A, B, O and We

I had an interesting discussion with Ganaraj, that ended up in some unanswered questions on Blood Group Antigens and Antibodies. He was so interested in the Immunophysiology of the Blood Group antigens that he really dragged me to the basics. By the way, I love it when something goes to its basic. Before I throw up those questions, let me give you some background story under which he came up with those questions.

We were discussing on the issues of importance of blood groups in determining the possible consanguinity in a marriage. I told him, it's hard to estimate the genetic resemblance of the partners by blood group alone. Blood Group antigens obey a certain inheritance pattern and represent one or a few specific genes but there are million others to be considered! He then raised his question of the child getting affected by the mother's immune system if the child belongs to a blood group other than that of the mother. He was concerned about the Hemolytic Disease of the New Born. To explain that, I had go back to the basics. By the way, Ganaraj is a techie and he is no way "academically" concerned with the life sciences. Here's what I explained him.

What is an Antigen? Before jumping on the properties of an Antigen and all that stuff, Antigen is basically a Protein. And so, it has all the basic characteristics of a protein, plus some other special qualities. Further dissecting, Proteins are complex molecules, with amino acids as their building blocks. There are 20 different amino acids which all the living beings on Earth use to synthesise a protein. The "number" of amino acids and the "sequence" of the amino acids in a protein is determined by the Master Code, "DNA." So, that makes it clear - One "set of DNA (or a Gene)" codes for one 'set of amino acids' (i.e., a Protein)! So far so good? "Yes," he said, "Continue."

Alright, Antigen is a protein, mostly a protein. There are some Polysaccharide Antigens and many others, but to keep it simple, I am not considering them. Once again, antigen is a protein, made up of amino acids, the number and sequence of which are determined by a Gene. That is common to any protein. Apart from that, Antigen is special in that it is found on the surface of a cell. In other words, Antigens are found in the membranes of the cell and that makes Antigen a cell-membrane-protein! At the molecular level, these antigens are the "identity marks" of a cell which are very important in "communicating" with other cells. It is like an "Username" and "Domain" for you email address - using the same alphanumeric code (A-Z, 0-9) multiple email addresses can be created which are "unique" to an user. Similarly, the amino acids can be arranged (as dictated by their DNA sequence) and used as "username" by the cells while they communicate. "I am with you," Ganaraj allowed me to continue.

Let's go back to the time when we slept comfortably in our mothers' wombs. Ahh.. How comfortable it was! Anyways, while we slept carefree, there were million things happening at the molecular level because of which we are able to now breathe comfortably. We began our journey as a single cell with its DNA containing every single information needed to build this heavy functional machinery. That cell underwent divisions and multiplications to form a big bunch of cells. All of them had the same DNA but somehow, one group of cells decided to become Liver, some went on to become Heart, some became Brain and so on. How did this happen? Though they contained information about everything, they chose to express only what they wanted. They sort of "specialised" in their expression of the Genetic code. So, each of those cells chose an "username" for themselves. The Immune System was also developing at this time; to keep it simple, Immune system means White Blood Cells (WBCs), and it was quietly building its "Contacts List." As blood circulated to almost all the cells, these White Blood Cells went on communicating with them. Every time it got a "friend request," it identified the "Antigens" on the cell membranes and added those "Usernames" to its "contacts list." By 5th to 6th month of our life in the womb, its "Address Book" becomes complete and it would no longer accept any friend requests. The Spam Guard is now turned on, so to say!

So, from now onwards, any emails from persons NOT in the address book will be reported spam and dealt seriously; I mean, after this maturation of Immune system, if any protein other than the "Self Protein" enters the blood stream, it will be recognised as "Foreign" and an antibody response will be triggered. I have explained in my previous blog "Molecular Battlefield," how an antibody generation is triggered. Antibodies are produced by "specialised" White Blood Cells when the body is exposed to a "Foreign" Antigen. Antibodies are complimentary in structure to that of the Antigen and they fit exactly into their respective antigens like a "lock and its key." Oh, by the way, even antibodies are proteins and these are "dissolved" in the "fluid" of the blood, unlike antigens which are found on the membranes of the cells.

