Telly tour...

Jus happened to see “Bazigar” movie recently and when the famous song was played “ yeh kalli kalli aankeh …tururu tururu..yeh gore gore gal tururu tururu…” I jus couldn’t stop stop laughing…on the lyrics…on srk, on kajol, on their dance, and on myself too cause I used to enjoy dancing and singing that number!

I got a kind of flashback…of my childhood telly experience…

“Kasturi-supri…chai ka mazaa…!” some chai ka ad song…spoofed by my cousins to tease me…so basically I used to dread this ad big time then…!

The bournvita ka ads,

The Cadbury perk ka Preeti Zinta’s ad,

“Mango Frooti…fresh and juicy”…the

“doodh, doodh…doodh hai wonderful pi sakte hain roj glassful doodh, doodh…”

the nirma ad with the toing…. kinda music ;

"jarasi hassi dular jarasaaa…Amul; The Taste of India..aa.aa” and few others with which I associate my childhood and my tv hours with…!

The “Wednesday 7pm” wala “chitrahaar”

…the “Sunday 7am” wala “rangoli” and

10pm wala “superhit muqabla”

…the only musical treat on television…available then…

The detective thrillers…I just remember “Tehkikaat” and “Raja aur Ranchoo”

Sunday mornings were special and unlike now when I spend my Sunday mornings sleeping…the schedule used to be quite busy then…

7-8 Rangoli

8-9 Shree Krishna

9-10 Chandrakanta

10-11 The jungle book

Also “Small wonder” “Bewitched” “The Famous Five” “Duck tales” “Tales spin” “Cindrella” “Captain planet-he’s the hero..Brings pollution down to zero…” were my favourites….!

Yup, there were also some programs that left their mark "Surabhi" was one of them, hosted by Renuka Shahane and Siddharth Kak...this was one show that i never missed...

I think the first movie I watched in theatre was “Jurassic Park” and was really scared on watching it; the funniest part was…I thought we were going to some park that day…!

I also remember watching movies like Anjali, Halo, Mr.India, Andaz Apna Apna and responding to the emotional ups and downs too…

Even the few TV hours we used to have were interrupted with power cuts and then would begin with “candle light entertainment” whole building ka Baccha Company used to be out of their houses. Playing hide n seek…antakshri...n what not…and the kind of uproar we used to have when the power was back…used to be deafening!!!

Today, the telly experience is way different…it’s overdone, I feel!

Back in time it was a treat, a perfect balance of everything…but times have changed and so has the TV!

(2) A must read...

continued...

Authority, as a reason for believing something, means believing in it because you are told to believe it by somebody important. In the Roman Catholic Church, the pope is the most important person, and people believe he must be right just because he is the pope. In one branch of the Muslim religion, the important people are the old men with beards called ayatollahs. Lots of Muslims in this country are prepared to commit murder, purely because the ayatollahs in a
faraway country tell them to.

When I say that it was only in 1950 that Roman Catholics were finally told that they had to believe that Mary's body shot off to Heaven, what I mean is that in 1950, the pope told people that they had to believe it. That was it. The pope said it was true, so it had to be true! Now, probably some of the things that that pope said in his life were true and some were not true. There is no good reason why, just because he was the pope, you should believe everything he said any more than you believe everything that other people say. The present pope ( 1995 ) has ordered his followers not to limit the number of babies they have. If people follow this authority as slavishly as he would wish, the results could be terrible famines, diseases, and wars, caused by overcrowding.

Of course, even in science, sometimes we haven't seen the evidence ourselves and we have to take somebody else's word for it. I haven't, with my own eyes, seen the evidence that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Instead, I believe books that tell me the speed of light. This looks like "authority." But actually, it is much better than authority, because the people who wrote the books have seen the evidence and anyone is free to look carefully at the evidence whenever they want. That is very comforting. But not even the priests claim that there is any evidence for their story about Mary's body zooming off to Heaven.

