Dying to Live

Below is the list of regrets that different people in the final stages of their lives had and shared with a nurse offering palliative care. These five themes seem to be the most common with people in their death bed. I have read a lot of books and articles on dying and living and what struck me about this particular list is the simplicity of it all. I guess that is the beauty of death; it strips all the complexities that we have added to our lives over the years and shows us for who and what we truly are and what we are not. We have nothing to hide behind, nothing with which to protect ourselves from the inevitable truth.

The list:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

When you read the list and introspect, it will hit you; the mistakes you have made and the lost opportunities and you will also realize none of it has anything to do with material comfort.

The secret then to a happy life is to cherish people around you and more importantly surround yourself with people who will cherish you and help you grow. While you are alive try and get most of it right. Make the dying wish a living promise.






Ref. article: http://www.ariseindiaforum.org/nurse-reveals-the-top-5-regrets-people-make-on-their-deathbed/

coming of age of a politician and other related stuff

I never ever thought I would live to see the day when I can make sense out of statements made by Raj Thackeray. However, the man famous for ludicrous protests that hold Maharastrian cities to ransom has finally made a statement which struck a chord, at least with me. Is this what they call coming of age in politics?? He has stated that Belgaum, Nipani-Karwar, Khanapur and other Marathi-speaking villages in Karnataka should stay in Karnataka and Maharashtra has nothing special to offer them. With the outburst of protests to this statement, there is a high likelihood that he might withdraw it, or threaten the print media for printing them, and try and get them out of Maharashtra.

However, there is a lot of truth in his statement. Maharashtra has nothing to offer the hundreds of kids dying in Melghat due to malnutrition, no solution to the farmer’s problems in Vidarbha region, no solution to the sorry state of state-sponsored education, and other endless problems that plague them. There is no feasible solution forthcoming from the political class. I still don’t understand why, at a periodic interval (read elections), these politicians flare up the issue and people still fall prey to it.

And all those idiots from these border villages who damage public properties never see that their issue will always be only an issue. They are nothing but a trump card and the moment their problem is solved, they will lose all the political patronage they are enjoying. It will be interesting if these people use this to their favour and get additional benefits out of Karnataka govt., but I don’t see that ever happening. Idiots are always idiots; you see there is no cure for that one.

This is the case with all regions that want to break away from one or join with another.  There is no point. We the people are just expendable pawns to the political players. With the king sitting impassively in the centre, the queen and the knights have all the fun.

 Politicians of this state (and the rest of country), have and will always be, spokesmen and minions for the realtors and other so-called Elite. Yes, I am generalising, as the handful of politicians who are worth their salt don’t give a rats-ass as to whether I generalise or not. They will continue to do their work.

So moral of story - Raj is finally a mature politician, there is still some hope after all for the poor Aam Admi and politicians in general suck.

RAGE

Tearing across the skies

The sound of raging battle

roar of a million lions

Heard in unison, the cry of life

Nature wielding her sword of light

Unbridled arrogance, challenging

Destroying human ego

Born from wind and water

Beautiful in its ugly ferocity

Touching the earth

Like a stairway from hell

This is where the elements meet

Like sparks off a clashing sword

Too instantaneous to grasp

Too immense to behold.

the thorn branch

In one of those random conversations with a friend of mine who can pretty much complete my sentences for me... She made a statement, comparing some relationships in our lives to holding on to a thorn branch for dear life.

Holding on here is as difficult as letting go. The harder you hold the more you hurt yourself. The moment you let go, the dark plunge that follows will take you to bottoms you never knew existed. The only solace of letting go is the few moments of peace and freedom during the free fall before you hit the rock bottom.

Most of us might come out of the abysmal depths, with our sanity intact. The wound inflicted will eventually heal. The scars however will be our constant companion.

The choice of holding onto the thorn branch ever so tightly or letting go and embracing the free fall is up to us. The pain however remains as a common denominator no matter what choice we make.

Is there a way to completely escape all this pain ? I am not sure.

Maybe it’s time we took Buddha’s words more seriously.

-- Ro&I

Kolkata Fire

The recent events at the AMRI, not the fire, we all know that story, but how the government and the judiciary decided to act, baffles me. There was an accident - it could be caused due to the callousness of a few employees of the hospital or it could be an act of arson. One is as likely as the other. However, the government and the judiciary decided to go after the director, some of them never directly involved in the day to day operations of the hospital, and some were there as directors due to some special medical skills that they possess. The government and judiciary gave into popular demand, arrested the people who were not the actual perpetrators of the crime, while the actual criminal has gone scott-free.

This was a case of negligence and it did cost us dearly. But why the directors were targeted without any inquiry? why was the hospital’s license cancelled before an enquiry? I am no authority on the IPC, but I am sure a lot of laws were sidestepped before the dogs were let loose on the directors. Probably now there will be an enquiry which will be custom made to justify the verdict that has already been passed.

So if I go set fire to AIIMS will the Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and the rest of the hospital board be arrested and only then an enquiry will be ordered?

I am not supporting the case of the directors; I am just bringing to notice what the government has done. It has set precedence, a dangerous one at that. So from now on when there is failure on the governmental part, will the heads of the ministers roll? I would like to see that happen. Or is there a different set of laws governing aam admi and them?

People should also wake up and also demand the suspension or imprisonment of the railway minister where ever there is an accident or the transport minister when a pothole on the road causes a fatal accident. Is the Government willing to take decisive action then? Will the judiciary sidestep a lot of laws to bring the ministers to justice?

