A Suitable Boy TV Series - Almost there

A Suitable Boy - a book that I loved immensely. And so was looking forward to catching the series. Two episodes down and I had mixed feelings about it before Meera Nair's hand appeared to save the series.

The first thing that struck me was that the setting, language and body-language didn't quite look like the 1950s. A lot of it felt more contemporary, at least in the initial episodes. Well, there might have been a set of highly educated, affluent families trying to fill the vacuum of the British snobbery. I need to do my research, though.

Coming back to language, you find certain characters easily shifting between Urdu/Hindi and English, which sounded a little unnatural. Maybe they should have stuck to English all through. A very difficult decision I'd say. Also, the diction in the initial episodes felt like a college-play and it did get smoothed out later.

The series takes off somewhere around episode 3. That is when we feel Mira Nair's presence perhaps for the first time. The visualisation of Lata's dilemma and agony was beautiful.

I guess that is where one has to appreciate the writers of the series. It is extremely difficult to encapsulate a novel of these proportions into 6 episodes of about an hour each. You need to pick and choose very carefully between what is absolutely essential and what is not, how to throw in a reference, how to weave in sub-texts and so on. What intrigues me every time I watch the adaptation of a book is how the director visualises the unspoken. I guess there lies their strength. However, I felt certain subtleties that Vikram Seth used in the book should have just been left as such. For having skipped the character of Veena Kapoor entirely, I felt Meenakshi's character was unnecessarily detailed only to be dropped off suddenly.

One thing that helped in piecing together all of this is the brilliant casting. I think this was one reason that kept me hooked on to the series. Right through, I kept sitting up and exclaiming "Hey him... hey..it's her!" Even the actors I haven't seen before are quite nicely cast and are have done a great job. The lady who played Mrs Kapoor is a natural. Okay, I had imagined Adil Hussain for Mahesh Kapoor's character but I love Ram Kapoor. So, I'm happy either way. Oh! Danesh Razvi as Kabir Durrani is so charming! Would love to see him more often in films. And Namit Das as Haresh! Maybe I like the character better now. He played the character to perfection (You are caught with mixed feelings between the actor that you like and the character that you, well...!)

I really can't say if I'd like to recommend this series to those who have not yet read the book because the series undoubtedly lacks the depth and the entire intent of the book. It has captured Lata Mehra's story to the fullest. It has tried its best to get the mood of the political strife, sadly there isn't much time. Like I have said in my review of the book, the phrase "Suitable Boy" is much more than just a marriage match. Here's my review of the book.

 

Surgical Strike

"Just imagine", they said, "how free you are going to be." Everybody pep-talked me. "You are not sick. You are only going to get better. You are not a patient," they said. So I went and got an expensive mani-pedi, finished it off with red nail polish.

The first thing as soon as I check-in: (note: my usage of the term check-in shows my state of mind at that time) "Madam, please cut nails and remove nail polish." The earth shattered around me. There were thunder and lightning. I turned around three times in slow-mo "Aakhir kyon?"

The angel in white boomed amidst the thunder, "Patient-ku, no nail polish allowed meydem." Disillusionment #374 of my life. I tried to make a joke out of it, "Patient-aa? Naana? Chey" etc. "You only meydem patient"

I begged. I tried reasoning. Nothing worked. Finally, making impatient clucking noises, I obeyed the nurse's orders. And she sweetly patted me and said "Thank you for being patient with us" (Don't you pun on me, woman!)

The surgery: I was lying there, watching the (literally) cold operation theatre being prepared for the surgery. I don't know if they were preparing to fell a tree or work on a human body. Such was the size of the tools they were laying out.

I meekly asked them, "Do you have to really do this in front of me?" Here I was, going through the most unattractive and unattracted day and there was this anaesthetist trying to make flirtatious small talk, comparing the nightlife of Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore. The conversation did put me to ease but I was too proud to accept that Chennai has a boring nightlife. Hmpfff...

Soon they bundled up my spine like an old, unstarched Bengal cotton saree and punctured several times. The nurses were so excited as if they were pinning sequins on the old Bengal cotton saree.

I could hear exclamations of "Ah! Now it's good. Ah! Super." In a few moments, I was in a daze. The anaesthetist came close and asked me, "How do you feel?" I could hear myself drawl, "As if I have downed six pegs of whiskey neat" Hangover of all that nightlife banter I guess.

