Guzaarish

I had been pretty stoked about the fact that this year would see my favorite screen Goddess, Aishwarya, lighting up the silver screen four times! I had planned to watch all of these movies in a theatre, and today I almost fulfilled that vow, with Guzaarish. I had seen Raavan and Action Replayy both, and passed on Robot for obvious reasons. I dragged my mother for all the three ventures, and it was only the last and most recent one, for which she tagged along willingly. Though she did end up enjoying all of them, barring Raavan. Today, when we walked into Sangam, I got the shock of my life! You could count the number of people in both the Balcony and upper stall on your fingers!! I mean, there were more people for a 10 am show of Babel at PVR Priya in the dead of winters a few years back! People did start trickling in after a while, but still not challenging the count on fingers.

I won't go on for an elaborate elucidation of my thoughts on this movie, as I did for Raavan. All I can say is, it was truly, a great cinematic experience. I have always been a HUGE Sanjay Leela Bhansali fan (have even seen the much maligned Saawariya nearly 11 times), and there was no doubt in my mind that this movie would be anything less than spectacular. But I was wrong. It was not spectacular. It was a beautiful account of raw human emotions, expressed ever so subtly, making them all the more real.

There is no filmmaker as intelligent as SLB in contemporary Indian cinema. Every frame of the movie was enriched with metaphors, subtle sub texts. Dealing with a subject where it would have been very easy, and not even out of place, to indulge in melodrama, he preferred to let silences, stolen glances, expressions, cinematography do the talking, rather than words. The protagonist's immobility contrasted with constant motion around him, the curtains; the fly, every inanimate object around him seemed more alive than him. A person, who is looking to relieve himself of the misery of his existence, has no future to look forward to, is shown wearing rose-tinted glasses. Picking up on minute details like these enriched this cinematic experience.

The performances are definitely the finest you can see in Indian cinema, and I'm out of word to describe them. All I can say is, it is the first time that a movie pulled at my heart string so strongly to give me a lumpy throat. And this was during that one MAGICAL scene, where both the director and his actor show their mettle, when you see a hapless Ethan struggle at first valiantly, and then crushed, by the drops of water dripping on him constantly through the night from the ceiling. I was literally cringing in my seat, and thanking God (even though I confess to being an atheist), that I have my faculties working fine, and praying that I never become so helpless as he did. There are many such beautiful moments from this poet of pain (SLB), that you'll cherish long after you have left the theater. Aishwarya has once again given ample proof of her competence as an actress par excellence, and done things that I really don't think any other actress could have pulled off with half as much strength and dignity ( I wonder if they'd have done it at all!).

The music has taken a backseat again, not as much as in Black, but wherever it does come in, it lifts up the whole experience to a new level. The songs have been brilliantly woven into the screenplay. Sau gram zindagi, tera zikr, and Udi all have there appeal enhanced tremendously when experienced in context of the movie.

Of course, its not all hunky dory. The flow of the film is not smooth and does appear to jerk in parts. Occasionally the characters seem slightly under-developed.My biggest complaint is that most of the crucial gems of the movie were already shown in the numerous promos and trailers, and the surprise element was a bit lacking while watching the movie.

But all said and done, it was a mesmerizing, and unique cinematic experience. Just two hours long, I wish it had gone on for a bit more. But then, "Zindagi bahut khoobsurat hai, chahe woh saat, sava saat pound ki ho, ya fir sau gram ki"....

The Commonwealth Saga

I know I'm trying to hop onto a bus that is already gone..... But I had to! Would have felt incomplete without it. How could I not write about something that left such an indelible impression on me? Plus, it possibly is THE moment, which will be mentioned every time the love of my life is mentioned anywhere in the world, meri pyari Dilli!! For close to a fortnight, Delhi was the quintessential bride, all decked up in glory, each flaw carefully hidden, a picture of calm n poise, but a thousand storms brewing within, being, watched, observed and judged by everyone. Did she pass the test? Barely, as we all know.

