a nice place

2008-04-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

Vices don't liberate you. Virtues sure as hell don't. Accepting vices do, may be. But on whose part? I know who I am.
If you say it over and over, it does start sounding like truth. I know who I am. But you kept saying it over and over.
So let me come clean today. I am not good. I am not a good person. I am not a good girl. I am not a good friend. I am not a good daughter. I am not a good student, never was. I am not a good teacher, will never be... I am not a good anything.
So just free me of the burden of being good. In fact, lately, I've come to doubt the existence of goodness.

2008-02-14T22:39:00.001-08:00

During the early second week of last December, I had been to Chandigarh and Delhi to give two very unfruitful exams. However, the trip really made up for it.

The bad foggy weather made our pilot take a U-turn to Delhi after hovering over Chandigarh for a while. It made things quite difficult for us but I am not sure if I would want to complain about it.

The reason is this. While we were hung up in the sky, not too high when the captain was deciding what to do, I had one of the most amazing experiences of my life. To my left was my friend with a sick stomach from bad airport food. To my right was heaven. I had luckily got a window seat. The view outside was something that I had never seen before!

It was just before sun-set. The sky above my level was blue. There was a huge white woolly cloud at my eye level with a wonderful formation. In the distance there were gray clouds and the sun popped out of them every now and then. Below me were hills. Blue-gray mountain tops to be precise. And they stretched on the land below as far as my vision. The reason that I could only see their tops was that they were covered head-below with dense white fog! Suddenly some of the gray clouds parted and a few rays of sun shot out of the darkness on to the hill-tops below. And they in turn glowed golden. So basically it was like a white beautiful cloud with a blue backdrop dancing in part of the frame, the other part covered with gray fluff, spotlights traversing the gray fluff, golden spots glittering among dull blue spots rising above a white sheet of silk. It was a view of a life-time!

Now when I think of it, I feel a little disturbed. There was no one else on the flight who was looking out of his window! I feel like going back in time, on that flight and scream out to them- “THIS IS A VIEW OF A LIFETIME!” And then they all will look at me like I am insane or I have come from another world or perhaps I'm too dumb to know about the weather 'problem'. And then I’ll laugh…

I laugh not because I am dumb or insane (I might have come from another world), but because its funny how people can actually get lost in reality.

(...to be continued...)

Matrix is bull-crap!

2007-03-26T10:07:00.001-07:00

Let me just get to the point. Machines will never take over the world and chimeras won't ever eat the human race away. Just like Mumbai will never submerge due to melting glaciers and cloning will not be the only way to reproduce because gay marriages will be legalised!!!

The biggest flaw of AI being a threat to humans is the presence of 'intelligence' in AI. One trait of modernity is condemnation of the human race for all the wrong thats done by us. We are no longer children of God. But the reason we go wrong so many times is that we know there exists a right! We don't really go wrong but we 'realize' we've been wrong. And thats because we are an intelligent species (no pun intended).

Humans are the least violent of all animals. True, the planet has never seen a world war sponsored by another species but if you observe more closely human beings, generally, don't like to fight. Animals kill for territory, mate and sometimes for no apparent reason. With humans, that is the last resort and for much complicated reasons in the present phase of civilization.

If you find it hard to believe then try to think about the reason behind this peaceful nature I claim we possess. Animals, except us, are majorly guided by instinct. As far as we know, their limited memory span doesn't really allow them to draw logical conclusions in life. When confronted with adversity, they fight or run, literally. Humans obviously face different types of adversities but more often then not, they try to find a logical way. We tell ourselves that it was a one-sided affair and it wasn't meant to be instead of ramming our head into the head of our contender. And thats not instinct, thats intelligent logical thinking.

Life created to create more of it. Animals know just that. We don't accept it. We give it a purpose ourselves. Thats why when we soon manage to make a robot that thinks even better than humans, it will know that fighting is not right. It won't be a power hungry computer with some identity crisis. It can't be. And no lunatic can make such a machine because we still don't know the origins and nature of instinct. And as far a a sense of self is concerned, people are hardly aware of it so tough chance make an 'I' robot.

Therefore, matrix will never be created (unless it already is! Hehe). Machines will be used for all sorts of purposes but without a mind of their own.

2007-03-23T02:01:00.000-07:00

My experiment with alliteration (read transliteration)...

शीतल शशि

सुरमई समीर

तरल तिमिर

शाश्वत क्षण

उत्सुक उर

मुदित मन

नमित नयन

करुण कंठ

अधीर अधर

विरल वचन

व्याकुल वाणी

कम्पित कर

स्थिर स्पर्श

प्रीत परिणय

विलीन वियोग

मधुर मेल ...

The Thread

2007-03-05T08:43:00.000-08:00

Its too thin to be seen
But I can feel its pull
It pulls at my skin, my stitches
And it feels wonderful
Like heaven
No, like home
My wounds gape
They are as old as they'll ever be
They are fresh
I stand at the edge of the cliff
And it pulls me
I can't wait to fall
I can't wait to lose, to let go
The shroud of my sorrow
Poured over my skin
Hot molten amorphous,
Burning it and sticking to it
Burning and sticking
That finally froze, yet sticking
Is coming to life again
I wish it would melt soon
Melt and be flown off me
Burn me and leave me
Pull me, drop me, leave me...

2007-01-29T07:46:00.000-08:00

I reached college today and ran straight into a discussion between my batch-mates about, well, ‘The system’. Since we’ve reached a yet another milestone in our professional lives, it is indeed the hot topic of discussion nowadays. It is the next thing we’ll be stepping into after all, and staying in it perhaps for the rest of our lives.
So people were saying that there are things that are bad and we’ll have to adapt to them. People said that things are bad but not everyone has to go with ‘The system’, although its damn difficult. People said that there are ways in between too.
The options are plenty I think. Even at this stage, I am strictly referring to my profession; people can turn into money-making machines if they want to. There is certainly no need to cry and regret and waste your precious emotions on the choice of your profession at this stage. It is a very crucial turning point indeed but we need to know where we want to spend the rest of our lives. May be there won’t be much turning back, or sideways after this. So we need to know.
Incidentally, it was this morning itself when I stumbled upon an interesting thought. Decision is not making a choice but knowing your choice! May remind you of Matrix, but I won’t give the details of my thought’s origin. It will bore you more.
The thing is, there is no real reason to do what you think is wrong or rather, what you don’t want to do. Just remember that there are consequences.
Talking more relevantly, about the present India and its immediate future, our country is changing. The pace has dramatically increased in the past one decade or so due to several factors but in my opinion largely due to the information revolution. India is indeed shining more than ever since its independence. And it will continue to do so at a rapid pace in near future.
Secondly, its difficult to utilize you full potential as a doctor if you don’t have a vision. Medical profession is not about securing your basic necessities (a very relative term) or doing what you know to do when someone comes to you with illness. We learned in PSM about the significance of health. And its not just theory. Morbidity, productivity and growth of various sectors of a population are closely related. It makes no sense giving analgesics/ anti-inflammatory to patients of Chikungunya fever and not check the mosquito population.
I am not saying that you have to be a revolutionist. It doesn’t take a revolution to change the world. One way or the other India will change and as I said, it is. Its your choice to be a part of this change or not. It sounds a little poetic but it is as solid as a fact. For example, someone started a trend of piercing the stilette after IV cannulation in the mattress. (Seriously, who is that great soul???) Now its your choice to join this trend or not. Similarly, whether to use proper sterile technique for urethral catheterization or get away with an alternative quicker method is entirely up to you. But you are contributing to a fashion by your way of working.
So its up to you to be a part of the change that your country will undergo in the coming years. The picture does appear rosy to me. I consider myself really lucky to be a part of this generation. I believe that more than anything else, education will be a big factor in our development as a nation. So its up to you to be a part of it by educating a child or staying out of it. Its going to happen anyways. Its your choice to educate a village about condoms and STI’s or not. Its your choice to tell people the flaws in our health system and make suggestions to the government and follow it up to its implementation. Is it too difficult? Or too boring? Or you really don’t care? Whatever, its your choice. There is nothing to cry about.
And if you claim that ‘the system’ can’t be changed then I thoroughly disagree. I have seen Juhu beach in its dirtiest days and look at it now. There are no more uncovered drains in my area. Slum rehab is being taken more seriously every day. People are at least considering introducing sex-education formally! The most remote areas in our country are now connected to the world although they have no electricity or telephone cables, thanks to the satellites. I am certain, that polio will be eradicated.
There is no doubt that still a lot remains to be done and we still are a third world country. But this is the primary reason that I want to remain in India. I want to be a part of the transformation of my country. It is my choice. So just make yours.

2007-01-25T04:51:00.000-08:00

I recently read Michael Crichton’s ‘State of Fear’. It opened my eyes.
The book is about ‘environmentalists-terrorists’ and a group of people who try to stop them. It came as a shock to me that even environmentalists could be extremists.
Circhton has used ample references to verify his facts that are a part of the story. Some of which are-
1) The earth’s temperature is indeed rising, the phenomenon we call as global-warming, but it has been happening since several hundred years after the mini Ice-age.
2) Nobody knows how much of human activity is responsible for the rise in earth’s temperature or for that matter, even the rise in the levels of carbon-di-oxide.
3) It has been ‘guessed’ that at the current rate, the phenomenon of ‘global-warming’ for which millions of dollars are being spent, will cause about 0.8 degree Celsius of rise in the earth’s temperature in a century!
4) The Kyoto treaty claims to bring down this rise by about 0.3 degree Celsius.
5) Nobody has an accurate data of temperature of the past century in the world. In fact, the warming is not even uniformly ‘global’ according to the data. The rates differ, in some parts the temperature has either remained the same or there has been a documented decline!
6) No rise in sea-level anywhere in the world attributed to global warming has been recorded.
7) Similarly, there is no evidence of global warming causing melting of glaciers or ice-caps anywhere around the world.
8) Our climate is too dynamic for us to exert any effect on it, positive or negative. Storms, earth-quakes, floods, draught, tsunamis, are not under our control.
9) We have a very little understanding of our environment. We really don’t know how to ‘manage’ wilderness.
10) All this is the result of lack of experts/scientists in environmental organizations which are run by litigators and donators who have no absolutely relation with science.
I signed the online petition forwarded to me by WWF favoring the Kyoto treaty few years ago. I thought ‘global warming’ would one day eventually submerge all the coastal cities. I thought somehow we were responsible for the natural calamities I’ve seen in my lifetime. I never knew how, but I do remember my science books in school claiming so and many NGOs and celebrity volunteers shouting the same as loud as they could into my ears through the media! Do they even know?
My beliefs are shaken. I’d take all news reports from now on with a pinch of salt. Especially the studies, which are more often than not sponsored and hence have an agenda. Blinded scientific studies are actually hard to find. Their results are already in the researchers’ expectations.
I’ve also decided to ‘learn’ about our environment rather than just assume that humans are responsible for all the disasters. In fact, that is the only way we can hope to reduce the damage we might be doing. Step one is to know the damage and its cause. Interestingly, ‘State of Fear’ also mentions that some global warming might even be advantageous! It may increase our crop production considerably.
Crichton has written this book to bring to our notice the farce of ignorant environmental organizations/individuals. The story is a by-product. He’s kept the language obviously simple. The concept of a state of fear is also very interesting but I’d like you to read the book to understand it. It tells you how the world thinks. Everyone should read it.

Of fragrances and life...

2007-01-04T06:27:00.000-08:00

I once said, 'The best experiences are had with your eyes closed.' When you cut off your visual inputs; which are over 90% of the total sensory input, then you suddenly enter a different world, where things 'feel' different.
That world of mine is one fragrant world I know of! I mean, the dominant sense when I shut my eyes is that of smell.
Its weird i know, but my most beautiful memories have a strong component of fragrance. More often than not I am reminded of certain events, places or 'people' not by a sound or a visual, but by some smell. It could be anything. A passer-by's perfume, some flower, the smell of wood, anything...
I can never escape the haunting warmth of the small hut sort of hanuman temple at the banks of The Ganges when I'm near an agarbatti of a particular scent. It was dark inside, on a summer noon in Kanpur. Lit only by a diya, the shadow of the deity flickered on the mud walls around. I remember the moment... The smell.
Then the smell of roses. It reminds me of a party, that happened many years ago. But it still does, always.
There is so much fragrance around us, its surprising that its seldom appreciated. The smell of turmeric, that of recently splintered coconut... There is a scent of something I don't know thats there in a lady's vanity box. It reminds me of the packed rooms where women get dressed before a wedding.
I remember gulab-jamun more by its scent than the flavour! Nothing satiates me more than the aroma of hot chocolate or rich coffee. And nothing is more unappatising than the smell of desi-ghee!
Sometimes even my dreams are based on a scent. Like the smell of burning wood or charcoal... Its so deep seated.
And then there is nature with all kinds of fragrances that stir some sub-concsious instinct every time. The smell of mist, the just-spicy scent of dust, that of trees drenched in rain, of grass- both dry and wet, of the ocean...and so many lovely things...
Although I love to capture still moments, I wish I could add a part of fragrance associated with each of them, that belongs to them. So that I could live them with my eyes closed...

Don't read...!

2006-11-18T07:44:00.000-08:00

I am tired of people!

I am actually bearing them roughly since the past two years.

I had never been with them before except in the beautiful novels that I read and my dreams.

My daily strolls to my school and back gave me enough time to spend with something that they never would know exists. They have been just lucky enough to let nature take their breaths away occasionally in their lives, on a trek, some pic on the net or some other similar momentary experience of the unimagined. I lived as one with it.

I could tell from the cat’s posture if there was a snake nearby. I knew the sound of the kingfisher. I could tell between the male and the female cuckoo. I would mimic a bharadwaj. I knew the colour of seasons. I have run ahead of the rain… I knew the smell of summer-earth.

And I dreamt… of beautiful things. I thought. I figured out why the shadow grows in size when taken closer to the light source. I was 10. And stuff like that.

I read Jayshankar Prasad. I had never known that level of passion.

I learned. I grew. But I didn’t know about people.

Now that I do, I am tired.

I am tired of the ignorance. I am tired of their enthusiasm to reach on to a judgment about someone. I am tired of people who just don’t have the sense to appreciate good sense! They just aren’t happy enough to respect anyone or anything. The escapist attitude that has become their habit gets on my nerves! To turn blind to your mistakes and blame the entire system for the misery around, makes me sick. Sometimes I feel I am tired of the general low IQ around me…

They lie. Even if they aren’t wrong. They lie! It’s a shame. But they’d laugh at me for thinking like this.

I am not tired of pretending to be happy around them. I don’t do that. I am tired of being around them. I am tired of putting up with them…

I am sorry that I sound so crabby, but this is just not the world I dreamed of…

Medical mnemonics.

2006-11-09T06:58:00.000-08:00

5 T's of early cyanosis: Tetralogy, Truncus, Total anomalous, Transposition, Tricuspid atresia.

Causes of post-op fever 5 W's:
1) Wind- RTI (in 48 hrs)
2) Wound- Infection at surgical site
3)Water- Thrombophlebitis at IV access site
4)Walk- DVT due to immobilisation
5)Whiz- UTI if cathetrized
and if u may, 6)Wonder drugs

For more medical mnemonics check out this site

and this

Obvious oblivion...

