LION ASHOK KUMBHAR.

LION ASHOK KUMBHAR.

Lion Ashok Kumbhar passes away in Egypt on 26th September 2010. Any death is sad. A ruling Governor dying while in office is more sad and shocking for all Lions of District 323-A-2 of lions clubs International. A trip that will not be forgot for long time. True International character of the movement was underlined by the fact that A Governor died in foreign country. Not so foreign for Lions because it is a country on the map of Lions. Lion fraternity rose to the occasion to make arrangements for transferring the body to India in quickest possible ways.

A ruling Governor has died first time in our District. Many constitutional provisions which were of only academical nature to study are going to become operative. Even in death Lion Ashok is giving lessons

The crowd gathered to pay homage and the procession for Lions Ashok has very large which included Minister, Mayer and many others. It speaks a lot about his popularity. It was not only the Lions but people from many walks of life came together. Apart from politicians his colleagues form navy, Literature and art lovers from Martahi Sahitya Mandal of Nvai Mumbai, Kumbhar Samaj not to mention family members and many many Lions as extended family.

I did not support him in his election campaign to become Governor. This never came in way of our friendship. He was truly great to understand my compulsions. Very few persons can be so magnanimous. I was equally moved by the shock of his death like others who supported him in campaign. I never believe in any camp. I believe that elections in service voluntary organizations are between friends and should be fought as such. To be forgot as soon as results are out. Lion Ashok born out this belief by his personality.

Lion Ashok has came quite a long way in his life. They say “what you are” is God’s gift to you and “what you become” is your gift to God. A very big gift is given to the God by Lion Ashok.

May his soul rest in peace. May god give courage to Lion lady Ashwini and children to bear the loss.

Arvind Khare
Khare_am@yahoo.com

DAUGHTER'S DAY

Yesterday was the daughter’s day. Singular for me plural for some. I have only one daughter SURUCHI. Single but worthy of dozen. She is younger of my two kids. Like almost all younger kid, she was more dear. My both kids were so pretty as small children that they would draw attention where ever they went. Suruchi received more as girl. Ours is almost a joint family. My elder brother has only son “Jagdish” elder to her. Coming after two boys she was bound to be more favored in the house. At least till Reema & Mana arrived.

Salil was good six years old than her. We always thought of her as small kid till he was alive. She grew by several years on the night of his death. We were in USA at the time. My friend and then MP Prakash Paranjpe was trying to talk us out of waiting for our arrived for funeral. He thought we will have tough time to gather enough people for his funeral. It was our Lions friend and Suruchi who proved him wrong. When we boarded off the plain and got into waiting car, she hold our hands as nobody else could have. She was no more a small kid.

Being charismatic herself, she brought us out of gloom. She was involved in romantic way to Amit by now. She confided into me and soon a love marriage was converted into arranged marriage. No regrets for that I think. She had best of the both. Only thing I asked Amit when he came to ask her hand was promise to care for four parents instead of two. A promise so well kept by them both. Now she is perfect elder sister to cousins from my side and perfect younger sister to cousins from her mother’s side. In fact now she is indispensable not only to us but to all her cousins either here or in USA.

Very beautiful, fierce fully intelligent, she is our pride. I wont praise her on face being conservative myself. I have hunch that she will not read this blog and therefore I ma taking this liberty to praise her.

We share a rare relationship where she is loved respected and yes also feared by at least me if not by us. After all now she is the only one to carry our legacy to what ever kind of world we will leave behind. I don’t know who will care less, the world, herself or myself.

We wanted to spend evening with Amit, she and Rohan. Could not be materialise. No problem We hope there will be another year granted to us by God for another daughter’s day.

Arvind Khare
Khare_am@yahoo.com

SANDRA SAMUEL, A GLOBAL CITIZEN

Sandra Samuel was born as an Indian and is now conferred with Israel citizenship. It is not ear whether she surrendered Indian Citizenship. If not it is a case of dual citizenship. Many Indian would love to have such dual citizenship. USA would of course top the list of most desirable country for dual citizenship. I Israel would not be far behind. Normally such wish would be impossible to gain and scorned by any patriotic person. Exception is Sandra Samuel.

We all are aware of her courage and presence of mind. We are also aware of the exemplary deed she performed. Perhaps she might have got life full of honoring and felicitations from Lions and Rotaries and their cousin clubs. However the call of the crying child was perhaps greater than national pride.It is not case of only Moshe and Sandra but it is a bond between a child and his Aya or Dai. The concept of Aya is rather difficult to explain. It is a very complex relationship. It is a role of servant, care taker, foster mother all rolled into one. One does not know how little Moshe would have faced her staying back in India. She happened to be only person known to him in whole world. It is a bond going much beyond the boundaries of nations. It is a case of humanity being greater than nationality. Such people deserve to be conferred the world citizenship. No country ought to be foreign to such person because humanity can not be foreign to any nation. It is a notion not align to Indian Philosophy.

