It's Friday again - I have been morose all week
work - frustrating as usual
not been home for a fortnight
a bad flu that just refuses to lie down and die
miserable winter showers
malfunctioning radiators
terrible traffic and road rage
I crawl up the M6 which does
an annoying impersonation of a parking lot
and as I self righteously tick off the injustices
the world has forced upon me this week
I decide to change lanes
so I indicate right and toss
a perfunctionary glance at my wing mirror
...
and there it is - in all it's splendour
promising a pot of Irish gold
imprinting it's celestial image on it's human namesake
ironing out my worry wrinkles
bringing a surprised smile to my face
my share of elemental magic
right there in my wing mirror
a rainbow
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Thursday, December 06, 2007
What's the Big Idea?!!
In Stephen Hunt’s fantastic, refreshing, vaguely Tolkien-esqe ‘The Court of The Air’, Harry Stave, rogue wolftaker tells Oliver Brooks, registered feybreed:
"Someone comes up with the BIG IDEA – could be religion, could be politics, could be the race you belong to, or your clan, or philosophy, or economics, or your sex or just how many bleeding guineas you got stashed in the counting house. Doesn’t matter, for the BIG IDEA is always the same – wouldn’t it be good if only everyone was the same as me – if only everyone else thought and acted and worshipped and looked like ME, everything would become a paradise on earth.
But people are too different, too diverse to fit into one way of acting or thinking or looking. And that’s where the trouble starts. That’s when they show up at your door to make the ones who don’t fit vanish, when, frustrated by the lack of progress and your stupidity and plain wrongness at not appreciating the perfection of the BIG IDEA, they start trying to shave off the imperfections.
Using knives and racks and axe-men and camps and Gideon’s Collars.
When you see a difference in a person and can find only wickedness in it – you and them – the them become fair game, not people anymore but obstacles to the greater good, and it’s always open season on the them"
Nick Griffin, Abu Hamza, OBL, GWB, hate mail, extraordinary rendition, ‘random’ inspection at airports, illegal invasion (aka war on terror), nuclear ‘deterrents’, 9/11, 7/7, Jallianwallah Bagh, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Gaza, child soldiers, KKK, Rwanda, Darfur, freedom fighters (aka terrorists – all a matter of point of view), Apartheid, United 92, United Defense, British Raj, IRA, Ayodhya, Guantanamo, Enoch Powell, Fat Man, Little Boy …
We are all shades of grey, hands equally dripping with blood, no one deserving of moral high ground, no one entitled to spiritual sanctity – all equally lost and distant from God, who doesn’t want anything to do with any of us, till we get our acts straight
But we won’t
Because I’m right
And you’re wrong
Always
"Someone comes up with the BIG IDEA – could be religion, could be politics, could be the race you belong to, or your clan, or philosophy, or economics, or your sex or just how many bleeding guineas you got stashed in the counting house. Doesn’t matter, for the BIG IDEA is always the same – wouldn’t it be good if only everyone was the same as me – if only everyone else thought and acted and worshipped and looked like ME, everything would become a paradise on earth.
But people are too different, too diverse to fit into one way of acting or thinking or looking. And that’s where the trouble starts. That’s when they show up at your door to make the ones who don’t fit vanish, when, frustrated by the lack of progress and your stupidity and plain wrongness at not appreciating the perfection of the BIG IDEA, they start trying to shave off the imperfections.
Using knives and racks and axe-men and camps and Gideon’s Collars.
When you see a difference in a person and can find only wickedness in it – you and them – the them become fair game, not people anymore but obstacles to the greater good, and it’s always open season on the them"
Nick Griffin, Abu Hamza, OBL, GWB, hate mail, extraordinary rendition, ‘random’ inspection at airports, illegal invasion (aka war on terror), nuclear ‘deterrents’, 9/11, 7/7, Jallianwallah Bagh, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Gaza, child soldiers, KKK, Rwanda, Darfur, freedom fighters (aka terrorists – all a matter of point of view), Apartheid, United 92, United Defense, British Raj, IRA, Ayodhya, Guantanamo, Enoch Powell, Fat Man, Little Boy …
We are all shades of grey, hands equally dripping with blood, no one deserving of moral high ground, no one entitled to spiritual sanctity – all equally lost and distant from God, who doesn’t want anything to do with any of us, till we get our acts straight
But we won’t
Because I’m right
And you’re wrong
Always
Crossroads
There were tears
For she was sad
He was her (? best) friend
So he was sad too
More tears, hot and salty – he found
For he had tried to kiss them away
She was precious
And he might lose her
- Shortly
- Surely
- Forever
He wouldn’t like that
So he panicked
But held her gaze (and her hands)
And told her how he felt
That got him a hug (which was nice)
Then they went for a walk
Had a glass of lime juice each
And that, my unborn children
Is how your blundering daddy
Met your beautiful mommy
Sunday, November 11, 2007
how to be good?
In Twilight Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko's third book of the Night Watch Trilogy, Gesar, Head of the Moscow Night Watch tells Anton Gorodetsky - disillusioned field operative - why he chose the Light over the Dark:
'Preserve the part of you that is still human. Avoid falling into ecstatic raptures and trying to impose the Light on people when they don't want it. Avoid relapsing into contemptous cynicism, imagining that you are pure and perfect.
That's the hardest thing of all - never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent'
Maybe, just maybe, the BJP and Al Qaeda and the greedy TV evangelists should have a look at this allegoric work of fantasy
'Preserve the part of you that is still human. Avoid falling into ecstatic raptures and trying to impose the Light on people when they don't want it. Avoid relapsing into contemptous cynicism, imagining that you are pure and perfect.
That's the hardest thing of all - never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent'
Maybe, just maybe, the BJP and Al Qaeda and the greedy TV evangelists should have a look at this allegoric work of fantasy
beautiful beautiful words... wish they were mine
'But as much as I want his mingling with his own age group, I fear that if he becomes too involved elsewhere, he won't be ever-available for my own needs.
what would one do if one did not have a Toph, sitting in his room, ready at a moment's notice, always willing to run errands, to be pushed against a wall and have his kidney punched...
...To not have Toph would be to not have a life'
Dave Eggers in 'a heartbreaking work of staggering genius' talking about his little brother, Chris'Toph'er
Like he says, to not have Toph would be to not have a life
- my own 'Toph' works for Microsoft, by the way
what would one do if one did not have a Toph, sitting in his room, ready at a moment's notice, always willing to run errands, to be pushed against a wall and have his kidney punched...
...To not have Toph would be to not have a life'
Dave Eggers in 'a heartbreaking work of staggering genius' talking about his little brother, Chris'Toph'er
Like he says, to not have Toph would be to not have a life
- my own 'Toph' works for Microsoft, by the way
Saturday, November 03, 2007
paring cheese
All research is like swiss cheese
the ability to see the holes is directly proportional to the researcher's insight-
-till it comes to a point where you do not see the cheese at all!
the ability to see the holes is directly proportional to the researcher's insight-
-till it comes to a point where you do not see the cheese at all!
Friday, October 12, 2007
wings of steel
uproar in the meadows
sparks fly
a rosebush is 'de'flowered
as the hordes move in
beautiful death...
surrounds me
glints of cold steel
razor edges tipped with
blood - mine
I crumple to
the green grass
bleeding
as the steel winged
butterflies
flit around
murderously...
inspired by the smashing pumpkins song bullet with butterfly wings
sparks fly
a rosebush is 'de'flowered
as the hordes move in
beautiful death...
surrounds me
glints of cold steel
razor edges tipped with
blood - mine
I crumple to
the green grass
bleeding
as the steel winged
butterflies
flit around
murderously...
inspired by the smashing pumpkins song bullet with butterfly wings
Monday, October 08, 2007
snippets
dusk descends
shadows spread like inkblots
under my coffee table
long journey home
my car curls up in the drive
- a tired puppy
washing up after a party
little smileys of lipstick
on the coffee mugs
shadows spread like inkblots
under my coffee table
long journey home
my car curls up in the drive
- a tired puppy
washing up after a party
little smileys of lipstick
on the coffee mugs
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
My friend the movie star
I was the fat, shy, brown one (still am) and he was the lean, smart, fair one - but he never made fun of me.
