I would have missed him in the Sunday rush at the vegetable market if he had not almost fallen on me. He was trying to fit in some long and unruly snake gourds in an already-crowded bag that had a few stubborn ridge gourds unwilling to yield room, while simultaneously trying to ensure another bag, packed with fruits, on his other shoulder stayed in place.

Only after I caught him did I realize that he was Mukesh uncle. He thanked me multiple times before he recognized he was talking to a long-time friend of his son.

“Oh, it’s you! Thanks a lot!”

I decided to return to the market later. Right now, he needed help with the bags. I started walking with him to his house which was, fortunately, not too far from the market.

“Do you know Arpit has completed 20 years at work?” As expected, it did not take long for the conversation to turn to Arpit, his son and my friend.

“I hope he will also get a Long Service Award soon. Have I told you about the Long Service Award I got from my company?” He had, many times over the years, but it was only polite to let him tell me yet again.

“I had completed 25 years. The whole company gathered to honor me with a gold medallion, which the big boss gave me personally. Imagine! Next time remind me to show you that when you come home.”

Not again, I sighed. But he was not finished.

“Then one by one they spoke about me. When I had joined. About my work over the years. Then they wanted me to speak. I was about to cry and could hardly speak. I tell you, it was not a company. It was a family.

So many they had honored. When someone could not make it for the function on the day she completed 25 years because she was unwell, some of us, including her boss, went to her house and presented her the award.”

I politely refused his invitation to step in for a cup of tea when we reached his house. After I carefully placed the bags down with all the gourds intact, he asked me to wait. I knew what was coming.

He rushed in and came back with the Long Service Award. “When Arpit gets his award from his company, I will keep it right next to this.”

He moved a little closer and whispered: “I have told my son that when I am gone, he must publish the name of my company in my obituary and say for how long I had the good fortune to work there. I still feel I really belong there.”

As I walked away, I realized what Arpit had not told him, at least not yet.

Soon after Arpit returned to the US after his last visit home, his company had made him an offer. The same offer hundreds of his colleagues had received. “Now that the total of your age plus the years you have put in with us has crossed 50, we are offering you the benefit of opting for voluntary retirement.”

The offer was delivered not in person but as one of the routine emails from HR. Some accepted. Others, like Arpit, who had declined the offer, were prepared to be kicked out sooner than later. He was now busy looking for other options. However, it was not easy. His intelligence and experience stood no chance. Every company he approached was busy shedding.

I could only hope he would succeed. And that he would be able to make his father understand that long service was no longer award-worthy but a liability. Because it was long.
​
The glittering medal in the glass case would never have a companion. Even after it was immortalized in an obituary. 

​A fast-moving broken plastic bottle crossed my path as soon as I stepped into the school compound. Some boys and girls were happily kicking that bottle around in true FIFA spirit. Probably clueless about the world of the cup, they were just having a ball with whatever they could kick around.

I was at the government school with a friend who wanted to ensure his name survived the special intensive revision of the voters’ list. Some hectic web searches and several phone calls had guided him to this location. 

I waved him on while I waited and watched the game. The players were very happy to have a spectator, that too an adult. Some even invited me to join them. Then the bell rang and the ball was abandoned.

As I walked up the stairs, the children ran all around me. Up, down, left and right. It was as energizing as it was deafening.

I located the class where my friend was talking to someone seated at the teacher’s table that was weighed down by several piles of papers. Most students of the class were moving in and out, while some remained seated. For now, she was not a teacher but the person responsible for locating the all-important enumeration form for my friend, that would confirm or erase his electoral existence.
 
As they matched numbers and names, I looked around the class. The posters on the wall (“A for Apple”; “Sad X Happy”) suggested it was a primary class, which the teacher later confirmed. The students were yet to decide whether to settle down or keep running in and out. Except for one boy right in front, his desk closest to the teacher’s.
 
That boy was drawing something. Every now and then he would look up and pay attention to what we were talking about.

After the form was dug out, I had a quick conversation with the teacher. Surely, they could not afford to be distracted by the forms when they had a classful of bouncing boys and girls in front of them?

