International Jahajee Journal (IJJ), May 4th, 2008
Voice of the International Indian Diaspora
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http://www.jahajeedesi.com/forums/index.php?act=idx The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be
happy is to make others so. Ma Yoga Shakti Saraswati
OFFERINGS TO MA DURGA: These Hindu women gather at the foot of the mud
volcano as they make offerings to Ma Durga, the Hindu deity said to reside in the
earth, Cedros, TRINIDAD.
http://www.jahajeedesi.com/forums/index.php?act=idx The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be
happy is to make others so. Ma Yoga Shakti Saraswati
OFFERINGS TO MA DURGA: These Hindu women gather at the foot of the mud
volcano as they make offerings to Ma Durga, the Hindu deity said to reside in the
earth, Cedros, TRINIDAD.
V.S. NAIPAUL REVEALED: Darkness in the Heart
Narcissist. Snob. Genius. And, a Great Prostitute Man.
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Narcissist. Snob. Genius. And, a Great Prostitute Man.
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The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul,
by Patrick French (Picador), 2008
by Patrick French (Picador), 2008
Review by Deosaran Bisnath,
Editor, International Jahajee Journal.
http://deosaranbisnath.blogspot.com/
In September 1952, V.S. Naipaul described his future wife, Patricia Hale, to his family in St. James: “She is … not unintelligent, nor altogether unattractive”. Appreciation for Pat was confined to a peroration in pained double negatives but the narcissistic Vidia was being as complimentary as he could.
Pa (Seepersad Naipaul) warned about mixed marriage: “See if she understands Trinidad’s reaction to mixed marriages. No one is happy at your marrying any but an Indian.”
Ma did not mince words: “I am begging you, don’t marry a white girl”.
Vidia’s future father-in-law, Mr. Hale, threatened drastic steps to prevent the marriage, giving an ultimatum to his daughter: ‘Indians or University – You can’t have both!’
The virgins – Vidia and Pat – consummated their relationship, after which the tortured and insecure Vidia exhibited feelings of guilt, jealously and self-justification alongside promises of love, honour, and devotion. The solution was a marriage, on January 10, 1955 - without a ring and unknown to both families - that ended when Pat died of cancer in 1996 after forty-one years of anguish, pain and suffering. Pa, Ma, and Mr. Hale were right.
Patrick French’s brilliant biography exposes the narcissistic, snobbish, and at times, sadistic nature of Sir Vidia Naipaul, with startling and shocking revelations of the distress and misery in the tragic love triangle of Sir Vidia, Lady Patricia, and his Anglo-Argentinean masochistic mistress, Margaret Gooding. Much of French’s biography has already been narrated by Vidia in some of his previous essays and books: Prologue to an Autobiography, Finding the Centre, Literary Occasions, Between Father and Son: Family Letters, Enigma of Arrival, and the semi-autobiographical novel, A House for Mr. Biswas.
As Martin Amiss observes, in much of Naipaul’s work, little of the self is present. In the novels, a past is used, but a self is not used; the self remains inscrutable and undisclosed. Naipaul wanted to be the spectator, the flaneur par excellence, free of emancipatory fire. In The World Is What It Is, Patrick French traces with a sympathetic brilliance and devastating insight the roots of V.S. Naipaul’s unparallel gift, exposing Naipaul with ruthless clarity to the calm eye of the reader.
Taking the book’s name from the terrifying opening sentence of Naipaul’s greatest novel, A BEND IN THE RIVER: “The world is what it is: men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it”, French tells the story of a third-generation indentured East Indian in Trinidad conquering the world of Literature, and acclaimed as the greatest living writer of English. Naipaul was driven by fear: fear of not belonging, of being nothing, of failure, of not being able to write, of mental or physical breakdown, of people were trying to do him down, of being faced down, of losing face, of being found out. Realizing that writing was a great gift but all had, he sacrificed family, wife, mistress, and friends, and with sheer will and ambition he achieved the highest honours.
But he and his loved ones paid a terrible price. In the ‘starving writer’ phase of his life, before marriage, he lived in a basement in a London slum, supported by his fiancé, Pat. Stricken with asthma, unsure of this future, immersed in poverty and consumed in self-doubt after being rejected by 26 employers, the depressed Vidia wallowed in self-pity: “No fire in my room for two days and only tea & toast in my stomach. That is what the whole policy of the Free World amounts to. Naipaul, poor wog, literally starving, and very cold.”
Lady Naipaul treated him with great reverence, referring to her husband as The Genius. It was almost like appreciating a deity. It was an unusual kind of relationship for an Englishwoman: she was a very Indian wife – more Indian than the traditional pre-Generation X Indian wife who sacrifices her own life for her husband.
