To myself.

I am at peace now,

no hunger beckoning to take to a different lane,

with temptings of finding the latest dream unbuttoned,

ready to be worn, threadbare.

No promises expected to be returned,

every single swallow has flown back

to warmer skies, no one left behind to confuse

silent tears for dewdrops from the Happy Prince

No targets, remaining to be achieved,

that I would 'do this' if i 'could do that'

And waiting, for life, to take roots in midair.

I hammer away languidly, at the vacancy of stares,

idly thinking of nothing has become easy,

numbness has a presence and a comfort

I knew not I could live with.

Its become easy now, not to lose senses,

at people who do not deserve in the least

morsels of my temper.

Its easier to share, and bring in nameless faces

into the everyday happinesses life packs in.

To make life roll on, at that uninhabited

spherical pace, that I first thought,

would be impossible for me to live with,

a fireball of energy, its actually comforting,

to see the balded sphere roll on by.

Yes, soon enough, through mists and haze

another year has passed by,

revealing enough to show,

the mirror was never too far to see

only that I, in my constant fear

of letting go of myself, could not

gather enough courage, to pick it up.

I scruff up, the last shards of my memories,

of times belonging to another relative

space.

Of nebulous doubts and promises,

of beguiling dreams and voyages

into this solid ground,

beneath my feet, however small I maybe

in this universe, this space,

belongs to me, while I stand on it.

Happy New Year to me.

Never did give up,

not ever shall I.

On writing again...

I surprise myself these days when I cannot 'take' heavy stuff in writing anymore. I remember a time when I had got to the point when talking about fiction would not raise my heartbeat.When writing meant Kafka or Rushdie or nonfiction that was researched for a decade or more before a few pages could be gleaned from them . When even a Aravind Adiga book seemed like pale trash of English to be stashed away after a read. Yes, I had got to that point.

But things have changed. Maybe its the last two odd years of neverending work and putting yourself after everybody else. Maybe its the shuting off of the A+ personality for the much less hungry and rather indifferent B-. Something has brought about the change. I cannot manage to think anymore. Earlier, and a good example of the thing I had under my fingertips would be the blog I burnt. But these days, things take time to come out of my pen. While it becomes thorough at diagnosing things, it has become difficult to go through the pain I used to regularly undertake earlier before I produced something from my pen I liked.

I remember the feeling I used to get after writing those days. it used to act as a drug, almost as a therapy for me. Maybe the definitions have changed. Or maybe I have moved on to newer modes of treatment. I feel the same exhaustion after I attend an emergency. Not just the bodily exertion. But also the mental one. And I know that its not the same, but I feel cured. And in some odd way, its actually comforting to find that I did not arrive at it by further morselling my insides. In a way, the cure came with the byproduct of helping a bunch of other people in some fucked up situations of life.

I must even tell you that it actually feels good. I am cured of that poison that had slowly taken roots inside me. And while I do not know how willing I am to put myself in the path of life again, I sometimes miss the glory of that madness in me. I am hopeful of the fact that its not exactly my deal to stand at the darker end of the bargain. But I want to write again. Like I did.

That emotional exhaustion and turbulence acted like dope on my senses. Its going has to have in it a part that has possibly to do with the situation I found myself in. While intially finding myself incredulously staring at people who burn incense sticks at family altars..or cry to hear of their parents having an urinary tract infection, or baulk at the sight of chicken wings. I thought I would go mad in the long run if I stayed with such aliens. Even decided to have a plebicite once, at a conference, by asking the prevalence of broken families. And imagine the horror on the faces of the goody-goody shoe guys...Oops...My bad !!! How beautiful the world can be.

Yet, somewhere along this time, or maybe it can be ascribed to the lack of a rescue door, I was held up, unguarded to face and to live with such incredulity long enough to understand that a pattern exists in the orderliness and simplicity of these lives, the same way it exists in the madness and hopelessness in the one that I come from. Except that its plainly visible in the former and it takes a lot of sensitivity and strength, and probably intelligence to recognise it in the latter. I might even say I have grown to like this simple way of ebing. Rough edges that I had have been smoothened and tamed down. My anger has subsided into a cocoon and I have discovered something I never knew existed. That I have very few wants from life. Maybe its called 'Mellowing' that P used to tell me would happen once you age... I dont know. My face looks cheerful. The specks of anger that used to ride high on my cheekbones have given way to an almost grandmotherly understanding. I even watch cartoons, and I like it.

Yet, people have surprisingly hurt me here too. People who you trusted in the past. Who you put before yourself. Who you helped in their biggest times of danger, and even bodily harm. People who like you but whose insecurities cannot take in to see your real source of happiness. Of connecting with someone with whom you shared the company of pure labor and hard work if not emotional comfort. Strange ways things keep happening. Either initially when you are confused whether being yourself acts like a threat to some male ego in front of you, or later when a very unlikely source gives you a certificate of 'you cannot be anything else' with the same person when you finally manage to bury the hatchet. I am almost amused at how important I can manage to become to some people's lives even when they do not wish something good for me, but don't have the guts to come outright with it. I dont even have time for myself, leave aside other people's lives and the persons in their's. How can people manage to be so obsessed about what happens in other peoples' lives to the extent of predicting a future of two people apart or giving character certificates to others is beyond me. Or maybe they are confused about the way I feel. Maybe I make people insecure about losing their favorites. I am not a thief. And I don't stake claim on anything as a matter of principle. Maybe its escapism. Or maybe its just my way of seeing who will come how far to try to know the real person behind me. I will just run. I have done so in the past as well.

In any case, a lot of it is over and done with, for now. You cannot have anything else from people who have nothing else but other people's lives to drown their own lives in. One big average stagnant pond of looking at each other's mirrors and finding out the same face from each mirror is like the most inventive thing to ever happen since the falling of the apple on Newton's head. Sad but true. A lot of good people lose themselves in this rubbish.

I shall go back to writing. Once I leave this place, and enter a semblance of the world I have left some 2 odd years back. I shall go back into the chaos and the darkness of it. And get on with it. Its just like the thornbird. The best piece of writing you shall get from me is when I pierce my heart with the sharpest thorn available to mankind. Loneliness. And so it will be, I think.

And I am prepared for it.

Nerd...Who me ???

This is an oft repeated tendency I begin to observe in myself over quite some time now. An inability to mix and mingle into the general conversation, disinterest in other putative areas of interest and more than that, utter disregard to what other people might think about me behaving this way. The other day, I squirmed and made my way out of a gathering congregation about bangles and sarees to wear on a marriage party. I tried, I tried not to be rude and endure that piece of ...or whatever it was that was being discussed at the breakfast table on a good wintry sunday morning. But I couldn't. And I finally got up and got out.

Its not been the first time that this is happening. At least at home I was given the liberty to stay shut in my room. Because I would address someone s uncle at the beginning of the party and say goodbye as brother. My mother's and father's friends have never been a subject of enduring memory for me. While I do remember the lift of an eyebrow or an oddity that stands out in a vague paragraph mentioned at the end of the chapter in some textbook, or the way the lilt of the bagpipes carries on in the background of some celtic music, I fail drastically in the semingly mundane, but essential things that make up life.

