As you sow, so you reap

An Emperor in the Far East was growing old and knew it was time to choose his successor. Instead of choosing one of his assistants or his children, he decided something different. He called young people in the kingdom together one day. He said, "It is time for me to step down and choose the next emperor. I have decided to choose one of you." 

 

The kids were shocked! But the emperor continued. "I am going to give each one of you a seed today. One very special seed. I want you to plant the seed, water it and come back here after one year from today with what you have grown from this one seed. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next emperor!" 

One boy named Ling was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly told his mother the story. She helped him get a pot and planting soil, and he planted the seed and watered it carefully. Every day he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other youths began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow. 

Ling kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. 3 weeks, 4 weeks, 5 weeks went by. Still nothing. By now, others were talking about their plants but Ling didn't have a plant, and he felt like a failure. Six months went by, still nothing in Ling's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. 

Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Ling didn't say anything to his friends, however. He just kept waiting for his seed to grow. 

A year finally went by and all the youths of the kingdom brought their plants to the emperor for inspection. Ling told his mother that he wasn't going to take an empty pot. But honest about what happened, Ling felt sick to his stomach, but he knew his mother was right. He took his empty pot to the palace. When Ling arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other youths. They were beautiful in all shapes and sizes. Ling put his empty pot on the floor and many of the other kinds laughed at him. A few felt sorry for him and just said, "Hey nice try."

When the emperor arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted the young people. Ling just tried to hide in the back. "What great plants, trees and flowers you have grown," said the emperor. "Today, one of you will be appointed the next emperor!" All of a sudden, the emperor spotted Ling at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered his guards to bring him to the front. Ling was terrified. "The emperor knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me killed!" 

When Ling got to the front, the Emperor asked his name. "My name is Ling," he replied. All the kids were laughing and making fun of him. The emperor asked everyone to quiet down. He looked at Ling, and then announced to the crowd, "Behold your new emperor! His name is Ling!" Ling couldn't believe it. Ling couldn't even grow his seed. 

How could he be the new emperor? Then the emperor said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone here a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. 

But I gave you all boiled seeds, which would not grow. All of you, except Ling, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Ling was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new emperor!"

If you plant honesty, you will reap trust.

If you plant goodness, you will reap friends.

If you plant humility, you will reap greatness.

If you plant perseverance, you will reap victory. 

If you plant consideration, you will reap harmony.

If you plant hard work, you will reap success.

If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation.

If you plant openness, you will reap intimacy.

If you plant patience, you will reap improvements.

If you plant faith, you will reap miracles.

But 

If you plant dishonesty, you will reap distrust.

If you plant selfishness, you will reap loneliness.

If you plant pride, you will reap destruction.

If you plant envy, you will reap trouble. 

If you plant laziness, you will reap stagnation.

If you plant bitterness, you will reap isolation.

If you plant greed, you will reap loss.

If you plant gossip, you will reap enemies.

If you plant worries, you will reap wrinkles. 

If you plant sin, you will reap guilt.

  

So be careful what you plant now, It will determine what you will reap tomorrow, The seeds you now scatter, Will make life worse or better, your life or the ones who will come after. Yes, someday, you will enjoy the fruits, or you will pay for the choices you plant today

The disaster of 'me,me'

This happened in Mangalore as February 14 — now marketed as Valentine’s Day by traders to sell their wares — was approaching.

S Gurumurthy

Upset with public drinking by boys and girls, a freak by name Pramod Muthalik got mad. He got some of them in a pub beaten up like their parents would do, but unlike them. He had informed the media about his show so that the news cameras were in place to telecast the Muthalik action everywhere. Thus the Muthalik show was a joint venture between him and the media to keep away the state police, which could spoil the show. Predictably, the whole world pounced on poor Yeddyurappa who heads the BJP government in Karnataka for allowing Muthalik to take the law into his hands. The BJP, ever torn between its love of Hindu culture and its desire for a modern image, was greatly embarrassed. With the BJP in power in Karnataka, Muthalik knew the publicity value of his show. Had he enacted his theatre elsewhere, like when the Shiv Sena raided pubs years ago in Mumbai and Pune under the ‘secular’ Congress rule, it would have been far less noisy.

