MOBILE THIEF.
Roshan was frantic. He had no idea where he had misplaced his cell phone. He kept trying the number from his land line. Always the same reply :”Switched Off!”. This had never happened to him. He was not the one to carry the mobile around in a pouch attached to his waist belt or at the end of string around his neck. He had never, ever forgotten to carry his mobile or his house key whenever he moved out. May be the pressure he was under that would have caused a slip.
All that he could remember that Sunday morning was a phone call, (was it on the mobile or on the land line? He was not sure now) from Leela Deedi that his Maji was being brought in for the emergency surgery at Asian Hearts. He remembered calling his Pappa and brother Arun to check on the details. He was answered by their maid who said no one was at home. They had all gone to the hospital where Maji was admitted. The maid did not know any more details other than that Maji fell unconscious that morning at the break fast table and was rushed to the hospital. Yes, Arun had come to take them. He tried Arun again and again. No reply. May be he was at the hospital and hence his mobile was switched off.
Leela Deedi had asked him to go to Asian Hearts to make the arrangements for the emergency, mentioning Dr Nair’s reference. Maji was due the very next day. Inability to get through to his people back home and his worry for Maji had made him rattled. Probably that is why he didn’t recollect whether he had carried the cell with him or not, when he rushed out.
He remembered meeting the Administrator in Asian Hearts. Though he was in no position to answer specifics, he was able to get an assurance that a reference from Dr Nair would get a priority listing and Maji would definitely be admitted and scheduled for the surgery as early as possible. He was asked to get back with more details before the end of the day.
He had rushed to the super market to get the grocery so that he could keep his bachelor’s pad in readiness for the guests coming in with Maji from his native town. He had also gone to the Chemist’s to get his medicines for hypertension, an occupational hazard he had contracted. He just remembered rushing off to these places immediately after getting Leela Deedi’s call. But try as he may, he could not recollect whether he had carried his cell phone. Oh yes, he also had gone to the Temple on his way back to pray for Maji.
Roshan was really frantic by now. He was almost convinced he had misplaced the cell or lost it. He had gone several times down to the garage to check in his car. The security man was curious. But he had no success. He tried recollecting where he could have misplaced the phone. He wanted very much to rush to the Hospital, the Supermarket and the Chemist’s to see if they had found it. Or, should he try the Temple? His head was throbbing by now. He was all the more panicky since he was not able to get through to his people even on the land line. He could sense Leela Deedi’s slight edge in her voice when he contacted several times to get more news. But he didn’t want to tell her he had misplaced his mobile.
Ever since the mobile came, Roshan had stopped the habit of noting down telephone numbers. The mobile was his phone diary as well. He cursed the delay in loading the data from the mobile to his PC. He also felt angry in having dallied over the decision to buy a tracking software for the mobile. Roshan was down in the dumps……may be he will have to wait for a call on his landline from home….why were they not calling? He tried the land line once again and to his horror found the line dead! God! Not this too! The MTNL line was notorious for frequent shutdowns. Oh, what could he do? He went out to the booth nearby, just to find the phones there were also down.
Roshan’s panic knew no end. Which flight would they be coming in? Leela Deedi didn’t seem too know either and even her phone seemed dead now. This Arun…why didn’t he call up and give the details earlier? May be he would go and wait in the Airport this night itself. Suppose they were coming in by the night flight? Or could it be the early morning flight? Or the ones which come in during the course of the next day? And which terminal would he wait? Roshan had never felt this helpless…………….
…………………………………………….
He felt it might be safe to switch on the mobile now. It was more than 24 hours. Till he was able to sell this high-end phone, why not use the number to call his friends? Why not even call home and talk to Appa and Amma and tell them he might come for Diwali since he was getting a bonus? Of course, he wouldn’t tell them that the bonus was coming from sale of the mobile he had picked up on the road yesterday, near the Super Market. Why should he tell them his main source of income was from sale of stolen mobile phones? He had never hesitated to throw away the SIM from any phone he picked up. But this slim, cute model was so attractive and new. He knew it would fetch him a few thousands even from the scoundrel of the dealer, who always double-crossed him by paying a much lower price for the booty he brought in. He may not even go to the same fellow this time. He might try to sell directly? Of course he will have to weigh the risks. But he knew this model was priceless.
