Opinion
Colombo crow and Mark Twain’s sparkling notes on the Indian crow
By Lokubanda Tillakaratne
On January 13, 1896, Mark Twain, the American novelist and humorist sailed to Colombo aboard the steamer SS Oceana on the way to Bombay, now known as Mumbai. He had a one-day layover and stayed in the Bristol Hotel near the harbor. The following day he left for Bombay.
Upon arriving in Sri Lanka, he wrote in his diary, “Dear me, it is beautiful! … and conveys whole libraries of sentiments, and Oriental charm and mystery and tropic deliciousness…” During his short stay in Colombo, the novelist also took a rikshaw ride to Galle Face. There, strolling on the green were plump-faced ladies in Victorian vogue, and probably English-speaking crows having leisure time.
The scene must have tricked the American into thinking he landed in the English Bard’s City of Kites and Crows (London) or its Victoria Park. But he found “what a dream it was of tropical splendours of bloom and blossom, and Oriental conflagrations of costume …always the arrangement compelled the homage of the eye and made the heart sing for gladness.” That was our Colombo then.
He no doubt saw and heard hullabaloos of crows in Colombo, later came to be known in the vernacular as Kolomba Kaakko. When he got to Bombay, however, he found out that his hotel balcony had already been booked by a gang of Indian crows for a conference of sorts. I reproduce in verbatim later in this essay his expressive observations of this gathering which he wrote in his travelogue, Following the Equator in 1897.
When researchers on avian affairs spent millions to learn how crows live, Mark Twain did it without spending a cent one afternoon sitting on a hotel balcony. He called the crow Bird of Birds and a work of art. But before we go to his notes about them, let me introduce what we see in our own Colombo crows.
They are perhaps the most ubiquitous, repulsive and noisiest of animals. Musical instruments cannot emulate their cawing, because a group cawing is always in disharmony.
There are village crows, and there are city crows. Village crows are mostly those stop-over types for refueling and restocking while flying towards Colombo and other big cities looking for five-course buffets. Among the big cities too, only those in Colombo were good enough to get the moniker Kolomba Kaakko. They hate it because they feel, rightly so, that they are universal, not just limited to a stingy city.
But crows are part of our life and history closer than you think. Crow’s Feet under the manicured eye socket remind us that we can see Hamara Banawara (last rites) on the horizon. Long ago, Kolomba Kaakko was an influential voting block. They were able to carve out a seaside section of Colombo and name it after them – Crow Island, their own little Galle Face green.
To many, crows are a despised sight. King Nissanka Malla in Polonnaruwa wrote on stone that a crow should not be compared to a swan. Among the cheery birds in an aviary, crows are flat prose. They are full of ill-humor – the way they walk, dull colour, always tiptoeing like a band of burglars with the intent of grabbing something and getting away.
When they are around, we cannot help but think of them as pickpockets. They have no moral scale. But they are least worried about the negativity ascribed to them. A crow always looks young, for he is a master in how to keep floodmarks of age camouflaged.
The crows possess an abundance of paraphernalia to take over a situation. When two of them get close, they just want to talk – mostly ridicule or feel sorry for people at the bus halt, calculus of the last night’s gazette notification or laugh out about a recent Social Media clip. One dead crow can assemble an army of comrades in minutes when the news spreads across the city. Then they gather around the dead body and wail, which sounds like an orchestra playing without a conductor. Then they fly out for other business in the city.
Oppressively Sociable (Mark Twain, 1897).
We wake up with the crows; rather, they ring up our wake-up call. They keep us company in many ways than all the birds around us combined. They are historic creatures. Caricatures of them are found on the walls of burial chambers of the Great Pyramid. Yet no stonecutter in ancient Sri Lanka thought it proper to carve a crow on a Moonstone. A crow atop a pyramid is a photographer’s dream.
If someone belittles a crow, he teaches us magnanimity. He just hops out to another perch or flies away. There are times when they are collectively considerate. During Perahera nights in Kandy, leaving the lake bund all to people, Kandy crows move out voluntarily to nearby Udawattekale forest so they can use toilet facilities in private.
