Life lesson from my dad’s passing

Its been a month since my dad’s passing and as mom and I continue to reminisce about his life and reconcile with his loss, I am realizing that life has taught me an important lesson.

Both Dad and his younger brother were tall and heavy and both had acid reflux issues (thanks to their maternal genes). But how their health unraveled took two contrasting roads.

1. Extreme acid reflux can simulate cardiac issues and this happened for both. Cardiologists did angioplasty on uncle but treating arterial blocks do not stop acid reflux. Uncle lost faith in treatment. Bypass surgery was recommended for dad after 20 days so I figured if he can survive for 20 days, his health can be managed without surgery.

2. Both developed swelling on their hands and feet. Uncle’s condition was apparently not treated. Dad’s cardiologist kept asking about his bypass surgery and ignoring the swelling. So I googled to find out why the swelling was happening. Any issue that affects the working of the heart reduces blood flow to other parts of the body. When kidneys receive lesser amount of blood the body assumes there is not enough water so kidneys start accumulating water, first on the feet and then on the hands. The condition is called edema. Finally when water enters the lungs it becomes pulmonary edema. Then the only treatment left is bypass surgery. Dad’s cardiologist was trying to force bypass surgery on him by leaving the swelling untreated. I immediately changed the cardiologist and consulted a nephrologist who prescribed a diuretic which forces water in the swelled up areas to be released from the body through urination. Uncle refused bypass surgery, water had to be pulled out of his lungs, he developed paralytic stroke and eventually passed away.

3. Dad reduced salt intake drastically after misunderstanding cardiologist’s instruction. I was unfamiliar with the ensuing condition but realized something was wrong with him. Took him to hospital for checkup and found his sodium level freefalling. In another two days he would have had ended up in coma.

4. Dad’s new cardiologist advised me to treat acid reflux at home and not to take him to hospital as acid reflux bouts can seem like cardiac issue and he would end up in the hands of cardiologists.

For the past 10 years, I have been mostly at home and especially in the last 6 years, largely due to market conditions. This gave me the opportunity to try doing different things which led to starting a home based cloud kitchen and in a way fulfill dad’s lifelong ambition to start a restaurant. I forced dad to go to the gym which improved his health drastically. When he suffered stroke like symptoms I chose to take him to a physician nearby who checked him and told me his nerve functions were fine and he was suffering from weakness due to muscle loss caused by protein deficiency. Though he fell a couple of times nothing happened to him and mom and I ensured he never fell down again especially in the bathroom. Broken bones never heal completely in old age, restrict movements which reduces immunity and makes body vulnerable to other diseases. Dad had normal blood sugar and I ensured all his body organs were working well and his blood pressure, essential elements like sodium, potassium and magnesium and vitamin levels were normal. Circumstances prevented me from pursuing a career in medicine but my fundamentals in biology and human anatomy are strong and I read a lot on both.

I did not earn a lot of money in the past 10 years but I was able to save a lot of money on dad’s treatment. If I hadn’t been at home. he may have underwent bypass surgery which could have ruined his health. Most importantly, he was able to live a disease free life, eat and do everything he wanted to and go peacefully. I could not have bought him this with all the money in the world. Is it possible to become successful without having a lot of money and everything that comes with it? I guess it is.

Obituary of my dad

It has been a week since the sudden demise of my dad (at 72 years) and through our bereavement mom and I have had a lot to contemplate about his life. As a person, he was outright, outspoken and honest, a little too much for his own good. As a caring son and loving husband he was peerless and as a father he was borderline maniac. Nothing I did ever impressed him. He always believed I could do better. Grow more than his 6 foot 90 kg frame for starters. I have been literally hounded and abused for being a poor eater. Other than a chronic acid reflux issue and vitamin deficiencies, he was disease free. All organs, blood sugar, blood pressure, essential elements like sodium, potassium, magnesium were stable and in good condition. In 2021 he started going to the gym but loss of protein made him quit. This post is not to eulogize his life though.

Dad and his mom were endowed with extremely good genes. Grandma was also completely disease free. Both were addicted to sweets and drinking sugary water of Indian sweets and still their blood sugar never went up. Grandma went silently in her sleep in 2010. After a bout of acid reflux, dad developed slight respiratory problem and I took him to hospital. ECG, brain CT scan, chest x-ray all came out normal. He was given sedation to sleep and was sleeping soundly when silent cardiac arrest took him, just like his mom.

What I have learned from their lives is, as they grew older they found happiness in two things. They were able to eat and do mostly anything they wanted (dad had to take medication for acid reflux). Both dad and grandma loved animals and both kept in touch with the people they loved. Dad was a jovial man and loved cracking jokes all the time inside the house and with his friends, even the ones from his childhood days in Calcutta. Many of dad’s friends are far younger than him but all crazy like him.

People I talk to are surprised that disease free people can die. Prana or the life force that runs through our body is the cornerstone of all ancient healing methods like yoga and acupuncture. More prana means better health and less prana means weaker pulse and weaker immune system making us vulnerable to diseases. No matter how healthy we are when there is no more prana left in our body we die.

Many cultures believe in rebirth after death and rebirth depends on karma of our past lives and the state of our mind when we die. Dad had his share of regrets but I hope a good death in this life will give him a much better next life.

From the vaults of nature – A story of the vanquished

Through the course of human civilization, we have always sung and written about the best and the victorious among us. History is all about the tales of the heroes who braved everything and emerged victorious. No word is spoken about the ones who lost because we have been taught to believe they are the villains or the bad guys or the ones who needed to lose or die. Nature teaches us that may not be the case every time. So here is a story of the one who fought valiantly and lost.

