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I have introduced myself to blogging from the iPhone. That's right. I will be sharing my idle chatter from any and all places where today's oxygen (read 3g) is available.
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Liberal

A more perfect universal option

As Obama starts to deliver on what he has been promising ever since the primaries, there is a lot of talk between both wings of the electorate as to how the nation should proceed.

The left wing is deafening in its bid for a public option in healthcare. They are divided into many groups, some of whom believe that a single-payer system is the answer to everything, while others believe that a hybrid of insurance companies with the government is the way to go.

A single payer system basically means that the government will pay for everything. A patient will walk into a doctor's office, hand him an insurance card, and would have to pay for nothing that ensues. The government picks up the tab. Sounds good huh? Especially if you've recently been a victim of the insurance monsters who screwed you with words like co-pay, tier-4, pre-existing condition etc. Let's however look at it from another point of view. Who is the government? We are. The people have to pay for all this through taxes. There is a good chance that taxes would go up, and that each member of the population will contribute towards the healthcare of every other member. This means you will have to contribute towards the well-being of every chain-smoker, every lardass who gorges on donuts, and cheeseburgers (with bacon) and does not do anything that remotely resembles exercise till his arteries are so clogged that they resemble Milan subway after a heavy rainfall in Mumbai.

A hybrid system (like France has) is one where the government still holds the lion's share, but there is room for private for-profit organizations in the system. Typically, one has to pay health insurance as a citizen of France, so the system is primarily run by taxation. Around 85% of your healthcare expenses are reimbursed to you, (upto 100% in severe cases). The remaining money can also be recovered using additional insurance. By taxing the higher economic strata at a higher rate (a reasonable system), the average French person contributes roughly1% of his earned income to his own healthcare.

Conservatives like to demonize public option health care as 'socialized medicine'. I will cop to that. But come on...you guys send your kids to public schools (completely run by govt.), use your local library service, visit places like central park in Manhattan, and don't seem to complain about the evils of big government then. Nobody seemed to mind when the govt. swooped in and bailed out large banks, which failed due to unbridled capitalism.

F. Scott Fitzgerald has a wonderful quote, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." That is what is expected of the intelligent electorate today. So, let us look at the right-wing and see what irks them about single-payer options.

Capitalism is what sustains America as a nation where anyone can make it big, if he has a good idea and can find the right backers. The Republican party has always favored legislation that supports entrepreneurs and I tend to agree, for it is they who create jobs, and boost the economy. People with jobs ergo people with money, ergo people who can consume the products of other entrepreneurs who will create more jobs, and ideally this cycle should lead to a prosperous free-market economy.

Countries like Canada, the UK, France etc which have universal health care show remarkable delays when it comes to getting appointments for surgeries. I see no way of arguing my way out of this statement. The govt. does function slower than private organizations. What can we do?

Selfishness and greed fuel innovation, and competition helps create excellence. Few people doubt the wisdom in the gist of my previous sentence. What follows logically is that private companies who have their profits as their continuous incentive would innovate more, and their competition would help us get the best products at the lowest price. Shouldn't this logic work for healthcare as well? Why should there be a halo around healthcare as though it is something divine? (and my readers know too well my opinion of anything regarded as divine!) Let us run healthcare as business, and the same rules can apply. Conservatives also argue that socialized healthcare in other developed countries is well enough, but even they require the tireless innovation of the free-market USA.

Here is a statistic that should shock their conscience. The US govt (specifically the National Institute of Health) funds 28% of the total biomedical research that happens here. This figure is greater than that of the contribution of any one pharmaceutical company. How can we be sure that a higher percentage of govt. funding will be deleterious? I am a biomedical researcher myself, and know that everyone around me covets the elusive NIH grant, which is tough to get, but even tougher in these times, because the govt. is busy giving indirect bonuses to AIG executives.

As far as innovation is concerned, the right wing does all it can to scuttle that too. Opposition to stem cell research from religious nuts (whose opinion should not even be considered for a lack of a rational foundation) has made sure that countries like South Korea are ahead of the US in stem cell research, something that promises to help treat some very major problems. Incidentally, here is a very interesting and informative article about South Korea's health care system (A National Health Insurance or NHI) and the problems it has.

So you know the spot we are standing on? It's called Square One!

What is the correct option? Well, no one can ever know until the option succeeds or fails. We don't possess Hermione's time turner to reverse a bad decision either.

Another complaint that conservatives have with this system is that no one gets to choose their doctor, or the care that they get, simply because in this country, it is financially expedient (via tax breaks) for an employer to purchase health insurance in bulk for his many employees. Herein lies a part of the problem. There is a chance of collusion between the insurance company and the employer, which means that you might be getting sub-standard care so that your boss gets his meal ticket. The solution to that is simple. Remove this tax break. Let every person purchase his own health insurance, and the competition will take care of itself. Right?

Well, almost. The problem still stays, because there is another lobbying organization called the AMA (American Medical Association) which helps keep the salaries of medical practitioners high. It also keeps the tuition for medical degrees high (in turn). The promise of a higher salary lures more medical aspirants, and the demand for medical seats increases, thus increasing tuition. There is far too much pampering going on at the behest of the AMA. There are new occupations being created like nurse-practitioner, physician-assistant etc etc, which means more money. They all bill your insurance carrier, who then drops you because you are too much of a risk.

