Shaayiri... i keep writing stuff... and feel like my poetry is very good (like all other poets, lol :D)

If a politician was a shaayar, he would write..

meri zindagi mein aayi woh vote bank ki tarah...
mujh mein bas gayi, jaise car mein petrol tank ki tarah...
ab mujhe dukh hota hai, ki maine hawala mein itna paisa kyon khaaya......
meri biwi ho gayi moti..... mera account - swiss bank ki tarah.....


if a lawyer was a shaayar, he would write...

maine tumhe propose kiya, civil case ki tarah....
tune jawaab diya, criminal case ki taraah....
kya hua ki main jhootha aur makkar hoon....
mujhse compare karegi, to tera baap hai BOFORS case ki tarah...

another one for devdas...
teen teen ladkiyan meri zindagi mein aayi...
phir bhi tanhaayi hai maut ki tarah chaayi....
ab to ye aadat si ho gayi hai....
bas khud se hi jhagadna , aur khud se haathapayi...

AZAD- a Hero, or a villian???

Was going through articles on Cherukuri rajasekhar alias Azad, a top Maoist leader gunned down in AP today.
Who are Maoists? are they people born with a violent streak? do they have a frontal lobe tumor( which is proved to be associated with violent behavior)???
NO. Maoists are people. just common people like you and me.Some Maoist leaders are forerunners of thought, some very talented people.
The only difference is, they chose to be naxals, the same way i chose to be a doctor,or the way my dad chose to be a journalist.
When you look properly, most of these Maoist leaders are highly learned people, they include gold medalists from many universities. Many people, whom you wish wouldn't have joined the movement and could have brought laurels to the nation in their fields of work.

Cherukuri rajasekhar was from an affluent upper caste family. he could have chosen the luxurious happy life he was given. But he chose to be a naxalite. Why? Because he believed in the naxal cause. He wanted to help uplift the down trodden and rescue them from feudal land lords and corrupt politicians. THAT WAS THE ORIGINAL MOTTO OF NAXALISM, WHICH UNFORTUNATELY TODAYS MAOISTS SEEM TO HAVE CONVENIENTLY FORGOTTEN.
No wonder naxalism is now thought of as an anti-police or terror organization, a menace. It has strayed too far from its path that it almost is meaningless concept these days.
I cant say anything about Azad, whether he was a Hero as claimed by many, or was a criminal mastermind as claimed by the police.... but i think HE FOLLOWED HIS HEART.
I cant comment on the reports of his alleged fake encounter..... but I hope HE KNEW WHAT HE LOST HIS LIFE FOR.
I come from an orthodox brahmin family and believe in heaven and hell... i don't really know where he must have gone. But i think wherever He goes, He will continue to fight for the rights of the oppressed there.
I just wish He had taken a non violent path to achieve the same in his life here. We do really need people who live for others. He would have made a fine leader, unlike the politicians we have.

Reservation - anti-reservation??? Back to square one?

