A prayer

Dilawar Singh aka Philip, as we friends call him is now in the hospital recovering from his third surgery...

A month ago Philip, Jaya and myself had met up in town for a pre christmas get together…We had reasons to look forward to in the coming month…I was going home on a vacation after a year...Jaya was getting married soon…and Philip was visiting India to start life afresh…Three of us wished each other good luck and parted ways that night…

My vacation was going as per plan…Surprising dad with a car on his birthday…throwing a party on his retirement…meeting friends and relatives…traveling around…the typical happy vacation for a once in a year visitor!! .A few thousand kilometers away Philip had come down to start life afresh…Going through a painful divorce he was under lot of emotional stress…….And he had decided to turn a fresh leaf and start life all over again, quit his well paid job abroad to find a new one in India and start everything on a clean slate…While Jaya and myself bid Philip good bye during the get together, I was not sure that I would be meeting him any time soon…coz he would never come back from India if everything went as per plan…I was both happy and sad at the same time…Happy that he was positive after going through the emotional atychaar on his personal front and sad that I would be missing a good friend back here…

Two weeks later I get a mail from Jaya…Her mail read…

“Hey...sorry to disturb your vacation…but I had to tell you this!…Philip met with an accident in India…He was driving in his new car with his mom in Delhi…His mom passed away on the spot…Philip is in serious condition…His number is xxxxxxxxx…take care...Jaya “

There are times in your life when you start questioning...”Why it happens to me!!” …But that day I was asking...”Why it happened to him!!”… To someone who had left the country where he was working for 10 years hoping to get over with trauma of parting with his wife and kid…how bad could it get!! I could manage only bits and pieces of information from his Punjabi dad…Two weeks later I got a call from Philip himself...

I am normally not short of words…But when I have to talk to someone who has just gone through a huge loss like this…or someone suffering from painful physical / emotional injury….I am at loss for words…But when he called up that day, the first thing he said…

“Hey dude…why don’t you come down to the hospital …there are so many beautiful mallu nurses here…!!”

I smiled at his sense of humor…his ability to joke and make me laugh inspite of what he was going through…Philip had multiple fractures on his hands…His facial bones were crushed…and a good deal of skin on his face lost….One of his eyes is probably damaged…A team of 8 doctors had performed surgery on him for 11 hours just after the accident…His face had to be simply held up by a assembly of metal rods and plates!!!.They were amazed how he was after all alive!!! But then he is a proud sardar who wouldn’t give up without a fight!! His jaw bones were broken and he could hardly speak…And yet he was checking out about my vacation…or whether I have gone bride hunting…and whether I was having a gala time with friends…He wished me a merry christmas….And when he ended the call he just said ‘take care’ as always..!!! Me?

I talked to him a couple of times later….Meanwhile I was back after my vacation and getting used to my routine life….A call few days ago, Philip told me that he was coming back to continue rest of his treatment abroad…Apparently it had already cost him 10 lakh rupees in a span of 2 weeks and unfortunately his foreign insurance wouldn’t cover it…He flew back alone from Delhi….a excruciating 14 hrs flight spending a night in between at an airport inside of being in a hospital bed… He wouldn’t even tell us when he would reach the city since he wouldn’t want anyone of us to bothered to pick him up at the airport…On the same day he got himself admitted to a hospital here…

Few days ago….Myself and Jaya went to the hospital to meet him for the first time since the accident…It was almost a month ago when we had met up last…We were chilling over some wine at one of the christmas markets back then ..All three of us had something to look forward that day…my vacation, Philip’s plan to start afresh and Jaya’s wedding… So we were obviously quite happy that day…But for my flight next day afternoon, I think we would have just stayed back fooling around… But that day when I met him in the hospital…I was shocked!! I was shocked that I almost cried!! Meeting him in the shape he was in, it was hard for us to just act normal…I tired my best to put a regular look and did not want Philip to know that how dismayed I was….But then we were not good actors!!

