an Indian in Istanbul

Orhan Pamuk is Turkeys nobel prize winning writer  and a favourite of mine ,I have pored over many of his books specially the one on Istanbul where he describes his childhood and a great  part of his life living on the shores of Bhosporous in a luxury villa ,this had spurred an intrest in me to visit this exotic city and if possible meet Pamuk
( I did meet Ruskin Bond in Mussoorie India and chatted with him and even wrote a reasonably popular middle in the Indian express long back ) ,
Istanbul finally did happen but I heard Pamuk was living in  far away  U.S. of A ,

some other time my friend !

Istanbul ,Constantinople names that conjure magic and history  when heard
the only city where east meets west and melds into a wholesome treat
the gateway to Europe from Asia and vice versa
the city that straddles two continents
inhabitants can say Iam going to Asia for some shopping and return to Europe in an hour or live in Europe and go to school in Asia or even  better take a walk along the Bhosporous bridge and just reach another  continent .

Buses and trains ply from Istanbul to all major European cities and to London
(          Graham Greenes Stanbhoul Train   )

The Bhosposrus bridge crosses the Bhosporous strait that connects  Marmara sea and the Black sea .

The  picture postcardness of Istanbul is hard to beat , be it the towering spires or the domed roofs of the old city or its  modern skyscrapers , be it the cobbled narrow roads   the  trumbling trams ,buses or the metro .Green  flowered parks on sloping hills with cute cottages  the    multihued  inhabitants teeming the streets from every part of this world all  befitting a city like Istanbul .

History literally dripped from every where like succulent  juices from the shavarmas in street corner shops did .
The bricked mortar of walls left crumbling on the roadside ,
the Hagia sophia the 3rd century church one of the worlds oldest of its kind  standing tall and beautiful ,
the Blue moque with its six spires
 the Topkapi palace with its treasures of the Ottaman ,
 the Dolmbache palace in its European elegance .

Standing on a hill ( a tourist spot with a couple of restaurants  where one went for a night view of the city ) the cool wind ruffling my hair I could almost hearhorses clacking overwooden bridges
 armoured soldiers crawling over the steep walls of the forts
 tinkling  jewels and rustling gowns   in the harem of the sultan
the lapping waves of the  bhosporous  took me into the past   ,
 the crusaders the ottamans the Byzantines ,the conquering armies and  thier lusty war cries .

This city bent itself under this collective  history, glorious in its variety and all one needed  was imagination to get into a time machine .and  live  its pages .

The early Byzantines and Romans and later the Ottmans who ruled from the 14th century till 1923 all made this city alive .




Kamal Attaturk The founder president  was a dashing captain of the army
He brought Turkey its independence and created  the   secular republic it is today  ,
The airport is named after this reverred figure .

As I alighted from a  poorly  serviced Turkish Airlines business class early  in the morning ,                  bleary eyed and tired the airport stretched itself before me a bit large and confusing .

English wasnt a great  hit here as people just didnt know it and did not  bother to also .

but yours truly would not be so easily beaten ,

with only my camera as luggage
 ( wife was coming in next flight and I gave her the cargo )
I  managed to decipher  the metro station in the airport itself and after some keen observation found out all I had to do was to  put two Turkish liras into a vending machine to get a token which allowed me to enter into the metro till I got out !

then it became all easy

Getting down at the last stop Aksharay ( did not bother to change lines )  I   found out there was a modern tram again for 2 liras  which would  take me to the old city the famed  Sultan Ahmet area which was something like Fort Cochin in my place ,a tourist hub .

It was  drizzling mildly and was cool
walking was fun and I  did it biting into a fresh croissant worth one lira bought from a side stand vendor ,

my eyes grew wide as I gazed at the rounded domes and spires of the Hagia sophia and the  Blue mosque ,
walking into the small cobbled  streets I reached the Blue Tuana hotel booked by me online

It was small  but  cosy and homely
The German Turkish Maria who owned the place  welcomed  me and gave me a  room  with a railway line below
so at intervals I could see and feel the rumbling train .

Ater some rest I got back to the airport , by now an expert in metros and trams collecting my wife and the luggage ( not to be mentioned in the same breath .....oops )


we then got back to the Blue Tuana by cab .

The taxi driver was honest as he made a call from his mobile to the hotel  for the right and charged me just what the   meter said
 most cabs were like that though some do cheat .

