The COVID-19 pandemic threat came as the biggest shock that no country in the world was prepared for. Countries struggled to come to grips with the outbreak and contain it before it became uncontrollable. Though, such outbreaks were not really unheard of or unexpected. Throughout the human history, there have been numerous such outbreaks of diseases all over the world that shook entire nations, economies, societies, civilizations and mankind as a whole. With the advancements in Science and Technology, we made the world a global village which made it way easier for the spread of such outbreaks through all the available modes of transport (not just people, mind you!).
The governments, their policies, the politics, numerous levels of tiresome navigation of the bureaucracies, big pharma corps, cut downs of the research funding, and many more such factors lead to the failure of development of medicines/ vaccines before such outbreaks ever really occurred which could have equipped the various developed and developing countries that had a strong science and biotechnology ground, with the readiness to fight and survive such outbreaks. The unpreparedness plunged nations into crippling and paralyzing halts. The viruses mutate and adapt into newer versions every new recorded outbreak of a disease and since the human immunity systems are not prepared and unaware of the newer version(s), it becomes a losing battle against the virus(es) for the exposed human populace and a winning ground for that version of the virus which leaves behind a trail of succumbing human bodies in the wake of the disease caused by it.
In such times, the health care workers who are on the front lines are the people who are at elevated risk of exposure to the contagion. If that workforce is reduced by a considerable percentage, the whole health care system already overwhelmed and over-crowded with an ailing inflow of patients, is at odds with the virus’s rampage.
I could make one and the most important observation from all of this is that, education all around the world should be cross-functional, meaning the graduating students should be readied in a way that they are able to fit into multiple roles if such need arises, as in a national emergency, international public health emergency/ crisis. With shortage of health care workers (due to many reasons), people with graduate degrees, should be able to fill in those roles/ gaps with a minimum transition time to hold the frontline and fight the pandemic medical emergencies.
About Me
Thursday, March 26, 2020
Friday, March 20, 2020
Loved ones?
And there he is bent over my coffin -
My soul is suffocated not by the confined space;
But by the countless of memories
his sight has hurled at me!
What good is it to mourn one's loss -
If one was not heeded to, when alive?
I don't know who we are ANYMORE!!
One more step away to the distance between us.
My soul is suffocated not by the confined space;
But by the countless of memories
his sight has hurled at me!
What good is it to mourn one's loss -
If one was not heeded to, when alive?
I don't know who we are ANYMORE!!
One more step away to the distance between us.
Gnawing!
Atu Amma Nanna. Todaputtina Vadu. Itu na inko prapancham. Ooha teliyani vayasulo enduku na kutumbam ala undo telidu. Telise natiki appudu unna aa konta asha oorata kuda levu. Evari evari jeevithalu ekkadekkadiko prayanalu. Oke chota leni gamyalu; bhoutika gamyalu okate kadu manasikanga kuda kalisileni jeevitalu.
When did it all start? I question myself.
When I was a kid maybe of 3rd or 4th grade. That fateful day when my dad opened up to me about his pain filled childhood. That day when I shed tears profusely for him. I was moved and my heart ached for the pain he had suffered all through his life; I was a child myself. Later on I grew up with one solid aim in my mind, to have a home of our own in which I wanted my parents to be happy, in which I wanted to see them happy, which of course I could never realize. I think that was the age from which I gave up living for myself and my whole life began to be a race for me - the race that I was running NOT for ME but for OTHERS, albeit my own parents. I think that was the day that maybe I can definitely say as the day that I lost myself.
Add to all this the childhood abuse (verbal and physical - getting beaten up), no finances to meet and create opportunities, all the violence to witness at home, perfect chaos, isolated family down-looked upon by closely living family circles and relatives. Spending time alone on the terrace looking up at the stars for God knows how many long hours at a stretch being the only escape from my reality.
A major impact would be when I decided that my dad could not afford to educate me in the stream of my choice - to be a doctor, which my dad himself was (but not a fortunate one at that, we were financially never affluent. We were living just barely ends ever being met).
