Shoes of the Dead - Book Review

Politics, journalism and everything between the two, well that is today’s India for you. Kota Neelima’s Shoes of the Dead gives a remarkable insight into what has become of us today, we as a nation - a complete breakdown. What the book captures is the unheard rural issues of farmer debts and suicides, things which do not make to the prime time news. While Gangiri could do that, the end of chapter twenty two tells us until when. It hits the conscience. Farmers and their families, bank officers, local leaders, politicians and journalists- the detailing of the circumstances and characters although very elaborate is very much needed to make the reader realize what the ground situation in the villages is, it very much reflects the extensive research behind this book. There are parts such as these which put me to thought:

“There is no one out there reading your story. There is no one who will take a step because of your story. It is just a numb, self absorbed world that is slowly consuming itself, from light to darkness, from darkness to darkness”

How true is that! People tend to get out of the mass ignorance and fight for the right but only when the wrong happens to them. To change the system first we need to get into the system, there is no waiting for that to happen. And that’s what the book tells us, to do the right at the right time in the right way. Then there are instances as close to real, where Keyur, a politician because he was born to one speaks like this in a press meet:

“People believe we will make better leaders because we are born into political families into power. They know we can handle it better. And we have” 

Really? This speaks of the many in power right now in our country, arrogant as much as ignorant. Our maybe politicians analyze people better, or else the latter wouldn’t be at the receiving end. The role of journalists is well portrayed too, especially Nazar. Things that happen in the media, how news becomes breaking news and why. The complexities of governance are enlightening but deeply saddening. The ones who make it to the system are consumed by the system unfortunately. So where do we all stand as India, a nation, a very scary thought, ‘Bharath Nirmaan’ and all the glorified concepts apart.

A commoner better pick such books up from a library or book store because until one is aware there is no thinking about it, and doing something about it is a farfetched idea. The book isn’t a thriller, a self help book, a romantic story or a fantasy fiction. The genre is different, it is reality. Well we do not read such books in detail often and that’s the depressing truth. Principles and power do not go together, so do politicians and people in a bad democracy. There is a lot to avoid, to learn, to change, to act or else we are not far from becoming one. In this direction, the book is one good attempt .

PS:

This post is a part of the Book Reviews programme at Blogadda

-R

The Game Of Care And Cure

  

Picture Courtesy

“It is the last place I would step into” fortunately or so I am one of those who will never wish to say this unlike many others while speaking about a hospital, thanks to all the medicine I know and I am in the process of learning. It is the first place I look forward to be in and do what I am best at. Every morning when I make it to my work place I see people queuing up to get an appointment, people waiting outside the laboratory to get their reports, people getting their prescription of medicines at the pharmacy, people in the ward running behind the nurses and ward boys, people in the operation theatre, people in the casualty, people in the outpatient department, people getting their radiographs done people near the blood bank, people who make it and people who do not. A sea of them and I am not exaggerating. Everything on each of their faces, the relief and the pain, the joy and the suffering well that answers this question ‘How does modern heath care touch lives?’ It is something we must acknowledge, more than we do right now.

Modern day medicine is more demanding than it is often debated about. Like all other systems, health care is not spared of issues, in fact it is targeted first and that kind of talk would make an another post. I would be deviating from this one necessary question which needs to be answered. Thanks to Indiblogger for letting me beat a drum about it here ;) Being a doctor at the least what  I can do is make the world aware of the good that we get to do and are bound to do :) 

The sheer difference an investigation or an intervention brings in somebody’s life, and the way a medical professional looks at a disease or a disorder because of it is just incredible. They therefore can give you a hope to fight, to live better and survive because they know there are these amazing inventions and discoveries in their hand and knowledge in their head to help you out. Diagnosis is better compared to what the situation was like a few decades ago. Hole in the heart? It can be fixed. No more heart??? Well that can be fixed too.