   Later we went  to the Topkapi palace a repository of te Ottaman sultans costumes ,weapons and jewels   his     crowns and sceptres .
 Most of the suits and cloaks were huge and  made for giants
 I wondered   whether they were  meant for two  Sultans at a time till I  saw some paintings of some of the huge imperial figures .
Those days one ate with gusto ,enjoyed life and never bothered about fitness I presume
( should have born as an ottaman....... my paunch would have been an asset and  all  those lovely harems .....sigh sigh  )

strangely many of the good  items in the museum were from Indian shores either gifted by some mughal by marriage or aqquired by invasion !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topkap%C4%B1_Palace



The Hagia Sophia was our next place to visit
the 3rd century church one of the oldest of its kind  built by Emperor Constantine in 360 AD in Byzantine era was said  to have been buit in the very place of a prexisting pagan temple it was destroyed by man and nature several times and reconstructed  , it was fought for during the crusades finally converted into a mosque during Otaman reign and now turned into a museum in  the Turkish republic
It was overhelming and breathtakingly beautiful
 its insides had massive chandleiers illuminating its voluminous space and painitngs and latticed windows http://www.focusmm.com/civilization/hagia/welcome.htm

The  Blue mosque ( because of its blue tiles inside ) towered just opposite the Hagia sophia  almost resembling it but for the  six spires
 it was also known as the Sultan Ahmed mosque ,a chain gaurded its entrance so  that even the sultan coming on horseback to the mosque had to lower his imperial head before entering  the divine presence .

the ceramic blue tiles numbered more than 20000 there were chandelliers and caligraphied  Quranic qoutes the Mihrab was made of sculputred marble many of the lamps were covered with valuable jewels and gems philandered later http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_Ahmed_Mosque

We then went on a double decker bus over the Bhosporous bridge up a hill to a scenic spot to view Istanbul at night ,tucking into hot soup as we dined in a restaurant looking down on the twinkling lights of this magical city feeling a dream come true .

morning saw us tucking into cottaged cheese and  biting into buttered toasts and buffy biscuits as we enjoyed the home made breakfast from the roof top of the Blue Tuana .
Encouraged by the warm hospitality of Maria our host

We then walked to the covered Grand bazar an oriental souk with multitudes of shops with thier many hued wares from upmarket leather coats to heaped spices the smells were as varied as the colours as we gobbled dono Kebabs ,and succculent Turkish sweets
 freshly baked cakes and croissants emanating a sweet fragrance to the streets as we joined the multitudes in expoloring the bylanes of Istanbul .

   Returning to the  Blue Tuana we   checked out and moved into our new place of stay
 the Swissotel Bhosporous ,
its five star elegance was breathtaking but could never come upto the homeliness of our dear Blue Tuana .

Evening saw us in Takshim the main shopping area of the city
the whole road was lined with huge shops and   designer outlets and was a live fashion ramp crowded and full of life

It exhausted us and we went to a heritage Turkish restaurant
 luckily I could get some rice and yoghurt and this proved a great match with chicken kebabs ...
Thayirsadam in Turkey ( curd rice in Turkey ) should have been a good name for this post .


The T urkish Dervish dance in the Hodgapasha place a few miles away was our next  plan        
 we reached there that  rainy night by a not too friendly and a bit too   expensive cab .

Every Turkish Lira was equal to two Dirhams and something near 28 Indian Rupees .


The dervish itself is  a spiritual experience
linked to sufi thoughts of reaching the ultimate by losing oneself ,
Photography was strictly banned and silence was demanded during the perfomance
The five dervishes revolved in thier own axis and around a small circle in the middle of the hall
ancient chants filled the air and it was a   surreal experience to watch the intent face of the dancers with thier eyes closed and thier minds far away in some unknown world of deep happiness .

one could enter the nothingness by losing oneself by   the repeated revolving
this makes them focus and jettison themselves like rockets out into the stratosphere of spiritual release
something like mediatation or losing oneslf in music .
this was indeed an unique experience .

The meet which  I   came for occupied the days

The next evening we went for a dinner cruise in the Bhospurous where Turkish dancers in national costumes regaled us with energetic and romantic numbers .
there was also a couple of scinitllating belly dances where the sinous movements of the belles  were    in tune with the lapping waves of the Bhosporous .

The night  continued   as long legged Russian passengers threw themselves into the floor for a rumbusto perfomance
A middle aged passenger and an Elvis Presley look alike threw himself to Presley style contortions ,an older man beat rocking and rolling with relentless gusto
As the whole  ship was dancing we quitely moved into the upper deck and cloistered by the cool spray gazed  into the dark waters and the twinking lights of this wonderful city
the favourite place of my favourite author Pamuk

Finally I thought ,     I made it here and
 one day I shall meet you too



Hoşçakalın. (Hosh cha kaluhn) ..that is goodbye in Turkish for you .

