Head to
foot - A retiree’s dilemma:
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!
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