Annals of Medicine - Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande is a Boston-based surgeon at the Brigham and Women's hospital and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. His excellent essays on the practice of medicine have appeared in the magazine for several years and they have been the basis of his two published collections titled "Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science" and "Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance".

Gawande's penchant for meticulous scientific examination of his own professon yields many useful insights (even for non-practitioners) and provides laypeople an unusually clear view of the "imperfect science" of diagnosis and cure and the human element that often makes it so. Gawande's writing is precise and uncluttered and he manages to explain complex topics with an admirable clarity of thought in very readable prose.

Gawande is one of the more recent in a line of accomplished physicians who have written insightfully about their vocation and provided a much needed empathetic transparency into the seemingly impersonal workings of the American system of sickness and health. Dr. Jerome Groopman, Oliver Sacks and Sherwin Nuland particularly come to mind as I think of doctors who have contributed tremendously to American medicine and letters. (Even outside of his writings on medicine, Nuland's memoir, "Lost in America" is one of my all-time favorites with an exceptionally touching portrait of a father-son relationship).

This week Gawande has an essay in the New Yorker titled "The Itch". In this piece he investigates this poorly understood sensation, its scientific source and its function. In explaining the biological provenance of uncontrollable itching, Gawande surveys the current scientific understanding of "Perception" and this is a fascinating part of the essay.

Here are some excerpts:

Our assumption had been that the sensory data we receive from our eyes, ears, nose, fingers, and so on contain all the information that we need for perception, and that perception must work something like a radio. It’s hard to conceive that a Boston Symphony Orchestra concert is in a radio wave. But it is. So you might think that it’sthe same with the signals we receive—that if you hooked up someone’s nerves to a monitor you could watch what the person is experiencing as if it were a television show.

Yet, as scientists set about analyzing the signals, they found them to be radically impoverished. Suppose someone is viewing a tree in a clearing. Given simply the transmissions along the optic nerve from the light entering the eye, one would not be able to reconstruct the three-dimensionality, or the distance, or the detail of thebark—attributes that we perceive instantly.
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The images in our mind are extraordinarily rich. We can tell if something is liquid or solid, heavy or light, dead or alive. But the information we work from is poor—a distorted, two-dimensional transmission with entire spots missing. So the mind fills in most of the picture. You can get a sense of this from brain-anatomy studies. If visual sensations were primarily received rather than constructed by the brain, you’d expect that most of the fibres going to the brain’s primary visual cortex would come from the retina. Instead, scientists have found that only twenty per cent do; eighty per cent come downward from regions of the brain governing functions like memory. Richard Gregory, a prominent British neuropsychologist, estimates that visual perception is more than ninety per cent memory and less than ten per cent sensory nerve signals.
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The account of perception that’s starting to emerge is what we might call the “brain’s best guess” theory of perception: perception is the brain’s best guess about what is happening in the outside world. The mind integrates scattered, weak, rudimentary signals from a variety of sensory channels, information from past experiences, and hard-wired processes, and produces a sensory experience full of brain-provided color, sound, texture, and meaning. We see a friendly yellow Labrador bounding behind a picket fence not because that is the transmission we receive but because this is the perception our weaver-brain assembles as its best hypothesis of what is
out there from the slivers of information we get. Perception is inference.

Update: In today's New York Times (July 4th, 2008) Dr. Atul Gawande answers questions about "The Itch"that some readers had after reading the original article.

George Carlin is Dead (not lost, not passed away, dead)

George Carlin, one of the greatest American stand up comedians, died on June 22nd, 2008 in Santa Monica, CA. The outpouring of appreciations and the gushing praise of his fellow comics testify to his deep influence on a generation of stand up comedians. Jerry Seinfeld has a tribute in today's New York Times.

Carlin was a unique talent who used wonderfully precise language for his acerbic social commentary. His merciless skewering of national shibboleths, political correctness and the modern American proclivity for euphemism-laced conversations was refreshing in a landscape of false pieties and a world of "manufactured consent".

Here's a piece by Carlin on "War' from the early 90's: (Hat Tip: 3QD)
Warning: Carlin is not for the squeamish and the faint of heart. This is very strong language.

"California" - Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell is simply a wonderful singer and songwriter with a career that spans several productive decades. Just the other day I was listening to my iPod in the car when Joni's song "California" came on. I was mesmerized both by her inimitable folksy voice and the vivid lyrics of the song. California has been home to me for just under 4 years so it is hardly a land where I have any substantial roots but as I thought of all my years on the East Coast I could relate deeply to Joni crooning about a different "old and cold" place and contrasting it unfavorably with the sunny youthful spirit of the Golden State:

Still a lot of lands to see
But I wouldn't want to stay here
Its too old and cold and settled in its ways here
Oh, but California
California I'm coming home

Here's Joni performing "California":

Darwinmania!

Olivia Judson is an evolutionary biologist at Imperial College London and writes an entertaining and informative online column called "The Wild Side" in the New York Times. Being a fan of all things Darwin I particularly enjoyed her column today titled "Darwinmania" that kicks off a 18 month celebration of Darwin and his ideas on July 1st, 2008 (150th anniversary of the announcement of his discovery of natural selection) leading into February 2009 (200th anniversary of Darwin's birth) and culminating in November 2009 (150th anniversary of the publication of the "Origin of Species").