ORDINARY Malayalam movie .. is .extraordinary

Ordinary is a new malayalam movie which gives hope to  people who love malayalam films for its quality ,
Malayalam films may be moving in the right direction after the recent fall into the  deep morass of imitation of other south language masalas of the pelvic thrust acrobatics kind .
It is all about a run down KSRTC ( what else does one expect KSRTC to have ) bus plying to a remote village near a dam called GAVI .,it is about the regulars who travel in this bus for thier living commuting to the city and back and about the driver and the conductor .
The amusing pre interval songs and anecdotes with Biju Menon mouthing Palghat style dialogues with aplomb and a novice Kunjachacko Boban proving himself to be the man with more in him than what he projects, post interval dips into a suspense plot full of pathos and unexpected twists and turns .

the Director  Sugeeth  a protege of Kamal the well known director proves himself worthy of his guru .
Excellent photography ,good dancing and acting by all the newcomers including veteran Raghavans son Jishnu brings life into the film .
Raghavan ( chembaratthi fame ) appears in the role of a priest .
Asif Ali proves himself again as an intense actor with a future .
It is in the end a feel good film and leaves you satisfied like belching  after a good Kerala marriage feast !
see it .....

A Thousand word Film review

Thousand words is a movie which got billed as an Eddie Murphy comedy .
Directed by Brian Robbins I would label this a comedy that makes you think .
It is all about a machine gun talking literary agent who achieves sucess with his gab ,he shoots his vocabulary in the speed of a bullet train and is full of words and more words .
He is in the top in his filed and prides himself as somebody who would get anything done with his skills in talking ! he even promises himself a sceptre and a crown to be the emperor of publishers .
Eddie has a juvenile  bespectacled bookworm as his male secretary who loves to confess his perverse doings into his ears !
It all happens when Eddie meets Dr Singja ( shades of Dr Deepak Chopra ) the well know life style Guru from the land of spirituality India ,and wins him over to get a contract for publishing his thoughts which would be a surefire best seller but is shocked to know that the book is actually only a pamphlet of five pages !
As he approaches Sinja  angrily for this betrayal Sinja calms him down saying he should actually find himself in silence than by living in the world of words and talking !
Sinja describes a mythical tree ( Bodhi ..of enlightment ) which has a thousand leaves and for each word that Eddy utters one would slowly fall to the grownd ,he tells him when the tree sheds all its leaves it would wither and so would Eddy !
Strangely Eddy sees a tree sprout in his backyard and as he talks finds it shedding its leaves .
this makes our Eddy go into a coccoon of silence as he measures his words and slips into miming to convey his thoughts
amusing situations arise where Eddie uses his excellent theatrics  to convey his emotions his facial contortions show his superb acting capabilities
His interactions with his wife who feels ignored by a busy Eddy or his small infant child or with his alzheimers stricken mother in a home for the aged becomes strengthened with silence as he slowly understands himself in silence better than in the world of sounds and words .
the film comes to a close in the graveyard where he stands before his fathers grave and sublimates his resentment to a father who left him as a child and later died by mouthing the words
" I forgive you "
and with that the last three leaves of the symbolic tree falls and he too does to the grownd only to be wakened  ressurected as  a new man admidst a flowering blooming tree .

The inner message of the film  is we can search our soul and look into  ourselves better in silence and as we discover our selves our resentments and hatred melt awaty and we become like a new born .
beutifully said by the director so subtly and aptly
The Indian guru wanted just this moment when Eddy would realise himself .

one qoute in the film says
"be good to all becuase one never knows that  seeing someone at that moment  may be seeing that person for the last time  "
so true in several situsations to all of us who have lost someone in thier lives

lovely movie do see it

KAHANI Movie Review

The essence of  any film lies in its script and the way it is directed .
Kahani the Hindi movie does well on both these criterions and to add to it is the brilliant portrayal of the central character by the very talented and beutiful Vidya Balan .
there is no moment wasted in the movie
one is absorbed  by the Kolkata that comes live on the screen ,the photography is world class with most of it close up shots ,
imagine Kolkata in close up during Puja times the cacophony and colour of the city is recorded faithfully and intrestingly .
The crowds part and meld with the actors as the situation demands
the Durga motifs form the backdrop of the action the rundown lodges runny streets old rikshaws rickety trams and a booming metro where the real story begins is so enlivening .
Director Sujoy Ghosh drops subtle hints  of the possible end during the movie ( I was unable to recognise any clues  though my daughter vocuhed on it  ! )
A fully pregnant and tired jet traveller from London comes to Kalighat police station in search of her missing husband........ you guessed it ,it is Vidya Balan nay Bidya Bagchi as they say it in Bongali .
Bidya is assisted by a junior police officer of Kalighat plice station and thier mission runs through myraid convoluted pathways which enmeshes them with shady gangsters contract killers seedy lodges and finaly the Intelligence Brueau with a couple of  moles in thier backyard .
Very rarely do Indian films enter  into the  shadowy parallel world of the  intelligence  ,though the underworld has been  reasonably well covered .thanks to Ramgopal Verma
To make a long story  short the gripping movie comes to a brilliant ending which is totally unexpected but all the loose ends are ably tied by the director and the movie appears reasonable and plausible .
If you see this movie and I feel you should dont even breath about its suspense to anyone who wants to see it

please .......

