giving in to beauty

there are very few things that make me want to close my eyes and give in to overpowering beauty

it may be something from a book or a poem:
Kahlil Gibran writing about death
William Golding in the closing lines of Lord of the flies
Samuel Shem in that final breathless nonstop flourish in House of God

it may be music:
Barber's adagio for strings
Tracy Chapman - the most beautiful and perfect voice ever
the twisting and turning soundscapes brought to life by Counting Crows

rarely it may be a movie:
that final scene from Edward Scissorhands
Donny Darko, especially when Gary Jules sings in the background

OR

what I saw today, arguably the best movie I have seen in a long time:

Pan's Labyrinth

I won't spoil it for anyone

but it is so perfect and beautiful and fantastic and imaginative...

rrrespect maan...

Lines from books that are just so perfect that I wish I could have written them (I hope this list will get longer with time):

''So I got older, till being grown was no new thing but just ordinary''
- Peevay, in Matthew Kneale's 'English Passengers'

Saying it as it is

'I have, for years believed that a man should be thoroughly educated or not at all. The middle way ... produces anonymous competent mediocrity, enslaved to technology and efficiency'
- Neville Cardus (the greatest cricket writer in history)

I think I should elaborate on this. There seems to be the danger of reading this out of context which may seem insufferably snobbish.
When I came across this, I felt it summed up a problem that I am very concerned about and which is likely to have a far reaching knock-on effect on society. These lines, written more than half a century ago seemed uncannily prophetic - about the current state of medical education.

falls, scabs and scary balls

I think I can summarise my childhood physical activity in to the above phrase.
I was never good at any sport, ever in my life - not even going down a children's slide. For inexplicable reasons, I would somehow manage to hurt myself and walk around like a sacrificial lamb who has been briefed regarding his grim future (yes, ok, my mother should not have paid so much attention). Take the slide for instance. I remember going to Lion's park in Calicut and getting stuck on the slide (usually I just freeze up at the top and gingerly go back down the steps, but that day there was one of those scary looking boys - freckles, missing front tooth, evil snigger, you know the type - breathing down my neck, so I had to at least pretend that I was planning to go down the slide in the near future). I remember lying down on the slide (when I sat up, the ground looked too far away and the slide looked too steep) and hoping for the best.
The slide was one of those fashionably curved ones and with me lying down, which the poor guy who designed the slide had not anticipated, I got stuck in the curve. So there I was, lying down on the slide, stuck about 2 feet from the ground while the boys behind me were getting more and more impatient by the minute. As I had closed my eyes at the point of departure, it didn't dawn on me till a few moments later that I had not touched the ground and that the ordeal was not over yet. I also realised that I did not have any momentum left to make my way down.

I calmly weighed up the options in my mind:

1. try and keep my eyes open for longer, look around me (and maybe even look down) and decide whether:
a. I should jerk myself loose by wiggling my bum
b. I should try to sit up and move down the slide
c. I should swing my leg over the side and chance a fall (yeah right!)

OR

2. listen to the advice +/- threats from the impatient boys waiting behind me such as:
a. 'curl up into a ball so that I can kick you down the slide' (very kind, but please don't trouble yourself)
b. 'stand up and run down the slide' (really guys, if I could do that, would I get stuck in the first place? honestly!)
c. 'get out of the way or I'll kick your head in' (hmm... that was clear enough)

OR

3. cling on to the sides of the slide, screw my eyes tight and cry out at the top of my voice till someone 'responsible' comes running

Strangely enough option 3 seemed the most sensible thing to do, so I did not waste any more time.

The end result was:
1. the boys above got frustrated and jumped on to the slide so that three of them bounced off my head, two plunged to the ground straight off the curve while the third rolled over me and cannonballed down the slide
2. I donated a significant portion of the skin from my palms and forearms to the slide trying to hold on for dear life
3. I lost one shoe and half my shirt pocket
4. Being of reputable character and of a friendly neighbourly disposition, the slide repayed my generosity in full, so that the whole of my back had a respectable coating of the slate grey top layer of the slide to replace the skin I had lost

The amazing thing was, all of this took no more than 48 seconds.

Like I said, it is all inexplicable

So I never bothered to attempt any sport whatsoever, but as my friends all liked sports, I HAD to go out and play in the evenings. It was only later (when we bought a TV) that I realised that there is no 'back goalie' in football or 'second wicky' in cricket. The truth was, knowing how 'good' I was at sports, my friends had devised a way of making me useful.

During a typical evening's play I would:
1. retrieve the football after a goal has been scored. The goal post was usually the space between two big boulders and the top bar of the goal post was an imaginary line above the goal keeper's head which is deemed reachable by the oldest boy in the group. This meant that if a goal is scored, the ball would shoot off into the undergrowth and then it was upto me to retrieve it (back goalie)

OR

2. retrieve the cricket ball if it goes wide and is too far for the wicketkeeper to reach (second wicky)

I must say I cannot blame my friends, for all kinds of balls scared me. I used to field at mid-on once upon a time (when I first moved into the neighbourhood, before my friends knew me), but I remember turning around and running away when the ball went up in the air and then came down straight on top of me (i.e., a catch). The football being bigger, you can imagine my response.

Nowadays, I just don't bother. I am quite happy sitting in a corner and picking my scabs.

do indians dream of white terrorists?

Feeling quite bitter. I am trying my best to separate my ego from the whole issue, but it is easier said than done. Two things happened last week that has brought back the sense of unease I used to have a year or so ago.
1 AM on tuesday in Liverpool. My wife is on-call. There is a difficult case and she asks for senior help. One of her senior paediatric surgical colleagues, an Indian who also happens to be our friend is on his way to assist her. He stops at a traffic light when a police car pulls up beside him. The lady officer asks him to pull over and step out of the car. He complies and shows her his NHS ID card and explains that he is going to the children's hospital for an emergency surgery. Her only response is 'I am glad you are not operating on me'. He asks her why she wanted him to stop. She says it is because she saw that his car was beginning to move forward when the light was amber, a few seconds before it turned green. He apologizes and says that he did not do this intentionally. She starts walking around the car as if inspecting it. He offers to bring his car into the station the next day and reminds her that he is on his way to help in this surgery. At some point in the conversation he addresses her as 'madam' and she latches on to this. She says 'in my language madam is someone who runs a brothel'. He recognizes then that this whole incident has racial undertones. Quietly he apologizes again and says 'I am sorry I do not know your language as well as you do and I am sorry if I caused offence without intending to' (he has only been in the UK for about 12 years, so I guess he is still only starting to pick up this strange language). After about 45 minutes of this he is finally let off. He asks for a receipt as a record of the 'offence' he is supposed to have committed, but he is simply asked to go. In the meanwhile, my wife has asked one of her other senior colleagues (English) to help her who arrives in a few minutes and they finish the case. He says he was stopped on the way for speeding in a 30 mph zone, but was waved on when he flashed his NHS ID. After they finish the surgery, my wife meets her Indian colleague in the doctors' room when he tells her what happened and why he could not be there to help her. It is ironic that all of them were trying to help a two year old child (need I say English) survive.
The next day I am making my way from Liverpool to Leicester. It is a two hour train journey. From the station, I get on the hospital shuttle that takes me to my place of work free of charge (provided I have my NHS ID card). I have two pieces of luggage with me, my shoulder bag and another bigger one with all my laundry and my food (long story - I work in Leicester, but I have a house in Liverpool, which means I get to see my wife and do my laundry and do the cooking for the working week over the two days I spend at home in Liverpool). Anyway, the bus is packed, so I pop the big bag in the luggage rack and stand leaning on a nearby pole till the next stop. People get off and I get a place to sit, so I take my small bag with me and sit down, till I get to my hospital. As I make my way to the front of the bus to get down, I notice the commotion at the front. I hear a lady frantically point to my bag and say 'I saw this asian get on the bus with two bags from the station. He got off at the next stop, but only took one of the bags with him. This other one is here and it all looks very suspicious'. The driver (an Indian) tries to reassure her saying that he is positive that the 'asian' in question has not run off without taking his bag. The lady does not listen. She repeats 'I am telling you, I saw this guy get off without taking his bag. This is all very suspicious'. While this is going on, I quietly take my bag from the luggage rack and slip off the bus without turning back. My immediate response (not verbal, but in my mind): 'go on b****, judge everyone everywhere based on their skin colour'. Then I think more rationally and I accept the fact that I cannot blame her for being suspicious. After all, 'asians' have not been at their best behaviour recently in the UK. Nonetheless, how convenient that asians are the new bad guys, for it helps people to develop and nurture their latent racism. I wish people would think from a slightly different perspective. To an Indian in India, a German and an Irishman and an Englishman all look the same, so how would the Englishman feel if he is blamed for the Nazis and the IRA? What if someone walks up to him and says 'when will you apologize to us for the CIA torture centres and Guantanamo?' I can see him seething self righteously and saying: 'I am not American or Irish or German, can't you see I am English?'. Well, how does he expect the Indian in India to differentiate between them? They all look white!
The only difference is, the Englishman's story is hypothetical, where as the Indian's story is real. I hate terrorists even more than the English, because I am as likely to die if a bomb goes off (strangely enough explosives tend not to discriminate on skin colour) and the rest of the time, I am a suspect. How I wish there were non asian terrorists so that people understand that it is not just asians who are the bad guys. Really, I do sometimes dream of white terrorists.

