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Where are the ducks?








For a couple of days the pond in front of the hospital where I work has been haunting me.I look at the green slime,the water bottles and the plastics that have been thrown in but inspite of it,it reminds me of the pool at Bethesda.It is strategically right in front of the inpatient and the patients start sitting out in the corridor as they recover overlooking the pool.There is a family of duck which waddles in the pond happily oblivious of the life and sometimes death around.I ,when I walk to the hospital look at those sedate creatures and often wonder how they would fit in ,in the real world.They are joyful to watch and complete and beautiful and brings a form of orderliness into the paraphenalia.
I needed to draw the pool,so on a sunday afternoon I sat with my crayons and drew my idea of the pool as I saw it in my mind's eye.I remembered the family of ducks but I decided I would not know how to fit the family in the frame ,so concentrated on the bits which reminded me of the pool at Bethesda.
I felt a sense of joy just looking at the picture,especailly the clear blue waters I had drawn.
I showed it to little Arpan and the first question he asked me was -'but where are the ducks?'
A grave question indeed,'where are the ducks?'.It set me thinking as to why I had left the ducks out.
1.My drawing capabilities are limited so I seriously questioned my ability to do justice to the picture.
2.The ducks did not fit into the 'pool at Bethesda'theme.
3.I frankly felt a little uncomfortable putting such sedate and a beautifully content family into a picture which was supposed to depict healing for the suffering.
The fact of the matter was that the ducks were the integral part of the picture of the pool and was perhaps one of the more beautiful portions of it along with Manisha ,a destitute ,on a rapid road to recovery who brings cheer to so many of our hearts.
I ,being a medical person often think I have to save the world and bite off more than I can chew.From the gates of the hospital my mind starts wondering about my patients and I could forget a lot of things when I am doing my work.
Ever so often the Lord in His mercy sends those questions through,'where are the ducks?'
When I stand before the Lord and show him all the statistics of surgeries I have done,patients I have seen ,poor people I have helped and the hospitals I have built...God forbid if the Lord had just one simple question for me,'..but where are the ducks?'

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