The Moral of The Story is...!

This is a real story that happened to me starting around September 2011. That month first time I noticed a very small bald patch on my beard and pretty much ignored it thinking of it as a minor allergy of some kind. A week or so later, I went for TD (Temporary Duty; official) which was, more or less, a fun learning program. There I noticed a slightly bigger bald patch on my beard this time. Still terming it as a minor infection, I once again ignored the warning signs, totally unaware that it was a growing case of alopecia areata barbae. 

At the end of one week program, when I came back to my residence in Bangalore, there was not one but two such patches now on my face, one gradually growing bigger every week and another small one, both on my right cheek near chin beard area. I got quite nervous after observing them in detail for long and googled to find it a real disease and diagnosed it with the above-mentioned name. Then very next day, I visited my area's CGHS dispensary, got referred to Skin Specialist at Shivaji Nagar Polyclinic (under CGHS scheme). After observing me, he wrote me 2 kind of medical cream to apply on the affected areas and to take Biotin (Vitamin B) tablets for a few months. Only when I asked him, whether it will heal completely, he added that it will take some time but it's minor in my case and is treatable.

I took his advice on my diet and medicines and started following the procedure he mentioned every day. The patches, by then, have grown so much as could be observed by any onlooker directly looking at my face. Friends also started asking what's happening to my face. But thank God, it didn't spread much after my visits to the doctor. And after a continuous application of those creams on my clean shaven face (which looked quite odd in the daytime due to their oily and shiny properties when applied), my face got back to its normal sheen just like former days.

And I was so so happy and relieved because of two reasons. First, a normal, alopecia-free face again; secondly, having no gf during this period saved me a lot of embarassment/criticism. :P

The moral of the story is --> never ignore the warning signs when it comes to your health as we are nowadays living in a world polluted to its core.

P.S. -- This entry is for an IndiBlogger contest in association with Colgate My Healthy Speak Blog.

Book Review: Shoes of the Dead by Kota Neelima

First of all, a big thanks to BlogAdda for providing me a wonderful opportunity to review this book.


Background:

As the folded cover page proclaims -

Crushed by successive crop failures and the burden of debt, Sudhakar Bhadra kills himself. The powerful district committee of Mityala routinely dismisses the suicide and refuses compensation to his widow. Gangiri, his brother, makes it his life’s mission to bring justice to the dead by influencing the committee to validate similar farmer suicides. 

Keyur Kashinath of the Democratic Party - first-time member of Parliament from Mityala, and son of Vaishnav Kashinath, the party’s general secretary - is the heir to his father’s power in Delhi politics. He faces his first crisis every suicide in his constituency certified by the committee as debt-related is a blot on the party’s image, and his competence.

The brilliant farmer battles his inheritance of despair, the arrogant politician fights for the power he has received as legacy. Their two worlds collide in a conflict that pushes both to the limits of morality from where there is no turning back. At stake is the truth about ‘inherited’ democratic power. And at the end, there can only be one winner. Passionate and startlingly insightful, Shoes of the Dead is a chilling parable of modern-day India.

A book that will make you stroll through India’s corridors of power and politics with a perfect portrayal of how its consequences creep into the lives of the farmers forcing them to commit suicide. Get ready to read a gripping tale by Kota Neelima.


Characters:

The protagonist of the story is Gangiri Bhadra, a righteous activist-cum-farmer, who after his elder brother’s suicide decides to wear the Shoes of the Dead to bring justice to others ill-fated in his village and district. Others who play important roles in the novel are Nazar Prabhakar, a journalist who writes under no pressure; Keyur Kashinath, a first time MP son of a respected politician of Democratic Party; Videhi Jaichand, a survey analyst at the Centre for Contempory Societies. Rest pivotal characters include maha-Sarpanch Lambodar, moneylender Durga Das, Collector Gul among others.


Story:

The story of the novel takes place part in the village Gopur of distt. Mityala and part in Delhi. The increasing number of farmer suicides in Mityala constituency under MP Keyur Kashinath after the inclusion of Gangiri Bhadra in the district suicide committee (for awarding compensation to the patra declared suicide cases) has become a bone of contention to the maha-Sarpanch Lambodar and his MP Keyur.

Gangiri, who lost his elder brother to debt-distress suicide, was refused compensation it being voted as apatra (ineligible) verdict by the suicide committee, so he decides to take the matter in his own hands to bring justice to the dead by working within the committee and forcing by truth to provide righteous compensation to several widows. But on this path of truth, he manages to make higher powers his enemy for whom more number of farmer suicides means the inefficiency of MP Keyur who has inherited power from his father, and they plan to eliminate him from the committee by any means possible.