Over the years, during my walks through the wetlands I have heard cries coming underneath the water and from the bushes spread across the land. First time I heard I thought it was a kitten stuck somewhere, so similar was the cry. Local people at the wetlands told me it is the cry of toads that have been caught by snakes. In 2018 I saw the sight for the first time, a toad being swallowed by a chequered keelback. Today, I saw the sight for the second time. But this time, situation was amply different. Wetlands have been dug up for paddy cultivation and the snake had bit into the side of one of the legs of the toad. Keelbacks are non-venomous, so they have to hold on to their prey at all cost and then slowly swallow it.

The snake hadn’t grabbed the toad properly and the toad knew this so in order to shake the snake off the toad decided to jump into the water on the side of the muddy area. The toad managed to drag the quite hefty snake along with it into the water.

It could also be that the snake chose to go along with the toad because keelbacks live in muddy waters and they need not worry about losing the toad in the water.

What needs to be noticed now is the surface of the water. That is oil spilled from the machineries used to till the mud for farming. It is not just pesticides and insecticides, pollution is affecting land and farm produce in many different ways. The toad was forced to jump into this polluted hell to escape from the snake. If it had been able to shake off the snake it could have gone under the water where it could have been safer.

But even in this oily hell the snake did not let go off its vice like bite on the toad’s leg.

Finally the toad seemed to become tired and gave up on its struggle to escape from the snake’s mortal bite.

I know everyone would think that the toad was afraid of death that’s why it was trying to escape from the snake. Fear as an emotion exists only among us and not in nature. Survival is a natural instinct and all animals in nature try to survive so that they can reproduce and their species can maintain their dominance in nature’s ecosystem. All animals try to maximize reproduction and nature controls population through diseases, predator-prey relationship, etc. The toad here was only trying to survive. If there was fear in the animal world, they would have also learned to build houses to protect themselves. Birds build nests to raise their young then why don’t they build nests for them to live? Because all animals follow nature’s fundamental law of survival of the fittest and they seem to know death is part of nature.

Reasons for India’s COVID part deux – Failed governance, irrational people & complete ignorance about nature

The second wave of COVID-19 pandemic is upon India with greater ferocity. The pandemic started in late 2019, had spread from China to Europe and had just touched the shores of the USA. The Government of India was warned and was well aware of the impending crisis but it dithered in closing down international borders. The result was an epidemic like situation which resulted in harsh lockdown of people and millions suffered in the aftermath with unemployment and hunger.

This time around, the reason for the lockdown is even more ridiculous. Restrictions were eased, life seemed to be getting back to normal and the government even boasted that India had beaten back the virus without any supporting evidence. Festivals were allowed to be organized and state assembly elections were announced by the Election Commission. There was massive congregation for Kumbh Mela festival and huge election rallies in 5 states. It is peak summer across most of India at this time and people are vulnerable to falling sick. People tend to eat less food and sleep less when weather becomes hot which results in reduced immunity. So it is no surprise that COVID-19 has reared up its ugly head again.

Lockdowns are essentially government’s way of saying it is incapable of handling an escalating situation, abdicating responsibility and passing the buck on to the people. In simple terms, diseases are conflicts between higher order and lower order organisms in nature and along with the food chain is how nature keeps the population of every living being under control. Microorganisms are constantly mutating and evolving in nature. A disease of any magnitude could break out any time in nature. We have always been living on this ticking time bomb. Even if the government does not understand this, it is its responsibility to constantly improve and ramp up the health infrastructure of the country. In India, in most of the states, education and health are on the lowest side of the government’s priority list. So will the government be ever prepared for a pandemic? This governance failure is passed on to people and people are made to suffer. Locking people up inside their homes has the detrimental effect of lowering their immunity level and making them vulnerable to more diseases but the government is shortsighted enough to focus on winning a battle now and not being able to see a war coming in the future.

Kerala government is coming up with weird rules as it began a state wide lockdown yesterday. Unlike during the last year’s lockdown, when supermarkets were allowed to function, this time supermarkets have been closed down. Supermarkets are the best places to manage crowds and enforce social distancing. Now, people are rushing to the local stores where crowd control and social distancing is impossible. Opening supermarket stores will distribute the people among the supermarkets and local shops and reduce the possibility of transmission. In a nearby local store, two customers were apparently squabbling over one remaining packet of bread. I wrote to the district collector to consider opening supermarkets and received no response. Now, the government has come up with a website portal for generating e-pass for emergency travel within respective cities and towns. The instructions state that even for medical emergencies, people have to apply for the e-pass, wait for approval, then print it and carry with them. The irony here is, the government seems to be expecting everyone who has internet access at home to also own printers. Printing is usually done at local internet browsing centers which are all shut down now. Upon enquiry, I was told two things. 1) To call the local councilor and he/she will make all arrangements 2) A self written affidavit is enough for medical emergencies. They are expecting someone to sit and write an affidavit or call the councilor and wait when their father/mother/sibling needs emergency medical care. This is the level of incompetence and complete lack of rationale that plagues India’s civil administration.

The virulence of COVID-19 virus is of very small magnitude when compared to the virus that caused small pox. Millions have died because of small pox and my granny used to say that wailing could be heard from every other house because death was everywhere. When a foreign substance of any form enters our body, our immune system immediately mobilizes itself to fight and destroy it. Our body is a sophisticated system and our immune system is designed in such a way as to aggressively restore the balance of the body when something causes an imbalance. The first step is to isolate the foreign substance and prevent it from multiplying and spreading through the blood. Once this is done, the immune system will eliminate the foreign substance. In the case of COVID-19, the first step is failing so the immune system tries more aggressively to attack the virus. This is resulting in the immune system losing focus from other diseases people are suffering from and the subsequent complications led to most number of deaths in the first wave.

