Something to talk about when I am old and grey.

Time is cruel! © DKLA

At the pinnacle of their career, the Beatles must have had an existential crisis. McCartney and Lennon must have wondered how they would be at 64. Their vision of a 64-year old man, from the lenses of a person in the 1960s, must have been quite depressing. With bad teeth, bad eyesight and bald, it must be a picture of melancholy.
 Luckily, growing old in the 21st century is bearable. The 60s is the new 40s. One can still lead a productive life in the senior citizen / geriatric age group provided the bus does not come to pick you up prematurely.

After completing 633 km of cycling from Seoul to Pusan in 5 days, we had a couple days to unwind in Pusan. Immersed in the euphoria of completing our gargantuan task, we thought that our feat must be something that we, the seven of us, would be talking for a long time including reminiscing about it in our twilight years. We would probably be savouring each photo that we took along the way, trying to remember each story attached with it; trying to tell it to anyone who would listen.

At the end of their voyage, if life had been kind, people would have many accomplishments to ponder as their moments in time.

I know a few who talk about a time when they were stoned drunk as their memorable bits to justify their existence. They would brag about their inborn ability to hold their drink and drive home safely with their alcohol levels hitting the ceiling many times over. Or perhaps boast in the glee of a lost weekend of intoxication.
There was once a lady's man who had the charm that would put James Bond to shame. He allegedly had bedded so many women in the prime of his youth. This, he told me unashamedly with pride with a gusto of a record-breaking marathon runner. He even boasted of having two dates on a single night in the same town. Living in the fast lane, walking on eggshells, he ended his night bedding both of them, separately. That must be the zenith of his raison d'être.

Others may find pride in satisfying their gustatory cravings. They claim pride in knowing the tastiest of dishes and culinary servings. They may narrate with passion, their food trails, their exotic spread of palatal teasers and perhaps some unusual delicacies. Well, whatever makes them happy.

I bet these photos may one day carve a smile at the angle of my mouth if ever I were comatose or unarousable.

Serenity max ©FG

Another bridge ©FG

Nature's palette ©FG

Peaceful easy feeling ©FG

Misty taste of Korea ©FG

Shades of blue ©FG

Sunset in Korea ©FG

Picture perfect ©FG

A bike motel ©FG

Busan finishing line ©FG

Our hideout in Busan ©FG

I see you ©FG

Korean garden ©FG

Atop Busan Tower ©FG

Jagalchi Fish Market - can see the original features of the Koreans.©FG

Songdo Beach ©FG

Sunset over at Sangdo ©FG

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It is what we eat!

Why We Get Fat (and what to do about it)

Gary Taubes

For the most part of Man's existence, over 99 % percent of our lives of Earth, our food pyramid had been quite different. If now, carbohydrate forms the broadest base of the pyramid, it was never like this before. As hunters and gatherers, our food mainly composed of protein and fat. Carbohydrate constituted a small portion and was found in complex forms, not refined.

Come late 19th century and beyond, we started loads of carbohydrate both in simple refined forms like sugars and complex ones like in potato, wheat and rice. I suppose it must have been quite alright when we were members of an agrarian society but it soon became toxic when our lifestyles became more sedentary with the ease of performing tasks after leaps in science and technology.

So, it is the carbohydrate that makes us fat. Insulin has pushed to the brim that our systems have been hardwired to use glucose as the first resource of energy. Ketones which can be utilised for many important functions, including the brain, stay in the background. Insulin stores extra glucose as unhealthy fat. Instead of using fat for energy at times distress, we instead crave for more glucose via hunger mechanisms or use our protein reserves. On top of that, many endogenous hormones and genetic predispositions determine where fat is reserved in the body. The longer we have fat deposited in our bodies, the harder we find it to get rid.

The author describes the oft-prescribed fat laden food as the villain for the aetiology of various lifestyle diseases like heart diseases, obesity and diabetic as fallacious. He suggests reducing carbohydrates, ketogenic diets and Palaeolithic diets as a way to rein weight loss and healthier living. Exercise keeps fit and increases metabolism but paradoxically increases appetite. Hence, it cannot be used as a modality to reduce weight.

It is all a charade!