The third kind of bad reason for believing anything is called "revelation." If you had asked the pope in 1950 how he knew that Mary's body disappeared into Heaven, he would probably have said that it had been "revealed" to him. He shut himself in his room and prayed for guidance. He thought and thought, all by himself, and he became more and more sure inside himself. When religious people just have a feeling inside themselves that something must be true, even though there is no evidence that it is true, they call their feeling "revelation." It isn't only popes who claim to have revelations. Lots of religious people do. It is one of their main reasons for believing the things that they do believe.
But is it a good reason? Suppose I told you that your dog was dead. You'd be very upset, and you'd probably say, "Are you sure? How do you know? How did it happen?" Now suppose I answered: "I don't actually know that Pepe is dead. I have no evidence. I just have a funny feeling deep inside me that he is dead." You'd be pretty cross with me for scaring you, because you'd know that an inside "feeling" on its own is not a good reason for believing that a whippet is dead. You need evidence. We all have inside feelings from time to time, sometimes they turn out to be right and sometimes they don't. Anyway, different people have opposite feelings, so how are we to decide whose feeling is right? The only way to be sure that a dog is dead is to see him dead, or hear that his heart has stopped; or be told by somebody who has seen or heard some real evidence that he is dead.

People sometimes say that you must believe in feelings deep inside, otherwise, you' d never be confident of things like "My wife loves me." But this is a bad argument. There can be plenty of evidence that somebody loves you. All through the day when you are with somebody who loves you, you see and hear lots of little titbits of evidence, and they all add up. It isn't a purely inside feeling, like the feeling that priests call revelation. There are outside things to back up the inside feeling: looks in the eye, tender notes in the voice, little favors and kindnesses; this is all real evidence.Sometimes people have a strong inside feeling that somebody loves them when it is not based upon any evidence, and then they are likely to be completely wrong.
There are people with a strong inside feeling that a famous film star loves them, when really the film star hasn't even met them. People like that are ill in their minds. Inside feelings must be backed up by evidence, otherwise you just can't trust them.

Inside feelings are valuable in science, too, but only for giving you ideas that you later test by looking for evidence. A scientist can have a "hunch'" about an idea that just "feels" right. In itself, this is not a good reason for believing something. But it can be a good reason for spending some time doing a particular experiment, or looking in a particular way for evidence. Scientists use inside feelings all the time to get ideas. But they are not worth anything until they are supported by evidence.

I promised that I'd come back to tradition, and look at it in another way. I want to try to explain why tradition is so important to us. All animals are built (by the process called evolution) to survive in the normal place in which their kind live. Lions are built to be good at surviving on the plains of Africa. Crayfish to be good at surviving in fresh, water, while lobsters are built to be good at surviving in the salt sea. People are animals, too, and we are built to be good at surviving in a world full of ..... other people. Most of us don't hunt for our own food like lions or lobsters; we buy it from other people who have bought it from yet other people. We ''swim'' through a "sea of people." Just as a fish needs gills to survive in water, people need brains that make them able to deal with other people. Just as the sea is full of salt water, the sea of people is full of difficult things to learn. Like language. You speak English, but your friend Ann-Kathrin speaks German. You each speak the language that fits you to '`swim about" in your own separate "people sea." Language is passed down by tradition. There is no other way . In England, Pepe is a dog. In Germany he is ein Hund. Neither of these words is more correct, or more true than the other. Both are simply handed down. In order to be good at "swimming about in their people sea," children have to learn the language of their own country, and lots of other things about their own people; and this means that they have to absorb, like blotting paper, an enormous amount of traditional information. (Remember that traditional information just means things that are handed down from grandparents to parents to children.) The child's brain has to be a sucker for traditional information. And the child can't be expected to sort out good and useful traditional information, like the words of a language, from bad or silly traditional information, like believing in witches and devils and ever-living virgins.

