Pain is my new friend.

This sentence expressed above got a whole new meaning in the past few days. Previously, when I heard all the trainers and especially Aamir Khan's *Ghajini* trainer Satyajit Chaurasia say this I thought I knew what they were saying (especially with all that working out). Armed with all that pain, I was but happy, with my endurance increasing steadily. This pain, who is supposed to be a friend, was like sweet nothings spoken by a lover --transient, fleeting, lifting, diverting but in the end, doing you good. I was getting stronger. I realized that the pain which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, and stranger.......only in a pleasant way, to your friends and family.

But now I think I know what being in pain is. It's different from the previously mentioned hand-in-hand friendship. This one truly gets into your skin and of course goes beyond skin-deep. I can feel it as I write this, as I'm able to do this with the help of another .................friend or enemy I knoweth not--the painkiller. Simple tasks that never engaged my mental faculties and challenged the physical ones, are making me pause.......in pain and realize that being someone normal and healthy is truly a blessing. Even though I had broken a wrist and toe before, this realization is recent.

Anyway, as I was saying, I thought I'd rather accept this and make the best out of it. Therefore, I made this condition another ingredient for my procrastination and was looking up journals with the keywords "pain and health"; thereby, abiding by one of the survival tenets of grad school--that nothing can be out of your reach....or research.

So! I find there are nice and wonderful articles up there. One among them got my attention like a red flag. However, it was due to a different reason than the keyword. The journal article didn't have anything to do with pain, but it reminded me of the pain and angst--of any usual grad student in their second year of Ph.d--of trying to find an innovating research topic (i.e. one that no one else in this whole wide and new world has ever thought of laying their hands on). Basically, this entails finding an intellectually virgin topic, which nonetheless leaves nobody a virgin (screws everybody).

Looking at this research topic, I'm just amazed at the lack of courage and imagination in ourselves. I mean, how on earth can we miss doing research on this? How? how? how? how? how?

[I know over-emphasizing isn't a child of repetition but I can't help it]

Here goes the title of the paper:

"Paan and Gutka Use in the United States: A Pilot Study in Bangladeshi and Indian-Gujarati Immigrants in New York City"


Uptill this, I felt like Tom Hanks in "Catch me if you Can".

Then, I read the abstract:


Abstract:

Smokeless tobacco & areca nut are popular with South Asians & South Asian immigrants, most commonly used as paan & gutka. Their regular use leads to oral cancer. The South Asian community in the U.S. is rapidly growing, where paan & gutka are readily available. The study was the first exploration of the migration of the paan & gutka habits, & their use in the U.S. A 108-item questionnaire on paan & gutka usage & beliefs was administered to 138 first-generation Bangladeshi & Indian-Gujarati immigrant adults at community sites in the New York metropolitan area. Forty-five percent Indian-Gujaratis reported ever-regular paan use; of which 5% are current users. Thirty-one percent reported ever-regular gutka use; of which 77% are current users. Thirty-five percent Bangladeshis reported ever-regular paan use; of which 70% are current users. Nine percent reported ever-regular gutka use; of which 67% are current users. Bangladeshis are more likely to identify paan as causing oral cancer. Indian-Gujaratis are more likely to identify gutka as causing oral cancer. Between the two communities, there were significant differences in paan & gutka usage, migration effects, & oral cancer risk perception. There is a need for comprehensive migration studies on the determinants of usage, & for community-specific interventions for these carcinogenic products.


Herein, I was totally floored, with the very pessimistic face of Tom Hanks. The object/objective couldn't possibly have been captured by the likes of us.
Apparently, you can churn out a whole study and publish on a topic that's overwhelmingly startling and innovative, based on just what the subjects "identify" as causes of cancer.

And when I come to think of it, I've always loved Paan-Parag, and made sure I always got a share whenever someone was going around with it.

That's what I call cutting-edge research, (pun intended) leading to more cringing pain among peers and would be peers . And no, this is not pain from heartburn but from failing to look closer. No wonder "bhabo na" and "jatona" were related so well by Tagore.

At the end of it, the headline is the punchline here. Pain is, after all, my friend, since it actually made my heart, head and nerves all nod in congruence with each other. For the first time in my life, I'm not in confusion.