Why are we scared of animals?

This rat snake scaled the neighbor’s wall and lay there long enough for me to do its photoshoot.

When I sent these photos to my contacts on Whatsapp, majority of them sent me gawking emojis in fear. So why do we fear snakes?

Animals attack other animals primarily for food, protecting their offspring, self protection and in rare cases rescuing a fellow animal from its attacker(s). Snakes do not prey on humans so they will never attack us unless for self protection and protecting their eggs. Snakes live in human settlements for two reasons – to prey on mice and for dark and cold areas inside and around our houses to lower their body heat and digest their food. We should be more wary of urban cats and dogs than snakes because they can chase and bite us. Wild cats like tigers and leopards prey on us but attack us only if they are able to drag our body away from the spot because the smell of fresh blood and meat attract other carnivores. Lions hunt as pride which is why they do not show this behavior.

But there is an oddity in us that is not in animals – fear. In nature there is no emotion called fear. Animals running away from their predators is not in fear as we commonly believe. They run to save themselves and their only purpose is reproduction. Nature imposes population control so to stay as dominant species animals need to reproduce as many as they can. We are the only beings on the planet that live in fear of its own kind. We have created the emotion of fear in animals by encroaching and destroying their habitat and hunting them for the purpose of hurting them. Cows graze on wetlands which are snake infested but snakes rarely bite them and move away from them. Snakes bite us in self protection because we tend to kill them at every possible opportunity. Snakes have poor eyesight so they rely on smell and instincts to determine what is prey and what is a threat. Similar is the case with urban street dogs. Through smell and instincts they understand the ones among us who are hurtful to animals.

I was afraid of snakes for a long time because I was taught to be scared of them. Many snakes simply crawl away or warn us in different ways when we get close to them. Some don’t but they stay far away from human areas. We get into conflict with animals when we think we are entitled to walk anywhere and do anything we want. The planet belongs to all living beings and are entitled to live out their lifetimes if they survive in nature.

Exposing human ignorance about nature

Came across this social media post about a leopard and a dog getting stuck inside a toilet and the leopard choosing to not feed on the dog. What is interesting is the comments of wildlife researchers who have opined that the leopard became sad because it got stuck inside the toilet and lost its freedom so it no longer had interest in feeding. The glaring flaw here is, if this was true all predator animals would have starved themselves to death in captivity. Predators hunt prey and feed on the fresh meat. Some predators like lions leave the leftover carcass and walk away. Some felines like leopards and jaguars carry the leftover carcass and hide it to feed later. The point here is, fresh blood and flesh when in contact with air develops strong stench after some time. The stench is at the spot where the prey is killed. Scavengers catch this stench and arrive to devour the leftover carcass. If the leopard had killed and consumed the dog inside the toilet it would have been stuck in the enclosed space with the stench of the carcass. This is the most likely reason why it did not attack the dog.

Here is another social media post which tries to compare and equate predator-prey relationships in nature with capitalist exploitation. Animals kill only for food. Also, no animal kills members of its own species. Only we kill our fellow beings for a thousand reasons (which is why we have words such as murder, assassination, etc) and only we kill animals without the need to consume them. Capitalism is a human construct intended for some among us to become wealthy and powerful and exploit the rest of us. There is no exploitation and greed in nature and there is no parallel to capitalism in nature.

Social media platforms are inundated with posts in which animal behavior is being interpreted from our perspective. Our emotional side becomes dominant when we analyze most of the incidents and situations in life. This is what has created what we call as human-wildlife conflict. Tempers rise and emotions become frenzied every time tigers and leopards attack us, elephants enter our area and cause destruction, wild boars destroy crops and dogs, snakes and jackals steal our poultry. Question is, are animals intentionally trying to harm us? This is where we need to think from their perspective and understand their situation. The fundamental need of animals is food and water. When there is enough food and water available, animals will reproduce and multiply. When food and water becomes scarce they will not reproduce and focus only on self sustenance. To be a dominant species in nature’s ecosystem, animals have to reproduce and maintain a sizeable population. Animals adapt to changes in nature’s ecosystem to survive which is why every animal’s diet consists of a range of different items. Many animals have become omnivores and consume both plants and meat because of this reason. The exploding human population has been forced to encroach into forests thereby destroying the habitat and food sources of wild animals. We have all grown up being taught and in the belief that wild animals will die if forests become extinct. We completely missed the factor of adaptability. To survive and to reproduce, wild animals are adapting to us which is why they are attacking us, our crops and our poultry. There are always degrees of risk involved in hunting in the wild. Prey animals can cause significant injuries to predators such as zebras breaking the jaws of lions by kicking with their hind legs during hunting chase. We, our crops and poultry are easy and risk free meals so wild animals are adapting more quickly to all this. Contrary to popular belief, population of many wild animals is going to increase in due course of time.

It is this ignorance of nature and the lack of understanding of the ability of animals to adapt that has prompted this minister from my home state (Kerala) to call for the culling of tigers to control their population. There is also discussion going on to control the population of wild elephants and monkeys. As long as food is available animals will continue to reproduce and they will counter any forceful reduction in their population through more reproduction. We still do not want to admit that it is the destruction of the habitat of wild animals because of our burgeoning population that is causing human-wildlife conflict. We have already created many types of imbalances in nature’s ecosystem, the most deadly one being burning fossils and releasing all the carbon trapped in them into the atmosphere. Human-wildlife conflict is creating another imbalance where some animals are going to adapt to us and the ones that cannot are going to become extinct. We have been tugging at nature’s sleeves and pushing it to the tipping point. A global natural catastrophe is becoming increasingly imminent. What we are doing is suicidal and we are going to achieve nothing but self destruction.

