Author: The Metrognome

Categories
Wellness

A city of overweight children?

Leading surgeon finds young children in Mumbai and other cities are more prone to obesity; calls it a ‘generational curse’.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

We see them everywhere. On their way back from school, or rooted firmly to their seats in front of their computers, or lounging for hours in front of the television – fat children, with ever-expanding waistlines and astounding weights for people so young.

When children are infants, a bit of extra weight seemingly adds to their chubby charm. What is alarming is, however, that some children are not just unable to shed the baby fat, they are unable to stop expanding at all.

Dr Shashank ShahSays Dr Shashank Shah (in pic on left), noted laparoscopic and bariatric surgeon with a huge practice in Mumbai and Pune, “In my practice, and overall, the trend we are observing is that this current generation of adolescent and pre-adolescent children is afflicted not just by an unhealthy lifestyle, but a ‘generational curse’. It seems to be a shift in evolution that is prompting their metabolism to not function at peak optimum levels.”

What does this mean?
This simply means that the metabolic set point for this generation has moved; doctors are increasingly seeing children with BMIs (Body to Mass Index) of 28 and above; 28 is considered the ideal BMI for adults. “There is a shift of the BMI to a higher level. This does not happen suddenly – it is both genetic and evolutionary in nature,” Dr Shah explains.

Not eating the right foods, not exercising enough or at all, and not being encouraged to lead a healthy lifestyle, are all combining to create obese childfatter, diseased kids. “Recently, at my clinic in Mumbai, there was a 12-year-old boy who came to see me,” Dr Shah says. “It seems difficult to believe, but 100 kgs is fast becoming an average weight for children.”

Diseases galore
A worrying trend, apart from the excess weight obese children are lugging around, is that they have several diseases right from a tender age. “Hypertension, diabetes, cardiac disorders…all of these are very common among obese children,” Dr Shah says. “Other problems that come at a later stage are fertility issues. Besides this, the fact that they are overweight and unable to do most activities that their peers can, also plays on them psychologically. However, many parents are slow to react to the problem. I have had several parents tell me that they enrolled their child in the gym because the weight was embarrassing,” Dr Shah explains.

He adds that most parents hardly ever realise that obesity is not an isolated disease – it brings with it other life-threatening conditions. “Their priority is weight loss. But why do they wait till the child becomes obese? They should see a doctor the moment they notice excessive weight loss,” Dr Shah says.

eating junkWhy is Mumbai at risk?
Simply because there are so many food choices and not enough spaces for recreation and outdoor play. “Working parents also have no time to see what their children are eating every day. Children also have liberal amounts of money to spend, so they tend to buy unhealthy junk food with friends,” says Dr Shah, adding that the cities in India and also Tier II cities like Pune are showing an upwards obesity trend in children due to poor eating choices.

(Pictures courtesy www.ibcclub.org, www.hindustantimes.com, infozone.wordpress.com, navimumbaicity.com. Pictures are used for representational purpose only)

Categories
Overdose

Baj gaye baara

Was the ‘Rs 12 meals’ episode merely a stupid statement or a slap in the face of India’s hungry millions?
Jatin Sharmaby Jatin Sharma

I love this country! Our countrymen endure so much in the daily race to stay alive, but we just laugh off our troubles. Why look outside, we brave numerous insults meted out to us by our fellow countrymen, but we still smile.

Has this constant grin on our faces led everyone to believe that they may mock us with impunity and walk away?

The country that dreamed to be a superpower by 2020, the country that wanted to have world class infrastructure and the country that was shining in an ad campaign is nowhere near accomplishing those dreams. Right now it is like an old woman who used to be beautiful in her youth, but who now refuses to see the telling wrinkles and age spots on her skin. Today, 66 per cent of the population of India is below 35 years old and 95 per cent of those people are fed up of the idiotic statements that are vomited by our politicians.