evidence based rantings

Two things happened today that made me reconsider the possibility of TV as an intelligent medium of communication. There was a program on animal testing in research from both perspectives (researchers vs animal rights groups) and there was a 10 minute feature on Neswnight on creationism vs evolution.
Both evoked strong feelings in me and the program on animal testing especially had my full attention as it raised so many issues.
I admittedly view animal testing from a skewed perspective, being a researcher (not an animal researcher, but nonetheless). But acknowledging my bias helps me to factor that in when I think about this.
To understand what happens to us humans in health and disease, we need to chart out the structural and functional features of biological systems which is a painstaking process done with the ultimate aim (not all biological research, but certainly medical research) of improving health - of humans.
What we know now to be 'basic concepts' in biology, especially the structural aspects, are somewhat easier and less controversial to study: for one basic reason - that a structural analysis does not always require intact functionality of the subject. In other words, tissue removed from humans or tissue of dead humans are adequate for a significant proportion of structural research. Moreover, society in general accepts research on dead humans as long as this follows an acceptable 'code of conduct'. However, it is easy to forget that this acceptance was not inherent to society. The gravediggers of the past who were the steady source of illegal 'research material' for anatomy scholars, now part of medical lore, is the proof of the changing attitude of society towards medical research. Moreover, this acceptance has lead to sufficient research on the 'real thing' to allow highly detailed computer reconstructions of structure, mainly because we have not mutated in the last 400 years and therefore this 'steady state' of human anatomy has allowed us to catch up with our 'cutting edge' technology. Increasingly such artificial models are used in education and training.
Functional research poses a different challenge and one of the main limitations is the inability on the part of humans to design adequate artificial functional models. This open admission of insufficient knowledge is also the most significant reason to pursue research - without observing the functional aspects of a biological system how can one 'design' a simulated model? Moreover, this inherent complexity of normal function means that alterations in function which underlie disease in humans are even harder to understand. In other words, diseases have not shown the decency to stay the same while we catch up with our 'cutting edge technology'. This dynamism is the main reason to strive ever harder, exploring all available avenues knowing fully well that all this effort may only scratch the surface of the problem.

This is where animal research comes in.
Again, from a research perspective, animal studies almost always focus on a single scientific question. It is usually not a case of mad scientists in their blood splattered lab coats fighting over a carcass and running off with various innards of the poor animal. Yes, if simultaneous studies are going on in the same lab, different researchers may use the same animal but that surely is not a bad thing as it means using less animals overall. Also, not all animals used in research are killed or maimed as there are functional or behavioural studies which do not result in any harm to the animals. There are also strict protocols to be followed when using animals in research, starting from the initial research proposal to the ethics committee review through to the publication of results in peer reviewed journals.

I get the feeling that the main reasons for animal rights groups to intervene (and in many cases, violently) are:
1. The animal is subjected to pain
2. The animal is helpless and has no choice in the matter
3. The living conditions of the animal are not ideal
4. Researchers are motivated by their vested interests (i.e., more funds, more publications, more results) and do not care about the welfare of animals
5. Just like racism, speciesism is wrong and researchers are guilty of this

This line of argument raises a lot of issues which I have been trying to figure out in my head:

1. subjected to pain: researchers follow anaesthetic procedures similar to what is employed in surgery on humans. So pain is something that is kept to a minimum.
However, this raises the question of differential response on the part of animal rights activists: why is it that there is no furore on the use of zebra fish embryos or the fruit fly in research labs? All the anger and resistance seems to be against research using mammals or primates. Why? Because they are closer to us in the way they respond to pain? Because they have identifiable body parts we can empathise with? or because they generally tend to have large mournful eyes and chubby furry bodies? Is this response really in proportion to the cuteness of the research animal?
How do we know that invertebrates or non mammalian vertebrates do not feel pain? Because they lack the pain receptors that we readily identify in higher animals? I have not seen a single species (including plants) that does not avoid a noxious stimulus. The way they respond might be different but nonetheless one cannot assume that they do not sense pain (if not pain in its human sense, atleast an instinctive response to avoid harmful stimuli). And yet, I see no animal rights activists outside high schools and colleges where non-cute cockroaches are massacred in their thousands each year.
Also, there seems to be a context to these issues. Far more rats and mice are killed as a part of pest control when compared to research. No one seems to be of the opinion that fieldmice also need to live and therefore have equal rights to the food we carefully store.

2. Issue of consent: This is difficult to address and I cannot say that researchers ask first before using animals for research. I can only say that the same justifications apply to the killing of animals for food or to improve sanitation or economy of a community. I cannot see research as something that is especially evil. On the contrary, if you compare the method of killing a rat in an trap as opposed to in the research lab, it is obvious that more care is taken in the laboratory.

3. The living conditions of the animal are not ideal: a research lab is not a safari park and it cannot function as a useful research lab if access to animals is difficult. Again animals are kept in cages which are no different to what you would use for a pet. Adequate feeding and rest for the research animal is crucial to the success of a research project. If only to reduce variability in results in a study, if not for altruistic purposes, animals are generally well looked after - maybe just like looking after cattle till they are led to the meat processing factory.

4. Researchers are motivated by their vested interests: why is it that people assume that someone in research is somehow 'different'? We live the same life with the same hopes and fears and insecurities and aspirations just like anyone else. How is using an animal to conduct research somehow worse than being a cutthroat businessman? If anything, the researcher makes less of an adverse impact on human society. Moreover, the drive for a majority of scientists is the opportunity to contribute to the improvement of health in human society, however corny that sounds. It is rare for animal torturing psychopaths to pursue a research career and I am yet to see one of these.

5. Speciesism: Very difficult. I readily accept that we are doing animal research because we are the top of the food chain. I have heard 'what ifs' about a hypothetical society: what if there was a super human race who take a fancy to us humans and decide to test their hypothesis in 'lower animals'. Imagine that you are walking down to the corner store when suddenly this superhuman race (of super furry animals? who knows) grabs you and starts sticking electrodes in your brain. How would you feel then?

Yes, good point and again I do not have a ready answer. But let me just say this. If there is a new drug which might save your mother's life or reduce the pain that your sister goes through, would you rather it was tested in your son first or in a furry little lab rat? Or would you rather not test the drug and continue to see your loved ones suffer? Or would you electronically calculate the presumed effect of the drug in a 'complex mathematical predictive model' and based on the figures adding up (or not) on the snazzy LCD screen, give the new drug to your wife without any anxiety whatsoever?

If biology was simple and straightforward like a cardboard box, it would be simple to predict how it would 'behave' in different situations. But (un)fortunately, that is not the case. The sheer unpredictability of biology is what drives research. Also it is very important to remember that for all our arrogance as a species of high achievers, we have no more than very basic information on how we function. This awareness of ignorance is what stimulates research - not the overwhelming desire to stick a knife in a helpless furry animal.

I would like to see how many animal rights campaigners refuse medication when they are ill because it has been tested in animals at some stage in it's development. I cannot ignore the fact that we test on animals because we happen to be higher up in the pecking order of evolution. That is something all researchers have to come to terms with and create their own independent moral justifications for. This is where the concept of greater good comes in and that is all I have to say about it.

