THE TRUTH ABOUT BOOBS AND DICKS

What is the real big deal about gender? As innocently as my 3 year old daughter asked me this morning, "Mom, why am i a girl and not a boy? What is boy?” it sent me down a labyrinth of thoughts while driving her to school.

Really- what is this whole thing about girls and boys? We are marketed so distinctly since childhood that we sometimes forget we are part of the same human race. Pink burst is all a baby girl sees from her toddler cot while blue makes up boys’ clothes pretty much for his entire lifetime. Business houses seem to have given ample thought to gender type but we, as a society, have never taken this seriously.

So what is it that makes boys boys and girls girls? You must be wondering how a major in biology has missed out the obvious breasts and penis distinction. Be rest assured I do know and remember that. But is that it? Are we just a race made up of boobs and dicks?

Its a given that there are physical characteristics that define the two genders distinctly. Males have heavy musculature, facial hair and coarser voice. Females have breasts, lesser facial hair and a higher pitch voice. Such physical distinctions, called secondary sexual characteristics, are there in few other species apart from humans but not all .A female lion and male lion are physically distinguishable but you cant tell a male elephant from a female by just looking at their face. Hence, secondary sex characteristics are not the defining factors of gender. 

Of course in Disney movies, the most defining sexual features are long eyelashes. The elephant with over sized long fluttering eyelashes is the female. But lets leave Disney with a justified license to exaggerate and entertain.

So if secondary sexual characteristics are not able to define  males and females clearly, what can? Primary sex organs like penis and vagina are definitive distinctions of gender. All females have a vagina and reproductive organs like uterus and ovaries while males have penis and scrotal sacs. Compared to secondary sexual characteristics, primary characteristics are more marked.

But then what about transgenders? Or the third sex? Individuals whose secondary sexual characters do not correspond with the genitals they have. Of course this is a very broad and loose definition of transgenders/intersex individuals.

                                                Hermaphrodite by Nadar, 1860

There are a plethora of varied conditions that define various ambiguities seen in terms of gender determination. To understand anything about gender even slightly, we need to familiarize ourselves with two simple terms- phenotype and genotype.

Phenotype is outward physical traits while genotype is the genetic information. Eg: A XY genotype is an individual having X and Y sex chromosomes. His phenotype is facial hair, heavy musculature, penis, scrotal sacs etc. Similarly an individual with XX genotype has two X sex chromosomes and her phenotype is lean structure, less facial hair, vagina, breasts etc.

And the most important point here to remember is that genotype determines phenotype but phenotype can never determine genotype.

The genetic information is hard wired and defines the physical traits. Hence, XY genotype has body hair. If, hypothetically, I alter my XY genotype to XX; then my phenotype will change to less body hair.

But altering phenotype cannot change the genetic information. Hence, men who get body hair waxed are still as much male as any other XY genotype (and I hear SRK sigh in relief!!)

So we have established that the truth about boobs and dicks is in the genetic information- genotype. XX is female and XY is male. Right?

Just give me a moment to go and do my evil laughter…………

NO ITS NOT!! Or in Sheldon Cooper language- BAZINGA!

Have I been messing around with you till now? No not at all. Everything I have said till now is 100% scientifically accurate. But Nature, unlike Science, is not so simple!

Surpise surpise! Sex determination is one of the traits that is not completely defined by our genes! XX genotype may have male primary/sexual characters and vice versa.

Its not enough to be genotypically male or female!! Before you feel that your biology teacher lied to you all this while- let me clarify your dilemma.

Sex determination happens in the womb. Yes neighbor aunty, please don’t consider this blasphemous, but once your daughter in law has conceived, its impossible to change the sex of that fetus!

As I was saying, the genotype of the fetus is determined the minute sperm and ova fuse. If sperm carrying Y chromosome fuses with ova (ova always have X chromosomes) then the genotype of fetus is XY and if a sperm carrying X chromosome fuses with the ova the genotype is XX. Note that I am still not labeling the fetus as girl or boy.

Once conceived something fascinating happens to fetus between 8-12 weeks of gestation. The XY fetus starts exhibiting secondary sexual characteristics like testes and ovary formation is seen in XX fetus.

And this is where our key players of sex determination enter- HORMONES.

All fetuses (XX or XY) have something called a Mullerian duct. In normal female fetus, the Mullerian duct system develops into the uterus etc. However in XY fetus, to prevent this duct to form into uterus a hormone called  Müllerian duct-inhibiting hormone (MIH)is secreted around 12^th week of gestation and that causes this duct system to regress.

Similarly hormones called Androgens cause the development of the Wolffian duct system in fetus later in gestation, which goes on to develop into male sexual organs.

It is very clear that XY fetus that lack MIH will not be able to prevent the Mullerian duct system to differentiate into  female sex organs and will thus have uterus, ovaries etc. On the other hand, excessive secretion of androgens and male hormones called virilising hormones in a XX fetus can lead to formation of male sex organs.

These are extensively studied and documented conditions.

CAH (Congential Adrenal Hyperplasia): An XX fetus that has excess of virilising hormones develops sexual organs of a male.