2006-10-25T04:57:00.000-07:00

India is a developing country and no governmental structure that I know of meets the standard of perfection. Period. After working in the E-ward and EMS of Sion hospital, this observation of mine was only more strenghthened. Its understandable to an extent in the context of the first sentence of this post. But yet there are certain changes that can be brought about in both these facilities which are at present well above the average emergency facilities that most other government hospitals provide.
Firstly, talking about the medical side, Sion hospital is grossly overloaded with patients. Anyone who's ever been here would agree to that. Its location may be a prime factor. But an equally important factor are its under-equipped peripheral hospitals. Not all patients having fever with chills need to be admitted in the most advanced (well, at least theoretically) set-up of the Indian health-care delivery system. These uncomplicated cases who only need close monitoring for a few days should be admitted in the peripheral hospitals. Even if for some reason they don't directly go to the secondaries,they should be referred from here to them after may be administrating any immediate management that may be required.
This has to be accompanied by up-gradation of peripheral centres. Basic investigation facilities like X-ray, pathology labs, USG are a must. This would need funds. Also, in the wake of seasonal viral epidemics, an easy access to fully equipped blood banks is necessary. If a patient dies due to timely unavailability of life-fluid, then all other resources spent on him/her would go to waste. Patient's recovery is resources' recovery. This attitude among medics and paramedics is as essential as it is rare.
Although I haven't done my obs-gyn post yet, I know from my fellow-interns the problems faced there. There are many maternity homes run by the BMC and government but they obviously aren't enough. They ought to cater to a larger population and only complicated cases should deliver in tertiary centres. Also, there should be blood-banks meant exclusively for obs patients. Patients' blood may be grouped in advance and cross-matched later if need be. This opportunity should also be utilized to encourage patients' relatives to donate blood.
I have seen the E-ward of Sion hospital in its best days. While I was posted there, the unfortunate Mumbai bomb blasts had happened. That was the time when for a change, supplies were unlimited. The expertise is flawless. But there is an immediate need of something extremely important in E-ward.
An 8 year old boy had been run-over by a dumper. He had lost his left limb upto hips and had a deep perineal wound. The wound was so extensive that further amputation with rehab wasn't possible in the provided setting. So people just waited. His elder sister who was in tenth standard came to visit him one day against her parents will. She was so disturbed to see her brother in this condition that she committed suicide later that day. The child was transferred to wards later. Thats the last I know of him.
Trauma is an acute illness. The patients and their relatives are never prepared for it. Its foolish to expect them to be. There is a counselor's room just outside E-ward but it is perpetually locked. Someone had the vision but no one has the sense. If they did, perhaps those poor parents would have had at least one healthy living child. Psychiatric/ psychological counselling is very important in the trauma ward, especially for the relatives. They need to be told by professionals that it is indeed a tough situation but they cannot break down now. Appropriate guidance can be provided. Its almost impossible for the surgeons or other staff people to do so as they are really busy trying to save the next one.
These steps that I've mentioned are the suggestions of an intern who has worked hardly for a
month in these places. Obviously a more thorough assessment of the situation is needed if at all any plans are planned to be drawn to improve these situations. But these flaws in the health system are so obvious that it surprises me that till now nothing has been done even remotely similar to the even more obvious solutions.
India spends too little on its health system. If lakhs of rupees can be spent in three days during college festivals, even several times more money can be simply converted to smoke and sound during other festivals, then why can't we purchase a sonography machine of a few thousand bucks for Shatabdi hospital? Or why can't we provide better stains to UHC Dharavi's path lab? No wonder no PS for MP comes positive there.
We have just adapted ourselves to work under inappropriate conditions. We find that easier as our time is limited in these hospitals. Those who stay here for ever learn to pass the responsibilty on to others, never stimulating a single nerve fibre to bring about any change whatsoever.
Meanwhile, I just keep getting surprised by people. Perhaps I'd act someday...

Solapur story- part 4.

2006-10-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

Wow! I really used to write well! My boredom finally forced me to read my own blog and while reading the Solapur stories all the memories started coming back... To read the prev solapur posts, click on the link-http://spriha.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_spriha_archive.html .There's so much more to tell. So here I go.
Well, the first month at my hostel was filled with home-sickness, made worse by hostile seniors. I went home every fifteen days on the weekends. On my first home-visit, I tried real hard to persuade my parents to shift me into a private college in Mumbai. It wasn't just the home-sickness. I was very depressed there. And somehow other girls seemed to have adjusted better than me. Of course, I behaved myself and never caused anyone trouble, but I felt very lonely. I never cultivated the habit of making friends. I believed and still do, that friends just happen.
On Sundays, the mess used to be closed in the evening. As if to compensate for the inconvenience, which was welcomed actually, they used to give us special treats in the lunch that day. Some dessert or something good and different. So we'd go out for dinner on the Sundays that we stayed there. That was the time we started bonding.
Whatever people may say about attraction of opposition, truth is, people with similar interests bond better. Fortunately I had people who liked the restaurant I okayed. And fortunately they were my friends I've mentioned before. We used to go to this veg restaurant called Aishwarya. Nice food.
My subsequent home-visits were less hard on my parents. I would take back only dirty laundry and stories. No complaints.
I used to catch a train that reached Mumbai early in the morning. It was needless to instruct my dad to not come to the station to pick me up. He knew me. And I knew him. Anyways, on my way home in the bus, I'd pass by LT, my current college, and more often than not I'd wonder how its students must be. Smarter, arrogant, luckier... Gradually, I stopped thinking that they were luckier.
Life wasn't easy in the hostel. The day started with the hassle to get into the bathroom! There used to be a long queue of buckets every morning. Some people used to get up in the middle of the night to catch the first place! They were the ones who bathed the last anyways... My standard bathing time is fifteen minutes. And I get damn irritated when someone knocks on the door while I'm in. So most of the mornings I was irritated.
Then the boring breakfast that I never liked. Hey I forgot filling up water in the morning! Drinking water! There was this tap outside our dean's house from where we used to fill up our daily drinking water reservoires. That was so rural! I cannot believe I used to consume that water. Water is scarce in the interiors. Especially when a donkey gets drowned in the main municipal reservoir! Oh, there were more donkeys than people in Solapur.
Anyways, we'd get into the bus finally and then wait...for the chronic late-comers. I didn't mind. Slowly I was getting back to my usual self. The bus-traveling part was getting interesting.
Our bus caused 20% of Solapur's pollution! In one word it was a khatara! No trouble in the morning. All boys and girls could squeeze onto the seats except one or two. And mostly because boys and girls didn't sit on the same seat.
We'd reach college just in time. Fill up the lecture hall. Shift to another after an hour. And another for the third.
Then go back to the hostel for lunch. This was the time when the bus showed its true colors! It won't start and then would have to be pushed for a few meters before the engine would awaken with an angry groan. Initially, the guys showed a little chivalry by simply going ahead and helping the conductor to push the giant. But one day, I can't say if they were being naughty or just plain guys, they refused to help start the bus. They said it was the girls' turn today. Reluctantly we tried. But the momentum wasn't enough. At least, the guys had started interacting with the girls. More about them later.
Well, I didn't care what was there for lunch because by that time I'd be damn hungry. Then we'd go back to college, again surprisingly the bus would start on its own. After practicals we'd come back to the hostel in the evening, have some tea and would be taken for the 'sessions'. That became less frequent gradually.
Those were the few days of my life when I'd surrender to a deep slumber by 10 in the night.
Its hard not to study in medical school. It took me alot of time to master it! My friends were the sincere lot. In fact, most of the girls were quite regular with their studies. It was surprising that hostelites preferred studies over time-pass there. There was this tall girl who played basket ball and knew all the anatomy! My roomie hadn't come yet. So I'd hang around with my neighbors, Shweta and Mukta, in room number one. That went on to become our common adda when we started spending most of our time together. I mean, the three of us and Vidisha, Tanmayi and her roomie Priyanka who was also from Mumbai. We'd study together and of course, it was hard to not chat.
In the hostel, your friends are your family. And I was so lucky to have a family second only to my real family. We had tremendous amounts of fun!
Well, life was peaceful in Solapur. One thing I'll never forget about that place, and my friends would also remember, is how fascinated I was with the sky out there! I mean, you never had to raise your head to see the horizon and the sky was always so clear, I mean not of clouds but dirt. I just couldn't refrain myself from looking out of my histology lab on the third floor. I felt I could touch the sky if I stretched enough! It was beautiful. And the sun-sets were mind-blowing.
There were cyber-cafes in plenty. The market was decent. There was an ice-cream parlor nearby, called Chikita. But our favorite was originals! Wow, thats where I've had the best softies. Our regular Sunday plan would be to visit Siddheshwar temple in the evening, I went there to see the lake. The eat at Aishwarya and Originals. Then come back, 10 was the limit.
(its not over yet...)

YAWN....

2006-10-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

The following is the result of the most severe form of boredom and the feeling that arises from sending two unreplied sms's. So read at your own risk!
Life, as I see it, is a period of time. In fact, its a segment of time. I don't recognize matter. I think its a form of energy. I recognize energy, time and space. All events are changes in the energy levels of various spatial points.
This period of time is lived by the consciousness.
Lived, means...umm...I dunno...May be it means going through experiences.
And then there are emotions! Big stuff! Stuff that makes us seek meaning to our lives and even provide us with one, or more. All experiences are associated with some emotion, unless one is autistic.
I am not autistic. Sometimes I wish I was. Sometimes others wish I was...
What really counts? I mean at the most personal level of my existence. Is it my work? The changes I bring about in the world around me? And thats a very broad term actually. Or is it the feeling that everything, including my work or my 'adventures' bring to me? Isn't everything ultimately considered and categorized on the emotional parameter? It is.
These are the most precious things in my life. The moments when I doubled with laughter. The moments when I wept like a child (although it still comes with great difficulty!). The moments when I hugged or kissed someone (which comes with even greater difficulty!). The countless smiles put up on my face by blooming flowers, drooling, giggling babies, lovers holding hands (or doing more), clouds embracing hills, the sound of flowing water (no, not in the toilet), a new discovery (I still rememember how excited I was when I first saw monkeys doing it in the backyard of my house when I was 8-9 yrs old! Told my mom everything, to her embarrassment. I thought I had witnessed a rare phenomenon in nature... Silly me...), or just smiles sometimes, on other faces...
And there are these moments when I recollect them. They tell me, I've lived. And they motivate me to keep going.
I'm done now. Just wanted to kill some time... Doesn't matter, really... ;)

My first hit!

2006-09-19T03:54:00.000-07:00

I was driving after about a year and a half. My friend's apprehension was understandable. I was in the process of telling her that mobile phones are a cause of road-accidents even when pedestrians use them; in the process because my speech-function slows down considerably while I am driving, when a man crossing his fore-fathers' road (thats what he made it seem like) stopped in a bit of surprise right in front of my car. Well, I braked. But all my descending tract fibers were consumed in pushing the brake and so the car stopped after jerking several times in third gear. Anyways, I started the engine and my friend said, "Use the horn." I heard her but was too consumed in I dunno what. Slowly I proceeded to park ahead. Honked a couple of times but not enough number of times. It felt like a tap on the side, but my friend was saying, "Why don't you use the horn? You just hit a man!" She deserves all the credit for saying it ever-so-calmly to me! I was like, really?
"If things are falling from your hand then you are highly distracted Spriha!" I re-adjusted the bowl of infiltration fluid at the head end of the operating-table. Some fluid had spelled out moments ago.I thought to myself, ' Of course I am. These kids are standing so close to me that they brush against me now and then. Don't they realize I'm washed up?' " I am sorry sir." I said aloud. "Please try not to touch me or the table." I requested the students bent over the patient, trying to take a glimpse of whats going on inside his left nostril! I was assisting a septoplasty. The houseman had my full attention once he pointed out that I was indeed distracted.
"Must have hit his bag...", I said, expecting her to give me a 'may be'. "No. You brushed his arm. But it was very slow. Don't worry...", said she, helping me chill and at the same time telling me to be more careful.
I dropped her and reached home. The compound gate was shut so I started honking to wake up the watchman. After a few minutes, I decided I couldn't bear the noise so I started off to open the gate myself when he magically appeared. I went back inside and started the engine. He opened the right gate inside and the left one outside. There's just enough space for a car to pass through the gate and of course, there's the upward slope. Its this slope that kept me inhibited for a year and a half. I was never sure I could drive my Santro up it. But turns out that its quite easy. I had advanced half of the vehicle inside the gate when I saw the right gate, that was opened inside, closing on me! I realized in a jiffy...
'Oh shit!' I saw the pool of blood collected in an indentation on the drape. The source of the blood was a severely battered head with countless CLW's currently being sutured by the trauma resident. I was holding it and I couldn't move. I saw the pool growing in quantity every second. The drape was under the head (obviously) and since it was put there loosely, blood had collected in the space between the trolley and its handle. My feet were directly below the two pints of life-fluid and I knew I couldn't shift at all! The surgeon was mumbling ," When a mass casualty comes, everyone gets busy with that. No one cares for other patients, cuz they won't be newspaper headlines. No one even bothered to shave this lady's head when she arrived. Now see, she's bled so much!" I had to hold the head strongly for there was still some life remaining, only the last flame of instinct to withdraw whatever was touched. And then I saw the drape beginning to give way. I knew there was nothing that I could do. And the next moment, all the collected blood splashed on the floor and my feet! Thanks to my skids, I didn't come in direct blood-contact, but it was bad.
In order to avoid the gate I turned left, but I knew there was nothing I could do. So I let it hit the side of the car. Surprisingly, it wasn't too hard. Fortunately, no damage was done. The watchman clarified that it was the wind and I let it go, for there actually was nothing more to it.
And then I don't know what happened. I drove half the circumference of my building to park at our usual place. And just when I was supposed to stop the car, I hit the accelerator! Bumped into the curved boundary wall ahead. Got away with few scratches on the bumper on one side. Where was my concentration???
I sincerely wish that there never would be an analogy to this one! Gotta find some white paint...

PS: I really think that its bad manners to push aside or brush against people to have a better view in an OT. Especially touching a washed-up person. Its leaves the surgeon unsterile and distracted. I think a better way to learn is to politely ask the operators to show it to you. Please be careful, students.

Just...

2006-09-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

I am through with seven months of my internship quite successfully. Of course, like everyone else I've had some problem or the other in almost all of my postings but what the hell! I never expected to be given honorary-treatment. I haven't done a single night yet (if you are not a medico then it simply means I haven't had any night duties yet, which is quite enviable for an intern), except of course, the strike period. And thats quite a success! I've just been too lucky. But these seven months did consist of many learning opportunities for me. Professionally, academically and most of all, personally. I managed to grab a few...
My first official clinical posting was ENT. That was after three months of PSM. I dunno why PSM is not considered clinical enough because thats perhaps the only posting where we do what doctors do, i.e., see patients. Executing a doctor's orders is considered more clinical here. But I did learn quite some clinical stuff there. Anyways, ENT was my first clinical posting in the sense that I'd never put an IV line before. Suddenly I was put in a tertiary care centre and I felt like a complete fool. I carried out all the orders obediently, literally. Still felt like a fool. So when the reg chuckled in the OT while I was frantically trying to locate my cell phone crying "pick up the phone" (yeah thats my ring-tone and I forgot to turn it on silent mode) in the loose baggy-pants, I almost got irritated. With me only, I guess. I felt really out of place. Even the servants knew more about the hospital stuff than me. Later that morning the same reg started on a myringoplasty and I just stood behind him, observing. I was completely absorbed and I still am surprised how that happens when I watch a procedure. I just become a passive audience. Some ten minutes must have passed when he cut out a part of the temporalis fascia. I took a break and suddenly realized that it was getting pretty cold out there. And then I saw the reg's back. Beads of sweat were growing both in number and size on his blue changes by the second! That was the first time I smiled to myself, of course behind a face-mask. Its all a process and I've just started.
One is bound to be nervous here because one has to be responsible. This is one profession where even a second attempt is considered a mistake. But then, everybody makes one or more at some time during their practical life and this is the best period to make it, when you are already considered a fool!
And then there are moments when you see God!
I had an evening duty in labour ward during the strike period. There I met this new lecturer who used to be a reg when I was posted in his unit earlier as a student. I wont name him here. He was tall, dark and beginning to get obese. He had nice features. His mouth reminded me strongly of Hemil! (I always notice people's mouth and eyes. I can't remember any other facial feature unless I really pay attention to it.) He looked like a gujju but wasn't one. He even had that some what high pitched voice, a nasal twang and a dragging tone. Basically, he reminded me more of a business guy than a doc. Finally he asked me what I'd like to do in future. And so a conversation began. During that time I was beginning to feel uncertain about my choice to be a researcher. The process was tedious and I wasn't sure I could commit my life to just one research-field. But he finally made me give up on the idea. He only told me ground reality. And the fact that I will have to leave my country! That really put me off about the whole GRE and PhD stuff. But only later.
At the end of the conversation, which was rather abrupt cuz someone decided to come to this ugly world, I concluded that he was another frustrated young doctor who could only see the picture in negative. Inside the labour room, among the screaming and shouting and of course, the gross visuals, he took me and my co-intern to a patient and casually told us to rupture her membranes and then left us staring at each other. Thank God I remembered Kocher's. The baba (student nurse) was expanding with pride when we looked at her for help. She gave us the instrument. We put pieces of our vague memory together to construct the steps of the procedure. I let my co-intern try first. She came out unsuccessful. Then I tried. When I came out (that sounds funny) I had clamped my gloves! I finally decided to accept my incompetence or whatever openly for the good of the patient and call the lecturer. When he came the patient was screaming her lungs out. He just held the forceps in his hand and asked her name. Before she answered he had gone in, ruptured it and come out! And I was in complete awe. Then he conducted a forceps on her.
It was just the way it was conducted. He didn't shout at her, he narrated the steps to us and he just did it so well. The spontaneity with which he made his decisions was amazing. He didn't even considered options. He spoke when he had made a decision. And then he was the same again. Talking to me about how pathetic is the whole system everywhere. As if he was human again.
That day I learned two things- one, its not just the skill that counts, one has to be confident to practise it. Two, you gotta be really strong to pull that thing out of that thing!
And just when you thought this is a really long post, I've got more on my mind...
About a week ago, I witnessed an emergency in dermat! I had been sent to skin ward, which is shared by psychiatry too, to monitor the vitals of a patient started on steroid pulse therapy. Well I was doing my job there, checking his pulse-BP every half an hour and reading in between and later listening to radio. Suddenly a patient walked upto me and said, "Namaste sister! Kaise ho?" I knew I was in ward one so I just smiled and he moved on to greet the next person he saw. Just then the hefty patient sitting on a bed right in front of me, started clapping, staring into void space! "Wow!" I thought, "These are the people I intend to spend the rest of my professional life with!" After research, my interest has rested on psychiatry. Amongst all this 'madness', I vaguely was aware that another patient of dermat was being prepared for a liver biopsy. From the way they scrubbed the patient I was certain that they were not surgery people. I guessed patho. The procedure was uneventful till the drawing out of the tru-cut needle with the specimen. Barely two minutes had passed by and the patient started complaining of severe pain. They gave voveran. They gave tramadol. Twice. Then his abdomen became rigid. Then his BP fell. Blood was ordered. The residents who had done the biopsy called their entire unit to the ward. Then I realized they were gastro people. The patient was collapsing very fast and he was damn 'roudy'! Reminded me of the head injury patients I saw day in and out during my trauma posting. I can write another entry on them! Skin residents also came down to the ward. Obviously from the orders that were passed it looked like they were suspecting a bleed. But I felt odd about it. For one thing, the clinical features were quite out of proportion for a bleed caused by a tru-cut. And secondly, it happened way too quickly.
Finally the patient was shifted to E-ward under surgery people. They confirmed that there wasn't any hemorrhage under USG. So the diagnosis settled on anaphylactic reaction to LA.
You've got to be careful every time.
Well, thats enough talking for now. Do comment.