More. By just one mad act, Muthalik turned many, including a minister, into full-scale lunatics. Renuka Chowdhury, a minister of state, supported a “pub bharo andolan” to take on Muthalik, thus openly encouraging young boys and girls to take to mass drinking in public. And believe it or not, her portfolio is Women and Child Development. Came an even more mad response to Muthalik’s take on Valentine’s Day. “I support every kind of love, heterosexual, transgender, marital, extramarital”.

This is Arundhati Roy sermonising to youths. Why she left out incest from her catalogue of love is not clear. Now, take the secular media. It quickly equated pubgoing with individual rights, and held Muthalik as an offender against human rights. Evidently, the mad act of a freak Hindu in a distant corner of India is sufficient to turn the whole of secular India into lunatics. Now move away from this trivia to the danger to which Renukas and Arundhatis expose the nation’s economy.

The current Indian discourse on individual and human rights, which tends to smuggle in even gay and lesbian rights, apes the West. As India attempts to copy the West, it clearly misses the serious economic issues that confront West, thanks to its obsession with unfettered individual and human rights. Many in the West now seem to realise that continuously undermining the moral and social order has led to the present economic crisis. The West did not slide overnight. Beginning from the late 19th century, the Anglo-American West gradually moved away from a relation- based lifestyle to a contract-based lifestyle.

While culture and tradition govern relation, law and rights inhere in contracts.

And this move from relation to contracts became almost complete in the second half of the 20th century. With law overriding relations, even parents could not curb the rights of their wards once they legally matured.

It is the other way. If they acted against their wards, the law would punish the parents for child abuse. So contracts replaced relations, and rule of law substituted for moral order. To what effect? The rise of unfettered individualism and undefined feminism have led to the erosion of families and a rise in divorces, singleparent families, unwed mothers, lesbians, gays and almost the collapse of traditional families. Over 50 per cent of the first marriages, 67 per cent of the second marriages, and 74 per cent of the third marriages end in divorce in the US. Over 40 per cent of births are outside wedlock. Almost half of the families are headed by a single parent.

The number is more in most of Europe. It was seen as cultural erosion first. But slowly it has turned into an economic disaster.

The contract-based model undermined families and led to low or no household savings, high personal debt, credit card based living, outsourcing of household functions including kitchen work. The erosion in relation-based lifestyle soon imposed a huge social security burden on the state because the family mechanism that supported the unemployed, infirm, aged and the rest and the state had to step in to aid them. Thus the family functions were taken over by the state. The families were nationalised. The overburdened state consequently had to shed its traditional functions, like public works, and privatise itself.

The socialisation of family functions obviated the need to save for a rainy day and led to even lower savings. With the growth of individualism to the exclusion of kinship and relations, corporates and the state alike promoted unrestrained consumerism.

Result, some 110 millions US households have some 1.2 billion credit cards, almost a dozen cards per household.

As the people saved less and spent more, they got into trillions of dollars of private debt; and as the government spent more, it also ran into tens of trillions of dollars of public debt. The result is that the government is bankrupt and so households are insolvent. More, the US, the largest creditor nation of the world three decades ago, is today the number one debtor of the world, with $12.5 trillion of debt.

A quick survey shows this: all individual- centric economies are deep in debt; but nations more family-oriented and less individual- centric, like Japan, China, India, and generally Asian nations, account for over three-fourths of global savings; the individualist West lives off the savings of family-centric Asia. Today the West says that, in the present crisis only Asia, which has huge savings thanks to family orientation, can save the West, which has almost lost its traditional family lifestyle.