Am I getting prematurely senile? My 'absentmindedness' could be the telltale signs of a fast approaching presenile dementia ? The 'nerdiness' a manifestation of the most innermost fears that shaped me into the oddball of information and efficiency that I am ?

I cannot say for sure. But I hope, I seriously hope, routine, 'normal' things in life assume more importance in my mind than they currently are. I am missing out on things, I think. A lot of them. And the worst thing next to missing them out could probably be being unaware of the things I am missing out on.

I am amazed peoply typify me as the talking, joke cracking nutty girl who always manages to smile. Nothing can be farther from the truth that is. I am vivacious if I want to be, I can be lethal with my anger. And I can crack a joke at expense of myself. But nothing, and nobody can claim to know me, if they misinterpret my reclusiveness as being upset, and typify me as a forever cackling goose.

I hate it when people say the most hurtful things masqueraded as a joke. Mostly because while I can be sarcastic to the point of acid dropping sentences, I usually fire it at people i do not respect.

Wish I did not become a submissive fool to people I loved. That is the trouble. They abuse that position. Sooner or later.

Few moments in yesterday...

The key fitted, two clicks, door opening

into the silent, sturdy security,

of a hardworking life.

I walked back, barefeet, into the cocoon of my privacy;

bringing thoughts and case files of a hundred people back

into the empty confines of my shelter,

save mine.

But a single silent blink broke somewhere in my eyes,

the bulb chose to die;

as a smile bore down through the cushions,

wood, granite and earth

into a face looking up at the moon inside

an eight year old car, two other lives beside

one in giggles, another in sniffles

the third singing of lanes left by.

Tumorous smiles, unkempt voices

flying high in sweaty summers

happy stars and moons drooled on paper,

handprints on posters,

meaning of lager

Fevicryl on boots,

When promises took roots

only to bore so deep, that realities did not weep

when they turned into memories

locked forever shy.

And even the yellow light blinded me back,

up from the depths of

that protracted happy goodbye...

In Two days

In two days I turn twenty nine;

today I pick up my diary and leaf

dog eared pages to go through

memories I had long since buried.

My fingers type unaccustomedly in blank verse

on the keyboard, as I attempt a poem,

Again.

After a long, I mean really long time.

Not about tear jerkers, not about the love

that cheated and died, not about

being human, or being a doctor,

but a list of the things, I want.

I want for my birthday.

At twentynine, I wake up from a long,

unbroken dreamy sleep that wakes me up

with the corners of my mouth stretched,

the kind of smile, I used to get on my face,

when I dug up cashews hidden by my mother.

I want a long bike-ride, behind some person I

can hold close to me, someone who

would understand that meaning of

' driving to the point of no return'

doesnt necessarily mean we would die

at the end of the ride.

I would like to as well, watch a movie that

would wrench the last tear drops of my eyes,

and not have someone looking at me and thinking

'What an emotional fool she is !!! ', while sympathising

with me.

I would, like to go looking for tigers

with my brother, in the forests of Rudraprayag and

Kumaon, where I wandered as a child

in the fantasies of the Jim Corbett books my

brother gave me to read when I was eleven...

I would, like to cook up a meal,

an American chopsuey or a veg-au-gratin

with the cheese perfectly cooked, and red wine

and sit with my friend ( a girl this time)

discussing MBBS headaches and films.

I would, I wish, spend

one quality day with my family, one whole

day that goes just right, set in the nineties..

when I was just the age that was right.

Or spend a present day in the present time

wearing my FCUK t-shirt that says

FCUK 1972

( The year my parents got married !!! )

And well, they cannot 'see' the difference.

I want to turn back the hands of time,

to walk with someone with feet filled with blisters

someone who I would know, would last even till

a bitter truth than a convenient lie.

Someone for whom my respect shall

start, continue and grow, until

the deepest honor and lust of

a beautiful feeling.

Love.

And also to go, with someone, get drunk,

on the dancefloor, and release,

every memory in my mind in one drunken

fever,with someone close to me

I can trust even when I absolutely let go...

fully knowing that

when I wont be able to stand up on my legs anymore,

someone will carry me home...

back to the incredulous safety of our confines.

Or to go on with a black t-shirt with dinosaurs

painted in front, to my English teacher,

who would unabashedly stare at my boobs, but

would actually be reading aloud

"Triceratops"

And I would love it he got the name right.

I wish I could go on a ride

on my bike, when the monsoon would lash in

Cuttack, and would race the train till my house

grinning that I beat it..

and would dance the night away with

Channel V hits and my cousin sister.

Also watch all horror movies with my hands crossed,

and when electricity fails, run to the loo,

hands between my legs,

failing miserably before I reach the door.

At twenty nine, I know,

none of this will happen.

I will possibly have a long day to lie on the bed,

dream about all the contorted truths of the poem that

has actually happened..

and then get back to life

which is good neverthless

And read up a book on Neuro.

Again

It has worsened now than when it started

she was scared then she would go

and not be able to live

beyond a twelve year old,

with her parents. When it started,

and she spent hours locked up

in the bathroom waiting for it to stop.

They came they ate into her,

tortured her soul month after month

leaving bright red tears on beds

chairs, skirts, roads

and she ran from everywhere.

They worsened, came at their wish.

And bled her life away, her legs shaking

Her eyes reflected the silent agony

she went through, as she stood

through endless hours of work.

She cannot stand because she is weak,

she cannot sleep, because she will dirty the bed,

she cannot speak because she is

catching her breath, while,

the remaining blood trickles out

beneath her in steady dribbling jets.

There inside of her it started,

that flesh day by day, eating out

blood and rooting in the place

where a life begins,

right there, it grew

and spreading tentacles

cuscutas of its veins

drained life blood from the house

that gave birth to it.

Till this day, when it has grown

into the tree, crushing beneath it

the house where, it began as a seed

and its roots drain deeper

leaving the shambled cottage's

hungry lungs cry for air.

White pallid skin, replaces golden

parched lips reflect the hunger in her

eyes, as she passes by every child

she sees, she wants it.

To be her own.

But fears, because, tomorrow

every possibility exists,

This poison ivy will never

allow a small seedling to grow

and attach itself to his

mothers womb.

Or if it does, she will

choke him to death.

Diwali...

How many years thus passed,

he had promised when he stepped out

the door,

to bring candles and crackers

for the evening, saving graces

for a year spent in counting

grains on the bottom of the urn

and potatoes dug from the ground

sharing that in a family of five.

That he would not return, amidst rains

and summer heat, amidst

loss of memories that counted in

a storm that broke the house,

water flooded inside

took a happy child

and returned.

Today, that he returned, seven years hence

phool jharris, candles, diyas, anaars in hand

for the daughter who had died,

for the son who had grown up from the

rocker horse, pulled carts outside,

for a mother who could not see or hear

and a wife he no more recognized.

HS

I am filled with a lot of good feelings over the time for my Professor,which I am finally penning. I am aware that word may possibly trickle out to him ( or worse, he may read it...) but I am not scared. My feelings about him do not arise out of a need to placate him to give me a better position in the list of Publications in the pipeline ( I am not bothered even if my name is not on the list), or to go gung ho somewhere and to someone about my exceptionality ( I am not an exceptional person).