Kottaram Barber ( Royal Barber )

Al Ain has been my home for the last five years .
though not as big and glamarous as its two cousins Dubai and Abu Dhabi I  would call it a cute and comfortable city to live in with all the neccesities and one   blessed with the bounties of nature
It is more relaxed and low profile here  .
the broad roads have roundabouts full of well designed flowerbeds ,the pavements are neat and a delight to walk , the uptown area with its malls and shops are colourful ,and the  bright the parks are plentiful there are   hot springs to wade in  and a mountain to climb if one felt to do so !
the one thing that struck me when I came here initially was the countless hair dressing places and saloons here .
Leave alone the multiple beauty parlours dotting the city with bright faces and  manicured eyebrows peering from the signboards there were a lot of specialist kids saloons and gents saloons all over the place !
I wondered at the multiplicity of these hair marts ,
Al Ain folk should be obsessed and fickle of thier crowning glories , shaved chins or trimmed beards

I never stuck to the same saloon and drifted most unfaithfuly from one hair stylist to another looking for the ultimate answer to my hairy solutions .

The last time my visit was remarkable and worth a blog post so here goes......

It was  just another saloon nothing remarkable in it  to give me  a clue of tis hidden talents which I would shortly discover .
I entered and found there was one artisan happily doing his craft on one chaired customer  while the other was vacant ,he asked me to sit and shortly another barber ( sorry for the deragatory label ,these days such adjectives are frowned upon by these professionals ) arrived and walked around me .
This man gazed at me intently or rather on my scalp and its adornings which was nothing much to write about ,I was nowhere near  an Amitabh Bachan when it came to this part of my anatomy but neither was  I a  Rajani kanth without his wig
I was just an  average joe with   some dry long unruly windblown  hair .
After a perfunctory survey the master condescended to comment with a long sigh which  should have had hidden meanings
if there were experts who could decipher barbers sighs they would have written long thesis on those sighs
( I remember  there were Russia watchers in those socialist days where a sneeze of a Brezhnev or a nod of a Kosygin would make them ruminate on the possiblities of the next nuclear catastrophy ! )

Our man was silent and declined to comment then on my hair but quitely and surely took his wares and frowned deeply as if he was ready for this most difficult job .
there was a sneer mixed with that frown if one watched with concentration .
and then the clipping of the scissors took over the silence  as  I peered into the mirror watching my grey black brown dyed hair falling all over my chest .
the comb bit into my scalp the knife knicked behind my ears and the razor whirred its motors as the great man worked on his piece of art
like a picaso on his painting he was all concentration
and then came the dunking of the head under a cold washbasin while he soaped my scalp and suds came out of my soddy ears he towelled me briskly envigorating my grey cells and blowdried my hair into shape .

once he had completed his task  he declared valiantly
 you know i am called the Royal Barber   , Kotaram Barber   in malayalam ( forgot to tell you he was a mallu from Amchi malabar ) ,you know why ?
 give me a kulu ( clue ) please .......me
this answer was not much appreciated as he felt i was a bit snooty !
kulu is in TV only !

 will tell you the hard facts Iam the offical barber of a local Shiekh and mostly I stick to him rarely do I take up other work
I was suffused with pride for this great artiste to have selected me  probably it was the blue in my blood from the mankavu kovilakam it should have been so telling in my countenance that he felt he had to do the honours

I took your case because it was a professional chaallenge ! oops

never have I  seen such an unruly mop
you call it hair do you?
and tell me who have been at it all this  while ?
 he made it sound as if to say which rat has been on it ,very humilating indeed .

well i never stuck to one many had left thier marks on my crowning glory what you see are  those efforts on my scalp it shows hard work and dedication of many artistes

well I dont agree it is bad hair ruined by badder barbers !
my challenge here was how to salvage this mess !
when I  saw you first I had to plan on how to go about it and once I took a decison my strategy was all ready
you are lucky you know
The  end result was not bad but nothing amazing it was just like any other previous haircuts

At least it wasnt like a Sreedevi nosejob !

well even with that sorry face your hair looks decent now said the great man !

one can make the craft of a master form a distance

I just nodded

the kotaram barber dusted me and made me get down from the high stool

the show ended with me parting a fat fee for the handicrafts  of his highness the Kottaram Barber

( well I have exaggerated for sarcasm he was only half as bad as narrated )

Dramatic Surgeons

We all have funny anecdotes dotting our past lives
in many of my earlier posts I have narrated some where I have been the protaganist
Today  let me dwelve upon some  which happened when I was studying in medical college .( ages back )  ( kilpauk Medical College Chennai )

To begin with  I remember with fondness one of our surgical chiefs who I would term politely to be a trifle on the larger side with a roomy middle ,
he was a good showman and  in the large outpatient clinics we had ,he always had a flexible plastic knee hammer with a knob on one side and his habit was to twiddle the rod end ( soft ) on the patients tummy as the patient  lay in the centre of the whole crowd of students ,
As he continued to twiddle the patient would wriggle getting tickled ,suddenly our boss would take the rod and it would go straight into his mouth  as he absent mindedly  chewed on it with the stunned patient  looking speechless at this culinary preference of the physician and we all would  try to supress our giggles .

