Shame, Shame Ireland

In India, women deliver at home, they deliver in the autos while on the way to hospital, in ambulances. Sometimes they deliver babies even on the doorsteps of hospitals because the hospital sentry did not allwo them to enter the hospital. We have a maternal mortality of around 250/ lakh which comes to a staggering number of 250,000 maternal deaths (well, I might have missed a couple of zeroes). So if Savita Halappanavar had died in India, she would have been only a blip on the map of maternal mortality in India. but unfortunately, she died in Ireland, where the MMR is 6/ lakh! And it is a country with a mere population of a mere 4.5 milliion. Are you kidding me?, Bangalore has 10 million people, and India has 1000 million.

A mother and newborn in a district hospital in Karnataka.

It is a tragedy of enormous proportions when a mother dies in a developed country like Ireland because of lack of medical care. And that too because of trivial religious excuses. "This is a Catholic country", is what her husband was told by the doctors who refused to terminate her pregnancy. I would consider this as a case of medical negligence. Any doctor is bound by the Hippocrates oath and the Geneva convention which urges you to save the life of the patient irrespective of religious or racial/ethnic concerns. If a doctor waited to terminate a pregnancy and endangered the life of the mother because of it, he/she is guilty of failing to provide the expected standard of care. They cannot hide behind the excuse of the country's laws and rules. After all, what law is there which outlaws saving the life of a person?

Will this happen in India? Yes, why not? Here patients lose eyesight after cataract surgeries in camps, women are sterilized by scamsters and ward boys give injections. Anything can happen in India. But no hospital waits for the foetal heartbeat to stop before deciding to terminate the pregnancy. It is plainly an outrage. As Savita's mother lamented "You sacrificed the life of my 30 year old daughter to save a 17 week old foetus".

Now the Irish government is on record offering all help for Savita's husband to rebuild his life. What are they gonna do? Provide him with women to date so that he can select a suitable wife? How does a government help to rebuild the vaccuum left by the loss of a spouse? A responsible government should have never let that happen in the first place. And to this moment, the Irish politicians are evasive and dilly-dallying about legislating to make abortions legal. How many more lives have to be lost for them to wake up and act? Shame on you Ireland.

What's (not) in my bag?

It is a common joke to contemplate what you may find in a lady's bag. They say you can find almost an entire house inside the hand bag! Initially it used to be funny for me before I decided to throw away my old bag and empty the contents so that I could transfer them to a new one I just recently brought. I had a mini-shock to see the things which spilt out of my handbag, stuff I din't know I owned, other stuff which I had taken for granted as lost. .

I found lumps of bus ticket stubs from journeys of yore. Bills from restaurants I ate few months ago. ATM receipts from god knows when. Old toffees which had flattened out with age and pressure of things lying above them A white hairband which I had never used and had turned brown with time.

Buttons from tops which I have forgotten how they looked like, broken off ends of zippers. A packet of face wipes (provided thoughtfully by R) which I always ended up using as hand tissues.

2 wallets (why? why? I keep asking myself), 2 mobile phones (geez). A plastic cover (I really don't know why I kept it there). A comb, an umbrella (ok i get it, when you are from Kerala, you are under a perpetual rain cloud in side your head). A notepad. 2 pens of which I can never find more than one at a time. A pouch with pencils, eraser, sharpener, scale. A set of head phones (what if I have a sudden urge to listen FM radio), well its another matter that they are always out of my bag when I really need them. A lip gloss, a spare sanitary napkin  (for the ever unpredictable female physiology, which has come in handy for a couple of my girlfriends). A bunch of keys from houses and rooms and almiras I moved out months ago.

Given the clutter, I find it difficult to retrieve any given item at any given point of time. Visual inspection is useless and I often resort to stereognosis (thank god for that sensation!) to retrieve any thing. 
 Why cant I de-clutter ?, I often ask myself. But what if I go out and my hair clip gives way, then I need that old white hairband, so goes the line of thought.
 I sometimes envy women who can walk out of their houses with their hands free, like my mom, she as a matter-of-fact, hates handbags.The biggest drawback has been that if I want to go out with another handbag, it takes me 10 minutes to transfer the contents, after all, everything is essential! The solution I came up with - have a bag-within-a-bag, so that all you have to transfer is the smaller bag!!
Oh how so sweetly neurotic.

A Coorg Get away - Stewart Valley homestay

It was on a whim that I decided to stay in Stewart Valley home stay in Madikeri. The inner critic gnawed my thoughts day in and day out questioning whether it was right to risk taking my parents to a place which has not been listed in trip advisor or reviewed anywhere. “What the heck? Let’s go and see” I thought. All I knew when we drove into Madikeri was that it is a red painted house in which Mr.Ganapathy and his wife lived. The house is an old but tastefully re-furbished and well maintained ancestral house. He gave us directions to reach the house (past the TV tower) and was waiting outside the house to make sure we dint get lost (which of-course, we did). But even if he wasn’t waiting, I think we would have identified the house, after all who would miss a huge red-painted house bang on the road? 

