The page turner: 371

For a long time, Imaginch held this misplaced enthusiasm on writing a page turner or a mystery novel, on a very tight leash.  For one thing he was not certain of his repertoire to either produce a page turner or a mystery novel and secondly to whom such an effort would appeal to. Afraid of negative opinions from well-wishers, he held discussions with himself and his image on the mirror which could not walk out on him.  

For the page turner he had dreams to compete with the likes of Frederick Forsyth, Dan Brown, John Grisham, Michael Crichton and Jeffrey Archer and a few others who did not want to reveal their identity even to him. The department of mystery was populated by authors like Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace, Arthur Conan Doyle et al. After comparing his dream with the list of his favourite authors, he felt like a molehill against the backdrop of The Himalayas.

Yet, his imagination continued to strain at the leash, threatening to break free even without his consent. He decided to start with an opening. “Mystery, unless it is buried deep, will it set others to unravel it? Is it not a fact that more severe the ‘yarn barfs’ or ‘snarls’ makes it that more difficult to get the untangled yarn without sacrificing even a small length?  In the same way, will not the story become a page turner, if the mystery in the plot gets complicated with every twist and turn?  At this point, he faced a great personal mystery - what is the plot and how many characters he has to involve!

His favourite authors spoke from their pages – “The difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary is the word 'extra'. It hides the maximum effort to earn that distinction. There is no mystery here!”

A walk in the park? Imaginch seized this idea with both his chappal-clad feet and navigated a bevy of crowd intent on getting into each other’s way. Selecting the tree of unknown species (to him a botanical mystery), he sat down to contemplate on the plot, which for some unknown reason made an appearance and at once mysteriously disappeared. Becoming alert, he strained his mind but to his dismay ‘the bulb did not glow again’. He returned home, but with a mystery why he lost that Eureka moment, under that tree. It was too much to swallow, even for the writer of a non-starter of a page turner, when the blank pages of his notebook appeared to mock at him by lazily turning over. He had forgotten to switch off the fan!

A great mystery descended on him like a cloudburst in the form of his aunt. Pushing the eighties, she was wailing like a hyena. A convoluted thorax generated this voice to utter the words that ended up sounding peculiar. Over a period of time others have learnt to decipher and respond. On deciphering, he understood that she was wailing about her misplaced specs with thick lenses, without which her vision rivalled that of an owl or an oilbird or a nightjar or any nocturnal species, in daytime. Or blind as a bat!

In this condition, she could be an elephant in the China shop or a rhinoceros ready to launch a powerful charge to  end up injuring herself or damaging valuable things or both.

This ‘aunt-sent’ mystery catapulted Imaginch to solve it and in the process to salvage a plot for his page turner. He being her favourite nephew, owed her that much. Right on her nose, though missing the specs, now he had a title “Mystery of the missing spectacles”.

In distress, she volunteered the information on wearing it till bed time yesterday and using it till an hour ago. After comfortably seating her, with a gentle warning not to wander around without an escort, Imaginch got to work on solving the mystery of the missing spectacles, hoping to use that experience to write his page turner. But there was a catch – his aunt habitually wanders around like ants on scouting missions. With no other option available, he decided to retrace her footsteps.

With the old lady seated in the living area, he entered her sanctum sanctorum where she rests for the night. Finding everything in their allotted places, he wondered whether she really slept here or in some other room? He searched for the missing spectacles everywhere, including the underside of the washbasin, behind the doors, other possible hiding spaces in the bathroom and in the dressing table. His surprise findings were - Two old bus tickets. A wheel of a toy car, short strands of wool with beads. A child’s sketch bearing multiple creases along with pebbles of different sizes and hues mocked at him. My dear aunt, what mystery have you kept hidden in these collectibles? He sat on the bed and had a hearty laugh over the collected items.

The next search location was her observation post, the namesake portico which was actually an oversized sunshade. She had a reserved chair to sit and gaze at whatever she wanted. This chair, for reasons unknown, had a double decker construction, probably the chair maker did not want to place full trust on the primary seat.

For the forgetful aunt, this vacant plot offered a lot of parking space. Imaginch’s gingerly pushed his hand inside this space after due deliberation like someone attempting to shake hand with the resident snake. The discovered trinkets rivalled the collection from the bedroom. A tin metal box with coins and a rupee note from the pre-independence era, some hair-clips.an empty scent bottle, bird feathers in different colours, eyes of soft toys, axle with wheels of a toy car and few stamps bearing post office seal….

This time, instead of laughing, he became serious. Why is she collecting these items?  Is it her deep-rooted connection to memories of her or others’ childhood? Is it her expression of unique facets of personal humour and style?  Or is she struggling with defective long or short ribs of the umbrella called dementia? Apart from this mystery, he had a dilemma to find a name for this hobbyist from this list. A maximalist or curio hunter or eccentric collector like an accumulator or pack rat? Imaginch decided it would be easier to search for the spectacles than finding answer to these many questions.

To get some breathing space, he returned to check upon his aunt. To his utter dismay, an empty chair greeted him. From somewhere he heard her voice complaining about something and the absence of a trail of broken articles assured him that she had not participated in some hit or miss incidents. Did this blind as a bat lady had navigated on her own or had someone to help her hearing her peculiar wailing sound? 

From the tone of her voice, he deduced that she might be complaining to his brother about her lost and yet to be found spectacles. His reasoning turning out to be true, he felt doubly confident in tackling the twin tasks of writing the page turner and also finding the missing spectacles. Importantly, he got the clue that his aunt did not yet remember where she had left them!

