Micturition, Sports and Society

Long long time ago, a little boy in kindergaarten, was chosen to act in a complicated play. There were many practice sessions, the teacher was greatly loved by her little students, and they hung on to her every instruction.

The D-day dawned, and the huge hall that held thousands , was actually full, with entire families turning up with relatives and so on. The amazing play got underway, with  all the kids in their very realistic costumes,  occasionally glancing into the wings, where their proud teacher stood .  The little boy was the lead player, the excitement was too much, and he suddenly realized  he needed to visit the loo, and actually could not. What happened next was an accident of nature so to speak, where, he looked up at the teacher for permission, expressed himself succintly about wanting to pee,   couldnt control himself, and quietly wet himself.

Undeterred, encouraged by his teacher, and unfazed by the hooting audience that must have consisted of folks who might have been straightaway born as as adults with attached loos,  he continued his role, and finished the play.

Some praised his dedication, brushed away the event as a small kid's response to all the excitement and his innate honesty, and patted his back.

Some came to his mother, doing ooh and aah, with looks of embarassment on their faces, asking if the kids were not encouraged to go to the loo earlier. His amazing teacher acted as if nothing had happened, and the evening went off without any problem.   (If you ignored the adults who had a problem, with a 3.5 year old kid performing in front of a huge audience , and inadvertantly giving in to the demands of his body).

Cut to yesterday, when England won the Ashes against Australia at the Oval in England.  The leading worthies of the English team urinated on the cricket pitch to celebrate. 

I don't see a big brouhaha about this.  Those that criticised the kid, probably think this is all fine, because it has happened in England,  The dictats of a developed society. 

Times have changed.

  Today, you do not urinate because your bladder is full. You urinate to express an opinion, to celebrate a victory, to demean a loser.    If you are an ex bowler of the English team, you are also allowed to urinate on people who have troubled you at nightclubs in their effort to enforce rules,  and you attribute it to life stresses  One county fires you and another county hires you, urination and all, and life goes on.

I dont see too many comments on this event here. Yes, British and Australian papers go to town on it,  some manager/president type says this is unacceptable, and some cricket types even make jokes about England getting the pitch ready for the Indians who will visit in the summer.

One now waits to see  how the latest craze takes root in India.

Up to now, folks urinated in public because they had no domestic facilities , or they were travelling by road, and in the middle of nowhere, or couldn't wait due to some medical condition, or old age.

I hope things do not come to such a pass, that captains and umpires coming out to inspect pitches, now come wearing masks and gloves.  I can see BCCI and the ICC at loggerheads on the issue of pitch-urinating. There will be accusations of pitch fixing and pitch throwing.  Committees will be appointed.  Chairmen will walk around with stiff upper lips, relaxing them just enough to say "The law will take its course".  Lalit Modi will tweet saying that's why the cheerleaders in T20 always faced the audience.  

Commentators will spend "filler" minutes on television talking about how things were back in their time.

Someone at Stanford or Cambridge will research and present a paper on the "Correlation between positive emotions and voluntary emission of waste products  from a sportsman's body"  or, "Analysis of pitch soil to ascertain intake of banned substances by cricketers" .

Sociologists will do studies on influx of foreign celebratory traditions on the Indian milieu, and trace it back to medeival times or something. 

But we must be grateful for small mercies.  It is just cricketers .

Turns out that a male  elephant,  excretes 13 gallons of urine in a day.  Horses, slightly more tolerable at 4.5 gallons. 

One day,  I will think back to one of our late eminent prime ministers, who practiced, (along with 5 million folks in Germany and 3 million in China) with total unconcern of what people thought, what is called Shivambu Kalpa in Ayurveda.

Treating the pitch of his body, as it were.

He would have simply shaken his head in despair at these sportsmen, , and muttered, "What a waste, what a waste .....!"

So when the last time you helped change a life ?

He was always greatly interested in finding out how he could help folks. Free , on retirement, of the pressures of a daily job, he would enjoy many field trips to places , where there were issues of forestation, water, health etc, and thanks to his lifelong practice of active yoga,  he would confound people by travelling in crowded trains and trekking around , even as he approached his middle eighties.

His wife had passed away earlier, he was getting hard of hearing, and a lot of time was spent in meeting folks who called and came to him for advice on ayurveda, education, and meditation, all his favourite topics. He wrote extensively, and published 3 books. Never one to involve himself in too many material household things( even when his wife was alive) ,  he started giving away stuff from the house with a vengeance.  Some unscrupolous types took advantage of this , and would write fake letters to him asking for help, and he would meet them, sympathize,  and they would return home with some help in cash and kind. 

What this actually masked, is the various issues he helped address on his travels, and visits to places  where some kind of socially relevant work projects were being done. He had a constant exchange of letters happening with many organizations, whom he donated to. Sometimes it was for books and furniture for the village library at his native place in the Kokan, to allow students to come and study there.  Sometimes it was for someone who wanted to get saplings to green a greatly eroded land. Many times, it was for orgnizations that worked in the field of women's upliftment, devdasis,   and maternal and child health, in the internal areas of the country.

Somewhere as he approached 90, strangley for a person who wrote so much by hand, he became so anti-paper, that he went through paper cutting stage,  where he just trashed all kinds of paper to pieces, destroying important documents in the process.  His body called it a day, the mind did not, he became bedridden, and yet continued his various communications. His daughter, who was his caregiver, would now often deal with folks with different persuasions. Some who thought they could still tell fake stories and get help, and some, who were genuinely concerned for him and kept in touch . By and by , she learnt to separate the wheat from the chaff, as he slowly retired into his own wilful world, and often forgot family folks, and spoke of imaginary events.  

Many months later, he passed away on a winter night which had unseasonal showers. His daughter was by his bedside. 

She spent a few days in the empty house , now almost devoid of any kind of paper , with the exception of old books, which he left untouched. Even the family photo albums didnt escape his wrath. The entire thing, to her, was a learning experience , in how a mind and body copes with old age, in the modern age.  It was like he had shredded all the memories, and closed the door with a bang, before he left.

