Month: June 2021

Book Review : Man The Unknown

Alexis Carrel 28 June 1873 – 5 November 1944) was a French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump with Charles A. Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation. 

 

 

This book man the unknown was one of the five books Dr APJ Abdul Kalam always kept at hand. 

When men and women of science focus their attention on humanity as a whole instead of restricting themselves to their narrow fields of expertise  the outcome is absolutely illuminating, educative and at times shocking !

The book is of just 300 pages and any attempt to summarise it wouldn’t do justice. I have  quoted certain parts verbatim to give a very brief indication of what the book is about . I am afraid , the review may not make much sense till one gets hold of the book and at least skim over the pages. The book is definitely worth not just skimming over but reading and re reading even if one does not agree with everything the author has to say.

The book is organized into eight chapters.

The introduction says 

THIS BOOK is having the paradoxical destiny of becoming more timely while it grows older.

Today, the way our social media is playing havoc with our lives driving people to violence or depression, the book is more relevant now after almost a century after its first publication.

The first chapter deals with how human civilization (mostly the western civilization) focused more on the study of inane objects mostly because it was possible to measure , weigh and experiment. We lack knowledge of ourselves due to the complexity and the inherent difficulty in studying empirically. 

The second and third chapters cover briefly the human body and physiological activities. These chapters are written as how a scientist would explain complex subjects  to a lay man.

The fourth chapter is on mental activities. Here two issues are highlighted; firstly that mind and matter cannot be studied separately and secondly that moral sense is far more important than intelligence. Doesn’t sound very scientific ?!

The fifth chapter discusses the process of ageing. But the author goes beyond solar time and analyses chronological age along with physiological and psychological age.

Sixth chapter is about adaptive functions. It talks of how a human being adapts and changes physiologically and psychologically to challenges from the environment. I wonder if anyone is studying this aspect in the light of the challenges humankind is facing from the current pandemic.

The seventh chapter is about individuality of each human being. There are many politically incorrect statements on the concept of equality . Each individual is unique and he or she should be treated as such whether from the point of view of employability or health-care or for rights and responsibilities.

The last and the most important chapter is titled “Remaking of Man”. Here, the author gives out definite steps to create a society of individuals free from the the clutches of blind technology and grasp the complexities and wealth of our own nature.  

I give below some of the powerful words from the book that indicates the author’s line of reasoning.

A book definitely worth reading.

 

Native Wisdom

From Jat Regiment Journal 1995, Bicentenary Issue.

Continuing my rant on alternative system of medicines from  here. 

 

 

 

 

I am not against allopathy but as our society gets more and more dependent on specialists , I feel we are losing sight of common sense approach to any issue, particularly health issues. 

This write up of mine was first published in Jat Veer 1995, Bicentenary issue of the Regimental Magazine . At that time I was only looking at the way our troops , the Jats, approached certain healthcare problems. Today, I feel we have rich knowledge base  of traditional systems of health care in every part of our country . Our life style today, has led to over-dependence on specialists . Traditional sources of  knowledge are being dismissed as  superstitions and quackery. I think we need to take a re-look at common sense approach to health care.

 It happened in Pithoragarh circa 1993. My constitution, particularly my extra-sensitive digestive system, has never been my strong point. But what happened to me recently (written in circa 1994) was something really abnormal. It all started around midnight and the rest of the night was punctuated by regular trips to the loo and back. Not unused to such a state I took it in my stride . Next morning, on consulting my better half, and after going through a number of possible reasons for the catastrophe, we decided on a plan of action. We believed that any organism heals itself if allowed to. If output is bad , the input should be examined, we reasoned. So it was decided that I would live on only salt and water (ORF) till I got okay. It suited my wife as well, as it was a day of fasting for her. 

Now, came the deviation from the familiar pattern of a self limiting problem. Every glass of water found its way out in record time. It was as if the entire alimentary canal was one straight tube. So, the doctor enters the scene. 