I was wheeled out of the OT, grinning like a Cheshire cat, waving like a gallant Olympic medallist, all thanks to the whiskey..err.. the anaesthesia. Unsavoury display of discarded body parts almost made visiting relatives faint in fright. Thank God, nothing untoward happened, else I would have ended up paying the room rent x 2.

Post-Op: Anyway, I managed to sneak home within a few days and then started the trouble. Sat up all night because of heartburn (arrey, I mean the real physical heartburn yaar), sprained my neck because of that. So for the next few days, I was a robotic Frankenstein who had to do a complete turn around when the peripheral vision gave up. Then there was this no-bending rule. Being a rebel, I always like to bend the rules. But when they ask the rebel herself not to bend, that's when you realise life has its way of taking its revenge. That's when your brat will toss her jeans on the floor; your cook will leave onion peels on the floor. And you must refrain yourself from bending down, just like Bhagyashree in the final act of the Dil Deewana song. Label me a control freak if you want to. Fine, but what will you do when the bar of soap slips off your hand in the middle of a bath? You get creative and resourceful. You learn to use your toes to pick up anything ranging from clothes to hair to bottle caps, you name it (remind me to enlist myself for the next season of India's Got Talent). If the toes fail you, you learn to use shampoo instead of soap.

While I was recovering, people pampered me with cinnamon rolls and baadhushaas. The goodies have now neatly arranged themselves like a kid's stacking rings around my waist. I don't know how many more months I will have to walk around with this jiggly-jelly-belly. (Why the hell do good things have to be so fattening?)

When I rapidly lost a lot of weight soon after the surgery, I was thrilled. The lady at the hospital knowingly nodded her head and gave out the dark prophecy "You will gain as quickly as you have lost" Oh Oracle, how I ignored your warning!

Now after two months, the stacking rings follow with me to the office desk, threatening to get larger, but that's okay. I am happy that it's all behind me now or on my behind.

Reference material for the uninitiated

* Stacking rings: Illustrated above

* Bhagyashree's urges: https://youtu.be/7IHTdSc3WTw?t=239

The Longest Month of my Life

This is a long read, more like a note to myself for remembering the learning and filtering out the pain. If you are in a hurry, I would ask you to skip right to end of this post where I have shared some of my learning.

 15 October: It all started as what we thought was husband’s annual bout of fever. The doctors began trying antibiotics and paracetamol. I was hopeful because the cough wasn’t dry.  He, however, began isolating himself. Our concern was his aged parents and our daughter. With increasing temperature and a loss of smell, the inevitable test was done. In the meanwhile, I was trying to get his parents to move back to their flat. The result came out by the afternoon. It was the dreaded COVID positive result, with a medium viral load. After a few phone calls, he decided to drive up to the hospital and get himself admitted. It pained me to send him off that way, all alone with a few essentials packed. But given the circumstances, it seemed the best thing to do.

My story in the meanwhile:  My head was filled with questions and confusion and starting from Sunday night... “Could it be the C-word?”. “But we’ve been so careful!” and so on. Additionally, I started developing chills and tiresomeness from the morning of 13 October. I thought it was stress. I had no choice but to take charge of the house and the family. I got in touch with my ever-dependable Homeopathy practitioner who gave my husband some medicines and preventive medication for all of us too; I stocked the kitchen with supplies, began making suitable food for my husband, hoping the fever would be okay in a couple of days. I felt like doing the test for myself too because of feverishness and body pain. But we decided to wait for his result to come out. By the afternoon of 15th, I got a strange cramp in my belly, much like a period cramp. After my husband got admitted at the hospital and my in-laws back at their flat, there was a strange eerie silence at home. I was getting sick too but had to put up a brave face for the sake of our little one. Wonderful friends were on video call that night, trying to cheer us up. The moment I broke the news about my husband to my apartment Whatsapp Group, a neighbour with whom I had hardly interacted in two years, sprung into action. She was there on phone and Whatsapp all the time, checking on us. More about the angel later.

The husband at the hospital: Blood tests and CT scans were done. 5% lung infection seen, with the CRP (infection levels) showing 28. He was taken good care of with medication and a good diet. He was cheerful and looked fine.

