[Assam] Kanaklata and Assam.org

[Chan Mahanta]

Hi Chitta:

While I admire and respect achievers and 
do-gooders, I am not into hero-worshipping. More 
so because our people have degenerated the 
hero-worshipping to a substitute for emulating 
what their heroes exemplified.  In an extreme 
example of it, one illustrious NRA  ( I am being 
extremely generous here) , who fancies himself to 
be the defender of Xonkordev's legacy, even 
threatened to shut down an exhibit honoring 
Xonkordev, if the organizers used the X letter in 
transliterating the departed hero's name in 
English.  With such examples of hero-worshippers, 
who needs hero-trashers :-)?

So, I will pass on writing biographies.  But  I 
hope to set  examples thru MY actions, shaped by 
learning from and emulating those who came before 
me, whom I admire.

I also am not the kind of person who go about 
waving my pride in this or that, person or action 
or achievement.  Pride waving is something that 
becomes necessary only when there really is scant 
amounts for it to be found. Again, not to suggest 
I don't admire others' contributions or 
achievements. But that is not something I  build 
my self-worth upon. And if ALL or many 
individuals take that approach, we will become 
much better people.


Finally, there are many individuals who did many 
fine and admirable things, and many are doing it 
now,  unrecognized and unsung; as many will do in 
times to come. In this era of information 
overload, I do not even think of attempting to 
know all that is worthy of knowing, people, 
actions or things. We will, of necessity, have to 
focus on issues, people, things--that are of 
interest to us, individually or collectively.


So, biographies should be written by those who have an interest in it.

Finally, the piece below, is definitely NOT one 
to emulate to document someone's life, with such 
banalities like:

>The doctor told her he could cure her in a day. 
>And cure he did. A clinical diagnosis by the 
>gifted >doctor established that a purgative 
>would heal her. She had the pill and as if by 
>magic, she was cured >instantly.



OR

with such poor understanding of a language, like:

>  He miraculously survived inspite of drowning in 
>the Brahmaputra at one pont of his career.

c-da


PS:


>Alright-what you are saying may be true for some 
>Indians, but is equally true for most of the 
>Assamese.

*** Yes, and that is precisely because Assam's 
establishment is little more than a bad copy of 
India's.
And I recognized the 'some' aspect of it, when I 
qualified my statement with 'by-and-large'. 
Question would be what you imply with 'some'? 
Hope it is not an attempt to portray it as a 
minuscule, aberrant  segment and thus  a rebuttal 
, on the sly, of what obviously is an 
uncomfortable truth to you and others . If that 
is what you are trying to do, that would be 
dissembling :-).

>How many Nolboriya Assamese know about Samson Sing Ingty or Kalicharan Brahma

*** Let us not equate trivia collection with 
learning about people or cultures, even though 
that is exactly what the whole desi-education 
system has degenerated into, where information 
collection and regurgitation passes for learning 
and measuring its worth.

















