KWALITY TIME

I am obsessed now a days by the concept of TIME .which is eating me inside out. Is it because TIME is running out of me or from me or is it trying to engulf me in to its timeless cavern?They say man is born and dying every second ,but I cannot comprehend the idea. But when Death [TIME ] stares at me may be from the moment of my birth and follows me like my shadow through my youth ,I am not aware of its presence ,but once the middle ages are conquered and when you start relaxing and start looking back then you are vaguely aware or have a sense of suspicion which starts growing that you can actually perceive IT smiling at you and the FEAR factor takes over .One day will come when IT confronts you directly face to face laughing or howling and may ask you ‘ are you ready? “,then –then only you start begging-“ no,not now , please give me some more time” For what ?,IT asks . I want to have some real QUALITY TIME with my near ones ,please one last time ,I had never had enough of them.”HADN’T I ALREADY GIVEN YOU 60 FULL YEARS”,it retorts angrily.”Yes” I reply I had been with them for the 60 yrs you favoured ,but couldn’t give them or enjoy what you call QUALITY TIME .Nobody , not my parents or teachers or friends.had given me an inkling about this aspect of TIME and only lately have I realized its importance and now it is too late .
“ Sankar “,I call my little one, intending to have some quality time [,hence forth since I will be repeatedly using this word ,I shall compress it to Q.T hereafter,] and he replies “father ,I am watching “’kandukonden’ the movie in the cable for the n’th time ,so leave me out and runs off saying best of luck .I can’t blame him ,since so was I at his prime of teen age flying hither and thither in search of fun for my senses which was beginning to awaken to the heights .
Q.T can be conceived as that part of time which we have spend or enjoyed or suffered which we will remember after some time as time well spend or worthy of being expended and the mind savours those precious moments and cannot be erased by time itself .It may be a chat with your father or mum regarding your desires and apprehensions regarding your job or hearing from him about his principles or desires or expectations which you may not agree or accept but had given the privilege of having given EARS to the old ones and some of your Q.T which may also be q.t. for them as well and at other times you may have to regret for not giving or taking Q.T from them since Time might have already consumed them and your millions of dollars or your position will not be able to buy you that time.It might also be some silent moments with your loved one on a beach or a pleasurable silly argument with your friend that you may reliesh in the distant future or a concert or an enlightening oration ,even enjoying the smell and the sounds of the mother nature during the monsoon with a novel in your hand in the bed along with the pathos of Mukesh in the back ground with a steaming cup of chai in front.
What ever said and done the ultimate Q.T. lies in those cheerfull gallattas of your toddling children in the dining table or court yard , watching them as they grow and outgrow you .Sitting idly in the terrace with your old wife those eyes conveying thousands of thoughts through a single glance can also be added to your definition of Q.T . In short you can add to this many other moments which may sound silly to many but may mean a lot to you .
In my maddening race to accumulate power and money I have ignored Q.T. but yet had unknowingly acquired some and though time is running out I shall like to be after q.t .,hence forth squeezing years out of seconds of Quality time and when it is time to call it a day I can proudly challenge Father time and taking his hands can disappear in to ETERNITY with a beaming smile .

ON LOGGERHEADS WITH THE MYTH

Yes the damage had been done and there is no way that it can be recalled or annulled.Old people used to say that once the word has been delivered there is no way it can be swallowed back.Similarly a written word once captured in the internet becomes a wave that nobody can dare to stop however much he tries to delete it. Why I am forced to say the above is that I had the fortune or misfortune to read a blog by a crazy old fart bent up on distorting the very basic or core concept about the father TIME,and how convincingly he had tried to blaspheme the PRESENT .But I cannot be fooled by such gimmics of words or thoughts that amply demonstrates a senile decaying mind unable to come out of its cage and face the reality that Time is but to change and the world cannot tolerate those lagging behind chewing the cud of the PAST ,trying to get pleasure licking their old wounds and hurts not allowing them to heal since if the old hurts are healed they stop ‘living ‘ ,no that is not the apt word ,rather a better one will be ‘existing’..
O.K.the sum total of his so called concept is that PAST is the reality .For argument sake let us imagine a train speeding through, controlled by a driver .As for as the driver is concerned his sole duty is to control the train at the moment, at the same time looking forwards to note the state of the track ahead or the signals in front, guiding him forwards .He has no business to look behind ,since it will divert his attention and may even bring a disaster . Also consider the fact that he has a very heavy luggage behind him which is also getting heavy the more forwards he goes, casting a heavier burden on him, not to look behind ,since it may increase his apprehension and he has all the more to concentrate on the job at hand and at the same time to be aware of what is in store for him in the front .
If you are riding a two wheeler with a guy 80 kg behind ,you know that you will stuggle initially to get the balance ,but once on the run after acceleration you wouldn,t note or feel his weight and you can ride comfortably looking ahead for the traffic in front .Similarly though the past weighs you down, rather drags you from behind, if you persist with the job in hand I mean the PRESENT ,the luggage will feel lighter as you speedup . But the moment you look back at the Frank Einstein behind you or slow up or put on the breaks you are asking for trouble . The pillion rider will distract you most of the times but you are not supposed to look back ,at the best you can try to answer him in mono syllables or just ask him to shut up though most of the time in vain ,mostly because it is his job to distract you and land you in trouble, and it is also your duty to reach the destination safely inspite of him but also to carry him too since you cannot escape him since he is your past .
In a nutshell you have to be alert at the present second ,always looking forwards since you have a heavy dirty your own luggage which nobody else will share with you . For a comfortable smooth ride speed along merrily with tight control and concentration.. and look ahead for those mud holes,speed breakers and bumps ahead of you especially those warning signals.
From another angle if you are a sky diver enjoy the very act and the bliss of flying either descending or ascending not bothering about from where you have fallen or where you are going to crash land ,, just savour the moment at hand and that is what the old have prescribed for you BLISS IN THE PRESENT AND TO HELL WITH THE PAST.
Your honour,here I rest my case.The judgement is yours. But Sir I plead not to look back at previous judgements and be weighed down by the PAST .

