iPhone first impression

The iPhone hasn't officially come to India, but several dealers in Mumbai are already selling it.

Someone I know has bought one for about Rs 26,000, but I've also seen a big retailer advertise it for Rs 17,000. I got to hold the gizmo in my hand for a while, and of course I gaped.

If you've read the reviews, you already know that the iPhone puts a touch screen in place of the conventional keypad. That is a delightful Apple touch and would make the purchase worthwhile for many. The touch screen clears the clutter and makes use so much easier.

I haven't used the phone long enough to be able to review it in detail. The buyer has some complaints though: it doesn't allow him to forward messages, and the absence of Bluetooth makes it difficult for him to transfer phone numbers and songs.

My first impression is that it's a phone that's ahead of the competition in style, but friends tell me you can get a more powerful device, say in Nokia or Sony Ericcson, for the same price.

But considering you get iPod quality sound (and that in itself would clinch it for me), I am not inclined to vote in favour of iPhone's rivals.

Would I buy it? Difficult question. I use a beat-up, cheap Nokia which I drop frequently. It is hardy, and hasn't once ditched me. It works efficiently, and doesn't hang. On the minus side, it has no mp3 player, radio or camera.

I'll wait for people to tell me their iPhones survived some serious knocks. I might then, and only then, give in to my iPhone aspiration.

Carctol, medicine for cancer

I happened to visit Jaipur last month after reading about a herbal formulation called Carctol to treat cancer. The Guardian has done a piece about this medicine and reports it may have cured some 800 patients in the UK.

'Cure' is a word that leaves oncologists livid, yet a highly regarded oncologist in that country swears by the healing powers of this Indian herbal formulation.

I flew to Jaipur and met Dr Nandlal Tiwari, who runs a busy practice in Jaipur, and sought his help for my mother, who is now in hospital in Mumbai. We managed to give her the capsules for a couple of days, but she is now too weak to take anything orally, so I don't really have a personal testimonial for the medicine's efficacy. I only wish we had come to know about it earlier, but such is life, and I hope my mother comes around to be able to take the capsules again.

Just thought a note on Carctol might help those looking for ways to battle cancer.

Carctol official website
The Guardian article on Carctol

Box therapy for phantom limb pain

I have been reading a fascinating book, Phantoms of the Brain, by the famous neuroscientist V S Ramachandran.

When I came across this link, I jumped at the opportunity of hearing him speak:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/12/25/simple-3-idea-eliminates-intense-pain-and-paralysis.aspx

Phantom limb pain haunts soldiers and accident victims whose limbs are amputated. They experience severe pain in limbs they no longer have, and even more paradoxically, feel their phantom limbs are paralysed.

But the problem is not confined to war and accident amputees: women who have their uteruses surgically removed are known to experience phantom menstrual cramps and periods.

In the course of his experiments, Ramachandran discovered that a simple box fitted with a mirror could solve one of medical science's biggest mysteries.

Patients who saw a simulated image of their paralysed phantom limbs were able to establish control over them. Pain sufferers found the problem going away! No medication, no surgery, just the brain rewiring itself and taking care of a ghost problem.

Watch this video. It shows how our most complex health problems could have simple, inexpensive solutions, if only we knew where to look.

Sugarfree ice cream

Amul makes sugarfree ice creams for the calorie consious. It also describes the product as a "diabetic delight".

I asked a shopkeeper in Mumbai, right across the hospital where I've been spending a lot of time, if he had any. He is an Amul retailer. He said he didn't.

Why?

"People here expect to get a packet of sugar complimentary when they buy ice cream. Isliye bandh kardiya," he said. Mumbai had given a new spin to "sugarfree".

I believed him.

Song from MungAru MaLe

Here's a song from the hit movie MungAru MaLe.

I tried my hand at translating araLutiru jeevada geLeya, the female (Shreya Ghoshal) version of the more popular anisutide yAko indu (Sonu Nigam), and I post it here for your reading pleasure.

For those unfamiliar with the Kannada movie scene, MungAru MaLe is the biggest grosser ever, and is well into its second year at PVR Cinema in Bangalore. I saw the movie some six months ago, and liked it.

Jayant Kaikini, who wrote this song, has published critically acclaimed poetry and fiction. He edited the Kannada monthly magazine Bhavana for a while, and had earlier worked with a pharma firm in Mumbai. He has been writing in Kannada for decades, but the movie guys have only now discovered him! Good for them.

My brother-in-law in Mumbai had this song on his system, and so I got to pay close attention to the words. Okay, it may sound strange when read in translation, and without the guitar-embellished tune, but still, I hope to capture at least some of its romantic breeziness.

The situation: The hero and heroine have fallen in something that seems like love, but she is engaged to be married to someone else, and is not sure she wants to break the engagement, so...


