Simple truths

How casually scientists provide simple answers to some big questions:

• Q: How do we know that the universe is not infinite?
  

A: Because otherwise the night sky would have been a sheet of light!

• Q: Why do people die?
  

A: Because the law of entropy says that everything moves from order to disorder!

so much good in the worst of us...

Remember Jane Goody?

Till some months back the image her name brought to my mind was that of the woman on Big Brother; the image the TV channels kept playing over and over again. Face distorted with dislike, gesturing angrily at the angelic-looking Shilpa Shetty, who stood there shedding gentle tears. I didn't like this Jane Goody. I was vicariously pleased when she lost some lucrative (advertising?) contract. Serve her right, I thought.

She was served more than that. Misfortune crowded upon misfortune. But, as so often happens in the blessed among us, adversity revealed her better face.

A few days back there was this picture of hers in the papers. She was leaving her home for the hospital, probably aware that it was for the last time. Seated in a wheelchair, bald from the chemotherapy, she was waving toward the camera, smiling radiantly. What courage. What grace in the face of disaster!

What a lady!

Printer's devil

I find that my part-time work editing articles has sharpened my eye. These days I unconsciously edit the signboards I come across.

Close to Patturaickal Junction in Thrissur there's a place that manufactures medical/orthopedic aids for the disabled. Their signboard announces that they provide "Cervical collars, Lumbar belts, Artificial limps, ...".

A la MAD magazine, I imagine a dark and dusty office with a surly, unshaven, salesman at the counter. You walk in and pay the fee. A goon steps out of the shadows and cracks you across the shin with a hockey stick and, lo!, you walk out with an 'artificial limp.'

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There's another one on the way to Guruvayoor: A place that calls itself an "Institute for Spocken English."

To be fair, they don't say that they teach written English.

The fence eats the crop

Some rowdies barge into a pub and slap a few spoilt girls around and the media reverberates with outrage for weeks. Rallies are taken out. Ministers voice their opinions. The Women's Commission visits the site. People write 'letters to the editor.' Good. That is how things should be. Our society has a conscience. We can tell right from wrong. Well, sometimes at least.


A few weeks before the Mangalore tamasha so captivated all of us, The Hindu had a 4-column article headlined "Doctors protest 'baseless statement' by A.P. Human Rights Commission chief." Apparently, Mr B. Subhashan Reddy, the Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Human Rights Commission had 'called for legislation to prosecute parents with diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV, leprosy, and dyslexia, should they, knowing that they have the disease, have children.'

To continue quoting The Hindu 'His remarks in Hyderabad have drawn a sharp response from three doctors......'. Yes, all of three doctors raised their voice in protest ( Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Senior Deputy Director, Tuberculosis Research Center, ICMR, Chennai; Dr Nalini Krishnan, Resource Group for Education and Advocacy for Community Health (REACH); and Dr M. Mathews, Consultant in Leprosy, formerly with the German Leprosy Relief Association (GLRA) and Gremaltes.)

After the article appeared, I would scan The Hindu daily for any follow-up articles or for any comments in the "Letters to the Editor." But there was nothing. After all, who cares. We who read English newspapers and watch CNN can identify with fashionable girls who visit pubs to drink a pint of beer, but people with TB and leprosy are not really one of us, are they? They are creatures from another world.

But maybe I am wrong. Maybe I missed the reports. But, frankly, I doubt it. We have people like Mr Reddy as protector of our rights because we deserve no better.


I'm curious about what Mr Reddy's criteria were when he chose these particular diseases for his public health initiative. From the measures he proposes it does appear that he believes them to be heritable diseases. But what about diseases like diabetes or hypertension? They too have a large genetic component, they are both increasing in the population and, certainly, don't seem to contribute positively to society in any way. Should patients with these diseases be allowed to have children? (Oh, excuse me! Does Mr Reddy have diabetes?)

I have read that each one of us harbors, among our many genes, some recessive mutations that are capable of causing fearsome diseases in our offspring. (Yes Mr Reddy, you too.) It is sheer luck that this doesn't happen frequently. Mr Reddy would do well to understand that. When he points his fingers at others he should realize that someday he may find others pointing at him (or his children).