16 October:  I arranged to have home-testing done for myself and our daughter. By evening, the inevitable happened. I turned out positive with a low viral load and by the grace of the Universe, our little one was spared. Now, this is where the real stress started. I broke down into shameless tears. Clueless. What do I do? How do I isolate myself? Some people suggested I isolate myself and let her take charge of the house. We could always get food from outside. She just needs to place the food outside my room. Doctors at my husband’s hospital suggested she be sent off to my parents’ house as a 12-year old cannot be a transmitter. A few more medical opinions sought, we decided that it was best to keep her at home and not to expose my parents or in-laws to her. In the meantime, I walked up to a lab to get a CT scan and other tests done. The kindly neighbour I mentioned earlier asked us to place bowls outside the door and filled it with fresh, hot food. Something she did on almost every day of our quarantine—a miracle I will never forget.

Miracle number two was the amazing calmness and composure shown by our little one, who had never slept alone ever, forget managing the house by herself. With her elder cousin’s supervision on a video call, she sanitised her room which was shared by the two of us for the past 4 days, threw out all bedding, lugged in fresh mattresses and sheets from another room. Before that, she placed food outside my room. We then connected on Google Hangouts video call, she wept a little but soon collected herself. Catching up on day’s events, storytime and prayers on video call would become a bedtime routine for the rest of the 14 days.

However, since running the household would be too much for her, we decided to “reverse quarantine” her. She would stay in her room for the next two weeks and I would have access to the kitchen.

17 October: Thankfully, my husband got discharged from the hospital in the evening. That morning, Corporation staff disinfected the house and surprisingly reassured us that everything will be alright soon.

18 October onwards: With the approval of doctors, I began cooking, whatever little I could. There were a zillion precautions to be taken—wash hands, wear mask, wash hands again, use gloves when needed; use one set of utensils for us, one set for the daughter, one set for serving ourselves, one set for cooking. I would wash my daughter's utensils, put them outside her room and at mealtimes, she would wash them again. The rest of my quarantine was spent in washing hands, washing utensils, disinfecting the kitchen, washing clothes, disinfecting the washing machine...you get the drift. There were a lot of medicines and steaming to be taken. I focussed on cooking salads and soups and shamelessly accepted any food anyone offered to give. For the first five days or so, apart from extreme fatigue, we felt unusually hungry, though we’d lost all sense of taste and smell. Since it was Navaratri, the angel neighbour kept sending us delicious and healthy prasadam as well. Every time I thanked her all she said was that she was blessed to be able to cook for us at this time and I just needed to pass on the kindness to someone else in need.

Our daughter was busy with her online classes. We tried to keep in touch with her as much as possible. Sometimes, she at her doorstep and we at ours; sometimes, on video calls. It pained me to have a little child touch-deprived for two weeks but I couldn’t afford to shed a tear even in solitude—it was from my spirit that she had to gain her confidence. How she handled her situation is still a wonder. Mornings, we resorted to a long stick to knock at her door and wake her up—couldn’t cross the line you see? ☺

21 October: The husband’s temperature began shooting up again, so did the cough. He would curl up and sleep almost all day. Things got a little worrisome. As against our fear of repeat hospitalisation, he was asked to come and get injections every day, which was also a lot of effort for him to drive up to an under-staffed hospital (an easy 3 to 4-hour process every day). The lung infection which was only around 5% initially, increased to 30% by the 7th day. Apparently, a 7-day spike is something to be expected, with a marked increase in temperature, cough or other symptoms. The hospital visits somehow kept his mind busy, which had begun playing around existential questions. He again got some fantastic support from our Homeopathy doctor, whose medication felt holistic. He managed to read up The Secret during those long hospital waiting hours.

26 October: The husband’s injections were completed and he felt a lot better. Rid of the sleepiness, we began looking forward to the end of the quarantine and so did our little one. All our moods began improving considerably. We arranged to have the house disinfected and deep-cleaned and asked doctors about how the quarantine should be ended.

30 October: The day of the big freedom. We woke up early and disinfected everything we could before the disinfecting could be done professionally. Our baby stepped out of her room, we all had our masks on and we only held her hands. The hugs had to wait. People from the Corporation visited to check on us. We ripped off the horrendous sticker and said a big prayer for having sailed safely through this most frightening experience.