Today's column also summarizes some of the well known history of the "origins" of explaining evolution and natural selection, arguably the most revolutionary scientific idea in human history. No matter how many times one reads the fascinating story of Wallace and Darwin competing to be "first to market" with this groundbreaking discovery, one can't help but reflect on the true nature of most scientific thought as a systematic and painstaking effort built on accumulated knowledge rather than "eureka" moments of isolated genius.

Some excerpts from Judson's column:

And the “Origin” changed everything. Before the “Origin,” the diversity of life could only be catalogued and described; afterwards, it could be explained and understood. Before the “Origin,” species were generally seen as fixed entities, the special creations of a deity; afterwards, they became connected together on a great family tree that stretches back, across billions of years, to the dawn of life. Perhaps most importantly, the “Origin” changed our view of ourselves. It made us as much a part of nature as hummingbirds and bumblebees (or humble-bees, as Darwin called them); we, too, acquired a family tree with a host of remarkable and distinguished ancestors.

The reason the “Origin” was so powerful, compelling and persuasive, the reason Darwin succeeded while his predecessors failed, is that in it he does not just describe how evolution by natural selection works. He presents an enormous body of evidence culled from every field of biology then known. He discusses subjects as diverse as pigeon breeding in Ancient Egypt, the rudimentary eyes of cave fish, the nest-building instincts of honeybees, the evolving size of gooseberries (they’ve been getting bigger), wingless beetles on the island of Madeira and algae in New Zealand. One moment, he’s considering fossil animals like brachiopods (which had hinged shells like clams, but with a different axis of symmetry); the next, he’s discussing the accessibility of nectar in clover flowers to different species of bee.

Obama's Father's Day Speech

Today was Father's Day in the United States. Senator Barack Obama used the occasion to give an excellent speech about the destructive effect of absentee fathers on black families. The speech was delivered at the Apostolic Church of God, one of Chicago's largest black churches on the south side of the city. It has been at least 20 years since I have been following American Presidential politics and there has never been a candidate with Obama's preternatural ability to inspire.

Here's the speech:

Meeting Fareed Zakaria

On Tuesday May 27th, The Commonwealth Club of California's guest speaker was Fareed Zakaria, speaking to the audience about his new book "The Post-American World". The event was held at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco and those who live in Northern California know that the Club's events are later broadcast on National Public Radio's KQED station. I had been invited to the talk by a family friend who had an extra ticket and I was curious enough about Zakaria and his new work to be eager to attend in person.

I have found Zakaria's comments on George Stephanopoulos's Sunday morning show to be frequently insightful even if a bit timid in straying from the mainstream foreign policy establishment. He seems to have a genuinely global understanding of US foreign policy challenges but sometimes seems to strain to keep his views in check to avoid being tagged as an "international" intellectual instead of an Amercian one. (I sympathize with this natural propensity of an immigrant to seek whole hearted acceptance of a host country's elite). Also, I was impressed by his 2003 book "The Future of Freedom" in which he argues that constitutional liberalism must precede electoral democracy and that nations lacking a rule of law will inevitably end up as illiberal democracies. This squares with my own long held belief that durable democratic regimes can only be built on a constitutional rule of law and convinces me even more that the lawyer's movement in Pakistan demonstrated powerfully the country's potential to be a functioning democracy.

The main theme of "The Post-American World" (contrary to the title) is not a simplistic view of imperial America's decline. It is not another in a line of now forgotten tomes from the 80's about the Asian takeover of America (with China & India now substituted for 80's Japan). Instead Zakaria argues that the story of the 21st century is the "rise of the rest" even as America maintains significant advantages in competing with these new powers for wealth and influence. His advice to Amercan governments and people seems to be to embrace and learn to adapt and thrive in this new world rather than resist it and vainly hope for the preservation of a vanishing status quo. Zakaria's talk on his new book was an overview of this thesis peppered with anecdotes illustrating his views. He is an engaging speaker and entertained the audience with his suave wit.

After the talk there was a book signing and a long line formed in front of the podium so people could get their books personalized. After approaching him I told him how often I get asked if I am related to him (which I am not) because of our shared last name. He was very gracious and remarkably down to earth and made small talk (some of it in Urdu) for a couple of minutes showing curiosity about my vocation and the Pakistani background. He said "Khuda Hafiz" and as I walked away looking at the personalized signature in the book I was pleasantly surprised to see that below his signature he had added the inscription, "P.S. We're practically related".

From "Sohrab and Rustum" by Matthew Arnold

The story of Rustum and Sohrab is a beloved legend from Zoroastrian mythology popularized by the 11th century Persian poet Abolqasem Ferdowsi in his great epic Shahnameh. Growing up I read many of Shahnameh's stories written for children in Urdu. The names and adventures of the noble Persian kings, their Turani enemies and sundry heroic warriors made an indelible impression and even to this day the names of Afrasiab, Kai Qobad, Rustum, Sohrab and Jamshed resonate in my memory.

"Sohrab and Rustum" is a poem by the 19th century English poet and famous literary critic Matthew Arnold (1822-1888). It was written in 1853. I am currently reading "The Portable Matthew Arnold" edited by Lionel Trilling and below is Trilling's own outline of the epic story of Rustum and Sohrab followed by an excerpt from the poem. The poem is too long to reproduce in its entirety but the famous passages excerpted below are from the end of the poem. Most of the place names are locations in the valley of the River Oxus (now called Amu Darya), a Central Asian river which passes through Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan before emptying into the Aral Sea.

