Dilate Your Pupils

Well let hope your pupils did dilate reading the title and your mind raced at the speed of light to assume some “exciting” things 😉

 

Well sorry folks, nothing naughty here, but yes, I am talking about wonder. We need to let go of ourselves in general and try and explore and think and wonder. I have realised that the more I wonder or the more I keep my mind open, the more life teaches me. Nature is an excellent teacher, once you start observing things and wonder why, you discover more not only about the world or universe at large but also about yourself. It is extremely interesting to have a conversation with oneself and keep on wondering. Like one great man had once said, stay hungry, stay foolish… ummm who was he?😉

Over the last few months, I have been interacting a lot with the new generation (Gen Z I mean) and I have realised that they have never been stressed as much as my parents had or even we had. My generation had it a little bit easier than my parents and my kid’s generation has it so easy that I sometimes wonder whether it will render their muscles useless. Maybe they will all just be reduced to a bundle of Appendices. I have worked with freshers in the industry and found that they haven’t taken much efforts during their graduation as well. The concept of struggle seems to have been eliminated. While its always better to adopt an easier path but we need to realise that the struggle is what makes us we. That is what shapes us. Maybe we need to let our kids fall and scrape and bleed for a while before rushing to them with bandage, tourniquets, the freaking hospital cart. We need to also remove the helmets during a cycle ride or the knee pads and the elbow pads. I don’t remember a day when my elbows and knees weren’t scratched, and they are still rough today. I wish my kid grows up with a lot of scrapes and marks, to commemorate his life. Let our kids dilate, let them wander and get scraped and hurt and bruised.

The third layer of the story is more related to a physical observation. We have no doubt discovered a lot of ways to save the environment, but I think that we have taken the story a bit far in our zest. I think that along with saving energy with LED lights, we have increased the light pollution, yes Light pollution. There was a time not far away when I could read perfectly well in a yellow or a dim, soot covered, white fluorescent light, but now I find it very difficult. The laptop screens, the phone screens, the white bright light everywhere, which are out to blind me if I stare straight into them, are all contributing to this phenomenon. The LED's are driving us nuts. They are too bright and too focused, kind of like Sheldon, maybe (from the Big Bang Theory), and they are equally annoying. Let’s get the old lights back and vow to use them judiciously, rather than blind ourselves.

With the kind of lives that we live, I wonder when was the last time that my pupils had truly dilated, whether in pure awe or just because the LED's were off…. Time to turn off the screen now 😄

Carry on Doctor ...

Todays train of thought is on a very serious note and maybe controversial too. There has been a spate of incidents where some relative of a suffering patient couldn’t take it anymore and took things in their hands. Doctors have been beaten up and as a sign of protest the entire union of doctors has gone on a strike. Or the recent case of Eman from Saifee Hospital. I have been debating this course of action from the angles of a doctor and a patient for quite some time in my head and think that there are some revelations to the entire scenario. Something deeper than just a doctor beaten up or a patients loss.

Let me clarify firstly, that I don’t condone what has been happening. Beating anyone, be it a sweeper in some run-down office or a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or an absolute corrupt politician is not permissible. We, as a society, cannot support this kind of behaviour.

Is the loss of life or death in a medically critical condition an uncommon event? No, it isn’t. There is a 50-50 percent chance anyone of us could die the next moment and in some cases the odds aren’t even this good, without being medically critical. So, what ticks off patients.

When someone close to us is at stake, the emotions run higher, stronger. Add to it the fact that patients or public in general in India feel fleeced from all angles, right from a common man to the top politician. That frustration is building up. However, when that loss is only monetary it is slightly easier to bear. When the loss is both monetary and personal it becomes difficult. There is a whole nexus in India between Doctors, Pathology labs, Hospitals, Pharma companies and the subsidiaries. I have known only 1 doctor who doesn’t take commission for the tests he gets his patients to do. So much so that pathology labs charge us less if we give his reference. Patients are routinely subjected to a battery of expensive and useless tests by doctors who are not good diagnosticians, given sub- standard care and ignored despite paying through their noses. I have received threatening calls from renowned Doctors, because we shifted their patients to other hospitals with better and cheaper care. There is a renowned Cancer specialist, who charged you around 2000 bucks for 15 seconds…. Seriously and this was a decade or more ago. I had gone to him once with my uncle. Despite my uncle’s warnings, I couldn’t resist and asked him a slightly different question. It took his assistant less than five seconds to dismiss it, but we were charged a 1000 bucks more for that visit. Worst part was that the doctor never himself even studied our case. Bedside manners, patient empathy is all lost in the hustle bustle to cater to an ever-increasing population and making more money.

