Category: Specials

Through fascinating personal experiences and path breaking historical developments, cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar’s Heart-A History presents a wonderful, lyrical insight into the mysteries of the heart-‘the inscrutable shuddering  mass’ whose mysteries have been revealed in sporadic discoveries over the centuries and only radically in the last century (and the intrepid, brilliant men and woman at the forefront of these discoveries). With the easy breadth of his medical erudition and the disarming descriptions of his own struggles and inspirations-Sandeep Jauhar navigates the passages of the heart.
Read on for 10 things you didn’t know about the heart.
The heart as the centre of human identity
“The heart’s vital importance to our self- understanding is no accident. If the heart is the last major organ to stop working, it is also the first to develop— starting to beat approximately three weeks into fetal life, even before there is blood to pump. From birth until death, it beats nearly three billion times.”
The lyrical rhythm of the heart
“More than anything, the heart wants to beat; this purpose is built into its very structure. Heart cells grown in a petri dish start to contract spontaneously, seeking out other cells (through electrical connections called gap junctions) to synchronize in their rhythmic dance. In this sense, cardiac cells— and the organ they create— are social entities. The heart can continue to beat for days, even weeks, after an animal has died.”
The Ebers Papyrus-one of the oldest medical documents in the world that describes the heart as the centre of blood supply
“Over the centuries, disparate cultures have viewed the heart as the source of a life- giving force that was to be culled or harvested. In ancient Egypt, the heart was the only organ that was left in the body during mummification because it was believed to play a central role in the rebirth of an individual after death.* They believed the heart was where the soul resided, of course, but a classic document, the Ebers Papyrus, also described the heart as the center of the blood supply, with vessels directed toward the major organs. “The actions of the arms, the movement of the legs, the motion of every other member is done according to the orders of the heart that has conceived them.”
A loving heart
“The ♥ shape, called a cardioid, is common in nature. It appears in the leaves, flowers, and seeds of many plants, including silphium, which was used for birth control in the early Middle Ages and may be the reason why the heart became associated with sex and romantic love (though the heart’s resemblance to the vulva probably also has something to do with it). Whatever the reason, hearts began to appear in paintings of lovers in the thirteenth century.”
It is indeed possible to die of a broken-heart
“There is a heart disorder first recognized about two decades ago called takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or the broken- heart syndrome, in which the heart acutely weakens in response to extreme stress or grief, such as after a romantic breakup or the death of a spouse. Patients (almost always women, for unclear reasons) develop symptoms that mimic those of a heart attack. They may develop chest pain and shortness of breath, even heart failure. On an echocardiogram, the heart muscle appears stunned, frequently ballooning into the shape of a takotsubo, a Japanese octopus- trapping pot with a wide bottom and a narrow neck.”
The invention of echocardiography
“Inge Edler, a cardiologist, and Carl Hellmuth Hertz, a physicist, invented echocardiography at the Univer sity of Lund in Sweden in the early 1950s. They went to shipyards to study sonar, making the conceptual leap that if you can use ultrasound to see a ship five hundred meters away, maybe you can use it to see the heart, too, if only you could change the depth of penetration. They made a prototype probe and put it on Edler’s chest.”
Dr Daniel Williams, the swashbuckling African-American who literally ‘performed’ the first open-heart surgery
“But tamponade was a very big deal in early operating theaters, where cardiac injuries loomed especially large. And it was the driving force on a revolutionary summer day in 1893, when Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a surgeon at Provident Hospital in Chicago, drained a traumatic pericardial effusion in what was then believed to be the first open- heart surgery. The patient, twenty- four- year- old James Cornish, had been stabbed with a knife in the chest in a saloon scuffle. He was bleeding profusely when he was dropped off at the hospital by a horse drawn ambulance. With no diagnostic equipment other than a stethoscope—X- rays would not be discovered for another two years—Williams examined him.”
Wilson Greatbatch and his accidental discovery of the first pace-maker (tested on a dog)
“So Greatbatch went back to his workshop and fashioned a prototype device out of two Texas Instruments transistors. Three weeks later, Chardack implanted it into a dog. The two men watched in awe as the tiny device took over the heartbeat. “I seriously doubt if anything I ever do will give me the elation I felt that day when my own two- cubic- inch piece of electronic design controlled a living heart,” Greatbatch wrote. From antiquity to modern times, philosophers and physicians had dreamed of taking charge of the human heartbeat. And finally it was possible, using simple circuit elements that were widely available. It was a seminal moment in the history of science”
The race for the heart (transplant)
“It was a close race, but Barnard broke the transplant tape first, on December 3, 1967, thirty- four days before Shumway. His first patient, Louis Washkansky, a fifty- five- year- old grocer, received the heart of a young woman who had suffered brain damage after being hit by a car while crossing the road. He lived for eighteen days after the procedure, succumbing to a lung infection after his immune system was weakened by drugs to prevent organ rejection. Shumway had to content himself with doing the first adult heart transplant in the United States a month later, on January 6, 1968.”
The first human balloon angioplasty by Dr Andreas Gruentzig-engineer at heart
“When those experiments proved successful, Gruentzig went to work on human cadavers. OnFebruary 12, 1974, ten years after Dotter’s first angioplasty, Gruentzig used one of his catheters to perform the first human balloon angioplasty on a sixty- seven- year- old patient with a severestricture of the iliac artery, a major vessel in the leg.”

