Heart Beats

Why such brief candles?

2012-02-11T20:12:00.000-08:00

I was watching the movie “ The Tree of Life” the other day. Honestly, I couldn’t connect all the pieces together the first time I saw the movie. It can mean completely different things for completely different kinds of people. The Tree of Life is about everything. About life, nostalgia, love, loss, hatred, anger, nature, grace, forgiveness, redemption, and everything else that could be there in life. The scenes are incredibly beautiful, as perfect as they could be and looks out of this world. The Tree of Life is a series of fragmented memories of a young man named Jack (Sean Penn) who reminisces his childhood memories as a young boy , and the polar relationships between his graceful, loving mother (Jessica Chastain), and his strict, disciplinary, and sometimes angry father (Brad Pitt). It is a simple family entwined in love,the kind we see in everyday life.

And,somewhere in the middle of the movie, there was this scene when the Brian family attends the church on a Sunday morning and listens to a sermon.It really struck me as I listened to it again and again. It haunted me.

The Book of Job explores the myth that we inhabit a world in which people who live virtuously inevitably receive blessing, while those who do evil, always suffer a painful fate. The story of the tragedies that fell upon virtuous Job, demonstrates that there is nothing in life that can protect us from the possibility of pain.The story of Job is quoted often when one gets angry at God and when misfortunes befall.

“Job imagined he might build his nest on high – that the integrity of his behavior would protect him against misfortune. And his friends thought, mistakenly, that the Lord could only have punished him because secretly he’d done something wrong.

But, no, misfortune befalls the good as well. We can’t protect ourselves against it. We can’t protect our children. We can’t say to ourselves, even if I’m not happy, I’m going to make sure they are.

We vanish as a cloud. We wither as the autumn grass, and like a tree are rooted up.
Is there some fraud in the scheme of the universe? Is there nothing which is deathless? Nothing which does not pass away?

We cannot stay where we are. We must journey forth.

We must find that which is greater than fortune or fate. Nothing can bring us peace but that.

Is the body of the wise man, or the just, exempt from any pain? From any disquietude, from the deformity that might blight its beauty, from the weakness that might destroy its health?

Do you trust in God?

Job, too, was close to the Lord. Are your friends and children your security? There is no hiding place in all the world where trouble may not find you. No on knows when sorrow might visit his house, any more than Job did.
The very moment everything was taken away from Job, he knew it was the Lord who’d taken it away. He turned from the passing shows of time. He sought that which is eternal.

Does he alone see God’s hand who sees that He gives, or does not also the one see God’s hand who sees that He takes away? Does he alone see God who sees God turn His face towards him? Does not also he see God who sees God turn his back?"

The sermon is a profound piece of theology, a beautiful piece of poetry, and a deep well of spiritual wisdom and insight.

“Is there nothing which is deathless? Nothing which does not pass away?”

“The Tree of Life” also offers an answer in the voice of Mrs. O’Brien when she declares, “Unless you love, your life will flash by… Do good, wonder, hope.”

There are only two routes through life: “the way of nature and the way of grace.” Grace is abundant in the story’s mother figure, the pious and loving Mrs. O’Brian and a sufferer of the most awful of all tragedies – the death of a child, her middle son in his late teens. How he died we never learn, but the rest of the film can be seen as a reaction to his cruelly shortened life and to the question it inevitably poses.....Why? Why such a brief candle?

At the boy's funeral, a pastor tells Mrs. O'Brien "He's in God's hands now" and she replies with something like... "He should be in my hands." I could not think of a better answer than hers. Perhaps that answer is the one which shook me up.Whenever I hear of the death of a young child, I am reminded of my own personal loss. Why? Why such a brief candle?

A lingering fragrance

2012-01-02T06:57:00.000-08:00

Two years of sadness and painful memories. Along with that , the lingering fragrance of the sweetness she was. A short time where she filled our lives with a gentleness and warmth that touched all lives around her. Who are we to decipher the intricacies and madness of nature? If everything went on according to rules, probably life would have lost all its charm. Still, the pain it inflicts on those left behind is fathomless.

Everything good in this world reminds me of her. She was all the goodness wrapped in a gift wrap, and got stolen.

It is two years since Sheri has left us. It feels like yesterday, because her presence is so strong and the memories so gripping. It is painful to write, so I just put together some thoughts.

Death is the ultimate reality after birth, an experience that touches all members of the human family. Death transcends all cultures and beliefs; there is both commonality and individuality in the grief experience. When a loved one dies, each person reacts differently. A child's death, however, is such a wrenching event that all affected by it express sadness and dismay and are painfully shaken for the rest of their lives...

A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. But...there is no word for a parent who loses a child, that's how awful the loss is! (Neugeboren 1976,

Children are not supposed to die...Parents expect to see their children grow and mature and outlive them. Ultimately, parents expect to die with the care and comfort of their children...This would be the natural course of life events, if the life cycle continued as it should. The loss of a child is the loss of innocence, the death of the most vulnerable and dependent. The death of a child signifies the loss of the future, of hopes and dreams, of new strength, and of perfection. ( Arnold and Gemma 1994)

Bereaved parents continue to be parents of the child who died. They will always feel the empty place in their hearts caused by the child's death; they were, and always will be, the loving father and mother of that child. Yet, these parents have to accept that they will never be able to live their lives with or share their love openly with the child. So they must find ways to hold on to the memories. Many bereaved parents come to learn that "memories are the precious gifts of the heart... [that they need] these memories and whispers, to help create a sense of inner peace, a closeness" (Wisconsin Perspectives Newsletter, Spring 1989).

Nothing can change the fact that this child is considered a part of the family forever, and the void in the family constellation created by the child's death also remains forever.

Parental grief is boundless. It touches every aspect of the parent's being...The range of expression of parental grief is wide. Despite the volumes of work on grief, the experience of grief seems to defy description... Definitions touch the fringes of grief but do not embrace its totality or reach its core...Grief is a complicated, evolving human process. Grief is a binding experience; its universality binds sufferers together. (Arnold and Gemma 1991)

The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open; this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. ( Washington Irving, The Sketch Book ,)

• Parental grief is overwhelming; there is nothing that can prepare a parent for its enormity or devastation; parental grief never ends but only changes in intensity and manner of expression; parental grief affects the head, the heart, and the spirit.

• For parents, the death of a child means coming to terms with untold emptiness and deep emotional hurt. Immediately after the death, some parents may even find it impossible to express grief at all as many experience a period of shock and numbness.

But in time... nature takes care of it; the waves of pain lose intensity a little and come less frequently. Then friends and relatives say the parents are getting over it, and that time heals all wounds. But I seriously doubt any length of time will heal the wounds. This is a constant pain you don’t want to get away with. That pain reminds me of the best part of my life I shared with a sweet ,innocent child.

I love to nurture this wound, lest I lose the sweetest of my memories.

A tomorrow that never was

2011-11-27T08:57:00.000-08:00

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”(Oscar Wilde)

Last week, two farmers committed suicide in my place. They had struggled all their lives to make a living, but instead, accumulated only debts and decided to end their lives . Their families will continue the same struggle for the rest of their lives too. I have often wondered at the way life goes. Some people live comfortable lives not by virtue of their efforts, but by a matter of sheer luck. Others toil their whole lives making ends meet. But those ends never meet. If you are poor, life is difficult. No one will even lend you money. For those who have, there is no need to ask. It is all the more difficult if you are poor and sick. Then there are others who have money, but forget to live.

I was not going to write about poverty and money matters. It was Chackochan’s death that prompted me to write this.

I had known him from the time I joined the hospital. He was well known at the place as a businessman by that time. His was a rag to riches story. He had come to Khorfakkan as an ordinary laborer and built up a business all on his own, which grew in to a big money making business. He had been living in a cheap dilapidated villa and still sent his wife for a very low income job. He was said to have a palatial bungalow in his home town and many buildings at prime locations which he had leased off. But he lived frugally his all life in that dilapidated rented house; his wife still went to her work place by taxi.

Once when this lady came to me as a patient, I asked her.

“Why do you have to go for work now at this age, you are sick”
“There are lots of expenses, doctor, children are studying, and no money” This lady didn’t have money to buy the medicines I had prescribed and I had to send her away with some sample medicines.
Their house in their home town had a swimming pool and was fully air conditioned. But neither of them ever lived in that house. They never enjoyed the swimming pool because they didn’t know how to swim .All the while, they toiled and lived miserly in that slum like place.

And finally, last week, he made an unceremonious departure from this world.

This is not an isolated story. Half of the expatriates, who live in this part of the world, live their lives this way. They all tighten their belts to make money for the future and finally get old and sick and die, never enjoying the fruits of their labor. Their children live lavishly and lead care free lives and finish off the bounty in no time.

I know many who are rich by the standards here. They buy the cheapest of clothes, the cheapest of whiskies, the cheapest of perfumes and the cheapest of everything they can see. I seriously doubt if they do it as a matter of principle.

We all have this tendency to keep the best for the future. Like keeping the best dress for an occasion, the good food for tomorrow, to finish the stale food in the fridge, but end up eating the back log of stale food every day.

The other day a friend of mine asked me to go to the beach with him. Early in the morning, the weather was cold, the air was fresh and fragrant, the sea was calm and a gentle breeze blew all the time that brought with it the spirit of energy. The sun was simmering at the red horizon far away. We enjoyed a walk along the shore and then bathed in the sea and enjoyed swimming. It was a wonderful day. I was thinking….I have been living in the same place for ten years, I just had to cross the road to reach this sea, but never bothered to go to the sea and enjoy this wonderful pleasures of nature, that came free!

The best things in life are probably free for all of us. People spend thousands of dollars to travel to exotic locations and spend some time at the sea side, and here I am, living by the sea side and never bothering to enjoy that luxury, which was always free for me.

Now a day people kill themselves to eke out a living or improve their living conditions, but they forget to live. In fact, many people don’t live, but they exist and survive each day, for they are too busy, too tired, too stressed and too worried to really enjoy the pleasures of life. There is no going back in time. Thus, hours become days and days become months and years and all those years become a wasted precious life, and what for? To make a better living for tomorrow! A tomorrow that never was.

It is always said that to be successful in life, you have to work hard and never stop, because if you stop, another person will come and take your place. Besides, as the present world demands a lot of effort to survive and keep a decent living, pleasures are the first thing to be put off when wanting to achieve any goal. However, if you postpone your enjoyment until the time money and proper conditions arrive, that time may never come or come too late and you are unable to take care of yourself, leave alone enjoyment.

The strains of modern life force people to live in such a hurry that they don’t have time to enjoy the beautiful world we live in. People forget to take delight of the bonny things nature provides us. It costs no money and takes almost no time.

"This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it." - Thomas Carlyle.

We always want more than what we actually need. People accumulate things for others to enjoy them, for they value their lives by the things they possess, which is a quite sad way of appreciating life.

If at the end of the day we review the day’s tasks and ask ourselves how much we enjoyed the day, we’d probably conclude that we missed another chance of feeling alive. Responsibilities are absolutely necessary as well as a work, career and material things, but life goes beyond that. How many people at the end regret for not taking the opportunities they had to live, to have some adventures and experiences? There is nothing better than to look back your past and be able to say; “I lived and lived very well. I enjoyed life, this world and everything it had given me, I made mistakes, but I learned from them.”

Our time is not eternal. Each second, minute, hour, and day we waste is gone, and gone forever. To overwork for something you won’t enjoy is as silly as having the opportunity to live but to prefer to exist in order to talk about the ones who really live.

Do you have an answer?

2011-10-27T21:38:00.000-07:00

I always used to walk very fast. It had become a habit for me from childhood. Unknowingly, I would also keep my head high and straight. Many have asked me if I had worked in the army! Others concluded that it was because I was so proud that I kept my head high and walked as if I didn’t care for anyone else or the rest of the world. I walked as if I was kept on a cruise control. Even if I tried to walk slowly with all my effort, after some time, I would pick up speed.

Sometime back I was at the corniche for my daily walk. It was a weekend and there were many people perched on the low wall at the sea side, enjoying the sound and sight. The weather was good and I walked enjoying the gentle breeze. I was at my usual speed and suddenly heard a clap and a call

“Sadeek !” (Friend ! )

I was surprised to find it was a young local girl clad in the traditional burkha.

“Shuf ! Minnak phi radar” (Careful! There is a radar ahead!)

I never could believe the girl had such a sense of humor and more than that, the guts. Traditionally, the local girls shy away from outsiders. Times have changed. She had a hearty laugh and so too others who heard it. A group of boys sitting on the other side,probably watching the girl than the sea, clapped and encouraged as well. That was a pleasant evening.

Our hospital was spread out in a very large area. There were long corridors running criss - cross at many levels. I could easily walk about 200 metes from the ward to the out patient clinic. As always, my walk would always be fast and people would think I was running to attend an emergency or the sort. Over time, the staff got used to this, and they would not bother even if I hurried for an emergency.

One day I was on my way to the clinic when I heard the call form Venki. He was our senior male nurse at the emergency. I paused for him.

‘What is your secret, doctor? “He asked as he came near me.
“Of what?”
‘Your speed, doctor, how do you manage to run like a horse at this age?”

I didn’t like the question and specially his mention of my age. That reminded me of my age, which I don’t remember at other times.

He guessed from the expression on my face and just grinned.
“That is a secret I don’t usually share”, I said and walked away

When I reached home, I felt a kind of severe fatigue and tiredness. I went to bed after taking some pain relievers and couldn’t get up from bed for at least three days. Every inch of my body ached and I couldn’t move.

From that day, if I see this guy, I would take a side turn in another direction and escape. Because this has happened to me on more than one occasion.

I don’t know if you would believe such a story, especially from a doctor. But I had the same problem more than once, for it to be a chance. On another occasion he said
“Doctor, you look too young and bright. Look at me, your same age and people ask me why I haven’t retired”
The same day my back ache and kidney stone started giving me trouble and I was forced to bed for a week. My knees started making that crepitus which I had never heard before!

During my younger days, we had some very notorious persons like this in our neighborhood. There was this woman near our home. People would always hide anything good from her. If the mango tree blooms and gets heavily laden and she just looks at the tree and says’ Wow! My goodness, so many mangoes! Can the tree hold them all! And there it goes. The next day you will find all those unripe tiny fruits fallen all around and the weeping tree without a single fruit on it. Or if she looks at a baby and makes a comment “Oh….so cute and healthy looking”, the next day that unfortunate baby would fall sick.

I don’t know how many of you would laugh at this. Last week I made a visit to my old hospital. I met few of my colleagues and then went to the wards. I met someone at the corridor who was notorious for this kind of comments.

“Doctor! You look much better!! You have become ten years younger! You must be happier there? More money...Eh? I am sure there are many good looking girls around as well “

Till this I day I haven’t felt good. Every single day, I have aches and pains. With all my efforts, I manage to go to the clinic and do my work.

Whenever something good happens, I had this tendency to go and tell it to everyone around. I just can’t hold happiness. On one such occasion, a colleague of mine called me aside and said “Babuchayan, there is no need to tell all this kind of matters to everyone. Tell it to only those you think will wish good for you. There will be others in whom jealousy will brew and might think. ..What the hell...how come he gets everything, all goodness comes to him “ , and then the opposite will happen”

I don’t know how to explain these things.A friend tells me it is some kind of bad energy.Well,if you believe in good energy,then there could be bad as well. In medicine,we learn that many illnesses work through the immune system and this system is regulated also by emotional and psychological factors.

A Stitch in time

2011-10-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

The clinic keeps me busy all the time. I had never thought this could be so demanding.And then,when you finish the work,there is always this last patient who walks in.
Today was the deadline for submitting an article for a local magazine.It is meant for the general public and so I tried to make it as non professional as it could be.I haven't written much of medical stuff on the blog,so I thought I would share it with you.

“Doctor,can we accept one more patient?”

It was from the reception. I was going to call it a day and they knew too well that I have never refused a patient.

Khan( Not the real name) walked in limping,his belly first,and then the rest of him.

“It is my toe,doctor, he said,while I was flipping through his thick medical file. He had diabetes for more than ten years,hypertension, and lipid disorder, what we could call the ‘triple jeopardy’. A quick look at his file told me that his diabetes was never under control.His toe looked swollen and discolored and lacked blood supply.I was afraid that he might lose that toe.

‘It is because of your sugar,Khan”, I said. “ Your toe is badly infected and the blood supply is poor”.
He had most of the complications of diabetes. He had vasular problems, neuropathy,and kidney dysfunction.

“When did you see the doctor last? I asked him.

“ Six months back. But I bring medicines from home and take them’

He was no exception. Four months in Family Medical Centre,and I realized that the pattern was not different from what I had seen in the Governmental hospital for ten years.We had always argued and discussed why most of our diabetic patients were not properly controlled.

‘I am taking my tablets every day’. There ends the effort. No adherence to diet or exercise,no proper monitoring and follow ups. While at the diabetes clinic,I had noticed that more than sixty percent of our diabeteics didn’t follow the advices on life style changes.Most of them had uncontrolled diabetes.

“ Well,what is the point of taking medicines if your diabetes and hypertension are not controlled?”

This was a question I always asked patients.

Most of them do not realize the fearful complications of diabetes.

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic condition that can lead to dangerous complications over time. These complications can include:
Coronary heart disease, which can lead to a heart attack.
Cerebrovascular disease, which can lead to stroke. 50% of people with diabetes die of cardiovascular disease (primarily heart disease and stroke).

Retinopathy (disease of the eye), which can lead to blindness. After 15 years of diabetes, approximately 2% of people become blind, and about 10% develop severe visual impairment.
Nephropathy (disease of the kidney), which can lead to kidney failure and the need for dialysis. 10-20% of people with diabetes die of kidney failure.
Neuropathy (disease of the nerves), which can lead to, among other things, ulceration of the foot requiring amputation and affects up to 50% of people with diabetes.

Many of these complications produce no symptoms in the early stages, and most can be prevented or minimized with a combination of regular medical care and blood sugar monitoring. The long-term complications of diabetes are caused by the effect of high blood sugar levels on blood vessels. For most people, a target for fasting blood sugar and for blood sugar levels before each meal is 80 to120 mg/dl (4.4 to 6.6 mmol/L)

A blood test called A1C is also used to monitor blood sugar control; the result provides an average of blood sugar levels during the previous one to three months. An A1C of 6 percent or less is recommended; this corresponds to an average blood sugar of 135 mg/dL.

Diabetes can decrease the blood supply to the feet and damage the nerves that carry sensation. These changes put the feet at risk for developing potentially serious complications such as ulcers. Foot complications are very common among people with diabetes, and may go unnoticed until the condition is severe. It is said that a diabetic should care for his feet,the way a young woman cares for her face.
People with diabetes should examine their feet every day. It is important to examine all parts of the feet, especially the area between the toes. Look for broken skin, ulcers, blisters, areas of increased warmth or redness, or changes in callus formation. Proper foot wear is of extreme importance.

One out of every four citizens of the United Arab Emirates has diabetes and this is one of the highest prevalences in the world. 70% of the UAEpopulation is at risk for developing diabetes according to current indicators. The UAE's diabetes rate of roughly 20 percent for all residents belittles the global average of 5 percent. Though a genetic predisposition can be given as an excuse, it is the striking change in the life style from hardworking nomadic life to an ultramodern,sedentary way of life which could be equally held responsible.

