Friday, March 6, 2009
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Parrot flower
Julius' research had located several people who had visited Thailand, met with the photographer who posted the now 
According to an informed source in Thailand, the plant needs moist humid rain forest conditions. Far wetter than can be found in the majority of North America. An extremely knowledgeable source who is familiar with the plant has recently provided information the plant is known to grow in limestone soil with a pH that is higher than normal. That is likely the explanation for the "blue" coloration due to a botanical phenomenon known as "anthocyanins" (a condition where water soluble pigments appear red to blue) depending on the soil pH. The plant is apparently truly rare in nature and is not the "invasive vine" some on the internet who are not truly familiar with the species have speculated. As for the now famous Thailand Parrot Flower photos, those were taken by the Thai grower of a plant collected in 2001 near Chiang Mai, N. Thailand. But like many flower species, this impatiens has a limited blooming season. The blooming season for Impatiens psittacina in Thailand is October and November. And this impatiens grows tall!
Flower size: App. 2 inches (5cm)
Stem thickness: To 1/2 inch (1.5cm)
Bloom season: October/November in Thailand
MORE INFO ON PAGE 2
In his scientific description (bottom of this page) Hooker describes the species as being substantially less than one meter tall. That is likely due to the fact he never actually saw the plant in the wild and based his writings on the observations of an untrained individual, Mr. Hildebrand. Unlike the Impatiens you grow in your yard, according to the cover a Thai garden magazine (see info right), this plant grows to almost 6 feet tall (1.8 meters)! The species has a thick 1/2 inch (1.5cm) stem but normal 2 1/2 inch (6cm) leaves. We have no accurate dimensions on the bloom but a photo comparison of the flower to a leaf indicates the flower would be approximately 2 inches (5cm). Hooker's description (below) differs slightly from that when he states the plant is 1.5 to 2 feet tall (less than 60cm). Hooker admits he never actually saw the species in the wild and was basing his description partially on second hand information provided by a non-scientist.
This rare plant is not the attractive small Impatiens plant normally sold for landscaping. This Impatiens is tall like a bad weed and apparently will not survive without moist, humid, tropical, rain forest conditions. The flower is beautiful but even if you could keep it alive is not suited for the average front yard garden unless you like weeds, high humidity, and lots of rain! You likely would not like the plant if you found one! (See more photos on page 2.)
Even more important, if the species does not truly exist, someone needs to explain that to the scientists who compiled the scientific text Flora of India Volume 4 as well as the people of Thailand who have seen it, photographed it, and furnished all the photos on this and the following pages. The species has been well documented in both instances. The information in the box above came from the cover of a Thai gardening magazine! Still, I regularly receive email saying "I don't believe it". Posts on the internet can be found as recently as July, 2007 claiming it is a fake. Like most Impatiens the plant is variable. Variations within plant species are quite common! Not all leaves and flowers of the same species are exactly alike. I can show you plants in my atrium where different specimens of the same species don't look exactly alike and have a variety of coloration and growth forms. Botanists and "plant nuts" disagree about those factors all the time which is one reason why so many plants have multiple scientific names, most of them now synonyms (same plant, other name)! Please note the Thai grower (who has a botanical background) stated there are color variations within this species in nature.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Sharad Kumar Dicksheet
Mention the name of Sharad Kumar Dicksheet to Lakshmi, the response would be an incoherent mumble. For she is barely six months old. May be, ten years later, if you were to tell her the same name, you are sure to see tears welling up in her eyes and hear an emotion-choked voice, as she would gesture towards a framed photo of the plastic surgeon hanging on the wall.
Six months ago, when Lakshmi came into the world, she was confronted with a gloomy future. She was born with cleft lip---her thick upper lip curled up to merge with her nose, exposing her teeth that were peeping out of a permanently open mouth. Being ignorant and a poor farmer, her father hailing from Bandepalli mandal in Vizianagaram district had no hopes to see his daughter growing up to be anything but beautiful.
The ugly scar that her birth had seared into his heart will be his permanent companion---that was what he thought, until he read about a free plastic surgery camp being conducted by Dr. Dicksheet in Visakhapatnam recently in association with the IIM Alumni-Hyderabad chapter and CDR Hospitals.
That day when he attended the camp would not only change their live, but, more importantly, ink a bright future for Lakshmi. Mumbling a prayer, he watched his daughter being wheeled into the operation theatre of CDR Hospital, where the camp was held. And 15 minutes later, she came out with a bandaged mouth. And when the bandage was removed a little later, lo and behold, he could see Lakshmi having the cleft lip any longer! For the first time since she was born, the father, this time eyes filled with tears of joy, was seen telling his wife: ''Our daughter is beautiful.''
Like Lakshmi and her parents, there are tens of thousands of people who revere Dr. Dicksheet, a five-time Nobel Prize nominee, as God. For what he has done to their lives, only God could have done.
