aham brahmaasmi

“The environmental cataclysm not any more is knocking your door, it already entered and passed your drawing room“.

The impacts of global warming these days  are visible very fast and furious. We do not have to wait for the next misfortune or mishap to take place before we act upon as it is already wrecking havoc on every step and stride of our life.  Gone are those days to debate and discuss when we should act , now the time is already late and the damage already been caused and most of the time irreversible as expected. While situation had never been so emergent and alarming , so the issue is about how fast as well as how most we can do to manage the effect ie damage which is more needed than mitigate the risk of damaging(as damage already started to take over).So the time now is to understand this impact and undo all those misdeeds we kept doing till date sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly at the cost of  first your cohabitants in the great world, then your fellow nationals , next neighbor ultimately ending up to your near and dear ones . There is no escape route as you yourself closed that route by your every misdeed or misadventure. You reinforce this enclosure (of damage turned destruction trap)  by your irresponsible use of fossil fuel for your jazzy car or sprawling air conditioned bungalow, by your careless attitude to nature , its fauna and flora life by never planting a single tree or preserving a single animal in your life. You choke the exit route of such carnage by just being oblivious of your neighbor or colleague’s ruthless exploitation of the nature by his or her own means . You never debated over the trade off between the chiseling and carving the road in front of your garage with chopping off the grandfather trees and trunks bearing the storylines of the green locality with its extended family of sparrows, jungle barbers and mynas which might be the source of those inspiring  lullaby in your childhood to fall asleep on the lap of your mother. You never intended into any discussion on the great exodus from draught effected land of Bidarbha ,Maharastra  or long absence of flamingoes or great Indian bastards which till very recent past rented  its winter resort in your local lake or water body. Even you skipped the second page column of your local daily covered on the ever increasing PM percentage in your town. Yes you missed it on every count and kept living in your own illusion of leading a healthy and happy life without even knowing that every wrong action of yours and inaction against those misdeeds just boomerang to hit you harder and sooner. To repeat it will hit you , yourself harder and harsher.

Very recently our department realized it  by loosing one of our dearest colleague Sri Pratim Adhikari who passed away in the age of 57 , quite premature but always presumed. Premature because the life expectancy of the man of his status could have been easily more than eighty . Presumed because he was suffering from a incurable disease called IPD. The debate about a death could have been ended here as disease not deterioration  of environment caused his death. But with a second look we can find the different picture . As the name IPD or idiopathic pulmonary disease suggests , the cause so also its cure is always unknown but it was very much known how the whole situation , stress of the patient got aggravated due to high polluted air to live in for such patient. The 20 km road to office everyday  he used to cover by sometimes public some times private conveyance were just stuffed with dust and dirt visible and invisible (and yes more dangerous they are )to settle on his already stressed  and stiffed lungs(progressive  pulmonary stiffness  is the symptom of this disease). The history of this disease might have not allowed to reverse  or recuperate  but the breathing pure air , oxygen full inhale could have retarded the progression which could not happen. In his own count and the family’s count his death hastened fast forward part of which was surely this un called for exhaustion of journey and stayed confined in a polluted zone where our office is located. May be the comfort and coolness  could not pose immediate problem for healthy one but for the stressed and sick , the surround is never very generous. So we lost the man next to us well before than expected which has hit us really hard. And while being in more ceremonial and compliance mode rather than committed or compassionate to our surrounding flora and fauna  we are missing the finer points between those long narratives of pledge , oath and competitive catch lines. And that is how far we are serious and sincere to save ourselves who may feel sound today but very become fast sick tomorrow and succumb to al those ailment incurable , fast aggravating day after tomorrow. Saving environment is no more saving only the greater world but our closer world , the lives of our dear and near one. The causality of decay(environment) and death(life) and destruction (surrounding) has never been so faster and fully visible in front of our eyes.