When the city concludes the lunch hour, the Kolomba Kaakko, too, finish business. They assemble on tree tops on the banks of the Diyavanna Oya to parley and listen to fuming oratory streaming out from the bowels of the big house built on its island. Every so often they applaud the candor or excoriate the venom of these orators. Then begin to ponder the heavy yoke of the big house people are under. s
If Mark Twain took the rickshaw ride to Diyavanna Oya, and heard the big house debates, he would repeat words on crows here without a syllable missing – “(an orator) never thinks about anything but heaves out the opinion that is on top in his mind, and which is so often an opinion about some quite different thing and does not fit the case. But that is his way; his main idea is to get out an opinion, and if he stopped to think, he would lose chances.”
Occasionally crows can be gullible too. The most epic example is how one poor crow lost his piece of cake when a hungry jackal pulled off the heist just by wheedling over and over and over. Well, if we are to believe Mark Twain, and for no reason not to, that wheedling instance must have been an anomaly. Like students in a university, crows think they know everything or conduct themselves like that.
Mark Twain had mixed feelings about crows. This is what he wrote about them after observing their gathering on that Mumbai hotel balcony.
“What a state of things! For three hours the yelling and shouting of natives in the hall continued, along with the velvety patter of their swift bare feet – what a racket it was! They were yelling orders and messages down three flights. Why, in the matter of noise it amounted to a riot, an insurrection, a revolution.
And then there were other noises mixed up with these and at intervals tremendously accenting them – roofs falling in, I judged, windows smashing, persons being murdered, crows squawking, and deriding and cursing, canaries screeching, monkey jabbering, macaws blaspheming, and every now and then fiendish bursts of laughter and explosions of dynamite.
By midnight I had suffered all the different kinds of shocks there are and knew that I could never more be disturbed by them, either isolated or in combination. Then came peace – stillness deep and solemn – and lasted till five.
“Then it all broke loose again. And who re-started it? The Bird of Birds – the Indian Crow. I came to know him well, by and by, and be infatuated with him. I suppose he is the hardest lot that wears feathers. Yes, and the cheerfullest, and the best satisfied with himself. He never arrived at what he is by any careless process, or any sudden one; he is a work of art, and “art is long”; he is the proudest of immemorial ages and of deep calculation; one can’t make a bird like that in a day.
He has been reincarnated more times than God …; and he has kept a sample of each incarnation and fused it into his constitution. In some course of his evolutionary promotions, his sublime march toward ultimate perfection, he has been a gambler, a low comedian, a dissolute priest, a fussy woman, a blackguard, a scoffer, a liar, a thief, a spy, an informer, a trading politician, a swindler, a professional hypocrite, a patriot for cash, a reformer, a lecturer, a lawyer, a conspirator, a rebel, a royalist, a democrat, a practitioner and propagator of irreverence, a meddler, an intruder, a busybody, an infidel, and a wallower in sin for the mere love of it. The strange result, the incredible result, of this patient accumulation of all damnable traits is, that he does not know what dare is, he does not know what sorrow is, he does not know what remorse is, his life is one long thundering ecstasy of happiness, and he will go to his death untroubled, knowing that he will soon turn up again as an author or something, and he even more intolerably capable and comfortable than ever he was before.
“In his straddling wide forward step, and his springy side-wise series of hops, and his impudent air, and his cunning way of canting head to one side upon occasion, he reminds one of the American blackbirds. But the sharp resemblances stop there. He is much bigger than the blackbird; and he lacks the blackbird’s trim and slender and beautiful build and shapely beak; and of course, his sober garb of gray and rusty black is a poor and humble thing compared with the splendid luster of the blackbird’s metallic sables and shifting and flashing bronze glories.