So much has been written and said about the Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010, that there is no point in reliving them. We are all aware of the scams, the corruption, the mess, the collapse, the 6000 Rs. Toilet roll, the miraculous turn around, the jaw dropping, heart pumping, Awe-inspiring, pride-inducing opening ceremony, the ALMOST smooth conduct of the games, Expectedly empty stadiums which miraculously filled up with screaming, dancing, "monkeys" (as one of our esteemed guests put it), and the highlight - the 101 medals in our kitty, and the slightly disappointing closing ceremony. We have all read it, seen it, heard about it, mostly through the now-devil, now-angel Desi media, and the ever condescending, nit-picking, and at best patronizing firangi media.

So what do I write about? The fact that it got people, Indian people, that too Delhi people, who consider it too much of a bother to even wave their hands at a concert, to come out of their homes, at 8, 9 even 10 in the night, on weekdays, to watch sports like Badminton, Tennis, Rugby 7's, wrestling, boxing and so on. The fact that it got millions of Indians hooked onto Doordarshan again. I was extremely amused, and perplexed to find myself and my mother hooked onto DD Sports from 6pm to 10 pm straight everyday, watching things like wrestling, boxing, hockey, squash, table tennis, athletics, even Lawn bowls for God's sake (still no idea what it is all about). I fell in love with Delhi all over again, watching the cyclists sweat it out for more than three hours on the deserted, but beautiful boulevards of Central Delhi, the aerial shots of Lutyen's Delhi taking my breath away.

But most important of all, I think what deserves to be written about it, is the look in the eyes of the athletes, who did our country proud, when after their win (or even loss), they looked up in the stands to find hundreds of compatriots cheering and yelling for them. The look in their eyes (and tears) while standing on the podium with the medal in their hand, mumbling the national anthem, and staring at the tricolor being hoisted. The moving image of Sarath Kamal bawling with emotion after the Gold in men's doubles on the podium when the national anthem played instantly comes to the mind. Unknown names, and faces, suddenly became the topic of discussion at water-points and dinner tables. Those who would have been unknown to the neighborhood subziwallah a few days back, had small children gunning for their autographs, looking upto them with respect and awe, wanting to be like them, and cheering in the stands waving banners with their names written. For players like Deepika Kumari, the archery gold medalist from Jharkhand, years of living in abject poverty and anonymity, the worth of those years was realized in that one moment, which DD captured in a beautiful manner in the shot for each podium winner - with their emotion filled faces looking up at the flag while singing the anthem in one half of the TV screen, the Tricolor being hoisted in the other half, and their sport represented at the bottom of the screen by a shuttlecock, or ball, or bow etc. Images that will not be forgotten (hopefully) for a long time. These games mean so much more to these athletes than we can imagine, and should be the answer to the skeptics who wondered whether it was worth spending the thousands of crores on a "party" (as Chetan Bhagat put it), when it could have been used for "development". Was this not development? And are people really naive enough to believe that if the games had not been organized, that money would have ever actually gone to the poor? Anyway, not the things I want to focus on. For me, the legacy of the games was what I mentioned above, and it truly was, a coming out event, in more ways than one.

And before I forget, a BIG Shout out to the voulnteers of Delhi United (including my friends, Anirudh and Isha), who, as everyone has acknowledged, were a major force behind the successful conduct of the games. I really feel that I missed out on a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Eminem - Love The Way You Lie ft. Rihanna

Janmashtami ...... A lot of Childhood Memories!

One of the things I love about our country is the myriad of festivals we celebrate. Janmashtami is one such festival, with which some of my strongest childhood memories are associated. I was kind of excited today in the morning for I was in Delhi on Janmashtami after two years. But as soon as I ventured out of my house, the excitement faded away. There were no kids running around the street digging up roadside mud to carve out a beautiful village scene with a river cutting through it, and mountains in the background. And where would they I wondered, for every inch of free earth on the roadside had been covered up with concrete tiles in the name of beautification. On my way to the market I saw this was the case in all the streets. Only in the market and the central park did I finally see a couple. And these were the big commercial ones, sponsored by the RWAs or shopkeepers' associations etc.