Many months later , she was sorting out the papers, and letters that came pouring in .   Letters received from various folks after they heard about his demise, and she was trying to respond to them.

One such was from an organization that worked with the upliftment of he Devadasis, by helping educate their daughters ,and weaning them away from a certain absorbtion into their maternal profession.  The doctor who ran the organization and helped, wrote back, how the folks were saddened to hear the news, and how they remembered his visits, and his talks , and how he took so much genuine interest.

And how one of the daughters of a Devadasi who he helped educate and empower, now functioned as a tehsildar.        

And it occurred to his daughter, that we make such a fuss and noise over educating our offspring, the choice of professions, the institutes, and yet, we are still in our own safety cocoons, with such comfortable boundary conditions, that we are unable to appreciate what a life changing thing it must have been for the mother of the lady, who slogged with whatever help she got, inspired a daughter to study, and manage a respectful life. 

There are no prizes and awards for either the person who made this possible, or the person who benefitted.

Life goes on.

But how many of us can honestly say today, that we changed a life ?

Revenge of the Termitoidae....

White ants , (known in posh circles as Termitoidae )  and I go back about 25 years.

I mean, really, I had never experienced the havoc caused by white ants  earlier than that.

 In my childhood, there was no pest control happening and/or advertising itself, or chaps coming in masks and pumps with evil smelling liquids.

Possibly, once in a decade or so, someone would shake their had helplessly over some old fabric showing weakness because of some stuff, but by and large, cupboards and trunks often smelt of camphor, neem leaves, and sometimes, even, dried tobacco leaves, in a virulently anti-smoking household.  Certain small creatures were often seen in the house, darting on walls, feasting on insects that came in the rain, and we were too busy with our lives to stand, shiver  and do a fashionable "Ewwww" every now and then.

25 years ago, we shifted to a house on a lake front. No , we didn't come up in the world by leaps and bounds, but the employer allocated this house to us. The untended jungle around us, the sparse traffic, and  other favourable conditions, occasionally enabled house visits by small snakes, rats , mongooses, squirrels, red , white, and large ants, and yes, the surreptitious white ants. I first noticed them as black lines, that grew longer and ominous, and climbed walls, and corners of wood cupboards.

We shifted two decades ago to a multi storied complex, thinking we had seen the last of them.  For a while I believed that.

Then 4 years ago, when they painted all the apartments in the building, we noticed that while the larger creatures had gone on to greener pastures, the white ants had found us again. This time due to monsoon leakage in walls, and the ensuing dampness.  Various books from our old collection now assumed a lace like appearance, several clothes got destroyed, but the worst was when the ants managed to eat up plastic covers, and eat off 80% of some bank receipts. The ensuing saga of taking the disintegrating papers to the bank, folks there rushing to see it all, and the process of getting duplicated issued resulted in a post here.

We asked for, then,  and got the white ants treatment done .

Last month, I noticed the creatures had returned, and were brazening it out fearlessly on various walls and corners , particularly where there was leakage. Some had managed to invade inside metal cupboards, and in an  attitude of persistence that could teach our municipal authorities a thing or two about how to keep  filling the potholes non stop, also managed to reach inside plastic bags.

Maybe the white ants were evolving. Maybe their DNA was getting methylated resulting in white ant offspring with better capabilities.  I would notice an entire stick like protrusion of white ants, sticking out above a door, into the air, like a jetté of a ballet dancer, in a cantilever manner. When I removed it, it would return with renewed anger a few centimetres away.   

And so , this time, they organized a building wide anti white ants and pest control campaign.  We spent days and hours clearing out stuff so the treatment could reach into every nook and white ant infested corner.

(Kind of reminded me of anti corruption crusades. The measures announced to wipe out the corrupt types. New rules made for folks to turn themselves in.  For a while you think it works, And then you are back to where you started. )

The only difference was , this time, I too had evolved. My tailbone vertebrae  which occasionally bothered me with pain earlier were , like the white ants, back in full pain, and I wore a back belt in my upright moments, to fool the vertebrae into thinking I was giving them rest. (I almost wrote "black belt" here. So much for misplaced confidence  :-)    )

The pest control/white ants fellows arrived in fancy orange uniforms and masks. The  chaps helped me move some heavy cupboards and stuff away from walls, where they would drill holes every one foot along all walls, and then inject medicine into these holes. They would also spray stuff copiously where required, and in places where drilling  holes was not possible.

I sat reading the paper in the living room amidst the drilling and pervading smells, attending to someone who came from the Establishment Health office to check.  Then I heard someone call out to me asking me about something in one of the inside rooms.

As is my wont, I rushed  to see what they needed.

And slipped hard in a pool of water that had developed along the corridor wall.  I am a veteran of falls , so to say, but this was different. I never ever vocally express my anguish during a fall. But this time was different. Maybe it was the belted back vertebrae, and the kept-in-check ligaments and tendons. And the entire uniformed lot rushed in response to an anguished shout, as they saw me collapse into what can be only described as a voluminous person performing a split;  the sort they do with so much ease , without making a noise , on all these dance reality shows.

No. This was not a case of anyone being careless. Turns out that  somewhere along the corridor, pumping of the meds into the drilled hole, got and entire colony of ants inside the wall into a dither, and they poured out of the hole  along with the pumped in liquid . 

I unknowingly stepped into the ensuing pool and performed this amazing split.

Like I said, the white ants have evolved. They are also greatly united .

Maybe they have now developed an improved tiny cerebral cortex, and can  now think.

In a united manner against an old adversary. Me.

Clearly, this has been their great revenge. 

But , one always learns something from one's misfortunes.

 And I actually, amazingly, (with apologies to the downstairs neighbors for sudden thumps on their ceiling), learned to do the split !

 




  

Review of "Land of the Seven Rivers" by Sanjeev Sanyal.

