Between thoughts and words

"I am still suffering with the lower abdominal pain. It is not going away. Help me!" These words keep reverberating in my ears. It was a 65 year old man, who had come to our clinic several months ago with a vague lower abdominal pain. He also complained of difficulty in passing urine. We made a clinical diagnosis of benign hypertrophy of the prostate, which is a common condition among men his age. It is a condition where the prostate gland enlarges. As it is situated encircling the urinary passage, it leads to urinary obstruction. We treated him with some medicines to relieve the obstruction. It usually works very well for many patients. But they did not help him. A couple of weeks later, he came back with similar symptoms and some vague lower abdominal pain. We optimised his treatment but there was no relief. We referred him to a urologist, who evaluated him thoroughly and adjusted his medications; still no relief. The urologist advised surgery. This man belongs to one of th...

Having a daily routine is one of the greatest comforts in life. Doing something day in and day out, regularly, with sincerity is highly reassuring and relaxing. Many times we are not even mindful of the things we do routinely. Even as we do them, we are thinking something else, planning something else, but our movements are programmed so well that we are still accomplishing what we set to do. Why are such routines so comforting? Why do we find them reassuring?  The reason why routines are comforting is because they give a sense of predictability in an insecure world. The assurance that there are some things which must be done in certain ways regularly make us feel a sense of control over our lives. Getting up in the morning, cooking the meal of the day, cleaning the house, leaving home for work, finishing work related activities, returning home, and again carrying out household routines before going to bed with a book is my comfort routine. When this routine changes, it creates unr...

"... we spend too much time obsessing about finding "the one" and we forget that a best friend can be a lifelong love. There is a fundamental truth, comfort and joy having a best friend." says Sally Page in her emotional roller coaster of a novel titled "The Book of  Beginnings".  The book is a warm read about friendships. A single woman in her late 30s, a runaway vicar in her 50s and an elderly 70 something man living alone in London forge an interesting friendship. This book is from the point of view of the 30 something single woman Joanne Sorsby, who runs her uncle's stationery shop, and specialises in selling fountain pens. It traces the birth of this beautiful friendship between the trio, its warmth, its experiences and how it transforms the lives of these three people.  This was one of the books gifted to me by my department colleagues when they gave me a heartfelt farewell. I had given them a list of books and this one was on the list. I put the...

 "Hello Mr. X, Thank you for inviting me to this international consultation. I am honoured to be part of the meeting. Could you please advice me on the dress code for the meeting?"  This was roughly the text of an email I sent about 10 years ago to the person who invited me for an international meeting. I was clueless about how I should present myself, what I should say or do. I had never been invited to foreign countries for meetings before. I did not know what I should wear. Everything was new and I was very nervous. My contact person, Mr. X, who subsequently also became a good friend, patiently replied to my email advising me on what one would usually wear to such meetings. I thought I went prepared for the meeting. But on the first day of the meeting, I could not really understand what others were wearing. They all looked like shirts, pants and shoes. They were all black, white, and blue. It took me several such meetings to get a hang of what one wears during these meetin...

I have travelled to Switzerland to record a few videos for what is known as a Massive Open Online Course. I have been working on developing the content, storyboard and script for this MOOC since August 2023 and it has been a very interesting process. I worked with a team of very enthusiastic persons, who gave me thorough feedback on the content. We worked on several iterations of the content and even had it peer reviewed by experts in the field. The content development was completed in November 2023. Towards the end of November 2023, the person who was coordinating this MOOC development asked me to record the videos from Chennai and share the content with them. I searched for persons to record, found a contact through a friend and explained the process. I don't think this person has any experience recording videos like this. The work was very unprofessional in many ways. The videographer never stuck to timelines. He found a recording studio and took it on hire, and unfortunately it...

 I have been in a zone of introspection and questioning myself the past few months. The questions of "what is the purpose of my life?", "what am I doing here?", "where do I want to go?" have been reverberating in my mind. One of the things I recently discovered about myself is that I enjoy solitude in crowded settings. It sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? I have always liked to hang out in crowded malls, restaurants, parks, the Marina beach in Chennai, all by myself. The background din of conversations, honking horns, moving vehicles and all the ambient noises of the typical crowded spaces somehow quietens my mind and creates a unique inner experience. The crowd all around me offers a safe comfort that I am part of something bigger than myself. It makes me a small piece of a larger jigsaw puzzle. It gives me the feeling that I am part of something which would be incomplete without me and if you take me out of it, I would be meaningless too. All this...

I resigned my job as a medical teacher about 2 weeks ago. I think it is time to reflect on what it meant to be a medical teacher and how life has been over the past few months. When I joined my college as a teacher about 8 years ago, I felt like I had arrived in response to a deep inner calling. I have always enjoyed teaching and sharing knowledge from childhood and so getting into medical education was a natural choice. The fulfilment I received from the job was unparalleled. Entering into classrooms and sharing my thoughts to a room full of young people, at least a few of whom were attentively listening to what I had to say, gave me a high which I hadn't received before. It was a validation of the ingenuity of some of my thoughts. The time I joined medical college as a teacher, it had been more than 5 years after my postgraduate qualification. I thought I had learned some important things from life and was looking for avenues to share these learnings. Medical college gave me this...