His house had a very long front yard and a brick wall painted white with a red border. He had a TV and a top-loading VCR and an ATARI which made me very envious. We would watch Jamie and the Magic Torch and Johnny Sokko and his Giant Robot and then play games on his ATARI. I remember one game in particular - pixellated cowboys on either side of the TV screen shooting at each other (this was no X-box 360, but we loved it to bits). He ALWAYS beat me at this because he had a slick technique for killing my cowboy with ricochet bullets.
His little sister used to peek her head round the door and smile her pixie smile when I was around. Perhaps she had not seen someone so short and fat before.
Once when we were 5 or 6, we decided to walk home (about 2 km, I think) after school - two boys in navy blue shorts and wrinkled white shirts weighed down by their school bags walking in the dusty summer afternoon swinging their water bottles blissfully unaware of the green buses roaring past them. I got a ticking off from my mother for doing it and then I heard her talking to his mom about what their boys had done (which meant that he got into trouble too!)
After we left school, I saw him once in my teenage. He had shot up to more than 6 feet, had a booming voice and looked like a movie star while I was still the old roly poly. I envied him even more then.
Last week, I rang Anoop on his mobile after a gap of about 15 years. We talked about our lives and our families. We talked about the good old school days. He sounded like his dad - at least, what I think his dad sounded like all those years ago. He sounded mature and decent and sincere. He sounded excited to hear from me. More than anything else, he sounded just like the friend I used to walk home with - swinging water bottles in the summer afternoon.
His house had a very long front yard and a brick wall painted white with a red border. He had a TV and a top-loading VCR and an ATARI which made me very envious. We would watch Jamie and the Magic Torch and Johnny Sokko and his Giant Robot and then play games on his ATARI. I remember one game in particular - pixellated cowboys on either side of the TV screen shooting at each other (this was no X-box 360, but we loved it to bits). He ALWAYS beat me at this because he had a slick technique for killing my cowboy with ricochet bullets.
His little sister used to peek her head round the door and smile her pixie smile when I was around. Perhaps she had not seen someone so short and fat before.
Once when we were 5 or 6, we decided to walk home (about 2 km, I think) after school - two boys in navy blue shorts and wrinkled white shirts weighed down by their school bags walking in the dusty summer afternoon swinging their water bottles blissfully unaware of the green buses roaring past them. I got a ticking off from my mother for doing it and then I heard her talking to his mom about what their boys had done (which meant that he got into trouble too!)
After we left school, I saw him once in my teenage. He had shot up to more than 6 feet, had a booming voice and looked like a movie star while I was still the old roly poly. I envied him even more then.
Last week, I rang Anoop on his mobile after a gap of about 15 years. We talked about our lives and our families. We talked about the good old school days. He sounded like his dad - at least, what I think his dad sounded like all those years ago. He sounded mature and decent and sincere. He sounded excited to hear from me. More than anything else, he sounded just like the friend I used to walk home with - swinging water bottles in the summer afternoon.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
a chrome fruit and some geography lessons
Rejath and I were the Laurel and Hardy of our group. He had his curly hair and his skin and bones and I - well, I had my generous share of - body fat, I guess. We were both into trivia and once in 4th Std, we qualified for a district level quiz on the 'science of sound'. I remember endless coaching sessions with the teachers describing the workings of SONAR, echo etc (which was exciting in itself, as it meant that we were exempted from some of the more mundane lessons) till a couple of days before the quiz when we got wind of the fact that the whole thing was a light-hearted affair where kids are expected to guess various sounds (for instance, that of a musical instrument or an animal). What a let down, I thought - all that effort for nothing. Anyway we went to the recording studio - the AIR office near Calicut beach - with one of the 'sisters' (the nuns who were teachers in our catholic school). When we got there, there were kids from other schools in the studio already. The adults had left us in the studio and gone elsewhere. Rejath and I were trying our best to be the good boys - the others were running around the room and queuing up excitedly in front of the air-conditioner (a rarity in those days) as it blew cold air into their impish faces and ruffled their hair. The quiz itself, I do not remember much about, but I do remember that my face was burning, which it does whenever I feel shy. We stood around this gleaming big chrome fruit of a microphone dangling at eye level and the quizmaster asked us to shout out our names into the microphone on his cue. When my turn came, hardly any sound escaped me and he had to coax me repeatedly to speak up. The only thing I recollect is that one of the questions was clearly the sound of a string instrument - so I shouted out 'tabla' feeling very smug till the others burst out laughing. In the end, inspite of my bungling, I think we won first place, thanks mainly to Rejath's level-headedness at the age of 9. Afterwards, the 'sister' bought us chaya and pazhampori from the AIR canteen. I could not resist, even though my mother had trained me to say no to 'outside' food (fearing lack of hygeine) - so I chomped into the cold semisolid pazhampori, enjoying every bit of my guilty pleasure. When we got back to the school, there was no one about, it being a saturday. We were herded into the convent where we had lunch in the peculiar deep bowl-like plates which I found strangely amusing. Afterwards both of us had a slice of tea cake.
The other clear memory of Rejath is from 7th Std. I think Ms Vijaya's class. He used to bring his big leatherbound world atlas to learn geography - most of us had thin limp 20-rupee atlases while he had this 'Reader's Digest Special Edition' which used to annoy me a lot, because whenever the teacher described a place on the map, he would pipe up: 'Miss, Miss, it is all very clear in MY atlas'
Grrrrrrr... we were all soon tired of his very clear atlas - I started daydreaming about taking his atlas (which he would not allow anyone else to touch) and beating his brains out with it - Aaaah - the resonating crack in the sleepy mid-afternoon followed by loud cheers from all my classmates as they lifted me onto their shoulders for saving us all from Rejath's inimitable squeak. Sadly, it was not to be, which is why he has now managed to find his way to Minneapolis - I am sure it was all very clear in his atlas!
The other clear memory of Rejath is from 7th Std. I think Ms Vijaya's class. He used to bring his big leatherbound world atlas to learn geography - most of us had thin limp 20-rupee atlases while he had this 'Reader's Digest Special Edition' which used to annoy me a lot, because whenever the teacher described a place on the map, he would pipe up: 'Miss, Miss, it is all very clear in MY atlas'
Grrrrrrr... we were all soon tired of his very clear atlas - I started daydreaming about taking his atlas (which he would not allow anyone else to touch) and beating his brains out with it - Aaaah - the resonating crack in the sleepy mid-afternoon followed by loud cheers from all my classmates as they lifted me onto their shoulders for saving us all from Rejath's inimitable squeak. Sadly, it was not to be, which is why he has now managed to find his way to Minneapolis - I am sure it was all very clear in his atlas!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Itching for more
I heard on Radio 4 the other day that the average duration of marital bliss these days is three years - after which the relationship apparently starts to fade in all aspects as the partners drift apart in body and soul - the three-year-itch, as it is known
It will be four years of married life for me in a few months, so maybe this is a good time to air out my feelings-cupboard
Rather than clothe my thoughts in grammar and syntax, I think it is best to let the bottom shelf of my brain take over, hippocampus and all
so here goes:
I love her, for she is my little golden girl
she understands me completely - including my annoying lack of understanding
she accommodates me, my imperfections, my selfishness, my jealousy, my aggression, my fears, my insecurities - she bathes them all in her love
songs remind me of her smile, I love the way her eyelashes tickle my cheek, I love the way her hands disappear in my paws, I love the way she trusts me, I love the way she is there for me, I love the way she kisses me with her eyes from across the room
I love her strength of character, I love her drive and her confidence, I love her in pigtails, I love her smile when we dance, I love the way she looks good so effortlessly, I love the way she walks into little perfume clouds, I love being her clumsy beast
I love her directness, the way she tells me I have bad breath and gets me to brush my teeth, I love her with long hair and short hair and oh, did I mention, I love her in pigtails
she sees the little boy in me when I am ill, she holds me like a baby when I am sad, I feel safe with her and I love her for that
and so...