An altruistic thought also goes to those 50 million who are not covered at all in the US right now. An appalling figure for an industrialized nation.

I would say that let us all be selfish for once. For the most of us, we fall under the $250000 per annum salary limit that Obama was dealt so harshly for. So, the fact is that the insurance of the at-risk population under a single-payer option would be shouldered by the very rich. Screw them! No listen. One man, one vote is a clear mandate. The bum on the street has as much legal influence on the outcome of the election as Warren Buffet. That itself is a socialized system. Let us all act selfishly. Forget the idea that socialism would destroy the fabric of the US and all that blah...look at it simply. What if the government figured out a way to put the majority of the burder on the people who make more money than you can fathom? How is it your problem? Who cares what label they put on it? Socialism, universal health care, etc etc...how about we all just follow whatever gets the job done?

This is a very long rant from me. As I have said before, I am in the healthcare fraternity, but am not an economics expert. Better opinions are sought. Rebuttals and conflicting ideas are most welcome.

Pol khuli

The things we say whilst in a relationship but don't really mean

1. "Yes, you were the first."
   
2. "Yes, you are the last."
   
3. "Trust me, they're big enough." (Actually this does work both ways!) (I am getting a FRIENDS flashback.)
   
4. "Of course I noticed the new earrings."
   
5. "She was just a crush."
   
6. "You are right. I didn't know what I was thinking."
   
7. "I never understood (insert random topic) until I discussed it with you."
   
8. "Of course I can cancel beer with the guys."
   
9. "I was thinking about you."
   
10. "I think sports are pedestrian."
    
11. "I don't read action novels, I'm more into non-fiction political journalistic writings."
    
12. "I think sex is overrated; we should get to know each other first."
    
13. "Sex is best when you're in love."
    
14. "I was stuck in traffic."
    
15. "I was at (insert random friend)'s house."
    
16. "I hate shopping, but with you, somehow, it is fun."
    
17. "I don't know her."
    
18. "Seriously, I mean it, I don't know her."
    
19. "Your mom is wonderful."
    
20. "You're right, your dad is the best man I know."
    

You guys are welcome to add more.

A chhoto mayor tale...

"Reverse racism!", cries the right, while the left screams, "About time!"

The centrists are left to do the math. Sotomayor has good qualifications. She is a graduate of Princeton and Yale law. She does not have any skeletons in her closet (yet!), which leaves the right splitting hairs on her rulings.

Hispanics used to occupy a sizable portion of some parts of the USA. This can be evidenced by the Spanish-sounding names of many cities and towns. They are a large enough portion of this country to deserve representation in the Supreme Court. Only if the person is qualified of course. So, why is the right not finding any real fault with Sotomayor, even though they are screaming bloody murder.

The right had nominated a person named Clarence Thomas, and he was a redneck in a black camouflage. Incidentally, he has been silent for a long time on the bench, and one wonders if he has another opinion left in him, or if Scalia does the talking for him. In contrast, Sotomayor is brown inside and out, and that seems to incense the right more than anything else.

There is another angle to consider here. In almost all civilized countries equipped with a detailed and functional constitution, the judges are a little above review. Phrases like 'independent judiciary' are not uncommon in the civics curriculum of most countries. These judges cannot change the law. They are allowed to rule on cases based on their interpretation of the laws. An activist judge is one who, based on what he thinks the law should be, rules over cases by stretching the bounds of the existing law (within his discretion) to accommodate his rationale. Chains of such rulings would slowly bring about a change in the law. In this, the Supreme Court wields awesome power.

As the judges are (in a way) above the law, one wonders if they need to represent the people exactly. For example, one would not insist that the US Olympic swim team be a perfect representation of the population. We just want the most qualified people. It seems like an oversimplified analogy, but upon close examination, it has some weight. So, the argument of the left that we need a Latino person on the bench, or that we simply need more women, needs to be swiftly swatted. Obama was always going to tap a minority candidate for this, or a woman. What he did by this move is to shore up some real liberal populist mileage by going for a minority woman. One hopes that no person more qualified for the crime of being a white male. It was politics, but he is a politician, and he has to play the game. You can't blame him for that.

However, for all the screams from the right, I don't see them providing any alternatives. I see no evidence being presented by them of white men who are more qualified but simply passed by. Where is their list of qualified, jilted people who are being the victims of reverse racism?

In the end, the one thing that should be balanced on the Supreme Court is the left-right ratio. With Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia, Alito, Thomas tilting the bench so emphatically to the right that it now resembles a suspended bar magnet pointing north, it leaves Breyer and Stevens as somewhat moderate, with Ginsburg being the only seemingly liberal one. Sotomayor, one hopes, will help make this bench more horizontal.

Pain & resilience

"I like to punish myself L, I like to punish my body and keep pushing its limits." This was said to my uncle by his colleague when they were talking about exercising and trekking and stuff like that.

When he had told me this sentence, I scoffed. I was a firm believer in "No pain...what's the catch?" philosophy. It had its effects. A growing kaboose, reducing stamina, and chronic fatigue, which spoiled my mood so much that it led me to eat more, and the vicious circle was complete and running smooth.