This is what we have to do. This is the fifth or sixth duty we have been asked to perform this year. Yes, primarily we are supposed to teach them. But what can we do? And what can the children do? Their parents are poor. They feel fortunate that their children have got admission and will grow up to live a better life. We do what we can. 

Another teacher walked in and joined the conversation.

Yes, you are right, there is technology. Those in government and their rich friends all have technology. Can you please write to them to make good use of it? So that we can get back to what we should be doing? 

They have no qualms when they question us why the children are doing so poorly. There is no point arguing. We just obey and get around to teaching whenever we can. Yes, we feel bad for these children. But we are helpless.

As the teachers finished speaking, my eyes went back to the boy on the first bench. He was looking at the teacher and then me. There was a certain adult-like angst in his eyes.

Don’t the candidates send multiple people multiple times to every house when the election is round the corner? I whispered that question to my friend as we walked out of the class, yielding to more form-seekers walking in. Why can’t they do the same thing now? They suddenly lose resources and people when we elect them and they become government, is it?
 
My friend growled and hushed me. He admonished me for getting into needless conversations. Just get our job done and get out. These children are not our problem. He walked ahead in anger leaving me behind.

As I was about to cross the compound and reach the gate, a voice stopped me: “Uncle, uncle”. I turned around. It was the front-desk boy. There was no hiding his agitation now.

I held the boy close. He definitely needed some calming. In a mix of the local language and English, he told me what was bothering him.

He did not want to make the teacher angry. He definitely did not want to make the government angry. He just wanted to become a doctor. A heart doctor. He was very sure. For that he knows he has to study. But how can he when his teacher has to do so many things other than teaching? Will he ever be able to become a doctor?
 
The immediate thought in my mind was if I would be allowed the power of my vote to try and remedy the child’s problem. Would it matter at all in the larger scheme of things? I did not speak that doubt. In words that did not convince my own heart, I assured him he would. He just had to keep studying hard. His teachers would help him. His family would help him.

He made an effort to look happy. Then he showed me the paper he was carrying. It was the drawing he was working on. It was more emoji than anatomy. But there was no doubt. It showed what his heart was set on.

It was just a vacation
Across the border
Then the colours took over.

Blues of the skies
Greens of the forests
Browns and greys of the mountains
The distant silver of snow
Gurgling transparent waters
Forever cleaning the white stones.
 
All encouraging
To breathe deep and slow
Abandon the rush, the crush.
 
Drop the worries buried deep
In bodies and minds
Shut the devices
Open the heart, open the eyes
Drink in deep.
 
Satiate body, mind and soul
With calm and peace
As we all could once.
 
Still ours to reclaim
If we truly want to
Just need to pause
Take a step back
Care more
For self, others, all of nature.
 
Was just another tourist
Yet there you stand
A compassionate mother
With open arms
Urging me to come again
And just be me.
 
I miss you
Dear Bhutan.

Imagine you are possessed. By a human from the afterlife who grows close to you but remains invisible to others. Cheerfully goes on to help you cope with the difficult decisions in life. Will you cherish such a partner or rush to exorcise it?

In the movie Sarvam Maya, the main male character is an atheist who turns priest while waiting for an opening in the profession that is his passion, music. He is befriended by a sprightly young girl; the same one he, as the priest, had managed to spirit out of a patient. Only he can see and hear her. She begins by being attached to his mobile. Then they go on to become very attached to each other. In the process they find closure. 

Let's think beyond the movie for a minute. What if gaining such a mystical friend were a natural part of every life? No, not to make one a superhuman with the super strength to do good or wreak havoc. Just a partner you are very comfortable with, you trust fully and with whom you can’t help falling in love, almost.

Will this make us view death differently? Will death stop being the dreaded end, but a natural stage in life?

Will we turn more compassionate towards those who are approaching that stage? Will we stop turning our head away in fear (and some element of disgust) when the body of a fellow patient in the hospital ward is being rolled away?