So the idea of unbridled human rights and unrestrained personal freedom that have led to social and cultural degeneration are increasingly seen as the cause of the present economic crisis. Weeks ago, Thomas L Friedman, a leading economic journalist, wrote in the New York Times that he had told those eating in a restaurant that they could no more afford to eat out and they had better cook and eat at home. But how will they cook and eat at home unless families are re-created? If they do, how would the US compensate for loss of employment if restaurants, which exist because households have closed their kitchens, shut down? There seems to be no solution within economic laws to the present crisis of the West. Amoral economics once yielded higher returns. It now yields negative returns.

Here Renukas and Arundhatis advocate unbridled individualism that has undermined families and morals and dynamited the economies of the West. Renuka questions the idea public morals. Arundhati advocates amoral living. Both seem unaware that an economy built at the cost of family and social morals, too collapses on the ruins of the morals it has brought down. QED: morality supports economics; lack of it ruins economies

comment@gurumurthy.net

About the author:

S Gurumurthy is a well-known commentator on political and economic issues

It is in the genes

All the characters referred to in the below blog are fictitious and bear no resemblance with anyone living or dead whatsoever. Any co-incidence is purely co-incidental and unintentional.

First time readers, please refer to the post Life or Years? for reference.

Dr. Suresh was a veteran on psychology and had gained useful insights into the human psychology; his wonderful take on the subject was the result of his 25 years of experience in this field. Being an open minded person, everyday was a learning experience for him and he used to discuss his readings and observations with Dr. Amitesh. Today was no special. So they meet over the coffee.
Dr. Suresh: “So how are your ischiophagus conjoined parasitic twins?”
Dr. Amitesh: “It does not need to be that funny.”

The medical camaraderie between the two was marvelous. Amitesh was a cardiac surgeon while Suresh was a psychologist, yet both of them shared a common belief that the human anatomy works more on psychology than medicines.

Dr. Suresh: “I know, so where do we stand at their position, are we in a position to answer their relatives confidently?”
Dr. Amitesh: “Such occurrences are rare in our life.”
Amitesh grinned. Suresh agreed, Amitesh continued.
Dr. Amitesh: “Well here we are in a pretty sound position, we have been successfully instrumental in isolating the vital shared organs like, lungs, kidney, gall bladder and small intestine and restoring blood flow in them, but she is still in a critical condition, on incubator.
Dr. Suresh: “Hmmm, sounds sweet, hopefully success should follow after this.”
Dr. Amitesh: “What’s the situation at your end? How are the alters?”
Dr. Suresh: “Well, I have sent her on a vacation for now, we need to do a hypnotic session on her using Sodium Amytal and talk to her alters so that we can get to know, the causes behind their emergence and occurrence but for that Natasha will have to undergo a lot. Also if she admits that she has a problem and is ready for treatment, all the more easy. You know what, Amitesh, I envy you guys sometimes. The fine line between mine and your patients is that your patients come and tell you your problems and they are aware that there are some problems that need treatment. My patients have to be convinced first, in majority of cases, that there are some problems which need treatment. And once they are convinced about the illness, we have to convince them that it is curable and the cure largely lies with the patients. We need to be more patient than the patients and at times we ourselves feel like one.”
Dr. Suresh grins, Dr. Amitesh follows suit in agreement.

Dr. Amitesh: “I agree, Suresh. If a problem is physical, it’s easier to handle. Mental problems are very difficult to handle as they need evidences to be proven otherwise or vice-versa which may not be so handy in many cases, like cases of delusional disorders or hallucinations.”
Dr. Suresh: “It’s all in the mind and the genes you know.”

Now this startled Amitesh, the mention of genes jostled him.

Dr. Amitesh: “I beg to differ on your take on genes.”
Dr. Suresh gives a smile.
Dr. Suresh: “It’s all there in the genes. They are not just the blueprint of a person and a species but they are much more than that. They are carriers of information across generations. Whatever has been endured and experienced by the previous generation will be immunized in the current generation. Its nature’s rule, this is the way evolution works. You see these days we see more and more girls shedding the typical domestic engineer’s role and accepting challenges and working towards their empowerment and financial independence. We see more and more youngsters rebelling against their parents to take the career of their choice, to marry the person of their own choice and leading a life of their own choice.”

