Soul Murder

I saw 39 women and 104 men in the course of 100 weeks. 95% of the patients were black. Reviewing my records, I see that all 39 of the women reported emotional, physical, and sexual abuse; of the 104 men, 13 suffered all three kinds of abuse, while 91 suffered only physical and emotional but not sexual abuse.

From my experience, the most destructive form of abuse is sexual, because of the betrayal and devastating confusion over who is friend, who foe. Many patients during a first visit, despite my probing inquiry (no relative? not a grandfather? no mom's lover? no neighbour? no babysitter? no priest or preacher? no teacher?) deny sexual abuse, but admit to it later. I have found that it is for good reason that sexual abuse of children has been termed “soul murder”

Victoria Lewin-Fetter writes in The Lancet

The article she responded to was mainly about the child abuse in high-income countries. It says the official figures of child maltreatment of these countries are only one tenth of the reality. (please have a look at the article to know various forms of child abuse). What' more! A recent study is able to identify a gene in the brain (hippocampus- a region known to control mood) that is marked in people who were abused as a child and committed suicide as an adult. It is NOT confirmed but the researchers suspect a history of child abuse predisposes suicide in adults (genetically). If so, its murder ? And not just of the soul.

Shall we pause and ask about our very own country? Let me gather some information.

Soul Murder

I saw 39 women and 104 men in the course of 100 weeks. 95% of the patients were black. Reviewing my records, I see that all 39 of the women reported emotional, physical, and sexual abuse; of the 104 men, 13 suffered all three kinds of abuse, while 91 suffered only physical and emotional but not sexual abuse.

From my experience, the most destructive form of abuse is sexual, because of the betrayal and devastating confusion over who is friend, who foe. Many patients during a first visit, despite my probing inquiry (no relative? not a grandfather? no mom's lover? no neighbour? no babysitter? no priest or preacher? no teacher?) deny sexual abuse, but admit to it later. I have found that it is for good reason that sexual abuse of children has been termed “soul murder”

Victoria Lewin-Fetter writes in The Lancet

The article she responded to was mainly about the child abuse in high-income countries. It says the official figures of child maltreatment of these countries are only one tenth of the reality. (please have a look at the article to know various forms of child abuse). What' more! A recent study is able to identify a gene in the brain (hippocampus- a region known to control mood) that is marked in people who were abused as a child and committed suicide as an adult. It is NOT confirmed but the researchers suspect a history of child abuse predisposes suicide in adults (genetically). If so, its murder ? And not just of the soul.

Shall we pause and ask about our very own country? Let me gather some information.

Michelle Obama serves the homeless

What would be your response to the presidential patronage to homeless?

I have a conflicting opinion. One the one hand, I believe when Michelle Obama does that charitable act of serving food to the homeless, it reinforces the belief "we can't do no more". And probably "the homeless should be happy that they got to eat". That also strengthens the arguments that, the homeless chose their state of penury. That, its either their fate or their own making. As a friend once said to me in not very different context, "you can take a donkey to the river, you can't make it drink". Except for the chronic alcoholics and drug addicts, I dont think anyone else would prefer that life over anything else. May be some anarchist too, but then they would like to venture out far away places or the wild and wont be tied down to the routineless destitution.

On the other hand, denial is not cure. There are homeless is your country and you have to acknowledge it. Only then you can take steps to provide a solution. And of course, you cannot let them starve till you find homes to put them back in. So probably it is a humane gesture, not just charitable. But it must be followed up by some policies, some endeavor to give them some place, some dignity.

It reminds me of George Carlin, the late comedian, who once said, if some of the golf courses were dismantled in USA, all homeless could be sheltered in. He was, of course, joking!

Michelle Obama serves the homeless

What would be your response to the presidential patronage to homeless?

