Maya’s Berkeley

For the unfamiliar, and for those who couldn’t care less about its socio-political legacy/baggage,  Berkeley could be just another town. Its main street, with a string of Indian eateries, saree shops and jewellers,  can as well be in Chennai’s T Nagar or Bangalore’s Commercial Street.  Other ethic groups can, presumably, get a feel of their own home enviorns in parts of Berkeley.  

For its residents,  Berkeley is not so much a town as a lifestyle they came to embrace; a social attitude that is  not always in conformity with residents  in most other towns in the US.  Berkeley residents are mostly diehard democracy activists –  a term that could well refer to people  ’who literally protest anything and everything, no matter how good something might be for the city and the majority of people’.

Maya Srinivas, a resident not so diehard in upholding the democracy cause,  wouldn’t however want to live anywhere else. That her husband Srinivas is a post-doc. researcher on the campus, makes her a Berkeley ‘insider’.  Maya took us – my wife and me – for a spin around ‘Berserkeley’, a town where, they say, democracy has gone berserk.  Life in berserkvile doesn’t come any cheaper, says Maya,  who pays nearly thrice as much house rent as she did in Denver, for a single-bedroom dwelling.

Telegraph Avenue on Thursday afternoon was bustling with shoppers, pavement sellers, and panhandlers who  flog ‘Street Sheet’, a tabloid of the homeless, holding out a plastic cup to collect small change. Pavement shops are one of the many un-American aspects of Berkeley. Hawking is okay here; and it is, for some,  an excuse to making a living.  According to a old-time resident,  many of them are illegals. I read  a website  comment that held it is the city’s illegals who make Berkeley what it has become –  retarded.

We move on to a more pleasant, and vibrant, sorroundings -  the UC campus. The crush of humanity on Sproul Plaza  reminded my wife of T Nagar’s Ranganathan Street, Chennai. At the start of the academic session Sproul gets crowded with activists who set up stalls to recruit freshers to student bodies with their own social and community agenda upholding causes fancied by self-described intellectuals, progressives,  visionaries, and queers.

An activist group was seen staging a street-play,  featuring detenus in orange overall,  masked and chained,  and volunteers carrying ‘say-no-to-torture’ placards. On way to the library is a massive panel displaying portraits of Berkeley alumni. Those featured were mostly overseas students,  many from India. “Berkeley has taught me the meaning of persistance,” says Sarathi Bhattacharya in his endorsement of the institution where he was able to pursue his studies through privately funded fellowship.

“Berkeley has taught me to listen better,and scream louder,” says Maxime Stinnet. Says another student, “Learned here how to be a big fish in a big pond”. M S Gidda,a yet another student,  says Berkeley was for him ‘a two-year Boot Camp’.The collage of endorsements from a thankful alumni is part of a campaign to raise $3 billion for faculty, students and programmes by June 2013.

Maya took us on a conducted tour of the four-storey library;  and drove us around the university’s recreation complex with a massive gym and swim-pool, so well equipped that Olympic hopefuls get their training there. Our next halt was at the muncipal pier from where you get a hazy glimpse of the San Francisco downtown high-rises,  flanked by the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Maya says the scene around has a contemplative effect on those with much on their minds –  ’I come here whenever  in a crisis of faith’.  She has been here counless times, says Maya,adding that her daughter Ila  who went through liver transplant at five months of age had spent most of her time in hospital since birth.  The pier is where Maya comes to reflect,  to meditate and introspect – ‘the place reinforces your insignificance’.

We wound up our day-trip of Berkeley with ‘chena kulche’ at Vik’s. The desi joint functioning out of a warehouse is said to be so old and popular that long-time California residents consider Vik’s as  ’mother of all chaat houses in the Bay Area’.  Maya sure knows her Berkeley.

I have a question – why do  they put so much haldi in chena ?

