Language: ? A mode of communiation.

In a multilingual country like India the warmth between the two, even, neighbouring languages is fast eroding. So peaceful co-existence of more than 4 languages in Switzerland and Singapore was music to the ears. The elderly guide in Switzerland, with lilting mother like voice, was changing the languages with ease of chameleon changing the colours. She was speaking in French, German, Italian and local Swiss language effortlessly and of course English with due perfection. I just could not think of a similar scenario in India, where now, Hindi speaking North Indian does not see even English in the eye, forget about other Indian languages. Recently Central government has to bow down to these Hindi speaking zealots coming from the cow belt to dilute Service examination format omitting international language like English. All the students in non-Hindi speaking states have to learn at least 3 languages but these from Hindi belt do not want to go beyond their own domain. I don't see any harm if they learn some other language from the south, In fact, anybody declaring his mother tongue to be Hindi must be made to learn any Dravidian south Indian language of his/her choice as a second language, a step that will definitely bring India together!

Tamil has a different stance altogether. They see any Hindi favouring move as an encroachment on their being and culture. To a certain extent, it is true also. Tamil is original and only Indian language that can be spoken without any Sanskrit word so-called language of Aryans. Rest from the south, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam have borrowed many words from Sanskrit. Tamil has the least number of symbols for alphabets so it is difficult to incorporate Sanskrit oriented words in her lingo. To accommodate different consonants from Devanagari, they have to use same symbols for different alphabets, [thus Symbol for 'P' also stands for 'Ph' 'B' 'Bh' etc], making it difficult to differentiate one from the other. That's why written Tamil has to be read with reference to the context, otherwise, it plays havoc. So the frequent use of unnecessary 'H' while writing Sanskrit based words. As the grammar, alphabets, structure of language is totally different from any of the Anglo sax-en languages from the North, for any Tamilian to learn Hindi is as difficult/ easy as learning any alien language, including modern European language. But they should also come a step forward and try to learn Hindi which Malayalis had to do, due to vast scale migration from the state to the Middle East, which has definitely helped them in a broader sense while communicating with other Co Indians. 

The brain is capable of having a thought process which is independent of words or language. At times it's so abstract that it can not be expressed in any words. Even sign language fails.[ For that matter sign language, supposed to be the last frontier to overcome a lingual barrier, too changes from place to place or country to country. Rolling the index finger on thumb says 'Zero' but if you stretch out remaining fingers it becomes 'Excellent ' while in Japan same sign connotes ' Money'. Another one commonly used by today's cool gen-next is showing outstretched middle finger with rest closed into a fist to THE enemy, meaning 'Shove.....' I mean whatever! A sign clearly not in vogue when We were young and happening generation,  definitely imported from the west as off now ! ] Then why our feelings, thoughts, the very being should be restricted to the confines of a single language. Be open and give space to others' expressions and language too, though that's not your own!

Languages are going to vary because a lot of culture goes into it. Not only culture but the emotions and the bond makes it difficult to take the bow. When we start respecting each other and their language, their window to the world, going beyond only commercial propositions and pseudo sense of freedom, these type of unruly, uncalled for, fracases would be fewer.

I don't understand what's the problem in learning more languages. More the merrier. I regret not getting a chance to learn any of the Modern European languages along with any south Indian language though at present I am proficient in 4 languages. Language should be used as a bridge rather than a barrier and not only a mode of communication!

My cricketing years

Let me state at the outset that I am not an average Indian. Average Indian has to be avid Cricket fan/fanatic or critic. That's why we have more cricket critics than players. In India, you can be expert cricket critic without even holding a bat or ball for 1st class cricket, read Harsha Bhogale [ I like him, I like him, just to make a point ]. Even vice a versa could also be true. Meaning You are not an Indian if you are not a cricket fan/fanatic or critic. In such a scenario where do I stand? I am an Indian so it has to be either fan/fanatic or critic! And I am none! What about players? Yes, there I might stand a chance. I was playing cricket when it had not become a religion. Way back in the 60s me, my brother, and 2 friends used to play cricket in our frontcourt, what today is known as Gulley cricket.

The frontcourt was a narrow space leading to a car parking garage, on the door of which we used to draw 3 lines with charcoal or something like it, that made our stumps. Bat used to be common property, so no question of the owner having an extra-inning even after getting out. Ball, THE ball used to be so weird that it would be extremely difficult to imagine in today's times how we used to make it?  Any takers? [Yes, we used to make it ourselves, no ready-made balls from the market for us. Just couldn't afford ! ]  

At the core, we used to put 'Marble' marble, not glass marble. It then was covered either with wet paper pulp or thin muslin cloth to get sufficient mass. Once the size was adequate, rubber rings cut from old bicycle tube were put around it in such a zigzag fashion that not only did it retain its round contour but attained the size of a normal cricket ball with that peculiar zingy bounce!