But I have realized this over the one year that I have worked under him, from the first meeting, where his first question to me was ' Are you single?' ( He was worried if I had a place to stay...) and I thought of the myriad possibilities of shapes that question would take acquire in my life, ( I did not take one in the wrong sense) when I was not sure I would be staying on in Rohtak in the first place. And my "Yes" was more an answer to me, rather than to him. A decision, I have come to give the highest regards to, of late. I got a room to myself, albeit dilapidated, but big enough to house my thousand odd books, the day I joined Rohtak. Someone as unsocial as me would have had a lot of problems if I had not got the room then.

While I am still filled with awe about the professors back home ( I was always too much into Medicine, its in my blood, its in the air I breathe, and I had SCB by its guts...you could blindfold me there and leave me and I could walk about and back without hitting a single post...), while I still look upto them for their presence, for their knowledge, and their commitment ( Can never forget CBKM coming to ward at 11 to look up a patient, or doing a pleural tap today...a venesection tomorrow...putting a note another day...it maybe bigger to me because at that time, I knew much less...I was, as an ordinary MBBS, still not into the system), my teacher, my Boss, My professor, Sir, as I call him inside my mind as my mood makes it, I have seen for one thing more than another...his effort, his sincerity.

While I am not the ones who normally goes all out in front of people who move and shake the country..( got that attitude from dad...he refused a banquet invite at Maurya Sheraton where Bill Clinton had come...though his reasons are obscure to put here..but I want to drive home a moot point...I cannot make an effort to please someone if I don't feel like it from within...possibly because I haven't been in a situation where my career, or my position have been similarly placed, and in a way, as a post graduate, I still dont belong here..) but to see it day in and day out..for friends, for people who hear my Professor's good name and come, for people in positions of power...I do not see the intensity of his sincerity diminish. And while our troop ( of postgraduates) sometimes waits with exasperation wishing him to actually kick these people out of his office ( for closing their eyes in answer to 'what is your problem', thinking for 2 minutes...and give a dramatic soliloquy for another 10 minutes...by then I would have had a cardiac arrest..or would have advised 3 people on the benefits of clean health habits, physiotherapy, GCP, rushed to my room and back...stole a trip to my personal life..and back...blessed someone and back....), the fact that he comes with his hair in the air is enough to stamp the exasperation out. And his frank admission that he was exasperated with all those 'wise men' he has to entertain...I am sorry...but just his admission of the fact that he was equally bored through his smiles and his compulsions is enough for me to adore him. Not many would admit it. And I don't mind his living it. Its his way of living, and dealing with those around him. I may not agree to it, but it doesn't diminish the mutual respect I have for him.

And I am glad he has given me space. Space to wander, and lose myself be lost..and finally, beginning to gather myself up again. There was once this concept of firebird I had accidentally built in my mind ( first from an isolated orkut profile picture upload...then a poem whose two lines went like...'and then the firebird from her ashes rose, and prescribed her lunatic a sedative dose'...to isolated meanderings when I wished to be one of the firebirds known for their healing qualities in Harry Potter ( I have always been a fairy tale kid....I hate myself for that) When I wanted to fly and go and cry over a bleeding toe nail, and cure it, because there was no other entrance for me into that person's place or life) and today, he reminded me of that situation in his unbelievably artless pinup expression...honesty. My Boss does not have an ego. And if he does, its not the harmful kind. Thats the best part about him.

I listen to stories when I hear him straighten up in the presence of two girls with he took a picture with ...and I know that expression even without seeing it. I have seen how uncomfortable he gets ( in comparison to his friend and my other inspiration here who can hug a bunch of us silly willies with a damn care attitude about the world who would be stupid enough to comment...) and I remember his expression when I told him about my medical problem. He had not even looked at me once. He looked up at the ceiling instead of looking at the MRI scan showing a fibroid twice as big as the uterus. And I wondered if I had told him something banal...or worse...like I had a sexually transmitted disease. And then I wondered if he would have looked me in the face if, say I had a brain tumor instead. But anyways. Thats possibly because he hasn't got friends or the situations to let go of his straight laced ways. In any case, I am not worried, or troubled, or even saddened by this. I find it mildly amusing, even kind of funny...the same way I feel for my mothers tempers about our ( me and my sister's) perennial single statuses...or my continuous ignorance of my medical condition, basically which cannot be helped ( got another verbal lashing...when I told her by Hemoglobin has gone down again to 10, its actually 9.6...and gave her the explanation for it...I am not taking medicines...did she have to be irritated?). So I look upon that stiffneckedness with the same adoration I have for my mothers continuous banter when she opens her mouth, as I watch the television unfazed, or look into her face without an expression...

No, the liking stems from elsewhere. He has given me space to actually go down to the average murk that consumes one of us sometime or the other during post graduation. Keeping up in the Medical profession is difficult. Going about with the same energy, I find myself sapped of it each time after I do an Emergency. I know I am not like the saviour there...but I try to do my best. And I know I am the one anyday who spends more time counselling patients. I have seen its rewards. Doctors forget body is a temple. It has its own healing powers within itself that will begin to act with a small nudge from outside. Call me a believer in Alternative medicine or whatever ( I actually wanted to find out a unani doctor in Chandni Chowk when I used to live in Delhi, but then I had other persuations, so I could not go about it all out). I have got myself into this downward slide maybe or vacuum for like 4 years now...and for sometime, it got into my system and choked my aspirations. I slouched. And it showed. My files, my patients, my work, all started to reflect that inner negative vibes I was carrying within me...

And finally he told me. He stopped me from taking a break, asked me to wipe my paws and to get back. And got back I did. Three days later he told me something I will never forget. I don't want to put it down. But I knew that he knows me. Not for what I am, but what I can be. I am grateful for that. I have carried these people in my heart of hearts when they have been with me when I have been licking the pits.

I often remember that incident in the movie The Perfume where the protagonist doles out a thousand concoctions of perfume for his teacher before he leaves (about that movie, later). I am not speaking in that murderous perspective at all. I speak in the perspective when it doesn't matter to me if I am read, or published, if my name comes in a positive impact factor journal...if I go and do a fellowship in John Hopkins and all that...For all I know, I might turn into a yoga teacher tomorrow, or marry a farmer and own a farm in South America, or just go to some island and practice medicine and live my life like the oracle in Minority Report, where her truths would no more be the life she saw in reality, or her dreams, but the fairy tales she read where people lived happily ever after...I dont know where I am going to end up in my search for the meaning of two words in my life...Love, and Happiness. But I know that even if I am caught for sometime, I shall fly away someday to that place my closed eyes keep dreaming of. And that I will also ensure I know the meaning of both of them before I go. But I am glad he stays silent where he does. And speaks with his artistically inarticulate honesty when he speaks what he speaks.

To this end, today when I asked him why I have become like that, when no one else around is like me, and that my laid back attitude is highly unexpected for a post graduate in Medicine...what he said picking up from a weird ad which might be airing somewhere...starring a ludicrously muscled hero from Bollywood ( how health conscious my Boss is...u can take a guess when at 46, he can run 10 kilometers without his breath flaring.)...Sucharita, those people win who do not defeat somebody..but who are able get up after being thrown down.

