Movies that helped shaping my thought process 1.Gandhi

The thought of selecting ten movies that shaped thinking process came to my mind while I was noting down my favorite books. I have to admit after books, movies are my food for thought. All the movies I have enlisted here cannot be called the greatest movies of all time by everyone, but they seems to have affected, inspired, encouraged, me the person and all the bizarre thoughts that engulfs me most of the time.

Now I am a lazy bone, if I plan to write about 10 movies in one blog I could never finish the project due to pressure in the day to day life and change in my interest.  

                                                                        1.Gandhi :

It was 1983 or may be 82, one of my early memories of going to movie hall and watching a movie was that of Gandhi. It was turmoil time for my states and ordinary life was frequently halted by various kinds of Bandhs. It was one such bandhs in those days we walked to the cinema hall –should be it was Apsara to see the movie –Gandhi. At the same time posters of then super hit movie –Disco Dancer was also displayed in the hall and my mind wanted to see –Disco dancer only. But we were forced to see Gandhi.

I have vivid memory of few scenes in the movie hall -like the Jallianwala bagh massacare, or Om Puri the angry rioter throwing a roti to Gandhi and appealing him to give up fast the Raghupati Raghab raja ram at the end.

Face of Om Puri that I can not forget

After that I have watched the movie n number of times, in many independence days, Republic Days, Gandhi Jayanti this movie frequents television channels even now.

Every time I watch the movie I go through a spectrum of positive thought process, many times it is about Indian History, many times about the communal feud we have, many time about perfect cinematic representation of something that actually occurred not in a distant time from today.

Later on when I was working on my original play –‘A German Dream' in 2000, I felt the pain this great man had undergone while searching truth. That feeling is a life changing event and may be the seed of this change was implanted by this great Richard Altenburg film.

I had traveled a lot to feel the smell of the place where Gandhi left his foot print, or may be to research about things I wrote and while visiting those places scenes from Attengorg’s Gandhi came to my mind as if I was present there when history was shaping up.

As in when I was Jallianwala bagh I could hear the crying baby near the  maut kakuwa(Myter’s well ) , I could hear a angry mad rioter shouting at Gandhi at the Hydari house at 26 balighata road ,Calcutta ,or in Sevagram I could perceive how could he virtually run the country from a faraway village n Maharashtra. Same is feeling evrytime I visit Rajghat or the Birla mandir in Delhi.

At that time budget of the film created a lot of controversy , some said with this budged –indian Government could have produce ten movies but as the final product was out ,the product silenced most of the query that was circulating in the media.

When the curator –Sir Richard Altenburg died, just a few days ago various article surfaced about his life long effort to make this movie a reality .26 years of patients and hard work is not a small thing at all. It may be a example of patience and pursuance to any people in the age of restlessness we are in today.

And now I lough at the thought that one day I preferred 'Disco Dancer' over Gandhi

I wanted to watch Disco Dancer over Gandhi

Mid Life Crisis

I have been suffering from the disease since I was 15 or something, and the symptoms continue to persist even today. I started suspecting the disease without actually knowing how you feel like if you have the disease. Without going through the signs and symptoms I was sure of my mid life crisis.

I think I acquired the bug watching some of the auteur's so called classic movie where they actually depicted their sexual frustration arising out of long standing marriage and the protagonist take fantasy with some young girl and faces consequences out of it.

But with me acquiring the disease at 15, without a girlfriend or any obvious psychopathic tendency (to the best of my belief) was something very peculiar.

What started with a silly joke with friend gradually turned into a (pseudo)philosophical metaphor.

If you don’t know the length of your life then how can you define your mid point? If the journey can be ended at any point, why the midpoint can’t start as soon as fifteen?

So what were the symptoms like?

With time symptoms are also changing, but to be precise whenever mind is full of melancholy –I think this is it.

In nineties the symptoms were precipitated by lack of connectivity with the so called world at large, Guwahati was a small city then and there was paucity of information regarding what we thought to be happening world.

Now I live away from my loved city, there is excess of information though but nothing is there to fill the vague in those time of incompleteness.  

There are many other precipitating factors that lead to such desperation, so I started a methodical root cause analysis for the so called disease I am suffering from. It can be loosely hypothesized “as not having achieved what I thought to be achievable at that point of time”. With time the faith and confidence level is getting down and down and down. As the suspicion of failure is creeping in that is leading to the melancholy which I call as “Mid Life Crisis”.

I cannot tell you for sure but if I have to explain “My Mid Life crisis” to you; I got to tell you it is almost like love. While explaining my mid life crisis I have to quote from my memory of a famous film whose dialogue still resonates in my mind. The film was "Suraj Ka Satwa Ghoran” by the maestro Syam Benegal .Here after a long and complicated tryst with the ‘element’ called love protagonist Rajat Sharma explains :definition and feeling about love is something like soul or God ,until you find one your quest for love will go on .

So my quest for my mid life

The life journey of life is mysterious and unknown

To the great Indian middle class, Mid Life crisis has nothing to do with libido, mistress, or sexuality,

Being grinded in a routine called life we long for a way out looking for some sunshine and if we smell of losing the goal sadness creeps in. We name this sadness by various name, and mid life crisis is just one such example.   

Thoughts on a Sterilization Tragedy

 

I was shocked on hearing about the ‘sterilization tragedy’ in Chhattisgarh. Yes, it is in fact a sterilization tragedy. Sterilization - Sterilization (also spelled sterilisation) is defined as “any of a number of medical techniques that intentionally leave a person unable to reproduce”. A government-organised family planning camp in Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh, took a wrong turn on that fateful day.