The change in life style is almost universal. I remember,as a child, our games and activities were always physical and outdoor. Now the young and old alike are getting glued to computer and television,with junk food for company.
It is alarming to see diabetes on the rise at such a rapid rate. While new diabetes treatments continue to be developed, the disease continues to rise at an unprecedented rate.

Simple lifestyle changes are proven to be effective to prevent or delay the onset of type II diabetes and control the diabetes in those who have the disease. These include regular physical activity, a healthy diet, weight reduction and smoking cessation.

Khan was attentive all the while.He appeared a bit apprehensive towards the end.

“But why didn’t they tell me about all this from the beginning?” he asked.

This was another issue. Diabetes education is probably the most important part of its treatment. Like in anything else, we lack the time and patience to educate the patient.

Most of the microvascular complications of diabetes are related to the degree and the length of exposure to hyperglycaemia( high blood sugar levels).New data from studies on Diabetes emphasize the role of glucose control early in the course of the disorder and its value in prevention of later complications.The phenomenon of ongoing beneficial effects on diabetic complications after a period of improved glycemic control ,even if followed by a return to usual (often poorer) metabolic control has been described as representing “metabolic memory” or “legacy effect”.Earlier control of blood sugar is of utmost importance to prevent later complications.

“ I will do as you say, doctor”. Khan had become very submissive after listening to my sermon.

“Well,that is a good start,Khan”. There was now a smile of relief on his face.

A time for everything.

2011-09-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

Jose had brought his son to the emergency room for some febrile illness. I knew him and his family quite well.

It was one of my friends who called me from the hospital.

“Jessie’s husband came with his son to the ER. He collapsed there and lost consciousness.”

I was at home. I would usually wait for the call of the resident physician. Many doctors get offended if you go and see a patient without their request. But I knew Jessie too well, she was one of my favorite staff members and I also knew her husband. After a difficult start, he had established a business which was growing very well and every thing was just falling in to places.

Jose had a deep seated bleeding in the brain. We placed him on ventilator and kept him in ICU and later shifted to the care of a neurosurgeon at another center. We wanted him to get the best of options. He died at that hospital with in few days, without regaining full consciousness at any time.

I have seen how difficult it is for a woman to deal with problems after the unexpected death of her husband. Their business was running smooth till then. Many employees and their numbers were on the rise. Works going on at different locations. Payments were due to be submitted to the banks. Money to be collected from clients. Jessie had no idea about any of these. She didn’t have an idea where the bank accounts were. How much money was to be collected and who all were the clients. How to take care of business transactions. Her children had not finished their education. It was as if suddenly the world has fallen apart. She would often just sit in the pantry and pray. I hadn’t seen her cry much. She had some kind of strength from somewhere. She was a strong believer and her faith had helped her. Though I often entered in to arguments with her on matters regarding faith, I had secretly admired her intense faith.

I remembered the movie “Places in the heart’(1984) which I had seen recently.

The Spalding family prays together at the breakfast table. That is how the movie starts. A bite of sandwich and Mr. Spalding gets a call from his work place. He kisses his children, leaves the table and gets shot to death by a drunken boy within minutes of leaving his home.

Edna Spalding finds herself, after 15 years of marriage, with two small children to support, a farm which the bank is about to take over, no money in the bank and no talent for anything except cooking and keeping house.

It is the story of an ordinary, simple woman facing the sudden death of her husband, and fighting for the survival of her children, for her land, and for the greatest dream there is...the future. It is a touching movie. It made me cry.

I remembered this story when I faced Jessie. Hers is not an unusual story. Women who face the sudden death of their husbands are often left with heavy responsibilities and have no idea as to how their husbands were running the show.

It’s very common for women to feel both financially and emotionally lost after her husband dies on .Women are numb, lost, emotionally drained,lonely, fragile, weak, frightened, vulnerable,and occasionally, guilty. Some of these feelings surface and some stay hidden.

Death comes uninvited and often suddenly. It doesn’t give us time to hand over business details or say apologies or to say the much neglected words of love to the loved ones. Instead, there is a sudden destruction of the world you used to know. There is no gradual transition, nor time to make changes in yourself, your expectations about your life, or your world. In sudden death you are called upon to face a massive gap between the way the world should be, with your loved one alive, and the way the world is. The person whom you loved, and who provided you with security, is taken away without any warning. This is a major violation of your expectations.

I have often wondered. What would have happened to us if my father had died suddenly? My mother had never stepped out of our home and had no idea about the outside world. She would never know where my father had kept his accounts. She dint know how to write a bank check, leave alone, to go and buy things for daily needs.

Jessie told me. “I’m not the only one. If other women can get through this, I can too. And my God will guide me through” And she was right. There are millions of widows living with the memories of their husband. If the couple shares things such as bill paying, business information and financial details, you’re a step ahead. If not, now is the time to have your banker or a knowledgeable friend teaches you about money affairs. And to husbands.. now is the time to tell your wives what they ought to know about money matters, and tell them what they do not know about your business.

Sometimes the death of a loved one brings up not only grief for what you lost, but also grief for what you never had and now never will have. For example, if you had a very conflicted relationship with your mother or sibling, when she dies you may grieve not only for what you have lost, but also for the fact that you never had a better relationship with them. You realize you could have improved relationships and given them better care. In such a case you grieve for the past, present, and future.

One can always learn from the mistakes of others. Now is the time to learn and to reconcile if you have reasons to do so.

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live".

I'm back !

2011-08-30T23:42:00.000-07:00

Ramadan is a totally different kind of life here.The day turns around.People sleep in the day time and work at night.It takes time to get adjusted to this change,and by the time you do that, it is over.

Our clinic timings had changed.We worked from morning till one in afternoon and then from eight at night to eleven.Weird timing for a clinic,isn't it?
And today Muslims across the world celebrates Eid. All the good wishes of the season to all.Heaven's choicest blessings be showered on to you all!

Life in the Arab world is different during Ramadan month.The super markets get busier and start stocking food supplies for weeks ahead of the month.Fruits are imported from all over the world.My friends tell me that targets for all sales managers are kept at thrice the average of the usual months.The first thing you notice when you enter any super market is the stacked up food.People fill their car trunks with loads of food material.I find it a paradox and cannot understand why they have to buy so much more when they fast! They probably might be giving to others.Roads are deserted during day time and bustles all through the night.

I had little time to come to the internet.Some old friends used to peep in at my blog to see if I were around.Hepzibah ( NRI girl) was regular at it.She asks “ Hello,any one at home?”It was good to see there are friends who spend time at that.Anil ( Musings) sent regular mails.Balan ( My travels,my life) kept contact as usual.Nasrin gets worried and calls me every time if she doesn't see a new post.

It is difficult to continue writing at all times.As I had written once,the common problem is thaweet Nursing Home't people run out of subjects to write.Well,if we keep to the initial purpose of blogging ( it was supposed to be a daily web log of the sort,where you can write about anything in your daily life.I had seen earlier bloggers who used to write few sentences like "today I went shopping... My little girl is sick and I am taking her to the doctor” and the like. Times have changed and the blog has evolved in to something totally different.

(A social worker’s blog) Doris Plaster sent me a signed copy of her book ' Home Sweet nursing Home'. I felt so happy that she thought of doing it.Some time back,I had suggested to her that she make a compilation of her anecdotes and make them in to a book.And she did it.It is happy to see a fellow blogger becoming a writer,and good at it.She has collected events from her daily life and made them in to wonderful stories in less than fifty words.But each of those small incidents are insights in to human life.If you haven't seen her blog,now is the time to do that.You will be enriched.

There was nothing more worth mentioning. I am getting adjusted to the change of job, but it is not that easy.And I realize the oft written phrase,” there is no perfect situation in life”.

Balan asked me about the quote I had placed at the top of my blog.He felt it applied to his life the way I thought it did to my life. For most of us,at the end,life is like that.Regrets about things we could have done and failed to do.

Life is like that.

Masters of life

2011-08-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

When a 65 year old woman became pregnant and carried the pregnancy in her own womb, it made headlines. The doctors had pumped in hormones in to that woman to prime her uterus and make it younger to be able to accept and carry the gestation. The ovum was fertilized in vitro and then implanted in the uterus. And finally she delivered a healthy young boy. It was all success for the doctors and propaganda for the clinic. They had just defeated the rules of nature and become powerful masters of life and death.

The picture of the mother and child occupied the centre pages of most of the magazines for many months.

Last year, while giving bath , the child just slipped in to the shallow basin of water and was drowned to death. The mother was attending a telephone call. That news also made head lines.

I have seen many such miracles happen at the hands of doctors, but all the years of efforts and success simply wiped clean by a clean sweep in seconds.

It was the sad death of the only child of a friend of mine which prompted me to these thoughts. The lady is soon passing the age of pregnancy, and the child was the result of all kinds of medical advancements. Being a doctor couple, they had used all their resources and professional contacts to get advanced fertility treatments. The child died of an obscure illness last week.

Being a doctor myself, I am likely to get ridiculed when I look suspiciously at the many weird things the present day doctors attempt to do. Advancements in fertilization techniques have given a godly aura to some of the gynecologists. When they think they are able to do something, they start believing they can do every thing. That they are masters of birth and death.

There was a time when couples who had problems to conceive by natural methods would accept it as a matter of destiny, or for those who believe in God, as His choice. Times have changed.

God said "I will make man in My image". Now the human race believes that they can take this prerogative of God and not only make, but design men and women to the image of what they think man should be. With that facility they think they can create people, and therefore they think that they can destroy them as well. And that is happening right in front of our eyes. It is time we realize they have very limited ability to create human life. They only have a limited ability to provide the circumstances under which that life will be created by God, but still they take credit for him. I can see eyebrows rising when I talk about God and creation, still. In fact, the best humans can do is to use nature’s laws of creation by putting together egg and sperm or by cutting the cord that maintains physical life with its creator.

Man's earliest desire of wanting to know has made it possible for him to understand certain things and take pride in them. He then believes he can be like God. He hopes for the supreme power over life and death. And this desire was the reason why we were pushed out of paradise. We are getting impatient and restless with the knowledge we have acquired. And that impatience is leading to all the troubles of the modern world.

“Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise; because of impatience we cannot return.”

Becoming a writer

2011-07-16T23:25:00.000-07:00

There are far too many writers on the internet, especially in the blog world who think of themselves as great writers. After having received some comments like “awesome” ,‘excellent’ ,‘fantabulous’, ‘fantastic’ , ‘brilliant’ and so on, we are inclined to believe that we have written some great stuff and continue writing more or less on the same style, assuming that it has become perfect.

Some of my friends used to invite me for food when my family was away. Over lunch or dinner, the conversation would naturally turn to discussions on food and recipes. The lady of the house would expect to hear compliments on the wonderful creations she has done. If the food was good, I would definitely say so and wouldn’t hesitate to give some compliments. But had it been badly cooked, I wouldn’t say it was good. I was afraid, had I said so, they would make it the same way the next time and then I would have to suffer the same stuff again. Some women think of themselves as good cooks. Their only judges would be their own husbands who would have been afraid to make a proper judgment, for fear of losing his daily food.

I was thinking of blogs the same way I was looking at food. If I get a one word comment like ‘awesome’ and 'brilliant', I don’t usually take that very seriously. Like someone who says the food is good without tasting it.They don’t generally mean it. I am inclined to think that the commenter had probably not read it properly or just wanted to write some comments, the way you mark attendance at the school. You make an opinion to disagree, and there goes a follower!

How to become a good writer is a matter of serious discussion. There are no short cuts other than that you should have the real inherent skills, the way some people become singers and painters. Practice can make you perfect in many other things. But I am not sure if it applies to writing. A writer must be sensitive, emotional and able to react and then express it in a way that it affects the readers.

Even though we would find it difficult to become good writers, there are many ways we can look like and act like one.

When Paulo was young, he told his mother that he wanted to become a writer.*

His mother asked him” Do you actually know what it means to be a writer?’
“Being someone who writes books’
“Your uncle, who is a doctor, also writes books and has even published some. If you study engineering, you can always write in your spare time (She was trying to make it safe for her son, like most of the mothers do)
‘No, Mama. I want o be a writer, not an engineer who writes books’.
‘But have you ever seen a writer? Have you ever met a writer?’
‘Never, only in photographs’
‘So how can you possibly want to be a writer if you don’t really know what it means?’

To answer his mother, he did some research. And this is what he learned.*

(a) A writer always wears glasses and never combs his hair. Half the time he feels angry about everything and the other half depressed. He spends most of his time in bars, arguing with other disheveled, bespectacled writers. He says very ‘deep’ things.( In our set up, I would add the dirty sling bag, and unwashed pajamas faded over years of use, and a smoking beedi on the lips. And if he gets drunk and sleeps on the road side, he becomes a writer of the masses))

(b) A writer has a duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation; convinced as he is, that he has been born in to an age of mediocrity, he believes that being understood mean losing his chance of ever being considered a genius. A writer revises and rewrites every sentence many times. The vocabulary of an average man is made up of 3000 words; a real writer never uses any of these, because there are another 189,000 in the dictionary, and he is not an average man.

(c) Only other writers can understand what a writer is trying to say. Even so, he secretly hates all other writers. Also the writer and his peers compete for the prize for the ‘most complicated book’
(d) A writer understands about things with alarming names, like semiotics, epistemology, neoconcretism. When he wants to shock someone, he says things like: ‘Einstein is a fool’ or Tolstoy was the clown of the bourgeoisie.

(e) When trying to seduce a woman, a writer says,’ I am a writer’ and scribbles a poem on a napkin. It always works.

(f) Given his vast culture a writer can always get work as a literary critic. Half of any such review are made up of quotations from foreign authors and the other half of analyses of sentences, always using expressions like ’the epistemological cut’ or an integrated bi dimensional vision of life’.
(g) When invited to say what he is reading at the moment, a writer always mention a book no one has ever heard.

(h) There is only one book that arouses the unanimous admiration of the writer and his peers: ’Ulysses by James Joyce. No writer will ever speak ill of this book, but when someone asks him what it is about, he can’t quite explain, making one doubt that he has actually read it.

Now you are armed with all the necessary tips from an expert author. Go ahead, start writing!

*'Like the flowing River'. Paulo Coelho

A world of crabs

2011-07-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

“A woman’s body is the battlefield where she fights for liberation. It is through her body that oppression works, reifying her… sexualizing her.” (Greer G 1999)

I had known Annie since childhood. She was one of the most beautiful girls in my childhood memory. She would walk to her school every day through the narrow dirt road in front of my home. I was at the school leaving class and she must have been in 8th standard. She always looked fresh and clean and would wear clean school uniform of blue and white, would carry the bundle of books close to her chest, like a mother would carry her child. I would wait for her to pass and she never failed to throw a glance with a tint of smile in it, in my direction. I never had the guts to say a word to her. But I saw her every day till I left my home town and joined the medical college. Thoughts of Annie had come to me often; I don’t know what kind of an attraction I had to her. But I never forgot that face.

It was almost twenty years later that I saw her again. I had just joined the clinic in Dubai. It took me some time to realize that the voice at the other end was Annie, even after she introduced herself. She had found me from an advertisement of the clinic. There was nothing much at her hand to remind me. “Do you remember me? The girl with the books “, and it brought me back all the memories in a second. I couldn’t believe that she remembered me all these years. We talked for a long time. Her husband was well placed and they had two children, the same age of mine. She came to me with her husband the next day. She had grown older and put on weight, but was still beautiful and full of charm. The old shyness was gone and we talked and talked of old times, all the while her husband listened with a curious smile on his face. They took me often to their home and gave me some of the best food I had in my life. There was the touch of affection and care in whatever she did. They never failed to visit me every week, till they left Dubai.

I saw Annie again two years back when my daughter in law was sick. I was passing through the Cancer Centre and I had a glimpse of Annie, but when I came back looking for her, she was gone. On another day, she couldn’t escape from me, and then she said reluctantly that she had a small lump in her breast and had come to see the doctor…’but..it is nothing” I guessed she didn’t want me to know about it. She came for Sheri’s funeral, wearing a wig. She had lost weight and had lost the shine in her eyes. No one had to tell me what had happened to her. I couldn’t talk to her much but I could see tears well in her eyes.

Annie died few weeks back. It hadn’t taken much time for the crabs to eat her up. I was sad that I couldn’t see her and be of some assistance to her in her sickness and suffering. For many days, I had flashes of her smile that disturbed my sleep.

When I thought about her, I also remembered Mira who was the wife of my friend Khalid. She had died at the age of 28 years from breast cancer.

It is a world of crabs.

Historically, the term cancer means “crab” in Latin, and the word ‘karkinoma’ means “crab” in ancient Greek. Hippocrates (460-377 BC), the great Greek physician( on whose name we doctors take the oath of good practices) first compared the swollen blood vessels radiating from some breast tumors to the limbs of a crab, and referred to the disease as 'karkinoma'. The word cancer was later used by Pliny (AD23-79) in his scientific treatise, National History, to mean a malignant tumor. In addition, Cancer has long been used for the Zodiac constellation of the Crab, located between Gemini and Leo. In its natural habitat, a crab is a fast, resilient decapod crustacean that springs to action, moves in multiple directions, and is sensitive to its surroundings. And so is cancer.

More than one million cases of breast cancer occur worldwide annually, with some 580,000 cases occurring in developed countries and the remainder in developing countries, despite their much higher overall population and younger age. Recently, at a health conference sponsored by The Women's Record on Long Island, a prominent breast surgeon stated that, because he is ''seeing so many cases of cancer of the breast in younger women,'' he urges ''a baseline mammography for all women at age 35.'' If your doctor doesn't recommend mammography,'' he said, ‘‘Then change doctors.'' All women need to perform a monthly self-breast examination. Untold numbers of breast cancer have been detected by women themselves who, upon finding a lump, have sought prompt medical and life-saving treatment. If a woman finds it too inhibiting to perform this examination, or isn't sure what exactly to look for, she should make a point of having her breasts checked every six months by a doctor or a nurse practitioner.

Recent studies have shown that young women tend to have more aggressive disease, present at a later stage, have many more issues and problems than their older counter parts and have an altogether poor prognosis. Young women tend to ignore small lumps as insignificant and mammography is not as sensitive in the young because of the density of the breast. A delay in diagnosis means shorter time to death. Although breast cancer generally involves women above the age of 50 years, a significant number of young women die of the disease.Young women need to be more vigilant,because there is data to show that they are less likely to survive the illness compared to older women.

The strongest risk factor for breast cancer at a younger age is the history of the disease in a first degree relative.(mother or sister)

As society, we are preoccupied with breasts. A woman’s breasts are symbol of feminity and sexuality. It is within these breasts that the tragedy occurs, striking at the very heart of a woman’s sense of identity and embodiment.

It was Annie’s death that prompted me to write this. In a way, I am relieved that I hadn’t seen her suffering the illness. She probably wouldn’t have liked it as well. I like to remember her as the same old Annie carrying her books, close to her chest.

