Meeting a monk in the times of ‘my dharma versus your religion’ 

The first trivia that crossed my mind after meeting Gyanbodhi was –if I were to wear a robe like his, it will create so much space in my tiny flat; save my time, money and energy.

Keeping a wardrobe is a job that consumes time and energy-like any other job. And, it doesn’t pay!

So does the rest of paraphernalia.

That these are time -devouring traps-- is another matter.           

At a time when religious identities are inciting a war of the babble; constitutional amendments are dividing masses (in the absence of an informed debate the power of hypocrisy and ignorance reign), I meet a monk who lives by dharma, and makes no fuss about it.

Gyanbodhi was Ranvireshwar Singh before he changed to the robes of a Buddhist monk. Son of a senior IAS officer, whose siblings have followed the family legacy by entering the IAS and IPS cadre, he charted out a path people seldom tread. He too cleared the IRS, just to please his father, but changed the course to follow his true calling.  

How many of us have the conviction and courage to listen to our own ‘will’. Conditioned by expectations of the family and peer group, we succumb to the demands of the world—read material success.

For Gyanbodhi, the realisation that he did not wish to be in the rat race was growing since his childhood, as he came of age, he acted on it.  

Most of us live the life of a juvenile for most part of our adulthood; we fail to come out of the ‘pleasing the other’—from parents, spouse, bosses, ideology or the absence of it, to the lure of branded goods. At best, we become a good, obedient herd.   

To be a strong individual is to invite trouble from the herd!

It must have been hard to resist so much temptation, I ask the monk. And become aware of the stupidity of my question, as I utter it.

Is it easy to live by others’ expectations and never to know what we were meant to be! To never be in touch with the inner chord! To keep falling to the temptations— carved out by the times we live in!

I’ve met great achievers in the course of my life—artists, writers, scientists et al. Somewhere, as you scratch a bit deeper, you get to hear the same refrain! They sound alike.

And what does the monk say! Nothing! He doesn’t explain his position. He’s just there, effortless. I could see, he’s comfortable in his robes he chose over a life of temptations and complications.

Renunciation may not be the path most of us would like to choose, but do we follow our dharma, wherever we are?

He lives by his dharma, that is, living by conviction and sincerity--a frugal life, avoiding extremes, following the middle path.

Not long ago, one learnt about one’s dharma, at home, by imbibing values that were good for the self and society. We didn’t need pompous representatives to brand our dharma, by brandishing flags of specific colours. Most of us have lost our dharma, by making it an object of street fights. 

The monk who lives by his dharma spends time meditating and reading and analysing the Buddhist history and philosophy. He doesn’t have to prove anything.

I spent ‘timeless’ hours in his company and felt at ease.

And returned to the cacophony created around dharma—my dharma is better than yours.

 Dharma, in its narrowest denomination—as religion-- gets currency but loses value.

A monk quietly walking on the footpath is ignored by the chaotic traffic moving in opposite direction.

ICU Diaries

                                           View from the window

“...water, stories, the body

all the things we do, are mediums

that hide and show what’s hidden.

Study them,

and enjoy this being washed

with a secret we sometimes know,

and then not.”

Rumi

ICU Diaries- I

Javed! Chai piyega!

PHONES ARE NOT ALLOWED INSIDE THE ICU. I still managed to click a picture. A good one. Even when I’m struggling with scant (so it seemed, then) breaths, I couldn’t compromise on aesthetics.

Curiosity killed the cat!

No!

My sister forbade me from keeping any memory of that ‘bad dream.’ That ‘nightmare’. I deleted the picture obediently.

See, there I contradict myself. 

Most of the time, my eyes are closed. There is nothing pleasant inside an ICU. Nothing, you would like to ‘see’ against the will of your weakening body. And there are sounds you couldn’t avoid. The irritating beeps of the monitors, the strangely Aurangzeb devised alarm systems that would go every 45 minutes torturing my ears—reminding the nurse to check the BP, and the incessant chatter of the nurses.

Overriding these noises, is the loud call for Javed, I keep hearing all the time. Javed! Chai piyega! Javed! Aankhen khol! Javed! Dekh kaun aaya hai!

I wonder who are these people?

Mostly, no one talks to the patients. Most of them, I presume, are like vegetables. Never heard anyone complain or call for help.

Except the shout out for Javed.

I am curious!

I’m struggling with my breathing which is getting worse in the absence of a proper diagnosis.