AIS (Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome): An XY fetus does not respond to androgen and hence fails to develop the male sexual organs in the womb fully.

These are of course just two of the many conditions related to sex determination and they too have been explained extremely simply. There are ranges and spectrums of each condition and need detailed research to understand each.

We have boiled the whole mystery down to genotype, hormones and phenotypes. All of these have to be “in sync” to give rise to the socially accepted male and females. Any one of the players go wary and we have intersex conditions.

So again Neighbour Aunty, doing all the puja and mantras in the sixth month of pregnancy on your daughter in law as the priest has suggested will not change the sex of your grandchild. At the most you will have a very hairy grand-daughter or an effeminate grandson. Im sure you want neither!

Ignorant to the complex interplay of genes and chemicals, a huge chunk of society in Asia is still biased towards the male child. And this attitude is the root cause of all the gender inequality we see that finally leads us to be subjugated to non-tasteful Deepika Padukone videos.

All my posts earlier point out that all our societal evils arise from the minor ignorance of the fact that we are nothing but biochemical entities. We tend to give ourselves too much of credit, I think. What is a male? XY chromosome with Androgen and testosterone. Why is that more coveted than XX chromosome with Estrogen and Progesterone is a question that even Nature must be puzzled at! Iam not even going into ethics and consequences. Iam talking of plain biochemistry. We are humans. The fact that we carry 26 chromosomes should any day hold more value than the constitution of just one of its chromosomes.

A very cute creature called Meerkats seem to have come up with a ingenious solution to this gender debate actually. Though males and females are marked out clearly, their duties are not. Everyday some male stay back to babysit with the females while some go for food hunting. Research have shown that males who decide to stay back are those that have woken up with higher level of a hormone called “prolactin” while those with lower level go to forage for food. Even pup feeding roles are determined on the spot depending on hormones level.

So simple! You wake up each morning and go for roles as per the blood hormone levels. That is one evolved society I must say. Because they know that they are slaves to their hormones.

The Meerkats have the “balls” to accept what humans cant. If only we accept ourselves as nothing but mere hormones, suddenly this chauvinism and empowerment debate will seem redundant. Because then we will realize that being male or female is a fascinating tale of genetic information being decoded, hormones being released, protein being formed and a phenotype being developed in the nine months of gestation. Both processes (of determining male or female sex )-so complex and intricate, yet the point is that they are not the same. If one process fails to be different than the other it leads to intersex conditions. So what is this big fight about equality? Males and females are different. Biologically they are as incomparable as apples and oranges. Why cant we celebrate their uniqueness instead of fighting for equality? 

 A child does not choose its genotype. Similarly it doesn’t choose for its hormones to switch off or on. Nature does it at its own course and we are nowhere near unfolding the mystery of how this complex interplay of genotype, hormones and phenotype comes into place so accurately and correctly most of the time in the developing embryo. When we don’t control what makes us boys and girls, then who are we to decide which is “Superior”?

So Dear Deepika and Vogue, its really not our choice after all! When it comes to being a boy or girl or intersex, I would be  proud of my uniqueness and go with Lady Gaga on this one- I WAS BORN THIS WAY!

HOME IS WHERE MY PEE IS!

Come to think of it now...the title really plugs well into the CLEAN INDIA mission currently being run by the government. But alas! Mr Goswami, I dont have a headstrong opinion about everything under the sun.

My little fairytale world is knit around the one thing that makes me dream- SCIENCE and its link to the social make-up we see today. I am a staunch believer in "We are nothing but biochemical reactions" theory.

I think, hence I am. And how do I think- biochemicals. I love, hence I survive. Sorry to break the news SRK fans but love is also just biochemicals reacting. I reproduce, hence I evolve. Well no doubt that reproduction is all biochemicals too- from conception to delivery and beyond!

The debate in recent time about an infamous BBC documentary had many charged up Indians criticizing this heinous act by the British. We gave them 200 years- like that wasnt enough! Articles were written, blogs were published and walls were sprayed with comments. And the mascot of  unknowing Foot-in-Mouth Dr Dawkins was an overnight sensation. His tags now included rude, brash, arrogant and insensitive apart from the already existing highlight in his resume- atheist; which is already a dreaded word in the holy society today. With this debate, it seemed like he had earned another feather in his KuKluxKlanish hat.

But am I in favor of the documentary or not, you ask? Because thats the whole point, right? To choose sides.

However, that is not what got me thinking in the first place. The way this debate hijacked all sorts of media with opinions flying in all directions made me feel sorry. Not for Indians or the British but for the silent death of the actual disturbing facts.

A rape is commited every 29 minutes in India, a dowry death every 77 minutes and about 70% of women in India are victims of some form of violence- emotional, physical and mental. These figures are enough to question the “civilized” part of the civil society that we live in. Yet the drama that unfolded was about why was a Britisher allowed to interview an Indian inmate, why were facts being shown in a light to malign India and why did they not highlight the rape incidence in the west which, apparently, is much higher than India.

Really??!! THAT’S the point in the whole documentary?

Its like if some unknown lady on the bus pointed out to me that my kajal is smeared and my answer to her would be, “Oh! But you are so ugly too!”

Its really that crazy when we think logically. Or is it?

