Kamala Das is recognised as one of India’s foremost poets. Das was born on 31 March 1934 in Malabar, in the state of Kerala, southwest India. Her love of poetry was influenced by her great uncle, Nalapat Narayan Menon, a prominent writer. She was also deeply affected by the poetry of her mother and the sacred writings kept by the matriarchal community of Nayars. Das was privately educated until the age of 15 when she got married.

Das’ achievements extend well beyond her verses of poetry. She had also dabbled in painting, fiction and even politics. However, in 1984, Das failed to win a place in parliament

Das dares to break the traditional way of writing about nationalist themes such as legends, religious and general ethical statements to writing about personal experiences and the social issues of women. She has gone far beyond the stereotype of longings and complaining and wrote creatively with deep feelings of the taboo subjects that Indian women are often silence about.

Here is one of her well-known poems.

The Looking Glass

Getting a man to love you is easy
Only be honest about your wants as
Woman. Stand nude before the glass with him
So that he sees himself the stronger one
And believes it so, and you so much more
Softer, younger, lovelier. Admit your
Admiration. Notice the perfection
Of his limbs, his eyes reddening under
The shower, the shy walk across the bathroom floor,
Dropping towels, and the jerky way he
Urinates. All the fond details that make
Him male and your only man. Gift him all,
Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of
Long hair, the must of sweat between the breasts,
The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your
Endless female hungers. Oh yes, getting
A man to love is easy, but living
Without him afterwards may have to be
Faced. A living without life when you move
Around, meeting strangers, with your eyes that
Gave up their search, with ears that hear only
His last voice calling out your name and your
Body which once under his touch had gleamed
Like burnished brass, now drab and destitute.

Kamala Das (1934 – )

Sleep is an indispensable element in our lives. In fact, we spend about one-third of our lives sleeping. During our sleep the mind and body are in a different level of consciousness as compared to when we are awake. Our body are inactive, metabolism decreases and the mind is seemingly unaware of the surroundings. However, the body does not completely stop its operations.

What happen during our sleep?
Essentially there are four stages in one sleep cycle.

Stage 1
Light sleep takes up around 5% to 10% on an average night. The body temperature drops and the muscles relax. It is not difficult to awaken sleepers at this stage, and they may not even realise that they have been asleep.

Stage 2
This refers to light-to-medium sleep during which it is still effortless to arouse the sleeper. The body is relatively restored at this juncture.

Stage 3 and 4
The sleeper falls into deep sleep during these two stages. The gradual relaxation of muscles and breathing, increased insensitivity to light and sound, as well as reduced heart rate can be observed. The sleeper is not easily awakened.

The body is most rejuvenated and restored at stage 3 and 4. If a sleeper does not obtain enough deep sleep at these two levels, he does not wake up invigorated. After the completion of stage 4 sleep, we go back to stage 3, then stage 2. After this, we experience the first session of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep for the night.

NREM and REM Sleep

Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep used to describe stages 1 to 4. REM sleep refers to the phase during which we dream. The term “REM sleep” is derived from the fact that our eyes appear to move quickly at random at this stage.

It is found that our brain activity throughout REM sleep is similar to that when we are awake. In contrast to the slower heart rate at stages 1 to 4, the heart rate during REM sleep is comparable to the normal waking pace.

REM sleep takes up about 20% to 25% in a standard night, and is usually linked with light sleep. The interval between each REM phase is approximately 90 minutes. Furthermore, the stages gradually occupy more time as the night advances.

Another sleep cycle starts after the first REM stage ends. We go through levels 2, 3, 4 and subsequently, the second REM stage. On average, four to six sleep cycles occur every night. The duration of each cycle is estimated to be around 90 minutes. As deep sleep mainly takes place in the earlier part of the night, the body is primarily renewed during the first three to five hours of sleep.

Source : “Sleep: Our faithful companion in life” by Wong Pui Yee. Featured in Montage Edition – Many faces, One world. Volume 9. Published by Asiapac Books Pte Ltd.

We all know that if we want to stay healthy, we should eat a balanced diet, avoid too much fat and sugar, exercise regularly, cut out smoking and avoid stress. In other words we should remain as much as possible as nature intended us. But we might want to ask what part does nature play in the natural healing process?

