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Friday, December 30, 2011

Do you suffer with LYGOPHOBIA?


The rustles of raw emotions creeping in your mind stir you. You turn back and take few deep breaths; you realize the clock is giving you a gawky look straight in your face. Its Midnight. You start thinking what all choices you are left with? Brew a coffee? Open that unfinished novella? Browse activities tab? You experience a sinking feeling; you look around with confounded eyes. The room is all dark, so duteous to the rituals of night. It is so dark that you can actually see the darkness, feel it close to your cheeks, infiltrating into your sinuses. You start getting uncomfortable. You start getting algophobic. You can feel your heartbeats, pounding as if targeting to crush your own heart. You stand up and your fingers have already begin to search for that light switch, even before the idea came to your conscious mind. You hum to yourself, consciously trying your best to not to make eye contact with anything but the cold, hard ceramic floor.

You turn on the light. Something evaporates out. You feel relieved to a great extent. As if you were caught with your hands in the cookie jar moments back. You fail yourself by sheer reminiscence of those ghastly moments. You question your courage but quickly retract; you know it pretty well that the night is not meant to be evaluated with ordinary five senses. Acronycal legacy spells words that are beyond common taste or comprehension. You remember the night, weeks back, when you were engaged in deadly combat with the unidentified during the hypnagogic phase; and when you woke up, you were able to feel the susurrate of the unknown, the mighty unknown.

Night is to sleep. Night is to take a leap, if you don’t wish to sleep.

PS: If you have a fear of the darkness or of the night, you probably suffer with lygophobia. That’s what they say in medical journals.


ReSOLUTION Time. Choose Yours.


For every problem that caused you melee, there is a resolution to be taken. The cumulative exercise of taking resolutions at the eve of a New Year sees a pragmatic height as the transition from dusk to dawn happens this beautiful day. 2011 is a passé. It won’t come back ever, unless of course we happen to experience an odyssey in a space machine. I am sure our resolutions don’t come in packaging; they can range from being simple to being rodomontade personified. I am listing some of the most common resolutions that I have mentioned just out of my experience while interacting with a lot of people last fortnight.

Adolescents:

  • I will make my facebook friends’ list swell to the maximum capacity of 5000. (and that must include all the beautiful girls in the town / handsome hunks in the town)
  • I will add to my already existing guinea-pig charm. (and I will add husk to my olive-oil coated voice)
  • I will learn to play guitar. (for the more hilly-billy sorta, replace guitar with drums)
  • I will participate in that reality show. (I have pacified Mom for that and Papa is not a problem till the time Mom understands my emotions)
  • I will join the gym and sculpt my exterior appearance. (You are either born with a bunch of packs or you develop them; sadly there is no other way for boys. For girls, toning is important. Peer pressure, you know)
  • I will loose weight / I will gain weight. (My physical appearance is the biggest hurdle in me not getting the desired attention of opposite sex)
  • I will quit smoking. (before the world knows that I, actually, smoke)
  • I will get a new GF / BF. (All those pick-up lines that I memorized can’t go in vain)

Young Males / Females:

  • I will get the cupid pay some attention to me. (I just need a little bit of grooming, that polished accent and a fatter wallet)
  • I will visit the exotic islands of Lakshdeep.
  • I will send my video-recorded performance to the e-auditions of that newly formed production house. (I have the talent, and you don’t preach me anything else)
  • I will change this job. It sucks. (I am not a robot to continue working when all my crushes have either left or are planning to leave the place)
  • I will quit smoking. (I really don’t want to, but they say it can cause me cancer)
  • I will loose weight / I will gain weight. (The neighborhood health club has offered some irresistible discount offers)
  • I will start my own business. (Where will the money come from?)
  • I will go on a road trip to Laddakh with my bunch of pals. (Being a rubbernecker evokes me)

Middle aged Males / Females:

  • I will reduce my time in front of idiot-box. (enough of mumbo-jumbo. And it is not so cool to announce that you actually are a TV buff)
  • I will resist eating sweets, deep fried stuff and reduce on my junk diet. (my doctors, I fear, would refuse seeing me if I continue to wolf down like a pig)
  • I will devote time to my leisure pursuit e.g. Photography, Clay modeling, Writing, Learning to cook Italian etc. (Life is meant for what else than to hone what your soul cherishes)
  • I will pay a visit to my parents every 3 months. (I love my parents)
  • I will quit smoking. I will limit my alcohol intake. (Do you know the effective ways of achieving abstinence; I have tried a lot of times, unsuccessfully)
  • I will be nice to my kids, and to my spouse too. (I am their world. I must protect them and provide them the unending love. I just wish my spouse was little more understanding)
  • I will plan for my post-retirement life. (My back hurts when I sit for more than 1 hour at stretch; I, possibly, can’t work for more than 5-10 years)
  • I will learn Power Yoga. (What is the meaning of all the money if I don’t have mental solace?)

Seniors:

  • I will know myself. (What is the purpose of my birth?)
  • I will keep the fabrics of the family tied together. (They look like a bunch of morons sometimes, constantly bad-mouthing about each other. I never thought they will turn like this.)
  • I will take my medicines on time. (Now do I have another choice?)
  • I will learn to chat on skype / send e mail / operate a facebook account. My grandkids have been pressing for the same. (I love my little brats. They are a hundred times better than their Dads / Moms)
  • I will go in the neighborhood park daily for that morning and evening walk. (No one bothers to company me at home.)
  • I will know the methods to attain celibate state. (I don’t want to die. I don’t want to take rebirth if I die. I want to experience the bliss of soul. Is it possible to get away from all the pains, all the expectations, all the worries?)
  • I will visit my village every year to have a laid-back vacation. (I should not have neglected the place where I got my roots. It’s most peaceful out there only)



Breaking News: Khetarpal Hospital Is Expanding


Khetarpal Hospital would be entering its 20th year of life after 3 months. The end of teen years; what could have been a better occasion to expand its horizons.

I had been planning to inflate the size of my hospital for a long time. It’s finally turns a reality; I have acquired the adjoining building and the process of turning it into a cathedral of health care embellishments has started with a dash. The architectural layout has been finalized and construction work has commenced. The bricks, the mortar and the unending yells of chisels and hammers; I am glowing in sang froid.

I visit the portion many times a day, taking two steps at a time. The habit has failed to desert me, even in the wrong side of fifties. I seldom stand at a solitary spot of the building and visualize the imminent array of activities. The trollies moving around with a frenetic pace, the sound of a nebulizer exhaling the whiff of medicated oxygen, the front office area bristling with activities, the constant squeak of keyboard buttons, bursts of cachinnation, the silent prayers, the miracles, the thanksgiving sessions – I am reveling in the glory of moments on the card.

I would not just increase the number of beds, but also make provisions to incorporate some of the high-end specialties in my hospital. I plan to give the most agile pair of wings to our existence. I feel like a neophyte once again, full of vim and vigor. I feel like I would be able to bring more smiles. I feel so blessed for I am one of the sources by which the suffering people connect with their divine beliefs.

So, right now, it’s all walls and windows for me. What a better way to celebrate the festivities of onset of New Year.


No more moonshine Mr Politician.


Who loves politicians?

I am not a usual follower of real-time dose of news; it just happened that I was switching channels in the night of 29 December 2011 when I came across ‘live footage’ from Rajya Sabha. A heated debate on the current version of Lokpal was stirring with a lot of moonshine, an essential part of politics. I glared the screen for quite a few minutes and then started feeling like being hauled over the coals. I have never understood politics, and I won’t ever will; the subject needs more manipulations than my heart and brain could allow in unison.

I don’t like modern forms of politics in its face. Most of the politicians today will first undress you mentally and then outrage your intellect.

Anna Hazare did an exceptionally hard-hitting work of evoking the common man’s emotions. I don’t think even he ever imagined the amount of dynamic support that he gleefully witnessed during his long-drawn-out fast at Ramlila Maidan, New Delhi. For every fact is not seeable until the onset of divine light. Divine light is the light of knowledge. It is the light that doesn’t hide even a tittle of darkness in the silhouettes of its multiple spectrums. No matter the ideal Lokpal bill becomes a reality sooner or later, my gut feeling says it will see the light of the day in coming years.

