Sunday 26 June 2011

" Tears are the silent language of grief " - Voltaire

“Oh, the poetic mind that  compared the tear drop to a women,
My kudos to you, kudos to you, kudos to you … “

These are lyrics from a famous Malayalam movie. Crying has always been the duty and the prerogative of women . The burst into   tears the moment they are touched  by  both sorrow or happiness. The never ending TV shows and Reality shows just thrive on the tears of our female population. Crocodiles and women are  known to use tears as a weapon to survive. It is still a controversy whether the crocodile tears are to lure their victims, or that they cry for the preys they are eating, or whether the crocodiles really have a lachrymal gland or not. Whatever be the issue, crocodile tears have historically been compared to false feeling. However, Women shedding tears to escape a difficult situation is well known.



“O devil, devil!
If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
Out of my sight!”

Shakespeare in Othello Act IV, scene 1


But have you ever seen a grown up man crying. It may be as rare as an eclipse but the most heart breaking and unappreciated event. How many times have we seen the media projecting a weeping man? It may be not be as heart breaking as a women’s tears, but when you try to understand that unlike women, men cry only when he is unable to control his grief we should appreciate his tears.



We had a 18 year old girl admitted in serious condition in our ward. She had some disease in her nasopharynx which was slowly killing her. She was accompanied by her mother and maternal uncle as her father had abandoned her. Her uncle was a healthy six foot Sardarji in his mid forties. His face never showed any signs of sorrow. He was always ready to get any investigation for her niece. She had been referred from many hospitals and by the time she came to us she had lost her consciousness. We had either a malignancy or an invasive fungal infection in our mind. But her radiology and biopsy were not giving any conclusive diagnosis. The disease had already taken her sight and now pushed her both eyeballs outside. The sight was horrible to watch even for the hardest heart .But day by day her condition worsened and we had nothing to offer her. We usually counsel the escorts of such patients to take them home and wait for the inevitable. This would at least decrease their financial burden and let the patient spend the rest of his or her life peacefully with relatives. As a prime institute, we are not allowed to dispose of any patient without giving them treatment, so these patients are classified as Discharged against medical advice or DAMA. They are not given any discharge booklet instead given a paper where details of the disease and treatment are written. While I was writing the DAMA certificate her uncle came to me and said to write the situation of the girl clearly. I got a bit annoyed partly because of the guilt that we could do nothing for the patient and partly because he was interrupting me. I told him that this paper would not help her in any way as she has already been rejected from most of the centres before coming here. Suddenly the uncle burst into tears telling me that that it was not for her further treatment, but just to show to the police official during their way home. He was afraid that seeing the pathetic state of the patients, they might suspect some foul play and stop them. I had no words to console him, but to hand over him the DAMA letter at the earliest.



A young man was admitted in our emergency following road traffic accident. He had lost vision of one eye due to a fracture which was pressing on to his optic nerve. Usually such injuries had poor prognosis as patients reached the centre much after the critical time in which surgery was possible. All we could do was to get the necessary radiological investigations and discharge the patient on steroids and wait of the vision to improve. We usually try to discharge patients from casualty as early as possible in order to reduce the load in causality. But getting a patient worked up in emergency is tricky. It requires great persuasion and effort from the part of the doctor and patient bystander to get them quickly. Usually what we do is to frighten the bystander by exaggerating the disease so that they show interest in getting the tests done. I had advised computed tomography for the patient in the morning and by evening I came to see the patient and they had not got the investigation done. I furiously told the father of the patient that if you deliberately delay the investigation the patient will lose his sight permanently and don’t blame us for that. I hastily left the casualty. But by the time I reached my duty room the father came behind me crying to save his son’s vision. I felt guilty as I knew that there is very less chance that the investigation would change his treatment and my only intent was to encourage the father of the patient to get the investigation done. I consoled the father and told him that we have already started the necessary treatment and it is the nature of the disease to improve only slowly.