Changes

2011-07-05T02:07:00.000-07:00

“Unless the pain of where you are is greater than the pain of change, you will never change”.
Bishop Mark Kariuki

I made a difficult choice recently. Form where I was working continuously for almost fifteen years, I decided to change to another environment. The decision wasn’t easy and it was somewhat painful. Many people asked me why I did that. At my work place, some people really meant what they said… ‘that they would miss me’. Understandable because I was around for too long. Others were just interested to know how much more money it was gong to bring me.

That is how it goes. We all look at the same thing from different points and see different things. In the last fifteen years, I have found that almost all the doctors had left the hospital for better prospects. I had been offered better terms on many occasions. But I decided to stay back .I was happy where I was. The money was less, but the work was comfortable. I was thinking, if it is eventless and flows quiet, do you have to stick back for the rest of your time? Why was it that others had left and changed jobs many times over within the same time?

But then I also realized that you become stale if you stay at one place for too long. People take you for granted and some people would even think that you are sticking on because you don’t have other options. It is also true that as you get older the options get lesser. We are also not tuned to changes. Our parents or relatives would have joined some government service and worked there till retirement. My brother worked for the postal department and retired at the same place. Another brother joined the electricity department as an engineer and retired from the same department. Changes were difficult those days and options were limited.

We are people who do not change. Simply because we are afraid of changes. Or we are too lazy for changes. We don’t want to leave the comforts of home. Or we do not want to leave the friends we have made. Or do not want to break the relationships we have entered in to. We fight and argue all through life and make lives miserable for ourselves and others. Still, we would not think of a new life or a new beginning.

On the other hand, now a day, many in the younger generation change jobs and situations the way they change shirts. They change for better prospects and working conditions. For the sake of leaving their home lands to far away lands they dreamed of. They are no longer afraid of leaving families and loved ones behind. Options are unlimited. There are no sentiments or emotional ties. They have the will to walk away from relationships and do not hesitate to break the bondages of families.

I am not for unwarranted changes. But I believe there is nothing wrong in trying if a change is needed. And no reason to be afraid. Often ,changes end up for your own benefit. I had often thought, if I had lost my job, it would be finally good, because I could be in my home town where I was born and always wanted to live, and I could be with my family and friends, whom I had always missed. You don’t gain something without losing something else. If the reason you need to change is not clear, you need to be patient. Do not hurry to make conclusions about its value. Give yourself time to prepare emotionally and psychologically.

The concept of making changes to life is not the same for all, seems easy for some and frightening for others. The familiarity with the familiar and the already known is always safer and it safeguards from the fear of change, the threat of new and the fear against the unknown.

You don’t have to hit rock bottom before you are motivated to change. You don’t have to wait until the doctor tells you that you have diabetes and high blood pressure before you choose to take decisive action with your life style. You don’t have to go broke before you confront your fears, stop procrastinating and get your act together. You don’t have to wait until you get a diagnosis of lung cancer to choose to quit smoking. You don’t have to wait until your estranged loved one is on his deathbed before you make the effort to reconcile and say’ sorry”.

The denial to change stems from the fear of loss. When you have doubts about a change in your life, ask yourself what is that you are afraid to lose? Is it about control? Is it self-respect, freedom, familiarity, income, or comfort? Discover the root of fear and try to get over it. Accept that the discomfort, doubt and uncertainty are all by-products of change. The more familiar you are with these feelings, the more you will be able to distinguish the real effects of change.

I have long wondered about this. And I’ve come to realize that it fully depends on how fed up you become and how badly do you want it. It infuriates people to hear that, but it is because it means we have to own up, take responsibility and make the necessary change. As humans we naturally take the path of least resistance; we have to fight to go in a different direction. The belief that you can suddenly stop everything and make a fresh start is utopian: regardless how much you want to leave the past behind you. The best way to make a change is to face your past and plan for the future.

I have been through many difficult pathways. I am a stronger person from this passage. I have learned from my past. I am happy with where I am today and I can try to be happy where ever I am tomorrow. My life has taken me in a full circle. I am not a shadow anymore. Changes in my life have kept me going. I love my past. I love my present. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve had, I am not thrilled by what I had either, and I’m not sad because I have it no longer.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle”
- Albert Einstein

A farewell

2011-06-25T06:50:00.000-07:00

So there I was, sitting with the hospital director and our tech director on either side, listening to all those good words about me. We have had frequent farewell get together recently because many of our staff were leaving the hospital. I had always wondered when I would be at the receiving end.

It is a sad and nerve wrecking experience. I had this vague kind of restlessness and embarrassment from weeks before I was leaving. I was reluctant to meet people and say farewell to them. I knew I wouldn’t be a good performer at that. Many would have thought why I had left without saying a word. That was easier for me.

I had made some wonderful friends at the hospital, mostly among the nurses. Being a doctor I know there are some unique qualities in the medical fraternity.. Ego is the one thing that leads us. Every doctor probably thinks he is the best. They usually cannot bear the experience of listening to someone talking good about another colleague. So, I was not at all surprised at the reaction of some of my colleagues. Many were prominent by their absence. Because they wouldn’t feel comfortable listening to all those good words. All that stuff spoken during a farewell are not probably meant. No one talks ill of a person when he leaves. That’s all about it.

The nurses who had worked with me were sad that I was leaving. I have some of my best friends among them.

Fifteen years is not a short span in any one’s life. I have been around Khorfakkan that long. I came to this place as a young energetic man and have grown old in age and profession. I have learned more about life than about medicine.

There are people who can never be happy. They always find reasons to be unhappy. There are some who don’t feel happy if good things happen to them in life. They can only be happy if bad things happen to others.

All through my career, I have taken care not to snatch something belonging to others. Still some are unhappy when you get what ever was over due. I have learned not to trust people with personal matters. They always reach where they shouldn’t.

I feel sad about leaving this hospital. I don’t know why I have made this decision after so long. Changes are inevitable in life. I was getting bored with working at the same place for too long. I know it is going to be difficult to start a new job where every one would be looking at you and whatever you do till they get to know you well. I know I am kept under a microscope, like a bacterium.

I would definitely miss my friends at the hospital. I have spent more time with some of them than with my own family. I would miss the cleaning staff who would say good morning to me all along the corridors, Sr. Fathima who made me the best coffee in the world, the ‘professors’ and ‘preachers’ as I called some of them, and all the rest of them with whom I used to laugh and joke. They had made my life easier. They stood by me during difficult times.

I was reminded of what Paulo had written about Manuel*.

“Manuel works for thirty years without stopping. He brings up his children, sets a good example, and devotes all his time to work, never asking: “Does what I am doing have any meaning?’ His one thought is that the busier he is, the more important he will be in the eyes of the world.
“His children grow up and leave home. One day, he receives a watch or a pen as a reward for all those years of devotion. His friends shed a few tears, and then, the moment arrives… “

“One night an angel appears to him in sleep: What have you done with your life? Did you try to live your life according to your dreams?”

It is a difficult question for those who had dreams to live.For me....it is too late to ask all that. I would rather go to sleep than answering that question. But.. .has he written about me? He doesn’t even know me!

Work is a blessing when it helps us to think about what we are doing. But it becomes a curse when its sole use is to stop us thinking about the meaning of life.

So, at the end of fifteen years I walk out of the hospital, not only with a watch, but with a camera, many more gifts and a heart full of memories.

That is how life is and I am consoled by the verse ( Ecc 3)

" To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven..."

* Like the flowing River. Paulo Coelho

Template Moods

2011-06-13T06:38:00.000-07:00

Over the last few days I received some mails from friends asking me why I had changed the appearance of my blog. Most of them seemed to like the change, I don’t know if they seriously meant it. Or just wanted to agree with the change.

Then I asked myself why I had done that. Looking at it, I found I had some reasons. My blog had the picture of an old man with a camel against the background of a sunset in the desert. The whole picture was fiery red . The rest of the template was black with tongues of flames on either side. Altogether ,red and black and the gloomy figure of the old man with a lantern walking towards the end of nowhere, as if in search of something so far far away.

Over a period of time I got bored with that old man. My mood when I chose that template was one of anger and resentment, which changed to some kind of gloominess and then some vague indifference.

When I decided to change, I had no doubts about the color. I always end up with blue. Most of my shirts are blue or some shades of it. Even if I go to the shop with the idea of buying something of a different color, I end up coming back with something in blue. I don’t know if you would believe, a friend of mine once bought me a birthday present.. a gold ring on which was set a blue sapphire. I asked her why and she said that was my birth stone.

Don’t we have personal choices of colors? I tried to find out some information on colors and mood and stumbled up on some interesting facts. Look at the description of colors below and see if it has something to do with your own choice of colors and your moods.

Red
Red is a stimulating and energizing color. It also enhances self-assurance.. Red is the most intense color choice. It is bright, vibrant, and draws the eye. It is the color of love, and also of anger. It is a hot and passionate color. In the bedroom, red light helps sexual activity, and could lead to active nights.
Yellow
Wearing yellow will rejuvenate and balance the mind. It wipes out the feeling of heaviness and oppression. Yellow is sunny and reflective and is a pensive color. It will lift ones mood to be positive and optimistic.
Orange
This is also the color of love.. Wear it to lift your love life. Orange is a very high energy color imparting boldness and distinction. Like red and yellow, orange is stimulating. It is an antidepressant and also stimulates the mind. Anyone with a desire to sharpen and add focus and purpose to their life can do with a little orange.

Green
Green is relaxing and tranquil to the eyes. It reduces stress and brings a feeling of tranquility. Wear it to inspire harmony in others and restore your energy. It represents dependability and tactfulness. Green is also reminiscent of nature and serenity.
Pink
The color pink is trendy. It is a girly color and is a symbol of innocence and beauty. Pink has a soothing effect. It also speaks of pure love. It is a romantic color, while red is hot and passionate. It also is bright, vibrant, a strong and healthy color.

Blue.

Blues are amongst the most relaxing of colors, reminding viewers of summer skies and ocean water. Blue causes a slight psychological change which results in people feeling less hungry.. Blue is also regarded to be effective for increasing wisdom energy. It is the color of peace, tranquility and is excellent in increasing spiritual meditation and healing. Blue is also something of a paradoxical color, because in certain settings it can appear cold, formal, and sad. “The Blues” got their name from the sad aspect of the color.
Purple
Purple balances the mind, brings serenity and combats fear. It’s connected with psychic powers and helps wake up that aspect. It is also the color that speaks of royalty. The color purple rarely appears in nature, so overuse of this color can appear artificial.

I was not planning to write on colors, but ended up just doing that. I wanted to ask how often would you change the appearance of your blog or would you do it at all.

When I started the blog I experimented with many themes and colors before choosing one. My choice of colors and theme was just natural. Over a period of time, readers connect the appearance of the blog to you and your personality. I don’t know if others think the way I do, but I sometimes get an impulse to make a change. But how often can you do it? Frequent changes can erase the mental image of a blog that the reader has. Can also irritate some readers, for sure. I change the colors when I myself get bored looking at it. Not because anyone has complained.

It is true, content is the king of the blog. But kings need good castles too ! Having good content is the priority but a good design can definitely compliment. Clutter and difficult navigation can be avoided.

Custom made templates will cost you. But there are far too many designs available free. Wear the color that fits your mood and the nature of the blog. Changes are a matter of personal preferences.

I am no expert. But these are tips I got from experts.

Monsoon Magic

2011-06-09T00:21:00.000-07:00

I came home hearing the news that the monsoon has arrived. I was excited to come home at this time, because it is my favourite season. From the time I came I was waiting for the heavy down pour, but nothing came, except the occasional drizzle. The sky looked dark and cloudy lighting up my hopes. And I am still waiting for that magical music of rainfall.

For me, monsoon is a word that stirs up my fondest childhood memories. Monsoon mornings bring an invigorating smell of damp earth, budding leaves, knee-deep water, crisp air, and ominous clouds rolling across the sky. We woke up at dawn to the sounds of rain water gushing through the drains into the courtyard. And to the drumming of rain drops on the tin roofs. Frequent lightning and thunder across the darkened skies, and I would fearfully take shelter in my Amma’s arms. Bathing in the heavy shower was near ecstasy, and Ammachi would warn me, not to catch a cold. We walked and waded our way to school and back, with overturned umbrellas and dripping wet skirts and knickers. We would peek through the school windows wondering why it was not raining then, and when the school bells would ring to let us go home earlier. The raging winds would make the palm trees sway like willows. And the fun we had in the evenings making paper boats with old newspapers and floating them in the water which had formed puddles and streams. The boats would dance their way to oblivion.

The terms 'monsoon' is derived from the Arabic word ‘ mausim ’ which means a time or a season. A monsoon is a seasonal prevailing wind which lasts for several months. Monsoonal rainfall is considered to be that which occurs in any region that receives the majority of its rain during a particular season, and so monsoons are referred to in relation to other regions such as in North America, Brazil, Sub Saharan Africa and East Asia. Monsoons are caused by the larger amplitude of the seasonal cycle of land temperature compared to that of nearby oceans.. As monsoons have become better understood, the term monsoon has been broadened to include almost all of the phenomena associated with the annual weather cycle within the tropical and subtropical land regions of the earth.

South West monsoon winds bring rains to Kerala, Goa, Gujarat and Maharashtra. The rest of India receives rains from North East monsoon winds. The monsoon season in India is generally from June to October.

Monsoon season is also a season when creativity blooms. Poets give expressions to their feelings by writing poems on the rains. They also describe the magical effect it has on the earth. One Marathi poet writes, "The earth looks as fresh as a young lady who has just taken her bath".

That rain is gloom and sunshine happiness is metaphorical rather than scientific, though it rings true because we humans are inherently sympathetic to our environment.. Barring a mood disorder, our emotions are not casualties of the weather.

Balan’s post " MonsoonDepression" prompted me to say something more about the ‘rainy’ mood.

Since many years, researchers have sought to confirm a relationship between weather and temperament. Predictably, the lion's share of studies correlate a low mood—episodic depression, lack of energy—with high humidity and limited exposure to sunshine. Spirits tend to rise with increased time in the sunshine. In October of 2008, a group of European researchers examined the impact of six different daily weather factors—temperature, wind, sunlight, precipitation, air pressure and length of day—on more than 1,200 participants from Germany, most of them women.

Contrary to most prior research, the study's central conclusion was that the average effect of "good" weather on positive mood was minimal. "People differ in their sensitivity to daily weather changes."Some people's emotions are simply more vulnerable to weather changes than others. Someone prone to a low mood on dark, cold days will likely experience a depressive winter when there's a prolonged string of like-weathered days".

Our lives are inseparably linked to the monsoon. Indian music is also associated with rains. It is believed that singing the 'Raag Malhar' brings the rains. We also associate the arrival and singing of cuckoo and the dancing of the peacock with the onset of monsoon.

There is a scene in Mira Nair's sensuous film, Monsoon Wedding, in which the Delhi sky opens to let out a torrential downpour that is the Indian monsoon. That scene, and its accompanying song, Kawa kawa kawa, captures the many moods of the monsoon.... gutters becoming streams..... drenched women in yellow saris running for cover.... vermilion powder streaking down from a man's forehead. There is some sensuality about the rain scenes which triggers your hidden fantasies.

In spite of all its problems, monsoon is the favorite season for all. Monsoon is my favorite season, for sure. Its magic engulfs and encompasses one and all. Crisis such as floods brings out the best in each one of us. It brings about a spirit of co-operation, even among animals!

Two things unite all Indians, be they rich or poor, rural or urban, Hindu or Muslim... an innate desire to be hospitable and a love for the monsoon. The monsoon is a meteorological event, yes, but for Indians, it is also a seasonal life giving cosmic force. We sustain and survive on it. People pray for it; festivals are celebrated around its occurrence; movies and music are inspired by it. Along with spices and colour, temples and festivals, the smell of the monsoon is part of the Indian collective unconscious, evoking nostalgia in even the most hardened souls. The Indian monsoon, for anyone lucky enough to have witnessed it, and lived and grown with it, is a magical memory, to stay forever.

Courtesy: None of the pictures posted above are mine. I have borrowed from the net, buzzintown.com/peppertrail.com.

All is fair

2011-06-02T06:09:00.000-07:00

Don’t get me wrong.

I happened to see this article on color preferences of men and women and the controversies it has created. Men often do not talk about it openly, but can guess their attitude.

From what I have seen, my own feeling is that men, in general seem to prefer fair skinned women. Not just between blacks and whites, but even among the light skinned Asians. The sale of fairness creams in Asian countries is sky rocketing. It is as if fair is all lovely. Don’t we have clear examples in our choice of actresses? Bollywood imports fair skinned girls from abroad, as if we don’t have enough of them here. And they act with the dark skinned men, no problems. Fairer the better. Even in the south, most of the actresses are light skinned. There are very few dark skinned heroines.

In the marriage market, the demand is for the light skinned. It is common to see marriage ads, “very fair… good looking “and so on. I know of many marriage proposals for girls in our own family did not materialize, simply because the girls were on the darker side of complexion. Fantasies linger around fair skinned women. Is it so?

An article posted online last week by ‘Psychology Today’ provoked controversy and cries of racism. The title of evolutionary psychologist Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa's piece: "Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women ?"

Though the article compared the blacks from Africa to the whites, I think it is equally applicable to men and women across the world.

His argument is that there is a set of data, which shows black women to be "objectively" less attractive than white, Asian or Native American women, but that the same data does not find black men less attractive than men of other races. Kanazawa accepts this data and then tries to explain why it is the case. He suggests that black people have more testosterone than other races, and so possess "more masculine features." He states too that women are "objectively" more attractive than men, so if black women have more masculine features, this explains why they are rated less attractive.

Now, in the tagline to his Psychology Today blog, Kanazawa warns, "If what I say is wrong (because it is illogical or lacks credible scientific evidence), then it is my problem. If what I say offends you, it is your problem."

Following outraged responses, Psychology Today changed the article's title to "Why Are Black Women Rated Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?" and then, took it down altogether.

“Men have been conditioned into thinking that white skin is mankind’s anthropological model and so the desirable trait. The truth of the matter is that probably, white skin is a genetic defect! They're more prone to skin cancer, aging wrinkly skin and skin infections compared to blacks who don't get that stuff. All human life came from Africa and black skin is the original skin color . Whites and Asians are pale skinned mutated versions of black people caught up in the last ice age some 60,000 years ago”. This was the response of a young black woman.

Gentlemen do not just prefer blondes, but lighter-skinned women in general, another study has suggested. Scientists looking into attractiveness in men and woman suggest that men from all races find fairer-skinned woman most alluring, while women are the polar opposite and favor darker, brooding men.

Academics at the University of Toronto in Canada say their study proves the fair maiden of myth has a basis in scientific reality.

They studied more than 2,000 advertising photographs - chosen on the basis the models featured were considered among the most attractive people of the races and sexes - and found that the skin of white women was 15.2 per cent lighter than the skin of white males, and the skin of black women 11.1 per cent lighter than the skin of black men.

Dr Shyon Baumann, a sociologist involved in the study, said: "What the research shows is that our aesthetic preferences operate to reflect moral preferences”.

Two years ago, research from St Andrews University in Fife found man's attraction to blondes could date back to the caveman era.