Twist in the tale: So the Quarantine ended, we had the house deep-cleaned on 31 October and I realised that I was still a little tired, the back hurt and I couldn’t manage full-fledged cooking for another 10 days.  Though the husband felt better, he needed rest too. So I decided to order side dishes from outside and cook rice at home. Whether it was food poisoning or something else, I will never know. But on November 1, I fell extremely sick. Never been this sick in ages. I threw-up, don’t know how many times, had the most unbearable backache and when I passed out in the bathroom, my husband drove me straight up to the ER at the hospital. I spent almost the whole day there. A series of blood tests, brain and lung scans were done. Everything was clean but I was just unable to sit up straight. Saline and IV medication was given and I was sent home. That night and the next morning were hell.  My head was spinning, had terrible headaches, the vision was blurred (something that happened to both of us at different stages), I couldn’t walk straight without support. The doctors advised us to take the assistance of my parents as we could not transmit the virus anymore. So we landed at my parents’ place. My parents took care of me for almost two weeks. My mom, being a yoga practitioner, a Reiki and acupressure healer and more than anything, an effervescent personality, gave me a lot of strength apart from feeding me with nutritious meals several times a day. Additionally,  my Homeopathy doctor couriered me some great medicines. It was she who pointed out that the virus has probably affected my nerves with the effects manifesting a little late. I went on and off patches of fear, panic and sadness but tried to replace most negative thoughts with happy ones. My head still spins, I rejoice when I walk a straight line, my sense of taste and smell are a wee better, but I know for sure that I am on the right track. I couldn’t read but kept listening to music or watching feel-good shows on OTT. Don’t want to question my abilities but want to remind myself of the person that I used to be, of the things I was capable of. I have rejoined work this week and have been cooking with my husband's help. Feels good!         

Friends, like I said at the beginning, this has been a long post but I definitely do want to share these thoughts:

• COVID 19 is real. It is a virus. Not a fabrication of any healthcare company or organisation.
• You never know who, when and how it affects us. All one can do is to identify potentially unsafe situations and avoid them. We still don’t know how exactly we caught it. Our only guess is my husband’s workplace.
• If you must step out, use masks of good quality. Cotton bandanas or gamchas might not work the best at all times. Be very careful while meeting with people you don’t interact with every day. Outdoors or well-ventilated places are the safest bet. Be careful while dealing with paperwork and cash. Apart from the dangers, COVID 19 is an extremely inconvenient illness to have, the inconveniences of maintaining safety is nothing comparatively.
• If you don’t want to get admitted at a government hospital, this can cost quite a bit. Keep your insurance papers handy.
• Having said this, I would reiterate NOT to panic. Anxiety, in any illness, is bound to magnify the symptoms.
• Keep taking steaming, vitamins and zinc supplements without fail. Try native concoctions/kadhaas/kashaayams. They might taste bitter, cause heat in the body but see which kind works best for you. Keep eating fruits and fresh, hot food.
• While still on the above point, when we hear about someone being in trouble, it is only natural for us to be thankful about how safe we are. But please, let that be a silent prayer. There is no need to tell a sufferer how smartly you have been protecting yourself. If in doubt, go back to the second point. Please.
• Don’t hesitate to talk to people, ask for help. I don’t know what we would have done without the help of our doctor-friends who kept untiringly offering guidance, friends who dropped off food and medicines at our doorstep, neighbours who offered us food and did not shun us and our families who more than made up their lack of presence by offering constant cheer and moral support.
• Fill every inch of your life with gratitude, without which it would have been impossible for us to get through this difficult time.

  

When Talking Ain't Easy

I see a lot of well-intentioned posts that advise people to “talk to family and friends or anyone if they are feeling low or sad.” They say, “Why can’t people talk to family and friends when they are sad?”

The thing is, they can’t talk. That is the whole thing. With depression, it is extremely difficult to speak to anyone about it. It is a greyish-green cloud of low self-worth, loneliness, helplessness and related dark components. You just want to put an end to it.