From the vaults of nature – A story of the vanquished

Through the course of human civilization, we have always sung and written about the best and the victorious among us. History is all about the tales of the heroes who braved everything and emerged victorious. No word is spoken about the ones who lost because we have been taught to believe they are the villains or the bad guys or the ones who needed to lose or die. Nature teaches us that may not be the case every time. So here is a story of the one who fought valiantly and lost.

Over the years, during my walks through the wetlands I have heard cries coming underneath the water and from the bushes spread across the land. First time I heard I thought it was a kitten stuck somewhere, so similar was the cry. Local people at the wetlands told me it is the cry of toads that have been caught by snakes. In 2018 I saw the sight for the first time, a toad being swallowed by a chequered keelback. Today, I saw the sight for the second time. But this time, situation was amply different. Wetlands have been dug up for paddy cultivation and the snake had bit into the side of one of the legs of the toad. Keelbacks are non-venomous, so they have to hold on to their prey at all cost and then slowly swallow it.

The snake hadn’t grabbed the toad properly and the toad knew this so in order to shake the snake off the toad decided to jump into the water on the side of the muddy area. The toad managed to drag the quite hefty snake along with it into the water.

It could also be that the snake chose to go along with the toad because keelbacks live in muddy waters and they need not worry about losing the toad in the water.

What needs to be noticed now is the surface of the water. That is oil spilled from the machineries used to till the mud for farming. It is not just pesticides and insecticides, pollution is affecting land and farm produce in many different ways. The toad was forced to jump into this polluted hell to escape from the snake. If it had been able to shake off the snake it could have gone under the water where it could have been safer.

But even in this oily hell the snake did not let go off its vice like bite on the toad’s leg.

Finally the toad seemed to become tired and gave up on its struggle to escape from the snake’s mortal bite.

I know everyone would think that the toad was afraid of death that’s why it was trying to escape from the snake. Fear as an emotion exists only among us and not in nature. Survival is a natural instinct and all animals in nature try to survive so that they can reproduce and their species can maintain their dominance in nature’s ecosystem. All animals try to maximize reproduction and nature controls population through diseases, predator-prey relationship, etc. The toad here was only trying to survive. If there was fear in the animal world, they would have also learned to build houses to protect themselves. Birds build nests to raise their young then why don’t they build nests for them to live? Because all animals follow nature’s fundamental law of survival of the fittest and they seem to know death is part of nature.

The hazards of snake rescue

A renowned snake catcher in my home state in India is battling for his life after being bitten by a cobra. I have been coming across many discussions about snakes and snake rescue on social media so debunking some of the myths and stories surrounding snakes is essential.

Aren’t we all scared of snakes and especially the venomous ones? I read somewhere some time back that 80% of deaths happening due to snake bites is in reality due to cardiac arrests because we are terrified of snakes. The number could be an exaggeration but this is largely true. What most people do not know is, snakes stay away from us as much as they can because of very important reasons.

Snake venom is a lethal combination of proteins and enzymes. Proteins cause paralysis in their prey and immobilize them and ultimately killing them and enzymes help in the digestion of the prey. Snakes may not be able to chase all their prey so it is important for them to immobilize their prey first so that they can wait for the prey to die and then swallow it. Snakes hold their venom in glands on the sides of their head. They use their venom for two reasons : killing prey and countering any threats to them. Snakes do not eat us so we are not their prey. So the only reason they attack us is when they feel threatened by us. Once a snake uses all its venom it takes time for the glands to secrete venom again. During that time snakes are unable to catch prey or defend themselves. This is why once snakes consume a large prey they go hide themselves and rest till the prey is fully digested so that they get enough time to secrete their venom again. Snakes conserve their venom and use it only when it is absolutely required. This is why most venomous snakes warn us repeatedly before attacking us.

Why do we find snakes in our areas? First and the most important reason is we are encroaching more and more into forest land which is their natural habitat and we are destroying their natural food sources. But we are also inadvertantly providing them with alternate habitat and food sources. Rodents breed in large numbers where we store grains and other food items and we also have poultry farms. In nature a successful hunt can take anywhere from a day to a week which is why predators always look to catch the largest possible prey. So their natural instinct is to consume large quantities of food when they eat but they are adapting to us now because we are forcing them to. Now animals like snakes and jackals do not have to wait to catch a prey. They can easily come to human areas and consume the poultry we raise. In our granaries and other areas where we store our agricultural products and even in our houses we provide enough dark spaces for snakes to rest.

From snake rescue program Snake City shot in Durban, South Africa to Snakes SOS: Goa’s Wildest shot in Goa, India, rescuing snakes from urban areas have become popular TV shows. There are concerns about snake rescue though. Snake rescue depends entirely on people and situations. Many people may not bother to call for help to snake rescuers. They will just kill the snakes. Rescued snakes are taken to areas where there is enough green cover and let off. What eventually happens is, the population of snakes in those areas increases and with it the competition to find food. Then some or many of them will move away to areas where there are human settlements looking for food and the whole snake rescue process will repeat. When I was in Bangalore in 2016, I used to go for birding walks around a lake near a college campus. The entire area is covered with trees and there is ample green cover. Then one day I got to know that snakes rescued from anywhere in Bangalore was brought to this area and let off. That was quite scary because lots of people go for early morning walks in that area and around the lake. I even saw a cobra once in the area surrounding the lake.