All he could do was to prescribe a heavy dose of some anti-diarrhoeal medicines and give me a ‘Sick in Quarters’ sentence that exempted me from going to office. 

Then we started on our home remedies. A pitcher full of buttermilk with a liberal dose of Asafoetida , ( hing) was made and I was to take a glassful every half an hour or so. 

In India everyone is a doctor and he or she knows exactly what is to be done . The maid servant arrived and gave her own  recipe for cure. I don’t remember what it was but fortunately for me, it was promptly ruled out by my wife.

My fauji helper then confided to me that , despite a well equipped military hospital in the cantonment, all our men depended on a particular sepoy to cure any stomach ailment. This gentlemen , I was told was ustad (expert) in settling the ‘nerves’. Here I must say , the troops were jats and their stomachs  were particularly sensitive to the quality of drinking water. The problem as spelt out by jats  is sort of untranslatable. It was  colloquially described as ‘dharn dig gaya’ . It could be loosely described as a nerve centre shifting a bit from its precise location .

Mind you ,we were educated and hence very skeptical . But then we were always open to new ideas like resetting a nerve to cure diarrhoea ! 

Enter Lance Naik Ranbir……

A rug was spread on the floor and I had to lie down for examination. So, with a bellyful of medicines and buttermilk with asaphotida , I surrendered myself to the ministrations of Lance naik. He tentatively put a hand on my naval and started probing; with a sudden pressure , he evinced a sharp cry from me at one spot. Now fully convinced of the cause of the problem, he proceeded with the treatment. I was placed belly down with a tightly folded cloth under my naval. Then , deliberately he went on to  pluck the flesh on the back of the thighs on each leg , and  then  he declared I was okay. No, not yet, I was to consume some ‘mithi cheez’ (something sweet) preferably halwa to ensure that the nerve center stayed in place. This was a little too much even for our wide open minds. Anyway, after a little hesitation he agreed that lassi without the hing would do. 

Presto! I became okay. No More discomfort in the stomach and no more trips to the loo. Only thing ; my skeptic mind was quite shaken up by the entire episode. What had caused the problem and how was it cured ? 

The question prompted me to find out about other native remedies. One interesting fact was that sciatica ,called rangar among our troops, was often treated  with a great degree of success, by ‘clearing certain veins in the legs of bad blood’ .

Why don’t the scientifically trained doctors recognize other methods for cure , particularly when they themselves were clueless and were only experimenting, trying out various approaches?

With this incident , I was reminded of what our one year old son had gone  through. It was also so similar . We had gone to a pediatrician and had tried out various medicines and when nothing worked , the doctor  had prescribed a change of diet  to horrible smelling soya bean milk powder from the regular milk powder. Finally it was an old woman, a maid servant, who offered to provide a cure in her desi way. As we had been through so much of ‘scientific’ treatments with no results, we readily agreed. She said the intestines had got  entangled and with gentle patting on the stomach , brought it to normal position. All was okay. This possibility never occurred to the pediatrician ! 

Whatever, I do not say that home remedy is the best solution, but would love to hear our doctors, when they don’t know something , simply  say “We are clueless of the cause or remedies “ instead of using words like ‘idiopathic ‘ or ‘prophylactic treatment ‘ to carry on with  their ‘scientific’ experiments. 

I also wish they look at some of the home remedies with an open mind. We are losing our common sense approach to ailments. At this rate , some day, to stop hiccups , we would be running to doctors and specialists instead of looking for a glass of water.

The Password Bunker

Your life is more digital than ever!  Your identity is indicated by a set of numbers and letters everywhere and each platform or organization identifies you by a different customer number/ account number / email id  or mobile number. The best of the face recognition softwares is not half as good as the friendly neighbour-hood banker or the grocer .

You need to identify yourself to your banker / trader / govt agent or to a dumb system ,at all times through a simple set of username and passwords. I wonder if there is anyone reading this who has not been affected by password issues.

As a teacher, it could have been a question paper or a result sheet that you had been locked out of, resulting in doing it all over again.