A recent statement that received a lot of flak comes from Raj babbar (see pic below right), actor-turned-politician who said that it is possible toRaj Babbar get a satiating meal at Rs 12 in Mumbai. It sent all Mumbaikars into a mad scramble to look for this fabled joint that sold a full meal at Rs 12. Meanwhile, another politician claimed that he can enjoy his meal at Rs. 5 in a city like Delhi. My question to both these self-proclaimed samaritans is: Where did you get these figures from? Did you pull them out of the air or out of your arse? Earlier, some bright sparks in the Planning Committee announced that Rs. 33 was enough to survive for a day. May be these people are all picking out their favourite numbers, but in the name of all that is sane, please STOP!

Even a person with the IQ of a mossy stone will find something wrong with these numbers. A statement like that is akin to a dog chasing a speeding vehicle – the dog knows he won’t catch up, but he still gives chase. In this context, a politician makes an absurd statement like this and then everyone sets out to prove the truth or lies behind it, giving unnecessary credence to an idiotic man’s views. The idiotic man, meanwhile, cannot explain what he meant to say in the first place, so he takes the easy way out and apologises.

I have another question for these politicians: if you feel that Rs. 12 is enough to fill your plate, why did you increase your salaries last year? How much more money do you want, apart from the full coffers you already enjoy? Who gives you a meal at Rs 12 when tomatoes are selling at over Rs. 33 a kilo? When you involve yourselves with scams to the tune of thousands of crores of rupees, do you think about subsisting on a Rs 12 meal? Have you no conscience?

Or are you so far removed from reality that you have forgotten, or probably never experienced, what it is to be genuinely hungry?

So we, in the pursuit of the elusive ‘superpower’ tag, must let our leaders run amok talking nonsense and gobbling up land and money where they can. You and I must make do with Rs 12 meals, and we must not throw away the leftovers in our plates. Or we must fight inflation further and all move to Delhi, where you supposedly get meals at Rs 5.

hungry in IndiaWhen are we ever going to look forward and become proactive, where we as a society are so powerful that nobody may have the guts to say Rs 12 is a sufficient amount of money for food? No politician or leader should so blase that he or she pulls out a magic number that is not even a fourth of the foreign exchange rate of the country we want to overtake as an economy.

Raise your standards, Mr Politician. The next time you say something, make sure you don’t have to keep an apology ready. And also, put me out of my misery and tell me: where in Mumbai did you eat at Rs 12?

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everybody else.

 (Pictures courtesy www.india-forums.com, www.outlookindia.com, www.flickr.com)

Categories
Enough said

The capital bites the dust

Which development are we talking about, when the capital city cannot withstand an hour’s rain without turning into a cesspool?
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

This Saturday was a nightmare, with rains not taking a break. I’d dared to step out in the rains without realising that I’d be caught in a disaster. If commuting from Gurgaon to New Delhi wasn’t horrible enough, the scene in the capital city was shocking. Three South Delhi roads – connecting Hauz Khas with the Asiad Games Village and Green Park, also those leading to Malviya Nagar and Saket – were not visible in their long-winded glory; they resembled nullahs overflowing with garbage.

Autorickshaws were stuck in those waters, together with the danger of live wires. The only option was to stand on the roadside, with or without an umbrella and shoes, and await developments. Hundreds were stranded all over Delhi, which is not geared to combat even an hour’s rain! The days will get longer (or seem to) as the rainy season continues. Even a mild shower is enough to cause horrifying traffic snarls here, in the capital city of India.

When I am stranded in the rain, I introspect on the complete mess Delhi is in, and what third class living conditions you can find here. This is a story that plays on loop, season after season. In the dark winter months, it’s the fog that stands in the way, in the long summer, it’s the heat that kills. But these are quirks of nature, not to be helped by man. What can be helped, however, is the heap of disasters we see every monsoon.

The dreaded dengue makes an entry every year, and kills several. Live wires abound on busy roads, becoming potential death traps. Then there are the nullahs that overflow constantly. No, let’s not blame the rain gods and let’s not host a fashionable climatic change conference. We’ve always had a monsoon season, but it wasn’t treacherous like this, it was all fun and frolic and romance. After all, poets of this land have penned volumes of romantic verse on the rains.

