Life is a burden and life is destiny for some,
Life is privilege and life is an experience for some,
Life is a word and life is a sentence for some,
Life is a prose and life is a verse/poem for some,
But fret not my friend if you feel life is an illness and life is a cure for some,
Because life is a companion and life itself is a partner for some.
Vikram
I’m 24 years old and have always been scared of injections ever since I was a kid. They terrify me. I was procrastinating online, reading about sports and one article lead to another and I found myself reading about new age injectable medicines. The article discussed how fear of getting a ‘shot’ prevents people from going to the doctor and poses a wide variety of risks.
I’ve had more than my fair share of injections. More than a fair actually. I’ve been hospitalised more than anyone else I know. I’ve undergone surgery three times. First time was when I was 5 years old. And I’ve been given so many injections for various vaccines and in sickness that one would think I would be used to them by now. But no. Not one bit.
Google informs me that there are 6 types of phobias related to a fear of needles.
Tough, tough fancy medical words. I can relate to Algophobia, Belonephobia and Trypanophobia above. I’m fine with needles. But injections petrify me. The very thought of the long needle being penetrated force ably into my veins creeps me out. And the worst is when the doctor or nurse holds the injection up to the light and squirts it lightly. And all doctors and nurses always have that sadistic and powerful expression on their face whenever they do that. ALWAYS. At least that’s the way I always see it. It’s like they see me squirming and fearful and it makes them feel as if they hold power over my life. As if they had been selected to inject poison into Hilter to stop the war. Or as if they were administering poison to the most hardened criminal on death row. They have the look of pleasure which you can see in their eyes. And sadism.
As a child I remember throwing huge tantrums every time I would find out that’s it’s time for an injections. It would freak me out. And I would always find out at the last minute. That’s because I would start wailing and crying and throw stuff. I used to run out of the clinic or hospital. I had to run fast because if my parents or the nurse caught me before I made it out I would be force ably dragged back. I would run fast and crawl under my car. I would finally come out after some time when I got tired. That’s why my parents always ensured that I find out as a last minute surprise. Even if they knew beforehand.
My first surgery was at 5 years old. It was quite a serious surgery and I have a huge scar on my stomach as a result of that. It was speculated that the doctors did a botched up job that time which resulted me being back to the operating table for the same problem when I was 12 years old.
After graduating from school, I had a shoulder dislocation problem for 5 years. It happened because of a sporting injury. It happened 6 types during that time. The pain can be unbearable. I have a low tolerance for pain. Any kind of pain either physical or mental. I just don’t have the mental strength to deal with any kind of pain. A shoulder dislocation causes the kind of pain I wouldn’t wish even for my worst enemies. Okay, maybe the first two enemies on my list. It’s insufferable. I always get a minimum of two painkilling injections for it. I quiver when the doctor is about to inject me. I am close to tears because of the pain and the thought of the injection makes it worse. The only way to stop the recurring shoulder problem was surgery as every other alternative seemed to have failed.
I finally decided that it wasn’t worth it and I decided to get operated when I found a specialist hospital. I was hospitalized for 5 days after the surgery. I got three shots before the surgery that I remember before I passed out because of the anaesthesia. Worse I got two injections everyday for those 5 days, one in the morning and one before sleeping.
As a child, I would cry before, during and after getting injected. Now I always look away, grimace and clench my teeth when I am about to get an injection. During the 5 days after my shoulder surgery, I would get nervous when I knew it was time for the nurse to enter my room. Moment the nurse entered I would face away and thrust my arm out. A female nurse even chastised me once for being disrespectful for not wishing her ‘good morning’ and ‘acting like a sissy’.
I can’t help it. I don’t even wish to get rid of this fear. It’s abnormal. To see the mark of the tiny prick for a few weeks. To see them tap my arm, find my vein and inject.
The last few days have been really weird. Unlike anything I have ever felt before. I know what it is and yet I am unable to comprehend it. I fail to understand it. I couldn’t sleep last night. All I knew was that I missed her..and also that I shouldn’t. She’s flying to New York and the earliest I can hope to see her is in two weeks.
She is the one of the most fascinating women I have ever met in my entire life. She’s also the funniest. I have met a lot of people who are hilarious and witty, but she outdoes everyone else in my eyes. She always ready with the wittiest one liner, the perfectly timed quip and cracking the best jokes. And the best part is that she never does it with the objective of beating somebody else, the way some funny witty people always try and come up with a riposte to put down others. She’s fine with not having the last remark.
She’s also a woman of remarkable talents. She draws really vivid and striking doodles. Even the most seemingly basic drawings have great levels of details. The fact that the drawings tell a story, represent an idea or wish makes them even more scintillating.