Researchers say, a rare mutation of light-colored hair heralded the arrival of the blue-eyed blonde 10,000 years ago.Until then, humans, who originated in Africa, tended to have dark hair and eyes, so blondes stood out from their brunette sisters.

According to anthropologist Peter Frost : "When an individual is faced with potential mates of equal value, it will tend to select the one that stands out from the crowd."

I said at the beginning, don’t get me wrong. This is not my personal view.But this is what we see. It is usual to ask, is beauty only skin deep and all the stuff. The real question is ,what really attracts you, on plain simple terms.

Letting go

2011-05-27T23:26:00.000-07:00

Last week I was reading the book “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle. There is a story he has mentioned in it.

It is the story of two Zen monks Tanzan and Ekido, who were walking along a country road that had become extremely muddy after heavy rains. Near a village, they came up on a young woman who was trying to cross the road, but the mud was so deep ,it would have ruined the silk kimono she was wearing. Tanzan at once picked her up and carried her to the other side.

The monks walked on in silence. Five hours later, as they were approaching the lodging temple, Ekiso couldn’t restrain himself any longer.

“Why did you carry that girl across the road? He asked.” We monks are not supposed to do things like that”

“I put the girl down hours ago” said Tanzan.” Are you still carrying her? “

Me too, have been nurturing the sores for too long. Never letting them heal. And I learned to get some painful pleasure out of them.

It is time to let them heal. Let them go for ever, if possible.

“The past lives in you as memories. But memories themselves are not a problem. It is from memories that we learn from the past and from past mistakes. It is only when memories, thoughts of the past, take you over completely that they turn in to a burden. Your personality which is conditioned by the past then becomes your prison.

We often say’ this too will pass’. Everything will pass, whether they are good or bad. Like the bad times, the good times will pass too.

“Nothing ever happened in the past can prevent you from being present now. And if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?”.

A tablet for death

2011-05-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

From the time I entered the ward I could hear the cry. I had to pass through the front of his room and the nurses’ station to reach our meeting room. While passing, I had noticed the resident physician beside his bed.

We started our daily review of cases, and all through it, the cry was getting louder. His voice was rough because of his thyroid problem and sounded like a frog croaking. He was yelling also at the top of his throat, something which I could not decipher at the time.
I asked the doctor what was his problem.
And he said” Ah...nothing.. It is his usual tantrum ”

I knew this old man for some time. He was very old at about ninety years, was unmarried and living with some of his relatives. There was no one to take care of him except a Bengali boy and the old man survived on his allowances from the government. He had a heart problem and thyroid disease and was confined to bed.
I was not convinced of the explanation for his yelling. After the meeting, I went straight to his room. The Bengali was beside the bed and trying to console the old man. He was still crying at the top of his voice.

I asked him” Baba, tell me what is your problem”
He didn’t seem to listen and continued his tantrum, the cry now getting louder when he saw me.
I asked him again.
It was the same slogan, louder. I could make out” tablet for death”
“What is it that you want?”
“Give me tablet for death”
“OK, fine, I don’t have it with me, but tell me your problem”
“Tablet for death”

I was losing my patience. But I made a quick examination and found his abdomen was tender and he had a distended urinary bladder. Retaining urine, and not able to pass it, is probably the worst problem one can have .It is unbearably painful.
I gave instructions to pass a urinary catheter, and about 1.5 liters of urine came out.
I told him I would bring his tablets when I returned.
During the rounds I noticed that his cry was getting less aggressive and after some time, faded and ceased.

While going to the outpatient clinic, I peeped in to see that he was sleeping comfortably.

The next day I saw him during morning rounds. He was lying comfortably and greeted me with a smile.
“I have brought your tablets” I said.
“What?” as if he was surprised.
“The tablets for death you asked yesterday, I brought them”
He grinned from ear to ear, and said
“Not now, I will let you know when”

A twist to the tale

2011-05-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

I have some very religious colleagues, mostly nurses who often argue with me over religious matters whenever we find time to take coffee in the pantry. I tend to disagree with most of their ideas and sometimes make fun of them saying they are like the Thaliban, very stiff in their beliefs.

The other day we were discussing creation, I asked them. What if Eve had not eaten the apple? How could the silly serpent convince poor Eve to eat that lousy apple? They were happy enough, didn’t have an idea of what sin was, and then, why would she ever want to become like God?

“Oh, no, doctor, you are talking against the will of God.”

Here are these total innocents happily running around naked in the garden of Eden, tossing flowers at each other ,eating rose buds and then God says, "Don't eat that apple. You'll die!"

But then the snake comes and says something different. This is exactly like a child asking his father, "Why can't I eat French fries and burgers for dinner?" and he says, "Because that stuff will kill you! Your grandpa dropped dead from eating junk food like that! Don’t you know many Indians die young eating all the lousy food? And didn’t you know that Clinton had a heart attack eating that stuff?” And maybe this keeps the kid away from them for a while; he knows his father knows more than he does, so he must be right. But then he sees his Mommy eating that very same stuff. He says, "No, Mommy! Daddy says if you eat that, you die!" Mommy laughs. "No, burgers don't make you die, may be coconut oil" she says, knowing the child must have misinterpreted his father's statement but not really bothering to explain further. So the kid sneaks the French fries and burger later and he doesn't die.

Back from vacation, I was reading “Like the flowing river” by Paulo Coelho. There is another version of the story in the book.And probably a better reason for Eve to eat the apple.

Eve was walking in the garden of Eden when the serpent slithered over to her.

“Eat this apple, said the serpent.

Eve, who had been properly instructed by God, refused.

“Eat this apple, insisted the serpent. You need to look more beautiful for your man’

“No, I don’t, replied Eve. He has no other woman, but me”

The serpent laughed.

“Of course, he has’

And when Eve did not believe him, he led her up to a well on top of a hill.

“She is in that cave. Adam hid her there”

Eve leaned over and, reflected in the water of the well, she saw a lovely woman. She immediately ate the apple the serpent was holding out to her.

But what if Eve had refused the apple?

You have Adam and Eve and their offspring, all live forever because of the tree of life. We all would be running around naked, because we have no shame, sex obviously feels good, because that was the way it was designed, and so, we have lots of it. Also, we would be provided with all the food we need without having to work for it. The animals would be vegetarian ("everything that has the breath of life in it -I give every green plant for food."). There would be no reason to kill any animals, because you wouldn’t eat them or need their skin for clothing. No tsunamis, earth quakes, plague or swine flu to worry about. Women would deliver without pain. So,no hospital bills

So, everyone having a good time, doing what feels good, plenty to eat without any effort, lots of milk and honey all the time, friendly vegetarian animals to play with, peace and love are all you know…. that's how I think we would be spending till eternity and …..mmm.. I could go for that.

But somehow, I feel, after some time, I would have got bored with that kind of life.

I think that God knew that Eve would eat the apple, if he didn't want her to, why would he have ever put the tree there in the first place?

How to name it ?

2011-05-18T01:04:00.000-07:00

The morning sky was moody. Some days it appeared bright and colorful. On other days, gloomy and cloudy. From where I used to sit in the morning, I could see the sky till the end of Agasthya hills. When we were looking around to buy a house, I had chosen this place because of the view.

It was when I was enjoying the morning breeze that I casually looked up at the ceiling lamp. I don’t know why we had bought it, but it looks like one of those lamps you would see in a church. And then I saw the tail of a bird from the top of the lamp. It was not moving. I called my wife and started scolding her about how careless they were, in having not seen the dead bird lying on top of the lamp.

My wife had a hearty laugh.

She said “It is not dead. That is the nest of the bird and it is hatching the eggs”.

How could she be so sure?

“Oh, the bird was here few months back, and flew away with its children”.

Ah, so, that was it. It is a permanent residence of the bird! I was not surprised. We have three bed rooms in the house. My son uses one. The other one, supposed to be our bedroom, was full of clothes, and there was no place left on the bed. My wife was in the process of sorting them out. I had thought of the spare room, and then she told me of the cat which had delivered few days back under the bed. I was not supposed to disturb the cat, and so, I had to sleep on the floor ,on a mat. That was fine too, for a change. Though I put up an effort to fight against her love for animals, which is a bit on the higher side, I secretly admire her kindness. But hadn’t I placed some restrictions, she would fill the house with stray dogs and cats.

I was curious. I brought a chair and was trying to get a glimpse. One click, and the bird flew away. It is called “ Thoppi kkili” in our language, because it has something like a cap on its head. From then on, I used to watch its coming and going. At night time, it would come and settle down on the nest and won’t move till morning.

When I came back from my trip to my hometown, I saw the bird coming home with with a large caterpillar bulging in its bill. Once it landed on the lamp, I saw two tiny sets of beaks opening wide for the feed. They had started moving around in the nest and were growing fast. From daylight to dusk, seldom does more than two minutes elapse between feedings. One day morning, I noticed that one of the babies had fallen down, in to the dome of the lamp and was fluttering its wings. The mama bird flew in from nowhere, and was desperately looking for the missing one and finally found it. She flew frantically around the lamp and soon realized she was incapable of rescuing the baby bird. When she had gone away, I tried to reach the baby bird inside the dome, and the one sitting on top flew away !. It landed on the floor of the car porch. Within seconds, the mama bird appeared and was furious at me and trying to attack me. The mama took her baby to a safe place on to one of the plants in the pot. I managed to get the other baby out of the dome and placed it safely on the nest.

I saw the father bird when I was looking for the kids. He was sitting silently at a distance on a tree top, keeping watch over the mother and kids. My wife told me he always sits outside, on the roof top or on an adjacent tree top, to watch over the mother and kids and to warn if enemies are around. The mother bird chirps all the while, and is musical. Although the male and female birds look alike, after watching them a while, I could tell them apart by their attitude. When feeding the young, the female goes straight to the nest. A few seconds before she arrives, the babies inside rev up the volume of their chattering. That tips me off to look up from my chair in time to see the mother land at the top of the lamp and disappear inside the nest. As they grew, the nestlings made more and more noise. They started poking their white flanged bills out of the nest, opening them wide to receive whatever prey their mother would bring.

I saw them all on another day in our neighboring compound. On the wire fence by my neighbor's yard, teetered the two baby birds, their parents on either side. That house was safer, it was not occupied.

I don’t know how to name it. We say only human have intelligence. If it is so, I think love is beyond intelligence. With such tiny brains, they have marvelous instincts. The bird couple has been always together from the time my wife had seen them. At least, they have raised two sets of kids. I don’t know if they argue and fight, the way we do. About where to go for lunch and dinner, and where to make the home and settle down. But I have seen their mutual commitment. Ornithologists believe that they have the same habits of love ,cheating and divorce,as we do.They have jealousy, and there are home wrecker females among them too.

Did they learn it from bird watchers?

A grandma's justice

2011-04-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

Death of 23-year-old Soumya, who was pushed out of a moving passenger train, dragged on the tracks and then raped by a notorious one-armed criminal few weeks back had led to widespread protests in Kerala. Soumya later succumbed to her injuries. The girl was the bread winner of the poor family and carried lots of hopes and dreams of her future.

Almost 37 years after she was raped, Aruna Shanbaug lies unconscious in a hospital bed at a Bombay hospital where she was working as a nurse, at the time of the rape. The criminal served a sentence of seven years and lives his life outside,free.

This story was sent to me by a friend of mine. I liked the way this grandma dealt with the issue.In a country like ours, where every rapist walks away with some kind of minor punishments,she is probably a good model.

Gun-toting granny Ava Estelle, 81, was so ticked-off when two thugs raped her 18-year-old granddaughter that she tracked the unsuspecting ex-cons down and shot off their testicles !

The old lady spent a week hunting those men down and, when she found them, she took revenge on them in her own special way,said Melbourne police investigator Evan Delp.

Then she took a taxi to the nearest police station, laid the gun on the sergeant's desk and told him as calm as could be: "Those bastards will never rape anybody again, by God."
Cops say convicted rapist and robber Davis Furth, 33, lost both his penis and his testicles when outraged Ava opened fire with a 9-mm pistol in the hotel room where he and former prison cell mate Stanley Thomas, 29, were holed up.

The wrinkled avenger also blew Thomas' testicles to kingdom come, but doctors managed to save his mangled penis, police said.
"The one guy, Thomas, didn't lose his manhood, but the doctor I talked to said he won't be using it the way he used to," Detective Delp told reporters. "Both men are still in pretty bad shape, but I think they're just happy to be alive after what they've been through."

The Rambo Granny swung into action on August 21 after her grand-daughter Debbie was carjacked and raped in broad daylight by two knife-wielding creeps in a section of town bordering on skid row. "When I saw the look on my Debbie's face that night in the hospital,I decided I was going to go out and get those bastards myself because I figured the Law would go easy on them," recalled the retired library worker. "And I wasn't scared of them, either because I've got me a gun and I've been shooting all my life. And I wasn't dumb enough to turn it in when the law changed about owning one."

So, using a police artist's sketch of the suspects and Debbie's description of the sickos, tough-as-nails Ava spent seven days prowling the wino-infested neighborhood where the crime took place 'till she spotted the ill-fated rapists entering their flophouse hotel. "I knew it was them the minute I saw 'em, but I shot a picture of 'em anyway, and took it back to Debbie and she said sure as hell, it was them," the oldster recalled.

"So I went back to that hotel and found their room and knocked on the door, and the minute the big one opened the door, I shot 'em right square between the legs, right where it would really hurt 'em most, you know."

"Then I went in and shot the other one, as he backed up pleading to me to spare him. Then I went down to the police station and turned myself in."

"Those bastards will never rape anybody again, by God."

Now, baffled lawmen are trying to figure out exactly how to deal with the vigilante granny.

"What she did was wrong, and she broke the law, but it is difficult to throw an 81-year-old woman in prison," Det. Delp said, "especially when 3 million people in the city want to nominate her for Mayor."

The courts and the legislature have to make many changes if the laws of rape are to be any deterrence. The sentence of punishment, which normally ranges from one to ten years, where on an average most convicts get away with three to four years of rigorous imprisonment or with a very small fine; and in some cases, where the accused is resourceful or influential- may even escape by paying huge amounts of money and get exculpated. The courts have to comprehend the fact that these conscienceless criminals- who sometimes even beat and torture their victims- who even include small children, are not going to be deterred or ennobled by such a small time of imprisonment. In the best interest of justice and the society, these criminals should be sentenced to the least of a life time imprisonment.

What is it all about?

2011-04-15T06:22:00.000-07:00

blogohblog.comblogging-recipe

I recently made a comment on a post, where I couldn’t quite agree with what the blogger had written. There are many times I have received such comments too. This blogger wrote in reply that he doesn’t care what others think about the issue and was not prepared for any further discussions on that issue. While replying to my comment, this blogger revealed some great discoveries that came out of his big brain and said” And I close the case”, meaning he didn’t want further discussions on the issue, or ” Do not comment if you don’t agree with what I say”

I have, on the other side, seen very tough and hostile sounding arguments over some topics where the bloggers had commented and replied and gone back and again replied with equal or more power, and at the end, become good friends.

We are not here to change the world. Or to hammer our own ideas on to others.

At the same time, we can make ripples that can, on occasions form strong waves.... what we call ‘ the butterfly effect”.

This blogger made the comment that she doesn’t believe in writing about issues and supporting causes, but only believes in doing. That is a wonderful idea in itself. But then, how would others know about it?

Recently I came across a website, change.org. By bringing to surface many issues of social injustice, this site has mobilized opinions of millions of readers across the world, and has been able to make major changes in the attitudes of governments on many social and ethical issues.

Blogging não tenho nada a dizee

070621_blogging_vows

So, it is not that opinions have no value.

Matt Haughey is probably best-known as the creator of Metafilter, the first community weblog .He is the co-author of We Blog , and a contributor to numerous other books on technology.

“I was an absolutely dreadful writer until years of daily email and blogging let me practice to the point at which I finally feel I can write well and express myself.

“There are things I won’t write about because I know it would hurt my family or friends, and I’ve come to terms with those compromises. I’ve come to terms with the boundaries I’ve had to draw to maintain order in my life. ”

Hugh Mac leod httpgapingvoid.com

This was something I learned over time and many mistakes. At the time I started blogging, I was in the middle of so many personal problems and took it as an outlet to vent out the issues. It took me time to learn that was a mistake. I had unknowingly hurt some people. After all, one can learn from own mistakes and from others too. That is why I mention it here, so that others could learn from my mistakes. As far as possible, keep very personal matters out of the blog, especially if it involves others.

“Don’t write every post for the social sites. It isn’t genuine and people get tired of it.”

“If you aren’t sure a post is good, sit on it for a day. If you still aren’t convinced, delete it. A bad post is worse than no post.”

“Be prepared to completely run out of ideas after the first 3-4 months.”

I have faced such situation where I had spent time thinking about what to write. I have seen experienced bloggers churning out posts daily, sometimes even many times a day and have wondered how they come across ideas. The difficulty is not to write, but to write something interesting.

“It’s easy to become big headed when people rave about how great you and your blogs are to the point where you end up being a complete jerk and think you’re the greatest writer. But on the flip side, it’s also easy to become disillusioned and depressed when they rant about and attack you. Part of the skill of being a good blogger that comes over time is that ability to know when to take on board what others are saying about you and when to leave it. It is important to listen to the praise and critiques of others but try to keep them in perspective or it could lead to your downfall”.

During an interview with Elizabeth Taylor, she was asked if she read much of what people write about her in the media. Her answer was no – she didn’t listen to or read anything ever written or said about her, good or bad. Her explanation as to why was

‘If you listen to the good things people say about you, you might just start believing them. If you listen to the bad things people say about you, you might just start believing them’

“One of the temptations of starting a blog is to spend more time trying to emulate other bloggers than establishing your own voice and style. While there are a lot of lessons to be learned from other blogs there is a lot to be said for developing a strong blogging identity of your own".

This is what experts say, and I am not an expert. With millions of bloggers across the world, it would be silly to think that I have become a great blogger. For me, it is just enough that I have met some nice people over the blog and befriended them.

After all, what is it all about?

Hello, Appukka !

2011-04-11T19:50:00.000-07:00

Whenever I call home, he insists to talk to me. When the telephone rings, he would run to pick it up and answer “ Hello, Appukka "

I don’t know how he invented this name for me. From the time he started saying names, he has been using this name for me, ” Appukka”. He refuses to change it in spite of efforts from all around him. I have heard grand pas being called “ Appappa, Appacha, Valyappacha and all. But I haven’t heard this name. He has invented a unique name for me.

If he starts talking to me, he wouldn’t care whether it is overseas call or not. He would keep on talking till he has exhausted all the stories and the long list of toys he wants. His stories would revolve around fights with Govind, his close friend and foe at school. He would get offended if I try to cut him short.

He is learning fast. Now he would wait for my wife to pick up the telephone first and start the conversation. He would listen to make sure who she is talking to. The other day, he started crying and yelling for the telephone when my wife was talking to me.

She said “This is not Appukka, I am talking to someone else”

“No, No, it is lie. I heard you calling him “Chetta’ “ ( That is the way my wife addresses me !)

He is going to be four years. If my wife scolds him for something, he would say

“Pack my bag, I am going to Appukka”

My wife asked him ‘How will you go? You will need a ticket to go”

“Oh, I will go by Emirates !”