The blackbird is a perfect gentleman, in deportment and attire, and is not noisy, I believe, except when holding religious services and political conventions in a tree; but this Indian sham Quaker is just rowdy, and is always noisy when awake – always chaffing, scolding, scoffing, laughing, ripping, and cursing, and carrying on about something or other. I never saw such a bird delivering opinions. Nothing escapes him; he notices everything that happens, and brings out his opinion about it, particularly if it is a matter that is none of his business.
And it is never a mild opinion, but always violent – violent and profane – the presence of ladies does not affect him. His opinions are not the outcome of reflection, for he never thinks about anything, but heaves out the opinion that is on top in his mind, and which is so often an opinion about some quite different thing and does not fit the case. But that is his way; his main idea is to get out an opinion, and if he stopped to think, he would lose chances.
“I suppose he has no enemies among men. The whites and Mohammadans never seemed to molest him; and the Hindoos, because of their religion, never take the life of any creature, but spare even the snakes and tigers and fleas and rats. If I sat at one end of the balcony, the crows would gather on the railing at the other end and talk about me; and edge closer, little by little, till I could almost reach them; and they would sit there, in the most unabashed way and talk about my clothes, and my hair, and my complexion, and probable character and vocation and politics, and how I came to be in India, and what I had been doing, and how many days I had got for it, and how I had happened to go unhanged so long, and when would it probably come off, and might there be more of my sort where I came from, and when would they be hanged, – and so on, and so on, until I could no longer endure the embarrassment of it; then I would shoo them away, and they would circle around in the air a little while, laughing and deriding and mocking, and presently settle on the rail and do it all over again.
“They were very sociable when there was anything to eat – oppressively so. With a little encouragement, they would come in and light on the table and help me eat my breakfast; and once when I was in the other room and they found themselves alone, they carried off everything they could lift; and they were particular to choose things which they could make no use after they got them. In India their number is beyond estimate, and their noise is in proportion. I suppose they cost the country more than the government does; yet that is not a light matter. Still, they pay; their company pays; it would sadden the land to take their cheerful voice out of it.”
In conclusion, with apologies, I rephrase here Justice Robert Jackson’s opening statement at the Nurenberg trials in 1945. That Mark Twain, flushed afresh with South Asian hospitality and stung with ridicule and insult by a rowdy band of birds at a Mumbai hotel balcony stay the hand of getting even to enthusiastically write a glowing description of these rascals is one of the most eloquent yet witty tributes that a literary luminary ever has paid to a flock of feathery ones – a kaleidoscope of oddities and absurdities – a gathering of noisy Indian crows, no less.
Lokubanda Tillakaratne’s most recent book is Rata Sabhawa of Nuwarakalaviya: Judicature in a Princely Province – An Ethnographical and Historical Reading.
by Dr B.J.C.Perera
MBBS(Cey), DCH(Cey), DCH(Eng), MD(Paed), MRCP(UK), FRCP(Edin),
FRCP(Lon), FRCPCH(UK), FSLCPaed, FCCP, Hony FRCPCH(UK), Hony. FCGP(SL)
Specialist Consultant Paediatrician and Honorary Senior Fellow,
Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Joint Editor, Sri Lanka Journal of Child Health
In an age of unprecedented global development, technological advancements, universal connectivity, and improvements in living standards in many areas of the world, it is a very dark irony that child food poverty remains a pressing issue. UNICEF defines child food poverty as children’s inability to access and consume a nutritious and diverse diet in early childhood. Despite the planet Earth’s undisputed capacity to produce enough food to nourish everyone, millions of children still go hungry each day. We desperately need to explore the multifaceted deleterious effects of child food poverty, on physical health, cognitive development, emotional well-being, and societal impacts and then try to formulate a road map to alleviate its deleterious effects.
Every day, right across the world, millions of parents and families are struggling to provide nutritious and diverse foods that young children desperately need to reach their full potential. Growing inequities, conflict, and climate crises, combined with rising food prices, the overabundance of unhealthy foods, harmful food marketing strategies and poor child-feeding practices, are condemning millions of children to child food poverty.
