Bird flu theories

When news reports of HIV-AIDS began first appearing in the media in late 1970s or early 1980s, there were all sorts of theories floating around. Only that unlike now, there wasn't a vaccine to be "promoted" then. Mostly the theories were centred around on how it was part of a grand American plan to finish off the developing world.

In mid-1990s during the outbreak of plague in Surat, similar conspiracy theories were floated. Interesting thing is that while there was proof the virus in the laboratory, there wasn't anything to substantiate the wild theories. The flights of imagination were a good source of entertainment. However, one good outcome was that a "stinking Surat" was transformed into a "spick-and-span Surat".

Now we have the bird flu theories:

1. Western companies and governments were amazed that SARS and mad cow disease didn't affect India. They were jealous. They found that a big market for drugs had been left out. So, they introduced bird flu.

2. America is getting jittery that Indian economy is growing. This is the first of the many plans to derail our economy.

3. A clever move by the fish and mutton lobby to strike at a time when bird flu is spreading in other parts of the world.

4. Just another unconventional warfare launched from across the border. Didn't we tell you never to trust them?

5. The anti-KFC like organisations who feel frustrated that their campaigns are not working. Plus, the curse of the vegetarians.

Of course, implicit in all these is that our birds might die of anything, but never bird flu!

Bird flu and media

I hate this -- if things have gone out of control and don't know whom to blame, then point the finger at the media. I hate this not because I belong to the media. I hate it because it plainly makes no sense.

It's akin to shooting the messenger; because media is a carrier of information. Nothing more. Nothing less. Different media deal with different issues in different ways. And thus, the method of rendition and the diverse information contained therein serve differerent purposes to different people.

I am writing this because I was told that media has been blowing the bird flu incidence in India out of proportion. I would accept that observation as an individual's personal viewpoint, with which I disagree.

It's not true that media has been sensationalising the bird flu issue. Different media organisations have been treating the information in their own manner, and rightly so. No one has sensationalised it. No one has blown it out of any prorportion.

The issue here is information and not any proportion. In fact, the media has been carrying lot of details -- from the scientific, social and economic perspectives -- about the disease. I wish people were more bothered about the information rather than the way it is rendered.

UN's World Health Organisation site on avian influenza
Tamiflu

Tell me whom you love, I'll tell you who you are

Love's in the air, as the cliche goes. And on Valentine's Day, let me reproduce a beautiful, touching, moving piece, that keeps getting forwarded across emails over and over again. Here it is:

Tell me whom you love, I'll tell you who you are

John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn’t, the girl with the rose.

His interest in her he had begun 13 months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf, he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes pencilled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner’s name, Miss Hollis Maynell.

With time and effort, he located her address. She now lived in NY City. He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond. The next day, he was shipped overseas for service in World War II. During the next year and one month, the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding. Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn’t matter what she looked like.

When the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled their first meeting — 7 pm at the Grand Central station in New York. “You will recognise me,” she wrote, “by the red rose I will be wearing on my lapel.” So, at 7 pm, he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he’d never seen.

We will let Mr Blanchard tell you what happened…

A young woman was coming towards me, her figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive.

I started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose. As I moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips. “Going my way, sailor?” she murmured. Almost uncontrollably, I made one step closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell. She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had greying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes.

The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own. And there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible; her grey eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her.

This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke, I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment.

“I am John Blanchard, and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take you to dinner.”

The woman’s face broadened into a tolerant smile. “I don’t know what this is about, son,” she answered, “but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I should go and tell you that she is waiting for you in the restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of test!”

It’s not difficult to understand and admire Miss Maynell’s wisdom. The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive. “Tell me whom you love,” Houssaye wrote, “And I will tell you who you are.”