Hope
Much dirty water has flown down the Indian rivers since I wrote last. Arvind Kejriwal on whom the likes of me had such high hopes of transforming this country's political scene, proved to be a rather damp squib. I still have some hopes of his resurrection. let us hope and wait.
The most remarkable event in the Indain political scene is the rise and rise of a man who goes by the name of Narendra Mody. No one believed a year ago that the party led by this man would win an overwhelming majority, virtually decimating the family led Congress party.
Year 1947 freed us from the British rule and Indians thought they were in for a period of peace and prosperity.Sixty years of mostly Congress rule belied these hopes. In 2014 people of this country are hoping Narendra Mody and his party BJP will deliver them from the sufferings largely due to poor governance and rampant corruption.
My hopes too.Let us wait and see what happens.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Arvind Kejriwal
Going by the average age of Indian politicians Arvind Kejriwal is young at 45. An IIT alumnus plus a top level beurocrat, his entry into public life began more than 10 years back when he resigned from income tax department to begin his crusde against corruption which as I have written many times in this blog is destroying this country and well on it's way to make India a banana republic. He started an NGO called Parivarthan meaning Change. He was also partly responsible for making RTI [right to information] an act of the parliament.Then came his association with the social activist Anna Hazare and the movement to get a pwerful Ambudsmen to supervise our polity. It is a tragedy that they had to part ways due to differences in the way to go about achieving this objective. While Anna believed the it is possible to do this by forcing the existing political parties to pass an act, Kejriwal thought the only way is to enter politics. This he did by forming the Aam Admi party less than a year ago.
No one including I, gave his and his friends much chance of success. What resulted after the Delhi elections was nothing short of spectacular. When most thought he would get a handful of seats, he ended up getting 28 seats in the 72 member assembly, and after some drama went on to become the chief minister of the sate of Delhi.
Shanthi Bhushan, the famous civil rights lawyer and a close confidant of Kejriwal, is now busy organising the party workers on a nationwide basis. The Indian general elections are due in April/ May this year. I am one of those who will anxiously wait to see if the Aam Aadmi party will be able to repeat it performance and make a difference in our parliament's functioning.
Going by the average age of Indian politicians Arvind Kejriwal is young at 45. An IIT alumnus plus a top level beurocrat, his entry into public life began more than 10 years back when he resigned from income tax department to begin his crusde against corruption which as I have written many times in this blog is destroying this country and well on it's way to make India a banana republic. He started an NGO called Parivarthan meaning Change. He was also partly responsible for making RTI [right to information] an act of the parliament.Then came his association with the social activist Anna Hazare and the movement to get a pwerful Ambudsmen to supervise our polity. It is a tragedy that they had to part ways due to differences in the way to go about achieving this objective. While Anna believed the it is possible to do this by forcing the existing political parties to pass an act, Kejriwal thought the only way is to enter politics. This he did by forming the Aam Admi party less than a year ago.
No one including I, gave his and his friends much chance of success. What resulted after the Delhi elections was nothing short of spectacular. When most thought he would get a handful of seats, he ended up getting 28 seats in the 72 member assembly, and after some drama went on to become the chief minister of the sate of Delhi.
Shanthi Bhushan, the famous civil rights lawyer and a close confidant of Kejriwal, is now busy organising the party workers on a nationwide basis. The Indian general elections are due in April/ May this year. I am one of those who will anxiously wait to see if the Aam Aadmi party will be able to repeat it performance and make a difference in our parliament's functioning.
Friday, January 3, 2014
New year
It has been my practice to wish all of you before the advent but this time I am 3 days late. No particular reason. As those of you who read my blog may have noticed I have been tardy with my postings most of last year. I hope to make amends this year. As is usual I place gratefully on record my thanks to all of you in general, my family, friends and patients in particular for all the affection and regard showed.
2013 has not been a great year for my country. Scam after scam involving thousands of crores of rupees were a monthly affair. So much so one thought rightly whether there is any honest politician or bureaucrat remaining at all in my country In this pall of gloom a silver lining appeared on the 4th of December by the name of Arvind Kejriwal.