Once we have such a companion, will we turn more grateful to the life we have been granted? Will it make it easier for us to find true closure? 

Just as the hero in the movie reconnected with his father, found human love, stood up to the goons he used to run away from, and made a mark in music. All thanks to her. And, in turn, she who befriended him finally became aware of who she was and how she had died.

We may not be able to choose such a companion. However, chances are there will be something in common, finished or in progress. 

The movie title Sarvam Maya means "all is an illusion". Indeed, when all is illusory, why lug a grudge, why just plod along and abandon the life you truly want? That could be the path to being the true you, to that coveted closure. 

You got a job in the hospital you were born in. You took care of the trash and cleaned the patient rooms for about 10 years. Now, you are all set to work at the same hospital, as a doctor. Is this a plot for the next Munnabhai MBBS movie? No, this is for real.

Shay Taylor-Allen was born in Yale New Haven Hospital, Connecticut, US in October 1993. She was raised by a single mother of three.

She was in the top 10 percent of her class when she graduated from high school in 2010. As no one in the family had been to college, she had no clue about the college application process. Might as well start earning. 

When she got the job as a janitor at Yale New Haven Hospital, Taylor-Allen was 18. The work kept her very busy but the rewarding bit for her was the opportunity to connect with patients.

“I think a lot of patients come in with mistrust of doctors and nurses, so they build trust with service workers because they feel like they’re one of us,” Taylor-Allen told The Washington Post. “Sometimes they just needed somebody to talk to about anything else in the world other than their sickness.”

During medical school, Taylor-Allen always hoped to return to New Haven and complete her residency at Yale. A rotation in anesthesia in November 2025, solidified her desire to work there.

She could not help jumping up and down in elation when she got the big news on March 20. “I am going to Yale!”

Taylor-Allen wants "to build a bridge between doctors and other service workers”. “When I was there as a janitor, I felt like I couldn’t speak to the doctors … they were so untouchable.”

In the Hindi movie Munnabhai MBBS, the hero does not become a doctor but heals people with love, the jadoo ki jhappi, the magical hug. Would Taylor-Allen go on to combine this magic with the more clinical version of medicine practiced in hospitals? Will she build the bridge as she wants to?

May she succeed! ​

Eventually, when a bank did employ me, I could not use the machine because typists were an altogether different species. And you don’t need the machine to affix rubber stamps on documents before filing those away. Even after the bank moved me to their house magazine department, where they possibly expected me to do more work and less harm, I ended up doing more writing, but the typing tools were handled by others.

Then came the stint with a newspaper where I was virtually married to a typewriter, at least the one which was available and not in use by a fellow reporter. It took me a while to gain enough confidence to bang out a report without writing it out by hand first.
​
Those days the sub-eds were very demanding. One day, the most meticulous of them emerged from their room (strategically walled away from the reporters) holding my report in hand. He loudly congratulated me because the report had no xxx (corrections) and did not need editing. It is a different story that the sub-editor had his gaze fixed on another senior colleague while he was shouting out his congratulations. This senior had made it a habit to liberally use the x-key as a loud eraser of sorts. Of course, I lost a fellow reporter friend that day, but I hugged my best friend, the typewriter. 

The next job took me to a corporate office where the typists grudgingly accommodated me during the initial days. The secretarial murmurs must have reached the boss, because one day he walked in with a portable typewriter. That became my primary tool.

Then the revolution happened. Computer! The bulky contraption that could do magic. It got a cabin for itself (the mere humans outside did not need air-conditioned comfort). Soon I was learning to juggle large OS and data floppies.

WordStar welcomed me to the digital era of writing. But not before teaching me an important lesson. If you switch off the computer because it is lunch time and you are too hungry to remember to save the document first, you will come back to zilch.

The computer made it easy to create and alter reports. I could focus on harvesting stories—from the starched-straight address of the CEO to the hesitant confession of the retiring peon that he had told a little lie all those decades ago that he could ride a bicycle. Just to get the job.

