Earthquake and NASA

Yesterday , I had to rush my father to hospital in an emergency. As his ECG was being done, I heard the doctor-on-duty telling one of the staff that a more severe earthquake of the magnitude of 8.2 was about to come at 08:06  pm. The other person asked the source of the information. She flaunted her Apple mobile to tell that the news was from none other than the NASA. The poor fellow pleaded that he may be allowed to leave in that case.

I seriously thought that they were just making fun of the rumor being spread by someone in the name of NASA. But little did I know that they were serious. It was ten minutes to eight. As I came back, to show the report, I found that the other junior doctor was calling her home and telling them to be out in open as severe earthquake was expected. I wondered how seriously we take any thing that has stamped NASA on it.

As far as I know, till today no one can predict earthquake with as much accuracy as in hours and minutes. I believe that even day-prediction is not possible. Do these  doctors who belong to a highly professional class not know this fact? Or we blindly take NASA for sure without relying on our knowledge? ISRO's Mars mission has been applauded by world over including NASA. And I am sure if this rumor was tagged with ISRO, it would have certainly been ignored by one and all. But NASA's very tag, though mischievously attached , was more than enough to eclipse our thought process.

As the clock ticked 08:10, and the earth did not shake a bit, the doctors at Casualty concluded that the message was a mischief.

The story does not end here. As I had to spend night in the ward with my father,I realized next morning that for the entire night, ward door was kept locked from inside. It was opened early morning at around  06:00. Whatever might  be the reason, but one thing was sure. Had there been a real earthquake during the night, all patients and their attendants were bound to be buried under the debris and the NASA satellite would be beaming the pictures world over. Or that was the unique way to stop earthquake from entering into the ward! Who knows?

Success on your terms

In today’s Times Life, I was reading an article with the tag “Trendsetters”, that was captioned “Success on Your Terms”. The article talked about those people who left their cushy jobs in the Corporate to do what they wanted to pursue. It started from Google’s CEO Patrick Pichette and went on discussing the decisions taken by Baljeet Gujral with Swiss Bank Corporation, Sonia Sharma with PWC, London and many such high profile personnel.  One thing among all those who were discussed in the article, which was common, was that they all were financially well settled. Or they all had made enough money to take the decision to quit their jobs. Another thing that struck me was their strong profile that enabled them to restart their carrier at any point of time in case they discovered that their decision to quit was not correct.

Now against the above background, let us consider a common man – a man who has say 10-12 years of service left and has a family to support. His two daughters are of marriageable age with youngest son still in college. He is tired following the mundane routine of going to office and coming back, dealing with files day in and day out. He has a long desire to settle in a hilly small town – far from this polluting city with his hut overlooking the snow clad mountains. He wishes to have a small garden in which he could grow vegetables free from pesticides. He wanted to rise early to see the sun rise and do some gardening followed by Yoga and so many other things that he could not do till now. The question is – Can he afford to do so? Or will he be able to do so even after his retirement? Does he not entitle to success in his own terms?

Life is not as simple as it sounds in the articles, one of such I mentioned above.  In today’s life, for a common man, the question is not what he wants to do. Rather the question is- Does he have any choice? In most of the cases, we have no choices. I know a number of persons who are still serving in their 70s to make a living.  Someone has to support his son while other has to marry his daughters. In some case, there is no pension while in other it is so meagre that it has to be supplemented to make a living.

If I talk personally, I would like to be the last person to live in a city like Delhi. But for the last 55 years, I am compelled to live in this city. And I am not sure that even after my retirement I would be able to settle elsewhere though I desperately want to. I always wanted to be a scientist but have ended up doing commercial accounting. My list of the activities, which I always wanted to pursue, is long but I am not as fortunate as the high profile personalities in the above article to consider quitting my job as there are so many responsibilities lined up. All cannot be the trendsetters.