Chennai in December

I can tolerate Chennai only in December. Pleasant weather (the humidity is bearable) and plenty of music and dance.

Thanks to my brother I am in Chennai for one and half weeks trying to cram in as much activity as possible while simultaneously running my lab in Delhi.

To start with, there are relatives who have to be visited. Then there are kutcheris to attend. Truthfully, I am not very good at music. I cannot recognize ragams and the technicalities are beyond me. My mind tends to wander as it did yesterday during the concert by Malladi brothers. I found myself pondering over a paper we are planning to write. Half-way through, I took out a pen and scribbled the outline of the paper on the back of the envelope much to my brother's disgust. He has never been able to understand how I function with so many varied activities thrown together in a melting pot. I keep telling me to relax. Sigh!

The Malladi brothers concert was excellent. The same, however, could not be said for Revati Ramachandran's dance concert. She started with Sri Ganapathini in Saurashtra ragam. Since bhavam is not expected in the first item I sat back to see how she did in the Varnam. She announced that this was the main piece and she was going to do Mohamana in Bhairavi. Now, this varnam was composed by Ponniah Pillai and is truly awesome. Or at least it can be awesome. However, I was left dissatisfied. The jathis were good, the music was good, the dancer tried her best but the soul was missing.

Oh well!

Today there is a lecture demonstration on Nottuswarams of Muthuswamy Dikshitar.

Mumbai

I was at my cousin's place in Hyderabad when the Mumbai attack happened. Which is why I was able to watch the unfolding on the television. Though I must say that after watching it for a day, I was mighty glad that I do not have television to watch the inane reporting.

But that is digressing from the point. The point is that every time a terror attack happens, irrespective of who the attackers are, the media claims it is India's 9/11. The politicians trot out and appeal for people to keep calm and the ruling party says that the government will talk tough and the opposition blames the ruling party yadda yadda yadda. We have, if nothing else, perfected the response to these attacks which invariably killing innocent citizens. Human life is expendable especially if it is that of the common man. Who cares?

So we now have new India's 9/11. Elections are round the corner and everyone is trying to capitalize on this event. We have mourned the death of Hemant Karkare and others. The politicians have made the right noise. Good. Now life can move on and we can forget about the attack till the next time when we can claim it as the new India's 9/11.

I just wish this endless cycle of terror attacks would cease. Sometimes I feel that I am living through perpetual siege. During the 80s, when I was growing up in Delhi, it was the Khalistan issue. I still remember the sand bags that would spring up on the road heralding yet another terrorist strike. Now it is the fundamentalists.

Don't these people have anything else to do other than to kill themselves and others? As the Butterfly put it beautifully, Live and let live or rather die. What I mean is if you want to die it is okay with me but I do not want to die. Can you please get that into your nut?

How healthy are we really?

Few months back when I was in Benaras, Anjani bhai told me that there is an initiative to check the hemoglobin levels of the villagers to determine how many are anemic. He concluded by saying that it was so surprising that many of the volunteers in this initiative themselves were anemic.

I was reminded of this conversation when I was talking with Mr. Dharampal in Virat Nagar. Dharampal is the local coordinator of all the activities of Humana in the Virat Nagar block. He was telling me about the public health initiative with WHO. The aim is to overall improve the health of the villagers with particular emphasis on maternal health. One of the major problem is the maternal mortality rate. The maternal death can be attributed to lack of hospital but also to the fact that many of the women are anemic.

It was very telling therefore to look at the record of the health check-up done recently in this area. In this block Humana runs 14 bridge school for girls who have never been to school. The objective is to teach the girls the basics and then enroll them into formal schools. In addition, the organization does a health camp every year. This year they were able to rope in the government doctor as well as medical store supplier so that medicines could be distributed. I looked at the health record. 90% the girls (~25 girls per center = ~350 girls) were anemic. So we can see how it later translates into high maternal death.

We need to start now to reduce the maternal mortality rate.

Lighting the villages the solar way

In the Virat Nagar block there are 125 villages. Electricity has been provided but it is used only for agriculture purposes. Most of the houses are without electricity because the government does not provide free electricity for lighting up houses. The villagers are reluctant to shell out money for lighting up their houses- it is a hefty payment and they do not earn that much and even if they did they are not willing to shell that much money for something trivial as lighting up a house. The few who have electricity in their houses have done so illegally. Most of the houses therefore depend on kerosene lanterns.
TERI has come up with an idea. One house in the village has dedicated solar panels. Here solar lanterns are charged in the morning. In the evening the villagers come and collect these lanterns. They have to pay Rs 2/- per lantern per day but apparently this is about the same cost as kerosene lantern so they pay without murmur. The lanterns can be used for 4 hours at most but that is enough. In the morning, they drop the lanterns back at the house for charging. It has been implemented at present in two villages in Virat Nagar block and is now going to be extended to 10 more villages.
It is a neat scheme as it is also less polluting than the kerosene lamp. I wanted to very much see the solar panels and how they done it but time was short and I could not check it out. In the next visit maybe...

Horan Pealish

In his book 'Riding the iron rooster', Paul Theroux describes the trip he takes to Tibet in a taxi. The taxi driver's girl friend is addicted to Bollywood music, especially Bhappi Lahiri's brand of music. She insists on putting the tape Disco Dancer ad nauseum. Needless to say Paul Theroux is not amused.
Yesterday I went to Viratnagar for a site visit. The taxi driver, Manpreet, had only one cassette-Punjabi pop music. As far as I could make out, all the songs were set to same beat and same tune. He played it again and again and again. Considering it was 4 hours to go and 4 hours to come back with 4 hours in between, I leave it to you to imagine how many times I would have heard the cassette. I did not have the heart to tell him to shut up not when he treated me to the best kulfi I have ever had, and especially not when he said that the previous day he had made a long trip and got back home late in the night, and the next day he was scheduled to take someone to Agra (another long trip). I guess he needed something to keep him awake though whether this music was the best for that purpose is somewhat debatable.
The title of the blog is from a truck I saw on the road.

An assignment on ethics

This semester I gave my Human Genetics class an assignment on ethics in Human Genetics. The assignment was given at the beginning of the semester with the understanding that they would submit at the end of the semester. There was also an usual spiel on how they should not copy from website.

So the class, very punctual, turned in their assignment. There are 14 students in the class. Baring 3-4 students every single student had copied from articles or websites. Not even a word was changed.

For a second I was furious then then ridiculousness of the issue hit me. Here they were writing an essay on ethics in Human Genetics using an unethical method! Did they honestly not get it?

I called them together into my room:

"Suppose you were to do a piece of research and write a paper. And somebody comes along and copies it. How would you feel?"

Blank looks. Then one said hesitantly:

"Bad."

"So why do you think you can blithely copy articles and pass it off as your own attempt?"

I am still puzzled: Don't they think? Isn't it all connected at some level?

As for them: they have time till 6th December (the exams finish on 2nd December) to submit an essay for evaluation. I told them that as each one knows what he/she has done, they can assess and submit a fresh assay as per their assessment of whether they have cheated or not. I am waiting to see how many assess themselves and turn in a fresh essay.

The Diary Of a Social Butterfly

This is a fortnightly column written by Moni Mohsin for The Friday Times.

Long time back the newspaper was freely accessible and my brother introduced me to it. There were two columns that were hilarious: The Diary of a Social Butterfly and Ittefaq Nama.
The Diary of a Social Butterfly features a Punjabi Convent Educated woman who believes life is meant for party-shartying, hello-hiing. She is in her own words "sophisty, smart, and socialist." She has penchant for malapropism and is saddled with Jannoo. Her husband, bhai, who is very boring and likes to read-shead. She has a 13 year old son Kulchoo, and The Old Bag for a mother-in-law. She has two sisters-in-law, The Twosome Gruesomes. But to offset The Old Bag and the Twosome Gruesome, she has her Mummy and Aunt Pussy. Not to forget her friends: Mulloo, Furry, Flopsy and host of other delightful characters. Oh, and then there is Jonkers, her cousin, who has been twice-divorced and now is looking for a third wife with the help of the Social Butterfly.
The portrayal of was just too apt!
I must confess I preferred Iteffaq Nama. This featured a half-witted Nawaz Sharif, airing his opinions in his Punjabi English. It also featured his brother, Shabaz Sharif, and our bhabhi/Lal ki Ma aka Mrs. Nawaz Sharif. Oh, I think there was also ammijaan, or Nawaz Sharif's mother. You can read one of these columns here.
Alas, one needs to subscribe to The Friday Times now to access the Internet version.
So, when I read yesterday, in Outlook, that The Diary of a Social Butterfly has been published, I went to Vasant Vihar to purchase the book. Fortunately one of the two bookshops had it!

