My mother suffered with dementia for a long time. It took us few years to fully understand her condition and the disease. It was a daily struggle for all of us as we expected her to behave normally, which was impossible for her. I undertook a short capsule from NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences), Bangalore (now Bengaluru) on dementia and read books and articles to understand the nature of disease. This changed my perspective and I realized that ignorance of the disease was the cause of our misery. The happenings which went beyond my understanding suddenly started making sense to me. Her conduct which looked so irritating, now, started looking natural, normal and in-fact pleasing and at times amusing. She was behaving exactly the way a dementia patient was expected to behave. The realization that we as care giver were to adapt to her requirement and not vice versa as we were trying to do till than, leading to fre...
This article of mine was published in The Tribune on 26 Feb 2015. That time I was posted to Chandimandir Cantt which is close to Chandigarh. Since that time Chandigarh has started having many marathon running events. The local club of which I was one of the early member has grown big and they organise runs and travel around in groups to participate in running events all over the country. s Posted at: Feb 26 2015 12:23AM BS Yadav Running: Brazil to Sukhna Lake For most, Brazil may conjure up images of samba, beaches, beauties and football. But for me it resonates with running, the sport I picked up during my three years stay in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. Brazilians may be crazy about football but it is the running which is the most visible sport. People of all ages and gender are seen running at all times of the day and night. On all weekends the six-lane main road in the city centre is blocked for the e...
On retirement I gleefully joined all social networking sites which were out of bounds in service. Soon I got flooded with tsunami of comments and posts. I tried to catch some threads but was puzzled by the pattern of discussion. Though it was not new for me as the political debates which I had often heard on TV were being made on the same lines. I grew up hearing about the rich tradition of philosophical thought and debate in ancient Indian philosophy. Gargi Vachaknavi (Delhi University college Gargi is named after her) is believed to be the first female philosopher. She was famous for her intellectual debates with other philosophers. Her philosophical debate with the renowned sage Yagnavalkya about ‘nature of reality’ is documented in the Brhadarankyaka Upanishad. After a long and intense debate Gargi humbly accepted her defeat in front of the knowledge of the great saint. The unpretentious acceptance of her defeat showed that debate was to genuinely p...
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