Came the break after my 12th grade where I took upon myself to support my father financially. Then it became a race for earning. Settled for a job instead of pursuing my studies further. During that time, there were days when I had earphones plugged into my ears into the middle of the night just to cut off noise at home that was keeping me awake in bed tossing around, just to get a couple hours of shut eye to be able to get on with my next day at my ever-draining work.
Tensions at home were always high and hardened as I was but was brittle and susceptible and vulnerable and alone. So I made the decision of getting married to a man who loved me (loves me?) but whose up-bringing was not adequate in many ways to make him a wholesome individual. I poured myself out into this new role, of being a supportive wife, into making this person a whole individual.
We are both broken in many ways on the inside than most people can see. In-laws have a totally different set of expectations irrespective of your background, how you have come to be you. In fact, it is not even significant that you be you at all. Not that they are totally bad people, but there is a line which, them crossing, will definitely suffocate you to no ends. There were demands upon demands that were placed on me inadvertently which further caused the death of the person that was left of me on the inside but there was no time for grieving that loss. Came two more dependents along the way - to whose needs maybe we are unable to cater as I consider both of us to be inadequate to be parents.
At 35, I am drained of all energies than most people my age. I am depressed, socially self-isolating, narcissistic traits, self diagnosed BPD? insomniac (sometimes self-made) and what not. I feel useless and like a big heap of nothing.
At a time when there was value in me (any sort of value), people were close (at least pretended to be). Now I am in an abyss and I have no one to talk to about my dark places. Now I am a mere prisoner of a jail of my own making - my mind.
Sometimes, this mind spins beautiful verses and sometimes it just palys a deadline and pushes me over the edge. I yell, I scream, I cry. I have forgotten to laugh, to sing, to listen to music, to run. Everyday is just a routine of mundane chores - repeating in an endless cycle. I am living this life praying every second to die. This is not a life that anyone should be living.
When did it all start? I question myself.
When I was a kid maybe of 3rd or 4th grade. That fateful day when my dad opened up to me about his pain filled childhood. That day when I shed tears profusely for him. I was moved and my heart ached for the pain he had suffered all through his life; I was a child myself. Later on I grew up with one solid aim in my mind, to have a home of our own in which I wanted my parents to be happy, in which I wanted to see them happy, which of course I could never realize. I think that was the age from which I gave up living for myself and my whole life began to be a race for me - the race that I was running NOT for ME but for OTHERS, albeit my own parents. I think that was the day that maybe I can definitely say as the day that I lost myself.
Add to all this the childhood abuse (verbal and physical - getting beaten up), no finances to meet and create opportunities, all the violence to witness at home, perfect chaos, isolated family down-looked upon by closely living family circles and relatives. Spending time alone on the terrace looking up at the stars for God knows how many long hours at a stretch being the only escape from my reality.
A major impact would be when I decided that my dad could not afford to educate me in the stream of my choice - to be a doctor, which my dad himself was (but not a fortunate one at that, we were financially never affluent. We were living just barely ends ever being met).
Came the break after my 12th grade where I took upon myself to support my father financially. Then it became a race for earning. Settled for a job instead of pursuing my studies further. During that time, there were days when I had earphones plugged into my ears into the middle of the night just to cut off noise at home that was keeping me awake in bed tossing around, just to get a couple hours of shut eye to be able to get on with my next day at my ever-draining work.
Tensions at home were always high and hardened as I was but was brittle and susceptible and vulnerable and alone. So I made the decision of getting married to a man who loved me (loves me?) but whose up-bringing was not adequate in many ways to make him a wholesome individual. I poured myself out into this new role, of being a supportive wife, into making this person a whole individual.
We are both broken in many ways on the inside than most people can see. In-laws have a totally different set of expectations irrespective of your background, how you have come to be you. In fact, it is not even significant that you be you at all. Not that they are totally bad people, but there is a line which, them crossing, will definitely suffocate you to no ends. There were demands upon demands that were placed on me inadvertently which further caused the death of the person that was left of me on the inside but there was no time for grieving that loss. Came two more dependents along the way - to whose needs maybe we are unable to cater as I consider both of us to be inadequate to be parents.
