Jeet was nervous. He was accompanying his dad for the first time
on their mission. They carefully moved, dodging past the obstacles, with an eye
out for unexpected attacks. Suddenly, a huge cannon ball landed near them.
The lady in the kitchen bent down to lift the fallen apple as the
ants scurried to safety.
This post has been written as part of Write Tribe Festival Of Words. Today's exercise is to share an inspiring story.
I dont remember where I first read about Narayanan Krishnan. But I knew that there was this man in TamilNadu who had set upon himself the onus of feeding the homeless old, and mentally ill people on the streets of Madurai everyday. I did a search on the Internet to get further details in order to write this post.
Krishnan, was an award winning chef with the Taj Group of Hotels Bangalore. On witnessing an old man being pushed to the extent of eating his own waste out of hunger, he felt this awakening inside and quit his job. From then on he has dedicated his life to providing food to so many helpless souls on the streets. He even dignifies their appearances by giving them haircuts and baths. He was selected as one of the Top Ten in CNN's 'Heroes of 2010' list.The below video from YouTube is very inspiring.
"Everybody has got 5.5 litres of blood. I am just a human being. For me everybody is the same", he says.
Like Krishnan, we need not quit our jobs and dedicate our whole lives to some cause. There are trillions of ways in which we can serve society.Service to others is a very noble thing and we call such acts selfless. To me, everyone should help people in need for a purely selfish reason.The happiness and joy that we would feel in going out of our way to make someone else's life better is unparalleled. For this feeling of happiness, for this selfish reason we all must try to help our fellow human beings. Lets all do our parts in some small way.
I mainly depend on the library system of Singapore for my reading. Every locality has one with a vast collection of fiction and non-fiction. The best part is you can borrow at any location and return at any. But when it comes to works by Indian authors, the choices are limited. I really like reading them because it feels close to home and its very easy to relate. Flipkart also does not do any overseas delivery if I am not wrong. If any of you know means by which we can get Indian books overseas at affordable prices do let me know in the comments section.
A friend recently lent me this book and it was quite a good read.
The story is set in a medical college milieu. The protagonist Adityaman Bhatt alias Adi, travels all the way from his hometown Ranchi to Bombay in order to pursue his studies in medicine.The rest of the story is about his experiences there with his coterie of friends ranging from ragging to politics to the tragic death of a close pal. Love blossoms between him and one of his classmates and a significant part of the story deals with that too.
Anirban has dealt with myriad of issues in the book and some sections are really thought provoking.
There is one instance where Adi simply removes a safety pin from a patients bed that has been pricking her foot and the chief doctor tells him that this act would be more remembered by the woman than any other treatment she received.
"Today what I want you to learn is what wearing that white coat and carrying that sthethoscope around your neck means. It means you provide relief. Soon you'll realize how little we can actually do to cure diseases in patients, but we can always bring relief by simply listening to them." he says.
Anirban also touches upon how the poor in the country are at the mercy of the doctors in the government hospitals and how no body's permission is sought when using them as objects of observation for the medical students.
One of the characters Toshi is from Nagaland and some light is thrown on the issues faced by the people in the North East . The problems they face in getting accepted in the rest of the country and the tension that prevails in the region are mentioned in the narrative.
I could not find any major shortcomings in the book. The narrative style and the language are quite good. I would not say its a not-to-be-missed book but i liked it - not too heavy, funny in parts with a fair dose of sentiment and romance.
This post has been written as part of Write Tribe Festival of Words-Day 3 where we had to do a 'Free Write' exercise i.e write whatever comes to mind for a stipulated time.
The sky is downcast. There has been no rains in Singapore for the past so many days. This is quite unusual here. Normally there would be a downpour every alternate day. I hope it rains today.
It seems suddenly very quiet all around. A huge apartment complex is coming up in the neighboring site and the non stop clink-clank-whirr fills our house all the time. They work even on Saturdays and Sunday is the only day our ears get some solace. Now the machines seem to have stopped all of a sudden. Maybe the workers are also looking at the sky wondering if the rain-God will shower some of his blessings around. I stay within the house but their state is worse. They are out in the sun all day surrounded by all the dust and noise.
That reminds me of my ex-boss who had served in the army for some time. He would say that when he goes to sleep he still hears a buzzing noise in his ears like the insects in the thick vegetation during his days of service. Now thats quite a big sentence, did I get it grammatically correct?
That reminds me of my first standard teacher Joan. Unable to finish the biriyani that my dad got for lunch, i started crying. When asked why, I replied amidst sobs "My father got me many biriyani".She replied "Hmm, you must say lot of biriyani and not many biriyani". That brings the picture of hot steaming biriyani hovering in front of my eyes. I can almost touch the soft basmati rice and the bay leaf peeping out at the corner of the plate. Well enough, i tell myself and the plate disappears.
There is this movie 'Pattanathil Bhootham' in Tamil where a couple of guys end up finding a genie and the first thing they ask him to test his authenticity is a ladoo from Tirupathi. If only I had a genie what would I ask him? My mobile sends out a beep announcing the arrival of some message on Whatsapp. Oh yeah ! i would have immediately texted my group " i have a genie. What should i ask?".We live in crazy times.
The whirring starts again in the construction site and I can also hear the piercing noise of a jet in the sky. I really wish for some quietness around.
That brings me the images from our trip to Aleppey and its backwaters. The tranquility was amazing.The greenery and the pleasant weather! Wow!! Of course anything can be relished only for a day or two. I am not sure if I would enjoy staying in a place like that forever. We human beings keep looking for a change don't we? Yet when life gives us some unexpected challenging changes we find it so tough to accept or digest. I keep staring at the last sentence waiting for my mind to think of something. Strange, it decides to get into this meditative state when I am supposed to be doing 'Free Write'. I seem to be observing every single sound around, the rotation of the fan blades and the pages of the book fluttering before it and the motorcycle on the road.
Motorcycles! My husband had a bike when we got married and I enjoyed those bike rides so much. Especially when going on a bridge, I used to get a soaring feeling. When we moved out of India, there were no bikes anymore. Sigh!
There the time I set for myself is over. Free Write does seem to be an interesting exercise.
As part of Day Two, we need to showcase some blog/blogs that we enjoy.
I am a person who tends to brood over almost everything under the sky and because of the same I love blogs that spread some laughter around with their amazing humor content. The following are quite popular blogs and they truly deserve all that adulation.Whenever I step into one of them, there is a guarantee that I can have a good laugh and that my mood will be pepped up. Thanks to all of them for making my days brighter :D
Corrinne did mention to try and not to include fellow participants in the Write Tribe Festival. But there is one I would like to mention here. A wonderful lady who has seen a lot in life, an ex school principal and a cancer survivor. I love her posts be it simple anecdotes, memoirs or fiction but additionally her zeal for life and attitude continue to leave me spell bound.
