Musings Own Thoughts

 What is it that makes Arundhati Roy different? She is certainly a woman of substance, an undefined entity who attracts and repels people in equal measure. I have just finished her book, memoir or biography titled " Mother Mary comes to Me". It is indeed a remarkable book, difficult to define as in different places it tells a tale of two remarkable women. Their biological relationship of mother and daughter was unlike a conventional one and was instrumental in creating Arundhati Roy, a worthy daughter of a remarkable woman shaped by the oscillatory nature of a hate love relationship. The torture inflicted by the mother on the unwanted daughter seemed at odds with a mother who fought against her brother and society to establish women's right to inherit ancestral property. She got the Supreme court to overturn the Travancore and Cochin Succession Act which prevented women from inheriting their share of property.  A lot of her writing both fiction and non fiction carried the...

 Last month I travelled to London for two weeks with family to attend a wedding in a destination Kew Gardens and to later spend some time with the family of my niece. The first week was in Rayners park Soutwest of Central London and the second in Carpenders park in Northwest of Central London. Both these areas are not directly connected to the famous old London Tube but were lovely livable areas with all the typical shops houses and streets that typify the old London. While I am not writing a travelogue just thought of penning down stray thoughts and observations about this trip.  British Airways for all the criticism and low expectation was a pleasant surprise. The crew were sensitive to my daughter Delna who is a young adult with Down's Syndrome.  London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 huge busy but seemed an old run down airport. The transit train was an unexpected experience but the rest parking lifts etc chaotic.  First impression as we drove to our destination to R...

  How does one begin to write a piece in a week which culminated in a rare conflence of events which combined coincidentally and also linked together to create some thoughts. On October 2, 2025 the festival of Dushera coincided with the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri . Two days later on October 4, 2025 at my work place we celebrated the hospitals' 21st bithday.  The decline in overall standards of morality is so precipitous and rapid that it is becoming incresing ly difficult to recognize this great fall. The rapidity of this free fall has created situations in which compromises on all fronts has been normalised. Is there a way out and what should we do to stem the tide? Gandhi wrote a book Hind Swaraj the contents of which seem nonsensical and illogical today. He condemned parliamentary democracy, Railways, mass production in factories, modern education, doctors and lawyers. But with all the noble intentions everything he said is correct as in ...

 While there is no doubt in my mind that the loudest voices heard in public and even private spaces are the ones proclaiming pessimism, danger, scaremongering and misinformation. However, as a student of Vedanta I also believe that left to oneself humans are fundamentally good and are capable of acts selflessness which are beyond ones imagination. The problem I face today is that this belief and faith in humanity is shaken to the core when one discovers the immense amount of hatred, suffering and violence we see all over  the world.  The very fact that these voices are becoming mainstream and louder to the extent that the discourse on all platforms is promoting division and disharmony is making me pose the question of the title of this blog. The times we live in are increasingly referred to as Kalyug or dark ages and the discriminatory abilities of most us are poor if not non existent. This is evidenced in many ways in the way we act in our daily lives. I will touch on as...

Come winter and marriages will take place as an annual ritual, déjà vu events with the vows of unending fidelity and eternal love. While this happens the reality of more than 70% of such events ending in messy divorces is an ignored statistic. A question crossed my mind while witnessing the ceremonies of marriages is that is it possible that these over the top celebrations are a kind of assurance that the memory bank of the celebrations and the effort, expenses keep the marriages intact for as long as possible. The contract and institution of marriage is in reality a  commercial transactional contract with legal safeguards to ensure property and assets get transferred and remain within the family.  Human behaviour is governed by a herd instinct and we are mostly living superficial lives conforming to societal norms without much questioning. Most of us take birth, play in childhood with toys and trinkets fulfilling our desires, and soon encouraged by adults learn to say my doll...

 Does this name strike a bell or a cord in any of us from the Indian common folk? Probably not but the name Aurangzeb is as well known as Dara Shikoh is unknown. In the present day of an increasingly polarised Hindutva agenda Aurangzeb is a name used almost as a slur or abuse for reasons which seem justifiable. Had  his assassination not occurred Dara Shikoh would have been an object of veneration and Aurangzeb would have been an unknown person, certainly not the puritanical radical Islamic emperor who hated and persecuted Hindus, imposed taxes and promoted a radical line of Islamic extreme religion. To understand this we must try and decipher the Mughal empire and how it influenced India and conversely how India influenced the Mughal rulers. While this blog is not a scholarly piece on the Mughal rulers, the popular narrative that native India was a homogeneous society under foreign rulers for centuries including about the last 150 years under British rulers were all bad for I...

 There is no doubt in my mind that economic reforms have accelerated India's progress and absolute poverty as I have witnessed in my childhood seems to be absent and is at least not visible on the streets and bustees of urban and rural India.  The socialist model where all are forcibly labelled as equals and wealth is forcibly redistributed seems logical but has failed miserably. The main reason I guess is that when creators of wealth are forcibly made to give up most of their earnings to the state for redistribution to the poor and jobless, they lose their drive to create wealth. On the flip side if the jobless are given doles which are enough to live in decent comfort without work they will be happy to live a life of mediocrity without striving to improve their condition.  Markets by their nature, especially free markets dealing with private goods, inevitably lead to an equilibrium of supply and demand and this leads to a fair price and the usual double thank you moment...

 Today, I am going to write about the AYUSH resident doctors I have come across and their stories of courage. As MBBS doctors and creatures of privilege we fail to recognize and remember the struggle to get admission to medical college. The difference between getting the coveted prize and missing it can be fraction of a mark. Add to this the reservation conundrum, the disability quota and the hacking of NEET. So in my humble opinion the ones who miss out think that they can study medicine through other branches like Homeopathy, Ayurvedic Medicine, Unani, Yoga and Naturopathy to become doctors. So with the basic medical education in place it is quite easy to obtain knowledge of allopathic medicines of common use and prescribe the same. While technically this is wrong and this practice is condemned as cross pathy I have mixed views about the same.  In India, the health policy recognizes the shortage of trained doctors in India and have attempted to create a loose legal framework...

Definition of health as a right is enshrined in the constitution of the World Health Organization which has 194 countries as members. Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition. Having established this right this blog is talking about two things, free of cost basic healthcare which makes this a complex topic.  The fundamental conflict in this equation is that of the Forms of government (capitalistic free market vs socialist welfare state) The difference between public and private goods.  Cross subsidizing of healthcare in terms of the healthy large number bearing the cost of treatment of the unhealthy smaller number by the tool of insurance.  Preventive vs Curative medicine.  Incentives of the s...