At 35, I am drained of all energies than most people my age. I am depressed, socially self-isolating, narcissistic traits, self diagnosed BPD? insomniac (sometimes self-made) and what not. I feel useless and like a big heap of nothing.
At a time when there was value in me (any sort of value), people were close (at least pretended to be). Now I am in an abyss and I have no one to talk to about my dark places. Now I am a mere prisoner of a jail of my own making - my mind.
Sometimes, this mind spins beautiful verses and sometimes it just palys a deadline and pushes me over the edge. I yell, I scream, I cry. I have forgotten to laugh, to sing, to listen to music, to run. Everyday is just a routine of mundane chores - repeating in an endless cycle. I am living this life praying every second to die. This is not a life that anyone should be living.
Tender or Hard?
People come in our lives to leave their marks upon us.
Some leave good ones and others leave bad ones.
Some are sweet memories, others are scars, yet others are bittersweet ones.
This process happens in everyone's life.
I am no exception.
The process itself varies from one person to another as the effect and intensity of the process.
I have come to believe that my whole life is a LIE.
That my existence is a LIE.
No matter how much I try and how much I give, there is only more demand on me to be giving.
I am NOT an eternal source of ENERGY. Or am I?
I can definitely observe is - one thing; that, I have become more indifferent to surroundings and happenings. I have lost a sense of responsiveness to the outside world.
Is this HARD-ME or the fact that I have come to believe myself to be a LIE that has made me more TENDER-ME from the inside? I wonder.
People loved me only to desert me - making me question I am not worthy of them or I am not enough. The ones that stayed have intensified the question of my value in their lives and my worth to myself.
There were yet others who reaped the most of what I could have given them and it is as though I don't even exist for them now.
So I choose to live a life that is a LIE. That way I will just have to live my time here. No expectations whatsoever from anybody ever. But is it possible at all for a human who is a social being?
Some leave good ones and others leave bad ones.
Some are sweet memories, others are scars, yet others are bittersweet ones.
This process happens in everyone's life.
I am no exception.
The process itself varies from one person to another as the effect and intensity of the process.
I have come to believe that my whole life is a LIE.
That my existence is a LIE.
No matter how much I try and how much I give, there is only more demand on me to be giving.
I am NOT an eternal source of ENERGY. Or am I?
I can definitely observe is - one thing; that, I have become more indifferent to surroundings and happenings. I have lost a sense of responsiveness to the outside world.
Is this HARD-ME or the fact that I have come to believe myself to be a LIE that has made me more TENDER-ME from the inside? I wonder.
People loved me only to desert me - making me question I am not worthy of them or I am not enough. The ones that stayed have intensified the question of my value in their lives and my worth to myself.
There were yet others who reaped the most of what I could have given them and it is as though I don't even exist for them now.
So I choose to live a life that is a LIE. That way I will just have to live my time here. No expectations whatsoever from anybody ever. But is it possible at all for a human who is a social being?
Oh GOD!
Oh Dear God! My beloved creator?
I am writing this to you today questioning your creativity.
Why did you paint with just one hue in many people's lives when you had the whole pallete of colors at your disposal?
Why are you making people wait an eternity before granting them their years of yearning?
It is only fair on your part and GODLY to feed anyone when they are hungry.
What is the use when they are granted their yearning long after it is of no pleasure to them anymore?
Why do you give people abilities when they can't do much anything with them? Use those abilities to get somewhere in life? Why do you trap them down in bondings that are too heavy for them to break loose from and keep them from chasing their dreams? Why is that often you make people realise things only after it is a little too late for them to correct their mistakes?
Why did you have to give people feelings? I, for one, don't want them and can do without them. If you ask me, if you were that bored and wanted to create something, you could have created anything much more beautiful than all the strife in all our lives and all the destruction that we as a species are causing to this beautiful blue planet of yours. I would choose to be an inanimate object, anything that would be lifeless and feelings-less, if it were up to me.
