To my dear unborn child

You have been inside me for exactly 18 weeks now and I want to share this with you. You bring me joy every day in ways I never imagined (and you haven’t even started kicking yet).

Let me honest with you. You are a surprise child. No, to be precise the appearance of the second line on the pregnancy test was more of a shock to us. You came with our Singapore welcome package. You are our second child and hopefully our last. I understand you are born to be a girl. You are the 4^th girl on your mum’s side and the 3^rd girl on your dad’s side skewing all gender ratios to girls. To be honest, not everyone in your extended family is thrilled when they learnt your gender.

But I am. I am overwhelmed with joy. I had tears when I heard your heartbeat. I know you will change my life in ways I will never understand now. I am looking forward to it. There are two more people who are a bit more thrilled than me. Your sister and your father. Your sister has already started planning her life with you. To be precise she is pretending that she is already living with you. Quick warning - she is going to be a handful, but I am quite confident you will figure things out.

So that’s our family. Here are somethings that I want you to remember:

·       I know you didn’t choose to be born. You didn’t choose us or this life. However, let’s see how best to make this work.

·       You will probably be born a girl. But you can choose whatever gender you want to be. Be yourself and be content in your skin.

·       You can choose to break glass ceilings, wear glass slippers or do both or neither.

·       Coming into this world you are breaking the archaic rules of gender, race and nationality. Never consider any of this to be a disadvantage to you. Your dad and I are both Indians but the places we went and the experiences we have had are bound less. May nationality, race or gender never stop you from whom you want to be.

·       Like with your sister, we will never discuss what religion or caste you come from. We will not decide for you if you should eat meat, be vegetarian or believe in a “higher power”. It is for you to choose. Feel free to experiment and remember no decision is ultimate.

·       As a family we have a core value – we love the environment, this world we live in. We want to preserve it and contribute less to global warming. So, being part of our family comes with a few struggles. For example, using less air conditioning, reusing clothes and toys, buying less and taking the bus. Don’t worry, your sister got plenty of hand me downs herself. Your sister has finally mastered the art of 4 squares of toilet paper for poop, 6 for sticky poop and 2 for pee. She is also learning the bum shower. We will ask her to show you the ropes.

·       As a family we have another core value – treating each other with kindness and respect and using strong polite tones to show disagreement. But this again is everyone’s core value, really doesn’t matter a mention.

·       We do not believe in success in the traditional sense – money, education or power. You define success for yourself.   Remember our acceptance of your life is immaterial. I want to write it here because I don’t know how I will change in the future. But try not to be wasteful.

·       Last one. Yes, you were not in our ten or twenty-year plan, but you happened. Like some of the other best things in my life. Your father was not in my plan either, but he is truly the best thing that ever happened to me. I want you to understand that you are cherished and loved.

Welcome to our family. I cannot promise you happiness and fun (that is for your making), but I can promise you our love. The three of us are looking forward to this adventure. I hope you are too… There are some good parts, just ask your sister 😊

Trading “success” for all other kinds of happiness

We talk at lengths in parent groups about helicopter, free range, landmower organic parenting and whatever other terms we can make up. The one big reason all these parenting terminologies have emerged is because we want our kids to be successful. Let’s admit it, we all see our future minions as well rounded well-adjusted not pressed for money individuals. In this race we are willing to trade success for true happiness. We are willing to excuse impoliteness for being excellent at math or willing to overlook lack of empathy for learning to read at 3. “My kid is advanced “is usually the excuse for lack of social skills, she doesn’t have the space in her mind for that. But in reality, the biggest gift we could give our future minions is the ability to live in society and make them realize the joy in completing tasks.

Let me back up a little. I had a work pot luck I was late for a few Saturdays ago and although the food for the potluck had been prepared it had not yet been packed yet. My daughter was working through a big meltdown which was putting all our perspectives in question. The house was in utter chaos and I was willing to go to any lengths to calm her down. “You can have all the Halloween candy and our 401ks if you would just stop it right now”. But that’s when her dad stepped in. “Let’s be a big helper and try to get mommy to her party on time ok?”. I thought this was the worst idea given the situation. Her mood quickly changed, she was happy. “Ok” and pulled up her step stool, arranged the cutlets in a tray with her dad’s help of course and covered it with foil packed it in a bag and handed it to me. She checked if I took my wallet and my water bottle and waved goodbye. I left but I heard that was the end of her bad behavior for the day. Doing something for me made her HAPPY. Dopamines and seratonins took care of the rest of her tantrum.