Recently, upon the initiation of a cousin, I grudgingly started jogging. It was bad, at first, but it started feeling good when my endurance improved. Put on a fast song playlist and you are one with the road.

It was then that I actually understood what that lady was talking about. The more you push your body, the more you stand to be surprised by what it can do for you. Just when I felt like I had run too much, and could not take any more, the racy track on my mp3 player would egg me on.

Over the past few weeks, I have been going through some tough times. (Nothing too bad, mujhe baat ka batangad banane ki aadat hai!) I have to admit, there are moments when I feel that nothing can save me from this hell...those moments come especially when the AT&T customer-care lady asks me to call after two hours because the system is updating, even though she knows that they shut down for the day in an hour! Telecom in the US is no comparison to what it is in India. I could call hutch at 3am and be dealt with patiently by the most wonderfully polite technician...but I digress.

Pain teaches us a lot about ourselves. I believe, or rather, have come to believe that our tolerance to pain is released by the body in punctuation. There will be a time when you feel all the pain you can bear, and days later, you feel an affliction which dwarfs the previous one. This is true for physical and mental strife.

Another thing pain teaches me is resilience. Human beings are so damn resilient. They can recover from anything and adapt to anything. That is the very foundation for most of the arranged marriages in India.

Bernard Shaw said, ""The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man."

The pain that taught me resilience, and tolerance also screams that we must learn to draw our own line. At no point are we to tolerate less than excellence. If we are getting less than our fair share of anything, it becomes our responsibility to reach out and grab it by whatever means.

Our personalities, however, scuttle such logic. I, for one, am a little more emotional than most, and while I can be ruthlessly cold at times, when I am affectionate with someone, I tend to give them no half measures. Even if it means tolerating less than your fair share...and that brings more pain.

So, I jog, just to feel good, and while I understand the philosphy of serious athletes, I think I choose to verbalize my feelings about it to the primitive stuff like losing weight, looking better, feeling more energetic...

Strange happiness

I had written this some time ago...it seemed nice then...let's see how it plays out now.

I don't know what has come over me
A strange ephemeral happiness
A feeling of satiation, coupled with
Some anxiety

It shows me more of who I am
Shows me more of who I'm not
Makes me realize my predilections
On this path of self-discovery

Shaken I feel with some turmoil
Upset I am at something in the air
Yet there is a peace I cannot describe
The joy and pain in this diatribe
Is palpable as you can see

It is truly me, as me as I can be
For as long as I live I will not forget
Nor will I wish we never met.

A random note about me

A long time ago, I had read somewhere that 'ethics' were a luxury of people whose basic needs were already met. Pretty cynical huh?

I always thought of myself as a principled and ethical person, who would not bend rules just to satisfy some greed. Recently, I was decribed by someone as 'internally good'. (The same person, however also called me 'andar se kameena' many times. Some others have said of me, 'Dil saaf hai bechare ka.'

To all this, I say,"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist."

I try to be nice, and a few years ago, one would probably have seen me falling over myself tow in some elusive approval through others. My self-worth has, since then, been patched well and escalated to a lakshanamaana delusion of grandeur that goes with being the scion of a Tambram family.

I went through the same old brainwashing as a child about how one is useless if kanaku was not one's forte.

Growing up, I heard all the protectionist parental arguments about how arranged marriages are practical, and how parents know all. I was given examples of failed love marriages where the story is an embarrassment to all involved and an entertainment to all within earshot. I never bought the parental 'because I said so' rationale and challenged it at every step. This usually resulted in lots of scoldings and slaps. I always believed in the beauty of love, and fished out data about happy couples who were the product of love marriages and found out, soon after, that the percentages of bad marriages were pretty much the same either way.

Food: A lot of people I know like to call themselves foodies. I thought I was one too for a long time. I still think so, but after having understood the true meaning of loving food. Earlier, I ate and ate (and I am not alone in this) to fill a personality void, as a sort of mental anesthesia from the loneliness. The problem with that was that I ate all the wrong food: KFC, gyro, etc., which were no culinary feats, but just fatty food which numbed me completely. Certain changes over the past year gave me the direction that my non-academic life needed. I use food in the opposite way now. I eat out less often, but more from the non-chain, quaint, rustic places where the food quality is good. That being said, my palate has refined over time. I literally get nauseous when the door to Burger King opens as I pass by it.

Reading: My reading evolved just like every normal child. I was into Sherlock Holmes and the classics (Dickens, Bronte, etc) from an early age. I was knee-deep in Enid Blyton for a few years. Upon a sister's insistence, I read some Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys stuff, but did not appreciate them much. Archer, Ludlum, Forsyth, Hailey and the like followed.

Rowling then came, and cemented her place in my top 5. I don't care what anyone says about the Potter series being kids' books, even the most hardened naysayers grudgingly admit that Rowling 'kanna pinnanu ezhudaraal.' Now that Harry is living happily ever after, I keep re-reading Ayn Rand and Dawkins and Hitchens.