She is also a wonderful writer who has her own blog with a couple of prose and a dozen poems. She told me about her blog when we were travelling back in a train with another friend. The three of us had visited a small town nearby for a trip to make the best use of an extended weekend. I read her blog posts I told her that her style of writing reminds me of Khaled Hosseini. The two prose were amazing. She had used the most perfect and appropriate words or phases to describe a situation. Some of the poems were dark and I may say, even depressing. As if she had suffered some terrible heartbreak which brought out the best in her rhymes. I was really impressed and even told her to leave our business consulting profession and write more with the objective of getting published. She was very shy about her penmanship and informed me that other friends had asked her the question of ‘What next?’ after reading her blogs.
All this and more draws me to her. Everyday. I met her in 2014 when I joined a new company. She was a member of the same team I was joining. To be honest, I don’t even remember meeting her that day. We didn’t interact a lot with each other initially though that has changed over time because of common friends. We handle different work which makes our professional interactions rather limited. It’s been great since we moved to a new building and we sit almost opposite each other which has greatly improved our interaction over time. We went for drinks together, just the two of us, after a few months of my joining the organization. That evening made me realise how much we had in common with each other. We both share mutual interest in music, movies and tv shows. It had been a long time since I had such a great conversation with anyone. I still remember that evening and what all we spoke about as if it had just happened.
I had never felt attracted to her. She’s truthfully not the prettiest, though she has a fantastic smile and laugh. She’s quite dusky in complexion and doesn’t have a svelte figure. A common friend terms her as having a ‘broad’ figure. She has captivating eyes and she projects great confidence. I always considered her to be a great friend and a really cool fun person to hang out with. Like I said, I had never felt attracted to her because she is totally ‘not my type’.
Until last week. A gay friend of hers invoked feelings of jealousy in me. I just cannot comprehend it. I’m struggling to figure out my thought process. She had a friend come by office on Wednesday. He works in Singapore and had come to visit. He was evidently and openly gay. I went home that day thinking about her and feeling very jealous. Next two days at work I found myself trying to get closer to her and being attracted to her. I started finding her pretty and looking lovely. I had known for over a month that she would be flying to New York on work for two weeks. I had never really given it much thought. But I started thinking deeply about New York City, wishing that she wouldn’t go, wishing that I could go with her, dreaming about us together in New York City.
She flew out last night and I kept chatting with her on texts. I felt so lonely and alone. And again wishing I could be with her in New York. I didn’t sleep a wink.
I don’t even know what she thinks about me romantically. She uses the same terms for me as I do for her. She finds me ‘cool’ and ‘funny’. She is always game and never minds the stupid games that common friends play of romantically linking people at work. She doesn’t mind the teasing and actively takes part in it as well. A common friend often teases me and asks me about dating her. She just laughs and makes a joke about it. I don’t even think that we make a good match. She looks bigger than I do when we are together. She seems to be the type who may be the extremely dominating kinds in a relationship. My ex girlfriend was dominating and I hated every minute of being with her. Or she seems to be the type who would sulk. Again my ex girlfriend was the kind who would sulk about the smallest of things. Oops, these traits in her remind me of my ex girlfriend at times. And this makes me afraid. Very afraid.
And also, confused, lonely, sad. I hope she misses me 11,747 kms away in New York City. I really hope she does. Because I can’t bear a minute of knowing that she is so far away. I dread going to work on Monday and not meeting her there.
Everywhere I go, everyone seems to be talking about one thing only. No, not the Ukraine crisis or even selfies, but rather the Indian elections. People across the world all the way over in the United States to Iran to Brazil are keenly looking forward to the results of the worlds largest democratic election. The scale of the election process spread over a month is simply massive with 814 million voters which is greater than the entire population of Europe.
But leaving aside the global interests for a minute, what is the future for the people of India? The Indian media has projected this particular election season as one of change. The next government could be either a make or break for India. The economy has recently plummeted, jobs have been lost and there is anti-incumbency against the current government mainly due to a horde of corruption scandals of humongous proportions that have rocked the government minsters all the way upto the Prime Minister. PM Manmohan Singh is considered a humble and extremely intelligent man who allowed corruption to flourish under him and was alas, a mere hand puppet of Sonia Gandhi, the most powerful woman in India and the head of the Congress Party.
The Candidates for PM
The battle for the next Prime Minister to lead the country is mainly down to two candidates and another unlikely third who in the world of fantasies and unicorns could cause a major upset.