Indeed, he lights up their faces and illuminates their lives. No metaphor, no hyperbole, this is what Dr. Dicksheet does to those with congenital and other facial deformities, bringing the benign
smile to those faces.
Each surgery is a life-changing event as those infants who would have been killed or abandoned by their parents or died unable to suckle milk and young boys or girls who would have been unmarriageable or unable to work now see a difference altogether, thanks to him.
He has conducted nearly 70,000 surgeries to date to correct cleft lip, pallet, squint eyes, ptosis and other facial deformities. Since the inception of the India project by Dr. Dicksheet in 1968, there was apprehension as he was totally unknown, and very few people turned up at those camps. Things changed after a few camps and the number of children undergoing surgery multiplied. He also faced resistance from local plastic surgeons who later realised his motto. Today Government-run hospitals and other corporate hospitals instinctively provide free space for the conduct of his camps.
When members of the Hyderabad chapter of the IIM Alumni called on the then Governor, C. Rangarajan, requesting him to address their meeting, he advised them to hold a meeting with the public and for a social cause.
The Inspector-General of Police (computer services) and chairman of this project, S.V. Ramana Murthy, says: ''As cardiac, cancer and other operations are time consuming and require hospitalisation for a number of days, we started these plastic surgery camps after coming to know about Dr. Dicksheet's India Project Inc.
The first camp in Andhra Pradesh was held in Hyderabad in February 2000 for five-and-half days. The camp was inaugurated by then Director-General of Police, H.J. Dora, and the concluding ceremony was attended by Dr. Rangarajan.
The number of cases rectified during these camps in Hyderabad was 435 in 2000, 416 in 2001, 531 in 2002 and 670 in this month's camp. When Dr. Dicksheet wanted to extend these camps for other districts, Mr. Ramana Murthy, who belongs to Vizag, took the initiative to organise these camps in memory of his parents, and in 2001 the first camp was held in which 170 surgeries were performed to rectify various deformities. In 2002, he performed 231 operations and this month 400 surgeries.
Rambabu who came for a general checkup for ptosis (half eye closed) had no time to inform his family about the operation and was operated upon immediately and was advised bed rest for two hours after which he could return home and meet his family as a transformed person.
Krishna Rao, an electrician from Allipuram, who attended the camp for the second time for Dab (dermal abrasions) as it was operated upon in two stages.
Govind Rao of Srikakulam, who was suffering from cleft lip, was also a happy person after his facial defect was rectified.
Saroja Rao, a first year bio-tech student who was operated upon for ptosis, was all praise for Dr Dicksheet.
Ten-year-old Srikant attended the camp for the second time for Dab. His father, a muncipal school teacher, says that these camps must be encouraged they are is a service to humanity.
Dr Dicksheet, says it takes only 15-20 minutes to operate upon cleft lip, 5-7 minutes for squint, 7 to 10 minutes for ptosis and 1 to 2 minutes for Dab.
The plastic surgeon has a number of awards to his credit which include NRI World-Merril Lynch NRI of the Year 2001 (Dubai 2002), Kellog's Hannah Neil World of Children Award (US 2001), World Congress of Cosmetic Surgery Life Time Achievement Award (Mumbai 2001), Padma Sri (2001), Van Guards Award (1996) and American Society of Aesthetic Surgery Humanitarian Service Award (New York 1977).
His camps are held from October to April every year in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and AP.
Despite his grave illness during the recent camp Dr. Dicksheet conducted the free surgery camps from a wheel-chair. He had undergone triple bypass surgery, besides getting operated on for larynx cancer.
A septuagenarian, Dr. Dicksheet has established a trust to continue his work forever. ''After I am gone, the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons will receive a portion of the assets from my trust to continue his work,'' he says and added ''Overwhelmed by the public response, I intend conducting a camp every year on the same dates.''
Dr S K Dicksheet – man of compassion & courage
This is a profile of an incredible NRI who though affected with physical afflictions has fought against daunting odds to come up trumps and provide succor to millions of people in his country of origin INDIA. His name is Dr Sharad Kumar Dicksheet, who is bound to wheelchair, paralyzed by an unfortunate accident in 1978 in the prime of his life, he also lost his voice box to the dreaded ailment of cancer, which led to the removal of his larynx and neck muscles, and then he had to battle two heart attacks in the years 1988 and 1994. |  |
All this, and yet the man is unfazed and remains ever optimistic and full of spirits. He is reputed to be an incredibly quick plastic surgeon, who lights up the lives of thousands of poor Indians every year, giving them a new face and a new future and has performed over 45000 plastic surgeries in the past decade, visits India every year since 1968 and spends a hectic five months holding free plastic surgery camps for poorer sections of the people, held camps for Mumbai for the last 10 years every day for three weeks. His is a story, which is worth a reading.
