harsh realities...

It was a tiring day...for all not-so-funny reasons...its' been more than an year I have been living in the U S of A...and there are so many things I like about this place....I like the way things are planned here....the infrastructure, the development....blah blah blah...but then there are so many more-important-things-for-me that I find absent here...for which I miss being in India...miss the people of India...there are times when the whole life here seems SO robotic and mechanical to me...something as silly as a small bump on the road...!! Guess what! You have a BIG signboard for that too!! I mean....c'mon guys! gimme a brk! People here are SO used to living in the "perfect world" ....no offence meant....but they don't have the slightest of idea of what the world is like outside their shell!! isn't it a way of actually retarding people's ability to think!?!? I came across so many instances that proved that people here are not used to use much of their brains for day to day activities...goto a shop...get something....the screen will tell the person at the counter how much money to get, how much to return...! one of the days...I happened to give a lot of change at one of the shops (just to finish those coins up)...the dame at the counter got SO freaked out with the thought of counting the whole bunch! I just remembered the 10 year old kid who used to manage the small shop when his dad was out for lunch and the ease with which he used to calculate the totals and returns and change and everything! its' suchcha natural phenomenon that your brian actually stops thinking when everything around you so mechanically perfect...!! Perfection in this form is not that good an idea I guess! But today was a different day for all possible not-so-pleasant reasons...Jags, happenend to sprain his back badly while playing soccer yesterday...poor guy was hardly able to walk....we decided to take him to the emergency section to avoid the hassels of getting an appointment ( the earliest we can get an appointment with a doc is the next day)! The day ahead bought me face to face with one of the crudest realities of a common man living in the US of A!! I found the term "EMERGENCY" redefined completely...it all started by the long process of documentation of the whole story...the personal details....details of the insurance...details of the ailment...blah blah blah!! I wonder what do these guys do with a person who's struggling with life and death when he arrives to them!! after completing the elaborate process of documentation, started our ordeal to wait-for-a-call-by-the-doc!! for a person in the emergency section, it took almost 5 HOURS to get a call from the DOC!! and believe me that was not funny at all!! I am supposed to be a relatively "patient" creature...but today, its' limit was checked...we could see Jags in that acute unbearable pain...and each time I went to one of the attendants to check when can we get assisted by a medico, all we got back was "I really can't say...the doc is attending more critical patients right now..."; or "its' not a first come first serve basis...we are attending cases by priority"...!! I mean what the @$*#$@ all it reminded me was a govt hospital in India...(I guess even there the wait time is less than this!) finally after a wait of 5 long hours...Jags was taken inside one of the emergency ward rooms...with a tag "The doc is on his way...he'll assist you in 15-20 minutes"....and the doc did came...and the doc did examined JAgs...and the doc did gave his prescription....with a slight difference in his schedule...instead of arriving after 15-20 minutes....he arrived after 3 hours! I don't blame the poor soul for this...but all I was trying to comprehend in the meantime was...Is the state medical assisstance that bad in the most powerful and resourceful country of the world...in the US of A!?!?! In between the wait time of 3 hours for the doc, when I went out to check with one of the persons at the counter as to when the doc will actually arrive, I got an answer that shocked me from inside. She replied, "Please bear with us...we have only one doctor to attend the emergency cases...he'll be there shortly...we have called another doctor to speed up the process..." I was like WTF!!! I never knew that the place US of A is short of medicos!! the statistics that I knew depicted a completely different picture! after today, I have some serious doubts on my statistical knowledge on such things! But then alls well that ends well!! Finally the doc arrived to check Jags, a really sweet and cheerful and last but not the least a very effecient guy...didn't take much for him to figure out the problem and then writing a prescription....and then we off from that place....hoping JAgs gets well soon! and hoping no one falls sick in USA...its' a crime! In midst of all these events, I was passing my time watching people around...and believe me that was not a pleasant experience at all...I watched old people, suffering from ailments, coming on their own to the "Emergency ward"...getting their Xrays and Blood tests done...all alone...I thought of myself...how I hate to be alone when I am sick...how would these people be feeling in a situation when they are counting the days of their lives backward, and there they are alone...with their agonies...with their pains...gave me just another reason why I love India more than any other place...'coz my India has all those things that more important to me than the things it doesn't...it has the soul....it has feelings...it has empathy...it has love...it has respect....in all its' forms...I keep my fingers crossed that it doesn;t lose its' soul in the race of going ahead..."developing" ahead.... MERA BHARAT MAHAN!!!