Inroduction to the World Unknown

I wanted to write today about the scene from Gulliver’s travels, the series. 

The link is here to watch.

Gulliver, a doctor by profession, returns after his long and amazing journey of sixteen years and more, which transformed him with the enlightenment that another dimension exists for the thought constructs, emotions and the life of humans and animals.

He talks about the unusual lands, the people, the cultures and understands the difficulty of assimilating this to the normal stereotypes of the prevailing travelogues and human social structures and civil laws.

Tom eagerly listens…

He admires him. The father who left him five years ago, came back from being dead with just memories burdened the ailing neural networks. 

He wasn’t crazy.

His frame was tall but frail, but tremulous with the emotions of the mustang in the valleys, the eyes sparkling in the deep sockets.. The hair  was just undulating with his animated choreography as he takes the audience of his friend, wife and the eager little boy.

“I wish I could’ve come with you… to see those Lilliputians, the yahoos and the noble Houyhnhnms, Dad”

He didn’t say that. 

He knew his mother does not like it or approve it. Life has been miserable.

He was presumed dead. 

After coming back, he brought hell with him. He needs to be sentenced to asylum. Unless of course he can retract the stories and get his acts together.

No one believed him.

He lived with the savages. It took a toll on him. There is no going back there to the wild.

He believed in truth. 

He believed that the authors of travelogues should under oath affirm that the descriptions and stories told are just truth and nothing but truth.

He is now tired.

Except for the spirit and the constant flow of memories, like the lava from the volcano of experiences. 

He cannot however think straight. 

At times he is the smartest man with his assessment of human nature, kindness and the admiration in the higher intelligence. Then at times he is just inanimate. 

He smells food, humans… nauseating sensory perceptions overwhelming his psyche.

-----------------------------------

 Folie à deux is a clinical syndrome with shared delusions from an inducer(Proxy) in parts or in full.

It was initially described by the French Lasègue and Falret in 1877. Two subjects, who live in a close relationship, in isolation, share delusional ideas based on the same themes.

Lazarus emphasized that two preconditions must exist before folie à deux can develop: first, an intimate emotional association between the inducer and affected person, and second a genetic predisposition to psychosis, such as blood relations with primary patient.

A Chill Pill

What I need is a chill pill is when
You "Reply All" in your email
And I waste my time in the mill
Grinding my brain for no avail

What I need is a chill pill
When you open a stale email
Reply needed ASAP and all
To get your out of office in reply email


What I need is a chill pill
When you come late for the talk
And you have the question of a corpse
Buried deep in time you want to beat to death

What I need is a chill pill
When you call me to ask a pressing question
And I drop and run and be your guide
About life's umpteen traps and tricks
And I see you do the opposite

What I need is a chill pill is when
I see you bring a hoax from the dumpster
In my breakfast tray to chew and ponder
And the civic duty of not to remember

What I need is a chill pill
When you tell me something
That twenty years of my education is nothing
Than a second worth of a pearl  found in searching
On your toilet seat while you time traveling.

What I need is a chill pill when
The accolades showering
For the unscientific skills flowering
Peer reviewed by godmen and politicians
On the magic of organics and excrements

I need a chill pill...

Death

Death
A protest, a celebration or a threat
If you are a politician
A vantage point if you are religious, politician or a lawyer
A non fixable error if you're a driver, nurse, doctor or engineer or a circus performer.
A day job if you are a priest, funeral director, soldier, or executioner.
A loss if you are the kith and kin.
A poem, a piece of work for a writer.
An entry for the clerk, the bank and the taxman.
A journey
For the unknown, not knowing any of the above.