Theirs was a loveless, almost sexless marriage with Vidia telling Pat he had not enjoyed making love to her since 1967. In the summer of 1958, turning imagination into reality, he started to have sex with prostitutes. Long before French’s authorized biography, Naipaul – in the words of Salim in A Bend in the River, and in other semi-autobiographical pieces – described sadistic whore mongering fantasies: brothel fantasies of conquest and degradation, with the woman as the willing victim, the accomplice in her own degradation, with brute physical acts full of deliberate brutality.
In an interview with Der Spiegel, Vidia admitted that when he was young he was a great frequenter of prostitutes and found them intensely stimulating. In 1994, he went further, confiding to the New Yorker, that he ‘became a great prostitute man’.
For Vidia it was embarrassing; for Lady Naipaul, it was devastating, and an insult to her status as a loving wife. Vidia had been a great prostitute man and the world knew about it - it was the idea of her husband having plentiful, degraded sex with prostitutes, whores, hookers, tarts, that fed her imagination, and horrified her. Pat’s cancer was back and would not go away. Vidia had to live with the responsibility of what he had done, and bear the blame for the rest of his days. ‘She suffered. It could be said that I killed her. It could be said. I feel a little bit that way.’
In 1972, in Buenos Aires, Vidia began a twenty-year affair with Margaret Gooding. She was Vidia’s ideal woman in his fantasy life: he could string her along and mistreat her, with abject consent. Revealing the existence of his mistress to Lady Naipaul, he said: “I was liberated. She was destroyed. It was inevitable.”
Naipaul’s bedroom scenes have been awkward, stilted, scripted, with rough sex, bordering on violence, sadism, and sadomasochism. In Guerillas, Vidia went further, with Jimmy’s anal rape of Jane, after which he and Bryant hacked her to death. Many of the gruesome sexual depictions in the novels were not the work of imagination, but drawn from his life with Margaret.
In Bend in the River, Salim hit Yvette so hard and so often about the face, even through raised, protecting arms, that she staggered back and allowed herself to fall on the floor. Bone struck against bone again; my hand ached at every blow. When Margaret shows up unexpectedly in Wiltshire, a displeased Naipaul beats her and afterwards explains, “I was very violent with her for two days with my hand; my hand began to hurt . . . She didn’t mind at all. She thought of it in terms of my passion for her.
With most of his fellow Trinidadians, Naipaul was gruff and abrupt, if not totally disrespectful. He gave passing attention to Selwyn R. Cudjoe of Wellesley College, who had spent ten years writing a book about his books and wished to talk of Barthes and Bakhtin; and took no notice of Marina Salandy-Brown of the BBC, who tried to wrong-foot him by saying that since she was a ‘fellow Trinidadian’ he was sure to refuse her.
In 1971, at a meeting of Caribbean writers at UWI Jamaica, a librarian, Cliff Lashley, jumped up from the audience and said that Naipaul ought to be killed, preferably shot. Kenneth Ramchand thought the situation was handled badly while Vidia blamed a former colleague for organizing a ‘racial ambush’. Though he vowed never to come back, Vidia enjoyed his visits to Trinidad; French describes a Cedros jaunt with Sam Selvon and Ken Ramchand, after which they went out to Soldado Rock where the three jumped into the sea, swimming around the boat in jockey shorts.
Naipaul believed a less than candid biography would be pointless, and his willingness to allow such a book to be published in his lifetime was at once an act of narcissism and humility. Naipaul may also have wanted to let it out while he is alive, thus preventing salacious posthumous biographies. French refutes claims that Naipaul was upset with the book: “I don’t think so, he never had any objections, he remained detached from the publishing process, but he allowed me free reign, access to his archives and he stuck to that all through five years of my research and writing.”
In more than half a century of writing, V.S. Naipaul has over 30 books to his name - brilliant combinations of travel, fiction, history, politics, literary criticism and autobiography. It is a body of work of astonishing scope and subtlety, giving him a deserved claim of the greatest living writer in the English Language; ‘for sheer abundance of talent, there can hardly be a writer alive who surpasses V.S. Naipaul,’ wrote Irving Howe in the New York Times.
There is candour to his writing, a constant precision at its heart. It is this quality of integrity – the close analysis of human conduct – that enables Naipaul’s work to transcend the peculiarity of his general theories and the darker side of his persona, as revealed in French’s no-holds-barred biography.
http://deosaranbisnath.blogspot.com/
Support Malaysian Indians against State Brutality
GOPIO Trinidad & Tobago
a chapter of GOPIO International.
P.O. BOX 2286, Chaguanas.
687-7529 GopioTT@gmail. com
a chapter of GOPIO International.
P.O. BOX 2286, Chaguanas.