Taufiq

He is about 7-8 years old. His family told us that he is mad.
"He gets fits. He falls down on the ground, and foam starts coming from him mouth."
Classic epileptic fits symptom.
"But there are medicines."
"Yes the doctor gave us medicines. He said that Taufiq will have to take it for five years. However, even with medication he gets fits. And he is not normal. He is mad."
Mad is the common term for any child with developmental disability. Many children suffer either from physical or developmental disability. Sometimes, there is both. The parents, in the rural areas, have no clue what to do. If the siblings are normal then they will be sent to school. But a child with disability is left alone. The parents have no support system and many times are unaware of the nature of the disability.
"His brother also has the same problem. He too cannot walk. The sister is okay."
When the parent told us this, I knew it was an X-linked disorder. Myotonic dystrophy is an X-linked disorder that I often teach my class.
Then there was this child, who loved to take bath. He came shambling up towards us as we sat on the cot. The moment I saw the child I knew he had Down's syndrome. The mother told us:
"We have six children. Three daughters were born and we wanted a son. Then he was born."
The father took up the tale:
"He walked late, he spoke late."
"He was almost four years before he said a word."
"Did you take him to a doctor?"
"We showed him to many doctors."
"What did they say?"
A shrug.
No one has bothered to refer the child to a bigger hospital where tests, especially karyotyping, could be conducted. Down's Syndrome is easily recognizable by karyotyping- chromosome 21 is present in three copies. In addition, so much research has been done on this particular syndrome that it is today possible to educate the child to lead an almost independent life.
There is an urgent need not only for Primary Health Care centers but also for counseling and referral services in our villages.

Primary Health Care in villages

I was once more in Ramdaspur, a small nondescript village in Ghazipur.
Last time I was there, in July, I met a child who had fallen down and scraped his foot. It started out as a small wound but by the time I saw it it covered two thirds of his left foot. The wound was left open, and flies were swarming over it. He would flick at them and they would fly off, only to come back and settle down on the wound.

This time in the same village, couple of children had mumps and the same boy (his wound had eventually healed) had now another wound in his foot. This one had developed pus and was obviously painful. He walked carefully, his foot to one side to ease the pain.

I did not ask the obvious question: Has he seen a doctor?
For I knew that there is no doctor in the village. There is no primary health care center in this village. And where ever there are primary health care center, the doctors do not come to the center. So the villagers just get along the best they can with home remedies.

While coming back from Ramdaspur, Visvesh showed me a new building that is coming up. It is going to serve as primary health care center for a group of villages.

"But do doctors come?"
"No."
"Why don't you file an RTI?"

I am in fact pressing Vishvesh to file RTI against errant doctors in the hope something can be done. Maybe the doctors will start attending out of fear?

Hair follicle-gene therapy

This one is for appa.

I have been teaching gene therapy (as part of human genetics) to M.Sc. 3rd semester students. I was searching on the latest advances in using cationic lipids for gene therapy. And the first article that came up was on the feasibility of targeted selective gene therapy of the hair follicle.

But sorry appa! We do not work on this aspect in the lab. Though I guess you can try asking my student for the gene instead of the protein.

Clinical trials

The newspapers have been reporting about the use of a leukemia drug for treatment of Multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis is a progressive disorder where the immune system starts producing autoantibodies against the central neuron system leading to demylineation of the neurons and thereby destroying the neurons. Generally, the immune system fights against invasion by foreign molecules by producing proteins known as antibodies. During development the immune system is fine tuned so that it would not destroy any of the body's proteins. However, sometimes the immune system becomes a rogue and starts destroying the body's own proteins. Such a condition is known as autoimmune disorder. This is what happens in multiple sclerosis where the immune system particularly destroys the neurons. There is no cure for the condition. Indeed there is no cure for any autoimmune disorder.

Thus, the news that a leukemia drug has potential to stem the damage caused in multiple sclerosis is a big news item.

Unfortunately, the newspapers have a tendency to hype without taking the consequences into consideration. We live on hope. Especially those of us who have life-threatening diseases. Wouldn't a miracle drug cure of us of our ailment?

The problem is that the leukemia drug has been used in clinical trials to treat multiple sclerosis. It is not available in the market. Moreover, the jury is still out on whether it is indeed a miracle cure or not. There has been some success in phase II trials. The drug has to go into phase III and then further tests before it can, if at all, be marketed as a treatment for patients with multiple sclerosis. There is a further rider on it: Only those patients suffering from early stages of multiple sclerosis.

Drugs are a funny business. Once a chemical compound is identified as having an effect on a protein such that it stops its function, the hard work starts. The next step is to prove that it would have effect on cells grown in laboratory. Then we have to find out how much of that chemical would be needed to say kill 50% of the cells. If all this is successful, then we need to show that it would indeed work on a mouse model. Further, we have to show that it has minimal (no compound exists that is not toxic at some level)side-effects. Then these tests have to be repeated in other animal models. Finally, we approach the clinical trials. There are five phases of clinical trials to pass before FDA will even consider giving approval. A rough estimate is that it can take anywhere between 20-25 years from finding a chemical molecule to getting into the market. The success rate of a chemical molecule becoming a drug is an abysmal 1%. 99% of the promising compounds fail along the way.

Students election-conditional stay

For us it is that time of the year again- elections.

This year the Supreme court has issued conditional stay on the students election. It has also issued a contempt notice.

The reason given for this act is that the elections have violated the Lyngdoh Commission.e

It is little unfair.

The students election, how much ever I might deplore the fact that the issues they fight for have nothing to do with the university, are very fair. You will not see DU type posters on the campus. All the posters are either hand-made (on chart papers with felt pen) or computer print-outs. The elections are free and fair without violence. Even if there is violence, there exists mechanisms to punish the guilty.

So for the Supreme court to make a hue and cry that the elections did not adhere to certain guidelines is little unfair when no such thing was said during the DU elections. After all if we are going to say that students have to adhere to rules, then it should be followed in all the Universities. To pick and choose is nonsense.

The guidelines that students have not followed pertain to age, mandatory attendance, and ban on one candidate contesting for more than one seat.

If mandatory attendance means compulsory attendance of classes, then Supreme Court is way off. There is no concept of mandatory attendance in the University. No one takes any attendance. And we are not going to change it.

Though, truthfully, I am not surprised that we lost out on this case. Especially if the students were defended by the University lawyer. He has the distinction of losing every one of the cases for the University. I know because I had to deal with him during one of the cases.

Teacher's strike

The Central university teachers are on two-day strike.

The pay commission panel for UGC teachers was headed by Prof Chadha, the ex-VC of JNU. The report has been slammed by the teachers from the day it was released. For one, though the panel had promised substantial pay hikes nothing of the sort was recommended in the report. In fact, whatever hike we get is quite nominal. The professors, I think, were promised parity with Joint Secretaries which did not happen. The college teachers have been demanding for a long time that there should be professor positions in colleges which too has not been fulfilled. The maximum a college teacher could reach before the pay panel was that of a reader. In the pay panel an additional cadre of senior reader has been recommended. The professor position has been split into professor, senior professor, and professor of eminence. No, don't ask me the difference. It seems to me to be all about semantics.

We, at lecturer/assistant professor position had our own share of demands. Though recruitment at lecturer position does not require a Ph.D degree (whether it is in college or University- undergraduate or postgraduate teaching), most of us in sciences not only have a PhD but minimum 4-5 years of post-doc experience. If in university, then we are required to maintain an active research career. A college teacher usually has an M.Phil, if at all, and has no research responsibilities. Yet college teachers are treated on par with University teachers and both of us have to undergo something called an orientation and refresher course. The idea is to refresh ourselves. Which is ridiculous because when one has a research career one has to learn new ideas/techniques all the time. So a section of us have been saying that this orientation/refresher nonsense should be scrapped off for teachers in Universities who have an active research career. Of course, it has not been done.

Today's strike is all about scrapping the inequalities in professor position and redressing the grievances of college teachers. Neither the FEDCUTA nor the teacher's association in my University is interested in listening to the woes of the science faculty.

So what are we doing today?

Oh, it is business as usual.

Classes are going on because we are already behind schedule. The students vanished off for Dusshera and are planning to take off for Diwali. As attendance is not mandatory it does not matter to them. For the faculty it is rush time as extra classes are scheduled in to finish the course. The exams start in the last week of November and there is just no time.

A colleague of mine put it succinctly:

We are such a small group of teachers in our University that our presence or absence makes no difference. So why not have classes as usual?

Then he warned me:

Just do not call it class. Tell the students that you are going to have a discussion.

As I said earlier, it is all about semantics.

Homosexuality

Long time back my lab mate, Pat, had written a letter to the UVa newspaper defending homosexuality. At this a lab technician, Kevin, told me that it was a brave thing that Pat had done.

I have never figured what why it is such a big deal. The sexual orientation of a person is that person's concern. It has nothing to do with the government or religion. It is just as a person breathes, eats, sees, and so does a person have sexual preference. Why should the government enter into it?

In India, of course,we have inherited the antiquated Victorian laws that essentially translates into the fact that homosexuality is a criminal offence. It is absolutely stupid but that is what you have.

Naz foundation has taken the matter to the court asking for a revision of the law. For a change Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss is supporting Naz Foundation but the Center as usual cannot see straight. So today it has submitted to the court that homosexuality is a disease.

What humbug!

Of course it is all a question of the other person being different from us. Abnormal to normal. But then how do we define normality?

Cause Celeb

This is the name of Helen Fielding's first novel. Her Bridget Jones' Diary was hilarious though the I did not like the sequel that much. Cause Celeb was a complete surprise. It too sports a heroine (Rosie) in her 30s who has come to Africa following break up with her boyfriend Oliver. Oliver is too wrapped up in himself (I think he was the prototype of how bad boyfriends behave. Helen Fielding honed him to perfection in her second novel with Daniel Cleaver) and Rosie just about had enough. So she heads to Africa to work with an agency called SUSTAIN in a mythical country called Nambula. Her description of the aid agencies that throng the third world countries is just perfect. The ship is supposed to deliver food is going to arrive in 10 days (no one knows when the 10 days are going to end) and there is a locust swarm eating away the crops. As the refugee crisis escalates, it is up to Rosie to save the situation.

