Continued from "Hunters get hunted"...
I reached raghavendra's house. Raghavendra's mom had taken him somewhere so waited for them to come back. When they came back, Raghavendra had some yellow paste smeared on his face, red powder on his spandrel. A kind of look that could scare away children. His mom said she had taken him to an exorcist. She gave you-are-responsible-for-all-this kind of look. I was taken aback him, i looked at raghavendra. He looked straight at me without embarrassment. After sometime i took him out to know what had happened.
He said, since the incident, without his conscious thinking, he was trying to strangle himself with his left hand. He would somehow ward off the left hand by using his right hand. He said he dint consciously try to strangle himself. His mother believed that the ghost had come upon him which was doing this. It was scary. The ghost hunter got hunted? He was talking plainly, there was no sense of pain, regret or remorse. He also had lost the sense of smell.
I asked if he never went to doctor these days. He said "I had been to a physician who thought that i was depressed and i was attempting it myself and referred me to a psychologist. Then i went to see a psychologist, he said he found no signs of hysteria or other mental disorders - he gave some anti-depressants."
I suggested that we see a neurologist. I took him to a neurologist. As we explained to the doc, he hardly gave any thought to whatever we said, the issue being so eerie. He suggested us to get the MRI scan of skull done. "Did you have any head surgery or injury". Doctor said "Its hardly surprising the way he is bahaving. His pareital lobe in right hemisphere is partly damaged. parietal lobes process information from senses, especially touch. Thats probably the reason he is not able to smell anything.
The corpus callosum which is a bundle of nerve fibres is the bridge between left and right hemisphere is damaged, almost severed. Through corpus collosum the two hemisphere exchange information. Each hemisphere has some specialized functions. In most people, language abilities is controlled entirely by the left hemisphere.
Our neuron circuitry is such that anything that happens in the left part of the body, that information is processed by the right hemisphere and vice-versa. With his condition, sensory information received by the right hemisphere cannot be transferred to the language systems of the left as the corpus collosum is severed.
A person with his right hemisphere damaged will experience inappropriate emotional response. Like being extremely depressed. In his case he is feeling extremely depressed, which is in-explicable but happens due to right hemisphere being damaged. Right hemisphere cannot transmit the associated sensory data to the left hemisphere and its language centers. The left hemisphere perceives a change in the body's state, but does not know why.
Their verbal left hemispheres do not know some things that their right hemispheres do know. In short, these people's callosal disconnections have produced two separate consciousnesses - two distinct spheres of awareness - within their minds. "
Kind of startling revelation. "Is there no cure for it". "There is no known formal treatment for Alien Hand Syndrome at this time, the symptoms can be reduced and managed to some degree by keeping the alien hand occupied and involved in a task. There is generally a gradual reduction in the frequency of alien behaviors observed over time and a gradual restoration of voluntary control over the affected area. Neurons change and the organization of their networks do change and so their function by experience, resulting re-formation of corpus callosum. I can even teach him some exercises to keep the alien hand occupied and override the behaviour of alien hand"
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Hunters get Haunted
Continued from An attack of a different kind...
After talking to madha, i met raghavendra's mother and told her what i saw. She had a different story to tell. "Before they converted the forest here for agriculture, huge trees were there here. Some of them could be as old as thousand years. My mother-in-law used to say, after felling the trees she saw an old woman in green saree sitting beside the stumps and weeping. Mother-in-law would say she used to see it quite frequently. But it has not harmed anyone."
I narrated my experience plus madha and raghavendra's mother versions to the rest of our gang. Contrary to my expectation, they were not shocked, but were thrilled. Probably because they had realized that this ghost was harmless, everyone with the exception of Nagraj now wanted to be ghost hunters. Raghavendra was reluctant to spend time and energy on this but agreed to come with us. Nagraj we decided would remain in the house and make a call to one of us if he heard the voice. Now we needed to search for an appropriate place to wait and watch for the ghost. Place should be near yet it should hide us from all other sides. We found a small tree with its branches drooping at the start of the forest. It was around 100 meters from the house and at around 45 degress to the left of the house. One could lift the branches with little difficulty and hide under it. We got hold of a few torches, a mosquito coil. We were set, we eagerly waiting for the night.