At 8:42 PM -0700 7/4/07, chittaranjan pathak wrote:
>Mahanta da
>Thanks for your interest and contribution so 
>far. Hope you will take some initiative to fill 
>the gap on biographies front too. Others will 
>surely follow. I am not sure who the owner of 
>the list is as my earlier post elicited no 
>response. Are you one of the custodians? If so 
>,please let us know how we can all go about 
>filling this gap. May be we can have a time 
>frame and all of us can volunteer few 
>biographies of personalities we feel we are 
>familiar with. 
>
>Regards
>
>Chittaranjan
>
>By the way Mahanta da-these biographies are not 
>about educating “Indians”.  These will be useful 
>for every one and most useful for the Assamese 
>(including us and hopefully/wishfully our 
>children). You also know it Mahanta da-is not 
>it? The educating Indians bit was just out of 
>old habit. You said that Indians are not 
>interested about others, their culture, their 
>history, their language and by and large, 
>Indians are perfectly happy to suck-up to those 
>who they deem are superior and are ever ready to 
>push down on whom they deem inferior.
>Alright-what you are saying may be true for some 
>Indians, but is equally true for most of the 
>Assamese. How many Nolboriya Assamese know about 
>Samson Sing Ingty or Kalicharan Brahma. Bokul 
>Bonor Kavi does not ring a bell in Bijni 
>nowadays nor does Kamala Kanta in Karbi Anglong. 
>And now the situation is such that a Roy boy of 
>Goalpara will idolize as Jatiya Bir Chilarai 
>only leaving Lachit Borphukan to his Upper Assam 
>friends. I feel such a list with life sketches 
>with luminaries of Assam will be a learning, 
>relearning exercise for all of us and to some 
>extent make us all broadminded enough again to 
>feel proud of all these luminaries from Assam 
>forgetting the ethnic divides.
>
>Now tell me, should we not all feel proud this 
>octogenarian Assamese doctor who is still on his 
>mission at the ripe old age of 97. I have been 
>fortunate enough to drink the “pink” concoction 
>administered by this Good Samaritan during 
>those childhood fever bouts. Here is the life 
>sketch of Dr. Nalini Sarma published  in this 
>Saturday’s Sentinel magazine.
>Atifa Deshamukhya in an interview with the venerated doctor.
>He is 97 years old and still practising as a 
>doctor, bringing succour to patients from far 
>and wide. It is interesting to note that is 
>these days of advanced medical tests and 
>treatment — people still flock to him for 
>clinical diagnoses based on the senses, and in 
>some cases samples of body fluids tested by 
>himself over a microscope. A stethescope and a 
>BP machine are the only adjuncts that 
>distinguish him as a doctor. Therein lies his 
>uniqueness.
>“He puts his hand at the pulse point and 
>diagnoses the disease,” said a loyal patient who 
>has been consulting him for over 50 years now. 
>She also recounted a mysterious case about a 
>lady of Uzanbazar who had been diagnosed with 
>cancer by a leading hospital in the city. Just 
>before leaving for Apollo Hospital, Chennai, she 
>visited Dr Nalini Sarma at the behest of some 
>relative. The doctor told her he could cure her 
>in a day. And cure he did. A clinical diagnosis 
>by the gifted doctor established that a 
>purgative would heal her. She had the pill and 
>as if by magic, she was cured instantly.
>When asked to comment on scores of such 
>incidents reported to me, Dr Sarma put it down 
>to originality of approach. In fact the late Dr 
>Bani Kanta Kakati had once defended his system 
>of diagnosis by saying that “Nalini has 
>originality” — during the early part of Sarma's 
>career. It acted as a spur — egging him on to 
>develop this god-gifted trait. Now, at ripe old 
>age he justifies his approach saying that 
>stalwarts in every field are divinely gifted. 
>“If I have been able to do something significant 
>it is also a gift of god”, says he.
>Not only education and professional experience, 
>but a host of co-curricular activities and a 
>childhood spent in the close proximity of nature 
>have helped to shape the man as he is today. He 
>learnt French and Korean, took lessons on the 
>piano, learnt martial arts and was actively 
>involved in games and sports. Perhaps that’s why 
>he is healthy in body and mind till date. No 
>specks, no artificial teeth, and still very much 
>on his feet.
>Dr Sarma is effusive in his insistence that the 
>very medicines that heal can also kill. It is 
>necessary to exercise utmost caution that 
>medicine itself does not become posion.
>“Douse the flame, don’t hit against the smoke” — 
>is a precept followed by Dr Sarma. He is 
>saddened that most doctors treat the symptoms of 
>the disease, rather than address the root 
>problem. He cited many examples to corroborate 
>this. In most cases, it appeared that some 
>primary cause as gas or malfunctioning of the 
>liver was giving rise to complications in people 
>which the front-ranking doctors and hospitals 
>could not handle satisfactorily. But when Dr 
>Sarma targetted the source of the disease, 
>people recovered all too soon. And this is how 
>his fame spread.
