Saturday, December 30, 2006

A Brave New World...

About 7,000 years ago in the Neolithic period, there lived a scattered motley crew of fishermen in what is now modern day Lebanon. One day they all gathered round a fictional fire and one of them must have thought: ‘Mmm, you know guys I’m getting tired of all this wandering around from one pasture to another. Wouldn’t it be just great if we could all live together in a community and help each other out? Life would be so much easier’ so they looked at each other as the flames danced around the fire, the moon lit the sun baked dunes and the wolves howled in the distance, and then they nodded their heads in agreement; 'why that's a jolly good idea' -so they settled down and formed a little community along the shore in a small spot some 37 km’s north of modern day Beirut. The remains of their huts can still be seen today and this site is referred to by archaeologists as 'Byblos'; it’s modern Arabic name being ‘Jbeil’. Byblos is widely regarded as the first city in the world.

Fast forward >>7,000 years into the future…

It seems that the idea has caught on. Today the world is pot marked with cities like a plague of smallpox and they attract people like lice on sweaty elephant balls. Every year they expand; encroaching on more of the surrounding landscape; taking over huge swathes of lush greenbelt and converting it into concrete jungle. People flock to them like zombie insects to bug zappers; the furnaces of the 21st century.

The Founding Fathers must have thought they were on to a good thing when they came up with the idea, but if they were to visit any of the major cities today they'd be horrified. Because nowadays these cities are home to all kinds of pesky urchins that latch onto you like spindly seeds on Velcro. You’ll find the streets littered with hawkers, touts, beggars, scam men, prostitutes, hangers on, muggers, opportunists, artful dodgers, pestering shoe shine boys, druggies, deceitful smiles and ingratiates looking for tips, a free lunch and a one way ticket out of here. What is it about cities that so bewitches the human imagination? The fact is they lure in peoples from all over the countryside, promising them wealth and prosperity but instead offering them a mangy diet of misery, squalor, poverty, AIDS, typhoid and other afflictions.

The history of urbanization has always run tandemly with the history of industrialization. Industrialization is tantamount to subservience and slavery; serving fat, rotund, cigar chomping, bibulous, money men with big ego’s and even bigger penis size complexes. The Capitalist mindset is as follows: Lets’ herd them all in from the countryside, strip them of their freedom, make em’ work hard, promise them measly wages, give em a day off to spend their tippance on the latest Sony Walkman. They’ll come back. They’ll want to save up for the latest HD plasma screen TV…

But nobody in this mindless flock asks the obvious question ‘why do I need this HD plasma screen TV?' and 'Will it make me any happier?'. It’s all of course a vicious circle of consumption-consumption-consumption that’s taking the planet to the dogs and we along with it. We live in a world where we are constantly brainwashed into thinking that we ‘must’ have this and that. Says who? A world where you ‘must’ have the latest mahogany kitchen a-la silver fittings, the latest Whirlpool appliance, a spanking new Dyson with Vortex Technology™, the latest family car and the trendy child buggy replete with chunky funky plastic moulded wheels. But who say’s you have to have all this to be happy? On who’s authority?

So let me get this straight yeah; you purchased a wide screen TV 2 years ago and now you won’t be happy till you purchase that High Definition television in the front window of Dixon’s? – The price of happiness has just shot up. Inflation in action! In fact happiness is an ever moving target; a clay pigeon that doesn’t exist. A phantom. So whilst you’re chasing this elusive genie and showing off your designer buggy to envious eyes, let's take a look at what’s happening in the rest of the world...

Cue, Times of India article on Calcutta:

“Child drowns in open drain - An open drain claimed yet another life in Kolkata on Thursday. Two-year-old Bibek Das fell into an overflowing gutter while playing near his house at Tala Park. Despite frantic efforts, he could not be rescued and the body was carried 30 feet by rushing rainwater. This is the second such incident in less than in two months. On August 19, another two-year-old fell into a Dum Dum drain and drowned. The two-feet-by-four-feet drain was brimming after Thursday's rain and the road was also waterlogged. The incident occurred around 1 pm. KMC washed its hands of the incident, blaming the victim's parents for “not keeping an eye on him”.

Not keeping an eye on him? What should they do? Chain him to a post?!
Then there’s the following sordid episode:

“Man rapes 4-yr-old - KOLKATA, Oct. 29: A four-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a 28-year-old near Sambhu Nath Pandit Hospital in Bhowanipore in the early hours. Shafiq Ali alias Mota has been arrested. According to police, the victim and her mother, a rag picker, were sleeping on the footpath in front of 3, SN Pandit Street, last night. At 3 a.m., the rag picker found her child missing. A night guard at a nearby ATM counter told her that he had seen Mota carrying the girl in his arms some time ago before disappearing in a dingy lane. At last, the girl was found inside a taxi parked in Ashutosh Mukherjee Road. She was bleeding profusely and was taken to SSKM Hospital”

Rag picker? What is a rag picker and does it even matter anyway? A child is a child no matter what her mother does for a living.

So what am I getting at here? Isn’t there something seriously wrong with the world? A world where, on one side you’re constantly unhappy because you don’t have the things that society says you need to make you happy. And then on the other hand, a world where little children drown in open drains and are the victims of hideous crimes amidst unbearable poverty. The more you see the more you realise that something is not quite right. It becomes increasingly difficult to reconcile these two disparate worlds. How do they co-exist? Why are they ‘allowed’ to co-exist?

So what do I want for 2007? A closing of this gap and a future where there is no ‘looking glass’; where the world is not divided between have's and have not's; and also a world where people are taught that happiness is ultimately not derived from material possessions.

Clichéd? Probably
Soppy? Definitely
Possible? Hopefully

Happy new year!

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

My research experiments on sheep heart tissue are finally published!

During my undergraduate studies I conducted some research at the 'National Heart and Lung Institute'; the findings of which have finally been published in the 'biophysiology journal' - Please visit the webpage below:

http://meeting.biophysj.org/cgi/reprint/80/1/384/b.pdf

My name in the paper is spelt Wasim Ahmed and the article is a wee bit technical but then we are talking about ground breaking research! - The research involved trying to elucidate the properties of a cardiac receptor in sheep heart muscle by looking at the way it interacted with various chemicals (Suramin and Calmodulin). The research will hopefully lead to a better understanding of how the human heart works and how to better treat heart-attack victims.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Raindrops keep falling on my head...




"Raindrops keep falling on my head
And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed
Nothin seems to fit
Those raindrops are falling on my head
they keep falling





So I just did me some talkin to the sun
And I said I didnt like the way he got things done
Sleepin on the job
Those raindrops are falling on my head
they keep falling





But theres one thing I know
The blues he sends to meet me, wont defeat me
It wont be long till happiness steps up to greet me



Raindrops keep falling on my head
But that doesnt mean my eyes will soon be turnin red
Cryings not for me
Cause Im never gonna stop the rain by complainin
Because Im free
Nothings worrying me"

(Lyrics: B.J Thomas)

Currently reading:


Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Coming soon...Chasing Photons: The idiots guide to photography!

Capturing a fleeting moment that would otherwise have been lost forever is one of the enduring beauties of photography. But for every moment that is captured as an image, there are literally zillions of others that never make it because there was nobody there to capture them. These little photons illuminate the world for us; they zip around at super speeds, bouncing off walls, skidding round corners, and being soaked up by pigments only to be puked out again. It’s all about the fickle moods of light; from the dark melancholy of an approaching tempest to the psychedelic kaleidoscopia of a field of stoned daffodils. This is about chasing rainbows. Chasing light. This is about the art of chasing photons…

Sunday, December 17, 2006