I was a bad cricket player. In all fields. Batting? I used to get out very easily when yorker was bowled near my left foot. I just could not go back foot. Fielding, I used to find it boring. So when younger, I used to run away after my batting or bowling turn was over, a trick my playmates detested but had to bear with, as they were always in short supply for heads. There was an arch of entry gate at the end of our playing field, rather on the lower side. I was always taller for my age, so had to bowl at an angle to avoid hand hitting the arch. That bowling action, my mates labelled as chucking and I used to get debarred from bowling! Today when I see   Malinga bowling,  I curse. [ Myself ! ]    
I very well could have been Malinga of the 60s!!

Retrospectively I feel I had dyslexia for the games where you require to make a contact of two moving objects. Thus I became a good swimmer and still at this age enjoy it.

T 20s were unheard of, One day cricket was on the anvil but not played, [ circus meant only of animals and trapeze players, so Packers' was not around !], So it was 5 days test cricket only! And it was boring to the hilt! Not a single match was played to win, especially by Indians. Either they lost most of the times or could 'SAVE' the match by making it 'DRAW.' 

After such 5 matches 'Draw' debacle against England I remember a cartoon by some famous artist on the front page of a national daily where he had shown test cricket being buried in a ditch and all the players from both the sides mourning the death of the competitiveness!  

C K Naidu, Vijay, Hazare and Merchant, were has-beens by then. Vijay Manjrekar, Dilip Sardesai hardly did any fielding, agility had deserted them for good. Chandu Borde was only saving grace. Bapu Nadkarni used to bowl more than 40 overs maiden in a row, maybe not because of his bowling skills but batsmen were lazy and used to play extremely defensive strokes, some times for days in and out!

Radio commentary by Bobby Talyrkhan used to be a treat for the ears and everybody literally was glued to the radio set when he was on the air. I still distinctly remember shouting in the exhilaration by the elders [ in their late 20s then] of the family when Jesu Patel took  9 wickets for 69  in the match at Kanpur against Australia or dismayed when Nari Contractor was hit on the head fracturing it, by a fastball by Charlie Griffith in West Indies.

In 60s TV was yet to come. So for the movie footage, we had to wait for Film divisions' Newsreels. Cinema halls used to put advertizements in dailies when footage of some important cricket match was made available. We have seen many 'Bakwas' Hindi movies just to have 2 minutes glimpse of the beloved game.

My cricketing years lasted till the late sixties when I joined college. Thereafter it was only studying. Admission in Medical school was difficult then too! My chums played cricket even after they became daddies but only on Sundays and I haven't touched the bat again, for the fear that I might be exposed! There was naivety in cricket then, today it's a commercial galore! Times change, they do change!

My love

My Love!

True love is to fall in love with the same person again and again at different stages of life. In my case, it was not a person but it is my profession.

To be frank enough in India it’s too early for any lad or a gal to decide about their future at the immature age of 16 /17. Because once you enter, it is a point of no return. It’s not like as in States that you get bored at the age of thirty with the present one and have a paradigm shift in your profession and become sculptor, or decide to spend rest of your life in the deep jungles of Amazon to study  some rare species of tarantulas or whatever.

So you enter the shrine that’s your medical school with lots of dreams and stars in your eyes. Should we call it ‘Calf Love’? You are so thrilled just be on the campus. Every new day dawned comes for you with new magic unwrapped in the form of either intricacies of human anatomy or the jugglery that nature plays inside your body in the form of physiology, you are just awestruck! Maybe, if you are not inclined you take it in your stride but the new formulas of Pharmacy and waiting endlessly in the OG room for a new life about to enter the world, makes you realize that this is it! Your love gradually is passing on to the second date, you know what I mean if you are aware of 5 date funda in courting!

If not, let me enlighten you on the topic. These fundas are spelt out by Mila Kunis in ‘The Friends with Benefits’. Every date takes you to the ultimate in crescendo manner. Last, I need not elaborate!

Likewise here too we have ‘Night Outs’ but not with your beloved in some cheesy/classy restaurant dining away 3-course dinner with choicest wine or dancing in some disco till you are flat or the next day arrives.