Unkind kindness

2006-09-10T00:15:00.000-07:00

If there's one sentence form my school text-books that perturbs my conscious mind from time to time, it is, man is a social animal.
He is, no doubt. Man seeks others of his kind. My co-intern and ever-ready-for-a-philosophical-discussion-pal Rachana was quoting this idea from a book called 'The art of Loving'. (That might be shocking to some people who know her, but the title of the book is misleading, so chill guys. There's nothing wrong with her yet!) Its like, man, due to his superior intelligence has long since stopped feeling one with nature. He isn't simply happy with himself like other animals. So he seeks other humans who agree with him to agree with. It helps him feel accepted.
That makes perfect sense. Once we are done with the struggle to survive, we need a meaning to live. And most of our feeling of worth comes from other people's sanction of our being. And sometimes from their disapproval.
The fact of the matter is, man is a social animal. People matter. Our groups matter. We feel secure in a group. We like to work in a group, of course, with our kind of group. And the kind changes with the purpose.
So when Arjun Singh gets mischievous, open-category people unite to shout slogans against him and others against the open-category people. And when the police lathi-charges medics, all anti and pro people shout slogans against the police. The cause changed and so did the group. On a smaller scale, at least once in a year small groups shout GMCites and parasites slogans too drooling, enjoying a 'fashion show'! Of course, they shout in unison later in Aazad maidan.
And there is nothing wrong with it. So if you are Italian, you had full rights to celebrate when the French-head lost it. And if you are French then of course the Italian should have minded his language.
But since I am neither, I know it was poor sportsmanship on the part of the Italian and sheer foolishness on the part of the French. What gives me this neutral point of view is my independent judgment. Its my ability to see the truth without any bias. And this is the clearest view and therefore, the best.
Everything that exists exists because it is perceived by us. It may be perceived by our senses or imagination, but it is. I mean, we cannot imagine a color we can't imagine. But we know existence is wider than this because I actually wrote the above sentence!
The point that I am trying to make is, perhaps its impossible for us to know the truth completely but we can nevertheless get quite close to it if we want to.
There is always one truth value in reality. If there is an idea you want to evaluate, break it into its minutest components. Then assign each component its truth value, T or F. Now again go through the algorithm and see if you can reach the final idea. In essense, now it will be true or false. It cannot be anything in between. Or simply as Ayn Rand says it, A is A. Its pure mathematics. Its logic.
Groupism blunts the bluntness of logic. A group has rules and if you are a part of it, you have to follow them even if they are irrational. An individual's sense of judgment should not depend on his fellows' views. A group's point of view can distort the truth. It can blind a person's perception due to its sheer strength. And in a world where boredom and loneliness are more abundant than fresh air, being a part of a group that can have an impact sounds like a brilliant idea. We want to be on the side of everyone even if we are standing against truth. We want to be a part of a strong group and not a weak individual.
To live upto our admirations is one thing and to copy someone else to escape what we don't like in ourselves is another. We lose originality. We get lost in them. And its almost futile to try to escape the truth about self for it never leaves you. Whatever they may say, A is A.
This group-attitude also forces you to stereotype people. You tend to generalize everything and everyone which is the most impractical thing to do.
All you need to hear is that its okay to be you. But you don't need someone to really say that because its true. So accept yourself. Make amendments that you want to. Celebrate what you think are your virtues. And most of all think clearly.
My tone has become direct now. There's something wrong with me. I intended to say something else when I started typing. Now I can't remember what! But while I am saying, I am an individual conscience. I have no religion or nationality, except for general convenience. I do what my mind says is right and my heart says is fun. I make myself look like a fool entirely at my own risk. I love what I love for what it is and I wish to be loved so. I am always open to criticism and even more so to praises but its me who ultimately will judge myself!

The usual jabbering...

2006-09-06T05:26:00.000-07:00

Hello readers. I know it has been a very long time since I put anything up here. In fact, I think most of you must have even stopped checking my blog. Well sometimes you just don't have the inspiration to write. I mean, either the intensity or the clarity is lacking. And on other times, you just don't have the time and then the idea fades away. There are a couple of drafts that I've written and saved, but I wont post them because they don't seem honest enough!
(God! What happened to me while I was evolving?)

Okay. This was one of the funny dinner-table conversations at home recently. (Most of it was hindi but I'll translate anyway.)
Mom: Mera dil dehel gaya kal!
(Me, bro n dad look up at her, shocked and then confused.)
Me: Reference?
Dad: I'm guessing its that female fetecide news from Udaipur.
(Mom continues to chew her food. I nod at my dad and bro.)
Mom: It was horrifying!
Dad (generalizing): Such cruelty persists only in north-India now.
Mom (personalizing): Even my in-laws never wanted a daughter in the family. (Then suddenly remembers dad is going out of the country for three months.) Of course, except your dad. He was crazy for a daughter.
(My parents smile. My bro is busy feeding himself, hardly looking up.)
(Then follows for the nth time how my dad used to adore me as a kid, how he used to take me every where with him on his bicycle...)
Dad: There should be a daughter in a family.
(Now my bro is interested.)
Bro: Why?
Dad: Its good to have a daughter.
Mom: Yes its good to have a daughter.
Bro: How?
(Since I have known that being mean to sibs is a way of life, I chose to be amused over being defensive. Okay mom and dad, whats the advantages of having a daughter?)
Mom: *silent*
Dad: *silent*
Bro: And to be specific, what are the advantages that you have?
(Thats what is taking them so long you freak!)
Mom: Well, (turns to me) you used to help me out in house-hold work in some era.
Dad: *silent*
Mom: Girls have their own way of life, but...er...
Dad: *silent*
Mom: I got it! We all have one-one!
(Now we are totally amazed! Can't wait for whats coming next!)
Mom: I mean, like I have one husband, one son and one daughter.
(Bro feels the enlightenment too.)
Bro: Yes. And I have one father, one mother and one sister. And you...
(I concentrated on my food thereafter.)

PS : Regarding the AMOship crap, as Roshni Desai put it very aptly,"The gov should concentrate on building more toilets than recruiting AMO's. Its toilets that we need today. More and more toilets!" I totally agree Roshni. But they just can't stop giving us this shit instead of toilets!

PPS: Steve Irwin was a great guy. His demise is very shocking and disturbing. He was the guy who taught us Australian. His dedication to wild-life was more than just his job. We have seen him cry while sending one of his crocs back to the wild. We have seen him amused like a child when he came across some exotic species in the Australian desert. Its a loss. May his family find peace. I'll miss him...

2006-05-30T07:01:00.000-07:00

I had been studying a thought since quite a few days. But to be confronted with it in reality was to feel it. And it hit me hard, very hard.
The picture on the left was taken in the YFE rally on 28th May at Azaad maidan.
Look closely.
There is a dark dirty boy in dark dirty clothes, holding a dark dirty sack. He was picking up used plastic water glasses. I was listening to a very inspiring speech when my eyes caught him and I felt someone squeezed my heart inside!
Here we are, so-called liberated minds, in thousands, demanding what is rightfully ours, and in another adjacent world this boy exists, unaware of the word 'right'.
I feel anger...intense anger, which diffuses into a feeling of helplessness.
You can reserve a seat in UG colleges for HSC passed children. You can reserve a seat in PG courses for doctors, engineers and other graduates. You can reserve a seat in a firm for a minimally qualified candidate. You may call them backward.
Where is his seat? Or is he too forward to deserve a seat?
HE is backward in every sense of the word. Economically, socially, emotionally, spiritually... For heaven's sake! He doesn't even know that he has a RIGHT to be educated!
Why? Not because of his past sins. Only because of his family background which is as rotten as the crap he carries on his back.
Are you pro-reservation for him?
Its so hard on my conscience to see those pro-reservation people declaring openly how greedy they are in the disguise of supporting reservations for the other remaining 'backwards' of their castes. This is the backward India you Goddamn pretenders! Do you care?
Truth is, nobody cares. Pro, anti, neutral... Nobody cares. We are all greedy, corrupt, twisted souls and this world needs an enormous dose of humanity...
It saddens me...

The fall...

2006-05-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

Standing at the edge of the sorrowful ocean, I was inclined to fall.
When you grabbed me by my hand and time froze into eternity
Life took over with all its beauty and strength,
Letting the despair of stillness fly away with the wind
The energy of the entire universe translated in smiles on our lips
My eyes reflected the sun shining on your angelic face
I began living...

Next moment you let it go, I was still smiling as I fell
My hand still holding yours as it did all the while
It took me another eternity to lose faith again
Even as the reality of the ocean beneath me hit me
I forced the last flame of life in me to ignite strength
To look in your eyes, as you watched me fall...
I kept looking...

As I descended down the fluidity of my woes, mile after mile
I gazed up at the light drifting away from me, your eyes...
Perhaps I saw a ripple spreading gently on the surface above
Perhaps a tear fell, adding to my ocean
Perhaps you disappeared in the faces peaking over the blue looking at me
The blue kept vanishing into the darkness beneath
I kept falling...

Now I've touched the ocean floor
Lying here, still looking up towards you
Its so dark that I don't know if I've closed my eyes
My hand is still trying to reach out to your grasp, your touch
The unmoving coldness surrounding me urges me to drown
Then something flickers above and I look hard
I am still looking...

Sunscreen song

2006-05-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, if I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be IT.

The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

You are NOT as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

-The sunscreen song by Baz Luhrman.

2006-05-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

Sumedh re-wrote my poem in devnagri script... So cool.... I m very happy! Thanks man...

Ahem! Arz hai...

2006-05-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

Woh pehli baarish ki khushboo yaad aati hai...

Jab har anjani aahat
dil par ek dastak de jaati hai...

Jab aansuon ki os mein
yeh mitti bheeg jaati hai...

Woh pehli baarish ki khushboo yaad aati hai...

Ek hi lamha tha woh,
jisme ek umr guzar rahi thi...
jhulasti rooh bhi bheeg kar tar-batar ho rahi thi...

Bahon ki zanjeeron mein, zindagi azaad soi thi...

Us ek lamhe ko jeene ke liye,
Zindagi baar baar mit jaati hai...
Woh pehli baarish ki khushboo baar baar yaad aati hai...

2006-05-05T05:41:00.000-07:00

I am through with two-thirds of my PSM posting and here' some good and bad stuff about it-
Bad stuff-
1) Patients calling my female colleagues sister and male one's doctor.
2) Prescribing the same antibiotic to almost everyone.
3) Travelling to Vashind.
4) Waiting for the van that takes us to the UHC in hot sun.
5) Missing the van by seconds and then spending money on cab.
6) Over crowded OPDs, uh well, over crowded by interns.
7) Interns arguing in front of patients. (Thats really LS!)

Good stuff-
1) Giving health talk.
2) Actually seeing patients like a doc, unlike in other departments.
3) Playing with the kids.
4) Kids making faces at you when asked to open their mouths and say "Ah". (Thats really cute.Seriously, they try their best!)

hmmm.. thats all i can think of now. Will keep updating this space..

Differential Equations

2006-05-05T04:50:00.000-07:00

Its a different type of mathematics. They call it equalizing the differences. Yet to us it looks like creating a difference.
Social equality operates at an individual level. To change a nation, the change must be brought in every citizen. To change an individual is impossible. To help people develop into the best that they can be is real development of a country. And that is possible only through the means of education that empowers children with the power to think.
Treating individuals as equal doesn't mean compensating today for the exploitation that had been going on for hundreds of years by forcing a few into the allegedly high positions. Giving more opportunity on the basis of ancestral records is not equality.
Equality exists in appreciating every individuals contribution in the society with the same respect. It exists in giving enough support to the sewer-sweeper so that he can feed his children well and give them good education. It exists in appreciating his contribution beyond the stench he brings along.
To think of everyone as your equal is super-human or may be, sub-human.
To give everyone the respect he/she deserves for being a human being, irrespective of his/her name, surname, faith, region, nationality, economic viability, him/her being a him or a her and several other parameters we use to stereotype people, is truly practicing equality.
I can't comprehend the endless debates on various sections of the constitution of India and amendments and stuff. Its logic. And if someone doesn't agree to logic then the argument dies. Pushing people into positions they don't deserve is making them a mediocre in a place not meant for them. Instead, each must excel in the place they create for themselves.
People should get equal opportunities to compete and test themselves.
So don't give them alms of opportunity. Give them the opportunity to earn. If you ever become the decider of a generation's fate, please remember this.
And if you don't, make the difference by educating a child.

Be the change you want to see in the world.
- M K Gandhi

2006-05-04T11:05:00.002-07:00

People, please visit my photography section. I update it more often than this one.
The link is on the right.
And people who just happen to drop by, please leave comments on my blogs. Its kinda more interactive then.

2006-05-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

Do not scream at deaf minds.
They know our point since the very beginning.
They know it all...
Yet, it will happen and the good will suffer.
Let them create a country of mediocres.
Let them create a country of surnames.
They who deny the truth are only suffering with a meaningless life.
Let them hope to find a meaning by running away from the truth.
The good shall flourish anyways... In the world of good...
Long live goodness!

I am parasympathetic!

2006-04-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

I am in absolute love with my country. Despite all the frustrating hypocrisy my people keep demonstrating at regular short intervals, I can never leave India.
I love my country for more than its physical gorgeousness. For more than its glorious past and promising future. I love my country for its women!
Now bring down those raised eye-brows and read on...
To me, the Indian woman is that lady I saw in a village who was carrying a bundle of chopped wood on her head and her child in one hand. She was drenched in sweat of labor. She was walking bare-feet alongside the dusty road on a hot summer afternoon, wrapped in a torn and repaired sari. There were other women with her, her social clones. She was talking loudly with them, her shrill voice interrupted by an equally loud laughter.
I can't see her in the urban or urbanised women who are aware of their rights and dreams.
Those women work like machines till they physically wear out. Thats the most amazing thing I see in them. To them, a job is a job and it has to be done. They don't complain or make excuses to avoid it. There is no hard work. There is only work.
They are happy.
They live their lives as dedicated as they are without ever appreciating the dedication themselves.
May be because their ego isn't as developed, or may I say, over-bloated like their male counterparts who dare to dream and demand.
Not that they aren't wise. They can dispense the most relevant advice when required. Some even head a family. Never like a decision-maker, but as a respectable advisor.
But their ego never develops to the point where they see themselves as someone more than their jobs as daughters, wives, moms and everything else that they are.
I don't feel sympathy for them. All I feel is an enormous admiration for their simple dedication to a life given to them by others. Sometimes I feel they understand it all and they laugh about it. They never ask for even an appreciation.
Their unbreakable strength is puzzling. Their simplicity is simply cute. Sometimes I wish I had huge arms, so that I could embrace them all as a thankful gesture.
Thank you mom for being such a great mom! (I love you too dad, although a week ago you remarked, "Oh! You've got brown hair!" And I was like, " Yeah... And I am twenty-two!" But I thank you for being the best!)

And I actually got parasympathetic a few days ago while returning from Vashind in a train more crowded than those BT parties. I was posted in a PHC there. Me and my sweet friend were standing against the wall near the entrance of a second-class ladies' compartment and the rest of the compartment was leanin' on us! It was stinky and stuffy. A beggar girl was actually using me as a pillow. I was only trying to breathe as smoothly as I could. Suddenly I felt a cramp in my abdo. And a few seconds later I knew my vagus was over-active. It was the most inappropriate place to have a syncope. But I had it anyways. I heard voices offering me water and chocolates. I desperately wanted a seat. I didn't lose consciousness totally. My sweet friend told me to sit down there and I followed her advice. My eyes were shut. We got a place to sit after a while. My hands were cold and tingling. By the time we reached our destination I was back on my feet. But it was an experience to remember.
Btw, Vashind is a one and half hr journey from kurla.

Knocked up and out!