THE MYTH

To start from the beginning ,it was Padma teacher who introduced him to the basics of TIME.,when he was forced in to learning the videshi basha ,the language of the masters and rulers ,I,mean the English,from Std 5 ,the so called First form.She mesmerized him with the so called Tenses,the present tense ,past tense,future tense ,the present continuous tense,the past recurring tense and future ongoing tense or the worrying tense .All in all everything turned murky and he was terribly confused .Later on as he was bound to grow older he gradually caught up with three tenses as all of you might have learnt,the way they wanted you to learn. The parents ,teachers and the soceity reinforced these distorted views in turn,For eg.the past is that which is over ,the future yet to come and the present is what is happening at present .So to live happily they advised him not to gloat over the past ,don’t worry about the future and live in the present , planning for the future .This was the nutshell that he had accumulated, Later as he turned young and aggressive,all these were buried past and he simply dived in to the future to make money power and position . and in turn had begun to accumulate the trash of misery ,joys ,humiliations,failures,successes,sadness the atrocities committed and inflicted,the hurt endured and delivered which he pocketed in the recycle bin called the PAST ,through multiple events and experiences which etched in to fine and keloid scars in what is called the past in his mind ,resulting in worries ,apprehensions and day dreaming in the so called future tense of his mind ,totally jamming his mind like a stalled computer and needed to be re set periodically to function .
Now in the twilight of his evolutions he has started to unlearn .What do you mean by the word PRESENT ? Does it mean today,or the present few hours or the present few minutes or the present second which is already over when you think about it .Similarly what do they mean by the word future? Ten years from now or tomorrow or the next second . similarly you can analyse the past also .
So what actually happens is the present is dissolving un to past every second or in other words the future is adding in to the past every two seconds I mean within the blinking of the eyelids . TO SUMMARISE ACTUALLY IT IS THE PAST WHICH IS TUNNELING TO THE ETERNITY AT HIGH SPEEDS COMPRESSING THE PRESENT AND FUTURE IN TO NONEXISTENSE AND ZOOMING ,MAKING , TIME , RIDICULOUS .So to conclude there is only one tense i.e the past and it is the reality .
If you can delve deeper in to past you can see it contains the old present and older future fused together in a never ending stream of events .So for me everything lies in the past and one ought to dissect his past I mean the experiences gathered whether good or bad to forcast or get a liberal picture of what is going to happen ,like a questine paper bank to prepare for the exams and all of us know or as a rule of averages,90% is going to be repeated ,for sure .It’s like an encyclopedia which has to be re used repeatedly and will alleviate about the apprehensions of tomorrow once you know from past knowledge that the problems which take a bizarre look and expand like a balloon over night unsolvable and looming to become crisis collapses just like that like a punctured balloon the next day and we make our selves a fool thinking what not , losing our sleep .
So there is nothing called present or future and key to success lies in how we utilize those golden treasures of experiences we have stored in our memory called THE PAST .The PRESENT is a MYTH and FUTURE an INVENTION and PAST is the only REALITY.