I give you my life - with all it's ups and downs
I give you my soul - a spaghetti ball of love and hurt and anger and sloth and lust and laughter
I give you my unsolicited opinion, my concern and my worries, my moodswings and my misgivings
I give you my right hand and my grimace to open all your pickle jars
I give you a hundred and seventy nine centimetres for all your hard-to-reach issues
I give you my skills with the cordless drill, the vacuum cleaner and the retractable tape measure
I give you my body fat and my halitosis
I give you - only you, for now and forever, my animal shivers
and I promise you - I will scratch your itch away every year
I guess the link below says it more beautifully, so I'll stop now
(the video looks best maximised)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjDojEOiMcE
It will be four years of married life for me in a few months, so maybe this is a good time to air out my feelings-cupboard
Rather than clothe my thoughts in grammar and syntax, I think it is best to let the bottom shelf of my brain take over, hippocampus and all
so here goes:
I love her, for she is my little golden girl
she understands me completely - including my annoying lack of understanding
she accommodates me, my imperfections, my selfishness, my jealousy, my aggression, my fears, my insecurities - she bathes them all in her love
songs remind me of her smile, I love the way her eyelashes tickle my cheek, I love the way her hands disappear in my paws, I love the way she trusts me, I love the way she is there for me, I love the way she kisses me with her eyes from across the room
I love her strength of character, I love her drive and her confidence, I love her in pigtails, I love her smile when we dance, I love the way she looks good so effortlessly, I love the way she walks into little perfume clouds, I love being her clumsy beast
I love her directness, the way she tells me I have bad breath and gets me to brush my teeth, I love her with long hair and short hair and oh, did I mention, I love her in pigtails
she sees the little boy in me when I am ill, she holds me like a baby when I am sad, I feel safe with her and I love her for that
and so...
I give you my life - with all it's ups and downs
I give you my soul - a spaghetti ball of love and hurt and anger and sloth and lust and laughter
I give you my unsolicited opinion, my concern and my worries, my moodswings and my misgivings
I give you my right hand and my grimace to open all your pickle jars
I give you a hundred and seventy nine centimetres for all your hard-to-reach issues
I give you my skills with the cordless drill, the vacuum cleaner and the retractable tape measure
I give you my body fat and my halitosis
I give you - only you, for now and forever, my animal shivers
and I promise you - I will scratch your itch away every year
I guess the link below says it more beautifully, so I'll stop now
(the video looks best maximised)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjDojEOiMcE
Sunday, September 09, 2007
a friend-shaped hole
It is an interesting time when your close friend gets married. There is all the excitement and the tongue-in-cheek banter and the preparations. Underneath it all, there is also a slight feeling of unease - a burst of 'what-if' bubbles pop up in my mind:
what if she is reserved
what if she already has HER circle of friends
what if she is jealously possessive (er... a bit like I am)
what if she does not like OUR circle of friends
what if she misunderstands our (my) enthusiasm
what if she does not love him like we (I) do
what if she rearranges his life around her to the point of unpleasantness
what if she makes him disappear from our (my) life
underneath all the surface cheer, there is this never ending series of tiny worry bubbles fizzling away
and then, in a matter of minutes, they are swept away for ever
a smile, a half hug, a few words, his happy face
that's all it takes - for me to know that she fits in-
-to his life... our life... my life
welcome to our world - we need you
to complete us
to fill a friend-shaped hole
perfectly, gracefully, beautifully
look after him for me, won't you
what if she is reserved
what if she already has HER circle of friends
what if she is jealously possessive (er... a bit like I am)
what if she does not like OUR circle of friends
what if she misunderstands our (my) enthusiasm
what if she does not love him like we (I) do
what if she rearranges his life around her to the point of unpleasantness
what if she makes him disappear from our (my) life
underneath all the surface cheer, there is this never ending series of tiny worry bubbles fizzling away
and then, in a matter of minutes, they are swept away for ever
a smile, a half hug, a few words, his happy face
that's all it takes - for me to know that she fits in-
-to his life... our life... my life
welcome to our world - we need you
to complete us
to fill a friend-shaped hole
perfectly, gracefully, beautifully
look after him for me, won't you
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Oh, is it time for my rant again?
I think it is very easy to be bitter and twisted when things do not go your way in a foreign country, when you feel that there is no one who understands your POV, but it does not explain or justify what was done by the doctors (some of them Indian) in Glasgow and London.
However, in the case of Dr Haneef, I think he has just been caught in the crossfire, with circumstantial evidence and understandable hysteria fuelling the official Australian response. The two acts that he is accused of - providing a SIM card to a relative/friend and taking a one way ticket back home - are not necessarily criminal actions.
The ‘SIM card hand over’ is almost tradition when you have friends or juniors from your medical school who are struggling to get a foothold in the NHS. Whether in the present instance he did this with an intention to help a terrorist cause is difficult to know or prove.
In the past, I have gone home taking whatever flight was available when my mother needed fairly urgent surgery - that was a one way ticket, which was obviously more expensive by comparison, but then it was a desperate time.
Does that then make me a terrorist suspect, along with the fact that I have a lot of Muslim friends, some of whom happen to be very orthodox?
A lot of people I know from medical school have stayed in my house in Liverpool (oooh!) over the years. Many of them were Muslims, some have moved on to other countries (including Australia) and some of them still have their personal belongings somewhere in my garage.
I also know that some of my Muslim friends who are all NHS doctors have exclusively Muslim family 'days out' and barbecues.
Does all this add up to enough evidence to incriminate me and round up all my friends?
I can fully understand the concerns about the threat to the way of life in this country. There are things I like about the 'British way' and things I do not fully agree with. I am sure that will be the case anywhere you go in the world. Everyone who is British has a right to feel insecure about losing what people are used to in this country (not just cultural, religious or ethnic habits - but the feeling of security and stability in one's country, the feeling of being safe when you are in bed at night, the trust you have in your neighbour and the man sitting opposite to you on the tube) and I can at least partly understand the response (which may seem over the top to an outsider) from the authorities.
However, if the current state continues, i.e., all immigrants hug their point of view and all British eye the former with suspicion, things will never get any better.
The gut response to news of a terror attack in Britain varies from person to person according to who they are. From anecdotal evidence based on personal experience, this may be:
‘All these bloody immigrants’ – xenophobic British (white or otherwise)
‘All these Muslim immigrants’ – xenophobic British (white or otherwise) who think a step further
'I am more British that White British and hate all immigrants, see' – insecure xenophobic Asian British
‘All these Muslim idiots are ruining our chances’ – non-Muslim immigrants
‘Oh no, not again!’ – moderate Muslims (British/immigrants)
‘Serves them bloody right, now they will know how we suffer’ – fanatical Muslims (British/immigrants – including the vast majority of fanatics who have never personally ‘suffered’ from any British atrocities!)
We see what we want to see and draw conclusions that we are comfortable with. The danger in all this is that of polarisation and isolation. Somehow we have to think beyond the gut response and try to see the other person’s way of thinking (not necessarily agree with them, but think of an alternative version – of events, of perceptions, of the news)
I can only speak for myself, but maybe I can hazard an extrapolation. People from the Indian subcontinent have a lot of emotional baggage and are touchy about a range of issues including our colonial history, our accent, our culture and our ‘way of life’ (I include myself in this sweeping generalisation). Most of us are very competitive and tuned to detect minor xenophobic or racist disturbances in the air around us. The response may vary in details but usually it boils down to self preservation. Hence the hurling of abuse at people who disagree, the ganging up on ‘troublemakers’, the tendency to distance yourself from a group you maybe mistaken for (I am guilty of pointedly buying bacon sandwiches on the tube, for instance).
I cannot tell the British how they should react to what is happening in their country, but maybe I can ask (without being patronising) fellow competent, sensitive, intelligent Indians to think rationally. By all means disagree vehemently and be opinionated. But the reflex response of finding someone else to blame may need to be curbed.
Otherwise in the foreseeable future, Britain will be a clump of insular communities with a tendency to withdraw into themselves, championing their own agenda (‘we have rights too’ vs ‘the boats go both ways, mate’) and blaming the other for not being inclusive. Surely that is not going to be in anyone’s best interests.
Stop rant
Off my pet giraffe
Back to being pipette monkey
However, in the case of Dr Haneef, I think he has just been caught in the crossfire, with circumstantial evidence and understandable hysteria fuelling the official Australian response. The two acts that he is accused of - providing a SIM card to a relative/friend and taking a one way ticket back home - are not necessarily criminal actions.