2006-03-19T02:06:00.000-08:00

Just writing impromptu today. Didn't think over this thing much. But I thought I must put it down before it vaporizes from my memory space.
So they finally accepted that they are not yet prepared to give sex-education to kids studying in Maharashtra board. Of course, they blame it on the kids, saying they are not 'mature' enough to handle SUCH A SENSITIVE issue! Sensitive my ....!
But no use taking my frustration out on these intellectually challenged parents and teachers, for they themselves haven't got it the right way.
You might wonder why should I be frustrated. I can send my kids to CBSE/ICSE schools or educate them at home about certain facts of life. By stepping back from its tentative plans to introduce formal sex-education in schools, the board simply re-enforced how retro our education system is. But there is a reason I take it personally.
Little kids keep coming to my hospital with various complaints. Little kids from orphanages. They are referred to as Ashram babies. But you don't have to look into their files or even the typical printed rugs they are rapped in to make out they don't have families. You just look at them and you know. They are emotionally deprived. They never show stranger-anxiety, an important milestone in a 'normal' child's development. They'd look at you when they are hungry, for they don't know the concept of a mother. They have been fed by various faces. They suck on their thumbs, for food is always poured into their mouths with metal. They don't talk. They walk late too. They raise their arms begging for a hug when you go to them.
I won't elaborate how much emotionally stirred you can by these things.
But it is a fact that children need tactile stimulation for their growth in early years. That, apart from proper food, hygiene, health-care and emotional stimuli. Deprived of these basic supports, they fall prey to majority of illnesses in their most virulent forms. If they make it to their second birthday, they still remain intellectually and emotionally under-developed.
And where do they come from? Some silly teenager who never had an opportunity to know about her body, falls in 'love' with a crook 10 years elder to her and gets knocked up. She is so silly that its only after her tummy starts showing up and women of the house-hold confront her, she comes to know that she's pregnant! Then the whole family either disowns her or simply asks her to get rid of the life in her without letting the society know. Its too late now. So she brings the unwanted life out into the world and never sees its face again.
If only she knew that making love is making babies and you can prevent the latter by some very simple precautions, if only she knew that unsafe sex may get her pregnant and she can still do something about it, if only she knew that the life she created is her responsibility and no matter what the society says, she loves it too much to abandon it, her child would know the security and love of family.
And who stopped her from knowing it all? The teachers who know everything, but aren't comfortable talking about it. Those goddamn hypocrites are creating orphans every day!
They ought to understand that its the BMC schools that provide education to the lowest economic class of children. Girls seldom continue their education beyond 8th or 10th std. Richer kids have access to various learning material and they know it. They may turn into pervs, but they at least know. Sex education or shall we say 'family-life education' is the need of the hour. We are already over-populated and the unwanted pregnancies symbolize a saying in hindi- garibi mein ata geela! We cannot afford luxury of comfort. These girls must be told where they came from. The knowledge-attitude-practices gap, so called KAP GAP cannot be closed by postponing introduction of sex-education in BMC schools.
For the sake of the innocent lives who never had a say in the decisions of their existence, lets just tell the kids...

The battle

2006-03-11T06:38:00.000-08:00

Two resident doctors entered the Pediatric ICU (PICU). They had come especially to help out their lecturer in managing a critical patient. An artificial respirator had been brought from somewhere to the PICU for the 10 year old boy who was suspected to have deep vein thrombosis with pulmonary embolism with (?) acute respiratory distress syndrome. In straighter terms, perhaps a piece of blood clot had entered his lung's blood vessels blocking it, resulting in various manifestations from edema to death of the lung tissue.

In an air-conditioned hall, a meeting was going on between the representatives of MARD and the government. All the important people were present there. The MARD doctors presented their demands again, in totality. They were hoping that this meeting would conclude positively. But they were firm in their minds that if it doesn't, they'll continue their strike on the thirteenth day as well.

The residents knew how to operate the ventilator. Well, they at least knew a little more than the lecturer who knew nothing about the handling of this new machine. They intubated the child who had just entered the stage of stupor from drowsiness. It took a whole fifteen minutes to connect the endo-tracheal tube (that goes in patient's throat) to the ventilator. It took another ten minutes to adjust the flow, rate, etc on the machine. Two interns and the lecturer assisted the regis, as they are called colloquially. Then they left after instructing the interns.

The MARD reprenstatives were a bit less confident this time. They were fearing a split among themselves. The government people had just begun to realize the huge nation-wide support the striking doctors had gained by now. Everybody was blaming the government and not the doctors for the patients' misery. The doctors had their best chances tonight.

After an hour or so, the tube got disconnected somehow and the machine stopped. The lecturer didn't know how to operate it. He started giving intermittent positive pressure respiration with the AMBU (ambulatory manual breathing unit) bag. The child's heart rate was dropping. He instructed the nurse to push atropine and adrenaline down the patient's IV line. The heart began racing again. The IPPR continued. The doctor asked the father of the boy to press the bag rhythmically.

Outside the meeting hall, reporters were waiting eagerly to get the news of the strike being called off. Even they had an idea that it can't go for long now. Someone suddenly said that the government has agreed to the demands. All news channels started flashing the news that the strike was over. A little while later, the spokes-person of MARD said that nothing has been given in writing yet. The strike is not off yet. The meeting is going on. They waited again.

The intern took the bag from the father and pumped for ten minutes. Then the co-intern took over. Then the father again. The interns discussed with sarcasm the hopelessness of the situation- "Now we are just waiting for the heart to stop, right?" The intern tried to connect the pulse-oxymeter to the boys finger. It displayed the message- PATIENT DISCONNECTED. No peripheral pulse could be found. The hand was cold. But the heart was racing. The adrenaline-heart. This continued for another hour. The boy would move his hand once in a while. The lecturer asked the father to call the other relative (mother) to do the pumping in turns. The father wasn't so eager.

The government officials listened to the doctors patiently. They explained their situation too. They negotiated with the doctors on some points. The doctors hoped that they will be taken seriously finally.

The intern was pumping air into the intubated chest. The father went around the bed and lifted and dropped the limbs of the boy one by one. They were lifeless and limp. He said, "Yeh to gaya ab lagta hai." The intern was aghast! "Iski dhadkan abhi chal rahi hai. Aap aisa kaise keh sakte hain?" He nodded apologetically. Then he sat down on the floor and started swaying in sleep. The boy took a gasp between the pumped breaths and vomited blood in the second tube coming out of his nostril. The heart was still racing at 120 per minute. The pumping continued turn-wise for another hour. His mother had come inside too. Finally, the child moved his hands one last time, with a much less jerk than before. The parents called over the lecturer. He examined the boy and declared him dead. No tear was shed.

The news channels flashed the news that the strike is finally over and this time its confirmed officially. The government has agreed to all demands. Finally the doctors have a little more money and a little more respect. Physicians rejoiced nation-wide.

In the PICU, the intern's head dropped helplessly on the table.

The boy was the twelfth surviving child of the Muslim couple who were hardly half a century old. His eldest sister was thirty. His illness had lasted for just a week. I saw the parents sitting on the road inside the hospital next morning, staring into zero, waiting for their deceased son's body.

Dead life...

2006-03-07T23:10:00.000-08:00

Warning: Some parts of the following jabbering may appear really gross to some sensitive individuals, especially the non-medicos. Read at your own risk!

Ten days have been managed with a tinge of success. After being in the rather theoretical four and half years of medical under-graduate college, I was suddenly exposed to the full-fledged clinical side, thanks to the RMO strike. People have actually started calling me doctor. I am actually telling them what drugs to take. I am making a difference to their lives. Hopefully, a good one!
And they are making a difference in mine.
When I first saw a cadaver in first year while learning human anatomy, I was blank emotionally. I dissected dead people as easily as I dissected rats in twelfth standard or as easily as I cut vegetables in those days of my glorious daughterhood. I saw the sharpness of the blade separating layers of cells, meeting dead-ends, reverently avoiding cords and tubes. It was simple. Dealing with death is simple.
Now I deal with life. But its not the serene life in the giggle of a child, its life struggling for gasps with choked throats. And when I see it lose the battle, all the pride I hold in the super-advanced knowledge of mankind about our body comes crashing down.
Sometimes, life looks like walking death. She was tall. She was black. Charred. I didn't see her go inside but just when I put my feet on the other side of the door, I saw her walking in small and slow steps towards me. Slow but hurried. The place stank of kerosene. I love its smell. But it stank. Her face was black too, except her eyes which were half shut and her mouth which was strange, I don't remember exactly but I think it was pink. Out-turned and pink. We walked past each other. Two men were supporting her. I looked down at the floor. There were powdery-black foot prints. Ashes of her kurta were flying gently above the floor. 80% burns, I heard someone say. She was shifted to a private hospital immediately. I rushed to the sphygmomanometer to assess another patient complaining of giddiness. Work went on.
Sometimes, a defeated life visits. It doesn't look like death. She was a young slight Muslima once again. Her husband who was crying like a child had brought her along with his brother after she had an episode of hematemesis. (Bloody vomiting). My colleague took her blood-pressure on the stretcher itself while I looked for an artery pulsating with some hint of life. Both of us couldn't find what we were looking for. Her hand was cold and she was still like stone. I proceeded to record her ECG to confirm no cardiac activity. My lecturer said something about uncertainty of life and death and I said yes, only half-listening, for I could imagine the life staring from the half-shut eyes a few minutes ago, and I was stunned even if for just a moment. My lecturer shoved me on the shoulder, half jokingly, "What yes?". I obviously wasn't listening to her and just managed to be polite by saying, "Yes mam, we are so uncertain." Work went on.
But last night those lives re-visited me. Like most somatic pains are worse at night, so are the emotional ones. Shuffling on my bed for over an hour, I kept thinking about them. And I hoped that the burnt woman was burnt deep enough to have her nerve endings destroyed so that she couldn't feel pain. I remembered her mother rushing to her, weeping, seeming more upset because they were an actually happy family and this was the biggest tragedy ever. I remembered I didn't allow a child to go in and see his aunt in this condition and I remembered the Casualty Officer giving me an oh-you-are-so-naive kind of smile at that gesture. I remembered the blood-stained teeth and nostrils of the BD (brought dead) patient. I thought that obviously the rest of her mouth must have been wiped. I couldn't sleep for another hour.
I realized it was stress. Then I realized how stressful it would be for the resident doctors who do this job for three years! Right now it is difficult for me to disconnect my emotions from the things I see every day. My feelings wait till my mind is free from acute demand of alertness. But they don't stop from occurring.
I strongly feel that there is a need to let the resident doctors Have some time during the day, or at least twice in a week, for relaxation and recreation. They must even be evaluated and counseled regularly by psychiatrists. And if they still don't understand, I request Mr. Johnny Joseph, the BMC guy, to just be in the casualty for half a day. The system is acting suicidal by not letting these guys in white coats work in human conditions!

PS : I was very pleased to see my seniors sending calls to the Psychiatrist even for patients showing some sign of depression, irrespective of the fact that he was a thief under custody. And the psychiatry lecturer on call attended these patients religiously, taking enough time to sit and listen and counsel them. Long live the noble professionalism!

My photo blog

2006-03-07T10:05:00.000-08:00

Hi folks! Created a new blog wherein I'll be putting up the best photographs taken from my new Sony cybershot W7 DSC. Please check it out. The link is on the right.

The doctors should've waited till the election season before going on strike.

Carry on Doctor!

2006-03-04T23:36:00.000-08:00

Resident doctors are on strike.
I can't make up my mind.
On one hand, logic says that they shouldn't come back until their rightful demands are met with by the government/BMC. The mind knows that they work 12 hours a day and at least once a week, they work non-stop for 24 hours. Their job compells them to be on their feet all the time, literally. Yet they cannot afford to lose a second's alertness. They are supposed to keep thinking all the time about all the patients, remembering the past, enacting the present and planning the future. Neither the mind nor the feet can take a break. Moreover, their actions bear consequences that deal with the most precious thing in the world, life. Hence, the pressure of responsibility and competence cannot be done without. In addition to that, they have to talk and keep the relatives of the patient patient too. And after a week of dealing with them, I have a fair idea how stressed out those relatives can be who even watch over me when I collect 5ml of blood from the patient's vein and they make it a point to tell each time that they don't have enough blood and I end up explaining them that the body has 5litres of it! They panic. They have to be tackled with the mind. If you try their patience, you know what happens. And those doctors are PG students, meaning they have to study for exams. Swallow every word of tonns of fat books!
And what do they do it for? 8ooo bucks a month? Engineers of their age earn thrice that measly amount. The quarters that they live in don't comply with the living standards they have to mug up during some part of their lives. I mean, there are rats and roaches all over! And the flood water somehow always alerts these health-workers first. I ate in the RMO canteen one day and got the runs. Talk about hygiene and prevention...
Then my second personality says (c'mon, we're all crazy schizophrenics!), they do it not for the peanut-sized returns but for the gargantuan experience and knowledge they gain (potentially) by seeing so many patients. They do it because at the end of three years (potentially) they will be the best doctors they can be. If their so called jobs, weren't paying jobs but a simple studentship where they would work only as much as they wanted, even then I think they'd take up these posts and slog the way they do it under authority. Or would they?
When I can't make my mind settle down with a side, I just ask my self a question. What would I do if I was in this situation? I don't have to think twice. I'd not stop working. I choose my work and I do it because I want to work. Not for any kind of worldly recognition. Also I won't stop working because people won't stop falling sick. Even if I have to sit in the casualty to just guide someone to a private hospital in the worst pain of his/HER life, I'd do it. Because I'm human and I respect myself for being one. My respect doesn't depend on how many people I have to share my room with despite having all the skills my profession demands and all the significance my profession holds in the society.
But the government should agree with their demands. Thats the best way to bring this strike to an end. The patients and the interns are suffering after all...
The issue of applicabilty of the morality of an individual to the society and vice-versa remains unsolved in my mind but considering the fact that I have to remain in the casualty for ten hours in the night, I must now go and conserve some energy.

Think different

2006-02-22T08:53:00.000-08:00

An interesting mail that I got-
Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.
I read the examination question: "SHOW HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE HEIGHT OF A TALL BUILDING WITH THE AID OF A BAROMETER."
The student had answered, "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building."
The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this.
I suggested that the student have another try.
I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics . At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one . I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute, he dashed off his answer, which read: "Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2,calculate the height of the building." At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.
"Well," said the student, "there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer.For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building."
"Fine," I said, "and others?"
"Yes," said the student, "there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units."
"A very direct method."
"Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the building.From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building, in principle, can be calculated."
"On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street t, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession".
"Finally," he concluded, "there are many other ways of solving the problem.Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows:'Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer."
At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.
The student was Neils Bohr (quantum theory & physics & mechanics, hydrogen atom guru etc ) and the arbiter Rutherford.
THINK DIFFERENT

Crap!

2006-02-21T08:58:00.000-08:00

Don't even bother to read this post. I have nothing on my mind... No real thought... Feeling crappy as hell. Just gonna put down some random thoughts.
Death sucks, for its damn ugly. But it happens once. Life can get even uglier sometimes and it just goes on and on... Crushin' u between two worlds, u dunno which is the real one, crushin' u 'til all air is squeezed out of ur lungs and u choke on ur own body.
Then it wakes u up. U thank heavens- 'twas a dream. Or may be this is a dream... Who knows?
Why do ppl lie? What is the whole purpose behind making others believe sumthin' other than the truth? It jus complicates evrything and then my head gets messed up.
Why do ppl lie to themselves? What is the whole purpose behind denying urself the reality? It jus makes u so complicated and then my head gets messed up.
Why can't we listen for once? Listen to me and to u?
Why don't we talk?
Why did love complicate passion? Wasn't passion enough for us to motivate to work? To make buildings and bridges and space-ships and super comps? Why did love happen?
And why did love happen?
Love makes u damn sad! Not only when its not there, even when its there. Especially then. And I am talking about pure uncomplicated love. Strong love. Which doesn't give way to hatred. Foolish love.
Why do we dump all our shit into the sea? 80% of life lives in the sea. Why are we giving life this shit?
Thats why life's so mean to us... It gives us shit cuz we give it shit.
I warned u in the beginning.