Sterilization also means making a surface, article etc. free from any kind of organism. This is essential for any health care practice, especially in a setting where any kind of surgical operation is taking place, even as simple as sterilization for population control. Such a setting should not exist with without strict sterilization and aseptic practice.

However, we all know that India is a land of “Jugad”, and ethically and scientifically recommended practices are things that are beyond our comprehension.

But, what led to the tragedy? I don’t have any detail about ‘what happened in Chhattisgarh’ but I have an insight into what usually happens in India in the name of infection control practice through my professional experience.

We are at a pre-historic stage in terms of awareness, and burdened by lack of resources. The situation is even worse in government hospitals situated in the periphery.   

I was more surprised when I heard that the doctor in question has been suspended with immediate effect!

Blaming the doctor, making him the scapegoat for everything that went wrong in a medical set up is an inherent problem of Indian society. But no one wants to see beyond that. Root cause analysis of any problem is not in finding a scapegoat and burning him like we do in Dussehra.

It is a clear fact that all those hospitals run on poor supply of basic necessities like soap, trained nurse, proper equipment for operation (cloths, autoclave, gloves, nurse and proper ventilation in OT) etc., but all hospitals are given targets to achieve within a given period.

Target of fulfilling the dreams of different governments/ employers, like increasing the number of operations, increasing high tech operations and achieving “x” number of total sterilizations, free Anti-tubercular therapy or anti retroviral drugs given to tuberculosis and HIV infected patients respectively during the year.

This is where the problem starts:

People are over worked and they are given exorbitant tasks to complete without any infrastructure. If you don’t do it, you are not following the instructions you are given, so you are in danger of losing your job. And if you make some compromise and continue to work with whatever resource you have, then you are doing your duty.

At first, nothing will happen, even if some infection occurs, people will think infection is a normal incident. In fact, most of the practicing physicians think that we have antibiotics to tackle the bugs. But as a clinical microbiologist, I have observed through my practice and research that most of the hospitals in India are full of organisms, against which there is no antibiotic at all. And the sad thing is that there is no new molecule in the pipe line in the near future also

The reason for the deaths can be something other than infection also, like spurious drugs reaction, operative complication, wrong case selection etc. Root cause analysis of all of them will lead to one answer: non adherence to the mandatory stringent quality control norms.

Because many of us are not aware of such things and even if we do, we turn a blind eye to them as they are costly and time consuming and there is no chance of earning any revenue by these quality control procedures.  

The problem we are facing today has only one answer: prevention.

But how?

Adherence to basic quality control norms for prevention of such occurrences, which is the only option we actually have.

Or the same story will repeat itself:

Healthcare practices

Without soap….

Without instruments …..

Without infrastructure for the required purpose…..

With an uphill target to fill.

Till we have those manage it with some “Jugad”

And if something bad happens, identify a symbolic culprit (a doctor in this case), sack him from the job and we are all happy till a repeat incident happens.

 

I was late in blogging it even though I made the draft immediately after getting the news and I was totally upset with the incident and after three days of the incident now the focus is changing to some spurious drugs, but point is same _ total apathy towards quality as we all do in every aspect of our life.do you know any medicine we buy from the chemist next door may turn out to be spurious.it can be a chemical manufactured by some unknown unlicensed company. Even a branded medicine can also be carrying a label only but actually it might be some chalk powder packed with the companies genuine looking level by some crook, everything I mentioned doesn’t matter to us as we live in the age of apathy, compromise and Jugad.  

 

 

Life is elsewhere

This was the title of a book by Milan Kundera. I read it in a time when I had just discovered this genius .Now after 20 years I have completely forgotten what was it all about, but the title is still lingering in my ears.
To me this sense of belonging to somewhere else is more pronounced in special times.
As at every year end the a sense starts creeping into my mind with the moist air ,dew drop and as TV advertisement and  movies starts celebrating the season;I feel like being stuck in day to day maze called life. Sometime it feels like everyone is enjoying and I am trapped. While calculating what I have done in the years bygone and what I haven't , subconscious mind whisper into my ear -'life Is Elsewhere'
Then comes uruka ,maghbihu then bohag bihu ,puza and what not ....
Whenever I am doing something this whisper continues
Its not that I live a lonely life like all those in mental movie or I avoid the party or anything .Even in the parties if I am present there I feel I should be doing something else  .
For many years I am residing outside my home state -Assam, so every day I long to be in the places I grew up in. This longing increases when there is something going on in  my home state (some festival, ritual or  event like book fair) .Rarely I am able to be in the places  where i wanted to be, but then I feel like something is missing  as if this was not the thing I was looking for. For instance if by any chance I reach Assam for some occasion I am more saddened .there has been major changes everywhere, changes that made me feel like this is not the place about which I longed for day in and day out.
Take the case of Guwahati, the city today is not the place where I grew up
Or my ancestral village where there was no motorble road  till a decade back . Everything have changed out there also .(I know only constant in life is change ,still it sucks )
Whenever I wonder throughout places, I feel something is wrong    
So where do I belong to?
Then again this whisper comes 'Life is elsewhere'

Same is the case with my professional life,

The ever busy clinical microbiologist in a war against infection  versus the writer seeking exactitude  both telling each other the same phrase –‘life is elsewhere’
May be some manthan is needed for any Amrit ,may be the halahal coming out of this manthan is too toxiac and this auditory hallucinations is a side effect of all these friction  

I often try this parsee poetry as therapy for this  
Gar firdaus,
ruhe zamin ast,
hamin asto,
hamin asto,
hamin asto.
"(If there is ever a heaven on earth, it’s here, it’s here, and it’s here”)
And at the same time another voice resonates inside

What am I doing?

Life is elsewhere
Life is elsewhere
Life is elsewhere