I was leafing through the first few posts of this blog.
I had also happened to buy the Times of India today after a long time and , starting from the last page as usual , I happened to stop by a snap from a later page of a lagoon in Costa Rica which was supposed to be azure blue due to some chemical reaction between CaCO3 and sulphur in the waters. Now the catch was that this snap was printed in black and white.
Which means:
- The lagoon could really be azure blue and this was a printing error, the TOI put up a b/w snap by mistake.
- The snap was a wrong snap, it really was not azure lagoon in Cosat Rica but some murky green one with moss and weeds in the east.
- If I am color blind to blue, how would I really have made out.Would it have mattered to me anyways?
All these three situations are possible reality situations. The ultimate reality is the existence of the lagoon . But hardly anyone who reads the TOI Pune is going to go to Costa Rica to verify.So all these are realities in their own sense.
We support our inferences in a realm of stochastic determinism of things.The qualities of things is determined by the known quantities that they resemble. The lagoon is blue because it resembles the color of the sky which is known to be blue. But if we come to know of something that does not resemble anything we already know of? Like ..... describing how fortification spectra of migraine look like without really seeing them, or ...something that you will ever have to guess but never know for sure....what does a patient with Wernicke's aphasia think of or dream of if he never understands the environment around him??!!??
Reality is a bit like Heisenberg's principle.
Electrons jump back and forth, atoms and molecules change, the thoughts that are formed of long term potentiation due to molecules at the CA1 region in the hippocampus should mutate if the basic structure of those molecules is relative to the observation moment.
When I surf through the phonebook of my old cellphone handset I am randomly presented with names of people I had known but whom, for lack of presentation to my sensory apparatus had' forgotten'- Chandu, Vilas AKD, Geeta staff, Ankur, Nilima, Sayali, Shridhar, Sunanda, Sushil , Suyash, Varsha Shevgan. As I scroll through, I can conjure the faces, how we interacted, the scenes of interaction, the circumstance. The palette fills in gradually.
We change so much over time- is a cliched reality. But we change relative to what?
It is like alluding to the question of the ship Theseus. When a new ship was recreated from components of the old ship, and a reconstructed old ship stood beside, which was the original Theseus?The new one made from components of the old, or the old one which was the original, but had innards which were all replaced.
Am I the me who cycled the lanes of Rasta Peth on a Tobu cycle at 10, or the random medical student who was trying to romance KD Tripathi and the hernias of other people at 20 or the person I am now? Can I be like a Beautifully American Kevin Spacey shot in his temples visualizing his life from his childhood to his tragic demise in the last few moments in a flashback(or more pleasantly like a sit like a Forrest Gump on some bench in some park at the end of his eventful soiree of a life) and point out that this, whatever it is, was/is my baseline?
Time is potent, and memory fickle. Surfing through older pages of your blog, you will wonder....did I ever really think like this? Why so? And if you never happened to visit those pages, you will never get the answer.
Being aware of all possible situations- the blue lagoon, the mossy green lagoon, and the blue lagoon in black and white makes me more comfortable. Maybe
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Innocents aboard
Amidst the bedlam of the IID course coordinating chaotic case discussions and listening to cute Italian accents, a once in some time incident like the one below provides for much humor as much as it sets you thinking.
"Doctor, मला ना कुत्रा चावला. मी दोन इंजेक्शन घेतले."
"कुत्रा कसला होता? आजुन कुणाला चावला का?"
"नाही हो, घरचा कुत्रा आहे. Palmolin कुत्रा आहे.त्याला पण वाईट वाटला असेल, म्हनून दोन divasa पासून कीव कीव कर तोय. मला ना दोन तीन diwas झोप नही लागली"
" अहो घाबरु नका, इंजेक्शन घेतला ना तुम्ही, कही नाही होणार तुम्हाला"
" मला कसला काय होणार, tya कुत्र्याला majhyapasun HIV झाला की माझा भाऊ रागाव्णार mhanun मला भीती"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Doctor, मला ना कुत्रा चावला. मी दोन इंजेक्शन घेतले."
"कुत्रा कसला होता? आजुन कुणाला चावला का?"
"नाही हो, घरचा कुत्रा आहे. Palmolin कुत्रा आहे.त्याला पण वाईट वाटला असेल, म्हनून दोन divasa पासून कीव कीव कर तोय. मला ना दोन तीन diwas झोप नही लागली"
" अहो घाबरु नका, इंजेक्शन घेतला ना तुम्ही, कही नाही होणार तुम्हाला"
" मला कसला काय होणार, tya कुत्र्याला majhyapasun HIV झाला की माझा भाऊ रागाव्णार mhanun मला भीती"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Metamorphosed
Just a random thought, nothing more:
If Kafka's psychological continuity is not counterintuitive- it isn't, is it?