Politics is the pith of any country’s dynamism. We must choose our politicians very sensibly and cautiously, for the repercussions would be merciless if we get lenient in our choices. We live in a vast country with a rich farrago of cultures and it’s our duty to keep the legacy going.

Elections are at a stone’s throw distance. I will practice my electoral right with wired conscience and hyperactive senses. No knee-jerk reflexes and no suspended animation; I must out-perform as a citizen to give my bit in the extended prosperity. Mere cosmetic correction won’t really do; what our politics needs is a comprehensive remodeling.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

08:00 AM to 08:00 PM. I love the mesh-work of my moments.


A day is so long. You can accomplish a lot of things in a day’s span. Yet some of us crib about the seemingly short length of the day. They wish it was longer. I feel the day is just enough in duration to give you the best opportunity to get your tasks done. Yet for some of us, most often the teenagers and the ones who have lost their drive to work, the day’s affairs are sitting on the fence and prevaricate the things to the best possible extent. For them the day starts late and ends early. And the time in between is just sufficient for them to eat, take rest and indulge in day-dreaming. For the starry-eyed amateur, the world has just opened its wings. Learning to fly comes later in life and requires tenacity in the attitude.

There are people who are accomplished multi-taskers. For them the day is an opportunity. For them the dawn is the opening of gates of life and the dusk is the hard-earned reward. Females, as they say and now proven by scientific researches also, are born multi-taskers. The connecting strand between their two cerebral hemispheres is roughly 20%-30% thicker than that of their counterparts, and that gives them to simultaneously perform a feast of activities. That’s why they can manage small kids at home with more vigor than that of a newly trained nanny, cook meals with the precision of a gastronomic aficionado, take shots at knitting and designing their own fashion-ware, satisfy their gossiping-genes to the abyssal heights and give a new meaning to the sulking relationships of peers in the family by reinventing them. A day is a clay mould; you put your life in it with a focused effort and you get back the result of your choice.

I feel good when I am working at a nightmarish pace. There are times when I perform 12 surgeries, give consultation to 50 odd patients, take 8 hourly ward rounds in my 45 bedded hospital, attend close to a hundred phone calls and still feel like a neophyte when it comes to the energy levels. It all lies in the mind. You can opt to live you life without complaining or you can be in a huff with no rewards. You become what you think. The mesh-work of moments admires those who are dab hands at the theory of relativity. The length of the day is fixed; you make it longer and you make it shorter. 

Why this Kolaveri Di?


Why are people so impatient today? Why are they so monotonous and preoccupied? Why don’t people spare some quality time holding hands, leaning on shoulders and wiping away tears? Why this paroxysm of uncontained angst (read 'Why this Kolaveri')? Why those choleric glances? Why that waspish statement? Why that splenetic attitude? Are we meant for anything else but to love, care and spread happiness?

People are fast becoming raring to go to any horizon to keep the appetite of their ego satisfied. They become myopic and commit heinous follies. They overlook the broader picture, they get hurt easily and the only solution, for releasing the angst of getting bruised, they come across is to cause emotional asphyxia to the person involved. Stumbling-blocks are getting a bit too many in our daily lives. You drive on a road and you rarely ever witness a smiling and content person behind the steering. People honk ear-splittingly as if you carelessly stepped over their toes. I just came across an infographic that stated that every 60 seconds, 11 million conversations happen in the instant messengers; I am afraid no one has ever calculated the amount of swear words that take birth every 60 seconds. I am sure the figure must be as high as a billion. Why this fetid temperament? Whom do you curse? Does it take so much energy to visualize a situation from a different perspective?

Relationships get sour before reaching their maturity point. People don’t really value relationships much; to satisfy the ego takes priority and everything else gets the consolation of back-seat. People put in abrupt responses with a masterly spunk. People feel as if the world is an asylum and all the insanity is pondering over them. Why this brutal rage? Where have gone the days when people used to live life. What I see these days, most of the folks are busy spending their times in one or the other worldly thing. When you refrain from scheduling your life, you are taken for a toss. In the short run, you won’t really understand the importance of planning and execution, but in the long run, you experience the early fall of autumn in your life. So live as if you were always meant for living; Don’t embarrass God by puking out the abhorrent emotions and indulging in ruthlessly cold actions. Live life. Be an amulet. Be simon-pure.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

10 Random things that Doctors hate.


You discover that home made sweets are being smuggled in for the patient by the attendants, in spite of the fact that the patient is a known diabetic and admitted with Ketoacidosis.

Your patient is in evident septicemia and in spite of your best intuition & clinical wisdom, you don’t really get the cultures positive.

That X Ray Chest film is in rotation again.

You smell that the I/O (Intake/Output) chart is crooked by some of the lazy staff on duty.

The old gentleman in the ICU got very sick again and no attendants are being traceable. Even the provided cell numbers are in sleeping mode (read switched off).

A hematological test, carried out at ABC lab, provides an unexpectedly bizarre value. You want to be reconfirmed so this time you send a fresh sample to another high profile lab, let’s say XYZ. To your amazement and mounting frustration, this time again the values are bizarre, just on the opposite pole.

A chronically non-compliant patient gets admitted in a bad shape. He holds a history of being treated for pulmonary tuberculosis on a number of occasions at different places; and to make the matters worse, he never really finished the treatment as per his doctors’ advices. This time he is diagnosed to be having MDR (Multi Drug Resistant Tuberculosis). You feel bad.

You have just 30 minutes of your OPD Consultation time left for the day and 18 patients are scheduled in the waiting list.

Your JR signed of the discharge slip without taking heed of the fact that Tab Crocin can’t be taken 2 tea-spoons full.

One of the attendants tries to judge your clinical and academic knowledge by making his internet-acquired-medical-knowledge the standards of excellence.

Is there an EXPIRY DATE of your charm?


I am at Udaipur as of now. The event is Golden Jubilee Celebration of RNT Medical College, Udaipur. I entered this college with the typical bewilderment of a post-pubescent young male way back in 1970s; that was the era when our existential spaces were not serenaded by the insane communicational devices. We were not having the luxury of 'sending friend request' to that bewitching beauty in the neighborhood; we used to have the only choice - to face the music in person, with no indirect references. No days were alike, no nights were similar. Our thoughts raced faster than some of the processors available these days.

Those were the times of paradisiacal joys that never came alone. The coarse appearances on the exterior were giving shelters to the brooding hopes and bludgeoning aspirations. We used to make merry as if we were the last inhabitants of this mortal world. We used to think rationally, irrationally and, at times, from the diagonal aspect as well. There was this olive oil coated voice to be served to opposite sex and those harsh swear words to be served to the denizens of male dominion, with little conscious effort.

The classes were boring as usual, compensating for the abyssal fun experienced during clinics, dinner-halls, playgrounds, lanes of Udaipur and occasional road trips. Little did I realize that, like every other medical student, I would be missing those easygoing and undemanding days for the rest of my life? Today, I feel content. I see a lot of my college folks gathered for this saturnalia. Wrinkles have appeared, crow feet have crept in, but not to replace that sparkling voodoo; someone rightly said, charm doesn’t come with an expiry date.

What are you doing this Christmas?

  1.              Be the wax that supports the fabric thread in spreading radiance of light.
    2.       Be the ‘Santa Claus’ that gallops down the chimneys to give surprise gifts.
    3.       Bake a cake and get caught red-handed savoring its tender taste.
    4.   Reply to every SMS by creating an individual reply; you are only investing in the jungle of spry optimism.
    5.       Be a lenient host. Stuff your guests with the most exotic delicacies.
    6.       Learn to tend the bar (one in your home) with that guinea-pig charm.
    7.       Smell the whiff of the X-Mas cards sent to you.
    8.       Enjoy the elysian afternoon with that outlandish lunch.
    9.       Learn to wrap the gifts by the most fluorescent and loud-in-your-face sheets.
    10.   Make a wish silently and announce the blessings vociferously.
    11.  Watch the flickering flame of a candle and think about your existence. Be aware of the eternal celibacy.
    12.   Don’t watch your steps as you walk. Show the world what all are you capable of with two left feet.
    13.   Sing Christmas rhyme with notable lust for getting the right notes, right loudness and right rhythm.
    14.   Invest in buying chocolates; how else can you distribute them to the peppy kids all around?
    15.   Say your kids a story; it doesn’t really matter if your project yourself as the superhero. The thing is in.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Who kicked the hornet's nest? Don't target Bhagwad Gita.