A man in his twenties came to me last week at the outpatient department. He had an ulcer overt his tongue which was diagnosed to be cancer from an outside centre. I often think that seeing so much cancer patients almost daily, I fail to appreciate the gravity of the disease. He had comparatively a smaller ulcer of about 1 cm which was virtually curable with surgery and follow up. So I didn’t feel it a necessary to counsel and comfort the patient regarding the disease. I filled up all his investigation reports and looked at his face to explain to him where to get them done. His eyes were flooding with tears. Then only did I realize that for me even though it was only an early lesion, for the patient he was diagnosed with a disease which for a layman was virtually incurable. I took time in explaining him that he need not worry and to get the investigation done early so that he can be operated at the earliest. He wiped his tears and touched my feet while leaving. But I am sure that it needs more than words to comfort his heart.



Tears, be it of male or female had been given importance from time immemorial. But men are always reluctant to open up naturally or forcibly for the fear to lose their macho. My better half always makes fun of me when she sees my eyes fill at the end of the movie. Recent studies have shown that crying increased life expectancy by acting as a stress relieving act and also a means to excrete toxic metabolites. Dr William Frey, who studied the physiology of tears and author of 'Crying: The Mystery of Tears', says: 'It is no accident that crying has survived evolutionary pressures. Humans are the only animals to evolve this ability to shed tears in response to emotional stress, and it is likely that crying survived the pressures of natural selection because it has some survival value.' So women don’t under estimate the role the operas play in prolonging your life expectancy and men don’t be ashamed to wet your partner’s shoulders when you feel so.



- By the eldest son

Sunday 19 June 2011

Humane Values

The great quality of human beings, to be loved and cared for by the people around him had begun during the creation of the first man itself. It started when Adam(ASW) opened his eyes and was greeted with peace, he returned the greeting to the angels around him even though no one had taught him before. It so happened that he was really well adapted to the New world around him and was able establish relations with the surroundings, with God, the angels ,the Jinni and the delights of the paradise.

When the second human being, Eve, joined him it was another dawn in his life, where they started socializing. As the generations went by, there developed the family system, then the societies ,which evolved into the countries and nations, and was people were divided based on certain discrimination like languages, social practices and so on.

But until the twentieth century everything followed the same pattern except for the teachings of the Prophets of God ,whose words travelled fast and wide across the globe. Then in the electronic revolutions and technological breakthroughs, the world seemed to be shrunk as if from a large watermelon to a tiny grape. Everything seemed to be travelling short and wide, we are now capable of doing anything from one corner of earth and reach another corner within split seconds.

However it is too pathetic when we look that human relations and find that they have lost its previous warmth, selflessness and sincerity and have now adopted a new definition and perspective . It is quite relevant when we say good news travel slowly, while the bad news travel fast like a supersonic jet . The deeds so far considered as sinful both in the eyes of the religion and society are being transformed into a norm, and the rules and regulations are amended to suit the new lifestyles. The influences of all the societies in the world, whether east or west and mostly the negative ones are felt in our society. But now the world scenario has changed, it has become a single society as if under a single thought, where you can buy anything you want if you have money including ‘education’ which is being marketed as an item of the shopping list.

One wonders how people get attached both in psychologically and personally to a person on TV screen without bothering to know his/her background. They seem to experience the pain, the happiness, curiosity and almost all the feelings the hero have on the screen. The manner of how we bind ourselves to a person who is totally unaware of our existences, surroundings and cultural background is incredible. It should be treated as a wonder in the human creation rather than the technological advancement. This sort of attachments can also be felt while reading a book or an article where we feel the presence of the character and also the author himself. It shows how easily and unknowingly our body and soul are affected irrespective of whether how great or weak we are . It is like how Imam Abu Hamid Al Ghazali said, human is like a mixture, a mixture of the trio; devil ,angel and animal(human does what an animal does.eg.;eat and drink).It is according to his will power he prioritises which one to dominate the other two. Hope we all dominate the angelic qualities above the other two.