Last month we lost our Adhikarida, Mr Pratim Adhikari who died of IPD or Idiopathic Pulmonary Disease , a critical lungs ailing condition which is ruthlessly irreversible ,immedicable and so incurable . You can restrict the disease or at best restrain it’s fast growth but cannot recover from it or get the patient recuperated anyway. Here the destiny was known and so the journey also and here you cannot avoid it (destiny)rather than evading it  and you can neither retract it(the journey)rather than retard it for sometimes more. And yes again here the options for somehow protracting or prolonging the journey also were very much limited but that never meant giving up  or letting it a walkover. Every malady in life  or work  deserves a good fight and must be challenged tooth and nail. So our Adhikarida also gave an intense fight to his  disease too critical and too complex  by any means. Critical as we gradually understood the whole outer look of the disease is very much pretentious although it eroded fast the life line of the patient ie body’s absorption power of oxygen. No wounds visible , no injury exposed , no ailing or suffering in any other part of the body , its all in the suffocating ,strangling and squeezing your air blower  and cut short your oxygen supply ,  the life gas for our existence , livingness. Complex in the sense as this disease  sets , spreads and sucks incognito . No root analysis , no cause finding and so no proper solution rather than just test and try , trial and error  using the  patient as a guinea pig or at best expecting some miracle. Every case of this disease as we found out gradually (and yes with the guidance of  the protagonist of the disease  our Adhikarida) was an unique case study , very much different and mostly experimental.

While we observed  the great battle from the ringside , we found more than a just colleague he was an inspiring fighter who simply took his ordeal to fight such menace underexplored and mostly inconclusively expdited  head on. Going frontal with anything and everything is a character the coal people as any veteran of Coal India love to cherish whole life. Working against the odds  while being posted in the rugged and rough terrain or pitted against rustic and ruthless forces like militant trade unions, unscrupulous suppliers and unforgiving bosses in the office simply make every one so seasoned wrongly or rightly , the guys here just take everything in their own stride , not only life but also life threatening disease and yes the deaths also. Here is the man I saw who took everything as a matter of fact , gave his effort to its best , and then bode us adieu  very coolly ,very confidently. The death of Mr. Adhikari just reminded us two very valuable traits of our  company which otherwise always boils with so many  unpleasant notes and those two are , our organization never leaves its employee untreated   or unattended when he or she falls ill and it always goes extra mile to secure and support the family of the person who suffers or succumbs to any disease whether to admit the best possible hospital or tendering the best possible treatment warranting guardian role to the kin of deceased to the extent possible. And the other is  about our CIL men in command whom I always adore no less than commandoes in their domain of work can fight with same chivalry and valor, with equal elan in their official, personal and physical distress . Our Adhikarida’s battle was very much complex and challenging. And yes he took the challenge upfront as he took so many times in his tenure in CIL. And to a great extent we have witnessed his war with his disease although he never allowed it to spill over to the open space. He fought it alone and silently. He fought it very bravely. Given the chance , he would have tamed it , managed it , manipulated it and overcome the challenge as he has done and dealt with so many assignment with coal companies. He has just executed  them so many times  and with so precision , he may be one of the very successful manager who mastered the art of deal making to get the job done anyway in his domain which extended from washery to Electrical to HEMM (we heard he used to head almost half dozen deptt in his project). He always wished had he been allowed to experiment the same style to seal a deal with the disease , the way he has settled and succeeded in field works. But yes this time the whole opponent is not only fearsome but also invisible, inaccessible and  invincible because world is yet to reconcile with the cause and care or cure  of the pulmonary  malfunction  and that also too progressive one ,called fibrosis a grossly unknown and unchartered territory  for the world of medics.