After the second wave has started, I am hearing about younger people and people without comorbidities getting
affected. There seems to be only one reason for this. Rapid urbanization has revamped people’s food habits and lifestyle completely which has alienated people even further from nature. Our immune system stays efficient only when it comes into contact with different types of microorganisms constantly, fights them and adapts itself to new diseases. This is all about information, so the greater information our immune system has about microorganisms the better it will be able to protect us. When a boxer quits fighting he invariably gains weight and becomes sluggish. The same happens with the immune system when we spend our entire time holed up in A/c rooms and travel in A/c vehicles. Then, when our junk food and “eating-at-whatever-time” lifestyle leads to diseases like cholesterol, diabetes, high BP and cardiac issues, the immune system is in no state to fight them. On top of all this, when a new virus attacks us for which the immune system needs time to fight, we can only expect the worse to happen to us.

The entire Indian system is at fault for this second wave. The Election Commission should not have gone ahead with the state assembly elections without a clear green signal from the medical fraternity. Even when the elections were declared, no political party showed any inclination to oppose the decision knowing fully well that election rallies are inevitable in the electoral process in India which always leads to massive uncontrolled crowds. Every political party is hungry to win elections and grab people’s power no matter what the situation is. Even the Supreme Court did not choose to step in, cancel the elections and order incumbent state governments to continue as caretaker governments. We, the people did not bother either. We knew what happened last year yet we chose to go for election rallies and on election day to vote in large numbers. Add to this, Indians are addicted to festivals and festivities. Even pandemics don’t matter because Gods will protect us.

The disaster the world is witnessing now has been in the making from the time of India’s independence from colonial rule. India is a democracy only by it’s Constitution. “Rule” is still the word used instead of “govern”, especially by the media. India is “ruled” by central & respective state governments. People’s representatives become people’s rulers & become inaccessible & unaccountable after they win elections. Corruption has become an incurable disease. Religions driven by blind belief take precedence over law & order. Orders passed by courts are imposed by civil administration which is controlled by the government so courts do not have the power to punish lapses in governance. So warnings of a second wave of the pandemic were conveniently ignored for conducting elections & festivals and the entire country is suffering again. Calls for Modi to resign are insensible because replacing leaders without reforming the system is not going to change anything.

Finally, what is incomprehensible is the fear of death among people which the media is amplifying and driving into everybody’s minds. Death is a natural conclusion to life in the entire universe. Our Sun will burn out and die in a few billion years. The Universe itself is supposed to come to an end. Millions of animals and human beings are dying every day because of a variety of reasons. Diseases are one way of population control in nature. This may not be to everybody’s taste but this is how nature works. I say this knowing fully well that my parents and I could also get infected with COVID-19. Nature follows the golden rule of “Survival of the fittest”. Only the strongest will survive in nature. We moved away from nature and forgot the golden rule and to keep ourselves healthy at all times. I hope this pandemic will be a reminder for everyone to return to nature, understand nature better and improve our lifestyle drastically. Our lives hinge on abiding and living by nature’s rules and flouting them will only lead to our own destruction.