The story then evolves into a power struggle indirectly between MP Keyur and farmer Gangiri. The latter is helped by journalist Nazar Prabhakar and Dr. Videhi Jaichand indirectly in his quest for justice and fairness to farmers.

Will Keyur be able to dominate his honest enemies and save his face? Will Gangiri succeed in his mission and what prices will he have to pay on the way?! To observe the fight between power politics and a farmer’s righteous mission, one should read this novel by Kota Neelima who has done a wonderful work here.


Likes:

Power struggle distributed throughout the book

Values and honour of a farmer and true description of his true pathetic condition in our country

The author justified the theme putting up a nice climax resulting in the unprecedented but perfect ending of the book.


Dislikes:

The complexity of the language throughout made it difficult for me to understand any single paragraph in one go. I had to read and re-read literally every second paragraph on an average which distracted the flow of the story. Hence it took me a long time to read (coupled with my illness in between), that’s why this late review.

I couldn’t fathom the need to, first, start a romantic tension between Nazar and Videhi, and secondly, it being left in a cliffhanger with no use/end in the story.


Overall, I would say it's a very nice socio-political 'faction' novel, an engaging read.

My rating: 3.75 stars out of 5 

Watch the video review here

P.S. -- This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

Modern Healthcare Touching Lives: Medical Tourism

Medical tourism is a fast growing sector in India. Every year thousands of Westerners visit our country not for sight-seeing and conventional forms of tourism, but for their medical and relaxation needs. Most common treatments are heart surgery, knee transplant, cosmetic surgery and dental care. The reason India is a favourable destination is because of it's infrastructure and technology in which is in par with those in USA, UK and Europe. India has tens of thousands of skilled physicians and nurse practitioners. Over the last two decades, the economic boom in India has led to the building of medical facilities & infrastructure that rival the very best that western medical care that the west has to offer. 

India’s cost-effective and efficient medical sector has made it a favored destination for healthcare

An estimated 150,000 of these travel to India for low-priced healthcare procedures every year. Advantages for medical treatment in India include reduced costs, the availability of latest medical technologies, and a growing compliance on international quality standards, as well as the fact that foreigners are less likely to face a language barrier in India. Chennai and Noida are the favourite and hot emerging destinations in this regard.

P.S. -- This post is for an IndiBlogger contest in association with Apollo Hospitals who are one of the pioneers of modern day healthcare

If My Dad Was A Politician…

If my Dad was a politician, I would have liked him to work for the upliftment of farmers in our country. We, as a nation, so proudly present ourselves as an agrarian society, while the truth is far from that as is clear from the fact that India has never witnessed more than 2.2% annual growth in this sector for last couple of decades. Therefore, I would like my politician father to start working on grass-root level in our village, which comes under Mathura distt. in UP

I myself have seen the plight of farmers first hand. My uncle's family, the 2nd eldest brother of my father, is wholly dependent on their agricultural activities for living and sustenance. And the real condition of their societal status is that they come under BPL (Below Poverty Line) scheme, while the rest of three brothers (of my father) enjoy a decent living at the least. My parents have always been very supportive to them so much so that even our share of agriculture land is being tilled by them as the output from only their share is not enough to feed the family on daily basis and marry their daughters in time and in well-to-do families.

This has always been my dream plan for my father... that after retirement, he goes back to his roots (he is still connected but not very active due to our, his children, bringing up responsibilities) and works for the betterment of farmers at grass root level. If he has to take up politics, he should take it with elan.

Farmers in our country are committing suicides at an alarming rate. How can any country justify this kind of suffering and plight of its food producers, the single most important element in human food chain?! Being a politician is the most influential position in taking up this cause and working for it with conviction. Of course, there will be many hurdles in this path for him due to rampant widespread corruption in this department also. But he would tackle it and bring out laws freeing them of land problems, reducing electricity debts in real and not only on paper. The seeds and the water which are the major inputs for farming apart from land and electricity would be provided on FDS (Fair Distribution System) and experimental crops (cash crops in between rabi and kharif crops in India) would be promoted for cultivation to ensure financial stability to them.

If my Dad was a politician, I could also help him by introducing him to the concept of scientific methods of cultivation as well as organic farming. We would research, consult and devise the existing and new improved ways to reduce farmers' extensive dependence on the poisonous and expensive fertilisers/pesticides. Grain storage facilites would get improved as He would have taken immediate steps in this direction because if your short-term and long-term Storage godowns are ill-equipped, then there is no meaning to any improvement in other areas of agriculture if we can't store and preserve them properly (for adversities as well as buffer zones).