Pallavi

Keep smiling, soul friend,
in the drizzle of friendship.

Don't wither, flower of friendship,
in the bondage of love.

Keep your thoughts in your heart.
But play on, friend, I love your silent song.


Charana
The bird sings its melodies
without announcing its name.

The champak perfumes the air
without asking a soul.

The breeze and birdsong aren't bothered
their closeness can't be described.

Why then should we worry?

Let's not give our closeness a name, friend.
Let's keep it just this way.

Charana
How charming these feelings
that lie beyond words!

Disappointment can't weigh down
a heart steeped in joy.

We may part ways at life's fork,
but the moon always walks with us.

In him I only see you.
May this bond live on, friend.
Let's keep it just this way.



The Kannada original

AraLutiru jeevada geLeya
snEhada sincanadalli
bAdadiru snehada hoove
premada bandhanadalli
manasallE irali bhAvane
midiyutirali mouna veene
heege summane

hakkiyu haadide
tanna hesaranu heLade
sampige beeride kampanu
yArigoo keLade
beesivu gaaLiya hakkiya haadina
namTige hesarina hangilla
namagEke adara yocane
beda geLeya nantige hesaru
yaake summane


mAtige meerida bhavada
sthimitavE sundara
nalumeyu tumbida manasige
baaradu besara
baaLa dAriyali bEreyAdaroo
chandira baruvanu namma jote
kAnuveu avanale ninnanu
irali geLeya ee anubandha
heege summane

Time travel

We all know our brethren in advertising window-dress the truth, but what I saw yesterday still took my breath away.

In my mailbox was a message from Naukri, the online job portal, and it said, "Ramakrishna, ur appointment letter." By now I know enough about Internet marketers to be sceptical about any communication from them, but I couldn't resist clicking on the message.

And inside, lo and behold, was an impersonal exhortation that I send my resume at once.

Even before they solicit my resume, they tell me to collect my appointment letter? Uh, sorry Mr Head Hunter, but such time machine excursions leave me dizzy.

Hello! Airtel vs Vodaphone

A neighbour has just quit Airtel to join the telecom department of a Middle East country. He came to say goodbye.

"So how's your company doing after Vodaphone came into India?" I asked.

The thinking inside Airtel, he tells me, is that Vodaphone is going to be a formidable rival. Since Vodaphone has an international network and deep pockets, Airtel is bracing for a long battle. The long term prospects, he said, weigh in favour of Vodaphone. (For the uninitiated, Hutch is now called Vodaphone in India).

I told him I had used a Hutch connection for a while, and then decided Airtel was best in the Karnataka circle. "Yes, it is No 1 for Airtel," he said. "Not Delhi, as many people think."

Airtel in Karnataka was reportedly run by a top class team, and staff from other states often went there to learn processes. "But things aren't the same any more," he said.

Vada verse

Tejas picked up this song at school:

Idli vada sambar
Sachin vada sixer
India vada winner
Pakistan vada loser

Chord of misery

Last week I was introduced to a musician who shares his surname with our Test captain Anil Kumble.

The Kumble I met had just had spine surgery, and was depressed. He works as a sessions artiste (he plays the keyboard at studio recordings) and also as a concert accompanist to singers. In the course of a long chat, he told me something I instinctively believed.

Kumble has developed diabetes in the last four or five years, and his family hasn't been able to figure out why. He has always exercised well: walked 2 km to the Lal Bagh lake and done 40 laps on its stone steps. And he has eaten well: no footpath food, no wedding hall food, just plain home food. At 50, he looks young, with not a grey hair, but feels psychologically mauled.

And the worry, he told me, concerns the use of chords. He is a self-taught musician, but he doesn't understand how the left hand ought to work. He has consulted pianists and other music teachers and asked them question after question.

"One just wanted money to drink, another said he hated Indian music," he said. "And no one had any answers."

Kumble has bought books worth Rs 10,000, which he has stacked up in his tiny house, but is none the wiser. "Where is a seventh appropriate? Why should I play this chord and not that?" he asked, like a child insisting on one proper answer to a homework sum.

He believes his obsession with trying to understand chords pushed him towards diabetes. "I am sure I brought it upon myself by worrying day and night about chords," he told me. "I simply went crazy."

A friend told me Kumble plays well, and is needlessly weighed down by his inferiority complex.

But I could empathise with him. I told him he was asking a philosophical question to which there could be no final answer. One composer may use a diminished chord where another uses a seventh. Who is to say who is right? It's art, it's aesthetics, and it's anxiety!

Fat is healthy

In Mumbai, salespeople at shops selling children's wear have a gentle way of referring to what others may describe as plumpness.

Try asking for a shirt for an eight-year-old, and the salesgirl is likely to ask, "Patla ya healthy?" Patla is thin, and its opposite, healthy, would be obese in the rude language of medical "experts".

