My love for Atul Gawande is fairly irrational. Sure it has something to do with his saving lives and winning a MacArthur and being brown and a Rhodes Scholar, but actually--really--it’s mostly because his name is a version of li’l A’s name…
So I was thrilled when Charles McGrath’s almost hagiographic essay about Gawande in the Times made it to the top-ten e-mailed list. Except that when I read it, the article described him playing Hangman on the patient’s surgical drapes and that made me really sad and very indignant.
Forget for a moment that the game itself reprehensibly requires a rather barbaric pictographic accompaniment. Just the fact that he would indulge in any diversionary game on the body of a patient--a patient who most likely thinks of his surgeon as a human savior, a patient who is anaesthetized and can convey neither consent nor acquiescence for the act, a patient i.e. another human being--suggests a level of disrespect for the human body that's disappointing.
Surgeons have to draw on humans and give orders for their hair to be shaved off and palpate female breasts when necessary. If they do it simply because the person in question happens to be drugged and because they can, then someone will have to explain to me how they’re ethically different from some sickening mass of frat boys.
_
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Saturday, April 07, 2007
A Good Wife
Someone else’s grandmother
once told me that a good wife
Is as full of loving comfort as a mother
As full of tender adoration as a daughter
As easy to playful irreverence as a sister
And as reliable and loyal as a best friend
And palli arai-yillai--in the bedroom, she said:
she is as winsome and perceptive as a courtesan.
_
once told me that a good wife
Is as full of loving comfort as a mother
As full of tender adoration as a daughter
As easy to playful irreverence as a sister
And as reliable and loyal as a best friend
And palli arai-yillai--in the bedroom, she said:
she is as winsome and perceptive as a courtesan.
_
Sunday, February 25, 2007
It's old and faded now...
Although we always felt a little sad for her by that point in our visit when Dorakanti grandmother would lament that though she had yearned for daughters all her life, all she had been given were six sons and that was why she loved her granddaughters so much; my sister and I would remain stiff and unbending. We had heard that Dorakanti grandmother had been mean to our mother when she was a new daughter-in-law and that made her eternally unpleasant in our eyes. We wouldn’t even be there unless our father hadn’t unwrapped himself from around our little fingers, which is where he spent most of our childhood years, unfurled his parental authority and insisted that we spend some time with his mother.
We were stiff as scarecrows inside Dorakanti grandmother’s embrace, stiff and unfriendly to the children from next door summoned to play with us, and our interactions with the special snacks made for us were cursory. We paid attention when it was story time, but even then silently, and only because it was dark and no one could see our eyes stirring to the story, the punctuating “umms” that were our duty as audience, needlessly parsimonious and slow.
Dorakanti grandmother’s stories were strange in that they never began with a “once upon a time.” They all began, “in a place,” “in a village,” “in a town.” It was as if these stories where the prince fell in love with the princess after chancing upon just one filament of her preternaturally long and fragrant hair, or where the young prince battled tigers to impress his mother--as if these stupid, unnatural things had happened just a few weeks before we came to visit.
And at the end of the story when the prince married the princess or the young prince was crowned, there would be a big celebration and grandmother would launch her punch line. “That was when they presented me with this sari,” she would say, holding her sari out for us to touch, hoping we would scoot closer to her. “It’s old and faded now, but it was rich and shiny when they gave it to me.” And we’d reach for her sari politely enough, even knowing that our fingers would be snatched up and kissed, but we’d remain curled up around ourselves, my sister‘s hand in mine.
Although willing myself to fall asleep, knowing dad would take us home the next day, I would remain conscious on the periphery of my sleep, of grandmother stroking our limbs and making sure to straighten them before she left the room. Stretching each leg in the half darkness to its furthest length so that while we slept we‘d grow tall--unlike her and unlike our father.
_
We were stiff as scarecrows inside Dorakanti grandmother’s embrace, stiff and unfriendly to the children from next door summoned to play with us, and our interactions with the special snacks made for us were cursory. We paid attention when it was story time, but even then silently, and only because it was dark and no one could see our eyes stirring to the story, the punctuating “umms” that were our duty as audience, needlessly parsimonious and slow.
