Lessons Learned

The last few weeks have been stressful. My Dad was in hospital for three weeks, out of which two in the ICU. There were critical moments even and overall it has been a rollercoaster for the family.
I've changed a lot as a result of all that has happened in these three weeks and I'd like to share my learnings with all.

1. Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today = True. It's in moments like this that you realise, that you should say what you feel to your loved ones or do what you have to do TODAY. Tomorrow is very uncertain. So be it making out that new insurance policy that you just kept delaying or hugging your child or doing that "routine" medical test. do as much as you can TODAY.

2. Save for a rainy day = True. Rainy days do come. And it is best to be prepared. It's all very cool to admire those people who seem to live for the moment and are least bothered about planning for tomorrow. Tomorrow when it does come with it's share of problems then one is not prepared to deal with it. This does not mean that you over plan and burden yourself constantly worrying about a problem or tomorrow, but not planning the basics is foolhardy.

3. Medical care in India has lost it's soul and Doctors are businessmen. Sitting outside the ICU 24 * 7 and seeing doctors come and go and other critically ill patients families what struck me what the common line once the doctor comes out of the ICU...."he/she is stable", "lets wait and watch", "I can't say".......and always looking at the mobile screen and hurrying to the lift.
No explanation to the family, no understanding of the situation, Nothing. The nurses are clueless and not so well trained. It is a joke.

4. Hygiene in Indian hospitals is a joke. My Dad was in a supposedly 5star suburban hospital. Basic common sense tells you that ICU patients are the most critical and susceptible to germs. Yet the A/C ducts of the ICU are covered in dust and anyone is allowed during visiting hours as is from outside ! with your dirty shoes, clothes, etc. Your not forced to wear gloves or a mask. What if I have a fever ? what if I have stepped in shit ? what if i've come straight off a train where 1xxxxxxxx people travel.....no worry....walk right in !

5. Pity for the middle class. After paying a monstrous bill and seeing others also in ICU pay the same (mid-upper 6 digits) I shudder to think how the common man can afford good treatment and care. The healthcare system needs an overhaul. Quality healthcare and the rates doctors charge for operations is out of the reach of many.

6. Hospital - Doctor nexus. Insane amounts of daily blood, x-ray, sonography , ecg tests for all patients. the nurses hardly wear gloves and masks yet you will be billed for a box of 50 gloves and masks every few days. The cardiologist-cardiac surgeon planning is to be seen to be believed.

7. Respect a hospital when you pass by. It is th closest thing to God like power. Somewhere in there there is a new life coming into this world in the maternity ward. Yet somewhere else someone is losing his/her life.

8. Do your medical tests regularly. Especially if you are above 50. Sitting in the ICU the amount of people with ..Strokes, Heart-attacks, kidney failure because of diabetes, cancer was overwhelming. A little study shows me that the odds of the above diseases in 1 in 5 with a poor lifestyle. That is a very very scary percentage. Simply put, imagine yourself in your car with your 4 friends or family. Now think 1 of those people out of the so few of you in that car is going to die after 50 out of one of the above. Not a very pleasant thought but reality of the rubbish quality of life we live today in India especially because of the assault of dust, germs, pollution and infected water supply.

9. Health is wealth = True. All the money in the world cannot make you happy nor can it buy you good health. E.g: Dhirubhai Ambani with his stroke. All his crores and crores could not give him his health back. While we crib and cry about so many materialistic things we should be thankful just for having a healthy body for ourselves and our parents, siblings, children. Nothing is more important. Trust me.

10. I have the BEST friends = True. Throughout the ordeal the only thing that has kept me sane has been the love of my friends. They have called, helped and supported more than I could ever imagine. Be it my school friends or college ones or gym ones or even online ones. The level of support has been just WOW. I cannot be thankful enough.

11. The Indian system sucks . We love our heros and "power" people too much. We bend over backwards for them. The mother-in-law of a poweful CM aspiring Maharashtra politician was in the ICU. While we "ordinary" relatives of the person inside can visit them only in the designated times, the relatives of the above person can walk in and out of the ICU as they please ! While we have only 1 pass and only one person can wait outside, they have 5. Are you saying my Dad's life is less important to the hospital that his mom-in-law ?
The pits was when his son wanted to take the lift down. His police escorts emptied the people already in the lift from a higher floor when the door open so they could go down ! is the person already in the lift less important ?

