Mama, my head is aching

Item

Title
Mama, my head is aching
extracted text
CZrV”' CB •
SDA-RF-CH-1B.15

'NewsYouCanUse

Mama, my head is aching
Don’t dismiss it as an excuse to skip homework. It might he migraine
By DEBAPRIYA GHOSH

t 9, Sagnik Dutta may seem too
young to get a headache. Since
kids his age often feign illness
to bunk school, his parents did not take
his complaints seriously until the
attacks became frequent and upset the
boy's routine. They took him to an
ophthalmologist, who okayed his eyes
and referred him to a neurologist.
"Sagnik has been complaining of
headaches since kindergarten days,”
says his mother, Keya Dutta of
Kolkata. "It occurs when he exerts
himself—a long ride to the school,
loads of homework and exams, and too
much of play. I have acute migraine
but never thought that my son might
develop it. When he has headache, he
tends to vomit, refuses to eat and
prefers to sleep.”
The neurologist told his parents to
shift him to a school with a lighter
syllabus. Sagnik was told not to play
in the sun, cycle or study for long. He
is his bubbly self except that he pops
painkillers when he has a headache.
“Migraine is apparent in children
who have a family history,” says Dr
Ninan T. Mathew, director of Houston
Headache Clinic and clinical professor
of neurology at University of Texas
Medical School. “Women are more
prone to migraine than men, but it is
the reverse in children in the pre­
puberty age group. However, today,
even children with no family history
of migraine are complaining of
throbbing headaches."
Migraine is a peculiar response of
the central nervous system to various
stimuli such as estrogen, stress,
environmental factors, food and sleep.
“Children have to cope with the
pressures of education and are
compelled to live in highly polluted
cities," says Mathew. “Lifestyle changes
add to it; children eat fast food and
Chinese food containing mono sodium
glutamate [aginomoto]."
Though three-year-old Ritwika

A

52 E2EEZ33 Feb 2,2003

RITWIKA BASAK, 3
Watches TV late into the night, but
complains of headache after

playschool. Yet to see a neurologist.

Basak watches television late into the
night, she complains of headache
when she gets back home from
playschool. Unlike Sagnik, Ritwika is
yet to see a neurologist. ‘At least once
a week she complains of pain in the
head, but cannot really explain where
it pains," says her mother, Suhrita. “She
has been wearing glasses from age 2
and so I have not thought it necessary
to take her to a specialist.”
That parents are ignorant and
unconcerned about their children's
complaints bothers Dr K. Ravi-

SAGNIK DUTTA, 9
Homework, exam and play give him a
headache. Neurologist advised change of
school to lessen load. Takes painkillers.

Lucky either way

Orchids on pills

AUSTRIA

THE PHILIPPINES

student gambling at Austria’s leading casino chain Casinos Austria
was down on his luck, but pocketed .£33,000 (Rs 24,75,000) anyway.
Thanks to the fact that he was a compulsive gambler. According to a
Supreme Court ruling, Austrian gamblers who lose large amounts of money
in casinos may be able to claim back some of their losses if they prove they
are addicted to gambling.
The court in Vienna ordered Casinos Austria to refund the money to the
student who was a compulsive gambler as the casino had not investigated
his financial situation and therefore neglected its "obligation to protect” its
clients.
The student, who has not been named for legal reasons, visited the
gambling dens over “00 times in two years, and lost almost £70,000. The
court says Casinos Austria should have noticed the man was in jeopardy
because he visited so often and should have taken steps to protect him from
his own compulsion. Either they pay up to protect their business or reword
their policy.

t may be odd to think of the US
donating orchid fertiliser and
balloons to third world countries.
But in Roman Catholic Philippines,
where there is low acceptance rate
for contraceptives, that is what birth
control pills and condoms, which the
US gives as aid, are used as.
“Our supply is so high that
people running health centres use
the pills to grow orchids and the
condoms for balloons,” said Health
Secretary Manuel Dayrit. The US has
provided contraceptives to the
Philippines since the early 1990s to
control population growth, improve
maternal and child health, and
control a rapid increase in sexual
infections.