Don’t even think of going out for a meeting in this rain, for you are sure to reach the destination, that is if you reach at all, drenched to the bone, your make-up running in rivers all over your face, your clothes reduced to see-through rags, shoes or sandals almost gone, umbrella not holding out. You might even land up at your meet with chest pain or blood pressure, your blood sugar levels on the rise. No wonder there are so many nursing homes and private medical centres mushrooming all over the place! Our living conditions make their presence inevitable.

The State dare not talk of development in the run-up to the elections. What development does it speak of, when the average citizen cannot even commute when the weather changes? When every season drags along disasters, when your health infrastructure is third class and only the rich can afford private medical care? The rest of us have to queue up at those Government hospitals, which are as good as butcherkhanas.

delhi rainCan’t we see the crux of these disasters? It’s blatant corruption that is responsible. Even the naïve can understand that these roads full of pot holes are sinking and falling apart are made of bogus material. The only remedy is that our ministers and their babus should be made to take a walk on these roads. Every single day that it rains, they should be made to stand at crossings and lanes. They should be made to walk to their workplace. May be then they would see what their power and money prevents them from seeing – how those who elected them face life when the seasons change.

Humra Quraishi is a senior journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy www.thehindu.com, indiatoday.intoday.in)

Categories
Chapter One

That girl…

Is it possible to feel a stranger’s pain without exchanging a word? Why did her tears move the young boy?
Siddharth Shekharby Siddharth Shekhar

It was one of those days when I feel this urge to explore a city how people who live in it, do on a regular basis. So I decided to travel from Virar to Churchgate (changed in the middle to a slow train, just to get the feel of all the stations). It wasn’t peak traffic time, but the second class was as full as it can possibly be – I plugged in my earphones and turned on some soothing music hoping it would help me cut off from the chaos I had willingly pushed myself in.

I wanted to absorb the sights alone – it’s amazing how letting go of one sense makes so much of a difference to the experience. Suddenly, the train was not the hot-box of gyrating pelvises I was used to. If you’ve ever chanced upon a conversation about Mumbai locals, you’d know that the zeal of people to reach from the place they’re at to the one they want to be at, completely overshadows the need for space, safety, comfort and things I can’t fathom on the Mumbai local.

It took me four stations to reach from hanging on the gate with my legs and upper body in two parallel universes, squished between two body builders of the badi body, chhoti T-shirt variety and surviving an injury in my beloved man-part by an unforgiving umbrella that refused to stay with the owner before I found a comfortable spot to stand. (By comfortable, I mean, enough space where I could stand straight under the same handlebar and not have to engage in a duel for my right to stand.) Having conquered Level 1 of the ordeal, I directed my physical, mental and spiritual powers to acquiring a spot to rest a third of my buttock.

By now, I have devised strategy to beat the system – I am methodical and fast unlike the tub thumping ways that the masses seem to follow.  I looked at probable people who might mumbai crowded local trainmake themselves scarce after a few stations. On my left there were a couple of men, who I presume were having a heated discussion about cricket. Since this is my story, I am going to presume that one had been hit by a stone in the head and then had picked up the same stone to chase away the guy who threw it at him. Who they were and what they were talking about is of no interest to me, but it must have been pretty intense since they were soon joined by more people, killing my interest, his conversation or any hope that I might have had of getting a seat in his turf.

I directed my powers to the other side of the compartment – I spotted eight people. A deeper stare gave in to the fact that six of them belonged to one family and the other two were unrelated old men. By the way the family had made themselves comfortable (snacks laid out, legs stretched etc) I could say that the family was going till the last station. Now, my only hope was to bank on the old couple – but isn’t it how the world works, somebody old gets off the life’s train and you take their place in this world. But I was there to win – I carefully rooted myself in a position such that no matter which old guy gets up, it would be me who gets their spot. At that time I completely disregarded any other passengers around me – man, woman, old or child, all I cared was about that one seat which would make my journey a little more comfortable than the rest of the people there. And it did happen – I swung into action the moment I saw one of the old guys merely straightening his back, and in action did I stay until I had replaced his bony behind with my cushy bum in that sweet spot on the seat. This to me was a victory against all those people who were trying to impart ‘death by squeeze’ to me till a minute ago. Even though they might not have thought of this as a battle, I had won.