As a corporate worker you might have locked some tender related documents and forgotten the key.

It could have been your online banking account that got disabled after three unsuccessful tries . Of late it is the cryptocurrency making news as people lose millions of dollars for forgetting their passwords. A heavy price indeed.

Youngsters have already reconciled to the idea of a passwords controlled digital life be it work or leisure.

Some people of my age, sixty plus, think they can run away from these problems. I am also learning how some are successfully keeping themselves away from the complexities of the binary world. To them , all I can say is that by avoiding technology, they are also depriving themselves of the benefits that digital life brings. Anyway, to each his/ her own.

What prompted me to write the post was a rather tragic set of events. A friend who had passed away, had left all his financial dealings recorded in an excel spreadsheet and had locked it right and proper with passwords. Now even after an year , the family members are unable to access the contents. Then there was another who , probably, did not maintain a record of his dealings and the family members came to know of a transaction only when an affected party told them. Under such circumstances , obviously any money owed to the diseased will be forgotten gleefully  and any money that he owed will be recovered from his kin.

There are also cases where someone has maintained his financial records including passwords very meticulously and the same  falling into wrong hands , leading to a catastrophic effect. A stolen smartphone or a laptop can lead to a financial ruin.

So, on one hand, one needs to maintain a record of all important information including passwords and the same has to be kept protected from fraudsters. On the other hand the information has to be readily available to him  or his next of kin after he is gone.

It is actually not just about passwords, but also about making a place to simply store all the other information for each account – account numbers, phone, expiration dates, even listings that have almost nothing to do with the Web.

Googling over the issue of how best information database can be built and  maintained , I came across this book “Password Bunker” by Paula Capstan. 

Essentially it says , store the details systematically on an Excel Sheet and password protect that sheet.

The idea has been expanded to a complete book of 140 pages. It costs Rs 813/- for a paperback and free for kindle-unlimited subscribers. 

It is an ELI5  book. For the not so young, ELI5 , on the net, stands for Explain Like I am 5. It starts with instructions like click means click the mouse once and double-click means click it twice in quick succession.

There are also many useful insights into how a novice makes up his passwords and how hackers exploit this knowledge. There are lots of practical tips on how to keep the information available and yet keep it safe from prying eyes. One such tip says,” take print outs for short journeys , but keep the username and password on separate sheets. password is of no use without the knowledge of username. That’s why in the Linux world, an username is considered as confidential as the password.

If your password is blue1234 , store it as b4321 and decode it again when you want to use. Bottom-line is that everyone has to find his own method to remember the password, may be  with a small hint noted  down; but something better than asking your spouse ,”hey, what’s my password?” 

As I see it, the book is not worth buying for 813/- but definitely worth going through if you are a subscriber to kindle unlimited. Whatever, the idea of storing information of personal identities on the web , securely , is worth pondering over.

So much for use of a spreadsheet for keeping a record of important information. 

I ran a survey on a telegram group of my age group and the results are as shown.

As can be seen only one vote for an electronic spreadsheet and almost 50% for maintaining a physical diary or note book.

To my pleasant surprise , on Amazon ,I just saw the kind of customized notebooks for the pen and note book types.. 

Discrete password journal lets you store your important internet passwords in one convenient place!

Measuring at 6″ x 9″ (15.24 x 22.86 cm), this password keeper has spaces to record the website name, username, password, and notes
Stop writing your passwords down on sticky notes everywhere
Premium matte-finish cover design
Password Keeper with more than 100 pages

I like it ! A password keeper with more than 100 pages ! The times we live in !

 

Real image and the Virtual Image

Whether we admit or not, these days , our behaviour is very much influenced by the Social media. from ‘chaar log kyaa kahenge’ (what would four people say) to ‘ chaalis log kyaa kahenge’ (what would 40 people say). Coincidentally , across culture , people are always worried about the ‘four people’ who need to approve their behaviour at all times. Why four and why not three or five? I am digressing right at the beginning; need to go on.