"Rustum is the Persian epic hero; Sohrab is his son by a princess whom he had loved in early youth. Sohrab knows the identity of his father and longs to find him, but Rustum does not even know that he has a son. When they meet in single combat between the Persian and the Tartar armies, Rustum as the champion of the former, Sohrab as the champion of the latter, Rustum fights under an assumed name. Yet Sohrab suspects that his antagonist is the great Rustum and begs him to say so; Rustum for his part is drawn to the the youth and urges him to retire from an unequal contest. But Sohrab will not withdraw and Rustum will not disclose his identity. They fight, and at the climax of the combat Rustum cries aloud his name to terrify his enemy; Sohrab, not terrified but astonished, lowers his shield and is exposed to Rustum's spear, which pierces his side. Dying, he threatens the revenge his father Rustum will take. When Rustum denies that he ever had a son, Sohrab shows the family insignia of Rustum pricked on his arm. The proof is indisputable and the father and son at last know each other. In his grief and despair Rustum wishes for his own death." - Lionel Trilling

From "Rustum and Sohrab"

So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead;
And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak
Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son.
As those black granite pillars, once high-reared
By Jemshid in Persepolis,to bear
His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps
Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side —
So in the sand lay Rustum by his son.

And night came down over the solemn waste,
And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,
And darkened all; and a cold fog, with night,
Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose,
As of a great assembly loosed, and fires
Began to twinkle through the fog; for now
Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal:
The Persians took it on the open sands
Southward; the Tartars by the river marge:
And Rustum and his son were left alone.

But the majestic River floated on,
Out of the mist and hum of that low land,
Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,
Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste,
Under the solitary moon: — he flowed
Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè,
Brimming, and bright, and large: then sands begin
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,
And split his currents; that for many a league
The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles —
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere,
A foiled circuitous wanderer: — till at last
The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

You can read the full text of the poem here. The image is a sculpture of Ferdowsi by the Iranian sculptor Ustad Abolhassan Khan Sadighi known as Master Sadighi (1894-1995)

The Real John McCain

Due to the lingering "straight talk" romance of John McCain's maverick 2000 campaign, the mainstream American press seems incapable of holding McCain to account for his numerous flip flops since he lined up behind George Bush's presidency. The internet has transformed information delivery and inevitably political campaigns have been altered. Information filtering is no longer possible for the MSM (mainstream media) and the implications of this information free-for-all are still not fully understood by modern day campaigns.

The following video titled The Real McCain 2 launched this past Sunday has been viewed by over 1 million people. It has been the #1 most viewed video on YouTube, #1 on the viral video chart, and the #2 story on the Digg Election 2008 page. This is an audience size that is significantly larger than most of the cable news shows.

Dalrymple on "The Arts of Kashmir"

William Dalrymple has a good essay in this issue of the NYRB on Asia Society's exhibition catalog by Pratapaditya Pal on "The Arts of Kashmir".

The first part of the essay describes the sad devastation of the Kashmir Valley and the destruction of Kashmir's traditionally peace loving and syncretic culture. No matter where one places the blame for this long and deadly conflict, the clash of nationalisms that has played out in Kashmir has ravaged the Kashmiris with no end in sight for this strife torn people.

The exhibition catalog and Dalrymple's essay serves to remind the audience of the historic cultural vitality of Kashmir with its rich Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim past. I particularly enjoyed reading about the early Kashmiri Muslim ruler Zain-ul-Abidin "Budshah" (1420-1470) who was renowned for his artistic patronage and whose 50 year reign is still remembered fondly by Kashmiris despite the passage of 500 years:

Fluent in Kashmiri, his native tongue, and Persian, Sanskrit, and Tibetan, he was a great patron of the arts and architecture, of literature and music, and in the conservation and preservation of Kashmir's heritage, irrespective of his religious affiliation.... Indeed, the only other Muslim ruler on the subcontinent who can be compared to Zain-ul-Abidin for his liberality, his intellectual curiosity, his love of learning as well as music, and for introducing and nourishing a wide range of crafts and arts and architecture is the Mughal emperor Akbar (1556–1605).

One can only hope that Kashmiris and their land are spared further destruction and they gradually find a way back to a culture "of tolerance and syncretism so clearly exemplified in Kashmir's artistic traditions".

Photograph: Shiva and his consort Parvati (ca. 900 AD)

Lessons of the Twentieth Century - Tony Judt

Tony Judt is a British Jewish historian specializing in European history. He is currently a professor at New York University and his most recent book was the critically acclaimed history of Europe since 1945 titled "Postwar". Not surprisingly for a historian interested in twentieth century Europe, Judt has reflected deeply and insightfully on war, genocide, occupation, empire and displacement of populations. He regularly writes for the New York Review of Books where many of his past essays are archived here.