There are times when the intervention of drugs or surgery is essential, however, many illnesses will get better of their own accord regardless of treatment. This is because the human body has an inherent ability to heal itself. The fitter we are, the easier we will be able to cope with the illness and our healing power will also be greater.

We all know that our mental attitude can have a powerful effect on the course of our illness. The desire to get well is often a strong factor in early recovery. It has often been observed by medical profession that of two patients with identical illnesses the one with the positive outlook will recover far more quickly than his counterpart.

Naturopaths have long been advocating a natural whole-food diet that is free from artificial flavouring and preservatives. They are always concern about the prevention of illness by exercise, fresh air, healthy diet and freedom from stress. Naturopaths belief in treating the person as a whole, not just the illness. They will examine all aspects of the patient’s life from eating habits and posture to muscular tension and psychological problems.

Naturopaths differ from the medical professional in that they belief illness is nature’s way of restoring harmony to the body when the body is disturbed in any ways. They therefore advocate that illness should be allowed to run its course and that to suppress the symptoms with drugs will ultimately create more troubles.

There are also concerned to find and deal with the underlying cause of the problem rather than provide temporary relief of the symptoms. Naturopaths do belief that illness is caused by a faulty diet and will often prescribe several days of fasting to eliminate poisonous substances from the body. The patient will then gradually be introduced to a new and healthier diet.

The influence of the mind on illness is well demonstrated in the use of placebos or dummy drugs. One in three patients who are given a placebo which they belief to be a painkiller actually do experience considerable pain relief. Emil Coue, a French chemist, found that many patients were cured simply because they believed in the ‘efficacy’ of the coloured water they were given to drink. Coue concluded that conviction had a powerful effect on the human body and suggested that we should repeat phrases such as “Every day in every way I am getting better and better.”

Relaxation exercises, meditation and yoga, which likewise draw on our body’s resources, are also equally helpful in preventing ill health and in recuperating from it.

Source : “Doctor’s Answers – Published by Marshall Cavendish Partwork Ltd”

“A Calendar of wisdom” is a collection of words of wisdom translated from their original source into Russian by Leo Tolstoy. Peter Sekirin later translated these collections from Russian into English. Here are some words of wisdom taken from Sekirin’s translated version.

(1)       A person who has spoiled his stomach will criticise his meal saying that the food is bad; the same thing happens with people who are not satisfied with their lives in this world.

(2)       We do not have the right to be unhappy with our life. If it seems to us that we are not satisfied with life, we should see this as a reason to be unsatisfied with ourselves.

(3)       Cruel people are busy all the time, as if to find justification for the cruelty of their dealings.

(4)       A good life is given only to those who make efforts to achieve it.

(5)       A man should always feel happy; if he is unhappy, it means he is guilty.

(6)       Do not fear the lack of knowledge, fear false knowledge. All evil in this world comes from false knowledge.

(7)       Not to accept your mistakes is to increase them.

(8)       Happiness is a thing which a person wishes only for himself; goodness is a thing which a person wishes for himself and for others. Happiness can be achieved by struggle; goodness, on the contrary, by being humble.

(9)       Anyone who is engage in really important thing is very simple because he does not have time to create unnecessary things.

(10)     Those who do nothing, do bad things. Those who do nothing, have many associates and supporters. The brain of a lazy and idle person is the favourite stopped place of the devil.

(11)     You should not be ashamed of any work, even the lowest and dirties, but you should be ashamed only of the dirtiest moral state, that is the idleness of your body, which is the necessary result of the consumption of the labour of others.

(12)     If you think someone is guilty of wronging you, forgive him. If you have never forgiven the guilty before, you will experience a new joy: the joy of forgiving.

(13)     The future does not really exist. It is created by us in the present.

(14)     All good things can be achieved only with effort.

(15)     We suffer from the past, and we spoil our future because we neglect the present.

(16)     The more urgently you want to speak, the more likely it is that you will say something foolish.

Source: “A Calendar of Wisdom : Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul written and selected from the world’s scared tests” by Leo Tolstoy, translated into English from the Russian by Peter Sekirin. Published by Simon and Schuster Inc, USA.

What is stroke

The term stroke is used to describe an event during which the blood supply to a part of the brain is suddenly interrupted. The symptoms start abruptly and may slowly worsen over a few hours or days. Symptoms always last more than 24 hours and depend on which cerebral blood vessels and which part of the brain are affected.