My wife brings him here every time she comes. It is easier to process the visa if you buy tickets from Emirates, and he is used to flying emirates air lines!

I have been watching with awe the way kids learn things. The first time he was brought to the airport to receive me; he had seen me coming out of the air port, pushing the trolley. Since then, if he sees anyone pushing a trolley or cart, he would start calling “ Appukka”. He probably thought, my job was pushing carts!

I think it is easier for them to learn the bad words than the good. He is fond of cartoons and watches the BBC children’s channel. We have permitted him to watch that. They carefully choose the programmes for children. If at all he has learned funny words, it is from the local channels. He has quickly learned words like ‘ Poda choole !,( get lost, broom stick !) Patti, Ponnan ( fatso) and all !

He is a wonderment that has been woven into an unbreakable web of pure love. In his eyes I see full of promises and dreams yet to be revealed. He makes me realize how wonderful our lives are and how much fuller our spirits are for having been given this miracle. You will have the unfortunate experience of dark days and tremendous moments of grief and misunderstanding. But in the end, when all is said and done, you… we… will be more complete, more whole, more loved, more patient and kinder because we were chosen to touch, hold, hug, parent, comfort, nurture and most of love a child.

Now he knows he has two of these Appukkas and he has found out a solution. He calls me Babu appukka, and Sheri’s father as Biju appukka. Sheri’s mother is Ivy ammachi. My wife is his Ammacha, and Celin’s mother is Ammammachi.

The oldest among us is his maternal great grandmother. He calls her by her name “Sosakkutty “ !!.

Rape treatment!

2011-04-07T23:15:00.000-07:00

I had a heated argument once with a friend of mine on homosexuality. My friend, a doctor, is a born again Christian and a strong believer and has answers for all the questions from the Bible .He reminded me of the fire and destruction at Sodom and Gomorrah as the example of God’s attitude towards homosexuality. The people of Sodom were so obsessed with homosexuality that when the angels came to visit Loath at his home, they crowded in front of his house to get at those good looking guys. Loath, in all his good will to protect his guests, even offers them his own beautiful daughters for sex, but they were not interested. Thus the story goes. The name sodomy came from the name of this destroyed city.

This came to my mind when recently a gay boy joined the department as male nurse. From the beginning, I had felt he was different, but later came to know that a ‘friend’ of his had joined another ward, and they had come together to this place to work. They walk around as intense lovers can be, and share the room. He is one of the best behaved persons in the ward, and committed to his work. I have seen and heard the so called “normal” people secretly ridiculing them, but have wondered at the way they are able to live happily, unconcerned at all the jeers.

Then, last week, I came across this shuddering piece of news.

Lesbians living in South Africa are being subjected to "corrective rape" and severe violence by men trying to "cure" them of their sexual orientation, a human rights group have said. A report by the international NGO Action Aid, backed by the South African Human Rights Commission, said the horrific crimes against lesbians were going unrecognized by the state and unpunished by the legal system. The ferocity of the attack became clear in April last year when Eudy Simelane, former star of South Africa's national female football squad, became one of the victims. Miss Simelane, an equality rights campaigner and one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian, was gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed 25 times in the face, chest and legs.

But scores more women have been deliberately targeted for rape, the Guardian reported.
Research shows 86 per cent of black lesbians from the Western Cape live in fear of sexual assault. Triangle, a gay rights organization, said it deals with up to 10 new cases of "corrective rape" every week.
Same-sex marriage is legal in South Africa and the country has among the most liberal laws on sexual orientation on a continent where many others ban gay sex. But the rapes in South Africa are a brutal sign that cultural attitudes remain deeply conservative.

In a country long plagued by violence, corruption, and an authoritarian government, Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe is one of the worst anti-gay autocrats in Africa. Mugabe has repeatedly located blame for his country’s ill fate and problems on lesbians and gay men, cultivating widespread bigotry and violence. His virulent homophobia has given rise to the rape of lesbian and gay male Zimbabweans, under the guise of “correcting” them into heterosexuality.

Isn’t it hard to believe such brutal crimes happen in the same world we live in, where we talk about equality and justice? Is being gay or lesbian something to be blamed and ridiculed?
The debates about homosexuality, in part because they often involve public policy and legal issues, tend to be sharply polarized.

The policy and legal debates surrounding homosexuality involve fundamental issues of morality and justice. Perhaps most centrally of all, they cut in to issues of personal identity and self-definition. Hence there is another, and even deeper, set of reasons for the polarization that marks these debates.

I still don’t see the rational in people thinking that being gay is a choice. Could you choose to be attracted to the same sex if it was socially beneficial to you? I was born with urges towards the opposite sex, and there is nothing at all that leads me to believe that it is the same feeling homosexuals have towards their sexuality. People are so ….ing arrogant sometimes, they will rationalize anything to fit their agenda. It has yet to be proven scientifically beyond a doubt, but the world of scientific research has determined that it is most likely a developmental and not a true genetic defect. Rather, a low hormone level during normal fetal development is the most likely culprit. It is not a choice for most, no more than say Down's syndrome or autism is a choice. Some straight, gays and lesbians, however, find attraction to both sexes as they likely received more normal hormone levels during development than a completely gay or lesbian individual but not as much as say a common straight individual.

We see a homosexual and say ‘Eeeeeh !”, but consider this, if later in life you get to know that your friend, brother, sister or your very own son or daughter are gay what would you do?
If you want to talk choice, let us talk about choice. There is a choice in being a Hindu, a Muslim, Baptist, Catholic, Pentecostal, or Evangelical. There are even so many "options" in being a Christian and each group will say they are right and the ones going to heaven.

Making a choice is limiting men and women based on a belief. For all those that say "Where's the gay gene." I would ask, "Where's the straight gene?" I personally hope they don't ever find it. If they do, then people will start screaming for gene therapy to get rid of gays. Then therapies to get rid of other things they find offensive.

A nightlight in darkness

2011-03-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

We were trying to give a bath to Michael. He was our mischievous boxer dog, and Sheri was too fond of him. He was not much interested in his cosmetics and would jump and thrash when we tried to give him the bath.
“Acha….hold tight!....He will jump”, she said
I was trying to shampoo his head and he boxed me with his head. That was his style. I slipped and fell down.
Sheri burst in to laughter..... A thousand tinkling bells.

I woke up in the middle of her laughter. It was darkness and took me some time to realize I was alone and in bed. God! Was it a dream!
It is more than a year since my daughter in law died and I have wept silently every day. Not a single day passes without remembering her. Though I know she is gone, I expect her to walk in the door at any moment and say "Acha..." I think she will call me and we will talk about our action plans at home …. None of this will happen, still.
Michael had left us suddenly one day and all our troubles started. Within few weeks, Sheri was taken ill.While Sheri was at the hospital,my wife had a heart attack... Do misfortunes flock together? We had planned everything for her recovery.... And that is another thing I learned now. To be prepared for unexpected turns in life.

She made people laugh and time flew when she was around. She was a born singer and was never hesitant. You just have to ask her, and she had a song ready for any occasion. Her laughter filled the room with all the unheard music and a warmth you never felt before. You could talk to her and she'll help you be at ease, she could change your bitterness, just being with her. Her love reflected God to me, even as I wonder if He really cared about her innocent child, our aching hearts and the endless tears of her parents. Her joy in the midst of circumstances, her hospitality in the face of illness and disability, her laughter in the wake of disappointment, offers me hope that eventually all of us could learn to behave like her.
Anyone who knew Sheri knew that her family was the center of her life. She brought together everyone in our family. She remembered the birthdays of each and everyone in the family and all of her friends, from the youngest to the oldest. And she never forgot to buy them gifts. She enjoyed in giving.
She would look at me with that coy smile of hers and say, “Oh Acha, you just worry way too much! “
“Acha” she would say,” I have sold 5 Kg of old magazines from Amma’s collection “
“Acha, I cleaned all the kitchen cupboards, and got rid of a dozen bottles from the store”
My wife was notoriously possessive about old magazines, empty bottles and tins; there was no space anywhere at home to keep them all. Sheri and I had entered a secret pact to get rid of as much as possible when my wife would come to stay with me. Sheri trusted me and would call me and give me daily reports of what all she could get rid of.
She will always be a part of my heart and soul. I will always miss her love, her smart and occasional funny remarks, her smile, the food she used to cook specially for me when I go home on vacations.

When a child dies, we lose our commonsense faith in life's predictability. The unanticipated early death cuts through what we have formerly assumed is a natural order of things, shaking the very foundations of our living. All we believed comes into question and we feel as if we have no ground to stand on. All our dreams and hopes are shattered. I had wished if I never existed.
How different this is from the sadness we feel when an older person dies. I remember the time when my mother died. I could understand her long struggle with her illness and accept that her departure had saved her from further sufferings. I reconciled with that truth easily. If she had lived a full life and died naturally, we may miss her, reminisce about all she meant to us, and perhaps wish that we had taken more time to appreciate her. We also come to acknowledge that life brings a series of losses, and we may even understand that they are somehow necessary, or at least part of everyone's experience. But the death of a young person attacks our understanding of life's rhythm and purpose, leaving us wandering in unmapped territories.

Nothing in life prepares you for the death of a child. After Sheri died a year ago, I examined and re-examined my existing values, beliefs and priorities. This process was made extremely challenging by the tearing pain of my early grief. I am a different person, and in many ways, a better person as a result of my struggle with her illness and death. I have also learned some important lessons about love, faith, and the enduring power of relationships.

Now I can understand the depth of the sadness and misery of her parents. If I feel about her this way, how could her own parents take it ! I feel ashamed at the ways I had occasionally thought about their reactions. Their pain is much worse than mine and is going to stay, no matter whatever others may say or do. It is the greatest of their losses.

When I look around, I can see others walking the same path. Even when the night is at its darkest, I can see streaks of light at distance. Our ability to see light in the midst of darkness will help us to survive in a world without the physical presence of the lost one. When we walk in awareness, we can develop our own unique insights that will help us during our journeys.
If we commit to working through the pain of our grief, that pain may transcend to unconditional love for others.
I will continue to weep, sometimes be angry, to mourn, and to draw strength from others who walk this same path.

A caterpillar for ever

2011-03-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

http://juliefeilen.com

Mentally subnormal people are happy. This is what I have seen in my practice .In clinical medicine, there are many conditions where we link this phenomenon to illnesses. Mongols are universally acclaimed to be happy . And that is considered to be part of their clinical spectrum. Whenever I see them in the clinic, they smile at me, even at the extremes of their illness and suffering. They have fewer expressions other than happiness. They smile through their tears.I always used to think that the life of a mentally subnormal is like that of a caterpillar in a cocoon, never having the chance to grow to a butterfly and fly.

The more intelligent always find reasons to be unhappy. There are innumerable reasons in life. We only have to find reasons to be happy. The rest is all for unhappiness.

I had known Marwan (Not his real name) from the time I joined this hospital . He was very short and morbidly obese with very short arms and legs. In his traditional Arabic dress, he used to look like a penguin flipping around. He would walk very fast, as if he were very busy at something .I had seen him panting when he walked around the corridors, but he would never stop. He had bronchial asthma to start with, and would come to me for treatment, and that is how I became friendly with him .I always used to think that he was mentally subnormal. But the interesting thing was that he could communicate in English language. With his broken English, combined with many unique gestures, he could easily put messages across to me that I could understand.

We had evening clinics those days and he would come to the clinic to chat when the clinic was free. And slowly he tried to make a friendship with me .He would tell me many stories of his adventures to impress up on me. He must have been around thirty years of age at that time .He had married four times and divorced all of them because “they were not good enough”( Actually they all had left him, from what I came to know later).So he was on the lookout for a better girl. And that is when he started telling me stories of his Dubai trips. During weekends, he would go to Dubai, where his friends would take him to 'wonderful ' girls. And I asked him “for what?”

“ Jig Jiga” was the answer

That was something which was not in my dictionary

I asked him again. He said again “Jig Jiga”, this time with some gestures to show me what it was, and I got the message. I had thought when I met him first,that the gods must have been in a very non generous mood when he was created.He had neither the looks or the brains. But then,if he was gifted with something,this must be it!

He said he would’ Jig Jiga’ five and six times over the week end. I was surprised at his skills and secretly admired him for his capabilities .And then he would go in to the finer details of his activities, to which I was not much interested. Anyway, he convinced me that he was a very capable man, when it came to matters of sexual activity.

During one of his trips looking for a wife, he got married to a girl from Hyderabad and brought her to this place. He would hide her from outsiders .It was a week after he brought her that she fell ill and I was asked to see her .I was really sad when I found that the woman had a serious heart problem needing urgent surgery. She was incapable of even looking after herself. Someone had cheated him, extracting money from him and had got him married to her. Marwan was really angry when he heard the news. With the background stories of his Dubai trips, I could understand his desperation. He promptly divorced her and sent her back home.

Over the following few years Marwan became progressively ill. He was found to have a heart condition which didn’t have much treatment. His heart was enlarged but weak to pump, and he was admitted with serious shortness of breath and had to be placed on ventilator. It was when I was trying to pass a urinary catheter that I was taken in for surprise. He had a rudimentary genital which was hardly visible. His testicles were atrophic and I guessed he would be impotent, for sure.

Marwan was always happy. I had never seen him sad or depressed . He fabricated stories out of his fantasies. And he lived in a fantasy world which he had made for himself. Even in conditions of serious illnesses, he never gave me any trouble, instead, entertained me with his fantasy stories when he was comfortable enough to speak.

Feelings and desires can easily mislead us since they have nothing to do with wisdom or logic.Our emotions tug at us to give way to fantacies and longings that were not meant to be.I often wonder about the way people deal with their personal problems for which there are no actual solutions.Being depressed and angry at the world is one way.We can make others feel miserable too. To convert the problems to be reasons for happiness for others,is another way,but nearly impossible.

“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.”- Aristotle

The mind’s eye

2011-03-18T02:40:00.000-07:00

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/1-the-minds-eye-darrell-

A widow from a poor village in Bengal did not have enough money to pay for her son’s bus fare, and so, when the boy started going to school, he would have to walk through the forest all on his own. In order to reassure him, she said

“Don’t be afraid of the forest, my son. Ask your God Krishna to go with you. He will hear your prayer.”

The boy followed his mother’s suggestion; Krishna duly appeared; and from then on, accompanied him to school every day.

When it was his teacher’s birthday, the boy asked his mother for some money in order to buy him a present.

“We haven’t any money, son. Ask your brother Krishna to get you a present.”

The following day, the boy explained his problem to Krishna, who gave him a jug of milk.

The boy proudly handed the jug of milk to the teacher, but the other boy’s presents were far superior and the teacher did not even notice the gift.

“Take that jug of milk to the kitchen” said the teacher to an assistant.

The assistant did as he was told. However, when he tried to empty the jug, he found that it immediately filled up again on its own accord. He informed the teacher, who was amazed and asked the boy:

“Where did you get that jug, and how does it manage to stay full all the time?”

“Krishna, the god of the forest, gave it to me.”

The teacher, the students and the assistant all burst out laughing.

“There are no gods in the forest. That is pure superstition” said the teacher.” If he exists, let’s all go and see him.”

The whole group set off. The boy started calling for Krishna, but he did not appear. The boy made one last desperate appeal.

“Brother Krishna, my teacher wants to see you, Please show yourself”

At that moment, a voice emerged and echoed throughout the forest.

“How can he possibly want to see me, my son? He doesn’t even believe I exist!”

"Like the flowing river"

Paulo Coelho

Come back to shape

2011-03-12T07:20:00.000-08:00

The other day I was rushing to go to my hometown. When I got out of the bathroom, I just ran straight, to put on my clothes. That was when I saw myself in the mirror. After so many years, I saw myself naked in the mirror. And I couldn’t believe the shape I was in. Have I become shorter? No, it can’t be! Have I bulges everywhere?. I turned and looked at me from the sides. Worse than before !. My tummy appears to protrude forwards. Is there a bag under the chin? God ! This is not the same me.

I knew I have been putting on some weight recently, but hadn’t guessed it was this bad. I checked my weight. I have put on a good five kilogram during the last year. I am a doctor and haven’t bothered to check my weight for few months! .My exercise program had changed after our duty plans changed. And I had been eating carelessly too.

I used to walk about 6 to 8 kilometers every day, on all days except when I was on call. There were few of us friends who would join the walk in the evening. It is easier and more fun if you have some friends to walk with. I couldn’t convince my wife to go for a walk with me, at any time. Otherwise we could continue our arguments there as well ! Those of you who still keep up the romance, do it.

So, I have decided to go back on exercises. Being a doctor I thought I might as well share this thought with all my friends out there, instead of grumbling about life all the time. I know most of you are in better shape, still.

When was the last time you have seen yourself naked in the mirror? If not, go ahead and have a look today.....as soon as you get home from work, get naked, weigh yourself, look at yourself from different angles. Then you can see what you really look like right now !

How much did you weigh when you were 25 years old? You were a grown up person by then. Then you began to "fill out", spread out, thicken up, started to forget about your health, become complacent about your body shape? Got married, started thinking about responsibilities, and the future? Stopped thinking about your appearance, bought age- appropriate clothing, and bigger sizes every year? Started exposing less skin, covering up the bulges, dressing to impress others, but not trying to impress yourself? Most of us in India do not make it a practice to go to the swimming pool or to the beach in swim wear, so don’t have reasons to show ourselves. So, others, as well us, wouldn’t probably notice.

It is time to find out what the lifestyle changes did to you. Let's see what everyone but you see! What happened to you, what about your youthful looks, your younger shape? Gray hair is OK, that's not the problem. Balachandran wouldn't agree. But you can use some hair color once in a while, if it gives you confidence ( Don’t ever mention it was recommended by a doctor ! A relative of mine was found to have bladder cancer and the doctor asked if he had been using hair dyes. They have been linked to cancer of the bladder )

Some people are intimidated by the idea of beginning an exercise lifestyle. They think people will stare at them, see them trying to change their bodies. They are afraid of being talked about, criticized, and laughed at. In the beginning they will. But eventually all that negative commentary will turn into respect and positive compliments. Your physical activity will cause others to examine themselves in the mirror, nakedly, and some of them will reach the same conclusion that you reached, "It's time to do something good for myself, before the sedate lifestyle makes me flabby and lazy and affects my health."

I was trying to get some information on a proper exercise plan, and that is when I came across the term Calisthenics. They are the performance of physical exercises to promote flexibility, strength, and fitness without using machines. Like squats, stretches, bending, sit-ups, crunches, pushups, leg lifts, movements like that.

There are numerous methods to beat the weight and stay fit, calisthenics workout being one of them. Bodyweight calisthenics exercises help in improving the overall fitness, physique and strength of a person. Calisthenics originated from the Greek words, 'kalos' meaning beauty and 'thenos' meaning strength. Check out the benefits of a calisthenics workout.

The origin of calisthenics is linked to gymnastics. Calisthenics workouts increase the metabolic rate of the body hence these exercises should continue with a smooth flow from one exercise to another. The calisthenics workout should not be stopped all of a sudden in between exercises. Initially each exercise can be repeated for five times and as you get used to the workout each exercise can be repeated 25 to 30 times. It is recommended that you begin calisthenics workout after a few warm up exercises. This exercise workout can be made more interesting by playing music and following the rhythm.

