Wednesday, July 21, 2010

ONCOLOGY OPD

I drop Jeet at the entrance to the hospital lobby and drive to the parking-lot to rush back to where she waits alone and a bit forlorn. We enter the chaotic world, the lobby; once again I leave her to wait patiently: ‘patience’ has become a way of life with us by now, and joins the long and crawling queue at the reception.
With the registration card, finally, in my hand and with Jeet following, we are permitted to the entry the restricted Oncology OPD. Jeet takes a vacant seat in the front row; strangely the rear rows are full, leaving the front one’s vacant. I with her papers, approach the OPD reception for registration.
I keep glancing back at her as the line moves forward; Jeet is looking straight ahead eyes unfocused, deep in her own apprehensions and worries; possibly she gives me a wane smile as I approach.
I come and occupy the seat next to her and await our turn with Dr Ghosh with whom I have already fixed an appointment on phone.
I look back and around at the sad spectacle: the affected toddlers in laps of desolate looking parents, the elderly in wheel-chairs with, disinterested paid, attendants and also fit looking young of both sexes men and women; forlorn and in no apparent hurry, patiently waiting their turn with glum continence, possibly trying to postpone the diagnosis or the treatment as long as possible.
There are no smiles on the faces of those around and very little talk, if at all, it is in whispers. A near silence is prevailing; a silence of a morgue
The grim scene confirms once again, if one is required, of the cruelty and viciousness of Cancer, it has no consideration for age or gender. Cancer can and does hit any one, at any time and without any warning.

At last our number comes, the sister on duty beckons and I in lead with Jeet closely following enter the inner chamber and knock on the door of the cubical with the name plate of Dr Ghosh.

How strange that once again I am going to trust and place the well being,trust, of one, who matters the most to me, in the hands of some one whom I am yet to face. The question, if I am taking the right decision, is still haunting me, even as we enter the doctor’s chamber.

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Saturday, July 10, 2010

SHAKEN BUT NOT STIRRED

I had waited near the Cigarette Kiosk opposite the Sector 21 No 2 Gate. Lights changing from green to red at the crossings, the early evening fast moving traffic having passed with no head lights beams, stabbing the dark, from either side, visible, I assumed that the road was clear: I had hardly taken half a step across when I was buffeted by the slip stream of what had appeared from no where and in the quick pass had scrapped me by the merest of touch. Left rattled I heard a shouted derogatory exclamation and saw the fast disappearing red tail light of a speeding motorcycle.
Tail-light yes, which could have written an epithet, but no head-light that could have warned me. Luckily, I was only shaken and not stirred.
With the euphoric mood, I was in, after taking the movie ’Knight and Day’ at Shipra Mall, evaporating, still rattled and wondering at my good fortune, thanking the guarding angle, in a solemn mood and deeply contemplating the various consequences of what nearly happened, I crossed the road with trepidation, reminding myself once again "driving in a car is much safer than walking especially in night".

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Friday, July 9, 2010

LUNGTHU 1971

Lungthu with the Chinese just a stone throw away with the battle raging down below with its rarefied air, deficient of oxygen, its intense cold, the bleak landscape its mountain sides denuded of the trees by years of illegal falling by the troops positioned there for cooking and heating, all combined to create an atmosphere totally alien to us dwellers of the planes. The sensation was particularly strong and overpowering at night with the full moon appearing unusually large the stars so near and shining bright in the thin clear air of the night. The stark wilderness bereft of any human or animal being in the near vicinity that late made one aware of some supernatural power some where very near

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Thursday, July 8, 2010

What is happening

Is the Nation tearing itself apart
Naxals, red corridor, Turmoil in the valley, Talangana , Honor Killings, OBC agitations with nature too adding its weight floods in Haryana and Punjab

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Wednesday, July 7, 2010

LUNGTHU 1971


All set for the evening walk, December 1971 we had moved from kalinpong to Lungthu guarding the Jajapala pass in Sikkhim against the Chinese

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ZOZILA 1984


At the Zozila pass 1984 as guest of Daspal

The year India won the World cup

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Communication tools as Barriers to Communication

My son walks in with the cell glued to his ear, moves to the computer and then to the TV; in between answering and making calls: with the time both remote and the cell clutched in hand.

My daughter from USA starts a family conversation session, the Lap Top open, sitting in between us, seriously tapping he keys.

My friend, Ashok, has his eyes fixed, discretely, to his blackberry even when we meet for dinner at the club.

Hari’s invite me for lunch: Sudha soon picks up her cell and gets involved with someone on a long discourse, possibly more for the benefit of the gallery. It was nothing that could not have waited.

I invite friends for dinner, soon the ladies are on their cells passing instructions to the maid back home.

God forbid if one of them receives a call from a son or daughter abroad: for the next ten minutes there is a self imposed curfew by the other guests keeping mum.

The ring tone from some one’s cell, which has refused to heed the request to keep the phones on the silent mode, distracts and breaks the bond with the speaker, singer or the actors as the case may be.

‘Where are you’ the query on the phone and the evasive reply by the one sitting behind me in the multiplex brings me back from the word of fantasy that I were engrossed in to the real world of the darkened auditorium.

I pod , I pad , I phone, Laptop, though communication tools in them selves , are killing the art of face to face conversation and small talk, acting as powerful, barriers to communication and have successfully replaced the earlier not so effective devices News paper and books

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