At the end of the day, we have spoken , ‘chatted’ or fought, more with our friends, ‘frenemies’  and virtual acquaintances and  of course a great many  total strangers than to real people in our everyday life. We have deliberately projected our virtual image to more people publicly , which may or may not be in line with our real personalities. Americans are cool; they have nicely adapted our word Avatar to indicate one of the many images of a being. My Twitter, FB and Telegram Avatars are so different, some one who has known me only through SM would think they are different people.

It starts with the DP or Profile picture ,that is generally natty or cool as compared to the grumpy you that your spouse sees every day, every moment, even as you are busy posting those ROFL emojis. 

Physical appearance taken care of, the next issue is the projection of the mental ‘you’ ; someone cool, liberal, generous, fun loving, witty etc etc.  

Everyone wants to be projected as witty. Most people forward jokes and funny videos to achieve that. It’s not easy to create contents particularly graphics. Since nobody knows who had made the original content, here it is important to be quick on the trigger. 

A little digression here about humour as such.

To think of it , humour is much more than just reading a joke, even less forwarding one. It is the way one is able to laugh at oneself, see the funny side in ordinary activities in day to day life. I remember reading ‘Uncle Podger hangs a picture ‘ from Three men in a boat. Just an ordinary act of fixing a nail and hanging a picture by a senile old man is narrated so wittily. Whenever , I am on   DIY  mode , the thought of Uncle Podger does bring a smile .

Anything can be laughed at, no sacred cows there. Swami Vivekananda , it seems , used to mimic Ramakrisna Parmahams going into Samadhi , done with such exaggerated comic effect,  sending his guru bhais into peels of laughter. I think in these corona times it would be great to be able to see the funny side of anything.

Coming back to SM, we’ll continue to interact with many avatars of many people including many of total strangers on twitter, FB, Instagram, and what have you. Some people who have been very close to one another have ceased to be on talking terms over some tiff on some virtual platform. Total strangers , who are know to each other only by their DP or avatars have got so close that they eagerly look forward to their ‘likes’ ‘follow’, ‘retweet’ etc. The number of ‘likes’ are also closely watched sending up or down , the Serotonin or Dopamine levels from moment to moment.

I am yet to see a ‘challenge ‘ like ‘nirvana from SM Challenge’ , for obvious reasons that even if you win that challenge where will you announce it and take a bow.

We cannot wish away WhatsApp and Facebook . Why not look at it as one more interesting dimension of real human behavior in a ‘virtual society ‘ ? Why not  choose to be amused  than be annoyed ! 

 

 

My tryst with Asthma

Cont from previous post.  

It was the year 1990, after spending 30 years of my life ,going through all kinds of rigorous physical activities, one fine day , I suddenly found myself gasping for breath after 5 minutes of jogging.

Like a good soldier , I reported to the military hospital in the town. Military hospitals , unlike civil hospitals are very liberal about admissions. I was straight away taken in as an in-patient. After some routine blood tests and x-rays , and observation for about a week, the medical specialist gave the diagnosis as ” acute bronchial asthma”

A point here is that in Army, downgrading medical category is much easier than providing treatment to underlying medical problems. That is one reason you will find many soldiers ‘golfing fit’ and ‘ cocktail worthy’ but not fighting fit. To be declared fighting fit , one has to be fit not just for routine  activities, but fit enough for abuse of the body under all kinds of weather and terrain including a stint at Siachin .

Coming back to my story , I was declared unfit for combat . This kind of down-gradation also meant that I was unfit for doing any training courses and for any promotions. More than anything, I could not attend the much sought after Defence service Staff Course, that I had been nominated for after going through a tough selection process. 

That’s the time I realized that Allopathy has no ‘cure’ for Asthma . The physician who treated me was liberal enough to let me go without an immediate official down-gradation, giving me a chance to cure myself by means other than allopathy.

