Be patient , change will come.
This seems a time for Citizen’s initiatives. Desperate times. Disparate initiatives.
The country has to be saved. From our neighbours. Not neighbouring countries but from ourselves. Our neighbours down the street. The unlincensed driver who mowed down an 82 year lady standing on the pavement.
We have to be saved from defrauding bankers and criminal policemen. Professors who rape and rapists who profess high connections and get away to rape another day.
We have to be saved from such frightening wanton freedom that nobody, just nobody ever has to pay for a crime . Not politicians, sons of politicians, Corporate honchos and their kith and kin, not self appointed moral policemen, nor high profile drug-doers.
And mind you not even a new avatar of a violent, hate spouting, minority baiting ahimsa-renouncing, completely “chakrified” Gandhi.
Indian Citizens are running scared and quite rightly are grouping together to respond to zero inflation, tumbling stocks and crumbling markets and bankrupt Insurance Companies using bail out money to bail out the life styles of their top people.
There has never been witnessed such blatant criminality by those special people into whose hands we simple citizens have entrusted our rights, our freedoms, our security our very souls, only to be shamelesly betrayed.
And now with the next round of electing our “netas” citizens are saying that they will not taking it lying down anymore.
Witness the multiplicity of unbelievable groups of people getting together to try and stop the rot in the coming elections.
Lead India movement, Loksatta, Group of Groups, CitiSpace, AGNI, Citizens for Change, Commmunalism Watch. Just go to the net and sign in or better still attend their meetings .
Yet those of us who are octogenarians have gnawing doubts.
People say “What is the sense of our small effort?”
They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time
As Eknath Eashwaran of the Blue Mountain Ashram in California says “It is repeated acts of unkindness that make us unloving and repeated acts of kindness that can make us loving. How do I become patient? By trying to be patient every day, little by little, poco a poco.
We shouldn’t expect to go to bed one night the most impatient man or woman in the county and get up in the morning flooded with patience. Every day, every night, it takes continuous practice, continuous striving. If you are doing everything to be patient, you are going to become inexhaustibly patient. If you are struggling everywhere to become loving, you are going to be unfailingly loving.
In the gradual development on the spiritual path, it is better to concede that most of us start with a good deal of inertia. This shows itself as an attitude of avoiding challenges, shutting our eyes to the problems that confront the world. This inertia is slowly transformed into energy, just as ice when heated becomes water that flows – which can be used for irrigation and harnessed for any useful purpose that we approve of. In the same way, all of that locked-up energy can be released. But it requires steady effort, one step at a time.”
The change will come. Revolutions take a little longer. Be patient and do your bit.
May 9th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Enjoyed this piece very much and thought you couldn’t have posted it at a better time what with the elections & all.
Over here, more & more scandals are being uncovered about MPs making the most outrageous expense claims.
Corruptions seems to be a global phenomena & it is ironic that people react more to fighting swine flu.
Ax
May 10th, 2009 at 12:52 am
Thanks Dear Anjali
Faithful and honest appraiser of all I write
Despite corruption in every country I beleieve there are are too many good people every where for change not to come , however slowly.
Much love
George
June 15th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Dear Mr. Menezes:
I liked this article very much as I have liked all the articles written by you over the past so many years when I lived in Bombay and now for the past 12 years that I have been living in the US. I was lucky enough to meet you ver briefly at your sister’s house in Santa Cruz when I was still in high school and was a class mate & good friend of your niece. I will always cherish that moment.
Anyway to return to your article, I absolutely agree that we the people should get together and root out all the unnecessary evil in the community and while I agree with all the specific details listed above you left out a very important self righteous criminal who is able to legally get away with his crimes, namely the “Doctor”.
Do you know how many doctors get away with misdiagnoses & wrong treatment? Do you know how many people have had to suffer becuase of the doctor’s greed and reckless disregard for human life? Do we have to put up with doctors who check out their stock portfolios before deciding on whether or not a patient needs surgery?
It is time for the people to wake up and fight against this evil. I can give you a lot of examples with names if you need, but I do not wish to take up too much space in your column.
By the way, please understand that I know that you have plenty of close relations who are doctors and I have nothing against the doctors in your family, and have not heard a single complaint against any of them.
I would appreciate your response to my ranting and would be glad to give you more details if you need.
Thanks a lot.
Sheila Titus
June 18th, 2009 at 6:33 am
Dear Sheila.
I am with you. But we cannot generalize.
The bad eggs get away with it because the Medical Council of India that oversees the functioning of doctors and Medical Colleges is one of our most corrupt bodies.
Things may change because the new Health Minster has started an investigation about private medical colleges auctioning their seats for 2-3 crores especially to MRIs and believe me, the colleges have been recognised before even the building has been constructed.
The office bearers who have been on the MCI have been there for a life time.
I recently released a book written by brilliant doctor Christopher D’Souza of Holy Family Hosp.
I said “Doctors are the flowers of our civilization, bringing hope and sometimes healing into sick rooms. These are doctors who practise an art and do not ply a TRADE. It is because they have a sense of humour and are humane and because they have had an incision and have experienced pain
God bless you for your concern. Violent ,vigalante patients are already beating updoctors everyday in India sometimes for no fault of the doctor. We do not want another extreme
Much love and thank you for visiting my site.
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Dear Mr. Menezes:
Yes, you are right, we shouldn’t generalize and my apologies to all the good doctors in Bombay and around the world who are genuinely concerned about their patients good health and welfare. Unfortunately it is the “bad eggs” as you put it that give all the other doctors a bad name.
I am grateful to a few doctors in Bombay thanks to whom I can walk again (touch wood) and have a near normal life. Then again I am thoroughly disgusted and totally vexed at the doctor who caused me to get crippled. By the way there have been numerous complaints against this doctor (a nephrologist from Nanavati) and only recently one of his patients sued him for wrong treatment and won the case but then lost the appeal.
I know you must be thinking that the reason I have issues with the medical profession is because of my own experience and I should not allow this to cloud my judgement and objectivity, but I have heard similar stories from a lot of other people too.
In lighter vein I suggested that since Osama bin Laden has a kidney problem, this doctor should be sent to treat him. He will be able to kill the elusive Al Qaeda leader, a task that the joint forces of the US, Britain, Spain, India and a host of other countries have not been able to accomplish.
One of my uncles was also misled by an unscrupulous doctor but fortunately for him he decided against the doctor’s advice. I have chronicled his story in response to your previous article “Watching my own passing away”. That story could also be related to the current article but I did not want to repeat myself, so I only wrote it once.
By the way, I really appreciate your quick reply to my response. You were always very unassuming; in spite of your stature in the community and that was one of the things that struck me when I met you at your sister’s house. I am glad that you haven’t changed and are still as humane as you used to be.
Sincerely
Sheila Titus
June 27th, 2009 at 3:22 am
Thank you and pray for me and my family and for doctors
Read the Old Testament “Sirach” 38 about doctors. Sirach is not printed in some versions of the Bible
Much love
George