REFLECTIONS

  This article was written some time back. I posted it on X recently on the birth anniversary of Munshi Premchand Ji, whom I regard as one of the greatest writers. He was aptly called Upanyas Samrat (King of Novels). His stories need to be reintroduced in schools.

  The following article was published in HT on 26Sep 2017. CHILD IS FATHER OF MAN Child is the mother of all reforms, at least for me. It is my closely guarded secret, but I grew up cheating frequently on the morning ritual of brushing teeth. The habit continued even after marriage till my daughter was two years and we thought of introducing her to dental hygiene. This simple task sent me into lot of soul searching. My conscience did not permit me to start the lesson till I pass the test of being a worthy teacher in my own eyes. It turned into my nirvana moment and I vowed to be sincere and regular in brushing. I do not know in what context Wordsworth wrote the famous line “Child is father of man”, but for me it means that whatever has not been learnt by you would be forced taught by your children. Like all parents we too wanted our kids to grow into responsible adults with good and healthy life style. The only way to achieve that, I discovered after running through multiple books ...

           My mother suffered with dementia for a long time. It took us few years to fully understand her condition and the disease. It was a daily struggle for all of us as we expected her to behave normally, which was impossible for her. I undertook a short capsule from NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences), Bangalore (now Bengaluru) on dementia and read books and articles to understand the nature of disease. This changed my perspective and I realized that ignorance of the disease was the cause of our misery. The happenings which went beyond my understanding suddenly started making sense to me. Her conduct which looked so irritating, now, started looking natural, normal and in-fact pleasing and at times amusing. She was behaving exactly the way a dementia patient was expected to behave. The realization that we as care giver were to adapt to her requirement and not vice versa as we were trying to do till than, leading to fre...

            In a short period of 4 days we crossed across all the five stages of grieving (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance) as brought out by Dr. Kubler Ross in her ground breaking book ‘On Death and Dying’. The news that our 7 year pet Labrador has turned blind was received with firm denial. My daughter though kept insisting that there was something seriously wrong with Laila as she was disoriented and bumping into walls and furniture. The guy who used to walk her also expressed concern over her inability to navigate her usual route. I looked at Laila and ordered her to come to me. She was slow to react but walked albeit slowly, carefully and uncharacteristically keeping her head low. She was able move around the dining table before stopping in front of me. “See, she can see, it’s just that she is a little unwell and may be feeling low and lethargy” I tried to pacify all. I however remained restless the entire night with an eerie feel...

              I had often heard people uttering that they would never again keep pets due to the hurt and trauma their demise had caused them. I too felt the same sentiment after the death of our pet lab Kiara, but for entirely different reasons. Few days after her 14 th Birthday Kiara suddenly collapsed during walk and never got up again on her own. She was declared paraplegic by the vet with poor chances of recovery. Unsolicited advices poured in from friends and relatives advising us not to prolong her pain and put her to sleep. She had problems. She could not move her body below neck. Eating was an epic struggle and so was drinking. She moaned, cried and moved her neck painfully when no one was around. But if we were around she seemed to be comfortable. All her whimpering and crying would cease. If we gave her rubs she would close her eyes and slumber as she always used to do. All her pain would magically disappear at our tou...