Friday, August 22, 2008

The Mumbai Local

The Mumbai local train... the lifeline of this metropolitan city...
It has been 2 yrs since it was attacked by a bunch of terrorists, and I still remember, I myself along with many other Mumbaikars had traveled through the local train the very next day to show my solidarity, and my love, the bond that I felt with the local train...
Come what may, the trains were there, in every aspect of my life... those late night movie shows at the Regal... that overnight trek... that first proposal and the blooming romance... those exam times and the last minute slogging... those million naps after a tiring day at the hospital.... Its just like a part of my family...

She's like the secret lover... the feelings are mutual, but the words are hard to express...

The other day I read these lines written by a woman commuter about the ladies special she used to travel in daily...

5:46 Andheri Local
==============

In the Women's compartment
of a Bombay local
We seek
No personal epiphanies.

Like metal licked by relentless acetylene
We are welded -
Dreams, disasters
germs, destinies
Flesh and Organza
Odours and Ovaries
A thousand limbed
Million tongued, multi spoused
Kali on wheels.

When I descend
I could choose
To dice carrots
or a lover

I postpone the latter.

-- Anonymous

100 m in 5 secs??? Dream on...

Like a bolt of lightening, Usain Bolt ran his way into the record books with a double World record breaking 100 and 200 meters win at Beijing... I saw the 100 m sprint, and such was the dominance of the sprinter, that he was celebrating even before he crossed the finish line, and still managed to break the WR and his competitors comprehensively... He is the first person after Carl Lewis did a 100-200 m double way back in 1984...


A 9.69 second run... wow that sounds pretty impressive. I saw an article in TOI the other day, "100 m in 5 secs? - Not impossible", it said... well I think otherwise... yeah many people hold me as being a pessimist... but let me put some facts first...

From the past records that I have gone through, Donald Lippincott held the WR in 1912, and he clocked 10.60 seconds...
It has been almost a century... 96 years to be precise, and the timing for the 100 m sprint has not even been reduced by 1 second!!! Now thats interesting...
Well, we all know about the Theory of evolution... Humna beings are really quick to adapt themselves to the surroundings... but this adaptation has led to us being a slave of machines off late... Technology is being used more and more often to make life as easier as possible for us...
I simply believe that our evolution has stopped and its the evolution of the machines, that has begun... Even for a simple walk for a couple of blocks, the western countries have come up with a machine... Now theres no walking to the grocer and actually buying stuff, it all can be done sitting on a couch at home through internet...

Its not surprising then that the 100 m timing hasnt been reduced even by a single second.. The results that are showing up are due to extensive training (and performance enhancing drugs taken by some) undertaken by the athletes and nothing else... Without evolution, the 5 second barrier seems like a distant impossible dream... Maybe a nuclear war or global warming may change everything...

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Spain at it again...

The following picture appeared as an advertisement for a courier company, which is an official sponsor for the Spanish Olympic Basketball team, in the Spanish sports daily Marca...


The entire Basketball team is seen to part the skins around their eyes, making a Split-eyed gesture, which is so insensitive for the Olympic games... Some people may even considered this as a racist remark. Two snaps had appeared, one each of the Women's and Men's Basketball teams occupying one page each of the daily.

This snap had appeared on the eve of their match against none other than China. This ad further rubbed wound in their salts as Spain beat China 85-75 in a come from behind victory that went to the extra time.

Spain had earlier been involved in similar other controversies, in which Thierry Henry was greeted with Monkey chants in a friendly match at Madrid. Lewis Hamilton was also recently been targeted with racist remarks during the testing at Barcelona.

Its not that I am supportive of China in this cause, considering the human rights violation in Tibet which they were responsible for. But still, since people consider this as Spain's golden year in which they won the Euro, the French and Wimbledon grand slams, The Tour de France, and now the olympic gold in cycling, they should had been more sensitive and tolerant regarding this.