That old feeling was missing. During my childhood, Janmashtami was a big deal for us kids. The preparations started weeks in advance. It was a well co-ordinated exercise, with groups made for different activities, like collecting the red sand (bajri), digging up and landscaping the village scene, buying and collecting the idols of Lord Krishna and Radha, along with the gopis, the iconic image of Vasudeva carrying baby Krishna over his head through the swelling Yamuna river, supposedly trying to touch the Lord's feet, and various other idols depicting events from his life, etc. The adults pitched in, with their contributions towards preparing the prasad and setting up the lighting etc. Every year one of the moms would donate a few of her old, tattered dupattas and other rags, which we would then completely smear in roadside wet mud (keechad), so that it becomes all brown and earthy. Then sticks and rods of varying length were scavenged laboriously, and arranged methodically. The cloth was draped on them, sprinkled with chalk dust, blue powder, and other colors to re-create the beautiful Himalayan range, and specifically the abode of Lord Shiva, Kailash parbat. The Sacred Yamuna would flow from the foot hills of these mountains and into our make-believe villages of Brij, Mathura. Quaint little mud huts topped with hay roofs, and various events from Krishna's life being palyed out by the idols. Gopis crossing over mud bridges on the river yamuna, baby Krishna stealing butter on one end, young krishna dancing on top of the seven-head snake demon in the river, adolescent Krishna playing the tunes of love to Radha under a Mango tree with his beloved cow-herd grazing nearby, and the same Krishna killing demons and his evil uncle at the other end.

For those 3-4 days, nothing else in life mattered. As soon as school was over, we rushed back home, forced our meals down and rushed down to get our depictions perfectly right. After all, it was a matter of pride. Our group had to be the best in the street. This element of competition, of presenting the grandest, most beautiful and well - crafted Jhaanki of the Lord's life in the street, or maybe even the whole sector was the driving force behind the dedication. And of course, it would be accompanied by the childhood politics of copying ideas, guarding your designs, deflection of members from one group to another at the last minute, along with their prized idols. It all seems so simple and stupid now, but then, it'd be something you would lose sleep over, as if nothing worse could happen in the world. Except for one thing, the dreaded rain, which made it a point to always show up on this holy day. It was a sign that the Lord is happy and observant. But it meant a disaster for our presentations. But somehow the rain never spoiled it. And with all the roadblocks, every year we were successful and by 7 pm were ready with our jhaanki, our plates of prasad, and the donation box! Yes, that's how it was decided which group won - the one that managed to collect the maximum amount of money from the people who came to visit and admire our work and seek the blessings of the Lord. Granted, most of the contributions would be from the parents of the participating children, but the praises which came our way for our hard work from random strangers were the most valuable. They made us feel worthwhile and proud of having pulled off a remarkable feat!

Now that I think of it, even though there may not have been a lot of devotion behind our endeavours, they still were such a great exercise for us as children. An amazing outlet for expression of creativity, it was a great exercise in team work, management, leadership skills, as well as crisis-management. It made us work together, investing our pocket-money, time, efforts in it. And the collective rewards we reaped were much greater the party of pastries and chocolates we had from the money collected. Once we grew up and "got too old for such things", the younger crop, who would observe us all these years from the sidelines took over, just as we did from our elder siblings....... I wonder if the kids of the coming generations will get to experience these things or will their childhood memoirs consist of odes to video games, TV and Facebook???

Can we for once, focus on the issue????

A lot of furore was generated last week over a scientific study published in the respected medical journal The Lancet, which claimed to have uncovered a new "superbug" - multi-drug resistant strain of bacteria, which reportedly originated in India, and is spreading worldwide from Indian shores due to medical tourism. The study was by a British research group, and involved a few scientists of Indian origin too. The furore it created in India was over a couple of issues;

• One, the gene encoding for the particular enzyme responsible for conferring this deadly resistance to bacteria was named NDM-1 or New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamse.

• Two, the paper concluded with remarks which the growing industry of medical tourism, i.e. people from other countries coming to India for affordable, world-class healthcare, responsible for this superbug spreading across the globe, effectively serving as a travel advisory and dissuading people from receiving such services in India.