Probably not.

Actually, what happened in reaction to the documentary is something very innate, natural and core to our evolutionary make up. Its called Territory marking.

Many species in the wild mark their territory by spraying scent mostly by urinating in the territor. Basically by leaving their scent in that territory they are informing other animals that that piece of land belongs to them and their clan. It is a behavior seen across species ranging from fish, birds, lemurs, wolves to tigers.

Understanding territory marking will make many of our acts in our everday social life suddenly acquire more meaning and hence, make sense.

There are some facts to bring forth before we proceed to understand our innate need for territory marking

·        Territory marking is usually conspecific: Territory is marked by individuals of a specie to inform other individuals of the SAME specie. A male tiger sprays urine on the trees in his territory to tell other male tigers who may happen to venture in that area that this territory belongs to me, Iam the protector of my clan and you better find some other place for your clan as the resources, food and nesting sites are already taken. Basically its calling dibs on that area!

·        Territory once marked is defended against: Once the alpha male (ie the leader male of the clan) marks his territory, he shall defend it vehemently in case it is challenged by anyone. Battles over territory in the animal kingdom range from behavior aggression, visual intimidation to actual duels to death.

·        Territory marking is largely scent based: Marking of a territory is largely done by urinating or by secretory glands that eject out scent that holds information about the specie, sex, dominance etc of the sprayer.

Now take what you have learnt and plug it into our overzealous reaction to the BBC documentary.

We are programmed to defend our territory. It is this hardwired evolutionary behavior that came out in form of those ugly messages painted across many FB walls.

The issue was not what was being portrayed. Rather, it was an foreign member of our specie (British) challenging the social make up of our territory (India). India- a territory already scent marked by the inhabitants (quite literally actually!!). It was this biologically innate need to attack an intruder inside a scent marked territory that came out as opinions and anger across the country.

So the next time Dad lectures you about wasting time rooting for India in the World Cup instead of studying for your exams, you know how to explain it to him.

And Dr Dawkins, you are my literary hero and shall always be. Please don’t mind what my fellow Indians are saying. You know, its just that we get touchy about comments on India because that’s where we pee. And the evolutionary biologist in you knows very well….HOME IS WHERE MY PEE IS!

NO COUNTRY FOR THE AVERAGE MAN

Would you marry someone if they said that they had nothing exceptionally nice about them? Would you buy a product that says it wont do much for your skin, probably just make it average? Would you watch a show that claims that its TRP are just OK- not skyrocketing?

Im guessing not.

And marketing companies make a fortune out of this very fact of human psychology. They cleverly sell their product/people to make you believe that they are the best for you. And if they are all so exceptionally good then they are obviously worth it. 

Well don't feel duped.We love anything that is gift wrapped to make it pretty- compliments, criticism, spouses, friends, facebook pics, latest books, TV shows....even our hospitals nowadays have to be pretty first, for Gods sake!!

Feeling vain suddenly? Shallow? 

Dont!!

Its not your fault.

If liking only the best was vain, then Mother Nature (and please spare me from thy wrath) is the vainest of us all. When Darwin landed on the Galapogas, we learnt a hard fact of nature- it doesnt care about the weak or average. Only those survive who are fittest for that circumstance. Anything a percent below the best, and Nature will spit you off this face of earth without any condolence message. Tough love!

If you are not the best, you dont get any empathy from Nature. Evolution is a guilt-free elimination mechanism reserved only for the fittest. This context of fittest could be in terms of physical attributes, height, weight, skin color, sturdiness or the sweet melody of the cooing you use in your mating call- whatever you do ; it better be the best or your species will see the end of the tunnel soon (soon ie in terms of earth years).

And it is this incessant survival of the fittest that our genes are programmed for. We are genetically programmed to choose only the best and not an ounce below. And this behaviour, meant for evolution and mate selection, has trickled into our socio-economical sphere of life. Its too hardwired in our genes to be allocated only to one sphere, after all!

"Eye-ball grabbing" was a concept started in marketing that is now trickling into our everyday life courtesy Facebook. All our pics have to be the prettiest. All our travels have to be to the exotic locations which allow photo opportunities to be posted on FB. All our anniversaries and birthdays have to be full of love and hugs and kisses. Even going into the labour room should end up into the perfect pic.

Putting our best foot forward or marketing our life in a grand way is something intrinsic to our survival. And its not only us whose worth in life is directly proportional to the number of likes on our profile pic. Everywhere you see in the Natural world, you see an insane driving force to "like me".

Whether its the Red Knot birds ritual of "becoming prettier" to attract females or the Hyenas violent show of aggression to impress prospective mates; we all are prey to the "like me coz im better" philosophy. By hook or crook we want our mates to believe that they have landed the "fittest" mate that evolution will favor in a chance of any likely event in the future. We want our mates to believe that our progeny will benefit from our genes because we offer them the best permutation of features possible.

(The Red Knot male during non breeding season (on left) changes its plumage to look attractive during breeding season (on the right) to attract females. Pic courtesy: Cornell deppt of ornithology)

Though animals make all this effort for the sole goal of survival and mating; we of course have extrapolated it to suit our more complex social make-up. (And also the fact that animals dont have access to FB helps to keep their behaviour restricted!!)