• Weakness or paralysis of one side of the body
• Speech difficulties
• Sudden severe giddiness
• Nausea and vomiting
• Loss of sensation, e.g. numbness of the face
• Difficulty in swallowing
• Double vision
• Loss of vision in one eye
• Drooping of one upper eyelid with a small pupil and lack of sweating on that side of the face
• Sudden severe headache
• Confusion
• Coma

Symptoms

Transient Ischaemic Attacks (TIAs) are known as ‘mini stroke’. They occur when the blood supply to part of the body is temporarily interrupted, e.g. by a small blood clot or vascular spasm. The symptoms disappear within 24 hours, or even sooner.

Causes

About 80% of strokes are due to a blood clot blocking an artery in the brain while the rest are due to bleeding into brain tissue from a ruptured blood vessel. Either event causes the death of an area of brain tissue and the permanent loss of cells.

The underlying cause of a stroke is usually atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). In atherosclerosis, fatty plaques and scar tissue form in artery walls, restricting the blood flow; blood clot often form on the plaques, further blocking the arteries. Fragments of clot may detach and circulate in the bloodstream. If a fragment lodges in a smaller blood vessel in the brain, it may block it and cause a stroke.

Risk Factors

• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Heart disease
• Weakness in blood vessel walls in the brain
• Blood diseases
• Certain drugs

Diagnosis

• CT scanning – this confirms the presence of a cerebral infarct. In the first few days after stroke, it can differentiate between brain damage caused by bleeding and damage caused by an embolus.
• An MRI scan – this usually shown up abnormality within a few hours of the stroke.
• Lumbar puncture – blood in the cerebrospinal fluid that bathes the spinal cord, suggests a diagnosis of subarachnoid haemorrhage.
• Carotid Doppler and duplex scanning – this specialised form of ultrasound scanning is used to detect narrowing of the carotid arteries, the arteries that supply the brain.
• Angiography – this detects narrowing blood vessels.
• Blood tests – e.g. full blood count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, blood electrolyte and glucose levels.
• Chest X-ray
• Electrocardiogram (ECG)

Treatment

• Anticoagulant drugs – these may be prescribed if the stroke is caused by a blood clot.
• Surgery – in server continued bleeding, surgery may be carried out to clip a bleeding vessel.
• Rehabilitation – this is essential as many patients are immobile following a stroke and are at risk of developing pressure sores and deep vein thromboses. Difficulty with swallowing is another problem as choking can occur and fluid or food may accidentally be inhaled into the airways. Blood control is vital for patients with hypertension, and readings are closely monitored.

Prevention

• Treat high blood pressure at an early stage
• smoking
• TIAs should be investigated in order to treat the underlying cause

Source: “Inside The Human Body”. Published by Bright Star Publishing PLC.

“A Calendar of wisdom” is a collection of words of wisdom translated from their original source into Russian by Leo Tolstoy. Peter Sekirin later translated these collections from Russian into English. Here are some words of wisdom taken from Sekirin’s translated version.

(1) A scholar knows many books; a well-educated person has knowledge and skills; an enlightened person understands the meaning and purpose of his life.

(2) The only real science is the knowledge of how a person should lives his life. And this knowledge is open to everyone.

(3) Kindness is for soul as health is for your body; you do not notice it when you have it.

(4) If you want to be a clever person, you have to learn how to ask cleverly, how to listen attentively, how to respond quietly, and how to stop talking when there is nothing more to say.

(5) If you have time to think before start talking, think, is it necessary to speak? Will what I have to say harm anyone?

(6) If you love your enemies, you will have no enemies.

(7) When a kind man does not accept his mistakes and tries always to justify himself, he becomes an unkind man.

(8) The best way to live joyfully is to believe that life was given for joy. When joy disappears, look for your mistakes.

(9) A person cannot have complete understanding of the meaning of life. A person can only know its direction.

(10) The greatest knowledge is self-knowledge.

(11) If a person does not believe himself capable of doing the best things in the world, then he starts to create the worst things.

(12) Remember, you do not live in the world, you only pass through it.

(13) You should celebrate each day with a good action, a good deed. This is the best way to start a new day.

(14) When you do a good deed, be grateful that you have had the chance to do it.

(15) Never listen to those who blames others and speak well about you.