I received a copy of " Land of the Seven Rivers "   Penguin India (12 November 2012) by Sanjeev Sanyal  for  review, from Team ThinkWhyNot.  

When I went to school in the late 50's and sixties, History and Geography, bundled as "Social Studies"   was never my favourite subject. One was all about  dates, wars, dealing with duplicate names, and by-hearting what they did when they were not fighting;  the other was all about  latitudes, longitudes, climates, mountains, origins of rivers, and oceans , without specifying continuities and human linkages. 

But the complete title of this book , ie "Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India's Geography" intrigued me.  

And it turns out , that this is really a  History/Geography of India , as if the people mattered.....

The Sapta-Sindhu region, communities that sprung up around the course of the Saraswati river; slow tectonic changes that nudged the country we know as India, to its current position, thanks to a drifting of continents, and slowly blocked paths of rivers like Saraswati, that essentially faded away underground.  Migrations of people affected by this. Archaeological findings  of the Harappan ages, that tell us  of communities  that had a fairly ordered supervised existence.   The author  suggests that what we call the Vedic times, when the Vedas were being documented, are not just speculative stories, and there is enough to suggest that it might have something to do with the Harappans.  

The epics  like Ramayana and the Mahabharata appear to be linked to the subsequent development of the fertile Indo-gangetic area, and the  movement of the populace across it, thanks to centres of learning happening in Takshila and Nalanda at the two ends and the eventual appearance of the west-east Uttara  Path and north-south Dakshina Path, along which the Mahabharata and Ramayana stories proceeded.  Attackers, conquerors, of various dynasties, with various proclivities, some who destroyed and some who built, and even some who renounced; some with a sense of history, and some with an exaggerated sense of self.  The monuments that appeared across the geography to immortalize the history.  Motifs, symbols, and inscriptions, that carry themselves across ages.  The appearance of religion and those who promoted and or followed it.

The book ranges across  thousands of years, from the Vedic Ages to the present, tracing  community life, commerce,  interactions with foreign visitors,  power centres, even speculating on the symbolic and actual significance of animals like cows, horses, elephants, tigers, lions and so on, through the ages. 

Yes , it follows through with the arrival of various foreign folks who sailed the seas and ended up settling down in our country.  First to trade, and slowly to rule.   The author has a special interest in studying how our cities developed, and their individual ethos as a result of their history. 

The latter part of the book describes the post 1857  era, when everything took on political power hungry overtones.  How certain developmental activities done by the British, like railways, were actually  a result of  Northern states of the US blockading the southern states of the US , blocking raw cotton for British mills,  the British looking upon India as an alternate source  , and in anticipation, setting up, with the highest priority,  infrastructure like railways and docks . 

 The author also chronicles, changes in mindsets of the populace, results of education (Bombay, Calcutta and Madras Universities set up more than 100 years ago),  and how trains besides lugging export items to docks, also allowed  folks with excellent communication and scholarly  abilities to travel and impart learning and ideas across the country.  Some having to do with the Freedom Struggle.


 What makes this book enjoyable, is the several random nuggets that appear and are answered in a delightful manner .  How did the country acquire the name Bharat ?  Are there similarities in Sanskrit and Persian ?  Does replacing 's' with an  'h' or vice versa,  in the Zoroastrian scriptures  make them more understandable to those knowledgeable in Sanskrit ?  (aside :  Ever wondered why the "namah" of namaskar and namaz, both meaning obeisance sound similar? It is Old Persian-Sanskrit connection).

 Did Robert Clive  really do a thanksgiving Pooja at the Kali Mata temple in Kolkata ( as opposed to a church)  after he won the Battle of Plassey ? How maps and mapping techniques  evolved over time,  and the very scientific but painstaking technique devised by William Lambton  using stars and trigonometry to map distances and directions.  And how he got the assignment thanks to a chap called Arthur Wellesley (who later became the Duke of Wellington and defeated Napolean), who used Lambton's expertise in defining positions to avert a disaster in a war with Tipu Sultan .         

So many maps we see today , originated because this man Lambton lugged a half ton imported theodolite across the country, forests, mountains and beaches  and measured angles and calculated. It even crashed to smithereens once, and was repaired . The project, supposed to be done in 5 years, actually went on for 6 decades. Lambton was succeeded by an equally dedicated Everest, who headed the Trigonometrical Survey of India, and after whom the highest peak of the Himalayas was named by his assistant.      

 This book  is a chronicle of how  we have developed as a people and a country. Given the amazing, dynamically  changing physical, social, and political boundary conditions, where we seek solutions .  It is a chronicle of how earth movements, water bodies,  mountain barriers, extensive green covers,  and human ambitions  and endeavours,  have played a great part in making us what we are today.

Which is really what history and geography is all about.

This is not  a book that fits into an academically defined straitjacket, that has fixed definitions for History and  Geography .    It is not a book that makes you avidly flick pages surreptitiously to learn the ending . It is a book, you enjoy over several days, thinking about what you just read,  sometimes wondering, smiling in delight, sometimes telling someone about it, sometimes frowning, and sometimes telling yourself, "ah ! I didn't know that !"......     

One marvels at the stupendous research  conducted by the author.  The wide spectrum across which the book ranges boggles the mind. Contrary to what some might think,  one enjoys the personal interjections of the author, giving his impressions from various visits to places.  There is a sense of openness and urgency to imparting information throughout the book.  You sense the movement of time.    

 So much more can be written about this book. But that will be another book :-)

 And so  it may simply be advisable to read Sanyal's book.   

And speaking of the just mentioned water bodies ....  aren't we as a country, really like an ancient sturdy tree,  with its roots deep into Sarswatical deep ground waters,  growing through the ages, branching out and flowering in the directions where light is forthcoming, sheltering  various populations, who hang on and survive a la Darwin ?   Some creatures like the birds, bees, and butterflies, enhance our living,  some  like the Simian ones, are a bit of a rough life, causing destruction at times,  some branches fall off, leaves wither, but there is new sap coming up and disseminating through the strong trunk, and there are newer branches, and newer leaves.  At all times, fruiting happens, life evolves, and there are seasons  of warm celebrations, torrential rains, biting fearful colds, somehow all leading to some sunny summers......     

