Paagalpan and the Khanna Khandan

Those who know me know that I am a little bit off my rocker. I have a tendancy to do things that most people just do not do. Well, I have an excuse. Its genetic. My whole family is nuts, and I'm proud of it.

Ma is probably the most normal member of the family, and thats saying a lot. This is, of course, because she wasn't born a Khanna, she's just lived with them too long.

My father is where you can trace my thirst for knowledge, and most of my radical views, and a good bit of my life philosophy from. This, again, is saying something.

Bhaiyya is one of the nuttiest our family has produced, and that is saying a hell of a lot. I'm a sober Tam-Bram compared to him. Don't believe me? Just read his blog. I can only aspire to such levels of paagalpan.

But the definitive influence on my particular brand of craziness must come from my Bua, one of the most remarkable people I know.
Dr. Suversha Khanna, for those who don't know, is my Bua. She is single, she runs a hospital(Dharamshila Cancer Hospital) that she almost single-handedly set up, and now singlehandedly manages, and she is one of the strongest people I know. She is all of five feet, and can break the will of the strongest men. Don't ever smoke near her, the consequences will be fatal. She is the Hazard on the back of the pack.

How does she do this? She is singlemindedly obsessive compulsive, she WILL get what she wants, any which way. She has, as I have been described to have, sudden desires, but please notice the scale. I have sudden desires to eat certain kind of food, or to see certain things, or indeed, to get things done.
She has sudden desires to buy a plot and build new house, she gets a huge 1000 sq yard one in Faridabad; she has sudden desire to get a new car, two three days later, we see Skoda Octavia in the driveway. She has sudden desires to buy exceedingly expensive medical equipment, such as linear accelerators, and hey, they just get bought.

She also, like me, does not have a medium setting. And, by the way, I've never really seen her unhappy.

She also has a very open mind in general, but exceedingly set views about certain things. She will not, no matter how much you try, eat fish.

Any of this sound familiar?

I have a fond hope, and a great fear that I turn out to be like her.