Once he dramatically asked a pateint during rounds
" Are you passing gas ?  "
The patient replied meekly
 "yas saar little little  "( Konjam Konjam in Tamil )
 "konjam konjam   ! what else do you expect you  want  to have a storm or what with lightening  and thunder " was his reply !
 ( pinna enna puyala adikkum ? ) .

He used to sit in a chair surrounded by all of us standing around trying to catch what he said and he had the habit of swinging his chair slowly backwards and one fine day he went all the way back and was rescued by two juniors just before he hit the floor
 The two juniors was at the wrath from  many of us for that untimely rescue !

There was another famous surgeon whose feats in the operation theatre were  woven into ballads ! like Keralas vadakkan pattus
this man was a no nonsense person
he was perfect in what he did and was an excellent surgeon
But he  made spines shudder when he was angry .

I remember him particularly well  in my final year exam clinicals
 One had to had to identify  gross pathology specimens  and  this part of the exam was called spotters .

The sight of the big man himselves  sitting unglaring in front of a floating tissue in glass would unerve anyone particulary a meek exam candiadte like me but that day I was brimming  with confidence as I knew what the specimen  was and was all ago to go at it and so I went on describing to him all about the testicular seminoma specimen  ( a testicular tumour ) which I thought was what the specimen was all about ,

Dr V ......made an interested listener nodding and even smiling at me benignly and prodding me on
I started imaging I was so good that he was seriously  considering to offer me  a surgical residency once i passed .
At the end of it  he brought me down to earth with a thud

" nice my dear fellow you know  a lot about the testicle and its seminoma but for your information this is a thyroid !!!! and not a testes !!!  "

Of course I got through that year but no surgical residency ever came my way !



The very same surgeon  is known to have been called recurrently by another famous surgeon who was known for his  teaching skills and also known for his poor operating skills whenever he got into catostrophies !
It was during my third year  we were all eagerly standing around with masked faces trying to peep into an operative field as the great man cut and snipped .
In the pecking order the third years were infants nay neonatals ,
The operation  theatre of   a teaching medical college is rigidly caste ridden !

In the front there were  the great chiefs who were like kings and emperors
The Assistant  profesors who were the only people who could contradict or converse with the king   in a somewhat equal term came second in heirachy.
There were  the post graduates whose only intent was to get maximum experience and learn and get into the good books of the kings and the Assistants
Then came the interns  or house surgeons who were always exhausted by thier continious work schedules They were bent on finishing thier jobs and going back to the  hostel  for a smoke or whatever they did for thier relaxation .
There were the Final year students  who had that studious exam  look carved into thier serious faces
 The  fourth years came next they  alternatively admired thier seniors while scorning thier juniors .

Of course we had the Anaesthetists who  were operating room creatures and kept  straying  in and out occasionaly playing with thier machines or  twiddling with  BP cuffs while cracking jokes with the surgeons and Assistants depending on thier intimacy levels with the kings
These men and women lived thier lives in the operation theatres rarely meeting thier pateints when awake !but were true professionals excellent in thier strenous jobs

There were also  homely  matrons who ruled  the operating room region with iron hands and even ticked off the kings for misdemenours at times !

There were  nurses who scampered around expect the big ones who assisted the emperors with sure confidence coming out of experience over the years
Each surgeon had his special team of nurses and Assistants .

We the third years amongst all this activity  were literally the outcastes banished to the outermost periphery pushed and jostled by the crowd .
we were literally non entities

Finding our what was happening in such a place was mostly by imagination and by auditory.more than visual inputs .
The clip and snip of a scissor or the slide of a scalpel  would let us know that the operation was well on its way .

In this dramatic scenario one of my classmates ,I  would just call him K ( by now he should some professor or director of some institute somewhere so why offend   by naming him  !  ).

K had a clever idea to view the proceedings that day .

He pulled a stool left by a wandering anesthetist and climbed  on it towering above all of us and with a wide grin from this lofty perch watched the proceedings with an aerial view bending down into the operative field itself  !

All went fine till the moment his spectacles sprung from its perk on his sweaty nose and dropped  plonk into the open abdomen of the poor patient .

All hell broke loose

V....stopped what he was doing and looked up aghast

all of us looked shocked and speechless

Then as a closing ceremony came a dark hand again sweaty and damp shooting  into the patient and retrieving the  lost property !!

You guessed it
it was the hand of K !

V ....went into apoplexy

Iam sure he broke an artery or two that day

an operative field is a highly sterile area and we third years too knew that but dont know what made K do what he did !