It is a nice novel- not frothy as Bridget Jones but not too serious either.

I have Maeve Binchy's novel to read. I have read only one book by her- a gift from one of my mamis. It was okay. I thought it was bit like a long romance novel. This one too seems to be headed that way so let us see how it goes.

Meantime, I am tad upset today. The apartment complex (if it can be called that) has 24 hour security. Apparently some of the tenants wanted it and so the University complied. The University has outsourced security so we have Group 4 Securicor providing security. The have assigned two agents to our complex. Each one does 12 hour duty. When the duty shift changes, one of them will have to do 24 hour shift. They are expected to work 7 days a week with no holidays. If they take a break, they are dismissed from service. The agent has been on duty for more than 24 hours because his replacement is late.

How can such a thing be allowed? Of course the problem is that there are always people ready to fill up an vacancy. The agency knows it and that is why they can make their people work under such inhuman conditions.

So I am as usual raving about it. I will have to raise a stink about it.

Why don't we stop and help?

There is a news item in Times Of India about a girl falling off from the train and losing her limbs. What caught my eye was her comment that no one came to help. She
called her brother-in-law on her cell phone before fainting. And then an elderly man offered her water and informed the police.

Four years back the same thing happened to a student of mine. He was going on his motorbike and had an accident. He lay on the road but no one stopped his/her vehicle and came to his help. Finally, he pulled his mobile and called his cousin. The cousin rushed over to the spot and took him to the hospital. The time that had elapsed between the accident and the hospitalization was two hours. It was July, the sun was beating down mercilessly and the humidity was high.

I know why we don't stop. The police will ultimately harass us. But somehow that explanation seems so lame. Doesn't humanitarian feelings tell us that we should stop and help? Why do we run away from the scene, head averted, convinced it is none of our business?

All about chocolate

Appa has been stressed out lately. I advised him:

"Eat some chocolate, appa."

Appa: Chocolate is bad for your teeth."

Me: Nonsense appa.

Having said it was nonsense, I set out to prove I was right and appa was wrong. I was aided and abetted in this process by a lovely book called "Chocolate: The consuming passion" by Sandra Boynton. It is very informative book which answers every intelligent
question about chocolate. The book debunks some of the more popular myths about chocolate:

1. Chocolate is bad for your teeth.
2. Chocolate is fattening.
3. Chocolate is a dangerous drug.
4. Chocolate is not nutritious.

The book also makes a very provocative observation: The greatest tragedies were written by the Greeks and by Shakespeare. Neither knew chocolate. The Swiss are known for nonviolence. They are also known for superb chocolate.

You can read more about the benefits of chocolate yourself here

Listen Honey...Life is a stitch...and a story

Today there was gloom in the house. The Reliance webworld told us that the internet connection has been terminated but the datacard that I had to purchase remains purchased. There is no return back policy. Appa was upset because he felt that it was on his advice that I had purchased the datacard and therefore lost Rs 3000. But amma set him right:

"There is no need to worry," she told him. "Just write off the loss."

Then she turned to me and advised:

"If I were you, I would write a story, sell it to a magazine and recoup the money. Just send another book to Shishu Sahitya Samsad and you will get your Rs 3000 back."

Appa, of course, was tad bit startled. Already with a sister for a writer and a daughter as aspiring writer, he feels life is just too miserable. He tried to imagine what his life would have been if his wife too had been a writer...

The title of the blog comes from cross-stitch pattern called Listen Honey. These designs feature ladies with attitude. And as they appreciate chocolate as much as I do, you can understand why I love them so much. I first came across them in the US but never got around to purchasing these charts or doing it. It has thus far remained on my to do list. My favourite is the one where the lady says: Listen Honey...It is official...I have become my mother! It always competes with the ones that say Listen Honey... Will Work For Chocolate, and Listen Honey, I am looking for a tall dark hunk...of chocolate.

But more about the beneficial effects of chocolate in the next blog.

Ramar Sethu

I love the inanities of life. Especially when it comes at the end of a miserable day.

So somebody in the government came up with the idea of Sethu Samudram Project. The DMK government wants it badly because it feels it will go down well with the voters. The BJP opposes it because this is the point where Rama crossed over to Sri Lanka to wage war with Ravana. And the Central Government is clueless. Any way the whole matter is with the court. The Centre has now submitted before the courts that Rama himself destroyed the Sethu he built across the sea.

Oh Wow! It is almost as if they had a private audience with Rama and he told him this. (The Centre says it is written in Kambar Ramayana which would imply Kambar had a private audience with Rama. Whatever!)

In all this mesh of idiotic arguments is lost the simple fact that we would have to pay a heavy environmental cost. It is also not by any means clear that this canal would shorten the distance between Sri Lanka and India. But if our political parties became sensible where would we go for laughter?

The fall of Sonu

Sonu, who fell down the borewell, is dead.

Unfortunately this is not an isolated case. It happens with sickening regularity. There was Prince who had fallen down a borewell in Haryana. It made a big headline with all the news channels stationing their reporters at the site for minute by minute updating. But did any of us ever ask the question why was the left open for children to fall down? What were those responsible for the borewell thinking? What was the panchayat thinking? What were the parents thinking?

Heck, why borewell? What about open drains? What about open pits? What about dug up sidewalks? Does any body put a warning sign? I remember there was a case of a woman being washed down a drain because the roads were flooded and she could not see where she was stepping.

The bottom line is that we do not care. It did not happen to us, right? So what the heck? Why should we worry?

The Delhi Government in the aftermath of the Nithari case woke up. Enough to put up lovely poster boards every where loudly proclaiming: Delhi Loves its Children.

Yet there are children who beg right under that poster. They do not exist of course. Or do they?

The much touted anti-child labour law is another such thing. In one stroke we have eliminated child labour. Yet there are many within my own campus who hire children to work in their houses. Other than social boycotting I do not know what to do with them.

As a society we simply do not care. That is why Sonu happens with such regularity.

Tales From Firozsha Baagh

This was title of the book by Rohinton Mistry. I was little apprehensive and in two minds whether to issue it or not from British Council Library. I have read one of his books: A Fine Balance. It was, I found, horrible though my friend Minu liked it a lot and insisted we read it for the Book Club in Colorado. But I could not wade through it and about 3/4th of the way I completely gave up. There was never a lighter moment and the only thing that kept happening was troubles. Troubles pile upon the heroine, Dina somebody, in waves. Her husband dies within a year of marriage, her family is dysfunctional, poverty of course is a constant companion, her brother does not like her and tries to swindle her, and so on and so forth. There was not even humor to lighten up the scenario. The writing was turgid and heavy and I simply hated it.

So when I saw a collection of short stories by the same author I was in two minds. Should I or should I not.

I am glad I picked it up. The writing was much lighter and though the tone was heavy and dark throughout, it was not as bad as his novel. In fact I enjoyed almost all the stories. The 11 stories are interlinked and somewhat semi-autobiographical I suspect based on the last story. It tells the stories of the tenants of a building called Firozsha Baagh in Bombay. The setting is from post-independence to early 1970s when I think the author emigrated to Canada. The story I liked best was one called Condolences. Daulat has just lost her husband. She very much dislikes recounting the story of his last days to the people who come to pay her condolences. Her pesky neighbour, Najamai, keeps turning up at the most importune moment much to Daulat's intense irritation. It is a situation where she is helpless to say anything to Najamai though by the end of the story she has retrieved the situation.

The pesky neighbour reminded me of my mother's ex-neighbour. She would dictate every aspect of my mother's life much to our irritation. Only her removal from the building retrieved the situation for us.

Internet woes

The internet conked off once more two weeks back. It was working fine till 10 am in the morning. I went to the office and came back to find that the internet was no longer working. Since then I have been unsuccessfully calling up MTNL to get the problem fixed. Finally, I was told that I would have to call the area manager who would then authorize for the problem to be fixed. No, don't ask me what, why, etc. All I know is that for the past three days I have been calling the area manager's office persistently. I pestered them, scolded them, yelled at them, to get the problem fixed. It was finally done today. Whew!

When the internet was AWOL, we had the bright idea of switching the internet service provider. Reliance provides wireless internet service. It was supposed to reliable, fast etc. etc. So I called them up and they promptly landed up at home with the datacard which works only on Windows system.

"Not on Linux?"
"No, Ma'am. Do you have Windows?"

I have a double booting system thanks to my brother. So we fixed the stuff up and they told me to activate the card. The speed was worse than dial up and when I and my brother talked on Skype we ended up not understanding what the other was saying. I called up the Reliance service to get the problem fixed but guess what? They are as good as MTNL.
"You must have too many programs on your computer."
"But I use the laptop in my office. The office connection works fine. We have broadband service."
"You must have automatic update switched on. Why don't you download netbooster from our web site."
"I cannot open your website."
"Very well Ma'am. When you open our website, please install netbooster and check the speed. If it does not work then go to the nearest Reliance webworld and check the data card."
"Excuse me. I cannot open your website."
"Yes, Ma'am. Please install the netbooster and check the speed. If it does not work then go to the nearest Reliance webworld and check the data card."
I gave up.
It was at this point I decided to stick with MTNL. At least I know the area manager's phone number.

Nobel Prize-Medicine

This year it has been awarded to three scientists for their work on viruses-HIV and papilloma virus.