It's a pity, but it can't help being the case, that because children have to be
suckers for traditional information, they are likely to believe anything the grown-ups tell them, whether true or false, right or wrong. Lots of what the grown-ups tell them is true and based on evidence, or at least sensible. But if some of it is false, silly, or even wicked, there is nothing to stop the children believing that, too. Now, when the children grow up, what do they do? Well, of course, they tell it to the next generation of children. So, once something gets itself strongly believed - even if it is completely untrue and there never was any reason to believe it in the first place - it can go on forever.

Could this be what has happened with religions ? Belief that there is a god or gods, belief in Heaven, belief that Mary never died, belief that Jesus never had a human father, belief that prayers are answered, belief that wine turns into blood - not one of these beliefs is backed up by any good evidence. Yet millions of people believe them. Perhaps this because they were told to believe them when they were told to believe them when they were young enough to believe anything.Millions of other people believe quite different things, because they were told different things when they were children. Muslim children are told different things from Christian children, and both grow up utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. Even within Christians, Roman Catholics believe different things from Church of England people or Episcopalians, Shakers or Quakers , Mormons or Holy Rollers, and are all utterly covinced that they are right and the others are wrong. They believe different things for exactly the same kind of reason as you speak English and Ann-Kathrin speaks German. Both languages are, in their own country, the right language to speak. But it can't be true that different religions are right in their own countries, because different religions claim that opposite things are true. Mary can't be alive in Catholic Southern Ireland but dead in Protestant Northern Ireland.

What can we do about all this ? It is not easy for you to do anything, because you are only ten. But you could try this. Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: "Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority, or revelation?" And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: "What kind of evidence is there for that?" And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.

Your loving
Daddy
RICHARD DAWKINS

(1) A Must Read..

Children's Day Special...

Dear Juliet,

Now that you are ten, I want to write to you about something that is important to me. Have you ever wondered how we know the things that we know? How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the sun and are very far away? And how do we know that Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the sun? The answer to these questions is "evidence." Sometimes evidence means actually seeing ( or hearing, feeling, smelling..... ) that something is true. Astronauts have travelled far enough from earth to see with their own eyes that it is round. Sometimes our eyes need help. The "evening star" looks like a bright twinkle in the sky, but with a telescope, you can see that it is a beautiful ball - the planet we call Venus. Something that you learn by direct seeing ( or
hearing or feeling..... ) is called an observation.

Often, evidence isn't just an observation on its own, but observation always lies at the back of it. If there's been a murder, often nobody (except the murderer and the victim!) actually observed it. But detectives can gather together lots or other observations which may all point toward a particular suspect. If a person's fingerprints match those found on a dagger, this is evidence that he touched it. It doesn't prove that he did the murder, but it can help when it's joined up with lots of other evidence. Sometimes a detective can think about a whole lot of observations and suddenly realise that they fall into place and make sense if so-and-so did the murder.

Scientists - the specialists in discovering what is true about the world and the universe - often work like detectives. They make a guess ( called a hypothesis ) about what might be true. They then say to themselves: If that were really true, we ought to see so-and-so. This is called a prediction. For example, if the world is really round, we can predict that a traveller, going on and on in the same direction, should eventually find himself back where he started.When a doctor says that you have the measles, he doesn't take one look at you and see measles. His first look gives him a hypothesis that you may have measles. Then he says to himself: If she has measles I ought to see...... Then he runs through the list of predictions and tests them with his eyes ( have you got spots? ); hands ( is your forehead hot? ); and ears ( does your chest wheeze in a measly way? ). Only then does he make his decision and say, " I diagnose that the child has measles. " Sometimes doctors need to do other tests like blood tests or X-Rays, which help their eyes, hands, and ears to make observations.

The way scientists use evidence to learn about the world is much cleverer and
more complicated than I can say in a short letter. But now I want to move on
from evidence, which is a good reason for believing something , and warn you
against three bad reasons for believing anything. They are called "tradition,"
"authority," and "revelation."