Let me break this up for you. The symptoms of depression are never the same. The degrees, causes and triggers are as varied as the people suffering from depression are. Not all kinds of depression lead to suicidal thoughts. Most of the time, you feel isolated from the rest of the world. Sometimes you feel you are looking at yourself from the outside. You get to see an aerial view of yourself. You feel weird about your sadness. You are caught in a dark space between over-reaction and numbness, between over-working and idleness. You want to put an end to it. You are embarrassed about it. Now, this is what makes it extremely difficult to talk about even to the closest of your friends or siblings however patient and kind they might be. As listeners, we tend to give “solutions” or tell them “it’ll be alright”. Even if meant well, such words often seem superficial. Imagine this. You do talk to your friend, you feel better and even motivated. Cut to two-three days later. You are doing something mundane like brushing your teeth. This dark cloud suddenly seeps in from somewhere and makes you cry uncontrollably for several hours. You think of your losses and fears. In your head, you play out the conversation you had with your friend recently. You feel disappointed that nothing has changed—neither your situation nor yourself. Feelings of being betrayed (your friend said everything will be fine), having betrayed (you promised to cheer up) come rushing in, you are physically and emotionally alone, you want to put an end to it and then, snap! It is either temporarily over with a long crying session or it is permanently over. You wanted to put an end to it.

The only thing we can do is to check on our friends regularly. Gently, very subtly, make them feel good, make them feel important. Show them they are needed instead of making them feel needy. The shoulders might ache a little with all the leaning but it’s well worth the effort. Do anything but sound condescending or harsh. Most important, handhold them into seeking professional help. It is NOT easy but important. If possible, talk to the nearest, trusted person in that friend's circle. Work as a team. Don’t wait. It might be too late.

Picture Credits: curatedeclectics.com

Mind the Language

Not just during the lockdown but I've always had a challenge selecting good films for my daughter to watch on OTT platforms. Friends reading this might recognise my favourite question following a film recommendation. "Is it PG?" I keep doing extensive research on the internet. She rolls her pre-teen eyes at films that are 'twee'. I have to agree. The films are really dumbed down and painted in pastel shades. Unless it appeals to her classics are always a risk. So what does she want? She looks for depths of character, a storyline that makes her think, comedies that are not slapstick or perhaps stories that have a shade of darkness.
So what do I do? I gingerly inch towards the 16+ films with trepidation. Luckily for me, over time, I did find some fantastic films like Sudani From Nigeria (Malayalam), Jojo Rabbit (English), Yeh Ballet (Hindi), Killa (Marathi), Okja (Koren-English), Brain on Fire (English), KD Engira Karuppudurai (Tamil) and a few more.
Many of these films would be perfect for the 12-16 age group. Then why are they rated 16+? The only reason given is 'strong language'.
Take the case of the recent film that we saw and liked very much. Okja, directed by the celebrated, Bong Joon Ho. It is a heartwrenching tale of a young girl who raises a genetically modified giant pig and her relationship with the animal. It talks about emotions, animal rights and commercial interests. Just perfect for the 12-14 year group. But the dialogues which are a mix of Korean and English are laden with expletives. Totally unnecessary, out of place and cringe-worthy. The adult characters use cuss words when they are frustrated, angry and helpless.



I have seen this in regional films that are subtitled too. The cuss words are often sincerely translated! Example, Killa, one of the best films I have watched this season. Visually breathtaking and loaded with a soulful storyline and impeccable performances. Pre-teens experimenting with cuss words might sound funny for an adult but not when you are watching it with your own pre-teen.





Be it in real life, written work, song lyrics and movie dialogues, it has become commonplace to use expletives. English pop-songs even come in two versions- regular and explicit! I have always felt that using an expletive is the laziest form of self-expression. It reduces the opportunity to explore vocabulary. Especially when used in films, books and songs, I think it is a disservice to the audience because these are supposed to be written by professionals. We already know that the majority of learning happens outside classrooms. Right?


Coming back to my lament, it is sad that filmmakers are shutting out a chunk of their audience by resorting to strong language. A case of wasted opportunity. Though I don't completely agree, stories solely meant for adults can have some strong language but my problem is for cases where the story 'deserves' a larger audience. Especially these days when there is a dearth of quality content for this age group. My child and I might have missed some the gems if I was weary of the rating. So what is the way out? Since a lot of children read subtitles even in case of known languages, maybe those can be written carefully. Or the operators can mute the words without the annoying beep sound.

For now, I will choose to watch good, relevant stories ignoring the bad language. All I can do is, pre and post the film, I will take up a short moral science and English language lesson.

What do you think about this predicament? What would you do?

The Rozabal Line - Blurry

The Rozabal Line by Ashwin Sanghi. I wish this heavily researched book was non-fiction. It would have earned more credibility that way.