All of this aside and if maybe half the doctors are such, the other half is still good. All of them are still trying their best. At the end of the day, they will try to save your life. Beating up any professional, is not really an answer. For ages, we have put Doctors on a pedestal, much higher than the rest of the society, so much so that if you see a car parked wrongly, with a Dr symbol on it, you assume it must be an emergency. Maybe it’s time we humanise them. Be more tolerant to the fact that they too are error-prone, not Gods. They are trying their best in the given constraints. Some patients are sick beyond a point of no return before they even reach the doctors. Others develop complications beyond anyone’s control. Even if it’s due to the negligence of a doctor, it’s time we start treating them right. Beating them up is not the answer.

It’s time to bring them down from that heavenly pedestal so that we don’t always expect miracles and treat them as professionals. Professionals who are in a public – emotionally charged public -  facing role, constantly under pressure, and now under the added pressure of hospitals run like corporates. Let’s treat our doctors right. Let’s acknowledge the fact that they too can sometimes make a mistake but overall, they are trying their best. They too at the end of the day want to earn good money just like the rest of us. Advantage being, they get to do a lot of good work while earning it. Let’s not drive our doctors away from the personal touch they want to give. Let’s treat them right, no matter how grave our loss.  

The Circus of Death

I have used this line a lot. I used to add one more certain fact to it, that my best friend from Grad school will be late. You could count on him being late by half an hour at least for anything, be it meeting at the Y-point for going to a class or a movie. 

I recently experienced the death of a family member. I always treat death very serenely. My first heartfelt experience of it was at the age of 20. A close friends father had died in a tragic accident. The friend was brave enough to face it all through all alone. We were class mates. He topped his GRE scores a week later. I remember that evening however. We stood there silently holding hands, silent tears dropping by. Both of us pretending to be brave. I cried profusely when I came home and narrated the horrible hour, that we spent seeing his fathers body burn. I never forgot that night. Every time there is a death, and I have seen many by now, I remember that sweaty hand in my hand and the helplessness in our eyes. 

Something has gone wrong with the world since then. Every funeral or prayer meeting that I have attended after that has become more and more casual. The affairs have become more ritual than spiritual and the people more cavalier. I admire the pragmatism of people who are very well behaved with a stiff upper lip and can go about their routine life like nothing major has happened, after the death of a dear one, but to actually dismiss the incident is outrageous. And that too at the prayer meeting. They have become more of a social gathering and people have started treating them as another excuse to have some normal chit chat. Where is the respect for the dead gone? 

I can understand if there are efforts done to bring the family out of the shock and the impact of the event, but to actually crack jokes, laugh and greet people by saying,” Hey, how are you? Long time no see.” I wonder if they wanted some relative to die every month so that they could meet more regularly. Where have we lost our sensitivity? Since when did we start accepting a permanent loss so easily? I have seen people get sadder over the dropping of a daily soap character. Have we misplaced and misdirected our emotions so radically? The saddest part was that I didn’t even see a single eye that had dried out by crying too many tears. I still shudder on remembering that night 15 years ago, and here I was within a roomful of people and somehow only I had the decency to not laugh at some stupid joke cracked by someone at the gathering.

All of us face the loss of someone important at one point or another. The people we lose are the ones that have taken a lot of efforts to be there for us and make us what we are today. Even if we cannot acknowledge that or reciprocate that, I implore all to not let that little sensitivity die. Someday, when our time comes, and we would be looking outside from a glass photo frame, we might like to see a few tears more or at least hear a few laughs lesser.