THE BORED BLOGGER

Here I am sitting staring at the monitor for the last one decade ready to blog with a totally empty mind; but yet I have to blog since I cannot survive without blogging . Infact I have been cursing my son for the last 6 months not for anything but for initiating me in to this wonderful world of the play of words .The big problem with me is that I have a nasty habit of getting in to the so called conditioned reflexes and becoming an addict very fast and the withdrawal symptoms are very painful . In short I have become an obsessive compulsive blogger .In this very short time frame I have sometimes felt the birth pangs and agony of a mother delivering a beautiful kid or sometimes a malformed baby . At other times after a blog I get the pleasurable inevitable relief after shitting or pissing; of throwing out the inner dirt as you may term it .Only occasionally or rather rarely do I get the ectasy of a sexual act with a consenting partner with a satisfying tiredness succeeding it or very very rarely the guilty magical pleasure after a blogging with a secret partner so to say .After enjoying or suffering such devastating feelings the blogger in me has to suffer the ultimate humiliation when he gets the nausea but nothing to vomit out ,just like in the present moment when he comes out with the last resort ; i.e when he stoops to the abyss by putting his fingers deep in to his throat and sets in an artificial act of vomiting bringing out nothing at the same time getting the abdominal cramps .

Here I have been sitting ,wondering ,pondering about how to handle such a delicate sensitive matter of utmost concern to me;you may dismiss it just like that with that funny wave of hand..Yes I now have come to a firm conviction or that decisive moment in history or destiny beckones me to announce to the world that I am a WRITER,one who can write , like a driver- one who can drive.Now” Shyam” I can see your eyebrows shifting 2 mms upwards and your lips quivering “how dare you”.I can understand your envy ,but you cannot just help it .Just because I happen to be a born writer as my nanny used to say {infact the family astrologer had predicted decades back about the arrival of the Messiah”,}doesn’t mean that you or infact any one need to read me ;that is of the least concern to me because my duty is only to write not expecting any result and dedicate it at the feet of Kesava thus freeing myself from the bondage to the reader if such a person exists .
In fact I believe there are five varieties or species of writers in general , 1. those who write for themselves .2 those who write for the others 3 those who write for the sake of writing 4.those who cannot , but yet try.5.those who can , but are too talented to give it a try .I believe that I can have a decent claim for the third category who are devoting their whole life for a noble cause i.e to enrich the very act of writing . not bothered about the whole community of readers . After much research I have been told or rather informed by reliable sources that my so called writings have been much lauded by my eldest son which , they have assured me , will last till his marriage and the rest being my colleagues which is also predicted will last, till my transfer or retirement which ever is the earliest..Ofcourse it will be a blasphemy if I fail to mention my devoted wife who gets the honour of the preview and who always tries her level best to save the readers from the agony by dumping it to the waste paper basket saying she mistook it for an office paper or for that matter my servant maid who boasts to all that my yessaman{master} is a great writer since she is a stranger to English or for that matter any language and retrives my crumpled notes from the waste paper basket.What ever you may say or not say I am an obsessive compulsive writer and will remain so, for the near future .P.T.O
As for as the rewinding of the current year in its final dying moments ,it has been a sensational epoch making year for me like 1979.Let me list it in chronological order.The first five months died as usual and the second half turned out to be at first menacing ,agonizing and shocking resulting in testing my tenacity like say the first five wickets being down for under 50 with Macgrath and Lee on fire at Gabba and Rahul dravid and Kaif braving it out and getting India to a position of safety at around 250 for 5 .Some how or other I managed to survive the storm only to find that some thing beautiful had happened and that LIFE has always a way of evening out events and making us richer and fuller and thus I discovered INDU .The next unexpected thing was my son pushing me out in to the emancipating world called the art of blogging . it was the second greatest turning point in my life after my grand dad APPA introduced me to the world of books starting with” Ambulimama”. And the third and most interesting event to occur was that CALL from the WILD one of the most fantastic calls ever to grace my life Thus ends my spectacular year in prospective .