In a communique dated 06th June 2024, UNICEF reports that globally, 1 in 4 children; approximately 181 million under the age of five, live in severe child food poverty, defined as consuming at most, two of eight food groups in early childhood. These children are up to 50 per cent more likely to suffer from life-threatening malnutrition. Child Food Poverty: Nutrition Deprivation in Early Childhood – the third issue of UNICEF’s flagship Child Nutrition Report – highlights that millions of young children are unable to access and consume the nutritious and diverse diets that are essential for their growth and development in early childhood and beyond.
It is highlighted in the report that four out of five children experiencing severe child food poverty are fed only breastmilk or just some other milk and/or a starchy staple, such as maize, rice or wheat. Less than 10 per cent of these children are fed fruits and vegetables and less than 5 per cent are fed nutrient-dense foods such as eggs, fish, poultry, or meat. These are horrendous statistics that should pull at the heartstrings of the discerning populace of this world.
The report also identifies the drivers of child food poverty. Strikingly, though 46 per cent of all cases of severe child food poverty are among poor households where income poverty is likely to be a major driver, 54 per cent live in relatively wealthier households, among whom poor food environments and feeding practices are the main drivers of food poverty in early childhood.
One of the most immediate and visible effects of child food poverty is its detrimental impact on physical health. Malnutrition, which can result from both insufficient calorie intake and lack of essential nutrients, is a prevalent consequence. Chronic undernourishment during formative years leads to stunted growth, weakened immune systems, and increased susceptibility to infections and diseases. Children who do not receive adequate nutrition are more likely to suffer from conditions such as anaemia, rickets, and developmental delays.
Moreover, the lack of proper nutrition can have long-term health consequences. Malnourished children are at a higher risk of developing chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity later in life. The paradox of child food poverty is that it can lead to both undernutrition and overnutrition, with children in food-insecure households often consuming calorie-dense but nutrient-poor foods due to economic constraints. This dietary pattern increases the risk of obesity, creating a vicious cycle of poor health outcomes.
The impacts of child food poverty extend beyond physical health, severely affecting cognitive development and educational attainment. Adequate nutrition is crucial for brain development, particularly in the early years of life. Malnutrition can impair cognitive functions such as attention, memory, and problem-solving skills. Studies have consistently shown that malnourished children perform worse academically compared to their well-nourished peers. Inadequate nutrition during early childhood can lead to reduced school readiness and lower IQ scores. These children often struggle to concentrate in school, miss more days due to illness, and have lower overall academic performance. This educational disadvantage perpetuates the cycle of poverty, as lower educational attainment reduces future employment opportunities and earning potential.
The emotional and psychological effects of child food poverty are profound and are often overlooked. Food insecurity creates a constant state of stress and anxiety for both children and their families. The uncertainty of not knowing when or where the next meal will come from can lead to feelings of helplessness and despair. Children in food-insecure households are more likely to experience behavioural problems, including hyperactivity, aggression, and withdrawal. The stigma associated with poverty and hunger can further exacerbate these emotional challenges. Children who experience food poverty may feel shame and embarrassment, leading to social isolation and reduced self-esteem. This psychological toll can have lasting effects, contributing to mental health issues such as depression and anxiety in adolescence and adulthood.
Child food poverty also perpetuates cycles of poverty and inequality. Children who grow up in food-insecure households are more likely to remain in poverty as adults, continuing the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage. This cycle of poverty exacerbates social disparities, contributing to increased crime rates, reduced social cohesion, and greater reliance on social welfare programmes. The repercussions of child food poverty ripple through society, creating economic and social challenges that affect everyone. The healthcare costs associated with treating malnutrition-related illnesses and chronic diseases are substantial. Additionally, the educational deficits linked to child food poverty result in a less skilled workforce, which hampers economic growth and productivity.