Combine the usual calisthenic exercises like squats, sit-up/crunches, arm, knee and hip rotation, flutter kicks and jumping jack etc. Drink plenty of water. Combine this with your daily walk or jogging…and there you are!

Ten years younger! How would your husband react if you looked and acted 10 years younger? How do you think your wife would enjoy being married to a much-younger you?

Why don't you give it a try and find out ?

Now,the picture below is for illustrative purposes only! If it gives you a stimulus to come to shape, start now !

The Evil

2011-03-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

It takes only few telephone rings to wake me up. After all these years, I still cannot sleep comfortably when I am on call. It was 2.30 in the morning and I guessed it must be something serious. The call was from the on call physician from the ER. A Bengali man had been just brought in with severe shortness of breath. There was no more history. Those who had brought him had left him in the ER and disappeared. He was found to have severe hypertension and was not improving on the usual lines of treatment.

I discussed with the doctor and decided to shift him to the ICU and also requested to alert the anesthetist, in case we needed to place him on ventilator. By the time I reached the hospital, he was in ICU. He had severe breathing difficulty and was unable to answer any questions. His blood pressure was too high to be recorded, and it stayed so, in spite of receiving medicines through I V line. That was unusual. I guessed it must be no ordinary hypertension, and must have some serious underlying reason. We gave him a large dose of a diuretic (a medicine to force the kidneys to produce urine) and another medication to reduce blood pressure. The lab results came in by this time. He was in end stage kidney failure. And that was why his lungs got flooded, making him struggle for breath.

It was impossible to get any history from him. Medical practice, without proper history, is almost like veterinary practice. In fact, half the diagnosis is made from what the patients tell us about their illness. When a patient is critically ill, the doctor is under the worst stress, the patient probably would have lost his consciousness. It took us a lot of stress and effort to get the many test results to come to a conclusion. He had severe hypertension and renal failure due to end stage kidney disease. He needed emergency dialysis. By this time the medications had started taking some effect. His BP was coming down and breathing getting easier. We alerted the nephrologist for emergency dialysis. The patient would die without it.

It was when I started to chart his file that I found he was removing his oxygen mask and calling us by gestures. Morphia had taken its effect and he was drowsy. He couldn’t talk still, but was desperately trying to say something. Through the gasps for breathe I could gather some words

“ Kapda !, mera kapda !” (Clothes! My clothes!)

I couldn’t make out first. But he was frantically looking all around for something and again removed his oxygen mask and repeated

“Mera kapda”

I understood it then. In the ICU, the nurses had removed his own clothes and put on him the hospital gowns .I told him there was no need to worry and his clothes would be given to him when he leaves the ICU. He was not satisfied and again kept on repeating the same slogan.

I was close to getting irritated. We were desperately trying to keep him alive, and here he was, worrying about his clothes!

I asked him “Bhai, why are you afraid ? No one will take your clothes. They are kept in the cupboard”.

This time he added” Hamara Paisa”, (My money!) and I understood. His purse was in the shirt pocket and his money was in it. The nurse told him” Brother your purse is with us, and we have counted and kept 120 dirham also’

He appeared bit relaxed after that. He kept his oxygen mask back in place.

Making lives easier

2011-02-25T12:14:00.000-08:00

I was held up at work and missed all of you. It is said, never ruin an apology with an excuse. So no regrets or apologies. But I will sure catch up with you.

When an individual becomes sick, a doctor is who they go to in order to seek treatment or get advice. But nurses play an equally important role in a patient’s care and recovery. When trying to separate the two jobs, a doctor is the one who does the examining and diagnosing, while the nurse has a “more hands-on role with physically treating a patient”. Do the two jobs intertwine? Absolutely, and that is why many nurses feel that on certain occasions they may have more insight into a patient’s case.

I had always seen the hospital work as a simple routine and failed to recognise or acknowledge the kind of service offered by the nursing staff and the sacrifices they make.Everything was taken for granted.I havent paused for a minute to look at them with thankfullness and gratitude.I am glad that this event prompted me to do that.

Ahmed (Not his real name) has been with us in the medical ward for more than 18 months. He has turned 16 years now.From childhood, he has been suffering from a crippling illness called muscular dystrophy. At school, he started falling down repeatedly during games, and then had difficulty to get up from squatting position .He had been taken to many hospitals in and outside here, and was finally labeled with this diagnosis.There is a diagnosis, but no treatment. And there is nothing which stops its progression to crippling and death. This is the paradox in neurology. There is lot of scope for hair splitting academic discussions, but when it comes to treatment, often there is nothing much to offer. Our nerve cells do not have the capacity to regenerate, or if at all they do, they do it at a snail’s pace. And also we do not have an idea as to how and why many of these diseases develop.

He had been confined to a bed for few years now, and then the worst part of his illness took over. When the muscles to breathe got involved, he became unable to breathe by himself. After many attempts of non invasive ventilator support, finally he had to undergo a tracheotomy and then connected to a ventilator.

He is unable to move. His muscles are wasted. The only parts which move are his fingers and the face muscles. He is fond of soccer matches, and so we have managed to get a television for him and given him a remote control by which he can choose his favorite games .He has no voice, but can move his lips. His face muscles are intact so he can express. He has to be fed, cleaned and given all the daily care by the nursing staff. His world has shrunken to the hospital bed. The ward is his home and he is a part of the family there.

We start our morning rounds in the medical ward by visiting him. I stay for some time and try to entertain him with some silly questions and jokes. He always welcomes me with a smile. Through the middle of his tears, he has learned to smile. He likes to have someone around him, but hardly gets any visitor,except his parents.

I walked in to his room last Sunday as usual, but was in for a surprise. The room looked bright and colorful. A big banner stretched from one end to the other. Written “Happy Birthday, Ahmed ”. Balloons floated everywhere. Ahmed was dressed in a color shirt which one of the nurses had brought for him. Beside him, on a table was a beautifully decorated cake. Soon after I entered the room, all the nurses and cleaning staff walked in and started singing “happy birthday’. Ahmed was all smile and cheer. While we made him cut the cake, a big bouquet of flowers was brought in, sent in by the Matron (She is very fond of him too).The celebration was short and sweet, and I know it has filled his day with memories he would cherish for the rest of his life.

I felt so happy that those nurses had the goodness in them to remember his birthday and make a day for him. These are acts of kindness that make them truly human and earn them the names ’ nurses’ ‘sisters’ ‘angels’ and nightingales ’. Their routine is not an easy one and their work so demanding.

Wounds need to be dressed, patients need to be fed, reports for the hospital must be filled out, and medical records must be documented for continuity of care, and prevent the ever present fear of litigation. The doctor is here and wants to see the patient with her and asks how they're doing. He writes some orders that they must document, then carry out and then finally document them again.

Patients need to be walked, tracheotomies need to be cared for, the patient in 19B is complaining of pain, IVs need to be started and some restarted, and the next shift nurse has called in sick ,so someone has to work 12 hours today. There is going to be a transfer of a patient to Abu Dhabi and another nurse who is off duty has to be called in. The patient in 22 B has passed stools and soiled his bed and had to be cleaned immediately because his son has come to visit him and can’t stand the odor.

It goes on and on with endless telephone calls and constant moving around. It is said that a nurse walks around an average of 8 KMs during her 8 hour shift .At the end, everyone complains, and very few say at least a word of thanks.

Seldom are they remembered after people walk out of hospitals. No one thinks for a minute that they would seldom do the task of carrying the feces and urine of even the closest of their relatives. How many would dare to clean their own relative who has soiled his bed and is bathed in urine, leave alone putting their fingers in to the rectum to remove the impacted feces.

Many patients do not feel the need to tell nurses thanks, but telling them that you appreciate them would add a little more meaning to their lives. After hearing curses all day, it is so nice to have somebody come back and show their appreciation. Never mind the last eight hours have been spent without food or water as you run like a chicken with your head cut off, trying to keep people alive and out of pain. This profession is for stronger minded people, with high coping skills, and definitely a sense that we do not live in a perfect world, and therefore you cannot expect perfection, you can only do your best to try to give good care. It occurs to me that there will eventually be no one who will become nurses except those who have no choice like life term prisoners. The stress is unbelievable, the rewards few, the perks even less.

It is an unusual profession, it is a calling.

Doctor ! You are sick !!

2011-02-12T07:13:00.000-08:00

I was taken ill last week. It started as a simple cough and cold, and soon, I lost my voice. When I tried to speak, only a hiss would come out. The difficult part was that I was not looking badly ill. I used to fresh up every day and would go to hospital. For few days, I managed by giving written down instructions to the staff and avoided the outpatient clinics .In between, paroxysms of cough would come and who ever happens to see me would ask

“Doctor ! You are sick !!”

When I failed to attend the clinic for few days some patients started complaining .Worse, when they happen to meet me at the wards, they would think I was faking illness and avoiding the clinics. The best thing would have been to call in sick and take leave, but then, that would bring further resentment among colleagues, who have to put up with the extra work. Personal days and sick days are frowned upon in the physician world, yet daily I am writing work and school notes for patients. I sit in the clinic giving sick leave for those who come to me with pharyngitis , and asking them to give ‘voice rest’, all the while, talking to them in my husky voice. Physicians are expected to be superhuman. In the last fifteen years, I have never called in sick, not that I had not been sick. There were many times I continued working at the hospital with the troubling pains of kidney stones, which is a constant companion these days.

It was interesting to see how people look at us when we fall sick.

It may be hard to believe, but we get health problems too, like anyone else out there.

I see this odd view surprisingly often. People somehow expect us to be beyond the health concerns of ordinary people. We may be doctors, but we’re also humans. Prone to the same illnesses, bad luck, and erroneous judgments the rest of mortals are. Being a doctor doesn’t protect you from the things that affect others. The chances are that we might catch infections more often than others, because of the frequent exposure to illnesses.

I also learned something. For a person who is sick, his own sickness is the worst. If the nose is blocked, the nose becomes the most important organ. If a leg is injured, that is the worst situation possible. We forget those with heart attacks or cancers.

On the flip side, sometimes we’re surprised when something serious happens to us. At times, there seems to be an unspoken belief that by devoting ourselves to caring for others, it should magically protect us from those same diseases we fight. I wish if it were so.

If anything, the high stress nature of our work makes us more likely to have bad things happen. We often ignore our own issues because of the time needed to care for others. Most of us live sleep deprived, stressed up lives, and survive on food that we’d never advise others to take. When I come back from the hospital, it has become almost a routine for me to pick up a sandwich from Burger King or Mc Donald. That is exactly what I ask them not to do.

I get angry at patients for not exercising, or a poor diet, or forgetting to pick up their prescriptions. I call them ‘non compliant’! But I do the same stuff as much as, if not more often, than they do. After a long day at the clinic and tiring hospital rounds, and dealing with un ending problems at home, when do I have time to do my exercise, pick up my aspirin and get something decent for dinner?. And hope that over the weekend I’ll find time to exercise. Or get up earlier in the morning and go for jogging. It never happens.

An apology

2011-02-05T09:12:00.000-08:00

A doctor’s world is very small. Before I became a doctor, I could go around anywhere, meet relatives and stay with them, travel or just do whatever I wanted. I had time and people.

It is almost 25 years since I started practice. Ever since, life has been different. My world was shrinking. It became smaller and smaller. My life was full of patients and colleagues and nothing else. With no time left , there is almost no social interaction. There are only those who come to us for pain and suffering. No one ever has walked in to my clinic to say a simple hello. Never, even those who got better.

It is not surprising, that the world, for me has become so small. Naturally, life become full of stories related to patients or colleagues. I had tried to avoid many personal details in my blogging, except on one occasion. That was when I mentioned a colleague of mine. But, with all sincerity, I can still say, like I had written, that he is probably one I still respect as a good physician among colleagues. I had clearly written that he had set examples for me in life and career .I had mentally accepted him as a teacher and secretly admired him. The only mistake was that I mentioned the use of some words by him. With so much of good things said, I thought this was nothing important and I had also clearly mentioned that he didn’t mean anything bad about those words .Still, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.

I learned another lesson from him now and I will not forget it too. From deep within my heart, I am begging him to forgive me, if I have hurt him in any way by my words.

In my entire career, I never tried to butter up people to get things done. Naturally I might not be called very friendly with senior colleagues. Along with such friendships come many obligations.

The most important thing for a physician is his professional reputation. And the best judge to know his capabilities are his colleagues. Every doctor thinks so high of himself. It is very unusual to hear good things about a doctor from another one.

“He is such a kind hearted doctor. He is so good to patients and talks so well, but he doesn’t know medicine. I hear all his patients die”

“Oh…him! He is a very tough guy. He is said to be rude and arrogant. But people are crowding because he is very good professionally. They say he is the best around”

It is hard to get a perfect combination. Given an option, I would like to hear the second.

In life, there is no perfect situation. No perfect person too.

A love story

2011-02-01T18:59:00.000-08:00

It was the warmest campus story those days. He was handsome and always wore a beard, perfectly trimmed and we used to call him ‘the zodiac man”. There was an advertisement of the zodiac apparels, featuring a handsome bearded man, and he looked similar. No wonder so many girls were after him. He belonged to a lower caste, which was the only difference. Annie was the best student in her batch and they had met during their clinical rotations. Soon, it became the sensational romance of the campus. They were often seen together, at the coffee house, at the garden in front of the college, which would be deserted by evenings, and always at the hospital wards. At evenings only the lovers used to go to the darkened corners of the garden. "Lover's corner", we used to say. And the campus was so full of lovers those days.

Her parents were senior professors in Medical College. Because they were working in another college, it took some time for them to gather the news. By the time they knew, the lovers were inseparable. Her father was so unpopular among students because of his tough and arrogant attitude to students. He was equally tough with his children. He tried all his tactics with the girl and everything failed. And one fine morning, the campus was thrilled to hear the news that the lovers got the marriage registered in a court.

Her father simply sent her out of his home. He refused to accept Kumar as his son in law and had no hesitation to say that on his face. He publicly declared that she was no longer his daughter. Annie was my good friend and would confide in me with all her problems. She would tell me, Kumar could not take all problems as he was very sensitive.

Both of them were good at studies and completed their course and got direct admission to the PG classes. The professor tried to harass them at every opportunity, especially during exams, by using his influence among the faculty.

They survived all the ordeals and remained inseparable. Everyone knew Kumar was obsessed with her and would never leave her for a minute. It was as if he had nothing else in his life. She was everything for him. Both joined the teaching faculty after studies. Somewhere along the time, they had a son and then, I lost touch of them. We were working in different parts of the world.

It was after ten years that I got a call from Annie. She got the number from my wife and called me when I was in Dubai.

I guessed something must be wrong, from the time I got her call. Her voice was dull and she was no more the talkative and cheerful Annie. She said she wanted to come to Dubai, and wanted me to find a job for her. I asked about Kumar and she was not very enthusiastic. By the time I got her papers, she already had received an offer of employment from the ministry. It looked as if she was frantically trying to come out.

She would come to visit me when she was not on call and slowly I got her story in bits and pieces. She said she could no longer live with Kumar, even when it came to losing custody of her child. Reasons were simple. He was suffocating her with his love. She couldn’t go out anywhere, or spend time with some friends and was answerable to each and everything. There was no breathing space. It was embarrassing to see him waiting outside if she would be attending some conferences or meetings. He would even take time from work and come out, as if she were a child. She just wanted to breathe free. In her words “to live normal”

I just couldn’t make heads or tails out of it. Too much love and attention! That was the first time I was hearing such a story. I didn’t ask her anything more and just listened to what all she said. I expected some more stories, but nothing came out. I honestly do not know if there was something more to it.

Once when we were sitting at the edge of a pool at Safa Park, she filled the palm of her hand with some water and held it before me. “You see this water carefully contained on my hand? It symbolizes Love. As long as you keep your hand gently open and allow it to remain there, it will always be there. If you attempt to close your fingers round it and try to posses it, it will spill through the first cracks it finds”

That was a statement I would never forget. This is the greatest mistake that people do when they meet love. They try to posses, own, demand, and expect… and just like the water spilling out of your hand, love will retrieve from you. For love is meant to be free, you cannot change its nature. If there are people you love, allow them to be free beings. Even the greatest of love would become boring, if there is nothing else in the background.

Love is a bumpy road.

I have seen relationships collapse due to a possessiveness overdrive and power struggle. Well, we can never reason out our actions in relationships, but awareness always helps in defining our perspective. Love, like joy and cheer is meant to be shared and isn’t limited, like a piece of cake or candy. Still, we feel as if we own the person and haggle for our share, how strange!

http://buimuse.com/EnglishPoems.html

My God. Einstein's too

2011-01-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

When arguments go around on matters of faith and religion, I often think

"Where do I stand?

There are times in my life when I have painfully called out to God. That call came from deep within; based on the hopes He had promised all of us. But, were all those prayers answered? I have often wondered, if you believe in a God who knows everything and watches over everything, is there a need to ask for anything? If a hair cannot fall without His knowledge, is there a point in asking Him, when we ourselves fall totally?

I was born in to a Catholic family and brought up as one. My house was next to the Cathedral and I grew up playing in the church compound, listening to the prayer bells, and the routine of evening prayers and Sunday masses. My world was too small.
To those of my friends who argue about religion, there is a question I always ask.
"Do you believe in God?"
If the answer is yes, I tell them "That is good enough, because there are others out there who do not believe"
"If you believe in God, have you a personal God?"
If He is a God in my list of harmless Gods, I would tell them
"That is wonderful. Because it is better than learning to hate others around who do not believe in your religion"
To those who say they cannot believe in something they haven’t seen, I would say

"Have you seen love? But haven’t you felt that sublime emotion which transcends all feelings and make you feel you cannot live without it ?. God is the same way"

"Have you chosen this religion yourself?"
"If not, then what right have you got to criticize other religions? Do you know what is written in their books or what they believe in?"

My understanding of the Hindu faith changed fundamentally after I started discussing religion with my friend Dr.Anand Kumar, who is a neurologist. I respect him as a fellow doctor and admire his knowledge and skills. He gave me explanations for many of the principles guiding the religion, which I could accept on the basis of simple logic. I could also come to terms with many other faiths the same way.

How many of us have put in some effort to read and understand other religions, before landing on one, rather than sitting in comfort and arguing' Mine is the true one"

I would respect a religion if it teaches you good practices. If it teaches you to love and serve fellow human beings. Not to hurt human and animals alike. I simply cannot respect religions which would advise you to take the life of someone, for whatever reasons.

Faith or religion is some kind of priming. Sometime back, we had few Chinese nurses working in our hospital. I used to ask them about life in China, and was surprised to see that many of them haven’t heard of God. If they haven’t heard of God, how can they believe in one? They don’t have to pray to God for their needs, or when they are in suffering. They were simply not used to it. They were used to living without a God.

I have also thought "If science does not go along with God, how is it that many of our scientists were believers? From Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, and Faraday to Einstein, we see that many of our greatest scientists believed in God. Their brains were most probably not inferior to ours in any way.