12. Respect the people in the "white coats". Don't only admire the Jack Welch's and Narayan Murthy's of the world. Admire all those people in white lab coats who toil aways for their lives in labs around the world...be it engineering or medical. So that we people have that new pill that cures us, that new injection that saves the life of a loved one, that safer plane so that we don't fall out of the sky, that new airbag in your car that just saved your life . Yet we forget them, when they have done so much. so we can be safer and healthier.

13. Read "The last lecture" by Randy Pausch

14. LIVE a balanced life. I am fed up with people being busy. All work and studies and no play. All stressed and solving the stress with alcohol or drugs or cigarettes or eating disorders. 90% of the people in hospital are with diseases related to the above.
Live a simple life. Part work part family part yourself. Have time for yourself and those around you. dedicate time for yoga or meditation or a sport or gym. have a hobby. meet friends and family often.

15. There is always someone worse off than you. I have told that to a lot of friends and use that line often. To console them and myself in the disappointments we face in our life...be it a missed promotion or a broken relationship. In my own case I was complaining of how life was so cruel and my Dad was lying there with 5 tubes/needles in him.
Then in the next bed was someone with 10 machines and 10 tubes and needles attached to him. Was his condition not worse ? Were his family not worse off than me ?
Remember that your problems however bad....especially materialistic ones , there is always someone worse off than you in this world. Who has lost more, who has suffered more. It will bring you peace and more importantly perspective.

Humans. The fallacy of Intelligence. Human Emotions

I sit here writing this entry on the 1st of December 2008 with my air-conditioning on full blast. It's been a stressful few days for all of us in Bombay with all that has happened on 26/11 and onwards.

And I think......how we Humans have destroyed our planet. That we have ecologically damaged it so much that on the 1st of december i need to air-conditioning on , something that i never every remember ? Have we destroyed our planet so much that climate change is a way of life ? How we have driven wild animals to the brink of extinction and depleted our natural resources in our never ending quest for goods and services ?
And how we have all these never ending battles of terror and war ? Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine,etc.

And who is responsible for all this ? After hearing, reading and more importantly feeling all this I feel like laughing out of pity that God created us as the most intelligent species on this planet. I shudder to think what he must be feeling now, seeing the great intelligence wasted and abused to the brink of destruction.

Intelligence the more I think about it, the more it intrigues me. Don't we worship it too much ? Don't the worlds best companies hire the "smartest" and most "intelligent" people as their board/ceo/md etc ? And as our policymakers and leaders ?
If these intelligent people are so good and smart how is it Citibank, Lehman the country of Iceland and GM, Ford, etc are all bankrupt ? And economies of most countries in disarray ? Didn't the harvard & princeton and iim educated intelligent policymakers and leaders see all this ?

In view of all the carnage that has happened in Bombay in the past few days and also all over the world in the last few years, I sometimes wonder if we are right in tagging love and bravery and honesty as up there in the list of most popular human emotions ?
Because seeing what we have done to our planet, our co-inhabitents and ourselves I think ......Greed, Ego, Selfishness should replace the list of most powerful emotions.

If you ask me, right now, in the state the world is, no emotion is more important and more powerful right now than Hope. Let us give it a chance.....so that all us humans...the so called intelligent species use that intelligence for the good of this planet and ourselves. And live to see a better future.

Goodnight

Whassup ? Nothing much. Been "Busy"

How many times have you heard the above line in recent times ?
Well I've heard it a lot and I consider "busy" as being one of the biggest problems affecting us in the 21st century.
Slowly but surely this hectic go-getting lifestyle has crept up on society and all of us are victims of it.
Take the average day of a Bombay working citizen
Hrs in day: 24
Sleep: 7
Work: 10
Commute to work and back: 3
Get ready for work/breakfast: 30mins
Get ready for bed/dinner: 30 mins
Balance time: 4 hrs

There you go. 4 hrs is all I have time for .........for myself, my family, my friends. And if you work in investment banking or audit or any of those 15 hr jobs then please make it 4 hrs of free time a week !

Sure, all of us have ambitions and want to move ahead, and all companies want to get bigger and stronger, all kids want to be smarter and cooler. And in this quest we are losing our balance. No wonder we see more heart disease and divorces and social crimes and the like.

It's not just us working folk who seem to be pretty busy. You ask any kid "hey long time no see ?" and you'll get the same reply "Busy....with dance class and tuition and computer class and guitar class and what not"

When is the last time you managed to fix a dinner plan with a bunch of 6 friends who are working too.....in the "1st" attempt ?

I'd love to hear about it..................... :)

Discipline: India's ticking time bomb !

