Taipei Taiwan

When I got an opportunity to go to Taipei the capital city of Taiwam otherwise called Republic of China to attend a conference I took it up with alacrity for this was a country i was keen on going to .
There was no direct flight to Taiwan from Brunei and one could go either through Honk Kong or the more circuitous Bangkok as a transit point .
My sponsor booked the Bangkok one ,so most of the day as spent either in the flight or in  Bangkok airport that I reached Taipei only near midnight .
The Brunei to Bangkok stretch was by RBA and as usual the Breakfast came to me with a specially

requested yogurt this time two in numbers !
Though I had been to Thailand earlier Bangkok and its Swarnabhoomi airport has always fascinated me with its long artistic iconic statue of a mahabharatha epic story



After browsing the excellent duty free and swishing in a Singapore sling sitting on a nice bar on the duty free area



the second part of my trip was by Thai airways
I was exited to reach Taipei .
Taiwan is an island off China
For a long time it had aborigines in it and known as the  island of Formosa
The Dutch in their quest for riches started a colony and built forts etc later the Spanish took over for a brief time before the Dutch got it back again ,
The Chinese Quing dynasty then drove the Dutch away and it became part of Chinese Empire till 1895 when it was given to Japan as a spoil in a war they won .
Japan ruled Taiwan for almost fifty years when at the end of the  second world war they surrendered to the Axis powers after the atom bomb explosion in Hiroshima and Nagasaki .
There are lot of Japanese influence in Taiwan with plenty of Japanese type of colonial houses

Mariott hotel Taipei 

breakfast at Mariott 

the walk to Mayfull hotel the venue of the conference 

Morning saw me tucking in an excellent breakfast from Hotel Mariott where i was booked to stay
It was a bit chilly and I made a quick walk to the conference venue hotel Mayfull a short distance away
it was an iconic hotel

Mayfull hotel 

Conference hall 

With the conference going on till late evening i made a getaway as I wanted to see the city ,so I also skipped the banquet dinner and headed to the famous Shilin night market using the Metro which was very convenient

shatay

different fruits

sausages 

 I first attempted an oyster omelette which wasnt bad at all

famous oyster omelette 

The Sizzling steak 

 and then I tucked into a sizzling steak witha Taiwanese Beer

Castilla cake 

 the Castille cake of Taiwan is very famous ,its actually a legacy of the Japanese who got it from Portuguese and means from Castillo
The freshly baked big rectangular cake each having more than 58 eggs are lifted and turned  upside down before cutting into precise portions to be sole ,each piece can be eaten by eight people and the whole process of cutting was almost a ceremony

 The Shilin night market  a hub of activity was chock block with food places and there was so many varieties some of the famous like bubble tea ,oyster omelette ,taiwanese tempura and stinky Tofu are almost legendary .
there is a huge two stroeyed building and it has around 539 food shops in its first floor while its second floor is a parking lot for more than 400 cars .
surrounding this in the nearby streets too there a re plenty of shops many of food again ,
The vendors are friendly and cheerful though English is a language hardly spoken one could manage quite well
the earlier Shilin market got renovated by 2011 to the present area

 there is a Buddhist temple on one of the streets and it was filled with incense spewing crowds

 There are more night markets in Taipei and some are quite famous for exotic rare food types which to me wasnt very inviting like one market specialized in snakes blood ,deer penis wine and the like ,i just avoided the place
i made a return by cab as the metro by now was quite crowded and it beginning to drizzle too .
a word about Taiwan and Taipei is the behavior of the people ,they are very civic minded and follow rules meticulously ,even at midnight when streets are empty pedestrians cross the road only when signal comes ,the motorists too are respectful to pedestrians and each other ,there is no obvious theft in crowded metros and its totally safe ,one hardly sees any police but there is no need for them too
These are great lessons for countries like India

stationary golf center ,here golf ballsa re hit into a ground from two floors 

Miranmar plaza ear my hotel with a giant wheel 

the metro is quick efficient safe and gets us anywhere in a jiffy 

Chian kai shek memorial 

 

chian Kai shaek memorial 

 Chian kai shek literally the father of Taiwan had his childhood in maniland china as a fatherless boy brought up by a brave mother ,he would go to Japan to do his studies and joined the military
he returned and joined the Kuomintang and wasa right hand to sun Yat sen  and his successor too
The Kuomintang which ruled China since 1928 ,initially ruthlessly suppressed the communists in a massacre wimping out thousands and called the white terror
and lost to the communists in the Chinese civil war in 1949 retreated to Taiwan and its leader Chian kai shek became the president of the republic of China which they said was the real china and the Chinese mainland under Maos party became the Peoples republic of China .
From 1949 to his death in 1975 he was the sole power of Taiwan

car of chain Kai Shek 

 the period also brought about great progress for the country ith rapid industrialization and infrastructure
The whiffs of democracy started blowing in the seventies and by the nineties it became a multi party democracy with he Kuomintang a prominent party even today at present it is in the opposition

next evening i started with The chiang Kai shek memorial park is a vast open space with a park on one side ,a huge museum and a quaint memorial built to Chaing kai shek ,inside was memoirs of the leader exhibits photos his cars and used things ,every hour there was a march past by the security inside .
though he skyscraper building of Taipei the Taipei 101 was famous I had to give it a skip as i had to see other places of interest
i also couldn't visit the famous Longhuan temple
i took a train changed tracks ato reach Beitou area to see the famous thermal springs ,the last stretch of the metro to this are is by a special tourist train with huge glass roofed viewing windows
i saw there was a relgious procession going on and made a long walk but faile to see the thermal spring

daily march past ,this was held every hour 

religous procession on way to Beitou springs

a burger in ximen
a hungry me opted for a fat juicy burger served by a smiling youngster who took a selfie with me 

