"All men are created equal"........REALLY?

And they were created equal to all men?

Prologue: In Season 1 Episode 2 House MD, Dr. House berates his fellow Dr. Cameron:

"Would that upset you, really, to think that you were hired because of some genetic gift of beauty not some genetic gift of intelligence?" 

Some are born beautiful, some intelligent, some skilled, some brave, and some just normal!

The human brain is designed to learn skills and reproduce them accurately with practice! Have you noticed the ease with which you can drive your car today as compared to when you started? You wouldn't be as alert, as tense and as consciously aware, as you were the first week, you laid hands on the steering wheel. And yet, you'd be driving more accurately absorbing all the visual cues like traffic, routes, signals and pedestrians without  exercising your grey cells even a bit. 

So is the tale for any academic activity.  If you read a lot, read comprehensively and practice regularly then you are bound to develop finesse and improve (although the degree of improvement varies). Lawyers, doctors, engineers, actors, accountants........take any profession; you work diligently, your skills improve----and that is no secret!

The great Indian saint  Kabir quoted in one of his couplets:

करत करत अभ्यास के जड़मति होत सुजान,

रसरी आवत जात ते सिल पर पड़त निसान।

 (Karat karat abhyaas ke jardamati hot sujaan 

 Rasari aavat jaat te sill par pardat nisaan.)

Roughly translated it means that with constant practice even a fool becomes wise, just as the soft rope can leave a mark on a stone if it passes to and fro over it repeatedly. 

That goes for IQ tests, too. IQ tests are never representative! Given adequate practice, any average Joe can ace any number of IQ tests!

But what is genius then?

In the words of Arthur Schopenhauer:

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see." 

Yup! A genius thinks out of the box, defies convention, improves the possible and achieves the impossible. 

Take any great composer (and no, I am not talking of "music directors" who are "inspired" by other musicians to create verbatim copies that are conveniently passed off as their own work!) of the yesteryears -- Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Vivaldi, Strauss or Saint Thyagaraja; years of training cannot make a musician create the magic today, that those greats wrote. Was it divine providence, or was it unique neurochemistry that they could create what they did? Who knows? But it certainly cannot be attributed to learning! Mozart could play the piano flawlessly by age 4 and started composing at the age of 5! Most kids these days learn the alphabet at this age! Beethoven started losing his sense of hearing by age 26 and was profoundly deaf for the next 30 odd years that he lived, yet, the volume of his compositions speaks for itself! How could he still compose? Again who knows? 

Within his short lifespan of 32 years, high school educated Srinivasa Ramanujan,  (Yes, you read that right! Ramanujan never graduated from college.), had compiled over 3900 theorems and identities that most doctoral candidates wouldn't dream of in those days. And he started off as a  poverty stricken clerk in Madras Port office.

SN Bose majored in mathematics at the graduate and postgraduate level but his pioneering work was in physics (not his primary area of training). His work on quantum statistics was so profound that initially it was  not understood by many and was denied publication. It took another genius - Albert Einstein - to recognize its importance and thus its subsequent publication. That we have recently discovered the hitherto theoretical Boson attributed to Bose is known to all, but the fact that Bose was a polymath who ventured into and made pathbreaking discoveries in a subject other than what he was taught is not common knowledge.

When Tesla first proposed AC or alternating current as the mode of choice for mass distribution of electrical energy, he was scoffed at and forever undermined by Edison his contemporary and rival (whose widely accepted DC or direct current was the convention initially). The advances that human society has made since the acceptance of AC as the standard of power generation and distribution is common knowledge! Not every engineer had the will to defy Edison and convention; Tesla did! His discoveries were groundbreaking to say the least.

Opinions vary, but I guess most of you would agree, that it would not be inappropriate, to call Sachin Tendulkar, a genius! You have his contemporary great Rahul Dravid - pure talent - who worked hard to achieve his great laurels and was textbook perfection personified! But even then he is no Tendulkar - the sheer presence riled the opposing team. Many a match one has felt -- "so long as Tendulkar is there on the wicket, the Indian team still has a chance!" Sachin started out with a bang, right from his school days when he blasted a then world record partnership with Vinod Kambli. He could play every stroke in the book; rewrite many of the textbook shots and make them his own. Screw the records, majority thronged the stadiums just to watch him bat irrespective of the result! Many of his contemporaries have better averages, better win-loss ratios, better technique even -- but you'd still pay money to see the maestro!

(So let us cut to the chase!)

The point here is that if all men are really created equal then where do these prodigies come from? Where do these exceptional talents come from? Maybe God, maybe karma, maybe genetics! There is nothing concrete known to this effect! Religions preach that God created all men equal. This only quells the unrest that would otherwise pervade if the realization struck everybody, that men really are not all that equal in all respects.

Intelligence is overrated. Every man with an above average intelligence is deemed a genius by his peers. So if a nerd (no offense) pores over his books 18 hours a day, without a social life (or any life for that matter) besides his books, and manages to score the highest marks in a standardized test, it does not make him/her a genius! It is just that he/she is well read! On the other hand, another kid lives a normal life - nurtures his hobby, leads an active social life, has a creative side, is in to sports and other extra-curricular activities, studies an average 3-4 hours and still manages to score the highest or next to that---there you have the makings of a gifted child, a talent for that matter! And if he/she produces something remarkable academic or otherwise for his/her age--you have a genius in your hand!