However the underlying genetic intent that governs us all is the same- Be and choose only the fittest or else you might vanish from the face of this earth.

This horrible end that our genes are only too well aware of makes us do everything in our capacity to project the "fittest" image. Hence, we market ourselves in the best packing. And in return, we find ourselves drawn to that which promises a "happily ever after".

And no, it doesnt make you a horrible person. Like I always say, " We are just biochemical entities that our genes  use to propagate themselves. We are just a tool of evolution. Mere slaves to our master!"

So go right ahead and be guilt-free to post that image that Instagram has put so many cool filters on that it doesnt look anything like you in real life but is surely going to get you a hundred likes on day 1 from people you havent met in more than a decade!

It all will be worth it in the long run of evolution!

ASWACHTA MISSION

No dont get me wrong.
Im completely a supporter of the Swatchta mission started by our new government. I love the way they are marketing it, selling it and emphasizing it. And i think i could make our country a wee bit prettier. So hats off!!

However, this whole gung-ho around Clean India mission set me thinking on a slightly different tangent. In the flow of making each city into a western city (making Delhi like Tokyo and Calcutta, sorry Kolkatta! like Shangai) we are slowly trying to turn our country into a developed western world nation. Again, no issues with that. Changing the spelling of Calcutta to Kolkatta was such a political debate, so best of luck with Shangai!! But politics is not what i like to think about.

Being from a life science background I always subject every idea to a single question "But what does it mean at a biological level?"
Swachta has a lovely cultural, political, environmental and Gandhian ring to it. But at the biological level, it has a whole new meaning. And a very interesting one at that!

To save you a Google search, let me describe "biological immunity" a little bit before plunging into Biological jargon. Immunity to diseases is contributed by certain entities inside our body called B cells and T cells. When a body is attacked by a foreign body, say Influenza virus, these cells become activated and "search out" the virus in our body and engulf it thereby killing the viral infection slowly. In this process of identifying and searching the virus, these cells "teach" themselves about the virus. Hence next time, the influenza virus attacks, these cells act much more rapidly and kill the virus before it can create havoc. So, though the virus might have given you the flu first time, the next time it attacks it is unlikely to make you sick because now the body has what mothers love to see in their kids-  "resistance". Actually in terms of immunity, literally- "What doesnt kill you makes you stronger."

How does it all loop into Modi's Swachta mission? Well, the "teaching" that immune cells undergo has its implications in a revolution that has increased the world population by decreasing the infant mortality rate and increasing life expectancy by unimaginable volumes. A revolution started by British physician Dr Edward Jenner when he came up with the world's first vaccine against smallpox.
Dr Jenner noticed that while the whole community was succumbing to the epidemic of smallpox, the milkmaids who worked with cows in the farms, seemed to be magically immune to this deadly disease. On further investigation, he realised that milkmaids had baseline infection of cowpox ( a disease in cows similar to smallpox in humans). Having these cowpox virus in their body was making them immune to smallpox. He inoculated cowpox virus in some of his healthy human subjects and viola! they were all immune to smallpox.

Thats when Jenner gave the world the valuable knowledge that to confer lifelong resistance to a certain disease, you need to subject your immune system to baseline infection of that virus. This is how from Dr Jenner's time to now, we have been able to completely eradicate certain diseases like smallpox and polio. No wonder this fascinating and I would say daring experiment of Dr Jenner is considered as one of the most significant medical discoveries till date!

However immunity acquired through vaccinations is part of what is called "acquired immunity." We make tiny packets of pathogens we know of, inject our toddlers with it and the immune system "teaches" itself to fight those diseases if and when the body sees it in the future. But these are just a handful of vaccinations we are talking about. There are millions of bacteria/virus/fungi (some even unknown to Man till now) that the body sees daily. How is it that we are not then dying everyday??

That is because our immune system has evolved to be smarter than us. It has the capacity to confer resistance on its own. It sees a pathogen (known or unknown to Man), it engulfs it and in turn teaches itself about the pathogen and how to win against it in future combats. This is called "natural immunity". These everyday battles that our immune system wins against these pathogens confers us with resistance against millions of pathogens. Thus, without us even knowing it, our immune system is making us more and more resistant (and thus healthy) daily.

Where is the damn link to Mr Modi's obviously full benefits SWACHTA MISSION  yet? Now that we know about diseases and immunity, let me introduce you to a very fascinating paradigm called "Western Disease Paradigm" or Diseases of Affluence.

Though leaps and bounds ahead of developing countries, when it comes to immunity the West is sitting on a time bomb. (Note: by West i mean all developed countries). Due to the clean roads, buildings, schools, houses and extra sanitized everything, the immune system of the residents of the developed world doesnt come across many pathogens in its life time. This slowly makes the immune system idle and inexperienced that directly translates into lower resistance to pathogens. Though the chances of falling ill are low (due to cleanliness) but the minute a tiny virus does get a chance to invade, the whole body succumbs to the disease because the immune system has not acquired natural immunity to that pathogen before (again due to cleanliness). Therefore to gain wide spectrum restistance at a biological level, you need to give your immune system a chance to "see" some tiny bits of pathogens.

