Raising Kids with Problems..

Raising children needs patience… atleast with naughty kids as of ours surely needs lots of patience… tough job but then everyone does it… yesterday had a patient in OPD… 9 yr boy with history of some neurological surgery done 4 yrs ago… that neurological surgery had left a permanent damage on his brain… he had become sort of an hyperactive child… wouldn’t sit in one place for one second… always doing some masti of sorts… tried to pull on some wires and machines of my instruments… tried taking some things and throwing here and there… just wouldn’t listen… after a couple of minutes even I got irritated by his behavior.. but his parents tried to be calm and apologetically tried to handle things… that’s when I realized how tough it would be for the kids parents to take care of the child… the patience required would have been amazing… on asking the father said that his mother had to resign from work as one of them had to stay back with him… no crèche would take such a child… the father did handle him well but somewhere I found a bit of irritation creeping on him too… for his sake they had given away the thought of having a second child, as they knew he would require their utmost attention for the rest of their lives… as they left I couldn’t help but pity on the condition this family found itself into… just wished that the parents don’t run out of patience anytime in future…

Child Begging

Was returning from work yesterday when my car came to a halt at a traffic signal…. Was engrossed in a nice song when suddenly someone knocked at the window.. a girl probably of age around 10 yrs with a smaller kid of around 1 – 1 ½ yr in her arms stood there… she started asking for money saying she was hungry and so on… I never give money to such people who come with babies in their arms bcause I feel that this encourages them more to trouble the small kid into crying so as to gain our sympathies… I asked her to go away… but that got me into thinking… the signal turned green and I moved on, but I tried to think as to how can this ever be stopped… last week it was in papers that some kid was kidnapped and asked to beg near Bombay hospital… there had to be some way to stop this… even if the men who force these kids into begging are arrested they come out again and start same thing all over… I then realized that there was one harsh way to end this… make child begging a crime…!!! I know this may sound weird… or such law may be into existence already of which I am unaware of… but after making such a law start arresting such kids and start putting them into remand / correctional homes… this is really harsh on them but to achieve something big this can be undertaken…. Once everyone comes to know that begging by children is a crime and can attract punishment then no one would then force or even ask these kids to beg… children wont be kidnapped for this purpose …over a period we may find no children begging anywhere… matter to think over?????????

Being 'Daddy' :-)

Just remembered a funny incident today… few mths ago some of Ria’s frnds had come home to play with her… Ria calls me Daddy or Dadda….n I later realized tht all her frnds addressed their father as Baba or by some other similar nomenclature… these kids were at home for almost 3 4 hrs…. throughout their play there were times when Ria would have called me up for something… even whn they asked Swapna for something she just told her “go n ask daddy”… after some time I decided to join them for some fun… after a few minutes one of her friends wanted something frm me… she came up to me n said “ae daddy I want tht toy… will u pass on the toy…” one other kid was “ae daddy pl put on the cartoons”… later on almost all these kids started addressing me as Daddy… amused I realized these kids thought tht this man is to be addressed by the name “Daddy”… till the time they were at home I was addressed as Daddy by all the kids… we were all very amused… I told Swapna if their parents were to listen to this m sure they would be damn embarrassed… then the time came for me to drop them… one of the kids announced “chalo everyone… Daddys gonna drop us all at home…” smiling I packed them all in the car n decided to treat them on the way…. We went to an ice cream shop…. And as everyone went in it was my time to get embarrassed as all kids stated shouting “Daddy I want chocolate” “daddy I want strawberry” n so on… everyone present there gave me weird n stunned look as almost all kids had made their ‘Daddy’ tht day… I just shrugged paid d bill n dropped them all 

A Optimistic guy slowly turning Pessimistic 

Today I feel the need to worry about the future of my country, my India… daily I pick the newspaper or switch on the news n 90% of the news is negative news… scams, murders, rapes, deaths, deceits, droughts etc etc… one literally has to search for some positive news… few years back it wasn’t so…. I mean not atleast to this extent…. The pessimism has creeped in the minds of the general man… a building collapses – 100’s die – someone gets murdered – some scams get unearthed – n what comes to our mind first??? Not sympathy for the victim but “kuch nahi hoga… the accused or rather those who are involved will get scot free in some days – the investigators will ‘get rich’ n the people will forget”!!!! “ya n some may ‘oppose’ or ‘look like to’ stand for the victim but then either their ‘personal agenda’ gets fulfilled or they also ‘get rich’ n shut up”!!!! This is now the standard protocol for any ‘event’!!!! Why I worry??? I worry for what if I or my near dear ones are the ‘victim’ tomorrow??? What will happen then??? Will it just be another ‘event’ then??? An event that the media might rake up for increasing their trp’s??? An event that the ruling party try to show that it is because of opposition party??? An event that the opposition party will use to dethrone the ruling party??? An event that the lawmakers n others involved in the process of providing justice might use to get rich??? Such a shame….!!!

