Religion - The Second Decade..!

Religion - The Second Decade !

Prayer time is a time when all other thoughts come to mind! Of all other times, when one has nothing to think, no thoughts come to mind whatsoever.  Come prayer time, take a prayer book in hand, there is a line of thoughts ready and arranged from putting flowers in the flower vase, watering the flowers, giving manure to the plants, cleaning the walk way to the front verandha steps, changing a light bulb near the Jesus photo etc. etc.

It is strange how all these thoughts come all at once !  I pull back my mind as these are unwanted thoughts and try to concentrate on the prayer which has by now jumped into the second decade of ‘Joy’  That is, ‘The Visitation’.   I always, get the second decade to lead as I may be many a time, dreaming in my thoughts during the first decade which would have passed by then.  This again carry me to the times,  St. Mary as a young woman walked fast to reach her aunt who was announced to be bearing a child!  Mary in her simplicity started off to visit her to help her in her time of need.  Now, is the turn.  How many of my own would do this. All my near and dear, especially my very near sisters and nieces who are in these predicaments go through my mind, while I am fast covering the saying of the decade, repeating Hail Mary after Hail Mary!

At that point I feel a bid dejected!  I am making a fervent praise and a fervent request to Hail Mary every time and all these while, I have not recorded them in my mind.  As my mind is busy thinking of the activity part involved in the second decade of joy.  In my part of the world, these days, mostly people enquire of the happy event by phone or when they meet at church.  Some go and see them, but no serving or helping etc., mind you!  The one visited, if good natured, is supposed to serve the visitor and talk to them politely which is custom, if some one visited.  Here too, there are better natured people, who instead of visiting send 123 greetings, GIFs or a whatsapp message and a smiley! Done, the whole thing is done! And we continue with the ‘Hail Mary’ as many number of times as required.

Next day is the toughest in this regard. That is the second decade of ‘Sorrow’.  In the sorrowful second decade, we have the most painful part of ‘Scourging at the Pillar’.  Jesus is purportedly tied or bound to a pillar, or bound by leather belts on to a beam and scourged or whipped with the most cruel whips fitted with splinters of stones and metals!  Pain at each whip is unimaginable and the initial thoughts are about the horrific situation Jesus underwent and I repeat with ease the ‘Hail Mary’ interspersed with an occasional ‘Our Father’.  The thoughts again carry me off to the people who trouble and main to other people.  I equate them to the Roman soldiers who troubled and pained Jesus about whom he said ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing’.

The third day brings a little happiness in that Jesus Ascension is being remembered and here no one can touch him, if not expressly allowed by him.  The canvas coming to mind is some what lime the Microsoft page of a vast green field or a lawn with blue sky full of white clouds among which Jesus is going up and up with that benign look on his face, down cast, looking at his children on this earth!  One is sure, Jesus will go up and beyond to a world where one seldom know whether there is time and space. 

The matter ended with these three decades in my childhood and youth-hood, but any more! When, if I remember correctly, a new  Pope called Pope John Paul II came, he added a new set of decades called the ‘Decades of Light’  As we would have it, now the fourth day, we have the ‘Wedding at Cana’, the most joyful occasion we come across in the whole decades!  Here a Wedding is in progress and in between, the precious wine kept for the guests finishes abruptly and there is commotion or hushed whispers among the guest and Mary takes notice of the same!  Again, it is St. Mary who takes a lead in helping out the family.  She can’t remain as a spectator in such a situation. As all heroes she plunges into the situation head long and (perhaps, after appeasing the distressed family) walks up to Jesus and tells him “They have no wine”.  Jesus, ( a bit more like us in these days) initially tells that is none of their business!  This ‘none of my business’, none of your business, none of his business or none of her business, we hear a lot of times these days.  In those olden days when something happened around them, they thought it is their business too, and hence the request and suggestion for more wine!  What ever was to be done, was to be done then and there and at the Mother’s request, the son Jesus provides wine to the guests!  All those who like to take a peg in the evening and those who have a love for it (you know what I mean!) love this decade and incident, through and through! 

In all other areas one is advised to avoid all kind of drinks, alcohol and beverages but in this one occasion Lord Jesus is providing it abundantly to those who had assembled and saves the situation as it was precious to them.  My mind have started running wild with these simple thoughts while I am reciting my ‘Hail Marys’ and the praises and the requests!   I am stopping ! I cannot go on thinking wild like this during prayer. Let me concentrate on the pious part of it and practise it!

The Old Diary and the Old Thoughts!

The Old Diary and the Old Thoughts!

The old diary was still holding good.  The new diary no one wants to write, as these are kept off to write the new non-existent programmes date by date!  When they would have lived out the year concerned, then we feel free to write in them.  As in any case, they have lived out their time! Just as in life.  When life is there we all keep ourselves busy with hundred and one things and seldom find time to be good to one another and our dear dear ones and parents.