For a long time the discovery of HIV virus was point of dispute. Robert Gallo, who discovered HTLV, and Luc Montagnier who identified in AIDS patient. Luc Montagnier has won the Nobel Prize. Robert Gallo is nowhere mentioned.

This is however not the first time that this has happened. Andrew Fire and Craig Mello were awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of siRNA. The only problem is that it was discovered long time back in plants. But Fire and Mello were able to identify the mechanism, and revolutionized the entire field of genetics. For that they deserved the prize.

Or take the most famous example: Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize for solving the structure of DNA. The X-ray crystallography data, however, was produced by Rosalind Franklin. Of course she had died by the time the Nobel Prize was awarded but in their book "The Double Helix" she is lampooned by Watson, which is kind of unacceptable. The major problem was that Rosalind Franklin was unable to solve the structure. Watson and Crick were able to and that is the end of the story. In fact, at that point in time Linus Pauling was also involved in the race to solve the structure. He proposed a triple helix. Had he read Erwin Chargoff's paper, he would have realized that a triple helix was not possible.

I usually tell this to the first year students emphasizing how important it is to analyze the data.

Coming back to Nobel Prize- I think somewhere out there the HIV virus must be chuckling to itself quietly. All efforts to control it has failed for the simple reason it always has a trick up its sleeve. It is a tough virus to work with and these scientists deserve their prize. I only feel sorry for Robert Gallo because I think, honestly, he has contributed a lot to the field of retroviruses.

The Empty Marketplace

We went over to Sarojini Nagar Market yesterday. Amma wanted to buy somethings. She was in two minds- should she let me go by myself or should she come along? Finally, she chose to come with me and appa.

Sarojini Nagar Market in the best of days is jam-packed with sellers and buyers. There is hardly any space to manoeuver. You have to crawl along, sometimes pushing your way through.

Yesterday was different. There were just few shoppers. I asked the shopkeeper what happened to the crowd?

"Those days are gone, madam."

It was sad to see the empty marketplace. The markets derive their vibrancy from the people. If they are not there what is left of our marketplaces?

The bombers, whoever they are, have certainly achieved one thing: Fear. It is there in all of us as we go about our daily lives. Who knows where they will plant the next one? I hate them for that.

On why I do not answer certain emails

This one is for my student. She said that the students write many emails to professors requesting for project work but no one ever replies and it is very disheartening.

I too am guilty of not responding to emails, especially if they are from students requesting for project work.

With multiplication of Universities and courses offered, one thing most Universities, colleges, institutes seem to have jettisoned is the laboratory work. It does not matter for theoretical courses but for subjects like basic sciences it matters terribly. Compounded with this is the fact that many of the small universities, colleges, and institutes do not have a viable research program. These institutions, therefore, have found a neat solution to the problem- have the students do a 3-6 month project work outside the institute. On paper it looks so attractive! Oh, the students will do a project work. The reality is little different. Most of these institutes take no responsibility on placement. They ask the students to write to various professors across the country and find for themselves a placement. So I, for example, will get at least one or two such request on any given day. This is an addition to the students wandering into the office asking for permission to do project work.

Most of us do not want to have these students. For one, we do not get paid by their Universities to train them. On average I have to spend at least 1-2 lakhs per year per student. So if a student comes to my lab for 6 months project work, it means Rs 50,000 to 1 lakh consumable money. Where would I get that money from? Secondly, most of them have to be trained from the very beginning. As most of us do not work in the laboratory anymore, we have to depend on our students for the training part. Some PhD students are good and they will take pains to teach. Some are pretty bad. They will agree on principle to train another student but will not do so. Many times, and this has happened even in my lab, the trainee will be in tears. So I have to see, before accepting a trainee, who is available in my lab to train them. Finally, even our own M.Sc program insists on a project work/laboratory training. This means that in my lab at any given time would be 1-2 M.Sc students. So if I taken any student from outside, it means in addition to these M.Sc students.

Therefore, when emails come to me from students they are deleted. I guess what I should have is some sort of an automatic reply system where it says sorry but no space is available or some such thing. I should set it up so that the person who writes to me at least gets a reply. But what I want more than this is that the Universities should have viable research program and it is the responsibility of the University to ensure that there students are trained in laboratory techniques.


PS: I should clarify. The UGC has given us money to train students. Each one of us can take up to three students per year and for each student we will be given Rs 30,000. This eases situation little bit. But the number of applicants is so large that 3 per faculty is peanuts.

The Sound of Music

My brother calls it The Sound of Mucus, which, he says, is how Christopher Plummer also refers to it.

My brother and I fight over lots of things. This is one of them. I like the movie and he does not. So I promised him a blog on why I like the movie.

When I was about six or so the parents took all of us to a Tamil Movie at Regal Cinema. My mother loves movies but my father does not care too much about it. However, at that particular junction we kids could not be left alone at home. Therefore, we were dragged over to the cinema hall.

The movie was horrible. I think it was called Veedu or Veethi or something like that. All I remember was that there was just too much violence and then there was this scene where the heroine was chased by the villain. The heroine cried throughout the movie. And I cried too. In fact I howled so much that my brother remarked at the end of the movie that he did not know who cried more: the heroine or me.

Anyway, that decided it. I was not going to see any movie and they were not going to drag me to it. If the parents wanted to see movies that was their business, not mine. I was not going to go for any movies. As we did not have television it was easy enough to avoid it at home and if my mother wanted to see a movie, she went with her sister-in-law while father babysat us. Once appa desperately tried to get me to come with them to see a movie called Meendum Kokila. He assured me that it was a nice funny movie but to no avail. No means no. I was not going to see any movie. They were horrible.

That was the scenario when The Sound of Music came into town. Since we had a LP record I knew there were lots of children in the movie. Moreover amma had let it fall that she had seen it in Bombay and it was nice. Still suspicious of her, I remarked that I would not mind coming to a movie if it was The Sound of Music. The parents were surprised but agreed to take me, provided I did not howl. As if at 14 I would...

So we went over to a theater near Paharganj and the movie was such a pleasant surprise. There was no violence, no beating up, no crying...at last something I could watch without wanting to burst into tears.

Of course it is saccharine sweet. Of course there is no story plot. Of course lots of it is nonsense but hey, who cares.

Just another point: To this date I cannot sit through a movie with lots of violence or sadness. My brother has been trying to make me watch Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali. When I told him that I can't, he was like what rubbish? But it is true. I cried when I read the book. Durga dies. How could she die? So that is about it. I cannot watch the movie. Incidentally, though I cried in the end of Charulata when I read it, I still was able to watch the movie. I think it is just Durga's death was simply too much to swallow or maybe it is the ending in Charulata. Yes, her husband goes away and the marriage is at an end but the way Tagore finishes the story, I could at least imagine that one day things would all work out. That I cannot do with Pather Panchali. It sounds silly but that is how it is.

Internet woes

My internet woes continue. The service has not been available since Saturday. Complaints are of no avail so today I plan to call either the Junior Engineer or the Area Manager.

I feel a twinge of sympathy for them. It is a horrible position to be in. After all it is a position we have gone through.

In the early 1970s Appa was in charge of the Kidwai Bhawan exchange. We had been given living accommodation within the exchange complex. The exchange was notorious for not functioning. We could hardly ever dial out and most of the calls we received would be wrong numbers. Consequently, the home-office line was blurred and many times appa would receive complaints from harassed subscribers at home.

My periappa was very fond of one particular incident.

We were seated at the dinner table when the phone rang. My brother leapt to answer the phone. Still holding the receiver, he called out:

"Appa it is for you!"

And still holding the receiver, he said excitedly:

"Appa, do you realize it is first correct phone call we have had in this entire day?"

Appa took the receiver. The voice at the other end asked incredulously:

"Do you also receive wrong numbers?"

Appa said cheerfully:

"All the time. Tell me, how can I help you?"

"Oh I was calling you up to complain about the wrong number calls that I receive. but..."

As I pick up the phone to complain I remember the episode vividly and feel a twinge. But...

Right to Information- works!

The past few months I have been having sort of struggle with National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).

It all goes back to the school for migrant laborers children. The migrant laborers come into Kanpur and other cities to work in the brick kilns. The work starts in October and lasts till April or so. At that point the laborers go back to their village, only to come back to the city in October.

Jagriti Bal Vikas Samiti has been working with these children for past 20 years or so. One of the things they have done is to open a school to educate these children. The school has classes till eighth class. The NIOS conducts examinations for these children as well as for secondary and senior secondary children. The children have to enroll for the examinations in August. The problem that confronted Jagriti was that the children enroll in their school only in October so how can they enroll for the examinations in August?

So I was asked whether I can talk to some one in NIOS and see if something could be done. I nodded yes.

Easier to nod than to do it! Every day for two weeks I tried calling up NIOS. It did not matter at what time I called, which day I called, or which number I dialled, I never got a response. No one would even answer the phone. The one time someone answered the phone told me that the enrollment is in August.

Then Appa suggested that I email them. I emailed the director, the secretary, and even the Chairperson. No response.

Finally I got rather frustrated and said "I feel like slapping an RTI on them."

Which is what we did.

On Friday, flustered person (Incharge of examinations sections) called, apologized, and gave me the information I sought. We have to do some paperwork but hopefully, the children of the school can now get their eighth class certificate.

So you see RTI works!

But that is not the point. The point is that this information should have been provided when we first tried to get in touch with them. Some one should answer the phone, some one should answer the email.

