Hard hearing guys

“Hey! Are you going watch a movie?”

“No! I am going watch a movie.”

“Oh! I thought you are going watch a movie!”

- Valibhai Musa
Dtd.: May 19, 2008

Notes:-

(1) In literature, many wonderful and challenging experiments have been done by the Writers; like “6 – word biography”, “2 – liner story” etcetera.

(2) Here, I have written a funny Play containing only three dialogues with two characters, un-named.

(3) The Play is untitled, meanwhile; but, I invite my Readers to suggest any title in Comment Box.

(4) Any appropriate title will be accepted and put in place of my temporary title

 

 

Lady with the lantern!

Click here to read in Gujarati
In the field of medical profession, the name of Florence Nightingale is very popular. She was Italian born (1820), but grew up and studied in England, heard her inner voice calling her to services to the sick and adopted nursing by ignoring unwillingness of her parents. She was from an upper class family and nursing, in those days, was considered to be an occupation with some little respect. But, association of Florence with this profession changed the concept of the people throughout the world. She was devoted to her work and took care of the patients even at night moving about here and there with a lamp in her hand. The patients were so grateful with her services that they gave her the affectionate title of ‘Lady with the Lamp’.

My Readers will, perhaps, mind to read ‘lantern’ in place of ‘lamp’ in my title, but I am going to talk about another woman who was a local Nightingale of our village, some decades ago. Just before some days, when I had gone to the local graveyard to perform my religious services for the peace to the souls of the deceased people, the grave of the Personality of this Article was being renovated. I recalled her memories which have inspired me and I am trying to offer my homage to the soul of the Late through this Article in brief.

With consent of her successors, I don’t hesitate to disclose her name. She was Hajiyani Avalben w/o Seth (big merchant of repute) Haji Noorbhai Mamjibhai Mukhi, author’s cousin. She kept lantern while going to houses to render her services to women in childbed (confinement). I myself have thought out the title ‘Lady with the lantern’ similar to that of conferred on Florence Nightingale for the reason that many similarities are there in both these Nightingales, no doubt, with some exceptions. According to Alfred Adler’s quote “To be human means to feel inferior.”, both were gentle ladies and therefore they considered themselves and others as human first. The field of nursing for Florence was wide to attend all kinds of patients and moreover she was qualified in her profession, but the Late Avalben’s field was limited to maternity only and she had acquired the knowledge through her skill, intellect, intuition and profound experience under her senior elders.

Those were the days when medical facilities were rare, maternity homes not available and female gynecologists found nowhere. Besides, women disliked to be attended upon by a male doctor in confinement. Midwives (દાયણ) were the most common attendants everywhere. It was the tendency of the women to deliver the child in a natural and normal process at home. Particularly, in rural and remote areas, midwifery has proved to be a boon for women in such days when death seems to be just a span away. My Aval Bhabhee (brother’s wife) was the soul-mate of the wealthiest man of the time and was not in need of any earning. Moreover, as being a Sethanee (Mistress of Seth), she might not have ordinarily preferred such filthy and troublesome work, but she did prefer it; for, she said such as, “I have not chosen midwifery, midwifery has chosen me!” What a great thinking of a noble woman, totally illiterate!

The village of Kanodar was of some 1500 families of all communities with Muslims in majority. My Bhabhee rendered her services to all without any discrimination of creed, cast, religion and economical status. She undertook the responsibilities of only such cases which seemed to be normal at first sight. In complicated cases, she advised them to have a physician’s assistance. She attended the women in confinement fully and remained present until the process of delivery ended successfully. She kept her watchful eye minute to minute and offered sensitive support and encouragement particularly to those women who were experiencing their first motherhood.

Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine and a Greek Physician wrote that “Nature is the best physician and that it should be allowed to function without the intrusion of meddlesome interference.” Accordingly, Avalben followed strictly the natural process of delivery ignoring the worries of the assisting women and labor pain of the woman in confinement. As soon as the critical task of labor got over, she never missed to tell the mother of the child in somewhat like these words as “Giving a birth to a baby is not the end of your journey, but it is just a beginning.” She never hurried to cut the umbilical cord.