Einstein is probably the best known and most highly revered scientist of the twentieth century, and is associated with major revolutions in our thinking. Although never coming to belief in a personal God, he recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in "Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists." This actually motivated his interest in science, as he once remarked to a young physicist: "I want to know how God created this world; I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details."

Einstein's famous epithet on the "uncertainty principle" was "God does not play dice" - and to him this was a real statement about a God in whom he believed. A famous saying of his was "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

"Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here involuntary and uninvited for a short stay, without knowing the whys and the wherefore. In our daily lives we only feel that man is here for the sake of others, for those whom we love and for many other beings whose fate is connected with our own." ... "The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavors in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is."
Einstein's speech 'My Credo' to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin, autumn 1932, Einstein: A Life in Science, Michael White and John Gribbin.

As he famously declared: “A spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe …a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort.”

When asked directly if he believed in God, he always insisted he did, and explained it once this way: “We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”

"Nobody, certainly, will deny that the idea of the existence of an omnipotent, just, and omnibeneficent personal God is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance; also, by virtue of its simplicity it is accessible to the most undeveloped mind. But, on the other hand, there are decisive weaknesses attached to this idea, which have been painfully felt since the beginning of history. That is, if this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?"

"My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance-but for us, not for God".

"The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science lies in this concept of a personal God". Einstein’s address at Princeton Theological Seminary.

My God and his are the same.

A Fart story

2011-01-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

We were on our way to attend the annual meeting of Kerala Medical Graduates Association. A big bus had been hired on the hopes of many members, but only few turned up. So we were seated in the bus, scattered around, one seat for a person. We have a very old doctor here doing private practice who is always lethargic and sleepy, and can go in to deep sleep at any time or place. He was also popular for his farts, which were always untimely. (Some people secretly call him Dr.Fart ) He had just placed his handbag on the overhead rack, settled on the seat and then promptly gone to sleep. Just when others were settling down, and were planning to have the breakfast, we heard the roar of a fart, like a trumpet horn. It was from the still sleeping doctor. Everyone stopped talking and looked at his direction .He ripped another, longer fart and went on with his sleep. Children, who were playing at the front of the bus, stopped playing to run to the ripper doctor. They were giggling and laughing, and were expecting another round of the fire work. The women were trying to suppress their laughter and one lady doctor couldn’t hold on and went in to an uncontrolled laughter, and in the process, ripped a small high pitched fart, which suited her good looks. I asked the driver to start the bus; ours was an old school bus which could swallow any sounds around. Everyone was laughing for quite some time, and it was a good start towards a meeting which turned out to be shit.

When I was young, nothing could make me laugh harder than farts. There is just something about the way the air sliding between your butts, and the noise it makes, which makes people laugh. Not to mention the way they smell. Everything about a fart is funny!

All along the way to our meeting place, I was thinking of this fart and the responses. It made me laugh many times. I was thinking how come we were so unkind to farters . If someone belches and makes funny sounds, no one thinks it is bad. But when the same air is passed through the other end, the story changes.

There are many kinds of farts and I have also seen some people who enjoy farting. They never bother about others around and can produce different fart music depending on their moods. Then there is the "coughp". A coughp is where you accidentally fart while coughing .It often happens, and can go unnoticed in the fuss of the cough.

Another name introduced to the fart world is "Aachoorpoo". Aachoorpoo is where you sneeze and fart at the same time. It is like… Aaaaah… Choooo..Porrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Then there is the "Sissy Fart". This fart is often characterized by a high whining noise, similar to the air being let out of a balloon real slow, with the rubber mouthpiece stretched real tight. The kind of fart a princess would do. I guess the sissy aspect of the fart is that men should have loud, earthmoving low-keyed farts. At least a baritone, but a bass is preferred. Real men just don't do sissy farts!

The word “hang time" is very important in a fart.. Hang time is the time a fart lingers in a general area. A fart is said to have good hang time if you can leave the room, like to go to the restroom, come back and be hit by the same fart again. Another term for the same thing is "time bomb". The way a time bomb is used is after you fart, you stand still just long enough to let all of the air escape your pants. Then walk off! Time bombs are especially good to use when in the supermarkets or other public places.

I can give you a good practical advice here. Make sure to push a small test fart before you try to blast someone away! If you are in a crowd, like in a lift or in a train, and if you happen to rip a nasty fart, just stay cool. Act as if you have not done it, and look sternly at the faces of people around, and they would think someone else has done it. Never try to wriggle your butt and squeeze it out without making sound; It would come out with a more squeaky sound, like the whine of a dog hit by a stone.

A friend of mine was having his engagement. As they were having lunch, he started having really bad gas. It got to the point where he could hardly hold it in. After lunch, they were all sitting together in the family room when the house dog Sancho came and sat next to him. As my friend crossed his legs, and was trying to hold the explosion, he let one rip by accident. Terrified, he looked at his future father in law who turned to the dog and said,
"Sancho!" very sternly.
My friend grinned.
"Great, so he thinks it was the dog. Damn I can't hold it in any longer. Let me rip another one and blame it on the dog." He thought as he was petting the dog and ripped a stronger one, this time in real bass tone.
"Sancho!" The father in law to be, exclaimed gain.
"Aaah.., that felt so good, once more and I will be so relieved." And he let another one go, this time, like from a trumpet..

"Sancho !, I warned you twice ! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HIM BEFORE HE GASSES YOU TO DEATH!"

The story goes that the girl’s father was so concerned about himself and his dog and my friend’s fart, that he was reluctant to give his daughter in marriage to my friend.

The favorite fart story in my memory is from my childhood, and it really happened.

Ittirachan was the richest man around those days. His family owned plantations all over the state. During those days, when very few had cars, Ittirachan had three cars at home and drivers too. He had a palatial bungalow and was close to politicians and bishops alike. Ittirachan could order the Bishop , that was what they used to say.

So it was, his youngest daughter was getting married at the Cathedral. The whole gang of politicians and half a dozen bishops had arrived. Bishops only attend the weddings of those stinking rich. Only those marriages are made in heaven. The poor gets simply married on earth.

The Archbishop had blessed the couple to be married. There was pin drop silence. Ittirachan’s wife was a fat Ammachi with a huge backside .She was dressed in the traditional aristocratic style in white Mundu with a decorative frill at the back, and a Kasavu shawl and a diamond brooch to match. The knot had just been tied and Ittirachan’s wife ripped a huge fart. Within the walls of the Cathedral, it echoed many times and sounded like the roar of a lion. All eyes turned towards Ammachi and she wished if she had vanished in to thin air. Her face became red and sweaty.

Suddenly she got the brain wave. There was this skeleton of a woman Mariakkutty Chedathi, who was her servant, standing behind her, carrying Ammachi’s bag and umbrella. She whispered to the woman.

“Mariyakkutty, I will give you five hundred rupees, if you act as if you have ripped the fart.”

The poor woman didn’t have an idea of how to act the fart business. But the amount was impossible, about a year’s salary of the poor woman. Her small brain did the work. She got it!. She noticed the tall pulpit, next to her and without further thinking climbed on to it. As loud as she could, she announced.

“I take the full responsibility of the fart you heard, for a sum of five hundred rupees. It is not Ammachi, I am the one who ripped that fart”

Cheating husbands

2011-01-20T06:26:00.000-08:00

I knew this family from the time I joined this hospital. She always used to accompany her husband when he would come for his checkups and also when he got admitted occasionally for his uncontrolled diabetes. Theirs was a happy family. Two bright kids, an excellent job, stylish living, regular attendance at the church for weekly services….I used to think they were a perfect couple. I also used to mention this to my wife, as to how happy this couple was. He never had any major health problems, and the woman was strikingly good looking even at her middle age. That was one reason my wife was not very enthusiastic about my comments.

And so I was surprised to see her waiting for me at my clinic, alone. That was unusual. One look at her, and I guessed something was wrong. She looked as if she hadn’t slept for days. I had never before seen her so shabby with unkempt hair. Her eyes lacked the usual luster. Without my asking, she just murmured” I want to talk to you” as if in a trance. There were patients waiting with appointments, and so I left the message with my sister to ask her to wait. Soon after I finished my patients I called her in.

I waited for some time, but she couldn’t start the conversation.

I asked her “Is it something to do with Jacob?( Not the real name) Is he not well?

A sob was the reply and then she burst in to tears. The nurse in my clinic was a Malayali, and I was worried whatever she may overhear would be a news letter on the same, if not the next day. It took her some time to get her composure and then she came up with this story. Through the sobs and whimpers , I got the story that her husband was having an affair. And that too, it was going on for quite some time , but she came to know about it now. Had it been a hear say, I wouldn’t believe. Jacob was such a nice guy. But apparently her own brother had seen the husband with another woman at a hotel, where he was spending the weekend on ‘official meeting’. The woman was known to them as well, being the wife of another friend of theirs. Now, both the families were in trouble.

There was nothing much to offer her, and I was even surprised why she chose me to confide her stories. I am a well known sympathizer, that is all what I can do often, and probably she expected me to come up with a solution. Her own brother was making a mess of the whole situation, letting the whole world know about it, if not already known. I offered to go to their home and discuss the problem, and somehow, managed to send her back home. If a good looking woman is seen crying in my clinic that could be another story. They won’t spare me for my age.

If infidelity hurts so many people, then why do men cheat on their wives? It’s like asking, “Why do some men beat up their wives?” Only nowadays, we’ve made progress on the sexist idea that she made him beat her. I am sure the elderly mother in laws would definitely find that reason acceptable.” She was a little too much from the beginning” attitude. However, when it comes to sex and infidelity, that’s where things really get sticky. Society is still inclined to blame a woman as the reason for her husband's philandering. Or at least, insist she take half his responsibility for choosing to betray his wife and family. We continue offering excuses as to why a man messes around with another woman when they have a perfectly well equipped partner at home. A partner with perks. Comfortable living, happy kids, compassion enough to care for each other, respectability, and a safe place to call home.

Cheating husbands usually start their experimenting on the house maids. They are easy victims, often helpless in the confines of a home, and ashamed or afraid to complain for fear of job. The saddest part is that even when there is sufficient evidence to prove that the men do commit adultery with maids , most women feel reluctant to take action because of the fear of breaking up the family or hurting the children.

We say to one another, "Well, he must not have been happy at home."

Contrary to assumptions that only dissatisfied, unhappy men cheat, happy men cheat, too. According to an infidelity expert: “This information may surprise you, but research has proven time and time again that a man’s happiness or the quality of his marriage have no bearing on whether or not he’ll have an extramarital affair.”

Well, it is difficult for us to understand what quality of marriage one can have, while pursuing extramarital affairs. Qualities and values differ from place to place, and so do marital rules and regulations. Maybe, it is so till everything is kept secret. Cheating husbands and wives are unduly considerate and caring to their partners, it is said. If your husband becomes suddenly and unusually caring and concerned, be a little cautious .Could be, that lovely looking saree he brought home after the tour was meant for someone else. And the new fragrance he wears, a gift for him from his secret friend.

But this does not mean there are no cheating wives. It is hard to get statistics on this. But my feeling is that their numbers are on the increase. With increasing freedom, exposure to new acquaintances and friendships at workplace and other outings, women these days do not lack in opportunities. Monotony and unhappiness at work, lack of time at home to spend with partner, and also at times, as a revenge on a cheating husband. If women appear to have less affairs, it is probably because they are more careful then men, who would fall head over heels at an affair.

Now, to my blogger friends, don’t be upset and get irate over this. Just see me as an

infidelity expert!

When I come across such problems, (Not very usual because we are so secretive and also they need the support of experts in the field) my plan of reconciliation would be to give the lovers the boot. For casual relationship, it ends instantaneously once it is known to others. Neither of them wants to take such risks in life. In what we call extramarital love affair, it is more difficult. To leave the lover, and reconcile with the spouse is still not an unattainable task, once the husband and wife learn to meet each other’s emotional and physical needs. Bring to the notice, the long forgotten commitments of marriage and how it would affect the lives of children and alter their fate. Life is not meant for those few moments of carnal pleasure.

Signs of a Cheating Spouse.

Now, don’t take these tips lightly. These are pearls of wisdom gained from years of scientific research ! Learn them by heart. Might come handy some time , and then you might want to thank me!

He/She shows a sudden interest in a different type of music or song

Spouse's co-workers are uncomfortable in your presence.
Always appear to be in a dream world.
He/She has a sudden preoccupation with his or her appearance.
Spends an excessive amount of time on the computer when you are asleep.
You find items of intimate apparel that you did not give your spouse.
Your spouse seems less comfortable around you and is "touchy"
You get calls where the caller hangs up when he or she hears your voice.
He/She uses a low voice or whisper on the phone or hangs up quickly.
Begins to delete all incoming phone calls from the caller ID.
Deletes all incoming e-mails, when they used to accumulate earlier.
Picks fights in order to stomp out of the house.
Your spouse stops seeking advice from you.
He/she sets up a new e-mail account and doesn't tell you about it.

Here are some lessons to learn from the misfortunes of many well known cheaters.

Don’t let your desire for sex over rule your common sense.

The cost of infidelity is not always in money.

Mistresses often have ulterior motives in getting involved with married men.

Infidelity won’t improve your marriage .It might destroy it.

Sooner or later you will slip up and get caught.

Somebody else always knows what is going on.

Money can’t buy silence when it comes to infidelity.

Hell has not the fury of an offended spouse.

Overconfidence will give you away one day.

Cheaters always leave signs behind !

Changing Lives

2011-01-13T11:11:00.000-08:00

I

It was Raji who sent me the link to this video,while commenting on my post on child sex and abuse.
I was moved by it and felt disturbed. It is easy to talk about principles.To go through personal losses and sufferings and then talk about them in public,is an altogether different matter.A rape usually ends the life of a girl.The rest of her destiny is like a caterpillar in a cocoon, never going to get the chance to be a butterfly.To gather the smouldering remains of a life and start a new journey with a mission set apart for others, is next to impossible.

Sunitha Krishnan has dedicated her life to rescuing women and children from sex slavery, a multimilion-dollar global market. In this courageous talk, she tells three powerful stories, as well as her own, and calls for a more humane approach to helping these young victims rebuild their lives.

Dr Sunita Krishnan is an extraordinary person. She makes us think about our own social commitments and how insensitive most of us have become to the problems of the underprivileged around us. How much can one Sunita do? How long can we remain silent? It is shameful to notice that she gets the help of American organizations to get her tasks of raids and rescues done. The police wouldn’t have helped otherwise.

There was an overwhelming response to Sunita’s talk. Her organization is gaining recognition as the leading force against trafficking of women and children in India. She was honored with the' Real Heroes' award in April 2008. It is also worth mentioning that Prajwala was recently awarded with the prestigious AGFUND International Award for its pioneering work to combat trafficking women.

For most of us it would be hard to believe such things happen in our country. Teenage girls are forcibly kept as slaves and traded. I have posted a link to an actual raid in a brothel to rescue the girls. Sunita’s initiative is involved in routine raids of such brothels with the help of local police.

Dr. Sunitha Krishnan is the chief functionary and co-founder of Prajwala. After gaining a doctorate in social work, she had founded the organization along with a friend of hers. He was a Christian missionary and died in 2005. Prajwala means "eternal flame." It is dedicated to removing/ rescuing women from brothels. It begins with helping their children. In 1995 she started a school with five children. Today, aside from this boarding school for HIV positive kids, Prajwala runs 17 schools across the city of Hyderabad with 5,000 children.Her organization deserves help from all kind hearted people.

About two million people are trafficked each year within India or from neighboring countries. Most are inducted into the sex trade at age 10 or even earlier, usually destined for big cities and tourist areas. Prajwala has developed a network of informants in the sex industry to help conduct what have become trademark brothel raids. Most of the young women rescued are already veterans of the trade. Many are actually very reticent.

Malini, one of her inmates responds. When we asked the police, "Why are you hitting us?" they said "because you do this immoral work." And I said, "Well, why are you catching us? You should go after our house madams, not us. But they just beat us some more".

“The rape per se was not so much of an issue for me. Sunita talks about her own experience of rape.”I don't know, for some reason I was never traumatized by that, the fact that I was raped. But what happened after that made me think [about] the way my family treated me, the way the world treated me, the way people around me treated me. The sense that thousands and millions of children and young people are being sexually violated and that there's this huge silence about it around me angers me. This huge normalization of that angers me”.

Prostitution is a very lucrative organized crime she says. She's been beaten up 14 times since starting Prajwala, the price for rescuing thousands of children from what she calls "the world's oldest form of slavery."

Bonds of Love

2011-01-09T08:38:00.000-08:00

"So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and nothing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.

Sing your death song and die like a hero going home"

Chief Tecumseh (Crouching Tiger) Shawnee Nation 1768-1813

I was doing the on calls during the Christmas week because I had to come home the following weekend.

Abdulla ( Not his real name) was brought in on Thursday night through the ER. He looked around forty years old and had severe shortness of breath. Through the middle of his struggle for air, he said it was just few days that he was feeling unwell. He had gone to Bangkok for a medical check up and just come back a week back and the doctors there had told him that “everything is fine, and there is no need to go back”. I asked him if he had any medical report with him and he said, “My doctor had gone on vacation and would send it once he is back”

The x ray chest showed he had massive fluid collection in his right chest. I shifted him to the ICU because his oxygenation was dropping. We did an immediate aspiration to remove the fluid and drained a litre and half of bloody fluid. One look at the nasty looking fluid, and I knew this was no ordinary infection, and must be cancerous. But Abdulla was confident. His wife and young son were around. He was relieved of his distress once the fluid was removed and was talking cheerfully to his family and asked his son to go home and bring his favourite food.

The next day we did a CT scan of the chest and found he had a large tumour in the lung. He also had operation marks on his chest, and the films had shown that they had resected some ribs from his chest. Everything put together was clear. I suggested a CT guided biopsy and he refused outright. By the third day he was comfortable and during rounds, he asked me permission to go home. I explained the condition to him and the need to do further tests. His family was outside the ICU. He smiled at me and took an envelope from under his pillow and handed it over to me. There was a detailed medical report stating that he had advanced cancer which was inoperable and resistant to all the chemotherapies they had tried on him. He only had limited time. He had prevented his doctor from disclosing the diagnosis to his family, giving in writing that he was taking all the responsibilities on himself.

Finally, he smiled at me and said’ Doctor, I knew from the beginning you had guessed it. Both of us know now. I know I don’t have much time left. But I want my family to be at peace till the inevitable. Isn’t that reason enough?”

Medicine exists to fight death and disease, and that is, of course, it’s most basic task. Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And, in a war that you cannot win, you don’t want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. I agreed to what all he asked for.

I have seen many terminally ill patients during my career. But not a single one like him. He had tremendous guts. And a concern which is rare these days. I realised how sincerely he loved his wife and son. Love, is not only in taking, it is more in giving.

For the bonds of love are enduring and cannot be severed by death. This is the ultimate comfort in the presence of death and dying – that the bonds of love can grow roots within the heart itself, and once implanted there, are able to remain forever.

He went home the next day, promising to come back to the clinic.

An angel passed this way

2011-01-02T19:57:00.000-08:00

“To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die”.

Thomas Campbell

Sheri Susan Thomas

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away to the next room.

I am I and you are you. Whatever we were to each other,

That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.