V yelled
he asphyxiated
he went into an apoplexy
his eyes were red and his face was purple with rage

 "kick him out kick him out I  dont want this fellow to ever come 100 metres near a theatre ! ever again  "

and then he yelled at the nurses

  "come on get the saline and irrigate the field fast fast "

 to undo the crime !

There was yet another surgeon who was known for his absent mindedness

Tales were told of how he left a newly married wife in the market in the city she never knew as he went pillion riding with a friend he met offhand later remembering to retrieve the crying wife after many hours .

This absent minded surgeon was also known for his hot temper and his anger was legendary .

Once  he forgot to wear the  pants portion of his surgical scrubs and just wore his shirt which to a certain extent covered his family jewels as he was very short .

As ususal he climbed on a stool ( he always needed a stool )  to start his surgery with this sexy outfit and hairy thighs

 that day there were lot of suppresed giggles but none dared to mention to the emeperor that he had  no clothes till the time a lady gynecology chief who was known to have a  fond eye on this surgeon came and started laughing  pointing to his middles  letting the cat out of the bag !

What after all   is life with no fun!

Feather in the Air

when loved ones disappear with no warning
the days ahead are filled with mourning
to all of us parting and losing are sad
and to never see the person again is really bad .


To each one of us the departed soul is different
to one he or she is the lover to some the loving parent
to many the person  is a dear friend
to some he or she could be just indifferent


all of us have to say one day goodbye
that after all is the rule dont ask me why
but still when people leave us  and go
we do feel the knawing vacum that  is again so


to me my Unnietan was not only an elder  brother (in law )
he was a friend I could and did  bother
how can a person so alive and kicking one day
becomes just an image and disappear like   a faded ray


Time alone can  let  lingering grief s settle
Time can make us forget the little rememebrances  which knell
with time and more time  persons and souls do disappear
And the  fond memories fly away like feathers realeased into thin air .......




( Unnietas 16th day rites are tomorrow )

Jumping Genes

Cancer is a disease that has a frightening tinge to it .

It creates apprehension and fear of impending death ,the advances in oncology notwithstanding death does play a big role in Cancer though its shadow is definitely being shortened day by day

We cannot group all Cancer into one it depends on the type ,the site the stage and the other problems associated with the patient ( we call it as comorbidities )

 it also depends on when it was diagnosed , by whom , and what kind of treatment was given and where it was given .

All this goes into what happens to somebody with the big C .

It is preventable to an extent by avoiding obvious risk factors like smoking and use of tobacco  , alcohol use beyond the limits .maintaining a healthy lifestyle with adequate exercise also helps to a great extent .

Preventive and early detection of certain cancers have also brought down the incidence

Finally the myths associated and the fears and barriers of the disease in society  should be broken down

With this morbid introduction let me take you through two discoveries in Cancer research which have made a paradigm shift to its outcomes .

One is in CML or Chronic Myeloid Leukemia and the other is  APML or Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia .

There are great similarities to both these types of Leukemias for once they were thought to be insurmountable mountains as far as treatment was concerned but advances in molecular medicine has made them as pygmy hills to be hopped over today  !

The Time magazine had as its cover when the secrets of  CML was discovered a picture of the capsule used in CML  with the title Cancer Conquered though that proved with time a little overconfident it was not totally wrong

.http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,999978,00.html

Let us find out what these two epoch making events were

Chronic Myeloid Leukemia is one amongst the four Leukemias ( blood cancer affecting the blood forming cells )

Chronic is the label given for the type of Leukemias with mature cells

 ( fully grown cells ) ( Chronic Myeloid or mature granulated white cells and Chronic Lymhoid Leukemia which had mature lymphoid cells ) and

Acute the type with immature growing cells ( called Blasts )

 ( Acute Lymphoblastic with predominantly lymphoblasts  and Acute Myeloid  Leukemias with myeloblasts or granulated cells )

Amongst the Acute Myeloid Leukemias of which there are several types there was one termed some years back as AML M3 and today called as APML  or Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia ( in short it is the type of Leukemia with predominantly promeylocytes or growing myelocytes )

 The bone marrow is our factory churning out these cells incessantly while millions of cells get killed every other minute ,

all it needs is  a small hitch and then something goes haywire in the assembly line .

Of course each cell has its genes carried in its chromosomes ( it would need a separate blog to explain this so let us leave it at that )

now in the APML affected cell there occurs a quirky switch from normal called Translocation

chromosome 17 in the cell is involved in a reciprocal translocation with the promyelocytic leukemia gene (PML) on chromosome 15, a translocation denoted as t(15;17)(q24;q21).

The fusion of PML and RAR creates a hybrid protein with altered functions.

This protien prevents further growth of promyelocytes into myelocytes and hence promyelocytes are produced in large numbers and are released into the blood stream .