Just the other day, I watched a youtube presentation of a discussion on the affairs of world economics, mainly European economics, between two world icons, Yanis Varoufakis, an academician with a short-lived political stint in Greek Cabinet and Professor Noam Chomsky, the renowned political activist, linguist and philosopher at MIT.

The gist that I gathered from the discussion is that the world is made for the affluent. Nobody gives a damn about social justice, equality, liberty and those standard phrases that go with freedom. It is all a charade. The idea of politics is just to fatten the selected few. The rich get richer, and the poor become poorer as time goes on and the rich squeeze more from the poor.

In a press conference recently in 2014, an executive from a multinational company unabashedly told the pressmen that his firm made medicine for the wealthy Western patients who could afford it, not poor Indians, justifying his company's inflated prices of products. The dream of medical advances being developed for humanity remains only in the compilations of Medical History books. In 1929, George Merck allegedly had said, "We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear. The better we have remembered it, the larger they have been."

Medicine is no more the 'noble' profession that the Catholic nuns and Fathers used to clamour to do. In 1978 when Nestle was sued for causing malnutrition in underdeveloped countries amongst babies whose mothers could not read the instructions on the labels, the company had the cheek to say that they make products for the rich and middle class. They cannot be blamed if the poor wants to mimic the affluent. And they certainly cannot be blamed for the lack of clean water facilities (used to make tainted milk that caused gastroenteritis) and illiteracy (that is the inefficiency of the ruling powers). So the world is the stage for the rich. The poor are there for the numbers and create the market. Nobody gives a rat's ass about the weak. It is all rhetorics to cloud the eyes of the poor to satisfy one's private intent.

http://usuncut.com/class-war/valeant-ceo-shareholder-profit/

Your Dharma, your funeral!

So goes the legend from the Indian sub-continent...

There was a massive war between kings. King Ram was embroiled in a battle, he must be a just king because he is Ram. His brother was morbidly injured. His army captured the enemy’s doctor and forced him to treat their wounded leader.
The good doctor asked his captors.
“How do you know that I would treat him to the best of my ability?”, he said. “For all you know I could not give him the best that is available.”

Ram, the righteous one, could do no wrong. Despite all the violence and destruction that were going on around him, like all the senseless killing and the uprooting of a whole mountain by the first superhero known to man, Hanuman, to retrieve a particular herbal remedy, Sanjeevani, he is still the good one.

In an authoritative voice, he verbalised, “It is your Dharma that you should be a healer. No matter who is injured, your job is to heal, irrespective of their political allegiance or social strata. I believe that you being a practitioner of the divine art of healing, would stay faithful to your calling and treat straight from the heart”.

That was then, aeons ago when the world was straight when a spade was a spade and white was white without shades of grey. Fast forward to the Kaliyuga era. Honest living with conducts holding dear to the call of the profession is now but only a script for display or a screenplay for the next blockbuster. In reality, the great healer has to guard his own rice bowl. Charity begins at home, he says. In the same breath, he laments, “self above service”. He recalls the time when the men in blue booked him for speeding even though he was risking his own life to attend to a grieving mother.

How about the hefty fine that he had to pay for the inefficiencies of his accountants? And the time, he was penalised for the incompetence of his subordinates. Even though they sing praises of teamwork, when trouble brews, they wash their hands, plead innocence and say, “ but you are the doctor! You should know.”

When you spend all your lifetime, caring and treating the sick, without heeding your own health, they say you are dedicated. But when you fall ill, they say you are stupid for not knowing to take a break for yourself.

They say you are the epitome of trust, but then, they also say that you are not trustworthy to keep private information and have to pay the government for you to retain patient information.

They say everybody needs a break from work to recharge and recuperate. But when doctors demand better living conditions, they say you are not dedicated. You give the profession a bad name. They would start their stories of “back in the day.....”

They squeeze money from you, but when you initiate your sob story of how difficult it is to make ends meet, they say you are money minded. They would quote the Hippocratic Oath.

And you are just a technician in the cogwheel of mankind who only has to do his job, that is all. The noble profession and care for humanity are merely catchphrases to lure the general public into another scheme of a business venture. Just do your work just like every job is extraordinary. Every one of us plays a role, directly or indirectly in the development of society. You are no different than the person beside you. If you slack on yours, we will use the long arm of the legal system and the media to shame to smack some sense to right the wrong and always make you on your toes!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

It is a jungle out there.