These bonds or entrapments if you will (relationships, attachments, yearnings) - I am not up to handling them all. If everything is just atoms and molecules, make me anything inanimate. That is my ultimate wish I want from you. My earnest plea to you. Wherever you are, if You ARE, I sincerely wish that this plea of mine reaches you.
Yours Sincerely
Your lesser child
I am writing this to you today questioning your creativity.
Why did you paint with just one hue in many people's lives when you had the whole pallete of colors at your disposal?
Why are you making people wait an eternity before granting them their years of yearning?
It is only fair on your part and GODLY to feed anyone when they are hungry.
What is the use when they are granted their yearning long after it is of no pleasure to them anymore?
Why do you give people abilities when they can't do much anything with them? Use those abilities to get somewhere in life? Why do you trap them down in bondings that are too heavy for them to break loose from and keep them from chasing their dreams? Why is that often you make people realise things only after it is a little too late for them to correct their mistakes?
Why did you have to give people feelings? I, for one, don't want them and can do without them. If you ask me, if you were that bored and wanted to create something, you could have created anything much more beautiful than all the strife in all our lives and all the destruction that we as a species are causing to this beautiful blue planet of yours. I would choose to be an inanimate object, anything that would be lifeless and feelings-less, if it were up to me.
These bonds or entrapments if you will (relationships, attachments, yearnings) - I am not up to handling them all. If everything is just atoms and molecules, make me anything inanimate. That is my ultimate wish I want from you. My earnest plea to you. Wherever you are, if You ARE, I sincerely wish that this plea of mine reaches you.
Yours Sincerely
Your lesser child
Answering questions
Someone from my past had asked me why there is so much pain in my blog here and in general about me?
I don’t know. Try a broken and dysfunctional family. Try poverty (hunger sticken). Try big ambitions with no winds supporting your flights. Try ridicule and seperation. Try abuse and manipulation. Try violation. Try heart break - of an innocent and intense love. Try post partum depression. Try “no ground under the feet & falling into abyss” feeling wrapped up around you forever. Try insomnia. Try cowering into a corner quivering like a feather floating away in a storm when you feel like jumping to your own end.
Being a mystery!
There is an air of magic to newness and the unknown that keeps us interested. It is true be it a new area of study, a concept and much more pronounced if it is a living breathing person. If a person is like an open book, easy to read and gives away everything about oneself to the people trying to know them, in a short period of time there remains nothing new to know about that person that keeps people interested about/ in that person. But is it true even if someone loved that person too? Unfortunately yes, when this person and the people around this person are of an impressionable and not-so-mature transforming-to-an-adult age. In the youthful years of a person’s life, there is this unstoppable desire, unquenchable thirst, insatiable hunger that attracts a person to the unknown.
If I could give the young adult ME, some piece of advice, then that valuable piece of advice would be
“DO NOT PUT YOUR WHOLE HEART OUT THERE FOR SOMEONE TO STOMP ALL OVER IT AND CRUSH IT”.
That one piece of advice would have saved me a lifetime of heartache, pain and my heart would not bleed everyday.
There was a busy little bumble bee that came into the garden of a beautiful flower. The beautiful flower was not noticed in her oblivion and it was okay. One day the little bumble bee came to the flower and tasted it’s nectar. There was bond that formed immediately between the two. It was divine. The flower’s heart made nectar by oceans and oceans that the little bee was afraid it would drown. It left the flower and did not come back to it. The flower’s mistake was to make nectar by the oceans and oceans and pour it over the bee. Now the flower was left all alone to wither all alone and die out to become stardust. The bumble bee never returned to the flower nor turned back to glance at the flower. The bumble bee had no idea of the storms that the flower had to face to blossom beautifully but not fully only to be shut down midway.
If I could give the young adult ME, some piece of advice, then that valuable piece of advice would be
“DO NOT PUT YOUR WHOLE HEART OUT THERE FOR SOMEONE TO STOMP ALL OVER IT AND CRUSH IT”.
That one piece of advice would have saved me a lifetime of heartache, pain and my heart would not bleed everyday.