These promyelocytes are abnormal and have toxic granules which burst out into the blood and this causes bleeding and clotting problems ( Diseeminated intravascular coagulation ) this can cause severe problems and can lead to sure death if not treated immediately .

Hence the importance of detecting APML in time which can be done only in centres trained to do so .

The RAR A is Retinoic acid gene ( Vitamin D is Retinoic Acid  ) and when several isomers of Retinoic acid was used in APML it was found that the cis isomer of Retinoic acid called ATRA just reversed the action casued by the fusion of PML RARa  and the promyelocytes started maturing into normal myelocytes !

Ooh la la

Suddenly the most fatal disease turned into most favourable one for treatment of course it wasn’t as simple as that as chemotherapy was also added to ATRA and  had to be continued in several forms for at least two years

 but fact is an incurable type of cancer become completely curable like magic .

Initially when ATRA was discovered it was available only in China and during the Tianamen episode in history  the supplies from China stopped

Roche the famous medical company produced its version and created history .

Similarly in CML there is a fusion between BCR and ABL genes forming a hybrid protien called BCR ABL which caused the mature myelocytes to go uncontrolled

Again a  specific medicne coming under the class Tyrosine kinase inhibitors called imatinib mesylate proved to be the magic pill turning the  CML from a dreaded disease into a manageable one .

Over time more versions of Imatinib came into being  like Dasatanib and Nilotinib

These targetted therapies ( they target only the cancer cells ) and monclonal Antibodies form the backbone of cancer research and treatment today leading us to the inevitable  day when Cancer would be even if not conquered become like say Diabetes or Hypertenison is today .

Let us pray for that day

Akale film /review

Sometimes ,no most of the times fine things come not by design but by chance .
surfing the channels on a lazy holiday made me see this classic movie by Director Shyamaprasad ,I would not have even known about it otherwise !

Akale is a very simple story of a north malabar anglo indian famly ,
Sheela the extrovert gregarious mother who hides her anxiety of a woman deserted by her husband , a sensitive mildy handicapped daughter Rose , and a son Neil  who is in a world of his own .
Neil   is  a lowly clerk but aspires to be a writer of fame  one day
.he often  escapes to the fantasies of a local cinema house to escape the constant grumblings of his mother who goads him to find a match for Rose .
Pritiviraj as Neil has done a low profile  and mature job even as a middle aged writer in the later half of the film .
Geethu Mohandas as Rose is really the star of the film ,she has brilliantly portrayed a fragile and sensitive young woman with an inferiorirty complex who hides her thoughts amongst her glass figurines .
she flowers open to Freddy , Neils friend who was also  her schoolmate and lets us all know how much could be behind such quite  people ,
like her  broken glass unicorn her dreams are shattered along with ours  once we come to  know Freddy the thoughtful and caring man is already engaged to someone else .
Rose slowly  retreats into a sanctuary to disappear altogether from this uncaring world
Sheila the veteran actress portrays her role with aplomb
The movie takes you to the world of Anglo indians , the piano cliniking in the background the sepia tinted photographs the echoes  of great parties in the  past and the porcelain dinner layouts .
The film ends with Freddy his wife  ,Neil and his mother , all remembering Rose and we too do that then .

Brilliant please watch 

Fried out

It was 2007 July ,one of the hottest periods in the Gulf and I had the first taste of summer in Al Ain then
I reached U.A.E precisely on July 12th  and landed in the  Abu Dhabi Airport .
Tawam Hospital receive their staff on the first visit with a  friendly chaperon and a chauffeur driven vehicle .

Smiling Sidhu was my first glimpse of my Hospital hospitality and he made  a reasonably good impression .

As we sped through the smooth neat wide highway to Al Ain I was intrigued by the signs that came before me .
Though travelling away from Abu Dhabi city once in a while the board Abudhabi  exit came on my right side !
This was surprising for someone fresh from India as we expect it to be in  the opposite side of my travel as I was moving away from it later Sidhu filled me that this was the way one returned back by an underpass ,no  U.turns or junctions in highways ,it was one smooth ride of 140 Km in an hour and a half .

we passed the huge horse roundabout as  we approached AlAin city and I  looked at  Tawam Hospital ,it was huge and sprawling with the Faculty of Medicine near by ,
we sped swiftly into the flower bedecked roundabouts and  the neatly pavemented city of Al Ain went through the busy areas and reached the other side of the city and went into the Hilton hotel to be  my home for more than a month from then .

I was promptly deposited in my fifth floor room with a nice little balcony facing the main road with the speeding cars   ,of course at that time of the year one wouldn't venture into open balconies for the sun  would fry one till late evening !
Slowly I made the  hotel  my home ,commuting  to  the hospital in the official car and coming back in the evenings ,the long weekends of Friday and Saturday ( in UAE the week starts on Sunday ) stretched in front on me with nothing much to do but gaze into the TV and think of home food ,it would be November by the time AlAin climate changed from torrid to warm to cold and it would be real nice in December     Jan and February pleasant 10 to 15 degrees .