"Wait a minute," Ganaraj interrupted me at this time. "What about all those proteins we eat daily? Do they generate an antibody response?" Great question, you see. Perfectly logical. Yes, they would trigger an antibody response, IF ONLY they were to directly enter our blood stream. But our digestive tract is very efficient in digesting the proteins. The Hydrochloric Acid in the stomach and other digestive juices and enzymes in the intestines break down the proteins to their basic building blocks. No matter what protein you ingest, ultimately, it gets broken down into those 20 amino acids which will be absorbed by the intestines and sent into the blood stream. Amino acids are too "light" in terms of Molecular weight and hence, they do not trigger an Antibody response.

Now let's consider the Antibodies to these Antigens. According to Landsteiner's Law (after Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian Pathologist), if an Antigen is present on the membranes of the RBCs, it's corresponding Antibody will be absent in the blood; if an Antigen is 'absent' on the membranes of the RBCs, then it's corresponding Antibody 'must be present in the blood.' Computing this law for the ABO system of the blood groups, we can tabulate certain conclusions as depicted in the following diagram:

"Sounds logical," said Ganaraj and allowed me to continue. I then, described the other medically important system, Rh. The "Rh Positive" individuals have an "Rh" antigen on their RBCs and hence, do NOT contain Anti-Rh Antibodies in their blood. The "Rh Negative" individuals do NOT contain "Rh" Antigen on their RBCs... "I got it," Ganaraj interrupted. "And therefore, they contain Anti-Rh Antibodies in their blood!"

"No. That's wrong," I continued. "An Rh-Negative individual does NOT contain Anti-Rh Antibodies in his blood! This is an exception to Landsteiner's Law." "Oh! OK," he allowed me to continue, but he was not satisfied with the explanation. I continued, "But when an "Rh Negative" individual gets exposed to "Rh" Antigen, he would then start producing Anti-Rh Antibodies." This one was logical, and he accepted this.

So, let's consider a woman who is "Rh Negative." If she gets pregnant with an "Rh Positive" baby, what would happen? "Nothing. Why should something happen?" Ganaraj was clear but I wanted him to know something more. Yes, nothing would happen until the delivery but during the delivery, some amount of baby's blood would enter the mother's blood due to rupture of Placenta. Now, the baby's RBCs carrying "Rh" Antigen would be treated as "intruders" by the mother's immune system and she would start producing Anti-Rh Antibodies in about 72 hrs. "By this time," Ganaraj added correctly, "the baby would be out and safe!" Yes. He was right. By the time she produces Anti-Rh Antibodies (3 days after delivery), the baby is no longer dependant on the mother's blood for nutrition! But the problem is, the next time she gets pregnant with an "Rh Positive" baby, she would have already had Anti-Rh Antibodies circulating in her blood and that would cross the placenta and attack the second baby's RBCs. That is what is medically termed "Hemolytic Disease of the New Born."

"Can we NOT prevent this blood-mixing at the time of delivery?" he questioned again. It's practically impossible, as the mixing occurs at microscopic levels. But there's hope. After the delivery, we have 3 days at our disposal to prevent the mother's immune system from producing Anti-Rh Antibodies. What we can do is, inject some "Neutralising Antibodies" which would mask the baby's RBCs carrying "Rh" Antigen from being recognised by the mother's immune system and that's exactly what is done routinely.

"But, I have another question," he continued. His earlier suppressed doubt now surfaced up. "Well, going back to the basics, Antigen is something that is present since birth. Antibodies are produced when the immune system is exposed to "Foreign" antigens. How can a O+ve individual produce Anti-A and Anti-B antibodies without being exposed to the "A" and "B" Antigens? I mean, what's the basis of Landsteiner's Law?" His question was perfectly logical. Even I had this question in my mind when I was in my med school. With all due "respects" to my Alma Mater, my physiology professors were so lousy that I dared not to ask them questions, that made sense! Fortunately, now I am associated with someone who is at the other end of the spectrum and he doesn't mind even if I ask him the silliest of the questions. So, I paused the discussion with Ganaraj until I discussed it with my professor.

