have learnt & how you dealt with it. This tribal Gujjar woman came begging to my door for rice or some money. I agreed to give her some money in return of a photo. I couldnt help but wonder how beautiful she must have been in her youth

Each line on her face seems to bear witness to the years she has lived. Smiling mouth with some sort of saddness in her eyes..A modern Monalisa’s smile indeed

Family

Arab women are often considered to be subjugated & opressed by the Arab males. This image seemed to truly break the misconception.

ADIA,Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) Headquarters  

Taking inspiration from regional elements such as billowing sails and shifting sand dunes, the dramatic form of the new corporate headquarters for the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) transforms the city’s waterfront skyline.

The design emphasizes transparency and openness. In folding the structure’s vertical plane three times to create two outstretched “arms” in an inviting gesture.

 This building proves  that corporate buildings can boast sustainable elements even in the harsh environment of a desert.

The building’s plan has two finger-like wings, one aligned to the city’s street grid, the other pointing toward Mecca across the sea.

Designed to represent contemporary commerce and culture in Abu Dhabi, the ADIA Headquarters building also subtly echoes themes found in age-old Islamic architecture. Its slim stair tower creates a dialogue with the slender minarets of the adjacent mosque: an intriguing juxtaposition of modernity and tradition