Ready for a tough lesson?

Water turns poison in Punjab villages-Chandigarh-Cities-The Times of India

This makes for sad reading. Really sad reading. The health of the people of several villages is on the line here because of industrial waste dumped into the drain which has now leaked into the ground water supply. I have heard of similar cases in northern Karnataka also.

We haven't done an analysis like this in Bangalore. If we do, we will most likely find similar heavy metal concentrations in the ground water here also. New water purifiers that remove the heavy metal content from water have come out. But these are expensive and who knows what by-products they generate?

The callousness towards our own lives shown by scant regard for the environment never ceases to amaze me. People, you are digging the graves of your own grand children by greedily grabbing whatever resource is left!

In Bangalore, I am appalled at the way ground water gets carted away in multiple tankers. I know of a case where 50 tankfuls of water (probably 50-100,000 litres) are pumped out every day. The residents of that locality were clueless in the beginning. Now, their borewells are dry! The borewell just became deeper! This also increases the chances of heavy metals entering drinking water.

Whenever I mentioned rain water harvesting, I used to be met with laughs and derisive smiles from the know-alls. I was an idealist in their eyes. And my own family is split on the extent of doing it. Some feel that there is no need to be alarmed at these media items. Though RWH is mandated in Bangalore, I don't see many people doing it out of need. They try to just be compliant. Of course, even that helps!

So, should I be an optimist or pessimist in these matters?

The media have always been alarmist on these matters. They like to scream "The end is nigh" at the top of their voices every time they print something. And they have done so ever since man learnt how to communicate. So is it any different this time? When they say the Himalayan glaciers will disappear in 50 years, are they being serious? Scientists themselves are mixed on this.

However, having seen the quality of air deteriorate in the past ten years and all the tanks and borewells actually go dry, we can all safely say that the environment has not been paid the same importance as it is entitled to.

I sometimes feel (in spite of being a human myself) that Nature should teach all of us such a hard lesson that will never be forgotten for thousands of years. I dread the lesson, but as we say in Kannada "daDDanige doNNe peTTu" (A stick-blow for the fool), so let us all not be fools. Let us learn from our mistakes and thus hopefully avoid Nature's harsh lesson.

To end on a lighter note (paraphrasing a cliched email signature) - this blog is coming to you via recycled electrons.

Burn Bangalore, Burn IT - says Dr CNR Rao

'If IT Is Going To Take Away Our Values, Burn Bangalore, Burn IT' : outlookindia.com

If you read this spirited statement from Dr. CNR Rao, celebrated scientist and educationist, you would either completely agree with him or disagree with him. As a born and raised Bangalorean, I agree sadly to what he says in this piece, in spite of my having benefited from the IT Boom.

Bangalore is not what it was ten years ago; let's not even talk about the city twenty years ago. I undergo the ordeal of a three hour commute every day and it is quite often that I recall those days when I could have made the same trip in a public bus in half the time before.

Malleswaram is an area that has been close to my heart. Having spent north of ten years studying in the schools and colleges of that area, it still evokes warm nostalgic feelings in me. But unfortunately, Malleswaram has become that place "where fools rush in and angels fear to tread". Gone are those lazy afternoon strolls and quite empty streets that were the norm even fifteen years ago. Not one road is spared from the angry honk of a driver that wants to get someplace. Old palatial homes have made way to high rises. Culture is dying a slow death and consumerism has already raised its ugly head. Can we not see a happy balance?

Kannada is already gone. If you speak in Kannada, you are seen either as a hero (as no other dared to speak in Kannada) or as a loser local. I make it a point to talk in Kannada everywhere. English (a pretty bad strain of it, to add) is heard almost everywhere. Che, hEgiddiddu hEgAgide!

The other important point that he brings up as a scientist is the lure of the IT profession. Several intelligent children are all starry eyed when it comes to the mention of a "Software Engineer". I did an informal survey once ; I asked a bunch of children what they wanted to be when they grew up. Barring a couple, the answer was frighteningly uniform - "Software Engineer". My only grouse is that they don't want to be software engineers for love of the profession but they crave to be so for the sheer love of lucre. As a result, what could have been a great brain theorizing and experimenting on the difficult problems of basic science, becomes ready to be a code jockey. I am really really sorry to use this phrase as I am belittling a fantastic job profile - there is tremendous joy in coding. But the love for anything but money is gone. If the IT profession takes some kind of a correction where salaries come closer to the ground, I wonder if all these kids would be as eager then.

It is because of this that whenever I hear a child say that he/she wants to be a teacher/lawyer/scientist/pilot/policeman (anything other than SW engineer), I grin from side to side and heartily congratulate the child and his/her parents.

Will a return to basics solve Bangalore's woes?

Indological Provocations - a new scholarly blog

Indological Provocations

Just came across this wonderful blog of Prof. Arvind Sharma of McGill University, Canada. His posts are well-researched, crisp and very informative.

Read it when you have the time. For example - Is Sanskrit a Brahmanical Language?

Who do you believe?

We had the Tehelka sting operation a few days ago that apparently "proved" the complicity of Narendra Modi's government in the 2002 Gujarat riots. You can find posts about it here and here. The posts pointed to by the links in the previous sentence take Tehelka's sting to be true. I too was much disturbed on seeing statements from some violent people "stung" by Tehelka. And though I don't like Tehelka for their generally sensationalist stance, this story seemed to hard not believe in.