To add to this, when snake venom enters our veins it goes straight into the heart causing immediate cardiac arrest. Neurotoxic venom destroys our nervous system making us paralyzed in no time. Snakes like spitting cobra can spit venom to considerable distances which can cause immediate blindness if it enters our eyes. I have read about the venom of sea snakes which can apparently melt our body cells and cause blood to ooze out of our skin pores. There is no treatment still available for venom of some of the sea snakes. Even a perfectly healthy immune system will not be able to protect us from such toxic venom. Prevention is better than cure fits nowhere better than with snake bites. Understanding snakes and their behavior will go a long way in helping us from getting bitten by them.

Snake rescue is not a glamorous act as some snake rescuers are portraying it to be. All of them may have gone through a snake bite induced near death experience at least once in their lives. We do not have any options though. With our exponentially increasing population and ever increasing encroachment into forest land, we are going to have to coexist with the animals that are adapting to the changes we are forcing on nature.

How Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can help us understand patriarchy

I was explaining Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to a good friend and that is when I realized how it can be used to understand patriarchy. We have come across patriarchy being interpreted and described in a variety of ways but we still do not have a good understanding of its evolutionary aspects. For those who are new to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it is a simple illustration of our needs in life and has to be analyzed from bottom to top. There are new and hilarious versions of the model now, with internet and mobile battery being the most important of our needs.

Our needs in life begins with the most basic ones which is why they are at the foundation of this model. According to priority our physiological needs can be further subdivided into

Air and water
Food
Sleep

These are our most fundamental needs for survival.

Then comes shelter which offers us protection and that is when we step into reproduction.

I will go no further than what Morgan Freeman’s character Professor Norman says here in the stunning and eye opening movie Lucy. When the habitat of a living being is not conducive enough for life it will choose self preservation and when the habitat is conducive enough it will choose reproduction. It is an evolutionary fact in all animals that a major portion of their energy is meant for reproduction because for the survival of their species reproducing as many as they can is critical since nature controls population of all animals primarily through predator-prey relationships and diseases. So in difficult environment animals choose their own survival over reproduction because even if they reproduce their offspring will not be able to survive. This is evidently how Turtles and Crocodiles survived the asteroid strike that made dinosaurs extinct.

Reproduction leads to security in Safety needs because we need to protect our family. Then, to work and take care of our family, we need health and work to do. For the longest time in our evolution, being able to meet the physiological and safety needs led to directly to Esteem. Being physically stronger it was the men who went out, faced the dangers in nature and weathered the different climates to hunt for food and find wood to burn. So men who were able to meet all or most of the physiological and safety needs were recognized and respected within the families and community which lead to attaining higher social status and being considered as a community leader.

Love and belonging are not characteristics in nature, in fact what we get to see in animals during their courtship is different aspects of the process involved in mating and breeding. There is no place for love and belonging in the harsh and uncertain nature where life expectancy is very low. It was only after we became more intelligent beings we became civilized and started leading societal life did our emotional aspects evolve. In those times when we had to brave nature’s extremes there was only the need to work together to hunt, fish and cut wood. Friendship and camaraderie are products of our evolution into the societal life we live now. Life was all about survival so intimacy was not even known or required and the only form of love required was affection for the children when they were growing up.

Patriarchy is essentially men taking care of physiological and safety needs and expecting esteem in return from their families. Nothing exemplifies this better than a particular scene in the biopic Bhaag Milkha Bhaag of celebrated Indian athlete Milkha Singh. The young Milkha and his older married sister had managed to cross over into India from Pakistan during the bloody partition of India in 1947. They were in a refugee camp and his sister is shown in a makeshift tent cooking food when her husband arrives. There is no emotional reunion, he ignores Milkha and heads straight for the tent, enters, sees his wife and closes the entrance. This is how men were from the cave dwelling times. All the male testosterone and adrenaline rush from hunting and fishing and bringing home food and wood is further bolstered by the exhilaration of returning home alive. They had no time to understand women and their needs. Women were simply meant to satisfy them in whatever ways that made them happy and put them to sleep after a long day outside. This patriarchy is clearly visible in the epic Ramayan followed in India. Ram, the protagonist travels all the way from the north to southern tip of India and crosses over to Lanka in search of his wife who was kidnapped by the demon king of Lanka. After slaying the demon king and rescuing her, patriarchy overpowers his love for her and she is asked to walk through fire to prove her “purity” for him.

We have evolved in all aspects of life but we are still holding on to some remnants from our past, notably religion and patriarchy because their effectiveness in controlling us hasn’t waned. A lot hasn’t really changed from our ancient cave dwelling past, hunting first got replaced by agriculture, livestock and barter system and now there is the additional factor called money. We have created a new world that stands on the foundation of money and with money we can buy all the utilities and services we have created to meet our needs. There is a simple tradeoff though, there is a barter system between time and money now. We get more money in return for giving up more of our time. The ancient patriarchal mindset has simply shifted to earning more money, buying utilities and services with money and expecting esteem and stature in return.

