Pain

Delusion makes us form compelling belief..everyone wants a life free of pain, but very few have an extraordinary threshold of pain, the funny thing is all mighty has an uber sensitive method of identifying them among the ordinary. Phosphorescence is what their mind experiences when they are given successive bouts of pain. They repeat to themselves that its just another day down the hill, they forget that when you are rolling down the far side of the hill things tend to fall apart at an alarming rate. Its time like those where two roads fork out. One which sinks us in the putrid sea of conscienceless people just going in with the flow adding to the stench. The other which allows us to pick our dropped guts from the floor, forget our selfish existence and look up to a belief and cause which is magnanimous, much larger than our individual self. The time has come for the immortal purpose to take over the mortal desires. Bless me.

courage changes us.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss.
                                    -Rudyard Kipling.


Courage has many forms and shapes, it exists in fighting the sytem, it stares at us from the faces of the orphan kids cleaning our cars, you can dig the courage when you talk to the mother whose only son has been declared a martyr.
We dont need to look for courage, it breathes in us.
We exude courage when we let go...when we let go of our past.
We become braver on a daily basis when we let go of the grudges we hold, when we let go of the wrong done to us.
But we become most courageous when we let go of our loved ones, knowing well that may be they were the ones who loved us the most, consoling ourselves that may be its for the best that they left us.
Courage has many forms and shapes. We think we are done when the tragedy befalls, the sympathetic stares, the encouraging nod and we feel nothing convicting ourselves and throwing our depraved souls in the gallows of woes. The courage comes to us when we start healing, and it might not be immediately or there after but when we pick our selves and start from nada. 
Things always happen for a reason, sometimes we get to know the reason and others it might remain obscure for a lifetime. Things change, people change, circumstances change, feelings change but everything transpires because of a reason. Its a myth that we are weak, coz we are not, God made us strong enough to endure anything and thats how he loves us. Its a myth that we give up coz we never do. We fall, we fail , we flounder but we get up again, we succeed, we rectify our mistakes but in reality we never give up. We think we will not survive another catastrophe but when the time comes we do, day after day, tragedy after tragedy without ever realizing our true strength. Ofcourse we get help, we get support but nobody can live your life for you. Its always upto us to decide how much is too much and we have an uninhibited option of saying nothing is too much and i will never give up.

Ramblings..

The best part of my job comes when the night shift gets over at fivish, and its time to leave for home. You are glad that there were no emergencies, no casualties. You head out for your cab when you automatically look up to catch a glimpse of the fading moon. Its just a sliver, an arc proudly dangling in sky. Inky blue it is, blotched by a hint of pink, promising for the sun to take over and herald a new day. You pat your own back, basically because there is no one else to do that , for the fact that you have survived one more day without breaking down and without missing people from your past enough to bring sparkle to your otherwise dry eyes. The instrumental music playing on radio is giving fuel to your kindering spirit. Just a little tilt of your head out of the car window to trap some wind in your hair and aah!!you are set for the journey. There is no other option than to leave your regrets on the road, for they are a thing of past, and there is no better time to move on than right now.
One more day,,a new day!!

Of memories, moments and memoirs..

While we are breathing our lives through the monotony of our daily routine,we forget that it is nothing but an assortment of varied moments. Moments which we might remember for the rest of our lives or moments we try our best to erase from our memory. Whatever the case might be, that moment doesnt lose its importance. It hovers above us like a giant nimbus. It bathes all our senses in an earthy shower. What we do not realize is the fact that moment is transient, its gonna perish like every other thing. However hard we might try we can not hold on to that moment, its not humanly possible, and we let go of that moment. May be we fight tooth and nail to hold on that final straw but eventually we let go of that. It had to pass on, it did. That moment might be the biggest event of our life but it goes...

We assume that change is a gradual process when in reality change occurs suddenly, fast enough to suck air out of our lungs, and leave us breathless. We might try our best to brace ourself against the change but it is never enough to protect us against the impact. The hardest to deal with are the changes associated with loss.