     



 

 

Olfactory Me.

I was born with what folks then politely  described as a snub nose , and for the first few years of my life, my late paternal grandfather  gave me a Marathi nickname (नकटी ) that highlighted this feature.  Consequently , in an amazing display of nostrils-over-nature, I fine tuned my olfactory abilities and have been deeply smelling al manner of things things ever since;   like,  trouble, opportunity, wonderful aromas, fragrances, and even stuff you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

More than half a century of living has you wondering.

My earliest smells, have to do with hot copper boilers, coal,wood, steaming water, and  ambehaldi smells.  We had a traditional copper boiler which worked on coal, and there was this fragrance that was a compounding of fire, water, copper, hot shahabad stone and ambehaldi with milk. Sometimes compounded with shikekai scrubs.

Then there was the smell of tur dal which had just cooked to perfection.  and you impatiently inhaled the rich aroma as you waited for the rice, the ghee, and the squeeze of a lemon.

Jasmine, champa and mogra fragrances intermingling with mild agarbattis and lit lamps in the little puja corner of the  just mopped, slightly still wet  floor of  one of the inner rooms in the house .

Spicy bossy flavors that transcended floors and wafted down to the garden were those that prompted folks to ask if we were pounding garam masala in wilambit taal,  or grinding roasted horse gram (kuleeth, a Kokan food).  These were comfort smells  and still remain so.  Along with scintillating aromas of garlic , hing and methi participating in the most amazing tadkas of all time. And let's not forget the smells of butter being made into ghee wafting across the house.

I could go on and on .     

I did.    :-)

I went to the US to study after college.  And learned that houses did not smell of  biryanis and tadkas, but like a summery spring that happened in the midst of the harshest winter. When you went to some one's for dinner you couldn't guess the menu, thanks to "sprays".  To me, everything was like they showed in the movies, spic and span and smelling of roses.   And those visiting my shared apartment always rushed to look inside the pot to see what was smelling so good thanks  to my spray-disabled state..  

I do realize that all smells do not emanate from kitchens. There are unpleasant smells, and some simply need to be masked by something better. 

That is why hospitals smell different. To remove the smell of disease. 

Corporate offices smell different. Possibly to hide the smell of big money.  

There are Ambi Pur sprays and things available in various scents where you can pretend you are enjoying  New Zealand Springs, Pacific Air,  Vanilla Bouquets, or in a Lavender Spa  amidst Hawaiian flowers, or even pining for Thai Dragon Fruit and so on.  

The smartness is in knowing to know when you need to use these. 

I learned it by accident. 

Our new car, (bought after 38 years of an old faithful  going geriatric on us and relocating somewhere else for research),  one fine day simply didn't start, when I turned the ignition .  I had just bought vegetables the previous day .  Things were working fine then.  Investigations revealed that rats, who think our building garden is wonderful, actually thought the car was better. They squeezed in and feasted on some electric cables.  The mechanics, in the time trusted Juggad tradition,  did the connections again , and advised us to keep tobacco pouches all over the car, along the wiring , to keep the rats away.  While doing the work, the mechanics yanked the rear seat , and while putting it back , probably left a gap where the seat belts should have emerged but now actually didn't.  

A few days later, it became impossible to sit inside, not due to the  anticipated but strangely non existent hot tobacco smell,  but, thanks to some really bad rotting smell.  It turned out that a small cabbage had fallen out of the bag, earlier in the trunk, and simply gone bad in the heat and suffocation of the trunk. Thanks to the gap in the rear seat, we were the beneficiaries of the terrible smell.   

At this point it must be mentioned that the daughter is a standing example of animate objects that exude fragrances thanks to various cosmetic sprays, and every time she traverses your path you get a whiff of something. She is hugely interested in the various Ambi Pur fragrances available for non-personal spraying.  She was inordinately interested in the  piece that I received in the post,  and promptly installed it on the air vent in the dashboard of the car.  A few drives around the place with windows open, and the car became usable again, without having to hold your breath.    

So yes, life in the car is tolerable again.  But for the times that one is on two legs instead of four wheels,  in the innards of the house,  I would like to give suggestions to the Ambi Pur folks  regarding fragrances and aromas.  

The aroma of Ginger and lemon that might encourage the cilia in the nostrils to e-tickle your taste buds;  a whiff of roasted Ajwain  to settle your stomach;   a hint of  elaichi and nutmeg  for special days to honor the environment in which shrikhand is being greatly relished.  

I wonder if the aroma of new books can be bottled   Or how difficult it is to capture the aroma of  a baby being given a traditional Indian style bath , oils, medicinal seeds thrown on charcoal embers to create inhalable smoke. Or the fragrance of a lap of a mother, complete with palloos  hinting  about a just imbibed meal.    Or the combined smell of a baby, milk and talcum powder. 

I am sure the Ambi Pur folks are listening. 

In the meanwhile, if you think of a sprint race between the various aromas , say, lavender, jasmine, pacific air, New Zealand spring, Hawaiian flowers,  rose, sandalwood,  garden fresh , and say, that of fragrant Hyderabad biryani happening in some one's house,  all I can say , is , that , the last one will be the Usain Bolt of it all......   

Just saying....

P. S. If the Ambi Pur people ever come up with Tobacco aroma stuff you can leave  in the  car internals, do remember that you heard it here first.




Submitted as an entry to the Indiblogger  AmbiPur Smelly to Smiley Contest.

Blood Talk from Inner Space.....

I am trying to remember the first time I did a blood test as a child. And as good as my memory is , I simply cannot remember . 

Doctors in my childhood, learnt more from shining torches in our mouths, examining the color and surface of our tongues, lightly hammering our knees, pressing oedemic skin , and  shaking their heads or nodding them depending on the color of our eye and nails. Listening to pulses, blood flow and heartbeats revealed even more secrets to them.