As I began enjoying the sweet reward of my battle- a long journey with a place to sit, my favourite music to get lost in and a multitude of mute movies to watch which strangers around me were building on every passing moment. For example, the movie right next to me was about the family that was definitely doing till the last station. The characters – the father- with more grey on his head than should have been, the mother – a woman with a motherly look (one that we all know far too well, yet is impossible to describe in words), the son – a typical young brat, jumping around standing with his face against the window somehow enjoying the hot humid air against his face, and the daughter.

lonely girlThe daughter looked out of place in this typical family – she just sat still looking outside the window, lost somewhere. There were two more people in the same alleged family, and since there was nothing typical about their behaviour, I assumed that were just distant relatives of this tight knit family. The ride was just other chatty ride for the family, but for the girl, it seemed to me, this ride was out of the ordinary. The chatter of the family seemed to annoy her and she quietly exchanged seats with her father to be next to her mother.

Now, I could see her face. A girl in her early 20’s, but with an expression that carried the sadness of decades. Just like I could hear nothing but the music, even she heard nothing but the silence within. She just sat there an expression so blank, that you would dare not uncover what it hid beneath. She had her kerchief pressed against her eyes, which when she removed made me realise that she had been sobbing. Her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks moist with tears. Sitting next to her mother, she sobbed the whole time, not making a scene, not talking to anyone, she just sat there and silently communed with her mother through her eyes. The mother also did not speak for the entire duration of the journey, but she held her hand and then looked at her daughter with those reassuring eyes, which said far more than any kind words ever could.

I don’t know why the girl was sad. But I could not stop thinking knowing fully that I’ll never know the answer. Maybe she had a bad husband who didn’t treat her well or worse, beat her up, or she could have done poorly in her exams or lost her job. I don’t know what it was, but it has been almost five days since this happened and I can’t get it out of my head. That girl in the train keeps coming back to me.

That girl in the train…that girl whose mother holding her hand made me think about my own mother. That girl with a broken dream. That girl who let go of her emotions during that journey. That girl who sat there amidst this mad city running around her still life at that moment. That girl with the stillness in her eyes that hid the storm in her head. That girl represented the Mumbai which as I see, after all the hardships every day, picks itself up and moves on. Moves on to dream some more and work towards making some of them come true and trade off some in the race to find that comfortable spot where they can stand under their own handlebar.

Siddharth Shekhar is a newbie to Mumbai, still trying to find his way around the city with a notepad and a camera. This story is based on a real-life incident.

(Pictures courtesy www.mamamia.com.au, favim.com, au.ibtimes.com) 

Categories
Cinema@100

Justjoo jiski thi…

Shahrayar, the lyricist of Umrao Jaan was, at heart, a lonely and pained man who could have been a star.
by Humra Quraishi

I vividly recall meeting the late Aligarh-based poet and academic Shahryar (his complete name was Akhlaq Mohammad Khan Shahrayar) here in New Delhi in 2004. This was the first time I had met him. We’d met around the outer lawns of the India International Centre. Incidentally, his family also belonged to my ancestral qasba Aonla. Also, he knew my Aligarh-based younger sister, Habiba.

Shahrayar had shot to fame as the lyricist who penned the soulful, deeply philosophical songs of the 1981 hit, Umrao Jaan. Combined with Rekha’s mujras on the big screen and umraojaanKhayyam’s unmatched musical score, Shahrayar’s words continue to strike a chord with listeners even today.

The man himself, though, was as deep as the poetry he penned. It is possible, even when being celebrated by everyone around, to feel lonely and depressed. And if fate intervenes and plays tricks, one begins to feel victimised by life’s ways.

Shahrayar was one such person.

When I was introduced to him as ‘Habiba’s sister’, he was completely taken aback. My sister and I don’t look like each other at all. “You? Habiba’s sister?” he exclaimed.