Then I hear one more patient being talked to-- nervously, feverishly. “Everyone is waiting for you at home.” “See, who’s come with me” “Open your eyes for once”. After a few hours, it’s followed by loud shrieks of a lady, accusing the doctors.

The nurses know, I’m the only one conscious and awake. Quickly the door to my isolation ward is shut.

Yes, I’m in isolation. They aren’t able to figure out what is my ailment. They suspect H1V1. I ask the doctor, isn’t it the work permit for USA?

He’s serious type. He says, no, it’s known as Swine Flu.

God! Don’t hit me with such a bad sounding disease. Please!

The sounds I get to hear are not encouraging. I’m unable to sleep.

The nurses won’t tell me anything about Javed.

I’m happy, I’m curious about something-- even here, even now.

I ask my ex, when he visits me. In his next visit, he gives me all the details. Once the prefix ‘ex’ is added, they become conciliatory.

 Javed is a 26- year- old boy from a village near Saharanpur, whose liver and kidneys are failed by a mosquito called Dangue. His family has borrowed money to pay a whopping Rs 6 lakh bill, which is still rising. The doctors have begun to counsel the family to take him home.

I will miss the only sound that resonates with some life-- Javed! Chai Piyega.

 I’m beginning to get apprehensive about my life.

Somewhere between struggled breaths, I tell myself, I’ve lived a good life.

No one has to shout out, “ Vandana! Aur jiyagi!”

ICU Diaries-II    

My myopic eyes recognise a friend

But the noise within! How do you listen!

The nurse on night duty tells me, you call someone in your sleep. Then she adds, “You’re  angry, you shout at someone, you’re very angry.”

I feel like I’m caught cheating.

I’m cheating on life.  

I slip into deep silence. 

Everything has become monotonous. My suffering too. I’m growing stoic. Indifferent. Cold. The worst, it robs me of dignity. My personality. Personal and private turn out to be mere notions; to be dropped.

I’ve no resistance left.    

The only unpredictability here is the most predictable closure-death! Rest is the same everyday—day after day. It seems like eternity. I’ve lost track of days and dates. And I’m not interested.

It began with one doctor. She was joined by another one. Then another. Now, a team of doctors visits me around noon. They discuss my ‘case’, peering through files, more being added with each passing day and more blood sucked out of my veins. I’m unable to decide what hurts me more—breathing or the swollen, aching arms.

I FEEL CHAINED, TRAPPED AND HELPLESS.

I THINK OF EUTHNASIA. (I had written editorials favouring it. I’m entitled.)

But, in my moments of clarity, I look out at the window across the ward-- visible when the door to my room is left open. Sometimes I get to see a beautiful sun set. For few days, it rained. My sun was eclipsed.

Right next to the window, an old sardarji is in coma, on ventilators, he’s being fed on tubes. My mind registers a lot going around that bed-- the way nurses treat him, the way he’s given a sponge, his sheets being changed, even a physiotherapist comes to move his limbs and beat his back. I see it all, without reaction. Sometimes a nurse pulls his beard. As a reflex, he raises an arm. Nurses laugh.

A hundred shades of humanity!

 A young boy—of about 23-24 is taken out with his bed, he’s never conscious, a doctor pumps something shaped like a heart while his bed is moved.

Then, I don’t see him.

The nurses look like Donald Ducks, with their funny mask they wear when they enter my room-- fearing contagion. I feel amused. 

My other moment of liberation is-- when I’m taken out for X-Ray. The nurse forces me to wear an ugly looking cap (ugliness is the rule here, not exception) because my hair is too dishevelled. I hate it. I remove it anyway, on the way. The wheel chair is attached to an oxygen cylinder—my lifeline. I like this tiny window of liberation—turning right, then the lift, then again a right turn and left. Even though this exercise leaves me weaker and with laboured breathing, I like it. I slip into sleep after each visit.

I’m without my glasses, wheeled out for X- Ray. I spot a familiar figure--all white hair and that huge paunch! Yes, even without glasses I know, that’s unmistakably my friend!

He’s not allowed inside the ICU. He just stood there, hoping to get a glimpse.

I forgot, I could infect him. I clung to his paunch like a child.

He walked with my wheel chair to the X- Ray room.

It made my day!   

I felt alive.

ICU diary-3

God comes to ICU

Finally, the lab report declares, it’s not swine flu. The Donald Duck masks are removed. I can see their real faces. 

It’s not good news for me though. Its viral pneumonia and type one Influenza, and my body reacted to all but one anti -biotic. The ‘case’ if now transferred to a chest- specialist, who turns out to be a pleasant person. And he talks to me as well as with the files.