687-7529 GopioTT@gmail. com
INDIAN ARRIVAL DAY SEMINAR & AWARDS CEREMONY
Saturday May 10th, 2008
from 3 to 7pm
DIVALI NAGAR, CHAGUANAS, TRINIDAD
GOPIO Trinidad & Tobago, a Chapter of GOPIO International, will be commemorating the 163rd Anniversary of the arrival of Indentured Indian Immigrants to Trinidad & Tobago with the Indian Arrival Day Seminar and Awards Ceremony on Saturday May 10th, from 3 to 7pm, at Divali Nagar, Chaguanas. GOPIO Trinidad & Tobago extends a cordial invitation to you and your family and friends to attend the Seminar and Awards ceremony which are Free and open to all. Refreshments will be served.
The two major themes at the Seminar are:
~ The ALCOHOLISM problem in Trinidad & Tobago
~ establishing and strengthening TRADE, INVESTMENT, and BUSINESS relationships between Trinidad & Tobago and the International Indian Diaspora.
Mr. Deosaran Bisnath, President of GOPIO Trinidad & Tobago described ALCOHOLISM as one of the most critical problems facing our nation, with increasing alcoholic consumption amongst youths, resulting in serious health, family, and social problems. Mr. Bisnath was critical of the glorification and celebration of a ‘rum culture’ in this country, with alcoholic beverages consumed at almost every event in Trinidad & Tobago.
Three Papers will be presented in the ALCOHOLISM forum:
2. ALCOHOLISM- THE DISEASE OF ADDICTION, by Ms. Hulsie Bhaggan, lecturer at the Arthur Lok Graduate School of Business and Administrator/Clinical Coordinator of the New Life Ministries Drug Rehabilitation Center).
3. MEDIUM FOR THE MESSAGE, by Dr. Jerome Teelucksingh, lecturer in the History Department, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.
Dr. Teelucksingh will discuss methods to spread the message of the dangers of alcoholism.
In Part II of the Seminar, Dr. Raymond Ramcharitar (author of The Armour of the Ridiculous; Breaking the News: Media & Culture in Trinidad; American Fall; and a collection of short fiction, The Island Quintet, expected in 2009) will deliver a paper on INDIANS & DEMOCRACY. This paper examines the way Indians have interpreted democracy using contemporary politics and history as illustrative texts. Dr. Ramcharitar examines the evolution of IndoTrinidadian politics, from Cola Rienzi to Panday, isolates its active principles, and evaluates them against the idea of Western democracy (which putatively obtain in Trinidad). The main question of the paper is: How have IndoTrinidadians interpreted democracy and how has it been informed by the ontology of caste and hierarchy and political knowledge they brought with them from India and reproduced in Trinidad.
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Saturday May 10th, 2008
from 3 to 7pm
DIVALI NAGAR, CHAGUANAS, TRINIDAD
FREE - OPEN TO ALL
INDIAN ARRIVAL DAY SEMINAR AND AWARDS CEREMONY
Between February 1845, when the FATH AL RAZACK departed the Port of Calcutta, India, and April 1917, when the SS GANGES made the final journey, there was continuous annual importation of Indentured Immigrants from India, totaling 145,000 to Trinidad; 239,000 to Guyana; 50,000 to Jamaica; 40,000 to Surinam; and smaller numbers to St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, and the French West Indies.
GOPIO Trinidad & Tobago, a Chapter of GOPIO International, will be commemorating the 163rd Anniversary of the arrival of Indentured Indian Immigrants to Trinidad & Tobago with the Indian Arrival Day Seminar and Awards Ceremony on Saturday May 10th, from 3 to 7pm, at Divali Nagar, Chaguanas. GOPIO Trinidad & Tobago extends a cordial invitation to you and your family and friends to attend the Seminar and Awards ceremony which are Free and open to all. Refreshments will be served.
His Excellency Shri Jagjit Singh Sapra, the High Commissioner of India, will deliver the opening address. GOPIO Trinidad & Tobago will honour four nationals who have made sterling contributions towards the development and progress of our nation:
~ PROFESSOR KENNETH RAMCHAND, for distinguished and meritorious service in Literature, Education, and Culture.
~ PROFESSOR KENNETH RAMCHAND, for distinguished and meritorious service in Literature, Education, and Culture.
~ MR. KAMALUDDIN MOHAMMED, for distinguished and meritorious service in Politics, Culture, and Religion.
~ MR. AJEET PRAIMSINGH, for distinguished and meritorious service in Culture, Business, Religion, and Social and Community work.
~ SHANKARACHARYA PANDIT HARI PRASHAD JI (posthumous), founder of SWAHA, for distinguished and meritorious service in Religion, Education, Culture, and Social and Community work.
The two major themes at the Seminar are:
~ The ALCOHOLISM problem in Trinidad & Tobago
~ establishing and strengthening TRADE, INVESTMENT, and BUSINESS relationships between Trinidad & Tobago and the International Indian Diaspora.