I have a conflicting opinion. One the one hand, I believe when Michelle Obama does that charitable act of serving food to the homeless, it reinforces the belief "we can't do no more". And probably "the homeless should be happy that they got to eat". That also strengthens the arguments that, the homeless chose their state of penury. That, its either their fate or their own making. As a friend once said to me in not very different context, "you can take a donkey to the river, you can't make it drink". Except for the chronic alcoholics and drug addicts, I dont think anyone else would prefer that life over anything else. May be some anarchist too, but then they would like to venture out far away places or the wild and wont be tied down to the routineless destitution.

On the other hand, denial is not cure. There are homeless is your country and you have to acknowledge it. Only then you can take steps to provide a solution. And of course, you cannot let them starve till you find homes to put them back in. So probably it is a humane gesture, not just charitable. But it must be followed up by some policies, some endeavor to give them some place, some dignity.

It reminds me of George Carlin, the late comedian, who once said, if some of the golf courses were dismantled in USA, all homeless could be sheltered in. He was, of course, joking!

Wrong Indians In Obama Team

There are two so far, Sonal Shah and Sanjay Gupta. Both are with highly objectionable background. Economist and former head of Google philanthropic team Sonal Shah is for her VHP affiliation. She went on to renounce it fearing being dropped out. But she never was.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is a neurosurgeon and a jounalist/TV-host for CNN. He touted for the Surgeon general post in Obama administration. He opposed Universal Health Care System, Obama's (and Hillary's) election plank. Not only he opposed, he misquoted wrong numbers from Michael Moore's film and accused Moore of "fudging fact". Both of them than had a debate in Larry King Live, where Gupta continues to advance his hollow arguments. Find out Moore's refutation of Sanjay. The reason, as widely believed, in that he represents the interest of the health-care industry. Read New scientist, Paul krugman and Dissident Voice.

There are opposition to both Shah and Gupta.

Wrong Indians In Obama Team

There are two so far, Sonal Shah and Sanjay Gupta. Both are with highly objectionable background. Economist and former head of Google philanthropic team Sonal Shah is for her VHP affiliation. She went on to renounce it fearing being dropped out. But she never was.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is a neurosurgeon and a jounalist/TV-host for CNN. He touted for the Surgeon general post in Obama administration. He opposed Universal Health Care System, Obama's (and Hillary's) election plank. Not only he opposed, he misquoted wrong numbers from Michael Moore's film and accused Moore of "fudging fact". Both of them than had a debate in Larry King Live, where Gupta continues to advance his hollow arguments. Find out Moore's refutation of Sanjay. The reason, as widely believed, in that he represents the interest of the health-care industry. Read New scientist, Paul krugman and Dissident Voice.

There are opposition to both Shah and Gupta.

Uncanny Obituary

Occasionally, but disturbingly often, we hear news of "an iitian killing himself". In this country where poor farmers' suicide is a political joke and politicians' security is of crores-worth seriousness, cost of life is relative. And the iit administration understands it. This is what the dean, student affairs infroms in iitb.newgroup[1]

With deep regret, we announce that Mr. Balakrishna Gupta, a second year Ph.D. student in Chemistry committed suicide in Hostel 12. The reasons are not believed to be related to academics and much will be known after the investigations are completed. A condolence meeting will take place early in the week and I shall inform you once the same is fixed.

Prakash Gopalan
Dean (SA)

And like most of the political murders, the mystery of "a suicide in iit" is never solved. The result of the investigations are never revealed. And the administration believes- as so clearly the dean does here-and convinces junta[2] that the reasons are not academic. So then concern junta in iit debate the cause and they blame walls, corridors, fixed-beds

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. iitb.newgroup is an online platform for iitians to interact hosted by computer center.
2. Junta is an iitian term for the people.

Uncanny Obituary

Occasionally, but disturbingly often, we hear news of "an iitian killing himself". In this country where poor farmers' suicide is a political joke and politicians' security is of crores-worth seriousness, cost of life is relative. And the iit administration understands it. This is what the dean, student affairs infroms in iitb.newgroup[1]

With deep regret, we announce that Mr. Balakrishna Gupta, a second year Ph.D. student in Chemistry committed suicide in Hostel 12. The reasons are not believed to be related to academics and much will be known after the investigations are completed. A condolence meeting will take place early in the week and I shall inform you once the same is fixed.

