#44 - Notes on Cancer, Romanovs and Historians

In each edition of this newsletter, I will share some inspiring web resources that I have curated after hours of research to ensure that you have the best education coffee in your inbox. In upcoming editions, I will focus on sharing insights, notes and realizations that I gather from people, ideas, books, films and podcasts. I will continue to write about education and learning as well and hope to be more consistent with the publication of this newsletter this year. Please subscribe to this newsletter if you enjoyed reading this edition. We are now 93 subscribers strong!

1. Learning from People

Sonali Bendre is an Indian actress who primarily works in Hindi and Telugu films. She has worked in over 46 films. On 4 July 2018, Bendre announced that, she has been diagnosed with a metastatic cancer and was undergoing treatment in a New York City hospital. Despite having stage 4 cancer, the actress became cancer free in 2021. I really enjoyed this podcast episode from the Humans of Bombay channel, where she spoke about her journey as an actor and what cancer thought her about herself. Here is a quote from the episode followed by a link to the episode itself:

“When I received my Cancer diagnosis, my first thought was, ‘Why me?’ I’d wake up thinking it was all a nightmare; I couldn’t believe that this could happen to me. That’s when I started to change the way I thought. Instead of ‘why me?’ I started asking, ‘Why not me?’ I started to feel grateful this wasn’t happening to my sister, or my son. I realized I had the strength to deal with this, I had the resources to go to the best hospitals, and the support system to help me through this. Starting to ask ‘why not me?’ helped me start the healing process.”

2. Learning from Ideas

The Olympic Games were initially created and promoted to unite the world in peaceful competition and foster an atmosphere of peace, development, resilience, tolerance and understanding. But where did the Olympic Games come from? The first known Olympic Games were held in 776 B.C at a site called Olympia in Southern Greece. It was banned for some time and then re-organized again. The first summer olympic event was organized in Athens, Greece in 1896. The first winter olympic event was organized in Chamonix, France in 1924. There were 339 events and 11,420 competitors at the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games. The next summer Olympic Games will be held in Paris, France from 26th July 2024 to 11th August 2024. Here is a video from National Geographic that shares the story of the Olympics.

3. Learning from Books, Websites and Blogs

The House of Romanov was the reigning imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. The abdication of Nicholas II on 15 March?1917 as a result of the February Revolution ended 304 years of Romanov rule and led to the establishment of the Russian Republic. Simon Sebag Montefiore tells their story in his fascinating book, The Romanovs: 1613 -1918 about how one family ruled Russia for 300 years. He shares some stories from the book in this talk from the Jaipur Literature Festival.

4. Learning from Films, Videos and Shows

Pain Hustlers is a 2023 American crime drama film co-produced and directed by David Yates from a screenplay by Wells Tower, based on the 2022 book of the same name by Evan Hughes titled Hard Sell. It is the story of a fictional pharmaceutical company that sells pain medication to patients without proper clinical testing for higher profits. The company profits from this drug but the customers face the brunt of the negative side effects that include addiction and swelling. Bria McNeal (2023) reported in Esquire that the drug in Pain Hustlers, Lonafen is modeled after Subsys, a real medication that released in 2012. Subsys is an oral fentanyl spray that was initially offered to cancer patients, before being pushed to the general public. The documentary shows you the fine line between ethics and capitalism. Liza the salesperson of the pharmaceutical company was able to identify this line in the film. The owners and executives of the pharmaceutical company did not identify this line in the film that led to their downfall. You can watch the trailer below and then watch the film on Netflix this weekend! P.S - Emily Blunt is just amazing in the role of the protagonist, Liza Drake. She is my new favourite actress.

5. Learning from Podcasts and Music

Amit Varma is the host of the Seen and Unseen podcast. I think it is one of the best long form podcasts ever made. Here is a description of the podcast from the website

The Seen and the Unseen is a weekly podcast hosted by Amit Varma. It takes its title from Frédéric Bastiat’s famous essay, ‘That which is seen and that which is unseen’. In his essay, Bastiat uses the example of what later came to be known as the “Broken Window Fallacy”, and pointed out that to evaluate the consequences of any action, we need to look at both its seen effects, which are often the rationale behind the action, and its unseen effects, which include unintended consequences and ripple effects.

In episode 266 he interviews the historian, Ramchandra Guha. I love this episode because Guha is a historical biographer himself but Amit uses the podcast format to allow him to turn the eye on himself. This episode is 2 hour conversation about the life of a historical biographer sharing tales about pivotal moments from his own life. It shows you the many seen and unseen events and experiences that affect your life in positive and negative ways.

Thank you for reading this edition of #EducationCoffee. I look forward to writing weekly editions of this newsletter this year. I hope to continue to share resources that will add value to your life. You can also review the archive of Education Coffee for free at this link (43 past newsletters). You can subscribe to this newsletter for more such recommendations on people, ideas and culture.

Please do send me your thoughts and resources on any edition of this newsletter through email at [email protected], Linkedin or on twitter @AbhishekShetty_. You can find my work online at https://abhishekshetty.carrd.co/. If you would like to read pieces in the future please do consider subscribing to this newsletter by clicking the button below. I love taking these discussions forward on those platforms and look forward to hearing your feedback.

Abhishek Shetty