His life and times – He was born in a simple and unassuming family in Wardha, Maharashtra, his family comprised of dad Sitaram Dixit and mom Maltibai, three brothers and three sisters who lived in a three room chawl in Wardha. In his childhood he was reputed to be a naughty and a bright child who played hooky, pulled off pranks, and popped tricky questions in the class to enjoy the embarrassment of his teachers and also possessed tremendous grasping power who helped his friends and even his elder siblings with their homework. His dad Sitaram Dixit, was a remarkable man who was in the British Postal Service who traveled to eastern Europe, Africa and west Asia during the World Wars, won a Victoria Cross for carrying salary sacks to safety, and retired as a postmaster, and also taught them swimming, painting and cycling, which was quite unconventional for girls of the thirties and forties and also lessons of simplicity, that is, pious and austere.
There was another man who impressed him and he was the India’s Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi and to this Dr Dicksheet says - I didn't understand why so many people lined up to see this simple man in dhoti and shawl with a walking-stick, I realized later and he was much more than the Father of the Nation -. The boy born in Pandharpur had unknowingly imbibed the spirit of service and sacrifice that had permeated Wardha, matriculating from Raddock High School (renamed Mahatma Gandhi School) in the year of Independence; Dicksheet went to college in Nagpur dreaming of entering the civil service.Later he wanted to become a doctor, obtained a seat in Nagpur Medical College, but let go of it because he thought his sister, Snehal, also wanted to become a doctor: the family could not afford the medical education costs of two children and young Dicksheet decided to do BSc. in Nizam's College, Hyderabad and for which he had a scholarship. His sister Snehal finally did not opt for medicine, so Diksheet joined the Medical College next year and said - I wanted to do medicine because doctors were respected and well-dressed, they also made good money -.After medical graduation in 1956, he had a six-month stint in the Railways, passed the Army Medical Corps exam and he also found himself among 50 Indian doctors who qualified for internships offered by the American Medical Association in hospitals across the United States. At that point he confesses he was in a dilemma whether to join the army or see the world and reveals that he was not allowed to travel abroad during his commission in the army and so deliberately flunked his medical tests.
To raise Rs 6000 to travel to the US, he took up a new job, saved Rs 5,000, borrowed the balance from a friend's father-in-law, and left for Wisconsin, U S A in 1958. The internship at Lutheran Hospital fetched him a $250 stipend out of which he sent $200 to his parents every month. He did a four-year surgery course in Grace Hospital near Detroit, and then specialized in plastic surgery, easily got a job in a Detroit clinic at $40,000 per annum but was always keen on returning to India. He says that when he came back to India in the year 1968 looking for a place to settle down, his friends told him to go back since there was no scope for a plastic surgeon in India, they suggested that I live in America and conduct surgery camps here and offered to organize the camps. The same year he participated in his first plastic surgery camp, organized by the Lions Club of Worli, Mumbai and that marked the beginning of his annual 'pilgrimages' to India. Plastic surgery was a new field in India and there were just a handful of specialists, he participated in the Mumbai camps for 10 years doing 30 surgeries every day for three weeks without payment. Mumbai went out of his camp schedule in 1978 because the crowds became unmanageable and the organizers had to call the police to escort him out. After the first camp in Mumbai, Dicksheet completed a course in ophthalmology in London in 1969, he had kept his eyes open while on his visit to India: he had seen a crying need for eye surgeons all over the country. In 1971 an industrialist invited him to a surgery camp in Dholka, near Ahmedabad, went just as an observer, and was shocked by two deaths due to the camp organizers' carelessness and lack of respect for life and it was then he realized the need for a good organization backed by dedicated people and professionally competent medical staff.
Meanwhile life in Fairbanks, USA where he had taken up a new job in the early seventies, was hectic in the midst of nose jobs, breast implants, and hair transplants and eye surgeries and on the other hand also indulged in a lot of skiing, water-skiing and played tennis in summer, he had a thriving and a successful plastic surgery practice in Fairbanks, Alaska, until a car accident in 1978 left the right side of his body paralyzed and changed the very facet of his life, death almost knocked at his doors, but he displayed indomitable spirit, he could not move his right hand and so he started using the left, and when he fully recovered three years later, he had become proficient in southpaw surgery. The accident took away his job and made good the loss by enabling him to win three cosmetic surgery fellowships in Mexico, where he worked with the world famous cosmetic surgeon Gurrero Santos; in New York, with Thomas Rees who specialized in celebrities; and in Switzerland, with body contour specialist Trudy Vogt, after which he taught at King's County Hospital in Brooklyn. Later he lost his voice box to cancer, had four surgeries at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, and his larynx and neck muscles were removed and could not speak for several years, he had a battery-operated device that he held near the throat each time he spoke; his voice sounded like a robot's, then learnt oesophagal speech using the food pipe, inhaling and exhaling air to modulate and since there is no connection between his nose and lungs, he breathes through his neck, a small metal tube in his throat keeps the food pipe open. The opening in the neck is covered with a special cloth that filters dust and that is the reason he finds it hard to breathe in warm, dusty weather. Another misfortune struck him when he had his first heart attack in 1988; had an angioplasty, the second attack, a massive one in January 1994, occurred while he was at a plastic surgery camp in Ahmedabad. Flown back to New York, he had bypass surgery at Mt Sinai Hospital.