While the first issue according to me is pretty trivial and not worth a debate, the second one is quite serious, as it directly aims at our economy as well as national reputation. Many have argued that it is NOT the job of a medical journal to act as a travel advisory. They could have just presented the facts of the study and let people draw their own conclusions. The Lancet has come under the scanner as much as the research group for this publication. Though I do not feel qualified to comment on the issue without having read the actual paper, from what I have heard on T.V. and read on the Web, it does seem that the findings of the study, their method of sampling, and data obtained are not enough to taint the surgical procedures done in India as potential risk factors, not yet anyway. To quote Wikipedia "NDM-1 was first identified in December 2009 in a patient hospitalised in New Delhi with a Klebsiella pneumoniae infection. It has since been detected in bacteria in India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States" ................................................ "The NDM-1 enzyme was named after New Delhi, the capital city of India, as it was first described by Yong et al. in December 2009 in a Swedish national who fell ill with an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection that he acquired in India. The infection was unsuccessfully treated in a New Delhi hospital and after the patient's repatriation to Sweden, a carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae strain bearing the novel gene was identified. The authors concluded that the new resistance mechanism "clearly arose in India, but there are few data arising from India to suggest how widespread it is." In March 2010 a study in a hospital in Mumbai found that the majority of carbapenem-resistant bacteria isolated from patients carried the bla_NDM-1 gene. In May 2010 a case of infection with E. coli expressing NDM-1 was reported in Coventry in the United Kingdom. The patient was a man of Indian origin who had visited India 18 months previously, where he had undergone dialysis." .................................... "A study by a multi-national team was published in the August 2010 issue of the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases. This examined the emergence and spread of bacteria carrying the bla_NDM-1 gene. This reported on 37 cases in the United Kingdom, 44 isolates with NDM-1 in Chennai, 26 in Haryana and 73 in various other sites in Pakistan and India"

Ok, that is a LOT of quoting! But the question that arises from this study is that is the data sufficient to malign the entire hospital industry in the country? When Barkha Dutt asked one of the main authors in a program that how can they confirm that the nodal subject of the study, the Swedish national, didn't pick up the infection from somewhere outside India, or in Sweden, his response was Sweden is a much cleaner country, with better disease control policies. Does he mean to say that no one ever gets a bacterial infection in Sweden? Quite an absurd reasoning from a scientist.

But anyway, the point that I realized from that program was, how serious the problem of antibiotic abuse in India is. And as usual, instead of addressing the key issue, we collectively as a nation chose to focus on the purported strike against our false sense of national pride. The few sane voices on that show all stressed on one thing only, that naming of the gene after the national capital and other issues are secondary. The main thing is to recognize this as an opportunity to set out own house in order, and be glad that this controversy has at least opened up a debate on antibiotic abuse and emerging drug resistance. No one can deny the fact that these are major healthcare issues all over the world, and especially in our country. We have developed a dangerous culture of self-medication , reliance on over-the-counter (OTC) drugs and taking the word of the local chemist instead of bothering to consult a doctor. Pill-popping has become alarmingly popular in society and there is a serious lack of awareness about its ill-effects. Its a pill right? It can only do good, no harm in popping one!!! Well guess what, it's more likely to do more harm than good.

While I was watching that debate on NDTV, I realized how clueless my mother was about the whole thing. I ended up explaining the entire thing to her in detail, and realized that this is the core problem. Lack of awareness among the general population in India. We don't think twice about reusing old, left-over pills for similar symptoms, buying the same meds from the last prescription, not bothering to complete the prescribed dose as soon as the symptoms seem to subside, buying OTC based on recommendations from "well-wishers", and so on. People have to be made aware of what such abuse of antibiotics can do to you. Awareness camps in schools and colleges, pamphlets at healthcare centers, TV commercials in public interest, whatever it takes!!

Antibiotics, are chemicals which prevent microbial growth or kill them by targeting one or the other metabolic pathways in bacterial cells. Now, micro-organisms evolve at a much faster rate, and adapt to their environments quite easily. They do this by accumulating beneficial mutations in their genes over generations. And generation time in bacteria is of the order of a few hours. So when confronted with a drug which threatens their populations, a few resilient specimen survive by evolving alternate mechanisms to the ones which the drug targets, or by devloping means to flush the drug out of their cells. When these surviving bacteria reproduce and establish populations which inherit these defense mechanisms, the bacterial popualtion is said to have developed resistance to that particular drug.

Antibiotic resistance is a major threat to the health security and scientists and labs all over the world are fighting against time to develop methods to counter drug resistance, and/or develop newer drugs. However, Developing a new drug requires at least 15 years of time and more than a Billion dollar investment, with no guarantee of success. Hence the number of new drugs launched in the past 2 decades is negligible. And it often takes less than 10 years for resistant bacterial strains to emerge after a new drug is launched. So it should be evident how grave a problem drug resistance is.