Still running on the detection spree, he narrowed down to the only place where in all probability the missing article would be found. She has this routine of caressing the leaves and branches of potted plants in the hope that her green fingers, actually a little gnarled, would encourage them to grow hale and hearty. In reality, they were wilting but it did not douse her enthusiasm. Imaginch left his brother to hear and bear aunt’s monologue and went out to search among the potted plants. 

He was confident that the plants would not mind the fact that he did not know their botanical or colloquial names and for him, all short fellows are plants, tall ones are trees and somewhere in between came the species called shrubs.

When he had just introduced himself to the plants, his aunt escorted by his brother came out praising Imaginch and his efforts to find her missing spectacles. Taking it seriously as a criticism and before leaving the spot, his brother retorted, “When did you tell me about your misplaced spectacles, just a few minutes ago. Did you expect a miracle, or do I have a magic wand to find it pronto or presto?” His aunt did not comprehend what had just happened. 

To ease her confusion, Imaginch engaged her in small talk as he continued the search among the plants. To keep him in the know, she kept repeating the names of the plants as the search moved from one pot to another. Imaginch was struck by this mystery - how is she able to identify the pot and the plant without her glasses? Is this her another coping mechanism besides the dementia?

The impatient voice of the servant maid wanting to know whether she could switch on the washing machine or to wait for some more time interrupted further search operations. The mention of the washing machine galvanized Imaginch and he sprang in to action as if touched by a live-wire. Leaving his aunt with her leaves and branches, he dashed in to the utility area and managed to make the frightened maid to leap in the air.

Without wasting words or time, he bent down through the mouth of the machine and started to frantically rummage through the clothes that were patiently waiting to go through the sequence of getting wet, lathered, squeezed, twisted, tumbled and spun in the machine. The head-in-the machine pose of Imaginch reminded the frightened and perplexed maid of a car mechanic with his head stuck under the bonnet.  Having nothing else to do at the moment, she silently enjoyed a smile at her own simile.

His searching hands managed to locate and grasp one leg (technical name - temple) of the frame. With a little manoeuvring, he located the other temple which had cleverly folded itself over the lenses to escape bending or fracture. The moment he lifted the undamaged spectacle out, an immense relief washed over him and to mark this relief goosebumps erupted on his hands.

He did not know whether the spectacles were happy to miss or unhappy about missing the bath. One thing was clear, that his aunt would be happy to get it back and go reticent about how she chose to misplace it, of all the places in the house, inside the washing machine. She peered at him through the retrieved spectacles and said, “I knew you would find it, but did you find out how it got in to the machine?”

Searching for a missing article was not very hard or difficult but searching for the lost memory in his aunt’s mind was akin to chasing an inferior mirage in the Kalahari Desert or getting fooled by the superior polar mirage within the Arctic circle. He used the best defense available to him by uttering the noncommittal “hhoohhuums”

Having collected enough material for his page turner of a mystery, Imaginch sat down to write, after thanking his aunt for giving him the opportunity and his favourite authors for speaking from their pages to tell him that the word “extra” distinguishes the ordinary from the extraordinary, hiding the maximum effort required to earn that distinction.

Imaginch concluded in abject dejection - “There is no mystery, at least about the extraordinary effort required!” He sat thinking about that extraordinary effort.

The almost missed articles: 379

Imaginch was pretty upset after a heated argument with a friend on some inconsequential news item. But such news items were meant to start and end in such an inconsequential outcome except that it always left both huffing and puffing away the excess emotions they managed to stir up. In this agitated state, Imaginch remembered the chore of visiting a ATM, face it and punch the numbers and wait for the outcome- one comes on the screen and another through its mouth (He had often times discussed why a hand like appendage cannot disburse the currency notes!).

At these times, he momentarily lapses into another dimension (he calls daydreaming as an event in another dimension) to imagine what would happen if the ATM had two handlike appendages and in case a person tries to enter the PIN a couple of times how the machine will distinguish a genuine forgetfulness or the wrong person is trying to manipulate it? How would it react? Will it stop further attempts to prevent usage of card for 24 hours by physically obstructing the slot that receives the card? Or, will it catch hold of the person as an imposter and sound suitable alarms?

If you had met him on normal days, he would come across as an erudite, conscientious and ultra-careful person.  For this story, his logic circuit has been taken down for upgradation leaving him day dreaming and there lies the plot of the story!

Carried away by these thoughts, Imaginch approached the first ATM and methodically, without missing any step completed the number punching and waited. He was sure of a +ve outcome as the screen showed currencies in two denominations. The card safely with in its grip, the machine switched over to another screen and started selling that particular bank’s financial instruments. His second attempt met with a stiff message “unable to read”. He wiped the card clean and then tried once again and at that moment the security person gently parted with the information the ATM is out of cash and suggested another ATM within 50 meters. Imaginch, though wanted to but could not quarrel with the machine why it did not say so?

The other ATM might have received the news about this failed attempt, took it upon itself to accept the card, numbers and whirred softly after asking him to collect the card and wait for the cash with winking green light. This winking green light made him furious as the other machine also blinked green but did not dispense cash. He mentally modified the next gen ATMs with two handlike appendages and green and yellow and red winking lights to alert the card user. Green for “collect”, yellow for “nearing lockout” and red for “Xaction locked” or “alarm raised”. While at it, he also wanted the machines all weather visibility to read the card.