Mr. Deosaran Bisnath, President of GOPIO Trinidad & Tobago described ALCOHOLISM as one of the most critical problems facing our nation, with increasing alcoholic consumption amongst youths, resulting in serious health, family, and social problems. Mr. Bisnath was critical of the glorification and celebration of a ‘rum culture’ in this country, with alcoholic beverages consumed at almost every event in Trinidad & Tobago.
Three Papers will be presented in the ALCOHOLISM forum:
1. ALCOHOLISM IN A MULTI-ETHNIC SETTING, by Professor Ronald Marshall, Department of Sociology, UWI, St. Augustine.
2. ALCOHOLISM- THE DISEASE OF ADDICTION, by Ms. Hulsie Bhaggan, lecturer at the Arthur Lok Graduate School of Business and Administrator/Clinical Coordinator of the New Life Ministries Drug Rehabilitation Center).
This presentation will place alcoholism in the context of addiction, an obsessive compulsive disorder. It will examine the root causes and attempt to recommend some strategies in prevention and treating the disease.
3. MEDIUM FOR THE MESSAGE, by Dr. Jerome Teelucksingh, lecturer in the History Department, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.
Dr. Teelucksingh will discuss methods to spread the message of the dangers of alcoholism.
In Part II of the Seminar, Dr. Raymond Ramcharitar (author of The Armour of the Ridiculous; Breaking the News: Media & Culture in Trinidad; American Fall; and a collection of short fiction, The Island Quintet, expected in 2009) will deliver a paper on INDIANS & DEMOCRACY. This paper examines the way Indians have interpreted democracy using contemporary politics and history as illustrative texts. Dr. Ramcharitar examines the evolution of IndoTrinidadian politics, from Cola Rienzi to Panday, isolates its active principles, and evaluates them against the idea of Western democracy (which putatively obtain in Trinidad). The main question of the paper is: How have IndoTrinidadians interpreted democracy and how has it been informed by the ontology of caste and hierarchy and political knowledge they brought with them from India and reproduced in Trinidad.
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In Part III of the Seminar, presenters will explore the second major theme of the Seminar: Establishing relationships in Trade and Business between Trinidad & Tobago and the International Indian Diaspora. Representative from the Governments of India, Guyana, Mauritius, and Suriname will deliver presentations, with particular emphasis on trade and investment opportunities, and incentives available for potential investors and business entities.
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Mr. Deosaran Bisnath, President of GOPIO Trinidad & Tobago described this topic as most timely, in the context of higher prices and increased demand for food, and the plan by the Government of resource-rich Guyana to invite investors from the Caribbean to participate in Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Tourism projects. GOPIO Trinidad & Tobago invites members of the business community and individual investors to take advantage of this opportunity to be informed about trade and business opportunities in India, Suriname, Guyana, and Mauritius.
Presenters are:
Mr. YASH PAL MOTWANI, Second Secretary (Commerce) & HOC, High Commission of India.
Mr. GEOFFREY DA SILVA, Chief Executive Officer, of the GUYANA Office for Investment, will inform seminar participants on investment and business opportunities, focusing on the agricultural, manufacturing, tourism, and forestry sectors.
Mr. VINOD MOONERAM, Honorary Consul of Mauritius
REPRESENTATIVES from the Government of SURINAME
GOPIO Trinidad and Tobago, a chapter of GOPIO International, is a secular, non-partisan, civic and community service organization that seeks to build partnerships with, and foster an ongoing dialogue with fellow citizens of Trinidad & Tobago, with the objective of strengthening national unity and loyalty. Our mission is to promote the well-being of People of Indian Origin, as well as all citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, and to enhance cooperation and communication amongst all communities.
GOPIO Trinidad and Tobago, a chapter of GOPIO International, is a secular, non–
political, non-profit and Non-Governmental Organization. You may contact us at 1
868 687-7529, 1 868 314-1456, or email GOPIOTT@gmail.com
Proudly Indian, a South African Indian site
http://proudlyindian.co.za/
Chinmaya Mission of Trinidad and Tobago Inc. will be hosting a VIOLIN CONCERT
on Saturady 17th May, 2008. The star performer is Ms. Aarti Shankar from Chennai,
India. In addition to her, some of our local artistes will also be performing including Mr. Neval
Chatelal.
Tickets are priced at a mere cost of $50.00.
The concert will be held at the Chinmaya Ashram, #1, Swami Chinmayananda Drive, Calcutta Rd#1,
Mc Bean, Couva during the hours of 4:00p.m. to 7:00p.m.
Swamiji’s famous massala chai and other delicacies will be on sale.
Please call the office at 1-868-679-3652 for early purchasing of tickets.
This promises to be an evening of superb entertainment. Please pass the word on to all your
friends and family.