Then came one software after another. It was intoxicating. It was no longer enough for me to write. Corel had to draw magic to convert a simple word into what I proudly thought to be visually dashing. PageMaker could churn out page after page, with the text seamlessly flowing from one column to another, even jumping across pages. I was hooked and lost.

Until the day the boss gently told me to close the cabin door after taking one look at a simple draft that I had chiselled to perfection using every software I could access. This was ominous because the boss had no qualms about praising a draft he liked, with not just the cabin but also everyone's ears open. 

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” I could sense he was close to an explosion. “We employed you to talk to people and write what they say in a manner that the readers can appreciate. We want you to understand the purpose, match the occasion and do an effective job of communicating. Which I thought you were doing well, at least so far. Now, you are lost in all this fancy software!"

I tried to mumble that these were modern tools and I was just trying to keep up with the times. 

"Exactly!" he continued. "Good tools, no doubt. Must be used when necessary to get your point across more effectively. But not because you can or because others are using these. If you want to surrender to the trend, why not leave and start a DTP shop? Then you just have to design and print. You don’t have to bother to really write.”
​
That was my wake-up call.

Fast forward to the present for a more recent wake-up call.

I had shared an important document after spending long hours with the boss and her senior colleagues. This was set to define the client's positioning in an increasingly crowded market and what they had to offer their target segment. I thought it was important to capture the values that made them uniquely human while reels roiled the social world. I requested them to put their heads together before we finalised it.

After several days came the response from someone new, who described himself as entrefluencepreneur, someone who knew "viral secrets", as he put it modestly.  “Please share the document again with keyword lists and classification to create backlinks.” Then he went on to spew more techjargon like SEO, backlinks, meta descriptions, title tags, alt attributes, etc. Everything except what we were supposed to focus on.

Of course, he was in a rush. Yet, I asked a couple of questions in response.

Do we jump into intelligent technology and let it decide what we want to say and how? Or do we first gain clarity on who we are, why we are unique and our value proposition before we rush out and do whatever it takes to catch the eyes of whichever engine? Say we succeed and the traffic pours in, is that what we want? How are we then different from the noisemakers? Or we don’t want to be different?

Obviously, the assignment did not come back.

I missed the old boss. He would have probably responded: “Are you sure you don’t want to open an AI shop? You won’t even need an actual shop. Talk to your laptop or mobile and it will instantly give you what you want. You don’t have to bother writing it. Forget writing, you won’t need to think either.”

The old man burst into tears when the doctor held his hand to check his pulse. “Are you in pain?” the doctor asked. “No, just that this is the first time someone has touched me in the last one year,” the old man said.

The old man had two sons, both working abroad. He had lost his wife during the pandemic. All alone, he used to come to the hospital for a checkup every three months or so. This was his first visit after a long gap.

This real incident came up during a conversation between Dr Priyadarshini Kulkarni and Dr Uday Nirgudkar at a recent Swayam Talk session on palliative care.

Touch. It is neither medicine, nor surgery. Yet, neither can truly heal and ease distress, except with the support of that compassionate touch.

Palliative care, a relatively recent introduction into the medical curriculum in India, has many definitions and explanations. Many, doctors included, would rather not talk about it because it is equated with imminent death, with failure of medicine as it were.

However, for those who understand all that palliative care stands for, it is about caring touch—physical, emotional, social and spiritual. Those are the dimensions that make life complete. And palliative care touches all those facets, with compassion.

When Dr Priyadarshini Kulkarni was studying in medical college, she received a letter from a friend who had suffered kidney failure and had to undergo regular dialyses. “Everything was fine. My elder siblings are fine. Why did this happen to me? At an age when I should be taking care of them, my father donated his kidney for me and my mother has to look after me because I am helpless at home all the time. I feel so guilty. One day, when you become a big doctor, please do something to solve problems of people like me.”

The letter was one of the major factors that prompted Dr Kulkarni to move from anaesthesiology to palliative care. Because it was very evident to her that there was a desperate need for that palliative touch.

When the time comes, does everyone accept the inevitable and focus on painless comfort instead of excruciating attempts at prolonging life? Are doctors taught this approach?