His most recent essay titled "What have we Learned, if Anything" in the May 1st issue of the NY Review of Books is an eloquently argued plea to learn the right lessons from perhaps the bloodiest century in human history. Judt argues that, in America in particular, the more distant effects of 20th century suffering and the post cold war triumphalist view of the century's events have led to amnesia about the meaning of war. He calls war the "crucial antecedent condition for mass criminality in the modern era" and goes on to discuss the dangerous consequences for the republic of not learning this crucial lesson from the 20th century. He looks at America's war against terrorism and examines how it displays massive ignorance of the key lessons from the previous century; "the ease with which war and fear and dogma can bring us to demonize others, deny them a common humanity or the protection of our laws, and do unspeakable things to them".

It is always difficult to provide excerpts that would do justice to a well-argued, tight knit essay but here are some passages:

War, in short, prompted behavior that would have been unthinkable as well as dysfunctional in peacetime. It is war, not racism or ethnic antagonism or religious fervor, that leads to atrocity. War—total war—has been the crucial antecedent condition for mass criminality in the modern era. The first primitive concentration camps were set up by the British during the Boer War of 1899–1902. Without World War I there would have been no Armenian genocide and it is highly unlikely that either communism or fascism would have seized hold of modern states. Without World War II there would have been no Holocaust. Absent the forcible involvement of Cambodia in the Vietnam War, we would never have heard of Pol Pot. As for the brutalizing effect of war on ordinary soldiers themselves, this of course has been copiously documented.

The United States avoided almost all of that. Americans, perhaps alone in the world, experienced the twentieth century in a far more positive light. The US was not invaded. It did not lose vast numbers of citizens, or huge swathes of territory, as a result of occupation or dismemberment. Although humiliated in distant neocolonial wars (in Vietnam and now in Iraq), the US has never suffered the full consequences of defeat. Despite their ambivalence toward its recent undertakings, most Americans still feel that the wars their country has fought were mostly "good wars." The US was greatly enriched by its role in the two world wars and by their outcome, in which respect it has nothing in common with Britain, the only other major country to emerge unambiguously victorious from those struggles but at the cost of near bankruptcy and the loss of empire. And compared with other major twentieth-century combatants, the US lost relatively few soldiers in battle and suffered hardly any civilian casualties.
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Ignorance of twentieth-century history does not just contribute to a regrettable enthusiasm for armed conflict. It also leads to a misidentification of the enemy. We have good reason to be taken up just now with terrorism and its challenge. But before setting out on a hundred-year war to eradicate terrorists from the face of the earth, let us consider the following. Terrorists are nothing new. Even if we exclude assassinations or attempted assassinations of presidents and monarchs and confine ourselves to men and women who kill random unarmed civilians in pursuit of a political objective, terrorists have been with us for well over a century.
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This abstracting of foes and threats from their context—this ease with which we have talked ourselves into believing that we are at war with "Islamofascists," "extremists" from a strange culture, who dwell in some distant "Islamistan," who hate us for who we are and seek to destroy "our way of life"—is a sure sign that we have forgotten the lesson of the twentieth century: the ease with which war and fear and dogma can bring us to demonize others, deny them a common humanity or the protection of our laws, and do unspeakable things to them.
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Far from escaping the twentieth century, we need, I think, to go back and look a bit more carefully. We need to learn again—or perhaps for the first time—how war brutalizes and degrades winners and losers alike and what happens to us when, having heedlessly waged war for no good reason, we are encouraged to inflate and demonize our enemies in order to justify that war's indefinite continuance. And perhaps, in this protracted electoral season, we could put a question to our aspirant leaders: Daddy (or, as it might be, Mommy), what did you do to prevent the war?

Update: Just after publishing this post I saw in the April 20th New York Times Book Review, Geoffrey Wheatcroft's review of "Reappraisals", Judt's new collection of essays.

Urdu in Delhi

There is an interesting essay on the state of the Urdu language in Delhi titled "Urdu and the City" in this week's issue of Outlook India. There is some conflicting evidence presented about a mini-surge of interest in Urdu beyond the traditional Muslim readership (particularly those with the ability to read the script). What I found most interesting were the innovative performing art approaches to introduce Urdu to newer audiences. Anees Azmi's children's plays, his readings of "Ghalib Ke Khatoot" and Mahmood Faruqi's "Daastan Goi" seem to be genuinely creative efforts at a softer pedagogy. Zia Mohyuddin's readings have performed a similarly invigorating role in introducing classics of Urdu literature to the "English Medium" segment of younger Pakistanis. (Photograph is of Mahmood Farooqi during a performance. He performs the epic "Daastan-e-Ameer Hamza Sahibqiraan". I believe Mahmood is the son of the eminent Urdu critic Shamsur Rahman Faruqi.)

Nobody who loves Urdu language and literature can be indifferent to the vigor of Urdu's health in the centers of its historical birth in Delhi and UP. Even though Urdu continues to be patronized at the higher education level by the Indian government, the state of the language at the grassroots is by all accounts unenviable. Urdu has suffered in post-partition India both by its exclusive association with Muslims and perhaps more grievously by not having any Indian state which could adopt it as its first and official language. The heart of Urdu's historic presence became the Hindi heartland in post-independence India and Urdu shrunk to a niche language of the Muslim lower middle classes. An essay by Syed Shahabuddin in the 2003 Annual of Urdu Studies titled "Urdu in India, Education and Muslims - A Trinity Without a Church" sheds some interesting light on this issue (even if you don't necessarily agree with his prescription). Fortunately, Urdu's rich literary heritage and its widely appreciated mellifluous cadences have helped it maintain a stubborn presence in the poetic and musical high culture of India.

