One Hundred and Sixty-six, Humanity's Progress

I had a family member who witnessed a terrorist's bombing. I will work with my family to make sure she gets the psychological help (from family and professionals) she needs to work through it in her mind. I do not wish for revenge on the ones that did that and killed others. I just wish for proper justice based on the transgressed laws of that land.

Evolutionary fight between physical might and the ability to protect/kill versus moral understanding and the ability to understand/forgive?

Seventy-nine, Uttran

As I write this, people in India are going crazy up on the rooftops, especially in Gujarat. Kites are amassing in the air fighting each other and adding a sense of festivity to the cities that is only felt here when large firework shows occur.

The two days of Uttran and Vassi Uttran are a lot of fun. My extended family wonders when next I'll be able to go back and enjoy this time of the year with them. As I glance at my schedule of classes (which began on January 2nd), a part of me wonders the same. Hopefully I'll be able to go around this time of year once before I'm settled into someplace finishing up my residency. We'll see. In the meantime, enjoy these two pictures of one of many unique holidays in India.

Seventy-six, Flames Git Higher!

I start practicing tomorrow. No, not actual medicine, chemistry. Aka cooking. I've cooked Indian items probably a total of 10 times in my life. I just need practice to ingrain it. I'll start simple either with potatoes or cauliflower. I'll just cook the vegetable so I can concentrate fully on it rather than worry about it and bhakri. Hopefully after a couple months of making one vegetable or another (overall, they all have the same set of steps for preparation), I can handle more than one thing in the kitchen (be prepared to run when that date comes Roommate!). My safety record is immaculate so no worries. =P

If you happen to see a column of smoke, pray it wasn't the apartment because by golly, my head will be rolling from all the angry people! On the upside, we might get new windows!

Thirty-nine, Compassion Overload

In my lifetime, many times have I been approached on streets by barely dressed 4 and 5 year-olds asking for money. Mothers holding babies begging for a few cents. In all these years I have never given them anything. Yet yesterday I gave some money to, not an individual or two, but an organization that specializes in feeding and caring for kids around the world. How can I condone giving to an organization and not an individual? For me, it has always been easy. I don't believe that anything going wrong can be fixed simply by throwing money at it. Rather, money works better if it's decided how to spend it first so instead of showering the destitute with colored paper with deceased people's portraits on them, it is used to pay for the creation of homes, for the purchase of foodstuffs and medicines, and hopefully on education for everyone--especially the children.

I don't deny that there are barely dressed children running around in American streets. But I guarantee that the number in this country is much lower than in most developing nations. The question then crops up: Do I support a National initiative to help people or a World-wide one? And this is where your individual ideals come into play. For me, the whole has always been very important to me. In classes, the learning occurs at the pace of the slowest learner to make sure no one gets left behind. Granted, this has changed in the past year and a half with the advent of Medical School but overall, the idea remains.

The Numbers. Percentage-wise, the US and India aren't at opposite ends of the scale in their poverty numbers: 12% and 27.5% respectively. But when I take into account the population, the US has ~36.4 million people under the poverty line while India has 321.5 million under the poverty line. For comparison, the total population of the United states is just over 300 million strong. This makes it harder for me to spend on people and organizations that service just the United States.

I do hope I have the nerve to offer up my services to groups like Doctors without Borders or go and provide free clinic care annually to areas that receive no care usually unless they travel hundreds of miles to the nearest hospitals which are too expensive for them and have overcrowding issues. That would be the best thing that I could accomplish to serve my fellow suffering human beings.

Thirty-four, Post-High School

In India (and possibly the UK), students have to take placement exams at the end of high school to see if they can get into college and how high of a level they can pursue. This way, professional schools can be entered directly out of high school. This is vastly different from our setup of go-where-you-will to get whatever degree you want and needing a four-year Bachelor's degree before pursuing professional degrees (ex. Law School and Medical School). I have one friend who was a fully-trained doctor after 4.5 years of college and 1 year of internship. You know, that's tempting when facing 8 years of college (3 undergrad and 4 medicine) plus another 2 to 6 years of further education as a resident or fellow. But then the competition is fierce. Of the total number of spots open each year, fifteen times that number apply. And it's all based on academics rather than personality.

I'm not saying it's better here or there, just different.

Twenty-one, Weddings

Until I saw an Indian wedding in India, weddings were always passive events for me. The different parts of the ceremony involving different powders, fires, gifts, foods, and multiple chants from different texts, all of it combined together to form the most active marriage ceremony I've ever seen. Good thing since it can easily last an hour and half to two hours. Even the relatives and friends can end up participating in different parts. Customs either passed down locally or taken from new movies depicting marriages in other parts of the country. Stealing the groom's shoes during the marriage and demanding a ransom for them, grabbing your sister's toe as she circles the flames to stop the ceremony until they pay you to let go, the friends and family who sit behind the bride and groom to provide any support they can (or to keep the two of them from running away), the parents heavily involved in the puja working to bring the families together. Guests sit and chat with each other while watching the wedding. Getting up to get some snacks from the nearby food table, yelling at their kids to behave a little, then going back to ignoring them as they run around and cause mayhem in the outer districts of the wedding. A group of older married ladies also chime in with traditional marriage songs. The priest constantly keeping a stream of mantras coming out of his mouth in that nasal tone all Hindu priests apparently can do. And then there are all the ceremonies tied to the marriage puja but still distinct. The puja that morning to Ganesh to call for good fortune for the wedding, the procession of the groom from his home to the wedding place (jaan), the spreading of piti (applied to help make the bride fairer for her time in the spotlight), the tearful goodbyes (with more old-lady-marriage-related-songs), the crossing of the threshold by the new wife into the home of her new husband. Amazing how much can fit into just one wedding.

Today I will attend a wedding. An Indian family friend will marry an American woman. Over in the US, Indian weddings are much tamer. Plus not being related truly makes a guest of you rather than being heavily involved in the process. Every now and then some parents will spend a lot more and set up a short jaan right around the marriage hall for the groom. It's neat and sad at the same time. The groom going around on a horse with his distant Indian friends jamming away to music while the close American friends follow along trying to figure out what's going on and how to dance to odd Indian music.

At times I can feel the spirit of things Indian just being shuffled around in the States.