I do not know whether the cold water in winter is good in the long term for my skin and tissue but I feel less cold after taking a bath and also more alert because of the shock treatment i.e fall in skin temperature, for a short period, from around 25+ C to what I would estimate as 15 C or even less (assuming water temperature to be about 10 degrees). And after the first impact has been absorbed, the cold water seems to be just sliding off the body, which seems to have got a protective coat.

If in need of higher voltage shocks, I start with hot water and pour cold immediately afterwards- a poor man’s ‘sauna followed by a jump into the freezing lake water’(also called Sauna(temperature vary from 60 C to 133 C) plus Polar Bear Club). I have become less prone to catching a chill when I go out and managed to bring down to zero my winter cold count.

Devverman, India’s new tennis star, talks of 15 minute ice bath needed daily to recover from the training fatigue. Overworked, sore muscles need hardening? If already warm, probably do not need hot water relaxation.

The medical thinking is that cold should be applied first to numb pain and make the swelling subside. The subsequent heat treatment would provide relaxation.

click A NYT article by Bryant Urstadt on art of finnish sauna

Wilde-

the brotherhood of man is no mere poet’s dream, it is the most depressing and humiliating reality.

We have come too far to encourage fraternity while continuing to maintain a distance with hoi polloi(the condition for a productive artistic output? In any case, whether artist is rich or poor, a degree of cocooning is required)

In the second half, Wilde is cursing the dumbing down effect that such equal mixing might lead to. Aristocratic republicanism of Nietzsche, elitism and appropriation of art

Shangvi- sly(imp) and provocative. Delights in his access to the drawing room and bedroom talk( never very deep/bright) of the upper crust of Bombay and being able to poke fun at them as an insider. Has the potential to go beyond the clichés that mar his prose but seems too lazy and unwilling to spend too much thought on taking his work to the next level. Not completely entranced by new age thinking on love and the good life but unable to stake out a place for alternative thinking and a lifestyle that is very different from that portrayed on the third page or that peddled by gurus. Has the contempt for the material life of the rich man who has not worked too hard for his money.