The Wills and The Ways

If you are born to illiterate parents, and spent your early childhood in a village riding buffaloes, and the latter part a wheelchair and were an object of curiosity to the villagers who wanted to see how a boy without legs looked, would you ever think of cracking the IIT-JEE? And then bagging one of the most prestigious campus jobs, at Google four years later?

This story might seem straight out of an Amitabh Bachchan starrer rising from rags to riches against all odds, but that is what Naga Naresh Karuturi just did.

Born in Teeparru, a small village in Andhra Pradesh, Naga was a normal child till that fateful day in 1993, when the lorry-driver father took his family to a nearby village for a family function. Our seven-year-old hero was fiddling with the door latch and it opened wide throwing him out, scratching his legs in the process. The government hospital he was taken to conducted a surgery as his small intestine had gotten twisted, and bandaged his legs. A week later, they realized gangrene had developed in his legs upto the knees. He was referred to the district hospital where both of his legs were amputated upto the hips.

It requires amazing levels of optimism, courage, zeal, and determination for a seven-year old kid to recover from the shock of losing both his legs, not being a normal child anymore, but still continuing his studies to reach one of the top institutions in the country. The credit also goes to supportive parents and sister. His parents did not know anything about the residential school he later went or about IIT, but they always saw to it that he was encouraged in whatever he wanted to do. If the results were good, they would praise him to the skies and if bad, they would try to see something good in that. They did not just want him to feel bad. Wonderful supportive parents.

His sister Sirisha's contribution to his success was even more. She had to sacrifice two years of her studies to be in the same class as Naga, so that she could take care of him. She never complained. She was always there by his side.

Naga has an unflinching faith in God, and believes He plans everything for you. "If not for the accident, I may not have studied after the 10th, and may have started working as a farmer or something like that. I am sure God had other plans for me.", told Naga Naresh in an interview to rediff.

He also believes in destiny and that the world if full of good people. From MFMS missionary school that gave him and his sister free education upto 10th, Gowtham Junior College that waived the school fees of 50K a year, IIT-Madras where lifts and ramps were installed for him in the Computer Science department and an attached bathroom in his hostel room, to that stranger in the train who took care of his hostel fees from then on, he has been helped by everyone. He says, "I feel if you are motivated and show some initiative, people around you will always help you.", echoing the famous quote from The Alchemist: When a person really desires something, the entire universe conspires to help that person realize his dream..

Visit his orkut profile and you'll see floods of scraps from people congratulating him, asking for interviews and all. I am not sure whether I should contact him. Now that he is in Google Bangalore, I would even like to meet him, but do not know if that would be warranted. But I can get inspired by him and explore and use up my potential rather than procrastinating and leading a laid-back life.

To Abort or Not to: A Win-Win Situation

The nationwide debate on abortion has rather intensified after the Mumbai High Court's dismissal of Niketa and Haresh Mehtas' plea to terminate a pregnancy to prevent birth of a disabled child. The case has split opinions from two sects: pro-life versus pro-quality-of-life.

Though it was everywhere on the news, a brief about the case for the uninitiated: the Mehtas learnt after their second sonography and echocardiography that the foetus she was carrying for 22 weeks has two abnormalities in the heart and malpositioned arteries, which would require a pacemaker soon after birth and the entire life of the child. Sensing life-long trauma and probable handicaps and shortcomings for the unborn baby, the expectant parents decided to move court to seek permission to abort. However, the Mumbai High Court refused to allow Niketa to abort her 26-week foetus following a second report from JJ Hospital, which had modified "fair" chances of the child having congenital disorders to "few" chances, claiming that to be a typo.

The court quashed the Mehtas' honest and brave act with a viewpoint that it would set a bad example. Isn't a worse example set now? No other parents who face a similar problem will now go the legal way. Mothers-to-be are getting more worried now, and are going for repeat sonographies and other obgyn consultations lest their wombs have foetuses with congenital diseases. The verdict of this case would surely increase the already high number of five million illegal abortions in India every year.

Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said there was no need to change the MTP Act just for a one-off case. But exceptions could be made. Around a month ago, the Romanian government permitted abortion to an 11-year old girl due the exceptional circumstances of her case(pregnancy as a result of rape by an uncle), even though she was 21-weeks pregnant and the Romanian abortion limit is 14 weeks. Abortion laws are much more lenient in India than many other nations as can be seen here and here, but we fail to make exceptions and set examples. Rather, we tend to stick to age-old laws and rule out any amendments, on the contrary claiming that if it has been working for so long, it should work now also.