THE WICKED OLD AGE

Today, I mean, tonight I am in a better mood with a large stack of invitation cards piled in front of me ,the cards looking elegant just because of the yellowish dashings splattered lovingly by my wife over the edges heralding an auspicious occasion,yes my son is going to get married soon .As my fingers get happily weary jotting addresses of the known and the unknown ,those near and far, the uncalled for phone zooms in silently and within minutes bestows me with a thrashing on the heart and stops dead as fast as it came .The concussion lasted a few seconds and as I recovered the vertigo took over .The fan overhead swirled anti clock wise,the dining room with the dining table rushed in the opposite way and even the ever standing Krishna with the flute was turning inside out .
Oh God! Why are you after me, almost always .After a long time when I was scenting victory with about 40 runs to score in 10 overs with plenty of wickets left, I mean , a cruise mode ,suddenly I am left with the last tailendor .Is this the first sign of feeling old or is it the menopausal syndrome before the impending premature retirement? The sheer frustration is looming in front of me like a cloud of darkness and the despire is dragging me from behind .Expectations expectations expectations ,when are you going to stop? Even after 55 yrs of naked existence ,when are you going to learn to unlearn?
Why are you still in the iron age or in the mythic world imagining taking your 3 yr old son who is bristling with joy as the fast air rushes past his curly black hairs as he stands in front of you in the new Vijay scooter for his routine evening ride to Varode ending with a Cadburys from Becker in super stores .He is a tall young adult now eager to conquer the world as you once were, not knowing or caring for the hurts you ,you yourself , gifted to the old man in the years gone by .Why do you want to clip the wings of the young for satiating your selfishness in the guise of protectiveness and want them near you . Yes you are getting OLD and started rotting .Nothing can save you until you recognice “ MAYA “ and know that history never stops repeating .Accept the fact and resign .

