What is your elixir of life?

We crib a lot of times that the world doesn’t love us. In a burst of negative birr, we tend to filter out the positive aspects of a situation and the left-over remnants of a complicated mental process make us realize, falsely though, that we are no longer loved by anyone in this world. It’s such a common thing to not to realize that you are, indeed, loved by more people than you expect in the brightest of your days. We are all commanded by different set of thought processes; some of us churn our thoughts more than the others; some of us get presided over by the wings with poor control, so what they are following is an ungoverned trajectory; some of us are the eager beavers, you give their minds a simple, dead-looking thought and they would, exotically enough, create a lesson of life from it.

We, very often, overlook the love that our colleagues and acquaintances harbor for us. It happens that we get indulged in our families and close group of friends so much that we don’t really appreciate the silent glances that scream of enormous love. Not everyone that takes you in high spirits is expected to cross your path and announce his or her feelings for you. Certain feelings are preceded by a very small slice of life or plainly by a déjà vu, or by an involuntary force that is difficult to be overcame. The existence of such seraphic love happens more than our hackneyed mind-process and biased eyes can see. So, in most of the cases, we don’t really reciprocate our feelings and an imminent beautiful equation is never delivered.

Look around you to catch the signals of unconditional love; give your thoughts the eyes of an eagle; let your mind wander uninhibitedly and identify the subjects of it’s alter existence. You would be amazed to find more love in the universe than you ever imagine. The universe is built with fabrics of love, so there should not be much difficulty in finding the quintessential part of the universe’s basis. And love is not just a feeling; I am sure it has its own properties. You believe in it and it strengthens your belief in everything; you throw it over someone and you get it back in return; you bend it and it shows its tenacity; love is a cure-all elixir of life. Give your mind some elbow room and find love at all around you.

Indian Kids Vs Kyrgyzstan Kids?

I am sure many of you must have read the recent report about Indian Kids that created quite a furor. If I were to ask, I would place my bet on the mass sentiment that there is something amiss in the report. A large number of Indians are working in the top-notch corporate companies across the globe. In past few years few of our people have been given the topmost responsibilities in Ivy League universities; Indians are always regarded as the brainy and hardworking individuals. Then how come this report places our kids second last amongst 73 nations that took part in the annual Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)?

It is difficult to say about the selection bias as about half a million kids were included from 73 countries for this specific exercise. Indian Government had selected students from Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh and they stood second last in the horde. Many of us might have never heard the mention of Kyrgyzstan before; it’s a small, underdeveloped and mountainous country with a population of about 5.3 million (that is about 1/120 than that of India) that thrives mainly because of agriculture. Being an Indian myself, this report doesn’t really makes its way in my cerebral tank.

Today’s TOI (Times Of India) reports that a sharp decline in reading and mathematical ability has been found to have raised to demonic proportions in Indian kids. I agree without a second thought; but then this is not the problem of one province. Kids across the globe are finding it difficult to actually read from the books, courtesy the computer. In India we, as parents, teachers and responsible citizens, pay a lot of stress to make sure that our kids get enrolled in the best of the schools. The curriculum followed in our schools is no less than that of their counterparts situated at the other side of the sea. Our kids keep on innovating machineries, creating designs and developing frameworks. Indians have always been the favorites for employment in any industry that requires moderate knowledge of English language. Still 72^nd rank out of 73 must create fracas in our thought process. I must say I am shaken severely.

What happened to the land of AryaBhatt and Sushruta? Or can there be a possibility of errors in the overall process? Anyone smelling something fishy or I am the only one? My gut instincts are really not able to imbibe the fact that we stood just ahead of a underprivileged country with population less than half of Indian capital. It’s the eventual time for the policymakers, education promoters and parents to start thinking out-of-the-box. How else can one justify the ever escalating costs involved in educating our children?

Top 5 Qualities of a Patients' Counselor.

Patient counselor is the ‘Abrecadarian Bridge’ between an ailing soul and its journey to health. A patient counselor can make much difference in the overall outcome of a patient’s odyssey in the hospital. People have different levels of subjectivity, different levels of patience and different levels of knowledge. Obviously, it is difficult to trace out 2 individuals with akin attitude. So a counselor’s task becomes as diverse as it can be; and its all a mental game, where winning is defined by the outlook and a loss can be cataclysmic.

