Rock on,don't compromise...Vadu's teachings

Public health field gives all of us a scope for finding our happiness in creative pursuits that see happiness and joy in others' life. I have learnt it the hard way. Childhood memories of selflessness were replaced by the selfish motives of power, success and fame in youth. The flip side is that these aspects are required for the drive within you to succeed!! The downside comes when these consume the mind and you dont listen to the heart..It took the summer research project'08 in Vadu ( 40 kms from Pune) to learn these bitter truths and the true meaning of life.

We set out to test the hypothesis that the efficacy of Beta agonist drugs wanes in Bronchial asthma subjects as the subjects age, whereas the efficacy for anticholinergic drugs increases as they age. The subjects were being recruited on a war footing by means of extensive leather hunting expeditions down the countryside of the scenic Vadu. I had a timeline to adhere and had to factor in the extra efforts to weed out the many false negatives that were creeping owing to the stringent guidleines we adopted to diagnose an asthmatic.

In pursuit of my subjects to do the reversibilty testing for lung function measurements, a portable spirometer ( an equipment that measures your lung capacity, which is compromised in smokers and asthmatics) was hired from Chest Research Foundation, Pune and we set out to do a rural sample from Vadu and an urban sample from Pune. The villagers were amused to find a pot bellied ( hey I am overweight and not obese...Ok)perspiring "town guy" conversing with them in broken Marathi and trying to find out their complaints in haste and moving from patient to patient in a harried and a very hurried state. They naturally did not open up to me the initial few weeks, but the bonding of the local social workers and my overt enthusiasm and covert slyness in coaxing them to find out about their farm income, farm state worked wonders for me during the later weeks.

I seized up my operation from the word go and planned out whom to approach ( MSW, panchayat), whom to avoid ( old men who waste my time by seeking out a detailed examination from any doctor treats for free...I later learnt that my view was distorted and wrong), whom to maska ( women, naturally...alcoholism was so rampant that most of the households are run by women here..who says that empowerement has not touched feminism....my apologies if your rustic daggers are being sharpened by this comment)

This approach paid me rich dividends..results came out to be stat significant ( here comes SAS 9.1, the great American statistical software that has whitened my hair more than my wife's scoldings could have ever acheived..trust me she is naive )and our hypothesis came out to be true for smaller airway function than for the major airways.

On the last day of Vadu victory lap, an old man approached me and offered tea at his humble house...out of respect and seeking an early end to this torture of drinking sweet Indian tea ( Yes, an year in US has made me an Indian), I made my way to his shack after he called out again that tea has been prepared...the first thing that striked me was that he was sober and very calm in calling out my vocation in life. His sayings in marathi were "aami thumcha abhari hain...Vittala ne pathawale gaon sathi thumhala" Translated literally, it means that " We are grateful. The Lord Vittala has sent you for the betterment of the village" Cmon...give me a break..I came for a specific purpose of publishing a paper, impressing my UK advisor in US( I believe that even after shifting continents,we have still yet to get over the inferiority factor), putting a name for myself in the field of asthma epidemiology ( sadly figures lack in India for respiratory morbidity).

I was struck for a minute..I just looked into his eyes and realised the vocation of my life...on the way back to Pune, I strived to recollect the good things that my visit to the village has done...nothing...nothing but my own selfish motives came to the forefront. What prompted the humble soul to elevate me to that high altar..answers are missing..questions keep galloping...

Life gives us a small glimpse of the future when we are still learning the intricacies of the our respective complex lifestyles. It gives us a bigger glimpse when we are still nurturing our thoughts on learning the nitty gritties of getting along well in the complex societal heirachies. The final glimpse is cast in iron when we see the purpose and the truth in our actions and "reward punishment" cycle.

The critical thing that drives mankind is ego and satisfaction, which, if not nurtured in the right direction see a lot of negative thoughts and emotions creeping into our already compromised positions in life. Compromise is in itself a never ending spiral, a viscious one indeed that has got a big inlet and an small outlet that borders on frustration and unhappiness. The lesson I learnt was not to compromise on the joy seen in other's peoples lives when we serve selflessly.

I came back to US and practically forgot about it, until an e mail came from one of the MSW's stating that she incorporate her name, if ever the paper gets published!!!

RASA BHARITAM MADHURAM...WORLD JUST GOES ON..U LEARN AND ADAPT....

With Best Regards
Raghupathy Anchala