Someone recently joked that, Santa Singh & Banta Singh are on the verge of committing suicide. Why?? Because Manmohan Singh & Anna Hazare have replaced them as the most joked about people in last few weeks!
By now there will not be too many middle class Indians in the world who have not heard about Anna Hazare or the Lokpal bill. As is the wont of the middle class (I am one of them), most have some opinion or the other about the issue. But, I would not bet my salary on how many of them actually know in detail about the issues involved.
What’s my opinion on the issue? I feel the Lokpal bill questions the form of rule which the constitution framers of India had decided, in all their wisdom, for the country- Representative Democracy.
So, is it really is the most suitable form of governance for a country of over 1 billion, or for that matter any country?
Apparently, democracy is not such a new concept after all. Some concepts of democracy have been followed in Ancient Athens way back around 500 B.C. These folks had a form of democracy, in which every citizen voted for himself for every bill or legislation. It’s called Direct Democracy. It was not really such a cumbersome idea back then, considering population in these city states was few hundred thousand at most, and women, children, slaves and foreigners were not considered part of the voting citizenry. So, most of these city states had just a few thousand voting citizens. In Sparta for instance, only men above the age of 30 were considered as citizens with voting rights.
Ancient Rome was also another follower of democracy. What is interesting to note is that even in those times, corruption was rampant and senators resorting to bribes to influence the results was commonplace. This, in the great Roman Empire, and not in a third world country like India. Apparently, even the great Julius Caesar was not above resorting to the not so noble means of bribery! I guess some habits are too old to eradicate. Of course, once Caesar’s powers became absolute, he reduced the powers of the republic and became a dictator, which may have been the cause of his increasing unpopularity amongst the Roman aristocracy and eventual assassination.
Over the ages, there seems to be a propensity amongst human beings for the democratic form of governance. Their success in different parts of the world in different ages may have been to varying degrees. But, there has been no lack of attempt.
Be it the Aztecs in Central America electing a supreme speaker, the Althing or parliament of Iceland founded in 930 AD, the Sejm in Poland or the election of Gopala, the founder of the Pala dynasty in Bengal in 8th century AD, democracy has been practiced since a pretty long time.
And though the tenure of democracy may be pretty long and illustrious, even longer has been the existence of corruption. In fact, one can safely say that as long as there has been civilization, corruption has been its steady companion.
But, there is nothing to suggest that democracy has done any harm to the cause of human rights. In fact, in contemporary times, the eastern European countries, which were part of the Eastern Bloc or satellites of the former Soviet Union, have all embraced democratic parliamentary elections post USSR collapse and seen improved human rights and improved social and economic standards. Be it Poland under Lech Walesa, Romania under Ion Iliescu or Bulgaria under Zhelyu Zhelev, most of the eastern bloc countries saw improved economic conditions post democracy in the early nineties. Needless to say, with varying degrees of success. But, the improvements did not come overnight and some of these countries faced severe economic and social problems initially before tasting success.
So, is it a good idea to tamper with the democratic system of governance? I say no. The solution for corruption cannot be a Lokpal in which few people will pass judgement on who is corrupt and who is not. And who is to monitor whether the decisions of the Lokpal have not been influenced by factors other than yearning for justice?
If we really want to make the country less corrupt, the search has to be inward rather than outward. There are enough existing agencies to check corruption in India. The challenge is to ensure that the people in charge are honest in discharging their duties rather than creating another new agency. Will the people manning the Lokpal be from another country or planet, who are immune to or unaware of the concepts of external pulls and pressures and temptations? I have my doubts.
Anna Hazare, to my mind, has been able to create a vent for the pent up frustration in the people of India. As on date, that seems to be the only achievement from the drama which unfolded last few weeks. Of course, it’s very important to find release to pent up emotions, else they can explode and cause serious damage.
But, as someone commented, it’s not as if corruption did not exist earlier in India or that its quantum was less. It’s only with the increased media presence and scrutiny, their exposure has increased. Is it a good thing? I am not qualified enough to comment. But, free speech, one of the perks of democracy, which allowed Hazare, in the first place to get the publicity in last few weeks and months, may be threatened, if absolute power is given to a bunch of people, not answerable to the people of India.
Some of the salient points of the Lokpal bill which I find impractical to implement:
1. Will have power to initiate action or receive complaints of corruption from public- How does Lokpal plan to tackle the flood of complaints and subsequent delay in meting out judgement and punishment? Will it not be a repetition of the Indian Judiciary?