Of course i am not talking of Ebola level of viral infection. Super nasty viruses cant be tackled by even the most experienced and sophisticated immune system of the world. Neither am i advocating slum dwelling. You would be so sick combating the existing pathogens that your immune system wont get the time or the resources to "teach" itself.

So Mr Modi please go right ahead and teach the nation to sweep and clean. However please allow little pools of stagnant water and tiny heaps of garbage in dedicated "unclean" areas so that 10 years later when my kids want to travel to Africa to enjoy the jungle safari experience, they wont have to carry Bisleri bottles with them.

DAWN OF THE ABNORMALS

Yes, i have shamelessly picked up the title of this blog from a recent blockbuster- DAWN OF THE APES. Well, there are more than one correlation about this. All of which, behold, are scientifically driven!

Apes and humans share the maximum gene similarity. We are merely 2% genetically divergent from our ancestors ie 98% of genetic make-up of apes and human is the same. This statistic however is a classic example of so close yet so far.

We share 98% of our genes and yet look and behave like two ends of the spectrum. Would anyone have bought the hypothesis that apes and humans are just 2% apart? Some humans, i can assure you, would find it insulting to be categorized with Apes.

This is, in fact, the whole basis of my post. What you see might not always be what the reality is. I remember being hauled up by my strict convent English teacher for botching up one of my exam answers in grade IV. Complete the proverb "Seeing is...." was the question put before me. And i had completed it with "NOT BELIEVING." I guess the science enthusiast in me has woken up early.

However, Iam not a point off any linear curve. No cuckoo is flying over my nest.
Have you ever wondered what you see is the reality or not? Mark Twain, one of the earliest literary genius, summed it up very well when he said "Truth is stranger than fiction,but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possiblities; Truth isnt."

Our truth is what we see. Literally. A bus appears red because our eyes sees it that way. Our eyes then send this signal to our brain which in turn processes it and pastes a image of red and a bus like structure. And voila! We have a beautiful red bus zipping by in front of our eyes. Well then where is seeing NOT believing, you ask?? Oh its not that boring.

Lets not look at this whole picture in one go. Lets unlock this labyrinth bit by bit.

Step 1: Our eyes see red: We all know the science behind that. Wriggle back Grade VI physics. Light falls on an object. Object absorbs part of the white light spectra but reflects back one color (Iam assuming we all know that white light is made up of spectrum of colors. Grade IV science- in Indian schools that is :). Anyway, coming back....so the bus we see absorbs the rest of the spectra but reflects the red wavelength back to us.

Step 2: Our retina transmits this information to the brain: The back of our eye has a sort of projector called the Retina. The retina has several color identifying cells called cones.When wavelength corresponding to red falls on the retina the "Red cones" light up and send an electric signal to the part of the brain that is responsible for seeing(Visual Cortex).

Step 3: Visual cortex process this signal: The signal that is sent to the brain as an electric impulse is processed by the highly "intellegent" brain cells and the brain then stores this information as "Red".

Meanwhile similar pathways that lead into the visual cortex hold information about the bus- shape, size, depth.
And another pathway tells the brain how fast the bus was moving, which direction it was going ie all the motor inputs.

And that, my dear Watson, is how we see a red bus moving across.

Sounds insanely complex. Esp when you add the fact that we process all this information in fraction of milliseconds. Right?

Thats where my Class IV English teacher was wrong in cutting my one mark in the exam.

Now that we have understood "seeing", you can appreciate how it can be easily "NOT believing."
So much electric signal, so little time. Can we not goof up? And I dont mean we as people. I mean we as electric impulses, chemical signals and wavelength detectors.
What if our cones got mixed up and the blue cones started picking up the incoming red signal? Would we see a blue bus?
What if the pathway got altered and the visual signal was sent to the part of the brain that was responsible for hearing. Would we "hear" red?
 And please Mr Stan Lee....before you get your writing pad out to see how this plot will unfold into another X-men series...put your pen away. I am talking of Truth and very much the truth. Coz like Mark Twain said- truth is not obliged to stick to what is possible. ("Hearing" red is part of a condition called Synaesthesia. See more of it: here)

It is my days of studying Neuroscience that i realised that there is nothing called "normal" in this world. Its merely like a democracy.Truth or lets call it "Reality" is the one that gets the larger votes. Since most of us perceive red as red, it must be red. And seeing red must be normal.
We forget that what we see is only electric signal. To the person who sees red as blue- thats his truth as much as the red is to the red seeing person. For him the bus is blue. The electric impulse hold no information about right or wrong in them. It doesnt say that you are seeing it as blue but its wrong coz its actually red for the rest of the world. The blue seeing person will know that he is seeing differently only if some red team member mentioned to him that he saw the bus as red.
We perceive the world as much as our wiring will allow us to.

A colorblind person will die thinking that she looks best in that grey cocktail gown while it actually was a red dress. A person with hemispatial neglect will keep thinking he is clean shaven though his left half of the face is bearded. (A video about hemispatial neglect can be seen here) To most of us it might seem odd. Because these behaviours dont conform to the normal. But then like my post says- do you really know what is normal? Normal is what our brain tell us. So as far as these people are concerned, they are all normal. When it comes to the brain- nothing is abnormal. Its just something that doesnt fall in the larger subset.