The Day That Changed The World

That single day changed the entire world for ever.
On that day, I was driving to work , listening to radio.
World trade center was hit by planes.
I was thinking that it could be some navigational error.
There was a movie Die Hard where it was depicted how to confuse the landing system.
But that wasn't the case.
My employer's office was targeted by arsonists.
I saw my friends started wearing hijab.
Suddenly a (wrong)religion was attributed to you because of your looks or accent or the clothes your parents wear.
Airline charges went up.
Flights became the interrogation camps.
You started looking suspicious at your fellow passenger, your neighbors.
Your children got bullied.
Your job prospects reduced.
Your freedom in enjoying a nice day at a public park gone.
Stock markets collapsed.
Libertarian views transformed to conservative views
Pseudo patriotism and fascism reemerged in many countries.
Freedom of press deteriorated.
Science became nonissue
Religion decided the politics
World cleaved to multiple self contained lands.
Conspiracy theories and false information proliferated.
Now the patient can't trust the doctor or nurse of different appearance.
Food one eats can now be the cause of mob violence.
What you wear on your head can get you killed.
You lose your birthplace because of your religion.
You don't remember the day when few planes hit some building in a faraway land.
You don't know why your life changed.
Life changed.

The Teacher

You are the blind beggar singing at the train station.
Faster lives walk past where you stood.
You hear the sorrows, the giggles and the shouting and swearing.
You smell the seconds, minutes of sweat and flowers
You are hit with muscles and bags,  and touch the hair, bones and skin.
You taste the rain drops, the dust and the smoke.
Your box was empty.
Now there are clanks of metals
With the faces you never saw,and the numbers and script you touched.
Then your day gets robbed
Your face kicked  by boots.

You keep singing, not by choice.
A childish voice then asked,
"Do you stand here everyday?"
" I don't know everyday.
Today is not over yet".

Divorce Selfies* ഡിവോഴ്‌സ് സെൽഫികൾ

കഴിഞ്ഞ ആഴ്‌ച ഫേസ്ബുക്കിൽ ഒരു പുതിയ ഹരം "ഡിവോഴ്സ് സെൽഫീസ് " കാണാൻ ഇടയായി.

ഒരു നഷ്ടബോധം തോന്നി ...

പതിനാല് വര്ഷങ്ങള്ക്കുമുൻപ് ഫേസ്ബുക്കും സെൽഫിയുമില്ലായിരുന്നു.

പോട്ടേ.

പതിനായിരത്തിനു മേലെ  ഫീസും രണ്ടുവർഷത്തെ കോടതി നടപടികളും കഴിഞ്ഞു, കോമൺ ബാങ്ക് അക്കൗണ്ടിലെ അവസാന പെനിയും ചുരണ്ടിക്കളഞ്ഞ ഒരു ബന്ധം അവസാനിച്ച ദിവസമായി അതിനെ കണക്കാക്കി .

ഇന്ന് പതിമൂന്നു വര്ഷം കഴിഞ്ഞിരിക്കുന്നു.

ലാഭ നഷ്ടക്കണക്കിന്റെ ധവള പത്രമല്ല ഇത് .

ആശ്വാസത്തിന്റെ ഒരു നെടുവീർപ്പ് മാത്രം .

രണ്ടായിരത്തി നാലിൽ കൊച്ചു ടൗണിലെ ഏറ്റവും ഗംഭീരമായ കോടതി കെട്ടിടത്തിന്റെ  പടികൾ ഇറങ്ങുമ്പോൾ വക്കീൽ ഹസ്തദാനം ചെയ്തു പറഞ്ഞു, "Congratulations Doc, you are free now!”

നാട്ടിൽ മാത്രമല്ല, പുറത്തും വിവാഹ മോചിതനാണ് എന്ന് പറയുമ്പോൾ ജാള്യതയും, വിവാഹം കഴിച്ചു എന്ന് പറയുമ്പോൾ അഭിമാനവും തോന്നിപ്പിക്കുന്ന പെരുമാറ്റമാണ് പൊതുവെ.

തെറ്റായ തീരുമാനങ്ങളെ മുറുകെ പിടിച്ചു, പിന്നെയും വർഷങ്ങൾ അതേവഴി അടിവച്ചു നീങ്ങി, നഷ്ടപ്പെടാൻ ഒരുക്കമില്ലാത്ത മനസ്സിന്റെ ഉറക്കാൻ വെമ്പുകയാണ് പലരും.