Thank you so much for these words ( And I am glad I havent seen the ad..I would have never got the perspective then...) Today, he makes me want to go back to my life again in the aspect that I want to get serious about what I like. I like to heal. And I like to write. And for now, these two are perfectly sufficient for me to lead my life successfully, if not necessarily contentedly. I will be content if I can pour in the words, happy and love inside that porridge. But its not the time for that. I want to write again. Not just this blog. Or silly stories for kids, or words of life and childhood, and love and loss. I am picking up writing for writing about everything...to the patients who could not live to teach me the lessons, to the patients with whom I have had my most honored moments...to people who have shown me what love could possibly mean. And better, entail.

God bless you. Even if I will be one person who will come up with bare faced facts and complaints and its true that I think you should take some serious lessons from your friend ( my other Boss I adore..his best friend, his mirror isomer) about recognizing people, their motives and capacities ( Dear Sir, you always...almost always trust the wrong people...and suffer because of this), I am glad with we three, the reticent Co-PG of mine, the strictly unsocial SR we treasure..and the whatever me, you have taken the magnanimity to trust us.

And we shall never let you down. God bless you

Today.

One class every Tuesday.

Teach kids all the systems. No matter if its less. Or more.

Teach them, so they don't grow up to make

the same mistakes we do.

Or if they ask me questions I don't know the answer to.

Not to flinch.

Write.

I am happy today.

The within type.

And I can now fly without feeling the need to look down on the ground below.

The Fly Away type.

I have shed that skin, that shed sad-sodden slime drops.

Fewer stuff remaining. In the To-Do list.

Open the windows in someones closed room.

Make someone realize a word 'want' is not a thing beyond her reach.

And tell another, 'I cannot' are words just not meant to fit his shoes.

Spread two corners of everyones mouth.

Meet two people. For the last time maybe.

And no cringes of selfishness when I realize I am praying,

but not for myself, for the truest-firstest time.

I have nothing left to ask for.

What thirst I parched for from the falling raindrops of a cloud.

A big river came and started to flow outside my home.

I got everything I needed; from him from Her.

I am free.

Free to fly.

The Fly Away type.

And I am happy today.

The within type.

Nothing...

Yesterday I promised someone I would write instead of crying. And I was with the hope that i would yet again produce voluminous amounts of text. Today I dont feel like crying at all. I just realized this. That I still don't have enough love in my veins. Not as much as I would like to. And I lay down my weapons against that thing called life. Right now, I would like to,

Go and fall over a cliff. And trust me I would be smiling till I smashed into the rocks.

Something I have never been able to do...

Run till my lungs burst and all the blood came out of it.

Hit my head and forget everything about me. And then go to a village and live a life doing chores from house to house like an ordinary peasant woman.

Leave this place. Just leave this place and start walking. And walk till my life bleeds out of my legs.

Actually fall into that water I have seen myself fall into countless times in my dreams.

The best, be that Mermaid I grew up with, even before I learnt to read the story.

Life can be that strange, that fucked up for some people.

Or people fuck their lives up. Maybe that is the truth.

And tears, No tears today. And I doubt if there will be any ever again after this.

I don't know if I am better today knowing it or worse.

I am numb. Because still, I have nothing to gain.

And I have nothing left to lose.

Just a vague emptiness, that I have no words to describe.

Like someone punched me in the face, and forced me to see my face in the mirror.

Like the moths I used to smash as a child because I was scared of them.

Ugly isn't it?

I have nothing left to say.

And when I dissolve into foam, one single drop would fall from my eyes. I wish I could dive in and go away from here.

I wish this is all a dream and I could be, I could be 24 again.

And if that is not possible, then what I learnt today, should change me to the extent that I don't have to do that "Exhale Sucharita. Fill yourself with happiness, you are going to save people's lives. Its a much bigger privilege than anybody gets to get in his/her life. Don't ruin this with your unhappiness within. Don't let that shadow fall on them", each time I walked to the Hospital.

To be honest, About right now, I want to go to Daycare center where I used to be on night duty for a bunch of Terminal patients on ventilator. At about 2 or 3 in the morning, in the biting cold, I used to be the only one person awake there. And I used to pace all night. Looking at each of those bloated faces till it was 6 in the morning. People I mostly never saw making it to life till the time I left.

I want to do that now. I wish they did not lock our hostels from outside. They possibly sense our feelings. Thats why they lock us in. People like me can be dangerous tonight.

On being read...

I have no idea why I am being told I write well. Few days back a junior around here i don't even know the name of approached me, checked if I was the name I know to be mine, and said I write a good blog. That means a lot many read my blog who do not choose to say anything. I dont know what to say. I am not sure if I want to be read. I don't think I would like people to come asking me...oh who is that person u referred to in that entry who loved to beat his students in their knuckles...or who is the she with a white saree and a vermillion mark. I dont want to answer these questions. It doesnt make a difference if people know or dont know. I never wanted that for me. I write when my heart wrenches. Which is quite often. Because I choose to come back to my life silently. And stubbornly stick to my privacy after my exhaustion with people in a hospital. I wonder if my extremely nice friends can actually hear that grumble when they knock on my door and I reluctantly allow them to come in. No I have never wanted to write well. I have always written because I have always been afraid to speak. (Disclaimer: Nothing about this blog is professional; because if I use the same statement in that regard, at least two people will lose consciousness. I won't name them of course. They try to put some sense into my head about controlling my outspokenness and blatant temper ) And when I do feel like this, if I am not in tears (which is most often; I am a very emotional, depression prone neurotic individual), then my hands move automatically and I start hitting the keypad.

Gaining 6 people on my followership column is a little daunting. Like I have to produce something good for the ones who read me. Yet I have no such ideas in my head to write. I write about my life, and the life I see around me. None about the feel good factor. None about the poke your head and come up with something that is like a cliffhanger; a instant hook-up. I write things that might just look interesting to someone else because its another persons private tragedy or comedy. Humans have that innate voyeuristic tendency. They always want to know what is going on in another persons life.

Like someone who asked me something recently to which I fell into that numb stasis. And produced this piece. 1> Do u believe in Love? 2> Do you believe in Destiny and 3> Do u believe that whatever happens, happens for the good?

I have written for years now. How and in which circumstances, doesn't matter. And to whom, and when, not much of a bother. I have written to people who have mattered the most to me to kids who never thought grown up people would appreciate their drawing. Recently I went through a chapter in Psychiatry about the defense mechanisms people use. And after going through it again and again, I knew I use two of them. Suppression, and humor. My aim is to go to the Sublimation. Its the noblest of all defense mechanisms (as has been pointedly given in the book...lie its forcing people to see inside them and reevaluate...). I cannot paint, for then I would have painted of sunshine streaking through clouds. I cannot travel, because I seldom get out of my campus more than once a week. I used to sing. But I used the money saved in buying a guitar for something else. A few months later, wretched with emotion, I stopped singing, and I have not sung ever since. I have slowly given up, over the time, my appetite for consuming large number of books. I remember I finished nearly 300 novels ( not M & B mind it...I would consider that subscribership to be below my dignity..). But Revolutionary Road hangs there. Somewhere in the 20 or 30 odd pages I read...for over a year now. And I have let up on that. I cannot live that life anymore. Its too painful as it is. I want to go numb after my exhaustion. Because reliving upto a passion that once got me into the best and worst moments of my life is an adventure I choose not to undertake anymore.