CARIBBEAN TALK
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CARIBBEAN TALK: The newest and most popular Caribbean Online Group …
Free … unrestricted … uncensored …. JOIN NOW!
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Or send mail to : CCDSJ@yahoo.com
INDOCARIBBEAN TIMES - Current issue is available here:
http://www.esnips.com/web/Indo-CaribbeanTimes
Proudly Indian, a South African Indian site
http://proudlyindian.co.za/
http://proudlyindian.co.za/
Chinmaya Mission of Trinidad and Tobago Inc. will be hosting a VIOLIN CONCERT
on Saturady 17th May, 2008. The star performer is Ms. Aarti Shankar from Chennai,
India. In addition to her, some of our local artistes will also be performing including Mr. Neval
Chatelal.
Tickets are priced at a mere cost of $50.00.
The concert will be held at the Chinmaya Ashram, #1, Swami Chinmayananda Drive, Calcutta Rd#1,
Mc Bean, Couva during the hours of 4:00p.m. to 7:00p.m.
Swamiji’s famous massala chai and other delicacies will be on sale.
Please call the office at 1-868-679-3652 for early purchasing of tickets.
This promises to be an evening of superb entertainment. Please pass the word on to all your
friends and family.
CARIBBEAN TALK
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CaribbeanTalk/
CARIBBEAN TALK: The newest and most popular Caribbean Online Group …
Free … unrestricted … uncensored …. JOIN NOW!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CaribbeanTalk/
Or send mail to : CCDSJ@yahoo.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CaribbeanTalk/
CARIBBEAN TALK: The newest and most popular Caribbean Online Group …
Free … unrestricted … uncensored …. JOIN NOW!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CaribbeanTalk/
Or send mail to : CCDSJ@yahoo.com
INDOCARIBBEAN TIMES - Current issue is available here:
http://www.esnips.com/web/Indo-CaribbeanTimes
http://www.esnips.com/web/Indo-CaribbeanTimes
FREE ONLINE RADIO from FIJI
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~~~~~~~
HINDU WISDOM
An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching
-Mahatma Gandhi
HINDU WISDOM
An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching
-Mahatma Gandhi
We want to worship a living God. I have not seen anything but
God all my life, nor have you. To see this chair you first see
God, and then the chair in and through Him. He is
everywhere, saying, “I am.” The moment you feel “I am,” you
are conscious of Existence. Where shall we go to find God if
we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living
being? — VIVEKANANDA
The mantra AUM stands for the supreme state
Of Turiya, without parts, beyond birth
And death, symbol of everlasting joy.
Those who know AUM as the Self become the Self;
Truly they become the Self.
Om shanti shanti shanti
-Mandukya Upanishad
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
Exercise Your Brain, or Else You’ll … Uh …
When David Bunnell, a magazine publisher who lives in Berkeley, Calif., went to a FedEx store to send a package a few years ago, he suddenly drew a blank as he was filling out the forms.
“I couldn’t remember my address,” said Mr. Bunnell, 60, with a measure of horror in his voice. “I knew where I lived, and I knew how to get there, but I didn’t know what the address was.”
Mr. Bunnell is among tens of millions of baby boomers who are encountering the signs, by turns amusing and disconcerting, that accompany the decline of the brain’s acuity: a good friend’s name suddenly vanishing from memory; a frantic search for eyeglasses only to find them atop the head; milk taken from the refrigerator then put away in a cupboard.
“It’s probably one of the most frightening aspects of the changes we undergo as we age,” said Nancy Ceridwyn, director of educational initiatives at the American Society on Aging. “Our memories are who we are. And if we lose our memories we lose that groundedness of who we are.”
At the same time, boomers are seizing on a mounting body of evidence that suggests that brains contain more plasticity than previously thought, and many people are taking matters into their own hands, doing brain fitness exercises with the same intensity with which they attack a treadmill.
Decaying brains, or the fear thereof, have inspired a mini-industry of brain health products — not just supplements like coenzyme Q10, ginseng and bacopa, but computer-based fitter-brain products as well.
Nintendo’s $19.99 Brain Age 2, a popular video game of simple math and memory exercises, is one. Posit Science’s $395 computer-based “cognitive behavioral training” exercises are another. MindFit, a $149 software-based program, combines cognitive assessment of more than a dozen different skills with a personalized training regimen based on that assessment. And for about $10 a month, worried boomers can subscribe to Web sites like Lumosity.com and Happy-Neuron.com, which offer a variety of cognitive training exercises.
Alvaro Fernandez, whose brain fitness and consulting company, SharpBrains, has a Web site focused on brain fitness research. He estimates that in 2007 the market in the United States for so-called neurosoftware was $225 million.