There was a busy little bumble bee that came into the garden of a beautiful flower. The beautiful flower was not noticed in her oblivion and it was okay. One day the little bumble bee came to the flower and tasted it’s nectar. There was bond that formed immediately between the two. It was divine. The flower’s heart made nectar by oceans and oceans that the little bee was afraid it would drown. It left the flower and did not come back to it. The flower’s mistake was to make nectar by the oceans and oceans and pour it over the bee. Now the flower was left all alone to wither all alone and die out to become stardust. The bumble bee never returned to the flower nor turned back to glance at the flower. The bumble bee had no idea of the storms that the flower had to face to blossom beautifully but not fully only to be shut down midway.
Debt!
We all are paying our Karmic debts to the Universe in our lives here and now.
Some people in more ways than others.
Some people in more ways than others.
Cursed!
I think I am cursed with the same things of brain that mom has been with.
Similar hormonal imbalances that play havoc with my sleep cycle.
Constant unrest and ramblings. Over-analyzing and thinking too much.
Unsupportive and unkind environment. Suffocating loneliness and too much of own company.
No excitement. And for me, all of it goes a little bit too much further - with all of the understanding that I have ‘coz of so much reading about various mental health issues, psychologies and how different people respond to different conditions/ situations. So much of knowledge available at my fingertips and so far away from the buzzing busy life of back home. And none to share and discuss all the knowledge I have gained, with. It is a vicious, unhealthy, unforgiving cycle of loneliness reinforcing more loneliness. I fear, I may fall a victim to my own mind with all the constant churning that goes on up in my head. I see no saving me from me in any visible future so far. God! help me.
Similar hormonal imbalances that play havoc with my sleep cycle.
Constant unrest and ramblings. Over-analyzing and thinking too much.
Unsupportive and unkind environment. Suffocating loneliness and too much of own company.
No excitement. And for me, all of it goes a little bit too much further - with all of the understanding that I have ‘coz of so much reading about various mental health issues, psychologies and how different people respond to different conditions/ situations. So much of knowledge available at my fingertips and so far away from the buzzing busy life of back home. And none to share and discuss all the knowledge I have gained, with. It is a vicious, unhealthy, unforgiving cycle of loneliness reinforcing more loneliness. I fear, I may fall a victim to my own mind with all the constant churning that goes on up in my head. I see no saving me from me in any visible future so far. God! help me.
A question
Many people whom I considered to be important / close to me (seems like in a waaaaay early life now, though), used to tell me “let us not talk about the bad things/ difficulties / grief or such negative emotions. Let’s focus on the good things in life.” As if by choosing not to talk about those things, they would simply get erased from my life like magic and as if they never really happened in my life?
Ooooookay. If it were random strangers or just acquaintances or not so close friends - no one would share their deepest sorrows / worries/ struggles/ difficulties with them anyway. What is the point of calling such relationships as close, when we are only allowed to talk about a few things or a subset of things or or things that others (our perceived close ones, would prefer to see and talk about?) and not be able to present ourselves as we are? To have to color ourselves happy all the time?
Life is an amalgamation of ups and downs, happy moments and sorrowful ones. Life is not a single continuous straight line; it is not something like flat plains. Life’s terrain is most definitely an all kinds of terrain - in everybody’s life. Just because we do not want to talk about the things that cause sorrow/ discomfort, just because we do not want to acknowledge pain in life, does not mean it gets erased like it was never there; does it? Ask yourselves this question - O gyaan ke pandits, O great ones, O very knowledgeable ones.
And to all who ever tried to give me a piece of their minds about not talking/ opening up about pain in life - A BIG THANK YOU to you all. But know this for certain - I was a happy and joyful soul once. It was fake people like you all and many more others, whom I placed a lot of importance on, more than what you all deserved and gave my heart all-in, who turned to me in the hour of your needs, for whom I stood a firm support in all ways possible to me and required of me by you, it is you all who broke me and made me the way I have now become (joyless). I am trying to find my way back to who and what I once was - All ALONE/ by myself.