Somewhere in the latter part of my teenage,  I realized what pathological laboratories did.  I went to the US for graduate studies, and in those days (circa 1969) , believe it or not, you needed to do a chest X-ray, Urine and stool tests, and some blood tests from "approved " doctors  before you applied for a visa. You then carried the stuff with you when you actually relocated.  This was my first tangle with blood and tests.

Today, it is a great business. The shining torches, and protruding tongues have given way to very specific blood tests, that tell you, how badly off you are, despite having the very best that life can offer you. There are acceptable and unacceptable ranges, you get traumatized over a one point drop in your haemoglobin and fifty point rise in your LDL.

And somewhere , away from the metros, in small towns and rural areas,  girls who are married off early, bear child after child in their family's quest for a male, and bit by bit destroy their own health.  The best of diet for the sons, unaffordability of necessities of life today , and stark unavailability of medical care in some cases. And you have an India where  the prevalence of anemia in pregnancy is almost 40-80%, the South East Asian  prevalence, according to WHO being 56%.

 About 4-16% of maternal deaths are due to anemia.  And besides being a risk factor for the mother throughout the pregnancy,  infants with anemia often exhibit prematurity, low birth weight, low Apgar scores, lower intellectual development , and so often, failure to thrive.  And should they thrive, such infants are at greater risk for cardiac problems as adults .    

And so it pleased me no end to hear Myshkin Ingawale at the TEDex talks 2012 .

Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012.

This guy,  an engineer  by training, a researcher from MIT  by profession, and an open an perceptive mind, thanks to his bringing up, combined facets of all these, and realized  on a visit to India, that it isn't enough for the technology to be smart , it has to be appropriate  for the situation. Listen to him :   



Here is a guy, who observed and studied the facilities (or the lack of them) available to a rural expecting mother. Brainstormed about them with like minded folks who strove together for an answer, and came up with a contraption that measures heartbeat, pulse and Hb by simply having the patient insert a finger into an enclosure.  No pricks, no pokes, no trauma of the emerging red..

Was HB  measuring not possible earlier ? Of course it was. But it needed trained staff to do blood pricks, chemistry knowledge, make blood smears, and analysis.  Many rural NGO's today work in maternal and neonatal health, and have trained 'Dais" that visit households and advise. Here was something simple they could carry with them and monitor the anemia and treat it. Without requiring a drop of blood.  It was that easy.  It took Myshkin and his team more than 32 trials and experiments before they succeeded, and he created his own company called Biosense  to promote this.

 This needs to be taken forward. Nay, it is begging to be allowed to go ahead.

Young  girls , in both rural and urban areas, need to be monitored for their haemoglobin content. With education made free for girls now, and more and more families realizing its importance, making such checks mandatory , in schools and even colleges,  would work wonders. Iron and folic acid supplementation can follow via improved existing systems where other NGO's could monitor quality of the medicines.

It might be a useful idea to investigate if stationary blood HB checking stations could be set up in the premises of , say, temples, and other religious places, frequented by women with families, often not allowed to go anywhere else, particularly in rural areas.  (I've never discovered the reason for weighing scales  for humans at railway stations; stations for checking HB make so much more sense. ).

Then I have suggestions for Biosense.

Newborn testing for blood thyroid values, has a bearing on the mental development of kids. Many babies are deficient coming as they do from areas with faulty iodine content in the soil and water (due to various reasons).  An untreated  hypothyroid  in a new born,  leads to developmental disabilities, and problems later. Even then , this test is NOT mandatory for newborns in India and the cost is currently prohibitive for the common man.  If Biosense can come up with a cheaper alternative to the existing testing technology, this would be like a gift from the heavens, for those who could be detected early, treated appropriately, and guaranteed  normal mental and physical milestones in their lives.

Another test I want Biosense to work on is the Vitamin D3 test . We wrongly think that being a tropical country, with people travelling to work  on foot and so on, we should be having a surfeit of Vitamin D3  in our bodies. Turns out, that thanks to atmospheric pollution levels,  various chemicals in our household cleaners, etc, our capacity to create D3 in the body has greatly reduced, This has a great bearing on the bone thinning in old age. On the other hand, indiscriminate augmenting of vitamin D3 in the body without testing is a very dangerous trend, followed by those who avoid getting tested because of the big cost involved. I hope Biosense comes up with something which can then be put up in little setups in banks and temples and libraries, which are places frequented by senior citizens.  Who can then check their own Vitamin D3.

Today having a smart technology is not enough.  It has to be geared to,  appropriate to, and  easy to handle, for  , say, a woman health worker, in a rural or urban area, given various cultural taboos, and societal restrictions, which will be some more time disappearing .      

Maybe the powers that be will then promulgate a Womens' Health Security Bill, that will provide these contraptions in large numbers across the country.      

I look forward to another TDX talk by Myshkin Ingawale an his team  in the foreseeable future.  Relating to neonatal/newborn TSH and Vitamin D3 for all. 

I wish these wonderful folks the best for their efforts ....



    
This entry submitted for the Indiblogger Franklin Templeton Investments - The idea Caravan Contest .


 

 



    

Beautiful Memory Food....

I've never met her in person,  but it feels like I have.

My blogging friend Shruti Nargundkar, who is an education innovator, entrepreneur,teacher, instructional designer, curriculum and courseware developer in Melbourne.

This urge to "impart"  boils over and spills into her other life as  food blogger, where every dish has a story, a life, a personality, and she  is like a style coach for the Miss Food-Universe, planning and polishing every dish display, as she studs it with little diamond memories.

She clicks and  describes them all, in their delicious finery, salivating in colors, and educates the world.   

(All photos courtesy Shruti's blog)

Be it the simple Kande Pohe, glistening amidst coriander-coconut garnish winking at her at the squeezing of a lemon, reminding her of overnight bus rides and roadside breakfasts with her husband , in southern India.

Or  some strange purple beans that enrich a tomato-y vegetable stew, with an implicit crunch on a winter's day in Melbourne , which gets her daughters to rush home for a flavorful meal.