3 events in recent weeks have gotten me thinking on what is going to happen to our country going ahead.
A few weeks ago driving into town on a Sunday, not once but twice now I've seen people break a signal DESPITE there being a very visible cop right after the signal. Both times when the cop has tried waving the car down post the signal the driver has just driven right past the cop !
Last week I was at my gym and hearing an old man who didn't get his treadmill slot on time rant "I've never used my power of being on the club committee. Now I am going to do it so that you people realise you can't take me for granted, blah-blah"
And also a few weeks ago while waiting in line to get my niece one of those hand painted tattoo things at a restaurant.....other parents coolly pushing their lil kids ahead of the waiting line for the tattoo !

This scant disregard for the law, abuse of power and basic courtesy is going to come back to bite us in the ass.
It may seem like a little rant of mine of 3-4 incidents but we see it time and time again day after day........we Indians love to bend rules to the maximum and just be oblivious to others. Be it breaking signals and drinking and driving to always cutting lines at airports, insisting on talking on the phone in planes, honking on no-honking day, throwing trash on the road.......we just love it.

It's all fine right now when India is the "hot" growth story and our time is now and blah-blah.
But believe me once the growth and good times slow down....we'll have a tough time. Bec we'll have this HUGE population a majority of which have no discipline and then we will be too far down the road to correct ourselves.
Change with all bad habits takes time. And the time to start is now !

Thailand....a visit....some thoughts !

I recently visited Thailand (Bangkok & Pattaya) through work and then a brief vacation. I was going back to the country after a long time. Last I went there was when I was 6 or 7 as some friends of mine who love to pull my leg would say.....A long time ago :O and therefore have no memories of that place.

Following are my observations.

The country is fabulous....from the lush fields of Chang Mai to the pristine waters off Koh Samui to the hustle and bustle of Bangkok. All bound together by the warmth and respect of the Thai people who thought don't speak very much English.....are amazing friendly and respectful to tourists.

Pattaya is like Goa. Tons of tourists and lil bars and shacks. and lots of girls.
I did some water sports on Coral island and was amazed how well managed and efficient the full tourist thing is. Why can't Goa be like that ? Instead we always have confusion.

Bangkok with its great food, wonderful shopping and cheap (compared to other places) luxury hotels is a nice melting pot.

In the 7 nights that I was out almost till 3am. Not ONCE did I see a single fight at a bar over a girl or safety or even once read in the papers about rapes or anything of that sort.
In some weird way it seems the easy availability of women ensures crimes against women (probably arising out of frustration) is less.

Ohh and traffic is worse that Bombay....yet people stick to their lane and don't honk like maniacs.

Sigh ! So much to learn..............

Do you know............

............what's happening about the Jessica Lal saga ?
about Sunil More from the Marine Drive rape thing ?
those molesters from the Gateway of India 2006 ?
the molesters from opposite JW Marriot 2007 ?
Alistair Perreria of Carter road "I ran over 10 people" fame ?
the probe into the teen horribly raped in Goa ?
those 3 horrible young guys who hung a 2yr old with a telephone cord from the cooking class lady murder ?

Weren't all you guys livid when all of the above happened ? and commended the press for bringing up the issue ?
Where is all the concern now ? Or the follow up from the press ?

I'm taking odds one year from now....you won't know much about .......The girl who chopped her boyfriend into 300 pieces nor the man who murdered his 14yr old daughter in cold blood.

Try me....I'm giving good odds.

Tatas (Bawas) Rock !

Like all Indians this past week I watched as Ratan Tata kept his promise of a 1Lac car. How cool is that ???
I think its great that people who ride a motorcycle or scooter not because they want to but because they have to due to cost factors can now own a car.
I agree with Mr.Tata totally. By asking is it safe and worrying how so many Nanos will congest the traffic further we are missing the point.......a car will always be safer than a scooter ! crumple zones and airbags or not ! and instead of appreciating the man and company for making an affordable car for the truly middle-class....we blame him that he is going to congest roads !!! Is it his fault our 3rd rate excuse of a government hasn't invested in infrastructure ???

In other news, hats off to him again for opening a new Cancer hospital in Kolkata with 50 % (yes FIFTY) of the beds there available free to the poor.
In a time where Indians are popping left and right on the Billionaires list it is a matter of great shame that the only cancer hospital in Bombay is the one the Tata's started all those years ago. I suggest you drive past there one morning. Or even better stop and visit. And see the thousands of poor who come there for treatment. And how the staff and doctors selflessly helps them.
Bawas and their donations and giving rocks. No community has done as much for the poor of their own community as the bawas with their schools, hospitals, housing colonies and donations. Infact no community has done as much for Bombay. I am glad the east coast will now experience some of that.