A TALE OF A JOURNEY AND THE UN-SOCIAL MEDIA

Aravind,

 1 a.m.,

Mumbai .

PART 1 – The Journey

                                                          A few months back while I was working with an organization at Chennai I got a mail from my boss on a Thursday morning. The mail referred to a client meeting that was supposedly scheduled to take place the next day morning at a Southern district in Tamil Nadu. And I was supposed to be there the next morning. After confirming the details of the mail I quickly started planning out my journey. As it was a quick plan and as I had overshot the time for tatkal bookings I couldn’t manage to get any train. So I booked a Volvo sleeper bus, the next best option I had. A 7 hour overnight journey which would reach its destination by 5.30 am in the morning. I boarded the bus from Koyembedu bus station at Chennai at around 11.20 at night. It was beyond my expectations of a typical inter district Volvo. Well maintained, cozy and cool. The pillows and mattresses were smoother than the ones I had at home. There was a small light for reading purposes and curtains to give me privacy. Anticipating a good sleep for at least a full 5 hour I turned the lights off as the bus started. For the first few minutes I enjoyed the night view of Chennai from the transparent window on the upper deck berth. By 12.30 I removed my specs and pulled over the bed sheet in preparation to sleep. Slowly I started feeling slight pain on my lower back side on the right near to my spinal cord. I ignored. But the pain did not ignore me. I changed my posture. Pain also adjusted accordingly. The pain started growing and I became restless. I drank water and then the pain increased. I looked down from the berth. I felt that urinating might help so I got down from my berth and walked slowly towards the driver seat without causing slightest of the disturbance to the sleeping co passengers. Unlike the drivers of government run services the private drivers are an entirely different breed of people. You tell them that their house is on fire they might as well tell you that I will take this vehicle to the destination on time and then I will attend to it. The driver was in no mood to stop anywhere. But who wouldn’t stoop in front of flattery. I painfully sat near to him on the floor and started saying nice things about his courage and bravery to drive such a huge vehicle at such a time at high speeds with so much punctuality. I said that he was amazing which of course he was. But that served the purpose. He said he will stop at a place nearby where I can not only access lavatory but also have a cup of coffee nearby. And so did I. I felt better on boarding back I said good night to him and proceeded to sleep at a lower berth which I found was empty. I dozed off for hardly 5 min when the pain came back again. This time it grew rapidly spreading to my entire right hand side of the upper body. I felt numbness on my right hand. I have read somewhere that before people get heart attack their hands would become insensitive. It grew so severe that I thought I wouldn’t make it till the next. There was no hope in asking the driver to stop as he wouldn’t stop even if he would there was apparently no good hospital anywhere in the highway. My next best option was my destination itself which had the best of everything. For the rest of the night I silently suffered the death pain. At 5.30 in the morning I managed to board off somehow managing to carry my luggages outside. I stood near the main road for 5 minutes not knowing what to do. The person who was supposed to pick me up was supposed to be arriving by 10 in the morning outside the hotel I was staying. But the hotel I booked was 4kms away from where I was. Somehow I carried my bags to an open hotel I saw and told the receptionist to keep it there and asked him where the nearest hospital was so that I could take medicines. He referred me to the Kovai medical Centre which was nearby. I caught an auto to the hospital and I paid an amount which don’t even remember what it was, so unlike of me. A guy came out from the hospital asking if I needed a stretcher. I was badly in need of one but I said no. Without collapsing I managed to climb one of the several beds in the emergency ward and impatiently waited for the doctor to come. In 5 a guy who looked maximum 5 years elder to me came to me with an expression of a disturbed soul being woken up at the middle of the night while he was trying to make peace with his own life. He checked all my vital signs in a very much relaxed manner as if the patient in in front of him was complaining of sneezing and running nose. He asked me what the epicenter of the pain was and how it was spreading. I explained in great detail for I never valued a doctor more in my life than at that moment. He then asked the nurse to give me a tablet and an injection. A lifelong advocate of banning injections I silently suffered the pain of it without complaining. In a few minutes I knew that I won’t die that day. In a few more minutes I felt that I might live for a few more days. Pain subsided considerably. By 7 in the morning the same doctor came and asked how I felt. I said am fine. He said there is nothing much to worry. It just the pain caused by a probable stone in my kidney and the pain would be somewhat as comparable to what a women experience while giving birth to a child. Very simple. He asked me to take a scan to reconfirm if it was a stone and if it indeed was how big it was so as to decide the future course of action. I said I was on duty and that I would consult as soon as I reach back at Chennai. He then prescribed a few painkiller tabs to keep me better for 2 days. As I reached back the hotel I dialed up my sister who is a doctor and told her everything. She too gave me a syrup which would dissolve the stone if it’s a minute one and asked me to drink as much water as possible. I religiously followed everything she asked me to do. I called up my parents and said what happened. Mom freaked out but at same time was relieved to hear that her dearest son did not pass away at some far away strange place. I said I was perfectly fine and not to take tension. She said the same to me too and hung up soon. Now there is something very special about Indian moms. You tell them something and then the whole world knows in a matter of few minutes to few hours. You might even get calls from your aunt’s sister’s friend’s husband staying at a place nearby to the place you are at right now. A few called up and I said that I don’t plan to die anytime soon.