But I cannot leave this. I cannot leave writing. No matter how much I try to. And I have tried to quit; to stop writing letters, to stop writing about my personal life on a public forum. But I cannot do it. Not that I am advertising. No matter what I write, I know the one person perhaps I would want to read it is no more there. And it doesn't matter if a hundred other people read my blog ( I am not being disrespectful. I sincerely take on the blessings of all those people who have bolstered my faith in this. Especially my Professor, the most unimaginable person to read my column...hick hick...makes me blush each time I think about what he must be thinking to read young rantings like mine ) Without your faith and trust, I would be nowhere. But its difficult to describe. Like the Pin Wheel Jasmine. A flower without a scent . And the same way I cannot forget. The same way I cannot stop worshipping. The same way I choose to stay silent about that one question that snuffs the laughter out of my eyes and kills it everytime I see the same childs face in every child I see smiling. And I cannot move on. In fact I choose not to. In reality I manage to get my hands on every child within passing distance of me. And trust me, children are the only people who will look straight into your eyes without flinching. Most of the time, I break the gaze.

Believing that whatever happened happened for the good will prove that ascribing ones faith in another person or thing is not a permanent thought. Just because it got broken, or was not fulfilled. Or the idea that it can be done over and over again and it can be killed over and over again. Like 'gathering and dusting off lovers' that someone had written. I cannot believe in this. Even though I have lost enough times trying to prove it to myself to the extent I have quit playing games with my heart or faith. Yet I cannot do it. Not to someone else. I cannot do it to myself. Because that would mean whatever I say, or do, are statements that bear strength only in transience. My feelings and my life is not a short episode of a Sitcom. I move from day to day through the things that have happened to me all these 28 years. And I am a sum total of all of them. Even if some of them have been painful ones, they have defined me. Even if I know I can never have that faith anymore, I choose to believe Faith exists.

For some it does. You have to trust me.

People who know me for what I am, have seen the aggression with which I work, my friends who have seen the depression that I once fell into (God knows I think I can never shake out that old hag tugging at my happiness each time I try it ) will tell you, I go by with a few things pending. ( Not including the paper my Professor wants me to complete..I think I should be doing it in another one and a half years..). I shall write about things that I feel like. And I know not all of it will sound good. In fact I know most of it will speak of the filth and the anger and the hurt that sometimes weaves up dark wet nets on my attempts to look at the sunshine. But I shall choose to write about them. Each time it comes to me, rather than fall back on my pillow and drench it ( You devise a method to date tear stains...and mine will be the longest surviving pillow....the prize shall be a detergent that would promise to wash the stink but keep the stain)

But I wont write with a promise to put more people in pain through the pain that I or some other people I know have undergone. People generally tch tch at things like this. Believe me nothing is more stupid than this. Or more classless. I don't want to make you more miserable than you already are. I wont have that much time to explain, and I rarely edit my posts so most of the time things will be dropped here and there. I know I shall never have much time to explain or beauitfy. But if you can, try to look for the hope I dont speak of when I write about despair. Just look inside the pools of tears and you shall find a girls innocence, a mothers dream, a sons fears, a daughters laughter...all undiminished, shining against the grey truths we give names like life, situations, and destiny. And you shall find love. Lots and lots of love. Of the capacity of people for love. Do not read me if you want to see life as a punishment. Dont read me if you think you need a vent for your anger and see that happening here. Which of course is true to the point that I write about things or people who were possibly wronged or misunderstood at some point in their lives. But beyond that, its also about truth. The whole truth. And nothing but the truth. Because I dont know about love but I can say that truth stands the test of time.

Because no matter what I tell, no matter what I or anyone else mentioned here goes through, lives, or passes on, truth shall remain.

And also that I will...

Always believe in love.

Always fight Destiny.

And always make things happen to me rather than decide that whatever happens might have happened for the good.

(Dear friend, did you get your answer? I promised you I would reply to you in my blog. And I did it. I am very serious about my promises...I keep every single one of them...)

KISSES OVER THE PHONE

It had started from there;

begged, in the presence of a friend

and you blushed and denied until;

you slammed the phone down.

And when you confessed to your friend

the situation,

She chose not to believe !!!

It went to a place when you were scared

and wanted to lock yourselves

in a room until you shook him

and you could say; bring it out on me.

take it out; don't let it consume you

the way it does.

But for him there was a better option.

Few days back again,

I got that telephonic kiss

again from someone who stays

up in the mountains, comes down to touch me

when my eyes open and

against all darkness of a house

devoid of light, I see

the moon by the window, full faced at me.

And from her I got it and got it again,

until stiff lipped, pool eyed,

I asked her to turn her head

and check her ears,

And planted a solid one against the dial.

What she did not realize,

was that her giggles caused

ripples on my pool of dreams

that I once saw with my eyes

that still choose to be blind

to the truth that ultimately awaits us.

In Comparison

How strange is this land, in comparison, where no more than twenty people can rise together for an occasion. Today is Dussehra, the festival of triumph of good over evil, of truth over falsehood, and it is a dead city. Cuttack, in comparison, would be held in chaos now. Pandals, murtis, Melodies, would be littered all over the city. From the Muslim dominated Buxi Bazar, through the beautiful Manglabag and the Silver Chandni Chowk effigy, into the Taladanda Canal Puja committes slum dwellers Durga effigy, its hard not to spot a place which has been left of some attempt at happiness.

I miss you Cuttack. The lack of religion here is as pathetic as the excess of it there. Given a choice, I would prefer the latter. It was always easier to unload ones sadness there. That is not possible here. You have to consume it within you.

Minding my ABCs.... (1)

Prep School, somewhere in a remote corner of Orissa, an Integral School developed on the tenets of The Mother and Shri Aurobindo. Event: The Independence Day Oratory Competition. year 1986-87. I went knobbly kneed and spoke nothing on the dias...I am told I could recite chapters from books after just 2 readings. Maybe the initial synaptic connections were being set. But my first stage presentation and even if I had memorized the stuff in only one or two readings I got nothing on my lips the moment I set foot on the dias. Everyone gave me a respectful lapse until they finally got bored and finally asked me to step down. Another girl got a prize.

There was some man my mother had given a job in the school as a physical instructor who also teamed up as my bearer for the 20 odd kilometers I used to go by bus everyday. Sort of a benefactress for both the school's director and this man, who were her patients. I used to torture him into giving me a soft drink every day we used to walk back from school. I hated him but I loved his father, who was a village priest. He had a long aquiline nose and had a Sandalwood paste done in a way till the mark came upto his nostrils. I found him very good looking and kind. I thought my tutor was a monster since he was mean not to ever give me any cold drinks. What I did not know was that they barely had money to cook food in their family, and my mother had put him in a job because of his father's insistence when she went to the temple. So everytime he did give me a Gold Spot, my mother would force a note in his pocket.