2. Will have power to initiate prosecution of guilty- Again issues of sufficient manpower. How does Lokpal guarantee corruption free judgement? And what role does the existing Judiciary system have in such a scenario?
3. Will have police powers and ability to register FIRs- If Lokpal has police powers, they would need to investigate cases. Will they have sufficient manpower or expertise to carry out the same? Will it not make the existing police force redundant?
Instead of creating another body, is it not a better idea to try and reform the existing systems?
• Why not make the enforcement agencies, like the CBI and police independent like the Election Commission, free of political pulls and pressures? Hazare can fight and increase awareness so that these bodies are not answerable to political masters.
• The biggest challenge to the Indian Judiciary is the sheer number of pending cases in the courts. Why not show some political will and open more courts, employ more people, increase automation and get rid of archaic systems. I am sure, this is easier said than done, but, isn’t it better than creating a parallel judiciary?
Tell me what you think...thank god (I mean democracy) for free speech!
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
What’s in a Name? Lots!
She is one of the greatest loves of my life....though I am sure I am not the first one to have fallen for her....Many before me and surely many more after me will also fall for her. She is not getting any younger, in fact according to estimates; she is roughly 1000 years old. But, her beauty never fades and her charm lies in the fact that she can adapt according to and with changing times. Yes that’s the beauty of my love, the English language.
But, though my love for her is un-conditional, I cannot say the same about my feelings for her strict mother...the English grammar. The purists and the linguists will disapprove. How can you love the one and ignore the existence of the other, they ask? What would she be, without the character and structured life that Mother grammar gives the daughter? Is it possible at all to truly love the daughter (language) without understanding the mother (grammar)?
True. I agree. But, the fact remains, as far back as I can remember, I always had an uncomfortable relation with Mother Grammar. And every Indian school student will surely remember the bible of Mother Grammar, the ultimate grammar book- Wren & Martin.
I hated it. With all my heart. I still can’t make out head or tail of the book. Don’t get me wrong...the book is very good. But, though always a pretty good student of English, I always used to do pathetically in grammar. Even today, if asked the difference between or to point out an adjective, a verb, an adverb or a preposition in a sentence, I would give a blank face. This never fails to confound most of my friends, who have a common love for the language. In fact, I still remember one of my friends’ (a teacher of English- no less!) admonishment, after discovering my ignorance of these basic tenets of the English language, “Are you for real??? How can you possibly not know all these basic things? And they are so simple to understand! ”
I ran for cover.....
But, there is only one class of words, which I never have problems with- The Proper Noun!
What’s life if you don’t beat around the bush a bit!! And that (finally) brings me to the main topic of my story...the usages and interpretations of the Proper Noun! And as I have discovered to my amusement, horror and personal experience, there is nothing PROPAH about the way people treat the PROPER NOUN... And ever since Mr. Shakespeare declared that a rose by any other name is just as beautiful.... people have gone about like nobody’s business to ensure that his words remain true!
I still remember the words of my favourite English teacher, Mrs. Kutty. You can pronounce proper noun in your own way...or something to that effect. And having got this mantra...I went right ahead and used my license to kill!
It was in the year 1994 or 95. One of my mentors in life-BG, for whom I was doing a summer job of pasting and posting mailers, was keen to introduce me to western music.
He lent me 4 audio cassettes (CDS were still exorbitantly priced and DVDs unheard of). 2 of the albums, I don’t recall. 3rd one was of the group ‘America’. The last was of an American duo, whose songs I found very soothing and was generally bowled over by their music. So, I come back to office all excited and declare, “I LOVED the songs of SEEMON and JAARFUNKEL”.
BG almost fell from his chair, “WHAT? WHAT DID YOU SAY?”
Me (now not so excited): “Wwwhy? The cassette you gave me....of seeeemon and jaarfunkel”
BG (Look of horror still fresh in my mind):”Oh My GOD! It’s Simon & Garfunkel...not whatever you just said right now!!! ”
I think he had a scowl set on his normally pleasant face, for the rest of the afternoon! Incidentally, it was the album “Mother & Child Reunion” which BG had so kindly given to me.
So that was one of my many faux pas with the not-so-proper-NOUN.