And if indeed genius is a genetic inheritance, what is the scary aspect? Eugenics on a mass scale! Breeding of individuals with the ideal traits would further a generation of individuals with ideal traits, or so it would seem! The Nazis did it, right? Everybody vilifies them for that; but each civilization has practised the same at one time or the other! Hey! We do it selectively on a daily basis in our lives. Each time an arranged marriage is convened, the families of both the bride and groom look for family history of disease, addictions, and talent besides wealth and status (with the automatic assumption that a wealthy family of high status is likely to have individuals with better health and consequently better genes?) "Survival of the fittest" is nothing but the Darwinian approach to eugenics that occurs in nature.

But if genetic inheritance alone could explain it, where do geniuses born in ordinary households come from? (Pretty confusing as is this tirade!)

To really get an understanding of what the active practice of eugenics, if advocated, would lead to, watch the movie GATTACA (*ing Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman). It is a decent thriller with a deep philosophical message; and yes, a great soundtrack to go along as well!

Endgame: "All men are created equal, but some are more equal than others!" - George Orwell

Recrudescence!

So I am writing again after a good part of 2 year and three quarters almost! This one is only to convince myself that I still possess a sane head on my shoulders that still retains the capacity to think rationally! For the flurry of happenings across the canvas of this time span have been anything but convincing towards the same! 

Still can't convince myself that I possess the expression that I did once! (Or did I ever?)

Well, here goes nothing!

The blog is dead; long live the blog!

This was one of the better blogs out there on the net! A tongue in cheek view of the world through the eyes of a young AIIMSonian!

Trust a blog full of surprises, to, well, surprise you by doing the ultimate Houdini all of a sudden! (And to think, that I was hoping my blog would be the first one to go off the net, stagnant as it is, right now!)

Nevertheless, it was a laugh-riot with some serious messages hidden in between the lines!

Expecting Vineet to surprise us once more by resurrecting the blog!

Resurrection is inevitable!!

Another Sabbatical!

(Photo courtesy: Dr. Arun Sharma)

You might be thinking: so this guy posts right after a month only to announce that he is taking another sabbatical? Jeez!

Well, not quite a sabbatical in the literal sense! I am moving to my new abode for the next 3 years, this week! So my Internet privileges are suspended till I get a fixed land line connection there and get a new ADSL connection thence!

To cut to the chase, I shall be able to post only when I get a net connection which shall take a month or thereabouts!

So if you have been reading regularly, stick around! I shall have absolutely new experiences to narrate once I begin again, (or so I hope!)

Who knows? I might even be back sooner than that!

Manbearpig is real.......I am serriall !!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the title of this post, I'd suggest that you have a look at the following clip:

Or the following clip:

Now do you get it?

The documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth" created quite a stir amongst the elite intelligentsia in the West when it was released. Former VP of the US, Al Gore has highlighted something very poignant said the "enlightened ones".

So Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change managed to bag the coveted Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts!

Hey! Gore managed to get one even before his illustrious boss, Bill Clinton! Kudos to Mr. Gore!

And we Indians can't help tom-toming the fact that an Indian scientist R.K. Pachauri was heading the IPCC when it was awarded the prize! Some of our "intellectuals" would rather claim that it is Dr. Pachauri and not the organization that he headed that was awarded the prize! (The Nobel Prize Certificate mentions only Gore and IPCC, though!)

And to project ourselves as "responsible" Indians, the media is abuzz with environmental messages, programs, activism and what not!

The common man must forgo one hour of power supply everyday to do his bit for the environment they say; for only then he is green, or earth-conscious, if you will!

Hey! My city gets 8 hour power-cuts everyday! So that must mean I am the most earth conscious amongst them all, huh?

What irks me the most in all this debate is the selective morality being paraded as responsible behavior!

Since times immemorial the Indian farmer, worker, laborer and the academic have known this fact for a certainty that excessive use of fossil fuels, non-renewable sources of energy and rapid industrialization at the cost of the forest cover has only one destined outcome: the earth screwed up for good!
The elite has always chosen to disregard the "uneducated" bourgeoisie middle and lower class thought as something very passé!

Now that the West has recognized the same, all of a sudden it is gospel and one dare not deny it!



Suddenly "organic farming" is the way to go! Oblivious to the fact that the Indian farmer has been advocating for the increased use of natural fertilizers and manure even during the Green Revolution boom brought about by chemical farming, the new age greens would rather buy organic foods certified by the West! The same was unthinkable before, for then organic meant crops grown using manure and compost, and that was filthy, wasn't it? Now that the West endorses the same and calls it "organic", it is suddenly trendy and the right way to go!


The launch of the Tata Nano car gave many of the elite intelligentsia "nightmares". They claim that the affordable, fuel-efficient, low-emission, small car is going to ruin the environment in a big way! But what I (and many like me) would disagree on, is the thought behind this apparent concern!

To quote an excerpt from Wikipedia on this issue:
The ecology focused German newspaper die tageszeitung feels that such concerns are "inappropriate" as the Tata Nano has lower emissions compared to the average Volkswagen, and that developing countries shouldn't be denied the right to motorized mobility when industrialized countries should be looking to reduce their emissions and usage of cars.