Dr. Amitesh: “I agree. But that should again work for a particular community or a person.”
Dr. Suresh: “We need to understand the genetic codes and its mechanism. My vast experience on psychology related cases and my own observations compelled me to dig deep into this. Genes work at various levels and dimensions like personal level, species level, chronological dimension, spatial dimension and of course at the intersection of the inheritance level and dimension. At a personal level, the genes as transferred evolve according to the experiences and the off springs are more developed and advanced. At a species level the change is very slow and the whole species over a span of multiple generations evolves to a better species with better survival strategies, for e.g. the mosquitoes, you see with the advancement of more and more techniques to control them, the species has also become immune to these repellants. And we need stronger repellants to drive them away effectively. This is genetic evolution.

Dr. Amitesh: “Interesting. Nice take on genes I agree. Also as we are expanding in urbanization and we see more and more people travelling and settling down in new places, a new trend is coming up. People from far off places are coming in touch with each other and when they get married and produce prodigies, this new generation has a far better intellect and grasping power. This again is a result of cross-breeding of various cultures and the intermixing of wide and varied and geographically spanned genetic historic recordings. And what do you think is the cause of the rise in psychological cases these days. On a lighter note this trend should entertain you, but how do you like to put it in terms of genes?”

Dr. Suresh: “As far as my bread and butter are concerned, I have had enoughJ, but this is an alarm. We are on the verge of a genetic revolution. It will be hard to put everything in words here, but I got a nice analogy from my son who is a Computer Science & Engineering student and was discussing that day with me an interesting problem. In their jargon they call it The Producers and the Consumers Problem.

Dr, Amitesh: “Wow I see the rivers of different knowledge domains mixing to give a sea of realization and information. So what have you deduced from The Producers and the Consumers Problem.

Dr. Suresh: “This problem simply says there is a producer that produces some entity and there is a consumer that consumes the entity and there is a buffer that maintains the gap between production and consumption. The producer produces the entity and places it in the buffer and the consumer consumes from that. Whenever the rate of production supersedes the rate of consumption we have the Buffer Overrun problem and whenever the rate of consumption surpasses the rate of production we have the Buffer Underrun problem. Both of these are fatal in appropriate scenarios and need to be handled effectively for their systems to run flawlessly.

Dr. Amitesh: “Nice.”

Dr. Suresh: “The relation between the genes and psychology is also the similar. The tepidity with which the evolutions and the environmental conditions are changing, the genes are not able to respond properly and they start behaving abnormally and hence we see whatever we are witnessing. More delusional disorders, more hallucinations, more Near-Death-Experiences, more stress levels, more tensions, more blood pressure related problems, and in short more mental and hormonal disorders.

Dr. Amitesh: “True and it seems the solution is far lagging behind in the race as compared to the problems. But anyways had a nice discussion today though. Quite an enlightening one. I will have to leave now, let’s see how are the twins doing? Catch you up later.”

Dr. Suresh: “Yeah sure, carry on.”

Life or Years?

All the characters referred to in the below blog are fictitious and bear no resemblance with anyone living or dead whatsoever. Any co-incidence is purely co-incidental and unintentional.

Natasha woke up and found herself in a hotel room. She was shabbily dressed and was not able to recollect how she had landed in this room. She saw the menu card lying there, and read the name of the hotel, “Nandan Van, FC road Pune”. Pune!!!, how come I reached Pune from Bangalore! She thought. But she was not at all able to recollect the last 2 days of her life. And again on returning back to Bangalore, the same fear followed her, someone stalking her. This fear was killing her and she was not able to concentrate. She walked straight into the chamber of Dr. Suresh Malhotra. After listening carefully to her, and her problems of her fears of being stalked, her complete loss of memory over elongated periods sometimes extending to weeks and people around her trying to remind her of instances, of which she is completely unaware of and sometimes finding herself in places, she had never thought of visiting or any remembrance of how she reached there, Dr. Suresh could conclude only one thing, the presence of alters in Natasha. She was a victim of a psychological disorder called Dissociative Identity Disorder, better known as the Multiple Personality Disorder to the layman. This was further corroborated with the fact that people have sometimes addressed Natasha as Nisha, Nausheen and Rosemary. The problem was grave, Dr. Suresh thought, 4 alters. He thought. But this was not the right time to disclose. He just told Natasha that she was overworked and needed rest. He advised her to go on a vacation, thus buying time to work on the case. After she left, the problem persisted. Dr. Suresh was pondering over it.