Any person who has remotely studied Neuroscience will have this awe for the "abnormal." The brain is so complex that to understand its functioning- we turn to whats not functioning. For example, to study color perception; we study pathways in colorblind brains. By studying what happens when things are wired a little differently, we get clues on how they should be wired in a "normal" brain. For studying how the brain perceives motion, we turn to a lady who saw the world in snapshots and not in one continuous motion.

The abnormal tells us what normal should be.

And im not even going into ideals, morals, rebels, society etc. Iam talking of plain and simple brain wiring. If brain tells us red, we see red. Tomorrow if the brain decides to tell us blue, then blue it is. Its that easy to fool us. Infact illusions take advantage of this very fact. However, thats a topic that requires another dedicated post. Some other time, then!

Coming back......
In fact "abnormals" have done us more favors than the ones listed above.  Beethoven, one of the most famous musicians was deaf! How he heard music can be only known by seeing his brain wiring. Professor John Nash popularised in the movie "A beautiful mind" is considered one of the greatest intellect. Was schizophrenia helping him solve problems that a normal brain couldnt? Lewis Carolls's visual hallucinations due to his schizophrenia has given us one of the most creative and dreamy childhood books- Alice in Wonderland which is suspected to be a descriptive of his hallucinations.

I would like to end this post by quoting from that very book. It says what all i said in just one line- another indicative of the creative genuis Lewis Carroll was.

A dialogue between Alice and Chesire Cat:
      "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "otherwise you wouldn't have come here."

Alice didn't think that proved it at all: however she went on. "And how do you know that you're mad?"

"To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?"

"I suppose so," said Alice

"Well, then," the Cat went on, "you see a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad."

It took a hallucinating schizophrenic person to tell us the actual truth. if we cant categorise anything as normal probably its safer to call us all abnormal.

"Iam mad, you are mad. We all are mad"

THE GREATEST NOVEL EVER WRITTEN

A gentle disclaimer before even starting this post would be to please read and analyze it with open mindedness. It is just a free dialogue and not meant to hurt/disrespect anybody’s sentiments.

What could be so sensitive that before talking about it requires such apologies and clearance in anticipation?

The one thing that was meant to bring a code of conduct into our life, but it is nowadays (esp with the approaching elections) being used as a (brownie) point in everybodys  personal manifesto- RELIGION.

Had i written this blog a month back, it would be smeared with a lot of strong and raging sentiments reflected by a person of science who are loosely categorized under atheists. We question the natural phenomenon so we must be non-believers in God. That’s the common perception. It might have its justification actually. If we would have not questioned the world around us and left everything to be explained by a super power then Darwin, Feyman and Mendel would have died jobless!

However, lets keep our biases aside. As core to our being is curiosity to find answers so is also the feeling to have faith and to believe. Both these feelings make up Human Nature. So why should we choose between them? If I belong to a class of society that proved the phenomenon behind water droplets acting as prisms for sunlight to give rise to the beautiful rainbow does it mean I have to opt out of believing in the beautiful luck of having rain and sun simultaneously? I certainly hope not.

But what is it about religion that brings a plethora of complications with it?

Refer to a video post on my company’s facebook page BIODEALS(www.facebook.com/biodealsdelhi(www.facebook.com/biodealsdelhi) showing  an interview clip of Sir Richard Dawkins about myth and religion. He says (a little bit arrogantly though..but everybody has their style about showing their passion!) that he feels that the various stories in religion (again, he talks of Christianity but I would extrapolate to any religion) are mere myths because there are no scientific findings to suggest that those events actually took place. Yet, they are important to be told to a child because of the sheer joy of expanding his imagination.

Agreed. A five year old who doesn’t know about what life holds for him needs to be carved into a believer because its his faith that will ease his journey through life. Not only personally, but even professionally too if he has faith in achieving he is more likely to become an achiever.

If everything is so simple, then why has religion been so abused? (Pardon my language, but there is no other decent word that correctly applies here!)

GOD, I feel, is our faith. It is and should be a very personal equation. For me the smile on my child keeps my faith alive. For someone else it might be his ailing wife or the beauty of a panaromic landscape. Religion on the other hand is a means. Thats more generic. The stories can be applied and told to a larger community who can sculpt it to suit their own personal equilibrium with faith.

The problem arises when these stories fall into the hand of haters. If you have faith (in anything you derive peace from), you are sure to be a lover. You love and respect other peoples’ faith too. A godman said in a fantastic bollywood movie ‘Oh my God’- “We are a community of God FEARING not God LOVING.” We have picked up a beautifully intended entity like religion and associated it with everything negative. Random rituals, extravagant consequences for non-believers and irrational fear of the supreme power. Such meaningless complications have arisen because religion, unfortunately, has become one of the most lucrative businesses in the world. Pick up any sales book and you will find an underlying commandment for high sale value- sell against your customers’ fear. Highlight how helpless/despondent your customer is till now and then slowly introduce your product to him so that he feels that he should purchase it right away. And, ladies and gentleman, that’s how religion is also being sold today! A few Godmen with great entreuprenual skills interpret our religion in a particular way and serve it to us. And we lap it up without a second thought. Our religion has been corrupted, my friends. And this corruption is affects us worse than the corruption new political parties are rampantly trying to eradicate. This is psychological corruption. Its far deep rooted than any economical corruption.

