a dust storm in Jaipur, Genghis Khan, and a family busy with their books

I watched the dust storm gather strength on the tarmac and the runways from the safety of the interiors of the airport at Jaipur. It was getting somewhat worrisome. I wondered if it would delay all departures. My flight was to New Delhi and onwards to Pune with quite a number of hours to be in transit. I was usually careful about that sort of a time gap between flights but this could take it right up to the edge. The announcements were coming in. Flights were being delayed and it was by three hours for now and could be much more. I logged in to my ticket status and checked the one from Delhi to Pune and relaxed. Several flights out of Delhi were also getting delayed. Now, I could settle in at the departure area, find a silent and comfortable section and get out a book to read.

Most passengers were seated nearer to the high outer windows and were watching the dust storm. The regulars from Jaipur and those who looked very much local were in the middle section, not bothered, and were busy with their cellphones or were napping. What was there to watch in a dust storm for someone from Jaipur? I walked around a bit, scouting for a good location. About four entire long rows of rather comfortable seats were somewhat less crowded. The reason became obvious as I neared it. There were no television monitors or eateries or rest-rooms in the vicinity.

I made myself comfortable near a large potted palm and placed my haversack between my leg space and the plant. The other carry on had my airport stuff, books, bottled water, small packages of snacks and one particularly aromatic parcel of puri bhaji from an excellent foodcart near the railway station. I was looking forward to enjoying myself with it when on the flight or while at the transit lounge at the New Delhi airport. For now, I could be busy with my book.

An elderly couple on the other side of the potted palm had already made themselves quite at home, actually, in a way. They were snoring away happily while a younger couple were busy chatting with one another. They must be related, I guessed, for otherwise they would have been irritated or would have moved away to another section. I was ok with it for I was used to traveling with mixed group of fellow passengers in long distance railway trains, night buses and while staying in dormitories and whatever. Opposite, to the extreme corner, I had a group of pilgrims, from the sight of all the stuff that they carried and their dress. They also had a guruji amidst them and yet they were silent.

Right across me, the most intriguing group of all. An elderly gentleman, a not-so-youngish lady, and two very young kids, a boy and a girl, with about eight bags on alternate seats, being used for various purposes. The elderly gentleman had his elbow resting on a large carry-on bag while the lady was using one soft bag as a back support and had another bag tucked below her seat. The kids were more enterprising. Each one was using a bag as a pillow and backrest and was able to adjust adequately to sit across two seats. The more interesting of all, each one had a book.

Curiouser and curiouser, I tried to identify the books without giving away my intention. The elderly gentleman was reading a book that I recognised right away. It was one of the very popular Jim Corbett titles and I felt happy about it. Fellow nature lover. He must be a good person, I certified. Everything is all a-ok about him. The lady a book from the One-Minute-Manager series. Slim book about management and organisational behaviour. Hmmm, I thought. She must be a working professional, recently promoted, good organisation and wants to be better informed at work.

The young lad had a book from the Game of Thrones series. My mind went ‘Wow!’ That was some heavy reading. I had enjoyed the TV series but reading it had made me quite tired. This young fellow looked determined at his task and I saluted him. Not many adults would have picked it up at a book shop. They young lady, possibly his younger sister, had a novel-sized book about basic photography skills. I was impressed. She was not going to be one of those who were just happy to be a point-and-click accidental photographer just because her cellphone had a camera.

I could run an experiment, I thought to myself. I returned the heavy-set novel that I was about to read and picked out ‘The Wolf of the Plains’ about Genghis Khan by Conn Iggulden. The cover would be interesting to each one of them for it showed up the title about a wolf while it had interesting art work about Genghis Khan and of course the image would also be appealing. Something for the elderly gentleman and both the kids. I wanted to see if they would gaze at the cover, look for longer times, and would be curious enough to come over to chat with me.

Sure enough, the young lad glanced past, something clicked in his mind, and he turned back to look at it keenly. It had caught his imagination and he could not let it go. He walked over to the elderly gentleman and whispered. The elder looked around politely and casually, very casually, brought his gaze to my book. Now, he was hooked. He whispered back to the young lad and nodded. The lady was possibly the mother of the two kids and she had not moved her gaze out from her book. There was quite some furious and hectic whispering between the elder and the young lad.

It was however, the younger sister who was bolder and impulsive. She had been hooked on by the cover page of the book and she was smart. She picked up her mother’s cellphone and, I just guessed at this by her actions, must have typed in the title and googled about the book. She read it up and understood the contents and also realised that there were more titles in the series and that all were best sellers and were all about Genghis Khan and his descendants.

