Life as I find it

A friend of mine was being pestered by another friend who wanted her to give up smoking. To make a long story short, this is an ongoing thing and I have come to associate the presence of that man with anti-smoking propaganda rather than a friendly conversation.

I am certainly not saying that one should or shouldn’t smoke, just commenting on how tedious it can get to have a whole bunch of brainwashed individuals who think that if you smoke, that’s the worst thing you can do for yourself.

I have smelled street air in Mumbai and it seems as bad as a cigarette and doesn’t even pretend to relax anyone. I smoke on occasion myself, and as an outdoor person, (ab)use my body beyond what many well wishers know as possible. I have yet to find myself incapable of doing something I could before I started.

Of course, I don’t deny that there are bad results that can happen from smoking, just like there are bad things that can happen if you drive. I think such decisions are personal and it is a person’s choice whether the harm outweighs what they get from it or not. I don’t see how anyone else can understand what my happiness is in walking for days on end in high-altitude. Surely it holds the fear of death, frost bite, natural calamities, danger from animals and humans, etc for the pleasure of being there?

And why do I consider anti-smoking enthusiasts misguided or brainwashed?

The key to that is understanding where they get their information from. No matter what the source, is it likely that such a popular occupation has absolutely no health benefits? Yet, how many of these are they aware of? I am usually suspicious of black-and-white stories and the anti-smoking campaign is one which raises every alarm I have. I find it impossible to believe that something that has lasted centuries is entirely evil, and if it is shown like that, I feel that I am being manipulated to live a decision someone else has made.

Many people feel relaxed when they smoke. Is smoking for relaxing worse than the heart attack from the stress it gets rid of? Who decides this for others?

How many of those who make these “prescriptions” have actually researched their subject in detail?

Among the people who died and reached hospitals for illness, in my acquaintance, there are three smokers (one died at the age of 63, two didn’t – one got jaundice and the other had an accident). Others are completely “healthy” individuals who don’t smoke, don’t drink, eat carefully and sleep adequately (out of these, 17 died – aged relatives and 16 didn’t). And yes, I actually sat and thought of everyone I knew who had died or had fallen seriously ill in the last 2-3 years. Part of this may be that I know more non-smokers than smokers, but certainly the difference is nowhere near this ratio.

I remember an old man from my time in Manali who was 93 years old and had lived a long and healthy life. He was mobile enough for his daily needs even then. He used to smoke. One day he had a chest pain, and the doctor told him to quit smoking. He asked the doctor, “I am 93. Is it possible that I may be dying of old age and not smoking? Smokers aren’t immortal until nicotine kills them, you know?” He continued to smoke, and as far as I know, was alive and well for 2 more years at least until I left the mountains to come and live in Mumbai 5 years ago.

I would be interested in the results of surveys of the percentage of smokers among the patients in a hospital and see if they are the same as those in the outside world. My hunch is that they are far less. Yet we blindly believe that smoking is what will land us there.

Smoking may be bad, but it certainly isn’t the only bad thing humans indulge in.

This certainly doesn’t mean that I suggest that you start smoking. What it means is that I suggest that you stop bugging smokers.

When my mother was scorned by the world as an eccentric, I was the one who thought that she actually might have something that was not being heard. As I grew up, her eccentricity grew into full blown psychosis and eventually she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She got treated, and I lost the lively, if sometimes bizarre person that was my mother into a submissive, depressed shadow…… She got a lot of medicines, but no one who felt that what she wanted to say was worth listening. In my eyes, it is the problem and her behaviour just the symptoms. My main feeling in this situation is that as a daughter, by not believing her or appreciating that she had her own perspective, I failed her.

What does this have to do with Morgellons? Well, I’m a behavioural scientist, not a medical one, so what I’m looking at is behaviour. If there is a whole bunch of people behaving out of the ordinary, its enough to spark my curiosity as to what is happening.

I first heard of the Morgellons disease on some site a few years ago as I StumbledUpon and scanned through a page that seemed creepy. Fibres coming out of the skin, depression, fatigue, joint pain ……. uh, whatever and moved on. I coincidently came upon some page that talked about Morgellons as “delusional parasitosis”—a mental health condition characterized by the belief that one has parasites or bugs crawling on one’s skin…. oooookay, this was something I could maybe relate with if I read descriptions rather than the exotic label. So I read around. This is about 2-3 years ago. (more…)

Those who know me well, know me for a coward when it comes to being poked by sharp things. Needles are sharp. It is not so much the pain of it as the whole idea of it coming closer and closer and I know it will hurt. It goes against every instinct I have to sit still and allow it to happen.