THE HOLY ANGEL

The sharp kick on my right thigh brought me alive to face yet another new born day “coffee”,she shouted after that routine kick .Previously in the beginning of the beginning I used to feel the pain but now a days due to callus formation I feel only a vibration sense like my mobile which stimulates my reticular formation and kick starts the day.But today was totally different ,utterly so since it was not yet’ day’,I mean it was pitch black with no trace of the sun who is supposed to begin the day in olden times with the back up of the cock howling[I have forgotten the English for “ cockaracho”].I checked up all the 5 clocks ,each said the time was around 7.30a.m and off course my day is supposed to begin at precisely that time since time immemorial .I look at the dark face of my would be ,no ,I mean- has been- wife and she says the sun has not come that day like the milk man or her servant maid .I am not surprised since now a days anything can happen,why not the sun take a day off or a night off .But yet I have an eerie feeling the sort which the camels or horses gets before an earth quake .Some thing has terribly gone wrong somewhere
But we superintendents cannot be cowed down by such trivia,we have seen worse and are prepared or trained to face far worse situations or emergencies as you may term .But in our dictionary there is no such term .Our motto is” “everything is under control and all possible measures or precautions have been taken or is being taken and the govt machinery is in full swing and is in red alert ,hence the public need not panic and can go to sleep after gulping down two large so to say and wait for the casuality figures which may loom large on their T.V. screens as the day progresses”.
See I am going off my track and coming to my present day or night,as usual utterly cool and composed I fly to my hospital and ottapalam is in bright darkness as the muncipal lights compete with the non existent sun shelling out their best possible emission that the electricity board can be proud of ,or is it” off “.All the people are in the streets and their faces couldn’t be out lined or rather out of focus and were huddled together whispering what not, I darenot guess.They were gesturing something to me which I couldn’t make out nor did I care since I am on duty and hence should be deaf and dumb, not to allow any emotions or sentiment to cloud my logic and reasoning .But still being a human being which many might not concur with , I started guessing to keep my brain in idling mode.
Has Soniaji resigned from politics? No,that is close to impossible ,eventhough she may resign from the party , her motherhood or wifehood or even the nationality if she is given the throne of India and designated Queen Elizebeth 3 ,it was not a news ,it was only a national pasttime.
Has Karunakarji and Muralibhai left for vanavas to Himalayas?Could it be that GOD has been taken hostage by the Lashkar e toiba in the Tajmahal .No way,since he has already been hijacked by the Godmen,Imams and the Popes,with none to question.Could it be that corruption has been wiped out overnight,but no it is our birthright and an ordinance or bill, that has not been decided yet ,but will be passed in both houses in the coming monsoon session to protect it from purview of the courts.Then what has gone wrong .?
By this time he has reached the hospital proper .A ghostly silence greeted him .The doctors and the nurses were hurrying through the casuality their eyes betraying a tragedy that none dared to mouth .Their familiar contemptuous smile was replaced by an untold sorrow or tension weighing them down .The usually barking dogs a hallmark of the hospital oosed out a silence that was more savage in its attack . The boisterous patients and bystanders stood like mourners allowing his vehicle to be parked infront of the I.C.U which sported a deserted look .The whole atmosphere was reeking of a divine tragedy yet to unfold .Though taken by surprise he kept his cool and proceeded to his office to initial his signature in the torn attendence register and as usual casually scanned the human resources available for saving the lives of the weak and the mighty, the rich and the poor, that his eyes came to a standstill in the last column of the doctors roster. The mystery of the unrising sun in ottapalam exploded within and outside him and he was shocked to the core .The blank column of Dr. Jyothsna stared back at him and the mystery and the misery of the universe came to light .
DR. JYOTHSNA WAS MISSING .
Now that the middle overs are about to commence I stronly recommend a coffee or smoke break for my tiring readers since I cannot but retreat from giving a birds eye view of the background of my little heroine who has to drag this blog forwards .
The over all picture that she projects is one of slender elegance.I won’t go to the extent of defining her as very beautiful but can compromise to the level of being pleasing to the eyes.Offcourse she is moonish bright elongated vertically rather stretched out fully and the face it seems has suffered by two hammer strokes from both sides laterally by the Creator as a final correction before finishing the sculpture but I I doubt he has overdone it on hind sight.Yet the face emits a strange fascinating glow that swallows you up.But the most glaring feature is the thinness of stature as if about to snap if she catches a strong wind and to sum up she is 25 and has been directly translocated from the medical school to the bosom of taluk headquarters hospital to try her tryst with destiny. Another little thing which I have observed with much interest is her stooping sitting figure in the duty room during coffee break her head bent 90 degrees downwards with her hands gently caressing her ethmoidal sinuses[situatedabove and inwards to each eye] as if suffering from a slight migraine or is it the tension of the sufferings of the o.p cases weighing her down
Now that the readers have resumed their seats after freshening up let us go back to the hospital on that eventual morning I mean to the supdts office.He walked forwards and backwards his hands clasping each other behind his back unable to free themselves,with a deep frown indicating his brain acting in a furious pace to plan the next step. He shook his head twice freeing his hands and marched to the O.P block .By this time the front yard of the hospital was thronged by a crowd which was growing every second . It seemed as if the humanity was converging to the hospital from north south east and west in all modes of conveyance ,the four wheelers ,two wheelers ,in bullock carts.He eased his way through the crowd which was annoyingly quiet which meant trouble to his experienced eyes .
In the O.P hall the scene was too bizarre to behold .Ottapalam o.p is the only o.p which can boast of transparency and truly democratic in the sense that the patient has the choice of meeting all the specialists in one large hall, like the old Roman amphitheatre , without any cubicles ,like the barbers in Thiruppathy seated behind 5 long tables with stools in between for seating the patients.The patient can pick and choose and if needed can avail the services of all specialities under one roof the ultimate globalisation or the ramraj that the once famous Gandhi dreamt of for those poorest of poor who are unable to pay for anything but the liquor ,I mean the B.P.L.category .Most of the Doctors were seated in their allocated seats which was quite unusual since it was only 9 a.m.A long queue could be seen stretching on both sides of one vacant seat and that seat,unmarked ,yet every dick and harry knew, belonged to our heroine Jyothsna.No patient dared to consult any other super docs that day and the whole picture conveyed to him the gravity of the crisis in hand .All the 400 eyes stared at the empty seat as if their combined concentration could resurrect their favourite one as if by hypnosis ,but nothing seemed to happen and he began sweating it out .
What was so peculiar about this inexperienced just barely MBBS doctor to attract such a huge gathering ,he wondered .Not that she was a super intelligent scholar or a master diagnostician not also eloquent with her tongue .Was it that girl next door image she projected?No definitely not. Did she cure all these cases---No way .He unraveled the myth and mystery when he casually asked an old lady who happened to be one of his very few permanent patients,and a frequent visitor of most of the seats and yet managed to survive to be in her 80’s what is wrong with Dr Jyothsna and after a few moments of deep thought,she came out with an astonishing reply “ SHE LISTENS TO OUR COMPLAINTS “ and I felt ashamed for the first time in my 25 yrs of wasted practice .,the most basic thing in everyday practice.
The crisis was getting out of my control with every passing second with all the doctors sitting idle their vacant gaze keeping them engaged with the queue elongating like Hanumans tail . My mobile cried and the D.M.O was enquiring what’s going on there ,the Press has been pressing him and I blabbered out the truth .He shouted angrily what the hell I am doing in the above matter and I had to give him the customary beurocratic[incidentally what is the actual spelling of the last word I had used] reply”off course I have intimated to police”.Satisfied with the answer of the prompt action taken he offed his cell .
Soon the news was out that the particular doctor has been abducted by the neighbouring municipality and was being forced to check up all the suffering patients in the local hospital there and would be released only after the scanning of the population was over.
I felt a surge of relief and it was then that a shooting pain in my right thigh by a violent kick caught me unawares and brought me back to my senses and when I woke up the sun was shining mockingly at me and the words “COFFEE” made me smile at myself for having DREAMPT WITHIN A DREAM ITSELF.May be the factor might have been Dr Jyothsna asking me for a leave which was duely turned down yesterday .
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