Twenty- five Seven

A mid morning scare

May 2, 2026

My friend C believes that exercise should be done the moment you get up so that you have it out of the way. I try to follow her advice but some days like yesterday things tend to go awry . No matter how hard I tried to get my best foot forward, there would be an unexpected hiccup and I would kick my exercise resolution down the road all the way till I missed it altogether. This was a real shame because I had woken up well before dawn. So I felt really bad that in all the 18 hours that I was awake, I couldn’t manage more than 4270 steps. And about 15 minutes of lazy yoga .

So this morning I was determined to walk before I got distracted with the day. And luckily I did .

After a beautiful work out, with my halo shining even more, I went about my day – visiting a sari shop from where I got a few saris printed. This was one of the shops I used to visit regularly with my mum and spending time there is truly a blast from the past. MK&Sons is an old established shop on Girgaon’s Main Street that keeps the most exquisite prints in cotton, Chanderi and Kota. And for this season, there’s nothing to beat a cool cotton.

Testing times

After half an hour or so, feeling pleased with myself, I was walking towards a taxi round the corner ( the road was dug up and how !) when suddenly I got a strange buzzing sound from my phone which was vibrating with an urgency that sent my heart racing . Unable to identify the tone, I picked up the phone only to see a notice with an exclamation icon on the left of the message. A strange woman was talking in a strange language and I tried desperately to turn the phone off .

With so many messages warning us about strange messages, I was sure this was a scam. And since last week my friend Dee was victim of a scam and by end of day, had half her bank accounts cleaned out, I was worried the same thing would happen with me !

In a panic I got into a cab and tried frantically to figure out what the message was and where it came from. No amount of jabbing and scrolling helped and I got even more of a scare when I was closer to my destination and the phone gave out another sound.

The message was in English this time and could understand what it was – a test message to alert all citizens about impending disasters.

I asked my taxi driver if he had received such a call but he hadn’t . This made me panic even more! My whole identity was on my phone . Had somebody hacked into my phone ? Would my money go? Would my identity go?

Luckily a watchman recognised my fright and said that he had received a similar message and that it was announced in the morning papers. But I, in my haste to get my exercise out of the way, didn’t read the morning papers !

Aaaaah.

I came home to find everyone calm and collected.

As usual it was only me who didn’t know what was happening.

Ciao
RIPPED

April 17, 2026

In today’s world RIPPED means having extremely low body fat combined with high muscle definition, creating a lean, sculpted, and muscular appearance.

In our times Ripped meant being made a fool of.

In my vocabulary, it means opening the seams of a blouse so that it can fit!!!!

Honestly, before any function that requires a Sari, I spend at least a week deciding which sari I should wear. This normally depends on which blouse fits.

Luckily, these days, the scope of wearing saris has increased because of the trend of wearing any blouse on any sari as long as it is aesthetically pleasing. Thus, you have people wearing T-shirts, tank tops, boat-necked tops and even regular collared shirts as sari blouses.

In fact, the additional material that comes with the regular sari is so insufficient for my blouse that I pair it with another blouse piece (or match some fabric) to make my own boat-necked blouse to wear with my trousers.

Why Can’t the Tailor make a blouse that fits?

For years, I held the belief that sari blouses shrink. Especially when the cotton ones came back from wash. Or even the silk ones with cotton lining.

So to counter this problem, I insisted on the tailor making the blouses an inch looser rather than the skin-tight fit that is the norm. For a few blouses/years, the tailor followed my instructions till one day the garment began to look decidedly ugly.

My tailor of course came up with another idea “Madam,” he tells me,” You should not make blouses larger than you require because you then expand to fit into them. Perhaps you should make blouses a tad smaller so that YOU shrink to fit them!”

So till I find the perfect solution to the perennially fitting blouse, I shall have to resort to the RIPPING the blouse in double time so as to get ready for the function in time.

Ciao,
Insurance – the institutionalised scam

April 14, 2026
An institutionalised scam

How to make a man pay for something so that he feels he is getting it for free .

I always think insurance is a scam. And what a simple idea it is – ingenious really. In the event of a disaster, you are covered and the damage will be repaired instantly . Or so you think .

To begin with, insurance companies play on the fear of being caught with your pants down. Quite simply, if there is an emergency such as an illness, injury or disaster, you want someone to reassure you that the damage will be taken care of. Seamlessly, effortlessly.

But reality is always far from the truth.

Firstly, nothing is paid instantly.
1. In August 2025 , I was scammed on the phone and lost Rs 98202. The police have discovered the thief but have NOT returned my money which they claim is lying in their cupboard at Gamdevi Police Station and which they will only return after I make a legal complaint at the small causes court through THEIR official lawyer.
2. Having personally experienced a legal case drag on for several years and having spent more money than what was involved, I preferred to take the money via my Bank which has received the amount from the Insurance company in MY savings account. But despite several letters to the bank, it is NOT releasing the lien on the amount. So technically the Insurance company has NOT a honoured it’s commitment to insure me against digital fraud.
3. Neither the Bank nor the Insurance company is willing to look into the matter ( as legal language for shut up and get lost you pesky customer ) because the matter is decided by the RESERVE BANK OF INDIA.
4. Now we all know that the Government of India has far more pressing problems than to look into a small measly amount of a cranky old woman.
5. The latest Insurance incident pertains Health Insurance and my recent cataract surgery .
6. Obviously the cashless surgery option didn’t work for me since I preferred to go to a surgeon I knew rather than go to an empanelled hospital.
7. Since I am covered under two separate policies, I decided to use both. The first one took more than the specified 15 days after surgery to process. After processing papers for BOTH eyes, I am still waiting for the ORIGINAL papers in order to process the second policy.
8. Obviously, the insurance company couldn’t be bothered to speed up the process by which I could get the second one processed.
So can you see how this scam works ?

First you put the fear of God into the populace that it is only the Insurance Company Alone that looks after them in the event of a catastrophe.

So depending on your capacity to pay you have to enter into a contract to unfailingly pay a hefty premium year after year for years on end.

And then when you do need the insurance, the SMALL PRINT comes into play.

Even if you fulfill all the conditions to get a pay out, the next tactic comes into play : ask for “proof” or additional information, ONE AT A TIME so that automatically the time period for claiming the insurance lapses.

If by chance you manage to overcome this hurdle, the payout is delayed so by the time you actually receive it, it is time for the Next Disaster to Strike.

So isn’t it far better to invest in a regular Fixed deposit plan which you can encash when you need the money ?

Who knows?

Perhaps the Bank itself will have another mechanism whereby they diddle you of your own money .

Other things you didn’t know
1. A Third Party Accident claim will not be paid out to an injured or dead housewife, because her life has NO value since her accident/ death does not affect the economic condition of the family.
2. A divorced woman cannot add on her parents as dependents on a Health Insurance Policy .
3. A health insurance claim can be refused if the person has failed to mention a previous health condition even if it has no bearing on the current surgery. For instance if I claim insurance for a slipped disc , the claim could be refused because of my cataract surgery.
So once again, I feel it’s better to keep your money in a fixed deposit or mutual fund that you can encash when you need it rather than waste money in an Insurance plan which you may never ever use !