There she was, a mid 50s a disciplined runner who is the envy of ladies of her age in the housing estate who would die to have a physique like hers, waiting outside the emergency room with her right hand all dressed up to see an orthopaedic doctor who would later assess the extend of her injuries and probably stitch up her hand which had been mauled by a stray dog. She, a dog owner herself, of many Rottweilers and Alsatians, as her husband trained guard dogs for a living could not believe her predicament.

Having lived a time just after a time when typhoid and tuberculosis were treated with eggs and fresh air, she believed in the outdoors. Equipped with a earphones and iPod, she would just go for her evening runs without disturbing a soul but with her sole intention to complete her bodily duties.
In fact, a few minutes before the said event, she had patted the stray dog. On her way back, out of the blues, as if like possessed, she went for her hand. A Good Samaritan who came to her rescue was also injured!
The outdoors is becoming more hostile to us as time go by. Forget about fresh air! The moment we step outside the comfort of our homes, we are greeted with fumes of automobiles and the ever deteriorating quality of air. If that is not enough, we have the ever expanding horse power capacity cars manned (and 'woman'ed) by mindless drivers with ever shrinking thoughts for pedestrians to dodge from. Then we have to brace ourselves against the tyranny of knife yielding small time petty thieves.
So it looks the outdoors is only for animals- it is a jungle out there!

Some characters أحرف อักขระ символов გმირები

No, I am not referring to the character in Roman alphabets or in any other language. Neither am I referring to characters in a play or caricature nor to certain traits of human, physical, chemical or biological object. I am humbly referring to some characters with whom you have make small chats in a party!

Lionel Hutz from 'The Simpsons'

of the law firm “I Can’t Believe It’s A Law Firm!”

As we get further and further away from the only day that our mothers smile to see us cry (to quote AKJ Kalam), as did as our forefathers before us, we fret about the generation which about to take over the rein of leadership of the nation and world arena. Everything they do seem to be counter productive and heading to doom. Like that, a conversation came forth... Generation Y and their antics.
This guy was telling his newbies are forever trying to cut corners with their designated duties; how they are last to come and first to leave irrespective if he (the boss) is still around. He was narrating how in his days how he used to be early to rise, beat the morning traffic jam, grab a quick bite near the office, be immersed in work long before the bosses saunter in and later idle around fiddling with things appearing busy to wait for the boss to leave to call it a day, just to give a good impression to the paymasters!
Then the conversation went on to the gargantuan number of medical schools in the country superseding even that of the UK and hospital bashing reports in papers of late. For good measure, he volunteered his bad experience with the medical fraternity.
A gloomy day, he was feeling under the weather. Even his wife told him he looked run down with his face all puffed up and his jaw ached. Even before the sentence ended, he was zooming all the way to the city's premier private medical concern.  
After a laborious discussion, outpouring of symptoms, extensive battery of investigations and further discussions, a definitive diagnosis was not put forth by the front line medical personnel. Admission was advised in view myriad of mind boggling symptoms.  After further haggling, the sufferer left the scene unhappily as further discussions met dead ends.
A few calls here and there through country club contacts placed him on top of a top notch doctors' appointment list.
Review notes of the earlier meeting of the day before by the 'top notch' consultant revealed a disturbing diagnosis- hypochondriasis! All hell broke loose. A few calls here and there ensured the parties involved be reprimanded. A diagnosis like that would have bearings in his future dealings with the insurance company, with his fraternity and at any time when his character assassination is attempted! He was happy he managed to nip it the bud before bigger damage control needed to be mobilized!
How is this related to Generation Y and their work ethics, you may ask. Yes, I wonder too. The people in the front line were younger than him.  But what I know for sure, is God is not so unkind sending so many sickness all at one go.
By the way, a simple course of analgesics and antibiotics spared him of his miseries, all at time. Perhaps giving a name to his predicament and having confidence in the paternalistic man with the stethoscope went a long way to exorcise the dwelling demon in the body!
Just some characters who appear high and mighty as well as condescending and we have to put up with so as not offend the host.