When we indiscriminately use antibiotics against infections without medical supervision, or discontinue or prolong a drug dose at our own whim, what we unintentionally do is to equip the bacteria to get used to the drug, and evolve mechanisms which enable them to work around it and survive. This is how antibiotic resistance spreads through their abuse. And in fact a major problem is MDR, or multi-drug resistance in bacterial strains, which implies that the bacteria is able to fight the assault from a range of antibiotics and not just one. This makes healthcare very difficult, as no one drug is able to cure an infection. This has been a major reason why we still have no fool-proof weapon against diseases like tuberculosis. And in this context the threat from NDM-1 is even more worrying, as NDM-1-carrying bacteria are resistant even to carbapenems, a group of antibiotics often reserved as a last resort for emergency treatment for multi-drug resistant bugs.

So it is no wonder that our healthcare system should come under the scanner. People are just not aware of the dangers of pill-popping. And is it really their fault? Whose job is it to make them aware? Who is responsible? The obvious answer which pops up is the usual scape-goat - our Government. Well yes, of course the Government has a major stake in this responsibility. But I feel the real culprits in this scenario are our esteemed doctors. This I say from my own experience, which has been restricted to the government healthcare centers like CGHS dispensaries, AIIMS and Safdurjung Hospitals. Doctors I have encountered, are just not bothered to explain to the patient what is his/her condition, what is the cause, what is the course of treatment and more importantly its basis, and the need to follow the proper dosage. They are more than content to perform a quick diagnosis, and write a prescription and inform the dose to be taken. Questions are not welcome!! Being from the science field, when I do ask questions pertaining to the illness or the medicine, the docs are just taken aback!! They don't expect you to question them, and most don't take to it kindly. It is just assumed that the patient, or common man, is not going to understand the medical details and need not be bothered. Some don't even tell you what the disease is! People too are more often than not just content to receive their prescription and walk away. This mutual understanding between the lazy doctor and the blissfully ignorant patient has proved to be a fertile ground for drug abuse. But then again, the number of patients these doctors in Govt. hospitals are forced to cater to per day is so huge that one can't really blame them for not having the patience to counsel each patient.

One can only hope that this study, which just now I read in the newspaper, has received the backing of WHO, may be a blessing in disguise, and more debates like the one on NDTV the other day, may be a small step in creating awareness about this major threat to our society's health. If it saves lives, I don't mind the bug being named after New Delhi. And just to make it clear, its the gene/enzyme responsible for conferring the resistance in bacteria that has been named NDM-1, not a bacteria per se, as most of the Indian media seems to think. :-P

Happy to be reading again!!

Picked up a book after a loooooooooong time today. The last time I read a book not related to Biology was many months ago, and that was Chetan Bhagat's "2 States: The Story of My Marriage". Something which didn't take more than a day, nor provided the required satisfaction for my long literature-deprived brain. I have been reading 4 as long as I can remember. My mother used to take me and my sister to the neighborhood library regularly. Starting out with Noddy, I grew up on a staple diet of Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, then moving onto the Classics like Jane Austen, Alexander Dumas, Thomas Hardy, The Bronte sisters and so on. I read passionately throughout school, and though time was scarce, I continued during my time in Venky, when I came across some of my all-time favorites like The Idiot, Eva Luna, An equal music and so on.

However, I can count the number of books I have read ever since I went to Pondicherry on one hand! Hence, When I finally picked up Jhumpa Lahiri's "Unaccustomed Earth" this Sunday, (that's when I had started writing this, :P) it was another exercise in reclamation. Reclaiming the one good hobby I had. As soon as I started reading it, I could actually feel the rush..... It felt like the sluice gates had been opened after ages, allowing a sudden gush of gallons of water into vacuum (aka my brain). It was almost like my brain was literally devouring the book, as if it had been fed after years!!!

The book is a collection of short stories, and the first one was finished immediately, not even putting the book down during lunch. And it was amazing. Can't wait to finish the rest of it, as well as other books by her. I do recommend it to everyone else who enjoys reading. And your recommendations are more than welcome! :-) I owe it to Ms. Lahiri, who not only got me reading again, but performed an even greater miracle, which was to induce my mother to pick up a book again, and finish it................... after a long, looooooooong time!!!

The Scientist