In my next post I will write about him and my old and the new Bangalore
It has been my practice to wish all of you before the advent but this time I am 3 days late. No particular reason. As those of you who read my blog may have noticed I have been tardy with my postings most of last year. I hope to make amends this year. As is usual I place gratefully on record my thanks to all of you in general, my family, friends and patients in particular for all the affection and regard showed.
2013 has not been a great year for my country. Scam after scam involving thousands of crores of rupees were a monthly affair. So much so one thought rightly whether there is any honest politician or bureaucrat remaining at all in my country In this pall of gloom a silver lining appeared on the 4th of December by the name of Arvind Kejriwal.
In my next post I will write about him and my old and the new Bangalore
Friday, September 20, 2013
Death and after
It has been my lot over the years to visit the homes of those who die. Many of them being my patients.There is always an atmosphere of sombre sadness at the place with relatives and friends busy consoling the bereaved family. There is also quite a bit of whimpering and often loud crying. Some times I detect contrived sorrow and avoidable histrionics.
There however was one instance still green in my memory though it occurred more than 30 years ago. Then in my area f practice there were a fair number of Anglo Indians,most of them retired, living and some were my patients.One such family were Smiths.Mr Smith [ I have forgotten his first name] was past75years and suffered from episodes of angina and in those days we practiced what from today's standards primitive cardiology The drug for angina was nitroglycerine tablet placed under the tongue. Mr Smith had a stock of these and needed to use it only rarely. He was full of life and told me once that a shot of whisky worked better than the pills I gave him. They were a nice couple and when ever I visited them I was sure of a cup of tea and home made biscuits.
When the call came to see Mr Smtih one day, it was close to my closing time in the clinic and when I went to see him, he was already feeling better and was sitting with his evening shot f whisky listening to music. Having gone there I took his blood pressure and found his heart ticking well. Reassured them that all is well and promising them a visit next morning, I returned home.
Next noon when I went to their home, I found a small group of people outside. And when I went in I found Mr Smith's body laid well prepared for the final journey. Speechless and distressed I went inside to see his wife Mary. If she was shocked and sad, she didnot show it, instead when I told her how sorry I was she said,' doc ,he had it coming, and he went well with out nay pain' and got her self busy making a cup of tea for me!
I visited her a week later, except for he cousin there were none in the house. I said what a fine man her husband was and how I was going to miss him and his wit. Her pent up emotions cut loose and she broke down with huge sobs, holding on to me for support.
When, I finally took leave of her, her cousin came up to the gate and told me, 'now she will feel better'.
It has been my lot over the years to visit the homes of those who die. Many of them being my patients.There is always an atmosphere of sombre sadness at the place with relatives and friends busy consoling the bereaved family. There is also quite a bit of whimpering and often loud crying. Some times I detect contrived sorrow and avoidable histrionics.
There however was one instance still green in my memory though it occurred more than 30 years ago. Then in my area f practice there were a fair number of Anglo Indians,most of them retired, living and some were my patients.One such family were Smiths.Mr Smith [ I have forgotten his first name] was past75years and suffered from episodes of angina and in those days we practiced what from today's standards primitive cardiology The drug for angina was nitroglycerine tablet placed under the tongue. Mr Smith had a stock of these and needed to use it only rarely. He was full of life and told me once that a shot of whisky worked better than the pills I gave him. They were a nice couple and when ever I visited them I was sure of a cup of tea and home made biscuits.
When the call came to see Mr Smtih one day, it was close to my closing time in the clinic and when I went to see him, he was already feeling better and was sitting with his evening shot f whisky listening to music. Having gone there I took his blood pressure and found his heart ticking well. Reassured them that all is well and promising them a visit next morning, I returned home.
Next noon when I went to their home, I found a small group of people outside. And when I went in I found Mr Smith's body laid well prepared for the final journey. Speechless and distressed I went inside to see his wife Mary. If she was shocked and sad, she didnot show it, instead when I told her how sorry I was she said,' doc ,he had it coming, and he went well with out nay pain' and got her self busy making a cup of tea for me!
I visited her a week later, except for he cousin there were none in the house. I said what a fine man her husband was and how I was going to miss him and his wit. Her pent up emotions cut loose and she broke down with huge sobs, holding on to me for support.