In the evening he met his pal Dr. Amitesh Mehra, who was talking about a case of “ischiophagus conjoined parasitic twins”, a rare case of conjugal Siamese twins, where the child has two pairs of limbs, hands and the other twin is residing inside the host, sharing nutrition, kidney, anal channel and excretory channels. Dr. Suresh was bewildered at hearing it. Nature had its own way of performing miracles he thought. On one side he had a case of Dissociative Identity Disorder, where the person herself was not aware of the existence of three other personalities residing within who take up turns to make her perform things she’d never imagined. Also when the alters (the personalities, Nisha, Nausheen and Rosemary better referred to as alters henceforth) took control Natasha was lost, a personality, a part of Natasha was lost. On the other side he was hearing a case of parasitic twins, where a real physical person resided inside another, two personalities, completely distinct, sharing space and nutrition.

Dr. Suresh: “So how do you think are you going to cure the parasitic twins?”
Dr. Amitesh: “We will operate on them and separate them through surgery. The operation may take anything between 28 – 35 hrs, depending on how well the patient responds to the treatment. Also we have other issues like tissue growth and kidney transplant, the parasitic twin is drawing nutrition from the host. Alimentary canal and the breathing duct also need to be separated.”
Dr. Suresh: “Seems complex but at least you have something physical and concrete to work on.”
Dr. Amitesh: “What’s the matter with you?”
Dr. Suresh told him of the case of Natasha. Although multiple personality disorder has a rich history and literature, it is a practically incurable disease so far with no guarantee on the timeline. It all depends on the origin of the personalities and the very fact that patients sometimes refuse treatment, on grounds that they are not ill and no personality resides within them. Dr. Suresh thought how different personality development is from the case of parasitic twins. Not very much except for the fact that the two personalities in the parasitic twins case have a separate physical existence, here the same person assumes different roles, portrays altogether different personas. But parasitic twins do not harm anybody. But people with multiple personality are rarely harmless. Natasha can be very harmful, it will be very necessary to dig into her past and know the reasons that have given rise to these alters in her. But that being a cumbersome and lengthy process, void of any guarantee of success even after elongated psychotherapist sessions, Dr. Suresh was getting wary over it, when he heard Dr. Jaya Mathur speaking to someone on phone,

Jaya: “After listening to your case, it seems the person is suffering from BorderLine Personality Disorder.” Dr. Suresh was alarmed hearing the words, BorderLine Personality Disorder. Another psychological disorder which wreaks havoc on the life of the patients and the loved ones of the patient.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is defined as a personality disorder primarily characterized by emotional dysregulation, extreme "black and white" thinking, or "splitting", and chaotic relationships. Their mood swings like a pendulum and they can love someone till eternity in a moment and at the very next moment they hate them to the extent of posing any harm to them. Dr. Suresh was thinking about all this and thought how psychological disorders had led to most of the problems in today’s life. The most alarming fact was the rise in the number of such cases with modernization and urbanization. This was surely related to the increase in the stress level of the population. The average income of an individual has no doubt increased manifold, but as they say, everything has a price; the increase in income brought with itself an increased paranoia to invite more and more stress in life. Today as we see youngsters starting their earnings with thousands, magnitude times with what their fathers started, but living standards have shown a dramatic downfall. They might have added years to life, but have not added life to years.

Negativity works

All the characters referred to in the below blog are fictitious and bear no resemblance with anyone living or dead whatsoever. Any co-incidence is purely co-incidental and unintentional.