Affecting, engaging, and beautifully written, Heart: A History takes the full measure of the only organ that can move itself.
 
 

The titular Polite Society of Mahesh Rao’s darkly funny new novel, is Lutyen’s Delhi with Prithviraj road at the centre and apex of its ambitions. ‘Polite’ is a subjective term though, and no one knows it better than those on the fringes, trying to break into the seemingly impenetrable cliques, who play at being composed entirely of ‘old money’ and governed by arcane rules.
Despite maintain the happy pretense of a society comprised of only the pinnacle of sophistication, polite society is actually quite a mixed bag. There are the chosen ones, born to both manner inhabit the world with the assurance of being born to it, the ones whose obscene wealth and lavish spending of it allow them a place in it despite the derision at their vulgarity, the ones who no longer have the wealth to inhabit it comfortably-but do so any way with a mixture of their connections and personal savoir-faire. And finally there are the ones in purgatory, looking to break into the charmed circle but never quite having the confidence to be comfortable in it.
The people you need to know to climb your way into Polite Society via Prithviraj Road.
 
Ania Khurana
“She considered public-service commitments important to her personal growth and would drop into Dr Bhatia’s hospital whenever she had commitment-free weekday that took her in that direction. No one who favoured their privacy was likely to object when they discovered she was Dileep Khurana’s daughter.”
Dileep Khurana
“Dileep had a terror of obscurity and irrelevance, and the way he decided to distinguish himself by his youthfulness and vitality…He employed the services of a nutritionist who had worked with several stars of The Bold and the Beautiful. He went sandboarding in Peru and more reluctantly, Dubai.”
Fahim
“Over time, he taught himself their ways. He talked about garden parties and private members’ clubs he hadn’t been to. It was easy these days: everywhere was photographed and reviewed. He learnt the easy manner of the young men he sought out. He googled assiduously and scrutinized connections on social media.”
Nina Varkey
“As expected, she had matured into a formidable beauty, with an elegant neck, unblemished skin, and the mouth of a vamp. Her first newspaper column was called ‘Dirty laundry’  and she dictated it to a woman called Rose who would come to her houses every Tuesday afternoon. A few months later, Nina remarried, changing her surname and the name of her column. It became ‘Nina Varkey’s Grapevine.’”
Dimple
“In some ways, Ania’s initial interest in Dimple’s affairs could be placed on the same spectrum of charitable instincts as the one that led her to the animal shelter. When Dimple stared in confusion out of her large brown eyes Ania’s heart gave a little flip. But over time she had become genuinely fond of Dimple and didn’t see why thr girl shouldn’t reap the benefits of a superlative Delhi social life just because of her unfortunate beginnings.”
 Renu Khurana
“The Khurana house had gradually anesthetized her, diminishing any desire for an independent life. With each passing year her face accommodated more of her fathers handsomeness, her eyelids becoming heavier, the jaw sitting a little more squarely. She quit her job as a museum curator and tired of her clamorous friends, Instead there were plump cushions, a bountiful supply of true crime paperbacks and a swirl of cream in the dishes that came up to her on a little trolley.”
 Dev Gahlot
“The same jacket day after day, the satchel with a broken zipper, the fraying above the shirt pocket, she was convinced it was all an affectation, a way of indicating to the world that their owner concerned himself only with matters of sublime worth and not mere flummeries. They had practically grown up in each others houses and she could almost predict his every gesture.”
 Kamya Singh-Kaul
“She presented a glassy indifference to anythinh Ania had to offer. She volunteetred nothing, disclosed nothing. Attempts to draw her out or share a confidence were futile. People were ‘sweet’ or ‘nice’, places were ‘great’ and a few times she had used the word ‘simpatico’. Her gaze was cool and hard.”