It was like a man was waiting for his last days and the organization, the medical world and the people surrounding were simply letting him to embrace helplessly. And from his part and perspective,  he tried  to keep on acting with all , at home, office, society with a pretentious wellness to camouflage the battle inside from everybody  from his close aides from his wife (as he told)everybody . This  all events of which we were the clueless spectators simply defined how he fought his own battle. It is more about redefining a disease rather than recuperating or recovering the irrecoverable as the name of the disease itself is self-explanatory that neither cause nor cure nothing about the disease is known till date. Idiopathic pulmonary disease or IPD as it is called,  an avatar which connotes the ambiguity and convey the inability to tackle this menace  which basically gets the lungs of person too stiffen and so too stressed to carry out its generic pulmonary function that is it’s contraction and expansion to allow sufficient oxygen to it. Once developed one can may try to keep his disease deferred or at distant but not decimated . In such battle zone ,the knowledge shift, the search engine, and the almighty Google just made our warrior Adhikarida more than a doctor where turf and territory  began and became more tough and so the tussle with every passing day of which we were  just passive observers.And the crux of such uneven battle where the opponent is yet to identified or assessed  so strategising the you war just impossible is like this. When the experts and experienced gave you ultimatum and doled out the destiny as inevitable ,the only option left for you is that you become your destiny , take the control , reign in it and prevail in it. Destiny normally gets explained as counting  the steps for  impending death when passively submitting to it, but it  also sometimes starts receding  or retreating once you take the control and redefine your mission or recalibrate your  lifeline. Here it is not just matter of survival but a memoir of struggle the holy  and happening struggle , you love to keep it as an instance to others while you  are passing your  last days and nearing your death. The option never been more restricted in your life when you understand the only way to escape or evade your rival is embattle it upfront.

So the man in action our Adhikarida now kept exploring everything possible in world of medicine , the disease ,the doctor , the diagnosis and the devise  to take on each and every one who or which mattered in his struggle.  While the disease (IPD) by default got a free pass to confuse and confound everybody of medical fraternity to understand its root and so its rout (elimination) or remedy, this gladiator simply tried to buckle its myth (that the rogue cannot be busted). As a patient himself he just keeps shifting his role suiting with time and task. Sometimes in the role of doctor, sometime diagnostic center, sometimes data analyser ,sometimes dietitians and many time developers of the cure and support system of the disease. He was a man in the laboratory of life , a moving experiment never ever ready to relent or  receive the fact that he was doing lesser than the development or study in this field till date. So it’s a new approach to the life and to the death. It is completely newer approach to keep you alive against all those uncertainties which have never been declared the risk ( a more technical comfort than the uncertainty the non rationale unseen)and never been dared to be cracked by the doctors or the researchers. The invincibility of it lies in the name while underlying diktat written on the wall. But here was this brave heart just vowed to give it full fight and vouched for his win over it.

As it was late enough to understand the enemy, so the battle demands intense retaliation.

Yes, any battle of life could have been started much earlier and so comparatively easier way provided we get to know who our enemy is inside us or outside of us. But in our life ,normalcy neither be defined nor be distinctly located till you are detected  to be bugged with some uncertain blues. You are walking down the aisle with your beloved ones, you are pouring down the best wine in an antique bar with the finest music of past to revisit yourself  through the memory lane or by-lanes of your past , or you just keep presenting a new initiative in your office by hooking , seeding and then signposting your dreams in the retinas of the wide eyed audience which may include your boss ,your colleague or your client and you never knew that while doing such variety of jobs in same breath you are also entering in future deal with some suffering and sorrow  with its allied pain and pricking (which may end as fatal or fearsome to the least of knowledge)through some infection (from outside)or some inflammation (from within). For this man also happened the same. While he was cultivating more his power of managing which he rightly described as mastering  the art of  operational excellence and tactical  manoeuvre you may call it sometimes manipulation (as he always described) to the extent possible in very much commensuration with the way his company normally demands ,the incurable disease called ILD started renting his lungs without his knowledge. While he was expanding his empire of power and  position to grab and grasp very nuances to run almost half dozen departments in his area of posting at one go , his lungs got just contracted and constricted to allow  to be run full throttle. When he was inflating the efficiency of him and his project he was working with by smart and fast maneuvering different deals inside , outside more in the line of informal thinking of the organization we are working in , his alveolus got deflated and so oxygen flow got restricted if not reduced. In his own confession it was a conflict between greed(of power) and grind(of performing) which grew gradually to this gruesome disease he never imagined neither was prepared to fight. But it was inevitable  as the continuous exposure to the thick cloud of finer coal dust of the  washery , CHP just created a huge churn inside the arteries and veins of the body as it does in the hopper of jig to segregate and size the coal. It was unstoppable as the power to absorb so much black particles simply was overestimated  while compared to our power to absorb all those black humors like full sarcasm and cynicism about coal. So the man who was in command over his job and jugglery of management to execute every assignment perfectly tuned to the wish of the company , could not simply judge the pulse or pulmonary malfunction inside his own body. It was so ironic as well as invincible , that Mr Adhikari simply got overwhelmed , overpowered and yes the first time ever in his life so helplessly. First time because as the storylines shared by the man simply spoke a lot about how he triumphed over or tricked over so many odds he had to face in his life sometimes by dribbling sometimes by daring  but never skirting it or shunning responsibilities. It is usual and universal for Coal people and so for Mr Adhikari. And while grown his fibrosis (the generic name of the disease) silently and got informed of its progressiveness(irreversible , incurable and yes indescribable and so idiopathic  in short) , the man in command simply got shaken at first instance but that was for sometimes to adjust and assess the uncertainty and unchartered territory he had to tread onwards. He then took the disease by its horn , consulting doctors, googling every symptoms , tracking every minutes of his pulse rate, oxygen concentration and yes continuously strategizing restrategizing the medication, habits etc.