It time someone told the politicians to stop looking at everything as a political leverage and actually do the work they were supposed to do.

Hariyaali : The k9 in need of a miracle

Hari (short for Hariyaali) the canine who beat all odds to survive with stakes against her. She has been nurtured and treated by a few friends of mine .This is a tale of a survivor, who is need of another miracle. 

Hari was injured in a motorbike accident at two months of age. She survived due to the love of some of her very first admirers—kind-hearted garage mechanics, who fed and bandaged her till the wounds healed. But the accident left her (due to lack of proper medical attention) with a misshapen foreleg with almost no paw pad. Once she began to walk again, the injury not only made her limp but caused her paw to rub against the ground. Out on the rough road, this constant rubbing led to a chronic wound that bled and pained every time she moved. Life on the streets is not easy and even a small handicap can severely hamper the chances of survival. Poor Hari has had three more near-fatal episodes since her accident. The last was when the wound on her paw developed a septic infection. Each time a lucky intervention managed to save her.

While her trysts with life seem miraculous enough for her name, Hari’s tale has a lot more magic in it. What would you expect a dog that has been through such trauma to be like? Nervous, unsocial, wary? Hari turns out to be the antithesis of all such fears. She continues to amaze with her strength and patience, delight with her boundless friendship and inspire with her calmness of nature, a darling indeed.

For instance, despite having been in pain for most of her ten months of life, she has borne all the long treatments with a patience that never ceases to astonish doctors and onlookers alike. Through innumerable bandages and saline treatments, she has sat with an almost Zen-like calm. More amazing is the unfathomable trust and love Hari possesses for humans and dogs alike. It’s like she wants to reach out and connect to the entire world. And this makes her irresistible to anyone who meets her. For sure, a few moments with her will melt any heart.

On October 7, Hari’s problem leg was amputated in order that she may lead a healthier, injury-free life. However, as the story of her life goes, this too ended up being an ordeal. The surgery has developed complications which have led to a life-threatening infection. The skin below the stitches has given way so that a hole in the chest has left the underlying bone exposed. The medical care to save her life is underway, but the expenses for her treatment are already touching 25,000 Rs.

What Hari needs now is another miracle that will save her life and hopefully end this cycle of sickness and put her on the road to full recovery and a normal life. Please make it happen by contributing for her treatment or by sharing this on your Facebook page so someone who can help will come across it.

Please also spread the word about Hari’s adoption. As a tripod, life on the streets will not be easy for her. And Hari with her gregarious nature and amazing calmness deserves a loving home which she is sure to light up with her magic!

For more information mail me on: veloce0raptor@gmail.com

Three letter solution to the five letter problem

This is not an attempt to mock any system of belief.

To begin with let me make it clear I don’t know what it means to have blind faith in a deity. Faith presupposes un-questionability. I used a prefix blind to make it plain to the modern reader who just like me might not know what faith is. Yet in life that is all we seem to seek. Faith in governance, in marriage, in our partners, in our gadgets and so on. Yet we are always let down, Trust me, even the iPhone can break down. Faith removes the uncertainty, which physics tells us is that foundation of our reality. Now this poses a problem. Life without faith seems empty. Imagine a life where faith cannot be a reality. If you cannot don’t worry and neither could I. That’s life without faith for you, inconceivable. Our very fabric of existence seems to have been woven around this thing called faith.

So how do we tackle this problem? We need to have faith in something or some being without which this life is apparently meaningless. But to place your faith in a being or a thing, let’s say, is like letting a three year old drive your expensive sports car. He might get it right in the straights but what about those tough corners or parallel parking. There is sure going to be a lot of dents and scratches. I guess this question might have popped in the minds of all the great and not great thinkers long back. There is no possible reality based solution. Everything that is real is also transient. That which lives dies, that which is built is destroyed. So we had to look beyond to place our trust and then faith. We looked into nature and there we found only dynamism, not the firm rooted concept with we seem to want to objectify. We wanted surreal properties, unquestionable characters.

The only possible solution to that seemingly unsolvable problem was to place your faith in a concept. This concept had to be fool-proof. All the kinks and possible problems had to be ironed out. So mankind went about creating extensive stories to create a hypothetical creature which is like man, so that we can associate with it, yet it rises above man in all aspects. This was a killer move. Now the concept becomes a shining beacon for mankind to follow and possibly evolve. However it seems thinkers overlooked one problem. They forgot there were other thinkers as well in the world, who thought about this problem in a similar manner. You can’t really blame them, the so called thinkers were spread across in time and space and there was no Skype or Gtalk available back then.

Fine, these concepts were developed. Faith in concepts came with its set of problems. One, it must be spread and second, it does not allow for existence of other concepts. With time and development of communication, concepts clashed. Mutual infidels clashed. We are still waging this battle.

One offbeat solution was spirituality, which tries to unify all these concepts together, with talks like different paths same destination and stuff. It works for some. But what about the masses who cannot look beyond the over simplified, objectified version?

There is no possible solution in sight for them. They are a dying race. For peaceful existence we have to let go the oversimplified concept and look for some sort of union or just simply perish. This involves mental work.

We have to somehow extract faith from our system and accept uncertainty as the eventuality of living. That is possible only if we can let go of the society and de-evolve (I had to make it up as there is no antonym for evolve). They were right when they tried to burn the first guy who discovered fire. It is the very knowledge which created this computer and urges me to write this piece, our greatest undoing. Uncertainty can be only experienced in our primeval form. Einstein was partly wrong when he said ‘god does not play dice’. There was no god to begin with but the dice were rolled.