Mr. Fernandez pointed out that compared with, say, the physical fitness industry, which brings in $16 billion a year in health club memberships alone, the brain fitness software industry is still in its infancy. Yet it is growing at a 50 percent annual rate, he said, and he expects it to reach $2 billion by 2015.
From Hula Hoops to Corian countertops, marketers have done very well over the six decades guessing the desires of the generation born after World War II. Now they are making money on that generation’s fears, and it is not just computerized flash card makers with the money-making ideas. Doctors and geneticists have also tapped into the market.
Boomers believe they have ample reason to worry. There is no definitive laboratory test to detect Alzheimer’s disease. Doctors rely on symptoms to make the diagnosis, and most think that by the time symptoms show up the brain damage is already extensive.
By 2050, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, 11 million to 16 million Americans will have the disease.
“Most people when they turn 50 begin to look at forgetfulness with more seriousness,” said Dr. Gene Cohen, the director of the Center for Aging, Health and Humanities at George Washington University.
“When you misplace your keys when you’re 25, you don’t pay any attention to it,” he said. “But when you do the identical thing at 50 or older, you raise an eyebrow.”
Lisa C., 47, a clinical psychologist in the San Francisco Bay area, who preferred not to disclose her last name for fear that friends and colleagues would question her mental faculties, misplaced her cellphone one day a few years ago.
She called it from her home phone but heard nothing. Finally, while making dinner a few hours later, she found it — in the freezer.
She was so unnerved, not just by that but also by the poor results of a subsequent mental status test, that she had an MRI done on her brain. The diagnosis: perfectly normal. Dr. Cohen said people can also overreact, attributing absent-minded actions to failing brains, when it is actually simple distractibility that is to blame.
Nancy Cutler, 51, a publication designer in Piedmont, Calif., grew worried about her brain a few years ago when she drove her car to work one day, then, forgetting she had done so, took the bus home.
“It was pretty embarrassing to have my kid call me and say, ‘what do you mean you’re on the bus?’ ”
Ms. Cutler reminded herself that she was preparing for her son’s bar mitzvah, going through a stressful period and was very distracted. But she was concerned enough to report the incident to her physician, and ask if there were certain supplements she should be taking. The doctor told her to take up activities that challenged her mind. (Ms. Cutler said she had not done anything yet, because it is “a real time commitment.”)
Dr. Cohen, who recently conducted a study of people born from 1946 to 1955, the first half of the baby boom, said he was struck by the number of respondents who believe they can do things on their own to enhance the vitality of their brains.
“There is a gradual growing awareness that challenging your brain can have positive effects,” Dr. Cohen said. He said the plasticity of the brain is directly related to the production of new dendrites, the branched, tree-like neural projections that carry electrical signals through the brain “Every time you challenge your brain it will actually modify the brain,” he said. “We can indeed form new brain cells, despite a century of being told it’s impossible.”
In pursuit of his own dendritic growth, Dr. Cohen plans to take up the piano again after years of not playing. He is also sketching out a science-fiction novel he hopes to write.
Dr. Cohen says that although he understands the fear of Alzheimer’s, many people are unduly anxious about it.
“The bottom line question to ask is, Is your forgetfulness fundamentally interfering with how you function?” said Dr. Cohen. “If it doesn’t fundamentally mess up your work or social life, it’s among the normal variants.”
Relief — or heightened anxiety — can come with a better sense of one’s genetic risk. Start-ups like Navigenics, 23andMe and deCODE genetics are charging around $1,000 to test an individual’s DNA for various risk factors, including Alzheimer’s.
Mr. Bunnell, whose magazine, Eldr, is aimed at aging boomers, took the 23andMe test and learned that his genetic risk is below average. Still, Mr. Bunnell is not sure he trusts the report, as one of his grandparents had dementia, and his mother may have had Alzheimer’s although no diagnosis was made.
To keep such moments as his FedEx embarrassment to a minimum, Mr. Bunnell now does regular brain calisthenics, largely avoiding expensive software in favor of simpler solutions. He works at memorizing the numbers that swirl around his daily life — credit cards, PINs and phone numbers — and devises mnemonics for remembering people’s names. “Smart people find new ways to exercise their brains that don’t involve buying software or taking expensive workshops,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/03/technology/03brain.html
V S NAIPAUL: A Tribute
http://www.jahajeedesi.com/forums/index.php?showforum=56
God all my life, nor have you. To see this chair you first see
God, and then the chair in and through Him. He is
everywhere, saying, “I am.” The moment you feel “I am,” you
are conscious of Existence. Where shall we go to find God if
we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living
being? — VIVEKANANDA The mantra AUM stands for the supreme state
Of Turiya, without parts, beyond birth
And death, symbol of everlasting joy.
Those who know AUM as the Self become the Self;
Truly they become the Self.
