Your Masala Medicine Cabinet: Volume I

 After 10+ years in the medical field, I can't help but approach life in terms of symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment. I also wonder if sometimes *masala is THE best medicine. In this ongoing column, I will match movies to maladies, while reserving the right to be completely and utterly and joyously mistaken at all times. Feel free to contact my representation, Pran & Sheroo T.W.B., Attorneys-at-Law, with all questions and complaints.

Today I'm going to talk about a devastating illness that affects all ages, genders, and social strata pretty darn equally. 

Signs and Symptoms

Check all those that apply:
___1. You feel you can never make up for your past failures.
___2. You spend so much time brooding that you have forgotten how to have a civilized conversation.
___3. You wake up in a cold sweat from your humiliation--nightmares at least 3 x a week.
___4. You have little regard for your own health or safety.
___5. You don't believe in your own potential.
___6. You are so on-edge, that you could easily fall into a violent scuffle over a cup of tea.
___7. You don't believe in anything anymore, except the prevalence of injustice.

Probable Diagnosis: 

If you checked 3 or more out of 7, you are likely suffering from a previously untreated Career-Attack, and are a likely candidate for a Career-Bypass.

I've been seeing this set of symptoms going around a lot lately, and so have been conducting trials in various clinical and surgical approaches. Short of the drastic Career-Bypass, or the even more extreme, Career-Transplant, I would recommend the following.

YOUR MASALA Prescription: Kaala Patthar (1979)

What happens when you run so far from your past that you lose your future?

THIS. THIS happens. 

You end up in the bottom of a coal mine, living a nightmare in both waking and sleeping hours. But what's that thing they say about having to hit bottom in order to know which end is up?

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." ~Oscar Wilde

Dosage and Regimen

Loading Dose:
2-3 consecutive watches of Kaala Patthar in full. No excuses. Must take place within a 1 wk period to achieve full effects.

We send Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) to settle all unfulfilled debts and broken regimens and rules.
As you can see, you really do NOT want Ravi  to have get involved. 

Strategic Song Regimen

1. Before starting a new job: 

It's extremely comforting to know that even the most competent and courageous among us can look incredibly inane and stupid on their first day.

2. When you get so wrapped up in that new job that you forget to stop and smell the roses: 

Shashi and Parveen know that you need to take a day off from the slow death via coal dust every so often.

3. When someone makes you feel like you shouldn't have fun on the job:

After all, who's to say that the truck doesn't run better on melodies than just petrol alone?

4. When you're too tired to go to that big social get-together. . . 

These folks know they don't have to impress, just be present.

5. When faced with opposition and unjust treatment by management: 

Chances are, if you're being mistreated, you're not alone. And you're probably not the only one who longs for a night like this one. 

6. And finally, when that which is troubling your heart is impossible to say out loud:

Find someone to (A) Sing what's on your heart for you; and (B) Someone to be silent with.

Possible Side Effects 

1. You may start to feel like you never have to play the game by other people's rules.

Sure the game is rigged.

 Sure it seems like short cuts are a good idea. 

However, if you do choose to make your own law, you may have to pay your dues in some other way . . .


2. You may wonder if you are your own worst enemy:

3. And you may start to feel like there are actually a lot of good people in the world:

That a lot of people, not just you, get judged unfairly . . .

That you can make friends with almost anyone . . .

Even your worst enemy.

Whether or not these side effects are truly prohibitive, is up to you to decide . . .

For more information on this prescription, see the following sources:
* Facts and further anecdotal evidence
* Experts panel discussion

If you have tried this prescription and still feel you would still like to explore other options:
*Career Therapy
*Career Bypass
*Career Transplant

Till our next appointment . . . 

*The Masala Medicine Cabinet reserves the right to apply a wildly personal definition of  "masala" to an infinite variety of "fake" and dubious sounding illnesses.