Then human cloning is not so bad, apparently.
For if mind makes man, then who would mind a Mahatma Gandhi who looks like a Brad Pitt, speaks like a Churchill, waxes oh so eloquently like a Shakespeare, and yet thinks like himself.
And when he dies, he wakes up as a beetle.
If Kafka's psychological continuity is not counterintuitive- it isn't, is it?
Then human cloning is not so bad, apparently.
For if mind makes man, then who would mind a Mahatma Gandhi who looks like a Brad Pitt, speaks like a Churchill, waxes oh so eloquently like a Shakespeare, and yet thinks like himself.
And when he dies, he wakes up as a beetle.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
How the mighty have fallen.......
There have been people who've been directed to this blog from google search results for phrases containing the word '5HT'. Folks, sorry....it's just a name that occurred to me while creating the blog.
With the meta-analysis published in the PLoS taking a symbol of hope away from ironically those wanting hope-help-worth, I expect more people to be misdirected to this blog. Sorry again.
But I do feel amazed that the symbolic blue white capsule had given hope to so many who had lost it all, when it was no more than just a placebo.Or so they say.If anything it is a tribute to the powers of placebo therapy. Shrinks will argue about anecdotal cases of miraculous recovery, those who have recovered will swear by it really being the feel good pill.But in the hard unforgiving world of show-me-the-figures, prozac draws a null.
I have always been surprised that drug trials when comparing an outcome between a test drug and placebo always show nonzero results with placebo. The opioid theory is understandable for nontangible outcomes where there is a human element involved or symptomatic relief is sought, but not where there are hard quantifiable objective outcomes.
That placebo is not superior to no treatment was elucidated well in this great piece in the NEJM.The authors however agreed that when subjective or non continuous outcomes were analyzed then placebo did make a difference. Here we can discern the difference between the "science" and the "art" of medicine.For the individual patient feeling good is not the same as a clean coronary on cath. Just as a clean coronary does not mean end of therapy. How many busy cardiologists can claim to successfully treat such a patient? If your jeera goli homeopathy can succeed in that, then all the figures can go screw a hyena.
Ain't I talking like a GP?
Happiness was just about feeling happy
T'was not "not feeling sad"
The they made a pill to make you happy
Now it really doesn't work,..aw!! thats really just so bad!!
With the meta-analysis published in the PLoS taking a symbol of hope away from ironically those wanting hope-help-worth, I expect more people to be misdirected to this blog. Sorry again.
But I do feel amazed that the symbolic blue white capsule had given hope to so many who had lost it all, when it was no more than just a placebo.Or so they say.If anything it is a tribute to the powers of placebo therapy. Shrinks will argue about anecdotal cases of miraculous recovery, those who have recovered will swear by it really being the feel good pill.But in the hard unforgiving world of show-me-the-figures, prozac draws a null.
I have always been surprised that drug trials when comparing an outcome between a test drug and placebo always show nonzero results with placebo. The opioid theory is understandable for nontangible outcomes where there is a human element involved or symptomatic relief is sought, but not where there are hard quantifiable objective outcomes.
That placebo is not superior to no treatment was elucidated well in this great piece in the NEJM.The authors however agreed that when subjective or non continuous outcomes were analyzed then placebo did make a difference. Here we can discern the difference between the "science" and the "art" of medicine.For the individual patient feeling good is not the same as a clean coronary on cath. Just as a clean coronary does not mean end of therapy. How many busy cardiologists can claim to successfully treat such a patient? If your jeera goli homeopathy can succeed in that, then all the figures can go screw a hyena.
Ain't I talking like a GP?
Happiness was just about feeling happy
T'was not "not feeling sad"
The they made a pill to make you happy
Now it really doesn't work,..aw!! thats really just so bad!!
Monday, February 25, 2008
This too shall pass
There was a time when I would spend all my time in just reading. I never felt guilty of not doing anything in life but reading. Then life was not stressed with things like a stable bank balance, settling in life and all that jag. Pages after voluminous pages of Harrison/Nelson were guzzled like some maniac Oktoberfest OCD. Private practice was a sinful abomination, and the GP was then what one should not be like- mediocre depraved cold cough remedier of Multivit A to Z school of medicine, coached by cravatted dumb-em- down Med reps and slaves to the Pharma dementors.
