The Third Wave leaps up
For me, overnight shifts mean
Taylor Swift on loop
We are never ev-
er getting back together
she loves to inform
But Ed Sheeran 's Perfect
Robbie Williams Maroon5
Also keep me alert
A long night of tests
Analyze, approve, dispatch
Whoosh! Reports fly away
Remember Bryan Adams?
Today has been a day like the one in his song where I never want to see the sun go down.
An altogether perfect day- did some writing for the Rural Primary Care group, had some intense discussions on the same, did my taxes (at last!), took a nap, and after I woke up, I found the syllabus for a virology course that my buddy Dr.Chitra asked me to teach.
And this discovery is what has thrilled me to bits- the virology course is exciting! I'm reading Pranay Lal's book "The Invisible Empire" and all sorts of ideas are rattling around inside.
Have decided that I will read 10 pages of the book every day and blog about the same. This way, the book will serve as my primary source material for the course and I'll become more familiar with my own field. This also means that I should be done with the first reading of the book in about a month, give or take a few days.
RK and I usually take stock of our year and make plans for the next one around this time every year. I usually categorise my plans into smaller bundles like "travel" or "scholarship" or "grant-related" or "how to make more money in a happy way". Last year, I realised that my scholarship output for 2020 had been rather dismal and so this year, I really worked hard, got a publication out, got one more submitted, got my team to submit 5 abstracts at conferences (of which 4 have been accepted for oral presentations! And the 5th could win the video presentation category, with God's grace!) and gave multiple presentations at local, national and international forums. So I feel like having that discussion last year and making that plan for this year was really helpful in pushing me to achieve things.
So for the next year, my scholarship plans will include my teaching this course, blogging about the learning I've gleaned from this book and others that I study for the course, getting my team to write two papers (with them taking the initiative, and me as the mentor), and me taking the initiative on two papers myself. Plus, I know that our larger group itself has a couple of papers planned so I'll get to be on those as well.
So really, this course is something that is new and I'm looking forward to it. Maybe next year, I'll pick another course to teach so I constantly keep learning things that are useful to me.
Just finished an application for the Goldman Sach's 10000 Women Program at NSRCEL, IIMB.
Then got an email from Niti Aayog saying that there is a Women Transforming India award under the Women Entrepreneurship Program and that the last date is day after tomorrow. So checked that out and decided to apply.
Then got a call from my friend Dr. Prasoon reminding me that I had agreed to speak at NIT Rourkela and that he specifically wanted me to speak about being a woman entrepreneur.
Talk about coincidences...
I think what the universe may be trying to tell me is that it's time I put my mind to actualizing a plan for what I say I intend to do: transform primary care and public health diagnostics. With each of these applications or events being more detailed than the previous, I will need to think hard about how I intend this to happen more than just mention that I will do it.
So... I will choose to see this as yet another way by which my faith in the universe makes what I want happen.
Whenever there are discussions on babies and their development (With the various lockdowns that we have had, is it any surprise that so many people around us are now having babies? 4 couples currently that I know of had babies within weeks of each other), the question of music and babies invariably pops up.
Unfortunately, there is not a lot of published scientific work on the long term effects of classical Indian (or really, any non-Western classical) music on brain development, even though there are plenty of anecdotal reports of how listening to Hindustani or Carnatic instrumental or vocal music influence enhances overall brain development, builds nascent musical talent etc. Recently, there was an entire issue devoted to "Music in the Lives of Young Children" in the journal Early Child Development and Care. One of the articles in this issue was on the effect of Carnatic music on the mathematical abilities of young children aged 5 and 8 (listening to Carnatic music significantly improved mathematical ability).
We all read about how listening to Mozart is supposed to make babies brainier and programs like Little Einstein try to introduce short fragments of Western classical music to toddlers. When I was pregnant with Ani, Lori, my labmate in the Pittsburgh Retrovirology Lab, at Pitt, had shared a CD (those days, we still had CDs!) that was a compilation of well known symphonies. It had the usual suspects- Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Beethoven's 5th and 9th symphonies, The Blue Danube etc. Then, right at the end, as though giving a small nod to a more modern time, the CD included Ravel's Bolero. Have you heard this? Depending on your mood, it could either be haunting or utterly annoying. That tune, once you have heard it, never gets out of your head.
Any time the CD reached Bolero, I would lunge towards the player and stop the track and breathe a sigh of relief if I managed it before the first strains of that tune started. However, many times, regardless of whether or not I managed to either shut down the system or skip the track, the tune would have already started inside my head, relentlessly marching forth in that unmistakable whiny tone set to the backdrop of that military beat.
Today, after nearly a decade of Bolero-freedom, I sought it willingly because I had forgotten how infuriating it is. And I also learned a little more about Marcel Ravel.
Ravel apparently started un-Raveling (haha!) right about the time that he wrote Bolero. This near constant obsession with the same tune came around the same time that he started showing early signs of a mental disorder called that progressively affected his language and motor ability. People think now that he suffered from a condition called PPA and CBD. In this paper from last year, a group of scientists described the obsession of another artist with Bolero. This artist (and former scientist), Anne Adams, painted the elements of Bolero with great attention to detail. Coincidentally, this phase corresponded to an early phase of subclinical PPA in her as well. As her dementia and aphasia progressed, her paintings became increasingly photographic representations of what she saw around her.
Below are the paintings and information about them as well as her clinical status as per the paper “Unravelling Boléro: progressive aphasia, transmodal creativity and the right posterior neocortex” in the journal Brain in 2020.