After dinner, at around 9:15 we left to our hiding place. We dint tell anyone about our adventure lest it attract attention and distract our ghost guest. We crouched under the tree, lit up the mosquito coil. We decided to to sit with our backs facing the tree so that we could keep vigil in different directions. it was around 10th day of the moon cycle when its size increases, so there was enough light to sight the ghost if at all it neared the house. We felt we had gone there too early. It was around 11:30, we were all tired and sleepy as we were awake the last night. At this point of time, we heard leaves being trampled upon. I kept a watch at the house. Raghavendra was watching forest side. sadashiva was looking at raghavendra's house side. Srikant S looked at the toilet. The trample continued and by now it was apparent it was coming from the forest side. Suddenly there was bustling movement as if someone was running towards us. Raghavendra's torch light ended dint go farther than a few feet as there was lot of plantation. We came to know how ill equipped we were. We were sitting on our toes ready to run any moment if needed.
We heard a gunshot. Raghavendra shot up and his head hit one of the branches. He collapsed in pain. There was more movement and this time it seemed the movement was away from us. There was no sound after a few seconds. We sighed with relief. Raghavendra was bleeding. We hurried him to his house. His mom called one of the two guys in the village who owns an auto. Raghavendra's family being the priests at the local temple is well respected in the village and people wont think twice to come for help even at this ghostly hour. We took him to a hospital in Hebri he was given some first aid. We were told "it looks like a superficial head injury so few stiches might suffice. However its better to get and MRI scan done. Its not available here. You have to go to Udupi for that". We returned from there.
Next day Raghavendra's mom was visibly pretty angry with us. We volunteered to take him to udupi for MRI scan. However both mother and son did not want it. They felt the previous night's dressing and medications were enough. we left for bangalore the same day. Raghavendra stayed back.
Raghavendra had not returned from home. I being indirectly responsible for his plight decided to go and see him. One mystery that i forgot to tell is what happened that night. Since they are living in such close proximity to forest, its common that at night wild animals do come near the house. So some one usually patrols the area during the night. Madha who was patrolling that night, on hearing some wild animal shot dummy bullet from his long barrel rifle to scare away the animal.
(Story will continue in my next blog)
After talking to madha, i met raghavendra's mother and told her what i saw. She had a different story to tell. "Before they converted the forest here for agriculture, huge trees were there here. Some of them could be as old as thousand years. My mother-in-law used to say, after felling the trees she saw an old woman in green saree sitting beside the stumps and weeping. Mother-in-law would say she used to see it quite frequently. But it has not harmed anyone."
I narrated my experience plus madha and raghavendra's mother versions to the rest of our gang. Contrary to my expectation, they were not shocked, but were thrilled. Probably because they had realized that this ghost was harmless, everyone with the exception of Nagraj now wanted to be ghost hunters. Raghavendra was reluctant to spend time and energy on this but agreed to come with us. Nagraj we decided would remain in the house and make a call to one of us if he heard the voice. Now we needed to search for an appropriate place to wait and watch for the ghost. Place should be near yet it should hide us from all other sides. We found a small tree with its branches drooping at the start of the forest. It was around 100 meters from the house and at around 45 degress to the left of the house. One could lift the branches with little difficulty and hide under it. We got hold of a few torches, a mosquito coil. We were set, we eagerly waiting for the night.
After dinner, at around 9:15 we left to our hiding place. We dint tell anyone about our adventure lest it attract attention and distract our ghost guest. We crouched under the tree, lit up the mosquito coil. We decided to to sit with our backs facing the tree so that we could keep vigil in different directions. it was around 10th day of the moon cycle when its size increases, so there was enough light to sight the ghost if at all it neared the house. We felt we had gone there too early. It was around 11:30, we were all tired and sleepy as we were awake the last night. At this point of time, we heard leaves being trampled upon. I kept a watch at the house. Raghavendra was watching forest side. sadashiva was looking at raghavendra's house side. Srikant S looked at the toilet. The trample continued and by now it was apparent it was coming from the forest side. Suddenly there was bustling movement as if someone was running towards us. Raghavendra's torch light ended dint go farther than a few feet as there was lot of plantation. We came to know how ill equipped we were. We were sitting on our toes ready to run any moment if needed.
We heard a gunshot. Raghavendra shot up and his head hit one of the branches. He collapsed in pain. There was more movement and this time it seemed the movement was away from us. There was no sound after a few seconds. We sighed with relief. Raghavendra was bleeding. We hurried him to his house. His mom called one of the two guys in the village who owns an auto. Raghavendra's family being the priests at the local temple is well respected in the village and people wont think twice to come for help even at this ghostly hour. We took him to a hospital in Hebri he was given some first aid. We were told "it looks like a superficial head injury so few stiches might suffice. However its better to get and MRI scan done. Its not available here. You have to go to Udupi for that". We returned from there.