The courtyard and garden

Gerberas in the garden

The moment we drove past the gate and stepped out of the car, somehow I felt very relieved. May be it was the sight of the smiling Mr. Ganapathy and his wife Veena, or maybe it was the sight of a beautiful portico and a beautiful garden with flowers, or it was the cool breeze brushing our  sweaty, grimy faces. Whatever the reason was, it was a really cozy, homely feeling that swept over me and I felt relieved that I had chosen rightly. The house is sort of in the middle of the town, just a 5-10 min walk downhill (yes, it’s kind of the highest point in Madikeri town) and you will be walking past Raja’s seat, Gen. Thimmiah circle, the markets, the bus stand, good hotels and everything else. Despite being so close to the town, you are never perturbed by the hustle and bustle, being far removed from the noise and dust of the city. You can simply laze around in the veranda surrounded by the garden and enjoying the view of the hillside, or you can sit in their back yard and do nothing and snooze. We stayed in 2 rooms on either side of the house. This was kind of good; being in a house and at the same, not unncessarily bumping into other people. The bathrooms were extremely neat and clean and modern (yes, we are fussy bathroom people), they had also provided soap etc.etc. The rooms aren’t that big as you would expect in a hotel, but then who would want to remain cooped up indoors in Coorg, when there is so much to see outside?

A what's- its-name climber in the garden with beautiful pink flowers

They give complimentary breakfast and we had kadubu, sambar and a delicious coconut chutney to go with it. R also had some bread and honey. It was a welcome break after all the hotel food we were eating from outside. Veena aunty was always ready with coffee or tea whenever we requested.

Kadubu with sambar

My father had interesting long chats with Mr.Ganapathy. My mother was happily doing rounds of their beautiful garden with vibrant flowers. R even managed to try his hand at Mr.Ganapathy's airgun. He gladly regaled us with vignettes of Kodava culture. He was more than ready to tell us how to drive to Abbi falls, Talacauvery and other places, where to buy wines from and so on. We also had a tryst with Blacky, the family dog who was in a playful mood and had to be dragged back into his cage. We had to leave at 5.30 in the morning and Aunty graciously offered to make breakfast that early also but we declined. I can confidently say that one of the highlights of our trip was our stay in Stewart Valley.

[ PS: the credit for the pic below goes to R, he hinted he would kick my a*# if I dint mention him in the credits ;-) ]

A night view of Madikeri from Stewart valley

A Coorg Getaway- the Tibetan settlement in Bylakuppe, Kushalnagar

We decided to put the series of holidays in this week to maximum use and head to Coorg or Kodagu. The taxi driver pulled out at the last moment and we gingerly took up the gauntlet to drive the odd 270 kilometres all the way to Coorg. It was a decision which sparked much concern and confusion from R and me; ours is a 10+ year old car, nowhere near top condition, never taken for such long rides, lots of dents, bumps and scratches, and to top it all, no A/C!.  On the pros side, we both could drive in turns and the car was our trusted foot soldier since our courtship days and it would be our first road trip. Thus at night 10'o clock, we finally decided to take the plunge and place our trust in our rickety car to take us all the way to Coorg. At night 10.30, we were frantically looking at Google Maps, Google Earth and all other possible resources to identify the route; yes, we dint know the 'how to' part of the getaway. I searched and searched for a good free GPS app and finally gave up.

We set out before the crack of dawn at 5.00. The road was smooth and devoid of any traffic. Till Srirangapatna we had absolutely no confusion, it was a straight road. After that at major junctions, we asked the locals for help whenever in doubt. I learnt that the best GPS is to ask around! Never once did we lose our way till we reached Madikeri. We reached the Tibetan settlement  in Bylakuppe at around 10.30. Bylakuppe comes 4 kms before Kushalnagar. It is home to the second largest Tibetan settlement in India.

Bylakuppe, of the Tibetan settlement

 We headed straightaway to the Golden temple and the Namdroling monastery. It is a 4 Km drive  from the main road.The place was swarming with visitors. The Golden temple is an imposing structure, visible from a long way off. The monastery has monks of all ages staying and studying there. Inside the temple, there are 60 feet tall idols of 3 Buddhist gurus. The walls are decorated with murals depicting the life of various gurus. The paintings are intricately done beautifully in vibrant colours.