Keenly observed, sharply plotted and full of wit and brio, Polite Society reimagines Jane Austen’s Emma in contemporary Delhi to portray a society whose polished surface often reveals far more than is intended. For more posts like this, follow Penguin India on Facebook!
 
 
 

The Man Who Saved India by Hindol Sengupta is a meticulously researched, brilliantly sketched portrait of Vallabhbhai Patel-a man who seems to have received short shift both in his lifetime and in posterity. The ‘dominance of one (or more) strains of history in the imagination of the modern Indian nation’ is so absolute and limiting, that most of us know almost nothing about the man whose efforts created a consolidated India.  The modern Indian nation state owes as much to Patel for its existence as it does Gandhi or Nehru and yet, the great statesman is not given the same immediate recognition despite his personal sacrifices for the cause of freedom, his contributions to fund-raising for the Indian National Congress and the pragmatism and prescience that he displayed on issues ranging from Kashmir and Hyderabad, to bureaucracy and socialism.
Patel considered Gandhi his guru and deferred to him on multiple occasions (even if it was to his own detriment) while Nehru, the man who became Prime Minister (as many say, in his place) comes across as both colleague and rival, with their collaboration on several issues and complementary skills contrasting with their essentially different backgrounds, ambitions and, ideologies and approaches to the issues of the day.
Read on for a glimpse at the most significant collaboration and rivalry in modern Indian history.
Patel’s essentially grounded nature vs. Nehru’s comparative ambition
“It is my contention that not only is Patel deserving of being counted as one of the three strongest pillars of the movement that won India freedom from British rule, but that he was also perhaps the most grounded, literally and figuratively, of the three, and that his contribution from before Independence till his death in 1950, in many ways, surpassed Nehru’s. There is no doubt that Nehru had many fine ideas as prime minister but he would have done well to heed Patel’s pragmatic, cautious, earthy wisdom in problematic issues like Pakistan, Hindu–Muslim disputes, and India’s relationship with China. But to any neutral observer it would be clear that it was Patel who threw way personal motivations and ambitions far more than the other two men—indeed he seemed to be able to carry a lighter, nimbler sense of self.”
Patel vs Nehru and Gandhi in posterity:
The memories of Patel’s contributions have faded and the benefits of his legacy are rarely credited to him.
“While most Indians know far more about Gandhi and Nehru and their contributions in making the nation that they call home, few would immediately, in the same breath, give equal recognition to Patel. Such acknowledgement is eminently due, and it is a shame that it has never been adequately given, if for nothing else then those ‘four hectic years, 1947 to 1951’ when through endless ‘toils and anxieties the edifice of a consolidated India’was built with Sardar Patel as the ‘light and inspiration’.”
Patel vs Nehru for the post of Congress president:
Patel was the popular choice several times but stepped aside for Nehru upon the request of Mahatma Gandhi
“It certainly sounds less acerbic when you consider the number of times Patel gave up, without a protest, the position of the president of the Indian National Congress led by Mahatma Gandhi, including in 1947 when not a single state unit of the Congress nominated Jawaharlal Nehru for the position of president because that would mean having him as the country’s first prime minister. Each time that Gandhi indicated his choice was Nehru, in many ways an adopted son, each time Patel quietly stood aside, without a single complaint. In 1929, 1936 and 1946, when Patel was a natural claimant to the position of Congress president.”
Patel vs Nehru on the handling of citizens in a democracy
“Nehru understood that one of the best ways to talk about the future in a country obsessed with the past was to couch it in the language of aristocracy, in the idiom of aloofness—elitism, he instinctively realized, was a useful tool for enforcing new, difficult ideas, ironically even of egalitarianism. It could be said that he was borrowing almost from the old rajas—many of them great futurists—who knew that the masses had to be pulled, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the future, and that required a slight disdain for the intellectual prowess of the masses. And Patel? He understood better than anyone else that democracy isn’t so much an everyday plebiscite but a daily judgement—the interplay of incessant retribution and reward that keeps the citizen at bay.”