              Once life is about to ebb out we are all free to live a happy life and sadly comes the revelation that we are about to be no more.  Still, all of us knowing all that still keep busy.  Now, this diary of mine has seen ten very good years and has the handwriting of all of us in the family.  All the family mile stones are marked in it.   Like, addresses and phone numbers of friends and utility companies, children’s marriages, exact address of relatives who have not been visited for long, mu own emotional outbursts.  Also the telephone numbers of some people whom I felt are useful, numbers of taxi arrangers, cooking gas company to order for cooking gas at times, etc., etc.   The various hand-writings adorning its pages bring up nostalgia by themselves.

This hard bound leather jacket is still solidly strong but a little faded with time.  The brown leather cover has taken a darker hue with time. It was a bright reddish brown when new but has faded a little.   A golden  shank mark on the right top of the cover has also faded, like all gold ornaments which need a little polishing.

              The pages are lined with regular finely dotted lines reminding me of the old time childhood transcription copies.  Those copies had four lines, two red lines outside and two green or blue lines inside.  The rules was to write the cursive English words on the on the blue or green lines with the down tails and the up swinging part of the letters to touch the bottom and top outside red lines, respectively.  But there were no specific rules for the length of the lines connecting each letter.

In my little mind I found a way to bypass the monotony and crass feeling of continuous writing. What I did was to extend the tail of each letter as far as possible.   A word with four letters in it, I could fill this way.   For example, I wrote the word   ‘l     o      n      g’  with the long tails joining the letters.!  This way, I could fill a page with a few words.

              Even though, I wrote and so filled up my page, when the time came for our teacher to check the books and the books were being taken up one by one, a kind of anxiety gripped me!  I thought the teacher would look at it, make a long tick in red ink and put it on the other books he has already checked.  I waited with bated breath to see my teacher to pick up my book…One by one he started to pick up the books and it went on from time to time up to the sixth.  When he picked u the 7^th book, the one with a newspaper cover, it was mine.  He opened it, looked at it, his eyes flowered up a little, he kept it on the table and slowly surveyed the class from one side to the other.  Then his fze came back to me and stopped on me.  He intently looked at me for a little while and slowly signalled me to come up. 

He was sitting on a raised podium and I walked up to him and climbed on the little stage.  He showed me the page I had filled up with my long long tailed letter words and told me with a mischievous smile:  ”You know how you wrote it..” He continued  “I know what you would have thought in your little mind.  To save time, but it is indented for you to write as many letters as possible, not as little as possible, ok?”  I very obediently said  “Yes Sir” and slowly walked down the stage with the book he had given back to me to write the page all over again!  

The saving grace was he did not tell the class what had happened and it saved me a lot of unwanted queries from my class fellows!

Tim....tim...tom....tom of the TV set...!

Tim…. Tim….. tom of the TV set....!

I spent a long time in front of the TV set these days.  A broken leg will naturally put one in bed or at least in front of the TV.  Those who are dead against the TV programmes will escape any kind of tyranny of the TV.  Now, there I no tyranny by the TV set itself.  It is the programmes which are coming through the set.

Mostly, this will be news and other art programmes.  Alright, the programmes or news reports does not have any thing wrong in itself.  It is the ..tim..tim..tom…tom   between each piece of news or views.  Or between pieces of art programmes with a lot of noise which does not serve us any knowledge or information.  This is mostly for the channel organizers to make us remember their channel.  After listening to the tim…tim…tom…tom for a lot of times, the moment we hear the tim….tim…from far away place too, we will know it is ‘their’ channel or some one else’s channel.

This is like the old time advertisements which advertisements were only by the king or the authorities.  In those days, a drum was beaten every time before a piece of news or information or advertisement were either spoken out or read out.   The announcement of these types were in our recent past in which a huge drum was beaten for a while to make people assemble before the advertisement is read out.

Now after a time listening to this kind of tim…tim…tom…tom…one decides to switch of the equipment if not discard the programme altogether. One thing the TV programmes do to us is an inherent disinterest developing in us to read anything, if not extremely necessary.   But we can escape this difficulty by putting off the TV altogether. Once it is off, we will be able to think or act better.  This is because the interference from the TV can be stopped by switching them off.

Many a time, we find it difficult to put of this equipment even though this is very much under our control.  Psychologically, we are slowly losing our control to put it off.  But with a stringent decision we can put this off and escape the drudgery of the TV in our own homes. 

Let me switch off my TV now.!

The healing leg and a loose plaster!

The healing leg and a loose plaster!

The plaster was put for 45 days and now 21 days having passed it was feeling better.  This was a time of retreat and rest as nothing could be done once one is immobilised with pain and prescription for bed rest with the plastered leg on pillow. Of course there was the direction to keep moving the toes as otherwise they may go stiff due to non-movement.  From time to time I moved them and felt better but there was no walking which was a strict no no.!

All the same after a week or so into the hard  plaster, I started sitting up and slowly moving around with the help of a crutches.  A fairly good equipment in good quality aluminium with medical rubber handles it was a treat to be expected for in such a condition.  With that crutches it was nice to move around limping on one leg, holding on to it!  I heaved a sigh of relief.  The long hours on bed, turning from side to side, when the leg with the plaster weighed heavily on me and I had to put an extra effort to move it!  My leg felt like a ten kg weight is bound to it! 

