"Hows the weather today?"

Just an everyday thing that I observed and felt like writing about - "hows the weather today?", "hows the weather there?", "isn't the weather great today?"
I call this the all-purpose element - WEATHER!
Want to start a conversation with a total stranger? use the weather-question; want to stop a boring conversation? divert it to the weather; are stuck in the middle of a conversation and are thinking of a new topic to continue on? use the weather again!! Blame it on the weather i would say.

But its so handy! It has helped me several times to weather away boring conversations, to kick off new ones, and continue talking just for the sake of it.
Just a small 'evryday' thing of whether weather is to the cue!

Life – situations, indications and the selectively superstitious mind

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Y’all might ask me why I am writing a blog on negative things instead of sharing happy happy stuff. Haha!So well…sometimes it happens that all things just are tied together and pushed on us. I am referring to the positive and negative situations, both.

So this past week I was dead!! Half dead due to dance and singing practice for the diwali function + classes + teaching + lab + public transport!! And my remaining half death occurred due to this package of negatives!

Monday saw me attending lectures the entire day and going to lab after that at like 4pm. I use the public transport and have to take two buses to reach lab. Guess what?  Climbed in the wrong second bus!! And to its favor it goes in a totally opposite direction from the Richland hospital where the cancer lab is.  So yeah I wasted like an hour there. So you might say “big deal! One hour of life gone – does not matter!”Haha! Yes! But it did matter to me coz I had to stay in lab for an hour extra – it was a time-bound experiment. So when I reached lab, I had this uncontrollable urge to have the tiramisu at the canteen there. But alas they were out of it! I wearily took the elevator upstairs and into the lab. I realized that the results from the previous step were not as I had gotten them before. Had to redo some things now. Frustration! 

Tuesday – no neuro class. That means go to lab early. I board the right buses this time…reach lab, look at my mouse cells. Look at my immunofluorescence staining. It does not look good.  My cells are contaminated!! The whole lab is!! All of us have lost time and efforts and cells. Arrrgh! Ok I start afresh. I stay in lab till like 8 pm. Tired, I decide not to board the bus and take a cab instead – its faster. I reach home, pay the cabbie, give him a tip and come upstairs to my apartment. I fish my pockets for my wallet (card holder) to keep the change.  And guess what?! Yeah you guessed it right!! My wallet was missing! I searched my bag, tried to remember where all I went in my apartment after entering, went downstairs and traced my path back home from where I had gotten out of the cab – all in vain. Dude! It had my credit cards, my driver’s license, my health insurance card and my SSN card.

I was in tears – almost! Called up the cab office and told them what had happened and requested the cabbie to check his car for my black leather wallet that might have got camouflaged in the seats of his cab. His negative answer made my being almost in tears to actually shedding tears! Frustration that had reached its acme + tired mind + tired body + tension = I plop my bag down on the floor and sit down with a thud and almost break my pinky!! My poor little finger! I cry even more. Amit and Rohit call up – I am crying. They come to my apartment. I block all my cards and call 911 (God knows what they can do in this situation). Within 10 seconds, the cabbie calls up saying he has found my wallet under the seat when he was cleaning his car!! Thank G!! I go to meet him and take my wallet. Pay him like $20 for being such a kind soul and call up the SSN office to place a fraud alert. 

So yes – too much in two days right?? Say yes please! I could not handle more. Every instant of these 2 days I asked, “why me?” I was even wearing a new charm (a gift I received) around my neck that would keep the evil away. In spite of that so much bad together? Well, it was not so bad if you went to dissect each and every situation. But the cumulative effect had a toll on me. I sat thinking – is this so called “protective” charm having a negative effect instead?? I decided to take it off. But my friend Niranjan said “don’t do that…the charm has probably gotten rid of all the bad at once – and all that follows will be good!!” I didn’t have the heart to question it either – coz it was gifted to me by a person closest to me. 

The next day – Wednesday – my day started off as usual with biochemistry. I was awake in class – positive #1, my teaching went off well and students were happy – positive #2, lab went off not as bad – positive # 3, dance n singing practice rocked – positive # 4, saw a shooting star on the way back home after practice – positive # 5! Niranjan said “I think u shud wear it cuz I think it got out all the bad days for u. That shooting star is a sign of good days to come!” haha! Thanks dude!! I wore the charm around my neck again that night.

