War and Virus

War has been an integral part of humanity ever since its evolution. The greatest enemy of mankind has always been man. We have fought wars to dominate one another and achieving war supremacy has been our prime purpose of our existence.

Until recently, War was the only thing humanity really planned for as a universal calamity and feared would wipe him out of existence and hence our focus has been to develop our defense systems even at the cost of our immune systems. When bunkers were being built, quarantine centers were the last thing on their agenda. The Defense budgets in poorer countries far eclipsed the allocation for alleviation of poverty or even healthcare & nutrition.

This quest for supremacy in warfare and war time requirements has in fact stoked most of the industrial inventions and innovations. Furthermore the concepts of war found its way into corporate management and war analogies was used across functions in the corporate world. We introduced corporate jargon prefixed and suffixed with war, War Rooms, war footing, price war etc. Basic fundamentals of negotiation of even a harmless everyday product were drawn from war time strategies / thinking.

Most of my knowledge of wars has been from the history books and fortunately have not found myself in a war zone yet, the closest I got to ‘see’ a war was the Gulf War in the early nineties, which has the credentials of being the first war to take the media by storm and was beamed live over international and national channels. I learnt all about scud missiles and early warning systems etc. I learnt for every Scud that was launched there was a Patriot anti-missile system well in place.

From the first industrial revolution of the 18^th century to the most acclaimed fourth  revolution more commonly referred to as Industry 4.0, the catalyst for development has always been war time needs. Even the first workable prototype of the Internet in the late 1960s with the creation of ARPANET, was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. No wonder once a virus hits the internet, an anti-virus patch is made available within hours by the Kasperskys and the McAfees of the world.

Man fears War more than anything in this world and this fear is the one that sells the most, that’s the reason why even a small civil war happening in the most insignificant of regions of the world finds its way to the front pages and primetime media and not the news of starvations or an epidemic in some deep corners of an under developed part of the world. That’s the reason why I feared for my life when Gulf War happened thousands of miles away from where I was. This is why, even when we had enough early warnings in the form of SARS / MERS & Ebola we did very little and waited for it to blow over and scorned it as just another flu. The virus did not instill the same sense of fear or urgency a war would into our psyches.

Today, even when the whole of humanity is held to ransom by a virus which has claimed lives equivalent to war time causalities; I still don’t see the same fear that war would bring in the eyes of humanity. They certainly are worried, but not frightened. The dalgona challenge, cooking adventures, fitness histrionics etc that are making the rounds on the internet just show that while we are trying to stay away from the virus we are not as much perturbed by it. Can you imagine indulging in such frivolous pastimes when missiles fly over your skyline and tanks roll down the highways?

In pursuit of our Industrial and War time supremacy we have under invested time and money into basic health care and the wellness of humanity. We have a wrist watch that measures our BMI or the steps we take but cannot detect viruses we touch. Industries were too focused on lifestyle diseases rather than life threatening diseases. When Industry 4.0 was happening we forgot to develop our Life Sciences 4.0 or Values 4.0. The harsh reality is that a Premier League football club and its players earn more than a Bio-Science researcher.

Finally, the irony is that we are now fighting a Virus from War rooms that were set up on a War footing but continue to carry out ‘Surgical’ strikes with ‘clinical’ precision during a war! Sadly humanity is gifted with short term and preferential memory; that’s why, memories of World Wars and other wars outshine the great plague or even the Spanish Flu.  A Corona Virus memorial will not kindle the same emotion in a human as visiting a War memorial.

The Virus that went Viral!

Virus:

"An infective agent that typically consists of a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat, is too small to be seen by light microscopy, and is able to multiply only within the living cells of a host."

This is the only meaning of Virus we knew growing up and then came along a new one when information technology emerged.

"A piece of code which is capable of copying itself and typically has a detrimental effect, such as corrupting the system or destroying data."

Viral:

"Of the nature of, caused by, or relating to a virus or viruses."
 
We understood this too well until the millennials came along and taught us their sole objective in life was to make things go viral. Something as trivial as a video of a loud sneeze started going viral. Bless You!
 

"(Of an image, video, piece of information, etc.) Circulated rapidly and widely from one Internet user to another"

We were doing pretty well with all the above interpretations, until a humble flu virus came along and humanity took it upon them to make both the virus and the information about it viral. This was when Life sciences crossed swords with the Information Revolution and is proving to be fatal both realistically and virtually.