Prakash Gopalan
Dean (SA)

And like most of the political murders, the mystery of "a suicide in iit" is never solved. The result of the investigations are never revealed. And the administration believes- as so clearly the dean does here-and convinces junta[2] that the reasons are not academic. So then concern junta in iit debate the cause and they blame walls, corridors, fixed-beds

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. iitb.newgroup is an online platform for iitians to interact hosted by computer center.
2. Junta is an iitian term for the people.

Hullabaloo In H1

We, iitians, are always discontent about something or other. And particularly about Mess, throughout the year. I had a friend, whose genre of humour was sarcastic, used to start cursing the mess manager from the time he entered dinning hall. If you could laugh its okay, otherwise your stomach would be filled with his vitriolic outpour. Thats usual in our hostel.

Last saturday, someone knocked my door and invited me to the hostel GBM[1]. The hostel PA[2] system was blaring continually till then. It seemed, dinner that night was unpalatable. In the meeting vociferous management students have kept the front rows, agitated. The warden with a deceivingly charming smile and the assistant warden(probably, you never know!) quiet and quite uninterested were at the dias. Junta was hesitantly standing or peeping inside. And the accused, the mess workers, dressed in their usual dark-coffee colored clothes were just themselves, obfuscating any attempt to look inside their collars.

And the proceedings began. Sshhh...every 2 sec. one would hush, cause he thinks he has real issues while others were just blabbering. As he begins, the hushed ones and more fresh voices would barge in and the GBM would become a fish-market, sometimes with the smell. Anyway, as a curious onlooker I had put on my satirical journalistic glasses.

The mess workers were called to the front, and asked to sit down. The mattresses were packed, some sat down on the floor- one moved a guy for a place on the mattress, another smiled and occupied an empty seat on the bench- others chose not to. Its hard to remember what was the first question asked to them, but they were told the 'cucumber" in salad was bad and who cut the bad cucumber into the salad should be held responsible. No name came out. Someone was impatient. He said, if messing in all other hostels were good, H1 had to do something. Grass is greener at the other side of the fence huh ? Many more complains pour in.

Warder explains. He had been a witness (thanks heaven, not victim :D) of the sordid saga for almost eight years now. There had been complains, meetings, talk about rotating the mess staff between hostesl, submission of memo to HCU, nothing seemed to change. He categorically said, "there is no solution for this problem. you cannot force them to cook good food for you". While I searched for a response to this pragmatic pessimism, an overly excited panchhi[3] blurted out, "we need to explore every possibility, if needed use 'force'." While I busted into a mouthful of laughter then, wardern started to articulate the length and unedning process of "force". It is then when the blame is shifted entirely to one person. That cook is supposedly the worst of all, does not give a damn to any threat. Sometimes back the HCU tried to force him to take VRS, which he denied and HCU was left at its wits end.

One mess worker is allowed to speak. He says, dont talk about time. We are the most flexible mess in terms of dinning hours. They are, I agree. They serve you 15min before and upto 1 hour late. The demagogues catapult, what is the use of time if its not edible.

Then someone responsible comes up. He tries to reason. "Out of seven days, do u get 5days good meal or not". Junta is hesitant to agree. "The idea of a good food is personal, isnt it", they point the worst as their standard of bad. "How many of you appreciate for a good meal", I do, I do...all of them join the corus. I dont think I ever did. I have not seen anyone ever doing that.

I get impatient, I had told santosh to call me after 10mins. He did, I moved on. Reminding myself the Rs 1.75 meal we used to have in West hostel back in my college and Laksya. "No amount of make up would make a monkey look like a Man" thats his difference between Mess food and Home food.

In the whole affair, the Hostel Mess Manager was surprisingly never called, he was absent anyways, never accused. Except for the fact that all effort to rectify him has also failed previously.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. General Body Meetin
2. Public Annoucement System
3. An iitian

Hullabaloo In H1

We, iitians, are always discontent about something or other. And particularly about Mess, throughout the year. I had a friend, whose genre of humour was sarcastic, used to start cursing the mess manager from the time he entered dinning hall. If you could laugh its okay, otherwise your stomach would be filled with his vitriolic outpour. Thats usual in our hostel.