Some of my favorite quotes:

1. "Tradition is the illusion of permanence" - Woody Allen

2. "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions." - Thomas Jefferson

3. "Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là" (I had no need of that hypothesis) - Pierre-Simon Laplace, when asked by Napoleon why he did not mention God in his book on astronomy. This one is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to a fine blogger as it is a demonstration of Occam's razor wielded by Laplace.

and finally,

4."The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit." - William Somerset Maugham

Clean socks

Swimming was the most relaxing thing in her life. Even though she was a runner, and loved roller-blading, but there was nothing like gliding in water. Taking in the cool water while it swept over her made her feel like it cleansed her every pore. She was OCD clean, but the dirty water tended to make her feel pure. She always knew that river swimming was not a piece of cake, the currents were strange and the fresh water was not easy to float in.

The currents were seductive from afar, but from the river bank they were positively enchanting. She knew without experience that there would be a feeling of liberation attached to the currents. It reminded her of the bungee jump she had made, which led her peripatetic mind to the joke about the similarity between a bungee jumper and a family planner. She smiled in spite of her impending challenge. Anybody who knew her always found her to be gutsy. Gutsy, not brave simply because brave implies that a person is willing to risk all or something they have to obtain something else, or to make a statement. For self-destructive ones like her, with nothing to lose, and not much to look forward to, being gutsy was simply a by-product.

There was always an edgy abrasiveness in her silence, her lack of social graces coupled with her apathy for the approval of others made her stand out. How would you explain a person's behavior when their chain of motivation was indecipherable to most? She was an enigma, to herself and others.

The circumlocution of the water created enough discomfort. She loved punishing her body. It was the twisted reason for her amazing will-power at the gym. The water kept pulling her in and she started struggling. She knew that she was in danger now, while knowing that she was waiting for this very moment. The adrenaline rush from small danger was as addictive as a drug, and not unlike a drug, one needed higher and higher doses to get excited because of the tolerance the body developed. The more she tried to pull herself out, the more control she seemed to lose. She knew that this was planned, but the magnitude shocked her. Even if she survived, this would change her in ways that she had not bargained for.

The water was steadily entering her mouth now. Her lungs were filling up, and she could feel her breath shortening at every increment. Her eyes had started to burn and the person who prided herself upon her ability to think on her feet was now drawing a blank. Her strength was definitely failing now, and her strokes lacked the vigor she had begun with. She closed her eyes with a finality, as she felt her normally lithe body turn into dead weight. She wanted to quickly make her peace with the impulse of death.

She felt a palm grasping hers. The texture felt smooth, unlike the dried raisin-like feel that her own palms had, which told her that this was a rescue attempt. It is very important to let the person saving you to hold you, if you tried to hold him, there is a chance you will both drown. She knew this. She knew that this person was her ticket out. But, how do you save a person who is holding herself back for some unfathomable reason?

There was no thinking now. All her responses were visceral. Half her impulses guided her hand to grasp that friendly hand, the other half fought it.

Lying to yourself

Honesty with the self is the hardest thing to achieve. People always say, “It is easy to lie to the whole world, but how can you lie to yourself?” We say this while each one of us is deluding ourselves from the fact that we all lie to ourselves; and pretty well too. I have a friend who breaks his diet whenever we go to Sardar pav bhaji (for non-Mumbaikars, it is a place in Tardeo, Mumbai where the pav bhaji has more butter than Amul could possibly manufacture, and any mention of this place to your gym instructor earns you an extra half hour on the treadmill.), another who has convinced himself that he is smart; it is the professors who don’t understand his true potential (Oh wait, that’s me!)

How can you look in the mirror after lying to a friend that you don’t have time to meet him or her? How do you sleep at night after hanging up on your mom after telling her that life is too hectic to talk now, and then calling a friend over for a few beers? It’s easy. We all do it. We brush our teeth and dress ourselves and comb our hair, all using that reflective surface that is saddled with the responsibility of weeding out liars. We sleep pretty well too, admittedly the beers do their share of work there…

What is amazing about this is not the steady regularity with which we do this, but the creative rationalizations that we invent so that we can lie to ourselves with impunity. Oh come on…one drink won’t do anything to me…one gulab jamun can’t hurt…she is only a friend, so what if I cannot tell my wife about her…

Someone once told me that when you find something difficult to do but cannot fathom why, it could be your subconscious telling you that you don't want to do it. Something like a right brain thing which runs the creative side but fails to convince the logical left brain that certain things need to be done while others, avoided.

Our whole idea of life seems to be about telling ourselves that we need to be this and do that. Setting almost ungettable goals because failing to reach gettable goals is something we cannot stomach.

Whenever I write a blog post about some issue, I start off objectively trying to put forth a problem to the readers, but towards the end I find myself trying to explain the cause of that very problem. This time...I am opening the floor itself. Not only to get your comments, but to present this problem in front of you undisturbed by my opinion.

Cynical Cheney

Ex-VP Dick Cheney has made a public statement supporting gay marriage. His statement, "I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish," clearly shows that he is not even on the fence on this issue.

Oh dear! If only you had ever been in a position where you could pass a legislature allowing gay marriage…oh wait…you were VP for eight years!

As for his daughter being gay, she was very gay even when John Kerry mentioned it before the 2004 elections. He was admonished publicly for this very truism. Mrs. Cheney called John Kerry a bad man.

2004 was the election when the Republican base had got in bed with the Christian right, and so much as breathing in the direction of gay marriage would have meant a loss of support from jingoistic Christian crowds. Now, however, when Barack Obama is plagued with solving the economic crisis, and (with all due respect to homosexuals) can't be bothered with the pro-gay marriage legislation right now, Cheney seems to have a hitherto non-existent angst for the plight of homosexuals in the USA.