Broosli on a Laamburrtta

It is raining in Leicester.
As I drag my feet to work on a wet, gloomy morning I suddenly remember my green rain coat. When I was five, I had this green plastic rain coat complete with a detachable hood (attached to the collar at the back with a button that only my mother could fasten or undo - I used to spend hours fiddling with the damn thing!). I had to wear it to school every day during the rainy season (who was the bright spark who came up with a school re-opening day smack in the middle of the monsoons?). Looking back, I must have looked a sorry sight with my raincoat, my umbrella (yes, my mother insisted on both, the umbrella to keep out the rain drops that fell tangentially!), my corpulent schoolbag and my water bottle. I guess it helps the imagination a little if I say that at that time I was almost as wide as I was tall (or short, more to the point).
And then there were other times when I used to wear my raincoat.
At night, before my brother was born, and probably for a couple of years afterwards, my father and I used to go out for movies on his slate grey Lambretta (I used to call it 'Laamburrtta' in typical Malayalee fashion). I did not know it was an Italian company till about 15 years later.Anyway, we used to go for the 'first show' (starting at 6:30 PM). My mother never used to come with us - she did not like English movies. So my father would start up his Laamburrtta and I would tell my mother: ' Amme, going to see Broosli'
I did not know that Bruce Lee was Chinese or that his movies were quite violent or that his name was Bruce Lee and not Broosli.
So we would go and see Enter the Dragon and Fist of Fury and all the other Broosli movies. The cinema was called Crown, near the centre of my home city, Calicut (Kozhikode for puritans). The ageless, diminutive usher who knew my father from his college days would say something silly to make me laugh as he tore our tickets in half and pointed the way with his 'Yevereddy' flashlight. I would sit through the movie with my jaw hanging loose amazed by Broosli's dazzling 'nunchaku' (I had to look up the spelling on Google) stunts and his trademark feminine howl that punctuated his kicks and jabs. During the intermisssion my father would buy 'masala kadala' (peanuts smeared in masala) from the vendor near the toilets and then give me a taste of his 'Gholspot' which would make my nose run, but make me laugh nonetheless.
After the movie we would dive straight into the madness in the car park where about 12 cars and 200 two wheelers are squeezed into 25 square metres. Amidst honking horns and glaring headlamps, before we start off for home, he would ask me two things:
1. am I sleepy (for I have to stand on the footpad of the scooter in the circle formed by his arms and the handlebar for the 20 minute trip home)
2. am I cold (well, cold in Calicut is anything less than 21 degrees and that is after adding the wind chill factor)
I would say no to both and get on the scooter giving him a reassuring nod.
As we drove home with Broosli still fresh in my mind, my father would sing his favourite Hindi song, with the words 'Aanewale...something something'. (I found out 20 years later that it was the only song he knew and that he certainly, most definitely cannot sing!)
I would pretend that the speedometer was the control panel of a jumbo jet with all the various knobs and switches and the bright green light that came on intermittently (when he switched to high beam, as I found out later) and then one of two things would happen:
1. I would fall asleep and lean against his arms.
2. I would tell him that I am cold.
My father would then have to stop the scooter and open the storage compartment (which is just below the handlebars in the Lambretta, not to one side over the rear wheel - as in the Bajaj). Nestling amongst the paperwork would be my neatly folded raincoat, bright green in the fluorescent street lamps.
He would help me into my green raincoat and insist that I wear the hood, provided it was attached (if not, I would just wear the coat, for he could not attach the stupid hood to the raincoat either - like I said, only my mother could do that).

Then we would be off again:
the hum of the scooter in perfect harmony with my father's Hindi song while the flapping raincoat provided the percussion as I looked at the bright green light in my cockpit thinking about the flashing nunchakus and the commotion around my school desk the next day as I tell my friends about how I went to see ...
... Broosli on a Laamburrtta

Muse-sings

Last night was FAN...TAS...TIC!!!
Went to a Muse concert in Birmingham. All their hit songs performed live with a fantastic light and sound show to boot. Amazing. It was a shame my brother was not around, for I know he would have enjoyed it. They kick-started with Hysteria and went on to play Plug in baby and Butterflies&Hurricanes and Starlight and Knights of Cydonia among others. I got a free ticket at the last minute (thanks to my Prof(!), who kindly invited me to go along with her husband).
An 'almost packed' NEC, fan age range: 16 to 65 (mean probably 24, excluding outliers), about 12,000 people in all, of which I think 4 were non-Caucasian!
I was a bit apprehensive at first, for I had this mental picture of 10 teenagers with spiky hair and 52 body piercings between them kicking my head in with steel boots, shouting 'die asian scum' while the rest cheered them on.
Before the concert, near the gates, the security staff were checking bags. As I stood in line, I thought, 'Ok, be calm, don't act guilty when you are not!' followed by 'serves you right for coming to a concert where there are no other Indians (or Asians, if you will) to be seen. Now they will strip search you and bar you from the concert, because you look suspicious, just like those students on holiday who were kicked out of a plane for being Asian'. As we approached the security staff, my Prof (Caucasian) has her handbag inspected and I (complete with stubble, oversized jacket and a guilty look) was waved through.
It is embarassing to admit that I had these unfounded fears but that shows how 'integrated' people really are in a multi-racial society. Sure, there were teenagers with spiky hair and body piercings and then there was the older bunch in leather or denim jackets but all of them were there for the music. I certainly did not get any funny looks or comments from anyone, but I could see what might cause all this misunderstanding. It is about judging people at first glance.
I do not think that my feelings are far removed from those of a Caucasian at an Asian wedding or on a plane with young Asians for fellow passengers. Both sides have to recognise that the other does not mean any harm, that they are just different in superficial issues of daily life. If I had not gone to the concert because of my prejudiced view on how 'other people' behave, I would have missed a really great show and a fantastic evening.
Funnily enough, the whole thing reminded me of the title of Noel Barber's book: 'The natives were friendly so we stayed the night'

let me pick my neurosis

Him: You look uglier than usual
Me: Thanks for noticing
Him: Sleepless nights, eh?
Me: Can't get over it
Him: Surely others have been here before
Me: As if THAT matters!
Him: You cannot go on thinking about it
Me: I think I lack the capacity to accept it
Him: What's the big deal, it is just another birthday
Me: NO, it is not 'JUST ANOTHER' birthday , thank you very much
Him: Hey, act your age
Me: Very funny
Him: So what is the big deal about 30?
Me: I don't know, but I don't want to be 30
Him: Would you rather die then?
Me: Hmmmm... burn out rather than fade away, eh? No, I would rather be 29 for the rest of my life
Him: Why so?
Me: Because 29 is still related to 21 and 21 was a good time in my life
Him: It usually is in everyone's life
Me: I don't want to let go of my 20s. I am scared that I will suddenly turn all grey and old and wrinkly if I turn 30
Him: But you know you won't
Me: What if I do inside?
Him: You are making this unnecessarily complicated. Just go with the flow
Me: Do I have a choice?
Him: You can choose not to be obsessed
Me: You see, this is something I can't fix and I can't run away from
Him: Surely things in your life do not fall into just those two groups
Me: Umm... they... usually do...
Him: What is it that scares you? That you are nearer to death?
Me: Oh, don't try your psychology crap on me. It is hardly that simple
Him: Well you tell me then
Me: I feel this urge to evaluate, to assess, to score ... my life so far. To see what I have done with the youth I had, to see if I have proven the same old cliche...
Him: Youth is wasted on the young and all that?
Me: Yep
Him: And what have you found? How did you score?
Me: I don't know. I can't seem to score enough
Him: Why? Were you expecting to win a Nobel prize by 30?
Me: That would've been nice...
Him: Does 'delusions of grandeur' ring a bell?
Me: Really, so funny, you should try stand up
Him: You know what I think?
Me: No, but I think I am about to know
Him: I think you are just vain, all you want is someone to say ''you have done well to get to where you are at your age''
Me: Am I that transparent? Surely I have more needs than that
Him: Well, then tell me what is your way out of this?
Me: I don't have a way out, you see. For the first time in my life, I am facing something that I cannot get a grip on. I don't want to be 30, because 30 is the age when you lose your links with your youth, 30 is the age when you just accept that you get on with life and live out the rest of it, 30 is the age when you stop being a son and start being a father, 30 is the age when you have no more excuses for your mistakes, 30 is the age when people no longer see you as young, 30 is the age when you have to choose a different option on drop down menus, 30 is the age when your body starts to tell you that it's getting on, 30 is the age other people get to while you sit comfortably in your 20s, really, it is as if I have lived all my conscious life in my 20s and now I have to move out - no I am being kicked out, for I no longer belong in here where things are still fresh and new and exciting
Him: Well you left out something
Me: What?
Him: Looks like 30 is just the perfect age to have an early midlife crisis
Me: Who said it was early?

bereavement

I went to a charity evening this weekend. Held in memory of someone I had come to know and respect and love in the short time I had known him. When I looked at the full town hall - full of people who knew him and respected him and loved him even more than I did, I came to realise one thing. This person had so many facets - he meant so many different things to different people. We had all come together to remember him and celebrate his life. The mood was definitely not dark or glum or sad. There was song and dance and speeches and food and laughter. All through that, there was a feeling of loss deep down.
On my way back, I thought about why he meant so much to ME - someone who was just on the outskirts of his circle of friends and relatives. I thought about why I had felt the way I did when I heard the news more than a year ago, considering that I had only met him a few times, mainly in the company of a lot of other people.

I first heard of him before we came to UK - he had given my wife (who was not my wife then) very valuable advice about her career development. Then I knew more about him when my wife came to the UK - for he took her under his wing just as he would his own daughter. Whenever my wife talked about him, I had the impression that he was a person I would look up to, someone whose praise I would value.