Let’s now fast forward 10 years. I was in the city of Chennai, in my first job. As I soon discovered, my name was pronounceable in so many DIFFERENT AND DIFFERENT ways, which I could never have dreamt of.
Lets take some examples which became commonplace.
Phone Call-Incident 1:
Me: Hello
Voice at other end: Hello, is this Mr. Satyaaaa....nandan
Me (with amusement): Yeah, Sayantan it is....
Phone Call-Incident 2:
Me: Hello
Voice at other end: Hello, is this Mr. Satyaa....narayan
Me (wearily): Actually, it is.... Sayantan...but you can call me anything!
Voice at other end (embarrassed): Sorry sir, hello Mr. Sayantan.....
But, my favourite of all was this guy, who was working in Perot Systems, if I am not wrong. He would call me up on the cell and start,”Hullo Saitan!” And i would reply,”Sir, my parents lovingly named me Sayantan, not Shaitan sir! ” Of course, after a few days, I gave it up as a lost cause.
You see....my name reeks of bong...I mean if there ever was a list of typical Bengali names compiled, I am confident to be on the list i.e. all fellow Sayantans of the world. But, as I found out, I am not alone!
Take for instance, the case of my good friend Penelope. Not Penelope Cruz, but Penelope B.
Someone in office once called her name as “Penalope”. I, the unsolicited guardian of the proper noun, cried out” Maan, Its Pe-ne-lope with stress on the e and no aa in between!”
But, Penelope or Penny as she prefers being called, after many such misadventures is quite used to these, and just tells people, “Just call me Penny” without batting an eyelid. She has, according to her, in her lifetime being called by names as varied as Penalope, Peneelopa, Feni (yup, the famous goan drink!) and the best of all- PenaPole!!! As in South Pole, North Pole and Penapole
I nearly fell on the floor laughing, when I heard the last one!
And this phenomenon is not just restricted to India. As my friend has found out during his trips to continental US and continental Europe.... His name is Somdeb, but as he found out, it can become Som-daab, Somdeo (tending towards Deol!), and last but not the least, after several desperate attempts, one person called him, Somday....as in Monday, Tuesday.....
So, is it really important how you pronounce names or proper nouns? I guess, you cannot really avoid such genuine mistakes, which are bound to happen when the world is shrinking into a smaller and smaller place, where people of different cultures, languages and yes pronunciation meet and interact.
How to deal with such situations? With a sense of humour which will make it easy on both parties. After all, I can assure you, the person making the mistake, is even more embarrassed when he or she realises the faux pas....
Or you can follow the saying “If you can’t beat them, join ‘em!” as is done by another friend of mine Prasanna, or Prakkhanno, as the name should be pronounced. But, people find it too difficult and Prasanna is absolutely cool about it....
Ok. Enough of the proper noun...
It’s late in the night...time to unwind with some vintage” Seeemon & Jaarfunkel”!
But, though my love for her is un-conditional, I cannot say the same about my feelings for her strict mother...the English grammar. The purists and the linguists will disapprove. How can you love the one and ignore the existence of the other, they ask? What would she be, without the character and structured life that Mother grammar gives the daughter? Is it possible at all to truly love the daughter (language) without understanding the mother (grammar)?
True. I agree. But, the fact remains, as far back as I can remember, I always had an uncomfortable relation with Mother Grammar. And every Indian school student will surely remember the bible of Mother Grammar, the ultimate grammar book- Wren & Martin.
I hated it. With all my heart. I still can’t make out head or tail of the book. Don’t get me wrong...the book is very good. But, though always a pretty good student of English, I always used to do pathetically in grammar. Even today, if asked the difference between or to point out an adjective, a verb, an adverb or a preposition in a sentence, I would give a blank face. This never fails to confound most of my friends, who have a common love for the language. In fact, I still remember one of my friends’ (a teacher of English- no less!) admonishment, after discovering my ignorance of these basic tenets of the English language, “Are you for real??? How can you possibly not know all these basic things? And they are so simple to understand! ”
I ran for cover.....
But, there is only one class of words, which I never have problems with- The Proper Noun!
What’s life if you don’t beat around the bush a bit!! And that (finally) brings me to the main topic of my story...the usages and interpretations of the Proper Noun! And as I have discovered to my amusement, horror and personal experience, there is nothing PROPAH about the way people treat the PROPER NOUN... And ever since Mr. Shakespeare declared that a rose by any other name is just as beautiful.... people have gone about like nobody’s business to ensure that his words remain true!