Meera’s woe (Concluding part)

The sunlight blazed into the room as Meera could not help waking up. After an entire week of lazing around and committing all possible abacharams her grandma would have frowned upon, her mom noticed that Meera seemed to be on the phone quite often, and not too cheerful. Even her visit to her engineering college seemed to get her down. She always had an inkling that her daughter was in a relationship, which was confirmed the previous night when Meera told her everything. In all probability, he could not have been smart, together person. At least, not a lot. She never seemed comfortable talking about him. But, then again, Meera was not the kind to go to anyone for advice, even her parents, and any advice given unsolicited would be met with a polite but firm indifference. Maybe Meera would finally start opening up to her and they could be closer than they were.

Meera got up from the bed, and went straight to her laptop. Of course, there was no Wi-Fi at home, so she had hooked up an Ethernet cable. The net was still too slow though. Orkut opened while she brushed her teeth. She was not particularly the web-social networking type per se, but lately she found herself checking her scraps with an uncanny sense of longing. Ah ha! There was a scrap from him. It was another general stab at humor, but she could sense that he was trying. It was fun to see guys manufacture friendships out of thin air. So…he was longing to be home huh. "Big deal, who asked you to wait till December, you should have come now na!" She blushed slightly as the next page loaded ever so slowly, and saw her latest scrap on his profile.

The Times of India website on the other firefox tab was full of sensationalist crap, but had an easy-to-read layout. She started reading the editorial while her email toolbar beeped. A return scrap from him. Good god! Does this guy sleep next to his laptop? It must be 2:30am in Maryland right now!

Another day, another fight. This time, he was accusing her of falling for someone else. Preposterous! Well, not quite, maybe there was some truth there, but surely it wasn't the cause of the souring of the relationship. The converse, however, could have been true.

King's circle was as busy as she knew it; crossing the roads depending on the signal was as dangerous as before. There was always one spoilt brat who drove rashly. Seven eleven softy was creamier than ever (was that even possible) and the familiar Xerox wallah remembered her after almost a year! Yet, nothing was getting her mood up. She was not the self-pity kind, just someone who went into a self-protective cocoon when bad times hit, to achieve mental clarity more so than anything else. Taking the train home was as annoying and sweaty as usual.

Days passed slowly but their accumulation was going to hit her like a truck.

The truth about relationships (as she knew it) was that they all started out hot and heavy, then settled into slow progress and then reached a plateau. The next course from an evolutionary perspective was decline, and it took constant effort from both parties to help maintain that plateau. She had read this kinda stuff, and her ever-cynical psyche had come up with the idea of choosing stability over spontaneity. Settling into a relationship with a good friend with no obvious flaws seemed like the most pragmatic idea. She had spent many a time scoffing at friends who actually did the whole dating ritual. Why would someone willfully expose themelves to heartbreak? People in general are a mix of strong and weak moments. Idealizing a person was nothing but a shortcut to the inevitable disappointment when you find out that they weren't everything you expected them to be.

Now however, she wanted to believe in the existence of a real, fulfilling relationship. She could, of course, be wrong this time. Surely, being practical was the sanest course of life to take.

"Vaa maa, polaam…check-inukkku time aayiduchhu!"

Two and a half months, gone in a flash. Baltimore was beckoning. New semester, same old friends, new house, new roommates, plus one guy who seemed seriously interesting and minus an annoying and emotionally depleting relationship. She walked inside the airport after the cursory hugs (including a teary one from her brother) thanking god for the increased security measures which did not allow anyone except the passenger to enter. Who wants a protracted goodbye! She felt a qualified optimism, and knew things would be fine.

Even if nothing worked out, it was still a pretty good life she had.

(PS: If this ending seems abrupt, forgive me. – Liberal)

Moving

(Opening Caveat: This post is not related to Meera's woe. I am working on the concluding part right now. I will post that soon.)

I hate moving. I can completely relate to people stuck in dead-end apartments simply because they aren't able to summon up the energy and the drive to move into another place.

Here I was in the Nolita area of downtown Manhattan helping my cousin move from an apartment which was close to an amazing billiards bar, three fantastic coffee places and oodles of enticing pubs, not to mention three subway stations which pretty much gave access to all parts of Manhattan. He was moving to a place in Chinatown which has only Chinese restaurants all around, no subway stations at a stone's throw, and let's just say that the old place had refined his taste so much that the mud served in the name of coffee in the nearby restaurants was no longer passable.

So why was he moving? Was it to save on rent? Not really. He was gonna pay the same amount. The reason was that his old room was the size of a matchbox, and the new one was the size of a bigger matchbox. He could now have that printer he was so eager to have!

So, ten bags in all. One of them weighed around 50Kg. It had to be carried down six flights of stairs. (Believe it or not, this ultra-modern, capital of the world had some really old buildings with no elevators!) The last time I swore this much was when Zaheer Khan had got bitch-slapped by Matthew Hayden in the final of the 2003 World Cup. We had begun the day by discussing how both of us have turned into fat pigs, and need to hit the gym hard. We both swore to start an exercise schedule as the waitress was clearing out the plates which had the remnants of our tiramisu. Hypocrisy is fun!