The Guardian reports : "No one involved in the advert appears to have considered it inappropriate nor contemplated the manner in which it could be interpreted in China and elsewhere. No offence was intended by the advert, but whether the Chinese see it that way is a different matter"

Its high time the sportmen and women respect the Olympic tradition and stay away from such controversies.

Fear?? Or Anxiety??

I had taken this snap during the South Indian festival "Velu Murugan". This festival is characterized by devotees, who had asked "Mannat", pierce their bodies 108 times with hooks.

I look at this picture of a young boy, who was one of the devotees... and time and again, I keep on wondering, whether it is fear showing on his face, which he is trying to hide, or is it plain anxiety.... or is he just flowing with the mood of other people who were kind of acting hyper as if they were "possessed" by the diety ?!

(You can view the entire album at : http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=39680&l=46f23&id=670750758)

...

These are testing times for me and my friend N... Together we have been through a lot in the past couple of years... We have seen each other through heart breaks, family problems and now facing career issues and a severe identity crisis !! But this too shall pass...

We have done so many crzy things together during the past 1 year or so...
Including the 70 km walk for 21 hours from Vile Parle to Titwala... and the gruelling Cycling expedition from Mumbai to Lonavala without much of a training... There were many times in our trips when we had almost given up, just to push each other just a little more, against all physical boundaries that we had known till now, to achieve our goals in the end...
Looking back now at these trips, we sometimes wonder, "Did we really do it?????".... or "How the heck were we able to do it???? "

Well... I believe, 10-15 yrs down the line when we meet again, we will look back at these testing times that we slogged out together and say... "We did it... Didn't we??"

Love u my buddy... Just hang on ....

Friday, August 8, 2008

Kya aapko K.I.L.B. hai ???

Nowadays, a new ad is making the buzz....

Irfan Khan dressed as a doctor,helps an elderly person who is stumbling, to his chair in his clinic..

"K.I.L.B. chhune se nahi failta... maine chhuya, faila kya?? " he asks the viewers...

At the first sight, it comes down as just another AIDS awareness campaign, like the famous "Balbir pasha" ad that was aired a few years ago... (My friends and I had turned it into B-pasha... or Bipasha... :D )

But I think it is more than that...
Irfan Khan, currently a brand ambassador for the Vodafone, I think is advertising here for the Iphone to be launched on the Vodafone and Airtel networks later this month...

But I really love this funda of advertising...

We had been seeing ads like Digen Verma's frooti ad, "where's the pulp" ad, etc...
Initially, a curiosity is been generated in the market, and later the brand is launched...
Surely, a buzz is going on about what is "K.I.L.B." ??!!

The first ones to ask me were of course, aji and aai....
They thought it was some sort of a disease or something, like AIDS, especially since he is dressed in an apron and OT gowns...
I know my medical knowlege is quite rusty, and i had not licked each and every page of Harrison... But K.I.L.B. ??? I had not even accidently heard this term in my medical school or the hospital... So I knew, this was meant to make a big ch***ya of all the people... LOL...

Here are the ads if You havent seen them...







Hmmm...
I think what K.I.L.B. stands for is... "Keemti Iphone Leneka Bukhaar"
and with Vodafone coming out with special offers for the same :D

well, thats what I think, What is your take??

P.S. Just got to know what KILB stands for... ;)

Thursday, August 7, 2008

The Lucky Bamboo..


It will soon be one year since I have a Chinese bamboo plant at my home. My sister had sent me a 3- stalked chinese bamboo plant last year on Raksha Bandhan... It was a small sampling, and now is almost a foot high...