Our patriarchal mindset is blinding us to the simple fact that what we build physically is a house and the house becomes our home only with love, togetherness, sense of belonging and emotional contentment. Ancient Indian texts have a very sensible classification of human lives. Till 23 years it is time for education, attaining knowledge and becoming wise of the world. Then from 24-48 it is family time. From 48-72 it is time to step out of the family and serve the community and after 72 renounce all earthly needs and attachments to make our death and journey to the afterlife easier. The hidden secret here is the population control aspect. By the time we become 48 our children have to be old enough to live on their own only then we can step into community service. So what we have is 24 years to raise our children with the right balance of physical and emotional health and contentment. Patriarchy and patriarchal mindset ignores these simple things which is why without emotional understanding and bonding we have lost the connection between our souls and are increasingly becoming individual isolated beings searching in the virtual world for what we have lost in the physical world.

Humanity’s fantasy world has been shattered by a virus

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend (who is going to read this) about whether COVID-19 virus is a zoonotic virus or a man made virus. There are many articles and videos that have been circulating on social media proposing to provide evidence that the virus was created in the virology lab at Wuhan, China. What my friend is worried about is, if these allegations turn out to be true, it means we have interfered in nature and tampered with the natural evolution of a microorganism. He wants strict regulations on biological testing similar to the ones imposed on nuclear and chemicals testing so that we do not end up engaging in a biological war with one another like the atom bombs in Japan and chemical warfare in Vietnam. My answer to him was in 2 parts. 1) Human interference in nature We started interfering in nature when we started cutting down trees to build our houses. We did not pause to wonder why animals are not doing the same. Rather, in our arrogance of having superior intelligence we looked down upon the supposed lower intelligence of animals. We never wondered from where did we get this ability which no other living being on the planet has. Nature will never give the intelligence and ability to any living being to destroy nature’s ecosystem. Nature is a closed ecosystem which means everything that is born or created within it will or has to return to it. Animals build nests using items available in nature which gets recycled by nature after use. When we die our bodies are recycled by nature. Fully knowing this, we created tar, concrete, plastic and a zillion other things nature cannot recycle and knowing that nature cannot recycle our waste, we keep forcing it on nature which nature has duly started returning to us during natural calamities. So we have come a long way to worry about human interference in nature now. 2) Tampering with the natural evolution of a microorganism My friend believes biological testing in labs is essential to understand about microorganisms so that we can build medicines and vaccines to protect us from them. First of all, every organism in nature is in continuous evolution. So there is no end to biological testing. Why are animals not doing the same? This is not about higher or lower levels of intelligence. Nature has a sophisticated and effective way of handling this situation. Immune system. Diseases are simply conflicts between organisms of higher and lower orders. All living beings when exposed to nature will constantly be under the attack of microorganisms. Immune system keeps learning about more microorganisms and becomes more robust in protecting us. So we do not need to test microorganisms in labs for our protection from them. The bigger problem with this is, not everyone will have good intentions. These genetically modified microorganisms could be stolen and released into nature. We will have no control over them once they are in nature and consequences could be catastrophic. We have found ways to splice genes in lab and now we are working towards repairing genes in human genetic structure that cause diseases. I am all for it because it can cure genetic diseases like diabetes permanently. But any lab experiments that can potentially involve nature has to be strictly forbidden. Even if COVID-19 is a man made virus and we let it out into nature, did it affect nature? No animal died because of it. 3 million humans and counting have died. Every time we go against nature, the consequences will come back to bite only us. Most importantly, it is inconsequential whether the virus is natural or man made because in either case it has broken the glass houses we have been living in for so long. This goes back to the conversation I had with another friend (who is also going to read this). Every aspect of human life has become untenable in nature. Our food habits have become extremely inorganic and unhealthy, our sleep cycle has vanished and our entire lifestyle is in disarray. We are no longer in communication with nature because of which our immune system gets to learn nothing and has literally become idle. One virus of moderate virulence has raised a question mark over the survival of our species itself. Diseases are one of the ways in which nature controls population of every living being. So death is inevitable. Greater the size of population higher the mortality rate and more number of reasons to die. If diseases don’t kills us, accidents, murders and so many other reasons are lurking. We do not even know if we will wake up from our sleep the next day. Common reasons for death during sleep – silent cardiac arrest, brain hemorrhage. But we are “existing” in a blissful fantasy world. We take housing loans and agree to pay EMIs every month for the next 20-30 years. In interviews, candidates are asked ” where do you find yourself in the next 5 years or what are your professional goals for the next 5 years”. Education is linked to profession which is linked to money which is linked to social status. Health has become irrelevant. We take insurance policies and swagger around in arrogance that when we fall sick, the policies will take care of us. Health is wealth has become wealth is health. We rush to hospitals where we get treated when we fall sick. Note : Hospitals are not places that ensure we do not fall sick. Doctors do not take us off tablets and tell us how to become healthy naturally. We no longer seem to remember that prevention is better than cure. Moreover what diseases are doctors and hospitals curing us from anyways? We are given medication that suppress diseases. There is still no cure available for even common cold. Google and see the classifications of headache. There is a type of headache called stress headache the cause of which medical community has no clue about. This is how little the medical community and doctors who treat us know about human anatomy. Medication for pain simply interrupt the signal to the brain that indicates pain so we stop feeling pain. This is called workaround in other professional jobs and cannot even be considered as treatment. Suppressing a disease and keeping it inside the body long enough can result in the genetic information of the disease getting encoded into our genetic structure. This is how genetic diseases are created and passed on to future generations, thereby making the entire species unhealthy. This is what has happened to us which animals with their lower intelligence avoids by identifying and abandoning/killing unhealthy offspring. Even more ironical are the facts about medication and vaccination. Diabetes is a genetic disease and medicines only help to keep it under control. Can pharmaceutical companies manufacture medicines and vaccines to repair our genetic structure? Human body is tuned to absorb vitamins from nature and food on its own. I have read about people in western countries who live on diet of vitamin tablets completely ignorant of the fact that human body is incapable of absorbing vitamins from tablets properly. I have heard of people suffering from Vitamin D deficiency in India which is literally unbelievable. I can understand this in the colder western countries where there is less sunlight but in a tropical country all it takes is soaking our body in sunlight for a while. We are all made to believe that medication will cure us and vaccines will protect us from diseases. In reality, medication and vaccines are top ups for our immune system, a miniscule external intervention which provides more information for the immune system to fight diseases and protect us. If our immune system is already weak, medicines and vaccines can never protect us on their own. These are the reasons why keeping ourselves healthy is so important for the survival of our species. We have no control over diseases and death. The healthcare system we have does nothing to protect us from diseases. All we can do is to stay healthy, maintain a good immune system and hope that it will protect us from diseases. We cannot run away from nature, live inside concrete buildings and hope to have a good immune system. People are being kept under lockdown now and are being told that staying at home will keep them safe from COVID-19 virus when the reality is governments are completely unprepared to handle a health crisis. Staying at home without enough physical activity and away from nature can drastically affect our immune system and make us vulnerable to other diseases. It is mind boggling that almost the entire human race has become so ignorant about themselves, about nature and have become so gullible to live in such an artificial world. There is a business evaluation model called PESTEL which evaluates uncertainties in the business environment such as political situations, economic conditions, etc to find the associated risks that can impact business prospects. The 2nd E in the model is for evaluating environmental factors which includes natural disasters and diseases. Very less importance is given to this as I came to understand from the experience of a local businessman. Even though some corporate companies do give importance to natural disasters, diseases are largely ignored. We saw how much companies have struggled after the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and it has taken a year for employees to get used to working from home. Just like fever is our immune system’s indicator that a foreign organism has entered our body, nature sends out signals when there are changes in its environment. Animals understand signs of natural disasters in advance and are able to protect themselves. We have lost that ability somewhere along our evolution. I do not know how useful is our higher intelligence if it does not even help us to survive in nature. I do not know if we are too late to break out of the glass houses we are living in and return to nature, but it is never too late to try.