She walked up to the elderly gentleman and her brother and spoke in a stage whisper that I could hear very clearly. “It is not about a wolf. It is about the plains of Mongolia. It is about Genghis Khan. You will like it, brother. There is a book series and they have better Amazon ratings than ‘Game of Thrones’. It has history, war, adventure, geography and all other stuff in it. Dadaji, you will also like it. There is something about a wolf and an eagle in this particular book of the series. Mummy will not like it, maybe. The stories are very long. But, I checked about Mongolia. It is good country and the potential for photography is very good. I saw some of the photographs. Maybe I will go there.”

I was blown away, absolutely. The young girl must have been on the cellphone for just about two minutes or more. She had absorbed all this first-time information, rapid fast, and picked out just the salient facts for her brother. The elderly gentleman probably realised that I had heard all that she said. He looked at me and smiled, very politely.   

From "the very short short stories on first edit" 

(c) Bharat Bhushan

5 February 2022

Sleepless at the ICU and the lady patient from Bed No. 32

 “Try to sleep now. You will feel better in the morning. We have given you a good anti-depressant tablet also.”

“How can I sleep?” I replied. “I have nothing to do. You did not allow my laptop in the ICU and my cellphone is also confiscated and kept in the locker. How can I even try to go to sleep? I can only sit on my cot in my semi-cabin and keep watching the other patients in the ICU. I cannot get sleep in any case. Remember? My problem is because of my insomnia. I cannot sleep until 3 am or thereabouts. That is the reason why my problems have become bigger.”

The male matron smiled and laughed a bit. I had not seen him smile in all my two hours at the ICU when I had been a rushed-in admission after a spike in my blood pressure. He had been standing alongside the cardiologist and the night-hour on-duty doctor while my case was being discussed. I had seen him reading through my file and repeatedly lifting his head to look at me as if he did not believe my case. I knew that he was very sceptical and we had to talk.

This was the first time that I had seen a male matron moving about in an ICU, very confident and knowledgeable and in control of his team. I looked around my section of the ICU. We were in an internal sub-section of the very large ICU area. At this time, well past midnight, there were four female and eight male nurses moving about, silently, intent on their tasks, checking their wards, unsmiling, looking at the patient files, examining their catheters and drips.

They were in the new uniforms, both male and female, except that the women wore pink colored shirts and trousers while the men were in Prussian blue. They did not look like the nurses of earlier years, dressed in white, without their narrow-waisted gowns and smart perky caps. The younger male nurses were rushing through, not reading the patient files in detail and were simply whisking off the catheter to hastily replace with new ones.

“What does my file say about my blood pressure reading?” I asked the young male nurse as he picked up my patient file. “Is it ok? Do they write about my ECG and blood pressure? Is there any written report that I can read?”

“I do not know,” he replied. “I do not read any of that stuff on these green pages. You have to ask Nagare Sir.”

“Who is Mr. Nagare Sir? Your ICU matron? He may not allow me to read my file. Why don’t you read them?”

He did not reply. He had glanced back hastily and had seen the matron watching the both of us chatting at this later than late midnight hour. ICU patients were supposed to be asleep and a chatting nurse was very suspicious. I smiled at the matron and as I thought, he did not smile back. Boy, was he strict or what? But he had not seemed so. I watched him chat with the lady patient from Bed No. 32 who was walking around. She must have been in her late eighties, I guessed. She was walking from her bed section to the Matron’s counter and making a circuit of the medicine carts and the on-duty doctors. She did not talk to anyone but just ambled along, slowly. My guess was that she was chanting, most possibly. She was worried about something but did not want to allow her fear to overpower her. She had been chanting like this, all her adult life, and it gave her courage and strength. She was here, wasn’t she, in the ICU, walking about peacefully, smiling, not worried about the ceiling a/c units and not avoiding the cold draft.

“She has a surgery tomorrow morning, early tomorrow morning. She may survive and she may not. She knows.”

Startled at the very deliberately enunciated low voice very close to me, I turned around hastily. It was Mr. Nagare. He had come up silently and had been standing alongside, watching the lady patient from Bed No. 32 as I had done.

“She seems very courageous,” I said. “Do you know if she is chanting something? She does not sleep easily?”

“Would you? Would you sleep as easily if you know that you had a surgery tomorrow morning and you are all alone here in the ICU and your family does not bother if you not return from the hospital at all? Not concerned at all.”