Speak to me in the easy way

which you always used.

Put no difference into your tone.

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed

at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, and think of me. Pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word

that it always was.

Let it be spoken without effect.

Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.

It is the same that it ever was.

There is absolute unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind

because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.

For an interval

somewhere. Very near.

Just around the corner.

Henry Scott Holland

When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.

We treasure the memory of Sheri, our daughter in law, who left us forever this day last year. I can’t write anything more about her. My daughter used to tell me “ Acha, you love her more than me”.

And she loved us all in her own special ways. She was just an angel who lost her way.

Christmas Tears

2010-12-21T07:27:00.000-08:00

"The rulers of this world are seldom friendly to the cause of God.”
J. C. Ryle

I was planning to write a simple Christmas greeting to my blogger friends. Then I came across this story, a story we forget in the middle of all the joy of Christmas. This was part of a sermon from the Keep Believing Ministries.

" This is the story of the man who tried to kill Christmas. It is strange and bizarre and doesn’t seem like it should be in the Bible. It doesn’t seem like we should read it during the Christmas season. It doesn’t sound right amid all the Christmas carols. It doesn’t look right surrounded by sparkling lights and candy canes. It takes all the joy away and leaves only sadness.

No, this is a story we would just as soon forget. It’s a story about the boys of Bethlehem. It’s a story about murder in the manger. History has labeled this event the Slaughter of the Innocents. It’s part of the Christmas story, tucked away toward the end of Matthew.

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: ‘‘A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more” (Matthew 2:16-18) "

This is part of the scandal of Christmas. Whenever choirs do Christmas concerts, they don’t sing about this part of the story. No Christmas carols mention this tragic event. Yet it happened one night in Bethlehem. What Herod did to those baby boys is just as real as Mary giving birth to Jesus.Mary rejoicing, Rachel weeping. Christmas joy, Christmas tears—all wrapped up together.

Why is this shocking story recorded in the Bible? It must be true because the Bible records it as a sober historical fact, and it must be important or Matthew wouldn’t have mentioned, and that means there must be something here we need to think about. There are times in the Bible when you read something and it is so amazing or so unexpected or in this case so heartbreakingly cruel you ought to stop and ask, “What’s going on here?”

As we look at these verses we are struck with an enormous sense of evil. In fact it’s hard to find the right words to describe the act— barbaric, despicable, hideous, inhuman, and unspeakably cruel. It is an act worthy of Stalin, Hitler or Saddam Hussein .

A few years ago I had seen a column about an event that took place when the Nazi Adolph Eichmann—who helped plan the systematic destruction of millions of Jews and others in the Holocaust—was put on trial in Israel. A Jewish man by the name of Yehiel Dinur had survived the concentration camps and had testified against Eichmann (when he was tried in absentia) at the Nuremburg trials after World War II. Years later the Israeli Special Forces captured Eichmann in a daring raid in Argentina returned him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes. Dinur attended the 1961 trial as a witness. When he saw Eichmann in the courtroom Dinur began to sob uncontrollably. Soon he fainted and fell to the floor. Why? Was it hatred? Fear? Horrid memories? Speaking in an interview on a TV show sometime later, Dinur explained that during the war he had feared Eichmann because he saw him as someone fundamentally different than he was. But now, seeing him stripped of all his Nazi glory, Dinur saw Eichmann for what he really was—just an ordinary man. “I was afraid about myself,” Dinur explained, “I saw that I am capable to do this. I am … exactly like he.” That is why he collapsed on the floor !

The truth can be summarized in six terrifying words: “Eichmann is in all of us.”

This is in fact the central truth about human nature. Sin is in us—not just the temptation to sin, not just the propensity to sin, but sin itself dwells in us. We don’t like to hear this truth, which is why we don’t like to think about stories like the slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem. They force us to confront the truth about who we really are.

Christmas is a time for all to share and care. So let's not remain confined to our petty selves. Let us welcome with outstretched arms those unfortunate ones who have no one to fall back upon. Christmas is a good time; a kind, forgiving, generous, pleasant time; a time when men and women can open their hearts freely, forget the past , forgive each other and welcome the New Year with peaceful hearts.

Wishing you all the timeless treasures of Christmas…the warmth of home, the love of family and the company of good friends. Have a blessed Christmas!

Come,let us weep

2010-12-16T05:34:00.000-08:00

I get very emotional when I watch some movies. I often weep…more than in the movies. It is as if, I am waiting for reasons to weep. I cry when I feel happy and also when I feel sad. A good movie, a great film, a birthday card, I weep. Like Graham in ‘The Holiday’ says

“I am a great weeper”

Many animals yelp or cry out when they're in pain. But as far as scientists can tell, we humans seem to be the only species that shed tears for emotional reasons. Scientists who study evolution say crying probably conferred some benefit and did something to advance our species … because it's stayed with us. Tears can play an important role in communication, and the extraordinary thing is that tears don't just sms our state of mind to others…they can also evoke strong emotions in the people who witness them. Tears help reveal the truth. And that's because along with the tears, we've evolved a very special ability to interpret them.

Human emotion and psyche is a complex and mysterious thing. That's one reason I never try to criticize anyone for tearing up...all of us have varying triggers that elicit joy, despair, sadness, elation. There's nothing more complex than the human brain. We cry when we're happy...we cry when we're sad.

When I settle down sometimes to watch a movie, my wife asks me what the theme is, and then would warn me, ‘Now, if it is for you to cry, find someone else to sit with!

It is winter time here, the best time of the year for me. All the rest of the year, it is scorching heat here. I love it when it is cold and chilly. It is Christmas time and I thought this movie “The Holiday” suited the mood. And as usual, I wept at many scenes. Not out of sadness, but out of happiness.

It’s not a classic romantic comedy by any standards, but it still makes you smile more often than you want to admit. The story centers on two women: Iris (Kate Winslet), a British newspaper columnist hopelessly in love with a man about to marry someone else, and Amanda (Cameron Diaz), a highly successful Los Angeles career woman who just broke up with her latest cheating boyfriend. “The Holiday” is a tale of two women, two houses, and two love interests in two different countries.

Two couples meet and fall in love and you cheer them on. You sincerely wish the broken hearts got mended. The whole movie is love and broken hearts, but turns around positive. Right down to the two little girls who play Jude Law's children.. they steal the show and you would love them, pure innocence in their giggles. The music is sheer delight, there are lovely piano pieces.

"It was Shakespeare who also said "love is blind". Now that is something I know to be true. For some quite inexplicably, love fades; for others love is simply lost. But then of course love can also be found, even if just for the night. And then, there's another kind of love: the cruelest kind. The one that almost kills its victims. Its called unrequited love. Of that I am an expert!”

I was reminded of Padmarajan, when he said” unrequited love is an aching pain in your heart”

“Most love stories are about people who fall in love with each other. But what about the rest of us? What about our stories, those of us who fall in love alone? We are the victims of the one sided affair. We are the cursed of the loved ones. We are the unloved ones, the walking wounded. The handicapped without the advantage of a great parking space! Yes, you are looking at one such individual. These years that I have been in love have been the darkest days of my life. All because I've been cursed by being in love with someone who does not and will not love me back.”

There are skillfully crafted moments of refreshing comedy as well as heartening scenes of blossoming romance.

I am off this weekend and planning to see some more movies, and weep.

Yes,Sir

2010-12-10T02:54:00.000-08:00

Balachandran’s blog on his trip to Germany took me down the memory lanes.

It was way back in 1986 that I went to Germany for training on Ultrasound. The procedure was just coming up in India and many hospitals didn’t have the device. It was my first time abroad and I had the usual anxieties. Trier is a small town at the banks of the Moselle river.Quite honestly I didn’t know anything about Trier till I reached the place. This town has one heck of a long history behind it. It was founded by the Romans as “Augusta Treveorum” in 16 BC. Over 2000 years of history! Without doubt, it is Germany’s oldest city. Trier also boasts one of the most colorful markets in Europe with its outstanding ensemble of historical buildings.

Trier Hospital

Porta Nigra.The Roman Gate

Just after I reached, the winter started, and along with it, snow fall. The temperature was minus 10. I would spend the evenings at the hospital guest house; sipping the fine liquor the director had gifted me, watching the flecks of snow forming sheets of white carpet all around. Trier is close to Luxemberg and incidentally, is the birth place of Karl Marx. The hospital was run by monks of the Barmherzigen order.( Krankenhaus der Barmherzigen Bruder ,Trier Bruderhaus) My introduction letter had mentioned that I was working as a consultant in a big hospital in India (Elsewhere in the world, you have to put up many years of experience to become a consultant. It is common practice in India to place the title “Consultant”, just after someone finished a post graduate degree or even diploma!)

Prof. Yamus was one of the pioneers in the field of Ultrasound. I met him at his office. I knocked at his door and entered and started off with the usual” Good morning, Sir”.

And he replied, “My name is Yamus, not Sir.” Obviously, he had no idea what this sir business meant.

There is no sir business elsewhere, unless it is some kind of honor conferred up on you .Everyone in the department, from the attendant to the director called him just Mr.Yamus. He was in his fifties at that time. Having used to calling everyone at the Medical College sir, sir, it was new experience to me. They gave me all the respect a consultant deserved. At one time Yamus mentioned, “I am surprised, at this young age you could become a consultant”. He had no idea that “consultant” was a self declared title in India. When I was leaving the hospital, he took me to his personal library, and said, “Thomas, take any book you find useful”.

I used to have breakfast at the hospital canteen (it was free for me ! ) I always noticed a graceful looking elderly man in his sixties who would come to the canteen at the same time. It was winter time and he would come immaculately dressed, and would take time in removing his hat, coat and muffler and hang them at the proper hangers, and would then take a table for his breakfast. Whoever would come there, he would offer a polite “Guten Morgen”. I thought he was one of the senior professors or so at the hospital. One day while at lunch, I asked a colleague, in which department this gentleman worked and she said “Aah..,Mr. Merckel, he is our cleaner”.

This is how they are different and that is why I think they are better people.. They haven’t made a class difference. They respect mutually. And every job is given the respect it deserves. I would say, the cleaner is one of the most important persons in the hospital. Without him, the hospital would become a junk yard of fragmented organs and remains. But, would everyone take it? If not treat them as equals, at least we can stop insulting and abusing them for no reasons.

Over years we have accumulated so much of unhealthy practices we are proud of. We have been taught to respect elders and teachers, it is good as well, but that shouldn't just boil down to calling them Sir. These days students have no hesitation to f...the teachers after calling them Sir,Sir.

And talking about f…ing business, I learned that it was, after all, not such a bad term, from one of my colleagues whom I respect most. He would say “Aah … fuck” when ever something goes wrong in the ward. If he sees a patient deteriorating, or a bad lab result, he would say “Ooh..Shit or.. ..Fuck”.To me,it was just a sign of his commitment to his patients, and there was no easier way to express the desperation.

He was one of the honest and disciplined persons I have ever worked with. He set good examples for me in profession and I have learned from him. Coming from him, I knew he meant no obscenity. But in India, we don’t talk about that business. It is not allowed to f…, leave alone talking about it in public. These are things we are supposed to carry in our perverted minds. We really mean fuck when we say that!

(I didn’t mean to write a blog on f….But it so happened and just came. Honestly I don’t think there is anything obscene in the word, it is the way we use it. After all, we hear it a hundred times in any English movie)

http://mytravelsmylife.blogspot.com/2010/11/yellow-line.html

Down Dark Alleys

2010-12-02T21:30:00.000-08:00

The weekly news roundup was full of the scam and of the unholy nexus between our media, politicians and corporate mafias. It was hard to believe many young, apparently innocuous looking women reporters were at the helm of the dirty games. In the middle of all this, was this news item which caught my attention.

India will soon have its first law to deal exclusively with child sexual abuse cases. The provisional draft of the bill, titled ‘Sexual Offences Against Children Bill, 2010', seeks to substitute the word ‘rape' with technical terms and cover several forms of abuse of both boys and girls, which now remain grey areas in the absence of a specific legislation. The proposed legislation calls for setting up of special courts, special prosecutors and child friendly courts. The information was given to the media by the Union Minister for law, Veerappa Moili, last week.

At present, cases of sexual offences against children are being tried under the Indian Penal Code, which does not take into consideration the age of the victim. With such offences attracting only such sections that deal with rape, unnatural offences and outraging the modesty of a woman, many sexual offences against children, especially those against boys, were not getting a focused trial, it was felt.

It is a long-hidden issue that India is finally beginning to wrestle with. The scale of abuse, according to a National study, is far worse than anybody had thought. (Ministry of Women and Child Development : "Study on Child Abuse: India 2007) It reports that 69 per cent of all Indian children are victims of physical, mental or emotional abuse, with New Delhi’s children facing an astounding abuse rate of 83.12 percent.

The survey, which involved interviews with 12,447 children, also highlighted that, it is usually family members (89 percent) who perpetrate such crimes and that more boys face physical abuse (72.61) than girls (65 per cent). Overall, Indian children were found to be victims of a slew of sexual crimes … rape, sodomy, exposure to pornographic material, fondling, forcible kissing and sexual advances, among others. The study also noted that child sexual abuse in India begins as early as five, ratchets up dramatically during pre-pubescence and peaks at 12 to 16 years. Ironically, 71 per cent of sexual assault cases in India go unreported.

This means, the chances are, every other child you see on the road is a victim to some kind of sexual abuse. Hard to believe?

India is home to more than 375 million children, comprising nearly 40 percent of our population, the largest number of minors in any country in the world. Despite its ethos of non-violence, tolerance, spirituality and a new emerging trillion-dollar economy, India hosts the world's largest number of sexually abused children, at a far higher rate than any other country. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in every four girls and one in every seven boys in the world are sexually abused, hardly encouraging, but still far below India’s totals.

Worse, child abuse is one of the least documented violations in the country, records author Grace Poore in the book, The Children We Sacrifice, which deals with the wide prevalence of child sexual abuse in India.

The reasons are manifold. In India, much like the rest of Asia, children are expected to respect and obey authority figures such as teachers, religious guides, and principals and not question their actions. Rebellion is perceived as a sign of a bad upbringing. This sensibility perpetuates a culture of abuse by encouraging sexual predators.

Also, Indian adults often exercise a very tight hold over their children, demanding complete and unquestioned obedience. A culture of silence and shame also swirls around cases of sexual violence against children. Unsurprisingly, the notion of shame is the single largest culprit in perpetuating sexual violence against India’s children.

Apart from the legal dimension, child sexual abuse has serious psychological and emotional elements. Worldwide surveys point out that such abuse negatively impacts a child’s physical, emotional and mental well-being, leading to severe behavioral and psychiatric disorders. Suicidal tendencies and drug abuse are common long-term effects.

A WHO survey also points out that there is an unambiguous behavioral and emotional pattern in the abused. Usually the child hardly talks about the incident. And, even if he or she does, no one takes it seriously. That in turn triggers feelings of self doubt and guilt, exacerbating the child’s feeling that it is his or her fault. As the child matures, compulsive behavior reinforces this guilt. Small wonder, that many adult sexual problems, according to psychoanalysts, trace their roots to childhood abuse.

Where, then, does the solution lie? Educating and enlightening kids about such issues, helping them distinguish between “good” and “bad” touch, is a partial answer. Children also ought to be made aware of impulsive decisions they may make under pressure from teachers, bullies and abusers. Sex education in schools is also productive. The Netherlands, a country where teenage pregnancy rates plummeted from 60 per cent to about 25 per cent through aggressive sex information campaigns in schools, is an example. But attempts to introduce sex education in to our curriculum has faced strong objections from many quarters.

With child sexual abuse attracting so much scrutiny and public debate, the government has the added impetus to adopt strong and unequivocal measures to contain such crimes. For a country with nearly 40 per cent of its populace comprised of children, such measures are overdue.

A time to be good

2010-11-30T04:11:00.000-08:00

I was watching a press conference of JSS leader, Smt. K. R. Gouriamma the other day.She couldn't get up from the chair without help,neither could she talk clearly because of her tremor.She was all against her party members in that her party would join neither the left wing or the right in the upcoming elections. Her supporters tried to make her reach a compromise,but she refused to yield,and insisted the right wing had personally insulted her.

Like a musical chair,they have all changed parties and alliances.Now that the elections are on the way, be prepared for more shows.

He says jayalalitha is corrupt!

For Karunanidhi, the Tamil interest comes only after the clan interest.One is negotiable, the other is not. The tantrums of DMK’s Karunanidhi over his ‘kids’ Azhagiri, Stalin and others was witnessed silently by the rest of the nation. He is stuck to the wheel chair and wears his dark glasses all the time,so it is hard to know if he can see a thing.

In Kerala, Karunakaran, the doddering father-fighter, has already ceased to be even comical; he has become incomprehensible as power-lust is accompanied by senescence. In the north we have all the types, ranging from the most accomplished performer of social justice to the avenging diva of dalit salvation.

Lalu Prasad Yadav, currently one of the most trusted loyalists in the Sonia durbar, may play the subaltern jester for electoral effect. Mayawati has all the paranoia of the supreme leader who detests questions and invents enemies, and she too, like Lalu of the Bihar days, has turned the romance of social justice into a reign of terror and fear in the name of the dispossessed.

Dewe Gouda,the Ex PM, sleeps most of the time.When he is awake,he still tries to keep the interests of his clan.He was our only PM who could eat and talk at the same time.Even Gods cannot wake him up.!

Gods cannot wake him up!

No,not from circus!

I remember having heard ,a pack of lions if led by a mule will be as ineffective and sterile as the leader itself. Compounding the conundrum, this mule is destined to steer a bunch of hyenas instead of lions. That makes things worse, doesn't it?

"The leader can now remeber only two things about the 2G scam. Rahul 'G' and Sonia 'G' ".At least, it shows he has some memory left. The list could go on and on.

India is the only democracy where there is a stark contrast between the average age of the citizens and that of politicians at the helm. While 70 per cent of India’s population is below 40 years of age, 80 per cent of India’s politicians are over 70 years.There is, a case for fixing the retirement age for occupying party posts and constitutional positions. First, a person’s ability to judge and respond quickly degenerates with age. There is also the the overall lack of fitness, higher prevalence of serious diseases relating to heart, kidney, lungs, brain, and so on. In the Indian context, older leaders carry two serious disadvantages. Leaders, over the years, become more and more greedy and second, they carry a lot of baggage and most cannot move around. Greed among Indians is in their genes.A time has come to change the rules of the game in Indian politics for an emerging India, aspiring to become part of the developed world. Indian politicians need to be generous and they should look at role models elsewhere.

In the US, the 13th Constitutional amendment set term limits for the offices of the President and governors. This ensures that the leaders are not for life and the same leaders are not hanging around, whenever the party comes back to power. In the UK and other parts of Europe (except Italy), well established conventions have ensured that the defeated leaders do not come back in the next elections. Same for Australia, New Zealand and Canada, where sometimes leaders in the leading parties have come and gone at such speed that it is difficult to even remember their names.

Hindu philosophy divides human life span into four time periods. A 75-year-old, in his Vanprastha period (last stage) belongs to no one and is expected to leave family matters and devote himself entirely to serving God . But that rarely happens in Indian politics.

Isn't it time for a change?