Concerns about COVID testing and vaccines

Its been a year and a half since the pandemic began and ironically, information about the COVID-19 virus, the tests done to identify infected people and the vaccines is becoming more hazy and confusing with time. First, about the virus. There is a whole lot of noise and fear being driven into people through the media about the virus mutating and taking more deadlier forms. As a contagious virus spreads it does mutate and this is not new to the COVID-19 virus. The fear is being amplified with the information that the vaccine currently rolled out will not be effective against the new mutated forms of the virus and more doses of vaccine will be required. A virus, no matter how many times it mutates will have a specific genetic marker. Coronavirus is a family of viruses that includes the COVID-19 virus. They all have the same genetic marker which is why they are grouped under the coronavirus family. All of them cause respiratory diseases starting from common cold. If the genetic marker also changes during mutation then it will become an entirely new virus. Vaccines are developed specifically using these markers so logically it makes no sense in the claim that currently vaccinated people are vulnerable to mutated versions of the virus. Before getting into the testing part, it is important to understand some basics of nature and human anatomy. Our body is not built in a way to prevent microorganisms from entering it. Rather, it allows entry so that the immune system can keep getting more information, evolve and become more robust in protecting us. This is evolutionary and is the same in all animals. The analogy to this can be seen in the antivirus systems we have created to protect our computers. Even computer viruses have specific markers like the genetic markers viruses in nature have. The first antivirus software was created by collecting all the prevalent computer viruses and finding out their markers. Antivirus software have to be updated daily with the information of existing viruses and markers of new viruses. What we do not have in nature is the concept of firewall which prevents all information from entering and exiting a computer and can be fine tuned to allow only certain information to pass through. So when a microorganism enters our body, the immune system immediately goes into alert mode. Depending on how adversely the organism can affect us which we call virulence in the case of viruses, the body signals in the form of fever to indicate that the immune system is at work. There is no need to take tablets for fever. We take paracetamol tablets so that we can move around. When the same happens to animals, they immediately isolate themselves because it is considered by default in nature that any disease could potentially become contagious. The immune system works entirely using blood and the body directs a major part of blood in fighting the organism. So it is important to not burden our body with digestion of food which also requires a large quantity of blood. This is why animals stop eating when they are sick. It is also important to keep ourselves protected but at the same time we get enough sunlight and air. We are being told to do all these now if we are infected with the COVID-19 virus when we should have been doing these every time we fall sick. Most of the time, we fall sick because of seasonal changes. As our body adapts to changes in our environment we become more prone to be attacked by microorganisms. This is why there is autumn between the transition from summer to winter and spring between the transition from winter to summer. But in tropical regions, there is no winter season instead those regions have rainy season.  There is no autumn and spring seasons either. Rains continue for 6 months and as rain decreases, summer slowly starts. These climatic differences in different parts of the world has tremendous impact on people’s health. Most of north India has entered into summer season which will peak in June whereas summer peaks in April-May in south India and starts moving towards monsoon by June. Entire country is transitioning with climate changes now and there will obviously be spike in diseases. I have been wondering what the COVID-19 lab tests are all about and what exactly are they checking for to identify if someone is COVID +ve. Turns out the symptoms are fever, headache and sore throat. These are the symptoms of common cold and flu which affects large number of people during periods of above mentioned climate changes. There are no COVID specific symptoms and hence no COVID specific tests.  I was initially under the impression that the differentiator for COVID-19 virus would be respiratory issues when hospitals in Delhi got inundated with people for testing last year and Delhi government had to ask people to isolate themselves for flu like symptoms and only get themselves tested if they lose their sense of smell. But it seems that all viruses in the coronavirus family can potentially cause respiratory issues. The virus passes through our nostrils and gets lodged in the wind pipe. If a weak immune system is not able to eliminate the virus it will eventually travel into the lungs. Any microorganism that enters an internal organ can cause serious and life threatening situations. In my neighborhood a family had common flu and cold. They isolated themselves and informed the government health center. People came from hospital, tested them and marked them as COVID +ve. They recovered within a week’s time. Everyone who has cold and flu symptoms are probably getting marked as COVID +ve which is why we are seeing huge spike in the number of infected people and high recovery rate. The numbers will reduce considerably if only people with cold and flu symptoms and respiratory issues are tagged as COVID +ve. Even more bizarre is the case with asymptomatic cases. Just because one person