RE-TWEET IT!
Tweet
Many years ago, as a freshly graduated doctor, I got my first appointment as medical officer at a primary health center (PHC).
To get there, I was forced to take a five-and-half hour bus ride every weekend to a nearby town. Next morning, I would catch the only train passing by the village – an ancient old steam locomotive that only managed 35 kmph – when it was speeding! (Now I wish I’d been smart enough to grab a photo of it – but I didn’t, though you can see the over-crowded carriages above!)
The trip lasted 40 minutes. Sitting by the window would leave a thin layer of grime on my face, and gusts of black smoke stung my nostrils everytime the wind blew it into the compartment.
Since the train didn’t halt at the village (even through the track passed beside it), I’d alight a kilometer away – and either walk or hitch a ride on someone’s bicycle to reach the ‘hospital’.
There, in a gloomy, damp room I would see 100 to 150 patients every morning… in under 3 hours! A few were seriously ill. Most had chronic ailments needing prescription refills. And a fair number came out of curiosity – to see the ‘city doctor’ who was visiting their remote village!
No, this wasn’t in the dark ages. The year was 1990.
It was my first exposure to medical practice in the public sector – and was representative of what I’d see and experience over the next 15 years, until I quit to follow my dream and set up my non-profit project in the private sector.
Medical science was not stuck in the past. The practice of it in certain locations, and the distribution of these services to geographically remote places, however, was.
Barely 400 kilometers away, state-of-art medicine was practiced at standards that rival – even exceed – the best available in most developed nations. But Annandal village was stuck in the past.
It doesn’t happen with technology or science alone.
Sometimes, our attitude and mindset gets stuck in the past. When we should be looking ahead, we put our heads in the sand and remain caught up in obsolete paradigms. Where we should be proactive and forward-thinking, we let the past smother and imprison us.
In an era of the bullet train, we should be thinking about tele-portation and speed of light travel, not the horse-and-carriage system. Cherish the old steam locomotive, by all means. Even feel nostalgic about the tang of burning coal in your nose, if you must.
But stay focused on the future. It’s the only part you can influence… and change.
{ 5 comments }
I like how you said that we should be thinking about tele-portation and speed of light travel even today.
Few weeks ago Star Trek Voyager episodes started running again on a local TV station and I absolutely love to watch this kind of shows.
So just yesterday while watching I was thinking to myself how I can see TVs equipped with a replicator. So whenever there’s a commercial about some food product (or any consumer product actually) that tells you how you’ll enjoy it (but of course you don’t have all these products at all times at home), with a replicator you will really be able to enjoy it in a matter of seconds. Now that will be some serious *instant gratification*.
On the other side I actually think that would be really bad for human race, to have this kind of instant gratification with the strength of will that most of us show but I can really see it happening. Maybe not in a hundred or several hundred years but that’s irrelevant. Isn’t it limited to think of future only in the period in which we expect to live? The world hopefully won’t cease to exist after we leave it.
Maybe it has to do with the fact I watched the new Star Trek movie a month ago!
Dr.Mani
Dr. Mani,
This post moved me. You might be surprised with my choice of the word “moved,” but this post hit me on an emotional level. In fact, it hit me on many emotional levels.
It put me in a state where I started to think of things other than the primary topic of your post.
I went back to 1990 in my mind, when I was still just a kid, one year after graduating high school.
It’s funny how life works, especially now with the global reach of the Internet. I got lost in my contemplation of the wonder of “meeting” you–and others.
Who would have realized that when you were a young doctor back in 1990 and I was just out of highschool that our paths would cross one day.
The same applies, of course, to many other people who I’ve– and you’ve–met online.
I could spend all day ruminating about such things, but it all indeed goes back to your point about pressing relentlessly into the future, the only thing we can alter.
In our quest to influence the future, we discover our vehicle of doing so–in this instance using the Internet–and our paths increasingly cross with like-minded people, no matter how far apart we may be in geography and regardless of how disparate our upbringings and backgrounds may be.
Thank you for another thoughtful post.
Regards,
Dan Ho
Thanks, Dan. Your comment resonates with me on many levels
I’ve always felt it, but Eckart Tolle’s writing explains it so very nicely – that
we are all part of a collective conscious, each linked to the other by a
tenuous, invisible link. Whenever this link manifests in the form of a
connection like we’ve made, it just “feels right”!
Dr.Mani
Doc, You remnicented,
“No, this wasn’t in the dark ages. The year was 1990″.
21 years before, man landed on the moon.
Anything spectacular happened since then?
I am thinking!
Bullet trains made headlines in France & Japan – probably quater way & halfway around the globe.
1990 — 15 years later those photos were captured & you began to follow your dream.
Tele-portation – you are doing it on another parallel plane – communication.
Remember someone comparing, what Radio was to Records.
You also said, “It doesn’t happen with technology or science alone.”
Yes, reading your blog opens the vistas of one’s mind about the
collective consciousness.
That sign post of Anandal village – brings pride to me as well.
I live in your neighbouring country – SriLanka.
Just reaching out to listen to Dr Deepak Chopra on the same
levels of what you have spoken.
==========================//=================================
Comments on this entry are closed.