But tell me one thing- if you fall prey to a quack treating you, do you change the doctor or lose faith in medicine as a whole? Similarly, if you don’t find solace in whatever is being told you about the faith you are born into I suggest that you start on a journey of self exploration. I can be so confident because of a recent encounter with religion. I emphasise- encounter with religion not faith. Faith is something that I have already developed over time. Lots of experiences showed me the power of positivity, love and giving. But its religion that has erupted as my hero in recent times. And it is this clarity that I want to share with you.

A recent huge achievement that was evading us for a long time made me undertake an oath that I knew in my heart was meaningless to me at that time. I promised that if things work out in our favor I would go to my local Gurudwara everyday. Something that was quite against my core of bribing GOD to get something. It is this bribing that is hacking into the helpless peoples’ emotions to build the vast business empire centered around religion. However, being helpless myself at that point I took this pledge. And surprisingly, we got through with flying colors!!

Hence, started my tryst with religion. The first few days seemed meaningless and I failed to see what my calling was. Just as I was about to dismiss and cement my disbelief in religion, I thought of going one day and doing what I wanted to do in the Gurudwara. If I dint want to bow or bend here and there, I would not. And that’s when I discovered the true meaning and need of religion in our life.

I started going there regularly. On entering the premises I said a casual “hi” to God and sat down to write. I find a lot of peace in writing-  almost anything. And these few days taught me that my religion is actually writing. I just go there and sit and write. Slowly, I started believing the need to bow down to the religious book. It was more knowledgeable of life than I was. I write for clarity. And since the book had more clarity than me, it sure deserved respect. Hence, I started bowing to it on entering the Gurudwara.

I started having dialogues in my head with the religious book in front of me. Stating my doubts, concerns, fears and joys; I started getting replies from my new friend- the book. I need to confess that I have still not opened the Granth Sahib (religious book) but it somehow started giving me answers. I wrote for hours sometimes. No matter how much time I spent there, I realized that I left the place with much more peace and clarity irrespective of having or not donated money or bowed down here or there. I was just more calm. More serene. And I loved it.

Into my second week, I realized something profound. I had not bribed God by taking that oath. On the contrary, I had been bribed into this religious experience. The achievement that was bestowed on us now seemed just an excuse to start my dialogues with God. I was no longer doing it for the bet. I was doing my daily rounds for myself.

Yet again, God has no form for me. Not human at all! But I slowly started seeing that religion took a story form to make it interesting. Ask any child about Alice and Wonderland and she has nothing but awe about the story and remembers it in pictorial memory. Same logic.

I started seeing that these “random” rituals had their roots in being an excuse to enter a premise that was so full of positivity, love and serenity. I realized that God infact is far more helpless than we are because he has been misconstrued into a very negative form by us Humans. God might be there for the same reason since birth of Humanity- to spread a message of love and positivity. But religion has been surely killed by our race.

And somehow the death of religion has been misinterpreted as death of faith. No yoga, no breathing exercise, no hours of hymns can help if you just do it blindly or half heartedly. Similarly, you will have all sorts of negativity towards religion till you don’t research it at your end.

My religion was writing my thoughts in a calm place. It made me more humane and loving. And the path to this was shown through a stupid bet with God (or whatever it is that you have faith in).

I suggest that lets reinvent the wheel here. It doesn’t matter which religion you are born into. They are all the same. Start your secret affair with religion. Secret because its just meant for you. Personalize it, indivdualise it.

So pick up the religious book lying in your bookshelf at home and start reading it the way you want to. It will only tell you of positive things. No harm in reading a story with a positive moral, right?

And slowly you will see what I now feel. You will realize that it’s the greatest novel ever written.

NEED FOR CHANGE

The recent political fever in Delhi had caught me too. From a point where we were wondering if the new party’s manifesto made sense, we recently witnessed a never seen before swearing in ceremony of Delhi’s youngest chief minister. In hindsight, though, it seems like the most logical outcome of a confused election. “ At least the newbies deserve a chance,” was the voters state of mind. “Anti-incumbancy” became the buzz word ruling the media waves.

A science blog talking of politics? That too by someone who reads only the science and bollywood pages of the daily newspaper? Don’t worry, for this again is a classic example of a science lover finding the basis of a scientific dialogue everywhere. Argumentative Indian, some may call!

I feel the basis of this unexpected politicial win is mostly because of our need for change. We all love change. We all pine for a break in the monotony. Its wired into our genes.

Which brings me to the next question- if a need for change is so wired in our genes- then is it in also wired into something the genes live for-i.e. reproduction? Is this high rate of infidelity we see in human society orchestrated by our very own selfish gene? Our genes telling us to “spread out” and strengthen the resulting variants?