The front runner for now is Narendra Modi, a highly contentious candidate, the man from the BJP with a self proclaimed 56 inch chest, the celibate who, as his critics shout themselves horse screaming, is seemingly in bed with industrials and has a development agenda for India on the basis of his Gujarat state model wherein he served as the Chief Minister for three consecutive terms of five years each, the state which had the highest development as compared to any other of the 28 states in India. The man however, ruled over the deadly massacre riots of 2002, which resulted in the killings of large number of the minority community of Muslims at the hands of the majority Hindus. For this reason alone, the United States denied him as a visa and provocative journalists globally draw unflattering comparisons with none other than Hitler. He evokes reactions of fear and hope, love and hatred, development and destruction, all at the same time for different Indians. If he comes to power, history will remember him, either as a dominant leader who led India to new heights as a global superpower or one who continued his supposed tyranny against some communities. People who typically are expected to vote for him are Hindus and businessmen and people with aspirational hopes for an economically more powerful India.
At the other end of the scale is Rahul Gandhi, the man from the incumbent Congress party – also called the grand old party which has been seldom out of power since India’s Independence in 1947. He belongs to the all powerful Gandhi family with four generations of Indian Prime Ministers and the offspring of Sonia Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi (an ex Prime Minister). He is also a contentious candidate, not for being in power during a genocide a la Mr. Modi, but for being distant, out of the public glare and one who would rather travel in Europe while the people of the nation were helpless, dire and desperate for some words and action from the leaders of the country in the aftermath of the gruesome December 2013 Nirbhaya rape case in the capital of India. Alas, no words came from the lips of the ruling government. The government, reeling from corruption scandals and with an eye on the upcoming elections did nothing significant in the eyes of the nation. The silence was taken as apathy on their part and they began to be regarded as people who would rather fill their own pockets than govern the nation. Rahul Gandhi, the heir apparent but the ‘reluctant prince’ as he is sometimes called because he seemingly shunned politics and did barely any active work for his party. He has been pushed to the front by the sycophants crawling in the Congress Party, but to the people of the nation he comes across as someone without a vision, someone who does not possess the strong leadership India so desperately needs, someone who could not even prepare well for his first TV interview and ended up repeating hackneyed words throughout. People who are expected to vote for Congress are mainly the minorities who have benefited from the various appeasement measures and bills introduced for them.
And at last the third. The crusader. The Aam Aadmi or common man. The anarchist. The one so ambitious, self righteous and reaching for the skies is Arvind Kejriwal. A former government employee who won over the minds of millions of Indians and got tremendous coverage in the media for his anti corruption crusade against the ruling government, all culminating to his Aam Aadmi Party coming to power by winning the local assembly elections, and naming him as the Chief Minister in the state of Delhi. As the CM of the capital, he delivered deafening press conferences with his cacophonous tirades against the corrupt, slept on the streets, headed demonstrations against the central government, gave huge monetary subsidies to the poor in the form of water and electricity resulting in losses to the exchequer. He came in with socialist reforms without any clue as to how to govern let alone develop the state. He lasted merely 49 days because he wanted to pursue his personal ambition of becoming the PM and contest the national election. It was not enough for him to be content and show his ability to govern as the CM of the capital state. No. He wanted more. He believes people of Delhi voted for him and now so will the people of India. He lost his middle class vote bank because he showcased his true identity and for his failures during his 49 days tenure. It became apparent that the messiah, the common man who fought against the government had no clue on how to govern, one who would rather India end up as an banana republic anarchy. As someone rightly said, he knows how to tear apart the car but cannot even build a bullock cart.
Eventually, who will be rewarded by the people of India. Who will come to power and become the PM. Will India vote for nepotism? or an anarchist? or a dictator? Or will the person who comes to power on May 16 show his true side and throw out of the window the stereotype leveled against them? Or could there be a major upset in the form of someone completely different taking over?
To sum it all up, I had this conversation with a 23 year old Delhi boy working in the corporate sector. We discussed politics over drinks and he told me about his political beliefs and reasons for voting. He was a second time voter and voted when he was 18 in the previous elections in 2009. He was quite well read and used to read magazines and articles, and said that he voted for the Congress, not because they were the better choice but simply because at the end of the day he felt the BJP candidates were too old and weary while the Congress had relatively younger and seemingly more educated candidates. This time though he would probably vote for Modi. Only thing he is worried about is that Gujarat is a dry state and is wary of the BJP reducing the closing time for bars and clubs to say 10 pm or worse abolishing alcohol and making it a dry country!! As long as they don’t propose to do that, Ab Ki Baar…Don’t close the bar?
The Contenders/Pretenders
Mark Voiahj 