>He is happy to be practising at this ripe old 
>age. It’s a learning experience listening to the 
>accounts of the many experiences he has had. 
>Grimacing at one moment, heartily laughing at 
>the other — speaking animatedly in a smattering 
>of Bengali and English intertwined with chaste 
>Assamese,— he made me wonder at this vitality 
>and zest of a nonagenarian.
>Born to Harikanta Sarma and Dharmeswar Debi, he 
>suffered various ailments and accidents in the 
>early part of his life. He was sent to the 
>medical college of Bengal, Calcutta to pursue 
>medicine as a career. It was a premier medical 
>college in those days, — drawing patients from 
>eastern Asia, middle-east countries as well as 
>Europe. While a student, he used to frequent the 
>Tropical school of medicine at Calcutta where he 
>acquainted himself with the research work being 
>conducted on various tropical diseases. The 
>neigbouring pathological museum was also a 
>treasure - trove for the young, inquisitive Dr 
>Sarma — who engrossed himself in multi-pronged 
>studies to equip himself for a fritful career. 
>He was a bright student and the professors would 
>often single him out to assist in operations 
>being performed by them. This practical 
>grounding has been so succussful that at this 
>date, when he has long forgotten the theory 
>inscribed in voluminous tomes, he recalls 
>crystal clear the hands-on experience which has, 
>as it were, formed an intuitive basis for his 
>diagnosis till today. In those days, a course in 
>medicine know as Bachelor of Medicine included 
>Medical Surgery, Midwifery, Gynaecology, Ear, 
>Nose & Throat, Eye, Skin and Teeth also. It was 
>quite a comprehensive course, which is why Dr 
>Sarma’s patients can consult him on anything and 
>get results. At present he does not practise 
>surgery, which is one of the fall-outs of 
>advancing age.
>The masters under whom he received training were 
>also men of considerable stature. Lt col Green 
>Armytase, professor of midwifery and gynaecology 
>was later made honorary gynaecologist to Her 
>Majesty the Queen of Great Britain. Another 
>illustrious professor was Sunil Bose, elder 
>brother of Subhash Chandra Bose, who was the 
>most well-known cardiologist in East India at 
>that time. And Nalini remembers how the former 
>would humbly admit to knowing nothing much about 
>the heart! A precept learnt of Lt col Vere 
>Hodge, profesor of medicine, has remained the 
>buzzword for Dr Sarma — “patient is the best 
>book”. Thus, he has kept up the learning process 
>over the decades, learning from his patients 
>even as he tried to help them with his stock of 
>acquired knowledge.
>Dr Nalini Sarma first set up practice at 
>Barpeta. Those were days of conflicting claims 
>of local doctors, homeopaths, Kabiraj, spiritual 
>and indigenous healers. It took time to carve 
>out a niche for himself. But in time he did so — 
>incorporating the best aspects of compettitive 
>fields of medicine, while weeding out people’s 
>superstitious dependance on quack healers of all 
>kinds.
>Next followed a stint as in-charge, Assam Civil 
>Hospital. He because known as a strict 
>administrator who would give the British Sahibs 
>a run for their worth. Besides attending to 
>patients and endless post mortems, the load of 
>the World War-II which was then raging — he 
>managed to usher in qualitative changes in the 
>isolation ward of the hospital, lying hitherto 
>neglected.
>He helped set up the Indian Medical Association, 
>and involved himself in relief activities and 
>disaster management. He strictly imposed hygiene 
>habits among the abors and was known to resort 
>to spanking of people and patients to get them 
>to behave!
>He was also associated as in-charge of the 
>Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi TB Hospital and 
>visiting professor at Ayurvedic College.
>Owing to some conflict with the powers that be, 
>he resigned from his government job and set up 
>private practice. Patients queue up in unending 
>lines to this day.
>He advises a good diet concentrating on milk, 
>butter, fruits, egg and fish, followed by free 
>hand exercises and long walks as the secret of a 
>healthy life. He says that sleeping more than 
>eight hours a day can make the body a hotbed of 
>disease. One should eat in moderation, have 
>regular habits — and be occupied with 
>constructive activity to be of sound health and 
>spirit.
>Going by the nonagenarian’s good health, his 
>advice is surely worth taking. He miraculously 
>survived inspite of drowning in the Brahmaputra 
>at one pont of his career. Here's hoping that he 
>remains with us for many many years more in good 
>health and spirits.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Looking for a deal? 
><http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=47094/*http://farechase.yahoo.com/;_ylc=X3oDMTFicDJoNDllBF9TAzk3NDA3NTg5BHBvcwMxMwRzZWMDZ3JvdXBzBHNsawNlbWFpbC1uY20->Find 
>great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo! 
>FareChase.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.assamnet.org/pipermail/assam-assamnet.org/attachments/20070705/05bd22dc/attachment.htm>