Healers in their own right

Healers in their own right

They trooped past me in their uniforms indulgent with their daily chores conforming to the chart laid out by the doctors. With trays and stethoscopes, medicines and apparatus they popped in and out of rooms serving the sick patients with all their might. What set them apart was the beaming smile that seemed fresh as the morning, clear as the dew that reflects on the grass with the morning sunshine. 

The last couple of weeks I laid siege to a hospital in town keeping my mother company as she recuperated from a severe bout of lung infection. All kind of doctors and nurses, cleaning staff, dieticians and more paid us a visit umpteen times each trying to add to the overall recovery process.

While the doctors were elegant and calm, firm in their views, generous with their advice, what caught my attention were the nurses on duty. Some of them petite, some brisk, some eager,  some brimming at the edge, some of them simply out of place, some putting you off at first glance  while some others always welcoming with their sweet and radiant smile.

The ones who were petite seemed to be like the mothers of yore, full of substance who though short and weak worked their magic all day long, running through the family chores till they were exhausted to bed. Though they were petite they never missed a beat and ensured that the family was filled and satisfied to keep them going for another day.

The ones who were brisk were darting around like darts on a dartboard in and out of the rooms with timing and precision. Their energy radiated beyond them and made some of us with drooping shoulders to realize that the end was only the beginning. I am sure that even while they darted around in the hospital rooms, they were left with enough and more to take care of the family once they were home.

Eager is a term to describe someone who is ready to listen, learn and volunteer during a process. The eager ones were exactly that, waiting to please with all the commands that were thrown at them. They were like the newly recruited cadets, fresh from the disciplining classes and bursting to put their learning to practice.

Some of them were brimming from ear to ear, joyful at the chance to interact and listen and renewing their nursing vows to serve the sick like their mentor Florence Nightingale. One look at them and their energy and enthusiasm seemed to flow into the sagged being of the patient lifting them from the pits helping them on the course to recovery. They felt like joyful kids who had entered a shop and found a jar full of candies with no one keeping watch.

During my numerous soft skills program conducted with fresher B Tech students I would ask a familiar question whether they were there on their own accord or were pushed into it by their parents, and the majority would concede that they were there because of the push factor. Such students would be out of place even if they succeeded in completing their course because their soul was not in the learning.

This is how I describe the ones who I found in the Nursing station a tad out of place. Probably they were forced or goaded into the profession by their mentors when their heart was not in it. They gave the impression of being detached from the happenings around them even as they went about their chores in a mechanical manner.

There are some who give a sense that they don’t like you. Whenever they come across you they send a negative vibe which makes you feel unwanted. They tend to rue the fact that patients visit hospitals. I am reminded of a colleague during my banking days. Those were the time of big fat ledgers with computerization being a far cry and pulling out those ledgers every time a customer walked in to withdraw or put in money needed an effort.

This friend of ours would always complain in Hindi which I shall try to translate thus “why do these guys walk in early morning can’t they sit at home don’t they have any work” all because a customer comes to him with a withdrawal slip asking to withdraw amount that is legally his. But my friend was at pains to understand why customers should walk in to the bank at all.

His remarks suggesting, that he should be let free to idle throughout the day. Because customers walking in meant a flurry of activity and any activity required effort which he was unwilling to make in the mind. He also had this devil in the mind that though he wanted to get paid at the end of the month he expected to do no work. His conflict arose because he never understood the service industry and its essence.

Finally the ones wide with the radiant smile, the sweet scenting smile that would help a patient recover. They had the magic that helped the body to respond to medication. They were like salt that is added to make food tasteful and delicious. I would like to believe that a patient is propped up due to the smile that fills the room as the nurse walks in.

Their sweetness comparable to sweetened yogurt that could be had any season without reason. They did not have to be part of the exercise; they can stand apart and make a difference in the drooping moral of the patient and their relatives, their contribution to the recovery of a patient imminently on display in the feedback pages.

God bless them all since the services they provide cannot be compared with another and the smile that they possess lingers on much beyond the time a patient is discharged and well on their way home. Florence Nightingale has truly pioneered a brand second to none.

No Brooking 'NO'

No brooking - ‘No’

Dissent is disturbing to everyone, it creates a rift when the going is smooth, within a perceived peaceful environment, and we as humans are reluctant to sync that which is abnormal to any set routine, to our own set pace of life.

This human tendency has seeped into every sphere of life, including governments, people with authority and those in power, people who supervise human resource down the line, and relationships within families. It has also started a dangerous trend of eliminating that which is not convenient, which bodes ill of a given line of thought.

Thus eliminating witnesses, people who may be seen as enemies to your cause or just being intimidating and no tolerance are the new trends that can be seen in our lives. Every day we have newspaper reports of women being raped. Rape as such is malice in our society, but the newer trend is eliminating whosoever stands up for the victim, including witnesses from within the family of the victim.

It is not enough to have caused untold hardship on the victim of rape but going one step ahead is to shut up the meek voices of dissent, objections, of fighting back, of dissidence, or a fight back both from within and without.

Family members of victims are being burned alive, killed through staged accidents or being shot dead. In other words all forms of protest and fight backs, dissidence, non tolerance on behalf of the victim is seen as being against the present norms and needs elimination.  The administration and administrators at various levels aren’t playing fair too; on the contrary they seem to be playing coy.

But that is only to be guessed with mighty ministers openly advocating removal of their ideological enemies by terming them traitors. Not agreeing or saying No to their version amounts to being a traitor and traitors must be shot all in full view of the law and the guardians of the law. There just cannot be a counter viewpoint. It all boils down to the narrative that there cannot be any disagreement on their vision plan.

