Thursday, November 25, 2010

Gulabi Aakhen

When I heard Atif Aslam's version of the song Gulabi aakhen,
I searched a lot to find the meaning of gulabi aakhen
but none of the meanings were satisfying.
According to ophthalmologists
Gulabi Aakhen = Pink eye = Conjunctivitis which may be viral/bacterial/due to chemical irritants like smoke etc..
Some say she was wearing pink contact lenses.
But it doesn't sound right.
Tell me why would someone start drinking just because a girl is having viral conjunctivitis or wearing pink lenses.
I had to find a logical explanation and I have come up with this:

Consider a Young Adult Human Female(YAHF)with Haemoglobin >10 gm% and who has avoided exposure to bright sunlight and noxious chemical irritants for a long duration of time.
The eyes(the sclera and bulbar conjunctiva)is usually pristine white and in the absence of any visual defects there are very few vascular markings seen on the conjunctiva.

When such a YAHF is subjected to a painful stimulus either physical or emotional, as a part of a defence mechanism the autonomic nervous system is activated which has two effects:
1.Vasodilation of the conjunctival blood vessels.
2.Hyperventilation causing washout of carbondioxide from the blood increasing the pH of blood(respiratory alkalosis) which causes further vasodilation.
As a result the eyes which were pristine white before turn a shade of pink.
This occurs for a brief interval of time before they turn red and tears start to flow,followed by rhinorrhea(watery discharge from nose)and snorty breathing.

The Poet who is in love with such a YAHF sees her in this state of pain and due to his emotional attachment feels the pain himself.
Now due to the fact he does not fully understand the nature and cause of the pain added to that the fact he is in pain himself. He cannot find a cure for her pain and hence his pain.
So he starts consuming ethyl alcohol in high doses which act as an anaesthetic as well as a sedative thus numbing his pain.
The side effects include ataxia and loss of muscular co-ordination (sambhalna mushkil ho gaya).

Thursday, October 28, 2010

ONE

I had a dream that one day,
The world would be without shades of gray.
Everything would be wrong or right,
Yes or No,no "maybe" for false delight.
Then i thought if it could really be,
We could run the world on binary!
Think of all the data we could analyze,
Turn it into knowledge and be truly Wise.
We could predict each bubble before it bursts,
Stop each pain before it hurts.
To know the answers,
We need the questions first.
But I say we already know the answer
and it is not zero,
It is ONE!!!