Chinese bamboo plants have a role to play in the Eastern practice of "Feng Shui".. or the bringing of natural elements of water, fire, earth, wood and metal into balance within the environment... Chinese bamboo (or Lucky Bamboo) is believed to be an ideal example of the thriving wood and water element, with the addition of a red ribbon tied around its stalks, is believed to represent "Fire", or the postive flow of energy or "Chi" in the room...
The number of stalks also has some meaning,
3 stalks - Happiness
5 stalks - Wealth
6 stalks - Health

4 stalks are avoided cause the word "four" in Chinese sounds too similar to the chinese word for "Death" !! :O

I have a 3-stalked plant... and lately I had been observing that its leaves are turning yellow, one by one as each day passes by...
This plant was supposed to bring "Happiness" in my house... and now it was dying...
err.... any sane person can interpret what that meant in Feng shui... :(
It had been a long time since my family had experienced Happy times together.. and this thing totally started depressing me further....

My aji is an expert in plants... she had a big garden in our old house at shivaji park... and also at goregaon... she had told me to plant the sappling in soil instead of marbles... also to keep it in sunlight...
well, that was the most stupidest thing I did... that is keeping the plant in sunlight...

Later, I searched the internet and found out that the chinses bamboo is an indoor plant and it needs plenty of indirect sunlight, and that it dies in direct sunlight... damn !!

Here are some of the things you can do to take care of your Lucky Bambo....
  • Typically, they are grown in a few inches of clear water, perhaps supported by small pebbles, stones, or marbles. It is important that the water be kept clean and fresh and not allowed to stagnate.
  • The Choline/Flurides in tap water is harmful to the plant. Allow the tap water to stand in an open container for 24 hours, allowing the chlorine and flouride to dissipate, before using it with your plants. Or you can use filtered or distilled water.
  • The plant needs plenty of Indirect sunlight. Keep it away from direct sunlight.They will perform well under artificial lighting. Too much direct sun can cause burning of the leaves. Too little light will lead to weak growth, stretching and poor coloration. Normal household temperatures are ideal.
Hmm... I followed the instructions for a few days... and I saw that new shoots are coming out...
That surely did bring back a smile on my face.. :)
So you know guys, this Feng shui thing really works... Go get your Chinese bamboo plant :D


P.S. The Chinese Bamboo is not a Bamboo at all ;) It belongs to the Dracaena family (Dracaena sanderiana)

Hypocrites!!

I was watching Man vs. Wild last night on Discovery. On the show, Mr.Bear Grylls was showing how to survive in the no man's land of patagonia in the andes... He had just caught a bunny and then he showed how to remove his skin and remove the organs and roast the dead animal....

As Grylls started skinning and dissecting the animal, Mom and grandmom started making weird constipated faces.

"How gross... how can You even watch such stuff... ewwwww"... blah blah....

"when ur relishing on the meat on sundays, U never think that the animal you have eaten has been slaughtered alive and skinned in the same way, dont you...??", I shot back...

My folks back home are big hypocrites... especially my grandmom...
She expresses love for all the animals in the world... she has rescued many of them, feeds them refularly etc etc... She cant watch other animals like deers etc being hunted on discovery channel, but she relishes on goat meat... she says she doesnt like chicken and craves for goat meat, which is thankfully not cooked at our place anymore cause of dad's high cholesterol problem....

Once I had consumed Beef during my internship (though it was accidental, i liked it and I had it again later...) and I came home and declared I had cow meat today....
And then came the accusations of being "Dharma Bhrastha" and all that...
I have also had Pork (and its the best form of meat I have eaten)... and consumed s few live insects on a trek...

All I want to say is that either you eat all forms of meat, or simply become vegetarian... Or at least dont behave like many hypocrite hindus who allow eating goat, chicken and fish meat, but not beef... God never says that U can eat a goat but U cannot eat a cow (for hindus) or pigs (for muslims)...

I also dont understand the celebration of "Gataari" the day before the onset of the Hindu month of Shravan, in which many Hindu people refrain from eating non-veg... So on Gataari, they have the license to eat as many animals as u want and get drunk to the point of crashing down into a road-side gutter (Thats where the term gataari arises from)... I mean, what crap...
Thank God we dont follow shravan... but monday being a Shravani somwar, I was forbidden from eating eggs in the morning... and the next day, we had cooked prawns curry at home !!!