First, tradition. A few months ago, I went on television to have a discussion with about fifty children. These children were invited because they had been brought up in lots of different religions. Some had been brought up as Christians, others as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or Sikhs. The man with the microphone went from child to child, asking them what they believed. What they said shows up exactly what I mean by "tradition." Their beliefs turned out to have no connection with evidence. They just trotted out the beliefs of their parents and grandparents which, in turn, were not based upon evidence either.
They said things like: "We Hindus believe so and so"; "We Muslims believe such
and such"; "We Christians believe something else."
Of course, since they all believed different things, they couldn't all be right. The man with the microphone seemed to think this quite right and proper, and he didn't even try to get them to argue out their differences with each other. But that isn't the point I want to make for the moment. I simply want to ask where their beliefs come from. They came from tradition. Tradition means beliefs handed down from grandparent to parent to child, and so on. Or from books handed down through the centuries. Traditional beliefs often start from almost nothing; perhaps somebody just makes them up originally, like the stories about Thor and Zeus. But after they've been handed down over some centuries, the mere fact that they are so old makes them seem special. People believe things simply because people have believed the same thing over the centuries. That's tradition.

The trouble with tradition is that, no matter how long ago a story was made up, it is still exactly as true or untrue as the original story was. If you make up a story that isn't true, handing it down over a number of centuries doesn't make it any truer!
Most people in England have been baptised into the Church of England, but this is only one of the branches of the Christian religion. There are other branches such as Russian Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, and the Methodist churches. They all believe different things. The Jewish religion and the Muslim religion are a bit more different still; and there are different kinds of Jews and of Muslims.
People who believe even slightly different things from each other go to war over their disagreements. So you might think that they must have some pretty good reasons - evidence - for believing what they believe. But actually, their different beliefs are entirely due to different traditions.
Let's talk about one particular tradition. Roman Catholics believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was so special that she didn't die but was lifted bodily in to Heaven. Other Christian traditions disagree, saying that Mary did die like anybody else. These other religions don't talk about much and, unlike Roman Catholics, they don't call her the "Queen of Heaven." The tradition that Mary's body was lifted into Heaven is not an old one. The bible says nothing on how she died; in fact, the poor woman is scarcely mentioned in the Bible at all. The belief that her body was lifted into Heaven wasn't invented until about six centuries after Jesus' time. At first, it was just made up, in the same way as any story like "Snow White" was made up. But, over the centuries, it grew into a tradition and people started to take it seriously simply because the story had been handed down over so many generations. The older the tradition became, the more people took it seriously. It finally was written down as and official Roman Catholic belief only very recently, in 1950, when I was the age you are now. But the story was no more true in 1950 than it was when it was first invented six hundred years after Mary's death.

I'll come back to tradition at the end of my letter, and look at it in another way. But first, I must deal with the two other bad reasons for believing in anything: authority and revelation.

to be continued...

(A wonderful read...i wish to have read it at age 10...doesn't matter... its beyond the limits of age!!!)

Source: Good And Bad Reasons For Believing
By Richard Dawkins

Going UP and DOWN

Train journey is part and parcel of life of every mumbaikar...Commuting everyday to coll, work place et al has its own share of experiences and here are few of my own local train experiences on Harbour and Central line

• This was the week after the famous 26th July 2005 and i boarded a crowded 9.28am train. Obviously couldn't find a place to sit, the journey began and at every station the train started making contact with the platform, which obviously created friction.By the time train reached vashi, by then it had become really crowded and the continuous friction and added friction at vashi due to the curve...smelt fire. There was panic and the jam packed females in the compartment raised an alarm of fire...panic struck and more than half of the compartment became empty and the train started to leave after 15secs...i got a place to sit in the now empty train....thanks to the psuedo fire alarm!

• After boarding a jam packed train at Kurla...i realised there was some place to shift for the ladies in front towards the window...but some lady sitting in the direction opp. to that in which the train was travelling, was against it; reason..."mujhe suffocation hota hai...hawa nahi aati" then there was this part of me getting squeezed, explaining her the "air dynamics" that anyways the place she was sitting "waise bhi wahan pe hawa nahi aayegi"...fellow passengers appreciated my efforts with a smile, and there was at least comfortable place to stand!