But this happened in the height of summer and we are talking of 45 to 50 degrees
One weekend afternoon after a long nap I slid the glass door of my room moving aside the curtains and stepped into the veranda ,half sleepy
 I wanted to take a breath of fresh air and I then did something  which I regretted immediately .

I slid the door back and it promptly got locked into place from inside !!!!
I remembered reading an instruction precisely not to do this !

Not a pleasant  proprosition to get caught in a blazing verandah under a fuming sun in the  Gulf summer and to add to my discomfiture I was ill dressed in a lungi without even a shirt to cover my chest  and a  growing paunch !
within minutes I was in sympathy with all the eggs I fried in my life ,karma getting back so fast !!

The sun was just shining away and  wickedly smiling at my agony ,
I  could see my mobile lying on the bed sadly far away behind the impenetrable glass door and my voice sounded feeble and hoarse as I tried to beckon a taxi driver 5 stories below in front of the lobby ,he didn't even glance up .
 why should he ?
Even no birds were in the sky !
my foot bare and  burning made me do some kuchipidi steps  as I attempted to withdraw into a small patch of shade .
I had to look out for someone  to call in distress if  I did not want to die of sunstroke and be packed home in a steel box .
Finally I  found my saviour
A posh Arab had just  got out from his BMW and happened to gazed up .

He should have got a shock to see a half naked fakir gesticulating like a wild monkey on the fifth floor balcony making guttural sounds .
The script unfolded like below

Arab : Hey whats up ?
Me  : Everything ,I mean , me stuck here and  door locked by itself u know  ,
 save me  , tell in  lobby pleeese

Arab  : why the hell did you lock yourself out !
ME : dont know ,sure will tell you once I get the answer !

This made him chuckle .

Arab :   Ha Ha you look burnt ha ha !!
ME :    I feel burnt too
Arab :  Shall I get a fire engine for the  rescue what ? they could hose you first
ME :  easier way is to tell the manager please....
Arab :   ha OK well should have had my camera missed it ( those days mobile cams weren't that famous )
ME   :Ya what a photo op ? just like a kingfisher model

Well the angel of an Arab did the right thing after giving me a smile ,he went straight in and out came the manager and his gang .
the script continues as below

Manager and co : Doctor it is you ha ha ? What made you something like that ?

I was sure producing all the humor Al Ain could get that summer and I felt i would become a  national celebrity by the evening !

Within minutes there a lot of banging and tapping in front of my room door double locked by the safe me before going for sleep !

somehow they managed to open it and  then  opened my sliding door and  I  stepped into the bliss of the AC inside !!

I collapsed into the sofa grinning with embarrassment at the amused waiters and the  manager one of them even bringing a thoughtful cool drink with him to cool my embers

 The manager  gave me a tut tut
why in heavens did you do that my dear Doktor just imagine if no one had seen you what you would have done ?

slowly after lot of laughs and giggles they left me alone to sizzle out 

I collapsed into the bed thanking my stars that I was dressed not just in my lungi alone or else a lot of me would have gone fried that day !
Nuts !!!

Adaminte Magan Abhu

Some Malayalam films these days are showing the sensitivity that they are  known for and thier quality is improving  after a precipitous dip to crass masala recently .
Surprisingly two films Pranayam and Adhaminte magan Abhu have dealt with the seniors in society who are considered  not very market worthy in film commerce .
Adhaminte got the national award for acting for Saleem Kumar known for his comedy forte .

The story  is that of an old couples yearning for a pilgrimage to Mecca with thier meagre savings .
ignored by thier only son working  in the middle east
The couple find it difficult to gather the funds needed even by  selling thier loved few posessions like an old tree in the house  and a  cow and calf which provides them livelihood and to them  more like a child
 .
Good people are willing to help beyond the constraints of religon or blood relationships but Adham being a stickler to the laws of his faith and pilgrimage rules refuses them with love .
the couple almost prepare for thier trip at one time before disappointment sets in and go to people they know even to those who have done them harm and apologise for any wrongs committed by them which is said to be a prepilgrimage ritual ,and they find that the Almighty works in strange ways unfathomable to meagre mortals .

The trials and tribulations that fall on good men who stick to thier principles but  are stonewalled by poverty is depicted with finesse .
both Saleem Kumar and Zareena Wahab have essayed thier roles with grace and dignity the dark at time grotesque and sad eyes of Saleem strangely contrasting with those of the still beutiful Zarina
The wrinkles of Saleem in a tired  face breaking into myraid emotions and  eyes filled with love and devotion makes him worth the national award

The couple dont make it to Mecca but bring back thier cow and plant  a new sapling in thier house ,depicting a new beginning
A very good movie
hope more of this genre is made