With such collection of innovative ideas, Imaginch kept the cash and the card on the jacket’s right-side pocket and holding his cellphone in his left hand, started walking back home. The traffic signal must have been green and vehicle after vehicle sped past offering no chance to crossover from the right-hand side of the road to the left. The U turn where he was aiming to accomplish the crossing looked more busier as vehicles tried to turn from this side to that side and vice versa and as a result Imaginch switched gear to day dreaming to solve these traffic woes for the pedestrians with a sky elevator and a moving belt.

Finally, somewhere the frustrating traffic light switched to red and after a brief interval he found the opportunity to amble through the U turn, reaching the other side. From now on or so he thought it would be a home run.

In the meanwhile, the clouds must have decided enough is enough of the dust and traffic noise and decided to move away. As he took the right turn, little did he realise, anticipate or expect that he was about to walk down and experience a 50-meter-long path of luck. With the sun beating down on his bald pate, he felt a little flushed and decided to open up zipper to get relief from the warmth building up. Carefully he (so he thought) removed the right hand from the pocket and pulled down the zipper while continuing the walk. 

A few paces afterwards, he heard someone calling repeatedly calling “Sir… Sir”. For some unknown reason (he never obliges to such calls) he turned back and saw a bike borne man was frantically signaling him to look at the road. Puzzled, he did so and to his dismay saw the ATM card having a dust bath. Retracing his steps, he scooped up the card, blew the dust off and thanked the good Samaritan and resumed his walk after making a mental note to be careful.

What would have happened if it was not for the good Samaritan? Few more meters with self-tutoring on how he should be careful in future when carrying the ATM card and cash. He chided himself for not staying long enough to profusely thank that kind act. Then he decided to keep the phone safely in the left side pocket of the jacket, which had started to flap in a gust of dust like the sail of a boat, compliments from the nearby construction site contributing the dust and an omni bus with a company decal ferrying employees blowing the dust laden breeze. For some inexplicable reason, he came to a standstill and waited for the dust storm to clear before stowing the cellphone into the pocket.

Normally he would pat-down to ensure, but his attention had strayed over to the persons, a few meters ahead of him, and engaged in a conversation standing near a parked cab. He walked on, after passing the conversationalists, failing to realise the weightlessness of the open jacket merrily flapping in tune with the gentle wind.

Seeing but registering, feeling but not reacting, he trudged on for some more distance. He knew something was amiss but was unable to put a finger on it or keep his hands inside the pockets supposedly occupied by ATM card and cellphone.  A loud horn made him to turn back and saw the two conversationalists were waving their hands vigorously at him. By this time, he had also sensed that his cellphone was not in the jacket’s pocket.

He stood transfixed at his foolishness and carelessness. One of the persons came over with his cellphone, covered in dust. Imaginch was about to open his mouth to express his gratitude, but the person after handing over the phone said, “Sir, we recognised you immediately as we have often seen you walking by. A few moments ago, we saw the bikewallah alerting you about the card that had fallen from your pocket. I and my friend did not expect something like this to happen. Here you are, a lucky man having recovered valuable articles within a few paces. This may not happen the next time. Kindly be careful.”

Imaginch stood speechless forgetting his plan to thank their kindness and for invoking familiarity. He wondered how in the dusty road, I have failed to notice these friends?

FOBU, the fear of becoming Unnecessary: 370

 He felt bad thinking about the way he had brushed aside the friends’ concerns during their previous meeting. Bystander entered the park with purposeful strides, determined to set the score right. The calm atmosphere in the park did not pervade in to his mind as he had a heavy subject to discuss with his friend.

When the friend poured out his woes that his children are not willing to acknowledge his struggles and instead of appreciation, they are treating it as a bad loan to be written off. As a friend, he should have comforted him but had said, “Before you want to criticize someone, better walk a mile in their shoes.” He could have stopped there but pointed out the friend’s sardonic quip “That way you will be a mile away and you will have the shoes!” He did not know why he had repeated his friend’s own words, to him at that time. 

He had continued and lectured him by asking, “Really, can any of us tell the universe to behave as we want it? How incognizant it would be? We extend help thinking someone needs it, but in reality, they may not be. Don’t you realise why in a family, the medal of appreciation is not given?  The children’s valid reason could be to discourage you from continuing with such activities beyond a point.” 

The friend, who was glum became gloomier. With a late attempt in comforting, he had said, “Many of us could understand this unreadable googly. In this situation, I would get off thinking that the inside of my own head would not be the reliable place to hear things I have been refusing to hear. Though, this might sound like an advice cum admonishment.” 

Unable to take it anymore, finally the friend for this friendship’s sake, had silently swallowed his own caustic retort, “How a person standing on his hands could entertain the thought that he is holding the world in his hands?” Of course, Bystander did not know that. 

He greeted the friend and said, “I am really sorry. I should have been more considerate to your concerns, the last time we met.”

The friend replied, “Forget it. I too should not have burdened you with my confused thinking.”

Bystander replied, “All said and done, I should have been more receptive. The last few days I have been spending on reading what other people are saying about this sort of situation. Is it alright to discuss about it now?”

The friend said, “If I am permitted to ask my doubts, go ahead?” 

“Then answer this one. Why did you, knowingly repeated my own words to mean as if I was only interested in getting a pair of shoes, though the context and content were unrelated?” 

Getting a chance to set it right, Bystander said, “I intended it as a suggestion to apprise your situation from a distance. The shoes mentioned was to allude to the other person’s perspective. Hear me, I will discuss what my reading materials say about the FOBU (fear of becoming unnecessary.) 

Generally, parents who can't stop helping their adult children may be struggling with the FOBU. Be it the mother or the father who extend unprompted, unsolicited help just to make sure. This helping does not stop there but continues by taking care of doctor appointments and extending to financial assistance.  The parents call it love. The whole culture is set up to call it love. It often isn’t.”

