“Après moi le déluge”

After me 'The Deluge'.

The statement was reminiscent.

And only man, and man alone

would feel so.

Failing to see  prophetic it is.

Cos, pride and arrogance are his forte!

Defiant to pitfalls and humbling,

selfish and convinced of his vitalness;

lessons never learned.

Only man and man alone can say

After me The Deluge!

A significant insignificance

This is a real life story and happened in multi speciality facility hospital in Thiruvannathapuram.

It is sometime late in the morning and a gluttonous auto rickshaw stutter into the portico of the causality wing of the multi storied hospital complex. Two men scramble out and yell for the attendants. Two uniformed bearers trudge in with a push stretcher. They seem to be quite disinterested and are a bit annoyed at the two men who were yelling frantically and gesticulating into the auto rickshaw. Perhaps the arrival of an auto rickshaw was less fascinating than a chauffeur driven Mercedes .The vehicles that shuttles in the victim or let us say the patient is the frontrunner- the harbinger of the revenue that could be extracted.

A young woman in her mid twenties is carried out of the auto rick and laid on the stretcher. And they suddenly notice the emergent situation and rush the trolley carrying the woman into the causality ward.

The woman apparently attempted to kill herself and failed. She tried to hang to death and was noticed in time and brought to the hospital. Fortunately or unfortunately for her there was some life left in her. The trachea was not severed, and also strangulation has not completely wiped out the air from her lungs. The duty doctors were quite efficient in attending her. The oxygen mask was quickly put on her face the necessary initial aid was quickly administered. The supervisor of the casualty asked the men to deposit an advance amount at the cash counter. The men were quite lost and pleaded they did not have money .The Supervisor immediately summoned another middle aged man who went to the woman lying in fight with death .She was being resuscitated and all medical procedures were being exercised.

The guy was the official gold smith of the hospital. Ever heard of such a position in a hospital?Well he took a good look at the trinkets the woman had on her. He then started to remove them from her person, and went to the cubicle placed in one corner. He closely examined them, a tiny gold chain, and a thin bangle. He began the test to see if the pieces were real.

He made a light scratch on the pieces of jewellery with a small file. Using a dropper, he applied a drop of nitric acid on the scratch he made on the jewellery. He confirmed that the pieces did not turn green, or milky. That ensured that he was dealing with gold and not any base material.He swiftly weighed the jewellery and went out to the supervisor and confirmed the value .This was the way the hospital ensured that treatment to the needy is not denied. They have the facility to either pawn your jewellery to raise money to pay the medical bills or even mortgage your property documents.

The only catch is that if you go there in full consciousness or comatose you must have gold on you or unencumbered documents of intangible assets.

This story was narrated by a friend who has close access to hospitals and is fairly privy to the functioning and administration of some. Infertility being a very grave and serious issue amongst the current generation, infertility clinics are having a gay of a time.

The young doctor graduated from Mumbai and did his masters at the AIIMs New Delhi. He was working in a super speciality hospital in Mumbai, before settling down in central Kerala, where he hailed from. The new job at the infertility clinic was quite to his liking. The hospital had a very liberal and strong clientele of expatriates from the gulf.

However his sojourn there did not last more than ten months. To his indignation he found that he had to acquiesce the management’s way of “fertilizing”. The management wanted to ensure without any demure that every couple who venture to the clinic go back satisfied that infertility is cured. And the woman have conceived. The clinic was well known for the magic treatment even in cases of absolute irreversible male infertility. The conception rate of infertile couples who venture to the clinic is an amazing percent. Our Mumbai returned doctor only had to endorse the modus operandi. And that was, the sperm of the male was invariably substituted, however in total secrecy with only the clinic management privy to the mala fide.

Couples are happy that their irreversible infertile status is reversed and their dreams come alive. The clinic has its revenue swelling.

The Lament of the Formless

He said, “once upon a time I was formless, then

they made me in their way, a look alike, a clone

they didn’t ask me -did I like it their way

they just did it their way.

They put me in temples, in churches;

they decreed that I be in mosques and synagogues

they never wanted me in their hearts”.

He continued his lament

“They made me in stone and clay, in bronze and wood

they crucified a  hapless soul and said it was me.

They put me in hills and mountains afar,

where they tread to ,season after season

raping the  forest and valleys,jungles and streams pristine,

and demand my grace.

Tell me, they made me like them

and what blessed am I to bless?”

He continued thus, and abruptly left-

“I do not want to be their clone;

I want to be the formless that I was

and be at peace, as I ,earlier were,

 when the sun and the  moon ,the stars and the heavens,

the seas and the mountains, and when life 

were not”.