When I picked it from a friend's home-library, I was quite excited that this would give me an opportunity to move out of my comfort zone and I grabbed it. The first sixty-odd pages lead me into an exciting path on the thriller zone but what happens after that had my head spinning. I was thrown from AD to BC, 5 BC to 2012 so rapidly that I could hear the swish-swash sound effects given in films when they have to show a rapid scene cut. 

The line between real events and fiction is so thin that I was left feeling quite confused. And to have to keep turning back to references at the end of the book often left me tired (swish-shwash sounds again). I stopped reading the references after #18 or so. (there are a total of 209).  References work well in research material and non-fiction but not so well in fiction, especially when there are so many. It cuts down the pace of reading and the story as well. Also, the references were more from the internet than actual books. Credibility factor again.    

Truth be told, conspiracy theories are my guilty pleasure. I wolf up anything that comes on the internet from Elvis's death to Kennedy's assassination to the MH-370 disappearance. But this one somehow didn't have me hooked. Many portions seem extremely contrived. I've read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and found it quite intriguing and interesting. Maybe because it was all unfamiliar territory. I knew nothing of this theory at that time but The Rozabal Line seems to be following the same template, though going far, a bit too far from where TDVC left off.  Also, there is the Indian scenario, parts of which seemed implausible and convoluted (short of treading the path of some very sincere sounding Whatsapp forwards).  Politically and theologically, I wonder how it didn't cause any ripples. 

For it being fiction, there is absolutely no depth to the characters. They are just props for a larger theory. The ending seems very convenient and even preachy. 

While reading this book, Interestingly, I happened to stumble upon The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man by Jonas Jonasson. I grabbed it since I loved the earlier book, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, both parts of this story also have fact intertwined cleverly with fiction. Now, this did not confound me. I found myself laughing at the implausibility of it all.

Now, doesn't Rozabal Line also entwine fact and fiction? Though the path taken is similar, the effect is completely different. Of course, the genres are themselves different. While The Hundred-Year-Old Man is political-humour, The Rozabal Line is theological action-thriller, and a very serious one at that. Maybe it's my own knowledge (of religion) or the lack of it that makes me uncomfortable.

All that is said in The Rozabal Line is the author's own theological interpretation based on very extensive research and I completely respect him for that. I apply this to every book I read. If a writer has an idea and has the courage and means to put it in print, that by itself is an achievement. I only wish writers made better use of this privilege. 

Intelligent Emotions

For many years in the past, there was a great deal of importance given to cognitive intelligence. Success was directly related to one's intelligence. Be it exam scores, college admission, jobs, everyone sized you up based on how intelligent you were.

Then came the wave of Emotional Intelligence somewhere in the 1990s. Researchers suddenly (and thankfully), realised that being brainy isn't just enough. The brand new term of EQ began to be touted so much that organisations today have an EQ test before hiring people for leadership roles.

The most important component of EQ is empathy. I would rank it the most useful in not just human interaction but also solving many problems that humans have brought onto themselves and the world around them. Be it poverty, environment, education, abuse... the list can go on.

But then a very high EQ without IQ is just a lone ornate pillar without purpose.

One's heart might break to see an abandoned puppy but it takes practical thinking and intelligence to ensure the safety of the puppy. A highly emotional person is bound to suffer from heartaches and trust issues but one needs to work their way around it intelligently to help themselves. At a global level, one might understand the plight of children with no access to education but the solution lies in taking concrete action and finding out how to help them. What we need is a beautiful mesh of multiple skills and talents.

Empathy is the first step to problem-solving and application of knowledge is the second step. One cannot exist without the other. Highly emotional people tend to look too closely and highly intelligent people sometimes have only an aerial view. One needs to have the ability to look closely and then step back to take the right action. This is the balance all of us need to work on. The human mind is not just a 'test score'. With the right guidance, we can feel, think and create, all at the same time. Nerdy, needy, techie, touchy - instead of sweating out to remove these labels, a better thing would be to acknowledge these different facets in the human spirit. We must try to nurture these qualities, in their natural proportions, in all humans. An engineer could be highly empathetic. A caring nurse could be technically skilled. A powerlifter could master embroidery. This is as important as getting people with different kinds of intelligence to collaborate with each other.  That is when we can become useful for ourselves and for the rest of the world.

What do you think the world needs the most today - EQ or IQ?

Pictures Courtesy: 
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