And now, you have several people doubting the "expose". You can look for the basis of the doubt with some relevant links here and here.

Each side has plenty of points to prove its case. Now the question is - who do you believe? In other words, what is the truth? I, for one, am stumped.

I feel that the English media in India are unscrupulous mercenary agents, pandering sometimes to even anti-India interests. But the freedom of media is important for any democracy. How can anybody guarantee this precious freedom without the people themselves being informed? And how can people get informed without significant help from the media? People watch channels of their choice which will continue to feed their viewers what the channels feel fit to telecast. And this will lead to groups of people completely at loggerheads with each other as they feel that their take on any incident is the "right" one and the "other" side simply doesn't "know".

Imagine the leftists - smiling knowing condescending smiles at the great unwashed brute "rightists" and seeing them as animals. At the same time, imagine people from say, the sangh-parivar glaring at leftists, seeing them as traitors that have no respect for the country's Hindu traditions and as a group of trouble-makers that wants everybody to stay in poverty for their selfish political gains. Think of any two such groups. The disagreement between them is just too much for any reconciliation. It is as if these people came from enemy countries.

Can there be a middle ground at all?

vaidyo nArAyaNo hariH !

There is a popular shloka in Samskrita which has been taught to children for a long time now. This is supposed to be recited just before taking any medicine. It goes as follows -

"sharIre jharjharIbhUte vyAdhigraste kalevare |
auShadhaM jAhnavItoyaM vaidyo nArAyaNo hariH ||"

"When the sharIra (body) is suffering and the body is beset with disease, medicine is like the sacred water of the Ganga and the doctor is nArAyaNa Himself".

Another reading would be to consider water of the gangA itself as medicine and nArAyaNa Himself as the doctor. The interesting word here is also "hariH" - hari means some one who destroys. In this case it would mean that nArAyaNa is destroying disease.

Also, the word "sharIra" comes from "shIryate iti sharIraM" - which means it is bound to be destroyed. That understanding is also implicitly conveyed in the shloka - even if one takes enough medicine, the body is eventually something that will decay and get destroyed. With this meaning, nArAyaNa would be apt as He is the protector in the Hindu Trinity - he is protecting the sharIra - something that will decay in the course of time.

As a child (and even now as an adult), I have recited this verse almost involuntarily before taking any medicine. Not once did I think of its meaning then, but now as I grow older, such meanings become seen, not with any effort on my part, but automatically.

Doctors have not always been treated on par with Hari. They have been seen as Yama's cohorts also! There are umpteen subhAShitas which talk about these.But this post is more sympathetic to doctors.

It is not that I have not been to hospitals before - but I was never as close to an action packed emergency room till now. This was a couple of days ago when my uncle was admitted to a hospital. We took him to the emergency room (quite a small one for this hospital's name) which was already full. A child that was lying on the bed in the room was asked to go to another room to accommodate my uncle.

When treatment commenced for my uncle, a group of people barged in with a semi-conscious person on a stretcher. And since the new entrant was more spectacularly (sorry for the seemingly insensitive word - but it was really that - with a lot of curious onlookers craning their necks) sick, my uncle was asked to sit out and wait. My uncle was in a serious condition but his external appearance belied it. Once the rush subsided, my uncle was treated.

In the middle of all this was a doctor patiently negotiating with agitated acquaintances of the patient. He had to make quick decisions on whom to take in and whom to be asked to wait. There was only one doctor as opposed to the ER team we're used to seeing on TV shows. He directed the nurses/para-medics with the elan of a conductor in a symphony while never getting flustered even a bit. Prescriptions came out of his mouth with certainty as did soothing words with grace. Even as I was concerned about my uncle's health, I could not but gaze in awe at the doctor's concern and presence of mind.

For non-medical folks like me, spending an hour or a day in a hospital is torture. But for doctors and nurses this is their life. And, while it is their job, I have great appreciation for them as they have stepped up and chosen these noble professions. And while I do not deny the exploitative nature of a few bad apples in the profession, none can deny that it is indeed a life saving profession.

The other amazing thing is that doctors are not omniscient! With their vast, but limited knowledge, doctors try to play God knowing fully well that they are nowhere close. The "playing God" is mainly to instill confidence and courage in the patients themselves and their anxious relatives. I've seen good doctors maintain a confident body language with words that uplift. A good pat on the back with a warm smile from the doctor does wonders to the patient's mindset.

This amazing profession has unfortunately not been receiving commensurate financial benefits. Why, a driver for a car rental makes more money than some new doctors! And the less said about software engineers (I too am guilty of being one) vis-a-vis doctors, the better.

Good doctors are still hard to come by. People of the older generation used to talk about the "kai-guNa" (the efficacy of a doctor which is orthogonal to the years of experience or the advanced degrees a doctor might have) of a doctor. That is still valid, in my opinion. Some of these might be just heredity and some of these might be acquired. But after seeing doctors and nurses work, I just felt a new sense of appreciation for what they do.

"vaidyo nArAyaNo hariH" - indeed. I fully agree with whoever wrote this verse.

PS: Some good "doctor" books - Ian McEwan's Saturday and Atul Gawande's "Complications" and "Better".