I remember the first time I talked to him - after my engagement (after it was all 'official' and I could talk to her relatives). It was after I had passed my exams - in 2003, more than a year after I first knew about him. I still remember - we (then my fiancee, now my wife and I) were driving to London and she had called him to introduce me - I felt quite anxious, but he congratulated me on my success in the exam and he said he was glad things were slowly falling into place for me. I mumbled something inconsequential and passed the phone over to my 'fiancee'. The conversation stays surprisingly fresh in my mind - among the innumerable conversations I had over the last 3 years with mostly faceless people.

I remember the first time I went out with my wife to look for a house - we were riding in the back of his impressive and opulent Mercedes. He was joking and laughing with us - I was just drooling at the jaw dropping interior of the stately car! After he had seen our shortlist of houses, he said he liked one of them - the one I had liked the moment I walked in. Somehow that fact - that I liked what HE liked meant something to me (still does).

I remember my wife's exams - he used to conduct mock exams for her, being an experienced examiner for the Royal College of Surgeons. I used to tag along, more a driver to take my wife where she wants, hoping for good home cooked food at his house than anything else. I remember this Surgeon's prayer he had framed on his wall. We talked about it and I showed him the Physician's prayer I have had in my wallet since I first read it as a medical student.

I remember the last Christmas - almost two years ago. He was leading a 'train dance' - for want of a better description. It was after dinner at his house, there was music and laughter (as usual, when he is around) and he was weaving the 'train' in and around the furniture recruiting more 'cars' to his train by coaxing everyone including the reclining 'Aunties' to join the fun.

I remember the disbelief when I heard the news. It just could not be right. It just was not fair. I felt for his family, but I also had selfish reasons of my own. I wanted him to be there for a lot more things in MY life too. I wanted his approval and appreciation for a lot of important things I still have to do.

I did not cry then. For some strange reason, I just felt angry.

I went to his house afterwards - a few days later. I still had not cried - did not feel like it - till I saw him smiling at all of us from a photograph - he looked so happy and confident and full of life.
I didn't make a scene then - there were far more important people around whose grief was greater than mine.
I didn't make a scene last weekend either - in fact I have to confess I had fun being with so many people I knew through him, so many people I have now come to love - all through him.
I do not have the command over language that would do justice to how I feel about him and in someways, I think it is best not to try and crystallise in mere words what he meant to those who loved him.

The sweet taste of bitterness

I think it is time to explain my title. I made it up when I was feeling very bitter. I had been working in the UK health system for about 5 years at that point, I agree it was not for charity and I did get trained during this time, but still things were happening that made me feel very bitter and cynical about the state of 'foreign' (read non-european, may be even non-caucasian) doctors in the UK. All the details are available to anyone interested for as long as Google is still around, so I am not going to bother with explanations.
Suffice to say that I felt very bitter about the attitude of the health service employers and the UK government towards 'overseas' (see above for definitions) doctors.
I guess it was all a result of the political upheaval in the UK

Asian terrorists...
Asian suspects...
Asian vs white riots...


In short Asians were the new bad guys (by the way, what does Asian mean? there is no ethnic group called Asian! This is a 'can't be bothered to know more, but gotta be politically correct' way of saying 'brown folks').

I had so much anger in me - directed at the terrorists who made my life unbearable when I was working in London. As an Indian (Asian to some), travelling on the tube was an ordeal, you are scared of all the other Asians around you, everyone else is scared of you - the potential terrorist and you cannot decide whether it would look less threatening to:
1. look at the floor all the time
2. look at other people
3. look out of the window
4. all of the above
or
5. none of the above.
I even thought of getting a T-shirt that said in loud lettering splashed across the front: NON-TERRORIST ASIAN, GOVERNMENT APPROVED but gave it up as a bad joke(?)

As these things were happening around me, I noticed one paradox - if you are a terrorist or even just a regular bad guy, you suddenly have a lot of human rights and people debate endlessly on whether you should be subjected to interrogation which may involve intimidation (leave alone torture). Also, the terrorist/bad guy gets away without paying tax/contributing to the economy/being useful etc. However, when it comes to someone who is working hard, earning a living, contributing to the economy, paying tax like any UK citizen, paying the home office all their exhorbitant visa fees and generally living a law abiding life, the system prefers to skewer him on a kebab stick, deep fry him and watch the fun.
Almost as if the official stand point is: we cannot find/punish/hold to account all the bad foreigners as they always slip through our net, so let us nail down the ones we know. So what if they are not the bad guys, someone has to pay for all the damage, right?
This attitude was reflected in the health service, where about a third of the junior doctor workforce are 'Asian' (i.e., Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Srilankan etc, but essentially non-white, non-black)
It was as if, overnight, the powers that be decided that they are not answerable to the thousands of such doctors left stranded by sneaky new employment/immigration laws - as if all the foreign doctors were expendable commodities like matchsticks or toilet paper. It was as if there was a drive to create a new and improved, well defined official pecking order, starting from the Alpha Plus White Male to the Delta - no - Epsilon Minus 'Asian'.
Well, that's me folks, an Epsilon minus in the UK, in limbo - trying hard to fit in to the society here and at the same time wondering whether I would fit in back home if (when) I am eventually kicked out.

I must admit though... all this bitterness tastes so sweet

From a crumpled tissue

I found this in my bag last week. I had forgotten all about it. I had written this about two and a half years ago. It was just after my marriage and we were on a houseboat in Alappuzha (Aleppy to non-malayalees). The houseboat trip was a gift from my wife's cousin (expensive too!). I was not very keen to start with. Having lived in Kerala for about 23 years before I came to the UK, I did not see the point of having a holiday in Kerala. Surely there is nothing special that I have missed. I wanted to spend that extra day at home - having had just 10 days of annual leave and facing the prospect of returning to UK in January, I wanted to make the most of my short holiday (nice going then, some might say, trying to have an Indian wedding AND peace AND quiet in a 10 day holiday!)
I will not say that I was dragged onto the houseboat by my wife, for it would be hyperbole. Suffice to say that she had to 'persuade' me like the secret police say in spy movies.
All that changed very soon.
I think I will just copy what I wrote on that piece of tissue paper (there was nothing else to write on within arm's reach on the houseboat):

To my children

You are not here yet, but then maybe I won't remember all that I have to tell you when you are - and maybe you won't have the time to listen when I do remember. It might be easier for you to leaf through this when you have nothing else to do... like me at this moment in time.
Today seems precious. I have unwound almost completely for the first time in three years. The static of thoughts and worries buzzing in the back of my brain is gone - exorcised by the beauty around me.
My own powerlessness humbles me - I am helpless in the face of such a display of grandeur. How can mere words describe the wind flowing around me with a whiff of raw rice from the paddy fields in front.
The boat sways gently as she sleeps in the wicker chair beside me - this is how she must have slept 20 years ago when I knew nothing about her existence, her 'being there' for me on this earth.
My ears suddenly open out to Nature - the sound of wind tickling the palm leaves, men talking in the fields, water sloshing against the bank, a distant motorboat, crows flapping around for leftovers - left by the workmen in the paddy fields under the hot sun near a river on which sits this boat - delicate like a piece of china on a shiny glass table.
Water...suddenly reminds me of PG Wodehouse. Lord Ickenham says 'There are wheels within wheels'. Completely out of context. But the big waves splashing against the wooden boat have hundreds of little ripples on their backs and these in turn have more little ''riplets?'' - I don't know what to call them. You would understand when you see it.
I feel my batteries recharging. A year's worth of blood and vomit, death and disease washes off me. This river has cleansed me and like the coconut trees parading on the bank I draw strength from this water.

It ends there. Maybe she woke up at that point (likely), maybe I spotted some food (very likely). I don't know. I do wish there was more.

Well. That's that.

Learning the hard way...

Whenever you see light at the end of the tunnel in research, resist the temptation to run towards it, for it could be a train hurtling down the tracks at breakneck speed

Research = 99(+/-0.8)% perspiration + 1(+/-0.8)% exasperation

Overheard in the lab: 'your argument is well made, very profound... and completely pointless'

Adulthood vs 'sonhood'

When do you really grow up? At 18? When you leave home? When you start earning? When you get married? When you have children?
This has puzzled me a lot. Recently, I came to realize how much I am still my parents' son. Even now, approaching 30, I call them when I have any news, Good or Bad. I call them when I feel confused, I call them when I feel that I need someone I can trust to give an opinion.
Don't get me wrong, I do not always follow their advice or agree with what they say. Ever since my teenage, I have resisted advice fom my parents, but even now, I feel the need to know what they think of my plans, to know whether they agree or not, to know what their point of view is.
When it comes to sharing good news, it is much more straight forward to figure out. My parents will always be proud of their son and I can always count on them for unadulterated joy in my success. In some ways, it is a cycle. I feel happy, so I tell them, they feel happy knowing that I am happy, which in turn makes me feel happy that they are happy about me feeling happy.