And Swaminathan A. Aiyar of the Swaminomics fame, wrote the following in his article:

"RK Pachauri, head of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, is getting nightmares because of the Nano, Tata's Rs 1 lakh car. Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) says that it isn't the Nano by itself but cars overall that give her nightmares. The villains in my nightmares are neither the Nano nor cars overall, but stupid government policies that subsidise and encourage pollution, adulteration and congestion.

Sanctimonious greens call the Nano disastrous because of its affordability— millions more will now clog roads and consume more fossil fuel. This is elitism parading as virtue. Elite greens own cars, but cannot stand the poorer masses becoming mobile, since the consequent congestion will eat into the time of the elite!

More logical would be a protest against big cars that use more space and fuel, or highly polluting old cars. Instead, green hypocrites aim at a new car with the lowest cost, best mileage and least emissions.

The Nano will not burden us with too many cars. India has very few cars per person by world standards. London and New York have ultra-high car densities, yet have clearer air than Delhi. Our problem is too many bad policies, not too many cars."

Well, you decide! When we have no qualms on allowing major fuel vampires -- Formula -1 cars to race in India in the near future just to cash in on the sports and tourism boom, it smacks of elitism when we deny the access to affordable personal transportation to the common man!

None of the "elite intelligentsia" bat an eyelid on the recent trend of expensive, high-end luxury cars making inroads into the Indian markets. No! That is celebrated as a sign of the booming development of the Indian economy and the arrival of "Brand India" if you will.
Nobody bothers about the environment when a Toyota Landcruiser or a Mitsubishi Pajero is imported by the conscious greens. (Apparently, these beasts consume a lot less fuel than a tiny Nano, huh?)


I can recall another anecdotal incident similar to this.

Low cost carriers were introduced in India by a hitherto unknown company called Air Deccan in 2003. It was not a new concept; but was heavily borrowed from the same introduced by the US carrier Pacific Southwest Airlines way back in 1949. But it was welcomed with open arms by the common man. There were consequences. Low-cost carriers posed a serious threat to traditional "full service" airlines, since the high cost structure of full-service carriers prevents them from competing effectively on price - the most important factor among most consumers when selecting a carrier.

Within months, some of the major luxury carriers suffered losses and decided to either float their own no-frills airlines, or cut back on the luxury component in their regular domestic flights to cut fare costs! Suddenly, the rustic dhoti-clad villager was finding it possible to fly like the well-suited babus down in the city; and due to the fare cuts in the luxury airliners, he, too, could fly business class!

And this was anathema to the elite intelligentsia; within a year, there were protests and awareness campaigns being floated around! Suddenly, it dawned on the elite that excessive use of airlines increased the levels of pollution and greenhouse gases and what not! People were discouraged from switching over to airlines from their usual modes like trains and buses for the sake of the environment!

What bull, I ask you!

Which is worse, 50 to 100 passengers flying one way in a luxury Boeing Dreamliner, or even the Concorde (now defunct), or 200 passengers flying both ways in a low cost flight with the same amount of fuel? (The concerned greens would say the latter, of course!)

Thankfully, the will of the masses prevails and the low cost airlines are here to stay! And if that gives the concerned greens nightmares, Tough!





With due thanks to Peter Casier for the following comic:

Endgame: Practicality shall always rule over empirical morality!

It is Original.......................................LY COPIED!!

Stepping out of "el broodosphere" this week to mention an incredible find!

All of us know that the great Indian "music directors" of the 80's and 90's have been "inspired" innumerable times to create "original" hit music! The list of these "greats" like Nadeem-Shravan, Anand-Milind, Anu Malik, Pritam are known to one and all!

Did you know that there are others in the foray and that one can't really blame these new generation "maestros"? For all that they are doing is emulating what their predecessors, the eternal greats have done throughout history!

Do the names SD Burman, RD Burman, OP Nayyar, (to mention a few) ring a bell?

Uh-Oh, I have committed sacrilege! I have pointed the finger at some of the greatest composers that Indian cinema has known! How can one even dare to (let alone think of doing so) accuse the greats?

Well, before spamming the hell out of me with brickbats and vitriol, give an ear to the following:

1) SD Burman [Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958)]:

Hum The Woh Thi

taken originally from Tennesse Ernie Ford's song from the year 1957:

The Watermelon Song

2) RD Burman [Sholay (1975)]:

Mehbooba

taken originally from Demis Roussoss' song from the year 1974:
Say You Love Me

3) OP Nayyar [CID]:

Yeh Hai Bombai Meri Jaan

taken originally from the following track composed in 1863:

My Darling Clementine

(Hey, even Huckleberry Hound sings the same track!)

Little wonder then, the present generation continues to tread on the footsteps of their elders who pioneered in this art! So is imitation really the sincerest form of flattery?

And there are a whole lot of others, (possibly every name you can think of in the Indian film industry) who have achieved greatness and received immense adulation through their "inspired genius'. And this is not limited to the Hindi filmdom (or the grotesque term associated with it -- "bollywood"), every regional language has its share!

At least the eternal greats of the yesteryears only lifted a few tones; the same cannot be said of the present crop!

Coming to the find: the above material has been painstakingly researched by a dude named S.Karthik, whose website ItwoFS.com, I managed to chance upon as I was webscaping! He lists out most of the composers of the yesteryears and the present from all parts of the Indian film industry with their "inspired tracks" and the original ones with citations!