The ‘SIM card hand over’ is almost tradition when you have friends or juniors from your medical school who are struggling to get a foothold in the NHS. Whether in the present instance he did this with an intention to help a terrorist cause is difficult to know or prove.
In the past, I have gone home taking whatever flight was available when my mother needed fairly urgent surgery - that was a one way ticket, which was obviously more expensive by comparison, but then it was a desperate time.
Does that then make me a terrorist suspect, along with the fact that I have a lot of Muslim friends, some of whom happen to be very orthodox?
A lot of people I know from medical school have stayed in my house in Liverpool (oooh!) over the years. Many of them were Muslims, some have moved on to other countries (including Australia) and some of them still have their personal belongings somewhere in my garage.
I also know that some of my Muslim friends who are all NHS doctors have exclusively Muslim family 'days out' and barbecues.
Does all this add up to enough evidence to incriminate me and round up all my friends?
I can fully understand the concerns about the threat to the way of life in this country. There are things I like about the 'British way' and things I do not fully agree with. I am sure that will be the case anywhere you go in the world. Everyone who is British has a right to feel insecure about losing what people are used to in this country (not just cultural, religious or ethnic habits - but the feeling of security and stability in one's country, the feeling of being safe when you are in bed at night, the trust you have in your neighbour and the man sitting opposite to you on the tube) and I can at least partly understand the response (which may seem over the top to an outsider) from the authorities.
However, if the current state continues, i.e., all immigrants hug their point of view and all British eye the former with suspicion, things will never get any better.
The gut response to news of a terror attack in Britain varies from person to person according to who they are. From anecdotal evidence based on personal experience, this may be:
‘All these bloody immigrants’ – xenophobic British (white or otherwise)
‘All these Muslim immigrants’ – xenophobic British (white or otherwise) who think a step further
'I am more British that White British and hate all immigrants, see' – insecure xenophobic Asian British
‘All these Muslim idiots are ruining our chances’ – non-Muslim immigrants
‘Oh no, not again!’ – moderate Muslims (British/immigrants)
‘Serves them bloody right, now they will know how we suffer’ – fanatical Muslims (British/immigrants – including the vast majority of fanatics who have never personally ‘suffered’ from any British atrocities!)
We see what we want to see and draw conclusions that we are comfortable with. The danger in all this is that of polarisation and isolation. Somehow we have to think beyond the gut response and try to see the other person’s way of thinking (not necessarily agree with them, but think of an alternative version – of events, of perceptions, of the news)
I can only speak for myself, but maybe I can hazard an extrapolation. People from the Indian subcontinent have a lot of emotional baggage and are touchy about a range of issues including our colonial history, our accent, our culture and our ‘way of life’ (I include myself in this sweeping generalisation). Most of us are very competitive and tuned to detect minor xenophobic or racist disturbances in the air around us. The response may vary in details but usually it boils down to self preservation. Hence the hurling of abuse at people who disagree, the ganging up on ‘troublemakers’, the tendency to distance yourself from a group you maybe mistaken for (I am guilty of pointedly buying bacon sandwiches on the tube, for instance).
I cannot tell the British how they should react to what is happening in their country, but maybe I can ask (without being patronising) fellow competent, sensitive, intelligent Indians to think rationally. By all means disagree vehemently and be opinionated. But the reflex response of finding someone else to blame may need to be curbed.
Otherwise in the foreseeable future, Britain will be a clump of insular communities with a tendency to withdraw into themselves, championing their own agenda (‘we have rights too’ vs ‘the boats go both ways, mate’) and blaming the other for not being inclusive. Surely that is not going to be in anyone’s best interests.
Stop rant
Off my pet giraffe
Back to being pipette monkey
Sunday, July 15, 2007
My firstborn
When he was born, I was not around, but I remember it was in the middle of the night. I remember looking down at him, in the hospital cradle and thinking 'hmm...interesting'.
His mother was taking a bath, having entrusted me with the responsibility of looking after him, sleeping peacefully in the middle of the double bed. Five minutes later, he was awake and crawling to the edge of the bed. By the time I rushed to him, he had slipped over the edge and was hanging in the blue nylon mosquito net tucked under the mattress. All I could do was support him, like a little fish caught in a net, till his mother came back. He blinked at me the whole time.
It was tedious at times, reading aloud to him. He wanted books with pictures and he would lie in the crook of my arm as I read. Sometimes he would turn the pages, helpfully. If it was in English, I had to translate in my head and 'read' aloud in Malayalam. I am glad those days are over.
He wanted to learn how to cycle - I really didn't have the time or the patience. He still does not know how to (although he may disagree).
He had two little plastic bunny rabbits, an inch and a half in height, with little mustard seed eyeballs that moved when you shook them. They had little ridged cylinders of smelly eraser inside. It was my job to think up escapades and adventures, featuring the two little mischevious bunny rabbits. They are still there, in his room, 20 years later. The pink one is missing an eye, the yellow one has lost an ear and the erasers are long gone.
I cannot remember how well he did at school. I seemed so busy with my own life. I do remember his admission to REC Suratkal. I went along and got him settled into his new campus life.
My life was picking up speed and I had places to go. We kept in touch, but he was growing up fast. There were still the odd precious glimpses of the little boy I used to make spaceships out of seat cushions for, the little boy who had a favourite T shrit when he was two - the one with vertical blue and white stripes down the front with a smattering of little brown teddy bears, the little boy I had to visit in school and open his flask full of chocolate milk for (because he was too tiny to do it himself) - I love and treasure these memories.
He is now taller than me, lean as a lamp post and has a deep, manly, slightly dopey voice. Lately I have started annoying him.
Officially he is my younger brother, with a gap of five years between us. Why then, does it feel like he is my son, I wonder. At the age of twenty five, he is starting his first job tommorrow. I feel proud, I feel scared, I feel happy and strangely enough a bit sad as well.
I want him to do well, I want him to be very happy, I want him to fall in love with his work and his life boldly and unconditionally. I want him to be polite and decent to everyone irrespective of rank.
Oh, and I want him to remember always that he has the best parents in the world and a very proud older brother.
His mother was taking a bath, having entrusted me with the responsibility of looking after him, sleeping peacefully in the middle of the double bed. Five minutes later, he was awake and crawling to the edge of the bed. By the time I rushed to him, he had slipped over the edge and was hanging in the blue nylon mosquito net tucked under the mattress. All I could do was support him, like a little fish caught in a net, till his mother came back. He blinked at me the whole time.
It was tedious at times, reading aloud to him. He wanted books with pictures and he would lie in the crook of my arm as I read. Sometimes he would turn the pages, helpfully. If it was in English, I had to translate in my head and 'read' aloud in Malayalam. I am glad those days are over.
He wanted to learn how to cycle - I really didn't have the time or the patience. He still does not know how to (although he may disagree).
He had two little plastic bunny rabbits, an inch and a half in height, with little mustard seed eyeballs that moved when you shook them. They had little ridged cylinders of smelly eraser inside. It was my job to think up escapades and adventures, featuring the two little mischevious bunny rabbits. They are still there, in his room, 20 years later. The pink one is missing an eye, the yellow one has lost an ear and the erasers are long gone.
I cannot remember how well he did at school. I seemed so busy with my own life. I do remember his admission to REC Suratkal. I went along and got him settled into his new campus life.
My life was picking up speed and I had places to go. We kept in touch, but he was growing up fast. There were still the odd precious glimpses of the little boy I used to make spaceships out of seat cushions for, the little boy who had a favourite T shrit when he was two - the one with vertical blue and white stripes down the front with a smattering of little brown teddy bears, the little boy I had to visit in school and open his flask full of chocolate milk for (because he was too tiny to do it himself) - I love and treasure these memories.
He is now taller than me, lean as a lamp post and has a deep, manly, slightly dopey voice. Lately I have started annoying him.
Officially he is my younger brother, with a gap of five years between us. Why then, does it feel like he is my son, I wonder. At the age of twenty five, he is starting his first job tommorrow. I feel proud, I feel scared, I feel happy and strangely enough a bit sad as well.
I want him to do well, I want him to be very happy, I want him to fall in love with his work and his life boldly and unconditionally. I want him to be polite and decent to everyone irrespective of rank.