We often rob our children of this happiness. Kids like to do things for themselves and for others. In olden times there were always siblings to care for or small chores that needed to be completed like stringing beans or shelling peas. What do they have now?

When they are one or two, they love to eat by themselves. Have you tried feeding your child who often moves his head away? This is not because they don’t like the food. They like control over what goes in. Put the same food in front of them and see them play away with it and at least a little bit goes in their mouth. Granted you’re going to have a big cleaning episode after, but it saves the tantrums and feeding struggles and trust me this strategy comes a long way through their picky preschool years.

They like to put on their own shoes. They work on it for months on end trying one way after the other and when they think they finally have it down, we are quick to criticize “You have the wrong shoe on the wrong foot”. And fix it for them. We think we are doing them a favor whereas they lose motivation and confidence. Learning comes in steps, they will get it right in time. In the meantime, we need to let the wrong foot go. If it is uncomfortable your child will let you know and then you can switch it for them.

Buttoning, zipping up, wearing their tee shirts - all the same story. We impose our impatience on their learning process and creativity. We are under the false impressing that this is a mundane task we need to get through to get to our better activities like swimming or play dates. But to them this is everything and this is where they seek happiness - doing things for themselves. We are willing to trade temporary perfection for long term happiness.

The Whole Genome of HeLA cell line - The spark to the ethical challenge revolving around personal genomics

HeLa cells have been vital to making groundbreaking research in science for the past six decades. Many Scientists made million passages from them and shipped them from one place to another but did not put too much thought into where they originally established. Rebecca Skloot gave the cells a life and a history through her book “The immortal Life of Henrietta lacks”. The book dealt not just with the origin of the cells but interwove it with scientific discovery, faith healing and racial issues. This book brought to light many ethical issues that were neglected decades ago. Skloot talks about how the Lackses were kept in the dark about the cells, how important and beneficial they were in moving science forward. This book published a few years ago has gained some more importance this year after the HeLa genome was sequenced.

A little bit of Background…

Early this year, in mid March Lars Steinmetz and his group published the sequence of HeLa genome in G3: Genes, Genomes and Genetics online. The study was comparing the genome of HeLa cells to that of normal tissue. This publication sparked a storm of ethical controversies that forced them withdraw the publication. This is also the first time a genome has been withdrawn from public access. The family stated that the genome sequence is private family information and it should not be published without consent. EMBL describes the genome to be chaotic, complex and fractured representative more of a cancer genome than of the family itself. There seems to be more fire on the grill since consent was not received before establishing the cell line itself.

The ethical conundrum

The argument that Skloot points out in her NYT essay is that since the genome was published long after Henrietta’s time, consent should have been received from her family. While we all agree that patient’s consent is top priority while using samples or data for extending continuing research, having the family consent for them is a whole different ball game. It spurs questions like “Do my unborn children have the right to ban me from making my genome sequence open access?” It is an ethical conundrum indeed. It is easy to argue that one’s genome sequence is one’s own private information and hence the individual’s decision to make it as available as possible but it is difficult to ignore the information the data would provide once a SNP calling or comparative mapping is performed.

The awareness people from a non-scientific background have on human genome sequencing is limited. Having information available online makes it sound like facebook only with 100x more coverage. This is not true. It is important to remember that most of the analysis that comes out of human genome sequencing is a “prediction” with a percentage or a probability number associated with it until it manifests into a phenotype. But it is also important to remember the good that has come out from making sequences publicly available. Publicizing genomes may not be the first aspect that we think about when it comes to our own sequence, but on the flip side when there is an issue for example a rare genetic disease, it opens up more resources and the chance of a remedy when data is available to other researchers.

The can of worms that have been opened because of the HeLa Genome will hopefully help establishing policies regarding sequencing and publishing of human sequences. As we move a step further into personalized medicine, it is important to have this in place but in doing so not forget the direction we want to personal genomics to take or how beneficial it can turn out to be.