The blood-sucking team comes at 4 in the morning. At 6 they give-- what they call-- ‘caring’, which is insensitively  uncaring. They haven’t figured out in so many days, what to do with my hair so that it doesn’t hurt. The caretaker pulls my tangled hair, my head hurts. Against all my protests, she disciplines them into two plaits, to make her job easy for the next morning. My head and hair both resist tying up. I undo the plaits.  

The striped hospital uniform suffocates my skin. I feel like prisoner no 9, shifted from bed No. 6. This is how they talk about you. Bed no.9.

 The next round of blood suckers visits at around 12, then at 4. In between there are nurses, senior nurses, supervisors and few doctors, looking for the elusive veins in my thrombiotic arms where they could insert the cannula for IV injections. Sometimes they prick 7 to 8 times. It’s the best way to get lessons on being stoic. You bear pain, look at the arm as though it belonged to someone else. The suffering is yours though.

And any Indian worth her salt wouldn’t avoid wondering about the karmic connection of it. 

I call it pooja ki thali—the tray with instruments used for sucking blood—for sacrifice. These are Navratras. After all, Goddess Kali likes offering of blood!

The person I could not manage to humour—the dietician—must have been a rare find by the HR. They must have worked extra hard to spot a person like her in a country of 1.3 billion--so unpleasant that her mere presence could prolong a patient’s stay in hospital by a few more days.

Sometimes I hide my face under a sheet to avoid her irritating presence.

“ Aaj aap kaisa feel kal rahi hain,” she repeats a 100^th time.

“Preparing for a marathon,” I say, piqued.

  She is also thick skulled.

“ Oh! That’s good. You like the food.”

“ No, I hate the mere sight of it. Can you use some imagination!”

She wears a smiley on her scarf along with her queasy smile that she wears like a tattoo.

And she visits me twice every day.  

I complain to the doctor about the lack of silence in the ward—the irritating alarms and beeps and incessant chatter. I feel sleepy but can’t sleep.

He allows me to get my phone—only to listen to music. I shouldn’t make a call or take one, he warns.

I agree.

The nurses, the supervisor doctor, no one likes this breach of rules.

I don’t care.

After the last injection of the day is given, more blood is sucked, medicines swallowed, temperature recorded- that refuses to come to normal- the nurse turns off the light.

And I eagerly wear my ear plugs, to play Chopin’s piano on my phone.   

It feels, music rains. It feels, this is for the first time that I’m LISTENING.

 I listen to a presence.

There is god in ICU.

I cry for the first time. And it just doesn’t stop.

I cry breathless. I cry embracing life, embracing death.

And so much in between.

My breath is strung. It is released slowly.

Like a breathtaking-- musical note.

ICU Diary-4

A white bird spreads its wings

The oxygen supply is reduced to 2 litres, from 4 litres per day. These are signs that reflect improvement.

From nowhere a butterfly comes to the window. It could be an insect. I see it as a butterfly, from the distance that lies between my bed and the window.

It’s been ten days, I feel dirty and smelly. I scratch my head all the time. I ask half a dozen nurses to cut my nails. They ignore.  

I cough all day, at nights its worse. After the doctor told the nurse to nabulise me, I had to wait for six hours—coughing all this while. That took away my Nirvana state of mind.

I shouted at the first doctor that came in the room.

I really gave him a piece of my mind, not sparing liberal use of the F word.

It shocked them -- brought them to senses—for a while.

Within no time, nebuliser was found. I got some relief from the incessant cough.

 How could I shout when I could barely speak? I still wonder.

Survival, I guess.

I care for each breath inhaled—it’s laboured, hard earned. Each breath taken is life renewed. It’s poetry. Music. A possibility. Of a universe...of a narrative.

 The suffering has taken me to that haze, where boundaries melt, where the unfathomable touches to leave you in a state of untranslatable bewilderment.

As I gather my sense of the world (I’ve to return to), I think of ‘pollution’ and ‘environmental degradation’ in a different setting. Writing editorials in an office, I thought, I understood the issues. Struggling for breath in an ICU, from viral chest infection brought me to the knowledge of its true horrors. What we unleashed in the name of development is-- annihilating us. There is no stopping. No wisdom. So many young lives are wasted causing so much suffering.  

 Outside the ICU, does anyone care?

The next day, the doctor asks the nurses to perambulate me. Two nurses hold me, I take a few steps with great difficulty, soon, I’m breathless.

The next day, I ask the nurse to walk me to the wash room.

 There is a mirror!

