Why people don't talk to strangers

After staying in waiting area of a hospital for several days, I realised why generally people in India avoid talking to strangers. Here is how the things unfolded. 

When I started staying there, I did not talk to anyone initially. After around a week, when I went back there after a gap, I noticed that a very obese boy of around 20 had occupied the sofa adjacent to mine. He started by asking a simple question, then about my patient, then started giving me unnecessary but seemingly helpful tips like going out of hospital for lunch in nearby restaurants, or bottled water being sold in hospital at exorbitant rates. And once I was comfortable talking to him, he asked me for my "mobile charger"! I said I had to go away for some work and I would give him my charger afterwards. And I went back to the place only in the evening. As soon as he saw me, he asked for the mobile charger! Annoyed, I told him that I thought he would have asked anyone else for the charger since whole day had passed since he asked me first time in the morning! And what does he reply? He said, "I feel shy asking things from strangers, hence I did no ask anyone else and waited for you". So, I was not a "stranger" for him? I finally gave him my charger only late night and asked it back after 1.5 hours and to my relief, he respectfully complied. Over next several days, I had to give him my mobile charger at least once daily. All because I spoke to him on day-1.

After many days, I was at a different seat and this time two men came. They asked me about what happened to my patient, and I did the mistake of replying to them. Hearing my answer, one of them spoke towards the other, looking at with 'disgust', saying "I told you! Most people come to this hospital with insurance only". He was totally wrong in his assumption, but of course I did not correct him. So, while I had done the mistake of talking to these two men, they tried to extract its price the very next morning. 

Next morning, when I woke up and went to washroom, I noticed that my slippers were looking as if they had moved slightly from their place. I immediately suspected those two men of trying out my slippers. And within 10 minutes, I got the proof. One of them got a phone call and ran towards the exit door, and being suspicious I immediately checked my slippers and they had vanished! Losing no time, I immediately shouted at the man near exit door of the hall asking if he had my slippers and he said yes and he would return those in two minutes. Loudly enough, I said "no, bring my slippers back right now!" And he came back running. I told him that this was not a baraat-ghar where people had come for amusement, and what would I do without slippers or shoe if I was called by the doctors urgently? The two men obviously did not care. 

Afterwards, I felt satisfied and a bit happy at the manner in which I had shouted at (which was out of character for me) the man who had taken my slippers, and had disrupted "the borrowing games". Like when in Rome behave like Romans, when in Patna, at least behave like Patna-people when needed. 

I did not talk to anyone after encounter with above two men and hence I did not face any further borrowing/stealing dilemma. 

Due to above incidents, I realised why many people just don't say even a word to strangers; because they fear the strangers would try to extract benefits out of them later. 

No country for private men. 

- Rahul Tiwary

The Falsehood of Social Service

Long back, when I was working at Infosys, a colleague joined office and he was allocated seat near my cubicle. Those days, employees used to have fixed place to sit and work from, I am sure it is like this for most companies even now, although many IT companies have switched to 'cost saving' by removing physical allocation of cubicle to employees. Due to fixed cubicle, we used to have "neighbours" and got to bond with them. I remember, the new colleague was very obese and had just come to India after working in the USA for many years. When asked, he said he shifted to India to better look after family, although he did not like life and facilities in India as much. He was also upset that some of the promises made to him at the time of joining had not materialised, and he was not even happy with his work because he was given project work in a different area than his core skill. Remembering those days, it feels like very good times, when there were plenty of jobs, plenty of employees and plenty of choices and grievances. 

At that time when the new and 'unhappy' employee started working from the cubicle next to me, there was a donation drive conducted in office to fund some social work. I remember a couple of colleagues visited cubicle-to-cubicle and collected funds. They did not ask for more than Rs 100 and I was happy to contribute the same amount when asked. But the US returned rich but unhappy colleague declined to contribute anything! When asked about the reason, he said something like, "We already pay so much money in taxes to the government, what is the need to also spend money in charity? Why government is not making use of tax money to fund all those social work?" After the contribution seeking volunteers went back disappointed, the particular colleague kept repeating his moral stand of not contributing. 

At that time, I did not understand his motive much. All these years, this incident came to my mind many times and I still did not fully understand his stand. But recently, a thought came to my mind, which made me look at that incident in a whole new light. 