Patel vs. Nehru on their understanding of rural India
“Nehru had to be sent to the villages of India to understand peasant life, the real India, if you will, whereas Patel came from that real India and did not have to go or be sent anywhere to comprehend it. Patel, therefore, instinctively opposed the idea of revolution by borrowed ideology in India, especially having seen the success of the Gandhian method. He realized, correctly, that triggering a class war would probably do greater harm to India’s path to freedom than good. While Nehru’s ideas came from his extensive reading about communism and socialism, Patel had lived the life of the Indian poor and understood why they chose to follow Gandhi; his perspective came directly from his lived experience, not books.”
Motilal Nehru vs. Jhaverbhai Patel and their lasting influences on their famous sons
“The fathers are important in another way. Jhaverbhai was a devout Hindu and a follower of the Swaminarayan sect, and even at the age of eighty-five, he would often walk 30 kilometres to go to the nearest Swaminarayan temple. In sharp contrast, Motilal Nehru was a fierce rationalist and atheist. While Patel never embraced every aspect of the religiosity of his father, he never shunned his religious identity either, while, in comparison, ‘initially, Jawahar had scorned his father’s strict rationalism as unimaginative. But ultimately, as with the temper [which the two Nehrus shared], he could not help but emulate it. A young Nehru had decided that religion was something women did, and while his view changed significantly, some of the distaste remained. These differing approaches to religiosity, especially to Hinduism, would remain a fractious ground between the two men till the end.”
Patel vs Nehru on socialism and government controls on industry
“‘We must remember that socialism in England came after England had advanced considerably on the road to industrialization. You should realize that industry is to be established before it can be nationalized.’ Nehru was more inclined towards a more government-led model of development than Patel. The question of control of course is entirely dependent on the extent to which control is leveraged and there is little doubt that Nehru was naturally inclined to a greater degree of control than Patel.”
Patel vs. Nehru on a united civil service for India
Patel won this particular round and posterity seems to have proved the value of a strong-all India bureaucratic service
“Nehru who is said to have once quoted someone as saying that it was ‘neither Indian, nor civil, nor a service’, but Patel saw it as a unifying force in a country plagued with divisions, an administrative glue. He was one of the most vocal champions for having a united civil service, even though many Indian states would have just preferred their own civil service, because Patel saw that a strong all-India bureaucratic service was critical to binding a nation that had just won independence, and to stop it from splintering any further. And even though Patel died in 1950 and Nehru was prime minister till 1964 the steel frame was never removed.”
Patel vs. Nehru on the Hyderabad issue and Operation Polo
“Munshi also recorded a major incident between the Sardar and Nehru a day before Indian forces rolled into Hyderabad. ‘The discussion had barely begun when Jawaharlal Nehru flew into a rage and upbraided Sardar for his action and attitude towards Hyderabad. [. . .] He concluded his outburst with the remark that in future he would himself attend to all matters relating to Hyderabad. The vehemence of his attack, as well as its timing, shocked everyone present.’ Through it all, Patel sat still. And then he stood up and left. Nothing changed. The Indian Army rolled into Hyderabad as planned.”
Patel vs Nehru on taking the Kashmir issue before the United Nations
Patel was proved right since the Security Council supported Pakistan on the issue.
“His beseeching advice to the prime minister to not take the Kashmir issue to the United Nations was ignored—and Patel was scathing about this, famously calling the Security Council the ‘insecurity council’.”
 