The essence of existence then was to dream, close eyes and float spenta amertal on raf kinases propelled nanomotors, hiking through TyKs seeking all that is new and unique, and catchy, perhaps contorted- looking for the rare syndrome, the gestalt agglomeration that stretched the limits of your associative memory – Tore Solente Gole or Rubenstein Taybi , LEOPARD, LAMB/NAME. and all that fancy pansy orgiastic quasi-intellectualism. What was the motivation to hoard so much ‘knowledge’? It was a phase where the more you know/memorise, the more successful you were. The secondary gain ( should be primary gain??-perhaps??) of this cannabinoidated phase of life, was learning how to read, what to gain beyond mere pages of print, how to browse the authors list in a book and imagine the his/her personality, work, workplace- looking at perhaps how to learn to think like the rara avis that dreamed of gene splicing or histone deacetylases or gene sequencing and all that jhakasmaal.
That salubrious cirrus does not however feed the mundane rigmaroles of nine to five (to perhaps nine.) The bottom line being that “No one pays you to just sit and read.”
When I visited the book exhibition last week I really felt like buying every single book I liked and wanted to dirty with pencil underlining and comments and doodles like in days of past. But unfortunately I do not have the money to satisfy my fetish.
I hardly seem to get time to sit and read I tried to reason with myself. When will I read if at all I were to buy Bartlett’s tome or Fishman or Feigenbaum. ?
Amedeo is left undisturbed since Sept 2007, CCO sends me more updates than I can keep track of. OTM by June is a target that seems fuelled by a bit of misplaced enthusiasm. Schlossberg seems to be gathering dust as I seem to be drifting into that private practice mould of work. Surprisingly I do not find myself worthy of all the maaki stuff I used to think this type of functioning merited being called. This too shall pass. Maybe.
Movies have already been hijacked out of the budget of the middleclass mensch by the multiplex mafia. Now we shall have the IPL brand of superfowl larceny. Tickets for 500 and 750 to see your city play!!!!!!
Sharad Power and his BaCChI have demonstrated its testicular/dallar fortitude amply, but the bidding telecast where a Bombay dyer fought a booze badshah and an androgynous filmstar for nonsons of soil was a mockery of the Utappam Dhoni breed of cricketers, not ‘tribute to their merit’ as some moron Suhel Seth would have us believe.
As they say: ‘the difference between men and “boys” is the size/price of their toys’
The essence of existence then was to dream, close eyes and float spenta amertal on raf kinases propelled nanomotors, hiking through TyKs seeking all that is new and unique, and catchy, perhaps contorted- looking for the rare syndrome, the gestalt agglomeration that stretched the limits of your associative memory – Tore Solente Gole or Rubenstein Taybi , LEOPARD, LAMB/NAME. and all that fancy pansy orgiastic quasi-intellectualism. What was the motivation to hoard so much ‘knowledge’? It was a phase where the more you know/memorise, the more successful you were. The secondary gain ( should be primary gain??-perhaps??) of this cannabinoidated phase of life, was learning how to read, what to gain beyond mere pages of print, how to browse the authors list in a book and imagine the his/her personality, work, workplace- looking at perhaps how to learn to think like the rara avis that dreamed of gene splicing or histone deacetylases or gene sequencing and all that jhakasmaal.
That salubrious cirrus does not however feed the mundane rigmaroles of nine to five (to perhaps nine.) The bottom line being that “No one pays you to just sit and read.”
When I visited the book exhibition last week I really felt like buying every single book I liked and wanted to dirty with pencil underlining and comments and doodles like in days of past. But unfortunately I do not have the money to satisfy my fetish.
I hardly seem to get time to sit and read I tried to reason with myself. When will I read if at all I were to buy Bartlett’s tome or Fishman or Feigenbaum. ?
Amedeo is left undisturbed since Sept 2007, CCO sends me more updates than I can keep track of. OTM by June is a target that seems fuelled by a bit of misplaced enthusiasm. Schlossberg seems to be gathering dust as I seem to be drifting into that private practice mould of work. Surprisingly I do not find myself worthy of all the maaki stuff I used to think this type of functioning merited being called. This too shall pass. Maybe.
Movies have already been hijacked out of the budget of the middleclass mensch by the multiplex mafia. Now we shall have the IPL brand of superfowl larceny. Tickets for 500 and 750 to see your city play!!!!!!
Sharad Power and his BaCChI have demonstrated its testicular/dallar fortitude amply, but the bidding telecast where a Bombay dyer fought a booze badshah and an androgynous filmstar for nonsons of soil was a mockery of the Utappam Dhoni breed of cricketers, not ‘tribute to their merit’ as some moron Suhel Seth would have us believe.