AGONY AND ECTACY

Damn that cell phone .What business had he to buy one .There was so many things in that consumer market to buy?He could have bought a Mercedes or a camcorder .What was the need to buy after all a cheap nokiya?He cursed all the Gods and the devils. Even if he had got one why should it ring at 12.45 in the noon on that fateful or fatal day in his whole life .What wrong had he done to deserve this kind of treatment from DESTINY .Why the whole world had to turn against him when he seemed to be happy and contented with what little mercies the Gods have bestowed on him .He was already in the fag end of his life and when every thing was fitting in to the pattern that he deserved after a lot of struggle and sacrifice it took one call to shatter his life and bring back all that happened 30 yrs back?Was nt that cruel irony of fate ?
That call he shouldn’t have attended or atleast he should have offed the cell as he usually does when ever it is a new number .Was he not a gazetted officer in the rank of an D.S.P,leave it alone was he not a mature adult . He should have flung that cell to a distant planet or should have battered it on the ground .But he did nothing and one such silly mistake is going to haunt his life for ever .One silly indiscretion and here he is paying dearly,. Did the cell announce a dismissal from service, an arrest or a threat to his life,or a loss of one dear or near,or a great financial loss ;NO! It would have been peanuts compared to the agony that he faced NOW or for that matter EVER .what should he do now . Which Ganges is going to wipe him clean,or how much years of penanance he had to do to calm his mind .
Atleast when the caller had identified,he should have disconnected or answered wrong number .But instead his pulse raced and his mind became mad with elation it was as if he was stuck by a magic and hypnotizing tsunami that carried away his strong footings of the earthly Virgo and he soared high into unchartered space.He was for a moment crazy mad,a flying child,a man sruck by a sweet agonizing lightening.IT was as if he was waiting for that particular call for ages and centuries and he dare not believe his ears.He wanted his ears to be deaf for ever other than hear that voice .He couldn’t stop his deathly thandava and the agonizing silence after the revelation lasted for how long ,he never bothered. Then slowly in total disbelieve he asked “IS THAT YOU’ .and then he swooned never to raise again .He had disintegrated in to the PANCHA BOOTHAS never ever to reintegrate again .