The friend queried, “How can it be not love?”

“Because love is imaginary in the sense that the real person acts as the template for the mind to construct that lovable personality as it wants or comfortable with. And it does not stop being only love, but becomes an expectation for reciprocation. This combination sows the seeds of FOBU.

Underneath this visible kindness there is something that the parents fail to see clearly - a quiet, accumulating fear that if they stop being needed and then they stop being anyone at all. This is the fear of being left alone. When twilight fades, stars become visible but when dawn fades what you feel will be the harsh reality of life.” 

The friend asked, “Are you trying to blame me for this situation?”

“No. It is the helicopter parenting, of course with love, of children during their emerging adulthood. It only undermines, their natural development. But how this helicopter takes to the air? By the parents fueling it with their regrets, anxieties, driven by prevention is better than cure focus, and fearing a failure in their own parental efforts.”

“Why this fear of parents should be blamed for this situation?”

They fear witnessing the failures of their children. Fear of receiving the call they don’t want to get. There is one thing that they don’t say out aloud - what they themselves would become when the children no longer need them. For parents, being needed actually gives a clear, continuing reason to exist. They try to cling on to the ‘something’ acquired from about twenty years of parenting which ‘something’ the rest of their life rarely might bring.

What is that ‘something’? Satisfaction of solving small problems, signing of forms. Attending to a scraped knee, comforting after a bad dream., averting a pending homework crisis and so on. The needs roll in, one after another. This leaves no room for the doubt whether this parenting life has meaning or not as the meaning itself shows up in person, three times a day, asking for things. This is the most direct evidence for a parent’s purposeful life. Though parenting is exhausting, this regimen leaves a parent with the most solid sense of self.”

“Why do the children push back and don’t appreciate the efforts of parents?” 

“A good question. Being part of nature, don’t we have to cope up with its vagaries? How can we escape its influence?  We help thinking someone needs it without ascertaining the necessity, when the individual might be capable of managing without that help. In a subtle way, the children signal the parents to stop such activities by not appreciating and bestowing medals.” 

“When nothing has changed with the parents, why the children must change as they grow up. Is it not hurting?”

“The expert opinion here is, the needs of children taper out and the dependence on parental help becomes sporadic. It is time for the parent to retire from the job of parenting, though it helped the parent to accumulate twenty odd years of parental identity. This destined-to-occur retirement quietly takes away that identity without substituting with another similar task insight.  This begins the hurt and fear of becoming unuseful.

The now-free parent starts to think, who am I, not needed anymore and if I let it go, now what would be there left for me? This worried mind unconsciously begins to bargain for opportunities to be once again useful. As a parent am I not ready to find things to do for them and play an active role.? From your outside perspective this readiness might look like generosity. From the insider’s perspective much of it is a quiet defense against the doubt and dilemma – What have I become to them?”

The friend who remained quietly listening asked, “What would you do in such a situation?”

“This dilemma occupied my mind for some time, but by accepting this natural outcome, I changed my approach with diversions.  There are many innocuous ways one can occupy the mind. My thinking after this pause was to fill up the chasm with grandchildren and without becoming a helicopter grandparent. Once was enough, remembering these kids too come with their own priorities.

It was quite a revelation to the friend’s facial expressions did not hide it. He might be hastily reevaluating his perceived opinion about Bystander as a person - condescending and curt.

Becoming eager to know more, he asked, “What goes on in the adult child’s mind to bring a parent this dilemma?”

“The child’s first priority is to try and become an adult. Meaning “to get out of parental care as quickly as possible’ and I want to manage myself urge. Determination to breathe easy and build up trust and self-confidence to handle things without help.

The root cause lies with the well-meaning parents who have managed to undermine the growing-up child by unintentionally embedding the message that ‘I don’t believe you can do this by yourself’, even when it was not meant to covey it that way.

This actually costs the adult child. The fear of making mistakes or causing displeasure to parents has been growing in the mind since childhood. Losing trust, self-confidence and ability, the child needed the parent’s involvement to feel okay about every decision to be taken.  Becomes habituated to consult before acting. The long-term effect is, as an adult in the thirties, fails to act on own judgement, because someone can be relied upon to verify it. This is a dependency creating cycle. The now-adult starts ruing about the lack of internal resources and own failure to create it due to the habit of passing on the problem to a parent for a solution. Is it not very late in the game for the now-adult to regret?

Now, as a result there are two sets of people locked together by a fear, neither of them are prepared to acknowledge and name it.

The competent thirtyish adult feels like one who is still waiting for permission with the fear of making mistakes or causing displeasure or becoming a failure in the eyes of parents.

The parent who steadfastly hold to the feeling that being needed is the proof of their usefulness in life and is still worth something. The parent is not the villain, but with deep love prepared to do anything for the child. Whatever is done is not out of cruelty or desire to control.”

“Do you mean to say the blame lies only with the parents?” The friend asked.

“If you dispassionately think, the answer is YES.  At that age, as a parent their experience and maturity level would have been better than that of the child, they were bringing up. Continuing in the same vein, the parent stands today questioning: Have I become redundant and less useful?

Continuing to help the thirtyish adult is because of the inability of a parent to process the grief over ending of decades long identity and is directionless about what to do with the second half of life when the first half was spent being indispensable. This fear takes over from love and brings up a face-saving logic in the mind of a parent who feels being not needed to help anymore - The helping is for me as much as for them.”

Overwhelmed, the friend meekly asked, “You always quote from a famous personality; have any that fits this situation?” 