A

I

Click for family
UNITED STATES

here's no saying what one can
trade over the Internet. A month
ago it was the cash-strapped North
California town of Bridgerille,
following which American writer
Steve Young tired to sell off his
family for $5 million. The winner
was promised a lifetime of platonic
companionship, as well as tips on
writing, gardening and cooking.
“If a town can be sold online, how
much could you get for a family?"
Steve said. After consulting wife
Diana, and children, Kelly, 9, and
Casey, 8, Steve posted his offer on
eBay and received more than 10,000
hits within minutes. But eBay
yanked off the advertisement saying
it is against company policy to sell
human beings.

T

<east your eyes
IINA: The restaurant in the eastern city

Nanjing believes in teasing more
an just the taste buds. A waitress
ovides eye candy as, dressed in her
iderwear, she takes orders and serves
the newest family restaurant. The
staurant uses its body-painted
Stresses to attract customers.
Fea 2, 2003 EEEE53 51

shankar, neurologist and specialist in
headache management at Jaslok and
Lilavati hospitals in Mumbai.
"Migraine has different symptoms in
children and adults," he says. “The

triggers are also different and hence
detecting them becomes a problem in
children, for no blood tests or scanning
can diagnose migraine. Paediatric
migraine manifests even as abdominal
pains.
Children
cannot express their
problem and most of
the times parents
ignore it.”
Though 8-yearold Ishan Shome gets
headaches
when
exams are round the
corner, his parents
have not taken him to
a neurologist. “Ishan
becomes tense every
hotdog, pizza, food dyes, vinegar, bananas, odours,
now and then," says
sleep deprivation, stress, excess school work or
Ranu Shome, his
extra-curricular activities, change in lifestyle
mother, who, too,
suffers from acute
Treatment
migraine. “He can do
Avoid known triggers. Teach kids how to relax.
nothing but sleep
Make sure the child sleeps well and eats three meals
when he has these
a day. Consult the doctor before you give medicines.
terrible headaches
In most children the headache is primary; it is
accompanied
by
not the symptom of any serious disease. While both
vomiting.” For relief,
girls and boys suffer equally before puberty,
she lets him use a
after puberty, migraine is more common among girls.
pain balm.
Many parents
r i
who do seek medical
Graplucs/N.V. JOSE
help give up after a
visit to the ophthalmologist. But “only
in very rare cases do children get
headaches because of ocular
problems," says Dr Ambar Chakrawarty, professor and head of neurology
at Ramakrishna Mission Seva
Pratisthan in Kolkata. “I don’t say that
all headaches need the help of a
neurologist. Go to a neurologist only
when headaches come in the way of
studies or play. 1 do not prefer putting
children on painkillers. I would advise
pain balms.”
However, parental reassurance is
the first and most important step in
treating headache in children.
“Headaches are common neurological
problems in childhood and adole­
scence and need the attention of
P parents,” says Trishit Roy, professor
f

ISHAN SHOME, 8

□3

g Becomes tense and gets headaches
| when exams are near. Vomits and
£ prefers to sleep. Uses pain balm.

Lit "style changes add to
the ,'roblem of migraine in
child!.says Dr Ninan T.
Mathew of Houston
Headache Clinic, USA

Migraine has different
symptoms in adults and
children. Hence, detection
in kids is a problem, says
Dr Ravishankar of Mumbai

Headache is a neurological
problem. Pan its should
not ignore it, st ys Prof.
Trishit Roy of Eaigur
Institute of Neuroiogy
and head of neuromedicine at Bangur
Institute of Neurology, West Bengal.
“They should not ignore it.” So the next
time your child complains of
headache, pay attention. The child
needs your help.
■
9. 9003 VCTVffiN 53

I

Guest Co I u m ii

Modi-Hitler comparison
Both cashed in on the frustrations of the educated middle class
By P.V. INDIRESAN