Business comes first

Summer comes with holidays… vacation time… funtime for kids… during summer time we usually have less patients at our hospital; so we try to make the most of it…. weekend tours are almost always there… this particular weekend we had gone to our in-laws place at dadar… time spent at in-laws place was always leisure time, with waking up at around 9 n then having wholesome breakfast lazing around… afternoons were at times dangerous cos that was usually the time whn wifey would want to go and shop… it was always ‘I wanna window shop only… I already have everything… so don’t worry m not gonna spend anything’ at the start; which would usually end with ‘good I came… I always wanted to buy tht particular dress’ with around 3-4 bags in the hand…. One such afternoon we decided to go ‘window shopping’ at dadar… the kids were busy playing downstairs n wernt too much interested in shopping… ofcourse summers the time for kids to play throughout the day without having to listen to parents… We reached Dadar n were looking around when I noticed a kid, around 10-12 yrs old selling certain items on the road. He was sitting on the footpath with his goods spread out on a cloth in front of him… while dear wifey was window shopping I went near him n asked him “kitne ka hai”… with a smile he replied “sir bahot accha rumal hai… 20rs packet”… he had around 10 packets with him… I asked him “school ko chutti hogi na??? toh khelne nahi gaya”…. To which his initial excitement reduced n replied “sir lena hai kya… timepass mat karo”… little taken aback by his strong reply I shook my head n said “nahi re… just puch raha tha”… he replied “school band… isliye yaha mai baiththa hun aur baba in dino mai barf-gole ka gaadi lagate hai”… my heart was overwhelmed with his innocent reply… I felt sad while all kids play n make the most of it of the summer holidays this kid has to sit here n help out his dad… suddenly I had an idea… I asked him “agar jyada packet liya toh kuch kam karega???” his eyes lit up with excitement “2 liya toh 2 rupay kam dena”…. I removed my wallet n said “thik hai chal... ye 180 rupees le aur mujhe sab packet dede…” the kid stared at me for sometime…. “sab??” he hurriedly recovered from his initial shock n for the fear that I may change my mind put all packets in a plastic bag n gave them to me…. I gave him the money n said “jaa ab sab bech diya na…. ab ghar jaake khel”…. he took the money n carefully put them in his pocket n smiled at me n ran away….. I felt nice at heart tht atleast he would get to enjoy atleast this afternoon…. I went near my wifey n handed her the packet…. She was like “have u gone crazy buying so many hankies???” I then narrated the whole incident to her… it much have taken around 5 minutes to do tht… wifey dear smiled n said “thts so sweet of u dearest hubby…. But would u like to turn around n take a look”…. As I turned around, my heart which was still running hard at the thoughts of the kid getting to enjoy his afternoon suddenly skipped a beat at what I saw… the kid was again sitting there with another set of packets of hankies spread in front of him…!!!!! He just looked at me… smiled…. N gave me a thumbsup sign….. 

'New' machine :-)

My grandfather, a farmer, had lived his whole life at our native village, very rarely venturing out… we tried to talk to him to come down n live with us but he refused to shift to Mumbai …. Luckily his health was alright even at the age of 80… hearing was d only problem…. He used to have 1 day trips to Mumbai but never used to stay beyond that…. Recently my grandmother expired…. So he came down to stay with us for some days…. On one such fine day he expressed his wish to go to one of my aunt who lived nearby…. I drove him to her place which was a highrise apartment…. We stood in front of the lift waiting for it to come down…. I was toggling with my latest cellphone texting someone…. The lift came n we entered it…. I pressed no 9…. My grandfather stood in one corner looking at me n smiling…. I thought maybe he was surprised at what a mobile can do…. I smiled back…. We reached the 9th floor n I reached for the lift door to open it whn my grandfather remarked… “nice machine”… I showed him the cellphone n said “yep.. latest”… he shook his head n said “no no…. I was talking bout this lift… it has certainly made life much easier… just press one button n you can go to any floor easily…..” slowly I realized he must have travelled in a lift for the first time in his life…. Just stood there smiling at him and the ‘machine’ (lift)…. 