Ooooookay. If it were random strangers or just acquaintances or not so close friends - no one would share their deepest sorrows / worries/ struggles/ difficulties with them anyway. What is the point of calling such relationships as close, when we are only allowed to talk about a few things or a subset of things or or things that others (our perceived close ones, would prefer to see and talk about?) and not be able to present ourselves as we are? To have to color ourselves happy all the time?
Life is an amalgamation of ups and downs, happy moments and sorrowful ones. Life is not a single continuous straight line; it is not something like flat plains. Life’s terrain is most definitely an all kinds of terrain - in everybody’s life. Just because we do not want to talk about the things that cause sorrow/ discomfort, just because we do not want to acknowledge pain in life, does not mean it gets erased like it was never there; does it? Ask yourselves this question - O gyaan ke pandits, O great ones, O very knowledgeable ones.
And to all who ever tried to give me a piece of their minds about not talking/ opening up about pain in life - A BIG THANK YOU to you all. But know this for certain - I was a happy and joyful soul once. It was fake people like you all and many more others, whom I placed a lot of importance on, more than what you all deserved and gave my heart all-in, who turned to me in the hour of your needs, for whom I stood a firm support in all ways possible to me and required of me by you, it is you all who broke me and made me the way I have now become (joyless). I am trying to find my way back to who and what I once was - All ALONE/ by myself.
Broken!
It feels like something within me is broken.
The inability to feel anything but pain and hurt. The obsession to feel anything but pain and hurt.
The weakening and straining of my relationships and bondings with many people over the past few years (the years spent in reminiscing and looking within), after moving to a foreign land away from family and extended circles, having been a full-time stay-at-home parent, have definitely made me lonely, cold-stoned, emotionless (except for a lingering gloom at all times), intolerant of the fake pasty smiles and the shallowness of the daily mundanity and morbidity of fallacious human relationships, that we have built over generations, away from nature, the constant/ incessant rat-race for materialistic gains and dominance, the futility of human existence, the knowledge of the inevitability that everyone perishes and that the time goes on, the insignificance of one’s life and part that one’s life may or may not have in others’ lives, the constant humming and worry to find a purpose in the middle of all the chaos that never seems to pause or slow down, the damage that the human activity is creating, the uncertainty of everything (more so & felt in a much more pronounced way in a foreign land), the inability to find and connect with GOD, The Absolute, if any, to find guidance, solace and comfort in an unshakeable way, that feeling of emptiness gnawing away at me, have made me to silently wait for my melting into the darkness - the night of life that is Death.
That brokenness - I can explain it to no one. Only suffer in the knowledge of.
If only GOD were there, He sure would definitely not want people to suffer, in any way possible and imaginable and would heed to the prayers of people who call to Him in their full trusting and unshaken faith to Him (people who are much unlike me).
This journey of mine to find my own truth and my own light is exhaustingly tiring. But I can only wait and not quit.
This journey of mine to find my own truth and my own light is exhaustingly tiring. But I can only wait and not quit.
PEACE!
Bhavam - Madhuram
Pedavi vippina matanai
Kanulu terichina kalanu nanai
Manasu telipina premanai
Nee ode cherana
Priyatama Priyatama
Na madi guvvaku nestam nuvve
Na gunde gootiki cheraga rave
Cheruvalo unnappudu dooranivi neeve
Na mooga bhasha ki gaanam kave
Na madi nelanu tadapaga chirujhalluga rave
Vadipoyina aamani lo tolakari la rava
Aavedana velluvalo padi munigi unna
Nanu telchaga terachapai rava
Kanulu terichina kalanu nanai
Manasu telipina premanai
Nee ode cherana
Priyatama Priyatama
Na madi guvvaku nestam nuvve
Na gunde gootiki cheraga rave
Cheruvalo unnappudu dooranivi neeve
Na mooga bhasha ki gaanam kave
Na madi nelanu tadapaga chirujhalluga rave
Vadipoyina aamani lo tolakari la rava
Aavedana velluvalo padi munigi unna
Nanu telchaga terachapai rava
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