Oh, and I want him to remember always that he has the best parents in the world and a very proud older brother.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
equality is relative
the news is depressing, as usual.
a ship capsizes in the north sea - 5 drown, one of them is a 14 year old boy
someone else pulls a Jeremy (apologies to Eddie Vedder) in Virginia - 33 die, including an Indian born professor
The names of the aforesaid boy and the professor are available in news reports, including comments and statements from friends and relatives.
The global response has been overwhelming - especially regarding the latter, which has been described as the worst of its kind in American history. Heads of State from around the world have expressed their shock and horror and sent their condolences. Understandably, people have found it hard to come to terms with the sudden and traumatic extinction of young vibrant lives.
Amidst all this, something at the back of my mind bothers me. There is a sense of unrest and strangely, injustice. I have to work my way through this moral maze, so bear with me.
A few days ago, on the Today programme on Radio 4, John Humphrys was at his incisive best. He was interviewing a Red Cross official from Iraq. The Red Cross had issued a press statement saying that the people of Iraq now find life 'unbearable'.
John Humphrys pounced on this: 'What is so unbearable in Iraq now?' he asked the official.
That question stopped me. Now what would be so unbearable, I wondered. The suicide bombs? but surely, we are all 'used' to this by now (even if Iraqis are not); the abject poverty, hunger and illness? but again, that is old news; the kidnapping and slaughter of civilians? but the western media do not even waste their precious air time on such 'ordinary' reports these days (when the recent suicide bomb killed 3 MPs in the Iraqi parliament, the BBC correspondent said that this was being reported only because it occured within the Green Zone maintained by US forces).
This was the Red Cross official's reply to John Humphrys' query (quoted from memory)
'We met some women in the streets of Baghdad. When we asked them what they find unbearable, they did not say anything at all. When we persisted, asking them what is the ONE thing they would like to improve about their living conditions, what is the ONE thing that they find most unbearable about their lives, they reluctantly said: can you clear away the dead bodies that pile up in front of our doors? it is unbearable to see our children traumatised by the sight of dismembered bodies every day when they go to school'
I cannot remember the rest of the conversation. All I could think of was my childhood in India: schoolday mornings when I went through phases of sleepiness, laziness, hunger, more sleepiness, reluctance and finally panic as my mother pushed me off to the bus stop, with the warmth of my lunchbox seeping through my schoolbag. The only trauma I had been exposed to was one of the other boys splashing some mud on my crisp white shirt - and yet, I was so reluctant to go to school. What would I have done if I had to face up to faceless bodies and orphaned limbs in my courtyard everyday?
Which brings me to my initial reaction:
'What could be unbearable to Iraqis these days?'
Surely, the answer should be simple, as humans we would all feel the same things unbearable: extremes of pain, bereavement, anxiety, hunger, thirst, fear.
Why do we assume that people living in constant pain, in constant hunger, in constant fear - somehow tolerate these unbearable things more?
Reminds me of something I read recently, by James Meek: people less fortunate than us do not get used to their misfortune, they just learn how not to show it.
Can I imagine for a minute, the pain and the suffering that people internalise, just to keep their families together, just so that they can have a superficial layer of normality in their lives? Do I want to imagine? Do I have the strength of character to empathise?
In the closing scenes of 'A Time to Kill', Matthew McConnaughey asks the jury to close their eyes, as he describes the rape of a black girl in the bad old days in Mississippi. In the end, moved to tears, he pleads to the predominantly white jury: 'for a moment, imagine she is white...'
The director has captured the response of the jury to these words beautifully. He shows exactly how something viewed with clinical detachment suddenly gets painfully and unpredictably close to one's soul.
Maybe that is what we should do, bring the pain of others dangerously close to our soul - and see if it burns us.
Neil Gaiman says in his multi-award winning 'American Gods' that our insular nature protects us from the world. We see crying mothers and dying children on TV all the time, but we build fences around our souls so that we are not scarred by the heat of their pain.
The media helps us here. When 150 people die in Iraq, we do not hear of Mukhaibir al-Alwani or Sazane Ismail Abdullah among the dead, we just hear a number - 150 dead. Humanity is sqeezed, like matchsticks, into a number our narrow minds can handle. (I came across these names on this website: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/names.php)
The same is true of the children who die before the age of one in Somalia. Official figures quote 4,000,000 deaths in infancy. Would it help us to know that Xareed Duubi Deero and Diiriye Dalal Faahiye were among the dead? Maybe it would be too painful to imagine that the 'the sunken-eyed skull-on-sticks attached to a protruding, disease-ridden abdomen' on TV has a name, an individuality, a capacity to love and cry and eat, an awareness of life and his own mortality.
So we switch our souls off, insulate (the etymology is obvious here) ourselves and spend our money on the bigger, better plasma TV and 'dog bling' for our pooches.
Yes. We know the names of the 14 year old Norwegian and the 50 year old Indian professor. The media wants us to know, because somehow, it is more important to know who they were, than the thousands who died elsewhere.
I guess equality is relative, even in death
a ship capsizes in the north sea - 5 drown, one of them is a 14 year old boy
someone else pulls a Jeremy (apologies to Eddie Vedder) in Virginia - 33 die, including an Indian born professor
The names of the aforesaid boy and the professor are available in news reports, including comments and statements from friends and relatives.
The global response has been overwhelming - especially regarding the latter, which has been described as the worst of its kind in American history. Heads of State from around the world have expressed their shock and horror and sent their condolences. Understandably, people have found it hard to come to terms with the sudden and traumatic extinction of young vibrant lives.
Amidst all this, something at the back of my mind bothers me. There is a sense of unrest and strangely, injustice. I have to work my way through this moral maze, so bear with me.
A few days ago, on the Today programme on Radio 4, John Humphrys was at his incisive best. He was interviewing a Red Cross official from Iraq. The Red Cross had issued a press statement saying that the people of Iraq now find life 'unbearable'.
John Humphrys pounced on this: 'What is so unbearable in Iraq now?' he asked the official.
That question stopped me. Now what would be so unbearable, I wondered. The suicide bombs? but surely, we are all 'used' to this by now (even if Iraqis are not); the abject poverty, hunger and illness? but again, that is old news; the kidnapping and slaughter of civilians? but the western media do not even waste their precious air time on such 'ordinary' reports these days (when the recent suicide bomb killed 3 MPs in the Iraqi parliament, the BBC correspondent said that this was being reported only because it occured within the Green Zone maintained by US forces).
This was the Red Cross official's reply to John Humphrys' query (quoted from memory)
'We met some women in the streets of Baghdad. When we asked them what they find unbearable, they did not say anything at all. When we persisted, asking them what is the ONE thing they would like to improve about their living conditions, what is the ONE thing that they find most unbearable about their lives, they reluctantly said: can you clear away the dead bodies that pile up in front of our doors? it is unbearable to see our children traumatised by the sight of dismembered bodies every day when they go to school'
I cannot remember the rest of the conversation. All I could think of was my childhood in India: schoolday mornings when I went through phases of sleepiness, laziness, hunger, more sleepiness, reluctance and finally panic as my mother pushed me off to the bus stop, with the warmth of my lunchbox seeping through my schoolbag. The only trauma I had been exposed to was one of the other boys splashing some mud on my crisp white shirt - and yet, I was so reluctant to go to school. What would I have done if I had to face up to faceless bodies and orphaned limbs in my courtyard everyday?
Which brings me to my initial reaction:
'What could be unbearable to Iraqis these days?'
Surely, the answer should be simple, as humans we would all feel the same things unbearable: extremes of pain, bereavement, anxiety, hunger, thirst, fear.
Why do we assume that people living in constant pain, in constant hunger, in constant fear - somehow tolerate these unbearable things more?
Reminds me of something I read recently, by James Meek: people less fortunate than us do not get used to their misfortune, they just learn how not to show it.
Can I imagine for a minute, the pain and the suffering that people internalise, just to keep their families together, just so that they can have a superficial layer of normality in their lives? Do I want to imagine? Do I have the strength of character to empathise?
In the closing scenes of 'A Time to Kill', Matthew McConnaughey asks the jury to close their eyes, as he describes the rape of a black girl in the bad old days in Mississippi. In the end, moved to tears, he pleads to the predominantly white jury: 'for a moment, imagine she is white...'
The director has captured the response of the jury to these words beautifully. He shows exactly how something viewed with clinical detachment suddenly gets painfully and unpredictably close to one's soul.