Finally all the luggage was brought down to the waiting area, and I was guarding the bags while my cousin was getting a cab, a task which in NYC is only slightly easier than a BCom graduate performing a craniotomy.

I was getting dirty looks from the beautiful girls who had to jump over the bags to get to the stairs. Now, I am no good-looker, so while I would never expect a second look from these fine ladies, the last thing I needed was to be in their bad books. What if these hot women periodically met during their Amazingly Hot Women club meetings and blacklisted me as a potential date to the category called "Not even if he was made of money." Why would someone with no apparent cerebral deformities move from a place with such amazing talent to Chinatown, which, don't get me wrong, simply lacked the diversity of quality that was in ridiculous abundance here defying all notions of probability.

The cabbie kept asking annoying questions about where the new address was. You may consider me an ass for thinking this, but a cabbie needs only two skills, driving and direction. So, if you cannot find an address that is less than a mile away from the starting address, you are not exactly worthy of the tip that you so self-righteously demand while you are watching us unload our uber-heavy bags.

"Hey Maggie, can you please come down and open the door, we are here with the bags." My cousin was already on the phone to his new roomie. She came out of her fire-escape (which doubles as a balcony) and threw the keys down. Neither cuz nor I went for the catch. Why try, drop and then cut a sorry figure as the other berates you for your poor fielding skills?

This apartment was on the third floor (thankfully!) and we got the luggage up there quick thanks to our freshly built biceps from bringing the luggage down at the other place.


We opened the beer we had hauled all the way here, and drank it even though it was warm.

Meera’s woe: Part 2

May 2008

"Thank you for flying Emirates Airlines. Please wait for exit instructions from the cabin crew." The voice sounded young, though Meera knew better. Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport was here at last. She was going to meet her family after nine months. She could picture their excited faces in her head. Why she was not excited, she could not tell. She longed to see her little brother. Her sister would be cool when she sees her, but she was always a guarded person, who could be stoic even when seething underneath. You just had to get used to it.

Meera stretched her legs and yawned. She wasn't that tall, but planes were really skimping on the leg room these days. At least the ticket was cheap, she thought. She was looking forward to two and a half months of relaxation, not to mention home-cooked food. She was an average cook at best, but her tastes were absolutely high class. Romba naaku neelam maa onaku was an oft-heard refrain in her house. She filled out the customs form as the swarthy guy in the seat next to hers got her bag from the overhead compartment. "I hope this does not mean he is gonna walk all the way to the exit with me", she thought. He wasn't ugly, but she wasn't interested. The one thing that always escaped her was that guys never understood the 'thanks, but no thanks' face she put on. Maybe they would rather delude themselves into thinking that there was a fraction of a chance than face the truth.

She had always wanted to do a masters and a PhD. There was never any question in her mind. Her usually broad-minded parents had turned surprisingly conservative when she mentioned it during her TE. They were all excited that their daughter was becoming an engineer, and that a good mapillai was the next step. After all, why would she need to study so much when she had to be a housewife! Meera wanted to throw something sharp and heavy at her uncle when he said that, especially when his son was leaving for the USA to do an MBA in that very year. She winced at the memory of that conversation and said a silent prayer that that uncle should not be at the airport.

Baggage claim was the usual one-hour wait. "If I fly enough times, at least once, my bags should arrive first on the conveyor belt", she thought. Even she knew that the bags that came first simply belonged to no one, and that her bags were carefully identified by the handlers and put towards the end of the line. Well, her optimism was clearly induced by her own cynicism. She could see the exit now. She could smell the clammy Mumbai air, with the ridiculous amounts of pollution and sheer noise and odor, which were absent from her life the past year. Damn! It was good to be home.

She had always been an emotionless girl, on the surface that is. Anyone who knew her would describe her as stoic and calm no matter what the situation. A precious few people in the world knew how emotional she actually could be. She was sad to admit to herself that her pseudo-boyfriend was not on that list. She would have to meet him too now…did she think 'have to'? She was gonna break up with him sooner or later. She lied to herself that it was because she wanted space and he was not giving it to her, but the truth was that she never really had any romantic passion for him. He had been the safe choice, and she now realized she probably wanted more. "I better wear something old when I meet him to end it, he is gonna sob all over my clothes anyway." She chided herself for being so callous. Maybe that was the truth. Maybe she did not care about him, because she simply did not care. Her optimism kept fuelling the thoughts that maybe that guy exists, the one who was an intellectual challenge to her, and yet one that could get her juices flowing. Maybe settling for what was available was stupid. Her research work was fulfilling enough. There was no need for a boyfriend, unless he was the one.

A small voice inside her still resented her for not feeling anything even though she was meeting her parents after a long time. She was near the exit now. She could see the crowd, all waiting for someone or the other. She started scanning the crowd for them. Ah! Was that her brother, no…false alarm. Suddenly someone grabbed her by the wrist.

"Appa…amma…."

And the tears just started flowing.

(To be continued)

Meera’s woe: Part 1

September 2003

Meera sighed at the sight of the building. It was more dilapidated than she had imagined the ruined palaces of the Ottoman Empire to have been. She had to strain to hear the rickshaw driver. This surprised her, for she had never known a man to speak with such a soft voice. She paid him Rs. 100 and expected him to make any excuse possible to avoid giving her the change of Rs. 7.50, but he surprised her again. Ooty was warmer than she had expected in September. She walked in and asked the soporific guard to direct her to the matron's office. A groggy thumb point later, she found herself face to face with one of the saddest people she had seen (not counting her little brother at the sight of her leaving).