The Sounds of Punjabi Music - Part 1 (Film Music)

Having grown up in Lahore in the 70's and 80's, the strains of lilting Punjabi melodies were always a warm and familiar presence. Even though in middle class upwardly mobile urban families Punjabi had sadly come to be associated with rural backwardness, Punjabi music with its deep cultural roots continued to exert an influence. Even in homes where children were discouraged from all things Punjabi lest they give off a whiff of the "paindu" lower classes, times of celebration such as mehndis remained incomplete without the girls on the dholki singing a repertoire of Punjabi wedding songs. Traditional melodies such as "Mathe Te Chamkan Waal", "Saada Chiriyan Da Chamba Ve", "Raat De BaaraN Wajje Aape Meri Neendar Khule", "Mehndi TaaN Sajdi Je Nache Munde Di MaaN" sung at these functions at least familiarized young boys and girls with the music of their native soil.

I was particularly fortunate to grow up in a family where I was amply exposed to both the Punjabi language and music but many years abroad had served to obscure many of those fond memories. It is only after the internet revolution that I have rediscovered much of that music. In this post (and in future posts) I want to share some of my favorite Punjabi singers and their music and provide a guide to some excellent sources for further enjoyment for those who may want to explore further. This is the first in a series of three planned posts and here I will focus on Punjabi Film Music.

Few now remember that until the 1970's Pakistan had a fairly thriving film industry based in Lahore. Noor Jehan's masterful voice so dominated Pakistan's film music singing that it overshadowed other unjustly forgotten talents. I am particularly fond of Zubaida Khanum's singing. Here's a wonderful song by her composed by "Baba" G.A. Chishti from the 1957 film "Yakke Wali" in which Musarrat Nazir played the title role. The song is "Resham Da Lacha Lak We". These old black & white films evoke a simpler, more innocent time and place. I feel that in many of these songs the Punjabi film heroines are portrayed as less demure figures than their contemporaries in Bombay's films of that era. Many of these women seem to exude a rugged self confidence even within the confines of their traditionally assigned roles.



Zubaida Khanum sang some of the most popular Punjabi film songs of the 50's and 60's. Some of my other Zubaida Khanum favorites include "AssaN Jaan Ke Meet Lai Akh Way" from the 1955 film "Heer" and "Bundey Chandi Dey" from the film "Chan Mahi".

Inayat Hussain Bhatti who hailed from Gujrat is another forgotten name today but many of his songs in the two decades after partition were enormously popular. A glance at his biography shows Bhatti's impressively versatile personality which bucks any stereotype of a Punjabi film hero. The video below is one of my favorite Inayat Hussain Bhatti songs called "Bhagan Waleo" from the 1953 film "Shehri Babu". This song was composed by Rashid Attrey (who along with Master Inayat Hussain and Khawaja Khurshid Anwar comprises the holy trinity of Pakistani music directors). Bhatti himself is the actor in this clip:



Some other of my Inayat Hussain Bhatti favorties include "Chan Mere Makhna" (popularized more recently by Shazia Manzoor) and a nice duet with Zubaida Khanum called "Goray Goray Hath Kali Wang Mundaya".

No post on Punjabi film music can be concluded without including a sampling from Noor Jehan's legendary career in Punjabi film singing. Many of her songs (courtesy of singing at Mehndis) are so deeply rooted in West Punjab's culture that they are intimately familiar even to those who have never set foot in a Pakistani cinema. Here is a personal favorite titled "Chan Mahi Aa" from the 1970 film "Heer Ranjha" composed by the master tunesmith Khurshid Anwar.



"Heer Ranjha" had a phenomenal soundtrack and virtually all the songs were superhits including "Mein Cham Cham NachaN", "Wanjhli Walarea", "Rabba Wekh Laya", "Kadi Aa Mil Ranjhan We" and Irene Parveen's lovely, chirpy number "TooN Chor Mein Teri Chori".

Here are some other Noor Jehan songs I like: "Weh Sonay Deya Kangna Sauda Iko Jaya", (a wonderful song in which Anjuman truly makes Noor Jehan's voice come alive), Tere Mukhre Da Kala Kala Til We", (with Noor Jehan herself in the lead role) "Jadon Holi Jai" and countless more.

Coming in Part 2: Punjabi Sufi & Folk Music

Obama - The Inspirational Maternal Influence

It is clear to most observers of the American political scene that the Democratic presidential choice between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton this year is not a choice between radically different policy or ideological positions. Obama's attractiveness as a candidate depends in large part on his inspirational biography and a sense amongst his supporters that he is a more authentic, less calculating figure who has demonstrated sound political judgment during his years in public service.

The wonderful biographical piece in the New York Times about Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro and this peripatetic, refreshingly open minded woman's influence on her son Barack uncovers many of the sources of Obama's comfort with diversity and his natural empathy for the disadvantaged.

Elections in Pakistan - The Day After

Congratulations to the people of Pakistan for the successful exercise of their right to vote, defeating cynicism and affirming their desire to induce a positive and peaceful change in their society despite all the sordid history of manipulations of the perpetually corrupt establishment. The people have now given their verdict and displayed the kind of political maturity that the elites in Pakistan never even acknowledge let alone praise.