It could be the dignified conservative Idli, all puffed up in self importance ,secretly looking for the item number chutney, that gets her talking about chutney places Down Under.  





Or it could be the stuffy potato,  sacrificed at the alter of diversity-in-school-lunch-boxes-of-childhood, that now makes a grand comeback, baked, puffing and sitting for a meal adorned with veggie jewels, golden cheese, and butters melting and saying 'I told you so !"..

 


Maybe a rural brinjal, in its posh avatar as an aubergine, long and slender, that takes her back to her Middle East sojourn. She cuts them in long halves, scoops out some memories, smiles at those  garlic, onion, tomato , chillies, mint, oregano folks gatecrashing, grills them and reminds them to meet the couscous types .... 

What do you say about a golden pumpkin raita, redolent with coconut, coriander, crackling with chillies, mustard and hing,  trying to act real posh while being presented as a dip - like traditional mangalsutras coming back into fashion again !

And the simple "thalipeeth" (roasted multigrain stiff pancake) of her childhood, snacked after school , straight off the griddle, as her mother poked holes in them which she thought was all about "my  thalipeeeth strongest !"; and how she made it now Down Under, with a mix of grains, so appropriate for a country with so many nationalities.  


Her work is a beautiful celebration of family, food and an amazing ability to make pictures speak, in support of some wonderful memories she writes about.    

Be it cakes pining to be united with fresh fruit,  little baby potatoes troubling shiny tired stuffy brinjals, awash in spicy masala, or traditional sweets enjoyed  on festival days of childhood, every picture has a story, that adorns, beautifies, and makes you want to pick it off the screen and have it yourself. 

Come to think of it, sometimes, I can even smell the stuff.   And I drool.
.....
.......

Hmmm. OK. Time to get back o the exercises. ....

Submitted as an entry for the "Tanishq ‘As Beautiful As Your Work’ contest " . Blog about women who make their work beautiful

Systems, Sense and Stupidity.

I have been wondering if we have a talent for simply abusing any technology that science throws up.  While  a forest view of things is always preferred  in society,  we specialize in nit-picking with the individual trees.

Even where conception and birth of a child is concerned.

Time was when everyone thought their child was the best.  Growing up was full of surprises, trials, fears, solutions, guidance, giving confidence to the child, and watching as he/she made their way into the world. Yes , there were folks who could not have children, for whatever reason, and the science prevalent then, had no solution. So they either adopted children in the family ,  or enjoyed being part of a community, without any commitment from themselves.

In today's day and age, adoption  of children is finding more and more support, though there is a lot that needs to be done in changing mindsets of folks with some kind of tunnel vision, that allows them to make insensitive and stupid comments where such kids are concerned.

Surrogacy happened earlier, more as a mental thing. There was none of this stuff of explicitly outsourcing wombs. But someone in the family with their own biological children, had a heart large enough to bear a child and beqeath it to you, to bring up as your own. There was nothing secretive. I personally know at least two families  where this has happened. One in the last century, and one in this century.  And everyone is happy.


Later on,  IVF and other assisted technologies came up as a result of exhaustive studies and research, meant to help folks who had problems conceiving a child.

It was never meant as a thing for defining a chromosome mix of a prospective child.

This couple in Chennai , seeking a  high IQ level progeny,  placed an online advertisement in January 2012, seeking a sperm donor preferrably an IITian for artificial insemination for a compensation of Rs. 20,000  saying, that  the ideal candidate for sperms “should be an IIT student, healthy, no bad habits, tall and fair, if possible”. They even agreed to relax a bit on the "looks" part if he happened to be the ‘right person’, and the couple said they intend to “start a family filled with love and prosperity”.  Of course asking if they were looking for a male or female progeny would be a stupid question.  Prosperity often implies a  male progeny, in the minds of such folks, given the implicit dowry considerations in these legally antidowry days.

It is not clear, if these folks were aware of many other undesirable genes that could tag along with the specified one, and whether they thought this was like specifying details of a customised silk saree  to be woven in, say, Kanjeevaram.  I am just surprised they did not specify a JEE rank, graduation department, specific IIT, and final grade point average.   

Then today's paper, TOI, highlights this article on page 1.  Fairness today,  has ceased to be a mental quality, and now means "white" .  Couples are now going in for Caucasian  eggs/embryos, later on to be fertilised and implanted  in the lady's uterus , so that the progeny,  can be guaranteed to be Fair and Lovely.  This does not come cheap, and east European donors, who currently dominate the scene, charge in thousands of dollars.  There are people who have done this (from Hyderabad), gone to full term, and delivered a female child "as white as milk" according to the super ecstatic mother, who is looking ahead to a brilliant marriage for that child.

While the above may be the leading lights , there are  again, ordinary types, who cant bear the sight of some of their own parts, and go under the surgeons knife, to acquire,  dream vital statistics,  sharp noses, rounder eyes,  fuller lips, smoother faces, and lifted chins. Pop Idol Michael Jackson experimented further in trying to achieve whiteness, that actually gave white a new meaning.

While gardens may be beautifully landscaped,  forests cannot be landscaped.  And life is not about being a prizewinning landscaped  tree trimmed just so in a sanitized garden. It is about being part of a forest system, where there is natural growth and learning amidst a variety of trees. Some providing shade, some providing a leg-up to climb somewhere, and some simply rooting themselves firmly, in the interests of everyone around.  Those that do not produce beautiful flowers, sometimes produce amazing fruit. Some simply impress with their hardy attributes, and some, like a healthy grandparent , even provide kids with a place to swing on.  There is an ability to be a place of rest for birds ,  a shady place for travellers passing through their lives, and sometimes, it is about being a rock of support , standing tall and firm in stormy times.

I wonder how science will specify these qualities in a future progeny, for those "start-up entrepreneurs"  trying for designer kids.

If God was an IT systems designer analyst , he would get completely confused,  when testing the end product for quality assurance.