Arrrrrrrrrrgh !! These customs I'll always fail to understand... :-|

Abortion aborted... the debate begins !!

Recently, a sensitive case had come up for hearing in the Mumbai High court. A middle aged woman, who was in her 26th week of gestation, had moved the high court for Termination of the pregnancy, as the foetus was detected to have a complete congenital heart block along with complete transposition of great arteries. She had moved the court, as legally, Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) can be carried out only upto 20 weeks of gestation….

Now lets look at the salient features of this act… (MTP act, 1971)

MTP can be carried out when
• The continuation of pregnancy would involve serious risk of life or grave injury to the physical and mental health of the pregnant woman.
• There is a substantial risk of the child being born with serious physical and mental abnormalities so as to be handicapped in life.
• When the pregnancy is caused by rape, both in cases of major and minor girl and in mentally imbalanced women.
• Pregnancy caused as a result of failure of a contraceptive.

When termination has to be done upto 12 weeks, one qualified medical practitioner can do it, whereas if it is between 12-20 weeks, opinion of 2 practitioners is required

For the entire act, you can refer to : http://mohfw.nic.in/MTP%20Act%201971.htm

Fair enough… here the main concern was that there was a substantial risk of the child being born with serious physical and mental abnormalities so as to be handicapped in life… and so the judgment basically depended on the JJ Hospital committee’s report. And here, the government employees did a major goof up of typing “… there is a very LEAST chance of….” Instead of the earlier report which said “… there is a very FAIR chance of….”

That one word just turned up the case upside down…. And the court turned down the appeal stating that there was nothing to suggest that it was an extraordinary case that they would be allowed to go against the law for just this time…

Personally, I feel this is an extremely sensitive issue, just like euthanasia, which is deemed illegal in India. What has got this issue into the limelight is that the couple approached the high court, as I believe, hundreds of such and similar other cases are tackled illegally all over the nation. The mother could have paid up the doc below the table and had got it aborted and no one would have got a hint of it, unless of course if the mother had developed any complications during the process, which is the main reason why the doctors would had been shying away from it…

A complete congenital heart block is a serious disorder. As everyone must have read in the newspapers, it MAY require a pacemaker insertion immediately after birth… Even if the prognosis is good, usually they may require it after about 7-9 years of age. Transposition of great arteries is a condition in which there is shunting of blood, in which impure deoxygenated blood gets circulated in the body, as the aorta here arises from the right ventricle instead of the left. This may get nullified by a ventricular septal defect, but still, such defect requires surgery, and they do cause a lot of financial strain. The life of the child before and after the surgery is also not too good. A simply crying spell can be the cause of their death. The child also has to live a compromised life later on…
Still, I cannot comment on how GRAVE the physical deformity would had been…
Some NGOs came forward and asked the couple to give the child to them so that they would take care of the child, but is this done??
Would the parental instincts let them simply give away the baby to an NGO cause he suffers from a cardiac deformity?
Aborting a fetus [note: I am calling it a Fetus and not a baby or a child] when detected is what I feel, is the best way to go. The MTP act was made in 1971, when facilities like amniocentesis, chorion villi sampling etc where very rudimentary. A lot has changed in these 37 years in the medical arena, and detection and management techniques of such cases have also improved manifold.

But also, the drawback of this case was that, if the woman had been allowed to undergo abortion, it would have opened a whole new pandora’s box….
More and more women would had come forward citing similar reasons for abortion after the 20th week…
Human rights activists are also up in arms against it, as they say that the unborn child also has the equal right to live… but, when asked to the child who suffers from such a severe disorder, I strongly feel that the child would had preferred to not have born in the first place…

This case has everything – medical, legal, social, ethical, emotional issues bound into one… I feel that the limit of 20 weeks should be increased to 24 weeks as the mother also has the right to decide if she wants to keep that child. This provision should clearly provide and specify which cases are included in the 20-24 week period that can be allowed to be aborted, as for every law there are people who misuse them.
Right now, the woman has got no option but to carry on with her pregnancy as it has already crossed 26th week , and by the time a supreme court appeal comes to hearing, she would have already delivered!! I pray that the child is not treated like an unwanted child like the mother, as that would be a serious injustice to the child.