The first look

The 60 feet tall idols of 3 Buddhist gurus

Young monks in prayer

The intricate doors with murals of guardians on either side

The interplay of light and colours

A female deity

There were two things about the paintings which struck me. One was the depiction of female deities in the paintings. The second thing was depictions of evil spirits/ deities in some of the murals. Both these are owing to my ignorance of Buddhism, but from a layman's point of view, I was quite struck by it as I was unaware of  any female Buddhist goddesses. Also I also associated Buddhism with peacefulness
and hence was surprised to find depictions of menacing figures on the walls.

A mural of one with a fierce countenance

Purple through and through

We did see this interesting plant on the monastery grounds. It had purple leaves in addition to purple flowers.












Within the monastery compound there is a shop selling curios, Tibetan fans, trinkets, hangings etc. It is managed by 2 monks.

Trinkets, I wanted to buy every one of them!

Good luck charms

The Tibetan houses within the settlement prominently display multicoloured Buddhist prayer flags. I thought they were simply plain flags but a closer look showed they had prayers written on them.

Prayer flags fluttering in the breeze

Prayer flags in close-up

 The Tibetan cause invariably finds resonance in the minds of the settled people, as is evident from this girl sporting a t-shirt with 'Save Tibet' logo.

Championing their cause

You can spend hours together inside the various temples which are less crowded by tourists. The grounds of the monastery are vast and fit for a peaceful stroll.

Another look at the temple

The Final word: It is a must see for any tourist to Coorg.

God in his 'own country'

Oh I just couldn't hold back the twitching in my fingertips to blog this. :)

"God in his own country", that was how one TV channel chose to hail the arrival of Diego Maradona in Kerala. After all, Kerala is called 'God's own country' and for the football crazy Keralites,  football legend Maradona is no less than god.

Sitting 400 miles away from Kannur, where Maradona has landed, even I feel the excitement that he is there in Kerala. TV channels are running whole 30 minutes segments on Maradona on the occassion. People have travelled from places hours away  to catch a glimpse of him in the wee hours of the morning. A young man in the airport who was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of him described it as "an indescribable feeling". There is probably no other person whose arrival can trigger such excitement and passion. Viva Maradona.

Another Dasara festival, that means its been a year nd more

I was clicking pics of the Dasara celebrations in my office, suddenly I realized that I had put up Dasara pics of the 2011 Dasara. that means this blog has been around for more than a year now... I'm thinking to myself, "wow, that's amazing". I dint really think I was going to persevere so long with this blog!

The ladies in the office were generally busy; cooking lunch, tidying up the place, applying vermilion on everything in sight, decorating the goddess' picture. The men were busy getting the 'take home' sweet packets ready and decorating the vehicles.


Here,our office assistant is applying vermillion on the cupboard. When she came in, there was already a vermillion mark on it and she was offended that someone beat her to it. We informed her that it was there from last year's Dasara and she happily rubbed it off before reapplying this year's mark.

This is the one on the door...

Well, nothing much is spared, even the vehicles. This one's got it on the tyres too...

The ladies were busy applying rangoli..

 .... and this is how it finally turned out...

...they had a busy time decorating the place....

The mango tree leaves are strung up for auspicious occasions, this time accompanied by a garland of chrysanthemum flowers

No 'Ayudha puja' is complete without the cucumber. So innocuous looking, this one, but its fate later on is interesting.

As you can see, there is a triangular cut made on one side. A triangular wedge is cut out, the resulting hole is filled with pink 'Kumkum' powder and 1 or 2 rupee coins. a piece of camphor is placed on the top, which is later burnt, as we will see later....


Another important player, the lemon, which is placed under the wheels of all vehicles. After the pooja, the vehicles are made to run over the lemon. The driver in the pic is placing a lemon under the wheels of his vehicle.

The 'David and Goliath situation', going down under.....

The bikes are also given their turn at this face-off.

The pujari takes his time with the puja, first the goddess....

...then her other instruments....

Now comes the times the much anticipated time for the kids who had assembled... He looks to the skies with a small prayer to appease the goddess with the cucumber and the lighted camphor.... (if you look closely in the pic, you can see the flame of the camphor burning on the cucumber)

The kids are getting ready too...for the coins inside the cucumber...

Now's the moment...he raises his hands dramatically and smashes the cucumber on the ground...The kids pounce on each other to collect the coins...

All this was topped with a sumptuous lunch afterwords, prepared by Shobha and co. ... too bad my hands were too engrossed in my plate to hold a camera :).

This pic is the cooking team at work.


Happy Dasara to one and all...

Quote for the day

This is something which had me thinking and laughing at the same time. Told by someone, reported to me by my colleague Dr.Mailarappa:-

"A curative specialist can save one life, where as a public health person can save thousands of lives at a time.
A curative specialist can kill one person while a public health person can kill thousands!! "

Thats the beauty of public health.