When, I finally took leave of her, her cousin came up to the gate and told me, 'now she will feel better'.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Musings-2
I said decluttering one's mind leads to peace. With so much happening in day to day strife ridden lives, how can this be done?
Let me explain what I have attempted with some success. Keep your mind occupied with less number of thoughts. Yoga teachers have different methods of approach to achieve this.One such is concentrate on breathing. Forget about breath being the elixer of life and such other kinds of yogic mumbo jumbo. What it does is that it is relatively easy to observe your own breathing and when you are doing it the brain [mind] has one thought, that is breathing! this single thought can be for few minutes or if you are jobless can be for hours. Sport,physical work outs, listening to music too achieve the same purpose. The opposite happens when you become jealous, angry and sad. Being humans with a huge mostly unoccupied cerebral cortical cells, it is easy to engage them with these negative thoughts often leading troubled lives.
Therefore the trick is to occupy our minds with few pleasant thoughts.Whether these lead to pleasant actions or not is not really material. It will at leas keep you happily idle!
Try it out,will you?
I said decluttering one's mind leads to peace. With so much happening in day to day strife ridden lives, how can this be done?
Let me explain what I have attempted with some success. Keep your mind occupied with less number of thoughts. Yoga teachers have different methods of approach to achieve this.One such is concentrate on breathing. Forget about breath being the elixer of life and such other kinds of yogic mumbo jumbo. What it does is that it is relatively easy to observe your own breathing and when you are doing it the brain [mind] has one thought, that is breathing! this single thought can be for few minutes or if you are jobless can be for hours. Sport,physical work outs, listening to music too achieve the same purpose. The opposite happens when you become jealous, angry and sad. Being humans with a huge mostly unoccupied cerebral cortical cells, it is easy to engage them with these negative thoughts often leading troubled lives.
Therefore the trick is to occupy our minds with few pleasant thoughts.Whether these lead to pleasant actions or not is not really material. It will at leas keep you happily idle!
Try it out,will you?
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Musings
I take long walks in this wooded community, barely disturbed by other walkers and joggers, my thoughts run to what this land had been barely 200 years ago. Mexicans owned this land which was nothing but dry scrub land. What transformed it into what it is today? War, violence,subjugation,hardwork,suffering and above all harnessing the waters of the river Colorado and the snow which earlier melted down and went waste. In two hundred years this land has become the bread and fruit basket of the country.
Was it all worth it? Decimating whole population of natives,Indians to achieve this? I wonder. Some times it i better to remain backward and poor if it means happiness. I met and interacted with a gentleman who teaches techniques of relaxation. The mind [mostly located in the cortex is essentially made of thoughts leading to either action,both negative and positive. It may also lead to pent up[locked up feelings not resulting in any action]. The need is to delete this clutter of feelings and free the mind and make space for positive inputs
Day to day life is full of these minor and occasionally major strifes. And these involve second and third parties.These may be your relatives,wife,lover,business associate or even random men and women. How we react to them is in essence what our emotional mind is made up of. If the inputs are happy and positive, you remain relaxed, other wise you will be restive ans tense.
Is it making some sense?
I will try and explain how to next time I write
I take long walks in this wooded community, barely disturbed by other walkers and joggers, my thoughts run to what this land had been barely 200 years ago. Mexicans owned this land which was nothing but dry scrub land. What transformed it into what it is today? War, violence,subjugation,hardwork,suffering and above all harnessing the waters of the river Colorado and the snow which earlier melted down and went waste. In two hundred years this land has become the bread and fruit basket of the country.
Was it all worth it? Decimating whole population of natives,Indians to achieve this? I wonder. Some times it i better to remain backward and poor if it means happiness. I met and interacted with a gentleman who teaches techniques of relaxation. The mind [mostly located in the cortex is essentially made of thoughts leading to either action,both negative and positive. It may also lead to pent up[locked up feelings not resulting in any action]. The need is to delete this clutter of feelings and free the mind and make space for positive inputs
Day to day life is full of these minor and occasionally major strifes. And these involve second and third parties.These may be your relatives,wife,lover,business associate or even random men and women. How we react to them is in essence what our emotional mind is made up of. If the inputs are happy and positive, you remain relaxed, other wise you will be restive ans tense.
Is it making some sense?
I will try and explain how to next time I write
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