I still remember the words of my favourite English teacher, Mrs. Kutty. You can pronounce proper noun in your own way...or something to that effect. And having got this mantra...I went right ahead and used my license to kill!
It was in the year 1994 or 95. One of my mentors in life-BG, for whom I was doing a summer job of pasting and posting mailers, was keen to introduce me to western music.
He lent me 4 audio cassettes (CDS were still exorbitantly priced and DVDs unheard of). 2 of the albums, I don’t recall. 3rd one was of the group ‘America’. The last was of an American duo, whose songs I found very soothing and was generally bowled over by their music. So, I come back to office all excited and declare, “I LOVED the songs of SEEMON and JAARFUNKEL”.
BG almost fell from his chair, “WHAT? WHAT DID YOU SAY?”
Me (now not so excited): “Wwwhy? The cassette you gave me....of seeeemon and jaarfunkel”
BG (Look of horror still fresh in my mind):”Oh My GOD! It’s Simon & Garfunkel...not whatever you just said right now!!! ”
I think he had a scowl set on his normally pleasant face, for the rest of the afternoon! Incidentally, it was the album “Mother & Child Reunion” which BG had so kindly given to me.
So that was one of my many faux pas with the not-so-proper-NOUN.
Let’s now fast forward 10 years. I was in the city of Chennai, in my first job. As I soon discovered, my name was pronounceable in so many DIFFERENT AND DIFFERENT ways, which I could never have dreamt of.
Lets take some examples which became commonplace.
Phone Call-Incident 1:
Me: Hello
Voice at other end: Hello, is this Mr. Satyaaaa....nandan
Me (with amusement): Yeah, Sayantan it is....
Phone Call-Incident 2:
Me: Hello
Voice at other end: Hello, is this Mr. Satyaa....narayan
Me (wearily): Actually, it is.... Sayantan...but you can call me anything!
Voice at other end (embarrassed): Sorry sir, hello Mr. Sayantan.....
But, my favourite of all was this guy, who was working in Perot Systems, if I am not wrong. He would call me up on the cell and start,”Hullo Saitan!” And i would reply,”Sir, my parents lovingly named me Sayantan, not Shaitan sir! ” Of course, after a few days, I gave it up as a lost cause.
You see....my name reeks of bong...I mean if there ever was a list of typical Bengali names compiled, I am confident to be on the list i.e. all fellow Sayantans of the world. But, as I found out, I am not alone!
Take for instance, the case of my good friend Penelope. Not Penelope Cruz, but Penelope B.
Someone in office once called her name as “Penalope”. I, the unsolicited guardian of the proper noun, cried out” Maan, Its Pe-ne-lope with stress on the e and no aa in between!”
But, Penelope or Penny as she prefers being called, after many such misadventures is quite used to these, and just tells people, “Just call me Penny” without batting an eyelid. She has, according to her, in her lifetime being called by names as varied as Penalope, Peneelopa, Feni (yup, the famous goan drink!) and the best of all- PenaPole!!! As in South Pole, North Pole and Penapole
I nearly fell on the floor laughing, when I heard the last one!
And this phenomenon is not just restricted to India. As my friend has found out during his trips to continental US and continental Europe.... His name is Somdeb, but as he found out, it can become Som-daab, Somdeo (tending towards Deol!), and last but not the least, after several desperate attempts, one person called him, Somday....as in Monday, Tuesday.....
So, is it really important how you pronounce names or proper nouns? I guess, you cannot really avoid such genuine mistakes, which are bound to happen when the world is shrinking into a smaller and smaller place, where people of different cultures, languages and yes pronunciation meet and interact.
How to deal with such situations? With a sense of humour which will make it easy on both parties. After all, I can assure you, the person making the mistake, is even more embarrassed when he or she realises the faux pas....
Or you can follow the saying “If you can’t beat them, join ‘em!” as is done by another friend of mine Prasanna, or Prakkhanno, as the name should be pronounced. But, people find it too difficult and Prasanna is absolutely cool about it....
Ok. Enough of the proper noun...
It’s late in the night...time to unwind with some vintage” Seeemon & Jaarfunkel”!
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
My mom has a big problem with my liking for English movies like The Matrix or X-Men or Iron Man. Movies which, according to her, must have been directed by someone who is not in the right frame of mind or definitely high on cocaine! Because she can’t understand the point of movies in which people are flying around in strange suits (Neo in Matrix) or having tongues (Toad in X-Men) which can be used as a weapon!