I write now with a heavy heart. Whenever this topic is raised by a person, the discussion ends with a few fanatic people stressing on their point of view without thinking about others, and end up hurting sentiments, fueling more ire from others.
I was going through an article where a person was stating his anger on the merit students association's demands of reservation roll back. There was a well written thought provoking reply from a lady who said that because of few reservations, many merit students suffer a lot of injustice. The author replied back saying that she was arrogant about her merit!!!
I regret reading that post.... When you read an article, please try to empathize with the author. Try to understand his feelings,rather than giving blunt replies because the authors views are different from yours.
I come from a forward community and would have been placed better in my life without reservations! But that would really be injustice as a few really backward people got seats, and I am happy for them. I know of people a lot of backward people who genuinely benefited because i lost, and i am actually happy. It really doesn't matter to me that I did my MBBS from Coastal AP because i lost my seat in Hyderabad to reservations. Many people who deserved reservation got it.
I don't think the problem lies in reservations or our view on reservations. Reservation is a potential vote bank issue in India, and politicians have to use it! What happened to the BJP govt. that tried to impose economic backward class reservations, regardless of the caste???
Why the hell do you think Chiranjeevi wants to include the Kapu community into BCs in AP??? I agree many people in that community may have limited resources, but so do a lot of reddys, brahmins, rajus, choudaries so on and so forth. It was his ticket to the polls. He expected that kapu community would vote for him just for that issue. Some of my friends too were happy about it as they would not have to compete in open competition for a PG seat. It is a totally different issue that his polls bombed because of various reasons.
I don't agree with people who say "yeh india hai bhai.... yahaan sadiyon se aisaa hio ho raha hai, aur aisa hi hoga".... somebody has to start a change.
I totally welcome a gradual repealing of the current reservation system and adding up more reservations for the economically backward classes. This has to be done by a committee of highly learned unbiased scholars. But then, as soon as the committee is declared, there will be a huge outcry on WHY THE GOVT. DID NOT ENSURE THAT THE COMMITTEE WAS COMPOSED OF PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT CASTES ACCORDING TO THEIR RESERVATIONS???
FUNNY. ISN'T IT?
No matter how far the issue travels, it will end where it began....
BACK TO SQUARE ONE....

Addiction, life and "cut,copy,paste"

Addiction is a very serious problem in our society. and i don't just mean addiction to smoking, or alcohol!.... addiction to video games, to TV serials(god save those miserable people!), to high calorie foods and addiction to exploit others, are even more worse.
The worst part of addiction is denial. "i am not addicted to cigarettes man! i just smoke for fun"... yeah,yeah... I've heard that a thousand times from people whom i later meet in the lung cancer ward!
"I am not addicted to TV.... i just happen to watch those serials to pass my spare time" said a lady, who was brought to the hospital with severe chest pain. Diagnosis: Myocardial infarction.... in common and more interesting filmy terminology... a heart attack. What precipitated the heart attack??? "Pratyush was killed by the heartless Anamika who laced his coffee with poison, so she could elope with the twisted Ranjan..."
Before you guys try to break your computer screen, Pratyush,Anamika and Ranjan are the names of characters from a prime time daily serial.
I feel sad listening to such stories from my colleagues in the hospital. i did not believe stuff like that until eleven yrs ago when one day, i saw my grandparents weeping inconsolably after Nandamuri Raja was killed in telugu daily serial "ruthuraagaalu".
The poor guy Raja died a week later with a heart attack (this time in real life) and there was a second episode of my grand parents' crying !!!.
In the following week, i took a decision to ban all TV serials in our house. the ban is still in effect.... although my grand parents passed away ten years ago( may their souls rest in peace).
I know I wandered off the track while telling you about addiction... but what is the fun of saying something that has nothing interesting.
I can hear you shouting "You might as well "cut, copy and paste" what research has to say about addiction, instead of blogging without direction!"
I can hear my own reply echoing.."Hello!!! isn't the blog is titled A ROAMING DOCTOR'S ROAMING THOUGHTS!!!"

Depression is more dangerous than HIV!!!

