God is god, they say, because he controls life.
He takes the final call about who pops it and who pops out.
Whenever man has tried to embody divinity and claim powers more or at par with god, it has led to his downfall.
Hitler.
Napolean.
Alexander.
Go mythical.
Ravana.
Duryodhana.
Jayadratha.
Whenever man has tried to go beyond his ‘aukaat’, he’s perished.
But today, I am scared.
I am scared because ‘the god complex’ as the aforesaid is called, has plagued the collective doctor community of India.
Let me explain.
Technically speaking, only doctors come close to that power of god.
The power to change or maneuver life.
So they hold at ransom the lives of people who are already sick, at varying degrees of proximity to death and definitely hurting.
I have seen people cry about doctors refusing to treat without monies. People who know treatment is available but they lack the funds to get it. Or as the doctors seem to feel, deserve it.
A man is shot or wounded and the doctors refuse to do anything till the police arrives. Or the man dies. Now the Indian police are another post but short of a certificate of accreditation from the Controle’ Officiel Suisse des Chronometres’, they have mastered the spilt second precision of perfect timing.
Law is to protect lives. But yet the law does not allow the doctor to save a dying mans life. There are the Ambani’s and Mittals who the doctors can milk for their Mercedes. But they still needs a common mans toiled for rupees.
People die doctors. No one knows that better than you guys. But there is a difference between someone who dies on the operating table undergoing surgery by a brave man. And a man who is by the law of the land deemed to die because he can’t get treatment till the cops arrive. And the cops will not arrive till he pops it.
But what about someone who dies in the waiting ward of the OPD of AIIMS surrounded by the best medical help in the country refusing to do anything for him? Not because of the cops, or any other economic factor, cops take my word for it being one major economic factor too…., they die because the doctors want them to.
Because they are on a strike.
Take AIIMS for instance. It’s the biggest hospital there is right?
Frankly I don’t care about reservations.
Because I know for a fact that the debate is about opportunity and all and as long as the people who pass out clear a certain exam or level, I’m cool.
But the doctors went on strike.
Now imagine a man, who feels the grasp of death tightening and musters enough courage to make it to the OPD of AIIMS solely on the faith that the doctor there might be able to save him.
Faith similar to the one you place in god.
But sorry dying man, your gods on strike. So you die.
And you die, because your god has the power to say no. And let you die.
As it is we are such selfish beings. The only time we remember god is in a desperate situation.
So imagine in desperation you call on god, and you get the voice mail?
Many died. Leaving many families completely bereaved and substantially faithless. I was disgusted then.
But it was a cause. Right?
About something the youth and collective intellectual capital of India felt strongly about. So it was very normal for poor and under privileged people to die and provide statistics to twist the governments arm.
Very fair right? Collateral damage they call it.
But there was a buffer of a ‘cause’ so no one said anything.
People continued to die. Statistics continued to mount. And because of lower economic fortitude, which in turn leads to lesser social fortitude, they went unnoticed. They died.
And were just another statistic.
Today, good or bad, right or wrong, the government takes an administrative decision and changes the Director of AIIMS.
And because doctors in India have always shown a high degree of morality, with money and fame being the last thing on their mind, in an expected act of sovereignty went on strike again.
Again, the statistics will mount.
So basically, we come to the conclusion, that after god there are doctors and no one dare defy anyone with a prefixed ‘Dr.’ otherwise they will go on strike and kill a few more poor and innocent people, holding another set of thousands of lives at ransom.
Yes kill, because if you’re a doctor and someone dies in front of you and you do sweet fuck-all about it, it will tantamount to voluntary manslaughter. First degree, period.
Doctors are a gifted lot. For one, they can actually save a life. And second, the amount of faith shown in them by the common man matches the one for god.
But doctors being human beings, vain as ever, fall prey to the god complex. And abuse the gift of life and the healing touch they are blessed with.
Today, two of India’s high profile doctors are at war. Leaving the common thousand few to lie at mercy of time or die a death to add to a statistic. Or cause. Whatever it is, it sucks. Big time.
The director of AIIMS is the most respected cardiac surgeon in the country. An official position at AIIMS is not a fraction of what he has achieved in his medical career.
But yet, he refuses to let go. And the statistics mount.
The minister of health is a doctor himself. And knows that you cannot sack a Krishna from a Pandava army, because you guessed it, the Pandavas will go on a strike.
But yet, he refuses to grow up. And the statistics mount.
Dr. Ramados & Dr. Venugopal, as you are the commanders of the two warring factions, I ask you this….
If god forbid someone from your family needed a doctor tonight, what would you do?
What part of your individual stands and egos or the government policy would you compromise to save that particular life?
Having answered that, what makes you think that the people who died waiting for medical attention amidst striking doctors were not worth that compromise?
The point is, you made the compromise. For whom and to what extent now depends on the values you were brought up with.
But let me tell you this Dr. Ramados and Dr. Venugopal, when the news was covering one of your now famous striking AIIMS story, I saw a man carrying a body. Of what I could make out from the incoherent gasps of breath between his sobs it was his son. His son died because his god and your doctors were on strike.
I want to tell you that if I were that man I wouldn’t be crying.
I’d bury my son, and buy a gun.