I’ve been hiding a secret in my mouth for years. You guessed it. Its a cavity the size of a parking lot (actually there are two, but I’m ignoring the one that doesn’t hurt). It grew into these majestic proportions due to the sanctuary it got from my fear of dentists.

Logic says that I should have dealt with it before it grew big enough to hurt me…. but I guess its the kind of creeping pain that you somehow don’t notice till it gets too much, while doing something involves someone poking around in my mouth with sharp things….. is it any wonder it flourished unharmed for so long?

Actually, the cavity had made a smart choice when it chose me as its shelter of choice. It probably knew that I wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt it as long as I had a breath to fight.

Alas, it miscalculated. It exploited the very environment it lived in, and bits and pieces of my tooth cracked, and my nerves got exposed, etc. The dentist described it, but I was busy focusing on how I was not going to faint like some Victorian heroine, so there are gaps in my knowledge and teeth that will always remain thus.

But I digress. Coming back to the point and the plight of this cavity, it found itself in a situation where I didn’t have any breath to fight for it, as I was panting through the pain it had caused, and when the doctor told me that I would have to agree to a root canal or else, I was at a point of nodding at anything …. ANYTHING he said if he would make the pain go away. Thus the appointment was made.

The dentist reassured me when I arrived there jumpy as a frog. He told me it wouldn’t hurt, etc etc but I knew better. Of course it would hurt to have him poking into my mouth, but I was beyond caring – I think I was in shock from the cavity.

I clenched my hands, since the good man wouldn’t let me clench my teeth, and stared at that needle coming closer, and closer, until I couldn’t see it anymore. It pricked me, did its stuff, and I was set free to marinate my aching self in the anesthesia. I enjoyed the numbness, and for all my flinching and readiness to register and yell at the slightest pain, it actually didn’t hurt. The dentist (oh that droolworthy handsome man!) said that root canal practices have been much refined in these last few years. Sure felt like it. I don’t remember being willing to listen to any dentist before.

And the cavity? Good you asked. Wouldn’t want it to depart this world uncared for. Alas, it died. We shall mourn its sad demise.

In the meanwhile, I am now hunting for justifications to postpone the treatment of the other tooth (the one I am busy ignoring). So far, I have:

In favor of going ahead and getting the other one done too:

• It doesn’t hurt yet. When it wants the attention, it will ask for it, but then it will hurt more.
• The less the mess, the less the bill
• I liked this dentist. Don’t mind him poking around in my mouth. He’s careful.
• He’s handsome too (or at least seemed that way after this treatment – could be relief).
• I might as well get it done and put it out of my mind

In favor of postponing:

• I could put it out of my mind without doing anything to it too
• Just see the advances in dentistry in the last few years – a root canal is now painless. If I wait for a few more years, I could be spared the pain of the injection as well….

Nah…. I’m not going to analyze it too much. Let’s see what you guys have to say….

Arrest after man buries twins alive caught my eye as I read on in horror. While the issues raised by the selective abortion of female foetuses creates a great deal of social concern for the future of India, I think it is worse that newly borns are burried alive after birth. This makes me think that perhaps we as a society, a government are imposing our morals on people who would like to have the choice of gender in their offspring. If banning the testing of sex of infants and terminating female foetuses only mean that these activities are done illegally anyway, if it means that the women undergoing those options may not even have the right to sue for any malpractices they may be enduring because of their act being illegal, if it means that babies are being murdered…… I think that somewhere we are creating rules for how a whole lot of people should have kids. We are not consulting them, their interests, their concerns, or their choice. This is creating far worse problems than the ones it attempts to avoid.

A father who kills his own daughters may be a murderer, but are we doing the daughters that get saved any favours, if this is the amount of hatred they will be facing in life? Do those families really want them? Will they love them and be fair to them, or have a grudge about not having a son instead, for eating up the family resources? Would these parents be expected to raise these girls as healthy, happy citizens anyway? Would they care about their education?

On a different note, I have a feeling that society cures itself over time through the consequences of its own actions. Today, we are facing problems with discrimination against women, harrassment, social unacceptability of a divorce, dowry problems, unacceptability of remarriage for widows, etc. If things continue as they are, society is going to fall short on women in comparison with men. This might just be what the doctor ordered to deal with the other issues.

If women become rarer, they will be valued more. Competition between prospective husbands will ensure an eventual death of the dowry system out of sheer competitive tactics to procure a wife in the first place regardless of money. Women may be respected more. Widows and divorcees may have better chances of acceptance and remarriage through the sheer need of marrigable women. A decrease in the female population will eventually also reflect in a decreased population. Even homosexuality may be more easily accepted out of sheer acclimatization through necessity. I think, this would not really be a bad thing.