“Yes. Try what the great Wolfgang Goethe asked: “If I love you, what business is it of yours?” I will twist it a little like what you did once, to mean, “If you have expectations, what business is that of the recipient? or If you are experiencing trepidations, what business is it of others? and so on. The bottom line is, if you want to encompass everyone, then you have to distance yourselves from everyone! You don’t need permission, validation or even a response. It is too late for us old timers, but the youngsters might well be practicing it right now, starting with the old timers.”

Needless to say, a heavy curtain of silence fell between Bystander and his friend. The former in satisfaction of having set the score right and the latter in trying to understand the implications of whatever he had just heard.

Mischievous miscellany -5 #369 #

 

Head to foot - A retiree’s dilemma: 

 Head to foot the ignored health signals did their homework. Playing the game of patience, they gathered strength, practiced mergers and acquisitions, ready to emerge as symptoms and ailments. Their green signal moment came when retirement knocked on the door. 

With free time on hand, the retiree comes under the relentless attacks of these fortified health signals. One by one they surfaced out of the pack. Like the slow-moving serpentine queue, the retiree catches a mild fever which ends up with a facetime with needles and diagnostic machines. He leaves with a bunch of papers carrying test results and worries. 

Test results confuse the consulting doctor and the patient in equal measures, but the doctor opens his escape route and shuttles the retiree to a specialist. Such is the care, the specialist prefers another set of labs, machines and reports.  After reviewing the reports, the specialist opts for a wait and watch approach, backed by a list of medicines and schedules for a facetime to review the progress, after a week. Due to hectic schedule, the specialist had no time to verify the prescribed tablets/ capsules against the manufacture’s packing. The retiree ends up in a dilemma whether to procure the medicine as per the doctor’s prescription or go with the manufacturers’ packaging scheme. 

With trepidation, for the after a week review schedule, the patient approaches the counter. The receptionist was busy, speaking to someone on cellphone. The retiree casts a quick glance, at the worried and mildly impatient faces squirming in their seats manages to accelerate his heart to exceed its pumping pressure and beat-limit. The retiree, having nothing else to do, skims through the reports pertaining to the first consultation comparing it with the current reports, hoping to dig out the clue to the ailment by himself. 

He spends time in trying to decipher the test values against standard parameters to end up with a list of possible syndromes and diseases. Becoming sufficiently frightened, he powers down the cellphone, shoves the reports into the folder that came thoughtfully as a free issue to get free advertisement. He reached the pinnacle of his nervousness when the staff nurse came to take BP measurements and quietly vanished without telling him the marks he had scored. The retiree encouraged by his heart beating against the rib cage, suspected that the staff nurse was walking away with a faint shaking of her head. 

As soon as the retiree entered the room, the specialist indicated a chair and turned to look at his desktop. Seconds silently ticked to accumulate into minutes. The facial dynamics of the specialist sent scare-waves into the patient's mind. How would he know that the doctor was looking at another patient's details? Then pulling out the test reports he underlined, queried and circled some parameters. Though still under the grip of nervousness, the retiree allowed himself to silently mouth a satirical comment “How many marks are you going to award the test reports.” 

The suspense came to an end, when the doctor once again glancing at the spread pages of the reports, gave his opinion – “let us review after another week, as I have modified the list and dosages of medicines. The retiree only hoped that this time himself, the doctor and the manufacturer of the medicines would be on the same strip of tablets/capsules! 

The specialist was still tinkering with the prescription and by now the retiree settling into a predictable, rhythm, had started to like the harmless doctor (he had not come up with a surgical strike suggestion) and the cafeteria.  More often, they met in the cafeteria either in it or entering it or exiting from it. Waiting for a favourable day, his better half developed a dry cough. They chose the same lab, testing machines and with reports opted to consult the same specialist. Initially, the specialist thought his regular patient had come for an out of turn consult but was taken aback on knowing that it was the wife who would be his patient. He right away dismissed the reports commenting, “These reports are ok. But I would be confident if you complete these tests in this lab and by these machines and be back tomorrow.” 

The retiree’s familiarity with this specialist had miserably failed to work its magic. What made the retiree to get upset was the suggested tests were a repeat of whatever had already been done, with a few more added maybe to show who among them was the doctor. The retiree decided to do something else worthwhile with his free time on hand, after completing the cycle to cure his better-half’s dry cough. 

A cry in the void (Les Misérables or the miserable ones) 

Honesty costs less, illusion costs much more. Opiniated people mistakenly think that their mere presence in the room guarantees a company of followers.  These opinion-speakers deserve the cautious distaste one would show when looking at a leaking battery. 

The current affairs in the world are like a game of rummy with a deck of cards, liberally populated with jokers. The players could walk-in from any walk of life. The game requires the players to sit on their chosen moral ground with ample flair and capable of conjuring up selective amnesia at the speed of light.                                                      

Adding spice to the goulash, “the jokers" who have no control over their thinking and speaking faculties will join the game. With their conscience floating inside an anatomical jar, they think that anything is passable, as long as it does not concern them. Today’s opinion-speakers are fortunate in that the ever-hungry media is constantly on the prowl, shadowing them with glitz and glare. Media belabours under the fantasy that with print and digital wands it can change the course of history, instead enriching the content of discourse. 