By the Niece

Thursday 16 June 2011

Morality versus Business

 Gone are the days when the children in our village used to await ice-cream vendors on their bicycles  sounding musical horns to attract them while their mom tried hard to rein them from running to them.. There were sweet vendors as well carrying different varieties of colourful sweets on their heads in bamboo trays calling out " sweet items just for a penny". Mothers called them to their houses and they displayed mouth watering sweets in front of their children who were given the options to select what they wanted but with in the limits of budget they had . The price was paid from the savings made by their moms in the name of their children in small round clay pots called Kayikkudukka which had the size and shape of normal grape fruit had a narrow opening through which coins were put . When the pot was full it was broken and the sound of copper and silver coins falling on the ground tickled the minds of children and aroused hopes in their minds.


Once I heard a neighbour of ours and a friend of my mom confessing to my mom how she had got rid of an invalid coin (not fake one since was the coin of some other country) given to her from some shops saying that she had purchased sweets from a vendor known to us who had taken the coin without checking it. The same vendor passed by our house after a couple of days and I asked my mom to buy me a particular sweet made of cane jaggery. When my mom paid him the price ,the vendor who was looking for a chance to get rid of the invalid coin, took it out from his pocket claiming that it was one of the coins given by mom and asked her to give him another coin. My mom who knew the story did not tell him who the culprit was but smiled and told him to look for the one who had cheated him and not her who had given him the genuine coin.The vendor shouted using obscene language whereas my mom, in spite of being infuriated used polite words. The vendor could not take back the candy since I had consumed half of it in the meantime. I still remember how he went away using all the bad words in his stock. Today when I read reports of innocent people being accused and even convicted on false charges for crimes and offences they had never committed, I remember that sweet vendor.



The man I see these days selling peanuts in cone shaped paper packets in front of some shopping centers in Doha reminded me of my first and last attempt to be a "business man". When I was schooling, it occurred to me to purchase some raw peanut , get it roasted by mom and sell it at a profits as done by some children in our village in those days . I calculated the profit comparing the purchase price with the selling price and found that it was indeed a profitable business. Since I could not afford to buy one kilogram of raw peanuts , I bought half a kilogram and got it roasted by my mom.But the problem was that people would not come to me asking for peanut and I had to market it roaming in the village shouting " peanuts, peanuts". This was something I could not even dream of since every one knew that I was a shy and timid boy very stingy even while talking to my parents.More over lethargy was an in born trait in me which I refuse to part with even today. Therefore a close frined of mine was entrusted with the tals of marketing the peanuts on commission basis . He was very talkative and hence fit for this type of trade and I was sure that he could do the job very easily. When he went away with peanuts, I waited eagerly for his return. But my friend came to me in the evening with the empty metal can in which he had carried the peanut saying that he could not sell anything and confessing that he could not resist the temptation of roasted peanuts and had to consume the peanuts to compensate for the energy he had lost while roaming in the hot sun . To justify his stand he also told me how the cashew nut was known in Kerala as Kappalandi (meaning shipnut) as captain of a ship visiting Kerala once could not stop when he began to eat cashew nuts and had to sell his ship for this purpose .


That was the inglorious end of the business man in me as if the idea was nipped by God in the bud itself as He knows that business is not my cup of tea as I am unfit for such a task. One very often wonders whether morality can go hand in hand with a business mind which always looks for profit. An honest friend of mine who ran a shop in Doha for about 30 years still find it difficult to make both ends meets where as his friend running similar shop next door has amassed a lot of wealth. The difference is the the former does not cheat or lie to his customers where as the latter does every thing to sell his merchandise.


By the Father







Friday 10 June 2011

The Fancy World

The splashes I hear,
The feelings that I fear…
That I may run down the path,
To feel the heavenly drops…
Trickling on me to keep me under the blanket
For the next few days…
The music I here,
The leaves that dance ,
To the rhythmic chant of wind,
And the birds chirping in their nest,
Speaks to me that there are greater
Treasures to be unveiled
In this fancy world.
Children with innocent faces
Unaware of the hidden dangers ahead of them
Always hoping for fun and laughter,
Greet the rain with cheers and hurrays,
Every time they appear in their windows
For the next few months.
Hovering over the trees and rocks,
And Bathing the tiny creatures under them,
And covering the air with cold and freshness,
Tells me there is hope and chance ahead of me.
I wonder how long they last,
And how long I will last…
To enjoy the treasures of this fancy world…

By the niece