In those  non-internet days ,whatsapp like stories traveled by word of mouth. Soon I came to be aware of all kinds of weird treatments for asthma. The vegetarian solutions involved different kinds of grass and herbs being ground to a paste and consumed and the non-vegetarian ones went to the extreme of swallowing a fish alive. It was surprising that in one month I came to know so much about asthma than in my entire life. 

I also built up my asthma library to moderate the Whatsapp like stories. (I still have those books) I tried some herbs and exercises but no fish for me please ,cooked or alive. Then someone told me about a place where such ‘incurable’ diseases were cured through yoga exercises.

I had a brief  leave period at Madras, before heading for Wellington, which incidentally enjoys the kind of salubrious climate that is anathema for asthma patients. I headed for Krishnamachari Yogamandiram at Mylapore, run by Shri Kesavachari, son of Shri Krishnamachari ( who was the Guru for both  his son and his younger brother  who is now globally well-known as BKS Iyengar).

Here one must note that Indian systems like Ayurveda or Yoga treat each body as unique and prescribes such treatment that would benefit that person . There is no general remedies like Aspirin for headache or Gelusil for Acidity.

Shri Krishnamachari examined me and prescribed a few breathing exercises. He was not happy that I was available only for two to three sessions to learn the exercises. All the same, he advised me to learn them properly and follow the routine religiously. When I asked him as to the how long will it take to see some results, he, like a mystic , was totally non-committal. He said, “Have faith and just follow the routine”. There was no ‘dosage’.

Not very scientific sounding; obviously there has been no empirical study on the effect of this treatment on a cross section of patients.

I still preserve that original prescription.

So started the regime. It involved getting at five in the morning and doing    the exercises , on empty stomach, that took about forty minutes to complete. Then I had to wait for half an hour before the first intake of any food or drink for the day. 

At Wellington (Ooty), we had a very hectic routine and it was not very pleasant to follow this routine 24×7. Nevertheless, I kept at it . In the beginning ,breathlessness occurred on any light physical exertion like jogging ; but gradually there was improvement and I could play tennis for short periods. I always had asthelin and deriphylin in my wallet, the must have medicines for an asthmatic. I used the medicines very very sparingly, and avoided the inhaler altogether. By the end of the year I could complete a five KM run , a mandatory test, with just only one asthalin tablet . I had come a long way on the path to recovery.

Subsequently, I stopped the exercises, but whenever I had to patrol in the mountainous areas, I went to back to the morning routine . 

Later I had been posted to high altitude areas and have patrolled at 17000 feet, without serious impediments; though I did have  some problems going over steep ascents with heavy loads. In one such situation, what helped me was not my tablets but pure mountain honey ,(eaten with the honeycomb), offered by a Bakarwal (shepherds of Pir Panjal Ranges).

What’s the conclusion ?

             Had I closed my mind to everything other than allopathy, it is without doubt that I would have left active soldiering in 1990, and would still be keeping an inhaler at hand and accepting the situation as unavoidable.

           Allopathic drugs like Asthelin and Deriphylin definitely helped as short term emergency remedies along with availability of oxygen therapy if and when required. But I did not have to go beyond an odd tablet during a bout of breathlessness. 

           Today, if I face a medical emergency would I look only to ayurveda and Yoga ? Not necessarily, particularly for immediate relief. But for any long term effect, I would definitely explore all  systems for healthy living. 

A point to note is that Pathanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga starts with yama and niyama or in simple words Dos and Donts . Many diseases can be prevented or controlled by only these yama and niyama before going on to pranayama and yogasan.

These Dos and Donts that run opposite of what is considered good living are not very popular, understandably.

But the way I look at it , today, I can do anything or abstain from anything just to avoid swallowing some chemicals to achieve a short term or immediate relief. 

The western system analyses and treats diseases. Our indian system studies health to arrive at Dos and Donts for a healthy living. This is what the West would call Preventive Healthcare. If only we can follow our system of healthcare, it is quite possible that there would be no need ever to look to allopathy.