,i returned back a bit forlorn and took metro to reach the famous shopping area called Ximen

and thus the very short stay in Taipei ended but i could get a feel of the country and enjoyed it

My Great Grand uncle Valliyil Govindan Nair

My Great Grand Uncle Valliyil govindan Nair
Kerala for long followed the matrileneal system where the women of the house were given more importance ,still most of us take our family names from mothers side and a daughter was considered as a blessing more than a son once upon a time ,
of course the marumakathayam system no longer exists ,
This was where the maternal uncle was the head of the family and the husband was a vistor whose prime responsiblity was with his sister and her children ie his nephews and nieces ,
In this picture is my Great Grand uncle Valliyil Govindan nair
He was a bachelor ,hence he had only his sisters families as his responsibilty which he bore well .
Being a renkowned Textile chemist in those days and having been educated in England he worked for long in Morarjee textile mills in Bombay and there is even a textile colour dedicated to him ,
I still rememebr the bound books from Britain in his vast library in our huge ancestral house in Parappanangadi ,Kerala filled with small bits of coloured clothes with different names and details to it ,at that time for us children it was just fun to pull them out and play with them .
After working for a long time in Bombay he had a misunderstanding with his bosses as he was a man of ethics and a court case was filed on them by him ,the case went on for some time and he continued to work with full dedication but was not given a salary ,
his finances were in dire strains and it was his sister in Parappanangadi who stood with him by selling her jewelery ,
finally he won the case and got the accumulated salaries and damages which amounted to a big sum ,resigned from his job honourably and retuned to live in Parappanangadi ,
He built the palatial ancstral house of ours in a fusion style of a nalukettu ( traditional Kerala house ) with western facilities like attached bathrooms ( thoguh those days there were no closets ) ,the house had huge areas of different fruits and trees and a private pond too .
Uncle was very British in his habits and even had an inhouse butler to serve him albeit a dhoti clad malayalee one called Sankaran nair .
His dear sister who by now was a widow and her children were all living in the house Thekkepat Kovilakkam
the neices got married and thier children too lived there ,
my mother used to say as a child there were more than fifty people living as one in that house at a time not to say of the floating population of husbands visiting other relatives friends which increased dduring festivals and or marriages etc
uncle had meticulous habits and his food was served by his man friday with utmost care there were a couple of cooks and a retinue of servants ,uncle bought large areas of land cultivated them grew coconuts jackfruits and so many other trees ,his day after breakfast would be busy with people coming from these places to see him and discuss on the days labours pluckings sales etc
he had a karyasthan or manager called kuttykrishnan nair to oversee all this ,
he had great respect in the village as a learned person with lot of experience but his affinity to the British angered many youngsters who were Gandhijis followers and whom he considered as rabble !
His collection of books came fom his regularly ordering them from Britain and he also had fine funrniture but as far as his dress was concerned he wore ethnic mundus nd neat shirts
he meticulously maintained his accounts and noted all details of his day in neat handwriting in his oredered Hoe and coe diaries ,
i rememeber seeing them from 1920 to 1950 s and there was in one diary every single details of my parents marriage which I preserved the rest diaries and books were all lost sad !
in one entry for some time he had mentioned details of a business he got into with Sehsayee paper mills ,he would take up the procurement of shells used in the business from certain places in kerala and transfer them to the mills ,i reall y dont rememebr the details but it involved a bit of travel and meeting people middle men etc as the w\quantities were huge but I think he wasnt meant for it as he wound it up and settled down as a landowner and cultivator
His visits to nearby Calicut or Kozhikode which in those days was possible only by steam engined trains and took more than three hours which today takes less than one ,
Trips to Calicut were an event by itself as his schedule was as meticuloulsy laid out as that of a prime minister during his travels ,from the time he got into the morning mail to the breakfast he had in the railway retitrng room his visits to many places at times an attendance in the court for some case meeting up with his lawyer and then his doctor for a check up ,
his favourite phsycian was Dr Balakrishnan the renowkned doctor of Calicut who would occasionaly come down to Parappanangadi to see his friend and patient ,amusingly a day would come when the doctors great grandchild woudl get married to VG Nairs great grand child !,
uncle would stay in calicut in one his numerous relatives houses till all his work was over
Today there are no more diaries left fro me tospin his yarns ,and very few lving to tell me stories of this great person the house today broken and sold !!
in this picture uncle is with his four nieces and grand neices and nephews