Transplants and resections, minimally invasive and robotic surgeries, drugs and vaccines, tests and markers, molecular studies and research. You ask for it, you have it. This was on one of my night duties , the Vitek, an automated blood culture system beeped within 8 hours of loading the blood culture bottle to the machine, which meant there was some microorganism growing in the blood culture, we did the staining and identified it as cocci in chains and reported immediately to the clinician so that he could start the right antibiotic, the patient was later diagnosed of Group A Streptococcal sepsis and thankfully he recovered. On an another occasion we had a patient diagnosed of dengue, not responding to treatment for almost a month in the hospital and on more elaborate investigations we found her to have profound bone marrow suppression due to a rare complication of the infection. She recovered too with chemotherapy. It is in instances such as these, which are beyond all this talk about advancements and technology which make doctors like me believe that we can deliver what we should. 

Every new drug, every new test, every new machine, every new tool, every new procedure and every new doctor in fact is accepted into the medical camaraderie after crossing a hundred hurdles. Trials and phases as we call it in pharmacological terms ;) This surely is the case in many other professional set ups as well, but in health care the glitch is this, there is no room for a mistake. You do it and you are done. Then is when the world talks about healthcare, not otherwise. In such a critical scenario, what medicine has achieved is commendable, nothing can match up to that.

Fleming did find penicillin, but he had warned about resistance. Now we have carbapenems, well resistance to them too. Modern medicine has not just touched lives, it has radically changed the way we approach health and disease. If you were to hear the commencement speech of Dr.Atul Gawande at Stanford School of Medicine  in 2010 you will understand what I am trying to put across. The field is large, the goal is big, the crowd is huge and the players are less. But the game, if you are allowed to call it so, is definitely interesting. Only those who play and cheer will agree :) I am more than glad for having chosen to be a part of it for all my life :)

Only Bill Watterson can make Calvin Hobbes play Doctor-Doctor this way ;)

Picture Courtesy

-R.

 PS: This post is written as a part of Indiblogger's How does Modern Health care touch lives? in association with Apollo Hospitals

My Life My Rules - Book Review

Aristotle once said "All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire." This book made me agree. A compilation of real life stories how people can change their life if they really wish to. An unconventional career is something which is as under rated as much as it is over rated. The bottom line of all the stories is just this- if you think you are or can become good at something there is nothing that can make you feel unconventional about it. Even the so called 'conventional' careers cited in the author's note have their share of unconventional hardships. Work is worship, but it all depends on for what and how often we truly pray.

What is impressive is the selection of profiles of people from varied backgrounds in our country, people whom we hear about and watch on television. Each of them have made an exceptional mark in their field, rules and life apart. Words such as these of Harsha Bhogle "Things just happen to me. What I do is only approach them with the attitude that okay, I am going to give my best to whatever comes my way. I may not be good enough for a particular day but then it's not a crime. Given the circumstances of the day, I try the best I can"

 My personal opinion with regards to the choice of people written about with due respect to their achievements, if we were to consider the relevance of the title is just this, it could have been more better. ' My life my rules' sounds a little inappropriate, some of the instances cited which made them choose their career has nothing to do with a goal or dream, some went by the flow and some made a hard choice. Read the book to agree. Not every effort or step in  life can be always strongly intentional. Life gets shaped not just by rules.

From a reader's perspective, the concept of this book is appealing. But when it comes to the choice of words, the flow of each story is just an elaborate life summary. For instance in one part "Born in ...., about thirteen kilometers from... he is the fourth of the five children". Somewhere with all the detailing the rules of life, the intention of the book is forgotten in many paragraphs. Now why would a reader really want to know what was his birth order, speak of ideologies and principles which shaped him up professionally, well that can be taken.

All said and done, there are boundaries that surround all our dreams. Yes they do exist. The hard part is to bring them to reality beyond them. It takes a great deal of everything in life and people who are willing to go through it all make it to books such as these, so that we can read about them. And in some way get inspired, and write a little better :)

This post is a part of the Book Reviews programme at Blogadda

-R