The guy is so good that, even one of the music reviewers of rediff.com directly copied one of his reviews and credited it as her own! Although rediff has taken down the review, Karthik still hosts the same on his site to prove his point!

Be sure to give this site a thorough read!



Endgame: Now, now, it is never like me to just highlight our vagaries and shy away! The Greeks have copied Indian film music, too! And that too, steadily and verbatim between the years 1954 to 1968. (And you thought that only Communist USSR loved Hindi Movies back then?) Here is the interesting article that should be an eye-opener of sorts:
Hindi Films of the 50s in Greece: The Latest Chapter of a Long Dialogue

The copy is the original is the copy is the original.........!!

For the love of God!

The western world minces no words in denouncing India as a superstitious, backward nation still living in the past! Here is an interesting but sorry incident that highlights how progressive the western world is:

US girl dies as parents choose prayer over docs!

For those of you who'd rather know the gist of it instead, here it goes! In the most advanced nation on the earth, the US of A live some of the most "pious" of people on earth (or so they would call themselves!) These zealots (Is that a harsh word? Read the actual news article above and then decide!) would choose to avail of all the luxuries and amenities that civilization and advances in modern science provide without any qualms; they are people who can be dismissed as everyday normal people or so you'd think; except when it comes to availing the services of modern medicine!

Oh no, no, no, no! Seeking medical care for them is blasphemous! Letting their kith and kin die for want of medical care: that is A-Okay, but allowing medical personnel to intervene that is against God in their eyes! Believing or not believing in the Theory of Evolution is a different matter, but this one really takes the cake! (Although I would like to take up that topic at this time, those are better left for another day!)

So in this present case: this poor 11-year old with Type I Diabetes Mellitus paid for her parents' faith with her life! These "faithful" people felt that prayer alone shall cure their girl and hence denied her access to medical care! (And only last week, we had begun a discussion on parenting; and now this happens!)

For those of you who share beliefs with the parents in the present case: Snap out of it!

Diabetic Ketoacidosis is a major life threatening complication of Type I DM, which if treated promptly is manageable, completely controllable and kills routinely if left untreated! Do not leave your kid, your relative, or your friend in dire straits by refusing them access to medical care! Do not let your "faith" blind you! Miracles are called miracles for a reason: they don't occur commonly in everyday lives!

And if this contradicts with your faith, there is saying that goes something like this: God helps those who help themselves! And praying alone is not an act of helping oneself: it is more of putting the entire responsibility on God, and shirking one's share of the work!

About half a decade back, the superlative legal drama "The Practice" telecast a shocking episode involving a similar incident: the episode entitled "The Cradle Will Rock".

That episode left me with fair amount of disbelief to see faith blind people so strongly! Who would have thought that five years thence, I'd see it played in real life!

For those of you who have seen it, you know what I am talking about; for those of you who haven't, go search the net, or go to your local DVD store but watch it somehow!

Never thought reel to real would be so eerily similar!

And Indians are termed backward! Wow!

This comic fits the scenario: doesn't it?
[With due thanks to Vineet Gupta!]

Fourth instalment of digressing beyond the point of sanity!

(With inputs from Danish Ahmad!)

Prologue
The ABO blood grouping system was discovered by Karl Landsteiner an Austrian Physician in 1902 and classified in 1909. Now you might think what is so important about this discovery? For what is commonplace to know these days was an important breakthrough in transfusion medicine that revolutionized wartime medical care; which was then prone to the vagaries of trial and error where transfusion was concerned. In a nutshell the ABO blood grouping involves two major antigens [3 major ones, if you include H antigen actually, but let us try to keep this one simple!] The AB blood group is unique in the fact that it is not that there are some cells expressing A antigen and others expressing B; it is not a mixture of two types of red cells. Both A and B antigens are expressed simultaneously by the RBCs of the person inheriting this blood group. Hence creating a new identity of AB.
Such a person is referred to as a universal recipient for he can accept blood from both groups A and B as well as AB and O.
Aah! I just can't resist disseminating some knowledge in the process! So here goes!

Blood groups are inherited from both parents. The ABO blood type is controlled by a single gene with three alleles: i, I^A, and I^B. The gene encodes a glycosyltransferase—that is, an enzyme that modifies the carbohydrate content of the red blood cell antigens. The gene is located on the long arm of the ninth chromosome (9q34).

I^A allele gives type A, I^B gives type B, and i gives type O. I^A and I^B are dominant over i, so ii people have type O, I^AI^A or I^Ai have A, and I^BI^B or I^Bi have type B. I^AI^B people have both phenotypes because A and B express a special dominance relationship: codominance, which means that type A and B parents can have an AB child. A type A and a type B couple can also have a type O child if they are both heterozygous (I^Bi,I^Ai) The cis-AB phenotype has a single enzyme that creates both A and B antigens. The resulting red blood cells do not usually express A or B antigen at the same level that would be expected on common group A₁ or B red blood cells. Hence as I said, a new blood group with a distinct identity despite having both antigens!

Simply put, AB is not simply A + B.

So much for the Biology lesson!

Coming to the focus of our topic:



Marriage: A license for sex or an institution of social security?


Marriages are made in heaven or so they say in fables, huh?

Real life is pretty darn different!

With live-in relations, perpetual friends and those with benefits mushrooming up, are marriages passè these days?
Does the modern generation view marriage in the traditional sense? What do you think has changed and why?
With divorce rates in the US and other developed nations skyrocketing, is the institution failing?