Not only will the culprit have his way but also ensure that there are no witnesses to corroborate. No; is no more acceptable and remorse or regret for crime committed is shameful. It is equal to burning down your house because it is witness to your numerous mistakes committed in life. The only way to present a clean sheet is by doing away with even hearsay evidence and anyone remotely attached to it.

This is a dangerous trend and must be nipped in the bud. All such cases reported must be sanctioned forthwith and heavily so that the message goes out loud and clear to all criminals and future culprits that such acts will be stoutly rejected by the administration, courts and civil society irrespective of whether there are survivors to corroborate the crime.

In a way are we propagating such behavior by ourselves being intolerant to dissent at our level of activity whether in governance, factories, offices, universities, social and religious organizations or elsewhere? After all, if it is good for the goose it must be good for the gander right?

Is our own logic a stumbling block to acceptance of another ones virtue? Are we pushing our thinking too hard and basking in its glory as newly confounded so as to belittle internally the thinking of another section, another person?

Are we demolishing everything that does not confirm to our sacred vision, our version of truth, our understanding, our existence? Or are we just cowering behind the act to justify our own flawed character?

What is wrong with us? Is it our thinking? Is it our vulnerability? Our false machismo, our chauvinist self, our powerfulness, our helplessness, our authoritarian self, our self applause, our crooked logic, or is it a reflection on our upbringing?

The wailing continues

The wailing continues

Passing on from the year gone by to the New is normally a joyous event. The mistakes committed during the past year, the turbulence, the adversity, the pain all gets forgotten in the shrill of the ensuing New Year. There is a renewed hope a happiness that comes out of such hope.

The music the exuberance, the cockiness, the blinds help as pain killers; we forget the pain of the past and welcome the unknown. The frenzy and glitz that accompanies the midnight strike of the gong helps to bury the known amidst the uncertainty attached to the unknown.

The world and its people have been pained, wronged, assaulted, marauded, gnawed, throttled, crushed, stamped, flattened, whipped, beheaded, and stripped of its rights, its right to a peaceful existence.

Every time we think that enough is enough; the powers that be, unleash an avalanche of physical and verbal abuses on us which cannot be ignored, nor condoned. Many of us who normally wouldn’t get provoked due to the fact that we believe in a peaceful atmosphere are smoked out of our living spaces and forced to retaliate through protests, and marches all over the world.

Why does this happen, why do the masters who lord over us whether politicians, bosses, landowners, keepers of the law, protectors of the law, not see the bodies stamped beneath their crushing weight; of measures adopted that puts the common man and woman to a life of strife?

Why do they have to proclaim that which is inconvenient to the masses. Why are they not instead goading us to move ahead, to progress, and to enjoy the seasons under the sun? Why are we not partakers in the progress of various societies? Why do the masters think that that what they say matters and the ordinary folks ought to be content with the paltry blessing that are given on the side like crumbs that fall off the masters dining table? Why do lone wolf attacks occur in advanced countries?

Look at Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, The Kurds in north east Syria, Lebanon, Hongkong, Uighirs in China, the Rohingyas of Myanmar, the minorities in Pakistan, the Dalai Lama’s Tibetans, the Taiwanese resistance, the poor Palestinians, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the North Korean onemanship, the Military dictatorship in Egypt, the high handedness in Turkey.

The various religious Denominations fighting to have control in various lands including Kerala in India, the Tunisians, the Libyans, The Sudanese, the Nigerians, the central African states- my God I have almost circled the globe and hear the wail of the ordinary. The ordinary who just wanted an easy existence, an existence that was peaceful, the morrow positive and the wailing that promised to end.

Instead, we see the oppressors of today entrenching themselves into their fortified trenches and vowing to continue with their agenda and the immense hardship that it brings on its people. . Revolutionary Poets and their lines are debated for and against, forgetting the context and the imagery. Faiz Ahmed Fiaz’s “Hum Dhekenge” being debated as essentially Muslim. For them what matters is only religion not the mass of flesh and blood or the emotions that humans are made of.  They do not consider the suffering of the ordinary as their own.

Those who come from humble backgrounds forget the past and their nostalgic paths on tasting power. What matters thereafter is the will of the mighty, the educated, the entrenched, the handful of power mongers who deem it their sacred duty to dust the dust of the bodies of the lowly and march forward.

They continue to make us fight our friends, neighbours, those who advocate a different view point. Societies, that was so well orchestrated in the past in terms of social well being and love towards one another suddenly seems split down the middle. The taunts, the interpretations, the logic, the one sided viewpoints keep polarizing us, we forget the past, the bonhomie, the hugs, the gratitude, the common existence, friends suddenly turn foes.

When will be able to live in peace in lands that our forefathers tilled, when will be able to lie under the shade of the trees, plough our own fields, tends to our own animals, participate in each other’s happiness and sorrows? When will we be able to derive comfort from the bhajans, soulful music that flows out of churches, the piercing heart bound poetry that flows seamlessly and ceaselessly from poets with the imagery of the times?

The wailing continues, the thuds of breast beating subdued by the beats of the DJ, the music reverberating into the open, the prayers falling woefully short, the hankering for prestige and space elbowing out the lowly from their abode, can you see the discomfort, can you hear the sound of running feet, can you see the malnourished, the ones staying in detentions centers, refugee camps, their rights trampled by the cruel acts of a few. Can you hear their wailing?

4th January 2020