He and his father were both very nice men and his family adored me. Everytime I went to their house in the village I got an omelette. I hated the Omelette. I wanted to eat smoked potatoes and water rice like them with Saag from their garden but never got that. They always gave me the parboiled rice and omelette. I loved his mother because she used to take me to the big and cold mud thatched room in their house which smelled of fresh straw and showed my how rice was beaten on a dhinki. And taught me to play see-saw on their bullock cart.

I was the previleged one in at least 5 villages...as the daughter of two dashing doctors from Cuttack. And so it couldn't be that I did not win a prize. I beat up C, the physical instructor, who also doubled up as my private tutor. My mother inquired what I wanted and bought it and secretly gave it to me through C Sir. I was told the school had retrospectively decided to award me because that was the first time I spoke, even if I did not come first. I had a school bag which I hated. I wanted a shiny steel box, like all others used to carry. It was heavy. So 'C Sir' used to carry it for me. It had a Bonnisan baby joker pasted on the top. Bonnisan for Happy Healthy Babies.

Somewhere through that winter and the rest, my mother bought me 2 illustrated fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen. My world was awash with the idea of the being a mermaid dying for her love, sharing a chocolate house with Hansel and Grethel, wearing a frock that looked like a lotus, a black rose, having a house in a kite, understanding animal languages, visiting Russia to meet Ivan Ivanovich, live in a caravan and so on. I used to sleep between my parents and the first thing they did was to ask me tables. They wanted me to learn upto 30. I was not even 6 that time. I hated that time when I woke up and used to pretend to sleep over. But I loved it when father picked me up from the tables to talk to me about Popes and kings and India's Independence struggle. They stopped the tables recitation after I reached 25.

With the fairy tales I used to read strange books my mother bought me to read. I was being trained to go to Stewart School in Cuttack. My mother used to work in the hospital and then come back and teach me. I devoured the Science book and the New Horizons book for English. She got me another years book in advance that I was supposed to do in my spare time. I did that in no time.

I used to play Doctor Doctor with my cousin in the sprawling drawing room in our quarters. We were always short of paper we used for our games. I despised the white notepads that MRs gave my parents. My attention was in turn on the sheaths of blue kept in a black leather bag in my father's shelf. One day I picked a few sheets a little scared some one would know. We played with it, and I threw it out the window. It went unnoticed. Next day I became a little bit daring and we brought out another bunch and had a field day cutting it into prescriptions, bus tickets, coupons, currency and so on. Within a week a ream worth of typed paper was lying in a heap outside the window. A few days from then some summons came for my father to attend. He was and till date remains an extremely organized man. I was in the room when he came to the shelf. He opened the bag and found a pen without a cap. ( We were using the bag as the money bag conductors carry ). He never told me a word.

Not long there after I once jumped inside the operation theater in the Primary Health Center both my parents were posted at. It was an open air, open access, brightly lit room with windows that had no panes, and my father used to remove fibroids, lipomas, drain abscesses, squelch hernias and so on, with some spectators from outside who kept standing outside the window panes and looked on at the proceedings. One day I entered the OT to ask permission for something. On the outside was my mother, with a baby hanging upside down in her left hand, and a woman with red between her legs and a bucket below. I ran inside when she asked me to go out. I saw dad stiffen. But no one spoke a word. I strained at what he was operating through the drapes. I stood there a long time before I got bored and walked out. It was a circumcision. I knew that day that my mother was a gynaecologist. She was giving birth to a baby !!!

In 1989, I walked as a 9 year old into a section full of 90 odd students. I was readmitted into Standard 2 Section B because the "English Medium" ICSE schools would not admit me in Standard 3. I thought I had failed, so I was doing it again. I was not in Stewart School, because my mother was told kids did drugs there in that school. And that scare was enough for my parents to decide to put me in good old SCB. I was in my favorite yellow Salwar and in my aluminium box which was heavy with hard bound notebooks. I was pink with shame. Someone called me back and the teacher asked me to go back and I began to go towards her. ' Go Back...' she said a bit louder. I blushed. A guy I later knew to be Santosh called me from behind in Oriya to come back. I went and sat next to him. We were friends. A few minutes later it was decided that I should ask Amrita, the smartest girl in the class for her friendship. But it would depend on whether she wanted to be my friend or not. I eagerly waited for the Recess.

The bell rang and I was taken by 3 or 4 kids to a girl who was incredibly round cheeks and eyes that ended in a oiled sort of way between her lashes. She had incredibly beautiful eyes and wore her hair parted on the side with a white band pushing the front hair back. In one moment I felt ashamed of the Yellow Salwar, the Aluminium box I was carrying. They were all bought at my own insistence when I was back in the Integral School. In one moment, I wanted to be like her, with her shirt having a round collar, and blue tunic. " See I don't have a problem in making you my friend. But I need to know what my best friend has to say about it". I waited for her Best Friend to come. An extremely fair girl, with a nose I noticed immediately, and kajol in her brown eyes, came banging desks on either side of her with her palms. " Can I be your and Amrita's friend? "

She took one look at me from top to bottom. I was very nervous. 'She is not a good girl', she said and walked back, palms banging desks either side of her. "I am sorry", Amrita said matter of factly. " I really had no problems being your friend but since my Best Friend says you are not a good girl, I will go by what she says". She walked away. Santosh consoled me. " Don't worry, I will be your friend." We shook hands or what I don't remember. I hated myself for being bad. I wondered why my parents had to give birth to a bad girl. I cried that day while returning from school.

That white girl was known was "White Ghost" amongst us. I used to run away every time I saw her. Because every time she neared me she cast a shrewd look that convinced me I had something deeply worng with me. Santosh had some time convincing me I wasn't bad. We shared our tiffins. But I did not like Santosh for all his help. He just did not want to read and had a terrible handwriting. I wanrted to befriend Amrita an her Best Friend. She was a very vicious girl it was said. She was a 'dada', a goon. And her name was Subhashree Panda.

I am obsessed with neat looking files and treatment charts that have less than 2 cancelled orders. But I am wondering if that part of the Obsessive Compulsive disorder I have to keep things clean, then why I don't carry it to my room. My room is a heap of mess, do not know if it is for the stuff that I kept lugging from Delhi, a total of contents of three rooms all shoved into one small dreary room I have here, with its books and papers, all flying about, and now 2 computers to add. For this reason I choose to suffer the summer heat and not add a refrigerator and cooler to it. Tonight I am going to clean it, in terms of shoving out the papers and literature I have been bringing home. Then I will get that 20 kilos of books from Delhi I am planning to finish. God be with me.

J

What she did not realize. What people like me and some others never realize. Never idolize a human being. People are full of imperfections. And I have no idea how women end up being the way they are when it comes to idolization. They idolize weak faltering men into towers of divinity until that divine soul kicks them down their stairway of heaven into the realm of reality. Whether its a girl who goes on loving a person despite fully knowing he neither kept his promises to her when he had said it was a forever thing and that his basic reason for getting rid of her, was perhaps, his not getting everything of her, or its a woman who realizes on her twentieth marriage anniversary the man and his family she married and gave her life to, has been tweedling a teenager's nipples in the comfort of his home she works her guts out to run, the story just goes on and on and on.