came into contact with another who was identified as COVID +ve, that person need not be asked to isolate without showing any COVID specific symptoms. Even if the virus has entered that person’s body, there is no way to check if the person’s immune system has developed antibodies for the virus. Antibody testing cannot be completely relied upon. Showing symptoms of fever and cold after a few days could also be because of a common cold infection or another health issue and not necessarily because of COVID infection. Because people have different immunity levels, the effect of a virus could be vastly different between people. Now to the COVID vaccines. First question is, if pharma companies could take so much effort and come up with vaccines in a year’s time, why not use technology to create masks which will prevent the virus from passing from one person to another? Simply because there is way too much money to be made with vaccines. None of the vaccines for any diseases does anything spectacular. Vaccines are now made by stripping out the genetic markers of the viruses from their DNA. Injecting the genetic marker into the body will apparently help the immune system in understanding the genetic code of the virus and build immunity for it without having to dissect the entire virus to understand its genetic code. What is weird though is the instruction to continue staying at home, using hand sanitizers and maintaining social distancing even after COVID vaccination. We have taken vaccinations in the past and used to have body pain and fever for a day or two after which we used to resume our normal lives. Scientists don’t yet know if we can still transmit the virus to others after we have been vaccinated. Scientists cannot simply ask people to do things when they themselves are not sure about what they are asking for. Yes, this is a contagious virus but with more than 99% recovery rate. What they are asking for would have been understandable if it was similar to small pox virus. So if vaccination is just a training program for our immune system to understand and fight a new microorganism why are we being given two vaccination shots and possibly more in the future? From the recovery rate it is obvious that COVID-19 is a very mild virus when compared to the small pox virus, yet we have all had only one vaccination dose for small pox. It is a well known fact that the current vaccines are not adequately tested. Phase-3 trials have not been satisfactorily completed. We are a population of over 7 billion and sampling size for testing the vaccines was in 100s or a few 1000s. Strength of immune system and their response to diseases varies widely from person to person. A 2nd and 3rd dose will reinforce immune response is what they are claiming based on testing the vaccine on a very minor part of the population. This is very abstract and there is no way to confirm their observation after rolling out the vaccines for large scale vaccination. There is no clarity on the time duration between 2 doses of the vaccines and it is being changed randomly now. Moreover, increasing cases of mortality after the first and both shots of the COVID vaccines are getting reported which included a well known south Indian film actor. There are more such deaths reported by individuals on Twitter which won’t appear on mainstream media. There are also several reports of serious side effects of vaccines getting reported from European countries. Did those people die purely because of COVID virus or did they have comorbidities? Did they get infected by the virus externally after vaccination? This means the vaccine is playing a part in reducing our immune prowess. Or did the genetic marker introduced into their body through the vaccine grow into a full virus and overwhelm their immune system? Both scenarios are equally terrifying. Even more scary is the fact that vaccine manufacturers are not able to say if there will be long term adverse effects of the vaccines on us. In the light of so much information, it is my responsibility to ask questions about the virus and the efficacy of the vaccines. My purpose of writing this is to stop all the panic that is going on now and make people understand to go to hospitals only when the viral infection persists for some days and they start developing respiratory issues. We are being told to vaccinate in a way that our immune system is incapable of eliminating the COVID virus on its own. As the recovery rate shows, that is clearly not the case.  I believe current COVID vaccines are less effective and more detrimental to our health now. I am not against vaccination but my question is why vaccine for a viral infection with more than 99% recovery rate? Isn’t a medicine enough? We treat common cold mostly naturally and with tablets then why vaccine for COVID-19 when both viruses are from the same family of virus with very similar virulence? If vaccines are required for every disease then why haven’t vaccines been developed for common cold and flu yet? It is important for us to avoid forming large crowds, maintain hygiene and social distancing at all times. During yearly migration of birds, they flock together in large numbers and that is when their mortality rate increases due to contagious diseases. We celebrate festivals with massive congregations like Kumbh Mela in India every year in complete ignorance that an epidemic can break out any time in nature without any warnings. The most important issue is with our population size which continues to grow unabated. As population size of any species increases its mortality rate also increases. Humans are the only species that pass on diseases genetically which adds to the possibility of more diseases arising among us. Staying healthy is the key to having a strong immune system. It is the only way to survive in nature that is extremely hostile to all living beings, something we are blissfully ignorant about.