But these elections are only a beginning. It is now up to the elected representatives of the people and their leadership to forge a path that strengthens democratic institutions (parliament, judiciary, election commission, media) while eschewing political vendettas and protracted wrangling. Musharraf has a clear role to play in this by gracefully stepping aside and honoring the wishes of the people who voted "no-confidence" in him with an overwhelming majority. He now needs to let Pakistan's healing begin from the nightmare of the last 12 months. The country may then still manage to look back at the positives of the tumultuous last year which did , at least, produce a clear and more organized grassroots yearning for democracy and the rule of law.

There is indeed a brighter ray of hope after these elections. Let the leaders who have gained power learn from their worst mistakes of the past and start the process of re-building Pakistani institutions afresh. The problems are vast but at least today there is a palpable sense of hope. Let the newly elected leaders and Musharraf ensure that this moment does not slip away.

Election Day in Pakistan

Today Pakistanis will go to the polls in perhaps one of the most important and fraught elections in the benighted nation's history (with the possible exception of the 1970 elections which eventually resulted in the creation of Bangladesh). The atmosphere is filled with uncertainty about the fairness of the election process. Benazir Bhutto's assasination has cast a pall over these elections. The threat of violence is omnipresent and large numbers of people are suffering unprecedented economic difficulties driven by wheat and energy shortages. If the elections are crudely rigged, then these elections could very well be the harbinger of significant violence and worsening political instability.

As apprehensive as I am about the outcome of the elections, there is also a small chance that this could be a first step toward stability. If the elections are broadly free and fair and the two large opposition parties accept the poll results, then chances are that it could lead to Musharraf's exit from the scene and the formation of a national government that will have the chance to start putting the pieces back together. Even with a national government, however, there are a lot of difficulties ahead and the cleaning up of the Musharrafian mess will take feats of statesmanship that the opposition leaders have not previously demonstrated. Tackling the immediate issues of judicial independence, media freedom, provincial harmony and economic relief while evolving an equitable sharing of power without vengeful targeting of opponents is a tall order. All this does not even mention the control of the rapidly speading menace of terrorism that will require political compromise, public mobilization and some deft distancing from Washington.

Here is to hoping that February 18th, 2008 brings some positive change for the suffering and burdened citizens of the Pakistani state.

"A Few Words on the Soul" by Wislawa Szymborska

Taking the cue from one of my favorite destinations on the web, 3QD, I too have resolved to post more of my favorite poems this year. However, on this blog expect to see Urdu poetry as well as Western verse. Unlike my friend Raza Rumi I have no talent for poetry translation so, with regrets, Urdu poetry will be in the original (in Roman letters).

This poem is by the 1996 Polish Nobel Laureate, Wislawa Szymborska (b. 1923) and I just love the playful image of the soul, capable of being summoned only in moments when we are fully attuned to receiving its charms.

A Few Words on the Soul

We have a soul at times.

No one's got it non-stop,

for keeps.

Day after day,

year after year

may pass without it.

Sometimes

it will settle for awhile

only in childhood's fears and raptures

Sometimes only in astonishment

that we are old.

It rarely lends a hand

in uphill tasks,

like moving furniture,

or lifting luggage,

or going miles in shoes that pinch.

It usually steps out

whenever meat needs chopping

or forms have to be filled.

For every thousand conversations

it participates in one,

if even that,

since it prefers silence.

Just when our body goes from ache to pain,

it slips off-duty.

It's picky,

it doesn't like seeing us in crowds.

our hustling for a dubious advantage

and creaky machinations make it sick.

Joy and sorrow

aren't two different feelings for it.

It attends us

only when the two are joined.

We can count on it

when we're sure of nothing

and curious about everything.

Among the material objects

it favors clocks with pendulums

and mirrors, which keep on working

even when no one is looking.

It won't say where it comes from

or when it's taking off again,

though it's clearly expecting such questions.

We need it

but apparently

it needs us

for some reason too.

(Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

Campaigning for Obama

February 5th is Super Tuesday when 24 states, including California, will vote or caucus in the Democratic primary. I am supporting Barack Obama in this primary and would like to see him as the party's nominee against the Republicans in November. My reasons are simple: he is an inspirational figure with a preternatural ability to motivate people, has demonstrated independence and excellent judgment in opposing the Iraq war from the very beginning and possesses a healthy intelligence, policy acumen and intellectual curiosity necessary for the job. The historic prospect of an African-American President of the United States of America is also an important contributing factor. He does not have many years of experience in Washington but Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times has laid out the best argument on why this is not as important as is commonly believed(his lack of executive experience would be a more valid criticism). He made a blunder by sounding naively hawkish on Pakistan several months ago but demonstrated sound temperament by learning from the criticism that inevitably followed and fine tuned his views.

Julie is a mother of one of my daughter's schoolfriends and is a Palo Alto neighborhood precinct captain for Obama. Knowing that I had already cast my absentee ballot for Obama she called me last night to ask if I would be interested in volunteering for the campaign and doing some door to door canvassing. I agreed and this morning, along with another volunteer, walked the streets of Palo Alto. In our hands we had a printed list of targeted registered Democratic and Independent voters. Our job was to try to get people to vote on Tuesday but also to understand their leaning and indicate them on our list. This would help identify probable Obama voters for volunteers managing the phone banks on election day. They could then call these people on Tuesday to get them to vote or even drive them to the polling stations if required. It was an interesting experience as knocking on the doors of strangers is never pleasant but it was made easier by the camaraderie of the volunteers and because many of the people we talked to had either already voted for Obama or were strongly leaning toward him. It will be interesting to see where the race stands after "Tsunami Tuesday" but it already seems clear that unless there is a highly unexpected result, the Democratic race will continue for several more weeks.