Whether its a trait that makes them strong or weak, these women, I have not been able to know. They are the women you find everywhere, women who you might pass by on the street ever realizing what her life might have been, what her day to day struggle could possibly entail. Sometimes I think its a good thing to be so, to go by the morals people only hear about and read about but never endure, never try to live. But you can never imagine the torture these people face every single day. Words are easy to pen, especially when we have a bunch of thinkers who sit over a packet of cigarettes and start to write about things they can never ever live upto.

She has been living alone, a 'Widow despite a husband', in all possible ways a single woman can possibly manage to live. She has aged, all these years have brought the loose strands out of her tight hair bob and her heels have given way to sandals, sandals to chappals. When the man she married her life into left her, she was left with a child and a mountain of memories belonging to another one. And nothing else besides. Everyday since that morning till the time she sits to recollect it is a struggle against herself, more than the surrounding thoroughfare that usually gets thrown at women into this fate. Against a life that was forsaken, against comforts that could have been her due, she had to get up every morning to rummage through her scanty powers to live through a struggle that slowly consumed hours, days and now stretches over a decade, not ending, not being overcome. I cannot spell it out what every day can be for a woman brought into this fate in terms of people who tried to understand her, people who tried to take advantage of her, and people who kept forsaking her. For the men who asked her to take use of a good opportunity in lieu of unmentionable filth they had in their eyes for the woman they called their sister, bhabi...I am not qualified to do that. I am not a woman who has gone through this.

But she kept on. With some success and more failure if you strictly talk in the materialistic sense of the word. Its just that when she talks about the big dreams she has been waiting for to come true, of grand times to come for her and her son, which now her son grown up and man of the world, sees it as mere foolishness, I don't see it as a way of running away from it, or an indulgence. Its perhaps just a douser to the inner filth a woman feels for herself when she must have looked into her son's eyes, and found he was looking for someone apart from her. The pang a woman feels when she returns into an empty room burning with memories of a life that she hates with all her existence, but something that was a part of her, her marriage, her identity in terms of the promise an average Indian woman makes when she consigns her life to the holiness of the flames burning in front of her. For better or for worse. And when she must have finally realized herself, that even with the best of her efforts, she could not give her child the happiness and love he deserved, and the comfort and luxury every single woman wants her child to be in...prehistoric rules of Biology. Basic Instincts of every species against Darwin's back drop. Propagation of a productive perpetua. Because she could always be the mother. The boy needed a father.

And also the realization that her dreams betrayed her...Her idea of things that she deserved to get were rudely crushed under that wheel called destiny...and she was consigned to the ordinariness she could have despised when she had that age. I can understand that feeling of "Not enough" in a woman's eyes when despite everything she does for her son, she will always know that there will be a chair on the table she will not be able to take. Women have this inherent masochistic tendency in them. The more independent they become, the more they yearn to be taken care of, to be pampered and even treated like a kid. To the onlooker, it is an impossibility.

Men tend to run away from such women because they never get past that sexual mould where men are supposed to go hunting and women cook the meat they bring. Its will take a day to write about the bizarre malady that afflicts when such situations reverse. Women tended to move out of the house in the absence of an alpha male who fell back upon his words. There was never any need to prove a point. All the things that followed were cascade reactions of the vicious cycle. And in case of women who do manage to succeed, often but not all the time, their success becomes their private tragedy. Especially more so for a woman living in a society like ours with pseudo societal values of honor and chivalry. And in the lack of what she wants most, that is a new identity besides the tag she carries around like millstones, if she wants to prove that even she can make it on her own in the masculine chauvinistic society she lives in; if for some reason or the other not managed to do it, her indulgence in the idea of a better future, which she may have got complusively adhered to, not realizing that her boy has grown up, understands that his mother isn't exactly the heroine she keeps telling him she is, its her bane. She feels she has been a total failure as the caretaker of the one person who is all she has. He feels she is stupid and suggestible, a cause for embarassment. For him the adulation he feels for her is at a level she doesn't manage to see. For her his love is a distant expression of silence she doesn't feel reassured with. Distances grow. He denies responsibilities fiercely, and runs from expectations. She cannot live without hoping for it. And she is too proud to demand that due. Love fades. Or does it.

Because she is honest, scrupulous, and believe it or not honest to a fault. No wonder she keeps failing more than succeeding. Except where she lends her dreams to people who do not have the patience of a conversation with her, even when they love her. For she needs love too. She needs someone to scoop her off and carry her to a place where she can have the indulgence of a little comfort without worrying about the next meal. Her people don't see it like that. They subconsciously compare her with the modern day mothers they see trampling in stillettoes and think how ignorant she is when it comes to the ways of the world. And how stupid she is to keep trusting those who hurt her. Petty things. Inconsequential things to ponder about, really. And things pile on until it becomes one big mound of rotting filth. I don't see any foolishness in that dream, any falsehood in that staff she holds on to, and any malice in the idea of helping someone; and its okay if she does not make it. Its her salve. Because if someone will ever heartlessly tell her the truth, which in any case she knows, she will break into the million shreds she has actually managed to keep herself from turning into.

I feel sorry about it when I realize it that things like the lack of a family or a lack of love can bring upon a man a peculiar escapism even when he seeks such higher truths. And then I decide to bury the truth. And accept that not every person chooses to go by his word. There will always be men who will leave their mothers for their wives, there will always be boys who will promise their lovers the world and then move on to another city and find another woman and trample the hopes of the ones they left without even giving so much as a decent explanation. And there will always be women who will run off to marry someone better off. Or daughter-in-laws who will come to a house with the chief intention to break it. Despite what people say in the beginning. Promises are meant to be broken. You just never know just about how many of them practice this laugh line. And when people forget things for any reason, its best not to remind them and to move on and beyond it. Even if you think you deserve to know the answer to a simple question. Why? Even when you glorified him in your loss. And kept waiting. For a time that was never to come.

There are people who choose to bring out at their dearest ones the most hurt that they have in themselves. There are people who cannot bear to see the truth and the trust and will challenge one's faith to their utmost, not because they do not believe in it, but because they believe in it to the extent that they start getting scared. And some of them, some of them, don't come back and make up for it even when they know its time. Whatever be the case, whatever be their reasons, be it between brothers, lovers, sons and daughters, and whoever is the one who has been waiting...Exhale....And move on. Do not wait. Do not waste your life for people like these ignoring those who love you and care for you. Like she does. And when you ask her how she does it, its simple...'I have surrendered everything to Him'. I cannot express how she described her faith in this word we all call God, to my left cerebral hemisphere it was a weird indulgence. Sublimation of all things she has suffered to this date. Even my conjenctural Meera Bai Phenomenon where all emotional, physical and sexual frustrations are brought out in terms of lyrical words and music. But one part of me listened. Agape, as she recounted her personal love affair with her God. I know the love between the mother son duo. Its not the place to write about it. But She and her God I can. It was weird. How can someone still have so much faith? Do people like this actually exist?