I have never been superstitious. But these things guide your mind into thinking…what if ‘this’ happened due to ‘that’? Are these simply coincidences? Or is there a meaning to belief? Does one always dissect situations and look for indications life is giving? Or is it only when bad happens that you question it? Things bundle up and happen so much together that you feel like abdicating your place in the being. But at the same time a positive splash after that confirms that there is a higher power – playing these games, making you stronger, patient, optimistic, humble. I read somewhere that courage means to bear unflinchingly what heaven sends. So should I be proud that I am alive and kicking in spite of cumulative frustrations? Does that make me strong? Yes! Everything that doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger. Everything that does, makes me start afresh! 

This intricate web of life's ups and downs make it worth living and an ineresting mysterious adventure - something to look forward to always - with anxiety or anticipation. 

God allows life to be rocky. His challenge is not to let the rocks grind you into dust; but to polish you to become a brilliant all-withstanding gem. Right? So here’s a thumbs-up for all the pebbles turning into gems!!

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Romancing the Wind!

Beat the heat. Stay at home or at the office in a controlled atmosphere. Live a calculated life. That’s one way to exist. And then there is another in which you don’t keep hanging out at coffee joints and bars every waking hour. You just pack whatever comes to your mind and run for some adventure.It is this second way of life that fascinates me. This blog is about an adventure I undertook almost 6 years ago. My window to adventure was opened by the Pune District Board Sailing Association (PDBSA) in summer 2003 when I went for a sailing and windsurfing camp arranged by them at the backwaters of the Khadakwasla dam (Pune, India).
An hour long bus journey took us to the campsite at Khanapur Sneh Seva. It was a pleasant ambience with tents and a few rustic structures. After a wonderful lunch we were introduced to the technical terminology and theory of sailing. The first lessons were on learning the ropes – literally “ropes”. Our boat – the Enterprise Class – was introduced to us with its bow, stern, port, and starboard sides.
The first day comprised only of rigging the boat. A pair (a crew and a helm) was to be in-charge of one boat. We became aware of our strength and the tearing skin on our palms when we pulled the halyards of the sails to secure them on the boat. The first rigging took me and Radhika almost 15-20 minutes. After all this struggling and pulling, the boat had to be unrigged for practice! Arrghh!! What a waste, I thought. However, after continuous rigging and unrigging, our time reduced to 3 minutes!! – though this was achieved towards the end of the week-long camp. The scorching heat of the day urged our bodies towards the water to cool off. But the rule was “Life jackets on, or else get out of the water!”
After each day’s sailing lessons we played games, had dinner, sang songs around a campfire and then spent the night tossing and turning in our sleeping bags - thanks to the terrible mosquitoes buzzing in our ears!
The next morning, the sun was out shining brightly, laughing away as our skins tanned and charred. To outwit him we literally had to butter ourselves with sunscreen. It was day 3 and we were gonna actually start sailing. First we had to go as crew with our instructors. The first outing found us confused and longing for an Avomin to ensure a pleasant passage! This first journey is always a psychological battle as you try to convince yourself that it’s not gonna kill you!
The boat has to be balanced by the crew by hiking out of it. This is done by securing your feet in the foot straps and leaning out of the boat backwards (against the wind); and enjoying the water splash on your face while you struggle to prevent the boat from losing balance.

From day 4 we were taught helming. A sail boat always has two people – a helm and a crew. The crew’s job is to balance the boat and adjust the foresail so that it directs more wind to the mainsail. The helm plays the important role of navigation by adjusting the radar. He also has to control the mainsail. The tension on the sails has to be adjusted according to the whims and fancies of the wind. A little tilt to the leeward side and down you go for a capsize, with the boat submerging in diverted waters! But you know what? – ironically – capsizing is a breathtaking experience which every sailor must have! I capsized twice and just managed to prevent it once. Our daily score was a whopping 5-6 capsizes per day.
The sailboats and the wind surfers dotting the glowing Khadakwasla waters added a completely new dimension to its magnificence. Evenings were the most beautiful, with the wind becoming heavier and colder and the sun setting with a splash of gold! The glitter and the lilting sound of water coupled with the crimson of sunset all around, gave me a feeling of being on the edge of the world.
The able guidance of our instructors helped us have a taste of this wonderful and adventurous sport. The thrill of the breeze on our faces and the water below us, the adventure of capsize and the fun-filled time spent with the entire group made us forget our bruises and wounds acquired in those 7 days!

