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James Joseph (Maani) Powathel, Palathuruthu jamespjoseph@gmail.com |
I have always suffered from periodic bouts of writer’s block. But the condition became chronic after my bypass surgery in July of this year. (More of it later.) Alex, Chief Editor (SS), good friend and country-cousin, suggested that the only way to unblock this condition is by forcing oneself to write. To emphasize his point he quoted Mary Vorse: “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” Following his advice, I sit glued to the chair in front of the computer. Nothing happens. So I shift my stare from the monitor to the scene outside. I keep looking out of the window waiting for inspiration. When my wife tells me to do something productive instead of just gaping at infinity, I quote Burton Rascoe to her: “What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window.”
Anyway, as I sit staring at the blank monitor, many thoughts flood my mind at random; there is neither order nor logic.
With time a luxury, I am, for the first time, reading the Bible from beginning to end. True, it is more mythological than factual. While reading it, one ought to remember that it was written thousands of years ago in a totally different cultural setting. It abounds in excellent advice and many wise sayings that are relevant even today. But one cannot follow it literally as demanded by many Christian denominations. Otherwise, the man whose wife is barren, can sleep with the house maid as Abraham did; one can have 300 wives like Solomon; (since managing one is so difficult these days, he should be awarded Param Vir Chakra for managing so many); the faithful have to drag unwilling sheep and calves to the altar to be slaughtered and the flesh burned on it since the aroma of burning flesh is most pleasing to the Lord. If you follow the Bible, there is nothing wrong in getting drunk at chandamcharth since Jesus, the Son of God Himself, performed the first miracle of converting water into wine at the Cana wedding so that the guests could have a jolly good time getting drunk. With the strict anti-alcohol stand taken by the Kerala Catholic Bishops Conference, time is not far off when the wine that is changed into the blood of Jesus during mass will undergo a subtle transformation into grape juice and the same quietly incorporated into the relevant parts of the New Testament!
Thoughts related to my cardiac problem also come to my mind: the routine check up at St. John’s Hospital Bangalore; the discovery of multiple blocks; the subsequent surgery at Fortis hospital, Bangalore; the high quality of its medical and nursing care; the super cleanliness; the exorbitant cost for all that. I quickly make a mental comparison with our own Caritas Hospital where I had been a few times. The latter, in my view, is found wanting in many respects. The excuse is that it caters to the ‘masses’ and hence cost has to be kept low with the resultant lowering of standards.
There are many lessons I learned during my stay at Fortis Hospital, Bangalore.
After about four hours under anaesthesia, when I came back to my senses, I thought of the time when I was totally dead to the world. I asked myself: is this not a prelude to what is going to happen after we die? The choirs of angels, eternal life of happiness in heaven, hell and its everlasting fires, the day of judgment when everyone would wake up from the dead and stand on either side of God, a soul that got fused into the body at conception and which leaves the same at the time of death – are all these not stories and myths created by cleaver but fraudulent men of religion for control over the simple and the naive? After surgery, I am more inclined to believe that with death you go back to the state that you were before conception – nonexistent.
Fortis Hospital has world renowned doctors; it takes good care of its nursing staff and hence the nursing care is excellent; the hospital administration is efficient; tariffs are high, yet the hospital is always full; in fact I had to spend an extra day in the ICU for a room to become vacant; lot of money is made through medical tourism. Caritas can learn many things from Fortis. However, when priests and nuns are in charge of hospital administration, they take frugality to the extreme. The common characteristic of Kerala hospitals run by clerics is the low salaries they pay the medical staff, resulting in large turnovers and retention of the inefficient. With medical treatment becoming very expensive overseas, medical tourism should be actively promoted. For this the hospital and its staff should be world-class. It cannot happen in a hospital that claims to be run for the masses under the pretence of charity.
Like the scatter-brained, my thoughts jump to the recent debate about starting ‘Caritas Medical College’. Many of the arguments on both sides of the divide have merit. The main problem with the Knanaya community is its lack of leadership with foresight tempered by wisdom. I stand by my theory that the creation of Kottayam Diocese for the Knanaya community a century ago when the hierarchy hijacked the leadership of the community was the beginning of its end. The new definition of knaism enunciated by Archbishop Moolakkattil for North America and the subsequent upheavals support my theory.
This brings me to a personal problem I have regarding endogamy. Till now I was a pure kna, both my parents and my wife being knas. After surgery I was given two bottles of blood from the hospital’s blood bank. Following this transfusion, I am wondering whether I continue to be pure! I could be part Anglo-Indian or Brahmin or Bihari. One consolation is that at my advanced age, there is little or no danger of a progeny whose knaism could be in doubt!!
James Joseph (Maani)
Powathel, Palathuruthu
jamespjoseph@gmail.com
Blog: www.maanis-musings.blogspot.com
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