Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Like gravity, karma is so basic we often don't even notice it.





Rajat along with a team of senior doctors was operating a patient for angioplasty. Preciseness, perseverance and engrossment are the key ingredients for such wearisome operations. Two doctors, one surgeon and few nurses looking at one body for couple of hours with each move so precise that it can kill someone and other will be sentenced to death.

                     In between this immersion activity, another nurse came into the operation theater and whispered something in Rajat's ear and handed him a telegram. Rajat put that telegram into the pocket and continue the operation. The Surgeon, Dr. Madhavan, queried rajat about anything serious. He calmly nodded his head and signaled with eyes that everything is ok. Red light on top of the Operation Theatre continued glowing for next two hours.

          Doctor’s team came out with smile on their faces and patient's relatives thanking them. Everyone was happy and in this event of happiness, Rajat was silent and he slipped from that hustle bustle to his room. Relaxing on this revolving chair, looking at his eyelids with eyes closed. Some memories flashed into his mind and he was floating into that.


           Dr.Madhavan , a young and an ardent man, entered Rajat's room. Rajat was somewhat sleeping with his dreams on. Dr.Madhavan tapped on his shoulder to break the silence. Rajat turned toward him and asked him to have a seat. Dr.Madhavan asked him about the telegram. During those days, telegram used to the only communication mechanism for urgent news, so Dr.Madhavan knew that was something serious and urgent. Rajat with a grim smile told Dr "My father had a heart attack two days back". Dr.Madhavan was dumb struck with the news but he was unable to see any kind stiffness on Rajat's visage.  In fact Rajat was just in some other thoughts and was relaxing. Dr.Madhavan asked him about the reason of his calmness in such a adverse time. Rajat replied: Can I tell you a story.



“In Africa there is a concept known as Ubuntu – the profound sense that we are human only through the humanity of others; that if we are to accomplish anything in this world it will in equal measure be due to the work and achievements of others. The journey of a small boy in this world started when one sad day once we woke up and couldn’t find his mother kiss on his forehead. Everyone told him that mommy had gone to God ji. For the first time in the past 7 years he celebrated his birthday with mommy. Father was an industrialist so was always busy in his official stuff. Most of the time this kid used to spend his time with ‘Jacky’, their pet Shepherd dog. He has completed his 2nd standard with just passing marks and silent talks.  As soon as his dad came back from his official tour and saw his report card, he decided not to scold him but to put him in a boarding school. This boy was taken to Don Bosco Boarding school, one of the best boarding schools of the region. Dev-dutt was their warden , a very strict but loving warden. Initial days of the boy were difficult, he became insomniac, weak because he used to skip meals, reclusive as he didn’t like to interact with people. Dev-dutt was noticing all this change but just giving him the time to recover. One day when the boy was watching his seniors playing basketball, dev-dutt went and sat next to him on the bench. He asked him to join them but the boy declined. Then he took him on a walk to the nearby garden.
                       He told the boy a story: In a distant land there lived a wizard. He poured a drug that induced madness, into the town well. The people drank it and began to go about as they pleased, in a totally crazy way. When the king tried to bring about laws to control them, they told him to leave the throne. So the king decided to abdicate. The queen, though, counseled otherwise.’ oh king, don’t give up your throne. Come, let us also drink from the same well’ .And as soon as they drank, they became like everyone else. The problem was over .  

                    The boy was looking at Dev-dutt’s face as the story finished. It was already evening. Both started walking toward the hostel with no words exchanged. On that night, the boy ate his normal diet and went to sleep. After that, the boy became an integral part of the school. Known among his classmates as a jolly person who makes everyone laugh and who was friend of everyone. And Dev-Dutt was his best friend. Every day the boy used to write some poem or couplet or haiku and he & dev-dutt used to sit under the shade of old banyan tree, analyzing the lines and feeling between the lines. As soon as the boy’s results used to be on the notice board, devc-dutt used to visit the local sweet shop. It was nothing that the boy was a topper; he was in bourgeois strata of the intellectual world. With each goal the boy hitting in the goal-post, Dev-dutt claps & hollering used to fill the college football ground. In this whole evolution of the boy, his dad never visited him but keeps on filling his account with money and keeps sending him costly gifts. When the boy was in 10th standard, boy’s dad came on the last parent meet and told him that he should start preparing for management studies from now as he would be the one running the industrial empire created by his father .The boy didn’t answer anything. It was the winters of 1981 and the last winter’s of the boy in the campus, that Dev-dutt fall sick. No one knew what the disease was but it started restricting dev-dutt from going out. He turned very weak. School authorizes, in order to save money on his medical expenses, gave him an indefinite leave. Dev-dutt took his luggage and said the last good bye to his students and went to his village. The boy asked him about his village but he didn’t gave any details and lived a life incognito. Just one day before rajat had to leave the boarding schools forever; the boy got a letter with a Dev-dutt’s neighbor stating his death and a copy of the last corrected poem. The boy reached home with darkness surrounding him. For next two years, he joined some regress training for his management exam along with his studies. But just the day before the Management entrance exam, the boy decided not to give that but instead he appeared in medical entrance and somehow got qualified it also. His dad never talked with him afterwards for making such a nasty decision. But the boy always wanted to know the reasons for his warden’s death. It was his warden who was with him when he was crying after less marks, who was sitting next to him when he fall sick in hostel, who took him to hospital when he met with an accident in Rugby field, who was laughing at his poems, who was teaching him how to shave for the first time, who gave him tips on flirting with girls of the opposite college. In all those years, for the boy, his father had just deposited the money into his account”.

            

“ That boy is me , Dr.Madhavan. And I have already issued a cheque of 2 lacs for my dad’s service. Reminded me of the following lines  :
 

 
इस  काली  ठंडी  आग  को  वापस  कर  रहा  हूँ  मैं…..

और  इसी के  साथ  लौटा  रहा  हूँ,  ये  सफेद  मिट्टी,  ये  गतिहीन  पानी,  ये  बहरी  हवा  और  ये  अथाह  आकाश,  जो  गूंगा  है…..

यूँ  तो  मैं  जानता  हूँ  ईश्वर,  की  तुम  जानते  थे  की  एक  दिन,  मैं  ये  सब  कुछ  इसी  तरह  तुम्हें  वापस  कर  दूँगा. ”
Dr. Madhavan left the office and was thoughts were spinning in his head. He was today only discussing with his wife of putting their eight years son in the boarding school.

Silence Prevails,
Aditya Deadpan
P.S : Above one is a true story and Dr Madhavan’s wife only told me this. Only I have written it in my words.  And the story of the wizard was from Paulo Coelho's Blog.

5 comments:

  1. GOOD ONE .
    I donot know why we forget the law of Karma.

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  2. Strong theme. Reminds me of Thoreau ~" ..God has created relations everywhere.." you just need to reach out. Felt really nice after meeting Rajat after such a long time. I wanna write soon. But these overriding courseload is killing me :(

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  3. blood relations may not be the best in one's life! it's the understanding, support and caring that make any relation worth cherishing!

    good one..... i liked it.

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  4. Dev Dutt ki bheemari ka pata laga ya nai:)
    main question to reh he gaya bhai.

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  5. @sheetal : You crumbled the cookie .. you are the masters of the puppets .. Rajat knew someday someone will ask him this question, so he did lot of research on the postmortem reports of Dev-dutt and found the disease which has taken his loving warden from him. Name of the disease was "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis"

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