Life is a beach!*

Gone are the days when people will do anything to stay away from medical facilities for fear that some unpleasant news on their future would befall on their ears. From a therapeutic and corrective role, medical industry or rather business has metamorphosed to a preventive one. So, from the position of righting the wrong, it has started looking the wrongs in a complete pink of health person to give him the pallor of ill health - that is, after so many further expensive tests and dead ends of inconclusive results.

Michelin Man (spare tyres)

Paranoia (to the level of hypochondriasm), hunger to perform their daily duties (of acquiring wealth), fear of death and fear of litigation on the part of the providers have skyrocketed to need to have a comprehensive exhaustive full (fool) proof way of detecting a disease even before its genesis. Like mushrooms after a rain, health sanctuaries with resort like set-up have mushroomed offering membership to exclusive (richly gullible) members to guarantee peace of mind if they are willing to part with a large piece (chunk) of their dough to undergo multiple annual dubious screening procedures to detect signs of early diseases. Tests like full body imaging and respiratory function tests in an otherwise healthy individual have not shown to yield conclusive information but if someone is paying, anything can be arranged. The minuscule but real risk of idiosyncratic reaction to contrast is always overlooked. As they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch - something got to give.

On the other hand, these unnecessary interventions and business ventures have a snowball effect on others. It opens job opportunities for the menial workers, cleaners, sanitation companies, caterers, undertakers and not to mention the clinicians who are bored of looking at sick and terminal patients. The mundane mood can be replaced with rich blabbing executives rather than the depressingly poor malnourished real patients who need medical attention in the first place.

Meanwhile, the sharks with robes will saunter in with their hawk eyes looking for loopholes and maladies and capitalistic businessmen will stomp on their cigar and laugh all the way to bank with their stash of moolah and their portly paunches to flaunt their prosperity.

And the clients of the sanctuary carry on with daily activities with a certain boost of confidence that they would survive until the next appointment. In spite of listening to lectures on healthy living, they continue entertaining their guests with an unhealthy diet of nicotine, ethanol filled spirits with different hues and flavours, bodily pleasures that involve two to tango and the list of goes on...
Life is a beach so stop bitching...

* life's a beach (www.urbandictionary.com)
A smart way of saying "Life is a bitch!". Someone who has oppressed anger and fed up with life, yet at the onset wants to look normal, would use a phrase like that. Gives the connotation that the user of the phrase is very happy-go-lucky, but on closer examination one realizes that the user is going through a hard time.

"Sex, booze, rock and roll; Weed, speed and birth control; Life's a beach and then you die; so f@#% the world and let's get high"

‘Wealth is Health’ or ‘Health is Wealth’?

25.5.2010

‘Wealth is Health’ or ‘Health is Wealth’?