It happens that when you see someone change so much in a span of a month, you forget how to react for a moment…We talked for a few hours in the hospital with Philip…A month on liquid food, the sturdy sardar had become a frame of bones…how much can a soup help! .His face disfigured and swelling all over…plastic surgery done with skin grafted from his legs….This was not the Philip I could imagine…Philip was tired…and in pain…but he was putting a brave face…A lesser mortal would have succumbed long ago!! On the way out from hospital, I did not know what to talk with Jaya...and I could see that she did not know either…

There are moments in our life when it suddenly strikes how helpless we could be…how fragile our life is….how much human relations matter…how important it is to love others...and to be loved…how desperate you would want god to hear you…..all these thoughts just came flashing by!! Some times when I have those one to one silent conversations with god I complain about trivial things which I thought were big in my perspective…we crib about people not reciprocating camaraderie, love…we crib about work…we crib about lack of respect from others….but then….when I saw real pain…i couldn’t help but think how naïve I was….I realized when I saw him the importance of having good friendships..(Not the 'hi-wassup-take care'-thing)..i mean real ones…how important it is to take care of people around you…how important a hug can be…I also realized how powerless as humans we are…

Dear lord, I know I have bored you several times with my little requests and its probably a overflowing mail box…but this time I really wish you would help Philip recover fast…Its hard for me as a fellow human being and a friend to see him and feel all helpless.. A little prayer for Philip to reduce his pain…to make his life worthwhile again!! Please give him the strength to fight and recover his confidence…to fight the adversities!! Over the past one week when I visit him I attempt to make him laugh with my silly jokes and though I manage to make him once in a while I realize deep down he is missing the love of a family…Its hard being in pain…but its harder not to have a family around…I wish to anyone who reads this…Love your family, your friends without any strings attached…Love them without expecting anything in return…these are little things which often we realize when it is too late….I wish Philip recovers soon and gets to start life afresh….as he had wished!!


P.S. This post probably not the happiest one to start a day with... but then i couldnt help express it...

Update
For many who have asked how Philip is doin....
He is doing much better than the day I put this post...he has gained a few kilos thanks to some solid food he has started taking..On a positive note there seems to be some vision left in his damaged eye which could probably be rectified with surgery....He has a couple of surgeries in the pipeline...But the dude is in much better spirits now...Infact good enough that we actually had a beer together....Thanks a lot for all who have prayed for him...it has definitely helped him!!

A vacation gone by..

Sometime in December in a very immaculately planned mission otherwise called a vacation this soul took the avatar of a human being in search of a precious vital element for the survival of mankind. The avatar was accepted by the ayyo paavam malayalee tribe and they sympathized with desperate search of his resulting in a pact enabling the avatar access to copious quantities of naadan food which was consumed at a alarming rate which later lead to chaos in that part of the world…Vaiko threatened with blockade of livestock and poultry supply to the state, LPG tanks were blown up in protests against depreciating stock of food and a propaganda movie was released in malayalam sympathizing with farmers….Facing hostile conditions the avatar retreated back to Hamburg where he was welcomed by a crowd waving sausages and baguettes… The avatar now looks back with fond memories of those 25 days when he was transported to a wonderland where he swam with neymeens and karimeens and flew with quails and ducks….well ducks can’t fly but hey it was a wonderland!!

Sometime early December I took the flight to Trivandrum to begin my short escapade from realities of life…Considering that I had a hectic two weeks just before the India trip as I had to travel for work in Toulouse, I slept off during most of the flight…So as I landed in tvm next day morning I was hardly tired and whisked home by Dad, Mom and Bro from the airport…After a few days in tvm I started off with the detailed trip I had chalked out..

Mumbai
Visiting the maxim city was a dream come true….Though I spend less than 24 hrs in the city, it was awesome to jaunt around the city with 2 college buddies who gave me a quick tour of the metropolis and I was left wanting for more…Landmarks like Leopold café, the Taj Hotel, Gateway of India, the sea link all covered in a single evening with visits to two pubs to drink tea…err… ;-D .. A friend who fondly address his place of residence as ‘Candy Valley’ instead of Kandivili and another resident Navi Mumbai resident harboring dreams of a villa at Malabar hill never missed an opportunity to sing halleluiahs about their beloved city…It’s undoubtedly a city of contrasts which gives you the impression that there is something for everyone…taxi drivers and rickshawswallas who could teach a few lessons to their counterparts in other cities like Bangalore…witnessing a traffic jam at 1 am in the morning…finding a eat out serving fried rice and chicken at 2 in the morning….it was absolutely impressive to see a city that never sleeps…the day I left the city it only left me with a longing to visit the city again and hopefully for a much longer time…I missed meeting a good blogger friend of mine in the city too and I have to make up for it sometime!!