Next day Raghavendra's mom was visibly pretty angry with us. We volunteered to take him to udupi for MRI scan. However both mother and son did not want it. They felt the previous night's dressing and medications were enough. we left for bangalore the same day. Raghavendra stayed back.
Raghavendra had not returned from home. I being indirectly responsible for his plight decided to go and see him. One mystery that i forgot to tell is what happened that night. Since they are living in such close proximity to forest, its common that at night wild animals do come near the house. So some one usually patrols the area during the night. Madha who was patrolling that night, on hearing some wild animal shot dummy bullet from his long barrel rifle to scare away the animal.
(Story will continue in my next blog)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Some random thoughts
* US accuses Taleban of violating rules of war by using white phosphorous as weapon against it in swat valley.heheheheh This is like an auto driver abusing another auto driver for violating traffic rules. There are extremists in every religion however self proclaimed protectors of religion like Taleban just mis-interpret their holy text and try to follow it to its last word. And a country like USA which has a mindset that every other country in the world is just to feed its greed, is at the opposite end of the spectrum to Taleban.
* The world is going to be better place nevertheless never global warming etc. More people are taking to organic farming. i read somewhere how use of fertilizers reduces microbes in soil, increases the water requirement, reduces the yield. Science is understanding its inherent limitations and trying to mimic the nature. For example, i read that some innovative idea to improve aeroplane is to make it resemble a bird in flight - use V formation to conserve energy during long flights. Luficer lamps are being researched which use the chemical reactions used by fire-flies to produce ultra-low energy consuming lamps.
* Although i have always snubbed Astrology, i have been curious to know how many of the predictions have come true. Given a situation, we have only the following choices - 1) Do nothing 2) React to situation and do a quick fix 3) Act pro-actively and take preventive measures. when you know someone closely, and if that person uses only choices 1 or 2, any intelligent person can predict his behavior. Astrology believes that planetary motions affect the people in positive or negative manner. For time being lets assume that this is true, if you know that the combined effect of the planets for a particular person is positive/negative and given that the person is not pro-active, its easy to determine the person's behavior. Its doesn't mean that a person doesn't have free-will, but we limit ourselves by not exercising many options and hence we are predictable. And coming to planetary motions affecting us, science finds it amusing, however it would be foolish to think anything that science cannot describe doesn't exist. It could be that with the knowledge we have we don't see any such relationship between the planetary motions and human behaviour.
* Royal Challengers are winning and thats a great news. shifting to south Africa seems to have helped their cause. Better pitches, new players this season have done the trick. Anil kumble has one of the best average of 5.83. However i am disappointed with Rahul Dravid who started off really well, but now looks out of sorts.
* Like fasting, recession is good. Fasting lets body use the reserve energy and cleanses the body. Recession has led me to use shirts and pants i had long forgotten and which languished at the bottom of my wardrobe.
* The world is going to be better place nevertheless never global warming etc. More people are taking to organic farming. i read somewhere how use of fertilizers reduces microbes in soil, increases the water requirement, reduces the yield. Science is understanding its inherent limitations and trying to mimic the nature. For example, i read that some innovative idea to improve aeroplane is to make it resemble a bird in flight - use V formation to conserve energy during long flights. Luficer lamps are being researched which use the chemical reactions used by fire-flies to produce ultra-low energy consuming lamps.
* Although i have always snubbed Astrology, i have been curious to know how many of the predictions have come true. Given a situation, we have only the following choices - 1) Do nothing 2) React to situation and do a quick fix 3) Act pro-actively and take preventive measures. when you know someone closely, and if that person uses only choices 1 or 2, any intelligent person can predict his behavior. Astrology believes that planetary motions affect the people in positive or negative manner. For time being lets assume that this is true, if you know that the combined effect of the planets for a particular person is positive/negative and given that the person is not pro-active, its easy to determine the person's behavior. Its doesn't mean that a person doesn't have free-will, but we limit ourselves by not exercising many options and hence we are predictable. And coming to planetary motions affecting us, science finds it amusing, however it would be foolish to think anything that science cannot describe doesn't exist. It could be that with the knowledge we have we don't see any such relationship between the planetary motions and human behaviour.
* Royal Challengers are winning and thats a great news. shifting to south Africa seems to have helped their cause. Better pitches, new players this season have done the trick. Anil kumble has one of the best average of 5.83. However i am disappointed with Rahul Dravid who started off really well, but now looks out of sorts.
* Like fasting, recession is good. Fasting lets body use the reserve energy and cleanses the body. Recession has led me to use shirts and pants i had long forgotten and which languished at the bottom of my wardrobe.
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