Meanwhile, I opened this discussion on Facebook and some of you contributed to that. Anirudh came up with an idea of exposure to "A" and "B" antigens through gut (digestive tract). I was apprehensive about two issues at that time - how would an "A Positive" blood enter the digestive tract of a O+ve individual, unless that O+ve individual "drinks" it (as a contaminant)? OK, even if it enters, it should be broken down into amino acids by the digestive juices. Even if it "somehow" enters the blood stream triggering Antibody response, why doesn't the same phenomenon occur to Rh system? Then, Anirudh came up with another interesting approach. Exposure of "A" and "B" Antigens through the placenta during our "womb-days." I had two more issues at this time - what if the mother is also O+ve? How can she expose her baby to the "A" and "B" Antigens? And also, if it is exposed during the "womb-days," the immune system should recognise those antigens as "Self-Antigens" and should NOT mount an Antibody response!

With all these doubts, I went to my professor. Before he answered, he first took time to appreciate the questions! That made me comfortable and curious as well. He explained, "There are certain strains of E. coli (an harmless bacteria in our digestive tract) and some of their antigens resemble the Human "A" and "B" Antigens in their molecular structure. This is a sort of 'Antigenic Mimicry'!! Blood group "AB" individuals recognise these antigens as "Self Antigens" and they do NOT mount any response; the "A" individuals mount response only to "B-resembling" Antigen; the "B" individuals mount response only to "A-resembling" Antigen; and the "O" group individuals mount response to both "A-resembling" and "B-resembling" Antigens.

"Wow," I exclaimed, "that's interesting!" "That's not all," he continued. "Mounting these antibodies is believed to help the individual in fighting off the E. coli, if it 'misbehaved' and so, blood group "O" individuals are able to better tolerate the infection than "AB" individuals. That's one of the explanations as to why there are more "O" group individuals in the world than are the "AB" group individuals!"

"So, this can be explained by Darwin's theory of Natural Selection?" I became even more curious. He explained me that I was right in guessing. "If you look at the DNA sequence of the Gene coding for "A" Antigen, it very closely resembles the DNA sequence of the related Gene in "O" group individuals. So, it means, the "A" Gene must have mutated and got silent, without expressing any Antigen (that's what is "O" group) and this mutation must have given a "survival benefit" to the individuals in fighting off the bacterial infection and hence must have been Naturally Selected and propagated!"

"Ahhh..." I took a nice long audible breath. That was absolutely a brilliant explanation. But my professor, had got something more to add to the believed theory. "This observation of 'there are more O group individuals than A' holds good only in the tropical countries. If you see the Scandinavian countries, there are equal or more "A" group individuals than "O." My experience on the study of Malaria parasite tells me that there are certain "Malarial Antigens" which resemble "A" and "B." So, I believe, this "O" group must have added benefit against Malarial infection also!"

"That gives us a whole new dimension to look at Malaria and the blood groups!" I was thrilled. "But what about the Rh system?" I asked him again. "Oh, Chethan, that's another interesting story," he continued. "Karl Landsteiner and Alexander Wiener were working on the blood groups when they were unable to explain an adverse reaction. Some "A" group individuals developed adverse reactions even if they were given another Group "A" blood. This made them think, there must be another system of blood group and they went in search of that. Wiener observed that humans and monkeys (a Rhesus monkey) shared a common antigen. He took the blood of the monkey, injected into Guinea pigs to get trigger antibodies against that antigen and used those antibodies to classify the human blood. Blood of some individuals "reacted" with those antibodies while blood of other individuals did NOT "react" to them. Those that reacted, were believed to be having a "Rhesus" Antigen and they were termed "Rh Positive" (Rh stands for Rhesus) and others were "Rh Negative." Including this system in the blood grouping reduced the no. of 'adverse reactions' and this came to be known as the "Rh System."