Although I may not know all the answers (and I don't certainly claim to know any, if at all), this is my take on the issue!

The evolution of mankind from nomadic tribal savages to a "civilized" society is often attributed to the social hierarchy and organization that has evolved through the years. The considerations for forming a family as a unit has evolved from a matter of survival for the prehistoric man (wherein the survival of his people depended on the ability to bear and rear offspring in a protective environment); to a matter of economics and religion in the 20th century to a matter of choice and defiance in the 21st!

Marriage has always been the "right" thing to do! All other forms of relationships have been frowned upon by the society irrespective of the cheerful exterior that the so-called liberal societies may want to put up with the changing times! It has enjoyed social, legal and religious sanctions since times immemorial!

Socially, it is encouraged for the formation of a family unit, for the sustenance of a community; the social security afforded is too hard to give a miss! Legally, the legitimacy conferred on any relationship is unparalleled to that granted to a marriage: there are a whole set of legal eagles specializing in all the aspects related to it! And religion, (how can one ignore that?), has always given canonical decrees as to why it is the primary goal of every human being. There are a large number of "sins" associated with all other forms of human interaction with the opposite sex! It is the holy duty of every man to marry and populate the earth with people of his religion; without a man, a woman is incomplete and vice-versa; and it is through this man attains salvation, and so on and so forth!

The considerations for marriage have changed with time as well: just cohabitation; to union of two families, clans, tribes and nations; to meeting of two minds, as the modern day Bohemian might say!

Old timers would swear by their traditional practices in preserving the social order and that it is the right thing for the gen-x to emulate!

What surprises me the most is the fact despite modern science highlighting the dangers of consanguineous marriages, the practice has social and legal sanction in many parts of the world! People would rather marry their own cousins rather than marry outside their caste, creed, religion, class, color and race! [And they call this the 21st century!] These very people would cry fate, curse doctors and bitch about their lot when genetic diseases come calling; but fail to see the folly in their actions and continue to defend their actions on the pretext of preserving "culture and religion".

And should a couple decide to challenge the social norms in a legal manner, the vigilantes come in hordes to unleash tribal justice in an effort to make their case exemplary to the would-be couples who might ever dare to follow suit! From social boycotting, to religious discrimination, to the extremes of honor killings in the most feudal of societies, anything to "preserve tradition": family pride if you will!

Not that I have anything against the institution of arranged marriages (so long as it gives the couple the choice to opt out during courtship, if the need arises), the notion that parents alone know what's best is difficult for me to stomach, if it is to be applied at all junctures!

Let's face it, it is you and your better half that has to live out the days to the end (for your parents aren't going to be around forever), so lest you both are compatible at an intellectual level, the marriage is a sham! And unless there is intellectual fulfillment and growth in a union, the union fails once the physical attraction fades ( and that it does!). Each partner then craves for and looks towards other sources and thence begins the final dissolution!
It is one thing in life wherein if you compromise, you'll have only yourself to blame later on!

But this is not to say that all marriages borne out of "love" are successful! For "love" (blinding lust, more often than naught, actually) literally is blind; the challenges of living a real marriage and the trials it throws up in your face require more resilience than one imagines during the "love phase"! So unless the attraction is greater than skin deep and the compatibility quotient is as high, the love fizzles out to lead to chaos!

What mature adults fail to realize despite their "maturity" and "years of experience" is that a successful marriage requires the couple to work hard at it! There is no star-crossed partner or soulmate in the real world and things never are really perfect (far from it, actually!)

One of the primary reasons for marriage in the earlier times (even today in many cases) was: (you guessed it!) Sex! Whether it be through the arranged route or otherwise, the social sanction for sex that it affords, was the prime motivator in most cases, as premarital sex was a taboo (and still is in many parts of the world!). So, in this process, couples hastily entered into a union without anticipating the future of the same once sex became a routine and the interest dwindled away!
The social structure till the better part of the 20th century focused on a conservative household where the parents were never contradicted and "family prestige" kept failing marriages together. However, the marital asphyxia that slowly built up never left anybody really happy (despite the claims to the contrary), such that the marriage lasted only because of social needs rather than a personal or an intellectual need for it!
(The old timers would still count this as a merit of their way of life and in some ways, it was! At least it left fewer kids with broken households!)

A related quote goes something like this: The saddest words in life begin with "I should have..." (Related or not, I just wanted to stuff it in!)

With the erosion of the conservative mindset from many parts of the society and greater awareness triggered by greater exposure to education and the media (or failing value system as the elders would put it), the ability to tolerate the marital asphyxia waned away faster than expected in many communities around the world and the "family prestige" factor failed miserably to keep families together! The result: 1 in 2 marriages in "civilized" nations end up knocking the doors of a legal eagle!

But with an increasingly liberal society allowing for social experimentation, the trend now is to test the Ferrari before you invest a great deal in it!

(Isn't that the most crass comparison you have ever heard?)

The new age social norm of live-in relationships, friends with benefits are the gen-x's way of trying to make the right choice! The USP is that if you live together, cohabit together and assess each other for compatibility, the road ahead is paved smooth and slick for a long term commitment. Sounds perfect on paper, right? In many ways, it is! But the flaw lies in the assumption that a marriage is very much like the above! Suffice to say, any intimate relationship other than a marriage is usually a situation of power without accountability or partnership without commitment! (Some idiots treat even a marriage the same way!)