Arundhati Roy & Tony Judt on Genocide

On January 18th, Arundhati Roy spoke in Istanbul at the first death anniversary of Hrant Dink, the courageous Turkish-Armenian editor of the newspaper Agos, who was assasinated by a 17 year old Turkish nationalist. With more than 100,000 people marching silently through the streets of Istanbul at Dink's funeral last year, the assasination brought into focus, yet again, the deplorable official Turkish position of continued denial of the Armenian genocide of 1915. In this speech titled "Listening to Grasshoppers", (reprinted in abridged version by Outlook India) Roy does not have much to say about the Armenian tragedy specifically but reflects more generally on the nature of genocides ("Its an old human habit, genocide is").

To her, "Union" and "Progress" are code words that are the "twin coordinates of genocide". Notions of "Union" pitch their populist but exclusionary appeal on platforms of shared race, religion, ethnicity and nationality and "Progress" on the ideals of individual and national attainment of wealth. Both these ideas inevitably lead to the dehumanization of those who are a threat to the "union" project or are obstacles to "progress". In Roy's Indian examples these "twin coordinates" inevitably lead to the genocidal mindset of Narendra Modi's Gujarat ("Union") or to the brutalities of Nandigram in West Bengal ("Progress"). Into this argument she weaves the idea of the expansionist need for "Lebensraum" ("living space"); a notion that necessitates the displacement or even 'extermination' of those who occupy land and resources thwarting the "noble" goals of union and progress. This is a powerfully engaging piece and reminiscent of Hannah Arendt's work ("Eichmann in Jerusalem", "The Origins of Totalitarianism") to make sense of man's murderous instincts.

In the past, Roy's non-fiction has sometimes struck me as emotionally overwrought. Her relentless attacks on India's (unequal) growth, even when fair, have never even cursorily acknowledged that growth (even with all its terrible inequalities) has been effective in bringing millions out of poverty in places like East Asia where the process has gone on longer. In 1997, the American economist and now the famously liberal New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman wrote a classic piece called "In praise of cheap labor" that articulates a different point of view that, at the very least, requires honest intellectual acknowledgment. However, despite these reservations about Arundhati Roy, I have come to admire her fierce and passionate intellect. There is no shortage of people who will always be willing to promote the economic miracles of China or fuel the hype of a "Shining India" with pride. But it takes a peculiar combination of intellectual acumen, relentless courage and a deep commitment to the plight of the powerless to keep an uncompromising focus on "Narmada Bachao", farmer suicides, Nandigram and Gujarat in the shadow of a frequently unreflective triumphalism of the "New India". Even if one quarrels with some of her intellectual foibles the world needs more Arundhati Roys.

Co-incidentally, Tony Judt , the British historian, also has an interesting piece on the issue of genocide in the February 14th, 2008 issue of the New York Review of Books. The essay is titled "The 'Problem of Evil' in Postwar Europe". This piece too starts with a reference to Hannah Arendt's influential work. It goes on to state that Europe may be in danger of trivializing the lessons of its own genocidal past. The repetitive invocations of the Holocaust and its sometime political use as a defensive shield for Israel is desensitizing modern Europeans to the scale of these crimes.

"Meanwhile, we should all of us perhaps take care when we speak of the problem of evil. For there is more than one sort of banality. There is the notorious banality of which Arendt spoke —the unsettling, normal, neighborly, everyday evil in humans. But there is another banality: the banality of overuse—the flattening, desensitizing effect of seeing or saying or thinking the same thing too many times until we have numbed our audience and rendered them immune to the evil we are describing. And that is the banality— or "banalization"—that we face today."

The Cure at Troy - Seamus Heaney

In the New York Times several days ago, in a piece about Barack Obama and the politics of hope, the writer Dave Eggers quoted an excerpt from a poem titled "The Cure at Troy" by the Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney. The poem has stayed with me partly because in that very first reading it made me think about the situation in Pakistan where even though optimism seems to be in short supply there is still the lingering sense of hope exemplifed by the courageous lawyers and judges in their struggle for law and justice.

from "The Cure at Troy"

Human beings suffer,

they torture one another,

they get hurt and get hard.

No poem or play or song

can fully right a wrong

inflicted or endured.

The innocent in gaols

beat on their bars together.

A hunger-striker's father

stands in the graveyard dumb.

The police widow in veils

faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don't hope

on this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime

the longed for tidal wave

of justice can rise up,

and hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change

on the far side of revenge.

Believe that a further shore

is reachable from here.

Believe in miracles

and cures and healing wells.

Call the miracle self-healing:

The utter self-revealing

double-take of feeling.

If there's fire on the mountain

Or lightning and storm

And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing

the outcry and the birth-cry

of new life at its term.