She recommended the rest ladies of the household to allow her full rest for at least 40 days, not even to ask her for laundry work of both child and herself. She suggested the recipe of food for the mother for her early recovery of health and decoctions (ઉકાળો) also. She stayed a few hours more after the birth of the child to make sure that both mother and baby were stable and fine. While bidding goodbye to all like a Village Mother, she counseled the baby’s mother to continue to breastfeed the baby as long as the Almighty God produces the natural nutrition (milk) in her chest and to ignore maintenance of figure of her body as the child is initially like the Prophet of the God (અર્થાત્ બાલગોપાલ), quite innocent and sinless.

Before reaching my conclusion, I cannot withhold myself to mention the painful miracle or irony of my Bhabhee Maa’s hard luck, whatever you may call it, that she had given the births of three sons subsequently one by one and each son just before reaching the age of a year died in the same modus (style) of his fate or destiny. During the first monsoon of each son’s birth, while raining heavily in those years with loud thunder and lightning, the ends of the cradle cloth disconnected, the child fell down on the floor and died on the spot. These mysterious happenings inspired her to think over the will of the Almighty Creator positively. Her motherhood got diversion and she devoted her whole life to see uncountable mothers happy with their offspring.

Sheikh Saadi, a Persian man of literature, has said, “The beloved of the Almighty are: the rich who have the humility of the poor, and the poor who have the magnanimity of the rich.” We should always remember that service to the human kind is service to God. The Late Avalben, over and above her Midwifery services, helped the poor women in confinement financially with the funds of her own family and who-so-ever offered her willingly. Let us pray to the Almighty Creator to bless the soul of the Late Avalben in heaven for eternal peace with patronage and recommendations of the Infallibles (AS) and in the words of the recitations of holy verses of the individual Readers as per their own faith and creed.

Hope this Article be read particularly by those ladies who, with the grace of the God, have been lucky enough to enjoy motherhood and also those my daughters and sisters who, now or later on, are going to be mothers.

With deepest affections,

- Valibhai Musa
Dtd.: May 11, 2008

Note: My Readers may visit http://vijayshah.wordpress.com for Gujarati version.

 

Lose and long on life long

Click here to read in Gujarati
My today’s Article has a link with my earlier post ‘No honor in honor killing’, not as full, but in part connected to my preamble. Most of my Gujarati Readers might have read ‘Zaverchand Kalidas Meghani’ who was honored with the title of ‘Rashtriya Shaayar’ (National Poet) by Mahatma Gandhi. His popular works are many, but I want to represent here one of his poems, perhaps very little known to people, that has impressed me great. It is just a tragic folk-song (લોકગીત), based on an English song “Fair flowers in the valley”. It can be sung very emotionally and effectively. Its refrain (Burden line) is as “Vanaraa-maa.n Gal Raataa.n Phooladaa.n” – “વનરામાં ગલ રાતાં ફૂલડાં”.

Let us have the brief summary of this folk-song for my purpose to justify the title of this post and also enter my subject. It is a song on a married but barren (childless) woman who goes to a temple to worship the deity by observing the fast of Ekadashi (11th day of lunar fortnight) with a hope of blessings to have a child in her lap. While on her way in greenery all around, there have blossomed plenty of red colored flowers. Amidst these flowers, an aborted fetus (a fully developed child of womb), as if it is alive, appears before her eyes.

It is the same helpless child that was killed by this woman when she had become a virgin mother just to preserve her honor in the society. The child reminds her that cursed day when she had committed the capital sin of killing it. The God had already favored her with the gift of a child to play in her lap, but she had deliberately lost it. Here is the tragedy of a woman who had kicked her fortune of motherhood, and now she longs a child born to her.

My efforts in this some lengthy preface will be over with the tragic and satiric words of the child as “I am swinging in the lap of Jashoda Maa (Nursing mother of Lord Krishna), but, there are the flames of fire in your lap. How can I take my rebirth and be your child again? Don’t you remember the day when you had cruelly strangled me by twisting my neck with your left hand and covering your eyes with right palm?”

Now, I presume that my Readers would have understood what I go for in this Article.