“Yes, I am. She’s my younger sister.”

“But you look so different! She covers her head and you…” With that, he looked rather disapprovingly at my hair and the sleeveless shirt I was wearing. “You two are real sisters?”

“Yes, we are real sisters,” I replied.

“From the same father?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Same father?”

“Yes. At least, that’s what amma told us.”

ShahrayarHe guffawed at my answer. The man had a great sense of humour himself, though he had suffered a lot of emotional pain in his life before undergoing a messy separation from his wife after 23 years of marriage. Was it this same pain that stirred the depths in him when he wrote his haunting verses and lyrics? Throughout our conversation, he spoke about tanhaee (loneliness) and the emotional vacuum he was going through. He also kept referring to “Allah’s ways.”

A few years ago, I was to attend a mushaira in which Shahrayar was participating, and I was to interview him after it was over. Sadly, I could not make it to the event because I fell ill. After it was over, he called me. After I had apologised for not being able to attend and interview him, he laughed and said, “It’s okay. Allah’s ways.”

He must have been a deeply lonely man, unable to adjust to his single status, finally conceding defeat to a life that had admittedly been hard on him. He continued our conversation on the phone for a long time, dwelling at length on what being alone means and how life can be unfair. He also hinted darkly at the obstacles life threw his way, which may have stopped him from becoming a celebrated legend. “Whenever I felt that I was going ahead in life, Allah seemed to pull me down,” he sighed. “But those are His ways, who can question them? But one thing is certain – the minute you move forward, the minute you are about to taste success, hurdles are thrown in your way. I have seen this happen in my life.”

He continued talking about the difficulties he was facing as a single man at his age. I was struck anew by the pain the man was carrying in his heart, how bitter he was about life, but how brave he was trying to be about it.

Watch ‘Yeh kya jagah hai doston…’ from Umrao Jaan (1981) penned by Shahrayar:

 

(Pictures courtesy www.iefilmi.eu, thehindu.com) 

Categories
Tech

The best messaging clients for your smartphone

Love to text people and want to go beyond SMS and WhatsApp? Check out four other cool client messaging options.
by Manik Kakra

With smartphones in our hands or pockets more often than not, it is the best device to stay connected with your near and dear ones. Until recently, SMS was a big part of most people’s phone usage, when messaging apps for user-to-user phone chat started taking their place. Here are the best clients you can install on your smartphone today:

WhatsApp: You saw it coming, right? With the biggest userbase among any such apps, WhatsApp is what most users have installed, and is their go-to app for texting. Active development team, and cross-platform availability, this one is surely among the keepers.

ViberViber: Available for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Symbian, this one, along with WhatsApp, enjoys first-to-arrive benefit among these apps. Following the same rule of setting a user’s number as his/her ID, it isn’t much of a hassle to set it up. Users can also call each other through it, though the developers really need to improve the call quality.

LINE: LINE is one of the recent entrants in this list, but is surely here to stay. With over five million users registered in India in about three weeks’ time of its Indian launch, this one could well be your next favourite messaging client. Good call quality, emojis, emoticons, and some really nice stickers, plus a clean and responsive UI are the best things about it. It’s available for Android, iOS, BlackBerry, S40, Windows and Mac OS X.

Tango: You might not have heard its name, but this app got the Best Communication Awards this year. Its call quality – whether voice or video – is impressive, and with the usual text, picture and video-sharing features available, you should try this app once.

Fring: Old, but still relevant. With Fringe, you can not only group chat, but can also conference call with four persons. Great, right? Whether fringlandline (fixed) or mobile phone, you can make free call, mostly.

Apart from these, there are a number of other clients. While iOS has its own native iMessage (along with FaceTime), BlackBerry users have got their beloved BBM, which is soon going to be launched for iOS and Android; Android might get its own client later this year. Other apps worth checking once include Facebook Messenger (with its new Chatheads), SnapChat, which is focused more on image sharing. Nimbuzz, and WeChat.

(Pictures courtesy www.windowsphone.com, play.google.com, beyondthedefaults.com)

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