It came by the name Corona; it meant Crown or wreath in Greek. Humanity were of late behaving like kings of the universe and they carried a halo of invincibility around inflated heads, little did they realize a crown when placed horizontally across their 56 inch chest could also be referred to as a wreath, the last floral arrangement that will adorn you ever!

The buzzword today is Social Distancing. We were already experts at it the last few years and since the advent of social media we have been distancing ourselves socially; we had become a tribe addicted to our smart phones. We were in fact only poking or pinging socially, now they have added a physical measure to it too, the distancing. The most affected would be the page 3 crowd and the millennials who hug each other at the drop of a hat, who now will have to take a temporary break from it. A Bollywood diva, now a Hollywood spouse recently claimed she has promoted Namaste to the western world for long; hopefully she does not become the brand ambassador for the same. This humble mode of salutation is now basking in its minute of fame & glory. From Royals to Political leaders across the world are patronizing it and the nationalists back home are like, We told you so!!!  Wish we had patented the Namaste, we could have bartered it for the Kohinoor.

Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, App for every trivial tasks, we were slowly growing bigger for our shoes, when man plays God, God plays with man. The great nations across the globe are being brought to its knees even as this is being written, by a humble virus and the whole of Humanity is feeling the sense of vulnerability that they have never felt in centuries. Cutting across the rich and poor the virus has proved to be an equal-opportunity attacker, a true socialist at heart, no wonder it began its journey from China. As we start to self-isolate ourselves we are going through what I call the Noah’s Ark moment, just that ark needs to be well partitioned. The 40 days and nights has also a significance in the origins of the word quarantine, the root of which is the Italian word Quaranta Giorni that also means 40 days, the number of days people were isolated during the great plague, Black Death, in the 13^th Century.

As we spend our time in isolation and look at the world slowing around us, it is time to introspect on how vulnerable we as a tribe are and it’s time to get our priorities in order, however as I type, someone has cracked an algorithm to detect a virus by your voice and would launch an app for the same soon….and then what I ask? Again a case of skewed priorities!

Let’s pledge to be socially responsible by being prudent on social media and slow the viral spread of the virus rather than creating a fear psychosis around it by making it go viral!

A few inches of feet!

I’m back after a hiatus and let me begin by Wishing you all a Blessed 2020.

After a certain age discussions on health becomes the most discussed topic in town, particularly when section 144 is not in place. This happens when 3 or less who are at the cusp of half a century meet, we start talking about our cholesterol, sugar, blocks and all levels possible. Amongst the 3 one will be a health guru who dishes out unsolicited gyan, the other the ardent follower of the guru, one who vouches for all that the health guru doles out and the third, a skeptical one who is actually afraid to live long since he does not have enough insurance to cover his extended stay on planet Earth. Yours truly is the third protagonist in this story.

The health guru rattles out words like KETO, LDL / HDL Cholesterol , Type 1, 2 3 Diabetes,  Intermittent fasting, Bullet coffee, OMAD (for the uninitiated it stands for One Meal A Day) etc. The skeptical one sips on the gin and tonic bubbly while biting into a lamb chops barbeque and listens to this entire health gobbledygook while the 2^nd person takes notes on longevity.

 The health awareness cult hit its nadir when I came across the concept of Gutter Gourmet. A lifestyle that eulogizes the benefits of scavenging food from dustbins and leftovers at restaurants to contain diabetes and to further their cause they link a UN sustainable developmental goal to it …reducing waste. It is at this point I lost all patience and took to writing this blog.

It is not my intent to show disrespect to the hardcore patrons of a disciplined health / nutritional regime, but the sad part is that man has started playing God these days by challenging the process of metabolism and toying with the Protein and Carbohydrate levels and reducing the human body to the level of a high school chemistry lab experiment. Religious texts were misinterpreted in several ways all these years to the convenience of a few, leading to the disturbance of peace and brotherhood all around the world, and now the same malaise has befallen Health science. We have contradicting versions around the correct measures of Cholesterol, effects of Carbs or even the diabetic counts or the condition of the arteries that pump blood to the heart.

Doctors were a revered tribe and we took their word in the good old days and followed their advice religiously, sadly it’s not the case anymore, today we have Dr. Google at our finger tips and as soon as the doc writes a prescription we engage him into a conversation that will remind him of his graduation dissertation. Doc! ”Why does the content of the pill you prescribed show 5.2 mg of Phenylalanine, I know for sure it’s not suitable for persons with Phenylketonuria”. At this, the poor doc gets stumped. We have sadly started to abuse the access to information we have and end up challenging the doctor and his expertise. Not that all docs are saints but for the sake of generalization I would place the majority on the right side of things in this noble profession.