Traveling through life

2006-02-01T01:02:00.000-08:00

I have been commuting by train for the last one year. Although I am practically in favor of running more trains more frequently, for obvious reasons like it takes 1/3rd the time to travel the same distance by trains, like there is no air pollution insulting my respiratory lining, like it is almost as cheaper as it is quicker compared to the bus services; a part of me misses traveling by buses as I'd been doing for about four years after finishing school.
I never thought even once while taking the bus trips up and down every day, six times a week for all that time, that silently the experience was metamorphosizing into memories worth putting down on my blog for the world to see.
Traveling by a bus is an altogether different affair from taking a train for the same purpose. The most significant difference being the speed, obviously. I am awkwardly aware sometimes, when I look out of the train, of the rhythmic horizontal nystagmus my eyes can't avoid. In a bus, I always get the time to focus and shift my gaze voluntarily to scenes outside, even if I have no place to sit. It allows me to capture the world outside.
The world outside a train is constant, its like a painting. The one outside the bus is like a motion picture, the positions of people and vehicles at least, changing every minute, although its the same route everyday. It is different.
Even the world inside a bus is dynamic in every possible unit of time. If I catch a train everyday at around the same time, I get familiarized with most constant faces within a couple of days. Of course, that is applicable to the ladies' first-class cubicle. But recognizing the same unknown faces twice a day is painfully sad! There is no class system in the bus. In fact, there is a certain class of people who take the bus. People who can afford to avoid the over-stuffed trains but cannot afford, under non-emergency circumstances, a cab. No fisher-women or vendors with huge portable stalls take a bus. Students contribute to the narrow yet colorful spectrum of people using the bus during specific hours of the day. The only face one may see too often to not remember and recognize the next time in a bus is that of the conductor. And it is a big advantage if he remembers you, especially during the beginning of the month when you've just received your pocket-money in the form of crisp large rectangles.
To me, the most exciting part used to be looking out of the window, wherever I sat or stood in the bus. Its difficult to do that in the train. Getting a seat in the train is as common as the Indian cricket team winning the finals. And if you turn your head to either side to look out of the window, the aunty sitting next to you keeps on constantly giving you reproachful glances as if you were staring at her or looking into her newspaper! Its so annoying!
I remember, I would usually find a place to sit once I got into a bus after a few stops. And then looking outside the window many times I'd count approximately. I'd count that approximately 90% of the faces are smiling. I repeated that count at regular intervals to make sure that Indians are still the happiest people in the world! Then once I'd concluded that approximately 95% of men in Mumbai don't tuck their shirts inside their pants. And that approximately the same percentage of non-malnourished middle-aged men have protruding bellies. All traffic policemen have a moustache. Our country is severely deprived of good-looking men. Most travelers inside a bus are interested to know the number of the bus theirs just overtook, me being no exception.
I miss those things.
At other times I'd be lost into my own thoughts only to feel I've reached in half the time I usually take. Sometimes I'd be traveling to some other time-zone along with the protagonist of the book in my lap. Its very tiring to read in a moving bus though.
I especially liked the road-trips during the night, the yellow lights showering over the road ahead, reflected on smooth curves of the bodies of cars with tiny yellow-red lights on their backs. If I got later than usual sometimes, the hassle witnessed during the same morning at the same place would seem to have occurred ages ago, the traffic reduced to a quarter, all signals blinking yellow, shutters of most shops down, families off to sleep on the dusty edges of the road... Once I saw this middle-aged woman strolling around a garden that children and couples flank during the lighted hours, in a black dress, tight and revealing ugliness, crass and gaudy make-up on her face, and somehow I was scared a bit to see a prostitute for the first time in real, at work, as my bus carved a semicircular path around the garden. Otherwise, the strong cool wind in my face as the driver took his 'plane' off the unhurdled road in the night always filled me with the adventurous feeling of a lonely traveler, somewhere in the middle of my journey.
Certain odd land-marks had been recognized by me. The journey on a highway is totally different while traveling in the opposite directions. The trip in the mornings had different land-marks than the ones made later in the day, returning. In the train, one usually selects a side and the same scene remains when you travel up and down. I had recognized the stops where students got in or got out of the bus, stops where the bus virtually never stopped, stops where couples would stand with their backs facing us, exposing to our society's shame the disrespect we show for other people's personal life. I would eagerly wait for the ads on the billboards to change, especially the Amul butter ones. I religiously would shift my gaze outside, everytime I passed in front of the few shops on my way which had large glass facades to see my wavy reflection and then correcting my slouched posture immediately. Talking about religion, I never forgot to recognize a temple my parents used to take me to when I was young which came on my way in the morning. Also, on the return journey there was this unremarkable movie theatre that shows dirty Z-grade movies. Ironically, just outside the theatre is a temple. When my bus stopped near this theatre, I would see more faces turned to see the poster of the current movie running in it than the faces turned and bowed to the deity in the temple. I am sure, the former ones must be left with a feeling of guilt and embarrassment when they happened to see the temple.
There were more reasons that made my daily routine of traveling by bus more endearing than the super-boring minutes I now spend in the train. The FM signal in buses is way better. Only occasional voice-raising happens when a man sitting on seats reserved for women is confronted by the fairer sex. Most of such men do what they never do otherwise, pretend to not pay attention to the woman! Some give lame excuses like they sat there on the first stop. They might as well say that Tom Cruise needs valium! Ultimately the dumass vacates the seat for the lady when the conductor interferes. No quarrels between passengers take place apart from that. Also, there is one thing you can do only in a bus. If you happen to encounter a cute face in the bus and some shy, slightly overlapping glances are exchanged between the two of you, you will at least be gifted a moment of intimate connection when your eyes hold each other for a moment, just a moment, when the cute face is dragged by the body its attached to outside the bus and you look down from the window and the final and longest glance lingers in mid-air, the connection breaking as the bus accelerates. Its more of a hi than a good-bye, as would have been appropriate. The train moves too fast and platforms are too crowded and the people too busy.
It never occurs to us how much changes when we change a house, a system of life.

Childhood regrets

2006-01-25T00:50:00.000-08:00

I started The Kite Runner finally. I wanted to read it since a long time. I have only been through the first 30 pages of the book and I had to take a break because it is so good! Actually, it reminds me of some of my own childhood experiences which don't make me too proud of myself. They reach out to me time to time to remind me what a human I am. I thought I should give them material forms this time...

-----------------

I was in the 2nd grade. I was writing some exam. In the same hall there were students of another grade too. Given my hardly observable sense of observation, I didn't know which was the other class combined with ours until I finished my paper.
I always, well, almost always, finished my paper before time in school. (Sometimes in college too when I got tired of faking knowledge!) I was a 'good' student in school. I never stood first in my class and never was my rank below the third. I would have stood first only if my teachers would notice me before the results were declared. School is very childish actually.
Anyways, I finished my paper and the bell just wasn't ringing. I checked my paper two or three times. (I don't really remember but I'm sure I was stupid enough to have done it.) I played with my pencils and eraser. (Thankfully!) Then I looked up and took notice of the rest of the class. Half of them were the faces I knew but the names of only half of which I had 'understood'. (I was unthinkably socially-dumb!) Rest of the class I didn't know. Those kids were smaller than me so I assumed they must be KG students.
I turned behind. I spoke to my class-mate who was trying to finish her paper. I have no recollection and I just can't figure out what the hell was I talking about to her in the middle of our exams and what the hell was the invigilator doing!
There was a little girl sitting next to her. She had a perfect round face, she was very fair and had plaited her hair into two pony-tails behind her ears. And she had big eyes. She must have been a Sikh. I looked at her blank answer sheet. She hadn't scribbled a word on her paper. I was aghast with shock! Didn't she know the concept of an exam? I told my friend about her and she too wondered what was wrong with this little girl. We asked her which class she belonged to. She said nothing. She only kept looking at us turn by turn as we spoke to her with her huge dark eyes. Gradually, a sense of supiriority/seniority complex overtook my bewilderment and I almost started mocking at the poor innocent child. I was telling her, "Don't you want to pass? How will you get marks? Do you know nothing? Didn't you study anything?" (where was the invigilator man?)
She didn't say a word. I stopped when I saw those big dark eyes welling up with tears. And something has just stopped there since then. I still find myself sitting in front of this chubby-cheeked, neat but dumbly innocent child, looking at me, the tears almost ready to overflow at the borders of the eyes that don't get off me...
Why did I have to be so hard on the poor kid? I just regret it so much...

------------------

Again, in the 1st or 2nd grade, (Wow! I was from Chucky's cult or what!) I had a friend called Raji. Well, not exactly a friend cuz she would remain even more quiter than me and she was stupider than me, then. But we did sit together occasionally and exchanged a few stupid jokes. She was the only person that I bullied on, ever. I just remember I slapped her on her back once. She said something stupid and I was trying to show her I was angry, I wasn't. I knew I was just bullying her. I'm so sorry Raji... If you ever happen to stumble upon this paragraph on the net, just know that I am so so so sorry.

Bravery

2006-01-19T20:47:00.000-08:00

He was hungry again. He had been fed a couple of hours ago. His nephew had poured one entire glass of milk down the tube. Unlike yesterday, he didn't even ask today if he wanted more food. Perhaps he was tired supporting his uncle's back while feeding. After all, to hold up a hefty body like his uncle's for almost 20 minutes was not an easy routine for a lean teenager like him.
He felt a gurgle in his stomach. He stared at the fan shaking sideways as it hovered slowly right above his head. He tried to figure out the colour of the blades beneath the thick layer of dust gathered over them. He thought he could see a little cream at one end of the blades. He gradually shifted his gaze as down as it could go. He looked at his long beard spread on his chest. The colour of henna was fading away just below his chin. He thought he saw some gray. He remembered he had to colour it two days ago, if only he could move his right hand. He still couldn't remember exactly what had happened that day. He got up from bed to pray after a short nap induced by the heavy lunch he had taken. And then as he spread his rug on the floor, he suddenly fell down. He tried to get up, but the light was fading away. When he opened his eyes he saw light which was so bright that he could see nothing else. Then he saw a few humanly figures leaned over him. For a second he was overwhelmed to wonder if it was Allah's palace. Then the faces took shapes and he saw his younger brother and his son trying to tell him something. He tried to speak but only let out a sound. He tried again but couldn't produce the word. He tried to lift up his hands but the right side of his body refused to even get dragged an inch. He tried the whole day and ultimately gave up. He knew he was in a hospital. He had an idea what had happened to him. He didn't know why.
He had faith in his Allah. He had prayed five times a day all his life. He was devoted to the almighty's service. He didn't get married unlike his brother, unlike the weak souls weakened more by worldly pleasures. Why then, his father put him through this? But no. He wouldn't lose faith. His father is trying to tell him something. But what?
He turned his gaze to the left. He saw an old man almost sinking into his bed, his skeleton almost visible beneath the skin. He wore saffron. Kaafir... He muttered in his mind. But instead of the repulsion and anger that he'd usually feel for a kaafir, he felt pity at the old man's condition. He himself was almost 60 but no one could guess he was more than 45. He was tall and broad. When he stood, he looked like an unconquerable mountain. He walked with the disciplined demeanor of a soldier, of a warrior, unconcerned and unconnected with the weak souls in the weak bodies around him. He knew he was strong because his Allah wanted him to be. So that he can fight his war, the war of a jehadi.
He had always been a warrior. After his encounter with the almighty Himself one night when he was fifteen, he had no option but to believe what was being taught to him in the training camp. In fact, he understood it more than just believe it. And following that he led many holy battels with all the bravery he was endowed with. He was a hero amongst his men. He sacrificed thousands of kaafirs in the service of his father. Those idol-worshippers were so weak that they couldn't even look up at him as the shine of his sword on their necks met its edge...
His stomach gurgled again. He looked at the nurse at the end of the ward. He tried to say he wanted food. The nurse turned to the sound. He tried to look at the tube coming out of his nostril. When he looked up again, she had already turned away. Then she got up and gathered her bag. She was leaving.
His anger tried to give in to a stir of a feeling of helplessness that was slowly rising in him. But he strongly resisted it. He closed his eyes thinking about Allah.
He barged into the house in that small village. It was freezing cold but the warmth of the zeal in his blood also melted the fear in the group of young boys he was leading. He shouted aloud the name of his savior and ordered his men, "Dhoondh dhoondh kar khatm kar do sabhi but-paraston ko!" And his men immediately split into small groups and began searching through all rooms of the house of the most affluent hindu family in the village. He stood in the big hall listening to the screams of the men and women of the family and the silence following the sound of the bullets his men fired. He heard someone sobbing. The sound came from a corner of the hall. He proceeded towards its direction. He couldn't see anyone. There was only an iron box kept in that corner. He heard the sob one more time and then he heard his own foot-step. There was silence again. With the naked sword he carried in his hand and the rifle hung on his shoulder he approached the box and with one action of his sword he swung the lid of the box open. A small girl sat inside. Staring directly at his face with her tear laden eyes she sobbed as she breathed. He smiled at the fear he saw in those big dark eyes. He saw fear rolling on the milky-white full cheeks and he heard fear as she pleaded, " Mujhe mat maro baba. Baba... Mujhe mat maro. Baba... Nahin baba..." He raised his sword high up above his head. The girl kept sobbing and pleading. As he began lowering it over the target on the little neck in which she wore a pendant of some idol-God, she reflexly raised her hand to cover her face. He saw a thread tied to her left wrist. His sword descended with the speed of lightening. There was a big noise as it clanked the edge of the box. If he hadn't been startled by a sudden noise of his men shouting alert he wouldn't have missed his target. Army men were rushing in from the rear door. Without wasting a moment he turned away from the box and as he saw his men running out of the front door, he followed them out of the house. The girl not looking out of the pseudo-cover of her hands, kept pleading, " Baba... Mujhe mat maro baba..."
"Baba... Baba..." Someone was shaking his shoulders. He opened his eyes. The face he saw was like that of an angel, white. The large dark eyes staring into his eyes shone with zeal of life and a strange kind of hope. There was no pity in them just a motherly re-assurance. "Baba dawai pee lo. Utho baba..." He was mesmerized by the eyes that held him. He wanted to hold on to the support they offered. She helped him sit up. Then poured the pink milk like medicine down his tube. As she did it, he saw a thread tied to her left wrist. The image of the girl in the box flashed in front of his eyes. " Aap theek ho jayenge baba. Fikr mat karo." She eased him into lying position. Her smiling eyes reassured him again. Then she took her tray and went over to the old man in saffron on the next bed. "Baba..." Her white angelic image began to get distorted as tears collected in his eyes for the first time in his life. He wanted to scream. He couldn't. The tears kept flowing...

The BIG Question.

2005-12-29T00:39:00.000-08:00

A lot has been said about life, God, origin, evolution, et cetera on my blog recently. People appreciate that the theory of evolution makes sense. But they say that still there are questions that science hasn't answered yet. The biggest question that popped up from the discussion and remains unanswered as yet was, What is life?
Talking objectively and not opining on what people believe or don't believe, here's what I've understood of life.
We are all made up of matter. For elaboration on that click here to learn it from Sumedh.
So is everything around us. Then what precisely makes us different from any other spatially and temporally bound functioning packet of energy? Its this ability to ask this question perhaps. Its the ability to see the colour of this font and call it by a name perhaps. Its the ability to be more than a passive functional unit and change the course of physical events as 'we' please. The ability to be aware of the physical and the abstract, to be aware of awareness itself makes us different. Its not just the series of physical reactions (i.e. chemical reactions at a finer level) that a stimulus initiates in the functional unit that 'we' call as 'our' body to present to 'our' cerebral cortex its form. I mean, the stimulus' visual, auditory, tactile or chemical form. I mean, its physical surface, its chemical composition and its spatial orientation. Thats just perceiving the sense of it. And as you know various associations start forming in 'our' brains following that and we react. Awareness works not just while identifying or learning about a stimulus, it works in knowing it. It percieves the object in an abstract frame.
Abstract is something that cannot be defined in physical terms. Its not the physical terms that we cannot understand, I'd like to clarify. But even abstract thinking is most of the times a logical chain of thoughts. And thoughts are various circuits activated together simultaneously.
It is actually the awareness of a living organism of itself that makes it different from the non living. What psychologists use for the seemingly most intelligent species, the ID or the EGO exist in every unicellular organism and perhaps in 'living' viruses and prions too. It is the awareness of the self , the basis of which is that the self is different from the non-self. Now it makes perfect sense that living 'substances' require a system to perceive the differences between the self and the non-self, to identify the differences and another system to express their reaction to the differences. So there are the sensors, the processros and the motors.
Life formed in such a way that it was programmed to identify and protect the self. Its the same kind of programme that fuses hydrogen nuclei to form the Sun. This is the divine knowledge, in fact, knowledge itself is a property of life. But again its the physical forces that act in enabling life to be life.
A new-born child is only aware of its self. So it cries when its hungry. Because it has been programmed to identify the stimulus it recieves and classify it as good or bad for itself and react to protect itself. As she grows up, millions of stimuli shape her knowledge of the self. She defines good and bad more frequently now. Then she understands others' perception of hers. She compares her understanding with theirs and now she knows herself in a different and so-called more mature perspective.
But there is a still higher entity in the structure of life. Self is mine. There is a ME. When I address myself, I am aware of me and not just myself. Its not just the difference between me and my surroundings, its me. Its not my name, my sex, my nationality, my race, my physical form or a combination of these. It is me. In one word, its the consciousness thats me.
Hmmm... The mist seems to be forming again. What is consciousness? What am I referring to when I say I? My body, my thoughts, my emotions, my will? Am I just a thought, i.e. , a collection of neuronal circuits simultaneously activated in my brain? If so then where do I produce will from? Is my will only an expression of what my instincts (as yet unlocalized circuits) say is good for my self? Would I not have any will if I couldn't be aware of my physical or abstract worlds? Or do my worlds exist only because I do? The world is as it seems to the observer. I am the observer. Awareness, consciousness, self, I, will, would define life by their definition. Dive into the mist of the mystery called life to get the answer or surrender by accepting anything that anyone has to say.
You make the choice, while I pop-up a pill of Valium!