We are proud of you Sandra. It is person and deed like her that go to prove the quotes of Jnaeshwar “ Viswachi maze Ghar “ or Subhashit like “Vasudhaive Kutumbakam”.

Arvind Khare
Khare_am@yahoo.com

SHRINKING FAMILIES

My grand father had eight siblings. I had dozen of grand mothers named as Khare. To have siblings in dozens was nothing unusual in that generation. Usually the gentlemen would have more than one wife. Ramayana and one wife Ram was not taken as serious role model even by religious minded men. To have a step mother was quite common. The family consisted during that age the man, his many wives and many many children. Throw in widowed sisters, daughters, nieces, orphan kids of brothers and sisters and you will have a comprehensive picture of a typical joint family. Really it should have been called as age of multi joint families. A dying person would have dozen of attendants around his death bed from family itself.

During time of my parents the number had come near but more than half dozen. My parents had four siblings (not counting who died as babies). My aunts numbered same as my uncles. Ramayana appears to have effect or it may be simply effect of an enactment. If somebody rarely married twice after death of first wife, some widows still returned to the joint family. Occasional accommodation of unmarried brother or sister was not looked as burden. A dying person died in family and rarely unattended.

I have four siblings. We live in joint family house. Still parents of our generation by and large live with one of the child, usually elder son. Other sons and daughters some times share the care of parents willingly or grudgingly. The thought of sending parents to old age home is gaining frowning acceptability. We understand that sending of our uncles and aunts to old age home is better as unavoidable reality than bringing them to our home. We have rarely more than couple of kids. We of course want to die in our house and in attendance by our kids and grand kids. Our kids perhaps have different view. They look upon this wish as foolish sentimental burden.

Our kids are more and more opting for a single child family. The arrivals are planned with care. The care is of their convenience rather than the convenience of the baby, The care to bring baby after settling down and after having enjoyed life. It takes more than half life to come to that stage. We also read in paper business of surrogate mothers flourishing. Even the Indian couples not having time for pregnancy are increasingly turning to surrogacy.

We unnecessarily worry that babies will have to support their parents early in their life. It is a wrong worry perhaps. The babies will be smarter than their parents and our kids. The question and fight would be whose parents to take care of ? Husband’s or wife’s ? Better none of them. The care of parents would be something unheard of. The parents should live either on their own or go to old age home or sanatorium. No place would be left for parents in next generation nucleus family. Add to that case of single parent families which are rare in India but common in western countries we are so eager to ape. The single kid is much less likely to bother about single parent when it will grow up.

The logical sequence of surrogate mothers is foster care of kids. It won’t be surprising to find future society where the husband, the wife and the kid live their entire life in separate homes. Not home but only names will join them. That would be ultimate shrinkage of family concept. Don’t worry or cry about it. There is marriage concept waiting in the wings to disappear.

Arvind Khare
Khare_am@yahoo.com

WISHFULL LAST RITES

The son was denied to perform the last rites of business tycoon and performed by one actor recently as foster son. I don’t want to go into emotions and drama of a particular case. The question keeps ringing in my head is why people want to be particular and fussy about care of their dead body. Is it a wish to continue your presence even after the death?
It may be so.
I don’t know whose wish was behind building the TajMahal, Emperor Shajahan or queen Noorjahan. Generally credit is given to the immortal love of Emperor. Other monuments are not so dedicated. Golkonda has so many tombs that many dead bodies buried in many tombs is known only to historians. Some tombs are left incomplete because their dead occupant died early. Come to the modern history and we have Rajghat dedicated to samadhis of Gandhis. From Mahatma to Rajiv with sole exception of Nehru. If the buz is to be believed, the minute details of funeral procession, and sketches of samadhis etc. are prepared during the life time of the ruler (yes ruler even if ruling in democratic way!).
Others also follow the suit. Many chatris, water fountains are littering Old Dehli as ruins. Dehli is capital but other small and big towns also have their share. Take Alibag for example which has a Chatri for Kanhoji Angre. Nobody seems to care about it any more.
Why rulers and generals ? Even saints of all religions continue to live from their tombs, graves, samadhis and such things.
No wonder then ordinary people want at list an epitaph over their grave. Even farmers want to be cremated in their farm and wife next to husband.
The architecture is most favourite discipline to memorise a dead. Others are also seen here and there. We have Nehru wanting his ashes spread over whole of India from a plane. Nothing less in grandeur! We have a Mahtama whose forgotten ashes are immersed several years after.
It may be OK for those who are left behind to decide on the scale of memorial. Utter nonsense for the dying person. As saint Ramdas swami has said it’s same if the body of a sanyasi is burnt, drowned or eaten by dogs and other animals. If one can not be that detached while living, one should not cling to dead body and keep moral, physical, financial burden to the successors. It should be best left to their choice.