Of course it does not happen that way.
For the past few weeks I have been struggling with MTNL. Neither my phone nor my internet works. If it works, it does so intermittently. I have booked complaints with 198 but to no avail. I have called their call center about my internet problem but every time I am assured that it would be repaired within 24 hours. I do not know when 24 hours start and when they end.

Finally, I have no recourse but to call either the Area manager or the Junior engineer and try to get it repaired.

It is such a waste of time and energy!

Vivekananda Vichar Manch

Few days back Vivekananda Vichar Manch put up a poster. Being an inveterate poster reader, I stopped to read it.

The Vichar Manch wanted citizens to get together, think and act. The manch was worried about the security situation in India. They listed items starting from the beginning. They named the bombings, the burning of trains, etc.etc. All in all there were 20 or so items that merited attention. Amazing. I glanced through the items.

It truly was amazing. Not a word about Babri Masjid or the Gujarat riots or the attacks on the church. In fact not a single word about the activities of the Hindu fundamentalists.

I have been thinking a lot about this particular issue. Especially, because of the latest arrests by the police of the perpetrators of bombings in Delhi. Almost all of them are young- 22-23 years old- and many of them are University students. So why would they do something so ghastly?

The thing is that none of these people are foreigners of the famous foreign hand that Indira Gandhi was so fond of talking about. These kids are Indians, grew up here in our country, and yet did some thing stupid and idiotic like this. I shudder to think what they must be going through in the hands of the police. And I wonder about those families who lost their near and dear ones in the bombing.

Why did these kids do it? Was it brain-washing, or was it in revenge? What was it that motivated them?

The point is that we live in a pluralistic society. The kind of attitudes that is propagated by fundamentalists- Hindu, Islam, Christian- does no good to anyone other than breed more hatred. That is why I dislike the kind of posters that Vivekananda Vichar Manch put up.

I did what I usually do under such circumstances- wrote a story. It helped me stabilize a bit.

The views of Vivekananda Vichar Manch can be read here.

The Dog catchers

Dogs are a menace on the campus. Every one has a tale of how they were chased by the dogs, or bitten by the dogs, or how their children were harassed, or how they make a mess every where. There is Sooby who takes pleasure on chasing people if they walk past him talking on their mobiles. Then there are bunch in the Transit House who dirty the corridors. The cleaning lady complains bitterly about them but we are unable to do anything. The trash bags cannot be kept outside so that it can be picked up because the dogs rifle through them, splattering the garbage generously on the corridors.

The campus is divided into two groups. One group argues vociferously that stray dogs will come into the campus whatever we do. The other group wants to get rid of them.

As usual I am ambivalent about them. At one level is that they are a menace. At the other level is humane consideration.

The group that is for the dogs has proposed that the easiest thing to do is to get the dogs sterilized. The other groups complains bitterly that they have not see any sign of it and the dogs just multiply.

So on my usual walk tonight I was pleasantly surprised. Near the Paschimabad cutting three dogs were barking. A van with Animal Hospital written on it was parked near the crossing. I crossed over and asked the security guard:

"What is happening?"

"They are returning the dogs."

"What?

"They had taken the dogs, no, ma'am. They are being returned after nasbandi."

So there we go.

Gorku

As a child nothing fascinated me more than to hear the tale of Gorku from my mother.

Gorku was a buffalo who lived in maternal grandparents house in Madras. She was a lovely buffalo, extremely fond of mud bath. One day she was found missing.

Now, depending on who is telling the tale, the events following this piece of information would vary. It would also vary with every retelling of the tale. Even though I knew the ending it was still a hilarious story and I would insist on hearing it again and again. And even now whenever amma visits me or whenever I see any of my mama, I ask for this tale.

The bare plot is very simple. Gorku ran away. My fourth mama, who at that time was living at home while searching for a job, was given the responsibility of fetching the buffalo home. My maternal grandfather was a trifle impatient man and no one dared to say anything to him except my amma. Anyway, my fourth mama, whose name is Mani mama, went off to fetch the buffalo home in the company of the cowhand who unfortunately happened to have only one eye.

The cowhand was a firm believer of astrology. So off they went to West Mambalam to consult an astrologer who used parrots to predict the future- kili jyotisyam. On the way the cowhand, who was a ladies man, kept winking at all the pretty girls.

“Hey amma, have you seen a buffalo walk past this road? She is a beautiful buffalo with shiny black skin.”

The girls would giggle and Mani mama would wish the earth swallowed him.

Anyway, they reached the astrologer who confidently predicted that the buffalo would return home soon.

The buffalo did not come home and thatha was not too pleased. Mani mama visited the municipal corporation to see if the buffalo had been impounded but Gorku was not there.

Then few days later while Mani mama was walking down the street in Mambalam, he chanced to see Gorku.

“Gorku,” he called out.

Gorku immediately recognized him.

“Gorku, Gorku,” she bellowed out.

It turned out that the cowhand had been demanding a raise which thatha had refused to consider.
Anyway it all turned out well and there was a happy reunion.

“What happened to Gorku?” I would ask amma, food poised at the mouth, for I would have refused to eat without the story of Gorku told to me at meal times.

Amma would shrug her shoulders. She could not remember. Perchance she was sold when thatha died.

I believe Gorku is well and alive. Somewhere out there she is wallowing in her favourite mud bath.

I saw Gorku counterpart when I did a site visit to Ghazipur. The photo is not very well focussed but I could not take a photograph without explaining about Gorku.

A lesson in Spanish

Lata, who takes care of me, has two sons. The eldest one has completed school last year and there was much discussion as to what should he do. Lata works for one other faculty who is with Spanish Center. He suggested that Sonu should do Spanish but Sonu could not qualify either for JNU or for Jamia, two universities who offer courses in this language.

Lata was determined that Sonu should make something of his life so scrounging around for money she managed to get Sonu private tuition in Spanish. This year Sonu qualified for Jamia and has joined for a diploma course there.

His progress has been so good that his private tutor has offered to send him to Spain to do some work there. Lata was in a dilemma- the passport, the airfare, some amount of money to spend.

"Didi I have money for airfare but for the rest..."

We pitched in. Now, Sonu is waiting for the passport to come so that he can make his first trip abroad. He told his mother:

"Wait till I start earning. Then you will not have to do any household work."

Lata was laughing when she recounted it to me. I told her:

"Oh wait till Sonu goes to Spain. Then next time around you too should hop on the flight and go."

Counseling services

I have been ambivalent towards the reservation policy as initiated by the government. My problem with it has been that we are pushing students into higher education without adequate preparation at school levels. That our schools are abysmal is well-known- just go to the schools in small towns and villages and you will know what I am talking about.

But I have a deeper problem: Most of the universities are not equipped to deal with these students.

Given that our society is highly patriarchal, the students from smaller town and villages carry their own baggage when they come to large cities or to universities like mine for higher studies. I deal with Ph.D. students so my discussion will be limited to them.

The girls, because so much curbs have been put on them, view the entrance into PhD as liberation. Many times the M.Sc girls will come up to me to say that if they get into PhD will I accept them as their student because you see if they go back home, they will be married off and that would be the end of their career. The girls, because of this very fear, try to do their best- they will work hard to complete their thesis because their is a deadline on their head, they have no hesitation in asking again and again if they do not understand something, they will discuss their experimental results with others and think of better ways to do the experiments. More importantly, if they are unable to analyze their data they have no problems in going to their supervisor or discussing with other students.

The boys, most of them, are exactly the opposite. Brought up on a steady diet of men are superior, they are absolutely incapable of adjusting to the new world. Some of them do, but many of them simply cannot. I have one such student who is from the hinterlands of Bihar. He is diffident, he cannot analyze any data (thanks to the inadequacies of his school as well as college education), and he has to work with a woman. Poor chap! Of course we can say why he does not raise above all this. The answer is that he cannot. That is about it.

If the University had been sensible (and few of us have been insisting on it), there would be a counseling service for such students. Place where they can unburden themselves, place where they would be taught to adjust into the new world, taught how to interact with other students especially girl students, and taught how to cope with the fact that their supervisor is a woman.

But as the University is not sensible such students are left to fend for themselves and most end up being absolutely unhappy. So here is my student, who I simply do not know how, is going to write and defend his thesis. He will be termed as a scientist but I cannot envisage what he would do really.

I feel sorry for him and angry at myself. If I had bit of sense I would have addressed this problem in the beginning itself. But as he was my first student, and this was my first exposure to this kind of problem, I have made a complete muck of it. I end up more than half the time losing my temper when I should not. And then I feel even more angry and upset :(

Of course I can always console myself that I did not know any better, I can also console myself by saying why does not he make an effort, but the truth is that it just leaves an unpleasant metallic taste in my mouth.

Teacher's day

In the morning Popy and Reshma wished me a Happy Teacher's day. Today is 5th September commemorated as Teacher's day.

I recall doing teacher's day at school but not at M.Sc levels. I think Dr. Manjrekar is correct in his assessment: we were too busy painting the department red to worry about anything including teacher's day.

But the students of today's generation remember it better than we did. So two of last year's M.Sc students came to give me a card and to touch my feet. That always makes me feel uncomfortable for we do not have the tradition of touching anyone's feet at home.

And then I got a surprise card from a ex-project student and another one from a student who did a project in my lab and is now in California.

All in all a very nice day.

