MUSIC & OTHER DRUGS

The holocaust of thoughts,

the hymns of zenith and nadir.

Racing hallucinations and vertigos,

and deliriums from the dreams.

All bound to guide you to the stars

where the stallion’s fall and the stardust magic

are all sewed in to craft the fairy tale endings.

It might take a Rock Wretcher or a Tomorrowland

or just a snug corner with none by your side

to realise your love for the drug to keep you alive.

PHOTO COURTSEY -http://www.wearefrukt.com/source/brands-and-edm-boom

Chulhe par Chadhi Chai ki Ketli

(Photo credits - http://photography.exposedout.net/2009/12/tea-stall/)

Chulhe par chadhi chai ki ketli

kabhi nukkad par nazar aayi

to kabhi train bus stationon par.

kabhi manzil par intezaar me mili

to kabhi musafiron ka maapa safar.

iski pendi par jami  kaalikh

jaane kitni hi kahaniyon ki khurchan hon;

Maano bhari dopahar ke mehfil ke kisson

Aur kisi ke alsaaye sham-saweron ka indhan hon.

Isme sikti chai ki tapish se

jaane kitne hi rishton ki neev gehrayi,

ya sirf isme aayi ek aayi ek ubaal ke saath

kisi kavi ki kalpana rachna me badal aayi.

aaj jab sham ki halki baarish me

gali ke chhor par ise us chai ki dukaan par dekha

to ek atrangi khwahish yahi jaagi

kaash main is ketli se nikalti bhaap

ki jubaan padh paati.

-M.Priyam

An Ode to my Pen!!

Photo credits - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_pen

The City and I

The city streets blaze through my head

My thoughts playing skittish, where I begin to lose the edge.

Time and again, I’ve stood out of inspiration

looking for a subject out of sheer desperation.

Standing in this alley, my racing thoughts camber

yet, not a speckle of peace does this render

The neons of this place that guided me once;

have today, blinded me out of my prudence.

Rumors are rife about the beens and have beens

but who I am now, not an eye perceives

Is it the city or its people that have changed

or is it me who fears to take the blame.

HER YEN..

The grim and gross

The cheap and hoarse

She trails that path

untread or tread

Hopes hopping on notes

Notes – taking their course

At times a whole or sixteenth rest

The ornate greens or the arid bare

She craves it all with fervent prayers

If Only!!

I reached the college auditorium, just in time to sign up for the final registrations. I was auditioning for the debating society a.k.a DebSoc . It was my freshman year and I really wanted to hit it with the DebSoc. I was pretty active in the school debating events but for a rookie from a small town school, the scale of change to the college life at a metropolis was enormous enough to leave her intimidated. I realised that the sweat from my palms had dampened the registration slip in my hands. I went to the ladies room and splashed some water onto my face. Another girl entered the washroom – one of the seniors from my Department and also the President of the DebSoc. Trisha placed her bright red tote next to my backpack and started blending her bronze eye shadow with newly applied green one. Then she took out the mascara from her pouch which had a clutter of creams, lip balms, a lip gloss, a few capsules and an inhaler. I could not help but notice the yellowish margins of her teeth as she applied the gloss.To my embarrassment, I realised that she had noticed me staring at her. Before she could give me a piece of her mind, I uttered “Sorry” and took a quick exit from there to evade the awkward situation. The episode added to the nervousness.

 Suddenly, I felt someone tap on my shoulder. It was Trisha. I went numb and in my mind I could already hear myself being christened “shithead”, “weirdo” or "Miss wannabe". “My college years are doomed already” – I thought.  My futuristic vision abruptly ended when I felt the tapping grow vigorous.

“Are you okay?”- She said… I struggled with “Yes..yeah and yeps”!” and the next moment, before I knew it, she had pulled me backstage. She pulled out a cigarette from the front pouch of her tote and lit it. After a drag or two, she offered it to me.  I stammered -“I do not..I do not” without trying to sound rude about it. Before she could say anything else, I heard the emcee announce my name to come up for the debate trial. I auditioned fine but did not rank high enough to get in the society. I was quite upset and did not feel like attending the rest of the classes for the day. I started walking back towards my hostel. At the college gate, I had another encounter with Trisha. She was en route home too with a couple of her friends. She called out – “Heya.. why are you so flushed… stop being so hard on your self…you can always give it a try next year.” I looked at her and smiled…. with some effort though. She lighted another smoke and kept me company, telling me about the popular hangouts nearby. She coughed a lot, during the conversation and the tissue she threw was red. I vaguely paid any attention to this as I was constantly thinking about the unsuccessful audition.  Suddenly I looked at her and said – “can I borrow a smoke?” She lighted another one and gave it to me along with a few tips on the protocols of smoking. It was a regular brand and the packet had a black and white close up image of a grotesque looking person. The text beside the picture read – “SMOKING KILLS”. In my mind I said –“whatever..!”and took a drag. ….