Arvind khare
Khare_am@yahoo.com

EARLY MORNING DOCTORS AND LATE NIGHT COURTS

The lecturers from Medical colleges will soon be barred from private practice. So is reported in the Times of India. Medical science is continuously progressing. It is impossible to keep tab of the new progress made just by referring to books, periodicals and papers. Nothing can be as effective to gain first hand knowledge as a patient treated personally.

It is sin to take ill on weekend. Dispensaries are closed. Gone are the days when doctors used to pay home visit at nominal charge. Little chance is of medical help unless you go to hospital. There also the specialists from hospitals are usually gone away from city for trips and picnics having planned to complete their schedule during 5 day week. On many occasions the hospitals are left to the competence of para medical staff. We hear regularly cases of the relatives of patients attacking doctors for alleged negligence. Medico-Legal cases are on the rise. We also hear regularly bogus doctors detected. There is a bee line to get attachment in big popular hospitals as specialist All this happens in the cities and metropolitan areas and on other side there is dearth of general practitioners in rural area.

Definitely it is no case for ban to practice. As it is the medical service is poor and poorly distributed. Efforts must be for more primary medical services at more places and for more time. A patient would like to visit the doctor for some body ill at home and go to duty with peaceful mind. We have banks working at the time convenient to the customer. The floweriest, the vegetable wholesale market, the milkmen do their work in early morning. Why cannot some doctors do the same ?

Allow those lecturers to practice part time at early morning and take lectures full time. Perhaps they will overtake other medical practitioners who any way are available till quite late in the evening. The government mooted bare foot doctors in rural area. Some relief can also be given to over crowded cities by this way.

The government is also mooting the idea of courts in double shift. So we may end up having early morning doctor and late night advocates. There may a case of a same person doing medical practice in the morning and legal practice in the evening. Why not so long he does not become robber by the day?

Arvind Khare
Khare_am@yahoo.com

SOME MORE ABOUT FREEDOM

Yesterday’s blog turned out to be little longer and had to be cut short due to lack of time. Here is something I missed yesterday.

I have already told mentioned about the plight of cured patients who are not accepted back home. It would be quite natural for them as being deprived of freedom. Thankfully that freedom was restored to three patients as reported. Here is another angle.

I met one patient in the corridors. He wished me good morning in very civil way. When I wished back, he suddenly bent to touch my feet and calling me uncle as if asking for blessings. Blessings don’t cost any thing. So I could be liberal to give promptly. He started telling his story. He hailed from Hydrabad. According to him his brothers and other family members had deprived him of his property rights by accusing him mad. The property was also described as a piece of farm land. I asked him to write down on a piece of paper his name, names of the family members and the description of the land when a member of staff separated us telling me not to believe him. I did not know whom to believe. I went back to program little disturbed. I contacted superintendent to whom I was introduced earlier and told him about the patient and staff. I asked him how it can be ensured that the patient is not the victim. What I was told by him is interesting. The hospital has a legal cell and a lady legal adviser. There are number of accusations reported by patients which are neither believed nor disbelieved. An enquiry is conducted and if any substance is found the matter is taken to the court from redress. A share can not be denied for being mad. A guardian is to be appointed by court.

A day before I was watching another interesting program on TV on destitute Children where again a detailed legal mechanism to safe guard right of Minor orphan child was explained.

The mad and the orphan both have same rights as other citizens of India. When they are not capable of protecting them themselves, the government is stepping in. Now let us not jump to criticize corruption, delay and so many other short comings. The very fact that the Government thinks to protect the right of those who can not do it themselves ensures us that Union of India is welfare state as is declared. The freedom is very foundation of welfare. Freedom is a word easy to shout under national flag and in safe cordon of security but difficult to mean. The fight freedom does not get over after achieving Independence from foreign rule.

Ranavin swatantrya kona milale ? ( who gained freedom without fight )

Arvind Khare
Khare_am@yahoo.com