She was only a child…..

As soon as I opened today’s newspaper my sleepy eyes opened wide trying to digest the glaring headlines. My eyes welled up with tears and I could feel my heart sinking. The little girl, the five year old from Seoni in Madhya Pradesh who was raped and abandoned in open fields on 18th of this month breathed her last yesterday night. She battled for her life for 11 days but couldn’t hold on to it any longer. How much strength could that little girl have had? She was a only child.

If I’m feeling like this what must be the plight of her parents? My heart bleeds for them. Will they ever be able to forget all that happened to their small child? These awful memories are going to haunt them forever. May God bless the little one’s soul and give her parents the strength to overcome all this. AND may God give the authorities the courage to punish these filthy criminals without waiting for this and that.

Our Petty Politicians

Politicians and celebrities are always in the public eye. Both of them have to think twice before they utter anything because the ever alert media is wanting to grab something that makes sensational news. This is why, they both are always acting. I mean they are always pretending to be what they are not. 🙂 Inspite of their best foot forward, sometimes they end up making statements that leave us surprised, shocked, terrified, irritated, frustrated and whatnot!! After reading some of these statements, one is left gaping with a wide open mouth, thinking aloud ‘How could they?.’ Some very brash and brazen statements have made people sit up and take notice, making them not famous but very infamous.

1.Long back,Late Marri Chenne Reddy had the courage (audacity?) to say “if Madam Gandhi asks me to collect a crore of rupees towards party funds, I’m not a fool to collect that much only.” Corruption at its bravest and honest best,I think.

2.Not very recent, but who can forget the “cattle class” statement by the very sophesticated Shashi Tharoor, putting animals and humans on the same level, insulting both?

3.The much hyped future P M from BJP, Narendra Modi crossed his limits by calling Sunanda Tharoor, “the fifty crore girl friend”. Coming out from a staunch bachelor, it sounds like a case of sour grapes 🙂   On a serious note, as long as men don’t learn to respect women, they will not get respect from anybody.

4.The month of January saw too much of it, what with Mamta didi asking the media if she should go and beat up the PM!!  No regards for the position nor age of the PM. Anyway, ever since we’ve known her, Mamta has been famous for two things– her rude talk and her heavily accented English. Its a diifferent matter altogether that except for Dr Man Moun Singh everybody is reacting sharply to this. 🙂

5.Our Home minister Mr Sushilkumar Shinde displayed a very irresponsible attitude when he said, “BJP and RSS have training camps which promote Hindu Terrorism.” Such a baseless statement by a cabinet minister without facts and figures to support it, suggests that he’s only trying to please his bosses by saying such things about the Opposition Party. What else could it be?

6.And then, Mr Gadkari, throwing all caution to wind tried threatening the IT officials (in a typical Gabbar style-yeh dushmani tujhe mehengi padegi Thakur)- He sais, ” IT walo Kaha jaoge baad me, na Sonia rahegi na Chidambaram, bachane ke liye.” Its really hard to believe that an active politician can stoop so low and threaten people like a local goon.

7.When we are talking of threats can anybody forget how our Law minister(?) Salman Khurshid threatened (hindi me iske liye right word hai-lalkarna) Arvind Kejriwal that ‘if he comes to Farrukhabad we’ll see how’ll he go back’.  He also said that he had been wielding a pen till so far and that now, is the time to replace it with blood! Law minister giving out war cries!!

8.The most recent, stupid, rash statement came from a Samajwadi Party minister from U P, Mohammed Azan Khan. He blabbered in a speech “I would’ve led the frenzied crowds had they decided to bring down the Taj Mahal.” He was referring to the crowd that demolished the Babri Masjid. This is because the honourable minister thinks that building the Taj was a criminal waste of public funds by Shah Jahan! (??)  God, why’s he talking of wastage of funds of 17th century when, in today’s context, there are innumerable people using public fund( in his own party also) as though its their own -a Robert Vadra, the Chautala father and son duo, a Mayawati madam, Lalu and Mulayam Yadavs etc etc have amassed crores and crores of rupees bypassing rules and regulations. Is that not a wastage of public funds? More than anything, how could anyone even think of razing THE TAJ MAHAL, one of the wonders of the world, a world heritage sight visited and admired by millions of people from all over the world?

When I read about these politicians and many more like them in the newspapers and see them shouting and mud slinging at each other on the news channels( on supposed to be Debate Hour)-I don’t think of them as fools-I think We, The People- who voted and elected them -are the Biggest Fools, obviously, because we’ve made a wrong choice.

Gifts and doctors

Long ago when I went to a skin specialist I was mesmerized by the items displayed on his table — the pen stand, table calender, paper weight. tea coaster set etc.. It’s not that I hadn’t seen these things before, but these were different, and I hadn’t seen such good ones anywhere, for sale. Little did I know at that time that  these are the most basic things the doctors get as gifts and there’s TOO much more to it than we can see.

Few years back my nephew started working as a medical representative for a certain company and I got to see the actual things that these fellows, I mean doctors, get as gifts — vegetable choppers, twisters or figure trimmers,corele breakfast and dinner sets,beautiful torches, cushions with silk covers, ready to wear shirts, rotating chairs that they sit on { I’ve a feeling that some greedy doctor must have ‘placed an order’ for the last one as I’ve seen only one chair so far} I can’t mention all the things  here as it would make the list too long. Things used to be stocked up at home along with the medicine boxes which made the room look like a godown. While the doctors are given these gifts as they are basically meant for them, the near and dear ones also get them! [Don’t ask how] Even I have lot many of these and people keep asking me where do I buy them because these are not seen in shops.

Though I loved all these gifts that I got from my nephew, I always used to wonder why do these doctors have to be gifted so much? Now I realize how naive I was! Everything is fiercely competitive in this world and the more you promote yourself and please the concerned people your sales are bound to go up. Look at the way movie stars come on T V shows for the promotion  of their new films. Like everybody in business even the pharma companies have found out ways and means to sell their products–by way of gifting the doctors heavily. Recenly I read an article in a newspaper which said that the doctors are gifted international holidays (!) apart from the other usual things.No wonder, the doctors who accept all this ( why’ll they not? ) have to oblige the gifters and prescribe the medicines of those companies. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve feeling that these companies gift the medical shop owners also so that they stock their medicines and suggest them as an alternatives to some other company’s medicines. Now a days ‘fixing’ of all kinds are going on and this should not come as a surprise. All of us would have noticed at some time or the other that the medicine a doctor prescribes are definetely available in the pharmacy next to his clinic. But if go to a shop a few meters away from ther and ask, you may or may not get all of them there and the pharmacist will definetely ask you to buy an ‘alternative’ which he has.

But the one thing that I find funny is that inspite of all the nice gifts that the medical reps bring along, they are always made to wait for hours before they get an entry to the doctor’s chamber. I wonder why act pricey–oh, we are not waiting for your gifts type behaviour–when you are taking everything like a jolly good fellow?

To say the least, in today’s medical world where most of the doctors are wholely and solely focussed on money making, service has no meaning. We keep reading so much in the newspapers and saw and heard so many people on Aamir Khan’s show- and I’ve seen several doctors from close quarters during my brother’s illness that I just cannot forget that bitter experience. I think the Hipocratic oath that these doctors take ‘swearing to practice medicine ethically and honestly’ is just a hypocracy by all means and I’m sure, Hipocrates must be turning in his grave to see that the his name is being used derogatorily, thanks to these doctors.

My apologies to all the honest and good doctors who are there serving and helping people selflessly. We keep reading and hearing about these angels too, but their numbers are dwindling by the day.