Om shanti shanti shanti
-Mandukya Upanishad
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
Exercise Your Brain, or Else You’ll … Uh …
When David Bunnell, a magazine publisher who lives in Berkeley, Calif., went to a FedEx store to send a package a few years ago, he suddenly drew a blank as he was filling out the forms.
“I couldn’t remember my address,” said Mr. Bunnell, 60, with a measure of horror in his voice. “I knew where I lived, and I knew how to get there, but I didn’t know what the address was.”
Mr. Bunnell is among tens of millions of baby boomers who are encountering the signs, by turns amusing and disconcerting, that accompany the decline of the brain’s acuity: a good friend’s name suddenly vanishing from memory; a frantic search for eyeglasses only to find them atop the head; milk taken from the refrigerator then put away in a cupboard.
“It’s probably one of the most frightening aspects of the changes we undergo as we age,” said Nancy Ceridwyn, director of educational initiatives at the American Society on Aging. “Our memories are who we are. And if we lose our memories we lose that groundedness of who we are.”
At the same time, boomers are seizing on a mounting body of evidence that suggests that brains contain more plasticity than previously thought, and many people are taking matters into their own hands, doing brain fitness exercises with the same intensity with which they attack a treadmill.
Decaying brains, or the fear thereof, have inspired a mini-industry of brain health products — not just supplements like coenzyme Q10, ginseng and bacopa, but computer-based fitter-brain products as well.
Nintendo’s $19.99 Brain Age 2, a popular video game of simple math and memory exercises, is one. Posit Science’s $395 computer-based “cognitive behavioral training” exercises are another. MindFit, a $149 software-based program, combines cognitive assessment of more than a dozen different skills with a personalized training regimen based on that assessment. And for about $10 a month, worried boomers can subscribe to Web sites like Lumosity.com and Happy-Neuron.com, which offer a variety of cognitive training exercises.
Alvaro Fernandez, whose brain fitness and consulting company, SharpBrains, has a Web site focused on brain fitness research. He estimates that in 2007 the market in the United States for so-called neurosoftware was $225 million.
Mr. Fernandez pointed out that compared with, say, the physical fitness industry, which brings in $16 billion a year in health club memberships alone, the brain fitness software industry is still in its infancy. Yet it is growing at a 50 percent annual rate, he said, and he expects it to reach $2 billion by 2015.
From Hula Hoops to Corian countertops, marketers have done very well over the six decades guessing the desires of the generation born after World War II. Now they are making money on that generation’s fears, and it is not just computerized flash card makers with the money-making ideas. Doctors and geneticists have also tapped into the market.
Boomers believe they have ample reason to worry. There is no definitive laboratory test to detect Alzheimer’s disease. Doctors rely on symptoms to make the diagnosis, and most think that by the time symptoms show up the brain damage is already extensive.
By 2050, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, 11 million to 16 million Americans will have the disease.
“Most people when they turn 50 begin to look at forgetfulness with more seriousness,” said Dr. Gene Cohen, the director of the Center for Aging, Health and Humanities at George Washington University.
“When you misplace your keys when you’re 25, you don’t pay any attention to it,” he said. “But when you do the identical thing at 50 or older, you raise an eyebrow.”
Lisa C., 47, a clinical psychologist in the San Francisco Bay area, who preferred not to disclose her last name for fear that friends and colleagues would question her mental faculties, misplaced her cellphone one day a few years ago.
She called it from her home phone but heard nothing. Finally, while making dinner a few hours later, she found it — in the freezer.
She was so unnerved, not just by that but also by the poor results of a subsequent mental status test, that she had an MRI done on her brain. The diagnosis: perfectly normal. Dr. Cohen said people can also overreact, attributing absent-minded actions to failing brains, when it is actually simple distractibility that is to blame.
Nancy Cutler, 51, a publication designer in Piedmont, Calif., grew worried about her brain a few years ago when she drove her car to work one day, then, forgetting she had done so, took the bus home.
“It was pretty embarrassing to have my kid call me and say, ‘what do you mean you’re on the bus?’ ”
Ms. Cutler reminded herself that she was preparing for her son’s bar mitzvah, going through a stressful period and was very distracted. But she was concerned enough to report the incident to her physician, and ask if there were certain supplements she should be taking. The doctor told her to take up activities that challenged her mind. (Ms. Cutler said she had not done anything yet, because it is “a real time commitment.”)
Dr. Cohen, who recently conducted a study of people born from 1946 to 1955, the first half of the baby boom, said he was struck by the number of respondents who believe they can do things on their own to enhance the vitality of their brains.
“There is a gradual growing awareness that challenging your brain can have positive effects,” Dr. Cohen said. He said the plasticity of the brain is directly related to the production of new dendrites, the branched, tree-like neural projections that carry electrical signals through the brain “Every time you challenge your brain it will actually modify the brain,” he said. “We can indeed form new brain cells, despite a century of being told it’s impossible.”