First of all, I don't think the colleague was right in assuming that our social obligations end with paying taxes to government. Paying taxes is not a voluntary act from our side, but it is a statutory requirement which we fulfill without giving a thought, and often to save ourselves from prosecution or penalisation too. I think true charity or social work has to be a voluntary act, where we "choose to help" when we had a "choice not to help". Therefore, his theory and moral stand for not contributing was juvenile at best. 

At the same time, a thought came to me recently about how much role "external validation" plays in the things we do; and why do we think that only helping "strangers" count towards social service. How about a man giving money to an orphanage supporting children, but at the same time not giving time to his own children who keep getting raised without proper love and care of their parents? How about someone making visits to old-age-home and giving financial support to the old people living there, but at the same time one's own old parents are living troubled devoid of love and care by their grownup children? Why is it that giving love and care to one's own family or blood relatives not considered akin to social work? Like it has happened to child-raising where a woman goes to school to take care of other people's children while her own children are also being taken care by others, making a chain of weird "unsocial" relationships; if we stretch this to other spheres of life, the world becomes too gloomy. 

Under light of these thought, I am looking at the behaviour of my old colleague, my own behaviour and work, as well as all the ongoing things around me in a different shade.

What if there is no social brownie points to be earned for doing social work or charity; how many would still choose to do it? And how many of us would understand that prioritizing the welfare of their own family does not make them selfish or bad people? Our own family, children, parents, relatives, they all are part of the "society" we intend to service, and although we shall not get any "certificate of appreciation" for doing something for them, what we do shall still be very valuable. And perhaps irreplaceable.  

Hoping for peace and health of one and all.

- Rahul Tiwary    

Travelogue: Akhadaghat Bridge, Muzaffarpur, Bihar

 

Review: Jio Notebook - 8 Reasons to Buy This Fantastic Small Laptop

I recently bought Jio Notebook, which is a small size laptop with many innovative features. I had read about it for many years, pondered whether to buy it or not for many months and finally went ahead with it. After using it for over a week, I am happy with my decision and hence writing this blog post.

1. Jio Notebook is really economical

Jio laptop is listed on Amazon for only Rs 9999. It is also available on Jio Mart for around Rs 11k and it used to be available earlier on Flipkart too at this price. Along with sellin this laptop for only Rs 10k, Amazon was also offering exchange offer for old laptop and hence I gave away my another small Dell laptop which was 10 year old and had developed fault and was not useful from the start. After exchange offer, I paid only Rs 6500 for Jio Laptop which is unbelievably economical. 

2. You will use most features over browser

Jio laptop has an inbuilt Office suit and hence it does not have Microsoft Office, but you will be able to edit Microsoft Office documents also online over browser. Jio laptop has a separate text processing software if you need to only type and save in laptop.    

3. Battery is really good

Jio Laptop's small screen size and optimized performance means you will be able to use the laptop for several hours without need for charging. The laptop comes with a free charger and it charges it also very fast. 

4. Jio laptop is better than smart phone

If you use your smartphone for most of your work, you will still find Jio laptop as a much better tool. It gives a laptop computer and professional experience, without need to break our eyes and fingers over smartphone screen. You can also avoid screen addition if you use laptop instead of phone.

5. Jio laptop has many Jio tools like Cinema, Games, etc.   

Jio Notebook laptop has many free Jio apps like for watching movies and playing games, etc. I do not use these apps, but these are there and you may find these interesting.

6. Jio laptop comes with free Jio Sim Card but you can SKIP it too

The laptop comes with a free Jio Sim card which you can insert and keep recharging monthly for data. But I just skipped it and used my mobile's hotspot for internet connection and it works fantastic. 

7. Jio laptop has Jio Sphere browser

I have been using Jio Sphere browser on my android phone and now I am using it with Jio laptop also. Jio Sphere browser is much better browser with ad blocker and many other features. 

8. Jio laptop is really light weight

Jio laptop is less than 1 kg in weight which is wonderful to carry. The laptop also has a 'rubber finish" on exterior which prevents accidental falls. 

- Rahul Tiwary

Note: This blogpost is written using Jio Notebook (laptop) over Jio Sphere browser. 

Death of a woman in Madhya Pradesh hospital and excesses done by hospitals

There was a recent news airing on TV which caught my attention. A woman admitted to hospital for child delivery died after accusing the hospital staff of threatening of killing her. Even her baby died. The TV channel showed a video where the woman was shouting for help and within few hours both she and the child were dead. It was shocking and a question would come to the mind of all viewers whether her accusations were true. 

