Here is the list of books. It will take me quite long to read them all. Let the good times roll!

1. Three Men In A Boat
2. The God Of Small Things
3. Siddhartha
4. The Great Gatsby
5. The Myth Of Sisyphus
6. Poor Economics: Rethinking Poverty & the Ways to End it
7. To Kill A Mockingbird
8. Love In The Time Of Cholera
9. Gone With The Wind
10. Catch-22
11. A Suitable Boy
12. Midnight’s Children
13. The Catcher in the Rye
14. The Last Lecture
15. The Little Prince
16. Have A Little Faith
17. Hitchiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

“Intelligence is enormously sexy.”

Photo collected from Facebook.

I want to share something very unfortunate happening to my family the day before yesterday. By profession my husband is an anaesthesiologist posted in midnapore medical college. But due to acute crisis of anaesthesiologist in other places he was posted in kharagpur sub divisional hospital on detailment temporarily. On 6th of may a young unmarried, handicapped girl had been admitted in Kharagpur hospital with 99% burn. Doctors tried to refer the case as there was no burn unit but the party refuse to take her. Within 10 to 12 hours the girl died. The authority asked my husband to do the post mortem. Being an anaesthesiologist for the past few months he is doing the postmortem of many cases and referring many serious cases to midnapore medical college for expert opinion. For this particular case first he has asked for the dying declaration , which was unavailable. After that he went through the inquest report and had a lot of doubt regarding the case . That is why he refer this case to MMC. After this incidence when he was out for his lunch he was mobbed by some local yuva congress people. He took shelter in a local nursing home where some local known doctors help him to take shelter. at this time when he called up the super, he said it is beyond his jurisdiction. a group of 25-30 people have pulled him out of that place and beaten him badly and taken him to the local police station. The police have taken a prompt action by arresting them for assaulting an on duty medical officer.

The unfortunate day was not yet over. Media have represented this case as “doctor beaten on negligence”.

My family and friends who really cares about me, i want to ask u a few questions through FB.

1. Can an anaesthesiologist be beaten and assaulted for not doing post mortem?
2. Can it be called negligence when he assessed and refer the case for expert opinion?
3. Can it be called a case of negligence when the girl is already dead? Where was these guys when the girl was alive and being referred to mmc for better treatment as there was no such unit in kharagpur?
4. Does the authority have any role to play to save their staff when they are in danger. (My husband is the junior most staff. Only 2.5 yrs of experience)
5. Does audiovisual media have got any commitment to the society to show and tell the true story?
6. Does print media have any role to play to write the genuine things? (It has been written that my husband was not beaten, but in the video taken by those guys only it has been clearly shown the fact. In ABP link every common people can see this).
7. He is disturbed, traumatized and mentally fatigued. We need genuine support and advice at this moment.

Different sets for different folks is also not cool IMHO. If they are trying to emulate CAT, CAT is a test which tests your aptitude. But how can a medical entrance that tests knowledge (rote learning of an endless syllabus to be precise) have different sets? Does USMLE have different sets too?

New research has indicated that Vitamin D - which is produced by the human body when it is exposed to sun - is critical to the production of sperm, and that a lack of the nutrient may be linked to male infertility.

The findings, from a team at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, suggest that boosting Vitamin D production, either by increasing exposure to sunlight or by taking dietary supplements, might improve fertility among men.

I haven’t stored any contact on my new phone, letting Android sync the Google Contacts. My phonebook (HTC People app) definitely feels lighter now!

It is no secret that my laptop, a 5 year old Acer with a meagre 512 MB memory, has been experiencing hiccups for several months. For the uninitiated, the laptop touchpad and keyboard froze every time Windows started. It would act normally, as if by chance, after several reboot attempts. Each reboot had to be forced as the nonresponsive Windows refused to even shut down. A broken power button only made the reboots more of a pain in the ass; I had to turn it on with great difficulty each time, using a scalpel blade and a forceps.

In the device manager, I found all the drivers were intact. I was using Windows 7 which automatically downloads the matching drivers you see. Suspecting a virus issue, I had reinstalled Windows 7 several times in the last few months, but to no effect. This time decided to go back to the basics - install Windows XP. The idea was to use the original Acer-supplied drivers which were meant for XP and Vista only. However the DVD drive of my laptop was conked by this time!

I got some dendrite and glued the axis of the drive hard onto its base. By axis I mean the small black annular object around which the disc spins in a typical laptop DVD drive. Due to rough handling by some hostel friends the axis had come loose years ago. With the drive fixed I was ready to go with the install.

On a fresh XP installation I installed all the original drivers. I tried rebooting the laptop several times, each time with much trepidation. To my great relief, Windows booted like a charm! As for the power button I fixed that too. Needed to buy the panel housing the power button and associated circuitry. Got it for free from the friendly computer vendor in Siliguri; it was a spare junk in his shop. I borrowed a four-headed screw driver from a junior to replace the kaput panel with this new one. Finally my laptop feels like new!

I realize now that the touchpad freezing was definitely a driver issue. Although the automatic update service downloaded the relevant drivers automatically on Windows 7, I was missing out on Synaptic - which is the manufacturer supplied driver software for the touchpad. In fact, after installing XP also, the problem remained until I installed Synaptics - I installed it last to be sure. As to why Windows 7 worked fine for about a year, with the basic touchpad driver downloaded by the update service instead of Synaptics, remains a mystery. Probably some IRQ conflicts were happening which Synaptics driver can take care of.

All that said, this means I don’t have to buy a new laptop at the moment. A huge relief!