The controversy over Bhagwad Gita is unholy and unexpected. I don’t purchase the theory that Bhagwad Gita is biased in its interpretation of life and its true meaning, leave aside of allegations that it contains inflammatory scriptures. What I collect is that the controversy is more due to anti-ISKCON stance of some mighty forces in Russia than due to the neutral teachings of our holy book. The matter is interspersed with a lot of indwelling hullabaloo; while the prosecutor says that his plea gains its status based on the expert opinion of the concerned officials related to Tomsk State University, the irony is that the so called ‘expert officials’ deny their opinion as being the official word. They render it to their own personal estimation.

The whole basis of stigmatizing Bhagwad Gita takes its birth from the interpretation of the scripture by Swami Prabhupada. Some have termed the explanations to be potent enough to cause religious divisions and some also travel to the extent that abusive words have been used for the folks who display no faith in Lord Krishna’s teachings. I have this deep insight that things are being manipulated and there are some gains on offer for the people responsible for stirring the hornet’s nest.

We, the Indians, have absorbed moral values, tranquility and wisdom by following the teachings of Bhagwad Gita ad infinitum. And why just Indians, I am sure a lot of our global citizens have seen their lives being catapulted to higher spheres just by pouring unconditional faith over the knowledge shared in Bhagwad Gita. Bhagwad Gita has been and would remain a favorite with scholars, sages and wise people all over the world. Leo Tolstoy was an ardent aficionado of our holy book; its first Russian translation took place about 225 years ago. The knowledge has no boundaries; its always on the self propogative spree, enlightening everyone that comes across its path. It would be best if this storm is resolved as soon as possible and I am sure the government of Russia would act in an exemplary way. 

7 ways to win hearts of your patients

Be courteous. Politeness travels a long way and helps disseminating your reputation to the remotest of places. Well-mannered words are the best emollient to soothe the nerves of your already irritated and depressed patient; so take a leap to travel the extra way.

Don’t make them wait as long as it’s in your hands. Shed the temptation of that freshly brewed coffee, of that nicotine break and of that cat nap when it’s the stipulated time to see your patients; provide your best in reducing the sufferings and that just doesn’t include rendering medical consultation. Behave as if you really care, as if they mean the world to you.

Don’t hide any fact. May it be a fact related to the prognosis, cost implications, disease course, expected duration of hospital stay, the fine words in treatment consent form. Don’t hide anything. A patient has no choice but to put the faith of his life to you; and you must come out a winner in helping him negotiating his illness in the most transparent manner.

Practice ethically. One must not indulge in accepting gifts from corporate that in turn want the return favors. One must adhere to the regulations laid by the respected councils of medical constitutional bodies. I am sure we can reduce the rate of nosocomial infections a great deal if we start following the protocols strictly. We can find innumerate faults in the system, but to say the fundamental fact, the cleaning of the system starts from the self.

Offer out-of-the-way help to the deserving patients. You came across a poor patient and you refused to take your charges; you have won a heart forever. You tried your level best to dwell deep in latest scientific literature to find out the best treatment modality for a patient suffering with a very uncommon disorder. You must not behave as robots while sitting in your OPD chamber; add a human touch and be sympathetic. The rest of the things will automatically follow a great deal.

See the world from the patients’ eyes. It can help you allay your feelings of frustration that you come across so frequently while taking rounds or while catering to a patient immune to all the counseling. Circumspect the circumstances of your patients and you might start feeling a sense of belonging to them. You are there to heal, not just to write a prescription and leave.

Remain approachable. For your patient, you are the God personified. Though I must say these definitions are getting a jolt every passing day but still, ethically, you hold a very responsible position in the context of your patients. Don’t refuse to see any patient who adamantly seeks your consultation. Help, just like hope, follows the trajectory of a boomerang. The more you give, the more it comes back to you.

Do you really care for your shadow?


‘A person without a shadow is a Satan’ ---- English Proverb


We, the humans, are the most capable animate beings in the world. We hold distinct advantage from the animals, birds, insects in being able to express, feel, relate and accomplish. But still a majority of us feels monotonous and devoid of vigor; why is that so? The supreme creature that holds enormous power to unlock the mystical secrets and to invent the most insurrectionary techniques and methods should be content from inside, but that rarely is a reality. The blinding question is a big ‘WHY’.

As sage ‘Patanjali’ clearly said that one of the biggest reasons for failures and sorrow is the fact that we have this innate fear for being mortals. We fear death. We fear losing our dear ones. We fear a day will come when we will turn old, frail and powerless. This fear is the biggest detractor; we must out limit it to experience the raptures of life.

Do you ever get disturbed when your shadow appears smaller than the other person’s shadow? Do you ever feel perturbed when your shadow falls at an unhygienic place? Do you ever bother to find where your shadow is when you are in the middle of a very significant meeting? I am sure most of you will answer with a vocal ‘NO’. You are right. No one really bothers what happens to the shadow; we are just concerned with our bodies. Here lies on of the greatest treasures of life. Our physical bodies are the shadows of our souls, and we denote our souls, not our bodies. So why to take pain when our bodies suffer; they are mere shadows of our existence. Realize this truth and herald your journey to bliss.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

The World is a Canvas; and I hold the Brush.


The darker days in our lives help us shedding away the myopic view of the world. One must be having a visionary stance on the finer nuances of life, so close to us yet so esoteric. I saw a new world when I was passing through the roughest patch of my life. Many a folks who used to frequent me like I have been their diurnal source of oxygen, vanished in oblivion. Many a folks started believing that I must have done some sins in my present life to have reaped the bad days which swallowed me those days. But I felt stronger because my family and my close-knit friends, who had knew every inch of my life, provided me rock-solid support.

The reticulum of intuitions came into play and all of us were connected even when we were at far ahead distances and chose to remain mute at our respective places. Such is the power of faith and belief, when you start experiencing it, you start seeing the world from an entirely different perspective. And this is what the real call of life is. I don’t think we are born just to earn, eat, make merry, shed tears, sleep and then die in isolation one fine morning. Life is meant for something bigger, something of a grandeur measure. It’s a journey to refine one’s soul and to escalate it to higher echelons of spiritual plane. God lies in methods and our methods must be godly. The fabric, its threads and its patches are all important for the essence of a cloth; in the similar spree, life, along with its limitations, unsolved quests and riddles and confusing questions are all important for the essence of a soul's journey through the mortal world.



Have You Came Across God-Like-Particle?


 If universe is the answer, what is the question?

If Xenoglossia (a condition in which people start speaking in languages that have been unknown to them, though the languages exist. This is most frequently found in children) is the answer, what is the question?

If death is the answer, what is the question?
Does a logic exists that has universal applicability?

You chase your destiny willfully or you get trapped in the lanes that point to it?

God-like-particle is in the way of being discovered. What next? The final decoding?

You catch hold of an extremely engrossing book, one vivid evening. Is this a coincidence, or is this something else?

If religion is the answer, what is the question?
If dream is the catalyst, what is the reaction?

Mental anesthesia has been a reality. In later part of 19th century, a Scottish doctor operated more than 300 patients in Bengal without giving any form of traditional anesthesia that involved exposure to an agent. All he did was to hypnotize his patients and not even in a single case did any of his patients complained of any discomfort. The variety of surgeries that he performed was overwhelming; brain tumor surgery, abdominal surgery etc. So, if pain is the question, what is the answer?

In the marriage of Sensory Nervous System & Motor Nervous System, who plays the cupid? My choice is Autonomic Nervous System. Who bears the biggest brunt out of all these?

We are not born equal. Congenital illnesses prove this. Is the celestial constitution biased?

I love my addictions.

Writing is my newly found addiction. The list of my addictions has displayed a remarkable variation all these years; it is tough to contain me in a bunch of hackneyed words. There was a time when I was addicted to taking lighthearted laps with full throttle in the town with a bunch of friends; it was frolicsome and the involved exhilaration came as an added reward. There was a time when I was addicted to chewing rolled betel leafs, containing a mishmash of areca nut and slaked lime paste with a heavy coating of aromatic kattha. There was a time when I was addicted to learning the nuances of Microsoft Office; precisely it was the time when Pentium 3 processors were considered to be the most potential candidates, able to overpower an ordinary human brain one day.