"But there was some confusion about the claim. An obstetrician, during those times, had observed the babies getting affected by mother's immune system. He used the serum (fluid part of the blood) of those mothers to classify the human blood. Some blood samples reacted positive and some reacted negative. This classification very closely resembled Wiener's Rh System. And hence, there was dissatisfaction regarding the claim of "Rh" Antigen. Careful studies have now shown that, what Landsteiner and Wiener had discovered is NOT "Rh" Antigen but something else. It is now named "LW" Antigen, LW standing for Landsteiner-Wiener. What the obstetrician had discovered was the actual "Rh" Antigen. Therefore, although Rh stands for Rhesus, Rh antigen is not found in monkeys. It's unique to human blood. "LW" antigen is what humans share with monkeys!"

His explanation was not at all esoteric. It was an easy listening to me, as if I was listening to a piece of instrumental music - a soothingly joyful experience. In simple words, he had explained me a whole chapter of physiology. It was as if teaching me, "If you want to convey something effectively, keep it simple!"

On A Scientist Par Excellence

P R E L U D E

Let me begin with a famous Indian fable - “Six blind men and an elephant,” because a lot of concepts involved herein are better understood with this analogy. There were six blind men who wanted to know what an elephant was. They were hence taken to an elephant itself and given an opportunity to feel it for themselves. Each one touched the elephant and got an idea how it was. When they were asked to describe how an elephant looked like, the first blind man said, “The elephant is like a snake.” That was because he had only touched its trunk! The second blind man having touched only its tusk, described it as a sharp, stout and a weapon-like thing. The third one, having touched only its legs, described it as a hard pillar-like substance and the fourth man, having touched its belly said, “The elephant is a hard spherical mass like a rock.” The fifth one touched its ears and described it as a thick, leaf-like animal and the last blind man, having touched only its tail, concluded that the elephant was a long, worm-like animal! There were serious fights among the six men as to who was correct. Then, they were told that everyone was ‘partially’ right because they had only touched a ‘part’ of the elephant and that putting them all together forms the real picture of the elephant.

--

The nineteenth century witnessed some of the greatest scientific discoveries and technological advances. While the discoveries in the fields of Physics and Chemistry were readily accepted and appreciated, the advances in the field of Biology were condemned. The single most important reason was it confronted religious beliefs. There were widespread oppositions from the religious leaders and fanatics. Even though a British natural historian, Charles Darwin came up with a revolutionary idea, he waited almost two decades collecting sufficient evidences to stand the test of the religious opposition.

The situation was not new to the western religions. Scientists like Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei were ridiculed and punished for challenging the geocentric descriptions (that the Earth was the centre of the Universe and the Sun and other celestial bodies revolved around it) found in the Christian Biblical works like Psalm. Therefore, in the year 1859, when Charles Darwin published his book, “On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection,” religious fanatics turned red-hot.

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution refuted the Biblical belief of God’s creation of life on Earth and Human Beings in six days and that occurred 10,000 years ago. For Darwin’s theory of evolution to be true it was essential to prove three things. One, the Earth was much older than 10,000 years to have allowed sufficient time for evolution; two, the complex species that exist today had descended from one or a few simpler and common ancestors; and three, the driving force for species to evolve. Even if one of them was disproved, his theory would simply collapse.

The creationists have attacked these assumptions time and again but the judgement has been going in favour of evolutionists at most times. Darwin’s speculation that the Earth is older in the order of millions of years is strongly supported by the radiometric dating by the geologists. They estimate that the Earth is at least 3.56 Billion years old! Darwin was right in his first assumption.

The assumption of common ancestors is now supported by fossil records. Radiometric dating of the fossils now reveals that the simpler fossils were older than the more complex fossils. This supports the origin of more complex organisms from simpler ancestors.