She has no patience for” such absurd movies”[sic] and would prefer movies which are serious and have a proper story...or a comedy but with a good story but no flying men!
This made me think. Where do the ideas for these so-called ABSURD movies come from? Is it not true that life inspires fiction more often, than the other way round?
Is it not true, that fact is stranger than fiction?
For instance, have you seen the movie “50 First Dates” starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler? It’s about this girl (Barrymore), who has a car accident which causes her to suffer from Anterograde Amnesia, a loss of the ability to create new memories , which causes each day’s events to erase from her memory overnight , and for her time has stopped on the day of her accident. It was an absurd comedy and we all laughed watching the movie. I mean it’s an Adam Sandler movie, right?
But, what if there were actually a person like Drew Barrymore’s character out there somewhere?
Read out the excerpts of stories, from Dr. Oliver Sacks’ “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and other clinical tales” published in 1985, and judge for yourself. Dr. Oliver Sacks is a New York based Neurologist, who was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2008.
Take the case of 49 year old ex-Navy man, Jimmie G. He was admitted in Dr. Sacks home for the aged in the year 1975. An intelligent, personable, likable man, he had very clear memory of his growing up years, the town in Connecticut, where he grew up, and early years in the Navy, when he served in the WW II. But, there was only one problem. He believed that he was living in the year 1945! And he was still 19 years old and Truman was the president of USA and of course, Allied forces had just won the Second World War!
And of course, like one of the characters in “50 First Dates” he had extraordinary loss of recent memory, a condition known as Korsakov’s Syndrome. In one session, after Dr. Sacks had examined Jimmie for a sufficiently long time and then gone out of the room to come back in couple of minutes, he found that Jimmie had no recognition at all of the doctor or the interaction which had taken place till few minutes back. He was extremely good at arithmetic or algebra or games like checkers and tic tac toe if it could be done at lightning speed, but totally lost at chess. The moves were too slow and he lost track! The doctor tried to encourage Jimmie to keep a diary, in which he would write down his experiences. But, this move also failed because he would keep losing his diary all the time and even when the diary was physically attached to him, he would not recognise his own handwriting and was always surprised and indifferent, that he had written something before. He was a man with no “day before”. As Dr. Sacks put it, Jimmie was both aware and not aware of this loss of ‘self’. If a man loses an eye or a leg, he is aware of the loss. But when he has lost himself, he is not there to know it. But, though with no recent memory, he had a strange inertia and gave an overwhelming sense of “something missing”. The only person whom Jimmie recognised was his elder brother, but was always perplexed as to how he looked so old! But, these were the only emotional meetings Jimmie had, the only so-called connection of his past and his present...
Now take the story of Christina, for instance. A self assured, robust 27-year old mother of two, she worked as a computer programmer at home. Intelligent and cultivated, Christina liked hockey and riding and was fond of the ballet. Active and fit, she hardly had any illness in her entire life. So, somewhat to her surprise, she was found to have gallstones, for which removal of gall bladder was advised. She was admitted to hospital 3 days before the operation. The day before the operation, she had a strange and disturbing dream. In her dream, Christina was swaying wildly, very unsteady on her feet, could hardly feel the ground beneath her, could hardly feel her hands, and kept dropping whatever she picked up. Naturally, she was distressed by the dream. But, later the same day, the dream came true! She could not stand unless she looked at her feet, could hold nothing in her hands and they ‘wandered’ unless she kept an eye on them. She could not even sit up- her body gave way! Her face went slack and expressionless, jaw fell open and even vocal posture was gone. In her words, she felt DISEMBODIED. Her condition worsened so much that doctors considered putting her on the respirator. On examination, she was found to be afflicted with a condition called Acute Polyneuritis.
She had lost her Proprioception, i.e. one’s own perception or sense of the relative positioning of neighbouring parts of the body. Proprioception is like the “eyes” of the body, which she had lost, and it was as if her body had gone blind. But, there is no limit to the strength of the human mind. Christina, the tough woman that she was, fought back. After the initial shock and horror had worn off, she started moving, using her vision as substitute for the lack of Proprioception. The natural movements, to which we never give a second thought, had to be replaced by an artificial, regulated movement. She managed to bring about some semblance of working life, but only with extreme vigilance on her movements. Her life was condemned to this artificiality, and of course that had its emotional toll. The lack of social support and sympathy was an additional burden. Disabled, but nature of disability not clear. How do you explain lack of Proprioception to a normal human being?