Last saturday, someone knocked my door and invited me to the hostel GBM[1]. The hostel PA[2] system was blaring continually till then. It seemed, dinner that night was unpalatable. In the meeting vociferous management students have kept the front rows, agitated. The warden with a deceivingly charming smile and the assistant warden(probably, you never know!) quiet and quite uninterested were at the dias. Junta was hesitantly standing or peeping inside. And the accused, the mess workers, dressed in their usual dark-coffee colored clothes were just themselves, obfuscating any attempt to look inside their collars.

And the proceedings began. Sshhh...every 2 sec. one would hush, cause he thinks he has real issues while others were just blabbering. As he begins, the hushed ones and more fresh voices would barge in and the GBM would become a fish-market, sometimes with the smell. Anyway, as a curious onlooker I had put on my satirical journalistic glasses.

The mess workers were called to the front, and asked to sit down. The mattresses were packed, some sat down on the floor- one moved a guy for a place on the mattress, another smiled and occupied an empty seat on the bench- others chose not to. Its hard to remember what was the first question asked to them, but they were told the 'cucumber" in salad was bad and who cut the bad cucumber into the salad should be held responsible. No name came out. Someone was impatient. He said, if messing in all other hostels were good, H1 had to do something. Grass is greener at the other side of the fence huh ? Many more complains pour in.

Warder explains. He had been a witness (thanks heaven, not victim :D) of the sordid saga for almost eight years now. There had been complains, meetings, talk about rotating the mess staff between hostesl, submission of memo to HCU, nothing seemed to change. He categorically said, "there is no solution for this problem. you cannot force them to cook good food for you". While I searched for a response to this pragmatic pessimism, an overly excited panchhi[3] blurted out, "we need to explore every possibility, if needed use 'force'." While I busted into a mouthful of laughter then, wardern started to articulate the length and unedning process of "force". It is then when the blame is shifted entirely to one person. That cook is supposedly the worst of all, does not give a damn to any threat. Sometimes back the HCU tried to force him to take VRS, which he denied and HCU was left at its wits end.

One mess worker is allowed to speak. He says, dont talk about time. We are the most flexible mess in terms of dinning hours. They are, I agree. They serve you 15min before and upto 1 hour late. The demagogues catapult, what is the use of time if its not edible.

Then someone responsible comes up. He tries to reason. "Out of seven days, do u get 5days good meal or not". Junta is hesitant to agree. "The idea of a good food is personal, isnt it", they point the worst as their standard of bad. "How many of you appreciate for a good meal", I do, I do...all of them join the corus. I dont think I ever did. I have not seen anyone ever doing that.

I get impatient, I had told santosh to call me after 10mins. He did, I moved on. Reminding myself the Rs 1.75 meal we used to have in West hostel back in my college and Laksya. "No amount of make up would make a monkey look like a Man" thats his difference between Mess food and Home food.

In the whole affair, the Hostel Mess Manager was surprisingly never called, he was absent anyways, never accused. Except for the fact that all effort to rectify him has also failed previously.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. General Body Meetin
2. Public Annoucement System
3. An iitian

ssss

I acknowledge Refractor's indictment of Dronacharya that rejuvinated the cynic in me about the subject that was frozen for more than a decade, at a time when I am more articulate and when I am not afraid of the mark sheet anymore. )

A matriculate, i.e a high school graduate, someone who successfully passed out of class 10th was sort of an enlightened person those days in kalahandi, and not just among dalits. He commanded an enviable respect,as the graduates were the estranged sons of the village and masters, ph.ds were never heard of. Final exam days were a state of emergency. It used to be a board exam and the exam centres were usually far from home. So it used to be a joint war-exercise for the students-who would perform, the parents-who would arrange the stay and a teacher per school who was committed by the school to oversee the students. Two months before the board exam, there would be a test that was a qualifier for the board exam. Soon, there would be no classes and the market would buzz with several test-papers. Test papers were short of student guides, from different publishers- Malhotra Book Depot(MBD), Orissa Secondary School Teachers' Association (OSSTA) and so on. They invariably consisted previous 10-12 years' board papers, lots of questions and answers-for each type of question and several practice papers each called "institutions" for some weird reason.