• At times i spend my train journey reading stuff; its ok if its HP or Sidney Sheldon or a Jeffry Archer it doesn't call for attention of other co-travellers. But if its a Conn n Stumpf or a Friefilder or a Kuby(or any other bio related book) you invariably will be asked, "Are you a medical student?" "What are you studying?" then a small thought process goes on in the person's mind and then they formulate questions like, "Are the hybrids available safe?Do they cause side effects?" some times an intelligent question like is some ABC syndrome genetic or sex linked? makes its way...mostly the questions are related to genetics...sometimes make me feel i m genetic counsellor!
  

• I still remember, I met my JC frnd in train a medical student at KEM and we were so engrossed in discussing Immuno...actually had great discussions through out the journey, it was just us speaking and discussing in the morning 7am train...that to immuno...co-passengers seemed to hear Greek and Latin!

• Also there was this incident, yesterday...i actually was about to miss the 20.59 ka train from Kanjurmarg so got into general compartment...in Kurla when i got down a TC asked me for my ticket... i was cool as usual and opened my purse for ticket and you wont believe it was filled with tickets all sort of train tickets...and i was just not able to find my return ticket for the day...i remembered keeping it in the purse and now i just couldn't find it...started checking in the bag and then purse again...ticket checker was like madam office mein chalo...i was like nahi late ho raha hai mujhe wait i will find it out...by the time i think he was sure...this female is doing faltu ka natak! Tension was really creeping its way...i would have almost checked my purse 10times and still couldn't find it.And then suddenly out of nowhere, in the same purse i find my ticket...i mean what! I just showed the ticket to the TC and after so much of drama of me searching ticket and telling him i have got a return ticket...he was literally staring at the ticket very carefully checking minutest detail...and to make it fast cause i was getting late...i highlighted "return journey valid till midnight of 21-09-09"

• One of a kind experience was when, it was some 21 or 21.30 hrs on clock and my train was between kharghar and khandeshwar...i was alone in the ladies first class compartment enjoying the winds and the full moon when suddenly the lights went off...and this patch of the route is a small creek so till quite a distance you don't have civilization as such...it was mast pitch dark...it was just for few minutes but ultimate experience of pitch darkness in the train.

• Vashi bridge is another heavenly experience of train journey...in night its just beautiful in the evening its soothing, during the day its a aerial view of a huge swimming pool, in the morning its fresh and in the rainy season...its the Arabian sea at its best!Listening to Robaroo and chattin with vidhi on everything under the sun, i have had best of the times in my life here!

• Train is also the place where i completed my journals, made my last hour exam preparations,read books, made friends, thought of life, science, friends ...even took some right and wrong decisions...heard my worried parents on the phone during the blasts, heard few others shouting on phone, while some others loosing it too...

It's a mixed bag of experiences here...that I cherish in life!

Leucoderma-HW

There was this study done on a population having Leucoderma in Gujarat and it was found that the alleles involved were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium...! The results were surprising because we expect selection to act against the individuals with Leucoderma...because of the so called "mate choices" . But this wasn't the case here... again a study followed to determine the reason for absence of selection! It was found that the symptoms of leucoderma i.e the white patches on the skin occurred or were visible only after the subjects got married... they were totally absent when the mate choices were made...thus selection did not occur against the trait.
(My second encounter with the Hardy-Weinberg law...was with this example and since then whenever i see a person with Leucoderma Hardy-Weinberg law marquee makes an appearance!)
These days more often... I not only encounter quite a few people with Lecuoderma but also these people are quite young! (this is in mumbai) Making my mind wonder of the allele stats...I think the current scenario points towards, selection pressure acting on these alleles cause the symptoms are evident before the mate choice...so selection pressure must definately act, ideally should act and in the future should lead to gradual dilution of this allele from the population.
It's only for someone to study the population of those affected with leucoderma and highlight the allele stats!
Looking from point of view of a science student: Day to day, current, classical example of Hardy-Weinberg law and selection pressure at work.