I remember my teachers. Strangely I remember most of the teachers who taught me in 11th class. Strange because I did most of my studies at KV Sector VIII, RK Puram except for 11th which I did in Lucknow. The school was small, the teachers were friendly and innovative, actually. There was Mrs. Duggal whose English exams were fun because she always gave us space to write a short prose at the end of the exam. Mrs. Kumar who taught us Physics and could not be bothered with exams. And Mr. Tripathi who taught us Chemistry and instilled in me the habit of keeping extensive records of the experiments done.

Then in B.Sc. there was Dr. Sarabhai who worked harder than I did for the gold medal and who was kind enough to do all the paper work needed for the graduation ceremony. I think the parents visited him when the letter of the award ceremony came because I was away in Baroda.

And finally there was Joel, whom I treated more as a colleague than as a teacher. I ran the lab and bullied him just as I bully my brother. But he took it all good-naturedly and let me do the experiments my own way.

So it is to all of them a Happy Teacher's Day.

The obessive compulsive cleanliness disorder gene

As I inspected the house yesterday to see whether it is ready to receive the parents, I was stuck by the injustice of it all. I mean to say that the family as a whole (the parents, the brother, the sister-in-law) all seem to be stuck on cleaning, cleaning, and some more cleaning, while I do not care. I mean it is a case of it is okay, I can live with it, and when it becomes too much I will clean everything up. In that process I usually end up throwing away valuable things which sort of then justifies my not cleaning, if you follow my argument.

So I thought about it a little bit. After all today I know more about genetics than I did four years back thanks to teaching the subject every year.

The more I thought about it the more I became convinced that there exists an obsessive compulsive cleanliness gene. Looking at the pattern of inheritance (it has skipped me) I think it is a dominant gene.

Let us designate the gene OCD. This is the dominant form. When expressed the patient wants to clean everything. The recessive form is ocd, where the person can live with some amount of untidiness.

The parents I think are heterozygous to this gene. If they were homozygous, then I too should be afflicted with this disease. As I am not, the parents have to be heterozygous, with one copy of the disease gene and one copy of the normal gene. Therefore, the genotype of both the parents is OCD/ocd.

This means that F1 progeny (that is my brother and me) had 50% chance of being OCD/ocd, 25% chance of being ocd/ocd, and 25% chance of being OCD/OCD.

Given the way my brother cleans every thing (he beats the parents hollow) I am convinced that he is OCD/OCD. Extremely clean. He gets up in the morning and starts cleaning. What amazes me is that he got a wife who is exactly like him in this aspect.

And I am ocd/ocd-there is no such concept as clean, clean, clean all the time in me.

It is all in the genetics. I felt little better.

The house is not cleaned up despite my best intentions. But then if it was cleaned, what would the parents clean when they come? Then they would be bored. And their expectations would rise up. Every time they come they would expect the house to be ultra-clean. So thinking overall about it, and taking consolation from the genetics, I have given up on the idea of getting the house clean to their standards.

Evolution

In the US there is a big debate as to whether evolution should be taught in schools. The debate never made any sense to me because in India all of us are taught evolution in schools-whatever our religion might be and whatever the religion might say. But in the US the religion does get to dictate what should be taught vis a vis evolution.

I have been following the debate because as a biologist/geneticist/biochemist/whatever, it is pretty obvious to me. Just compare the genome of the chimpanzee with that of the man and you will see that it is 99% similar- something that could not have happened unless we shared the same genome at some point of time. We can go back in time as much as to bacteria and trace the similarity in gene sequences between bacteria and us- a pretty neat evidence that we must have all evolved from the same progenitor at some point or other.

Religion, in that sense, at least to me is a private matter and whether I believe there is a God or not, it does not preclude evolution. In fact I would say there is great many evidences that evolution happened while there is no proof that God exists.

But not to all scientists, obviously. So there have been some my ilk who have been propagating what is known as The Intelligent Design. Basically it says that evolution cannot explain all the diversity we see and therefore, there has to be an intelligent designer i.e. God.

So where am I going with this rambling? We were discussing DNA polymerases in the class. DNA polymerases are proteins that replicate DNA and were first discovered by Arthur Kornberg, for which he got the Nobel Prize. I was explaining how DNA polymerases add new nucleotides to the growing chain of DNA in one direction only because it makes proof reading possible.

A student asked:

"But why cannot we have DNA polymerases doing the same in the other direction? After all if the DNA polymerase did not introduce a wrong base it would have no need for proof reading?"

"Ah, but DNA polymerases are not ideal machines. So they occasionally do make mistakes and have to be rectified. Moreover if DNA polymerases did not make mistakes, there would have been no evolution!"

The class laughed. Of course evolution! Thankfully, none of the students brought up the issue "But God made us all!"

Maa Tujhe Salam

This was the name of the recording (video?) that was released on the eve 50th anniversary of India's independence. I chanced to see the visuals on Friday when I went out for dinner.

The visuals had A.R. Rahman along with cute villagers in various garbs. There were village children running with the flags, men and women in their traditional, oh how lovely it all was! On all their faces was pride- the concept of free India, the concept of Bharat

This year during the site visits, Govind insisted on asking the children basic general knowledge.

"What is the name of our Prime Minister?"

Blank looks. Some children stared assiduously at their slates.

"Okay, what is the name of the state you are living?"

More blank looks.

"What is the name of the country?"

Some where a child told us:

"Bharat."

Whew!

I had similar experience last year when I went on site visits just after 15th August. At every center I visited, I was told that 15th August was celebrated.

"Why is 15th August celebrated?"

"The country became a republic."

"For Nehru."

"I do not know."

So my question is: What is all this country, Maa Tujhe Salam, 15th August, 26th January business all about?

Crocheted science

So is crochet so divorced from science?

Sometime back I read an article in the New York Times where mathematicians have used crochet to create hyperbolic plane. I did not save the article but you can find Daina Taimina's work here. She is a mathematician at Cornell University who has been working with crochet to create mathematical shapes (is this the correct term?)

There is one more article on the same vein but by a different group.

I am not an expert crocheter in the sense I hardly ever create my own patterns. But then I do not ever create patterns for cross-stitch or knitting. So in a sense I can copy patterns but cannot create one.

But for the past few years I have been facing dilemma. Essentially I teach the structure of DNA to the first semester M.Sc students. The first year I taught the course a bright young Chinese student asked me why if DNA is like a ladder then how does it form major and minor groove. It was something I had never pondered on. So I thought a lot about it, read few articles and found out that DNA is actually asymmetrical. Duh! of course. It is just I had never thought about it but had absorbed the notion.

Anyway, ever since that day I try to impart this knowledge to my students but it is extremely difficult for the students to visualize a symmetrical ladder and what would happen if it was twisted like the DNA. Whenever I would quiz them on this point later in the exams I would get varied answers clearly indicating that it has not penetrated their understanding.

So this year I fell back on crochet. It is fairly simple to create a ladder in crochet. You just make a chain say of 50. Then do a row of double-crochet (or a treble crochet depending on which nomenclature you follow). Do another row of the same on top of the first row and end. You will have a ladder. While making the ladder you will observe that the ladder twists much like a DNA would. It is natural consequence. You can also count the number of rungs between each twist. I was delighted to find that it approximates 10- the same number as in a DNA helix. And finally you will not find any major and minor grooves because all the bond angles (so as to speak) are exactly the same.

The class was in whoops when I pulled out my crocheted ladder. I think I have managed to get the point across. It would have been nice if I had an asymmeteric crochet ladder. I have to think how to crochet such a ladder.

Oh, the best part of it all was when a girl came up and asked me whether she could have the DNA ladder I had made. She said she wanted to try it out at home and see if it really would work. Now, that was the best reward of all.

Appa's watchman

He was a farmer. His son and daughter-in-law took away the land and left him destitute. So he came to the city where his daughter and son-in-law resided.
"You can stay here as long as you want," they told him.
But his self-respect demanded that he earn something:
"How can I live off my daughter?"
That is how he became a watchman where my parents reside.

When I entered the building he looked at me suspiciously:
"When did you come?"
"Yesterday night."
"Ah. I saw you when I came up. Where have you been?"
"To the market to get vegetables."
He nodded his head wisely and heaved a lugubrious sigh:
"Poor ayya! His health."
I was alarmed:
"What happened?"
"No, nothing. With amma like this..."
I was illumined. My mother is having cataract operation.
"Oh, she is fine. The operation will enable to see her better."
He was not pacified:
"The water is not being pumped up."
I knew about that too:
"Don't worry."
"No, I am not worrying. But poor ayya has to call the plumber."
"He has already called the plumber," I tried to cheer him up.
"I know. He said that if the plumber comes when he is still the hospital with amma, I should tell the plumber to wait."
I nodded him head.
He heaved another sigh and shook his head. I left him buried under the burden of appa's troubles.

I was touched and amused.

Appa has been looking after the building concerns almost single-handedly: water supply, pumping of the water, plumbing problems,electricity troubles, lift problems. But no one in the building has ever voiced their concern about appa's health or indeed a word of appreciation to me.

And yet here was this watchman...

Qat

Yemen has two principal crops: Qat and Coffee.

Appa lived in Yemen from 1990 onwards- off and on- for ten years. My first visit to Yemen was to appear for GRE and AGRE exams. I found it a beautiful, quirky country. One of the more 'endearing' habits is for the men and women to chew a leaf called qat. It is mildly intoxicating but because the religion specifically prohibits Muslims from indulging in such practices, every Yemeni worth his/her salt will tell you that qat is not intoxicating.