Now even in this scenario, people are driven by the primeval instincts instead of weighing certain facts in context!

A good marriage begins as a good and lasting friendship instead of good sex (although a good fling begins with the latter!). A friendship wherein both the partners are matched at a resonating frequency at the level of their minds; where each one not only understands the needs (emotional, intellectual or otherwise) of the other, but knows how to meet them and knows what to do, if one can't, at some or the other point in life! When you can trust your spouse as your confidante instead of keeping secrets from them (to keep them happy), you know you are in for the long haul!

The ritual of the "first night" needs to be put in the cold storage for eternity! You should get to be friends first and leave the physical part for a later date! The perception of pleasure and satisfaction is a function of the brain; so if your minds resonate, the sex shall be good (whether adequate or not)! But the extreme levels of enthusiasm, lack of anatomical knowledge and understanding of human physiology, prevalence of myths perpetuated by friends and the media, the numerous taboos associated and the inexplicable levels of "non-communication" that persist between couples leads them to indulge in the ritual anyway!
And consequently, the coffers of quacks and self-proclaimed "sexologists" (or a genuine medical doctor, if at all) are filled by anxious and distraught couples over a myriad of issues ranging from performance anxiety, frigidity, vaginismus, dyspareunia, impotence, to frankly bad sex! And another legal eagle may find new clients suddenly citing "irreconcilable differences"!

Whereas in a good marriage, the couple ought to be comfortable enough with each other to frankly discuss the above issues and reach decisions to iron them out emotionally, medically or surgically as the case maybe! But majority of the people love the sweet taste of denial and procrastinate till hell freezes over and then one fine day reach to the conclusion that they'd rather cry over spilt milk!

Kids can soothe a burnt marriage! There are many cases where the family rejuvenates with the birth of a child who ushers in a new wave of change; and more seriously a new ray of hope in a family on the brink! Many a couple have stayed together for the sake of their kids and rediscovered the bond that drew them closer in the first place and made newer ones in the process!

If you know and realize that you have kids for your desire of parenting and not for the kid's sake, you shall always put their interests first! And in the process stay together; for no child deserves a broken home whatever the reason that either spouse may state as a lame defense! Any child when born is equal to every other one out there and deserves to have a complete home with a caring mother and a loving father; so why should he/she bear the brunt of the follies of his/her parents?
No matter what the new-age "gurus" and the "relationship experts" (who know nothing better than to make small talk on every other gasbag of a daytime talk-show) might claim, the impact of a good divorce is not necessarily better than a bad marriage once the family unit involves children!

Broken homes scar children for life! They end up growing without a complete family unit to fall back on. (Although single parenting is en vogue in the west these days, the concept is still not a hit so far as the child's perspective is concerned!) Having seen their parents (who every child looks up to as the role models in the beginning) fail miserably in a relationship, their take on relationships in life is very skewed from the onset! The emotional needs of every child require the presence of both parents, individually and together, at different stages of life! The positive influence that parents can have on their kids diminishes in broken homes, as part of it is derived from the authority that a parent gains from the child when he perceives them to be an ideal! When a kid perceives his parents to be a failure in social relationships, the tendency to rebel and defiance follows suit!

(Jeez! I should be discussing that in another post; here I go rambling again out of context!)





Epilogue

So how does the lengthy and irrelevant biology lesson figure in this Valium of a discussion?

As discussed the AB-blood type is not simply a mixture of A and B type cells but entirely new entity that retains both the antigens and thus has characteristics of both and yet a completely unique identity emerges. The marrow in this case propagates further cells bearing the distinct dual antigens
Similarly, the key essence of a marriage is the evolution of a common ego from the merging of two distinct ones without either of them losing their individual identity in the new entity that takes shape in the process! The success of the family then lies in the defense, nurturing and progress of this common ego that represents the family!

However as the complexities of human relationships increase, the basic factors that define a marriage are being ignored and superficial factors are being flouted as causes for togetherness as well as for separation!

The real truth is that whenever one ego overshadows the other there is darkness cast over the landscape of a marriage!

Problem of the Week

You have grown up in an everyday neighborhood nothing out of the ordinary. You have grown up with the same friends that you have known from your childhood. Many of them are still your best buds. One of them is your best mate, who'd give the shirt off his back to help you out if the need arises! You grow in to adulthood, find different spheres of the work and well, lose track of each other over time and then meet up one day out of the blue!


Scenario 1: Your friend is slightly apprehensive of meeting you. Your inquiry of his sudden bashfulness reveals that his preferences in life have changed! And that he tells you that he is gay and has known this for some time now. Although he has no attraction towards you and regards you as his brother, he has a tough time telling you all this. He has not revealed the same to his family and doubts if he'd ever find the courage to do that! For the rest, he is still your old prankster of a friend whose company gladdens your heart!

Now,

1) Having heard the innermost secret of your friend, do you look at him in a different light?
2) Would you consider that nothing has changed as far as you and he are concerned? Would your behavior change in any way?
3) Given that he has trouble confronting his family about this, would you help him through this and in the process ease his fears or would you let sleeping dogs lie and let him deal with it of his own accord? Which of the above two actions do you think would actually help him?

Scenario 2: Your friend is slightly apprehensive of meeting you. Your inquiry of his sudden bashfulness reveals that he has contracted HIV-AIDS. He has not revealed this to anyone else!