Jungle whispers

Pramodh my co brother a senior airlines executive is a born wildlife enthusiast ,he was responsible for our holiday in the core forest bungalow in Kerala last two years ,
Pramodh spent much of his free time deep inside core forests to fulfill his passion either in or out of the country .
He knew many forest officers and could converse with them or forest guards or tribal s with the camaraderie that comes out of inside knowledge
Many are the dawns and dusk pramodh had waited without a whisper for that elusive tiger or the rogue elephant that surprised.
Many are the nights he spent in the glow of a forest bonfire to beat the chill
So going to a forest with him was a learning
He would go into esctacies on the wetness of a dung or the soft prints on the mud
To him these told tales
To me they told none
he could manage elephants or tigers but found difficult to manage the frightened doctor co brother that is me !
Every turn the car made in the foggy narrow road i would jolt him with an alarm as i kept seeing fresh dung and springing leopards so much so my family named me Dr Tragedy ( Durandham in malayalam )
I was the butt of joke for the family for i was eternally putting off suggestions to drive deeper to spot the wild
As it is we are seeing wild things everywhere in this world so why go in search of them was my concept !
The siruvani ranges had narrow leaf strewn roads with thick canopy of trees covering them like an umbrella
The roads were slightly dark even in the daytime
Most of time there was a light patter of rains
In any emergency reversing the car would be a real feat in the narrow road as one could plunge into ravines or into the forest .
To me every leaf had eyes peering into us waiting to finish us off .
Every turn i awaited for surprises
I could see huge rocks as black elephants waiting with a grimace
To me every tree hid lurking cheetahs waiting to spring on us
Every vine hanging was a poisonous snake waiting to strangle us or give a lethal bite
Every shuffle on the deep undergrowth was a treacherous lizard
Every puddle we heard from the flowing stream was a leathery crocodile
So with an alarmist like me around pramodh had his hands full
But once he did listen to me and for good

We were on to a very narrow stretch
I clutched at him as we were told not to talk
The car was moving slowly he stopped it
I action ed to listen and the eight pair of ears in the car did that with our ears cocked
There was a soft rustle from behind the bushes
We could barely make out any form but could feel presence of something .
Pramodh quietly reversed the car with a great calmness while an anxious me sat with a thudding chest
Any animal nearby could hear my palpitations
We turned fully and sped off
Later we heard from the forest walker the lone rogue elephant was seen just where we had gone
For once my fears were justified
I needed no dung but lurking fear to warn me
We had a good laugh back in the cottage as we relaxed over a mojhito
Me and pramodh .

Checkpoint inhibitors

Checkpoint hero 





The band got a raucous approval, James Allison grinned after giving his harmonica a rest,
Another band 
Another evening 
Right 
No!!!
This was a band with a difference, its players were all senior researchers in cancer and the audience was from ASCO American society of clinical oncology annual meet where more than 40000 oncologists’ immunologists and clinicians gathered in Chicago year after year to procrastinate plans to fight their common enemy cancer!
Immunology was always the elusive bait to success in cancer treatment,
It’s Holy Grail almost,
if only one could muster the body’s defence mechanism to fight its abnormally growing cells no more need to be done ,something which it does routinely for any foreign cells but then there was the catch
What can one do to make it do what it needed to!
The B and T cells are the two most important immunological soldiers of the human body,
Some scoffed at them
One went to even say the B and T are the starting and ending alphabets of the word Bullshit!
But James ignored these jibes and went on his work with a determination unsurpassed.
The need of the hour was to find that elusive something that activated a T cell!
And he did find out the driving engine that could activate a T cell
Its antigen alone was not enough but needed to find out other stimulatory molecules which he did after painstaking research as a CD28 molecule which was needed to spur on a virgin T cell to action
Interestingly at this time other researchers had found that there was another molecule bearing uncanny resemblance to CD28 in its B7 ligand and suggested that this was another co stimulatory molecule needed to sustain the T cell activation but James and his team begged to differ,
They felt instead of being a stimulant this molecule was an inhibitor or rather if CD28 is an accelerator CTLA4 was the brake so if someone could take off the brake the T cell would start doing its job well
And the team proved it to be so
Allison started thinking if the T cell could be allowed to work unabated it would destroy the cancer cells and here it is not based on the type of tumour but for all tumours the same principle can be used.
It took a long ten years for Allison who was not a physician but a core scientist to associate with a pharmaceutical firm to produce an antibody against the inhibitor and go through the stringent clinical trials in association with leading medical centres and finally get approval for iplimumab the first success story in immunotherapy in cancer in Malignant melanoma and which has now become part of its protocol of management saving many who would have had to die but for it
And today two other drugs which are programmed death inhibitor and programmed death ligand inhibitors Nivolumab and Pembrolizmab is already being used
Immunotherapy has now gone on in detection of more check point inhibitors in lung, urothelial , renal malignancies and the fire lit by Allison is making a difference .
So it was a cheerful Allison who placed his harmonica on the floor after the loud applause from his enlightened audience
He now is in the Times magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in 2017