Imagine an online celestial site,  say, Mafaleshu.com, where folks can specify wishes for what kind of kids they wish for.  There will be some registration data that specifies your own life details, the husband's details,  the in-law situation, , ages and so on.  Then there will be a section where, you will be asked  your specs for the child, that you wish  in your life.   Girl or Boy ?  Complexion ? Height ?  .

Then on special demand, version 1.2 of the system will be announced and folks will be able to specify what inborn talents, intelligence, possible future graduation discipline,  GPA,  threshold salary,  size of the arteries,  power of the heart (as a pump only) , shape of the nose, color of hair, shape of eyes and pupil color, length of eyelashes, voice quality, left and right brain powers .

Like so many systems announced today with great fanfare, this system will then hang, thanks to too many people logging in from the subcontinent.

Finally the system will crash .

I secretly hope they that will not succeed in restoring it back. 

If I were God, I would simply empty the Recycle Mental Bin, and press CTRL-ALT-DEL.

.....As if Women Mattered....

Straddling , as I do,  the  middle of the last century and the  the "glorious"  advent of the 21st century, one has been witness to wide lifestyle changes in the lives of Indian women.

I was confused and curious as a child when I would observe the lady of the house sit apart  from everyone, be given her food from a distance, and a child who wanted to sit in her lap was told not to touch her.  No one bothered to explain the reason for something that looked like a punishment. Then a few days later, the same lady would be back to her routine activities. Strangely,  things were a bit lax when erstwhile resident grandmothers were away.

By and by , one learnt the reason and the biology. And today, we are so "progressive(?)  that we sit in front of our TV's , with family, watching  the merits and demerits of various sanitary pads on the screen (shown as experiments in absorbtion of blue liquids), as thin models in pastel clothes leap around . And assorted multinationals vie  to advertise their product with hugely inflated ad budgets and pretend to do a favor to the women of India..  

Like most items foisted on Indian women by multinationals,  these do not come cheap. And are even out of reach of the urban lower middle class.  

Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012.  

And I just heard , in the video below, a  gentleman called Arunachalam Muruganantham speak at TEDx.  About his efforts to come up with a decent, lowcost, swadeshi, sanitary pad, which would improve the health, dignity, and even, the ability to contribute to the family income ,  for the Indian woman.  His application of mind, single minded  goal, eventual success, being recognized and awarded by the powers that be, and the fact, that business schools now listen to him, as a respected visiting  academician, despite his so called basic education, is greatly inspiring. 

I have known about Arunachalam Muruganantham for sometime. And I admired his zeal, his questioning of certain customs followed by the women of his house, and his very open research at finding solutions and answers.

 The video simply confirmed my belief  that it needed a guy like him, unconventional in level of education, his attitude towards women, guts, and fearless in the face of an ostracizing rural society, to  design something,  as if women mattered....

His typical basic ignorance, his curiousity, the social rural family ethos, the female hierarchy, his out of the box thinking, he being persona-non-grata , and the final success that had him design a manufacturing setup that would make low cost sanitary pads, (Rs 3 per),   and his decision to sell these to womens' self help groups in villages, including some in the remote Himalayan regions, is an amazing saga.   

But behind all this, is a story of rural India waiting to be told.  A story which has a direct bearing on the education , dignity and health  of rural women.And it needs to be taken forward........

Ladies of Muruganantham's family had it better than most.

According to a study done by WaterAid, an international NGO that works at  improving access to safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation , particularly in rural areas, half our Indian population, which is female, menstruates a total of 2100 hours in their lifetimes. Barely 3% have access to,or  have heard of  or use sanitary pads.
    
Research done by Maria Fernandes of Wateraid indicated  that rural girls dropped out of school, once they reached menarche, simply because of lack of needed sanitation facilities, like decent bathrooms, sufficient water, and disposal methods. A prominent reason was also being the butt of teasing by boys, who suspected what was happening.  Where the women work in fields and tribal areas, it is even worse. Women from the Saharia tribe of Sheopur actually get locked up in a cowshed during their days, forcing them to use any material around like rags, straw, mud, ash, paper  and so on. Infections abound. A teenager in MP's Dindori district got infected by an insect that came along with the straw she used, and she ended up having her uterus removed. And it is not uncommon, for women to share the "cloths" washing them again and again, not to mention drying them in closed places out of shame, causing them to remain damp.

 In the face of the immense power wielded by multinationals, what Muruganantham has done , stands like a beacon of hope. 

But it is not enough to make sanitary pads available cheaply. Something else must happen to complement Murugananthanam's immense effort.

Our government has made the Right to Education a fundamental right, and education for women is free upto a certain level.   However, education is not about bricks and mortar alone. We have rural schools, where teachers do not go, because basic amenities are missing.  We have rural schools, where the money never reaches where it is intended. And why rural, even certain municipal schools in Mumbai have insufficient and inadequate sanitation facilities for girls, with almost zero maintainance for those that exist.

We need to think innovatively like Muruguananthanam did. Involve women in planning the educational facilities at the village level.  Local NGO's might be able to do a women census. There may be green construction methods that might be used to build schools, with as much emphasis on physical well being of girls , as mental. Maybe, instead of the usual channels whereby construction happens with shortcuts , and no supervision, and checking, corporates can be roped in to participate as part of their CSR.  It is not enough to put out ads on television, and announce schemes.

And instead of launching nationwide schemes , politically named , with no vigilance and followup, maybe a trial scheme can be launched, say across 3-4 districts of , say, Maharashtra.  The government can do its bit by making this attractive for corporates by giving  them tax concessions and the like. Get feedback from those for whom the schools are meant.  Involve the women of the area in self help groups that work on Murugunanathanams product.  Make it attractive for girls to come enjoy schooling and learn, like their brothers.

Then have someone from the corporate side come and evaluate after a few years and report. Make improvements. And then maybe, replicate  it in some more ditsricts, armed with the practical knowledge.