While putting a dynamic diagnostic and treatment procedure which sometimes went overboard , the man got its grasp over the knowledge of the growth, acceleration the whole movement of the maladies but not the ways to check it , contain it. It was like you can feel your decay , deterioration and you also feel that it is inevitable , so the best thing you can do is that you can witness your journey and accordingly time with your different doable or duties before it was over. Adhikarida simply did that. He  was fighting hard and hurried in two fronts. In one side he was monitoring and whenever possible mending his life style, medication and yes the philosophy of life . In other front he was organizing everything to reinforce support system to his family in his absence. As a veteran , he just kept doing the both so coolly and confidently as if he must not have repented beyond life . Tell it his natural organization skill or affectionate being as father or husband , he simply did the both with equal elan and passed away in a very calculated style. Amazingly he was so confident about his days left in life . In fact barring the last mesh up of some over medication or alternate medication which can be hardly told  wrong one , he might have not repented anything he has done to keep fighting  the disease as gladiator .

Adhikarida is no more and we are intensely aggrieved with his demise however inevitable it was . We have to take long time to get along with the reality as we are not Adhhikarida confident and composed while living and while dying . As  every death or demise must  prove how much alive or lively we were  and so  here proved by Adhikarida not just by his a very amicable , jovial life but also a stoic , stolid death.

You take right position or wrong position but never take neutral position , it is simply most damaging among all.

It is always a very curious case for this world to survive where most are creating confusion while least are boosting its confidence . But if real damage or degradation of it is caused by the third kind of people who takes neutral position everywhere. This specific cult are very much used to or completely insulated to anything or everything . They can bear the whole episode of humiliation or harassment of their colleague and still will not raise their voice in anticipation of wrath from the seniors. They just look the other way while any wrong thing happens in front of them in the road , in the train or in the shopping mall pretending to be too busy to notice. In the debate they will keep their lips tight not to slip anything politically incorrect word however factually correct they may be. They shut their mouth, close their eyes and keep moving in an animated speed along with their clones typified with same nature. They keep jostling , huddling and harnessing each others’ vices and virtues but never ever dared to peep outside their coveted  boundary fiercely guarded by their indifference and inaction . They intend to buy or bargain peace by inaction or neutrality and mostly end up being passive catalyst of the escalation of problem itself. In the bus , train, airport lounge, in the class room , market or the office floor they simply try to take the role of bystander avoiding any comments , carefully sidestepping any involvement neither containing it nor catering to it with an excuse to bargain his or her own peace. Thus this special species just let the impasse prolongs, problem persists and situation aggravates by not intervening. We never know whether a debate is right or wrong, a dissent just or unjust, a difference worth fighting for or not if we do not get involved in it. Being mere and mute spectator of it , or ignoring it today as an non issue for ourselves or just taking our hands off understanding it never fits our interest will basically allow it tomorrow to spread out or spill over to our coziness and comfort zone to unsettle the same status  and costing the same  peace and placidness  we have been guarding so obsessively or obstinately (not getting engaged in it ). Wrong side is always more right than mere neutrality as it never warrants regression rather than aggression of any wrong thing as passivity , inactivity or inertness just allow any war more encompassing .