There are an equal number of papers on the internet that say Carbs are needed as much as there are on the ones professing zero carb diets, similarly with Cholesterol levels, diabetes etc.  So where do we draw a line? We all have an unique genetic make-up and have been brought up on some kind of dietary habits almost half our lives and suddenly one fine morning we decide we see the need to reverse that fat build up around the waist/ abdomen and we are advised the best way is by going for an entire change in nutritional regime which is still not proven in the long term. They ask me to shun all what my ancestors ate and ended up living beyond the nineties. Genetically I have inherited their genes. Well, the counter argument could be the quality of the food or the lifestyle we lead today or the environment we live in are far different from that of our ancestors. So be it…I am willing to discount a clear 15 or 20 years from the 90 they ended up with and more so, the societal / familial support system  is falling apart these days and I cannot afford to support myself that long on my own.

My mantra is to follow a lifestyle and food habits that you have been born and brought up with, the genes are designed to take them, moderate the intake to counter the ill effects of poor production conditions your food has gone through and the causes due to external environmental factors like pollution etc. you are subjected to. Here I am trying to lose a couple of inches around by belly to fit  into those slim fit shirt they make these days, sadly it is slim fit or Plus sizes nothing for the in-betweens. I certainly don’t intend to go on zero carb or on an intermittent fasting regime. Will moderate my intake and see where it takes me. Intermittent eating sounds more positive than intermittent fasting and I still intend to have 3 square meals a day as long as I can afford and am alive.

I am not looking at a six pack; all I want is, to see a “few inches of my feet” when I stand straight and look down without the view being obstructed by my abdominal fat.

Music transcends languages

It’s that time of the year when painting happens at home before Christmas, We end up changing wall colors once in a while to break the monotony and it was the time to do so. The painter assigned to me by the facility management team of the real estate company landed at home on the day sporting a broad smile and with the help of an interpreter explained French and Arabic were the only two languages he spoke.

Day one started with my wife taking a day off from work and explaining to him with the aid of google translate the rooms he needed to start with and the shades she wanted etc. Wife ended up learning broken French and bits of Arabic as she managed to learn all terms related to painting in these two languages.

Day 2 was my responsibility and here I was armed with 2 Years of elementary French tried explaining to him that I spoke very little French in French and Arabic…It went something like this…Je ne parlez pas Francais, Je parle shwayye shwayye!!! Roughly translated as, I don’t speak French but only little…little in a mix of French and Levantine Arabic. Though he understood he just laughed off my illiteracy and continued working rather uninspired cursing his fate on landing up with an Indian family who spoke no French or Arabic.

I ended up striking a conversation with him and I understood with the help of a globe and animated gestures he was born in Tunisa but spent time in Algeria and Morocco. That’s when an idea struck me. I played the number ‘Didi’ sung by Khaled, the first Arabic song we Indians fell in love with in the early 90’s. We had only fallen in love with the beats and rhythm and till date; do not know the lyrics or its meaning.  As soon as he heard it, his face lit up bright and started to sing along. I could see a marked difference in his approach to the job on hand. The efficiency level had gone up and there by the productivity. We ended up discussing other Khaled songs and as I started to play one after another sacrificing my Friday afternoon slot for Illayaraja music, I realized I was really making him feel at home.

He then came up to me and mentioned Maami, Maami and frantically gestured pointing at my wife when I look bewildered he started raising his hands and also pointing to his ears. With my little knowledge of French I realized he was trying to connect my wife with an elder version as in a grandma or Maami  in French and it was also something we should listen too. It was then it struck me that Mami was also an Algerian singer like Khaled. I kicked myself for that, how could I forget the Arabic piece in Desert Rose by Sting? We ended up listening to Khaled and Mami and he had completed more work in a day than the previous one.

This is when I realized that music transcends language and can be a great catalyst in promoting efficiency at work and harmony in the society. Both of us were expats in a foreign land. We can take a person out of the country but never the country and culture out of the person.  When I sacrificed an afternoon of Illayaraja for Khaled and Mami I made a Tarek smile along with me and made his day. This year thanks to Tarek the monotony was broken not only in the colour of our walls but also in our music. This was not only a learning take away in life but also in our professional space where cross cultural interactions are so vital.

This is what a Global citizenship is all about. It’s all about love & humanity sans frontiers!!!