The blog contains lots of stuff sourced from other sites, NYT, WSJ and whatever else has interested me. But I am thinking why not pen (or type) which is my own creation! Wake up sid! So from now on I will post my thoughts here at least once a month. My friend Martin in New York does the same every quarter wherein he provides an update on his life. As I said I will try to do this once a month and have decided to call this series of posts as "Opinion". Rather grand, isn't it? Topics may be anything except professional matters.
In the first opinion piece a quick recap of the last year with a focus on my health. The start of 2010 was not exactly great when my back pain laid me low for sometime. But after that brief scare the rest of the year passed off uneventfully health-wise. Professionally speaking the year was satisfying if not extraordinary. I feel in my current organization I am probably working in one of the best places possible and I enjoy my work thoroughly.
But I want to wrap this post talking of health matters. I have a close to 100 year old Bengali neighbour in Delhi and a few years back we were talking and he commented that in his experience with doctors and alopathic medicine he felt that it was always a 50-50 situation. Meaning thereby that the doctor and his treatment worked only half the time. I too feel the same. For example, I am a chronic throat patient with a bout or two of tonsillitis affecting me each year. And the treatment is usual. I sadly meet a physician and he prescribes strong antibiotics. Now this happens every year and it happened in 2010 as well. The first time it happened I went through the usual routine. But lo and behold! Within 2 weeks of completing the course of antibiotics and when I should be in the pink, I had the old tonsils acting up again and rather viciously too. Since I had no choice in the matter I landed up at my ENT's doorstep again. He was not perturbed or apologetic in the least that his very expensive treatment had completely failed and that too for no fault of mine. But he really got my goat when he suggested that if after taking antibiotics again for 2 weeks the problem persisted I was to return to him for a tonsillectomy!!
I am telling you on hearing the doctor's prognosis something snapped inside me and I decided there and then that I was not going to have his prescriptions or ever think of returning to him. I came back home and launched myself on a week long self medication involving only frequent gargling of my throat with saline water. And it worked!! Three months have elapsed and I am still in control of my tonsils.
In the first opinion piece a quick recap of the last year with a focus on my health. The start of 2010 was not exactly great when my back pain laid me low for sometime. But after that brief scare the rest of the year passed off uneventfully health-wise. Professionally speaking the year was satisfying if not extraordinary. I feel in my current organization I am probably working in one of the best places possible and I enjoy my work thoroughly.
But I want to wrap this post talking of health matters. I have a close to 100 year old Bengali neighbour in Delhi and a few years back we were talking and he commented that in his experience with doctors and alopathic medicine he felt that it was always a 50-50 situation. Meaning thereby that the doctor and his treatment worked only half the time. I too feel the same. For example, I am a chronic throat patient with a bout or two of tonsillitis affecting me each year. And the treatment is usual. I sadly meet a physician and he prescribes strong antibiotics. Now this happens every year and it happened in 2010 as well. The first time it happened I went through the usual routine. But lo and behold! Within 2 weeks of completing the course of antibiotics and when I should be in the pink, I had the old tonsils acting up again and rather viciously too. Since I had no choice in the matter I landed up at my ENT's doorstep again. He was not perturbed or apologetic in the least that his very expensive treatment had completely failed and that too for no fault of mine. But he really got my goat when he suggested that if after taking antibiotics again for 2 weeks the problem persisted I was to return to him for a tonsillectomy!!
I am telling you on hearing the doctor's prognosis something snapped inside me and I decided there and then that I was not going to have his prescriptions or ever think of returning to him. I came back home and launched myself on a week long self medication involving only frequent gargling of my throat with saline water. And it worked!! Three months have elapsed and I am still in control of my tonsils.
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