To be or not to be...ethical?!

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Being in the field of biomedical research, ethical and unethical are the words I hear the most often. The ethics I am talking about are with respect to research of course – viz. plagiarism, authorship, the use of animal and human subjects, and the sorts. We recently had a class on the use of human subjects in biomedical research. This blog is on ethics related to the same.

Have you watched the movie/read the book “My Sister’s Keeper”? For those who have not…let me tell you the story on which this movie and book are based. This is a story of the Nash family which includes a mom, a dad and a sweet girl named Molly– like any other family you may say. But no; this girl was suffering from Fanconi’s anemia. This condition is characterized by short stature, skeletal anomalies, increased incidence of solid tumors and leukemias, bone marrow failure, and sensitivity to DNA damaging agents.

The treatment for Molly was a bone marrow replacement from a sibling. She was the only child of her parents. After hearing about the only treatment option, her parents thought of having more children. They decided not to waste time and create a savior sibling using PGD with HLA typing. (now what is that?? Well PGD stands for Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis and HLA stands for Human Leukocyte Antigen.) So well, technique allowed them to “select” a child which would be the donor for their daughter. Mother’s eggs and father’s sperms were collected and several zygotes were created and then using the procedures mentioned above they selected the one that was a perfect match for Molly. This was followed by in vitro fertilization and a perfect little boy, Adam, was born – or rather engineered. The doctors transplanted Adam’s cord blood (from the placenta that was collected after he was born) into Molly. And so brother saved sister and Molly was fine… getting better.

Both the children are doing good now. Well the real life story ended here…but..

Think about it…if Molly would have developed any other complications say for example liver failure/kidney failure etc; and needed a sibling as a donor…

Will her new brother serve as the body part farm again? Will the parents be willing to sacrifice him for her? I mean…true that they engineered Adam to serve the purpose of saving Molly…but after all he is their second child. Is it ethical to create so many embryos to select one from them…and that too for sacrifice? What will happen of the other embryos? Will they be used for the oh-so-hot stem cell research? Scientifically ethical I would say. But..isn’t the beautiful word called ‘reproduction’ being taken for granted? What will Adam think? “If Molly had not been sick, I would not be in this world… Am I just a spare part store for Molly?” Is Adam old enough to give consent to cut off his organs for Molly? Should the parents be emotionally attached to Adam or consider him as just a solution to saving Molly – their original, natural child?

Another case discussion revolved around little Sally who was suffering from something that made her nothing more than a vegetable. To make her life simpler, her parents and the doctors removed her uterus so that she would not menstruate and would be spared of the associated pain. They cut out her breast buds so she would not develop breasts! And all this so that she will not feel awkward in public! Is this ethical? I mean Sally was a girl…a woman after all… The pains associated with a woman make a woman a woman!

These and so many more cases stir me…

When you sacrifice hundreds of embryos to find the right one – aren’t you killing all the other “babies” who could have stepped in this mean mean world – to make it better probably?? This brings up a question – where does life begin? at conception? at implantation? at the first heart beat?? What is life? Is life what fate has in for you? Is it destiny? So, well, I think anything that exists has “life”…even without a beating heart. A chair has life…so I will not kick the chair. A football has life…but it was destined to be a ‘foot’ball and thus can be kicked. It is we humans who decide destiny/fate…right? Or is it divine?

Is it ok to let Sally live even though life for her had no meaning? Or is it ethical to try to make life easy for her by snatching away the woman from within her?? Is euthanasia (mercy killing) ethical?

Is the definition of ethical different from a scientist’s point of view? – from a philosophical point of view? – from a divine point of view?