Like I said, it is straight forward.

In my mind, I try to rationalise - I am soon going to be 30 years old - an age which I thought I will never get to (God, thirty years old - that feels so... well, so old). But what is my mental age? How old do I THINK I am? Sometimes 10, mostly 16-18, sometimes about 25 - no more. Is this why I still feel very much my parents' son? Should I act and feel more mature? Is it a defence mechanism against acknowledging my true age? If I still feel like a son, then does it mean I am let off being a 'proper' adult?

I remember my Grandmother's death - she was the stereotypical grandmother - cuddly, sweet, full of smiles and hugs and unconditional love. When she died in her 80s, I remember my mother sounding very lonely over the telephone. Lonely at the age of 55, married with two adult sons.

I think I can understand that. Probably, she felt the same - maybe with my grandmother's death, my mother lost a dimension of her existence - she lost her daughterhood.

All this reminds me for some strange reason of Lord of the Flies. When the sailors find the boys in the end, Ralph weeps, he weeps for the end of innocence and the darkness of man's heart and the loss of a true, wise friend. Maybe that is what I am trying to avoid. I cling on to my sonhood for it means there is still innocence in me, for it means there is still someone to protect me from the darkness in my heart and there are still friends who are true and wise, who will be happy for me no matter what and who will always see a son in this adult(?) fast approaching 30.

red streaks on white china

Him: Hey, that looks nice
Me: What?
Him: Don't act dumb, you know what
Me: You mean this?
Him: Of course. What else is there as beautiful as that in your life?
Me: Yeah, that's true
Him: I know you love it
Me: Of course I do
Him: Why the long face then?
Me: Oh, it's nothing
Him: I have noticed, you know...
Me: What?
Him: What you mumble in your sleep...
Me: Which is...
Him: red streaks on white china
Me: My eye is drawn to them, resistance seems futile
him: Why would you want to resist?
Me: Well, it is not pleasant
Him: Why?
Me: Because it reminds me of when it was broken
Him: Just that? surely that was a long time ago
Me: It reminds me of how I struggled to put it back together... so beautiful, yet so delicate
Him: Is that all?
Me: Ok, I admit, it reminds me of the pain
Him: What pain?
Me: The pain when I cut my fingers, again and again on the broken slivers, groping desperately to save every piece, frantically trying to pick every last shattered fragment, dipping my fingers into the pile of rubble hoping to put it all together again
Him: And...
Me: Well, can you see the cracks?
Him: Hmm, I must say, you did a good job
Me: Does it look broken?
Him: Not to me...
Me: What does that mean?
Him: Well, I have my answer
Me: Answer to what?
Him: What you mumble in your sleep
Me: I hate him, you know
Him: I know
Me: I hate him for the streaks more than the cracks
Him: I know that too, you have always been selfish

coming of age?

My brother emailed me yesterday. He was at a proverbial crossroad in his education/career/life. He was worried about the choices in front of him. He was looking for answers, he was looking for guidance, he was looking for more sleep at night. Reading his email, I could not help but wonder whether there is a gene which codes for 'thought process'. it seemed as if I was visiting my brain from the past - the questions that floated up from his email would have been typed by me not so long ago. You see, he is thinking about applying for a PhD and he is not sure. His words jumped off my screen like unruly kids off a schoolbus:
What can I look forward to if I do complete my PhD?
How long will it take?
What if I can't come up with anything for years and realise I have to quit? What do I do afterwards? A research job?
But do I so badly want to TEACH?
Am I any good at it?
Am I good enough for any of this?
and also ...

... What do I want?


I could also identify with his state of mind when he said: 'It's been 5 months and I haven't even done a proper literature survey. I feel I'm not as self motivated or as interested as I need to be for research'. It is uncanny how our thoughts have lined up with no intentional mutual influence, living thousands of miles away.

What do I tell him? The obvious, annoying and easy answer is to say 'there is no right answer'. But you don't need a brother to tell you that. You can get it from the innumerable agony aunts all around you in the media.
But, then, is there a right answer? Maybe there is, I don't know, but what I do know is .. I don't know if there is a right answer.

I began thinking about the one thing I could tell him which might be of use to him - how I coped with these questions that life flings at you with apparent carelessness, but really with an intent to maim or kill.

That got me thinking about my life over the past three years - nothing to write home about, but still, I came to acknowledge a few basic 'facts' as I see them.

After I finished my MRCP, I felt stranded, as if I had lost direction. I ‘knew’ I was not good enough for anything acute, anything exciting. I ‘knew’ I did not have enough knowledge about medicine to ever become a specialist, I ‘knew’ I did not have the commitment and dedication to pursue a career in a competitive academic field. My head was all muddled and I had no obvious path to follow. Till then when I had exams to pass, it was so easy (not being arrogant - I don't mean that the exams were easy, God, did they make me sweat and loosen my sphincters at times). Look at the next exam date, apply and study. Hardly requires any decision making skills. But when I had finished all my exams, it was as if it was the end of my career. What next?

I then thought about my future working life.

It became slightly less muddled over the next few months - it was as if I had finally got down to 'spring cleaning' my mind, airing the cupboards, sweeping up the cobwebs and dusting the carpets. My thoughts started to bear semblance to some kind of order. Somehow, it was as if, I was alive for the first time, just starting out, testing if my brain works or not - very strange after 'living' for 26 years.

I started with what I would call 'first principles' in my work.

A job is defined as work you do for financial compensation

A profession is a job that you do offering a degree of expertise that someone just doing a 'job' cannot offer. This means you have undergone a period of specialist training or education that gives you a better insight into what you do. Yet, it is something you do for remuneration albeit at a better skill level.

Now, there is one more level of work – a vocation. Etymologically, this is related to the concept of a ‘calling’. As if the work calls you, attracts you and you fall in love with it. You have a desire to do it, you want to do it because it is what you would enjoy. Moreover, it is what you would enjoy not just at the age of 28 when you are young and fit and the world is your oyster, but it is what you would enjoy at the age of 65 or 70, when you have arthritis in both hips and problems with your prostate that makes you lose half your sleep running back and forth to the toilet. In other words, it is something you would not tire of doing because you love it.

With this line of thinking came the realisation that choosing my career path was as important as choosing who I live with/marry. Well, even more important, in some ways.

The person you marry might not be there with you throughout your life for whatever reasons, but your work will be with you as long as you are capable of working.

IF you do not choose carefully, you might end up hating what you do very soon – and when it happens, it is as ugly as a bad marriage.

I then imagined this: what would it take for me to jump out of bed into my work clothes at 3 AM … at the age of 65?

The answer was very obvious – cardiology, cardiology and cardiology in that order.

According to a survey which I came across a few years ago, only 11% of cardiology trainees in the UK are non-White, of which 7% are Asian of which 4% are British Asian born and educated in the UK. The situation might have changed, but I do not think it has changed dramatically.

In other words, I knew when I decided on cardiology that I have a 3% chance of making it to a training post. 3 years down the line, I am only half way there (if that) – I still don’t know if I will manage to get a training post. Yet, I would NEVER ever consider doing anything else with my life. Because it would not be physiologically plausible for me to do anything else. You might as well train your goldfish to fetch your morning paper.

People ask me what is my plan B – I don’t have a plan B. The only plan is cardiology ... or sit at home and look after the kids, which is quite attractive, I must say, atleast that would save me having to worry about IVF and elderly primis.

Then comes the question of choosing an academic route – research and all the rest.

It is much more difficult to marry research into work – in any field. Again, it depends on how much you love your field. Applying the same useful office equipment, the 'first principles sorter' (available now, in all good shops):

In any line of work, traditionally, you do three things:

Do a good job (profession)

Teach your apprentices how to do a good job (academics)

Try to see if you can make the job better (research)


Whether you want to do 2 & 3 depends on two things:

How much you want to do it

AND

What are the negative impacts on your lifestyle/quality of life (note: quality of life is defined by you) by choosing 2 and 3.

But then there is a darker side to it, the craving for knowledge (which may turn out to be an ill disguised craving for power, for in academics, knowledge is really power), the desire to be known, to be recognised, to be appreciated, to be immortalised by your work.

Is this just vanity, is this just arrogance?

How should I know, possibly it is just me.

I am still trying to work out how to sift out the dark side. Three things seem to help:

1. Insight - by this I mean an unbiased assessment of oneself - a clincial audit with an 'n of one'. Accept the fact that in a lab with a PCR machine, a pipette, a 200 microlitre pcr tube and you, the imperfect entity is... yes, no prizes for guessing... you. I strongly believe that the more insight you have, the more you question your capabilities. So I am very happy and proud of my brother for raising these doubts about his own capacity and calibre.