Dorakanti grandmother’s stories were strange in that they never began with a “once upon a time.” They all began, “in a place,” “in a village,” “in a town.” It was as if these stories where the prince fell in love with the princess after chancing upon just one filament of her preternaturally long and fragrant hair, or where the young prince battled tigers to impress his mother--as if these stupid, unnatural things had happened just a few weeks before we came to visit.
And at the end of the story when the prince married the princess or the young prince was crowned, there would be a big celebration and grandmother would launch her punch line. “That was when they presented me with this sari,” she would say, holding her sari out for us to touch, hoping we would scoot closer to her. “It’s old and faded now, but it was rich and shiny when they gave it to me.” And we’d reach for her sari politely enough, even knowing that our fingers would be snatched up and kissed, but we’d remain curled up around ourselves, my sister‘s hand in mine.
Although willing myself to fall asleep, knowing dad would take us home the next day, I would remain conscious on the periphery of my sleep, of grandmother stroking our limbs and making sure to straighten them before she left the room. Stretching each leg in the half darkness to its furthest length so that while we slept we‘d grow tall--unlike her and unlike our father.
_
Friday, February 23, 2007
A Wedding Long Ago
When my Jalagam grandmother married my Gadadoss grandfather, she shone like one of the gleaming, granite statues from the temple come to life. Beautiful, everyone sighed.
Of my grandfather with the famed, nearly-white Gadadoss skin, they say he looked like a red yam.
Though only sixteen at her wedding, grandmother was tall and lissome, nearly grandfather‘s height.
The next year, to everyone’s dismay, she grew two inches taller than grandfather.
_
Of my grandfather with the famed, nearly-white Gadadoss skin, they say he looked like a red yam.
Though only sixteen at her wedding, grandmother was tall and lissome, nearly grandfather‘s height.
The next year, to everyone’s dismay, she grew two inches taller than grandfather.
_
Thursday, February 22, 2007
My father's marriage and me
My father was supposed to marry a princess--the daughter of the Raja of Ettayapuram. When he paid the palace a visit with his family, they found her very short. Then a family friend took them to meet my mother. Her family weren’t “Poligars” or even Padma Velama, but the girl (my mom! my mom!) was tall, lovely, and college-educated. Amma offered my dad some coffee and he promptly fell for her.
He also got too fond of retelling this story with the punchline, “Who needs a princess when you have a queen?”
Reasons why I’m glad dad didn’t marry the Ettayapuram girl.
- I might have turned out short.
- I love my mom etc.
- The Ettayapurams got their titles for betraying Kattaboman and kissing British ass.
- Although a few generations later they did become Subramania Bharati’s official patron, so perhaps they kind of redeemed themselves.
- Let’s just stick with i might have turned out short.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Can’t! Won’t! Shan’t!
There will be no posts for a while. I’m poised on a rolling juggernaut (miscellaneous deadlines) and it’s, sadly, going to be impossible to post.
I do want to thank you all for checking in on me. And you unknown but super regular readers from Lemont, Richmond, Ithaca, St. George, Clark, and Berkeley, thanks for coming back again and again :).
If you’d like to know when I start posting again (in a month--or two--or so) drop me a line--my addy is pocobrat@gmail.
Much love; be well.
_
I do want to thank you all for checking in on me. And you unknown but super regular readers from Lemont, Richmond, Ithaca, St. George, Clark, and Berkeley, thanks for coming back again and again :).
If you’d like to know when I start posting again (in a month--or two--or so) drop me a line--my addy is pocobrat@gmail.
Much love; be well.
_
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Once Upon a Time
Li’l A: So… Dad’s working tonight?
Me: Umm-hmm
Li’l A: So… can I sleepover in your bed?
Me: Nooooo!!!!
Li’l A: But why?!!!!
Me: Your stuffed animals stink!
Li’l A: I’ll sleep on Dad’s side.
Me: Oh. Ok, then.
12 hours later.
Big A: Will someone tell me why the pillows smell like goat?
_
Me: Umm-hmm
Li’l A: So… can I sleepover in your bed?
Me: Nooooo!!!!
Li’l A: But why?!!!!
Me: Your stuffed animals stink!
Li’l A: I’ll sleep on Dad’s side.
Me: Oh. Ok, then.
12 hours later.
Big A: Will someone tell me why the pillows smell like goat?
_
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Spirit of Scoutie
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