The greatest leveler

Of all the numerous consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is one that is the most significant yet the least discussed. Fear of death. Media has played a central role in unleashing it upon the masses. We simply have to look into our history to see the havoc epidemics like malaria, chicken pox, small pox, etc. had created on our population. 90% of the South American population was wiped out by the Spanish Inquisition and the diseases the Spaniards brought with them. I am yet to come across a case where a normal healthy person with no underlying medical conditions has died only because of COVID-19 infection. Anyways, this is not about what is happening around COVID-19. Why do we fear death? It is our companion from the time we became zygotes in our mothers’ womb. The womb has a sophisticated self check mechanism to see if the genetic combination of the zygote will affect the mother or any future offspring. From the time of the fusion of sperm and egg, every life that grows on to become an adult is a miracle. Case in point is the cat that delivered 3 kittens on the top of our house. While 2 are healthy and have grown quickly, 1 was genetically weak and ill. 4 days of trying to save it with medicines and feeding proved futile as it passed away eventually. This is how fragile life is. So the fact that our population is 7 billion and counting is undefinable. So what exactly is death? We know it is an inevitable door through which each one of us has to journey without exception. But we don’t know where it opens to and what lies on the other side. What makes it more complicated is, we cannot go through the door, see what’s on the other side and return. Its a one way trip. Its not like going to sleep, being in a dream and waking up back to our world. Its like leaving home and going to another place knowing that we cannot go back home, ever. So we ended up creating many “systems” on the other side, the most common one being the Gods and the heaven-hell system which has helped to reign in and control people’s lives. When we ponder over the intricacies of death, we are blissfully ignorant of the extraordinary complications of life. Most of us are living blissfully in the belief that there are no connections between what we do and what we experience and no two events in our lives are connected. Either we can choose to live in the assumption that the place we were born, the family and circumstances we were born into, the friends we make, are all coincidental and beyond our control or we can choose to believe that they are all connected and makes sense somewhere. Astrology says planets and stars exert their influence on our lives which has a direct bearing on the place and time we were born. Do their influences extend to animals as well? I believe it does because animals are more attuned to nature than we are. So why is death still a mystery? Super rich people are already trying to cheat death by doing whatever they can to increase their lifespan. The patriarch of the Rothschild family reportedly did 19 heart transplants before he eventually succumbed. If we knew what is the on the other side of the door, we will most probably stop caring on what is on our side. We would only want to escape death by any means. We have been searching for the fountain of youth and elixir of everlasting life for thousands of years. One aspect of Alchemy was to create this elixir. A larger and cosmic reason exists. Anything that starts has to come to a stop. This is not just a universal law but it is also the law that governs the universe itself. The Universe has a lifespan beyond which it will cease to exist. If the Universe has to die everything inside it will also have to die. The world of astronomy is hard at work trying to determine if a Universe existed before the one we are part of. A positive result could mean rebirth exists for all of us. Is there something called destiny in life? Was I destined to become an engineer? Taking up engineering was more of a circumstantial than a preferred choice at that time. I love mathematics but I am passionate about biology. Nevertheless, the choice was mine irrespective of the reasons. Our lives are littered with choices and the choices we make defines our way in life ahead. If we harm someone, it will come back to bite us. When we belittle and look down on people during their times of distress, we forget that tough times will catch up with each one of us. If destiny does exist, how I see it is if we are destined to go through bad times, then someone could end up harming us and then that person’s karma would decide his/her destiny in another life. This would keep the wheel of life and death rolling if the cycles of rebirth does exist. But the question here is, how relevant understanding death is. Once the outpouring of grief over the death of a loved one is over, our mind starts drifting back into the reality we exist in. The personal belongings of the deceased are all supposed to be destroyed or thrown away so that his/her intimate memories no longer remain part of our lives. We are rooted to the world we are part of and the world keeps moving ahead regardless of births and deaths. Death is not supposed to distract us from living out our lives. Knowing about death will fundamentally alter this state of our living. Death is the greatest leveler in the cosmos. No matter how rich we become, no matter how high we fly, after we die, all of us will be addressed as “body”. Death erases the name that was given to us at our birth. I realized death even makes it irrelevant that the deceased was related to the living when I heard a son addressing his father’s mortal remains as “body”. The one person I look up to here is former Indian President Dr. Abdul Kalam. A marquee rocket scientist, he served the country at the highest possible levels and passed away with a smile on his face. He wasn’t married and turned out that the only earthly possession he had was some pair of clothes and a box full of books. While billionaires take so much effort in the name of philanthropy, he did not even bother to earn and hold on to money in the first place. I may not see a wealthier person than him in my life. The man may have never thought about or feared death. He lived his life to the fullest and went when his time was up. Its a life worth aspiring for to emulate.

It is insensible and needless to live in fear, even if it is of a disease

“Two fall outs of COVID-19 pandemic have become clear:
1) Creating medicines and vaccines for every known disease and consuming Vitamin tablets to boost immunity has rendered our immune system idle and useless. In antivirus systems, definitions of new viruses have to be constantly updated for the antivirus to keep our computers safe. Our immune system has to dissect new microorganisms, understand their genetic structure & then create antibodies to fight them. We cannot stay two steps ahead & have medicines & vaccines for every disease going to affect us in the future. Only a robust immune system can save us.
2) The fear of death among people is mind boggling. So much fear has been created over the virus that people are not even stepping out on to their house’s porch. Death is our constant companion from the time we were zygotes in our mother’s womb. Diseases are one way nature controls the population of all living beings in it’s ecosystem. Death is inevitable yet people fear it so much with the false pride of not admitting it. Incomprehensible.”

This innocuous post I put on my social media timeline drew the ire of a friend who messaged me saying “we have intelligence so it’s stupid not to use it and depend only on immune system”. Nothing wrong with what she said.  Why can’t we protect ourselves with medicines and vaccines?

COVID-19 is a mild virus with 99% survival chances as per reports. Then why the fear? Because it’s a new variant of Coronavirus. There are no medicines or vaccines for it yet. So we have no option but to fall back on our immune system. But it also doesn’t know this new microorganism. So it gets confused and puts its entire focus on eliminating the virus. This becomes problematic and even fatal for people already suffering from other life threatening diseases as the immune system gets overwhelmed.

My friend missed a very important point though. Survival is instinctive and has got nothing to do with intelligence. Every animal from the time it is born tries to survive as long as it can. What my friend cannot seem to accept is the fact that death is inevitable. Someone who could live for another 10 years may succumb now because of COVID-19. That’s how it has always been in nature. The weaker ones have to die. Nature needs only the strong ones to survive. Why such a rule?

Scientists and researchers believe life on Earth formed by a process called panspermia wherein asteroids carrying microorganisms from space travel, collide with planets and fall on them. If and when conditions become favorable for life to thrive, the microorganisms from the asteroid rocks will start replicating. Let’s take this situation and assume that no microorganisms die. They keep evolving into more complex organisms through billions of years but none of them die. What would have had happened to Earth? Overpopulated, overheated, resources exhausted & nature’s ecosystem could have had collapsed. This is exactly the situation now. We started making medicines to protect and cure us from diseases so our mortality rate dropped. Earth’s resources are rapidly receding and nature’s ecosystem is heading towards collapse.

This is why death is so important. In the Earth’s timeline, 99.99% of the living beings that existed have supposedly become extinct. Why is nature killing living beings in its ecosystem? Death is essentially the backbone of evolution.  Death is never the end of life. Best example of it is wildfire. When fire has done enough destruction then comes torrents of rain and kick starts life again. Nature is learning and evolving from the cycles of birth and death of living beings in it’s ecosystem. Universe in itself is supposed to have a lifespan at the end of which it self destructs and a new Universe is born and takes the older one’s place.