2005-12-24T10:41:00.000-08:00

Here's what my friend Shivanand Sheth had to say on my article titled 'Darwin Rules'. I had to put it here.
"Darwin was a lovely guy. I always use the words "Survival of the fittest" in appropriate conversations as a mark of tribute to him. And I 100% agree with the theory of evolution. It is a perfectly valid theory which has enough undoubtable evidence in support of it and i admire the guy's intelligence for being able to put it all together. The ONLY way that humans have descended are by evolving from Monkeys and whatever the monkeys evolved from, and whatever the things that whatever the things that monkeys evolved from, evolved from. (By the way just returned home after seeing King King.. I felt like the gorilla had more brains than me)But the question is not about evolution or chemicals combining. It's about 'Life'. There is a vast difference between few chemicals combined in just the right proportions a few million years ago to create life and experiment demonstrated formation of complex organic molecules from basic carbon, hydrogen and oxygen when the weather of a few million years younger earth was mimicked in the laboratoryI just did a comprehensive google search regarding Miller Urey experiments and have gone through atleast 20 different authentic sites before posting this. These are just some of the excerpts i have found on all the sites i went through that i am posting here.
"These discoveries created a stir within the science community. Scientists became very optimistic that the questions about the origin of life would be solved within a few decades. This has not been the case, however. Instead, the investigation into life's origins seems only to have just begun."
"At present, the relevance of the experimental results of Miller and Urey are being questioned, since the atmospheric conditions used in the experiment are not thought to accurately reflect those of the early earth."
"The molecules produced were simple organic molecules. Far from a complete living biochemical system, but the experiment established that the hypothetical processes could produce some amino acids that are present in a biological system"
"The experiment did not produce amino acids, only some chemicals which may lead to the development of amino acids. And amino acids are not life either."
Infact NONE of the sites offered me any information which had a positive conclusive statement. Anyway i also stumbled upon "http://www.ucsd.tv/miller-urey/" which i found really funny, and i failed to create life there too.
Now the basic common flaws mentioned on almost all sites are:
1)The weather conditions created by the scientists were only assumed to be similar to ones present on early earth and that there is no means of knowing what the exact weather was like when life began.
2)Nothing close to 'life' was ever created. Only things created were new 'life-like' chemicals from old chemicals.
3)The experiment was carried out in 1953. Almost all modern scientists disagree with the results of the experiment today. ("Icons of Evolution - Science or Myth" by Jonathan Wells. Check it out on print.google.com)
I'd like to stupidly analogise a point here which i think is appropriate (The time is 1.30 am now, and anything my sleepy mind is deciding to analogise at this moment has GOT to be stupid)
It is argued that people construct a God to believe in, whenever they need a 'miracle', whenever they found no answers to their curiosity and that God is just their fantasy that they hold onto for a while in a moment of weakness.Similarly to me it seems that the people who attempt to find answers to everything, who try to find valid explanations to seemingly complex questions, those who are focussed on trying to find answers that negates the need for the existance of a God, too are, in a way, disillusioned. For them a 'miracle' is the formation of a few chemicals, discoveries which seem to answer fundamental questions of our existence somewhat but only to throw open more questions and more tasks upon them to 'unprove' the existence of God. Most don't have a clue about how to go about with their experiments to find the right evience, but they do have a blind belief that yes it is possible. Someday. Each new finding gives them the hope that questions can be answered without attributing everything to God. This too is a belief they start hanging onto when they don't have answers to find, and their basis for such a belief is just a little 'chemicals combining to make more chemicals'...whether it is valid or not- it is just something new for them which gives them hope.I find that this 'Hope' of continuing with the quest to find evidence, the belief that they can prove everything by science and logic, the fact that they 'just know' that God didn't do anything is pretty similar to the 'Hope' that the majority have in which they believe that life cannot and just couldn't have formed 'by itself'. They 'Just know' that God did do everything. They too might have their belief based on facts and myths with no validity, but the belief is enough in itself.
You have just mentioned the aspect of evolution. I'd like to mention the broader picture of life. Life as i see it is much more complex. It is intelligent. Life comprises complexities of breath, energy, the raw desire for having sex, the perfect fit of the male with the female, the feeling of hunger, the need for all the organisms to eat, the need to sleep, emotions like fear, love, lust, jealousy, even in the most primitive organism basic essentials are present... it's not just about DNA mutating to make a human being out of a bacteria.. Such things cannot be explained just by 'at one point of time intelligent forms evolved'I feel that there has to be a God who governs the 'Laws of life' - the law of hunger, law of sleep, the law of good and evil natured organisms, the law of the need for a breath, the law of reproduction, the design of the genitals, the law of a sperm combining with an egg, in fact the law of evolution and the law of the survival of the fittest as well.It's just that the inquistive scientific man is in the continuous process of finding the footprints left by a God without realising that what he is unraveling are just the fingerprints on that footprint.
I have no idea if i could convey what i felt appropriately... anyway though i do believe in a higher power's existene for sure, i do not believe that he is responsible for everything per se. and as i have mentioned in a fellow blogger's comment - my faith is very flexible- the day that science can explain everything, i'll stop believing in God."
You won't be surprised that I copied it from the comments section to the main page now that you've read. It is so well written. I never thought that Shiv would actually think so much on a serious topic, especially when he knows he is not doing this to impress a girl. Frankly Shiv, I am happy to see you do something so unexpected. Take it as a compliment. (I couldn't degrade the standard of the rest of your write-up by including that poem you wrote in your school days. Yeah, mention not.)
Now coming to the point.
Firstly, the authenticity of the Miller-Urey experiment should not be over-emphasised. I know it created chemicals that were too simple for life. The point that I was trying to make is that they succeeded in creating complex molecules from simpler ones. This is just a small trailer of what would have happened when life originated. There are a number of theories for that too. Its almost impossible to know what exactly happened until the day another experiment that creates 'living' 'breathing' organisms from scratch succeeds. Miller-Urey experiment only proves that physical forces are enough to create life.
Secondly, the definition of life must be objective. I am not over-simplifying things, but as I've said somewhere, if you leave the links in between, the answer would look too simple to be true. Define intelligence, emotions, desires, needs (perfect fit of the male with the female? Where is that male?) and all that you find too 'complex' for a simple DNA mutation to explain for. Nothing's outside the laws of nature and physics. I'll tell you what is the most difficult thing to define. Consciousness.
My quest as a scientist is not to disprove the existence of God. Its only a part of my job. (I am being very humble.)There is this hunger to solve this puzzle of who 'I' am. I can't delude myself by accepting God as the answer. It distracts me from the path of truth. My hopes are not resting on the answer. I live life at the sensory-motor level, more of sensory actually. But knowledge is a craze. I have to know this. Scientists don't need to hold on to a hope or an imaginary achievement to continue with their work. The pleasure of working is their reward. Newton didn't set out to find why does the earth suck when he actually found it.
When you think of God you close your eyes. But when you are confronted by the truth, your eyes are open wide in amazement. Thats not a miracle. Its a realization.
Also I want to mention that logic is not a belief. As Ayn rand put it, 'A' is 'A'. You look at it from whichever angle you want to, 'A' would exist as 'A'. The ultimate Truth doesn't depend on its observer to be true.
I personally find it inappropriate to classify science. Science is the game of solving every puzzle around me. Be it the world, life, relationships, my consciousness, my self or me.

Are we threatened?

2005-12-24T04:08:00.000-08:00

Our world has been seeing some changes recently. Ad libitum, I could recollect a few...
Girls can't wear jeans or skirts to college anymore.
Students can't carry mobile phones to college anymore.
Its forbidden to support pre-marital sex.
No un-U rated movies on television anymore.
Couples spending some time together in public parks would be roughed up by the law-keepers.
saviors of the society have finally woken up from their decades long hibernation and now they'll teach the dissolute the rules of conduct in a civilized society. And the above actions have been taken because...
Boys get distracted by girls in jeans or skirts.
Students using mobile phones indulge in pornography.
You can't have sex until the society allows you to.
A/UA movies influence the vulnerable viewers adversely.
I have no clue why!
I do not have to really ridicule the reasons that have been put forth in support of the changes that have occurred. I think my readers are wise enough.
But I am really angry. What the hell do they think they are doing? Is it even possible in any universe to impose a moral conduct? Is morality under legal authority?
I could dedicate blogs after blogs talking about morality but lets cut the crap and get to the point here.
Girls and women wearing salwars and saris get raped.
People indulging in pornography may use mobile phones as a means.
One can have sex whenever he/she wants, in reality.
A/UA movies can be seen in the theatre, on home CD's, on the internet and so on...
Our homes are too crowded for couples to get cozy in front of their parents, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, in-laws, etc...
Is civilization measured on a scale of hypocrisy? I know hypocrisy arises from fear. Why do we have to pay a price for the inability of those who can't face and challenge their fears? Their own carnal desires they pretend to be running away from?
I think our society is too scared to talk about sex. They are afraid that its something dark, devilicious because it attracts them. And when they finally give in to their instincts, they firmly believe its a sin. Guilt sets in. Denial sets in. The conflict asks for violence as a way out. More sin follows. We succumb to evil. We forget rationality. We set rules that have the purpose we could never achieve. Rules that can never work in reality, although people are made to follow them. We now have useless rules that everybody follows. We become civilized.
Love needs expression. Be it physical or otherwise. Love is beautiful when it is expressed. There is nothing wrong about satisfying our physiological needs. Couples holding hands or sharing a moment together cut-off from the rest of the world is not offensive. The underlying feelings are beautiful. A middle-aged man walking with his teen-age daughter staring at a woman with lewd thoughts is down-right offensive. Can the moral police stop that? But perhaps the man himself is a victim of this hypocritical thought sown into him during his moral development that never let him go to the extent where he could explore the beauty of sex. Perhaps his wife is so too.
When to do it, with whom to do it, where to do it, how to do it is entirely the concerned couple's decision. By letting people talk about sex we only spread awareness and incorporate responsibility into them. We cannot stop our children from turning into criminals by never letting them know what the crime is. They'll never know when they actually commit it.
We should just stop getting too excited about sex on a personal level everytime someone says 'sex' and look at it from an intellectual perspective when we form 'rules' about it. We shouldn't take it personally everytime.
Its not an issue. It should be discussed freely, just the way politics, economy or sports are discussed.
I call it sound mental health promotion.

Darwin Rules!

2005-12-23T01:52:00.000-08:00

Where did we come from? Who made this world so beautiful? How did so much variety and complexity form in the natural world? From a tiny bug to a majestic elephant, who created life in millions of different forms? This beauty of life all around us couldn't have arisen from scratch on its own. Life is wonderful.
And the next wonder would be the magnificence of its creator. Sure the creator's world is a wonderland, its heaven. Everything is possible and beautiful there. But before you get going on a heavenly tour, I'm sorry to inform you that we did in fact arise from scratch. This is a real world and if you like to keep your dear delusions of heaven with you then read no further. I won't introduce you to God. I worship Charles Robert Darwin.
He 'discovered' the 'Theory of evolution'. Actually, I am not a hard-core believer of the theory of evolution. I don't have to believe it because I know it. The same way that I know that I am alive. So this write-up isn't an attempt to change anyone's beliefs either. A not-so-recent debate that I read about in the newspapers actually motivated me to write this. Some schools in Texas, USA have started teaching the 'Theory of intelligent design' in their classes. To those who are not familiar with this theory, it actually proposes an alternative hypothesis to answer questions like the ones in the beginning of this post which already have been answered by my God. It preaches that life is too complex to not have an intelligent creator to start with. This theory has got nothing to do with any religion, allegedly.
Well, first of all I'd like the 'believers' of Intelligent design model to 'know' that evolution is not theoretical anymore. It can be seen live! Pay close attention to this, my colleagues. Many micro-organisms, say bacteria, multiply logarithmically producing millions of progeny in a matter of few hours or days. When certain adversities are presented to them, for example a drug, a few of them that already had some resistance to it survive. Rest may be destroyed. These resistant fellows then multiply into enormous numbers and now we have a colony of new kind of bacteria. The former species has evolved into a new one. And this happens. So we can see the genetic pool of a population changing practically.
Someone said to me somewhere, "I can't digest that (science says) a few chemicals combined in just the right proportions a few million years ago to create life." Science says that. Only it happened a few decades ago. Miller-Urey experiment demonstrated formation of complex organic molecules from basic carbon, hydrogen and oxygen when the weather of a few million years younger earth was mimicked in the laboratory. Science doesn't just say. It shows.
And to see the miracle of science you've got to shed some delusions that you carry as the price for being social. Everything is explainable with the help of logic. And logic is the tool of science. Everything around us. Where did it come from, why is it the way it is... The answers to all these questions are trying to find us from the moment we asked these questions. Its we who make up a lie to support another and keep running away from the truth.
Evolution is far too obvious to call it a theory. I mean, how can someone ignore the phalanges present within a bat's wings and call it a bird? It had a hand for Darwinssake! What we see now as the wings are just former web spaces.
People's enthusiasm to find a purpose to their lives is partly responsible for the promotion of such stupid ideas. Purpose is one's aim. You decide it. It can't be found. You create the purpose of YOUR life. But the purpose of LIFE is only more LIFE. The DNA has to replicate. Purposelessly. It surprises many here. But it replicates only because hydrogen burns to form water. Its just a chemical reaction! And those who question that should first get their basic chemistry right. There's something within a molecule, an atom, a nucleus, a fundamental particle. Understand that before you say that you are not convinced that DNA replicates on its own, without a purpose. The scratch that we arose from is a lot 'complicated' to disappoint someone who feels uneasy by the simplicity of the idea.
Evolution started with sex. Sexual reproduction brought about variations. For those without any biology background, children produced by the natural mating of a man and a woman would look different while those cloned from a single person would all look alike. If you were wondering how can certain bacteria have drug-resistance to begin with, this is the reason why. Sex occurs, variations occur, adversities occur, selective propagation occurs, evolution occurs. Sex itself may become a selector. (I just wanted to say sex one more time.)
In conclusion, life wants to propagate, by sex, for sex. We are all Agent Smiths in effect.
This is so damn obvious people! Do we need an intelligent design to make sense of something so simple? Or are you just baffled by your own intelligence which sometimes says that life is purposeless? Is your consciousness too complicated to understand? Even for that, use logic people. Call it science, call it philosophy, call it psychiatry (you hear me Mr. Tom Cruise?). But say something that makes sense. Do not insult your intelligence by 'assuming' things. Don't make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'! Do not mislead your children. You might have given up your quests to find your answers. They have a right to decide if they want to be weak or not. Stop spreading myths.
And finally, show those people some respect who dedicated their lives to find the truth that makes our journey easier now. Darwin was not fake. Respect my God please.
Just to be sure no one has misunderstood my voice, I am not anti-religious. I only oppose the 'Theory of intelligent design'.

Save your mama!

2005-11-10T22:51:00.000-08:00

A couple of days back, I saw Maneka Gandhi on India TV discussing the recent rise in killing of wild animals and smuggling of various products thus obtained, especially across the border to Tibet. It seems, wearing animal fur is the new status symbol in Tibet. The statistics she mentioned were shocking. And more shocking was the fact which she emphasized that how easy it is to obtain skin stripped off poor animals gunned down illegally.
She offered solutions as well. But also pointed to the lethargy of the government by stating that not a single offender has been punished for poaching or smuggling animal products in the past few years. Arrests are made, but a couple of months later, one finds the fat scooped out from beneath Tiger skin hanging shamelessly above the law-executers leather waist-belts. Big names are sometimes noticed by the media only to publicize the name more than the felonious crime he/she was a part of.
The situation is very dismal. Laws are there. NGO's are there. Forest security authorities do their best to prevent hunting. But yet the crime is far from achieving a historical status.
Yesterday there was a report in the newspaper about Orrissa government planning to 'denotify' a part of a sanctuary, to allow mining of bauxite by an Anglo-Australian company. I wonder if the world would run out of its aluminium supply if its not obtained from this area adjacent to a homely habitat of tigers, deers, and scores of other mammalian and avian species! They are here only for cheap land and labor.

The photograph above of a night in the forest may be the last reminders we'd tell our grandchildren of the existence of something so beautiful on our planet.
Wildlife conservation is a scientific venture. Its not an issue of sentimentality towards animals who cannot run faster than the bullet chasing them. Its about saving our home. Its more than obvious that once wild animals like tigers and lions are wiped off (by being killed by hunters or perishing after running out of food supply due to killing of prey by hunters), the forest land would be open to fearless human encroachment. And human beings don't live in forests. So forests will have to go. With the flora, all the fauna dependent on it by the rule of evolution, would vanish. How do we think are we going to survive without all that?
We all are aware of the fine balance in an ecosystem, the food chains and webs, we learned them in school. Or did we? Although the market of poaching is dominated by the not-so-educated class, the buyers are mostly the effluent 'educated' ones. I don't want to give stats and details of this killed animal trade, but I am sure that majority of people don't really care that such a dangerous business is flourishing day after day. No wonder the government has bigger issues like illiteracy and poverty to look after(?).
Our planet is perhaps the only one in the entire universe that could support evolution of life so brilliantly that an intelligent species like ours took birth. But it happened over billions of years! I believe that the rule of nature is not extinction of old species but evolution into new species. The more fitter one replaces the worn out ones. And that happens on its own pace. We as meddlers are spoiling perhaps the greatest show in the universe. Also, how much ever hi-tech we become, we are still gonna be homo sapiens. We depend on our mother earth to survive.