It is said that to err is human. Such sayings of wisdom are nothing but just as the tools for consoling our minds. In psychological term, we can define such arguments as defense mechanism. Let us examine two words ‘Error’ and ‘Blunder’. They look like having same meanings, but they are different. Error is committed unknowingly and innocently, but blunder is backed by strong intension and sometimes hasty thoughtlessness for doing so. What it may be, but such actions committed blindly ignoring their future impacts on life are unforgivable.

Now, whether to forgive or not is the secondary matter, but the blunderer or sinner has to pay a great price sooner or later. Offspring, wealth, opportunity, power etc. are such blessings from the God which are expected to be enjoyed or utilized with restraint. These blessings may prove to be the causes of our ethical downfall and lead us to  proudness. A shallow minded person with all such blessings may go astray and become tyrant. I have included offspring in my above statement owing to my thinking that the offspring is the future of the parents and it is upon them how to build or shape own future.

Generally, some wealthy people enjoy their golden time of good days of their prosperity. It is the time for them not merely to buy leisure and comforts, but to maintain wisdom also. They should try to be helpful to needy and poor people. A Swedish proverb is as “Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half sorrow.” Wealth is not such a permanent boon that may remain with the particular family for generations to come. Sometimes during one’s own lifetime, the situation takes turn in such a way when today’s multimillionaire may become a mendicant (penniless) tomorrow. – (કૌન જાને કિસ ઘડી, વક્તકા બદલે મિજાજ!) – Nobody knows when the time changes its mood!

In such miserable situation, the person repents for the lost wealth and starts longing to have it again; and, if bad luck is there, the fellow has to long on life long for the same. Thus, the lost fortune is like those things which never come back; the spent arrow, the spoken word and the lost opportunity. Sometimes, ‘earning money’ is easy, but ‘to digest it’ is difficult. An unworthy man gets a lot of wealth all of a sudden by chance or luck, but he wastes the wealth so prodigally that he has to come back to his original state within the lapse of a very few years and repent. – (અબ પછતાયે હોત ક્યા, જબ ચીડિયાં ચૂગ ગઈ ખેત!) – It is meaningless to repent after the birds have picked and eaten grains of corn with their beaks in the farm. “A balanced life is the only key to preserve the prosperity for a long time”, somebody has said and it is true.

Every object has three dimensions; but for a man, in literary term, the time is his fourth dimension. This dimension is invisible but it is always with the man. It depends on how this dimension, the time, is utilized for progression or degression.     William George Plunkett has quoted, “You will never have any more time than you have today.” Our life is like a game of cricket where the batsman has to strike the ball with time judgement and, same way, we have to utilize the time with vision and action in our life. We should also bear it very well in our minds that the only vision without action is like daydreams and the only action without vision is also like nightmares. Opportunity is such iron which is red with heat and the hammer should be there at your hand reach. Without wasting a single moment, you have to hit to the hot iron timely to bring your intended shape. Mind well that opportunity never knocks twice at your door. Moreover, they never bear any fixed values stamped upon them. One should also recognize the opportunities as they, sometimes, come open-faced and, sometimes, disguised.

As in above all, the power to rule is also an opportunity. This power is a strong weapon but equally risky and dangerous also for the user. You might possess the power as a ruler, an administrator or in any other status; whatever, it should be used for the benefits of the rightful and entitled to. History witnesses that whoever has oppressed others has to pay a terrible price and get ruined at long last. A poet has said, “Where are the kings and where the rest? / They have gone with all their pomp and show!” How appropriate these lines for those people of powers are who have at long last been compelled to live a common life without any office and sometimes forced for banishment or hanged to death  under court trials or public revolutions!

Our life as a human itself is an opportunity bestowed upon us from God. We have to pass through this world only once. We should do good that we can and should show kindness to human being that we also can as we are not going to pass this way again. Our life is perishable with no any surety of surviving for certain years. Our temptations and efforts to gather the whole world within our arms or under our feet are futile just as a hen tries to gather her chicks, wandering here and there, under her wings.

- Valibhai Musa
Dtd.: May 07, 2008