Take a look at the complexity and diversity of nature and then look up into the cosmos. How many planets have we discovered like ours till now? There could be planets harboring life elsewhere in the Universe but none in the near vicinity of ours. This is what makes our planet special. Nature has survived for billions of years because of its ability of self conservation by following the rule of ‘the sum is always greater than the individual parts’. This is why no animal has the ability to destroy nature for its own survival. This is the best proof of advanced human intelligence not being a product of natural evolution.

No matter how intelligent we become we cannot cheat death or prolong our life on Earth.  But there is something we can do. There is a process called terraforming (reference: Movie – The Man of Steel) by which we can create an environment that suits us and can possibly control. Mars seems to have all the qualities to harbor life so there is supposedly a plan underway to terraform Mars. It is somewhat like creating a planned city. This could be the way forward for our existence. What we are engaged in now is a fight to the death with nature for which there can be only one outcome. Our annihilation. Something that has been in existence for a few thousand years can never defeat something that has been here for billions of years. There is no version of the story in which we will ever come out on top of nature.

Death is the natural end of a life cycle so it is nothing to be feared. We all know death is inevitable but we still fear and fight it because we have found our purpose of existence in houses, cars and in the social life of status, wealth and fame. There is also the needless fear of the unknown of what lies on the other side of death. There are more laws of nature and forces of the Universe acting upon us than we know. I believe celebrating life and death equally is the best way to live a balanced life.

My story of love, despair and nirvana

I believe whatever turmoil is happening in our world are because of two reasons. Love and Death. If all of us understood and found true love and if all of us knew when we would die, our world would be a paradise of peace and harmony. Countless wars have been fought in the name of love, millions have lost their lives without knowing when death was coming for them and still love has remained an elusive mirage. I learnt about both from one person at a very young age and it made me who and how I am.

Everyone who knew my grandfather has told me that there was never a more self centered man than him they have ever come across. It took me a long time to realize why. Anyone who goes through difficult times in his/her childhood would develop a heightened sense of survival instincts, the propensity to survive against all odds and regardless of everyone and everything else. He was an artist by birth, an excellent oil and canvas painter and adept at doing anything because of the genes he inherited from his father who was a palace architect. All artists have a brooding nature and are always marooned in their own worlds. Research says that all of us truly become parents when we become grandparents. I was not his first grandchild but it took the sight of me crying in the hospital cradle to finally invoke his paternal instincts. The first time I called father and mother, my eyes were on my grandfather and grandmother. I didn’t know otherwise.

For 10 years, I got all the love and attention for a lifetime. No one on either sides of the families liked me for being the apple of the eyes of my grandparents. All those years, I didn’t have friends, I never wanted to know or cared about the world because I had everything I wanted in my life at home. Grandpa was 12 years older than grandma. In those times, marriages with large age difference was very common. In his last years, grandpa stopped caring about everything else and would just wait for me to come back from school. When I was at home, he used to eat only from my hand. The last thing he had was his medicine that I gave him before he slipped into his death bed. I had seen cats die at home but the significance of death had never hit me before. For 3 days and nights, I prayed to God to take me with grandpa because I didn’t want him to be alone wherever he goes and I didn’t know life without him. When nothing happened, I started praying to God to take him and end his suffering. On the 7th morning, he left.

It took me all of 6 years to find my mental balance again and I never really recovered from that trauma. The lessons I learned were very bitter. Everyone around me will leave me and go one day, not just through death but for a variety of reasons. I am essentially all alone in this world. Never invest my emotions beyond a point into any relationship. Don’t let anyone in to my space after a point. Life as a recluse is better than life with a broken heart. But through all of this, grandpa had taught me the lesson for life. He had loved me with everything he had, never once holding back. He had nothing to expect from me. I didn’t have anything to give him except myself. He taught me to love without expectations and to love without holding myself back.

I met her when we were both 6 years old. Same school, same batch, different classes and neighbors for some time. Her parents were college lecturers and were staying in a rented house near my house at that time. They used to leave her at my place when they used to go to work. I started waiting for her to come home in the morning and in the evening, I couldn’t see her go back home. I used to run after school to catch a seat for her to sit in the school bus. My mom used to feed both of us together and put us to sleep on the same bed after we came home from school during exams. After 2 years, she left to her own home quite some distance away.

I had started off my school life in kindergarten with flamboyance and as an extrovert but grew quieter as I grew up. Our classrooms kept shifting so I never found the opportunities to go and meet her. I still used to wait for her near the school to give flowers which mom used to send for her. Every time the doorbell at home rang, I used to run and see if it was her. Then grandpa left. Years of mental and emotional struggle followed. I dropped off in studies. The one person left in my mind was her. Dad was having his own struggles with health and no one at home really understood the conflicts I was going through in my mind especially after adolescence hit me. The constant thoughts about her in my mind started taking shape and form.

Adolescence is the time when we get affected with even little influences. I got influenced by music. I started going to her house to see her. I felt no physical attraction towards her. I never once looked at her anywhere other than her face. It was her and nothing else mattered. I had no expectations from her. All I wanted was to be always with her. I couldn’t define what I was feeling for her. In spite of my mind being in a mess, I found my mojo back at the right time. I managed to finish school as a topper. That’s when it struck me. I wouldn’t be able to see her everyday like before. What if someone else started liking her and she started feeling the same for him? Life became a nightmare. I finally conjured up the courage to write whatever was on my mind and go and give it to her.