Until a few months ago, I would have found it difficult to believe, but not any more. I witnessed a horrible incident in one of the best known hospitals where, when an old person removed cannula attached to his hand due to pain and irritation, the hospital staff threatened him with "tying his hands and legs" if he did it again. When patient was admitted to Emergency ward, attendant is not allowed to stay with the patient for a long duration and hence hospital staff sent the attendant away. After an hour when the attendant comes back, he sees the patient lying with splash of blood lying all around, all clothes, bedsheets, etc had blood, perhaps half a cup blood was wasted and blood was constantly coming out of cannula on his hand. Even the medicine which was supposed to be given to the patient with water, was lying on he floor. When he looked around to see what nurses and doctors were doing, he saw that all were busy on their "smart phones", paying no attention to his patient. When he asked a junior doctor to help, he sent a male nurse who instead of feeling sorry, got angry at the patient and have him warning against doing again and forced the attendant to sign a "consent" to tie up the patient if he does it again! So much in the name of wellness and healthcare. 

In newspapers, I have seen news where doctors of government hospital ask for monetary bribe from patient for doing surgery. And of course government hospital staff ask for bribe at every steps and also mistreat patients if they do not comply. 

On the other hand, we also see news of doctors being beaten up by families of patients, and while whole society's sympathy is with doctors on this matter, I am beginning to get a sense of why many times such violence take place in the first place. We never see nurses and other staff being beaten up, because perhaps they put whole blame on doctors.   

It is sad to realise that despite so much progress in all fields, healthcare in India is still substandard and coping up under huge crowd of patients as well as marred by mismanagement by the hospital staff. While PM Modi's vision to make India a developed country by 2047 is being realised at a fast pace, his own policy of providing free mediclaim to the poor and old people (Ayushman Yojna) has caused severe crowding of even the best of hospitals, bringing down their quality of healthcare. 

There are no easy solutions to this problem, but government should take note of all such incidents being reported by patients and bring such hospitals to the task, so that these do not repeat. Patients and their family are already suffering due to illness, and if hospital staff carry out atrocities over them, it is double tragedy. 

Hope government works hard to bring quality healthcare to the people of our country. 

- Rahul 

Hindu Temple: Arya Samaj Mandir, Muzaffarpur, Bihar

 

Travelogue: Sahu Misthan Bhandar, Bhagwanpur, near Muzaffarpur, Bihar

 

Travelogue: Medanta Hospital, Patna, Bihar

 

Nature: Moon With Star in Evening Sky, Muzaffarpur, Bihar

 

(C) Rahul 

Nature: Insect with leaf like wings

 

Hindu Temple: Baba Dudhnath Dham Mandir, Chhapra Megh, Muzaffarpur

Travelogue: Baby Krishna With a Bicycle

While going from city towards the outskirts on my bike, first I came across a man of around 20 who was speeding on his Bullet (Royal Enfield) bike in such a manner that there was almost a certainty of an accident. He was of course not even wearing a helmet. Afterwards, when I entered into major inter-city road, I came across a boy of about five who was running on the road holding a children's bicycle beyond his age. 

The boy was brown skinned, his long hair reaching shoulders had turned golden due to sun exposure, and he must belong to one of the vegabond families who live besides highways in tents. He was healthy, fit and fine and was running very fast while holding the bicycle which was of height more than his own. He was about two feet on the main road and I realized it was dangerous of him to run like that. 

Correlating the kid and the man, dont't know what is the relation between male genes and a propensity to run high-speed and flirt with danger. 

Coming back to the kid, the scene of the baby boy running with his bicycle was so heartwarming that my heart skipped several beats. I also noticed that a woman walking on the other side of the road was starring at the boy, in a gaze of concern. The boy was clearly taking risk running on a main road like this, and I only imagined his family living very near besides the road, although I could not notice any dwellings nearby. 

I am aware of sometime that boys of such age always secretely remind me of my son, and hence as I moved past the boy, I could not stop but getting too teary eyed. Now it was my turn to play with danger if I continued like that while riding a bike, and hence I swallowed all my tears with my eyes. Like Shiva, the ultimate God consumed poison to save the world, absorbing all the tears back into my eyes is a little sacrifice I can do, to save the status quo. 

On my return trip, the boy was not to be seen anywhere. Perhaps he had returned safely to his road-side home. The little Krishna had finished his leela for today and might continue tomorrow. 

- Rahul 

Travelogue: Nitishwar Mahavidyalay (College), Muzaffarpur, Bihar