Addressing child food poverty requires a multi-faceted approach that tackles both immediate needs and underlying causes. Policy interventions are crucial in ensuring that all children have access to adequate nutrition. This can include expanding social safety nets, such as food assistance programmes and school meal initiatives, as well as targeted manoeuvres to reach more vulnerable families. Ensuring that these programmes are adequately funded and effectively implemented is essential for their success.
In addition to direct food assistance, broader economic and social policies are needed to address the root causes of poverty. This includes efforts to increase household incomes through living wage policies, job training programs, and economic development initiatives. Supporting families with affordable childcare, healthcare, and housing can also alleviate some of the financial pressures that contribute to food insecurity.
Community-based initiatives play a vital role in combating child food poverty. Local food banks, community gardens, and nutrition education programmes can help provide immediate relief and promote long-term food security. Collaborative efforts between government, non-profits, and the private sector are necessary to create sustainable solutions.
Child food poverty is a profound and inescapable issue with far-reaching consequences. Its deleterious effects on physical health, cognitive development, emotional well-being, and societal stability underscore the urgent need for comprehensive action. As we strive for a more equitable and just world, addressing child food poverty must be a priority. By ensuring that all children have access to adequate nutrition, we can lay the foundation for a healthier, more prosperous future for individuals and society as a whole. The fight against child food poverty is not just a moral imperative but an investment in our collective future. Healthy, well-nourished children are more likely to grow into productive, contributing members of society. The benefits of addressing this issue extend beyond individual well-being, enhancing economic stability and social harmony. It is incumbent upon us all to recognize and act upon the understanding that every child deserves the right to adequate nutrition and the opportunity to thrive.
Despite all of these existent challenges, it is very definitely possible to end child food poverty. The world needs targeted interventions to transform food, health, and social protection systems, and also take steps to strengthen data systems to track progress in reducing child food poverty. All these manoeuvres must comprise a concerted effort towards making nutritious and diverse diets accessible and affordable to all. We need to call for child food poverty reduction to be recognized as a metric of success towards achieving global and national nutrition and development goals.
Material from UNICEF reports and AI assistance are acknowledged.
By Dr Upul Wijayawardhana
The colossal failure of not a single opinion poll predicting accurately the result of the Indian parliamentary election, the greatest exercise in democracy in the world, raises the question whether the importance of opinion polls is vastly exaggerated. During elections two types of opinion polls are conducted; one based on intentions to vote, published during or before the campaign, often being not very accurate as these are subject to many variables but exit polls, done after the voting where a sample tally of how the voters actually voted, are mostly accurate. However, of the 15 exit polls published soon after all the votes were cast in the massive Indian election, 13 vastly overpredicted the number of seats Modi’s BJP led coalition NDA would obtain, some giving a figure as high as 400, the number Modi claimed he is aiming for. The other two polls grossly underestimated predicting a hung parliament. The actual result is that NDA passed the threshold of 272 comfortably, there being no landslide. BJP by itself was not able to cross the threshold, a significant setback for an overconfident Mody! Whether this would result in less excesses on the part of Modi, like Muslim-bashing, remains to be seen. Anyway, the statement issued by BJP that they would be investigating the reasons for failure rather than blaming the process speaks very highly of the maturity of the democratic process in India.
I was intrigued by this failure of opinion polls as this differs dramatically from opinion polls in the UK. I never failed to watch ‘Election night specials’ on BBC; as the Big Ben strikes ‘ten’ (In the UK polls close at 10pm} the anchor comes out with “Exit polls predict that …” and the actual outcome is often almost as predicted. However, many a time opinion polls conducted during the campaign have got the predictions wrong. There are many explanations for this.
An opinion poll is defined as a research survey of public opinion from a particular sample, the origin of which can be traced back to the 1824 US presidential election, when two local newspapers in North Carolina and Delaware predicted the victory of Andrew Jackson but the sample was local. First national survey was done in 1916 by the magazine, Literary Digest, partly for circulation-raising, by mailing millions of postcards and counting the returns. Of course, this was not very scientific though it accurately predicted the election of Woodrow Wilson.