She never replied. That was the time of no mobile phones, internet and email. Whenever I came across her again, she never came to speak to me. I decided that I wasn’t going to chase her for a response. I thought the best way to do it was the Indian way of asking her hand in marriage through the families. I had to take an year out to prepare for the engineering entrance exam. I passed with flying colors and went to tell her about it. Then reality started hitting me. We were of the same age. Her parents had a late marriage and they would look to get her married off as soon as possible. There was nothing I could do about it. I had no idea how she felt about me and if she had any feelings for me at all. Despair followed. The most overpowering of all that we feel is the feeling of helplessness.

Then something struck me. All I wanted was to be with her and in return I wanted to keep her safe and happy. Even if she was not with me, I would still want her to be safe and happy wherever she is. I didn’t know how else to feel love, if all of this was indeed love. I had to watch my grandpa go helplessly, if I had to do it one more time I would. Couple of years later, I got to know that her marriage was getting fixed. One day, her fiancee’s brother who was my senior in college came and asked me bluntly what my relationship was with her. I wanted to shout on his face who she was to me and throw him down the building. I felt pure burning rage in that instant. I chose to keep quiet and send him away. We were not invited for her marriage. I cried silently in the shower on the morning of the marriage.

My life went downhill after that. Years of financial turmoil at home coupled with my mental and emotional struggles took it’s toll on my body. My lower back gave up on me. I couldn’t walk one fine day. Doctor gave me the choice of surgery and 50% chance of walking after that. I was returning home with my dad by train and for a fleeting moment, I had the urge to jump out of the train. Then commonsense prevailed. If I cannot live for myself I should live for the people who are in my life and those who may need me.

Then I started seeing her in my dreams. Years passed, I started working and I never had the opportunity to think about her. But out of nowhere she would appear in my dreams. For years I used to wake up in the middle of the night and cry alone. When my parents started talking about my marriage, I felt huge resentment at first. Then I started thinking that a life with another woman might help me get off those dreams. I met girls but realized that the love which is prevalent in society is all based on expectations. I tried to fit in and change myself and it only caused me more misery. I realized that I was only trying to fill up the empty spaces in my life.

Through all the trials and tribulations of life, all I wanted was to see her one more time. I managed to get in touch with her best friend in school and got a picture of her. Then the unthinkable happened. After 22 long years, I got the chance to meet her. Her father passed away and I went to her house to pay my respects. Her mother didn’t recognize me but she did instantly. Those were magical moments for me. I felt exactly the same way about her as I always did. Then magically, those dreams vanished. After many days, I saw her in my dream again and I woke up smiling.

I do not know who she is and why she came into my life. If we look closely, everything that happens in our lives are all connected and everything has it’s own meaning in defining our lives and making us who we are. With her, I was not able to find any reason. All I know is that there is a definite connection between us through space and time. In my darkest days in the last few years, I took up wildlife photography and I have become quite good at it now. One day I chanced upon my autograph book from my high school days and this is what she had written to me.

I was at that point in my life when I was contemplating taking my own life when I read this. It feels like life made her write this to protect me in the future. The first question an astrologer asked me after going through my birth chart was “you were supposed to take your own life. How are you still alive?” I have learned to trust life after this one question.

I didn’t know it back then but her astrological star would have matched mine perfectly for Indian style marriage. I do not know if I would find the love I understand again but it doesn’t worry me. I have had to live my life after losing both the people I truly loved. If everything I have experienced about her is true, then I am sure I will meet her in afterlife, just like I am sure my grandpa is waiting for me.

It took me a long time to realize what still hurts me about her. She may have never understood my love for her. I did not even expect her to have the same feelings for me. All I wanted was understanding and acceptance. It was up to her to choose whom she wanted to spend her life with. What I really wanted was a place in her heart, forever. What matters more than having a woman in life is for the man to be in her mind and thoughts. What hurts and will hurt forever is that she left without talking to me even once. If what I felt for her is true, she will realize it some day and that is all I need.

Death of an actor and media’s insatiable celebrity frenzy

Two days back I started the day with the big breaking news that celebrity Bollywood actor Sridevi had passed away the previous night. Initially I thought it was a hoax news as such news of the deaths of famous Hollywood actors keep coming up on social media but then TV news channels started confirming the news. It was first reported that she died of cardiac arrest but yesterday, the entire narration took an abrupt turn. Autopsy reports confirmed that she had died of “accidental drowning”. For the past two days, news channels have been salivating over her death and have become her propaganda machines. Nirav Modi has been buried and forgotten and they do not even seem to care what else is happening in India and the world.

Sridevi was a commercially successful actor whose acting for me was over the top at her best. She started acting at an early age in South Indian movies and moved to Bollywood as her stature grew. She was popular at the time when serious actors like Shabana Azmi and Smitha Patil were doing wonders in the parallel world of art cinema and Sridevi was no match to their acting abilities. She had 3 distinct looks across her career. The purely South Indian look she had when she started off was significantly altered to fit into the glamorous Bollywood roles she used to revel in. In her most recent avatar, her face looks drawn and haggard, a la Michael Jackson in his last times.

Movies can be categorized broadly into entertainers, ones that highlight social issues and ones that create social impact. Then there was another divide, the urban and the rural class. Movies were made either for the urban or the rural class. Each movie style had it’s own staple menu as well. Into all of this came the movie Dil Chahta hai in 2001 in which all the 3 categories were so skillfully interwoven by Farhan Akhtar that even though Dil Chahta Hai was a completely city based movie, it found success among the rural class as well. The after effects of the movie has not only persisted in Bollywood but has permeated across all regional movie industries and transformed movie making as a whole in India.