X: “Hey you know A, she seeing B these days.”
Y: “Oh really!!! how come you know about it?”
X: “I had been closely following the two, and then rounded up A over it, initially she was hesitant but I was insistent, and she succumbed, admitted to having seeing him, but says they are JUST FRIENDS and that’s it.”
Y: “Oh I see. Interesting.”
X: “But it stays between us, right? I’d promised A not to disclose this to anyone, but you know we share everything, so just told YOU.”
Y: “Yeah don’t worry.”

Both of them sign each other off exchanging pleasantries. Exactly similar conversation takes place after some time between X & Z and Y & W.

X: “Hi, blah blah blah”
Z: “blah blah blah”
X: “But it stays between us, right? I’d promised A not to disclose this to anyone, but you know we share everything, so just told YOU.”
Z: “Yeah don’t worry.”
Y: “Hi, blah blah blah”
W: “blah blah blah”
Y: “But it stays between us, right? I’d promised A not to disclose this to anyone, but you know we share everything, so just told YOU.”
W: “Yeah don’t worry.”

so on and so forth, the word spreads. Almost every body comes to know about the on going JUST FRIENDSHIP between A and B. B does not like it. Men never like it and women do not want it to happen but it still happens. And it happened here because A trusted X and confided about her relationship to B but on condition of concealment. X promised but went back on her words. And then the same thing happened with Y, he also went back on his words and so went back all those W’s, Z’s et al. who not only spread the word about the relationship of A and B but also other stories started making rounds. A and B remained the hot topic of discussion in the office for some days until someone said that the VP had been seen at a dinner at the Taj with his secretary and the focus of gossip shifted, a hotter topic was available, but in this case there was neither any element of concealment present, nor its presence justified, but in the earlier case A had told X not to disclose, but still X did, so what prompted X to do so?

Jealousy towards A for having gotten B, excitement, anxiety, some grudge against either of A or B or some other cause. Well all of the above causes do find their respective share of justification in the explanation for X’s behavior, but still all the above are circumstantial, the presence of which might / might not have triggered the spreading of rumors as also all / some / none of the causes might again not apply to the behavior of the Y’s, W’s et al. So there has to be some sort of commonality in the behavior pattern and so arises the obvious question as to what is it?

Well the answer is ‘Its negativity’. The element of negativity in all the conversations is fairly obvious yet unnoticed. Let us have a look at the following statements.

But it stays between us, right? I’d promised A not to disclose this to anyone, but you know we share everything, so just told YOU.

This is the negativity involved. X thinks, why is A telling this to me. And there is an element of forbiddingness in the statement that provokes. As a natural tendency human beings tend to do forbidden things first hand. If history is to be believed then supposedly this element of negativity explains the propagation of human race. Eve was forbidden to eat the APPLE, but the element of negativity in the forbiddingness compelled her to do the FIRST SIN and rest is history and ever since it has been this element of negativity that has served as the driving force between all the major events so far, constructive or destructive.

As a destructive tool it is the easiest method to spread rumors and falsities about anyone. The statement, “DO NOT TELL ANYONE” is a self-provoking one. It sparks a plethora of questions, the first one being, “If it is not meant to be told to ANYBODY, then WHY AM I THE CHOSEN ONE.” and some other obvious questions as well, “What are the implications if I spread / keep mum / or discuss with someone in private. The first two options might seem a little dramatic, but the third option most often rules the roost.

Discuss with someone in private, but the irony here is that paradox involved in the underlying negativity element which slowly includes everyone in the ambit of someone and the word is out. But negativity is not about spreading rumors or a mere characteristic behavioral pattern of gossip-mongers. It has many positive effects as well. The mandate of negativity is to generate curiosity and this can work in a constructive manner as well.