There was a time, in my adolescent days, when I was addicted to watching Mumtaz, the silver screen starlet, on celluloid. Like every other teenager, belonging to heartland of India, my heart too swayed with the mischievous movements of her eyelashes. There was a time when I was addicted to perform surgeries at a stretch. In one of those golden sprees, I had performed 34 laparoscopic cholecystectomies (surgery for gall bladder stone) before sun could rise twice. The place was Muktsar, Punjab and 20th centuary was dusking away. There was a time when I was addicted to listening to the breath-taking songs of Adnan Sami. My favorite ones were ‘Kabhi to nazar milao’, ‘Nakhra uska garam masala’ and ‘Bheegi bheegi raaton mein’. With the pacing velocity of time, as Adnan Sami lost considerable weight, his news songs failed to evoke that signature charm.

There was a time when I was addicted to learn the Piano and every night I used to practice on the keyboard till my distal phalanges could contain their anguish. My music teacher, Vineet, a young lad with a remarkable hold over his practiced dominion used to teach me with grand vigor and it was his very subtle and soulful approach to music that I finally learned to make some music. Addictions are for indulgence and I am sure everyone has them. Your personality and the state of your subconscious mind attract certain habits, certain actions to you, and in the long run they metamorphose to be called as addictions. For some, love is the addiction; as for me meditating in the kingdom of Lord Krishna is my latest addiction.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

You can't censor my thoughts. Can you?


Why do people have to judge incessantly? Why do people have insecurities that drive them to think in egregiously biased manners? Why cant people just sit back and observe with an open mind?

Can you really imagine your posts, your pics being subjected to scrutiny before you are able to upload them? To me it sounds something bizarre to say the least, and I am sure most of the geeks out there would share an opinion like that. To deal with a small bunch of nuisance-makers, this would rather be a tough blow to the ordinary social media user.

Unpractical, flawed and undemocratic.

And I just read at one of the credible portals that Indian ministers want the scrutiny process to be done manually. So if that ever comes to see the light of the day, the honest taxpayer would be someone at highest loss. There are a lot of brighter ways to spend the national resources; invest in strengthening infrastructure, create more chances for the betterment of life-quality, make food cheaper and most widely available, check out the tentacles of corruption, fight inflation, give wings to the dreams of underprivileged and what not?

Our facebook profiles should not get unnecessarily poked; the right to express must not be compromised. More than 35 million tweets are sent by Indians per day and you want to scan those using human methods before they get posted. That typically mars the basic usability of such commendable web portal.

In the times of calamities, twitterati have used the site to provide commendable help resources in very short time. Facebook provides a working vent for all of us suffering with emotional fatigue. Now just imagine, can you really wait for your family album to get a nod from some of the authorities before you decide to share it with your close friends?

Please don’t snatch our rights of speaking and be heard to. It would not help to screen our social media content before we post them. Not only does it sound rude, it also defies some of the basic rights that we possess as humans.

Where is the FUSE of your body?


Tragedies are weapons of destiny that don’t intend to harm you; they announce their presence in your lives to make you learn the art of self defense. They make you stronger and help you reinforcing your faith in the supreme spiritual power. Within your subconscious depths lie infinite wisdom, abyssal power, an unbridled supply of all that is so necessary for your existence. It is waiting there for you to give it the wings of expression and development. 

When you begin to recognize these potentialities of your deeper mind, your subconscious mind, they will all take form in the world and will reinforce your beliefs and help you coping up with the drastic times. Many a times, I have witnessed power of the sub conscious realms lifting people up out of their immensely incapacitated states, providing them plenteous health and vitality once again. Many a folks are able to discern their past life information by processing their subconscious mind, using correct psychic techniques. I am sure a lot of us have read about 'Past Life Regression' and some of us believe in it as well. As far as I am concerned, I am a staunch believer in reincarnation, importance of Karma and abyssal power of subconscious mind.

I believe there is a miracle-working curative force within your mind; it lies in your subconscious sphere and can heal the troubled mind and many other ailments of body that have a mind-body-soul axis. The moment you reckon the force from the mundane and simpleton suggestions, imparted to you in mighty proportions by nature and its forces in your everyday's life, you would enter a plane that embodies 'nothingness'. Crack the convolutions and embrace the emptiness. The joy lies with the 'Nought'.

Monday, December 12, 2011

A Nurse. An Angel In Motion.


  • They have taken care of my patients as if they were their own kids.
  • They have spent sleepless nights in the wards, ICU and Casualty so that the patients can bear a sound sleep.
  • They have stricken friendship with desolate patients so that they don’t feel homesick.
  • They have refused to leave from duty if an emergency arrived in the waning end of their shifts.
  • They have made sure that every nook and corner of the hospital looks spick and span.
  • They have abandoned visiting their home towns if there was a shortage of equivalent man power in the hospital.
  • They always brought home cooked delicacies when they returned from their ritual of once a year visit at their native place.
  • They have cleaned the spilled vomitus and blood stains when the ward boy was not in sight.
  • They have juggled hard to learn computers so that they can help the hospital’s vision of keeping the systems as per the advanced standard protocol.
  • They have attended their duties even when they are down with viral fever or acute gastritis.
  • They have cold sponged the infant suffering with ‘febrile convulsions’, even when the child’s parents slowly drifted into sleep.


Just observing them at work makes me retrospect and realize that I have been bestowed with tons of knowledge by all the staff nurses I ever came in contact with. They have this altruistic attitude to life, and they never make qualms about petty things. A doctor is incomplete without an equally capable army of allied nurses; patient management is a comprehensive process. A nurse is someone most close to God; a mother figure, a sage in motion, an emotional healer. I wish every person of the world gets to know that the nurses sacrifice a lot to make sure that the ailing ones start gaining health again. I don’t think I can do anything that can ever match the favors that have been bestowed over me by nurses. One needs to have this in her soul, in her tissues to be as selfless as a nurse is.

A Nurse is one of the most divine animate beings. I salute to their spirit and their cause.

I am Immortal. Are You?


I have learnt some of the best lessons of my life in the courtyard of Lord Krishna’s temple in Vrindavan. The importance of self-discovery and meaning of physical existence was oblivion to me years back. Then the rendezvous happened, a transcendental one, a stirring one. There is more meaning to the basis of our existence than to earn, eat and die solemnly a fine evening. Why at all we take birth in a cosmos full of nebulous hints? As I embraced Lord Krishna, my soul found a conduit that was full of light and at the end of it, there was nothing but magical and ecstatic easiness. The moment one comes across the aim of taking birth, fears alleviate.

I have experienced the profound power of being at the center of celestial orbits when sitting solitarily infront of Lord Krishna’s idol, enjoying the nothingness of inner self. The quintessence of consummation is realization of self. It is rhapsodic to say the least. A soul is free from general emotions of guilt, hatred, anger etc. and the moment we start feeling ourselves not as physical bodies but as wandering souls, we attract cosmic blessings. A blessing is nothing but shared enlightenment. This is why we live; to understand the course of our trajectory, to perform better in the world that we inhabit. I often see people perturbed at the very thought of death; in fact death is the opening door. When someone dies, he just switches his place. A soul is immune to death, so why worry? You can never die; you are immortal. So why not plan a journey keeping in account of your soul? I believe in Lord Krishna, someone else believes in Jesus and so on. We have different idols, different faiths but the essence is the SAME.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

'Observations' have been my best buddies.


Serendipitous observations have always been my thick friends. As my profession demands, I have to spend a lot of time observing my patients’ gestures and expressions in the hope of getting a vital clue about the indwelling disease. This way I am blessed, for the requirements of my profession and my personal interest blend in perfectly. To observe is the prerequisite to learn, and eventually to grow.

I hold this deep-seated belief that by keenly observing a person, or a situation, or a mere thought, we allow our energy fields to get closer to that of our subject of observation. And this gives us power to reach a state where the intervening lines no longer exist; you reach as close to your subject as you are to yourself. And this is precisely the point where you start producing the desirable changes, the changes of betterment. Observations start touching the key-points when your intuitive abilities have outgrown the ordinary standards.