That is a good question. From the time I can remember, the age old adage of ‘Health is Wealth’ had been ingrained in our impressionable minds to be the ultimate truth. Is it really the elusive truth that everyone is looking for?
In the pre-industrial era when most people led simple lives toiling on the wonders provided by nature, e.g. farming, hunting or any work which involve indentured labourers or bondage slavery. Here, a healthy fit body will ensure ability to endure the hardship of calamities of nature to bring home the bacon! An unhealthy invalid or an aging senile individual will be a burden to family and society unless a social safety net is in place.
If you were the servant of the palace or a sorcerer in the dawn of human civilization, (as if we are more civilised now), health is of paramount importance for survival. Is this adage still of relevance at this present date and time?
Let me look at how health brings wealth to an individual. For a cynical person like me, I would look at first at how many caregivers in the healthcare services (e.g. doctors and nurses) who generate wealth from other people’s ill-health. They are not ill-gotten gains, mind you. Then there are the giants in the healthcare industries like the HMO’s and the insurance companies who managed to build a conglomerate from people’s sickness. In fact, I have seen so many friends whose family and generations have been elevated the rung of ladder of strata of society via acquiring medical studies (either via pure hard work or via the short cut). In fact, medical studies have gone so cheap. Advertisements are often seen in the local dailies showing SPM as requirement for entry to some of these so called Government-approved medical institutions.
It is no secret that the cost of healthcare all over the world has leapt by bounds over the years. It will literally cost a leg or an arm to afford cutting edge medical care in a private hospital anywhere in the world. So, to acquire good health, one has to have some wealth and be willing to part with it. I remember a relative of mine, who during a routine screening procedure, who was told to have a small benign looking renal cyst. It kept on reappearing on repeated subsequent screening. Being not satisfied with reassurances by his doctors, he flew down to Singapore for more invasive diagnostic procedures. To cut the story short, he underwent a nephrectomy after biopsies showed slow growing renal cell carcinoma. Here, it is apparent that this individual acquired good bill of health after paying a hefty bill of wealth! Of course critics will say that it is a slow growing tumour anyway which would have been picked up by subsequent regular screenings. To the patient, however, his doctors in Malaysia have failed him and he will always be wary of their treatment modalities.
Many diseases that use to plague mankind (e.g. small pox and poliomyelitis to a certain extent) have been literally wiped out from the surface of earth, save some kept in the laboratories (which may be used as a biological weapon when the time is ripe). Beri-beri which used to plague Malayan bonded labourers in the middle of the 20th century is unheard of in modern Malaysia. All these happened with improvement of economic climate and affordability of vaccines and proper balanced nutrition. On the other hand, wealth has brought with it some life style related diseases as well – obesity, diabetes, hypertension, coronary events, etc. It looks like here wealth has brought in some health issues as well.
Fearing for their health, wealth affluent societies no longer believe in curative medicine but rather concentrate on preventive medicine. This has been instrumental in mushrooming of numerous health sanctuaries. Here, absolutely normal individuals of various ages are subjected to various tests just to find a result which would deviate from norm so that more tests can be done, all in the pretext of finding sickness in a health person. Business is generated – healthcare providers are happy- they got a job; insurance companies are happy – they have got low risk individuals tied down with their policies and are laughing all the way to the bank; the ‘patients’ are happy – they have taken care of their health so that they can continue acquiring wealth! And continue their way of life, for good or bad...
Now which side are you on?

Are you OK, Annie? Who knows? I am still standing…yeah,yeah,yeah!

6.3.2010

Are you OK, Annie¹? Do know why²? I am still standing…yeah,yeah,yeah!³

In the course of our conversation, I casually asked my accountant about his health. To this he replied, “Oh, I did my medicals and the doctors told me that my results were fantastic. The doctors were so happy with the result and told me that my results were better than the cardiologists’.” That’s P, my accountant, the ever optimistic chap who looks at the world from a very positive outlook. You ask him about his son who was studying in Ukraine, he would say the lecturers were so impressed with his performance and so are the Consultants he is working for now as a house officer. And his daughter is so happily married in the cold mountains of Germany!

Well good for him, P, if only everyone in this world is as contented as him, the world would be a better place and it starts with the man in the mirror⁴.

On one hand, I feel happy for him for his good results as it gives him a sense of satiety to enjoy his happy life as he is. On the other hand, it gives him a false sense of security. That started me thinking, one of my friend’s sister was diagnosed by a professor in UHKL to have a lethal form of lymphoma back in the 80’s. Her prognosis was grave and her days were numbered, so she was told. As the Americans say, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going, she went on various traditional medical treatment modalities – Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese and Indian. The testimony of her endeavour is that she is still standing and has outlived the professor by a good 10years so far. So, has Prof Balasegaram, the first liver surgeon who was diagnosed to have Chronic Renal Failure in the 1980’s who is still going strong yoday at the age of 80 also outliving the physician who gave him the bad news!

Nobody knows how healthy or sick a person is! An able body can just collapse just like that after a brain aneurysm. Nobody can say that he is healthy. Every living day is a gift from the Almighty and all of us are living on borrowed time. We should be glad that we can actually get up in the morning and continue with life. Que sera sera, whatever will be will be⁵…Obladi Oblada! Life goes on bra…⁶

References:

1. Michael Jackson: Smooth Criminal

2. Norah Jones: Don’t know why

3. Elton John: I’m still standing

4. Michael Jackson: Man in the mirror

5. Doris Day: Que sera sera

6. Beatles: Obladi Oblada