Out of Box thinking

I was sent this yesterday. As nowadays the only thing I do is to work with COVID patients and recoup in my free time in isolation, I was trying to solve the above mystery. I was unable too. The only reason was that like 99% of people I never thought that numbers could be put differently besides the whole numbers. Let me give you a hint. The first box number is 3.5

Cadillac Mentality

Joe is an interesting character. He is one of the neighbors and my handyman for many years. In fact, he is like a family member. He is 76 years old but still very funtional. He is Afro-American. He has gone through the civil rights movement, had been to Martin Luther's speeches, served in the Vietnam war, been deputed as a mechanic to 12 countries under the US army. Whenever my mother visits me, he will make an excuse to stop by in his Ford 250 truck to have desi chai and samosas.

During COVID shutdown, whenever I get time from the hospital we hang out together and discuss politics, religion, society, black history in America, and will laugh on inner jokes black people have on brown people. He gets very excited telling jokes and for a moment I feel like I am again standing at a neighborhood corner of Bronx, NY, and dealing with a jovial black boy in his hood.

He is an immensely enlightened person. I asked him: 'Joe what's your take on this COVID business?'

He replied: "I don't know doc! if all this scare is real. You are a doc every day there, you tell me? But one thing I learned that from an individual to society, we all have a Cadillac mentality."

"What's that?'

"We all want to have Cadillac in our driveway, not knowing our house and world is falling apart. We all pay a humongous price for our Cadillac but we don't learn lessons. Doc I have seen many wars. I have seen bombs falling, bloodstains, mothers crying, kids dying and good human beings turning evils when situations get dire. All this because somewhere in the world someone is trying to protect his Cadillac in his driveway, without knowing we all are connected in one way or other".

I said: "Joe! I feel like puffing cigarettes with you today".

Thanks to Corona

The debate of reaction and over-reaction (Philadelphia vs St Louis model) to COVID is another story, but at a personal level, it gave me a pause to think of my idiosyncrasies. After many months, I sat down with my neighbor for more than an hour (deserve another post), an unusual thing in American society. I see more kids in the neighborhood and more people taking walk around the lake. And the best part, fewer people rushing to beat the race of life - and so the fewer cars on the road!!!

It's all about chai

"The Man in the Arena"

Due to the nature of my work, I am on the very front line of COVID patients. We are tired, exhausted, keeping a distance from our loved ones, and trying to recoup in our free time. One of my friends send me this quote of Theodore Roosevelt from his speech 'Citizenship in a Republic' (1910):

 "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

I felt gratitude in my heart.

The first sign of civilization in a culture

In the midst of COVID-19 pandemic, Amitabh Bachchan shared a story about what being civilized actually means.

“Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones. But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts".

Referring to his fans, he said, “ You are all the medics that repair that ‘broken femur’. “We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized. be safe .. be cautious .. be in care ..” ”

Islamic Sexology

(I always believed that out of all organized religions Islam is the most liberal in terms of sexual permissibility. Following is a serious discussion on sexual pluralism, diversity, evolution and different thoughts in Islam. The article itself has links to other related articles.)


"Numerous hadith suggest that new Muslims often asked the prophet what their conversions would mean for their sex lives. Muhammad responded with lectures on, among other things, consent, foreplay, and the value of maintaining compassion and playfulness in bed. A man, he stresses in at least one tradition, ought to make sure his female partner is satisfied before himself. That’s just part of being a good Muslim. He also held forth to his followers on things such as the merits of the withdrawal method, and even declares good sex sadaqa, an act of holy merit.................

.........From medieval to modern times, Islamic scholars have felt obligated to dissect, debate and rule on the fine details of every single sexual act or dynamic to figure out how god and his prophet would have dealt with it. And not just obscure scholars. The founders of every madhhab, or major Islamic jurisprudential school of thought, working in the 9th and 10th centuries and their successors explored the fine details of sex and sexuality in depth in their works. The prominent 15th-century Egyptian religious scholar Al-Suyuti wrote at least 23 tomes on sex and sexuality. ‘Matter-of-fact, explicit descriptions of, and recommendations on, sexual techniques are always included in [Islamic] law and ethics manuals’ to this day, says Winter.."

Full article link: https://aeon.co/essays/islam-has-a-long-tradition-of-explicit-sexual-discussion?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=AD_HTLGI_HAY_2020

On Ambivalence of Oldhood

This is what you call a piece of literature that haunt you for days.

“How the Old Ones would have danced around the strange word, home, poured into it their yearning for a break from the mud and wattle and hide shelters of hunter-gatherers who followed their herds, who muttered under the breath their supplications to the moon, who relied on the seasons to assuage the restlessness of the soul by moving on. Even before the word, there would surely have been old women who sucked their gums in despair and dreamt of living as staying, dreamt of seeds taking root in the earth, growing into ripeness, even as a headman announced the decision to decamp. If nowadays ambition cannot accommodate the old notion of home, there has surely always been ambivalence, the impatience for something new, for moving on, across the world, whilst at the same time, at times, feeling the centripetal tug of the earth.”

Excerpt From the novel 'October' by Zoe Wicomb

One African Proverb

I am a huge fan of proverbs. One line carries in it, experiences of many generations and wisdom of many tribes.

"Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt" ~ A proverb from Africa

On Red Lipstick!

What a beautiful writeup on an unusual topic.

"Throughout the centuries red lipstick has signaled many things, from its early use by the elite in ancient Egypt and by prostitutes in ancient Greece, to its status in early Hollywood as a symbol of glamor. In its many hues, this color on lips has been a mighty cultural weapon, charged with thousands of centuries of meaning.....

During World War II, red lips had their bold second act of defiance. Adolf Hitler "famously hated red lipstick," Felder said. In Allied countries, wearing it became a sign of patriotism and a statement against facism. When taxes made lipstick prohibitively expensive in the UK, women stained their lips with beet juice instead. As men went off to war and women filled their professional roles back home, they donned red lips to enter the workforce. It showed their resilience in the face of conflict, Felder explained, and offered a sense of normalcy in difficult times. "It allowed women to retain a sense of their own self-identity from before the war." 

Last December, nearly 10,000 women in Chile took to the streets wearing black blindfolds, red scarves, and red lips to denounce sexual violence in the country...."

Full article here:  https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/red-lipstick-history-beauty/index.html