Suddenly the phone rang. He was dozing away in his shanty. He was woken up violently by the repeated rings. He knew he couldn’t take the call, or rather he shouldn’t. Yet the number was not a local one, that he was sure. He suddenly recollected that the same number had appeared as a missed call when he switched on the phone this morning. He picked the phone to switch it off. Then the ring stopped.
He was playing one of the games in the phone, when it rang again. He nearly dropped it. Without realizing, he took the call. The voice at the other end was breaking, not due to the connection. It was more of a choked voice,he was sure. There was a tone of pain and anger in it. “Why Roshu? Why were you not taking the phone right through yesterday? We have been trying one after the other to get you and Leela Deedi. Can you hear me? ..Roshu…when can you come? We can fix the funeral only after knowing that. You know, Maji never came out of Dr. Nair’s ICU alive …..…Pappa is still holding on to his grief…when can you come? ………..Roshu…Roshu..?”………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The mobile slipped from his ear and fell on the floor with a thud. He watched helplessly the phone coming off in two pieces from the fall. He could guess what the call meant. He had not noted down the number from which the call came. He had no way of knowing who this Roshu was….he had no way of finding out how long this Maji’s body would wait for her son to reach…. He didn’t know what to do…He jus thought of his Amma and Appa waiting for him to reach home with his bonus….He was helpless…he cursed the day he stole the first mobile………………..
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
THE POWER WE CALL ALMIGHTY!
Tags: Power eyond comprehension cannot be traced in a map!
I have al ways been a firm believer in the power I prefer to call God and have umpteen number of examples to quote where His Grace has guided or helped me. God for me is the super power which I would like to worship in the form I perceive at any point of time, be it as Eashwar or Shakthi.
the purpose of this piece is to share with the people couple of recent incidents I read about the beautiful revelation given to two atheists.
One is about Mata Amrithanandamayi (Amma) being told by a Visitorin her Ashram at Vallikkavu, that he did not believe in the existence of God as he had not seen Him anywhere. Amma smiled and told him to take out a world map on the wall and show to her Vallikkavu in it. he looked for it and found that there was no place anywhere marked with that name. Ammas aksed him if that meant that there was no place called vallikkavu, just because he could not see it in a world map. Being seated in the ashram in Vallikkavu the man could not deny the existence of the place and soon he got the message Amma was communicating. He agreed, the fact he had not seen God is no proof that God did not exist. May be he had to look for Him, where He belonged!
The second is a casual writing by the sitting MP of Kerala, from the CPI. He and his party are known to flaunt their atheism as a credit. While narrating an incident about his mother he wrote that he was, as a child afflicted by Small Pox, then considered to be a deadly and near-fatal desease. He was taken to be as good as dead and dumped in a small room in his back yard. But his mother spent all the time with him and treated him with so much of motherly care that he was finally cured and came out of the illness. His mother did not contract the deadly disease, either. Though the MP narrated this incident as an example his mother's love for him, he writes " 'a power beyond what we could comprehend in Nature' saved me and my mother!". I wish some one had told this acclaimed atheist communist that "this power beyond our comprehension" is what we all call "God"!!!!
I have al ways been a firm believer in the power I prefer to call God and have umpteen number of examples to quote where His Grace has guided or helped me. God for me is the super power which I would like to worship in the form I perceive at any point of time, be it as Eashwar or Shakthi.
the purpose of this piece is to share with the people couple of recent incidents I read about the beautiful revelation given to two atheists.
One is about Mata Amrithanandamayi (Amma) being told by a Visitorin her Ashram at Vallikkavu, that he did not believe in the existence of God as he had not seen Him anywhere. Amma smiled and told him to take out a world map on the wall and show to her Vallikkavu in it. he looked for it and found that there was no place anywhere marked with that name. Ammas aksed him if that meant that there was no place called vallikkavu, just because he could not see it in a world map. Being seated in the ashram in Vallikkavu the man could not deny the existence of the place and soon he got the message Amma was communicating. He agreed, the fact he had not seen God is no proof that God did not exist. May be he had to look for Him, where He belonged!
