Book Review: Masaru Emoto’s, “The Secret Life of Water"

Just read Masaru Emoto’s, “The Secret Life of Water.’ If I have to rate it, I will give it one star for writing, three stars for insightful thoughts, two stars for scientific evidence and four stars for photography. All in all, an interesting book to read if you have been probing your soul and bookshelves for some vague spiritual awakening. If you are a practical person like me who demands evidence before accepting even him/herself, I warn you, you may be disappointed. I don’t say, the theory of water drops crystallizing into stunning hexagons like sparkling chandeliers after being exposed to prayers and optimistic thoughts is fantastic and unreal but, what I mean here is that the author failed to convince the readers. The scientific data is lacking. Candidly, Dr. Emoto agreed himself that the pictures, which by the way are beautiful, were selected with a subjective bias. When the water which could be in the form of a river, a pond, or a glass of water put on your kitchen island was showered upon goodwill and the samples were frozen, variable crystals were formed that could be classified as beautiful, well-shaped or broken and really, it was the discretion of the photographer as to which one (s) to include in the book. Since the photographer is the author, wouldn’t it be understandable that he chose beautiful pictures in these cases emphasizing his theory that water reacts to our words. None of the experiments were randomized or blinded, at least not the ones he mentions in the book, the results were not statistically derived and hence, they loose their objectivity and authenticity. 

The book however asserts the importance of recycling and saving our green planet from the impending doom of global warming for which, I give it full points. The writing is simple but disjointed; the author jumps from one topic to the other without much order. There is mention of the ‘Hado theory’ that all substances and phenomena emit vibrations, which is interesting but hard to follow. The healing powers of water, which it appears works in conjunction with the hado theory is briefly touched upon (there is another book by the same author elaborating more on this). It is indeed a thought provoking book especially for those of us who believe that words are powerful, optimism is the key to success, and we need to undo the damage caused by chemical pollutants to replenish our beautiful planet but what the shape of water crystals or H2O has to do with all that, I am not sure. 

Why I Hate Bios?

It’s needed. It helps others to know you especially when they can’t see you. You form a connection with your peers, that’s what they had said. So, I wrote one after the other, a total of three biographies for the three online writing classes I took four years ago, basic fiction, advanced fiction and novel writing. I am planning to take another writing class and this is what I am debating. What should I write in my biography or should I even write one this time?

This is what I learned in writing my three bios; if it is honestly written, deeply felt caricature of your personality, accurate description of your education and profession, and is written before the class begins as is the requirement, then it puts you out there in cold before your creative fiction could get to the readers, i.e. your class mates. When we read a book, the writer’s brief bio is either on the last page or on the last cover page of the book meant to be read if after reading his/her work, you wish to discover the person behind the mask of words. But my creative classes were different. My peers knew me well before they knew my creative side. The result was three weeks later when I posted my story for others to critique, it was dovetailed with my bio. How could I have not anticipated that?

I am from India, didn’t grow up reading English books except what was part of my school homework. I read Hindi literature and wrote stories in Hindi, my native language. Somewhere down the line, a decade ago or more, I switched my medium of expression to English. This is what my bio had said. Now the comments passing through the lenses of my American born English-speaking class were, “Wow, the story is very well written, especially for someone whose native language is not English.” Some were patronizing, “There are a few grammatical errors but for a non-native English speaker, attempting to write such a story is still commendable.” Others were not too generous, “Too many grammatical and spelling errors, and your tenses are all mixed up, why don’t you have your work read by a native English speaker before submitting it?” At that time I felt like saying, I lied in my bio, I am a native English speaker, just to amuse myself. One person pointed out a grammatical error, past tense of learn is learned, not learnt. Well, there is a small country east of Atlantic Ocean called England and in their English books, past tense of learn is learnt. Even my characters couldn’t escape the consequences of my bio. One white American character’s voice didn’t convince one of my classmates. She said, “Sounds Indian to me. Americans don’t speak that way.” One of my white American friends in life, a native English speaker had said the same words verbatim to me that my character had repeated in the story (I sometimes use real conversations in my stories). Ok so does that mean I didn’t check the background of my friend? Don’t get me wrong. I love critiques, the very reason I join creative classes. The longer and more thoughtful a critique is, the more useful it is for the writer. What I wish doesn’t happen over and again is the scoping out of my bio when my creative story gets read.

I am a physician with four degrees from four universities and two countries. This part gets the attention of even the laziest reader. The critiques come tweaked with, “When do you get time to write?” and “Why don’t you write about patients and medical life, you will find more market?” Again, no offense to the kind souls, some were really concerned, offering thoughtful advice but what I want instead is to be treated like another Parul who wrote in her bio, she was a freelancer or a homemaker.

Years ago back in India, I learned (and not learnt) emboss painting. I attended a local painting school with one of my friends who was a high school drop out. I had two months break in my final year medical school and thought this would be a good time to hang a self-made painting on the wall of my room. The teacher was strict, lost her temper easily especially with me who couldn’t hold her brush right. She didn’t know of my background. So my dear friend enlightened her on that. The teacher smiled weakly and never spoke sharply with me again. Needless to say, I never learned emboss painting the right way and could not create any other painting except the one I did for that class. Some years before that, I joined a beauty saloon in India to learn basics of manicure, pedicure etc. I was selected in a premiere medical school in New Delhi and had few months of free time before I got busy with medical books. My saloon teacher knew of my achievement and took pride in this. One evening, as a part of hands-on experience, I was doing pedicure, scrubbing the cracked, dry feet of one of our clients, a sweet fat lady, when my teacher blurted out how I was soon going to join a top medical school. The embarrassed lady pulled away her legs and cried, “I don’t want my feet to be cleaned by a doctor.”

I don’t fault those who remember my bio when critiquing my story. And I certainly don’t fault them for living with biases either. I have my own set of them. Aren’t these so called biases; our restricted visions wonderfully characterize us and make us who we are? What I don’t want is my bio standing in the way of sincere appraisal of my creative work. Let it be pushed to the last page if needed. Or may be, we could forget it altogether.