His cardiologist, Dr Jonathan Halperin, described his condition as "acute anterior myocardial infarction", three of the arteries had blocks, and the entire anterior wall and lateral part of the heart had fibrosed. After discharge, the cardiologist advised him to have a heart transplant but Dicksheet did not want any more surgery on himself and he says that since 1982 doctors had been telling me I was going to die soon.For many years, Dicksheet was the only plastic surgeon in the camps in India and then he inspired other US surgeons to volunteer their services and paid their air fares and after he formed the 'India Project' with the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation, plastic surgeons from America have been flying in for two-week stints at the camps at their own expense, there are ten such regulars and for them the entire thing has been an experience of a lifetime: the camps offered them a chance to do community work and operate under tough conditions. In the year 1991 Dicksheet formed a $1.5 million trust with his life insurance for which he paid $45,000 a year and when invested the money fetched him more than $100,000 a year, part of it went for research and part to fund the expenses of plastic surgeons visiting the camps and he says - It should help others carry on his work after his lifetime, along with five other trusts he has formed in India, the camps have been successful for 25 years and I hope they will continue forever -.
He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in the year 1998 and 1999.
Personal Life – He had two broken marriages. Wilda Peterson, an American of Norwegian origin whom he met as a student in Wisconsin and married in 1961, left him four years later, the children, Shari and Sharad Jr., went with her: Sharad, majoring in music and today has his own band. Shari, who did her MBA, works in Michigan. In 1979 Dicksheet married Tapti Bose, 25 years his junior, who had met him for a nose surgery in Mumbai in 1975 and a year after their daughter Supriya was born, he was struggling with cancer, he said - I could not give her much of a family life, and so she asked for a divorce in 1989 a year after his first heart attack. Today he lives alone in Brooklyn,USA and does everything himself. He does a 15-minute puja in the morning, washes his clothes himself, and cooks his own food, does all his chores sitting down, and uses the wall as support to walk around. He writes articles for medical journals, corresponds with coordinators of the next camps in India, and listens to music and at bedtime, he recites verses from the ninth chapter of the Gita annotated by Annie Besant and has memorized the whole chapter.
He also loves Hindi old movies and is a fan of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, Mumtaz, Dev Anand and Madhuri Dixit.
Final Views - The surgeon has transformed the lives of numerous young women by giving them an eligible face and a new life and there are women who come back to the camps every year, not for follow-up surgery, but simply to thank him for making marriage possible and bring their husbands and children along. He remains a man of few words but work wise remains lightning quick in surgery though age has caught up with him.He says - One who serves the suffering is a real human being and God dwells in him. Gandhiji's message was the same that real service to God is service to humanity and calls the operation theatre as his temple, I see God in my patients.
ABOUT HIM a famous American surgeon Dr Janet Parler said he makes surgery look so simple, he has a phenomenal amount of endurance and stamina.
Modern Philanthropist
He is originally from the erstwhile South Kanara District of Karnataka state in India (now divided into Mangalore and Udupi District). After completing his graduate degree in Medicine and post-graduate work in General Surgery from Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, he trained in cardiac surgery at Guys Hospital in the United Kingdom. He gained valuable experience in heart operations in the West Midlands rotation. He returned to India in 1989 and initially worked at B.M. Birla Hospital in Kolkata in Eastern India. After some time, he moved to Bangalore and started the Manipal Heart Foundation at Manipal Hospital, Bangalore. He has many patients and admirers in Bangladesh and from all over the world, especially Southern Asia.
In 2002, Shetty founded Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH), a multi-specialty hospital in Bommasandra on the outskirts of Bangalore City (Karnataka State) in South India. Apart from cardiac surgery, NH also has cardiology, neurosurgery, pediatric surgery, haematology and transplant services, and nephrology. A state-of-the-art trauma hospital Sparsh and an ophthalmology hospital Narayana Nethralayaare the beginnings of the Narayana Health City. The health city will also house a center for neurosciences, a children's hospital, a cancer research centre and general hospital. He also founded Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS)in Kolkat
Yashasvini
Yashasvini is possibly the world's cheapest comprehensive health insurance scheme, at Rs.5 (11 cents) per month, designed by Shetty and the Government of Karnataka for the poor farmers of the state. It is very well-utilized in Karnataka with millions of members.