The second is a casual writing by the sitting MP of Kerala, from the CPI. He and his party are known to flaunt their atheism as a credit. While narrating an incident about his mother he wrote that he was, as a child afflicted by Small Pox, then considered to be a deadly and near-fatal desease. He was taken to be as good as dead and dumped in a small room in his back yard. But his mother spent all the time with him and treated him with so much of motherly care that he was finally cured and came out of the illness. His mother did not contract the deadly disease, either. Though the MP narrated this incident as an example his mother's love for him, he writes " 'a power beyond what we could comprehend in Nature' saved me and my mother!". I wish some one had told this acclaimed atheist communist that "this power beyond our comprehension" is what we all call "God"!!!!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
THE MAN WHO TAMED THE MOUNTAIN- A LESSON IN LOVE AND PERSEVERENCE
It is the story of a young villager who loved his still younger wife so much that he couldn’t stand the sight of her walking miles and miles every day to fetch water for the family from the river beyond the mountain. There was nothing he could do though. Women in all households in this desolate village were doing this day in, day out, all the year round. Women were supposed to fetch and toil. More than the toil , it was the sight of his young wife having to walk through the mountain, squeezing through the narrow crevice , with the sharp rocky edges scratching her body every time she passed through, that made him all the more sad. But the ultimate was when she came back one day, bruised all over with tear-filled eyes, to tell him that she had slipped and fallen while passing the crevice, broken all her earthen pots, and hurt herself more in the soul than on the body. He knew he had to do something. He called on his fellow men of the village and told them about the need to widen the crevice and build a proper road for the ladies to fetch water. Even the thought itself was preposterous to the elders and a matter of ridicule and joke for the others. How could he be so hen-pecked as to want to do such an impossible, unnecessary thing to help his wife? After all, women were meant to fetch and carry, were they not?
But the man couldn’t be stopped. His wife continued the routine of fetching water, but he decided to start building the road. With a spade and chisel, he set about the work of breaking down the sharp edges of the crevice and laying the road. He toiled in the day in his land and in the afternoons and evenings in the mountain. His wife continued fetching water, even when she was pregnant with their two kids. The youngster continued his toil. Years rolled by. The autistic first child or the failing health of his young wife did not change their routine. His routine continued, even after his young wife succumbed to her illness and left him with his two young children. His routine continued for years, even after his second child was married and bore two children of her own. He continued to toil with his road even when his son-in-law died of illness and his daughter with her two kids came back home. The road had become his goal, his dream, and his religion. Finally, after twenty long years, the road became a reality and the mountain finally gave in. The women folk of the village continued to fetch water but were much more comfortable, taking the road he had built.
Finally some one told him about the government in the far away city that could pave the road and get it connected to the main road to the valley, so that he and his fellow villagers could access the far away city and the facilities there, much more easily. He walked all the way to the city to request the state’s Chief Minister to do the needful. The CM promised to do the needful and knowing of his toil for twenty long years, allotted him a plot of land in his village.
But destiny continued to be cruel to the man. Even before he could even see the plot that would one day be his, he was afflicted by the same disease that had taken his wife earlier. He was told it was a form of cancer. He never left the hospital bed, never had a chance to. He died on the bed. Before his death he requested the doctor to see if the land allotted to him could still be got and a hospital built there on. He passed away, content with the thought of his immediate rendezvous with his dead wife, and the satisfaction of having culminated his near-ending love for her by completing the road, all by himself.
You might think this is the story line for a tear-jerker movie. I won’t blame you. This can happen only in fiction. But I do not know if you would believe me, if I say this is no fiction. I do not know if the land was finally allotted. I do not know if the hospital was built. I do not know what happened to his children and grand children. But I know the whole village no longer ridicules him for the great work he had done all by himself.
This truer-than-life story is that of Dashrath Manjhi and his wife Faguni Devi of Gehlaur Village in Gaya, Bihar He started the road laying in 1960 and completed the three kilometer all by himself in 1982. He passed away last year.
This story of the wonderful chemistry of love between a man and his wife, the devotion of a man to a project he had undertaken even after he lost the reason detaire, the courage of man to give to the society his contribution without expecting anything in return except satisfaction, was revealed in her fortnightly column, “The Other Side” by Ms Mrinal Pande, in the MINT on 28th Aug 07. I was moved by it. I was shamed by it for I have nothing similar to Manjhi’s sacrifice to show in my life I have traversed, despite God having endowed me with much better circumstances than Manjhi. Can we spread this story of love and selfless sacrifice? Can we do something at least now to match the deed of Manjhi?