An imagined conversation between two buddies in Mumbai:

"Hey, you're looking very healthy?"

"Yeah, blame it on the beer!"

Parsi fascination

I first came to Bombay when I was 14 or 15. An uncle worked for an antique store inside the Taj, and lived in a rented flat in Bandra. I remember being fascinated by the journalistic offerings of this city: the film magazines, the tabloids, the society glossies. And I remember reading quite a bit about the Parsis: about their contributions to this city, their religious practicies, their history in India...

Thirty years on, I hold the latest Outlook in my hand, and with it comes a supplement called Mumbai City Limits. The lead article is again about the Parsis. We have the lovable wit Cyrus and the pink-looking model Perizaad Zorabian adorning the cover, and the essay inside covers the ground I am familiar with. The Parsis' numbers are said to be dwindling, but they consistently make for good copy, and the journalistic fascination with the community hasn't faded a bit.

I wonder why the newspapers don't carry articles about, say, the Marwadis, the Iyengars, the Sanketis, the Babburkammes. India is full of castes and communities with their own proud lists of achievers, yet magazine editors zero in only on the Parsis.

Is there something in the Parsis that particularly tickles journalistic curiosity? Is it their attire, their death rituals, their insistence on marriage within the community?

Granted, the Parsis have done exceptionally well in business (the Tatas, the Godrejs, and the Wadias hail from this community of Persian immigrants), law (you have the Sorabjees and the Palkhiwalas, almost always described by the media as 'eminent jurists'), but surely, communities such as the Iyengars can boast an equal number of achievers?

Two recent Tamil films, Anniyan and Hey Ram, lavished attention on the Iyengar lifestyle. The biggest Kannada hit in recent years, Mungaru Male, captures some Kodava rituals. But for magazine editors in Mumbai, Parsis remain all-time favourites.

Death by spending

A friend told me the tragic story of a senior policeman who shot himself recently.

The sensational story made the headlines, but no newspaper could give its readers an idea of what really had pushed him to pull the trigger on himself. My friend told me the inside story.

Policemen wield a lot of power, and the general impression is that they make quite a bit of money on the side, but their salaries are a pittance.

Daya Nayak, the "encounter specialist" who has officially killed 55 gangsters, is a hero in the popular imagination, and the Kannada movie industry saluted his bravery with an eponymous film. (I recently saw some parts of it dubbed in Hindi and playing on Sahara One). But his salary, a newspaper reported, was Rs 12,000 a month. Not exactly the kind of money that would let you live a life of middle class comfort in Mumbai. Daya Nayak was suspended on the charge that he had made a fortune by illegal means, and he is now fighting a departmental battle.

To come back to my friend's story, this inspector working in a central Bangalore area was constantly under pressure from his wife to spend, spend, spend. Weekend parties, clothes, stuff... He had apparently borrowed heavily. Just before he died, his wife was pressing him to send their daughter to the US so that the girl could spend some time with her husband. The son-in-law was doing a course abroad, and had some days free between terms.

Bangalore can be terribly unkind to people who are not affluent. The inspector didn't have the money for the fare, and couldn't bear the pressure of being told he wasn't being a dutiful father either. He took out his service revolver, and put an end to his misery.

Big bad pharma

Doctors admit there has been no major breakthrough in diabetes research since the 1920s, when Dr Banting and Dr Best discovered insulin. As the diabetes epidemic takes a grievous toll across the globe, pharma companies thrive. Which is why patients who read up a bit about their condition become increasingly sceptical about big pharma.

Has diabetes become too profitable to cure? Many believe so. And quite a few believe big pharma is busy blocking any new initiative that shows promise of helping diabetics (and in the process eating into their billion-dollar profits).

I have had some personal experience of how big pharma works. A weekly magazine asked a friend to do an article on diabetes for a special supplement. Thanks to my outings on the Net, and my consultations with doctors outside the allopathic mainstream, I was able to put her on to some leads. Her article turned out comprehensive, in a journalistic context. Along referred readers to doctors with unorthodox approaches to diabetes treatment.

She filed her story, and waited for months to see it in print. After a while, she got to know that the pharma company that was to sponsor the booklet had threatened to pull out if the magazine ran this article. Since it was a question of a good deal of money, the magazine had ditched her and gone with the pharma giant.

The booklet, when it appeared, said the same old things, with the pharma company patting itself on the back for its concern about public health. In truth, it had used its money power to armtwist the magazine and block any reference to unconventional approaches that might have helped diabetics.

What causes diabetes?

No one knows. Doctors traditionally point fingers at the pancreas, and say diabetes sets in when the beta cells in this organ wear out. They also say diabetes is incurable, which flies in the face of their own experience with gestational diabetes, a condition common among women about to give birth. That variety of the disease vanishes once they recover from the stress of childbirth. It is difficult to medically gauge stress, and to understand what someone is going through psychologically, so doctors completely ignore the emotional factor when they formulate theories and treatment plans.

