Because I love to simplify

As a child, I had discovered my love for the English language. I loved the fact that I could just set no limit to my imagination and then express it with such a diverse choice of words. Having a keen interest in vocabulary, I struggled with only the spellings (thank goodness for MS Word which now comes to rescue). A stringer for Young Expressions (publication for the young from Indian Express), I enjoyed the life of a budding journalist while in school. It was a life of interviews, events, pressures of regular articles and of course the stipend which made me experience financial freedom quite early. I have such vivid memories of being seated on the reserved seats for the ‘Press’ and being able to find my special place during crowded shows.

As a career choice, I entered the Corporate World in a profile which of course was to do with (yes, you got it right) writing. I relish my space in business writing, understanding, editing and expressing content. Lost in the world of thesaurus, I used to write a lot of ornamented stories in the form of case studies and white papers. Well, all that happened till I got a forthright shock.

It was too fine a day to be called by the super boss but there I was having dragged myself to his cabin and now sitting in front of him. He had just finished reviewing a white paper which I last collated. He spoke to me in a firm and assertive tone.

“Shilpa, do you know what your problem is?” he continued without expecting an answer  “You tend to tell the same thing over and over in one sentence after the other and you think readers don’t get it. The serious reader might be happy with your elite construction of sentences, to begin with, but beyond that is genuinely interested in the meat.”

He paused so I could digest his bluntness. 

“To be able to address unknown readers, just keep it simple and focus on substance rather than everything around it. Talk to your readers rather than trying to impress them. Please, please keep it simple”, he finished and handed me back the white paper with a warm smile. And I could just about manage a baffled look. But his words set me thinking and I did think a lot.

That day something really important changed…something extremely critical to the only thing which I had known so well, writing (and god bless my super boss for that). I realized that it was easy to complicate but difficult to simplify. But simple reflects clarity of thought which in turn makes you connect with your readers. You have to write for them and not yourself. I understood how important were brevity, clarity and simplicity were to writing.

And now when I think of that one reason why I am in the profession that I am, I am absolutely clear and without an ounce of doubt can say that it is ‘Because I love to simplify’.

Death of the compassionate doctor

Today I read the unfortunate case where Noida’s Fortis hospital handed over the wrong dead body of a person to his mourning family. The deceased was being treated at the hospital and the family was kept in the dark of his real condition. The case did not surprise me.

It really is sad to see how immune have we become to the negligence and casualness of our medical system, callous doctors and shoddy hospitals.  And I can’t help but miss the good old family doctor.  

Do you remember your family doctor (if you are lucky, you may still have one)? These family doctors were usually ‘General Physicians’ and we went to them as soon as we had a fever or something more complicated. And it so happened that these family doctors were so close to the family that they were invited to almost all of the family’s important events . These docs knew and remembered what we did, our family history, our allergies, our faulty genes and what we could do build our immune (at times a short visit turned to an interesting lecture and of course free advice from them).  

But today, what happens? We have the specialists. We wait for days to get an appointment from these specialists and then on the day of the appointment wait for hours just to meet these specialists in five stars like hospitals (not to forget the super expensive cafeteria at the plush hospitals offering world cuisines).  And if we are sick enough not to wait then of course we pay more to skip the wait. So this specialist greets us mechanically (we just know that artificial smile) and is quick enough to pull out their letter head to start scribbling the symptoms and drugs. If we happen to deviate and get somewhat chatty, they are quick enough to bring us back to our ailment, related facts and give us the same impatient look as you get from people waiting in the queue of an ATM when you are taking too long. I can feel them just so detached with anything to do with us. Most of the times, this specialist recommends a range of tests and will ask us to return with the test results. And when we are back (again after that same drill of appointment and waiting), most of the times and somehow invariably we are told to have many more problems than the one we walked inside with. 

Why do we mistrust today's specialists so much? Why do we increasingly feel their lack of empathy and more of greed? Why do these specialists appear more of salesmen than caretakers? And how can we handover ourselves to these indifferent specialists and hope that they will genuinely treat us of the underlying problem and not use us as a money making proposition? 

Our metro cities are increasingly attracting medical tourists from abroad and boast of the most advanced medical facilities and skillful specialists who have studied abroad and have many awards to their credit. And yes things at a superficial level have really improved. But if you lift that superficiality, what we clearly lack are the compassionate, patient and genuine doctors.

Why, oh why do I feel so much at home

Under the untainted cloudy sky splashed in blue,

The sun peeps and quickly hides behind the veil,

The veil of the unadorned pure cloud painted white,

It gleams again lifting its delicate cloudy veil,

With allure of the poised bride walking down the aisle,

It smiles at the spirited breeze dancing unabashedly,

Like the naïve bridesmaids drunk in festivities,

It comes teasingly close to me,

Flutters the leaves of my papers and whispers unsaid words,

"Close your eyes, breathe free, breathe deep,

In this unruffled silence feel the rare euphony",

On the cobbled street of this foreign land as I look around,

Why, oh why do I feel so much at home,

Is it the humble sky or the chaste ground,

Is it the happier strangers or the chirpier sparrows,

Is it the lyrical breeze or the enchanting silences,

Is it the promise of finding myself in the stillness,

Far from a unruly unsettling race to be the first,

Far from the constant fret and permanent woes,

Far from the burden to conform and contend

Why, oh why do I feel so much at home,

On this foreign land which seems so mine