“Natural Selection” – one of the most breathtaking ideas ever – provided the answer for the driving force in nature that causes the species to evolve. Just as a farmer prefers the crops with better yield to the low-yielders for further cultivation, Darwin proposed that the nature selects the individuals with favourable traits to pass them on to their next generation. For example, among the deer’s it is more likely for a deer with faster legs to survive the attack of predators than a normal deer. This is how nature selects the faster deer. There are thousands of such examples.

While the physical evidences were going in favour of Evolution, and against the western religious beliefs, the first serious threat to Darwinism came not by fundamental Christians but by scientists themselves. Towards the end of 19^th century scientists challenged the long term effects of these favourable variations. Their argument was, of course the faster deer was more likely to survive but when it has to mate, it is more likely to mate with a normal deer and so the offspring would be a blend of the two characteristics – a half-faster deer! And when that half-faster deer mates with a normal deer, the offspring would only be a quarter-faster deer! Therefore the argument focussed on successive dilution of the variations which brings the equation back to where it started! Natural Selection was pushed to dark…

The blend of the characteristics into a “half-faster” progeny was merely a hypothesis. None of the scientists who argued on successive dilution of the variations really tested it seriously because it just ‘sounded’ logical. In 1865, when an Austrian Monk called Gregor Johann Mendel presented a paper on the ‘Experiments on Plant Hybridization,’ he confronted the belief of the ‘blend of characteristics’ but nobody paid enough attention to it. Next year the paper was published in ‘Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brunn’ but it was criticised and discarded. Darwin passed away in 1882 and Mendel died two years later. Thus, by the end of the 19^th century, the ‘Theory of Evolution’ was written a scientific obituary!

If you consider these theories to be some person, I put it this way – the guy went into Cardiac Arrest! Cardiac arrest is not death, after all. In 1900, two scientists – Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns – understood the ‘Experiments on Plant Hybridization’ like never-before and the theory was given a successful Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), so to say! All of a sudden it sprung back to life and became popularly known as “Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance.” With the ‘Laws of Inheritance’ accounting for the passage of the variations down the generation, Darwinism came back to the scientific front with vengeance!

Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance provided tremendous insight into one’s “Vehicles of Heredity” or “Genes.” The 20^th century made enormous progress on the path shown by Mendel. More and more interesting facts were discovered – the chromosomes, the genes, De-oxyribose Nucleic Acid (DNA) and its ‘twisted-ladder’ structure and the molecular techniques of comparing the DNA of different samples like Nucleic Acid Hybridisation etc…

These technological advances were at once used to test Darwin’s hypothesis and Bingo! The more it was explored the louder was the judgement in favour of Evolution! Here are some important findings. All living creatures use the same set of 20 amino acids to build their proteins. The DNA code for these amino acids is same in all of them. For e.g., ‘UUU’ codes for the amino acid, Phenyl alanine in bacteria, in fungi, in plants, in crustaceans, in fish, in mammals and name-it-any species! This clearly demonstrates that the blueprint for all the living creatures was derived from one or few common ancestors. It doesn’t stop there. Analysing the DNA samples from different species shows direct relationship between the extent of the resemblance and the proximity of their relationship in the evolution. For e.g., Human DNA is 96% similar to that of the Chimpanzees, 75% similar to that of the Dogs and 33% similar to that of the Daffodils! This clearly shows that we are more closely related to Chimpanzees than Dogs or Daffodils. Darwin was more than right again!

Through most of the 20^th century Darwinism grew exponentially. The sad thing about this is it inculcated ‘Materialism’ into one’s thinking and seemed to support atheism, which it should not have. There were revolts and judicial proceedings on whether Darwin’s theory of Evolution should be taught in high school biology. The intention was not to disprove evolution but to prevent the growing atheism. Judgements seemed to fluctuate between the two ends and the topic remained a mystery for decades until the next big threat to Darwinism came with the proposal of the ‘Theory of Intelligent Design’ by Philip E. Johnson.