To enhance your intuitive powers, you have to know and put your faith on the virtue called ‘belief’. If your subconscious gets to know your belief, it turns the desire into the reality. But then the belief should not be an artificial one, or one with fragile integrity. Nothing is a miracle. The cosmic reality is all studded with the mutual arrangements and reactions of energy fields. Your thought is a cloud of specified energy; energy that has power to transform. Prayers get answered when the faith is unalloyed, because the subconscious perceives this as your deep desire and the natural forces act in accordance to make your desires see the light of the day. So strengthen the roots of your existence; start practicing faith and stop worrying.

New Kid in the Block. Welcome Doctor.


A lot of young doctors are joining the existing brigade of healthcare professional every day. This profession can be very demanding and tiresome; even confusing at times. To be a successful doctor, an intern or a newly crowned resident doctor must adhere to some basic tenets and the glory would be on its way to greet with open arms.

  • Plan your day ahead. It would be awesome if you can divide the day in the chunks of 2 hours each; that will give you greater flexibility and clarity over the acts, their courses and end results.
  • Don’t lose your sleep. A healthy mind needs your daily quota of hypnotic trance. 
  • Talk to your patients. Talk a lot. Make moves to understand their insights.
  • Don’t hide any fact from your patient. You sit in the seat just next to that of the God in your patient’s eyes. Do your best to keep up to the heightened expectations.
  • Always take consents as per the protocol. On a bad day it would save your skin as well.
  • Follow sanitation standards. Wash your hands as per the WHO recommended protocol. Don’t abridge the minutes passed practicing hand washing.
  • Take Hepatitis B vaccination. Everyone tries to be smart enough to avoid a needle prick injury, but one can never predict a bad moment. One stitch in time saves nine.
  • Take complete history of the patient. Remember to include allergy history, family history and past medical history as feverishly as you take history of present ailments. The deeper you dig, higher you soar.
  • When in doubt, take help from the seniors.
  • Respect the nurses and allied healthcare staff. You can learn a lot from them just by observing them closely.
  • Give wings to your lateral thinking. Why this? Why not that? Keep the handy versions of your reference books always available.
  • Get access of the medical and surgical journals of your choice. The more you read, the better you know. You get to know a lot of latest modifications in the standard regimens of treatment when you read journals.
  • Be acquainted with a patient by his name (not his bed number or room number).
  • Write legibly.
  • Never write about the clinical state of the patient in the case sheet unless you have examined him.
  • Participate in the academic activities. Get enrolled for seminar, workshops, conferences etc.
  • Co-operate with the quality control team of the organization you work with. They are not your enemies; they just want to make patient care more effective.
  • Go slow on stimulants.
  • Practice meditation.
  • Try not to get irritated even in the adverse settings. No one comes to the hospital in a serene mental state.
  • Write notes about the key things that you learned. Maintain a diary, if possible.
  • Wear clean uniform.
  • Sport that warm smile more often.
  • Love your profession.

All Random Events have Planned Motives.


I have always placed a rock-strong belief in the concept of reincarnation; and every time I come across a book written by Dr Brian Weiss, my belief increases manifolds. As a kid I was told about the concepts of reincarnation, karma, prayers and related spiritual subjects by my parents. Even though many questions were left unanswered due to lack of credible explanation, my heart abided the teachings. I definitely placed my belief in the theory that your destiny is the result of your karmas and when you take re-birth, its just another chance to get away from the cycle of life and death and attain the ‘brahm’ state.

Dr Brain Weiss, according to me, is an immensely talented, insightful, knowledgeable and courageous person, who kept his questioning cells free from any restrictions. Life is what other than the state of utter liberty? As I have grown up spiritually reading his books, I take no exceptions in instating that his observations and findings make sense. Our karmas, our relationships and our thoughts make tangled knots in our subconscious mind, which eventually exhibit in the form of physical symptoms. For every phobia, déjà vu, string of strange but related incidents, there lie a lot of spiritual and karmic connections. What we perceive as random events or moments in our lives are planned ones, with detailed and precise motives. The power of soul is unparalleled, and in most instances, unexplored.

Meditate a lot. Learn to align the axis of your mind, body and soul and all your fears, insecurities, negative emotions would go for a toss. You will feel liberated. You will feel elated. You will feel close to God.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Do You Require An Electromagnetic Helmet?


We are living in the era of scientific ecstasy. Our thinking neurons have taken a leap from Pre-Neanderthal era to that of the modern day, where zippiest telecommunication is the call of the hour. I am sure if you ever happen to pass by a congested lane in Old Delhi, and you happen to appreciate the sky, all that you see is the patches of sky blue bruised badly by an array of electric wires. Now this is the truth that is visible to the eyes. The reality is far more ugly, and horrid as well.

Millions of cell phones that enjoy closest proximity to human bodies that any electronic appliance ever did; lacs of giant cell phone towers dispersed everywhere. How much electromagnetic radiations to you think you have to eat everyday because of these technical expansions?

Your home has a TV, a satellite direct-to-home transmission service, desktops / laptops with internet facilities, refrigerator, washing machine, stereo system, microwave oven and what not. If you happen to see all those electromagnetic waves piercing your bodies, I am sure you would faint in gross disbelief. These electromagnetic waves have energy, and that energy must be doing something with our bodies, and our minds. What do you think? Are you sure they are non-interfering? Has anyone measured susceptibility of a DNA to the riot of electromagnetic waves?

Offers, and some more offers. Electronic devices have become a lot more affordable than they used to be a decade back. That means an even distribution of intruding electromagnetic energy in our households, society and world at large. Someone mentioned, ‘faith is blind’; how true indeed. A case of mass myopia, or a case of exaggerated, unrealistic hopes? How much maneuvering does the nature allows?


Are we digging our own graves?

Make Your Kids Aware About SEX. Educate Them.


Its an entangled world. An overtly complicated one. Different cultures, different styles, different education modes, different standards of living, different expectations, different choices, different moods, different mindsets, different beliefs and the list is unending. The differentiation between good and bad and the explanation of everything that lies in between is of crucial importance. Armour your kids with a good dose of sex education so that they face the world with wisdom, clarity and courage. 

  1. Keep your talking style very natural. Don’t appear like you have rehearsed a lot for the final talks; kids are way too smart to judge the difference between natural and artificial. A natural talk would evoke more interest and reliability.
  2. Avoid complex description of sexual anatomy. The motive is to simplify things for adolescents or kids, not to make the seemingly difficult puzzle an unconquerable one.
  3. Speak about sexual maturation, menstruation, onset of secondary sexual characters before the onset of events so that the kids embrace these events with an enlightened psyche. If you don’t feel comfortable enough, ask a psychologist about the proper way to do this. Remember, a parent is the best person to give the child some sensible education about sex and the allied paraphernalia.
  4. A child, in all possibilities, would ask you strange, sometimes embarrassing, questions about sexuality; the best you can do is to provide a real answer in the most comprehensible way. Don’t just attempt to make your child loose hold the topic so that you don’t have to answer the queries. An unanswered question might never be raised again by your child and a wrong answer, gathered from dubious sources, can be detrimental.
  5. Encourage the child to ask anything that comes to his mind.
  6. Ensure free spirited, knowledgeable talks when you are imparting sex education to your kids. They must not feel inhibited morally to raise questions.
  7. Involve your spouse in the process. Kids can ask a question related to sexuality to anyone in the family; and if all the answers are given by one parent, the kids may smell that talks are scripted.
  8. Kids should be told about the line that separates affection from sexual abuse. They must be explained when to say a ‘no’ and when to report the things to parents and teachers. You can’t take chances with your child’s emotional and mental health; and with the rising incidences of child abuse, it would be just apt to make your child well prepared to shield himself.
  9. Keep a check on the quality of video games that your kid adores. Sometimes these may contain explicit material, ambiguous gestures, provocative body language or simple misinterpretation of the sexualities, by which your child might be affected in an adverse way.
  10. Keep your internet settings in parental control mode. Remember, a kid’s mind is very pliable and an access to pornographic sites can be extremely ruinous.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A Check-list Before You Start Writing Your Biography

Make sure to keep it non-controversial, unless, of course, you are eyeing some short lived media attention and long lived grudges.

Don’t let the text be loud, allow the sub-text to rule the mood.

Sit with your family and friends more often. Observe them closely and ask them for old-forgotten memories.

Visit the significant places you have ever been. In all likelihoods, you would find some new thing and recollect some nostalgia.