Night Out in medical life is spending nights either in causality, observing CMO doling out his duties like expert traffic police, managing traffic, of patients here, in different directions, that is referring them to respective specialities, learning on the way the tricks of the trade or assisting, if you are lucky, if not, just attending a late-night obstructed hernia surgery because the patient waited too long at home to get it worsened.

Casualty full of whining patients is like war field and you get lot many chances to hone your skills on a busy night. Asthmatics with their audible wheeze teach you to grade the severity just by decibels of his wheeze while primipara abusing her husband( it’s a notion in lower classes that if you curse your husband during the labour, it’s smoother) does not teach you anything about in what stage of delivery she is, because earlier the stage, more the noise is the rule here. By the time she goes into third, she is too tired to make even the slightest sound!. By the sheer variety of the exposure to the humankind, you keep on falling in love again and again!
Pursuing a postgraduate degree as a Resident doctor is another high. You perform your so many firsts within this period of 3 years that by the time you are out you are on 7th heaven. Simple procedures like venesection, pleural tapping, Spinal tap put you on the threshold of something so big that even now it's difficult to envisage. So with every success, there has to be a party so you lose the boundaries on successfully carrying out Liver Biopsy a bit difficult one on the court! Every step towards a new bondage between you and your love!

By the time you are Doctor with a legitimate degree either the MBBS or MD, you are in the seventh heaven and ready to fall in love again because till now you were doing everything under the guidance of somebody senior but now you are on your own to practice what you have been taught. The very thought is so a turn on that you wait for your first patient with an abetted breath. And when you hear your first murmur, get it confirmed on 2 D echo and you turn out to be right, it’s yet an another date with your love, your profession, medicine!

I realized the intimacy and the passion of my love really when I was in the practice for 3 to 4 years, around the age of 32/33. This is where it becomes a smooth passage with your beloved all along the way. There are hits, there are misses, which you only know, just like your ongoing courtship with your love of life.

And then you retire. But luckily for us, there is no retirement really if you don’t want to. I got another chance in my old age to fall back in love again. Though I practised Medicine for 40 years, in the initial years we had only 2 USG centres in Mumbai in early the 80s. The entire system was being revitalized. By then CT scans followed by MRIs were on the line and there was a new horizon with setting sun to walk in. I was so happy to use all these modalities with no restrictions of any kind,( in Semi-Government …. You know what I mean) afresh that it gave me new vigour to forget the old bastions and get to learn to operate new equipment as a fresh intern. Kids of this generation know them like the back of their hands and so it was new love to mingle with them and learn a few things here and there. It’s said that you are a student all your life, especially if you are a professional, it’s so so true.

It was like having apprehensions exactly like when you are on your first date. And let me tell you I  fell in love again, my first love, my profession at this late age! It’s worth it!

Children Of Lesser God

When the plans of  Arsh’s, my grandson, first birthday celebrations,  were being hatched out in the home/family, everybody was unanimous about one thing, that it’ll not be celebrated in the traditional way. Where hundreds of young kids, with their parents ,'Not so middle-aged as yet’, are invited in hoards. Everybody is happy in general. Parents for getting a chance to blah blah about their princes/princesses as if their God’s gifts are just short of being angels, [they are, they are and I adore them too,] but the parents ughs! And the umpteen number of Aunts, Uncles and to top the cake, though grandmas but abhorring right from the ‘G’ of grandma, types. 

And in this melee of assorted nuts where does  it leave the poor creature, ‘The Birthday Boy?’ Incessantly crying, while a beehive of relatives, near dear ones, are in a race to show how much do they adore the young chap. Oblivious of their overtures though intentionally good, the poor child is suffocated due to the deluge of affection showered on him, that he takes the umbrage of only Armour he knows the best, incessant crying at the first go! And the reactions of the crowd change immediately. From, Sympathetic suggestions about 'How to pacify the poor chap' to ‘He’s going to be a cry baby, how are they going to manage?’ Give a break! The child is only one year old and much water has yet to pass under the bridge.

So every single thought was given a big cut and it was decided to celebrate it with orphaned and destitute children of the ashram. It's run by one of the acquaintances. Not many people were informed, but those who knew from the inner circle lauded the idea and said ‘ Nice work. Let  God be with you’. Never believed in God consciously so it was far from seeing the God in our small deed.