Memories have played a tricky game ever since man started making memories..They make us happy when we are sad and urge us to cry when we should be smiling ear to ear. They hold our past together, they make impossible possible for us. Yet they remain underestimated when it comes to our commercial world. True that it is tough thriving only on our memories, specially when we are going through a personal loss but somehow they create the cocoon warm enough to shield us from the chilling reality. They have an unbelievably wide range. An innocent get together to wish good luck to a friends college life, which was the first moment a young girl realized she was in love. Four girls sitting rooftop on their hostel discussing and planning future with utmost seriousness when in reality they were just 20 something,young enough to plan a whole future on a whim. Memories never perish, and that is the difference between moments and memories..memories stay, rooted in the deepest layer of our soul and they find the most unfortunate time to bubble up to the surface and by Joe when they do,they knock us bad. The ones where we did something with spirit of life stand out erect. Memories never decay..

Memoirs are the binding forces between moments and memories..again sometimes its all we are left to hold on to. The testing times start when we are faced with a dilemma to get rid of those moments, memories and memoirs. Only if it were that easy to get rid of, we would have become God...:)

I read somewhere that world of pretend is not a warm cocoon but a hard bed, still most of us infact a vast majority of the world ignorantly survives in that world. If only the moments stayed and memories perished....

truth is stranger than fiction..

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 37; the thirty-seventh edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. The theme for the month is "Truth is stranger than fiction"

If you tell someone that you belong to the medical profession, that too a doctor, their first reaction is always excitement. True enough, it is an exciting job. Its always challenging, hectic, your diurnal rhythm flies out the window. You have to be on look out for the patient's relative who died due to delay in reaching hospital, but his relatives are looking to beat you up. So all in all you have a balance lifestyle, if you were unable to sleep at night due to duty, no worries, you have adapted your brain to fall asleep any time, anywhere. If you were unable to take dinner because you were stuck in Operation Theater, no issues your room mates have snuck in some food for you. So yes, its an exciting job. But what remains hidden from the world are the brutalities we encounter, the dilemmas we face, the personal sacrifices we make (which sadly no one appreciates or even acknowledges) Yeah , yeah go ahead and tell me Grey's Anatomy is doing a hell of a job of blowing the iron curtains from the secrets of the trade, but my dear readers you are missing the important link, its The United States of America they are showing, not India or any other developing countries.


Most of the incidents I am sharing here are first hand experiences I had, some good , some bad, and some just had no words to describe them.

This one I can never forget as I personally took it on my heart.
I was posted in Obstetrics and gynecology department in my final year, when this happened. As its a known fact that you have to get the deliveries done along with the senior residents, so we were used to getting choclates, sweets , and cakes being shared by the patient's family as they were elated on having a new member in the family. One perfectly sunny day it was, I remember clearly it being a sunday and me sulking as I was on duty. The labor ward was dull and there was no inflow of OPD patients , it being a sunday. I was chatting up with nurses on the nurse station, when a nice looking young man came and offered besan laddoo.
Now those were a favorite with me so I gulped one assuming he must be a proud father.

"So, what was it?? a girl ?? or a boy."

"No mam actually I am distributing sweets due to some other reason."

"Ok, some surgery got successful??" I was already done with first laddoo, and was eyeing other.

"No Doctor...Actually my wife delievered a girl child....."

Before he could complete...I interrupted, "Oh, congratzz but you said no when I asked."

"Actually my wife delievered a girl, but you see we were lucky enough that she died within 1 hour of birth, even God did not want us to have a girl child."

For a moment I was numb, the laddoo I was savoring few minutes earlier had me puking at the thought. Then disgust took over the shock and I wanted to hit the man so hard that he would never be able to produce a child let alone wish one dead. But we were taught better, we were told there would be numerous incidents like them, and we were not supposed to react.

"Sir, if you dont want to create a scene , please leave. You have done enough insults for one day. We all are females here, and we dont like it, let alone share your mirth."