Third is the story of Dr. P, a gifted musician, who was well known as a singer for many years, and then as a teacher at a school of music. It was in the School that he started facing strange problems. Students would present themselves in front of Dr. P and he would not recognise them, i.e. not recognise their faces. The moment they spoke, he would recognise them. Think this might happen to lot of people. Well, hear the next development. Dr. P started seeing faces when there were none. So, this led to many hilarious situations, not uncommon for Dr. Calculus in the Tintin comics, like patting the heads of water hydrants and parking meters, taking them to be heads of children!
When Dr. Sacks visited Dr. P at his home to observe him further, he found that he could recognise abstract shapes easily. So platonic solids like a cube, dodecahedron and icosahedrons presented no problems. When shown photographs, he easily recognised Churchill’s cigar and Einstein’s characteristic hair and moustache. But, shown photographs of his own family, he could not recognise almost anybody. When shown a red rose, Dr. P described it as “A convoluted red form with green attachments!” Only when asked to smell it, did he recognise it to be a rose.
On one occasion, while leaving Dr. Sacks’ chamber, Dr. P started looking around for his hat. He reached out his hand and took hold of his wife’s head, tried to lift it off, to put it on.
He had mistaken his wife for a hat!
I will be honest. I bought Dr. Oliver Sacks’ “The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales” for a very simple reason. I liked the curious name! But, as I read on, I found that the title is the least interesting part of the book. It has many interesting stories or case studies, which in Dr. Sacks’ easy going and humorous style makes for wonderful reading.
Of course, I had prior experience of his writings, having read his “The Island of the Colorblind and Cycad Island”. But, having read the book, I strongly feel that it is worth every penny spent; if you want to experience the saying- fact is way stranger than fiction.
Speaking of the absurd or strange, after reading these stories, I somehow find flying men in red capes and men bitten by radioactive spiders developing supernatural abilities, a distinct possibility! It’s only a matter of time, before I find a specimen Homo superior, to my mom. Yup, I dream of the day when we will both find the movie, X-Men enjoyable and real.
She has no patience for” such absurd movies”[sic] and would prefer movies which are serious and have a proper story...or a comedy but with a good story but no flying men!
This made me think. Where do the ideas for these so-called ABSURD movies come from? Is it not true that life inspires fiction more often, than the other way round?
Is it not true, that fact is stranger than fiction?
For instance, have you seen the movie “50 First Dates” starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler? It’s about this girl (Barrymore), who has a car accident which causes her to suffer from Anterograde Amnesia, a loss of the ability to create new memories , which causes each day’s events to erase from her memory overnight , and for her time has stopped on the day of her accident. It was an absurd comedy and we all laughed watching the movie. I mean it’s an Adam Sandler movie, right?
But, what if there were actually a person like Drew Barrymore’s character out there somewhere?
Read out the excerpts of stories, from Dr. Oliver Sacks’ “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and other clinical tales” published in 1985, and judge for yourself. Dr. Oliver Sacks is a New York based Neurologist, who was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2008.
Take the case of 49 year old ex-Navy man, Jimmie G. He was admitted in Dr. Sacks home for the aged in the year 1975. An intelligent, personable, likable man, he had very clear memory of his growing up years, the town in Connecticut, where he grew up, and early years in the Navy, when he served in the WW II. But, there was only one problem. He believed that he was living in the year 1945! And he was still 19 years old and Truman was the president of USA and of course, Allied forces had just won the Second World War!
And of course, like one of the characters in “50 First Dates” he had extraordinary loss of recent memory, a condition known as Korsakov’s Syndrome. In one session, after Dr. Sacks had examined Jimmie for a sufficiently long time and then gone out of the room to come back in couple of minutes, he found that Jimmie had no recognition at all of the doctor or the interaction which had taken place till few minutes back. He was extremely good at arithmetic or algebra or games like checkers and tic tac toe if it could be done at lightning speed, but totally lost at chess. The moves were too slow and he lost track! The doctor tried to encourage Jimmie to keep a diary, in which he would write down his experiences. But, this move also failed because he would keep losing his diary all the time and even when the diary was physically attached to him, he would not recognise his own handwriting and was always surprised and indifferent, that he had written something before. He was a man with no “day before”. As Dr. Sacks put it, Jimmie was both aware and not aware of this loss of ‘self’. If a man loses an eye or a leg, he is aware of the loss. But when he has lost himself, he is not there to know it. But, though with no recent memory, he had a strange inertia and gave an overwhelming sense of “something missing”. The only person whom Jimmie recognised was his elder brother, but was always perplexed as to how he looked so old! But, these were the only emotional meetings Jimmie had, the only so-called connection of his past and his present...