The mirror doesn’t mirror me.

I’m not looking at my overgrown chin and upper lip hair. Strange!

Who is there? I get closer. It moves farther away. This girl without a soul in her eyes and a beaten up face! I force a smile to get her back. She looks accusingly at me.

What did you do to her?

I turn away.

Self deprecation is worse than self-pity.

I think of the fastidious girl who picked only red toffees from a box full of sweets!

She must be hiding somewhere.

Scared. 

Its evening and I think, I spotted a white bird perched on a tree in the backdrop of the setting sun. The sky is ochre, painting the window pane in its colour. It’s beautiful. I ask the nurse for my glasses.

It’s indeed a bird, the kind you get to see in the fields (often perched on buffalos in village ponds). I don’t know her name.

She spreads her wings and flies towards the sky, ablaze with hope.

The sun is setting.

                 

When 200 monks walk across Himalayas for world peace, two stray dogs follow and the media ignores

Remember the iconic images of rock stars’ concerts for world peace at Central Park, NY! It created global media frenzy. Before Ladakh became a UT and hogged ‘mainstream’ media attention, about 200 monks from Thailand walked a distance of about 800 kms, from Dharamshala in HP, to Ladakh, for world peace. My editors didn’t find the story ‘sexy enough’ to grant 500 words.

The monks were blissfully cold to Indian media’s sex appeal, fighting daily ordeals.  Draped in the Buddhist monk’s robes, they braved extreme Himalayan cold (Thailand is a tropical country). Few of them without proper footwear; in Hawai chappals to be precise.  This was their fourth padyatra, that began with the blessings of HH Dalai Lama on May 25^th and culminated at Choglamsar, Leh, on June 26^ththis year.

They embarked on the journey trusting the sky over their heads (which began to snow at unpredictable times) and the earth under their feet. They did have a few co-travellers sharing their faith— 18 volunteers from Thailand, who paid for the privilege of accompanying them. Few of them still in their teens. A couple of them -- journalists and photographers.

I met Patreerat, a middle-aged volunteer, who managed the itinerary and all other sundry arrangements required for their month-long walk; their schedules, places for night stay, medical aid etc. She is suffering from cancer. Yet, she walked with the monks, refusing to follow them in accompanying cars and trolley. “I’ve faith; walking with the monks, i’m sure, cancer will leave my body.” I feel speechless while she recounts anecdotes that are more intriguing than her faith that she believes would cure her cancer.

Two stray dogs accompanied the monks since they left Dharamshala, through arduous climbs of snow covered mountains, untimely rains and storms. They became part of the walk for world peace. So did many others-- even though they didn’t quite walk the distance.

A police officer near Solan gave them his private phone number and said, they should click pictures of the trouble makers and call him when needed. Indeed they needed help. Few ruffians tried to extract money pointing a knife at one of their night halts near Manali. Unlike, as shown in Hindi movies, the police was quick to arrived. H P Police, offered to escort, which the monks politely declined.

Fifteen nuns and a dozen aged monks were among the group of 200. Before embarking on the padyarta, all monks practiced walking for two months in advance, starting with 5 kms to 20- 30 Kms everyday. “For May-June, the weather was very bad on the mountains, we had hail storms with life-threatening intensity and the high altitude left most of us breathless. The combination of it all caused serious sickness. There were times when a few monks felt their life slipping. But, Amchi doctors (practicing traditional Tibetan medicine) accompanying them under Dalai Lama’s instructions came to rescue.

They survived the unprecedented cold.

“I, along with few volunteers, used to go ahead of them to look for a proper resting place with toilets, running water and open area to pitch tents for the night. Hindu and Buddhist temples offered their space generously. Many temples offered food, but we were carrying raw material and monks prefer cooking on their own, “ adds Patreerat.

When they reached Leh, Mahabodhi International Meditation Centre (MIMC), in collaboration with Save the Himalayan Foundation, organised a grand reception for the monks, who arrived, tired and tanned, humbled with their mission. The language barrier disappeared when people touched them with empathy and generosity. No one would miss the opportunity to offer something in gratitude; a few candies or even tetra pack juice. Their begging bowls overflew with generosity of the Ladakhis.

The entire town of Leh came to a standstill.  Bhikkhu Sanghasena, founder MIMC, who has been supporting the padyatris since they first embarked on the mission to walk for world peace from Bodh Gaya to Leh, in 2016, led the delegation on foot over a stretch of 17 kms from CIBS ( Central Institute of Buddhist Studies) to the Shanti Stupa, in Shey.

