Science, Stories and Sevagram: A Physician-Teacher's Reflections
Reflections on family life, personal hobbies, and the intersection of poetry and medicine.
Poetry and medicine. For centuries they have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship. Ancient mythology tells us that Apollo was the Greek God of medicine, music and poetry. John Keats abandoned a career in medicine to concentrate on writing. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. wrote poems throughout his medical career and continued to do so long after he … Read more
Bevan Congdon died today. I remember his two towering sixes in the 1969 Nagpur test (India vs. New Zealand) – incidentally, the first cricket match that I saw live at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Ground, Nagpur. A connoisseur’s dream, he scored match-winning sixty-plus in the first inning and had no problems reading the variations in … Read more
Vidarbha did it! What a victory! This day reminds me of Kapil Dev lifting the 1983 World cup in England: the Vidarbha team was as much an underdog as the Indian team was in 1983. Thirty-five years ago, a bunch of Indian players took over the mighty West Indian team and made history by defeating … Read more
Rajneesh Gurbani seems to be in sublime form! This morning, he scythed through Delhi’s middle and tail for a hat-trick against Delhi— no mean achievement in a Ranji Trophy final— and went on to claim four wickets in just six balls. He bowled intelligently today: neither Mishra, nor Saini, nor Shorey could read his incredible … Read more
What an exciting victory! Vidarbha in Ranji Trophy final! Absolutely unbelievable! Vidarbha cricket’s finest hour! The teams were so closely matched and the result so incredibly close! The way Vidarbha held its nerves in what turned out to be a nail biting finish and snatched victory from the tightening jaws of defeat makes me very … Read more
Ridhora. A small village, 40 km from Sevagram houses Panchdhara dam—a tall reservoir dam that controls the flow of Panchdhara River. Today morning, before dawn broke, Ashwini Kalantri, Abhishek V. Raut and I began a 100- km ride. As we went past Pavnar and Seloo villages and decided almost impromptu to head for the dam, … Read more
If West Indies could defeat England on Tuesday, how could Bangladesh on Wednesday be far behind? The two test matches (England vs. West Indies at Headingley and Bangladesh vs. Australia at Mirpur) would go down in history for generating exciting and thrilling cricket. The countries that won these tests were rated as underdogs! Indeed these … Read more
Amrita, my daughter wrote today: People in their sixties today compete with the teenagers of my time. They are the most active lot on Facebook, more aware of what is happening where and to whom, and more updated with who is doing what. They are also just as passionate and positive about life. As he … Read more
On June 26, Andre Kajlich crossed the finish line of the Race Across America. He took 12 days, 16 hours and 18 minutes to do that. Dozens of cyclists also reached the target- as solo riders or as a team. So what is great about Andre? What makes his story so incredible? Why did people … Read more
It never rains, it pours. True. Never before in the history of Indian cycling, did we see so many individuals and teams bagging so many medals in a single day. If Srinivas and Amit brought glory to the country yesterday by their individual performances, today it was the turn of the 4-member team from Nasik … Read more