All the farmers, BPL families importantly, would be persuaded to open their Bank Accounts to avail national schemes to them. They would be given atleast 30% rebate on purchase/renting of agriculture machinery required throughout the production cycle, like tracters, harrowers, etc. Besides Cash Crops, leguminous plantation would also be taught to them so as to increase the fertility content of the soil under cultivation. They would be given demos and every help needed to increase their crop production, right from the initial seed sowing and land tilling stages till the very end of the crop cycle, i.e., its storage and selling in the market.

Myself and my father firmly believe that if we are to become a developed nation, then first of all, our country must have Food Security as its first and foremost agenda. A nation which can't feed its people becomes dependent on neighbour countries for its needs which a State like India can never afford seeing its neighbouring countries are all but friends.

A happy farmer family holds the key to happiness of every home in the country and my dad would leave no stone unturned to make it happen. I sincerely hope this dream of mine for my father comes true in a few years, so that we can once again proudly shout the slogan Jai Jawaan, Jai Kisaan; which is not the case presently visibly obvious by the ignorant and sad conditions of our farmers' and soldiers' families.

Wishing him a very good luck for this lifetime campaign for the betterment of the society as a whole, I would like to say that if my dad was a politician, he would never have let down my aspirations for him which I have mentioned here in this post, and neither he would have gotten involved in any kind of corruption nor he would have tolerated any such act in his department. He would be, no... he is and always will be the staunch supporter of amended Food Security Bill in the state Vidhan Sabha or the Parliament. Therefore, if he becomes a politician, I can guarantee that atleast our UP state will table this Bill and that will be a gift to the society as a whole.

One more thing - I can assure you that in today's times, a farmer cannot only rely on pure agriculture. He has to divert a little to cattle/dairy farming also to sustain monetary supplies throughout the year. If my dad was a politician, he would have certainly taken steps in this direction too. It would not have been hailed as Green Revolution 2.0, but it would have catered to the stability happiness of a farmer family, and that's my and my father's dream. :)


P.S. -- This post is written for the Weekend Contest in association with Shoes of The Dead at BlogAdda.com.

Book Review: Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino

First of all, a big thanks to BlogAdda for providing me a wonderful opportunity to review this book.



Background:

As the back cover proclaims -

When a man is discovered dead by poisoning in his empty home his beautiful wife, Ayane, immediately falls under suspicion. All clues point to Ayane being the logical suspect, but how could she have committed the crime when she was hundreds of miles away? 

As Tokyo police detective Kusanagi tries to unpick a seemingly unrelated sequence of events he finds himself falling for Ayane. When his judgement becomes dangerously clouded his assistant must call on an old friend for help; it will take a genius to unravel the most spectacular web of deceit they have ever faced... 

Salvation of a Saint is all about a perfectly crafted murder mystery with the strings of detective thriller fiction. This is the second novel of the Japanese author Keigo Higashino, whose first book The Devotion of Suspect X was applauded by critics and readers alike. The current book is translated by Alexander O. Smith with Elye J. Alexander.


Characters:

The main characters of this murder mystery are Ayane Mashiba, a woman whose husband is murdered while she is out of town; Hiromi Wakayama, her young apprentice with a secret; Detective Kusanagi, a brilliant detective with a soft heart; Detective Utsumi, a newly recruited but talented detective working with Kusanagi; and among others, Prof. Yukawa aka Detective Galileo as he is referred to by his admirers, a physicist with a hobby of solving utmost difficult murder cases for the police dept. with his genius aplomb.


Story:

The story begins with a not-so-normal conversation between husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Mashiba. The cause is explained. Afterwards, they host a lively party. The wife goes out of the town to see her ailing father and it is then, the husband is found murdered by her apprentice Hiromi. A perfect setting. A murder by poison in the coffee. Thus follows the theme of the story - solving of this murder mystery by detectives Kusanagi and Utsumi. As the investigation propels forward, Utsumi finds his senior detective Kusanagi falling for one of the leading suspects, Ayane Mashiba.

It is then Detective Utsumi requests Kusanagi's friend and local police department's old saviour, Prof. Yukawa, to help her solve the case, as he earlier used to thus resulting in his nickname Detective Galileo (in the first novel of the author). As the investigation progresses, the case gets complicated as both the suspects come out with either with a perfect alibi or a perfect reason for no-kill. Detective Kusanagi, though smitten by the charm of Ayane, then starts investigating on different lines, exploring the murdered Yoshitaka Mashiba's past life and linking it to the current case.