As days passed by, the swelling on my leg started decreasing and I felt the leg loose inside the hard plaster.  The thing that would hurt most will be our being out of social circles and communication.  Even though all connections on phone, net and tv are there, talking to anyone of our choice or love give us a kind of happiness which moves the day faster.  But no, once one is bed ridden, and if you are an elderly person, one is for a night mare.  There is no one to talk to except one’s husband or wife.  Children are away mostly and the nephews and nieces are normally not there at all, if not for an occasion of celebration and the disabled in plaster is not expected to be there. 

It is where there is an adventurous friend or relative one is take out and into social circles.  Mostly it is thought of as an unnecessary disturbance to the recuperating in the social circles are middle or low income groups.  All the same, it is not all that bad, as with one reason or the other there could be a chance, a relative or friend came by!  Especially, those who have to be paid, may come for their payment. 

I had been ordered forty five days of plaster.  Had my break in the bone had been minimal, it should have been 21 days. But as I was not that lucky, the break was on the higher side and I got forty five days which was fast getting filled up.  As it is, I have another twenty days to go and presently I am feeling much much better from the initial plaster days. 

This experience have given me an insight into the lives of other people who are temporarily disabled but can improve their lives with a help for mobility and interaction with others, instead of spending too much time in bed.

A reminder from Jesus!

A Reminder from Jesus!

We were told from old that the pain of being on the cross with his legs fastened on the bottom of the cross makes it difficult to breathe was only a phrase we heard but never felt. But when I fell into a canal uncovered due to lack of a cement slab over it brought the thought all over again and made me feel the truth of the matter.
I suffered badly but took it as a reminder from Jesus!

Falling into the canal due to lack of attention as my attention was somewhere else took only two seconds!  It took five minutes rest on the edge of the canal and help from others to get out of it. Luckily for me, as the rain is absent this period of the year, the canal was dry and my landing was clean and without dirt.  But the immediate reaction on my right foot was instantaneous and it started swelling. Also a feeling of tightness coupled with pain made it worse.  I tried to limp my way to a stadium nearby where a Bon Natale program was in progress.  Every step made it difficult to breathe as there was something catching in my lungs! A ligament inside my leg below the right knee pulled at every step I walked.  The swelling could be arrested when a bottle of chilled soda water was poured over it slowly for a time. But the breathing difficulty was there for quite some time.  If this is the breathing difficulty on a small little fall, how much more would it have been for poor Jesus when he was thrown over and over and ultimately pinned on the cross!  Compared to the suffering he underwent my suffering was just a reminder only!

A few days of extreme relaxation with plaster on leg made me thank Jesus for his tremendous consideration for us, for me!
What a great generosity! 

The fall and the plaster!

The plaster on my right foot was smiling at me.   I am told to put up my leg on a pillow and see I don’t put it down !  The directions came after I visited the Doctor to get relief from swelling and pain developed after a fall!

The Bon Natale show and the ensuing evening music show was a dearie in the Thope Stadium of Thrissur.  As we reached late, due to distance and peak traffic we scrambled for a little space for parking and we found it a little father from the stadium.  Once that was over, we were walking back to the stadium, very happily watching the Christmas cribs in various wayside houses to the detriment of looking forward !  The road was heavily used by all kind of vehicles including trucks, buses and cars not to mention the two wheelers!   Naturally we walked on the extreme side of the road where the water effluence canal was covered by cement slabs.  Alas after a while there was no slab for a distance and this is where I walked blind into the canal two feet deep. 

The landing was like jumping from an aircraft or falling from a tree branch but not knowing where one is going!  The landing was too good to be expected by any respects.  A landing on two legs without touching the sides of the canal is good balance but the front step by the right leg was the first to touch ground and that is what took the brunt of my hole weight !  The leg felt sprained and a swelling started to form with an intense heat on the ankle.  A bottle of chilled soda put on it arrested the swelling and decreased the severity of the pain!

A limping walk for a furlong to the stadium did not unnerve any one as it was presumed the injury was only a sprain!  The song party was a success and we all enjoyed it till the end when a limp back to the car was undertaken in jest and laughter!  A slow drive to the house twenty kilometres away did it!  Pain started at home and the foot had swelled up well ..!

That is how a hospital visit was undertaken the next day where the doctor examined the pain, x-rayed the part and put a temporary plaster with the direction to keep it up on a pillow for five days and come back for re-plaster after that! A six weeks rest and recuperation was also advised! This is being undertaken in all its meaning!

After six days once again a visit was organised to the local hospital. The doctor opined the swelling has remarkably come down and it was good time for a regular plaster cast. The old temporary cast was cut out and a stronger one put in its place. I was advised to wait for it to become dry in another six hours! Another one month's rest may be needed to the full healing of the bones!