In two cars we actually landed upon them. Just by the Express Highway, in a government building, in a ground floor apartment around 40 children were staying in an area of not more than 1500 to 2000 sq. feet. The first gulp appeared in the throat on seeing the children in that cramped area. To add to already brewing apprehension, we were told, that around 20 have already gone on a picnic in Aarey's Chhota Kashmir, on a similar treat by somebody and are expected back any moment. They came and the place became still smaller….. but all those chirpy, exuberant kids were not bothered about what was being transpired in our minds and went on with their chirpy nonchalance. Not to break the harmony, we too joined them. Though most of them were in their most mischievous age, around 6 to 10 yrs of age, none was a brat, everybody was disciplined and everybody sat obediently on the slot earmarked for them on the floor. As soon as we were introduced and our purpose of the visit was told, everybody in unison shouted ‘Hey, Happy Birthday Arsh!’ In due course after cutting the cake, I was made grandpa,Saket was dada, Neha was Kaku. Their hunger for simple touch was so genuine, that in spite of not being in the league of PDA, public display of affection, I could not steer away, on the contrary eyes welled up for their simple need and my inability to come up with the emotional support they longed for!

The story of these children of lesser God was not to end with this episode. Another chapter of this emotional saga was yet to be written. And this time, it was not a small visit of 2 hours, but we were to stay for 4 days in the ashram and so the encounters were going to be of a definitely different kind!

A youngish boy, hardly in his late teens when faced with the unprecedented situation, started an asylum for children, starting with his own niece as the first entrant. Over the years a smallish seedling has now grown up into a full-fledged tree, where more that hundred boys and girls without either of the parents are being tutored by him to make them self-sufficient to wedge a war against that cruel thing, the life and the world that encompasses it!

Deep inside the interiors of Maharashtra, after a grueling 9 hours drive from Mumbai we reached the place that welcomes you with open arms, no, open Heart!

Saana, my daughter had been over there many times in the past, so immediately the clamor started for her,” Saana Didi Aali, Saana Didi Aali”. Once they came to know that I was her father, so naturally, I became their grandpa. And the clamor increased. In no time we became one with the group to celebrate ‘Holi’ with those chicky kids.

On day second, after spending some more time with them, I felt like being a voyeur prying on their lives finding for the chinks in their Armour. Tantrums are part of childhood. To be selfish is second nature to being human. Freedom for everything, especially to say No when one does not agree, to eat, to play, to whatever, is child's birthright.  Physician in me started picking up the things sooner than later.

Every child was extremely, [singularly, every child, well beyond reasonable limits] well behaved. No, they were not toys with wound spring, they were playing, prancing around, humming in low tones, in short doing everything that a child in a normal environment would do. But there were no childish fights, no voice above the acceptable limit and cooperation beyond hilt. Instead of one girl carrying two buckets to water the plants, 3 to 4 girls used to form a chain carrying 3 to 4 buckets at a time, every girl holding two buckets on either side. I felt like taking a snap for the posterity but it was definitely encroaching upon their privacy, rather it was crueler to en-cash on their plight to extract sympathy, maybe a crude word because they were not aware of it. On the contrary they were enjoying every bit of the ritual heartily giggling, laughing all along the way!. So I dropped the idea.

Their hunger for human touch is insatiable. They cling on to your body from every possible appendage and try to attract attention to whatever mundane they have to convey. Being brought up in totally different milieu, where extreme body touching is strictly no-no, at one point it started becoming too much for me. But out of being sheer couth and of course diplomacy I could not shrug them off and went on enduring them, really, till they were called for some prayer or meditation time.

To watch six-year-old parading in glitzy out of the fashion, two sizes over dress, discarded by some elite from Mumbai was pathetic but the glint in her eyes just to be in that glitzy dress was unmistakable. And I felt I must look for more like this rather than searching for the lacunae.

And there were many.

One smartish boy was a bit apprehensive. On interrogating said, “Today’s paper might be tough.”. He was appearing for his 10^th English language paper. There were many such girls and boys either appearing for or preparing for higher studies. One of them had the dream to be in the medical profession!

And that was the reward for that teenage boy of yore, who himself dreamed to start with and made others like him to dream and work hard to convert them in reality!

I had a good childhood when it was, but realized way afterwards that it was far from it. We were deprived of many good things in life though, were very well within the possible reach. Now I feel though you do not have a good set of people as your parents, they are there at least for the namesake, and it makes a hell lot of difference to your psyche, the way you are sculpted psychologically to face the future, to face the life. When none is there, what you have to go through I experienced in the ashram.

Suppose this boy would have thrown the towel in, there and then? No, but he did not and so now more than 100 children are aspiring to have a future, a better future with their heads held high in dignity and working with you and me, shoulder to shoulder.

Let there be more like him!

P.S: Names of the place and the person being held back to protect their honor and integrity.