In pursuit of his own dendritic growth, Dr. Cohen plans to take up the piano again after years of not playing. He is also sketching out a science-fiction novel he hopes to write.
Dr. Cohen says that although he understands the fear of Alzheimer’s, many people are unduly anxious about it.
“The bottom line question to ask is, Is your forgetfulness fundamentally interfering with how you function?” said Dr. Cohen. “If it doesn’t fundamentally mess up your work or social life, it’s among the normal variants.”
Relief — or heightened anxiety — can come with a better sense of one’s genetic risk. Start-ups like Navigenics, 23andMe and deCODE genetics are charging around $1,000 to test an individual’s DNA for various risk factors, including Alzheimer’s.
Mr. Bunnell, whose magazine, Eldr, is aimed at aging boomers, took the 23andMe test and learned that his genetic risk is below average. Still, Mr. Bunnell is not sure he trusts the report, as one of his grandparents had dementia, and his mother may have had Alzheimer’s although no diagnosis was made.
To keep such moments as his FedEx embarrassment to a minimum, Mr. Bunnell now does regular brain calisthenics, largely avoiding expensive software in favor of simpler solutions. He works at memorizing the numbers that swirl around his daily life — credit cards, PINs and phone numbers — and devises mnemonics for remembering people’s names. “Smart people find new ways to exercise their brains that don’t involve buying software or taking expensive workshops,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/03/technology/03brain.html
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Myth of Aryan Dravidian divide
ARYAN invasion theory, proven false — INDIA (part 1 of 3)
ARYAN invasion theory, proven false — INDIA (part 2 of 3)
ARYAN invasion theory, proven false — INDIA (part 3 of 3)
Superb Video on Hinduism Produced by Chicago Police Department
http://www.archive.org/details/gov.doj.ncj.212664.v1.7
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The Green Face Man, by Professor Rosanne Kanhai
THE GREEN FACE MAN, By Professor Rosanne Kanhai
was launched at Rudranath Capildeo Learning Resource
Center, Mc Bean, Couva, Trinidad on April 12th, 2008
Available at UWI Bookstore & other bookstores in Trinidad.
Webpages and Forum dedicated to the NOBLE LAUREATE
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GUYANA BLOGS:
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FREE TIBET, NOW!!
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The Green Face Man, by Professor Rosanne Kanhai
THE GREEN FACE MAN, By Professor Rosanne Kanhai
was launched at Rudranath Capildeo Learning Resource
Center, Mc Bean, Couva, Trinidad on April 12th, 2008
Available at UWI Bookstore & other bookstores in Trinidad.
Webpages and Forum dedicated to the NOBLE LAUREATE
http://www.jahajeedesi.com/index.php?page=laureatevsnaipaul
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Inspiration
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GOD IS INFINITE
God is infinite. He is the indwelling presence. He has no limit. He
dispels the fear of the devotees. He is an ocean of mercy and bliss.
He is an ocean of limitless love. God is immutable. He is the giver
of all happiness. God fulfils the desires of his devotees. He is the
only shelter in danger.
God is the supreme resort of those who aspire for the highest bliss
or final beatitude. He is mother, father, real friend, true preceptor
and the supreme deity.
God is a mystery. His grace and ways are a greater mystery. God is
the unchanging, unfading, eternal, almighty, all wise, all loving
one - our refuge and our solace. God is our blissful, immortal abode
where no danger can touch us, where no calamity can overwhelm us and
where no thieves can attack us.
Know that everything but God is vanity. Love none but God. Hear none
but God. Think of none but God. See none but God. To be in tune with
God is to be like God. The first approach to God is sincerity and
earnest love for him.
To know God is to love him. The more you know him the more you must
love him. To know yourself is to know God, for then you perceive your
relation with him. The more we develop ourselves, the more we find
ourselves filled with love for him.
Speak to the Lord - not with the lips but with the heart. Day by day
feel closer to God. Day by day feel more and more your oneness with
all life. Walk close to God at all times.
See all things in the light of truth and thus you will find freedom,
the fullness of life, perfection and absolute independence. How to
attain the Lord? He is the means himself - for all gifts flow from
Him.
The real teacher is God. He lives in your heart. Seek Him. Find Him.
Enter into Him. And rest peacefully, for ever. The Lord is within
you. He has your souls as his abode.
God is the soul of your soul. He is the self of all. Offer everything
to Him, unreservedly. Seek and you will find Him in your own heart.
– SWAMI SIVANANDA readings
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‘jahaj’ = ship; ‘desi’ = Indian
‘JahajeeDesi’ = The Indians who crossed the Kala Pani by ship,
the Indentured Indian Immigrants, and their descendents.
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