Click a lot of photographs and keep all the albums handy. Devote a lot of time looking out at the pictures; the childhood pics, college pics, marriage pics, ceremonial pics, holiday trip pics, family pics etc.

Divide the events of your life in some chapters and treat each chapter as a separate entity, an al-inclusive one.

Get a basic hold on Microsoft Word (or any other tool that you prefer for the similar application).

Keep a diary with you; if you are well versed taking notes on your smart-phone, it will be as good if not better.

Make a schedule of writing; aim to write daily. In the scheduled writing hour, prefer to not do anything else; even if you are suffering with writer’s block of the day, don’t keep the pen down. You can anyway refine the raw notes at a later stage.

Keep breathing space in your writing schedule. You have to be at your thinking best so offering yourself deadlines serves no real purpose.

Talk to your old friends, and if they allow, record their conversations about your togetherness.
Always keep a backup of your soft copy.

Tie up with an editor, and explain him about the job before you press the ‘hiring now’ button.

Buzz your social network about your progress in writing the biography. It will keep your close ones informed and you might get some motivation by their comments and feedbacks.

Keep the narration simple, and don’t breach its integrity.

Refrain from using opulent, flowery words. The aim is to ensure an easy comprehension.

Avoid going high on artificial stimulants to get a high (read excess coffee, tea, alcohol, nicotine); the flow is just the best when you are truly in pulchritude.

If possible, start each chapter with a theme quote. The quote can be your own. PS: I am using this strategy for my own biography.

My Most Awesome Moments

Successfully accomplishing some rare surgical procedure at my hospital.

Meeting free-thinkers that don’t really fit in the old-hat notion of predictable preachers.

Holding conversation with my old patients that have been my most ardent supporters.

Witnessing a patient in whom the recovery has been faster than usual norms.

When a new born is christened as Anil, just because the parents have been inspired by me.

When I explore the internet to find out unbelievable pace of advancements in surgical sciences.

Being able to stick to my schedules of the day and still extract some time to spend with my wife during the fag end of the day.

Standing in the court of Lord Krishna at Vrindavan / Eskon Temple with transcendental state of mind, and experiencing the inexpressible solace.

To savor Kachauri of Kota. Nothing beats its signature style aroma and flavor.

To be able to extend that extra help for the person who truly deserves it the most.

The moment I just wake up.

When I explore a new country, a new culture, a new horizon indeed.

When I experience déjà vu.

When I am able to learn a new trick in the dogma of internet and computers; whoever says new things are for blue-eyed boys, go get a life.

When I find a long-forgotten pal in some form of social media. Though I must say it has started happening virally with the arrival of facebook.

Dial Code 212 - Dr Anil Khetarpal Speaking

I love my room; the four-walled quarter, placed next to the dialysis unit in the second floor of my hospital. It has sheltered me in most exhorting hours, and in the most mundane moments as well, without changing its typical heart-warming feel. It houses some of the most sophisticated machinery required to manage an oddball personality; it has a small library, an equipped computer system with attached paraphernalia, a sofa-cum-bed, a small refrigerator, a designated space for visitors to sit and hold communication with me, a worship corner and a LCD projector system. Many a times, I have spent hours in my room, my sacred space, mugging over the theoretical intricacies of a complex clinical case, gulping down cans of red bull. The room has witnessed a spree of interviews, a binge of professional meetings with proficient peers and a fling of day-to-day customaries that we, doctors, are so used to of. This is the place where some of the most brilliant ideas have blessed my mind and where, often enough, I have been able to hold very satisfying soliloquies. I have found that late evening hours are the best when it comes to my imagination nerves; in accordance, I keep meetings with some of the best brains in these hours at my room. I don’t know whether I am addicted to my room or it has gradually become an extended home to my soul, but I miss it when I don’t step in for a couple of days.

Not many folks are aware of the well shielded identity of this room; many think it to be another private room meant to be occupied by a patient, for many it’s the doctors’ room. I have followed the measures to make sure that room doesn’t get unnecessary highlight, so that I may experience self rendezvous moments without much interference. Here, at this place, I try my hands at writing blogs, watching youtube videos – mostly surgical ones, preparing powerpoint slides, fine tuning the hospital functioning, catching an occasional day time nap between the strangulated schedules of surgeries and appointments, collaborating with my peers, opening the cork of a fizzy cola and what not. I have learnt some of the most astonishing discoveries about myself, sitting in my room, watching out of the stellar window, that so beautifully gives a close view of Delhi Metro.

I have spent countless nights in this room to ensure a 24 hour clinical vigilance to my patients. Many old patients are well aware of my room’s location and don’t hesitate to knock even in the oddest hours. They bear this unwavering faith that they would be helped by me in my capacity, and I make sure to give this trust factor a shot of steroids every time. I feel a divine connection when I am with my patients, listening to them, examining them and offering them treatment. My room has witnessed riots of laughter and rebellion of tears, with equal ease, without getting corrupted. To the less enlightened ones, 212 is the extension code of my room. Enter with faith and hope and come out smiling.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Indulge in Self Affair. Its Therapeutic.

Memories astonish you. You are taken aback with stellar force and you feel comfortably stupefied. You realize that your character is your talisman and everything else is ephemeral.

I am writing my biography. If the pieces fit in perfectly, I would be able to publish it in a couple of months. I must say it is a very rewarding experience to travel back in the lanes of time and discover entirely new things about myself. In the hunt to woo the ordinary accomplishments, we, more often than said, tend to forget our own very existence. We breathe but don’t really feel the air, our bodies laugh but our soles remain numb, and many a times, we emote like a programmed machine. In the race of life, we tend to outreach ourselves, and there can be no defeat bigger than this. Life is meant for something different; as someone beautifully said, “God is in the details”. Is there a real meaning of life when you don’t really feel you, when you don’t really see the place you fit in the ecosystem, when you don’t really chase every intricate question that nature has to offer?

With every passing day I am discovering myself. I have started loving the whole exercise and nonetheless to say, I am falling in love with myself. Billions of cells in my body breathe life, but do I appreciate the meaning of LIFE? Where do you really fit in the axis of mind, body and soul? Who has the highest command? Have you discovered your real potential? Brain is found to be active all the times during the entire tenure of a human life, and what about soul? Brain-dead is something aghast, and what about folks with soul-dead phenomenon? I find myself lucky that I am savoring the experience and holding a dialogue with myself for a lot of people leave this world without knowing why they came here and where do they leave for?

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Find Out and Celebrate.

1. You don’t get to see any red light during your trajectory from home to office which carries 14 signals.

2. You wake up in the morning very fresh, and very awake.

3. You smell an impending headache and the sight of aspirin seeps in your visual field.

4. You go out to shop with a defined budget in your mind, only to know that the budget was an overrated one and you are left with much money even after shopping.

5. You just had the most succulent breakfast in the morning, very appeasing and very satisfying.

6. You don’t happen to read any disturbing news in the morning daily.

7. Your facebook profile shows 15 notifications, 3 messages and 6 add friend requests.

8. You look in the mirror and you appear 10 years younger to yourself. Where are those blackheads and wrinkles?

9. You observe your kid to be making same pranks as you used to do in your formative years.

10. You visit a worship place and instantly feel a divine connection; you don’t feel to come out of the transcendental state.

11. Your work, in which you didn’t put in many efforts, gets praised by your colleagues and superiors grandly.

12. You make your parents happy, genuinely happy.

13. You are able to live your day without hurting anyone.

14. You remember all the passwords of your virtual world (that includes 3 email ids and 7 social networking profiles)

15. You feel the thrusts of wind over your face, overjoyed thrusts.

Be Unpredictable. Be Erratic.

The learning phase of a living human being starts from the embryonic state itself; we come across the hard realities and we learn the measures to move ahead. In scientific language they term this as conditioning; a process in which a human being learns to respond appropriately to the stimulus being offered. As our brain tissue keeps on getting conditioned in a hackneyed way, it starts behaving in a predictable manner. You cannot really blame the brain for this; in our society, we get punished and criticized if we don’t act in a particular way in response to a stimulus, hence with the intention of keeping the reward centers satisfied, the brain follows the traditional, utterly jejune path. This is precisely the point where we, unknowingly and indirectly, start behaving like robots. Give us a stimulus and we will behave in the most predictable way that has been taught to us. Give us a peck on the cheek and we will reciprocate, show us the middle finger and we will show you the fist, the list is never ending.