NOW that the dust
has stalled selling
down, we ca a look
at the Gujarat phe_____
nomenon with less
passion. According
to the philosopher
W. R. Inge, “a nation is a society united
by a delusion about its ancestry and by
a common hatred of its neighbours”. If
that is so. the Hindus of Gujarat have
become a nation.
There is now a big divide among
our opinion makers who seem more
keen to inflame passions further than
to douse them. Both sides are on the
warpath whereas what the country
needs most is peace. Modi has been
compared with Hitler and rightly so.
Both cashed in on the frustrations of
the educated middle class. Both tar­
geted a minority community, and
made it a scapegoat for all ills of the
nation to the exclusion of all other is­
sues.
In drawing this analogy, we should
not forget that Hitler was remarkably
successful in accelerating economic
development. In a short span of five
years, between 1933 and 1938, he
raised Germany from the depths of de­
pression to a most formidable eco­
nomic and military power even more
powerful than imperial Britain. He
was able to do so because he had the
unqualified intellectual support of the
middle class and the financial support
of big business.
There is a real possibility that
Modi too may succeed in the same
manner. For 50 years, goaded by
"secular" intellectuals, successive gov­
ernments in India have systematically
denigrated and alienated the upper
castes who form the backbone of both
entrepreneurship and the middle
class. By discarding their talents, and
deliberately placing the less compe­
tent over their heads, governments
have retarded the nation’s progress,
54

Feb 2,2003

and frustrated many capable people.
Quite a few of them have fled the
country in disgust. Many of these tal­
ented people have been backing Modi.
If he manages to provide them the op­
portunities they have been denied so
far, they may ensure rapid economic
progress. In that case, like Hitler,
Modi will become irresistible.
It is now widely conceded that the
Hitler-phenomenon was the reaction
to gross!}' unfair and inequitable terms
of armistice imposed on the Germans
after World War I by the victorious
British and the French. They extracted
from the vanquished Germans un­
precedented reparations, and imposed
impossible conditions calculated to
mutilate the German economy beyond
repair. They humiliated the Germans

The Modi phenomenon is the
culmination of a biased,
inconsistent logic propagated
by the so-called secularists
who had one yardstick for
upper caste Hindus and yet
another for the others.
beyond endurance. The Nazi upsurge
was the reaction. Likewise, successive
governments in India have ex-tracted
extortionate reparations from upper
caste Hindus, for which there is no end
in sight. The success of Modi is a con­
sequence of this harsh and persisting
political bias.
Those who are waging a war
against upper caste Hindus would not
have been faulted if, like Periyar, they
had been honest about it. Like Periyar,
they too could have organised a formal
anti-Brahmin, and anti-upper caste
movement as a pure and simple inter­
caste warfare. Instead, they have ob­
fuscated
the
conflict
with
doublespeak. When, under Periyar’s
instigation, the Madras government
introduced caste-based reservation,
they called it the Communal GO, not
the Secular GO. The government was

honest; it caused pain, but not disgust.
Without such honesty, by calling their
own communalism, “progressive secu­
larism”, the “secularists" have forfeited
moral authority.
The term secular has acquired in
India a peculiar meaning not to be
found elsewhere. Secular means any­
thing that is not related to religion. It
does not denote opposition to religion
the way it is understood in our coun­
try. Admittedly, enlarging the mean­
ing of words does not cause much
harm, but selective use of that mean­
ing does. Thus, upper castes are con­
demned day in and day out as commu­
nal. On the other hand, even the Mus­
lim League and the Akali Dal escape
with no more than mild abjuration.
The same yardstick should apply to ev­
erybody. We are entitled to have our
own bias. We may even assert that our
bias is superior to another's. However,
we cannot assert that we alone are
without bias.
To make matters worse, the selfappointed conscience-keepers of the
nation have exhibited little talent for
economic development. If that sounds
harsh, look at the way our country has
stagnated even as many countries in
our neighbourhood grew rapidly. West
Bengal is an extreme case—it started
as the most advanced state in the
country but today it is so backward
that it is next only to Bihar in the num­
ber of school dropouts. Such incompe­
tence of "secularists" makes the likes of
Modi greater than they are.
I suggest that the Modi phenom­
enon is the culmination of a biased, in­
consistent logic propagated by the socalled secularists who had one yard­
stick for upper caste Hindus and yet
another for the others. If they had
honestly conceded that they were communal, neither the BJP nor Modi
would have become the powers they
are today.
The author is former
director of UT Chennai.
Email:Indiresan@bol.net.in
Media
SDA-RF-CH-1B.15.pdf

Position: 1034 (8 views)