Outrage

The nationwide outrage over the assault and rape of a young woman in a moving bus made me feel a bit optimistic about the nation’s future. There are other such cases occurring all over the country and the law enforcement and the society at large seem to think that crime against women is not a serious crime and not worthy of strenuous investigation.

There several reasons for this. Most of them sociological. As long as society is patriarchal and women are treated as objects of sexual gratification for men designed by nature, instances of rape will continue whatever may be the deterrent punishment. Add to this attitude, rapid urbanization and influx of single young men to metropolitan areas in search of jobs, you have a tailor made situation of these instances to occur.

Will amendment to the laws help? The demand by the protesters that the crime of rape be punishable by death penalty is a deterrent/ will the assault on women come down? How about the law being misused? What will happen if a man is falsely accused? My personal view is that strict enforcement of law will only help to some extent. Real progress can only be achieved if we learn to treat women as fellow humans and parents bring up both boys and girls in the same manner

Coming to the role of women. What can they do apart from protesting? They should boycott and get their parents, boyfriends, brothers to protest against the electronic media and movies which exploit women and show them as sex objects to sell a commodity or a film. The songs and dance sequence in the so called item numbers are nothing but veiled pornography. They must also learn to dress decently. Liberalization and economic independence doesn’t mean that one goes around wearing next to nothing or wearing clothes designed to show explicitly one’s body contours.

Arvind Kejriwal has let loose the hidden resentment against the whole governmental hierarchy and the protests which one is seeing in this unprecedented scale is partly due to his activism.

I hope women will vote en masse for the Aam Aadmi party in the next elections

When Calamity strikes

Reading latest issue of New England medical Journal I was impressed with the way Newyorkers handled a very grave emergency when the Typhoon Sandy hit them.

I imagined a few calamity situations that could hit this city of Bangalore and would like my fellow Bangaloreans to get a bit worried.

Scenarios

Massive power failure due to River Sharavathy drying up and no hydroelectric power and Raichur thermal power plant trips.

No water supply due to power pumps failing to pump water up the gradient from river Cauvery to the city

Out break of variant of HINI virus for which there is no cure and fatalities are 80%

Do we have a disaster management plan to tackle these three real possibilities?

Answer: my friends is a frightening NO

Obama Re elected

I have always been Obama's admirer. Not because I share his skin color but because of his basic qualities of head and heart. Social concerns are difficult to implement as they cost money and will be resisted by the affluent upper class [it will mean more taxes]. Spending money on welfare will necessarily mean more taxes and who will pay more taxes? Those who can afford to pay. The upper economic group. Many who belong to this group will have reached there after hard struggle and naturally will grudge the government who will ask them to pay more taxes to look after the less privileged.

Is there no other way to raise money other than taxation? There is. Our basic living style has to change. The way we now live encourages consumption and wastage. If we consume less and thus spend less we will improve savings and an economy based on savings is better than an economy based on borrowing and increased taxation. If there is less consumption what about production and what about job creation? Won't we have increased unemployment?

Difficult questions to answer. But watching wasteful living indulged by many just because they can afford,I am convinced that less consumption is the answer.

I hope USA is better off with Obama and democrats.

Hope and Despair

Hope
It is nearly a month since I wrote about Arvind Kejriwal.Since then he has come up with some startling revelations about corruption at high places with names of the powerful personalities involved. He also said that in the present system of governance prevailing in the country these will come to nothing despite these being true.
His sole purpose appears to be to sensitize the population to the large scale wrong doing that is going on in this country and then prepare them for a peaceful revolution at election time. Will he be able to put up the right candidates to contest elections, will he have the wherewithal,  will he be able to build an infrastructure of motivated workers, and will the emasculated voters of the country wake up to his call? This is my worry and hope.

Despair
Deepawali is a festival of lights. Over the years this festival has become a festival of noise and pollution. The city's air becomes murky and the streets littered with graffiti strewn from the fire crackers. These two days
are also occasions to show off the wealth. Gift giving and taking used to be a delicate and informal affair and now it has become an affair bordering on vulgarity. Unable to personally come, the gift giver has taken to sending the gift with a courier who demands a receipt for the goods received!
I received a four page ornate wedding invitation which must have costed the sender at least two hundred rupees! Imagine the kind of money he would be spending on the actual wedding. Founder of our nation, M.K.Gandhi tried teaching us the virtues of simple living. We are doing any thing but that.
This is despair

West Indians.

There is something special about these people. They are naturals and uninhibited. Whether it is dance , music, sport, one can see the exuberance and when they win there is spontaneous joy that erupts on their faces and impromptu dances will be performed.

Yesterday, Darren Sammy and his men won the semifinals of the twenty twenty cricket against the much fancied Australians.This win brought back memories of the sixties when the Calypso Islands were the kings of cricket. Then the team was led by the legendary Sir Frank Worrel and had Clyde Walcott, Everton Weeks [the famous 3Ws]. If I remember right it also had Sir Garry Sobers in the team.

The present team too has big talent yet to be proved on field and they proved it yesterday in style. Chris Gayle with his black head scarf with a back drop, enormous height and the inscrutable face which only on rare occasion breaks into a smile and characteristic dance, reminds me of  some medieval King.

Even the West Indian spectators are a pleasure to watch. They are more or less the same as the players. I am glad this rather dull game of cricket has the west Indians playing. They add the much needed spice to the game

Arvind Kejriwal's new party

This was launched on 2nd of this month which happens to the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, the founding father of independent India. The party was launched with very little fanfare and principally aims at contesting elections with honest candidates and aims at clean and efficient governance. India against corruption had many active and silent followers and all of them with two notable exceptions are in this new, yet to be named party. These notable exceptions are the prime mover Anna Hazare and the other is Madam Kiran Bedi.

Anna feels any form of political party is no good and agitation approach is the best and Ms Bedi feels that it is better to support BJP than floating another party. Most feel BJP is also in its own way corrupt and not much can be gained by supporting it.

Building any political party from the grass roots is not easy given the vitiated atmosphere in the country. Sympathy need not necessarily convert into votes. This brings back memories of Swatantra Party floated by Late Rajagopalachary who was fed up with woolly headed, and what he thought with good reasons, self destructive policies of Jawaharlal Nehru. This party did get some support but failed in the electoral politics and died a natural death. When the party was floated, I remember the optimism that some of us felt.

I feel the same optimism with Kejriwal and his group and I wish them all success.

Few minutes with Venus

Those were pre penicillin days. Penicillin came into universal use only in the late forties and early fifties of last century and revolutionized the treatment of many infections. Venereal diseases [diseases that are transmitted by sexual contact] were amongst these. When I was a medical student in the early sixties we saw a few of these relics who were suffering from the effects of having contacted gonorrhea in the pre penicillin days. The common complication was stricture [narrowing of the urinary passage]. These sufferers would periodically come to the hospital to get the passage dilated. The instruments uses were called bogies [don't ask me why this name] . These were graduated curved steel tubes which were slid down the urethra one after the the other and the narrowed portion was forcibly opened. Then the whole passage and the bladder would be irrigated with liquid mercuric chloride solution [an antiseptic].The victim would howl with pain during the procedure.

Once when I was doing this procedure, hearing the cries of the patient my senior said 'few minutes with Venus [sex worker] and life long with Mercury'