Death of a Storyteller, But Not the Story 📜🥀

 

A couple of months ago, I visited Orchha in Madhya Pradesh, not far from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh.I remember standing before an enormous fort-palace—a fascinating blend of Rajput grandeur and Mughal elegance. The signboard read: Jahangir Mahal.I was puzzled.Why would Emperor Jahangir stay in this remote corner of Bundelkhand? The locals could not tell me much. "It belonged to some Rajput king," they said.That king, I later discovered, was Vir Singh Deo Bundela.

And then Google led me to a darker, more fascinating story.In 1602, Prince Salim—the future Jahangir—was locked in a bitter struggle with his father, Akbar. One man stood firmly in Akbar's camp: Abul Fazl, the emperor's closest advisor and author of the Akbarnama.Salim saw him as an obstacle.So he sought help from Vir Singh Deo.Near Narwar, Abul Fazl was ambushed and killed. History records that his severed head was sent to Salim.Akbar was inconsolable after hearing of the death of his trusted friend and advisor. Many historians believe the tragedy cast a long shadow over his remaining years.Years passed.Salim became Emperor Jahangir.Vir Singh Deo was rewarded with the kingdom of Orchha and built this magnificent palace—Jahangir Mahal—to commemorate the emperor's visit.

Standing in its courtyards centuries later, I could not help wondering:Was this palace merely a monument to friendship?Or was it also a silent reminder of a murder that changed the course of Mughal history?Yet there is one more irony.Abul Fazl died before he could complete the Akbarnama.But the manuscript refused to die with him.Later, the remaining part of Akbar's story was completed by another scholar. In the imperial Kitabkhanas, scribes and calligraphers copied the text by hand.Thus, the story of Akbar endured.Jahangir did not destroy the book of his father's trusted friend. Instead, he wrote his own memoir, the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri.Yet today, for many readers and history enthusiasts, it is the Akbarnama that remains the more beloved companion.History, it seems, has a habit of repeating itself.Akbar lost his dearest companion and was heartbroken.Jahangir too would face sorrow in old age.Sorrow may be inevitable.Loss cannot always be prevented.

But perhaps the choice of friends, advisors, and companions—that is where destiny quietly begins to change.And the strangest twist of all is this:The palace still stands.The empires and dynasties of both Mughals and Rajputs are long gone.But Abul Fazl still speaks.His Akbarnama survived its author.Perhaps books possess a strange immortality.They outlive their authors.Sometimes, they even outlive the emperors who feared them. For the storyteller died.But not the story. ✒️✨

Memoirs of Meerut

: “If you live away from the place of your identity then you live a life of refugee.”

 My friend said once. He is correct in many aspects. It’s has been more than twelve years since I left Assam. Most of the time there is paucity of time to spend enough time in home during my home visit.  I have missed most of the Bihu, Uruka bhoj, marriage and other moment of crisis where my presence in Guwahati is required.  In many places my family is the only family who can speak in Assamese in the city. Even if you live amongst friend and family it’s a kind of emptiness within.

“Once you start to live in a place, you start developing roots “the other day my friend said in a contradictory statement

That’s also true...

I lived in Dehradun from 2007to 2012. The city had nostalgia of my youth hood. The atmosphere at that time resembled much that of Guwahati in 90s. The landscape, simplicity of locals suited my temperament.  Besides developing professional skills and propagating in my profession out here I was acquainted with the rules of the jungle with end number of visit to Rajaji National Park and sometime Corbett national Park.  Developed lots and lot of friends and well-wisher and almost in a time where the feeling was as such that I belong here I shifted to Meerut.  (And in the meanwhile my much elongated journey as a bachelor also finished in Dehradun only.)

2012 to 2018 I was in Meerut.

I was little bit apprehensive in the beginning, but gradually roots developed here too.  Abu lane, Begam pull, shoprix mall gradually got incorporated in our daily lingo. Street food or Moglai dishes, Fish market came handy and also the proximity to Delhi was the very helpful while connecting to the main land. There were occasional news of gunshot, here and there or lifting of chain /car here and there in the news paper, there were history of riots. Only once I was shocked by such news when owner of a pharmacy which I frequented was shot dead by some miscreant.  No such thing bothered us during those six years.

In personal front..both of my child Pratysh and Pokhi were borne here

As far as professional achievement was concerned, out here also I was lucky... my seniors supported me , juniors believed me, support staff  gave me faith overall teamwork was awesome during numerous milestone (Infection control , NABL, NABH , others ) we covered together .

With my students too I had their faith, in my personal moment of crisis like when my son was sick, everyone stood beside me like a rock.

Shifting is a big physical and mental stress. With every year things I have acquired has compounded ..and this time it is with two kids its been a Herculean task ..

Just in a time when I began to have my roots entangled in Meerut...I shifted again...this time to Bharatpur, Rajasthan …

Rolling  stone? Destiny …. Don’t know

But life continues, like a river flows    

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.  

 

 

Breaking News!

 

Television gives you a hard time when you want to take it nice and easy. Turn the TV on, surf across channels and there will be nothing interesting either in entertainment or infotainment. So, you decide to stop at a news channel, as in these channels, something always keeps happening. But after about an hour of viewing its content, you go into depression. There will be screeching, shouting, calling names for the sake of debate most of the time and the rare bit of news that might filter through will lead you nowhere. You will come to know of increased perverts, declining moral values, glorification of the criminal mind, lawlessness and what not about the seamy side of life. This leaves you in a fix. What to do next?

Now, your brain is intoxicated, you can’t think positively or constructively about anything hereafter for a long time. Thanks to these channels, this is the story of how most modern men are spending their spare time.