"Welcome. You have been assigned room 22. It is on the second floor."

"Thanks for letting me know, I would have been hunting for 22 on all other floors if it had not been for you."

"No problem dear."

Uh oh, she thought. When people don't get sarcasm as simple as that, you can't expect much sharpness from them.

Trying to outrun the rats was a lost cause. They just knew their way around the hostel better. Meera just had to see the bathroom. She knew what to expect, but her optimism always put her in embarrassing positions, like betting on India to win even when they needed ten runs per over with three wickets in hand. Her instinct did not disappoint. The bathroom was ugly, and the smell quickly reminded her of the time when she had passed by an opened men's room at her old school.

Doing Bachelors in Engineering was her decision from the start, but she had not bargained for the archaic rule that all first year students were mandated to stay in the government hostel. It was basically a lockdown. You are actually paying money and being force-fed something. Is this what communism feels like, she thought. She dragged her dejected self to room 22, and sure enough it was on the second floor!

"Hi, I am Jyoti; this is Kusum, and you must be…"

"Meera…nice to meet you. So, you must be BE too right?"

"Oh! You are BE, no yaar, this hostel has freshers of many streams. I am doing my Bachelors in Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Kusum here is doing arts."

How the hell are these girls so cheerful in this hell-hole? "By the way, how is the food here? Do they serve non-south Indian food anytime?"

"Yes, Thursdays and Sundays we get to have some Punjabi dishes, if the mess aunty is in a good mood? Why? Surely you are South-Indian…"

"Yeah, does not mean I need to live on sambar and rasam for the entire year right? Also, I was brought up in Mumbai." Well, it was Runwal Nagar, Thane, but these people need not know that.

"Oh Mumbai, I have many relatives there…"

"Really lemme guess, Matunga right? I can practically smell the coffee beans and chicory!"

"FYI, it is Thane, but you need not be that rude. In any case, I am Malayali, not Tamil."

"Oh! I did not mean to offend you" (Well, I did actually but, I am sure you will believe me if I say I did not.)

Nine weeks later.

"Meera, Dr. Bala is asking for you. You need to see him at the end of class today."

"Sure, who is he?"

"You have been here two months and you don't recognize the principal's name?"

"I wasn't aware of that being on the syllabus!"

"Yeah whatever, just go see him. That's all I care about."

"Cheer up Kusum, I'm sure it is about the hostel."

Outside the class, up the stairs, thirty paces to the right and through a door bearing Dr. A. S. Bala in gold letters.

"Ah, Meera Iyer. Have a seat. I take it our conditions in the university hostel are below your expectations?"

Silence.

"Don't you know that all freshers have to spend their entire first year in the Uni hostel? I cannot allow you to change hostels at a whim."

"I don't get it Dr. Bala. I changed hostels two weeks ago. Your sphere of influence is shrinking fast."

(Come on…don't be a smartass. You don't want the principal after you in the first year itself.)

"Yes, you need to move back in the hostel or face the consequences."

"Please do whatever you wish sir, I have made my decision."

"Very well, you may go."

She spun on her right heel and left the room. The private hostel was a small bike-ride away. No more rats for roommates and food dabbas delivered by hand every afternoon and evening. Things were good so far…

Something always bothered her. It was like a grain of sand in her eye, or a stone in her shoe, annoyingly uruthufying her, reminding her of its presence. She knew that these four years were just a limbo. Her future happiness and contentment was elsewhere. Little did she know how close she would get to it before losing it.

(To be continued…)

Pharma: Debating the ethics

For the uninitiated, a clinical trial is pretty much a study of a new drug or formulation in humans. Before this, the drug/medication has been tested in animals which progressively go up the evolutionary scale to make sure that our principle has some modicum of proof. These trials usually have three phases which when complete and analyzed lead to a decision as to whether this medication does what it purports to do and is safe for use in the intended dose.

These trials are usually conducted in large hospitals where the subjects are lined up and then administered the drug in some form. In the initial stages, the drug is tested on healthy subjects, and when it is proven not to cause any adverse effects that completely preclude its use, the drug is tested on actual patients.

Placebo effect is the effect of the patient's knowledge that he is getting treated, on the improvement of the patient's condition. This might seem negligible, but some diseases have huge psychological components, which might be assuaged by the knowledge that a person is being treated. Hence, each trial will also have a bunch of people getting no drug at all, but just a placebo, which means that if this person shows signs of getting cured, we cannot completely rely on the medication curing the patient. In other words, such a placebo effect will reduce the veracity of the hypothesis that the drug actually cures the ailment it is supposed to.

There are many ethical issues with clinical trials. The one I wanted to focus on is the fact that there are large numbers of patients who are getting nothing but the placebo. These people might be dying from a hitherto untreatable disease, and might be pinning all their hopes on this experimental clinical trial. Even though their presence in this trial is futile to them, they are invaluable as they provide the baseline on which the positive results of the drug can be measured.