This is what Dr Rachel Clarke writes in her book, Dear Life: A Doctor’s Story of Love, Loss and Consolation, about what and how she was taught in medical school.
​ 
“In microcosm, the manner in which I was taught CPR represented the rest of medical school. I was force-fed facts about diseases, not people. Conspicuous by their absence were, ironically, my future patients. I may have filled my brain to bursting with names, numbers, drugs and diagnoses, but I was taught next to nothing about the muddled, uncertain, inconsistent, illogical, forgetful, fearful, frightened, doubtful, real-life flesh-and-blood people who, just like me, inhabited a nuanced world of endlessly shifting grey, not the black-and-white certainties of my medical bookshelves…. Which meant, as I approached my first day as a qualified doctor, I had no idea how little I knew.

“A fundamental challenge for doctors, therefore, is distinguishing those who can be saved from those in whom the cessation of a heartbeat is the irreversible point of death. Yet at no point in medical school did anyone discuss with us this vital and difficult task. Nor were we taught how to ensure a patient’s wishes are at the forefront of decisions concerning CPR. Nor, most fundamentally, how to conduct these delicate, all-important conversations with patients and their families. The focus was exclusively on the doing.”
​
As Dr Priyadarshini Kulkarni explained during the interview, it takes time for members of a palliative care team to come to terms with what they do. It can be very disturbing, especially when many families and doctors would rather maintain a conspiracy of silence than gently let the counsellor share the reality with the patient. Professionally, they are expected to practise “attached detachment”. It is easier said than done, even after years.

Dr Mazda Turel, renowned neurosurgeon avers everyone needs and deserves that compassionate touch, including doctors and surgeons.

“A wound heals faster when there’s someone to change the dressing with care, even if they use the wrong tape. The heart beats steadier when it recognizes another voice nearby. And patients who have someone to hold their hand recover sooner than those who have only hospital linen for company.

“We are creatures wired for connection. When that connection breaks, so do we. Machines may monitor pulse, pressure, and oxygen, but they can’t measure hope. Hope isn’t quantifiable. It’s given quietly, in the way a hand rests on another, or in a voice that whispers, ‘I’m here.’

“Technology may let us replace joints, valves, and vertebrae, but it cannot replace the presence of another human being. Machines heal the body; only people heal the soul.

“We are all caretakers, whether we admit it or not. The question is: When the time comes, will we be the ones holding a hand, or the ones waiting for someone to hold ours?”
​
Today, there is impersonal technology all around us. Noise, anger, hatred and distance rule our existence. It is time palliative care permeated all aspects of our life, of parenting, of schooling. Maybe we should call it compassionate care. The name does not matter. The touch does. And it must come from within.

Sources:
1. Swayam Talks session (in Marathi): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvy6l4oic4U.
​2. Dear Life: A Doctor’s Story of Love, Loss and Consolation, book authored by Dr Rachel Clarke, published by Little, Brown.
3. Post by Dr Mazda Turel:  https://mazdaturel.com/the-surgical-loneliness/.
4. Images rendered by AI.

What triggered Muralidharran to write the book was the “failures” he faced in his own life.
 
At 35, a complete financial collapse coincided with the sudden loss of his father and the prolonged illness of his mother, who remained bedridden until her passing. At 40, shortly after the birth of his daughter, a near-fatal accident left him fighting for survival.
 
He decided to put this “second chance at life” to good use.
​ 
“I decided to understand life at a deeper level,” Muralidharran writes. “This led to learning, unlearning and more research about every aspect of life. Studied with many mentors and read lot of books. As I changed myself, I realized that most of the unhappiness in life stems from not realizing our life’s purpose. Probably my life’s purpose is to give more and contribute more to this world. Hence, I decided to add value to other people’s lives through this book.” 

A finance professional all his life, he never considered himself a writer. “But I had wanted to be one since I was a 10-year-old,” Muralidharran said.

