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Showing posts from August, 2014

Healthy Living - The Ayurvedic Way

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I would never disagree to the statement that the Ayurvedic system of medicine does not have emergency medicines. I'm a practitioner of public health in the allopathic stream and my knowledge on Ayurvedic practices is practically null. But I can make a claim with a good degree of certainty, that Ayurveda is essentially pristine preventive medicine. The concepts of wind ( vatha ), bile ( pittha ) and mucus ( kapha ) are theories of intangible occult to many. In this age of molecular chemotherapy with cellular organelles as targets, one would take no second thought in throwing the millenia-old conceptions into the trash bin. Ayurveda has its roots in spirituality. It is probably the only system of medicine that stressed enormously on the fourth dimension of health - the spiritual dimension. We are all spiritual. Individuals vary in the degrees of exhibiting their spiritual desires. It is said that atheists do dream. Dream is a state of the mind that links it with the soul in the r

Raag Pilu

This song is right up in my list of best Rahman songs. Elegantly capturing the mystic desert landscape and the aura just before rain kisses the sun-scorched earth, the song Ghanan Ghanan is set in Raag Pilu. Rahman has picked this Raag because it has the power of devotion and prayer blended within its harmonics. The song sequence is enriched with overflowing joy and the thrill of abundance. The Hindustani Raag Pilu is similar to the Kapi Raag of Carnatic music.

The Enigma Called Love

Melodious songs are like wine; the older ones are sweeter. I have always been taken aback by one particular nature of the songs. Most often, we are welcomed by a new song from a yet-to-release movie so much warmly that we keep listening to the same song day in and out, humming the tune during our leisure and finally, we reach a stage where the constant rhythm of the song inside our mind starts becoming more or less an annoyance. The same song that once used to stimulate our mood has gradually transformed into an irritation we desperately want to avoid hearing. Why does this happen? Is this the same when it comes to relationships or, say, new-found friends? Pardon me, let me not jump to that level now. Lets take the example of good food. Your mom has cooked your favorite pastry. Could you resist that monster within you from leaping out and barging on the royal delicacy? Now, imagine that your clever mom cooks the very same delight and serves you the dish for breakfast, lunch and dinn

How Are You Doing Mentally?

Pain and disease are subjective states of the mind. Studies on human physiology have traced the nerves from their origin in the ganglia till they spread out into finer fibres in the tissues. There is well established evidence that the nerves relay in the thalic area of brain. Thalamus is that part of the brain which relays several crucial connections that mae up the neural network system called the Mind. Mind is not a physical entity. Mind is a functional system formed by the interconnections of countless nerve fibres. Emotion is a function of the mind. It is interesting to observe that different individuals have different thresholds for pain. The stimulus perceived as too paibful in me could be less painful in you and totally painless in another. Pain perception is not related to the body size or muscle mass. Rather, pain is perceived and severity is graded inside the complex mental network. This network receives and modifies inputs from various other areas that regulate feelings, v

Smart Men Don't Need The Smart Phone

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How high are you on social networking? Hey, are you active on FB? Are you there on Whatsapp? Hey check out this app! I have been hearing just too much of these questions everyday. There is a theory known as the theory of existence of opposites. The great theory of contradiction states that for everything good, there must exist something equally bad; for everything beautiful, there must exist something equally ugly. You can't have friends without a few enemies. Going by this theory, the network that is social has the potential to transform us into anti-social beings as well. We all are. Its just about our rankings now. The other day, I was at the bus-stop to go to the next town for a project assignment. I observed that every one there stood faces down staring into their so-called 'smart-'phones. Some seemed to be lost in the enchanted web (yes, the worldwide web) and appeared as if the apocalypse was minutes away and he is the officer in-charge. Some others w

Celebrations In Rain

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This year I am celebrating the Ganesha Chathurthi festival in Shimoga. Preparations were in full swing right from a month prior to the festival. Today, I find the roadsides decked with decorative lamps and pandals are set up at every junction. Shimoga district is also called the Gateway to Malenadu (the Western Ghats). The region has been witnessing incessant torrential rains over the past couple of weeks. The festive vibrance and the embellishment of joy of Ganesha Chathurthi has not the least been affected by the rains. The celebration gearing up on the streets, the enthusiastic temperament of the people are, indeed, too blazing for the rain to extinguish. Needless of a mention, this certainly makes us reflect on the fact that when your mind is determined and attention is focused, nothing is really a disturbance. Perseverance should be like the furnace where iron is melted; Even the most horrendous of nature's fury cannot find its way through. Happy festival time to everyone

The other KFD

KFD. This abbreviation, as many of us know, stands for Kyasanur Forest Disease. It is an arboviral illness like dengue and chikungunia that spreads by infected ticks. Today, while referencing few studies on KFD from an open-access online database called PlosOne, I was surprised to know that there is another expansion for the KFD. And this is a funnier one. Kikuchi Fujimoto Disease. I know the name does sound funny to us, but certainly not to our friends in the Far East. Named after the researchers, Kikuchi Fujimoto Disease is a condition on histiocytic lymphadenitis predominantly reportd from Taiwan. It is a self-limiting disease which requires diagnosis by biopsy of te lymph nodes. Thus, it was an interesting learning experience to know that KFD is not only a disease in the Kyasanur forests.

Hope For Tonight

Its a beautiful night Make your heart feel light Tomorrow would be a new day, fresh and bright To set everything right So sleep tight Good night!

Baby Steps

Hello all! Cuneatus is Latin for a wedge or a tapering shape. May your thoughts wedge into goodness and imagination focus into wisdom. I'm wedging into regular blogging today, and I love sharing my thoughts and imagination with the bigger, broader, wider and wilder world outside.