No no don’t get me wrong. Im not advocating any way of life. I would any day vote for monogamy. Without sounding like a rebel or hurting anyone, im just trying to understand the evolution of monogamy. Because from all that we know of evolution, monogamy would be suicide as it limits the probable chances and variation of pushing your gene pool ahead. Even for the progeny, having a chance to mix with different MHC types would only improve the quality of their resultant genes.

So keeping aside all other aspects, im trying to understand monogamy at the genetic level.

Humans are complex organisms. So keeping the complex human aside, lets study monogamy at the level of some lower organisms (again lower in terms of genetic complexity and not because of some anthropocentric view).

A “pure” study model would be animals who are monogamous by nature. Many birds, goose, wolves etc are known to be monogamous. One partner pairing is rampant among them. Any ecologist will be able to tell you that the need of monogamy arouse from the higher chances of survival of a baby that was reared by parents who have mastered division of labor. The female took care of the baby and did not worry about finding worms to feed it while the male flew out of the nest to look for a hard day’s earned bread. With the mother behind to protect the young one, of course its chances of survival increased tremendously and it got fed well too. Hence we can attribute this increased chance of survival of progeny as a reason that might have caused birds and some other species to evolve this way of life revolving around monogamy. Makes sense evolutionary too.

At present there are not many views other than the child rearing angle in support of monogamy. But what happens when the children are reared?

Even in birds monogamy is now classified under varies tabs with monogamy being used in terms of one partner pairing at a time and doesn’t imply having one partner throughout ones’ life span. Another great trick by evolution actually. Rear the precious gene pool (ie progeny) to its maximum potential by forming monogamous pairs and then mix with another gene set for creating the next progeny with different permutations.

Coming back to my favourite specie- Humans. We seem to have gone a step further and advocated life long monogamy. At least it is taught to be the correct way of life. Cutting a long story short- is there a genetic basis of monogamy in human society where child rearing theory seems to have lost its shine because of the ultra luxury and convenience offered by the modern way of life? So if the life of our children is not being threatened even if both the parents are flying from the “nest” everyday and division of labor among male and female is losing its charm- what is telling us to be monogamous? Why are we comforted in monogamy? Are our genes tricking us again into believing what they want us to or has social conditioning finally blocked us from any genetic gut feeling?

There is no answer available even on Wikipedia right now for this question!

Of course evolution of the modern society is miniscule in terms of evolution of humans. Like I said in my previous blog “Mirror Mirror”, our emotional evolution is happening exponentially and our genes have not yet caught up. So monogamy could be probably another way of life advocated by society to bring some discipline in our lives without any genetic basis. Its like an unsaid universal law. “Forever and ever” is the ending of most fairy tales being fed to children everyday. Walking into the sunset holding hands is the way we all want our lives to be.

But I just had a thought recently that pushed me to investigate a probable genetic angle to monogamy. What if monogamy is helping save a life? It would make sense to evolution then, wont it?

So I started looking into the evolution of virus of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The most popular among these is the AIDS virus. If you are not monogamous sexually this virus leads you to a death you don’t want to even imagine. And one of the major causes of AIDS in humans is having multiple sexual partners. That’s where monogamy is going to rescue you from a fatal horrible end.

So is monogamy one of nature’s way of telling us to steer clear of sexually transmitted diseases?

To test the “naturality” of monogamy, the most logical question is “Do animals of less complex social makeup also suffer from sexually transmitted diseases?”

The answer is YES.

In fact AIDS is a classical case of zoonosis, ie transfer of a pathogen from a non-human host to humans. Originating in chimpanzees, one bite to a hunter in Africa is postulated to be the origin of HIV in humans. Chimpanzees are largely polygamous. So sexually transmitted diseases might not be a surprise. What about goose, wolves and beavers that are strictly monogamous or birds for that matter? There have been incidences in birds of STDs like Chlamydia but in strictly monogamous animals, there have not been any reports or probably not been a study.

The answer is still vague. But it surely will be another angle that we could consider to answer the riddling question of what could have lead the beautiful birds or the ferocious wolves to devise this way of life? Why do we find happiness in monogamy? Why are we taught to “resist thy temptation”?

Lots of scientists are trying to find out the genetic basis to this question? I know for sure the emotional basis of this way of life is correct. Then why are our genes always pulling us into the devils’ fire? Is this one lone case where its better to ignore  our natural instincts?

So what about other natural instincts? Should we stop listening to our genes which are clearly making us falter?

What about my “happily ever after”??

The answer surely doesn’t lie within- for this question. But it sure is a great debate. A case where nurture Vs nature debate has the scale clearly tipping towards Nurture.

In our span of one human life (of around 100 years) opting for monogamy gives us happiness. But what about seeing this on a larger scale? Over the span of human evolution (which takes millions of years) will monogamy kill us by reducing the permutation and combinations of our genetic material and making us susceptible to some horrible disease of the future? Are the “straying” individuals of today’s society actually helping us save the human race by mixing their gene pool (of course without the knowledge of their wives!!)

Makes for a good debate, right? And I would leave it as I leave all my other blogs…open ended. All comments and thoughts would be welcome….

Lets talk about….eh….monogamy, baby!!