2. The project is more important than the researcher - this puts things in perspective. You then come to 'know' your slot in the bigger machine. It gives you the drive to know more, to be excited about what you want to do, it gives you the academic equivalent of a nostril flare response. At the same time, you realise that even if the human race evolved to live to 250 and did away with the need for sleep and developed superneurons with novel aminoacids which give you supermemory, you will only succeed in scratching the surface of your field, the field you really and truly love.

3. Remember your climb up the ladder - as you progress, watch where you step. Try not to tread on feet, especially those of your juniors. It does not take much to squash baby feet with army boots. Try and remember that any comparisons between you and your juniors should be like for like. i.e., be honest and compare your junior's achievements and knowledge to what you were capable of at his/her level in your career. When you appraise someone: be honest, not brutally honest.

Anyway, all this apart, over the next few days/weeks my brother will come to a decision. It might change his entire life. It scares me. Why did he have to ask me for advice? Why not someone older and wiser? Why not someone in his field?

Suddenly I realise, there are questions floating up like good year blimps into my conscious brain...
...and the first one reads:

Am I good enough?

Richard Pryor and his 'niggers'

I am sure I will offend someone with this title. This is the power of words - curiously, more than to insult, it sometimes has power to elicit a 'cringe response' in the readers. I guess the response depends on what concerns the reader more: political correctness or racism.
Anyway, that is not the point.
Richard Pryor died recently. I had seen some of his films, but I was no great fan - he swore too much for my liking. I watched a documentary on him a few days ago. He lead a colourful life, to say the least. The documentary was followed by one of his stand up performances from the 70s. As I watched him, I realised that he was a very talented man and the swearing was just part of his character. There are comedians who bank on a vocabulary of filth to get a laugh. He seemed different - I am sure even if all his swear words were bleeped out, you would still find his jokes funny.
He had this reputation for calling african americans 'niggers'. Now, this is something black men might get away with, but not something a different race could use without repercussions. He in fact called his first stand up album 'that nigger is crazy'.
Anyway, the way he used this word, it seemed as if it was not derogatory, well, if it was, he didn't seem to mind and neither did his fans.
In one of his acts, he describes a trip he made to Africa. The significance of what he said struck me, I could empathise with his feelings when he said this:
'Man, I went to Africa recently. It was amazing, it blows your mind. All around me I saw black men, from the sweeper to the president. As I sat in the hotel lobby and looked around, a voice in my head said to me - Richard, do you see black people all around you? - to which I replied - yeah, man, black all around, I have never seen so many black people in my life. Then the voice said - Richard, do you see any niggers around you? I looked around again and said - no man, I don't see any niggers, only black people'.
I think I know exactly what he means. It is the dignity that a person is entitled to among his countrymen, something that eludes most people who live abroad. Of course most of those who live abroad do so of their own volition, no one has forced them to do it. Yet, there is a constant feeling of 'not being at home'. There are daily reminders of your differences, starting from when you look in the mirror in the morning.
Each person deals with this as best as he/she can. Most get by without thinking about this unless a personal experience forces them to acknowledge it. Work, worries, commitments, goals, targets, family, hopes, fears - well, life in general, carries them forward so that there is hardly any time to waste on whether people think you are a 'nigger' (or a 'paki' in my case - yes, in the UK, there is no distinction between Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Srilankans when it comes to racism - we are all 'pakis').
Nonetheless, there are occasions, for instance after you have just returned from a holiday back home, when Richard's words have a special meaning:
'In Africa, there are no niggers, only Black people'

when poverty scared me

A rainy day more than 25 years ago. I was 6, my brother was about a year old then (intellectually, I would argue that he is about the same even now, but that's another story). The monsoon clouds were at it with gusto. Not the type of half-hearted effort made by clouds in England either. The monsoon drowns out everything, including your thoughts. For me, monsoon is a word that always triggers memories of sound and smell and touch more than sight. But there is one sight that comes up in my memory from the past that still haunts me when I think about the monsoons...
... A six year old me sitting in the back seat of my father's car, my parents in front, my brother sleeping, swaddled in a warm blanket on my mother's shoulder. I am engrossed in the strange music of raindrops on the metal roof and the repetitive frantic squeaking of the windshield wipers as they vainly try to keep up with the water splashing all around. I close my eyes and imagine I am underwater, in a submarine (my dad had taken me to see 20,000 leagues under the sea) and I am hiding from the monstrous squid in the safety of my submarine/car. I have an open biscuit packet in my lap (which will not be a surprise to those who know me) and I am deep in my role, when my father asks me to keep a look out behind the car as he reverses into a side street.
Everything changes - it only takes an instant, that's what is so strange about life.
I look around, the side street is empty, except for a boy a few feet behind our car. He looks about 3 or 4, he is drenched so bad that I worry his skin and flesh might wash away any minute in the force of the rain. A dark, thin little boy, in tattered clothes and an expression I cannot describe on his face. Suddenly I am scared to look at him, I desperately try to avoid his gaze, but it is too late. He looks at me and raises his hand to his mouth, a helpless and hopeless mime of hunger.
My heart races, I have never been so scared in my life. I don't know what to do. So I just keep quiet. My father, who has not seen any of this, shifts gears and drives off. I feel compelled to look one last time - and there he is, in the middle of the road, frozen in time, frozen in the rain, his tiny hand still raised to his mouth.
As we drive off, I rummage around in my brain for a 'safe' thought. I desperately want to think about Captain Nemo and my submarine. But all that fills my mind is the little boy.
What scared me was not the thought that it could be me (I don't think I was capable of such profound thought at that age) - what really scared me was that through the rain his face seemed to blur for a moment and it seemed as if my little brother was looking at me, cold and tiny and hungry and frail.
That was the first time I was introduced to poverty, the arrogant, cruel, greedy slavemaster. Since then I have passed him on the street many times, but always managed to escape without acknowledging his presence - and he seemed to let me get away with it. He seemed happy just trampling on the vast army of slaves already under his whip. I have never done anything that would count as charitable (you cannot count the direct debit from your account as anything more than a guilt response - it is not 'charity'). Of course as a doctor, you help in making minor improvements to people's lives. But then, you are compensated well for your effort. I used to dream of doing something really useful, for people who have nothing. Unfortunately, your own selfish thoughts get in the way:
What about my career? my financial stability? my independence after 24 years of living in my parents' house (not that they would mind)? I want to chase my dreams, build my empire and tick all the right boxes. That doesn't leave time for charity, surely.
Like a broken record, repetitive explanatory thoughts play in my mind: 'I will certainly give something of me to people who have nothing, but... but, let me build my life first, because...
...I need security before I can afford charity
...I need qualifications before I can offer my services
...I need experience to build expertise
...I need to complete my training
...I need to beef up my CV
...I need to think of a family
...I need to tick all the boxes

and before I know it, charity and sacrifice have been drowned in my 'needs'. One day, one day soon, I am sure I will help someone less fortunate ... but it seems, I am helping myself before I do that and I don't know when I will be satisfied.

thoughton

april shower,
raindrops cling to leaves for
dear life

cold drink,
chewing gum stiffens on
my tongue

middle of
a signature, my pen
runs dry

potholes in
the road, my CD player
skips a track

sleepy morning,
the hot iron chases away
my shirt creases

darkness gathers round
my night lamp, like old men
around a winter fire

first day of
school, the smell of resin
in my notebook

who's this then?

me: I love her
him: are you sure?
me: of course I am sure
him: but then what about HER?
me: who's that then?
him: you know HER, I am sure
me: oh, HER, yeah well, you know how things are
him: well, maybe you should tell me
me: there is nothing to say
him: but you do think about HER
me: so what, it is silly
him: well...
me: and you know I love her
him: well, she certainly loves you
me: who, HER?
him: ha, you are so predictable, jumping to conclusions again
me: oh, you meant her?
him: what do you think?
me: well I know I love her
him: do you think she loves you?
me: don't play games with me
him: what do you mean?
me: well, why can't you say what you mean?
him: which is...
me: do you mean she or SHE?
him: does it matter?
me: how would I know?
him: well, it's your feelings
me: don't muck around with me...
him: don't worry, you are all mucked up as it is
me: well, I know she loves me and I love her
him: ...
me: well...
him: what?
me: are you not going to judge me? do you not have to slip your forked tongue in between my lines and taste the undercurrent of desire and guilt, you slimy ...
him: wow, someone's upset
me: and you know why
him: maybe, but do you?
me: what do you mean?
him: go figure

ticking boxes one by one...