Painting done by Anne Adams in 1991, 9 years before clinical symptoms of PPA 
Unraveling Bolero; done in 1994, 6 years before PPA symptoms 
Representation of pi, 1998, 2 years before her clinical symptoms
ABC Book of Invertebrates, done in 2000, the year her symptoms were apparent and she was diagnosed with PPA
Working on it...getting better.... reading books that help me with it, like those by Napoleon Hill and Wayne Dyer.
There are still occasions of fear but for the most part, been replaced by steely resolution that I WILL NOT fail and I WILL ask for help and have faith that the HELP WILL COME.
And in addition to all this, have decided that the best way to embrace faith is to see everyone in my journey as an ally... not in a naive, rose tinted glasses kind of way, but in an open, honest way that accepts and acknowledges conflicts of interest, conflicting or opposing priorities and yes, competition too.
After much effort, for the majority of time these days, I am fairly stable mentally. I remain cool and collected, positive and optimistic.
On the bad days, life tells me that this is a mere house of cards and everything comes tumbling down and I can barely catch my breath because I'm panicking and everything seems overwhelming.
On those days, picking myself up and putting myself together again is a battle against the demons in my mind which replace all the good, strong thoughts with thoughts of fear and failure.
Writing helps. Because it forces my brain to slow down and pick out individual thoughts from the roaring quagmire and put that thought into words.
So. Varsha. Replace the two F words, fear and failure, with a third F word: Faith.
From the Bhagwad Gita to the latest self-help book, everything that seeks to empower tells you to have faith, either in yourself, or in the greater universe or in whatever God there is. In the millenia that have come before me, there must have been people frantic, fearful, and fighting. And so there will be in the millenia that come after me. Their issues must have seemed insurmountable to them then, but would have seemed minor either to someone not them or to them after some point of time. Similarly, my problems seem insurmountable and overwhelming to me now, but I need to remember that at some point of time in the (near?) future, they will seem insignificant.
If I have faith that things will work out somehow, things usually will.
So, Varsh. Calm down. Show some gratitude to what you have and cultivate some faith.
The kids will be fine.
Your life will be fine.
The world will be fine.
Milestones:
a) Leaving RK and kids without a thought about how they will manage at home. Apparently, 11 year old Ani cooked dinner on night 1 and they all Swiggy-ed food on night 2. Really proud of my kiddos for being unfazed about cooking or keeping house! Maybe RK has the right attitude towards this after all: expect that kids (and people) will figure out how to take care of themselves, and they will!
b) Going for a sporting event with PCMH-MSCH junta: We have a lot in common, but it's usually not sports. So, I feel like I discovered a new facet to my friends and colleagues. We discuss health and fitness so much and it's nice to be able to practice what we preach. And we did it together, as we have done so many other difficult things together.
c) Cycling (almost) 40km: 21k from Kishkinda to Vittala, 4k inside Vittala temple complex, 9-10k on the way back, and about 5k to return the cycles. All in 1 day. If I could hug my legs and butt and tell them how proud I am of them, I would! Perhaps there is a yoga asana for this 😄
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| Mr. Nagaraj, who biked down to Hampi from Belgaum in pouring rain at midnight, so he could be there at 4:30am to cheer and support the runners and cyclists. He took this pic |
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| Prathamesh and I cycled, bird watched, explored the ruins of Vittala temple and encouraged each other. |
Others in the group did amazingly well too- some walked 10k and climbed the steep hill on Anjanadri (575 steps!)
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| Not easy doing Anjeneyasana on a hard rock, but Poorva, Praneeth and Swaathi make it look effortless |
Ushnaa, the youngest (and clearly the fittest) of our group cycled 47km and ran 2km just for the heck of it. She's also the resident photographer extraordinaire:
d) Actively choosing to trust: leaping off a 15ft cliff into the Tungabhadra makes me realize how important it is to let go of control, and place trust in something or someone else. If Ani had not done the 20ft jump into the Kaveri a few months ago, when at BR Hills with Dr. Sudarshan, would I have had the courage to trust in my mentors, Mr. Kiran Betageri and Mr.Ravi, to do this?
What I am beginning to learn is that choosing to trust is a powerful act that enables greatness. I am so, so glad that I chose to jump and by doing so, shattered some mental beliefs of myself and created some new ones.
e) Gratitude for my body: I have such gratitude and pride for this outer covering that does so much for me. I have felt like this after breastfeeding my babies, probably hands-down the hardest thing I have ever done or will ever do.
Our religious texts and our society tells us not to take pride in our bodies, the latter from a sense of morality and shame, and the former from a viewpoint that the soul and the state of the soul takes precedence. In the Bhagvad Gita, the body is considered just the outer garment for the soul, something to be used and discarded in the soul's journey. This idea has given me intense comfort after the passing of my parents. It is the same I use when comforting those who have experienced the deaths of loved ones.
Yet, I treasure this outer garment and am grateful for the chance to strengthen it.
Update after discussion with RK:
The motto of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is "Sharīramādyam khalu dharmasādhanam" The body is the instrument of performing Dharma (doing the right thing). So, if you do not take care of your body, then how can you do anything else that is worth doing?
If I consistently underestimate the strength of my body, what else do I underestimate about myself and others, I wonder?
Here is a video of Kranthi, another chronic under-estimator of her own strength, who jumped 25ft without a life jacket, just because she knew she could and because she felt like it!
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| Sunrise at Sonapur Lake |
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| Sunset by the Virupaksha temple on the Tungabhadra. Just check out those sunrays... *feeling blessed* |
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| Our hotel rooms- cute or what? We are hobbitses! |
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| View from Anjanadri- the birthplace of Hanuman |
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This lot had an unending thirst for looking at old stone buildings. Thank God I was not with them! Banofee pie  Crispiest falafels ever had in India!   |