The azure sky of Ladakh, the woolly clouds popping up their eyes and the winds howling songs of gratitude and appreciation filled many eyes with shy glitter of tears; tears of joy and the infectious compassion spread by the monks in a quiet, breathtakingly beautiful corner of the world.

I too was witnessing it with exhilaration and a strange feeling of inadequacy before this glorious act.

                                    

                                              

The YOLO moments of a cancer diary

 Placed among names like Manisha Koirala, Lisa Ray and Yuvraj Singh-- Ananya Mukherjee doesn’t ring a bell. Unlike them, she is not a cancer survivor. She succumbed to cancer. 

In 2016, Ananya was detected of breast cancer. ‘A hyper intelligent woman’, a media professional who loved every breath of life, lost her battle with cancer on Nov 18, 2018, and left behind a diary- “ Tales from the Tail End.” Her diary is a mirror to life-- not death.

She wouldn’t have liked to be called a ‘survivor’, even if she won the battle. Because the term ‘survivor’ had a hollow ring to it, according to her, “Like someone has cleaned out your insides but has left you with just enough to limp through life.” 

Deeply aware of the impending verdict, she gets hold of each living moment; squeezes life out of it in multiple dimensions, and let them fall and go!  

I read Tales from Tail End, published by Speaking Tiger, a thin- 100- page-beautifully illustrated diary , in one sitting.  As a matter of principle, I don’t read anything related to cancer or death. Having seen enough disease and death in family, I feel, such writings have nothing new to offer. I'm equally averse to inspirational tales. But, Tales from The Tail End, took me through the working of highly evolved mind, who looks at approaching end with amused humour with a tinge of helplessness that is disarming and endearing. Her humour is not a coping mechanism for pain and suffering; it’s a brave statement—of an incorrigible lover of life who wouldn’t give up on her love even if it meant side-stepping life to have a hearty laugh at its end-game.

 Kundera said, a good poem leaves you with a lump in the throat. Few chapters in this diary led me to a deep silence. Ananya puts a face to death and suffering and in the same breath she paints it with a brush of unfailing humour and joie de vivre. It is this unique quality that turns intimate and rather painful relationship of a cancer patient with things like pain, needles and wigs appear playful fun. “My wig. You are like me. Headstrong, fancy-free, unreliable and charitraheen,” she writes. Sidestepping painful chemo sessions, a reality to live with, she still says, “But heartbreak and bikini wax still top my list in the ‘most painful’ charts.”

 An undercurrent of unfailing irony runs through the 100 pages that often made me gasp. In times when reading has become unfashionable, this book has come as a welcome change. Thank you Imtiaz, for sending a copy!  I wish, i knew Ananya!  

( a chapter is named YOLO-you only live once-in Tales from the Tail End)

Tales  from the Tail End by Ananya Mukherjee. Speaking Tiger. Pages 101. Price Rs 399

The nostalgic murga

Epics have been penned around Satan’s machinations to entice Adam and Eve with lust. Wonder, who invented the insidious ownership of land by humans! Ever seen a peacock wasting time getting a piece of forest registered in his name! Or, lions waging a war over a piece of land!

Only humans own up stupidity. Forced by their incorrigible insecurity—they move tehsildar’s office to UNSC—over a piece of land. I too was doing my bit. Sitting with a bunch of insipid clerks, sipping their heavily milked and sugared tea served with salivating eyes to get some underhand dough for doing their paid- by- the government- job.

I wanted the process to speed up. They won’t let it.

Governments are meant to instil patience in us.

One among them got nostalgic talking about a childhood spent in Chamba.  His father was an upright veterinary doctor, if that could be believed, who migrated from Rawalpindi in 1947. Once, a simple pahadi brought a healthy murgi and murga, as a gift for saving his cattle. His father refused to accept the gift, on principles. The poor man insisted, he won’t leave till his simple offering is accepted by the devta. The doctor relented. The family being vegetarian, didn’t know what to do with the birds.

Anyways, eggs were laid and the children started to distribute them in the neighbourhood. After a year or so, the doctor was transferred to Ropar. Children had grown too fond of the handsome rooster in the meantime; their sole flauntable possession. They would rather not move to Ropar than let go of the murga.

 Their father found a way after must negotiations. He decided to donate the rooster to the zoo.

Even that gauche, ungainly clerk acquired a degree of humanness, dipped in nostalgia.

 I never knew nostalgia would taste just as sweet, even in a dingy sarkari office, sipping cheap tea.       

Vandana Shukla