"This lecture , you keep it to yourself." he said.

"If you do not leave, I will call the security and tell them you were misbehaving with me. And all the nurses will testify against you."
The nurses had disgust written all over their face.
The man left, but left me thinking is that the level we have fallen to. I thought it happened in old times or movies, but there it was, infront of my eyes.
"Truth is stranger than fiction."

Once again, it felt pathetic to belong to the so called human race.
Some internship postings were just too good to be true, and minor subjects were the ones where we had all the fun. We indulged ourselves in most of the activities we were unable to follow due to hectic schedule. It was winters and we were having some of Vitamin D from Our dear Surya devta, when one of the members of the blood donation committee came running and panting.

"Is any of you A positive blood group?? we need all A positive people like right now."

A positive is one of the common blood group, including mine so there were atleast 10 people who gathered in blood bank.

"Who needs so much of blood??" I asked.
"There is an old lady in surgery who has lost too much of blood as the feeding artery of the tumor got cut."
Still, there are so many students to donate, how much does she need."

"Actually her ass of a healthy-as-an-ass son has refused to give blood and has ordered the whole family not to give blood because he cant "afford" to keep her."

"What the f***???" That is the most bullshit reason I am hearing."

"Believe it or not, its true, we need atleast 12 units of blood to save her."

A son refusing to give blood to his own mother...
"Truth is stranger than fiction.."

There were numerous such incidents, which made me feel ashamed of the human race, fathers raping their own daughters, neighbours killing the kids to avenge something as petty as a bowl of sugar. Rich and famous leaving their parents in hands of nurses on pretext of being busy. You name it, and all much larger and more real than reel life.

The thing that made me believe in humanity again.
There was this old couple admitted together In Fortis when i worked in mumbai. Both were suffering last stage cancer. But there never was a dull moment as the uncle belonged to army and he was full of anecdotes. One day when aunty was sleeping I asked uncle how does he feel about this situation, and he is living quite bravely..His reply astonished me to no extent. He said we are not living life but doing life together. I have loved every moment of our life together and I am glad that I get to be with her in my end time.

That answer stuck with me forever.
Truth is stranger than fiction and will always be.
When I tell people these incidents they dont believe me and so we keep it to ourselves. only to share it with our own fraternity, but that does not make them any less real. It takes hell to keep sanity intact, but somewhere we get adapted to them.
Truth is stranger than fiction and will always be.

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. Introduced By: The Fool, Participation Count: 05

Ramblings!!

I do not know whether I am qualified to include myself when I say , "We, the breed of writers." (I mean 42 posts are not something to be proud of), but I find comfort in saying that I belong to this obscure breed. We write because we are comfortable dwelling among written words rather than with people. We are more concerned with the way raindrops create puddle in mud rather than finding shelter in rain.

When I first posted my write-up on a blog, I was extremely secretive about it , I did not even share it with people I called my best friends. It was basically owing to the fact that I was scared they will get glimpses of my deepest, darkest thoughts. I did not want the iron-curtains to blow.

Exactly after two years(of meagre writing and major reading) I realize I still cant express my deepest (ok, may be deepest but not the darkest) thoughts out here. Though a majority of people who follow my blog (31 is not that small, huh!!) have no inkling as to who the real me is. Then too why am I not able to express my ugliest, darkest, most selfish ideas here.

Well as Bob Marley sings, "The answer my friend is blowing in the wind." The world is not what it seems to be, if we could visualize the auras of souls(yess I am a stephen king fan!!) we would realize the extent to which the world has sunk in an abysmal ditch.

If only people start saying what they really want to say instead of uttering what the world wants them to utter the world could be a better place.

So far so good!!

From me to myself.

I can not stand reptiles,at all and probably they have got hold of this secret and hence play upon this phobia of mine every now and then.The slithery,crawly,creepy,dirty green creature was eyeing without flinching  a bit  even when I thumped the wall....."hushhhh"...."hurrrrr",oh God what wrong did I do today I wondered.   