Now,

1) What would be your first reaction?
2) What are the chances that you'd judge him even before hearing his side of the story?
3) Would the mode through which he contracted the deadly disease affect your response?

4) Let us say he is straight and he contracted the disease through a casual one-night-stand,
or let us say he is gay and he contracted the disease through a blood transfusion during surgery. Would your response in both the situations be the same or different? What it had been the other way around in both the situations?
5) How would you help him cope up with this situation? More importantly, would you?

You have been warned!

The upcoming post is insanely long! It is a reflection of the chaotic thoughts coursing through my mind over the last 3 months! They are raw and uncensored!

The views that I am about to express are repetitive, boring and preachy to the core, but they are poignant nevertheless! So feel free to not read them as always!

Posting by Wednesday 26 March 2008!

Life isn't fair, get used to it!

Bill Gates wasn't far from the truth when he spoke the above!

Failures are real and one must learn to live with them!

When Edison was on his way to invent the light bulb he did meet with considerable failure in the beginning to which his apparent retort was: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

Expectations are natural and inborn into the human psyche! They may weigh you down, more often than naught they actually do!

But learn to rise above them! For they are actually meant to fire up the hibernating greatness that is embodied within every individual and not result in the contrary!

3 months into my Medical School, my biochemistry professor took me to task for scoring badly in one of the internal tests that was taken; he warned me not to score less than the highest possible in the University exams that year! It seemed far-fetched for a new kid who had just screwed up an internal test!

Eventually, by the end of the year I did manage that, and then not I but he was beaming with pride!

Now, the same situation or something similar must have happened to each one of us! Now what is pertinent is how one takes it! One could easily feel weighed down by the occasion, falter and curse the concerned for expecting too much when the present points to the contrary! Or one could acknowledge the potential that some one else has seen in them and work to realize the same! The results shall speak for themselves but it is the effort that matters!

One of my maternal uncles constantly bitches about my academic performance whatever it might be: good or bad! But once when I had hit rock bottom (by my standards!), his words were: "The result is immaterial, so long as you gave it your best shot!"

Those proved more comforting than any other words that I had heard that day!

Take constructive criticism positively; this approach shall turn your depressive episodes into sparks of creativity and greater enthusiasm.

However, recognize the situation when it gets you really down and confront the one who expects, with your realistic goals and abilities! Although it might let him down, but in the end he will be happy if you reach the goal you set for yourself, (but do try to outdo yourself by just a little bit!)

On another note,

it is inherent nature of parents to expect the world of their kids, more so in the Third World that we live in where success in life is directly proportional to the no. of days it buys you good food (for most, it actually is so!) Try living life through their eyes to understand their psyche and empathize with them. But when things go out of hand as regards to your personal decisions, you have to make a stand and tell them your decision and that you are willing to own up to it and face the consequences as they come, (you may even let your parents know that they conceived you for their sake and not yours!) It shall earn you some respect in their eyes for accepting and speaking the truth! [Although, that's easier said than done!] But, in any case, always respect them!

It is important to realize what you want from life and what you want or see yourself to be!

If you realize that you shall start viewing failures as stepping stones to success instead of potholes of misery! For the fact is, if you are able to achieve the goals that you set for yourself you are a success, no matter what one thinks! (Please don't misconstrue this as a vote for vagrancy!)

I am just highlighting the fact that the standards of defining success are very subjective! You might turn out to be a fantastic lawyer, doctor or a CEO, but at the end of the day, no matter what others might say, if that doesn't bring you the very same levels of peace that a content farmer or a grocer or any other person has, you are not half as successful as them!

I personally would define failure as the instance when the will to work for a goal fades away! Till then, any number of attempts you might take to achieve the same don't make you any less of a person than the one who got it at the first shot!

Believe me (or not) when I say, half of mankind is existing and not living! The cricketers and the media have a phrase for it: "going through the motions". Life has become so mechanical that nobody bothers to reflect! And the ones that do are termed Bohemian and ignored!

And this vexation, this feeling of suffocation builds up over time! And the ones that are too timid to handle it or do not have a good enough support base to fall back on, either end up committing suicide or fill the coffers of new age lifestyle gurus, counselors, (or a genuine psychiatrist if at all!)

So, "coping with failures and realistic assessment of one's abilities and formation of goals based on them" should be an essential talk that every set of human beings should have, whether it be parent-child, teacher-student, between spouses or friends!

How many of us actually do that?

The recent spate of youth suicides in urban India make me shudder at the fact that somewhere down the line this essential communication is being shied away from by both parents and their wards in the name of generation gap or the classic: "it cannot happen to our families!"

It is time people wake up from their complacent states and face the truth!

Escapism is better left to Houdini the great! Suicide is a permanent and incorrect solution to an ephemeral life problem!

Self-respect within limits fosters respect for the sanctity of life per se! So one wouldn't throw away the life nurtured by one's caregivers in a fit of madness! Grooming a positive sense of self-worth allows one to appraise one's potential in a realistic manner and hence take steps to realize the same! This also helps one tide over situations which might otherwise seem hopeless where one would have a tendency to cower into a state of helplessness and vulnerability!

Well, here I go digressing again; for this is the topic of one of my future discussions! So I shall leave it at that!