To sustain the population with these nutritional dosages, a variety crop of opinion-speakers emerges and spread like weeds.  Citizens gasp for truth and politicos grasp for straws. The world at large becomes a laughingstock. The opinion-speakers are blind to the fact that mainstream media and its offshoots are making a killing in the process, while hiding their real intent and purpose.  A wise man once said, “Repeat a lie many times over, you yourself would wonder what the truth is?” The pity is the speakers have become immune to even such ancient wisdom and happily go on peddling stretched deficiencies while compressing the positives 

For the opinion-speakers, borders between countries does not exist. They airlift their sympathy and lend support to local issues which in no way concerns them. Slowly, the borders between countries merge and they eye on the nearby continental mass. There is nothing to stop them from en circling the globe!

The popularity of these opinion-speakers catches the eyes of politicos and find them useful as Toolkits. The politicos share their wisdom with the Toolkits, once in a while, to keep the pot well stirred and boiling. Not to be left behind, some elected governments wait for a suitable time, to dispatch a special emissary with a brief (and Toolkits, if not already in position) to make some noise behind closed doors and to carry out mic testing for public consumption. The eyes of special emissary keep sweeping the landscape looking for avenues to expand trade & investment.

Etiquette demands refrain from acting in such a manner but then how a nation will advance its interest! The emissary’s itinerary and agenda (not the bargaining part) are released to the press. The emissary and his/her government fervently hope that the host government has not arranged for a mirror-show to project the real image of the emissary or the government as perceived by the host!

Why people always poke their noses in places where they are ill placed or ill informed? What else will they do after wearing coloured myopic spectacles or being frustrated in not getting the mandate to rule or being humiliated by not being recognised for a Nobel Prize?

Unsolicited advice and policy statements, from guest speakers standing on foreign soils, will it not expose   to the audience the maturity level of the speaker and end up showing their nation in poor light? What would be the reaction of the audience if the same medicine is delivered to the host nation? When will these opinion-speakers learn that geo-politics happen behind closed doors and not in the of midst unwanted ears. 

Regional biases. Fear of being overshadowed. Fear of being ignored. Forced to play along to keep these opinion-speakers on steroids. Need to take personal ego-trips. Compulsion to go on power hunting. Anyone dispassionately digging deep would find many other triggers for this nose-in-other’s affair disease (NIOAD).

The opinionated ones do not realise even the universe has a frame of reference, within which only it reveals its secrets. Driven by I K I A S (I Know It All syndrome), the opiniated people happily make a reference frame convenient to them and judge others with this in-built bias. Objectivity getting subjugated by prejudice does not fit in the working of their reference frame.  They are ready to hold a mirror to others, by side stepping from the line of sight of the same. At least they can learn to practice before it and then speak out their minds.

Would it not be better to leave others to think in their own convenient ways? Is there a single drug to cure all diseases?

Lastly, how these opinion-speakers get traction? The inducted vibration due to empathy or apathy and fueled by simmering bias prevents uncomfortable questions from being asked about the opinion-speakers, their relevance and basis. There lies the answer. By quirk of fate, the opinion-speakers and opinion-echoers come together, over long distances, for want of nothing better to do except airing opinions!

Mischievous miscellany-4 # 368#

The agony of found, lost and critics:

Inspiration and creativity go hand in hand as light and shadow. At times a befuddled mind gets confused to distinguish which is what. More often than not, when an inspiration shows a spark, the needed material like a piece of paper to scribble it on might not be on hand. 

Try to capture it as a point in memory, it plays truant and makes that spark inaccessible. Creativity has no other go but to wait for it to resurface or for another inspiration to make its leisurely appearance. Probably this is the beginning of a writer's block!

The cloud burst or fizzled out rain drops, avalanche or floating snowflakes - an inspired spark can affect creativity, be it writing, art or music. 

Inspiration and creativity pivots around a single objective - admirers. Admirers play the vital role of nurturing creativity in any form.

Inspired imagination makes the child to draw shapes as pleased, admires it as perfect and as an art of a maestro. Parents join only to encourage. A third person might view it as awkwardly drawn lines and a waste of paper and crayon. Here comes another perception in the cloak of a critique.

Creative works by grown-ups is saddled with the weight of carrying the expectations of casual, serious, dismissive readers and critics ready to do a laser surgery. These laser surgeons have no kindness toward a budding creator. The critics might be thinking about ways to reduce the clumps and clusters from the market.

The disheartened creators, hope for another brilliant flash of inspiration. Now, it is the chance for that inspiration to play hide, scoot and then seek in the mind. Words become reluctant not to form into sentences. They have to be dragged out or scratched out to start afresh.

After a few scratched attempts, the surviving sentence reads anaemic lacking the punch. The artist goes through a similar experience with palette and paint on the canvas. The inspired hues do not come out, the picture in the mind refuses to come to life and so on.

Song writers suffer splitting headache by looking at a blank paper, without the words to rhyme with rhythm.  In effect the song writer has to play the role of a word arranger even before a music arranger gets to work with meters and notations that are only symbols to the song writer.

Yet these passionate individuals trudge, toil and produce a work product. In fact, if some experienced writer takes it up to write about their struggles, it would come out as a best seller.

The irony haunting a budding author or artist or song writer, is the indigestion of admirers or appreciators, when it comes to spare a nod, a read or a clap. Their reasons might well be - shy to shake hand with the unknown or have already burnt candles and fingers in an earlier attempt to extend support to a budding clan or thinking why at all to bother with.

The seven layers of “Can we do it?”:

 Taken at face value, a very friendly inviting sentence. Behind the scenes a few traps might be hanging.  If we can peel back the layers, we might get to know the real intent and purpose of this inviting "Can we do it?" 

Layer one: 

Unsure or not having a S O P, the inviter floats a balloon to attract willing minds to help out. The invite might end after shaping the S O P, if further help is not needed. 