But the man couldn’t be stopped. His wife continued the routine of fetching water, but he decided to start building the road. With a spade and chisel, he set about the work of breaking down the sharp edges of the crevice and laying the road. He toiled in the day in his land and in the afternoons and evenings in the mountain. His wife continued fetching water, even when she was pregnant with their two kids. The youngster continued his toil. Years rolled by. The autistic first child or the failing health of his young wife did not change their routine. His routine continued, even after his young wife succumbed to her illness and left him with his two young children. His routine continued for years, even after his second child was married and bore two children of her own. He continued to toil with his road even when his son-in-law died of illness and his daughter with her two kids came back home. The road had become his goal, his dream, and his religion. Finally, after twenty long years, the road became a reality and the mountain finally gave in. The women folk of the village continued to fetch water but were much more comfortable, taking the road he had built.
Finally some one told him about the government in the far away city that could pave the road and get it connected to the main road to the valley, so that he and his fellow villagers could access the far away city and the facilities there, much more easily. He walked all the way to the city to request the state’s Chief Minister to do the needful. The CM promised to do the needful and knowing of his toil for twenty long years, allotted him a plot of land in his village.
But destiny continued to be cruel to the man. Even before he could even see the plot that would one day be his, he was afflicted by the same disease that had taken his wife earlier. He was told it was a form of cancer. He never left the hospital bed, never had a chance to. He died on the bed. Before his death he requested the doctor to see if the land allotted to him could still be got and a hospital built there on. He passed away, content with the thought of his immediate rendezvous with his dead wife, and the satisfaction of having culminated his near-ending love for her by completing the road, all by himself.
You might think this is the story line for a tear-jerker movie. I won’t blame you. This can happen only in fiction. But I do not know if you would believe me, if I say this is no fiction. I do not know if the land was finally allotted. I do not know if the hospital was built. I do not know what happened to his children and grand children. But I know the whole village no longer ridicules him for the great work he had done all by himself.
This truer-than-life story is that of Dashrath Manjhi and his wife Faguni Devi of Gehlaur Village in Gaya, Bihar He started the road laying in 1960 and completed the three kilometer all by himself in 1982. He passed away last year.
This story of the wonderful chemistry of love between a man and his wife, the devotion of a man to a project he had undertaken even after he lost the reason detaire, the courage of man to give to the society his contribution without expecting anything in return except satisfaction, was revealed in her fortnightly column, “The Other Side” by Ms Mrinal Pande, in the MINT on 28th Aug 07. I was moved by it. I was shamed by it for I have nothing similar to Manjhi’s sacrifice to show in my life I have traversed, despite God having endowed me with much better circumstances than Manjhi. Can we spread this story of love and selfless sacrifice? Can we do something at least now to match the deed of Manjhi?
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
eleven seven
PARAG SAWANT- A TERSE REMINDER OF 11/7
We in Mumbai, recall the horror that visited us one year back, in the form of seven chain blasts in our life line, the Western Railway, at peak evening hours. An act which left nearly 200 of our known and unknown faces dead and a few thousand injured. I remember the jam packed roads where every one was hailing down every vehicle in sight, to haul the victims to the nearby hospitals. That was one more evening the Mumbaikars showed the world what we are capable of, in the face of a calamity. There was no segregation based on class, creed or religion in helping each other. Every one was there everyone else. I also recall the long queues in front of hospitals, where the relatives were searching for their kith and kin amidst the victims. But there was another set of queue probably longer than the first one, of citizens lined up to donate blood! This is Mumbai for you. On 12/7, we in Mumbai spat on the face of the perpetrators by bringing the city back to normal life! That, again, is Mumbai for you.
We also put up with the visits of VIPs and VVIPs who were more eager to have their visits photographed than offer genuine help. The VVIP visitors from Delhi were more concerned to tell us not to blame any single or particular group of people for the crime.
All this is history for us today, as we pay our homage to the departed hundreds. It is to the credit of the Railways that many of the dependents were given monetary assistance or jobs to face the life after. But many still are in the depths of suffering.