Maybe that is what we should do, bring the pain of others dangerously close to our soul - and see if it burns us.
Neil Gaiman says in his multi-award winning 'American Gods' that our insular nature protects us from the world. We see crying mothers and dying children on TV all the time, but we build fences around our souls so that we are not scarred by the heat of their pain.
The media helps us here. When 150 people die in Iraq, we do not hear of Mukhaibir al-Alwani or Sazane Ismail Abdullah among the dead, we just hear a number - 150 dead. Humanity is sqeezed, like matchsticks, into a number our narrow minds can handle. (I came across these names on this website: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/names.php)
The same is true of the children who die before the age of one in Somalia. Official figures quote 4,000,000 deaths in infancy. Would it help us to know that Xareed Duubi Deero and Diiriye Dalal Faahiye were among the dead? Maybe it would be too painful to imagine that the 'the sunken-eyed skull-on-sticks attached to a protruding, disease-ridden abdomen' on TV has a name, an individuality, a capacity to love and cry and eat, an awareness of life and his own mortality.
So we switch our souls off, insulate (the etymology is obvious here) ourselves and spend our money on the bigger, better plasma TV and 'dog bling' for our pooches.
Yes. We know the names of the 14 year old Norwegian and the 50 year old Indian professor. The media wants us to know, because somehow, it is more important to know who they were, than the thousands who died elsewhere.
I guess equality is relative, even in death
memories for a rainy day
remember saturday:
remember the sun, remember the smiles, remember the mango smoothie and the walk in the town centre, remember the hugs and the jokes, remember the camaraderie, remember your happiness
remember sunday:
remember the tulips, remember her smile wrapped in a saree, remember the lawnmower's hum and the snippets of trimmed grass flying in the breeze, remember the laughter of children and the love of true friends in the air, remember your happiness
remember the sun, remember the smiles, remember the mango smoothie and the walk in the town centre, remember the hugs and the jokes, remember the camaraderie, remember your happiness
remember sunday:
remember the tulips, remember her smile wrapped in a saree, remember the lawnmower's hum and the snippets of trimmed grass flying in the breeze, remember the laughter of children and the love of true friends in the air, remember your happiness
Friday, April 13, 2007
I lance my boil...
Me: I am not normal
Him: What took you so long?
Me: No, really, this is not a philosophical interlude
Him: What then?
Me: I feel ... I feel abnormal
Him: Go on ...
Me: I feel anger, jealousy, fear, weakness, difidence, shame, madness
Him: Mmm..hmmm
Me: My anger and jealousy are directed at those who love me, my fear is about my weakness, my difidence stems from my fear, which leads to my shame and shame drives me to madness
Him: So you have thought this through
Me: Thoughts are not active anymore... they burn... they are random sparks from a welder's flame burning scars deep into my mind as I stand by, a helpless onlooker...
Him: why so random?
Me: you don't understand. There is no 'why' in randomness, I only realise they are my thoughts after they are born, they burst forth like so many droplets in a sneeze, beyond all control, at breakneck speed...
Him: Go on, let it rip then
Me: She gets more opportunities, her work is easier, my field is full of nasties, I feel under pressure, she has more support, I am fat, I cannot concentrate, when will I go home, is writing cathartic, will someone read this, will I know enough one day, what is the point, why does she still love me, music still reminds me of her smile, I still love her, I still love her, I know I need her, she is the best person I have met - listen, listen... it is the Fall of the Leaf by Imogen Holst on radio ... and her face comes up smiling, right here, in the midst of all the random thoughts - the cello calms me... I am crying... let me sleep now... with her smile in my mind and the cello for company...
... peace
Him: What took you so long?
Me: No, really, this is not a philosophical interlude
Him: What then?
Me: I feel ... I feel abnormal
Him: Go on ...
Me: I feel anger, jealousy, fear, weakness, difidence, shame, madness
Him: Mmm..hmmm
Me: My anger and jealousy are directed at those who love me, my fear is about my weakness, my difidence stems from my fear, which leads to my shame and shame drives me to madness
Him: So you have thought this through
Me: Thoughts are not active anymore... they burn... they are random sparks from a welder's flame burning scars deep into my mind as I stand by, a helpless onlooker...
Him: why so random?
Me: you don't understand. There is no 'why' in randomness, I only realise they are my thoughts after they are born, they burst forth like so many droplets in a sneeze, beyond all control, at breakneck speed...
Him: Go on, let it rip then
Me: She gets more opportunities, her work is easier, my field is full of nasties, I feel under pressure, she has more support, I am fat, I cannot concentrate, when will I go home, is writing cathartic, will someone read this, will I know enough one day, what is the point, why does she still love me, music still reminds me of her smile, I still love her, I still love her, I know I need her, she is the best person I have met - listen, listen... it is the Fall of the Leaf by Imogen Holst on radio ... and her face comes up smiling, right here, in the midst of all the random thoughts - the cello calms me... I am crying... let me sleep now... with her smile in my mind and the cello for company...
... peace
that's more like it
Just a couple more volts of shock treatment for you
when a couple more votes of confidence would do
- Dave Pirner
when a couple more votes of confidence would do
- Dave Pirner
Friday, March 30, 2007
I want ...
... my summer school holidays when the days drag on and on
the sun beating down on everything green and brown and dusty
fluffy clouds like shaving foam scudding across the oh-so-blue sky
as dragonflies flit around - little green packets of magic and sparkle
while sweat spreads across the back of my neck giving me an out-of-
season gooseflesh as the breeze blows hurrying along the brown
leaves dried to a crisp on the hot tarmac they rattle like tin cans
on a string while I lie down in the green grass looking up at
an impossibly blue sky stretching as far as eye can see and I imagine
the world flipping over - the little blue and yellow flowers hanging
down from the grass roof of the world
I like the sudden dizziness
and I spread
my arms
and clutch
the grass
to
stop
me
from
falling
up ...
... an impossible fall into the impossible blue...
the sun beating down on everything green and brown and dusty
fluffy clouds like shaving foam scudding across the oh-so-blue sky
as dragonflies flit around - little green packets of magic and sparkle
while sweat spreads across the back of my neck giving me an out-of-
season gooseflesh as the breeze blows hurrying along the brown
leaves dried to a crisp on the hot tarmac they rattle like tin cans
on a string while I lie down in the green grass looking up at
an impossibly blue sky stretching as far as eye can see and I imagine
the world flipping over - the little blue and yellow flowers hanging
down from the grass roof of the world
I like the sudden dizziness
and I spread
my arms
and clutch
the grass
to
stop
me
from
falling
up ...
... an impossible fall into the impossible blue...
Monday, March 26, 2007
why should I care?
All my life, I have looked after myself first and now that I am in a pickle, I moan that others do not care about the injustice inflicted upon me. Now that I have known what it feels like to be treated as an undesirable and expendable element in a community, I understand what it must be like (not fully, but atleast partly) to be helpless and poor and weak and illiterate and trod over. I cannot quench the self righteous rage that fills up every now and again, I cannot believe that the whole world is not saying 'Let us make Unni's life better, he deserves a better chance'. Then, in a brief moment of clarity, I realise that till now I was one of the 'have it, care not' bunch. Now that my life is difficult, I have started making noise about the unfair system. Maybe I should list the people I never cared about who I feel a kinship to now:
The poor - in general
The beggars
The illiterate
The mentally ill
The unemployed
The homeless
The orphans
The handicapped
the list goes on
Not that I was ever cruel or disrespectful to anyone, but I NEVER ever cared!
It has taken a significant extent of personal insecurity for me to even 'waste' time thinking about other people. And yet, I am still to do anything selfless to help these 'other people'.
Yes, I went into medicine to help others, but now I realise that the small print in my 'mental contract' said:
'I want to be given the knowledge and skills to make my life comfortable and make me happy and then to help others'
I also realised after I started my research that I am more anxious about my project than I ever was about any of my patients. I have never been rude or unprofessional or indifferent to patients, but the scale of anxiety is just not the same. I wonder whether it is just me who is this selfish!
The way I worry about my blood samples and my RNA and my data and my project grant - makes me sick that I never worried about the people I looked after to this extent, even though at the time, if someone were to ask me whether I cared about my patients' well being, my answer would have been a resounding yes.