……I started coughing hoarsely. My throat went dry and I felt a squelching pain in my chest. I opened my eyes and saw that I had fallen asleep on the doctor’s reports itself. I held them in my hand helplessly and wished for the reports to be wronged. It was my lung biopsy report which read “POSITIVE FOR LUNG CANCER.” I walked across the room towards the mirror. My room was dotted with cigarette stubs and packets. I had grown a chain smoker over the years. I looked at my reflection and I could see the grotesque man from the cigarette packet in it. I was shattered….I wished I had not been foolish enough to ignore the warning signs before I asked for my first cigarette from Trisha. 

 (photo credits - http://ja-lashley.deviantart.com/art/Smoking-Kills-177208215)

For tips on healthy habits look onto http://www.myhealthyspeak.co.in/

MEDICAL IMAGING - TRANSFORMING LIVES

(Image Courtsey - http://www.qualitymedimaging.com)

A sullen silence encapsulated the room. A while ago, the house was in the state of inquietude. Someone had been sent to call the family doctor; the others were busy getting home remedies to ease the pain. Pain killers had already been maxed and they did not seem to work. Amma gave in to the pain. At the age of sixty, she breathed her last that day and we never came to know what took her away.

Accurate diagnosis is as critical to medicine, as therapeutics. The field of diagnostics, though an interplay of cognitive forces, would be impeded but for the advances in imaging technologies.   Medical imaging has taken diagnostics to a whole new level. There are myriad modalities available for imaging today, right from radiography, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), fluoroscopy, angiography, CT (computerised tomography),  to PET (positron emission tomography) and so on. A crack in the rib or a heart blockage, it is possible to image them all. Management of the treatment regime and drug dosage for neurological diseases like Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis and Alzheimer’s has become easier due to the availability of contrast MRIs and PET scans which track the progression of the disease. Advances in molecular imaging technology have made cancer imaging possible which is being used to accurately diagnose, manage and treat many types of cancer. 

Let diseases alone, we all know how precious is an ultrasound image of her foetus to the pregnant mother whose patience has been to a test of nine months before she could have a glimpse of her baby. The contribution of imaging technologies to the field of medicine has been priceless.

Of course there was some serious science involved in the discovery of this blockbuster technology, which saw amalgamation of chemical structures, mathematical equations and physical laws. It took almost a century of efforts, two Nobel awardees and an arsenal of doctors that has measured up to the current day status of this technology. The field is still surging to new highs, even as I write this. Apollo hospitals offer the MRI-guided High Intensity Focused Ultrasound which is a treatment for uterine fibroids. Recently they have also launched the G-Scan at Delhi which offers a revolutionary MRI platform for musculoskeletal applications. – (http://www.apollohospitals.com/cutting-edge.php)

                               (Image Courtsey – www.famousscientsts.org)    (Image Courtsey – www.docstoc.com)

It has made life easy for the doctors as well as patients by reducing the time which would be required, otherwise to treat the disease, and this brings me to Amma’s story.

Amma had stayed with our family for fifty years. Her anecdotes spanned two generations of the family. I have not even seen her and yet she remains a respected figure in the family till date and has her endearing silhouette etched in my mind. My grandmother told me the incidence of her death. She had been ill for quite a while. The doctors were unable to figure out the reason for her stomach pain and kept increasing the dosage of pain killers to alleviate the pain but we lost her on that unfortunate day as her illness went undiagnosed.

Thinking of it today, from a clinical perspective, a doctor could have enumerated “n” number of diagnoses for her pain based on the results of the scans and imaging, but the imaging procedures had not arrived in India, then. It was only in the 1990s that complete arrival of MRIs and CTs could be realised here. Even the first ultrasound machine arrived in India only in 1979 (source - http://ashecon2010.abstractbook.org/presentations/814/). I do not know if her condition could have been cured with the modern day health technologies but I just wish Amma had a chance at it.