Bangalore/Mysore
Arriving in Bangalore the next day…the city I know the best outside Kerala…I was happy to be greeted by more welcoming weather than Mumbai…Met up with a German friend of mine after almost a year and it was a short meet up...But very glad to meet up with her whose juggling act of doing a MBA and at the same time working a hotel left me impressed…sheer German ideals of self-independence!! I am yet to hear a Ph.D holder from India who would do that…I travelled to Mysore the same day to meet up with another old buddy….The next day morning I went to our office, the place from where I left almost 3.5 years ago…and it was a very nostalgic experience for me…the office had grown sprawling huge and the sight of the new buildings were jaw dropping…just like old times relished a breakfast at the office canteen…though there were hardly any recognizable faces insides the office anymore….I took the bus back to Bangalore to visit my grandma and other relatives…and Amma had arrived in the mean time from Trivandrum…At my uncle’s place is Bangalore I feel perfectly at home and there is no dearth of topics when family meet...Unfortunately time was short and we had to fly to naadu the next day..

Note: The new Bangalore airport is awesome…great ambience and feel and easily international!!

Kottayam/Changnacherry/allapuzha
Meanwhile bro picks us up at Cochin and we drive down to kottayam…and we cousins did what we did best…get into nerves of the elders at home ! Ever since cousins got older, many getting married, having kids….its rare to get everyone in place for a full family get together…But thankfully except for 3 who missed out we had a wonderful family get together at a hotel in town…Like old times we cousins got to play dumb charades and pull each others legs…One of the best parts of the trip was meeting my peppy and cute adorable nieces who just were an absolute delight to be with…And my aunt had a lipsmacking kappa with yellu which I gorged in vivacious enthusiasm…Above all it was the company of loved ones that made the whole time I spend there memorable!

Trivandrum
Being a very hectic vacation I couldn’t really relax at home...We did have a great time around with Dad's birthday, his retirement party and ofcoz christmas with family!! And ofcoz I did not miss visiting my favourite hangouts in Trivandrum….the beach, museum, the burgers in Ambrosia …A pleasant surprise this time was meeting up with school friends some almost after 10 years and one among them being a blogger!! We drove down to Kovalam beach and enjoyed a cup of coffee at dusk…And I also managed to meet mother in law of a very famous food blogger friend of mine!! :-)Being the foodie I am, I checked out my favourite eat outs there including new ones…

Note:Loved the buffet spread at the Keys hotel and the sandwiches at all spice !

Trichur
Apparently this is now bro’s adopted city…and he invited me over to his place.. As they say in Thrissur, it is one city where it is okay to go round in circles! I guess Thrissurians get that one! ;-) Got to see the famous Vadakumnathan temple…whatay fabulous piece of architecture…and ofcoz other famous landmarks like Thiruvambady and Puthenpalli…Loved the local cuisine there as well…which was actually quite different from Kottayam / Trivandrum...

Though I met a fair share of hostile people in between like the rickshaw driver who was asking for 500 bucks for a ride from pattom to the railway station on a strike day to drivers along the city roads who would honk and take pleasure in breaking the rules, they were minor irritants…Travelling by bus or train in Kerala would normally not be exciting on a regular day few year back…But this around I relished the sights and the experience as much I would love going to a new place…

Well…I think it wouldn’t suffice to write how much I enjoyed the trip in a single post….Sorry to all my friends here for being lax at updating the blog and replying to comments…I have to catch up with a lot of blogs!! I was apparently not feeling positive to post anything here, the reason for which I ll explain in a later post…Wishing you all a lovely weekend!!