As they say: ‘the difference between men and “boys” is the size/price of their toys’
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Ha ha ha....!!
"
We then simultaneously noticed another pedestrian walking towards us, with the biggest bulge EVER in the crotch area of his jeans. Incredulously, hubby looked at me and mouthed the question: "is that an erection?", to which I immediately replied: "no silly, that's just a huge hydrocele!"
"
From a blog called urostream.
Quid novi ex Pune
DNA comes as a whiff of fresh air amidst the stench of the Times . No ads apart from classifieds means you do not have an inane full page obit for some peripatetic industrialist's mother who breathed a wretched last breath after a year in the BH ICU on bi pap for COPD, or SITA/SOTC tours' lewd ads inviting a nouveau riche upper middle class for a Thai/European jamboree for " fifty thousand per couple only for 5 days 6 nights in the scenic Baden Baden on the Jungfrauroch, savings galore". Nothing irritates you more than a huge gimmicky full front page ad for an IPO for some real estate company.Thankfully except a single ad in the lower right of the front page, this paper does not have any ads.
Brownie point score:1
The layout is cheerfully colorful, but thankfully does not get cheesy on coverage. (plus 1).
There is some page three nonsense for those who categorize this piddleshit as news.But thankfully that comes as a separate 2 page supplement, unlike the 7-8 page piece of toilet paper that sells as PT.(minus 0.5) It ain't pretentious about the shibboleth of journalistic courage- or whatever they call it- like the IE- c'mon BOFORS was in the time of Chitra Subramaniam, they don't have such a big geese around to cook nowadays, and anyways the television channels break wind breaking news on some "sharmnaak vyakti Shakti or be- imaan swami, khoon se haath rang lene wale doctor" by the hour. Whats new? And frankly who has the time to read' exclusive to the times' anyways.
Coverage is passable, often petite and interrupted, and not extensive like a Hindu. But writers are good. You do not end up missing a Bachchi or Mukul Sharma, certainly not Jug.Sample this interview with Christophe Jaffrelot ( who's that?) His analysis of the Indian middle class is quite novel and interesting. I would have preferred to read something like this on a Sunday rather than Malavika Sanghvi's torture on the emotional upheavals of the so called creme de la creme, or how some Neetu Singh struggled through married life or what Tina Ambani likes for lunch.( plus 2) Local coverage is okayish, but international news and sport lacking in purpose and just copy paste from AP/NYT. They could do with a Sunil Gavaskar or Rashmee Roshan Lall here.
The package in Mumbai was a steal- Rs 220 for the entire year. I do not know the pricing in Pune. But all in all good baby steps ab initio......but I hope it stays this way. For ratings 3.5/5...paisa vasool for Rs2/-.
(Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are my own personal, and not intended to defame in any way.)
Brownie point score:1
The layout is cheerfully colorful, but thankfully does not get cheesy on coverage. (plus 1).
There is some page three nonsense for those who categorize this piddleshit as news.But thankfully that comes as a separate 2 page supplement, unlike the 7-8 page piece of toilet paper that sells as PT.(minus 0.5) It ain't pretentious about the shibboleth of journalistic courage- or whatever they call it- like the IE- c'mon BOFORS was in the time of Chitra Subramaniam, they don't have such a big geese around to cook nowadays, and anyways the television channels break wind breaking news on some "sharmnaak vyakti Shakti or be- imaan swami, khoon se haath rang lene wale doctor" by the hour. Whats new? And frankly who has the time to read' exclusive to the times' anyways.
Coverage is passable, often petite and interrupted, and not extensive like a Hindu. But writers are good. You do not end up missing a Bachchi or Mukul Sharma, certainly not Jug.Sample this interview with Christophe Jaffrelot ( who's that?) His analysis of the Indian middle class is quite novel and interesting. I would have preferred to read something like this on a Sunday rather than Malavika Sanghvi's torture on the emotional upheavals of the so called creme de la creme, or how some Neetu Singh struggled through married life or what Tina Ambani likes for lunch.( plus 2) Local coverage is okayish, but international news and sport lacking in purpose and just copy paste from AP/NYT. They could do with a Sunil Gavaskar or Rashmee Roshan Lall here.
The package in Mumbai was a steal- Rs 220 for the entire year. I do not know the pricing in Pune. But all in all good baby steps ab initio......but I hope it stays this way. For ratings 3.5/5...paisa vasool for Rs2/-.
(Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are my own personal, and not intended to defame in any way.)
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