Month: April 2012

My Nightmare.

I have written about this before and my readers are sure to be aware of the problems that face India’s so far hostile neighbour Pakistan, without my having to elaborate.

The latest in a series of written material about Pakistan, is this book which has been reviewed in The Telegraph. I do not have to read the book to understand what the author has to say, but do have something to say about a scenario that no one has so far covered.

Pakistan has a substantial population spread all over but predominantly concentrated around Karachi, which speaks Urdu. These are called the Mohajirs, or the people who relocated from India at the time of India’s partition and/or their descendants. These are people with relatives still living in India and have many interconnections with India through marriage. These are people who are already facing problems with Sindhi and Punjabi domination and Karachi epitomises that problem with very high incidences of murders and sectarian strife.

If Pakistan collapses, as predicted by many “experts”, I do not have the slightest doubt that India will be faced with a refugee problem comparable to what it faced prior to the formation of Bangladesh.

The scene in India now however is vastly different now, with a very militant Hindu right wing which is unlikely to be accommodating of a new influx of Pakistani Muslims into India and both the refugees and Indian Muslims will face the brunt of such antagonism, the magnitude of which will be difficult to handle.

It is in India’s interest that Pakistan survives successfully as a state and I hope that our leadership, so obsessed with minority appeasement will take this possible scenario in their reckoning before it becomes too late.

Weekly Gratitude List – April 28, 2012

It is a measure of the state of my mind that instead of pressing the ‘Save’ key, I pressed the ‘Publish’ key and my weekly gratitude list got posted on Wednesday night.

It was of course very gracious of my readers to have thought that I had deliberately posted it early to keep them updated on what was happening vis a vis my father’s medical problem and I am grateful for that nice communication and the good wishes that accompanied them.

I hope to resume normal weekly postings henceforth and towards that end, let me first finish this week’s post.

On Thursday, my cousin Damodar and his doctor wife Asha, drove down from Navi Mumbai and it was the nicest thing that could have happened to me and my father. After studying all the reports, my cousin in law was able to calm dowm my father quite a bit and that was a sight to see. Damodar, being form the genetic pool, showed the same impatience that I feel and I felt gratified that it was genetic rather than something wrong with me! Both of them informed me that they had had the same problems that I have, with my father’s late elder brother, Damodar’s father. So, the behaviour too could be attributed to genetic factors!

Asha had prepared some delicious dishes early in the morning to be brought for us, and Mangal had done her bit at our end and we ended up with a grand lunch. I was sad to see them leave in the afternoon.

Friday was the first truly peaceful day that I had in many days. There were minor hiccups but within manageable limits. I went to the park and had a long sit with my friends and laughed a lot and shared many a story. It was noticed by my friends that I was back to normal too.

I hope that the future will be as peaceful as the last two days of the week.

Dominion And Stewardship.

Welcome to the Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where twelve of us write on the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by our esrstwhile LBC blogger Magpie who has retired. The ten other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Delirious, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Maria SF, ocdwriter, Padmum, Paul, Rohit, The Old Fossil and Will. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too!

Dominion: n.
1. Control or the exercise of control; sovereignty:
2. A territory or sphere of influence or control; a realm.
3. often Dominion Abbr. Dom. One of the self-governing nations within the British Commonwealth.

Stewardship: n.
Managing another’s property, finances, or other affairs. (In the context of this topic, managing a colonial possession.)

I wonder if Magpie quite had this in his mind, knowing that an Indian wag will take pot shots at that topic.

India was offered Dominion status by the British, but chose to go the Independent Republic route, while retaining a connection with Britain through the Commeonwealth.

Being an Anglophile, I used to believe that, that choice was a mistake and that India should not have become independent, particularly when, what the old Colonist Churchill’s prediction; “Power will go to rascals, rogues, freebooters; All leaders will be of low caliber & men of straw; They’ll have sweet tongues & silly hearts; They will fight amongst themselves for power & the two countries will be lost in political squabbles; A day would come when even air & water will be taxed.” came true.

I am not so sure now as I see Britain experiencing exactly the same predicament, that Churchill predicted for India and Pakistan. I wonder what that old warhorse will be feeling wherever he is.

What goes around, comes around?

A Great Doctor And An Enforced Vacation.