On the other hand, Detective Utsumi with her female intuition, continues suspecting Ayane of the murder and along with Yukawa go out all the way to prove how the murder was committed. It takes the Utsumi's observational logic coupled with unparalleled thinking and scientific curiosity of Yukawa and aided by Kusanagi's investigation skills to finally unearth the whole case as a perfect murder mystery.


Likes:

The narrative style is easy to follow and the plot is intricately woven.

The character development, though seemingly unintended, goes on nicely throughout the story.

The logics, reasonings, experments, tricks used/displayed by the investigating people is bound to capture the interest of any murder mystery lover.


Dislikes:

Well not much, except that the continuous monotonous pace (neither fast nor slow, just same narrative tone) throughout the book makes it difficult to continue reading for a long time. The intermittent breaks between consecutive sittings get necessary and frequent; atleast for me, it was like that.


Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a good book, particulary a must-read for murder mystery detective thriller lovers out there.

My rating: 4 out of 5 :)

Note: This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com . Participate now to get free books!

Soldier for Women: Blade of Honour (VI)

Continuing my Soldier for Women campaign blogposts, here I am going to mention an incident that occured with one of my friends, Sumit.

Once while travelling in Delhi Metro from Gurgaon (where he resides) to some place in Delhi, he noticed a younger guy playing a song 'Kya khoob lagti ho' on his china mobile and cocking & making eyes at a group of two girls standing together. This incident is before Delhi Metro used to have the front coach as the Ladies Special. The train used to be rarely filled on that route that time of the day and there was only one elderly couple more sitting besides that guy and those girls and my friend, Sumit.

Sumit noticed and unnoticed that guy's (with china mobile) actions (he deeemed it to be harmless in his mind basically) and continued in his own world. But the elderly couple, who was sitting just a few seats behind that guy and the girls, raised their objection to the indecent actions of that guy. He ignored them that time and the couple also didn't say anything after. But as at the last station all were deboarding, the younger guy again made a passing comment to the girls. The elder male was also just behind him and was much physically stronger than him even though he seemed to be in his 60s.

He held that guy and slapped him hard on his face. The metro security personnel at the platform also came rushing through and asked me what happened but himself understood the situation once he observed the scene. The girls thanked the couple by nodding their heads smilingly and acknowledging their help. And the guy teasing the girls earlier went in the opposite direction after the bout he got. But Sumit directly went to the elderly couple and supported them vocally in doing the right thing. They too smiled and left the station thereafter.

Sumit while narrating this to me had said it was HIS moral duty also to have confronted that eve-teaser before the elderly couple had to. Atleast he is now clear in his mind and heart. Therefore, I hold that elderly couple as well as Sumit for their action and belief, in the brigade of Soldier for Women. This post is a tribute to all three of them.

This post is a part of #Soldierforwomen in association with BlogAdda.com

Soldier for Women: Blade of Honour (V)

This is as inputted by another friend of mine, Navdeep, my best friend from college.

He currently works for Tata Telecom in Lucknow and usually commutes to his office daily by passenger auto. Once so happened that there were two Lucknow Univ. girls already travelling along with a middle aged person in the auto he boarded. After a few minutes, it came to his observation while the auto sped up that the middle-aged guy was intentionally colliding his legs with one of the girls inside the auto as they were sitting face to face against each other. The girl, it seemed, was habitual of such harmless things that used to happen in the crowded autos on the daily basis. But as that uncle also tried to move his right hand on her knees, she shouted back confronting him what the hell did he think he was doing. Her friend also joined and both of them gave him their piece of mind about his age and for acting so cheap.

Navdeep was witnessing the same but did not say anything till now. But when he saw that uncle springing up from his seat to slap the girl while counter-shouting that they were wrongly accusing him and to shut them up. It was then that he clasped his shoulder strongly and made him push back to his seat forcefully and then confronted him with a sharp intensity. Seeing such strong opposition from everyone, the guy asked autowallah to stop the auto and tried to get out. But Navdeep didn't let him go so easy and asked the auto-driver to continue driving till the nearest police station.

Hearing to that, the guy literally jumped out while the auto was trying to speed up after getting slow (to stop) just a few seconds ago.

The incident let Navdeep show his character. He made a difference to the society via his reacting that day. And I write of him here because he too is a Soldier for Women in his own right.

This post is a part of #Soldierforwomen in association with BlogAdda.com

Soldier for Women: Blade of Honour (IV)

My cousin Dheeraj has got a story too which I am sharing here.