I think the whole future of the British health system is in danger. I maybe one of the casualties of the current battle - but like in any war, the damage to an individual casualty pales in comparison to the damage to the system. Somewhere along the line, doctors have forgotten what they are fighting for, forgotten the face of their fathers, as Roland would have said (apologies to S King). The profession's shift in focus from 'high quality training and service' to just 'service and opportunistic training of variable quality' will turn out to be a death blow, when people look back at the current situation in 10 years time, wondering what went wrong. And through all this, the senior medical colleagues are silent - they have the attitude that I had about the homeless and the less fortunate - ' why should I care? '
This is nothing new. About 300 years ago, Edmund Burke said:
'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing'
More relevant to my profession, the great William Osler, who was not just a physician, but a great thinker summed things up very eloquently:
'By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy - indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction'
The three reasons he gives for apathy sound uncannily prophetic, as if he has visited us in 2007 and seen the mess we are in as a profession.
I am sad, very sad, not just about my future, but about the crumbling system. It is akin to the sadness you feel when you see cobwebs and cracks in your childhood home, the same sadness when you see someone dear grow old and weak and confused.
And then I realise, all around me the world is rushing forward to meet tomorrow, with an attitude no different to mine when it concerns someone else:
why should I care?
The poor - in general
The beggars
The illiterate
The mentally ill
The unemployed
The homeless
The orphans
The handicapped
the list goes on
Not that I was ever cruel or disrespectful to anyone, but I NEVER ever cared!
It has taken a significant extent of personal insecurity for me to even 'waste' time thinking about other people. And yet, I am still to do anything selfless to help these 'other people'.
Yes, I went into medicine to help others, but now I realise that the small print in my 'mental contract' said:
'I want to be given the knowledge and skills to make my life comfortable and make me happy and then to help others'
I also realised after I started my research that I am more anxious about my project than I ever was about any of my patients. I have never been rude or unprofessional or indifferent to patients, but the scale of anxiety is just not the same. I wonder whether it is just me who is this selfish!
The way I worry about my blood samples and my RNA and my data and my project grant - makes me sick that I never worried about the people I looked after to this extent, even though at the time, if someone were to ask me whether I cared about my patients' well being, my answer would have been a resounding yes.
I think the whole future of the British health system is in danger. I maybe one of the casualties of the current battle - but like in any war, the damage to an individual casualty pales in comparison to the damage to the system. Somewhere along the line, doctors have forgotten what they are fighting for, forgotten the face of their fathers, as Roland would have said (apologies to S King). The profession's shift in focus from 'high quality training and service' to just 'service and opportunistic training of variable quality' will turn out to be a death blow, when people look back at the current situation in 10 years time, wondering what went wrong. And through all this, the senior medical colleagues are silent - they have the attitude that I had about the homeless and the less fortunate - ' why should I care? '
This is nothing new. About 300 years ago, Edmund Burke said:
'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing'
More relevant to my profession, the great William Osler, who was not just a physician, but a great thinker summed things up very eloquently:
'By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy - indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction'
The three reasons he gives for apathy sound uncannily prophetic, as if he has visited us in 2007 and seen the mess we are in as a profession.
I am sad, very sad, not just about my future, but about the crumbling system. It is akin to the sadness you feel when you see cobwebs and cracks in your childhood home, the same sadness when you see someone dear grow old and weak and confused.
And then I realise, all around me the world is rushing forward to meet tomorrow, with an attitude no different to mine when it concerns someone else:
why should I care?
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
circling the drain
it is all very grim
there is an all pervading feeling of inevitability
how has it come to this?
- a prescriptive government in denial
- leaders without concern or vision
- a community infused with apathy
- a lack of professional cohesiveness
...the list could go on
I went to an interview last week
the job was desirable, competition was stiff and the future was at stake
somehow, the whole approach reflected that of the current government
- treating people like 12 year olds
There were a lot of things I wanted to say, some of which they asked,
some they skipped and some I would never say in any interview.
maybe this is where I say the latter
how have you demonstrated commitment to your field?
to me working in cardiology is like living with the ideal life partner. I have fallen completely in love with cardiology and I cannot help it. There is nothing else that I can think of doing that will not seem like work. When I work in cardiology, I feel guilty about being paid - after all, they are paying me for doing what I want to do and love to do.
For 20 months I used to drive down from Liverpool to Aylesbury at 3:30 AM on a monday - to get to work by 8:00 AM and then finish the day at 7:00 PM. Never ever did I feel that this was a problem. As I crept down the M6 behind a mud splattering lorry, I was happy that I was driving to a place where I can learn and do some cardiology. In the three and a half years of marriage, my married life has been squeezed into my weekends and at no point did I feel that I could not carry on, for I was working in cardiology.
I have confidence in my enthusiasm for the subject - to the extent that I can make others fall in love with it just like I did.
commitment, can it be measured by experience and knowledge alone? what makes the 'bog-standard' answer describing the clinical and research achievements in the field a better measure of commitment?
To me, commitment comes from the heart, where as knowledge comes from the brain. A commitment at a mere cerebral level is not the same as a heartfelt feeling of desire and love for the subject.
If I were to categorise my reasons for wanting to work in cardiology, I would have to say:
1. cerebral reasons: intellectually engaging, requires lateral thinking, needs quick decision making
2. limbic/hippocampal reasons: love, desire, enthusiasm
3. autonomic reasons: a quickening of pulse, a pounding of heart, a nostril flare, a buzz
there is nothing else that makes me feel this way, which is why I want to do cardiology
Imagine saying that at an interview! I would have to provide complimentary sick bags to the panel!
Moreover, I can never convey my genuine feelings when I say this out loud. Which means the panel will always get the 'bog-standard' answer.
Anyway, coming back to the point - the interview process used to be a fun experience, as it was an opportunity to display the candidate's character and an opportunity for the panel to assess this. Not anymore, now it is a list of blinded, validated, politically correct psychometric analyses which according to 'experts' is the best way of assessing a person's capabilities.
I want to grab hold of the bright spark who thought this up, give him/her a good shake and say:
'snap out of it you idiot! if you want someone who just does a job,you will get that someone and the same someone will just roll over and die when you bring in the next reform which will be the death blow to the field.
However if you want someone for whom this is not just a job, but a vocation, a spiritual calling, someone who will stand his ground and guard the field he loves, someone who will inspire future generations to love the field, someone who is not just a worker bee, you are making a very big mistake'
Then I stop myself, for I realise why they want this new method of selection. Yes, the same reasons I said are their reasons, they know exactly why this is the best way forward. They want to clone sheep!
like I said, it is all circling the drain
there is an all pervading feeling of inevitability
how has it come to this?
- a prescriptive government in denial
- leaders without concern or vision
- a community infused with apathy
- a lack of professional cohesiveness
...the list could go on
I went to an interview last week
the job was desirable, competition was stiff and the future was at stake
somehow, the whole approach reflected that of the current government
- treating people like 12 year olds
There were a lot of things I wanted to say, some of which they asked,
some they skipped and some I would never say in any interview.
maybe this is where I say the latter
how have you demonstrated commitment to your field?
to me working in cardiology is like living with the ideal life partner. I have fallen completely in love with cardiology and I cannot help it. There is nothing else that I can think of doing that will not seem like work. When I work in cardiology, I feel guilty about being paid - after all, they are paying me for doing what I want to do and love to do.
For 20 months I used to drive down from Liverpool to Aylesbury at 3:30 AM on a monday - to get to work by 8:00 AM and then finish the day at 7:00 PM. Never ever did I feel that this was a problem. As I crept down the M6 behind a mud splattering lorry, I was happy that I was driving to a place where I can learn and do some cardiology. In the three and a half years of marriage, my married life has been squeezed into my weekends and at no point did I feel that I could not carry on, for I was working in cardiology.
I have confidence in my enthusiasm for the subject - to the extent that I can make others fall in love with it just like I did.
commitment, can it be measured by experience and knowledge alone? what makes the 'bog-standard' answer describing the clinical and research achievements in the field a better measure of commitment?
To me, commitment comes from the heart, where as knowledge comes from the brain. A commitment at a mere cerebral level is not the same as a heartfelt feeling of desire and love for the subject.
