In Memory of IIMI in Rains

These days I am scared of travelling early in the morning. It leaves me completely exhausted and by evening, I am so tired that I sleep like a deadwood. But there is always a pleasure of visiting IIM campus. It takes me back in the time zone to my teaching years, time spent with my students discussing case studies, researching on Indian markets, teaching on satellite platform and spending long hours watching the setting sun.
IIMI still has the sunset point where one can stretch back and enjoy the setting sun. I think the best sun set is in Baroda but my experience is with Indore only, on the top of the hill where IIMI is situated. I don’t know how many people now go there and enjoy the sun set but I have always done that. That momentous joy comes in between PGP class hours and BBEP class hours. There will be very few people on campus and one can relax for one hour in between. There is a vast field in front of IIMI campus that stretches up to horizon and sun takes a lazy slot to go to other side of the meadows. I have always found the meadows very challenging and fascinating. In turns to brass brazen field in summer and makes you feel down. The dead grass brings a pale look to the fields.
Rains are always scarce commodity in Indore. I feel rainy season comes to Indore at the far end of the monsoon, but when it comes down, it brings itself with lots of mist and haziness and after few showers, suddenly the meadows turn lush green and you feel like being in a deserted rain forest from which the trees have escaped in an unknown afternoon to some distant land. There are black rocks in between and they stand like shadows of distant past.
Rains in IIMI also brings some painful moments of life. In this period, the rivers outflow and cross their limits. They cross their limits like bunch of professors gossiping about each other’s incapability. I lost two of my bright students in one of these rainy days when they were on a trip to Charol River. People told me Charol River is like a thief, it comes silently from the back and sweeps away sand beneath the feet. People hardly have time to respond and lose their life, same thing happened with my students.
The summer brought hazy days, water jams and burnt corns (butta). I remember my first trip to Indore city with Prof Ashish and Prof Vaswani of IRMA and how we had a good time with fresh burnt buttas.
In one of these rainy days, we had visited to the land of Mandu and Mandu fort where there is an eternal love story of Raani Rupmati and Bagh Bahadur. The brave Bagh Bahadur’s story still repeats in the valley and reminds of true meaning of love. I travelled to this picnic spot once only but liked the trip and also liked all the songs sang by Pawan Singh.
Rains are always a pleasure on campus as the lawns get greener; flowers bloom and there will be some cold breeze blowing from some unknown land. The canteen boy will make momo and pakoda and we will enjoy that. VK will come from somewhere to have a lion share. It will be followed by some hot tea. I don’t know this is rainy season on Indore or not, maybe it is winter there; I am thinking about rains here because it is raining in Chennai and I can see the rain drops dancing from the hospital bed through the window. Rains in Chennai are dirty and someone has squeezed them like a toothpaste tube in between the high rising buildings.
There is not much to think and remember well about IIMI these days when physical pain is so high and this needle is pinching you. So I thought why not to remember about the summer haziness of the meadows in front of campus, the sun set point, the steel chair below the tree near the bank for a lazy afternoon and rains through the window of the office room and changing skin of the meadows covering itself with a veil of green saree in rainy season.
May the place doesn’t lose its beauty ever and behave like an enchantress of time and memory!!

Dr Ashok Kumar from Glasgow

This little man was waiting for me for almost one hour in a posh club in Gurgaon today. It was an unscheduled meeting for me as Arvind on the way spoke about him. It was all a shocking day as Arvind straight took me to his home in the morning. Its unprofessional for me but somehow that's the way people from Hariana are; over friendly and meaningful.

Arvind works with government and so also works for us. Funny country and funny job! He told me that his current posting doesnt warrant him to go to office and he can do whatsoever he wants to do in the day, but leave Arvind, let us meet Dr Ashok Kumar.

I am not well these days. Problem of 2002 has cropped up. Absence of a spleen makes the pottasium level to change first. How many days one can pull like this? I need to undergo the scalpel sooner or latter, but at least I should bear for one more year, till Google complete class ten, because I know once the surgery happens to the liver, then you just have to wait for the end, may be very painful end is waiting somewhere and approaching me soon!! Many people ask me why do I talk about death so often, they dont know the pain that I am going through.

So this meeting was for something else, for checking my reports and guessing how many more days the lever can bear the turture of the high level of bile duct and how can I manage the swellings these days as they are occuring very often. I met Dr Ashok around 2 PM, he was wearing a cap and smiling man. I greeted him and he also responded with an English accent, of course working 30 years of life in UK would have changed my accent.

I asked him, what made him to come to India. He smiled and replied, Manmohan singh is responsible. I met him in a Pravasi Bharatiya Dinner and he invited me to come back to India and start a medical college and hospital in India. For last two years Dr Ashok Kumar is running lamp and post to raise fund for the hospital. Government of Bihar has given him all clearances including pollution clearances and he has purchased land for the medical college but he never expected that corruption level in India has gone so high over last 30 years.

i could read out the pain in his eyes and could see the dream of one day doing the medical college in patna. Everybody lives with a dream, a hope for tomorrow, for doing something, for leaving a legacy for people to remember them.

Do I have a dream now? Probably not, just living like a bilological animal, spending moments and years and doing nothing that meaningful. It was a great solace to meet people like Dr Ashok Kumar and chance upon his dreams, see the helplessness of a person who wanted to do things for his state but corrupt system is killing the enthusiasm.

May God bless Dr Ashok Kumar and may his dream be fulfilled.

I will write about the evening of 30th November at IIMAhemadabad campus that I spent with Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. But I need to write a long note on him and my interaction with him, may be tomorrow.