SPRKS IN CSF: Looking at India, looking at the past again and se...

SPRKS IN CSF: Looking at India, looking at the past again and se...:  I look at this today and think... 'those humans corrupted by power... they  all act similarly, just colors and stripes differ' , th...

Looking at India, looking at the past again and seeing the present...

 I look at this today and think...

'those humans corrupted by power... they  all act similarly, just colors and stripes differ' , thats all... projected onto other powers , is it any different be it another country's rulers or groupies ... gas lighting and arm twisting strategies  are the same , bait and switch modes are also the same , be it today , or be it another power swelled being, in another day, another place ...

"India's doctors strike in protest at rape and murder of colleague", 

I read the headlines that has been in the news of late and I am transported to the one  call duty day many years ago, on the near side of the 1980s . I was a newly minted Doctor, idealistic, trying to view the world around me with part naïvete and part self importance. There I was trying to catch some sleep after attending to a few patients who came in to the causality after  a fight and after them was  a young lady brought in by ''a neighbor saying she was found unresponsive ...

 I had  tried to get more info but the man who brought in this young lady  said that he 'will go get her family' and promptly disappeared .Later it turned out that were more twists to the story( may be that's for another time ).The young lady was pregnant and  had ingested paramer -a poison in an attempt to commit suicide .After all this there I was,  in the call duty room, trying to get some shut eye after having stabilized the young lady and  transferred her to the ward .

There was a knock on my door and as I slowly shut my eyes... so I got up and looked out through the window, but the corridor and the entrance to the causality area( the small ER of this hospital) stayed empty.

 Except for a wandering street dog there was no one astir  and the bare streetlights cast stark shadows of the banana trees leaning towards the road from the yard past the road. Here I was at three AM , trying to get back to sleep, yet again. I pulled up the hospital issue sheets over my head and closed my eyes . I felt the door to the call room being pushed , so I got up again and asked 'who is it', but all that i heard was silence interspersed with the snoring of the Nurse Madhavi who was  on duty for the night . I returned to the bed , but my alertness would not allow me to sleep .

As I slowly drifted back to sleep , there it was again.... a strong push , almost an attempt to force the door. This time I was more annoyed , and shouted out 'who is it , what do you want ' . There was the face of the senior doctor , Dr. Kurup, a middle aged man at the window insisting that I open the door to examine a patient . My innate sense felt that something was odd, very incongruent  and hence  I refused , I was threatened with very dire carrier destroying consequences, while  he tried to break down the door . As he pushed against the door ,I pushed my whole weight against the door .In that tussle he got hold of the end of my saree pallu, pulled it and tried to disrobe me , but I was more determined , I  managed  to wrap the other end to the bed frame and  yet held the door with all of my weight against it. The force by this senior doctor pulled the  bed against the door. Despite all this commotion Nurse Madhavi snored even louder... 

At  the present time  as I look back, I see her as  colluding with this beast of a doctor.

As the night slowly gave way and it got closer to the morning , there were movements in the street outside with people getting their coffee and breakfast from the 'thattukada' and hence  the monster retreated . As  he left in the morning at the end of the shift he made a snide remark, as he passed by me while I checked the vitals of a  new patient, ' I know where you live'. It made me  afraid but a determination laced with strong outrage took over .

What is a young trainee resident doctor to do?- face the society  which is always ready to blame the female  and let someone  know about  what happened?... Ah the shame of it all...

I decided that I have to address it ( something no  girl will ever do , due to how the society at large  viewed it), Yet I had to act... I could not just cower and let it go...

I spoke to the chief medical officer, who was reasonable , he said "Dr. Kurup has high political connections, so you have to decide what you do and how you want to proceed, be careful whatever you do" etc ..

After the morning rounds, I went straight to the health directorate office and filed a complaint .

So, what happened after all that...an investigation was initiated, but quashed and tabled after about a  month. Supposedly a call came from the health minister , per my  inside source,  a secretarial staff member  at the  health directorate who I had befriended . 

As for our chief medical officer, the very next day  after my complaint to the state health director our  chief medical officer got transferred to a 'god forsaken corner of the state' .

 My father who was also a government official had an investigation with a trumped up charge which got dropped after many months . There was also , may be an an attempt or two  on my life...one was a motorcyclist almost running me over as I walked from the bust stop to our house one day , yes at mid day . I  ran inside into a nearby shop .Speed of athletic training of my past came in handy that day.

We were  to have a send off dinner party at the end of the period of training  for all us trainees after a few months as we completed the trainee  period. There was to be  a boat ride and dinner at the boat club . However I was advised by another colleague to not be  alone at any time , was warned there are  some dangerous elements involved with evil intent... Despite pleading  calls , taunts etc. to be on the boat I refused it that day, instead I  stayed wherever there were 3 or more people the whole time  .

'How dare  a young female doctor stand up to such politically powerful being' ,I  wonder if this was how Dr. Kurup felt  as he made all those moves , including those to intimidate me or threaten my life. 