Hindol Sengupta’s The Man Who Saved India is destined to define Patel’s legacy for future generations. For more posts like this, follow Penguin India on Facebook!

When Namita is ten, her mother takes her to Dhondutai, a respected music teacher from the great Jaipur Gharana. Dhondutai’s antecedents are rich- she is the only remaining student of the legendary Alladiya Khan, the founder of the gharana and of its most famous singer, the tempestuous Kesarbai Kerkar. Namita begins to learn singing from Dhondutai, at first reluctantly and then, as the years pass, with growing passion. Dhondutai sees in her a second Kesar, but does Namita have the dedication to give herself up completely to music-or will there always be too many late nights and cigarettes?
Here are six anecdotes from her book, The Music Room that offer a glimpse into the life of classical musicians:
 
Some classes (and concerts) sucked the joy out of singing.
“I hated my mother for pushing me into this embarrassing, depressing world. Besides these classes, I was routinely dragged to even more irksome music concerts, where I would usually fall asleep and wake up when the singer was rendering fast, arpeggiated passages which meant the end of the show was near.”

~

The most talented musicians had some interesting neighbours
“The music teacher lived in an old building under Kennedy Bridge… [it]was a neighbourhood known for prostitutes and gentlemen’s clubs, but not for musicians. The only other time I had heard of Kennedy Bridge was when my parents joked about their adventurous evening in a mujrah dance parlour many years ago.”

~

A cough is a serious illness which needs to be taken care of using any means necessary (superstitious or otherwise)
“During my next lesson, I was made to sit on the sofa with the marigold garland around my neck, looking like a horrendous child goddess, while my teacher circulated a hairy brown coconut around my head three times, muttering a mantra…I don’t know whether it was the coconut ritual, the plant, or a heavy dose of vitamins, but my cough disappeared.”

~

Even bandits appreciate good music
“Before leaving, the bandits happened to ask the brothers where they had gotten the money. When they found out that they were musicians, they asked them to sing. At first the duo was nervous, but as they warmed up, they forgot where they were, or who their audience was, and sang a sublime raga. The bandits were so moved by their music, that they returned not just Khansahib’s purse but also gave them whatever other stolen jewels and money they were carrying.”

~

Musicians can go to extreme lengths to plagiarize…
 “Rajabali Khan, moved into a house right next to Alladiya Khan’s home so that he could secretly listen to the Khansahib while he practiced and then try and copy his style. He did this for years, until his singing actually began to sound like Alladiya Khan’s music, and he even became a well-regarded performer. Finally Alladiya Khan persuaded the king to send the plagiarist away.”

~

Competitors can come up with extremely creative (and illegal) ways to get you out of the picture
“One hot afternoon, Badeji was playing cricket and the ball hit him right on the chest. He vomited a little blood. Worried about his growing prowess as a singer, some rival musicians went to a local doctor and bribed him to give an incorrect diagnosis about Badeji so that he would never sing again.”
 

Beautifully written, full of anecdotes, gossip and legend, The Music Room is perhaps the most intimate book to be written about Indian classical music yet.