Like Murugananthanam, there will be a lot of experimenting, a lot of what he calls T and E methods.  Like in his case, there will be traditional opposition, folks will suspect your motives. So called political leaders will get into the act.

 Like Murugananthanam, there will need to be sustained efforts and no giving up.

However, unlike Muruganathanam , I am not sure the corporate types will get invited on TEDx. 

But I for one, will certainly look forward to some interesting stuff on television,  which will NOT be  about fair girls in fairer clothes, talking about changing mindsets , so one multinational product can be replaced with another.

It will be wonderful film, showing how some girls now enjoy going to school in a remote corner of the state, learning and interacting, with thoughtfully planned schools and facilities and   mothers urging them not to miss school. How their health situations have improved, and how their family income has possibly improved because someone somewhere works at a Muruganathanam-inspired self help group manufacturing the pads........ and how one of the intangible side effects has been a kind of sensitization of the males  of the village.....   something we badly need even in our urban areas today.

     


Submitted as an entry for the Indiblogger-Franklin Templeton Investments "The Idea Caravan"  Contest.   

Vidi, Didici, Docui.....

She was one of those God fearing but rational  folks, who remained always grounded.

It meant she walked the talk.

Like when she volunteered to work for the consumer guidance society.

That was like forty years ago.  The fancy kirana shop at the choice location in one of Mumbai's poshest localities was reputed to be duping folks in the weights.  She was never one to sit in symposiums. And so one day I accompanied her with some of her assistants, as she went in to buy some stuff. When it came to weighing the stuff, she demanded to see the standard markings on the weights and the weighing machine. Notwithstanding  horrifying who-does-she-think-she-is looks from hi-fi-ladies, the manager trying to smile politely while seething inside, and signalling someone to disappear with the weights,  she just looked at her assistants, who  quickly took charge, checked the weights (which were counterfeit), and also the balance which was loaded  in the bottom, much in favor of the kirana shop.

They didn't have cellphones with cameras then, and she had to painstakingly make a report, collect the exhibits, and submit it for follow-up .  And she did that, sitting in that very hostile environment. I noticed much whispering between some hi-fi ladies, shaking of heads in sympathy with the shop owner.

And I learned that it isn't easy in life if you want to do good. Belief in what you are doing, is paramount, and you must do it within the frame work of rules.  Flying of at an emotional tangent is a  bad start for any good work.

Much later , in her old age , she was one of the trustees of a very important old set of temples in Pune. The  only woman trustee .  Not because she sat sedately in meetings, and prayed in her kanjeevarams, but because she had been an active devotee for more than 25 years, was environmentally conscious, fiscally prudent, and something they realized later, that she never hesitated to teach by example.

Like when amidst signs requesting folks to keep the courtyard clean, she once noticed a trainee priest returning back to some rooms with stuff after a pooja,  and he casually turned, and spat to one side.  She sent word to the head priest, that they should send someone with a small pail of water, soap, and  brush-mop. And then called for the careless trainee chap.  She then told the chap that we had no business putting up signs we could not follow ourselves, and that he should take the paraphernalia and clean up the area where he spat. Godliness required cleanliness. Both of mind and body.   She stood there while it was done. Thanked the chap , and we went on our way.  I am sure the chap cursed her. It was OK. It wasn't as if folks were queuing up to give her a prize anyway  :-)

 Old timer devotees, the new younger lot, and so many noticed this. And realised that she wasn't there to become popular and meant business.     

Of course, not all appreciated this. Some smirked , secure in their ivory towers. But she taught by action, how to stand tall, for your beliefs, of which honesty was a big part.  Your job was to do it well, and be grateful for what followed.  There was something to be learned from reverses.

Not far from being a senior citizen herself, she nursed her elderly mother-in-law with a terminal stomach ailment and  in her last days in a hospital. A trained nutritionist, who was quite strict with her own kids, she didn't blink an eye when the patient expressed a desire to eat soup and batata vadas. She checked with the doc, who knew the sad situation and advised her to comply. Hot homemade soup , and lightly spiced  vadas  duly appeared and were relished . And it was all about realizing that old age is another childhood, and it was important not to be a bystander and wash your hands off things, but to participate  in an informed manner on consultation with other folks like doctors. Sometimes it was ok for the heart to rule the head, but it was nice to be careful.

It was all about how you were inside;  your perception of your responsibilities , and how you went about doing them. Even if it was not the popular thing to do.

Many years later, her daughter and her husband were returning on their 2-wheeler from work, and barely missed an oil spill on the road. It was lunch time and the road would soon be crowded with school kids and elder folk.  The two got off, spent about 15 minutes, lugging sand by the handful from an adjoining construction heap, and covering the oil spill , so people would avoid it , or at least not slip.  This, as several folks whizzed past in a hurry. They had learned  from someone, and believed in what they had to do.

(Someone else noticed too. And they received an unsigned letter from someone who had been around,  a few days later, appreciating what they did. The irony made them smile. Good stuff remained secret. Bad stuff was publicised. But such are the ways of the world. And they saw and they  learned . And hopefully, in turn, taught....)

Vidi. Didici. As they would say in Latin. मैंने देखा, मैंने सीखा, as we would say in Hindi, मी पाहिले, मी शिकले in Marathi,   अहं अपश्यम्  | अहं ज्ञातवती अभवम्  | in Sanskrit....


She always said,  that quality and quantity are two attributes that most things have.  And one must strive for quality.

Quantity was all about Schools. Food. Art. Clothes.  Followers. Friends. Enemies. Even Money.

Quality was more elusive , more tough, more mindful, even unpopular at times.

"Quantity",  was like throwing money and buying a ready made decorative plant.

And the other, "Quality",  was like getting your hands dirty, to dig in the mud, water, and help  a drooping plant, help it grow up as a responsible member of the green, and feel good that it has taught you something. .

One has never forgotten that. And one tries to pass it on and teach it.

Vidi, didici, docui...



I am sharing what 'I Saw and I Learnt' at BlogAdda.com in association with DoRight.in