Reasons for India’s COVID part deux – Failed governance, irrational people & complete ignorance about nature

The second wave of COVID-19 pandemic is upon India with greater ferocity. The pandemic started in late 2019, had spread from China to Europe and had just touched the shores of the USA. The Government of India was warned and was well aware of the impending crisis but it dithered in closing down international borders. The result was an epidemic like situation which resulted in harsh lockdown of people and millions suffered in the aftermath with unemployment and hunger.

This time around, the reason for the lockdown is even more ridiculous. Restrictions were eased, life seemed to be getting back to normal and the government even boasted that India had beaten back the virus without any supporting evidence. Festivals were allowed to be organized and state assembly elections were announced by the Election Commission. There was massive congregation for Kumbh Mela festival and huge election rallies in 5 states. It is peak summer across most of India at this time and people are vulnerable to falling sick. People tend to eat less food and sleep less when weather becomes hot which results in reduced immunity. So it is no surprise that COVID-19 has reared up its ugly head again.

Lockdowns are essentially government’s way of saying it is incapable of handling an escalating situation, abdicating responsibility and passing the buck on to the people. In simple terms, diseases are conflicts between higher order and lower order organisms in nature and along with the food chain is how nature keeps the population of every living being under control. Microorganisms are constantly mutating and evolving in nature. A disease of any magnitude could break out any time in nature. We have always been living on this ticking time bomb. Even if the government does not understand this, it is its responsibility to constantly improve and ramp up the health infrastructure of the country. In India, in most of the states, education and health are on the lowest side of the government’s priority list. So will the government be ever prepared for a pandemic? This governance failure is passed on to people and people are made to suffer. Locking people up inside their homes has the detrimental effect of lowering their immunity level and making them vulnerable to more diseases but the government is shortsighted enough to focus on winning a battle now and not being able to see a war coming in the future.

Kerala government is coming up with weird rules as it began a state wide lockdown yesterday. Unlike during the last year’s lockdown, when supermarkets were allowed to function, this time supermarkets have been closed down. Supermarkets are the best places to manage crowds and enforce social distancing. Now, people are rushing to the local stores where crowd control and social distancing is impossible. Opening supermarket stores will distribute the people among the supermarkets and local shops and reduce the possibility of transmission. In a nearby local store, two customers were apparently squabbling over one remaining packet of bread. I wrote to the district collector to consider opening supermarkets and received no response. Now, the government has come up with a website portal for generating e-pass for emergency travel within respective cities and towns. The instructions state that even for medical emergencies, people have to apply for the e-pass, wait for approval, then print it and carry with them. The irony here is, the government seems to be expecting everyone who has internet access at home to also own printers. Printing is usually done at local internet browsing centers which are all shut down now. Upon enquiry, I was told two things. 1) To call the local councilor and he/she will make all arrangements 2) A self written affidavit is enough for medical emergencies. They are expecting someone to sit and write an affidavit or call the councilor and wait when their father/mother/sibling needs emergency medical care. This is the level of incompetence and complete lack of rationale that plagues India’s civil administration.

The virulence of COVID-19 virus is of very small magnitude when compared to the virus that caused small pox. Millions have died because of small pox and my granny used to say that wailing could be heard from every other house because death was everywhere. When a foreign substance of any form enters our body, our immune system immediately mobilizes itself to fight and destroy it. Our body is a sophisticated system and our immune system is designed in such a way as to aggressively restore the balance of the body when something causes an imbalance. The first step is to isolate the foreign substance and prevent it from multiplying and spreading through the blood. Once this is done, the immune system will eliminate the foreign substance. In the case of COVID-19, the first step is failing so the immune system tries more aggressively to attack the virus. This is resulting in the immune system losing focus from other diseases people are suffering from and the subsequent complications led to most number of deaths in the first wave.

After the second wave has started, I am hearing about younger people and people without comorbidities getting
affected. There seems to be only one reason for this. Rapid urbanization has revamped people’s food habits and lifestyle completely which has alienated people even further from nature. Our immune system stays efficient only when it comes into contact with different types of microorganisms constantly, fights them and adapts itself to new diseases. This is all about information, so the greater information our immune system has about microorganisms the better it will be able to protect us. When a boxer quits fighting he invariably gains weight and becomes sluggish. The same happens with the immune system when we spend our entire time holed up in A/c rooms and travel in A/c vehicles. Then, when our junk food and “eating-at-whatever-time” lifestyle leads to diseases like cholesterol, diabetes, high BP and cardiac issues, the immune system is in no state to fight them. On top of all this, when a new virus attacks us for which the immune system needs time to fight, we can only expect the worse to happen to us.

The entire Indian system is at fault for this second wave. The Election Commission should not have gone ahead with the state assembly elections without a clear green signal from the medical fraternity. Even when the elections were declared, no political party showed any inclination to oppose the decision knowing fully well that election rallies are inevitable in the electoral process in India which always leads to massive uncontrolled crowds. Every political party is hungry to win elections and grab people’s power no matter what the situation is. Even the Supreme Court did not choose to step in, cancel the elections and order incumbent state governments to continue as caretaker governments. We, the people did not bother either. We knew what happened last year yet we chose to go for election rallies and on election day to vote in large numbers. Add to this, Indians are addicted to festivals and festivities. Even pandemics don’t matter because Gods will protect us.