Qat requires the chewers to drink plenty of water for it is dehydrating. Those days, I am not sure how it is now, Maruti-type vans served as public transports. Men would be driving, much like how we drive in India, and then wham an empty bottle would be thrown out of the window. The highlight was the crushing of the bottle beneath the wheels of the vehicle behind. It was a lovely sport.

Women are more discreet as they take qat within the walls of their houses. I was invited once over to visit our downstairs neighbors to learn how to make their sweet bread. No, I was not invited to chew qat but I believe the men offered it to appa who declined to do so.

Earlier qat had to be imported but slowly the Yemenies have become self-sufficient.

In this article in The Guardian there appears to be hand-wringing over this habit, which has been declared as a drug by the Americans.

Science Education

There has been lots of hand-wringing over science education in the country. On the recent site visits, I visited one school where there are now children studying in class 7th and 8th. Aha! I can talk to them about science and feel little bit more comfortable.

"Have you done any science."
Giggles.
"Yes? No?"
Few heads nod.
"Oh good. What have you learnt?"
Silence.
I racked my brains. I know as early as 7th we start on photosynthesis.
"Photosynthesis?"
Nodding of heads.
"What happens?"
"Sun, carbon..."
"And."
"It makes food."
Fair enough.
"Good. You all grow plants."
Most of the kids I assumed belonged to farming community.
Tentative nod. One girl said:
"We don't."
"Okay. But you must know that add fertilizer."
"Yes. Of course we add fertilizer."
"Why do you add fertilizer?"
Silence.
"What is in fertilizer?"
Silence.
Then I took them out into the small patch of green. I showed them two plants. They identified one as chrysanthemum.
"Okay. Let us look at the leaves. Tell me is there any difference between the blade of the grass and the leaves of chrysanthemum."
The kids looked. One girl said:
"It is different shade of green."
"Anything else?"
Finally one girl burst out:
"The shape of the leaves are different."
Absolutely. That is why just by looking at plants- say a rice plant and wheat plant- we can immediately say which one is which.
But the encounter left me thinking. There they were surrounded by the fields. What a lovely place to teach biology! There is no need for the textbook. Whatever is written down there can actually be demonstrated out in the field. If only the teacher was so inclined.

That is our problem. Our teachers themselves are not motivated or have enough imagination to make learning fun. Of course learning was never fun for them so...

That is when I got my whacky idea. Over the years I have always had whacky ideas. Sort of what to do if my Phd fails, or if my post-doc fails, or now if the academic career (with the best intentions of certain people) fails...

It would be wonderful to take time off and spend with kids in the rural areas. Teach them the rudiments of science, the art of thinking...all I would need is to devise simple experiments to do...did you know that we can actually isolate DNA using only onion peels and little bit of inexpensive chemicals? So there it is.

The only problem is that I would have to learn the scientific terms in Hindi. But then that too should be fun. Something new to learn.

Kalakkanavu

Kalakkanavu is a docudrama written by V. Geetha and directed by Mangai. I got a chance to watch it at the University today thanks to the Women studies Centre and Centre for Historical Society.

Kalakkanavu or A dream in Time is a documentation of feminist movement in Tamilnadu during late 19th Century and early 20th Century. Most of the stories are undocumented. V. Geetha has strung together a drama based on the articles written by early feminists in magazines and the dairies kept by many women. It was very fascinating but one could see how little information we really have about the women. What were their thoughts, what were their lives like...Their history is very fragmented.

One of the most thought-provoking moment was about how Periyar fought for women's liberation. When his wife, Nagamma, dies, he says:
"She had been a wonderful companion but I do not know if I was such a good companion to her."
But more telling is his comments on the issue of chastity. It is all the more telling considering the situation in present day Tamilnadu, where they hounded Kushboo out for daring to make a comment on pre-martial sex. After all chastity is a convenient tool to imprison women. No one dares to talk about chastity for men.

The drama was in Tamil. My friend Bharati and I exchanged notes at the end. We both found that neither of us had understood more than 10-20% of the words. Someday I need to start learning Tamil.

Eavesdropping

It is said that eavesdroppers never hear good about themselves. It is true. As a teacher, at least, I never heard anything good about my profession.

Yesterday, in the bus, I overheard a girl talking to her father. She has newly taken admission in the University and was telling him:

"Even if I know the answer I keep quiet. Why should I get into trouble? Then the teacher will ask more and more questions to see how much I know and finally might end up asking me to teach the class. It is not worth all that. So I keep my mouth shut in the class."

I agree that I do ask questions in the class but never with the aim of showing a student down. Asking questions and encouraging the students to ask questions are simply ways of making the class more interacting. Nothing is more boring than hearing your own voice resonating in the lecture room. But I guess many of our teachers, whether at University or School level, discourage such interactions. The result is that the student is intimidated and very soon stops thinking. We end up getting such students for Ph.D. and it is a major task just to get rid of this mindset. How can they become scientists if they do not ask questions?

At one of the NFE centers that I visited, I asked the children what do they learn at school.
"Nothing. That Madam, no, she just keeps knitting. She does not teach us any thing."
Now what do we do? How do we get the teachers to teach?

There was an interesting stuff I got to know about a teacher. Apparently, he told his class:
"See, if I teach, you have to learn. Then I have to give an exam, you have to answer. Then I will have to correct the papers. Why do we have to go through this whole thing? You sit there, I will sit here. Let us relax."
Yuck!

Finally, while returning back from Chennai this time, I had for company bunch of engineering students. Originally from the North they had taken admission in the South because the colleges are much better, they got admission..whatever. So they were discussing their recently concluded examinations.

"I now know," explained one to his classmates, "how to score marks. For example if it is a female teacher, use plenty of color pens. Underline the important things in red or green. They like it and give you marks."

My face must have given away for one exclaimed:
"Aunty is a teacher!"

I laughed but did not say anything. As I get ready for the semester, I am eternally grateful for having the mystery of red/pink/green colored pens.

The Bermuda Triangle

I think there is a Bermuda Triangle somewhere in my house. Otherwise how can I explain the routine disappearance of things? Today,for example, I have spent hours in fruitless search of my British Council Library card. The only good thing of the search has been that I finally found my embroidery scissors that had gone AWOL last week. I purchased this embroidery scissors in 1993, one of the first purchases when I landed in US to pursue Ph.D. It is a pretty Stork Shaped scissor and though it has dulled now it is still a treasured possession.
Meantime, I think I should lose something fast. Then while searching for it, who knows, I might discover my library card?

Teachers training

Last year we had a brain wave. We decided we would train teachers. We would tell them the innovative techniques that can be used to teach children. The entire onus was taken up by Vallabh bhai, who also decided that he would conduct a test before the training began just to see what is the level of the teachers.

It turned out that the teachers themselves did not know much. It did not matter whether they had done Inter or B.A. or M.A. The level of most of the teachers was abysmal.

Then the training began. They were taught the use of Flash cards, to play games with the children, to sing songs...oh, the entire gamut. They were also taught that children should be allowed to read books and that library was not for locking up.

This year when I went around the projects I asked each and every teacher whether they had been to teachers training program and if so, were they using the methodologies.

"Yes we have been to Kaithi for the program."
"Do you use the teaching methodologies."
Sheepish grin. A shake of their head. No, we do not use them.
"Why?"
"I am not able to do it."

The problem is that while teaching the children, one has to bridge the barrier between the adult and the child. The child has to learn to trust you. You, the adult, has to become the child. If the child is intimidated by the teacher, learning becomes boring and something that is being forced upon the child. Empathy, I think that is the word I am groping for.

None of the teachers I met were able to relate to the child. They would not play with them. How can they maintain the dignity if they stooped down to that level? No, I think I am wrong with that assessment. I think it is just that they have never behaved like that even with their own children. So it becomes difficult for them to change their behavior suddenly.

There was one teacher, who however embodied the qualities that I was searching for. Her name is Sangeeta Misra. She would hold up flash cards for children and then sing out: Bh is Bhavan alishan.
Then she would stop and explain what a alishan bhavan is.
The children she was teaching were confident and not scared. When we asked them to pick up a card and tell us what was the alphabet written on it, they happily did so.

I then asked Sangeeta whether she had ever been to teachers training program.
"No."
"Then how did you learn about this technique?"
"The teacher who had been to the training program got these flash cards. And then it is written in the books, no?"

That is what we need in teachers. I am sure there are many Sangeetas. The key is to finding them.

Comprehension? No comprehension.

This time when I went for site visits, I decided I had enough of alphabets and counting. Most of the children who are either attending formal schools or non-formal schools can recite the alphabets and count in Hindi. They can also recite the multiplication tables and at places they will also recite out the alphabets and counting in English.

Good. So I would invariably move on to my next question:
"Can you write your name?"
"Yes."
"Will you write it out for me?"
"Yes."
And baring few exceptions they could indeed write their names in Hindi.
"Can you read?"
Shuffling and embarrassed looks. A few daring ones would tentatively nodded their heads. Since we have provided them with books, I would ask them to pick their favorite one and read.

The reading is little bit hesitant as they stumble over unfamiliar words. After they had read couple of lines, I would stop them and ask them to explain what they have just read.

With those words I would hit a roadblock. None of the child could explain what they have read from the textbook. This was uniformly the same across three projects and 20 Non-formal Centers I visited this time. Last year too I had made the same observations and nothing has changed from last year to this year.

In none of the centers have the teachers made an attempt to explain the story to the child.
"Oh, you asked us to give books to the child."
"See", they would thrust the register at me, "we have done what you asked us to."