Let us get back to the start of the world. What if negativity did not exist in human nature and Eve had not taken that APPLE, Adam and Eve would never have participated in the first ever creation process and human race would not have propagated. It was the negativity element in Eve’s nature that she, on being forbidden to have the apple, got provoked, had it and then time witnessed expansion of human race. So is negativity a boon in disguise? A question too hard to answer. Even in mathematics the sign for positive ‘+’ is formed by crossing the sign for negative ‘-‘, which clearly shows the endowment of EVIL prior to the bestowment of GOOD.

The Sensation of Touch

All the characters referred to in the below blog are fictitious and bear no resemblance with anyone living or dead whatsoever. Any co-incidence is purely co-incidental and unintentional.

Prologue: A small kid, Jignesh is sitting in his class. He is in the sixth standard and the Life Science is going on. The teacher is taking lessons on the “Sense Organs”

Teacher: “Students we have 5 sense organs.
1. Eyes (The sensation of Vision)
2. Ears (The sensation of Hearing)
3. Nose (The sensation of Smell)
4. Tongue (The sensation of Taste) and last but not the least
5. Skin (The sensation of Touch)”

As the final words echoed around the acoustic peripheries of the room, there was one student amongst the rest who was getting emphatic about the whole thing and could not stop himself, and started chatting with his neighbor.

Jignesh: “Hey Andy, you are quite comfortable with girls tell me, how it feels when a girl touches?”
Andy: “This is not the right time, will talk to you over this later.”
Jignesh: “Hey tell no buddy, anyway this class is boring.”
Andy: “OK, it feels nice; you will enjoy the ‘TOUCH’, its totally different.”

The words reverberated in Jignesh’s mind for long but nothing happened. Years followed and Jignesh took up Science as his subject of interest and got interested in studying about the most interesting organ of human anatomy: THE HUMAN BRAIN. Axons, neurons, cerebral hemispheres: The Frontal Lobe, the Parietal Lobe, the Occipital Lobe, the Temporal Lobe. Of these the Parietal Lobe (perception of stimuli) was of primary importance to him as those words were still making rounds in the Temporal Lobe (memory) of his brain: it feels nice, you will enjoy the ‘TOUCH’, its totally different.

He was still thinking, “What is that is so enjoyable in a woman’s touch?” And started a chain of thoughts. Nostalgia was gripping the center stage in his Temporal Lobe. He started drifting down the memory lane.

He was able to see the serendipity of the Jahnavi’s soothing silhouette from the corridors of the college, standing there as an epitome of Indian beauty. And the burning desire of talking to Jahnavi getting the better of him he maneuvered his steps towards her. Aah who said there are no vibes? Jahnavi could very well feel them in the air that someone has just stopped staring at her and now that silhouette was moving close to her. But did anyone say that vibes transmit as well? Otherwise how in the midst of so much noise, could Kamini get a feel of what was going on. Jignesh goes up to Jahnavi. Aah what an encounter. The charisma of Jahnavi’s beauty melting in the eyes of Jignesh, but alas he’s a miser at words to express himself or his desire to befriend Jahnavi. But secretly, he wishes to shake hands with her saying a cheerful “Hello”, to experience that ‘TOUCH’ which Andy described to him 6-7 years ago, and essence of which has so far eluded him, thanks to his uncanny inability to open up with girls and thanks to his ‘BOOKWORM’ image. But today Jignesh had to muster that much needed dose of courage to speak up. He tried his level best to walk up to her, brushed aside by her shoulders, her arms exposed by the sleeveless cute pink kameez and slightly curtained by the soft silky orangish-yellow chunni spurned around her adding glistening charms to her majestic beauty like bioluminescent plankton giving attractive chimes in a fresh water pond. The effect of the brush was phenomenal. Andy was right. it feels nice; you will enjoy the ‘TOUCH’.

Jignesh: “Hi… I am…. I am so sorry, actually I didn’t mean to….. I was just going through my books…..
Barely could he speak, poor thing. He was not even aware how Jahnavi is going to react to this careful mistake of his.
Jahnavi: “It’s OKJ, no problem.”