Time for a broom(rather gun!!)With time even the lizards have mutated,they have dethroned brooms as their enemy.The stand off between me and the lizzie was getting prolonged and finally the lizard decided to call it 

off by crawling below the almirah.I was not ready to give up.I swept behind the almirah only to have a large,grey-toned,self embossed envelope strike my foot which had my name in my own handwriting.Funny!!!! I dont remember this.As I flipped it, "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" met my eyes.My mind did a complete 360 degree round ranging from my room-mates' prank to biological warfare(read Baciilus anthracis).Anyways I pried the letter open.Staring at me was my own handwriting...Strange but I have always been a believer of the saying"Facts are stranger than fiction."

"Dear me,
I dreamt of this moment since I understood the theories or rather practicality of existence of many worlds.I had prepared a lot to write in this but my excitement got my tongue.Its a one in a lifetime opportunity to communicate with THE OTHER ME residing in THE PARALLEL WORLD.
I know this letter is gonna be a lot of information to process ,but trust me you will share my enthusiasm when you have read this end to end.
Hi Ratika, this is Ratika writing from HEART(its an anagram of EARTH). one of the many parallel worlds existing in the same time frame.I do not know whether you have any inkling to MWI-many world interpretations or not but parallel worlds do exist.Meaning at the same very moment while you are reading I(your counterpart) might be in my lab,while in some other world some other you might be getting ready for office...its inconceivable but true.Yes I know you are bewildered but we have known this since ages,in fact there have been times when I was able to watch you studying in your library and toiling in your hospital and whoa!!!!! girl I am proud.
Our world is very different from yours.We are lucky not to have suffered Second world war,there are no "third world countries" out here,we have a universal currency,and a whole lot of other advantages your world does not.I do not mean it in pejorative sense,but you got to call a spade a spade.
I have been studying you since last many years and have some words of wisdom for you.Of course you might think it to be an invasion of your privacy but trust me its gonna help you on a much deeper level than  1000 $ psychology counselling session or 100's of self-help books.

STOP REGRETTING!!!!!!!! I know you repent a lot over things already done.There is no use in wasting time over things which can not be altered.The worry just saps you of your enthusiasm for the other things.

STOP having a truckloads of expectations from everyone.You are aware of your own potential and your expectations just diminish your own efforts to achieve things.You have to learn to deal with your own troubles,dont go banging at your sisters' door whenever shit happens.Instead try resolving the problems or finding an alternative path.

STOP being judgemental,its not a virtue to be proud of.I might sound caustic but the truth is you form opinions faster than Usain Bolt(he exists in our world too...:) ).Dont do that,you never know your best friend might have had some reason for not calling you after she got married,or your ex-roommate might not be strong enough to support you when in need.You are much more than this.Holding grudges never helped anyone.
Start looking at things from different perspectives..

This is also a coffee cup-

This is also a coffee cup

STOP  trying to please everyone.There are 150 students in your batch and the scales are already tipping in the favor of haters.But you are surviving pretty gracefully.You will meet 100's of people some will pull you ,others might push.There is no use going that extra mile just to gain 1 extra friend.

I know what is coming next,come on I represent you in this world ,there are bound to be some similarities.
You must be rolling your eyes and muttering"easier said than done!!!!" but trust me our world is not very different from yours,its just tech-advanced.
We managed to open a portal in same time frame (thanks to objective reality of universal wavefunction!!!!) and were allowed one letter each to our respective representatives.I have no clue as to when will I be able to write next.So please pay heed to my advise.Out of all my forms I love you the most and want you to love yourself with similar fervor.
Follow your dreams and make me proud.

                                                                    goodbye for now,
                                                                     Ratika(the other you).

P.S. keep reading and writing ,I know you enjoy it.

