Why a blog?

After the Quora ban, I received several enquiries from people who were following me there asking whether I would write somewhere else hence this format.
I was invited to speak at the unofficial Quora meetup in Mumbai last week. There I met people who said that reading my answers made them give up alcohol or think more critically about their religion. I realised that if I was actually making people think by telling them what I think then I must continue to do so.
Interestingly, despite the ban, all the content is still accessible. The blogs particularly illustrate how inevitable though irrational the ban was.
https://www.quora.com/profile/Vinay-Kumaran/all_posts

Comments

  1. prabhapersonalMay 1, 2017 at 6:35 PM

    So glad to see this. We are grateful for the time you spend on this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. SumaMay 1, 2017 at 7:00 PM

    You write with sincerity and honesty and that's​the real draw . Iam disappointed with Quora too and will probably wind down my participation if this is their style

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMay 2, 2017 at 7:48 PM

    The badass doctor is back

    ReplyDelete
  4. Syeda Birjees MisbahMay 2, 2017 at 9:44 PM

    Thank you..Happy to see you again

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownMay 2, 2017 at 10:19 PM

    Happy to see u again sir.. Kindly use twitter for ur conversations

    ReplyDelete
  6. NoorMay 3, 2017 at 2:20 AM

    Awesome sir , will definitely look forward . Thanks for caring about your fans (haha)

    ReplyDelete
  7. VinayMay 3, 2017 at 5:52 AM

    I am Tweeting these posts as well.

    ReplyDelete
  8. nMay 10, 2017 at 8:32 PM

    Though the content hasn't been deleted so far, it will soon be deleted.

    Somebody asked a Quora question asking why you were banned -it got a few good answers - and poof - it's deleted. I think Quora has a policy preventing people from discussing why a specific user was banned. It is apparently "impolite" for users to discuss about the ban because the victim has no chance of responding.

    ref: https://www.quora.com/unanswered/Why-was-the-question-related-to-banning-of-Dr-Vinay-Kumaran-deleted-It-was-asked-on-18-April-2017-and-said-Why-was-Dr-Vinay-Kumaran-banned?share=1

    I saved all the posts on the blog as a PDF on my computer before Quora starts deleting stuff....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownAugust 12, 2019 at 11:23 PM

      Can you share the pdf? The answers on quora are no longer visible

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Do clothes make a man?

I've often been told by my wife that I should take more care of my appearance. I'm notorious for turning up for conferences wearing sandals and bush shirts. Of course, I like to dress for comfort rather than to impress people but there is some long term thinking behind the attitude. My Uncle, Prabhakar Menon, took the Civil Services exams twice in the late 1960s. The first time, his rank was 13 or thereabouts, apparently missing the IFS (foreign services) by one rank. Instead of taking an IAS (adminstrative services) seat, he decided to decline and try again the next year. In an account of the exam by someone else, I read 'I was surprised to see Prabhakar Menon turn up for the interview in a bush shirt. I knew he had qualified for the IAS last year.' Formal attire was nearly a requirement for these interviews. Why did he turn up in informal clothes? I can think of some reasons. He may have done well enough in the exam that he was confident that he would do well regard
Read more

What is a mentor?

Image
This is from an invited post I wrote on the Facebook group 'Learning General Surgery'. During my residency at Maulana Azad Medical College, I was initially assigned to the unit of the head of the department, Dr TK Malik. The less said about that part of my residency, the better. However, I did have good second and third year residents from whom I learnt how to look after patients. Halfway through my second year, Dr Malik retired and a new unit was created with two Consultants, Dr  Vinod Malik  and Dr  Ram Kaza . Being the most junior unit at the time, they had the Saturday emergency and were always short of staff. For a considerable period of time, there were no third year PGs, no first year PGs and no regular Senior Residents. There were, however, two second year PGs,  Brundaban Nahak  and me. Dr  Vinod Malik  and Dr  Ram Kaza  were gentle bosses, allowing us to figure out how to keep the day to day running of the unit going, putting up with the occasional bizarre things
Read more

More Ruminations on Religion

I was talking to one of my fellows the other day. There was a discussion about dietary restrictions. He was surprised to hear that I have no religious affiliation and no dietary restrictions. He was under the impression that most Indians are Hindus and vegetarian. He told me that most Japanese people do not have a religious affiliation which, in turn, surprised me. My only visit to Japan was to Kyoto and most of the 'places to see' there seemed to be Buddhist temples. In any case, my thoughts turned to the manifest fact that much of the irrational human behavior of the modern age seems to be rooted in religion. Objections to abortion and stem cell research in the US, the fact that nobody from a minority religion or without religious affiliation has ever been elected to a major leadership position here, the conflicts between India and Pakistan, the middle east situation, Israel and the Arabic countries, the list goes on. In history too, some of the greatest crimes committed by
Read more