Leading the pack amongst the suffering is Parag Sawant, 27, who is “neither alive nor dead” and has been in bed No 28 of Hinduja Hospital for nearly one year. Despite the 5 Neuro surgeries he has undergone, his Brain is still damaged. He still breaths, and looks at you, but never recognizes anything, at least that what we and the doctors think. The sight of his young wife, Priti trying to make him hold the then-just born baby girl whom she gave birth to a couple of months after the blasts, still rends my heart. I am sure I saw a glassy smile on Parag’s face, but evidently there was no recognition. Even today, the sweet little girl (named Prachiti – meaning “Experience”) has not experienced her father’ love, thanks to the perpetrators of the crime. Priti has since taken up a Railway job to bring up the child. But that has not given back her smile on her face. Parag’s mother is always around him in the hospital, but has forgotten to smile. Parag still wears that glassy smile at times but has forgotten to smile from within. I am sure if any one of you had seen these survivors (hope Parag can be called one), you would have lost your sleep.
We in Mumbai, recall the horror that visited us one year back, in the form of seven chain blasts in our life line, the Western Railway, at peak evening hours. An act which left nearly 200 of our known and unknown faces dead and a few thousand injured. I remember the jam packed roads where every one was hailing down every vehicle in sight, to haul the victims to the nearby hospitals. That was one more evening the Mumbaikars showed the world what we are capable of, in the face of a calamity. There was no segregation based on class, creed or religion in helping each other. Every one was there everyone else. I also recall the long queues in front of hospitals, where the relatives were searching for their kith and kin amidst the victims. But there was another set of queue probably longer than the first one, of citizens lined up to donate blood! This is Mumbai for you. On 12/7, we in Mumbai spat on the face of the perpetrators by bringing the city back to normal life! That, again, is Mumbai for you.
We also put up with the visits of VIPs and VVIPs who were more eager to have their visits photographed than offer genuine help. The VVIP visitors from Delhi were more concerned to tell us not to blame any single or particular group of people for the crime.
All this is history for us today, as we pay our homage to the departed hundreds. It is to the credit of the Railways that many of the dependents were given monetary assistance or jobs to face the life after. But many still are in the depths of suffering.
Leading the pack amongst the suffering is Parag Sawant, 27, who is “neither alive nor dead” and has been in bed No 28 of Hinduja Hospital for nearly one year. Despite the 5 Neuro surgeries he has undergone, his Brain is still damaged. He still breaths, and looks at you, but never recognizes anything, at least that what we and the doctors think. The sight of his young wife, Priti trying to make him hold the then-just born baby girl whom she gave birth to a couple of months after the blasts, still rends my heart. I am sure I saw a glassy smile on Parag’s face, but evidently there was no recognition. Even today, the sweet little girl (named Prachiti – meaning “Experience”) has not experienced her father’ love, thanks to the perpetrators of the crime. Priti has since taken up a Railway job to bring up the child. But that has not given back her smile on her face. Parag’s mother is always around him in the hospital, but has forgotten to smile. Parag still wears that glassy smile at times but has forgotten to smile from within. I am sure if any one of you had seen these survivors (hope Parag can be called one), you would have lost your sleep.
Monday, June 25, 2007
July 26th!
We in Mumbai are holding or breath, as the first rains of the season flodded almost all the areas those were affected in 2005 July, when we had the worst floods in near memory.We lost over a 100 in those waters.The Government and the BMC(Municipal Corporation) had assured us that all the drains have been cleared.Had claimed the floods of 2005 were not on account of lack of preparedness but because it rained 290 mm in one single day coupled with the high tides, which prevented the surging waters from draining into sea. For two years since, we have been putting up with never-ending road repairs, claiming they were for saving us from another repeat flood.
Yesterday we had 29 to 30 mm of rain fall and all the areas which were flooded in 2005 got inundated.There was no high tide either! Wonder what the BMC will claim now. We also lost 19 mumbites in the rains in one day, with four buildings having collapsed and one major land slide.