Layer two:

It must be something beyond the S O P. Probably to draw willing minds into a brainstorm for the sake of friendship or relationship. Might or might not end here! 

Layer three:

After the brainstorming, the inviter might be aiming to co-opt the energy of the willing mind and hands, in the name of synergy in executing the S O P. A subtle hint that you may have to dirty your hands. 

Layer four: 

If the inviter is after a name for self, a carefully couched, 'I think, I can handle it from here onwards, thanks' to signal a ‘now, get off the train.’ 

Layer five:

Fearing an egg on the face, the inviter cheerfully declares, ' If you don't mind, can you complete it?'. Rejoice. You have been chosen as the eggshell breaker! 

Layer six: 

“Yes, you have the right approach and I fully agree.”  When the inviter does not want to do it but is saddled with the task, then whatever you suggest will be accepted with alarming magnanimity. This is a warning signal to beat a hasty retreat and if you drag your feet, then headache is all yours. 

Layer seven:

This is where you do an introspection. Why did you rush to respond? Why could you not assess the implications of the invite, which could have actually meant a ‘can you do it or ‘let us do it?? Why did not you walk out, when the intent has become clear? 

Don't reply that you are distancing yourself from the above questions! Remember you are not a politician. 

Talk in the park:

Bystander was pleasantly surprised at the beauty of the renovated park. He had been away and thereby a long gap fell between him and his favourite park. Butterflies winging on their flight paths over the flower beds, grasshoppers practicing high jumps and few dung beetles beating their drums with mandibles and antennae gave the atmosphere a kind of serenity. During a leisurely stroll, the flood of memories about many friendly and sometimes heated discussions that took place here, filled his mind. With these thoughts, he started searching for at least one familiar from among the many populating the park.

He was in luck. A friend from that discussion group was sitting on a bench, at the other end of the park. He hurried, brimming with joy, to meet greet and exchange some old yarns. But the not so happy face of the friend stirred a bit of concern in him. This particular friend was always cheerful and tried to lighten the dark moods in others with a bit of humour, satire and philosophy.

Bystander reminisced -

Once, this friend asked, “What is common between a fisherman and a cricketer?” The others present did not reply but with serious faces asked,” Do tell”

With a childlike glee he answered, “Glums, it is the net-practice and catch!”

Another time, parted with this advice to another friend, “Before deciding to criticize someone, better walk a mile in their shoes.”  Puzzled, the other man asked, “Why should I do that?”

Twisting a proverb in to a satire he sardonically replied, “That way you will be a mile away and will have the shoes too!” Needless to say, the irony or satire was lost on the assembled friends.

On the other hand, his philosophy was neither the metaphysical nor materialistic.  Once questioned, this friend had quipped, “You can see something as a material but cannot visualise the underlying metaphysical concept in it. The beauty present in one may or may not be felt by you in the other, is it not?”. 

Bystander noted the absence of these traits and as if the friend wanted to remain reticent, and felt the need  to ferret him out of the rut, even by force.  Settling down, Bystander asked him, “Why are you looking so glum?”

“How else should I look? You are well aware of the struggles I had undergone to get them off on to a good footing? If not willing to acknowledge and appreciate them, at least they should not attempt to begrudge and write-off my efforts as bad loans. 

Bystander understood that this unbecoming attitude of his son and daughter had deeply hurt his friend. Maybe, after enduring all the hardships, he might have been expecting at least an acknowledgement, if not praise. Not to leave his friend to wallow in this pit of self-pity, he hastened to engage him with general platitudes without hurting his feelings further more.  “We think someone needs our help but in reality, they may not. In a family, the medal of appreciation is not given for a valid reason. It is to discourage continuing with such activities beyond a point. The crux of the matter is to find out the “why”. Is it because they themselves did not get appreciated for their current efforts or have they chosen to go in denial mode overwhelmed by envy that you have done it and they could not." 

His friend calmly looked at him and said, “Are you speaking in general or after understanding my family matrix?” 

“My understanding of your family matrix has nothing to do with whatever I have just said. But coming back to the issue, I have only this to say - be more interested in the future as you know the past is not a wall clock that could be reset at will!” 

His friend refrained from asking, “whose future?” fearing another load of future-wise sayings. Changing the topic, his friend asked, “Why people who start with an ideal, pursue it for some time and then abandon it altogether?” 

Now it was Bystander’s turn to blink. Unknown context made him to hesitate, but his nature did not allow him to remain silent. He thought about “How to comfort a person valuing perception over acceptance? Why is he finding it difficult to accept that all the perceptions and emotions border on the metaphysical discipline?” 

Gearing up, Bystander said, “It is like digging a pit and then trying to close it up, without thinking about what to do with the soil that would surely be left-over? When an ideal is pursued and then abandoned, surely that person has to deal with helplessness like the left-over soil. Had the pit digger foreseen this possibility, would we be talking about it now? An ideal should remain locked in the mind, till such time the plan to execute it flawlessly has not been firmed up. Maybe, you would be comfortable with this explanation!” 

Bystander continued, “None of us could understand this unreadable googly and yet cannot remain passive. Think of these two things – How could you get the oil out, without digging a deep well? In reality, can any of us tell the universe to mind its business? How incognizant it would be?” 

The friend regretted   opening the can full of condescending worms. He did not understand any of the above explanations as to content or context. He played dumb and asked, “In this situation what you would have done?” 

Bystander’s reply was prompt and confusing. “I would get off thinking like this. My own head would not be the reliable place to hear things that I have been refusing to hear.” 