Laughing at it, less at the careful mistake by Jignesh and his subsequent stammering apology, and more at the realization that secretly how much she had enjoyed that TOUCH. But alas, if expressiveness was Jignesh’s problem, inhibitions were hers. All she could do is pass away giving a smile to him. He stood there speechless, thinking whether he will ever be again able to talk to her.

“So how good are we?”

Siddharth’s words jolted Jignesh out of the reverie. Siddharth Oberoi, the mastermind on the research, “The Sensation of Touch” and also the financial backbone of the study was more than just a co-worker and financer of the project. He was Siddharth’s closest friend.

Jignesh: “Well pretty good, I think we should be in form in a couple of weeks, and then we can go public about it. I’ll show you a small sample. The Sensation of Touch is simply a chemical reaction. It’s more like a mental phenomenon. Of course there’s biochemistry behind it, the Na/K (Sodium / Potassium) cells have their pH altered and this triggers a chemical imbalance in the Central Nervous System with impulses traveling from the point of touch to the Parietal Lobe. All this happens in a fraction of nanoseconds. The touch sensation is analyzed there and the response for the stimuli is generated”

Siddharth: “Sorry to disturb you, Jignesh, but I feel this is going too technical, we need to stress more on psychological aspect of touch. Touch is one such sense which has so many beautiful meanings attached to it. Ever imagined what happens when you do not fair well in your exams, feel stressed out and your mother puts her hands on your head and all worries are driven away in a flash of a second as if someone’s magically let loose a fatal dose on your tensions. Its assurance from your mother, “Do not worry son, there’s always a next time.” We need to explore more on the relation that exists between those unspoken words that come associated with a touch. Have you ever wondered how elated one can feel when that romantic touch enthralls on him / her from the beloved, especially the effect is more pronounced when you think about the person and that person jolts you out of the reverie with that ‘TOUCH’. So how do you think this extra zing to the touch comes into play keeping in mind the sensitivities of the above mentioned scenarios. Its feelings, expectations, and attachments, Jignesh, that also play a very vital role in deciding the effect of the “The Sensation of Touch.” It is not merely those Na/k cells triggering the reactions in the Parietal Lobe, but it has also got a meta-physical and Para psychological aspect to it as well. Also when there’s an element of surprise associated with it all the more fun. Its like you want something, inhibiting to exhibit the desire, you get it and you rejoice.”

The words knocked hard at the Temporal Lobe (associated with memory) of Jignesh like a thunderbolt. Thoughts traveling down his memory lane, with the tepidity of hammerhead sharks traveling in a megaplume, at the sense of blood a mile away with their enhanced telencephalon olfactory lobes, and he was still standing there trying to gather him after that “brush” with Jahnavi.

Kamini had been watching the whole scenario dispassionately. She could sense the inability of Jignesh in expressing his desire and then the debacle, the careful mistake, the stammering apology and the enigmatic, revealing yet concealing smile of Jahnavi.

“Boys will always be boys”, she said, swirling down her sensuous fingers down Jignesh’s face line. The ‘TOUCH’ almost threw the ground off Jignesh’s feet. Little did he expect that the ‘TOUCH’ which has so far eluded will be showered upon him extravagantly the manner it was being showered.

Siddharth: “I hope you are getting my point Jignesh.”, placing a hand on Jignesh’s shoulders and Jignesh, dragged back to the present agreed that Siddharth was right. Definitely the Na/K cells played the technical role in the sensation of touch, but its effects were surely affected by the psychological state of the individual and other dynamics associated with the touch. More research needs to be done on this. Having said that he was again back to his college days. Jahnavi was simply too hard to ignore. Her flawless beauty compounded by her simplicity and her charismatic charm supplemented by her 1000 watts smile was a treat to an eye. Jignesh thought Jahnavi was just his dream and he could never strike a relationship with her. Moreover his hectic schedule in Science did not allow him to take out time for Jahnavi. But her thoughts always took him back to those lovely college days where he could at least see her. That sensation of her ‘TOUCH’ always remained afresh in his mind this research of his on ‘The Sensation of Touch’ had reminisced him of that essence innumerable times.