There is more to life than is visible from naked eyes and is observable from a brain conditioned to behave in the predictable manner. There have been people who displayed abundant courage and behaved in unpredictable, may be out-of-the-box manner, and have been at the receiving end of all the glory, affection and praise. Masaru Ibuka founded Sony Corporation at the age of 37 years with no clear idea of what products would the company deal in. They struggled with a failed rice cooker, failed tape recorder and kept on paying the electricity bills by the incomes generated with crude heating pads. It took them 10 years to deliver their first successful product, the pocket radio, and from that point there was no looking back. The corporate history is stuffed with examples that created legends just because t hey refused to act in the defined, particular way. It’s important to keep on asking questions to yourself; to stay active, even the brain muscles need stimulation.

Act as if there is no tomorrow. When you analyze or think, do it from every possible angle. Discard the stereotyped notions and allow yourself to see the real light of wisdom. Understand the meaning of life; it gives you opportunity to live the way you want, not the way your acquaintances have conditioned you to.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Eat, Pray and Love.

Eat. Know what to eat. Discover the perfect way to eat. Relish the experience of eating. Eat with friends. Eat with family. Eat in the setting that evokes your soul. Eat to enjoy. Eat to stay healthy. Eat to celebrate. Eat to stay powerful, physical and emotionally. Eat to learn about the cultures and diversities. Eat to know the secret spices of nature. Eat to give life. Eat to sanitize your body systems.

Pray. Pray with closed eyes. Pray with open eyes. Pray with expectations. Pray to learn and find. Pray to seek answers. Pray to ask questions. Pray to experience the darkness. Pray to see the light. Pray to find the God. Pray to identify the soul within. Pray to supercharge your emotional identity. Pray to galvanize your energy fields. Pray to gain spiritual ammunition. Pray to provide answers.

Love. Love unconditionally. Love like there is no tomorrow. Love the imperfections. Love the faults. Love the less blessed. Love your friends. Love your enemies. Love your desires. Love your ambitions. Love the unsaid commitments. Love the turbulence. Love the tranquility. Love the obstacles. Love the velocity. Love your body. Love your soul. Love complications. Love simplicities. Love, for there is no other way, that is going to stay.

A Doctor and A Tweet.

Twitter is something that always astonishes me. If facebook is akin to a coffee house, twitter is no less than a parliament. The joy is boundless the moment you come across 140 characters typed by someone you hold immense respect for. You get to know the real thing, no media manoeuvrings, no added floss or deprived gloss. You don’t have to gain the permission to get a glance over anybody’s view, except for the random souls who believe in ironies – being on twitter and keeping your tweets protected. There aren’t a lot of doctors that use twitter regularly; I have came across a lot of profiles that belong to the health care fraternity, but to my dismay, either the profiles were made in the quest to keep pace with the advancing social media engineering where the user had made little efforts to keep and stay updated, or the profiles were fake identities, created by marketing czars to advertise about the newest kid in the town of wonder diets.

If you want to be on twitter and make the most of it, you have to keep on tweeting. Tweeting is expressing your thoughts, ideas and observations in 140 characters or less at a time. The more you tweet, the more buzz you create and more credible your online presence becomes. Twitter is a practical and powerful tool as it gives you the power to express your thought and send it to any chosen user in a moment of time. You can retweet to spread the thoughts expressed by any other user as well; your timeline (the synagogue of facebook wall) gives you a compact view of all the tweets posted by people you choose to follow. Like a tweet? Now you have plenty of options; retweet it or put in a reply or type your views and send it to your choice of end listeners. However, things don’t work on auto-pilot mode all the time; you have the power to plan the delivery of your tweets but you have to browse every now and then to know about the twitter trends. What is a twitter trend? A twitter trend is a word or phrase that is been most talked about in the world of twitter. There are different twitter trends for various geographical locations and are hugely inspire by the events happening in various places. Did I hear someone say twitter is the public spittoon? It is indeed a myopic view. Twitter opens countless minds in front of you; the more you read, the more you learn.

Tomorrow must be grief-free

There are instances when a doctor feels terribly helpless. Imagine the plight of a family who comes to know that a doctor can do little to combat the myriad of illnesses they are bestowed over. It occurs a lot of times when an occasional case of advanced multiple sclerosis or that of terminal stage of malignancy pops up in the usually serene OPD setting. Medical advancements have been great but nature’s modes are, and will never be, poorly fathomed. It happens most of the times that a family’s faith is shattered when they come to discover that one of their loved relatives is suffering with an illness that has little hope to be conquered. We, the medical practitioners, also find ourselves drenched in the pool of despair in such settings. Hope is the functional steel of the life, and when a person has no hopes left, how vulnerable would his mental state be? Is there a worse emotion in the world than that of an impending loss?

A loss is a very serious occurrence. It is akin to betrayal; the sense of bereavement is something that one would never want to imagine. The race against time serves no real sense to the sprinter; you end up feeling the egg on your face. Had there been an appliance that would have rendered emotional immunity on demand, a lot of worldly problems would have ceased to exist. Care must be permanent, unconditional and supreme when it is needed the most. Nature’s rules are multifarious enough to shake the faith of the ordinary human being; the road to enlightened knowledge has dark tunnels, labyrinthine in course. Would there be a day when we will be able to combat every malevolent illness? Would there be a moment when the world would witness a mass grief-free moment?

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Don't delay. You might just miss the bus.

In the torrid paced setting of the modern-age world, it sometimes begins a habit to procrastinate. We've all had moments in our lives where the urge to procrastinate is extremely tempting and at times indefatigable. Putting things off or choosing to adjourn rather than actually getting work done can lead to multifaceted problems in the long run. And why just in long run, your important work schedules can go for a serious toss in the short run as well. Procastrination is comparable to looming in the dark with the belief that light is your muse; it doesn’t happen like that all the times. You must try to work over the mental settings that regularly push you for postponing your works.

Break your work into reasonable parts: Perhaps you've wanted to reorganize your shelf, but it's such a huge project you procrastinate and are reluctant to begin.If this is the case, then break up that large task into to smaller increments so you can't really procrastinate. Not only will it seem easily doable, but you'll find the work getting done in a relatively short amount of time. Your brain’s reward centres would feel stimulated and the positive feedback phenomenon would keep you revved high to not to try procastrination in the future.

Lightening up your work helps a lot: Another helpful tip in combating procrastination includes exploring your psyche and changing your mindset. If you're a perfectionist, you know that the thought of even beginning a project is overwhelming because you're consumed with having it turn out "just right" which causes many to delay it incessantly without any logical reasons. Getting rid of or suppressing this urge for flawlessness will definitely help your project get under way and stop the annoying urge to procrastinate. Always remember, early you start, more are the chances of getting the work finished in time.

Schedule your space and time: If you can't seem to get started on anything, make a list to battle your habit to procrastinate. Rank all of your projects in order based on when they're due and how difficult they are. If you are more of a computer person, there are a plenty of desktop applications that provide the virtual reminders and to-do-lists that keep on glaring in the background of your desktop. It's hard to procrastinate with a list in front of you, guiding you through the day. Make sure to order the tasks in terms of their relevant priorities.

It’s important to reward yourself when you accomplish a task with precision and without delay. Planned relaxation time is great, as long as it stays within set boundaries and doesn't turn into time where you put off the scheduled assignments. So whatever your personal barriers are when it comes to tending to procrastinate, just keep structure in mind when planning your day, your month or your year. Keep small chunks of time as a buffer but don't leave super large slots of time that could cause you to procrastinate. Wings of time don’t wait for anything, and they flutter fast when you are busy doing nothing. So roll up your sleeves and stick to the schedules; your reward centres must get their daily supply of stimulation.

Nothing is a Myth.

As I write this I put enormous faith on the interdependent nature of energy and mass. Whatever happens, holds a good reason behind for its occurrence. What I have gathered through years of my interaction with people and my real-life experiences is that nothing happens just for the heck of it. We explore, sometimes quite deep inside, to find the truth and then dig deeper to find its origin and relevancy. However, most of us miss the essentially stubborn point, that is, after a certain level, everything is as complex as a ‘zero’. Nature is born with a mind and its rules know no other path than the one that establishes its supremacy.