We are shuddering to think of our fate in case it rains even a bit more heavily and in case the tide also turns at the wrong time. The memories of the two dear colleagues who left the Office at 630 PM into the rains to reach their homes where their families were stranded, never to reach their homes but to surface in far away beaches after 3 to 4 days, as floating bodies are still ripe. The story of Viswanath who had telephoned his haggered wife at 1130pm to tell her he was just at the corner booth and would reach home in another 15 minutes, only to keep his word to reach home,but not in 15 minutes but in 5 days in the BMC Ambulance, picked up from far away beach after the rains, still sends the shivers down our spine. We have still not stopped thanking God for the grace He showed when I did the heroic deed( or was it foolish?) of wading through chin deep water at 12 i n the midnight after a 7 hour car ride from the office to about 1km from home(which normally takes 40 minutes)to reach home at 2am (1km in 2 hrs).His grace was seen when we went out to see the damages after the rains ebbed after 2 days when we found all the drain covers washed away on the sides of the road through which I had walked, the very same drains which we read, had sucked in 15 pedestrians that night.
Yet, one thing which gives us the comfort is the warmth that Mumbai effuses in the face of a calamity.The camaraderie shown by the denizens in the concrete mansions as well as in the largest slum in Asia, Dharavi,when the floods ravaged us in 2005 or when a series of blasts in the suburban trains killed over 275 people in 2006, is enough for us to believe in the resisliance of Mumbai to come back to normalcy in the shortest time.
Yet we are praying, the BMC is proved right, the tides dont coincide heavy rains, the drains hold, the lids stay in place
Cheers!!!!
Yesterday we had 29 to 30 mm of rain fall and all the areas which were flooded in 2005 got inundated.There was no high tide either! Wonder what the BMC will claim now. We also lost 19 mumbites in the rains in one day, with four buildings having collapsed and one major land slide.
We are shuddering to think of our fate in case it rains even a bit more heavily and in case the tide also turns at the wrong time. The memories of the two dear colleagues who left the Office at 630 PM into the rains to reach their homes where their families were stranded, never to reach their homes but to surface in far away beaches after 3 to 4 days, as floating bodies are still ripe. The story of Viswanath who had telephoned his haggered wife at 1130pm to tell her he was just at the corner booth and would reach home in another 15 minutes, only to keep his word to reach home,but not in 15 minutes but in 5 days in the BMC Ambulance, picked up from far away beach after the rains, still sends the shivers down our spine. We have still not stopped thanking God for the grace He showed when I did the heroic deed( or was it foolish?) of wading through chin deep water at 12 i n the midnight after a 7 hour car ride from the office to about 1km from home(which normally takes 40 minutes)to reach home at 2am (1km in 2 hrs).His grace was seen when we went out to see the damages after the rains ebbed after 2 days when we found all the drain covers washed away on the sides of the road through which I had walked, the very same drains which we read, had sucked in 15 pedestrians that night.
Yet, one thing which gives us the comfort is the warmth that Mumbai effuses in the face of a calamity.The camaraderie shown by the denizens in the concrete mansions as well as in the largest slum in Asia, Dharavi,when the floods ravaged us in 2005 or when a series of blasts in the suburban trains killed over 275 people in 2006, is enough for us to believe in the resisliance of Mumbai to come back to normalcy in the shortest time.
Yet we are praying, the BMC is proved right, the tides dont coincide heavy rains, the drains hold, the lids stay in place
Cheers!!!!
Sunday, June 10, 2007
GOD ONLY GIVES....
In the sands of time once in a way look back and you will see two pairs of feet imprinted. One will be yours and the other, yes, His.
But at times of difficulty turn back and look, you will find only one pair.
You will be convinced because He has deserted you for that moment.Dont you worry....
the foot prints you see is His and not yours...because i times of sorrow and difficulties He doesnt allow you to walk...He carries you in His arms.
And also remembr-when God takes somethoing away from your grasp, please note He is not punishing you but simply emptying your hand to receive something better!
Cheers
But at times of difficulty turn back and look, you will find only one pair.
You will be convinced because He has deserted you for that moment.Dont you worry....
the foot prints you see is His and not yours...because i times of sorrow and difficulties He doesnt allow you to walk...He carries you in His arms.
And also remembr-when God takes somethoing away from your grasp, please note He is not punishing you but simply emptying your hand to receive something better!
Cheers
Friday, June 8, 2007
DO WE MATCH ?