I wonder how it would have evolved if I didn't have the courage that itself came out of the strengths of my growing up with the supports that I had from my own family, or if it occurred in another state in India. If this could happen in 'the much women powered' and 'education forward state' of Kerala, I dread to think how many such incidents happened and continue to happen in other places .

I am glad that I filed that complaint, and I am thankful that at such a vulnerable time I had a supportive chief medical officer who I felt I could  inform of the event ,ever so briefly inform him of what had transpired, despite all  the society imposed shame . .

The corrupt powers in all parts of the world pretty much functions in the same way, may be the difference is how they each  make their  attempts to cover up somewhat differently, but outside of that it all seems to be  the same...

Did India progress when it comes to empowerment of the women? I doubt it , if the various chats and discussion  groups' take on the current strike-  asking for a  bare minimum safety for female doctors at work . If this is is any indication, then there has been no progress...

The male dominated societies seem to forget that every male has a mother who is a female and if not for that  female's care  they would be naught. Can they offer a little respect where it is due to the females of this world , may be the societies have to re-learn  to value females more than objects. 

In India , despite all the progress ,the minds of people have shrunk and hence much progress is needed to open and allow their minds to grow , especially for a society that had so much lost learning that got dissolved with time and presently is just  limited to pandering their culture's history in one  form or another. I hold that hope especially for the land where once giant minds of learning  grew  and was a beacon of  tolerance and equality before it all was buried ...

( by PC3, 08/17/2024)

SPRKS IN CSF: For Mamma

SPRKS IN CSF: For Mamma: Thoughts, like art at MoMa, search for Mamma ,  Yesterday , I nestled mine in her lap...for comfort, Today I nestle some-ones', weighty ...

For Mamma

Thoughts, like art at MoMa, search for Mamma , 

Yesterday , I nestled mine in her lap...for comfort,

Today I nestle some-ones', weighty thoughts ,

They slip into my lap, for safekeeping,

Today all is still, even the air... heavy  is the weight ,

Of having thoughts , for heavy lies the mind,

Amidst Mindless chatter's prattles, in  vacous ethos' din,

Thoughts and minds , in my lap lies quiet...

Now it's time to grow, ever so quietly,

Emerge  when ripe, in full glory... a surprise ,

Surprise like light , dawn at last  to dispel this  dark...

Poem  by Pc-3   (09/20/2025) 

SPRKS IN CSF: NEW DAY's NIGHTMARE

SPRKS IN CSF: NEW DAY's NIGHTMARE:  I woke at dusk wondering if its dawn , Or did I wake at dawn and still wonder ? Is today tomorrows preview or is it now...just that-now, Is...

SPRKS IN CSF: Reflections..

SPRKS IN CSF: Reflections..:  Flames dance ,reflections on the tarp wall, Up and down they flow, little wisps of orange, Squiggly worms and tongues, Lit like pine needle...

Reflections..

 Flames dance ,reflections on the tarp wall,

Up and down they flow, little wisps of orange,

Squiggly worms and tongues,

Lit like pine needles floating down,

The sky remains alit, an  orange glow to the horizon,

Doughy and hopeless wanders our lives,

To be dead in a crackle, by a nuclear lamp,

We all... just Moths to the flames,

Singed bodies and doughy dead float down,

The river , no longer for water...

Fire inside is thirst, so intense,

Water cannot quench it,

Decayed souls elsewhere,

They dance to the tune of our deaths,

In this fire pit, Moths ,People all die,

The same end to us all !

Poem by Pc-3( 09/08/2025)

SPRKS IN CSF: Re-reading fiction again

SPRKS IN CSF: Re-reading fiction again:  I am re- reading older books of fiction, so I can may be find ways to navigate life , without living in the presence of reality now . It ge...

Re-reading fiction again

 I am re- reading older books of fiction, so I can may be find ways to navigate life , without living in the presence of reality now . It gets me to just create a fantasy land that is more tolerable . I am now started re- reading ' the god of small things ; drawn to it after reading somewhere about the author.

My thought is, it gives me a pre-view sense for viewing the current realities as it gives me the awareness that similar things had been weathered in the past , by so many , and many came out un-scathed .Makes me wonder how my parents managed the news and changes in their time, how my grandparents managed it  in the uncertain tumultuous times that happened in  their lifetime . They all seemed to have navigated the uncertainties and did enough to impact the  political climate  in their own times , without crumbling, and seemingly without washing away their ethical beliefs... some times at a cost  as I recall where others questioned some of the losses due to sticking with honor and ethics . I have to say that those stories did have  an impact , hence I cannot forgo my principles either. 

so I choose fiction where fantasy may seem easier than this inability , the inability to do more for standing up to the tyrannical drama...  Reality that is a drama played out daily, occurring cyclically, blown in with the dawn each day...

by Pc-3 ( 08/31/2025)