Movies make revenue in millions and billions of dollars these days. People spend so much money watching movies and what do they get in return? Secret Superstar, a recently released movie was made at a budget of Rs. 15 crores and reportedly earned Rs. 900 crores at the box offices across the world. No movie has ever been made with a ROI of 6000%. It tells the story of a 15 year old girl born into an extremely orthodox Muslim family who aspires to be a singer interwoven exquisitely with domestic abuse. Now what is the marker of it’s unprecedented success? In China, cases reported of domestic abuse dramatically increased after the movie was released. This is how movies should connect with people and this is the essence of movie making.

Sridevi was never really part of meaningful or socially relevant movies. Neither her movies nor her style of acting would have been successful at any other times. Himmatwala, one of her successful movies from 1983 was remade in 2013 with different actors and it was a commercial disaster. She even reportedly asked for a monstrous amount to be part of the Bahubali franchise. Her face has looked gaunt and haggard in the last few years, probably because of all the chemicals she had to use to look glamorous for so many years and maybe because of her luxurious lifestyle which became even more clear when it was revealed that alcohol traces were found in her blood.

There is a reason why mainstream media is glorifying her in spite of all of this. For a day, they bombarded the people’s psyche with information about cardiac arrest and hospitals because rumors abounded that she had died of a heart failure. A day later their narration quickly switched because autopsy reports revealed that she had died of drowning. I don’t understand why they cannot wait for the facts to come out before they report incidents. People love speculations and gossips and news channels thrive on these to improve their TRPs. People are mesmerized by all the glitz and glamour of the celebrities and media uses this to report about them to the people which satisfies everyone. The celebrities get to remain in the limelight and attract people to them so that people spend more money to watch their movies. People get to be entertained with celebrity lives and gossips. Media gets everything else. No wonder people have become media’s best commodity and their money making machine.

Our star shines in the nether world now

We lost this girl 4 days back.

 

 

 

Exactly 11 years back, we brought Judy home along with Tommy.

 

 

 

 

 

Prostrate cancer took Tommy away from us 5 years back. Both were apples of my mom’s eyes and they were vying for her attention all the time. Mom was devastated after Tommy left but Judy’s presence kept her afloat. It’s kind of weird, but everyone in my family has a mind of his/her own and we never agree on most of the things. My granny was like a radio, there was no point trying to tell or convince her about anything. What is astonishing is, every pet we have had, be it dogs, cats and even a cuckoo bird, all of them imbibed this personality automatically.

Tommy and Judy used to know each and every activity inside the house, especially what mom does. They used to disappear the moment they understood that mom was getting medicines ready for them. They would try to keep their heads away from her sight as much as they can. If they had a chance to bury their heads in the ground they would have. Both of them used to sleep as close to mom as they could at night and Judy used to do periodic patrolling inside the house and around mom to make sure nothing were there to disturb her sleep. There is a reason why dogs get attached to us so much. Tommy and Judy were taken away from their mothers when their mothers were still nursing them. They came home and mom started feeding them so mom became mother to them. There is no love bigger and more envious than the love between a mother and her child. Even in his death bed and in his last moments, he was constantly looking at mom. Ditto with Judy as well. We made sure we were around her all the time so that she wouldn’t miss her family in her last hours.

Love in the animal world is straight and simple. Feed them and take care of them and they will give their complete loyalty in return. Their love is unconditional unlike in the human world. What pets do in our lives is something unique and special. They fill up spaces in our lives left behind by other human beings. Parents, siblings, family members, friends; pets make sure that we do not miss them. How do they do this? By constantly seeking our attention. They know when we are sad and need to be left alone and when we should not be alone. We believe animals are less intelligent than us. Most of our knowledge is built from our education system and what we experience in our society which has been created on the concept of wealth. The knowledge that animals possess is rooted in nature which is why they understand love, empathy and compassion much more than us.

Why does death hurt every living being? It’s just not us; every animal displays remorse at the passing of their loved ones. There are two things that happen when a beloved one passes away. We can no longer communicate with that person and most importantly we can never see each other again. This is what hits us first, especially after the funeral. Before this sinks in, we start missing that person and what hurts the most are the little things. Judy used to constantly move around inside the house and keep shifting her resting places. Her footfalls could be heard most of the time. Now there is a certain deathly silence.

What we need to understand is that our comprehension abilities are limited through our 5 senses. We were created with the knowledge that if we understood the entire process and cycle of life and death, we would become reckless beings and would never respect the rules of the Universe. If I knew when and how I was going to die and what would happen to me after death, I would live my life out without care rather than respect the time I have and everything life has given to me. This is why the entire system of life and death has been restricted to us. But as we approach death, that world opens out to us; especially in cases where people have lived out their lives and are dying of old age. My grandpa had a big wide smile on his face as he took his last breath. Death is release from the agony and miseries of our physical existence. Our souls are chained to our bodies just like we put birds and animals in cages. This is why I despise seeing any animal in chains or inside cages because their sufferings are doubly ignominious.