It took him five years to complete the book. “The goal was to add value to other people’s lives. Even if I could change one life through this book, I will consider myself successful.” He knows he has to be patient.
​
Presently heading the finance operations of a major corporate group in Dubai, Muralidharran has worked with multiple multinationals during his stints in the Middle East, Far East and other locations.

So, should you read this book? Yes, because there is no telling what life might have for you. Good or bad, this book can help you stay level, teach yourself to take deep breaths and stay on track.

Turn the pages just for the science that may prove to be more than fiction. Imagine technology that reads your biosignatures and seamlessly immerses you in the life and learnings of someone who was (and perhaps still is) very real. As you live that life, your own assumptions about what you are and where you stand begin to melt away. And you reemerge, your mindset reconstructed.

At the end of the book, Muralidharran poses 10 questions that give you food for thought and fuel for peaceful progress. One of those asks, “What would I do if I truly believed success was inevitable? What’s the first step I would take?”
​
Perhaps, reading this book and absorbing what it offers could be that first step?

The customer was puzzled. This was the same cheese that she had been buying from her favourite farm produce company for years. But now it tasted different, bland.

“It used to taste so good before. Just the right saltiness. Now it has no taste,” she told the manager of the outlet. The manager apologised, promised to speak to the owner and resolve her complaint. After all, she was an old, regular customer. They were friends.

During the next visit, polite conversation apart, the manager was not forthcoming with the resolution. “Now the son is running the show,” he said almost regretfully.

“That is fine, but what did he say about the cheese?” she persisted. “He said,”  the manager paused. “He said the cheese is fine. If you want you can sprinkle some salt before eating.”

She walked out more incredulous than angry. She could not resist a look at the signboard of her favourite cheese supplier. Would she have to find another source now. After all these years?

She never bought cheese from them again. Yet, she would drop in occasionally to buy other small stuff and to say good morning to the manager.

On one such visit, she found the manager missing. And again during her next visit. “He is on leave,” said the person, who now manned the counter, impatiently waiting for her to finish paying so that he could go back to his mobile.

A couple of weeks later, the manager was back. His smile was strained. No, the morning was not good, he said. His wife had to be hospitalised on account of multiple health issues. Now she was back home. “It is very expensive to keep her in the hospital,” he said and turned to attend to another customer.

Over the next few days, whenever she passed by, she noticed that he was frequently absent.

One leisurely Sunday, noticing him alone at the shop, she walked in. Not that she had to buy anything.

“Yes, she is okay. At home. Still in pain. What to do now, we have to manage. It is just the two of us.” He was clearly distracted.

They used to have casual conversations about something or the other. Just to divert his mind, she decided to try that. She picked on a headline in the newspaper lying nearby. “Look at this. Such a big company and they have laid off so many people. These days you have to be fortunate first to get a job and then not to get kicked out for no fault of yours.”

That did not trigger a diversionary response she was hoping for. Instead, his expression turned dark. He leaned closer to her, pausing for a moment to look at the camera overhead. Then he shrugged as if he did not care.

“Every day do you know how much I am spending on my wife? On food and medicines? And you know how much every visit to the hospital costs? We don’t have that kind of money. We were just managing until…”
He paused to catch his breath. His eyes welled up.

“My employer, this company, they know they cannot easily find someone to replace me. Someone who has the experience, who knows the customers well. You are talking of layoff. My boss is telling me to go to hell without really saying that. You know how many years I have been working here? And how many hours each day?”

She did not know how to react. But he wasn’t finished.

“Forget helping me or granting me leave, would you believe they deducted 10,000 rupees for the days I could not come? Knowing my wife’s condition and the state I am in? I wish I could return the compliment and tell them to go to hell. I just can’t. And they know that. So, I have to pull on till they kick me out.” This time he did not bother to hide his tears. He moved away wiping his eyes, gesturing to a junior to handle the customer who had just walked in.

She stepped out, very disturbed. She was sure the camera would have captured his words. But would they also see his tears?
​
She wished she didn’t care. Just like the new young boss at the company. Who had betrayed her expectations from her beloved cheese. And rubbed salt into the oozing wound of a loyal employee.