എന്തോ പറഞ്ഞു വന്നപ്പോൾ ഡിവോഴ്‌സും(വിവാഹ മോചനം) അതുണ്ടാക്കുന്ന പൊതു ജനത്തിനിടയിലെ അബദ്ധ ധാരണകളേയും കുറിച്ച് അറിയാതെ ജോലി സ്‌ഥലത്തു വച്ച് ഞാൻ വാചാലനായി.

“Oh, I am Sorry to hear that”.

“You should’ve instead congratulated me in my decision to move forward and to have a better happy life”.

കാലിലെ അസ്ഥിയിൽ കാൻസർ വന്നാൽ മുറിച്ചു മാറ്റുക തന്നെ വേണം.

നിദാന്തവേദനയുടെ അവസാനം മരണമല്ല; സർജറി ആണ്.

"വിവാഹമോചനം നേടി" എന്നാണ് പറയുന്നത്.

 അത് ഒരു നേട്ടമാണ്, ഒരു പുതിയ ജീവിതത്തിലേക്കുള്ള ലോട്ടറി ടിക്കറ്റ്.

ശരിയാണ് , ലോട്ടറി ; ജീവിതം തന്നെ ഒരു ഭാഗ്യ പരീക്ഷണമാണ്.

പണ്ടാരോ പറഞ്ഞു , “Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience”.

പതിനഞ്ചു വർഷമെടുത്തു ഒരു ഉറച്ച തീരുമാനത്തിലെത്താൻ.

പിന്നെയറിഞ്ഞു, ഇനി പിന്നോട്ട് വലിക്കുന്ന പിടിവള്ളികളിലില്ല.

ബന്ധങ്ങൾ കടലാസ്സു കഷണങ്ങൾ മാത്രമാണ് .

പിന്നെ ബക്കറ്റു ലിസ്റ്റ് പരതി, മുഴുമിക്കാതെ നിർത്തിയ ഉപരിപഠന സ്വപ്‌നങ്ങൾ...

ഇനി അതിനിറങ്ങുക.

ആർക്കും വീതം വച്ച് കൊടുക്കേണ്ടതില്ലാത്ത ഒന്നുമാത്രം.

വിദ്യാഭ്യാസം.

സ്വത്തും, മേനിയും,മാനവും  പോയാലും എന്നോടൊപ്പം യുധിഷ്ഠരന്റെ ശ്വാനനായി അത് അകമ്പടി സേവിക്കും.

നന്ദി.

ഇതെന്റെ ഡിവോഴ്സ് സെൽഫിയാണ് .

The Clipboard of Pain

This was after 16 years, I am on the bed, now being named Bed# 7 without my knowledge.

Few minutes ago I had a name: Dr K. The shortened version of the tongue twister for the staff.

Bed#7 had insurance card checked, the resident with the last name reminding me of a luxury car came and looked at the monitor.

She took a stethoscope and listened to my bare chest through the hospital gown.

“How are you feeling Doc?”

“OK I guess”.

“We are getting some labs and EKG…do you need anything else?”

“No. thanks”.

“I will get you some Nitrate”. She walked away.

I realized that she never checked my abdomen, or other systems.

If I was her examiner, she clearly failed.

 This is the only person checked me in the ED.

How sure that she is right in her diagnosis?

Next time they tell me that the patient’s examination is totally normal, I know what to think.

The lady lying next to me pulled the partition curtain and asked,”Do you know Dr. Stevens?”

“No, Ma’am; you can ask the nurses.”

“How long I have to wait?”

“I don’t know Ma’am, the nurses might know”. I closed my eyes.

Probably my patients in the clinic are being rescheduled, or seen by the PA.

The chest pain started last night around 9 PM. Now it is 11 AM.

 It was not changing in character with breathing. It stayed as a heavy weight on my left chest.

Since I survived, it is both good news and bad news.

I pulled my phone out of clip and texted my wife telling that I am in the ED and OK. She should be relieved that I went with her plan.

She is working in the research building; unless she is busy at work, will be here within 10 minutes of walking.

She was insisting last night that I should go to the ED to get this checked.

The pain made me wake up from sleep few times.