The stadium was full,though mostly by the parents and other kith and kin of the contestants.But the cotests were genuine,severe and intense. Thr final item was a 100 meter race with 6 participants.The youngest of the lot was a 4ft tall, tiny little girl.The result would decide not only the individual athletic champion but also the team trophy.
The race started in full earnest. But half way through the little girl who had a chance to get both the trophies fell and hurt herself.She got up and immediately sat down in pain.May be she sprained a leg.She was weeping. The race was still on. But suddenly there was hush in the stadium.There was something wrong here. The competitors were not running to the tape.All the remaining 5 runners were running back to the start line.The converged near the crying girl. Without hesitation two of the taller ones lifted her up and started running back to the finish line.The remaining three deliberately were running slow so taht the trio could finish first.At the finish line, the injured girl was placed on the track and allowed to limp ahead first in the race.The stadium clapped because it had to.But the greatest celbration was from the contestants themsleves, including by the girl who missed the individual trophy because she helped her injured competitor to finish first.But the joy was writ on all faces.
A crazy story, you might think.But this was a true incident that happend just four months back in Hyderabad.The occaion was the sports meet of the mentally challenged children from all over south India. All the participants were mentally challenged kids. What were they trying to teach the rest of us? The rest of us who think even in daily routine we have to finish ahead of the other even i it is at the cost of hurting him. Do we match these kids? Are they the ones with mental diasbilities or are we the ones?
The race started in full earnest. But half way through the little girl who had a chance to get both the trophies fell and hurt herself.She got up and immediately sat down in pain.May be she sprained a leg.She was weeping. The race was still on. But suddenly there was hush in the stadium.There was something wrong here. The competitors were not running to the tape.All the remaining 5 runners were running back to the start line.The converged near the crying girl. Without hesitation two of the taller ones lifted her up and started running back to the finish line.The remaining three deliberately were running slow so taht the trio could finish first.At the finish line, the injured girl was placed on the track and allowed to limp ahead first in the race.The stadium clapped because it had to.But the greatest celbration was from the contestants themsleves, including by the girl who missed the individual trophy because she helped her injured competitor to finish first.But the joy was writ on all faces.
A crazy story, you might think.But this was a true incident that happend just four months back in Hyderabad.The occaion was the sports meet of the mentally challenged children from all over south India. All the participants were mentally challenged kids. What were they trying to teach the rest of us? The rest of us who think even in daily routine we have to finish ahead of the other even i it is at the cost of hurting him. Do we match these kids? Are they the ones with mental diasbilities or are we the ones?
Thursday, June 7, 2007
BELIEVING NON-BELIEVERS.
I dont have to proclaim that I am a firm believer in God,for, I guess all in the family know that.But what intrigues me is the reluctance of many around us to admit that they believ in that omnipotetnt power. Even a hard core communist like Panniyan Raveendran, the sitting MP from Trivandrum and belongong to the CPI, recently wrote about a near-terminal attack of small pox he had when he was small and how his mother defied all warnings and sat by him to sooth him and nurse him.He goes on to say "all doomsayers were proved wrong, when the 'power that guards nature' saved his life and shielded his mother from getting the disease."Guess some one had asked the communist MP who thsi power that guards nature was. If i were there i would have told him it is the same power that people like me call "God". His communist credentials might get tarnished if he utters that three letter word. Same is the case with many other so-called iconoclasts and non-believers who take refuge, at least, in the privacy of their homes, 'in the power that guards nature' in times of crisis.
What made me script this piece is a news item that caught my eyes today .
One is about a management trainee with Wipro, an class mate of Ashwin's( my son), who joined the company just a couple of weeks back, based on a campus selection. He had studied for his MBA in Mumbai. So metros were not new to him. Yet he got killed in a tragic road accident (run over by a bus while crossing the street in Bangalore),just 15 minutes afte he talked to his mom and sis in TVM and after he was told his father who was in the gulf was to come to TVM on leave in another weeks time.Seems he had also promised to go to TVM then. Imagine the fate of the poor father, who had to prepone his visit on the news of his sons' death.He rushed to Muscat by road to take the first flight. Imagine his fate, when all flights from Muscat got cancelled indeinitely and his road access to otehr places also got cut off due to a cyclone that hit Oman .It is like fate playing a double whammy of the poor father. Can the iconoclasts explain this as a pure concidence or the act of a power beyond us? I dont know.