Of my primary concern here is OSSTA test paper(student guide) with reference to "Jara Upakhyana". Jara Upakhyana is the story of Ekalavya, son of a tribal chieftain whose towering potential for being an warrior made the disciples of Dronacharya including Arjuna- the greatest archer to be, look like dwarfs. Upon learning that the skill Jara(Ekalavya) honed was by observing his teachings, Dronacharya deceptively asked for a convocational offering-the Guru daskhina, a payment of gratitude to the teachers that was practice that time. And with that he not only took back what he passed on to Jara rather passively and inadvertently, the skill of warfare, but also his innate talent, his inherent ability to shoot an arrow. Dronacharya bagged Jara's right-thumb.

A standard and oft-repeated, and hence very important question from this chapter was "Jara ra charitra chitrana kara". Literary meaning describe the character/personality of Jara. Funnily though, chitrana in oriya means both description and drawing differing only contextually. So some brilliant guy could actually draw a picture of a tender aged tribal prince in his language paper, evoking awe and a zero from the examiner.

The question, of course, had the standard answer, which was told multiple times when the chapter was taught and when the accompanying exercise was done. That it was virtuous of a kid, although tribal and hence sudra-supposedly the virtue less, to observe the sacred tradition of Guru-daskina. That it was obvious he was tremendously talented. That, however talented one must be, he had to respect the traditions, follow the elders. That such sacrifices were nature of great men and great societies. Etc…All these were repeated in the test papers including that of OSSTA, edifying the way the story is to be understood, interpreted and taught. There was no scope for discussion.

Thats how I remember the funny story about drawing "Jara's picture". I see it not as an aberration, but an alternate thinking in the land of brazen tailgating. Questions were never framed asking, to describe the character of Dronacharya, or was the act of Ekalavya a sacrifice or forced-foolish-faith or did he ever go on to become great or his greatness ended there in the great-indian epic Mahabharata or how much of Jara's knowledge/skill could be attributed to Dronacharya or is Guru-daskina an un-negotiable wish of the teacher religiously fulfilled by the disciples or are teaching and learning complementary something like lock and key or there could be learning without teaching and teachers……………..

The pity is that secondary school teachers never thought beyond the periphery of religious interpretation of "Jara Upakhyana". Not only the teacher of my school didnt discuss other lessons that could be learned from there, the Board also never encouraged by framing questions other than "Jara ra charitra chitrana kar". And the OSSTA, which confined its intellectual responsibility to help the students pass by publishing the "test-papers", transformed itself to a library of Dronacharya's clones. Being teachers themselves, they probably resented any thought that could indict Dronacharya, that would corrode the sanctimonious image of a teacher. They helped some students to pass the exam with their teachings, with their notes, with their test papers, and failed a huge numbers anyway, fulfilling the prophecy of "Jara Upakhyana". And they bundled out student, both matriculates and under-matriculates amputated of their independent thinking capacity, as chorus singers.

It is easy to construe the whole affair as a conspiracy, but representation of the story as such has won normative legitimacy in the society casts doubts over its functioning and future. As if the whole society is limping shadowed in a conspiracy that the functionaries are unaware they are part of it. And none of us is willing to widen the window of our observation.

Diwali: Changing thoughts, stubborn traditions

The two things that make an " isolation chamber" an instrument for torture are the space that has shrunk around you and the time that has expanded to eternity. I wonder how much of here(dont ask where) looks like that.

I have forgotten how many diwali it had been, and when exactly this happened. But for some occasion like today, there was a vibrant discussion. Diwali it is today, diwali it was, diwali it would be that way too. Only they were hoping to celebrate without crackers, deafening explosions and chocking pollution.