In the last year or so, we have been hearing of bariatric surgery, in which doctors staple the intestine and reduce the amount of food it can hold. This is done to help obese people. Doctors are amazed this surgery has accidentally cured many patients of type 2 diabetes.

They have no clue how it happens, but are now offering it as treatment for diabetics. The surgery has many arguments going against it, but it has proved again that the origins of diabetes could lie elsewhere, and not in the pancreas.

We have also heard another theory this year: that diabetes is caused by neurological inflammation. Scientists found clusters of damaged neurons near the pancreas, and when they treated those in rats, the diabetes went away. Researchers seem to be able to cure diabetes routinely in rats, and diabetes in cats often "goes into remission", but doctors always say humans are not rats.

Gary Taubes, a journalist who deserves the Pulitzer for poring over medical tomes and research papers to expose fatal flaws in dietary research, believes fat does does not really make people fat. In his recent book Good Calories Bad Calories, he reports that given a choice, diabetic rats prefer to eat low carb. They bite into protein and fat, and shun carbohydrate. Lab rats apparently rid themselves of diabetic symptoms once they started out on a carb-free diet.

All of which gives hope that researchers will one day find the cure for this wretched, insidious disease. Epidemic is a word newspapers have started using when they talk about diabetes, and the problem is indeed sweeping the world, but in my experience, mainstream doctors know little about it, and peddle old dogmas with supreme confidence.

Shit please

Non-Kannadigas in Bangalore who get a chance to interact with Kannadigas are struck by one of our eccetricities: adding an -u to every English word we adapt into our Kannada conversations. Thus, car becomes car-u, contradiction becomes contradiction-u, and so on... Many of our linguists say the moment we add an -u, the word becomes Kannada.

In Mumbai I noticed some eccentricities of the Hindi speakers. The sardar at an adjoining bed from my mother's was asking the nurse for a "shit". It turned out he needed a bed sheet (or bedspread, as the more proper English speakers would call it). A day after I recovered from his charming shortening of the vowel, I realised the habit was arbitrary, and that stretched vowels were as common. He was calling out to the Malayali nurse for "Caesars" to cut something.

At the cafeteria, the man serving customers said, "You want to wait for five minutes, uh?" It turned out he meant "You have to wait..." And the Marathi speakers leave out the last syllable in many English words. It's "an" for "and" and "as" for "ask".

Doctors visiting the hospital routinely said "cuff" for "cough", irrespective of where they came from.

And some people still think English is not an Indian language!

Auto immunity

Bangalore auto drivers have earned notoriety, but Bangaloreans who visit Chennai often change their harsh opinions about their three-wheeler pilots. Auto drivers in Chennai are said to be so greedy that they make their Bangalore counterparts look human, if not angelic.

Mumbai auto drivers, in my experience, seem more reliable than their counterparts in the two southern cities. I have taken autos to places I had no clue about, and made my ignorance of the city apparent, but Mumbai drivers have delivered me at safe at my destination , and without expecting a single extra rupee.

One exception was a driver who ferried me to my sister's house from the airport, but he was shy and apologetic when he asked for Rs 20 more.

Markeet?

I have been in Mumbai for over a month. I still catch myself calling it Bombay. I write this sitting in the wait room of Dr L H Hiranandani Hospital. This city thinks it is ahead of Bangalore, where I live, in all respects. But I was suprised to see that I was the only one in the entire hospital, in all the 50 days I have been here, to lug around a laptop. No other patient attendant, no visitor, has come here with a laptop. And this is a huge, plush hospital, built to international standards, and surpassing international specifications in some respects.

A Gujarati family sat next to me in the wait room, and a middle-aged man from among them was peeking at my screen. It couldn't be that he had never seen a laptop. After a few minutes, I thought I should politely strike up a conversation. The moment I smiled, he asked, "Markeet?" I didn't quite understand the question. "Share markeet?" he repeated the question. I told him I was doing some routine mail checking, and had no idea about online trading. He lost interest in me, and continued talking to his family. He was explaining to them how online lottery works, from what I could gather.

Who knows, this man could well be another Ambani. Have you seen the movie Guru? It is based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani, the man who founded India's richest business empire. I could connect this man in the hospital to the young, gauche trader in the film, played by Abhishek Bachchan in awkward clothes.

My laptop goes online with the help of a Reliance data card. This wireless device helps me check mail, surf and edit copy wherever I am. It has helped me work from airport lounges, hospital lobbies, and, once, even from a badminton court. The man who founded Reliance was this very trader, Ambani, whose manipulative skills and daring director Mani Ratnam has captured on celluloid. The Gujarati in the hospital wait room may have no idea how to use a laptop, but I am sure he knows how to make money from one.