During his Biotech. Engg. days, sometimes he had to stay back at his friends' rooms at college hostel for assignments, exams, practicals or so. (He used to commute from his uncle's place located at a distance a bit far from the college campus). It was then when he confronted a group of his classmates randomly calling campus/GH girls' numbers from their mobile phones and either talking to them cheaply, or hurling bad language at them, which he found unjustifiable and upsetting. He directly went to the hostel Chief Warden next day and complained to him about the incident he witnessed without leaking the names of anybody.

It was due to him that an urgent notice was put up at designated places inside the campus addressing all the girls and asking them to report the mobile numbers from whom they get any uncomfortable calls from then on to the college authority (Girls' Hostel warden). It was mentioned in the notice that the owners of the reported numbers will be found out and confirmed from the Sim Registration Form xerox kept in store at the only mobile subscribing/recharging shop at the campus, and the guilty will be made to publicly say sorry for their misbehaviour and punished suitably before all. That clearly sent a clear message to all about the seriousness of the issue regarding such unscrupulous incidents.

Dheeraj! You took a welcome step as a gentlemen and a Soldier for Women. Keep up the good work.

This post is a part of #Soldierforwomen in association with BlogAdda.com

Soldier for Women: Blade of Honour (III)

This post is about another friend of mine, Sandeep. He shared his story for this movement with me yesterday.

While he was doing engineering, he used to reside in the college hostel dormitory. The guy who was his roommate became his friend over the course of their fresher year together; he had a gf at his hometown whom he normally used to talk to in the evening hours almost daily. Once so happened while he was talking from the room's balcony to her on mobile, that Sandeep (from inside the room) heard some cuss words spoken in a loud pitch. It didn't take him much time to understand that his roommate was literally spitting abusive language to his gf on the grounds of her secretly meeting with another guy for quite some time. 

The drama continued for about 5 minutes, and when Sandeep couldn't listen such dirty language anymore, he came out in the balcony and asked his friend to mind his language first of all since it is no way to talk to anybody, more importantly not to a girl. He continued scolding him calmly that if she has betrayed him, then don't talk to her or ask her the reason. And if she still doesn't want to continue with you, then she is on the losing side, not him. But if you talk to her in this bullshit manner, then she is justified in ditching him, and that it may cost him his friendship. Sandeep tried to convince him that whatever she had done, it was obviously wrong. But that shouldn't become the reason to disgrace his own personality; that it's okay to curse her face-to-face or on phone but should not use derogatory words directed towards the other gender because he too has ladies at his home and it's a disgrace more to them than his gf.

He seemed to understand but somewhere under the fallacy of his break-up, he became a girl-hater and became a free abuser of the fairer sex anywhere anytime. Due to this the friendship between Sandeep and him also took a negative push and both changed the rooms while entering their sophomore year.

But persoanlly, I feel whatever Sandeep did was not at all bad. He stood up for the integrity of womenfolk on the improper grounds of cuss and swearing words which almost everybody uses frequently in India and which is definitely wrong. I stand by him and I strongly vote him as a Soldier for Women.

This post is a part of #Soldierforwomen in association with BlogAdda.com

Soldier for Women: Blade of Honour (II)

This story goes below as is directly narrated by a friend of mine:

I was in 11th standard that time, returning home after a normal school day in the summers on my bicycle. Since it is so hot during summers in Delhi-NCR, atleast 50% of my way back seems to be a deserted area in the afternoon hours. I was only 200 m away from home when I noticed a girl pacing hastily and 2 guys alongside on a bike apparently teasing her. As I drew closer to them on the kachcha road, my ears could make out one sentence which they threw at her atleast twice - 'Apna naam to bata de / bataati ja' => Tell us your name atleast.

At that point of time, I was reminded of the situation if somebody starts eve-teasing my sister, then how embarrassed she would feel herself. But since I was physically weaker being in school and the eve-teasers were two in number, I just stopped my cycle in front of her and asked her - 'Didi, tuition jaa rahe ho?' She looked up at me and sensing my help, she answered in positive and added 'Ghar jaake bade bhaiya se kehna ke police station se ABC uncle ko unke tuition house lekar aa jayein' 

This much she said and the guys on bike who were seeing me with a disconcerted look sped up and disappeared in a few seconds from the scene. The girl obviously older than me smiled, 'Thank you, bhai!' I said, 'No problem'. I accompanied her till the starting of market area about 250 m from there and came back home feeling proud of myself being an honorable person.

That's what Sahil, my friend, told me about his being a spirited Soldier for Women. I feel proud of him too. :)

This post is a part of #Soldierforwomen in association with BlogAdda.com