A wilful move away from work, just to look at the bigger picture. I am sure this is just a passing state of disillusion. I was talking to a friend yesterday. He is an older, wiser colleague and I had approached him for some advice on improving my candidate appeal. it is so difficult to get the job you desire, actually, of late, it is difficult to get anything at all, but near impossible to get what you want. Anyway, as I was planning to apply for a post that seemed quite attractive, I went to him for advice. He took me through all the various issues that an employer looks for in a candidate, but in the end, he said 'it all boils down to how many boxes you tick and how many sections you can fill on an application form'.
Now, 16 hours later, I feel as if I have been sandbagged. Is this my life then? filling boxes... I suppose it starts from the hospital bassinet and for many people ends with a made to measure box.
There is one box that I have not filled as yet in my life. The box that says prizes and honours. It makes me feel rather like a dull 3 year old when I leave this blank, as if I am on a stage with spotligts burning into my brain and I have to own up to the whole world: 'no, I have never won any prizes, I have not once been honoured in all my life'
In a lightning reflex to protect my ego, explanations jump up and slam against the front of my brain: I never tried, I was too bored, I didn't get the right guidance, I was not in the right place, others had less competition (boy, that's especially pathetic) ... the list goes on.
I guess the fact is, I have never been THAT good.
Even as I wrestle with that obvious explanation, a small voice in my head says 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'

fitting God into science

That's a BIG ask, surely
Why is the world so obsessed with this now? in 2006, of all times? surely, we have come past this wasteland before. It still reeks of old battles. Really, do we need a new one?
What is all this debate? Evolution vs Creation, it seems. I can't even be bothered to examine this in detail (thank God for that, it has been dissected from all planes and angles already)
Tolerance helps
Changing one's point of view helps
Knowledge helps
Intellect helps
Science helps
Religion helps (yes, it does)
Integrity helps

but, then, people already know all this helps, and yet, they can't be bothered.
well, maybe this needs a one size fits all explanation.
any suggestions?
how about:
'God wanted us to evolve'

Inching my way to happiness

I have been in a foul mood of late. Trying to lose weight (again). OK I lied in my profile - I am not always comfortable with my body image.
As I was struggling to get into my old pair of jeans, with one leg in and teetering, it struck me - I know how to measure happiness. It is not an abstract concept like all these poets would have you believe. It is a tangible, well defined and slightly mundane entity!
And the scale of measurement?
Inches. Yes, inches. Happiness is measured in inches. Well, atleast as far as men are concerned. As for women, I would not have the arrogance to suggest that I understand anything at all about the fairer sex. But as far as simple, uncomplicated men are concerned, we are all inching our way to happiness.
Not convinced?
well, I could start with the human body itself, one's own and others'.
As you look at yourself in the mirror, you wish you were 3 inches taller. Or even half an inch for that matter. That would make you so happy. And then as you struggle into your wrinkled trousers, you wish your waist was a few inches slimmer. You steel your resolve to hold your breath for the rest of the day in those tight trousers, for you are meeting your special girl who manages to turn you into a slobbering fool. You wish yet again that you could lose a few inches, even half an inch - from your waist.
Then you meet the said girl, you are immediately conscious of her figure - even without knowing it, you are adding up the inches, just to reassure you that they add up in the right places in the right proportions. Why? That makes you happy, of course. As you sit through a mushy romantic movie (her choice), you are conscious of her head leaning towards your shoulder - a few inches closer and you'd be really happy.
I will not bore you with the crass details of what other biological detail measured in inches brings happiness in geometrical proportion to men.
You then turn to your next important thing in life, yes, boys' toys.
As you drive to work, you think about the new 19 inch alloys you had specially made for your car and you once again feel extremely happy.
You get out of your car swinging your briefcase and there is more reason to be happy, because your new laptop is only 9 inches in size (2 inches less that your annoying colleague's, ha! that will teach him). Also you have personally verified the claim that the company makes the thinnest laptops - less than half an inch thick! Excellent. you are very happy now - till your mobile rings and you think: 'I have to change this old one, it is 5 inches long and half an inch thick'. Your next door neighbour was flashing his new one the other day - he didn't forget to mention that it was less that a quarter of an inch in thickness and only two and a half inches long. Grrrr, you have to do better, but then you look at the 3 inches of plastic sticking out of your wallet - your platinum card has to be recharged before you can buy that new phone. But that's understandable, after all you have just bought the latest 54 inch LCD that is now contentedly hanging from your living room wall - adding more inches to your happiness. Your pals at work are coming round tonight, ostensibly to watch the finals, but really, it is a celebration of you notching up more inches to your happiness. Sadly it is not long lived - for your annoying technogeek colleague whips out his latest digital camera - 10 megapixels and a whopping 3 inch LCD screen with a touch sensitive menu. You quickly hide your own camera between the cushions - no point in letting people know that you only have an inch and a half of screen on your Olympus - oh, only if you could add a couple of inches to that!
You are tired now - it is time for bed. You toss around restlessly and then drift off to sleep, only to wake up sweating from a nightmare.
You dreamt you were in a giant cocktail shaker - but this one was most peculiar, for it was shaking you and all your beloved stuff till the inches all rearranged themselves. Oh, no, the laptop is now 4 inches thick and 15 inches wide - the embarrassment! You will have to live it down somehow, but then you recoil in horror as you see the LCD TV now shrunken beyond recognition to just 21 inches. You feel quite fat - and realize that you are! It is all the inches off your TV and the alloy wheels on to your waist. Someone you hardly recognize is talking to you - who is she, this ugly, dumpy woman - and then you recognize your once well proportioned girl. The inches are all rearranged and she is a different person now - you try to run away from her, but she keeps following you, down a dark corridor and then you are falling down.. down...
... and you wake up.
Thank God, it was all a dream, she is there lying beside you, her shape under the sheets reassures you that things are all as they should be, you stretch a weary hand to your bedside table and your new slimline clock-radio (only 3 inches wide, surround sound speakers and all) tells you that you have another 4 hours to sleep. As you shuffle back under the duvet, you stub your toe on the bed and wonder - have you grown taller in your sleep?
You have, it seems - atleast 5 inches taller - surely you are dreaming - you pinch yourself, no, it is true - you walk to the bathroom mirror to verify ...
and then...
... the night is rent apart by a blood curdling scream - for you have seen yourself in the mirror and now you realize where those extra inches to your height came from .......

Prime time Alien TV - the human freaks

I wish at times that there was a super human race. A race not as predatory and arrogant as humans are, but with a similar curiosity to explore the 'lesser' species. While I am at it, I would also wish for a David Attenborough or a Jane Goodall to make programmes on nature where they observe human behaviour at work and play.
Only this would give us the insight that we need to understand how we behave as a species, wth all the failings that we so easily attribute to 'lesser animals'.
Is reality TV an answer then? How about Big Brother?
Definitely not, it would hardly be a sincere attempt at depicting human behaviour either on the part of the participants or the programme designers.
Humans are blessed with social awareness which helps us to modify behaviour according to our surroundings - not just the physical, but also the emotional and psychological. This means that the presence (or awareness) of others results in involuntary modification of innate behaviour which thwarts any attempt at studying human behaviour in its purest form.
Another benefit of having a different species study humans would be that it is more likely to be non-judgemental. This is where reality TV would fall woefully short of the ideal. The whole point of reality TV is that we judge the people on the screen, thereby improving our own feeling of self worth. This is why reality TV sells better if it has a group of people who are at best dysthymic and at worst outright bizzare or sociopathic. Why do we not have reality TV programmes on checkout counters in supermarkets, molecular biology labs or libraries?
Well, the simple answer being that it is too real, 'really real' people living normal real working lives. Nothing to feel superior about, in fact, viewers may feel inadequate or depressed if they see happy successful human beings!
A super human species would also be able to delve deeper into the extremes without worrying about 'consequences' of such programme making.
When David Attenborough films a lion making a killing in the wild, for all the blood and gore, for all the detailed depiction of death accompanied by a lucid narration, we hardly bat an eyelid. We encourage children to watch and learn about wild life, not turn the other way.
Why not have a reality TV on soldiers - actually killing 'the other side'? How about a programme that follows someone intent on murder...to its completion? It does not have to be gory, maybe someone plotting to poison a lover. It does not have to involve a dead human, even someone inflicting psychological pressure, financial pressure - all behaviour we know humans are capable of, but never asked to face upto.
Does this make me a psychopath? To think about these things?
I think we need a wake up call. The extremes of behaviour humans are capable of has been glossed over by the media, any attempt to show real suffering is met with resistance.
Bob Geldof (I think) once described how the relief workers in africa are faced with the soul destroying task of selecting people. From a whole field of hungry humans, to pick and choose those who will be fed that day, knowing fully well that the unlucky ones will NOT be waiting their turn the next day. How about a live telecast of this?
When we are sitting down to a meal in front of the TV (the dining room? what's that?) we do not wish to be reminded of our moral standing as a species.
All around the world there is unrest and unhappiness, yet even more prominently there are daily justifications for human behaviour. Those who have bigger, more convincing explanatory notes get away with more.
The whole world is polarised now, more acutely than in the dark ages. The only reason human beings may really unite would be if there really was a super human race... not one interested in making real life programmes... but a predatory one with an appetite for humans, irrespective of race or social status.