This post is part of the contest A letter to yourself.. on WriteUpCafe.com

21-12-2012

21-12-2012

I am tired of the mayhem....
I am tired of their whinings.....utterly ludicruous whims and fancies....of their heartless prayers....of their idiocratic and puny minds...
I am tired of listening them lie to me,to others and most of all to themselves.
I am tired of seeing them hope to reach the stars when they wont even bend to touch the soil beneath their feet.
I am tired of making them realize they all are a part of me and each time they fork from my path i die a little.
I am tired of seeing them bargain with me as if im some new age cunning businesmen
I am tired of proving my existence to them again and again and again....seeing them lose faith in my doings.
I am tired of watching helplesly take their own kind for granted and being their saviour in each vicious mistakes they make,
I am tired of sky-rocketing their dreams to reality coz their cowardice contradicts their own potential
I am also tired of of pulverizing their dreams to ashes coz they are disgustingly wrong.....

I AM GOD.....I AM TIRED OF HUMAN RACE AND I BRING UPON THEM THE APOCALYPSE.....

Spiritual awakening..

Reality escapes you when you are least expecting it. The moment you think you have got hold on your life and you are the incharge of reigns of your destiny….the Universe decides to play an upper hand and makes us (the inferior) realize we are just a zillionth part of an immensely complicated and ever changing universe. Submission to an almighty leads to salvation and detoxification of your blemished souls and tarnished hearts.

People never realize their extent of sins unless they take a never ending journey to the core of their heart. Micro mini moments of human faults congregate to form a huge slob of a repulsive mirror….No one can look at their image in that even if you do you wont recognize yourself.

You have forgotten to breathe spiritually, you have given up on the miracles of faith,trust,love and care. Wake up before its too late, wake up before someone reaches out to your sanctum and devour it with their greediness and selfish ulterior motives.

All you have to do is look beyond the horizon and listen above the din of worldy affairs and you will see the reality without the tinted glasses.

No one knows..

human mind is the strangest thing I will ever come across......I say mind and not heart becoz being a medical  student just doesnt allow me to think of heart as some kind of romantique breakable delicate housing area for mushy ideas rather I know its just a blood pumping organ....which god for bid if fails all romanticism will have too wait for next life....okay enough of my slap stick humour.....still human mind is the actual seat of emotions....feelings....and of all, pains...I could tell the exact name of the parts but that would drive your mind crazy and angry.....here we go another emotion.
strangeness of mind lies in the fact that it knows the exact millionth of the second we are about to make some relationship farce but still it allows us to commit the same ,reason, some mistakes have to be committed to realize the importance...of people around us....of life and more so our own significance in this world....and the common sense says we fall we folly and we free ourselves.
almost everybody has an opinion on relationships....your mom,your bff,even your ex....but the crux of the matter is that there are no set of rules....and that what makes it unpredictable...and fun(not for all though)
whatever works for one might not click for other.....
so the ultimate million dollar question.....what to do....and the zillion dollar answer no one knows.....so stop taking advices from ur friends,,,stop getting jealous and mimicking the cute next door couples thinking it works for you....just meet it head ons....and you will have an experience of a lifetime....you will have a great story to tell your grand kids(if you stay alive to see them after years of unhealthy lifestyle...!!!!!!!)


The best advice......-------when you fall for someone....make sure there is a trampoline below!!!!!1

Neophytes!!!

The strangest redemption of our soul occurs when we lose the fear to lose..The dull thud of your own heartbeat sounds  monotonous.when it should have been the sweet symphony proof of your living self.People lose their shape,become a blur,devoured by a mysterious,sallow,ghoulish glow further obscuring their thoughts making them a potential threat to your sanity.
The things that keep you alive are the same that keep you alone...and the choice itself is profanity personified.The beauty of your caged spirituality lies not in how well you understand the evidence but how well you adjust with the chains around your soul.
Have you ever had the feeling when you wake up in the morning and just for a split second theres a sense of relief but everything rushes right to you ....ALAS!!!! the relief was evanescent.
Somewhere above the highest echeleons is smirking at us the lesser,mortals..urging us to take the rose tinted glass off and see the world as it is....