Technician came with a push cart.

“Hi, I am here to do your EKG. Please tell me your name, date of birth”.

I told her.

“Oh I am not going to pronounce that..!” She said with a smile.

It was fast.

I could not see the EKG.

She removed the leads, and quickly took the page.

 “Ok; I am done; the doctors will talk to you soon”

“Ok; thanks”.

“You welcome Sir”.

Then the lady with gold and grey hair came. 

She is wearing a nursing uniform with some flower patterns. She must be a PCT (Patient care tech).

She had a clipboard in her hand covering the ID hanging on her neck.

.

“What is your bed number?”

“I don’t know, I think it is 7, probably, you can see it on the top outside, can’t you?, I said pointing to the curtain rods.

“State your last name and date of birth” The lady said with the machine voice, looking at her clip board, holding the pen in the hand, pressed against the paper.

I did  as I was told.

“How much is your pain on a 0-10 scale?” the machine voice.

Then I realized; I have to quantify a feeling.

All these years, I wrote down the numbers given by patients; their headaches, boiled to arithmetic. Not binary.

Now I have to measure it.

Is it bad that a grown up man will be crying, or it is mild that I don’t give a damn, or in between that I will tell my wife?

Yes; I did tell my wife last night.

Yes, I did tell my division director when he came to my room in the morning with a copy of New Yorker, to show the write up he was talking about the treasures of a Kerala Temple.

He immediately instructed staff to cancel my morning patients and to go to the ED.

“This is their payback time; they call you to take care of their patients; it now their chance to pay you back”, he said.

It was true. 

As soon as I entered the ED and told the ED director that I have chest pain, he directed his staff to get me a bed and get things done fast.

I still have the nagging pain.

Should I give a 4, 5 or even 7?

I don’t know. 

I paused to think.

The lady got impatient. 

“How much is your pain?”

“May be 5 or 6”, I said with a smile.

The lady had no fun.

She yelled angrily,” What is it? Is it 5 or a 6? You have to give me ‘a’ number”.

I laughed in my mind thinking of the absurdities of life and…death.

Does it matter?

 Will I get Morphine if it is 5, or get a stent if 6?, 10 means I will be on the way to the unknown part of the universe where my energy from neural networks fuse with the cosmic dust?

“You can write 5 or 6, it does not matter really, I said.

“No that is not possible; you have to give me the number. The clipboard lady was insistent.

She was possibly a math teacher in her previous life.

She knew that I have failed. 

I was wasting her time. 

She would’ve had her mission for bed numbers 10 or 15 completed by this time.

“Then write 5”; I said, with some irritation.

The lady moved to the next bed; I heard her asking the same question.

“What is your pain?”

..............................

Short Selling America

I don’t know whether I should start saying the disclaimer first, that I am not a financial expert or advisor or linked to any securities and exchanges. The following scenarios are just for illustration.

I was going to talk about the title of this Note itself.

Am I referring to the phenomenon of “Short Sales” in America?

Am I saying that there is a process of selling America short?

For the uninitiated and not-so-stock savvy citizens, first of all I will try to educate you about short selling.

Scenario 1.

You have money, you want to buy some company stocks.

Let us take Toyota Motor Corp for example.

This may be easy as I came through this myself. Many years ago, I was putting my retirement contributions (called IRA) from my salary in a company which manages the employees’ IRAs. It was just growing slowly- may be 1% per year. So, that is not a great growth right?

I decided to buy a “good performing” company’s share and felt that Toyota is a great company.

Went and bought 20 shares. After two months, there was a recall due to unintended acceleration of Toyota cars and the stock price went down. That means my retirement contribution went down in money value. If I had put 1000, it is now 500. Lost money right there.

Scenario 2.

It was in September 2000. Exactly one year before the “9-11”

I learned the tricks of “day trading”. I had a small computer, and a dial up connection with AOL.

I signed up with a stock trading company called Datek which allowed me to sell and buy stocks with low commission from my computer in real time with streaming quotes. I usually come home from work for lunch and then sit in front of my computer, check stocks and see new companies listed in NASDAQ and place the order. I can see the orders executed in real time. I had 5000 in hand, bought and sold stocks. Life was fun.