KANNAN GOES TO SCHOOL AGAIN

Since1979 after leaving medical school,he has been a practicing Govt ophthalmologist for the last 26 yrs and has been recklessly treating the so called underprivileged class of society in a semi urban govt hospital not bothering to update about the changing trends in treatment or surgical practice other than reading some articles in the newspapers meant for layman,since he could survive despite that or else he might have felt that advanced treatment or knowledge of the same would adversely affect his private practice in the sense that new doubts and confusion is a possibility and his self confidence would also come down with newer concepts and also his patients would have to be send for higher centers for the ever growing and costly investigations which his patients could not afford and the results of these investigations would inturn need further costlier investigations and ultimately the treatment boiled down to what he would have prescribed without these sophisticated investigations .He was not against these modern investigations per say but the affordability factor as for as his poor patients, he was bothered .Also he believed in the theory that ignorance was bliss.In short he was 30yrs behind the so called modern practitioners of the game yet he was a happy and contented modern ophthalmic quack ofcourse licensed to kill.
It was when another junior artist entered the scene that he felt belittled and when she often hinted about his ignorance that he consented to attend an ophthalmic conference and face reality and bring up todate treatment to his B.P.L patients and off he flew to the capital city with the anxiety and curiosity of a child to enter in to the new world of modern day magic of the lasers and phako surgeries being enacted in a five star hotel(which he has never bothered to venture).Ofcourse he never forgot to take his old membership card which he retrieved after an intense search of his old files .
He promptly reported at 9 a.m and was soon lost in the world of young and old all dressed up in suites and coats who looked at him as if from third world country .After he dished out his delegate fees worth a fortune they gave him a schedule of the subjects being taught simultaneously in three different halls .,for three successive days . Oh GOD he cried in desperation after seeing the menu of the classes,how much to learn and how to take three avatars to complete the menu .His dilemma was thwarted by his old classmate who pushed him to hall A saying they are showing C.D pictures there worth watching .He settled comfortably in a chair in the darkened A.C hall and the film has already started and he had missed the titles.His eyes accommodated to the surroundings and soon he realized that he was seeing a modern eye surgery in all its glamour and splendor .and the speaker was describing modern techniques of retreaval of intra ocular lenses which have fallen back in to the vitreus of the eye while being implanted .Ofcourse he was no stranger to the lenses being lost in the ocean of vitreus he has been fortunate to have lost 7or8 into abyss of vitreous and never bothered to retrieve the same since the results would not be any different since both resulted in the patient being forced to be happy with the other eye .But the story here was different .The surgeon using modern gadgets and different lighting systems tried to locate the lost lens and retrieved it from as far back in retina and brought it back and cried eureka 5 hours in surgery costing the patient another 50000 bucks and being comfortable with the other eye . The speaker was demonstrating the ambidexterity of the hands and if permitted would have put his foot also .Kannan was surprised that sooner than later in the next conference he would be presenting how he had dived into the vitreus to retrieve the lens in a scuba. The whole acrobatics lasted 2 hrs and he was mesmerized by the skill and the topic concluded with a standing ovation by the leading ophthalmologists of the state.Soon it was lunch time.The food was not that bad ,but when an organizer friend requested him to make the most of it since the hotel charged around Rs.250 per plate he felt a nausea and immediately left the area .
The post lunch session boasted of a modern update of squint and Cornea –“what we need to know” . The second Ad caught his attention and he drifted to the cornea hall .T he session was heating up as he entered and he noticed some P.G.s furiously taking notes. He settled nice and comfortably and was surprised to see his classmate giving the lecture.He felt some aching pain in the chest which subsided after his customary three deep breaths to soothen the heart .Soon he dissolved completely in the cornea and only a tap from his near seater jolted him back from a cool nap and the speaker was concluding T hank you .He felt embarrassed and ashamed and mentally apologized to his patients .
The first day came to a screaming halt .and he returned to the pavilion not interested in the banquet and cultural programme to follow .
His wife was eagerly waiting for her husband as if returning from the battle field and he nodded as if very tired and went to sleep.
The second day began with another C.D session of modern phako surgeries which he watched in utter awe and was hypnotized so to say-they were literally playing with the EYE BALL with precise balance like a Russian ballet and skill of a snookerist at his peak .He was thrilled and soon began to whistle and wave like a hysterical fan until the session concluded and lunch was announced .After the sumptuous lunch he visited the instrument stalls and the drugs stalls .Soon he saw a long queue of leading ophthalmologists before a medical stall ,and in a typical Indian style he also waited patiently in it . After an eternity he reached the destination and was dumb struck to see these godmen creating a melee for a open plastic bag being offered as a compliment by a medical company .He knew not whether to laugh or cry .When his turn came he also snatched one bag from the medical rep and asked him for one more for his dead nanny for her shopping and he obliged to his great delight .
The after noon session was lively with the topic –The Dos and DON’T in the operation table.One medical college professor was chiding the novice surgeons for uttering stupidities like “oh god! This is my first surgery” with the patient hearing(almost all eye surgeries are done in local aneasthesia and the patient can even hear the surgeons fast heart.).She also confessed that she had stopped humming songs after complaints from some patients who demanded more recent songs .Some one from the audience ,not me for sure, suggested how to kiss the assisting nurse silently .So much for the donts. The session went on merrily and concluded at 5 when the umpires called it a day .
He felt desperate. What has he learned or unlearned.Was he going to be the same again.His confidence had plummeted .He is going to bat like the Gangulies in the near future until all the memories of this conference lasted . But memories are short which was a blessing and he decided to abstain from the third days play and went home satisfied that ophthalmology has outgrown his generation and the FUTURE IS SAFE IN THE HANDS OF THE NEXT GENERATION and since ultra conservatives and service oriented persons like himself cannot accept the CHANGE - IT IS BETTER TO CALL IT A DAY and find peace in the search for ATHMAN .