Reflections

Raj Basu runs the famous Help Tourism in Siliguri. ( www.helptourism.com ) They have revolutionized ecotravel in the North East and West Bengal by building up a network of local participants who make it possible for travelers to have a unique experience which make use of local resources and home stays and have enabled communities to participate in the profits from tourism.This approach, which is now fairly well known, was pioneered by his group in North Bengal and he has now built up a network of destinations where the local participants are motivated to preserve their natural resources because they profit from it. I first met him In Siliguri when I was organizing secretary of the ASI conference held there in 2008. His company was our travel partner. At that time he had shocked me by casually mentioning that it was unlikely that any doctors would book through the conference secretariat because most doctors are sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. He turned out to be absolutely corre...

Volcanoes are really affecting me this year. The first time was when I was returning from Chicago in May. The Iceland based volcanic eruption caused disruptions of the transatlantic flights which had to make a big detour to the south before coming north to Paris. This caused a huge flight delay and as we disembarked from the United Airline aircraft at the Charles de Gaulle airport, , we could see our Malaysia airlines plane taxing for takeoff from Paris. The episode turned out well in the end because the Immigration officer gave us a free one day visa and the United Airlines paid for our stay in Paris and we had a great time, spending the evening cruising down the Siene. This time we were scheduled to go to the World Heritage site Borobodur in Central Java, Indonesia. For quite some time before, the Merapi volcano, one of the largest active volcanoes in the world was erupting in small gusts and one large eruption had caused some death and destruction. However the flights were still g...

The teaching of anatomy was taken very seriously in our student days. The first two years were devoted to its study, a daily lecture being supplemented by a three hour dissection stint during the afternoons and many classes on osteology, viscera and surface marking. Many of us used to enjoy the grind; the knowledge of the origins, insertions and nerve supplies of every muscle and the names of the structures passing through every single obscure hole in the base of the skull used to be exciting to be able to remember. Much of the time was wasted, I now realise, as we used a large amount of time and energy learning by rote many things that were useless in the real world of medicine. However it is undeniable that it also gave us a grounding in learning facts that stood us in good stead ever since. And I do remember, to this day, large amounts of anatomy, 30 years after my anatomy examination; how useful this is something that can be debated. But I want to speak today of two teachers of ...