At that time, everyone talked about stocks. You go to work, or birthday parties, it is all stock market talk.

Then I heard about the short sales.

I did not know what it was. A friend told me, “You don’t just buy, you have to sell”.

I said, “I don’t want to sell at a loss”.

He said, “I mean you have to sell Short”.

 “You mean stock?”

He said, (rather angrily as if I don’t know jack) “Shorting means you sell the stock before owning the stock”.

“Wow… How can they allow that? Is it legal?”

Then he told me about the Short sales.

You assume a stock to be reduced in value, or bet on price going down.

So basically you sell other people’s stock at high price and buy the stock back as it goes down in value.

Example:

Company  A stock price today is 120, you short sell 100 shares at 120 , meaning that you get the money(borrowed stock) 12,000. Next day the stock goes down in price to 110. You then buy it paying 11,000 and gain 1000 bucks profit minus commission.

The rest was history.

Till… the Stock market bubble burst.

Then came 911 to enhance the misery. Everyone lost money.

Fast forward to 2016 in the USA.

There was a guy who used few words to express his thoughts through a social media App called Twitter.

He had many followers. No one took him seriously.

But things changed soon.

In 2017, he became the President of the most powerful country.

He tweeted his emotions about everything. People, incidents and companies.

He heard that Toyota is opening factory in Mexico. In order to appease his electorate, he tweeted that he is going to impose taxes for Toyota cars imported from outside, unless they start the factories in the USA.

An unexpected tweet, but not too unexpected outcome.

Toyota price went down in next day’s trading.

This was just beginning.

Then he tweeted that Delta Airlines to blame for the problems in air travel.

Delta stock price went down.

If you had paid attention to the beginning of this note you understand the new horizon.

If you follow the companies president tweets (treats) badly about, you can sell them short.

-          And… make a profit from their misery. But that has to be fast, before the word gets out.

      That is where the smart tech guys come in.

One guy made a Bot, a self-executing program which will analyze companies mentioned in the tweets and depending upon the unfavorable tweet, it will run algorithms to decide which company stock needs to sell short. 

They call it Trump Dump Bot or something.

And they have made money.

As the President opens his mouth and air his malice, money is being made.

I know lot of people out there watching eagerly to make a profit as the president is selling America short.

Thanksgiving

  Thanksgiving

**

My voice monotonous and dreary, unknown to me

Spread over many yawns, smiles, droopy and wide.

As I pardon the turkey of my guilt to set free

It flies back at me; 

No returns possible.

Let me stuff it with what I have:

A medal, three children, two mothers.

A cornucopia of memories good and bad.

*****

Defeated by Parents

Yesterday I recalled a remarkable incident from my life with my older daughter.
We were living in Kentucky and it was in November just after the presidential elections.
We found our son, 6 years old unusually very quiet in his room upstairs after coming home from school.
I asked our 12 year old daughter to go and investigate.
She came back and said, "He is crying, he does not want to talk to anyone".
We immediately placed the blame on her, accusing that she might have done something or teased him.
Then she went upstairs again, came back with unstoppable giggling and laughing, she couldn't open her mouth to finish a sentence.
We asked her to stop goofing around and to tell us the reason.
 Finally she said with a laughter.
"He is crying because Algore lost to Bush"
It was laughable and at the same time puzzling for us.
We never actually discussed US politics at home.
We purposely did not buy a TV as we wanted our children to spend more time with books, enjoy the life outside and also with parents.
We went upstairs and enquired what the matter was, consoling him that there was nothing he could do to influence the election. He was crying and shouting at the same.
 He did not want to talk to us.
"No.. you did not take me to vote, you did not vote. All my friends went with their parents and they voted for Bush, I wanted to vote for Algore, I could not, I wanted Algore to win."

With tears coming down his cheeks and sobbing, the six year old did not know about electoral college, immigrants and climate change.

It was 4 elections ago, today.

Yesterday, his parent voted, but could n't change the outcome either.