My dad reminisces about all the pets he has had from his childhood and keeps wondering where they are now. Of all the 7 billion people in the world, why do we know only the people we know? Out of them, very few become our best friends and soul mates. Why did we pick Tommy and Judy out of all the big bunch of babies that were there? It is impossible to believe and accept that all of this is random selection. There has to be some sort of connection that brings two people or a person and an animal together. When I look back at all the friends I have made, none of them seem to be random connections. It just happened with each one of them without any explanations. I thought about one of them yesterday and lo and behold, I see his call on my mobile in the evening. I keep telling dad that his beloved pets are just no longer in the physical form; they are in the form of energy and are everywhere. Our beloved ones become our guardian angels when they go to the spirit world and in the spirit form they will have a lot more influence in protecting us. We will not see them in the same form again. They discarded it when they left. But they will always be with us. I don’t miss any of my beloved ones because I have realized that there is no going away. We are eternally connected through space and time and once we realize and accept this, the boundary between life and death will vanish from our minds. We need to actually look forward to the end of our physical existence so that we could be with our beloved ones again.

Judy, my girl, be at peace wherever you are. We buried your body but your memories will be with us till we go to our own graves. Till we meet again in the spirit world…..

An objective look at God, Universe and creation

More than enough has been said and written and everyone is trying to find out the truth about our origins and about the history of our planet and the Universe. This is all leading to one point, the creator of the cosmos and everything in it. I have been baffled by this all along because it is extremely weird why we would want to know about that entity or whatever is out there and how would that knowledge make any difference to our lives, but it is getting clearer for me now. I am starting to believe that we have been looking at the wrong things and asking the wrong questions all along.

 

Fundamental to all of this is our flawed assumption that whoever created us also created the Universe. Ancient Indian texts, largely ignored as a collection of mythical fantasies are actually a lot more than that. They say we were created by someone called Manu and ancient Sumerian texts say we were created by someone called Anu.  Coincidence? But is it mentioned anywhere that Manu/Anu created the Universe or our planet? No. I believe we are looking at the word creation from all the wrong perspectives. Do we have the ability to create? Yes, we procreate so we are able to create our own beings and we are also creating other living beings now. We also have the ability to create non-living things and we have filled this planet with them. So if we have the ability to create so much, what about the abilities of the entity that created us? What if we find this entity and then come to know that this entity is also searching for the one that created it?

 

When it comes to creation, I have never come across anyone asking one question. We all know atoms are the building blocks of everything in the Universe. Question is, where do atoms come from and how do they get created? Ancient texts say all of us have an element of God in us and in scientific terms, this is nothing other than atoms. So when we make a car or a TV, it is basically atoms manipulating atoms, correct? Similarly, someone manipulated atoms and created us. This means creation has been delegated across the Universe. According to Indian texts, the Universe is created at the dawn of a Brahma day and destroyed at the end of the day. The span of a Brahma day/night is about 311 trillion earth years. During the period of Brahma night, there is nothing or there is absolute void. So does this mean no atoms exist in that state? If this is true, then during dawn, one of the below two things are happening to kick start the creation of the Universe:

 

1. Atoms are being released from somewhere or by someone and the source is also created from atoms.

 

2. Atoms are getting created from some other fundamental cosmic particles.

 

In both cases, this is just plain manipulation of atoms. So the question we should be asking here is, how can atoms manipulate atoms or what is it that enables atoms to manipulate one another?

 

What is our purpose for the search of God or our creator? We were created by someone or something whose powers and abilities were beyond what we could fathom and we ended up worshipping it, just like we were worshipping everything in nature in our early days when we did not understand nature. We have always needed someone beyond our comprehension to look up to for us to keep believing that this entity will solve our problems when we cannot. The question here is why can’t we make our lives better ourselves when all it should really take is to change the vibrations of the atoms in and around us?

 

Trying to understand the Universe and its creation is like peeling an onion. By the time we reach the core of the onion, our eyes will become so watery that we will not be able to see anything. We know about 2, 3 and more dimensions so how many dimensions might exist? My grandma used to say there are 2 x 7 = 14 worlds. Did she mean dimensions or Universes? What did she mean when she said 2 x 7? Do dimensions exist within the realm of a Universe or outside of it? Does our Universe have 14 dimensions? In which Universe or dimension do we exist now? Is it possible to travel from one dimension or Universe to another? When we die do our souls travel into another dimension or to another Universe? All of this is always going to be beyond our realm of understanding.

 

Creation, destruction and recreation of the Universe can be substantiated from the fact that this process is mirrored across the Universe. Everything in the Universe has a start date and an end date which is life and death for us. If the Universe can be recreated, so can we be reborn which proves reincarnation of our souls. At the lowest level, we can simply say atoms are being reused. This is where it gets interesting. Why does everything that happens in the Universe happen? Why do stars disintegrate? Why are black holes formed? Why do planets collide? Why are we born? Why do we experience all that we experience in our life time? Is it that the information from everything that is happening in the Universe is being recorded and stored which can be used for the further evolution of this Universe or even for the creation of other Universes? There is something called Akashic records which has been mentioned by many as a repository of knowledge of the Universe that exists in another dimension. The fundamental question here is why, why all of this happening. The objective of any investigation is to find the motive and that is exactly we need to find here as well. If we find out the why, everything else will fall in place.

 

If we start looking for answers to these questions, we will have no time left to quarrel and squabble with one another because from the perspective of the Universe and creation, the life we live now will not make any sense. Though we are all made from atoms we are all unique in our own ways. This is true for the animal world as well. Similarly, what we experience in our lives is also unique. This is the real beauty of creation and the most intriguing aspect of the Universe. Once I realized this, whatever is happening in our world, be it with politics, murders, rapes and everything else has stopped affecting my mind. The Universe is learning and evolving and it is gathering information from every possible means. No God is coming to save people from getting murdered and raped. It is for us to decide what information do we want to pass on to the Universe and lead our lives accordingly.

 

Finally, when someone says God, think atoms.