A more edited version can be found here

Bird brain - blame it on twitter

I usually wake up super sleepy and the first thing I do is pray or brush my teeth? No I reach out to my  phone and from then on its message alert followed by work email, then news via twitter and then FB. By then I am at the point I am about to take a shower. Yes I understand, none of you want to touch my phone. While I am in the shower its NPR app on my phone or music goes on until I leave the house. Then it’s on my car stereo. The technology is non stop. Then at work, duh obviously. The times when I am actually not hooked on are when I am deciding what to wear and while visiting friends. Well that’s probably it. All our gadgets have coffee stains and god knows what on them. The need to know whats happening is incessant. When the Boston bombing happened I called my cousin who lives there to see if she was ok. She was like “Yeah, why do you ask?” And the wrong news that got retweeted over and over. I was one of them. So excited when something bad happens in the world it’s unbelievable. My husband and I love AT&T though their network sucks big time because you can talk on the phone and still browse the Internet and tweet and facebook. There is a problem right there. The only time we are not hooked on to our gadgets or cable is when we go out to eat and at certain rare occasions at home when we decide quality time over other things. Which is as often as we cook a full meal. Oh and when are running “together” we have our own music or books! That we listen to. There used to be a precious 15minute to an hour when I used to read to sleep. An actual book that’s more than a ten-page article. Now its over take by the “readit later” app.

There was a simple time when my mother would pick up the Hindu paper and skip directly to the obituary section and my father would read aloud everyone’s rasi from the tamil paper whether we like it or not. Last week when they moved, they have to live without Internet for two days. Every time I called my mother the first thing she would say was “internet-e illa de”. And my dad would growl “ that bloody man, what was he thinking, I told him not to unplug it until the last day?” They did not have electricity for few hours a day and got drinking water only for couple of hours a day. Everyone is corrupt.

And news is not news anymore. Just what happened..hmmm. That’s not a good news channel. Everything is an insight. You need to have an opinion Even if you are just a regular person. Anyway the reason for saying all this is that am starting my own Sabbath on Saturday mornings. Just for a couple of hours. Yes and it is going to be after I wake up. I will remember that. Hopefully have less more birdbrain moments from here on! Mazel tov. 

Kick yourself in the butt then go for a run

I will go ahead and say this despite the fear of sounding like a linkedin inspirational!

My mother still fondly remembers the first television they bought together or how they were able to buy a computer without applying for a loan. When you start your career big you lose out on these joys (of course you have other joys like the pleasure of having money). I decided to write about this because of the lack of excitement I had for what I did, especially repetitively.  As a young intern waiting to please you are literally like a sponge absorbing everything and working 200hours a day. But as you grow into what you do achieve a few accolades, you start harboring a pot belly and fail to be the person who kicks themselves in the butt.

A few people who were CEOs or were working into a start up gave some good insights. Crawl before you walk. You will appreciate going through the motions much better. Words like “create your own opportunities” or “self motivation” loses real meaning when you are standing in the job. At least for the lesser beings who do not have a George Church like or Steve jobs like idea every 15 minutes. For the rest of us, we are not ready for the responsibility yet. I kept thinking that som

To my city

·      The city that patronizes gooey butter cake – butteriest of cakes and provel the worst cheese ever.

·      St. Louis is the city where you can find the best draft beer in a couple of minutes but it will take you weeks to make your water drinkable.

·      It’s the city where every next guy you meet will swear on venison and will actually convince you that greens are bad for your health.

·      It’s the city where everything that is not dunked in lard cream cheese or butter is non existential.

·      Where you find the perfect mix of yuppie young libertarians and old staunch republicans. No one talks of socialism.

·      Surprisingly the best music scene ever – home of the blues.

·      The only city in US with old money, dying auto industry, and empty downtown with beautiful history but culture running deep.

·      The city with sky rocketing crime rate that puts Baltimore and Chamba valley to shame.

·      The city where every week there will be a new code for marijuana and you will invariably hear it. Even though you have no intention of buying it.

·      The only city where still your neighbor will offer you an apple pie and volunteer to collect your packages.

·      Where baseball is the only sport that exists.

·      With prettiest of parks and the best of hospitals.

·      With a summer that can put Chennai to shame, with a winter that can drive you nuts but two glorious months of spring and fall.

·      The land where you will be freezing cold in the morning and ready to start a barbecue by night.

·      The only city where tornado is fun and everyone starts “storm chasing” like they are waiting to pack for a vacation.

·      The city that has nothing to offer but still boasts hell rising real estate prices.

·      The city that I was so reluctant to like but managed to make friends and live in with some sense of belonging.