I saw a TV show about doctors in a hospital where a doctor conducting a clinical trial actually moved a patient from a placebo to the real drug because he knew her. Let's not even bother with the doctor's intention behind this act; it is enough if we focus on the fact that the integrity of a clinical trial was thwarted. The idea that this could actually happen in real life gives me the shudders.

Now I am not usually given to episodes of technical ramblings to an audience that is mostly not part of the pharmaceutical field.

The fact is that clinical trials, like other experiments, are to be taken objectively, without passion or prejudice. These placebos help enforce those rules. If we care about the few hundreds or thousands who might be hard done by in this trial, we are risking a potential patient pool of millions. When one swallows a pill of a drug that can save a life, or cure a small affliction, one must take comfort in the hours and hours of hard work and sacrifice that it takes to make it safe enough so that you can just pop it in.

It is true that pharmaceutical companies are colluding with each other within the competition so that they reap huge profits, but one must realize that these are the outcomes of successful products. So, the interests of the companies and the people are aligned in some warped way. To stop the druggernaut from burning a hole through the common man's wallet, we have regulatory agencies which are there to oversee the situation.

While I would not go so far as to say that the pharmaceutical field is noble, I do hope that this small piece has mounted at least a small defense to the ever-piling accusations.

(PS: This post has a certain synecdoche effect in that the ethical quandary of a clinical trial is then extrapolated to the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. I hope my readers were not bored with this technical post, and I hope I have made it simple enough for the layperson to grasp.)

Ode to a muffin

There are desserts and there are other desserts. Some are nice, but most are heavy. To me, a dessert should be heavy. I must regret having learned to eat after eating the dessert. There is no other way to enjoy it. Here, I am talking about a muffin.

I don't know why I love it so much. Probably because of the wonderful exterior, probably because of the moist goodness locked inside that only the truly worthy can access, or probably because of the fulfillment it provided me without me realizing it ever. Now we all know that they are fattening, and probably sinful, but a muffin along with a chocolate cheesecake can be pure heaven.

I love food like I love women…well…a woman! She would kill me if I use the plural in a cavalier fashion!

Here's to my muffin…there can never be another…maybe there can, but I don't want another one ever. All I need is time to acquire it, and to enjoy it, but there seems less of either.

(To my dear readers: I apologize for the truly indulgent post. It has no purpose of entertaining, nor of informing. It does not seek to encourage, entice or to ensnare in witty dialogue. It is merely a whim of mine, but I need it all the same.)

Manhattan delights

A dear friend of mine once described a concept called 'patel shots'. When I asked him to elaborate, he said that they were postcard-type photos taken by tourists near all the garden variety tourist spots around a popular city. This guy loved all the nuances of NYC that I could show him, but make no mistake, he could give the patels a run for their money (which is bucketloads, by the way!) in the quest for the unparalleled patel shots! (No offense meant to actual patels!)

The other part of Manhattan, that only residents can show you, are the quaint coffee shops, the small but amazing brick oven pizza joints run by the temperamental Italian owners whose moodiness is not only tolerated, but appreciated, all due to their culinary genius.

What I am gonna give a preview of right now, is a part of the Lower East Side of Manhattan...a little further off NYU campus. For a long time, the lower east side has been associated with the student and worker crowd, which brings with it fashionable pubs, bars, cafes and well slightly proletariat experience altogether. It was not out of character for the rents to be lower here than say the upper west side (endorsed by the sitcom Seinfeld, as it is based entirely in that area).

Now, however, the paradigm shift has come where the quaint coffee shops are quaint not because they cannot afford to expand, but because the yuppie mindset is tired of the chain stores and eateries and now covets the European bistro/cafe experience. Coffee now costs $4.50 at some places, and people are happy to shell out the duddu.

I am in the process of discovering places which serve great food. Now there is one place I ate just today morning. It is a small breakfast place, where there are long lines on weekday mornings just to get a table for two. If you are in a group of four or more, the reservation card handed to you may as well say "Are you kidding me!" The breakfast was awesome, I had a salmon based entree, with some fresh squeezed orange juice and my cousin had something similar. We wound up the meal with coffee, and the check came with the number $50 on it, which I duly passed on to my cousin, whose face had the calm of a person who had eaten there before, compared to my jaw which was somewhere between the table and the floor! The amazing thing is, with unemployment increasing at the rate of knots, the lines outside places like these (and there are many, mind you) have not been affected at all. You gotta love NYC. There are other reasons too.

One other aspect of Manhattan is the women. (This characteristic applies to the whole of Manhattan, and not just the lower east side.) Most of them are businesslike, which basically means they don't care/mind if you look at them for a time more than what can be described as innocent and less than that done by the average sex offender. You get all races and types, and they all are pretty alluring. Now, I am speaking hypothetically of course, as I am not at all what you might call lecherous. (Wink!). This is, of course, no slight on women in other locations.


Rents are going up as people are now wanting to live here. I, of course, am enjoying the delights of this region as I visit a cousin of mine every weekend, and mooch off him while he picks up the tab, with me realizing all the while that pretty soon, I would have to do this for someone else. Duniya gol hai!

This is the first post of mine where I have rambled on without much direction or purpose, and I really feel indulgent today. You might scoff at my desperation to have my blog read that I did not forewarn the readers of this randomly ambulatory post.