If I were to categorise my reasons for wanting to work in cardiology, I would have to say:
1. cerebral reasons: intellectually engaging, requires lateral thinking, needs quick decision making
2. limbic/hippocampal reasons: love, desire, enthusiasm
3. autonomic reasons: a quickening of pulse, a pounding of heart, a nostril flare, a buzz
there is nothing else that makes me feel this way, which is why I want to do cardiology
Imagine saying that at an interview! I would have to provide complimentary sick bags to the panel!
Moreover, I can never convey my genuine feelings when I say this out loud. Which means the panel will always get the 'bog-standard' answer.
Anyway, coming back to the point - the interview process used to be a fun experience, as it was an opportunity to display the candidate's character and an opportunity for the panel to assess this. Not anymore, now it is a list of blinded, validated, politically correct psychometric analyses which according to 'experts' is the best way of assessing a person's capabilities.
I want to grab hold of the bright spark who thought this up, give him/her a good shake and say:
'snap out of it you idiot! if you want someone who just does a job,you will get that someone and the same someone will just roll over and die when you bring in the next reform which will be the death blow to the field.
However if you want someone for whom this is not just a job, but a vocation, a spiritual calling, someone who will stand his ground and guard the field he loves, someone who will inspire future generations to love the field, someone who is not just a worker bee, you are making a very big mistake'
Then I stop myself, for I realise why they want this new method of selection. Yes, the same reasons I said are their reasons, they know exactly why this is the best way forward. They want to clone sheep!
like I said, it is all circling the drain
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
electric blue
an ECG in front of me
all spikes and squiggles
patterns emerging in static
I close my eyes and see...
dark brown muscle
and waves of electric blue-
-current flowing through,
across and down the chambers
I wonder how this power surge
keeps the incessant pump ticking over
like clockwork, never missing a beat
(well, only occasionaly)
and I know
I just know
that I LOVE Cardiology
all spikes and squiggles
patterns emerging in static
I close my eyes and see...
dark brown muscle
and waves of electric blue-
-current flowing through,
across and down the chambers
I wonder how this power surge
keeps the incessant pump ticking over
like clockwork, never missing a beat
(well, only occasionaly)
and I know
I just know
that I LOVE Cardiology
an ode to the mitral valve
She works away incessantly
ever compliant
without a murmur of dissent
this most unique and intricate figurine
at the centre of my heart
She dons a delicate filigree
While her oval face -
gently curved and delicately dimpled -
smiles as she endures
the onslaught of the brutal ventricle
whilst her maternal instinct
guards the little atrium
I think of all the millenia
spent in evolution
as Nature (God to some)
sculpted her to perfection
And I wonder how many
were enchanted
before her beauty
swept me away
ever compliant
without a murmur of dissent
this most unique and intricate figurine
at the centre of my heart
She dons a delicate filigree
While her oval face -
gently curved and delicately dimpled -
smiles as she endures
the onslaught of the brutal ventricle
whilst her maternal instinct
guards the little atrium
I think of all the millenia
spent in evolution
as Nature (God to some)
sculpted her to perfection
And I wonder how many
were enchanted
before her beauty
swept me away
Friday, February 09, 2007
car
crisp winter morning
my boots scrunch snow
like fresh apples underfoot
walking to work
the holly bush reminds me
of last year's Christmas cards
afternoon sun
a water droplet sparkles
clinging to my pipette tip
the tossed coin stops...
...in mid air
pensive?
it has a long way to go
and it is all downhill
my boots scrunch snow
like fresh apples underfoot
walking to work
the holly bush reminds me
of last year's Christmas cards
afternoon sun
a water droplet sparkles
clinging to my pipette tip
the tossed coin stops...
...in mid air
pensive?
it has a long way to go
and it is all downhill
Monday, January 22, 2007
multitasking for men - an idiot's guide
Adult learning, according to experts is based on experience. So rather than list out the various theoretical aspects of the above subject, I will illustrate by example using real-life scenarios and expect my adult readers (excluding my brother) to make their own conclusions and 'take home' messages from this short learning exercise.
The scenarios are divided into parts 'a', 'b' and 'c'. 'a' denotes extreme multitasking - while , 'b' denotes usual behaviour and 'c' is a useful suggestion which may help to achieve a stable middle ground.
the characters depicted in the scenarios are in no way fictional and bear an exact resemblance to living, breathing (sometimes halitotic) people
Scenario 1a:
My wife is filling out a tax return form while chatting to my brother on the phone - I walk in and ask her for her internet banking access code and she rattles out the 10 digit number, hardly acknowledging my presence and slips smoothly back into conversation with my brother while filling out Section 10.24 on the form
Scenario 1b:
I change the TV channel while having dinner, but momentarily stop chewing when I press the button on the remote
1c: train my wife to change the channel so that I can continue chewing my food without interruption
Scenario 2a:
we have invited guests for dinner and my wife does a bit of 'conveyor-belt' cooking - she starts with chopping some green stuff for one dish while boiling something else and simmering the third, at the same time, asking me to stir dish number four
Scenario 2b:
I skillfully stir the soup till the ringing phone diverts my attention and I drop the spoon in the soup
2c: convince my wife to prepare soup the night before so that she can stir it herself and then heat it up on the day, after she has finished with all the other things
Scenario 3a:
my wife continues to watch TV while I desperately try to set up a romantic evening, till she finds my antics 'cute', gives me a pat on the head and goes back to watching TV
Scenario 3b:
fume, double fume, personal thundercloud (go stuff yourself, multitaskers)
3c: the best made plans of men and mice...
The scenarios are divided into parts 'a', 'b' and 'c'. 'a' denotes extreme multitasking - while , 'b' denotes usual behaviour and 'c' is a useful suggestion which may help to achieve a stable middle ground.
the characters depicted in the scenarios are in no way fictional and bear an exact resemblance to living, breathing (sometimes halitotic) people
Scenario 1a:
My wife is filling out a tax return form while chatting to my brother on the phone - I walk in and ask her for her internet banking access code and she rattles out the 10 digit number, hardly acknowledging my presence and slips smoothly back into conversation with my brother while filling out Section 10.24 on the form
Scenario 1b:
I change the TV channel while having dinner, but momentarily stop chewing when I press the button on the remote
1c: train my wife to change the channel so that I can continue chewing my food without interruption
Scenario 2a:
we have invited guests for dinner and my wife does a bit of 'conveyor-belt' cooking - she starts with chopping some green stuff for one dish while boiling something else and simmering the third, at the same time, asking me to stir dish number four
Scenario 2b:
I skillfully stir the soup till the ringing phone diverts my attention and I drop the spoon in the soup
2c: convince my wife to prepare soup the night before so that she can stir it herself and then heat it up on the day, after she has finished with all the other things
Scenario 3a:
my wife continues to watch TV while I desperately try to set up a romantic evening, till she finds my antics 'cute', gives me a pat on the head and goes back to watching TV
Scenario 3b:
fume, double fume, personal thundercloud (go stuff yourself, multitaskers)
3c: the best made plans of men and mice...
Friday, January 19, 2007
bad moon rising
the world is caving in - shapes have collapsed, north has died, colours have forgotten their names, numbers dissolve into nothingness, above and below are vague memories, cannot make out light from dark - does it matter once you are blind?
what does a blind man see?
darkness or all encompassing light?
how would he know?
how would you know?
what do I hear?
is it white noise or deafening silence?
desolation
desperation
depression
the landscapes are all grey, barren and cold. Hope struggles upward through darkness and is born - battered, bruised and bleeding, only to be ripped apart by bitterness - feral and hungry.
the seeds, filled with innocence and eternal (?) hope, still dream, but they know not what waits above, for the dead tell no tales
I still have her and I still love her, so maybe I will not wake the dreaming seeds
what does a blind man see?
darkness or all encompassing light?
how would he know?
how would you know?
what do I hear?
is it white noise or deafening silence?
desolation
desperation
depression
the landscapes are all grey, barren and cold. Hope struggles upward through darkness and is born - battered, bruised and bleeding, only to be ripped apart by bitterness - feral and hungry.
the seeds, filled with innocence and eternal (?) hope, still dream, but they know not what waits above, for the dead tell no tales
I still have her and I still love her, so maybe I will not wake the dreaming seeds
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