A Sunday afternoon with Ila

Her parents had asked us over to Berkeley Marina to picnic with 16-month-old Ila.  On a clear day, they say, if you look hard,  and far enough into the waters,  you could even catch a glimpse of San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge from the spot where we picnicked. To be precise, the picnic  invite was for my grandsons – Nikhil,18 months, and Sidharth,three years – and I tagged along, as live-in cheer leader,  always at hand to marvel at their playfulness.

On this Sunday afternoon, however, the person I came to marvel was Ila –  her ever-smiling face, her observant eyes, indeed, her very presence among us on the outdoors.  The last time I saw her, nearly an year ago, Ila was no more than a breathing bundle of tissues and bones,  with a smile nonetheless, sustained by medicines, and sheer tenacity of her parents.Her father Srinivas attributes Ila’s remarkable recovery to  ”too much fight in the little girl to let adversity, unspeakable pain, and a constant threat to life interfere with her sense of fun”. 

I had little knowledge of Ila’s medical condition till I read her father’s blog.  Last updated in April, the blog gives a perceptive account of Ila’s state of health and the state of mind of her parents.  When she was barely eight weeks old Ila was diagnosed,  and she went through a five-hour surgery for Biliary Atresia,  a medical condition pertaining to malformation of the gall bladder and bile duct. The liver fails to drain the bile salts into the intestines, resulting in cirrhosis. The surgery Ila had to go through,when she was no more than two months old, was a “frighteningly long (5 hours) marvel of medical procedure” with an intimidating name – Kasai’s portoenterostomy.  As she was undergoing this surgery Ila’s father, waiting it out at the lobby, ‘went through a thousand kinds of hell’  at the thought of her pain and heartbreaking predicament.

And a million more hells were to be endured yet,  in the coming weeks and months. I recall Meera,  my daughter-in-law and a doctor, telling me that during the weeks following the surgery Ila’s fluctuating health condition necessitated frequent spells of intensive care at the  hospital. She showed signs of mild jaundice at the age of 5 months, and also ‘a sub-optimal growth’. This was an unmistakable pointer that Ila  needed a liver transplant.

What  followed in the lives of Ila and her parents  is best described by her father:  Ila’s condition deteriorated at record speed…Maya and I were told we needed to be assessed to be live donors. Ila was admitted to the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital.

After scores of tests done on Ila and her parents Maya was chosen as the live donor of the left-lateral lobe of the liver.Dr.Waldo Concepsion came out of the examination room describing ‘how gorgeous Maya’s liver is’. Dr.Carlos Esquivel,who did the transplant,  pronounced Ila’s  ‘the sickest liver I have seen in a long time’.  Of the team of surgeons Ila’s father had this to say – “I would gladly surrender my ego to these Gods and offer them my life long servitude if I did not know it would only embarrass them”.

Memo to blogger Srinivas: Those concerned with the ongoing healthcare reform debate would benefit from your perspective on the functioning of the prevalent system.

Wastage in government

It was Rajiv Gandhi who, I believe, once observed that not more than 15 paise in every rupee the government spent on welfare schemes made it to their intended beneficiaries. Inefficiency, wastage and corruption accounted for the other 85 paise. Over 50 percent of tax revenue in many states go for payment of staff salaries,pay-rise arrears as a fallout of periodical pay commission recommendations and pension account. Neither the politicians in power nor the bureaucrats address the issue of over-staffing, though a freeze on fresh recruitment in government jobs is said to be in place at the centre and many state governments.

Waste is endemic  to  government anywhere ; and the extent of   wastage varies in various countries.  In June last California governor chose to address the issue.”I will not stand for waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars. I urge you to report wasteful practices in state government,” said  Arnold Schwarzenegger in Waste Watchers, an official website that invites tax-payers to report problems relating to wastes in government and share solutions. The  site encourages state employees and other Californians to  report online,  anonymously if they don’t wish to identify themselves,  instances of government waste they may be aware of. The site, however, doesn’t make public the complaints it receives, invoking,  what government lawyers term “whistle-blower protections in the law”.  The website has so far got over 3,400 submissions that have reportedly effected a saving of $24.2 million.