Life at Par

Yesterday, I was travelling with some people in NCR when, in conversation, someone brought up the topic of a 9 seater crashing on the roof of a house in Faridabad due to a strong storm over Delhi. The plane was a flying ambulance carrying a comatose 22 year-old patient & his cousin from Patna to Delhi (for medical treatment). The crash killed all the 7 members on board (the comatose man & his cousin, the pilot & co-pilot, the anaesthetists & the nurse). Additionally, the wife of the house owner, his daughter & daughter-in-law who were resting on the roof of the building were charred to death while the tenants & the daughter's son managed to escape just in the nick of time.

Now, this was an article that I'd failed to come across in the papers (owing to how irregularly I've been following the papers). So when the topic was brought up, I listened with curiosity to the comments being floated around. The lady who brought up the topic went on to comment on how tragic it was that a young guy who was being brought for treatment should die so tragically & how the "nayi-naveli dulhan" (the daughter-in-law had married into the family in Feb this year) met with such a tragic end. She then went on to sum it up & said "Bhagwan ke tareeke bhi ajeeb hain" (God's ways are strange).

In the evening, I came home & promptly looked for the day's paper. The paper carried articles quoting relatives of the deceased.

The man who lost his wife, daughter & daughter-in-law stated "I have lost all the women in my family. I have lost everything in life."

There was a mention of the anaesthetist on board, who died in the crash.
"Frequently assigned air ambulance duties, anaesthetist Rajesh Jain had left home on Wednesday around 1 PM to ferry a patient from Patna to Delhi. He told his family he had no idea when he would return. Little did anyone know his family would never see him again. Jain was an anaesthetist at New Delhi's Apollo hospital. Along with him, his colleague Syed Arshad Abbas & nurse Cyril P Joy, all part of the medical emergency services team at Apollo Hospital, were killed in the accident. Jain is survived by his one year old son & his wife, who is expecting their first child."

The articles also had a quote from a relative of the 22 year old patient (named Rahul Raj) who was travelling on the flight:
"Rahul had jaundice. On Wednesday he suffered liver failure & slipped into coma. The family decided to shift him to Delhi but he died in the crash. We have lost everything."

While reading these articles, I did obviously feel terrible about the loss suffered by the kith & kin of the deceased, due to such a freak accident. However, at the back of my mind, there was also another thought playing: How is it that the paper played up the stories of only 3 of the misfortunate: the newly-wed daughter-in-law, the comatose young boy & the anaesthetist? Was their death a bigger loss than the others'? I don't think so... but it is worthwhile to note how media ( & in turn, our society which is reflected by our media) determine the value of a life lost. Does the death of a newly-wed bride pinch more than that of a mother of a young child or an elderly woman? Does the death of an expectant father with a toddler & a second child on its way hurt more than the death of his other colleagues? Does the death of a comatose patient deserve to be played up more than the death of the able-bodies cousin, pilot & co-pilot?

Is it because these heart-rending stories play up on our inherent fears of being left stranded & helpless by our loved ones that they have more news appeal? Or do people have shelf-lives wherein, a person who is in a position to contribute something to a dependent/helpless person is of more value? Hence, it is easier to write about (& gain sympathy for) a person who is the sole bread-winner of a family or for a woman who is the mother of a very young child or for a younger person who is yet to live out their life? Is that why the loss of a 45-50+ year old person who has no kids to feed (or marry or educate) is easier to write off?

The fault may not lie in the journalistic principles but may instead, perhaps lie in the inherent selfishness of human nature. As long as we have something to benefit from someone, they are a loved one whose loss means "losing everything". Otherwise, they are just people whose time would have come soon anyway.

As a side note, I've always felt that in an ideal situation, families should travel together so that if one dies, there is no one left behind to mourn the loss. However, recently I came across an alternate belief (prevalent in several business & political families), wherein people want to be survived by family members to carry the legacy forward. Hence, travelling together would lead to a 'placing all your eggs in a single basket kind of situation' & hence, unadvisable. Morbid as the line of thought may be, it is worth a moment's consideration..

A new pasttime

There's a new thing I've started doing at work. Actually, it's not so new... I've just recently begun to be conscious of what I was doing.

At work, we all have desks & are made to sit according to the teams we work with. Each team is separated from the others by modular partitions. My desk is at one corner of the office & from my place I can pretty much see the entire office.