                                                                                Later that day I went out for all the meetings and reached back by afternoon. A few weeks later I did all scans only to find that there was neither any sand nor any stone in my kidney .The only explanation for the excruciating pain that I experienced that the doctor gave me was that it must have been caused by a very minute pain which sometimes gives more pain than bigger ones and that small one must have got dissolved by the syrup that I took until I did the scans. That pain never came and as a precaution I drank a well of water for the next month to the extent that people almost that that I was suffering from some chronic diarrhea for I always had a bottle of water with me.  The whole incident taught me that medical emergencies can happen to anyone at any time irrespective of what age you are. The only way to tackle it is to stay calm and not to overreact which might create more contingencies. Had I overreacted in the bus they would have dumbed me I  some strange hospital and I might as well could have operated by some crooked doctor which are in plenty in our country and would have lived the rest of my life paralyzed .

PART 2 – THE UNSOCIAL MEDIA

                                                                       However there was something that I observed which I felt strange and pained me a lot all the while and that brings me to the topic of social media. While the whole world knew that I was sick I some called me on my phone and some texted me. A friend of mine at Mumbai called me up and said ‘dude, drink a lot of water ok! And don’t travel much! Health is important’ and he hung up in 3 min. And then another friend texted me on Watsapp asking me if I was fine and gave me a bunch of advices on what I should do. I said thanks. While I was travelling back to Chennai I started feeling strange. I felt better at least 10 time s when someone whom I befriended an year back called me up and asked me if I was fine although it was partly a ceremonious call not really arising out of genuine concern for me . But someone whom I befriended 4 years back, who used to reiterate that I was the best friend that she had very conveniently texted me on watsapp when calling would have made a huge difference to me. Soon I realized that her not calling me had nothing to do with neither any strain in our relation nor any shortage of genuine concern for a good friend. It was just the dawn of a new age – The dawn of social media emerging as a revolution that would apparently connect the entire world at the cost of disconnecting every other human emotions. A potential lethal weapon which might probably handicap the upcoming generation in several possible ways. 

                                                                 An HR professor whom I admire a lot once said in an agitated tone in a lecture that today’s managers are pathetic in dealing with people. The moment you entrust someone to deal with a set of people he is certain to make a mess out of it. Today’s generation live inside a self-constructed virtual bubble which floats up in the sky until the moment it breaks leaving the occupant in utter perplexity and helplessness . We build and break relationships on Watsapp and social media. More than half of the mothers never knew that their son has uploaded a picture with her on Facebook on mother’s day wishing her good health and long life and that the post got 100 likes people and kind hearted gentle souls commented “ur mom is so lucky to have a son like u’. The fact remains that the son/daughter may not even have wished her in person. Thus virtual media just created a virtual distorted image of an underlying sad and despicable reality. An age has come where social/peer acceptance gets measured by how many likes and comments one get on social media. And to compound to this a few multi- national companies have started asking for social media ID application forms forgetting the fact that some of the best performers in their own company barely has the time to even update his/her social media profile . I remember reading somewhere that if you are to judge someone based on how many likes and comments he/she gets then you need to have better standards.

                                                            At the dawn of the 21st century the world was getting much more rational. Individual freedoms and women empowerment was discussed and debated at large. Freedom of thought, expression and individuality was supposedly distinguish each individual from one another by and large. And then came the so called social media. A few moths/years back one fine day when I logged into face I saw multi colored profile pictures of my friends on my news feed. A friend of mine told me that it was a theme called celebrating pride and no one of them really knew what it stood for. Google told me that the United States of Americas highest judicial authority just legalized LGBT rights and that the western world was celebrating pride. A landmark judgment of course but in a country like ours where LGBT unfortunately is treated with contempt both legally and otherwise what was the whole point of celebrations. Alas the herd mentality is back again. He did that and so did and there went the chain .No one enquired none questioned. However as argumentative Indians we can say that we celebrated the pride of the victory of our fellow humans in the west. A week back when Zuckerberg changed his profile picture to tricolor within minute’s people who never celebrates Independence Day and who has never taken a national flag in their hands suddenly changed profile pictures without even a slightest of application of inquisitive mind to find what is actually happening around. The turbulence and drama that happened afterwards is all together a completely different story. In a country where kids who don’t do engineering or medicine after schooling and who does not work for an Infosys or TCS are treated and looked upon like a terrorist social media is further creating havoc by taking reason away . Social media however has tremendous potential to transform the lives of millions. However the sad fact remains that the way in which today’s kids use Facebook, Watsapp and Instagrams are undermining their abilities as a social being. As the world is using the Un-social media to create a brand new persona for improving their prospects of survival in a world of cut throat competition let’s not forget to look at each other and talk. Let’s not forget to love and get loved. Let’s not forget to talk to our Parents. Signing Off.

PS – Making good use of social media by putting this on FB.