We are all born with our energy fields and live them. In the processes of life, we tend to maneuver our energy fields a lot. A truth is a truth to the person whose energy field is compatible with it, for the other person it may be false, or between the shades of truth and false. You challenge the highest authority; you challenge yourself and the fun is not in discovering a greater force than you. The fun is in realizing that the biggest powerhouse dwells in your own very DNA. Legends are not created when the energy fields assume mammoth proportions so as to evoke mass reaction, that too in a sustainable and reassuring way. A myth is something that doesn’t exist; it’s a relative reality of the mind whose energy fields bear self-doubts.

You are the light and you are the shadow. You have the capacity to absorb the world’s energy in the way you want. Get ignited or get burnt. Get a life or plea for one. Focus on the enormous reservoir of energy lying inside you or pass your life bitching about the achievements of others. We are born with five essential senses to know the world around us and nature has more than five senses to overpower us in the times of a head-on collision. Put faith in your abilities, identify the soul within and you can explore senses that defy ordinary capacities. Know the world from inside out and keep the methods simple. Start the celestial journey from the centrum of your soul and you shall never be defeated. Oh did I mention defeat, sorry, it’s a relative word too.

Missing the Buzz... Here I am.

I am writing this post after many months; and I must establish that by the end of April 2011, for the unfathomed reasons, I had the gut instinct that I may be kept denuded of my virtual social life for the weeks to come. Professional commitments come in the unyielding coats and, like most of the toffee-nosed bosses, demand unflickering attention. Initially I felt bad for now adhering to my daily ritual of blogging, then the craving diminished as the time passed. When time decides to move on, it virtually gives horns to your internal processors, complimented with a comfortable amnesia, selective of course.

It was an usual morning about a week back and I could experience a sudden jolt in my telencephalon. What the heck I was doing all these months? There had been moments of ecstasy, randomness, accomplishments, failures, humdrum and what not? Why was I careless enough to keep my readers devoid of their daily dose? Why not spread the whiff of my experiences to the folks? To observe is the bliss and to disseminate the knowledge is divine.

It is hard to extract some slice of life from the over-congested schedule of my daily life as a doctor; but it had to be done. And as I write this small piece, I feel content. I feel like a child who just found an uninhabited jungle of mango trees, with bunch of ripe mangoes hanging from every branch. The more I write the more I know myself. To discover the untouched facets of your mind and soul is indeed an experience. The more you discover something precious, the avarice increases exponentially. You keep on exploring till you start nearing the kernel of your existence, your innerself, in its purest form. I make a promise to all my friends, colleagues and readers that I will continue to write till the time I think my rendezvous with life bears a potential to be shared.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

The Eerie Emptiness

Emptiness fills the vessel of vacuum. What is nothing to ordinary eyes remains occult to knowing mind. Void has an identity; it is probably composed of lowest energy particles in dynamic equilibrium thus making it ‘nothing’ according to the principles of matter and kinetic energy. But why does emptiness has its space and existence? I believe anything which is potent enough to have its space, can’t be nothing. There has to be a potential energy in it; with some motive.

The vacuum of space is probably near to transcendental state of mind; which is very rich in its potency and seemingly dead to the oblivious eyes. Does the emptiness repel its possession by measurable particles of mass and energy? And if it does so, it must be applying some energy to maintain its existence. Is emptiness pure or is it attained after an array of assortment? Who understands the purpose of emptiness? Is emptiness pre-occupied or open to new colonizers? Empty state of mind has never caused any entropy so can we safely render it divine or supernatural?

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Hey Stethoscope, Do You Have A Soul?

I seldom wonder, what all whirls in the mind of a patient who happens to be at the wrong side of consultation desk with a doctor. The heightened hope, the abundant anxiety and the heaps of anticipation; all make a confused assortment in the shallow sulci of patient’s brain. The doctor is observed and studied with electric eyes, whether he is paying enough attention to the array of symptoms; or seems pre-occupied? If psychomancy would have been as easy as humming a nursery rhyme, the patient would have deciphered every smidgen of scientific knowledge dwelling deep in the cerebral cortex of the clinician. The patient normally comes with pre-occupied set of answers, only if the clinician is clever enough to pop the right question at the right time.

The white-coat syndrome threatens to attain monstrous manifestations to the ill prepared patient. The sight of sphygmomanometer and stethoscope, the smell of fumes of formalin, the sound of tongue-twisting medical syllables; all make the patient feel like tittle drop of water in the gory fire of tropical forest. The occasional question put forward by the all-knowing clinician that trespasses the mental boundaries of the ordinary person, makes the patient dilapidated. The Greenwich longitude starts settling with flashy pace. The patient finally adjusts his focal length to dire measures and attempts to observe the illegible handwriting of the doctor; the hopes get dashed again.

Now comes the counseling time. The good doctor will give ample of time to the patient and his most scintilla of concerns with big ears. The rapport establishment exercise does half the work for ideal acquiescence with the treatment. I feel that patient should be given every opportunity to express himself as many tangled cases get solved with the focus on seemingly inconsequential points in symptomatic narration by the patient. We are here to treat illnesses; we should make our personalities more approachable, more interactive and gentler.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Frozen Frowns

They say that body mass decreases when a person dies due to flight of soul from the body. They say some theories have crawled to the point where this has been proved in the labs. What I want to ask, whether emotions (e.g. love, faith, anger etc) also have measurable weight? The abstractionism is mysterious, as it is not visible. The abstractionism has powers (you would agree, how else we can explain the evolution biggest of history changing events from a fit of faith, love, anger or other thoughts). My point is why the powerful has chosen to remain invisible?

Forgotten faith leads to forbidden fear. Fear is the recipe for disaster. In every disaster lies a potential escape. To hunt for the escape is meant for the intelligent intuition. Intuition is the offspring of belief, intelligent intuition eventually born by intelligent belief. What is an intelligent belief?

A needle is a needle when viewed from a certain angle. It can cause you optical illusion of a small dot, if seen from another angle. The perceived length of the needle depends on angle of viewing; for some viewers, it is shorter, for some, it is longer. Which angle are you viewing your life with? No matter how much potency and efficacy has been bestowed over your life, if your viewing angle is wrong, you will perceive it as a blemished dot that hardly exists.

They say before any unaccustomed happening that is going to affect us, our body’s senses react in aberrant way. And we don’t become aware of the same, until it happens. How strange? How do our body’s deepest senses know of the impending future? Are things pre-planned? What is the role of brain in our bodies then? Don’t you think that most of the sights are illusionary and most of the thoughts are misleading? What blindfolds us?

Death Is Dark (And Secrets Are Kept In Dark)

Death is the shell, death is the seed. Without death, birth is impossible. Bodies die and decompose; soul is ever youthful with indescribable wisdom, it changes bodies in accordance with the most mysterious laws of nature. A body is the virtual reality that is seen; a soul is the factual reality that is unseen. The laws of nature are locked with the bushel of convolution; and the key to open the locks of secrets has been rendered out-of-bounds for the ordinary minds. Death is metamorphosis; the transmutation of sable smoke into lustrous light.

My initial reaction was that of stupefying shock when I heard that Spiritual leader Sri Sathya Sai Baba passed away at the Sathya Sai super speciality hospital at Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh's Anantapur district today (24-04-2011). Though I was watching closely about his health affairs, the tiny flickers of hope refused to die down. But it happened. I felt all 5 phases of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance) in quick flashes (Denial, Depression and Acceptance predominantly). Why can’t our souls be allocated one body for the soul’s lifetime? Why do bodies have to wither and decay? Why don’t souls identify each other, as bodies do?

The life is a mirage; and death is the end of it. I believe death is the closest clue that nature has given us to decipher the inevitability of life. I am not sure whether the holy grail of life can be cracked by us, lesser mortals. The constancy of a thing reminds of its importance; and death is the only constant that we know. So if I assert that death is the most important thing in nature, would I be rendered wrong? And you would agree that the important thing is important because it has vital essence; it has some uncommon thing which is of extreme importance. So if the death is a prized phenomenon and not a conjectural occurrence, why don’t we take it as the biggest clue of nature’s super secret laws and study it? Death is dark and most of the secrets are kept in dark, which is human tendency. Does God also think like humans?