So what I do (whenever I'm jobless & sitting at my desk), is to peer above the screen of my computer & the partition wall & watch the goings-on of the others at work or listen in to interesting conversations (which are usually arguments between a media buyer/planner & a vendor) that float about. The conversations are an interesting study of negotiation tactics & styles but that's a discussion for another day.

When I sit at my desk & peer up, I can see a lot of people standing around (milling about & shouting/arguing seem to be the done thing out here) & walking about. Usually, I can see only their upper torso or in some cases just the head (if the person is shorter than average). And it is this that caught my fancy recently.

Firstly, it's fascinating to look at people's expressions when they are unaware of anyone observing them. They may be in the midst of a conversation or explaining something & while the other person processes what they've just said, they relax, take a step back & assess the other person's responses. Their judgement of these said responses tends to then reflect on their faces... It could be disapproval, contempt, patience, impatience, distraction, confusion... just about anything. I must clarify that I'm not looking at their expressions in order to draw any inferences. Neither is there anything running at the back of my mind when I see them. Instead, my mind is just blank & I keep watching fascinated, at the no. of expressions possible & which one each person chooses for different situations.

Another thing that's interesting to watch is the way people walk or rather how they look when you can only see their upper torso while they walk. I've noticed a person who just seems to glide by literally. I'm yet to be able to make out any shifting of weight as this person walks. It's almost like he moves on a skateboard. As a person too, this person comes across as a very calm, controlled, unfazed person who glides through situations. Then there are several people who tend to bob from side to side. This is a pretty normal sight. Some bob in a more exaggerated way while, some are more subtle.

Some walk by with a frown & keep touching & correcting their hair when they walk. Some sulk & walk. Some walk by like an ape (a little like what I'd imagine one of the latter forms of the primitive man to have walked like). Some stoop over. Some hobble. Some bob from side to side & sway front & back. Some walk & smile to themselves. Some walk in a purposeful, aggressive manner. Some swing by (if they'd held their hands up, I could almost imagine them as swinging from one branch to another like a monkey)

There are so many types actually & many a time, I fancy that the kind of person I perceive the person to be is reflected in their gait. Maybe, I'm just force fitting things here. Nonetheless, it's an interesting past-time at work... Watching people.

Musings...

There were a couple of things that I've been wanting to write about in the past few months but then I kept putting it off because I couldn't think of enough things to write about each of them. So today it occurred to me the best way to get the ideas out of my head would be to just compile those little thoughts together into one post. That way I could write as little about them as I wanted without having strange 5-line posts on my blog. So here goes...

a. It is so hard to BEGIN writing a post. The first few lines never seem to sound impressive & I'm never sure of how much of context to provide or what to say by means of explanation & when to stop. Given my tendency to ramble, that is certainly a concern. Also of concern is how my attention tends to waver in between. Come to think of it, it is hard to begin writing anything!

b. We (the so called 'youth) like to criticise soaps for their drama & unrealistic story lines. We (or maybe just I) are put off by the sobbing wives/daughters-in-law, the feuding families, the inter-familial rivalry, the break-ups, the getting back together, the re-births & the makeovers & post cosmetic surgery formations etc. But, the same fare dished up by reality shows is lapped up? We want the drama, every unbelievable, sickening bit of it so long as some (even though unknown) person can ratify it to be the true story of real people. As an aside, some of those real people come across as unbelievably mentally unstable. So for all our criticism of housewives who religiously tune into soaps, how are we with (with our advanced sense of voyeurism) any different? How's that for hypocrisy?

c. If Politics, Bollywood & Cricket were the top three topics of conversation for the average Indian; sickness would be next on the list. (Actually, even if they were not the favourite topics of conversation, sickness would still be a favourite topic!). And not just sickness of the self but also of our neighbours, friends siblings, parents, grandparents, spouses, in-laws, grand in-laws so on & so forth.

Such conversations typically entail detailed descriptions of the symptoms, methods of diagnosis, the listener's opinions on cures, recounting experiences of other people with similar ailments (usually, by the listener), discussions on the actual cures prescribed by the doctors & recommendations of other doctors who could be consulted.

d. People don't listen to what one says. They assume what the other person is about to say & hear only those parts that fall in line with their assumptions. And this whole complex process of guessing & 'hearing' is somehow accomplished in a fraction of a second!?!

That sort of rounds up things I can think of now... So that's 'The End' for this post now.