Dr. Bharat Desai's Blog

Parents are important . Because we take birth because of them. They get married (usually)and decide to become parents. They stop anti-pregnancy drugs-contraceptives, they start loving(!) each other and have a physical relationship or sometimes even tolerate the torture of IVF and the end result is the birth of a child - YOU! So, in a time of very late marriages, delayed parenthood and zero-to-one child, to take birth is no accident. The point being, the parents are important and the children should be grateful to them.

To my greatest surprise, one fine morning I received a memento with my name inscribed, in the honour of outstanding academic achievements! Turned out that Pardi Education Society's trustees and event organisers (including the Vice President Hemant J. Desai) had sent this memento as part of the centenary celebrations of my high school D.C.O. (1918-2018). This award depicting the story of grand 100-year celebrations inspired me to write about my story with nostalgic emotions and the then D.C.O. High School. Killa Pardi. It gives me great pleasure to witness the 100-year celebration of my school where I was a student (1963 to 1967), 50 years ago! So, all I wish to tell you here is a story of my experiences as a student in an era of student-teacher relationship 50 years back.

25-Dec-2017 onwards, I had talked with my friend Anilbhai Desai on phone two-three times. Every time, he mentioned the worthiness of seeing Kankaria Carnival and invited us. But I was resistant to go. On 30-Dec-2017, while talking with Jayshreeben Desai, she also invited and insisted to visit Ahmedabad. So, my wife Bhavana and I accepted the invitation. In fact, when we need to face young generation people, we avoid out of fear of difference and generation gap. Even visiting close relatives and friends is not that pleasing nowadays, and so we avoid as far as possible. I had sufficiently interacted with Anilbhai's son – Darshan and his wife Shalu, so I could be little courageous to decide for the visit.

If you want to be alone to be with nature, it is an ideal spot. But if you enjoy crowds with your group this is an equally important place to visit. 42 km from Bilimora on Vansda Road, we reached Janki Van in less than an hour. Dr Nayana Patel, Dr Bhavana Desai (my wife) and I visited the place impromptu on a weekday. The name Janki  is related to Sita Mata of Ramayana and it is believed that at a certain point in the history, Sita Mata did stay here. The garden, a great picnic spot (16 hectors big), is situated 5 km away from Vansda, 6 km from Unai and 42 km from Bilimora. It is developed by the Gujarat Forestry Department under social forestry action and was inaugurated on 02-Aug-2015 while celebrating the Forest Day. Please, keep in mind it remains closed on Monday and visiting hours are 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Did you know, diabetes is a leading cause of blindness in adults? Inviting residents in and around Bilimora town, to an awareness session on diabetes. Event details : Know and understand diabetes Diet for those having diabetes Exercises recommended Speaker:  Dr. Pradeepbhai Patel & Diabetes Team (Spandan Hospital, Chikhali) Entry fees : FREE

When a new doctor is learning for the first time or when a senior doctor is learning or not learning a new technique, who suffers? Naturally, a patient. When we visit a doctor with a physical problem as a patient, we expect perfection. But it is not easy to get. So, we have to understand how the doctors may make mistakes. We look for medicine to be an orderly field of knowledge and procedure. But it is not. It is an imperfect science, all enterprise of constantly changing knowledge, uncertain information and fallible individuals. It is not only science but also habit, intuition and plain guessing. This article is about dealing with mistakes made by doctors and their remedy.

ઢળત્તી ઉમરે તન-મનના માવજત. (૨૦૧૬) લેખક: પ્રો. ગણેશભાઈ કે. પટેલ પુરત્તક પરિચય: ડૉ. ભરતચંદ્ર એમ. દેસાઈ પુરત્તક પરિચય આપનાર પાસે વાચક પુસ્તક કેવું છે, કયા વિષયની છણાવટ કરેલી છે, લેખક કોણ છે, જેવી માહિતીની અપેક્ષા રાખે છે. ઉપરાંત પુસ્તક કાગળ, છાપકામ, જોડણી અને ચિત્રોથી સજાવેલ છે કે કેમ તે પણ જાણવા ઈચ્છે છે.

India-Pakistan relation’s issue is a very complex subject and to summarise it in a 180-page book needs great skill. This interesting book ‘India Vs Pakistan: Why Can’t We Just Be Friends?’ written by Husain Haqqani caught all my attention. I also got an opportunity to present its review to my fellow members of the Senior Citizenship Club. Following their enthusiastic response to my talk, I now have this great urge to share the review with my blog readers as well. I shall try by introducing the author, telling about different wars, what leaders of India, Pakistan and other nations tell and finally the conclusion. The Author: Hussain Haqqani Hussain Haqqani is a Pakistani, who is a former Pakistani Ambassador to the US. Not only that, but he was also an advisor to four Pakistani Prime Ministers including Late Benazir Bhutto. The author is currently the Director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC. The authenticity of his writing increases because ...

One of the recent off-bit topics I’ve read, this one book about ‘Mumbai Mafia’ has been the most interesting, well-researched and well-written. Here is an excerpt from Dawood Ibrahim's journey from “Dongri to Dubai”, and the six decades of Mumbai mafia.

Many of us pass years before final decision to visit this nature's feast adored by a human ( 2400 years ago) Kanheri Caves just near Borivali, Mumbai. It took me 50 years to reach this point, since my first visit to this city in 1965. Mumbai and caves! Mumbai was built on seven islands. As old sediments around coastal areas of Kandivali shows us, Mumbai was inhabitable since the stone age. It was mainly occupied by Koli fishing community.

I recently conducted a social study of the status and condition of old-aged people and the old-age homes in Gujarat. This is a combination of the outcome of the study and the book review of a Gujarati book “ Vrudhdhata Ni Samasya ” by Dr Hiteshkumar N. Patel.

Our mind is nothing but a flow of thoughts, just like a river with flowing water. One’s personality is shaped by one’s thoughts. If our thoughts are good, we feel happy and radiate confidence and charm around us. Paying attention to managing one’s thoughts is a must. But, how to do that?

While alive, we feel the life to be full of problems and troubles. We remain stressed around even trivial issues. We keep searching for the problem-solving methods. Here is one answer.

Anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. – Gautama Buddha We all know ‘Anger’ does not do any good to anybody. Almost all of us have dealt with it very closely, either as the recipient, the 'perpetrator' or often both. Then why do we fail to stay away from getting angry every off and on? Let’s take a deep dive into what anger is all about and if there is anything we can do to stay away from getting angry at all.

When you are young and earning reasonably more, spending becomes an inescapable habit. There is no brake that can stop your consumerism from growing bigger when you have a credit card! Well, ‘financial discipline’ is the first condition for happy living and enjoying a tension-free, stress-free life. I thought I must show the ideal way with a few handy tips.

I know the title create some ambiguity around its meaning. Here’s the story: the author was a medical student studying at Surat during 1969-1974. Being an offspring of a middle-class family, all his parents could send him every month was Rs. 100 (One hundred). No doubt, this was more than 25% of his father’s salary and the rest 75% was to be spent by remaining nine members of the family. So, I used to receive Rs. 100 by MT (money transfer) at Bank of Baroda, Vanita Vishram (Surat) branch. Now this amount was exhausted in total on day one itself – so the remaining 29 days of the month had to be spent without any money – ‘zero balance’ stage, for all five years of the under graduation. This makes the story titled "Life without money - 24 hours x 29 days x 60 months"!