The children have been issued books and they have been encouraged to read. What is more, they would tell me virtuously, we read out stories to those children who cannot read.

Yes, but what do the words mean? If there is no comprehension, how are they any better than when they could not read.

NOTE: I should make it clear that this lack of comprehension is not limited to the children who attend non-formal centers that we support. It, unfortunately, extends to those children too who attend formal schools.

The (un)intelligent bird

There are some who seem to be completely enamored by the peacock.

Today morning when I was cooking in the kitchen I happened to glance out. The window is draped in a sort of net curtain that affords enough privacy but does not prevent my view. So as I glanced out I thought I detected the head of the peacock. I was surprised because there is just a thin ledge outside the door, not enough I would think for the peacock to sit. I decided I was seeing a mirage especially because I was not wearing my glasses. So I once again peered through the curtain. Oh, sure enough it was the peacock. And even as I watched it took off with a flurry of wings. And bang went the pot with the gongura plant. It fell on the ground and cracked into pieces, ending the life of the poor plant.

Just to compare: the peahen would never do such foolish things :)

I, Me, Myself

This is the time when rice is transplanted. This is a back-breaking working, where one has to stand in water-logged fields and transplant the paddy saplings bunch by bunch. As I went around the villages I could see that it was a job done by women and girls.
"The men do not do anything," I was told.
Next time I eat rice or wheat I know that I will think of those girls, who instead of going to school, worked in the fields.
I as a person am part of the community that is interdependent.
Vibha and I were discussing Arushi Talwar murder case the other night as we took our walk.
"Few years ago," Vibha said "they had a life-skills program in Aastha's [her daughter] school. I went to see what they were teaching. The class started with the first lesson on 'I'. 'I' in the center and the rest delegated to the background. So family and community are not as important as 'I' is. Which is funny because in Sanskrit I learnt that third person is the most important. And 'I' or aham is the least important. Aham is equated to ego and ego has to be removed."
'I' exists in relation with others. I am not saying that 'I' is not important but it is not the center of the Universe.
I was reminded of this as I watched this young girl (I will call her X) perform at the Blue Notes Annual Day Function.
X is daughter of a faculty and they used to live in the old transit house, just like I do. X and Sohail were great friends and would come over sometimes to my place when Sohail wanted to talk or hear me play the veena. She was a nice little kid with two plaits who was learning dance and was tickled pink to know that I too was a Tamilian.
Then the family moved into the new transit house and I lost touch. Occasionally, I would see this girl running some errands for her mother but for the past couple of years I did not catch glimpse of her.
Therefore, I was absolutely shocked when I saw her at the concert. She has adopted the same aggressive posture of her peers. The body language of these students spoke volumes about how they consider themselves to be the most important. 'I' am at the center and the rest I do not care.
I was little disturbed. Maybe I was reading too much into something that did not exist beyond my imagination.
But I have company. Apparently Surinder, Sneha's husband, told her much the same when he saw X on the stage.

Blue Notes

The Blue Note Music (Western Music) school is situated in Vasant Kunj. Many of the faculty's children learn music from this school. Therefore, it was entirely appropriate that the Faculty club hosted the annual day function of Blue Note Music School. The function was dedicated to the cause of the malnourished children.
UNICEF is focusing on India for we have the largest number of malnourished children in the world. One in three child in India is malnourished. This number is not surprising given the poverty. What nourishment can we talk when in many rural areas/urban slums children eat possibly a roti with salt or chilli? The problem is compounded because the mother too is undernourished and anemic. It is a vicious has the malnourished children grow up into malnourished adult, giving birth to halnourished children.
The mid-day meal scheme, which was launched by MGR in Tamilnadu was scoffed initially but in retrospect is a brilliant scheme. If it was implemented properly. In most of the schools at least in UP the menu is kichidi, more kichidi, and some more kichidi if the provisions arrive in time. The teachers have the additional responsibility of cooking the mid-day meal. So either the teaching or the meal can be done, in most cases neither is done. On the other hand both Karnataka and Rajasthan have implemented Akshay Patra scheme.
Renuka Choudary meantime had the brilliant idea of giving packaged food to the children. In most cases this constituted vitamin enriched biscuits- a boon to the biscuit industry no doubt- but this is not sufficient for the children. The prepackaged food might relieve the teacher, might even provide uniform quality food to the children but it is not going to provide all the nutrition the child needs. I think for the time being the PM has intervened and has requested this scheme to be put on back burner.
Coming back to the concert- I went because Sohail, Sneha's son, had told me that he would be singing. The only thing I would say is that I could have been in America for all practical purposes. Oh, a final note-the attitude of the participants was amazing. They extruded a kind of aggressiveness that bothered me. The only kid who did not extrude this attitude was Sohail who looked appavi (I do not know how to translate this Tamil word) and lost in the milieu.

The Handyman

Appa is the handyman of the house. When anything needs to be fixed we turn to him.

Today morning when I broke the glass plate in the microwave while attempting to clean it, I called up appa to give him the news.

"Is it broken into two pieces or many pieces?"
"Many pieces."
"Oh good. I do not have a job to do then."

I do not expect much sympathy but a little bit of it would not be amiss.

Dear Sir

This is how most of the letters are addressed to me. These letters are usually from students who want to do a 6 month dissertation project, needed to fulfill their curriculum. In reality, the colleges and universities that have mushroomed around in India do not have proper laboratory facilities and do not want to do practicals with the students. So they palm them off to Institutes and Universities like ours to teach them the experimental aspect of Biosciences. I do not mind having them around as they are often times brighter than our Ph.D. students. But I do object to receiving letters addressed to me as Dear Sir. It is as though the students cannot ever imagine that a woman can be a scientist. What is worse is many of these letters are from women students themselves. This bothers me a tad bit. Do these girls really believe that all scientists are men only? Or they know that there can be women scientists but cannot be bothered to address the letter properly? Or is it something that they have been taught in their letter-writing exercises in school- address letters as Dear Sir, you know?
It is however, not restricted to the students. Today The Hindu carried an article about on how Delhi University is planning to improve the quality of research. Read the article and you will see that the presumption is that the PhD student would be a male.
Two years back, the PhD scholars gave us all an invitation to a program they were organizing. On top was written our name and below: Dear Sir. Oh! Did they get an earful from us? But sad to say, they still did not get it why we women faculty were furious.

Cravings

I am making a table cloth for Popy. When Reshma, my student, got engaged I searched for a suitable present for her. My darling Mother, who was with me at that time, said why didn't I make a cross-stitch sampler for her. So it was. I hunted amongst my sparse collection (it is sparse whatever the family might believe) and found a perfect wedding sampler. The threads were a problem. I found out the hard way that the embroidery thread colors do not match the wide variety available in US/Europe. We also do not have DMC or Anchor threads. What we have is a Desi version of Anchor threads that are painful to work with. Anyone who has felt the satiny smoothness of the cotton embroidery threads from DMC or Anchor will know what I am talking about. Stumped, I decided that is what brothers were for. The poor chap purchased embroidery threads and sent them to me so that I could make the wedding sampler for Reshma. It was a good educative experience for him and for me.
These are the times I wish I was back in America/Europe. Just so that I could stroll to the market and pick up the threads I want, or ogle at the patterns, wait for a sale to happen and pounce on a kit...
Coming back to Popy's gift, not that she is getting married but it is better to be prepared, I am making a crochet table cloth for her. In India you get only one kind of cotton thread and it is horrible to work with it. Yes, you get the DMC crochet balls but they are more suitable for tatting then for crochet. So I am using the threads that are available in bulk. These threads do not have uniform thickness. At places they are extremely thin as though they will snap any moment and at places they are so thick that crocheting with them is difficult.
The internet is a boon. Not that I can purchase anything for I cannot afford the prices but they are a boon because on the days when I carve for embroidery/knitting/crochet, I can ogle at the patterns. It soothes. Sometimes.
Meantime, I also discovered that in my absence from India, people have given up on knitting. Previously, every lady in North India used to have a pair of knitting needles in her hand during winter. Now, with knitted materials being so cheap, no one has the time and inclination (and maybe it is looked down upon?) to do it. The lady at Lalji Wool Shop told me sadly that there are no knitting books available any more. I have, though, found some patterns online and this winter I have promised myself a sweater and if possible, an afghan.
Let us see. As they would say in Yemen, Inshallah.

Public toilets and Hygiene

Keshav had warned me that the toilet facilities in Kushinagar would be primitive. I just did not realize how primitive.

We stayed in a village called Dumiri in Kushinagar. The house belonged to one of the RTI fellows working with Keshav in Deoria/Kushinagar. It was a pucca house in the sense it was built of bricks. But toilets, I realized, there were none. The toilet facility, it dawned on me, were that primitive.

On the way from Kushinagar to Dumiri, dusk had fallen. As we wended our way to the village, I could see clusters of women moving along the road. I was surprised till I hit the obvious solution. The women can go to toilet only under the cover of night or early in the morning before anyone wakes up.

There is a realization dawning. Everywhere there are now signboards urging people to build toilets at their homes. The selling point is that by having toilets at home, they would not have to send their daughters/ daughters-in-law far from home for this basic necessity. The bonus point would be that it would keep the diseases away. There were also notices urging daughters to refuse marriage into those houses where there were no toilets.

Despite all this there was very little evidence of a toilet in the villages. The only village where I saw toilet in every house was in a village called Sohana in Ghazipur district. The toilets that are being built are the most primitive type but still a toilet.

Will this improve hygiene? I do not know.