I looked at the lady, concerned and worried about her now. I watched her smile at the doctor-on-duty and pat him on his shoulder and comfort him about something. A lady nurse came up to her to ask her to return to the bed and she pointed at Mr. Nagare, the matron, standing next to me. So he had permitted her to walk around in the ICU.

“Nagare Saheb, that is not fair,” I said. “You do not allow me to move around and do not allow me my laptop and cellphone and you allow her to walk about. Is it ok if I can talk with her? I can give her company until dawn if you think that is ok. I am a compulsive insomniac and try as much as you can, I am not going to get knocked off to sleep. If she is ok with my company, I can sit with her here, in my section and chat. We will not disturb the other patients.”

Without any reply, he went up to the lady and placed a hand on her elbow and brought her to my cot. I brought my palms together and greeted her. She willingly sat on one corner of the bed and looked at me, silent, without judging me. I could sense it. She had no opinion. She was just there, accepting of anything that would happen to her.

“Mataji, I am here for blood pressure and insomnia and panic attacks. All my problems are of a fast moving world and addiction to multi-tasking and the internet and working on computers all the time. This visit will probably slow me down when I return and after two to three months, I may get back to the same intensity and take more chances.”

She smiled. She knew that I was trying to make small talk. She pulled out her chanting beads and gestured.

“I just do jaap. I recite his nama, incessantly, without any stop. It must be the same. I also love my god in the same way that you love your work. We are the same. If we do not do what we do now, we will do something else and will once again be drowned in the same rush. Our matron Sir must have told you that I am having a surgery tomorrow and he must have told you that I may survive or may not. Do not worry about me. My family has given up on me. But my god has not. I know it. If he calls me to him, tomorrow, I win. If he does not call me to him, I win. It is the same.”

Mr. Nagare laughed. I smiled. It was very difficult not to be emotional and not to be able to show it visibly.

“I am only aware of the magic of meeting new people. Each person is different and I feel very strongly that each new individual is in HIS plan for me. He always sends someone to me. My family hardly ever talks to me. They are only interested in my bank accounts and legal documents. When I walk, and when I chant, I am grateful that my poor 87 year old ankles still have the strength. We will meet tomorrow, for sure. I hope you will be here when I return.” 

From "the very short short stories on first edit" 

(c) Bharat Bhushan

2 February 2022

The EDC (Every Day Carry) of an urban commuting male in India - the first seven plus one

21 June 2021

I have been watching videos of EDC in the United States and of other regions. There are some EDC videos for India but they are rare. EDC is the abbreviation for "Every Day Carry", i.e. the stuff that a person needs to carry with oneself on an everyday basis. The videos in the US show them carrying revolvers, hunting knives, multipurpose tool kits, torches and also food as though one is fighting for survival in urban America. Maybe that is true there, but it is certainly overboard here in India. 

Some of the EDC bags are also quite complicated and with several pouches, etc. There was one video of a person in New York who also carried his rain poncho and a sleeping bag daily in the city. 

I found this concept quite intriguing and decided to give it a shot and see what would be the daily essentials for an urban male commuting professional in India. 

I so remember my father who taught me to go with the magic of seven, i.e., seven items or seven habits or seven mannerisms that one should live by. My seven items for EDC to carry on my person would be - 

(1) Wristwatch - I prefer an analog one. I cannot be seen wearing a digital one. 

(2) Handkerchief - A large, preferably white colored, cleanly folded to be in the trouser pocket. 

(3) Key sets - for the home, for the vehicle and for the office. Can be kept in different locations on self. 

(4) Pocket Comb - I prefer the flat plastic one with soft teeth. I do not carry the narrow stick variety. 

(5) Pens - a fountain pen or a jotter or a ball pen or a gel pen and plus a pencil if you need one. 

(6) Spectacles or sunglasses. I use one with a variable lens and sometimes carry a tissue cloth to clean.

(7) Wallet. - Mine is 'Eddie Bauer' purchased in 2000 at Washington DC on a sale. I used one from 2000 to 2010 and now, the second one that was bought at that time, is in use from 2010 and going on 2021. 

And as in today's times - there would be the ubiquitous eighth and most necessary and essential - 

(8) Cellphone - Mine comes with a cover and is always carried in a pouch or inside my haversack.

One would need to make a separate list of 7 items that would go inside a wallet but that can be separately done. Similarly one can list seven clothing items for oneself on a regular day wear. I simply cannot think of an eighth carry-on-person EDC item. Perhaps my mind was made up for me by my father!!!

(My father - Balapila Naga Bhushan - was a stickler for his everyday wear and never changed his habits all through his life.)