Santhosh's ramblings

It was two years back, we as a family had to go through demise of our mother, after a rather fast progressive dementia. The experience of releasing our mother to a fast progressing inevitable end, was tough but we learned much through that experience. For me trained as a physician, releasing to death was ingrained in my mind as failure. To realize that releasing was inevitable is the best that can happen in the given context, made the bereavement process easier. This experience did change my perspectives much. Subsequently as I practiced and taught medicine, I would advise families about releasing their loved ones. I would teach junior doctors about thinking through these issues before we communicate with the family. And i felt i had matured in my thinking. Till this week. I have been sitting beside my father who has a CRF and fracture pelvis struggling in pain. Trying various permutations and combinations of pain killers, but realising that he has lost his will to live. He has had...

How did this change happen? Freedom to celebrate each other diverse as we are? This did not happen overnight or naturally nor is complete. It is an ongoing journey.  But many played key roles in this transition. (I, for most times was a silent observer!) We started off as being forcibly put together due to circumstances, as a batch of 1978. We had to live together come what may for the next 5 years at least. And so we were forced to “tolerate each other”. We formed our cliques and groups where we were more comfortable within the batch itself. For that matter, there were multiple groups and group allegiances. The dissection group was the first. That was outside our control. The rest were within our control. The political groups out of political leanings, the day scholars, the hostellers, the local paying guest groups, the Young Turks (Pre degree group), the seniors (Achayans) etc. We even had an apolitical group named as “Moofens” – not sure how this word originated! In t...

I remember my early years in the Medical college where I studied. We had Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Atheists all under the same roof. We knew where each one was in terms of their religion and faith. But it never mattered. What mattered was, we were the batch of 1978. We are still the batch of 1978. My roommate was a Hindu and a Marxist. Yes we had our share of politics, but that was in line with the dominant political movements of those times, but never in the name of religion. Some of us who were not happy with the dominant political movements, remained apolitical and that was respected by the politically active. Some of us were strong in their religious faiths. I being one such example. But that never reduced our friendship or relationships in any way.  We respected each other’s faith and beliefs and gave space for that.   I did not even know the caste of any one - nor do I know till today! I remember five of us deciding to go on a tour. This tour took us to a Ch...

I do not consider myself to be an expert in pain management, but I do manage the same on a regular basis. Not only have I been managing pain, I have been helping others to manage the pain. By teaching, helping in planning treatment for the patients admitted to our wards. I have used the WHO ladder, pain ruler etc. to teach and build capacity of JMOs to learn how to manage pain. But all this have been a based on a professional assessment and fairly detached and logical management of pain. We have had multiple discussions on rounds on how best to manage pain, why the PRN (as and when required - Pro Re Nata) never works. And PRN can be read as “personal responsibility mitigated” by writing an order and passing it on to the nurses, who generally never give the drugs because the patient neither complaints nor relatives ask for it. Because in our culture we are expected to tolerate pain. “Ethana dard to hoga, sahana padega….!” The principle with which we doctors practice. But...

I see organization and movements as man-made structures. There is only one organization or movement God established – that is the Church. (Not the one that we see today, that might be part of it!) All the rest are man-made. But definitely many of these might have been established out of God enabling and giving vision to people, fulfil a particular task which is in line with His Kingdom purposes. The structure of the institution or movement is not “God given” but man-made based on the then socio-cultural and political requirements. Which bring the issue that, all man-made structures bring with it the fallenness of humanity and all its failures and weaknesses. But like all fallen systems and individuals, they have the potential of redemption and being in line with the Kingdom purposes and holding on to the values of the Kingdom. This alignment is the role of the leadership. Not the supreme leader or CEO alone. The leadership of any organization, movement or institution has to co...

Fruitfulness is result of rootedness – the river was able to facilitate fruits because “river originates from the sanctuary”. It is our rootedness in the source that facilitates fruits in our lives and our ability to facilitate fruits in others’ lives. Not our skills, talents, hard work or striving. A river does not strive to facilitate fruits, it naturally does it because the it keeps itself connected to the source. Daniel and his friends, protected their rootedness in their God. Daniel from the initial days itself, even at the cost of life saw that that relationship with his God was kept alive and active though the context was challenging. How many times have we limited our fruitfulness by blocking our lives from the source or focussing on our abilities, talents and work more than rootedness? Limitedness of our influence comes out of we taking control of our life planning - A river flows where ever it finds space and as it flows it widens, deepens and facilitate life all a...

I just finished (along with a friend) editing a small write up which my father wrote. He was asked to write some memories of his time in a parish he pastored in mid-1980’s. Being in his late 80’s of age now, 89 to be precise, he is losing some of his memory. But he managed to put down a few key highlights of his time there. Reading through that, one thing became clear. Towards the latter part of his life, about 30 odd years after he left the place, it is the memory of “relationships he cherished” that remains most prominent in his mind. I do know that he had innovated much during his time there, but in his memoirs, all what he has done, only find a passing mention. We were recently sitting with a young boy and his family who have been with us for more than 2 months. He went through more than 2 weeks of ventilator support, suffered multiple cardio respiratory arrests, and almost of month of rehab and was going home. In his broken Hindi, (they are more comfortable in Bhojpuri) the f...