This theory wasn’t totally different from the biblical description of creation according to Genesis. It just scientifically altered the theory to sound more logical. It brought into an ‘Intelligent Designer’ who crafted the life deftly and intentionally and opposed the crude undirected ‘Natural Selection’ as the driving force for evolution. Biochemist Michael Behe joined Johnson’s ‘Intelligent Design’ with the concept of ‘Irreducible Complexity.’ Irreducible complexity means, some of the structures like the ‘eye’ in most species and ‘flagella’ of the bacteria are so complex that they cannot be reduced to their components which can function independently. The lens of the eye cannot function independently of the retina and nor can the retina function without lens. His argument implied that the lens and the retina didn’t evolve independently but were designed ‘intelligently!’

William Dembsky’s mathematical calculation to prove that the chances of evolution of Humans from bacteria are so less that such an event is not just ‘improbable’ but ‘impossible,’ became another nail in the coffin for Evolution. Also the evolution could not account for the development of ‘Intelligence’ and ‘Awareness,’ which could be explained by the ‘Intelligent Design.’ The Evolutionists are working on the challenges of propellers of ‘Intelligent Design’ and are successful to some extent but by and large, the tug-of-war between Evolutionists and Creationists has been 50-50 with no clear outcome as of now. Only four out of ten Americans today believe in Evolution, the rest voting for Creationism!

I was wondering which way to go. I asked myself what my heart felt like. I could not find a clear-cut answer. Being an Indian, I decided to explore how the religious India reacted to the theory of Evolution, and was that any similar to that of the western religious society. I found a very convincing answer provided by an Indian Scientist way back in 19^th century itself – so much so that I could close the Evolution-Creation debate with concrete evidence and total conviction!

19^th January 1896, New York

A 33 year old Indian Scientist was addressing an American gathering on the topic, “The Macrocosm.” Mind you, this was a pre-genetic era when Darwinism and the theory of Evolution were still shaky. But the answer was already there with this Scientist!

The lecture opened with some of the basic questions that have crossed almost every sane mind at some point or the other. “What is the Universe made up of? Whence is this?” The scientist continues, “Millions of attempts have been made to answer it, yet millions of times it will have to be answered again. It is not that each answer was a failure; every answer to this question contained a part of truth, and this truth gathers strength as time rolls on. I will try to present before you the outline of the answer that I have gathered from the ancient philosophers of India, in harmony with modern knowledge.”

He began his explanation with some of the subtle observations in the Nature. He observed that some things in Nature though seemingly different were actually a part of the spectrum of a bigger thing. For example, a seed and a tree. Though seemingly different, they are a part of the bigger spectrum of the plant life, each one leading to the other. The seed is a finer form of the plant and over a period of time it develops into a grosser form, i.e., a tree. The tree in turn dies out leaving behind a finer form, the seed. Same is the case with a chicken and an egg. They aren’t two different things to argue which one came first. They are one and the same. Man and his germ cells are no exception to this phenomenon.

“So is the case with everything in nature by which we are surrounded. We know that the huge mountains are being worked upon by glaciers and rivers, which slowly but surely pounding them and pulverising them into sand, that drift away into the ocean where it settles down on its bed, layer after layer, becoming hard as rocks, once more to be heaped up into mountains of a future generation. From sand rise these mountains, unto sand they go,” explained the scientist.

With these analogies, the scientist derives the equation, “Destruction means going back to the cause.” He continues, “Therefore we learn that the effect is the same as the cause, not different. It is only in another form.” Next, the scientist applies this law to the Universe taken as a whole, because of its uniformity. “This universe must be resolved into its causes; the sun, moon, stars, and earth, the body and mind, and everything in this universe must return to their finer causes, disappear, be destroyed as it were. But they will live in the causes as fine forms. Out of these fine forms they will emerge again as new earths, suns, moons and stars.”