I have been receiving many many e-mails not to celebrate diwali this year. Well, it could be a symbol of cultural dominance, it could also be an instrument of hinduisition of secular institutions but you can not deny the fun and excitement the crackers bring. That brings me, squarely to the question we have debated fervently few years back. "Should we bust crackers ?" I know my stand that time. I was opposed to crackers, and my line of defense were rock solid. I wreck the nerve of the most vociferous pro-cracker and continued hound with facts about crackers/pollutions after diwali too, after the celebration strode his way anyway. Flawed his arguments may be, but right he was about fun. "Diwali is no fun, without crackers", for a lot many.

That refocuses on the concern of the different groups. For those, who see Diwali as malpractice of a secular institution need to recompose the festivities in calender. Amartya Sen says in his book "argumentative indian" Indian definition of secularism is not abolishing religiosity but maintaining a perfect harmony of all the faiths. So it would be grossly improper for a department like ours to celebrate Diwali and Holi in so much fanfare, while we maintain a studied silent on other religious festivals. And have you imagined how subjugating it might sound, when the school prayer is that of a religious majority ? For those, who see Diwali as a mere cultural dominance need to evolve equally pleasurable festivities as an alternate. You cannot just shut the door to the all the glazing and simmering fun outside. And last but not the least, crackers ?

We need to dissociate fun with the feeling of power, crowding noise and amazement of explosives. Not only diwali, we have made crackers inseparable from personal affairs like marriage to national days and new years celebration. Growth of civilization, by which I mean to enhanced understanding of nature, insight into human psyche and enlighted thoughts, do not guarantee that. But I am sure happiness could come through many channels, and constitute many different modes. I also think, all experiences of happiness should be yielded as much as we can, but we can definitely do some load shedding for the sake of pollution, when its so much more demanding.

Diwali: Changing thoughts, stubborn traditions

The two things that make an " isolation chamber" an instrument for torture are the space that has shrunk around you and the time that has expanded to eternity. I wonder how much of here(dont ask where) looks like that.

I have forgotten how many diwali it had been, and when exactly this happened. But for some occasion like today, there was a vibrant discussion. Diwali it is today, diwali it was, diwali it would be that way too. Only they were hoping to celebrate without crackers, deafening explosions and chocking pollution.

I have been receiving many many e-mails not to celebrate diwali this year. Well, it could be a symbol of cultural dominance, it could also be an instrument of hinduisition of secular institutions but you can not deny the fun and excitement the crackers bring. That brings me, squarely to the question we have debated fervently few years back. "Should we bust crackers ?" I know my stand that time. I was opposed to crackers, and my line of defense were rock solid. I wreck the nerve of the most vociferous pro-cracker and continued hound with facts about crackers/pollutions after diwali too, after the celebration strode his way anyway. Flawed his arguments may be, but right he was about fun. "Diwali is no fun, without crackers", for a lot many.

That refocuses on the concern of the different groups. For those, who see Diwali as malpractice of a secular institution need to recompose the festivities in calender. Amartya Sen says in his book "argumentative indian" Indian definition of secularism is not abolishing religiosity but maintaining a perfect harmony of all the faiths. So it would be grossly improper for a department like ours to celebrate Diwali and Holi in so much fanfare, while we maintain a studied silent on other religious festivals. And have you imagined how subjugating it might sound, when the school prayer is that of a religious majority ? For those, who see Diwali as a mere cultural dominance need to evolve equally pleasurable festivities as an alternate. You cannot just shut the door to the all the glazing and simmering fun outside. And last but not the least, crackers ?

We need to dissociate fun with the feeling of power, crowding noise and amazement of explosives. Not only diwali, we have made crackers inseparable from personal affairs like marriage to national days and new years celebration. Growth of civilization, by which I mean to enhanced understanding of nature, insight into human psyche and enlighted thoughts, do not guarantee that. But I am sure happiness could come through many channels, and constitute many different modes. I also think, all experiences of happiness should be yielded as much as we can, but we can definitely do some load shedding for the sake of pollution, when its so much more demanding.