Consider a family who wants a male child. They may want it to carry on the “family name”. They may want it for managing the property of a home in the future in an agricultural society. They may want it to ensure “their support” in their old age. They may even want it because they like boys more than girls…… Whatever the reasons are, they are their reasons. They are as important to them, as our vision of respect for women is for us. Who are we to dictate what they should or should not do with regard to their own children? We can influence, but if we force, we are forcing them into something they don’t want for themselves.

I hate the thought of an abortion being done simply because the child is female. I wouldn’t do it. That doesn’t mean that everyone has to be like me.

Consider this family we are speaking of. They want a child. A boy. Ideally, they want only one, because that is what they think they can afford. Great. They get pregnant. They would like to ensure that their child is a boy as planned. They go to some shady sex determination clinic. Their being shady also makes them be careful to stay under the radar. No one can say that the instruments they use or the procedures they follow are safe. This couple is already required to flirt with risk to the mother’s life and health through a need for a technology that is available through clean medical facilities as well, if not banned. Yet, if they want to do it enough, they will do it anyway.

This is for the poor and gullible. Those who can afford it can simply fly out of the country and test all they like. So it cannot be completely stopped anyway. These shady things happen by those with access to information on these illegal facilities. Others will go on to deliver and find out. If it is a boy, Excellent! If it is a girl, she’s lucky if the parents fall in love with her at birth, or the options ahead are far worse – being murdered, or being hated all her life for being female. What right to we as a collective society have to inflict this on them? Is this killing of infants already born preferrable to the hypothetical lives that might be born in the future to those who cannot figure out illegal facilities? I think we are hurting the rights of the parents to avail all available knowledge to make their planned child exactly the way they want it. Abortion is legal in India. So why this selective fuss to condemn those born to hate and violence at an age when they don’t even understand anything at all?

We as a society are bigotted rats. We impose our assessments of what is right and wrong very easily, but what are the factors we should really be considering? Should we be sacrificing female babies to their own parents to follow our dream of equal gender ratios in the “shining India”? What right do we have to prevent the painless termination of an unborn life only to force it to be delivered into a cradle of hate?

If India has less females in the future, so be it. This is what society wanted, this is what it will get. If they find out in the future that they don’t like this scarcity of females and they want more girls to be around, they can allow their female offspring to live exclusively as well, and make their choice. It is not like the massive population of India is suddenly going to go extinct.

Walking down the street near the old Ajmera School in Borivli West today, I came across this:

In case the picture isn’t clear, this is a dog drinking at a leaking water connection. Take a close look:

I couldn’t get a better picture. It got scared and ran away. Actually, when I saw it, there were two dogs drinking there, mouth to mouth. It actually was looking very pretty, like a pose for a photo. Unfortunately, the minute I showed even a little attention, this one got wary and the one plain ran away. So I had only one model to shoot.

I find a couple of things very disturbing about this. One is the attention given to leaking taps. In a country, rather world, where drinking water is an issue, this connection was leaking like a regular tap left on. I wonder how many of these are in Mumbai, and how much of the water crisis could be solved by simply getting them repaired. In an area that looks pretty parched from the summer, the gutter next to it had about 3-4 inches of water in it, which dried out about 5 meters or so, on both sides from the tap. Obviously this little oasis was from the tap.

The other thing I find disturbing is that a bunch of street dogs are drinking straight from the water connection that probably comes to my home too. How’s that for maintaining the purity of drinking water? Hardly anyone in Mumbai boils or filters drinking water, as it is generally very safe to drink. Could freak accident epidemics be happening from incidences like this?

If I make a complaint, I dare say a standard complacent reply will be issued with someone assuring me that it will be repaired – eventually – one fine day. If I speak about contamination and stuff, they will bring to my notice that water is flowing out, not into the system, so the chances of contamination are low. Government departments are well practiced in the art of deflecting anything that would mean actually taking prompt action. It is very comfortable to continue on auto pilot.

But I will still be making that complaint and following up on it personally till the problem is solved. It’s the least I can do about the water problems we are facing.

Also disturbing to me, is the fact that if I can walk around for half an hour almost anywhere in Mumbai, I’m likely to find a broken/damaged/leaking public tap, connection or pipe or similar. How much water we as a city are really wasting? WHY?

And the thing that gives me the creeps is that my home is quite far from any main water supply of the city. How many such “compromised” points lie between the purification unit and main tanks and the water that reached my tap? Should I really be drinking this water at all? And, in a developing country, with a reputation for most of the public not having access to drinking water, is the little public that is supposed to have it, also not really getting it?

How much quality can be added to existing water supply facilities simply by including careful maintenance and strict hygiene?

I hope anyone reading this makes it a point to promote awareness of this among people they know. We as a people can report every single point we find that wastes water and opens the main supply for contamination and insist on action.