I was looking for ways for early detection of cancer and came across these sites:

• Cancer.org
• Familydoctor.org
• Cancer.gov Prevention

“For many types of cancer, it is easier to treat and cure the cancer if it is found early. There are many different types of cancer, but most cancers begin with abnormal cells growing out of control, forming a lump that’s called a tumor. The tumor can continue to grow until the cancer begins to spread to other parts of the body. If the tumor is found when it is still very small, curing the cancer can be easy. However, the longer the tumor goes unnoticed, the greater the chance that the cancer has spread. This makes treatment more difficult.” (FamilyDoctor.org)

Cancers for which there is an early detection mechanism, if properly followed, the survival rate can be as good as 95%.

Found a couple of Indian cancer sites as well:

• Indian Cancer Society
• India Cancer

Do have a look and get the necessary tests done. The likelihood of a certain type of cancer would depend on your race, sex, etc., so do keep those factors in mind when you get the tests done.

In my previous post, I wrote about the absence of scientific temper in India and the need for those well informed, to voice their opinions against superstitions and customs that have chained our society.

India today seems completely at the mercy of ill-placed faith. Instead of individuals standing on the shoulders of faith and rising to a higher level, we find that it’s today working the other way round. As festivals, miracle babas and religious processions get bigger, they are further pulling down the person caught in it.

What’s worrying is that despite affluence and higher education getting to the cities, the queues outside temples on a so called auspicious day, just keep getting longer. Even youngsters are caught in this. What’s the sense in visiting temples on the day of an exam? Why would God be good to you only because you visited a certain temple on a certain supposedly auspicious day? Wouldn’t God find good deeds and behaviour, the only thing that mattered?

Astrology: The dates for most marriages are determined by astrology that has no logical or scientific basis. I unfortnately too complied with this and married on a day that was supposed to be auspicious. It wasn’t because I believed that marrying on that date and time would really make a difference, but more because I just played along with what the elders in the family decided.
I think that was a mistake and I should have refused to comply, as that would not only have helped me feel better about doing the right thing, but perhaps might have also built up some awareness at least amongst those close to me.
Vaastu Shastra: I saw a TV show about “Vaastu Shastra” (Art of Building) a few days back and the lady expert was confidently dishing out rubbish on live TV. If a person has come to a stage where he believes that the reason why his business is not doing well is that his toilets are facing in the wrong direction, then I think he needs immediate medical attention and not Vaastu Shastra.

I am almost done reading the book “The Scientific Edge: The Indian Scientist from Vedic to Modern Times” by renowned scientist Jayant Narlikar. I have had this book for an year or so but for some reason I didn’t quite get to reading it. Perhaps, because I expected to read the normal glorification of India’s past and chapters about how ancient Indians were brilliant at a, b,c…

That would have been boring because that’s the crutch that Indians routinely lean on, to somehow feel at par with the developed nations. The problem with this approach is that we do not feel ashamed of still being so far away from being driven by science. Tradition and religion still determine a majority of things in the life on an Indian.

Dr Narlikar takes a very practical approach to the subject. He does highlight ancient Indian science that has solid proof behind it, but he firmly puts his case against all claims that are based on hearsay. Things like if Lord Ram could fly in a craft in the epic Ramayana, ancient India had knowledge about building flying machines. He also delves on modern day fads like “Vastu Shastra” and age old ones like astrology. I had no idea that the claim to “Vedic Mathematics” also was so hollow.

The book told me a lot of things about Indian science and astronomy, but the biggest learning I have taken is to publicly voice my opinion against superstitions and in favor of the scientific approach. I have always privately aired my views against things like astrology, vastu shastra, zodiac signs, etc., but I now intend to be more vocal about it.

Thinking about writing this blog regularly, I feel a little like Ginny Weasley from the Harry Potter series. She wrote into Tom Marvolo Riddle’s magical diary and shared a little too much of herself. Tom Riddle happened to be Lord Voldemort, the evil wizard who killed Harry’s parents.

Anybody who is writing a blog is essentially giving out a part of himself/herself. That makes it very interesting. Never in the history of mankind would (insignificant) individual lives have been so well recorded. If all these blogs survive for say a 1000 years, I wonder what the archeologist of that time wil do. The blogs will tell everything about how the world was in the 21st century.

So the biggest hole in history, that of having insufficient records, has been plugged. Everything right from the downright rubbish to the extremely useful is now recorded. There’s no escaping the blog.

Then again, someday down the line all data in the world could get corrupted due to radition or magnetic field created by a meteor hititng the earth or whatever else u might have seen on the Discovery Channel..And poof! everything’s gone. Back to square one.

Did anybody bother to take prints?