Merry-go-round


Life has its ups and downs, only sometimes they are very stark. In the last 15 days, divinity took me onto this merry-go round trip. In early October, I visited Pondicherry and Auroville with our Savitri teacher Ms. Sanjana. I will never finish thanking her for insisting that I should join the group visit. Pondicherry is simply beautiful and has a magnetic pull. I just fell in love with the place. We visited the Samadhi Mandir of Sri Aurobindo and Mother. It was an experience. We had some lovely sessions with different teachers and we stayed at the Guest House of the Ashram which is right over the beach overlooking its entire ocean, especially the early morning view from the balcony of my room. I was blessed at the Ganesh temple by the elephant Lakshmi who was splendidly cute. And on the final day, we visited the Matri Mandir at Auroville. It was so beautiful that I wonder why it has not yet been included in the “Wonders of world.” This was the peak part of my merry-go-round. I am waiting to go back to Pondicherry ASAP.
And then, my father suffered a massive heart attack last week on Dussera. It was sudden as he just had an arm pain to begin with. We took him to Reliance Hospital for a precautionary checkup and the ECG said it all. Within half an hour he was undergoing Angiography. The wait outside was sheer agony as we had no clue what to expect. That half an hour was like a lifetime in itself. He underwent Angioplasty and after a short stay in ICU/room, he came back home after 3 days. He is OK now. It was all the Lord’s Grace. Nothing else at his age. The Mother’s Grace and elephant Lakshmi’s blessing fructified in all its splendour. Throughout my stay in the hospital, one thought tore me apart. How does a man who is not financially blessed save himself in such a situation? The way the hospital bill rose and roared in a matter of minutes was such that it is heart rendering to think how a poor or even an average income group ever cope with such emergencies financially. How agonising it would be for a son to see his father battling for life but has not enough funds to get him the best possible treatment this country can give to save him. Do we ever realise fully how blessed we are when we don’t have to think about this “M” factor. When I finally left the hospital on his discharge, I had just one question “Can’t this hospital be totally free – at least for the ones who love their dear ones as much as we do but have no money to save them.” Shouldn’t more hospitals be totally free being run financially by the rich, by their trusts, by us? Well, October 2018 will be a month I will not forget for a long time to come. Take Care. 

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