Now take the story of Christina, for instance. A self assured, robust 27-year old mother of two, she worked as a computer programmer at home. Intelligent and cultivated, Christina liked hockey and riding and was fond of the ballet. Active and fit, she hardly had any illness in her entire life. So, somewhat to her surprise, she was found to have gallstones, for which removal of gall bladder was advised. She was admitted to hospital 3 days before the operation. The day before the operation, she had a strange and disturbing dream. In her dream, Christina was swaying wildly, very unsteady on her feet, could hardly feel the ground beneath her, could hardly feel her hands, and kept dropping whatever she picked up. Naturally, she was distressed by the dream. But, later the same day, the dream came true! She could not stand unless she looked at her feet, could hold nothing in her hands and they ‘wandered’ unless she kept an eye on them. She could not even sit up- her body gave way! Her face went slack and expressionless, jaw fell open and even vocal posture was gone. In her words, she felt DISEMBODIED. Her condition worsened so much that doctors considered putting her on the respirator. On examination, she was found to be afflicted with a condition called Acute Polyneuritis.
She had lost her Proprioception, i.e. one’s own perception or sense of the relative positioning of neighbouring parts of the body. Proprioception is like the “eyes” of the body, which she had lost, and it was as if her body had gone blind. But, there is no limit to the strength of the human mind. Christina, the tough woman that she was, fought back. After the initial shock and horror had worn off, she started moving, using her vision as substitute for the lack of Proprioception. The natural movements, to which we never give a second thought, had to be replaced by an artificial, regulated movement. She managed to bring about some semblance of working life, but only with extreme vigilance on her movements. Her life was condemned to this artificiality, and of course that had its emotional toll. The lack of social support and sympathy was an additional burden. Disabled, but nature of disability not clear. How do you explain lack of Proprioception to a normal human being?
Third is the story of Dr. P, a gifted musician, who was well known as a singer for many years, and then as a teacher at a school of music. It was in the School that he started facing strange problems. Students would present themselves in front of Dr. P and he would not recognise them, i.e. not recognise their faces. The moment they spoke, he would recognise them. Think this might happen to lot of people. Well, hear the next development. Dr. P started seeing faces when there were none. So, this led to many hilarious situations, not uncommon for Dr. Calculus in the Tintin comics, like patting the heads of water hydrants and parking meters, taking them to be heads of children!
When Dr. Sacks visited Dr. P at his home to observe him further, he found that he could recognise abstract shapes easily. So platonic solids like a cube, dodecahedron and icosahedrons presented no problems. When shown photographs, he easily recognised Churchill’s cigar and Einstein’s characteristic hair and moustache. But, shown photographs of his own family, he could not recognise almost anybody. When shown a red rose, Dr. P described it as “A convoluted red form with green attachments!” Only when asked to smell it, did he recognise it to be a rose.
On one occasion, while leaving Dr. Sacks’ chamber, Dr. P started looking around for his hat. He reached out his hand and took hold of his wife’s head, tried to lift it off, to put it on.
He had mistaken his wife for a hat!
I will be honest. I bought Dr. Oliver Sacks’ “The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales” for a very simple reason. I liked the curious name! But, as I read on, I found that the title is the least interesting part of the book. It has many interesting stories or case studies, which in Dr. Sacks’ easy going and humorous style makes for wonderful reading.
Of course, I had prior experience of his writings, having read his “The Island of the Colorblind and Cycad Island”. But, having read the book, I strongly feel that it is worth every penny spent; if you want to experience the saying- fact is way stranger than fiction.
Speaking of the absurd or strange, after reading these stories, I somehow find flying men in red capes and men bitten by radioactive spiders developing supernatural abilities, a distinct possibility! It’s only a matter of time, before I find a specimen Homo superior, to my mom. Yup, I dream of the day when we will both find the movie, X-Men enjoyable and real.
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