A friend of mine had bought a package tour deal to go to Vietnam on a two week holiday. He had done this early this year and was looking forward to the trip.

Three weeks ago, he had severe pain in his back and he was laid up in a hospital with daily physio therapy etc and was discharged just six days ago. He was asked to continue the therapy by going to the hospital as an out patient every day and start walking around.

Considering his condition, he tried to cancel the tour but was told by the tour operator that he would lose up to 95% of the paid up sum as it was very late.

My friend went to the orthopedist looking after him and asked him his opinion. That wise old man said, take your pain killer medication at need and continue the exercises that you can do without the machines, and enjoy yourself. This is not a life threatening problem that you have and you should take the risk instead of losing all that money.

My friend rang me up from the airport to inform me that he and his wife were just about to board the aircraft to leave on their vacation!

Weekly Gratitude List – April 28, 2012

I was able to get an appointment with the nephrologist on Saturday itself and he wanted some more tests done and though we had to spend over five and a half hours at the hospital, we were able to get all of them done under one roof. The reports will be ready on Monday and the nephrologist will see us also on Monday evening. My father was reassured by the doctor that there will be no dialysis but the tests will give a proper base to come up with proper course of action and that was a great achievement in itself. Despite some trouble, I was able to get all the medicines needed for the treatment as prescribed by the nephrologist. My father was in shock post the tryst with one of the tests which was a gamma scan which he knows to be one for detecting cancer. No amount of my telling him that it was to eliminate the possibility would calm him down.

On Sunday, life again revolved around my father who started complaining about feeling giddy and suffering from vertigo. My attmepts at contacting the new set of doctors were of no use as the cardio/physician couple were in Mumbai attending a conference and the nephrologist was spending his Sunday afternoon with, I presume his gin and tonic. I was asked by them to tell my father to rest if he could not stand till the results came through and the nephrologist sees him on Monday.

Ranjan’s friend Dolly came for lunch and brought two flavours of natural ice-cream and I over indulged.

On Monday, I went to the hospital to collect all the reports and everything, at least to my amateur eyes, seemed to be normal. The earliest appointment that I could secure with the nephrologist was at 9.30 pm and we reached there on time only to have to wait an other hour before he could see us. He cleared all doubts regarding problems related to the kidney for my father but suggested that he sees an Urologist too. He also pointed out that the gama scan reports were inaccurate as the age had been understated. He had to do some calculations to get the correct picture but suggested that I get the report revised.

On Tuesday, the hospital was most contrite and prepared a fresh report with the correct age and that did show a better picture than the earlier one. I was also able to get the hospital’s dietician to draw up a diet plan for my father. Later in the evening I took all the reports and went to the primary consultant who suggested that we wait a while to see how much progress my father makes with the new course of treatment before considering the urologist.

With all these developments behind him, my father perked up quite a bit and was back to almost his normal self.

On Wednesday, I was able to find time to seek and secure an appointment with my dentist to take care of a problem that I had not been able to attend to the last couple of weeks. Later in the evening, I went for a long walk, did some shopping and spent some good time with friends in the park and returned home to find a pleasant surprise in the form of Murgesh having come over from Tirupur to spend an evening with me.

Schools And Isms.

I am grateful to my nephew Pravin for bringing this story to my notice.

This story is from a book – ‘The prayer of the Frog’ by Father Anthony de Mello, S.J. The story I am referring here is from ‘The prayer of the Frog – Volume 1, Page 95, Part – Religion.

The resurrected philosopher.

An ancient philosopher, dead for many centuries, was told that his teachings were being misrepresented by his representatives. Being a compassionate and truth-loving individual, he managed, after much effort, to get the grace to come back to earth for a few days.

It took him several days to convince his successors of his identity. Once that was established, they promptly lost all interest in what he had to say and begged him to disclose to them the secret of coming back to life from the grave.

It was only after considerable exertion that he finally convinced them that there was no way he could impart this secret to them and that it was infinitely more important for the good of humanity that they restore his teaching to its original purity.

A futile task! What they said to him was “Don’t you see that what is important is not what you taught but our interpretation of what you taught? After all, you are only a bird of passage whereas we reside here permanently.”

And Pravin concludes; When the Buddha dies, the schools are born.