Since then, opinion polls have grown in extent and complexity with scientific methodology improving the outcome of predictions not only in elections but also in market research. As a result, some of these organisations have become big businesses. For instance, YouGov, an internet-based organisation co-founded by the Iraqi-born British politician Nadim Zahawi, based in London had a revenue of 258 million GBP in 2023.
In Sri Lanka, opinion polls seem to be conducted by only one organisation which, by itself, is a disadvantage, as pooled data from surveys conducted by many are more likely to reflect the true situation. Irrespective of the degree of accuracy, politicians seem to be dependent on the available data which lend explanations to the behaviour of some.
The Institute for Health Policy’s (IHP) Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey has been tracking the voting intentions for the likely candidates for the Presidential election. At one stage the NPP/JVP leader AKD was getting a figure over 50%. This together with some degree of international acceptance made the JVP behave as if they are already in power, leading to some incidents where their true colour was showing.
The comments made by a prominent member of the JVP who claimed that the JVP killed only the riff-raff, raised many questions, in addition to being a total insult to many innocents killed by them including my uncle. Do they have the authority to do so? Do extra-judicial killings continue to be JVP policy? Do they consider anyone who disagrees with them riff-raff? Will they kill them simply because they do not comply like one of my admired teachers, Dr Gladys Jayawardena who was considered riff-raff because she, as the Chairman of the State Pharmaceutical Corporation, arranged to buy drugs cheaper from India? Is it not the height of hypocrisy that AKD is now boasting of his ties to India?
Another big-wig comes with the grand idea of devolving law and order to village level. As stated very strongly, in the editorial “Pledges and reality” (The Island, 20 May) is this what they intend to do: Have JVP kangaroo-courts!
Perhaps, as a result of these incidents AKD’s ratings has dropped to 39%, according to the IHP survey done in April, and Sajith Premadasa’s ratings have increased gradually to match that. Whilst they are level pegging Ranil is far behind at 13%. Is this the reason why Ranil is getting his acolytes to propagate the idea that the best for the country is to extend his tenure by a referendum? He forced the postponement of Local Governments elections by refusing to release funds but he cannot do so for the presidential election for constitutional reasons. He is now looking for loopholes. Has he considered the distinct possibility that the referendum to extend the life of the presidency and the parliament if lost, would double the expenditure?
Unfortunately, this has been an exercise in futility and it would not be surprising if the next survey shows Ranil’s chances dropping even further! Perhaps, the best option available to Ranil is to retire gracefully, taking credit for steadying the economy and saving the country from an anarchic invasion of the parliament, rather than to leave politics in disgrace by coming third in the presidential election. Unless, of course, he is convinced that opinion polls do not matter and what matters is the ballots in the box!
By Prof. Kirthi Tennakone
ktenna@yahoo.co.uk
Thoughtfulness is the quality of being conscious of issues that arise and considering action while seeking explanations. It facilitates finding solutions to problems and judging experiences.
Almost all human accomplishments are consequences of thoughtfulness.
Can you perform day-to-day work efficiently and effectively without being thoughtful? Obviously, no. Are there any major advancements attained without thought and contemplation? Not a single example!
Science and technology, art, music and literary compositions and religion stand conspicuously as products of thought.
Thought could have sinister motives and the only way to eliminate them is through thought itself. Thought could distinguish right from wrong.
Empathy, love, amusement, and expression of sorrow are reflections of thought.
Thought relieves worries by understanding or taking decisive action.
Despite the universal virtue of thoughtfulness, some advocate an idea termed mindfulness, claiming the benefits of nurturing this quality to shape mental wellbeing. The concept is defined as focusing attention to the present moment without judgment. A way of forgetting the worries and calming the mind – a form of meditation. A definition coined in the West to decouple the concept from religion. The attitude could have a temporary advantage as a method of softening negative feelings such as sorrow and anger. However, no man or woman can afford to be non-judgmental all the time. It is incompatible with indispensable thoughtfulness! What is the advantage of diverting attention to one thing without discernment during a few tens of minute’s meditation? The instructors of mindfulness meditation tell you to focus attention on trivial things. Whereas in thoughtfulness, you concentrate the mind on challenging issues. Sometimes arriving at groundbreaking scientific discoveries, solution of mathematical problems or the creation of masterpieces in engineering, art, or literature.