The disaster the world is witnessing now has been in the making from the time of India’s independence from colonial rule. India is a democracy only by it’s Constitution. “Rule” is still the word used instead of “govern”, especially by the media. India is “ruled” by central & respective state governments. People’s representatives become people’s rulers & become inaccessible & unaccountable after they win elections. Corruption has become an incurable disease. Religions driven by blind belief take precedence over law & order. Orders passed by courts are imposed by civil administration which is controlled by the government so courts do not have the power to punish lapses in governance. So warnings of a second wave of the pandemic were conveniently ignored for conducting elections & festivals and the entire country is suffering again. Calls for Modi to resign are insensible because replacing leaders without reforming the system is not going to change anything.

Finally, what is incomprehensible is the fear of death among people which the media is amplifying and driving into everybody’s minds. Death is a natural conclusion to life in the entire universe. Our Sun will burn out and die in a few billion years. The Universe itself is supposed to come to an end. Millions of animals and human beings are dying every day because of a variety of reasons. Diseases are one way of population control in nature. This may not be to everybody’s taste but this is how nature works. I say this knowing fully well that my parents and I could also get infected with COVID-19. Nature follows the golden rule of “Survival of the fittest”. Only the strongest will survive in nature. We moved away from nature and forgot the golden rule and to keep ourselves healthy at all times. I hope this pandemic will be a reminder for everyone to return to nature, understand nature better and improve our lifestyle drastically. Our lives hinge on abiding and living by nature’s rules and flouting them will only lead to our own destruction.

Human fixation with building houses – an evolutionary perspective

I was travelling by train when I saw the chandelier like hanging nests of Baya Weavers for the first time & I was absolutely spellbound at their sight. It has taken me a few years to finally get their shots but it has been worth the wait. Ever wondered why building houses is so important for us? Why owning a house is an important parameter in marriage? Primates such as apes and gorillas build nests but are rudimentary when compared to the complexities involved in the nest building process of birds. Male Baya Weavers build partial nests before starting to woo females who in turn inspect the nests before agreeing to mate. Then the males go on to complete the building of the nests. One important aspect females apparently look for is the distance of the nest from the branch or the pole to which it is tied. More distance means the chicks are safer from predators like reptiles and can be protected better. So males that make better choices about where and how they build their nests and can make stronger nests wins over the females. Owning a house is an evolutionary trait which we believe will help us raise our children safely. Our evolution is mind boggling because we have inherited traits from so many different beings. We diverged from nature when we started cutting down trees and destroying nature to build our houses which requires ability and intelligence nature has never given and will never give to any living being because it is a simple self destruct button. This is where human creation theory truly trumps over human evolution theory.

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Human destruction of nature – a historical and religious angle

I was on my regular morning walk yesterday looking to photograph anything interesting happening in nature when I suddenly heard a short whirring sound which sounded familiar. I looked around and saw a huge mounted electric transformer on the side. It was the deathly sound of a bird getting electrocuted. Because of overhead transmission cables and transformers kept in the open, house crows keep getting electrocuted all the time.

The crow that was with the one that died was in total shock and was making different kinds of sounds. Helplessly I stood there for a while wondering why do we create and construct things that we know will harm animals but do not care. So many different types of birds die every day because of our fishing nets alone. Why do we have scant respect for nature and animals?

When we look back at our history, we start from the point where we were afraid of everything we did not understand. We do not know when and why but we started worshipping natural elements like fire, rain, thunder and lightning and animals by creating Gods for them. The most probable reason is lack of scientific understanding of natural elements and the higher sensory abilities of animals. This is what became known as paganism. Though we started cultivation and raising livestock with time, in the name of worshipping all the Gods, we conserved and protected nature.

But pagan cultures developed deep flaws with time. To understand and relate to Gods, we started reducing Gods into human forms which resulted in idol worship. Emperors and Kings started calling themselves as Gods on Earth who could communicate with the Gods that were being worshipped. All of these eventually led to the evolution of monotheism, the concept of one God. Monotheism, introduced by Christianity became dominant with the advent of Islam and spread all over the world. As the world gradually moved away from pagan culture, it has had a significant impact on our perception of nature and wild animals.

Then, there is this critically important part in the Bible.

Genesis 1:26-28

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion (7287) over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it (3533): and have dominion (7287) over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

First of all, the first 5 days of creation as explained in the Bible does not have scientific merit. The Earth and everything we see about it has evolved over billions of years. Then, God says Let “us” make man in “our” image, after “our” likeness. So “God” apparently is made of blood, muscle and bone and looks just like us. Note the usage us and our. So it was not just one God. There were others who were equally powerful as the God and powerful enough to create us. This is a question mark over the concept of one God espoused by Christianity.

Then comes the most important part of giving us the control (dominion) over the planet and all other living beings. To have such control, we needed to possess far greater intelligence than all other living beings on Earth. We have to notice here that we have been given the ability to control only the living beings, not the ability to control nature and natural elements. This could be the reason why we cannot understand natural disasters in advance and cannot escape from them. To understand nature through animals may be the reason why we were given control over them. It may have been left to our interpretation and could be the decisive factor in determining the survival or extinction of our species. We cannot destroy nature and other living beings and survive on the planet. We were given intelligence so that we can understand this as we evolve. This is why by destroying nature and wild animals we are setting the premise for our own extinction.

While I do not intend to state that the Bible is the reason why we are destroying nature and killing off wild animals, the shift from pagan culture to monotheistic belief has definitely had it’s influence on how we see and treat nature. With the tremendous growth we have achieved in science and technology especially in the last few decades, we need to urgently start looking at nature through the lens of logic, commonsense and rationale and understand ancient texts from the scientific perspective.