This is a major failure on the part of our judicial system. They might have saved the law in this case but in the process opened gates for more cases of breaking the same law. The only concern that the lawmakers should have had is how to prevent people trying to legally abort female foetuses under the blanket of congenital diseases. That could have been dealt with deftly by stricter laws for other procedures like amniocentesis rather than outrightly dismissing a very valid case.

The unborn baby is already a hero, and is seeking attention and debate from all over. Pro-lifers like the Archbishop of Mumbai have proposed adoption of the child by his church. The CEO of Jaslok Hospital has offered to bear the complete cost of surgery and pacemakers. The Mehtas did the right thing, and they would now be happy to bring the child to this world. I see them rewarded in a way; this has brought their child already to the limelight. Godforbids the Mehtas' worst fears come true, the child will not suffer because of lack of medical care or finances; I am sure the best possible medical facilities developed by mankind would be readily available. And one day when the child grows up and learns to read and understand, and comes to know of this trial and the nationwide furore, pride for his parents would definitely be one of the feelings.

The Mehtas have been accused of not wanting their child. I don't think it is easy for any mother to think of aborting her baby. What the Mehtas do not want is a disabled child, who might have to face innumerable challenges throughout life. It is more for the baby than for them. They love the child so much they do not want to bring him out to face the atrocities of this cruel world. It takes a hell lot of courage and heart to do so. I hope their efforts do not go in vain and this case acts as an eye-opener and no other Mehta couple faces this.

As Bachi Karkaria puts it, the end of the case will not be the end of the debate. And that itself is a victory.

Image: 26-week old foetus, Courtesy: http://www.deanbryanstewart.com

Life or Something Like it

It has been quite some time many of the regular readers of this irregular blog have been asking now and then about its well-being. Well, I might say my blog reflects my life, and irregularity is a part of life, and so are randomness, uncertainty and unpredictability. This non-linear phenomenon sounds like discrete entropy, but that is what life resembles, only that you cannot measure it quantitatively. The absence of all this causes anything to get stagnant and drain all thrill out of it, be it a subatomic particle, or a highly complex human machinery, or an ever-fluctuating stock market index. They are of interest as long they are volatile. This applies to life as well.

I tried fathom the reason for this four-post old blog not getting any older, and reflected upon what I have been doing for the past few months, in the process of which I realized I’ve been unknowingly following 17^th century philosophizer Baruch de Spinoza’s 67^th Proposition in Part IV of his magnum opus, "The Ethics":

Homo liber nulla de re minus quam de morte cogitat; et ejus sapientia non mortis sed vitae meditatio est.
(There is nothing over which a free man ponders less than death; his wisdom is, to meditate not on death but on life.)

Contemplate on life did I, but coming to, or even trying to come to, a conclusion about life in such a short time would be blasphemous. The egocentric part of me was concerned more about my own life, which is as at ease and peaceful as one would want. But, as aforesaid, stagnation makes it dull. Joblessness adds boredom. A lack of ambition and sense of direction makes it dreadful. Random, silly, stupid, insane, horrendous, impossible, weird, long chains of thoughts keep fluttering in from nowhere and everywhere.

So why was I absent from my not-so old blog? Was I able to get to the root cause? What was keeping me busy? Nothing—there was no worthy reason—as I admitted above, the work load was not enough to cramp me up. Actually I was upset, frustrated, brooding, anxious and irritable; I was cribbing, angry with the world, with myself, was picking up quarrels with most of my well-wishers on trivial issues. My sincere apologies to my parents, sisters, and friends.

I am as confused as to why am I writing this as to why am I living life the way I am—stagnant, boring, lone, insecure, restless are a few fitting adjectives. Procrastination has reached its pinnacle. Basic tasks that require immediate attention stay put for weeks. Life is getting lethargic, routine, and I am getting older. Life is moving at a pace I don’t like. I was (I wish to think I still am) the kind of guy who, given a choice between choosing a stable, peaceful path and one involving hurdles and experimentation, would always choose the latter. Of late, however, things have been quite different. There have been times I want to do many things at a time, and end up doing none. Or worse, start something, reach a twentieth or fiftieth or hundredth of it, and then abandon it. There have been times I do not want to do anything at all—not even lie down and think.

There are a hundred things I could do to keep me engaged, you would suggest. I already know hundred and one. I know the problem, and I know the solution; I have been only too foolish/lazy to incorporate it and find something really engrossing.

In the song about discontent with life entitled "Why Georgia", John Mayer muses:

Might be a quarter-life crisis
Or just a stirrin' in my soul
Either way
I wonder sometimes
About the outcome
Of a still verdictless life
Am I living it right?

This makes me do a double take on whether I am living it right? Am I suffering from a quarter-life crisis? I wonder if that is it, would I automatically get rid of it once I age to the third from the quarter?