The purpose of this post is to spread awareness about spreading awareness among the readers. Look, its high time that we start acting and thinking responsibly. Its for our good and the good of our children. We have to protect our home by at least not harming it. Don't buy wild-animal products, join wwf on line and contribute, plant trees, learn more, use private transport as less as possible. There are a million ways to help us save us. We at the least should take care of ourselves.

The best of HFM

2005-11-09T02:58:00.000-08:00

Whenever I am asked which is my favorite song or movie or artist, I really don't find an answer. But when I recently saw the song from Umrao Jaan, 'dil cheez kya hai...', I realized that I had been ignoring one of the best works of art in the Indian film industry. I liked the song always, but for the first time really appreciated it now.
First, it has the most amazing shaayari by Shahryar. Words sound magical when they come heading towards the expected, but just at the climax, beat around what was imagined and hit you right at the heart. Then the poetry is composed into mousiqee by Khaiyyam. The notes are blended perfectly with the lyrics. A suspicious descent, a brief pause when the listener imagines and then a sudden joyous revelation that completes the line and leaves one dazzled. Perfect timing of the sarangi. Flawless singing! Asha Bhosle has lived all her songs and this is no exception.
What really amazed me was the way it has been performed by Rekha. Mostly we see actors expressing the lyrics of a song. But in 'dil cheez kya hai...' one can see Rekha expressing the song in its entirety, as if she is singing live. She is aware of each and every note, she knows the meaning of every word and she actually means it. And the dance simply goes with the rhythm of the song.
The whole song has a certain mathematical perfection to it. And thats why its so beautiful. I appreciated for the first time the thorough understanding of an artist by another.
I am really proud of the quality art Indian cinema has created from time to time. Its the legendry works like these that all generations would turn to, to feel the beauty of creativity.

click here and enter a search on the left for dil cheez kya hai to listen to the song...

Life of the Rich and Famous

2005-11-03T04:28:00.000-08:00

He bought a million dollar house when he was seventeen. Two years later, he bought a house for 8.3 million dollars. He owns eight cars. He gets the stores closed for the public while he's shopping. This and much more is a part of the life of singer Justin Timberlake.
But that don't impress me much because I know, that there are people who have bought entire islands. Boy! Are they rich!
I was watching VH1 this morning which enhanced my pool (actually, cesspool) of knowledge about the rich and famous.
My 3BHK terrace apartment looked like a dump in front of Justin's tour bus.
There is a part of my brain that keeps imagining ahead of my thoughts. While I was watching, I suddenly imagined Mr. Timberlake sitting next to me on the couch, watching TV on a lazy morning. What would he feel like to be here, at my place? And then as I was staring at him in wonder, my eyes suddenly caught a glimpse of his @$$. (I didn't keep looking as I don't find him particularly handsome.) Next thought, Mr. Timberlake, you sure own a lot of real estate, but your @$$ hardly occupies more space than mine! (Of course, some people are poor even in that area. Ref: Dnyanesh's most recent write-up.)
Okay, don't judge the direction of my thoughts as yet. But before elaborating, I'd like to mention one more random thought. Now, he is a pop icon. Millions of people listen to his music. If someone could manage to extract one dollar each from one million people, then he can surely buy a big house like him. Of course, Justin has earned it. But when you think of it, he got a share of his money from the disc that I have in my collection. I don't know why, but the thought is amusing.
Anyways, so I was talking about...no lets not get there again. My point was, he too is a human being like me. My fellow Homo sapiens.
So what is it that really makes me different from the rich and the famous. Well, to begin with, I am not rich or famous. But, what is 'it' in essence? They can buy whatever they like without thinking twice. They can go wherever they want. But no. I refuse to accept. Thats not 'it' really. They can have toilet seats of gold! Wow! Must feel really cold!
Toilet seats of gold, do they really feel different? Can they really make someone feel rich and famous while using it?
Oh! So 'this' is what I was looking for. (Again, don't be quick to imagine!)
They can do whatever they want to fill up their senses. Yes, it all comes down to sensory gratification. To feel good!
Next thought, can making yourself feel in a certain way really be your purpose? Of course, its everyone's purpose to be happy. But can that be ever categorized as something achievable? Happiness comes our ways and it only depends on our capacities to recognize it.
Or was I thinking I would be filled with joy when I saw a child smile at me so joyously, flashing his only pair of incisors? Am I actually making efforts to be happy before I know I can smell the rain? Did I know how heavenly it feels when a newborn gently grasps my little finger? Did I know how peaceful it would be before I sat by the side of the sea listening to it? Did I dream of the butterfly before its beautiful colours held my sight? Did I anticipate the smile on my mother's face when she saw me enjoying her new recipe? Did I plan out before rolling on the grass that this is the day's plan to be happy? Or before lying on my back in the field and trying to see as far as possible, beyond the skies?
No, I didn't know that its so beautiful to see the moon on a cloudy night. Or to see the clouds crowning lush green mountains. I did not know that watching the documentary on sub-atomic particles on discovery or the one on rehabilitation of orphaned cubs on animal planet is going to make me happy. I didn't know before reading Dan Brown that it would be so interesting.
I wasn't really hunting for happiness when my friend greeted me with the most genuine smile ever. But it made me happy.
My senses have been filled up from time to time and I've only taken notice of it when I saw myself smile in the mirror. Happiness is not something you chase. Its something that walks along with you, perhaps within you, all the way to your goal.
I don't call these as simple pleasures of life. I think owning an island too is simple if you are capable of it. Simple varies with the subject. These pleasures have never been the purpose of my life. I dream and I dream big. I want to reach for the stars. But I welcome life with open arms. I want to take everything it gives to me. Be it happiness or pain. My goal is what I've chosen to give it. But when I reach there, I want to be happy already. So that when I look back, I know I've lived my life.
So if you cannot feel more happiness than me Mr. Timberlake, your @$$ can hardly book more space than mine!

A heartfelt thought.

2005-10-25T07:39:00.000-07:00

I could see her stalled behind the fence. She had just arrived and already set to go. And I knew, to wait for me was not one of her priorities. But I had to make it to her or... Without a nano-second's pause, I leapt upto the stairs. I frantically climbed up- 4-5 steps at a time. I had just recovered from acute bronchitis and had Grade 2 dyspnea (ATS classification). But it did not matter. Nothing mattered. I had to catch this 8.32.
I jumped into it as it started moving. I was greeted with astonishment by the ladies standing in the first class cubicle. (By no measures is that a compartment!) Obviously. Suddenly out of no where I appear with a rather loud thud, gasping for breath, wheezing and then coughing my lungs out. I must have looked real sick, but they didn't know how triumphant I felt on not having to wait another 5 minutes on the platform. I felt like a victor in my heart, so what if I was dead in my lungs! Spirit of Mumbai!
By the time next station came, I had paid off some of the "oxygen debt". Now I was comfortably standing facing against the wind near the door of the compartment. Train-travelers would know that that place is only second to a seat one can manage to grab against the wind's direction. I wore my headphones and switched on the radio. They play beautiful songs in the morning. (Especially 107.1o). My beautiful day had begun.
By the time the next station came, I was struck by a strange realization. There was place to stand next to me, yet women preferred to stand opposite to me. Well, don't start to imagine. I was surprised that they were standing in the windless zone, which is unusual. Then I looked a little beyond and I realized why.
I was standing facing the second class men's compartment. They faced first class men's compartment. Class preference or what, I thought.
Amused by my discovery, I ran a quick scan on the men facing me, careful enough not to stop at any face to establish an eye contact and give the wrong signal that I was staring at THEM. About 99% of them were actually 'looking' at the women in my compartment. Few faced the opposite side, perhaps taking a break. I was further amused. Man! The guts these people have to flaunt their degree of sexual inclination so openly! A train of thoughts started running. These men, the hard working men, pushing their physical capacities beyond the limit everyday, never cribbing about the under-payment, almost all of these men must be married. Their women, being different only in sex, enduring the same life everyday as them. These 'second class' men look at these 'first class' women with admiration of a life that they can't even dream of. Educated, intellectual, self-respecting, outspoken, vain women. They never knew such a species existed until now. I thought, they must be probably pleasantly intimidated by these women. Although they never appreciate the similar substance of the women they return to every night, they sure admire the apparent "women of substance" respectfully now. Their amazement felt like a child's bewilderment when he visits the zoo for the first time. Only here no one's in a cage. There's just a barrier. Thrilled by the sheer marvel of the poise these women displayed.... " Stupid, idiot! Let me go! Let me go you b@#*&@!"
Someone suddenly pulled the chain of my thoughts! The train was halted at the busiest station on harbour line. A woman shouting these words ran into my compartment, almost stamping the feet of another standing opposite to me. She looked furious! As she began settling down and adjusting her dupatta, I looked in the direction from which she came half a second ago. As the train started moving, I saw a group of men the woman must have torn through to catch this train. In a moment I understood what must have happened. I didn't need to realize the thought in words in my mind. I only felt the mixture of feelings that a girl is made familiar with in our society.
Reflexly, I looked up again. I saw those men turned towards me. In another moment I turned my face away, in disgust, anger, embarrassment and most strongly of all, fear...

Interesting

2005-10-20T01:44:00.000-07:00

I got this as a mail. Thought I should put it up here. Few of the facts below really surprised me... read on...
VERY INTERESTING AND INFORMATIVE THINGS
1) If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on your right side. If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food on your left side
2) If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. Forwhen ahuman body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.
3) Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
4) Your tongue is germ free only if it is pink. If it is white thereisa thin film of bacteria on it.
5) The Mercedes-Benz motto is 'Das Beste oder Nichts' meaning 'thebestor nothing'.
6) The Titanic was the first ship to use the SOS signal.
7) The pupil of the eye expands as much as 45 percent when a person looks at something pleasing.
8) The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep anight.
9) Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immunesystem. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day.Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.
10) The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear isnotthe ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.
11) Dalmatians are born without spots.
12) Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
13) The 'v' in the name of a court case does not stand for 'versus',butfor 'and' (in civil proceedings) or 'against' (in criminal proceedings)
14) Men's shirts have the buttons on the right, but women's shirts havethe buttons on the left
15) The owl is the only bird to drop its upper eyelid to wink. Allotherbirds raise their lower eyelids
16) The reason honey is so easy to digest is that it's already been digested by a bee
17) Roosters cannot crow if they cannot extend their necks
18) The color blue has a calming effect. It causes the brain to releasecalming hormones
19) Every time you sneeze some of your brain cells die
20) Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room foryourheart
21) The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate
22) When you blush, the lining of your stomach also turns red
23) When hippos are upset, their sweat turns red
24) The first Harley Davidson motorcycle was built in 1903, and used a tomato can for a carburetor
25) The lion that roars in the MGM logo is named Volney
26) Google is actually the common name for a number with a millionzeros
27) Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan
28) It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titanic and 200 million tomake a film about it
29) The attachment of the human skin to muscles is what causes dimples
30) There are 1,792 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower
31) The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually thesoundof nitrogen gas bubbles bursting
32) Human hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
33) It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle the wholebody
34) The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets
35) Most soccer players run 7 miles in a game
36) The only part of the body that has no blood supply is the cornea in the eye. It takes in oxygen directly from the air
37) Every day 200 million couples make love, 400,000 babies are born,and140,000 people die
38) In most watch advertisements the time displayed on the watch is10:10because then the arms frame the brand of the watch (and make it look like it is smiling.)
39) Colgate faced big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speakingcountries. Colgate translates into the command "go hang yourself."
40) The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning itshead are the rabbit and the parrot
41) Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair
42) The average person laughs 13 times a day
43) Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are:Mizaru(Seeno evil), Mikazaru(Hear no evil), and Mazaru(Speak no evil)
44) Women blink nearly twice as much as men
45) German Shepherds bite humans more than any other breed of dog
46) Large kangaroos cover more than 30 feet with each jump
47) Whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound
48) Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty ofsending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all twothousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded, trampling the two hapless protesters to death
49) **If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legsin the air, the person died in battle;
**if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; **if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural cause.
50) The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood30 feet!!

Imperfection

2005-09-11T04:16:00.000-07:00

That morning seemed no different than those I had been waking up into for the past 20 years. I got ready for college. I had to be there in another 1 hour. Standing in front of the mirror I thought that I must start-off in 10 minutes or I'll be late. I realized that my hair looked worse than normal. I noticed this bunch of hair-strands that belonged to the right side of the partition but now they insisted on remaining on the left. Cross-border terrorism, I thought, must have slept on the wrong side. I forced them to go back but they remained twisted like a dog's tail. I applied gel. But they had decided to give me a bad-hair-day.
On my way to college I couldn't help thinking about the reason why everyone was looking at me differently, or so I felt. I was constantly kneading my hair in the hope that may be the lost ones will find their way back and stay there for the rest of the day. I grumbled in my mind about the wind coming from the bus' window.
I just made it to college in time. I went to the medicine ward where rounds had already begun. The head of the unit was seeing all the patients. I joined my batch-mates trying not to be too conspicuous as I was late. But I was so sure that my stupid hair would make my seniors take notice of me! Nothing happened though.
Within two beds, I had totally got absorbed in what the doctors were discussing about each patient. On the next bed, the patient was a young boy who looked hardly 6-7 yrs old. I thought, why is this child not admitted in the pediatric ward? He looked at me and I instantly gave into his cute innocence. Next moment I realized I was reflecting back his credulous smile. He looked pretty healthy to me. I expected the doctors to discharge him today. When everyone moved to his bed, I noticed a lean, dark, tall man, dressed in a shirt and white pajamas, wearing a Gandhi-topi, a typical 'Marathi manus' standing next to the child's bed. The man must have been in his thirties, I presumed he was the father. When both father and son started looking expectantly at the doctor, I felt that the child showed much maturity on his face than his age should allow.
"This child is 14 yrs old..." I suddenly jerked my head towards my mam who started explaining the 'case' to us. I was astonished! The kid was hardly 3 feet tall, not very thin but thats all. "We did his growth hormone levels and they came below normal..." After explaining to us, she turned to the father who couldn't look more obliged to the doctor for talking to him. She explained the condition to him the way he could understand. When she started telling him about the treatment, both of them suddenly grew curious. Mam told them flatly that the hormone must be supplemented. The cost would come around Rs. 20,000 per month. The man was still listening but gradually his eyes and then the rest of the face started showing disappointment. I looked at his son, his head was already hanging down. Then mam started instructing the Registrar to write a letter to the Medical Social worker, mentioning that the man was a farmer with very meager earnings.
The son tried to look into his father's eyes, but abruptly turned away, as if a confession of his father's helplessness would suddenly fade away the final traces of faith the man had in himself. Both of them stared into blank space. I tried to catch the kid's eyes to say goodbye as the unit had moved on to the next bed. Those eyes that sparkled with naive mischief a few moments ago, were now drowned in tears of sheer hopelessness. His future was arrested by the money his poor father couldn't produce. His soul shattered, his dreams demolished... Yet he sympathized with his father, trying his best to avoid the reality by which his world came crashing down. He kept silent.
"Whats wrong with your hair?" My friend asked. I turned away from the boy, "Nothing, nothing is wrong with me..."