Pakistan After Benazir Bhutto

I was in Pakistan on December 27th, the day Benazir Bhutto was assasinated in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. I watched the television screen in utter disbelief as the initial news of the murderous attack on her was soon followed by the confirmation of her death. Those who have read any of my political musings know that I took a dim view of her time as Prime Minister, was not a fan of her frequently opportunistic politics and thought her murky dealings with Musharraf at Amercian behest were a singularly bad idea.

However, since her assasination I have felt no desire to write a political analysis, provide a prognosis or even comment on the tastelessly quick backlash against her that started in the wake of widespread sympathy after her death (e.g. Dalrymple's piece). I continue to feel that this event has such large scale repercussions for Pakistan's future that the punditry still does not fully comprehend its dimensions. Never having been a supporter of the People's Party, the unique place of such a national party led by an ethnic minority has become clearly evident to me only after Benazir's death. If PPP disintegrates as a party or retreats into the Sindhi heartland, the institutional harm to Pakistan will be incalculable. In the short term, like everybody else, I am awaiting the outcome of the February 18th elections to see how Pakistan may find a way out of the current Musharraf-engendered political paralysis. However, even after the inevitable day that Musharraf leaves office, I only see compounding problems for those who follow him. Musharraf, like all of Pakistan's military dictators before him, will leave his successors a country riven with far greater problems than he inherited in 1999.

Simon Jenkins' Lament for Lahore

I love the city of Lahore. This sentiment is not an uncritical emotional attachment to my hometown but reflects a love for the incredible richness of Lahore's cultural history, the hospitality and generosity of its people and the inimitability of its cuisine. It is Pakistan's uniquely wonderful city. There are things to recommend places like Karachi (a Western-style cosmopolitanism) or Islamabad (an anodyne livability) but Lahore possesses a combination of charms that cannot be replicated elsewhere in Pakistan.

That Lahore has suffered as a city since partition is undeniable. The unfortunate cleansing of the Hindu and Sikh population at the time of independence robbed Lahore of much of its cultural diversity. The continuing neglect of its historic architectural heritage, the steady degradation of its environment and the erosion of many of its literary institutions have all contributed to a general sense of decline. Simon Jenkins writing in The Guardian is right to lament this downward slide even as he acknowledges the many wonders of the city. I am inclined to blame Musharraf for many of Pakistan's current ills but it is hard to pin the current state of Lahore on his malign neglect, as Jenkins asserts. To me the plight of modern day Lahore is simply a reflection of the general state of deterioration of the Pakistani polity.

The Brilliance of Steven Pinker's Mind

Cosmologists, Quantum Physicists, Geneticists, Cognitive Scientists, Evolutionary Biologists and others are continuously working to advance human understanding from the macro (origins of the universe) to the micro (behavior of genes, functioning of the mind). All this knowledge has a profound influence on metaphysics, religion, ethics, economics, sociology and other fields of the humanities and social sciences. These areas of human study then have to contend with the onrush of scientific evidence about human behavior, its nature and its origins either by incorporating the evidence or by challenging it. It is therefore of the utmost importance that laypeople who care about these issues develop some understanding of the current state of scientific learning about these subjects.

In the modern world where experts know "more and more about less and less" the effort of many brilliant practitioners in highly specialized fields to engage laypeople with their complex ideas is worthy of great praise. To make these ideas digestible without dumbing them down requires not only an exceptional clarity of mind but great expositional skills. Fortunately there are many accomplished scientists who also possess a rare ability to educate the non-specialist. Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Ernst Mayr, Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan, Paul Davies, Brian Greene and Richard Feynman are some of the examples of scientists who have succeeded to varying degrees in reaching beyond their rarefied peer group.

Steven Pinker, the hard to label Harvard Evolutionary Psycholgist is amongst one of the best examples of current scientists who can write well for a broader audience. This post was precipitated after reading his excellent essay titled "The Moral Instinct" in the January 13th, 2008 issue of The New York Times Sunday Magazine. It is hard to summarize the breadth of the essay's argument but in it Pinker explains the existing evidence for the biological (evolutionary) underpinnings of our morality. He examines many interesting examples about the universality of morals and tries to square them with the clearly observed differences across cultures. The essay is somewhat long but I couldn't recommend it any more strongly and urge people to read it. There are few popular pieces of writing that engage this deeply in reflecting on the sources of our deeply held moral beliefs.

Excerpts:

When anthropologists like Richard Shweder and Alan Fiske survey moral concerns across the globe, they find that a few themes keep popping up from amid the diversity. People everywhere, at least in some circumstances and with certain other folks in mind, think it’s bad to harm others and good to help them. They have a sense of fairness: that one should reciprocate favors, reward benefactors and punish cheaters. They value loyalty to a group, sharing and solidarity among its members and conformity to its norms. They believe that it is right to defer to legitimate authorities and to respect people with high status. And they exalt purity, cleanliness and sanctity while loathing defilement, contamination and carnality.
The exact number of themes depends on whether you’re a lumper or a splitter, but Haidt counts five — harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty), authority and purity — and suggests that they are the primary colors of our moral sense. Not only do they keep reappearing in cross-cultural surveys, but each one tugs on the moral intuitions of people in our own culture.

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All this brings us to a theory of how the moral sense can be universal and variable at the same time. The five moral spheres are universal, a legacy of evolution. But how they are ranked in importance, and which is brought in to moralize which area of social life — sex, government, commerce, religion, diet and so on — depends on the culture. Many of the flabbergasting practices in faraway places become