i insane

I’m not a good student… I don’t sit in the library and mug up MCQ books. I don’t know which common questions they ask frequently in the entrance exam, to be honest, I don’t even know exactly how many and which subjects they’re supposed to ask questions on, what I try to read is everything available about the diseases I encounter in the OPD and my beloved neuroscience. I don’t plan, and I don’t want to appear for that exam. I don’t want to be a physician… don’t want to spend my life in the hospitals trying to offer already available treatments which may or may not be effective, and in trying to fight against the disorders disabilities tragedies and curses with maybe partially useful or totally futile or guess based regime weapons, and in trying to be satisfied for offering the treatments to needy ones no matter what the results say…

I don’t hate doctors… really, and I do salute their contribution in the health care system, because if we remove doctors the system will be totally paralyzed… but I don’t want to be one. A doctor has to be practical (yes, I’m speaking of an ideal doctor… and not about the money making robotic machines devoid of their own brains and alas, also of hearts!). She can’t be enthusiastic- the doctor, can’t be drastic… can’t cross the boundaries. She just can’t be curious beyond a certain limit. And she’s helpless; she has to adjust with the scanty diagnostic facilities and primitive like treatments even though she’s working in a most advanced setup (leave apart something like what I experience here)… she has to see failures, she has to face conditions where there is no treatment… there are diseases with no cure, and there are people who get them, and come to her with great hopes… like a machine, she has to take consent and has to convince the patient about the scant regimes and potential hazards of those regimes, and to tell that to the disease there is no treatment.

When she decides to go beyond the limits and to expand the boundaries, to question the regimes and the pathological conditions and mechanisms in physiology, wants to seek something better and safer…, she’s not a doctor, she’s a scientist. I know a doctor is not supposed to play the god though some people still do call her a god, neither a scientist an idol. But… but… but why to accept the limitations, why to surrender the pathological processes and traditional treatment regimes when you believe that something better can be found out? Why to spend life in prescribing VDRL and then ART to thousands of AIDS patients rather than trying to defeat the HIV in total…? Why to go for AMP or nailing and plating and working on live human’s bone/s as on a piece of wood rather than finding something that’ll deposit natural bone where it was and how it was before the accident? Why to give something as hazardous as steroids or cytotoxic drugs to control inflammation? Why is in cases of fights and crimes, MLC papers and signs and signatures and proofs and photos more important than the fact or facts why the heck their brains became so violent? Of course, there is some answer/s to every why, but alas, none meets my satisfaction…

And I, like some unsatisfied wandering spirit keep on thinking of research while working as a doctor in my hospital… and my mind keeps on hovering between the reality and my dream world…

The saga of jealousy

It’s something deep in mind, a weakness, a fear, a sense of being incompatible… and it kills others. Where in Darwin’s theory of evolution, does this jealousy stand? Is it a disease or a pathological state of otherwise innocent mind? Or is it characteristic of some villain hidden in the dark depth of everyone’s mind? Is it a fact… unavoidable… or an avoidable catastrophe?

When it affects friends, the friendship ends… relationships go to hell… siblings become enemies, lovers become filled with hatred, joyous stimuli offer punishment… what is that, that dares to snatch all the happiness, and fills the innocent heart with filth of being jealous? Why people want to pull others’ legs? Why they can’t tolerate the victory of their own pals? Is life only a competition? Is it just a game of win or loss? To prove our superiority, do we need to prove others as lower? Can’t life be just a simple win- win situation?

When it affects them, teachers stop distributing knowledge, and co workers start gossiping in ears… care takers become life takers. It has happened in epics… it forms a part of our history books… we read it in news papers, we feel it happening to us… and sometimes we can’t stop but feel jealous of other ‘lucky’ creatures. I wonder if there is any research explaining the phenomena behind this evil emotion. Is it something that humans (and also other ‘higher’ animals) feel when they see someone getting something they feel she doesn’t deserve? What if the person in question perfectly deserves what she gets? Or is it something people feel when they see others getting something they want, but don’t get… even when they know the person deserves that achievement, and even when the person is very good to them? Or is it a reflection of insecurity they feel about themselves, rather than about the achiever? Being a victor or loser has no effect on being jealous… as if unsatisfied; the victor may be envious of some capacities of the loser one, and if not strong minded, the loser is always jealous of the victory of victor… Is it universal… is it acceptable? And… is it reversible? To this social illness, isn’t there any cure? Is altruism an illusion? Is ‘happiness in the happiness of others’ mere a theoretical word collection?

But I’ve seen angels, there are some people craving constantly for other’s smiles. And I’ve experienced someone called a villain saving lives of others… and seen her transforming from villain to heroine to again villain again to heroine… I’ve seen hatred melting away, and smiles erasing frowns. I’ve touched the softness in the hearts of hardest stones, and felt the hardness of softest hearts… but sill I don’t understand where and why in this world does jealousy stand…

It’s a bad power, causing lethal mutation of soul. It is a bad kid of comparison, a habit of peeping into others’ lives and killing your own soul with negligence; it is a sign, symbol, symptom of lack of confidence… or is it a pathological transformation of a desire to be equal? How comes the same desire stimulating some persons to lift others up and to be angels, stimulates jealousy in some other persons?

It is a disease getting born as a small larva, and eating the person, then her pals, then the society, countries continents and the whole world and becoming an anaconda or a dragon… I hope true love, true faith, true devotion, true satisfaction and true sacrifice are immune to this infection…