The friend did the next best thing possible. He bade a hasty goodbye and left Bystander wondering “did I annoy him?”

The friend thought to himself, “I should have told him that a person standing on his hands should not be carried away by the thought that he is holding the world in his hands!” He dismissed the idea as it was too long even to say it within himself. But by that time, he decided to say it aloud, Bystander was a diminishing figure in the distance.

A bridge over the generation gap: 367

ChintaMany is driven by two things. Worries in the first place and curiosity coming in the second place. When getting tired of worrying about worries, he turns his attention to curiosity to relax the frayed nerves. Curiosity time took him on a visit to the realm of science & technology and the subject it picked up was on bridges. Dismissing further suggestions from his curiosity, he chose the Chenab rail bridge to let his mind to dwell up on the world's highest railway arch bridge. Looking down from it, he stared at the 359 meters drop to the flowing river and from the riverbed. From the ground up, he knew it stood 35 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower. Its span length of 1,315 meters and includes a 785 m arch span. A bridge bridging the gap with steely determination. 

Built to withstand extreme wind speeds up to 266 km/h and engineered to withstand major earthquakes up to magnitude 8, blast loads equivalent to 40 t of TNT, function in extreme cold down to -20°C with an estimated service life of 120 years. Along with other major engineering structures it completes the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) for operating train services across the region to connect people and trade. 

The arch span of 785m and the longevity of 120 years under severe service conditions, set him to think about the bridge of a different kind.  He repurposed his curiosity to explore the characteristics of this bridge built with human emotion and, if fortunate, having the possibility of serving generations up to 120 years during the constructor’s lifetime. 

Grandparents have been acting as the bridge between their children and grandchildren, spanning over the generation gap. The bridge on the Chenab might be the tallest engineering marvel but looks ordinary when compared with any grandparents’ biological marvel. 

This biological bridge conjured up by the grandparents is built with emotion and is by far better than the one constructed with cold, feelingless iron over the river Chenab. Water flows under the Chenab bridge while feelings of love and care engulf the bridge itself. ChintaMany imagined that at the most 3 sets of grandparent-grandchildren combination will be using this bridge. The question of how it is possible was deftly answered by him, “Considering the parents of Mother and Father of the children the head count of grandparents increases thereby improving the probability!” 

The bridge of the grandparents has its positives and headaches. With the free pass a grand child gets from grandparents, the child finds itself in the world (universe might sound a bit cliche) of toys, books, dresses. The grandparents are ever ready to fire this time-tested missile, whenever the grandchild finds itself in lukewarm or hot water – “at that age while toting a lighter schoolbag what did you manage to do, better than this? The truth that the parents might have done better just got devalued to come out in support of the grandchild. 

On becoming a parent, the same child which enjoyed many grandparental parachuted bail-outs and having had a free run during the academic years, straps this “now” child in a rollercoaster. For this ‘now’ child, the after-school hour timetable becomes longer than the school schedule. Here is where, the ‘now’ grandparents chose to step in to give a breather. "Don't rob the childhood in order to catch up with the buses you had missed. You plodded through a lighter curriculum. Standing on the shore, you cannot judge the depth of an ocean and likewise don’t try to fathom what a child thinks!"

This “now” child on becoming a parent, after enjoying as many free runs as the grandparents allowed, now tries to secure the child in a warp drive zipping onwards on the academic travel. The child finds the coaching classes and competitive exams take more hours than a day has and wonders whether to borrow or write it off. When off key academic performances and overstaying in the realm of Smart devices disturb the parent, the grandparents provide an umbrage – “Cool your jets. In your times neither you nor these devices were smart.  Don't rob on the silk too much, static charge might sting!" This safety net of a Kevlar vest and an Iron dome defense very effectively takes care of the bullets and drone attacks launched by the parent.

For this child of the warp drive fame, it is change of guard time. On becoming a parent, invoking amnesia the parent subjects the child to a regimen of academic processes. This quarter-master sergeant turned parent gets out ranked by the child’s grandparents wielding overruling batons. The grandparents metamorphose and swoop in like a transformer character to help the child in distress. “Don’t you people know that times have drastically changed from your textbooks to the ‘now’ books? What you struggled to understand in college, now they do it in 5^th or 6^th grade. Help the child to grasp and cope up without pouring out your vintage gripe”

For good measure the grandparents asked. " Will not the present ‘now’ become the later and carry this forward? Do you want that the later should become the now, starting an unending cycle!" The child did not grasp the grandparents’ convoluted philosophy, but it appeared that they are intent on keeping the bridge passing overhead of a generation, without bumps for a smooth drive. The child wondered to which parents’ side of grandparents this philosophy will get attributed to?”

Grandparenthood could happen at the age of 55-60. If this being the case, ChintaMany felt the need to work out the math to find out whether this emotional bridge will last 120 years as he had thought earlier. Losing further interest in the curiosity, he picked up the worry where did he go wrong?

Are the grandparents trying to correct how they had dealt with their children?  If feelings belong only to that person, can someone else scrutinise it? Is an emotion valid only if someone allows it to be shown? Who can judge the act of a loving someone, without demanding anything in return, as beneficial or not? Don’t they have the child’s mental wellbeing also in mind?

Are the parents trying to implement what they had been subjected to? Or the overly concerned parents appear to act tough to secure the child’s future?

Whether the “now” children will ever think of following a different approach? Who would know, what this ‘subjected’ child thinks?

Iterating everything in his mind, ChintaMany came to the conclusion that it is best to leave it to the grandparents and the parents who think and act with the best interest of the child in mind., hoping the child would make the best use of both!