Utter Bullshit.

That was India that lived like that upto the eighties. Still lives on in nooks and crannies where you find women in white sarees wearing bright red vermillion on their foreheads for a man who treated her like a whore, and then left her and her son for another. The ultimate biological definition of a male. And she lived on. Through everything. And then you watch agape. And the cynic in you wonders if the same can happen to you. Rather, if the same ever happened to you, would you/ could you become like her.

And then that utterly beautiful woman comes and hugs you and plants a wet kiss on your neck, because that is the most of you she can reach. You take one look at her, at the whole of her. And you lose it.

You can never understand that. Not if you have not been a married single woman bringing up a child both as a father and a mother.

I have the honor of my life in knowing someone like her. She may not have managed to scorch the headlines as an immense success story, or be a failure to end her life. Her life, small, like the 5 feet of her, is reason enough for me to be stronger and more confident and more hopeful about the world and the people in it. The way she holds her head high when she walks from door to door to vindicate her belief in serving, in helping people, not everybody can believe it. Even I cannot myself. But I give it a possibility. People like this can and do exist.

To you, who will never know this, I promise to get over the single hurt that has been present as an insiduous nuisance all my life, which affects my thinking, gives me the violent tempers and gives me stubborness beyond reason. And I cannot explain why but I will see to it that your head always remains as high as I first saw it when I saw you...And for every drop that fell from our eyes when I held your hand for the first time and you said you did not need to know why they fell. You are reason enough to forget ( & I have long since forgiven) and reason enough to feel like starting all over again.

I am ready. And I am not afraid. Not because I lost, but because I fought a just battle, and admitted my human lacking with the candour. Because I admitted to being susceptible to what most people want in their lives. For someone to understand them without hurting them. In any case. Today I am ready to start living my life the way I used to before things changed. Except perhaps that it is odd that you should be the one to get me on about this. Life can be that odd. You get the light at the end of a tunnel. You get the answer from where you least expect it.

I want to start all over again. And this time I will take a human being as a human being. With limitations and punctuations. Except perhaps that I will still be looking for the God within. And I have learned my lessons this time. I want to fall in love with a human being, not with a concept of perfection or endurance. They do not exist. They never did. I want to move beyond the scattered question marks that arise when I ask myself questions about relinquishing the concept of owning to the concept of belonging. I have been too strong and too hurt and too cynical for too long now. I just want to be what I was when I read "Little Mermaid" for the first time. And when I told the story to someone. I want to become a child again. Be able to dream and trust again. Be able to hope again that all is not lost inside me. That a new day is approaching.

May God bless you with the abundance of his kindnesses (Since you are such a believer. My prayers have been more or less heard when I have prayed for others..With whatever religion I have in me..which I believe solely results from the passion and honesty and the respect I put towards my profession and the sacrifices I feel I have done for it. It can never be mentioned. Its in the life I live. I have no running on other peoples quotas of loves or cares. I owe no one anything except the care and unconditional support of my parents and faith of some of my teachers and some nameless, faceless ones who will never ask me for anything. I don't drink other people's alcohol, and I haven't unfortunately been in the need to borrow money from anyone which I have not been able to return. My parents taught me that. Mostly, even though I have anger potentials booming upto a few thousand volts enough to burn one or two houses down, I am not exactly a bad person, for I don't hurt people for the fun or the forgetfulness or the inconsideration of it. And I take my promises very seriously.)

And may the one person you love with abandon understand this some day what it takes to be you. Beyond writing about it in a language you will perhaps never get to read. Nor will any of us. And some part of one person who was waiting with all her dreams for it to be written so that she could go and tell him how much she loved and how things really were, and how mistaken he really was about certain things, she will perhaps keep waiting for ever. These are virtual concepts. Skeletons in cupboards you open and smell in the cold of your dreams. They will never see the light of the day. Should not either.

From me, to the TWO of you. The BEST. I hope your lives converge into something meaningful rather than the base escapism exhibited by one of you and the miserable suffering of the other. Its time for both of them to end. And I will love you both till the end of time with all our imperfections and fears acting as the glue to keep us separately connected. Maybe we will meet again...I don't know what lies ahead of us. Whether our 6 degrees of freedom will actually bring us closer or put us further off on our individual destinies.

And I will recede into mine now. I have to live my life. And now I want to. Hopefully, I will begin. Its time.

EMERGENCY

Another 45 admission day...misdiagonses, missed diagnoses, unknowns and the pangaas with Neurosurgery and Surgery dudes. But what I am about to write is that it was good to sleep in the ward again. I rather liked the 24 hour shift the ward handler has. Cannot say because I have always had a problem falling asleep and today was an official holiday so the Rheumatology clinic was closed. Otherwise things are bound to become very hectic for someone in our place. And as for the guy doing the night, without the intern, things will become dicey...

Fever is the most difficult to treat. Its easy if you know what you are handling. With temperatures at 104 you just cant write a treatment and ask the patient to come after 7 days. Its not like a fibroid you know lying in your pelvis silently, its not a burning micturition you are not aware of unless you visit the loo, fever and dyspnea are perhaps the most unnerving of all clinical symptoms. The insipid taste to the tongue that goes on until you have cured yourself off it, it ruins your life, spoils your mood and downs the examination results.

Hate the weather. Am longing for the winter to set in, that crisp way the air begins to break..Hope it will be soon now. Am still on with the other idea of posting things freely available on the internet; but as of now, one thing at a time. First, a new laptop and a short break. I am losing my edge and I need to be by myself for some time without having 50 people conversing in my head.

Yesterday, at 5 am I had to console an attendant whose father was admitted as meningitis but one my work up turned out to be a huge frontal lobe infarct...Was feeling like shit at that time, pulverised from morning Emergency, afternoon journal club evening round and post round emergency dash...but it was exactly that hurt in the son's eyes that took all the physical thing away. And here I am. Need a thorough spring cleaning of my room before I go to Delhi. Will be back, and start my thesis work.

Will write more. There are things I have been piling on.

A Second Diversion...

On Fbook or should it be blogger..I think it will be worthwhile to provide links to the resource available on Net for free, at a place where people can read them..may be i shall tag them on Fbook or share them there....or should I start a second blog with this address? Appendixedmusings seems good enough for that too.....

Lessons

Missed a patient initially come for shortness of breath for the metabolic acidosis part...Even if i have been handling patients for quite some time like this, I will admit I havent come across the scenario when I missed making a diagnosis.

Bicarbonates were persistently coming low. He never gave a history of diabetes and he is an 80 year old man, too well preserved to come up with an initial Diabetic Ketoacidosis. Even if I and A were working together and its beyond doubt we make a super efficient team with our doggedness, we both did not have a time when we had tea before us and did not get time to sip it. Minds were pretty crowded and with the Medicine- Chest and T B story and me being on a backfoot because of the other units LOC rigid admission criteria, we both failed to miss it.

Always, always account for a patients metabolic acidosis. I will never make this mistake again...Because DKA doesnt come with an age tag. Today's 80 year old Bijender just showed that to me.