1. Counselor must always appear as compassionate as possible. A ruckus-filled mind is more likely to respond favorably to a seraphic soul than to anyone else. So try to peep in the tunnels of patient's psyche; look out for the factors that are troubling him the most and then make him realize that you really understand him, and care for him.
2. Knowing the tit-a-bit of complex medical jargons also helps a great deal. The patient must not be rendered a piece of advice that is in contradiction to the prevailing medical concepts. It happens many a time that the patient turns to the counselor to have greater knowledge of disease and its treatment method. It happens mainly because either the patient is shy enough to ask direct questions to the treatment provider or the doctor leaves a lot of information between sentences and the patient’s queries suffer a boomerang’s trajectory.
3. To maintain the patient-doctor axis in equilibrium is one of the foremost responsibilities of an adept patient counselor. Once this axis is in symmetry, the work happens with the best pace. Learn to efficiently wipe out the fluff that would be of no use to the patient and the ultimate treatment process.
4. Counselor must be very patient. Troubled patients tend to loose their cool, and also tend to develop aberrational thought-process. In such a spree, the counselor can be at the receiving end of heat words. Such situations are not very uncommon and must be handled with the maturity of a sage and the wisdom of a geek. Remember, the kind acts never fizzle out; the repercussions would be there for you to feel and revel in the glory of inner solace.
5. It helps to keep your self in the patient’s state of mind at times. You can not just think out quickly of the best mode of response, but you can also identify the most potential stumbles that are troubling the patient. Learning has to be constant to keep evolving the ways that help the patients multi-dimensionally.

When you counsel a patient, put your world in the process. You are entrusted to calm down aplenty agitated nerves and you must practice the most valuable principles, the principles of hope, help and trust. Your role is important. You can put your best foot forward to help your bit in preserving the sacrosanct nature of medical profession by filtering out the granules of uncertainty and doubt from the patients’ minds. You can abridge the negativity right there by early identification and disseminate seeds of hope, knowledge and compassion to ensure that the miracle-working force of faith starts setting in. It is every doctor’s dream to get a patient counselor with angelic demeanor and sanguine outlook.

Every Cell of your body is the Alter-Ego of the Galaxy. What say?

The world is crafted by a dab hand with inestimable intellect and flocks of foresight. You dig a bit deeper and you will be stupefied. To know the moves of this celestial jigsaw, you can’t really afford to remain a fysigunkus. If you circumspect clearly with an unhindered mind you will see that the universe, the nature, the life, the body and the mind are studded with opposites, lying in near vicinity to one another. A night compliments a day. For a sorrow, a happy moment is waiting nearby. Fits of anger often culminate in angelic love. A male is incomplete without a female. Successes and failures often mark the trajectory of a lifetime with equal representations. When fear looms to the vertigo-inducing heights, courage precipitates. Our bodies have the white matter and the grey matter, in close proximity. If there is an atheist sitting in one corner of the congregation hall, chances are high that in the same room there exists an ecclesiastical, God-fearing person.

Why do opposites are so ubiquitous? Do they serve the purpose of confounding us, or do they denote the vital steps of the ladder to enlightenment? Why do you choose to be at a certain perspective of the picture, when your other folks put their beliefs in the other side of the perspective? Have you experienced the lightening shudder that travels your spinal column the moment you change your faith from one perspective of the picture to the other? Being able to see the opposite with the same set of eyes and spiritually lifted mind can be foudroyant. Researchers say that there may be more than 170 billion galaxies in the discernible universe, so what do you think about the existence of opposites when you take the bigger picture into notice?

When I say that a random cell of your body is the alter-ego of the galaxy, would you like to correct me? I see a lot of similarities in the mentioned pair. Our minds keep on giving birth to a lot of thoughts every single day, and in the galaxy also, a lot of organisms take birth daily. Night is an eternal reality of the galaxy as is the sleep in our physiological system. Nature gets affected by calamities e.g. earthquakes, lightening etc. and we, the humans, also get affected by painful moments in our lives. When it rains, they say the weather is going to be pleasant afterwards; have you noticed the state of your mind some time after you have stopped crying? Our cells work till the time they die and the planets also have to keep on revolving to remain in the galaxy.

Cosmological makeup of the universe is yet to be deciphered correctly; and no one knows what gave birth to a living organism. What is life? Can a non living thing give birth to a living thing? So there has to be a living whiz to master all the successive origins. What I feel is that we must blend our scientific results with the spiritual knowledge to decode the BIG ORIGIN. It may be the penultimate step for us in decoding our destinies; but then we must act fast; there are 170 billion more galaxies to be taken care of.

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 20^th 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.