Character building

What a week. What a messy irritating frustrating week!
Lab work can be so ruthless. It is so much easier to be a doctor. The human body is so forgiving to your mistakes. Not like the controlled pristine precise atmosphere of the scientific laboratory, where the way you breathe can mess things up.
Doing PCRs is not fun. In fact it is soul destroying work, especially if you are doing it for the second time in your entire life. You resist the temptation to scale things up. how do you know that the 0.61 microlitres has gone into the tube and mixed with the rest of the 9.39 microlitres of 'stuff'?!
On the wards, if someone is unwell and you need to give them some antibiotics, you can give an extra dose at times, 'for good measure'. no harm done, as long as you know where to draw the line. Not so in lab work. Lab work does not seem to accept the fact that it is also an imprecise science. A microenvironment does not necessarily scale down the variability. it is still performed by imperfect human beings with imperfect knowledge and imperfect skills. So why pretend?
In medicine, the more you work, the more you realize how little you know. I strongly believe that this feeling of inadequacy is proportional to one's insight. I cannot understand arrogant doctors. What are they arrogant about?
it is like the filament of a bulb being arrogant about the light in the room. You are just a plain conduit which is empty if not for what flows through it.
But I digress.
Character building - yes, I have come to hate that phrase. This is what people tell me when things go wrong, after 3 days of work, you find out that there is nothing to show for it, as it has all gone horribly wrong and yet, you don't know what you did wrong.
Character building, my foot!
Well, if it is character building, surely, it is the quality, not the quantity of character that you need.
I don't know
Going back to my samples now

The King of egotrips

Read Stephen King's Song of Susannah this week. I thought this was it, that the gunslinger meets his maker now, but no, he has managed to stretch it further. There is one more - book 7, The Dark Tower. Have to hunt it down cheap on amazon now, how annoying!
What can I say. Stephen King writes in an irritating way, but I am still drawn to him 16 years after I read his first book.
I used to think, especially when I was in India that buying a King gives you good value for money. Not many authors give you 500-600 pages at that price. So if you are looking for an afternoon to waste or a 9 hour flight to tide over, there is no one better - as long as you are prepared to throw the book away when you get off the plane. A literary equivalent of casual sex.
I like King because he has this weird lopsided angle when looking at life. His spyglass is quite stained and smeared (with things you don't want to know about) and he manages to see the dark side in everything. This, I have always felt is what fascinated me. To see the underbelly of life, the less appealing side - like Irvine Welsh says in High Fidelity - knowing a woman long enough to know that she leaves disgusting cotton underwear lying around and not just the sexy nylon stuff that you get to see on a short hot fling.
A bit like that, but worse.
He is at his best when he describes characters. If he were an artist, he would be one of those wrinkly gruff slightly bitter ones who would only do pencil sketches, never add colour, yet manage to make the paper come alive. I hardly ever read his books for the horror, for it is not a shock or a suspense that he demands from his CRs (CR=Constant Reader). He prefers to make you shuffle in your seat and squirm when you read the dark bits of his characters, for he forces you to acknowledge your own weaknesses and darkest of thoughts, thoughts you would not accept as your own, thoughts like mutant psychopathic children that you don't want to know about, definitely not the ones you would have photos of in your wallet - yet for all your vehement denial, they are your own.
He makes you face up to them, stay in the same room with them and try and talk to them. Here in lies the real horror of his books - a study of the capacity of the human MIND for socially unacceptable behaviour.
What better example that his short story 'Riding the Bullet'. That stands out for the simple reason: it really makes the reader accept his own selfish love of life . Ever since I read that, I have seen selfish behaviour in a new light and I understand it better. I also think twice about adopting a 'holier than thou' attitude. I will not spoil it for people who have not read the story yet - go ahead, read it and decide for yourself.
Why call this post egotripping?
Because that is what his Dark tower series has turned out to be. One of my american colleagues said King is two sandwiches short of a picnic and although that is a bit harsh, I think I can see why she said that.
His style has definitely changed as he got older. If you read the Bachman Books, you see a different King. Young, hot headed, raging against the system and very very crisp and economical in his writing style, even when he digresses off the plot to describe a character in detail, it all feels essential in some strange and beautiful way. Despair and horror in plenty, but of a much better quality.
Nowadays, as he says himself, he gets away with publishing his laundry list and still come up with a best seller, and I think his writing has turned out of form and corpulent in it's old age.
As if he cannot be bothered to make the effort anymore. Even in the Dark Tower series, you can see how the story has become less gripping as you read further - and it feels as if the series is his excuse to get everything he has ever written published - all the ugly mutant children of his brain out in the open and his CRs are forced to adopt them all without question.
Sad, really, for he is very good when he puts his mind to it.
He says Tabby (his wife) is his greatest critic. Why has she let him get away with this? She should know better, surely.
Maybe after his near fatal accident, she has softened a bit, maybe that's why.
But still, as a CR, you tend to expect more from him, which he does not deliver nowadays.
What explanation could there possibly be for him dragging himself into the story?!! Does he think that that would immortalize him any better than if he just wrote a cracking good tale? I think he is sorely mistaken if that was his plan.
It does not add anything to the tale and makes one disappointed is a peculiar skin crawling way. As a CR, you see King as someone you know and the feeling is akin to how you feel when you have just introduced your elderly uncle to a group of friends and he then lets rip a loud smelly fart that leaves you not only embarrased, but also sorry for him.
Oh well, my ranting is over for now.
I am going to hunt down Book 7. Like I said, I still read his books, even if I am being screwed over by the publishers.
I still read his books hoping for his old style, in someways, I am hardly bothered about how it all ends - I dont think he can do very well, the way things have panned out. But still if the journey is interesting, I don't mind if the end leaves me disappointed.

hugging your dad

Why can't men tell their fathers how they feel?
Mike and the Mechanics comes to mind, they describe exactly how it is between fathers and sons in their song 'the living years'.
Even as I type this, I can feel someone cringing at the sight of this post and I bet that it is a son who does not know why he does not hug his dad either!
Growing up can be really funny. The shouting matches of teenage years -which can go beyond teenage, I guess- all seem like pointless territorial pissings when you look back.
Ironic that when you get to know your dad better, you are far away. The guy who used to be irritating and annoying at times now turns out to be a not-too-uncool friend. Well well, who ever thought THAT might happen...
Boy, would I have a fair share of fights with my children. Can see it all already...
One thing I know. For all my conscious effort to the contrary, I will not be hugging my dad at the airport when I see him. Can't tell you why though

flowers for algernon

read this book two days ago. hooked does not describe what I felt. I could not stop reading, in what was a shocking display if irresponsible behaviour, I spent my carefully accumulated free time lying in bed with a carton of corn flakes by the bedside (I need my nourishment, so no snide remarks) with this book on my tummy till I turned the last page and the carton (750g crunchy nut extra Free!) was empty.
I dont even want to talk about it for fear that it may spoil it for someone interested. One piece of advice, do not read the blurb when you buy the book.
I thought Richard Matheson was the most unputdownable Sci Fi writer, but Daniel Keyes is not far behind.
Just a brief glimpse - it is about artificially improving intelligence by enzymatic manipulation - sounds like a script for a B grade cheap horror flick. Dont judge it till you read it.
I guess it is something you relate to especially if you are involved in research, but it has so many undercurrents and I think one can relate to it depending on one's circumstances.
Living in a foreign country as a foreigner who is constantly looked upon as different, I could see it in a certain light which I would not have done if I was still in India, but that is just my personal interpretation.
Read it and let me know.

to have a brother burning bright

I think I understand how parents feel, about their children I mean (why else should I say parents, after all). When you see someone tiny enough to hold in your hand and then grow taller than you, brighter than you, capable of more profound thoughts than you, possessed with an intelligence and youth and vigour that you wished you had - and then not to feel one little bit of jealousy, that must be a special feeling, how do I know, even if I do not have any children of my own? well because I have a younger brother who fits the above description, who makes me feel very proud and lucky and makes me want to shout from the rooftops that he is my little brother, the tiny thing I used to kick around and fool and make my slave all day long.
My blog is not going to be very interesting, but maybe you should have a look at his, at http://meurly.blogspot.com, it will be interesting, I assure you.
cant think of anything more to say, signing off now
will explain more about the title of my blogspot later.