What made me script this piece is a news item that caught my eyes today .
One is about a management trainee with Wipro, an class mate of Ashwin's( my son), who joined the company just a couple of weeks back, based on a campus selection. He had studied for his MBA in Mumbai. So metros were not new to him. Yet he got killed in a tragic road accident (run over by a bus while crossing the street in Bangalore),just 15 minutes afte he talked to his mom and sis in TVM and after he was told his father who was in the gulf was to come to TVM on leave in another weeks time.Seems he had also promised to go to TVM then. Imagine the fate of the poor father, who had to prepone his visit on the news of his sons' death.He rushed to Muscat by road to take the first flight. Imagine his fate, when all flights from Muscat got cancelled indeinitely and his road access to otehr places also got cut off due to a cyclone that hit Oman .It is like fate playing a double whammy of the poor father. Can the iconoclasts explain this as a pure concidence or the act of a power beyond us? I dont know.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
AILING KERALA
I think it was less than 5 years since I proudly read about Kerala competing with Cuba in being the best Healthcare provider to the community, in a study by WHO. One can imgain my chargin in reading in the news papers a few days back about 25000 being already down with fever (Chikungunia) and the numbers increasing.I dont think I should be surprised at this fall from grace for a state where death of new borns in what was once arguably the best maternity hospital in the country (SAT), is a continuing saga.In his eagerness to conquer all the worldly possessions in the shortest span, is the Keralite forgetting the basics of personal social hygene and how to react to a medical system which thinks and acts to make money? Hope the government and its people stop thinking that being God's own country, God would save it from its fate.If heads have to roll, let them.But we need to recoup our lost position.But does any one care?
Saturday, May 19, 2007
JUDICIAL ACTIVISM?
Bhimabai- a name none of us may be familiar with.Yet another in the miriad list of dowry deaths in this country.She dieid in 1991 in Palshi village in Maharashtra.Died after a tumultuous married life.Cause of death- excess in take of insecticide Thimet. After routine investigation, her husband, Appasaheb Palaskar was found guilty of abetment of suicide and the suicide waslinked to torture and harrassment for dowry. He was punished by the lower court duly up held by the High Court.But early this year he was acquitted and released from jail by the Hon Supreme Court.The reason for acquittal given by Hon Judges G.P.Mathur and R.V.Raveendran;"A demand for money on account of some financial stringency or for meeting some urgent domestic expenses or for purchasing manure, cannot be termed a demand for dowry, as the word is normally understood.The evidence adduced by the prosecution does not therefore, show that any demand for dowry as defined in section 2of Dowry Prohibition Act was made by the accused, since what was allegedly asked for was some money for meeting domestic expenses and for purchasing manure"!!!!!!An absolute traversity of justice , I would say. I only hope our courts do not take cover under this isplaced judgement and let of all dowry culprits, since every demand under dowry can be linked to some urgent need for money, even if it is to satiate the greed of a husband or his parents.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Bala's Musings
Ever since I closed down my page in the Orkut communities, I have been receiving
frequent demands from friends ( must be real friends)to restart it or start it as a blog spot.Thought it over and decided to have this blog spot.
As I had told earlier, this will have very down-to earth, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes childish, sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes irritating and most of the times genuine Musings of this soul...for all of you to read.. and for those of you who feel like to respnd...
Unless I have other compulsions, I assure those who genuinely felt it should be revived that I will not close it down...even if it faces the same amount of lack of response from those who are capable of responding...for I have realised everything in this world does not have a remedy.
Love to all
Bala
frequent demands from friends ( must be real friends)to restart it or start it as a blog spot.Thought it over and decided to have this blog spot.
As I had told earlier, this will have very down-to earth, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes childish, sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes irritating and most of the times genuine Musings of this soul...for all of you to read.. and for those of you who feel like to respnd...
Unless I have other compulsions, I assure those who genuinely felt it should be revived that I will not close it down...even if it faces the same amount of lack of response from those who are capable of responding...for I have realised everything in this world does not have a remedy.
Love to all
Bala
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)