Spriha in Solapur!- episode 3

2005-08-28T00:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys I kept you waiting for a long time. Was a bit down on the creativity front recently. Lets see what quality I deliver this time anyways.
The Ragging:
My views about this ancient form of welcoming a new batch have changed considerably since the days when I used to suffer it. But the story is interesting nevertheless.
There were certain rules in the girls' hostel that all juniors had to follow:-
1. Wear salwar kurta for 24 hrs. Not even pajamas at night. (Those who know me would find it hard to believe that I ever wore salwar kurta. But believe it or faint, I wore them 24x7! Of course, I had pockets in all my kurtas.)
2. Address seniors as mam.
3. Wish every senior when you run into them according to the time of the day by bowing exactly 90 degrees.
4. No TV. (There was one in the mess. No cable. Only DD1. What a useless rule!)
5. No wandering outside your room.
6. All long hair to be oiled and tied in a tight plates. (I have short hair.)
7. All short hair to be oiled and clipped or pinned. (I never did that.)
8. Wear a bindi. (Now that was it! I straight away refused saying that unmarried women don't wear bindis in my religion. That was the only time in my life that my religion proved to be of some use.)
9. No aprons to be worn in college outside the labs.
10. Obey every thing else seniors had to say.
Well, the first day when we were ragged, I hardly knew what human beings are actually capable of. So I tried to be my normal self (which by the way, is not so normal). I didn't feel nervous at all.
We all were called in one of our own batchmate's room. First thing they always asked us to do was to stand in the anatomical position! For the non-medics, we had to stand straight with palms facing forwards, feet making a V, chin up, but eyes down. (Thats not anatomical.)
I tell you, that position is definitely not physiological. We would get so tired by the end of each session.
Oh yes, we had many sessions of ragging. Whenever they found time, they called us to entertain them. And they weren't so busy at the beginning of their own terms.
After scolding those whose anatomy didn't permit them to be in the exact anatomical position and teasing sarcastically the rest of us, they'd ask us to introduce ourselves. Now the introduction had to be given in only one language entirely, either Marathi or Hindi. Not even English numbers were allowed. I knew as much Marathi as I knew Hebrew, so my intro went like- "Mera naam kumari spriha pandey hai. Main Mumbai mein rehti hoon. Mere pitaji....blah blah.... meri mataji....blah blah.... Mujhe sarv sadharan pravesh pareeksha (CET) mein paanch sou iktalisvaan sthaan prapt hua. Barahvi ki pareeksha mein mujhe --dasamlov-- ank prapt hue...." Phew!!! It went longer than this. If we made any mistake anywhere or used any english then we were made to repeat the whole thing again. If people said any inappropriate word in between like sheh! or shuh! then they were made to end all their sentences with that word or phrase! I remember once they asked me where do I hail from. I said, "I'm basically from Kanpur, UP, but I've been..." I was interrupted ,"So where are you from acidically?" "And neutrally?" Aargh! I told myself. They would catch us on any silly points like that. They asked me my hobbies and talents. I never had one of those stuff. I'm hardly evolved. First time, I went too inviting and said I like to think. Thinking is my hobby! Made a total fool out of myself. They gave me stuff to think about and talk on in the next session. My batchmates must have been thankful to me that I ate most of the time of that particular session.
Next time I told them that I like 'songs'. (Why didn't I say music?) They asked what kind of 'songs'? I said, 'soft songs'! So what are hard songs? What are firm songs? What the hell! I ended up singing Rafi's 'mere mehboob tujhe' that time. They asked me to sing 'ud ja kaale kawan' from Gadar. I hardly sang the first line when they interrupted, 'haan haan, ud gaya chal, kawwa ud gaya'...
It took me hours of humiliation to understand that reading is the most benign hobby. They knew my talent was to entertain them with my dumbness so they never got inquisitive about that.
After the first week, they started making us all do stuff during the sessions! No, it never crossed the boundaries of decency but never entered the area of sensibility either. Mostly we were called during the evening or the night. But it hardly went on after 10.30 ever.
So the stuff they made us do was this. We could choose between dancing and 'thumka'. (This is what I call it.) In thumka, one had push the pelvis on the right when seniors said 'atthanni', to the left on 'chavanni' and jump on 'rupaiyya'. And they went on randomly...atthanni, atthanni, chavanni, attthani, chavanni, rupaiyya, chavanni (Ouch! Hip dislocation!)... I couldn't imagine myself do that!
I was still a virgin at dancing then. (All those people who laughed at me when they saw me 'dance' during socials, I'm trying!)
So when my turn came I decided that I definitely won't do that atthanni, chavanni thing. I liked to look into my eyes every day in the mirror. And I cannot dance like these other girls, even if I try. They let us choose the songs we wanted to dance on. So I said I'll dance on 'ande ka funda' ! While they sang, I did this- Held an imaginary egg in one hand and moved the opposite leg from side to side. They asked me to change the step. I shifted the egg in the other hand and moved the other leg from side to side! But somehow they were happy about the choice of my song. Along with my supportive batchmates, they started clapping on the tune. And I have a very faint recollection of that moment when I went a little delirious out of nervousness, but I think I danced like Rani Mukherji, in Black! (*blush*)
It was hilarious! Actually, I felt like bursting into laughter when many of my batchmates danced, but we were forbidden to give any expression unless asked to. (I was once asked to demonstrate 'sharmaane ke paanch prakaar'.) Few of them had an evolved cerebellum to not make it look like chorea or GTC. Tanmayi is a professional odissi dancer.
My seniors once made me and another girl play imaginary badminton in the room on the beats of 'dhal gaya din ho gayi shaam'. They often asked me to comment on them. What do I think about each one of them. I don't know why...
When we saw Dil Chahta Hai, they asked six of us who'd gone for the movie to do that famous step of 'woh ladki hai kahan' in unison! We asked Tanmayi to teach us before going to the devil's durbar. Apparently all of them got it except me. So, the six of us are standing one behind the other (myself behind Shweta), they sing the song and when the part comes I start moving my hands up and down violently! Suddenly all other dancers turn around and I'm face to face with Shweta who was almost going to explode in a laughter when I also turn around flapping my upper limbs as if I wanted to get rid of them! And I heard the seniors sitting on the beds say, 'spriha ko dekh, look at spriha, spri...ha ha ha ha...' They were doubling with laughter.
While going back to our rooms I asked Tanmayi if there were leg-steps too...
The ragging continued for about a month or so. Then our immediate seniors arrived. By then, we were pretty used to it. We let them have some fun too.
How muchever humiliated or exploited I felt then, when I think about it now I feel that that was an experience of a lifetime! I would have never ever danced on 'ande ka funda' in my life man!

Spriha in Solapur! -episode2

2005-08-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

Two days before my college opened, my whole family came to Solapur. They had to leave the same night...leave the place...leave me...
To tell you frankly, I never thought how much am I going to miss my family before shifting. I was so involved thinking about how I am going to settle in this new place and more importantly, this new profession that it never occurred to me what it would be like living all on my own. Therefore, I never got the hostel blues until...
Well, we spent the whole day in the market shopping for me, actually, buying things of daily need. I don't call that shopping. We went to the zoo in the noon. Suddenly forgetting where I am and what had to come (or rather go) later that night, I re-found with my brother (then 13) my amazement of how magnificent the Bengal Tiger is! My God! They were scary huge! In the evening we went to the Siddheshwar temple. Its lord Shiva's temple and a very old one. Its kept very beautifully though. Its located in the middle of a lake. Coconut trees planted all around. There's a small island in the lake with a single coconut tree too! Wow! I remember so much of it. The breeze was intoxicatingly pure. I started liking my new place.
Finally, my mom, dad and my bro said goodbye to me. They left me at the hostel. those who know me know that I don't express my sentiments too eagerly and overly. So no one cried. My dad called from the station. He told me that my mom was crying. I didn't even talk to her. (Okay! I am what I am and I love my mom!)
Then the feeling started sinking in. Suddenly, I started feeling that I was choking. Someone had left and I couldn't even wait for them! I sat down and wrote some crap in my dear diary. Then I went outside my room and sat on the elevated border of the "aangan". My room-mate hadn't come yet.My neighbour from room no.1 came and sat next to me. She was Shweta Surana from Pune. She told me that she lived in a joint family and thats why she always wanted people around her. I thought, I didn't! (Yes, I am unsentimental and rude!) We talked for a while about our likes and other stuff. I slowly began enjoying the conversation.Then she started telling me the ragging-stories she had heard about this place. A rebel started stirring in me...
Our talk was interrupted suddenly by two seniors over-looking from the railing of first floor. I guess they were reading outside their rooms. One of them shouted aloud and said that juniors are not supposed to be out of their rooms! We went back into our rooms.
I realized that the heaviness I felt few minutes ago was gone. 'This girl's amazing!' I thought. Bloody seniors...!
I fell asleep soon and had a refreshing sleep that night. I guess I was actually tired.
Next morning, I started my first day there. Well, to put it concisely, there were three bathrooms. One didn't have light. Another had a choked drain. The third one was occupied forever. I went in the choked one. I filled up drinking water for me. Went to the mess and had my breakfast. I guess it was poha and tea. (I never eat poha at home.) Seniors ogled at us there also with hunger in their eyes and spoons in their mouths!
I met Shweta and few other people my mom had introduced me to the previous day. Strangely, I didn't classify them as urban or not urban then. I was really raw. ( Now I'm rotten!) I'll tell you more about my batch-mates later.
There was a bus meant for first yr students at VMMC. Seniors had two-wheelers. We all went and sat inside the bus. Then the boys of my batch came. Whoa! I'll describe subsequently. I spoke to another girl called Vidisha Mahajan, again from Pune. I had learnt from last night that one should talk to strangers in a strange place. Earlier that day I had been spoken to by Tanmayi Dhamankar from Pune. She was really sweet and all I could say to her was, "Are you satisfied by the hygiene standards of the toilets?"
These girls I'm mentioning went on to become my best friends later.
In the college, our dean Dr. Yemul addressed us for the first time. (What is it with deans and Y's?) He was young. He spoke well. He was funny. He wore denim.
We had many introductory lectures that day. The lecture halls were named after ancient Indian physicians- Dhanwantari, Sushrut, I can't remember more. Our bus brought us back to the hostel where we had lunch. I didn't like it. The food at my mess was too spicy and oily.
We went back to the college. We were taken to the dissection hall then. I didn't feel a bit uncomfortable looking at the cadavers lying 'naked' on a dozen tables. I looked at Shweta. She was 'staring' at one and her face showed utter disgust! She told me that she's a Jain, so its difficult for her. We were told the basic rules of the dissection hall. An introduction was given. I was really impressed by the professors out there on the first day.
When we returned to the hostel in the evening, we were quite tired. I thought I'll have something to eat and take some rest later. We never knew that we had been waiting for by our rulers...

Spriha in Solapur! -episode 1

2005-08-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

I am Spriha Pandey. Jabse hosh sambhala hai, I've been living in Mumbai. I hail from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. I have no relatives in Maharashtra outside Mumbai.
Solapur is a fairly large 'townish' city in the interiors of Maharashtra (towards South, if at all you care to know...) which is inhabited by mostly Maharashtrians and people from Karnataka (what are they called?). It has one big luxurious 3 star hotel, two 3 star restaurants, two good ice-cream parlors, a few good Chinese food hangouts, a zoo, a lake, the famous Siddheshwar temple, a bunch of ROTTEN movie theatres, few engineering colleges, one MEDICAL college, lots of cyber-cafes and innumerable donkeys!
I lived for over 3 months in Solapur, alone!
It so happened, that when my MH-CET results were declared for the 'first time', my rank was 545. It was suggested by the after-results-self declared-career counselors that I must go to a government medical college if I'm getting one, even if its situated on 2003UB313! Solapur's Dr. Vaishampayan memorial medical college; est:1956, has a good reputation. There are several trains Mumbai-Solapur (an overnight journey). So it was on my list and in my destiny. On the day of councelling, it was on my selection letter.
The very next day, me and my dad left for the place where I was to live the next 4.5 years of my life. The moment I stepped outside the railway station, I thought I'll have to go back from here, I mean, when I'd visit home- a very trivial background thought, but I remember clearly. We reached there early in the morning.We needed a place to get fresh. Just outside the station, there were several lodges. I dunno what else I can call them. It had rained there and the area seemed pretty busy. So it was dirty.
We chose the least dirty looking place for the couple of hours we needed. All I remember of that room is that it was dark, dirty, stinking of vomitus, dirty, the bed was damp, the walls were stained by paan ki pichkari, the loo was dark, dirty and had the weirdest architecture ever! (I've learnt about 13 types in PSM, believe me!) We had to leave the same night so we didn't waste any time and...*gulp*...adjusted.
We ate wada-paav and caught a rick to the college.
The smell of the vomitus got stuck in my head.
My God! The college was huge! The hospital was situated on the other side of a road dividing the two. It was a district centre. A tertiary centre.
The office wasn't open yet so we decided to go to the hostel.
A hostel? I am going to stay in a hostel? I was struck by the full realization of this fact only when I saw it. For the first time since my CET exam, was I nervous.
The hostel was located at about 10 minutes distance by a rick from the college. Don't be surprised. It was a huge campus, with several double storied buildings and lots of greenery and it was shared by the police's colony. We had the comissioner's office just behind our hostel and our dean's house in front.
The building for UG girls was the first one. It was a quadrangular building with rooms on the sides and open space in the centre. Two badminton courts were built there. (Sporty, you said? Girls used the nets to dry their clothes!) There was a huge mess opposite the entrance. (Mess= a place to eat where you cannot choose the menu.)
The smell of the vomitus...
My dad wasn't allowed inside. We did the paper work outside.
The rector (I always found this post funny!) asked me to choose a room. I thought room number one was closest to the entrance and the phone so that would be good. (Mobile phone revolution hadn't occurred yet.) But it was already booked so I gladly settled down with room number two. (Mistake # 1)
My dad requested the officials over there to allot my room to someone form Mumbai or Pune. It was a two-seater. I don't know what my dad was thinking, but my room-mate to-be was beyond anyone's imagination!
I took a round of the ground floor. I spoke to a senior (probably, final year) about the place. She was a PMTite and fine. Some other seniors passed by, looking at me with hungry eyes. Some stared from the first floor. And I looked straight back into their eyes! (Mistake # 2)
We met my local guardian to be- Gauri Kulkarni studying in 3rd/2nd, i.e, a senior! She was from a place called Tarapore where my family used to live till I was four. ( My dad works in BARC. Tarapore has two atomic power plants.)
She was very sweet and refrained from ills like ragging. I felt safe talking to her.
We opened a bank account, came back to the college and did all the required work. I got the idea that the office people are going to be someone I'll have to see often and whom I'll have to tolerate the most. The smell stayed with me whenever I sat down to eat. The day ended uneventfully and we returned to our home next morning, without the smell..
(to be continued...)

Frozen egg (not human!)

2005-07-31T07:09:00.000-07:00

This is an egg. It froze in my refridgerator and the yolk inside expanded. When it was taken out, I took this picture.

SARKAR

2005-07-31T01:23:00.000-07:00

"Sarkar ko khatm karana aur sarkar ki soch ko khatm karna, do alag baatein hain..."
-Sarkar
Or something like that... I saw this movie yesterday. A typical RGV flick, splendid direction, good pace, flawless performances...a superhit beyond any doubts.
On the other hand, on exploring this creation from an artistic point of view, I think that Sarkar tries to address one of the very basic fundamentals of our social structure but ends up getting lost in its own plot and characters, letting the thought just surface in the one line written on the top. Power, is the theme of the movie, but what is power, who has it and who decides that, are some questions that are left to the empty minds of viewers like me to juggle with.
The theme has been relevant since the birth of life. But I am not referring to the power to do something,i.e, one's capacity. I am talking about a more dangerous version of it- the power to control. It is then, that a person of capabilities similar to mine can determine the course of my life. When someone has that power, my success is not judged by what I achieve. It depends on what he decides to give me.
Think about your exams. Does it sound relevant now? Its just one example of the misery the power of authority can bring to an individual. You must have had a teacher, a professor, a boss, a higher authority who must have terrified you more than Osama. (He still tops the list though!) Despite being a far better human being than millions of your contemporaries in your own way, you now had to behave, dress up, walk, talk, come and go, eat and sleep and do everything else you did your way, the way he(/she) wanted you to. Its not that what he(/she) wanted you to do was wrong or the way you existed was wrong. Its just that your ways were different because you two were different. Thats the essence of individuality. And that was what you had to sacrifice because he had the power to waste 6 months of your life. (thats what they do to med students... Sad, isn't it?)
Man is NOT a social ANIMAL. He is not social because he is not an animal. Yes, we need society for our survival, but our instincts are far from social. We respect our individuality. We respect our differences. Our intelligence doesn't allow us to be otherwise.
The power to control one's life seeds fear in his mind. My life is a statement of me. It should say who I am. A scared person who can't live his own life can't make use of his own capacities. With the suppression of his individuality, the controller destroys every talent he possessed. All roads to expression and hence materialisation of his ideas are blocked. This is the most basic level at which power operates. An afraid individual can't give his best. How can a society, a nation or the whole mankind for that matter, progress when its afraid of the power that controls it?
Therefore, I don't understand what is the aim of those who want power. To me, it seems like the blind chase for money, when you don't know what you want to do with it. You go on accumulating without an aim or a dream. Its like an endless, dark pitfall made of greed. To give one the authority to fail a student is not empowering him. It totally depends on the individual how he uses it-as a weapon to dictate or as an incentive to make people perform better. But once the sensibility to use it positively is overcome, there is no limit to how illogically destructive one can become. And the most important part is played by those who submit to the power, those who let themselves be controlled. More often than not, they don't have a choice. But when they do make a choice, a revolution is born.
It all begins with a thought.
So do you think that being powerful actually means having control on others?
Do you think its the power of the suppressed to empower his suppressor which is greater?
Or do you think its good that you have the power to close this window and never come back again?
Do respond.

Just a Hi...

2005-07-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody. First of all, I'd like to thank Shivanand Sheth for unintentionally inspiring me to create my own blog. After regularly visitng his own blog for over a week, I realized that the world deserves something better! Oh no.. Just kidding. Actually, I really appreciate the fact that Shiv is always the first person in my class to start or at least, start following something new. Those who know him, need no proof of that and those who don't know him, need not know him! Anyways, thank you Shiv.
Do keep visiting my page. I'll try my best to steal time from my busy life...you know stuff like, tv, movies,movies,tv...and update it regularly. And I'd most appreciate it if you could opine on my posts.