Source: “A Calendar of Wisdom : Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul written and selected from the world’s scared tests” by Leo Tolstoy, translated into English from the Russian by Peter Sekirin. Published by Simon and Schuster Inc, USA.

Language is a system of finite arbitrary symbols combined according to rules of grammar for the purpose of communication. Individual languages use sounds, gestures and other symbols to represent objects, concepts, emotions, ideas, and thoughts.

A lingua franca is any language widely used beyond its native speakers, primarily for international commerce but extending to other cultural exchanges, such as diplomacy. The origin of the term lingua franca is Italian (literally “Frankish language”), derived from the medieval Arab and Muslim use of “Franks” (ancient Germans) as a generic term for Europeans during the period of the Crusades.

Originally “lingua franca” referred to a mix of mostly Italian with a broad vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic. This mixed language (pidgin, creole) was used for communication throughout the medieval and early modern Middle East as a diplomatic language; the generic description “lingua franca” has since become common for any language used by speakers of different languages to communicate with one another.

First language (native language, mother tongue, or vernacular) is the language a person learns first. Correspondingly, the person is called a native speaker of the language. Usually a child learns the basics of their first language from their family.

The term “mother tongue” could be misleading. In some paternal societies, mothers are from different places and speak different dialects or languages, yet their children usually only speak their local language. Only a few will learn to speak his or her mother’s language like a native. Mother in this context probably originated from the definition of mother as source, or origin; as in mother-country or land.

Native speakers of English are people whose first language is English. They learned English when they were children. They think in English. They use it naturally. Usually native speakers of English are people from English-speaking countries like the USA, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Ireland, etc.

Standard English is a general term for a form of written and spoken English that is considered the model for educated people. There are no set rules or vocabulary for “standard English” because, unlike languages such as French or Dutch, English does not have a governing body to establish usage. As a result, the concept of “standard English” tends to be fluid. Various regional and national “standards” exist.

The two most common internationally recognized varieties of standard English are American English and British English (also known as Commonwealth English).

The English language is a West Germanic language that originated from languages brought by Germanic settlers from various parts of north-west Germany, including what later became known as Friesland, during the first half of the first millenium. The language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonised the island in the eighth and ninth centuries. The second wave was by the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke a variety of French. These two invasions caused English to become highly ‘creolised’; creolisation arises from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication. Cohabition with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo–Friesian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of European languages; this new layer entered English through use in the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a ‘borrowing’ language of considerable suppleness and huge vocabulary.

We have the OCS briefing on Friday morning. After some discussions, one of the managers presented their action plans. They suggested having bimonthly departmental meeting instead of monthly meeting. The manager explained that having more meetings would enable communications to flow faster. What she meant was to have two meetings a month instead of once a month.

According to the dictionary, the word “bimonthly” means every two months, such as bimonthly magazines. What those managers suggested was to have a meeting every two weeks. In this case, she could have said, “We proposed to have two meetings a month.” She could also use “fortnightly” or “biweekly”.

In Singapore, we do come across people using words differently from the standard usage. Here I have gathered some words that are commonly used locally.

We do hear people say, “He horned at me on the highway”. This is incorrect as “horn” is a noun and it cannot be used as a verb. We should say, ”He sounded his horn at me”.

Many times we heard people saying, “I am so blur”. “Blur” is either a noun meaning something that is not clear or is indistinct, or a verb that means to become indistinct. It is not an adjective. The correct word to use is “confused”.

There are times we heard people say, “I will ask my boss for an off day because I came back to work last Saturday”. In Standard English, an off day is a day when we feel ill or when everything goes wrong. A day off is a day when we do not have to work. So, we should say, “I will ask my boss for an day off”.

Someone came over to the workstation and asked, “Where is she?” Another person answered, “She is on MC”. MC stands for “Medical Certificate”. What we mean is that she is sick and unable to come to work. We should say, “She is ill or she is on medical leave.”

One day I saw a piece of paper pasted on the photocopy machine. It was written, “The photocopy is not working”. Photocopy as a noun is a copy of a document made using a photocopier. We heard people say, “This is a photocopy it is not an original copy”. As a verb, photocopy refers to the process of making copy of a document using the photocopier. If the machine is not working, we could say, “This machine is not working” or “The photocopy machine is not working” or “The photocopier is not working”.

Source: from the book “Grammar Matters”