All in all, it’s a LOSE-LOSE situation for the child, whether born, or unborn… His/Her fate now lies in the hands of medical professionals and her parents….

Monday, August 4, 2008

.....

Oooooo... this space seems familiar...

*Brushes away the cobwebs*

As i enter this space again, I face a mirror and I see myself staring back... Poor guy.. what has happened of u huh???
Yes.. That person seems familiar... but changed a lot...
Why were u away ??? He asks me... I have no answer.... cuz I was plain bored, I think....

Boredom... He is my best friend nowadays... I get bored doing anything... I was even bored to eat one day that I fasted for the first time in my life... and then I suffered the most severe of heart burns that I had ever experienced... Oh yes.. now im even bored of getting the heart burns.... Im bored of even taking a bath the day I am supposed to go out...

hmmm... boredom... Let me see why I am so fucking bored...

I have quit my job... I have no career... I couldnt get through to any program abroad this year, so will be applying again for next year...
Im also applying for a new job now... New job just so that I shouldnt get a gap in my CV... doesnt matter if u like doing the shitty work or not... I mean, people spend their entire lifetime doing jobs they dont like, I just want to do it for 1 year... ONE YEAR :O that seems pretty long... but what the heck, If Im paid 20K +, Im even ready to clean toilets for that...

So basically Im doing nothing sitting at home... Oh yes... Im doing a wonderful job of irritating my parents by sitting at home... also Im adjusting my biological clock to US standard time, by sleeping at 3 AM and getting up at 11 AM...
Also I have started reading a LOT !!! Ive read a lot of books, biographies, adventure stories, etc...
And I watch movies.. I have a huge collection... everything from french, italian, russian and bosnian movies... subtitles of course...
and yes oh yes.. Im a super net addict... I cant stay without my internet for a single day, except when im out for a trek of course!! Dunno what I do on the net, nothing constructive, just going through the recent research articles, playing scrabble, chatting a bit, and arguing in formula1 forums .... now i am bored of that too...

So basically, Im an overeducated, unemployed, good-for-nothing son for my parents...
I sleep in my sleeping bag nowadays instead of my bed... so that when my parents have enough of me and they throw me out of the house, at least I would had been accustomed to sleeping in my sleeping bag....
I have started putting on weight... and I am still trying to figure out which course of study should I pursue further...
There is course A, B and C... I considered a course D for a while too but rejected it...
Course A is a backup for course B, incase I dont get it... but its A (and not B) cause Now I feel that I should do A and not B cause ill get bored by doing B in the future... Confused?? Well, welcome to my world of confusion superimposed by boredom !!
And of course, there is course C.. haha.. how can I forget that... I have started preparing for C... I havent heard of anyone from my backgroud doing C.. so I would be one of the very handful like me, If I get through for C.... but Mera naseeb hi G***u hai to main bhi kya karu yaar !!!

So what was i doing the couple of months gone by???????
Simple... Trekking, trekking, trekking.... and yes... some more trekking....
coupled with cycling and photography, though the cycling has taken a bit of a backseat now due to rains...
4 treks on 4weekends in June, taking my total tally to 94 treks... and have targetted 100 by the end of this season...
The 100th trek I want to be a solo trek... and the most difficult trek of my trekking history... Like, one slip and I die... Oooooooooooooo... that thought itself sends a chill down my spine...
Cant wait for number 99 to get over.... Zankhan would had been so proud of me... hehehe...
And I am traveling a lot with my friends too... I was never so closed to my friends that I am now... Suddenly I have realized I have so many of them... Wow...
Life should had been better.. But alas its far far away from being better... but I know, my day of reckoning will arrive sooner than later...