Epilogue: To those of you who might pass this one off as a tirade of a successful doc; here is some news, I have seen my share of academic hiccups at instances where the world would expect me to come out trumps! Hey, the fact that I got into a medical school was a big hiccup when I was aiming for an Engineering Physics major! And this is just one of the many "ones" anointing my list!

[To this day I still believe that my topping my classes at both High school and Medical school have more to do with others performing under par than my own performance being better than theirs! No offense!]

A modest beginning!

I have been putting aside the task of publishing my website for quite some time! In fact, as each day passed by, I kept putting it off with an idea to refine it and add more content before putting it online! But recurrent procrastination follows a vicious circle, so I decided to put it up bare bones anyway! This way I shall have an impetus to add content and it also gives me a reason to update the site regularly (just because it's there online); which is more than what I can say for this blog of mine!

Well, here is to a new beginning!

Intermezzo!!!

Working on something new to debate on! (Quite, a few topics actually!) So to fill the void, to liven up things, (or more appropriately, to eat up webspace!) here is an interesting anecdote:

This allegedly happened in one of the premier government teaching hospitals in New Delhi!
(Although, I did not witness the same!)

Prologue

Vesico-vaginal fistula or VVF is a distressing condition in females (naturally!) wherein there is an abnormal communication (due to disease, obstetric trauma or congenital) between the urinary tract and the female reproductive tract leading to urinary incontinence or dribbling of urine through these abnormal orifices! The symptomatology depends also on where the communication is; whether it is at the level of the urethra-vagina, bladder-vagina or the ureter-vaginal vault. But the common features in all of them include incontinence, signs and symptoms of skin irritation due to constant wetness, fungal infections, and lastly pruritus at the affected area (intense desire to itch, uncontrollable in some cases)!

However, it does not constitute a medical emergency in most cases, unless a serious co-morbid condition is present! In that case, VVF does not take precedence in the order of treatment anyway! End of story: It is a case for routine work-up and management (surgical) in an elective environment under the care of attendings/consultants and not residents in an emergency setting!

Also, antihistaminic drugs, steroids and emollients, antimicrobials are used in the treatment (or rather, the control) of pruritus in most cases! However it shall persist so long as the offending factor persists (for which the treatment in this case is surgery!)

The Incident
It was sometime in the month of January, when winter was at its peak and it took an extra mug of coffee to keep you awake in the wee hours of the night in the Emergency Room! There was this new OB-GYN resident posted in the OB-GYN Emergency for the whole 24 hours! Given the new surroundings and the eagerness to impress his/her peers, this resident was working his/her ass off throughout the course of the day!

And winter is the season of births: an average 24 hour period in a labor room can see as many as 70 deliveries (and these are the normal uncomplicated ones!) that a sole resident (with his/her juniors to help) has to oversee sometimes! And then there are the complicated cases as well!

Probably he/she expected the same enthusiasm from all residents in all departments. (Pity!)

At around 1.30 a.m., there came a young couple with the lady presenting with the above mentioned condition of VVF. This resident did a complete workup (including "lab-work") of the patient and came to the diagnosis of a VVF with no co-morbid conditions, (the patient had normal renal and liver function tests as well), that necessitated an admission into the emergency, then! And this was communicated to the patient who was further advised to return in the morning in the OPD for consultation with an attending for further surgical management to correct the cause!

She was given the necessary antihistaminics and other drugs (as per protocol) to alleviate her symptoms of pruritus for the time being!

But the OPD queues in govt. hospitals in the national capital are notorious for the enormous number of patients attending and this couple was in no mood to let the opportunity of an admission into the hospital go by!

They went out of the OB-GYN Emergency only to return again within 15 minutes with hue and cry about the patient's condition and the resident's refusal to admit the patient in the emergency! [Though intensely distressing, the patient's condition was not serious and did not merit an admission into an already overcrowded OB-GYN emergency!]

This resident was in a quandary, for he/she was never accustomed to such open hostility in the middle of the night, in a new environment! The result was obvious, the patient was admitted

for the night! Given the benign condition of this patient, and that there were other serious patients to take care of, the resident now paid attention to the others admitted!

Obviously, this patient was offended that she was not being given exclusive attention and she kept calling for the resident again and again! This resident obviously harrowed now, then sent for an in-patient referral for a dermatological consultation by the on-call resident in dermatology!

It was almost 3 a.m.!

Now, there are very few emergencies in dermatology in general on an average night, and you can't fault an average resident in dermatology for taking a snooze in the on-call room at night on such occasions! And this one posted that night was no different!

He/she, however promptly responded to the call in the wee hours of the night and evaluated the patient earnestly, came to the same diagnosis that the OB-GYN resident had! And since the treatment already given had been sufficient, no further treatment was added to the patient's chart! The dermatology resident then left for his/her ward!

But the patient was inconsolable, and the tired resident sent for the dermatology resident again within 20 minutes of his/her departure!

The dermatology resident was not amused this time around! Although he/she said nothing to express the same, but it was obvious! [As I said, dermatology residents are not accustomed to nightly adventures on a regular basis unlike some other branches!]

In a cool and calm manner, he/she came and evaluated the patient again, recorded the findings in the patient's case report; and the following was seen added to the patient's treatment chart as the dermatology resident left:

"In case severe itching persists, scratch the affected area SOS or as required!"

Epilogue: Nothing more was left to be said!