A similar thing happened to me today and thankfully, all of a sudden, my remote button rested on NDTV profit. It brought back memories of a young Prannoy Roy, reporting on challenges ahead of the newly elected American president, George Bush (Senior) in a classic ‘The World This Week’ show, followed by a five minute talk on the new (!) technology of in vitro fertilization,  finally concluding with the sports update about Martina Navratilova winning another Grand Slam trophy.

My mind went back to those days, when we had to wait for seven days to see a white skin and visions of the Great American Dream on TV. Three minute news about Colombia’s cocaine mafia was the only information we could gather about Latin America. Though there was paucity of information, purity and authenticity were a hallmark feature of news at that time.

I recall the first time in my life I got acquainted with the word ‘breaking news’. It was in 2001…….the date, 11^th September.

After that event, there has been a revolution in the electronic media and today, even a fart can earn breaking news status by virtue of this new found entity. And I wonder what our so-called “responsible” society as a whole is doing about it! Let us take, for example, the Bomb blast in Hyderabad a couple of months ago. Within twenty minutes, everyone (from the Police chief to top politicians, even the physician) who should have been busy in his/her work was all over the small screen. How I wished I could tell them, “My friend, now is the time to act, to get hold of the elusive clue, to treat the suffering masses”, but most of the manpower was wasted in cheap worthless live dissection of something about which we didn’t have any definite information.

More worrisome are the RED HOT breaking news (few call it “developing” story). For example, about six months ago, there was a breaking news story that there had been an earth quake of 7.2 magnitude (Richter scale) in my home town Guwahati. Naturally, I was petrified.

I rang up my folks at home, there was some network problem, so I called a friend who lives in my neighborhood – he didn’t pick it up. I was worried and justifiably so. Then, I surfed through all the North east channels available on my “direct to home” package, all were showing the same news of an earth quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale!

After about an hour of anxiety and twenty frantic calls, I got to know that there was indeed an earth quake but it was very small in magnitude, so small that many people didn’t even feel it. So how could it be 7.2 on the Richter scale? It was only then that they confirmed the epicentre in Indonesia and it was 7.2 in Indonesia only. Some parallel tremors were felt in north east India. The item was not even mentioned in the evening news to follow.

My question is, “What was the hurry to break the news? Couldn’t they even verify the news before bombarding it into the monitor for the world to see?”                                                                                                                                                                               

It is becoming a nauseating hazard.

My dear news channels, may I please request you not to break any news, Let the seed of event mature enough, then decide to deliver it to the public with great watchful expectancy and masterly inactivity, like all my obstetrician friends do for each and every delivery…. 

TRYST WITH THE VANISHING SENSES

In today’s world, anything that we wish to be acquainted with, is available at the click of a button. Especially if we are searching for knowledge….With just a few clicks of the mouse or touches on the screen, or by typing on the keypad of a cell phone, we can have information about anything. So, we are getting to know everything without experiencing the subject. This tendency has led to the genesis of a virtual generation that lacks senses. Nevertheless, being human, we definitely experience sensations like sight, touch, hearing and taste, without our grey matter processing the object of those sensations. Most of us don’t have the time to feel our experiences. And the fifth sense – ‘smell’ has become confined to the aroma of food, perfume and a few unpleasant experiences only. We have given our soul to all sorts of gadgets, from TV, laptop to cell phones or video games, so much that there is hardly any time left for our brain to process basic human feelings. Our senses are highly ignored in these times of high tech communications. That is killing the world we know.

Does it mean that we have changed to such an extent that we have perceived the truth in a different way? Don’t we need to be acquainted with the world the way we used to know? Google anything: you have the information you want. Then save it in your laptop or phone till you need it. Let gadgets feel it for you, what is the need of something that is real like a book, or touch or eye contact?  

 A few years ago, I had paid a visit to a village in Maharashtra and the aura of that village changed my perception.

The name of this small village is Sevagram, situated near Wardha, a small town in Maharashtra. People knew this village as Shegaon till a hundred years ago. Life here was still, nothing happened, except the activities of daily living, reminiscent of village life of a bygone era.

Where morning turned into evening and evening into night seamlessly without incident, without novelty…..day in and day out

Harsh winter, Sprightly Spring, Scorching Summer, followed by Contemplative Autumn, the cycle repeating with time.

This routine humdrum was halted by the arrival of a Guest one fine morning in early April 1936. The Guest was one of the most important persons of the country, who believed that the heart of India lies in its villages. He called the villagers and sought their permission to settle down there along with his wife only for company. He was 67 years old at that time. In those days, the village was surrounded by forest on all sides. There was only one footpath or cart track to Wardha. No post-office or telegraph office existed. And there was utter confusion while receiving the letters from the post office situated in Wardha. So, it was decided in 1940 to name this village as SEVAGRAM or the “village of service.” However, slowly the pressure of work on this person necessitated his asking for permission to accommodate more co-workers in the village, till Sevagram Ashram also became a full-fledged institution.

And in no time, this sleepy little hamlet became the centre of India’s freedom movement. Independence was achieved in 1947, and that man was assassinated the following year.

But, his philosophy inspires everyone even today and Sevagram continues to function with that mindset. The village became home to the first rural medical college in India, the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences.

What is inspiring about this village is that it has a medical College, an Engineering College, all the aspects of (so called) modern technology, but it is still maintaining its ethos as a small Indian Village…

….Where you can feel your senses without any hindrance.

And what is more important is that you can smell the place almost as it was about five decades ago.

While walking through Bapu Kuti, I could smell the aroma in the atmosphere.

The dust, the air and the stillness in the atmosphere convinced me that I could feel the man Named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who lived here all those years ago.

Then I looked at one of his quotes engraved, “Not mad rush, but undisturbed calmness brings wisdom.”