What gives

Every once in a while you want to carry on through the corridor ,stroddle the two steps onto the bridge but stop just ten yards before the cafeteria into a heavy door on the wall which reads ‘Quiet room’.In the action filled acute medicine setting it helps to spend a portion of your lunch break beyond that wooden door.It is a chapel of sorts,a room to be exact.Carpetted but with very sparse furniture.A lectern with a bible,a side table which holds church addresses,brochures for church activities,small booklets on various subjects like bereivement,etc. As you scour the place what really strikes you is the board .It has flaps of tiny hand-written prayer requests,cards ..people who have just poured their hearts out to ‘you will not believe ,who?’.It is letters to Jesus. One of them reads , ‘Dear Lord Jesus,please be with my eighty year old mother who is having a hip replacement.She has never been to a hospital before.Please look after her and help her to heal.’Sam Anot...

We hitch-hiked the himalayan route we had often driven through . From Mangan, we had to fend for ourselves through the steep mountain tracks ,beautiful wisps of water-fall,reflecting the rainbow . We  mercilessly hacked our way past civilisation,innocent smiling faces,army settlements,labourers with loads. We walked with the river companionably beyond our second breath. The wooden cottages in Lachung beamed with spots of snowed roof and carpets of vibrant primulas . Sweet slumber ,with rice and chunk of meat with lard completed our day. It had been well-earned.

The heat seems like it is here to stay.One can hardly put any food in the mouth and yet the scales are unforgiving, not a dip to the right or left.A colleague tells me it is going to rain on Monday.We just went through a water crisis of sorts for a few days but we are back on our feet, on track ,surprisingly enjoying the unmeritted grace of God in big and small things. Patients?what about patients.As usual the hospital is as unpredictable as it gets.Somedays are busy to the hilt and some as quiet as a monastry.Our collections however have been steady by God's grace. The coolers are on every hour of the day at work and those of us who are fortunate enough have air-conditioners to keep us sane.Just sitting in the OPD with cooler at full blast for stretched hours make one feel nauseated so you can imagine what would happen if we had an out-door job. The patients are a study at impractility .One often ends up doing all the math for them so that they can save maximum money. We have ...