Statistics show that 15.1% of south Indian urban population suffers from Depression and about 12.4% of them have suicidal tendencies!!! The prevalence of HIV in adults in south India is a meager 0.34% as compared to Depression.
HIV is a infectious disease, and i strongly believe it will be controlled in near future like all other infectious diseases.
Depression is a part and parcel of one's reactions to the way life goes about. There is really nothing we can do to decrease the prevalence of Depression in people.
But Depression is completely curable if you have a good friend who can listen to you.
We, Human beings, are a group of highly vulnerable emotionally weak species.We expect life to be good at all times, so much so, that we sometimes cannot accept failures. Hippocrates first described depression around 400 BC.
The famous actor and comedian Tony Hancock committed suicide in 1968 and wrote in his suicide note that "Things just seemed to go too wrong too many times".
You could say that's the way things are, or that we all feel the same at some point of time. And that is exactly my point! We all suffer from Depression. Each and everyone of us.
And it is one thing you could help your loved ones out of.All you need is to listen. DON'T talk to them, just listen. People love it when they get a good listener. Most problems seem to vanish in thin air when you have somebody to listen to you.
The reason why most couples live happily together because they listen to each other. They don't just hear, or obey..... they listen.
Falling in love is the best cure for Depression :)
Ironically, falling out of love is the cause of major depressive disorders.
I was in and out of love a couple of times, and had to deal with a lot of depression myself. Depression led me into the dark corners of alcohol and tobacco abuse. And coming out of alcohol and Nicotine abuse was a great challenge. It took a great deal of effort to tell myself that Depression, sadness, dejection are fleeting..... life is permanent.
Momentary Happiness is far more achievable goal than with simple joys of life. Feeling the rain in your face, running with bare feet on soil, and meeting friends are some simple things that could make you Hugely happy.
Try it. IT WORKS.
And for the record, i did get out of alcohol and tobacco dependence, in case anyone of you shows my mom this blog :)

Inspiration can take you a long way!!!

I attended a class on stigma and discrimination on People Living with HIV/AIDS today.
The speaker, Mr. Rama Pandian, had come from Chennai. He is the founder of a NGO that helps People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHAs) in TamilNadu. It helps them get better access to govt. services, provides training to PLHAs to get livelihood, provides counseling for HIV infected people and a lot of other stuff too.
The Speaker was a source of great inspiration for me. He is leading a healthy life though being diagnosed with HIV in 1992. He shared with us his problems after being diagnosed, how he had problems with trying to disclose the news to his family, how, because of misconceptions about the disease, he lost his job... so on and so forth.
But what made me sit up was how he came to terms with his illness and LIVED productively. Most PLHAs i see in my practice or those i come across in my life have a bigger problem than HIV. they have to deal with a hugely-underestimated amount of depression.
Psychological issues can kill you! HIV will NOT. after the advent of newer drugs, and better political and medical committment, HIV life expectency is returning to near normal.

Mr. Rama Pandian thought me a very important thing.
TO BE DYING IS SURELY A PROBLEM, BUT TO HAVE TO BE LIVING WITH THE IDEA THAT WE WILL DIE IS WORSE.

Kudos Sir.

Ants in my pants...

I did come across the idiom "ants in my pants" once before, not that i took note of it mentally.
It has been one week i shifted to Vellore to join IDTRC (Infectious Diseases Research and Training Centre) in the renowned Christian Medical College, Vellore, as a junior research officer. The Stipend was nominal, at least for me, as i was earning almost up to three times back home in Hyderabad. But the prospect of learning from the best medical college in India is far more tempting than financial worries.
CMC officially didn't provide accommodation, but our boss was generous to let us use his guest house for a nominal pay of maintenance. I really didn't have any expectations about the place...... i have stayed in more dingy places that would have scared the hell out of Saddam Hussein! But the place was a beauty....
It was a big bungalow near Katpadi and my room was an 10 * 15 feet! had a good attached bathroom and was more than happy to arrange all my stuff in a plush rosewood dressing table cum wardrobe.
I spent most of the night trying to sleep. In addition to the factor that it was a new place,thanks to face book and HBO, i had screwed up my sleeping habits back home.I woke up late in the morning and rushed to the office in a set of brand new clothes from my wardrobe.I was feeling very uncomfortable, but attributed it to my "rushed up" bath. This discomfort was pretty bad a little later after i reached the office. As I was trying to figure out what was wrong, one of my senior colleagues, who stayed in the same bungalow on the first floor, said "Hey Abhishek! hope you had good sleep.I forgot to tell you,if you are using the rosewood wardrobe from in the master bedroom, just check your clothes before you wear them. There are lots of ants in the house."