With this new understanding, the creationists and evolutionists seemed to me like those blind men trying to understand a huge elephant called Universe. Both of them were right in their own way but they were only ‘partially’ right. They seemed to me like the components of a jig-saw puzzle – though the individual components seemed to be complete, they lack something. When the components are properly arranged, they merge into one another, revealing a bigger complete picture, of which they are only a part!

The bigger picture was nothing but the finer cosmic energy – call it God or whatever – getting evolved firstly into the earth, sun, moon etc and secondly into the living cell and the organisms which later Darwin explained how they evolved into man. The whole thing was one process. As if man developed from his first cell, the zygote – growing into the blastula, which later on develops into foetus, then comes out the womb as a baby, grows up into an infant, a child and then finally into an adult. If you observe carefully, Man didn’t just ‘evolve’ from the zygote; he was ‘involved’ in it! The young scientist put this concept into words, “No rational man can possibly quarrel with these evolutionists. But we have to learn one thing more. We have to go one step further, and what is that? That every evolution is preceded by an involution.”

He also appealed for peace from the evolutionists, “The whole of this universe was present in the cosmic fine universe. The little cell which becomes afterwards the man, was simply the involved man and becomes evolved as a man. If this is clear, we have no quarrel with the evolutionists, for we see that if they admit this step, instead of their destroying religion, they will be the greatest supporters of it!”

Let me close this discussion with another quote of this scientist, “If that is so, take this whole evolutionary series, from the protoplasm at one end to the perfect man at the other, and this whole series is one life. In the end we find the perfect man, so in the beginning it must have been the same. Therefore, the protoplasm was the involution of the highest intelligence. You may not see it, but that involved intelligence is what is uncoiling itself until it becomes manifested in the most perfect man. It, therefore, follows absolutely that the perfect man, the free man, the God-man, who has gone beyond the laws of nature, and transcended everything, who has no more to go through this process of evolution, through birth and death, that man called the “Christ-man” by the Christians, the “Buddha-man” by the Buddhists, and the “Free” by the Yogis – that perfect man who is at one end of the chain of evolution was involved in the cell of the protoplasm, which is at the other end of the same chain.”

Breath-taking, isn’t it? I am sure, by now, you have guessed who this scientist is. Who else can it be other than the dynamic Swami Vivekananda? He is no politician to make blind statements. It is with logical proof that he derived his famous equation, “Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within, by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy - by one, or more, or all of these - and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.”

Now please excuse me, I not only run short of words to describe his life and works but also I have no authority to do so. I just happened to share with you whatever little I understood of his lecture, on “The Macrocosm.” Considering only this lecture to explain him makes me just another blind man explaining the elephant, but given my ambit that is all I can do. No matter what the elephant looks like, one thing is sure, it’s gigantic. No matter what Swami Vivekananda looks to you, to me he is a Scientist par Excellence!

Darwinism

It has been a long time since I saw a Kannada movie by name “Gouri Ganesha” but I keep recollecting certain sequences from the movie again and again. Not because it has some unparalleled comic scenes in it but because it gives a moral in the end. Those of you who have missed the moral or have not yet seen the movie, please go watch it, it’s worth it. If you aren’t familiar with Kannada language, I pray someone comes up with English subtitles or a remake of this more than 15 year old movie!

Let me brief up the story for you. The story revolves around an intelligent unemployed bachelor struggling to make his living in a metropolitan city. His cunning wit not only helps him cheat people and earn him that day’s living but also gets him caught time and again for his pranks. Next, he moves around the city in search of a new scapegoat only to get caught again. The story gets good momentum when he finds the diary of a deceased damsel in a mortuary and gets to know the intricate details of incidences in her life and persons behind her sorrows. She would have had escaped the clutches of three men in her life to remain chaste but ultimately would have failed to sum up the money required for the cardiac surgery for her illness which would have claimed her life. But the men are under the delusion that she isn’t chaste. The protagonist uses his resourceful wit to create a fictitious son for her and each of the three men believes themselves to be the biological father of that child and sends money to the protagonist assuming him to be the caretaker! The fixed monthly income solves the basic problem of the unemployed protagonist and things turn out to be favourable until a day when all the three men coincidently visit him to meet their sons. The movie reaches the climax when they all find out the truth and attack him. The protagonist confesses that he lied to them but he justifies it by saying he did it for his living. He then questions them, as to why is it that they believed him and sent him the money. They turn speechless. He ends the drama by saying; they were cheated because they had in them some weakness and their weakness was their lust. Also he urges the audience to correct their weaknesses, for as long as one has a weakness there are always guys like him to exploit it!