The concept of meditation and mindfulness originated in ancient India around 1000 BCE. Vedic ascetics believed the practice would lead to supernatural powers enabling disclosure of the truth. Failing to meet the said aspiration, notwithstanding so many stories in scripture, is discernable. Otherwise, the world would have been awakened to advancement by ancient Indians before the Greeks. The latter culture emphasized thoughtfulness!
In India, Buddha was the first to deviate from the Vedic philosophy. His teachers, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputra, were adherents of meditation. Unconvinced of their approach, Buddha concluded a thoughtful analysis of the actualities of life should be the path to realisation. However, in an environment dominated by Vedic tradition, meditation residually persisted when Buddha’s teachings transformed into a religion.
In the early 1970s, a few in the West picked up meditation and mindfulness. We Easterners, who criticize Western ideas all the time, got exalted after seeing something Eastern accepted in the Western circles. Thereafter, Easterners took up the subject more seriously, in the spirit of its definition in the West.
Today, mindfulness has become a marketable commodity – a thriving business spreading worldwide, fueled largely by advertising. There are practice centres, lessons onsite and online, and apps for purchase. Articles written by gurus of the field appear on the web.
What attracts people to mindfulness programmes? Many assume them being stressed and depressed needs to improve their mental capacity. In most instances, these are minor complaints and for understandable reasons, they do not seek mainstream medical interventions but go for exaggeratedly advertised alternatives. Mainstream medical treatments are based on rigorous science and spell out both the pros and cons of the procedure, avoiding overstatement. Whereas the alternative sector makes unsubstantiated claims about the efficacy and effectiveness of the treatment.
Advocates of mindfulness claim the benefits of their prescriptions have been proven scientifically. There are reports (mostly in open-access journals which charge a fee for publication) indicating that authors have found positive aspects of mindfulness or identified reasons correlating the efficacy of such activities. However, they rarely meet standards normally required for unequivocal acceptance. The gold standard of scientific scrutiny is the statistically significant reproducibility of claims.
If a mindfulness guru claims his prescription of meditation cures hypertension, he must record the blood pressure of participants before and after completion of the activity and show the blood pressure of a large percentage has stably dropped and repeat the experiment with different clients. He must also conduct sessions where he adopts another prescription (a placebo) under the same conditions and compares the results. This is not enough, he must request someone else to conduct sessions following his prescription, to rule out the influence of the personality of the instructor.
The laity unaware of the above rigid requirements, accede to purported claims of mindfulness proponents.
A few years ago, an article published and widely cited stated that the practice of mindfulness increases the gray matter density of the brain. A more recent study found there is no such correlation. Popular expositions on the subject do not refer to the latter report. Most mindfulness research published seems to have been conducted intending to prove the benefits of the practice. The hard science demands doing the opposite as well-experiments carried out intending to disprove the claims. You need to be skeptical until things are firmly established.
Despite many efforts diverted to disprove Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, no contradictions have been found in vain to date, strengthening the validity of the theory. Regarding mindfulness, as it stands, benefits can neither be proved nor disproved, to the gold standard of scientific scrutiny.
Some schools in foreign lands have accommodated mindfulness training programs hoping to develop the mental facility of students and Sri Lanka plans to follow. However, studies also reveal these exercises are ineffective or do more harm than good. Have we investigated this issue before imitation?
Should we force our children to focus attention on one single goal without judgment, even for a moment?
Why not allow young minds to roam wild in their deepest imagination and build castles in the air and encourage them to turn these fantasies into realities by nurturing their thoughtfulness?
Be more thoughtful than mindful?
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