How meaningful it is! But the irony is that most people fail to take the moral of the movie and keep getting into troubles. You know how? Surf some Indian news channels at night (local time), and I am sure you will find some “Crime Stories” being aired. People watch them but they don’t learn anything from them. That is why most episodes have similar crime sequences! To illustrate a few, some stranger goes to a village and promises to double any amount of money given to him within just six months. He does so for a couple of months and sets the final trap. One fine day the stranger vanishes with a huge amount of money and people find the truth a hard pill to swallow. Viewers often tend to blame only the cheat and forget that it was the greed of the cheated that got them into the scandal. What’s worst is some people get cheated by the same person again and again. That reminds me of a proverb: “If you are cheated by the same person twice, then probably you deserve it!”

Well, if you observe closely, there are many incidents happening around us (or with us) that work on this “Weakness” principle. The stock market gives a huge return to some investors and that always comes at the cost of many people losing their investment. The gamble here is partly luck and partly intelligence. One who has the right information of the share market invests cautiously where as the ignorant erratically loses the gamble. This can very well illustrate that knowledge is strength and ignorance is weakness and wherever the weakness is exposed, it is exploited!

Now, who doesn’t have weakness? Well, in some way or the other, everyone has! I mean everyone. The rich? Yes. Richness is their weakness. Anytime, anything can happen in business and the equation may all of a sudden reverse, turning people from riches to rags. Same is the case with politicians. One defeat in the elections can push them to dark. Celebrities? Yes. A couple of flops in their endeavours can make the public forget them. That’s why you see those celebrities, politicians and business executives so very generous (?) when they visit Thirupati! The astrologers are intelligent enough to exploit their weakness!

If you read the Hindu Mythology, there are several instances where demons perform penance and get extraordinary boons from Gods and Goddesses and misuse the powers. The Gods then struggle to sketch a death plan to end their tyranny. For a moment, I wondered, why do the Gods grant them those boons? It is because, even God has weakness! Yes, goodness is God’s weakness and the demons exploit it!

Ah… when God himself has weakness, who else is spared? Practically none. Everyone has an element of either Greed or Lust or Anger or Jealousy or Ego or Pride. Sit back and reflect upon yourself. I am sure; you will discover your weaknesses. You need not feel bad about it. In fact, you should be happy that you ‘discovered’ it. Some weaknesses can be overcome. This is where a ‘Guru’ (teacher) or the company of good people can help you. And some weaknesses cannot be overcome. That is where you need to use your intelligence to hide them. Remember, there is a proverb, never show your enemy where you bleed.

As Charles Darwin puts it, there is struggle for existence at all the strata of life. One’s strength is another’s weakness. The lion’s power is the deer’s weakness. The deer’s amazing speed is the lion’s weakness. In the end, Darwinism says, “It is neither the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Wow! Look at his prophecy! He just summarises the whole essence of life. The humans struggle against bacteria. The bacteria struggle against the human immune system. Humans through their intelligence found out antibiotics. If ‘intelligence’ alone were to be the criteria for the ‘survival of the fittest’, there should have been no harmful bacteria. But look at the nature. The bacteria are responsive to change! They develop alternative biochemical pathways once their niche changes and that’s what we now call “Antibiotic Resistance.”

So, whether you are mighty or weak, intelligent or dull, rich or poor, human or bacteria, you continue to struggle. As long as you struggle, you live. Therefore, as long as you live, you struggle!